From d05d832f07651c6e498247e30306eff761c10601 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: xueyong Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 09:21:27 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] added data --- tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_test.csv | 67224 ++++ tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_train.csv | 271043 +++++++++++++++ tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_val.csv | 61731 ++++ tiny_titans/test.txt | 0 4 files changed, 399998 insertions(+) create mode 100644 tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_test.csv create mode 100644 tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_train.csv create mode 100644 tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_val.csv delete mode 100644 tiny_titans/test.txt diff --git a/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_test.csv b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_test.csv new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3013cde --- /dev/null +++ b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_test.csv @@ -0,0 +1,67224 @@ +input,output +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Alright . +Grad C: So are you {disfmarker} +Professor E: So . +Grad C: Are we going ? +Professor E: It is uh , must be February fifteenth . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yu I think the date 's written in there , yep . And actually if everyone could cross out the R - nine next to "" Session "" , and write MR eleven . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . We didn't have a front - end meeting today . +Grad C: And let 's remember also to make sure that one 's {comment} gets marked as unread , unused . +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: MR eleven . +Grad C: MR eleven . +Postdoc F: That sounds like a spy code . +Professor E: Mmm . OK . So . +Grad C: There 's lots of clicking I 'm sure as I 'm trying to get this to work {pause} correctly . +Professor E: Agenda . Any agenda items today ? +Grad C: I wanna talk a little bit about getting {disfmarker} how we 're gonna to get people to edit bleeps , parts of the meeting that they don't want to include . What I 've done so far , and I wanna get some opinions on , how to {disfmarker} how to finish it up . +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: I wanna ask about um , some aud audio monitoring on some of the {pause} um {pause} well some of the equipment . In particular , the {disfmarker} well uh , that 's just what I wanna ask . +Professor E: OK audio monitoring , Jane . +Postdoc F: Ba - based on some of the tran uh {disfmarker} i In listening to {pause} some of these meetings that have already been recorded there are sometimes big spikes on particular things , and in pact {disfmarker} in fact this one I 'm talking on is one of {disfmarker} of the ones that showed up in one of the meetings , +Grad C: Oh really . +Postdoc F: so I {disfmarker} +PhD B: "" Spikes "" , you mean like uh , instantaneous click type spikes , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Spikes ? +Grad C: Clicks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD B: Huh . +Postdoc F: And I don't know what the e electronics is but . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , I think it 's +PhD A: Touching . +Grad C: uh , it {disfmarker} it could be a number of things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: It could be touching and fiddling , and the other thing is that it could {disfmarker} the fact that it 's on a wired mike is suspicious . It might be a connector . +Postdoc F: Oh , OK . Well maybe {disfmarker} Then we don't really have to talk about that as an {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could try an experiment and say "" OK , I 'm about to test for spikes "" , +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I take that off the agenda . +PhD B: and then wiggle the thing there , and then go and when they go to transcribe it , it could , ask them to come and get you . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: "" Come get me when you transcribe this and see if there 's spikes . "" +Postdoc F: Oh that {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um . +Postdoc F: Well , OK . +PhD B: No I 'm just {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , were this a professional audio recording , {vocalsound} what we would do {disfmarker} {comment} what you would do is {disfmarker} in testing it is , you would actually do all this wiggling and make sure that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that things are not giving that kind of performance . And if they are , then they can't be used . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So . Um . Let 's see . I guess {pause} I would like to have a discussion about you know where we are on uh , recording , transcription you know , basically you know where we are on the corpus . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: And then um , the other thing which I would like to talk about which is a real meta - quest , I think , deal is , uh , agendas . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start with that actually . Uh , um . {vocalsound} Andreas brought up the fact that he would kinda like to know , if possible , what we were gonna be talking about because he 's sort of peripherally involved to this point , and if there 's gonna be a topic about {disfmarker} discussion about something that he uh strongly cares about then he would come and {disfmarker} And I think part of {disfmarker} part of his motivation with this is that he 's trying to help us out , in the {disfmarker} because of uh the fact that the meetings are {disfmarker} are tending to become reasonably large now on days when everybody shows up and so , he figures he could help that out by not showing {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and I 'm sure help out his own time . by not showing up if it 's a meeting that he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} So , uh in order {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think that this is a wish on his part . Uh . It 's actually gonna be hard because it seems like a lot of times uh things come up that are unanticipated and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: But um , we could try anyway , uh , do another try at coming up with the agenda uh , at some point before the meeting , uh , say the day before . +Grad C: Well maybe it would be a good idea for one of us to {pause} like on Wednesday , or Tuesday send out a reminder for people to send in agenda items . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . You {disfmarker} you wanna volunteer to do that ? +Grad C: Sure . +Professor E: OK . Alright so we 'll send out agenda request . +Grad C: Let me +Professor E: Uh . +PhD B: That 'll be {disfmarker} I think that 'll help {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'll put that on my spare brain or it will not {pause} get done . +PhD B: That 'll help a lot , actually . +Professor E: Yeah , I have to tell you for the uh {disfmarker} for the admin meeting that we have , Lila does that um every time before an admin meeting . And uh , she ends up getting the agenda requests uh , uh ten minutes before the meeting . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {comment} But . Uh . {comment} But we can try . Maybe it 'll work . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe . Weirder things have happened . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I 'm wondering if he were to just , uh , specify particular topics , I mean . Maybe we 'd be able to meet that request of his a little more . +PhD B: I would {disfmarker} I would also guess that as we get more into processing the data and things like that there 'll be more things of interest to him . +Grad C: Well then {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Actually it {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this maybe brings up another topic which is um {disfmarker} So we 're done with that topic . The other topic I was thinking of was the sta status on microphones and channels , and all that . +Grad C: Yeah , actually I {disfmarker} I was going to say we need to {pause} talk about that too . +Professor E: Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why don't we do that . +Grad C: OK . Um , the new microphones , the two new ones are in . Um . {pause} And they are being assembled as we speak , I hope . And I didn't bring my car today so I 'm gonna pick them up tomorrow . Um , and then the other question I was thinking about is {disfmarker} well , a couple things . First of all , if the other headsets are a lot more comfortable , we should probably just go ahead and get them . So we 'll have to evaluate that when they come in , +PhD A: +Grad C: and get people 's opinions on {disfmarker} on what they think of them . Um , then the other question I had is maybe we should get another wireless . Another wireless setup . I mean it 's expensive , but it does seem to be {pause} better than the wired . +Professor E: So how many channels do you get to have in a wireless setup ? +Grad C: Um , well , I 'm pretty sure that you can daisy - chain them together so what we would do is replace the wired mikes with wireless . So we currently have one base station with six wireless mike , possibility of six wireless receivers , and apparently you can chain those together . And so we could replace our wired mikes with wireless if we bought another base station and more wireless mikes . +Professor E: So , um . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} So , you know it 's still , it 's fifteen minus six . +Professor E: So let 's see we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? So we could have up to nine . +Professor E: And right now we can have up to six . +Grad C: Right . And we have five , we 're getting one more . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And it 's um , about nine hundred dollars for the base station , and then eight hundred per channel . +Professor E: Oh . So yeah so the only {disfmarker} Beyond the mike {disfmarker} the cost of the mikes the only thing is the base station that 's nine hundred dollars . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh , we should do it . +Grad C: OK . OK , so I 'll look into how you daisy - chain them and {disfmarker} and then just go ahead and order them . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: I don't quite understand how that {disfmarker} how that works , . If {disfmarker} So we 're not increasing the number of channels . OK . +Grad C: No , we 're just replacing the wired {disfmarker} the two wired that are still working , +PhD B: OK . I see . +Grad C: along with a couple of the wired that aren't working , one of the wired that 's not working , with a wireless . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Three wireds work , +Professor E: Basically we found {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I guess three wireds work , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . But we 've had more problems with that . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: And that sort of bypasses the whole {disfmarker} the whole Jimbox thing and all that . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: And so um , we {disfmarker} we seem to have uh , a reliable way of getting the data in , which is through the ra Sony radio mikes , as long as we 're conscious about the batteries . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That seems to be the key issue . +Grad C: Everyone 's battery OK ? +PhD B: I checked them this morning , they should be . +Grad C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} That 's the only thing with them . But the quality seems really good and {disfmarker} Um I heard from UW that they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh very close to getting their , uh setup purchased . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're buying something that you can just sort of buy off the shelf . +Grad C: Well we should talk to them about it because I know that SRI is also in the process of looking at stuff , and so , you know , what we should try to keep everyone {disfmarker} on the same page with that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: SRI , really ? +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Grad C: They got sa apparent Well , Maybe {pause} this needs to be bleeped out ? I have no clue . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know how much of it 's public . +Professor E: Probably we shouldn't {disfmarker} probably we shouldn't talk about funding stuff . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . But anyway there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh , uh other activities that are going on there and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and NIST and UW . So . Um . But {disfmarker} but yeah I thin I think that at least the message we can tell other people is that our experience is {disfmarker} is quite positive with the Sony , +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: uh , radio - mikes . Now the one thing that you have said that actually concerns me a little is you 're talking about changing the headsets meaning changing the connector , which means some hand - soldering or something , right ? +Grad C: Uh , no , we 're having the {disfmarker} them do it . +Professor E: No ? +Grad C: So it 's so hand - soldering it , but I 'm not doing it . +Professor E: Oh . +Grad C: So , they {disfmarker} they charge +Professor E: OK . Nothing against you and your hand - soldering +Grad C: right . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 've never seen my hand - soldering . But uh , a as I said they 're coming in . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so that 's being done professionally and {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: As professionally as I guess you can get it done . +Professor E: Well , it could {disfmarker} if they do a lot of it , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean i it 's just their repair shop . Right ? Their maintenance people . +Professor E: Well , we 'll see what it {disfmarker} it 's like . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} tha that can be quite good . Th - this {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . Good . Yeah . So let 's go with that . +Grad C: And , I mean we 'll see , tomorrow , you know , what it looks like . +Professor E: Uh , Yeah . So , um , uh , Dave isn't here but he was going to start working on some things with the digits . Uh , so he 'll be interested in what 's going on with that . I guess {disfmarker} Was {disfmarker} the decision last time was that the {disfmarker} the uh transcribers were going to be doing stuff with the digits as well ? Has that started , or is that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Uh , it would be to use his interface and I was going to meet with him today about that . +Grad C: Right , so , the decision was that Jane did not want the transcribers to be doing any of the paperwork . So I did the {disfmarker} all that last week . So all the {disfmarker} all the forms are now {pause} on the computer . And uh , then I have a bunch of scripts that we 'll read those and let the uh {pause} transcribers use different tools . And I just want to talk to Jane about how we transition to using those . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . So he has a nice set up that they {disfmarker} it w it will be efficient for them to do that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll take too long . +Professor E: So anyway {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , you know , just uh , a matter of a few days I suspect . +Professor E: So anyway I think we {disfmarker} we have at least one uh , user for the digits once they get done , which will be Dave . +Grad C: Right . I 've already done five or six {pause} sets . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: So if he wanted to , you know , just have a few to start with , he could . You know , and I also have a bunch of scripts that will , like , generate P - files and run recognition on them also . +Professor E: Yeah , he might {disfmarker} he might be asking {disfmarker} Right . OK . Uh , is Dave {disfmarker} I don't know if Dave is on the list , if he 's invited to these meetings , uh if he knows . +Postdoc F: I don't tend to get an invitation myself for them even . +PhD A: No , no . +Grad C: Uh , we don't have a active one but I 'll make sure he 's on the list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Should we call him ? I mean is he {disfmarker} d is he definitely not available today ? +Professor E: I don't know . +Postdoc F: Should I call his office and see ? +PhD A: He was in . +Grad C: I mean , he 's still taking classes , so uh , he may well have conflicts . +Professor E: Uh , well i it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , he was in {pause} s +Postdoc F: He wasn't there at cof +Professor E: Yeah , so this might be a conflict for him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . Uh , so . +Grad C: Yeah didn't he say his signal - processing class was like {pause} Tuesdays and Thursdays ? +PhD A: I think he has a class . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . He might have . +Grad C: Oh well , whatever . +Grad D: You talking about David Gelbart ? +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . +Grad D: Yeah , I think he 's taking two twenty - five A which is now . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad D: So . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . So , that 's why we 're not seeing him . OK . Uh , transcriptions , uh , beyond the digits , where we are , and so on . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: And the {disfmarker} and the recordings also , +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor E: just where we are . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , so um , should we {disfmarker} we don't wan wanna do the recording status first , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Well , we have about thirty - two hours uh as of , I guess a week and a half ago , so we probably now have about thirty - five hours . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} How much of that is digits ? It 's uh {disfmarker} that 's including digits , +Grad C: That 's including digits . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: I haven't separated it out so I have no clue how much of that is digits . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So anyway there 's at least probably thirty hours , or something of {disfmarker} There 's got to be more than thirty hour {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: Of {disfmarker} of non - digits ? +Professor E: i it couldn't {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Of non - digits . +Grad C: Yeah , absolutely . I mean , the digits don't take up that much time . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Postdoc F: OK , and the transcribers h I , uh , don't have the exact numbers , but I {pause} think it would come to about eleven hours that are finished uh , transcribing from them right now . The next step is to {disfmarker} that I 'm working on is to insure that the data are clean first , and then channelized . What I mean by clean is that they 're spell - checked , that the mark - up is consistent all the way throughout , and also that we now incorporate these additional conventions that uh , Liz requested in terms of um , um {pause} in terms of having a s a systematic handling of numbers , and acronyms which I hadn't been specific about . Um , for example , i they 'll say uh "" ninety - two "" . And you know , so how {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Nine two , +Postdoc F: e Exactly . +Grad C: right . +Postdoc F: So if you just say "" nine two "" , the {disfmarker} there are many s ways that could have been expressed . An - and I just had them {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , a certain number of them did put the words down , but now we have a convention which also involves having it followed by , um , a gloss th and things . +PhD B: You know , Jane ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , one suggestion and you may already be doing this , but I 've noticed in the past that when I 've gone through transcriptions and you know in {disfmarker} in order to build lexicons and things , if you um , just take all the transcriptions and separate them into words and then alphabetize them , {comment} a lot of times just scanning down that list you 'll find a lot of {pause} inconsistencies and mis +Grad C: Misspelled . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You 're talking about the type token frequency listings , and I use those too . Y you mean just uh {pause} on each {disfmarker} on each line there 's a one word right ? It 's one token from the {disfmarker} from the corpus . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , those are e extremely efficient and I and I {disfmarker} I agree that 's a very good use of it . +PhD B: Oh so you already have that , OK . +Postdoc F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a way {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} You know , the spell - check basically does that but {disfmarker} but in addition {disfmarker} yes , that 's {disfmarker} that 's exactly the strategy I wanna do in terms of locating these things which are you know colloquial spoken forms which aren't in the lexicon . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Cuz a lot of times they 'll appear next to each other , and uh , +Postdoc F: Exactly . And then you ca then you can do a s +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: i in alphabetized lists , they 'll appear next to each other and {disfmarker} and so it makes it easier . +Postdoc F: Absolutely . I agree . That 's a very good {disfmarker} that 's a very good uh , suggestion . And that was {disfmarker} that 's my strategy for handling a lot of these things , in terms of things that need to be glossed . I didn't get to that point but {disfmarker} So there are numbers , then there are acronyms , and then um , there 's a {disfmarker} he she wants the uh , actually a {disfmarker} an explicit marker of what type of comment this is , so i curly b inside the curly brackets I 'm gonna put either "" VOC "" for vocalized , like cough or like laugh or whatever , "" NONVOC "" for door - slam , and "" GLOSS "" for things that have to do with {disfmarker} if they said a s a spoken form with this {disfmarker} m this pronunciation error . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I already had that convention +PhD B: Oh that 's great . +Postdoc F: but I {disfmarker} I haven't been asking these people to do it systematically cuz I think it most {disfmarker} ha most efficiently handled by uh {disfmarker} by a {disfmarker} a filter . That was what I was always planing on . So that , you know you get a whole long list {disfmarker} exactly what you 're saying , you get a whole list of things that say "" curly bracket laugh curly bracket "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: then y you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you risk less error if you handle it by a filter , than if you have this transcriber ch laboriously typing in sort of a VOC space , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: so man So many ways that error prone . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Postdoc F: So , um , {vocalsound} um I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going to convert that via a filter , into these tagged uh , subcategorized comments , and same thing with you know , we see you get a subset when you do what you 're saying , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: you end up with a s with uh , you 're collapsing across a frequency you just have the tokens +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and you can um , have a filter which more efficiently makes those changes . But the numbers and acronyms have to be handled by hand , because , you know I mean , jus +Grad C: You don't know what they could be . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah now TIMIT 's clear um {pause} and PLP is clear but uh there are things that are not so well known , in {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or have variant {disfmarker} u u uses like the numbers you can say "" nine two "" or you can say "" ninety - two "" , +Grad C: So how are you doing the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and uh I 'd handle the numbers individually . +Grad C: How are you doing the uh , acronyms so if I say PZM what would it appear on the transcript ? +Postdoc F: It would be separate {disfmarker} The letters would be separated in space +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc F: and potentially they 'll have a curly bracket thing afterwards e but I 'm not sure if that 's necessary , clarifying what it is , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so gloss of {pause} whatever . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I don't know if that 's really necessary to do that . Maybe it 's a nice thing to do because of it then indicating this is uh , a step away from i indicating that it really is intentional that those spaces are there , and indicating why they 're there to indicate that it 's uh {vocalsound} the you know , {comment} uh enumerated , or i +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: it 's not a good way of saying {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {vocalsound} specific uh way of stating these {disfmarker} these letters . +Grad C: Right . So it sounds good . +Postdoc F: And so anyway , the clean {disfmarker} those are those things and then channelized is to then um , get it into this multichannel format . And at that point then it 's ready for use by Liz and Don . But that 's been my top priority {disfmarker} beyond getting it tanel channelized , the next step is to work on tightening up the boundaries of the time bins . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: And uh , Thilo had a {disfmarker} e e a breakthrough with this {disfmarker} this last week in terms of getting the channel - based um uh s s speech - nonspeech segmentation um , up and running and I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't been able to use that yet cuz I 'm working s re this is my top priority {disfmarker} get the data clean , and channelized . +PhD A: I actually gave +Grad C: Have you also been doing spot checks , Jane ? +Postdoc F: Oh yes . +Grad C: Okay , good . +Postdoc F: Well you see that 's part of the cleaning process . I spent um actually um I have a segment of ten minutes that was transcribed by two of our transcribers , +Grad C: Oh good . Good . +Postdoc F: and I went through it last night , it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost spooky how similar these are , word for word . And there are some differences in commas cuz commas I {disfmarker} I left them discretion at commas . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: Uh {disfmarker} and so because it 's not part of our st of our ne needed conventions . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And um , and {disfmarker} so they 'll be a difference in commas , but it 's word - by - word the same , in {disfmarker} in huge patches of the data . And I have t ten minute stretch where I can {disfmarker} where I can show that . And {disfmarker} and sometimes it turns out that one of these transcribers has a better ear for technical jargon , and the other one has a better ear for colloquial speech . So um , the one i i the colloquial speech person picked up "" gobbledy - gook "" . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And the other one didn't . And on this side , this one 's picking up things like "" neural nets "" and the one that 's good on the sp o on th the vocabulary on the uh colloquial didn't . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: When {disfmarker} for the person who missed "" gobbledy - gook "" what did they put ? +Postdoc F: It was an interesting approximation , put in parentheses , cuz I have this convention that , i if they 're not sure what it was , they put it in parentheses . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc F: So they tried to approximate it , but it was {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh good . +Postdoc F: it was spelled GABBL {disfmarker} +PhD B: Sort of how it sounds . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . More of an attempt to {disfmarker} I mean apparently it was very clear to her that these {disfmarker} the a this {disfmarker} this was a sound {disfmarker} these are the sounds , +Grad C: It was a technical term that she didn't recognize , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Yeah . But she knew that she didn't know it . Maybe it was a technical ter exactly . But she {disfmarker} even though her technical perception is just really {disfmarker} uh you know I 've {disfmarker} I 'm tempted to ask her if she 's taken any courses in this area or if she 's taken cognitive science courses +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: then cuz "" neural nets "" and {disfmarker} oh she has some things that are {disfmarker} oh "" downsampled "" , she got that right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And some of these are rather {pause} uh unexpected . +Grad C: Obscure , yeah . +Postdoc F: But ch ten solid uh {disfmarker} m ch s chunk of ten solid minutes where they both coded the same data . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and again the main track that you 're working with is elev eleven hours ? +Postdoc F: And um {disfmarker} +Professor E: Is that right ? +Postdoc F: Yes exactly . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . +Postdoc F: And that 's part of this {disfmarker} Eleven hours . +Professor E: Is that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} that including digits ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes it is . +Professor E: So let 's say roughly {pause} ten hours or so of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean it 's probably more than that but {disfmarker} but with {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of non - digits . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 'd be more than that because I {disfmarker} my recollection is the minutes {disfmarker} that da digits don't take more than half a minute . Per person . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: But um {pause} the {disfmarker} the total set that I gave them is twelve hours of tape , +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: But they haven't gotten to the end of that yet . +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: So they 're still working {disfmarker} some of them are {disfmarker} Two of them are still working on completing that . Yeah . +PhD B: Boy , they 're moving right along . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . They are . Mm - hmm . They 're very efficient . There 're some who have more hours that they devote to it than others . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's the deal with {disfmarker} with your {disfmarker} +PhD A: The channel u thing ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , it 's just uh , I ran the recognizer {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} {comment} speech - nonspeech detector on different channels and , it 's just in uh {disfmarker} in this new multi - channel format and output , and I just gave one {disfmarker} one meeting to {disfmarker} to Liz who wanted to {disfmarker} to try it for {disfmarker} for the recognizer +Professor E: Oh , I see . +PhD A: as uh , apparently the recognizer had problems with those long chunks of speech , which took too much memory or whatever , +Professor E: Right . +PhD A: and so {pause} she {disfmarker} she will try that I think +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm working on it . So , I hope {disfmarker} +Grad C: Is this anything different than the HMM system you were using before ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: No . Uh , I {pause} mmm , use some {disfmarker} some different features but not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: The basic thing is this HMM base . +Grad C: So there 's still no {disfmarker} no knowledge using different channels at the same time . +PhD A: There is some , uh as the energy is normalized across channels +Grad C: You know what I mean ? Across all of them . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So . But basically that 's one of the main changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . What are some of the other features ? Besides the energy ? You said you 're trying some different features , or something . +PhD A: Oh I just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mmm , I just use um our loudness - based things now as they {disfmarker} before there were {disfmarker} they were some in {disfmarker} in the log domain and I {disfmarker} I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Cu - Cube root ? +PhD A: Yeah . To {disfmarker} No , I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the loudness thingy with the {disfmarker} with the +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Ah . +PhD A: how do you call it ? I 'm not sure . With the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Fletcher Munson ? No . +PhD A: I 'm not sure about the term . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Uh , I 'll look it up . And say it to you . +Professor E: Yeah , alright . +PhD A: Uh , OK , and {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's basically the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing . Yeah , and I {disfmarker} and I tried t to normalize uh {disfmarker} uh the features , there 's loudness and modified loudness , um , within one channel , +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: because they 're , {vocalsound} yeah to {disfmarker} to be able to distinguish between foreground and background speech . And it works quite well . But , not always . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: Good . +Professor E: Um , let 's see . I think the uh {disfmarker} Were {disfmarker} were you basically done with the transcription part ? So I guess the next thing is this uh {disfmarker} bleep editing . +Grad C: Right . So the {disfmarker} The idea is that we need to have {disfmarker} We need to provide the transcripts to every participant of every meeting to give them an opportunity to bleep out sections they don't want . So I 've written a bunch of tools that will generate web pages , uh with the transcription in it so that they can click on them and piece {disfmarker} pieces and they can scroll through and read them , and then they can check on each one if they want it excluded . And then , it 's a form , HTML form , so they can submit it and it will end up sending me email with the times that they want excluded . And so , uh , some of the questions on this is what do we do about the privacy issue . And so I thought about this a little bit and I think the best way to do it is every participant will have a password , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: a single password . Each person will have a single password , user name and password . And then each meeting , we 'll only allow the participants who were at that meeting to look at it . And that way each person only has to remember one password . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I can't help but wonder if this is maybe a little more elaborate than is needed . I mean if people have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for me I would actually want to have some pieces of paper that had the transcription and I would sort of flip through it . And then {pause} um {pause} if I thought it was OK , I 'd say "" it 's OK "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean it depends how this really ends up working out , but I guess my thought was that the occasion of somebody wondering whether something was OK or not and needing to listen to it was gonna be extremely rare . +Grad C: Right , I mean so th th th the fact that you could listen to it over the web is a minor thing that I had already done for {pause} other reasons . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: And so that {disfmarker} that 's a minor part of it , I just wanted some web interface so that people {disfmarker} you didn't actually have to send everyone the text . So m what my intention to do is that as the transcripts become ready , um {pause} I would take them , and generate the web pages and send email to every participant or contact them using the contact method they wanted , and just uh , tell them , "" here 's the web page "" , um , "" you need a password "" . So th th question number one is how do we distribute the passwords , and question number two is how else do we wanna provide this information if they want it . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} I think what I was sort of saying is that if you just say {vocalsound} "" here is a {disfmarker} here is {disfmarker} "" I mean this maybe it sounds paleolithic but {disfmarker} but I just thought if you handed them some sheets of paper , that said , uh , "" here 's what was said in this transcription is it OK with you ? and if it is , here 's this other sheet of paper that you sign that says that it 's OK "" . +Grad C: I think that um there are a subset of people who will want printouts that we can certainly provide . +Professor E: And then they 'd hand it back to you . +Grad C: But certainly I wouldn't want a printout . These are big , and I would much rather be {pause} ha be able to just sit and leaf through it . +Professor E: You find it easier to go through a large {disfmarker} I mean how do you read books ? +Grad C: Well I certainly read books by hand . But for something like this , I think it 's easier to do it on the web . +Professor E: Really ? I mean , it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz you 're gonna get , you know , if I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in a bunch of meetings and I don't wanna get a stack of these . I wanna just be able to go to {disfmarker} go to the web site {comment} and visit it as I want . +Professor E: Going to a web site is easy , but flipping through a hundred pounds {disfmarker} a hundred pages of stuff is not easy on the web . +Grad C: Well , I don't think it 's that much harder than , paper . So . +Professor E: Really ? +Postdoc F: I have one question . So are you thinking that um the person would have a transcript and go strictly from the transcript ? Because I {disfmarker} I do think that there 's a benefit to being able to hear the tone of voice and the {disfmarker} +Professor E: So here 's the way I was imagining it , and maybe I 'm wrong , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: but the way I imagined it was that um , the largest set of people is gonna go "" oh yeah , I didn't say anything funny in that meeting just go ahead , where 's the {disfmarker} where 's the release ? "" And then there 'll be a subset of people , right ? {disfmarker} OK there 's {disfmarker} I mean think of who it is we 've been recording mostly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK there 'll be a subset of people , who um , will say uh "" well , yeah , I really would like to see that . "" And for them , the easiest way to flip through , if it 's a really large document , I mean unless you 're searching . Searching , of course , should be electronic , but if you 're not {disfmarker} so if you provide some search mechanism you go to every place they said something or something like that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but see then we 're getting more elaborate with this thing . Um if {disfmarker} if uh you don't have search mechanisms you just sort of have this really , really long document , I mean whenever I 've had a really , really long document that it was sitting on the web , I 've always ended up printing it out . I mean , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're not necessarily gonna be sitting at the desk all the time , you wanna figure you have a train ride , and there 's all these situations where {disfmarker} where I {disfmarker} I mean , this is how I was imagining it , anyway . And then I figured , that out of that group , there would be a subset who would go "" hmm you know I 'm really not sure about this section here , "" and then that group would need it {disfmarker} S It seems like i if I 'm right in that , it seems like you 're setting it up for the most infrequent case , rather than for the most frequent case . So that uh , now we have to worry about privacy , +Grad C: Well , no fre for the most {disfmarker} +Professor E: we have to worry about all these passwords , for different people +Grad C: For the most frequent case they just say {pause} "" it 's OK "" and then they 're done . And I think {pause} almost everyone would rather do that by email than any other method . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The other thing too is it seems like {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um , yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc F: Go ahead . +Grad C: I mean , cuz you don't have to visit the web page if you don't want to . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: I guess {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess we don't need their signature . I guess an email OK is alright . +Grad C: Oh that was another thing I {disfmarker} I had assumed that we didn't need their signature , that it {disfmarker} that an email approval was sufficient . But {pause} I don't actually know . +PhD B: Are {disfmarker} are people going to be allowed to bleep out sections of a meeting where they weren't speaking ? +Grad C: Yes . If someone feels strongly enough about it , then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think they should be allowed to do that . +Postdoc F: I also {disfmarker} mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that means other people are editing what you say ? +Professor E: Uh {pause} I don't know about that . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't know if I like that . +Grad C: Well , the only other choice is that the person would say "" no , don't distribute this meeting at all "" , and I would rather they were able to edit out other people then just say "" don't distribute it at all "" . +Professor E: But th what they signed in the consent form , was something that said you can use my voice . +Grad C: Well , but if {disfmarker} if someone is having a conversation , and you only bleep out one side of it , that 's not sufficient . +Professor E: Right ? Yeah . Yeah , but that 's our decision then . Right ? +Grad C: Um , I don't think so . I mean , because if I object to the conversation . +Professor E: I think it is . +Grad C: If I say "" we were having a conversation , and I consider that conversation private , "" and I consider that your side of it is enough for other people to infer , I wanna be able to bleep out your side . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} I agree that the consent forms were {disfmarker} uh , I cons agree with what Adam 's saying , that {vocalsound} um , the consent form did leave open this possibility that they could edit things which they found offensive whe whether they said them or didn't say them . +Professor E: I see . OK , well , if that 's what it said . +Postdoc F: And the other thing is from the standpoint of the l of the l I 'm not a law lawyer , but it strikes me that {vocalsound} uh , we wouldn't want someone to say "" oh yes , I was a little concerned about it but {vocalsound} it was too hard to access "" . So I think it 's kind of nice to have this facility to listen to it . Now {disfmarker} in terms of like editing it by hand , I mean I think it 's {disfmarker} i some people would find that easier to specify the bleep part by having a document they edited . But {disfmarker} but it seems to me that sometimes um , you know i if a person had a bad day , and they had a tone in their voice that they didn't really like , you know it 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be able to listen to it and be sure that that was OK . +Grad C: I mean I can certainly provide a printable version if people want it . Um . +Professor E: Um {pause} I mean it 's also a mixture of people , I mean some people are r do their work primarily by sitting at the computer , flipping around the web , and others do not . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: Others would consider it {disfmarker} this uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of skills that they would have to gain . You know ? +Grad C: Well I think most of the people in the meetings are the former . +Professor E: It depends on what meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +PhD B: So far . +Grad C: So . +Professor E: In the meetings so far , yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: But we 're trying to expand this , right ? +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I actually think that paper is the more universal thing . +Grad C: And that {disfmarker} Well , but if they want to print it out that 's alright . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: I think everyone in the meeting can access the web . +Professor E: No , I think we have to be able to print it out . It 's not just if they want to print it out . I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK , so does that mean that I can't use email ? Or what ? +Postdoc F: Cuz you could send it through email you 're thinking . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I th +Grad C: Well , I don't think I {disfmarker} +Professor E: well {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} there was this {disfmarker} +Grad C: well I don't think we can send the text through email because of the privacy issues . +Professor E: No . +Postdoc F: Good . For security ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK good . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: Um . So giving them , you think a web site to say , "" if you wanna print it out here it is "" , is not sufficient ? +Postdoc F: Good point . +PhD A: Yeah . I +Professor E: Certainly for everybody who 's been in the meetings so far it would be sufficient . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm just thinking for people that that 's not sufficient for , what {disfmarker} the only sufficient thing would be for me to walk up to them and hand it to them . +Professor E: I 'm just wondering about {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: You could mail it to them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Get an a mailing address . +Grad C: Equivalent . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I think it 's easier to drop in the box . +PhD A: Just put the button on {disfmarker} on the web page which say "" please send me the {disfmarker} the scripts "" . +Grad C: That 's right . +Postdoc F: Oh that 's interesting . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: What um {disfmarker} When you display it on the web page , what are {disfmarker} what are you showing them ? Utterances , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so can they bleep within an utterance ? +Grad C: No . Whole utterances only . +PhD B: Whole utterances . +Grad C: And that was just convenience for my sake , that it 's uh , uh it would end up being fairly difficult to edit the transcripts if we would do it at the sub - utterance level . Because this way I can just delete an entire line out of a transcript file rather than have to do it by hand . +Professor E: There 's another aspect to this which maybe {disfmarker} is part of why this is bothering me . Um , I think you 're really trying very hard to make this as convenient as possible for people to do this . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: I mean that 's why I did the web form , because for me that would be my most convenient . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understand . +PhD B: I know where you 're going . +Professor E: I think that 's the bad idea . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor E: See because you 're gon you 're {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Really . You 're gonna end up with all these little patchy things , whereas really what we want to do is have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the bias towards letting it go . Because nob you know it {disfmarker} There was a {disfmarker} one or twi once or twice , in the re in the meetings we 've heard , where somebody said something that they might be embarrassed by , but overall people are talking about technical topics . Nobody 's gonna get hurt . Nobody 's being l libeled . You know , this is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're covering {disfmarker} We 're playing the lawyer 's game , and we 're playing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're looking for the extreme case . If we really orient it towards that extreme case , make it really easy , we 're gonna end up encouraging a headache . That {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} I 'm sort of psyching myself out here , I {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I guess I don't see having a few phrases here and there in a meeting being that mu much of a headache , bleeped out . +Professor E: but I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: So . +PhD B: I think what Morgan 's saying is the easier it is , the more is gonna be bleeped . +Professor E: but i And {disfmarker} and it really depends on what kind of research you 're doing . I think some researchers who are gonna be working with this corpus years from now are really gonna be cursing the fact that there 's a bunch of stuff in there {comment} that 's missing from the dialogue . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know , it depends on the kind of research they 're doing , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but it might be , uh {pause} it might be really a {disfmarker} a pain . And , you know where it 's really gonna hurt somebody , in some way {disfmarker} the one who said it or someone who is being spoken about , {comment} we definitely want to allow the option of it being bleeped out . But I really think we wanna make it the rare incidence . And {disfmarker} and uh , I am just a little worried about making it so easy for people to do , and so much fun ! {vocalsound} that they 're gonna go through and bleep out stuff . +Postdoc F: So much fun . +Professor E: and they can bleep out stuff they don't like too , right from somebody else , as you say , you know , so "" well I didn't like what he said . "" +Grad C: Well I don't see any way of avoiding that . I mean , we have to provi we have promised that we would provide them the transcript and that they can remove parts that they don't like . So that the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . No , no , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} +Grad C: The only question is {disfmarker} +Professor E: You - you 've talked me into that , but I {disfmarker} I just think that we should make it harder to do . +Grad C: The problem is if it 's harder for them it 's also harder for me . Whereas this web interface , I just get email , it 's all formatted , it 's all ready to go and I can just insert it . +Professor E: So maybe you don't give them access to the web interface unless they really need it . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so +Postdoc F: Well I guess {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor E: I 'm sorry {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} So maybe this is a s a way out of it . +Postdoc F: Hmm . +Professor E: You 've provided something that 's useful for you to do {disfmarker} handle , and useful for someone else if they need it . But I think the issue of privacy and ease and so forth should be that uh , they get access to this if they really need it . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you 're saying the {disfmarker} the sequence would be more like first Adam goes to the contact lists , contacts them via whatever their preferred method is , to see if they want to review the meeting . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: And then if they don't , you 're done . If they do , then he provides them access to the {disfmarker} the web site . +Grad C: Well , to some extent I have to do that anyway because as I said we have to distribute passwords . +Professor E: W w +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} a printed - out form . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , +Professor E: y but you don't necessarily have to distribute passwords is what I 'm saying . +Grad C: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Only if they want it . +Grad C: what I 'm saying is that I can't just email them the password because that 's not secure . So they have to call me and ask . +Professor E: No , no , no . But you aren't necessarily giving them {disfmarker} Right . But {disfmarker} we don't even necessarily need to end up distributing passwords at all . +PhD A: +Grad C: Well , we do because of privacy . We can't just make it openly available on the web . +Professor E: No , no . You 're missing the point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: We 're {disfmarker} We 're trying i We 're trying to make it less of an obvious just l l l l uh fall off a log , to do this . +Postdoc F: Not everyone gets a password , unless they ask for it . +Professor E: Right ? So th so what I would see , is that first you contact them and ask them if they would like to review it for to check for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: not just for fun , OK ? but to {disfmarker} to check this for uh things that they 're worried about having said or if they 're willing to just send an approval of it , at {disfmarker} from their memory . Um {disfmarker} and , uh , and we should think carefully actually we should review {disfmarker} go through how that 's worded , OK ? Then , if someone uh {disfmarker} wants to review it , uh , and I know you don't like this , but I 'm offering this as a suggestion , is that {disfmarker} is that we then give them a print out . And then if they say that "" I have a potential problem with these things , "" then , you {disfmarker} you say "" OK well you might wanna hear this in context to s think if you need that , "" you issue them a password , i in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} the problem with what you 're suggesting is it 's not just inconvenient for them , it 's inconvenient for me . Because that means multiple contacts every time {disfmarker} for every single meeting every time anyone wants anything . I would much prefer to have all be automatic , they visit the web site if they want to . Obviously they don't have to . +Professor E: I know you 'd prefer it , but the proble +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: we have {disfmarker} +Grad C: So I think you 're thinking people are going to arbitrarily start bleeping and I just don't think that 's gonna happen . +Professor E: there 's a problem with it . +Postdoc F: I 'm also concerned about the spirit of the {disfmarker} of the informed consent thing . Cuz I think if they feel that uh , it 's {disfmarker} I th I th You know , if it turns out that something gets published in this corpus that someone really should have eliminated and didn't detect , then it could have been because of their own negligence that they didn't pursue that next level and get the password and do that , um , but {disfmarker} but they might be able to argue "" oh well it was cumbersome , and I was busy and it was gonna take me too much time to trace it down "" . So it could that the burden would come back onto us . So I 'm a little bit worried about uh , making it harder for them , from the legal standpoint . +Professor E: Well you can go too far in that direction , and you need to find somewhere between I think , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: It seems to me that sending them email , saying "" if you have an O - OK reply to this email and say OK , +Professor E: because {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Grad C: If you have a problem with it contact me and I 'll give you a password "" , seems like is a perfectly , reasonable compromise . And if they want a printout they can print it out themselves . +Postdoc F: Or we could print it up for them , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I mean we could offer that {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there 's uh , another aspect to that and that is that in the informed consent form , um , my impression is that they {disfmarker} that we offered them at the very least that they definitely would have access to the transcript . And {disfmarker} and I ha +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know that there 's a chance of really skipping that stage . I mean I {disfmarker} I thought that you were {disfmarker} Maybe I misinterpreted what you said but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: Having access to it doesn't necessarily mean , that {disfmarker} having it +Grad C: Having it . +Postdoc F: Giving it to them . +Grad C: Well the in {disfmarker} +Professor E: right ? It just means they have the right to have it . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: the consent form is right in there if anyone wants to look at it , +Postdoc F: Alright . Fine . OK . Fair enough . +Grad C: so . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: D you want me to grab one ? +Postdoc F: Sh - sh well I could {disfmarker} I 'm closer . +Grad C: Yeah , but you 're wired +Postdoc F: I could {disfmarker} +Grad C: aren't you ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That is true . +Professor E: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean I don't wanna fool them , +Postdoc F: I don't know {disfmarker} +Professor E: I just meant that e every {disfmarker} ev any time you say anything to anyone there is in fact a {disfmarker} a bias that is presented , +Postdoc F: Oh yeah yeah {disfmarker} oh I know . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: "" If you agree to participate you 'll have the opportunity to have anything ex anything excised , which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" +Professor E: of {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . Yeah . +Grad C: "" Once a transcript is available we will ask your permission to include the data in the corpus for the r larger research community . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: There again you will be allowed to indicate any sections that you 'd prefer to have excised from the database , and they will m be removed both from the transcript and the recording . "" +Postdoc F: Hmm . Well that 's more open than I realized . +Grad C: Well , I mean it {disfmarker} The one question is definitely clear with anything as opposed to just what you said . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , uh no that {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} tha +Postdoc F: Tha - that 's true . That 's more severe , but the next one says the transcript will be around . +Professor E: that 's right . +Postdoc F: And it doesn't {comment} really say we 'll send it to you , or wi it 'll be available for you on the web , or anything . +PhD B: I think it probably leaves it open how we get it to them . +Professor E: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: At least it more often . Yeah . It means also we don't have to g To give it to them . I mean like {disfmarker} like Morgan was saying they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Grad C: They just have to make sure that it is available to them . +Postdoc F: It 's available to them if they ask for it . +Professor E: Yeah , OK , so . wh um {disfmarker} I think I have an idea that may be sat may satisfy both you and me in this which is , um , it 's a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we just go over carefully how these notes to people are worded . So I {disfmarker} I just want it to be worded in such a way where it gives the strong impre it gives very , I mean nothing hidden , v very strongly the bias that we would really like to use all of these data . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} that we really would rather it wasn't a patchwork of things tossed out , +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: that it would be better for , um , our , uh , field if that is the case . But if you really think something is gonna {disfmarker} And I don't think there 's anything in the legal aspects that {disfmarker} that is hurt by our expressing that bias . +Postdoc F: Great . Great , great . +Professor E: And then {disfmarker} then my concern about {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . I agree . +Professor E: you know you might be right , it may be it was just paranoia on my part , uh but people just {disfmarker} See I 'm @ @ worried about this interface so much fun {vocalsound} that people start bleeping stuff out {comment} {vocalsound} just as {disfmarker} just because they can . +Grad C: It 's just a check box next to the text , it 's not any fun at all . +Professor E: Yeah . Well I don't know . I kind of had fun when you played me something that was bleeped out . You know . +Grad C: Well , but they won't get that feedback . +Professor E: I +Grad C: All {disfmarker} no because it doesn't automatically bleep it at the time . +Professor E: Oh they won't ? +Grad C: It just sends me {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh good . So you haven't made it so much fun . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh good . +Grad C: It just sends me the time intervals . +Professor E: OK , +Grad C: And then at some point I 'll incorporate them all and put bleeps . I mean I don't wanna have t ha do that yet until we actually release the data +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: because um , then we have to have two copies of every meeting and we 're already short on disk space . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So I {disfmarker} I wanna {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just keep the times until we actually wanna release the data and then we bleep it . +Professor E: OK . Alright , so I think {disfmarker} Yeah so if we have if {disfmarker} i Again let 's you know , sort of circulate the {disfmarker} the wording on each of these things and get it right , +Grad C: Well since you seem to feel heart uh , strongest about it , would you like to do the first pass ? +Professor E: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK . Uh , fair enough . Turn about is fair play , +Postdoc F: Al - Also it ther there is this other question , the legal question that {disfmarker} that Adam 's raised , uh about whether we need a concrete signature , or email c i suffices or whatever +Professor E: Sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and I don't know how that works . i There 's something down there about "" if you agree to {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about it with one of my background processes +Grad C: I don't think so . +Professor E: and I {disfmarker} uh it 's {disfmarker} uh it 's uh , it 's fine to do the email . +Postdoc F: Ah . Fine . +Grad C: Yeah because thi th they 're signing here that they 're agreeing to the paragraph which says "" you 'll be given an opportunity . "" +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: Good . OK . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And so I don't think they need another signature . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} Well and furthermore I {disfmarker} it 's now fairly routine in a lot of arrangements that I do with people on contracts and so forth that {disfmarker} that uh if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's that sort of thing where you 're you 're saying uh "" OK I agree , we want eighty hours of this person at such - and - such amount , and I agree that 's OK , "" uh if it 's a follow up to some other agreement where there was a signature it 's often done in email now +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . +Postdoc F: Great . +Professor E: Um . +Grad C: So I guess I probably should at the minimum , think about how to present it in a printed form . I 'm not really sure what 's best with that . The problem is a lot of them are really short , +Postdoc F: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: and so I don't necessarily wanna do one per line . But I don't know how else to do it . +Postdoc F: Well I s I also have this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice you have it uh , viewab her {comment} hearable on the {disfmarker} on the web for those who might wonder about um , the non nonverbal side , I mean I {disfmarker} I agree that our bias should be as {disfmarker} as expressed here , and {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice that a person could check . Cuz sometimes you know you {disfmarker} the words on a {disfmarker} on the page , come out soun sounding different in terms of the {pause} social dynamics if they hear it . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I realize we shouldn't emphasize that people {comment} you know , shouldn't borrow trouble . What it comes down to but {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah I think actually {disfmarker} my opinion probably is that the only time someone will need to listen to it is if the transcript is uh not good . You know , if {disfmarker} if there are lots of mumbles and parentheses and things like that . +Postdoc F: Oh , you know , or what if there was an error in the transcript that didn't get detected and there was a whole uh {disfmarker} i segment a against some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personal {vocalsound} i th +Grad C: Right . That was all mumbled ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: I think Microsoft is +Postdoc F: Yeah exactly +PhD A: Oh , +Grad C: Sorry transcribers . +Postdoc F: Or {disfmarker} or even {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or even {comment} there was a {disfmarker} a line you know about how "" hmm - mmm - mmm {comment} Bill Gates duh - duh - duh - duh . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} but it was all {disfmarker} the words were all visible , but they didn't end up i some there was a slip in the transcript . +PhD A: Oh , God . +Grad C: They 're gonna hate this meeting . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . +Grad C: Actually Liz will like it . You know , but . +Professor E: Liz will like it . We had a pretty strong disagreement going there . +Grad C: Yep , yep , that 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . So I don't know . I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess we 're assuming that the transcript is a close enough approximation and that {disfmarker} that my double checking will be {pause} so close to absolutely perfect that it {disfmarker} that nothing will slip by . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} some something might sometime , and they {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that they said , they might {disfmarker} i i I mean , you might be very accurate in putting down what they actually said , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but , when they hear it , themselves , they may hear something different because they know what they meant . +Postdoc F: I don't know how to notate that . +PhD B: Sarcasm , +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD B: how do you {disfmarker} how do you indicate sarcasm ? +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's right . +Professor E: No , I 'm serious . So {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} so we might {disfmarker} we might get some feedback from people that such - and - such was , you know , not {disfmarker} not really what I said . +Grad C: Yeah . Well that would be good to get , definitely . +Professor E: Yeah , but , Yeah , sure . +Grad C: Just for corrections . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So um , in terms of password distribution , I think phone is really the only way to do it , phone and in person . Or mail , physical mail . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Or if for leave it on their voice mail . +PhD B: Any sub - word level thing . +Grad C: Any sub - wor Yeah , OK . I mean you could do it with PGP or things like that but it 's too complex . +Postdoc F: You know I just realized something , which is of {disfmarker} e th this question about the {disfmarker} uh the possible mismatch of {disfmarker} I mean i well , and actually also the lawyer saying that um , we shouldn't really have them {disfmarker} have the people believing that they will be cleared by our checks . You know ? +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean . So it 's like i in a way it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the responsibility still on them to listen to the tape and {disfmarker} and hear the transcript , to have that be the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well yeah , but you can't dep I mean , most people will not wanna take the time to do that , though . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK , fair enough . And they 're s they 're absorbing the responsibility themselves . +Professor E: And they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not um {disfmarker} Yeah , good . +Professor E: But I mean if you were at a meeting , and {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} you don't think , at least , that you said anything funny and the meeting was about , you know , some {disfmarker} some funny thing about semantics or something , or uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: You probably won't listen to it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It is true that tec that the content is technical , I {disfmarker} and so i and we 're not having these discussions which {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I mean , when I listen to these things , I don't find things that are questionable , in other people 's speech or in my own . +Professor E: Yeah . You would think it would be rare , +Postdoc F: Just {disfmarker} It should be very rare . +Professor E: I mean we 're not talking about the energy crisis or something , people have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad C: How about them energy crises . +Professor E: Yeah . I think we 're uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Done ? +Professor E: Kind of done . Actually , I was gonna {disfmarker} Di - Did you have anything n that 's going on , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Not really . No . Um , {vocalsound} my project is going along but um , I 'm really just here to um fill the project uh {disfmarker} the overall progress . I don't really have anything specific to {disfmarker} to talk about . +Professor E: Yeah . That 's fine . I just didn't wanna go by you , if you had something . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor E: You don't have anything to say . +PhD B: No . +Professor E: Nah . +Grad C: +Professor E: Transcribers , he was rattling the b marbles in his brain back and forth just then this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad C: Shall we do digits ? +Professor E: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Um , oh by the way I did find a bunch {disfmarker} +Grad D: It um +Grad C: Uh , we should count out how many more digits to forms do we have back there ? +PhD B: There were quite a few . Uh . +Grad C: That 's what I thought . I f I was going through them all and I found actually a lot filed in with them , that were blanks , that no one had actually read . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: And so we still have more than I thought we did . +PhD B: Oh good . +Grad C: So , we have a few more digits before we 're done . +PhD B: You know having this headset reminds me of like working at Burger King or something . +Grad C: Oops . +Postdoc F: Oh , did you do that ? +PhD A: Burger King +Grad C: I 'd like a burger with that , +PhD B: No I never did . +Grad C: do you want fries with that ? +Professor E: Wow . +PhD B: But I feel like I could now . +Grad C: And {pause} +","During a meeting, the participants discuss various topics including the process for allowing individuals to edit out parts of recorded meetings they were involved in before the data is shared more broadly. They specifically debate over providing transcripts to participants and allowing them to request bleeps for privacy. The team explores the specifics of providing participants access to the transcripts and recordings through a web platform or printed documents. The dynamics between convenience for participants and the researchers' ease of managing the process, as well as the potential legal implications, are considered. They also touch on the consent forms which outlined that participants could have content excised upon review, and they briefly contemplate the affect a bleeped-out transcript might have on future research and the legal responsibilities of all parties. This is followed by discussions on minor operational issues such as distributing passwords, microphone setups, and technical jargon in transcripts." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Here we go . Welcome everybody . Um , I'm Abigail Claflin . You can call me Abbie . 'S see . PowerPoint , that's not it . There we go . So this is our kick off meeting . Um and I guess we should all get acquainted {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Let's {disfmarker} shall we all introduce ourselves ? +Marketing: Hi I'm Chiara , I'm the um Marketing Expert . Um , would you like me to talk about my aims at the moment , or would you like me to just say my name and then we can talk about business later ? +Project Manager: I think we'll get around to that , yeah . So this is just introductions yeah . +Marketing: We'll get round to that later . My name is Chiara and I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay . I forgot to s say I'm the Project Manager but I figured you all knew that already , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Stephanie and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Krista and I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so f here's our agenda for today . Um we're gonna do some tool training , project plan and discuss then close . {vocalsound} Um so . So our aim is to produce a remote control that is original , trendy and user friendly . And to do this , we have to {disfmarker} um there's certain things we have to consider about functional aspects and conceptual design of the thing . So . We'll get to that . Oh there it is . Right . Functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . So throughout our next couple of meetings we'll we'll be covering these things . Um {vocalsound} so we're gonna try out our white board . If we'll all draw our favourite animal , to sum up the characteristics of that animal . Okay . +User Interface: So you want us to draw it and then talk about it ? Or just draw it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think both . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Both . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Why don't we do both . Right . +Marketing: Who starts ? We ought to decide who starts and {vocalsound} all that . No ? +Project Manager: Any volunteers ? +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Does anyone know what they wanna draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I gotta think about it for a second like . Uh {disfmarker} Does it have to be {vocalsound} functional , trendy and user friendly ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . Okay , I'll draw . I'll draw one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Make sure {gap} my things here . Uh-oh . Right . Okay , my favourite animal is {disfmarker} see . {vocalsound} Oops . +Project Manager: A dolphin . +User Interface: Yeah , it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S like playing Pictionary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I guess it has a fin on top too , yeah . {vocalsound} It's my dolphin . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what characteristics do you like about your animal ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like its tail . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , no , I think dolphins are really uh {disfmarker} I dunno , they're smart and they they're cute and they like swimming and that's cool , like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're graceful . +User Interface: they're graceful yeah , and they're so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sleek {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah they're sleek +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they look intelligent and I don't know , they're {disfmarker} I guess it's the whole like binocular vision thing . +Project Manager: I don't know how intelligent that one looks {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah he he doesn't look that smart {vocalsound} . He's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I dunno um they're {disfmarker} I think it's cool the the um {vocalsound} the interaction that or the th things that {disfmarker} the reasons people seem to like you know {disfmarker} you get ex you know people are sitting on the beach and p they're like oh look there's dolphins and it's kinda like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} but they're you know they jump around in the water and they're happy and they're mammals , but they swim . {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Does anybody else wanna draw their animal ? +Industrial Designer: Suppose I can draw an animal , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh there goes the ten . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . They sleep all day , {vocalsound} they're easy to draw {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wanna {gap} anything ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno if the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the pen is running out of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I had the cat as well , but uh I've got a spare one . +Project Manager: ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll use the spare one . Um but it's harder to draw {gap} um . +User Interface: And the pen's dying {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: A horse . +User Interface: Horse . +Marketing: Uh . Um I don't {vocalsound} really know how the legs go , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but anyway I will do that . Um , and the main reason is they're pretty . I think they're very pretty and they go well with the environment , and I like the way they run and I used to do horse riding and they're just very sort of sturdy and nice animals . And I like the way um they feel , sort of under under the hand , I think that's pretty much it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . This cord's {disfmarker} {gap} Uh . Right . Actually I haven't thought of anything yet {vocalsound} . Uh {disfmarker} It's a pig . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm thinking we should design a remote control that's water resistant , strong and furry . What do you think , yeah ? This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: And furry . +Project Manager: yeah , well like a cat , you know , soft yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Textile {disfmarker} tactile , {vocalsound} tactile remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Although {disfmarker} uh I'll just put there . Right . +User Interface: You're dragging a {disfmarker} you have a tail {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Oh my gosh , this is disastrous . Sorry about that . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So moving on . Our selling price goal is twenty five Euro and profit aim is fifty million Euro . So I'm guessing that we're not actually in Scotland , we're in some European country {vocalsound} . Um , and we will hope to sell this internationally . +User Interface: Sorry can you just say that {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what are our price goals again ? +Project Manager: Um selling price is twenty five Euro . Profit aim fifty million Euro . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: How many should we sell then ? {vocalsound} Um , a lot , +Project Manager: Anyone a mathematician ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: two two two million , {gap} two mi no , more f four million . +Industrial Designer: Two million . +Marketing: Four million . And it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well it's the profit so if a profit for each is twelve fifty , that'll do four million . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is a lot . Uh . +Project Manager: So f that's a fifty percent um uh . Um , I don't know what these mean because I didn't actually make the slide-show . Experience with remote control . So I guess we have to reflect on our experiences with remote controls to decide what um we would like to see in a convenient , practical , nice remote control . Um so do we have any initial ideas for uh how this remote control should be designed or formatted or the the buttons it should have . +Marketing: Um , I think one thing is that it should be easy to find +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking that too . +Marketing: bec yeah {vocalsound} bec +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we should design something that has like a {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} like somehow like you {disfmarker} I mean you always know where your T_V_ is , so just have a call button , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've always wanted that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so like {vocalsound} you can push a button on your T_V_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I mean you have it for the portable phone , so why not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah , so you should have a call button on your television to be able to find your remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . And even I think a little light . Um or even a {disfmarker} maybe a vib a vibrating thing . I dunno but someth because it's usually under the sofa . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: In which case you're going to be l but if it has a sort of signal which isn't any sound {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know if it's expensive maybe to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} yeah I mean it {disfmarker} but like I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe call is enough . But yeah . +User Interface: just I mean like your phone even just has so {disfmarker} like it can vibrate , it can light up and make noise and I dunno {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: What if it had something like um just like a magnet on the back of it and you could {disfmarker} I mean j just to have some place to put it besides like a base . You know like a portable phone has a base , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , or if it had a {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: like just to have a home for it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause people just stick it on top of their T_V_ , but the point of having a remote is not to have to walk over to the T_V_ , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's why it's always in the couch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , in in the couch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I dunno , it seems like though that that would be hard , 'cause you not you're not gonna be lazy anyway and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we should design couches that have the remote control in the side arm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah so we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the project is now couches and remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But even just a thing to attach it to the w you know if you had a thing , a pretty object attached to the wall . But that would really make it more expensive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's only a plastic thing , r really , the thing on the wall . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Do you think it needs to be bigger to not lose , or does that not factor in ? +Marketing: And the other thing is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bigger . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} well it needs to be sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like Hand hand held size , yeah . +User Interface: Hand-sized . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think you need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not not huge , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But definitely not {disfmarker} well I don't know . +User Interface: It can't be that hard to put some kind of a noise on it . +Marketing: No , it can't be , uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: No it really wouldn't be . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Or like or like a light thing . You know . I dunno {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like spaceship . +User Interface: . Yeah {vocalsound} . Or make it mobile so it runs around and comes come find you yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That would be really {disfmarker} I'm sure we could do that for twenty five Euros a pop . +Project Manager: Little homing device . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So what do we think this remote control should {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Marketing: Oh dear . +Project Manager: Till the meeting {disfmarker} oh right . This is what we have left . Um , oh we just {gap} +User Interface: I also think though that it shouldn't have too many buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: 'cause I hate that when they have too many buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} B_ button and the F_ button , they don't do anything . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: I mean I know it has to have enough functions but like , I don't know you , just have like eight thousand buttons and you're like , no , you never use half of them . So . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} what if um may be a little fancy but what if it had like a little screen , so it has less buttons but it still has all the functions . Like the way a mobile phone does . +User Interface: That would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it just seems like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you could like um {disfmarker} like if you have I dunno if you have satellite if you have a hundred channels , you can {disfmarker} the way you do it on your radio is that you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: what do you call it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Select . Uh . +Project Manager: s y yeah but you can programme , so you can programme like your favourite channels , so like if you had a s +Marketing: But , would you have the screen on the thing , or would you have it on the telly transmitting the screen . +Project Manager: That's something we could decide . Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess they would go together somehow ? I dunno . +Marketing: Because , I don't know if it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's e expensive , if you have {disfmarker} if you use the telly screen , 'cause the telly's already a screen , then you can pro sort of have a programming function , really easy sort of arrow up and down , on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: and then use the telly as a screen . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm thinking kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But yeah for sure . Something like not {disfmarker} it's not on the button but it's telling you what to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: is that what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Mm . +User Interface: Or like you h you see those you know people {disfmarker} I'm thinking of like celebrity cribs kind of things when like they have all those {disfmarker} these things that at their house you know {disfmarker} their their entire house is so electronic , and they have like this one master control that {disfmarker} and it's like a hand held like {disfmarker} turns on everything sort of control and it has like a screen and like {disfmarker} so I think it should be possible to have some kind of a screen , I don't know if {disfmarker} it must be {disfmarker} it would probably {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: must be ex too expensive though t like I dunno . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But like mobile phones have screens and they're cheap . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean , we have to remember our budget is twelve point {disfmarker} twelve fifty for {disfmarker} to actually make the device . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um but it's something to think about , yeah . +User Interface: Well , I guess we have to get to that later , yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we'll have to see how much that would be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or some {disfmarker} it i we can find out probably on the internet {vocalsound} how much it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . Yeah , and the other thing you said that thing about robust and water um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was the word ? +User Interface: Furry . +Marketing: Water resistant . +Project Manager: Oh I was just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but it's {disfmarker} I thought , ah , spot on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good feel , tact tactile , good tactile feel , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe something didn doesn't make your hands sweat lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , mm . +Marketing: That's quite annoying . +Project Manager: Maybe um just like a simple thing to have a clip on it , like so you can clip it to your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like that's another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , clip . Ooh {vocalsound} . Um . +Project Manager: Um . We should probably start wrapping up , um we've got some initial ideas that we can all look into . Um , and come up with some new ones for the next meeting , which will be in another thirty minutes . Um . So . Yeah . The Industrial Designer , what does that stand for , I_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} um is going to be looking more into the working design . So I guess you'd be looking at lots of the things we discussed about screen and um that sort of thing . The something , what is the U_I_ ? +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: Yeah , what does it stand for again ? +User Interface: That's me . Uh , User Interface design . +Project Manager: User Interface Designer . So that's gonna be more technical . I guess that maybe the working design has also to do with like the physical feat like just the way it looks and the way it w +User Interface: So technical function . +Industrial Designer: The working design is the structure . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: What is technical functions exactl I I don't really know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , I guess you'd have to find out {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: It says on that email but it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It was in the email . +User Interface: It does but it {disfmarker} I just don't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wrote down what mine were . +Marketing: It said um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It said {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What effect should the thing ha should it have , okay . Alright . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: And working design . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Be a medium between you and the telly I think , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And how it works , okay . Right . I'm I'm on task . +Project Manager: And the M_E_ , what does that stand for {vocalsound} ? M +Industrial Designer: Marketing . +Project Manager: Marketing , right . Um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Marketing . Oh it's written here , but um . +Project Manager: So we'll be working on the user requirements , um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So I guess that wraps it up . I'll see you all in thirty minutes . I just did . +","In a kickoff meeting orchestrated by Project Manager Abigail Claflin, commonly addressed as Abbie, the core team assembled to embark on the journey of designing a remote control poised to set market trends while ensuring user-friendliness. The session, suffused with informal banter and technical discussions, laid the foundation for a project with an ambitious aim—a remote control that could marry originality with comfort and the latest features. + +Abbie, with mild trouble navigating her presentation deck, conveyed the day's agenda, consisting of tool training, a deep dive into the project plan, and a round-up discussion. A quick round of introductions saw Chiara from Marketing, who initially questioned the order of business, and Stephanie, the User Interface Designer, engaging each other in casual affirmations of their presence. Krista, the Industrial Designer, completed the trio of specialists. + +A creativity exercise proposed by Abbie involved each member drawing their favorite animal on a whiteboard and discussing the attributes they admired. The concept behind the task was to encapsulate characteristics that could inspire the remote control's design. It led to light-hearted exchanges about dolphins being graceful and intelligent, the simple existence of cats, and horses’ majestic beauty—all to inject a sense of camaraderie and indirectly brainstorm design elements. + +The group navigated technical glitches and spatial confusion, with pens running out of ink and discussions diverging into the tactile feel of animals—all to break the ice and spark creativity. + +Forthwith, Abbie introduced the business objective, highlighting a competitive selling price of 25 Euro and a lofty profit aim of 50 million Euro, keenly aware that to scale these summits, several million units would need to be purveyed. + +Discussions shifted towards product features, with team members contemplating the user experience, including ease of locating the remote and streamlining button functionality. A multitude of ideas blossomed as solutions were thrown around the room: a call button on the TV to beckon the remote, embedding lights or vibrations for easy retrieval, and even attaching it to the wall. + +Marketing and User Interface deliberated on the feasibility of incorporating a screen, borrowing from the sophistication of mobile phones, morphing basic remotes into intuitive, programmable devices that could sync with favorite channels or control various home appliances. While the idea of a screen on the remote hinted at elegance, the consensus considered using the television screen as a more economical alternative. + +The debate raged on about the ideal size for the remote, with suggestions ranging from being hand-sized for comfort to including substantial heft to prevent it from vanishing in sofa crevices. Water resistance, a pleasant tactile sensation to avoid sweaty palms, and practical elements like a clipping mechanism also emerged as crucial design factors. + +As the meeting reached its conclusion, with just minutes on the clock, the underlying themes of the discussion pointed towards a remote control that should be intuitive, convenient, straightforward, and reflective of current technological trends—all within the constraints of predefined cost limitations. + +Filled with concepts spanning from the simplistic to the fantastical, the team agreed to flesh out these ideas further and reconvene in thirty minutes, demonstrating urgency and commitment to innovation. The Project Manager, along with her interdisciplinary team comprising Marketing, Industrial Design, and User Interface Design, had set the stage for a product development journey aimed at revolutionizing the humble television remote control. The meeting ended with a note of inspiration, with each member tasked with synthesizing the chaos of creativity into actionable plans that would breathe life into this ambitious project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Alright . +Grad C: So are you {disfmarker} +Professor E: So . +Grad C: Are we going ? +Professor E: It is uh , must be February fifteenth . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yu I think the date 's written in there , yep . And actually if everyone could cross out the R - nine next to "" Session "" , and write MR eleven . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . We didn't have a front - end meeting today . +Grad C: And let 's remember also to make sure that one 's {comment} gets marked as unread , unused . +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: MR eleven . +Grad C: MR eleven . +Postdoc F: That sounds like a spy code . +Professor E: Mmm . OK . So . +Grad C: There 's lots of clicking I 'm sure as I 'm trying to get this to work {pause} correctly . +Professor E: Agenda . Any agenda items today ? +Grad C: I wanna talk a little bit about getting {disfmarker} how we 're gonna to get people to edit bleeps , parts of the meeting that they don't want to include . What I 've done so far , and I wanna get some opinions on , how to {disfmarker} how to finish it up . +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: I wanna ask about um , some aud audio monitoring on some of the {pause} um {pause} well some of the equipment . In particular , the {disfmarker} well uh , that 's just what I wanna ask . +Professor E: OK audio monitoring , Jane . +Postdoc F: Ba - based on some of the tran uh {disfmarker} i In listening to {pause} some of these meetings that have already been recorded there are sometimes big spikes on particular things , and in pact {disfmarker} in fact this one I 'm talking on is one of {disfmarker} of the ones that showed up in one of the meetings , +Grad C: Oh really . +Postdoc F: so I {disfmarker} +PhD B: "" Spikes "" , you mean like uh , instantaneous click type spikes , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Spikes ? +Grad C: Clicks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD B: Huh . +Postdoc F: And I don't know what the e electronics is but . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , I think it 's +PhD A: Touching . +Grad C: uh , it {disfmarker} it could be a number of things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: It could be touching and fiddling , and the other thing is that it could {disfmarker} the fact that it 's on a wired mike is suspicious . It might be a connector . +Postdoc F: Oh , OK . Well maybe {disfmarker} Then we don't really have to talk about that as an {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could try an experiment and say "" OK , I 'm about to test for spikes "" , +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I take that off the agenda . +PhD B: and then wiggle the thing there , and then go and when they go to transcribe it , it could , ask them to come and get you . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: "" Come get me when you transcribe this and see if there 's spikes . "" +Postdoc F: Oh that {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um . +Postdoc F: Well , OK . +PhD B: No I 'm just {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , were this a professional audio recording , {vocalsound} what we would do {disfmarker} {comment} what you would do is {disfmarker} in testing it is , you would actually do all this wiggling and make sure that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that things are not giving that kind of performance . And if they are , then they can't be used . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So . Um . Let 's see . I guess {pause} I would like to have a discussion about you know where we are on uh , recording , transcription you know , basically you know where we are on the corpus . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: And then um , the other thing which I would like to talk about which is a real meta - quest , I think , deal is , uh , agendas . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start with that actually . Uh , um . {vocalsound} Andreas brought up the fact that he would kinda like to know , if possible , what we were gonna be talking about because he 's sort of peripherally involved to this point , and if there 's gonna be a topic about {disfmarker} discussion about something that he uh strongly cares about then he would come and {disfmarker} And I think part of {disfmarker} part of his motivation with this is that he 's trying to help us out , in the {disfmarker} because of uh the fact that the meetings are {disfmarker} are tending to become reasonably large now on days when everybody shows up and so , he figures he could help that out by not showing {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and I 'm sure help out his own time . by not showing up if it 's a meeting that he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} So , uh in order {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think that this is a wish on his part . Uh . It 's actually gonna be hard because it seems like a lot of times uh things come up that are unanticipated and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: But um , we could try anyway , uh , do another try at coming up with the agenda uh , at some point before the meeting , uh , say the day before . +Grad C: Well maybe it would be a good idea for one of us to {pause} like on Wednesday , or Tuesday send out a reminder for people to send in agenda items . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . You {disfmarker} you wanna volunteer to do that ? +Grad C: Sure . +Professor E: OK . Alright so we 'll send out agenda request . +Grad C: Let me +Professor E: Uh . +PhD B: That 'll be {disfmarker} I think that 'll help {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'll put that on my spare brain or it will not {pause} get done . +PhD B: That 'll help a lot , actually . +Professor E: Yeah , I have to tell you for the uh {disfmarker} for the admin meeting that we have , Lila does that um every time before an admin meeting . And uh , she ends up getting the agenda requests uh , uh ten minutes before the meeting . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {comment} But . Uh . {comment} But we can try . Maybe it 'll work . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe . Weirder things have happened . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I 'm wondering if he were to just , uh , specify particular topics , I mean . Maybe we 'd be able to meet that request of his a little more . +PhD B: I would {disfmarker} I would also guess that as we get more into processing the data and things like that there 'll be more things of interest to him . +Grad C: Well then {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Actually it {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this maybe brings up another topic which is um {disfmarker} So we 're done with that topic . The other topic I was thinking of was the sta status on microphones and channels , and all that . +Grad C: Yeah , actually I {disfmarker} I was going to say we need to {pause} talk about that too . +Professor E: Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why don't we do that . +Grad C: OK . Um , the new microphones , the two new ones are in . Um . {pause} And they are being assembled as we speak , I hope . And I didn't bring my car today so I 'm gonna pick them up tomorrow . Um , and then the other question I was thinking about is {disfmarker} well , a couple things . First of all , if the other headsets are a lot more comfortable , we should probably just go ahead and get them . So we 'll have to evaluate that when they come in , +PhD A: +Grad C: and get people 's opinions on {disfmarker} on what they think of them . Um , then the other question I had is maybe we should get another wireless . Another wireless setup . I mean it 's expensive , but it does seem to be {pause} better than the wired . +Professor E: So how many channels do you get to have in a wireless setup ? +Grad C: Um , well , I 'm pretty sure that you can daisy - chain them together so what we would do is replace the wired mikes with wireless . So we currently have one base station with six wireless mike , possibility of six wireless receivers , and apparently you can chain those together . And so we could replace our wired mikes with wireless if we bought another base station and more wireless mikes . +Professor E: So , um . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} So , you know it 's still , it 's fifteen minus six . +Professor E: So let 's see we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? So we could have up to nine . +Professor E: And right now we can have up to six . +Grad C: Right . And we have five , we 're getting one more . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And it 's um , about nine hundred dollars for the base station , and then eight hundred per channel . +Professor E: Oh . So yeah so the only {disfmarker} Beyond the mike {disfmarker} the cost of the mikes the only thing is the base station that 's nine hundred dollars . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh , we should do it . +Grad C: OK . OK , so I 'll look into how you daisy - chain them and {disfmarker} and then just go ahead and order them . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: I don't quite understand how that {disfmarker} how that works , . If {disfmarker} So we 're not increasing the number of channels . OK . +Grad C: No , we 're just replacing the wired {disfmarker} the two wired that are still working , +PhD B: OK . I see . +Grad C: along with a couple of the wired that aren't working , one of the wired that 's not working , with a wireless . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Three wireds work , +Professor E: Basically we found {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I guess three wireds work , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . But we 've had more problems with that . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: And that sort of bypasses the whole {disfmarker} the whole Jimbox thing and all that . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: And so um , we {disfmarker} we seem to have uh , a reliable way of getting the data in , which is through the ra Sony radio mikes , as long as we 're conscious about the batteries . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That seems to be the key issue . +Grad C: Everyone 's battery OK ? +PhD B: I checked them this morning , they should be . +Grad C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} That 's the only thing with them . But the quality seems really good and {disfmarker} Um I heard from UW that they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh very close to getting their , uh setup purchased . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're buying something that you can just sort of buy off the shelf . +Grad C: Well we should talk to them about it because I know that SRI is also in the process of looking at stuff , and so , you know , what we should try to keep everyone {disfmarker} on the same page with that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: SRI , really ? +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Grad C: They got sa apparent Well , Maybe {pause} this needs to be bleeped out ? I have no clue . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know how much of it 's public . +Professor E: Probably we shouldn't {disfmarker} probably we shouldn't talk about funding stuff . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . But anyway there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh , uh other activities that are going on there and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and NIST and UW . So . Um . But {disfmarker} but yeah I thin I think that at least the message we can tell other people is that our experience is {disfmarker} is quite positive with the Sony , +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: uh , radio - mikes . Now the one thing that you have said that actually concerns me a little is you 're talking about changing the headsets meaning changing the connector , which means some hand - soldering or something , right ? +Grad C: Uh , no , we 're having the {disfmarker} them do it . +Professor E: No ? +Grad C: So it 's so hand - soldering it , but I 'm not doing it . +Professor E: Oh . +Grad C: So , they {disfmarker} they charge +Professor E: OK . Nothing against you and your hand - soldering +Grad C: right . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 've never seen my hand - soldering . But uh , a as I said they 're coming in . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so that 's being done professionally and {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: As professionally as I guess you can get it done . +Professor E: Well , it could {disfmarker} if they do a lot of it , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean i it 's just their repair shop . Right ? Their maintenance people . +Professor E: Well , we 'll see what it {disfmarker} it 's like . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} tha that can be quite good . Th - this {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . Good . Yeah . So let 's go with that . +Grad C: And , I mean we 'll see , tomorrow , you know , what it looks like . +Professor E: Uh , Yeah . So , um , uh , Dave isn't here but he was going to start working on some things with the digits . Uh , so he 'll be interested in what 's going on with that . I guess {disfmarker} Was {disfmarker} the decision last time was that the {disfmarker} the uh transcribers were going to be doing stuff with the digits as well ? Has that started , or is that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Uh , it would be to use his interface and I was going to meet with him today about that . +Grad C: Right , so , the decision was that Jane did not want the transcribers to be doing any of the paperwork . So I did the {disfmarker} all that last week . So all the {disfmarker} all the forms are now {pause} on the computer . And uh , then I have a bunch of scripts that we 'll read those and let the uh {pause} transcribers use different tools . And I just want to talk to Jane about how we transition to using those . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . So he has a nice set up that they {disfmarker} it w it will be efficient for them to do that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll take too long . +Professor E: So anyway {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , you know , just uh , a matter of a few days I suspect . +Professor E: So anyway I think we {disfmarker} we have at least one uh , user for the digits once they get done , which will be Dave . +Grad C: Right . I 've already done five or six {pause} sets . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: So if he wanted to , you know , just have a few to start with , he could . You know , and I also have a bunch of scripts that will , like , generate P - files and run recognition on them also . +Professor E: Yeah , he might {disfmarker} he might be asking {disfmarker} Right . OK . Uh , is Dave {disfmarker} I don't know if Dave is on the list , if he 's invited to these meetings , uh if he knows . +Postdoc F: I don't tend to get an invitation myself for them even . +PhD A: No , no . +Grad C: Uh , we don't have a active one but I 'll make sure he 's on the list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Should we call him ? I mean is he {disfmarker} d is he definitely not available today ? +Professor E: I don't know . +Postdoc F: Should I call his office and see ? +PhD A: He was in . +Grad C: I mean , he 's still taking classes , so uh , he may well have conflicts . +Professor E: Uh , well i it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , he was in {pause} s +Postdoc F: He wasn't there at cof +Professor E: Yeah , so this might be a conflict for him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . Uh , so . +Grad C: Yeah didn't he say his signal - processing class was like {pause} Tuesdays and Thursdays ? +PhD A: I think he has a class . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . He might have . +Grad C: Oh well , whatever . +Grad D: You talking about David Gelbart ? +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . +Grad D: Yeah , I think he 's taking two twenty - five A which is now . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad D: So . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . So , that 's why we 're not seeing him . OK . Uh , transcriptions , uh , beyond the digits , where we are , and so on . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: And the {disfmarker} and the recordings also , +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor E: just where we are . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , so um , should we {disfmarker} we don't wan wanna do the recording status first , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Well , we have about thirty - two hours uh as of , I guess a week and a half ago , so we probably now have about thirty - five hours . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} How much of that is digits ? It 's uh {disfmarker} that 's including digits , +Grad C: That 's including digits . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: I haven't separated it out so I have no clue how much of that is digits . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So anyway there 's at least probably thirty hours , or something of {disfmarker} There 's got to be more than thirty hour {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: Of {disfmarker} of non - digits ? +Professor E: i it couldn't {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Of non - digits . +Grad C: Yeah , absolutely . I mean , the digits don't take up that much time . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Postdoc F: OK , and the transcribers h I , uh , don't have the exact numbers , but I {pause} think it would come to about eleven hours that are finished uh , transcribing from them right now . The next step is to {disfmarker} that I 'm working on is to insure that the data are clean first , and then channelized . What I mean by clean is that they 're spell - checked , that the mark - up is consistent all the way throughout , and also that we now incorporate these additional conventions that uh , Liz requested in terms of um , um {pause} in terms of having a s a systematic handling of numbers , and acronyms which I hadn't been specific about . Um , for example , i they 'll say uh "" ninety - two "" . And you know , so how {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Nine two , +Postdoc F: e Exactly . +Grad C: right . +Postdoc F: So if you just say "" nine two "" , the {disfmarker} there are many s ways that could have been expressed . An - and I just had them {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , a certain number of them did put the words down , but now we have a convention which also involves having it followed by , um , a gloss th and things . +PhD B: You know , Jane ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , one suggestion and you may already be doing this , but I 've noticed in the past that when I 've gone through transcriptions and you know in {disfmarker} in order to build lexicons and things , if you um , just take all the transcriptions and separate them into words and then alphabetize them , {comment} a lot of times just scanning down that list you 'll find a lot of {pause} inconsistencies and mis +Grad C: Misspelled . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You 're talking about the type token frequency listings , and I use those too . Y you mean just uh {pause} on each {disfmarker} on each line there 's a one word right ? It 's one token from the {disfmarker} from the corpus . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , those are e extremely efficient and I and I {disfmarker} I agree that 's a very good use of it . +PhD B: Oh so you already have that , OK . +Postdoc F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a way {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} You know , the spell - check basically does that but {disfmarker} but in addition {disfmarker} yes , that 's {disfmarker} that 's exactly the strategy I wanna do in terms of locating these things which are you know colloquial spoken forms which aren't in the lexicon . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Cuz a lot of times they 'll appear next to each other , and uh , +Postdoc F: Exactly . And then you ca then you can do a s +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: i in alphabetized lists , they 'll appear next to each other and {disfmarker} and so it makes it easier . +Postdoc F: Absolutely . I agree . That 's a very good {disfmarker} that 's a very good uh , suggestion . And that was {disfmarker} that 's my strategy for handling a lot of these things , in terms of things that need to be glossed . I didn't get to that point but {disfmarker} So there are numbers , then there are acronyms , and then um , there 's a {disfmarker} he she wants the uh , actually a {disfmarker} an explicit marker of what type of comment this is , so i curly b inside the curly brackets I 'm gonna put either "" VOC "" for vocalized , like cough or like laugh or whatever , "" NONVOC "" for door - slam , and "" GLOSS "" for things that have to do with {disfmarker} if they said a s a spoken form with this {disfmarker} m this pronunciation error . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I already had that convention +PhD B: Oh that 's great . +Postdoc F: but I {disfmarker} I haven't been asking these people to do it systematically cuz I think it most {disfmarker} ha most efficiently handled by uh {disfmarker} by a {disfmarker} a filter . That was what I was always planing on . So that , you know you get a whole long list {disfmarker} exactly what you 're saying , you get a whole list of things that say "" curly bracket laugh curly bracket "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: then y you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you risk less error if you handle it by a filter , than if you have this transcriber ch laboriously typing in sort of a VOC space , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: so man So many ways that error prone . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Postdoc F: So , um , {vocalsound} um I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going to convert that via a filter , into these tagged uh , subcategorized comments , and same thing with you know , we see you get a subset when you do what you 're saying , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: you end up with a s with uh , you 're collapsing across a frequency you just have the tokens +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and you can um , have a filter which more efficiently makes those changes . But the numbers and acronyms have to be handled by hand , because , you know I mean , jus +Grad C: You don't know what they could be . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah now TIMIT 's clear um {pause} and PLP is clear but uh there are things that are not so well known , in {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or have variant {disfmarker} u u uses like the numbers you can say "" nine two "" or you can say "" ninety - two "" , +Grad C: So how are you doing the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and uh I 'd handle the numbers individually . +Grad C: How are you doing the uh , acronyms so if I say PZM what would it appear on the transcript ? +Postdoc F: It would be separate {disfmarker} The letters would be separated in space +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc F: and potentially they 'll have a curly bracket thing afterwards e but I 'm not sure if that 's necessary , clarifying what it is , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so gloss of {pause} whatever . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I don't know if that 's really necessary to do that . Maybe it 's a nice thing to do because of it then indicating this is uh , a step away from i indicating that it really is intentional that those spaces are there , and indicating why they 're there to indicate that it 's uh {vocalsound} the you know , {comment} uh enumerated , or i +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: it 's not a good way of saying {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {vocalsound} specific uh way of stating these {disfmarker} these letters . +Grad C: Right . So it sounds good . +Postdoc F: And so anyway , the clean {disfmarker} those are those things and then channelized is to then um , get it into this multichannel format . And at that point then it 's ready for use by Liz and Don . But that 's been my top priority {disfmarker} beyond getting it tanel channelized , the next step is to work on tightening up the boundaries of the time bins . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: And uh , Thilo had a {disfmarker} e e a breakthrough with this {disfmarker} this last week in terms of getting the channel - based um uh s s speech - nonspeech segmentation um , up and running and I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't been able to use that yet cuz I 'm working s re this is my top priority {disfmarker} get the data clean , and channelized . +PhD A: I actually gave +Grad C: Have you also been doing spot checks , Jane ? +Postdoc F: Oh yes . +Grad C: Okay , good . +Postdoc F: Well you see that 's part of the cleaning process . I spent um actually um I have a segment of ten minutes that was transcribed by two of our transcribers , +Grad C: Oh good . Good . +Postdoc F: and I went through it last night , it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost spooky how similar these are , word for word . And there are some differences in commas cuz commas I {disfmarker} I left them discretion at commas . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: Uh {disfmarker} and so because it 's not part of our st of our ne needed conventions . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And um , and {disfmarker} so they 'll be a difference in commas , but it 's word - by - word the same , in {disfmarker} in huge patches of the data . And I have t ten minute stretch where I can {disfmarker} where I can show that . And {disfmarker} and sometimes it turns out that one of these transcribers has a better ear for technical jargon , and the other one has a better ear for colloquial speech . So um , the one i i the colloquial speech person picked up "" gobbledy - gook "" . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And the other one didn't . And on this side , this one 's picking up things like "" neural nets "" and the one that 's good on the sp o on th the vocabulary on the uh colloquial didn't . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: When {disfmarker} for the person who missed "" gobbledy - gook "" what did they put ? +Postdoc F: It was an interesting approximation , put in parentheses , cuz I have this convention that , i if they 're not sure what it was , they put it in parentheses . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc F: So they tried to approximate it , but it was {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh good . +Postdoc F: it was spelled GABBL {disfmarker} +PhD B: Sort of how it sounds . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . More of an attempt to {disfmarker} I mean apparently it was very clear to her that these {disfmarker} the a this {disfmarker} this was a sound {disfmarker} these are the sounds , +Grad C: It was a technical term that she didn't recognize , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Yeah . But she knew that she didn't know it . Maybe it was a technical ter exactly . But she {disfmarker} even though her technical perception is just really {disfmarker} uh you know I 've {disfmarker} I 'm tempted to ask her if she 's taken any courses in this area or if she 's taken cognitive science courses +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: then cuz "" neural nets "" and {disfmarker} oh she has some things that are {disfmarker} oh "" downsampled "" , she got that right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And some of these are rather {pause} uh unexpected . +Grad C: Obscure , yeah . +Postdoc F: But ch ten solid uh {disfmarker} m ch s chunk of ten solid minutes where they both coded the same data . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and again the main track that you 're working with is elev eleven hours ? +Postdoc F: And um {disfmarker} +Professor E: Is that right ? +Postdoc F: Yes exactly . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . +Postdoc F: And that 's part of this {disfmarker} Eleven hours . +Professor E: Is that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} that including digits ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes it is . +Professor E: So let 's say roughly {pause} ten hours or so of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean it 's probably more than that but {disfmarker} but with {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of non - digits . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 'd be more than that because I {disfmarker} my recollection is the minutes {disfmarker} that da digits don't take more than half a minute . Per person . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: But um {pause} the {disfmarker} the total set that I gave them is twelve hours of tape , +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: But they haven't gotten to the end of that yet . +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: So they 're still working {disfmarker} some of them are {disfmarker} Two of them are still working on completing that . Yeah . +PhD B: Boy , they 're moving right along . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . They are . Mm - hmm . They 're very efficient . There 're some who have more hours that they devote to it than others . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's the deal with {disfmarker} with your {disfmarker} +PhD A: The channel u thing ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , it 's just uh , I ran the recognizer {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} {comment} speech - nonspeech detector on different channels and , it 's just in uh {disfmarker} in this new multi - channel format and output , and I just gave one {disfmarker} one meeting to {disfmarker} to Liz who wanted to {disfmarker} to try it for {disfmarker} for the recognizer +Professor E: Oh , I see . +PhD A: as uh , apparently the recognizer had problems with those long chunks of speech , which took too much memory or whatever , +Professor E: Right . +PhD A: and so {pause} she {disfmarker} she will try that I think +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm working on it . So , I hope {disfmarker} +Grad C: Is this anything different than the HMM system you were using before ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: No . Uh , I {pause} mmm , use some {disfmarker} some different features but not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: The basic thing is this HMM base . +Grad C: So there 's still no {disfmarker} no knowledge using different channels at the same time . +PhD A: There is some , uh as the energy is normalized across channels +Grad C: You know what I mean ? Across all of them . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So . But basically that 's one of the main changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . What are some of the other features ? Besides the energy ? You said you 're trying some different features , or something . +PhD A: Oh I just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mmm , I just use um our loudness - based things now as they {disfmarker} before there were {disfmarker} they were some in {disfmarker} in the log domain and I {disfmarker} I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Cu - Cube root ? +PhD A: Yeah . To {disfmarker} No , I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the loudness thingy with the {disfmarker} with the +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Ah . +PhD A: how do you call it ? I 'm not sure . With the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Fletcher Munson ? No . +PhD A: I 'm not sure about the term . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Uh , I 'll look it up . And say it to you . +Professor E: Yeah , alright . +PhD A: Uh , OK , and {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's basically the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing . Yeah , and I {disfmarker} and I tried t to normalize uh {disfmarker} uh the features , there 's loudness and modified loudness , um , within one channel , +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: because they 're , {vocalsound} yeah to {disfmarker} to be able to distinguish between foreground and background speech . And it works quite well . But , not always . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: Good . +Professor E: Um , let 's see . I think the uh {disfmarker} Were {disfmarker} were you basically done with the transcription part ? So I guess the next thing is this uh {disfmarker} bleep editing . +Grad C: Right . So the {disfmarker} The idea is that we need to have {disfmarker} We need to provide the transcripts to every participant of every meeting to give them an opportunity to bleep out sections they don't want . So I 've written a bunch of tools that will generate web pages , uh with the transcription in it so that they can click on them and piece {disfmarker} pieces and they can scroll through and read them , and then they can check on each one if they want it excluded . And then , it 's a form , HTML form , so they can submit it and it will end up sending me email with the times that they want excluded . And so , uh , some of the questions on this is what do we do about the privacy issue . And so I thought about this a little bit and I think the best way to do it is every participant will have a password , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: a single password . Each person will have a single password , user name and password . And then each meeting , we 'll only allow the participants who were at that meeting to look at it . And that way each person only has to remember one password . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I can't help but wonder if this is maybe a little more elaborate than is needed . I mean if people have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for me I would actually want to have some pieces of paper that had the transcription and I would sort of flip through it . And then {pause} um {pause} if I thought it was OK , I 'd say "" it 's OK "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean it depends how this really ends up working out , but I guess my thought was that the occasion of somebody wondering whether something was OK or not and needing to listen to it was gonna be extremely rare . +Grad C: Right , I mean so th th th the fact that you could listen to it over the web is a minor thing that I had already done for {pause} other reasons . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: And so that {disfmarker} that 's a minor part of it , I just wanted some web interface so that people {disfmarker} you didn't actually have to send everyone the text . So m what my intention to do is that as the transcripts become ready , um {pause} I would take them , and generate the web pages and send email to every participant or contact them using the contact method they wanted , and just uh , tell them , "" here 's the web page "" , um , "" you need a password "" . So th th question number one is how do we distribute the passwords , and question number two is how else do we wanna provide this information if they want it . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} I think what I was sort of saying is that if you just say {vocalsound} "" here is a {disfmarker} here is {disfmarker} "" I mean this maybe it sounds paleolithic but {disfmarker} but I just thought if you handed them some sheets of paper , that said , uh , "" here 's what was said in this transcription is it OK with you ? and if it is , here 's this other sheet of paper that you sign that says that it 's OK "" . +Grad C: I think that um there are a subset of people who will want printouts that we can certainly provide . +Professor E: And then they 'd hand it back to you . +Grad C: But certainly I wouldn't want a printout . These are big , and I would much rather be {pause} ha be able to just sit and leaf through it . +Professor E: You find it easier to go through a large {disfmarker} I mean how do you read books ? +Grad C: Well I certainly read books by hand . But for something like this , I think it 's easier to do it on the web . +Professor E: Really ? I mean , it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz you 're gonna get , you know , if I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in a bunch of meetings and I don't wanna get a stack of these . I wanna just be able to go to {disfmarker} go to the web site {comment} and visit it as I want . +Professor E: Going to a web site is easy , but flipping through a hundred pounds {disfmarker} a hundred pages of stuff is not easy on the web . +Grad C: Well , I don't think it 's that much harder than , paper . So . +Professor E: Really ? +Postdoc F: I have one question . So are you thinking that um the person would have a transcript and go strictly from the transcript ? Because I {disfmarker} I do think that there 's a benefit to being able to hear the tone of voice and the {disfmarker} +Professor E: So here 's the way I was imagining it , and maybe I 'm wrong , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: but the way I imagined it was that um , the largest set of people is gonna go "" oh yeah , I didn't say anything funny in that meeting just go ahead , where 's the {disfmarker} where 's the release ? "" And then there 'll be a subset of people , right ? {disfmarker} OK there 's {disfmarker} I mean think of who it is we 've been recording mostly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK there 'll be a subset of people , who um , will say uh "" well , yeah , I really would like to see that . "" And for them , the easiest way to flip through , if it 's a really large document , I mean unless you 're searching . Searching , of course , should be electronic , but if you 're not {disfmarker} so if you provide some search mechanism you go to every place they said something or something like that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but see then we 're getting more elaborate with this thing . Um if {disfmarker} if uh you don't have search mechanisms you just sort of have this really , really long document , I mean whenever I 've had a really , really long document that it was sitting on the web , I 've always ended up printing it out . I mean , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're not necessarily gonna be sitting at the desk all the time , you wanna figure you have a train ride , and there 's all these situations where {disfmarker} where I {disfmarker} I mean , this is how I was imagining it , anyway . And then I figured , that out of that group , there would be a subset who would go "" hmm you know I 'm really not sure about this section here , "" and then that group would need it {disfmarker} S It seems like i if I 'm right in that , it seems like you 're setting it up for the most infrequent case , rather than for the most frequent case . So that uh , now we have to worry about privacy , +Grad C: Well , no fre for the most {disfmarker} +Professor E: we have to worry about all these passwords , for different people +Grad C: For the most frequent case they just say {pause} "" it 's OK "" and then they 're done . And I think {pause} almost everyone would rather do that by email than any other method . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The other thing too is it seems like {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um , yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc F: Go ahead . +Grad C: I mean , cuz you don't have to visit the web page if you don't want to . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: I guess {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess we don't need their signature . I guess an email OK is alright . +Grad C: Oh that was another thing I {disfmarker} I had assumed that we didn't need their signature , that it {disfmarker} that an email approval was sufficient . But {pause} I don't actually know . +PhD B: Are {disfmarker} are people going to be allowed to bleep out sections of a meeting where they weren't speaking ? +Grad C: Yes . If someone feels strongly enough about it , then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think they should be allowed to do that . +Postdoc F: I also {disfmarker} mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that means other people are editing what you say ? +Professor E: Uh {pause} I don't know about that . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't know if I like that . +Grad C: Well , the only other choice is that the person would say "" no , don't distribute this meeting at all "" , and I would rather they were able to edit out other people then just say "" don't distribute it at all "" . +Professor E: But th what they signed in the consent form , was something that said you can use my voice . +Grad C: Well , but if {disfmarker} if someone is having a conversation , and you only bleep out one side of it , that 's not sufficient . +Professor E: Right ? Yeah . Yeah , but that 's our decision then . Right ? +Grad C: Um , I don't think so . I mean , because if I object to the conversation . +Professor E: I think it is . +Grad C: If I say "" we were having a conversation , and I consider that conversation private , "" and I consider that your side of it is enough for other people to infer , I wanna be able to bleep out your side . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} I agree that the consent forms were {disfmarker} uh , I cons agree with what Adam 's saying , that {vocalsound} um , the consent form did leave open this possibility that they could edit things which they found offensive whe whether they said them or didn't say them . +Professor E: I see . OK , well , if that 's what it said . +Postdoc F: And the other thing is from the standpoint of the l of the l I 'm not a law lawyer , but it strikes me that {vocalsound} uh , we wouldn't want someone to say "" oh yes , I was a little concerned about it but {vocalsound} it was too hard to access "" . So I think it 's kind of nice to have this facility to listen to it . Now {disfmarker} in terms of like editing it by hand , I mean I think it 's {disfmarker} i some people would find that easier to specify the bleep part by having a document they edited . But {disfmarker} but it seems to me that sometimes um , you know i if a person had a bad day , and they had a tone in their voice that they didn't really like , you know it 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be able to listen to it and be sure that that was OK . +Grad C: I mean I can certainly provide a printable version if people want it . Um . +Professor E: Um {pause} I mean it 's also a mixture of people , I mean some people are r do their work primarily by sitting at the computer , flipping around the web , and others do not . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: Others would consider it {disfmarker} this uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of skills that they would have to gain . You know ? +Grad C: Well I think most of the people in the meetings are the former . +Professor E: It depends on what meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +PhD B: So far . +Grad C: So . +Professor E: In the meetings so far , yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: But we 're trying to expand this , right ? +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I actually think that paper is the more universal thing . +Grad C: And that {disfmarker} Well , but if they want to print it out that 's alright . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: I think everyone in the meeting can access the web . +Professor E: No , I think we have to be able to print it out . It 's not just if they want to print it out . I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK , so does that mean that I can't use email ? Or what ? +Postdoc F: Cuz you could send it through email you 're thinking . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I th +Grad C: Well , I don't think I {disfmarker} +Professor E: well {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} there was this {disfmarker} +Grad C: well I don't think we can send the text through email because of the privacy issues . +Professor E: No . +Postdoc F: Good . For security ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK good . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: Um . So giving them , you think a web site to say , "" if you wanna print it out here it is "" , is not sufficient ? +Postdoc F: Good point . +PhD A: Yeah . I +Professor E: Certainly for everybody who 's been in the meetings so far it would be sufficient . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm just thinking for people that that 's not sufficient for , what {disfmarker} the only sufficient thing would be for me to walk up to them and hand it to them . +Professor E: I 'm just wondering about {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: You could mail it to them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Get an a mailing address . +Grad C: Equivalent . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I think it 's easier to drop in the box . +PhD A: Just put the button on {disfmarker} on the web page which say "" please send me the {disfmarker} the scripts "" . +Grad C: That 's right . +Postdoc F: Oh that 's interesting . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: What um {disfmarker} When you display it on the web page , what are {disfmarker} what are you showing them ? Utterances , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so can they bleep within an utterance ? +Grad C: No . Whole utterances only . +PhD B: Whole utterances . +Grad C: And that was just convenience for my sake , that it 's uh , uh it would end up being fairly difficult to edit the transcripts if we would do it at the sub - utterance level . Because this way I can just delete an entire line out of a transcript file rather than have to do it by hand . +Professor E: There 's another aspect to this which maybe {disfmarker} is part of why this is bothering me . Um , I think you 're really trying very hard to make this as convenient as possible for people to do this . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: I mean that 's why I did the web form , because for me that would be my most convenient . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understand . +PhD B: I know where you 're going . +Professor E: I think that 's the bad idea . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor E: See because you 're gon you 're {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Really . You 're gonna end up with all these little patchy things , whereas really what we want to do is have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the bias towards letting it go . Because nob you know it {disfmarker} There was a {disfmarker} one or twi once or twice , in the re in the meetings we 've heard , where somebody said something that they might be embarrassed by , but overall people are talking about technical topics . Nobody 's gonna get hurt . Nobody 's being l libeled . You know , this is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're covering {disfmarker} We 're playing the lawyer 's game , and we 're playing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're looking for the extreme case . If we really orient it towards that extreme case , make it really easy , we 're gonna end up encouraging a headache . That {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} I 'm sort of psyching myself out here , I {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I guess I don't see having a few phrases here and there in a meeting being that mu much of a headache , bleeped out . +Professor E: but I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: So . +PhD B: I think what Morgan 's saying is the easier it is , the more is gonna be bleeped . +Professor E: but i And {disfmarker} and it really depends on what kind of research you 're doing . I think some researchers who are gonna be working with this corpus years from now are really gonna be cursing the fact that there 's a bunch of stuff in there {comment} that 's missing from the dialogue . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know , it depends on the kind of research they 're doing , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but it might be , uh {pause} it might be really a {disfmarker} a pain . And , you know where it 's really gonna hurt somebody , in some way {disfmarker} the one who said it or someone who is being spoken about , {comment} we definitely want to allow the option of it being bleeped out . But I really think we wanna make it the rare incidence . And {disfmarker} and uh , I am just a little worried about making it so easy for people to do , and so much fun ! {vocalsound} that they 're gonna go through and bleep out stuff . +Postdoc F: So much fun . +Professor E: and they can bleep out stuff they don't like too , right from somebody else , as you say , you know , so "" well I didn't like what he said . "" +Grad C: Well I don't see any way of avoiding that . I mean , we have to provi we have promised that we would provide them the transcript and that they can remove parts that they don't like . So that the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . No , no , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} +Grad C: The only question is {disfmarker} +Professor E: You - you 've talked me into that , but I {disfmarker} I just think that we should make it harder to do . +Grad C: The problem is if it 's harder for them it 's also harder for me . Whereas this web interface , I just get email , it 's all formatted , it 's all ready to go and I can just insert it . +Professor E: So maybe you don't give them access to the web interface unless they really need it . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so +Postdoc F: Well I guess {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor E: I 'm sorry {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} So maybe this is a s a way out of it . +Postdoc F: Hmm . +Professor E: You 've provided something that 's useful for you to do {disfmarker} handle , and useful for someone else if they need it . But I think the issue of privacy and ease and so forth should be that uh , they get access to this if they really need it . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you 're saying the {disfmarker} the sequence would be more like first Adam goes to the contact lists , contacts them via whatever their preferred method is , to see if they want to review the meeting . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: And then if they don't , you 're done . If they do , then he provides them access to the {disfmarker} the web site . +Grad C: Well , to some extent I have to do that anyway because as I said we have to distribute passwords . +Professor E: W w +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} a printed - out form . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , +Professor E: y but you don't necessarily have to distribute passwords is what I 'm saying . +Grad C: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Only if they want it . +Grad C: what I 'm saying is that I can't just email them the password because that 's not secure . So they have to call me and ask . +Professor E: No , no , no . But you aren't necessarily giving them {disfmarker} Right . But {disfmarker} we don't even necessarily need to end up distributing passwords at all . +PhD A: +Grad C: Well , we do because of privacy . We can't just make it openly available on the web . +Professor E: No , no . You 're missing the point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: We 're {disfmarker} We 're trying i We 're trying to make it less of an obvious just l l l l uh fall off a log , to do this . +Postdoc F: Not everyone gets a password , unless they ask for it . +Professor E: Right ? So th so what I would see , is that first you contact them and ask them if they would like to review it for to check for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: not just for fun , OK ? but to {disfmarker} to check this for uh things that they 're worried about having said or if they 're willing to just send an approval of it , at {disfmarker} from their memory . Um {disfmarker} and , uh , and we should think carefully actually we should review {disfmarker} go through how that 's worded , OK ? Then , if someone uh {disfmarker} wants to review it , uh , and I know you don't like this , but I 'm offering this as a suggestion , is that {disfmarker} is that we then give them a print out . And then if they say that "" I have a potential problem with these things , "" then , you {disfmarker} you say "" OK well you might wanna hear this in context to s think if you need that , "" you issue them a password , i in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} the problem with what you 're suggesting is it 's not just inconvenient for them , it 's inconvenient for me . Because that means multiple contacts every time {disfmarker} for every single meeting every time anyone wants anything . I would much prefer to have all be automatic , they visit the web site if they want to . Obviously they don't have to . +Professor E: I know you 'd prefer it , but the proble +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: we have {disfmarker} +Grad C: So I think you 're thinking people are going to arbitrarily start bleeping and I just don't think that 's gonna happen . +Professor E: there 's a problem with it . +Postdoc F: I 'm also concerned about the spirit of the {disfmarker} of the informed consent thing . Cuz I think if they feel that uh , it 's {disfmarker} I th I th You know , if it turns out that something gets published in this corpus that someone really should have eliminated and didn't detect , then it could have been because of their own negligence that they didn't pursue that next level and get the password and do that , um , but {disfmarker} but they might be able to argue "" oh well it was cumbersome , and I was busy and it was gonna take me too much time to trace it down "" . So it could that the burden would come back onto us . So I 'm a little bit worried about uh , making it harder for them , from the legal standpoint . +Professor E: Well you can go too far in that direction , and you need to find somewhere between I think , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: It seems to me that sending them email , saying "" if you have an O - OK reply to this email and say OK , +Professor E: because {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Grad C: If you have a problem with it contact me and I 'll give you a password "" , seems like is a perfectly , reasonable compromise . And if they want a printout they can print it out themselves . +Postdoc F: Or we could print it up for them , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I mean we could offer that {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there 's uh , another aspect to that and that is that in the informed consent form , um , my impression is that they {disfmarker} that we offered them at the very least that they definitely would have access to the transcript . And {disfmarker} and I ha +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know that there 's a chance of really skipping that stage . I mean I {disfmarker} I thought that you were {disfmarker} Maybe I misinterpreted what you said but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: Having access to it doesn't necessarily mean , that {disfmarker} having it +Grad C: Having it . +Postdoc F: Giving it to them . +Grad C: Well the in {disfmarker} +Professor E: right ? It just means they have the right to have it . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: the consent form is right in there if anyone wants to look at it , +Postdoc F: Alright . Fine . OK . Fair enough . +Grad C: so . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: D you want me to grab one ? +Postdoc F: Sh - sh well I could {disfmarker} I 'm closer . +Grad C: Yeah , but you 're wired +Postdoc F: I could {disfmarker} +Grad C: aren't you ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That is true . +Professor E: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean I don't wanna fool them , +Postdoc F: I don't know {disfmarker} +Professor E: I just meant that e every {disfmarker} ev any time you say anything to anyone there is in fact a {disfmarker} a bias that is presented , +Postdoc F: Oh yeah yeah {disfmarker} oh I know . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: "" If you agree to participate you 'll have the opportunity to have anything ex anything excised , which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" +Professor E: of {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . Yeah . +Grad C: "" Once a transcript is available we will ask your permission to include the data in the corpus for the r larger research community . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: There again you will be allowed to indicate any sections that you 'd prefer to have excised from the database , and they will m be removed both from the transcript and the recording . "" +Postdoc F: Hmm . Well that 's more open than I realized . +Grad C: Well , I mean it {disfmarker} The one question is definitely clear with anything as opposed to just what you said . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , uh no that {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} tha +Postdoc F: Tha - that 's true . That 's more severe , but the next one says the transcript will be around . +Professor E: that 's right . +Postdoc F: And it doesn't {comment} really say we 'll send it to you , or wi it 'll be available for you on the web , or anything . +PhD B: I think it probably leaves it open how we get it to them . +Professor E: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: At least it more often . Yeah . It means also we don't have to g To give it to them . I mean like {disfmarker} like Morgan was saying they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Grad C: They just have to make sure that it is available to them . +Postdoc F: It 's available to them if they ask for it . +Professor E: Yeah , OK , so . wh um {disfmarker} I think I have an idea that may be sat may satisfy both you and me in this which is , um , it 's a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we just go over carefully how these notes to people are worded . So I {disfmarker} I just want it to be worded in such a way where it gives the strong impre it gives very , I mean nothing hidden , v very strongly the bias that we would really like to use all of these data . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} that we really would rather it wasn't a patchwork of things tossed out , +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: that it would be better for , um , our , uh , field if that is the case . But if you really think something is gonna {disfmarker} And I don't think there 's anything in the legal aspects that {disfmarker} that is hurt by our expressing that bias . +Postdoc F: Great . Great , great . +Professor E: And then {disfmarker} then my concern about {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . I agree . +Professor E: you know you might be right , it may be it was just paranoia on my part , uh but people just {disfmarker} See I 'm @ @ worried about this interface so much fun {vocalsound} that people start bleeping stuff out {comment} {vocalsound} just as {disfmarker} just because they can . +Grad C: It 's just a check box next to the text , it 's not any fun at all . +Professor E: Yeah . Well I don't know . I kind of had fun when you played me something that was bleeped out . You know . +Grad C: Well , but they won't get that feedback . +Professor E: I +Grad C: All {disfmarker} no because it doesn't automatically bleep it at the time . +Professor E: Oh they won't ? +Grad C: It just sends me {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh good . So you haven't made it so much fun . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh good . +Grad C: It just sends me the time intervals . +Professor E: OK , +Grad C: And then at some point I 'll incorporate them all and put bleeps . I mean I don't wanna have t ha do that yet until we actually release the data +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: because um , then we have to have two copies of every meeting and we 're already short on disk space . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So I {disfmarker} I wanna {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just keep the times until we actually wanna release the data and then we bleep it . +Professor E: OK . Alright , so I think {disfmarker} Yeah so if we have if {disfmarker} i Again let 's you know , sort of circulate the {disfmarker} the wording on each of these things and get it right , +Grad C: Well since you seem to feel heart uh , strongest about it , would you like to do the first pass ? +Professor E: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK . Uh , fair enough . Turn about is fair play , +Postdoc F: Al - Also it ther there is this other question , the legal question that {disfmarker} that Adam 's raised , uh about whether we need a concrete signature , or email c i suffices or whatever +Professor E: Sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and I don't know how that works . i There 's something down there about "" if you agree to {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about it with one of my background processes +Grad C: I don't think so . +Professor E: and I {disfmarker} uh it 's {disfmarker} uh it 's uh , it 's fine to do the email . +Postdoc F: Ah . Fine . +Grad C: Yeah because thi th they 're signing here that they 're agreeing to the paragraph which says "" you 'll be given an opportunity . "" +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: Good . OK . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And so I don't think they need another signature . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} Well and furthermore I {disfmarker} it 's now fairly routine in a lot of arrangements that I do with people on contracts and so forth that {disfmarker} that uh if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's that sort of thing where you 're you 're saying uh "" OK I agree , we want eighty hours of this person at such - and - such amount , and I agree that 's OK , "" uh if it 's a follow up to some other agreement where there was a signature it 's often done in email now +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . +Postdoc F: Great . +Professor E: Um . +Grad C: So I guess I probably should at the minimum , think about how to present it in a printed form . I 'm not really sure what 's best with that . The problem is a lot of them are really short , +Postdoc F: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: and so I don't necessarily wanna do one per line . But I don't know how else to do it . +Postdoc F: Well I s I also have this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice you have it uh , viewab her {comment} hearable on the {disfmarker} on the web for those who might wonder about um , the non nonverbal side , I mean I {disfmarker} I agree that our bias should be as {disfmarker} as expressed here , and {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice that a person could check . Cuz sometimes you know you {disfmarker} the words on a {disfmarker} on the page , come out soun sounding different in terms of the {pause} social dynamics if they hear it . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I realize we shouldn't emphasize that people {comment} you know , shouldn't borrow trouble . What it comes down to but {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah I think actually {disfmarker} my opinion probably is that the only time someone will need to listen to it is if the transcript is uh not good . You know , if {disfmarker} if there are lots of mumbles and parentheses and things like that . +Postdoc F: Oh , you know , or what if there was an error in the transcript that didn't get detected and there was a whole uh {disfmarker} i segment a against some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personal {vocalsound} i th +Grad C: Right . That was all mumbled ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: I think Microsoft is +Postdoc F: Yeah exactly +PhD A: Oh , +Grad C: Sorry transcribers . +Postdoc F: Or {disfmarker} or even {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or even {comment} there was a {disfmarker} a line you know about how "" hmm - mmm - mmm {comment} Bill Gates duh - duh - duh - duh . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} but it was all {disfmarker} the words were all visible , but they didn't end up i some there was a slip in the transcript . +PhD A: Oh , God . +Grad C: They 're gonna hate this meeting . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . +Grad C: Actually Liz will like it . You know , but . +Professor E: Liz will like it . We had a pretty strong disagreement going there . +Grad C: Yep , yep , that 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . So I don't know . I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess we 're assuming that the transcript is a close enough approximation and that {disfmarker} that my double checking will be {pause} so close to absolutely perfect that it {disfmarker} that nothing will slip by . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} some something might sometime , and they {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that they said , they might {disfmarker} i i I mean , you might be very accurate in putting down what they actually said , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but , when they hear it , themselves , they may hear something different because they know what they meant . +Postdoc F: I don't know how to notate that . +PhD B: Sarcasm , +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD B: how do you {disfmarker} how do you indicate sarcasm ? +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's right . +Professor E: No , I 'm serious . So {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} so we might {disfmarker} we might get some feedback from people that such - and - such was , you know , not {disfmarker} not really what I said . +Grad C: Yeah . Well that would be good to get , definitely . +Professor E: Yeah , but , Yeah , sure . +Grad C: Just for corrections . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So um , in terms of password distribution , I think phone is really the only way to do it , phone and in person . Or mail , physical mail . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Or if for leave it on their voice mail . +PhD B: Any sub - word level thing . +Grad C: Any sub - wor Yeah , OK . I mean you could do it with PGP or things like that but it 's too complex . +Postdoc F: You know I just realized something , which is of {disfmarker} e th this question about the {disfmarker} uh the possible mismatch of {disfmarker} I mean i well , and actually also the lawyer saying that um , we shouldn't really have them {disfmarker} have the people believing that they will be cleared by our checks . You know ? +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean . So it 's like i in a way it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the responsibility still on them to listen to the tape and {disfmarker} and hear the transcript , to have that be the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well yeah , but you can't dep I mean , most people will not wanna take the time to do that , though . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK , fair enough . And they 're s they 're absorbing the responsibility themselves . +Professor E: And they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not um {disfmarker} Yeah , good . +Professor E: But I mean if you were at a meeting , and {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} you don't think , at least , that you said anything funny and the meeting was about , you know , some {disfmarker} some funny thing about semantics or something , or uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: You probably won't listen to it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It is true that tec that the content is technical , I {disfmarker} and so i and we 're not having these discussions which {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I mean , when I listen to these things , I don't find things that are questionable , in other people 's speech or in my own . +Professor E: Yeah . You would think it would be rare , +Postdoc F: Just {disfmarker} It should be very rare . +Professor E: I mean we 're not talking about the energy crisis or something , people have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad C: How about them energy crises . +Professor E: Yeah . I think we 're uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Done ? +Professor E: Kind of done . Actually , I was gonna {disfmarker} Di - Did you have anything n that 's going on , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Not really . No . Um , {vocalsound} my project is going along but um , I 'm really just here to um fill the project uh {disfmarker} the overall progress . I don't really have anything specific to {disfmarker} to talk about . +Professor E: Yeah . That 's fine . I just didn't wanna go by you , if you had something . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor E: You don't have anything to say . +PhD B: No . +Professor E: Nah . +Grad C: +Professor E: Transcribers , he was rattling the b marbles in his brain back and forth just then this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad C: Shall we do digits ? +Professor E: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Um , oh by the way I did find a bunch {disfmarker} +Grad D: It um +Grad C: Uh , we should count out how many more digits to forms do we have back there ? +PhD B: There were quite a few . Uh . +Grad C: That 's what I thought . I f I was going through them all and I found actually a lot filed in with them , that were blanks , that no one had actually read . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: And so we still have more than I thought we did . +PhD B: Oh good . +Grad C: So , we have a few more digits before we 're done . +PhD B: You know having this headset reminds me of like working at Burger King or something . +Grad C: Oops . +Postdoc F: Oh , did you do that ? +PhD A: Burger King +Grad C: I 'd like a burger with that , +PhD B: No I never did . +Grad C: do you want fries with that ? +Professor E: Wow . +PhD B: But I feel like I could now . +Grad C: And {pause} +","In a collaborative academic setting, a spirited discussion unfolds regarding the review and potential editing of recorded session transcripts involving various members of a research team. Professor E, Grad C, PhD A, PhD B, Postdoc F, and Grad D are amongst the participants navigating technical, logistical, and ethical issues surrounding their project. + +Grad C initiates the conversation, addressing the need to find an efficient method for team members to edit out any part of the meeting transcripts they wish to exclude, perhaps sensitive or undesired content. Professor E recognizes the necessity and expresses agreement, while Postdoc F raises concerns about audio monitoring issues with certain equipment. + +The dialogue evolves into a debate on the process and system that will allow participants to review and selectively excise sections from the recordings. Grad C proposes the development of a web interface through which individuals can access transcripts, listen to corresponding sections, and mark parts they want removed. There's mention of creating a password-protected system to safeguard privacy, complicating the initial simplicity of the plan. + +Professor E argues for a more traditional approach, suggesting the distribution of paper transcripts over the digital interface, fearing that the convenience of the latter might result in unnecessary and excessive editing. In Professor E's view, the ease of web editing poses a risk to the integrity and completeness of the corpus for future research. Grad C, however, counters that a web interface is not only convenient for participants but also simplifies the administration of the review process. Postdoc F expresses concern from a legal perspective about making the review process too onerous. + +As the conversation proceeds, PhD A and PhD B participate sporadically, touching upon specific technical aspects like audio spikes and speech-nonspeech segmentation while Grad C takes the discussion towards practical considerations of the project's current status, mentioning also an effort to enhance audio equipment for future recordings. + +A notable tension underlies the meeting as both Professor E and Grad C offer strong but differing viewpoints on the procedure for participant review of transcripts, reflecting broader concerns about maintaining the original integrity and usefulness of the data for the research community. + +Professor E suggests a compromise to address these concerns—handling communication with participants cautiously to emphasize the desire to utilize as much of the original content as possible, while still honoring their right to request removal of certain sections. This approach is rooted in both respect for participants’ privacy and a commitment to academic integrity. The group examines the informed consent documentation to ensure their plans align with what participants initially agreed upon. + +The team also contemplates the implications of their decisions for contacts outside their immediate research circle, noting that they are amassing considerable hours of data that already need meticulous transcription and review. As the team contemplates the future of their work, it's evident that precision and foresight are critical. + +Grad D, a quieter presence, listens and evaluates, expressing contentment with the overall progress of his project without expanding on specifics. The discussion concludes with a quick reference to additional tasks regarding digit transcription forms, adding a light-hearted turn to the otherwise rigorous debate as they compare the headsets they're using to those in fast-food service. + +Through this dynamic and somewhat circular discourse, concerns around confidentiality, practicality of transcription review methods, and research quality are entwined. It’s clear that the team is dedicated to advancing their project in a manner that is both respectful to those involved and valuable to the wider research community they serve. +" +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Here we go . Welcome everybody . Um , I'm Abigail Claflin . You can call me Abbie . 'S see . PowerPoint , that's not it . There we go . So this is our kick off meeting . Um and I guess we should all get acquainted {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Let's {disfmarker} shall we all introduce ourselves ? +Marketing: Hi I'm Chiara , I'm the um Marketing Expert . Um , would you like me to talk about my aims at the moment , or would you like me to just say my name and then we can talk about business later ? +Project Manager: I think we'll get around to that , yeah . So this is just introductions yeah . +Marketing: We'll get round to that later . My name is Chiara and I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay . I forgot to s say I'm the Project Manager but I figured you all knew that already , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Stephanie and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Krista and I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so f here's our agenda for today . Um we're gonna do some tool training , project plan and discuss then close . {vocalsound} Um so . So our aim is to produce a remote control that is original , trendy and user friendly . And to do this , we have to {disfmarker} um there's certain things we have to consider about functional aspects and conceptual design of the thing . So . We'll get to that . Oh there it is . Right . Functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . So throughout our next couple of meetings we'll we'll be covering these things . Um {vocalsound} so we're gonna try out our white board . If we'll all draw our favourite animal , to sum up the characteristics of that animal . Okay . +User Interface: So you want us to draw it and then talk about it ? Or just draw it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think both . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Both . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Why don't we do both . Right . +Marketing: Who starts ? We ought to decide who starts and {vocalsound} all that . No ? +Project Manager: Any volunteers ? +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Does anyone know what they wanna draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I gotta think about it for a second like . Uh {disfmarker} Does it have to be {vocalsound} functional , trendy and user friendly ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . Okay , I'll draw . I'll draw one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Make sure {gap} my things here . Uh-oh . Right . Okay , my favourite animal is {disfmarker} see . {vocalsound} Oops . +Project Manager: A dolphin . +User Interface: Yeah , it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S like playing Pictionary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I guess it has a fin on top too , yeah . {vocalsound} It's my dolphin . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what characteristics do you like about your animal ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like its tail . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , no , I think dolphins are really uh {disfmarker} I dunno , they're smart and they they're cute and they like swimming and that's cool , like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're graceful . +User Interface: they're graceful yeah , and they're so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sleek {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah they're sleek +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they look intelligent and I don't know , they're {disfmarker} I guess it's the whole like binocular vision thing . +Project Manager: I don't know how intelligent that one looks {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah he he doesn't look that smart {vocalsound} . He's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I dunno um they're {disfmarker} I think it's cool the the um {vocalsound} the interaction that or the th things that {disfmarker} the reasons people seem to like you know {disfmarker} you get ex you know people are sitting on the beach and p they're like oh look there's dolphins and it's kinda like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} but they're you know they jump around in the water and they're happy and they're mammals , but they swim . {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Does anybody else wanna draw their animal ? +Industrial Designer: Suppose I can draw an animal , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh there goes the ten . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . They sleep all day , {vocalsound} they're easy to draw {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wanna {gap} anything ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno if the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the pen is running out of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I had the cat as well , but uh I've got a spare one . +Project Manager: ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll use the spare one . Um but it's harder to draw {gap} um . +User Interface: And the pen's dying {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: A horse . +User Interface: Horse . +Marketing: Uh . Um I don't {vocalsound} really know how the legs go , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but anyway I will do that . Um , and the main reason is they're pretty . I think they're very pretty and they go well with the environment , and I like the way they run and I used to do horse riding and they're just very sort of sturdy and nice animals . And I like the way um they feel , sort of under under the hand , I think that's pretty much it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . This cord's {disfmarker} {gap} Uh . Right . Actually I haven't thought of anything yet {vocalsound} . Uh {disfmarker} It's a pig . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm thinking we should design a remote control that's water resistant , strong and furry . What do you think , yeah ? This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: And furry . +Project Manager: yeah , well like a cat , you know , soft yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Textile {disfmarker} tactile , {vocalsound} tactile remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Although {disfmarker} uh I'll just put there . Right . +User Interface: You're dragging a {disfmarker} you have a tail {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Oh my gosh , this is disastrous . Sorry about that . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So moving on . Our selling price goal is twenty five Euro and profit aim is fifty million Euro . So I'm guessing that we're not actually in Scotland , we're in some European country {vocalsound} . Um , and we will hope to sell this internationally . +User Interface: Sorry can you just say that {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what are our price goals again ? +Project Manager: Um selling price is twenty five Euro . Profit aim fifty million Euro . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: How many should we sell then ? {vocalsound} Um , a lot , +Project Manager: Anyone a mathematician ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: two two two million , {gap} two mi no , more f four million . +Industrial Designer: Two million . +Marketing: Four million . And it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well it's the profit so if a profit for each is twelve fifty , that'll do four million . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is a lot . Uh . +Project Manager: So f that's a fifty percent um uh . Um , I don't know what these mean because I didn't actually make the slide-show . Experience with remote control . So I guess we have to reflect on our experiences with remote controls to decide what um we would like to see in a convenient , practical , nice remote control . Um so do we have any initial ideas for uh how this remote control should be designed or formatted or the the buttons it should have . +Marketing: Um , I think one thing is that it should be easy to find +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking that too . +Marketing: bec yeah {vocalsound} bec +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we should design something that has like a {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} like somehow like you {disfmarker} I mean you always know where your T_V_ is , so just have a call button , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've always wanted that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so like {vocalsound} you can push a button on your T_V_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I mean you have it for the portable phone , so why not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah , so you should have a call button on your television to be able to find your remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . And even I think a little light . Um or even a {disfmarker} maybe a vib a vibrating thing . I dunno but someth because it's usually under the sofa . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: In which case you're going to be l but if it has a sort of signal which isn't any sound {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know if it's expensive maybe to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} yeah I mean it {disfmarker} but like I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe call is enough . But yeah . +User Interface: just I mean like your phone even just has so {disfmarker} like it can vibrate , it can light up and make noise and I dunno {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: What if it had something like um just like a magnet on the back of it and you could {disfmarker} I mean j just to have some place to put it besides like a base . You know like a portable phone has a base , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , or if it had a {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: like just to have a home for it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause people just stick it on top of their T_V_ , but the point of having a remote is not to have to walk over to the T_V_ , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's why it's always in the couch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , in in the couch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I dunno , it seems like though that that would be hard , 'cause you not you're not gonna be lazy anyway and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we should design couches that have the remote control in the side arm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah so we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the project is now couches and remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But even just a thing to attach it to the w you know if you had a thing , a pretty object attached to the wall . But that would really make it more expensive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's only a plastic thing , r really , the thing on the wall . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Do you think it needs to be bigger to not lose , or does that not factor in ? +Marketing: And the other thing is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bigger . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} well it needs to be sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like Hand hand held size , yeah . +User Interface: Hand-sized . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think you need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not not huge , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But definitely not {disfmarker} well I don't know . +User Interface: It can't be that hard to put some kind of a noise on it . +Marketing: No , it can't be , uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: No it really wouldn't be . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Or like or like a light thing . You know . I dunno {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like spaceship . +User Interface: . Yeah {vocalsound} . Or make it mobile so it runs around and comes come find you yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That would be really {disfmarker} I'm sure we could do that for twenty five Euros a pop . +Project Manager: Little homing device . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So what do we think this remote control should {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Marketing: Oh dear . +Project Manager: Till the meeting {disfmarker} oh right . This is what we have left . Um , oh we just {gap} +User Interface: I also think though that it shouldn't have too many buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: 'cause I hate that when they have too many buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} B_ button and the F_ button , they don't do anything . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: I mean I know it has to have enough functions but like , I don't know you , just have like eight thousand buttons and you're like , no , you never use half of them . So . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} what if um may be a little fancy but what if it had like a little screen , so it has less buttons but it still has all the functions . Like the way a mobile phone does . +User Interface: That would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it just seems like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you could like um {disfmarker} like if you have I dunno if you have satellite if you have a hundred channels , you can {disfmarker} the way you do it on your radio is that you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: what do you call it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Select . Uh . +Project Manager: s y yeah but you can programme , so you can programme like your favourite channels , so like if you had a s +Marketing: But , would you have the screen on the thing , or would you have it on the telly transmitting the screen . +Project Manager: That's something we could decide . Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess they would go together somehow ? I dunno . +Marketing: Because , I don't know if it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's e expensive , if you have {disfmarker} if you use the telly screen , 'cause the telly's already a screen , then you can pro sort of have a programming function , really easy sort of arrow up and down , on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: and then use the telly as a screen . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm thinking kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But yeah for sure . Something like not {disfmarker} it's not on the button but it's telling you what to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: is that what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Mm . +User Interface: Or like you h you see those you know people {disfmarker} I'm thinking of like celebrity cribs kind of things when like they have all those {disfmarker} these things that at their house you know {disfmarker} their their entire house is so electronic , and they have like this one master control that {disfmarker} and it's like a hand held like {disfmarker} turns on everything sort of control and it has like a screen and like {disfmarker} so I think it should be possible to have some kind of a screen , I don't know if {disfmarker} it must be {disfmarker} it would probably {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: must be ex too expensive though t like I dunno . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But like mobile phones have screens and they're cheap . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean , we have to remember our budget is twelve point {disfmarker} twelve fifty for {disfmarker} to actually make the device . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um but it's something to think about , yeah . +User Interface: Well , I guess we have to get to that later , yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we'll have to see how much that would be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or some {disfmarker} it i we can find out probably on the internet {vocalsound} how much it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . Yeah , and the other thing you said that thing about robust and water um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was the word ? +User Interface: Furry . +Marketing: Water resistant . +Project Manager: Oh I was just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but it's {disfmarker} I thought , ah , spot on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good feel , tact tactile , good tactile feel , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe something didn doesn't make your hands sweat lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , mm . +Marketing: That's quite annoying . +Project Manager: Maybe um just like a simple thing to have a clip on it , like so you can clip it to your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like that's another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , clip . Ooh {vocalsound} . Um . +Project Manager: Um . We should probably start wrapping up , um we've got some initial ideas that we can all look into . Um , and come up with some new ones for the next meeting , which will be in another thirty minutes . Um . So . Yeah . The Industrial Designer , what does that stand for , I_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} um is going to be looking more into the working design . So I guess you'd be looking at lots of the things we discussed about screen and um that sort of thing . The something , what is the U_I_ ? +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: Yeah , what does it stand for again ? +User Interface: That's me . Uh , User Interface design . +Project Manager: User Interface Designer . So that's gonna be more technical . I guess that maybe the working design has also to do with like the physical feat like just the way it looks and the way it w +User Interface: So technical function . +Industrial Designer: The working design is the structure . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: What is technical functions exactl I I don't really know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , I guess you'd have to find out {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: It says on that email but it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It was in the email . +User Interface: It does but it {disfmarker} I just don't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wrote down what mine were . +Marketing: It said um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It said {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What effect should the thing ha should it have , okay . Alright . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: And working design . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Be a medium between you and the telly I think , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And how it works , okay . Right . I'm I'm on task . +Project Manager: And the M_E_ , what does that stand for {vocalsound} ? M +Industrial Designer: Marketing . +Project Manager: Marketing , right . Um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Marketing . Oh it's written here , but um . +Project Manager: So we'll be working on the user requirements , um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So I guess that wraps it up . I'll see you all in thirty minutes . I just did . +","Project Manager Abigail Claflin (Abbie) led a kick-off meeting for a project aiming to design an innovative, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. Introductions were made by Abbie as the Project Manager, Chiara as the Marketing Expert, Stephanie as the User Interface Designer, and Krista as the Industrial Designer. The team discussed various features such as tool training, project planning, and schedule. Participants suggested making the remote control easy to locate, potentially adding a call button on the TV to find it, and designing it with fewer buttons and a possible screen. The selling price goal is 25 Euros with a profit aim of 50 million Euros. Ideas around the remote's design included being water-resistant, having a tactile surface to avoid slipping or sweating, and possibly having a clip for easy attachment. The team will reconvene after thirty minutes to continue discussions, with each member exploring their area of expertise further." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place by videoconference. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please activate your mic. When you are not speaking, leave your mic on mute. Of course, change the language when you change the language on the screen. I would remind hon. members that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel; if you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel; and should you wish to alternate between the two languages, as I just did, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking, each time you switch languages. In addition, please direct your remarks through the chair and speak slowly and clearly at all times to help our interpreters. Finally, for members who will be speaking, we strongly recommend that you use a headset. I recommend the headset for your fellow members, but also for the interpreters as it gets loud, up and down, and it squeaks. It really does make it difficult for them if you do not have the prescribed headsets. We'll go on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we will proceed to presenting petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. World Maternal Mental Health Day took place last week, and today I'd like to take a moment to present a very important petition on behalf of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative. Whereas perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are the most common obstetrical complication, whereas in Canada and worldwide 20% of women and 10% of men suffer from a perinatal mental illness, resulting in an annual economic cost to Canada of approximately $11 billion, and whereas the U.K., Australia and parts of the U.S. have perinatal mental health strategies and screening guidelines in place and Canada does not, the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative is calling upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to create a national perinatal mental health strategy that will provide direction, policy and funding to develop specialized, comprehensive perinatal mental health care services, which include universal screening and timely access to treatment for all women and men during pregnancy and the postpartum period. +Mr. Scott Reid (LanarkFrontenacKingston, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My petition relates to cystic fibrosis. If we were in the House now, as May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, one of the days this month we would all be wearing yellow roses in sympathy and solidarity with those who suffer from what is the number one disease killer in Canada of young people. The petitioners have asked us to look at the situation with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which is scheduled to go through some important and potentially detrimental regulatory changes very soon. They ask that the amendments to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board be rescinded, as these will restrict Canadians from receiving life-saving medications for cystic fibrosis and other illnesses, but in particular, a medicine called Trikafta, which can have the effect of treating cystic fibrosis in the case of 90% of cystic fibrosis sufferers. They ask the government to work with the provinces to find a strategy to jointly allow for the delivery of this life-saving medicine to Canadians across the country and to take a leadership role in negotiating a price for gene modulators throughout all the provinces of Canada. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to take the mike today, with all colleagues here. It's good to see you all virtually and safe. Petitioners in my community point out in this petition, which, of course, predates the pandemic, that the family doctor shortage is severe in this country. Nearly five million Canadians lack a regular family doctor. This problem is particularly profound in more rural areas, including, as the petitioners reference, the community in which I live, Sydney, British Columbia. We have a very significant crisis and a lack of family doctors. The petitioners call on the government to work with provinces and territories to find a collaborative, holistic solution so that every Canadian has a family doctor and we address the family doctor shortage. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Good morning, Mr. Chair. I'm presenting a timely petition today that emphasizes the concerns constituents in my riding of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon have with the Liberal government's inherently flawed and undemocratic approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed RCMP-vetted Canadians; to focus taxpayer dollars where they will actually increase public safety, which is on keeping at-risk youth from being involved in gangs and on anti-gang enforcement; and to provide our men and women in uniform at the Canada Border Services Agency with the resources they need to stop the flow of illegal guns into this country. Through this petition, my constituents take issue with how the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal weapons smugglers responsible for the violence in our communities. They note that the use of the phrase military-style assault rifle is purely political posturing, as the term is undefined in Canadian law. They also draw attention to the numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation +The Chair: I'd like to remind the honourable members that this is a concise prcis of what a petition says, not a speech. I'll let Mr. Vis continue. I'm sure he'll be very brief in wrapping up. +Mr. Brad Vis: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's sufficient. +The Chair: Okay. Now we'll go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a huge honour to table e-petition 2512, which was signed by 1,198 petitioners, primarily from the province of Nova Scotia. The Province of Nova Scotia invited multinational companies to scope out and develop expansive open-net salmon farming operations. The petitioners cite that the expansion would increase environmental degradation, as seen in similar aquaculture operations in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Norway, Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. It also, they cite, would pose risks to native fish stocks, pollute coastal ecosystems, impair at-risk wild Atlantic salmon, and threaten established fisheries and tourism operations. They also raise concerns that open-net fish farming would not create significant employment and would undermine existing lobster and other fisheries. They are calling on the government to uphold Bill C-68 and species-at-risk legislation, protect our oceans, ban expansion of open-net finfish aquaculture in our oceans, work to phase out any existing open-net fish farming operations currently in place and, lastly, invest in land-based, closed-containment finfish aquaculture. I want to thank these petitioners for fighting for clean oceans, for their local economy and for the well-being of Nova Scotia. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This petition was signed and sent in by constituents of my riding of NanaimoLadysmith. It calls upon the House of Commons to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on Wet'suwet'en territory, ordering the RCMP to dismantle its exclusion zone and stand down, scheduling nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentssomething that has already happened, thankfullyand prioritizing the real implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have the pleasure of presenting a petition on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East. The petitioners are asking that the Government of Canada not provide any financial assistance to Canadian airlines until they promptly provide full refunds for flights that were cancelled due to COVID-19. They are asking the same for any foreign airlines that fly to, within or from Canada. The petitioners feel that these Canadians are facing economic hardship and need a refund. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to questioning ministers. The first question will go to Mr. Albas. +Mr. Dan Albas (Central OkanaganSimilkameenNicola, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today we've learned that federal workers have been told to ignore obvious signs of fraud when it comes to applying for government benefits. Can the Prime Minister confirm that 200,000 applications have been flagged as potentially fraudulent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority from the beginning has been to make sure that Canadians get the support they need. We moved very quickly to get the Canada emergency response benefit out, to get the wage subsidy out and to help Canadians in this unprecedented situation. We recognize there will be challenges, and we are going to work through those challenges. Our priority every step of the way was to make sure we helped as many Canadians as possible. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, can the Prime Minister confirm that the instruction has been given to federal employees to ignore these 200,000 applications being flagged as potentially fraudulent? This is important. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our focus has been on helping as many people as we possible can. Our decision from the very beginning was to get the help out to people and figure out, with retroactive action if necessary, where and when there may have been fraudulent use. Our priority was getting that help out. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, this came from a memo issued by a deputy minister. Did the minister's office or the Prime Minister sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Again, in this unprecedented situation, our focus has been on helping as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Other parties might have made a different choice had they been in government, but our focus was getting help to people when they needed it as quickly as possible and cleaning it up afterwards. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, I asked a very simple question. Did the Prime Minister or his minister sign off on this memo that was issued by the deputy minister, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we have been focused entirely on getting help to Canadians when they need it, and that has meant that yes, there will be things we will need to clean up after the fact and work to fix, but getting that help into Canadians' pockets during this pandemic was our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: I'm asking the Prime Minister to show some accountability. Did he or his office sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, my office and I have been absolutely focused on getting the necessary help to Canadians. Perhaps, as Mr. Albas points out, other parties would have been slower to get the money out. We were flowing money to people who needed it. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the question was quite simple. Obviously the Prime Minister doesn't seem comfortable with the answer. Will he at least then commit to investigating every individual case of fraud, or will he write them off, as the story said? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, in this unprecedented situation Canadians have lost their jobs; they've lost their paycheques; they don't know how they're going to be able to support their loved ones and pay for their groceries. We made a decision as a country that we would be there for them and that has been and will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister can leave the cottage talk for the cottage. We're asking a very simple question here. Will he commit as a government to enforce the rule of law and to enforce the attestation that says that if someone commits fraud, the fraud will be pursued? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: My commitment as Prime Minister and as a government is to support and protect Canadians. That is what we are doing by giving them the support they need through this unprecedented situation. Perhaps other parties don't think it's important to support Canadians. We will keep focused on supporting Canadians. +Mr. Dan Albas: That's not what I'm asking here, Mr. Chair. The Conservatives supported the legislation that allowed those supports to go through. What we are asking about is fraud. All along we've been told fraud would be detected through audits after the fact, and we expect that to happen. Can the Prime Minister at least confirm that this will happen? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: When we made the determination that we needed to move quickly to help Canadians, we knew there would be a need to clean up after the fact, to go after fraudulent cases. We will do that. Our priority now and in the coming months is to ensure Canadians get the support they need, and our economy comes roaring back. That's what we're focused on. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the large employer emergency financing facility. That's good. What's even better is that he announced that the loans would be tied to conditions. One of those conditions forces companies not to resort to tax evasion or tax avoidance through tax havens. Excellent! Unfortunately, I quickly became disillusioned because it is more about abusive tax evasion and avoidance. Basically, we're talking about fraudsters. There are no conditions that would allow us to tighten the screws on profiteers. Companies that legally take advantage of tax havens to avoid paying their taxes will have access to the large employer emergency financing facility. Why does the Prime Minister continue to support the profiteers? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will always be there to counter tax evasion and tax avoidance. It's a priority of our government. There is no tolerance for tax evasion and tax avoidance. In the current situation, our priority is to help workers across the country who could lose their jobs or who have lost their jobs. That's why we are introducing measures that support workers, who will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'm delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that there's no tolerance for tax avoidance. The problem is that his remarks don't reflect reality. Tax avoidance is the legal use of tax havens. The five big Bay Street banks benefit from this, as do the big multinationals. It's time to tighten the screws on these companies. They have to pay their share. Will the Prime Minister and his government outlaw what is immoral? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, when we announced the large employer emergency funding facility, we recognized that those who wanted to receive tax dollars had to have paid their fair share of taxes. That's why we're putting in place measures to carefully assess the tax structures of these businesses before we loan money to them. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, sometimes a bank will relocate its most profitable activities carried out in Canada and register them in a subsidiary in the Bahamas, Barbados or another tax haven. Does the Prime Minister consider this bank to be paying its fair share of taxes in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will assess applications for the large employer emergency funding facility on a case-by-case basis. We don't expect the big banks to need these funds. Before we provide any money, we're going to make sure that whoever wants to access these funds is transparent about how the money is being managed, including internationally. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'll change the subject now. Consumers are paying more and more with their credit cards, which allows contactless payments in shops, not to mention online shopping. This benefits Visa and Mastercard, which charge appallingly high user fees, known as interchange fees. These are almost 10times higher than in Europe and Australia, and it costs our merchants a fortune. Can the Prime Minister follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping interchange fees at0.3%? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are always looking for ways to reduce costs for consumers. We have worked with the big banks and the financial industry to ensure that people who need it have access to the help they need. We're reassessing how we can lower costs for consumers. Right now, we're sending money to consumers across the country who need it to get through this crisis. That's what we'll continue to focus on. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the question doesn't concern consumers, but merchants. A credit card company, such as Visa and Mastercard, that charges a fee of 2.5%to3% per transaction undermines the merchant's profit margin and gets richer at the expense of consumers. I invite the Prime Minister to follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping these fees at0.3%. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we continue to work with financial institutions and the big banks to help consumers during this exceptional and difficult situation. Of course, there are some things we can look at over the longer term as well. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Instead of providing a universal direct payment for all, the government has decided to implement a complicated program that leaves many people behind. A single parent with four school-age children lost her spousal and child support due to COVID-19. She pays taxes on her spousal income, but she is not eligible for CERB. The Minister of Employment said that she is looking into this gap. It has been weeks, and still no action. Will the Prime Minister step in and fix this gap so that the single parents and their children can get the support they need during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I'm happy, Mr. Chair, to correct the honourable member by pointing out that we actually moved in the most rapid and simplest possible way in providing income replacement to millions upon millions of Canadians who needed it through the Canada emergency response benefit. However, as the member points out, when one moves quickly and efficiently, there will be gaps, and that's why we've been working diligently to try to fill those gaps. We want to make sure that Canadians who need help, get it. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: While the Minister of Employment has been aware of this for three weeks and says she is looking into it, there's still been no action. The truth of the matter is that single parents and their children who depend on spousal support and child maintenance are not getting support. Will the Prime Minister fix this gap? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We recognize the particular challenge faced by families, single parents and families with young children, which is why we increased the amount of the Canada child benefit to be able to support people in this particular moment. On top of that, we have looked to fill further gaps that have existed with the Canada emergency response benefit. Well over seven million Canadians have access to CERB, and we will continue to work with them +Ms. Jenny Kwan: That does not replace spousal support and child maintenance, Prime Minister. Across the country there is no national standard to address the homelessness crisis amidst this pandemic, leaving communities at heightened risk from COVID-19. Canadians who are homeless or living in substandard housing have no access to bathroom facilities for basic hygiene. Those living in crowded SROs and shelters cannot practise social distancing. The problem is particularly acute in my riding in the Downtown Eastside. While the B.C. government has implemented an initiative to house some of the homeless population in empty hotels in the short term, support from the federal government is needed to secure permanent solutions post-COVID-19. Will the Prime Minister commit to providing matching funds and take the right to adequate housing seriously? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I know that the honourable member wouldn't want to inadvertently mislead the House. The fact is, the federal government almost immediately sent significant resources, hundreds of millions of dollars, to shelters across the country to enable them to create facilities, including renting new spaces, to be able to house homeless people without increasing the danger of the spread of COVID-19. I recognize there's always more to do, but as we demonstrated with our national housing strategy, we are serious about fighting homelessness and supporting vulnerable Canadians, and we will continue to do that. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The Prime Minister must know that the money the federal government sent is deficient. Many people still remain homeless, and they are at risk. Cutting chronic homelessness by 50% over the next decade is not good enough, and that is this Prime Minister's national housing strategy. Will the government stop just making empty promises and ensure that every Canadian has the right to housing? Will he top up the support for provinces to at least match their funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, cutting chronic homelessness by 50% is an ambitious goal that no one else has ever been able to do as a government, and we are well on track for it. I would suggest that the member opposite not dismiss that as an empty promise, because we have demonstrated actions on it. I recognize there is more to do. There is always more to do. We will be there and continue to be there for vulnerable people, including homeless Canadians. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I would remind the Prime Minister that it was the federal Liberals who eliminated the national affordable housing program in 1993, so we have this homeless crisis today as a result of the Liberals. We in Vancouver East have the third-largest urban indigenous population in the country, yet we got less than 2% of the pandemic urban indigenous housing funding. They're overrepresented among the homeless population. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we recognize there is more to do in supporting urban indigenous people. We have moved forward, both through the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, to address the challenges facing urban aboriginal populations. We will continue to work with them, recognizing that they are among the most vulnerable people in Canada who deserve the right support from all orders of government, and we will be there to support them increasingly in the coming years. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen (PortageLisgar, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm hearing in my riding of PortageLisgar that individuals who are dealing with Service Canada through the mail are experiencing delays. It seems that the mail that's going to Service Canada has not been opened. In fact, one of my constituents sent documents, including a doctor's note, two months ago on March 12 and is now being told that she must resend them because they've never been opened. Can the government tell us whether this is a widespread problem, and how are they dealing with unopened mail at Service Canada? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we are doing everything that we can in Service Canada to meet the expectations of Canadians. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had unprecedented volumes, but we have redeployed thousands of staff to front-line services by phone and by other means. We had to close a number of the centres because of COVID-19 concerns and the safety and well-being of Canadians. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Is the minister aware whether this is a widespread problem? Is this happening rarely, or frequently? I'm hearing about it. I know, from many MPs, we are at the front lines of dealing with and helping constituents who are not only wanting to get support but also are trying to get programs unrelated to COVID-19. Is unopened mail a widespread problem at Service Canada? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to look into the particular case that the honourable member brings up. I am not aware of unopened mail being a widespread issue. I'm happy to work with the honourable member to see what happened in this individual case. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Thanks very much. Mr. Chair, the Iver Johnson single-shot rifle is a standard farm gun used by many farmers in my riding, in fact, passed down from generation to generation in some cases. Why are the Liberals making this gun illegal? What's the purpose of banning this particular farm rifle? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wish to advise the member that we worked very closely with the Canadian firearms program, with law enforcement and with their firearms verification to identify the makes, models and variants of nine rifles, all of which had in their earliest provenance a design for military use, for soldiers to use in combat. Those are the weapons that have been +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen: I would challenge the minister on that. I do not believe that he has been consulting with front-line officers. We're hearing from front-line officers that they are concerned about gangs, drug dealers and illegal weapons being smuggled across the border. They are not concerned with these types of farm rifles that are being used by our farmers and, in some cases, hunters. These are specifically used for hunting. So, Mr. Chair, we'd like to see the evidence on why the Liberals are once again targeting law-abiding Canadians, ignoring gangsters and drug dealers. Why are they banning the Iver Johnson? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a great opportunity, I think, when the member opposite says what the police are saying. Let's hear what the police are saying. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police declared that military assault rifles were produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and urged the government to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles, except for law enforcement and military purposes. The Ontario police leaders said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed rifles. They said, In our view, these weapons have no place in our communities and should be reserved for use by Canada's military and law enforcement. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen, we have about 50 seconds left. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Mr. Chair, we've seen this before, where the Liberals introduced a long-gun registry that cost billions of dollars and did absolutely nothing to stop violent crimes. This is a repeat of what the Liberals have done before. Is the minister saying that the Iver Johnson that farmers use is an assault rifle? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, what I'm saying, and what our regulations say very clearly, is that weapons that were designed not for hunting and not for sport purposes but for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers have no place in Canadian society. I would also advise the member that any Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many. We have far too many tragedies where these types of weapons have been used to kill Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. Is it true that Canada Revenue Agency employees who process applications for the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, have been asked to send the payment even if fraud had been detected, as was pointed out in a national media report today? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, our government considers these to be very difficult times for Canadians. We're going to do everything we can to support them by helping them pay for their housing and their groceries. I'm very proud of the public servants who work at the Canada Revenue Agency. Nearly sevenmillion +Mr. Alain Rayes: I repeat my question, which is extremely simple: Is it true that the Canada Revenue Agency sent a memo to its employees asking them to ignore the fraudsters and still send the CERB payments?? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: I'll finish my response, which was interrupted: Nearly 7.8million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit. The priority is for Canadians to be able to pay for their groceries and their housing. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Yes or no: Did the Canada Revenue Agency send a memo to its employeeswho are doing an exceptional job, I'd like to point outso that they would ignore the 200,000potential cases of fraud that they detected? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: The answer is no. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The CERB has been distributed since March25, so for seven weeks now. The federal government website clearly states that if an employee returns to work, the employee must pay back the CERB. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether employees who decide to return to work have to pay back the full $2,000per month, or only $500for week of the month? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: As I mentioned, we believe that Canadians are going through a very difficult time, and we need to support them. We need to help people pay for their groceries and their housing. That's what our government is committed to, and that's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, the extremely simple question I am asking the Minister comes from companies and workers. None of the officials dares to answer it when we call on technical matters, even though they are supposed to give us information that we can pass on to the public with complete transparency. So let me repeat my question; I don't think there can be a simpler one. The answer will benefit the workers and the companies that want access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy. If an employee is called back to workwhich is perfectly fineagrees to do so and wants to reimburse the CERB, must he reimburse $500for each week he works during the month, or the entire $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can clarify that Service Canada will work closely with anybody who transitions either from the CERB to the wage subsidy or from the CERB back to employment to ensure that there's no overpayment, but of course that there's no undue hardship on the individual. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That announcement was made seven weeks ago. The workers want to know how much they have to reimburse. The companies want to know the situation so that they can make decisions on salary assistance. It seems to me that my question is not complicated: do people have to reimburse $500for each week they work in a month, or the full monthly amount of $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that will depend on the individual circumstances of the particular worker. That's why Service Canada is reaching out to individuals to make it as seamless as possible for them. I can assure the member that nobody will be put in a difficult situation. I recognize that there is some uncertainty, but we're trying to address that. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 35seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The answers that we are getting today are incredible. This is unacceptable, in my view. If an employer complies with the hygiene conditions, can employees still refuse to return to work, and therefore continue to receive the CERB? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure all Canadians that at the same time as employees have a right to refuse work and employers have an obligation to ensure healthy and safe workplaces, we want all people to be able to go back to work and feel safe. There are established processes and federal and provincial labour processes for refusal to work, and at the end of the day the CERB is there for workers who aren't working due to COVID-19. +The Chair: We're going to have to go on from here. The next question will come from Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs and community members have been excluded from negotiations on a memorandum of understanding affecting land rights and titles. Only a few hereditary chiefs have been part of these secret negotiations. The elected chiefs have issued a press release asking for the government to halt the joint announcement scheduled for May 14 on the MOU until the community has had a chance to look at and understand how the MOU will affect them. Will the minister agree with the democratically elected chiefs and the Wet'suwet'en people they represent and delay any announcement until proper consultation can be completed? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I want to reassure the member that communication is ongoing with and between our partners on how to go forward on implementing the Wet'suwet'en rights and title with a Wet'suwet'en-led solution. We encourage the leaders to continue their ongoing, necessary and important conversations with their community on how they want to proceed on a path toward implementing their rights and title. As we work to rebuild Canada's relationship with the Wet'suwet'en, we need to give them space for these important discussions. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Minister, is that a yes that the signing will be delayed until the elected chiefs have a chance to look at the agreement? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I believe the elected chiefs have had a look at the agreement. These are very difficult conversations on complex issues around rights and title. This has been outstanding for a long time +Mr. Jamie Schmale: The current health crisis should not be used as an opportunity to sideline the Wet'suwet'en people and their elected chiefs. The federal government should be bringing the community together rather than actively excluding Wet'suwet'en members. The chiefs are so concerned that they are now calling for the resignation of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations for failure to engage in proper consultations, which has stoked divisions within the community. Will the minister reconsider and put in place a consultation process that honours both their traditional house system and the governance responsibilities of elected chiefs and councils? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Yet again, it's very important the member understand the engagement must take place and be led by the Wet'suwet'en nation. That means the elected chiefs and the hereditary chiefs need to work with all clan members as they determine how they wish to work with Canada and the Province of British Columbia to implement the rights and title of the Wet'suwet'en people. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I agree that the Wet'suwet'en should have the opportunity to look at the proposed agreement, but we are still seeing news coming out of the elected chiefs and the people they represent that they have not had a thorough chance to look at this proposed agreement. Will the minister delay the signing? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member will agree that there's a lot more work to do with all the parties. I believe, in terms of the kind of engagement that has taken place in the feast houses and the notification that took place even before COVID-19, that the work is under way and it will have to be Wet'suwet'en-led in terms of what eventually will be their choice as to how they implement their rights and title. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, for two weeks now the Liberals on the indigenous affairs committee have shut down Conservatives and witnesses every time we mention the word Wet'suwet'en. They don't want to talk about the issue, an issue that is very much aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. The Liberals profess to be the advocates for indigenous communities and the champions of reconciliation. Can the minister tell us why the Liberals are determined to shut down discussion and public debate? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I would have to disagree with the member. I don't believe that there's, at any time, an interest in shutting down discussion or debate. I think, though, that at the COVID committee the issues facing indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Mtis around COVID-19 are very important to them. We need to work with them to make sure they can keep their communities safe. +The Chair: Mr. Schmale, you have 30 seconds. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I would argue with the minister and challenge her to talk to her committee members. Each time Conservatives have brought up the topic of the Wet'suwet'en and the situation happening with the elected chiefs and the people they represent, we have been shut down every single time. When will the minister allow the public debate to happen? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, in a committee, it is the work of the committee and the decision of the committee. I believe the chair and all members want first nations, Inuit and Mtis to be able to keep their communities safe during COVID-19. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It has been three months since this pandemic started and the Liberals just got around to announcing help for seniors. Seniors are a priority and should be treated as such. Why do the Liberals treat seniors as an afterthought? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Thank you very much. There is definitely an interest in and support for our seniors. We've been working to support seniors since the very beginning of this pandemic. I've just had the opportunity to introduce additional measures today wherein we are introducing a one-time special payment for those who receive OAS. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: Nearly two months into living in some form of isolation, watching their retirement savings take a hit and having to take additional health precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eligible seniors are set to receive a one-time payment of up to $500. Why does this government consistently undervalue seniors compared with everyone else? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to make sure that my honourable colleague remembers that we have already given a GST top-up of almost $375 for single seniors and over $500 for couples. This is in addition to what we've just done today where, as you said, it's $500. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Abacus Data, 69% of Canadians feel that there will be a second wave in the pandemic, and 52% of Canadians believe that there is a shortage of medical equipment, including personal protective equipment. Given these surprising figures, what is the government's plan to bring in enough personal protective equipment, should there be a second wave of the pandemic? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Our government is aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies that Canada needs, from a diverse range of suppliers around the world and here at home. We're working directly with businesses across the country to rapidly scale up domestic production capacity to meet current and future needs. At this point, our primary focus is on front-line health care professionals, but we are also exploring federal government assistance in areas of essential services so that PPE exists where workers need it. We are following public health guidance on this issue in looking to see where we can best assist. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Public Services and Procurement Canada, despite 1.8 billion units of PPE being procured, less than 6% of N95 respirator orders have been filled, less than 8% of surgical mask orders have been filled, and just 1.4% of face shield orders have been filled. We know that orders are not deliveries, so what's the delay? +Hon. Anita Anand: Let me start by saying that we are working in an incredibly difficult and competitive global environment and are procuring millions of items: face shields, gowns, hand sanitizer, and N95 surgical masks, and ventilators every single day. There is a delay in the production of these goods, but we have had many deliveries coming into Canada, including over two million face shields +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: A national security expert from the University of Ottawa has said that the national emergency strategic stockpile has failed in the current crisis, resulting in some provinces such as Saskatchewan using expired PPE, and provinces such as Alberta using faulty PPE that cause rashes and headaches. What is the government doing to expedite procurement and to counter the risk of faulty PPE, given that 34 of the suppliers are from China, which has already supplied significant faulty PPE? +Hon. Anita Anand: I will start by saying that we have multiple supply chains operating at the same time, from China, and domestically, and from the United States and other countries around the world. Our first priority is to make sure that we get safe, effective equipment and supplies into the hands of our front-line health care workers. Given the global supply chains and their competitive nature, this is an ongoing project and we are having success for our front-line health care workers. +The Chair: We'll now go on to the next question from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Ten weeks ago the Minister of Fisheries, in responding to my question in question period, acknowledged that the lobster fishery was being negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and was facing losses of up to 95% of its Asian markets. Mr. Chair, on April 28 I asked the minister what she was doing to support harvesters who were left out of the $62.5 million aid package. She mentioned that she was looking at sector-specific areas to make sure that the issues were addressed. Can the minister tell us what the government's plan is to directly support seafood harvesters? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleague for that very good question. We know that the fish and seafood sector has been extremely adversely affected because of COVID-19. We've started to put measures in place to address the issue with the $62.5 million for processors, as well as to make sure that the CERB is available for seasonal workers as well as people who have run out of their fishery EI, but we know that more needs to be done. The fishery enterprises are uniquely structured, which is why we're looking at measures to address the concerns they have. I'm working with my provincial colleagues, as well as my caucus colleagues. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, most fishermen are not eligible for the wage subsidy program due to the stipulation that it cannot be used for employees who are related to their employer. Most fishing enterprises, like farm enterprises, are family oriented. Many fishermen have their wives, their sons, their uncles or their fathers working for them, and sometimes it's the whole family on the boat. Can the minister explain what the government's plan is to support fishermen who do not fit into any actual program and who desperately need direct financial help from the federal government to survive? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that, because of the unique structure of fishing enterprises, they are not eligible for many of the supports we have put in place. We have made changes to the CERB to make sure that people who run out of the fishers EI are eligible as well as seasonable workers. We know that more needs to be done for the harvesters directly. We are working on direct supports. We have put in place measures to address processors' concerns so that harvesters continue to have a place to sell their product. We know that more has to be done. I am working with my cabinet colleagues to find solutions, and I hope I will have more to say about that very soon. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: In recent weeks, lobster fishermen in the gulf region of the Maritimes were shocked to read an additional subsection of regulations that was added to their fishing conditions for the 2021 fishing season. This addition was for a catch limitation or quota to which none of the harvesters or advisory members were privy. This created quite a chill within the lobster fishery, for sure. Can the minister tell us how these detailed regulations managed to get added without her authorization, and can licence-holders expect to see these same regulations in their conditions when their season gets going in the future? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the people who brought to my attention the conditions that were put on licences in the gulf. Those were not done under my authorization. They were removed right away from the condition of licence, and they will not happen. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: My next question is for the Minister of Health. Mr. Chair, on Wednesday, February 26, after the death of 23-year-old Chantelle Lindsay from Nova Scotia due to complications from cystic fibrosis, I asked the Prime Minister whether the government was going to make Trikafta, which might have saved Chantelle's life, available to Canadians. Now that almost 12 weeks have passed, we understand that Vertex Pharmaceuticals has not yet applied to Health Canada for study. Many of my Conservative colleagues and I have recently sent a letter to the minister asking for an update on how we support those negotiations with Vertex. Can the Minister of Health tell us when this drug will be available to CF patients in Canada? +The Chair: Honourable minister, the floor is yours. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My heart goes out to the family of Chantelle, who are obviously suffering an unbearable loss. I agree with the member that we want to make sure that effective drugs are available in Canada. As the member has pointed out, Vertex has not applied to sell Trikafta in Canada. However, there is the special access program that makes drugs like Trikafta available. In fact, the majority of people who have applied through the special access program to get access to the drug have received access. I would encourage the member to continue his correspondence with the manufacturer, as will we. +The Chair: Mr. d'Entremont, you have 36 seconds. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the tourism season is already deeply affected by COVID-19. A number of industries, businesses and festivals are having to deal with considerable losses of income. In my constituency, tens of thousands of tourists use the ferry between Bar Harbor, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. What is the government planning to do to help the ferry to survive and to resume service next season, if the borders remain closed this summer? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): I have had the opportunity to speak to my colleague Mr.d'Entremont about solutions to assist people in the tourism sector all over the country, and particularly in the Atlantic region. In light of the new funding for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ACOA, I will be happy to work with him and with the leaders of the tourism sector. +The Chair: Mr.Savard-Tremblay, the floor is now yours. +Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-HyacintheBagot, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Despite all the upheaval it causes, the crisis we are experiencing, considerable in scope though it is, can also be an opportunity to begin a transition. What is essential in normal times may, during a crisis, become crucial. What is unjust may, in times of crisis, become frankly scandalous. In Quebec, we are generally allergic to blatant injustice and inequality. Yesterday, Ottawa announced new support for large companies. Many of us in Quebec feel that, when a company knocks on the state's door to ask for assistance, it is totally legitimate for the state to impose conditions before providing its support. We in the Bloc Qubcois feel that there should be a limit, a ceiling, on the assistance provided to large companies, in order to avoid abuses in executive compensation. That is also the prevalent position in Quebec. A few years ago, after the Bombardier affair in QuebecI will not dwell on that because Quebecers are all too familiar with itthree of the four political parties that sat in the National Assembly and that still sit these took a position of that kind. A number of civil society groups in Quebec share it also. The United States, which, you will agree, is no bastion of socialism, has already implemented similar policies for periods of crisis. The idea is to offer support, but with conditions. According to a report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on January2, the 100highest-paid CEOs in Canada earned 227times more in 2018 than the average worker. The average salary for workers increased by 2.6% between 2017 and 2018. Given that inflation was then at 2.3%, it can be said that there was practically no increase. By contrast, the salary increase for CEOs in the same period was 18%, even in cases where the companies suffered losses. Let us be clear that we were not in a crisis when that study was conducted. We cannot even imagine what the figures are today. At this point, we are no longer talking about a gap but an abyss. Wealth is concentrated at the top of the pyramid, but clearly does not flow down to the base. Does the government intend to put a ceiling on executive compensation to ensure that they are not the only ones to profits from the support at this time of crisis? The question is clear and I am asking you to give me a clear answer. If I don't get one, I am going to have to demand a new version of the Clarity Act. +The Chair: The honourable Minister has the floor. I would also like to remind members to ask their questions through the Chair +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We know that our approach has to help small and medium-size companies, but also large companies in order to provide a bridge to the end of the crisis. In our opinion, that is very important. It will protect the jobs of Canadians and the future of our economy. That's why the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility is very important. That said, we know that it is necessary and important to impose conditions. Yes, we do want to make sure that the facility is available for companies that are going to continue to support our economy, to protect their employees, and to make a significant contribution to our communities. That is why we have attached a number of major conditions to our approach. We will have more details on the subject in the coming days. We established from the outset that we had to impose conditions on executive compensation. That is very important. We are going to consider the rules and conditions that are needed in order for the facility to be available to the companies, the operations and the employees. Of course, conditions are required to ensure that the facility is available for operations, not for dividends or share buybacks, for example. We will impose conditions of that kind. We also want to make sure that we are aware of the situation the companies are in. For example, we want to be sure that they are not engaged in tax evasion. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Sgro. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. I will be sharing my time with the member for KingsHants. Canadian seniors are worried about COVID-19. In my own riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek, 30% of the population are 65 or older. We know they are one of the highest risk populations. During this time, their costs have gone up. They have had to spend extra on medication and grocery delivery, as many cannot leave their homes. I have also heard of many seniors who are facing extra dispensing fees. These costs all add up, and many seniors were already carefully budgeting before the pandemic. It is so important that our government be there to support them. Can the minister please tell us what our government is doing to ensure that vulnerable seniors get the support they need during this very difficult time? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte: My colleague is right. Seniors have faced increased costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and our government today has responded to that with additional action. We announced a one-time, tax-free payment of $300 for seniors eligible for OAS and an additional $200 for seniors eligible for GIS. This means there will be up to $500 for the most vulnerable seniors to help them with their financial security to get through this challenging time. Beyond this, we announced $20 million to expand the new horizons for seniors program to kick-start initiatives and services that will help seniorsfor example, to get grocery deliveries right to their door and to stay connected. We've worked tirelessly on this as well as on other recent measures like the GST credit to help the most vulnerable seniors. Thank you to my colleague for her advocacy. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): You have 30 seconds left, Ms. Sgro. Go ahead with a short question and a response. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to applaud the minister for that work. I know she's been working extremely hard to make sure that we get some additional announcements over and above all of the ones we have already made, so congratulations. Keep up the work. You know there is lots more we want to do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Please give a short response. Go ahead. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much to my honourable colleague for her advocacy. Thanks for everyone's advocacy. Seniors across the country have been communicating with us and letting us know their needs, and we have been responding. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now I'll go over to Mr. Blois. Go ahead. +Mr. Kody Blois (KingsHants, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a privilege to have a chance to speak on issues that matter to Canadians, whether it's from the floor of the House of Commons or, indeed, from my house here in Nova Scotia. It's great to see everyone across the country. Like my colleagues, I'd like to thank the staff of the House of Commons for their continued work to make sure that we have this forum to be able to continue the democratic process. I would also quickly like to thank my staff both here locally in KingsHants and in Ottawa for their continued work for my constituents. Mr. Chair, my question through you is to the minister of agriculture. In KingsHants, agriculture is an important economic driver for our economy. We have the greatest concentration of agriculture producers east of Montreal. From our beef industry to our wine industry and everything in-between, it is extremely important. We have the Kentville Research and Development Centre and the Hants County agricultural exhibition, the longest-standing exhibition in North America. We know that COVID-19 has had impacts on the agriculture industry to differing degrees. In particular, KingsHants is home to an important dairy sector. We also have a growing and important horticulture sector. Can the minister specifically provide an update to the House on the measures our government has taken on those two particular commodity groups that are so important in my riding? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are targeting support to some of the most critical challenges facing the food supply chain. Last Tuesday I was proud to announce our emergency processing fund for a total of $77.5 million, $50 million for the surplus food program and $125 million through AgriRecovery to support our beef and pork producers. Concerning the dairy sector in particular, I'm hopeful that tomorrow we will get the support of all of the parties to be able to respond to their request for an increase in their loan capacity from $300 million to $500 million. I would like to encourage all farmers to apply to the business risk management programs, including AgriStability, for which we have improved some of the mechanisms. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go on with questions, but I'll also just ask Mr. Blois to excuse me for mispronouncing his name. Let's go now to Mr. Masse for Windsor West. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP): During the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of Michigan has become an epicentre of the outbreak. The city of Detroit alone has more deaths than the entire province of Ontario. The border communities of Sarnia and Windsor have higher per capita infection rates than the rest of the province. Next week, the border restrictions between the U.S. and Canada expire. With the premiers of B.C., Quebec and Ontario opposing the opening of the border at this time, will the restrictions be extended, or is the Prime Minister discussing changing the restrictions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me assure the honourable member that, first and foremost, all decisions about Canada's border are taken by Canadians and with the health and safety of Canadians first and foremost in mind. When it comes to the current agreement's coming up next week, we are in very close conversations with Americans about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: What changes are on the table? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just be clear that I didn't speak about any changes; I spoke about a very collaborative conversation with our American neighbours about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: Are you discussing any changes to the current status right now? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I found during the NAFTA negotiations that negotiations are best not conducted in public, but let me just assure Canadians that the health and safety of Canadians is first and foremost. Our government is taking a cautious approach, and we're working effectively. +Mr. Brian Masse: This is not negotiation. This is whether there are changes on the table. What are they? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say that I think the honourable member was actually seeking to know what exactly is being discussed with our American partners. Let me just say that we are taking a very cautious approach to the health and safety of Canadians. A very collaborative discussion is happening. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will more information be shared between your government and the American government on Canadians and Americans crossing the border on both sides? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm not sure what the member is alluding to, but let me just say that the current arrangements are working extremely well. Non-essential travel is down very sharply. Essential travel, particularly for trade, continues, and that's a good thing, too. +Mr. Brian Masse: With border communities having more rates of infection, will they receive additional PPE and financial assistance to deal with the loosening of current border restrictions that is being discussed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just emphasize to the honourable member that on a couple of occasions he has implied that a loosening of the current restrictions is being discussed. Let me be very clear that this is his assertion; I have not said that. +Mr. Brian Masse: Apparently, we're meeting for nothing. I'll move to the large commercial banks who are profiteering off or squeezing Canadians during this public crisis. Credit card interest rates are still high from previous price-gouging levels. Despite numerous favours from the Liberals, there have not been significant changes. Vancity Savings Credit Union demonstrated leadership when it set credit card rates at zero. Will the government use its statutory powers and force the banks to offer the credit card relief that Vancity has already done? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say that we recognize the challenges that Canadians face, especially with issues like credit card rates. That's exactly why we've been working on this issue since we came into office. We came to an agreement on interchange fees that was important for consumers. Most recently, during the COVID-19 crisis, we've negotiated with the banks and encouraged them, and they have come out with reductions in their credit card fees that are significant, and deferrals for customers +Mr. Brian Masse: Will you use your statutory powers, yes or no, to do what Vancity has done to help Canadian consumers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: As I've said, Mr. Chair, we're continuing to support consumers. We're continuing to work together with banks to make sure that they are giving the kind of support necessary to their customers, and we've seen actions in this regard, supporting customers. +Mr. Brian Masse: Why do banks have to profit at higher interest rates on Canadian consumer and retailer exchange rates during COVID-19? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think it's important to clarify that banks have come forward and given deferrals to customers in trouble and cut their interest by half Mr. Brian Masse: Not on credit cards. Hon. Bill Morneau: and that's been important on credit cards. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There's time for one more short question. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will the minister use his powers if the banks continue to charge Canadian consumers interest rates that are higher than Vancity's? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we will continue to work with banks to ensure that they're supporting their customers. What banks have done on credit cards by cutting their fees in half is an important nod in that direction. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Next, we have Jacques Gourde. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Quebec is Canada's biggest producer of hydroelectricity, a renewable energy that is the pride of the Quebec nation. The only problem is that it seems to be a tough sell west of Quebec, in Ontario, for instance. This competitively priced power could help us reduce our environmental footprint and further cut greenhouse gas emissions. Will the government show leadership and allow Canada's provinces to share renewable energy through an energy corridor, as we proposed? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we are continuing to work towards that end. It is always very important to protect Canadians, and we are going to stick to that approach. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, Canada's dairy processors have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis and the new CanadaU.S.Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Some of them have incurred losses ranging from 10% to 50%, depending on the processed product. Will the government commit to granting import permits under CUSMA to Canada's dairy processors, not retailers directly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that dairy producers will receive fair compensation. I should also point out that we preserved supply management when negotiating the new NAFTA. That is important to Canada and Quebec, and I'm very pleased that we were able to do that. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the minister seems to be missing the issue in hand. Canada's dairy processors invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year to bring high-quality products to consumers, while contributing $19billion to GDP. Now those very processors are being asked to try to export Canadian value-added products. Will the minister commit to giving Canada's dairy processors import permits, instead of encouraging American multinationals? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question. I fully understand, as we all do, the important role processors play in our system and our country. I can assure the members of the House that we will continue to work with Canadian processors as the agreement comes into force. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, when it comes to the COVID-19 crisis, what Canadians will remember is that those with access to reliable high-speed Internet will have fared better, feeling less financial strain, than those who are cut off from the rest of the world. Is the government ready to invest in making high-speed Internet available to all Canadians, no matter where they live in the country? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Yes, we are, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the current economic situation could lead to the disappearance of Canada's tourism industry. The pain will be felt by thousands of Canadians, who will have to find new jobs in order to survive. Is the government going to protect the tourism-based economy by investing in tourism infrastructure and upgrades to ensure Canada's tourist regions are ready when the economy reopens? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Ms. Joly, you have to switch to the French channel and turn on your microphone. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes, I look forward to working with my fellow member on this issue. I know the tourism sector is important to him and, especially, his constituents. Let's work together to find ways to get this hard-hit sector moving again. Many people have lost their jobs and need assistance from the government. That is why we're here, providing a helping hand at this difficult time so they can come out the other side. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Continuing with questions, we'll go to the honourable member for SaskatoonUniversity, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor (SaskatoonUniversity, CPC): Good afternoon, everybody. With respect to entering Canada, does the government consider spousal reunification as essential travel, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: The CBSA has exercised the appropriate discretion in determining when a non-Canadian citizen, who has no status in Canada, attempts to enter the country for any consideration considered non-essential. They are turned back because we have restrictions in place for non-essential travel. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully to the minister, you're letting down Canadians. People are being stranded, and you need to do better as a government. Changing gears a little, all Canadians would agree, or can agree, that the Prime Minister requires suitable accommodation. Why did the government simply not tell Canadians that the Harrington cottage needed to be rebuilt and massively expanded? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would ask the honourable members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand: The NCC is an independent Crown corporation. It recognizes the importance of the official residences it has jurisdiction over. The work at Harrington Lake is part of a broader program to preserve and maintain and restore all official residences under NCC management, and we will support the NCC in its important work. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Was there something in particular that this government did not want Canadians to know about the cottage, or is secrecy all this government knows how to do? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, this information was and has been public since 2018. There is no effort to hide any information from the public in this regard. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully, Canadians feel misled on this, and we're not clear on what the expenses were, how large an expansion it was +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, the honourable government House leader. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I believe this has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic, so the questions are out of order, in my opinion. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable government House leader for his comment. Certainly the scope of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic does expect and anticipate that the subject matter will be related to the matter at hand, so I would ask honourable members to continue to keep within those bounds. Of course, members will also know that we're unable to gauge that until members have spoken, so I would ask members to keep on subject. Let's go back to Mr. Tochor to finish his question, and we have about two minutes remaining in this spot. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Yes, thank you, Chair. The point I was making was about transparency or lack of transparency that is hurting our efforts with COVID-19. Changing gears onto CERB, who came up with the number for CERB? Why is it $2,000? A senior gets $1,200, people with disabilities get $1,600, and now we've added another ad hoc program on top of those. I'd like to know a little more about how and who came up with those unique numbers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Working collaboratively between ESDC and the Department of Finance, we determined that that would be an appropriate amount, based on what workers were earning and what we anticipated they would need to live on, and what we anticipated they would be losing by way of employment income. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Your last question, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor: I have a really quick question, which I've heard in my office, on charities and non-profits that do not have their own payroll number and are ineligible for the wage subsidy. Does the Prime Minister have a program fix coming so that charities and non-profits can receive the wage subsidy? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we understand the important role that charities and non-profits are playing to help vulnerable Canadians at this difficult time. We have announced supports in the amount of $350 million to ensure that not only do they continue that great work, but also expand it to serve the most vulnerable to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Okay. We will move to the next questioner, Mr. Aboultaif from Edmonton Manning. Mr. Aboultaif, go ahead with your question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, last week markets were shocked when leaks regarding the state of our economy came to light before the market even opened. This caused worry to investors at home and abroad about the integrity of our markets and the nature of the leak, which is, in itself, unprecedented. Section 34 of the Statistics Act indicates the following: Every person who, after taking the oath set out in subsection 6, is guity of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to impreisonment for a term not exceeing five years or both: wilfully discloses or divulges directly or indirectly to any person not entitled under this Act to receive the same any information obtained by him in the course of his employment that might exert an influence on or affect the market value of any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article, or uses any information described in paragraph for the purpose of speculating in any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article My question for the minister is this: Does the government consider this case to be subject to paragraph 34 or 34 and a criminal offence, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, my hon. colleague is absolutely right that the current situation with regard to the COVID crisis is deeply problematic, and we want to make sure that any information we share with the Canadian public with regard to economic measures or labour market numbers follows the appropriate process. The breach that occurred is completely unacceptable. Our government has denounced this breach. That breach was not the way to deal with such sensitive information. The member has alluded to several paragraphs within the Statistics Act. I can assure him that we are looking into this matter and that Statistics Canada is looking into this issue as well. Going forward, we will ensure that such a breach does not occur again, because it's important that we continue to have the confidence of Canadians during this current health care crisis. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Okay, I will take that as a yes. So this matter should be investigated, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: As I have indicated very clearly, what has happened is completely unacceptable. This breach should not have occurred. This matter is being looked into, and we want to assure Canadians going forward that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Mr. Aboultaif. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: In that case, the minister said the matter will be looked into. Basically, my understanding of this case is that Statistics Canada is going to investigate itself, or does the minister think that the government should refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Sorry, could you repeat that question? I had a bit of an issue and could not hear the question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Will Statistics Canada investigate itself or will the government refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, there are appropriate protocols in place to look into such breaches. Those protocols will be followed, and the appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Aboultaif, you have about a minute left. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: The minister indicated that this will be investigated, but during the investigation into the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Liberal staff refused to co-operate. Will the minister commit today that all Liberal staff will co-operate with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, we've been clear that it's important that any such breach be taken seriously. What has happened is unacceptable, and we will ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to make sure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question, Mr. Aboultaif. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There's no doubt about the general terms, but I need to make sure that the government will commit that its staff will co-operate. Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: The process is very clear. The protocols are very clear. The law is very clear, and we will make sure that the process is followed and the law is upheld. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll continue. The next question will go to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I start my questions, I would like to thank the various ministers, parliamentary secretaries and the Speaker of the House for reaching out to me during the severe flooding in Fort McMurray. Your support during these trying times is much appreciated. The oil and gas industry is under severe strain. Over the past number of years, we have seen tremendous pressure on the federal government from anti-oil and gas lobby groups demanding that the oil sands be shut down. The federal Liberal government's response to the anti-oil lobby was the introduction of the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, which will prevent any major oil and gas projects from being developed in Canada; and the oil shipping ban, Bill C-48, for the northern coast of British Columbia, which also had a negative effect on the oil industry. These two bills alone pushed over $200 billion of investment out of Canada, causing the Alberta economy to retract to recession levels. To compound Alberta's economic problems, we have an international oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a huge drop in demand for oil. Mr. Chair, 48 days after the finance minister promised liquidity loans to oil producers and service companies, there are still no applications open for these loans. Can the honourable Minister of Natural Resources tell us when the Liberals will act on their promise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, I'm happy that we were able to announce today some liquidity measures for large cap corporations in the oil and gas sector. These measures will provide them with the liquidity that they needed, and this is also the liquidity that they asked for. It was on April 17 that we started liquidity measures for small and medium-sized businesses in the oil and gas industry, and those are the ones in which 85% of workers are affected. Today's measures will complete that. I'm very happy that we've had such people as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers come out and say that this is what they asked for and this is what they need, and we have produced what they need in order to ensure the future competitiveness of Canada's oil and gas sector. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, we have seen junior oil companies close their doors. The larger companies have sent contractors home and laid off employees. Many of these contractors are indigenous companies, and they are having a difficult time qualifying for programs to save their businesses. Can the honourable Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations inform us of the measures the government is taking to ensure there are no gaps in the current programs, and commit to review the eligibility criteria for owners of aboriginal businesses struggling to qualify for financial help? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, Canada's oil sector provides jobs for more than 576,000 people, including 11,000 indigenous people, in every part of Canada. It is essential that we support those businesses. It is essential that we support the many indigenous people who work in our oil and gas sector, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan. We have provided supports for those businesses, and we will continue to do so, also keeping in mind that in many of these communities the importance of public health and safety is foremost in our minds. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, western Canada oil storage is under extreme pressure. If thermal projects such as SAGD are shut down, those facilities could be lost forever. If the global oil markets remain oversupplied into the summer and industry must shut down production, what is the government's plan to ensure Canada's energy security and the economic future of the oil sands with the potential shutdown of oil production? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have worked with industry and with provinces on every front to ensure the stability of the oil and gas sector of our country. We have concentrated on workers. We need the workers in our oil and gas sector in order to lower emissions and achieve a greener economy. We need their determination and their ingenuity. We need to make sure that their jobs are held whole. Therefore, we are looking after workers and we are looking out for companies that hold onto those jobs for those workers. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, the government's assistance package for the Canadian oil and gas industry provides some hope to the industry. The lack of detail and action has led to some challenges. Can the minister clarify? On a medium-sized energy company's eligibility, if the company is in default to financial institutions, does it still qualify for the business credit availability program? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we know that our oil and gas sector is suffering through two crises. We have the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war, and we have been tackling both of these on each front. On April 17, we announced liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players. That made up 85% of the jobs in this sector. We have announced liquidity will be further made available to larger players. As well, through the BCAP, we are making sure that more companies are eligible so that they can remain whole and so they can hold onto the jobs that we need. +The Chair: The next question will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. It's lovely to see all of you. My first question is directed to the Prime Minister. It's a higher-level abstraction. As we all know, we're being told we need a vaccine, and the quest for a vaccine is all-consuming globally. However, people who think about this issue and the question of the power structure and profit motive, particularly Dr. Matthew Herder of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University, are questioning this model. We know that Jonas Salk never sought a patent on his polio vaccine. Can we ensure that public dollars for finding a vaccine will result in a product that is shared globally, openly, and is not for profit? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for her question. Our approach has been very clear when it comes to science. We have an open science model, and we're working with different partners and different jurisdictions to help develop vaccines and look at countermeasures and other therapeutics. Our goal is to make sure that we do so in a collaborative fashion, because this is a global pandemic, but make no mistake: If it's Canadian ingenuity and Canadian IP that's driving it, we want to support them as well. +Ms. Elizabeth May: As a follow-up to the minister's comment, I note it was interesting to see the claim made by this public health institute at Dalhousie about the wonderful research that was being done in Winnipeg on an Ebola vaccine. Because of the for-profit motive and the interests that big pharma had in seeing their market before they developed the product, it is alleged that the Ebola vaccine was actually delayed by the for-profit model. I wonder if we might consider examining this profit motive around the development of life-saving vaccines and other drugs. Is that a conversation the minister is having with others? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the member for her question. I'm working very closely with Minister Hajdu and the chief science advisor to look at all options. I'm glad the member highlighted the Ebola virus vaccine, which was developed here in Canada. I'm proud of the fact that the DNA sequencing for SARS was also done in Canada. We have incredible scientists and researchers. We are engaging with them and empowering them, and we will continue to share details of this with the public. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Changing gears, we know that the new regulations limiting what are described as military-style assault rifles and guns have been very controversial. It's very clear to me as an opposition member why we haven't seen legislation on any fast track. It's obviously not the sort of legislation that would gain unanimous consent. Wouldn't it be wise to table for first reading the entire legislative framework so that we know what we're talking about in the long term with regard to the buyback program and other aspects of this issue? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the member for the question. I want to assure her that at the first opportunity, we will bring forward legislation dealing with a number of aspects of our commitment to strengthen gun control in Canada, including legislation to deal with a buyback program, which we've indicated we will put in place. There are a number of other significant measures as well that we intend to bring forward to strengthen gun control legislation. We understand that it's a priority. The pandemic does not diminish our responsibility to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe, and we will bring that legislation forward at the first opportunity. +Ms. Elizabeth May: I confess that I was disappointed by this morning's announcement on support for seniors. I had been hoping for much more, because I hear from many seniors. I'm going to focus my question for the minister on the issue of seniors homes. Some that are being run by not-for-profit societies are actually running very well, certainly in my community, but they are facing increased costs that could bankrupt them. As yet, there's no program to help a well-run seniors home that is not experiencing a loss of revenue and has lots of staff working hard. These homes have increased costs for wages and increased costs for PPE and nowhere to look for help. Is there help coming? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I offer my gratitude to the many people who are working in these long-term care facilities day and night to keep seniors safe. The member certainly highlighted that there are not only additional expenses for some of the not-for-profit seniors homes, but also additional new measures that will increase all kinds of things, including costs. We continue to work with the provinces and territories and support them through, for example, generous transfers of money to boost their health care systems in ways that they think are most appropriate. We continue to have conversations at the health ministers' table on how we can support them. +The Chair: I'm afraid we're out of time on that one. The next question will go to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians are appalled by the disgraceful treatment of seniors in care homes across this country. Old folks are being left in soiled clothing and are going without baths for weeks. They are packed four to a room in dangerously unhealthy conditions. The situation is so bad that the armed forces had to be called in to intervene. To the Minister of Health, is her government prepared to take strong action to address this crisis in seniors health care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member has illustrated some of the horror stories that have appalled us all as Canadians and certainly as parliamentarians. We know that seniors deserve to live in dignity and safety with the utmost care, and that just hasn't been happening in this time of COVID and certainly, in some cases, in previous times as well. As the member knows, I've said publicly that I believe we need to hold long-term care homes to stronger standards. I have begun those preliminary conversations with my counterparts. I am working with many ministers across our government to think about how we do that, how we +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, if we treated children the way we do seniors in this country, social services would seize them. Over 80% of the deaths in Canada from COVID-19 have occurred in long-term care homes. Canada has the highest proportion of deaths in long-term care home settings among 14 comparable countries, including France, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. Canadians want action. What specifically is the minister going to do about the crisis in long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows that long-term care homes have rested largely in the jurisdiction of provincial governments and, in fact, municipal governments, which often run them and fund them partially as well. That's why it's important that we have those conversations with our provincial and territorial partners, but the member can rest assured that it is on the top of my priority list to engage with my colleagues all across the country, including many experts who have studied this issue multiple times, to come up with stronger standards so all seniors have quality of life, safety and dignity in their elder years. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, Canadians don't want politicians pointing fingers at each other; they want our seniors taken care of. COVID-19 didn't cause the problems; it exposed them. Decades of neglect by governments at all levels have resulted in this calamity. Not a single province or territory in Canada is meeting the minimum standards of hands-on care for seniors, and death rates from COVID-19 in private, for-profit facilities are two to three times that of public or non-profit homes. Will the minister agree with New Democrats that we need strong national standards, federal funding tied to enforcement and public delivery of care to effectively improve care for seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, certainly the member of Parliament has made an assertion that there is finger pointing. I don't think that's the case at all. As a matter of fact, what I hear from my colleagues at the provincial and territorial level is the willingness to collaborate on how, first of all, we get through this crisis together and strengthen safety for seniors in homes right now and then how we look to the future to build a stronger network of long-term care or care alternatives that will ensure that seniors have the right and the ability to live with dignity and safety in their homes. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what I'm not hearing is a single concrete proposal or measure that this minister is suggesting her government can take, but let me move to another subject. Like long-term care, COVID-19 has exposed other major gaps in our health care system. Millions of Canadians lost their prescription benefits when they lost their jobs, revealing the fundamental weakness of medical coverage tied to employment status. Will this government finally move to ensure all Canadians get the medicine they need by bringing in universal pharmacare at the earliest opportunity? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as you know, in the mandate that the Prime Minister gave to me, working on a national pharmacare plan is still there. I know it feels like a lifetime ago, but the member has very aptly illustrated why affordable medication is so important as part of a robust health care system. I look forward to continuing our work on ensuring that all Canadians can afford the medication they need. +The Chair: It is now over to Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister made a big announcement expressing his desire to launch an economic recovery plan that fast-tracks the transition to a green economy. MinisterGuilbeault, MinisterMcKenna and MinisterWilkinson were appointed to a group tasked with doing just that. Today, I worry that the group is nothing but an empty shell, a convenient post-crisis political pitch. On the natural resources front, the government's two main announcements primarily involve fossil fuels. We need only think of the $1.7billion being invested to clean up orphan wells. Perhaps there is an environmental component, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around yesterday's announcement by Export and Development Canada. It's going to lend TC Energy $500million to build its Coastal GasLink pipeline. That's $500million for a pipeline project that will eventually produce 8.6million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. How does the government reconcile that with its desire to transition to a green economy? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for the question. Certainly at this time, Canadians are most particularly focused on ensuring that support is provided so that they can put food on the table and pay their rent. We are starting to focus on the relaxation measures in many provinces and territories in Canada. That is the primary focus of the government, as it is of Canadians. Certainly as we move forward, we need to be thinking about the kind of society and economy that we want to create for the future. In that context, we need to learn lessons coming out of this experience, and certainly we need to ensure that we are addressing challenges that are on the horizon, including the challenge of climate change. Those are conversations that will need to be had as we move beyond this phase of the crisis, but at the current time, the focus is clearly on combatting the virus. +The Chair: Ms.Pauz has a point of order. +Ms. Monique Pauz (Repentigny, BQ): There was absolutely no interpretation while the minister was speaking. +The Chair: Since so many are having issues with the interpretation, let's take a quick break while I try to fix the problem on my end. I'm going to ask the minister to repeat his answer, and we'll see whether the interpretation comes through this time. If not, please let me know, Ms.Pauz and anyone else who doesn't hear it. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson: Of course, the issues of the future are very important. That means not just climate change, but also other challenges that we saw during the coronavirus crisis, challenges we need to take into account. Now, I think Canadians want us to take the time to focus on what is currently going on. We have put rules in place to protect Canadians. We really need to think about this. We need a plan. Of course, we need to think about the future, but I want Canadians +The Chair: Mr.Simard has the floor. +Mr. Mario Simard: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I want to tell you that, of all industries, the one best positioned to make the energy transition is probably the forestry industry. Unfortunately, in Canadaa petro statethere always seem to be two sets of rules when it comes to helping key industries, including providing liquidity support. Yesterday's announcement suggests that the $500million being provided by EDC is for a single project: Coastal GasLink. In 2017, under the softwood lumber action plan, EDC's entire budget for the forestry industry was exactly $500million. Now, EDC is shelling out $500million for just one project, Coastal GasLink, even though the whole of the forestry industry also received $500million when it needed EDC's support under a 2017 action plan to deal with tariffs. The industry accounts for 58,000jobs in Quebec and $6billion of Quebec's GDP. As I see it, there is a fundamental inequity. My question is for the natural resources minister. Does he think this situation is fair? Will he commit to providing the forestry industry with the same amount of liquidity being made available to the fossil fuel sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr.Chair, since 2017, our government has invested billions of dollars. I'll answer the question in English. Sorry. We launched our softwood lumber action plan to support workers in communities. We introduced funding through the strategic innovation fund specifically for forestry. Building on our work today, we have included traditional investments to make sure this sector innovates, diversifies and grows. Over these past two and a half months, I have spent an inordinate amount of time with CEOs, with heads of the forestry sectors from coast to coast to coast. A few days ago, I convened a meeting of CEOs from all parts of this country, from Quebec to British Columbia, to talk to them about solutions, about answers. The liquidity measures that were announced yesterday will help some of them. We will continue to work closely with industry to make sure we are there for them and that we stand by them through the COVID crisis, so we make sure that +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm hearing from small business owners like Joel, who runs a fitness club here in Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, and is very concerned that their landlords refuse to participate in the rent assistance program. These businesses have seen revenue drops between 50% and 100% and are asking for just 25% off their rent. When will the government help small businesses whose landlords refuse to be team players during this pandemic? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, first of all, we share the member's concern that small businesses be supported. That's why we've moved forward with a number of measures that are designed to be of assistance. With respect to rent support, we are encouraging landlords to support this measure. Obviously, rent and landlord-tenant relations are under provincial jurisdiction. At every opportunity I talk to the provincial finance ministers to encourage them to get engaged there. We will continue to support small businesses. We believe this program has significant merit. It allows for small businesses to significantly reduce their rent and for landlords to be protected with up to 75% of the rent. We think it is an excellent program. It will require the provinces to step forward and enforce it. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, here in B.C., businesses are preparing for phased reopening. A number of my constituents, including Kathy, who owns a beauty salon, are concerned about meeting the PPE requirements. What is the federal government doing to ensure businesses in my riding can get access to the PPE they need to keep their employees and customers safe when they reopen? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as a federal government, we are aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies. Our first priority is to provide PPE to our front-line health care workers. However, we are actively involved in trying to ascertain how the federal government can work with the provinces and territories to provide essential services and other businesses with PPE. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, Craig and Matt are co-owners of Wanstalls, a firearms retail outlet in downtown Maple Ridge that employs eight people and serves thousands of law-abiding firearm owners in my riding, people who are now made to feel like criminals by the Liberal government. Further, they are now stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of inventory that they can no longer sell. What are they supposed to do to keep open in this already tumultuous COVID environment? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's important to understand that none of the restrictions that we have put in place, the new prohibitions, in any way impact weapons that are used for the lawful purposes in Canada of hunting and sport shooting, so those weapons remain available to Canadians engaged in those lawful activities. We have prohibited weapons that were not intended for the legal purposes of hunting and sport shooting and for which firearms are available to Canadians. What we prohibited were weapons designed for another purpose, an unacceptable purpose. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, according to the CERB website, if a recipient earns over $1,000 in a reporting period, their entire $2,000 benefit must be repaid. I have constituents who are working part time and casually. They're worried that if they take an extra shift, they will lose their CERB, but if they refuse a shift, they will also lose their CERB. It's a classic Liberal catch-22. A worker may unknowingly make over the $1,000 by a couple of dollars. Does the government intend to make them repay all their CERB if they barely go over the threshold? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that is why we're working with individual eligible CERB recipients to make sure they are not put in positions of undue hardship. At the beginning, the registration restricted it to basically not working, and then we relaxed the condition to earning up to $1,000. I can assure the member that we will work with individuals. Service Canada is reaching out to people so that nobody is in the difficult position he is talking about. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: There's a point of order. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: There were some technical issues earlier during my fellow member Mario Simard's turn. Normally, each person gets five minutes. According to our calculations, he had about 45seconds left. This is a serious point of order. We shouldn't get the short end of the stick because we speak French in the House. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: All right. We'll check what happened, but I had stopped the clock. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I assure you he lost some time. +The Chair: The minister had to repeat his answer. We'll check and make sure it doesn't happen again. The good thing is that this is all being filmed, so we can watch the video back to see what happened. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, because the ministers chose to answer in French owing to a technical issue, their answers were unduly drawn out, which cost my fellow member speaking time. I think he should be given a chance to ask one last question, to be fair. Otherwise, French speakers are going to be at a major disadvantage. +The Chair: As I said, I'll check what happened and we'll have a solution for next time. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: We have another point of order. Mr.Guilbeault now has the floor. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I hope the member isn't suggesting that, because some members of the House are making an effort to speak French, they are unduly dragging out the time, as he seems to have said. Good for them, I say, for trying to speak a language they aren't necessarily comfortable in for the benefit of other members. +The Chair: I think a debate is brewing, but I'm sure that's not what people want, so I don't want an argument to break out over the fact that different languages are being spoken. We'll look into what happened and fix the problem so it doesn't happen again. We will go back to Mr. Dalton. You have about 30 seconds for a question. Thank you. Mr.Chair, many farmers in my riding and elsewhere are afraid they won't have enough workers this summer and fall. What is the government going to do to make sure those receiving the CERB and CESB have the right information and know about the job opportunities in the agri-food sector in our communities? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 15seconds to answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that while we are supporting Canadians through both the CERB and the CESB, we are creating tens of thousands of jobs, including in the agriculture sector, to make sure there is labour available in this important and essential sector. +The Chair: Those are all the questions we will have for today. I want to thank everyone. When I first got elected as Speaker, one of the things I mentioned was that you would want everyone who was watching, including your families and your friends, to be proud of you. I can honestly say that they would all be very proud of what we went through today. I am very proud of today's session. I want to thank everyone for wearing the headsets. I didn't see anybody answer without one, and it is very much appreciated, not only by our fellow members but also by the people who are translating into the other language that you are not speaking. Thank you all again. Have a good day everyone. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, opened the meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic and provided guidelines for participating via videoconference. No ministerial announcements were made, so the committee proceeded to present petitions. + +Ms. Heather McPherson presented a petition on behalf of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative calling for a national perinatal mental health strategy. Mr. Scott Reid presented a petition related to cystic fibrosis, urging the rescission of amendments to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and support for access to the medicine Trikafta. Ms. Elizabeth May brought forth a petition highlighting the severe shortage of family doctors in Canada. Mr. Brad Vis presented a petition against the government's approach to firearms legislation, expressing concern over targeting law-abiding firearms owners over gangs and illegal weapons smugglers. Mr. Gord Johns tabled an e-petition against the expansion of open-net salmon farming operations in Nova Scotia. Mr. Paul Manly presented a petition concerning the Coastal GasLink project on Wet'suwet'en territory. Ms. Yasmin Ratansi presented a petition requesting that no financial assistance be provided to airlines until full refunds are given for cancelled flights due to COVID-19. + +During questioning ministers, queries were posed on various subjects including the handling of potentially fraudulent CERB applications, addressing the homelessness crisis, support for long-term care homes, the transition towards a green economy, and the crisis in seniors health care. Additional topics included support for small businesses, availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), and issues facing the oil and gas industry. Concerns were raised about clarity in the government's actions and policies, particularly regarding the pandemic and the treatment of seniors. There was also mention of the need for stronger gun control legislation and support for industries such as forestry during the economic recovery from the pandemic. + +The discussion also involved technical issues with interpretation, which caused some disruption and concern over equitable treatment for French-speaking members. The chair assured the committee that the issue would be investigated and addressed to prevent future problems." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD C: What channel am I on ? +PhD E: Channel . +PhD C: Oh , channel two . +PhD G: Make sure to turn your microphone on . +PhD E: Channel . +PhD G: There 's a battery . +Grad B: There we go . +PhD G: OK . Your channel number 's already on this blank sheet . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: So you just {disfmarker} If you can {disfmarker} +Professor F: Channel five ? Channel five . +PhD E: Channel whatever . +Professor F: I 'm on channel five . +Grad B: Camera one , camera two . +PhD E: What am I ? +Professor F: Little low ? +PhD E: Channel four ? +Professor F: Channel five . +PhD E: This number four ? OK . +Professor F: Channel five . OK . +PhD G: The gai the gain 's up at it {disfmarker} what it usually is , +Professor F: Is it ? +PhD G: but if you think it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's sort of a default . But I can set it higher if you like . +Professor F: Oh . Maybe it should be a little higher . +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: It 's not showing much . Test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test . OK , that {disfmarker} that seems better ? Yeah ? OK , good . Ah , that 's good , that 's good . That 's Ahh . Mmm . So I {disfmarker} I had a question for Adam . Have we started already ? +PhD G: Well , we started recording , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Is Jane around or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I saw her earlier . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} +PhD G: She can just walk in , I guess , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . She 'll probably come up . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Since we 're starting late I figured we 'd better just start . +Professor F: Yeah . Great idea . I was gonna ask Adam to , uh , say if he thought anymore about the demo stuff because {vocalsound} it occurred to me that this is late May and the DARPA meeting is in {pause} mid July . Uh , but {vocalsound} I don't remember w what we {disfmarker} I know that we were gonna do something with the transcriber interface is one thing , but I thought there was a second thing . Anybody remember ? +PhD G: Well , we were gonna do a mock - up , like , question answering or something , I thought , that was totally separate from the interface . Do you remember ? Remember , like , asking questions and retrieving , {vocalsound} but in a pre - stored fashion . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD G: That was the thing we talked about , I think , before the transcriber {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Come on in . +Professor F: Alright . So anyway , you have to sort out that out and get somebody going on it cuz we 're {disfmarker} got a {disfmarker} got a month left basically . So . +PhD G: You like these . Right ? OK , good . +Professor F: OK . Um OK . So , what are we g else we got ? You got {disfmarker} you just wrote a bunch of stuff . +PhD G: No . That was all , um , previously here . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD G: I was writing {pause} the digits and then I realized I could xerox them , +Professor F: Oh , oh . +PhD G: because I didn't want people to turn their heads from these microphones . So . We all , by the way , have the same digit form , for the record . So . +Professor F: That 's cool . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , the choice is , uh , which {disfmarker} which do we want more , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the comparison , uh , {vocalsound} of everybody saying them at the same time or the comparison of people saying the same digits at different times that {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: It 's just cuz I didn't have any more digit sheets . +Professor F: I know that . But , you know , which opportunity should we +PhD G: So . Yeah . +PhD C: Unison . +Professor F: exploit ? {vocalsound} Unison . +PhD G: I mean , it {disfmarker} Actually it might be good to have them separately and have the same exact strings . I mean , we could use them for normalizing or something , but it of course goes more quickly doing them in unison . +Professor F: I guess we 'll see +PhD G: I don't know . +Professor F: i I guess it 's dependent on +PhD G: See how long we go . +Professor F: how long we go and how good the snack is out there . +PhD E: But anyway , they won't be identical as somebody is saying zero in some {disfmarker} sometimes , you know , saying O , and so , it 's not i not identical . +Professor F: Yeah . Hmm . Get some advance intelligence . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to train . +PhD G: We 'd be like a chorus . +PhD E: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to get s get some experience . +PhD C: Greek chorus . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: Yeah . Really {pause} boring chorus . Um . Do we {pause} have an agenda ? Adam usually tries to put those together , but he 's ill . +PhD D: I 've got a couple of things to talk about . +Professor F: So . Yeah . Uh ju what {disfmarker} what might those be ? +PhD D: Uh , IBM stuff and , um , just getting {vocalsound} uh , meeting information organized . +Professor F: Meeting info organized . OK . Um . +PhD C: Are you implying that it 's currently disorganized ? +PhD D: In my mind . +Professor F: Is there stuff that 's happened about , um , uh , the {pause} SRI recognizer et cetera , tho those things that were happening before with {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Well . +Professor F: Y y you guys were doing a bunch of experiments with different front - ends and then with {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is that still sort of where it was , uh , the other day ? +PhD C: We 're improving . +Professor F: We 're improving . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You saw the note that the PLP now is getting basically the same as the MFCC . +Professor F: Right . +PhD D: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . Actually it looks like it 's getting better . +Professor F: Right . Oh . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} but it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Just with {disfmarker} with age , kind of . +PhD C: With age . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , that 's not d directly related to me . Doesn't mean we can't talk about it . Um , it seems {disfmarker} It looks l I haven't {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} The experiment is still not complete , but , um , it looks like the vocal tract length normalization is working beautifully , actually , w using the warp factors that we computed for the SRI system and just applying them to the {vocalsound} ICSI front - end . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . That 's pretty funny . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So you just need to {pause} copy over to this one . +PhD C: Just had to take the reciprocal of the number because they have different meanings in the two systems . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: Ah ! Yeah . Well , that 's always good to do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: But one issue actually that just came up in discussion with Liz and {disfmarker} and Don was , um , as far as meeting recognition is concerned , um , we would really like to , uh , move , uh , to , uh , doing the recognition on automatic segmentations . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Because in all our previous experiments , we had the {disfmarker} uh , you know , we were essentially cheating by having the , um , you know , the h the hand - segmentations as the basis of the recognition . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so now with Thilo 's segmenter working so well , I think we should {pause} consider doing a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . So . +Grad B: Come on . +PhD C: uh , doing {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . We {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Y think {disfmarker} you think we should increase the error rate . +PhD E: Anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: That - that 's what I wanted to do anyway , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: so we should just get together and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And even {disfmarker} The good thing is that since you , um , have high recall , {comment} even if you have low precision cuz you 're over - generating , that 's good because we could train noise models in the recognizer for these kinds of , uh , transients and things that come from the microphones , +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: but {vocalsound} I know that if we run recognition unconstrained on a whole waveform , we do very poorly because we 're {disfmarker} we 're getting insertions in places what {disfmarker} that you may well be cutting out . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So we do need some kind of pre - segmentation . +PhD C: We should {disfmarker} we should consider doing some extra things , like , um , you know , retraining or adapting the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the models for background noise to the {disfmarker} to this environment , for instance . +PhD G: Mmm . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And , yeah , using Thilo 's , you know , posteriors or some kind of {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . +PhD G: right now they 're {disfmarker} they 're discrete , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yes or no for a speaker , to consider those particular speaker background models . +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: So . There 's lots of ins interesting things that could be done . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . We should do that . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: Good . So , uh , why don't we , uh , do the IBM stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , talked with Brian and gave him the alternatives to the single beep at the end of each utterance that we had generated before . +Professor F: You had some {pause} thing about that ? Right . +PhD D: And so {disfmarker} +Professor F: The , uh , Chuck chunks . +PhD D: Yeah . The Chuck chunks . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: Right . And so he talked it over with the transcriber and the transcriber thought that the easiest thing for them would be if there was a beep and then the nu a number , a digit , and then a beep , uh , at the beginning of each one +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that would help keep them from getting lost . And , um , {vocalsound} so Adam wrote a little script to generate those style , uh , beeps +PhD C: Where 'd you get the digits from ? +PhD D: and so we 're {disfmarker} I came up here and just recorded the numbers one through ten . +Postdoc A: They sound really good . +PhD D: So . Does it sound OK ? +PhD G: That 's a great idea . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . We just used those . +PhD C: And do you splice them into the {pause} waveform ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . He {disfmarker} then he d I recorded {disfmarker} Actually , I recorded one through ten three times at three different speeds and then he picked . +PhD C: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: He liked the fastest one , so he just cut those out {vocalsound} and spliced them in between , uh , two beeps . +Postdoc A: It sounds like a radio announcer 's voice . Really . +PhD E: It will be funny uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Does it ? +PhD E: It will be funny when you 're really reading digits , and then there are the chunks with {disfmarker} with your {pause} digits in ? +PhD D: Yeah . With my {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Oh that 's right . +PhD G: Oh , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Now actually , +PhD D: That 'll throw them , +Postdoc A: we 're {disfmarker} Are we handling {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: huh ? +Professor F: Uh , maybe we should have you record A , B , C for those or something . +PhD D: Yeah . {comment} Huh ! Maybe . And she said it wasn't gonna {disfmarker} the transcriber said it wouldn't be a problem cuz they can actually make a template , uh , that has beep , number , beep . So for them it 'll be very quick +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} to put those in there {vocalsound} when they 're transcribing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um , we {disfmarker} We 're gonna send them one more sample meeting , uh , and Thilo has run his segmentation . Adam 's gonna generate the chunked file . And then , um , I 'll give it to Brian and they can try that out . And when we get that back we 'll see if that sort of fixes the problem we had with , uh , too many beeps in the last transcription . +Professor F: OK . Do w do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Do you have any idea of the turn - around on {disfmarker} on those steps you just said ? +PhD G: Great . +PhD D: Uh . Our s our {disfmarker} On our side ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: or including IBM 's ? +Professor F: Including IBM 's . +PhD D: Well , I don't know . The last one seemed like it took a couple of weeks . Um , maybe even three . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: Uh , that 's just the I B M side . Our side is quick . I mean , I {disfmarker} I don't know . How long does your {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It should @ @ be finished today or something . Yeah . +Professor F: Well , I meant the overall thing . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: e e u u {comment} The reason I 'm asking is because , uh , Jane and I have just been talking , and she 's just been doing . {vocalsound} Uh , e a , you know , further hiring of transcribers . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so we don't sort of really know exactly what they 'll be doing , how long they 'll be doing it , and so forth , because right now she has no choice but to operate in the mode that we already have working . +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: And , uh , so it 'd be {disfmarker} It 'd be good to sort of get that resolved , uh , soon as we could , +PhD D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I hope @ @ {comment} we can get a better estimate from this {pause} one that we send them . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . Um . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't know yet how long that 'll take . +Professor F: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} I mean in particular I would {disfmarker} I would really hope that when we do this DARPA meeting in July that we sort of have {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're into production mode , somehow {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , that we {disfmarker} we actually {vocalsound} have a stream going and we know how {disfmarker} how well it does and how {disfmarker} and how it operates . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: I think that would {disfmarker} that would certainly be a {disfmarker} a very good thing to know . +PhD D: Right . Right . +Professor F: OK . Uh . Maybe before we do the meeting info organize thing , maybe you could say relevant stuff about where we are in transcriptions . +Postdoc A: OK . So , um , we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , the transcribers have continued to work past what I 'm calling "" set one "" , which was the s the set that I 've been , uh {disfmarker} OK , talking about up to this point , but , uh , they 've gotten five meetings done in that set . Right now they 're in the process of being edited . Um , the , um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I hired two transcribers today . I 'm thinking of hiring another one , which will {disfmarker} because we 've had a lot of attrition . And that will bring our total to {disfmarker} +Professor F: They die off after they do this for a while . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's various things . +PhD D: Burn - out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So , one of them had a baby . Um , you know , one of them really w wasn't planning {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that was an unfor unforeseen side effect of {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Eh , one of them , um , had never planned to work past January . I mean , it 's th all these various things , cuz we , you know , we presented it as possibly a month project back in January and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Um , so it makes sense . Uh , through attrition we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} we 're down to {disfmarker} to two , but they 're really solid . We 're really lucky the two that we kept . And , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't mean {disfmarker} I don't mean anything against the others . {comment} What I mean is we 've got a good cause {disfmarker} a good core . No . We had a good core {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , they won't hear this since they 're going . They won't be transcribing this meeting . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but still . I mean , I d it 's just a matter of we {disfmarker} w we 're {disfmarker} we 've got , uh , +Professor F: No backs . +Postdoc A: two of the ones who {disfmarker} who , um , ha had been putting in a lot of hours up to this point and they 're continuing to put in a {disfmarker} a lot of hours , which is wonderful , and excellent work . And so , then , in addition , um , I hired two more today and I 'm planning to h hire a third one with this {disfmarker} within this coming week , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but the plan is {disfmarker} just as , uh , Morgan was saying we discussed this , and the plan right now is to keep the staff on the {disfmarker} on the leaner side , you know , rather than hiring , like , eight to ten right now , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: because if the IBM thing comes through really quickly , then , um , we wouldn't wanna have to , uh , you know , lay people off and stuff . So . And this way it 'll {disfmarker} I mean , I got really a lot of response for {disfmarker} for my notice and I think I could hire additional people if I {pause} wish to . +Professor F: Yeah . An - and the other thing is , I mean , in the unlikely event {disfmarker} and since we 're so far from this , it 's a little hard to plan this way {disfmarker} in the unlikely event that we actually find {vocalsound} that we have , uh , transcribers on staff who are twiddling their thumbs because , you know , there 's , you know , {vocalsound} all the stuff that {disfmarker} that was sitting there has been transcribed and they 're {disfmarker} and they 're faster {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline is faster than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , than the generation , um , eh , i in {disfmarker} in the day {disfmarker} e event that that day actually dawns , uh , I {disfmarker} I bet we could find some other stuff for them to do . +Postdoc A: Oh , yes . +Professor F: So I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} that , eh , eh , a as we were talking , if we {disfmarker} if we hire twelve , then we could , you know , run into a problem later . I mean , we also just couldn't sustain that forever . But {disfmarker} but , um {disfmarker} for all sorts of reasons {disfmarker} but if we hire f you know , f we have five on staff {disfmarker} five or six on staff at any given time , then {vocalsound} it 's a small enough number so we can be flexible either way . +Postdoc A: Good . OK . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: It 'd be great , too , if , um , we can {disfmarker} we might need some help again getting the tighter boundaries or some hand {disfmarker} to experiment with , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , to have a ground truth for this segmentation work , which {disfmarker} I guess you have some already that was really helpful , and we could probably use more . +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . That was a thing I {disfmarker} I planned working on , is , uh , to use the {disfmarker} the transcriptions which are done by now , and to {disfmarker} to use them as , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh . Oh , the new ones +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: with the tighter boundaries . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . And to use them for {disfmarker} for training a {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} fo whatever . Yeah . To {disfmarker} to create some speech - nonspeech labels out of them , and {disfmarker} Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that 's a thing w was {disfmarker} w what I 'm just looking into . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pre - segmentations are so much {disfmarker} are s so extremely helpful . Now there was , uh , I g guess {disfmarker} So , a couple weeks ago I needed some new ones and it happened to be during the time that he was on vacation {disfmarker} f for just very few days you were away . But it happened to be during that time I needed one , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: so I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so I started them on the non - pre - segmented and then switched them over to yours and , um , they , um {disfmarker} you know , they always appreciate that when they have that available . And he 's , uh , usually , eh , uh , um {disfmarker} Um . So they really appreciate it . But I was gonna say that they do adjust it once in a while . You know , once in a while there 's something like , +PhD E: Yeah , sure . +Postdoc A: um , and e Actually you talked to them . Didn't you ? Did you ? Have you {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . I talked to Helen . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and she was {disfmarker} And so , I asked her {disfmarker} I mean , They 're very perceptive . I really want to have this meeting of the transcribers . I haven't done it yet , but I wanna do that and she 's out of town , um , for a couple of weeks , but I wanna do that when she returns . Um , cuz she was saying , you know , in a {disfmarker} in a span of very short period {disfmarker} we asked {disfmarker} It seems like the ones that need to be adjusted are these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things , and she was saying the short utterances , uh , the , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Postdoc A: you know , I mean , you 're {disfmarker} You 're aware of this . But {disfmarker} but actually i it 's so correct for so much of the time , that it 's an enormous time saver +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and it just gets tweaked a little around the boundaries . So . +PhD G: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Um . Yeah . I think it 'd be interesting to combine these . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Is there actually a record of where they change ? I mean , you can compare , do a diff on the {disfmarker} just so that we {vocalsound} knew {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: You could do it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's complicated in that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} hhh , i hhh , i +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , when {disfmarker} when they create new {disfmarker} yeah , new segments or something , it will be , uh , not that easy but {disfmarker} hmm . I think {pause} one could do that . +PhD G: I mean , if we keep a old copy of the old time marks +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: just so that if we run it we know whether we 're {disfmarker} which ones were cheating +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . That would be great , yeah , to know that . +PhD G: and +Postdoc A: There is a {disfmarker} there is one problem with that and that is when they start part way through then what I do is I merge what they 've done with the pre - segmented version . +PhD G: which one would be good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So it 's not a pure {disfmarker} it 's not a pure condition . Wha - what you 'd really like is that they started with pre - segmented and were pre - segmented all the way through . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it wasn't possible for about four of the recent ones . But , it will be possible in the future +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: because we {disfmarker} we 're , um . +PhD E: It would . +PhD G: Mmm , that 's great . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . As long as we have a record , I guess , of the original {pause} automatic one , we can always find out how well {pause} we would do fr from the recognition side by using those boundaries . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , a completely non - cheating version . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Also if you need someone to record this meeting , I mean , I 'm happy to {disfmarker} for the transcribers {disfmarker} I could do it , or Chuck or Adam . +Postdoc A: Thank you . +Professor F: OK . So , uh , u you were saying something about organizing the meeting info ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , uh , Jane and Adam and I had a meeting where we talked about the reorganization of the {pause} directory structure for all of the meeting {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did you record it ? +PhD D: No . For all the Meeting Recorder data . We should have . Um . And so we 've got a plan for what we 're gonna do there . And then , Jane also s prepared a {disfmarker} um , started getting all of the {disfmarker} the meetings organized , so she prepared a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spreadsheet , which I spent the last couple of days adding to . So I went through all of the data that we have collected so far , and have been putting it into , uh , a spreadsheet {vocalsound} with start time , the date , the old meeting name , the new meeting name , the number of speakers , the duration of the meeting , comments , you know , what its transcription status is , all that kind of stuff . And so , the idea is that we can take this and then export it as HTML and put it on the Meeting Recorder web page so we can keep people updated about what 's going on . +PhD G: Oh , great . +PhD D: Um , I 've gotta get some more information from Jane cuz I have some {disfmarker} some gaps here that I need to get her to fill in , but {vocalsound} so far , um , {vocalsound} as of Monday , the fourteenth , um , we 've had a total number of meeting sixty - two hours of meetings that we have collected . And , um {disfmarker} Uh , some other interesting things , average number of speakers per meeting is six . Um , and I 'm gonna have on here the total amount that 's been transcribed so far , but I 've got a bunch of {disfmarker} uh , that 's what I have to talk to Jane about , figuring out exactly which ones have {disfmarker} have been completed and so forth . But , um , {vocalsound} this 'll be a nice thing that we can put up on the {disfmarker} the web site and people can {vocalsound} be informed of the status of various different ones . And {vocalsound} it 'll also list , uh , like under the status , if it 's at IBM or if it 's at ICSI , uh , or if it 's completed or which ones we 're excluding and {disfmarker} and there 's a place for comments , so we can , {vocalsound} um , say why we 're excluding things and so forth . So . +Professor F: Now would the ones that , um , are already transcribed {disfmarker} we h we have enough there that c you know , we 've already done some studies and so forth and {disfmarker} um , shouldn't we go through and do the business - es u of {disfmarker} of having the , um , uh , participants approve it , uh , for {disfmarker} approve the transcriptions for distribution and so forth ? +Postdoc A: Um , interesting idea . In principle , I {disfmarker} I would say yes , although I still am doing some {disfmarker} the final - pass editing , trying to convert it over to the master file as the {disfmarker} being the channelized version and it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it seems like I get into that a certain way and then something else intervenes {comment} and I have to stop . Cleaning up the things like the , uh , uh , places where the transcriber was uncertain , and {disfmarker} and doing spot - checking here and there . So , um , uh , I guess it would make sense to wait until th that 's done , um , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , le let me put in another sort of a milestone kind of {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I did with the , uh , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , we are gonna have this DARPA {pause} meeting in the middle of July , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: and I think it w it 'd be {disfmarker} given that we 've been {disfmarker} we 've given a couple public talks about it already , spaced by months and months , I think it 'd be pretty bad if we continued to say none of this is available . Um . +Postdoc A: It 'll certainly be done by then . Yeah . +Professor F: Right . So we can s we {disfmarker} we wanna be able to say "" here is a subset that is available right now "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Professor F: and that 's has been through the legal issues and so forth . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor F: So . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . So that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: So , by {disfmarker} before July . +PhD C: And they don't have to approve , you know , th an edited version , they can just give their approval to whatever version +Postdoc A: Well , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , in principle , yes . But , I mean , i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if somebody actually did get into some legal issue with it then we +PhD C: Bu Yeah . But th I mean , the editing will continue . Presumably if {disfmarker} if s errors are found , they will be fixed , but they won't change the {disfmarker} the content of the meetings . +PhD D: Content , really . +Postdoc A: Well , see , this is the {disfmarker} this is the issue . Subtleties . +PhD C: So . +PhD G: Well , i if Jane is clarifying question question , then , you know , how can they agree to it before they know her final version ? +Postdoc A: The other thing , too , is there can be subtleties where a person uses this word instead of that word , which @ @ {comment} could 've been transcribed in the other way . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Thing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And no and they wouldn't have {vocalsound} been slanderous if it had been this other word . You know ? +Professor F: I it {disfmarker} you know , there there is a point at which I agree it becomes ridiculous because , you know , you could do this final thing and then a year from now somebody could say , you know , that should be a period and not a question mark . Right ? And you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's no way that we 're gonna go back and ask everybody "" do you approve this , uh , you know {disfmarker} this document now ? "" So {disfmarker} So I think what it is is that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that they sign {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't looked at it in a while , but it has to be open enough that it sort of says "" OK , from now on {disfmarker} you know , now that I 've read this , you can use {disfmarker} do anything you want with these data . "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And , uh {disfmarker} But , i I think we wanna {disfmarker} So , assuming that it 's in that kind of wording , which I don't remember , {vocalsound} um , I think i we just wanna have enough confidence ourselves that it 's so close to the final form it 's gonna be in , a year from now that they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I agree . Mmm . I totally agree . It 's just , uh , a question of , {vocalsound} uh , if {disfmarker} if the person is using the transcript as the way of them judging what they said and whether it was slanderous , {vocalsound} then it seems like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i it needs to be more correct than if we could count on them re - listening to the meeting . +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: Because it becomes , eh , in a way a {disfmarker} a f uh , a legal document i if they 've agreed to that . +Professor F: Well , I forget how we end Right . I forget how we ended up on this , but I remember my taking the position {vocalsound} of not making it so {disfmarker} so easy for everybody to observe everything and Adam was taking the position of {disfmarker} of having it be really straightforward for people to check every aspect of it including the audio . And I don't remember who won , Adam or me , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , {vocalsound} if it 's only the transcript , though {disfmarker} I mean , th this {disfmarker} this is my point , that {disfmarker} that +Professor F: uh , the {disfmarker} Uh , that that 's why I 'm bringing this up again , because I can't remember how we ended up . +Postdoc A: then it becomes {disfmarker} +Professor F: That it was the transcrip He wanted to do a web interface that would make it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , if it 's just the audio {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: that would give you access to the transcript and the audio . That 's what Adam wanted . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And I don't remember how we ended up . +PhD G: I mean , with the web interface it 's interesting , because you could allow the person who signs to be informed when their transcript changes , or something like that . And , I mean , I would say "" no "" . Like , I don't wanna know , but some people might be really {vocalsound} interested and then y In other words , they would be informed if there was some significant change other than typos and things like that . +Professor F: You decided you were whispering Satanic incantations under your breath when you were {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , {vocalsound} I don't know what happened to the small heads thing , but I j {vocalsound} Um , I 'm just saying that , like , you know , you can sort of say that any things that are deemed {disfmarker} +Professor F: They disappeared from view . +PhD G: Anyway . I mean , I agree that at some point people {vocalsound} probably won't care about typos but they would care about significant meaning changes and then they could be asked for their consent , I guess , if {disfmarker} if those change . Cuz assumi {vocalsound} assuming we {disfmarker} we don't really distribute things that have any significant changes from what they sign anyway . +PhD C: Tha That 's {disfmarker} How about having them approve the audio and not the transcripts ? +PhD G: Oh , my God . +Postdoc A: That would be simpler , +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: if we could count on them listening . +PhD G: But no one will listen to the hours and hours of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Talk . +PhD C: Well , that 's O K . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: We just have to give them a chance to listen to it , and if they don't , that 's their problem . +Grad B: hmm , hmm . +PhD G: You {disfmarker} you d That 's like {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Unfortunately , uh , in {disfmarker} in the sign thing that they signed , it says "" transcripts "" . +PhD C: No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc A: "" You 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be provided the transcripts when they 're available . "" +PhD C: Really ? +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I I {disfmarker} I think +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: that 's a lot to ask for people that have been in a lot of meetings . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: W anyway , haven't we {disfmarker} we 've gone down this path a number of times . I know this can lead to extended conversations and {disfmarker} and not really get anywhere , so let {disfmarker} let me just suggest that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , off - line that , uh , the people involved figure it out and take care of it before it 's July . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: OK . So {disfmarker} so that in July we can tell people {vocalsound} "" yes , we have this and you can use it "" . +Postdoc A: Yes . It 's done , ready , available . Good . +Professor F: Uh . So , let 's see . What else we got ? Uh . Don did {disfmarker} did a report about his project in class and , uh {disfmarker} an oral and written {disfmarker} written version . +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: So that was stuff he was doing with you . Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I guess one thing we 're learning is that the amount {disfmarker} We have eight meetings there because we couldn't use the non - native {disfmarker} all non - native meetings and {vocalsound} it 's , well , probably below threshold on enough data for us for the things we 're looking at because the {vocalsound} prosodic features are {pause} very noisy and so you {disfmarker} you need a lot of data in order to model them . Um , so we 're starting to see some patterns and we 're hoping that maybe with , {vocalsound} I don't know , double or triple the data {disfmarker} with twenty meetings or so , that we would start to get better results . But we did find that some of the features that , I gue Jane would know about , that are expressing sort of the {vocalsound} distance of , um , {vocalsound} boundaries from peaks in the utterance and {vocalsound} some {pause} local , um , range {disfmarker} pitch range effects , like how close people are to their floor , are showing up in these classifiers , which are also being given some word features that are cheating , cuz they 're true words . Um , so these are based on forced alignment . Word features like , um , word frequency and whether or not something 's a backchannel and so forth . So , we 're starting to see , I think , some interesting patterns . +Professor F: So the dominant features , including everything , were those {disfmarker} those quasi - cheating things . Right ? Where these are {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sometimes not . +PhD G: I think it depends what you 're looking at , a actually . +Grad B: Yeah . Sometimes {pause} positions in sentences obviously , or in spurts , was helpful . I don't know if that 's cheating , too . +PhD G: Right . Um , +PhD C: Spurts wouldn't be . Right ? +PhD G: spurts is not cheating except that of course you know the real words , +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: but roughly speaking , the recognized words are gonna give you a similar type of position . +Grad B: Right . Would they give you the same number of words , though ? +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's either early or late . +PhD C: No +PhD G: Not exactly , but i +Grad B: But ra somewhat ? +Professor F: On the average . +PhD G: Y yeah it should be . Well , we don't know and actually that 's one of the things we 're interested in doing , is a sort of {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Have you tried using just time , as opposed to number of words ? +PhD G: So . +Grad B: I think ti uh {disfmarker} Just p time position , like when the word starts ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: I don't know if that was in the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , no , I mean t time {disfmarker} time position relative to the beginning of the spurt . +PhD G: Eh {disfmarker} You know , uh +Grad B: Start . +PhD G: Yeah , +Grad B: Yeah . There 's all these things to do . +PhD G: uh , we didn't try it , but it 's s +Grad B: Like , there 's a lot of different features you could just pull out . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean that wouldn't be cheating because you can detect pause {pause} pretty well within the time . +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: How about time position normalized by speak +PhD G: And it depends on speaking rate {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: speaking rate . Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's actually why I didn't use it at first . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: But we {disfmarker} one of the interesting things was I guess you reported on some te punctuation type {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: finding sentence boundaries , finding disfluency boundaries , and then I had done some work on finding from the foreground speech whether or not someone was likely to interrupt , so where {disfmarker} you know , if I 'm talking now and someone {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Andreas is about to interrupt me , is he gonna choose a certain place in my speech , either prosodically or word - based . And there the prosodic features actually showed up and a neat thing {disfmarker} even though the word features were available . And a neat thing there too is I tried some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} putting the speaker {disfmarker} So , I gave everybody {vocalsound} a short version of their name . So the real names are in there , which we couldn't use . Uh , we should use I Ds or something . And those don't show up . So that means that overall , um , it wasn't just modeling Morgan , or it wasn't just modeling a single person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , but was sort of trying to , {vocalsound} uh , get a general idea {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the tree classifier was trying to find general locations that were applicable to different speakers , even though there are huge speaker effects . So . The {disfmarker} but the main limitation now is I {disfmarker} because we 're only looking at things that happen every {vocalsound} ten words or every twenty words , we need more {disfmarker} more data and more data per speaker . So . It 'd also be interesting to look at the EDU meetings because we did include meeting type as a feature , so whether you were in a r Meeting Recorder meeting or a Robustness meeting did matter {vocalsound} to {pause} interrupts because there are just fewer interrupts in the Robustness meetings . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And so the classifier learns more about Morgan than it does about sort of the average person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: which is {vocalsound} not bad . It 'd probably do better than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , but it wasn't generalizing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} And I think Don , um {disfmarker} Well , we have a long list of things he 's starting to look at now over the summer , where we can {disfmarker} And he 'll be able to report on more things {pause} in the future . But it was great that we could at least go from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , Jane 's transcripts and the , {vocalsound} uh , recognizer output and get it {pause} to this point . And I think it 's something Mari can probably use in her preliminary report {disfmarker} like , "" yeah , we 're at the point where we 're training these classifiers and we 're just {vocalsound} reporting very preliminary but suggestive results that {vocalsound} some features , both word and pro prosodic , work . "" The other thing that was interesting to me is that the pitch features are better than in Switchboard . And I think that really is from the close - talking mikes , cuz the pitch processing that was done has much cleaner behavior than {disfmarker} than the Switchboard telephone bandwidth . +PhD C: W wh wh wh Better in what sense ? +PhD G: Um . Well , first of all , the pitch tracks are m have less , um , halvings and doublings than {disfmarker} than Switchboard and there 's a lot less dropout , so if you ask how many regions where you would normally expect some vowels to be occurring {vocalsound} are completely devoid of pitch information , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: in other words the pitch tracker just didn't get a high enough probability of voicing for words {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for , you know , five word +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD G: there are much fewer than in Switchboard . So the missing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We had a big missing data problem in Switchboard and , so the features weren't as reliable cuz they were often just not available . +PhD D: Could it have to do with the {disfmarker} the lower frequency cut - off on the Switchboard ? +PhD G: So that 's actually good . Ma - maybe . I mean , the tele we had telephone bandwidth for Switchboard and we had the an annoying sort of telephone handset movement problem that I think may also affect it . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: So we 're just getting better signals in {disfmarker} in this data . Which is nice . So . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Anyway , Don 's been doing a great job and we hope to continue with , um , Andreas 's help and also some of Thilo 's help on this , +Professor F: Great . +PhD E: Y +PhD G: to {disfmarker} to try to get a non - cheating version of how all this would work . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor F: Has {disfmarker} has , uh {disfmarker} ? We just {disfmarker} I think , just talked about this the other day , but h has {disfmarker} has anybody had a chance to try changing , uh , insertion penalty sort of things with the {disfmarker} with the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , using the tandem system input for the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Oh , yeah . I tried that . It didn't , um , help dramatically . The {disfmarker} +PhD D: Were they out of balance ? I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't notice . +PhD C: There were a little {disfmarker} the relative number of {disfmarker} I think there were a higher number of deletions , actually . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD C: So , you , uh {disfmarker} So , actually it {disfmarker} it preferred to have a positive {disfmarker} er , negative insertion penalty , +PhD G: Deletions ? +PhD C: which means {vocalsound} that , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But , you know , it didn't change {vocalsound} th the {disfmarker} by adjusting that {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . The error changed by probably one percent or so . But , you know , given that that word error rate is so high , that 's not a {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} So that 's not the problem . +PhD C: That 's not the problem . No . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , we s just , um , uh {disfmarker} you know , Chuck and I talked and the {pause} @ @ {comment} next thing to do is probably to tune the {disfmarker} um , the size of the Gaussian system , um , @ @ {comment} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} to this feature vector , which we haven't done at all . We just used the same {vocalsound} configuration as we used for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the standard system . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} for instance , uh , Dan {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Dan just sent me a message saying that CMU used , um , {vocalsound} something like ten Gaussians per cluster {disfmarker} You know , each {disfmarker} each mixture has ten {pause} Gaussians +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . We 're using sixty - four , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and we 're using sixty - four , +PhD D: right ? +PhD C: so that 's {vocalsound} obviously a big difference +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: and it might be way off and give very poorly trained , uh , you know , Gaussians that way , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: uh , an and poorly trained mixture weights . So {disfmarker} so , we have {disfmarker} The turn - around time on the training when we train only the {disfmarker} a male system with , uh , you know , our small training set , is {vocalsound} less than twenty - four hours , so we can run lots of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , basically just brute force , try a whole bunch of different um , settings . +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: And , uh , with the new machines it 'll be even better . So . +Professor F: Yeah . We get twelve of those , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: huh ? +PhD C: But the PLP features work {disfmarker} um , uh , you know , continue to improve the , +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} As I said before , the {disfmarker} uh using Dan 's , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization option works very well . So , um , @ @ {comment} I ran one experiment where we 're just {vocalsound} did the vocal tract le normalization only in the test data , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I didn't bother to retrain {pause} the models at all , and it improved by one percent , which is about what we get with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with , you know , just @ @ {comment} actually doing both training and test normalization , um , with , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the standard system . So , in a few hours we 'll have the numbers for the {disfmarker} for retraining everything with vocal tract length normalization and {disfmarker} So , that might even improve it further . +Professor F: Great . +PhD C: So , it looks like the P L - fea P features {comment} do very well now with {disfmarker} after having figured out all these little tricks to {disfmarker} to get it to work . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: Wait . So you mean you improve one percent over a system that doesn't have any V T L in it already ? +PhD C: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . So then {disfmarker} then we 'll have our baseline to {disfmarker} to compare the currently hideous , uh , uh , new thing with . +PhD C: Right . a Right . And {disfmarker} and what that suggests also is of course that the current Switchboard {pause} MLP isn't trained on very good features . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , because it was trained on whatever , you know , was used , uh , last time you did Hub - five stuff , which didn't have any of the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . But all of these effects were j like a couple percent . +PhD C: Uh . +Professor F: Right ? I mean , y the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , but if you add them all up you have , uh , almost five percent difference now . +Professor F: Add {pause} all of them . I thought one was one point five percent and one was point eight . +PhD C: Yeah . And now we have another percent with the V T +Professor F: That 's three point three . +PhD C: Um , actually , and it 's , um , What 's actually qu interesting is that with {disfmarker} um , well , you m prob maybe another half percent if you do the VTL in training , and then interestingly , if you optimize you get more of a win out of rescoring the , um , {vocalsound} uh , the N best lists , uh , and optimizing the weights , um , uh than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Than you do with the standard ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . But the part that 's actually adjustment of the front - end per se as opposed to doing {disfmarker} putting VTLN in or something is {disfmarker} it was a couple percent . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: Right ? It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there was one thing that was one and a half percent and one that was point eight . So {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} let me see if I remember what they were . One of them {vocalsound} was , uh , the change to , uh {disfmarker} because it did it all at once , {comment} to {disfmarker} uh , from bark scale to mel scale , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: which I really feel like saying in quotes , because @ @ {comment} they 're essentially the same scale but the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but any i individual particular implementation of those things puts things in a particular place . +PhD G: Yeah . Why did that cha ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So that 's why I wanted to look {disfmarker} I still haven't looked at it yet . I {disfmarker} I wanna look at exactly where the filters were in the two , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's probably something like there 's one fewer or one more filter in the sub {vocalsound} one kilohertz band +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and for whatever reason with this particular experiment it was better one way or the other . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Um , it could be there 's something more fundamental but it {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I don't know it yet . And the other {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} that was like one and a half or something , and then there was point eight percent , which was {disfmarker} what was the other thing ? +PhD D: Well , that was combined with the triangular . Right ? +Professor F: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} those two were together . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: We d weren't able to separate them out cuz it was just done in one thing . But then there was a point eight percent which was something else . +PhD D: The low - frequency cut - off . +Professor F: Do you remember the {disfmarker} ? Oh , yeah . So that was {disfmarker} that was , uh {disfmarker} that one I can claim credit for , uh , i in terms of screwing it up in the first place . So that someone e until someone else fixed it , which is that , um , I never put {disfmarker} when I u We had some problems before with offsets . This inf this went back to , uh , I think Wall Street Journal . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So we {disfmarker} we had , uh {disfmarker} ea everybody else who was doing Wall Street Journal knew that there were big DC offsets in th in these data {disfmarker} in those data and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and nobody happened to mention it to us , +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: and we were getting these , like , really terrible results , like two , three times the error everybody else was getting . And then in casual conversation someone ment mentioned "" uh , well , I guess , you know , of course you 're taking care of the offsets . "" I said "" what offsets ? "" +Grad B: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And at that point , you know , we were pretty new to the data and we 'd never really , like , looked at it on a screen and then when we just put it on the screen {comment} and wroop ! +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: there 's this big DC offset . So , um , in PLP +PhD G: There was a {disfmarker} like a hum or some or {disfmarker} when they recorded it ? +Professor F: No . It 's just , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not at all uncommon for {disfmarker} for recorded electronics to have different , um , DC offsets . +PhD G: Or just {disfmarker} ? Huh . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , no big deal . It 's {disfmarker} you know , you could have ten , twenty , maybe thirty millivolts , whatever , and it 's consistently in there . The thing is , most people 's front - ends have pre - emphasis with it , with zero at zero frequency , so that it 's irrelevant . Uh , but with P L P , we didn't actually have that . We had {disfmarker} we had the equivalent of pre - emphasis in a {disfmarker} a , uh , Fletcher - Munson style weighting that occurs in the middle of P L but it doesn't actually have a zero at zero frequency , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: like , eh , uh , typical simple fr pre - emphasis does . We had something more fancy . It was later on it didn't have that . So at that point I reali "" oh sh we better have a {disfmarker} have a high - pass filter "" just , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just take care of the problem . So I put in a high - pass filter at , uh , I think ninety {disfmarker} ninety hertz or so {vocalsound} uh , for a sixteen kilohertz sampling rate . And I never put anything in to adjust it for different {disfmarker} different sampling rates . And so {disfmarker} well , so , you know , the code doesn't know anything about that and so this is all at eight kilohertz and so it was at forty - five hertz instead of at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} instead of at ninety . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So , um , I don't know if Dan fixed it or {disfmarker} or , uh , what he {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , he made it a parameter . +Professor F: He made it a parameter . So . Yeah , I guess if he did it right , he did fix it and then {disfmarker} and then it 's taking care of sampling rate , which is great . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what is the parameter ? +Professor F: He had a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it , uh , just the f lower cut - off that you want ? +PhD C: It 's called , uh , {vocalsound} H - HPF . +Professor F: H {disfmarker} Yeah . Does HPF on {disfmarker} on his feat feature . +PhD C: u And {disfmarker} but HPF , you know , when you put a number after it , uses that as the hertz value of the cut - off . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: I mean , frankly , we never did that with the RASTA filter either , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so the RASTA filter is actually doing a different thing in the modulation spectral domain depending on what sampling rate you 're doing , which is {vocalsound} another old {disfmarker} old bug of mine . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , um {disfmarker} Um . So that {disfmarker} that was the problem there was th we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we had always intended to cut off below a hundred hertz +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it just wasn't doing it , so now it is . So , {vocalsound} that hep that helped us by , like , eight tenths of a percent . It {pause} still wasn't a big deal . +PhD C: OK . Well , but , um {disfmarker} Well , uh , again , after completing the {pause} current experiments , we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can add up all the uh differences +Professor F: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} an +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , I guess my {disfmarker} my point was that {disfmarker} that , um , the hybrid system thing that we did was , uh , primitive in many ways . +PhD C: Y Right . +Professor F: And I think I agree with you that if we fixed lots of different things and they would all add up , we would probably have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a competitive system . But I think not that much of it is due to the front - end per se . I think maybe a couple percent of it is , as far as I can see from this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unless you call {disfmarker} well , if you call VTL the front - en front - end , that 's , uh , a little more . But that 's sort of more both , kind of . +PhD D: One experiment we should {disfmarker} we 'll probably need to do though when {disfmarker} um , at some point , is , since we 're using that same {disfmarker} the net that was trained on PLP without all these things in it , for the tandem system , we may wanna go back and retrain , +Professor F: Right ? But . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I meant , in fact . Yeah . +PhD D: yeah , yeah , for the tandem . You know , so we can see if it {disfmarker} what effect it has on the tandem processing . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so , the thing is {disfmarker} is do we expect {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh At this point I 'm as I mean , you know {disfmarker} e I 'm wondering is it {disfmarker} Can we expect , uh , a tandem system to do better than a properly trained {disfmarker} you know , a Gaussian system trained directly on the features with , you know , the right ch choice of {pause} parameters ? +Professor F: Well , that 's what we 're seeing in other areas . Yes . Right ? So , it 's {disfmarker} so , um , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: So , we {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but we may not . I mean , if it doesn't perform as well , we may not know why . Right ? Cuz we need to do the exact experiment . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: I mean , the reason to think it should is because you 're putting in the same information and you 're transforming it to be more discriminative . So . Um . Now the thing is , in some databases I wouldn't expect it to necessarily give you much and {disfmarker} and part of what I view as the real power of it is that it {pause} gives you a transformational capability {vocalsound} for taking all sorts of different wild things that we do , not just th the standard front - end , but other things , like with multiple streams and so forth , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and allows you to feed them to the other system with this {disfmarker} through this funnel . Um , so I think {disfmarker} I think that 's the real power of it . I wouldn't expect huge in huge improvements . Um , but it should at least be roughly the same and maybe a little better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: If it 's , you know , like way way worse then , you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: So , Morgan , an another thing that Andreas and I were talking about was , so @ @ {comment} in the first experiment that he did {vocalsound} we just took the whole fifty - six , uh , outputs and that 's , um , basically compared to a thirty - nine input feature vector from either MFCC or PLP . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But one thing we could do is {disfmarker} +Professor F: Let {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} let me just ask you something . When you say take the fifty - six outputs , these are the pre final nonlinearity {pause} outputs +PhD D: Yeah . Through the regular tandem outputs . +Professor F: and they 're {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} through the KLT . +PhD D: Through the KLT . All that kinda stuff . +Professor F: OK . And so {disfmarker} so then you u Do you use all fifty - six of the KLT +PhD D: That 's what we did . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Right ? So one thing we were wondering is , if we did principal components and , say , took out just thirteen , and then did deltas and double - deltas on that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Yes . +PhD D: so we treated the th first thirteen as though they were {vocalsound} standard features . +Professor F: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , did Dan do experiments like that to {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh . Talk with Stephane . He did some things like that . It was either him or Carmen . I forget . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: I mean these were all different databases and different {disfmarker} you know , in HTK and all that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: so i it {disfmarker} it may not apply . But my recollection of it was that it didn't make it better but it didn't make it worse . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor F: But , again , given all these differences , maybe it 's more important in your case that you not take a lot of these low - variance , uh , components . +PhD D: Cuz in a sense , the net 's already got quite a bit of context in those features , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: so if we did deltas and double - deltas on top of those , we 're getting sort of even more . +Professor F: Which could be good or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . Worth trying . +PhD C: But there the main point is that , um , you know , it took us a while but we have the procedure for coupling the two systems {vocalsound} debugged now and {disfmarker} I mean , there 's still conceivably some bug somewhere in the way we 're feeding the tandem features {disfmarker} uh , either generating them or feeding them to this {disfmarker} to the {vocalsound} SRI system , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: There might be , cuz that 's a pretty big difference . +PhD C: Yeah . And I 'm wondering how we can {disfmarker} how we can debug that . +Professor F: But +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean how {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm actually f quite sure that the {disfmarker} feeding the {pause} features into the system and training it up , +Professor F: What if {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that 's essentially the same as we use with the ce with the P L P fe features . And that 's obviously working great . So . I um . +PhD D: Yeah . There could be a bug in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} somewhere before that . +PhD C: There {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} another degree of freedom is how do you generate the K L T transform ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? We to +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: well , and another one is the normalization of the inputs to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: These nets are trained with particular normalization and when that gets screwed up it {disfmarker} it can really hurt it . +PhD D: I 'm doing what Eric {disfmarker} E Eric coached me through then {disfmarker} that part of it , so I 'm pretty confident in that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: I mean , the only slight difference is that I use normalization values that , um , Andreas calculated from the original {comment} PLP , +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: which is right . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: N Yeah . So , I u I do {disfmarker} Oh , we actually don't do that normalization for the PLP , do we ? For the st just the straight PLP features ? +PhD C: No . The {disfmarker} the SRI system does it . +PhD D: S R I system does that . Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . Well , you might e e +PhD C: So , there 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} there is room for bugs that we might not have discovered , +PhD D: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I would actually double check with Stephane at this point , +PhD C: but {disfmarker} +Professor F: cuz he 's probably the one here {disfmarker} I mean , he and Dan are the ones who are at this point most experienced with the tandem +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: thing and there may {disfmarker} there may be some little bit here and there that is not {disfmarker} not being handled right . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's hard with features , cuz you don't know what they should look like . I mean , you can't just , like , print the {disfmarker} the values out in ASCII and , you know , look at them , see if they 're {disfmarker} +Professor F: Not unless you had a lot of time +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Professor F: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: eh , and also they 're not {disfmarker} I mean , as I understand it , you {disfmarker} you don't have a way to optimize the features for the final word error . Right ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: I mean , these are just discriminative , but they 're not , um , optimized for the final {disfmarker} +PhD C: They 're optimized for phone discrimination , not for {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . So it {disfmarker} there 's always this question of whether you might do better with those features if there was a way to train it for the word error metric that you 're actually {disfmarker} that you 're actually {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's right . Well , the other {disfmarker} Yeah , th the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - Mmm . +Professor F: Well , you actually are . But {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} but in an indirect way . +PhD G: Well , right . It 's indirect , so you don't know {disfmarker} +Professor F: So wha w what {disfmarker} an and you may not be in this case , come to think of it , because , uh , you 're just taking something that 's trained up elsewhere . So , what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} what you do in the full procedure {vocalsound} is you , um , uh , have an embedded training . So in fact you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the net is trained on , uh , uh , a , uh , Viterbi alignment of the training data that comes from your full system . And so that 's where the feedback comes all around , so that it is actually discriminant . You can prove that it 's {disfmarker} it 's a , uh {disfmarker} If you believe in the Viterbi assumption that , uh , getting the best path , uh , is almost equivalent to getting the best , uh , total probability , um , then you actually do improve that by , uh {disfmarker} by training up on local {disfmarker} local , uh {disfmarker} local frames . But , um , we aren't actually doing that here , because we did {disfmarker} we did that for a hybrid system , and now we 're plugging it into another system and so it isn't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i i it wouldn't quite apply here . +PhD C: Do y +PhD D: So another huge experiment we could do would be to take the tandem features , uh , do SRI forced alignments using those features , and then re - do the net with those . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mmm , uh {disfmarker} Exactly . Exactly . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So that you can optimize it for the word error . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Another thing is since you 're not using the net for recognition per se but just for this transformation , it 's probably bigger than it needs to be . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So that would save a lot of time . +PhD C: And there 's a mismatch in the phone sets . So , you 're using a l a long a larger phone set than what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Actually all those things could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could , uh {disfmarker} could affect it as well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: The other thing , uh , just to mention that Stephane {disfmarker} this was an innovation of Stephane 's , which was a pretty neat one , uh , and might particularly apply {vocalsound} here , given all these things we 're mentioning . Um , Stephane 's idea was that , um , discriminant , uh , approaches are great . Even the local ones , given , you know , these potential outer loops which , you know , you can convince yourself turn into the global ones . Um , however , there 's times when it {pause} is not good . Uh , when {pause} something about the test set is different enough from the training set that {disfmarker} that , uh , the discrimination that you 're learning is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not a good one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , uh , his idea was to take as the input feature vector to the , uh , Gaussian mixture system , {vocalsound} uh , a concatenation of the neural net outputs and the regular features . +PhD C: Oh , we already talked about that . +PhD G: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: El +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Didn't you {disfmarker} did you {pause} do that already +PhD C: Yeah . No , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} when I first started corresponding with Dan about how to go about this , I think that was one of the things that we definitely went there . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Oh . That makes a lot of sense . Huh . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I 'm sure that Stephane wasn't the first to think of it , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: but actually Stephane did it +PhD C: Uh - huh . And i does it help ? +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and it helped a lot . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's our current best {disfmarker} best system in the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , in the Aurora thing . +PhD C: Oh . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: And do you do a KLT transform on the con on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: As {disfmarker} you should never do worse . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I , uh , missed what you said . +PhD C: Do you {disfmarker} d you do a KLT transform on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor F: Well , actually , I , uh {disfmarker} you should check with him , because he tried several different combinations . +PhD C: Because you end up with this huge feature vector , so that might be a problem , a unless you do some form of dimensionality reduction . +Professor F: Yeah . I , uh , th what I don't remember is which came out best . So he did one where he put o put e the whole thing into one KLT , and another one , since the {disfmarker} the PLP things are already orthogonalized , he left them alone and {disfmarker} and just did a KLT on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the net outputs +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor F: and then concatenated that . And I don't remember which was better . +PhD D: Did he {disfmarker} did he try to {disfmarker} ? So he always ended up with a feature vector that was {pause} twice as long as either one of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: No . I don't know , i I {disfmarker} I don't know . You have to check with him . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Actually , I have to run . +Professor F: I 'm into big ideas these days . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . +PhD G: We need to close up cuz I need to save the data and , um , get a call . +Professor F: Not to mention the fact that we 're missing snacks . Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Uh +PhD G: Did people wanna do the digits +Professor F: Um . +PhD G: or , um , do them together ? +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I g I think , given that we 're in a hurry for snacks , maybe we should do them together . +PhD G: I don't know . Should we just {disfmarker} ? OK . I mean , are we trying to do them {nonvocalsound} in synchrony ? That might be fun . +Professor F: Well , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} You know , it 's not gonna work out +PhD G: Adam 's not here , so he 's not here to tell me no . +Professor F: but we could {disfmarker} we could just , uh , uh , see if we find a rhythm , you know , what {disfmarker} +PhD G: Sure . +Professor F: Uh , O 's or zeroes , we wanna agree on that ? +PhD G: Maybe just whatever people would naturally do ? I don't know . +Professor F: Oh , but if we were a singing group , we would wanna decide . Right ? +PhD G: Be harmony . Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Postdoc A: Mine 's identical to yours . +Professor F: We might wa +Postdoc A: Is that correct ? +PhD G: Sorry . So I set up and we didn't have {pause} enough digit forms +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: So these are excellent . +PhD G: so I xeroxed the same one seven times . +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: Why don't we do zer i Anyone have a problem with saying zero ? Is zero OK ? +PhD G: No . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . One and a two and three . +PhD G: e +Professor F: Once more with feeling . +PhD G: And th +Professor F: No , just k just kidding . Oh , yeah . It was . +","In the conversation, multiple participants, primarily PhD students and professors, are discussing technical aspects of their research, which seems to involve a mix of audio processing, machine learning, and speech recognition. They troubleshoot different issues such as channel assignment and microphone setup. They talk about digit recognition, discussing whether to use 'zero' or 'O', and consider factors like speaker normalization and the number of Gaussians in a model. + +They also talk about training neural networks, optimizing features for word error rates, and the hybrid system they've set up. A method called tandem processing is discussed, including whether retraining features with new alignments would be beneficial. They also deliberate over concatenating neural net outputs with regular features prior to feeding them into a Gaussian mixture system and how to manage the resulting large feature vector. + +The topic of transcription and data normalization comes up, with reference to an IBM transcription system and ensuring that features are normalized properly before they're input into the neural nets. Some technical hiccups and potential experimental procedures are also discussed, such as tuning Gaussian systems and using discriminative training. + +Towards the end of the conversation, there's a mention of a need to save data and get a call, coupled with an acknowledgment of missing out on snacks. There's also a brief discussion on how to conduct a digit recognition task in unison for an experiment, where they agree to use the word 'zero' for consistency. They end on a light-hearted note regarding their digit recognition task." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Help . {gap} It's up there ? That screen's black . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay . Okay , that's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: Are we done ? Right , okay um , this is our second meeting and I might be a bit all over the place . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , right our agenda for today , do you want us to give you a second ? +Marketing: Uh , no that's okay , +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: I'll go over what we decided last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , we decided upon a universal control , one handset for all , T_V_ , video equipment . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Um , that it was important that the product was accessible to a wide range of consumers , wide age range , not limiting anyone . We decided it was important to reflect the company's image in our product , we put fashion in electronics , you know that kind of s thing . Um , our budget would have to affect um {disfmarker} try not to reflect our budget , um that we might have a bit of {disfmarker} oh oh you can see it , okay {vocalsound} . Um dissonance between what our budget was and what we want it to look like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um want it to look uncluttered , undaunting to the customer . We discussed a flip-open design , um reducing the size of the control and an electronic panel um for further features like programming , things like that . Okay . Um , three presentations , I've got written here so shall we hear from Marketing first ? +Marketing: Um is it okay if I postpone that til later , I just want to get access to a little bit more information , +Project Manager: No that's fine , that's fine . {gap} +Marketing: is that okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah I'll go first . Can I grab the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unplug me . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . What do I have to press ? Oh , F_ eight ? +Project Manager: Um , F_N_ function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . Okay . Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep there we go . Okay this is uh the working design , presented by me , the uh Industrial Designer extraordinaire . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , this is where I went a bit mad with PowerPoint so . What {disfmarker} the first thing {disfmarker} question I asked was what are we trying to design ? Well , a device which basically just sends the signal to the T_V_ to change its state , whether that be the power , or the channel um or the volume , everything is just um some sort of signal to change the state of the T_V_ or other appliance that it's sending the signal to . Um , so I decided I'd have a look at what th other people have designed and try and take some inspiration from that . But uh although we will want to be taking ideas from other people , we wanna make sure that our design stands out and I thought that was something that {disfmarker} well it wasn't really my area because {vocalsound} I'm dealing with the inside really . So um , yeah I ran out of time so I couldn't do this one as fun as the last one {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and uh {vocalsound} I found out that most uh controls use some form of infrared to send signals to the T_V_ presumably because of the cost issue of uh something like uh the same thing that computers use , wireless and , you don't need to send very much information . Um , most of them are powered by some form of battery . Now our one , I'm I'm not sure whether we want to look at the size issue because most of them are powered by triple A_ batteries but those can be quite bulky so I d I didn't know if you wanted to look at something else um so we could shrink down the size of the control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Could I {disfmarker} can I interject to ask a question there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: is that appropriate ? You're saying the triple A_ batteries are small or the {gap} surrounding it ? +Industrial Designer: Um no no , if you if you look at if you look at most remote controls they're quite they're quite chunky and that's because of the size of the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: they have to be obviously this certain size to fit those batteries in . +Marketing: Right , the triple A_s are the smallest you can get are they not , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: They are . +Industrial Designer: well you can you can get the sort of circular round ones but I'm just wondering about power consumption +Marketing: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: and how much you need to send the data across . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , and d which leads sort of onto the next point about 'em being small and easy to carry round . Um , now the ones at the moment are small but I was just wondering if we could look at something a bit smaller . {vocalsound} Now the main components I came up with um were obviously the power source for the batteries 'cause otherwise it's not gonna work , uh as I said about the {disfmarker} w which batteries we were gonna choose , we can uh discuss that later and then you obviously need something to decode the information that you're putting in from from the controller Now these have a wireless range of up to about five metres which is sort of suitable for anyone who's watching the T_V_ unless they're in a cinema , which not most people do so as we're applying to the most audience that should be fine . And then I was uh {disfmarker} just had a quick look at the external design but I d I left that mostly to the uh interface designer . And so this is what I had as the basic idea of what we wanna do . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's not a proper circuit , I'm not sure if it'd work or not , I'm not even confident that those are the real um the real way you'd wire it up but anyway , we've just got the the power going to the infrared bulb with the chip and the {vocalsound} uh U_I_ interface um which would basically , when you when you pressed anything it would {disfmarker} the chip would convert it into some form of I_R_ data which could be decoded by the T_V_ receiver , which obviously means that we're gonna have to conform to {vocalsound} whatever um whatever form of communication that the T_V_s are already using and since that that's another use and {disfmarker} reason to use that infrared because that's what all T_V_s use at the moment . And then finally , um we want uh the {disfmarker} it to be available to a wide audience at a low cost so all the components that I've put forward are uh low in cost so that that should be good . Um it should should be different enough um from the alternative products to get a good consumer base , we were talking about it before and also just something that I was thinking about , uh because they're small they're also easy to lose so if we could look into some way of {disfmarker} d dunno some anti-going down the side of the sofa {vocalsound} thing that you could have , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} th that was just sort of a general point there . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And that's uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: That's a very important part , it came up in our market research findings too so I can refer to that , whenever you like me to present . +Industrial Designer: Alright okay , and yeah , that's that's what I came up with there , +Project Manager: Okay , thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: so if you wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , would you like to continue on from that ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: 'Kay . It can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or , maybe move the laptop over . +User Interface: okay , that's okay with me . {gap} further . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Oops . Why's it not working ? F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: F_ function . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Mm why's it in the right ? +Marketing: No . The plug hasn't come out at the bottom , has it ? No . +User Interface: Yeah , it's connecting {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , no yeah it's just {gap} . +Marketing: Meter adjusting . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Oh , there {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . Actually mm some of my points might overlap with what William's just mention , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but basically my method was like uh whatever brainstorming we did in the last meeting , just a couple of valuable points and started developing on that and there might be some missing loops in this thing which I think we'll uh take a feedback from the marketing because um , I haven't had some marketing data and basically every product is marketable . So purpose , as William already said , I would put it to simplify the interaction with T_V_ to make make it as simple as possible . And to summarise I I would say it's {disfmarker} it should be user-friendly by being easy to use , rather than having a lot of complex button because you can have an engineering {gap} maybe having hundred buttons and maybe having uh a remote control which has the main features like volume control or channel ch changing the channel or whatever . But we are to to make it unique so that people want to buy it , will {gap} this two features together . So what the concept is to have a flip-top model . The main functions such as which are like often used will be on the top and the complex functions which say you {disfmarker} you can say like the y young generation or trendy generation want to pr say programme their favourite channels or whatever , can be put in the middle part of the f flip-top . So it's like {disfmarker} it could be accessed by a wide ra range of uh audience and we can punch in new f features such as uh {disfmarker} added features such as shock proof body and maybe a design to appeal to a lot of people . Findings most people prefer us user-friendly rather than complex remote controls because there are times like uh people have used a remote control for say a year or something and they they are not used maybe thirty to forty percent of the buttons so it's not {disfmarker} of no use of punching in the uh {disfmarker} trying to put in those things in {disfmarker} on the top of the remote control and try to confuse the user . As we saw we we have to make a profit also so we we can maybe go for an economies of a higher production mm by fifty million we said ? Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: with that I think we'll be able to achieve economies of scale also , so we can give in {disfmarker} add in more features and make it less costly . Um , that's {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} if you ask me personally , I would make uh flip-top with a trendy uh uh design and s maybe we we should look at also like the buttons whe whether they are like soft or little hard because they are times when the buttons tend to be a bit hard after uh continuous use {disfmarker} usage and all that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in overall a simple and uh user-friendly design . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh any comments like , if you want ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um , I think we'll chat about it at the end , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay so if anyone wants to write something down that they want to bring up at the end , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ooh , it's vibrating , that's strange . Oh , God . Right , okay . +User Interface: I think you'll have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have I got to keep this here ? +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it matter ? +User Interface: It'll have to {disfmarker} this can't be pulled . +Marketing: I'll have t I'll have to move it won't I ? +Project Manager: We just do the best we can . +Marketing: Uh , whoops . +User Interface: You'll have to push it a bit more . +Marketing: Will it manage ? Bit more , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: oh dear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah this is more than enough . Okay . +Industrial Designer: There we go , I've got a bit more of the cable {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There we go . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah I think you can pull it out now . +Marketing: Thank you , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: just pull it closer a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Uh you should be able to {gap} and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you might . +Industrial Designer: yeah , there you go . +Marketing: Get it right over , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: Ah . Look at that . +Marketing: Okay , um , I'm going to look at the functional requirements from the marketing point of view and uh obviously our starting point with marketing is always market research . {vocalsound} Um , so that's where we started , we used our our usability lab , the company's usability lab , we did our usual selection methods to get a cross-section of the general public , male and female , all age groups from fifteen upwards and um we observed them in the lab , just their general use of the remote control , you can see we had a hundred subjects there . {vocalsound} Our findings , lots of findings , I've just summarised some of them here . The overall thing which I've I've got at the top there in italics is that users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls , so it has obvious design implications there . Um , we found that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Eighty percent would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy , we were quite surprised by that finding , but um that's quite a high proportion of our our , you know , international target group are prepared to spend more money for something that's a bit nicer looking . Um , current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user overall . For example , you can see below there , seventy five percent of users zap a lot , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you've got your person sunk back in the sofa channel-hopping . So again there's power implications there . {vocalsound} Um , fifty percent of users only use ten percent of the buttons , so again a big design issue there . Um and possibly we can also cut back on cost if we don't have so many functions actually on the remote control . Um the biggest frustrations that people found with regard to personal preferences were um something that you you mentioned earlier , uh remote controls are often lost in the room , it's a slipping down the back of the sofa type of thing , uh fifty percent were were particularly frustrated by that . Uh thirty four percent of people take {disfmarker} said they take too much time to learn to use and I think that ties in with the um the previous finding of people only using ten percent of the buttons , they just can't be bothered to learn about the other functions . Um , um slightly more than a quarter of people said it was bad for uh repetitive strain injury . You know those small movements of the remote control can lead to kind of shoulder and elbow problems . Um the vast majority of the thirty five and under age group would like um a liquid crystal display and speech recognition , again that was to aid I think in uh {disfmarker} when they've lost the actual remote control , some kind of speech recognition . Something we didn't put to them , but which I'm thinking of now is um even if perhaps the lost control can give off a bleep every now and again til you find it or a flashing light , possibly . Um , that trend reverses in the older age groups . So thirty fives and unders who would like those two features , that kind of evens out thirty five to forty five and in the older age group it kind of reverses , they're not so bothered with this . {vocalsound} I had marvellous tables and things that I could show you , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: but I think I'll just keep it simple , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: if there's any more information I can email you extra details , +User Interface: {gap} That's fine . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: is that okay ? +Project Manager: Right , um +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: we have new project requirements , um we're not going to be using teletext , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um apparently the consumers consider it outdated with the internet now . Um {vocalsound} our control is only going to be for T_V_ , it's not going to be a combined control , which limits you know all of the different things that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it limits the cost for us , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it also makes it easier to understand for the consumer . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , so can we not programme a video with this remote control ? +Project Manager: It says for T_V_ only , so {vocalsound} looks like it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just channel-hopping . +Project Manager: yeah , I think maybe Sky things like that might be incorporated into it , but {vocalsound} I don't know , what do you think ? It just said , for T_V_ only . But I mean , general T_V_ controls do do video as well . +Marketing: Would that imply video use ? +Industrial Designer: T yeah yeah . I d well I dunno 'cause uh the w if you've g +Project Manager: I mean you bu well som you get com you get combined T_V_ and videos don't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yes . +Industrial Designer: and if you got if you got a Sky box , they have one of those plus boxes , you can record straight off the T_V_ anyway so on to on to like the T_V_ hard drive or so . +Project Manager: Mm . I think we assume that it's still got play and stop functions and {vocalsound} programming . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Anything about that on the market research or something like regarding whether people want a combined something like that ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um we didn't really look into that but remember we found that finding that most people only use about uh ten percent of the buttons , +User Interface: Ten perc +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think th th those do tend to be the basic channel-hopping things and on and off for the video , fast-forwarding , so on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's sort of general knowledge that people do find programming their videos a nightmare {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ju um just as an idea on the uh speech recognition thing that pr it'd probably be quite expensive to incorporate an entire speech recognition thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Pens +Industrial Designer: and they're not that great anyway . +Marketing: In fact I've just called up that table there , +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: we asked those two questions , the table relates to both questions , so we didn't differentiate . Would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen , that's multi-function remote and would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: So you can see how the the yes no sort of varies across the age group there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and a substantial number of don't knows in the older age group , I think that's just general fear of new technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but um on on that again I just thought {disfmarker} 'cause you can get those key chains now and you whistle and then it'll let off a loud noise to let you know where it is +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: bu +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I thought that could be quite a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We do have a budget limitation that we can't control ourselves , so I think when we can take a cheaper option which still does the same kinda thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um because it is something I {disfmarker} it needs to be {disfmarker} the thing that you use to find it needs to be something that you don't lose , you were saying whistling , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe {vocalsound} on the T_V_ {disfmarker} you could put like a pack on the T_V_ or something so you can't see the remote , you go and press the button on top of the T_V_ and it beeps +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and you're like oh okay it's over there , something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . That's a super idea . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} that sounds a lot cheaper to me . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the third thing was that we have to make sure the corporate image is very much incorporated into the handset . Um so we want logo , we want um fashionable , trendy , I mean what you were talking about with the marketing . Um , people paying more for it to look good . Um , we need to focus on that as well . +Marketing: Yes , further market research will be needed to kind of focus on what that is , it's gonna be different for a fifteen year old th for somebody who's sixty +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and also across the world if we're aiming at the international market . What is um attractive to a trendy New Yorker and what is attractive to a retired South African , I dunno , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you get the idea . It's it's gonna vary around the world . At the end of the day , th the engineering design is one thing , it's the user interface design that may {disfmarker} and th the sort of you know fashionable aspect of it we might have to change for different markets round the world . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So are we talking of a single model or maybe five , six designs {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Well y yeah you could you could have a number of different designs +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: I mean inside they'd be essentially exactly the same . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The features could be same and the body could look slightly different . +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about {disfmarker} you were talking about the buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um the controls that are coming out now have kind of big , rubber buttons , not tiny little one , big , rubber buttons , but what about , I mean , 'cause we got to make it original , what about um you know with the touch screen computers +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Yeah , yeah that's what I was just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um so you {disfmarker} it's like a little panel that you touch rather than a button which shouldn't wear out as much either , not sure about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No , well no 'cause you wouldn't have to {disfmarker} you don't actually have to press them you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't have to press it , you just have to put your thumb onto it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , think that might appeal {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of Japan , I'm thinking uh young , um office people , +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: trendy kind of a thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes it will appeal to sections of the market def +Project Manager: Um , but quite , um , easily labelled so that anyone can {gap} oh yeah that's obvious what that's for +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and it's not daunting to maybe the older generations , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But also er ergonomics as we're saying with the different designs , ergonomics uh there's sort of physically different things 'cause um {vocalsound} if you've ever seen the X_ Box they had to make two different sized controllers because people in Japan wouldn't buy it because the controller was physically to big +Project Manager: Were too big . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} they're c uh just generally Japanese people have smaller hands +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they couldn't get round the controller which is uh {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} 'cause you {disfmarker} obviously you can have bigger buttons for some countries or something and smaller ones for others . +User Interface: Yeah , uh maybe to {disfmarker} as uh {disfmarker} it it was indicated that uh uh risk uh of uh repeated use , the injuries , maybe a touch screen could be a better option for that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So , a bigger b okay so y you're dividing designs based on not only segment age groups , you're desi uh dividing it according to the countries also , the market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe for U_S_ and all you can have a slightly bigger remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe in Japan and all you need to have a small , yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to design one product +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Huh . +Project Manager: and then the company can take it wherever they want to uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: in the sense that they can make it smaller , or they can make it bigger or they can change the features slightly , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Th the internal d engineering design has got to remain the same , yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: It's gonna be the same , so we need to focus on just one thing , not get bogged down in lots of different um possibilities , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . I'm concerned , when you read the the R_S_I_ issue again , repetitive strain injury , I don't think just moving your finger around on a small screen is going to deal with that enough , I think that is still a kind of a question mark issue how we deal with that . Um , R_S_I_ tends to be caused by repetitive small movements . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm j I really can't get my head round this one , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: this may have to be postponed to a future meeting but it's something we should think about . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah I was just thinking about how you could combat that 'cause {disfmarker} without without doing something where you have to move your arm around to change the channel +Marketing: Mm . I know , and it becomes ridiculous , yes I know . +Industrial Designer: and it becomes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or a speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which is extremely expensive , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's the only way that you kind of avoid that kind of issue . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Mm-hmm . Do we have to initially um , you know looking at the findings here , focus on a younger age group initially and then broaden out the market later . Do we really have to go for everyone right away ? Um . +User Interface: We could focus on the biggest market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: If say people between age group of twenty to thirty five are the biggest market ? +Industrial Designer: Ge uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And when we've been throwing up our ideas we're automatically talking about business people , young people , trendy people . +Project Manager: We are {disfmarker} we're talking about um the type of company that we're working for as well . That they want um it to be fashionable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they want it to be trendy and you wouldn't automatically assume {disfmarker} associate that with the older generations . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now with the baby boomers , the older generations are actually larger , they have a greater population than us young people , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but I don't think we're focusing on that , I think we are focusing on a sort of mid-range um , business kind of class type people . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I'm just thinking of budgetary issues too , for when it does get to the sort of broad scale marketing stage , we want to , you know , not waste money , not be profligate +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh you know focus on where the idea will be taken up , first {disfmarker} it's most likely to be taken up first of all where the main purchasing power is coming from for a product like this . +Project Manager: Okay , so the remote control functions . Um we've got the T_V_ , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we've got the video , now there's um I can't remember what it's called , the little code at the end of programme details , +Industrial Designer: Video plus . +Project Manager: yes . We could use that as an alternative to programming in times , things like that , is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I always found that really easy when I discovered it , um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you've got your general record anyway so if you {disfmarker} there's a programme on you want to put record on , that's fine , but if you do want to tape something in two days time and you're not sure if you're going to , you put the number in +Industrial Designer: Just whack in the number . +Project Manager: and it's just a number , it's not a date , it's not a time , it's not a channel , it's not when it finishes , it's not anything like that , +Industrial Designer: And you w {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just a number . +Industrial Designer: yeah . And you wouldn't you wouldn't need uh a whole host of extra buttons for that , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: you just need one 'cause you've already got all the numbers there anyway , +Project Manager: You've already got the numbers for typing in anyway . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Right , I've not come across that function but it sounds wonderful {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: after um {disfmarker} if you look in the newspaper , T_V_ guide or any T_V_ guide there's a five , six digit number afterwards +Industrial Designer: It's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that's the number you put in and it's recorded that it's going to be on on Tuesdays at ten o'clock on the seventeenth +Marketing: Ah , hmm . +Project Manager: so you don't have to worry about dates and you don't have to worry about times , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: um and it has been around for quite a long time . +Industrial Designer: It's been been around for a long time it's just it's not very well advertised as to how to use it and things . +Project Manager: No it's not um but I think if awareness was kind of brought to the forefront about that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Superb . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Though if y if you've got something like Sky anyway you can just click on it {disfmarker} you can just press the button on the programme once and it'll record that programme when it's on +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and you press it on it twice and it'll record the whole series . +Marketing: Excellent , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But just to have that function would be would be really good . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just run this past you while it occurs to me , I don't mean to quickly jump from one subject to another , but just discussing the different age groups and targeting the different age groups it occurs to me , {gap} to produce our own mobile phones , that that's kind of what led us on to comparing T_V_ remote controls with with their design features , um , chain companies like Carphone Warehouse , you can pop in anytime with a phone that you bought for them w if you've got any problems with it and they'll fix it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they'll phone the company , you can use their telephones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Is it worthwhile with with our retail outlets having a a similar um kind of service so that if older users were deterred from buying this , if they know they can just pop into one of our high street outlets , th you know , which button is it I press for this ? Th as free as a free aspect of our service , would that not make it more attractive to them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But the only problem is that with a mobile phone you signed for a contract so they um {disfmarker} the companies who uh who you deal with have actually {disfmarker} they've they've got an obligation to to help you out +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also {disfmarker} I mean it's it's fair enough to have some sort of help service but I I'm not sure how much the cost would be of having {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The functionality of it in the sense that you're sitting there , you're pressing this button and your T_V_'s not doing it . Taking your T_V_ and your control and saying look this is what I'm doing , it's not working , what should I do ? +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} Yes +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it was something as simple as you couldn't change the channel , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: but I mean for {disfmarker} if there were any more {disfmarker} or are we absolutely definite it's only gonna be for T_V_ and video , +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: we're not gonna put any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} okay , just a thought . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean instru instruction books I feel c I reckon can cover that . +Project Manager: Instruction manuals . But I mean they're {disfmarker} there's customer service , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: there will be a customer service number thing that you can phone up and speak to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Department , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Project Manager: and that way there's no call out charge , there's no extra , t the person has to walk to a shop on the high street , um . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it will be too much of an effort for a person to {disfmarker} for a phone maybe he might walk down the street , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but for a remote he will just refer to the manual and all that . +Industrial Designer: And they're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not for such simple functions +Industrial Designer: yeah , they should be f yeah . +Marketing: because we're focusing on that , +Project Manager: Mm . But we should focus on making the manual as user-friendly as possible +Marketing: yes okay . +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: because a lot of them are just tiny little writing and lots and lots of pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Puts people off reading them so they just do the obvious , yes . +Project Manager: It does , +Industrial Designer: It's the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you just put it in the drawer until something goes wrong +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: and then you try and search through it , so that should be something we think about . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , what other functions ? We need {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we need a design um decision now , but we should think about {disfmarker} c 'cause you've got the dilemma between {disfmarker} oh batteries , that's what I was thinking about . Mobile phone batteries , what kinda battery is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're they're specially made for the for the mobile phones , but they come with a charger , I mean you could you could bundle a charger in with it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they la they they last quite a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and if you had uh {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} th the thing that you get with mobile house phones , you sit it in its charger when you're not using it or t at night or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it doesn't really matter 'cause it never really runs out 'cause it lasts a long time once it is charged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , something like that should reduce the size of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if {disfmarker} yeah if you if you had if you had one of those {disfmarker} uh just coming back to your other point about pressing the button and setting off the bleeper in the room that could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it could be on that {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah on that as well so . +User Interface: So are we talking of a concept of a rechargeable something on the remote ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: some sort of docking station or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Rechargeable with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: So the rechargeable which would be your field . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah th yeah that that'd be fine , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also that would mean they wouldn't have to go out buying batteries all the time . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which it is cheaper in the long run as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , th the shape you got trendy . I don't wanna big box with lots of things , you don't want a tiny sort of little thing either , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because then you have got the repetitive strain injury no matter how many {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much you try and make it simple , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we don't w I mean so many remote controls look absolutely identical , +Project Manager: They do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: these long , brown things with the same coloured buttons all crammed in on the s the surface . We definitely {disfmarker} an ob an obvious thing , a very simple thing is to get away from these brown rectangles , we don't want that . +Project Manager: Okay so we've got a flip-screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking of a design which Nokia h uh came up with almost six or seven years back . Basically we have a flat one it it looks like a box , like a chocolate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's very strenuous because your thumb is slightly up , so they came up with something like this , curled up , so here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you don't have to {disfmarker} you don't bend your thumb too much , so it's like uh you can say a banana shape kind of thing , curled up like a boat . +Marketing: Slightly curved , curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: G uh so what happens is you don't have to press your thumb too down like . So it's already curled up so your thumb doesn't +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it's kind of moulded to your hand anyway . +User Interface: y yeah so we can have a s like you know moulded according to your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: the way you h hold of {disfmarker} it's kind of semi-circular in the bottom , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I wouldn't say exactly semi-circular but yeah smooth . +Project Manager: Can you look into the company logo ? Um , things that are associated with the company in view to trying to incorporate that into the design of the product . +User Interface: Current . +Project Manager: I mean for example , if it was a C_ or something like that , you could have it in a vague C_ shape that opens up kind of like a shell , or something , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um something along those lines to be able to incorporate it quite um obviously into the design , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: while also making it quite different from anything else that's there . +User Interface: We could look in at that but {disfmarker} Mm . What we were talking is to make it more rather than like sea-shells , +Marketing: I mean look at the mobile . +User Interface: logo could become as {disfmarker} you could put a logo in the corner of uh the model , rather than you know , trying to make it like a sea shell or whatever you were ta telling like . +Project Manager: Well we need to think about how it's gonna look different . +Marketing: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that sounds a really attractive idea , +User Interface: A sea shell ? +Marketing: I've not come across anything like that before , if it kind of {disfmarker} yeah and that opens out into your flip-top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then it's nice t to h you can make it lightweight plastic , nice to hold in the palm of the hand and just because you're having to actually insert in between the two covers , that's gonna take care of some of the repetitive strain injury trying p prevent a lot of that I would think . I think it's a really nice idea +User Interface: Yeah we could look in at that . +Marketing: and plus you can get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know even though we're using plastic , you can still {disfmarker} I mean think of the designs you can get in plastic , we can do a nice conch shell or scallop shell exterior . +Project Manager: Or you could do um different , like you get with mobile phones , different fascias . You could have different kind of casings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you could have like psychedelic ones for younger people and sleek ones and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Less chance of it being lost too , it's not like a chocolate brown lozenge that's gonna go down the sofa +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and people might want to put it on their mantelpiece or whatever as a ki if it looks attractive enough as a kind of ornament they don't {disfmarker} not gonna lose it so much {vocalsound} either . It's easier to {disfmarker} bit nice to handle . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah maybe we could come at some say five , six des designs and then choose which are {disfmarker} whichever appeals the most like , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: that could be the most common design . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we can like think of five , six designs . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , I think we have to round it up , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just quickly um go over the new project requirements so that I haven't missed anything . +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: So it's no teletext , it's only for T_V_ and by implication video , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: our corporate image should be incorporated in the remote control , um something about Videoplus . +Project Manager: That was um in cutting down the number {disfmarker} that was kinda separate that was cutting down the number of functions , making it simpler so instead of having lots of things you put in for date {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . Right , so when they press for programming you {disfmarker} it comes up on the L_C_D_ , a reminder about using Videoplus ? So that they have a look at the guide and {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} is this nothing to do with the project requirements , is this just {disfmarker} that was an add-on feature ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} kinda takes the place of having a button to press for the date and having the button to press for the channel , things like that . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Right . Right , so it's kind of doing away with the programming feature ? +Project Manager: Um it could be it c It {disfmarker} yes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be uh adv advertisement feature , um rather than design feature , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: you know , drawing attention to that . And it also paid um lip service in the instruction manual , 'cause it's very simple so putting it down in words should be helpful . +Marketing: Mm , and the rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Was there anything else there that we {disfmarker} in the new new project requirements ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: We've got the buttons but I think we'll work through that with the design of it , um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's not at the moment a requirement , it's something we're looking at , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: what preference {disfmarker} so it may come round to market research at some point to see what people would like . +Project Manager: And we've talked about um there being an alarm or something , a beeping for being lost , um . +User Interface: For detection , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Learning how to use it should be as simple as possible . But there aren't gonna be that func that many functions incorporated into it so it should be fine and the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the instruction manual , I don't know if we deal with that , um . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , +Project Manager: Yep , +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and different from what's out there . Yep , I think that's us . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: What would you specifically like marketing to look at before the next meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or shall I just sort of generally look at all the issues involved ? +Project Manager: I think you might get guidance , but um I th Instruction manuals , 'cause there tends to be a demonised thing , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: u um , they're {disfmarker} everyone's got like a big pile of them , but no one really uses them . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Whoops , questionnaire four . +User Interface: We should f +Project Manager: Yes , right . Okay . +User Interface: I think it's time for us to get back to {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we're at lunchtime now I think . +Project Manager: Right , okay . I think you can email me , if there's any more questions . Um and I'll be able to not answer them . +","The summary provided here outlines the flow and main points of discussion in a product development meeting involving a project manager, marketing professional, industrial designer, and user interface designer. The meeting revolves around the development of a new, universal remote control. + +Initially, the project manager encounters technical difficulties with the presentation screen, and the group deals with minor interruptions and apologies as they settle in. Once focused, the project manager recaps the decisions made in their previous meeting regarding product goals. They agreed on creating a universal remote control that would be accessible to a broad audience, incorporating the company's fashionable image into the design, and ensuring the product does not reflect any budgetary constraints even though they need to consider them. + +Marketing requests a postponement of their presentation due to requiring further information, and the industrial designer proceeds first. The industrial designer discusses current remote controls' common features like using infrared signals and being powered by AAA batteries. They suggest possibly using smaller power sources to reduce the control size and mention low production costs of internal components. + +Marketing then brings up market research findings, highlighting that users generally find current remote controls unattractive and would be willing to pay more for aesthetically pleasing ones. Marketing also notes that remote controls often get lost, which is a major user frustration, and that younger users are interested in advanced features like LCD screens and speech recognition; however, older users have reservations about these technologies. + +Subsequently, the project manager introduces new project requirements: no teletext function, limiting the control to TV operation only, and ensuring the corporate image is distinctly reflected in the handset design. They discuss how these requirements might impact the design, such as using Videoplus technology to simplify recording programming. + +The meeting participants brainstorm design ideas, functionalities, and technical solutions. They contemplate the use of touchscreens, charging docks for batteries similar to mobile phones, design shapes influenced by the company logo, different color fascias, and ergonomic considerations for comfort and RSI (repetitive strain injury) prevention. + +They consider targeting the remote control at middle-aged, trendy businesspeople initially, given this demographic's spending power. There is a suggestion for retail outlets to offer support for older users, but this is countered with the need to focus on user-friendly instruction manuals due to budget limitations. + +The meeting concludes with an understanding of the updated project requirements, such as no teletext, suitability for TV and implied video, requirements to reflect the company's image in the design, consideration of Videoplus instead of complex programming features, exploring rechargeable batteries and their implications for size and design, and the likelihood of an alert for locating a lost control. + +Marketing is tasked to review instruction manuals' effectiveness. The team agrees that continued communication via email will be necessary to resolve emerging questions. The group acknowledges the progress made but recognizes the need for further discussions and decisions in subsequent meetings." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we can start ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Suppose I have to do my presentation . {vocalsound} Eh um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . It's Ada Longmund ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , I'll present myself , I'm Ada Longmund , and as you may know it , I'm the pr project manager . So um we will have to um speak about m the project . Our project project is to create um a new remote control and as you may know there's lot of industrials interesting in creating a remote control , so the remote control has to be original , trendy and um user-friendly . Record . So the project method is the following . So if we're um the functional design , you have to do uh any individual work and uh also work with uh meetings talking with each other . Uh it will be the same for the conceptual design and also the same for the detailed design . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The tool training is to try out the white board , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe someone ha we have to {gap} this whiteboard , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe you can draw your favourite animal +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and make a list of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: So right now ? +Project Manager: I don't know if we have to do it now , maybe later later . +User Interface: So yeah I think you can do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the selling price of the product will be twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite good price , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I it's it's reasonable , s quite {disfmarker} yeah . Twenty five . +Marketing: It's reasonable , I think , yeah . +Project Manager: And uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it will uh be a an international remote control , +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as we want to sell it in the entire world , and the product costs will be not more than twelve Euros and fifty centimes . So , as you will discuss about the remote control you will have to experience your um {disfmarker} with the remote control . Um just uh maybe be imaginative with {vocalsound} remote const con controls , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: try to create something new and people would like to to buy . And {vocalsound} and the next meeting will start in thirty minutes , so you'll ha all have your spethisfispis specif specific role and you know {disfmarker} I suppose you know what you have to do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I I hope so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh you will have to work on the design and also to work on the design of th technical fun functions of the remote control and think of the user requirement specifications . +Marketing: Those things just refer to each of each of us , I think . AMI +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I_D_ , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I_D_ is for the Industrial Design , yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And U_I_D_ , it's for the User Interface Designer , +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: and Marketing Expert , it's me . +Industrial Designer: AMI yeah project . +Project Manager: So I will manage all all the group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} you will be the manager {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can manage all this , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +Project Manager: So you have questions ? +Marketing: Um . Not really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: you all know what the parts of the work you have to do . +Marketing: So which {disfmarker} you , the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: No I'm user interf I'm user interface design . +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Design , yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you ? +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Designer so . +Project Manager: Mm okay . +User Interface: Okay . So what's the difference between +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: user interface design d industrial design ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean , you have to know . Ah , you have to know it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's difficult . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's your job , so I hope you you know what it is . +Industrial Designer: You know very soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suppose you have to design it and you have to take care of the industrial way to transform it . +User Interface: Okay , so I make uh u user interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You you de you implement the core functions in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And i maybe you will transform it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I think the user the user interface design is {disfmarker} he will design how the user will you know {disfmarker} the relation between the user and you know the remote control so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use it . Make make {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the uh industrial design , it is how the object will look like . +User Interface: Maybe I think uh uh i industrial design's uh , it's the function design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So the materi +User Interface: I design the user f user interface , you design the function . +Project Manager: Maybe , it is the outside and the inside . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay right . But {disfmarker} I was thinking that he's a user {disfmarker} 'cause the user interface to design for example where the but button will be , you know . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I don't know . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well . You know . +Industrial Designer: I'm the industrial designer . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay . Not the other one . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So and the marketing expert will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just go I'm trying to give you some trends about what should be done and what the users would like to have +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then thi this would {vocalsound} I guess converged to the User Interface Designer wi and then Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Okay . +Project Manager: And when designing y the remote control just remember that uh it has to be a kind of international product . So you don't have to do something really specific , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: as everybody everybody will have to use it , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's sor the same as keyboards . You know , you have Qwerty , Azerty , French and U_K_ keyboard , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: so really the remote control to be international . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh simple . +Project Manager: As we want to maximise the benefit . +User Interface: And easy to use . +Marketing: And you have to keep it under twelve Euros and f fifty , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you have to keep in mind that the product cost won't be maxim more than twelve dot fifty Euros . +User Interface: Ah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And to be sure that really people will be interested in buying a new remote control with maybe new functionalities that don't exist in the mm existing remote controls now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , is it okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . It's clear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There was a step about drawing something in the in the board , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe should go and draw an animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is it ? {vocalsound} Are we supposed to do right now ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah , you try . Try first . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right it's it's from the left to the ri {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you think we have to do it now ? +Industrial Designer: I d I was thinking but I n I'm not sure now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can draw something which is very simple . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want me to draw something ? +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Product manager {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Everybody {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , let's go , +User Interface: Oh , maybe we should bring Kemy here . +Project Manager: I will try . +User Interface: Kemy is really good at drawing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Many {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think everybody should do it , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's not matter {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You're going to draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh it's the same as mine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a fat cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It is not a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the fat cat , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you draw uh um rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , hat ha rat . +Marketing: A rat ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yes you have to draw a rat if you want a rat . +Project Manager: No . A mouse is not too difficult . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's your rat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mouse is okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Just go , +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: you you the closest to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: go {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right , but in grow , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Jus +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: everybody has to grow {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , I draw . The only thing I can draw is like this . Oh . Oh . Oh . +Marketing: A duck . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You love the eyes . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: What are you {disfmarker} I don {vocalsound} no idea , so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that was the eyes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: A clown . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Rabbit . +Industrial Designer: It's a rabbit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Pikachu . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a rabbit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Bugs Bunny one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's not so bad so . +User Interface: The only thing I can draw , because it's very simple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh . So what else ? This was my favourite one , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you don't have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A fish . +Marketing: Right . A fish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's a that's a fish ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's try to draw something . +Project Manager: You forgot the chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , doesn't look so fine . +Industrial Designer: Have to be really careful . +Project Manager: Fish and chips . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: Ah {vocalsound} it's my turn . +Marketing: it's your turn . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , be careful . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So . {gap} {gap} It's ok +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of +User Interface: No problem , no problem . +Industrial Designer: So , what can I draw some more ? +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} ? No . Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's a se it's my priority this one . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: A person ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . It's a really crazy dog {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Dog . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Transfer . It's a dog in a village . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So what are you sug going to do now ? {gap} +Marketing: I think it's done . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's done ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Just have to {disfmarker} present project , +User Interface: So we have break . +Project Manager: discuss a little bit about it . +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: Oh , we have twenty five minutes for the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , if you have questions . +User Interface: Oh . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know what time is it ? No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: You know your job ? you know your job ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have an idea yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You know your job ? +Industrial Designer: I have an idea of my job {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} yeah so . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +","The conversation involves a team meeting with a project manager named Ada Longmund and members from marketing, industrial design, and user interface discussing the development of a new remote control. The remote control must be original, trendy, and user-friendly, with a selling price of 25 Euros and a production cost not exceeding 12.50 Euros. The team is encouraged to be imaginative and consider international appeal in the design process. + +Roles are clarified: the Industrial Designer focuses on the product's look and design of technical functions, while the User Interface Designer handles the interaction between the user and the remote control. The Marketing Expert provides trends analysis and user preferences. The meeting also includes an icebreaker activity involving drawing on a whiteboard, and some confusion about who should do it and when. The project manager coordinates the team, emphasizing the need to create a cost-effective and internationally appealing product. They also mention having specific roles for the upcoming meeting and urge the team to think about new functionalities that will make the product attractive to buyers. There's a light-hearted moment when the team members try to draw animals, leading to some amusing exchanges. The team has 25 minutes before the next meeting and is reminded of their roles and project requirements." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +User Interface: Hello . +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: Uh let me see . +User Interface: There's one of mine . +Project Manager: Okay . Roo , welcome back . +User Interface: Hello , Flores . +Project Manager: The waiting is for Sebastian . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There he is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is there any time for a cup of coffee ? +User Interface: We have a slight problem . {vocalsound} I opened uh the C_D_ ROM box uh guys . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can I get a cup of coffee ? +Project Manager: Uh no . You can't , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: So just cancel it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well , during my work I have no time either . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is life . {vocalsound} Sorry uh , Roo . +User Interface: Yeah , I opened the C_D_ ROM box . {vocalsound} Accidentally . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . People , welcome back with the second meeting . +User Interface: But it's alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um for now on the schedule are a few points . Uh first of all the opening , which we are doing now . Um second , I received um some new project requirements . I'm not sure if you received them as well , um but I will tell you about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then um the three of you uh prepared a presentation , I think ? Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Almost . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Almost , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we'll do your one uh uh as la uh the last . Um the top goal of this m +User Interface: But you can't upload your presentation from here , I believe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we will figure that out . Ca {vocalsound} can you try to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh if it if it if it's wireless I could just uh put it in the {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , w we will see . +User Interface: I don't think it's wireless here . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} it is , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Or it is . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Okay , great . +Marketing: Uh okay . +Project Manager: Um the top goal of this meeting is to reach a decision on the product , on the target group um and and the functions of the remote control , so keep that in mind . Um {vocalsound} we have forty minutes . So it's now {disfmarker} Yep . Okay . Um the new project requirements , first of all , um we didn't speak about it , but we should not um support teletext in the remote , um because our b um board uh feels that uh teletext is out of date and internet is replacing teletext . So um we are not even going to try to um implement it in our product . {vocalsound} It's a board decision . Um the remote control should only be used for television , because it's not uh f uh feasible , it's not uh w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} we we cannot make it because of the time to market um that we have to deal with . +User Interface: Time , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh the third requirement is that we should focus on customers that are younger than uh forty , {vocalsound} which is important for you , uh Ruud , and as well for uh Roo . Because the product should um be uh interesting and and uh should be bought by people younger than forty . Um {vocalsound} then for Roo , as well uh important , the corporate image should be recognisable in our product . So the colour colours and the slogan um do have to be uh in the product . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Is that clear ? Any questions on these requirements ? No ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the individual presentations , I th um Roo or Sebastian , who of you would like to start ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'll start . +Project Manager: Uh uh yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: great . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Oh , how can I uh {disfmarker} Geez , and sli and show . Um {disfmarker} Just uh press it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes . Alright . Um well w we uh we had discussed this already in the fin in the previous uh discussion . {vocalsound} Uh the method of the remote control is just {disfmarker} the function of remote control is basically to send messages to the television set . So that was the main uh important thing what a remote control should do . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Then I found uh two different kind of remote controls , the multi-function uh remote control with many possibilities , but um the lack of the feeling I already mentioned uh in the previous uh discussion . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the ease-of-use remote control with uh the less p possibilities but a great feeling in in touching the buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um but um {disfmarker} yeah . My personal preferences were ease of uh {disfmarker} the easy to use remote control , because uh the user-friendliness and uh {disfmarker} it can be more trendy in in user design . But um your new goal f was for uh people than {disfmarker} less than forty years old . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: So maybe um the multi-function can be implemented in uh in our design . But it should b I think it should be a combination , but teletext buttons are not uh in our design . So it should uh take out , well , eight buttons or so . But my {disfmarker} in {gap} my opinion , the the easy to use R_C_ is uh the best uh possi possibility for us . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh Ruud , did you get that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh b uh most . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the important thing here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's also i indeed uh uh Ruud's uh insight in the in the topic . +Marketing: Oh , user-friendly . +Project Manager: In the market , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , what what does the market want ? I I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , w we will s we all uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for uh for user desi uh user uh friendliness I uh should choose for the the ease of use remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Excuse me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Scusi . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Okay , it's still the right thing . Okay . Um well , there are some changes in the design requirements , so there are some changes in the method also . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um basically all this device has to do is send messages to a T_V_ set . And the m most easy way to do this is by uh sending pulses of infrared light to a T_V_ set . Well , I th I tried to uh implement a picture here , +User Interface: Energies and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's hardly readable . Can you see it ? +Project Manager: No , it's not visible . +Industrial Designer: No ? Well {disfmarker} Um , there's a energy source here . {vocalsound} And um basically there {disfmarker} it's connected to three things . The user interface connected to a chip , which is connected to the sender , which generates messages using uh infrared light , which are sent to the receiver . That's basically the idea . And there's a little picture , just for your imagination , how a device like this should look or can look . {vocalsound} Okay . Um what have I found . Usually these kind of things consist of a battery , infrared diode , buttons , chips , and circuit board . That's all . It's cased together , nothing more than that . {vocalsound} It's almost every piece of equipment um every piece of uh every T_V_ set is controlled infrared . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There are some exceptions , but most of all have uh infrared controls . And uh the more luxury uh remote controls have lithium buttons . And I think that's what we w +User Interface: The glow in the dark uh concept uh we discussed . +Industrial Designer: yes . In the {disfmarker} and it's a little more {disfmarker} a little bit more fancy also . So maybe we should consider that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I have a basic scheme of the things uh which are implemented . Um basically this is all there is . There's just one chip . There are a few buttons connected . Uh the buttons are lit . And the whole thing is transmitted by a infrared li diode , and there is not a power source here . {vocalsound} So that's basically the total design of this piece of equipment . +Project Manager: So it's fairly easy . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing more to it . It's fairly easy . It's been done many times before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Succeed in it also . +Industrial Designer: and I think we should uh we should c s succeed in in our plan to do this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so uh +Project Manager: good . +Industrial Designer: personally I think we should infra use infrared , because uh otherwise our device cannot uh communicate with uh almost every T_V_ set . So I think that uh should be clear . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh another important point is uh we really should use uh energy uh sparse , friendly components . Uh there are specially uh designed um energy-friendly components which consume uh far less power than uh conventional components . And um if we want to use uh a rechargeable design or uh a energy-save design , we should really implement them . {vocalsound} Um for cost-effectiveness , we should really use a very low-cost uh circuit board , um because most of the production cost are are in this uh part of the equipment . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um the money we save on using this we can use uh for elaborate fancy lighting uh techniques , blinking LEDs and all that kind of fancy stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And what's the um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh users will really uh will really like that . +User Interface: if we use the LEDs , i does it use much more energy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , they're p f uh power friendly LEDs also . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can use them . So that's no problem . +User Interface: For the same costs , it's can be uh in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh no , they're uh they're a little bit more expensive , but by uh um um making {disfmarker} +User Interface: Combined with the low-cost circuit board so it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can we can make its I think . +Marketing: Well you could only lit uh the buttons {disfmarker} the buttons that are used most . So , the channel switching . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but the question is whether um two or four buttons makes uh m makes such a difference in the costs if you already plan to uh include fancy lightning techniques , I guess . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's the same as in the cell phone , just light in in the device that that shines on all the buttons , +Marketing: Hmm , true . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , it's not one light , it {disfmarker} there are more lights in a in a in a mobile device . +User Interface: Yeah , but not for each button one LED , I think . +Industrial Designer: No no no , no . That's right , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} well , this uh should be it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um have a think about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , Ruud . +Marketing: Oh , mine is already outdated . +Project Manager: Okay well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we ar we are very curio curious to what the market um will feel about such a product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Since uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any income is welcome . {vocalsound} Input . +Marketing: Okay , make {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Uh then I'm sure the target market is uh ten million units . Of {gap} {disfmarker} of which we should sell about uh forty percent to make the five million . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little bit more to the right ? {vocalsound} Yeah , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um since uh the other part is uh forty percent of the market , I uh thought earlier we might want to constrain that portion of the market . But uh since uh the requirements changed , that's uh not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , skip this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's {disfmarker} this till true , of course . That they only use ten percent the buttons . The buttons to zap are used the {disfmarker} about uh fifteen hundred times , when uh the power button is only used one time . And the volume button's only four times . So they're obv obviously uh the most important buttons . And uh lots of people complained they kin can't find their remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So we might want to build in a feature to uh support them . Some uh audio signal . Like uh home phones . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , that's interesting . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or a find {disfmarker} a finding function , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: that's definitely interesting . +Industrial Designer: That's quite a {disfmarker} yes . +Project Manager: It uh it separates our product from others uh as well . +User Interface: Sound signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: go on . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Well , I just said that . And uh {disfmarker} well , this obvious , and he also said it . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's what the market tells us . +Marketing: Uh that's about it , yes . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: The volume and uh the zap buttons are the mostly used . +Marketing: Uh mo uh zap buttons most . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Volume , they are {gap} uh use a lot . But more than all the other buttons . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it should just have a design {disfmarker} The perfect design for those {disfmarker} only those buttons . And first um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , we should focus on that , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Well , the technical uh {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are no technical difficulties . There's no um elaborate technique uh used in this uh kind of equipment . So um I don't think we have any hiccups there . So we can fully concentrate on developing a product that is really um what the market needs . So maybe it's a good idea to think about these buttons and and uh and a sound signal . +User Interface: Yeah , the sound signal . Just one thing I'm just wondering , {vocalsound} the sound signal , from where do you execute th the s sound ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a problem . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} Th that's a bit of {disfmarker} that's a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Another device is not a solution . +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Usually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe maybe like clapping in your hands , +User Interface: It should be uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like um turning on and off the the the lights . +Industrial Designer: Oh yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but maybe you'll uh get some new technologies for it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , there there are some devices who uh incorporate this technique already . Um there are video sets and um they have a special button , the find the remote control button . You press it and your T_V_ set starts to make a uh kind of weird sound , and your uh remote controls then start to beep . +Project Manager: Reports rep respend response to it . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} +User Interface: just like uh the phones Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , that's it . Yes , same thing . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But uh th +User Interface: But but T_V_s don't have all uh uh buttons . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , so we we should use something else . +Marketing: And you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because we do not have a a a a a home um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I believe you will have an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and usually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We do not control the T_V_ set so well . +Marketing: And even if the T_V_ set would have such a button , uh you would have to walk to your T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yes , m yes . S and we b we want {gap} to make so it's {gap} {disfmarker} is easy as possible for our customers , +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So what about the clapping technique ? Um because you se +User Interface: I'm convinced uh Sebastian will uh find uh one solution for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite complicated . Well , it's quite complicated . Because how can you separate the clapping sound from other sounds . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And b +Project Manager: Well , you see it a lot in in light uh lightning uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . Well , basically the characteristics uh the characteristics of clapping is just an increase in the volume , the amplitude of the sound , +Project Manager: Yeah , a peak . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which is uh generated a few times within a uh certain period of time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But there are many other sounds uh which are exactly the same from the point of view from a remote control . +Marketing: So if if you'd be watching a movie , it would constantly beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +User Interface: But we can have just uh uh a home stat uh f a base station next to the T_V_ . Just a little antenna or uh something . +Industrial Designer: so we don't want that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} Something like that . +User Interface: Well if you lost th +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: is there not something f something more easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think people would bother walking to the T_V_ and press that button because they lost the {disfmarker} their remote . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't think uh {gap} . +User Interface: Uh that's just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , and y the the most important thing for people is that there's a central point to which they can go and uh b uh perform a a some kind of uh {gap} . And then uh the remote control uh reports itself , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so w we should use have {disfmarker} uh we should use something like that . You do not want another device , which can be uh everywhere in the house , which you have to find first before you can find your remote control . +User Interface: {gap} just a base station next to the T_V_ is the best possibility . +Industrial Designer: Yes , something like that . But that will be very costly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , m maybe um w we uh we do agree on on the thing that the remote should have such a function , if it's possible within the costs and all that kind of things . +Industrial Designer: So that's not a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um maybe Sebastian should have uh a detailed look later on and um come up with a solution , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's his {disfmarker} his field of expertise . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . But um before I do that I w I want to warn you that uh by implementing this kind of a function the technical design will become more complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it will become more costly also . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Because there will be additional components which which uh will be used . And there are some implepe imp +User Interface: And do we even uh prefer the sound above the the LEDs , the lightning uh function ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I I think so , because um when you have a p newspaper over your remote control , you cannot see it . +User Interface: It's a unique item uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a distinction in the market . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It will be an {disfmarker} a unique feature of our remote control . +Project Manager: It's a different {disfmarker} exactly . It's an uni an unique feature , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um I think um it's worth um uh looking and and {disfmarker} probably more i interesting than uh than the lights . +User Interface: And just about uh the user interface , I came up with um {vocalsound} an easy remote control and an advanced remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: What should we choose in in design ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , um according to Ruud , um people do not use um all the extra features very very often . +User Interface: Well , the extra functions . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have the numbers r I have the numbers right here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well , t uh we won't support teletext which which was the third-most {disfmarker} the second-most used function . +User Interface: Used option . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we we do have a wise board , so I'm not questioning that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well {disfmarker} yeah , channel selection is obviously the most important . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so on the relevance scale uh the channel selection , the volume selection and the teletext . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , we skip that . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , so it just th the basic functions . And we don't have to use it for D_V_D_ players uh and all kind of stuff . +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nope . +Industrial Designer: So that's out of the question . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Just through uh the easy uh design . We can make uh a nice design when when there's not mu uh much buttons in it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh uh uh I think we should go for the easier one . +Industrial Designer: I think also . Yes . Well , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we should save costs uh by not implementing a lot of functions and uh the money that we can save from that we should use for uh having a nice design and uh thinking about the user interface +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ruud , how do you feel about that ? Uh do you agree , do you think the market would would respond to uh a simple {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh well if we um include other uh innovative functions {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh then they uh might , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause young people uh like new features . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay , so this is is kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh just a few buttons , trendy design , nice lightning effects wh and the sound . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , is it {disfmarker} maybe there's another possibility . You can make it look like an easy s piece of equipment , but it's quite elaborated , uh because it has many functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's more important to make the {disfmarker} make it look like a very uh friendly , easy to catch piece of equipment , but um nevertheless {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but are we not in in the in the manual uh {disfmarker} I mean if you have few buttons , no display , um I mean uh I guess it's l it's working with with a shift functions and um one button can uh +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Ok like that . Well , I was more thinking about a more elaborate way of controlling , by by these kinds of sticks or something like that . I don't know if if it's user-friendly . That's your field of expertise . +Project Manager: But but how does how does the remote uh report uh r uh give back to the user w in what state it is ? +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know yet . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we do not implement uh a user history . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . There's {disfmarker} no , but there's no way to do that , because we cannot implement that kind of the system . +Project Manager: I know , but but if we use uh like a stick , for example , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W Mm-hmm . Well , maybe we can use a light for that . When you move the stick to a to a position , maybe uh a light next to it can lit up . So you know I've just uh pushed the button , or I changed the channel or t uh turned up the volume . Something like that . +Marketing: And if you use that stick for volume control and channel uh selection , you have the m two most important functions in one uh button . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh and we could have other buttons for the for the advanced uh functions . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But does it {disfmarker} uh I then should n just use uh i instead of the stick , uh like many cell phones , just a round m well , +Project Manager: Yeah , draw draw it on the board . +User Interface: should we just use a {disfmarker} Um it's already uh {disfmarker} oh , we have a blank . Oh . +Industrial Designer: yeah , something like that . Oh +User Interface: It's just an easy uh way of of a round button what {disfmarker} which can be pushed in four directions . Instead of a stick . +Industrial Designer: It's not really a stick , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yes . +User Interface: A stick is v vulnerab vulnerable when it's falling down +Project Manager: Yeah , it can break down . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: or uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: just a round uh button should be the trick , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Yes , and this also looks more fancy , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it it will attract uh more uh uh public , I think . +Marketing: A younger uh {disfmarker} Huh . +Industrial Designer: But you're the marketing man . +Marketing: And it's also quite easy to use , so it'll {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh attract younger people because well new , and it might attract older people because it's easy to use . +User Interface: Geez . Well , volume and something uh like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The programme up and down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And the vol yeah , the pen doesn't uh really does what I want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , but w we still {vocalsound} we're still in the question of uh um uh putting in advanced options . Um Ruud just told us um the market is interested in some advanced uh new techniques . Um however , uh keeping it simple is is important for the costs and all all those kind of things . We need to find a balance between uh the advanced techniques and and the user-friendliness . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think our our next step to look at is just that . So I don't think it's {disfmarker} um we have something to do . Uh we can't discuss it right now , because n no one of us have {disfmarker} has the information to discuss about that , I think . +Project Manager: Um well , for {disfmarker} we do have to uh decide this this meeting . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes ? +Project Manager: We need to um have the uh the user function {disfmarker} uh the functions decided and um {vocalsound} uh our target audience . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: but teletext is so uh is just scrapped . 'Kay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . Do do you want a list of functions ? Do you want an explicit list ? Uh which uh incorporates all function available on the device ? +Project Manager: Um well , I do not want a full uh {disfmarker} it's not necessary to to have a full list , but I want um the kind of functions , for example uh th the most important are volume and uh programme selecting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: The ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , for example , that that's what we should think about . {gap} l how is the remote going to look ? Not not in the user interface , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , and just one function . The the the the programme to programme button , the switch to uh two channels , when you have uh something on channel four and something on channel six , just one button which which can uh change +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . A bit of a split mode . +Industrial Designer: Change . +Project Manager: Uh l like {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: Dual channel watch . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: m maybe I should write that down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're the secretary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , um what's your last name ? +Marketing: Mielsen . +Project Manager: Mielsen , because I I was writing it down in the last uh {disfmarker} Mielsen . Right . Um I put all the minutes I make into the shared folder . So if you want to have a look at it , you know where to find it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm okay , +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: but make a s make a sub-folder for it , because it's starting to fill up already . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you want to do it , Sebastian . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Our B_S_C_ uh W_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . Programme . Uh dual channel . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's important . +Project Manager: And and do we want um the ten digits ? +User Interface: The ten digits ? Yeah , I believe so . +Industrial Designer: Well , are are you sure ? +Marketing: Well , if you want to go to channel ninety and you have th that button . +Industrial Designer: I'm not so sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's complicated , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but is that so relevant ? Because I don't think {disfmarker} but you should uh shou you should know that . If it were so . +User Interface: I wouldn't buy it personally . A remote control without the ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Uh and I think the most {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when +Project Manager: I agree actually . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just elder elder people would would buy it , +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when you're {disfmarker} when you have a satellite decoder and and you have , well , about six hundred channels , I can imagine you want this . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if you're uh a regular T_V_ user , and you just want uh to watch the the Dutch television networks , well , you can uh {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you can use uh about ten buttons . That's enough . +Project Manager: But we do have thirteen different Dutch channels . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . The older people only use five of them . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but how how often do you watch all these channels ? +Marketing: and if if we {disfmarker} And if we are targeting at the younger audience , they will probably watch more channels than the older people . +Project Manager: Often . +Industrial Designer: No , you're probably right . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But I think these uh ten uh buttons look a bit dull . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , it depends on the on the on the looks , on the on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The design . +User Interface: On the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , y then there should be {disfmarker} should done {disfmarker} be done something specific with it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c {vocalsound} you can d make them very fancy +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: by um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean Nokia , they have ten digits on their phones and it still looks very fancy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'm I'm {disfmarker} I do not agree {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you can experiment by {disfmarker} uh with with shape or with size or with colour , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Exactly , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um there are some numbers about uh speech recognition here that uh younger people would like it . Uh it might be expensive and uh hard to implement , but it would be a solution uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , speech . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it can be combined with the find the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um when you add uh speech recognition to your remote control , uh it's very easy to change uh the channel . That's one thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very easy uh to find your remote control . +Project Manager: To find {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that's a possibility , but I'm afraid it will be a bit costly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} If if we would um drop the ten digits +Industrial Designer: But maybe when we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but keep the programme and the volume , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because maybe people do not always want to use their voice , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , okay . +Marketing: Especially elder people uh don't like voice recognition . So then we should implement such a but +Project Manager: Yeah . But we do focus on younger people . We d it it's a board uh decision . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Well . I I think it should uh should work , it sh we should manage that . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: we have to i to make um a decision between the ten digits or the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , the voice recognition has the main adva has another advantage . It's mas it makes it very easy for us to implement the find uh find the remote control button {disfmarker} uh remote control function . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's a big advantage , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , g good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's only one disadvantage uh by implementing this . Um the power saving power saving will be a bit more difficult . So we can expect that there will be a less longer life to the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But maybe can {disfmarker} we we can think something smart about it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: There are some uh hybrid hybrid devices which incorporate a solar panel and rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So when you just leave the device in a in a light room , it charges itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} But but can we manage it bu uh for the costs ? +Industrial Designer: You have to do nothing for it . +Marketing: M {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Twelve dollar fifty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because it seems like a very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe , maybe not . +Marketing: And uh if we if we could inc uh include a c a cradle in which it could recharge , then there wouldn't be uh a big problem . +Industrial Designer: I'll have to find that out . Yes . So {disfmarker} No , that's very cheap . +Marketing: 'Cause when {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is a cradle very cheap ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Oh , it's very cheap . That's no problem . It's just a a case with two uh metal contacts . +Project Manager: I know , b uh but there should be an adapter as well . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Yes , but they're they're mass production . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They're very cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it will cost us p practically nothing . +Project Manager: Okay . We we have uh about ten minutes left this meeting . Um {vocalsound} I would like to hear um {disfmarker} maybe maybe you all have th uh things not um spoken about , yeah , but that are important . Uh Ruud , you you came up with the voice recognition uh data . Uh are there other things about the market we should know ? +Marketing: Um I think we dealt with the most important information . Just that the younger part of uh the market isn't the forty percent we uh want to sell to . So we we should uh for least a bit uh look at the uh older people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But with uh buttons like that , which are easy to use , we uh might attract them too . So {disfmarker} I don't think that's a big problem +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: although we are focussing on younger people uh to make it uh profitable uh {disfmarker} Profitable . We we {disfmarker} yeah , we still need to take in account the the bit older people . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , profitable . +Industrial Designer: Profitable . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: O okay . {vocalsound} Um Roo . {gap} {disfmarker} Nothing to add . +User Interface: I have nothing uh nothing to add , I think . +Project Manager: Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: Um I just want to make a summary of all all things uh spoken and uh the different possibilities . Um +Project Manager: Yeah ? Great . +Industrial Designer: so uh basically we've decided to implement a seemingly uh easy design . So on the outside it looks easy , but uh we can make it easy on the inside or elaborate on the inside . So that's one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those are the choices we have to make . But I think there's a big advantage in making it more elaborate by uh implementing uh speech techniques , uh voice recognition , that {disfmarker} these kinds of things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um it makes it also more uh attractable , I think , to our uh audience . Um there are some advantages and some disadvantages , and the main advantage is that we can implement uh fancy techniques , which uh I think our customers will like . The disadvantage is that there are some concerns about uh the the costs and um the things like uh battery lifetime , energy saving . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh another advantage is that the circuit board will become much more easier if we do not {disfmarker} do not implement these buttons . {vocalsound} If we just add uh uh a chip which does the voice recognition , uh our circuit board will become even more cheap . So that's another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that was the main issue , right ? The the board {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well , it wa it w it was an issue , but we also thought that {disfmarker} we already thought we should do it as cheaply as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And this even uh makes it more cheapy . +User Interface: But the cheaper the ch uh the the chip or th what was it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The board . +User Interface: The circuit board . +Industrial Designer: The circuit board . +User Interface: The fewer buttons you can use on it . +Project Manager: No , it's th +Industrial Designer: The fewer buttons you have , the ch ch the cheaper the circuit board , yes . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's the other way around , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very cheap uh to incorporate uh uh an integrated circuit , a chip . So that's that's another advantage . +Project Manager: It shouldn't be a big issue . +User Interface: Well it {disfmarker} then we should just uh take a look at the costs and uh {disfmarker} especially for the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , because I don't know {disfmarker} Yes . I d I really don't know . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It can be costly . Maybe not . +Project Manager: I'm not sure how how we'll f uh determine the costs , I will have a look at it . Maybe you will get some information on that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure how how that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , I al I I hope my personal coach will uh {vocalsound} have a lo uh look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , great . Um {vocalsound} well , I think we're qui quite done . +User Interface: We're done , I think . +Project Manager: Um for now we will have the lunch break . +Industrial Designer: How nice . +Project Manager: Um I'm {disfmarker} don't know how long the break will be , but we'll find out . +User Interface: Me neither . +Project Manager: Um then we will have thirty minutes of time to perform our individual work , uh and I'm sure your personal coaches will uh assist you with it . Um I will put the minutes I just made in the project documents folder . If you want to look at it um well , just do . Um {vocalsound} the Interface Designer , um I would like to {disfmarker} the next meeting I would like to receive the uh components concept . +User Interface: Interface {disfmarker} industrial . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I'm sorry , yeah , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: User Interface Designer , uh Roo , I would like to see the user interface c uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Well , we understand . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um +User Interface: Uh the only problem is it {disfmarker} that it depends on the divisions {disfmarker} the decis uh decisions Sebastian makes . About the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , i it should be easy , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's w w what we concluded . It should be an easy interface with not so much buttons . S just a a p a p a volume and a programme one . And um {vocalsound} um yeah , some some fancy lights . +Industrial Designer: Mm yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that's what we decided . +Industrial Designer: So we drop the voice recognition ? +Project Manager: No no no , we didn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it shouldn't be integrated {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: yeah , it's {disfmarker} of course it's user interface , but um i I was talking about really the design of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well um do we really have to decide now +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: or can we decide next meeting ? +Project Manager: We can decide the next meeting . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Because I'll have some updated info on that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I guess all of you have i updated info . I'm sure the marketing expert will receive uh t uh you will do some trend watching . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And I'm sure the market will um uh {vocalsound} {gap} uh will change , adapt +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Adapt . +Industrial Designer: Adapt . +Marketing: Left . +Project Manager: and um so +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: we will see that . Um yeah , that's it for now . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Any other questions +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: or can we have the lunch ? +Industrial Designer: We can have the lunch . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll take the lunch . +Project Manager: Good . +","A project team composed of a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Marketing Expert, and Industrial Designer conducts a meeting to discuss a new remote control product. They consider the design, user interface simplicity, target demographic (under 40), and functions (excluding teletext). They debate the incorporation of a voice recognition feature that could aid in locating the remote and possibly eliminate the need for numerous buttons. The team proposes an easy-to-use interface with essential functions like volume and channel selection, possibly incorporating voice recognition and a ""find the remote"" feature. They grapple with balancing cost, market appeal, especially to youth, and innovative functions, emphasizing a device that appears simple but has sophisticated internal capabilities. Decisions are deferred pending further analysis of voice recognition technology costs and its potential integration. After the meeting, they plan to consult their personal coaches, work individually, and reconvene afterwards." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think I 'm zero . +Professor B: Wow ! Unprecedented . +PhD C: Hello , hello , hello , hello . +PhD E: Ah +Grad F: Wh - what causes the crash ? +PhD A: Did you fix something ? +PhD C: Hello . +PhD E: Five , five . +PhD C: Hello , hello . +Grad F: Oh , maybe it 's the turning {disfmarker} turning off and turning on of the mike , right ? +Professor B: Uh , you think that 's you ? Oh . +PhD C: Aaa - aaa - aaa . +Grad F: Yeah , OK , mine 's working . +PhD C: OK . That 's me . +Professor B: OK . OK . So , um I guess we are {pause} um {pause} gonna do the digits at the end . Uh +PhD D: Channel {disfmarker} channel three , yeah . +PhD C: Channel two . +PhD D: OK . +PhD E: Mmm , channel five ? Doesn't work ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the mike number there , uh {pause} Uh , mike number five , and {pause} channel {disfmarker} channel four . +PhD C: Two . +PhD A: Is it written on her sheet , I believe . +PhD E: No ? Ah , +PhD D: Mike four . +Grad F: Watch this . +PhD E: era el cuatro . +Grad F: Yep , that 's me . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: But , channel +PhD E: Yeah yeah yeah . +Professor B: This is you . +PhD E: OK . I saw that . Ah {disfmarker} yeah , it 's OK . +Professor B: Yeah . And I 'm channel uh two I think , +PhD C: Ooo . +Professor B: or channel {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think I 'm channel two . +Professor B: Oh , I 'm channel {disfmarker} must be channel one . Channel one ? +PhD E: Channel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I decided to talk about that . +Professor B: Yes , OK . OK . So uh {pause} I also copied uh the results that we all got in the mail I think from uh {disfmarker} {pause} from OGI and we 'll go {disfmarker} go through them also . So where are we on {disfmarker} {pause} on uh {vocalsound} {pause} our runs ? +PhD D: Uh so . {pause} uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So {pause} As I was already said , we {disfmarker} we mainly focused on uh four kind of features . +Professor B: Excuse me . +PhD D: The PLP , the PLP with JRASTA , the MSG , and the MFCC from the baseline Aurora . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , and we focused for the {disfmarker} the test part on the English and the Italian . Um . We 've trained uh several neural networks on {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on the TI - digits English {pause} and on the Italian data and also on the broad uh {pause} English uh French and uh Spanish databases . Mmm , so there 's our result tables here , for the tandem approach , and um , actually what we {disfmarker} we @ @ observed is that if the network is trained on the task data it works pretty well . +Professor B: OK . Our {disfmarker} our uh {disfmarker} {pause} There 's a {disfmarker} {pause} We 're pausing for a photo {disfmarker} +PhD C: Chicken on the grill . Try that corner . +PhD A: How about over th from the front of the room ? +PhD C: Yeah , it 's longer . +Professor B: We 're pausing for a photo opportunity here . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . So . +Grad F: Oh wait wait wait wait wait . Wait . +PhD C: Get out of the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Hold on . Hold on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Let me give you a black screen . +Professor B: He 's facing this way . What ? OK , this {disfmarker} this would be a {pause} good section for our silence detection . +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um Oh . +Grad F: Musical chairs everybody ! +Professor B: OK . So um , {pause} you were saying {pause} about the training data {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so if the network is trained on the task data um {pause} tandem works pretty well . And uh actually we have uh , results are similar Only on , +PhD A: Do you mean if it 's trained only on {disfmarker} On data from just that task , +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: that language ? +PhD D: Just that task . But actually we didn't train network on {pause} uh both types of data I mean {pause} uh {pause} phonetically ba phonetically balanced uh data and task data . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: We only did either task {disfmarker} task data or {pause} uh broad {pause} data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {pause} Yeah . So , +Professor B: So how {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} clearly it 's gonna be good then +PhD A: So what 's th +Professor B: but the question is how much {pause} worse is it {pause} if you have broad data ? I mean , {pause} my assump From what I saw from the earlier results , uh I guess last week , {pause} was that um , {pause} if you {pause} trained on one language and tested on another , say , that {pause} the results were {disfmarker} were relatively poor . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but the question is if you train on one language {pause} but you have a broad coverage {pause} and then test in another , {pause} does that {disfmarker} {pause} is that improve things {pause} i c in comparison ? +PhD D: If we use the same language ? +Professor B: No , no , no . Different lang So {pause} um {pause} If you train on TI - digits {pause} and test on Italian digits , {pause} you do poorly , {pause} let 's say . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't have the numbers in front of me , +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah but I did not uh do that . +Professor B: so I 'm just imagining . E So , you didn't train on {pause} TIMIT and test on {disfmarker} {pause} on Italian digits , say ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} No , we did four {disfmarker} four kind of {disfmarker} of testing , actually . The first testing is {pause} with task data {disfmarker} So , with nets trained on task data . So for Italian on the Italian speech @ @ . The second test is trained on a single language um with broad database , but the same language as the t task data . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: But for Italian we choose Spanish which {pause} we assume is close to Italian . The third test is by using , um the three language database +Professor B: W which in {disfmarker} +PhD D: and the fourth is +Professor B: It has three languages . That 's including the w the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} +PhD D: This includes {disfmarker} +Professor B: the one that it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: In +PhD D: But {pause} not digits . I mean it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: The three languages {pause} is not digits , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: it 's the broad {pause} data . OK . +PhD D: Yeah And the fourth test is uh {pause} excluding from these three languages the language {pause} that is {pause} the task language . +Professor B: Oh , OK , yeah , so , that is what I wanted to know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I just wasn't saying it very well , I guess . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So um {pause} for uh TI - digits for ins example {pause} uh when we go from TI - digits training to {pause} TIMIT training {pause} uh we lose {pause} uh around ten percent , uh . The error rate increase u of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of ten percent , relative . +Professor B: Relative . Right . +PhD D: So this is not so bad . And then when we jump to the multilingual data it 's uh it become worse and , well Around uh , let 's say , {pause} twenty perc twenty percent further . +Professor B: Ab - about how much ? +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: Twenty percent further ? +PhD D: Twenty to {disfmarker} to thirty percent further . Yeah . +PhD A: And so , remind me , the multilingual stuff is just the broad data . Right ? It 's not the digits . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's the combination of {pause} two things there . It 's {pause} removing the {pause} task specific {pause} training and {pause} it 's adding other languages . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: But the first step is al already removing the task s specific from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD A: Already , right right right . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So they were sort of building {pause} here ? +PhD D: And we lose {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {pause} So , basically when it 's trained on the {disfmarker} the multilingual broad data {pause} um or number {disfmarker} so , the {disfmarker} the {pause} ratio of our error rates uh with the {pause} baseline error rate is around {pause} uh one point one . +Professor B: Yes . {vocalsound} And it 's something like one point three of {disfmarker} of the {pause} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: I i if you compare everything to the first case at the baseline , you get something like one point one for the {disfmarker} for the using the same language but a different task , and something like one point three {pause} for three {disfmarker} three languages {pause} broad stuff . +PhD D: No no no . Uh same language we are at uh {disfmarker} for at English at O point eight . So it improves , {pause} compared to the baseline . But {disfmarker} So . Le - let me . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD D: Tas - task data +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant something different by baseline +PhD D: we are u Yeah . +Professor B: So let me {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} Um , {pause} so , {pause} um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK , fine . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's use the conventional meaning of baseline . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} By baseline here I meant {pause} uh using the task specific data . +PhD D: Oh yeah , the f Yeah , OK . +Professor B: But uh {disfmarker} {pause} uh , because that 's what you were just doing with this ten percent . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I was just {disfmarker} I just trying to understand that . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor B: So if we call {pause} a factor of w just one , just normalized to one , the word error rate {pause} that you have {pause} for using TI - digits as {disfmarker} as {pause} training and TI - digits as test , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: uh different words , I 'm sure , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} {pause} but uh , uh the same {pause} task and so on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we call that "" one "" , {pause} then what you 're saying is {pause} that the word error rate {pause} for the same language but using {pause} uh different training data than you 're testing on , say TIMIT and so forth , {pause} it 's one point one . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , it 's around one point one . +Professor B: Right . And if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: you {pause} do {pause} go to {pause} three languages including the English , {pause} it 's something like one point three . That 's what you were just saying , I think . +PhD D: Ye Uh , more actually . +PhD A: One point four ? +PhD D: If I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's an additional thirty percent . +PhD D: What would you say ? Around one point four +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: And if you exclude {pause} English , {pause} from this combination , what 's that ? +PhD D: If we exclude English , {pause} um {pause} there is {pause} not much difference with the {pause} data with English . +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's interesting . {pause} That 's interesting . Do you see ? Because {disfmarker} Uh , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} No , that {disfmarker} that 's important . So what {disfmarker} what it 's saying here is just that "" yes , there is a reduction {pause} in performance , {pause} when you don't {pause} um {pause} have the s {pause} when you don't have {pause} um +PhD A: Task data . +Professor B: Wait a minute , th th the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: No , actually {pause} it 's interesting . So it 's {disfmarker} So when you go to a different task , there 's actually not so {pause} different . It 's when you went to these {disfmarker} So what 's the difference between two and three ? Between the one point one case and the one point four case ? I 'm confused . +PhD A: It 's multilingual . +PhD D: Yeah . The only difference it 's {disfmarker} is that it 's multilingual {disfmarker} Um +Professor B: Cuz in both {disfmarker} in both {disfmarker} both of those cases , you don't have the same task . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah sure . +Professor B: So is {disfmarker} is the training data for the {disfmarker} for this one point four case {disfmarker} does it include the training data for the one point one case ? +PhD D: Uh yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , a fraction of it . +PhD D: A part of it , yeah . +Professor B: How m how much bigger is it ? +PhD D: Um {pause} It 's two times , +Grad F: Yeah , um . +PhD D: actually ? Yeah . Um . The English data {disfmarker} {pause} No , the multilingual databases are two times the {pause} broad English {pause} data . We just wanted to keep this , w well , not too huge . So . +Professor B: So it 's two times , but it includes the {disfmarker} but it includes the broad English data . +PhD D: I think so . Do you {disfmarker} Uh , Yeah . +Professor B: And the broad English data is what you got this one point one {pause} with . So that 's TIMIT basically right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's band - limited TIMIT . This is all eight kilohertz sampling . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Downs Right . +Professor B: So you have band - limited TIMIT , {pause} gave you uh almost as good as a result as using TI - digits {pause} on a TI - digits test . OK ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Um {pause} and {pause} um But , {pause} when you add in more training data but keep the neural net the same size , {pause} it {pause} um performs worse on the TI - digits . OK , now all of this is {disfmarker} {pause} This is noisy {pause} TI - digits , I assume ? Both training and test ? +PhD D: +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Um OK . Well . {pause} We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just need to uh {disfmarker} So I mean it 's interesting that h going to a different {disfmarker} different task didn't seem to hurt us that much , and going to a different language um It doesn't seem to matter {disfmarker} The difference between three and four is not particularly great , so that means that {pause} whether you have the language in or not is not such a big deal . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: It sounds like um {pause} uh {pause} we may need to have more {pause} of uh things that are similar to a target language or {disfmarker} I mean . {pause} You have the same number of parameters in the neural net , you haven't increased the size of the neural net , and maybe there 's just {disfmarker} {pause} just not enough {pause} complexity to it to represent {pause} the variab increased variability in the {disfmarker} in the training set . That {disfmarker} that could be . Um {pause} So , what about {disfmarker} So these are results with {pause} uh th {pause} that you 're describing now , that {pause} they are pretty similar for the different features or {disfmarker} {pause} or uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , let me check . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . This was for the PLP , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . The {disfmarker} Yeah . For the PLP with JRASTA the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} This is quite the same {pause} tendency , {pause} with a slight increase of the error rate , {pause} uh if we go to {disfmarker} to TIMIT . And then it 's {disfmarker} it gets worse with the multilingual . Um . Yeah . There {disfmarker} there is a difference actually with {disfmarker} b between PLP and JRASTA is that {pause} JRASTA {pause} seems to {pause} perform better with the highly mismatched {pause} condition {pause} but slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse {pause} for the well matched condition . Mmm . +Professor B: I have a suggestion , actually , even though it 'll delay us slightly , would {disfmarker} would you mind {pause} running into the other room and making {pause} copies of this ? Cuz we 're all sort of {disfmarker} If we c if we could look at it , while we 're talking , I think it 'd be +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} {pause} Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll sing a song or dance or something while you {vocalsound} do it , too . +PhD A: So um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Alright . +PhD A: Go ahead . Ah , while you 're gone I 'll ask s some of my questions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , this way and just slightly to the left , yeah . +PhD A: The um {disfmarker} What was {disfmarker} Was this number {pause} forty or {disfmarker} It was roughly the same as this one , {pause} he said ? When you had the two language versus the three language ? +Professor B: Um . That 's what he was saying . +PhD A: That 's where he removed English , +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: right ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: It sometimes , actually , depends on what features you 're using . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but i it sounds like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} He {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean . That 's interesting because {pause} it {disfmarker} it seems like what it 's saying is not so much that you got hurt {pause} uh because {pause} you {pause} uh didn't have so much representation of English , because in the other case you don't get hurt any more , at least when {pause} it seemed like uh it {disfmarker} it might simply be a case that you have something that is just much more diverse , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but you have the same number of parameters representing it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I wonder {disfmarker} were um all three of these nets {pause} using the same output ? This multi - language {pause} uh labelling ? +Grad F: He was using uh sixty - four phonemes from {pause} SAMPA . +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So this would {disfmarker} {pause} From this you would say , "" well , it doesn't really matter if we put Finnish {pause} into {pause} the training of the neural net , {pause} if there 's {pause} gonna be , {pause} you know , Finnish in the test data . "" Right ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it sounds {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , we have to be careful , cuz we haven't gotten a good result yet . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And comparing different bad results can be {pause} tricky . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {pause} I think it does suggest that it 's not so much uh {pause} uh cross {pause} language as cross type of speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we did {disfmarker} Oh yeah , the other thing I was asking him , though , is that I think that in the case {disfmarker} Yeah , you {disfmarker} you do have to be careful because of com compounded results . I think we got some earlier results {pause} in which you trained on one language and tested on another and you didn't have {pause} three , but you just had one {pause} language . So you trained on {pause} one type of digits and tested on another . Didn - Wasn't there something of that ? Where you , {pause} say , trained on Spanish and tested on {disfmarker} on TI - digits , or the other way around ? Something like that ? +PhD E: No . +Professor B: I thought there was something like that , {pause} that he showed me {pause} last week . We 'll have to wait till we get {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , that would be interesting . +Professor B: Um , This may have been what I was asking before , Stephane , but {disfmarker} {pause} but , um , wasn't there something that you did , {pause} where you trained {pause} on one language and tested on another ? I mean no {disfmarker} no mixture but just {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'll get it for you . +PhD D: Uh , no , no . +Professor B: We 've never just trained on one lang +PhD D: Training on a single language , you mean , and testing on the other one ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , no . +PhD E: Not yet . +PhD D: So the only {pause} task that 's similar to this is the training on two languages , and {comment} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But we 've done a bunch of things where we just trained on one language . Right ? I mean , you haven't {disfmarker} you haven't done all your tests on multiple languages . +PhD D: Uh , No . Either thi this is test with {pause} uh the same language {pause} but from the broad data , or it 's test with {pause} uh different languages also from the broad data , excluding the {disfmarker} So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's three or {disfmarker} three and four . +PhD E: The early experiment that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Did you do different languages from digits ? +PhD D: Uh . No . You mean {pause} training digits {pause} on one language and using the net {pause} to recognize on the other ? +PhD A: Digits on another language ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: See , I thought you showed me something like that last week . You had a {disfmarker} you had a little {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , {pause} No , I don't think so . +Professor B: Um What {disfmarker} +PhD C: These numbers are uh {pause} ratio to baseline ? +Professor B: So , I mean wha what 's the {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this chart {disfmarker} this table that we 're looking at {pause} is um , show is all testing for TI - digits , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Bigger is worse . +PhD D: So you have uh basically two {pause} uh parts . +Grad F: This is error rate , I think . +PhD C: Ratio . +Grad F: No . {pause} No . +PhD D: The upper part is for TI - digits +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD D: and it 's divided in three {pause} rows {pause} of four {disfmarker} four rows each . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And the first four rows is well - matched , then the s the second group of four rows is mismatched , and {pause} finally highly mismatched . And then the lower part is for Italian and it 's the same {disfmarker} {pause} the same thing . +PhD A: So , so the upper part is training {pause} TI - digits ? +PhD D: So . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the HTK results , I mean . So it 's {pause} HTK training testings {pause} with different kind of features +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: and what appears in the {pause} uh left column is {pause} the networks that are used for doing this . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: So . Uh Yeah . +Professor B: Well , What was is that i What was it that you had {pause} done {pause} last week when you showed {disfmarker} Do you remember ? Wh - when you showed me {pause} the {disfmarker} your table last week ? +PhD D: It - It was part of these results . Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: So where is the baseline {pause} for the TI - digits {pause} located in here ? +PhD D: You mean the HTK Aurora baseline ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's uh the one hundred number . It 's , well , all these numbers are the ratio {pause} with respect to the baseline . +PhD A: Ah ! Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: So this is word {disfmarker} word error rate , so a high number is bad . +PhD D: Yeah , this is {pause} a word error rate ratio . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: OK , I see . +PhD D: Yeah . So , seventy point two means that {pause} we reduced the error rate uh by thirty {disfmarker} thirty percent . +PhD A: OK , OK , gotcha . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: OK , {vocalsound} so if we take +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: uh um let 's see PLP {pause} uh with on - line {pause} normalization and {pause} delta - del so that 's this thing you have circled here {pause} in the second column , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: um {pause} and "" multi - English "" refers to what ? +PhD D: To TIMIT . Mmm . Then you have {pause} uh MF , {pause} MS and ME which are for French , Spanish and English . And , yeah . Actually I {disfmarker} {pause} I uh forgot to say that {pause} the multilingual net are trained {pause} on {pause} uh {pause} features without the s derivatives uh but with {pause} increased frame numbers . Mmm . And we can {disfmarker} we can see on the first line of the table that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it 's slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse when we don't use delta but it 's not {disfmarker} {pause} not that much . +Professor B: Right . So w w So , I 'm sorry . I missed that . What 's MF , MS and ME ? +PhD A: Multi - French , Multi - Spanish +PhD D: So . Multi - French , Multi - Spanish , and Multi - English . +Professor B: Uh OK . So , it 's {pause} uh {pause} broader vocabulary . Then {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK so I think what I 'm {disfmarker} what I saw in your smaller chart that I was thinking of was {disfmarker} was {pause} there were some numbers I saw , I think , that included these multiple languages and it {disfmarker} and I was seeing {pause} that it got worse . I {disfmarker} I think that was all it was . You had some very limited results that {disfmarker} at that point +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: which showed {pause} having in these {disfmarker} these other languages . In fact it might have been just this last category , {pause} having two languages broad that were {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where English was removed . So that was cross language and the {disfmarker} and the result was quite poor . What I {disfmarker} {pause} we hadn't seen yet was that if you added in the English , it 's still poor . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um now , what 's the noise condition {pause} um {pause} of the training data {disfmarker} +PhD D: Still poor . +Professor B: Well , I think this is what you were explaining . The noise condition is the same {disfmarker} It 's the same uh Aurora noises uh , in all these cases {pause} for the training . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: So there 's not a {pause} statistical {disfmarker} sta a strong st {pause} statistically different {pause} noise characteristic between {pause} uh the training and test +PhD D: No these are the s s s same noises , +Professor B: and yet we 're seeing some kind of effect {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah . At least {disfmarker} at least for the first {disfmarker} {pause} for the well - matched , +Grad F: Well matched condition . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: So there 's some kind of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an effect from having these {disfmarker} uh this broader coverage um Now I guess what we should try doing with this is try {pause} testing these on u this same sort of thing on {disfmarker} you probably must have this {pause} lined up to do . To try the same t {pause} with the exact same training , do testing on {pause} the other languages . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: On {disfmarker} on um {disfmarker} So . Um , oh I well , wait a minute . You have this here , for the Italian . That 's right . OK , so , {pause} So . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , so for the Italian the results are {vocalsound} uh {pause} stranger um {pause} Mmm . So what appears is that perhaps Spanish is {pause} not very close to Italian because uh , well , {pause} when using the {disfmarker} the network trained only on Spanish it 's {disfmarker} {pause} the error rate is {pause} almost uh twice {pause} the baseline error rate . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . {vocalsound} Uh . +Professor B: Well , I mean , let 's see . Is there any difference in {disfmarker} So it 's in {pause} the uh {disfmarker} So you 're saying that {pause} when you train on English {pause} and {pause} uh {pause} and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: No , you don't have training on English testing {disfmarker} +PhD D: There {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} another difference , is that the noise {disfmarker} the noises are different . +Professor B: In {disfmarker} in what ? +PhD D: Well , For {disfmarker} for the Italian part I mean the {pause} uh {pause} the um {pause} networks are trained with noise from {pause} Aurora {disfmarker} TI - digits , +PhD E: Aurora - two . +PhD D: mmm . +Professor B: And the noise is different in th +PhD D: Yeah . And perhaps the noise are {pause} quite different from the noises {pause} in the speech that Italian . +Professor B: Do we have any um {pause} test sets {pause} uh in {pause} any other language that um have the same noise as in {pause} the Aurora ? +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm , no . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Can I ask something real quick ? In {disfmarker} in the upper part {disfmarker} {pause} in the English {pause} stuff , {pause} it looks like the very best number is sixty point nine ? and that 's in the uh {disfmarker} {pause} the third {pause} section in the upper part under PLP JRASTA , sort of the middle column ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I is that {pause} a noisy condition ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So that 's matched training ? Is that what that is ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} no , the third part , so it 's uh {pause} highly mismatched . So . Training and {pause} test noise are different . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} why do you get your best number in {disfmarker} Wouldn't you get your best number in the clean case ? +PhD C: Well , it 's relative to the um {pause} baseline mismatching +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK so these are not {disfmarker} OK , alright , I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . And then {disfmarker} so , in the {disfmarker} in the um {disfmarker} {pause} in the {pause} non - mismatched clean case , {pause} your best one was under MFCC ? That sixty - one point four ? +PhD D: Yeah . {pause} But it 's not a clean case . It 's {pause} a noisy case but {pause} uh training and test noises are the same . +PhD A: Oh ! So this upper third ? +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Uh that 's still noisy ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , OK . +PhD D: So it 's always noisy basically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , {pause} well , the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK ? Um {pause} So uh , I think this will take some {pause} looking at , thinking about . But , {pause} what is uh {disfmarker} what is currently running , that 's {disfmarker} uh , i that {disfmarker} just filling in the holes here or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? {comment} {pause} pretty much ? +PhD D: Uh , no we don't plan to fill the holes +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: but {pause} actually there is something important , is that {pause} um we made a lot of assumption concerning the on - line normalization and we just noticed {pause} uh recently that {pause} uh the {pause} approach that we were using {pause} was not {pause} uh {pause} leading to very good results {pause} when we {pause} used the straight features to HTK . Um {pause} {pause} Mmm . So basically d {pause} if you look at the {disfmarker} at the left of the table , {pause} the first uh row , {pause} with eighty - six , one hundred , and forty - three and seventy - five , these are the results we obtained for Italian {pause} uh with {pause} straight {pause} mmm , PLP features {pause} using on - line normalization . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . And the , mmm {disfmarker} what 's {pause} in the table , just {pause} at the left of the PLP twelve {pause} on - line normalization column , so , the numbers seventy - nine , fifty - four and {pause} uh forty - two {pause} are the results obtained by uh Pratibha with {pause} uh his on - line normalization {disfmarker} uh her on - line normalization approach . +PhD A: Where is that ? seventy - nine , fifty +Professor B: Uh , it 's just sort of sitting right on the uh {disfmarker} the column line . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Fifty - one ? This {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh I see , OK . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} Yeah . +PhD D: Just {disfmarker} uh Yeah . So these are the results of {pause} OGI with {pause} on - line normalization and straight features to HTK . And the previous result , eighty - six and so on , {pause} are with our {pause} features straight to HTK . +Professor B: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: So {pause} what we see that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} there is that um {pause} uh the way we were doing this was not correct , but {pause} still {pause} the networks {pause} are very good . When we use the networks {pause} our number are better that {pause} uh Pratibha results . +PhD E: We improve . +Professor B: So , do you know what was wrong with the on - line normalization , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . There were diff there were different things and {pause} basically , {pause} the first thing is the mmm , {pause} alpha uh {pause} value . So , the recursion {pause} uh {pause} part . um , {pause} I used point five percent , {pause} which was the default value in the {disfmarker} {pause} in the programs here . And Pratibha used five percent . +Professor B: Uh +PhD D: So it adapts more {pause} quickly +Professor B: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , but , yeah . I assume that this was not important because {pause} uh previous results from {disfmarker} from Dan and {disfmarker} show that basically {pause} the {pause} both {disfmarker} both values g give the same {disfmarker} same {pause} uh results . It was true on uh {pause} TI - digits but it 's not true on Italian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , second thing is the initialization of the {pause} stuff . Actually , {pause} uh what we were doing is to start the recursion from the beginning of the {pause} utterance . And using initial values that are the global mean and variances {pause} measured across the whole database . +Professor B: Right . Right . +PhD D: And Pratibha did something different is that he {disfmarker} uh she initialed the um values of the mean and variance {pause} by computing {pause} this on the {pause} twenty - five first frames of each utterance . Mmm . There were other minor differences , the fact that {pause} she used fifteen dissities instead s instead of thirteen , and that she used C - zero instead of log energy . Uh , but the main differences concerns the recursion . So . {pause} Uh , I changed the code uh and now we have a baseline that 's similar to the OGI baseline . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's slightly {pause} uh different because {pause} I don't exactly initialize the same way she does . Actually I start , {pause} mmm , I don't wait to a fifteen {disfmarker} twenty - five {disfmarker} twenty - five frames {pause} before computing a mean and the variance {pause} to e to {disfmarker} to start the recursion . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I use the on - line scheme and only start the re recursion after the twenty - five {disfmarker} {pause} twenty - fifth frame . But , well it 's similar . So {pause} uh I retrained {pause} the networks with {pause} these {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the networks are retaining with these new {pause} features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So basically what I expect is that {pause} these numbers will a little bit go down but {pause} perhaps not {disfmarker} not so much +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: because {pause} I think the neural networks learn perhaps {pause} to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: even if the features are not {pause} normalized . It {disfmarker} it will learn how to normalize and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , but I think that {pause} given the pressure of time we probably want to draw {disfmarker} because of that {pause} especially , we wanna draw some conclusions from this , do some reductions {pause} in what we 're looking at , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and make some strong decisions for what we 're gonna do testing on before next week . So do you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} w did you have something going on , on the side , with uh multi - band {pause} or {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on this , +PhD D: Yeah {vocalsound} I +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: No , I {disfmarker} we plan to start this uh so , act actually we have discussed uh {pause} @ @ um , these {disfmarker} what we could do {pause} more as a {disfmarker} as a research and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we were thinking perhaps that {pause} uh {pause} the way we use the tandem is not {disfmarker} Uh , well , there is basically perhaps a flaw in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the stuff because {pause} we {pause} trained the networks {disfmarker} If we trained the networks on the {disfmarker} on {pause} a language and a t or a specific {pause} task , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um , what we ask is {disfmarker} to the network {disfmarker} is to put the bound the decision boundaries somewhere in the space . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD D: And uh {pause} mmm and ask the network to put one , {pause} at one side of the {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a particular phoneme at one side of the boundary {disfmarker} decision boundary and one for another phoneme at the other side . And {pause} so there is kind of reduction of the information there that 's not correct because if we change task {pause} and if the phonemes are not in the same context in the new task , {pause} obviously the {pause} decision boundaries are not {disfmarker} {pause} should not be at the same {pause} place . +Professor B: I di +PhD D: But the way the feature gives {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the way the network gives the features is that it reduce completely the {disfmarker} {pause} it removes completely the information {disfmarker} {pause} a lot of information from the {disfmarker} the features {pause} by uh {pause} uh {pause} placing the decision boundaries at {pause} optimal places for {pause} one kind of {pause} data but {pause} this is not the case for another kind of data . +Professor B: It 's a trade - off , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? Any - anyway go ahead . +PhD D: Yeah . So uh what we were thinking about is perhaps {pause} um one way {pause} to solve this problem is increase the number of {pause} outputs of the neural networks . Doing something like , um {pause} um phonemes within context and , well , basically context dependent phonemes . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you could make {pause} the same argument , it 'd be just as legitimate , {pause} for hybrid systems {pause} as well . Right . +PhD D: Yeah but , we know that {disfmarker} +Professor B: And in fact , {pause} th things get better with context dependent {pause} versions . Right ? +PhD D: Ye - yeah but here it 's something different . We want to have features +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: uh well , {pause} um . +Professor B: Yeah , but it 's still true {pause} that what you 're doing {pause} is you 're ignoring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're coming up with something to represent , {pause} whether it 's a distribution , {pause} probability distribution or features , you 're coming up with a set of variables {pause} that are representing {pause} uh , {pause} things that vary w over context . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , and you 're {pause} putting it all together , ignoring the differences in context . That {disfmarker} that 's true {pause} for the hybrid system , it 's true for a tandem system . So , for that reason , when you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a hybrid system , {pause} when you incorporate context one way or another , {pause} you do get better scores . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK ? But I {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a big deal {pause} to get that . I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of {disfmarker} And once you {disfmarker} the other thing is that once you represent {disfmarker} start representing more and more context {pause} it is {pause} uh {pause} much more {pause} um specific {pause} to a particular task in language . So um Uh , the {disfmarker} {pause} the acoustics associated with {pause} uh a particular context , for instance you may have some kinds of contexts that will never occur {pause} in one language and will occur frequently in the other , so the qu the issue of getting enough training {pause} for a particular kind of context becomes harder . We already actually don't have a huge amount of training data um +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mmm , I mean , {pause} the {disfmarker} the way we {disfmarker} we do it now is that we have a neural network and {pause} basically {pause} the net network is trained almost to give binary decisions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {pause} uh {disfmarker} binary decisions about phonemes . Nnn {disfmarker} Uh It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Almost . But I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does give a distribution . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {pause} it is true that if there 's two phones that are very similar , {pause} that {pause} uh {pause} the {disfmarker} {pause} i it may prefer one but it will {pause} give a reasonably high value to the other , too . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , sure but uh {pause} So basically it 's almost binary decisions and {pause} um the idea of using more {pause} classes is {pause} to {pause} get something that 's {pause} less binary decisions . +Professor B: Oh no , but it would still be even more of a binary decision . It {disfmarker} it 'd be even more of one . Because then you would say {pause} that in {disfmarker} that this phone in this context is a one , {pause} but the same phone in a slightly different context is a zero . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: That would be even {disfmarker} even more distinct of a binary decision . I actually would have thought you 'd wanna go the other way and have fewer classes . +PhD D: Yeah , but if {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean for instance , the {disfmarker} the thing I was arguing for before , but again which I don't think we have time to try , {pause} is something in which you would modify the code so you could train to have several outputs on and use articulatory features +PhD D: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz then that would {disfmarker} that would go {disfmarker} {pause} that would be much broader and cover many different situations . But if you go to very very fine categories , it 's very {pause} binary . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah , perhaps you 're right , but you have more classes so {pause} you {disfmarker} you have more information in your features . So , {vocalsound} Um {pause} You have more information in the {pause} uh +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +PhD D: posteriors vector um which means that {disfmarker} But still the information is relevant +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's information that helps to discriminate , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if it 's possible to be able to discriminate {pause} among the phonemes in context . +Professor B: Well it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's an interesting thought . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean we {disfmarker} we could disagree about it at length +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the real thing is if you 're interested in it you 'll probably try it +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we 'll see . But {disfmarker} but what I 'm more concerned with now , as an operational level , is {pause} uh , you know , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: what do we do in four or five days ? Uh , and {disfmarker} {pause} so we have {pause} to be concerned {pause} with Are we gonna look at any combinations of things , you know once the nets get retrained so you have this problem out of it . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , are we going to look at {pause} multi - band ? Are we gonna look at combinations of things ? Uh , what questions are we gonna ask , uh now that , I mean , {pause} we should probably turn shortly to this O G I note . Um , how are we going to {pause} combine {pause} with what they 've been focusing on ? Uh , {pause} Uh we haven't been doing any of the L D A RASTA sort of thing . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And they , although they don't talk about it in this note , um , {pause} there 's um , {pause} the issue of the {pause} um Mu law {pause} business {pause} uh {pause} versus the logarithm , um , {pause} so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what i what is going on right now ? What 's right {disfmarker} you 've got {pause} nets retraining , Are there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any H T K {pause} trainings {disfmarker} testings going on ? +PhD D: N +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm trying the HTK with eh , {pause} PLP twelve on - line delta - delta and MSG filter {pause} together . +Professor B: The combination , I see . +PhD E: The combination , yeah . But I haven't result {vocalsound} at this moment . +Professor B: MSG and {disfmarker} and PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And is this with the revised {pause} on - line normalization ? +PhD E: Ye - Uh , with the old {pause} older , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Old one . So it 's using all the nets for that +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: but again we have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} We have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} maybe it 's not making too much difference , +PhD E: Yeah . But {pause} We can know soon . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: Uh so there is this combination , yeah . Working on combination obviously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , I will start work on multi - band . And {pause} we {pause} plan to work also on the idea of using both {pause} features {pause} and net outputs . +PhD E: +PhD D: Um . And {pause} we think that {pause} with this approach perhaps {pause} we could reduce the number of outputs of the neural network . Um , So , get simpler networks , because we still have the features . So we have um {pause} come up with um {pause} different kind of {pause} broad phonetic categories . And we have {disfmarker} Basically we have three {pause} types of broad phonetic classes . Well , something using place of articulation which {disfmarker} which leads to {pause} nine , I think , {pause} broad classes . Uh , another which is based on manner , which is {disfmarker} is also something like nine classes . And then , {pause} something that combine both , and we have {pause} twenty f {pause} twenty - five ? +Grad F: Twenty - seven . +PhD D: Twenty - seven broad classes . So like , uh , oh , I don't know , like back vowels , front vowels . +Professor B: So what you do {disfmarker} um I just wanna understand +PhD D: Um For the moments we do not {disfmarker} don't have nets , +Professor B: so {pause} You have two net or three nets ? Was this ? How many {disfmarker} how many nets do you have ? No nets . +PhD D: I mean , {pause} It 's just {disfmarker} Were we just changing {pause} the labels to retrain nets {pause} with fewer out outputs . +PhD E: Begin to work in this . We are @ @ . +Professor B: Right . But {disfmarker} but I didn't understand {disfmarker} +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} the software currently just has {disfmarker} uh a {disfmarker} allows for I think , the one {disfmarker} one hot output . So you 're having multiple nets and combining them , or {disfmarker} ? Uh , how are you {disfmarker} how are you coming up with {disfmarker} If you say {pause} uh {pause} If you have a place {pause} characteristic and a manner characteristic , how do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: It - It 's the single net , +PhD A: I think they have one output . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Oh , it 's just one net . +PhD D: It 's one net with {pause} um {pause} twenty - seven outputs +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: mm - hmm +PhD D: if we have twenty - seven classes , +Professor B: I see . I see , OK . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's basically a standard net with fewer {pause} classes . +Professor B: So you 're sort of going the other way of what you were saying a bit ago instead of {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah . B b including the features , yeah . +Grad F: But including the features . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I don't think this {pause} will work {pause} alone . I think it will get worse because Well , I believe the effect that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of too reducing too much the information is {pause} basically {disfmarker} basically what happens +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But you think if you include that {pause} plus the other features , +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Yeah , because {pause} there is perhaps one important thing that the net {pause} brings , and OGI show showed that , is {pause} the distinction between {pause} sp speech and silence Because these nets are trained on well - controlled condition . I mean the labels are obtained on clean speech , and we add noise after . So this is one thing And But perhaps , something intermediary using also {pause} some broad classes could {disfmarker} could bring so much more information . Uh . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so again then we have these broad classes and {disfmarker} well , somewhat broad . I mean , it 's twenty - seven instead of sixty - four , {pause} basically . And you have the original features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Which are PLP , or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then uh , just to remind me , all of that goes {pause} into {disfmarker} uh , that all of that is transformed by uh , uh , K - KL or something , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . There will probably be , +PhD E: Mu . +PhD D: yeah , one single KL to transform everything +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} {pause} uh , +PhD E: No transform the PLP +PhD D: per +PhD E: and only transform the other I 'm not sure . +Professor B: Well no , +PhD D: This is {pause} still something {pause} that +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I see . +PhD D: yeah , we {pause} don't know {disfmarker} +Professor B: So there 's a question of whether you would {disfmarker} +PhD E: Two e @ @ it 's one . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . Whether you would transform together or just one . Yeah . Might wanna try it both ways . But that 's interesting . So that 's something that you 're {disfmarker} you haven't trained yet but are preparing to train , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um {pause} {pause} Yeah , so I think Hynek will be here Monday . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Monday or Tuesday . So +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: So I think , you know , we need to {pause} choose the {disfmarker} choose the experiments carefully , so we can get uh key {disfmarker} {pause} key questions answered {pause} uh before then +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {pause} leave other ones aside even if it {pause} leaves incomplete {pause} tables {vocalsound} {pause} someplace , uh {pause} uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really time to {disfmarker} {pause} time to choose . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , let me pass this out , {pause} by the way . Um These are {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} {pause} did I interrupt you ? +PhD E: Yeah , I have one . +Professor B: Were there other things that you wanted to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , no . I don't think so . +PhD E: +PhD D: Yeah , I have one . +Grad G: Oh , thanks . +Professor B: Ah ! {pause} OK . {pause} OK , we have {pause} lots of them . +PhD E: We have one . +Professor B: OK , so {vocalsound} um , Something I asked {disfmarker} So they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing {pause} the {disfmarker} the VAD I guess they mean voice activity detection So again , it 's the silence {disfmarker} So they 've just trained up a net {pause} which has two outputs , I believe . Um {vocalsound} I asked uh {pause} Hynek whether {disfmarker} I haven't talked to Sunil {disfmarker} I asked Hynek whether {pause} they compared that to {pause} just taking the nets we already had {pause} and summing up the probabilities . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} To get the speech {disfmarker} voice activity detection , or else just using the silence , {pause} if there 's only one {pause} silence output . Um {pause} And , he didn't think they had , um . But on the other hand , maybe they can get by with a smaller net and {pause} maybe {pause} sometimes you don't run the other , maybe there 's a computational advantage to having a separate net , anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So um Their uh {disfmarker} {pause} the results look pretty good . Um , {pause} I mean , not uniformly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , there 's a {disfmarker} an example or two {pause} that you can find , where it made it slightly worse , but {pause} uh in {disfmarker} in all but a couple {pause} examples . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: But they have a question of the result . Um how are trained the {disfmarker} the LDA filter ? How obtained the LDA filter ? +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: I I 'm sorry . I don't understand your question . +PhD E: Yes , um the LDA filter {pause} needs some {pause} training set {pause} to obtain the filter . Maybe I don't know exactly how {pause} they are obtained . +Professor B: It 's on {pause} training . +PhD E: Training , with the training test of each {disfmarker} You understand me ? +Professor B: No . +PhD E: Yeah , uh for example , {pause} LDA filter {pause} need a set of {disfmarker} {pause} a set of training {pause} to obtain the filter . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And maybe {pause} for the Italian , for the TD {pause} TE on for Finnish , these filter are {disfmarker} are obtained with their own training set . +Professor B: Yes , I don't know . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very good question , then {disfmarker} now that it {disfmarker} {pause} I understand it . It 's "" yeah , where does the LDA come from ? "" In the {disfmarker} In {pause} earlier experiments , they had taken LDA {pause} from a completely different database , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , because maybe it the same situation that the neural network training with their own +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: set . +Professor B: So that 's a good question . Where does it come from ? Yeah , I don't know . Um , {pause} but uh to tell you the {pause} truth , I wasn't actually looking at the LDA so much when I {disfmarker} I was looking at it I was {pause} mostly thinking about the {disfmarker} {pause} the VAD . And um , it ap {pause} it ap Oh what does {disfmarker} what does ASP ? Oh that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: The features , yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: I don't understand also +Professor B: It says "" baseline ASP "" . +PhD E: what is {disfmarker} {pause} what is the difference between ASP and uh baseline over ? +PhD C: ASP . +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Anybody know {pause} any {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . There it is . +Professor B: Um Cuz there 's "" baseline Aurora "" {pause} above it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} This is mostly better than baseline , although in some cases it 's a little worse , in a couple cases . +PhD C: Well , it says baseline ASP is twenty - three mill {pause} minus thirteen . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , it says what it is . But I don't how that 's different {pause} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: From the baseline . {comment} OK . +Professor B: I think this was {disfmarker} {pause} I think this is the same point we were at when {disfmarker} when we were up in Oregon . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} {pause} I think it 's the C - zero {disfmarker} using C - zero instead of log energy . +PhD E: Ah , OK , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it 's this . +Professor B: Oh . OK . +PhD E: yeah . +PhD D: It should be that , yeah . +PhD A: They s they say in here that the VAD is not used as an additional feature . +Professor B: Shouldn't it be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Does {disfmarker} does anybody know how they 're using it ? +Professor B: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what they 're doing here is , {pause} i +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if you look down at the block diagram , {pause} um , {pause} they estimate {disfmarker} they get a {disfmarker} {pause} they get an estimate {pause} of whether it 's speech or silence , +PhD A: But that {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then they have a median filter of it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so um , {pause} basically they 're trying to find stretches . The median filter is enforcing a {disfmarker} i it having some continuity . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You find stretches where the {pause} combination of the {pause} frame wise VAD and the {disfmarker} {pause} the median filter say that there 's a stretch of silence . And then it 's going through and just throwing the data away . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't understand . You mean it 's throwing out frames ? Before {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's throwing out chunks of frames , yeah . There 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the median filter is enforcing that it 's not gonna be single cases of frames , or isolated frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's throwing out frames and the thing is {pause} um , {pause} what I don't understand is how they 're doing this with H T +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what I was just gonna ask . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: How can you just throw out frames ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you {disfmarker} you can , +PhD D: i +Professor B: right ? I mean y you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: it stretches again . For single frames I think it would be pretty hard . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But if you say speech starts here , speech ends there . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Huh . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , you can basically remove the {disfmarker} the frames from the feature {disfmarker} feature files . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , so I mean in the {disfmarker} i i in the {disfmarker} in the decoding , you 're saying that we 're gonna decode from here to here . +PhD D: I t +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're treating it , {pause} you know , like uh {disfmarker} well , it 's not isolated word , but {disfmarker} but connected , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the text they say that this {disfmarker} this is a tentative block diagram of a possible configuration we could think of . So that sort of sounds like they 're not doing that yet . +Professor B: Well . {pause} No they {disfmarker} they have numbers though , right ? So I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing something like that . I think that they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} I think what I mean by tha that is they 're trying to come up with a block diagram that 's plausible for the standard . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean from the point of view of {disfmarker} of uh reducing the number of bits you have to transmit it 's not a bad idea to detect silence anyway . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . I 'm just wondering what exactly did they do up in this table if it wasn't this . +Professor B: Um . But it 's {disfmarker} the thing is it 's that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Certainly it would be tricky about it intrans in transmitting voice , {pause} uh uh for listening to , is that these kinds of things {pause} uh cut {pause} speech off a lot . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? And so {pause} um +PhD A: Plus it 's gonna introduce delays . +Professor B: It does introduce delays but they 're claiming that it 's {disfmarker} it 's within the {disfmarker} {pause} the boundaries of it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the LDA introduces delays , and b {pause} what he 's suggesting this here is a parallel path so that it doesn't introduce {pause} uh , any more delay . I it introduces two hundred milliseconds of delay but at the same {pause} time the LDA {pause} down here {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} Wh what 's the difference between TLDA and SLDA ? +PhD C: Temporal and spectral . +Professor B: Ah , thank you . +PhD E: Temporal LDA . +Professor B: Yeah , you would know that . +PhD C: Yeah +Professor B: So um . The temporal LDA does in fact include the same {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} well , by {disfmarker} by saying this is a b a tentative block di diagram I think means {pause} if you construct it this way , this {disfmarker} this delay would work in that way +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: and then it 'd be OK . They {disfmarker} they clearly did actually remove {pause} silent sections in order {disfmarker} because they {pause} got these {pause} word error rate {pause} results . So um I think that it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to do that in this because in fact , it 's gonna give a better word error result and therefore will help within an evaluation . Whereas to whether this would actually be in a final standard , I don't know . Um . Uh , as you know , part of the problem with evaluation right now is that the {pause} word models are pretty bad and nobody wants {disfmarker} {pause} has {disfmarker} has approached improving them . So {pause} it 's possible that a lot of the problems {pause} with so many insertions and so forth would go away if they were better word models {pause} to begin with . So {pause} this might just be a temporary thing . But {disfmarker} But , on the other hand , and maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's a decent idea . So um The question we 're gonna wanna go {pause} through next week when Hynek shows up I guess is given that we 've been {disfmarker} if you look at what we 've been trying , we 're uh looking at {pause} uh , by then I guess , combinations of features and multi - band Uh , and we 've been looking at {pause} cross - language , cross {pause} task {pause} issues . And they 've been not so much looking at {pause} the cross task uh multiple language issues . But they 've been looking at uh {disfmarker} {pause} at these issues . At the on - line normalization and the uh {pause} voice activity detection . And I guess when he comes here we 're gonna have to start deciding about {pause} um what do we choose {pause} from what we 've looked at {pause} to um blend with {pause} some group of things in what they 've looked at And once we choose that , {pause} how do we split up the {pause} effort ? Uh , because we still have {disfmarker} even once we choose , {pause} we 've still got {pause} uh another {pause} month or so , I mean there 's holidays in the way , but {disfmarker} but uh {pause} I think the evaluation data comes January thirty - first so there 's still a fair amount of time {pause} to do things together it 's just that they probably should be somewhat more coherent between the two sites {pause} in that {disfmarker} that amount of time . +PhD A: When they removed the silence frames , did they insert some kind of a marker so that the recognizer knows it 's {disfmarker} {pause} knows when it 's time to back trace or something ? +Professor B: Well , see they , I {disfmarker} I think they 're Um . I don't know the {disfmarker} {pause} the specifics of how they 're doing it . They 're {disfmarker} {pause} they 're getting around the way the recognizer works because they 're not allowed to {pause} um , change the scripts {pause} for the recognizer , {pause} I believe . +PhD A: Oh , right . Maybe they 're just inserting some nummy frames or something ? +Professor B: So . Uh . Uh , you know that 's what I had thought . But I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they are . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean that 's {disfmarker} sort of what {disfmarker} the way I had imagined would happen is that on the other side , yeah you p put some low level noise or something . Probably don't want all zeros . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Most recognizers don't like zeros but {vocalsound} but {pause} you know , {pause} put some epsilon in or some rand +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: sorry epsilon random variable {pause} in or something . +PhD A: Some constant vector . I mean i w Or something {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not a constant but it doesn't , uh {disfmarker} don't like to divide by the variance of that , but I mean it 's +PhD A: That 's right . But something that {disfmarker} what I mean is something that is {pause} very distinguishable from {pause} speech . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that the {disfmarker} the silence model in HTK will always pick it up . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's what I thought they would do . or else , uh {pause} uh maybe there is some indicator to tell it to start and stop , I don't know . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But whatever they did , I mean they have to play within the rules of this specific evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We c we can find out . +PhD A: Cuz you gotta do something . Otherwise , if it 's just a bunch of speech , stuck together {disfmarker} +Professor B: No they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It would do badly +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: and it didn't so badly , right ? So they did something . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh . So , OK , So I think {pause} this brings me up to date a bit . It hopefully brings other {pause} people up to date a bit . And um Um {pause} I think {disfmarker} Uh , I wanna look at these numbers off - line a little bit and think about it and {disfmarker} {pause} and talk with everybody uh , {pause} outside of this meeting . Um , but uh No I mean it sounds like {disfmarker} I mean {pause} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are the usual number of {disfmarker} of {pause} little {disfmarker} little problems and bugs and so forth but it sounds like they 're getting ironed out . And now we 're {pause} seem to be kind of in a position to actually {pause} uh , {pause} look at stuff and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and compare things . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty good . Um {pause} I don't know what the {disfmarker} One of the things I wonder about , {pause} coming back to the first results you talked about , is {disfmarker} is {pause} how much , {pause} uh {pause} things could be helped {pause} by more parameters . And uh {disfmarker} {pause} And uh how many more parameters we can afford to have , {vocalsound} {pause} in terms of the uh computational limits . Because anyway when we go to {pause} twice as much data {pause} and have the same number of parameters , particularly when it 's twice as much data and it 's quite diverse , um , I wonder if having twice as many parameters would help . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , just have a bigger hidden layer . Uh But {disfmarker} I doubt it would {pause} help by forty per cent . But {vocalsound} {pause} but uh +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Just curious . How are we doing on the {pause} resources ? Disk , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think we 're alright , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: um , {pause} not much problems with that . +Professor B: Computation ? +PhD D: It 's OK . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well this table took uh {pause} more than five days to get back . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , well . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Are {disfmarker} were you folks using Gin ? That 's a {disfmarker} that just died , you know ? +PhD D: Mmm , no . You were using Gin {comment} perhaps , yeah ? No . +PhD E: No . +Professor B: No ? Oh , that 's good . +Grad F: It just died . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , {pause} we 're gonna get a replacement {pause} server that 'll be a faster server , {pause} actually . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor B: That 'll be {disfmarker} It 's a {pause} seven hundred fifty megahertz uh SUN +PhD D: Hmm . {comment} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {pause} But it won't be installed for {pause} a little while . +PhD C: Tonic . +Professor B: U Go ahead . +Grad G: Do we {disfmarker} Do we have that big new IBM machine the , I think in th +Professor B: We have the {pause} little tiny IBM machine {vocalsound} {pause} that might someday grow up to be a big {pause} IBM machine . It 's got s slots for eight , uh IBM was donating five , I think we only got two so far , processors . We had originally hoped we were getting eight hundred megahertz processors . They ended up being five fifty . So instead of having eight processors that were eight hundred megahertz , we ended up with two {pause} that are five hundred and fifty megahertz . And more are supposed to come soon and there 's only a moderate amount of dat of memory . So I don't think {pause} anybody has been sufficiently excited by it to {pause} spend much time {pause} uh {pause} with it , but uh {vocalsound} Hopefully , {pause} they 'll get us some more {pause} parts , soon and {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , I think that 'll be {disfmarker} once we get it populated , {pause} that 'll be a nice machine . I mean we will ultimately get eight processors in there . And uh {disfmarker} and uh a nice amount of memory . Uh so it 'll be a pr pretty fast Linux machine . +Grad G: And if we can do things on Linux , {pause} some of the machines we have going already , like Swede ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um It seems pretty fast . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} I think Fudge is pretty fast too . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean you can check with uh {pause} Dave Johnson . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} I think the machine is just sitting there . And it does have two processors , you know and {disfmarker} {pause} Somebody could do {disfmarker} {pause} you know , uh , check out {pause} uh the multi - threading {pause} libraries . And {pause} I mean i it 's possible that the {disfmarker} I mean , I guess the prudent thing to do would be for somebody to do the work on {disfmarker} {pause} on getting our code running {pause} on that machine with two processors {pause} even though there aren't five or eight . There 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's gonna be debugging hassles and then we 'd be set for when we did have five or eight , to have it really be useful . But . {pause} Notice how I said somebody and {vocalsound} turned my head your direction . That 's one thing you don't get in these recordings . You don't get the {disfmarker} {pause} don't get the visuals but {disfmarker} +Grad G: I is it um {pause} mostly um the neural network trainings that are {pause} um slowing us down or the HTK runs that are slowing us down ? +Professor B: Uh , I think yes . Uh , {vocalsound} Isn't that right ? I mean I think you 're {disfmarker} you 're sort of held up by both , right ? If the {disfmarker} if the neural net trainings were a hundred times faster {pause} you still wouldn't {pause} be anything {disfmarker} running through these a hundred times faster because you 'd {pause} be stuck by the HTK trainings , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But if the HTK {disfmarker} I mean I think they 're both {disfmarker} It sounded like they were roughly equal ? Is that about right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad G: Because , um {pause} I think that 'll be running Linux , and Sw - Swede and Fudge are already running Linux so , {pause} um I could try to get {pause} um the train the neural network trainings or the HTK stuff running under Linux , and to start with I 'm {pause} wondering which one I should pick first . +Professor B: Uh , probably the neural net cuz it 's probably {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's um {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . They both {disfmarker} HTK we use for {pause} um {pause} this Aurora stuff Um {pause} Um , I think {pause} It 's not clear yet what we 're gonna use {pause} for trainings uh {disfmarker} Well , {pause} there 's the trainings uh {disfmarker} is it the training that takes the time , or the decoding ? Uh , is it about equal {pause} between the two ? For {disfmarker} for Aurora ? +PhD D: For HTK ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} Yeah . For the Aurora ? +PhD D: Uh Training is longer . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't know how we can {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} Do we have HTK source ? Is that {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: You would think that would fairly trivially {disfmarker} the training would , anyway , th the testing {pause} uh I don't {disfmarker} I don't {pause} think would {pause} parallelize all that well . But I think {pause} that {pause} you could {pause} certainly do d um , {pause} distributed , sort of {disfmarker} {pause} Ah , no , it 's the {disfmarker} {pause} each individual {pause} sentence is pretty tricky to parallelize . But you could split up the sentences in a test set . +PhD A: They have a {disfmarker} they have a thing for doing that and th they have for awhile , in H T And you can parallelize the training . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD A: And run it on several machines +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD A: and it just basically keeps counts . And there 's something {disfmarker} {pause} a final {pause} thing that you run and it accumulates all the counts together . +Professor B: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: I don't what their scripts are {pause} set up to do for the Aurora stuff , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Something that we haven't really settled on yet is other than {pause} this Aurora stuff , {pause} uh what do we do , large vocabulary {pause} training slash testing {pause} for uh tandem systems . Cuz we hadn't really done much with tandem systems for larger stuff . Cuz we had this one collaboration with CMU and we used SPHINX . Uh , we 're also gonna be collaborating with SRI and we have their {disfmarker} have theirs . Um {pause} So {pause} I don't know Um . So I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the advantage of going with the neural net thing is that we 're gonna use the neural net trainings , no matter what , for a lot of the things we 're doing , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: whereas , w exactly which HMM {disfmarker} Gaussian - mixture - based HMM thing we use is gonna depend uh So with that , maybe we should uh {vocalsound} go to our {nonvocalsound} digit recitation task . And , it 's about eleven fifty . Canned . Uh , I can {disfmarker} I can start over here . Great , uh , could you give Adam a call . Tell him to He 's at two nine seven seven . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: OK . I think we can {vocalsound} @ @ You know Herve 's coming tomorrow , right ? Herve will be giving a talk , yeah , talk at eleven . Did uh , did everybody sign these consent Er everybody Has everyone signed a consent form before , on previous meetings ? You don't have to do it again each time Yes . microphones off +","In a multidisciplinary meeting set in an academic or research environment, various researchers—including professors, PhD students, and graduate students—came together to discuss their ongoing projects, experimentation results, technical issues, and future plans, relating to their work on speech recognition systems. + +The meeting commenced with a conversational exchange that seemed to involve technical difficulties, possibly related to audio equipment or communication issues during a conference call or similar setup. Participants were trying to sort out and identify channels and microphones, suggesting the meeting involved participants from different locations or required specific technical arrangements. + +Professor B initially provided a structure for the meeting, segueing into discussions about the research results, and acknowledged that they would cover digits at the end of the session. The dialogue then transitioned into a deep technical exchange, which included discussing various neural network configurations and observations. PhD D outlined that the focus had primarily been on features such as PLP, JRASTA, MSG, and MFCC from the Aurora baseline, and highlighted the multilingual aspect of the results, specifying the performance implications of neural networks trained on task-specific data versus broader data. The discussion conveyed a highly analytical tone, with the participants critically examining how the scope of the training data (whether focused on a single task or more expansive datasets incorporating multiple languages) affected the model's performance. There were references to detailed experimental setups, indicative of rigorous scientific research processes. + +The group also pondered upon the standardization and normalization of features for training the neural networks. An interesting point of discussion concerned the voice activity detection (VAD) and how its implementation affected the system's performance in recognizing speech versus silence. + +Amid technical discussion, lighter moments surfaced when the group paused for a photo opportunity, illustrating the ad hoc human element within the research environment. This suggests a sense of camaraderie and informality that occasionally permeates academic meetings. + +As the meeting went on, Professor B and the others mulled over the implications of their findings on the general understanding of speech recognition, considering how the inclusion or exclusion of certain training data influenced the error rates. This led to a nuanced debate about the advantages of task-specific data and how the diversity of language influences recognition accuracy. They discussed various computational aspects, data handling, potential issues with generalizability, and performance trade-offs. + +At the end of the discussion, there seemed to be a collective inclination to decide on key experiments in anticipation of future collaborative efforts. Although not explicitly mentioned, the meeting presumably ended with the group reciting digits as part of an exercise relevant to their speech recognition studies, exemplifying hands-on research techniques. The mention of consent forms and microphones being turned off towards the closure implies adherence to ethical research practices and possibly indicates that the meeting was part of a documented study subject to ethical guidelines. + +In summary, the meeting encapsulated a snapshot of rigorous scientific discourse, filled with detailed technical evaluations, experimental strategies, and collaborative brainstorming, highlighting the complexities and challenges inherent in advancements in speech recognition technologies." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Alright , so I 'm - I should read all of these numbers ? +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Piece of paper ? I could borrow ? +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: OK , so uh i um I don't know whether Ami 's coming or not um but I think we oughta just get started . +Grad E: Nancy is uh currently in Berkeley but not here ? +Grad C: Nancy 's still stick ? +Professor B: Don't know . Anyway +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , so there you go . Anyway , so my idea f for today and we can uh decide that that isn't the right thing to do was to at {disfmarker} spend at least part of the time trying to eh build the influence links , you know which sets of things are uh relevant to which decisions and actually I had uh specific s suggestion to start first with the path ones . The database ones being in some sense less interesting to us although probably have to be done and so to do that so there 's {disfmarker} and the idea was we were gonna do two things +Grad C: Is your mike on ? +Professor B: Ah . Oh right , well . Yeah . We were gonna do two things one of which is just lay out the influence structure of what we think influences what +Grad D: That 's funny . +Professor B: and then as a uh separate but related task uh particularly Bhaskara and I were going to try to decide what kinds of belief nodes are needed in order to um do what we {disfmarker} what we need to do . Once so but du we should sort of have all of the uh basic design of what influences what done before we decide exactly how to compute it . So I didn't {disfmarker} did you get a chance to look at all {disfmarker} yet ? +Grad D: Yeah , I looked at some of that stuff . +Professor B: Great . OK so let 's start with the uh belief - nets , the general influence stuff and then we 'll {disfmarker} then we 'll also at some point break and talk about the techy stuff . +Grad E: Well I think one could go there 's I think we can di discuss everything . First of all this I added , I knew from sort of basically this has to be there right ? Um +Professor B: Oh are you gonna go there or not ? Yeah , so one i +Grad E: Given {disfmarker} given uh uh not transverse the castle , the decision is does the person want to go there or is it just +Professor B: Right , true . Does have to be there . And I 'm sure we 'll find more as we go that +Grad E: And Hmm ? So Go - there in the first place or not is definitely uh one of the basic ones . We can start with that . Interesting effect . Um Is this basically true or false or maybe we 'll get +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which one ? +Grad E: what ? +Grad A: "" Go there "" . +Grad E: m right . +Professor B: so there is this question about +Grad E: Here we we actually get just probabilities , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: right for each down here . +Professor B: When we 're {disfmarker} yeah when we 're done . So {disfmarker} so +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the reason it might not be true or false is that we did have this idea of when so it 's , you know uh current @ @ and so forth and so on or not at all , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? And so that a decision would be do we want that so you could {disfmarker} two different things you could do , you could have all those values for Go - there or you could have Go - there be binary and given that you 're going there when . +Grad E: When . How . +Professor B: Yeah and so forth . +Grad E: Why , +Professor B: So I 'll let +Grad E: yeah . +Professor B: we 'll see . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad A: I mean it seems that you could um uh it seems that those things would be logically independent like you would wanna have them separate or binary , Go - there and then the {disfmarker} the possibilities of how to go there because {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's start that way . +Grad A: because , you know it might be easy to figure out that this person is going to need more film eventually from their utterance but it 's much more complex to query when would be the most appropriate time . +Grad E: Hmm . Hmm . OK . And so I 've tried to come up with some initial things one could observe so who is the user ? Everything that has user comes from the user model everything that has situation comes from the situation model - A . We should be be clear . But when it comes to sort of writing down when you {disfmarker} when you do these things is it here ? You sort of have to a write the values this can take . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: And here I was really uh in some s sometimes I was really sort of standing in front of a wall feeling very stupid because um {disfmarker} this case it 's pretty simple , but as we will see the other ones um for example if it 's a running budget so what are the discrete values of a running budget ? So maybe my understanding there is too impoverished . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: No uh +Grad E: How can I write here that this is something , a number that cr keeps on changing ? But OK . Thus is understandable ? +Grad A: Think so . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: So here for example . +Professor B: You 've s have you seen this before at all Keith , these belief - net things ? +Grad A: Uh , no , but I think I 'm following it . So far . +Grad E: So here is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we had that the user 's budget may influence the outcome of decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad E: There we wanted to keep sort of a running total of things . +Grad D: Is this like a number that represents how much money they have left to spend ? OK , h well I mean how is it different from user finance ? +Grad E: Um the finance is sort of here thought of as {disfmarker} as the financial policy a person carries out in his life , he {disfmarker} is he cheap , average , or spendy ? +Grad D: Alright . +Grad E: And um I didn't come uh maybe a user I don't know , I didn't want to write greediness , but +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Professor B: Or cheapness . +Grad E: Welcome . +Grad A: User thrift . +Grad E: Welcome . +Professor B: Thrift , that 's good . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Great . +Grad E: There it is . +Professor B: Yeah . So Keith w what 's behind this is actually a program that will once you fill all this in actually s solve your belief - nets for you and stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is not just a display , this is actually a GUI to a simulator that will if we tell it all the right things we 'll wind up with a functioning belief - net at the other end . +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad E: And it 's so simple even I can use it . +Grad A: Wow , that is simple . +Grad E: OK , so here was OK , I can think of uh people being cheap , average , or spendy or we can even have a {disfmarker} a finer scale moderately cheap , +Professor B: Doesn't matter . +Grad E: doesn't matter . Agree there but here um I wasn't sure what to write in . +Professor B: Let 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +Grad D: Well , I mean you 've written in {disfmarker} you 've written in what uh seems to be required like what else is {disfmarker} is do you want ? +Grad E: If that 's permissible then I 'm happy . +Professor B: Well yeah . So here 's {disfmarker} here 's what 's permissible is that you can arrange so that the um the value of that is gonna have to be updated and n it 's not a belief update , right ? It 's {disfmarker} you took some actions , you spent money and stuff , so the update of that is gonna have to be essentially external to the belief - net . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And then what you 're going to need is uh for the things that it influences . Well let 's {disfmarker} first of all let 's see if it does influence anything . And if it does influence anything then you 're gonna need something that converts from the {disfmarker} the number here to something that 's relevant to the decision there . So it could be ra they create different ranges that are relevant for different decisions or whatever {disfmarker} but for the moment this is just a node that is conditioned externally and might influence various things . +Grad E: Hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} this is where um OK anyways let 's forget it . +Professor B: Well that 's fine . Well anyway , go ahead . +Grad E: OK , and so this , oh that +Grad D: The other thing is that um every time that 's updated beliefs will have to be propagated but then the question is do you {disfmarker} do we wanna propagate beliefs every single time it 's updated or only when we need to ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's a good question . And uh does it have a lazy mode ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Uh Well , I mean , in Srini 's thing there was this thing {disfmarker} there was this um option like proper inferences which suggests that uh doesn't happen , automatically . +Professor B: Oh right . Yeah . S probably does . Yeah someone has to track that down , but I {disfmarker} but uh And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I think {disfmarker} actually uh +Grad E: I just accidentally Oops . +Professor B: one of the we w items for the uh user home base uh should be uh essentially non - local . I they 're only there for the day and they don't have a place that they 're staying . +Grad D: Well +Grad E: Oh just uh accidentally erased this , I {disfmarker} I just had values here such as uh um is he s we had in our list we had "" Is he staying in our hotel ? "" , "" Is he staying with friends ? "" , and so forth +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: uh so we 're OK . +Professor B: So it 's clear where w w w where we are right now . So my suggestion is we just pick uh +Grad E: Something down here ? +Professor B: one , you know one uh particular one of the uh well let 's do the first {disfmarker} first one let 's do the one that we sort of already think we did so w that was the {disfmarker} of the endpoint ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And um Oops . +Grad D: Is hmm +Grad E: Ah , +Grad D: So it 's true or false ? +Professor B: No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a +Grad E: OK . No no no , EVA . +Grad D: So +Grad E: Missed that one . +Grad C: What 's the difference between mode and endpoint ? +Grad D: I thought mode , yeah . +Professor B: although that +Grad E: Um mode was um +Professor B: Well , that 's +Grad D: Mode of transportation ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . Also true or false . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , he has he hasn't filled them in yet , is what 's true . +Grad D: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Did I or didn't I ? Ah . Probably nothing done yet , oh I just did it on the upper ones , OK . Makes sense . OK , so this was EVA . Maybe we can think of more things , cross +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Climb , rob . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: climb , emerge +Professor B: No no no , these are ju that 's just a point , +Grad C: Uh +Grad D: Well some of those are subsumed by approach . +Professor B: this is ju +Grad C: Would it be an endpoint if you were crossing over it ? +Grad A: The Charles Bridge , you know . +Professor B: Yeah , would be a f for a given segment . You know , you {disfmarker} y you go {disfmarker} first go the town square +Grad C: Well I eh +Grad A: No , I mean , if you go to re you know if you go to Prague or whatever one of your {disfmarker} your key points that you have to do is cross the Charles Bridge and doesn't really matter which way you cross which {disfmarker} where you end up at the end but the part {disfmarker} the good part is walking over it , so . +Professor B: That 's subtle , but true . Anyway so let 's just leave it three {disfmarker} with three for now +Grad E: Mm - hmm , mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: and let 's see if we can get it linked up just to get ourselves started . +Grad E: OK , we +Professor B: You 'll see it {disfmarker} you 'll see something comes up immediately , that the reason I wanna do this . +Grad E: w well the uh user was uh definitely more likely to enter if he 's a local +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: more likely to view if he 's a tourist um and then of course we had the fact that given the fact that he 's thrifty and there will be admission then we get all these cross um +Professor B: We did , but the three things w that {disfmarker} that it contributed to this in fact , the other two aren't up there . so one was the ontology +Grad E: We 'll d what type of building is it ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And the {disfmarker} and the third thing we talked about was something from the discourse . +Grad E: What he has mentioned before . +Professor B: OK , so this is w Right , so what w I {disfmarker} what we seem to need here , this is why it starts getting into the technical stuff +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: the way we had been designing this , there were three intermediate nodes uh which were the endpoint decision as seen from the uh user model as seen from the ontology and as seen from the discourse . So each of those the way we had it designed , now we can change the design , but the design we had was there was a decision with the same three outcomes uh based on the th those three separate considerations +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: so if we wanted to do that would have to put in uh three intermediate nodes +Grad E: Uh we can load it up it you know very simple . +Grad A: So +Professor B: and then what you and I have to talk about is , OK if we 're doing that and they get combined somehow uh how do they get combined ? But the {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're undoubtedly gonna be more things to worry about . +Grad E: So this was adjusted for this one mode thing . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's w w in our uh in {disfmarker} in Johno 's sort of pictogram everything that could contribute to whether a person wants to enter , view , or approach something . +Professor B: Oh , it was called mode , so this {disfmarker} this is m mode here means the same as endpoint . +Grad E: Is now this endpoint . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: OK , why don't we ch can we change that ? +Grad E: We can just rename that , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . You know , but that was actually , yeah unfortunately that was a um kind of an intermediate versio that 's I don't think what we would currently do . +Grad A: Can I ask about "" slurred "" and "" angry "" as inputs to this ? +Professor B: That 's a +Grad A: What {disfmarker} why ? +Grad D: Like they 're either true or false +Grad E: The prosody ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: and they uh oh I see . +Grad C: If the {disfmarker} if the person talking is angry or slurs their speech they might be tired or , you know +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . Drunk . +Grad D: Therefore +Grad C: And , you know , possibly uh +Grad A: Less likely to enter . +Grad C: some , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad D: uh I was thinking less likely to view +Professor B: Yeah . But that 's - that seems to , yeah . So {disfmarker} so my advice to do is {disfmarker} is get this down to what we think is actually likely to {disfmarker} to be a {disfmarker} a strong influence . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: But yeah , that was what he had in mind . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: So let 's think about this {disfmarker} this question of how do we wanna handle {disfmarker} so there 're two separate things . One is {disfmarker} uh at least two . One is how do we want to handle the notion of the ontology now what we talked about , and this is another technical thing Bhaskara , is uh can we arrange so that I think we can so that the belief - net itself has properties and the properties are filled in uh from on ontology items . So the {disfmarker} let 's take the case of the uh this endpoint thing , the notion was that if you had a few key properties like is this a tourist site , you know some kind of landmark is it a place of business uh is it something you physically could enter +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , et cetera . So that there 'd be certain properties that would fit into the decision node and then again as part of the ou outer controlling conditioning of this thing those would be set , so that some somehow someone would find this word , look it up in the ontology , pull out these properties , put it into the belief - net , and then the decision would flow . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now +Grad E: Seems to me that we 've sort of e em embedded a lot , em embedded a lot of these uh things we had in there previously in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some of the other final decisions done here , for example if we would know that this thing is exhibiting something um +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: if it 's exhibiting itself it is a landmark , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: meaning more likely to be viewed +Professor B: Yep . +Grad E: if it is exhibiting pictures or sculptures and stuff like this , then it 's more likely to be entered . +Professor B: I uh that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's completely right and um I think that 's good , right ? So what {disfmarker} what that says is that we might be able to uh take and in particular so {disfmarker} so the ones we talked about were uh exhibiting and selling +Grad E: Accessibility . +Professor B: no , accessibility meant +Grad E: If it 's closed one probably won't enter . Or if it 's not accessible to a tourist ever the likelihood of that person actually wanting to enter it , +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: given that he knows it , of course . +Professor B: Alright . So let me suggest this . Uh w could you move those up about halfway . Uh The ones that you th And selling I guess . +Grad E: Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of these if it 's fixing things selling things , or servicing things +Professor B: Right . So here {disfmarker} here 's what it looks like to me . is that you want an intermediate structure which i uh is essentially the or of uh for this purpose of {disfmarker} of uh selling , f fixing , or servicing . So that it uh that is , for certain purposes , it becomes important but for this kind of purpose uh one of these places is quite like the other . Does that seem right ? So we di +Grad C: Basic you 're basically just merging those for just the sake of endpoint decision ? +Professor B: if we Yes . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if {disfmarker} well it may be more than endpoint decisions , so the idea would be that you might wanna merge those three +Grad E: These three ? +Professor B: Yeah . Eh ser s uh selling , fixing , and servicing . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: What ex um and so either those is true f or false ? +Professor B: Uh Uh well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i here 's where it gets a little tricky . +Grad D: So +Professor B: Uh from the belief - net point of view it is from another point of view of course it 's interest it 's {disfmarker} it 's important to know what it 's selling or servicing and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So for this decision it 's just uh true or false +Grad D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: and in th this is a case where the or seems just what you want . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that if any of those things is true then it 's the kind of place that you uh +Grad E: Um more likely to enter . +Professor B: are more likely to enter . +Grad D: So you just wanna have them all pointing to a summary thing ? +Professor B: You could , yeah . Yeah , so let 's do that . No no , no eh to {disfmarker} to an inter no , an intermediate node . +Grad D: T +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's the p part of the idea , is +Grad E: Um is {disfmarker} is that the object type node ? +Professor B: I d +Grad E: So are they the {disfmarker} is it the kind of object that sells , fixes , or services things ? +Professor B: Well , o open up object type and let 's see what its values are . +Grad E: Oh I just created it , it has none so far . +Professor B: Oh , well OK first of all it 's not objects , we called them entities , right ? +Grad E: Yeah . And then we have sort of the um +Professor B: Let 's say I put commercial . +Grad E: Yeah , I w I was just gonna commercial action inside where people p +Professor B: Well couldn't I do {disfmarker} let 's do commercial uh landmark and +Grad E: And where was the accessible , yeah . +Professor B: Well accessible I think is different cuz that 's tempor that {disfmarker} that varies temporally , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: whereas this is a +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: What would a hotel fall under ? +Professor B: I would call that a service , but {disfmarker} but I don't know . +Grad C: Well I mean in terms of entity type ? +Professor B: Say w w well it 's co I would s a a again for this purpose I think it 's commercial . Someplace you want to go in to do some kind of business . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Um what does the underscore - T at the end of each of those things signify ? +Grad E: Um things . So places that service things sell things or fix things and pe places that e exhibit things . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . That also points to entity type I guess . +Grad A: So we 're deriving um this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this feature of whether the {disfmarker} the main action at this place happens inside or outside or what we 're deriving that from what kind of activity is done there ? Couldn't you have it as just a primitive feature of the entity ? +Professor B: Well you could , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a choice . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So uh +Grad A: I mean it seems like that 's much more reliable cuz you could have outdoor places that sell things and you know indoor places that do something else +Professor B: Yeah , the problem with it is that it sort of putting in a feature just for one decision , +Grad A: and Hmm . +Professor B: now w we may wind up having to do that this i anyway , this i +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: at a mental level that 's what we we 're gonna have to sort out . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So , you know what does this look like , what are {disfmarker} what are uh intermediate things that are worth computing , what are the features we need in order to make all these decisions +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and what 's the best way to organize this so that um it 's clean and {disfmarker} and consistent and all that sort of stuff . +Grad A: OK . I 'm just thinking about how people , human beings who know about places and places to go and so on would store this and it would probably {disfmarker} you wouldn't just sort of remember that they sell stuff and then deduce from that that it must be going on inside or something . +Grad E: Well I think an entity maybe should be regard as a vector of several possible things , it can either em do s do sell things , fix things , service things , exhibit things , it can be a landmark at the same time as doing these things , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's not either or mmm certainly a place can be a hotel and a famous site . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Many come to mind . Things can be generally um a landmark and be accessible . IE a {disfmarker} a castle or can be a landmark a or not accessible , some statue +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: you know can go inside . +Professor B: OK . Anyway so let me suggest you do something else . Uh which is to get rid {disfmarker} get rid of that l long link between who {disfmarker} the user and the endpoint . +Grad E: Could we just move it like this ? +Professor B: No no , I don't want the link there at all . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Because what we 're gonna want is an intermediate thing which is uh the endpoint decisi the endpoint decision based o on the user models , so what we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} what we talked about is three separate endpoint decisions , so let 's make a new node +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Just as a suggestion maybe you could "" save as "" to keep your old one nice and clean and so you can mess with this one . +Grad E: Mmm . The old one was not that not that important , I think but +Grad C: OK , well , not a big deal then . +Grad E: Let 's do it then . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} Isn't there a "" save as "" inside of java base ? +Grad E: But I can just take this +Grad C: OK . +Grad E: copy it somewhere else . This was user something +Professor B: Well this was +Grad E: or +Professor B: uh let 's p put it this {disfmarker} let 's do endpoint underbar - U . +Grad E: end point ? +Professor B: i endpoint , e end poi this is sa +Grad E: Ah . +Professor B: it 's the endpoint +Grad E: Gotcha , yeah . +Professor B: let 's say underbar - U , so that 's the endpoint decision uh as seen through the +Grad C: As related from the user model . +Professor B: Right . So let 's {disfmarker} let 's actually yeah so lin you can link that up to the +Grad E: Should I rename this {pause} too ? +Professor B: uh yeah , so that , I guess that 's endpoint uh +Grad E: It 's underscore - E . +Professor B: underscore - E for entity , and we may change all this , but . Right . And +Grad E: OK , shouldn't I be able to move them all ? No . Or {disfmarker} ? Can I ? Where ? What ? +Professor B: Oh I d eh I don't know . Actually , I guess the easiest thing would move {disfmarker} mo move the endpoint , well , go ahead . Just do whatever . +Grad E: Wasn't this possible ? +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: I think you have to be in move mode before +Grad E: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Good . Right . +Grad E: So now we 're looking for user related things that um +Professor B: Yeah . And uh maybe th maybe it 's just one who is the user , I don't know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe there 's more . +Grad A: Huh . +Grad E: Well if he 's usi if he 's in a car right now what was that people with Harry drove the car into the cafe +Professor B: Never mind . Uh anyway , this is crude . Now but the {disfmarker} now so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but then the question is uh so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we assume that some of these properties would come indirectly through an ontology , but then we had this third idea of input from the discourse . +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} should we finish this , +Professor B: Sure , +Grad E: I mean but surely the user interests +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: The user thrift , the user budget . +Grad E: yeah , yeah +Professor B: Well , maybe , I again , I d well , OK , put em in but what we 're gonna wanna do is actually uh +Grad C: Well is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Here this was one of my problems we have the user interest is a {disfmarker} is a vector of five hundred values , so um That 's from the user model , +Grad D: Oh you mean level of interest ? +Grad E: mm - hmm , no not levels of interest but things you can be interested in . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: somebody else has built this user model . +Grad D: Oh I see , +Grad E: Gothic churches versus Baroque townhouses versus +Grad D: right . So why is it oh it , so it 's like a vector of five hundred one 's or zero 's ? +Grad E: Yea - n is that +Grad D: Like for each thing are we {disfmarker} are you interested in it or not ? +Grad E: yeah uh I {disfmarker} I think +Grad D: I see . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . So uh you cou and so here let me give you two ways to handle that . Alright ? One is um you could ignore it . But the other thing you could do is have an {disfmarker} and this will give you the flavor of the {disfmarker} of what you could have a node that 's {disfmarker} that was a measure of the match between the object 's feature , you know , the match between the object the entity , I 'm sorry and the user . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor B: So you could have a k a "" fit "" node and again that would have to be computed by someone else +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh so that uh +Grad E: Just as a mental note uh +Professor B: Yeah , that 's all . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and should we say that this interests eh affects the likelihood of {disfmarker} of entering ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , we could . +Grad E: Yeah . And also if it 's an expensive place to enter , this may also +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Budget . +Grad A: User schedule . "" Do I have time to go in and climb all the way to the top of the Koelner Dome {comment} or do I just have to {disfmarker} "" "" time to take a picture of the outside ? "" +Grad E: Schedule ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: It seems like everything in a user model a affects {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well that 's what we don't wanna do , see that {disfmarker} se cuz then we get into huge combinatorics and stuff like that +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an +Grad C: Cuz if the , I mean , and if the user is tired , the user state , +Grad D: Well +Grad C: right , it would affect stuff , but I can't see why e anything w everything in the model wouldn't be +Professor B: Well , but +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: Well , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} we can't do that , so we we 're gonna have to +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: but this is a good discussion , we 're gonna have to somehow figure out uh some way to encapsulate that uh so if there 's some general notion of for example the uh relation to the time to do this to the amount of time the guy has or something like that is {disfmarker} is the uh compatibility with his current state , so that 's what you 'd have to do , you 'd have to get it down to something which uh was itself relatively compact , so it could be compatibility with his current state which would include his money and his time and {disfmarker} and his energy +Grad C: Yeah , just seems like it 'd push the problem back a level . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: It does . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad D: No but , it 's more than that , like the {disfmarker} the more sort of you break it up like because if you have everything pointing to one node it 's like exponential whereas if you like keep breaking it up more and more it 's not exponential anymore . +Professor B: So it yeah , there are two advantages . That 's tha there 's one technical one +Grad C: Sh - sh yeah , {disfmarker} +Professor B: and the other is it {disfmarker} it gets used +Grad C: S so we 'd basically be doing subgrouping ? Subgrouping , basically into mo +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: so basically make it more tree like going backwards ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . But it {disfmarker} there 's two advantages , one is the technical one that you don't wind up with such big exponential uh CBT 's , +Grad E: Bhaskara ? +Professor B: the other is it can be {disfmarker} it presumably can be used for multiple decisions . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that if you have this idea of the compatibility with the requirements of an action to the state of the user one could well imagine that that was u +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: not only is it sim is it cleaner to compute it separately but it could be that it 's used in multiple places . Anyway th so in general this is the design , this is really design problem . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , you 've got a signal , a d set of decisions um how do we do this ? +Grad E: What do I have under user state anyhow cuz I named that already something . Oh that 's tired , fresh , yeah . Maybe should be renamed into physical state . +Professor B: Or fat user fatigue even . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: That 's with a "" G "" ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Whatever . +Grad E: Then we can make a user state . +Professor B: What 's th what we 're talking about is compatibility . Uh or something , I don't know , but . +Grad C: I guess the {disfmarker} the question uh is It 's hard for me to imagine how everything wouldn't just contribute to user state again . Or user compatibility . +Professor B: Oh but the thing is that we uh uh we had some things that uh +Grad E: That don't . +Professor B: that don't +Grad E: The user interests and the user who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the user is are completely apart from the fact whether he is tired broke +Grad C: Sure , but other {disfmarker} I thought though the node we 're creating right now is user compatibility to the current action , right ? +Professor B: the right +Grad C: Seems like everything in the user model would contribute to whether or not the user was compatible with something . +Professor B: Uh maybe not . I mean the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} the issue is um would Even if it was true in some abstract general sense it might not be true in terms of the information we actually had and can make use of . And anyway we 're gonna have to find some way to cl uh get this sufficiently simple to make it feasible . +Grad E: Maybe um if we look at the {disfmarker} if we split it up again into sort of um if we look at the uh the endpoint again we {disfmarker} we said that for each of these things there are certain preconditions so you can only enter a place if you are not too tired to do so and also eh have the money to do so if it costs something so if you can afford it and perform it is preconditions . Viewing usually is cheap or free . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is that always true ? I don't know . +Grad C: Well , with the way we 're defining it I think yeah . +Professor B: W w but that eh viewing it without ent yeah view w with our definition of view it 's free cuz you +Grad E: And so is approaching . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Well what about the Grand Canyon , right ? No , never mind . I mean are there {disfmarker} are there large things that you would have to pay to get up close to like , I mean never mind , not in the current {disfmarker} +Professor B: No we have to enter the park . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Eh almost by definition um paying involves entering , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: ge going through some +Grad A: OK . Right , sure . +Professor B: Right . Uh So let me suggest we switch to another one , I mean clearly there 's more work to be done on this +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I think it 's gonna be more instructive to {disfmarker} to think about uh other decisions that we need to make in path land . And what they 're gonna look like . +Grad C: So you can save this one as and open up the old one , right and {disfmarker} and then everything would be clean . You could do it again . +Professor B: Why , I think it 's worth saving this one but I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to keep this one +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz I wanna see if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna reuse any of this stuff . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um so this might be What next ? +Professor B: Well you tell me , so in terms of the uh planner what 's {disfmarker} what 's a good one to do ? +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} th this go there or not I think is a good one . +Professor B: Uh +Grad E: Is a very basic one . So what makes things more likely that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the fir see the first thing is , getting back to thing we left out of the other is the actual discourse . +Grad E: So +Professor B: So Keith this is gonna get into your world because uh we 're gonna want to know you know , which constructions indicate various of these properties +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: s and so I {disfmarker} I don't yet know how to do this , I guess we 're gonna wind up pulling out uh discourse properties like we have object properties and we don't know what they are yet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that the Go - there decision will have a node from uh discourse , and I guess why don't we just stick a discourse thing up there to be as a placeholder for +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we also had discourse features of course for the endpoint . +Professor B: Of {disfmarker} of course . +Grad E: Identified that +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and so again re that 's completely correct , we have the user model , the situation model here , we don't have the discourse model here yet . Much the same way as we didn't {disfmarker} we don't have the ontology here . +Professor B: Well the ontology we sort of said we would pull these various kinds of properties from the ontology like exhibiting , selling , and so forth . +Grad E: Really . +Professor B: So in some sense it 's {disfmarker} it 's there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But the discourse we don't have it represented at all yet . +Grad E: Yeah . Um This be specific for second year ? Um And {disfmarker} and we probably will have uh something like a discourse for endpoint . +Professor B: But if we do it 'll have the three values . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Professor B: It 'll have the EVA values if {disfmarker} if we have it . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . OK just for starters and here discourse um +Professor B: For Go - there , probably is true and false , let 's say . That 's what we talked about . +Grad E: um well , I think um we 're looking at the {disfmarker} the little data that we have , so people say how do I get to the castle and this usually means they wanna go there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So this should sort of push it in one direction +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: however people also sometimes say how do I get there in order to find out how to get there without wanting to go there . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And sometimes um people say where is it +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because they wanna know where it is but in most cases they probably +Professor B: Yeah , but that doesn't change the fact that you 're {disfmarker} you want these two values . +Grad E: Oh yeah , true . So this is sort of some external thing that takes all the discourse stuff and then says here it 's either {pause} yep , yay , A , or nay . Yeah . OK ? +Professor B: And they 'll be a y uh , a user Go - there and maybe that 's all , I don't know . +Grad D: Situation Go - there , I mean , because it 's {disfmarker} whether it 's open or not . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , good . +Grad D: That definitely interes +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: But that now that kind of um what 's the word +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: um the {disfmarker} that interacts with the uh EVA thing if they just wanna view it then it 's fine to go there when it 's closed whereas if they want to um +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so +Professor B: Right , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's where it starts getting to be uh uh essentially more interesting , so what uh Bhaskara says which is completely right is if you know that they 're only going to view it then it doesn't matter whether it 's closed or not +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in terms of uh uh you know , whether {disfmarker} whether you wanna go there . +Grad D: The time of day , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: right I {disfmarker} well , right . +Grad C: It does matter though if there 's like a strike or riot or something . +Professor B: Absolutely there are other situational things that do matter . +Grad D: Right . So yeah , that 's what I said just having one situational node may not be enough because this {disfmarker} that node by itself wouldn't distinguish +Professor B: Well i i it can have di various values . Yeah , but we eh you {disfmarker} you 're right it might not be enough . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean , see I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking that any node that begins with "" Go - there "" is either gonna be true or false . +Grad A: Well , what {disfmarker} Whoops . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Ah . I see that could be . +Grad A: Also , that node , I mean the Go - there s S node would just be fed by separate ones for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , there 's different things , the strikes and the +Professor B: Could be . Yeah . N +Grad D: Like situation traffic and so on . +Grad A: Yeah , the time of day . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so now the other thing that Bhaskara eh pointed out is what this says is that uh there sh should be a link , and this is where things are gonna get very messy from the endpoint uh decision +Grad D: I guess the final +Professor B: maybe the t they 're final re and , I guess the very bottom endpoint decision uh to the Go - there node . And I {disfmarker} don't worry about layout , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean then we 'll go {disfmarker} we 'll go nuts but +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Maybe we could um have intermediate node that just the Endpoint and the Go - there S node sort of fed into ? +Professor B: Could be , yeah . +Grad D: Right . Because that 's what we , I mean that 's why this situation comes up . +Professor B: Yeah . Well the Go - there , actually the Endpoint node could feed {disfmarker} feed into the Go - there S That 's right , +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor B: so the Endpoint node , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: make that up t t to the Go - there then +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and again we 'll have to do layout at some point , but something like that . Now it 's gonna be important not to have loops by the way . Uh really important in {disfmarker} in the belief worl net world not to have loops +Grad E: I was just gonna +Professor B: uh +Grad D: Yes . +Grad E: How long does it take you to {disfmarker} to compute uh +Professor B: No it 's much worse than that . It {disfmarker} if i loo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's not def i it 's not well defined if you 're there are loops , +Grad D: It {disfmarker} things don't converge , yeah . +Grad E: uh R recursive action ? +Professor B: you just you have to there are all sorts of ways of breaking it up so that there isn't uh OK . +Grad E: Uh but this isn't , this is {disfmarker} this line is just coming from over here . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , no it 's not a loop yet , I 'm just saying we {disfmarker} we , in no , in +Grad D: Yeah . Well , but the good thing is we {disfmarker} we could have loopy belief propagation which {vocalsound} we all love . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: Right . OK , so anyway , so that 's another decision . Uh what 's {disfmarker} what 's another decision you like ? +Grad E: OK , these have no parents yet , but I guess that sort of doesn't matter . Right ? +Professor B: Well , the idea is that you go there , you go comes from something about the user from something about the situation and the uh the discourse is {disfmarker} is a mystery . +Grad E: I mean this is sort of This comes from traffic and so forth , yeah . Sh - Should we just make some +Professor B: Sure , if you want . +Grad E: um if there 's parking maybe Mmm Oh who cares . OK . And if he has seen it already or not and so forth , +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: OK . Um and discourse is something that sort of should we make a Keith note here ? +Professor B: Sure . +Grad E: That sort of comes from Keith . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Just sort of so we don't forget . Oops . Have to get used to this . OK , whoops . +Grad A: Um actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then also the discourse endpoint , I {disfmarker} I guess endpoint sub - D is {disfmarker} if you wanna make it consistent . +Grad C: Wh - ah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um actually is this the {disfmarker} the right way to have it where um go there from the user and go there from the situation just sort of don't know about each other but they both feed the go there decision because isn't the , I mean +Professor B: I think so . S +Grad A: uh , hmm OK . But that still allows for the possibility of the {disfmarker} of the user model affecting our decision about whether a strike is the sort of thing which is going to keep this user away from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not , a Right . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} all that {disfmarker} that kind of decision making happens at the Go - there node . +Professor B: Uh y you {disfmarker} yeah you {disfmarker} i you {disfmarker} if you needed to do that . +Grad A: Uh . If you needed it to do that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: But uh OK I was just thinking I guess maybe I 'm conflating that user node with possible {disfmarker} possible asking of the user +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: you know hey there 's a strike on , uh does that affect whether or not you wanna go or something +Professor B: Ah . Good point , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know how we 're going to {disfmarker} t uh +Grad A: or Yeah , so that might not come out of a user model but , you know , directly out of interaction . +Professor B: Right . Uh I gu yes my curr you know , don't yeah yeah yeah that 's enough . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh My current idea on that would be that each of these decision nodes has questions associated with it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the question wouldn't itself be one of these conditional things +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: you know , given that you know there 's a strike do you still wanna go ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: But uh if you told him a bunch of stuff , then you would ask him do you wanna go ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor B: But I think trying to formulate the conditional question , that sounds too much . +Grad A: Right , right . Yeah . Right , sure , OK . +Professor B: To me . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , but let me {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} let 's stay with this a minute +Grad E: But +Professor B: because I want to do a little bit of organization . Before we get more into details . The organization is going to be that uh the flavor of what 's going on is going to be that uh as we s e sort of going to this detail indeed Keith is going to {disfmarker} to worry about the various constructions that people might use +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and Johno has committed himself to being the parser wizard , +Grad A: Alright . +Professor B: so what 's going to happen is that eventually like by the time he graduates , OK uh they 'll be some sort of system which is able to take the discourse in context and have outputs that can feed the rest of belief - net . I j wa I {disfmarker} I assume everybody knows that , I just wanna you know , get closure that that 'll be the game then , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so the semantics that you 'll get out of the discourse will be of values that go into the various discourse - based decision nodes . And now some of those will get fancier like mode of transportation and stuff so it isn't by any means uh necessarily a simple thing that you want out . So uh if there is an and there is mode of transportation +Grad E: And it there 's a sort of also a split if you loo if you blow this up and look at it in more detail there 's something that comes from the discourse in terms of what was actually just said what 's the utterance go giving us +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and then what 's the discourse history give us . +Professor B: Yeah , well that , well , we 'll have to decide uh how much of th where that goes . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: That 's uh two things then . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: an and it 's not clear yet . I mean it could be those are two separate things , it could be that the discourse gadget itself integrates em as {disfmarker} which would be my guess that you 'd have to do see in order to do reference and stuff like that um you 've gotta have both the current discourse and the context to say I wanna go back there , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: wow , what does that mean and uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm +Grad A: Now . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright . So +Grad E: But is th is this picture that 's emerging here just my wish that you have noticed already for symmetry or is it that we get for each {disfmarker} each decision on the very bottom we sort of get the sub - E , sub - D , sub - U and maybe a sub - O {disfmarker} "" O "" for "" ontology "" um meta node +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: but it might just +Professor B: It could be . +Grad E: could be +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this is getting into the thing I wanna talk about next , +Grad E: so this +Professor B: which is s if that 's true uh how do we wanna combine those ? O or when it 's true ? +Grad E: but this eh w wou wou would be nice though that , you know , we only have at most four at the moment um arrows going f to each of the uh bottom decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: And four you {disfmarker} we can handle . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's too much ? +Professor B: Well i i it see i if it 's fou if it 's four things and each of them has four values it turns out to be a big CPT , it 's not s completely impossi I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not beyond what the system could solve but it 's probably beyond what we could actually uh write down . or learn . +Grad E: Right , true . +Professor B: Uh but , you know it 's four to the fourth . It 's pretty big . Uh . +Grad C: Two fifty - six , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: is that what that +Professor B: Yeah , I mean it 's and I don't think it 's gonna g e I don't think it 'll get worse than that by the way , so le that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a good +Grad D: Mmm yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} but four {disfmarker} didn't we decide that all of these had true or false ? So is {disfmarker} it 's four +Professor B: Uh for go there , but not f but not for {disfmarker} the other one 's three values for endpoint already . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean you need actually three to the five because uh well I mean if {disfmarker} if it has four inputs and then it itself has three values +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so I mean it can get big fast . +Grad E: Um for endpoint ? No it 's {disfmarker} it 's sh +Professor B: EV - it 's the EVA . +Grad E: yeah , down here , but this one only has two . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: No it still has three , +Professor B: Since ta they will still have three . +Grad D: EVA . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} so you 're uh uh from each point of view you 're making the same decision . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So from the point of view of the ob of the entity +Grad E: Want to view that , yeah yeah . C sl +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah +Grad D: This {disfmarker} and also , I mean , the other places where , like for example consider endpoint view , it has inputs coming from user budget , user thrift +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so even +Professor B: Those are not necessarily binary . S so we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna have to use some t care in the knowledge engineering to not have this explode . And in fact I think it doesn't in the sense that um Read it , you know actually with the underlying semantics and stuff I think it isn't like you have two hundred and fifty - six different uh ways of {disfmarker} of thinking about whether this user wants to go to some place . Alright . So we {disfmarker} we just have to figure out what the regularities are and and code them . But um What I was gonna suggest next is maybe we wanna work on this a little longer but I do want to also talk about the thing that we started into now of uh well it 's all fine to say all these arrows come into the si same place what rule of combination is used there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So th yes they {disfmarker} so these things all affect it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: how do they affect it ? And belief - nets have their own beliefs about uh what are good ways to do that . So is it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clearer n clear enough what the issue is , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: right ? So do we wanna switch that now or we wanna do some more of this ? +Grad E: R basically w we just need to sort of in order to get some closure on this figure out how we 're gonna get this picture sort of uh completely messy . +Professor B: Well , here {disfmarker} he here 's one of the things that {disfmarker} that I th you sh you {disfmarker} no , I don't know how easy it is to do this in the interface but you {disfmarker} it would be great if you could actually just display at a given time uh all the things that you pick up , you click on "" endpoint "" , OK and everything else fades +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you just see the links that are relevant to that . And I does anybody remember the GUI on this ? +Grad C: Uh d I would almost say the other way to do that would be to open u or make you know N - many belief - nets and then open them every time you wanted to look at a different one +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: vers cuz uh +Grad E: It 's probably pretty easy do it {disfmarker} to do it in HTML , just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: HTML ? +Grad E: Yeah I have each of these thing each of the end belief - nets be {disfmarker} be a page and then you click on the thing and then li consider that it 's respective , +Professor B: Yeah the {disfmarker} well the b +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: but +Professor B: anyway so uh it clear that even with this if we put in all the arrows nobody is gonna be able to read the diagram . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , so e we have to figure out some eh eh uh basically display hack or something to do this because anyway I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} let me consi suggest that 's a s not a first - order consideration , we have two first - order considerations which is what are the uh influences A , A , and B how do they get combined mathematically , how do we display them is an issue , but um +Grad C: I don't , yeah I just don't think this has been designed to support something like that . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , it might soon , if this is gonna be used in a serious way like java base then it might soon be necessary to uh start modifying it for our purposes . +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and Um I {disfmarker} that seems like a perfectly feasible thing to get into , but um we have to know what we want first . OK , so why don't you tell us a little bit about decision nodes and what {disfmarker} what the choices might be for these ? +Grad D: So Ah , sorry . I guess that 's +Grad C: You can technically wear that as you 're talking . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's right , I guess I can do that . +Grad A: Darn . +Professor B: Put it in your , yeah . +Grad D: I guess this board works fine . So um recall the basic problem which is that um you have a belief - net and you have like a lot of different nodes all contributing to one node . Right ? So as we discussed specifying this kind of thing is a big pain and it 's so will take a long time to write down because for example if these S have three possibilities each and this has three possibilities then you know you have two hundred and forty - three possibilities which is already a lot of numbers to write down . So what um helps us in our situation is that these all have values in the same set , right ? These are all like saying EV or A , right ? So it 's not just a generalized situation like I mean basically we wanna just take a combination of {disfmarker} we wanna view each of these as experts ea who are each of them is making a decision based on some factors and we wanna sort of combine their decisions and create you know , um sorta weighted combination . +Grad E: Hmm . ROVER , the ROVER decision . +Grad D: The what decision ? +Grad E: ROVER . All of their outputs combined to make a decision . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So the problem is to specify the uh so the conditional property of this given all those , right ? That 's the way belief - nets are defined , like each node given its parents , right ? So um that 's what we want , we want for example P of um let 's call this guy Y and let 's call these X - one , X - two XN , right . So we want probability that Y equals , you know , for example um E given that these guys are I 'll just refer to this as like X um hat or something , uh the co like all of them ? Given that for example the data says you know , A , V , A , E , or something right ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: So we would like to do this kind of combination . +Professor B: Alright , so um Is that uh I {disfmarker} yeah , I just wanna make sure everybody is with us before he goes on . +Grad A: I think so , yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's cl e is {disfmarker} is it clear what he wants to compute ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . So , right . So Basically um {vocalsound} what we don't wanna do is to for every single combination of E and V and A and every single letter E , s give a number +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because that 's obviously not desirable . What we wanna do is find some principled way of um saying what each of these is and we want it to be a valid probability distribution , so we want it to um add up to one , right ? +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: So those are the two things that we uh need . So what uh I guess , what Jerry suggested earlier was basically that we , you know view these guys as voting and we just take the uh we essentially take um averages , right ? So for example here two people have voted for A , one has voted for V , and one has voted for E , so we could say that the probabilities are , you know , probability of being E is one over four , because one person voted for E out of four and similarly , probability of so this is probability of E s and then probability of A given all that is um two out of four and probability of V is one out of four . Right ? So that 's step {disfmarker} that 's the uh yeah that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the basic uh thing . Now +Grad E: Um Yeah . +Grad D: Is that all OK ? +Grad E: And that one outcome , that 's +Professor B: What ? +Grad E: it 's X {disfmarker} X - one voted for A X - two voted for V +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and so forth ? +Professor B: Y right . Yep . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: S so this assumes symmetry and equal weights and all this sort of things , which may or may not be a good assumption , +Grad E: That 's the outcome . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: so that +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So step two is um right . So we 've assumed equal weights whereas it might turn out that you know , some w be that for example , what the um the actual the uh verbal content of what the person said , like what uh what might be uh somehow more uh important than the uh +Grad C: X - one matters more i than X - two or +Grad D: Right . Sure , so we don't wanna like give them all equal weight so currently we 've been giving them all weight one fourth so we could replace this by uh W - one , W - two , W - three , and W - four +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: right ? And in order for this to be a valid probability distribution for each um X - hat , we just need that the W 's sum to one . So they can be for example , you know you {disfmarker} you could have point one , point three , point two , and point four , say . +Grad E: That 's one . +Grad D: And that 'd be one . So that um also seems to work fine . And uh +Grad C: So I jus just to make sure I understand this , so in this case um we would still compute the average ? +Grad D: You 'd compute the weighted average , so the probability of E would be uh +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so it 'd be so in this case the probability that Y equals A would be uh {comment} W one times {disfmarker} +Grad A: Point three . +Grad C: or A or {disfmarker} let 's see , one full quarter times point one +Grad D: Not one quarter , +Grad A: No . +Grad D: so these numbers have been replaced with point one , point three , point two , and point four . So you can view these as gone . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Probability of +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So , alright . So this is uh step two . So the next possibility is that um we 've given just a single weight to each expert , right , whereas it might be the case that um in certain situations one of the experts is more uh reliable and in certain situations the other expert is more reliable . So the way this is handled is by what 's called a mixture of experts , so what you can have is you augment these diagrams like this so you have a new thing called "" H "" , OK ? This is a hidden variable . And what this is is it gets its input from X - one , X - two , X - three , and X - four , and what it does is it decides which of the experts is to be trusted in this particular situation . Right ? And then these guys all come here . OK . So this is sightly uh more complicated . So what 's going on is that um this H node looks at these four values of those guys and it decides in given these values which of these isn't likely to be more reliable or most reliable . So H produces some you know , it produces a number , either one , two , three , or four , in our situation , right ? Now this guy he looks at the value of H say it 's two , and then he just selects the uh thing . That 's all there is to say , I guess about it . Right , so you can have a mixture that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so the function of the thing that comes out of H is very different from the function of the other inputs . It 's driving how the other four are interpreted . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: So H passes a vector on to the next node ? +Grad D: It could . +Grad C: It could ? A vector of the weights as the se +Grad D: Yeah , it could +Grad C: oh . +Grad D: Sorry ? +Grad A: Well a vector with three zero 's and one one , right ? +Grad C: Oh it 's basically to tell the bottom node which one of the situations that it 's in or which one of the weighting systems +Grad D: Right , so I mean the way you desc +Grad C: W I was just , if you wanted to pay attention to more than one you could pass a w a weighting s system though too , couldn't you ? OK . +Grad A: Um Does H have to have another input to tell it alpha , beta , whatever , or is the {disfmarker} that 's determined by what the experts are saying , like the type of situ OK . Hmm . OK . OK . I mean It {disfmarker} it just seems that like without that {disfmarker} that outside input that you 've got a situation where , you know , like if {disfmarker} if uh X - one says no , you know , a low value coming out of X - on or i if X - one says no then ignore X - one , you know , I mean that seems like that 'd be weird , +Grad D: Yeah , well could be things like if X - two and X - three say yes then i ignore X - one also . +Grad A: right ? Oh , OK . OK . Alright , right . +Grad C: Oh The situations that H has , are they built into the net or OK , so they {disfmarker} they could either be hand coded or learned or OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: Based on training data , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yes . +Grad C: So you specify one of these things for every one of those possi possible situations . Oh yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . Um Well , I mean to learn them we need data , where are we gonna get data ? Well I mean we need data with people intentions , right ? +Grad A: Right , right . +Grad D: Which is slightly tricky . Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . But what 's the data about like , are we able to get these nodes from the data ? +Grad A: Like how thrifty the user is , or do we have access to that ? Mm - hmm . Oh right . Oh good . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Yeah , but that 's my question , like how do we {disfmarker} I mean , how do we have data about something like um um endpoint sub - E , or endpoint sub uh {pause} you know s S ? +Grad C: Well , basically you would say , based on {disfmarker} in this dialogue that we have which one of the things that they said eh whether it was the entity relations or whatever was the thing that determined what mode it was , +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad D: So this is what we wanna learn . Yep . Right . Hmm . Yeah . I don't think , well you have a {disfmarker} can you bring up the function thing ? Um w where is the thing that allows you to sort of +Grad C: That 's on the added variable , isn't it ? +Grad D: Oh function properties , is that it ? Hmm , I guess not . Yeah , that 's +Grad A: No . +Grad D: Right . OK . And um it so e either it 'll allow us to do everything which I think is unlikely , I think more likely it 'll allow us to do very few of these things and in that case we 'll have to um just write up little things that allow you to um create such CPU 's on your own in the java base format . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do because yeah I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do , it 's Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Ah . Well in terms of java base I think it 's basically what you see is what you get in I don't yeah , I would be surprised if it supports anything more than what we have right here . +Grad A: So Yeah . Yeah . By the way um uh just talking about uh about that general end of things uh is there gonna be data soon from what people say when they 're interacting with the system and so on ? Like , I mean , what kind of questions are being given {disfmarker} being asked ? Cuz {disfmarker} OK . Yeah yeah . OK . OK . Fey , you mean . OK . OK . O OK . OK . I 'm just wondering , because in terms of , you know , I mean uh w the figure {disfmarker} I was thinking about this figure that we talked about , fifty constructions or whatever that 's uh that 's a whole lot of constructions and um you know , I mean one might be f fairly pleased with getting a really good analysis of five maybe ten in a summer so , I mean I know we 're going for sort of a rough and ready . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . OK . I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} uh I was talking about the , you know , if you wanted to do it really in detail and we don't really need all the detail for what we 're doing right now but anyway in terms of just narrowing that task you know which fifty do I do , I wanna see what people are using , so Well , it will inspire me . Right , sure sure . Right . Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . OK . Touche . Good enough . +","A group discussion involving Grad A, Grad C, Grad D, Grad E, and Professor B focuses on the structure and design of a belief network for a decision-making process. They discuss various ""Go there"" and ""Endpoint"" decisions influenced by user models, situation models, and discourse. They aim to manage the complexity of multiple influencing factors by considering how to combine different inputs effectively. Professor B emphasizes avoiding loops in the belief net, while Grad D presents a voting system for combining expert opinions, highlighting the importance of weighting and the possibility of a hidden variable determining which expert to trust in specific contexts. There is also mention of the need for real data to inform their models and plans for future integration with a parser for discourse analysis." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So , I will open our functional design meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I will play role of the secretary . As also Program Ma Manager . So , we will have the three presentations from the In Industrial Designer , User Interface Designer and um +Industrial Designer: Industrial Design . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: What's your talk ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And after that we uh will have the uh new product requirements , the decision on the remote control functions , and we will close the meetings after . Mm so um I suppose the first to do the presentation will be the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , so you're participant two ? +Industrial Designer: One one . +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: No you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Three three , it's three +Project Manager: I'm participant one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I I think I'm a {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , did you save your presentation ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: In one . +Industrial Designer: In one , sorry {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Isn't that technical functions ? +Marketing: No sure . +Industrial Designer: So you didn't save it maybe . +Marketing: Uh +User Interface: It's mine . +Marketing: it's David Jordan . Course . +Industrial Designer: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Name's Jordan . So +Industrial Designer: David Jordan ? {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I'll {disfmarker} I let David Jordan do his presentation . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: No , no . Uh this one doesn't want to be moved , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Too great for email then . +User Interface: Okay , so . The first I will present the technical function design for user interface for our uh remote T_V_ control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh I I will focus on user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um so move to the next slide . As we know our remote c rem remote T_V_ control it's very {disfmarker} has very soph sophisticated functions , as we show from this picture . There's a lot of functions . Over , I think over s twelve or twenty s functions of a remote T_V_ control . So how can we um design a user interface with so sa with so many sophisticated functions ? Um , let's move to next slide . Um . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} so we want to design uh elegant , easy to use inter interface . A very good example is Google . As we know uh Google it's a very successful because his um powerful function , but with very easy to use user interface . Um so move to next s slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my job is to uh design a Google T_V_ controller {vocalsound} which I want to have sophisticated functions while with very easy to use user interface . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the end of the talk {vocalsound} the end of the presentation . +Project Manager: So you propose to to have the remote control which will be powerful . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} With sophisticated functions , +Project Manager: So powerful , +User Interface: but with very {disfmarker} yeah powerful . +Project Manager: many functions and very easy to use . +User Interface: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: So , I dunno , it's maybe difficult to have both , +Industrial Designer: To merge the two system huh . +Marketing: I mean the the one on the right doesn't look so simple +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You mean this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah you have to learn the manual before using this remote control , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But But this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if we have very very good user interface +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: it take less time for user to learn how to use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you {disfmarker} maybe you have some international standards , where you know , if you can use one is the other are {disfmarker} or almost the same , so the sign . +Project Manager: Oh you mean for the yeah pic pictograms or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . For example , I dunno here , escape , you know , you have escape in computers you have , so if you see escape , you know that it should be the same . +Marketing: Oh it should {disfmarker} okay , yeah . The user should know . +Industrial Designer: So you have to {disfmarker} The sh the user there {disfmarker} for example the power off button it is something very international , you know that {disfmarker} So . +Project Manager: Yeah um such as maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Go on , go back and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the question is how to merge you know the Google system to the system , alright . +Marketing: Yeah , that's gonna be the trick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's my job . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's your job {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's my job . It's not the easiest I've got to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , you will propose us something which is yeah so powerful and easy to use . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Powerful and easy to use . +Marketing: So that's the point . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the point . +Project Manager: So , next I propose the Industrial User Interface to present things . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: So you you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The rationale must be {vocalsound} design , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , Baba is the uh the Industrial Designer . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can move to the next slide . As you all know , you know m my job is to design you know uh to give an industrial design of the remote control . So the re basically the remote control will be , you know , infrared control , so the problem is how to relate the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: how to relate the remote control device , like for example this one I h I'm holding in my hand and the T_V_ . So , this one is leather bu based +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I propose a nifra infrared base {vocalsound} you know , so so for me I think that it is better {vocalsound} it's bet it's better to control T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you know , so it's it will be cheaper and it is less technology than , you know {disfmarker} For the cheap price we have , for the cheap price we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: So you mean that infrared control is a cheap technology ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's cheaper than laser , so {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do y you know the requirements for the remote control ? Twelve , nearly thirteen , +Marketing: What the cost is ? +Project Manager: yeah . The cost {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twelve , twelve a half . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think for the cost we want {disfmarker} for the cost we want {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it's better to have uh uh Let's see . Yeah . You can move to the next slide , so . So the di the differen the findings you know what you find inside the re i the the system here inside it is just , you know a bulb and an infrared bulb , so here for example the infrared bulb will be here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the bulb it will be somewhere inside . +Marketing: That might just {disfmarker} So . +Industrial Designer: You can go to the next slide . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some kind of pictures you know , here . You have the b the bulb , it is a blue the blue stuff here and the infrared and the infrared bulb it is the red stuff +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know and so and you have the other subcomponent that are not really here so important , so . +Project Manager: What is this ? +Industrial Designer: This is in fact some other component that are in between the electrical de the electronic device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Look . But here what I wanted to emphasise it is just you know the bulb and {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and the next slide , it is the last one it's {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I think it should be wire {vocalsound} wireless re remote con {vocalsound} Because you know , it's easier to manage and you know because you f the b the the battery problem can hold you know will you use a battery or the a wire to connected you . Or maybe some kind of thing that we can have both , but you know , I at my side prefer a wireless . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so if you have some question I didn't answer ? +Marketing: What's the average price of this technology then ? +Industrial Designer: Well the avera the average prices I think that this technology will cost , I dunno , around eight Euros , so . Or at least you know , the +User Interface: So what , the wireless remote control ? There's a wire {vocalsound} with remote control ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You'd {disfmarker} yes , you can . It's so so bres you have to decide how how you will you know , put some energy inside , so you can think about wireless or you know it's it's a question that we can raise , so . We can think that you know , with the wire , you know , without a wire . We can have both also . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think that uh {vocalsound} a cable between the remote control {vocalsound} and the T_V_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} won't be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No it wou maybe it will be cheaper {vocalsound} I dunno , I just may maybe you making a solu +Marketing: But this is what you would like to ask the user first and I don't think the user would be ready to have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wireless remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} well , yeah , I don't think he would , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but some pa I always want to have you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but in a sense {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: sometime I want to have wire because you know . +Project Manager: Yeah but as Industrial Designer , do you think that it will be feasible to have uh linked or to have link between the remote control and the television ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just asking you . Do you think it will be cheaper ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , {vocalsound} I don't {vocalsound} think it will be too much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could you answer please ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Have to think about the question , you know , 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think that you know you can always you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think wha wha with the wire it's mm cheaper but you know the wireless it's more practical , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think the wireless problem is more the um David Jordan's problem . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The wire ? +Project Manager: As it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's more your problem . Mayb maybe you have just to to kind of research or try to ask people if they will like something wireless or not . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh that's my job . That's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} I'm sorry . +Marketing: Now the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but , it should be an agreement , you know , because {disfmarker} even if you can think of the wireless , it is it's it is the job of the {vocalsound} the the g Graphical User Designer , but you know . If it is a lot cheaper and if you want to reach for example some the the money you have , if you want to use , {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} it can be good to have a wireless , it it is a question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: just think of um the usability . +User Interface: Design a wireless remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just think of the problem . If when you have wireless remote control and if you lose it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's would be easier to have {vocalsound} a link between the remote control and the television , +Marketing: Well that's actually one of the point , yeah ? True . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: This you will see in my presentation then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I will let you to do your presentation , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Which is participant four . So just trying to answer all the questions , if the user would be happy to have something or something else uh . We've made a study , so could you go to next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry for the functional recurrence . So that's the standard method for marketing , okay . We had one hundred subjects , um , we observe their remote control use in a lab and then after all the experiments they had to fill up a questionnaire , um , and see what was okay or not for them . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So then it's some statistics about what we observed and what they answered . Um actually seventy five percent of the users find m the most remote controls uh ugly , okay , so that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You mean the loo the look , the outside ? +Industrial Designer: The look , how it look like . +Marketing: Yeah , the the look is is bad for them +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so uh it's your job , David , maybe . Then eighty percent of users would spend more money um actually if if the remote controls were not so ugly . So this is where we could have uh yeah , good market , I guess , if people are ready to pay more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's it's interesting information , I think . And then um yeah , the remote controls like the one you've shown previously it's not so {disfmarker} doesn't fit the user requirements sometime , because it's too many buttons and so on . So we should change this as well . And uh users are actually zapping a lot , so they're using the device intensively , that's something to take into account as well . And um , you know , ten percent of the buttons are actually used in the remote control . And uh this is one of the main point for me . But I'll come back to it later . 'Kay . Could you go next slide ? Uh , so as you said uh , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is from the experiments we've done , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if we could solve this problem this would be interesting for the user , I think . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use the remote control for thirty five percent of the people . And uh remote control are really bad for R_S_I_ problems for twenty six percent of the users . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What is R_S_I_ ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ is like , when you're using the same um {disfmarker} doing the same movement several times , then you get injured . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah um okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay ? So , those numbers are less important then the previous one , but still it has to be taken to count . So last slide . Um so my pres personal preferences for this problem is we have to meet the user needs . If we can make it look fancy then we might sell more than our uh concurrent , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And definitely if it could have less buttons , still maybe the same number of um functions , but less buttons , +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: this would definitely be a good way of selling more . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm okay . And just to have uh an idea , do you think you as the User Interface Designer to would it be possible to have less buttons and still have the same functionality and to have powerful remote control , you think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sure ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think possible . Because we can {disfmarker} We can uh mix uh several function in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So lets you {disfmarker} then you have less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you think it will be easy to use ? +User Interface: But I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because if you have many functions just for one button it would be quite difficult for the user to know . +Marketing: Yeah , remember the user is not happy to read the +Industrial Designer: The manuals . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: manual . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you you can have a switch menu , so you can +Project Manager: Yeah , but it has to be intuitive . +User Interface: well for example {disfmarker} Yeah , I think so . Like for for example you can uh you can category the function i i into several classes . Then for um you can have a switch menu , so you put the switch menu to it it tend to this kind of this category of functions . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Okay , +User Interface: Then you you put the switch button , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: then it switch to another category of functions . Yeah . For example , if you have remote control you you can rem you can control your T_V_ and also you can control your uh recorder . +Industrial Designer: With a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there's a different functions , but i if you you {disfmarker} there's a button you can switch between control T_V_ and control your recorder . So we can has less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But what I'm not so sure is about how to make the remote control look funny {disfmarker} look fancy , not funny . +Industrial Designer: Look fancy . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is a question that should be asked to the {disfmarker} If you ask the people , maybe the the marketing people {gap} . +User Interface: Because different people have a different opinion about fancy . You know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , this is something we sh +User Interface: Because maybe a colourful is fancy for some people , but maybe simple and uh uniform colourful is fancy for some {disfmarker} for other peoples , so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But this was first step and {disfmarker} This was the first step , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the solution is to have many colours of {disfmarker} you know instead of having one grey standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think it will increase the price of the production of the remote control . +Marketing: Specially distribution , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , maybe . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: If you need to have special colours for remote controls it will cost more . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , personalised colour . Because you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it will cost little bit more . +User Interface: Yeah , because maybe some people prefer a red remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: some people prefer black remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is what we would ask to the users , so . +Project Manager: And also f +User Interface: Maybe we can have di di we can have uh several options , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so user can select which colour they prefer , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but as soon as you speak about options , it means that the price increases , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remember it's twelve Euros . +Project Manager: and we don't really want the price to be too too high , because we wanna be able to produce it . So , we want something fancy , as uh previously said , Florent , something very easy to use , powerful and also as uh it's written here , seventy five percent of users , they zap lot , so maybe just having many functions in one button is not that good if you want to zap a lot . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And they don't really want to zap between functions of their remote control , they want to zap between channels on T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} I think you have quite lot of points to to think about +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and to discuss it with uh the other members . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , is it okay for your presentation ? Nothing else to to add ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's done , just {disfmarker} yeah . If we would {disfmarker} if we could remember like , not too many buttons and make it look fancy , I think it would make it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Mm so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: So , I had some new information about the product requirements , so you will have to take care of it of it in your thinking , in your designing of the remote control . So the first one is that um for the designing of the remote control we don't really want to use the teletext anymore , as it's something that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Lame , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No yeah , because now everybody has internet at home , so it's better to use internet then teletext . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , you will have to think about it in your in in the design of your remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and also the remote control will only be used for television , so for y for you your designing , you're not {disfmarker} you won't be uh {disfmarker} you won't had {vocalsound} um buttons to just to manipulate {disfmarker} yeah to control the recorder or maybe the garage door or things like that . +User Interface: Control . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Project Manager: because if we want to to do remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which will be used for for the television , for the recorder , for the camcorder and all the others , it will become too complex and it will increase the pli the price and we can't do that . We really want to focus on the remote control for the television . Is it okay ? +User Interface: Okay . But there's balance between function and the cost . +Project Manager: So maybe it will be easier for you to to design it , to have very powerful and easy . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And also we want the image of the uh um real reaction be recognisable in the product , such as the colour and s the slogan . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean that's uh if uh you want to buy a remote control and if you go in a shop and if you see the remote control you will recognise directly that s it's our product . +User Interface: Mm-hm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you will have to use the colour of the product , of the um um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: of the uh of real reaction +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So . +Project Manager: and uh also {disfmarker} +Marketing: So has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . As we say , we put the fashion in electronics , so it has to be a fashion remote control . Fancy , fashion , powerful , easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Require lot of requirements , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For cheap {vocalsound} remote control , yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And cheap . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: A low cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . But uh that's your your job to find something mm matches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah , 'cause what I'm thinking is how will you will connect the T_V_ to internet , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think it's part of the remote control design anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe not , +Marketing: It's maybe more in browsing . +Project Manager: but mayb +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but this this mean that your T_V_ would be able to , you know , connect to internet , you know , surf the web . +User Interface: Yeah , there's that box in uh o of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: A pi There's that box in the T_V_ , so with the set box you you can connect internet with your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Ok +Marketing: Hm-mm . +User Interface: It's It's not so uh popular now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's pop I don't think it's popular , so that's the problem so . You had i if you are designing a remote control for you know +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the global usage , +User Interface: Global , +Industrial Designer: so if people don't have the technology . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So everybody is okay with the new requirements ? +User Interface: So I I so {disfmarker} As as for the colour , what what do you think ? +Project Manager: I think it has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow ? Do you think that people like the colour yellow ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yellow ? {gap} T_V_ remote control ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Min +Project Manager: Maybe you can change the colour , but the image of the society has to be recognised . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think if you have you know th like a yellow ribbon here is the double R_ . Or should be . +Project Manager: Why you go {disfmarker} It has to be fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so . Doesn't need to be completely yellow , +Project Manager: So you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but just mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . It has to be a fashion and really be uh the image of the society . Just when you enter you say oh , oh , it's real reaction . Think it's a re reaction remote control , so . +User Interface: Okay , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And also it has to be attractive , of course , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: because if you want to sale {disfmarker} to sell the remote control . It's okay ? +Marketing: Regarding the first line , what {disfmarker} So we're just expecting no more use of the teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} I dunno , but why , nobody's a threat to me . +Marketing: It's already changed for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it would be simpler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} I will close the meeting , um just after that we'll have lunch break . And you will have in thirty minutes individual work . Uh {disfmarker} Y you {disfmarker} You will have as the I_D_ I don't remember what is industr Industrial Designer to put um {disfmarker} pon +Marketing: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer , yeah . Component component , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and the User Interface Designer to work on the user interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And Florent to work my subject . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: And so specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the um session is closed . +Industrial Designer: Good . +Project Manager: And by the way , Mister David Jordan , please record your presentations in your own folder . {vocalsound} Not in mine . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} Okay , that's clear . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be better . {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +The functional design meeting was conducted by the Project Manager, who also acted as a secretary and the Program Manager. The meeting featured presentations from the Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing Expert concerning the new product requirements for a TV remote control with advanced functions that should be easy to use. + +The User Interface Designer emphasized the need for a simple yet sophisticated interface, taking inspiration from Google. The Industrial Designer proposed an inexpensive, infrared-based design, while discussing functionality and design aspects, such as the possibility of a wireless option. + +Marketing presented user study findings, highlighting preferences for aesthetically pleasing, less complex remotes with fewer buttons, and the fact that users find most remotes unattractive and would pay more for better design. + +The Project Manager introduced new product requirements, such as no teletext functionality and focus on TV-only use, and emphasized that the remote should reflect the brand's identity with fashion-forward, recognizable features, possibly incorporating the company's signature yellow color. + +Finally, individual tasks were assigned to each team member for further development, with the expectation that presentations would be correctly filed in the future." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and Jack Sargeant. Vikki Howells is substituting for Jack Sargeant. So, Vikki, welcome; it's good to see you in the committee. Item 2 this afternoon is our eleventh evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome Barry Hughes, who is Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales; Kwame Biney, who is senior policy advisor, CPS; and Iwan Jenkins, who is head of the complex casework unit, Crown Prosecution Service Cymru Wales. So thank you all for attending this afternoon. We're really looking forward to hearing your views on the Bill. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Barry Hughes: Perfectly happy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I would like to start just by looking in general at how the law currently stands, and how do you think the law as it currently stands today, and specifically in terms of reasonable punishment—how does that protect children. +Barry Hughes: Sorry, can I just be clear? How does the law as it presently stands protect children? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. +Barry Hughes: We have a range of offences created by the criminal law, going back to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 in the middle of the century before last, which provide for offences of assault against a variety of people, including, in particular, Acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which provides for offences that are specific to children. But the more general criminal legislation, such as the Offences Against the Person Act, does provide specifically for adults and children alike not to be subject to physical assault. In respect of children in particular, you'll be aware that we have section 58 of the Children Act 2004, which does make it a defence for a person accused of assaulting a child to argue that it was a case where they were acting only so as to impose reasonable punishment upon the child. That is a defence that is available for assault upon a child. By way of contrast, it is not available for an offence involving an adult. In that regard, it could be argued that children have fewer rights than adults. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, a review was undertaken by the Government back in 2007 that stated that retaining the law in its current form—that that would be the best thing to do because there's no evidence that it's not working satisfactorily. You are suggesting perhaps towards the end of your answer that there could be some change that's happened since 2007. +Barry Hughes: I think the law should reflect contemporary society and the law is evolutionary in nature, and should be evolutionary in nature. And just as if we go back 50 years there are types of behaviour that we might all have contemplated back then as being socially acceptable, many of those types of behaviour are not now, and the law has changed to reflect that. We don't need to go back a very long way to find, for example, that there was no such offence as raping one's married wife, and the law has changed to reflect the fact that that is simply not acceptable. And from what I've seen of the research, and I think back to the 2007 review, to which you've just referred, there is evidence within that review already that opinions are changing. And I've seen research more current than that that suggests that young people find it less acceptable to use reasonable punishment in chastising a child than do people of an older generation. Of course, as we move forward in time, the people who are young now are going to be the older adults of the future. So one would hope that the law will change to reflect the way in which people behave within society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. We have heard evidence as a committee that this proposed law would provide a much clearer legal framework—that is, to take out this reasonable punishment defence, that then would make things much clearer for parents and professionals. Does the CPS have a view on that? +Barry Hughes: I think it will make things clearer. I'm not sure it will make them much clearer, because if we get into some of the—. It may be helpful to look at some examples at some stage. And when it comes to prosecuting, it's often the case that things aren't just black and white; there are multiple shades of grey in between. We know that the Children Act did introduce a degree of clarity, in that it removed the defence of reasonable chastisement for offences of causing actual bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and various incidents of child cruelty under the Children and Young Persons Act. In that sense, matters were clarified, because up until that point it was not entirely clear. There were a series of Court of Appeal cases that sought to clarify the law, but that was at a time, at the end of the 1990s, the start of the 2000s, when we had the European convention on human rights and we had a quickly developing body of case law. And the Children Act was brought in to reflect the direction that the case law was moving in. A decision was clearly made back then in the early 2000s not to include common assault in the same category as actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm et cetera. So, there was a decision made back then that it was appropriate to do that. As we wind forward some 15 years, I have seen the research that suggests that some people see that the present legislation, and the way in which section 58 applies to reasonable chastisement for common assault of children—some people have interpreted that as saying that smacking is acceptable. I don't think that it is what it says, but there is a degree of confusion around that. And the reason why I say it's not as simple as that is, going back to my words a couple of minutes ago, it's rarely a case of being black and white; there are these degrees of grey. And removing that defence does make life clearer. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are the areas of grey that you refer to? Can you give a few examples? +Barry Hughes: If you take an example—so, one of the examples that I've heard discussed has been a child—a young child; let's say a five-year-old child by the side of a road—who darts to go out in the path of moving traffic. The parent grabs hold of the child and pulls them back. Now, technically, taking hold of the child at that point is an assault, because it's an unwanted imposition of physical force. But no-one's going to say that's anything like an assault that should come to the criminal courts. Of course, that would be utter nonsense. There's no hostility; it's simply taking hold of a child to protect them. At that point, the parent then seeks to admonish the child, tells them off and smacks the child on the legs. Now, that would probably be seen under the present law as reasonable chastisement. Probably. But so much depends upon the circumstances, whether this is something that happens frequently with the child, the size of the child, the parent, the force of the slap, the way in which it's imposed. So, that, I would say, sits at one end of the spectrum. As we move towards the other end of the spectrum, we might have repeated smacking, shouting, maybe hitting the child over the head as well. So, there is a spectrum of offending. Towards one end of the spectrum we move much closer towards something that would be criminal in nature. There'll be a point at which it crosses the threshold from something that needs to be reported to the police, and the police would take some form of action, and then, as we move through the tiers, it'll reach a stage where the police think this is a case that should be prosecuted and they would bring it to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. We would then decide the most appropriate means of dealing with it. And the absolute other end of the spectrum here is one where we decide it's an offence that we think is so serious that it should be charged and brought before a criminal court. That would be very much towards the serious end of the spectrum of the type of behaviour that I've just described to you. Does that help to illustrate that, at one end, it's relatively white and the other end it's relatively black, but in the middle we have the shades of grey? +Sian Gwenllian AM: But that would mean that there could be more prosecutions at the softer end. Because if you're removing this—we'll probably come on to that. +Barry Hughes: Shall I address that in terms—? Okay. So, you are probably aware, but forgive me if I just explain quickly anyway, when we approach a file of material evidence submitted by the police we apply the code for Crown prosecutors, which has a two-stage test. The first stage is whether there's sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and the second stage is—. And you only get to the second stage if the first stage is satisfied. If there isn't enough evidence, we don't go on to consider whether it's in the public interest, because we wouldn't put an offence before the courts if we didn't think there was a realistic prospect of conviction. So, we only get on to the public interest stage once the evidential stage is satisfied. So, to return to the point, if we have an offence where, let's say, there is a light smack at the time, the police apply the same code before they bring a case to us. We don't always agree with the police; generally we do, but we don't always agree. It's a matter for them whether they refer a matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. So, if a police officer takes witness statements in relation to that case—the light smacking on the leg—at present it's unlikely that would come to the CPS, because they would look at it and say, 'Reasonable chastisement provides for a defence.' If that defence is removed, then obviously there is a greater possibility that it would be referred to the CPS. I would like to think—and I think this is what will probably happen in practice—that the police would take a view that the evidential test may have been satisfied because the defence had been removed, but it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. It may be that the police decide that it is—it may have been two smacks, three smacks, so it moves towards the end of the spectrum that would suggest that matters are becoming rather more serious. So, it may be referred to the CPS for a charging decision. We would then apply independently the same test, and we would probably conclude that the evidential stage was met in that instance because the defence no longer exists, which takes us on to considering the public interest. In the circumstances that I've described, every case is going to be unique on its own facts, but in the circumstances that I've described, if it is just a light smack and it's a one-off and there's no history of this, it would probably be the sort of offence we'd decide it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But isn't it creating a new grey area in terms of the police now having to decide whether repeated smacking is in the public interest to at least refer it to you to decide about that? Do you know what I'm saying? +Barry Hughes: If this Bill goes through, then it will remove a defence, which will make it likely that the police will give this more consideration for referral to the CPS than beforehand, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will refer it, because it will depend on the facts of each individual case. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on the divergence between the law in England and Wales from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Hello. The Assembly doesn't have any legislative competence to impose duties on the CPS, as you know, in the absence of the Secretary of State's consent. What are the implications for implementing the Bill in Wales for that? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you two examples? One of the implications is this—and it's fairly obvious but it's still worth stressing—that the removal of the defence would mean that there would be more cases that would pass the evidential stage in Wales than there would be in England, because the defence would still apply there. That, therefore, raises issues in particular in terms of awareness of criminal offending for people from England who travel to Wales, because it's fairly evident that there would be a defence available in England that is not available in Wales. One of the examples that we talked about was if you consider a family on its way from England into Wales, travelling to Barry Island for a holiday, and troublesome children in the back of the car, harsh words and a small smack on the leg delivered while they're on the M4 going past Bristol would be subject to a defence. By the time we come over to this side of the water, there would be no such defence for the same journey, for the same act. And so, there are issues there in terms of the awareness of members of the public. The second example that I'll give you is that we already have within the United Kingdom a certain degree of divergence of laws, and the example I'll give to you is this: drink driving. In England and Wales, the limit for having micrograms of alcohol in your breath is 35 µg in 100 ml of breath. Across the border in Scotland, it drops to 22 µg. So, the same act—. As you drive into Scotland, you're probably okay to drive if you've got 34 µg; by the time you get into Scotland, you won't be. And the consequences for you are significant, because of course it's an offence in Scotland, and not an offence in England, but the punishment, namely disqualification, applies everywhere in the United Kingdom. So, we already have a degree of divergence of law, and the CPS recognises this. In our code, we have a specific provision that takes account of the potential divergence of Welsh law. We will issue policy guidance and charging standards to reflect any changes as they arise. And we think that we are sufficiently flexible to take account of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So, would you see the necessity for a memorandum of understanding, for instance, or it being useful in these circumstances, or are you quite satisfied that the current guidance code would cover that? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's yet to move from a Bill into an Act, so we'd need to make sure that happened. We know there would be a period of time, perhaps as much as two years, or maybe a little more, while that takes place. There will be a further series of awareness raising. We have strategic implementation groups—Iwan sits on that group. So, we would build ourselves up to come up with the appropriate guidance according to the circumstances. In terms of how we'd approach it within the Crown Prosecution Service in Cymru-Wales, my approach would be along the lines of working with Kwame and his colleagues to make sure that the guidance that we issue nationally suits both England and Wales. And when it comes to the practical application of the legislation in Wales, we would almost certainly work on the basis that the number of offences—and we might want to get into the number of potential offences, but my take on it is the number of offences is likely to be very small and we would probably have two or three specialists trained in this so that any case that comes through goes to people who've got a close network and can talk with each other— +Dawn Bowden AM: And that would be primarily around the public interest issue. +Barry Hughes: It would. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand. Okay. So you're obviously a key stakeholder in terms of this legislation and you're clearly very au fait with it and all its implications. What's actually been your involvement with the Government as they've been developing this legislation? +Barry Hughes: My own personal involvement? +Dawn Bowden AM: Or the service's. +Barry Hughes: Iwan and colleagues have had some involvement on a more routine basis. I met with a Minister and a Deputy Minister—I met with Huw Irranca-Davies a little while ago, and I met with Julie Morgan a few months ago—to discuss the overall implications, and then officials on both sides have been engaging with each other. It hasn't been a very close-knit involvement, but we have had enough involvement so that we've felt we've been able to offer views on how we would deal with the legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So you've been satisfied with the level of involvement that you've had. +Barry Hughes: Yes. I don't feel that it's been too much, nor do I feel we've been left on the side at all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Now, we've just talked about the divergence of criminal law, and this is probably the first time that there's been an obvious divergence between English and Welsh law, and so we were then talking about the guidance, weren't we, and whether that needs amending to reflect it. But I think you were saying that you felt, within the existing guidance, it could be dealt with, so you don't see a need to update or amend the guidance. +Barry Hughes: I think we would need to update the guidance, and it goes back to the application of the evidential stage, before the public interest stage. On the evidential stage, I doubt that we'll need to do much, other than to make people aware that the defence is not available in Wales in the same way that it is in England, and we might have some light-touch guidance around that. When it comes to the public interest stage, that's a little more specialist and I think we would need to develop more with respect to that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And are you satisfied that your staff in Wales—well, and in England, actually, across the border—will be sufficiently aware of the divergence in this area of law? +Barry Hughes: Not as of the present day. Give us a chance. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: But you would expect that to be something you would— +Barry Hughes: Yes, I have no doubt. To an extent, actually, I think I would say that staff in Wales are aware of this already, because in my role as chief Crown prosecutor, I publish a monthly blog and we talk about the things we're doing, so staff are aware. I've discussed with staff and they've seen my blog and we've put it on our website: there have been engagements with the Welsh Government that this is a piece of work in which we're interested and that is under way. So, actually, I'm probably being unfair to myself. I think most staff would probably be aware that we are involved in this and that it is something that, at present, may well happen. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And does that mean that there would also be a similar need for the CPS in England to be aware of the changes? +Barry Hughes: They would need to be aware, but not to the same extent. We have regular interchange of prosecutors between England and Wales. So, in my office in Cardiff, for example, because we work digitally, I have about 30 to 35 prosecutors who work for the CPS in London, and they work exclusively on London cases. But there are times when some of those prosecutors will prosecute at courts in Wales, and then there may be an interchange; they'll come to work for us on secondment, or they'll come to work for us permanently. We'd need to make sure that those people were brought up to speed on the fact that there are some aspects of Welsh law that diverge from English law. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's helpful, thank you. My final question, Chair, is just whether you think there are any other significant cross-border issues that arise from this potential legislation. +Barry Hughes: In addition to those that I've mentioned, probably not. It boils down to the fact that there's a defence in England for assaults upon children that isn't available in Wales if this Bill goes through, and then it's dealing with the consequences of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Suzy, and then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I was going to ask this question later, but I think it fits in—. I've forgotten what I was going to ask; this is terrible. Oh no, that's right—obviously, this Act is on a particular trajectory at the moment, and it's due to be introduced before the end of this Assembly. Do you think it would be better for us as scrutinisers of this Act if we could see the draft changes to CPS guidance on the public interest test before we make our final decision? +Barry Hughes: I honestly don't think that would necessarily be helpful. I've had some discussions with Kwame, who would have an involvement in this. What we would envisage is that we would simply want to take the present public interest factors, which are set out, in my view, very clearly in the code for Crown prosecutors, and we would provide a degree of detail around those that relates more specifically to the issues that we're discussing here. So, it would be taking principles of generality and according them a degree of specificity. And we'd need to work that up as we go along, and I think you'd run a risk of putting the cart before the horse, if I may put it like that. +Suzy Davies AM: It's just that, personally, I think the public interest test is critical in all this, and it would really help us to understand what it could look like before we commit to a particular course of action in supporting or not supporting the Bill, that was all. But thank you, anyway; I take your point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: My point is about the criminal law in Wales and England diverging in this particular instance, and we've been told that this is probably the first time it's happened. Can you think of any other examples where that divergence has happened and does it actually set some kind of precedent in motion? +Barry Hughes: There are other offences in Wales that don't exist in England, but they don't crop up very often. So, to give you examples, there is an offence of putting an electronic collar on your pet—let's not stretch that into children. [Laughter.] But, you know, sometimes—I'll be quiet. But putting an electronic collar on your pet that administers a shock is an offence in Wales; it's not an offence in England. There are also offences around the picking of cockles in west Wales, which is not an offence—. So, you can see there are some, but I would argue that the fact that you drive across the border into Scotland and commit an offence that you won't commit in England is possibly more significant for the general public. Of course, the topic we're discussing here is of real relevance for the general public, and you have heard evidence, I know, already, that comes from people who are quite strongly in favour and people quite strongly against it. One of the ways in which I've approached this is looking at it from the perspective of what the law is there for, which is to set out, in essence, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to use the law for that, but it signifies how society views a certain behaviour. I like to look at it from the perspective of the person who is being affected by this, namely the child, and the change in the law here would afford children a degree of protection that they don't presently have, but which they do have when they attain the age of 16.FootnoteLink So, I looked at this—. If I can give you another example. I've had considerable dealings over the years with offences against residents in care homes, and you'll have seen Winterbourne View, you'll have seen recently up in Durham, where we have adults who need to be looked after because of issues with their mental capacity, and sometimes, the carers become frustrated with them and they admonish them. Sometimes they admonish them verbally and then that turns into physical admonishment. In much the same way as children are vulnerable and are looked after and can be sometimes quite annoying—but there is a level of protection for an adult striking a child lightly under the present law that is not available to the same adult for striking that child when they turn 16. That seems to me to not necessarily fit with where we ought to be as a society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you think that what we're doing in Wales will be emulated in England at some point? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's certainly going through in parallel in Scotland, and there are a great many other countries around the world that already have this, including a large number of European countries. Who knows? Trying to get any legislation through Westminster at the moment—who knows? Not tomorrow, I'd say. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions around implementation now from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Can I just begin by asking you to help the committee out here in understanding how the burden of proof is going to work if this defence is removed? Because the issue of whether something is punishment or not is going to disappear, providing that it's clear that contact with a child has happened. Is that going to work on the presumption that that's an unlawful contact? Is that something the prosecution will still have to prove, or will it be for an accused parent to say, to use your example, 'I was just dragging them out of the traffic or stopping them putting their hands in the fire'? +Barry Hughes: I understand your point. There's no change whatsoever to the burden of proof, nor to the standard of proof. +Suzy Davies AM: Perhaps you can run us through it quickly. +Barry Hughes: If the defence argue that that act was—. So, we have to show that there's been an unlawful assault. So, if we remove the defence of reasonable chastisement, in a sense that alters some things but it doesn't alter the basic responsibility of the prosecution, which is to establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if the defence raise an argument and say, 'Well, look, that was a lawful act; I was only doing what I thought was reasonable in the circumstances', it's for the Crown to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great. +Barry Hughes: And we've got to disprove that to the criminal standard, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. So, you can certainly see—. I can see the potential for individuals who feel strongly about this to look to contest the matter, to not admit any wrongdoing at all and to take the matter to trial, and it would be our responsibility to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's really helpful for us to understand that. Obviously, when we're talking about CPS guidelines and all the rest, we've already come some distance down the process, haven't we? Have you got any views on what might be done to prevent cases even coming as far as arrest? Because one of the things that we have to consider is that once you're arrested, that is recorded somewhere and will appear in things like DBS checks in the future, even if it goes no further. Do you have any views on how intervention might work better earlier on, even at the point of the knock at the door? +Barry Hughes: From the perspective of the CPS, I'm not sure I can help you there. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fine. I was expecting that answer. +Barry Hughes: Simply because that's a matter for the police. Unlike in many other jurisdictions, we have no power whatsoever to direct the police, so if the police decide not to investigate—. I routinely get letters from members of the public outraged that the police have decided not to investigate their particular neighbour dispute or something, and they want us to do something about it and we can't. We can't direct the police. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, because I thought that was important to get on the record as well. We're looking at a period of a couple of years after this Act passes—if it does—for implementation. Is there anything at the moment that you think perhaps you still need to do as an organisation towards being in a position to practically implement this law? +Barry Hughes: I think we need to maintain the type of dialogue that we've built up with the Welsh Government and colleagues there. I think we need to keep abreast of things as they move forward. We need involvement—Iwan, for example, and the strategic implementation group. We have other members of my staff who are involved in the other work streams that feed through to that, and I believe that that involvement will ensure that we are sufficiently interconnected; that we can liaise, in turn, with Kwame and his colleagues in the headquarters to respond to things as they develop. So, I think we've got a network of contacts built up here that is adequate for the purpose—at least, 'adequate' might sound a little— +Suzy Davies AM: Sufficient. +Barry Hughes: Yes, perfectly sufficient. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're confident, by 2022, then, that you'll have changes to the CPS guidelines that are good to go, if you like. +Barry Hughes: Fit for purpose, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Okay, that's great. Bear with me a second—thank you very much—in your written evidence, you did welcome the indication from the Welsh Government that this reasonable period after Royal Assent would be necessary. Apart from the CPS guideline changes, which you'll be working through, is there anything else you think you might be needing to do apart from just keeping in touch? I'm just thinking: are there any practical and possibly financial implications for your workforce in this? +Barry Hughes: If this legislation goes through, there will be minor financial consequences for us and I don't see any significant financial consequences in the period between now and the Bill becoming law other than the time of ourselves in discussing this today. But there isn't anything significant. There's nothing that will impact upon our performance as the public prosecution service in that time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And what about afterwards, then? Because one of the pieces of thinking behind this Act is to collect data to see whether this change in the law actually works. Do you want to talk us through a little bit about how that might affect you? I don't know who to ask on this. +Barry Hughes: Certainly. Well, I think that we are going to need to maintain a clear record of any cases that are referred to the CPS from the police and that will—. Normally, we do this through our case management system, which is England-and-Wales wide, and you'd put a flag on. So, for example, domestic abuse, there's a flag for that, and assault on a child, there's a flag for that. But this would be a very specific flag for assault on a child—reasonable chastisement. Trying to get that through on a system that covers all of England and Wales—it's quite expensive, unbelievably; it wouldn't happen. So, we would keep a manual log of every referral. That would be unmanageable if we were dealing with hundreds and hundreds of cases. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're not anticipating hundreds and hundreds. +Barry Hughes: Not at all. Not at all. My take on it: I've seen and spoken with Matt Jukes about this, from South Wales Police; I have seen the justice impact assessment; I've seen the research that's been fed through from New Zealand; and I've seen our own response to a freedom of information request and the papers that the CPS put into the review that you mentioned earlier in 2007. I would be very surprised if we were to prosecute anything other than low single figures a year, if that much. If that much. We may have more referrals from the police, but I doubt it would be double the figure we prosecute, even. So, you're talking small numbers. Now, small numbers—and we might not have any. Okay? It depends. Obviously, if there's a really good awareness-raising campaign, you make it less likely. And, for us, prosecution—it's not the first port of call here at all. There are out-of-court disposals and there are all sorts of diversions that you will have discussed, and I know you've discussed, with the police and the police and crime commissioner. So, the numbers will be very small, which means we would be able to keep a clear track on those and, obviously, we would wish to keep the situation under review, and we'd reach a period of time after whatever—12, 18 months, maybe 24 months—where we'd look back to see how we are doing. And I'd like to think that we will be doing that in consultation with interested parties and stakeholders. We do this already with certain types of offences. We have what we call local scrutiny involvement panels. So, for offences such as racially aggravated offending, whether it's criminal damage or offence against the person, we will bring together interested parties, by which I mean people from outside the CPS, quite often third sector agencies that represent vulnerable groups. We'd bring them in and look through the cases. So, we open our books, show them our cases, and we have a very frank discussion. We involve the police in that as well. That, in turn, helps us shape and improve the way that we prosecute these cases and I can foresee that, after this legislation came in, we might get 18 months, two years down the road, and I can see us sitting in a room with some of the cases we've prosecuted, maybe cases we've decided not to prosecute, with the police and interested parties from both sides, to have a discussion about how we're doing with it all. And I'd like to think that the Welsh Government would be involved in that as well. +Suzy Davies AM: That's really helpful to know because, of course, one of the difficulties of dealing with the culture change, which is what the Minister's effectively after here, is that we are still talking about it in the context of criminal legislation. It's nobody's fault; that's just how it is. And what I'm hearing from you is that the chances of somebody who's currently protected by the defence and is not part of a bigger case where there's serial smacking or other difficulties in a family, for example—the chances of them getting to you in the first place are pretty low, and then the chances of them passing even the current public interest tests are pretty low. In which case, my question is: why are we bothering with this law rather than concentrating on a new piece of law, possibly through the civil system, which would achieve the culture change better? Maybe that's not a question you feel that you can answer, but you can see why I'm asking the question. +Barry Hughes: I can attempt an answer. I follow entirely where you're going. I agree, the chances are pretty low, but they're greater than they are presently. In other words, there is a greater degree of protection for children, and I think the value that would derive from this legislation is the message that it sends out. I go back to what I was saying to you right at the start, about the evolution of the law, and the way we've seen many other countries around the world adopt a very similar approach to that being proposed by the Welsh Government is, in my view, an evolution of the law. So, yes, there may not be many more prosecutions, but there won't be fewer than there are presently, because there's a greater degree of protection for children. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's really helpful, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on, can I just ask—? The Children Act 2004 applies to a child up to the age of 18— +Barry Hughes: Sixteen. +Lynne Neagle AM: You mentioned 16; that's what I wanted to clarify. Our understanding was that it went up to 18. +Barry Hughes: I'm reasonably confident that it's 16.FootnoteLink +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now specifically on prosecutions and potential alternatives from Vikki Howells. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already touched quite a bit on the issue of the public interest test. Is there anything else you'd like to put on record about the factors that the CPS would be taking into consideration when applying the public interest test in respect of this Bill? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you an example, which might illustrate the way in which things could be different? This is one, which—I give credit to Iwan for this, because he thought of it. If we take an adult with a small child—say, a four-year-old—in a supermarket, and the child is pulling cans off the shelves, it's quite annoying, and they keep doing it and keep doing it. The parent remonstrates, and the parent ends up finding that verbal admonishment is inadequate, and smacks the child lightly on the legs, which does the trick and the child stops. Presently, if someone in that supermarket were to report that to the police, I think the police would probably conclude that that is covered by the defence of reasonable chastisement. In other words, the evidential stage wouldn't be passed; you don't get on to consider the public interest. But if we have that same parent in there the following week, and you have the same happen again, presently, the defence would apply. Now, there comes a point in time when the defence stops applying. If that defence didn't apply at all, and we had a sequence of three offences, the public interest test would kick in, if I may put it like that, pretty quickly, because it would be repeated behaviour. So, that would be the distinction between how things are now and how they would be in the future, because the defence would not be available, so the public interest test would then come to the fore that much more quickly. So, when we apply the public interest test, the essence of it is about proportionality, and trying to come up with an approach that is proportionate to the offending. We look at the age of the offender, the age of the victim, we look at the circumstances, we look at the impact upon the victim, we look at the impact that's likely in relation to the suspect, and there is, within the code, a long list of matters that we take into account. Some of them are fairly obvious, such as previous convictions. If someone's got previous convictions for doing something wrong, it's more likely they're going to be prosecuted the next time. But there's no part of the law that says that prosecution will always follow. Mostly, it's reasonably obvious; the more serious an offence, the more likely you are to be prosecuted. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's really useful, and— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you move on, can I ask you a question? This morning the committee was meeting with groups of parents who are opposed to the Bill and groups of parents who are for the Bill, and one of the parents this morning was querying where the interests of the child would come into the public interest test. Now, I've looked at the code and there is a section about impact on the victim. Can you just clarify for the record how the best interests of the child would be taken into account in considering whether to go forward with a prosecution? +Barry Hughes: Normally, if there were an assault by someone else upon a child, outside the family, we would tend to take views from the parents of that child. In circumstances where both parents, arguably, are the suspects, we probably wouldn't be asking them. We would find another way, and we would talk with the police to ensure that we are informed about how the child feels about what has happened. It may be that there are—. I can foresee real difficulties in circumstances where we have parents who are separating where the children are being used, effectively, in divorce proceedings, for example, where we might have one parent saying there was a really bad impact upon the child and the other parent saying there wasn't. We'd want to find a way to cut through that to work out really from the police how does the child feel about that. So, we would tailor it to the circumstances of the particular incident to assess how the child feels about it. It's not determinative, nor is it determinative in cases where we prosecute for adult defendants inflicting some form of assault upon adult victims. It's not determinative but it is a factor that we take into account. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a supplementary on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. In the same session this morning I thought this was an interesting question raised by a parent, on the rights of the child side of things, where if a parent offers a child two forms of punishment because that child has done something that they know they shouldn't have, and they're given the option of, 'You can have a quick smack and a cwtch, or you're going to your bedroom for quarter of an hour', and the child is allowed to choose and the child chooses the smack, what happens then? I'm not offering any views on the fact that this choice has been given, but it was put to us today about how would that fall in the law once it were changed. +Barry Hughes: That's a really interesting question. There is a body of law that— +Suzy Davies AM: A child can't consent to assault. +Barry Hughes: Yes, you can't consent to a serious assault, apart from in certain—. The law is really quite difficult. So, for example, tattooing is a serious assault on one level, but you can consent to a tattoo. I can think of one case where a man branded his initials on a woman's buttocks, but she consented to it and the Court of Appeal held that they could consent to that. I can also think of a series of cases, which I won't get into here, that involve sadomasochistic behaviour between adults, some of which was really serious, and involved people willingly applying themselves to things that no sane person would do. And the Court of Appeal in that case, a case called Brown, said, 'No, that's going too far—you can't consent to that.' Then, you may have seen there was a case from the midlands recently where a gentleman operating a tattoo parlour was also involved in body surgery—splitting people's tongues. That went too far as well. So, there is again—I referred before to the spectrum of offending, and there is a clear spectrum of offending that you can realistically consent to and then you get to offending you can't consent to. So, the law has considered that in some depth. I'm still not entirely clear, and I speak as a lawyer. When it comes to much lesser assaults, the law is more unclear as to what you can consent to. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because we're talking below a certain standard here as well. Okay. +Barry Hughes: As to what you can consent to, it's less clear. It would need to be developed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Vikki. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you. I've got one further series of questions around out-of-court disposals, which you've already mentioned briefly. In your written evidence, you say there's ongoing work exploring diversion rather than prosecution in respect of this Bill. Firstly, could you tell us a bit more about the work that is being done to explore this as an option? +Barry Hughes: We've been working with the National Police Chiefs' Council. Their lead is deputy chief constable Sara Glen. She is responsible for developing the police approach to out-of-court disposals and simplifying the range of out-of-court disposals. There is quite a range, and life would be simpler and clearer to have fewer types of disposal with more clarity about what each one of them involved. I must say, this is primarily a matter for the police, because there are a great many offences or reports of crime that do not reach the CPS because they are dealt with by way of an out-of-court disposal. Any case that the police refer to us for a charging decision is going to be something—. There's a document called the director's guidance on charging, which is issued by the director of public prosecutions, which sets out offences the police may charge and offences the CPS may charge. Offences that the police refer to us for a charging decision will generally be offences where they feel that there should be a prosecution rather than an out-of-court disposal. There may be cases where it's genuinely very difficult to assess what's the best approach, in which case we will have a conversation with them, a meaningful conversation, about what's the best way to approach that particular case. There will also be cases, and we see these not that rarely, where the police will bring a case to us for a prosecution on the basis that satisfies the evidential stage and satisfies the public interest stage, and we take a different view on the public interest stage. So, we might say—for example, it involves a 15-year-old youth—we  think that diversion from the criminal justice system is a better disposal and we decide not to prosecute. We aren't responsible for administering the out-of-court disposal or indeed monitoring compliance with that disposal, if, for example, it has conditions attached, such as repayment of the damage caused to a window or a front gate. That's not our responsibility—that will fall to the police—but we can decide that an out-of-court disposal is a more appropriate disposal than a prosecution. Does that help? +Vikki Howells AM: It does. One final question on that then: creating a body of out-of-court disposals that are specific to this Bill—how would that actually work in practice do you think, given the fact that the Assembly's legislative competence to make provision on the face of the Bill is limited? +Barry Hughes: The way I might see it is that, clearly, policing's not devolved, the CPS is not devolved—the way I might see this is that, within Wales, you could build an infrastructure that provides for a range of out-of-court disposals. You can't direct the police or the CPS to point people towards that, but, if you build a good infrastructure, it's more likely that people will be pointed in that direction. +Vikki Howells AM: And who would build that infrastructure, in your opinion? +Barry Hughes: Somewhere within Wales—Welsh Government, local authorities, the police working in partnership. It may be that the police and crime commissioners use some of their commissioning powers to work something up. I'm not the right person to answer that question. +Vikki Howells AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If I could just ask about awareness raising, then: you mentioned the Bill in Scotland, but that Bill includes a duty on the Government to raise awareness of the change. There's no such duty proposed in this Bill. Do you think that's right or should this committee be saying that there should be a similar duty imposed in Wales? +Barry Hughes: I'm not sure it's for me to say whether there should be a duty or not. I can, however, say that I think the greater the level of awareness, the more likely it is that the Act, if passed, will achieve its intentions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And, in your written evidence, you mentioned the fact that there's no indication of any plans for awareness raising in England and that if a person from England is being prosecuted in Wales as a result of this change, a question could arise about the lack of knowledge about the different provisions that apply in Wales. Can I ask what approach the CPS currently takes in Wales if a law is unintentionally broken by someone who's come from outside the UK, for example? +Barry Hughes: It's straightforward: if someone comes to this country and commits an offence here—by this country, I'd say England or Wales; I'd treat them as one for these purposes—if someone comes from abroad and commits an offence that isn't an offence in their country, but is an offence here, then I'm afraid that ignorance of the law is no defence. So, raising awareness is important, and I saw, and I was pleased to see, that the media publicity surrounding this proposed legislation, which is now going through, reached as far afield as New York and had widespread media coverage across England and Wales, and I think the Government would be well placed here to take advantage of that willingness of the media to explore something, which is potentially divisive, and I think you've probably seen some of that. Anything like that is a good story, and a good story gets out there, which means you're more likely to make people aware of it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the unintended consequences from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we've discussed some of these already, but, for example, under the new law, or the proposed law, would one unintended consequence be that, if someone living in Wales who can't use the reasonable punishment defence—would their life prospects be different compared to those people in England, who will be able to use that defence? I think you've mentioned that in your written evidence. +Barry Hughes: Yes. Okay. A simple answer: if somebody in Wales is convicted—so, if it goes towards the end of the spectrum that is serious, which results in a prosecution—. It may be—the sort of circumstance I can see happening here is somebody who takes a principled stand and declines any form of out-of-court disposal and says, 'Prosecute me'. We probably would end up prosecuting, because it's a relatively serious offence. So, let's say it comes to court and let's say they end up being convicted of assaulting their child—in circumstances that would not have happened in England—then they would have a criminal conviction they wouldn't have in England, and that, inevitably, has an impact upon their life prospects. But I think, along the road there, there would have been an element of choice. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And do you think that that would be an isolated incident? +Barry Hughes: Yes, truly, I believe, an isolated incident. I've said before that I would be very surprised if we even had referrals that reached double figures on these cases. They're likely to be very limited. When the CPS was asked to conduct a survey across all of England and Wales—this was the review in 2007—it spanned just over a two-year period, and there were 12 cases that were brought up at that stage. Now, I have to say, I don't think that's entirely reliable, but it is indicative. We had a Freedom of Information Act request at one stage, which threw up something like three cases in a year. So, if you think about that as being all of England and Wales—and we make up about 5 per cent of the volume of criminal prosecutions nationally—you can see why I might say the numbers are likely to be small, for the reasons we've explored about getting past the evidential stage into the public interest. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you for that. In terms of thinking about another kind of unintended consequence, in terms of managing performance and all of the targets that the police need to reach, are we perhaps going to see some people going through the criminal justice system in an inappropriate way and contrary to the interests of the child, because we need to reach some target in terms of performance measures? +Barry Hughes: I have to say I think that extremely unlikely. In the CPS, we don't have targets for securing convictions or not. Clearly, we prosecute if we think that there's a reasonable prospect, a realistic prospect, of conviction and it's in the public interest, but we have no targets. And I would also say, because the numbers here are likely to be so small, any assertion of looking to meet targets—it's a tiny, tiny fragment of a drop in the ocean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What about—? There is a target for unsolved crimes, or unsolved offences. What if they fall into that category? Is that an unintended consequence? +Barry Hughes: I'm talking about something I don't have great knowledge of here. There was, at one stage, a series of targets for the police that bore down upon cases that secure what was called a sanction detection, which counted for Home Office figures. That disappeared some years ago. Some individual constabularies may still have targets, but, as far as I'm aware, we don't have a suite of national measures. The police are required to report against this, but we don't have targets. And, in my experience, the police are much more sensible these days than they may have been 20 years ago, in terms of trying to get cases charged in order to meet some notional target. It's much less of an issue than it ever was—much. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've mentioned this, namely the risk of malicious reporting against parents involved in private family law cases. This happens now, of course. Is that going to increase if we change the law? +Barry Hughes: There is greater potential for it to increase. I think the numbers, again, will be tiny, and dwarfed by the number of cases where we have to deal with the fallout between a relationship breakdown between partners—whether they be living within the same house or living in different houses. Regrettably, there are times when children are used as part of this ongoing dispute. Getting into the subtleties of the father, say, smacking the child in a way that was reasonable chastisement or was not reasonable chastisement is probably part of a much bigger piece here. I can see it potentially arising. It's not something that would cause me concern, simply because we already have a well-developed approach to dealing with the way in which we evaluate the evidence from parties who may well have a particular position that they want to reinforce, sometimes through exaggeration of basic facts and sometimes through fabrication. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are there any other unintended consequences that come to your mind if we introduce this law? +Barry Hughes: No, I think we've had a pretty helpful canter through most of the circumstances here that might happen. And I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Finally from me, therefore—another issue, in a way—the European convention on human rights. Would not introducing the new law mean, at some point, that Wales could get itself into difficulty because there is a breach of the human rights convention? And therefore England as well, at some point. +Barry Hughes: Right. How to approach that one? In the 2007 review to which we've referred already, the Government, the then Government, set out its position that it believes that section 58, in the way that it was drafted, is compliant with the European convention. There are various parties who would disagree with that, but that was the then Government's position. If Wales implements this legislation and it becomes part of the law, then, arguably, Wales would be more in compliance with ECHR than not, and England would be less so. But nonetheless, at present, I haven't seen any demurral from the position that was expressed in 2007, which is that they consider that the position that's been adopted with section 58 is compliant with the legislation. It may well be tested by case law; that's the way it's likely to happen. Some of the changes in this arena were driven by case law—so, that case I referred to, Regina v H, which was heard back in 2001 in the Court of Appeal, was significant in helping shape the direction of travel towards section 58. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And that case law not necessarily would have to happen within the UK—that case law could come from other countries within the European Union. +Barry Hughes: It could, but I would be a foolish man if I were to say what impact European jurisprudence might have upon us. [Laughter.] +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.]—like common law jurisdictions would be. +Barry Hughes: Yes. At this point in time, that'd be a bit of a punt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Suzy's touched on this mildly, but, in written evidence, you say that you do not consider that the costs of prosecuting cases made possible by the Bill will be of great significance to the Crown Prosecution Service, and you're basing that, from your evidence here today, on the low numbers of prosecutions. So, we've been asked by individuals, and we've had consultation responses from individuals, who've argued that there is no point creating legislation if people are not prosecuted for breaching it. What's your answer to that? +Barry Hughes: There is a huge body of legislation out there that outlaws certain offences, and I think probably about—. There are over—. From memory—please never hold me to this—but, from memory, there are something like 10,000 criminal offences; we probably prosecute 5 per cent of those in any given year. There are some offences on the statute—. I've been prosecuting for 32 years now; there are some offences that I've never come near and probably never will. But, nonetheless, the fact those offences exist sets out in terms what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. So, we have various defences to do with Acts. I remember seeing some about Antarctic stations and offences that might be committed there. Well, they're not something that we do, but it sets out what's tolerant—what's tolerable, sorry, and what isn't. So, the fact that we might not have many prosecutions is, for me, not a reason not to say that we shouldn't signify that certain behaviour is or is not acceptable. Clearly, we don't wish to criminalise everything—that would be a nonsense—or to attempt to set the boundaries by almost micromanaging what individuals do and don't do. The criminal law provides a general framework within which to operate, which most people tend to understand. So, awareness is important and it comes back to that point. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And then the explanatory memorandum says there is a shortage of registered intermediaries who assist child witnesses during police interview and when giving evidence in court. Is this a potential barrier to implementing this proposed law, and are there any other potential barriers you want to raise? +Barry Hughes: No. It's a potential barrier, but I don't think it is a barrier. There was a shortage of registered intermediaries in Wales, and I know that the Ministry of Justice have taken action to deal with that, and we have had a number of people who are now in a position to act as intermediaries. Now, of course, if they were to decide not to do that anymore, we may have a problem, but, in turn, we would be looking to recruit more people into those positions. So, yes, it has the potential to serve as a barrier, but in practice, I don't think it would be a barrier. I think, particularly given the very low numbers we're talking about, we would be able to manage it. I've got no significant concerns, I have to say. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending, the three of you, and for your answers, which have been fascinating and very clear and most helpful to the committee? You will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy. Thank you again for your time in coming here today. Diolch yn fawr. +Barry Hughes: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Business Committee requesting an extension on the deadline for the Bill, which has now been agreed. Paper to note 2 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services requesting some further information from CAFCASS Cymru on the Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Minister for Education regarding Diamond reform implementation ahead of our scrutiny session on 4 July. Are Members happy to note those? Item 4, then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","In the session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, the committee chair, Lynne Neagle AM, commenced the meeting by acknowledging the absence of Hefin David and Jack Sargeant and welcomed Vikki Howells as Jack Sargeant's substitute. The meeting focused on the eleventh evidence session concerning the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. The committee invited Barry Hughes, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales; Kwame Biney, senior policy advisor, CPS; and Iwan Jenkins, head of the complex casework unit, Crown Prosecution Service Cymru Wales, to discuss their perspectives on the Bill. + +Barry Hughes expressed openness to commence discussions, responding positively to Sian Gwenllian AM's request to elucidate the current legal landscape's protections for children and how it interplays with the concept of reasonable punishment. Hughes outlined the historical framework of offences protecting against assault, including the specific protective measures for children under acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and section 58 of the Children Act 2004, which uniquely provides a reasonable punishment defence for child assault. Hughes noted that while the 2007 Government review indicated no pressing need to alter the law, societal norms evolve, and so too should the law reflect contemporary sensibilities, emphasizing the diminishing societal acceptance of reasonable punishment as a disciplinary measure, particularly among younger generations. + +The conversation shifted to potential clarifications the proposed law would bring by abolishing the reasonable punishment defence. Although Hughes articulated that nuances, such as differentiating between an assault meant to discipline and one meant to protect a child from danger, would still exist, the removal of the defence would render legal proceedings clearer. + +Dawn Bowden AM raised queries on cross-border law divergence, CPS involvement in the creation of the Bill, and the preparation of CPS staff for such changes. Barry Hughes reassured that the CPS has been sufficiently involved in the legislative process and that staff awareness and training would ensure readiness for potential divergences in Welsh law regarding the treatment of reasonable punishment. + +Suzy Davies AM probed into the burden of proof and out-of-court disposals as to how they would function post-abolition of the reasonable punishment defence. Hughes clarified that proving an assault unlawful remains the prosecution's burden, irrespective of the defence's removal. Moreover, he emphasized the CPS's role in suggesting alternative resolutions like out-of-court disposals when justice deems them more appropriate than prosecution. + +Further discussions included the anticipated impact on CPS resources, potential unintended consequences of the Bill, the ECHR's stance, and the importance of raising public awareness about legal changes both within Wales and across the border in England. Hughes maintained that while the CPS might see a slight increase in referrals, the numbers would be too low to substantially impact resources or judicial processes. + +Lynne Neagle AM concluded with inquiries about awareness-raising duties and the consequences for those coming into Wales unaware of the changed provisions. Hughes reiterated that public awareness plays a crucial role in law enforcement and societal adherence to new legal standards. + +The committee took record of correspondence regarding the Bill and other matters, and after the public session, they resolved to meet in private for the rest of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 20thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a reminder to all members, in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not be connected to the video conference. I want to remind those who are participating by video conference that, when they talk, they must use the channel that corresponds to the language they are speaking in. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. We are moving on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on. We will now move on to document submissions. The honourable minister, Mr. Blair. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, today I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2019 annual report on the RCMPs use of the law enforcement justification provisions. This report addresses the RCMP's use of specified provisions within the law enforcement justification regime, which is set out in subsections 25 to 25 of the Criminal Code. This report also documents the nature of the investigations in which these provisions were used. +The Chair: On tabling of documents, we have Minister Sajjan. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, pursuant to Standing Order 32, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2018-19 progress report on Canada's national action plan for the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security. +The Chair: Now we'll go to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of a special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Members who are participating in the meeting in person are kindly asked to bring the signed certificate to the office once the petition has been presented. Presenting petitions, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, I rise to present two petitions. They both pertain to the protection of our natural world. One is an e-petition, and it relates to the threat to pollinators globally. We know that honey bees and other pollinators are essential to food production. The petitioners note that research from around the world points to a threat to pollinators, particularly from a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The European Union has taken action on this. The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to practise a precautionary principle and remove from use neonicotinoids in Canada to protect our pollinators. The second petition relates to the ongoing threat to the southern resident killer whales. These iconic whales are much beloved in SaanichGulf Islands, throughout coastal British Columbia and indeed across Canada. The petitioners are calling for more action to be taken as the population of southern resident killer whales continues to decline, more action for boat-free safety zones, more prohibitions around whale tourism to make sure that the whales are safe from those who are keen to watch them from too close a distance, and more of a credible enforcement regime to support these measures to keep the southern resident killer whale population in our waters and not on the list of species that have become extinct. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, for over 10 years, members of Parliament from various parties have been trying to pass legislation to deal with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Irwin Cotler, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Senator Salma Ataullahjan and I have all proposed bills on this. The petitioners want the House to support Bill S-204. This is another bill that would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. I'm sure petitioners would want me to add that, given the urgency of this issue, perhaps the government could consider bringing forward a government bill on this issue, which would allow the process to move much faster. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise here today to present a petition from Canadian citizens in support of motion M-1, which was placed in this House by my colleague the member for New WestminsterBurnaby on the green new deal. These citizens point out that climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency and that Canada must act with ambition and urgency. They call on the government to support M-1, a made in Canada green new deal, to take bold and rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic and racial inequalities at the same time while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition by creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and privilege to table e-petition 2577, which was sponsored by Chris Alemany from Port Alberni and is supported by 5,183 petitioners. They're calling on the Government of Canada to work urgently across party lines and in partnership with provincial and territorial governments to implement a guaranteed, consistent, national and livable universal basic income system for all Canadians. The petition is very timely, coming almost one year to the day since the completion of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which also called on the government to establish a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians. Whether it's about providing a safety net to get through a global pandemic, the means to keep your children out of poverty at any time, or simply being able to afford safe housing or transportation, it's time for Canada to have this conversation. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and a privilege to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of NanaimoLadysmith. People are concerned about gas fracking and the use of methane and the destruction that methane causes to our atmosphere and with climate change. They're calling on the government to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on the Wet'suwet'en territory, and by ordering the RCMP to dismantle their exclusion zone and to stand down. They also call on the government to schedule nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentswhich is something that we're happy to see has been happening and I commend the government for that effortand to prioritize the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, like Canada, Guyana is part of the Commonwealth, and many constituents of Winnipeg North have raised the issue with regard to the presidential election back in March, when it was being called into question. There have been some very positive indications in recent days, but the petitioners are asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to be aware of what's taking place in Guyana, and as much as possible, to be advocates for democracy and make sure that we're being diligent in supporting what the people of Guyana want to see. +The Chair: I just want to remind the honourable members, when presenting petitions, to be as concise as possible. I notice they're starting to stretch a bit and it's something we all tend to do. Now we'll go to Statements by Members. The first statement will be from Mr. Lefebvre. +Mr. Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I just want to say thank you to the industrious people of Sudbury who have risen to the challenge and joined forces in the face of COVID-19. I am proud of all my constituents, and all Canadians, including first responders, volunteers, health care and essential workers, local miners, the farmers and produce growers who are feeding our families, and local businesses who are staying connected with their staff. I also salute all our homegrown innovations such as ProStitch and King Sportswear face masks; Crosscut Distillery hand sanitizer; Nobel Prize winner SNOLAB's work on ventilators, which earned a federal contract; Vale Canada's $1 million in seed capital to small firms developing COVID-19 health solutions; and many more. We are all in the same boat, but we will get out of it together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, Pitt Meadows is one of Canada's most beautiful communities. It's tucked in between the Fraser and Pitt rivers and is in the shadow of Golden Ears mountain. Most of the area consists of farmland, golf courses, parks and conservation areas. It also has Pitt Lake, which is among the largest freshwater tidal lakes in the world. Pitt Meadows' history dates back thousands of years with Katzie First Nation. In the 1900s Dutch immigrants drained and diked the marshes allowing for today's bumper crops of cranberries and blueberries. It's hard to believe that this community is only a short commute to Vancouver and has one of the nation's busiest general aviation airports. Last weekend the community came together to celebrate Pitt Meadows Day a little differently because of COVID. In a great show of community spirit, from their front yards and balconies, thousands of residents came out to cheer for first responders and essential workers as we paraded throughout the city. I am thankful to have raised my family here, taught in the schools and to now be the member of Parliament representing this wonderful community. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Kelloway. +Mr. Mike Kelloway (Cape BretonCanso, Lib.): Mr. Chair, over the last few months I have watched constituents in my riding come together to look out for one another during these challenging times. Regardless of how deep and painful this pandemic has been, it continues to amaze me just how brightly the collective character of Cape BretonCanso shines through. Whether it is someone like Glen Muise, who delivers iPads to seniors' homes so they can connect with loved ones, teachers who deliver meals to students in need, Liam and Lucus Sakalauskas, two young boys who keep youth informed across the east coast, or Rose Fitzgerald, who delivered bouquets made from the remaining flowers from her shop to essential workers across her county, constituents in Cape BretonCanso have stepped up to support their community and to support those in need. Mr. Chair, as you know it is with great pride that I represent my constituents in Cape BretonCanso. The people in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia care deeply about one another. They know that as a community, we're only as strong as our most vulnerable people, and I cannot help but be filled with joy when I see these gestures happening across my riding. Thanks so much. +The Chair: Ms. Brub, go ahead. +Ms. Sylvie Brub (AbitibiBaie-JamesNunavikEeyou, BQ): Mr.Chair, unacceptable incidents of police brutality against aboriginals have prompted former member Romeo Saganash, whose commitment I commend, to call for a commission of inquiry similar to the Viens commission in Quebec. The Bloc is open to the idea, but we shouldn't wait for such an inquiry to be recommended to take action. There are already potential solutions for taking action. Commissions have been issuing reports for decades, and Ottawa has been tabling them. Last year alone, the Viens report and the report stemming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls contained dozens of recommendations. The federal government must work with indigenous peoples, Quebec and the provinces to establish adequate funding for indigenous police forces. Civilian ethics organizations should be created to oversee the RCMP. Police officers and the general population must be better educated on indigenous realities and cultures. Hundreds of pages must be written and actions taken to restore confidence in law enforcement so as to achieve the long-overdue reconciliation. Let's take action. +The Chair: I give the floor to Mr.MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr.Chair, on behalf of myself and my parliamentary colleagues, I want to congratulate students from our high school class of 2020. We know that, owing to the pandemic, graduation celebrations will be different this year, as students will be deprived of their prom, their graduation ceremony and, in some cases, their goodbyes to friends and teachers. I know how disappointed students from the high schools of duVersant, LeCarrefour, Nicolas-Gatineau, de l'rablire, Collge Saint-Alexandre, Collge Nouvelles Frontires, Collge Saint-Joseph, Philemon-Wright and other regional schools, are not to be able to celebrate their five years of incredible efforts surrounded by their families and friends who were by their side on a daily basis. However, that takes nothing away from their accomplishment. So when they receive their diploma, here is what I will say to them: Surge ahead! The future belongs to you. Be ambitious, follow your dreams and, most importantly, continue to change the Outaouais and the world! The class of 2020 will be remembered for a long time. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am delighted to rise to talk about the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, which is now under construction in my riding in Winnipeg. This state-of-the-art addictions recovery facility was made into a reality by Scott, Anne and Darcy Oake in memory of their son and brother Bruce, who passed away tragically from an accidental overdose in 2011. The Bruce Oake Recovery Centre will provide help to thousands of Manitobans to manage their addiction and reintegrate into the community. I was proud to support this project when I voted for it during my time on Winnipeg City Council. The addictions crisis in Canada needs action. With approximately eight million Canadians suffering from addictions, we need centres like these to help them recover so that no other family will face a heartbreaking loss due to addiction. I want to congratulate the Oakes for their commitment to making recovery for many a reality. Addictions affect us all, and we all have a part to play in contributing to the solution. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Jowhari. +Mr. Majid Jowhari (Richmond Hill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the compassion and generosity demonstrated in my riding of Richmond Hill. Week after week residents and organizations have come together to support our most vulnerable during a time of great difficulty. I want to thank the champions of the community who were generous enough to donate masks and other supplies as well as services. I would also like to recognize the charities and care centres which, upon receiving these donations, redoubled their efforts to serve their communities. Special thanks go to the Mon Sheong Foundation Long-Term Care Centre, Divine Favour Senior Homecare, the Community & Home Assistance to Seniors, the True Compassion Home Health centre, Blue Door, the Mosaic Interfaith Out of the Cold program, Yellow Brick House, Hill House Hospice, Community Living York South, and Parya Trillium Foundation for continuing to support the residents in my riding of Richmond Hill. The compassionate generosity demonstrated by these donors and organizations makes me proud to represent my community in Parliament. +The Chair: We'll now go to Madam Lalonde. +Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde (Orlans, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Usually, at this time of the year, I have the pleasure of being invited to the graduation ceremony of the grade12 students in Orlans. However, we will all have to adapt to a new reality this year. I cannot express enough how, in these exceptional times, I have witnessed the strength, resilience and community spirit of our graduates. I also know that a number of high schools have made significant efforts to celebrate the success of their graduating class. Young graduate Maryanne Collard was amazed to see that people from her school, the cole secondaire catholique Batrice-Desloges, had installed a sign in her garden to congratulate her on her academic success. As we move forward we must not forget that youth in this country are our future. We have a responsibility to be there for them and to believe in them. We will not fail. I thank the teachers, the support staff and school management who are continuing to do their work. Congratulations to all graduates of 2020. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Vis. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has changed and challenged how we go about our daily lives. For many this includes a shift to working from home or attending school remotely. The sad reality is that even before the crisis hit, most rural Canadians simply did not have access to a strong and stable Internet connection, even though Internet is an essential service. Those in underserved areas, including many parts of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, cannot work from home and their children cannot keep up with their classmates. For many of my indigenous constituents, Internet services are stuck in the 1990s because telecom companies don't want to serve them. I, along with my colleagues, launched community consultations to address this critical issue and provide solutions. We call on the government to outline and implement a concrete action plan to address Internet connectivity deficits between rural and urban Canada. This is an issue I will continue to press on until results are achieved. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. McLeod. +Mr. Michael McLeod (Northwest Territories, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Canada has been awarded its first-ever Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme. Congratulations go to Lutsl K' Dene First Nation and the Northwest Territory Mtis Nation, with support from Deninu K'ue First Nation and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, for the establishment of the Thaidene Nn territorial protected area. It's 14,000 square kilometres of the most beautiful land and waters you'll find anywhere on earth. I would also like to thank the previous minister of the environment for securing Canada's $7.9-million commitment, along with our visit to celebrate the new park last year. The award is given to groups that have exemplified actions to protect critical ecosystems and biodiversity for generations to come and to show how indigenous peoples and local communities have confronted legacies of disadvantage and discrimination in support of their communities and the world at large. Congratulations to Lutsl K'. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Liberal government has tabled $87 billion in spending and allocated just four hours for Parliament to study, debate and pass it. The allocated time is wholly inadequate. Canadians deserve to know how that money is being spent. They deserve to know that this government spending was scrutinized and passed through the rigours of Parliament. It is Canadian taxpayers of today and tomorrow who will have the responsibility to pay for this government's spending. It is Canadian workers and businesses who will have to do the hard work of rebuilding our economy. It is real Canadians who fall through the cracks when this Liberal government's programs fail to meet their intended goals. A rubber stamp under the guise of health and safety is not democracy. Canadians are owed better. Just as we gather four days a week for a hybrid committee meeting, parliamentarians can gather to do the full scope of the work that Canadians elected us to do. +The Chair: We now go to Mr. Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Our planet is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our daily lives have been turned upside down. I am thinking of you, our seniors, valuable individuals who built our country. You have gone through a very restrictive confinement. You have had to sacrifice time spent with your families. Our students also had to adapt. Their school year was turned on its head. Our graduating class, especially, saw their dream of a proper graduation vanish. The future belongs to them. They must follow their dreams. I want to say to all the essential staff and the many support organizations that they are really changing things. We have all taken on our important responsibility, that of following the guidelines. The results have been most compelling in my riding. I want to say how proud I am to represent you here, in the Canadian Parliament. I thank each and everyone of you. You are helping PortneufJacques-Cartier flourish. You have shown resilience, creativity, innovation and solidarity. That is commendable. Together, we will get through this ordeal and come out stronger. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, today I rise to honour Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg, led by women and non-binary individuals, who stood together and mobilized our city to state clearly that we will not stand by and stay silent in the face of police brutality. We will not stand by in the face of systemic racism. We will not stand by while we witness our bodies being abused by centuries of racism supported through legislation that has left us vulnerable at the hands of those who abuse their power. We will speak out against police violence. We will speak out against systemic racism. We will join together to ensure that laws are instituted that are designed to protect us, not abuse us. We will call out those who abuse their power. We will rise. We will rise. We will rise. To all the women and non-binary folks who are standing, I say, let's continue to sound our voices in solidarity and support of one another until indigenous and black lives are honoured and respected. Our liberation is intertwined. Solidarity. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, go ahead. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, this is not the time for governments to get complacent about COVID-19. However, the last few days have shown that we are once again dealing with a reckless Prime Minister. First, he locked down Parliament to avoid being accountable to the opposition, while the economic recovery must be prepared. He is refusing to provide an economic update, even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. We need to know how much flexibility we have in case of a second wave of the pandemic. He is refusing to hold a first ministers meeting on unconditional health transfers. The increase Quebec needs is for hiring health care staff before a second wave, and not after it. Finally, today, he is refusing to negotiate with any party to get his bill passed. He is behaving as if he had a majority government. This is not a time for recklessness. Governing means anticipating. I am asking the Prime Minister to pull himself together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Uppal. +Hon. Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to give thanks and recognition to the contributions of many businesses and organizations across my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods that have stepped up in a major way during this pandemic. I joined my friends in the Filipino community who partnered with Mill Woods' Calvary Community Church to deliver care packages to seniors. Varinder Bhullar and his Green Scholars of Alberta team and Dil-E-Punjab restaurant provided thousands of free meals. Sikh Youth Edmonton delivered free groceries to families, seniors and students. Edmonton Towing and its full team with Dukh Nivaran Gudwara prepared food packages for any truckers who were coming through Edmonton. The Bhartiya Cultural Society Hindu temple provided free meals to anyone who needed them. Punjab Insurance and The Punjab chain of restaurants provided free meals in downtown Edmonton. The staff, nurses and doctors of Grey Nuns Community Hospital in the heart of Mill Woods have been keeping people safe and healthy. I want to thank our Mill Woods community as a whole for its continued strength, resilience and compassion as we move forward together. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today is Portugal Day, celebrated both in Portugal and around the world by Portuguese. In Canada, June has been recognized as Portuguese Heritage Month. We're truly happy to recognize the great contributions made by Canadians of Portuguese descent. This year is a difficult one, though, for all of us, including our Portuguese diaspora community across the globe that is deeply affected by the COVID situation. Our prayers and well wishes are with everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our luso community of over half a million members in Canada from coast to coast for staying strong during these difficult times. Your warmth, hard work and team spirit resonate well across my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville and globally. As a Portuguese immigrant who came to Canada at the age of two with my family, I know this year will be a lot different from previous years. I encourage all of you to stay safe and enjoy a Portuguese meal, and please continue to support our local businesses. +The Chair: We now begin the period of questions for ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for sitting to substitute each other very safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is doing everything to avoid being accountable to Canadians. He is refusing to table a budget, refusing to provide an economic update and refusing to let the House of Commons do its work. Will he at least provide the Auditor General with the additional funding she needs to look into government expenditures? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, not only are we introducing a bill this afternoon to help Canadians with the Canada emergency response benefit and those living with disabilities, but we are also proposing to the opposition parties that we hold a debate and a vote on that. I hope the opposition parties will allow a vote and a debate in the House on this important bill. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister wants parliamentarians to vote on aspects of the government's spending. We want the Auditor General to be able to examine that government spending. Under the government, the Auditor General has had to do more with less, and her ability to conduct audits is being affected. The Auditor General has indicated that she will be able to do half as many audits, despite an almost doubling in the size of government spending. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we worked with the Auditor General to increase the funding of the Auditor General's office in 2018-19, and the equivalent of 38 full-time staff were added. We support the Auditor General, unlike the Conservative government, which fired 60 people from the Auditor General's office. We are now proposing that we sit down to debate legislation this afternoon, and I certainly hope that members opposite will vote for debate. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister is again engaged in revisionist history. He well knows that it was the Auditor General's office that volunteered to make administrative efficiencies, which did not affect its ability to do the job. In fact, as the interim auditor general, John Wiersema, said, We would not have proposed if we didnt think it was the right thing to do and that wed be able to carry out our role for Parliament. Only the government's refusal to grant that extra funding is hampering the Auditor General's ability to give Canadians the answers they deserve, and we wonder why. This is the government that cannot explain where 20,000 infrastructure projects went and where five billion dollars' worth of supposed infrastructure investments have gone. They can't identify that. Then there is, of course, the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank, which has completed precisely zero projects. Are these the reasons the Prime Minister is so intent on withholding funds from the Auditor General? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, talking of revisionist history, Stephen Harper's Conservatives cut $6.5 million from the Auditor General's budget and fired 60 staff. On the contrary, we worked with the Auditor General's office and increased its funding and added the equivalent of 38 new full-time staff. We will continue to demonstrate openness and transparency. We will continue to respect the officers of Parliament, whom the Conservatives, in their time in office, showed no respect for. We will continue to move forward in a way that has led, for example, to proposing debate and voting on important legislation this afternoon to help Canadians. The Conservatives don't seem to want that debate or vote. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's no surprise that the Prime Minister likes to reach back into history from before the 2015 election to justify his position. The 2015 election was the only time he got more votes than the Conservative Party did, so I understand why he likes to live in the past. In May, the interim auditor general said, Ten years ago, we were completing about 27 performance audits every year. With our current resources, we expect to be able to deliver 14 performance audits each year. That's half the number of audits, despite a massive explosion in government spending. The Auditor General's office has requested more funds to be able to do the job that Canadians expect to be done. Will the Prime Minister give those additional funds to the Auditor General's office, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we very much look forward to working with the new Auditor General to ensure that her office has the ability to continue the important audits and transparency measures that are foundational to our institutions. Speaking of what is foundational to our institutions, this afternoon we're putting forward a bill that would help Canadians across the country, and we've proposed to debate and vote on that bill. It actually looks like the Conservatives and other opposition parties might not want this. They have been complaining about not having debates and votes in Parliament, and now they're proposing not to have them. That's a little head-scratching. We hope they're going to help Canadians. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We may have a chance here to replace a problem with a good opportunity. This morning, we heard many groups and organizations that represent people with a disability express their concerns over the bill introduced by the government, which I feel is chocolate pudding containing cod liver oil. We agree with the chocolate pudding. We are favourable to helping people with a disability. People don't know the rules. They don't knowI am telling them nowthat a bill can be divided. It can be cut into parts and voted on in parts. The rest of the bill can be enhanced. I am saying to the Prime Minister that, if he presents the part on disabled individuals, it will be passed at the speed of light. He won't even see it happen. Is he prepared to divide the bill, so that we can work together to help people with a disability? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The bill that we are proposing this afternoon will certainly help people living with disabilities. We can always recognize that this is important, and every party should be open to it. We will also increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit from four-week intervals to two weeks. We will also expand the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses will have access to it. I am always willing to work with members of the opposition to ensure that we adopt these measures, all or some of the measures. We want to help Canadians. We look forward to debating and voting on this later today. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It is a glorious day. I heard all or some of the measures. That means that we are not adopting them all at the same time and that the bill is being split. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he is in fact going to split his bill so that we can address the various components separately, since they have nothing to do with each other, and improve them, in keeping with our mandate as elected officials? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our goal on this side of the House, and it is shared by all members of the House, is to help Canadians during the pandemic. We have put forward a number of measures that will help Canadians in a tangible way. Yes, that includes Canadians living with disabilities, but it also includes businesses that cannot, but should be able to, access the wage subsidy. In addition, we are going to make the Canada emergency response benefit more flexible. I look forward to continuing the discussions +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: We almost had some clarity, but one swallow does not make a summer. Yes, there is a need for discussions on the Canada emergency response benefit. The government says that it wants to transform the program into something very coercive, without admitting that the lack of an employment incentive has essentially sabotaged another program, the wage subsidy. That deserves some thought. That is what we are elected to do. We do not need to spend eight months on this, we can fix it in a few hours. When the government says that we are going to have to vote on this, it means rubber stamping its bill. We have the right to debate it, to have discussions and to improve it. I watched the election on the night of October21. It was a beautiful night. It was more fun than a hockey game. People elected a minority government. Can the government admit that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are not proposing only to vote on this bill this afternoon, we are proposing to debate it. It is the role and responsibility of all of us in the House to exchange ideas and to work together to help Canadians. That is exactly what we are proposing this afternoon. It is about helping people with disabilities, increasing the flexibility of the CERB, and expanding the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses have access to it. I look forward to debating this with my colleagues opposite. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have 43seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That will be enough. I would be remiss if I allowed the Prime Minister to mislead people quite unintentionallyI say this in accordance with the Standing Orders. When we introduce a bill, we discuss it at second reading, we vote, we continue to discuss it and we send it to committee. All that can be done very quickly. However, we must be able to amend and improve this bill. That is how the normal Parliament works. The government doesn't like being in a minority situation. It behaves as if it were a majority government, but it is not. Can we follow the real procedures of Parliament, do a proper job, and then have a vote that is likely to suit the majority of members, not just the Prime Minister? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, my hon. colleague seems to completely forget that we are going through a pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis requires different actions on our part. That is why we provided the text of the bill to the opposition parties four days ago. We have been working with them for hours over the past three or four days to amend the bill, if they had amendments to propose. That is how we are taking action to help Canadians quickly during this crisis, and that is what we will continue to do. +The Chair: Mr.Singh, you have the floor. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr.Chair, will the Prime Minister make a clear and direct commitment today to extend the CERB for families who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are introducing legislation this afternoon that will directly help Canadians living with disabilities, will expand the scope of the wage subsidy and will increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit. We hope to be able to debate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB for families in need, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I said, Mr. Chair, discussions are ongoing on that, but I can assure Canadians we will continue to be there for them and support them, as we have been. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, a family that needs to buy groceries can't take those pretty words and buy groceries with them. We're asking the Prime Minister to extend the CERB for families in need. Will the Prime Minister do that, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to be there for Canadians in the right way. We are engaged with stakeholders, with opposition parties and with Canadians to ensure that we continue to support them the way they need to be supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I can tell you what the right way is. Don from Burnaby sent me a note saying he's an arts worker and there is no forecast for his job to be reopened. He is now dependent on the CERB. He wants to go back to work, but there's no work. He sent an email saying he's faced with a grim realityhis wordsand he's frightened that if the CERB runs out, and it is planned to run out at the end of this month, then he will have no way to afford to make ends meet. Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB so Don does not have to live in fear? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, and as we have been saying from the beginning, we will continue to be there to support Canadians who need it. The member opposite is not actually looking at the fact that we are proposing three significant helps for Canadians this afternoon. We are proposing to help Canadians with disabilities, to expand the wage subsidy for more businesses and to create flexibility for the CERB. He doesn't even want to debate those things. He doesn't even want to be voting on them. Will the NDP allow us to move forward on these important measures for Canadians? +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about those measures. One of the things we asked the government to do five weeks ago was to bring in help for Canadians living with disabilities. Now the government's plan is only going to help 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Will the government commit to helping all Canadians living with disabilities and propose a plan that will do so? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP leader seems to have decided that rather than help 40%, or a significant portion, of people with disabilities, he wants to help none of them, because he's not going to allow the debate to move forward on this bill. That's unfortunate. We're always happy to look at how we can do more. We have demonstrated from the beginning that we want to do more for Canadians. I look forward to working with the NDP. I am hoping those members change their minds and allow us to have an important debate this afternoon. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I appreciate that the Prime Minister accepts that his plan only helps 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Let's talk about the 60% who aren't being helped. They are veterans living with disabilities, those who receive CPP and those who receive disability payments. Often it's the poorest of Canadians living with disabilities who won't be helped with the plan the government is proposing. Will the government help all Canadians living with disabilities? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our proposal will help 100% of Canadians who receive the disability tax credit, including many veterans. The fact is that we are there to support the disability community. We are there to support Canadians with disabilities. Why is the NDP not allowing us to move forward on debating and voting on this important legislation? +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 43 seconds for a question and an answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, that's the exact problem with the Liberal proposal. It's a tax credit approach, which excludes the vast majority of Canadians living with disabilities. That is the wrong approach. We made it very clear that if the government extends the CERB, if it ensures there are no penalties on those who are desperately in need of help and if it helps all Canadians living with disabilities, we will move forward. Will the government do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I have said from the beginning, we look forward to continuing to work with the members opposite to keep moving forward to help Canadians. However, we need the opposition parties to actually choose to help Canadians and not to play political games. I hope we're going to be able to actually have a debate and a vote on this important legislation this afternoon. +The Chair: We're now going to take a short pause to allow staff to change up in a safe way respecting COVID-19 procedure. The floor now goes to Mr. Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, can the Prime Minister tell us whether we will have an economic update by the end of June? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is of course very important to be transparent. When the situation is stable, we will have +The Chair: Once again, the floor goes to Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, most of the provinces in Canada are working on tabling economic updates by the end of June. Why is the Liberal government unable to do so as well? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I understand the importance of transparency and that is why we are trying every day to explain our investments to Canadians and to continue to be transparent with them. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Liberal government announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending during the pandemic, but it still refuses to provide an economic update in order to be transparent with Canadians. In times of crisis, monitoring the situation is more important than ever. I repeat my question: why does this government not want to table an economic update by the end of June, when the provinces are doing so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Every day, we explain the economic situation, our investments, the changes we are making, and our programs to improve the situation of Canadians during the pandemic. We will continue our approach to being transparent. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Parliamentary Budget Officer himself does not understand why the federal government cannot deliver an economic update when the provinces can. Why are the government and the minister defying the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent officer and is requesting an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach, which is one of transparency. We know that it's very difficult to make projections given the very dynamic nature of the situation. We think our approach of providing information daily is appropriate and we will continue to be transparent about our investments. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That is incredible. When we listen to the minister and the Prime Minister talk, you would think we were in the pesky terrible twos phase that children go through, when they keep saying no, no, no. I find it funny that the provinces are able to table an economic update in a crisis situation. The opposition parties are asking for it, as are experts and officials. When the time comes for the government to listen to the scientists, it has no problem doing so. However, if people do not think like the government, it ignores them. The provinces are doing it, the opposition parties are calling for it and the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. Why will the Minister of Finance not table an economic update so that all members of Parliament can do their verification work? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I will continue to provide daily information on our measures and investments. Projections are clearly very difficult to make. However, when the situation is more stable, we will be able to provide more information to Canadians. In the meantime, we will be adapting to the situation on a daily basis and making sure that we have the information we need to make our decisions and to make sure that Canadians understand our situation. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 45seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, one month ago, the Prime Minister announced with great fanfare that the eligibility criteria for the $40,000emergency loans for businesses would be more flexible to help self-employed entrepreneurs and businesses that pay themselves dividends to have access to them. However, as of todayit has been four weeks since that announcementbusinesses are still banging their heads on the doors of their financial institutions. They do not have access to the information because it is not available on official websites. In addition, even senior officials confirmed to me during a technical call on June2, last Tuesday, that this information would not be available for several weeks. Can the Minister of Finance, who says he wants to act quickly to help our businesses, explain why, after four weeks, it is still not possible to get the information the Prime Minister promised us from his doorstep? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been listening and responding to small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country. In fact, we have even announced the expansion of the program's eligibility criteria to include many owner-managed small businesses with payrolls of less than$20,000. The new criteria have forced financial institutions to adapt to be able to provide this program to new applicants. We are working around the clock to ensure that we are able to promptly provide small businesses across the country with the assistance they need. +The Chair: We will now proceed to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison (Niagara West, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's unemployment rate stands at 13.7%. That's the highest it's been in almost four decades. Many industries, like travel, hospitality and tourism, are getting crushed. We rely on a lot of hospitality and tourism in my riding of Niagara West. Can the government tell us what their plans are to help the travel, hospitality and tourism industry that so many of my constituents depend on? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his important question. I had a good conversation with the mayor of Niagara Falls recently, and we believe in the importance of the tourism sector. That's exactly why we've extended the wage subsidy until the end of August. There is the CEBA loan, the $40,000 loan. There is also spending through FedDev in my colleague's region. If he has clear, specific projects in the tourism sector that he needs help with, I would ask that he please come and see me and have a conversation. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, the message from the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Perrin Beatty, and also other industries, is that we need a clear and coherent plan from this government because there's a whole hodgepodge of regulations and confusion about what's going to happen through the strategy. What I've told the government is that we need a strategy to reflect local conditions that is consistent and has a clear timeline so that businesses can begin to open safely and with confidence. What is the government doing to make this happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we absolutely agree. It is important for businesses to have an understanding of the programs that we've put in place. We have been consulting with businesses on the appropriate way to extend the wage subsidy so that we can continue to support businesses as they turn towards a safe restart. We've also looked very carefully at how we can ensure that the programs that we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, this government has come way short of meeting the Canadian demand for personal protective equipment. Some equipment procured from overseas has been substandard and couldn't be used. Because of the shortage, in my riding of Niagara West, dentists have to pay up to 10 times the amount for an N95 mask. Compared to early March, when will the government finally begin to produce enough PPE in Canada to meet Canadian demand? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. We have mobilized over 700 Canadian companies to help them retool and rescale their efforts to make more personal protective equipment in Canada as part of a made-in-Canada initiative. We're going to continue to work with industry to build up domestic capacity. +Mr. Dean Allison: Global News is reporting that Canada is struggling to secure a reliable source of PPE. What's the evidence of this? We know that the government procured 10 million substandard N95 masks that couldn't be used. Masks were sent back to suppliers for having flaws. We received mouldy swabs to be used in COVID-19 tests. Planes are arriving empty that should have been filled with PPE, and we received less than 5% of our total order of gloves. It's clear that Canada needs to rely on Canada for PPE. When will this government finally begin to take PPE equipment issues seriously and make enough in Canada to meet demands by Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member's questions were tainted with inaccuracies. Regarding the flights that returned from China without federal cargo, Air Canada did reimburse the federal government for that amount. In addition, with regard to the N95 masks that were referenced, the Government of Canada will not pay for masks that it does not use. Furthermore, as my colleague Minister Bains just stated, we are mobilizing and retooling the domestic industry. Over half of the face shields that we have received were produced in Canada. +Mr. Dean Allison: At a time when the Prime Minister has ordered Canadians to stay home and businesses to remain closed, at a time when Canadians have had to say goodbye to their relatives over Skype, at a time when Canadians are not allowed to get married, at a time when Canadians are being fined for taking their kids to the park, at a time when restaurants are being fined $800 for allowing customers to eat outside and not being socially distanced, in these times, the Prime Minister's son attended a mass gathering with thousands of people while not socially distancing. Mr. Chair, why is it that there seems to be one set of rules in this country for some people but a different set for the Prime Minister? Why the double standard? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as the member knows, this country has been gripped with the need to stand up with one another to fight the experience of racism that so many Canadians live with and that so many of our American cousins live with. As the member knows, local public health sets advice for regions that he specified, and I would encourage all Canadians to check with local public health advice before they resume activities. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu (StevestonRichmond East, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many Canadian veterans are noticing that medical providers are increasing their costs. Everything is more expensive these days, including medicine, etc. It can take upwards of a year for Veterans Affairs to adjust their rate scale to compensate, and they do not allow for retroactive reimbursement. What are the government's actions to alleviate this hardship for our men and women who stood guard for this country, our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Chair, the fact is that when we inherited the government, Veterans Affairs needed a lot of support from government. In fact, at that time, we invested $10 billion to make sure that Veterans Affairs was put in place and that we could provide the appropriate supports for veterans, like the pension for life, the centre of excellence on PTSD and the chronic pain centre of excellence. All of these things are so important. We have to realize that with government previously +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister, for answeringor respondingto my question, although that really did not provide an answer, in my humble opinion. Part of the side effect of spending hundreds of millions of dollars is inflation. My constituents in StevestonRichmond East are overwhelmingly finding this government's support for seniors inadequate. The opposition has put forward clear proposals, such as a one-time tax-free withdrawal being allowed for an RRSP or a RRIF. So far, the government has not taken any action on this. Why is the government ignoring suggestions to help Canadian seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want seniors to know that they are not alone. To help preserve their registered retirement income fund assets, we are reducing minimum withdrawals by 25% for 2020. We're also providing direct financial support so that seniors can get the help they need now. As the market is volatile during this time, we continue to look at all ways that we can best help seniors during this difficult time. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Mr. Chair, the Hong Kong government has arrested 9,000 civilians just in the past year. This is equivalent to the arrest of 42,000 people, proportional to Canada's population. It is anticipated that more unjust incarcerations will occur as Beijing imposes the national security law in Hong Kong. Has our government started preparing a list of names for Magnitsky-style sanctions, yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, as we have said, we and our allies are deeply concerned with Beijing's decision to impose a national security law on Hong Kong. With hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in its stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. The proposed law would also undermine the one country, two systems framework. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: I thank the minister for responding. Again, however, words are not enough. It's time for action, because the Chinese embassy has said, in response to Canada's expressed concern, that they deplore, reject and condemn our response and our concerns thus far. What are the conditions for this government using Magnitsky sanctions should China continue to incarcerate Canadians and jeopardize the human rights of its citizens? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we have been very clear. We will continue to encourage all parties to engage in peaceful and meaningful dialogue to address the legitimate concerns expressed by the Hong Kong population. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +The Chair: Mr. Chiu, we have about 22 seconds, so you have time for a very quick question and hopefully a very quick answer. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Okay, here's a quick question. The Communist Chinese government has lied about COVID-19. They have issued statements against Canada and they have yet to release the two Canadians being held hostage. My constituents are concerned over this. When will this government listen to Canadians and call for a stronger, more effective and truly independent international investigation into COVID-19's origin? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 22 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a global pandemic, COVID-19. It is critically important that all countries in the world work together in a transparent, open and respectful manner so that we understand what is going on and how we can bring it to an end as quickly as possible. +The Chair: The next question will come from Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (RenfrewNipissingPembroke, CPC): Mr. Chair, if the government orders someone who has been exposed to a confirmed COVID case into a 14-day quarantine, why won't the government allow them to take an antibody test to lift the quarantine so they can go back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite may or may not know, testing strategies are determined by provinces and territories. Furthermore, the testing of a particular person has to be done at the right point in time +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, there have already been some tests that have been approved. My friend and colleague here, Colin Carrie, from the constituency of Oshawa, has a constituent who has a test. It's 90% accurate and it's being sold to the United States and other countries. Why won't they provide a DIN number to it so that Canadians have access to it as well, regardless of which province or territory they live in? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member is talking about two separate things. Any test kit that would be approved by Health Canada would be accessible to wherever that company chose to market that test kit. Furthermore, it's really important that test kits that are approved by Health Canada be accurate and have been tested with rigour with regard to their ability to provide credible and accurate information to the people who are using that test. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, the test has proven to have an accuracy rate of 90% in identifying whether or not an individual has antibodies. Why won't she allow it to be used here? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am happy to follow up with the member opposite's office when she is able to provide me with the name of the company. As you can imagine, there are many vendors trying to +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: How long will it take for an antibody test to be approved by this government once you have the name of the company and the test and the evidence in front of you? +The Chair: Before we go to the honourable minister, I just want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the chair and not directly. Go ahead, Minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have an expedited process that could be completed in as little as five to seven days, depending on the accuracy of the test and the information supplied by the vendor. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, will Health Canada use reputable data from other countries to speed their determinations about antibody effectiveness, or just continue to withhold access? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Canadians expect us, at Health Canada, to ensure the accuracy and the safety of all equipment approved for use in Canada. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chairman, if the minister can approve tests and studies within five days, why is it taking over 30, over 60, or over 90 days to approve an antibody test that exists? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I appreciate the member opposite's interest in urgent and quick approvals; however, sometimes, depending on the company, there may be further questions and further tests that need to be run to ensure the accuracy or safety of that equipment. Should she wish me to check into the process for a particular +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Have officials provided the government with a target for a daily antibody test to complete an initial survey or the initial phase of a study? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is talking about the work of the immunity task force, which is, as you know, a group of scientists who have been funded by the Government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, would the minister please provide the names of the people on the task force to which she just referred? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I will forward those names to the office of the member opposite. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: I hope that will be within the next two days or so, and not wait until after the crisis has passed, Mr. Chairman. Why isn't the Prime Minister showing as much fervour for antibody testing as he is for getting a vaccine on the market? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I reject the premise of that question. In fact, the Prime Minister has shown fervour for all aspects of dealing with the coronavirus from the very inception of the virus on the world stage. To allege otherwise is quite disingenuous. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): When will the government give the Auditor General the funds she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): First, Mr. Chair, I would like to offer my congratulations to the new Auditor General for her appointment. On behalf of the government, I would also like to offer her our full support and collaboration +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: I share the minister's wish to congratulate the new Auditor General on her position. I will now ask him again when he will give her the funds she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, her role is essential to our democracy. We are eager to work with her. She's more than welcome to share her concerns directly with the government. I can assure her that my +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I didn't ask him if he would like to work with the Auditor General. I asked him if he will give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government has added 38 permanent staff positions to her office, while the Conservative government, under their leadership, cut the funding for more than 60 +The Chair: We'll move on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, through you, I caution the minister to not mislead this House. If he will look at the committee transcripts of the time, he will know that it was the Auditor General's decision to reduce their own budget. The Conservatives did not cut positions. That is a matter of fact. The point is that the Auditor General now does not have the money to do her job. She has cut performance audits and she has stopped work on performance audits. When will this government give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: With us, it was 38 new positions, Mr. Chair. With them, it was 60 positions fewer. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this government has drastically expanded its spending and is avoiding accountability in every way it can. The finance committee yesterday, with the support of Liberal backbench MPs who are on that committee, unanimously passed a motion to fund the Auditor General in full so that her office can do her job. If this minister will not listen to me, will he at least listen to his own backbenchers? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government is fully committed to supporting the important and ongoing work of the Auditor General, an independent officer of Parliament. If the Auditor General identifies the need for additional resources, we will work with the Office of the Auditor General to ensure that they have all the resources they need to continue fulfilling their mandate efficiently and effectively. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, the Auditor General has consistently, since 2018, told this government that the office doesn't have enough funds. It's not a mystery. The Auditor General has told the public accounts committee that it cannot do its job. It's the first time in history that the Auditor General has had to tell public accounts that they don't have the resources to do their job. It's not a matter of if the Auditor General needs more funds. The Auditor General couldn't be more clear. When will this government actually do the right thing and fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, maybe I'm not making myself clear in English. I will switch to my native tongue, French, in case it becomes clearer. If the Auditor General identifies a need for additional resources, we will work with her to ensure that her office can continue to deliver its mandate efficiently and effectively. In addition, our government worked with the Auditor General to increase funding in 2018-09. With this increase, the office was able to add the equivalent of 38new full-time staff to its team. That's 38more employees +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this isn't an if situation. The Auditor General has already told this government that her office does not have funds. This has been ongoing since 2018. I would ask the minister to please stop with the platitudes and actually just say yes or no. Will the government give the Auditor General the money that the Auditor General has already asked for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we have already increased the budget of the Office of the Auditor General in the 2018-19 period. +The Chair: Before we continue, we're going to suspend for a second to bring in the next chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): There's a point of order. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Madam Chair, I know that no member would knowingly mislead the House. No member wants to do that. It's always customary to give members a chance to correct the record, so I call upon the minister to do so now, and perhaps even the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister misled the House in his response to a question. I have here the transcripts of the public accounts committee, and they will confirm that the +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): This is beginning to sound a bit like debate. We will proceed. Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. First, I would like to take this opportunity to say hi from Portugal. I would also like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague and friend, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. Obrigado. While Quebec estimates its additional health care costs related to COVID-19 at $3billion, Ottawa is transferring around $115million, which is not even4%. Does the government recognize that this is clearly insufficient? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, as the member opposite knows, we invested an initial $500 million in transfers to the provinces and territories to manage the extreme pressure put on health care systems as a result of their supporting people living with COVID and in preventing COVID. We want to thank the provinces and territories for their work, and as the member opposite knows, we will continue to be there for the provinces and territories. This is a significant transfer, and we think +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, the minister says that this is a substantial transfer. Yes, it is a lot of money. The government is giving about $115million to Quebec, but that is not even 4%of what is being requested. Does the minister recognize that much more is needed? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have been working with the provinces and territories from the beginning to respond to the crisis. We have increased health care transfers, provided medical protective equipment and responded to all requests for assistance. We have been able to make so much progress in the fight against COVID-19 precisely because of this co-operation. Stirring up an imaginary quarrel between the federal government and Quebec +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, it isn't about squabbling, it's about needs. The share that the federal government is giving isn't enough. We should act now, before we see a possible second wave. What we're seeing today are the results of massive disinvestment by the federal government in health care. This isn't good enough. The government must act quickly. Can the government commit to better funding to the health care sector and to organizing a meeting with Quebec and the provinces on this exact topic, in September at the latest? We can't afford to wait. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister's response will have to be brief. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, with respect to the transfers to provinces and territories, the member opposite knows that our government, in our last mandate, significantly increased transfers to the provinces and territories for health services, including mental health and home care services. In fact, the funding we're providing is in addition to the $40 billion that was transferred +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. Tudo bem? Tudo bom? Today in La Presse, we learned that the government has extended its military presence in long-term care homes. Can the minister confirm this information, and can he also confirm that the presence of these 500soldiers is indeed in response to a request from the Government of Quebec? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, let me assure the member that when Quebec made a request for assistance at the beginning of April, we answered the call. When they asked for an extension of that, we said we would continue to provide that assistance. I had a conversation today with Minister Guilbault, my counterpart in Quebec, and we have renewed our commitment to continuing to provide assistance. That assistance can take additional forms and can include involving the Canadian Red Cross, but we remain committed to providing the assistance that Quebec needs. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: If I understand correctly, negotiations are still under way with the Government of Quebec, even though it needs these soldiers. The mission ends Friday. This isn't really the time to negotiate anymore. We have to make sure that the military will stay in our long-term care homes as long as we need their services in Quebec, and until new attendants have been trained. Can the minister confirm that the mission will indeed be extended? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to assure this House that we have assured Quebec that the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to provide support until such time as other trained professional people are able to do that job. We're working very hard with the Province of Quebec. We're working with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross. We will be there for Quebeckers because they need our help, and as long as they need our help, we'll be there to support them. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: This isn't the time to play cat-and-mouse. The only thing we have to do is to give the Government of Quebec what it's asking for. Quebec pays 23%of the army's budget, so Quebeckers are entitled to this support. Quebec has more than 5,000deaths from COVID-19, 90%of which have been in seniors' residences or long-term care homes. The military's presence is vital because they play an extraordinary and essential role. Will the minister commit to extending the mission now and putting an end to this uncertainty? It's certainly bad for both the military and the health care workers, who rely on this support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 10seconds. +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Madam Chair, let me be very clear. We have made a commitment to the Province of Quebec that we will continue to provide that support until the middle of September, exactly as they have requested, but we are also working to ensure that we have an sustainable, effective solution to the request that Quebec has made, so we're working with the Province of Quebec, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross to ensure the help that is needed is there. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Bryan May. +Mr. Bryan May (Cambridge, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure and an honour to be with you all today. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member of Parliament for Scarborough North. Madam Chair, COVID-19 continues to create challenges for all Canadians, including those with disabilities, and exacerbates those experienced by Canadians with disabilities. As we mark the end of National AccessAbility Week, I would like to remind our colleagues that our commitment to making Canada more inclusive and equitable is ongoing, including our passing of the Accessible Canada Act. Would the minister inform the House about the government's plans to support Canadians with disabilities who are experiencing increased costs due to COVID-19? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Madam Chair, last week was the first National AccessAbility Week that was legislated under the historic Accessible Canada Act, and I thank every party in this House for the consent they gave to that legislation. I'm hoping we have the same spirit of camaraderie for people with disabilities this afternoon. Since the beginning, Madam Chair, we have taken a disability inclusion approach on how we support people with disabilities in this time of pandemic, including the establishment of our COVID-19 disability advisory group, which has given us invaluable advice. I thank them so much for their contributions to our efforts. Last week we announced a suite of measures to support people with disabilities that complement existing measures that are in place. This includes a one-time payment of $600 to 1.25 million citizens with disabilities, which again is the subject matter of the legislation this afternoon, as well as a $15-million investment in an accessible workplace initiative that will ensure, moving forward.... We know that as we move back into employment situations it will be very tough for people with disabilities. Finally, there are five really exciting accessible technology initiatives, including working on point-of-sale terminals for Canadians who are blind or visually impaired. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You may have a very short question, Mr. May. +Mr. Bryan May: I want to take this opportunity to thank the minister and her department for all the work they are doing to ensure that accessibility is at the forefront of everybody's mind through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Chen is next. +Mr. Shaun Chen (Scarborough North, Lib.): Madam Chair, as humanity battles COVID-19, we are confronted by the stark realities of another disease. On May 25, George Floyd fell unconscious and died as a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. This all happened after the 46-year-old black man was handcuffed and put in a position where he could do no harm. In Canada, we have come a long way since Viola Desmond, yet there is much more to do. Anti-black racism is institutionalized, hidden under dominant narratives of a free and multicultural society. Hatred has no boundaries, whether it is against black communities or is anti-Asian sentiment fuelled by COVID-19. The question always is this: Who is next? We must all stand up together against hatred and for justice and reconciliation, to dismantle systems of oppression that long remained unquestioned. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that Canada is failing black youth, creating the conditions that push them into the justice system. To the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, my question is this: What is the government doing to address the unique challenges faced by black youth? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, the member for Scarborough North is absolutely correct. We must all do what we can to stand up against hatred and injustice. We often say that today's youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today, so we need to equip them for success by investing in youth. According to the 2016 census, black Canadians accounted for 1.2 million people, and more than a quarter of that population is under the age of 15. Socio-economic gaps, such as in employment and education, exist between black and non-black youth. We need to do better. Our government has brought forward youth so they can inform the decisions we make. We have Canada's first youth policy, and it was created by youth for youth to ensure that all young people are equipped to live healthy and fulfilling lives, and are empowered to create positive change for themselves and their communities. Our government launched the community support for black Canadian youth program, which supported 56 projects geared to address the unique challenges faced by black Canadian youth through the development of leadership skills and civic engagement, while empowering them through the promotion of black history, culture and identity. To address the challenges of the pandemic, our government has implemented a suite of measures designed to help youth and students, including with employment and service opportunities. My office is working with community organizations who serve black youth to make sure they too are both aware of and benefiting from these measures. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Mathyssen is next. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for TimminsJames Bay. Schools in many provinces remain closed, and many child care providers want to reopen. They must reduce their capacity due to COVID-19. Now more than ever we need universal, publicly funded child care to restart the economy. Will the government bring in legislation that would enshrine into law access to, and federal funding for, quality affordable child care? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Madam Chair, we are, of course, committed to investments in child care. We have constantly worked with provinces and territories to ensure that we provide the supports they need to provide quality, affordable and accessible child care. Since 2015, we have created over 40,000 child care spaces. We are committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: The government doesn't seem to understand that this is not universal child care. During COVID-19, women have lost the majority of jobs, and they have taken on the majority of additional child care responsibilities. Canadian women want and need to return to work, but this government doesn't understand that without affordable child care, they simply cannot re-enter the workforce. For 26 years, Liberal governments have been promising, but failing to deliver, a universal child care program. Parents are paying the price. How much longer do parents have to wait? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the important question. Since 2015, we have created 40,000 affordable, accessible, quality child care spaces across the country. We are on track to continue to invest $7.5 billion over 11 years to create additional child care spaces and support provinces and territories. We're constantly in touch with our counterparts to work to strengthen that sector. We are also keeping our promise and our commitment to create an additional 250,000 spaces. We will be there for parents as they get back to work, and we will continue to reinforce the early learning and child care sector. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You have time for a very short question, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Without universal child care, we are crippling our economy. We are not providing an affordable system, and this stops women from returning to work. Instead of helping parents return to work, the government is now bringing forward legislation that's penalizing them. Why is the government looking to sentence mothers and fathers to jail time and large fines when they cannot find the child care that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister has time for a short answer. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: We are committed to the early learning and child care sector. We will move forward with the creation of an early learning and child care secretariat. We will continue to invest in this sector. We recognize its importance. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. It's an honour to be here, and I'm hoping that you and your family stay safe at this time. COVID has shaken up Canada's middle class, so my question is for the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. This morning I spoke with a businesswoman. She runs her own business, a travel agency, but because of COVID she has been wiped out. She's on CERB, and it's ticking down. There's no work to go back to, so in four weeks she hits the economic wall. Will the minister fight for an extension of CERB so this woman can stay in the middle class? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we know how worried Canadians are as they see their final four-week period of the CERB approaching, and we're working very hard to ensure that the CERB continues to serve an important purpose as we move into economic recovery. I'll note that when we created the CERB, there was a different purpose in mind. We were asking people to stay home. Now we're asking people to go back to work if it's safe for them to do so. We're going to make sure that the wage subsidy and the CERB complement each other. In fact, the measures in today's legislation will help us to get the flexibility to be able to do just that. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We did give you a little more time. We will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus: Thank you for that. What I've seen with their legislation today is that they're talking about jailing people. We need a Minister of Middle Class Prosperity in a time of middle-class disparity, and she has talked about middle-class criminality. Let's talk about this again, about people going back to work. I spoke with a 51-year-old bartender. He's a professional; this is his job. There is no job to go back to. Will the minister assure us that this man will be able to stay in the middle class because the CERB will still be there in July, yes or no? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we've been helping Canadians by putting programs in place. We will continue to support families during the crisis, and afterwards as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Angus, you have time for a very short comment or question. +Mr. Charlie Angus: The issue here is that when COVID hit, millions of Canadians were living in such precarious working conditions that they didn't even have enough money to pay their rent. That is a damning indictment. In four weeks, those Canadians are going to hit the economic wall again. What I need to know from the minister, and what Canadians need to know, is whether she will commit, yes or no, that the CERB will be there for those who have no work to go back to. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer. +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have been helping families with a supplement to the Canada child benefit. We have put in place the Canada emergency response benefit. We will continue to find ways to support Canadian families during this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cooper. +Mr. Michael Cooper (St. AlbertEdmonton, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. It was all the way back on March 25 that the Minister of Finance stated that help for the energy sector was coming within hours, possibly days. Well, as it turns out, it hasn't been hours. It hasn't been days. It hasn't even been weeks. Indeed, months later, help has yet to arrive. Seventy-seven days after the minister made that statement, not a single energy company has received financing under EDC, the BDC, or the LEEFF program. As the energy sector faces an unprecedented liquidity crisis, how can this government possibly justify such a delay? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Madam Chair, weeks ago we opened applications through the business credit availability program to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We've also opened applications for measures that will be available to our larger players through our LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry. We will continue to support workers, and we will continue to do so to get through this unprecedented challenge. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, on June 2, the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said, The entire industry is frustrated with the delay that we are facing. The Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and Resources has spoken about a gaping hole that exists in terms of support for the energy sector. The gaping hole that I'm speaking of is the EDC and BDC programs that this government has failed to deliver upon. Indeed, it was on April 17 that those programs were announced, and 54 days later, not only has not a single energy company received financing, but guess what? They can't even apply, and the eligibility criteria have yet to be finalized after 54 days. If that is not failing to deliver for the energy sector, what is? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Business Council of Alberta has said that the LEEFF program is a positive development showing that the federal government recognizes the needs and value of Canada's large corporations. We agree. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through two crises: the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war initiated by Russia and Saudi Arabia. That's why, weeks ago, we opened applications for liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We also announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry to make sure these programs are effective. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, contrary to the representations of the minister, neither the EDC program nor BDC programs are accepting applications. Just yesterday officials from both BDC and EDC were before the finance committee, where I posed precisely those questions to them. We know, Madam Chair, that the application process isn't up and running and that eligibility criteria remain to be determined, but I guess this government has some good news for the energy sector after 77 days. Now energy sector companies can go on the BDC website and apply for email updates. Is that the kind of help the Minister of Finance had in mind after 77 days: email updates instead of real relief for the energy sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Alberta finance minister, Travis Toews, said in a LEEFF announcement that in combination with earlier measures for small and medium-sized companies, it represented an expression of confidence in our industries. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through these two crisesas I said, the impact of COVID, and then on top of that, the effect of a global price war. We opened up applications for liquidity measures as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers asked. Their top five asks were all liquidity. We supported small and medium-sized players essential to the supply chain, who make up 85% of the jobs in that sector, and then we announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry and +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I now have to interrupt for a few moments to allow our technicians to change places. With that done, Monsieur Martel, you may now go ahead.. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): MadamChair, there has recently been positive progress in AndrGauthier's case, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Prime Minister for their co-operation in this matter. However, Mr.Gauthier is currently on his own in the United Arab Emirates, without a passport, waiting to settle civil lawsuits. What services does the minister intend to provide to help him, and when does he plan to repatriate AndrGauthier to Canada? +Hon. Marc Garneau: MadamChair, in all cases similar to Mr.Gauthier's, the Government of Canada, through its consular services, tries to do the best it can under the circumstances. This file is still active. +Mr. Richard Martel: The House recognized on February18, 2020, that the 15weeks of sickness benefits provided by employment insurance were insufficient. Citizens who became ill before March15 are now without help. They are being denied the CERB because they didn't lose their jobs because of COVID-19. They are being denied EI regular benefits because they are unable to work. In addition, some citizens are waiting for surgery, which is being delayed because of COVID-19. Is the government letting these people down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: No, MadamChair, that's absolutely not the case. Of course, we understand that people who are no longer receiving EI benefits should have access to the CERB. We have committed to extending the emergency sickness benefit to 26weeks. We're working with everyone here to make that happen. We're taking into account the needs and circumstances of all citizens in our efforts to help Canadians. +Mr. Richard Martel: I've called on the Minister of Economic Development several times to be more flexible in establishing these programs, so that they are better adapted to the realities of the regions. Recently, it was the SMEs in Montreal that were monopolizing the funds earmarked for the regions. When will the Liberal government listen to the needs of regions like SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for the opportunity to announce the good news that was mentioned on Radio-Canada this morning, namely, $71million more for the regions of Quebec. Of course, we're here for the regions. I will be happy to work with my colleague to ensure that the CFDC in his region can support businesses. We have to support businesses in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean and across the country. +Mr. Richard Martel: I think that's a canned speech. According to a survey conducted by the Universit de Trois-Rivires in Quebec, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is apparently the most economically affected by COVID-19. We have many projects, but they depend on the government's leadership to be carried out. Our region has forestry, the aluminum sector, GNL Qubec, tourism, the Port of Saguenay, Davie Canada, a military base and a tax centre. It's all here. We know we'll have to get the economy moving again soon. When will the government act to help our region? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Every day, we act to help my colleague's region. I've had good conversations with Promotion Saguenay. I've also spoken several times with various stakeholders in my colleague's beautiful region. We will always be there for them. I'd like to tell my colleague that there will be other announcements to support the economic development of the beautiful region of SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. I will be happy to work with him to achieve good results. +Mr. Richard Martel: Sustainable forestry development is at the heart of the economic development of Canada and for SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. Canadians have reason to be proud of the use of the boreal forest in the fight against climate change. Currently, our innovative forest industry is experiencing many problems, and on top of that, there is the COVID-19 crisis. Who will defend our forestry workers? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Of course, we believe in the importance of regional economic development. That's why we're always there to defend our forestry workers. I will also be pleased to work with my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, who is very familiar with the matter and who knows the challenges faced by the various businesses in the forestry sector, as well as the employees. We will always be there to support employees and create more jobs across Quebec and the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota is next. Go ahead, please. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. We continue to see significant gaps in the Liberals' programs. There are still people who are falling through the cracks and being left behind. We are hearing from women who are pregnant or who have just given birth and are being left out or told to go back to work. When will this government stop letting Canadians down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: We know that there are many situations of Canadians who are about to or are just going on maternity or parental benefits who might not have access to their EI benefits due to not having accumulated enough time for COVID reasons. We're working very hard to make sure, as we did for fish harvesters, that we support all Canadians in these situations. I look forward to advising Canadians of our approach on this very soon. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, that simply isn't good enough. This is something that has been brought to the government's attention for months now, and still nothing has been done. These families deserve answers now. Had the government conducted a GBA+ analysis, they would have discovered this prior to rolling out inadequate programs for women. Why wasn't a GBA+ conducted? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure everyone in this House that we are very aware and deeply concerned about the disproportionate impact of this pandemic on women and girls. We are working hard to ensure that everyone has the supports they need. As we move forward, we are, as I said earlier, taking into consideration improvements to the EI system, the wage subsidy and the future of CERB. All these play together as we work to provide a comprehensive forward-looking support package for Canadians. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, might I remind my honourable colleague that this Prime Minister said that every piece of legislation would go through a rigorous GBA+? Why was it not done? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we absolutely took into account the needs of women as we developed the CERB. I can tell you that women are benefiting significantly from this benefit. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, it is a simple question, and I will ask again. Why was GBA+ analysis not conducted for the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as I said, the needs of women and girls were taken into consideration every step of the way, from the beginning, as we worked to provide a comprehensive suite of support for Canadians across the country. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, if that's the case, then how did you miss these gaps? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we didn't miss gaps. We, from the beginning, looked to support as many people as possible. As we moved from supporting workers to supporting students to supporting seniors, and today to supporting people with disabilities, we are ensuring that everyone is covered by our measures. As this pandemic evolves and as we move into economic recovery, of course we're going to make sure that women in particular are supported in our measures. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, the minister needs to take the responsibility here. These women and families deserve answers. This is a real problem happening right now. You said you would conduct GBA+ analysis on all policy measures moving forward. Where is the assistance for these expectant mothers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I take responsibility. I'm very proud of how many senior women we have supported with our measures, how many women received the GST credit, how many women who lead families received the CCB one-time payment and how many women with disabilities will receive the disability support if we have all-party consent today. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, may I remind you to please direct your questions through the chair? +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, I will ask again, hoping for a straightforward answer from this minister. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: My goodness, Madam Chair. I'll say again how important it was from the very beginning that we took into account the needs of women and girls, and as we move forward into the economic recovery phase, how completely we make women at the core of every decision. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, you have 15 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, my question is still not answered. She keeps repeating the same answer. I'll keep asking the same question, hoping for a straightforward answer. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Honourable minister, you have five seconds. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we've taken into account the needs of women and girls from the beginning, and we'll continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We go now to Mr. Carrie. +Mr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): Madame Chair, on April 29 I asked Minister Blair why Lisa Freeman, a constituent of mine, wasn't able to participate in the Parole Board hearing of her father's murderer. The minister acknowledged that this had been a mistake and that victims would now be able to attend by telephone and video conference. Can the minister tell this House how many parole hearings have been conducted under this digital format with victims since April 29? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank my honourable colleague for the question. I'm glad to hear that Minister Blair was able to provide information on the specific case he raises. With regard to his question, we're happy to provide it to him in due course. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, on April 29 the minister said, and I quote, Steps have been taken to make it possible for victims to participate in those parole hearings virtually by phone or video conference. If the change has been made, can the minister please tell us how many hearings victims have been able to participate in by video conference? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, certainly we will confirm the number of hearings that may have occurred. With regard to the hearings under the Parole Board of Canada, we want to ensure that victims and others are able to participate in a fair and transparent manner. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, the website says, To protect the health and safety of the public, offenders, Parole Board...members and staff in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PBC is currently conducting its hearings remotely via video conference or teleconference. However, when referring to victim participation, the PBC says it has Implemented technological and procedural enhancements in order to provide victims...the ability to participate...via telephone. If video conference is an option for staff and inmates, why is it not for victims? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, it is very important that all parties be able to participate before the Parole Board. The Parole Board has introduced technologies to allow victims to participate in a manner that is fair and that accords them the opportunity to express themselves. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, the minister is missing the point. For victims, besides the criminal trial, the Parole Board hearings are the only chance to participate in the judicial process. Why are victims not permitted on the video conference, while staff, panels and inmates are? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said now on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in the hearings before the Parole Board. This is as a result of technology and innovations introduced by the Parole Board. Of course, those opportunities will continue to exist going forward. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Then, Madam Chair, why did the minister and this government tell Canadians and the House that victims of crime have the opportunity to participate in parole hearings by video conference, when in fact they do not? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said, of course we are going to confirm the status of that particular request. In the meantime, as I've said on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in these hearings. This is consistent with the fairness of those hearings and the due process we accord to them. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, it's been over a month. When will the minister finally give victims of crime the same right to parole hearings by video conference as he gives convicted inmates? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I reject that proposition. The Parole Board is a well-established tribunal that does allow for all parties, including victims, to participate in a manner that is fair, and that allows them to express themselves so those representations can be taken into account in the decisions of the Parole Board of Canada. +Mr. Colin Carrie: He can reject it as much as he wants, Madam Chair, but it seems he thinks it's fair that inmates have that right, but victims don't. We'll follow up with him on that. Brandon Hottot owns and operates a contracting business in my riding, and his company needs help. On May 19, the Prime Minister announced the government would allow sole proprietors and gig contractors to qualify for the Canada emergency business account; however, Brandon has still not been able to take advantage of this benefit. When can small business owners like Brandon expect this change to finally be made? It's been over three weeks, and the clock is ticking. +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Madam Chair, from the very beginning, we have been working hard to support our small businesses. Over 660,000 businesses today have received access to small business loans. I want to assure my colleague that additional support will be there within about a week. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Carrie, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Okay, Madam Chair. Shawn and Denise operate a gymnastics facility in Whitby and have been forced to close throughout COVID-19. As the economy begins to open, they are concerned about not having the money to pay their employees in the short term, especially at a reduced client capacity. Is the government extending the wage subsidy to small businesses that have been closed and are just beginning to open now? +Hon. Mary Ng: The wage subsidy has been extended until August 31. We hope businesses like that one will be able to take advantage of the wage subsidy to keep their employees on staff. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to put it on the record, because we may or may not be debating it, the draft embargoed bill that we've seen is unacceptable to members of the Green Party caucus. My questions will relate largely to those sections that are troublesome. I'll start with a question to the honourable minister for disabilities. I certainly appreciate her work and I know her intentions are the best, but part 3 of this bill allows for the information to be shared so people can get a one-time payment of $600, which is not enough to really deal with the COVID crisis for people with disabilities. It's clearand I thank the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party for making this point clearly in question periodit will reach approximately 40% of people with disabilities because of the structure of going through the disability tax credit. To the honourable minister, are other measures under consideration to reach the rest of the people in Canada with disabilities who need help? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, the disability support payment we are proposing and that we hope to get through the House today complements a whole suite of measures our government has put in place that people with disabilities have access to. We know that people with disabilities who were precariously employed are now taking advantage of the CERB. Students with disabilities get the student benefit, including a $750-per-month top-up for four months. Families with children with disabilities are getting the CCB payment. Disproportionately, people with disabilities are benefiting from the GST payment. I should talk about the provincial letters that are being delivered to recipients of provincial disability supports. All around, Madam Chair, we're trying to get to every citizen with a disability, and this measure fills an important gap. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Much worse than part 3, from our point of view, is the treatment of people who are at this point potentially to be jailed for refusing to return to work when it's considered reasonable and they are recipients of CERB. I wonder about the reasonableness here. It's a subjective test. This is a wrong-headed approach to go after people and threaten them. The retroactive section has already made the Canadian Civil Liberties Association question its constitutionality. To the minister, what's reasonable, and in whose eyes is it reasonable? In today's news, Hamilton's chief medical officer says there is a spike in cases among young people, who likely were exposed while taking public transit to get to work. Their commute wasn't safe. Who determines reasonableness in deciding it's not safe to go back to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as with the current CERB, moving forward it tries to encompass the situations of people who are unemployed, people who can't work because of child care responsibilities, people who are ill or sick. Moving to a broad term of reasonableness allows us to look at the individual circumstances of the person. If we stuck to language like suitable or appropriate, that would qualify the job. We're trying to look at the person and their particular circumstances as we work to ensure that if someone is immunocompromised and can't take transit to their job, then it's reasonable for them not to take that job. That's the exact example we're trying to encompass with broad reasonableness criteria. +Ms. Elizabeth May: The approach is so very flawed, Madam Chair, in that it attempts to punish people as opposed to encouraging them. I think the Liberals have been overly influenced by the Conservative Party's cries that there's vast fraud, that Canadians are cheating. The reality is that if you want to create an incentive to go back to work, you don't threaten people. What you do is create a sliding scale. You let people continue to receive CERB, but maybe less as they begin to earn more, so that you have a transition on a sliding scale to go into the wage subsidy or into CERB. I ask the honourable minister this: How can it be considered fair to say that someone isn't eligible, even though they believed they were? The language in this bill, particularly at proposed paragraph 12.1 in the penalties section, is an unreasonable determination that someone has violated the act and is subject to jail time and heavy fines. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, because of parliamentary privilege, I can't and won't speak to specific acts of a piece of law that hasn't actually been introduced in the House, but I'll tell you that what we're trying to do is enhance our integrity measures. We're working with those people who made an honest mistake, those who took advantage of returning to work when they were still receiving the CERB. We're working with those people. We're absolutely confident that those people will find a path forward. We want to deal with intentional fraudsters, people who are criminally taking advantage of seniors. Members of this House have brought fact patterns to my attention and have said, Please deal with these. This is exactly what we're trying to deal with, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be sharing my time with the member from EsquimaltSaanichSooke. Tourism is a critical part of the economy throughout my riding, and after struggling with years of forest fires and floods, tourism was set to have a record-breaking year in 2020, but the COVID epidemic has burned tourism to the ground, in the words of a local leader. Thousands of jobs have evaporated. Over half of the tourism businesses in the region are facing imminent insolvency. Many of them are small seasonal operations that don't qualify for any of the government's COVID support programs. While funding for ad campaigns is appreciated, these businesses need direct support and they need certainty about that support. Can the finance minister pledge now to provide direct and timely support to tourism businesses in my riding? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you to my colleague for his important question. I agree with him. The tourism sector has been deeply impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. Yes, we were looking forward to another record-breaking year in 2020, but unfortunately the pandemic happened, and therefore many businesses were impacted. That's why, as a government, we're there to help with the wage subsidy, which has been extended until the end of August, as the tourism sector has been asking us to do; with the CEBA loans, the $40,000 loans, which also include a subsidy; and with the commercial rent relief. That said, we know the tourism sector also sometimes falls through the cracks. That's why we wanted to have a backstop. We came up with funding through the regional development agencies. In my colleague's riding, it's Western Economic Diversification. Some businesses have applied and have received funding. If there are more that need help, please come and see me. I would love to be there to help your community, help tourism +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: A big part of tourism in my riding is the wine sector. One thing that has allowed the wine industry to grow so dramatically in the past few decades is the excise tax exemption. That exemption could likely end very soon if it is found to be non-compliant with our trade agreements. The industry has proposed a trade-legal replacement, the wine growers' value-added program. The finance minister has known about this situation for months. Can he assure this House and the industry that the government will act immediately to implement this program? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer, please. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work on this issue. We recognize how important the wine industry is in B.C., and I assure the honourable member that I will come back to him and give him an update. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Madam Chair, this is National Blood Donor Week in Canada. While blood and plasma donations are always important, during this pandemic they're critical. There's a simple and effective way to increase the blood supply: End the gay blood ban. More than 17 other countries have no deferral because they know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than identity-based exclusions. The Liberals must agree, because they promised this in two election campaigns. Will the Minister of Health do more than repeat those same promises today and instead take action to get this unscientific and discriminatory gay blood ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Madam Chair, I'm glad to be able to answer this very important question. We indeed want to fight against discrimination. We feel this particularly strongly in the context of the last few days and the last few weeks. We are also mindful of the important contribution of scientists and other experts in this area. We look forward to working with all members in this House in making progress on that issue. +Mr. Randall Garrison: The government knows I've been calling on friends, family and allies of the gay community to donate blood this week in the place of those of us who cannot. Not only do we need routine blood donations, but to do the research we need on possible prevention and treatment of COVID-19, we urgently need plasma donations from those who have recovered. This ban means that plasma donations are being rejected for no good scientific reason. Again, when will the Minister of Health act to get this ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Madam Chair, I think the member used the right key words in referring to science and more prevention work to make sure that everyone lives in dignity and safety. Although there has been progress in the last few months and years on this important issue, there is more work to be done. +Mr. Randall Garrison: Six years ago this week, I tabled a motion in the House that called for an end to this homophobic and transphobic ban on blood donations from gay men, men who have sex with men and trans women. That was five ministers of health ago. At the time, I was told certain things had to happen before the ban could be lifted. These were all due to be completed earlier this year, before the COVID crisis. Since we appear to have cross-party support for my new motion, M-41, that I put on the notice paper this week, would the minister and the government agree to support a unanimous consent motion to proceed with M-41 immediately? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a short answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Madam Chair. Homophobia and transphobia are examples of discrimination and absolutely important things not only to recognize but to fight against. That's why we are pleased to have voices such as the member of Parliament's voice to make sure that we make progress in making sure that everyone in Canada lives in safety and in dignity. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): MadamChair, I will share my time with the honourable member for LongueuilSaint-Hubert. As Quebec starts to gradually emerge from the general lockdown, the outlook for the recovery of the tourism industry remains bleak. The economy of several regions of Quebec depends on tourism to ensure stability and balance, which will be beneficial in the coming months. Is the Minister of Finance prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit beyond 16weeks to ensure a living wage for tourism workers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: MadamChair, as I said in English, we're working very hard to continue to be there for all Canadians, whether it's through the CERB or the Canada emergency wage subsidy. Please excuse me, I'm very tired. I'll continue in English. We're going to have news on this very soon, Madam Chair, but the point is that we want to make sure that all of these programs work well together, whether it's the wage subsidy or the CERB. We want to make sure that we incentivize work, but we still continue to be there for Canadians. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We read that the government wants to gradually replace the Canada emergency response benefit by using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. That's all well and good, but seasonal industries aren't entitled to it under the current criteria. If the minister is aware of the importance of the tourism industry in the economic cycle of our regions, he must commit to helping workers. If the clientele isn't there, the industry will simply no longer exist. We still need the Canada emergency response benefit. We simply need to make it an employment incentive so as not to hurt people who are lucky enough to be able to go back to work. The question is simple: will the government commit to renewing it? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we are working hard to make sure we continue to support Canadians as we transition through economic recovery. We want to make sure that we support Canadians, but of course we don't want to disincentivize work. The CERB was created for a different purpose. We asked people to stay home to be safe and to self-isolate if they had symptoms. We want to make sure that as we ask people to go back to work, we don't disincentivize work, but the reality is that there won't be jobs there for everyone, and we need to continue to support everyone. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): MadamChair, I join my colleague in extending my good wishes to you on Portugal's national day. Apart from the fact that it is probably the most beautiful riding in Quebec, the riding of LongueuilSaint-Hubert has surely been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, both in terms of health and the economy. There are industries here, but also many service businesses, including bars, restaurants and theatres. But we aren't close to being able to go back and see a show by WajdiMouawad or FredPellerin, and that's a shame. We must work to calm the anxiety of these people. The arts sector was the first to stop its activities and will be the last to resume them. There is a lot of anxiety. The CERB ends on July4. Will the government extend the CERB, with an employment incentive? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: MadamChair, I thank my colleague for his question and all the work he's doing in arts and culture. From the outset, we've been there to support our artists and arts organizations. We introduced the Canada emergency response benefit, for example, but also the emergency wage subsidy, which we made available to non-governmental organizations. To ensure that people who receive royalties aren't penalized under the Canada emergency response benefit, we have adapted it. We announced a $500million fund to specifically help the arts and culture sector. In fact, we understand very well that this sector has been severely affected by the current crisis. We've been there for our artists and artisans, and we will continue to be. +Mr. Denis Trudel: Perfect. Instead of giving a long preamble, I'll ask a very simple question: will the CERB be extended on July5? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has the floor. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member opposite that in July we will be there for Canadian workers. +Mr. Denis Trudel: In my riding, a nice little restaurant called Crpe Caf on St-Charles Street in Longueuil has just closed its doors. It's final; it won't reopen. Another restaurant owner told me that he was going to reopen his restaurant, but he didn't know at what capacity. Would it be at 15%, 30%, 40%? No one knows. The speed at which the economy will recover is the big unknown. How many hours a week will it be able to offer its employees? Will it be 12hours, 15hours, 22hours? Will employees even want to return to work to put in 12hours a week? If the CERB isn't adjusted, nothing will happen. Will the government commit to extending the CERB and providing an employment incentive to get the economy moving again at full speed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: MadamChair, I know, of course, that the restaurant sector has been much affected. I have a great deal of empathy for what entrepreneurs and my colleague are going through in his riding. That's why we are currently helping our SMEs. We have money for economic development. The money is available through Canada Economic Development, or CED. If my colleague wants to work with me to provide support to restaurant owners and other restaurants in Longueuil, I'd be very happy to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Madam Chair, last month, on May 5, I asked the government how it plans to support the agriculture sector. The Liberals announced a $50-million food surplus purchase program as part of the agricultural aid package. Now, one month later, our farmers, who provide the food we need, are still waiting on funds to be delivered. The New Brunswick potato industry is sitting on a massive amount of last year's crop that, because of the pandemic, has no buyers. When will the Prime Minister and the government step up and deliver the support our farmers so desperately need? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, without question we want to continue to support farmers. My colleague Minister Bibeau has introduced hundreds of millions of dollars for farmers. In addition to that, we have provided relief and support for migrant workers, who are ensuring that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, when support for the agriculture sector was announced on May 4, our agriculture sector had been sounding the alarm for weeks that they needed help to continue to meet Canadians' food needs. It has been over a month since that announcement, and our farmers are still waiting for help. It is worth noting, Madam Chair, that vegetables like the potatoes in New Brunswick that I previously mentioned are perishable products. Our farmers do not have the luxury of time. Again, will the Prime Minister and this government make agriculture a priority and provide them with the support they desperately need right now? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Madam Chair, obviously we believe in the importance of our regions and our rural communities, and that's why we've always made sure that agriculture was at the core of many of the decisions throughout this pandemic. That's why our colleague Minister Bibeau, who is the Minister of Agriculture, has been there providing the right liquidity and the right support through this pandemic. Of course we want to make sure that we continue to partner with provinces and territories, because we need their help in this context to make sure that all together we show strong economic support for our farmers, who are going through tough times. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: On May 1 the Liberals introduced a sweeping firearms ban through an order in council that outlawed 1,500 firearms. Recent reports show that since then, more and more firearms are quietly being added to the list of banned firearms, including many common hunting rifles and shotguns. Madam Chair, our hunters, outfitters, dealers and sport shooters are some of the most vetted members of our society. Why does the Prime Minister insist on making criminals out of law-abiding firearms owners instead of dealing with the criminals we already have? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I am very proud of this government's record when it comes to ensuring that we take out of our communities those guns that have one objective only, and that is to kill other people. We will always stand by that record, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to keep our communities safe. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, the Liberals have said that to compensate firearms owners, they will implement a national buyback program. Instead of targeting law-abiding firearms owners and their legally purchased private property, wouldn't the estimated quarter of a billion dollars needed to buy back these firearms be better utilized right now in supporting our agricultural sector, the very people who grow our food and literally keep our land? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, of course we look forward to saying more about that, but of course we remain committed to taking those guns that have only one objective, and that is to kill people. The legislation we have introduced and the measures we have taken are designed to keep our communities safe, and of course we will do that. We will also continue to support farmers, introducing hundreds of millions of dollars in support because we know they are providing Canadians with affordable food. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Bragdon, you have time for a short question. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, many sole proprietors have been hit extremely hard by this pandemic. My office has heard from many who have been in business for nearly 30 years and have submitted hundreds of HST returns, yet still cannot access the CEBA funding because they do not have a business chequing account, as a lot of small business owners use their personal chequing accounts to do their business. The Liberals offered aid to sole proprietors but attached unnecessary hurdles that prevent many of them from accessing the funds they desperately need to keep their businesses afloat. When will these unnecessary hurdles be removed so businesses can start to receive the relief they so desperately need? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will have a very short answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: We believe in the importance of making sure we're supporting our businesses, including sole proprietors. That is why our colleague, Minister Ng, the minister for small business, has been working on this and will continue to make sure we take the appropriate steps to recognize that. Meanwhile, people can definitely come to the regional development agencies if they don't have access to funding through banks, and that's a good way to make sure there is a backstop. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Please note that, pursuant to the Standing Order made on April20 and May26, the House has been recalled. Therefore, the committee will adjourn, and the House will begin sitting at 2:30p.m. The bells will be rung to call members, and a parade will begin the sitting. The meeting is adjourned. +","The Chair of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic called the meeting to order and discussed logistical issues related to participation in person and via video conference. Minister Bill Blair presented the 2019 annual report on RCMP's law enforcement justification provisions. Minister Harjit S. Sajjan tabled the 2018-19 progress report on Canada's national action plan for implementing UN resolutions on women, peace, and security. Various members presented petitions certified by the clerk. There were discussions on diverse topics such as protection of pollinators, southern resident killer whales, forced organ harvesting, the green new deal, universal basic income, gas fracking, elections in Guyana, and the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre. Statements by Members included gratitude to essential workers, homegrown innovations, community spirit, and regional achievements amidst the pandemic. Parliamentary members asked questions concerning the COVID-19 response, financial support measures, Parole Board hearings, tourism industry struggles, agriculture support, and the firearms ban. The committee adjourned as the House was called back to session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just forgot their name , so uh you're i sorry , I just forgot them all . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to write it down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fine . +Project Manager: Do you know them or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The names ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: For for for my sur um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Jens . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , but your b your surname . +Marketing: Uh Damman . D_ A_ W_ . +Project Manager: W_O_ da . Okay . +Marketing: Uh uh M_ M_ . I mean M_ . Double M_ . +Project Manager: Okay . And what's your name ? +User Interface: Paul Wiezer . Paul Wiezer . +Project Manager: W_I_E_S_ z Z_ or S_ ? +User Interface: A_ E_ Z_ zee zee +Project Manager: Uh uh zee {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: E_ R_ . +Project Manager: What's your name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh Martijn . +Project Manager: Yeah , but your surname . {vocalsound} Your surname . +Industrial Designer: What ? Uh Abbing . A_ B_ B_ I_ N_ G_ . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I was a little short on time , +Project Manager: Yeah , me too , so that's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , same here . +Project Manager: No no no , I just fi first my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Uh let's see . Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So let's have a look , we have forty minutes , so it's it's more than enough . {gap} Okay , perfect . So we have {disfmarker} Oh no , what's that ? So so we have uh forty minutes for this uh for this second meeting , and we have to make uh sure that we going t that we are sure , that we are , +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: that we know what we're going to make uh th what the product is going to like {disfmarker} look like . Uh first I have the notes of the last meeting , so I showed uh show them to you . Oh , sorry about that , I just escape this one . How do I escape this ? How do I I escape this s uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Uh left . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: And show , sorry . Okay , so let's have a look s at this one . Okay , so the f the f the points we had last meeting was the um {disfmarker} Should be a univ uh universal remote control {disfmarker} No , that's {disfmarker} I uh s I just got a email from the from the personal coach and it should be a T_V_ remote control only . So have you changed that part ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} yeah , it still has to be uh f a r a remote control for kids and elderly . It's it's still the same . Um {disfmarker} All these points uh we have to look at . You all know them . But uh there's another point . The um uh the main uh people of interest of this company are forty plus people . So they're old and not younger people . So we have to look at that as well . 'Specially old people , maybe bi bigger buttons or something , I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh so {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} yeah , that's it , so just you can do your presentation for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one first ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh it doesn't matter , just start with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Functional requirements , yeah +Marketing: Okay . Well my name is Jens Damman , but we're in a group , and I I will start it . Wait . Um I've used a marketing report on uh the site . Uh I think you've uh read it too . Uh and uh f and furthermore I uh surfed the o the other site . +Project Manager: I I didn't read i read it , so it's not for me , +Marketing: You didn't read it ? +Project Manager: I didn't get it uh anyway . +User Interface: No , I didn don't thing we got it . +Project Manager: It's only for you . +Marketing: Oh okay , I I was the only one who get it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay it was uh uh uh um um {vocalsound} a report about uh an experiment with uh a lot of users . And uh they had a lot of findings in their report uh with statistical uh uh uh thing uh with statistical uh proof . So I um I had three pages with findings and sev a lot of uh a lot of findings . So we can use this uh to uh create our own remote control . Uh seventy five percent of the users find uh most remote controls ugly . Yeah , I think uh uh that's a lot , so we have to make a beautiful remote control . Uh eighty percent of users would spend when uh a remote control will l uh look fancy . I think this fits uh at the {vocalsound} uh what what uh Michael said about uh older people . Older people will uh spend more money uh for uh something uh uh what's good . Because younger people are more critical uh about uh uh where they spend their money money at . Uh seventy five percent uh seventy five percent of the users say they zap a lot . Well okay , that's uh normal . I think uh we we have to make uh good zap buttons . But that's one of our requirements . +Project Manager: The last point is quite an interesting {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Um Martijn alr already said it . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: And uh maybe our uh fold open system is is a good one , but {disfmarker} I don't think it's uh +Project Manager: Yeah , we should have the ten percent on the on the top , +Marketing: reachable . +Project Manager: then you're you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , the ten percent on the top , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that's a good one . Um uh page two . Remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . That's exactly what we said about um maybe a home station for uh for it uh to uh recharge the batteries or something . Uh I thought mo maybe we could make a clap system , so when you {vocalsound} clap your hands it will beep or something . Uh you must find it uh quickly . +User Interface: Uh . Maybe just a button on the home station . So remote control beeps when you click that button on the home station . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Yeah , we can uh combine that . Uh it takes too much time to learn how to use a r new remote control . Uh I think we must t uh take a look at this . It's only uh th thirty four of the {vocalsound} thirty four percent . But it's uh a tough one . Because if we make a ha whole new product , our own style , we we c uh this is so difficult , uh a difficulty I think . Uh next , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . Yeah , but only if they zap a lot , and they watch over five hours T_V_ or something . I don't {disfmarker} We we haven't {disfmarker} Uh we mustn't look too much at uh the last point . Okay , last page . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the last uh experiment uh was about gadgets , like uh speech recognition . We didn't uh think about that already . And uh an L_C_D_ on the remote control . We already thought about that . Um uh they finally had a conclusion that younger people um uh under an age of f forty five are uh more interested in new features . And but they're more critical . And older people uh want to spend uh more money . {vocalsound} But uh they uh they don't want to uh have a lot of uh new features , because they're in their old uh thinking way . And they want to keep the old uh things the old things . {gap} +Project Manager: So we have uh a new uh age of forty plus . +Marketing: But y But you but you already said that the uh company was about uh forty plus uh clients ? +Project Manager: People . So yeah , so we just can skip the L_C_D_ r on the remote control , +Marketing: I I think we can speak , uh we can skip speech recognition uh directly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because it's not reachable for twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: It's too {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um then {disfmarker} I have my personal uh preference . Okay , that's {vocalsound} not very good , because I thought about television , D_V_D_ player , stereo and V_C_R_ . I had a question about . But it's already out of the question , this . Um my point is , well , I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If we ma uh make a a remote uh control for only television , I think it's hard to uh sell it for twenty five Euros . But it's the exercise . +Project Manager: Because it's too expensive . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: Yeah , only only for television uh {disfmarker} On the market you can now buy for twenty Euros a remote control for everything . And we only make it for television , so we mi mm we m must made it make it uh very special . +User Interface: Yeah , but good usability , so you can use it . +Marketing: Okay , I told about the home station . Uh it must be simple , because uh our the the elderly people uh needs to use it . And I I found a motto . And we put the fashion in electronics . And that's uh the motto we are uh referenced to uh for our uh our style . We we have to make a {vocalsound} a new product . We have to be um {disfmarker} Yeah . One of a kind , I think . +Project Manager: So it has to look uh uh uh unique , +User Interface: Unique . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The company is about our uh th th their own fashion , their own style . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But old people are not looking for that . +User Interface: Uh I think mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not really . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think the main thing is the usability , that's where we can uh make it a special product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: to k to keep it simple when you {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh we also have to stand out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I thought about it , yes . +User Interface: 'cause there are already , like you said , so many controls out that support lot of stuff . But we have to make sure that we're better usability , and stand out by just looks of it . So make it just a different colour or different shape , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , this was uh my presentation . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Paul , you can do the next one if you want . +Marketing: You can ask some questions or something . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah well {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: It's on the on the uh net net uh thing , +User Interface: There it is . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: Okay . Technical functions design . Okay , well , so we have s mm uh broad audience . Isn't {disfmarker} that isn't true anymore . But um we have elderly people , so we need to keep it simple . Uh the way I want to keep it simple is to use the sen uh standard . So standardised uh methods like uh on all uh remote controls . Not too full , like uh Jens already said , only ten percent is being used . +Project Manager: So what do you think of only the numbers and the on-off button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I have it on the next page . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But yes uh basic functions like numbers and that sort of stuff . Um so the options that we put on there should be easy to use , and 'cause you have more room then , and for elderly people big buttons . Uh an icon on it or text on it , so it's very clear what that buttons does . So it doesn't take much time to figure out uh how to use it . Um a way to find out uh what people use is maybe just to use uh questionnaires on the internet or just ask some random people , elderly people what they use , what they want on a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to find out . But there is already in a one done . Of functions I could think of . Uh volume , channels , the the basic according to {gap} . Just one two three etcetera . Uh text service options . Um basic on-off . And I found an uh {disfmarker} Could I think of favourites ? I always look up the same um pages on text and always have to click the number . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But if you could make a new option , that you just have to press one button and you get on your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you have to remember what favourite is what channel . So you might as well remember the number . Or not ? +Project Manager: Maybe i maybe it's too complicated , +User Interface: No y +Project Manager: but not sure {gap} . +User Interface: Well +Project Manager: It's a good idea , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} It was just a thought . So I'm , I u {disfmarker} I would find it handy , I think , when you just press one button and you get on six six six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . But um how can you remember what uh channel uh connects to what favourite button ? +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: what I was reading on the page . Uh a remote control just sends commands , basics commands to uh the television . So switch to channel six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: So uh button six says says six . And if you make favourites , it can say six six six in a row . Just numbers . That can be in the in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But uh uh for a user to to remember , if I press that button it goes to that channel . +User Interface: Well if you said a favourite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but isn't it hard to remember ? Like favourite one and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mayb for me it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well i +Project Manager: If I use my telephone , I never use those buttons to to to call sh Never . +User Interface: Never ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , neither do I . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh are you ? +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay now , m maybe not . +Project Manager: If I don't do it , maybe old people {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , maybe elderly people uh . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: They don't like new features . So maybe not . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um well play , pause . I dunno if that's usable +Project Manager: It's not , it's still not {disfmarker} It's not anymore n uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: when {disfmarker} Not anymore for T_V_ . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Right , on off . {vocalsound} I dunno , miss {disfmarker} Did I miss any other buttons , basic buttons ? I couldn't think of any other , 'specially not for T_V_ . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just on the front as well . No , that's the only th the only thing you need . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh the p uh next and previous . Previous I know , but next channel ? +User Interface: Just the channel um uh {disfmarker} What I mean is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't thi +Marketing: Forward . +Industrial Designer: Li like a web browser , +User Interface: Six seven eight or five . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Just very simple . +Industrial Designer: But uh um there's also a button to uh go to the channel you've been before . Like a web browser back button . +User Interface: Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +User Interface: I don't have {disfmarker} Uh I did {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know what it is , but I think it's all too difficult for old people . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: No . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think you use that . Y only when you want to go to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , just use uh when you wanna switch between channels all the time . +Project Manager: And how do you want to uh do it , like if you have a channel above ten ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Normally you can press one , zero or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think um f Especially for older peo elderly people use standard buttons . So you have that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A ten plus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the ten plus button . Just uh one one pressing , or quickly after each other . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: To just keep it simple and standard uh features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w wouldn't it be a problem to uh {disfmarker} Because you h have to be fast enough . Maybe the elderly people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah mayb +Marketing: It gets some seconds . +User Interface: But I think that's in the T_V_ as well . That's how the uh the T_V_ T_V_ handles it . But you can have a button that says um two two st two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's no it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have uh like a five seconds period to press those two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but that's th mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's what Paul says . It's not a remote control uh uh that um uh makes the T_V_ um do one two . It's the T_V_ who depends that it must be two seconds or three seconds or one second that you must uh type one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So if you have a universal T_V_ controller , you needed one button that has two uh stripes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have a a period of , I dunno , five seconds to press those buttons , and that {disfmarker} And not for elderly people to look , one two uh press and aim and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: But do we still need a two level remote control ? Because if we only have that l only f +Marketing: It's only for television now . +User Interface: So I I don't think so . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Uh I just thought of another one . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Most things in modern T_V_s are also on the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you also need a menu button . And then uh navigation uh {disfmarker} But we can integrate that with volume and previous and next , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you have +Industrial Designer: I I think you ha really have to divide between functions you often use , like um uh m maybe uh switch channels and uh volume and k that kind of things , and uh the menu button . +User Interface: four arrows . +Industrial Designer: Because you n almost never use menu button . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it's still still a good idea , I'm not sure . You'll also have to use a mute button to to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , a mute button . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Don't think so . +Project Manager: I don't know where where you have to put it . +User Interface: Yeah well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's that's {disfmarker} I think that's the layers that produce . Now I have to figure out what's uh what to put on . What we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: And later we can d uh do the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , uh now my personal preferences . Uh using the standards , basic {disfmarker} Um I think that we should stand out uh unique , being unique with the design . So we have to , I dunno , uh make a different shape than usual . So when you are in the shop and you see our T_V_ controller hanging , that it stands out . Not just in in the row when you see all the same uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . Does it have to be {disfmarker} Uh it has to be uh with different colours +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I dunno . Different colours um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can give it out in different colours . You can choose blue or yellow +Project Manager: It's like a iMac or something . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just to make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Well why not ? Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's fa That's fancy . That's uh fashion . +Project Manager: But it looks cheap as well , because it's a small thing . It's only twenty five Euros . It looks very cheap if you make it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , maybe you can look at uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Oh , you just {disfmarker} I dunno what happened . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Who ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to look at mobile phones , that's right . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they're uh designed very well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And well basically are the same , just a bit smaller . You think you can't make a T_V_ controller too small , 'cause then you will always lo always lose it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh well , I think that's a good example . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: we hurry up a bit , because otherwise we won't make it . +User Interface: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: Is it fin Are you finished ? +User Interface: Well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I I'm finished . I think we discussed everything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , the working design . The method I used is uh search the web . Just the web page provided . Um {disfmarker} Basically I'm I'm not very technical uh uh educated , but uh I could figure it out . Um basically what happens is you press a button , uh then a circuit gets closed by pressing the button , uh like a switch . And by closing that certain circuit , the chip knows uh what bu button is pressed . So like you press a one , that circuit is closed and uh {disfmarker} Then the chip produces a pattern . Like a Morse code to uh {disfmarker} And and sends that to the uh L_E_D_ . That's the uh light emitting diode , I think . Um and the light emitting diode is uh producing infrared light . That's un uh invisible to the human eye . And uh transmit that uh to the T_V_ . However it has also an uh a visible uh diode that's uh blinking red if you look in it . And that's uh another diode , I believe . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because infrared is not visible . So that's er uh do two different things +Project Manager: So we we also have to have a LED li LED light on it ? +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Yeah . I I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh j Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I'm not sure if it's the same thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's usable . +User Interface: Ain't it just to to indicate that it's transmitting ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's active . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just a green one , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} If you use it , it's green or the red , it's r green . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I think it's in the case that it's active . It's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , when you press it . +Project Manager: But if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I it's it's just uh the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red's l shows up like something's wrong , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: and green is like it's okay , you press the button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Maybe depends on uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ma on on most on most uh uh remote controls it's red . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we make it red . +User Interface: But maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: we don't have to make it red . Maybe integrate it in the design as well . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} The whole the whole uh remote control becomes uh green if you press the buttons . Uh that's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I think uh the batteries will be uh {vocalsound} a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Oh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Empty . +User Interface: maybe it's it is would an e No . Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we have a recharger in it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: If we can still make that then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't have to be red . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to indicate something's on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That it's working . That it's not not the batteries are low . +Project Manager: But it's cool if it was green . +User Interface: Yeah . It's it's not very important , +Project Manager: Green or red or whatever , it is cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know . Just to indicate it's working . +User Interface: So mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh the receptor in the T_V_ senses the pattern . So we have to understand what patterns are used to , you know , to make it universal . So that it can be used with all the T_V_s . We have to really understand what patterns are used , so we can uh o On the {disfmarker} Otherwise it won't work . +User Interface: So we have to uh make buttons for that as well , to make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . I I uh {disfmarker} The chip um uh is producing the pattern . So we have to make a chip that produces patterns to , y you know , to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An automatically search function for each television , or something . +Industrial Designer: That are working . Yeah , or {disfmarker} I dunno how it's uh exactly how it works . It wasn't explained there . +User Interface: Well , I I use a universal uh remote control , +Marketing: Uh I kno +User Interface: and {gap} list of all the T_V_s you have , etcetera . And you have to put in a number , so it works on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . +Marketing: Oh , I have a modern one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And the modern one you you uh you type uh search , and the LED began to blink blink blink . And uh uh uh after uh a short time the television turns off . And then you know , oh it it's the right one . And you can stop it , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: and then it's okay . So you don't have to search for your television or your code . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It uh search uh the pattern for itself . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: so we use that . +Industrial Designer: So it uh {disfmarker} We have to make a a s a bit more intelligent chip than the standard one . Because you have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just say {disfmarker} Can you s just say it again , because I was just looking {disfmarker} There's just a short {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . Well uh y you have this chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh when the circuit is closed , it produces the pattern . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh ma basically for uh brands of T_V_ these patterns are different . So like when you press a one on one T_V_ it go go to one . And on the other T_V_ it won't work , basically . So uh basically what you have to do is uh get these patterns right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh by d uh that can be done by uh just uh cha yeah , changing this pattern all the time . +Marketing: Changing the signal . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} What he's doing when he's configuring this pattern , this chip , uh is trying to switch off the television . And when it's uh switched off , you can push a button as uh it's working now , so {disfmarker} And then he saves that setting +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then um it's working . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the right uh option . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well uh the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a bit technical , and I hadn't {disfmarker} I w I was a little short on time . Um but I think I understand it . Um the energy source is uh the battery , basically . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um that's connecting to all the components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because it has to be fed with energy . Okay . Uh the subcomponent is uh w I I think it is uh the button pressed . So basically when you press a button , a switch get closed . Um that's connecting to a chip . So the chip knows what button you pressed . And the chip sends out uh the pattern to the infrared bulb . I didn didn't put the description by this one . Th this is a normal bulb . So the normal flashing light . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's the LED , L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and this is a LED too . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But this one is producing infrared light +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: that's invisible . And this one is producing normal light . +Project Manager: So we can make the normal one also a normal light . Not a LED light , but as a normal one . To flash up your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if you if you use the buttons , uh both of them works . But one you can't see and one indicates that you use a button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , presu Yeah yeah yeah . Because uh when you button press a button and it doesn't work , it can {disfmarker} Basically if the battery is low , it won't work . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe you have to uh put uh a small light around the button you push . So you see green if you push that button . +Industrial Designer: Huh , that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm I think it's unnecessary power uh you use then . +Project Manager: Yeah , but if you u if you do that , you know that you're uh sending a signal . +User Interface: No , y Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} you also know which button you p +Marketing: But then have to be on the in the all uh remote control have to be LEDs . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Everywhere in the r +Project Manager: But does it make any difference for the energy you use ? You got still one LED . +User Interface: No I don't think so , but {disfmarker} Yeah , i it it will look different , and I think we need to find something else . +Project Manager: That looks different , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise we will just make another standard , and our uh motto also is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is LEDs uh beneath the the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah , w around the buttons , or in the buttons even . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm like when you push it +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , then then won't {disfmarker} Then you won't see it . +Industrial Designer: n n Yeah . You have your finger over the button . So you can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: It must be around it then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or m maybe on top of the {disfmarker} A green light is flashing +Marketing: Yeah , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Not not not not here , but here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . There . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The same as a telephone , or a mobile phone , or what do you mean ? +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , we're thinking about it . +Project Manager: If you push {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh on a mobile phone , in the dark uh +Project Manager: It lights up . Everything lights up . That's a good idea . +User Interface: everything lights up . Why ain't that on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It it only takes a l a little energy and it's not that much . +User Interface: Yeah , if uh a mobile phone a phone can do it , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's a good idea for old people as well . +User Interface: Yeah , i if you're in the dark , you can't see the remote . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's only few LEDs . Only four or something . Four LED . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I dunno . But if we use a battery station , which I think we will use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea , okay . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We'll have enough power +Project Manager: Everything agre +Industrial Designer: to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Everyone agrees with that , or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Maybe what Paul said , uh under the {disfmarker} on the on the home station , uh a button to uh to call your uh remote control , that it beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then you {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But you have to make a sound device in it then . +User Interface: And also it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , there must be sound in it . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , it shouldn't take much {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . B maybe it's that that's a little too hard to make . Especially for that kind of money . Because it's i it has to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh , twenty five Euros , I think we can make it . +User Interface: Uh I th +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Production cost is uh t uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: Bec Twelve and a half , okay . But but we only have to make it for television , and um we must have something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: I think uh you also have uh {vocalsound} remote controls with a lot of options . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we lose about ninety percent of those options . So I think you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . We have to give our customers some extras . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we will save money with that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Are you almost finished or just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the personal preference , I didn't fill it out . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because I was short on time . +Project Manager: No worry . +Industrial Designer: But um {disfmarker} Basically what we could do too is uh have a Bluetooth uh integration . +Project Manager: Yeah , I just want to talk some {disfmarker} about some more . So maybe you have to {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . Wh what's that ? So uh {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . We have some new uh project requirements . We have to have a look what they are . They're still in um {disfmarker} Uh teletext has become outdated since the popularity of internet . So a teletext option , maybe we have to skip that one . I'm not sure . I don't think so , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I I think a lot of people use uh teletext , still use . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's it's on your comp it's on your television . It's only one button . So I don't think it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: We definitely should use it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh what I told you . The remote control should only be used for a television . So that's maybe easier . And um the the forty plus people , I already told you . Oh no , sorry . Oh , this is a problem . Oh sorry about that . The new product should reach a new market with customers are the younger than forty . So it should be flashy or just more interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Okay , that's {disfmarker} It changes things . +Project Manager: I'm sorry about that . I just I just didn't read it well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So does it make some decision about that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Changes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That kinda changes the whole situation . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well yeah , then we have to make some nice features . I think uh the thing in the dark is a good way , +Project Manager: That still stays . +User Interface: to make it more like a mobile phone . More modern . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's important I think and {disfmarker} +Marketing: L_C_D_ doesn't work for uh twelve and a half Euros I think . +User Interface: And I d I don't don't think it's very usable in a remote control , especially when you only have T_V_ functions on it . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ah {disfmarker} I I don't y you'll use it often , because you can see on the television wh what channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I'm watching uh the channel one . Okay . {vocalsound} No , it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I tho I think that's not usable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: So , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . What other features can we put in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think you you have to make it a bit flashy and and popular . And uh then the usability is not that required , because the {disfmarker} Like in the mobile phones , usability is not that good I think . +Marketing: But uh some of you had uh something to read about um {vocalsound} uh speech uh recognition . About you said one and the television turns on one . Is that reachable maybe ? +Industrial Designer: I didn't read {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's very {disfmarker} That's fancy . That's cool . +User Interface: It's very fashion . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read any +Marketing: Twelve and you've got twelve . +Industrial Designer: b Yeah . Yeah okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I know . +Marketing: Only the numbers , only numbers . Uh furthermore nothing . But only the numbers , one to twenty or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That should be cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to integrate that as well . If it's possible . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it's possible , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive actually . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: I dunno . I didn't read it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Why should it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if i if i +Project Manager: You only have a microphone in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't have information about that . +Industrial Designer: But it has to work . And and and does it have to work only in English , or in Dutch too or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah that's a problem , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And and uh w Yeah ? +Marketing: Uh only in English . Only in English I think . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} But uh I dunno how that works then . Uh does your uh {disfmarker} Does it lie in the centre of the room and can you scream from wherever +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's probably my job to figure that out , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh one to have in channel one ? +Marketing: No , that {disfmarker} Yeah , then th we have to think about that . But do {vocalsound} do we do it ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: It's more if we if we do it . +User Interface: I dunno . So , is it very usable ? That's what I'm looking at . +Industrial Designer: And and do you have to speak in in like in a thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's too hard to uh to realise that . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We have short time to to put it on the market , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +Project Manager: so that {disfmarker} We have to do a lot of testing before we can do that . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . {gap} +Project Manager: We make uh make uh , we can make th th the new remote control very flashy . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: In uh indeed uh the languages are a difficult thing . Uh because we we have a lot of languages . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I d Yeah . I don't think it's uh useful enough to take the effort to design something with uh speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: And and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and also if if you have a good speech uh speech recognition , you can just throw the uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A uh someone says that uh give me one Coke , and the T_V_ turns uh to one . +Industrial Designer: the remote away . Mm . Hmm . Mm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . Well yeah , +Marketing: it's not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's the right command . And then you have to say uh T_V_ channel one , or something . Not just one , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Hmm yeah , T_V_ one . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , but th that becomes your f Uh uh because that's very hard for uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Well I dunno . But I don't think , it just ain't useful enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have to make some decisions . So +Marketing: Okay , no speech recognition . +Project Manager: you can see on the uh {disfmarker} So we have to know what we're going to put on . Do we , do we make uh a light under the under the n under the numbers and everything ? Do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: If you press something , it lights up for a few seconds , so you can see what other but buttons there are , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , we just take that one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And what else , we have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Also the one in the dark . So uh {disfmarker} It lights up when it's dark ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} Oh th I thought would , that that would be the same . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you push something , it it all lights up . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it mustn't work all the time . +User Interface: Yes , that's what I mean . +Marketing: It uh uh it have to work only when you use it . +Project Manager: Or you can switch it on or something . +Marketing: So if you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe when you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , if you use one button , it must turn uh on for twenty seconds , and then it must turn off . +User Interface: yeah . It lights up all . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . You have to {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . That's what I said . It's the same as the telephone . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay yeah . D Yeah , alright . Yeah . +Project Manager: And do we use a a {disfmarker} Uh what's it called ? Like a iMac , {gap} if you can look through it . Or just a normal remote control . +User Interface: Maybe just as an option , w like we discussed , like iPod . +Industrial Designer: Mm , maybe it's a good idea . +User Interface: Different colours , uh maybe use even different fonts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh phones . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Different colours . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so y you just make it th through {disfmarker} You look through it ? +Marketing: A see-through . Mm , that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh as an option maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . And so the buttons we have , this is , yeah , this is normal . We put in the the simple buttons on the top , +User Interface: It's the standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and probably the the the more complicated buttons down there . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: But you have {disfmarker} You had a lot of different buttons . +User Interface: we but we don't {disfmarker} We don't really have any complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe you have you have to {disfmarker} Uh when you use teletec teletext , you can press a green or a red button to go to the next one , or to go to the previous one . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but {disfmarker} Yeah , well w I think the buttons are very easy . With just uh standard buttons we just have so little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O but maybe you can put um the g the options of teletext on the second level of the remote control . Because you ne almost never use it . +User Interface: No , I don't need don't need {disfmarker} Uh teletext options are only four buttons or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but younger people I think um more often use the internet and elderly people often use teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: I use teletext as well . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I use te teletext every day , I think . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . For me too , it is . So we just keep it one level then ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , one level . And I think , uh 'cause um we don't have that many buttons , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think the design is most important . You can d uh integrate the buttons in the design very much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause {gap} simple buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you put one above it , it's clear . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's it for toda for {disfmarker} We're going to have a lunch lunch break . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How long is lunch break ? +Project Manager: So yeah , you know what you have to do . This is uh this is it . You get your meal and everything , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Trendwatching . Okay . That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yo . +Project Manager: So , we're finished for t for this time . We're going to have some lunch . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bye . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Uh . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","The conversation involves a team comprising of a Project Manager, Marketing representative (Jens Damman), User Interface designer (Paul Wiezer), and an Industrial Designer (Martijn Abbing), preparing for a second meeting with a duration of forty minutes. The team is focusing on the development of a new television remote control product geared towards a specific demographic. + +The dialogue begins with a slightly chaotic attempt by the Project Manager to recall the names of the team members, emphasizing the need to write down names. Once clarified, they immediately proceed to discussions on the remote control project. The Marketing representative speaks about a marketing report involving an experiment with many users. It provides statistics that suggest a consumer preference for aesthetic design in remote controls, a willingness to pay more for a stylish look, and notes about usage patterns including the under-utilization of buttons with fifty percent of users only using ten percent of the buttons. Key points are the importance of a visually appealing design and the need to cater to elderly users with potentially larger buttons for ease of use. + +There is some mention of specific design features such as a home station for recharging and a ""find"" function utilizing sound, though concerns are raised about the complexity and cost implications. User Interface introduces functional design ideas, emphasizing simplicity, standardized methods, recognizable button icons, and possibly integrating a favorite channels function to enhance usability. However, the Industrial Designer questions the practicality of remembering the favorite channels. + +As the team analyzes functional requirements in greater detail, the discussion touches upon technical aspects like circuitry, LED usage, battery source, and signal patterns involving Morse code to regulate button function synchronization between remote control and TV. They suggest including a home station that could aid in locating the remote control when misplaced. A personal touch is added discussing preferences, including a unique design, standout color options possibly following the iMac model, and better usability compared to other market options. + +The Project Manager introduces newly realized project requirements which shift the target demographic from 40+ to younger users, necessitating a ""flashy"" and interesting design. This leads to an abrupt shift in design considerations, making the aesthetics and modern features much more critical, like the conceptual inclusion of a feature that would allow the remote to light up in the dark, akin to mobile phones. + +Speech recognition as a feature is debated, with general consensus leaning towards the complexity, usability, and language barriers. The feature is eventually dropped due to feasibility concerns. + +By the conclusion of the meeting, decisions are made regarding the design features such as lighting upon button presses for enhanced visibility, simplification of buttons to a single level, and the use of standard and larger buttons for primary functions. The team agrees that the primary focus will be on making the remote control visually distinctive and aligned with the personal aesthetic preferences discussed, as it must stand out in the market for the younger target audience. No final decisions are made on speech recognition due to cost, complexity, and the short timeframe for bringing the product to market. + +The meeting wraps up with a plan for the team members to continue working on their respective segments post-lunch break, advancing the project towards a remote control that is unique, user-friendly, and appealing to younger consumers." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi everyone , hope you had a nice lunch . Um {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright we're moving on to conceptual design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Scuse me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bless you . +Project Manager: Um , I'll just review what we did in our last meeting . Um , {vocalsound} under marketing we targeted our audience , and {disfmarker} Um , yeah . That was {vocalsound} generally {vocalsound} {disfmarker} how helpful that was . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , then we considered some design options with how it should look , um , we discussed an iPod-like button system which , uh , we haven't concluded but we're {disfmarker} Right , um {disfmarker} So , if you all have presentations to do , we can see what {disfmarker} where you've come from our last time . Does everyone have presentations ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Would anybody like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I've been looking at the components design . Um . Mostly by consulting remote control diagrams from the internet and also by incorporating design ideas from the last project meeting . Um , so we need some custom design parts , and other parts we'll just use standard . Um , I assume we'll be custom designing our case , probably a hard plastic or some other material case , to protect the remote and the locator . And we'll need to custom desi design a circuit board , because the circuit board has to take the button input and send it to the output so you have to design that each time . But once we come up with a design we'll send it to the circuit people and they'll just print it out . Um , standard parts include the buttons and the wheels , um the iPod-style wheel . The infrared L_E_D_ is actually gonna be included in the circuit board that comes with it . Um , we need a radio sender and receiver , those are standard . And al we also need a beeper or buzzer or other sort of noise thing for locating the remote . So we have some material options . Um , we can use rubber , plastic , wood or titanium . Um , I'd recommend against titanium because it can only be used in the flat cases and it's really heavy . Um , and the rubber case requires rubber buttons , so if we definitely want plastic buttons , we shouldn't have a rubber case . +Project Manager: And why not wood ? +Industrial Designer: And , +Project Manager: And why not wood ? {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hmm ? {vocalsound} Uh , well we can use wood . {vocalsound} I don't know why we'd want to . Um and also we should note that if we want an iPod-style wheel button , it's gonna require a m qu slightly more expensive chip . We can't use the minimal chip , we need the next higher grade , which is called regular . I don't think it's much more expensive , but it is more expensive . So that's what I've got on design . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Marketing: Um , can I do next ? 'Cause I have to say something about the material +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: which is quite shocking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha . Mm . Right , um , I have been searching the current trends , um , both on the web and via fashion-watchers , and the findings are that the first thing to aim for is a fashion uh , fancy look and feel . Um . Next comes technologic technology and the innovations to do with that . And th last thing is the easy to use um factor . Um , fancy look and feel goes far beyond the functionality of the thing , but I suppose that is included in in the ease of use . Um , our fashion-watchers in Milan and Paris have decided , well noticed , that f the fruit and vegetable theme is the {vocalsound} is the current trend +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and and therefore um we need to go for that if we want , you know , wh whatever our motto is . Um . For fashion , we go for fashion . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: The fashion in electronics . So we want to put the fashion electronics , we need to go fruit and vegetables . And also go for a spongy feel , so the the question of our technology whate is Industrial Designer . As to the material should be limited to {disfmarker} I don't know how spongy it can be , should discuss this together , I don't know how spongy can be achieved but apparently that's the way to go . Um . I I have been thinking about this fruit and vegetable thing and I prefer fruits to vegetables , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's just a personal opinion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think people like to have a fruit instead of a vegetables in their sitting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh those are just suggestions and also we need to decide whether this should be printed , so that still has to do with the material discuss should we print the fruit stuff , or should the actual remote look like a fruit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and finally again with the spongy . It has to be technologically innovative so maybe again our Industrial Designer should look into that or find {disfmarker} come up with a solution that's better than mine . Um , yeah , to summarise these are the points that need to be um , touched in order to get a good decision , and hopefully our User Interface has more to say about the matter . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Thank you for your attention . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: I think it's the next {disfmarker} it's the blue one , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , uh , there we go . {vocalsound} Uh . Okay . Um . Well so that fruit and vegetables thing huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I actually wasn't aware of the {vocalsound} new trends in electronics +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Neither was I . Well it's a trend in fashion , in clothing and um {vocalsound} fabrics . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but you're not gonna wear your remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so okay , let me get this right . Okay , uh {disfmarker} Okay , alright anyway . Um {vocalsound} here we go . Conceptual User Interface . Trying {disfmarker} we're gonna try to talk about , um {vocalsound} what kind of uh {disfmarker} how people are actually going to be using this iPod-ish remote control , based on fruit vegetable design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And , um , basically , so , this is a touched ba a touch-based graphical interface system . {vocalsound} Uh , so people are going to be looking at this little screen . Um , kind of {disfmarker} I mean I assume , are we still on the screen idea ? +Project Manager: Oh we s hadn't discussed it last time . +User Interface: 'Cause if we're gonna have to ha if we have this {disfmarker} it just seems like in order to have someone going around and using the um {vocalsound} the wheel +Project Manager: You need a screen for it ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it seems like you would need a screen . +Industrial Designer: You need a screen with music because you're looking for a specific song , like you know that band or whatever . With T_V_ channels it's , you know , one two three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But like if you think about it {disfmarker} yeah but if {disfmarker} so is it just {disfmarker} okay . So , b you you're gonna have to switch to like D_V_D_ and like other things like that , aren't you ? +Project Manager: We're , um , we're actually not having D_V_D_ , +User Interface: Are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that was one of th I I was {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: sorry , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I meant to update you on that . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . Okay . +Marketing: But the screen can come up on the telly , the {disfmarker} she said . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That correct ? +User Interface: So anyway if {disfmarker} well we just {disfmarker} we need to {disfmarker} Okay so if we're not gonna have a screen {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} okay . So basically it's just gonna be a wheel then ? And you're just gonna {disfmarker} I mean I think you're gonna have to have some kind of a {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: Graphical interface ? +User Interface: Yeah like you're g +Marketing: Uh on the {disfmarker} you can have it on the telly though . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah like you're gonna have to be able to switch to like a mode where you can {disfmarker} okay we're not choosing that , I guess . But like choose channel control , like if you wa Because people aren't gonna be able to have like , um , you know , channels one two three four five six seven eight nine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} people seems to be {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} Yeah , I know what you're saying , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know . But you're gonna have to scroll to get channels . So um {vocalsound} I guess that's wh why I was thinking you may need to have some kind of a screen because {disfmarker} So that people can go arou go back and forth and choose if {disfmarker} or or {disfmarker} then again if you just {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I c I can see like some kind of a thing where like you sort of have like the number come up on the T_V_ like what channel you're on . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You can just scroll and you can just get to like five or like twelve or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But but imagine someone with s +Industrial Designer: My flatmates actually had one with a wheel , and it it did show up on the T_V_ . +User Interface: I oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But i what if you have satellite and you have like two hundred channels . Then to get to channel one eighty nine you have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause you'll have to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They have to r wheel really fast . +User Interface: but you can quickly s you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I think the wheel goes through like a hundred channels , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: at least on theirs . +User Interface: Yeah if you do , it w so it would have to be {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean so you basically just kinda need to figure out like what kind of , you know , range we need to have on the wheel , and um {disfmarker} So you're either {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you know , th you're either doing this motion to like control the channels or like once once you stop that , you know , you can like tap for , um , different +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , whatchamacallits , different um , you know , functions like volume or , like you can tap just to get to different channels . Like if you just wanted to go to like {disfmarker} from five to six you could tap or someth +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And then there's also the concern about you know um {vocalsound} how do you get to the menu if you wanna change the brightness of your television , or if you want to um {vocalsound} you know switch around , I don't know , like , these different modes like turn on the timer or like something something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah I mean with that many options , you'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I'd think that the screen would be better , +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because you could have that menu option , sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would think so too , like {disfmarker} So I mean {disfmarker} and it seems it w it does seem a little silly to have this screen if you hardly are ever using it , you know , because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but then again it would {disfmarker} it does make kind of {disfmarker} if the screen's sort of just like an option that , like , is just there and you're not really using it , that's kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive according to the design people . +User Interface: m yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's the only thing though . +Industrial Designer: You have to get a {disfmarker} an advanced chip if you wanna have a screen in , which is more expensive than the regular chip , which is more expensive than the minimal . +User Interface: Yeah . So then basically it has to have some way to get to get to a mode on the television where you're doing , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can get to {disfmarker} you know , you can {disfmarker} Like maybe it'll be that central button that , like , then you hit that and then you can {disfmarker} it brings up like the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you can just scroll around , like , to do the timer , to do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the T_V_ is the screen , that {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So it would have all these different options of changing +User Interface: Yeah . But the remote itself isn't really cluttered up . +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Look it even has settings . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} you can just take theirs and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well we don't want the screen I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} 'cause that just {disfmarker} it does seem like , it {disfmarker} that would be , like , incredibly expensive , but {disfmarker} I dunno , and then {disfmarker} so , it just im really all you need is , like , this little wheel then , and you can control everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , right . What if {disfmarker} I mean , if you're thinking of the design of it now , like the a you know , physical attributes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um , and you just have this , it's like just a long silver thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or whatever we're thinking . I mean are you you gonna have any buttons on that besides power and this thing ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't seem that you would need anything besides pow I mean and the power button could even be like hold down the menu button for like longer than one second and it turns on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . So can we imagine that this would be smaller than the remote controls that you showed us before . I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah definitely . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Like , I think we're looking at something that could be , like like even maybe like a cir I'm f I'm seeing almost like a circular sort of like handheld like thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean it it needs to be easy to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but should be comfortable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: somehow it needs to be easy to like manipulate and use your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean how do how do {disfmarker} I'm not really {disfmarker} Like when I use an iPod , I end up just kind of using my index finger to like control it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've seen some people just going like that with their thumb , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Or your thumb or something . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I use it like that . +Industrial Designer: W when we had the wheely remote control , we {disfmarker} it was on the top I think , if you held it like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , were there buttons on there as well ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well it had the wheely thing and then it had those eighteen different buttons that I don't know what they do . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we just used the top part . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I mean I think it could be pretty small . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Like , I d I mean , you you want it to be large enough that you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if , um , you had like a b a cover that went over buttons that you don't use very much ? Like you {disfmarker} so you could slide it up if you needed to like change the contrast or something like that ? So the options are there but they're not in interfering with the design and the practicality of it . +User Interface: But can't you just get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do {disfmarker} do you know what I'm talking about though ? Like , uh , yeah just something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah like maybe something on the side where you slip a panel down and it's got a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +User Interface: K +Marketing: Well you can have it on the settings , +Project Manager: Yeah , that you can flip over , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: no ? +User Interface: Yeah , But , I mean , do you need that ? If if you can get to , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so long as you're able to bring up the menu on the T_V_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah I mean I guess that's the thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is is {disfmarker} if w I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That keeps it +Project Manager: if we can do this , that'd probably be {disfmarker} +User Interface: really {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh you wouldn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I just don't think you would even need it . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I guess we have to look into the , um , like , the programming , how this {disfmarker} how they actually programme these things , and if that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh how they make the menu show up on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: yeah . I mean it {disfmarker} would y would {disfmarker} that would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I mean you can do it , +Marketing: They already do it . +Industrial Designer: I believe it's ins it's gotta be inside the T_V_ , not inside the remote . +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it doesn't seem that hard . I mean I've never bought a remote . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +User Interface: It sounds like this remote's going to be purchased separately from the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well they usually are . +User Interface: which is a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: My {disfmarker} I've never bought just a remote , like , so I don't I don't really know . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I guess that's right . It always comes with the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , um {disfmarker} but I mean it's {disfmarker} I've never had a hard time with like my remotes , like bringing up the menu screen if you need to like change the date or whatever , you know . And I don't think that should uh that should be too hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} most of the ones we've had have had the menu button , 'cause it's not like you need to have a button access to like change the contrast or something . 'Cause it just doesn't come up every day or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Well so {disfmarker} So , do we need {disfmarker} I dunno . Well I guess we have to you know think about {disfmarker} But I mean you just basically need the output signal you know to be able to bring it up . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what it does anyway . +Marketing: But also if you have it on the screen you can actually write everything out , because the problem with buttons is you {disfmarker} like , they have these sort of abbreviations and codes that you're supposed to understand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you don't know they mean , yeah , it's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I never get it . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Never ever . +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , you mean if we have this screen like the iPod screen ? +Marketing: Well on the telly . +Industrial Designer: Or on the T_V_ too . +User Interface: On the telly , okay , yeah . So yeah I think , I mean , I think I think the touch-based graphical interface is a really uh cool idea +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you know it is so obnoxious to like have to push those {disfmarker} like okay now I hit this {disfmarker} you know , you have your little guide out and you're like , hit this button twice , like to activate the date . +Project Manager: Mm . And it is technologically innovative in a way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: so that fits with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I guess . And it is trendy , the iPods are {vocalsound} really hot right now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: B Yeah . +Marketing: Did you did you get that pc picture on {disfmarker} did they provide you with that picture on the web ? +User Interface: Um , yeah , by web research , yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's quite interesting . What are we going to do about this vegetable thing that I'm dreading ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , I was gonna say . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: You said uh people want spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , one of your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: one of the material options is a sort of rubber that's {gap} in like those stress ball things . So , that would be spongy . +User Interface: Oh , okay , that would be cool . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just nice feel , but I hate spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , c that's e that would be kind of {disfmarker} oh , you know , usually like the touch pad things are kind of a hard plastic typ mouse type , you know , thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean definitely the area round it . +User Interface: But what if we ha what if we had like a spongy sort of like stress balley kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you're like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it could work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or what if we integrated the {vocalsound} the uh the f what if the whole thing about the fruit and vegetables +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we somehow made it tactilely fash you know , we c tapped into that , so like it feels like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't think I'd want it to feel like a banana . +User Interface: a vegetable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it could be like mobiles that just {disfmarker} you just put a cover . +Project Manager: An orange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If it's a small thing , you c instead of creating an object for it that looks like a banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which frankly I'm not particularly fond of , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um you could just have covers and then your mobile f it's like a mobile phone thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You know you had {disfmarker} there was a time when they had all these different covers for mobiles . +Industrial Designer: You could do like the computers where they have like the grapefruit , apple machine and they have like the blueberry , like all the colours are named after fruits . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . You could name it after fruits and vegetables , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And it could {disfmarker} the colour can fit your sitting room , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if you have red sitting room you can have strawberry , and then if you have a green one you can have {disfmarker} well I don't know . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what if {disfmarker} what +User Interface: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah , colours . +Project Manager: I'm just forming this idea in my head of how this thing is looking . If you have like that stress ball material kind of as what you're actually holding in your hand , so like what you're feeling is comfortable , and then there's more of a hard plastic thing where that thing is . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And on that hard plastic thing you can change either the colour or the fruit or vegetable that's on there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} 'cause I I'm thinking of silver because those are our company colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unfortunately they don't have silver fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I do I dunno . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean how are you how are you all envisioning by what we've just {disfmarker} the feedback we've just got about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe a ball . +Project Manager: A ball ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know , a squashy ball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A relaxing squashy ball . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That you can p +User Interface: That's in the shape of a fruit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well I {disfmarker} see you're thinking , it's weird , you're thinking the opposite of me 'cause you're thinking you change the the hard bit +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I'm thinking how do you change the hard {disfmarker} would you put a um sticker sort of ? Because I was thinking if you have a cover for the squashy bit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is just {disfmarker} Okay . Say that's the s say that's the squashy bit . Squashy . +Marketing: Oh , okay , yeah . Yeah I was thinking of getting a cover for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That {disfmarker} see I was thinking this s +Marketing: Which is cheaper . +Project Manager: sorry {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I don't know if it's cheaper actually . +Project Manager: I was thinking this bit here would be the cover and like that's your actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And like this {disfmarker} you could have like you could have like cherries and {vocalsound} things around there . +User Interface: Oh I like that shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking sort of a single ball shape . +Project Manager: I was thinking if it was like this {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So you're holding a squishy ball +Project Manager: 'cause the way you were describing the the iPod and the thi the roll thingy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then it has a {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's like it has to be s +Project Manager: It's almost like your thumb is farther up , +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so if if you could squish it lower then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So it wouldn't be very big in either {disfmarker} like how big ? This big , and then you just do that , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know what you meant , yeah . +User Interface: What if , yeah , what if the squishy , oh so so you're saying the squishy part's like detachable , and you can {disfmarker} so so maybe one you know {disfmarker} you can have like the broccoli squishy thing , and then you could have like the banana squishy thing {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you could get {disfmarker} you could have your choice , you know ? +Marketing: Well just a li I can't des like condom thingy , like a a cover . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} well the question is , which one's easiest to change and we can just contact our relevant department for that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and just see what the cost is for covering that or covering that , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and for now we can do two prototypes maybe and then hi try and ask users what the best is , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Um . That's nicer . I think it's nicer to have a drawing 'cause it's neater . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Well that's not very neat , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I mean I think uh {disfmarker} and I think the handhe I think the handheld part is definitely {disfmarker} So you could make that into the fruit and vegetable part . +Marketing: If it's a bit like those juggling balls , you can change shape according to your {disfmarker} to the way you hold it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could squish it . +Marketing: If it's got sand in it maybe , or something , you {disfmarker} it it just moulds to your hand . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So where are the fruit and vegetables now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess they would be either in the colour of that plastic face on the front , or in the colour of the squishy thing underneath . +User Interface: Fruits and veg . +Marketing: We we don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And the rest is the company {disfmarker} the company colour's silver ? +Project Manager: It was , yeah , silver and yellow . It l it looks like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could promote the banana one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I mean that's another question , where are we gonna {disfmarker} we we should have the logo somewhere on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Should also fit the batteries , which we haven't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the batteries would have to go right under the plastic case . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th and that would {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Especially if you're switching out the squishy part . Then you need to have the other part just be sort of a single unit that you can snap off . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think , um it'd be interesting to have the b the squishy bit . The part that you , yeah , can change into the different , you know , trendy vegetables and fruits . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . You'd spend so much time like squishing it to your own personal hand . Then you'd get a new one and you'd have to do it all over again . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No but it does it automatically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Does it automatically ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: I don't know what the rest of my notes mean because they were made for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But if someone {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: components concept . Question mark . Energy . Question mark . +Industrial Designer: That was me . +Project Manager: Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh right right . Yeah . Um , so what d but what do we know about energy ? I mean we're gonna use batteries right ? And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh we actually had an option of batteries , solar power , and um a dynamo , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is something I don't know what it is . Something to do with torches . +Marketing: Oh , a dynamo is {disfmarker} ah , {vocalsound} it's a bicycle . It's a bicycle mechanism . It's the en it's like if if something moves , when it moves , it stores energy . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah , the other one was the other one was a kinetic thing where you'd basically have to wind it yourself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I sort of picked battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's quite sweet . +Industrial Designer: We could have talked about doing a wind-up or a dynamo or a solar power . Um but I think solar power's not available with the rubber case anyways . +Project Manager: I think batteries sound good . +Industrial Designer: It {vocalsound} it seems a little weird for a living room anyways . +Project Manager: What does everyone else think ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The dynamo would be interesting {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . But dynamo {disfmarker} the the fact with dynamo is , the moment you move it , it c it {vocalsound} creates energy on its own . +Project Manager: What about Kryptonite ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Which is quite cool . So if you throw it , it's gonna store loads of energy , and you don't need to buy a battery 'cause they're quite f I find them annoying . But we need to find cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Don't know the cost . +Industrial Designer: Didn't have enough data to actually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does anyone have costs on the on the web ? +Industrial Designer: All it said was it gave sort of relative , some chips are more expensive than others , sort of things . It didn't give me any actual cost . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Most of the stuff is pretty cheap though bought in bulk . So I don't think it's that much of a problem . Like the chip is probably the most expensive part . +Project Manager: What does chip on print mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um , for things like remote controls , um , they stamp out a chip , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: calculators too I think . Um , so you can mass produce 'em pretty cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's not like a computer , you can't like reprogramme your remo remote controls , it's like stamped onto the chip . +Project Manager: Right . So , chip on print is just {disfmarker} means like that they're mass-produced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And case ? Uh I guess that's what we've been talking about , +Industrial Designer: Case is what we were discussing yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Casing . Yeah . {gap} thinking of like syntactic case and thi +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} let's see . Is there anything else we need to +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: talk about ? Oh when we move on , you two are going to be playing with play-dough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and working on the look and feel of the design and user interface design . And you're gonna be doing protu product evaluation . So you'll get mm m more instructions from your personal coach . +Marketing: Oh , thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: See you soon . Does it matter that I end early ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} it's strange because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How how early is it ? I didn't get a pop-up thing that said {disfmarker} +","In the conversation, the project team discusses aspects of the conceptual design for a remote control, focusing on both the design and user experience. The Industrial Designer shares ideas for custom and standard parts needed, such as a custom circuit board and button system. They discuss material options, with titanium and rubber being less favored. The iPod-style button system and its cost implications are mentioned. + +Marketing highlights the importance of aligning the design with current trends in looks and materials, emphasizing a fruit and vegetable theme with a fashionable, spongy feel. The User Interface Designer discusses the practicality of using a touch-based graphical interface, likening it to the operation of an iPod, and the possibility of using the TV screen for navigation rather than a built-in screen on the remote. + +The discussion evolves into brainstorming the remote's shape and materials, with the possibility of different covers or skins to reflect the trendy fruit and vegetable theme. The material's tactile feel and user comfort are considered important. The team also briefly addresses the power source for the remote, debating between traditional batteries and more innovative options like solar power or a dynamo system, with batteries being the preferred choice. + +In the end, they decide to create prototypes and gather user feedback on the design, with further instructions to come from their personal coach. The meeting closes with the Project Manager asking whether ending the meeting early was an issue." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's not saved yet . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Our beautiful drawing . +Project Manager: So just f um {disfmarker} So this is our agenda . You're {disfmarker} F You're going to show your pr prototype presentation after me . +Marketing: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} Oh yeah . So these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So these are the um last notes we I made . If anything doesn't look right , just say it to me then . I don't have to put it in the report . +User Interface: Are we doing the the speech recognition ? Because we didn't have enough time to uh de um design the inside as well . +Project Manager: Okay , but it's still possible uh uh financially . So if you want to , it's okay . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Well then then we're gonna put it in . +Project Manager: Okay , just {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , just uh we have to design the inside then , but it should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Or are we making a slide open , like underneath ? Or fold open ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Slide open is uh quite usable for remote controls . +Industrial Designer: It's probably better . Yeah , s Like underneath uh you can slide it open and you {gap} other functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's may maybe uh a bit stronger as well . +Project Manager: Maybe that's better . Yeah , that's that's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so when you have a lot of room inside . +Industrial Designer: Think that's better . +User Interface: So you can make it very easy to use . 'Cause you can write a lot of comments besides it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So this is okay ? {gap} +User Interface: {gap} No . Yeah , we're gonna use the advanced chip then . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's {disfmarker} Uh I'll just have a look how much that is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Okay , for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Advanced chip was for uh spee Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think so . I don't know . +Project Manager: No , you have a different chip for speech recognition . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Project Manager: So I already calculated that and it's still in the budget . So it's okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: So you can show your prototype if you want to . +User Interface: Together ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Let's do it together . +User Interface: I'll give comments . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , we just made a Word file with the basic elements . Uh the look-and-feel model . Uh well the form , the case um as drawn there . Simply a square with uh round corners . So that's basically it . {vocalsound} Uh the material should be hard plastic . Uh colour changeable , and also transparent . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And colour and transparent , or just transparent , I don't know . Um then the elements . Uh we have {disfmarker} The functions are just basic . Like uh I've pointed them here . Mute function , on-off function , text functions . This uh switch channel . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this is the the num-pad . And the logo is over here , and the mic . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the scrollwheel , no ? You operate that with your pointing finger . +Marketing: Means {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you hold it like this in your right hand and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So how many functions do you need for for uh the microphone ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , speech recognition . Just {disfmarker} Only one button to say it's on or off . +User Interface: Um I didn't have a specification of that . But um I can imagine that you have to input your voice or something . +Industrial Designer: Uh I dunno . +User Interface: Um so I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe maybe uh you have to configure it . +User Interface: Yes , you need options to configure it , and after that you don't need 'em anymore . +Project Manager: So you can put it on the back as well if you want to . +User Interface: Yeah , you can {gap} put 'em all on the back . That's for sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or on the slide function , I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we haven't had time to design that , the slide pad . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: We also don't know how many buttons are required , or what kind of buttons . But {disfmarker} You have a lot of room if you can slide it open . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put it separate . +User Interface: You {disfmarker} Yeah I know . I can imagine you need at least four buttons or something . So {disfmarker} But it's enough room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um the position ? Yeah , you write uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You wrote this , so . +User Interface: Well the main , the main zap buttons are most central . That was the the most important thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So uh the best {gap} place , the best reach place {disfmarker} Um on-off buttons , text buttons , mute buttons are together and at a place they easily are , easy to find . Um the on-off button is a bit bigger , uh so it stands out . That way you don't have to make it red , 'cause it's will uh will show up . Uh scrollwheel is on the left side . It's {vocalsound} basically the be standard place for scrollwheel , as far as I know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But it's not uh impossible to use it , if you're left handed . So y Because you can use your thumb then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just just one thing now . Um y you need to have more uh one two th You've got one two three four five six seven eight nine . +User Interface: Okay yeah , they {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you missed the no uh the zero and uh the two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's that's below that then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It's uh twelve buttons . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just so you get that . +Marketing: Okay , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's rather important . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay , just we just missed that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But um I'll just uh {disfmarker} I'll get back to later . F the form well , we've taken that from the iPod , other popular technical device . So um should be popular . Um {disfmarker} The f uh the buttons creating ? Uh if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That or all round shapes , not uh rounded corners . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that , you know , you get a bit round feeling . Um we'll use hard plastic . Since that allows us to use uh two D_ buttons , uh non-rubber buttons . Colour changeable . Well and um the backlight thing , the thing that lights up . We have decided uh {vocalsound} in the the channel buttons , there's a little uh colour around it . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: And also in the num-pads , there's also colour {gap} light behind it . +Project Manager: And do you still can , do you still can choose what colour , kind of colour you want ? +User Interface: So when you pre Yeah . +Project Manager: How do you want to implement that ? Just on the {disfmarker} Maybe on the second level as well ? +User Interface: We're going to implement . Yeah . Mm just a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , these are just basic functions , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: All the non-basic are in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , just draw draw the second level , because we need that as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , there is one uh function I use uh daily , and it's not on the basic functions . It's uh to switch to uh uh your Scart . Play Station or uh D_V_D_ player . +Industrial Designer: Okay , maybe we use this button for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That function must be {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} Or you can uh i uh lay it uh beneath in the uh other uh functions . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , as well . +User Interface: I um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just make make a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: To your video device . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just draw a second level one and say all options that are still left or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A second level ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a a new blank one or {disfmarker} Or just here ? +Project Manager: No no , just on {disfmarker} Down there . +User Interface: Is i Ah okay . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: And h how does the second level come out ? +Project Manager: Just uh if you s +Marketing: Uh it slides uh along ? +User Interface: Um slides I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , y Maybe , yeah . +User Interface: It's +Marketing: From from the uh beneath ? +Project Manager: For the bottom . +User Interface: You can do it that it claps open , but I think that's not solid enough . +Project Manager: No , you gotta slide it . +User Interface: If that breaks then you're screwed . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's right . +User Interface: So it do doesn't even have to slide all the way open . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what do we need ? +User Interface: Uh i the the speech functions buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu ? +User Interface: Menu button . With uh maybe uh arrows . So you can uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: scroll in the , navigate the menu . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: God damn it . +Marketing: Scart ? +User Interface: {gap} I think we can even put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have one for the zero and one for the for the more digit uh channels . +Marketing: Uh yeah . And so y you keep you keep one , you have one left . Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you have one left for the {disfmarker} Right , the video channel , Play Station , etcetera . That's used pretty often . +Industrial Designer: So this is the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have a Play Station , mm you use it every day . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a f {vocalsound} basic uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Extern or something . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: You want to save that file as well ? The drawing ? +User Interface: That was it . +Industrial Designer: So here are multiple speech buttons , I don't know how many . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Doesn't really matter . Just just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't really matter . +Industrial Designer: I don't know the functions . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah well we don't have any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . What else ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: What else ? +User Interface: What else ? Uh menu buttons with arrows . +Industrial Designer: Uh menu . +Marketing: Yeah , to navigate . +User Interface: S Just uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} With arrows . +User Interface: Um I think it's best if we do . Mm where do we have {disfmarker} Or there . +Industrial Designer: Like a normal um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like on the normal uh {disfmarker} Like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with in the middle um a menu button . +User Interface: The menu button , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well we don't have any , anything on how many buttons speech requires . So you can't redesign it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe one button to switch the colour of your uh LEDs ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh and and you can hold it , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: you can hold it , and then the colours switch or mm multiple multiple buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just press it once , the colour should uh switch . Press again , the colour switch again maybe ? +Marketing: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Or we just make it three buttons , all the colours on it . Just red , yel uh red , green and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Th Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: If we have enough place , uh then we can do that . +Project Manager: That's that's very easy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those here . +Marketing: Colour buttons . And then we choose green , uh blue and red or +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So did we miss anything ? +User Interface: Yeah , maybe some uh some text next to the scroll wheel , that it is volume . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Some text uh buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but +Project Manager: No , ma on on o on the on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just uh {disfmarker} The volume logo . +Marketing: there's one there's one text button I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh wh Here ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Just make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , or th or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's one text button I prefer . That's the one uh that you use if you search for a page , uh like seven hundred , uh and it's counting from one hundred to two hundred , you will switch to your television and back to text . +User Interface: Yeah , we have that on the the text button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Did you think of that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you can switch back to normal telete teletext . You just switch it off and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh why not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just put it on those extra f extra function as well . +Marketing: Ex Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} Whoa {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well w we thought of a text button . And if you press it again , you get the the the +User Interface: I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sta the state you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just three stages , you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: through view . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the three stages . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b but but if you're in the second stage , the third stage is switch teletext off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can switch back from second to w first . +User Interface: No , it doesn't have to turn it off . Just don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . Just remember where it was . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it doesn't uh uh clear the the page . If you if you turn teletext on , you you set the seven hundred , and you turn it off , then the next time you turn it on , it still stays on seven hundred ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's to remember . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But maybe it's not the way {disfmarker} +User Interface: I dunno if {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's a functionality for the television . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think as well , but {disfmarker} Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . That's maybe one thing we can discuss about . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm nee uh {disfmarker} No , if i {vocalsound} uh the remote can send like the the code for seven hundred , page seven hundred to the television . Th th th if you switch it on . +User Interface: Yeah , in thi the the remote control in the +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you have to search every time again . +User Interface: the chip . +Industrial Designer: Th i +Project Manager: That's what what happening if you do it like that . But it's still the television that has to do that . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . Um do we need to fix that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's what the television does . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} most new T_V_s do uh collect all the pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those memory functions . +Marketing: But uh not not every every television , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Was uh this logo for uh volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's it ? +Project Manager: Is this prich pretty much it , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah , I I thought about one thing . Uh the buttons ? Uh from which material are they now ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . No no +User Interface: Just like your telephone , hard plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just hard plastic . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's too expensive to make it from a different material anyway . +Marketing: Because um if you use it a couple of years , some uh sometimes the numbers on the on the buttons are slide away , are uh {disfmarker} And maybe we can write the numbers below or above ? Or shall we just turn it on on the buttons ? +User Interface: I think just on the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think just um {disfmarker} +User Interface: If you do it abo above or below , it takes uh more space . +Marketing: Well yeah . That's too much place . +User Interface: I don't think the space is worth it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , just leave it . Just leave it . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you have that problem more often with rubber buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and i The most time {disfmarker} Yeah , with rubber buttons . Yeah , okay . {gap} Okay . Fine . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay , cool . Mm mm mm mm mm . Yeah , I don't know what this means . But I think we just evela evaluated this one . +Marketing: Yeah , I made some criteria uh , so we can uh ev evaluate our model . +Project Manager: Oh okay , you made some criteria . Okay , cool . Okay . +Marketing: I d d d I don't think if it's right . {vocalsound} That shall show it . +Project Manager: You have some usability criteria or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh no , uh all criterias we just argue about . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In the bottom . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Look-and-feel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , evaluation is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Evaluation crit Yeah , evaluation presentation . It's not in . Uh d it doesn't matter um {disfmarker} It only had two pages or something . {vocalsound} Um well I looked in the reports um from the marketing strategy , or uh of uh the the the the the the new needs and uh the market . The Italians uh , how they think about it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The research uh about uh the the comp uh the the the users and that kind of stuff . I made some criteria , and we have to test the criteria from one to zero . We sh we we we can give it uh a number , and then we can give ourself an average for our +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: um {vocalsound} model . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And this {disfmarker} These are all I I I found , or I wrote down . And um {vocalsound} we have to discuss about {vocalsound} , if we give it a one or a seven . +Project Manager: Uh I think uh if you have a kind of iPod idea . It quite beautiful . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: We are actu We are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , the the the difference be between uh beautiful and fancy uh look-and-feel is uh the the the outside uh beautiful uh like the iPod or something . And fancy's more like the mm uh f the flashing lights and the colours and {vocalsound} and that kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Flashy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Well I think we do {disfmarker} +Marketing: The LEDs . +User Interface: If it's really uh , if you can if you can get the iPod look , then it's beautiful , I think . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and what ki what kind of what kind of basic colours uh were you thought uh of ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah beautiful's is also a matter of taste . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: The basic colours are black or green or yellow ? +User Interface: Um basic colours , +Marketing: Or you haven't thought about {disfmarker} +User Interface: um yeah . Well you didn't say . +Marketing: Ho how do we make uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe um company colours ? +Project Manager: It's black . +User Interface: Black . +Marketing: Black and yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , yellow light . +User Interface: A bit a bit of yellow . +Marketing: Can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do we have yellow light ? No , not really , but it's possible . +User Interface: Not not not yellow {gap} , but just a bit of light yellow . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Black white , maybe ? +User Interface: Like white , also ni or uh always nice . +Industrial Designer: And what colours should the buttons be ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Because um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , different colours . This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , the same as th th the cover . But also th the light behind it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But can you change those too , with uh the switch ? +Project Manager: No , no . Make them {disfmarker} No , just make them black or grey or something . +User Interface: Yeah , grey . Just dark grey I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so what uh number do we give uh a beautiful ? Beautiful is uh really subjective , uh because it has to do lots with the colours . +User Interface: Well we have changeable fronts , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Changeable fronts , so ev for everyone for everyone it's something beautiful . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just give it a one . It's okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's perfect . I think it's just what you want . Or not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard to decide for us , but yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's ju so subjective . +User Interface: It it's {disfmarker} At least it's a lot better than uh current remote controls . +Project Manager: Okay , just give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A two . Okay . The fancy look-and-feel . That's about our uh flashing lights and the background uh lights uh from from from the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . And we can change the colours , so that's uh really fancy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are w are we changing uh {disfmarker} Or are they there uh backlights on the slide panel too ? Or n no back light ? +Marketing: Slide panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: No . No , it's only on the number , behind the numbers +User Interface: Mm . Not needed {gap} . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , not needed I think . +Industrial Designer: And and the switch channel is uh {disfmarker} There is a back light too ? +Project Manager: That as well , yeah . +Marketing: Oh , you mean th this here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's unnecessary . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What do I think is necessary necessary item ? +Marketing: It's pretty cool . If you slide it open , {vocalsound} it lights up . That's that's really fancy , but {vocalsound} I don't know if it's reachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Of course it's reachable . +Project Manager: It doesn't make {disfmarker} +Marketing: Then we do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , maybe just some light uh to to light it all up . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can see what's really there . Not just not re on the buttons or something . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a green light or some blue light . To light it all up . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mayb Okay . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just backlight . Not not the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th and the the normal backlights also not the buttons , but behind the buttons . So the buttons are just grey . +User Interface: Well yeah . Uh semi-transparent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , just only {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , fine . So I I think it's very fancy . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , that's how I think . +User Interface: Yeah , w we've done a a lot of detail in light , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I'll give it a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: Yeah , and you can uh also choose your light , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , this {disfmarker} It is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's cool . +Marketing: I think it's one . Okay , next . +Project Manager: This is a difficult one , because we we don't {disfmarker} Yeah , we don't know it about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Learnable ? Easy to use ? Yeah , we shall test it {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} it's it's very easy to use , but uh the second layer is not easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but you don't have to use that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you on don't have to pay attention to that second layer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That's th that's the main thing that's so good about it . +User Interface: So I think it's easy to use , but {disfmarker} And learnable is a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Learnable ? It's not not as fast as a usual uh uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it is . +Marketing: Because because I think I think the scroll wheel , uh it's very handy , but the first time you get this thing in your hands , it's not to use the scroll wheel . +User Interface: Well y just uh f +Marketing: I think uh you must uh seek for it , and up or down or +Project Manager: But the rest of it is very easy , +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh then the re +Project Manager: because there are so so n +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's very clear what it all does . +Industrial Designer: So so few information that you can easily decide what buttons w for what function . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But the second parts , uh like speech , etcetera , that will be harder to learn . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it is learnable um f i i In the first place it's very easy to use . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I think its scrollwheel is u easy to use as well , if you have ever used uh a different kind of uh of uh device . +Marketing: Yeah . But we we've got the two so two uh two or three uh new things , huh ? +User Interface: Device . +Marketing: And maybe we uh maybe learnable is in uh compare of old fashion uh remote controls . So we h we have speech , uh the scroll wheel , and um the the the slide . You must slide it . And that's not normal at the uh normal remote controls . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause I think learnable is a l a less than um {vocalsound} easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because easy to use comes after learnable . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} Easy to use is very cool , +Marketing: I I think it a three or something . +Project Manager: so just give it a two . +User Interface: Maybe three then . Learnable's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , but definitely better , much better than uh than uh than avera average , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh . The normal . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the one you showed is just all buttons and you don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , true . Then a two . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: New features . Techno technological innovative ? +Industrial Designer: The speech function and the colour . Colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The speech function is new . +User Interface: And the scrollwheel , backlights , slide . +Marketing: The scrollwheel and the slide . Uh I think the slide is pretty new . +Project Manager: Slide is not n is is not new . No . I already have a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I only saw it in a telephone , not in an remote control . +Project Manager: Uh I already have a V_C_R_ and it's about from nineteen eighty eight . And they all have a slide in it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's not new . +User Interface: But also slide that buttons come out , as well ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and the the the lightning ? +Project Manager: That's cool . +Marketing: Is that new ? +Project Manager: Yeah for a {disfmarker} Uh for a f +Marketing: The lighting's new . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm it's pretty new , I think . +Marketing: Scrollwheel . Speech ? +Industrial Designer: Speech is new . +User Interface: Different colours , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , different fronts for a remote control , I think that's new too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have a pretty new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are no games on it , that's that's {disfmarker} It's not a one , it's a two again . +User Interface: That would {disfmarker} And we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not not L_C_D_ or something . +User Interface: But then we also have the the home station . +Project Manager: If you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are forgetting about that now , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah , that's right . Rechargeable . +Marketing: Uh-oh . +User Interface: We don't +Marketing: Home-station . +User Interface: recharge . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we didn't draw that too , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's more like uh now . +Project Manager: Yeah , just draw it afterwards . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's just a normal th s simple thing . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Can you save it on the same , in the same map as the other ones ? In the the project uh map ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Just save , save as ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Uh save as ? No , that's not in the project . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it's a already in the folder . L like number seven . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , okay . Smart board . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This one is not yet in the {disfmarker} Oh oh . +Industrial Designer: I think it is . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: No , I think it is . +User Interface: Uh untitled ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it doesn't matter . Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But you still have to draw the resi the recharger . +Marketing: Uh all {vocalsound} the the seven , uh all the seven . +Project Manager: Okay . And new features , so we give it a two or also again a one ? No , I think i if you have games on it , then then you give you have a one . But not {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we are not extraordinary new or something . +Project Manager: No , just so it's still a two . +User Interface: N +Industrial Designer: Mm two , I think . +Marketing: Tha tha that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Targeted audience . Uh we are the targeted audience ? Do we like it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we we we searched for uh um {vocalsound} a young group , audience , beneath f forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , but l younger than forty . So we we are exactly the targeted group . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , but did we reach , um {vocalsound} with our uh style , the targeted audience ? +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: Th that's my question . +Project Manager: You get the fancy things for younger people . And you get the the aesthetic things for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We've got a one for fancy look-and-feel , and that's what attracts the young audience . So +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: think that's a two or a one . +Marketing: Um the only point is that we don't uh have uh uh {disfmarker} {gap} That's {gap} that's {gap} {vocalsound} That's this question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but s it {disfmarker} That's basically not not handy . And {vocalsound} I don't thi I don't see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So we targeted it ? But we didn't follow the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} No . Yeah , you could make a a front +User Interface: Mm . I think we followed the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: a front that's that's like uh like a banana , {vocalsound} or something . +Marketing: Tha these are the only latest uh trends I uh {vocalsound} get on my computer . +User Interface: Oh right . Well uh fruit and vegetables , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you get different colours . +User Interface: You can different front uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , th So we had we uh have uh a fruit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like a a f banana kind of front . +Marketing: Oh yeah . But spongy will never be . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: So we give ourself a three or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's eleven . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's the average ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven divided by six . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is one point eight three . +Marketing: A perfect score . {vocalsound} No , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: We're not too hard on ourselves . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is a a power indicator . So you can see how far it's charged up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: And and you need n uh a button to call it , to let it beep . +User Interface: To call . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's still {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Call {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we have to make a speaker then too . If you want to make it beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to skip that one . +User Interface: Okay . No no , I want that in . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah , but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can we can do it uh underneath the logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we need that . That's usable . That's really usable . +Industrial Designer: If you do uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th the speaker is very small as well , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I just got a financial um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes uh . +Project Manager: {gap} You s {vocalsound} saved it or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I did save it . +Project Manager: No . Okay , let's have a look at this one here , the production cost of it . If I forgot anything , just say it to me . It just is a battery . Yeah , there are some that they didn't mention , because recharge is not on the list . But okay . So I think we are pretty much in the right direction , because it's twelve point three Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Industrial Designer: But uh is uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is a regular chip incl and and a sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's both . +Marketing: Come on , it's perfect . Uh twelve point three point three . +Project Manager: Yeah , and single curved curved . +Industrial Designer: But but is it inc Does it include a a homestation or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's not on the list . But that shouldn't be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Can we make that for uh h twenty cents ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably . I just {disfmarker} The b the button supplements , I didn't I d I was wondering if this special colour maybe was {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} different fronts , but standard front won't be , yeah . +Project Manager: See it's {disfmarker} I think it's okay like this . +Marketing: Special form , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's hard to say . But maybe we have to um {disfmarker} Yeah , {gap} okay . Special colour , you can skip this one , because it's all quite normal . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We get different ones , that's all . So you can put a recharger in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But this is expensive , the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's four . +Marketing: Four . It's four Euros . +User Interface: Oh , them . Is that uh included ? In the twelve Euro or +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's included . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then we then we need to use it . +Industrial Designer: It's kind of weird that we {vocalsound} we get this information now , afterwards . Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so this is uh pretty much it this {gap} . +User Interface: Damn , solar cells are uh expensive . +Project Manager: So {gap} I just want you {disfmarker} Yeah , we just made it . So we can do the project evalu evaluation now for uh for everything together . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . We can do some discussion about this . Was there room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Paul , was there room for crea creativity ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh i Yeah , I think so . I think uh everyone uh {gap} already . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah m If we got a high mark for um uh innovativeness or innovativity +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a different style . +Industrial Designer: then there {vocalsound} we probably have been creative . +User Interface: I think we uh discussed a lot of things about it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We could make a lot of different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's creativity . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , so the leadership {disfmarker} Was there a leadership and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course there was . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you have to say about that ? +Industrial Designer: No , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Who was the leader ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Just normal discussion , I think . Not +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: one leader or something . +User Interface: One leader to check the time , etcetera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And make notes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: So more like a secretary . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh team work um {disfmarker} The the third meeting I think that one was pretty hard . We were not all {disfmarker} We were not um agree with every not agree with {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . We were not finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w we had so much information , that we get through email and just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not finished . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Uh I think we {vocalsound} we got wrong information at the wrong time . I think that was the m biggest problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh the prices . If we knew that before , we could have uh had discussion really uh s really quicker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , th that's weird . +Marketing: Yeah , because the prices uh could be twenty Euros or something now . +User Interface: Yeah , and if you had uh fifteen Euros , then we would {gap} it . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: We had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , finance . +Industrial Designer: So we're bacal basically just lucky to uh get the price right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the teamwork was okay . +Marketing: Yeah , uh everybody could speak their uh opinion . And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think uh everyone listen to each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like marketing said things and then we had to i include them in the design . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . Yeah , what I have to say about uh means . The smart board is okay . Digital pen is horrible . I dunno if you use it . But if you want to download it to your computer , it's doesn't work . +User Interface: It was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Just doesn't work . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Well uh smart board would be very uh nice to work with , if it worked really well . +Marketing: Digital pen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Just not work too slow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i if if it would be faster , it would be great . +Marketing: Yeah , the drawings are are hard to make , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , more accurate . Yeah , it's i It should be more accurate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Precise . +User Interface: And uh I think it would be great if you could edit it from , just with a mouse , from where you're sitting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Not just pointing out on it . +Project Manager: It's the same for the presenta for the presentations . You can do it from here . That's much easier than standing there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so you've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and p just point with a mouse . +User Interface: No use to draw on the board itself . It's just slows down . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Just old fashioned kinda blackboard style . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: But you might as well do it in normal computer style . +Project Manager: like {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , even harder to draw like this than black board style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . And it's far too slow this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You cou You could draw on it , but not as main function . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {gap} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Digital pen . +Project Manager: So we made it in time . {vocalsound} And we made a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We did it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the budget , yeah . +User Interface: New ideas found . +Marketing: New ideas . +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What's that ? +Marketing: For for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what it mean . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just think if we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To gather , or to uh work together , uh or new ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For remote control probably . +User Interface: I dunno . +Project Manager: No , for the project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: For remote control , a favourite for your text . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: No , for the prototype . New ideas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but still , you couldn't make a fancy a f you couldn't make a a prototype out of this . Because we don't have any sizes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's for the next team . We don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} You can't possibly do that in such a short time , I think . +User Interface: That's for {gap} . Yeah , this this is just the idea phase , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just brainstorming basically . +User Interface: Yeah . Details uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are we finished ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , I think just {disfmarker} I just write a final report . +User Interface: Quite early . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: No , we have only four minutes left . Uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +User Interface: Oh , what do we have to do now . Do we uh {disfmarker} I thought we were done at four o'clock ? +Industrial Designer: It's now quarter past three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} I should take some pictures uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm we can do it afterwards , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's play minesweeper . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I found it as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ti-din ti-din . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} One two three four five six seven cameras . Mm not bad . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that was it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Now we can look at this . +User Interface: This is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're probably not supposed to look at this , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The old versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the previous group . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They went for uh for a universal device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The touchscreen , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but also a different device {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Then an L_C_D_ uh would be handy . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Here are the basic functions in here , the selecting dev devices . +User Interface: Yeah , and touch screens for all our stuff , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I do agree with that . Yeah , tu-dum . English is not so hard by the way . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I'm breaking a world record here . +User Interface: Well , leader ? Project Manager ? +Marketing: Oh shit . {vocalsound} We've got a problem , Paul . +User Interface: You do ? Yeah , you have to make a choice . +Marketing: Yes . No it's your choice . +User Interface: Wow , that's pretty quick . +Marketing: Tu-dum . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh uh um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just pick one . +User Interface: You have to decide . It's the lower one . +Marketing: What's this ? A bomb or not a bo +User Interface: No no , the upper one is the bomb . +Marketing: This the bomb ? +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wrong . Shit . +User Interface: I knew it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I knew it . {vocalsound} Four in a row . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} That's too much work . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Come on . +Marketing: Is that previous work ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this one . +User Interface: I challenge you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's so stupid . No , that doesn't work . +User Interface: No , you gotta use the magic pen . Hmm . What if I put one there ? +Marketing: That's stupid . +User Interface: We'll see . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I don't agree . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah , you had two choices . That's gonna be draw . Or not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Too bad . +User Interface: I'll put it here . You are going to put it there . +Marketing: Yeah , then I put it there . {vocalsound} No one wins . +User Interface: It's a difficult choice , either here or there . +Industrial Designer: This is a very interesting design . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ugly . +Marketing: It's just the same as normal . +User Interface: Oh {gap} a pen . +Industrial Designer: Well it has a L_C_D_ , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Then do it correctly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Stupid design . Stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} And what else do we have ? +User Interface: Stupid , the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: 'Kay wait , I'm going to draw something and you must y {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What ? Okay , I'm going to guess what you're drawing . +Marketing: Okay , blank . +User Interface: No no , the new one . +Marketing: Oh . {gap} +User Interface: Uh they just don't save it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} I know uh . +User Interface: A house ? Yeah , you have to use the pen s stupid . +Project Manager: You have to save everything , you know that , huh ? +User Interface: No , not everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , everything . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Pen , select select pen . +Marketing: Pen . +Industrial Designer: It wants to know what we do in our spare time . +User Interface: Okay . It's a house . A plant ? +Marketing: No , it's {vocalsound} Only you can know it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I can know it . It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's uh very hard to draw . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that makes it easier . I think I know . No , wrong . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think I know what you're trying to draw , but it's wrong already . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , you missed the right side . +Marketing: Fuck . F +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , you're wrong , you're wrong +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little bit maybe , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} See where you're wrong now ? The entrance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay , the entrance is uh more to the left . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Warning . +User Interface: You're correct . +Marketing: Okay . But but but I think this part {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no you {vocalsound} made another mistake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . Yeah , there are a lot of mistakes , because the walls are thick like this . +User Interface: No I w Okay , I'm not that whiny . But uh there was a big hole here as well , and there as well . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . Uh here . Yeah , they're walking behind the walls . +User Interface: That's a kinda big mistake . {vocalsound} Warning , finish meeting now . Guys , I think we have to finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay this is a hard one . +User Interface: Uh ? +Industrial Designer: Boom-boa-ring-bing . +User Interface: What does it say ? +Industrial Designer: Fill in the questionnaire . What now ? +User Interface: Come on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No more chit-chat . +User Interface: Oh you gotta finish +Marketing: Che-che-che-che . +User Interface: over there ? In your own room ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm gonna be so lonely . +Marketing: Tu-dumm . Uh . +User Interface: Mm I'll clean that up later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is {disfmarker} That's my new interface . +User Interface: What's that ? +Marketing: That's a uh edited smiley . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tom-ti-dom . Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +","In a team meeting comprising a Project Manager, User Interface designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing professional, the group discusses various aspects of an ongoing remote control design project. Initially, some concern is expressed over saving their work, including drawings. They review their agenda, allocating time for prototype presentations. + +The User Interface designer raises an issue about incorporating speech recognition due to time constraints, which the Project Manager says is financially feasible and can be added if desired. The group debates various design aspects, such as the opening mechanism for the remote, color options, and button layouts. + +The Industrial Designer presents a basic outline of the remote, mentioning features like mute, on-off, and text functions, along with a microphone and scroll wheel designed for easy operation. The marketing member questions the number of functions needed for the microphone, to which speech recognition is specified as the intended purpose. + +There is further discussion about button configurations, including a second level of controls that are revealed by a slide-open panel, which the team agrees should have a sturdy design. They also talk about implementing an advanced chip for faster performance, which the Project Manager confirms is within budget. + +As the conversation continues, they discuss incorporating various features into the remote, such as a customizable LED color, transparent materials for some buttons, and the importance of ergonomics. The marketing professional then raises a practical concern about making sure frequently used functions, like switching to a game console, are easily accessible on the remote. + +The meeting veers into a more informal territory towards the end, discussing project evaluation, teamwork, and the tools they used during the project, such as the smart board and digital pen. They agree that some means of technology could be better like faster processing or more precise inputs. They also play a game of minesweeper before being prompted by a warning that the meeting time is nearing its end. + +In conclusion, the team worked on refining the design of a remote control, discussing features such as speech recognition, button layout, the slide-open panel, LED colors, and the inclusion of a rechargeable home-station, all within budget constraints. There was room for creativity in the project, and they felt they achieved a balance of aesthetic and technical innovation targeted at a younger audience under forty. They examine some previous work for comparison before closing the meeting with reminders to complete a questionnaire. They also briefly cleanup and doodle, ending the discussion with light-hearted banter." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","In the conversation, the project team discusses various aspects of their conceptual design meeting for a new kind of remote control targeted towards a young, business-oriented demographic. Below are key points and decisions made in their discussion: + +1. Marketing: There's a focus on trend-watching. Market research indicates consumers desire a remote control that has a fancy look and feel, is technologically innovative, and easy to use—in that order of importance. There are trends towards vibrant, fruit and vegetable-inspired colors and a spongy feel for materials. + +2. Industrial Design: They discussed component design and battery options, concluding that a kinetic charging system (similar to that in wristwatches) would be the best fit. They considered, but ultimately dismissed, options like dynamo charging, solar charging, and standard removable batteries. + +3. User Interface: The remote control is planned to have a flip-design with different functionalities on each side—standard common controls like volume and channel buttons on one side and an LCD touch interface on the other. There was consideration of including a voice recognition feature to help locate the remote. + +4. Design Decisions: The team agreed to use plastic for the inner case and a spongy rubber material for the outer cover, which can be changed for color customization. Colors will be inspired by vibrant fruit and vegetable colors rather than mimicking their shapes. The design will remain minimalistic and modern to align with home aesthetics, and they will incorporate the company's logo appropriately. + +5. Concerns and Considerations: The team is conscious of the costs, particularly concerning the addition of voice recognition capabilities. There was also talk about making the device appealing to both men and women. They must ensure it fits the fancy look and feel that consumers desire while remaining within budget and practical constraints. + +6. Key Outcomes: They have decided on kinetic charging with a backup battery option, a dual-interface with rubber buttons and an LCD display, market research-oriented design choices, and the potential for voice recognition features, all while keeping the product trendy and technologically innovative. They also considered different color and material options for customization and the practicality of their choices. + +The project team will now move forward based on the agreed components and features and will further explore costs to finalize the design and feature set of the remote control." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","Summary: +In a conceptual design meeting, the project team made decisions concerning the design and features of a trendy remote control aimed at young business users. They decided to use a kinetic charging system with a watch-type battery, incorporate an LCD display for the upper flip with touch-sensitive buttons, and have rubberized buttons below for frequently used functions. They chose to create a plastic casing with a spongy, rubberized cover in fruit and vegetable colors, potentially incorporating voice recognition technology to locate the remote, depending on cost. The design will also include the company logo, ensuring it stands out in the market. The meeting concluded with actions to investigate the financial feasibility of the voice recognition feature and further refine the design choices made." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Alright , so I 'm - I should read all of these numbers ? +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Piece of paper ? I could borrow ? +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: OK , so uh i um I don't know whether Ami 's coming or not um but I think we oughta just get started . +Grad E: Nancy is uh currently in Berkeley but not here ? +Grad C: Nancy 's still stick ? +Professor B: Don't know . Anyway +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , so there you go . Anyway , so my idea f for today and we can uh decide that that isn't the right thing to do was to at {disfmarker} spend at least part of the time trying to eh build the influence links , you know which sets of things are uh relevant to which decisions and actually I had uh specific s suggestion to start first with the path ones . The database ones being in some sense less interesting to us although probably have to be done and so to do that so there 's {disfmarker} and the idea was we were gonna do two things +Grad C: Is your mike on ? +Professor B: Ah . Oh right , well . Yeah . We were gonna do two things one of which is just lay out the influence structure of what we think influences what +Grad D: That 's funny . +Professor B: and then as a uh separate but related task uh particularly Bhaskara and I were going to try to decide what kinds of belief nodes are needed in order to um do what we {disfmarker} what we need to do . Once so but du we should sort of have all of the uh basic design of what influences what done before we decide exactly how to compute it . So I didn't {disfmarker} did you get a chance to look at all {disfmarker} yet ? +Grad D: Yeah , I looked at some of that stuff . +Professor B: Great . OK so let 's start with the uh belief - nets , the general influence stuff and then we 'll {disfmarker} then we 'll also at some point break and talk about the techy stuff . +Grad E: Well I think one could go there 's I think we can di discuss everything . First of all this I added , I knew from sort of basically this has to be there right ? Um +Professor B: Oh are you gonna go there or not ? Yeah , so one i +Grad E: Given {disfmarker} given uh uh not transverse the castle , the decision is does the person want to go there or is it just +Professor B: Right , true . Does have to be there . And I 'm sure we 'll find more as we go that +Grad E: And Hmm ? So Go - there in the first place or not is definitely uh one of the basic ones . We can start with that . Interesting effect . Um Is this basically true or false or maybe we 'll get +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which one ? +Grad E: what ? +Grad A: "" Go there "" . +Grad E: m right . +Professor B: so there is this question about +Grad E: Here we we actually get just probabilities , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: right for each down here . +Professor B: When we 're {disfmarker} yeah when we 're done . So {disfmarker} so +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the reason it might not be true or false is that we did have this idea of when so it 's , you know uh current @ @ and so forth and so on or not at all , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? And so that a decision would be do we want that so you could {disfmarker} two different things you could do , you could have all those values for Go - there or you could have Go - there be binary and given that you 're going there when . +Grad E: When . How . +Professor B: Yeah and so forth . +Grad E: Why , +Professor B: So I 'll let +Grad E: yeah . +Professor B: we 'll see . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad A: I mean it seems that you could um uh it seems that those things would be logically independent like you would wanna have them separate or binary , Go - there and then the {disfmarker} the possibilities of how to go there because {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's start that way . +Grad A: because , you know it might be easy to figure out that this person is going to need more film eventually from their utterance but it 's much more complex to query when would be the most appropriate time . +Grad E: Hmm . Hmm . OK . And so I 've tried to come up with some initial things one could observe so who is the user ? Everything that has user comes from the user model everything that has situation comes from the situation model - A . We should be be clear . But when it comes to sort of writing down when you {disfmarker} when you do these things is it here ? You sort of have to a write the values this can take . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: And here I was really uh in some s sometimes I was really sort of standing in front of a wall feeling very stupid because um {disfmarker} this case it 's pretty simple , but as we will see the other ones um for example if it 's a running budget so what are the discrete values of a running budget ? So maybe my understanding there is too impoverished . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: No uh +Grad E: How can I write here that this is something , a number that cr keeps on changing ? But OK . Thus is understandable ? +Grad A: Think so . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: So here for example . +Professor B: You 've s have you seen this before at all Keith , these belief - net things ? +Grad A: Uh , no , but I think I 'm following it . So far . +Grad E: So here is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we had that the user 's budget may influence the outcome of decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad E: There we wanted to keep sort of a running total of things . +Grad D: Is this like a number that represents how much money they have left to spend ? OK , h well I mean how is it different from user finance ? +Grad E: Um the finance is sort of here thought of as {disfmarker} as the financial policy a person carries out in his life , he {disfmarker} is he cheap , average , or spendy ? +Grad D: Alright . +Grad E: And um I didn't come uh maybe a user I don't know , I didn't want to write greediness , but +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Professor B: Or cheapness . +Grad E: Welcome . +Grad A: User thrift . +Grad E: Welcome . +Professor B: Thrift , that 's good . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Great . +Grad E: There it is . +Professor B: Yeah . So Keith w what 's behind this is actually a program that will once you fill all this in actually s solve your belief - nets for you and stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is not just a display , this is actually a GUI to a simulator that will if we tell it all the right things we 'll wind up with a functioning belief - net at the other end . +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad E: And it 's so simple even I can use it . +Grad A: Wow , that is simple . +Grad E: OK , so here was OK , I can think of uh people being cheap , average , or spendy or we can even have a {disfmarker} a finer scale moderately cheap , +Professor B: Doesn't matter . +Grad E: doesn't matter . Agree there but here um I wasn't sure what to write in . +Professor B: Let 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +Grad D: Well , I mean you 've written in {disfmarker} you 've written in what uh seems to be required like what else is {disfmarker} is do you want ? +Grad E: If that 's permissible then I 'm happy . +Professor B: Well yeah . So here 's {disfmarker} here 's what 's permissible is that you can arrange so that the um the value of that is gonna have to be updated and n it 's not a belief update , right ? It 's {disfmarker} you took some actions , you spent money and stuff , so the update of that is gonna have to be essentially external to the belief - net . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And then what you 're going to need is uh for the things that it influences . Well let 's {disfmarker} first of all let 's see if it does influence anything . And if it does influence anything then you 're gonna need something that converts from the {disfmarker} the number here to something that 's relevant to the decision there . So it could be ra they create different ranges that are relevant for different decisions or whatever {disfmarker} but for the moment this is just a node that is conditioned externally and might influence various things . +Grad E: Hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} this is where um OK anyways let 's forget it . +Professor B: Well that 's fine . Well anyway , go ahead . +Grad E: OK , and so this , oh that +Grad D: The other thing is that um every time that 's updated beliefs will have to be propagated but then the question is do you {disfmarker} do we wanna propagate beliefs every single time it 's updated or only when we need to ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's a good question . And uh does it have a lazy mode ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Uh Well , I mean , in Srini 's thing there was this thing {disfmarker} there was this um option like proper inferences which suggests that uh doesn't happen , automatically . +Professor B: Oh right . Yeah . S probably does . Yeah someone has to track that down , but I {disfmarker} but uh And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I think {disfmarker} actually uh +Grad E: I just accidentally Oops . +Professor B: one of the we w items for the uh user home base uh should be uh essentially non - local . I they 're only there for the day and they don't have a place that they 're staying . +Grad D: Well +Grad E: Oh just uh accidentally erased this , I {disfmarker} I just had values here such as uh um is he s we had in our list we had "" Is he staying in our hotel ? "" , "" Is he staying with friends ? "" , and so forth +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: uh so we 're OK . +Professor B: So it 's clear where w w w where we are right now . So my suggestion is we just pick uh +Grad E: Something down here ? +Professor B: one , you know one uh particular one of the uh well let 's do the first {disfmarker} first one let 's do the one that we sort of already think we did so w that was the {disfmarker} of the endpoint ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And um Oops . +Grad D: Is hmm +Grad E: Ah , +Grad D: So it 's true or false ? +Professor B: No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a +Grad E: OK . No no no , EVA . +Grad D: So +Grad E: Missed that one . +Grad C: What 's the difference between mode and endpoint ? +Grad D: I thought mode , yeah . +Professor B: although that +Grad E: Um mode was um +Professor B: Well , that 's +Grad D: Mode of transportation ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . Also true or false . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , he has he hasn't filled them in yet , is what 's true . +Grad D: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Did I or didn't I ? Ah . Probably nothing done yet , oh I just did it on the upper ones , OK . Makes sense . OK , so this was EVA . Maybe we can think of more things , cross +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Climb , rob . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: climb , emerge +Professor B: No no no , these are ju that 's just a point , +Grad C: Uh +Grad D: Well some of those are subsumed by approach . +Professor B: this is ju +Grad C: Would it be an endpoint if you were crossing over it ? +Grad A: The Charles Bridge , you know . +Professor B: Yeah , would be a f for a given segment . You know , you {disfmarker} y you go {disfmarker} first go the town square +Grad C: Well I eh +Grad A: No , I mean , if you go to re you know if you go to Prague or whatever one of your {disfmarker} your key points that you have to do is cross the Charles Bridge and doesn't really matter which way you cross which {disfmarker} where you end up at the end but the part {disfmarker} the good part is walking over it , so . +Professor B: That 's subtle , but true . Anyway so let 's just leave it three {disfmarker} with three for now +Grad E: Mm - hmm , mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: and let 's see if we can get it linked up just to get ourselves started . +Grad E: OK , we +Professor B: You 'll see it {disfmarker} you 'll see something comes up immediately , that the reason I wanna do this . +Grad E: w well the uh user was uh definitely more likely to enter if he 's a local +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: more likely to view if he 's a tourist um and then of course we had the fact that given the fact that he 's thrifty and there will be admission then we get all these cross um +Professor B: We did , but the three things w that {disfmarker} that it contributed to this in fact , the other two aren't up there . so one was the ontology +Grad E: We 'll d what type of building is it ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And the {disfmarker} and the third thing we talked about was something from the discourse . +Grad E: What he has mentioned before . +Professor B: OK , so this is w Right , so what w I {disfmarker} what we seem to need here , this is why it starts getting into the technical stuff +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: the way we had been designing this , there were three intermediate nodes uh which were the endpoint decision as seen from the uh user model as seen from the ontology and as seen from the discourse . So each of those the way we had it designed , now we can change the design , but the design we had was there was a decision with the same three outcomes uh based on the th those three separate considerations +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: so if we wanted to do that would have to put in uh three intermediate nodes +Grad E: Uh we can load it up it you know very simple . +Grad A: So +Professor B: and then what you and I have to talk about is , OK if we 're doing that and they get combined somehow uh how do they get combined ? But the {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're undoubtedly gonna be more things to worry about . +Grad E: So this was adjusted for this one mode thing . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's w w in our uh in {disfmarker} in Johno 's sort of pictogram everything that could contribute to whether a person wants to enter , view , or approach something . +Professor B: Oh , it was called mode , so this {disfmarker} this is m mode here means the same as endpoint . +Grad E: Is now this endpoint . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: OK , why don't we ch can we change that ? +Grad E: We can just rename that , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . You know , but that was actually , yeah unfortunately that was a um kind of an intermediate versio that 's I don't think what we would currently do . +Grad A: Can I ask about "" slurred "" and "" angry "" as inputs to this ? +Professor B: That 's a +Grad A: What {disfmarker} why ? +Grad D: Like they 're either true or false +Grad E: The prosody ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: and they uh oh I see . +Grad C: If the {disfmarker} if the person talking is angry or slurs their speech they might be tired or , you know +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . Drunk . +Grad D: Therefore +Grad C: And , you know , possibly uh +Grad A: Less likely to enter . +Grad C: some , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad D: uh I was thinking less likely to view +Professor B: Yeah . But that 's - that seems to , yeah . So {disfmarker} so my advice to do is {disfmarker} is get this down to what we think is actually likely to {disfmarker} to be a {disfmarker} a strong influence . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: But yeah , that was what he had in mind . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: So let 's think about this {disfmarker} this question of how do we wanna handle {disfmarker} so there 're two separate things . One is {disfmarker} uh at least two . One is how do we want to handle the notion of the ontology now what we talked about , and this is another technical thing Bhaskara , is uh can we arrange so that I think we can so that the belief - net itself has properties and the properties are filled in uh from on ontology items . So the {disfmarker} let 's take the case of the uh this endpoint thing , the notion was that if you had a few key properties like is this a tourist site , you know some kind of landmark is it a place of business uh is it something you physically could enter +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , et cetera . So that there 'd be certain properties that would fit into the decision node and then again as part of the ou outer controlling conditioning of this thing those would be set , so that some somehow someone would find this word , look it up in the ontology , pull out these properties , put it into the belief - net , and then the decision would flow . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now +Grad E: Seems to me that we 've sort of e em embedded a lot , em embedded a lot of these uh things we had in there previously in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some of the other final decisions done here , for example if we would know that this thing is exhibiting something um +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: if it 's exhibiting itself it is a landmark , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: meaning more likely to be viewed +Professor B: Yep . +Grad E: if it is exhibiting pictures or sculptures and stuff like this , then it 's more likely to be entered . +Professor B: I uh that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's completely right and um I think that 's good , right ? So what {disfmarker} what that says is that we might be able to uh take and in particular so {disfmarker} so the ones we talked about were uh exhibiting and selling +Grad E: Accessibility . +Professor B: no , accessibility meant +Grad E: If it 's closed one probably won't enter . Or if it 's not accessible to a tourist ever the likelihood of that person actually wanting to enter it , +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: given that he knows it , of course . +Professor B: Alright . So let me suggest this . Uh w could you move those up about halfway . Uh The ones that you th And selling I guess . +Grad E: Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of these if it 's fixing things selling things , or servicing things +Professor B: Right . So here {disfmarker} here 's what it looks like to me . is that you want an intermediate structure which i uh is essentially the or of uh for this purpose of {disfmarker} of uh selling , f fixing , or servicing . So that it uh that is , for certain purposes , it becomes important but for this kind of purpose uh one of these places is quite like the other . Does that seem right ? So we di +Grad C: Basic you 're basically just merging those for just the sake of endpoint decision ? +Professor B: if we Yes . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if {disfmarker} well it may be more than endpoint decisions , so the idea would be that you might wanna merge those three +Grad E: These three ? +Professor B: Yeah . Eh ser s uh selling , fixing , and servicing . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: What ex um and so either those is true f or false ? +Professor B: Uh Uh well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i here 's where it gets a little tricky . +Grad D: So +Professor B: Uh from the belief - net point of view it is from another point of view of course it 's interest it 's {disfmarker} it 's important to know what it 's selling or servicing and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So for this decision it 's just uh true or false +Grad D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: and in th this is a case where the or seems just what you want . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that if any of those things is true then it 's the kind of place that you uh +Grad E: Um more likely to enter . +Professor B: are more likely to enter . +Grad D: So you just wanna have them all pointing to a summary thing ? +Professor B: You could , yeah . Yeah , so let 's do that . No no , no eh to {disfmarker} to an inter no , an intermediate node . +Grad D: T +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's the p part of the idea , is +Grad E: Um is {disfmarker} is that the object type node ? +Professor B: I d +Grad E: So are they the {disfmarker} is it the kind of object that sells , fixes , or services things ? +Professor B: Well , o open up object type and let 's see what its values are . +Grad E: Oh I just created it , it has none so far . +Professor B: Oh , well OK first of all it 's not objects , we called them entities , right ? +Grad E: Yeah . And then we have sort of the um +Professor B: Let 's say I put commercial . +Grad E: Yeah , I w I was just gonna commercial action inside where people p +Professor B: Well couldn't I do {disfmarker} let 's do commercial uh landmark and +Grad E: And where was the accessible , yeah . +Professor B: Well accessible I think is different cuz that 's tempor that {disfmarker} that varies temporally , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: whereas this is a +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: What would a hotel fall under ? +Professor B: I would call that a service , but {disfmarker} but I don't know . +Grad C: Well I mean in terms of entity type ? +Professor B: Say w w well it 's co I would s a a again for this purpose I think it 's commercial . Someplace you want to go in to do some kind of business . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Um what does the underscore - T at the end of each of those things signify ? +Grad E: Um things . So places that service things sell things or fix things and pe places that e exhibit things . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . That also points to entity type I guess . +Grad A: So we 're deriving um this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this feature of whether the {disfmarker} the main action at this place happens inside or outside or what we 're deriving that from what kind of activity is done there ? Couldn't you have it as just a primitive feature of the entity ? +Professor B: Well you could , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a choice . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So uh +Grad A: I mean it seems like that 's much more reliable cuz you could have outdoor places that sell things and you know indoor places that do something else +Professor B: Yeah , the problem with it is that it sort of putting in a feature just for one decision , +Grad A: and Hmm . +Professor B: now w we may wind up having to do that this i anyway , this i +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: at a mental level that 's what we we 're gonna have to sort out . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So , you know what does this look like , what are {disfmarker} what are uh intermediate things that are worth computing , what are the features we need in order to make all these decisions +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and what 's the best way to organize this so that um it 's clean and {disfmarker} and consistent and all that sort of stuff . +Grad A: OK . I 'm just thinking about how people , human beings who know about places and places to go and so on would store this and it would probably {disfmarker} you wouldn't just sort of remember that they sell stuff and then deduce from that that it must be going on inside or something . +Grad E: Well I think an entity maybe should be regard as a vector of several possible things , it can either em do s do sell things , fix things , service things , exhibit things , it can be a landmark at the same time as doing these things , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's not either or mmm certainly a place can be a hotel and a famous site . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Many come to mind . Things can be generally um a landmark and be accessible . IE a {disfmarker} a castle or can be a landmark a or not accessible , some statue +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: you know can go inside . +Professor B: OK . Anyway so let me suggest you do something else . Uh which is to get rid {disfmarker} get rid of that l long link between who {disfmarker} the user and the endpoint . +Grad E: Could we just move it like this ? +Professor B: No no , I don't want the link there at all . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Because what we 're gonna want is an intermediate thing which is uh the endpoint decisi the endpoint decision based o on the user models , so what we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} what we talked about is three separate endpoint decisions , so let 's make a new node +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Just as a suggestion maybe you could "" save as "" to keep your old one nice and clean and so you can mess with this one . +Grad E: Mmm . The old one was not that not that important , I think but +Grad C: OK , well , not a big deal then . +Grad E: Let 's do it then . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} Isn't there a "" save as "" inside of java base ? +Grad E: But I can just take this +Grad C: OK . +Grad E: copy it somewhere else . This was user something +Professor B: Well this was +Grad E: or +Professor B: uh let 's p put it this {disfmarker} let 's do endpoint underbar - U . +Grad E: end point ? +Professor B: i endpoint , e end poi this is sa +Grad E: Ah . +Professor B: it 's the endpoint +Grad E: Gotcha , yeah . +Professor B: let 's say underbar - U , so that 's the endpoint decision uh as seen through the +Grad C: As related from the user model . +Professor B: Right . So let 's {disfmarker} let 's actually yeah so lin you can link that up to the +Grad E: Should I rename this {pause} too ? +Professor B: uh yeah , so that , I guess that 's endpoint uh +Grad E: It 's underscore - E . +Professor B: underscore - E for entity , and we may change all this , but . Right . And +Grad E: OK , shouldn't I be able to move them all ? No . Or {disfmarker} ? Can I ? Where ? What ? +Professor B: Oh I d eh I don't know . Actually , I guess the easiest thing would move {disfmarker} mo move the endpoint , well , go ahead . Just do whatever . +Grad E: Wasn't this possible ? +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: I think you have to be in move mode before +Grad E: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Good . Right . +Grad E: So now we 're looking for user related things that um +Professor B: Yeah . And uh maybe th maybe it 's just one who is the user , I don't know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe there 's more . +Grad A: Huh . +Grad E: Well if he 's usi if he 's in a car right now what was that people with Harry drove the car into the cafe +Professor B: Never mind . Uh anyway , this is crude . Now but the {disfmarker} now so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but then the question is uh so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we assume that some of these properties would come indirectly through an ontology , but then we had this third idea of input from the discourse . +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} should we finish this , +Professor B: Sure , +Grad E: I mean but surely the user interests +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: The user thrift , the user budget . +Grad E: yeah , yeah +Professor B: Well , maybe , I again , I d well , OK , put em in but what we 're gonna wanna do is actually uh +Grad C: Well is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Here this was one of my problems we have the user interest is a {disfmarker} is a vector of five hundred values , so um That 's from the user model , +Grad D: Oh you mean level of interest ? +Grad E: mm - hmm , no not levels of interest but things you can be interested in . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: somebody else has built this user model . +Grad D: Oh I see , +Grad E: Gothic churches versus Baroque townhouses versus +Grad D: right . So why is it oh it , so it 's like a vector of five hundred one 's or zero 's ? +Grad E: Yea - n is that +Grad D: Like for each thing are we {disfmarker} are you interested in it or not ? +Grad E: yeah uh I {disfmarker} I think +Grad D: I see . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . So uh you cou and so here let me give you two ways to handle that . Alright ? One is um you could ignore it . But the other thing you could do is have an {disfmarker} and this will give you the flavor of the {disfmarker} of what you could have a node that 's {disfmarker} that was a measure of the match between the object 's feature , you know , the match between the object the entity , I 'm sorry and the user . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor B: So you could have a k a "" fit "" node and again that would have to be computed by someone else +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh so that uh +Grad E: Just as a mental note uh +Professor B: Yeah , that 's all . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and should we say that this interests eh affects the likelihood of {disfmarker} of entering ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , we could . +Grad E: Yeah . And also if it 's an expensive place to enter , this may also +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Budget . +Grad A: User schedule . "" Do I have time to go in and climb all the way to the top of the Koelner Dome {comment} or do I just have to {disfmarker} "" "" time to take a picture of the outside ? "" +Grad E: Schedule ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: It seems like everything in a user model a affects {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well that 's what we don't wanna do , see that {disfmarker} se cuz then we get into huge combinatorics and stuff like that +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an +Grad C: Cuz if the , I mean , and if the user is tired , the user state , +Grad D: Well +Grad C: right , it would affect stuff , but I can't see why e anything w everything in the model wouldn't be +Professor B: Well , but +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: Well , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} we can't do that , so we we 're gonna have to +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: but this is a good discussion , we 're gonna have to somehow figure out uh some way to encapsulate that uh so if there 's some general notion of for example the uh relation to the time to do this to the amount of time the guy has or something like that is {disfmarker} is the uh compatibility with his current state , so that 's what you 'd have to do , you 'd have to get it down to something which uh was itself relatively compact , so it could be compatibility with his current state which would include his money and his time and {disfmarker} and his energy +Grad C: Yeah , just seems like it 'd push the problem back a level . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: It does . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad D: No but , it 's more than that , like the {disfmarker} the more sort of you break it up like because if you have everything pointing to one node it 's like exponential whereas if you like keep breaking it up more and more it 's not exponential anymore . +Professor B: So it yeah , there are two advantages . That 's tha there 's one technical one +Grad C: Sh - sh yeah , {disfmarker} +Professor B: and the other is it {disfmarker} it gets used +Grad C: S so we 'd basically be doing subgrouping ? Subgrouping , basically into mo +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: so basically make it more tree like going backwards ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . But it {disfmarker} there 's two advantages , one is the technical one that you don't wind up with such big exponential uh CBT 's , +Grad E: Bhaskara ? +Professor B: the other is it can be {disfmarker} it presumably can be used for multiple decisions . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that if you have this idea of the compatibility with the requirements of an action to the state of the user one could well imagine that that was u +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: not only is it sim is it cleaner to compute it separately but it could be that it 's used in multiple places . Anyway th so in general this is the design , this is really design problem . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , you 've got a signal , a d set of decisions um how do we do this ? +Grad E: What do I have under user state anyhow cuz I named that already something . Oh that 's tired , fresh , yeah . Maybe should be renamed into physical state . +Professor B: Or fat user fatigue even . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: That 's with a "" G "" ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Whatever . +Grad E: Then we can make a user state . +Professor B: What 's th what we 're talking about is compatibility . Uh or something , I don't know , but . +Grad C: I guess the {disfmarker} the question uh is It 's hard for me to imagine how everything wouldn't just contribute to user state again . Or user compatibility . +Professor B: Oh but the thing is that we uh uh we had some things that uh +Grad E: That don't . +Professor B: that don't +Grad E: The user interests and the user who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the user is are completely apart from the fact whether he is tired broke +Grad C: Sure , but other {disfmarker} I thought though the node we 're creating right now is user compatibility to the current action , right ? +Professor B: the right +Grad C: Seems like everything in the user model would contribute to whether or not the user was compatible with something . +Professor B: Uh maybe not . I mean the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} the issue is um would Even if it was true in some abstract general sense it might not be true in terms of the information we actually had and can make use of . And anyway we 're gonna have to find some way to cl uh get this sufficiently simple to make it feasible . +Grad E: Maybe um if we look at the {disfmarker} if we split it up again into sort of um if we look at the uh the endpoint again we {disfmarker} we said that for each of these things there are certain preconditions so you can only enter a place if you are not too tired to do so and also eh have the money to do so if it costs something so if you can afford it and perform it is preconditions . Viewing usually is cheap or free . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is that always true ? I don't know . +Grad C: Well , with the way we 're defining it I think yeah . +Professor B: W w but that eh viewing it without ent yeah view w with our definition of view it 's free cuz you +Grad E: And so is approaching . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Well what about the Grand Canyon , right ? No , never mind . I mean are there {disfmarker} are there large things that you would have to pay to get up close to like , I mean never mind , not in the current {disfmarker} +Professor B: No we have to enter the park . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Eh almost by definition um paying involves entering , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: ge going through some +Grad A: OK . Right , sure . +Professor B: Right . Uh So let me suggest we switch to another one , I mean clearly there 's more work to be done on this +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I think it 's gonna be more instructive to {disfmarker} to think about uh other decisions that we need to make in path land . And what they 're gonna look like . +Grad C: So you can save this one as and open up the old one , right and {disfmarker} and then everything would be clean . You could do it again . +Professor B: Why , I think it 's worth saving this one but I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to keep this one +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz I wanna see if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna reuse any of this stuff . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um so this might be What next ? +Professor B: Well you tell me , so in terms of the uh planner what 's {disfmarker} what 's a good one to do ? +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} th this go there or not I think is a good one . +Professor B: Uh +Grad E: Is a very basic one . So what makes things more likely that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the fir see the first thing is , getting back to thing we left out of the other is the actual discourse . +Grad E: So +Professor B: So Keith this is gonna get into your world because uh we 're gonna want to know you know , which constructions indicate various of these properties +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: s and so I {disfmarker} I don't yet know how to do this , I guess we 're gonna wind up pulling out uh discourse properties like we have object properties and we don't know what they are yet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that the Go - there decision will have a node from uh discourse , and I guess why don't we just stick a discourse thing up there to be as a placeholder for +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we also had discourse features of course for the endpoint . +Professor B: Of {disfmarker} of course . +Grad E: Identified that +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and so again re that 's completely correct , we have the user model , the situation model here , we don't have the discourse model here yet . Much the same way as we didn't {disfmarker} we don't have the ontology here . +Professor B: Well the ontology we sort of said we would pull these various kinds of properties from the ontology like exhibiting , selling , and so forth . +Grad E: Really . +Professor B: So in some sense it 's {disfmarker} it 's there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But the discourse we don't have it represented at all yet . +Grad E: Yeah . Um This be specific for second year ? Um And {disfmarker} and we probably will have uh something like a discourse for endpoint . +Professor B: But if we do it 'll have the three values . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Professor B: It 'll have the EVA values if {disfmarker} if we have it . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . OK just for starters and here discourse um +Professor B: For Go - there , probably is true and false , let 's say . That 's what we talked about . +Grad E: um well , I think um we 're looking at the {disfmarker} the little data that we have , so people say how do I get to the castle and this usually means they wanna go there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So this should sort of push it in one direction +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: however people also sometimes say how do I get there in order to find out how to get there without wanting to go there . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And sometimes um people say where is it +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because they wanna know where it is but in most cases they probably +Professor B: Yeah , but that doesn't change the fact that you 're {disfmarker} you want these two values . +Grad E: Oh yeah , true . So this is sort of some external thing that takes all the discourse stuff and then says here it 's either {pause} yep , yay , A , or nay . Yeah . OK ? +Professor B: And they 'll be a y uh , a user Go - there and maybe that 's all , I don't know . +Grad D: Situation Go - there , I mean , because it 's {disfmarker} whether it 's open or not . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , good . +Grad D: That definitely interes +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: But that now that kind of um what 's the word +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: um the {disfmarker} that interacts with the uh EVA thing if they just wanna view it then it 's fine to go there when it 's closed whereas if they want to um +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so +Professor B: Right , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's where it starts getting to be uh uh essentially more interesting , so what uh Bhaskara says which is completely right is if you know that they 're only going to view it then it doesn't matter whether it 's closed or not +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in terms of uh uh you know , whether {disfmarker} whether you wanna go there . +Grad D: The time of day , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: right I {disfmarker} well , right . +Grad C: It does matter though if there 's like a strike or riot or something . +Professor B: Absolutely there are other situational things that do matter . +Grad D: Right . So yeah , that 's what I said just having one situational node may not be enough because this {disfmarker} that node by itself wouldn't distinguish +Professor B: Well i i it can have di various values . Yeah , but we eh you {disfmarker} you 're right it might not be enough . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean , see I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking that any node that begins with "" Go - there "" is either gonna be true or false . +Grad A: Well , what {disfmarker} Whoops . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Ah . I see that could be . +Grad A: Also , that node , I mean the Go - there s S node would just be fed by separate ones for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , there 's different things , the strikes and the +Professor B: Could be . Yeah . N +Grad D: Like situation traffic and so on . +Grad A: Yeah , the time of day . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so now the other thing that Bhaskara eh pointed out is what this says is that uh there sh should be a link , and this is where things are gonna get very messy from the endpoint uh decision +Grad D: I guess the final +Professor B: maybe the t they 're final re and , I guess the very bottom endpoint decision uh to the Go - there node . And I {disfmarker} don't worry about layout , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean then we 'll go {disfmarker} we 'll go nuts but +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Maybe we could um have intermediate node that just the Endpoint and the Go - there S node sort of fed into ? +Professor B: Could be , yeah . +Grad D: Right . Because that 's what we , I mean that 's why this situation comes up . +Professor B: Yeah . Well the Go - there , actually the Endpoint node could feed {disfmarker} feed into the Go - there S That 's right , +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor B: so the Endpoint node , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: make that up t t to the Go - there then +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and again we 'll have to do layout at some point , but something like that . Now it 's gonna be important not to have loops by the way . Uh really important in {disfmarker} in the belief worl net world not to have loops +Grad E: I was just gonna +Professor B: uh +Grad D: Yes . +Grad E: How long does it take you to {disfmarker} to compute uh +Professor B: No it 's much worse than that . It {disfmarker} if i loo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's not def i it 's not well defined if you 're there are loops , +Grad D: It {disfmarker} things don't converge , yeah . +Grad E: uh R recursive action ? +Professor B: you just you have to there are all sorts of ways of breaking it up so that there isn't uh OK . +Grad E: Uh but this isn't , this is {disfmarker} this line is just coming from over here . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , no it 's not a loop yet , I 'm just saying we {disfmarker} we , in no , in +Grad D: Yeah . Well , but the good thing is we {disfmarker} we could have loopy belief propagation which {vocalsound} we all love . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: Right . OK , so anyway , so that 's another decision . Uh what 's {disfmarker} what 's another decision you like ? +Grad E: OK , these have no parents yet , but I guess that sort of doesn't matter . Right ? +Professor B: Well , the idea is that you go there , you go comes from something about the user from something about the situation and the uh the discourse is {disfmarker} is a mystery . +Grad E: I mean this is sort of This comes from traffic and so forth , yeah . Sh - Should we just make some +Professor B: Sure , if you want . +Grad E: um if there 's parking maybe Mmm Oh who cares . OK . And if he has seen it already or not and so forth , +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: OK . Um and discourse is something that sort of should we make a Keith note here ? +Professor B: Sure . +Grad E: That sort of comes from Keith . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Just sort of so we don't forget . Oops . Have to get used to this . OK , whoops . +Grad A: Um actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then also the discourse endpoint , I {disfmarker} I guess endpoint sub - D is {disfmarker} if you wanna make it consistent . +Grad C: Wh - ah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um actually is this the {disfmarker} the right way to have it where um go there from the user and go there from the situation just sort of don't know about each other but they both feed the go there decision because isn't the , I mean +Professor B: I think so . S +Grad A: uh , hmm OK . But that still allows for the possibility of the {disfmarker} of the user model affecting our decision about whether a strike is the sort of thing which is going to keep this user away from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not , a Right . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} all that {disfmarker} that kind of decision making happens at the Go - there node . +Professor B: Uh y you {disfmarker} yeah you {disfmarker} i you {disfmarker} if you needed to do that . +Grad A: Uh . If you needed it to do that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: But uh OK I was just thinking I guess maybe I 'm conflating that user node with possible {disfmarker} possible asking of the user +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: you know hey there 's a strike on , uh does that affect whether or not you wanna go or something +Professor B: Ah . Good point , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know how we 're going to {disfmarker} t uh +Grad A: or Yeah , so that might not come out of a user model but , you know , directly out of interaction . +Professor B: Right . Uh I gu yes my curr you know , don't yeah yeah yeah that 's enough . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh My current idea on that would be that each of these decision nodes has questions associated with it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the question wouldn't itself be one of these conditional things +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: you know , given that you know there 's a strike do you still wanna go ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: But uh if you told him a bunch of stuff , then you would ask him do you wanna go ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor B: But I think trying to formulate the conditional question , that sounds too much . +Grad A: Right , right . Yeah . Right , sure , OK . +Professor B: To me . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , but let me {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} let 's stay with this a minute +Grad E: But +Professor B: because I want to do a little bit of organization . Before we get more into details . The organization is going to be that uh the flavor of what 's going on is going to be that uh as we s e sort of going to this detail indeed Keith is going to {disfmarker} to worry about the various constructions that people might use +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and Johno has committed himself to being the parser wizard , +Grad A: Alright . +Professor B: so what 's going to happen is that eventually like by the time he graduates , OK uh they 'll be some sort of system which is able to take the discourse in context and have outputs that can feed the rest of belief - net . I j wa I {disfmarker} I assume everybody knows that , I just wanna you know , get closure that that 'll be the game then , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so the semantics that you 'll get out of the discourse will be of values that go into the various discourse - based decision nodes . And now some of those will get fancier like mode of transportation and stuff so it isn't by any means uh necessarily a simple thing that you want out . So uh if there is an and there is mode of transportation +Grad E: And it there 's a sort of also a split if you loo if you blow this up and look at it in more detail there 's something that comes from the discourse in terms of what was actually just said what 's the utterance go giving us +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and then what 's the discourse history give us . +Professor B: Yeah , well that , well , we 'll have to decide uh how much of th where that goes . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: That 's uh two things then . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: an and it 's not clear yet . I mean it could be those are two separate things , it could be that the discourse gadget itself integrates em as {disfmarker} which would be my guess that you 'd have to do see in order to do reference and stuff like that um you 've gotta have both the current discourse and the context to say I wanna go back there , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: wow , what does that mean and uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm +Grad A: Now . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright . So +Grad E: But is th is this picture that 's emerging here just my wish that you have noticed already for symmetry or is it that we get for each {disfmarker} each decision on the very bottom we sort of get the sub - E , sub - D , sub - U and maybe a sub - O {disfmarker} "" O "" for "" ontology "" um meta node +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: but it might just +Professor B: It could be . +Grad E: could be +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this is getting into the thing I wanna talk about next , +Grad E: so this +Professor B: which is s if that 's true uh how do we wanna combine those ? O or when it 's true ? +Grad E: but this eh w wou wou would be nice though that , you know , we only have at most four at the moment um arrows going f to each of the uh bottom decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: And four you {disfmarker} we can handle . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's too much ? +Professor B: Well i i it see i if it 's fou if it 's four things and each of them has four values it turns out to be a big CPT , it 's not s completely impossi I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not beyond what the system could solve but it 's probably beyond what we could actually uh write down . or learn . +Grad E: Right , true . +Professor B: Uh but , you know it 's four to the fourth . It 's pretty big . Uh . +Grad C: Two fifty - six , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: is that what that +Professor B: Yeah , I mean it 's and I don't think it 's gonna g e I don't think it 'll get worse than that by the way , so le that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a good +Grad D: Mmm yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} but four {disfmarker} didn't we decide that all of these had true or false ? So is {disfmarker} it 's four +Professor B: Uh for go there , but not f but not for {disfmarker} the other one 's three values for endpoint already . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean you need actually three to the five because uh well I mean if {disfmarker} if it has four inputs and then it itself has three values +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so I mean it can get big fast . +Grad E: Um for endpoint ? No it 's {disfmarker} it 's sh +Professor B: EV - it 's the EVA . +Grad E: yeah , down here , but this one only has two . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: No it still has three , +Professor B: Since ta they will still have three . +Grad D: EVA . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} so you 're uh uh from each point of view you 're making the same decision . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So from the point of view of the ob of the entity +Grad E: Want to view that , yeah yeah . C sl +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah +Grad D: This {disfmarker} and also , I mean , the other places where , like for example consider endpoint view , it has inputs coming from user budget , user thrift +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so even +Professor B: Those are not necessarily binary . S so we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna have to use some t care in the knowledge engineering to not have this explode . And in fact I think it doesn't in the sense that um Read it , you know actually with the underlying semantics and stuff I think it isn't like you have two hundred and fifty - six different uh ways of {disfmarker} of thinking about whether this user wants to go to some place . Alright . So we {disfmarker} we just have to figure out what the regularities are and and code them . But um What I was gonna suggest next is maybe we wanna work on this a little longer but I do want to also talk about the thing that we started into now of uh well it 's all fine to say all these arrows come into the si same place what rule of combination is used there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So th yes they {disfmarker} so these things all affect it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: how do they affect it ? And belief - nets have their own beliefs about uh what are good ways to do that . So is it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clearer n clear enough what the issue is , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: right ? So do we wanna switch that now or we wanna do some more of this ? +Grad E: R basically w we just need to sort of in order to get some closure on this figure out how we 're gonna get this picture sort of uh completely messy . +Professor B: Well , here {disfmarker} he here 's one of the things that {disfmarker} that I th you sh you {disfmarker} no , I don't know how easy it is to do this in the interface but you {disfmarker} it would be great if you could actually just display at a given time uh all the things that you pick up , you click on "" endpoint "" , OK and everything else fades +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you just see the links that are relevant to that . And I does anybody remember the GUI on this ? +Grad C: Uh d I would almost say the other way to do that would be to open u or make you know N - many belief - nets and then open them every time you wanted to look at a different one +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: vers cuz uh +Grad E: It 's probably pretty easy do it {disfmarker} to do it in HTML , just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: HTML ? +Grad E: Yeah I have each of these thing each of the end belief - nets be {disfmarker} be a page and then you click on the thing and then li consider that it 's respective , +Professor B: Yeah the {disfmarker} well the b +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: but +Professor B: anyway so uh it clear that even with this if we put in all the arrows nobody is gonna be able to read the diagram . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , so e we have to figure out some eh eh uh basically display hack or something to do this because anyway I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} let me consi suggest that 's a s not a first - order consideration , we have two first - order considerations which is what are the uh influences A , A , and B how do they get combined mathematically , how do we display them is an issue , but um +Grad C: I don't , yeah I just don't think this has been designed to support something like that . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , it might soon , if this is gonna be used in a serious way like java base then it might soon be necessary to uh start modifying it for our purposes . +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and Um I {disfmarker} that seems like a perfectly feasible thing to get into , but um we have to know what we want first . OK , so why don't you tell us a little bit about decision nodes and what {disfmarker} what the choices might be for these ? +Grad D: So Ah , sorry . I guess that 's +Grad C: You can technically wear that as you 're talking . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's right , I guess I can do that . +Grad A: Darn . +Professor B: Put it in your , yeah . +Grad D: I guess this board works fine . So um recall the basic problem which is that um you have a belief - net and you have like a lot of different nodes all contributing to one node . Right ? So as we discussed specifying this kind of thing is a big pain and it 's so will take a long time to write down because for example if these S have three possibilities each and this has three possibilities then you know you have two hundred and forty - three possibilities which is already a lot of numbers to write down . So what um helps us in our situation is that these all have values in the same set , right ? These are all like saying EV or A , right ? So it 's not just a generalized situation like I mean basically we wanna just take a combination of {disfmarker} we wanna view each of these as experts ea who are each of them is making a decision based on some factors and we wanna sort of combine their decisions and create you know , um sorta weighted combination . +Grad E: Hmm . ROVER , the ROVER decision . +Grad D: The what decision ? +Grad E: ROVER . All of their outputs combined to make a decision . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So the problem is to specify the uh so the conditional property of this given all those , right ? That 's the way belief - nets are defined , like each node given its parents , right ? So um that 's what we want , we want for example P of um let 's call this guy Y and let 's call these X - one , X - two XN , right . So we want probability that Y equals , you know , for example um E given that these guys are I 'll just refer to this as like X um hat or something , uh the co like all of them ? Given that for example the data says you know , A , V , A , E , or something right ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: So we would like to do this kind of combination . +Professor B: Alright , so um Is that uh I {disfmarker} yeah , I just wanna make sure everybody is with us before he goes on . +Grad A: I think so , yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's cl e is {disfmarker} is it clear what he wants to compute ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . So , right . So Basically um {vocalsound} what we don't wanna do is to for every single combination of E and V and A and every single letter E , s give a number +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because that 's obviously not desirable . What we wanna do is find some principled way of um saying what each of these is and we want it to be a valid probability distribution , so we want it to um add up to one , right ? +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: So those are the two things that we uh need . So what uh I guess , what Jerry suggested earlier was basically that we , you know view these guys as voting and we just take the uh we essentially take um averages , right ? So for example here two people have voted for A , one has voted for V , and one has voted for E , so we could say that the probabilities are , you know , probability of being E is one over four , because one person voted for E out of four and similarly , probability of so this is probability of E s and then probability of A given all that is um two out of four and probability of V is one out of four . Right ? So that 's step {disfmarker} that 's the uh yeah that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the basic uh thing . Now +Grad E: Um Yeah . +Grad D: Is that all OK ? +Grad E: And that one outcome , that 's +Professor B: What ? +Grad E: it 's X {disfmarker} X - one voted for A X - two voted for V +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and so forth ? +Professor B: Y right . Yep . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: S so this assumes symmetry and equal weights and all this sort of things , which may or may not be a good assumption , +Grad E: That 's the outcome . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: so that +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So step two is um right . So we 've assumed equal weights whereas it might turn out that you know , some w be that for example , what the um the actual the uh verbal content of what the person said , like what uh what might be uh somehow more uh important than the uh +Grad C: X - one matters more i than X - two or +Grad D: Right . Sure , so we don't wanna like give them all equal weight so currently we 've been giving them all weight one fourth so we could replace this by uh W - one , W - two , W - three , and W - four +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: right ? And in order for this to be a valid probability distribution for each um X - hat , we just need that the W 's sum to one . So they can be for example , you know you {disfmarker} you could have point one , point three , point two , and point four , say . +Grad E: That 's one . +Grad D: And that 'd be one . So that um also seems to work fine . And uh +Grad C: So I jus just to make sure I understand this , so in this case um we would still compute the average ? +Grad D: You 'd compute the weighted average , so the probability of E would be uh +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so it 'd be so in this case the probability that Y equals A would be uh {comment} W one times {disfmarker} +Grad A: Point three . +Grad C: or A or {disfmarker} let 's see , one full quarter times point one +Grad D: Not one quarter , +Grad A: No . +Grad D: so these numbers have been replaced with point one , point three , point two , and point four . So you can view these as gone . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Probability of +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So , alright . So this is uh step two . So the next possibility is that um we 've given just a single weight to each expert , right , whereas it might be the case that um in certain situations one of the experts is more uh reliable and in certain situations the other expert is more reliable . So the way this is handled is by what 's called a mixture of experts , so what you can have is you augment these diagrams like this so you have a new thing called "" H "" , OK ? This is a hidden variable . And what this is is it gets its input from X - one , X - two , X - three , and X - four , and what it does is it decides which of the experts is to be trusted in this particular situation . Right ? And then these guys all come here . OK . So this is sightly uh more complicated . So what 's going on is that um this H node looks at these four values of those guys and it decides in given these values which of these isn't likely to be more reliable or most reliable . So H produces some you know , it produces a number , either one , two , three , or four , in our situation , right ? Now this guy he looks at the value of H say it 's two , and then he just selects the uh thing . That 's all there is to say , I guess about it . Right , so you can have a mixture that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so the function of the thing that comes out of H is very different from the function of the other inputs . It 's driving how the other four are interpreted . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: So H passes a vector on to the next node ? +Grad D: It could . +Grad C: It could ? A vector of the weights as the se +Grad D: Yeah , it could +Grad C: oh . +Grad D: Sorry ? +Grad A: Well a vector with three zero 's and one one , right ? +Grad C: Oh it 's basically to tell the bottom node which one of the situations that it 's in or which one of the weighting systems +Grad D: Right , so I mean the way you desc +Grad C: W I was just , if you wanted to pay attention to more than one you could pass a w a weighting s system though too , couldn't you ? OK . +Grad A: Um Does H have to have another input to tell it alpha , beta , whatever , or is the {disfmarker} that 's determined by what the experts are saying , like the type of situ OK . Hmm . OK . OK . I mean It {disfmarker} it just seems that like without that {disfmarker} that outside input that you 've got a situation where , you know , like if {disfmarker} if uh X - one says no , you know , a low value coming out of X - on or i if X - one says no then ignore X - one , you know , I mean that seems like that 'd be weird , +Grad D: Yeah , well could be things like if X - two and X - three say yes then i ignore X - one also . +Grad A: right ? Oh , OK . OK . Alright , right . +Grad C: Oh The situations that H has , are they built into the net or OK , so they {disfmarker} they could either be hand coded or learned or OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: Based on training data , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yes . +Grad C: So you specify one of these things for every one of those possi possible situations . Oh yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . Um Well , I mean to learn them we need data , where are we gonna get data ? Well I mean we need data with people intentions , right ? +Grad A: Right , right . +Grad D: Which is slightly tricky . Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . But what 's the data about like , are we able to get these nodes from the data ? +Grad A: Like how thrifty the user is , or do we have access to that ? Mm - hmm . Oh right . Oh good . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Yeah , but that 's my question , like how do we {disfmarker} I mean , how do we have data about something like um um endpoint sub - E , or endpoint sub uh {pause} you know s S ? +Grad C: Well , basically you would say , based on {disfmarker} in this dialogue that we have which one of the things that they said eh whether it was the entity relations or whatever was the thing that determined what mode it was , +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad D: So this is what we wanna learn . Yep . Right . Hmm . Yeah . I don't think , well you have a {disfmarker} can you bring up the function thing ? Um w where is the thing that allows you to sort of +Grad C: That 's on the added variable , isn't it ? +Grad D: Oh function properties , is that it ? Hmm , I guess not . Yeah , that 's +Grad A: No . +Grad D: Right . OK . And um it so e either it 'll allow us to do everything which I think is unlikely , I think more likely it 'll allow us to do very few of these things and in that case we 'll have to um just write up little things that allow you to um create such CPU 's on your own in the java base format . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do because yeah I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do , it 's Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Ah . Well in terms of java base I think it 's basically what you see is what you get in I don't yeah , I would be surprised if it supports anything more than what we have right here . +Grad A: So Yeah . Yeah . By the way um uh just talking about uh about that general end of things uh is there gonna be data soon from what people say when they 're interacting with the system and so on ? Like , I mean , what kind of questions are being given {disfmarker} being asked ? Cuz {disfmarker} OK . Yeah yeah . OK . OK . Fey , you mean . OK . OK . O OK . OK . I 'm just wondering , because in terms of , you know , I mean uh w the figure {disfmarker} I was thinking about this figure that we talked about , fifty constructions or whatever that 's uh that 's a whole lot of constructions and um you know , I mean one might be f fairly pleased with getting a really good analysis of five maybe ten in a summer so , I mean I know we 're going for sort of a rough and ready . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . OK . I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} uh I was talking about the , you know , if you wanted to do it really in detail and we don't really need all the detail for what we 're doing right now but anyway in terms of just narrowing that task you know which fifty do I do , I wanna see what people are using , so Well , it will inspire me . Right , sure sure . Right . Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . OK . Touche . Good enough . +","In a meeting primarily discussing belief nets, various graduate students (A, C, E, D) and Professor B are trying to work out how different factors such as user data, situation dynamics, and discourse elements could be integrated into a decision-making tool. The conversation revolves around how to build influence links to establish what factors are relevant to decisions. They discuss using weights and a hidden variable to decide which expert inputs to prioritize when making decisions at the intersection of multiple influences. The group considers potential complexities, such as varying expert reliability and the exponential growth in possibilities when considering multiple factors with different values. + +Grad D introduces ""mixture of experts"" as a way to manage this complexity. This method involves a hidden variable (H) that determines which expert to trust based on the given situation. This variable looks at inputs and decides on the most reliable expert, which then gets selected for the decision-making process. They contemplate the feasibility of learning such models from data, especially with complex inputs like user intentions. Professor B and Grad D discuss the technical challenges and how such a system would work, including how to organize such a large amount of data. There was also a side note about when there would be data available from system-user interactions to focus the construction analysis on the most common user questions and statements. + +The conversation had a technical focus on modeling decisions based on a variety of factors and emphasized the need for computational methods to process and weigh different kinds of information. There was an understanding that while theoretical models are important, practical implementation challenges and data availability also play a crucial role in the development process." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","In the dialogue, the project team, consisting of a Project Manager, a Marketing specialist, an Industrial Designer, and a User Interface designer, gathered for a meeting to discuss the final touches on the design and functionality of a remote control product. The conversation captures the iterative process of decision-making, involving brainstorming, deliberation, and conclusion on various aspects of the product design. + +The team debates on whether there are any last-minute changes needed before the product plan is finalized. Marketing brings up potential market changes, suggesting the possibility of new information affecting the product. The Project Manager assures that no new information has surfaced and moves on to greeting another team member, Sebastian, the Industrial Designer, and Miss Tentel, who is stationed in the control room. + +As the Project Manager tries to get the group's attention to begin the meeting properly, some light humor is shared about punishing a colleague named Roo for being late. The Project Manager requests that if any team members take minutes of the meeting, they should upload them to a shared folder for him to use in the report. He then muses about the irony of needing to point a remote control at the television despite modern technology. + +Continuing with the meeting, the Project Manager requests any pre-discussion questions, to which there are none. The team agrees to start with individual presentations, with Ruud from Marketing providing insights into the market situation. Significant market changes have prompted the team to consider Ruud's data first. + +Marketing's presentation highlights that ease of use is important, but innovation and aesthetics are more critical, especially for younger consumers interested in colorful products with a spongy feel. The discussion veers into determining the preferred colors and materials for both the remote's design and packaging, aligning with principal market research findings. + +The Industrial Designer speaks about casings, energy sources, user interface options, indicators, etc. They talk about various design features such as scroll-wheels, spongy buttons, and the types of materials (rubber, wood, titanium) that can be used for the casing. An emphasis is placed on the energy source, considering batteries, solar cells, and kinetic energy as options. The pros and cons of high-tech features, such as voice recognition versus traditional button interfaces, are considered, with particular attention to ease of use versus novelty. + +The discussion becomes technical as they discuss the feasibility of particular design choices given their manufacturing limitations. They consider the 'coolness' factor of voice recognition balanced against the limitations of infrared technology, particularly in terms of user comfort and expectations. + +The team compromises on various points, trying to balance innovation and practicality, and decides to move forward with certain choices such as the curved design, the regular chip for operation, a yellow color scheme, solar cells, and the rejection of an LCD display. + +As the meeting progresses, further technical and design considerations are outlined, and the Project Manager intermittently clarifies decisions, including keeping the company's corporate identity within the new product by implementing grey and yellow colors. The U.I.D. and the Industrial Designer must collaborate on a SMARTboard prototype, and there's also humor interjected with the Project Manager joking about planning a holiday. + +Closing the meeting, the Project Manager asks for a summary of decisions made to be documented and shared. The decisions include a single-curved rubber case with company colors (grey and yellow), use of regular chips to control both basic and advanced functions, and the absence of an LCD display versus having standard buttons that might align better with market preferences for spongy touch. + +The Project Manager emphasizes the value of teamwork and collective input by entrusting particular decisions to team members more knowledgeable in those areas. Finally, the Project Manager confirms that all contributions will be consolidated into the shared folder for easier access and visibility for the whole team. They conclude by setting the expectation to reconvene in thirty minutes to review the prototype drawing, thus underlining the ongoing nature of the project development cycle." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: G good morning . +User Interface: Good morning , Flores . Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? You should put the laptop uh right into the square . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For i for the cameras , yes . +User Interface: For the cameras Alright . +Project Manager: Good morning , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Good morning , {vocalsound} Mister P_M_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} I'm fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How are you today ? How was your business trip to Boston ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um well , actually I didn't go , didn't feel like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Geez . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Do you want to open it as read-only . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I guess I should close it here . +User Interface: You have the same message of uh Windows cannot um +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: sen oh stand-by . Close the the window . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the waiting is for our Marketing Expert , Ruud . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} That's right . Ruud . +Project Manager: Um project kick-off . +Industrial Designer: Is there a schedule for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , there is actually . Um I will li list the agenda for today . For this meeting . Good morning , Ruud . +Marketing: Good morning . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's important um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I shall close the door . +Project Manager: yeah , great . It's important that the laptops are um exactly on the square , um for the cameras . Okay . Okay . Um we're here to develop uh a new product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I'm sure you've had a mail from our account manager about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} and um this is the first meeting to to generate some uh uh some ideas about it . Um you are here in a specific role . Uh Ruud is here as the Marketing Expert , Roo is here as the User Interface Designer and Sebastian is here uh in the role of Industrial Designer . Is that correct ? +Industrial Designer: That's correct . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} we're going to do um uh uh a little tool training uh for the tools we are going to use uh during uh the meetings we are going to have here . Um then I will tell you a little bit about my idea of the project plan , uh and we will have a discussion . Uh this meeting should take no more than twenty five minutes , so we should keep that in mind . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um is there any room for a little presentation ? Uh maybe during the discussion uh section ? +Project Manager: There is ? Yeah , there is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay , this new product we are are g are going to develop , um it's a remote control , a television remote control . Um and first of all it should be original , it should be trendy and user-friendly . Those are kind of easy um uh uh goals , um and I'm sure we can find more goals for the for the product we are going to develop . {vocalsound} Um we will discuss uh later on more ideas about uh how the remote should look and how it sh it should function and all those kind of things . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The market , we should have a look at the market . Um {vocalsound} we are going to use a a pred a project method uh during uh this development , um which consists of three different design stages . Uh the functional design , the conceptual design and the detailed design , um all of these stages um um mean that we do some individual work , prepare , and then uh meet to discuss our uh uh the {gap} {disfmarker} the the progressions , yes . +User Interface: Progressions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the first stage , the functional design um we are going to search for the user requirements , and we will um make a specific {disfmarker} uh specification of that . Um {vocalsound} the second is the technical functional design , um what effect should the remote have ? Well in this case control t the the television I think . +User Interface: It's for the vision . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and the last one is the working design . How exactly does it work in the technical sense . Um the other design stages , uh we will discuss that later . So we'll kop it {disfmarker} keep it with the functional design . {vocalsound} Okay , um before we think about remote control we will um work with some of the tools we have uh here . Um as you see now I can give a presentation . {vocalsound} Um it's also possible to use this one as well . You can uh uh display pr uh two presentations if you want to . Um {vocalsound} to um presentate , to show us uh a file you'll need to uh place it in your project documents folder , which is on your desktop , at least it should be . Um then we have this electronic white-board system . {vocalsound} Um yeah , I will show that now . Um you can draw on the board using this pen . There are little um uh +User Interface: Sensors . +Project Manager: sensors , so do not grab it here , but a lit more a little bit more to the uh to the end . Um well , it {disfmarker} it's on the um eraser now , so we click the pen button . Okay , so not too fast writing . Um {vocalsound} you can insert a new um slide or or white-board uh uh file um by either using the insert function or by clicking the next button or the blank button . It's quite the same . Um all our um whi um uh SMARTboard um notes should be kept in the same file . So do not m make a new file . Just use this one uh during the day . {vocalsound} Um you can use the eraser to make something go away . +User Interface: But we all use the same white-board file +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: So we can work together on it while we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or should we only use it in the in the meetings ? +Project Manager: Yeah , in the meetings , only in the meetings . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's really like like a regu regular whiteboard . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . Yep . +Project Manager: Um you can choose the format , um {disfmarker} sorry . Uh {disfmarker} Let me see . Um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess it's maybe because I'm not s uh pen selected . Yep . Current colour , you can choose another colour . And um for example black , and you c I can choose the line width . Um so now I d have a different line width and uh colour . Okay . Quite easy , if you uh do have any questions , just c ask me . Um {vocalsound} to um {disfmarker} oh well , I'm {disfmarker} I wrote down the documents uh should be in the project documents folder if you want to uh discuss it with us . Um as a little training {vocalsound} um I will ask Ruud first to draw uh uh your own animal on a new slide uh with uh a different colour and a different line width than the one uh now selected . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um green . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An animal . Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh a wee rabbit . +User Interface: It's a bunny . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A rabbit . Okay , well great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Roo , could you do the same please ? But a different animal with a different colour and a different line width . +User Interface: But of course , Flores . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Blank . +Project Manager: Sebastian is thinking about the animal . +Industrial Designer: I'm just uh guessing what should be my favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I'm think about it too . {vocalsound} Format {gap} . Well , it looked more than a bunny than a cat , but {vocalsound} it works , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I'll give it a try . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It it should be a cat . +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm guessing a horse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: With a very small {vocalsound} legs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I was very good in drawing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You should feed that uh that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I guess you uh get the idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay . {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Beautiful . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so um you can use this at any time during the presentation if you want to . Um any questions {disfmarker} well , just just let me know . Um okay , back to our project . Um {vocalsound} the remote control we are going to develop um will have a selling price of about twenty five Euros . Uh the profit we are looking for for this product is fifty million Euros , which is quite a number . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we will focus this internationally , so the product will be sold um , if there is market uh interest , uh in in more than one country . And um the production costs should not be more than uh twelve Euro fifty , so we should keep that in mind by uh w w during the development , {vocalsound} um because uh , well , those are important numbers . Um then the discussion , maybe the time for Sebastian to show his presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um I have some technical uh issues which I would like to present to you uh before we start the discussion , because uh there might be some uh +Project Manager: Limitations . +Industrial Designer: influations influences . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um first about my role , role of the Industrial Designer . I would like to think about uh the implementation of uh of things , and the technical possibilities and impossibilities . So if someone of you comes up with uh ideas , uh I'll try to translate them in technical functions , but uh there might be some impossibilities . So that's one . {vocalsound} Uh I also will propose some uh um uh some implementations for that , but {disfmarker} well , these are quite the same . Sorry about that . Um and I also will remind people of some new technical possibilities which are available and which might be interesting to implement in our product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some uh initial ideas about some things um which are maybe nice to take with you in the upcoming uh discussion . One thing about uh interopera operability . Um I think a modern uh remote control should uh control a device {disfmarker} diverse subset of equipment . Uh for instance , uh D_V_D_ players , cell phones , video and audio equipment . So one re uh one remote control for all your equipment . +User Interface: And for a cell phone ? +Industrial Designer: Well , there should be some interoperabi interoperability between them . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it could come in handy . We should discuss that . Um and we should think about the way how these things uh should communicate with each other . We're not uh living in the uh nineteen eighties anymore , so infrared is not uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is not really uh hot uh technical stuff anymore . But you should uh think about the things like uh Bluetooth . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah , but the infrared , it's uh , well , a little bit old-fashioned , if you would call it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But all the T_V_s are uh equipped with infrared , so +Industrial Designer: But it's cost-effective . Yes . Mm-hmm . Well , not all , not all . +User Interface: y you you can {disfmarker} Most of them . +Industrial Designer: So that's the point . +User Interface: Or you shou sh use a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you should equip infrared and Bluetooth together in one remote . +Industrial Designer: Maybe , but that's uh something we should discuss +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh about every everybody should think about it . So that's just my role , I'll just uh give you uh everybody some technical input , and I think now the time is to have a little discussion about what uh the product should be and how it should look , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but take these things into account when you start the discussion . +Project Manager: Okay , so the the main por uh the main points you are uh telling us are focus on the inter uh operability , +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so one thing uh one remote control should uh control one or more uh pieces of equipment , +Project Manager: Okay , and and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the way of communicating with these equipments . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} that was your presentation ? Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} okay . Great . Um {vocalsound} I'll go back to my own presentation . Um {disfmarker} Mm . Okay . Um I I do think it's time now to to discuss uh mm some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Sebastian told us a few things about the technical implemen uh implications . Um there are other things like um {vocalsound} how to make it trendy , which is I think uh um most uh Ru uh Ruud's uh role . Um the way how it should be controlled by the user , which is uh Roo uh r uh during this part . Um so let's start with you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: H how do you think the remote should um function for the user ? +User Interface: Well , I had a few uh things in mind . Um well , the interoperability , just like uh Sebastian said , um the remote should work on different T_V_s or even different uh um {disfmarker} Yeah uh , what is it , devices ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um so i i I think it's a universal remote control for customers to buy just new in uh a store . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I think it should be something like that . +User Interface: It's not for uh for uh for uh Philips or whatever to buy our remote for their own product , +Project Manager: Okay , so we're we're going business to consumer , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: not {disfmarker} we're we're {disfmarker} it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I do I don't know that . It's no I have uh {disfmarker} don't have the information for it . +Industrial Designer: We're not developing this product for a specific vendor , are we ? +Project Manager: No . No . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: we're just developing this product , and we want to sell it to a very broad uh public , so it should fit to every device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , y do you agree ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think they're right , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well , the techni fu technical function uh {gap} {disfmarker} what you said is just by pressing the button you should change the state of the T_V_ . That's just the basic f technical function . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that was my {disfmarker} really my part for uh this session . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is that ease of use or uh is that more like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's just the fu the technical function is {vocalsound} pure what should the remote control do , wh what is his task uh as an uh as an uh device . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It just should change the T_V_'s state . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that's it . Um but furthermore {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you you see uh the buttons as a as a means of doing this ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , with buttons . +Industrial Designer: Or are there any o other controls ? +User Interface: Yeah , or maybe you want a touch-screen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are there only {disfmarker} any other cont Well , {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I've seen these remote controls with uh this little stick uh which you can move forward , sidewords . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: You know these things . And um it's very easy for a user to to switch {disfmarker} +User Interface: They're very vu vulnerable . +Industrial Designer: w yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to to switch b uh between uh channels or uh change uh between tracks on a on a C_D_ , on on a chapters , you know , on a D_V_D_ player . So maybe that's an idea , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: And for other user interface I had um , well , it's more industrial thing . Uh point at a T_V_ , I think it's it's quite disturbing when you always have to point directly to the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you must {vocalsound} point everywhere , so maybe infrared is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe not even pointed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , just don't even point it , so in that case infrared should uh maybe uh be restriction to that . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh is that uh {disfmarker} are there restriction for the range , the operating range too ? So when you're not able to point at the device um the range is very limited . +User Interface: Yeah , if you g if you go to radio or or {disfmarker} yeah . For T_V_ , you're always in in the neighbourhood of a T_V_ , so I don't think think the range should be a problem to that , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if you want to uh get it working with a radio , and you're in {disfmarker} outside your garden with just one uh speaker , then maybe the range should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , gentlemen , um uh just a reminder , we d we have five minutes left for this meeting +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Two more things . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Um You should able to feel the buttons without uh it mis um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to know what you do without looking at the buttons , so it should be as user interface um for feeling should be uh good to understand . +Project Manager: Okay , s yeah . +User Interface: You must feel the buttons for volume or whatever , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And of course you don't always know where all buttons are , so it should be visible al um {vocalsound} in dark too . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So when it's dark {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Those are two really uh user interface {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I'll write down glow in the dark . Is tha {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} That's perfect . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um uh I just want to hear uh Ruud's um input for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Do do you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you have anything already w um ab idea about how the market uh will respond to the {disfmarker} such a product ? Or what we should take um in account when developing such a product ? +Marketing: Uh I think most most things have already been said , like uh control multiple devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh , yeah , infrared might be an issue . +Project Manager: Because ? +Marketing: Uh well , he said about n abo what he said about pointing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But uh lots of devices already use infrared . So {disfmarker} we'll probably have to implement that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Okay , Sebastian , did you have any other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Um well yes , I had , uh about three minutes ago , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I've seem to forget them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forgot them . Um {disfmarker} oh yes , I remember . Um you said something about visibility in the dark . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um uh would it be nice for a user to have display on this uh remote control , on which you can see functions ? Which makes it easier to operate it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe I um {disfmarker} but it it can be quite simple , +Industrial Designer: I I don't know . +User Interface: you can just have white buttons with a black mark on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: The uh the the digits in black . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh then it's already visible in dark . So it it don't have to be a lightning or or a fancy +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {disfmarker} well , it can be for design , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , okay , because because we wa we want to develop a trendy product . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there's a cost limitation too . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , that's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve Euro fifty , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a big problem , I think . I think the the financial part of this project uh implicates that it's not going to be a high high-end product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The cost price is very low . +User Interface: Just remind something . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The digits of uh the the painting on the buttons should not fade . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +User Interface: You have a m uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Very good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Always have s the soft buttons , always uh clear the the the paint on it . The marks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um I ha I have one point f um which which comes in mind now . Um uh d I think the device should either be rechargeable very easily +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: um or it should not consume too much um power . Because it's very annoying if you need to change the batteries every s uh uh every other week . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um maybe we could um for example uh only light the buttons that are um uh applicable at that moment or {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Necessary , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . I dunno , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's more Sebastian's uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But then Bluetooth uh might be problem . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause I think Bluetooth uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's use uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well does it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I know it from the cell phone . +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , cell phones have uh integrated Bluetooth also and , well , it's {disfmarker} it seems to work uh quite okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh technically it will be possible . +User Interface: But you can't you can't use Bluetooth all the time , twenty four hours a day . +Project Manager: Okay . Gentlemen , I'm afraid we do not have any more time . +User Interface: Does it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you cannot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's over ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so we will go back to our own uh work . Um next meeting starts in thirty minutes and um , well , you know your o your individual actions or your personal coach will probably email you about th it . Um so this was it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Great . +","In this detailed summary of a workplace conversation, we observe the dynamics and initial planning phase of a project centered around the development of a new television remote control. The conversation opens with cordial greetings among team members, with a particular focus on ensuring the setup of laptops for camera visibility, hinting at the structured and documented nature of the project. + +The team comprises a Project Manager, a User Interface Designer, an Industrial Designer named Sebastian, and a Marketing Expert, Ruud—all fulfilling distinct roles in the project's development. The Project Manager orchestrates the discussion, setting the agenda and laying out the project plan which includes the team going through a tool training for the meeting tools they will utilize. Evident from their exchanges are the different project phases—functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design—and an intent to collaborate both individually and in group discussions to progress. + +The Project Manager's vision for the product outlined that it should be original, trendy, and user-friendly. There was also mention of a communication from the account manager that might have contained more information about the product. He emphasizes the goals and objectives, steering the conversation towards generating ideas about the product’s features and design while respecting the defined roles each team member played in the project. + +As the Industrial Designer, Sebastian comments on the schedule of the meeting and is assured by the Project Manager that there is room for his input. He later raises discussion points about the importance of interoperability of the remote control, suggesting that it should be able to control multiple devices, such as DVD players, cell phones, and audio equipment. He also challenges the team to consider modern connectivity options beyond traditional infrared, like Bluetooth. + +Throughout the discussion, the User Interface Designer asserts the importance of a universal design that operates across various TV models and other devices, championing ease of use and accessibility. They also emphasized the remote's functionality, such as tactile button identification and low-light visibility. + +Ruud, the Marketing Expert, is attentive to the conversation, reinforcing points made by others and cautiously raising the necessity of infrared compatibility due to its prevalence in current devices, alongside newer connectivity technologies. + +As discussions unfold, the team explores the technical and aesthetic aspects of the remote control design. They consider the implications of a sleek, user-friendly design that should not exceed the production cost limitation of twelve Euro fifty per unit—in line with the project’s financial goal of a fifty million Euro profit from an expected retail price of around twenty-five Euros. + +There is an underlying awareness of the international market focus and the need to balance innovative features with affordable production costs. Topics such as device interoperability, communication technologies, the remote's physical design, and practical issues such as power consumption and visibility in the dark are deliberated. + +Concluding the meeting, the Project Manager reminds the team of the time constraint—that they have twenty-five minutes for the meeting and encourages them to keep this in mind. They were planning another assembly in thirty minutes, indicating a tight and organized schedule. + +The interactive discussions suggest a brainstorming session aimed at aligning the team's visions for the project outcome and exploring the feasibility of the ideas presented. Technical challenges, user interface, market trends, and design considerations are all addressed in the context of developing a competitive, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control that fits within the project's budgetary and time constraints." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm So , ready ? {gap} +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: No not really Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Crap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , {vocalsound} I I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: It's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your judgement it's {disfmarker} is biased . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh thi this remote control will stay a prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , so whe where is the remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we are {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let's go for our detailed design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So I will still play the role of the secretary , and we'll have um first the project presentation by our User Interface Designer , David Jordan , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and our Industrial Designer , Baba . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we'll have to evaluate the uh {disfmarker} your proposed remote control , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and um have an idea of the price that uh this thing will cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And in case if we're {disfmarker} we all agree on the fabrica of um building of this remote control , we'll evaluate the um production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe I will let the {disfmarker} our two designers talk about so their {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have slides . +Project Manager: You have s oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oops . +User Interface: Ah , +Industrial Designer: Effectively one slide and maybe we can discuss everything . +User Interface: Product prod +Marketing: What slides ? +User Interface: Yep . Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} So , this is our product or prototype . This is made by clay . +Project Manager: Looks strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the basic colour is uh yellow and red . Yellow is uh our company colour , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: uh red it's uh is more attractive . So we used two basic colour , yellow and red . And the shape , there's two basic shape . The first is a circle and the second is a triangle s piece . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} we call it a mushroom design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's looks like some mushroom , so we call it mushroom design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So this is a introduction of our product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Genetically modified mushroom I will say , but +User Interface: Next a mo +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} keep on speaking . +User Interface: yeah , so next slide . So there are several key features of our pr prototype . The first is that it is fuzzy . I'm sure this would be the unique design the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I'm sure {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe , I hope so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's a fuzzy design , and a unique design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Um , and uh the second key feature is that uh s circle channel um selection . In the traditional key uh traditional controller use button to to select the channel but now we have a s circle , so we can turn this ball to t to select channel . +Project Manager: Chan +User Interface: So it's quite convenient for user to use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , but don't touch {disfmarker} don't destroy your prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay . Uh the third feature is a stable triangle base . Uh this sta uh this triangle base is very stable , so uh so it's it's um it's unlikely you cannot found it . So it's v Um , you can put it in the table so you can turn the the ball to cha to select the channel and there's some cute button . You c can can you can see the the shape of the buttons n is a mushroom , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Everything's mushroom . So we can call our remote control the mushroom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , everything's mushroom . Mush Mushroom design , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's not like really mushroom because you have uh you know uh {vocalsound} like lemon shape , you know , centre {vocalsound} is yellow and t d +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th that's why if you put it in the table , be careful , somebody will eat it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To integrate , you know {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I hope nobody will eat it {gap} You know , to integrate the fruit aspect , you know the {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} in +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah , because mushroom was not in the trends . I mean there was fruits {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: Really ? But {disfmarker} Fruit and vegetable , +Project Manager: Vegetables . Mushroom is a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: so mushroom was a kind of you know {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think it is . +Project Manager: It's vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Mushroom ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'm not sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So th it's something eatable . +Industrial Designer: We can {disfmarker} it's a veg a kind of vegetable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you know we we integrated them with different colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But anyway this is not a mushroom anyway , so it's fine . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think we take into account what you said about fruit and vegetable {gap} you know . This , you know , very enlighted colours , you know . +Marketing: No , I mean , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Inspira inspiration is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And inspired colour +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} and very sophisticated material , so . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: And so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next slide . +User Interface: Uh , no this our only two slides . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So what we w what I can add is that , you know {vocalsound} he talk about what is outside , so what is inside is what we dis what we talked before about , you know , the chip , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it is a low level chip , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we cut it to see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , we don't need to k {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know wi {vocalsound} the low level chips inside and you know the L_C_D_ button and the i +User Interface: Okay . So where's the battery battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery it is under {gap} . +Project Manager: In the base . +Industrial Designer: It is in th in {disfmarker} in the base , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the basement . In the basement . +User Interface: Base . Here ? +Project Manager: And where is the solar solar cell ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we say uh we sa we said solar . +Project Manager: Where is the solar cell ? +Industrial Designer: In fact this this this this is a kind of you know revolutionary solar receptor that we can put outside and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Do you think it won't be {disfmarker} It won't cris increase the price ? +User Interface: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay , we'll see after . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} but it it's might be okay , so . +Project Manager: We will have first to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it might be okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , mister money , what's your opinion according to this remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean , we gonna try to measure how good it is instead of just talking about {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we had three keys {disfmarker} {vocalsound} key points to uh for this remote control design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and first one was uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So w we'll try to judge this feature uh with a one to seven scale , one being uh no , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh just let me check . +Industrial Designer: So , four point {disfmarker} three point five , it means it's acceptable . +Marketing: One one being true , and seven being false . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: Ouch . So +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Do we have a fancy look and feel , according to you ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think you have nice colours . {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The sha the bowl shape people like . +User Interface: Yeah , the shape is unique , and the colour {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'll agree it's unique , but is it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it really fancy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} So it depend on how d do you define fancy . +Marketing: Yeah I mean , fancy was was defined by s fruit and vegetable look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} you have the lemon aspect of this th this {vocalsound} this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if you change {disfmarker} if you take the buttons out , and maybe do things like that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do Don't do that , please . +Marketing: I dunno where the lemon is , but +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it's it's i this shape is a lemon like , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it's not obvious . +Project Manager: It would be bet more like a lemon ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because i +Marketing: I dunno , maybe improving the texture of like having it less smooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Less button . +User Interface: Uh so , my mush {disfmarker} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Looks like more fruit . Maybe a pineapple ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but you don't have any button now . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: And you know , you have the finger here , with the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh yeah , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , it's getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks {vocalsound} more like a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: So that's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: That's great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the use for that ? +Industrial Designer: I have no idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , for turn turn the ball . If you want to turn the ball , it's very it's very convenient for you to to to turn the ball to change the channel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And where is the voice recognition ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . Ah , it's embedded , your microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Th this th th there's two two functions . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Wait th that's the second point . +User Interface: This is microphone array {disfmarker} +Marketing: First one is we have to judge the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: If it is fancy or not . +Project Manager: Okay . Is it better like that ? +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Looks {disfmarker} okay , +Industrial Designer: So we can we can say t +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's say it's a pineapple now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The colour , is the colour acceptable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colour is okay , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: So the shape now . +Marketing: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I would say there is more {disfmarker} too much red . +Project Manager: now you took it . +Industrial Designer: It's too much red ? +Marketing: Um if +Industrial Designer: In the basement ? +Project Manager: It looks like a pineapple with cherry on top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . So , from one to seven ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will give {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh {disfmarker} Seven is the ma the maximum ? +Industrial Designer: I'll gi +Marketing: No , seven is false and one is true . +Industrial Designer: I'll give two or three . +Project Manager: Three , I will say three . +Industrial Designer: Three , it's okay . Three , three . Three is fine for me . +Marketing: Three ? +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Isn't it bitter like that {gap} ? +Marketing: Three . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then {vocalsound} uh let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What other {disfmarker} +Marketing: The other criterion is is it technologically uh technologically in innovative . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to use ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Feasible ? {vocalsound} You said previously that you {disfmarker} there's um microphone inside an +Industrial Designer: Ye uh {disfmarker} Embedded . +User Interface: Yeah , this is microphone array , in fact . +Industrial Designer: It's a micro array , okay . +User Interface: There four microphone . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay , +User Interface: So they they they they {disfmarker} there's a microphone array . +Project Manager: and you have the {disfmarker} there's the technology inside that recognise simple vocal comments ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you can turn it so maybe it's techno technologically innov innovative ? +User Interface: So you can capture voice {disfmarker} yeah , you c +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can capture s voice from different directions . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I think you {disfmarker} you've never seen a rou a round remote control , so it is {disfmarker} I +Marketing: Yeah bu but when you say technologically it's more uh I dunno , in the core , or single . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have tactile buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I see , you have microphone array embedded . You have {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's good . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's good . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , th that's another really good point . Maybe {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: I think technically it's acceptable , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So using the same scale , two ? +Project Manager: Two ? I would say two +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah , two . It's it's fine , so . +Project Manager: . You agree ? +User Interface: Yeah , I agree . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's better like that , isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now maybe the most critical one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} L last one w I would like to judge is is it easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Eh , for th the vocal command yes , it's might be easy . But it's just speaking . +User Interface: Yeah , it's very easy . +Industrial Designer: You just need the command . +User Interface: You can use this in this way . +Marketing: Yeah but this this turning {disfmarker} can you can you just re explain me the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As a principle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Please . +User Interface: Th this is the base . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can turn to change the channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but how how intuitive is it to turn things to change channels ? +User Interface: You just tu turn d d +Industrial Designer: I think maybe if you he +Project Manager: Oh , ok I understand . +Marketing: Like if you want to go from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You take take {vocalsound} the remote , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you hear some click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you can turn like that to change the channel ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but imagine you y +Project Manager: I think it's quite easy to so s zapping , but maybe it will be too fast . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I'm I'm no I'm not definitely convinced it's it's the best way to {disfmarker} if you wanna jump from , I dunno , one to twenty ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's difficult . That's dif that's difficult . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: How can you go directly to twenty , for example ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} if y uh if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it depend on the the angle you turn the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I agree . I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y how {disfmarker} you need to know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I mean if you're fro from two ? +User Interface: I if if this is a channel one . So it c it could be channel two , channel three , channel four , channel five . +Industrial Designer: I think something that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have a {vocalsound} , like that , and so on . +User Interface: So change . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ju just imagine you have fifty fifty channels uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Y uh fifth channel divided by the num by the {disfmarker} by three hundred thirteen degree . +Marketing: We're not talking {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: So you got how many degree you you {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but y but you have to go through all the channels if you want to go {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can if you have a scale , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , you don't have to y no it's uh when you when you stop t uh when you stop , the the turn , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the angle you stop is the angle you {disfmarker} is the channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . How d how do you know this angle is th is the correct one ? +User Interface: It's it's very easy , because you kn you know how many channel are there in the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you count {gap} one degree , two degrees , no . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . You can do it . +Marketing: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a bit difficult . +User Interface: I think so {vocalsound} I think so you can do it . {vocalsound} I think so , you can just change . +Industrial Designer: I think b but the the vocal command is easy too . You can say fifty and fifty it's okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah voc vocal command is okay . But w we've said previously that maybe it's not going to be th l the main {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's uh also a number , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but when you're zapping you're changing from one channel to the other , so you're passing through all the channels . So , when you say I want to go to the channel number twenty that's {disfmarker} you've decided to go to channel twenty , so you can say channel twenty , or channel four , because you really want to go on this channel . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah , and y that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But if you really want to to do zapping you you don't really know what you want to do , you can turn it . +Marketing: And this would be more for browsing , ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just go through all the channels and maybe stop if there is something interesting ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . To see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems to be good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good choice , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean you're famous . You {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also you can , if you i +Project Manager: {gap} yeah , what's what's this cherry ? +User Interface: You ca you can turn this . Or you ca you can you can also turn this . +Industrial Designer: It is a turn off t turn off button , maybe . +User Interface: For this you can tune it's for tune . You you if you want to skip from channel one to channel two , you you skip this . If you want to from uh skip from channel one to channel ten you tune this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like fine , from coarse to fine . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: This is coarse , this is fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . That's +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's coarse to fine design . +Industrial Designer: that's very technologic , so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay the uh th this looks better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah is is {disfmarker} this is , from one channel to maybe to ten channel . +Industrial Designer: S But I di I didn't see where the t f the turn off t turn on turn off button so much activates +User Interface: This is from one channel to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th you have the vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's k {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: On off . +Industrial Designer: on off , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but it has to be on to recognise fas +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Most of the time you have the {disfmarker} yeah it's a sleeping remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , sleeping . +Marketing: Ah , that's not the ecological part , yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . W that why we have the solar ti yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To compensate {gap} . +Marketing: Solar . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So , which number ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to use , it's very relative but three it's fine , I think , it's reasonable three . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Three ? +User Interface: Yeah , agree , agree . +Marketing: So reasonably , is four , is one ? +Industrial Designer: Three f three for me , it's o it's okay . +Marketing: So , three . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four or three . Maybe you can vote to see how many everybody gives and {disfmarker} no and just take the mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And what's your opinion ? +Industrial Designer: Will you give four ? +Marketing: Uh we wouldn't say , I mean , those are sort of agreed but this one would be more five to me . +Industrial Designer: Five ? Yeah , so maybe if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh w w what do y what uh {disfmarker} you compare with traditional uh um tr traditional controller ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's easier than traditional controller . If you use traditional controller you have to put a button , but now you don't have to put button , you have {disfmarker} you just turn the turn the ball . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y you know {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's two kind of balls , +Marketing: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: the smaller the the the {disfmarker} so you can c you can c you can control the scale . +Marketing: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: But in the traditional controller , how do {disfmarker} how can you control the scale ? +Marketing: Uh by pushing zero after after the first one . +Industrial Designer: You just push two button , zero and and one . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , yeah , y you you can do it , but you can also do it in the b if you you do not wa if you do not want to browsing all the channel you can just p there's also a button here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are there some buttons ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , this function is just for your browsing , from one channel to th the next one , the next s sn s , the th the third one . +Project Manager: It's not what you said previously . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Previously you said that turning this was the fine {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if you're changing your mind . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Fine to coarse . +Project Manager: Fine to coarse . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And from ten to ten channels here . +User Interface: Y one to ten , ten to twelve , uh ten to t uh twenty . Ten to twenty and this one , t one two three four five six , like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh there's different scale , so you can you can choose how much do you want to sc +Marketing: Okay . But this this has to stay on the table , right ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This has to stay on the table . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In fact on a flat place {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i this is just a base . You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but then uh when you turn turn it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , no no , no . You can't put it out . +Industrial Designer: Oh ye yes , that's right . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just your turning from the base . You need to have everything in hand . If you want to turn , you can't use it and turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's impossible . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: You need to put it on and turn . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . You know tha that's the weak point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You use your y +Marketing: because with a traditional one you just have one hand . +Project Manager: Yeah , but nobody would be able to take it in the pocket and bring it in the kitchen and say I've lost the remote control . +Industrial Designer: my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So th this is a d next generation controller . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nobody would take it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Yeah , you would never you would never lose this one , yeah . +Project Manager: So nobody w will lost {disfmarker} lose it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah maybe , maybe may +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's the next prototype , maybe we cou +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay okay , okay . +Project Manager: S maybe we can change from th +Industrial Designer: Four . Maybe four , it's okay . +User Interface: Four . Okay . +Project Manager: Four ? Easy to use , four . +Industrial Designer: I'll put four . +Project Manager: Gonna say four . +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable . +Marketing: Uh it's even easier to {disfmarker} maybe . +Industrial Designer: You can you can erase with this er yeah . +Marketing: Ok +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable , so . So it's nine , +Marketing: So , average ? +Industrial Designer: nine over three . +User Interface: Three ? +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Trois . Three . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's {gap} . +User Interface: Trois . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It need maybe some wo further work , but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially on the easy to use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh s yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: target . +Industrial Designer: Might {disfmarker} it might be fine . +Project Manager: So , th the project is accepted ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I d m I think that it will be good to do some more work to transform this into a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you re we really want to have a fruitful remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So uh mm mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's the finance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay and we we had a project prototype presentation with the evaluation . So as we all agree to accept , under certain conditions , the prototype , we'll have look to the final sh financial view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we need to calculate the production cost . As I said in the first meeting we need to have so a remote control that would cost not more than twelve and point fifty Euros . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if not {disfmarker} if it's not the case y you would have to redesign it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , just have a look at the {disfmarker} okay here is the Excel sheet , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it has the energy source . We have hand dynamo . No , we don't use that . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We have battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have battery . +Project Manager: Kinetic , we don't have it , I suppose , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but we have solar cells . +Industrial Designer: um solar cells , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , how many do y do you need , solar cells ? Do you think one would be enough , or {disfmarker} such as {vocalsound} as number of branches ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I think in each ball you have three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Three ? +Industrial Designer: three uh yeah , three , yeah . Three {gap} three solar cells . +Project Manager: So , electronic . Single simple chip on print ? Just one would be necessary ? +Industrial Designer: S s simple , simple , yeah . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Zero for the others . And sample sensor , sample speaker . One ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . One maybe , yeah . +Project Manager: As we have voice recognition , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So the case . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is sh it {gap} +Marketing: So we are all already nineteen . +Industrial Designer: Wooden . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just keep on going , just to have an idea . +User Interface: The solar cell is too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} Yes a wooden pl I and that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's no wood , so plastic just only , I think . +Project Manager: yeah , but what what about case ? Uncurved , flat , single curved , double curved . I think it's more like double curved . +Marketing: That's gonna be double curved , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Double curve , yeah , double curve . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: One , you have . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh wood ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} yeah , a a rubber uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Rather four buttons . +Project Manager: Uh do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Oh no , interface . +Project Manager: Y maybe , two ? We have two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Y y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's special colours , sure . +Project Manager: Push button . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , we have four . +Industrial Designer: Five ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Scroll wheel . We don no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: It it's more like integrated scor . +Industrial Designer: I think that this will be like a scroll wheel , actually . +User Interface: No no . +Marketing: Yeah tha that's wheel . +Industrial Designer: Y you tu you turn you turn it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no no , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe two scroll wheel , as we have the coarse coarse to fine scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Okay , yeah , yeah . Scr +Project Manager: So , no button supplements ? +Marketing: I think the price is okay . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , no . +Project Manager: Okay we {disfmarker} I think we have problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_C_ display , maybe . Interface . +Project Manager: I think we s if we keep on adding things {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's okay . {vocalsound} {gap} fine {gap} . +Project Manager: so we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah w one of the m key point is solar cells . +Project Manager: Maybe if w t if suppose if we change and we g put just one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has it changed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was stage one , so . +Marketing: No y i it did change , but +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have change the electronics to {disfmarker} from from the the the sample sensor to regular chip . Oh . +Marketing: just imagine we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to delete the the sample sensor , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} the the voice recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: no ? +Marketing: Yeah but this one one of the feature we were not really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's the one it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: m maybe we ha we have two versions , the first version , the basic version . +Industrial Designer: I think you can transform the wood into plastic , maybe . +User Interface: Advanced version we have speak . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh it seems that this can be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be better . +Industrial Designer: yeah , wood into plastic and it it should be fine . +User Interface: Plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's one of the requirement . +Project Manager: Because we have red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , red and yellow . +Project Manager: Red and yellow . +User Interface: Wait . +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +User Interface: We we can we can we c {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could turn we could turn everything in either yellow or black . +User Interface: yellow . +Marketing: Black then is a regular colour , so . +Project Manager: I think so we need {disfmarker} if we try to have a kind of +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , one . +Project Manager: pineapple bee . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . So push button then it's it's the next expensive one . +Project Manager: Yeah . An but we have integrated scroll wheel with push dut button . And I think this is one . Integrated scroll wheel push button +Marketing: Yeah , thi this might be . +Project Manager: . So we'll {disfmarker} we have only one ? And push button . +Marketing: Close to . +Project Manager: So if we have all integrated i in the scroll wheel and push button , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One . I can remove maybe f you have five with push buttons , so we can just , I dunno , try to modify some of them to have {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so what's the bottleneck ? +User Interface: How about we change the sale ? +Marketing: Double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curve . We can transform the double curve into single c yeah . +Project Manager: Something flat . +Industrial Designer: F some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but flat {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S uncurved . Yeah , maybe not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single curve {gap} . +Marketing: Case , what's the ca +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Single curve should be fine , so . Oh , what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Nearly . +User Interface: Ah we have one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then one Euro left . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe don't bat no battery , only solar cells . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's a bad idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think there's a problem with the push push button . We only need maybe just one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two ? +Project Manager: Just one . +Industrial Designer: One . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's fine . That's fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} Agree . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} yeah , you will have {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have one button , +Industrial Designer: {gap} One s one scroll wheel , so +Marketing: one wheel . +Project Manager: So one button , and s scroll wheel with push button on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the vocal chord , it's fine . {gap} It I th it's fine . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's good they're not charging anything for that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , yeah . It think we we've done good job , as the cost is +User Interface: Cou could we have look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve fifty e +User Interface: Could we have look at the p the the prod the p the cost ? +Marketing: Yeah y actually it's wrong . We're not under twelve Euros and a half . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's under or equal . It's not written . Sometimes it's under or equal . +Industrial Designer: It's fine . It's under or equal . It's fine , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . So let's say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +User Interface: Wha what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's fine , twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . Which part is the most expensive part ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Solar cells . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: The solar cells , r is i is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's not t t +Project Manager: I think , yeah . But it would i be interesting for our marketing team , to make a lot of advertisement concerning these solar cells to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to be able to si to sell it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Cheaper . +Marketing: That's nice argument , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with mi +Marketing: but if it's it's still four our of twelve . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} it is really really uh really very very expensive , though . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but it will be technologically innova innovative , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but we just have one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's easy to use and powerful , as the remote control a has only one button . +Marketing: Easy . I don't know about powerful . Yeah . +Project Manager: Easy , powerful . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use . It's very easy to use . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So I don't think we need to redesign the p the product . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh that's what we've just done . +Industrial Designer: We've done it with {disfmarker} it is under the {disfmarker} if it was low , high or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So what are we going to do with this project evaluation ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we have just have to discuss if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , it's fine . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: So did you enjoy your clay modelling ? +User Interface: Yes . Of course . This is my job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Was it a nice way to create your remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh it's good , to to create a control instead of a computer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I find it really funny and amazing and interesting to go through all the process to {disfmarker} from the beginning to the end . And designing , looking at the chips , the solar cells and uh and it was very {vocalsound} informative for {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for the marketing guy ? +Marketing: Uh tha that was good but we should have more brainstorming like meetings , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yep {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'Cause we just presenting one is presenting his stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: next one his stuff and then we try to combine afterwards , so it {disfmarker} um . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: And new ideas about new products , maybe , wi which would be fashion and uh and yellow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow . {vocalsound} I think you can think about a yellow T_V_ now after {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a fruit T_V_ or I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It can be an interesting I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , just lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a lemon T_V_ it'd be {vocalsound} yellow lemon . +User Interface: Yeah , but y you know the traditional T_V_ it's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's flat , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah it's flat , +Project Manager: Squared ? +User Interface: yeah the shape is very boring . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . It's really boring , yeah . +User Interface: Could we come up with new T_V_ with {disfmarker} such as this kind of T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have base , triangle base so you the T_V_ you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah , the lemon T_V_ with the pineapple remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's {disfmarker} that would be really interesting , actually . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Because the T_V_ you {vocalsound} also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that's interesting . You could f we could do a kind of fruit collection of electronics things . Electronic device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Device devi +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but just don't trust too much the trends . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fruit ? {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause fruit and vegetables it won't last for ten years uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe la next year it will be insects . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe two years it's dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think it's good to follow the f flow and you know make it now and after , you know , if the people change their mind you change also the product . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is good because it's not a long long life product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: T_V_ is more like fifteen years , maybe , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . That's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: If you have a lemon lemon T_V_ for +Industrial Designer: We can think about T_V_ with you know where you can change you know the aspects o like for the cell phones , you know . +Marketing: fifteen years {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Customable T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you customise it every ti so every ti if people change , you just change the appearance , and y y you can keep {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Ah such {disfmarker} yeah . You've already said mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Tha that would that would make it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can keep the global appearan +Project Manager: Yeah , and following {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The mood of persons , the fashions uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's interesting , maybe we can create a a line of uh T_V_ with uh a a tr +Industrial Designer: We int {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , T_V_ , yeah . A T_V_ for autumn and a T_V_ for winter , you know , so it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what i and do w is it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: So I think the costs are within the budget . We're just at twelve fifty Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the pr {gap} at {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you think you can celebrate your creation ? +User Interface: And you can celebrate your leadership . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , thanks a lot . {vocalsound} Thank you , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think f {vocalsound} it's really a celebrating object . {vocalsound} So it's yellow and very {disfmarker} a very ha it's very happy , so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's a pr it's like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's party party remote control . +Project Manager: The thing now is to to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sell it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , go and sell it . Goo and good luck , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay and the twelve fifty {disfmarker} twelve uh twelve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Twenty five Euros , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It should be fine . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's maybe a little bit expensive . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: It's cheap , yeah . {vocalsound} No , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's not so expensive . +Marketing: I'm not so happy about the fruit shape , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It should be it should be fine , you know , actually . {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe what you can do a test . Put it outside , and if bees come , {vocalsound} it's really fruit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think I like {vocalsound} the the colour a the colour are very good , so actually so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But don't put sugar in it , it's not working . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colours are uh {disfmarker} it's perfect , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's perfect , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . Uh yeah , another thing is the logo is missing still . +Industrial Designer: I p is th y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the colour , I think the colour is more {disfmarker} is most important , +Industrial Designer: the the yellow ball thing that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I I don't think you have ever seen something like that before for a remote control . +Marketing: Still that was one of the requirements we had . It's {disfmarker} yeah but it {disfmarker} I don't think it's such a problem just putting the logo somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Uh f like y we can we can put some uh double R_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we decided to have something yellow and red , for the costs . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can just integrate it on th on one side , the double R_ . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah , yeah . That's actually good idea , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we have the logo , we have the colour , and we have the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: So we have to give a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so we have the slogan too . +User Interface: So we have give him {disfmarker} give it a cute name . +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: th no , it's the it's the pineapple control {disfmarker} remote control . +User Interface: Mush mushroom controller . +Marketing: Cute na You cannot say mushroom because it's not the trend . +Project Manager: It's a pineapple now , it has changed . It's a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: It's not a mushroom . {vocalsound} It's a pineapple remote controls . +Marketing: It's not the trend . +Project Manager: Pineapple . +User Interface: Pa Pine apple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pineapple remote remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but just flying saucer , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With cherry on top . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I would say flying saucer . +Industrial Designer: Oh unid uh unidentified remote control , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more appropriate , somehow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's that's pineapple remote control . I think it's fine . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Will you buy one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I will try {vocalsound} I'll try {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to . Okay uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five {vocalsound} Euro . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . I can hel I will try versions so to see how easy easy to manage {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah you told me you h you d you d you lost your control your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I always lose my {disfmarker} Yeah , so so i if it is a universal one I can use it with my T_V_ , so it would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you need to buy one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One thing I like is the shape , because you know it's not like the uh the remote controls you can put in your pocket , on uh in your jacket . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Traditional one ? Yeah . So this one and this one . What do you choose ? +Project Manager: I prefer the laser remote control . {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think I would choose this one because of the colour . It's +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What do you choose ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's will enlight your house , your home and your T_V_ , so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . Maybe next if we decide to do something we'd {disfmarker} can put light inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah that would be uh an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but that's going to be expensive , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We had some problems {vocalsound} going to twelve Euros and uh I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it it would be interesting to {disfmarker} just to see if we can {disfmarker} if people will buy this one , and maybe add some features to it after yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , afterwards , if +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: if it's a new trend . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah that's that fine . So we can celebrate now . That's our new product . +Project Manager: Champagne {gap} , mister Baba . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: We should celebrate . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's fine . It's {disfmarker} I like it {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Next time . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So buy one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'll buy one here . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I will close this . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we have finished the designing and the evaluation of our remote control +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we have a nearly final product . +Marketing: Our final prototype which {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Final prototype , yeah , ye yeah . +Project Manager: Final prototype , right . +User Interface: Prototype , yeah . +Project Manager: So , thank you very much . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Very productive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: S so who is going to take the remote control ? +","The conversation involves a project team discussing the design and evaluation of a prototype for a new remote control. The participants, consisting of a Project Manager, a User Interface Designer named David Jordan, a representative from Marketing, and an Industrial Designer named Baba, are finalizing the details before moving to production. + +The UI Designer presents the prototype, shaped like a mushroom with unique features such as a fuzzy appearance, circular channel selection, and a stable triangular base. They discuss the color choice, yellow and red, which align to the company's brand and attractiveness, respectively. + +The team debates the practicality of the design, including its ease of use and technological innovation, like the integration of a microphone array for voice commands. Despite some skepticism from Marketing, they decide to keep the unique turning mechanism to change channels and introduce vocal commands to increase ease of use. + +They also delve into the product's cost analysis, facing a budget constraint of not exceeding 12.50 Euros. After examining various components, including solar cells, the case design, special colors, push buttons, and a scroll wheel, they strategically make design compromises to fit the budget. + +Marketing expresses concern with the trendy fruit and vegetable design, questioning its longevity in the market. The group converses about potential future adjustments, aligning the remote control's appearance with current trends or possibly developing a line of fruit-themed electronics. + +Eventually, they settle on a final production cost of exactly 12.50 Euros and agree on the prototype, deciding to call it the ""Pineapple remote control"" due to its shape and colors. The team considers celebrating their achievement, with the Project Manager acknowledging everyone's contributions. + +The main focus of the conversation was assessing the remote control's design feasibility and ensuring it aligns with budget constraints while fulfilling technical and aesthetic requirements. The group concludes by affirming the prototype's readiness for production." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bonjour . +User Interface: It won't wake up . Yeah . I was a bit early . Like {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Why ? +User Interface: No , I just came in . Uh normally I was one of them . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Come on . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Check check check check . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: Why won't it wake up ? Is it on ? +Marketing: The power light doesn't work . You turned it off . +User Interface: But how ? Ah , there it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I received an email with uh a few possibilities on uh the materials . So I'll discuss them with you . +Project Manager: Okay , we're just going to the {gap} later . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I received an email as well . +Project Manager: So we're going to talk about the conceptual model . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So that's me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . So {disfmarker} Uh okay . Okay , so I just show you the m the no mm mm the the the the the the minutes , minute . {gap} What's it called , I dunno . Whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , so we just talked about uh {disfmarker} Oh you want me to show that there or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: just tell us . +Project Manager: we just talked about it looks . Has to look nice . Usability is very important . People don't want to spend money on something that's similar to cheaper ones . Um {disfmarker} It has to be very basic , not too many buttons . Light switches on if you use a button . Uh text T_V_ still has to be a possibility . And it has to be easy to learn . That were the things I uh make minutes of . And the functions are volume , channel to choose channels , an on-off , a mute uh button , and a text T_V_ button . That are the functions . That right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I just want to give you uh Mike again , the first uh presentation of your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall I start ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} No . Okay well {disfmarker} I received an email {disfmarker} Okay . I searched the web , uh and uh I searched uh on this d document , recent investigation of the remote control market . It has been done in Italy uh Italy and in uh another country in Europe , I forget it . Uh but uh they found out the most important aspect for remote controls happens to be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look and feel . So it's very important for us to create something new . So what Michael just said , it must be uh some very different from ordinary uh remote controls . Fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and interface . Uh this uh aspect is the most important one . Uh it came out of the research . It uh is twice important as the following . {vocalsound} The second uh most important aspect is that a remote control should it uh technological innovative . Uh that stands for uh uh new technical uh features . And then uh that uh {disfmarker} This is a point of discussion , because we just decided that we don't make use of uh L_C_D_ or uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But um {vocalsound} this is the second uh important uh aspect , and I think uh we must use some of the new technology , to be uh innovative . +Project Manager: But we already have the flashing flashing light on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh maybe maybe something new . +User Interface: Yeah , more . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: We have to discuss about it s uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , I'll I'll get back on it . +Marketing: features not uh do not exist in current remote controls . And that's very hard I think . Uh the third one is the aspect of the remote control should be easy to use . But uh that was an overall uh point . We already discussed that . Um I've got one picture . Uh d our our target group uh we thought about was young and trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So I took uh that part of the webpage . And it says uh fashion-watchers of uh uh Pari {vocalsound} uh France and uh Italy , yeah , uh have detected the following trends . This trends I th uh trend I think it's not um that meaningful for us , maybe . But it's about uh clothes and shoes . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But the uh the next uh aspect also in contrast to last year , the feel of material is expe uh uh is expected to be spongy . +User Interface: Spongy . +Marketing: But spongy , what what does spongy says ? +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +User Interface: Spongy , like sponge . +Marketing: Spongy . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So rubber , kind of . +User Interface: Uh soft materials . +Project Manager: But maybe th that's al definitely a good idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you've you're you drop y your remote control very often on the ground . So it has to be {vocalsound} flexible . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it's something that uh it stand there . But I didn't knew uh knew what it means . So spongy means y Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like a sponge . +User Interface: Soft , sponge . +Marketing: So it's also a stress-ball . +Project Manager: That's a good {disfmarker} That's a good idea . If it's de like that . That's good , a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , somewhat like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a bit like like the the the the {gap} remote control ? +User Interface: How are you gonna make it ? +Project Manager: R_ soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've some uh material uh information , but I'll give you it later in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do I think ? Uh because a fancy look is the most important thing uh for remote control uh control , I think about changeable fronts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh maybe a see-through one in a a fruit front . Because it's uh it's hot . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh some basic uh colour fronts . {vocalsound} Uh so we can make uh five different fronts to start with or something . Uh maybe an extraordinary shape , like a sponge . {vocalsound} Uh or uh , yeah , just another shape than a normal uh remote control ha uh has . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh something round in it , or uh maybe not uh not uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I dun dunno . We have to discuss about that . Uh y yeah . Main point uh still uh is the technolo technological innovative . Yeah , how do we do that ? Maybe speech ? We ma must have some kind of gadget . +User Interface: Yeah , I'll get back on that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very uh difficult to to to do it . +Marketing: Intro +Project Manager: Because it's only twelve and a half Euros you have to spend on every remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , that's the problem . That's the main problem . +User Interface: I got f also an email from the the technology department . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Maybe we watch the first uh the next two presentations . +User Interface: They have done uh research about it , and uh even more possibilities now with speech . So they recommended using it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll check what they exact mean . +Marketing: Uh let's first watch Paul's presentation first then . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well actually we have don't have an idea how much it's gonna cost . But maybe it's cheap +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and it's easy to implement . +User Interface: th that's the only problem . I d They don't say how much it will cost , so {disfmarker} Um but uh +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: if we implement uh speech recognition , I think it would be better to implement L_C_D_ as well . +Marketing: Oh . It's mass production . So you can say , you can {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Since you have to uh configure speech thing . +Project Manager: But that's definitely more expensive than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's something I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah . But how uh we we're gonna make many of those . So we can start a mass production , and then the cost will still will be {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , but a telephone {gap} {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But a telephone also have a L_C_D_ and and it's about t two hundred Euros . +User Interface: Yeah , so uh we gotta de +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to decide on that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . That was this ? +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I got an email uh {disfmarker} And it says uh the chip can be uh simple , regular or advanced . And {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} They say uh a display requires an advanced chip . And this is more expensive than all the other chips . So +User Interface: L_D_C_ doesn't require {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's m the most expensive . Yeah , it says in the email . The display requires an advanced chip . +User Interface: Okay . And speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably too . +User Interface: Advanced {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I I haven't got anything about speech recognition , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll I'll give you my design . +Industrial Designer: Well it d That's that's the most expensive chip , we need . If we're doing uh if we're doing a display . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well we can {disfmarker} I had uh to make a sort of a design . So I did some searching on the internet . I watched the old remote controls and news com remote como uh remote controls . I think we should um {disfmarker} This is one of the modern remote controls of the moment . I think we should go more to the iPod and M_P_ three players . Mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah , just modern modern but still uh basic . +User Interface: More modern . Y yes . Um you probably have to make it a bit bigger and a bit smaller . 'Cause remote con control , you can see it here , you have to bo reach both out {disfmarker} both sides . And here you just have one , few buttons . So that's that's the main difference . But looks uh I definitely think we should go like this . And then changeable fonts , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: It's the most important part , I think . But {disfmarker} And the home base is something like that , something simple . Well and then I just ordered the the buttons a bit . Uh basic buttons . On-off , mute . And th maybe two others , I dunno . Text buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe the teletext tel +User Interface: Yeah , text button , maybe there and there . And then the colour buttons , if we want it on . I don't find it very usable , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I don't uh {disfmarker} I don't like it . +User Interface: Uh I don't think it's fits in the the modern theme as well . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: and then yeah we saw the the pla display , in the the iPod . They can put the basic buttons , one , two , three , four . And uh f above ten . {vocalsound} And I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} That's on on the display . +User Interface: No no . That th there is no display there . But it's on the place of the display . And I think we should uh light this up much more than that part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So the focus is on these two parts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you don't see all the buttons you else need . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it sounds very difficult to use . Because um the volume and channel is on the on the the bottom of it . +User Interface: Uh well um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you can't use your thumb for it . +User Interface: This is how it is now . Um {disfmarker} Here uh {disfmarker} Well we have volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I think it is on uh on the bottom too . +Project Manager: down there . But it's not not the best best . +User Interface: Yeah . Well here we have also side scrolls . I dunno if we can use that . Do we want to use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , for volume . For volume , or a channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've I've got something of that uh too . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: For volume ? Well then we can even simplify it more . +Industrial Designer: Scroll . +User Interface: By just putting the volume on the side . +Project Manager: And the channels as well . +User Interface: And and just channel buttons here . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: But I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or uh maybe uh {disfmarker} The channel buttons are often used . And you can't use them now with your thumb , because the thing is not , it's not easy to control . +User Interface: Well . Yeah , well it's {disfmarker} Basically it's it's here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , m maybe we cho should put that on top , and buttons we we don't use on , in the bottom . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's better . +User Interface: They're on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just th th th other buttons like text T_V_ . Put that on the button bottom . +Industrial Designer: Because uh you can't hold it . You can't hold it th the control and push the buttons . +User Interface: You mean uh these to the low ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Except from the on-off button . +User Interface: Oh okay . Well , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I think w you'll use uh the switch channels buttons uh more often than the normal uh channel buttons , like one two three . So maybe we can put that on the bottom . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Maybe . I dunno , but yeah we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like zapping is just switching one channel at a time . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it's not easy if it's below . It's harder to zap . So I think uh it should be should be easy to {gap} . I think it's pretty standard , these rubber buttons on the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And uh if you don't light 'em up , they don't uh {vocalsound} you don't see 'em very good . +Industrial Designer: That's that's good , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's modern to light this area up , and to light this area up . So the focus gets on these parts and not on there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: But uh the position of course can be different . It's s We have to look uh what's easy to use , and how it's easier to use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can uh switch these to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I dunno if it l will look good , if you put those on t on the bottom half . +Industrial Designer: No , I think th the the top buttons are okay . They sh Those should be on top . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh we we can switch those two , +User Interface: Those two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And uh , yeah , you have to make sure it's easy to uh {disfmarker} Yes , it has to be big enough so you can hold it , right . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Well that's that's my findings . So uh my personal opinion is that we should go more modern look . M_P_ three player . And uh well um if we want to put in speech rec recognition or something , we {disfmarker} I don't think we should put it on top then . I think that , if we're gonna put in more technology , that you need to be able to uh switch it open . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's cool . +User Interface: To use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So if you put in uh speech recognition , you need so more uh many more buttons . Which won't look good on the front side I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: So that's something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have to keep it simple . +Project Manager: We have to decide this this lecture , or this this this uh fifty minutes , yeah , how it is gonna look . +User Interface: Yeah . What we're gonna do . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , the component design . I looked at uh some similar devices , and uh my own common knowledge . So uh this was on the web site . If you aim at a young public , you should use materials that are soft with primary colours like green , blue , red . So flashy kinda colours . Uh shapes should be curved , so round shapes . Not {disfmarker} Nothing square-like . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} Hmm , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well uh iPod is trendy . And it is well curved {gap} square . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Square . Like . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm is uh has round corners I think . +User Interface: Okay . So not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we shouldn't have too square corners and that kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Not uh the old uh box look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um sports and gaming device style characteristics . I don't know exactly what that means , but it should be , well yeah , popular kind of +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to put our Real Reaction logo as well on the on the {vocalsound} remote control . +Industrial Designer: looking , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So the colours also . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have ha to ma make it in black , black , yellow . +User Interface: Black yellow control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe the sides in yellow and the the the top in black . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm n Not that weird , because we definitely want to make it kind of flashy , to attract a young public . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} I don't think the the colours black and yellow go well together . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We make i Maybe you can put yellow on the side and black on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: No , okay . That's a that's a sen That's just a matter of tastes , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have to use uh kind of flashy colours , I think . +User Interface: Uh can't we use um different uh fron uh fronts , with all with the the logo on it ? Can we do that ? So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's cool . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like fronts in in red and yellow and blue +Project Manager: And still trans +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Still still transparent . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But with all with logo on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well this is a remote control , a very old one . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the components . The case has just a {disfmarker} Here's black . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make it som Maybe we have to make it from soft material . Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . But anyways uh it should be transparent . We decided that , huh ? +User Interface: Well one of the options . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} Just like a mobile phone , you can make um different fronts on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So you can just replace them I think . That was the idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: or just uh release one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just give five with them , just in a box . {vocalsound} Five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Or just uh sell different ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but y you could you could make 'em uh uh like blue and transparent . +Project Manager: Yeah . Cool . +Industrial Designer: So you can still th look through it . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the buttons . Normal rubber I think . Like normal ordinary buttons . Soft . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I uh I dunno . +Project Manager: It it could be like a Nokia , like {gap} plastic . +User Interface: A more {disfmarker} Yeah , just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's better prob +Industrial Designer: With the hard hard buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think uh rubber really has an odd look . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . The the the new uh new modern uh remote controls , uh the buttons are part of the {vocalsound} uh the style , I think is part of the remote control itself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it's one uh a one uh out of one shape . Uh it's n doesn't {disfmarker} Is {vocalsound} uh a button uh um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do you say it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's all on one level . +Marketing: It it didn't it i it don't come out of the {vocalsound} on the background . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on one level . +Marketing: It is in uh the c a remote control uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know what you mean . So we have to keep it on the one level . Like th the top it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like mobile phones . Like uh the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's chos So that should be hard plastic . Then the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno what uh kind of material it is . +Industrial Designer: I think . Or maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe you can m make a uh round fluff or soft material . Just only the basic uh +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: basic remote control from normal plastic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the rounds of it from softer s +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the L_E_D_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: The normal infrared L_E_D_ I think s sufficient . And back light L_E_D_s . +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: But I think we have to make the case transparent , otherwise the back light won't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y i if you {disfmarker} The numbers could be can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh you can just make them around the buttons uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Or it runs the whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can still make it transparent . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They can choose . +User Interface: Yeah , you can halfs transparent , +Industrial Designer: Or no +User Interface: or just that it's comes out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Good . And in green colour , the back lights +User Interface: Different , I think , also . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Blue or red . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Whatever you want it , I think . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh depends on the colour of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can't choo You can't choose it when you buy it . +Marketing: Uh i {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to choose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but I think there are multiple colour LEDs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I I know {disfmarker} I dunno . Is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but can you change it if you already bought the the remote control ? +User Interface: Yeah , it can . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: 'Cause this a mo mib uh mobile phone as well . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's it's more impor more expensive . +Project Manager: Maybe put some different ones in it . Doesn't matter . It's just {disfmarker} No , just some LED . +User Interface: I have the mo mi I have a blinking light on my phone . +Industrial Designer: I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I can change the colour of it . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . Just make it some different colours . Blue , red and green , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Maybe it's too expensive , but it {disfmarker} I th I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , we don't put put in any fancier technology yet . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then uh some more technical things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know what it is , but it should be there {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um this is the normal circuit board , like a chip board in in a lot of uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to hurry up a bit , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} So we d we just need this and {vocalsound} this transistors and resonators . There's all these kind of things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um they they basically said that that's almost the same on any uh remote controls . +User Interface: I'm sure we can fit in . +Industrial Designer: So I guess we j we just need that . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what they do or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Okay yeah , +User Interface: We just {disfmarker} +Marketing: you can you can change {disfmarker} Yeah . No . +Industrial Designer: Nah , but they just said we need it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the battery contacts , like normal batteries ca you can put in . +Project Manager: Yeah , a recharger maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , we have to make sure to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: We still want to have a recharger , don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that still the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it i We don't wanna have a ar an {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Accu . +Project Manager: A recha Oh no . Uh {disfmarker} Battery . It's just a battery . Yeah . +User Interface: Re recharger . Base station . +Industrial Designer: Y uh just just batteries , rechargeable batteries . +User Interface: Yeah , batteries . Yes , rechargeable batteries , I think's best . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Not a separate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , just rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Okay . And uh a chip , that's this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Then uh I received some possibilities . Um for the energy source we can use batteries or a kinetic uh {disfmarker} Like with the pulse watch . So it operates on your wrist kinda . +Marketing: Ah cool . Okay . +Project Manager: But normally you put a remote control on the table or on the couch . +User Interface: So if you hold it , it gets powered . +Industrial Designer: If you hold it . Yeah , I don't think it will work , and {disfmarker} Or we can also use solar cells . But you mostly use it indoors , +Project Manager: It's dark in the room . No . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's just batteries , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's cheaper {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and we can use the home station kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um cases , flat , so uncurved . Uh two D_ curved is um like front to the back . And three D_ curved is also in depth . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's possible . Uh but with three D_ uh curved uh remote controls , we must use rubber buttons . +User Interface: Mm . So +Industrial Designer: So we can't use the flat buttons . +User Interface: we need uh two D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think . Um these kinda materials can be used . +Project Manager: But it doesn't really matter , we just make it plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so too . +Project Manager: The scroll wheels , that's cool . That's for the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , scroll wheels um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . We can use multiple scroll wheels , w if we want to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think just the volume is enough . +User Interface: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} For channels it's not handy , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because you scroll too fast . +Industrial Designer: And uh the L_C_D_ . So we need uh the expensive , most expensive chip , if we use an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's an opportunity . Just skip it . Because we don't have time for that to to put it in . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then we we use m must use the second most expensive chip . So th so the regular chip . Because we use scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} Yeah , that was it I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh are are we using a a rubber case , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just sk +Industrial Designer: We haven't decided yet . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to skip that one as well . It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I don't think a rubber case looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L +Marketing: Uh but we have to do something about the trend . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i it it should be soft . You said so ? +Marketing: The trend is uh spong spongy uh and uh fruit or fresh fresh . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . That {disfmarker} Uh fruit and veg , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh now we have nothing about uh about those those two . +User Interface: Yeah , fruit and veg can be just the covers . +Marketing: Uh yeah i Just {disfmarker} Just on front . +User Interface: So you can {gap} the the spongy {disfmarker} yeah , I dunno . I can't imagine a soft remote control . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Neith uh I don't like it uh neither . +Project Manager: No . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just can't imagine it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So just hard plastic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Titanium . It's mentioned here uh . +Industrial Designer: Titanium , uh I think it's too expensive . +Project Manager: But maybe the form has to be a bit different . Not the sh the square form . Just a bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: more rounded . +Industrial Designer: you can make it curved or mm round . But just in two D_ , not in depth . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} We have to decide which one we're going to choose from these . What exactly . Because we have to know it . So the energy uh is the recharger . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: We already know that . Just a normal battery . +User Interface: Yeah . We have batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . The chip-on-print is a normal one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Regular . +Project Manager: Okay , the case is just a plastic one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah , the chip is the the regular one . +Project Manager: Yeah , re Yeah , regular . Yeah , okay . Yeah , regular . +Industrial Designer: You have the simple one , regular and advanced . So it's b should be regular uh the second . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think I'll just check it . +Project Manager: And we need a plastic case , with a scroll wheel . {gap} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: That's pretty much it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And a flashy light . +User Interface: User interface concept . +Project Manager: So uh I'm not sure . But we do I don't know if we expected to draw on this one at this moment . But {gap} +User Interface: I dunno either . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Or should we do it in the next meeting ? +User Interface: Uh I_D_ and U_I_D_ work together on prototype drawing on smart board . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's for the next one . +Industrial Designer: So we should did it here ? +Project Manager: That's for th +User Interface: So we're staying here ? +Project Manager: Uh that {disfmarker} I think that's the next next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Or should we do it in the next meeting ? Okay . +Project Manager: But you definitely get a specific instruction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so now we're ka thirty minutes alone again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But th think about something that's more rounded . Just {disfmarker} And more {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh I dunno . But the iPod and etcetera , M_P_ three players , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Uh a bit . Just just on the top or on the bottom . +User Interface: Just a bit cur Okay , I'll see if I can see any of those . +Project Manager: Maybe the wheel can be uh like uh like this . O um if you draw it like this , you get a {disfmarker} What the fuck is it ? {vocalsound} Okay . Mm {disfmarker} Doesn't work . {vocalsound} You see what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Project Manager: If I draw here {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It draws about four centimetres lower than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: Nah okay . Just {gap} . Maybe you can make it like this . And this is all the wheel for volume . So that you just um {disfmarker} It's all rounded , so you can do uh turn this one . +Industrial Designer: Like a very big scroll-wheel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but just not on the top , but uh on the side of it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we {vocalsound} have this at the moment . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you'll get a a lot of uh volume changing when it's not wanted . +User Interface: Yeah , you {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'd have this . Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's a little problem , of course , as well . +Industrial Designer: I think it's probably better . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but maybe we can make a a plastic , so that you i if you like drop it , it won't change the volume . Only if you use your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe you just have to make it uh {disfmarker} That's not scrollable too easy . +Project Manager: Like this . And uh what's the channel choose ? Where do we uh put that ? Still on the bottom +Industrial Designer: I think in middle . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh wh what is the middle part ? +Project Manager: That's the numbers . +User Interface: Numbers , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think th the numbers should be in the bottom , and and the switch channel in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah , I agree as well . +Project Manager: It doesn't make a difference , if you put the s uh the switch channels on side of each other or on top of each other . +User Interface: Use the dz +Project Manager: Because you already have the volume here , so {disfmarker} You can also put it here one butt and the other one there . Next to each other . {gap} back and forth . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So you can also can put it all on the top , and this , you keep this empty . Because you have to hold it as well . +Industrial Designer: Or you could do the switch channel up button above the the numbers and switch channel down button below . +Project Manager: But that's not {gap} want to zap very quick , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh zapping is the highest priority . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Is this a opportunity , +User Interface: And then you use those uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or you don't want a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , of course uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I think we we should bu uh put 'em on top of each other , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Because then it's it's easy to know m if I push the the the up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But still the next {disfmarker} It's still the next one . Doesn't make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the top the top button is is like you switch channel up , and down button is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you put them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but fo from left to right is exactly the same . It ma it doesn't make a big difference . +User Interface: Yeah . I I think it's {disfmarker} It's it's obvious , I think . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I I think uh left to right is more often associated with volume , and top down is more with uh channel changing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's not not {disfmarker} It's not al uh always the same . +Project Manager: But it's exactly th +Industrial Designer: In uh {disfmarker} On most on most remote controls . +Marketing: Every remote control's uh different . +User Interface: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if we use that , they will probably have a long learning uh time . +Project Manager: I dunno . I {disfmarker} You already have the volume on the side , +User Interface: No , uh I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so you can't make it you can't ma make a mistake . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it's s so simple +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but that's for that's for you , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay I'll d I'll take a look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so hmm . What did {disfmarker} What else we have to discuss about ? I dunno . +User Interface: Think we need to work uh thirty minutes again ? +Marketing: Yeah , we have to care that it r uh looks really new . Because uh we still hold on to the uh ordinary uh uh square uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause wha what I see the only difference i i i in fact is that we use a scroll-wheel on the outside . +Project Manager: And the LED . +User Interface: No , you have uh {disfmarker} It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but i i it should be round in in shape . +User Interface: Uh the current uh controllers are all black and plastic . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to look at that image of the iPod . +Marketing: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: More that uh kind of style . +Marketing: And a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not not the old grey black {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Some some kind of bling bling uh mm can we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where you can put a ve Uh we have {disfmarker} If we do it like that we have below have we uh a lot of room to put a nice logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh the logo was has to be on there . Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Uh and how many uh fronts uh fronts do we put on the market then ? Uh five or something ? +Project Manager: Yeah , five . Let's give five . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Or more or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can buy separate ones and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And um uh {vocalsound} uh buy the product . You buy , you get one . And uh basic . +User Interface: Yeah . Um +Marketing: Or you can choose one uh if you buy the project . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . That's your choice , I think huh . +Industrial Designer: No , tha that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So y you can put the bottom of the remote control in recharger ? Is that is that a good good opportunity ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So you could put it like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so top down . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah , you sl uh you let it slide in the docking station . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to design that w as well ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: The docking station ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: But th Yeah , that can be very simple . Least . +Marketing: Yeah , we can b It c it could be just just a square , just a packet . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a recharger . +User Interface: Yeah , just where you're around something . Li Yeah , we had one example . +Industrial Designer: But we have to make contacts on the on the remote control and the recharger as well . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Which w +Marketing: but that's a round one . Maybe we can choose then . +User Interface: Here you see one that's very round . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , okay . +User Interface: So I think that can be all kind of shapes . +Project Manager: But maybe you can just round up the corners a bit . That's all . +Industrial Designer: Of the remote control ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just round it up {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so y you don't want uh this uh like the iPod {gap} . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: More rounded . Yeah , I think it will just look like more like this one . Since it's {disfmarker} This is also rounded . +Project Manager: No , just just the corners . +User Interface: I think i +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah okay , tho those are al already a bit cornered . Mm {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can we can do all kinds of uh {disfmarker} As long as it isn is in two D_ we can use all kind of round shapes . +Project Manager: Shapes . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but then we have to think of something totally new . +Industrial Designer: Not in depth . Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , if if we want to make it kind of , yeah , new . +User Interface: I've uh {disfmarker} I had a lot of picture of old ones . And all curves have already been done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit annoying , isn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . What do we do wrong ? Hmm . Just just more like this and not uh a square . +User Interface: Yeah okay , yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we could do a lot of , lot more curving . I would do it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I know we can do a lot more , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like in this kind of shape or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's very annoying . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I dunno if it's handy . +User Interface: {gap} I think it will only look more like the old remote controls . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The olden the olden ones had looked like just a square thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . But uh I had a lot of pictures {disfmarker} Oh I can show you here {vocalsound} what the old ones look like . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Curves , curves . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You've more {gap} there as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It wasn't very small one . {gap} very simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That is for elderly . +Project Manager: So we have to make a decision , what kind of form it's gonna have t going to have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think if w My opinion . If we just uh take the iPod , and the same look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh light or just whatever colour , but the same light colours . And uh just with uh together with uh the back-lights b look will look very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No rubber buttons or something . Just together with the back-lights you'll get a totally new look . More like the M_P_ three player M_ um P_ M_ P_ three player . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have the scroll button inside . {gap} Okay . +User Interface: Yes . Just a simple scrollb +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But why do we have to round it on the t bottom then ? Of {disfmarker} Skip that one as well . +User Interface: Doesn't have to be . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , though that's a trend . If we want to make it . But yeah , I'm not a Trendwatcher , you are . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh the t the trend is +Project Manager: Rubber spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: spongy and fruity . +User Interface: Yeah . No . Spongy +Marketing: But yeah . +Industrial Designer: Spongeball kinda . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not not a lot of trends I uh I found uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have s still one minute left . So just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's okay if you just keep it a bit square . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , +Marketing: It {disfmarker} The th th +Industrial Designer: I d I don't know n something about ergonomic kind of fits-in-the-hand uh stuff . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I I think it's still for older people . You j still have older people . It's only annoying if it if it's like that f formed like that , like f Whatever . Just you have a normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we're we're aiming at a young public . +Marketing: There is one {disfmarker} There's just one overall important aspect is that we must make it fancy and it looks original , and I hope we can uh make it look not like the iPod itself . It must have uh uh uh a very different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} idea . But {vocalsound} you're {disfmarker} If you look at the way remote controls are now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But i it is it is it is already fancy . Because of the lights on the bottom of it . That's already fancy . +User Interface: And if you make it look like the iPod {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , they're all the same . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So that's already a very big change +Project Manager: Uh maybe maybe make the the mm the {vocalsound} wha what's it called uh scroll wheel . Make it in in yellow or something . Just like the colours of Real Reaction . +User Interface: compared to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Ye yeah . Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: Could . +Marketing: Uh yeah , but uh if you the f uh front , the scroll wheel will still uh be yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I think {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: It's right . +User Interface: Think the scroll wheel {vocalsound} won't be very big . Since if you put it uh somewhere , the chances that it will scroll are too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it will just be a small small scroll wheel . So it won't uh stick out much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the ones we are going to draw there . Maybe we have to ask uh to the the mm to her if it has {vocalsound} if it can work better than this . Because it doesn't work properly . So maybe you have to ask her . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Well , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: maybe we can just open images there , and I'll paint and paint . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . That's probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll be able to do a better job . +Marketing: If you set the pen yeah , he will draw here . Doesn't work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so just finish it . So we make it a bit like m that one probably . Yeah . Is that okay ? +Marketing: Yeah , I'll see it . +User Interface: Bu Yeah , I agree more like iPod {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , only the colour and the flashy light and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: We just we just skip the the the voca or was it the the speech recognition . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Speech . Yeah , do we s keep that ? Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or keep that ? It's okay . But you'd definitely need a +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: advanced chip . +User Interface: then it w {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , I don't know . Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we we have to build in a microphone and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's very easy . We already have uh the beeping of the {gap} home station , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and I do I don't know anything about that . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't receive any information on speech recognition , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh strange that I received {vocalsound} the information about that . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's hard . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the ma the main points I I I uh just said . We have to be original and uh technological innovative . Becau +Project Manager: Can we just put it speech recognition in it as well , +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay ? +User Interface: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ma +User Interface: shall we {gap} it open then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The function of that in there . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And we need a {disfmarker} Probably we need a uh advanced chip then . +Industrial Designer: Fine . Yeah , we probably do . +Project Manager: But it doesn't say anything about it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: does it ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any f information about the cost . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We started with information about the cost was now th +User Interface: I just I just received the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I have I have some some information about the cost . But just a about the chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And how much is the chip ? The the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , our division has developed a new speech recognition feature , the integrated programmable sample sensor simple speaker u unit . +Industrial Designer: Just in inexpensive or {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is a very small electronic unit , will give a standard answer after it recognise a question . +Marketing: And how how does it work ? Is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Doesn't say . Just {disfmarker} You say record , followed by your question sample , and after a few seconds the answer uh sample . Because uh {disfmarker} So it works like uh good morning remote control , and then the remote control says good morning . +Project Manager: It doesn't has to say anything . Just {disfmarker} You have to just talk to {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah uh th that's just {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it say does it say something back ? +Project Manager: Okay , we have to stop it now . So just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . Yeah , it {disfmarker} Well that's integrated in the chip , so if you use the speech recognition , that's in it . +Project Manager: Okay , that's a r That's that's a advanced {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But i it's a separate chip . +User Interface: I dunno , but if we use speech recognition , that will be in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know anything about this , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we just decide not to put it in , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Nah . +Project Manager: because it's too difficult . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it it would be would be a good feature feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we just put it in , because it's a good feature . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to stop now . +User Interface: No no worries about the cost , etcetera . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} +User Interface: And there's a chip in it that will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have to stop it now . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Fine . +","The discussion captured in the transcript appears to be from a project team meeting composed of individuals from various departments including User Interface (UI), Marketing, Industrial Design, and a Project Manager. They are collaborating to create and refine a design concept for a remote control with the goal of achieving a balance between aesthetic appeal, technological innovation, and user-friendliness while remaining cost-effective. + +The team encounters initial issues with a non-responsive technical device, which the UI representative identifies and resolves. The Industrial Designer reveals that they have received an email with material options, which should be discussed later. The project manager then suggests that the team will proceed to address the conceptual model of the remote control. + +The conversation shifts to the significance of the remote control's appearance, as the Marketing representative emphasizes research indicating that a fancy look-and-feel is more important than functionality in remote controls. She suggests the remote control should not only be technologically advanced but also visually distinctive from current models. + +The team discusses various design aspects, such as the necessity for a basic interface with a limited number of buttons and the inclusion of standard functions like volume control, channel selection, on-off switch, mute button, and teletext. However, there is a tension between incorporating basic features and introducing innovative technology such as speech recognition and backlight LEDs. + +Design materials are discussed, with suggestions for soft materials and the use of colors that would appeal to a younger, trendier demographic. The industrial designer outlines the material options received via email, including suggestions for a spongy feel, which could translate to a rubber-like material that's more durable if dropped. + +The discussion continually circles back to striking a balance between cost-efficiency and the pursuit of features that convey innovation and trendiness. This includes considerations for the type of chip to use (simple, regular, or advanced), the energy source (batteries or kinetic energy), and the use of an LCD or speech recognition. The concept of a recharging dock and interchangeable fronts with different colors or materials is also broached as a way of catering to personalization trends. + +They further delve into the importance of buttons and their integration into the overall design, emphasizing the need for a user-friendly and scalable layout. The UI designer proposes a design inspired by modern devices like the iPod, suggesting a minimalist approach with strategically placed illumination to enhance usability and aesthetics. + +The team's dialogue evidentially displays a collaborative effort as they engage in creative problem-solving to design a remote control that must be original, trendy, technologically advanced, economically viable, and robust enough to survive everyday use. Each department contributes insights from their expertise – from Marketing's analysis on market trends to the Industrial Designer's recommendations on materials and the UI team's ideas for ergonomic user-centric design. + +As the meeting progresses, it is clear that the team is navigating through various creative ideas, technical possibilities, and limitations, while keeping in mind the importance of aligning their output with the latest market research and consumer expectations. They aim to come to a definitive design concept for the remote control that fulfills the brand requirements of Real Reaction, the company presumably behind this project. + +This narrative concludes with the team agreeing to incorporate advanced features, such as speech recognition, into the design despite cost concerns and committing to further develop an innovative, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing product. The discussion demonstrates the complexities and interdisciplinary cooperation necessary in product development, particularly in integrating design, technology, and market strategy to create a successful consumer-oriented device." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +User Interface: Hello . +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: Uh let me see . +User Interface: There's one of mine . +Project Manager: Okay . Roo , welcome back . +User Interface: Hello , Flores . +Project Manager: The waiting is for Sebastian . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There he is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is there any time for a cup of coffee ? +User Interface: We have a slight problem . {vocalsound} I opened uh the C_D_ ROM box uh guys . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can I get a cup of coffee ? +Project Manager: Uh no . You can't , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: So just cancel it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well , during my work I have no time either . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is life . {vocalsound} Sorry uh , Roo . +User Interface: Yeah , I opened the C_D_ ROM box . {vocalsound} Accidentally . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . People , welcome back with the second meeting . +User Interface: But it's alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um for now on the schedule are a few points . Uh first of all the opening , which we are doing now . Um second , I received um some new project requirements . I'm not sure if you received them as well , um but I will tell you about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then um the three of you uh prepared a presentation , I think ? Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Almost . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Almost , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we'll do your one uh uh as la uh the last . Um the top goal of this m +User Interface: But you can't upload your presentation from here , I believe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we will figure that out . Ca {vocalsound} can you try to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh if it if it if it's wireless I could just uh put it in the {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , w we will see . +User Interface: I don't think it's wireless here . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} it is , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Or it is . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Okay , great . +Marketing: Uh okay . +Project Manager: Um the top goal of this meeting is to reach a decision on the product , on the target group um and and the functions of the remote control , so keep that in mind . Um {vocalsound} we have forty minutes . So it's now {disfmarker} Yep . Okay . Um the new project requirements , first of all , um we didn't speak about it , but we should not um support teletext in the remote , um because our b um board uh feels that uh teletext is out of date and internet is replacing teletext . So um we are not even going to try to um implement it in our product . {vocalsound} It's a board decision . Um the remote control should only be used for television , because it's not uh f uh feasible , it's not uh w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} we we cannot make it because of the time to market um that we have to deal with . +User Interface: Time , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh the third requirement is that we should focus on customers that are younger than uh forty , {vocalsound} which is important for you , uh Ruud , and as well for uh Roo . Because the product should um be uh interesting and and uh should be bought by people younger than forty . Um {vocalsound} then for Roo , as well uh important , the corporate image should be recognisable in our product . So the colour colours and the slogan um do have to be uh in the product . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Is that clear ? Any questions on these requirements ? No ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the individual presentations , I th um Roo or Sebastian , who of you would like to start ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'll start . +Project Manager: Uh uh yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: great . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Oh , how can I uh {disfmarker} Geez , and sli and show . Um {disfmarker} Just uh press it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes . Alright . Um well w we uh we had discussed this already in the fin in the previous uh discussion . {vocalsound} Uh the method of the remote control is just {disfmarker} the function of remote control is basically to send messages to the television set . So that was the main uh important thing what a remote control should do . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Then I found uh two different kind of remote controls , the multi-function uh remote control with many possibilities , but um the lack of the feeling I already mentioned uh in the previous uh discussion . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the ease-of-use remote control with uh the less p possibilities but a great feeling in in touching the buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um but um {disfmarker} yeah . My personal preferences were ease of uh {disfmarker} the easy to use remote control , because uh the user-friendliness and uh {disfmarker} it can be more trendy in in user design . But um your new goal f was for uh people than {disfmarker} less than forty years old . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: So maybe um the multi-function can be implemented in uh in our design . But it should b I think it should be a combination , but teletext buttons are not uh in our design . So it should uh take out , well , eight buttons or so . But my {disfmarker} in {gap} my opinion , the the easy to use R_C_ is uh the best uh possi possibility for us . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh Ruud , did you get that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh b uh most . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the important thing here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's also i indeed uh uh Ruud's uh insight in the in the topic . +Marketing: Oh , user-friendly . +Project Manager: In the market , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , what what does the market want ? I I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , w we will s we all uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for uh for user desi uh user uh friendliness I uh should choose for the the ease of use remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Excuse me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Scusi . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Okay , it's still the right thing . Okay . Um well , there are some changes in the design requirements , so there are some changes in the method also . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um basically all this device has to do is send messages to a T_V_ set . And the m most easy way to do this is by uh sending pulses of infrared light to a T_V_ set . Well , I th I tried to uh implement a picture here , +User Interface: Energies and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's hardly readable . Can you see it ? +Project Manager: No , it's not visible . +Industrial Designer: No ? Well {disfmarker} Um , there's a energy source here . {vocalsound} And um basically there {disfmarker} it's connected to three things . The user interface connected to a chip , which is connected to the sender , which generates messages using uh infrared light , which are sent to the receiver . That's basically the idea . And there's a little picture , just for your imagination , how a device like this should look or can look . {vocalsound} Okay . Um what have I found . Usually these kind of things consist of a battery , infrared diode , buttons , chips , and circuit board . That's all . It's cased together , nothing more than that . {vocalsound} It's almost every piece of equipment um every piece of uh every T_V_ set is controlled infrared . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There are some exceptions , but most of all have uh infrared controls . And uh the more luxury uh remote controls have lithium buttons . And I think that's what we w +User Interface: The glow in the dark uh concept uh we discussed . +Industrial Designer: yes . In the {disfmarker} and it's a little more {disfmarker} a little bit more fancy also . So maybe we should consider that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I have a basic scheme of the things uh which are implemented . Um basically this is all there is . There's just one chip . There are a few buttons connected . Uh the buttons are lit . And the whole thing is transmitted by a infrared li diode , and there is not a power source here . {vocalsound} So that's basically the total design of this piece of equipment . +Project Manager: So it's fairly easy . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing more to it . It's fairly easy . It's been done many times before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Succeed in it also . +Industrial Designer: and I think we should uh we should c s succeed in in our plan to do this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so uh +Project Manager: good . +Industrial Designer: personally I think we should infra use infrared , because uh otherwise our device cannot uh communicate with uh almost every T_V_ set . So I think that uh should be clear . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh another important point is uh we really should use uh energy uh sparse , friendly components . Uh there are specially uh designed um energy-friendly components which consume uh far less power than uh conventional components . And um if we want to use uh a rechargeable design or uh a energy-save design , we should really implement them . {vocalsound} Um for cost-effectiveness , we should really use a very low-cost uh circuit board , um because most of the production cost are are in this uh part of the equipment . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um the money we save on using this we can use uh for elaborate fancy lighting uh techniques , blinking LEDs and all that kind of fancy stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And what's the um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh users will really uh will really like that . +User Interface: if we use the LEDs , i does it use much more energy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , they're p f uh power friendly LEDs also . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can use them . So that's no problem . +User Interface: For the same costs , it's can be uh in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh no , they're uh they're a little bit more expensive , but by uh um um making {disfmarker} +User Interface: Combined with the low-cost circuit board so it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can we can make its I think . +Marketing: Well you could only lit uh the buttons {disfmarker} the buttons that are used most . So , the channel switching . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but the question is whether um two or four buttons makes uh m makes such a difference in the costs if you already plan to uh include fancy lightning techniques , I guess . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's the same as in the cell phone , just light in in the device that that shines on all the buttons , +Marketing: Hmm , true . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , it's not one light , it {disfmarker} there are more lights in a in a in a mobile device . +User Interface: Yeah , but not for each button one LED , I think . +Industrial Designer: No no no , no . That's right , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} well , this uh should be it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um have a think about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , Ruud . +Marketing: Oh , mine is already outdated . +Project Manager: Okay well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we ar we are very curio curious to what the market um will feel about such a product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Since uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any income is welcome . {vocalsound} Input . +Marketing: Okay , make {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Uh then I'm sure the target market is uh ten million units . Of {gap} {disfmarker} of which we should sell about uh forty percent to make the five million . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little bit more to the right ? {vocalsound} Yeah , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um since uh the other part is uh forty percent of the market , I uh thought earlier we might want to constrain that portion of the market . But uh since uh the requirements changed , that's uh not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , skip this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's {disfmarker} this till true , of course . That they only use ten percent the buttons . The buttons to zap are used the {disfmarker} about uh fifteen hundred times , when uh the power button is only used one time . And the volume button's only four times . So they're obv obviously uh the most important buttons . And uh lots of people complained they kin can't find their remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So we might want to build in a feature to uh support them . Some uh audio signal . Like uh home phones . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , that's interesting . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or a find {disfmarker} a finding function , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: that's definitely interesting . +Industrial Designer: That's quite a {disfmarker} yes . +Project Manager: It uh it separates our product from others uh as well . +User Interface: Sound signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: go on . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Well , I just said that . And uh {disfmarker} well , this obvious , and he also said it . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's what the market tells us . +Marketing: Uh that's about it , yes . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: The volume and uh the zap buttons are the mostly used . +Marketing: Uh mo uh zap buttons most . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Volume , they are {gap} uh use a lot . But more than all the other buttons . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it should just have a design {disfmarker} The perfect design for those {disfmarker} only those buttons . And first um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , we should focus on that , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Well , the technical uh {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are no technical difficulties . There's no um elaborate technique uh used in this uh kind of equipment . So um I don't think we have any hiccups there . So we can fully concentrate on developing a product that is really um what the market needs . So maybe it's a good idea to think about these buttons and and uh and a sound signal . +User Interface: Yeah , the sound signal . Just one thing I'm just wondering , {vocalsound} the sound signal , from where do you execute th the s sound ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a problem . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} Th that's a bit of {disfmarker} that's a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Another device is not a solution . +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Usually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe maybe like clapping in your hands , +User Interface: It should be uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like um turning on and off the the the lights . +Industrial Designer: Oh yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but maybe you'll uh get some new technologies for it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , there there are some devices who uh incorporate this technique already . Um there are video sets and um they have a special button , the find the remote control button . You press it and your T_V_ set starts to make a uh kind of weird sound , and your uh remote controls then start to beep . +Project Manager: Reports rep respend response to it . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} +User Interface: just like uh the phones Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , that's it . Yes , same thing . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But uh th +User Interface: But but T_V_s don't have all uh uh buttons . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , so we we should use something else . +Marketing: And you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because we do not have a a a a a home um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I believe you will have an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and usually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We do not control the T_V_ set so well . +Marketing: And even if the T_V_ set would have such a button , uh you would have to walk to your T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yes , m yes . S and we b we want {gap} to make so it's {gap} {disfmarker} is easy as possible for our customers , +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So what about the clapping technique ? Um because you se +User Interface: I'm convinced uh Sebastian will uh find uh one solution for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite complicated . Well , it's quite complicated . Because how can you separate the clapping sound from other sounds . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And b +Project Manager: Well , you see it a lot in in light uh lightning uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . Well , basically the characteristics uh the characteristics of clapping is just an increase in the volume , the amplitude of the sound , +Project Manager: Yeah , a peak . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which is uh generated a few times within a uh certain period of time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But there are many other sounds uh which are exactly the same from the point of view from a remote control . +Marketing: So if if you'd be watching a movie , it would constantly beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +User Interface: But we can have just uh uh a home stat uh f a base station next to the T_V_ . Just a little antenna or uh something . +Industrial Designer: so we don't want that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} Something like that . +User Interface: Well if you lost th +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: is there not something f something more easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think people would bother walking to the T_V_ and press that button because they lost the {disfmarker} their remote . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't think uh {gap} . +User Interface: Uh that's just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , and y the the most important thing for people is that there's a central point to which they can go and uh b uh perform a a some kind of uh {gap} . And then uh the remote control uh reports itself , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so w we should use have {disfmarker} uh we should use something like that . You do not want another device , which can be uh everywhere in the house , which you have to find first before you can find your remote control . +User Interface: {gap} just a base station next to the T_V_ is the best possibility . +Industrial Designer: Yes , something like that . But that will be very costly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , m maybe um w we uh we do agree on on the thing that the remote should have such a function , if it's possible within the costs and all that kind of things . +Industrial Designer: So that's not a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um maybe Sebastian should have uh a detailed look later on and um come up with a solution , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's his {disfmarker} his field of expertise . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . But um before I do that I w I want to warn you that uh by implementing this kind of a function the technical design will become more complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it will become more costly also . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Because there will be additional components which which uh will be used . And there are some implepe imp +User Interface: And do we even uh prefer the sound above the the LEDs , the lightning uh function ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I I think so , because um when you have a p newspaper over your remote control , you cannot see it . +User Interface: It's a unique item uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a distinction in the market . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It will be an {disfmarker} a unique feature of our remote control . +Project Manager: It's a different {disfmarker} exactly . It's an uni an unique feature , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um I think um it's worth um uh looking and and {disfmarker} probably more i interesting than uh than the lights . +User Interface: And just about uh the user interface , I came up with um {vocalsound} an easy remote control and an advanced remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: What should we choose in in design ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , um according to Ruud , um people do not use um all the extra features very very often . +User Interface: Well , the extra functions . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have the numbers r I have the numbers right here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well , t uh we won't support teletext which which was the third-most {disfmarker} the second-most used function . +User Interface: Used option . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we we do have a wise board , so I'm not questioning that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well {disfmarker} yeah , channel selection is obviously the most important . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so on the relevance scale uh the channel selection , the volume selection and the teletext . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , we skip that . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , so it just th the basic functions . And we don't have to use it for D_V_D_ players uh and all kind of stuff . +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nope . +Industrial Designer: So that's out of the question . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Just through uh the easy uh design . We can make uh a nice design when when there's not mu uh much buttons in it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh uh uh I think we should go for the easier one . +Industrial Designer: I think also . Yes . Well , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we should save costs uh by not implementing a lot of functions and uh the money that we can save from that we should use for uh having a nice design and uh thinking about the user interface +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ruud , how do you feel about that ? Uh do you agree , do you think the market would would respond to uh a simple {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh well if we um include other uh innovative functions {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh then they uh might , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause young people uh like new features . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay , so this is is kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh just a few buttons , trendy design , nice lightning effects wh and the sound . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , is it {disfmarker} maybe there's another possibility . You can make it look like an easy s piece of equipment , but it's quite elaborated , uh because it has many functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's more important to make the {disfmarker} make it look like a very uh friendly , easy to catch piece of equipment , but um nevertheless {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but are we not in in the in the manual uh {disfmarker} I mean if you have few buttons , no display , um I mean uh I guess it's l it's working with with a shift functions and um one button can uh +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Ok like that . Well , I was more thinking about a more elaborate way of controlling , by by these kinds of sticks or something like that . I don't know if if it's user-friendly . That's your field of expertise . +Project Manager: But but how does how does the remote uh report uh r uh give back to the user w in what state it is ? +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know yet . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we do not implement uh a user history . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . There's {disfmarker} no , but there's no way to do that , because we cannot implement that kind of the system . +Project Manager: I know , but but if we use uh like a stick , for example , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W Mm-hmm . Well , maybe we can use a light for that . When you move the stick to a to a position , maybe uh a light next to it can lit up . So you know I've just uh pushed the button , or I changed the channel or t uh turned up the volume . Something like that . +Marketing: And if you use that stick for volume control and channel uh selection , you have the m two most important functions in one uh button . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh and we could have other buttons for the for the advanced uh functions . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But does it {disfmarker} uh I then should n just use uh i instead of the stick , uh like many cell phones , just a round m well , +Project Manager: Yeah , draw draw it on the board . +User Interface: should we just use a {disfmarker} Um it's already uh {disfmarker} oh , we have a blank . Oh . +Industrial Designer: yeah , something like that . Oh +User Interface: It's just an easy uh way of of a round button what {disfmarker} which can be pushed in four directions . Instead of a stick . +Industrial Designer: It's not really a stick , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yes . +User Interface: A stick is v vulnerab vulnerable when it's falling down +Project Manager: Yeah , it can break down . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: or uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: just a round uh button should be the trick , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Yes , and this also looks more fancy , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it it will attract uh more uh uh public , I think . +Marketing: A younger uh {disfmarker} Huh . +Industrial Designer: But you're the marketing man . +Marketing: And it's also quite easy to use , so it'll {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh attract younger people because well new , and it might attract older people because it's easy to use . +User Interface: Geez . Well , volume and something uh like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The programme up and down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And the vol yeah , the pen doesn't uh really does what I want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , but w we still {vocalsound} we're still in the question of uh um uh putting in advanced options . Um Ruud just told us um the market is interested in some advanced uh new techniques . Um however , uh keeping it simple is is important for the costs and all all those kind of things . We need to find a balance between uh the advanced techniques and and the user-friendliness . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think our our next step to look at is just that . So I don't think it's {disfmarker} um we have something to do . Uh we can't discuss it right now , because n no one of us have {disfmarker} has the information to discuss about that , I think . +Project Manager: Um well , for {disfmarker} we do have to uh decide this this meeting . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes ? +Project Manager: We need to um have the uh the user function {disfmarker} uh the functions decided and um {vocalsound} uh our target audience . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: but teletext is so uh is just scrapped . 'Kay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . Do do you want a list of functions ? Do you want an explicit list ? Uh which uh incorporates all function available on the device ? +Project Manager: Um well , I do not want a full uh {disfmarker} it's not necessary to to have a full list , but I want um the kind of functions , for example uh th the most important are volume and uh programme selecting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: The ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , for example , that that's what we should think about . {gap} l how is the remote going to look ? Not not in the user interface , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , and just one function . The the the the programme to programme button , the switch to uh two channels , when you have uh something on channel four and something on channel six , just one button which which can uh change +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . A bit of a split mode . +Industrial Designer: Change . +Project Manager: Uh l like {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: Dual channel watch . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: m maybe I should write that down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're the secretary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , um what's your last name ? +Marketing: Mielsen . +Project Manager: Mielsen , because I I was writing it down in the last uh {disfmarker} Mielsen . Right . Um I put all the minutes I make into the shared folder . So if you want to have a look at it , you know where to find it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm okay , +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: but make a s make a sub-folder for it , because it's starting to fill up already . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you want to do it , Sebastian . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Our B_S_C_ uh W_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . Programme . Uh dual channel . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's important . +Project Manager: And and do we want um the ten digits ? +User Interface: The ten digits ? Yeah , I believe so . +Industrial Designer: Well , are are you sure ? +Marketing: Well , if you want to go to channel ninety and you have th that button . +Industrial Designer: I'm not so sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's complicated , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but is that so relevant ? Because I don't think {disfmarker} but you should uh shou you should know that . If it were so . +User Interface: I wouldn't buy it personally . A remote control without the ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Uh and I think the most {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when +Project Manager: I agree actually . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just elder elder people would would buy it , +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when you're {disfmarker} when you have a satellite decoder and and you have , well , about six hundred channels , I can imagine you want this . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if you're uh a regular T_V_ user , and you just want uh to watch the the Dutch television networks , well , you can uh {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you can use uh about ten buttons . That's enough . +Project Manager: But we do have thirteen different Dutch channels . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . The older people only use five of them . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but how how often do you watch all these channels ? +Marketing: and if if we {disfmarker} And if we are targeting at the younger audience , they will probably watch more channels than the older people . +Project Manager: Often . +Industrial Designer: No , you're probably right . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But I think these uh ten uh buttons look a bit dull . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , it depends on the on the on the looks , on the on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The design . +User Interface: On the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , y then there should be {disfmarker} should done {disfmarker} be done something specific with it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c {vocalsound} you can d make them very fancy +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: by um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean Nokia , they have ten digits on their phones and it still looks very fancy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'm I'm {disfmarker} I do not agree {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you can experiment by {disfmarker} uh with with shape or with size or with colour , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Exactly , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um there are some numbers about uh speech recognition here that uh younger people would like it . Uh it might be expensive and uh hard to implement , but it would be a solution uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , speech . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it can be combined with the find the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um when you add uh speech recognition to your remote control , uh it's very easy to change uh the channel . That's one thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very easy uh to find your remote control . +Project Manager: To find {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that's a possibility , but I'm afraid it will be a bit costly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} If if we would um drop the ten digits +Industrial Designer: But maybe when we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but keep the programme and the volume , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because maybe people do not always want to use their voice , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , okay . +Marketing: Especially elder people uh don't like voice recognition . So then we should implement such a but +Project Manager: Yeah . But we do focus on younger people . We d it it's a board uh decision . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Well . I I think it should uh should work , it sh we should manage that . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: we have to i to make um a decision between the ten digits or the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , the voice recognition has the main adva has another advantage . It's mas it makes it very easy for us to implement the find uh find the remote control button {disfmarker} uh remote control function . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's a big advantage , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , g good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's only one disadvantage uh by implementing this . Um the power saving power saving will be a bit more difficult . So we can expect that there will be a less longer life to the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But maybe can {disfmarker} we we can think something smart about it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: There are some uh hybrid hybrid devices which incorporate a solar panel and rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So when you just leave the device in a in a light room , it charges itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} But but can we manage it bu uh for the costs ? +Industrial Designer: You have to do nothing for it . +Marketing: M {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Twelve dollar fifty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because it seems like a very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe , maybe not . +Marketing: And uh if we if we could inc uh include a c a cradle in which it could recharge , then there wouldn't be uh a big problem . +Industrial Designer: I'll have to find that out . Yes . So {disfmarker} No , that's very cheap . +Marketing: 'Cause when {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is a cradle very cheap ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Oh , it's very cheap . That's no problem . It's just a a case with two uh metal contacts . +Project Manager: I know , b uh but there should be an adapter as well . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Yes , but they're they're mass production . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They're very cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it will cost us p practically nothing . +Project Manager: Okay . We we have uh about ten minutes left this meeting . Um {vocalsound} I would like to hear um {disfmarker} maybe maybe you all have th uh things not um spoken about , yeah , but that are important . Uh Ruud , you you came up with the voice recognition uh data . Uh are there other things about the market we should know ? +Marketing: Um I think we dealt with the most important information . Just that the younger part of uh the market isn't the forty percent we uh want to sell to . So we we should uh for least a bit uh look at the uh older people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But with uh buttons like that , which are easy to use , we uh might attract them too . So {disfmarker} I don't think that's a big problem +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: although we are focussing on younger people uh to make it uh profitable uh {disfmarker} Profitable . We we {disfmarker} yeah , we still need to take in account the the bit older people . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , profitable . +Industrial Designer: Profitable . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: O okay . {vocalsound} Um Roo . {gap} {disfmarker} Nothing to add . +User Interface: I have nothing uh nothing to add , I think . +Project Manager: Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: Um I just want to make a summary of all all things uh spoken and uh the different possibilities . Um +Project Manager: Yeah ? Great . +Industrial Designer: so uh basically we've decided to implement a seemingly uh easy design . So on the outside it looks easy , but uh we can make it easy on the inside or elaborate on the inside . So that's one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those are the choices we have to make . But I think there's a big advantage in making it more elaborate by uh implementing uh speech techniques , uh voice recognition , that {disfmarker} these kinds of things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um it makes it also more uh attractable , I think , to our uh audience . Um there are some advantages and some disadvantages , and the main advantage is that we can implement uh fancy techniques , which uh I think our customers will like . The disadvantage is that there are some concerns about uh the the costs and um the things like uh battery lifetime , energy saving . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh another advantage is that the circuit board will become much more easier if we do not {disfmarker} do not implement these buttons . {vocalsound} If we just add uh uh a chip which does the voice recognition , uh our circuit board will become even more cheap . So that's another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that was the main issue , right ? The the board {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well , it wa it w it was an issue , but we also thought that {disfmarker} we already thought we should do it as cheaply as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And this even uh makes it more cheapy . +User Interface: But the cheaper the ch uh the the chip or th what was it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The board . +User Interface: The circuit board . +Industrial Designer: The circuit board . +User Interface: The fewer buttons you can use on it . +Project Manager: No , it's th +Industrial Designer: The fewer buttons you have , the ch ch the cheaper the circuit board , yes . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's the other way around , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very cheap uh to incorporate uh uh an integrated circuit , a chip . So that's that's another advantage . +Project Manager: It shouldn't be a big issue . +User Interface: Well it {disfmarker} then we should just uh take a look at the costs and uh {disfmarker} especially for the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , because I don't know {disfmarker} Yes . I d I really don't know . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It can be costly . Maybe not . +Project Manager: I'm not sure how how we'll f uh determine the costs , I will have a look at it . Maybe you will get some information on that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure how how that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , I al I I hope my personal coach will uh {vocalsound} have a lo uh look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , great . Um {vocalsound} well , I think we're qui quite done . +User Interface: We're done , I think . +Project Manager: Um for now we will have the lunch break . +Industrial Designer: How nice . +Project Manager: Um I'm {disfmarker} don't know how long the break will be , but we'll find out . +User Interface: Me neither . +Project Manager: Um then we will have thirty minutes of time to perform our individual work , uh and I'm sure your personal coaches will uh assist you with it . Um I will put the minutes I just made in the project documents folder . If you want to look at it um well , just do . Um {vocalsound} the Interface Designer , um I would like to {disfmarker} the next meeting I would like to receive the uh components concept . +User Interface: Interface {disfmarker} industrial . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I'm sorry , yeah , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: User Interface Designer , uh Roo , I would like to see the user interface c uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Well , we understand . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um +User Interface: Uh the only problem is it {disfmarker} that it depends on the divisions {disfmarker} the decis uh decisions Sebastian makes . About the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , i it should be easy , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's w w what we concluded . It should be an easy interface with not so much buttons . S just a a p a p a volume and a programme one . And um {vocalsound} um yeah , some some fancy lights . +Industrial Designer: Mm yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that's what we decided . +Industrial Designer: So we drop the voice recognition ? +Project Manager: No no no , we didn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it shouldn't be integrated {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: yeah , it's {disfmarker} of course it's user interface , but um i I was talking about really the design of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well um do we really have to decide now +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: or can we decide next meeting ? +Project Manager: We can decide the next meeting . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Because I'll have some updated info on that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I guess all of you have i updated info . I'm sure the marketing expert will receive uh t uh you will do some trend watching . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And I'm sure the market will um uh {vocalsound} {gap} uh will change , adapt +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Adapt . +Industrial Designer: Adapt . +Marketing: Left . +Project Manager: and um so +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: we will see that . Um yeah , that's it for now . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Any other questions +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: or can we have the lunch ? +Industrial Designer: We can have the lunch . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll take the lunch . +Project Manager: Good . +","In this meeting, multiple team members from various departments are engaging in a discussion on a new product development. The Project Manager plays a pivotal role in facilitating the conversation and ensuring all important points are addressed. The primary focus is on the development of a remote control that aligns with the latest project requirements and appeals to the target market demographic—customers younger than forty. + +Initially, the User Interface designer reports an accidental opening of the CD-ROM box, triggering a minor side discussion. However, the primary agenda involves presentations from each team member on their respective components. The specific tasks for the meeting include the official opening, discussion on new project requirements, and individual presentations by the User Interface designer, Industrial Designer, and the Marketing expert. + +The new project requirements communicated by the Project Manager explicitly state that teletext will not be supported in the new remote, as the board believes that it is obsolete with the rise of internet usage. The remote is to focus only on television functionality due to the constraints of time-to-market pressures. Additionally, the product should appeal to customers under forty and reflect the corporate image through recognizable branding elements. + +When the conversations turn towards presentations, the Industrial Designer talks about the feasibility of using infared technology for the remote control, emphasizing the simplicity in design as it is a common standard for TV sets. He also suggests considering fancier options like glow-in-the-dark buttons for a more luxurious remote. This segues into a discussion about cost-effectiveness and production costs focusing heavily on the circuit board. + +Marketing contributions revolve around market demands and customer preferences, noting that people often use only a fraction of the buttons available on traditional remotes. He brings an interesting point that locating a lost remote is a common issue, suggesting the possibility of including an audio signal to aid in finding the device, akin to cordless home phone systems. + +User Interface comments on prioritizing ease of use and a trend towards user-friendly designs, which leads to an in-depth analysis of whether to incorporate multiple functionalities or maintain a minimalist approach. + +Throughout the dialogue, the challenge of balancing advanced features, like voice recognition and innovative lighting techniques, against cost-efficiency, user-friendliness, and product distinction in the market is frequently visited. + +A unique feature suggested by the Industrial Designer is a ""find the remote control"" function, possibly using sound or voice recognition that could make the product stand out. There is debate over the inclusion of a complete set of numeric buttons, voice recognition capabilities, and how these decisions would impact the design, costs, and energy consumption of the remote control. They also contemplate on ideas such as incorporating solar panels or a recharging cradle for battery life extension. + +Suggestions to achieve a sleek design from the User Interface perspective include a multi-directional button rather than multiple individual buttons or fiddly sticks, catering to the most frequently used functions like channel and volume control. + +As the meeting nears its end, it's decided that the team will break for lunch and then spend thirty minutes on individual assignments with their coaches before reconvening. The Project Manager assures that the minutes will be made available in the shared folder and requests updated concept presentations from team members at the next meeting. + +The resolution of whether to pursue voice recognition or traditional controls is deferred, with an acknowledgment that more information and market insights are needed. In their final remarks, there is an emphasis on the significance of a user-friendly design that should not be cluttered with unnecessary buttons, aligning with the recent trends and customer preferences highlighted by Marketing. + +In conclusion, the meeting covers a vast array of topics pertinent to the product's design and market fit, setting the stage for subsequent decisions based on further information about cost, technical feasibility, and market trends." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD C: What channel am I on ? +PhD E: Channel . +PhD C: Oh , channel two . +PhD G: Make sure to turn your microphone on . +PhD E: Channel . +PhD G: There 's a battery . +Grad B: There we go . +PhD G: OK . Your channel number 's already on this blank sheet . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: So you just {disfmarker} If you can {disfmarker} +Professor F: Channel five ? Channel five . +PhD E: Channel whatever . +Professor F: I 'm on channel five . +Grad B: Camera one , camera two . +PhD E: What am I ? +Professor F: Little low ? +PhD E: Channel four ? +Professor F: Channel five . +PhD E: This number four ? OK . +Professor F: Channel five . OK . +PhD G: The gai the gain 's up at it {disfmarker} what it usually is , +Professor F: Is it ? +PhD G: but if you think it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's sort of a default . But I can set it higher if you like . +Professor F: Oh . Maybe it should be a little higher . +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: It 's not showing much . Test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test . OK , that {disfmarker} that seems better ? Yeah ? OK , good . Ah , that 's good , that 's good . That 's Ahh . Mmm . So I {disfmarker} I had a question for Adam . Have we started already ? +PhD G: Well , we started recording , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Is Jane around or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I saw her earlier . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} +PhD G: She can just walk in , I guess , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . She 'll probably come up . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Since we 're starting late I figured we 'd better just start . +Professor F: Yeah . Great idea . I was gonna ask Adam to , uh , say if he thought anymore about the demo stuff because {vocalsound} it occurred to me that this is late May and the DARPA meeting is in {pause} mid July . Uh , but {vocalsound} I don't remember w what we {disfmarker} I know that we were gonna do something with the transcriber interface is one thing , but I thought there was a second thing . Anybody remember ? +PhD G: Well , we were gonna do a mock - up , like , question answering or something , I thought , that was totally separate from the interface . Do you remember ? Remember , like , asking questions and retrieving , {vocalsound} but in a pre - stored fashion . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD G: That was the thing we talked about , I think , before the transcriber {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Come on in . +Professor F: Alright . So anyway , you have to sort out that out and get somebody going on it cuz we 're {disfmarker} got a {disfmarker} got a month left basically . So . +PhD G: You like these . Right ? OK , good . +Professor F: OK . Um OK . So , what are we g else we got ? You got {disfmarker} you just wrote a bunch of stuff . +PhD G: No . That was all , um , previously here . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD G: I was writing {pause} the digits and then I realized I could xerox them , +Professor F: Oh , oh . +PhD G: because I didn't want people to turn their heads from these microphones . So . We all , by the way , have the same digit form , for the record . So . +Professor F: That 's cool . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , the choice is , uh , which {disfmarker} which do we want more , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the comparison , uh , {vocalsound} of everybody saying them at the same time or the comparison of people saying the same digits at different times that {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: It 's just cuz I didn't have any more digit sheets . +Professor F: I know that . But , you know , which opportunity should we +PhD G: So . Yeah . +PhD C: Unison . +Professor F: exploit ? {vocalsound} Unison . +PhD G: I mean , it {disfmarker} Actually it might be good to have them separately and have the same exact strings . I mean , we could use them for normalizing or something , but it of course goes more quickly doing them in unison . +Professor F: I guess we 'll see +PhD G: I don't know . +Professor F: i I guess it 's dependent on +PhD G: See how long we go . +Professor F: how long we go and how good the snack is out there . +PhD E: But anyway , they won't be identical as somebody is saying zero in some {disfmarker} sometimes , you know , saying O , and so , it 's not i not identical . +Professor F: Yeah . Hmm . Get some advance intelligence . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to train . +PhD G: We 'd be like a chorus . +PhD E: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to get s get some experience . +PhD C: Greek chorus . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: Yeah . Really {pause} boring chorus . Um . Do we {pause} have an agenda ? Adam usually tries to put those together , but he 's ill . +PhD D: I 've got a couple of things to talk about . +Professor F: So . Yeah . Uh ju what {disfmarker} what might those be ? +PhD D: Uh , IBM stuff and , um , just getting {vocalsound} uh , meeting information organized . +Professor F: Meeting info organized . OK . Um . +PhD C: Are you implying that it 's currently disorganized ? +PhD D: In my mind . +Professor F: Is there stuff that 's happened about , um , uh , the {pause} SRI recognizer et cetera , tho those things that were happening before with {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Well . +Professor F: Y y you guys were doing a bunch of experiments with different front - ends and then with {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is that still sort of where it was , uh , the other day ? +PhD C: We 're improving . +Professor F: We 're improving . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You saw the note that the PLP now is getting basically the same as the MFCC . +Professor F: Right . +PhD D: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . Actually it looks like it 's getting better . +Professor F: Right . Oh . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} but it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Just with {disfmarker} with age , kind of . +PhD C: With age . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , that 's not d directly related to me . Doesn't mean we can't talk about it . Um , it seems {disfmarker} It looks l I haven't {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} The experiment is still not complete , but , um , it looks like the vocal tract length normalization is working beautifully , actually , w using the warp factors that we computed for the SRI system and just applying them to the {vocalsound} ICSI front - end . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . That 's pretty funny . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So you just need to {pause} copy over to this one . +PhD C: Just had to take the reciprocal of the number because they have different meanings in the two systems . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: Ah ! Yeah . Well , that 's always good to do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: But one issue actually that just came up in discussion with Liz and {disfmarker} and Don was , um , as far as meeting recognition is concerned , um , we would really like to , uh , move , uh , to , uh , doing the recognition on automatic segmentations . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Because in all our previous experiments , we had the {disfmarker} uh , you know , we were essentially cheating by having the , um , you know , the h the hand - segmentations as the basis of the recognition . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so now with Thilo 's segmenter working so well , I think we should {pause} consider doing a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . So . +Grad B: Come on . +PhD C: uh , doing {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . We {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Y think {disfmarker} you think we should increase the error rate . +PhD E: Anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: That - that 's what I wanted to do anyway , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: so we should just get together and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And even {disfmarker} The good thing is that since you , um , have high recall , {comment} even if you have low precision cuz you 're over - generating , that 's good because we could train noise models in the recognizer for these kinds of , uh , transients and things that come from the microphones , +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: but {vocalsound} I know that if we run recognition unconstrained on a whole waveform , we do very poorly because we 're {disfmarker} we 're getting insertions in places what {disfmarker} that you may well be cutting out . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So we do need some kind of pre - segmentation . +PhD C: We should {disfmarker} we should consider doing some extra things , like , um , you know , retraining or adapting the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the models for background noise to the {disfmarker} to this environment , for instance . +PhD G: Mmm . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And , yeah , using Thilo 's , you know , posteriors or some kind of {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . +PhD G: right now they 're {disfmarker} they 're discrete , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yes or no for a speaker , to consider those particular speaker background models . +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: So . There 's lots of ins interesting things that could be done . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . We should do that . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: Good . So , uh , why don't we , uh , do the IBM stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , talked with Brian and gave him the alternatives to the single beep at the end of each utterance that we had generated before . +Professor F: You had some {pause} thing about that ? Right . +PhD D: And so {disfmarker} +Professor F: The , uh , Chuck chunks . +PhD D: Yeah . The Chuck chunks . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: Right . And so he talked it over with the transcriber and the transcriber thought that the easiest thing for them would be if there was a beep and then the nu a number , a digit , and then a beep , uh , at the beginning of each one +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that would help keep them from getting lost . And , um , {vocalsound} so Adam wrote a little script to generate those style , uh , beeps +PhD C: Where 'd you get the digits from ? +PhD D: and so we 're {disfmarker} I came up here and just recorded the numbers one through ten . +Postdoc A: They sound really good . +PhD D: So . Does it sound OK ? +PhD G: That 's a great idea . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . We just used those . +PhD C: And do you splice them into the {pause} waveform ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . He {disfmarker} then he d I recorded {disfmarker} Actually , I recorded one through ten three times at three different speeds and then he picked . +PhD C: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: He liked the fastest one , so he just cut those out {vocalsound} and spliced them in between , uh , two beeps . +Postdoc A: It sounds like a radio announcer 's voice . Really . +PhD E: It will be funny uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Does it ? +PhD E: It will be funny when you 're really reading digits , and then there are the chunks with {disfmarker} with your {pause} digits in ? +PhD D: Yeah . With my {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Oh that 's right . +PhD G: Oh , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Now actually , +PhD D: That 'll throw them , +Postdoc A: we 're {disfmarker} Are we handling {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: huh ? +Professor F: Uh , maybe we should have you record A , B , C for those or something . +PhD D: Yeah . {comment} Huh ! Maybe . And she said it wasn't gonna {disfmarker} the transcriber said it wouldn't be a problem cuz they can actually make a template , uh , that has beep , number , beep . So for them it 'll be very quick +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} to put those in there {vocalsound} when they 're transcribing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um , we {disfmarker} We 're gonna send them one more sample meeting , uh , and Thilo has run his segmentation . Adam 's gonna generate the chunked file . And then , um , I 'll give it to Brian and they can try that out . And when we get that back we 'll see if that sort of fixes the problem we had with , uh , too many beeps in the last transcription . +Professor F: OK . Do w do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Do you have any idea of the turn - around on {disfmarker} on those steps you just said ? +PhD G: Great . +PhD D: Uh . Our s our {disfmarker} On our side ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: or including IBM 's ? +Professor F: Including IBM 's . +PhD D: Well , I don't know . The last one seemed like it took a couple of weeks . Um , maybe even three . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: Uh , that 's just the I B M side . Our side is quick . I mean , I {disfmarker} I don't know . How long does your {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It should @ @ be finished today or something . Yeah . +Professor F: Well , I meant the overall thing . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: e e u u {comment} The reason I 'm asking is because , uh , Jane and I have just been talking , and she 's just been doing . {vocalsound} Uh , e a , you know , further hiring of transcribers . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so we don't sort of really know exactly what they 'll be doing , how long they 'll be doing it , and so forth , because right now she has no choice but to operate in the mode that we already have working . +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: And , uh , so it 'd be {disfmarker} It 'd be good to sort of get that resolved , uh , soon as we could , +PhD D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I hope @ @ {comment} we can get a better estimate from this {pause} one that we send them . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . Um . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't know yet how long that 'll take . +Professor F: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} I mean in particular I would {disfmarker} I would really hope that when we do this DARPA meeting in July that we sort of have {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're into production mode , somehow {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , that we {disfmarker} we actually {vocalsound} have a stream going and we know how {disfmarker} how well it does and how {disfmarker} and how it operates . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: I think that would {disfmarker} that would certainly be a {disfmarker} a very good thing to know . +PhD D: Right . Right . +Professor F: OK . Uh . Maybe before we do the meeting info organize thing , maybe you could say relevant stuff about where we are in transcriptions . +Postdoc A: OK . So , um , we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , the transcribers have continued to work past what I 'm calling "" set one "" , which was the s the set that I 've been , uh {disfmarker} OK , talking about up to this point , but , uh , they 've gotten five meetings done in that set . Right now they 're in the process of being edited . Um , the , um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I hired two transcribers today . I 'm thinking of hiring another one , which will {disfmarker} because we 've had a lot of attrition . And that will bring our total to {disfmarker} +Professor F: They die off after they do this for a while . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's various things . +PhD D: Burn - out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So , one of them had a baby . Um , you know , one of them really w wasn't planning {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that was an unfor unforeseen side effect of {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Eh , one of them , um , had never planned to work past January . I mean , it 's th all these various things , cuz we , you know , we presented it as possibly a month project back in January and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Um , so it makes sense . Uh , through attrition we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} we 're down to {disfmarker} to two , but they 're really solid . We 're really lucky the two that we kept . And , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't mean {disfmarker} I don't mean anything against the others . {comment} What I mean is we 've got a good cause {disfmarker} a good core . No . We had a good core {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , they won't hear this since they 're going . They won't be transcribing this meeting . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but still . I mean , I d it 's just a matter of we {disfmarker} w we 're {disfmarker} we 've got , uh , +Professor F: No backs . +Postdoc A: two of the ones who {disfmarker} who , um , ha had been putting in a lot of hours up to this point and they 're continuing to put in a {disfmarker} a lot of hours , which is wonderful , and excellent work . And so , then , in addition , um , I hired two more today and I 'm planning to h hire a third one with this {disfmarker} within this coming week , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but the plan is {disfmarker} just as , uh , Morgan was saying we discussed this , and the plan right now is to keep the staff on the {disfmarker} on the leaner side , you know , rather than hiring , like , eight to ten right now , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: because if the IBM thing comes through really quickly , then , um , we wouldn't wanna have to , uh , you know , lay people off and stuff . So . And this way it 'll {disfmarker} I mean , I got really a lot of response for {disfmarker} for my notice and I think I could hire additional people if I {pause} wish to . +Professor F: Yeah . An - and the other thing is , I mean , in the unlikely event {disfmarker} and since we 're so far from this , it 's a little hard to plan this way {disfmarker} in the unlikely event that we actually find {vocalsound} that we have , uh , transcribers on staff who are twiddling their thumbs because , you know , there 's , you know , {vocalsound} all the stuff that {disfmarker} that was sitting there has been transcribed and they 're {disfmarker} and they 're faster {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline is faster than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , than the generation , um , eh , i in {disfmarker} in the day {disfmarker} e event that that day actually dawns , uh , I {disfmarker} I bet we could find some other stuff for them to do . +Postdoc A: Oh , yes . +Professor F: So I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} that , eh , eh , a as we were talking , if we {disfmarker} if we hire twelve , then we could , you know , run into a problem later . I mean , we also just couldn't sustain that forever . But {disfmarker} but , um {disfmarker} for all sorts of reasons {disfmarker} but if we hire f you know , f we have five on staff {disfmarker} five or six on staff at any given time , then {vocalsound} it 's a small enough number so we can be flexible either way . +Postdoc A: Good . OK . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: It 'd be great , too , if , um , we can {disfmarker} we might need some help again getting the tighter boundaries or some hand {disfmarker} to experiment with , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , to have a ground truth for this segmentation work , which {disfmarker} I guess you have some already that was really helpful , and we could probably use more . +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . That was a thing I {disfmarker} I planned working on , is , uh , to use the {disfmarker} the transcriptions which are done by now , and to {disfmarker} to use them as , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh . Oh , the new ones +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: with the tighter boundaries . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . And to use them for {disfmarker} for training a {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} fo whatever . Yeah . To {disfmarker} to create some speech - nonspeech labels out of them , and {disfmarker} Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that 's a thing w was {disfmarker} w what I 'm just looking into . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pre - segmentations are so much {disfmarker} are s so extremely helpful . Now there was , uh , I g guess {disfmarker} So , a couple weeks ago I needed some new ones and it happened to be during the time that he was on vacation {disfmarker} f for just very few days you were away . But it happened to be during that time I needed one , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: so I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so I started them on the non - pre - segmented and then switched them over to yours and , um , they , um {disfmarker} you know , they always appreciate that when they have that available . And he 's , uh , usually , eh , uh , um {disfmarker} Um . So they really appreciate it . But I was gonna say that they do adjust it once in a while . You know , once in a while there 's something like , +PhD E: Yeah , sure . +Postdoc A: um , and e Actually you talked to them . Didn't you ? Did you ? Have you {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . I talked to Helen . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and she was {disfmarker} And so , I asked her {disfmarker} I mean , They 're very perceptive . I really want to have this meeting of the transcribers . I haven't done it yet , but I wanna do that and she 's out of town , um , for a couple of weeks , but I wanna do that when she returns . Um , cuz she was saying , you know , in a {disfmarker} in a span of very short period {disfmarker} we asked {disfmarker} It seems like the ones that need to be adjusted are these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things , and she was saying the short utterances , uh , the , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Postdoc A: you know , I mean , you 're {disfmarker} You 're aware of this . But {disfmarker} but actually i it 's so correct for so much of the time , that it 's an enormous time saver +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and it just gets tweaked a little around the boundaries . So . +PhD G: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Um . Yeah . I think it 'd be interesting to combine these . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Is there actually a record of where they change ? I mean , you can compare , do a diff on the {disfmarker} just so that we {vocalsound} knew {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: You could do it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's complicated in that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} hhh , i hhh , i +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , when {disfmarker} when they create new {disfmarker} yeah , new segments or something , it will be , uh , not that easy but {disfmarker} hmm . I think {pause} one could do that . +PhD G: I mean , if we keep a old copy of the old time marks +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: just so that if we run it we know whether we 're {disfmarker} which ones were cheating +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . That would be great , yeah , to know that . +PhD G: and +Postdoc A: There is a {disfmarker} there is one problem with that and that is when they start part way through then what I do is I merge what they 've done with the pre - segmented version . +PhD G: which one would be good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So it 's not a pure {disfmarker} it 's not a pure condition . Wha - what you 'd really like is that they started with pre - segmented and were pre - segmented all the way through . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it wasn't possible for about four of the recent ones . But , it will be possible in the future +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: because we {disfmarker} we 're , um . +PhD E: It would . +PhD G: Mmm , that 's great . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . As long as we have a record , I guess , of the original {pause} automatic one , we can always find out how well {pause} we would do fr from the recognition side by using those boundaries . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , a completely non - cheating version . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Also if you need someone to record this meeting , I mean , I 'm happy to {disfmarker} for the transcribers {disfmarker} I could do it , or Chuck or Adam . +Postdoc A: Thank you . +Professor F: OK . So , uh , u you were saying something about organizing the meeting info ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , uh , Jane and Adam and I had a meeting where we talked about the reorganization of the {pause} directory structure for all of the meeting {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did you record it ? +PhD D: No . For all the Meeting Recorder data . We should have . Um . And so we 've got a plan for what we 're gonna do there . And then , Jane also s prepared a {disfmarker} um , started getting all of the {disfmarker} the meetings organized , so she prepared a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spreadsheet , which I spent the last couple of days adding to . So I went through all of the data that we have collected so far , and have been putting it into , uh , a spreadsheet {vocalsound} with start time , the date , the old meeting name , the new meeting name , the number of speakers , the duration of the meeting , comments , you know , what its transcription status is , all that kind of stuff . And so , the idea is that we can take this and then export it as HTML and put it on the Meeting Recorder web page so we can keep people updated about what 's going on . +PhD G: Oh , great . +PhD D: Um , I 've gotta get some more information from Jane cuz I have some {disfmarker} some gaps here that I need to get her to fill in , but {vocalsound} so far , um , {vocalsound} as of Monday , the fourteenth , um , we 've had a total number of meeting sixty - two hours of meetings that we have collected . And , um {disfmarker} Uh , some other interesting things , average number of speakers per meeting is six . Um , and I 'm gonna have on here the total amount that 's been transcribed so far , but I 've got a bunch of {disfmarker} uh , that 's what I have to talk to Jane about , figuring out exactly which ones have {disfmarker} have been completed and so forth . But , um , {vocalsound} this 'll be a nice thing that we can put up on the {disfmarker} the web site and people can {vocalsound} be informed of the status of various different ones . And {vocalsound} it 'll also list , uh , like under the status , if it 's at IBM or if it 's at ICSI , uh , or if it 's completed or which ones we 're excluding and {disfmarker} and there 's a place for comments , so we can , {vocalsound} um , say why we 're excluding things and so forth . So . +Professor F: Now would the ones that , um , are already transcribed {disfmarker} we h we have enough there that c you know , we 've already done some studies and so forth and {disfmarker} um , shouldn't we go through and do the business - es u of {disfmarker} of having the , um , uh , participants approve it , uh , for {disfmarker} approve the transcriptions for distribution and so forth ? +Postdoc A: Um , interesting idea . In principle , I {disfmarker} I would say yes , although I still am doing some {disfmarker} the final - pass editing , trying to convert it over to the master file as the {disfmarker} being the channelized version and it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it seems like I get into that a certain way and then something else intervenes {comment} and I have to stop . Cleaning up the things like the , uh , uh , places where the transcriber was uncertain , and {disfmarker} and doing spot - checking here and there . So , um , uh , I guess it would make sense to wait until th that 's done , um , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , le let me put in another sort of a milestone kind of {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I did with the , uh , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , we are gonna have this DARPA {pause} meeting in the middle of July , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: and I think it w it 'd be {disfmarker} given that we 've been {disfmarker} we 've given a couple public talks about it already , spaced by months and months , I think it 'd be pretty bad if we continued to say none of this is available . Um . +Postdoc A: It 'll certainly be done by then . Yeah . +Professor F: Right . So we can s we {disfmarker} we wanna be able to say "" here is a subset that is available right now "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Professor F: and that 's has been through the legal issues and so forth . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor F: So . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . So that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: So , by {disfmarker} before July . +PhD C: And they don't have to approve , you know , th an edited version , they can just give their approval to whatever version +Postdoc A: Well , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , in principle , yes . But , I mean , i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if somebody actually did get into some legal issue with it then we +PhD C: Bu Yeah . But th I mean , the editing will continue . Presumably if {disfmarker} if s errors are found , they will be fixed , but they won't change the {disfmarker} the content of the meetings . +PhD D: Content , really . +Postdoc A: Well , see , this is the {disfmarker} this is the issue . Subtleties . +PhD C: So . +PhD G: Well , i if Jane is clarifying question question , then , you know , how can they agree to it before they know her final version ? +Postdoc A: The other thing , too , is there can be subtleties where a person uses this word instead of that word , which @ @ {comment} could 've been transcribed in the other way . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Thing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And no and they wouldn't have {vocalsound} been slanderous if it had been this other word . You know ? +Professor F: I it {disfmarker} you know , there there is a point at which I agree it becomes ridiculous because , you know , you could do this final thing and then a year from now somebody could say , you know , that should be a period and not a question mark . Right ? And you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's no way that we 're gonna go back and ask everybody "" do you approve this , uh , you know {disfmarker} this document now ? "" So {disfmarker} So I think what it is is that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that they sign {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't looked at it in a while , but it has to be open enough that it sort of says "" OK , from now on {disfmarker} you know , now that I 've read this , you can use {disfmarker} do anything you want with these data . "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And , uh {disfmarker} But , i I think we wanna {disfmarker} So , assuming that it 's in that kind of wording , which I don't remember , {vocalsound} um , I think i we just wanna have enough confidence ourselves that it 's so close to the final form it 's gonna be in , a year from now that they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I agree . Mmm . I totally agree . It 's just , uh , a question of , {vocalsound} uh , if {disfmarker} if the person is using the transcript as the way of them judging what they said and whether it was slanderous , {vocalsound} then it seems like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i it needs to be more correct than if we could count on them re - listening to the meeting . +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: Because it becomes , eh , in a way a {disfmarker} a f uh , a legal document i if they 've agreed to that . +Professor F: Well , I forget how we end Right . I forget how we ended up on this , but I remember my taking the position {vocalsound} of not making it so {disfmarker} so easy for everybody to observe everything and Adam was taking the position of {disfmarker} of having it be really straightforward for people to check every aspect of it including the audio . And I don't remember who won , Adam or me , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , {vocalsound} if it 's only the transcript , though {disfmarker} I mean , th this {disfmarker} this is my point , that {disfmarker} that +Professor F: uh , the {disfmarker} Uh , that that 's why I 'm bringing this up again , because I can't remember how we ended up . +Postdoc A: then it becomes {disfmarker} +Professor F: That it was the transcrip He wanted to do a web interface that would make it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , if it 's just the audio {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: that would give you access to the transcript and the audio . That 's what Adam wanted . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And I don't remember how we ended up . +PhD G: I mean , with the web interface it 's interesting , because you could allow the person who signs to be informed when their transcript changes , or something like that . And , I mean , I would say "" no "" . Like , I don't wanna know , but some people might be really {vocalsound} interested and then y In other words , they would be informed if there was some significant change other than typos and things like that . +Professor F: You decided you were whispering Satanic incantations under your breath when you were {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , {vocalsound} I don't know what happened to the small heads thing , but I j {vocalsound} Um , I 'm just saying that , like , you know , you can sort of say that any things that are deemed {disfmarker} +Professor F: They disappeared from view . +PhD G: Anyway . I mean , I agree that at some point people {vocalsound} probably won't care about typos but they would care about significant meaning changes and then they could be asked for their consent , I guess , if {disfmarker} if those change . Cuz assumi {vocalsound} assuming we {disfmarker} we don't really distribute things that have any significant changes from what they sign anyway . +PhD C: Tha That 's {disfmarker} How about having them approve the audio and not the transcripts ? +PhD G: Oh , my God . +Postdoc A: That would be simpler , +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: if we could count on them listening . +PhD G: But no one will listen to the hours and hours of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Talk . +PhD C: Well , that 's O K . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: We just have to give them a chance to listen to it , and if they don't , that 's their problem . +Grad B: hmm , hmm . +PhD G: You {disfmarker} you d That 's like {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Unfortunately , uh , in {disfmarker} in the sign thing that they signed , it says "" transcripts "" . +PhD C: No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc A: "" You 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be provided the transcripts when they 're available . "" +PhD C: Really ? +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I I {disfmarker} I think +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: that 's a lot to ask for people that have been in a lot of meetings . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: W anyway , haven't we {disfmarker} we 've gone down this path a number of times . I know this can lead to extended conversations and {disfmarker} and not really get anywhere , so let {disfmarker} let me just suggest that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , off - line that , uh , the people involved figure it out and take care of it before it 's July . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: OK . So {disfmarker} so that in July we can tell people {vocalsound} "" yes , we have this and you can use it "" . +Postdoc A: Yes . It 's done , ready , available . Good . +Professor F: Uh . So , let 's see . What else we got ? Uh . Don did {disfmarker} did a report about his project in class and , uh {disfmarker} an oral and written {disfmarker} written version . +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: So that was stuff he was doing with you . Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I guess one thing we 're learning is that the amount {disfmarker} We have eight meetings there because we couldn't use the non - native {disfmarker} all non - native meetings and {vocalsound} it 's , well , probably below threshold on enough data for us for the things we 're looking at because the {vocalsound} prosodic features are {pause} very noisy and so you {disfmarker} you need a lot of data in order to model them . Um , so we 're starting to see some patterns and we 're hoping that maybe with , {vocalsound} I don't know , double or triple the data {disfmarker} with twenty meetings or so , that we would start to get better results . But we did find that some of the features that , I gue Jane would know about , that are expressing sort of the {vocalsound} distance of , um , {vocalsound} boundaries from peaks in the utterance and {vocalsound} some {pause} local , um , range {disfmarker} pitch range effects , like how close people are to their floor , are showing up in these classifiers , which are also being given some word features that are cheating , cuz they 're true words . Um , so these are based on forced alignment . Word features like , um , word frequency and whether or not something 's a backchannel and so forth . So , we 're starting to see , I think , some interesting patterns . +Professor F: So the dominant features , including everything , were those {disfmarker} those quasi - cheating things . Right ? Where these are {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sometimes not . +PhD G: I think it depends what you 're looking at , a actually . +Grad B: Yeah . Sometimes {pause} positions in sentences obviously , or in spurts , was helpful . I don't know if that 's cheating , too . +PhD G: Right . Um , +PhD C: Spurts wouldn't be . Right ? +PhD G: spurts is not cheating except that of course you know the real words , +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: but roughly speaking , the recognized words are gonna give you a similar type of position . +Grad B: Right . Would they give you the same number of words , though ? +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's either early or late . +PhD C: No +PhD G: Not exactly , but i +Grad B: But ra somewhat ? +Professor F: On the average . +PhD G: Y yeah it should be . Well , we don't know and actually that 's one of the things we 're interested in doing , is a sort of {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Have you tried using just time , as opposed to number of words ? +PhD G: So . +Grad B: I think ti uh {disfmarker} Just p time position , like when the word starts ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: I don't know if that was in the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , no , I mean t time {disfmarker} time position relative to the beginning of the spurt . +PhD G: Eh {disfmarker} You know , uh +Grad B: Start . +PhD G: Yeah , +Grad B: Yeah . There 's all these things to do . +PhD G: uh , we didn't try it , but it 's s +Grad B: Like , there 's a lot of different features you could just pull out . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean that wouldn't be cheating because you can detect pause {pause} pretty well within the time . +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: How about time position normalized by speak +PhD G: And it depends on speaking rate {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: speaking rate . Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's actually why I didn't use it at first . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: But we {disfmarker} one of the interesting things was I guess you reported on some te punctuation type {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: finding sentence boundaries , finding disfluency boundaries , and then I had done some work on finding from the foreground speech whether or not someone was likely to interrupt , so where {disfmarker} you know , if I 'm talking now and someone {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Andreas is about to interrupt me , is he gonna choose a certain place in my speech , either prosodically or word - based . And there the prosodic features actually showed up and a neat thing {disfmarker} even though the word features were available . And a neat thing there too is I tried some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} putting the speaker {disfmarker} So , I gave everybody {vocalsound} a short version of their name . So the real names are in there , which we couldn't use . Uh , we should use I Ds or something . And those don't show up . So that means that overall , um , it wasn't just modeling Morgan , or it wasn't just modeling a single person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , but was sort of trying to , {vocalsound} uh , get a general idea {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the tree classifier was trying to find general locations that were applicable to different speakers , even though there are huge speaker effects . So . The {disfmarker} but the main limitation now is I {disfmarker} because we 're only looking at things that happen every {vocalsound} ten words or every twenty words , we need more {disfmarker} more data and more data per speaker . So . It 'd also be interesting to look at the EDU meetings because we did include meeting type as a feature , so whether you were in a r Meeting Recorder meeting or a Robustness meeting did matter {vocalsound} to {pause} interrupts because there are just fewer interrupts in the Robustness meetings . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And so the classifier learns more about Morgan than it does about sort of the average person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: which is {vocalsound} not bad . It 'd probably do better than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , but it wasn't generalizing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} And I think Don , um {disfmarker} Well , we have a long list of things he 's starting to look at now over the summer , where we can {disfmarker} And he 'll be able to report on more things {pause} in the future . But it was great that we could at least go from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , Jane 's transcripts and the , {vocalsound} uh , recognizer output and get it {pause} to this point . And I think it 's something Mari can probably use in her preliminary report {disfmarker} like , "" yeah , we 're at the point where we 're training these classifiers and we 're just {vocalsound} reporting very preliminary but suggestive results that {vocalsound} some features , both word and pro prosodic , work . "" The other thing that was interesting to me is that the pitch features are better than in Switchboard . And I think that really is from the close - talking mikes , cuz the pitch processing that was done has much cleaner behavior than {disfmarker} than the Switchboard telephone bandwidth . +PhD C: W wh wh wh Better in what sense ? +PhD G: Um . Well , first of all , the pitch tracks are m have less , um , halvings and doublings than {disfmarker} than Switchboard and there 's a lot less dropout , so if you ask how many regions where you would normally expect some vowels to be occurring {vocalsound} are completely devoid of pitch information , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: in other words the pitch tracker just didn't get a high enough probability of voicing for words {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for , you know , five word +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD G: there are much fewer than in Switchboard . So the missing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We had a big missing data problem in Switchboard and , so the features weren't as reliable cuz they were often just not available . +PhD D: Could it have to do with the {disfmarker} the lower frequency cut - off on the Switchboard ? +PhD G: So that 's actually good . Ma - maybe . I mean , the tele we had telephone bandwidth for Switchboard and we had the an annoying sort of telephone handset movement problem that I think may also affect it . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: So we 're just getting better signals in {disfmarker} in this data . Which is nice . So . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Anyway , Don 's been doing a great job and we hope to continue with , um , Andreas 's help and also some of Thilo 's help on this , +Professor F: Great . +PhD E: Y +PhD G: to {disfmarker} to try to get a non - cheating version of how all this would work . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor F: Has {disfmarker} has , uh {disfmarker} ? We just {disfmarker} I think , just talked about this the other day , but h has {disfmarker} has anybody had a chance to try changing , uh , insertion penalty sort of things with the {disfmarker} with the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , using the tandem system input for the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Oh , yeah . I tried that . It didn't , um , help dramatically . The {disfmarker} +PhD D: Were they out of balance ? I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't notice . +PhD C: There were a little {disfmarker} the relative number of {disfmarker} I think there were a higher number of deletions , actually . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD C: So , you , uh {disfmarker} So , actually it {disfmarker} it preferred to have a positive {disfmarker} er , negative insertion penalty , +PhD G: Deletions ? +PhD C: which means {vocalsound} that , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But , you know , it didn't change {vocalsound} th the {disfmarker} by adjusting that {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . The error changed by probably one percent or so . But , you know , given that that word error rate is so high , that 's not a {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} So that 's not the problem . +PhD C: That 's not the problem . No . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , we s just , um , uh {disfmarker} you know , Chuck and I talked and the {pause} @ @ {comment} next thing to do is probably to tune the {disfmarker} um , the size of the Gaussian system , um , @ @ {comment} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} to this feature vector , which we haven't done at all . We just used the same {vocalsound} configuration as we used for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the standard system . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} for instance , uh , Dan {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Dan just sent me a message saying that CMU used , um , {vocalsound} something like ten Gaussians per cluster {disfmarker} You know , each {disfmarker} each mixture has ten {pause} Gaussians +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . We 're using sixty - four , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and we 're using sixty - four , +PhD D: right ? +PhD C: so that 's {vocalsound} obviously a big difference +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: and it might be way off and give very poorly trained , uh , you know , Gaussians that way , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: uh , an and poorly trained mixture weights . So {disfmarker} so , we have {disfmarker} The turn - around time on the training when we train only the {disfmarker} a male system with , uh , you know , our small training set , is {vocalsound} less than twenty - four hours , so we can run lots of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , basically just brute force , try a whole bunch of different um , settings . +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: And , uh , with the new machines it 'll be even better . So . +Professor F: Yeah . We get twelve of those , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: huh ? +PhD C: But the PLP features work {disfmarker} um , uh , you know , continue to improve the , +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} As I said before , the {disfmarker} uh using Dan 's , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization option works very well . So , um , @ @ {comment} I ran one experiment where we 're just {vocalsound} did the vocal tract le normalization only in the test data , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I didn't bother to retrain {pause} the models at all , and it improved by one percent , which is about what we get with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with , you know , just @ @ {comment} actually doing both training and test normalization , um , with , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the standard system . So , in a few hours we 'll have the numbers for the {disfmarker} for retraining everything with vocal tract length normalization and {disfmarker} So , that might even improve it further . +Professor F: Great . +PhD C: So , it looks like the P L - fea P features {comment} do very well now with {disfmarker} after having figured out all these little tricks to {disfmarker} to get it to work . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: Wait . So you mean you improve one percent over a system that doesn't have any V T L in it already ? +PhD C: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . So then {disfmarker} then we 'll have our baseline to {disfmarker} to compare the currently hideous , uh , uh , new thing with . +PhD C: Right . a Right . And {disfmarker} and what that suggests also is of course that the current Switchboard {pause} MLP isn't trained on very good features . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , because it was trained on whatever , you know , was used , uh , last time you did Hub - five stuff , which didn't have any of the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . But all of these effects were j like a couple percent . +PhD C: Uh . +Professor F: Right ? I mean , y the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , but if you add them all up you have , uh , almost five percent difference now . +Professor F: Add {pause} all of them . I thought one was one point five percent and one was point eight . +PhD C: Yeah . And now we have another percent with the V T +Professor F: That 's three point three . +PhD C: Um , actually , and it 's , um , What 's actually qu interesting is that with {disfmarker} um , well , you m prob maybe another half percent if you do the VTL in training , and then interestingly , if you optimize you get more of a win out of rescoring the , um , {vocalsound} uh , the N best lists , uh , and optimizing the weights , um , uh than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Than you do with the standard ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . But the part that 's actually adjustment of the front - end per se as opposed to doing {disfmarker} putting VTLN in or something is {disfmarker} it was a couple percent . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: Right ? It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there was one thing that was one and a half percent and one that was point eight . So {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} let me see if I remember what they were . One of them {vocalsound} was , uh , the change to , uh {disfmarker} because it did it all at once , {comment} to {disfmarker} uh , from bark scale to mel scale , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: which I really feel like saying in quotes , because @ @ {comment} they 're essentially the same scale but the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but any i individual particular implementation of those things puts things in a particular place . +PhD G: Yeah . Why did that cha ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So that 's why I wanted to look {disfmarker} I still haven't looked at it yet . I {disfmarker} I wanna look at exactly where the filters were in the two , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's probably something like there 's one fewer or one more filter in the sub {vocalsound} one kilohertz band +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and for whatever reason with this particular experiment it was better one way or the other . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Um , it could be there 's something more fundamental but it {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I don't know it yet . And the other {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} that was like one and a half or something , and then there was point eight percent , which was {disfmarker} what was the other thing ? +PhD D: Well , that was combined with the triangular . Right ? +Professor F: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} those two were together . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: We d weren't able to separate them out cuz it was just done in one thing . But then there was a point eight percent which was something else . +PhD D: The low - frequency cut - off . +Professor F: Do you remember the {disfmarker} ? Oh , yeah . So that was {disfmarker} that was , uh {disfmarker} that one I can claim credit for , uh , i in terms of screwing it up in the first place . So that someone e until someone else fixed it , which is that , um , I never put {disfmarker} when I u We had some problems before with offsets . This inf this went back to , uh , I think Wall Street Journal . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So we {disfmarker} we had , uh {disfmarker} ea everybody else who was doing Wall Street Journal knew that there were big DC offsets in th in these data {disfmarker} in those data and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and nobody happened to mention it to us , +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: and we were getting these , like , really terrible results , like two , three times the error everybody else was getting . And then in casual conversation someone ment mentioned "" uh , well , I guess , you know , of course you 're taking care of the offsets . "" I said "" what offsets ? "" +Grad B: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And at that point , you know , we were pretty new to the data and we 'd never really , like , looked at it on a screen and then when we just put it on the screen {comment} and wroop ! +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: there 's this big DC offset . So , um , in PLP +PhD G: There was a {disfmarker} like a hum or some or {disfmarker} when they recorded it ? +Professor F: No . It 's just , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not at all uncommon for {disfmarker} for recorded electronics to have different , um , DC offsets . +PhD G: Or just {disfmarker} ? Huh . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , no big deal . It 's {disfmarker} you know , you could have ten , twenty , maybe thirty millivolts , whatever , and it 's consistently in there . The thing is , most people 's front - ends have pre - emphasis with it , with zero at zero frequency , so that it 's irrelevant . Uh , but with P L P , we didn't actually have that . We had {disfmarker} we had the equivalent of pre - emphasis in a {disfmarker} a , uh , Fletcher - Munson style weighting that occurs in the middle of P L but it doesn't actually have a zero at zero frequency , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: like , eh , uh , typical simple fr pre - emphasis does . We had something more fancy . It was later on it didn't have that . So at that point I reali "" oh sh we better have a {disfmarker} have a high - pass filter "" just , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just take care of the problem . So I put in a high - pass filter at , uh , I think ninety {disfmarker} ninety hertz or so {vocalsound} uh , for a sixteen kilohertz sampling rate . And I never put anything in to adjust it for different {disfmarker} different sampling rates . And so {disfmarker} well , so , you know , the code doesn't know anything about that and so this is all at eight kilohertz and so it was at forty - five hertz instead of at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} instead of at ninety . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So , um , I don't know if Dan fixed it or {disfmarker} or , uh , what he {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , he made it a parameter . +Professor F: He made it a parameter . So . Yeah , I guess if he did it right , he did fix it and then {disfmarker} and then it 's taking care of sampling rate , which is great . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what is the parameter ? +Professor F: He had a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it , uh , just the f lower cut - off that you want ? +PhD C: It 's called , uh , {vocalsound} H - HPF . +Professor F: H {disfmarker} Yeah . Does HPF on {disfmarker} on his feat feature . +PhD C: u And {disfmarker} but HPF , you know , when you put a number after it , uses that as the hertz value of the cut - off . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: I mean , frankly , we never did that with the RASTA filter either , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so the RASTA filter is actually doing a different thing in the modulation spectral domain depending on what sampling rate you 're doing , which is {vocalsound} another old {disfmarker} old bug of mine . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , um {disfmarker} Um . So that {disfmarker} that was the problem there was th we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we had always intended to cut off below a hundred hertz +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it just wasn't doing it , so now it is . So , {vocalsound} that hep that helped us by , like , eight tenths of a percent . It {pause} still wasn't a big deal . +PhD C: OK . Well , but , um {disfmarker} Well , uh , again , after completing the {pause} current experiments , we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can add up all the uh differences +Professor F: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} an +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , I guess my {disfmarker} my point was that {disfmarker} that , um , the hybrid system thing that we did was , uh , primitive in many ways . +PhD C: Y Right . +Professor F: And I think I agree with you that if we fixed lots of different things and they would all add up , we would probably have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a competitive system . But I think not that much of it is due to the front - end per se . I think maybe a couple percent of it is , as far as I can see from this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unless you call {disfmarker} well , if you call VTL the front - en front - end , that 's , uh , a little more . But that 's sort of more both , kind of . +PhD D: One experiment we should {disfmarker} we 'll probably need to do though when {disfmarker} um , at some point , is , since we 're using that same {disfmarker} the net that was trained on PLP without all these things in it , for the tandem system , we may wanna go back and retrain , +Professor F: Right ? But . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I meant , in fact . Yeah . +PhD D: yeah , yeah , for the tandem . You know , so we can see if it {disfmarker} what effect it has on the tandem processing . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so , the thing is {disfmarker} is do we expect {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh At this point I 'm as I mean , you know {disfmarker} e I 'm wondering is it {disfmarker} Can we expect , uh , a tandem system to do better than a properly trained {disfmarker} you know , a Gaussian system trained directly on the features with , you know , the right ch choice of {pause} parameters ? +Professor F: Well , that 's what we 're seeing in other areas . Yes . Right ? So , it 's {disfmarker} so , um , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: So , we {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but we may not . I mean , if it doesn't perform as well , we may not know why . Right ? Cuz we need to do the exact experiment . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: I mean , the reason to think it should is because you 're putting in the same information and you 're transforming it to be more discriminative . So . Um . Now the thing is , in some databases I wouldn't expect it to necessarily give you much and {disfmarker} and part of what I view as the real power of it is that it {pause} gives you a transformational capability {vocalsound} for taking all sorts of different wild things that we do , not just th the standard front - end , but other things , like with multiple streams and so forth , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and allows you to feed them to the other system with this {disfmarker} through this funnel . Um , so I think {disfmarker} I think that 's the real power of it . I wouldn't expect huge in huge improvements . Um , but it should at least be roughly the same and maybe a little better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: If it 's , you know , like way way worse then , you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: So , Morgan , an another thing that Andreas and I were talking about was , so @ @ {comment} in the first experiment that he did {vocalsound} we just took the whole fifty - six , uh , outputs and that 's , um , basically compared to a thirty - nine input feature vector from either MFCC or PLP . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But one thing we could do is {disfmarker} +Professor F: Let {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} let me just ask you something . When you say take the fifty - six outputs , these are the pre final nonlinearity {pause} outputs +PhD D: Yeah . Through the regular tandem outputs . +Professor F: and they 're {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} through the KLT . +PhD D: Through the KLT . All that kinda stuff . +Professor F: OK . And so {disfmarker} so then you u Do you use all fifty - six of the KLT +PhD D: That 's what we did . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Right ? So one thing we were wondering is , if we did principal components and , say , took out just thirteen , and then did deltas and double - deltas on that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Yes . +PhD D: so we treated the th first thirteen as though they were {vocalsound} standard features . +Professor F: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , did Dan do experiments like that to {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh . Talk with Stephane . He did some things like that . It was either him or Carmen . I forget . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: I mean these were all different databases and different {disfmarker} you know , in HTK and all that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: so i it {disfmarker} it may not apply . But my recollection of it was that it didn't make it better but it didn't make it worse . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor F: But , again , given all these differences , maybe it 's more important in your case that you not take a lot of these low - variance , uh , components . +PhD D: Cuz in a sense , the net 's already got quite a bit of context in those features , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: so if we did deltas and double - deltas on top of those , we 're getting sort of even more . +Professor F: Which could be good or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . Worth trying . +PhD C: But there the main point is that , um , you know , it took us a while but we have the procedure for coupling the two systems {vocalsound} debugged now and {disfmarker} I mean , there 's still conceivably some bug somewhere in the way we 're feeding the tandem features {disfmarker} uh , either generating them or feeding them to this {disfmarker} to the {vocalsound} SRI system , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: There might be , cuz that 's a pretty big difference . +PhD C: Yeah . And I 'm wondering how we can {disfmarker} how we can debug that . +Professor F: But +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean how {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm actually f quite sure that the {disfmarker} feeding the {pause} features into the system and training it up , +Professor F: What if {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that 's essentially the same as we use with the ce with the P L P fe features . And that 's obviously working great . So . I um . +PhD D: Yeah . There could be a bug in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} somewhere before that . +PhD C: There {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} another degree of freedom is how do you generate the K L T transform ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? We to +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: well , and another one is the normalization of the inputs to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: These nets are trained with particular normalization and when that gets screwed up it {disfmarker} it can really hurt it . +PhD D: I 'm doing what Eric {disfmarker} E Eric coached me through then {disfmarker} that part of it , so I 'm pretty confident in that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: I mean , the only slight difference is that I use normalization values that , um , Andreas calculated from the original {comment} PLP , +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: which is right . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: N Yeah . So , I u I do {disfmarker} Oh , we actually don't do that normalization for the PLP , do we ? For the st just the straight PLP features ? +PhD C: No . The {disfmarker} the SRI system does it . +PhD D: S R I system does that . Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . Well , you might e e +PhD C: So , there 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} there is room for bugs that we might not have discovered , +PhD D: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I would actually double check with Stephane at this point , +PhD C: but {disfmarker} +Professor F: cuz he 's probably the one here {disfmarker} I mean , he and Dan are the ones who are at this point most experienced with the tandem +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: thing and there may {disfmarker} there may be some little bit here and there that is not {disfmarker} not being handled right . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's hard with features , cuz you don't know what they should look like . I mean , you can't just , like , print the {disfmarker} the values out in ASCII and , you know , look at them , see if they 're {disfmarker} +Professor F: Not unless you had a lot of time +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Professor F: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: eh , and also they 're not {disfmarker} I mean , as I understand it , you {disfmarker} you don't have a way to optimize the features for the final word error . Right ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: I mean , these are just discriminative , but they 're not , um , optimized for the final {disfmarker} +PhD C: They 're optimized for phone discrimination , not for {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . So it {disfmarker} there 's always this question of whether you might do better with those features if there was a way to train it for the word error metric that you 're actually {disfmarker} that you 're actually {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's right . Well , the other {disfmarker} Yeah , th the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - Mmm . +Professor F: Well , you actually are . But {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} but in an indirect way . +PhD G: Well , right . It 's indirect , so you don't know {disfmarker} +Professor F: So wha w what {disfmarker} an and you may not be in this case , come to think of it , because , uh , you 're just taking something that 's trained up elsewhere . So , what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} what you do in the full procedure {vocalsound} is you , um , uh , have an embedded training . So in fact you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the net is trained on , uh , uh , a , uh , Viterbi alignment of the training data that comes from your full system . And so that 's where the feedback comes all around , so that it is actually discriminant . You can prove that it 's {disfmarker} it 's a , uh {disfmarker} If you believe in the Viterbi assumption that , uh , getting the best path , uh , is almost equivalent to getting the best , uh , total probability , um , then you actually do improve that by , uh {disfmarker} by training up on local {disfmarker} local , uh {disfmarker} local frames . But , um , we aren't actually doing that here , because we did {disfmarker} we did that for a hybrid system , and now we 're plugging it into another system and so it isn't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i i it wouldn't quite apply here . +PhD C: Do y +PhD D: So another huge experiment we could do would be to take the tandem features , uh , do SRI forced alignments using those features , and then re - do the net with those . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mmm , uh {disfmarker} Exactly . Exactly . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So that you can optimize it for the word error . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Another thing is since you 're not using the net for recognition per se but just for this transformation , it 's probably bigger than it needs to be . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So that would save a lot of time . +PhD C: And there 's a mismatch in the phone sets . So , you 're using a l a long a larger phone set than what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Actually all those things could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could , uh {disfmarker} could affect it as well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: The other thing , uh , just to mention that Stephane {disfmarker} this was an innovation of Stephane 's , which was a pretty neat one , uh , and might particularly apply {vocalsound} here , given all these things we 're mentioning . Um , Stephane 's idea was that , um , discriminant , uh , approaches are great . Even the local ones , given , you know , these potential outer loops which , you know , you can convince yourself turn into the global ones . Um , however , there 's times when it {pause} is not good . Uh , when {pause} something about the test set is different enough from the training set that {disfmarker} that , uh , the discrimination that you 're learning is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not a good one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , uh , his idea was to take as the input feature vector to the , uh , Gaussian mixture system , {vocalsound} uh , a concatenation of the neural net outputs and the regular features . +PhD C: Oh , we already talked about that . +PhD G: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: El +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Didn't you {disfmarker} did you {pause} do that already +PhD C: Yeah . No , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} when I first started corresponding with Dan about how to go about this , I think that was one of the things that we definitely went there . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Oh . That makes a lot of sense . Huh . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I 'm sure that Stephane wasn't the first to think of it , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: but actually Stephane did it +PhD C: Uh - huh . And i does it help ? +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and it helped a lot . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's our current best {disfmarker} best system in the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , in the Aurora thing . +PhD C: Oh . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: And do you do a KLT transform on the con on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: As {disfmarker} you should never do worse . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I , uh , missed what you said . +PhD C: Do you {disfmarker} d you do a KLT transform on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor F: Well , actually , I , uh {disfmarker} you should check with him , because he tried several different combinations . +PhD C: Because you end up with this huge feature vector , so that might be a problem , a unless you do some form of dimensionality reduction . +Professor F: Yeah . I , uh , th what I don't remember is which came out best . So he did one where he put o put e the whole thing into one KLT , and another one , since the {disfmarker} the PLP things are already orthogonalized , he left them alone and {disfmarker} and just did a KLT on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the net outputs +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor F: and then concatenated that . And I don't remember which was better . +PhD D: Did he {disfmarker} did he try to {disfmarker} ? So he always ended up with a feature vector that was {pause} twice as long as either one of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: No . I don't know , i I {disfmarker} I don't know . You have to check with him . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Actually , I have to run . +Professor F: I 'm into big ideas these days . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . +PhD G: We need to close up cuz I need to save the data and , um , get a call . +Professor F: Not to mention the fact that we 're missing snacks . Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Uh +PhD G: Did people wanna do the digits +Professor F: Um . +PhD G: or , um , do them together ? +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I g I think , given that we 're in a hurry for snacks , maybe we should do them together . +PhD G: I don't know . Should we just {disfmarker} ? OK . I mean , are we trying to do them {nonvocalsound} in synchrony ? That might be fun . +Professor F: Well , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} You know , it 's not gonna work out +PhD G: Adam 's not here , so he 's not here to tell me no . +Professor F: but we could {disfmarker} we could just , uh , uh , see if we find a rhythm , you know , what {disfmarker} +PhD G: Sure . +Professor F: Uh , O 's or zeroes , we wanna agree on that ? +PhD G: Maybe just whatever people would naturally do ? I don't know . +Professor F: Oh , but if we were a singing group , we would wanna decide . Right ? +PhD G: Be harmony . Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Postdoc A: Mine 's identical to yours . +Professor F: We might wa +Postdoc A: Is that correct ? +PhD G: Sorry . So I set up and we didn't have {pause} enough digit forms +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: So these are excellent . +PhD G: so I xeroxed the same one seven times . +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: Why don't we do zer i Anyone have a problem with saying zero ? Is zero OK ? +PhD G: No . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . One and a two and three . +PhD G: e +Professor F: Once more with feeling . +PhD G: And th +Professor F: No , just k just kidding . Oh , yeah . It was . +","In this complex technical discussion among a group of academics, the main focus revolves around the setup and optimization of a speech recognition system. Participants include Doctorate holders (denoted as PhD) in various technical fields, Professors, and a postdoctoral researcher. + +Initially, the conversation deals with mundane issues such as the proper channel settings for microphones and the adjustment of volume levels. The participants then segue into more substantive topics relating to an upcoming DARPA meeting, with concerns about preparedness for demonstrating certain technologies and the urgency to decide on matters of a mock-up for question-answering interfaces and transcriber solutions. + +There are mentions of ongoing transcription work and the possible recruitment of additional transcribers based on current and anticipated needs. The status of the transcription process is a focus—with discussions on editing transcriptions, coordinating with IBM on improving transcription processes, and integrating automated segmentation tools. + +A significant portion of the discussion centers around optimizing the speech recognition system, including experiments with front-end features like Perceptual Linear Predictive (PLP) features versus Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC). One approach mentioned is the tandem system, which pairs neural network-derived features with Gaussian mixture models. The group debates various tuning and testing strategies for neural networks and their coupling with Gaussian systems, weighing the merits and potential pitfalls. Suggestions range from adjusting Gaussian sizes and normalizing input features to retraining neural networks with data aligned to the SRI recognition system. + +There's also talk about the importance of identifying the most impactful features and integration of traditional front-end features with neural network outputs using Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT). They consider the possibility of concatenation of features from neural network outputs with regular features, the implications of phone set mismatches, and the need to reconcile test and training set disparities. + +Throughout the discussion, technical challenges are identified, such as potential bugs in feature handling or discrepancies in signal processing parameters. Various solutions are proposed, including controlling the insertion penalty, normalizing the training parameters across multiple datasets, and ensuring feature vectors are appropriately transformed. There's a recognition that there might be considerable differences between how a hybrid system was initially trained and how its derivative features are being utilized within a different recognition system. + +Towards the end of the meeting, there is an attempt to wrap up quickly, with a slight digression into whether participants should read out digits in unison for an experiment. This light-hearted moment suggests a break is near, possibly for a snack, as they make a collective decision on whether to say ""zero"" or ""O"" when reading out numbers. + +The conversation exemplifies the complexity and collaborative nature of research in the field of computer science, especially within the area of speech recognition. It also demonstrates the importance of meticulous detail management, the ongoing process of solving technical issues through discussion and experimentation, and the interplay between theoretical investigations and practical applications." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Here we go . Welcome everybody . Um , I'm Abigail Claflin . You can call me Abbie . 'S see . PowerPoint , that's not it . There we go . So this is our kick off meeting . Um and I guess we should all get acquainted {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Let's {disfmarker} shall we all introduce ourselves ? +Marketing: Hi I'm Chiara , I'm the um Marketing Expert . Um , would you like me to talk about my aims at the moment , or would you like me to just say my name and then we can talk about business later ? +Project Manager: I think we'll get around to that , yeah . So this is just introductions yeah . +Marketing: We'll get round to that later . My name is Chiara and I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay . I forgot to s say I'm the Project Manager but I figured you all knew that already , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Stephanie and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Krista and I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so f here's our agenda for today . Um we're gonna do some tool training , project plan and discuss then close . {vocalsound} Um so . So our aim is to produce a remote control that is original , trendy and user friendly . And to do this , we have to {disfmarker} um there's certain things we have to consider about functional aspects and conceptual design of the thing . So . We'll get to that . Oh there it is . Right . Functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . So throughout our next couple of meetings we'll we'll be covering these things . Um {vocalsound} so we're gonna try out our white board . If we'll all draw our favourite animal , to sum up the characteristics of that animal . Okay . +User Interface: So you want us to draw it and then talk about it ? Or just draw it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think both . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Both . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Why don't we do both . Right . +Marketing: Who starts ? We ought to decide who starts and {vocalsound} all that . No ? +Project Manager: Any volunteers ? +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Does anyone know what they wanna draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I gotta think about it for a second like . Uh {disfmarker} Does it have to be {vocalsound} functional , trendy and user friendly ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . Okay , I'll draw . I'll draw one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Make sure {gap} my things here . Uh-oh . Right . Okay , my favourite animal is {disfmarker} see . {vocalsound} Oops . +Project Manager: A dolphin . +User Interface: Yeah , it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S like playing Pictionary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I guess it has a fin on top too , yeah . {vocalsound} It's my dolphin . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what characteristics do you like about your animal ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like its tail . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , no , I think dolphins are really uh {disfmarker} I dunno , they're smart and they they're cute and they like swimming and that's cool , like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're graceful . +User Interface: they're graceful yeah , and they're so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sleek {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah they're sleek +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they look intelligent and I don't know , they're {disfmarker} I guess it's the whole like binocular vision thing . +Project Manager: I don't know how intelligent that one looks {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah he he doesn't look that smart {vocalsound} . He's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I dunno um they're {disfmarker} I think it's cool the the um {vocalsound} the interaction that or the th things that {disfmarker} the reasons people seem to like you know {disfmarker} you get ex you know people are sitting on the beach and p they're like oh look there's dolphins and it's kinda like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} but they're you know they jump around in the water and they're happy and they're mammals , but they swim . {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Does anybody else wanna draw their animal ? +Industrial Designer: Suppose I can draw an animal , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh there goes the ten . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . They sleep all day , {vocalsound} they're easy to draw {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wanna {gap} anything ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno if the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the pen is running out of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I had the cat as well , but uh I've got a spare one . +Project Manager: ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll use the spare one . Um but it's harder to draw {gap} um . +User Interface: And the pen's dying {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: A horse . +User Interface: Horse . +Marketing: Uh . Um I don't {vocalsound} really know how the legs go , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but anyway I will do that . Um , and the main reason is they're pretty . I think they're very pretty and they go well with the environment , and I like the way they run and I used to do horse riding and they're just very sort of sturdy and nice animals . And I like the way um they feel , sort of under under the hand , I think that's pretty much it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . This cord's {disfmarker} {gap} Uh . Right . Actually I haven't thought of anything yet {vocalsound} . Uh {disfmarker} It's a pig . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm thinking we should design a remote control that's water resistant , strong and furry . What do you think , yeah ? This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: And furry . +Project Manager: yeah , well like a cat , you know , soft yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Textile {disfmarker} tactile , {vocalsound} tactile remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Although {disfmarker} uh I'll just put there . Right . +User Interface: You're dragging a {disfmarker} you have a tail {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Oh my gosh , this is disastrous . Sorry about that . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So moving on . Our selling price goal is twenty five Euro and profit aim is fifty million Euro . So I'm guessing that we're not actually in Scotland , we're in some European country {vocalsound} . Um , and we will hope to sell this internationally . +User Interface: Sorry can you just say that {disfmarker} what's the {disfmarker} what are our price goals again ? +Project Manager: Um selling price is twenty five Euro . Profit aim fifty million Euro . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: How many should we sell then ? {vocalsound} Um , a lot , +Project Manager: Anyone a mathematician ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: two two two million , {gap} two mi no , more f four million . +Industrial Designer: Two million . +Marketing: Four million . And it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well it's the profit so if a profit for each is twelve fifty , that'll do four million . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is a lot . Uh . +Project Manager: So f that's a fifty percent um uh . Um , I don't know what these mean because I didn't actually make the slide-show . Experience with remote control . So I guess we have to reflect on our experiences with remote controls to decide what um we would like to see in a convenient , practical , nice remote control . Um so do we have any initial ideas for uh how this remote control should be designed or formatted or the the buttons it should have . +Marketing: Um , I think one thing is that it should be easy to find +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking that too . +Marketing: bec yeah {vocalsound} bec +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we should design something that has like a {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} like somehow like you {disfmarker} I mean you always know where your T_V_ is , so just have a call button , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've always wanted that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so like {vocalsound} you can push a button on your T_V_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I mean you have it for the portable phone , so why not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah , so you should have a call button on your television to be able to find your remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . And even I think a little light . Um or even a {disfmarker} maybe a vib a vibrating thing . I dunno but someth because it's usually under the sofa . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: In which case you're going to be l but if it has a sort of signal which isn't any sound {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know if it's expensive maybe to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} yeah I mean it {disfmarker} but like I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe call is enough . But yeah . +User Interface: just I mean like your phone even just has so {disfmarker} like it can vibrate , it can light up and make noise and I dunno {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: What if it had something like um just like a magnet on the back of it and you could {disfmarker} I mean j just to have some place to put it besides like a base . You know like a portable phone has a base , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , or if it had a {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: like just to have a home for it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause people just stick it on top of their T_V_ , but the point of having a remote is not to have to walk over to the T_V_ , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's why it's always in the couch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , in in the couch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I dunno , it seems like though that that would be hard , 'cause you not you're not gonna be lazy anyway and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we should design couches that have the remote control in the side arm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah so we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the project is now couches and remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But even just a thing to attach it to the w you know if you had a thing , a pretty object attached to the wall . But that would really make it more expensive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's only a plastic thing , r really , the thing on the wall . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Do you think it needs to be bigger to not lose , or does that not factor in ? +Marketing: And the other thing is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bigger . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} well it needs to be sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like Hand hand held size , yeah . +User Interface: Hand-sized . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think you need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not not huge , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But definitely not {disfmarker} well I don't know . +User Interface: It can't be that hard to put some kind of a noise on it . +Marketing: No , it can't be , uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: No it really wouldn't be . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Or like or like a light thing . You know . I dunno {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like spaceship . +User Interface: . Yeah {vocalsound} . Or make it mobile so it runs around and comes come find you yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That would be really {disfmarker} I'm sure we could do that for twenty five Euros a pop . +Project Manager: Little homing device . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So what do we think this remote control should {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Marketing: Oh dear . +Project Manager: Till the meeting {disfmarker} oh right . This is what we have left . Um , oh we just {gap} +User Interface: I also think though that it shouldn't have too many buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: 'cause I hate that when they have too many buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} B_ button and the F_ button , they don't do anything . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: I mean I know it has to have enough functions but like , I don't know you , just have like eight thousand buttons and you're like , no , you never use half of them . So . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} what if um may be a little fancy but what if it had like a little screen , so it has less buttons but it still has all the functions . Like the way a mobile phone does . +User Interface: That would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it just seems like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you could like um {disfmarker} like if you have I dunno if you have satellite if you have a hundred channels , you can {disfmarker} the way you do it on your radio is that you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: what do you call it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Select . Uh . +Project Manager: s y yeah but you can programme , so you can programme like your favourite channels , so like if you had a s +Marketing: But , would you have the screen on the thing , or would you have it on the telly transmitting the screen . +Project Manager: That's something we could decide . Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess they would go together somehow ? I dunno . +Marketing: Because , I don't know if it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's e expensive , if you have {disfmarker} if you use the telly screen , 'cause the telly's already a screen , then you can pro sort of have a programming function , really easy sort of arrow up and down , on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: and then use the telly as a screen . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm thinking kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But yeah for sure . Something like not {disfmarker} it's not on the button but it's telling you what to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: is that what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Mm . +User Interface: Or like you h you see those you know people {disfmarker} I'm thinking of like celebrity cribs kind of things when like they have all those {disfmarker} these things that at their house you know {disfmarker} their their entire house is so electronic , and they have like this one master control that {disfmarker} and it's like a hand held like {disfmarker} turns on everything sort of control and it has like a screen and like {disfmarker} so I think it should be possible to have some kind of a screen , I don't know if {disfmarker} it must be {disfmarker} it would probably {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: must be ex too expensive though t like I dunno . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But like mobile phones have screens and they're cheap . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean , we have to remember our budget is twelve point {disfmarker} twelve fifty for {disfmarker} to actually make the device . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um but it's something to think about , yeah . +User Interface: Well , I guess we have to get to that later , yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we'll have to see how much that would be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or some {disfmarker} it i we can find out probably on the internet {vocalsound} how much it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . Yeah , and the other thing you said that thing about robust and water um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was the word ? +User Interface: Furry . +Marketing: Water resistant . +Project Manager: Oh I was just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but it's {disfmarker} I thought , ah , spot on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good feel , tact tactile , good tactile feel , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe something didn doesn't make your hands sweat lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , mm . +Marketing: That's quite annoying . +Project Manager: Maybe um just like a simple thing to have a clip on it , like so you can clip it to your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like that's another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , clip . Ooh {vocalsound} . Um . +Project Manager: Um . We should probably start wrapping up , um we've got some initial ideas that we can all look into . Um , and come up with some new ones for the next meeting , which will be in another thirty minutes . Um . So . Yeah . The Industrial Designer , what does that stand for , I_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} um is going to be looking more into the working design . So I guess you'd be looking at lots of the things we discussed about screen and um that sort of thing . The something , what is the U_I_ ? +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: Yeah , what does it stand for again ? +User Interface: That's me . Uh , User Interface design . +Project Manager: User Interface Designer . So that's gonna be more technical . I guess that maybe the working design has also to do with like the physical feat like just the way it looks and the way it w +User Interface: So technical function . +Industrial Designer: The working design is the structure . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: What is technical functions exactl I I don't really know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , I guess you'd have to find out {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: It says on that email but it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It was in the email . +User Interface: It does but it {disfmarker} I just don't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wrote down what mine were . +Marketing: It said um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It said {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What effect should the thing ha should it have , okay . Alright . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: And working design . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Be a medium between you and the telly I think , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And how it works , okay . Right . I'm I'm on task . +Project Manager: And the M_E_ , what does that stand for {vocalsound} ? M +Industrial Designer: Marketing . +Project Manager: Marketing , right . Um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Marketing . Oh it's written here , but um . +Project Manager: So we'll be working on the user requirements , um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So I guess that wraps it up . I'll see you all in thirty minutes . I just did . +","The conversation is a kickoff meeting for a project to design a remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly. Attendees include Abigail Claflin, the project manager, Chiara, the marketing expert, Stephanie, the user interface designer, and Krista, the industrial designer. They start by briefly introducing themselves, then move on to the agenda which includes tool training, project planning, and discussion. + +The team aims for a selling price of 25 euros and a profit goal of 50 million euros. They share ideas for the remote control, such as making it easy to find, with suggestions like a call button, a light, vibration, or a magnetic place to stick it. The team discusses avoiding too many buttons, potentially using a screen like mobile phones have, considering the tactile feel, and ensuring it's robust and water-resistant. They consider a twenty-five euro budget to produce each device. + +The team plans to investigate these initial ideas further and reconvene in thirty minutes. Abigail notes that each team member will focus on different aspects of the design, with Krista working on the structural or working design, Stephanie focusing on the user interface design including technical functions, and Chiara focusing on marketing and user requirements. The meeting concludes with an agreement to return in thirty minutes to continue the discussion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we'll try to zip through this , since we're short on time . Welcome everybody . Um hope your sessions went well . Um so this is our functional design meeting , we're going to consider um user needs , technical effects , and the working design of our remote control . Um I've been taking meetings on the minute minutes on the meetings {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , and I'll be putting them in the shared documents folder so if there's anything you need to refer to you can find them in there . Um I I'll get the ones up for next time , um they're not finished yet . Right . Um so can we have updates from everyone from what you've worked on just kind of a quick summary of anything interesting that you'd like to share or discuss in this {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I can start if you want . Mm . +Project Manager: sure . +Marketing: Is there an order ? No . +Project Manager: Hm ? +Marketing: We haven't decided on an order . +Project Manager: No , any any order's fine . Yeah . +Marketing: First . Okay . Um , how do I put this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll just put the cable in . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , sorry . +Marketing: {gap} Is that it ? Can you see ? {vocalsound} Oh , here . Okay . So what happens it doesn't work ? +Project Manager: It sh it takes a few seconds I think . +Industrial Designer: You may need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes you have to do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it in the right thing ? +Industrial Designer: it's like a three set setting cycle , so press it a couple times , hold down function and then press F_ eight . +Marketing: Oh wait , um . Uh . You need to help me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then press function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and F_ eight . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Could you just plug it back into hers because she had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait . +User Interface: oh . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} is that it ? +Industrial Designer: Adjusting . +Project Manager: Here we are . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The cable might be a little loose or something . Oh , you got it . +Marketing: Right here we are . +Project Manager: Oh . Is it on ? +Marketing: We're here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , um . In order to see what the functional requirements were to be found , um a hundred people were tested in a usability laboratory through just their habits to n know their habits were observed and questionnaires were given out . Um , the findings in in some cases matched what we were talking about . Custome Customers and users don't like the way remote controls look , they don't like the way they feel , they don't think they match their operating behaviour , and an example is what we were talking about , the buttons , they only use ten per cent of the buttons , so later on there's a study of the buttons that they use most and I think we should design according to these buttons . Easy to lose , and R_S_I_ . I don't know what R_S_I_ means . Um the person that did the questionnaire obviously did , I don't have a clue . +Project Manager: Hm . +Marketing: Um , according to the frequency of use and the relevance of each buttons , I have made a list of the buttons that we should focus on in order of importance . So the most important buttons are those to do with channel selection . They're used about a hundred and sixty times per hour . And um yeah so and and people like to zap a lot apparently , so this is the order . Channel selection , teletext , volume , and power . The other ones are the settings , and they're used less than {disfmarker} you know zero point eight to zero point five times per hour , and this means that I think we can we could have like a a button for all the settings , and then , just one , and then from there go on to the audio on the screen , either on the remote or on the television . Um , about the screen , and speech recognition , some people are more willing than others to actually pay for that . And if we look at the market , f people from well from fifteen to thirty five year old year olds , I don't really know how to describe this , um ninety one to seventy six percent of people in that age range are willing to pay more for this sort of product , while people that are above thirty five years ol um years old go from thirty five percent to eight percent , so people that are sixty five for example wouldn't actually pay for this sort of thing . Um I don't I don't know um what the decision to be made is , but I think that the people that actually do buy remotes m more are those like teenagers and young professionals and um , most likely , but we should discuss this together . {vocalsound} And that's all I have to say about the matter , {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Shall I {disfmarker} what do I do ? Do I give this to someone else ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Just move right on . +User Interface: Right . So get this . Okay so now I need to press F_ eight , what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh function F_ eight . +Marketing: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: 'Kay . What's function ? +Project Manager: It's the little blue {disfmarker} w it's the one {disfmarker} th +User Interface: Oh function , I see it . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: There we go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should be {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um . This my presentation about the uh technical functions design and I basically just tried to focus on um {vocalsound} just what what functions we need and how to make that the best function for the user . So uh and I just sort of like thought about it myself and looked on the internet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And okay so basically um {vocalsound} I think i uh like it is really important that we sort of get this done in a user friendly and fashionable way . Um {vocalsound} so I think things like uh you know keeping buttons together that {disfmarker} like close together that um {vocalsound} are used in the same way , uh {vocalsound} or um maybe that making 'em the same colour , keeping the number of buttons the uh leas you know to a minimum , and also things like is it is it um is it uh {disfmarker} can you c y small enough large enough I'm not sure we c I guess we would need to do some research about , I would , about what size is appropriate and that sort of thing , um but basically we need to make sure that it turns on and off the T_V_ . Does it have like capacity to change the channels ? Um {vocalsound} does it do {disfmarker} or do we need to have like functions for cable or V_C_R_ ? And then , is it findable , and uh how do we wanna do that ? And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just thought that these two remotes were pretty boring , um I dunno if this will work but {disfmarker} And I think we can find something that's more fun to look at and use than either of those . {vocalsound} Just I mean I like the one on the right better , just because it does have fewer buttons , uh but I mean I think we sh can sort of think about things like um {vocalsound} like colour and you know size , shapes , that sort of thing , to best fit the user . {vocalsound} That concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . You need the little thingy . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: How do I um {disfmarker} +Marketing: S That's on view . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay so this is on the working design , which is sort of the uh mechanical functions of the remote , um and the method I used was to basically look at existing designs and incorporate ideas from our last meeting . Um so I think we need two basic functions which is just the basic remote functions , the user can input a channel or volume setting and it will be output to the T_V_ . And also we talked about um a location function where maybe you could press a button on the T_V_ and it would send sort of signal to the remote where it would beep or flash or vibrate or whatever to tell you where the remote is . So the components we need are an energy source to power the remote , um input which would probably be buttons , although um we just talked about voice recognition , processor to take the information , um something to transmit it to the T_V_ , and we also need something on the remote that would receive the location signal and have an output , like possibly a beep or a vibration . And also you need a sender for location signal , which would probably be a separate um thing that we'd have to sell with the remote and people could stick it on their T_V_ or stick it on their wall . And this is just sort of an overview of how the remote works . Power comes from the battery , goes to the chip , um and then it is sent from there to an infrared bulb which is probably the easiest way to send to the T_V_ . And then for the location function , you would have a sender on the T_V_ which would output some sort of signal , um we could use I_R_ but we'd probably wanna use radio instead . That signal would go to a receiver which it would process it , and it would be output in the form of a buzzer or a light lighting up . Um so my personal preferences for how to build the remote would probably be uh , battery for the energy source , that way you wouldn't have to plug it in , um a button pad for input , um we can purchase a pre-made chip which will handle all the processing stuff , I_R_ transmitter to communicate to the T_V_ , that's just sort of standard , um so most T_V_s have an I_R_ receiver . Probably a radio receiver to send out location function and to receive it and I'd probably say a buzzer for the location function on the remote itself . So that concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Do you know about like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: I dunno , you seem like you know about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I d I was an engineer before I came here . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you everybody . Um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} we'll discuss that and then I just wanna mention some new project requirements that came in . Um , teletext is apparently outdated , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} due to internet popularity , so that's off the list . Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: also our remote should be used only for television , um , no extra internet kinda fancy things , just the remote and the television . Um and also we need to incorporate our corporate image onto this , so um the phrase is , we put fashion in electronics , so let's be fashionable I guess . Um if we have something {disfmarker} I mean silver and and gold or yellow are our colours , so if we had a like a kind of silver one like you saw , and yellow writing , something like that . Okay . Um . So we need to make some decisions on the remote control functions . Um , yeah . {vocalsound} Do {disfmarker} Let's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess we should yeah make some kind of brainstorming , see what we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like in terms of +Marketing: How it looks or {disfmarker} +User Interface: how it looks , or like what it does ? +Project Manager: wha what {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} well probably our target group and how it's gonna going to appeal to our target group and I dunno the the s +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: the buttons and what it does and that sort of thing . So . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . So {disfmarker} Is our target group then people {disfmarker} so do we wanna go ahead and design this thing with the finder button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think that seems to {disfmarker} yeah . Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's easy to implement . +User Interface: Okay . So the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the buzzer you mean , +User Interface: yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Locator . +Marketing: yeah , for sure , yeah . +User Interface: So then our target age group would be the nineteen to thirty five range , +Project Manager: Yeah , teenagers and young professionals . +User Interface: what was it ? +Marketing: Well that's for speech recognition . +Project Manager: Oh , uh . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: And screen . That's only for speech recognition and screen . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking about that but uh I mean speech recognition is really hard to programme , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and also , if the T_V_ is on it's making sound and the people on the T_V_ are talking , and if somebody says like one , then the T_V_'s gonna switch itself to channel one , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} it seems like a silly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how you would implement it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just put the values {vocalsound} in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if if you consider our budget , it probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um the screen is the same as what , {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's a cool idea but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if you consider our budget , to h have speech recognition programmed in every single remote might be a little pricey . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm happy with that . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Hu yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Completely . +User Interface: Okay so are we gonna have just some kind of a {disfmarker} like we'll have the buzzer on the som like on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Well you would have to have a button on a T_V_ or on your wall or some place {gap} since the T_V_ already has power . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you click the button , it's gonna send out a signal , and I was thinking , I_R_ is line of sight , so unless the remote is like actually in front of the T_V_ it's not gonna work , um so probably like a radio signal like on a on a cell phone . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sends out a signal and then the the remote hears the signal and so it beeps probably . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So you you'd need like a separate base for that or like something you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It would have to be sold separately because if the sender's on the remote then you'd have to find the remote first to click the button to find the remote {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: right . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So do you plug it in the T_ {disfmarker} you plug it in T_V_ , this thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it'd probably just stick it on your T_V_ so if you need to find the remote , click the button . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: So it's now like a two-part thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it would be a two part package . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So we get to design that too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it fashionable . Um , okay . +Project Manager: So do you think even though we're not talking about speek speech recognition our target group should still be teenagers and young professionals . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: Yeah . Just there . +Project Manager: Huh . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Are we um should that thing be on the {vocalsound} thing to put the {disfmarker} you s you talking about a home for it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you still want to build a little thing next to the telly or to p hang on the wall or shall we leave that for now ? +Project Manager: We probably leave that . I mean I guess one takes care of the other , like um if you can yeah if you can call it then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Then it can live anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . For the {disfmarker} so you have that button , that {disfmarker} so there's {disfmarker} is there a light or shall we leave just have a radio ? +Industrial Designer: Um on the T_V_ or on the phone ? +Marketing: Are we just having a radio ? On the phone . +Industrial Designer: Um it seemed like a {disfmarker} a beep seemed the most reasonable to me , +User Interface: T +Marketing: You don't need a light . Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's what the phone has , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean when you need to find your phone , you just have someone call it {vocalsound} and it starts ringing somewhere and then you can figure out that it's in the couch or wherever . +Project Manager: And like if the if the phone's under the couch , you might not see the light , so +Marketing: You can hear it's under the couch yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So i Yeah . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} {gap} So need the other buttons . So we have this {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: So I mean the two remotes that you had shown r I don't remember who showed them {vocalsound} , yeah you you did um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was me . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they're {disfmarker} I mean one looked like it was for V_C_R_ type thing , and the other looked like just television . +User Interface: I think w I think they're both sort of just like general remo they're both general remotes . +Project Manager: Oh really . 'Cause that that is something we have to decide , is whether we want to have V_C_R_ capabilities . +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: Does anyone know if V_C_R_s are the same across {disfmarker} international ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: They're not , no . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you'd need like a whole different set of buttons for everybody's V_C_R_s . +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It not V_H_S_ here ? +Project Manager: But D_V_D_ probably is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , other than that region and coding thing . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and if we're if we're targeting young professionals and teenagers , I mean it's gonna be D_V_D_ type , that's the the technology these days . +Marketing: But V_C_R_s {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , for sure . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So . Okay , let's see if I can {disfmarker} I think still though , it shouldn't be that hard to take {disfmarker} like just reduce the number of buttons you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like 'cause if you just have like one menu button , that works like with a you know , or you can just kind of scroll through the options u that come up on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well for sure we need the um {disfmarker} I think we can just design the channels ? I mean power's just a button , and it's not used that much , +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: s and it's usually that red +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's quite nice to keep it like red . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , I've seen some remotes that {disfmarker} where you just hold one , like if you hold one down it's it's a different colour than the other buttons but that turns it on . So you don't actually have a separate power button , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: It seems like that would be hard though . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean , like because unless you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It might be confusing . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Just 'cause I wouldn't {disfmarker} I would probably pick it up and just be like uh why is there no on button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Besides you like to be able to go power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I never think to hold something down . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have the power {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . B {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I guess . So we definitely want a power button and numbers . Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well even um iPod thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , like um , I don't know if people like this but if you want to reduce the number , of buttons , instead of having like one to nine , have a sort of +User Interface: That sort of like joystick flat touch thing , yeah . +Marketing: scrolling {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Because people li seem {disfmarker} now the iPod's out people seem to like this thing that there's no {disfmarker} Know you don't have one two three four five {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think that's an interesting idea , 'cause it's cool , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: it's it's funny like you f like I just {disfmarker} I don't have an iPod but like I , you know , I just like started messing around with one of my friend's the other day , and you just sort of and {disfmarker} it's funny how you pick it up and you just figure out how to use it quite easily , like it's not that hard , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's just {disfmarker} and it's one thing which has everything . +User Interface: Yeah , and it is {disfmarker} yeah . It is really {disfmarker} but do you need a screen then , do you have to have a screen then ? +Marketing: Well can't it tell the {disfmarker} like can't you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can have the number going around in the corner . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: you can have the number on the telly going like one two three four five once you scroll and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Okay so we have this like scrolling sort of button . +Project Manager: Oh that's gonna {disfmarker} Is that like on on a mouse pad where like kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a disc . Yeah . Yeah . It's like {disfmarker} it's just like the same technology as a mouse pad . +Project Manager: okay . I've never used one . No . +Marketing: It's like l this {disfmarker} like that , and then you do that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and then . +Marketing: And then you can have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you actually just want to zap , you can have like a thing {vocalsound} like that , and that , and then it can just be plus and minus . +User Interface: Okay . So like it's like a little part of the circle that {disfmarker} Or it {disfmarker} oh so it's just a region of the circle that you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i +User Interface: zap . +Marketing: Yeah , click o actually click on to have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We could we could even have four buttons , like , if that's the if that's the mouse , you could have the volume and the channel changers just like on that as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So volume could be like the top it and the bottom {disfmarker} So do you need to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't it rotate though , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: so it'll be moving around . +User Interface: Well y you have to you have to like be able to change the function of it to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you mean the function ? +User Interface: I mean like okay , 'cause so {disfmarker} I dunno , I guess {disfmarker} Okay {disfmarker} so when you g scroll your thumb like around it , it'll s like say you're go you're going clockwise . That that means you're gonna go up the channels , and then you scroll the other way and it'll go down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you wanna switch to the {disfmarker} to u do you have to switch to a function where like y so you're either in that mode or you're in the mode where like it just has like the four like you know this is channel that way , that's that way and volume is up and down . +Marketing: Yeah but it knows for some reason . +User Interface: It just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The iPod knows . +User Interface: It just kno {vocalsound} the iPod knows . {vocalsound} S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} If it works on an iPod then it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . So you just you just can either do this or like you can just touch it if you want . +Industrial Designer: I don't have one . +Marketing: Well for the volume you have to press the middle , and then go up . +User Interface: Okay . That's what I mean . Okay . Okay so you have to like press this middle region and then you can scroll up , go up and down . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: So it's like holding {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} well if you do that it goes , but if you {disfmarker} like that makes more sense 'cause there's already ones with up and down here , that I've seen . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} o And you you {disfmarker} is there an extra actual button ? Or are you actually {disfmarker} you're just using the mouse to go up and down . +Marketing: Well what you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like a b +Marketing: for the iPod you press an {disfmarker} w right if you're on the channel let's say , then you press on the middle and then if you do that again the volume goes up , and if you do that it goes down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But if you wanna keep it with volume here and here , I'm pretty sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean if if you're gonna this for channels , right , then y wouldn't the volume need to be separate somehow ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like you could just have {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: you could click and then have it up and down , +Project Manager: Oh you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think we can go on the fact that it does just work with the iPod . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: But the only thing is like , iPods are so expensive , like , it has to be {disfmarker} is that part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that what makes them expensi I think it's all of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +User Interface: yeah , I dunno , I dunno . +Project Manager: they have so much memory though , that's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't think so ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's the wheel dealy . +Marketing: I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's the uh h it's their capabili I mean they {disfmarker} it can hold what like five thousand songs or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm thinking we could {disfmarker} if if we're hav So ba I mean but an iPod just has that circle thing you know . +Industrial Designer: And they're re-programmable aren't they ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can put on your songs and then put on a different set , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's probably why they're expensive , they're like little computers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . Well like since it just has the circle thing , you could make it a qui a kind of cool shape , like it could be a cool sort of you know , because it could be circular , you know , or something weird like that , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Well it could just be simple instead of being a l mass . Because , the other thing , I didn't tell you all my presentation {vocalsound} , is that people find it {disfmarker} find that it's a big waste of time to have to learn how to use your remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that's another thing they complained about . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , what other buttons were there ? Volume {disfmarker} oh we've ts just said that . +User Interface: So okay . +Marketing: Channel selection . +User Interface: This is just for T_V_ , it's not for {disfmarker} or it is {disfmarker} does need to be compatible with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} A D_V_D_ is simple , you just have play , pause , eject , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know actually our our new project requirements , I'm not sure if they meant o onl use only for television as in not for D_V_D_ or just not internet type things . +User Interface: So how do you switch {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu . +Industrial Designer: and menu maybe . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll I'll check that and update you on the next {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . So like if we had that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we'll hold off on that 'cause {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But s yeah uh . +Marketing: But D_V_D_ players usually have their own remote . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So , I know I'm not c really clear on what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's cool to have it all on one , because you wanna turn it on then you wanna turn up the volume , and then you wanna go to the menu , so you don't wanna switch . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: So you'd have to have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} you would have to have like a function switch button , you know somewhere so like you can {disfmarker} you're either on T_V_ , you're on D_V_D_ or you're on V_C_R_ , or you're like . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well but D_V_D_ is only like four buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , it is only fun +User Interface: but I mean like to switch the fun so like to switch the function of the little circle disc , the touch pad . +Project Manager: But i Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . But I think the circle only does {disfmarker} channel isn't applicable to D_V_D_ really 'cause you don't wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but volume is and volume is actually controlled on the T_V_ so you don't have to switch . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} but I'm saying like , does it make sense to have like some kind of a button , so like you're {disfmarker} if you're on T_V_ , like you can switch channels , but then if uh if you're on D_V_D_ then like the channel bu like the the region of the disc that was for channels is for like switching to different tracks or s you know , to different {disfmarker} I mean do we need to think about that , +Project Manager: Um , yeah , let's think about it +User Interface: that like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes we can try that . +Project Manager: 'cause we need to wrap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","During a functional design meeting, the project manager and team members discussed updates on the remote control project. Marketing presented usability test findings, focusing on channel selection buttons as most frequently used and suggested a design targeting teenagers and young professionals. User Interface proposed a user-friendly design with minimized buttons, and Industrial Designer outlined mechanical functions, including a location feature to find the remote. The team discussed incorporating their corporate image into the design and brainstormed on tailoring the remote to appeal to young demographics, considering speech recognition and screen features were debated due to budget and practicality concerns." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Suzy Davies is going to be arriving a little bit late. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No? Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is an evidence session to scrutinise the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Claire Bennett, who is deputy director for curriculum and assessment. Thank you all for attending this morning, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking you what the main messages are that you've received during the feedback period on the draft curriculum. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Chair. If I may, I think it's important to understand what the level of that feedback has been. So, there was a concerted effort and a plan drawn up to try and ensure that there was as much engagement, knowledge and opportunity as possible. So, working through the regional consortia, approximately 120 separate events were organised, and we believe that in the region of 6,000 headteachers, teachers, governors and teaching assistants have actually had an opportunity to participate in those events. We also held a number of focus group sessions specifically for young people themselves, so that they could give us their feedback. There were 24 focus groups that were arranged for children and young people. We also held some specific events to engage with the business community. We'll all be familiar, won't we, with the narrative of, 'Oh, we're sending people out into the world of business without the skills that we as an employer are looking for'. So we thought it was really important to engage business so that they can have their say and their input into the process. And obviously we work very hard on making it as easy as possible via new technology for people to have their say. So, Members, I'm sure, will have been aware of the specific pages on Hwb that outlined the draft curriculum, and we had 275,000 unique visits to the Hwb curriculum pages. It's really interesting to see the breakdown of the areas of learning and experience—which particular AoLEs were the most popular and were being looked at the most—with our creative and performing arts and the creativity and the expressive arts being the most popular. So that's really interesting that people really wanted to engage in the content of that particular AoLE. What, then, have people said to us? Well, I'm really pleased that there has been broad support for the curriculum changes that we are proposing. There's real support for the need for change, because that's the first question, actually; why are we doing this, and why do we need to change? So, support for the need for change, and lots of support for the principle of a purpose-led curriculum. So, good levels of support for the four purposes, and that driving the content below it. Strong support for greater autonomy and agency for the profession—so, the ability of the profession to take a framework and then truly let them adapt it to meet the needs of the children that they are working with in their communities. Also, a great welcome of the emphasis on formative assessment and the importance of formative assessment. In terms of some of the things that people are asking us to look again at, some of that is around some of the language used. Can we clarify, can we simplify in some areas, are there things that are repeated in a variety of AoLEs? Can we use that as an overarching, rather than repeating ourselves? Can we simplify it and clarify some of the language? Also, in some areas—. It's interesting; in some areas people want it simplified and cut down, but in other areas, people say, 'Well actually, in this bit of it, we need a bit more detail, and a bit more depth and clarity'. So we'll be reflecting on all the feedback that we've had. That process has already started, but considering that this is a massive change, I have been hugely encouraged, actually, by the high levels of engagement and support for the broad principles of what we're doing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister. You said that you're reflecting on the messages that you've received. Are you able to give the committee any early indication of what level of change you anticipate making to the guidance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's really important and what has been the strength of the process to date is that we are not doing this to our profession, we are doing it with our profession. So, in the spirit of co-construction, the reflection on the feedback will continue to be primarily led by the existing infrastructure that we already had that got us to this stage at present. So, Members will be aware that we've slightly changed the model. We had our pioneer school model and we have slightly refined that now. Pioneers were asked if they wanted to continue in that process and to put themselves forward, and we've narrowed that down now to a smaller group of innovative schools. But above and beyond the innovative schools, we looked at individuals who have specific expertise in subject areas, and they're the first part of that process. So, they met last week to begin looking at the feedback, and we'll continue to use the processes that we have to reflect and refine. Are there big changes to the concept? No. Opportunities to do things better, explain things better, simplify where possible, where we've been told that that needs to happen, provide greater depth where we've been told that needs to happen—absolutely. We're definitely very alive and very willing to engage in those, but in terms of the overall concept, then no, no significant changes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. And what are the steps now before the final curriculum is published in January 2020? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, the quality—. We call them—it's not a very nice name—quality improvement practitioners, the QI practitioners. So, these are the subject specialists. They met last week to begin this process. In October, there will be a number of workshops lasting three days at a time where those practitioners will continue that process of feedback with our curriculum and assessment group and all those people involved. By November, we would expect the QI groups to have completed their work and would want them to be in a position to hand over the refinements to an editorial process, and that has to be done in both languages. I think it's really important that we don't do it in English and then we simply translate it into Welsh. So, the editorial process will then be engaged to draw up the final example. It also, then, hands over to the publication team to do all the work on the publication, our website team will then be working on it, and then we would expect final publication in January—am I right, Claire? +Claire Bennett: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, January. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some specific questions now on the legislation from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You've touched on the point that there's going to be some sort of change, and you've mentioned in your paper to us that further specific aspects of the framework of the curriculum are going to be included in the primary legislation. We want to know what those aspects will be and what has made you change your mind. +Kirsty Williams AM: The original proposal that we began working on was, in the legislation, to provide for the four purposes—so, the four purposes would be set out in the legislation—as well as putting in law the areas of learning and experience that you'll all be familiar with. Then, below that, we were going to legislate for a number of the cross-curricular aspects—so, the literacy, the numeracy and the digital competency—as well as some elements where we had already said that we were going to make that statutory, so, for instance, above and beyond what Graham Donaldson would have put in his original reports. A good example of that is relationships and sexuality education. I've already made an announcement that I was going to put RSE on the face of the Bill. So, the two main new areas that we are now working on to include within the Bill are to ensure that there is breadth within the curriculum for everybody—. So, we will make a statutory provision for the 'what matters' statements. So, we're bringing it a step lower again. Rather than simply, in law, leaving it at the AoLE level, we'll be bringing it down again to the 'what matters' statements within that, again, providing greater certainty and greater clarity about our expectations at a national level. We'll also be looking to include in the legislation provision for a statutory framework setting out our approach to progression in each of the AoLE areas. So, there has been in the Chamber—I can see Suzy is writing this down—Suzy has asked me questions about, 'How do you create a national expectation around progression?' We've reflected on that and our conversations with other people outside during this process, so we would look to have a statutory framework where our expectations of progression at a national level would be laid out. As I said, we are proposing those changes because of responses that we've had. One of the consistent worries that some people have had, whilst being very supportive of the overall aims, is how do you get that balance between individual autonomy in the school, but also ensure that there is some national expectation and that the variation on these important things is not so great as to cause concern. So, we've reflected on that. I set up a process—this was an open process, and we were open to listening to people. So, I think those will be the two main areas where we hadn't originally thought that we would legislate for, but that we will now legislate for. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Great. That's very helpful. I haven't got the 'what matters' statements in front of me— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, if you remember, we have the four purposes, and then we have the areas of learning and experience, and then, below the areas of learning and experience are the broad concepts that we would expect to be delivered in each of those areas of learning and experience. So, we're going to be refining some of those. Some of the feedback that we've had is that— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, will you be adding to those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Adding is not necessarily—no, not adding. But, for instance, the children have given us some interesting feedback about what they feel really matters in those areas of learning and experience. So, they'll be refined, but not added to, and then we will legislate for them, and that hadn't been the original intention. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Will they include mental health and well-being? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the area of learning and experience for well-being is already there, and underneath that area of learning title, there are the broad concepts of what matters, what we believe matters, in that area of learning, and it is that that we will now actually put into the legislation. Sorry, I'm not helping, because I haven't got them with me either to read them out. +Lynne Neagle AM: They are in the annex to the paper, Siân, and, obviously, mental health is in there. So, just to clarify, then, that would mean that every school would have to teach mental health by law. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, because the 'what matters' states very clearly the broad concepts in health and well-being. It refers to both physical and mental health, and we intend to legislate to ensure that the 'what matters' statements are a set given in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Claire, am I explaining it okay? +Claire Bennett: Yes, the 'what matters' are the articulation of the big ideas. These are the essence of the core content. So, the idea is to make sure that those are consistent, and then that still leaves huge flexibility underneath as to how to approach those, which particular topics to select in how to actually teach them. But the concept that you might not do one 'what matters'—it was never what was intended. They were always intended to represent, as a whole, the learning that every learner should get. They won't be literally in the Bill, because, obviously, you might want to change the emphasis, so that'll be provided for in subordinate legislation, but the provision will be there, and they will have the status of something that's not optional, basically, for a school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, it's not going to be on the face of the Bill—the mental health aspect, for example. And there are other matters that we've raised here. This is what I'm not clear about. You're saying that it's subordinate, but then you're saying— +Kirsty Williams AM: So, on the face of the Bill, we will make provision to say that the 'what matters' statements have to be delivered. Over time, the 'what matters' statements might change. So the actual wording of the 'what matters' statements will be in secondary legislation; the need to deliver and the requirement, the legal requirement to deliver the 'what matters' statement, will be on the face of the Bill. So, for instance, education is changing all the time. If I think, if we had sat here 20 years ago, we probably, in a 'what matters' statement on health and well-being, wouldn't have referred to mental health, 20 years ago, because our understanding as a society, our willingness as a society to engage in that—. So, if we had drawn up a 'what matters' statement even a decade ago, I suspect we wouldn't have talked about mental health. So, the concept of having to deliver the 'what matters' statement will be in the primary legislation; the actual wording, because otherwise if you wanted to change it you'd have to go through the entire process—. So, the wording of the 'what matters' statement will be in secondary legislation. The actual need and the compulsion, the expectation that you have to do that, will be on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this question of the distinction between primary and secondary legislation. The point you've made is one that Government has made with other legislation prior to this, but can I just ask you to consider the worthiness, if you like, or the good purpose of actually putting the wording of the 'what matters' statements, the first round of those, in the primary legislation on the basis that they can be amended through affirmative procedure secondary legislation when they need changing in due course? The reason I ask this is just to explain to the population of Wales that there is certainty at the first step, bearing in mind that it will change over the years—I completely accept that. But when you're amending primary legislation, you don't have to go through the whole process again—you can do it via secondary legislation provided the correct powers are put in the primary legislation to do that. So, I'm just asking you to consider that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, as I said, I think we've demonstrated that we're listening to people, that there has been concern expressed about certainty and having a national approach on some of these issues, and we have taken steps to address that and we'll continue to reflect, but, crucially, we'll continue to reflect with our partners who are co-constructing this with us. And I think the important thing to remember is that it's not Ministers or civil servants that are necessarily drawing up these 'what matters' statements, it is practitioners themselves, guided by experts in the field that are not teachers, that have come up with these things. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Obviously, the Bill will presumably come to this committee— +Kirsty Williams AM: We're assuming so. +Lynne Neagle AM: And we'll have an opportunity to influence it. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Moving on, therefore, to the religious education and relationships and sexuality education, I understand that you've had numerous responses to the White Paper surrounding this particular area. What are the main points that were raised with you and how do you intend to respond to what's been said? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, these two areas certainly have ensured that lots of people have responded. It's interesting that people are far more interested in what we may or may not do about these two subjects than maths, English, Welsh, science, but there we go; I guess it's the nature of the areas that we're talking about. With regard to religious education, we had a significant number of people that have expressed concerns about our approaches towards RE that were set out in the White Paper. I think amongst the things that people have objected to were—. There were very mixed views on the inclusion of a range of faiths and world religions included in that area of learning. Many people said that there needed to be a much clearer and stronger—and in some cases exclusive—focus on Christianity, as opposed to including other world religions and, indeed, non-religious views. So, secular views or spiritual—spirituality rather than organised religion. There were people who thought that RE shouldn't be compulsory at all and therefore our proposals to ensure that RE was compulsory, people objected to that, on the other—. And there were many responses that were concerned about and emphasised the need to respect parents' views. So, if a child's parents have certain views, those are to be respected. Of those respondents that agreed that RE should be a compulsory part of the curriculum, or were neutral—didn't express an opinion either way, but were neutral on the question—the issues that they were bringing forward were: a need for learners, as they saw it, to be prepared to be part of a diverse and multicultural society. So, they wanted RE to be much more broad-based and encompassing of world views and world religions. They felt that that was an important part of preparing a young person to live in a world that is, as you say, diverse with people of different views living in it. There is certainly a need to modernise RE; some people perceived the current curriculum as a bit old-fashioned. And also there was much feedback on making sure that the profession was ready to deliver a renewed, modernised RE curriculum. So, those are the issues around religious education— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I just—? Before you go on to the next section—is there evidence that this was a co-ordinated lobby to present a particular view and what is your response going to be to this? Obviously, there are always going to be lobbies presenting particular viewpoints. Our role, as politicians, is to lead, obviously, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Claire, would you say that it was a co-ordinated response? +Claire Bennett: It wasn't a campaign in the sense of it being completely consistent, but, certainly, I think people with a particular interest in this issues felt galvanised to respond to the White Paper on this issue—on this one and on relationships and sex education. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And your response? +Kirsty Williams AM: And my response: well, clearly, Siân, I need to consider those responses, and both for RE and RSE, I shall be making a statement in the near future of our intentions on how to respond to these issues. With regard to RSE, the key messages, again, are focused on whether children should be taught RSE at all and that this should not be in the curriculum and it shouldn't be a compulsory part of the curriculum—that this was not an area where the school system and the education system should be involved, and that it should be alone the preserve of parents to teach children about issues around relationships and sexuality education. There were some issues raised about potential challenges with staff in talking about issues that they perhaps personally did not agree with with regard to this curriculum. So, those were the main areas that people were concerned about. With regard to guaranteed access to a full curriculum, there were strong views that, again, it should be parents, and parents alone, that made decisions about whether their children should have access to the entirety of the curriculum rather than schools or the state setting those rules. So, I have to reflect on what has come back as part of the consultation exercise. I think these are really important aspects of our curriculum. I think if we are to achieve the four purposes, and that's how we have always got to think about it, and if we agree that those are the kind of people and individuals we want leaving our compulsory education system—how do we achieve those purposes? How are they healthy, confident individuals? How are we to prepare our children to be ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world? So, we will reflect on what has come back to us, but I do believe that these are important aspects of the curriculum, if we are to achieve the four purposes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. You've also mentioned that there will be a final draft of the curriculum at the start of next year. What is the timetable for the Bill itself and for seeking Royal Assent for that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, as I said earlier, the expectation is that we will publish a final version of the curriculum in January 2020, so schools will then have the opportunity to be really engaging in it. I have to say, I'm in schools most weeks, and many, many, many schools are already taking the opportunity, even on the draft, to begin to think about planning and, indeed, changing what they're doing in schools. I'm overwhelmed, actually, by the enthusiasm of the sector to embrace what is a massive change for them. So, that's January. We would expect to introduce the Bill following the Easter recess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That gives enough time, then, for it to be— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: —actually implemented in September— +Kirsty Williams AM: In 2022. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In 2022, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think what's really important is that we get the actual curriculum out in January itself, because that's the bit that schools are really concerned about, and then we will have the process here to underpin it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now on potential unintended consequences, and other matters relating to that, from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask what value you place on the work done by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods and the presentation so far and the paper to be presented by Dr Nigel Newton? +Kirsty Williams AM: I always—and Welsh Government are big supporters of WISERD and the work that they do, and, in fact, we need more research into Welsh education, not less. Therefore, I find their papers really helpful and help us to inform our work. I think what's really important in perhaps this piece of work is to say that I hope that, in the time where I've had an influence to influence over Welsh education, either as a backbencher or now as a Minister, equality and principles of equity have always driven what I've tried to achieve. And I would never undertake a policy reform that I thought would lead to less equity in the Welsh education system. Closing the attainment gap is a core element of the national mission for education in Wales and we would not proceed with anything that we thought could lead to an exacerbation of an achievement gap. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And how do you respond, then—? I mean, it's a balanced paper, it looks at pros and cons and there's a mixed picture from it. How do you respond to the specific statement that Dr Nigel Newton said that the curriculum could exacerbate segregation within schools between different groups of pupils? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think what the paper acknowledges is that there is no evidence that that will happen. These are 'coulds' and 'maybes' and things that we need, as a Government, to take into consideration as we plan this journey. There can't be any empirical research done at the moment because the curriculum isn't being delivered, but I understand, and we need listen to—. If there are concerns out there in the field that these are unintended consequences that we may fall into—that is the value of that piece of research that helps inform us. I have to say, though, the curriculum in itself is neither going to necessarily on its own hugely enhance equity nor detract from equity, in the sense that the curriculum is what's taught in our schools. There is an opportunity, I believe, that empowering teachers to be able to be more flexible in what they teach their children actually gives us an opportunity to deliver lessons that could be much more engaging and much more relevant to some of our schoolchildren than what they have at the moment. What will make the curriculum a success for all of our children, and I believe will have a bigger impact on children who are in danger of being left behind, are the four enabling purposes of the curriculum. So, the curriculum on its own can play a part, but it will only be as good as the four enabling elements that surround it. And that is strong leadership of our schools that ensures that there is no segregation, that has high expectation of all of our children, and delivers a curriculum within that setting that meets the needs of the children there. Secondly: excellent teaching. In the end, no education system, whatever its curriculum, can exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out. So, the curriculum can be the most exciting, wonderful—and I think it is exciting and I think it's wonderful—it can be the most exciting, wonderful thing in the world, but if teachers can't teach it effectively, if their pedagogy is not excellent, then the content itself—it won't work. Then we've got issues around assessment and accountability. So, how do you assess how children are doing in your new curriculum? How do you understand how that pupil, who has, you know—who could be vulnerable for a whole host of reasons, usually reasons outside of the school—? That pupil is vulnerable. How can you assess how that pupil is and move their learning along in an appropriate fashion? And then, finally, the well-being of the child. People sometimes say, 'Oh, you're going soft—typical, going soft'. But what we know is that we cannot expect children to learn unless we address issues around their well-being. But we also know that poor achievement is also detrimental to a child's well-being. There's been lots and lots of research done, not in a Welsh context but in other systems, where children are kept behind for a year. That has a massive impact on their well-being. So, good achievement leads to good well-being, but good well-being also leads to good achievement, and you can't separate the two. So, the curriculum on its own will not be enough. It is the four enabling objectives that sit around it, and we have to be cognisant of the WISERD's research, of course we do, to ensure that, as we're doing our professional learning, as we're planning well-being for our children, as we think about assessment methods and how we develop a culture of strong leaders in our schools—and we have some, we have many, but we need to do more to support them—it is that that will make the biggest difference, not just the content of the curriculum on its own. Although I do believe the flexibility that we're allowing people will, I think, lead to a curriculum and more meaningful lessons for some children in schools who are in danger of disengaging because they don't understand why they're being asked to learn what they're learning, they don't see the relevance of what they're learning to what they may want to do or how their lives are, or they don't see themselves reflected. So, for some of our communities, they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum that we're teaching at the moment. And, again, international research would suggest that, if you want a child to thrive, they have to see themselves and their community reflected in what they're learning in schools. +Hefin David AM: What the WISERD research suggests is that the senior management teams—the management teams—would certainly buy into what you've just said, but the classroom teachers would be a little bit more sceptical. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, classroom teachers are absolutely crucial to this, which is why, first of all, we've taken the difficult step to delay the implementation of the curriculum to give us the time that we need to make sure that it's not just school leaders but it is individual classroom practitioners who have the skills that they need to make the most of the opportunity that the curriculum allows them. +Hefin David AM: So, if we look at some of the statements that were in the presentation by WISERD at the seminar two comments jump out: 'We'll end up'—this is from classroom teachers— 'We'll end up with a different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' and 'there will be no consistency'. And consistency is the one I'd particularly like to focus on: 'there will be no consistency across all schools in how the new curriculum is delivered which could affect outcomes'. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we've just talked, haven't we, about trying to ensure that there is greater consistency and that's why we're changing our approach to the legislation around the Bill. So, in terms of progression steps, there will be a statutory framework to ensure that progression is the same wherever you are in Wales. So, as I said, we're using this report, we're using this feedback, to inform decisions going forward. In terms of—. Read the first bit again. Was it—[Interruption.] Accountability, yes. +Hefin David AM: Yes: 'different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, as always, in education, teachers—understandably, because this is the regime that they have been a part of—immediately don't think about their pedagogy, they think about, 'How are judgments going to be made upon me as an individual?' And what we're trying to do is ensure that we are developing another accountability regime that is indeed in line with the purposes of the curriculum and doesn't work against the purposes of the curriculum. So, I understand why teachers are concerned. They spend a lot of time thinking about accountability and how they're going to be held accountable for their practice, but, again, what we want to do is provide reassurance that we are devising an accountability regime for our system that is in line with the purposes of the curriculum and puts us in line with the mainstream thought and reform process across the world of progressive education systems. +Hefin David AM: It was the segregation bit I was particularly interested in and the response with regard to disadvantaged pupils and pupils of lower attainment. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't—. I do not believe that any changes—and I would not pursue any changes that—would lead to a segregation. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And with regard to the connection between Welsh Government and local government and the concerns that the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Education Wales raised, what progress has been made on bridging the gap between—? Whether it's a perception gap or a practice gap, what progress has been made on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the last time we had this conversation in the committee I said that I think the comments that the WLGA and ADEW had made were reflective of an old piece of work and were not current and up to date, and I think progress had been made in that time, and I'm pleased to report the significant progress that's been made— +Hefin David AM: Bridges have been built. +Kirsty Williams AM: Bridges have been—. Well, from my perspective, the bridges were always there. But we've got renewed, energetic engagement from the WLGA and ADEW in all the arrangements that we have for the development of the curriculum and my understanding is that they have said publicly and in writing that they're very supportive of what's going on. +Hefin David AM: I'm sure they're watching and nodding vigorously now on Senedd.tv. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I will be with them tomorrow night and Friday morning and I'm sure if they've got any other views they'll let me know. +Hefin David AM: And the final question: there is a process, a model for this, which is Scotland. What kind of lessons are being learned from the introduction of their curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think the first thing to realise is that our curriculum is not a copycat of the Scottish curriculum, but it is always useful to reflect on how other systems have undertaken curriculum reform in their nation and to learn from any issues that have arisen. So, I think it's fair to say—and I spent time with some delegates from Scotland just this weekend at the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory conference that Wales hosted this year. Unfortunately, Minister Swinney was not able to attend at the very last minute because of Brexit preparedness work that he was involved in, but certainly their teaching union and their equivalent of the EWC in Scotland joined us as well as representatives from the Scottish Government, although not John himself, and they were very frank about some of the challenges that they had faced in introducing their curriculum. Part of that is about assessment and they had not really thought—. They spent all their time thinking about content and spent no time at all thinking about assessment. Assessment has been a crucial part of the process that we have been involved in. Professional learning, ensuring that the profession was properly prepared for the changes, I think they would agree that that wasn't necessarily—. The middle tier, which they don't have to the—. Well, they've got local authorities and regions, but whether they were truly engaged in what they were doing. So, I think we've learned—. Although our curriculum isn't a copycat, as I said, we have been able to learn from, and we've had people who have been deeply involved in the Scottish experience as part of some of our curriculum and assessment groups and some of the advice that we've had in terms of developing coherence. But, Steve, I don't know if—. You speak to your Scottish colleagues quite a lot. +Steve Davies: As I said, they're very forthright in sharing their learning and I think one of the critical elements was the extent to which assessment was considered at the outset alongside the curriculum content. So, that was critical, but we've embraced experts who were involved in that process who were part of our curriculum assessment group. So, they feed in throughout—not 'don't do this because Scotland has done it', but they feed some of that learning into the system. As the Minister said, we had seven other countries from across the world giving us feedback and input over four days as to where we can continue to look at what we're doing but also checks and balances against some of their experiences with this area of reform. +Kirsty Williams AM: The particular focus of this year's conference was on the issue of assessment and we were joined by colleagues from Scotland, from Ireland, from Iceland, from Finland, from Saskatchewan, from Nova Scotia and from Uruguay. +Hefin David AM: When did that take place? +Kirsty Williams AM: Where? +Hefin David AM: When. +Kirsty Williams AM: The weekend just gone. +Hefin David AM: Right. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. You've got a whole section on assessment, I don't know— +Suzy Davies AM: This isn't about assessment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: So, on the basis that this is not about assessment, you mentioned that one of the lessons learned from Scotland is that they said they spent too much time on curriculum content rather than assessment. Can you tell me a little bit about what you've learned about how they quality control the content, even though the content, of course, will be completely different in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, the content would be completely different. When I said they spent too much time, I said that the focus had been in their work about just talking about content and, actually, the assessment arrangements were bolted on at the end of the process. So, the curriculum was all designed and developed, it was sent out to schools, and then the question was raised: 'Oh, actually, what assessment methods—? How are going to assess how children are getting on?' But, Steve, you would have more details of their exact experience of quality control of the content— +Suzy Davies AM: Of the content, because every school is going to be very different at this. +Steve Davies: In terms of developing the guidance and the curriculum going out in January is concerned, I think—again, I don't want to be overly critical, but one of the findings was that they encouraged schools to go forth and multiply in terms of the materials and ideas and concepts that were coming through. What we learnt was to actually—the pioneer movement was to get a smaller group to develop those materials and look to engage through cluster groups. So, we had pioneers who worked with clusters to test the development of that concept before we were looking for schools to go away and develop a larger amount of content. So, in terms of the staging and measuring of bringing together the curriculum and the associated guidance, I think the time we've taken to actually get there and the strategy of using pioneer schools, external experts, back to pioneer schools, back to regions, or engaging regions in that, has been more measured and planned against a planned timescale, where everyone from the outset—with the exception of the extension of the one year—was clear on when we were going to be producing materials that would allow the profession to then take it and use it. I think—. Claire, do you want to add to that, or—? +Claire Bennett: I think, as we move forward, that kind of cluster approach remains really important. So, it's, as schools then think about, 'What am I going to do in my school?', that they're doing that in clusters together. When colleagues from the regional consortia were sharing their thinking with the curriculum assessment group last week, they were talking about the very specific and differentiated, I suppose, professional learning support that they would be offering to schools that have already done quite a lot of thinking and are quite far down this journey and then the kind of different sorts of approaches they would offer schools that are just starting out. Their emphasis was very much on this peer-to-peer sharing and support, so people aren't just going off in isolation. The other thing that will also help in that process will be the national network. So, there'll continue to be a focus for each area of learning and experience, bringing together the professional learning and the ongoing curriculum development, bringing together practitioners and experts and colleagues across the middle tier to give a bit of strategic direction and to be able to identify if there are areas where more support is needed. So, I think that a huge amount of thinking, particularly in the regions, has gone on into the practical support that can be given to schools, not just in engaging with the curriculum now, but then how they take it and think about then developing it in their schools. It feels like—I think Graham Donaldson was calling it a 'slow-burn process'. You don't start in 2022—people are already doing it and there's a lot of thought going into how to support continued sharing through the next two years. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think that's another difference, you see—that strong middle tier and the role that the middle tier is playing in Wales, which was absent in Scotland. So, this ability to work in networks to provide support to a network of schools, that wasn't available in the Scottish system and I think that makes—I think that helps us in the way that they just simply didn't have a structure that allowed them to do that. It's not a criticism of them; it's just that we have got a structure that we can utilise to do that support so that schools are not completely left on their own and they can be working with other schools, with their regional consortia, going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just have a quick—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Very quickly, because I want to move on to implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, sorry, I completely understand. Was one of the things that Scotland did—I don't want to use the word 'assess'—to monitor the pupil response to the curriculum as one of the means of deciding whether curricula in particular schools were working well enough? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know if they—. I don't know if they did, but one of the interesting things that we were reflecting on over the weekend is that, certainly some of the Canadian systems, in particular, which we were interested in, used pupil surveys as part of their accountability regime—so, actually taking the time to ask students how they felt, not just about the content of the new curriculum, but actually how they felt their school was doing. And so we're interested in looking, as I said, at some of the practices that other countries use to include pupil voice to find out what's happening. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's early thoughts, because we've only just heard about it ourselves. But that's the beauty of working with other countries. They found that particular useful and successful, and we're keen to see if we could do something similar. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'll keep my questions shorter. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Yes, just around preparations for the implementation, really. You touched on this briefly in response to some questions from Hefin David earlier on, but I'm just interested to know how the money that you announced for supporting teachers for the preparation of the implementation, how that's actually been used. What specifically have teachers been doing to prepare for its implementation? I know you've set aside about £24 million over two years. So, it's not an insignificant amount. I just wondered how that was being utilised. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, first of all, it's not an insignificant amount; it's the largest investment in professional learning since the history of devolution. So, you're right that it is not insignificant, and it was a hard-won resource, I can tell you, from my colleagues. Because, as I said earlier, the curriculum itself can be amazing, but if our teachers and our professionals are not equipped to deliver it, then all this change will be for nothing. So, investing in the profession is absolutely crucial. That money is being made available to each and every school and has empowered headteachers to really think, 'What are the professional needs of my school and the practitioners in my school?' Because, as we've just heard from Claire, there are some schools that have been part of the pioneer process from the very beginning and therefore are further along that development chain. There are other schools that maybe are only beginning now, now that it's published, to be really engaging with the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, there hasn't been a national programme, as such. +Kirsty Williams AM: There is a national element to it, but we've given the money to individual schools and individual headteachers because I have no way of knowing how each individual practitioner is ready or how much additional support they're going to need. There's no way I can know that. The people who do know that are the headteachers that are running our schools. But we have worked with the National Academy for Educational Leadership to put together a programme for headteachers, and that's national. The four regional consortia are working together to have a national approach for the first level of engagement. So, actually, the beginning of their discussion is about how you would implement a curriculum. The next stages will be much more focused on individual AoLE and area-specific professional learning. So, there is a national approach in terms of leadership. The regional consortia are working together to provide consistency for classroom teachers and teaching assistants, and then the next stage of that development is for subject specifics. Claire referred to the AoLE networks, and there's an opportunity then for people to engage in that. It's also important to say that that's not the end of the process. So, this September is the start of our new ITE courses, taught for the first time, and that's great. I'm concerned about what happens to people when they come out of ITE. So, we're looking at developing potentially a stronger set of support, again on a national basis, for those who are newly qualified, beginning their teaching career, because I don't think we've done that on a consistently good level across the country. We're also working with the regions to revisit and improve their coaching and mentoring schemes that they have across the system. We're also involved in—and I'm sure the committee has heard about it, so forgive me if I'm going over old ground—schools as learning organisations and the OECD work to support schools to develop that culture as a learning organisation. We know from very successful education systems in other parts of the world there is a strong, strong culture of self-evaluation as a first step in their school improvement system, and we've not been very good at that in Wales, we've not been strong at that, that's not the culture that we have had. We've kind of depended on a culture where a school does its thing and then somebody comes along and tells you whether you're good or bad, rather than the school really thinking itself deeply about, 'What are we doing well and what do we need to improve on?' So, the schools as learning organisations are an important part, again, so that money is being used for schools participating in that programme with support from the OECD. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And the money that you announced for this  professional development preparation, if you like, was for two years. So, there's going to clearly be an ongoing programme of preparation development and personal development, as well as anything else. But is there likely to be any more money allocated specifically beyond the two years that you've already allocated or is that going to be a question and negotiation with your colleagues? Or do you see what you've put in as being, 'This is what we need to develop or to prepare for the implementation. The rest would be what would be normal professional development beyond that'? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that was agreed was for a two-year period and, clearly, I continue to have conversations with the Minister for Finance and the First Minister around future allocations for professional learning, and I'm sure this committee and, indeed, members of this committee could help me in that task. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, fine. Can you tell us a bit about the innovation schools—the 16 innovation schools—and how you've made your decisions about who they might be, across which sectors, in primary, secondary and so on? So, basically, how they were selected and what you're expecting of them. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, all of our schools that had previously been pioneers were invited to apply to morph into the next phase, which is innovation schools, and they were asked to apply and there was a discussion held both internally within Welsh Government and with the consortia about which schools were best placed to be able to do that role and to continue to work with us, going forward. I think one of the lessons learned, and this was said in the committee, was that there was an upside to having pioneer schools, but there was a downside to having pioneer schools, and I think, at this stage of the game, we need to move away from that model and to really get the message to everybody that they all had to be pioneers now—everybody had to be a pioneer—because this is coming down the track and we don't want anybody just sitting there waiting until September 2022 and saying, 'Oh, gosh. I've got to do something new today'. Not that they would have done that, but—. So, the move away is partly to engender within the sector the fact that we've all got to engage in this now. The innovation schools have led to a very specific piece of work as we do the final refinement, and their main role is working with us on these final refinements to the content but also to the assessment issues and accountability issues. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes. There were 60 applicants from 170 previous pioneer schools. We've had 16—four per region. It was important that we engaged with the regions to get their view, and we've had evaluation being carried out— +Claire Bennett: Yes. So, during the first term of work, we asked them to really look at the curriculum as a whole—so, take the whole curriculum guidance and then think, 'How would I apply that in the school?, Does it make sense?, Can we work with it?, What are the issues?, What are the questions that arise for us for assessment?', and each of the schools produced a report setting out their reflections on, 'If I were putting this into practice—'. So, it's slightly different to the feedback we've had from other people, which has been more, 'Maybe you should emphasise this or change that wording' and kind of quite practical, and really about how you would realise this curriculum in a school. That's been drawn together into an overall report, drawing out the themes, by Wavehill, who are a kind of research company. It's been really useful, and the innovation schools met as part of the workshops last week. Having 16 headteachers in a room talking about how they see this curriculum and the way in which they would practically engage with it has been invaluable, in just making us think, even with all the practitioners that have been involved, 'How do we make this work for schools?', given that we've got schools and headteachers really engaging in the detail of how they would use it practically. So, it's been invaluable, and they're continuing on that work now this term to keep making sure that what we're doing is something that schools can actually realise practically. +Kirsty Williams AM: If you think of the pioneer model, pioneers were looking at specific aspects of the curriculum. So, you might have been a pioneer school because you had particular strengths in health and well-being, or you might have been a pioneer schools because you were particularly looking at professional learning needs to support the curriculum. This is about, at this stage, where we have a high degree of certainty about what it's going to look like, 'Actually, how do I as a school practically implement this in the round?', and the schools were chosen because of their ability to do that. But also we did need a mix of sector—secondary, primary—but also linguistically, to just try to make sure that this works in all the different types of schools we've got. Faith schools, as well, are involved. So, just trying the practical implementation now, now that we know exactly—not exactly— but we have a good idea what it's actually going to look like, so, 'How am I going to go about doing this?' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân has a supplementary. If I could ask as well, maybe you could provide the committee with a list of the new innovation schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, sure. No problem at all. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are you confident that every school across Wales is participating in this process of change now, because the danger is, in getting these pioneer schools—? I understand that they are discussing in clusters, and so on, but can you put your hand on your heart and say that every school is participating in this project now? +Steve Davies: I can't tell you that, absolutely, 100 per cent are definitely, totally, absolutely equally involved. The structure we've got in place across the regions is working with schools on their readiness to actually—not readiness to engage—start to deliver as we move through to the future. So, each region is a member of our operations board, which was in our governance structure. And we don't have a roll-call against all schools, but we require them, or request of them that they keep us informed of the networks. Every school is part of a network that links to it, and they gauge (1) the level of activity in it, (2) the outcomes of that work, because each of the networks, each of the clusters, produces work that the region brings together. But we've not got a monitoring system that says, 'Tick every box'. What I would say, and it touches on the point you raised earlier and in relation to Scotland, I think if we had 22 units of local authorities trying to do this, it would be incredibly complex and very difficult to deliver. At a regional level, we require the regions to engage with all schools through the cluster model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to clarify, because in your paper you talk about giving £30,000 to each, or to the innovation schools. Was that £30,000 each, or £30,000 for the project? +Kirsty Williams AM: Each school that participates in the innovation schools programme gets £30,000. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. My final question in this section is just about how we are going to deal with the issue of teachers who are not trained in Wales. So, teachers trained in England apply for jobs in Wales, but they obviously haven't been trained in the new curriculum. How are we actually going to deal with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, you're right—we will continue to have a system where teachers trained in Wales will teach in England and teachers trained in England or who have worked in England will come across the border, as well as teachers from other parts of the world coming to teach in our schools. I think that that will continue to happen. Indeed, when I'm feeling at my most confident and bullish about these issues, I think Wales will be a really attractive place to be a teacher because of the autonomy that we will be giving to our professionals, as well as an exciting new curriculum. So, I think, actually, potentially, we will have people coming across the border to teach here because it'll be a great place to be a professional. Clearly, already in some ways, programmes of study are already distinctive in Wales. We have a different exam board, if you're teaching at a secondary level. So, our programmes of study are already different and that does not preclude anybody from coming across to teach in our system from a different system. I believe that that's not a barrier to people continuing to do that. Clearly, there may be pedagogical concepts in the new curriculum that perhaps somebody who had trained in a different system would not be completely au fait with, but that is the ongoing role of professional learning within our school system, because we've just talked about the two years' worth of money; in an ideal world, if I was able to make long-term plans, I think there will be an ongoing, and there should always be an ongoing, provision for professional learning in our classrooms. And this shouldn't just be about just getting people ready for the curriculum and then taking away professional learning budgets. One of the ways in which I think we can attract teachers to Wales is to send a very clear message— and actually attract people into the profession and keep them in the profession, wherever they train—that you will have a career in teaching where you will be continually supported in your practice via professional learning. So, I do not see that this is an insurmountable issue. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, you'll still be recruiting on the basis of skills and adaptability and so on. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, of course. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got a lot of issues to cover, so I'm going to appeal for concise questions, concise answers. On to assessment, progression and accountability—Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. We've set the scene. What was the feedback like with regard to the draft assessment proposals? +Lynne Neagle AM: Excellent, concise question. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, the principles were broadly supported, Suzy. We received what I would describe as positive feedback regarding the emphasis placed on ongoing assessment that is there to support children's learning and progression. Key messages were perhaps to find a better way of expressing the purposes of assessment—we refer to a formative and summative assessment—and just being a bit clearer about what that actually means and being clear about definitions around it. But, generally, supported. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's a good concise answer as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, well done. +Suzy Davies AM: Obviously, we're all aware now of the distinction between assessment of pupils for their own progression and the evaluation of how a school does at certain points in its life cycle as well. Presumably, the way you're looking at this is to keep these items completely separate, and that evaluation and assessment proposals will be—. They're out in a separate document; their results are going to be coming forward in a separate document—is that right? There's a thick black line between these two concepts. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. I think some of the trouble that we've got ourselves in previously is because there has not been a clear distinction between assessment and accountability, and, when you start using assessment for accountability purposes, that's when, potentially, that assessment process gets corrupted and you have gaming. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, with the assessments, though, which is about pupil progression, will those results be published internally? Will parents get to see those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes. And that should be the purpose for assessment. The primary purpose for assessment is for that professional to be able to know how to move that child's educational journey on, and you would absolutely expect professionals to have those conversations with parents, whether they're using formative methods of assessment or summative methods of assessment. So, absolutely, you would expect teachers to be sharing information around assessment methods, whichever type they use, with parents, to describe and to inform parents about what happens next for their child. +Suzy Davies AM: Right. I accept that. Is it realistic, then, to expect parents, families, communities, not to think about that information when they're drawing conclusions about the school, notwithstanding that formal evaluation of those schools is going to be done completely separately? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, parents will always be interested in how the overall institution is doing. But the conversations I have with parents, and I certainly feel this myself as a parent—I'm interested in how my child is doing, how my child is getting on in school, what are the issues that that child has, and, more importantly, what is the school going to do about it? So, if my child is struggling for whatever reason, what is the school going to do about that to help that child? If my child happens to be exceptionally able and talented, how are you as a school going to make the most of my child's talents and move them on to fulfil their potential? So, undoubtedly, I can't control assumptions that parents will make, but it is absolutely clear in this system, and my intention is, that teachers should share assessment methods and outcomes with parents to have that conversation about what happens next. But I am absolutely clear that we do have to make this distinction between assessment for learning and an accountability in the system, otherwise we drive—inadvertently; people don't set out to do it, but we drive a set of behaviours that has negative unintended outcomes. We only have to look at the debacle around BTEC science to know that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I understand that. So, how—? Can you just briefly give us an indication of how you think the accountability, on both sides of that thick black line—the methodology—is likely to change with this? You mentioned that there's going to be an independent review of performance measurements coming shortly; we know that some of the existing ones have been ditched in fairly recent legislation. Without pre-empting the findings of such a review, have you got your top three likely expected changes? +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability. Well, we're moving to a system of schools as learning organisations, and a greater emphasis on self-evaluation, with external verification of that by Estyn, our inspectors. +Suzy Davies AM: And that will be reflected in the school categorisation system as well—will those indicators change, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, categorisation—again, the purpose for categorisation is not to make a judgment on a school in the sense of a league table; it's a triage process, categorisation. +Suzy Davies AM: It's how it seen, though, sometimes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, this is the issue, isn't it? This is the problem of designing a system where there are perfectly good reasons to introduce the system—and in this case it's a triage system to identify levels of support for a school. But then others come along and turn it into something else that it was never intended to be. And categorisation was never intended to be a way of expressing a league table of school performances; it's there to identify levels of support that a school can expect from its regional consortia. Now, we have, we have—we will continue to keep categorisation, but, since coming into office, we have tried to adapt categorisation simply away from pure data to a more formative assessment process, and categorisation will continue to evolve. The message is very clear: this is not to absolve our system of accountability. And the first level of accountability in that system has to be the professionalism of an individual member of staff—the moral purpose that I bring to my classroom today to do right by the children that are in front of me. That's the first level of our accountability, and therefore we have our new teaching standards. As a leader, we have new leadership standards. That's the first part of our accountability regime—the moral purpose our professionals bring to their work. So, categorisation will stay. Will it evolve? Yes, because it's been evolving over the last three years. This is about better accountability, smarter accountability, not less accountability. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just finally on that, there may be an argument, then, for scrapping categorisation, putting something else in place. But I suppose the core question is: how are the general public going to understand all those things that you've just mentioned about the teachers being able to teach, the leaders being able to lead, and how well a school is performing against KPIs on those measures? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, because we will still—. We will still have inspections, won't we? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's all going to go in through the Estyn reports. This is the kind of detail I'm after. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's the ultimate, isn't it? So, the ultimate is—. The ultimate system that we're going to get to and the ultimate arbiter and the part of the system that provides public assurance and public confidence ultimately ends in Estyn. But it starts with our teaching standards and the professionalism of individual members of staff. That's where it starts, and it ends in Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Will you just let me have this one? +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: I don't think I've quite followed that journey. Because I get the point of the end point being Estyn, and that's where the public assurance will be seen, but what about the public assurance at those early steps of the teaching standards and the leadership standards? Where will we see those demonstrated? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you would expect to see those demonstrated in the self-evaluation that a school will provide of itself, and then Estyn— +Suzy Davies AM: All right, so schools will be publishing self-evaluations annually, or something like that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, schools— +Steve Davies: The outcome of the self-evaluation is a school development plan. We expect those to be considerably enhanced. +Kirsty Williams AM: And available. +Steve Davies: We expect a series of priorities for a school to set itself as a result of prioritisation. We expect that to be published through the school website, so the outcomes of that. What we're looking at, in terms of what's brought to that, is not a narrow set of measures—just two measures, or one measure in a secondary school. The measures will still consider reflection on progress of children, but it'll also have reviews of mental health, well-being, how it approaches that and things that it wanted to do. It's broadening the evidence base. The school is evaluating—the outcome of that will be a development plan, annually published on the website. Within the plan, they will have a set area of priorities that they will be publishing. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the schools' ability—whether they do that well or whether they don't do it well—will be judged by Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, as my colleague Chair Dai Lloyd would say, 'Now we're into the needing serious agility territory'. So, we've got some questions on specific areas. Firstly from me: Qualifications Wales have told us that the curriculum must define qualifications rather than the other way around. What implications does that have for the amount of time that is needed to develop qualifications that are properly aligned with the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'd absolutely agree with Qualifications Wales. The qualifications have to arise out of the curriculum, and the qualifications should not be dictating the curriculum. Qualifications Wales, which I met with yesterday, I think—yes, yesterday; it seems a long time ago—will begin their national conversation about reform of qualifications as a result of curriculum reform in November. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. How is awareness and understanding of human rights, including children’s rights, being embedded in the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Children's rights, human rights—they've been key considerations throughout the design, and this is currently set out in overarching guidance and we continue to work with the children's commissioner's office to map the rights of the child across each area of learning and experience. And I'm delighted that the children's commissioner took the time to write to me during the feedback phase to say that they were very pleased that their initial assessment demonstrates that what we're proposing is a big step forward. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And how do you respond to the concerns expressed in the children's commissioner’s quarterly report of July 2019 that consultation materials for young people were not released until mid June, allowing just over a month for young people to engage? And they said it was disappointing that a plan was not in place at the start of the consultation period. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we undertook a specific programme of engagement with children and young people, as I said at the beginning. We had over 20 events where focus groups of young children were involved and we had a number of children who took the opportunity to feed back via different mechanisms. The output of that engagement and feedback has been drawn together into a report exploring learners' views about schools and learning. It's a powerful contribution and I think will actually effect change, especially in how the 'what matters' statements are worded. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Turning to the Welsh dimension in the new curriculum, the Learned Society of Wales has said that there needs to be a directory of resources to implement that Welsh dimension. Do you agree with that and will you be publishing such a resource? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have a separate programme of work that is looking at resources that are needed to support the curriculum. It's one of the conversations I had with Qualifications Wales yesterday to try to avoid the debacle that we've had previously, where we have new qualifications and the resources to support those qualifications aren't available. So, we're already having those conversations with Qualifications Wales and there is a piece of work that is ongoing to look at what are the resources that are necessary to support the curriculum. And this proposal by the Learned Society will be considered as part of that work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, in terms of the single continuum of learning with regard to the Welsh language, how are progression steps and achievement outcomes in Welsh-medium schools going to work and how are they going to work in English-medium schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Just on the Welsh dimension, I think it's really important that whatever resources we have to support the Welsh dimension are really, really, really broad and not confined to specific areas. I was in Swansea University just this week, looking at some of their Technocamp work that they're doing to help us with coding, and we had an amazing conversation about the Welsh contribution to the computing industry. And so my expectation is that that isn't taught in a history lesson—that, actually, when children are learning about coding, they get to hear that Welsh people have been at the forefront of developing this technology. So, that's—. When I talk about a Welsh dimension, I mean right the way across the curriculum, and I think that's important. With regard to—. The continuum for language will have to be contextualised depending on the setting where a child is being taught. We have to recognise—. We have to recognise that, and there will be progression points on that continuum that will be there to show progression both in Welsh language and in the English language, and they have to be contextualised. We recognise that children learning Welsh in a Welsh-medium school, their progressional on that point would be more speedy and quicker, and by the end of primary school they would be in a very different position than a child that was learning Welsh in an English-medium school. Vice versa—we've had this discussion before—if a child is going into Welsh medium, their progression in English perhaps from age three to seven would be very different from a child that was in an English-medium school, although the expectation would be that by 11 they would be in the same position. So, we have to contextualise that learning continuum depending on the medium of tuition with the school, but recognising that it is a progression. It isn't a start and never get any further. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With regard to the creative thinking element of PISA, I take it that you are adhering to the fact that the Welsh Government is opting out of the creative thinking tests with regard to PISA 2020. I don't entirely understand that because the new curriculum does place great emphasis on creative thinking and independent thinking. So, why not participate in these tests? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, for me, the key factor for making that decision, and I intend to stick to it, is in 2021 we will be expecting schools to be right in the middle of their preparation for the introduction of the new curriculum— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, so it's the timing. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, for me. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, later on, maybe when this is embedded— +Kirsty Williams AM: I think there could well be a different decision at a later date, but at 2021 this is not the right time to do it. Can I just say? In terms of creativity, Wales is seen as an exemplar by the OECD, especially our partnership with the Arts Council of Wales and creative learning through the arts. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I get that. That's why I don't understand why we're not actually going for it and showing how good we are through the PISA. But, I understand. +Kirsty Williams AM: There could well be a different decision, but for 2021 we're asking enough of people at the moment and this would be an unnecessary addition to cope with. I just don't think that that should be seen as us running away from it because we're worried about a lack of creativity in our education system. The very opposite is true. We are seen as exemplars by the OECD and some of the work that's been going on with creative learning through the schools is now being shared internationally. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you'll think about it for the next round of PISA. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh gosh, that shows that Siân thinks that I'll be here to make that decision. [Laughter.] That's very encouraging indeed. [Laughter.] +Steve Davies: One very quick technical point, Chair. We have not opted out of this. Countries were offered if they wished to take the invite to come into it, and a number of countries across the world are yet to make their decision on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet, you've got a question on physical activity. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can you give a guarantee that all children and young people, where appropriate, will take part in physical activity under the new curriculum for Wales? Also, how much time per week will the Government expect children and young people to spend undertaking physical activity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, all children will be given that opportunity, because if they are not then that school would be in breach of the expectations that will be set out in statute. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you monitor it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Again, Janet, I don't go around monitoring schools now. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, but through the systems and mechanisms in place. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course. As we've just said— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you ensure that every child has that opportunity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as we've just said, ultimately, we are not getting rid of our school improvement services and regional consortia, nor are we getting rid of Estyn. So, one would expect the quality of the curriculum to be a key consideration of any visit that Estyn would make to a school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a question on early years. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. To what extent will the new curriculum allow for the continuity of the way that the foundation phase is taught? Will there be any significant differences and have the early years professionals been involved in the development of the curriculum to date? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, early years professionals have been involved in the curriculum to date. One of the advantages, I think, of the new curriculum is to take the pedagogical principles that underpin our approach to early years education actually further into children's educational journey. I'm sure, Suzy, that you've had conversations that—. We have a certain pedagogical approach until the age of seven, and then all of a sudden, at seven, it's like, 'Forget all of that now. Sit down, pick up your pen and do this.' That's been really uncomfortable for many practitioners in our primary sector. So, actually, yes, statutory and non-statutory provision have been involved in the development of the curriculum because, of course, some of this is going to be delivered in the non-statutory sector. I'm very welcoming and supportive of that, but those pedagogical principles will now be available throughout that child's educational journey, rather than the false divide we've got at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: So, aside from the purposes and the AoLEs, the type of teaching is unlikely to change in the foundation phase settings. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The other end of the scale now: you report that one of the themes of the feedback from further education has been the need to ensure that the transition to post-16 education is supported so that the systems don't just clash against each other. How are you working on the sector at the moment to make sure that there's a decent dovetail? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, that's really important. We don't want to do anything in pre-16 that stops people going on to be successful in post-16, whichever route the child or young person decides to take. FE have been involved in every single AoLE and they're a part of the curriculum and assessment group. So, colleagues in FE have been part of this process throughout. And then in the conversations we had yesterday with Qualifications Wales around what qualifications will look like, I was very keen to take the opportunity to emphasise that any changes to qualifications should be a gateway to further study in FE, whichever type of route the child took. But FE have been involved in this process from the very beginning. +Suzy Davies AM: And you're confident they're geared up to accepting young people who have been educated in this way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. FE continues to be one of the real strengths of our education system. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a question now on governance arrangements. Suzy, you're down to do that one—sorry, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think you actually answered this at the beginning, but just to confirm that you're carrying on with the same governance set-up, the different groups that you've got, and there's nothing being added there or taken away. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And just finally from me, then, on pupil referral units: what arrangements will be in place to ensure that they can benefit from the new curriculum and how is that going to be reflected in the legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, we've been taking advice from Brett Pugh, who chairs the education otherwise than at school improvement group, and this has been an area where we've had to think really, really, really, really, really hard. So, what we intend to do for EOTAS and PRU is to set a minimum of what we would expect a child to receive. So, that would be around the four purposes; that would be around the cross-cutting themes of literacy, numeracy and digital competency and health and well-being. So, that would be the baseline of our expectation, that every pupil would get that. After that, then there needs to be a discussion and a focus on what is in the best interests of that particular pupil. One of the things we know about sometimes in EOTAS is we have very able and talented students who don't get access to the range of qualifications and courses that they have the capability and the aptitude to do. We also have to consider, though, that for some children they may be out of school for reasons, and telling them that they've got to do a full curriculum may be hugely detrimental to their mental health and well-being. So, for instance, to give an example, you could have a child who's very ill, and saying to them, 'You have to carry the full load of a curriculum' could be inappropriate. So, we'll be setting a minimum standard, as I said, around the purposes, around the cross-cutting themes and health and well-being, and then there will be an expectation that in conjunction with the child and the family an appropriate addition would be put in place to meet the needs of that child, recognising that they could have very different needs. Is that clear? +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, yes, and it's something that we'll probably look to build on when we look at our inquiry on EOTAS, which is coming up. Thank you. That concludes our questions. We've covered a lot of ground. So, can I thank you for attending and thank your officials for coming today? As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3 then is papers to note. As Members will see, there are a substantial number of papers to note—23 in total, which are in a supplementary pack. As there are so many, can I suggest that we note them all together and then we've got an opportunity to return to some of them in the private session afterwards? Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Thank you. Item 4 then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? +","Yes, Members are content." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 20thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a reminder to all members, in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not be connected to the video conference. I want to remind those who are participating by video conference that, when they talk, they must use the channel that corresponds to the language they are speaking in. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. We are moving on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on. We will now move on to document submissions. The honourable minister, Mr. Blair. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, today I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2019 annual report on the RCMPs use of the law enforcement justification provisions. This report addresses the RCMP's use of specified provisions within the law enforcement justification regime, which is set out in subsections 25 to 25 of the Criminal Code. This report also documents the nature of the investigations in which these provisions were used. +The Chair: On tabling of documents, we have Minister Sajjan. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, pursuant to Standing Order 32, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2018-19 progress report on Canada's national action plan for the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security. +The Chair: Now we'll go to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of a special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Members who are participating in the meeting in person are kindly asked to bring the signed certificate to the office once the petition has been presented. Presenting petitions, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, I rise to present two petitions. They both pertain to the protection of our natural world. One is an e-petition, and it relates to the threat to pollinators globally. We know that honey bees and other pollinators are essential to food production. The petitioners note that research from around the world points to a threat to pollinators, particularly from a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The European Union has taken action on this. The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to practise a precautionary principle and remove from use neonicotinoids in Canada to protect our pollinators. The second petition relates to the ongoing threat to the southern resident killer whales. These iconic whales are much beloved in SaanichGulf Islands, throughout coastal British Columbia and indeed across Canada. The petitioners are calling for more action to be taken as the population of southern resident killer whales continues to decline, more action for boat-free safety zones, more prohibitions around whale tourism to make sure that the whales are safe from those who are keen to watch them from too close a distance, and more of a credible enforcement regime to support these measures to keep the southern resident killer whale population in our waters and not on the list of species that have become extinct. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, for over 10 years, members of Parliament from various parties have been trying to pass legislation to deal with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Irwin Cotler, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Senator Salma Ataullahjan and I have all proposed bills on this. The petitioners want the House to support Bill S-204. This is another bill that would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. I'm sure petitioners would want me to add that, given the urgency of this issue, perhaps the government could consider bringing forward a government bill on this issue, which would allow the process to move much faster. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise here today to present a petition from Canadian citizens in support of motion M-1, which was placed in this House by my colleague the member for New WestminsterBurnaby on the green new deal. These citizens point out that climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency and that Canada must act with ambition and urgency. They call on the government to support M-1, a made in Canada green new deal, to take bold and rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic and racial inequalities at the same time while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition by creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and privilege to table e-petition 2577, which was sponsored by Chris Alemany from Port Alberni and is supported by 5,183 petitioners. They're calling on the Government of Canada to work urgently across party lines and in partnership with provincial and territorial governments to implement a guaranteed, consistent, national and livable universal basic income system for all Canadians. The petition is very timely, coming almost one year to the day since the completion of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which also called on the government to establish a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians. Whether it's about providing a safety net to get through a global pandemic, the means to keep your children out of poverty at any time, or simply being able to afford safe housing or transportation, it's time for Canada to have this conversation. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and a privilege to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of NanaimoLadysmith. People are concerned about gas fracking and the use of methane and the destruction that methane causes to our atmosphere and with climate change. They're calling on the government to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on the Wet'suwet'en territory, and by ordering the RCMP to dismantle their exclusion zone and to stand down. They also call on the government to schedule nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentswhich is something that we're happy to see has been happening and I commend the government for that effortand to prioritize the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, like Canada, Guyana is part of the Commonwealth, and many constituents of Winnipeg North have raised the issue with regard to the presidential election back in March, when it was being called into question. There have been some very positive indications in recent days, but the petitioners are asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to be aware of what's taking place in Guyana, and as much as possible, to be advocates for democracy and make sure that we're being diligent in supporting what the people of Guyana want to see. +The Chair: I just want to remind the honourable members, when presenting petitions, to be as concise as possible. I notice they're starting to stretch a bit and it's something we all tend to do. Now we'll go to Statements by Members. The first statement will be from Mr. Lefebvre. +Mr. Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I just want to say thank you to the industrious people of Sudbury who have risen to the challenge and joined forces in the face of COVID-19. I am proud of all my constituents, and all Canadians, including first responders, volunteers, health care and essential workers, local miners, the farmers and produce growers who are feeding our families, and local businesses who are staying connected with their staff. I also salute all our homegrown innovations such as ProStitch and King Sportswear face masks; Crosscut Distillery hand sanitizer; Nobel Prize winner SNOLAB's work on ventilators, which earned a federal contract; Vale Canada's $1 million in seed capital to small firms developing COVID-19 health solutions; and many more. We are all in the same boat, but we will get out of it together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, Pitt Meadows is one of Canada's most beautiful communities. It's tucked in between the Fraser and Pitt rivers and is in the shadow of Golden Ears mountain. Most of the area consists of farmland, golf courses, parks and conservation areas. It also has Pitt Lake, which is among the largest freshwater tidal lakes in the world. Pitt Meadows' history dates back thousands of years with Katzie First Nation. In the 1900s Dutch immigrants drained and diked the marshes allowing for today's bumper crops of cranberries and blueberries. It's hard to believe that this community is only a short commute to Vancouver and has one of the nation's busiest general aviation airports. Last weekend the community came together to celebrate Pitt Meadows Day a little differently because of COVID. In a great show of community spirit, from their front yards and balconies, thousands of residents came out to cheer for first responders and essential workers as we paraded throughout the city. I am thankful to have raised my family here, taught in the schools and to now be the member of Parliament representing this wonderful community. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Kelloway. +Mr. Mike Kelloway (Cape BretonCanso, Lib.): Mr. Chair, over the last few months I have watched constituents in my riding come together to look out for one another during these challenging times. Regardless of how deep and painful this pandemic has been, it continues to amaze me just how brightly the collective character of Cape BretonCanso shines through. Whether it is someone like Glen Muise, who delivers iPads to seniors' homes so they can connect with loved ones, teachers who deliver meals to students in need, Liam and Lucus Sakalauskas, two young boys who keep youth informed across the east coast, or Rose Fitzgerald, who delivered bouquets made from the remaining flowers from her shop to essential workers across her county, constituents in Cape BretonCanso have stepped up to support their community and to support those in need. Mr. Chair, as you know it is with great pride that I represent my constituents in Cape BretonCanso. The people in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia care deeply about one another. They know that as a community, we're only as strong as our most vulnerable people, and I cannot help but be filled with joy when I see these gestures happening across my riding. Thanks so much. +The Chair: Ms. Brub, go ahead. +Ms. Sylvie Brub (AbitibiBaie-JamesNunavikEeyou, BQ): Mr.Chair, unacceptable incidents of police brutality against aboriginals have prompted former member Romeo Saganash, whose commitment I commend, to call for a commission of inquiry similar to the Viens commission in Quebec. The Bloc is open to the idea, but we shouldn't wait for such an inquiry to be recommended to take action. There are already potential solutions for taking action. Commissions have been issuing reports for decades, and Ottawa has been tabling them. Last year alone, the Viens report and the report stemming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls contained dozens of recommendations. The federal government must work with indigenous peoples, Quebec and the provinces to establish adequate funding for indigenous police forces. Civilian ethics organizations should be created to oversee the RCMP. Police officers and the general population must be better educated on indigenous realities and cultures. Hundreds of pages must be written and actions taken to restore confidence in law enforcement so as to achieve the long-overdue reconciliation. Let's take action. +The Chair: I give the floor to Mr.MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr.Chair, on behalf of myself and my parliamentary colleagues, I want to congratulate students from our high school class of 2020. We know that, owing to the pandemic, graduation celebrations will be different this year, as students will be deprived of their prom, their graduation ceremony and, in some cases, their goodbyes to friends and teachers. I know how disappointed students from the high schools of duVersant, LeCarrefour, Nicolas-Gatineau, de l'rablire, Collge Saint-Alexandre, Collge Nouvelles Frontires, Collge Saint-Joseph, Philemon-Wright and other regional schools, are not to be able to celebrate their five years of incredible efforts surrounded by their families and friends who were by their side on a daily basis. However, that takes nothing away from their accomplishment. So when they receive their diploma, here is what I will say to them: Surge ahead! The future belongs to you. Be ambitious, follow your dreams and, most importantly, continue to change the Outaouais and the world! The class of 2020 will be remembered for a long time. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am delighted to rise to talk about the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, which is now under construction in my riding in Winnipeg. This state-of-the-art addictions recovery facility was made into a reality by Scott, Anne and Darcy Oake in memory of their son and brother Bruce, who passed away tragically from an accidental overdose in 2011. The Bruce Oake Recovery Centre will provide help to thousands of Manitobans to manage their addiction and reintegrate into the community. I was proud to support this project when I voted for it during my time on Winnipeg City Council. The addictions crisis in Canada needs action. With approximately eight million Canadians suffering from addictions, we need centres like these to help them recover so that no other family will face a heartbreaking loss due to addiction. I want to congratulate the Oakes for their commitment to making recovery for many a reality. Addictions affect us all, and we all have a part to play in contributing to the solution. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Jowhari. +Mr. Majid Jowhari (Richmond Hill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the compassion and generosity demonstrated in my riding of Richmond Hill. Week after week residents and organizations have come together to support our most vulnerable during a time of great difficulty. I want to thank the champions of the community who were generous enough to donate masks and other supplies as well as services. I would also like to recognize the charities and care centres which, upon receiving these donations, redoubled their efforts to serve their communities. Special thanks go to the Mon Sheong Foundation Long-Term Care Centre, Divine Favour Senior Homecare, the Community & Home Assistance to Seniors, the True Compassion Home Health centre, Blue Door, the Mosaic Interfaith Out of the Cold program, Yellow Brick House, Hill House Hospice, Community Living York South, and Parya Trillium Foundation for continuing to support the residents in my riding of Richmond Hill. The compassionate generosity demonstrated by these donors and organizations makes me proud to represent my community in Parliament. +The Chair: We'll now go to Madam Lalonde. +Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde (Orlans, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Usually, at this time of the year, I have the pleasure of being invited to the graduation ceremony of the grade12 students in Orlans. However, we will all have to adapt to a new reality this year. I cannot express enough how, in these exceptional times, I have witnessed the strength, resilience and community spirit of our graduates. I also know that a number of high schools have made significant efforts to celebrate the success of their graduating class. Young graduate Maryanne Collard was amazed to see that people from her school, the cole secondaire catholique Batrice-Desloges, had installed a sign in her garden to congratulate her on her academic success. As we move forward we must not forget that youth in this country are our future. We have a responsibility to be there for them and to believe in them. We will not fail. I thank the teachers, the support staff and school management who are continuing to do their work. Congratulations to all graduates of 2020. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Vis. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has changed and challenged how we go about our daily lives. For many this includes a shift to working from home or attending school remotely. The sad reality is that even before the crisis hit, most rural Canadians simply did not have access to a strong and stable Internet connection, even though Internet is an essential service. Those in underserved areas, including many parts of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, cannot work from home and their children cannot keep up with their classmates. For many of my indigenous constituents, Internet services are stuck in the 1990s because telecom companies don't want to serve them. I, along with my colleagues, launched community consultations to address this critical issue and provide solutions. We call on the government to outline and implement a concrete action plan to address Internet connectivity deficits between rural and urban Canada. This is an issue I will continue to press on until results are achieved. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. McLeod. +Mr. Michael McLeod (Northwest Territories, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Canada has been awarded its first-ever Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme. Congratulations go to Lutsl K' Dene First Nation and the Northwest Territory Mtis Nation, with support from Deninu K'ue First Nation and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, for the establishment of the Thaidene Nn territorial protected area. It's 14,000 square kilometres of the most beautiful land and waters you'll find anywhere on earth. I would also like to thank the previous minister of the environment for securing Canada's $7.9-million commitment, along with our visit to celebrate the new park last year. The award is given to groups that have exemplified actions to protect critical ecosystems and biodiversity for generations to come and to show how indigenous peoples and local communities have confronted legacies of disadvantage and discrimination in support of their communities and the world at large. Congratulations to Lutsl K'. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Liberal government has tabled $87 billion in spending and allocated just four hours for Parliament to study, debate and pass it. The allocated time is wholly inadequate. Canadians deserve to know how that money is being spent. They deserve to know that this government spending was scrutinized and passed through the rigours of Parliament. It is Canadian taxpayers of today and tomorrow who will have the responsibility to pay for this government's spending. It is Canadian workers and businesses who will have to do the hard work of rebuilding our economy. It is real Canadians who fall through the cracks when this Liberal government's programs fail to meet their intended goals. A rubber stamp under the guise of health and safety is not democracy. Canadians are owed better. Just as we gather four days a week for a hybrid committee meeting, parliamentarians can gather to do the full scope of the work that Canadians elected us to do. +The Chair: We now go to Mr. Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Our planet is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our daily lives have been turned upside down. I am thinking of you, our seniors, valuable individuals who built our country. You have gone through a very restrictive confinement. You have had to sacrifice time spent with your families. Our students also had to adapt. Their school year was turned on its head. Our graduating class, especially, saw their dream of a proper graduation vanish. The future belongs to them. They must follow their dreams. I want to say to all the essential staff and the many support organizations that they are really changing things. We have all taken on our important responsibility, that of following the guidelines. The results have been most compelling in my riding. I want to say how proud I am to represent you here, in the Canadian Parliament. I thank each and everyone of you. You are helping PortneufJacques-Cartier flourish. You have shown resilience, creativity, innovation and solidarity. That is commendable. Together, we will get through this ordeal and come out stronger. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, today I rise to honour Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg, led by women and non-binary individuals, who stood together and mobilized our city to state clearly that we will not stand by and stay silent in the face of police brutality. We will not stand by in the face of systemic racism. We will not stand by while we witness our bodies being abused by centuries of racism supported through legislation that has left us vulnerable at the hands of those who abuse their power. We will speak out against police violence. We will speak out against systemic racism. We will join together to ensure that laws are instituted that are designed to protect us, not abuse us. We will call out those who abuse their power. We will rise. We will rise. We will rise. To all the women and non-binary folks who are standing, I say, let's continue to sound our voices in solidarity and support of one another until indigenous and black lives are honoured and respected. Our liberation is intertwined. Solidarity. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, go ahead. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, this is not the time for governments to get complacent about COVID-19. However, the last few days have shown that we are once again dealing with a reckless Prime Minister. First, he locked down Parliament to avoid being accountable to the opposition, while the economic recovery must be prepared. He is refusing to provide an economic update, even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. We need to know how much flexibility we have in case of a second wave of the pandemic. He is refusing to hold a first ministers meeting on unconditional health transfers. The increase Quebec needs is for hiring health care staff before a second wave, and not after it. Finally, today, he is refusing to negotiate with any party to get his bill passed. He is behaving as if he had a majority government. This is not a time for recklessness. Governing means anticipating. I am asking the Prime Minister to pull himself together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Uppal. +Hon. Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to give thanks and recognition to the contributions of many businesses and organizations across my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods that have stepped up in a major way during this pandemic. I joined my friends in the Filipino community who partnered with Mill Woods' Calvary Community Church to deliver care packages to seniors. Varinder Bhullar and his Green Scholars of Alberta team and Dil-E-Punjab restaurant provided thousands of free meals. Sikh Youth Edmonton delivered free groceries to families, seniors and students. Edmonton Towing and its full team with Dukh Nivaran Gudwara prepared food packages for any truckers who were coming through Edmonton. The Bhartiya Cultural Society Hindu temple provided free meals to anyone who needed them. Punjab Insurance and The Punjab chain of restaurants provided free meals in downtown Edmonton. The staff, nurses and doctors of Grey Nuns Community Hospital in the heart of Mill Woods have been keeping people safe and healthy. I want to thank our Mill Woods community as a whole for its continued strength, resilience and compassion as we move forward together. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today is Portugal Day, celebrated both in Portugal and around the world by Portuguese. In Canada, June has been recognized as Portuguese Heritage Month. We're truly happy to recognize the great contributions made by Canadians of Portuguese descent. This year is a difficult one, though, for all of us, including our Portuguese diaspora community across the globe that is deeply affected by the COVID situation. Our prayers and well wishes are with everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our luso community of over half a million members in Canada from coast to coast for staying strong during these difficult times. Your warmth, hard work and team spirit resonate well across my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville and globally. As a Portuguese immigrant who came to Canada at the age of two with my family, I know this year will be a lot different from previous years. I encourage all of you to stay safe and enjoy a Portuguese meal, and please continue to support our local businesses. +The Chair: We now begin the period of questions for ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for sitting to substitute each other very safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is doing everything to avoid being accountable to Canadians. He is refusing to table a budget, refusing to provide an economic update and refusing to let the House of Commons do its work. Will he at least provide the Auditor General with the additional funding she needs to look into government expenditures? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, not only are we introducing a bill this afternoon to help Canadians with the Canada emergency response benefit and those living with disabilities, but we are also proposing to the opposition parties that we hold a debate and a vote on that. I hope the opposition parties will allow a vote and a debate in the House on this important bill. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister wants parliamentarians to vote on aspects of the government's spending. We want the Auditor General to be able to examine that government spending. Under the government, the Auditor General has had to do more with less, and her ability to conduct audits is being affected. The Auditor General has indicated that she will be able to do half as many audits, despite an almost doubling in the size of government spending. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we worked with the Auditor General to increase the funding of the Auditor General's office in 2018-19, and the equivalent of 38 full-time staff were added. We support the Auditor General, unlike the Conservative government, which fired 60 people from the Auditor General's office. We are now proposing that we sit down to debate legislation this afternoon, and I certainly hope that members opposite will vote for debate. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister is again engaged in revisionist history. He well knows that it was the Auditor General's office that volunteered to make administrative efficiencies, which did not affect its ability to do the job. In fact, as the interim auditor general, John Wiersema, said, We would not have proposed if we didnt think it was the right thing to do and that wed be able to carry out our role for Parliament. Only the government's refusal to grant that extra funding is hampering the Auditor General's ability to give Canadians the answers they deserve, and we wonder why. This is the government that cannot explain where 20,000 infrastructure projects went and where five billion dollars' worth of supposed infrastructure investments have gone. They can't identify that. Then there is, of course, the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank, which has completed precisely zero projects. Are these the reasons the Prime Minister is so intent on withholding funds from the Auditor General? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, talking of revisionist history, Stephen Harper's Conservatives cut $6.5 million from the Auditor General's budget and fired 60 staff. On the contrary, we worked with the Auditor General's office and increased its funding and added the equivalent of 38 new full-time staff. We will continue to demonstrate openness and transparency. We will continue to respect the officers of Parliament, whom the Conservatives, in their time in office, showed no respect for. We will continue to move forward in a way that has led, for example, to proposing debate and voting on important legislation this afternoon to help Canadians. The Conservatives don't seem to want that debate or vote. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's no surprise that the Prime Minister likes to reach back into history from before the 2015 election to justify his position. The 2015 election was the only time he got more votes than the Conservative Party did, so I understand why he likes to live in the past. In May, the interim auditor general said, Ten years ago, we were completing about 27 performance audits every year. With our current resources, we expect to be able to deliver 14 performance audits each year. That's half the number of audits, despite a massive explosion in government spending. The Auditor General's office has requested more funds to be able to do the job that Canadians expect to be done. Will the Prime Minister give those additional funds to the Auditor General's office, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we very much look forward to working with the new Auditor General to ensure that her office has the ability to continue the important audits and transparency measures that are foundational to our institutions. Speaking of what is foundational to our institutions, this afternoon we're putting forward a bill that would help Canadians across the country, and we've proposed to debate and vote on that bill. It actually looks like the Conservatives and other opposition parties might not want this. They have been complaining about not having debates and votes in Parliament, and now they're proposing not to have them. That's a little head-scratching. We hope they're going to help Canadians. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We may have a chance here to replace a problem with a good opportunity. This morning, we heard many groups and organizations that represent people with a disability express their concerns over the bill introduced by the government, which I feel is chocolate pudding containing cod liver oil. We agree with the chocolate pudding. We are favourable to helping people with a disability. People don't know the rules. They don't knowI am telling them nowthat a bill can be divided. It can be cut into parts and voted on in parts. The rest of the bill can be enhanced. I am saying to the Prime Minister that, if he presents the part on disabled individuals, it will be passed at the speed of light. He won't even see it happen. Is he prepared to divide the bill, so that we can work together to help people with a disability? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The bill that we are proposing this afternoon will certainly help people living with disabilities. We can always recognize that this is important, and every party should be open to it. We will also increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit from four-week intervals to two weeks. We will also expand the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses will have access to it. I am always willing to work with members of the opposition to ensure that we adopt these measures, all or some of the measures. We want to help Canadians. We look forward to debating and voting on this later today. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It is a glorious day. I heard all or some of the measures. That means that we are not adopting them all at the same time and that the bill is being split. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he is in fact going to split his bill so that we can address the various components separately, since they have nothing to do with each other, and improve them, in keeping with our mandate as elected officials? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our goal on this side of the House, and it is shared by all members of the House, is to help Canadians during the pandemic. We have put forward a number of measures that will help Canadians in a tangible way. Yes, that includes Canadians living with disabilities, but it also includes businesses that cannot, but should be able to, access the wage subsidy. In addition, we are going to make the Canada emergency response benefit more flexible. I look forward to continuing the discussions +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: We almost had some clarity, but one swallow does not make a summer. Yes, there is a need for discussions on the Canada emergency response benefit. The government says that it wants to transform the program into something very coercive, without admitting that the lack of an employment incentive has essentially sabotaged another program, the wage subsidy. That deserves some thought. That is what we are elected to do. We do not need to spend eight months on this, we can fix it in a few hours. When the government says that we are going to have to vote on this, it means rubber stamping its bill. We have the right to debate it, to have discussions and to improve it. I watched the election on the night of October21. It was a beautiful night. It was more fun than a hockey game. People elected a minority government. Can the government admit that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are not proposing only to vote on this bill this afternoon, we are proposing to debate it. It is the role and responsibility of all of us in the House to exchange ideas and to work together to help Canadians. That is exactly what we are proposing this afternoon. It is about helping people with disabilities, increasing the flexibility of the CERB, and expanding the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses have access to it. I look forward to debating this with my colleagues opposite. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have 43seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That will be enough. I would be remiss if I allowed the Prime Minister to mislead people quite unintentionallyI say this in accordance with the Standing Orders. When we introduce a bill, we discuss it at second reading, we vote, we continue to discuss it and we send it to committee. All that can be done very quickly. However, we must be able to amend and improve this bill. That is how the normal Parliament works. The government doesn't like being in a minority situation. It behaves as if it were a majority government, but it is not. Can we follow the real procedures of Parliament, do a proper job, and then have a vote that is likely to suit the majority of members, not just the Prime Minister? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, my hon. colleague seems to completely forget that we are going through a pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis requires different actions on our part. That is why we provided the text of the bill to the opposition parties four days ago. We have been working with them for hours over the past three or four days to amend the bill, if they had amendments to propose. That is how we are taking action to help Canadians quickly during this crisis, and that is what we will continue to do. +The Chair: Mr.Singh, you have the floor. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr.Chair, will the Prime Minister make a clear and direct commitment today to extend the CERB for families who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are introducing legislation this afternoon that will directly help Canadians living with disabilities, will expand the scope of the wage subsidy and will increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit. We hope to be able to debate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB for families in need, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I said, Mr. Chair, discussions are ongoing on that, but I can assure Canadians we will continue to be there for them and support them, as we have been. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, a family that needs to buy groceries can't take those pretty words and buy groceries with them. We're asking the Prime Minister to extend the CERB for families in need. Will the Prime Minister do that, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to be there for Canadians in the right way. We are engaged with stakeholders, with opposition parties and with Canadians to ensure that we continue to support them the way they need to be supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I can tell you what the right way is. Don from Burnaby sent me a note saying he's an arts worker and there is no forecast for his job to be reopened. He is now dependent on the CERB. He wants to go back to work, but there's no work. He sent an email saying he's faced with a grim realityhis wordsand he's frightened that if the CERB runs out, and it is planned to run out at the end of this month, then he will have no way to afford to make ends meet. Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB so Don does not have to live in fear? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, and as we have been saying from the beginning, we will continue to be there to support Canadians who need it. The member opposite is not actually looking at the fact that we are proposing three significant helps for Canadians this afternoon. We are proposing to help Canadians with disabilities, to expand the wage subsidy for more businesses and to create flexibility for the CERB. He doesn't even want to debate those things. He doesn't even want to be voting on them. Will the NDP allow us to move forward on these important measures for Canadians? +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about those measures. One of the things we asked the government to do five weeks ago was to bring in help for Canadians living with disabilities. Now the government's plan is only going to help 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Will the government commit to helping all Canadians living with disabilities and propose a plan that will do so? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP leader seems to have decided that rather than help 40%, or a significant portion, of people with disabilities, he wants to help none of them, because he's not going to allow the debate to move forward on this bill. That's unfortunate. We're always happy to look at how we can do more. We have demonstrated from the beginning that we want to do more for Canadians. I look forward to working with the NDP. I am hoping those members change their minds and allow us to have an important debate this afternoon. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I appreciate that the Prime Minister accepts that his plan only helps 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Let's talk about the 60% who aren't being helped. They are veterans living with disabilities, those who receive CPP and those who receive disability payments. Often it's the poorest of Canadians living with disabilities who won't be helped with the plan the government is proposing. Will the government help all Canadians living with disabilities? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our proposal will help 100% of Canadians who receive the disability tax credit, including many veterans. The fact is that we are there to support the disability community. We are there to support Canadians with disabilities. Why is the NDP not allowing us to move forward on debating and voting on this important legislation? +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 43 seconds for a question and an answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, that's the exact problem with the Liberal proposal. It's a tax credit approach, which excludes the vast majority of Canadians living with disabilities. That is the wrong approach. We made it very clear that if the government extends the CERB, if it ensures there are no penalties on those who are desperately in need of help and if it helps all Canadians living with disabilities, we will move forward. Will the government do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I have said from the beginning, we look forward to continuing to work with the members opposite to keep moving forward to help Canadians. However, we need the opposition parties to actually choose to help Canadians and not to play political games. I hope we're going to be able to actually have a debate and a vote on this important legislation this afternoon. +The Chair: We're now going to take a short pause to allow staff to change up in a safe way respecting COVID-19 procedure. The floor now goes to Mr. Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, can the Prime Minister tell us whether we will have an economic update by the end of June? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is of course very important to be transparent. When the situation is stable, we will have +The Chair: Once again, the floor goes to Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, most of the provinces in Canada are working on tabling economic updates by the end of June. Why is the Liberal government unable to do so as well? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I understand the importance of transparency and that is why we are trying every day to explain our investments to Canadians and to continue to be transparent with them. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Liberal government announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending during the pandemic, but it still refuses to provide an economic update in order to be transparent with Canadians. In times of crisis, monitoring the situation is more important than ever. I repeat my question: why does this government not want to table an economic update by the end of June, when the provinces are doing so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Every day, we explain the economic situation, our investments, the changes we are making, and our programs to improve the situation of Canadians during the pandemic. We will continue our approach to being transparent. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Parliamentary Budget Officer himself does not understand why the federal government cannot deliver an economic update when the provinces can. Why are the government and the minister defying the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent officer and is requesting an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach, which is one of transparency. We know that it's very difficult to make projections given the very dynamic nature of the situation. We think our approach of providing information daily is appropriate and we will continue to be transparent about our investments. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That is incredible. When we listen to the minister and the Prime Minister talk, you would think we were in the pesky terrible twos phase that children go through, when they keep saying no, no, no. I find it funny that the provinces are able to table an economic update in a crisis situation. The opposition parties are asking for it, as are experts and officials. When the time comes for the government to listen to the scientists, it has no problem doing so. However, if people do not think like the government, it ignores them. The provinces are doing it, the opposition parties are calling for it and the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. Why will the Minister of Finance not table an economic update so that all members of Parliament can do their verification work? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I will continue to provide daily information on our measures and investments. Projections are clearly very difficult to make. However, when the situation is more stable, we will be able to provide more information to Canadians. In the meantime, we will be adapting to the situation on a daily basis and making sure that we have the information we need to make our decisions and to make sure that Canadians understand our situation. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 45seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, one month ago, the Prime Minister announced with great fanfare that the eligibility criteria for the $40,000emergency loans for businesses would be more flexible to help self-employed entrepreneurs and businesses that pay themselves dividends to have access to them. However, as of todayit has been four weeks since that announcementbusinesses are still banging their heads on the doors of their financial institutions. They do not have access to the information because it is not available on official websites. In addition, even senior officials confirmed to me during a technical call on June2, last Tuesday, that this information would not be available for several weeks. Can the Minister of Finance, who says he wants to act quickly to help our businesses, explain why, after four weeks, it is still not possible to get the information the Prime Minister promised us from his doorstep? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been listening and responding to small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country. In fact, we have even announced the expansion of the program's eligibility criteria to include many owner-managed small businesses with payrolls of less than$20,000. The new criteria have forced financial institutions to adapt to be able to provide this program to new applicants. We are working around the clock to ensure that we are able to promptly provide small businesses across the country with the assistance they need. +The Chair: We will now proceed to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison (Niagara West, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's unemployment rate stands at 13.7%. That's the highest it's been in almost four decades. Many industries, like travel, hospitality and tourism, are getting crushed. We rely on a lot of hospitality and tourism in my riding of Niagara West. Can the government tell us what their plans are to help the travel, hospitality and tourism industry that so many of my constituents depend on? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his important question. I had a good conversation with the mayor of Niagara Falls recently, and we believe in the importance of the tourism sector. That's exactly why we've extended the wage subsidy until the end of August. There is the CEBA loan, the $40,000 loan. There is also spending through FedDev in my colleague's region. If he has clear, specific projects in the tourism sector that he needs help with, I would ask that he please come and see me and have a conversation. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, the message from the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Perrin Beatty, and also other industries, is that we need a clear and coherent plan from this government because there's a whole hodgepodge of regulations and confusion about what's going to happen through the strategy. What I've told the government is that we need a strategy to reflect local conditions that is consistent and has a clear timeline so that businesses can begin to open safely and with confidence. What is the government doing to make this happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we absolutely agree. It is important for businesses to have an understanding of the programs that we've put in place. We have been consulting with businesses on the appropriate way to extend the wage subsidy so that we can continue to support businesses as they turn towards a safe restart. We've also looked very carefully at how we can ensure that the programs that we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, this government has come way short of meeting the Canadian demand for personal protective equipment. Some equipment procured from overseas has been substandard and couldn't be used. Because of the shortage, in my riding of Niagara West, dentists have to pay up to 10 times the amount for an N95 mask. Compared to early March, when will the government finally begin to produce enough PPE in Canada to meet Canadian demand? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. We have mobilized over 700 Canadian companies to help them retool and rescale their efforts to make more personal protective equipment in Canada as part of a made-in-Canada initiative. We're going to continue to work with industry to build up domestic capacity. +Mr. Dean Allison: Global News is reporting that Canada is struggling to secure a reliable source of PPE. What's the evidence of this? We know that the government procured 10 million substandard N95 masks that couldn't be used. Masks were sent back to suppliers for having flaws. We received mouldy swabs to be used in COVID-19 tests. Planes are arriving empty that should have been filled with PPE, and we received less than 5% of our total order of gloves. It's clear that Canada needs to rely on Canada for PPE. When will this government finally begin to take PPE equipment issues seriously and make enough in Canada to meet demands by Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member's questions were tainted with inaccuracies. Regarding the flights that returned from China without federal cargo, Air Canada did reimburse the federal government for that amount. In addition, with regard to the N95 masks that were referenced, the Government of Canada will not pay for masks that it does not use. Furthermore, as my colleague Minister Bains just stated, we are mobilizing and retooling the domestic industry. Over half of the face shields that we have received were produced in Canada. +Mr. Dean Allison: At a time when the Prime Minister has ordered Canadians to stay home and businesses to remain closed, at a time when Canadians have had to say goodbye to their relatives over Skype, at a time when Canadians are not allowed to get married, at a time when Canadians are being fined for taking their kids to the park, at a time when restaurants are being fined $800 for allowing customers to eat outside and not being socially distanced, in these times, the Prime Minister's son attended a mass gathering with thousands of people while not socially distancing. Mr. Chair, why is it that there seems to be one set of rules in this country for some people but a different set for the Prime Minister? Why the double standard? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as the member knows, this country has been gripped with the need to stand up with one another to fight the experience of racism that so many Canadians live with and that so many of our American cousins live with. As the member knows, local public health sets advice for regions that he specified, and I would encourage all Canadians to check with local public health advice before they resume activities. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu (StevestonRichmond East, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many Canadian veterans are noticing that medical providers are increasing their costs. Everything is more expensive these days, including medicine, etc. It can take upwards of a year for Veterans Affairs to adjust their rate scale to compensate, and they do not allow for retroactive reimbursement. What are the government's actions to alleviate this hardship for our men and women who stood guard for this country, our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Chair, the fact is that when we inherited the government, Veterans Affairs needed a lot of support from government. In fact, at that time, we invested $10 billion to make sure that Veterans Affairs was put in place and that we could provide the appropriate supports for veterans, like the pension for life, the centre of excellence on PTSD and the chronic pain centre of excellence. All of these things are so important. We have to realize that with government previously +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister, for answeringor respondingto my question, although that really did not provide an answer, in my humble opinion. Part of the side effect of spending hundreds of millions of dollars is inflation. My constituents in StevestonRichmond East are overwhelmingly finding this government's support for seniors inadequate. The opposition has put forward clear proposals, such as a one-time tax-free withdrawal being allowed for an RRSP or a RRIF. So far, the government has not taken any action on this. Why is the government ignoring suggestions to help Canadian seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want seniors to know that they are not alone. To help preserve their registered retirement income fund assets, we are reducing minimum withdrawals by 25% for 2020. We're also providing direct financial support so that seniors can get the help they need now. As the market is volatile during this time, we continue to look at all ways that we can best help seniors during this difficult time. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Mr. Chair, the Hong Kong government has arrested 9,000 civilians just in the past year. This is equivalent to the arrest of 42,000 people, proportional to Canada's population. It is anticipated that more unjust incarcerations will occur as Beijing imposes the national security law in Hong Kong. Has our government started preparing a list of names for Magnitsky-style sanctions, yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, as we have said, we and our allies are deeply concerned with Beijing's decision to impose a national security law on Hong Kong. With hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in its stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. The proposed law would also undermine the one country, two systems framework. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: I thank the minister for responding. Again, however, words are not enough. It's time for action, because the Chinese embassy has said, in response to Canada's expressed concern, that they deplore, reject and condemn our response and our concerns thus far. What are the conditions for this government using Magnitsky sanctions should China continue to incarcerate Canadians and jeopardize the human rights of its citizens? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we have been very clear. We will continue to encourage all parties to engage in peaceful and meaningful dialogue to address the legitimate concerns expressed by the Hong Kong population. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +The Chair: Mr. Chiu, we have about 22 seconds, so you have time for a very quick question and hopefully a very quick answer. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Okay, here's a quick question. The Communist Chinese government has lied about COVID-19. They have issued statements against Canada and they have yet to release the two Canadians being held hostage. My constituents are concerned over this. When will this government listen to Canadians and call for a stronger, more effective and truly independent international investigation into COVID-19's origin? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 22 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a global pandemic, COVID-19. It is critically important that all countries in the world work together in a transparent, open and respectful manner so that we understand what is going on and how we can bring it to an end as quickly as possible. +The Chair: The next question will come from Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (RenfrewNipissingPembroke, CPC): Mr. Chair, if the government orders someone who has been exposed to a confirmed COVID case into a 14-day quarantine, why won't the government allow them to take an antibody test to lift the quarantine so they can go back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite may or may not know, testing strategies are determined by provinces and territories. Furthermore, the testing of a particular person has to be done at the right point in time +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, there have already been some tests that have been approved. My friend and colleague here, Colin Carrie, from the constituency of Oshawa, has a constituent who has a test. It's 90% accurate and it's being sold to the United States and other countries. Why won't they provide a DIN number to it so that Canadians have access to it as well, regardless of which province or territory they live in? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member is talking about two separate things. Any test kit that would be approved by Health Canada would be accessible to wherever that company chose to market that test kit. Furthermore, it's really important that test kits that are approved by Health Canada be accurate and have been tested with rigour with regard to their ability to provide credible and accurate information to the people who are using that test. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, the test has proven to have an accuracy rate of 90% in identifying whether or not an individual has antibodies. Why won't she allow it to be used here? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am happy to follow up with the member opposite's office when she is able to provide me with the name of the company. As you can imagine, there are many vendors trying to +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: How long will it take for an antibody test to be approved by this government once you have the name of the company and the test and the evidence in front of you? +The Chair: Before we go to the honourable minister, I just want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the chair and not directly. Go ahead, Minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have an expedited process that could be completed in as little as five to seven days, depending on the accuracy of the test and the information supplied by the vendor. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, will Health Canada use reputable data from other countries to speed their determinations about antibody effectiveness, or just continue to withhold access? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Canadians expect us, at Health Canada, to ensure the accuracy and the safety of all equipment approved for use in Canada. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chairman, if the minister can approve tests and studies within five days, why is it taking over 30, over 60, or over 90 days to approve an antibody test that exists? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I appreciate the member opposite's interest in urgent and quick approvals; however, sometimes, depending on the company, there may be further questions and further tests that need to be run to ensure the accuracy or safety of that equipment. Should she wish me to check into the process for a particular +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Have officials provided the government with a target for a daily antibody test to complete an initial survey or the initial phase of a study? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is talking about the work of the immunity task force, which is, as you know, a group of scientists who have been funded by the Government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, would the minister please provide the names of the people on the task force to which she just referred? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I will forward those names to the office of the member opposite. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: I hope that will be within the next two days or so, and not wait until after the crisis has passed, Mr. Chairman. Why isn't the Prime Minister showing as much fervour for antibody testing as he is for getting a vaccine on the market? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I reject the premise of that question. In fact, the Prime Minister has shown fervour for all aspects of dealing with the coronavirus from the very inception of the virus on the world stage. To allege otherwise is quite disingenuous. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): When will the government give the Auditor General the funds she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): First, Mr. Chair, I would like to offer my congratulations to the new Auditor General for her appointment. On behalf of the government, I would also like to offer her our full support and collaboration +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: I share the minister's wish to congratulate the new Auditor General on her position. I will now ask him again when he will give her the funds she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, her role is essential to our democracy. We are eager to work with her. She's more than welcome to share her concerns directly with the government. I can assure her that my +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I didn't ask him if he would like to work with the Auditor General. I asked him if he will give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government has added 38 permanent staff positions to her office, while the Conservative government, under their leadership, cut the funding for more than 60 +The Chair: We'll move on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, through you, I caution the minister to not mislead this House. If he will look at the committee transcripts of the time, he will know that it was the Auditor General's decision to reduce their own budget. The Conservatives did not cut positions. That is a matter of fact. The point is that the Auditor General now does not have the money to do her job. She has cut performance audits and she has stopped work on performance audits. When will this government give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: With us, it was 38 new positions, Mr. Chair. With them, it was 60 positions fewer. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this government has drastically expanded its spending and is avoiding accountability in every way it can. The finance committee yesterday, with the support of Liberal backbench MPs who are on that committee, unanimously passed a motion to fund the Auditor General in full so that her office can do her job. If this minister will not listen to me, will he at least listen to his own backbenchers? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government is fully committed to supporting the important and ongoing work of the Auditor General, an independent officer of Parliament. If the Auditor General identifies the need for additional resources, we will work with the Office of the Auditor General to ensure that they have all the resources they need to continue fulfilling their mandate efficiently and effectively. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, the Auditor General has consistently, since 2018, told this government that the office doesn't have enough funds. It's not a mystery. The Auditor General has told the public accounts committee that it cannot do its job. It's the first time in history that the Auditor General has had to tell public accounts that they don't have the resources to do their job. It's not a matter of if the Auditor General needs more funds. The Auditor General couldn't be more clear. When will this government actually do the right thing and fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, maybe I'm not making myself clear in English. I will switch to my native tongue, French, in case it becomes clearer. If the Auditor General identifies a need for additional resources, we will work with her to ensure that her office can continue to deliver its mandate efficiently and effectively. In addition, our government worked with the Auditor General to increase funding in 2018-09. With this increase, the office was able to add the equivalent of 38new full-time staff to its team. That's 38more employees +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this isn't an if situation. The Auditor General has already told this government that her office does not have funds. This has been ongoing since 2018. I would ask the minister to please stop with the platitudes and actually just say yes or no. Will the government give the Auditor General the money that the Auditor General has already asked for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we have already increased the budget of the Office of the Auditor General in the 2018-19 period. +The Chair: Before we continue, we're going to suspend for a second to bring in the next chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): There's a point of order. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Madam Chair, I know that no member would knowingly mislead the House. No member wants to do that. It's always customary to give members a chance to correct the record, so I call upon the minister to do so now, and perhaps even the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister misled the House in his response to a question. I have here the transcripts of the public accounts committee, and they will confirm that the +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): This is beginning to sound a bit like debate. We will proceed. Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. First, I would like to take this opportunity to say hi from Portugal. I would also like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague and friend, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. Obrigado. While Quebec estimates its additional health care costs related to COVID-19 at $3billion, Ottawa is transferring around $115million, which is not even4%. Does the government recognize that this is clearly insufficient? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, as the member opposite knows, we invested an initial $500 million in transfers to the provinces and territories to manage the extreme pressure put on health care systems as a result of their supporting people living with COVID and in preventing COVID. We want to thank the provinces and territories for their work, and as the member opposite knows, we will continue to be there for the provinces and territories. This is a significant transfer, and we think +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, the minister says that this is a substantial transfer. Yes, it is a lot of money. The government is giving about $115million to Quebec, but that is not even 4%of what is being requested. Does the minister recognize that much more is needed? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have been working with the provinces and territories from the beginning to respond to the crisis. We have increased health care transfers, provided medical protective equipment and responded to all requests for assistance. We have been able to make so much progress in the fight against COVID-19 precisely because of this co-operation. Stirring up an imaginary quarrel between the federal government and Quebec +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, it isn't about squabbling, it's about needs. The share that the federal government is giving isn't enough. We should act now, before we see a possible second wave. What we're seeing today are the results of massive disinvestment by the federal government in health care. This isn't good enough. The government must act quickly. Can the government commit to better funding to the health care sector and to organizing a meeting with Quebec and the provinces on this exact topic, in September at the latest? We can't afford to wait. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister's response will have to be brief. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, with respect to the transfers to provinces and territories, the member opposite knows that our government, in our last mandate, significantly increased transfers to the provinces and territories for health services, including mental health and home care services. In fact, the funding we're providing is in addition to the $40 billion that was transferred +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. Tudo bem? Tudo bom? Today in La Presse, we learned that the government has extended its military presence in long-term care homes. Can the minister confirm this information, and can he also confirm that the presence of these 500soldiers is indeed in response to a request from the Government of Quebec? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, let me assure the member that when Quebec made a request for assistance at the beginning of April, we answered the call. When they asked for an extension of that, we said we would continue to provide that assistance. I had a conversation today with Minister Guilbault, my counterpart in Quebec, and we have renewed our commitment to continuing to provide assistance. That assistance can take additional forms and can include involving the Canadian Red Cross, but we remain committed to providing the assistance that Quebec needs. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: If I understand correctly, negotiations are still under way with the Government of Quebec, even though it needs these soldiers. The mission ends Friday. This isn't really the time to negotiate anymore. We have to make sure that the military will stay in our long-term care homes as long as we need their services in Quebec, and until new attendants have been trained. Can the minister confirm that the mission will indeed be extended? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to assure this House that we have assured Quebec that the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to provide support until such time as other trained professional people are able to do that job. We're working very hard with the Province of Quebec. We're working with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross. We will be there for Quebeckers because they need our help, and as long as they need our help, we'll be there to support them. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: This isn't the time to play cat-and-mouse. The only thing we have to do is to give the Government of Quebec what it's asking for. Quebec pays 23%of the army's budget, so Quebeckers are entitled to this support. Quebec has more than 5,000deaths from COVID-19, 90%of which have been in seniors' residences or long-term care homes. The military's presence is vital because they play an extraordinary and essential role. Will the minister commit to extending the mission now and putting an end to this uncertainty? It's certainly bad for both the military and the health care workers, who rely on this support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 10seconds. +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Madam Chair, let me be very clear. We have made a commitment to the Province of Quebec that we will continue to provide that support until the middle of September, exactly as they have requested, but we are also working to ensure that we have an sustainable, effective solution to the request that Quebec has made, so we're working with the Province of Quebec, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross to ensure the help that is needed is there. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Bryan May. +Mr. Bryan May (Cambridge, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure and an honour to be with you all today. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member of Parliament for Scarborough North. Madam Chair, COVID-19 continues to create challenges for all Canadians, including those with disabilities, and exacerbates those experienced by Canadians with disabilities. As we mark the end of National AccessAbility Week, I would like to remind our colleagues that our commitment to making Canada more inclusive and equitable is ongoing, including our passing of the Accessible Canada Act. Would the minister inform the House about the government's plans to support Canadians with disabilities who are experiencing increased costs due to COVID-19? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Madam Chair, last week was the first National AccessAbility Week that was legislated under the historic Accessible Canada Act, and I thank every party in this House for the consent they gave to that legislation. I'm hoping we have the same spirit of camaraderie for people with disabilities this afternoon. Since the beginning, Madam Chair, we have taken a disability inclusion approach on how we support people with disabilities in this time of pandemic, including the establishment of our COVID-19 disability advisory group, which has given us invaluable advice. I thank them so much for their contributions to our efforts. Last week we announced a suite of measures to support people with disabilities that complement existing measures that are in place. This includes a one-time payment of $600 to 1.25 million citizens with disabilities, which again is the subject matter of the legislation this afternoon, as well as a $15-million investment in an accessible workplace initiative that will ensure, moving forward.... We know that as we move back into employment situations it will be very tough for people with disabilities. Finally, there are five really exciting accessible technology initiatives, including working on point-of-sale terminals for Canadians who are blind or visually impaired. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You may have a very short question, Mr. May. +Mr. Bryan May: I want to take this opportunity to thank the minister and her department for all the work they are doing to ensure that accessibility is at the forefront of everybody's mind through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Chen is next. +Mr. Shaun Chen (Scarborough North, Lib.): Madam Chair, as humanity battles COVID-19, we are confronted by the stark realities of another disease. On May 25, George Floyd fell unconscious and died as a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. This all happened after the 46-year-old black man was handcuffed and put in a position where he could do no harm. In Canada, we have come a long way since Viola Desmond, yet there is much more to do. Anti-black racism is institutionalized, hidden under dominant narratives of a free and multicultural society. Hatred has no boundaries, whether it is against black communities or is anti-Asian sentiment fuelled by COVID-19. The question always is this: Who is next? We must all stand up together against hatred and for justice and reconciliation, to dismantle systems of oppression that long remained unquestioned. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that Canada is failing black youth, creating the conditions that push them into the justice system. To the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, my question is this: What is the government doing to address the unique challenges faced by black youth? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, the member for Scarborough North is absolutely correct. We must all do what we can to stand up against hatred and injustice. We often say that today's youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today, so we need to equip them for success by investing in youth. According to the 2016 census, black Canadians accounted for 1.2 million people, and more than a quarter of that population is under the age of 15. Socio-economic gaps, such as in employment and education, exist between black and non-black youth. We need to do better. Our government has brought forward youth so they can inform the decisions we make. We have Canada's first youth policy, and it was created by youth for youth to ensure that all young people are equipped to live healthy and fulfilling lives, and are empowered to create positive change for themselves and their communities. Our government launched the community support for black Canadian youth program, which supported 56 projects geared to address the unique challenges faced by black Canadian youth through the development of leadership skills and civic engagement, while empowering them through the promotion of black history, culture and identity. To address the challenges of the pandemic, our government has implemented a suite of measures designed to help youth and students, including with employment and service opportunities. My office is working with community organizations who serve black youth to make sure they too are both aware of and benefiting from these measures. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Mathyssen is next. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for TimminsJames Bay. Schools in many provinces remain closed, and many child care providers want to reopen. They must reduce their capacity due to COVID-19. Now more than ever we need universal, publicly funded child care to restart the economy. Will the government bring in legislation that would enshrine into law access to, and federal funding for, quality affordable child care? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Madam Chair, we are, of course, committed to investments in child care. We have constantly worked with provinces and territories to ensure that we provide the supports they need to provide quality, affordable and accessible child care. Since 2015, we have created over 40,000 child care spaces. We are committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: The government doesn't seem to understand that this is not universal child care. During COVID-19, women have lost the majority of jobs, and they have taken on the majority of additional child care responsibilities. Canadian women want and need to return to work, but this government doesn't understand that without affordable child care, they simply cannot re-enter the workforce. For 26 years, Liberal governments have been promising, but failing to deliver, a universal child care program. Parents are paying the price. How much longer do parents have to wait? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the important question. Since 2015, we have created 40,000 affordable, accessible, quality child care spaces across the country. We are on track to continue to invest $7.5 billion over 11 years to create additional child care spaces and support provinces and territories. We're constantly in touch with our counterparts to work to strengthen that sector. We are also keeping our promise and our commitment to create an additional 250,000 spaces. We will be there for parents as they get back to work, and we will continue to reinforce the early learning and child care sector. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You have time for a very short question, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Without universal child care, we are crippling our economy. We are not providing an affordable system, and this stops women from returning to work. Instead of helping parents return to work, the government is now bringing forward legislation that's penalizing them. Why is the government looking to sentence mothers and fathers to jail time and large fines when they cannot find the child care that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister has time for a short answer. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: We are committed to the early learning and child care sector. We will move forward with the creation of an early learning and child care secretariat. We will continue to invest in this sector. We recognize its importance. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. It's an honour to be here, and I'm hoping that you and your family stay safe at this time. COVID has shaken up Canada's middle class, so my question is for the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. This morning I spoke with a businesswoman. She runs her own business, a travel agency, but because of COVID she has been wiped out. She's on CERB, and it's ticking down. There's no work to go back to, so in four weeks she hits the economic wall. Will the minister fight for an extension of CERB so this woman can stay in the middle class? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we know how worried Canadians are as they see their final four-week period of the CERB approaching, and we're working very hard to ensure that the CERB continues to serve an important purpose as we move into economic recovery. I'll note that when we created the CERB, there was a different purpose in mind. We were asking people to stay home. Now we're asking people to go back to work if it's safe for them to do so. We're going to make sure that the wage subsidy and the CERB complement each other. In fact, the measures in today's legislation will help us to get the flexibility to be able to do just that. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We did give you a little more time. We will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus: Thank you for that. What I've seen with their legislation today is that they're talking about jailing people. We need a Minister of Middle Class Prosperity in a time of middle-class disparity, and she has talked about middle-class criminality. Let's talk about this again, about people going back to work. I spoke with a 51-year-old bartender. He's a professional; this is his job. There is no job to go back to. Will the minister assure us that this man will be able to stay in the middle class because the CERB will still be there in July, yes or no? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we've been helping Canadians by putting programs in place. We will continue to support families during the crisis, and afterwards as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Angus, you have time for a very short comment or question. +Mr. Charlie Angus: The issue here is that when COVID hit, millions of Canadians were living in such precarious working conditions that they didn't even have enough money to pay their rent. That is a damning indictment. In four weeks, those Canadians are going to hit the economic wall again. What I need to know from the minister, and what Canadians need to know, is whether she will commit, yes or no, that the CERB will be there for those who have no work to go back to. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer. +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have been helping families with a supplement to the Canada child benefit. We have put in place the Canada emergency response benefit. We will continue to find ways to support Canadian families during this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cooper. +Mr. Michael Cooper (St. AlbertEdmonton, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. It was all the way back on March 25 that the Minister of Finance stated that help for the energy sector was coming within hours, possibly days. Well, as it turns out, it hasn't been hours. It hasn't been days. It hasn't even been weeks. Indeed, months later, help has yet to arrive. Seventy-seven days after the minister made that statement, not a single energy company has received financing under EDC, the BDC, or the LEEFF program. As the energy sector faces an unprecedented liquidity crisis, how can this government possibly justify such a delay? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Madam Chair, weeks ago we opened applications through the business credit availability program to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We've also opened applications for measures that will be available to our larger players through our LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry. We will continue to support workers, and we will continue to do so to get through this unprecedented challenge. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, on June 2, the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said, The entire industry is frustrated with the delay that we are facing. The Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and Resources has spoken about a gaping hole that exists in terms of support for the energy sector. The gaping hole that I'm speaking of is the EDC and BDC programs that this government has failed to deliver upon. Indeed, it was on April 17 that those programs were announced, and 54 days later, not only has not a single energy company received financing, but guess what? They can't even apply, and the eligibility criteria have yet to be finalized after 54 days. If that is not failing to deliver for the energy sector, what is? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Business Council of Alberta has said that the LEEFF program is a positive development showing that the federal government recognizes the needs and value of Canada's large corporations. We agree. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through two crises: the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war initiated by Russia and Saudi Arabia. That's why, weeks ago, we opened applications for liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We also announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry to make sure these programs are effective. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, contrary to the representations of the minister, neither the EDC program nor BDC programs are accepting applications. Just yesterday officials from both BDC and EDC were before the finance committee, where I posed precisely those questions to them. We know, Madam Chair, that the application process isn't up and running and that eligibility criteria remain to be determined, but I guess this government has some good news for the energy sector after 77 days. Now energy sector companies can go on the BDC website and apply for email updates. Is that the kind of help the Minister of Finance had in mind after 77 days: email updates instead of real relief for the energy sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Alberta finance minister, Travis Toews, said in a LEEFF announcement that in combination with earlier measures for small and medium-sized companies, it represented an expression of confidence in our industries. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through these two crisesas I said, the impact of COVID, and then on top of that, the effect of a global price war. We opened up applications for liquidity measures as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers asked. Their top five asks were all liquidity. We supported small and medium-sized players essential to the supply chain, who make up 85% of the jobs in that sector, and then we announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry and +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I now have to interrupt for a few moments to allow our technicians to change places. With that done, Monsieur Martel, you may now go ahead.. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): MadamChair, there has recently been positive progress in AndrGauthier's case, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Prime Minister for their co-operation in this matter. However, Mr.Gauthier is currently on his own in the United Arab Emirates, without a passport, waiting to settle civil lawsuits. What services does the minister intend to provide to help him, and when does he plan to repatriate AndrGauthier to Canada? +Hon. Marc Garneau: MadamChair, in all cases similar to Mr.Gauthier's, the Government of Canada, through its consular services, tries to do the best it can under the circumstances. This file is still active. +Mr. Richard Martel: The House recognized on February18, 2020, that the 15weeks of sickness benefits provided by employment insurance were insufficient. Citizens who became ill before March15 are now without help. They are being denied the CERB because they didn't lose their jobs because of COVID-19. They are being denied EI regular benefits because they are unable to work. In addition, some citizens are waiting for surgery, which is being delayed because of COVID-19. Is the government letting these people down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: No, MadamChair, that's absolutely not the case. Of course, we understand that people who are no longer receiving EI benefits should have access to the CERB. We have committed to extending the emergency sickness benefit to 26weeks. We're working with everyone here to make that happen. We're taking into account the needs and circumstances of all citizens in our efforts to help Canadians. +Mr. Richard Martel: I've called on the Minister of Economic Development several times to be more flexible in establishing these programs, so that they are better adapted to the realities of the regions. Recently, it was the SMEs in Montreal that were monopolizing the funds earmarked for the regions. When will the Liberal government listen to the needs of regions like SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for the opportunity to announce the good news that was mentioned on Radio-Canada this morning, namely, $71million more for the regions of Quebec. Of course, we're here for the regions. I will be happy to work with my colleague to ensure that the CFDC in his region can support businesses. We have to support businesses in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean and across the country. +Mr. Richard Martel: I think that's a canned speech. According to a survey conducted by the Universit de Trois-Rivires in Quebec, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is apparently the most economically affected by COVID-19. We have many projects, but they depend on the government's leadership to be carried out. Our region has forestry, the aluminum sector, GNL Qubec, tourism, the Port of Saguenay, Davie Canada, a military base and a tax centre. It's all here. We know we'll have to get the economy moving again soon. When will the government act to help our region? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Every day, we act to help my colleague's region. I've had good conversations with Promotion Saguenay. I've also spoken several times with various stakeholders in my colleague's beautiful region. We will always be there for them. I'd like to tell my colleague that there will be other announcements to support the economic development of the beautiful region of SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. I will be happy to work with him to achieve good results. +Mr. Richard Martel: Sustainable forestry development is at the heart of the economic development of Canada and for SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. Canadians have reason to be proud of the use of the boreal forest in the fight against climate change. Currently, our innovative forest industry is experiencing many problems, and on top of that, there is the COVID-19 crisis. Who will defend our forestry workers? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Of course, we believe in the importance of regional economic development. That's why we're always there to defend our forestry workers. I will also be pleased to work with my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, who is very familiar with the matter and who knows the challenges faced by the various businesses in the forestry sector, as well as the employees. We will always be there to support employees and create more jobs across Quebec and the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota is next. Go ahead, please. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. We continue to see significant gaps in the Liberals' programs. There are still people who are falling through the cracks and being left behind. We are hearing from women who are pregnant or who have just given birth and are being left out or told to go back to work. When will this government stop letting Canadians down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: We know that there are many situations of Canadians who are about to or are just going on maternity or parental benefits who might not have access to their EI benefits due to not having accumulated enough time for COVID reasons. We're working very hard to make sure, as we did for fish harvesters, that we support all Canadians in these situations. I look forward to advising Canadians of our approach on this very soon. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, that simply isn't good enough. This is something that has been brought to the government's attention for months now, and still nothing has been done. These families deserve answers now. Had the government conducted a GBA+ analysis, they would have discovered this prior to rolling out inadequate programs for women. Why wasn't a GBA+ conducted? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure everyone in this House that we are very aware and deeply concerned about the disproportionate impact of this pandemic on women and girls. We are working hard to ensure that everyone has the supports they need. As we move forward, we are, as I said earlier, taking into consideration improvements to the EI system, the wage subsidy and the future of CERB. All these play together as we work to provide a comprehensive forward-looking support package for Canadians. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, might I remind my honourable colleague that this Prime Minister said that every piece of legislation would go through a rigorous GBA+? Why was it not done? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we absolutely took into account the needs of women as we developed the CERB. I can tell you that women are benefiting significantly from this benefit. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, it is a simple question, and I will ask again. Why was GBA+ analysis not conducted for the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as I said, the needs of women and girls were taken into consideration every step of the way, from the beginning, as we worked to provide a comprehensive suite of support for Canadians across the country. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, if that's the case, then how did you miss these gaps? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we didn't miss gaps. We, from the beginning, looked to support as many people as possible. As we moved from supporting workers to supporting students to supporting seniors, and today to supporting people with disabilities, we are ensuring that everyone is covered by our measures. As this pandemic evolves and as we move into economic recovery, of course we're going to make sure that women in particular are supported in our measures. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, the minister needs to take the responsibility here. These women and families deserve answers. This is a real problem happening right now. You said you would conduct GBA+ analysis on all policy measures moving forward. Where is the assistance for these expectant mothers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I take responsibility. I'm very proud of how many senior women we have supported with our measures, how many women received the GST credit, how many women who lead families received the CCB one-time payment and how many women with disabilities will receive the disability support if we have all-party consent today. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, may I remind you to please direct your questions through the chair? +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, I will ask again, hoping for a straightforward answer from this minister. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: My goodness, Madam Chair. I'll say again how important it was from the very beginning that we took into account the needs of women and girls, and as we move forward into the economic recovery phase, how completely we make women at the core of every decision. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, you have 15 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, my question is still not answered. She keeps repeating the same answer. I'll keep asking the same question, hoping for a straightforward answer. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Honourable minister, you have five seconds. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we've taken into account the needs of women and girls from the beginning, and we'll continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We go now to Mr. Carrie. +Mr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): Madame Chair, on April 29 I asked Minister Blair why Lisa Freeman, a constituent of mine, wasn't able to participate in the Parole Board hearing of her father's murderer. The minister acknowledged that this had been a mistake and that victims would now be able to attend by telephone and video conference. Can the minister tell this House how many parole hearings have been conducted under this digital format with victims since April 29? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank my honourable colleague for the question. I'm glad to hear that Minister Blair was able to provide information on the specific case he raises. With regard to his question, we're happy to provide it to him in due course. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, on April 29 the minister said, and I quote, Steps have been taken to make it possible for victims to participate in those parole hearings virtually by phone or video conference. If the change has been made, can the minister please tell us how many hearings victims have been able to participate in by video conference? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, certainly we will confirm the number of hearings that may have occurred. With regard to the hearings under the Parole Board of Canada, we want to ensure that victims and others are able to participate in a fair and transparent manner. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, the website says, To protect the health and safety of the public, offenders, Parole Board...members and staff in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PBC is currently conducting its hearings remotely via video conference or teleconference. However, when referring to victim participation, the PBC says it has Implemented technological and procedural enhancements in order to provide victims...the ability to participate...via telephone. If video conference is an option for staff and inmates, why is it not for victims? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, it is very important that all parties be able to participate before the Parole Board. The Parole Board has introduced technologies to allow victims to participate in a manner that is fair and that accords them the opportunity to express themselves. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, the minister is missing the point. For victims, besides the criminal trial, the Parole Board hearings are the only chance to participate in the judicial process. Why are victims not permitted on the video conference, while staff, panels and inmates are? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said now on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in the hearings before the Parole Board. This is as a result of technology and innovations introduced by the Parole Board. Of course, those opportunities will continue to exist going forward. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Then, Madam Chair, why did the minister and this government tell Canadians and the House that victims of crime have the opportunity to participate in parole hearings by video conference, when in fact they do not? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said, of course we are going to confirm the status of that particular request. In the meantime, as I've said on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in these hearings. This is consistent with the fairness of those hearings and the due process we accord to them. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, it's been over a month. When will the minister finally give victims of crime the same right to parole hearings by video conference as he gives convicted inmates? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I reject that proposition. The Parole Board is a well-established tribunal that does allow for all parties, including victims, to participate in a manner that is fair, and that allows them to express themselves so those representations can be taken into account in the decisions of the Parole Board of Canada. +Mr. Colin Carrie: He can reject it as much as he wants, Madam Chair, but it seems he thinks it's fair that inmates have that right, but victims don't. We'll follow up with him on that. Brandon Hottot owns and operates a contracting business in my riding, and his company needs help. On May 19, the Prime Minister announced the government would allow sole proprietors and gig contractors to qualify for the Canada emergency business account; however, Brandon has still not been able to take advantage of this benefit. When can small business owners like Brandon expect this change to finally be made? It's been over three weeks, and the clock is ticking. +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Madam Chair, from the very beginning, we have been working hard to support our small businesses. Over 660,000 businesses today have received access to small business loans. I want to assure my colleague that additional support will be there within about a week. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Carrie, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Okay, Madam Chair. Shawn and Denise operate a gymnastics facility in Whitby and have been forced to close throughout COVID-19. As the economy begins to open, they are concerned about not having the money to pay their employees in the short term, especially at a reduced client capacity. Is the government extending the wage subsidy to small businesses that have been closed and are just beginning to open now? +Hon. Mary Ng: The wage subsidy has been extended until August 31. We hope businesses like that one will be able to take advantage of the wage subsidy to keep their employees on staff. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to put it on the record, because we may or may not be debating it, the draft embargoed bill that we've seen is unacceptable to members of the Green Party caucus. My questions will relate largely to those sections that are troublesome. I'll start with a question to the honourable minister for disabilities. I certainly appreciate her work and I know her intentions are the best, but part 3 of this bill allows for the information to be shared so people can get a one-time payment of $600, which is not enough to really deal with the COVID crisis for people with disabilities. It's clearand I thank the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party for making this point clearly in question periodit will reach approximately 40% of people with disabilities because of the structure of going through the disability tax credit. To the honourable minister, are other measures under consideration to reach the rest of the people in Canada with disabilities who need help? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, the disability support payment we are proposing and that we hope to get through the House today complements a whole suite of measures our government has put in place that people with disabilities have access to. We know that people with disabilities who were precariously employed are now taking advantage of the CERB. Students with disabilities get the student benefit, including a $750-per-month top-up for four months. Families with children with disabilities are getting the CCB payment. Disproportionately, people with disabilities are benefiting from the GST payment. I should talk about the provincial letters that are being delivered to recipients of provincial disability supports. All around, Madam Chair, we're trying to get to every citizen with a disability, and this measure fills an important gap. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Much worse than part 3, from our point of view, is the treatment of people who are at this point potentially to be jailed for refusing to return to work when it's considered reasonable and they are recipients of CERB. I wonder about the reasonableness here. It's a subjective test. This is a wrong-headed approach to go after people and threaten them. The retroactive section has already made the Canadian Civil Liberties Association question its constitutionality. To the minister, what's reasonable, and in whose eyes is it reasonable? In today's news, Hamilton's chief medical officer says there is a spike in cases among young people, who likely were exposed while taking public transit to get to work. Their commute wasn't safe. Who determines reasonableness in deciding it's not safe to go back to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as with the current CERB, moving forward it tries to encompass the situations of people who are unemployed, people who can't work because of child care responsibilities, people who are ill or sick. Moving to a broad term of reasonableness allows us to look at the individual circumstances of the person. If we stuck to language like suitable or appropriate, that would qualify the job. We're trying to look at the person and their particular circumstances as we work to ensure that if someone is immunocompromised and can't take transit to their job, then it's reasonable for them not to take that job. That's the exact example we're trying to encompass with broad reasonableness criteria. +Ms. Elizabeth May: The approach is so very flawed, Madam Chair, in that it attempts to punish people as opposed to encouraging them. I think the Liberals have been overly influenced by the Conservative Party's cries that there's vast fraud, that Canadians are cheating. The reality is that if you want to create an incentive to go back to work, you don't threaten people. What you do is create a sliding scale. You let people continue to receive CERB, but maybe less as they begin to earn more, so that you have a transition on a sliding scale to go into the wage subsidy or into CERB. I ask the honourable minister this: How can it be considered fair to say that someone isn't eligible, even though they believed they were? The language in this bill, particularly at proposed paragraph 12.1 in the penalties section, is an unreasonable determination that someone has violated the act and is subject to jail time and heavy fines. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, because of parliamentary privilege, I can't and won't speak to specific acts of a piece of law that hasn't actually been introduced in the House, but I'll tell you that what we're trying to do is enhance our integrity measures. We're working with those people who made an honest mistake, those who took advantage of returning to work when they were still receiving the CERB. We're working with those people. We're absolutely confident that those people will find a path forward. We want to deal with intentional fraudsters, people who are criminally taking advantage of seniors. Members of this House have brought fact patterns to my attention and have said, Please deal with these. This is exactly what we're trying to deal with, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be sharing my time with the member from EsquimaltSaanichSooke. Tourism is a critical part of the economy throughout my riding, and after struggling with years of forest fires and floods, tourism was set to have a record-breaking year in 2020, but the COVID epidemic has burned tourism to the ground, in the words of a local leader. Thousands of jobs have evaporated. Over half of the tourism businesses in the region are facing imminent insolvency. Many of them are small seasonal operations that don't qualify for any of the government's COVID support programs. While funding for ad campaigns is appreciated, these businesses need direct support and they need certainty about that support. Can the finance minister pledge now to provide direct and timely support to tourism businesses in my riding? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you to my colleague for his important question. I agree with him. The tourism sector has been deeply impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. Yes, we were looking forward to another record-breaking year in 2020, but unfortunately the pandemic happened, and therefore many businesses were impacted. That's why, as a government, we're there to help with the wage subsidy, which has been extended until the end of August, as the tourism sector has been asking us to do; with the CEBA loans, the $40,000 loans, which also include a subsidy; and with the commercial rent relief. That said, we know the tourism sector also sometimes falls through the cracks. That's why we wanted to have a backstop. We came up with funding through the regional development agencies. In my colleague's riding, it's Western Economic Diversification. Some businesses have applied and have received funding. If there are more that need help, please come and see me. I would love to be there to help your community, help tourism +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: A big part of tourism in my riding is the wine sector. One thing that has allowed the wine industry to grow so dramatically in the past few decades is the excise tax exemption. That exemption could likely end very soon if it is found to be non-compliant with our trade agreements. The industry has proposed a trade-legal replacement, the wine growers' value-added program. The finance minister has known about this situation for months. Can he assure this House and the industry that the government will act immediately to implement this program? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer, please. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work on this issue. We recognize how important the wine industry is in B.C., and I assure the honourable member that I will come back to him and give him an update. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Madam Chair, this is National Blood Donor Week in Canada. While blood and plasma donations are always important, during this pandemic they're critical. There's a simple and effective way to increase the blood supply: End the gay blood ban. More than 17 other countries have no deferral because they know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than identity-based exclusions. The Liberals must agree, because they promised this in two election campaigns. Will the Minister of Health do more than repeat those same promises today and instead take action to get this unscientific and discriminatory gay blood ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Madam Chair, I'm glad to be able to answer this very important question. We indeed want to fight against discrimination. We feel this particularly strongly in the context of the last few days and the last few weeks. We are also mindful of the important contribution of scientists and other experts in this area. We look forward to working with all members in this House in making progress on that issue. +Mr. Randall Garrison: The government knows I've been calling on friends, family and allies of the gay community to donate blood this week in the place of those of us who cannot. Not only do we need routine blood donations, but to do the research we need on possible prevention and treatment of COVID-19, we urgently need plasma donations from those who have recovered. This ban means that plasma donations are being rejected for no good scientific reason. Again, when will the Minister of Health act to get this ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Madam Chair, I think the member used the right key words in referring to science and more prevention work to make sure that everyone lives in dignity and safety. Although there has been progress in the last few months and years on this important issue, there is more work to be done. +Mr. Randall Garrison: Six years ago this week, I tabled a motion in the House that called for an end to this homophobic and transphobic ban on blood donations from gay men, men who have sex with men and trans women. That was five ministers of health ago. At the time, I was told certain things had to happen before the ban could be lifted. These were all due to be completed earlier this year, before the COVID crisis. Since we appear to have cross-party support for my new motion, M-41, that I put on the notice paper this week, would the minister and the government agree to support a unanimous consent motion to proceed with M-41 immediately? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a short answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Madam Chair. Homophobia and transphobia are examples of discrimination and absolutely important things not only to recognize but to fight against. That's why we are pleased to have voices such as the member of Parliament's voice to make sure that we make progress in making sure that everyone in Canada lives in safety and in dignity. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): MadamChair, I will share my time with the honourable member for LongueuilSaint-Hubert. As Quebec starts to gradually emerge from the general lockdown, the outlook for the recovery of the tourism industry remains bleak. The economy of several regions of Quebec depends on tourism to ensure stability and balance, which will be beneficial in the coming months. Is the Minister of Finance prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit beyond 16weeks to ensure a living wage for tourism workers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: MadamChair, as I said in English, we're working very hard to continue to be there for all Canadians, whether it's through the CERB or the Canada emergency wage subsidy. Please excuse me, I'm very tired. I'll continue in English. We're going to have news on this very soon, Madam Chair, but the point is that we want to make sure that all of these programs work well together, whether it's the wage subsidy or the CERB. We want to make sure that we incentivize work, but we still continue to be there for Canadians. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We read that the government wants to gradually replace the Canada emergency response benefit by using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. That's all well and good, but seasonal industries aren't entitled to it under the current criteria. If the minister is aware of the importance of the tourism industry in the economic cycle of our regions, he must commit to helping workers. If the clientele isn't there, the industry will simply no longer exist. We still need the Canada emergency response benefit. We simply need to make it an employment incentive so as not to hurt people who are lucky enough to be able to go back to work. The question is simple: will the government commit to renewing it? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we are working hard to make sure we continue to support Canadians as we transition through economic recovery. We want to make sure that we support Canadians, but of course we don't want to disincentivize work. The CERB was created for a different purpose. We asked people to stay home to be safe and to self-isolate if they had symptoms. We want to make sure that as we ask people to go back to work, we don't disincentivize work, but the reality is that there won't be jobs there for everyone, and we need to continue to support everyone. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): MadamChair, I join my colleague in extending my good wishes to you on Portugal's national day. Apart from the fact that it is probably the most beautiful riding in Quebec, the riding of LongueuilSaint-Hubert has surely been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, both in terms of health and the economy. There are industries here, but also many service businesses, including bars, restaurants and theatres. But we aren't close to being able to go back and see a show by WajdiMouawad or FredPellerin, and that's a shame. We must work to calm the anxiety of these people. The arts sector was the first to stop its activities and will be the last to resume them. There is a lot of anxiety. The CERB ends on July4. Will the government extend the CERB, with an employment incentive? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: MadamChair, I thank my colleague for his question and all the work he's doing in arts and culture. From the outset, we've been there to support our artists and arts organizations. We introduced the Canada emergency response benefit, for example, but also the emergency wage subsidy, which we made available to non-governmental organizations. To ensure that people who receive royalties aren't penalized under the Canada emergency response benefit, we have adapted it. We announced a $500million fund to specifically help the arts and culture sector. In fact, we understand very well that this sector has been severely affected by the current crisis. We've been there for our artists and artisans, and we will continue to be. +Mr. Denis Trudel: Perfect. Instead of giving a long preamble, I'll ask a very simple question: will the CERB be extended on July5? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has the floor. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member opposite that in July we will be there for Canadian workers. +Mr. Denis Trudel: In my riding, a nice little restaurant called Crpe Caf on St-Charles Street in Longueuil has just closed its doors. It's final; it won't reopen. Another restaurant owner told me that he was going to reopen his restaurant, but he didn't know at what capacity. Would it be at 15%, 30%, 40%? No one knows. The speed at which the economy will recover is the big unknown. How many hours a week will it be able to offer its employees? Will it be 12hours, 15hours, 22hours? Will employees even want to return to work to put in 12hours a week? If the CERB isn't adjusted, nothing will happen. Will the government commit to extending the CERB and providing an employment incentive to get the economy moving again at full speed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: MadamChair, I know, of course, that the restaurant sector has been much affected. I have a great deal of empathy for what entrepreneurs and my colleague are going through in his riding. That's why we are currently helping our SMEs. We have money for economic development. The money is available through Canada Economic Development, or CED. If my colleague wants to work with me to provide support to restaurant owners and other restaurants in Longueuil, I'd be very happy to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Madam Chair, last month, on May 5, I asked the government how it plans to support the agriculture sector. The Liberals announced a $50-million food surplus purchase program as part of the agricultural aid package. Now, one month later, our farmers, who provide the food we need, are still waiting on funds to be delivered. The New Brunswick potato industry is sitting on a massive amount of last year's crop that, because of the pandemic, has no buyers. When will the Prime Minister and the government step up and deliver the support our farmers so desperately need? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, without question we want to continue to support farmers. My colleague Minister Bibeau has introduced hundreds of millions of dollars for farmers. In addition to that, we have provided relief and support for migrant workers, who are ensuring that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, when support for the agriculture sector was announced on May 4, our agriculture sector had been sounding the alarm for weeks that they needed help to continue to meet Canadians' food needs. It has been over a month since that announcement, and our farmers are still waiting for help. It is worth noting, Madam Chair, that vegetables like the potatoes in New Brunswick that I previously mentioned are perishable products. Our farmers do not have the luxury of time. Again, will the Prime Minister and this government make agriculture a priority and provide them with the support they desperately need right now? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Madam Chair, obviously we believe in the importance of our regions and our rural communities, and that's why we've always made sure that agriculture was at the core of many of the decisions throughout this pandemic. That's why our colleague Minister Bibeau, who is the Minister of Agriculture, has been there providing the right liquidity and the right support through this pandemic. Of course we want to make sure that we continue to partner with provinces and territories, because we need their help in this context to make sure that all together we show strong economic support for our farmers, who are going through tough times. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: On May 1 the Liberals introduced a sweeping firearms ban through an order in council that outlawed 1,500 firearms. Recent reports show that since then, more and more firearms are quietly being added to the list of banned firearms, including many common hunting rifles and shotguns. Madam Chair, our hunters, outfitters, dealers and sport shooters are some of the most vetted members of our society. Why does the Prime Minister insist on making criminals out of law-abiding firearms owners instead of dealing with the criminals we already have? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I am very proud of this government's record when it comes to ensuring that we take out of our communities those guns that have one objective only, and that is to kill other people. We will always stand by that record, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to keep our communities safe. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, the Liberals have said that to compensate firearms owners, they will implement a national buyback program. Instead of targeting law-abiding firearms owners and their legally purchased private property, wouldn't the estimated quarter of a billion dollars needed to buy back these firearms be better utilized right now in supporting our agricultural sector, the very people who grow our food and literally keep our land? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, of course we look forward to saying more about that, but of course we remain committed to taking those guns that have only one objective, and that is to kill people. The legislation we have introduced and the measures we have taken are designed to keep our communities safe, and of course we will do that. We will also continue to support farmers, introducing hundreds of millions of dollars in support because we know they are providing Canadians with affordable food. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Bragdon, you have time for a short question. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, many sole proprietors have been hit extremely hard by this pandemic. My office has heard from many who have been in business for nearly 30 years and have submitted hundreds of HST returns, yet still cannot access the CEBA funding because they do not have a business chequing account, as a lot of small business owners use their personal chequing accounts to do their business. The Liberals offered aid to sole proprietors but attached unnecessary hurdles that prevent many of them from accessing the funds they desperately need to keep their businesses afloat. When will these unnecessary hurdles be removed so businesses can start to receive the relief they so desperately need? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will have a very short answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: We believe in the importance of making sure we're supporting our businesses, including sole proprietors. That is why our colleague, Minister Ng, the minister for small business, has been working on this and will continue to make sure we take the appropriate steps to recognize that. Meanwhile, people can definitely come to the regional development agencies if they don't have access to funding through banks, and that's a good way to make sure there is a backstop. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Please note that, pursuant to the Standing Order made on April20 and May26, the House has been recalled. Therefore, the committee will adjourn, and the House will begin sitting at 2:30p.m. The bells will be rung to call members, and a parade will begin the sitting. The meeting is adjourned. +","The conversation summary: + +The Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic met for its 20th meeting with the Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, reminding members of protocols for video conference participation. There were no ministerial announcements, and the committee moved on to document submissions, including the tabling of annual reports for the RCMP and for the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace, and security by Ministers Blair and Sajjan respectively. + +Members of various parties presented petitions concerning protection of pollinators and natural world, forced organ harvesting, the implementation of a green new deal, a guaranteed universal basic income, the Coastal GasLink project, and democracy in Guyana. Following this, members made statements, touching on topics such as local community spirit during COVID-19, support for businesses, recognition of high school graduates, the role of indigenous peoples in Canada, and the difficulties faced by specific communities. + +Questions to ministers followed, with the opposition asking about a range of issues from funding for the Auditor General, economic updates, aid for industries affected by COVID-19, the gay blood ban, support for the agriculture sector, and the lifting of firearms bans. + +The conversation repeatedly touched on the challenges faced by Canadians due to the pandemic, the need to adapt legislation and aids, and the desire for increased transparency and action from the government." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Suzy Davies is going to be arriving a little bit late. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No? Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is an evidence session to scrutinise the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Claire Bennett, who is deputy director for curriculum and assessment. Thank you all for attending this morning, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking you what the main messages are that you've received during the feedback period on the draft curriculum. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Chair. If I may, I think it's important to understand what the level of that feedback has been. So, there was a concerted effort and a plan drawn up to try and ensure that there was as much engagement, knowledge and opportunity as possible. So, working through the regional consortia, approximately 120 separate events were organised, and we believe that in the region of 6,000 headteachers, teachers, governors and teaching assistants have actually had an opportunity to participate in those events. We also held a number of focus group sessions specifically for young people themselves, so that they could give us their feedback. There were 24 focus groups that were arranged for children and young people. We also held some specific events to engage with the business community. We'll all be familiar, won't we, with the narrative of, 'Oh, we're sending people out into the world of business without the skills that we as an employer are looking for'. So we thought it was really important to engage business so that they can have their say and their input into the process. And obviously we work very hard on making it as easy as possible via new technology for people to have their say. So, Members, I'm sure, will have been aware of the specific pages on Hwb that outlined the draft curriculum, and we had 275,000 unique visits to the Hwb curriculum pages. It's really interesting to see the breakdown of the areas of learning and experience—which particular AoLEs were the most popular and were being looked at the most—with our creative and performing arts and the creativity and the expressive arts being the most popular. So that's really interesting that people really wanted to engage in the content of that particular AoLE. What, then, have people said to us? Well, I'm really pleased that there has been broad support for the curriculum changes that we are proposing. There's real support for the need for change, because that's the first question, actually; why are we doing this, and why do we need to change? So, support for the need for change, and lots of support for the principle of a purpose-led curriculum. So, good levels of support for the four purposes, and that driving the content below it. Strong support for greater autonomy and agency for the profession—so, the ability of the profession to take a framework and then truly let them adapt it to meet the needs of the children that they are working with in their communities. Also, a great welcome of the emphasis on formative assessment and the importance of formative assessment. In terms of some of the things that people are asking us to look again at, some of that is around some of the language used. Can we clarify, can we simplify in some areas, are there things that are repeated in a variety of AoLEs? Can we use that as an overarching, rather than repeating ourselves? Can we simplify it and clarify some of the language? Also, in some areas—. It's interesting; in some areas people want it simplified and cut down, but in other areas, people say, 'Well actually, in this bit of it, we need a bit more detail, and a bit more depth and clarity'. So we'll be reflecting on all the feedback that we've had. That process has already started, but considering that this is a massive change, I have been hugely encouraged, actually, by the high levels of engagement and support for the broad principles of what we're doing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister. You said that you're reflecting on the messages that you've received. Are you able to give the committee any early indication of what level of change you anticipate making to the guidance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's really important and what has been the strength of the process to date is that we are not doing this to our profession, we are doing it with our profession. So, in the spirit of co-construction, the reflection on the feedback will continue to be primarily led by the existing infrastructure that we already had that got us to this stage at present. So, Members will be aware that we've slightly changed the model. We had our pioneer school model and we have slightly refined that now. Pioneers were asked if they wanted to continue in that process and to put themselves forward, and we've narrowed that down now to a smaller group of innovative schools. But above and beyond the innovative schools, we looked at individuals who have specific expertise in subject areas, and they're the first part of that process. So, they met last week to begin looking at the feedback, and we'll continue to use the processes that we have to reflect and refine. Are there big changes to the concept? No. Opportunities to do things better, explain things better, simplify where possible, where we've been told that that needs to happen, provide greater depth where we've been told that needs to happen—absolutely. We're definitely very alive and very willing to engage in those, but in terms of the overall concept, then no, no significant changes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. And what are the steps now before the final curriculum is published in January 2020? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, the quality—. We call them—it's not a very nice name—quality improvement practitioners, the QI practitioners. So, these are the subject specialists. They met last week to begin this process. In October, there will be a number of workshops lasting three days at a time where those practitioners will continue that process of feedback with our curriculum and assessment group and all those people involved. By November, we would expect the QI groups to have completed their work and would want them to be in a position to hand over the refinements to an editorial process, and that has to be done in both languages. I think it's really important that we don't do it in English and then we simply translate it into Welsh. So, the editorial process will then be engaged to draw up the final example. It also, then, hands over to the publication team to do all the work on the publication, our website team will then be working on it, and then we would expect final publication in January—am I right, Claire? +Claire Bennett: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, January. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some specific questions now on the legislation from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You've touched on the point that there's going to be some sort of change, and you've mentioned in your paper to us that further specific aspects of the framework of the curriculum are going to be included in the primary legislation. We want to know what those aspects will be and what has made you change your mind. +Kirsty Williams AM: The original proposal that we began working on was, in the legislation, to provide for the four purposes—so, the four purposes would be set out in the legislation—as well as putting in law the areas of learning and experience that you'll all be familiar with. Then, below that, we were going to legislate for a number of the cross-curricular aspects—so, the literacy, the numeracy and the digital competency—as well as some elements where we had already said that we were going to make that statutory, so, for instance, above and beyond what Graham Donaldson would have put in his original reports. A good example of that is relationships and sexuality education. I've already made an announcement that I was going to put RSE on the face of the Bill. So, the two main new areas that we are now working on to include within the Bill are to ensure that there is breadth within the curriculum for everybody—. So, we will make a statutory provision for the 'what matters' statements. So, we're bringing it a step lower again. Rather than simply, in law, leaving it at the AoLE level, we'll be bringing it down again to the 'what matters' statements within that, again, providing greater certainty and greater clarity about our expectations at a national level. We'll also be looking to include in the legislation provision for a statutory framework setting out our approach to progression in each of the AoLE areas. So, there has been in the Chamber—I can see Suzy is writing this down—Suzy has asked me questions about, 'How do you create a national expectation around progression?' We've reflected on that and our conversations with other people outside during this process, so we would look to have a statutory framework where our expectations of progression at a national level would be laid out. As I said, we are proposing those changes because of responses that we've had. One of the consistent worries that some people have had, whilst being very supportive of the overall aims, is how do you get that balance between individual autonomy in the school, but also ensure that there is some national expectation and that the variation on these important things is not so great as to cause concern. So, we've reflected on that. I set up a process—this was an open process, and we were open to listening to people. So, I think those will be the two main areas where we hadn't originally thought that we would legislate for, but that we will now legislate for. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Great. That's very helpful. I haven't got the 'what matters' statements in front of me— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, if you remember, we have the four purposes, and then we have the areas of learning and experience, and then, below the areas of learning and experience are the broad concepts that we would expect to be delivered in each of those areas of learning and experience. So, we're going to be refining some of those. Some of the feedback that we've had is that— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, will you be adding to those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Adding is not necessarily—no, not adding. But, for instance, the children have given us some interesting feedback about what they feel really matters in those areas of learning and experience. So, they'll be refined, but not added to, and then we will legislate for them, and that hadn't been the original intention. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Will they include mental health and well-being? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the area of learning and experience for well-being is already there, and underneath that area of learning title, there are the broad concepts of what matters, what we believe matters, in that area of learning, and it is that that we will now actually put into the legislation. Sorry, I'm not helping, because I haven't got them with me either to read them out. +Lynne Neagle AM: They are in the annex to the paper, Siân, and, obviously, mental health is in there. So, just to clarify, then, that would mean that every school would have to teach mental health by law. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, because the 'what matters' states very clearly the broad concepts in health and well-being. It refers to both physical and mental health, and we intend to legislate to ensure that the 'what matters' statements are a set given in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Claire, am I explaining it okay? +Claire Bennett: Yes, the 'what matters' are the articulation of the big ideas. These are the essence of the core content. So, the idea is to make sure that those are consistent, and then that still leaves huge flexibility underneath as to how to approach those, which particular topics to select in how to actually teach them. But the concept that you might not do one 'what matters'—it was never what was intended. They were always intended to represent, as a whole, the learning that every learner should get. They won't be literally in the Bill, because, obviously, you might want to change the emphasis, so that'll be provided for in subordinate legislation, but the provision will be there, and they will have the status of something that's not optional, basically, for a school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, it's not going to be on the face of the Bill—the mental health aspect, for example. And there are other matters that we've raised here. This is what I'm not clear about. You're saying that it's subordinate, but then you're saying— +Kirsty Williams AM: So, on the face of the Bill, we will make provision to say that the 'what matters' statements have to be delivered. Over time, the 'what matters' statements might change. So the actual wording of the 'what matters' statements will be in secondary legislation; the need to deliver and the requirement, the legal requirement to deliver the 'what matters' statement, will be on the face of the Bill. So, for instance, education is changing all the time. If I think, if we had sat here 20 years ago, we probably, in a 'what matters' statement on health and well-being, wouldn't have referred to mental health, 20 years ago, because our understanding as a society, our willingness as a society to engage in that—. So, if we had drawn up a 'what matters' statement even a decade ago, I suspect we wouldn't have talked about mental health. So, the concept of having to deliver the 'what matters' statement will be in the primary legislation; the actual wording, because otherwise if you wanted to change it you'd have to go through the entire process—. So, the wording of the 'what matters' statement will be in secondary legislation. The actual need and the compulsion, the expectation that you have to do that, will be on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this question of the distinction between primary and secondary legislation. The point you've made is one that Government has made with other legislation prior to this, but can I just ask you to consider the worthiness, if you like, or the good purpose of actually putting the wording of the 'what matters' statements, the first round of those, in the primary legislation on the basis that they can be amended through affirmative procedure secondary legislation when they need changing in due course? The reason I ask this is just to explain to the population of Wales that there is certainty at the first step, bearing in mind that it will change over the years—I completely accept that. But when you're amending primary legislation, you don't have to go through the whole process again—you can do it via secondary legislation provided the correct powers are put in the primary legislation to do that. So, I'm just asking you to consider that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, as I said, I think we've demonstrated that we're listening to people, that there has been concern expressed about certainty and having a national approach on some of these issues, and we have taken steps to address that and we'll continue to reflect, but, crucially, we'll continue to reflect with our partners who are co-constructing this with us. And I think the important thing to remember is that it's not Ministers or civil servants that are necessarily drawing up these 'what matters' statements, it is practitioners themselves, guided by experts in the field that are not teachers, that have come up with these things. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Obviously, the Bill will presumably come to this committee— +Kirsty Williams AM: We're assuming so. +Lynne Neagle AM: And we'll have an opportunity to influence it. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Moving on, therefore, to the religious education and relationships and sexuality education, I understand that you've had numerous responses to the White Paper surrounding this particular area. What are the main points that were raised with you and how do you intend to respond to what's been said? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, these two areas certainly have ensured that lots of people have responded. It's interesting that people are far more interested in what we may or may not do about these two subjects than maths, English, Welsh, science, but there we go; I guess it's the nature of the areas that we're talking about. With regard to religious education, we had a significant number of people that have expressed concerns about our approaches towards RE that were set out in the White Paper. I think amongst the things that people have objected to were—. There were very mixed views on the inclusion of a range of faiths and world religions included in that area of learning. Many people said that there needed to be a much clearer and stronger—and in some cases exclusive—focus on Christianity, as opposed to including other world religions and, indeed, non-religious views. So, secular views or spiritual—spirituality rather than organised religion. There were people who thought that RE shouldn't be compulsory at all and therefore our proposals to ensure that RE was compulsory, people objected to that, on the other—. And there were many responses that were concerned about and emphasised the need to respect parents' views. So, if a child's parents have certain views, those are to be respected. Of those respondents that agreed that RE should be a compulsory part of the curriculum, or were neutral—didn't express an opinion either way, but were neutral on the question—the issues that they were bringing forward were: a need for learners, as they saw it, to be prepared to be part of a diverse and multicultural society. So, they wanted RE to be much more broad-based and encompassing of world views and world religions. They felt that that was an important part of preparing a young person to live in a world that is, as you say, diverse with people of different views living in it. There is certainly a need to modernise RE; some people perceived the current curriculum as a bit old-fashioned. And also there was much feedback on making sure that the profession was ready to deliver a renewed, modernised RE curriculum. So, those are the issues around religious education— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I just—? Before you go on to the next section—is there evidence that this was a co-ordinated lobby to present a particular view and what is your response going to be to this? Obviously, there are always going to be lobbies presenting particular viewpoints. Our role, as politicians, is to lead, obviously, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Claire, would you say that it was a co-ordinated response? +Claire Bennett: It wasn't a campaign in the sense of it being completely consistent, but, certainly, I think people with a particular interest in this issues felt galvanised to respond to the White Paper on this issue—on this one and on relationships and sex education. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And your response? +Kirsty Williams AM: And my response: well, clearly, Siân, I need to consider those responses, and both for RE and RSE, I shall be making a statement in the near future of our intentions on how to respond to these issues. With regard to RSE, the key messages, again, are focused on whether children should be taught RSE at all and that this should not be in the curriculum and it shouldn't be a compulsory part of the curriculum—that this was not an area where the school system and the education system should be involved, and that it should be alone the preserve of parents to teach children about issues around relationships and sexuality education. There were some issues raised about potential challenges with staff in talking about issues that they perhaps personally did not agree with with regard to this curriculum. So, those were the main areas that people were concerned about. With regard to guaranteed access to a full curriculum, there were strong views that, again, it should be parents, and parents alone, that made decisions about whether their children should have access to the entirety of the curriculum rather than schools or the state setting those rules. So, I have to reflect on what has come back as part of the consultation exercise. I think these are really important aspects of our curriculum. I think if we are to achieve the four purposes, and that's how we have always got to think about it, and if we agree that those are the kind of people and individuals we want leaving our compulsory education system—how do we achieve those purposes? How are they healthy, confident individuals? How are we to prepare our children to be ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world? So, we will reflect on what has come back to us, but I do believe that these are important aspects of the curriculum, if we are to achieve the four purposes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. You've also mentioned that there will be a final draft of the curriculum at the start of next year. What is the timetable for the Bill itself and for seeking Royal Assent for that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, as I said earlier, the expectation is that we will publish a final version of the curriculum in January 2020, so schools will then have the opportunity to be really engaging in it. I have to say, I'm in schools most weeks, and many, many, many schools are already taking the opportunity, even on the draft, to begin to think about planning and, indeed, changing what they're doing in schools. I'm overwhelmed, actually, by the enthusiasm of the sector to embrace what is a massive change for them. So, that's January. We would expect to introduce the Bill following the Easter recess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That gives enough time, then, for it to be— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: —actually implemented in September— +Kirsty Williams AM: In 2022. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In 2022, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think what's really important is that we get the actual curriculum out in January itself, because that's the bit that schools are really concerned about, and then we will have the process here to underpin it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now on potential unintended consequences, and other matters relating to that, from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask what value you place on the work done by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods and the presentation so far and the paper to be presented by Dr Nigel Newton? +Kirsty Williams AM: I always—and Welsh Government are big supporters of WISERD and the work that they do, and, in fact, we need more research into Welsh education, not less. Therefore, I find their papers really helpful and help us to inform our work. I think what's really important in perhaps this piece of work is to say that I hope that, in the time where I've had an influence to influence over Welsh education, either as a backbencher or now as a Minister, equality and principles of equity have always driven what I've tried to achieve. And I would never undertake a policy reform that I thought would lead to less equity in the Welsh education system. Closing the attainment gap is a core element of the national mission for education in Wales and we would not proceed with anything that we thought could lead to an exacerbation of an achievement gap. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And how do you respond, then—? I mean, it's a balanced paper, it looks at pros and cons and there's a mixed picture from it. How do you respond to the specific statement that Dr Nigel Newton said that the curriculum could exacerbate segregation within schools between different groups of pupils? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think what the paper acknowledges is that there is no evidence that that will happen. These are 'coulds' and 'maybes' and things that we need, as a Government, to take into consideration as we plan this journey. There can't be any empirical research done at the moment because the curriculum isn't being delivered, but I understand, and we need listen to—. If there are concerns out there in the field that these are unintended consequences that we may fall into—that is the value of that piece of research that helps inform us. I have to say, though, the curriculum in itself is neither going to necessarily on its own hugely enhance equity nor detract from equity, in the sense that the curriculum is what's taught in our schools. There is an opportunity, I believe, that empowering teachers to be able to be more flexible in what they teach their children actually gives us an opportunity to deliver lessons that could be much more engaging and much more relevant to some of our schoolchildren than what they have at the moment. What will make the curriculum a success for all of our children, and I believe will have a bigger impact on children who are in danger of being left behind, are the four enabling purposes of the curriculum. So, the curriculum on its own can play a part, but it will only be as good as the four enabling elements that surround it. And that is strong leadership of our schools that ensures that there is no segregation, that has high expectation of all of our children, and delivers a curriculum within that setting that meets the needs of the children there. Secondly: excellent teaching. In the end, no education system, whatever its curriculum, can exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out. So, the curriculum can be the most exciting, wonderful—and I think it is exciting and I think it's wonderful—it can be the most exciting, wonderful thing in the world, but if teachers can't teach it effectively, if their pedagogy is not excellent, then the content itself—it won't work. Then we've got issues around assessment and accountability. So, how do you assess how children are doing in your new curriculum? How do you understand how that pupil, who has, you know—who could be vulnerable for a whole host of reasons, usually reasons outside of the school—? That pupil is vulnerable. How can you assess how that pupil is and move their learning along in an appropriate fashion? And then, finally, the well-being of the child. People sometimes say, 'Oh, you're going soft—typical, going soft'. But what we know is that we cannot expect children to learn unless we address issues around their well-being. But we also know that poor achievement is also detrimental to a child's well-being. There's been lots and lots of research done, not in a Welsh context but in other systems, where children are kept behind for a year. That has a massive impact on their well-being. So, good achievement leads to good well-being, but good well-being also leads to good achievement, and you can't separate the two. So, the curriculum on its own will not be enough. It is the four enabling objectives that sit around it, and we have to be cognisant of the WISERD's research, of course we do, to ensure that, as we're doing our professional learning, as we're planning well-being for our children, as we think about assessment methods and how we develop a culture of strong leaders in our schools—and we have some, we have many, but we need to do more to support them—it is that that will make the biggest difference, not just the content of the curriculum on its own. Although I do believe the flexibility that we're allowing people will, I think, lead to a curriculum and more meaningful lessons for some children in schools who are in danger of disengaging because they don't understand why they're being asked to learn what they're learning, they don't see the relevance of what they're learning to what they may want to do or how their lives are, or they don't see themselves reflected. So, for some of our communities, they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum that we're teaching at the moment. And, again, international research would suggest that, if you want a child to thrive, they have to see themselves and their community reflected in what they're learning in schools. +Hefin David AM: What the WISERD research suggests is that the senior management teams—the management teams—would certainly buy into what you've just said, but the classroom teachers would be a little bit more sceptical. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, classroom teachers are absolutely crucial to this, which is why, first of all, we've taken the difficult step to delay the implementation of the curriculum to give us the time that we need to make sure that it's not just school leaders but it is individual classroom practitioners who have the skills that they need to make the most of the opportunity that the curriculum allows them. +Hefin David AM: So, if we look at some of the statements that were in the presentation by WISERD at the seminar two comments jump out: 'We'll end up'—this is from classroom teachers— 'We'll end up with a different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' and 'there will be no consistency'. And consistency is the one I'd particularly like to focus on: 'there will be no consistency across all schools in how the new curriculum is delivered which could affect outcomes'. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we've just talked, haven't we, about trying to ensure that there is greater consistency and that's why we're changing our approach to the legislation around the Bill. So, in terms of progression steps, there will be a statutory framework to ensure that progression is the same wherever you are in Wales. So, as I said, we're using this report, we're using this feedback, to inform decisions going forward. In terms of—. Read the first bit again. Was it—[Interruption.] Accountability, yes. +Hefin David AM: Yes: 'different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, as always, in education, teachers—understandably, because this is the regime that they have been a part of—immediately don't think about their pedagogy, they think about, 'How are judgments going to be made upon me as an individual?' And what we're trying to do is ensure that we are developing another accountability regime that is indeed in line with the purposes of the curriculum and doesn't work against the purposes of the curriculum. So, I understand why teachers are concerned. They spend a lot of time thinking about accountability and how they're going to be held accountable for their practice, but, again, what we want to do is provide reassurance that we are devising an accountability regime for our system that is in line with the purposes of the curriculum and puts us in line with the mainstream thought and reform process across the world of progressive education systems. +Hefin David AM: It was the segregation bit I was particularly interested in and the response with regard to disadvantaged pupils and pupils of lower attainment. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't—. I do not believe that any changes—and I would not pursue any changes that—would lead to a segregation. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And with regard to the connection between Welsh Government and local government and the concerns that the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Education Wales raised, what progress has been made on bridging the gap between—? Whether it's a perception gap or a practice gap, what progress has been made on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the last time we had this conversation in the committee I said that I think the comments that the WLGA and ADEW had made were reflective of an old piece of work and were not current and up to date, and I think progress had been made in that time, and I'm pleased to report the significant progress that's been made— +Hefin David AM: Bridges have been built. +Kirsty Williams AM: Bridges have been—. Well, from my perspective, the bridges were always there. But we've got renewed, energetic engagement from the WLGA and ADEW in all the arrangements that we have for the development of the curriculum and my understanding is that they have said publicly and in writing that they're very supportive of what's going on. +Hefin David AM: I'm sure they're watching and nodding vigorously now on Senedd.tv. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I will be with them tomorrow night and Friday morning and I'm sure if they've got any other views they'll let me know. +Hefin David AM: And the final question: there is a process, a model for this, which is Scotland. What kind of lessons are being learned from the introduction of their curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think the first thing to realise is that our curriculum is not a copycat of the Scottish curriculum, but it is always useful to reflect on how other systems have undertaken curriculum reform in their nation and to learn from any issues that have arisen. So, I think it's fair to say—and I spent time with some delegates from Scotland just this weekend at the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory conference that Wales hosted this year. Unfortunately, Minister Swinney was not able to attend at the very last minute because of Brexit preparedness work that he was involved in, but certainly their teaching union and their equivalent of the EWC in Scotland joined us as well as representatives from the Scottish Government, although not John himself, and they were very frank about some of the challenges that they had faced in introducing their curriculum. Part of that is about assessment and they had not really thought—. They spent all their time thinking about content and spent no time at all thinking about assessment. Assessment has been a crucial part of the process that we have been involved in. Professional learning, ensuring that the profession was properly prepared for the changes, I think they would agree that that wasn't necessarily—. The middle tier, which they don't have to the—. Well, they've got local authorities and regions, but whether they were truly engaged in what they were doing. So, I think we've learned—. Although our curriculum isn't a copycat, as I said, we have been able to learn from, and we've had people who have been deeply involved in the Scottish experience as part of some of our curriculum and assessment groups and some of the advice that we've had in terms of developing coherence. But, Steve, I don't know if—. You speak to your Scottish colleagues quite a lot. +Steve Davies: As I said, they're very forthright in sharing their learning and I think one of the critical elements was the extent to which assessment was considered at the outset alongside the curriculum content. So, that was critical, but we've embraced experts who were involved in that process who were part of our curriculum assessment group. So, they feed in throughout—not 'don't do this because Scotland has done it', but they feed some of that learning into the system. As the Minister said, we had seven other countries from across the world giving us feedback and input over four days as to where we can continue to look at what we're doing but also checks and balances against some of their experiences with this area of reform. +Kirsty Williams AM: The particular focus of this year's conference was on the issue of assessment and we were joined by colleagues from Scotland, from Ireland, from Iceland, from Finland, from Saskatchewan, from Nova Scotia and from Uruguay. +Hefin David AM: When did that take place? +Kirsty Williams AM: Where? +Hefin David AM: When. +Kirsty Williams AM: The weekend just gone. +Hefin David AM: Right. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. You've got a whole section on assessment, I don't know— +Suzy Davies AM: This isn't about assessment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: So, on the basis that this is not about assessment, you mentioned that one of the lessons learned from Scotland is that they said they spent too much time on curriculum content rather than assessment. Can you tell me a little bit about what you've learned about how they quality control the content, even though the content, of course, will be completely different in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, the content would be completely different. When I said they spent too much time, I said that the focus had been in their work about just talking about content and, actually, the assessment arrangements were bolted on at the end of the process. So, the curriculum was all designed and developed, it was sent out to schools, and then the question was raised: 'Oh, actually, what assessment methods—? How are going to assess how children are getting on?' But, Steve, you would have more details of their exact experience of quality control of the content— +Suzy Davies AM: Of the content, because every school is going to be very different at this. +Steve Davies: In terms of developing the guidance and the curriculum going out in January is concerned, I think—again, I don't want to be overly critical, but one of the findings was that they encouraged schools to go forth and multiply in terms of the materials and ideas and concepts that were coming through. What we learnt was to actually—the pioneer movement was to get a smaller group to develop those materials and look to engage through cluster groups. So, we had pioneers who worked with clusters to test the development of that concept before we were looking for schools to go away and develop a larger amount of content. So, in terms of the staging and measuring of bringing together the curriculum and the associated guidance, I think the time we've taken to actually get there and the strategy of using pioneer schools, external experts, back to pioneer schools, back to regions, or engaging regions in that, has been more measured and planned against a planned timescale, where everyone from the outset—with the exception of the extension of the one year—was clear on when we were going to be producing materials that would allow the profession to then take it and use it. I think—. Claire, do you want to add to that, or—? +Claire Bennett: I think, as we move forward, that kind of cluster approach remains really important. So, it's, as schools then think about, 'What am I going to do in my school?', that they're doing that in clusters together. When colleagues from the regional consortia were sharing their thinking with the curriculum assessment group last week, they were talking about the very specific and differentiated, I suppose, professional learning support that they would be offering to schools that have already done quite a lot of thinking and are quite far down this journey and then the kind of different sorts of approaches they would offer schools that are just starting out. Their emphasis was very much on this peer-to-peer sharing and support, so people aren't just going off in isolation. The other thing that will also help in that process will be the national network. So, there'll continue to be a focus for each area of learning and experience, bringing together the professional learning and the ongoing curriculum development, bringing together practitioners and experts and colleagues across the middle tier to give a bit of strategic direction and to be able to identify if there are areas where more support is needed. So, I think that a huge amount of thinking, particularly in the regions, has gone on into the practical support that can be given to schools, not just in engaging with the curriculum now, but then how they take it and think about then developing it in their schools. It feels like—I think Graham Donaldson was calling it a 'slow-burn process'. You don't start in 2022—people are already doing it and there's a lot of thought going into how to support continued sharing through the next two years. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think that's another difference, you see—that strong middle tier and the role that the middle tier is playing in Wales, which was absent in Scotland. So, this ability to work in networks to provide support to a network of schools, that wasn't available in the Scottish system and I think that makes—I think that helps us in the way that they just simply didn't have a structure that allowed them to do that. It's not a criticism of them; it's just that we have got a structure that we can utilise to do that support so that schools are not completely left on their own and they can be working with other schools, with their regional consortia, going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just have a quick—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Very quickly, because I want to move on to implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, sorry, I completely understand. Was one of the things that Scotland did—I don't want to use the word 'assess'—to monitor the pupil response to the curriculum as one of the means of deciding whether curricula in particular schools were working well enough? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know if they—. I don't know if they did, but one of the interesting things that we were reflecting on over the weekend is that, certainly some of the Canadian systems, in particular, which we were interested in, used pupil surveys as part of their accountability regime—so, actually taking the time to ask students how they felt, not just about the content of the new curriculum, but actually how they felt their school was doing. And so we're interested in looking, as I said, at some of the practices that other countries use to include pupil voice to find out what's happening. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's early thoughts, because we've only just heard about it ourselves. But that's the beauty of working with other countries. They found that particular useful and successful, and we're keen to see if we could do something similar. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'll keep my questions shorter. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Yes, just around preparations for the implementation, really. You touched on this briefly in response to some questions from Hefin David earlier on, but I'm just interested to know how the money that you announced for supporting teachers for the preparation of the implementation, how that's actually been used. What specifically have teachers been doing to prepare for its implementation? I know you've set aside about £24 million over two years. So, it's not an insignificant amount. I just wondered how that was being utilised. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, first of all, it's not an insignificant amount; it's the largest investment in professional learning since the history of devolution. So, you're right that it is not insignificant, and it was a hard-won resource, I can tell you, from my colleagues. Because, as I said earlier, the curriculum itself can be amazing, but if our teachers and our professionals are not equipped to deliver it, then all this change will be for nothing. So, investing in the profession is absolutely crucial. That money is being made available to each and every school and has empowered headteachers to really think, 'What are the professional needs of my school and the practitioners in my school?' Because, as we've just heard from Claire, there are some schools that have been part of the pioneer process from the very beginning and therefore are further along that development chain. There are other schools that maybe are only beginning now, now that it's published, to be really engaging with the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, there hasn't been a national programme, as such. +Kirsty Williams AM: There is a national element to it, but we've given the money to individual schools and individual headteachers because I have no way of knowing how each individual practitioner is ready or how much additional support they're going to need. There's no way I can know that. The people who do know that are the headteachers that are running our schools. But we have worked with the National Academy for Educational Leadership to put together a programme for headteachers, and that's national. The four regional consortia are working together to have a national approach for the first level of engagement. So, actually, the beginning of their discussion is about how you would implement a curriculum. The next stages will be much more focused on individual AoLE and area-specific professional learning. So, there is a national approach in terms of leadership. The regional consortia are working together to provide consistency for classroom teachers and teaching assistants, and then the next stage of that development is for subject specifics. Claire referred to the AoLE networks, and there's an opportunity then for people to engage in that. It's also important to say that that's not the end of the process. So, this September is the start of our new ITE courses, taught for the first time, and that's great. I'm concerned about what happens to people when they come out of ITE. So, we're looking at developing potentially a stronger set of support, again on a national basis, for those who are newly qualified, beginning their teaching career, because I don't think we've done that on a consistently good level across the country. We're also working with the regions to revisit and improve their coaching and mentoring schemes that they have across the system. We're also involved in—and I'm sure the committee has heard about it, so forgive me if I'm going over old ground—schools as learning organisations and the OECD work to support schools to develop that culture as a learning organisation. We know from very successful education systems in other parts of the world there is a strong, strong culture of self-evaluation as a first step in their school improvement system, and we've not been very good at that in Wales, we've not been strong at that, that's not the culture that we have had. We've kind of depended on a culture where a school does its thing and then somebody comes along and tells you whether you're good or bad, rather than the school really thinking itself deeply about, 'What are we doing well and what do we need to improve on?' So, the schools as learning organisations are an important part, again, so that money is being used for schools participating in that programme with support from the OECD. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And the money that you announced for this  professional development preparation, if you like, was for two years. So, there's going to clearly be an ongoing programme of preparation development and personal development, as well as anything else. But is there likely to be any more money allocated specifically beyond the two years that you've already allocated or is that going to be a question and negotiation with your colleagues? Or do you see what you've put in as being, 'This is what we need to develop or to prepare for the implementation. The rest would be what would be normal professional development beyond that'? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that was agreed was for a two-year period and, clearly, I continue to have conversations with the Minister for Finance and the First Minister around future allocations for professional learning, and I'm sure this committee and, indeed, members of this committee could help me in that task. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, fine. Can you tell us a bit about the innovation schools—the 16 innovation schools—and how you've made your decisions about who they might be, across which sectors, in primary, secondary and so on? So, basically, how they were selected and what you're expecting of them. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, all of our schools that had previously been pioneers were invited to apply to morph into the next phase, which is innovation schools, and they were asked to apply and there was a discussion held both internally within Welsh Government and with the consortia about which schools were best placed to be able to do that role and to continue to work with us, going forward. I think one of the lessons learned, and this was said in the committee, was that there was an upside to having pioneer schools, but there was a downside to having pioneer schools, and I think, at this stage of the game, we need to move away from that model and to really get the message to everybody that they all had to be pioneers now—everybody had to be a pioneer—because this is coming down the track and we don't want anybody just sitting there waiting until September 2022 and saying, 'Oh, gosh. I've got to do something new today'. Not that they would have done that, but—. So, the move away is partly to engender within the sector the fact that we've all got to engage in this now. The innovation schools have led to a very specific piece of work as we do the final refinement, and their main role is working with us on these final refinements to the content but also to the assessment issues and accountability issues. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes. There were 60 applicants from 170 previous pioneer schools. We've had 16—four per region. It was important that we engaged with the regions to get their view, and we've had evaluation being carried out— +Claire Bennett: Yes. So, during the first term of work, we asked them to really look at the curriculum as a whole—so, take the whole curriculum guidance and then think, 'How would I apply that in the school?, Does it make sense?, Can we work with it?, What are the issues?, What are the questions that arise for us for assessment?', and each of the schools produced a report setting out their reflections on, 'If I were putting this into practice—'. So, it's slightly different to the feedback we've had from other people, which has been more, 'Maybe you should emphasise this or change that wording' and kind of quite practical, and really about how you would realise this curriculum in a school. That's been drawn together into an overall report, drawing out the themes, by Wavehill, who are a kind of research company. It's been really useful, and the innovation schools met as part of the workshops last week. Having 16 headteachers in a room talking about how they see this curriculum and the way in which they would practically engage with it has been invaluable, in just making us think, even with all the practitioners that have been involved, 'How do we make this work for schools?', given that we've got schools and headteachers really engaging in the detail of how they would use it practically. So, it's been invaluable, and they're continuing on that work now this term to keep making sure that what we're doing is something that schools can actually realise practically. +Kirsty Williams AM: If you think of the pioneer model, pioneers were looking at specific aspects of the curriculum. So, you might have been a pioneer school because you had particular strengths in health and well-being, or you might have been a pioneer schools because you were particularly looking at professional learning needs to support the curriculum. This is about, at this stage, where we have a high degree of certainty about what it's going to look like, 'Actually, how do I as a school practically implement this in the round?', and the schools were chosen because of their ability to do that. But also we did need a mix of sector—secondary, primary—but also linguistically, to just try to make sure that this works in all the different types of schools we've got. Faith schools, as well, are involved. So, just trying the practical implementation now, now that we know exactly—not exactly— but we have a good idea what it's actually going to look like, so, 'How am I going to go about doing this?' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân has a supplementary. If I could ask as well, maybe you could provide the committee with a list of the new innovation schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, sure. No problem at all. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are you confident that every school across Wales is participating in this process of change now, because the danger is, in getting these pioneer schools—? I understand that they are discussing in clusters, and so on, but can you put your hand on your heart and say that every school is participating in this project now? +Steve Davies: I can't tell you that, absolutely, 100 per cent are definitely, totally, absolutely equally involved. The structure we've got in place across the regions is working with schools on their readiness to actually—not readiness to engage—start to deliver as we move through to the future. So, each region is a member of our operations board, which was in our governance structure. And we don't have a roll-call against all schools, but we require them, or request of them that they keep us informed of the networks. Every school is part of a network that links to it, and they gauge (1) the level of activity in it, (2) the outcomes of that work, because each of the networks, each of the clusters, produces work that the region brings together. But we've not got a monitoring system that says, 'Tick every box'. What I would say, and it touches on the point you raised earlier and in relation to Scotland, I think if we had 22 units of local authorities trying to do this, it would be incredibly complex and very difficult to deliver. At a regional level, we require the regions to engage with all schools through the cluster model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to clarify, because in your paper you talk about giving £30,000 to each, or to the innovation schools. Was that £30,000 each, or £30,000 for the project? +Kirsty Williams AM: Each school that participates in the innovation schools programme gets £30,000. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. My final question in this section is just about how we are going to deal with the issue of teachers who are not trained in Wales. So, teachers trained in England apply for jobs in Wales, but they obviously haven't been trained in the new curriculum. How are we actually going to deal with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, you're right—we will continue to have a system where teachers trained in Wales will teach in England and teachers trained in England or who have worked in England will come across the border, as well as teachers from other parts of the world coming to teach in our schools. I think that that will continue to happen. Indeed, when I'm feeling at my most confident and bullish about these issues, I think Wales will be a really attractive place to be a teacher because of the autonomy that we will be giving to our professionals, as well as an exciting new curriculum. So, I think, actually, potentially, we will have people coming across the border to teach here because it'll be a great place to be a professional. Clearly, already in some ways, programmes of study are already distinctive in Wales. We have a different exam board, if you're teaching at a secondary level. So, our programmes of study are already different and that does not preclude anybody from coming across to teach in our system from a different system. I believe that that's not a barrier to people continuing to do that. Clearly, there may be pedagogical concepts in the new curriculum that perhaps somebody who had trained in a different system would not be completely au fait with, but that is the ongoing role of professional learning within our school system, because we've just talked about the two years' worth of money; in an ideal world, if I was able to make long-term plans, I think there will be an ongoing, and there should always be an ongoing, provision for professional learning in our classrooms. And this shouldn't just be about just getting people ready for the curriculum and then taking away professional learning budgets. One of the ways in which I think we can attract teachers to Wales is to send a very clear message— and actually attract people into the profession and keep them in the profession, wherever they train—that you will have a career in teaching where you will be continually supported in your practice via professional learning. So, I do not see that this is an insurmountable issue. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, you'll still be recruiting on the basis of skills and adaptability and so on. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, of course. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got a lot of issues to cover, so I'm going to appeal for concise questions, concise answers. On to assessment, progression and accountability—Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. We've set the scene. What was the feedback like with regard to the draft assessment proposals? +Lynne Neagle AM: Excellent, concise question. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, the principles were broadly supported, Suzy. We received what I would describe as positive feedback regarding the emphasis placed on ongoing assessment that is there to support children's learning and progression. Key messages were perhaps to find a better way of expressing the purposes of assessment—we refer to a formative and summative assessment—and just being a bit clearer about what that actually means and being clear about definitions around it. But, generally, supported. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's a good concise answer as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, well done. +Suzy Davies AM: Obviously, we're all aware now of the distinction between assessment of pupils for their own progression and the evaluation of how a school does at certain points in its life cycle as well. Presumably, the way you're looking at this is to keep these items completely separate, and that evaluation and assessment proposals will be—. They're out in a separate document; their results are going to be coming forward in a separate document—is that right? There's a thick black line between these two concepts. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. I think some of the trouble that we've got ourselves in previously is because there has not been a clear distinction between assessment and accountability, and, when you start using assessment for accountability purposes, that's when, potentially, that assessment process gets corrupted and you have gaming. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, with the assessments, though, which is about pupil progression, will those results be published internally? Will parents get to see those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes. And that should be the purpose for assessment. The primary purpose for assessment is for that professional to be able to know how to move that child's educational journey on, and you would absolutely expect professionals to have those conversations with parents, whether they're using formative methods of assessment or summative methods of assessment. So, absolutely, you would expect teachers to be sharing information around assessment methods, whichever type they use, with parents, to describe and to inform parents about what happens next for their child. +Suzy Davies AM: Right. I accept that. Is it realistic, then, to expect parents, families, communities, not to think about that information when they're drawing conclusions about the school, notwithstanding that formal evaluation of those schools is going to be done completely separately? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, parents will always be interested in how the overall institution is doing. But the conversations I have with parents, and I certainly feel this myself as a parent—I'm interested in how my child is doing, how my child is getting on in school, what are the issues that that child has, and, more importantly, what is the school going to do about it? So, if my child is struggling for whatever reason, what is the school going to do about that to help that child? If my child happens to be exceptionally able and talented, how are you as a school going to make the most of my child's talents and move them on to fulfil their potential? So, undoubtedly, I can't control assumptions that parents will make, but it is absolutely clear in this system, and my intention is, that teachers should share assessment methods and outcomes with parents to have that conversation about what happens next. But I am absolutely clear that we do have to make this distinction between assessment for learning and an accountability in the system, otherwise we drive—inadvertently; people don't set out to do it, but we drive a set of behaviours that has negative unintended outcomes. We only have to look at the debacle around BTEC science to know that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I understand that. So, how—? Can you just briefly give us an indication of how you think the accountability, on both sides of that thick black line—the methodology—is likely to change with this? You mentioned that there's going to be an independent review of performance measurements coming shortly; we know that some of the existing ones have been ditched in fairly recent legislation. Without pre-empting the findings of such a review, have you got your top three likely expected changes? +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability. Well, we're moving to a system of schools as learning organisations, and a greater emphasis on self-evaluation, with external verification of that by Estyn, our inspectors. +Suzy Davies AM: And that will be reflected in the school categorisation system as well—will those indicators change, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, categorisation—again, the purpose for categorisation is not to make a judgment on a school in the sense of a league table; it's a triage process, categorisation. +Suzy Davies AM: It's how it seen, though, sometimes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, this is the issue, isn't it? This is the problem of designing a system where there are perfectly good reasons to introduce the system—and in this case it's a triage system to identify levels of support for a school. But then others come along and turn it into something else that it was never intended to be. And categorisation was never intended to be a way of expressing a league table of school performances; it's there to identify levels of support that a school can expect from its regional consortia. Now, we have, we have—we will continue to keep categorisation, but, since coming into office, we have tried to adapt categorisation simply away from pure data to a more formative assessment process, and categorisation will continue to evolve. The message is very clear: this is not to absolve our system of accountability. And the first level of accountability in that system has to be the professionalism of an individual member of staff—the moral purpose that I bring to my classroom today to do right by the children that are in front of me. That's the first level of our accountability, and therefore we have our new teaching standards. As a leader, we have new leadership standards. That's the first part of our accountability regime—the moral purpose our professionals bring to their work. So, categorisation will stay. Will it evolve? Yes, because it's been evolving over the last three years. This is about better accountability, smarter accountability, not less accountability. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just finally on that, there may be an argument, then, for scrapping categorisation, putting something else in place. But I suppose the core question is: how are the general public going to understand all those things that you've just mentioned about the teachers being able to teach, the leaders being able to lead, and how well a school is performing against KPIs on those measures? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, because we will still—. We will still have inspections, won't we? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's all going to go in through the Estyn reports. This is the kind of detail I'm after. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's the ultimate, isn't it? So, the ultimate is—. The ultimate system that we're going to get to and the ultimate arbiter and the part of the system that provides public assurance and public confidence ultimately ends in Estyn. But it starts with our teaching standards and the professionalism of individual members of staff. That's where it starts, and it ends in Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Will you just let me have this one? +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: I don't think I've quite followed that journey. Because I get the point of the end point being Estyn, and that's where the public assurance will be seen, but what about the public assurance at those early steps of the teaching standards and the leadership standards? Where will we see those demonstrated? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you would expect to see those demonstrated in the self-evaluation that a school will provide of itself, and then Estyn— +Suzy Davies AM: All right, so schools will be publishing self-evaluations annually, or something like that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, schools— +Steve Davies: The outcome of the self-evaluation is a school development plan. We expect those to be considerably enhanced. +Kirsty Williams AM: And available. +Steve Davies: We expect a series of priorities for a school to set itself as a result of prioritisation. We expect that to be published through the school website, so the outcomes of that. What we're looking at, in terms of what's brought to that, is not a narrow set of measures—just two measures, or one measure in a secondary school. The measures will still consider reflection on progress of children, but it'll also have reviews of mental health, well-being, how it approaches that and things that it wanted to do. It's broadening the evidence base. The school is evaluating—the outcome of that will be a development plan, annually published on the website. Within the plan, they will have a set area of priorities that they will be publishing. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the schools' ability—whether they do that well or whether they don't do it well—will be judged by Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, as my colleague Chair Dai Lloyd would say, 'Now we're into the needing serious agility territory'. So, we've got some questions on specific areas. Firstly from me: Qualifications Wales have told us that the curriculum must define qualifications rather than the other way around. What implications does that have for the amount of time that is needed to develop qualifications that are properly aligned with the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'd absolutely agree with Qualifications Wales. The qualifications have to arise out of the curriculum, and the qualifications should not be dictating the curriculum. Qualifications Wales, which I met with yesterday, I think—yes, yesterday; it seems a long time ago—will begin their national conversation about reform of qualifications as a result of curriculum reform in November. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. How is awareness and understanding of human rights, including children’s rights, being embedded in the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Children's rights, human rights—they've been key considerations throughout the design, and this is currently set out in overarching guidance and we continue to work with the children's commissioner's office to map the rights of the child across each area of learning and experience. And I'm delighted that the children's commissioner took the time to write to me during the feedback phase to say that they were very pleased that their initial assessment demonstrates that what we're proposing is a big step forward. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And how do you respond to the concerns expressed in the children's commissioner’s quarterly report of July 2019 that consultation materials for young people were not released until mid June, allowing just over a month for young people to engage? And they said it was disappointing that a plan was not in place at the start of the consultation period. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we undertook a specific programme of engagement with children and young people, as I said at the beginning. We had over 20 events where focus groups of young children were involved and we had a number of children who took the opportunity to feed back via different mechanisms. The output of that engagement and feedback has been drawn together into a report exploring learners' views about schools and learning. It's a powerful contribution and I think will actually effect change, especially in how the 'what matters' statements are worded. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Turning to the Welsh dimension in the new curriculum, the Learned Society of Wales has said that there needs to be a directory of resources to implement that Welsh dimension. Do you agree with that and will you be publishing such a resource? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have a separate programme of work that is looking at resources that are needed to support the curriculum. It's one of the conversations I had with Qualifications Wales yesterday to try to avoid the debacle that we've had previously, where we have new qualifications and the resources to support those qualifications aren't available. So, we're already having those conversations with Qualifications Wales and there is a piece of work that is ongoing to look at what are the resources that are necessary to support the curriculum. And this proposal by the Learned Society will be considered as part of that work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, in terms of the single continuum of learning with regard to the Welsh language, how are progression steps and achievement outcomes in Welsh-medium schools going to work and how are they going to work in English-medium schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Just on the Welsh dimension, I think it's really important that whatever resources we have to support the Welsh dimension are really, really, really broad and not confined to specific areas. I was in Swansea University just this week, looking at some of their Technocamp work that they're doing to help us with coding, and we had an amazing conversation about the Welsh contribution to the computing industry. And so my expectation is that that isn't taught in a history lesson—that, actually, when children are learning about coding, they get to hear that Welsh people have been at the forefront of developing this technology. So, that's—. When I talk about a Welsh dimension, I mean right the way across the curriculum, and I think that's important. With regard to—. The continuum for language will have to be contextualised depending on the setting where a child is being taught. We have to recognise—. We have to recognise that, and there will be progression points on that continuum that will be there to show progression both in Welsh language and in the English language, and they have to be contextualised. We recognise that children learning Welsh in a Welsh-medium school, their progressional on that point would be more speedy and quicker, and by the end of primary school they would be in a very different position than a child that was learning Welsh in an English-medium school. Vice versa—we've had this discussion before—if a child is going into Welsh medium, their progression in English perhaps from age three to seven would be very different from a child that was in an English-medium school, although the expectation would be that by 11 they would be in the same position. So, we have to contextualise that learning continuum depending on the medium of tuition with the school, but recognising that it is a progression. It isn't a start and never get any further. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With regard to the creative thinking element of PISA, I take it that you are adhering to the fact that the Welsh Government is opting out of the creative thinking tests with regard to PISA 2020. I don't entirely understand that because the new curriculum does place great emphasis on creative thinking and independent thinking. So, why not participate in these tests? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, for me, the key factor for making that decision, and I intend to stick to it, is in 2021 we will be expecting schools to be right in the middle of their preparation for the introduction of the new curriculum— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, so it's the timing. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, for me. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, later on, maybe when this is embedded— +Kirsty Williams AM: I think there could well be a different decision at a later date, but at 2021 this is not the right time to do it. Can I just say? In terms of creativity, Wales is seen as an exemplar by the OECD, especially our partnership with the Arts Council of Wales and creative learning through the arts. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I get that. That's why I don't understand why we're not actually going for it and showing how good we are through the PISA. But, I understand. +Kirsty Williams AM: There could well be a different decision, but for 2021 we're asking enough of people at the moment and this would be an unnecessary addition to cope with. I just don't think that that should be seen as us running away from it because we're worried about a lack of creativity in our education system. The very opposite is true. We are seen as exemplars by the OECD and some of the work that's been going on with creative learning through the schools is now being shared internationally. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you'll think about it for the next round of PISA. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh gosh, that shows that Siân thinks that I'll be here to make that decision. [Laughter.] That's very encouraging indeed. [Laughter.] +Steve Davies: One very quick technical point, Chair. We have not opted out of this. Countries were offered if they wished to take the invite to come into it, and a number of countries across the world are yet to make their decision on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet, you've got a question on physical activity. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can you give a guarantee that all children and young people, where appropriate, will take part in physical activity under the new curriculum for Wales? Also, how much time per week will the Government expect children and young people to spend undertaking physical activity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, all children will be given that opportunity, because if they are not then that school would be in breach of the expectations that will be set out in statute. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you monitor it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Again, Janet, I don't go around monitoring schools now. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, but through the systems and mechanisms in place. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course. As we've just said— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you ensure that every child has that opportunity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as we've just said, ultimately, we are not getting rid of our school improvement services and regional consortia, nor are we getting rid of Estyn. So, one would expect the quality of the curriculum to be a key consideration of any visit that Estyn would make to a school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a question on early years. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. To what extent will the new curriculum allow for the continuity of the way that the foundation phase is taught? Will there be any significant differences and have the early years professionals been involved in the development of the curriculum to date? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, early years professionals have been involved in the curriculum to date. One of the advantages, I think, of the new curriculum is to take the pedagogical principles that underpin our approach to early years education actually further into children's educational journey. I'm sure, Suzy, that you've had conversations that—. We have a certain pedagogical approach until the age of seven, and then all of a sudden, at seven, it's like, 'Forget all of that now. Sit down, pick up your pen and do this.' That's been really uncomfortable for many practitioners in our primary sector. So, actually, yes, statutory and non-statutory provision have been involved in the development of the curriculum because, of course, some of this is going to be delivered in the non-statutory sector. I'm very welcoming and supportive of that, but those pedagogical principles will now be available throughout that child's educational journey, rather than the false divide we've got at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: So, aside from the purposes and the AoLEs, the type of teaching is unlikely to change in the foundation phase settings. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The other end of the scale now: you report that one of the themes of the feedback from further education has been the need to ensure that the transition to post-16 education is supported so that the systems don't just clash against each other. How are you working on the sector at the moment to make sure that there's a decent dovetail? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, that's really important. We don't want to do anything in pre-16 that stops people going on to be successful in post-16, whichever route the child or young person decides to take. FE have been involved in every single AoLE and they're a part of the curriculum and assessment group. So, colleagues in FE have been part of this process throughout. And then in the conversations we had yesterday with Qualifications Wales around what qualifications will look like, I was very keen to take the opportunity to emphasise that any changes to qualifications should be a gateway to further study in FE, whichever type of route the child took. But FE have been involved in this process from the very beginning. +Suzy Davies AM: And you're confident they're geared up to accepting young people who have been educated in this way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. FE continues to be one of the real strengths of our education system. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a question now on governance arrangements. Suzy, you're down to do that one—sorry, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think you actually answered this at the beginning, but just to confirm that you're carrying on with the same governance set-up, the different groups that you've got, and there's nothing being added there or taken away. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And just finally from me, then, on pupil referral units: what arrangements will be in place to ensure that they can benefit from the new curriculum and how is that going to be reflected in the legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, we've been taking advice from Brett Pugh, who chairs the education otherwise than at school improvement group, and this has been an area where we've had to think really, really, really, really, really hard. So, what we intend to do for EOTAS and PRU is to set a minimum of what we would expect a child to receive. So, that would be around the four purposes; that would be around the cross-cutting themes of literacy, numeracy and digital competency and health and well-being. So, that would be the baseline of our expectation, that every pupil would get that. After that, then there needs to be a discussion and a focus on what is in the best interests of that particular pupil. One of the things we know about sometimes in EOTAS is we have very able and talented students who don't get access to the range of qualifications and courses that they have the capability and the aptitude to do. We also have to consider, though, that for some children they may be out of school for reasons, and telling them that they've got to do a full curriculum may be hugely detrimental to their mental health and well-being. So, for instance, to give an example, you could have a child who's very ill, and saying to them, 'You have to carry the full load of a curriculum' could be inappropriate. So, we'll be setting a minimum standard, as I said, around the purposes, around the cross-cutting themes and health and well-being, and then there will be an expectation that in conjunction with the child and the family an appropriate addition would be put in place to meet the needs of that child, recognising that they could have very different needs. Is that clear? +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, yes, and it's something that we'll probably look to build on when we look at our inquiry on EOTAS, which is coming up. Thank you. That concludes our questions. We've covered a lot of ground. So, can I thank you for attending and thank your officials for coming today? As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3 then is papers to note. As Members will see, there are a substantial number of papers to note—23 in total, which are in a supplementary pack. As there are so many, can I suggest that we note them all together and then we've got an opportunity to return to some of them in the private session afterwards? Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Thank you. Item 4 then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee in Wales met to scrutinize the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales. Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, Steve Davies, director of the education directorate, and Claire Bennett, deputy director for curriculum and assessment, attended as witnesses. The committee focused on feedback received during the consultation period, with broad support for curriculum changes and the need for reform; however, some called for clarification and simplification of language. They also discussed the importance of engaging with the business community and ensuring the curriculum prepares students for future employment. + +The committee inquired about adjustments to the guidance based on feedback, with the minister emphasizing a co-construction approach with education professionals. The steps before finalizing the curriculum include refining feedback and ensuring alignment in both Welsh and English. + +Further discussion touched on legislative aspects of the curriculum changes, with certain aspects to be included in primary legislation for clarity and national expectations, like the framework for progression. The Welsh Government plans to publish the final curriculum in January 2020 and introduce the corresponding Bill after the Easter recess, with implementation scheduled for September 2022. + +Additional topics included the potential unintended consequences of curriculum reform, particularly regarding equity and student segregation, as well as the role of local government and the lessons learned from Scotland's curriculum implementation. + +The committee also covered specific areas such as early years education, qualifications, physical activity, and governance arrangements. For pupil referral units, minimum standards based on the four purposes, literacy, numeracy, and health and well-being are expected, with flexibility to meet individual students' needs." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Hello . Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Hello . Ah . +Project Manager: You have to put it exactly on the on the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Plate ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I took your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Should I bring my uh pen too ? +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} yeah , no , +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's for me , I just have to make some notes . I got my uh mouse . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh I also forgot my mouse , +User Interface: Mouse . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: but I don't need my mouse , I think . +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Come on . There we are . +Industrial Designer: My laptop is crashing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Damn computers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cr +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Help help help . +User Interface: Let's just check one more time . Mm . +Marketing: Can you hear me ? Hello ? +Project Manager: Uh actually my laptop doesn't work , +Marketing: Test . +Project Manager: {gap} switch it on again . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: Oh no . +Marketing: Check . Okay . I think it works . +Industrial Designer: Test test . Yes , it's working . +Project Manager: So you all read what we are going to do or not ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: I think my laptop is a bit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: etchy . +Project Manager: I just made a a simple uh presentation . So you {gap} put some things in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . How does this work ? I dunno . {gap} +User Interface: One uh {disfmarker} most to the right . +Industrial Designer: Uh p +User Interface: Yes that one . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Press F_ eleven . +Project Manager: Ah cool . Okay . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's my name , {gap} . Uh we're going to make uh a remote control , you already know that . Just have a look , are we going to {disfmarker} uh this agenda of our meeting . You know , this is about twenty five minutes , this meeting . So um the {gap} thing we have to know is you already know what we're going to do , you also read what this the things {disfmarker} or , not yet , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay . So um , yeah , it has to be original , trendy , user-friendly {gap} that's what we're going to design . Uh first we have uh uh three steps of uh making the the remote control . Fir the first thing is th the functional design , that's very important . We have to look what the needs are , the effects of the functional design , and and how the mm the the remote control works , so that's where we're going to look in the functional design , it's for the f next meeting . The the second thing is the conceptual design , that's what it {disfmarker} that's uh the spe the specifications of the components and the properties and the specifications of the user interface . And we have to look what uh the market is doing for {disfmarker} what kind of uh remote controls are in the market . And the third thing is uh the detailed design um and that's exa yeah , you know what it is , it's exactly how it looks and whatever . {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} uh no , this is a {disfmarker} these are two smartboards , with the uh f uh s an introduction of that one . And you already saw {disfmarker} you know all that that you here can put uh things in the the red project uh map . +Marketing: Folder , +Project Manager: Folder , okay . +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: So no okay {gap} have a look at that one . Okay . So uh what we're going to do first is um so you can read . {vocalsound} You have to uh draw uh a favourite animal on the whiteboard +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um and say why it's your favourite animal . So and you have {disfmarker} this is just to try it out and we have to uh use a different pen colours and different thickness of the pen . So okay , so first have to show you , maybe you can come here to have a look how it works . Yes ? +Marketing: Ah I can see it now . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This a new page , it's okay . Use pen format . and a different colour can use here {gap} no I just take the pink . You take {disfmarker} oh there's no pink , okay , oh just purple , okay . +User Interface: Purple . +Project Manager: No blue . And uh line width {vocalsound} ten . Okay uh just take {disfmarker} what I'm going to draw is an elephant . Just draw slowly , because otherwise it won't work . It's a very nice elephant , you can see . I dunno what it looks {disfmarker} but it doesn't matter . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Looks very nice . +Project Manager: I just h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like this ? Oh no {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It look like a dinosaurs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A pink elephant . +Project Manager: Because I like {disfmarker} uh okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just takes so long , okay . Whatever , just . You erased this one . It's a bit slow you can see , this is a bit annoying . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so just for you guys just one of you can draw a painting if you want . Just don't +Marketing: Let me try one . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} yeah , just u use it like that , yeah . That's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Okay and then uh what's the colour ? How do I do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's in format . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . I'll take this one . Uh there has to be water , +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No it has to be an animal , so if that's it's {disfmarker} it should be a shna snake or something . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , but it's an animal it's an animal that lives in the water . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The water is important . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So I first uh draw the water . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Okay , and now I make the animal . It's a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: cool . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . So . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is a worm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm yeah , that's nice . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , who next ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh do you have to write down why {disfmarker} uh that doesn't matter , just {disfmarker} it's to get used to the whiteboard , but it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Just make a new blank new blank page . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well Paul ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Like this ? +Project Manager: Yeah , not too far to the to the t pen top . +User Interface: Okay . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: let's make it um a dog . Ooh . +Project Manager: Maybe you should hold your pen a bit more to the back , so that {disfmarker} no , to the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Ah okay . +Marketing: I think it's a pig . +User Interface: A pig ? +Project Manager: No , it's a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I can make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a dog . +User Interface: a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A sheep ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh we d only have twenty five minutes , so {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take it easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay , I make a cat of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I was gonna make a cat too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Use your fantasy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , not too quick . +Project Manager: Just hold it more more to the back then you don't have {gap} +User Interface: No +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: I have it . I just draw too quick I think . Okay , that's it . More . +Project Manager: No , that's okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to get used to it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I thought these pens would be just um {disfmarker} uh you write it down and you download it to Word , you already did it or no ? No , not yet , okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: But it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: it {disfmarker} but you actually got to write on the paper . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: You really got to write on that paper . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but I d I I thought it would be just in in in uh typed words in Word , +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's a real pen . +Project Manager: so that's not +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just a picture . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} it's just a picture . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: it's not that cool as I th thought it would be . +User Interface: You really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y you can you can't edit in the {disfmarker} edit it in Word . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: It's a donkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know , what time did we start this meeting , I'm not sure . +User Interface: Uh I think it was uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half past . +Marketing: Half past ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Brilliant . +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Nice , eh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , thank you . Now we just have to save everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is definitely the best one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh what we know is that we have to sell this uh remote control for about twenty five Euros . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excuse me . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . And uh we have to make a profit of fifty million Euros , so we have to uh use a big market in Europe . The production cost are about half the price of selling price , +User Interface: Piece of cake . +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: Uh easy . +Project Manager: So can someone make a a calculation about how many we have to sell of these to make fifty million , I dunno . Uh so we're gonna have {gap} a little discussion about um what experience are with a remote control the {gap} and everything , so just have a look how it {disfmarker} we think about remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah , my first question was does it have to be a {vocalsound} a universal remote control ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's a good question . +Marketing: Because we sell it uh uh uh lonely from the t and not with the television , we sell it uh apart . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I'm not I'm not sure , +Marketing: So I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's not mm {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it probably would be universal . +User Interface: Universal . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And only television ? Or more devices ? +Project Manager: I don't think you can buy a a a universal uh remote control for twenty five Euros , so {disfmarker} not sure , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm , maybe , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh you can buy a re a universal uh control for uh only twenty uh Euros +Project Manager: Okay , so we we just say we just say that's universal remote control . Okay , perfect . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: And uh also for the V_C_R_ and uh D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: Yeah , everything +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} so a lot of buttons {vocalsound} on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , probably . +User Interface: Not just a T_V_ . +Project Manager: No , just everything . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . so yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what what what's a remote control , it's just a black thing with some buttons on it , it's not {disfmarker} nothing very special , but um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we can try to make it special . +Project Manager: yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So do you have any ideas how it has to look for for usability or user {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I th I thought about um making it the same uh style as the television , {gap} {disfmarker} we don't have uh the same television uh all the time , so uh that's no matter . {vocalsound} Um if we uh control the V_C_R_ and the D_V_D_ player player with it uh it has to be clear , because uh kids and uh elderly are gonna use it , so uh it's not only for the uh technical persons . Um I think it must be a very good control , so you can uh uh uh act uh {vocalsound} use it from uh everywhere in your room , the the infrared uh thing must be from very good quality . +Project Manager: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . Should be a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Nothing {gap} N +Industrial Designer: And how big should it be ? +Marketing: No . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} It shouldn't be too big , +Marketing: I dunno um {disfmarker} +User Interface: but I don't think we can make it too small , 'cause it has to have a lot of functions , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We can't make it smaller than the things we see now I think . +Project Manager: Just big enough for the buttons we have , that's that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to make something uh like uh mobile phones that you can uh fold it opem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe then you can make it s smaller and uniquer , +Marketing: Yes +User Interface: maybe more trendy . +Project Manager: But you you you you think about uh uh one you can fold open . +User Interface: Fold open , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: where you can see uh more options . I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , that's cool . Maybe for the D_V_D_ pla player or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: n +Marketing: that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , something uh on top , just dren general things like volume and T_V_ channels and inside things you don't use that often . +Marketing: Ah right right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or you c +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: O or you could th think of an uh uh a small touch screen on the remote control . +Marketing: Oh that's good , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah b I wanted {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why should you use a touchscreen on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh maybe be uh it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are buttons on it . +User Interface: No you can make an uh manual in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or um maybe to keep it uh easy and uh small . +Project Manager: Okay . But it's not t t t too expensive to put a touchscreen on it . +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh like a a to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's much uh {disfmarker} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it would . +Marketing: Yeah but it's not reachable I think , touch screen . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And we have to care for uh the strength of the remote control , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because uh uh remote controls are most uh things in the house that falls down on the ground and it get often uh broken . +Project Manager: Yeah . So . And if you have a touch screen in it , it's definitely too too fragile uh fragile . +User Interface: Yeah , too fragile . +Marketing: Yeah and a lots uh uh lots of kids use it and touchscreen is not uh kids uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . You can put games on your remote control . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Kid-proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh how about the batteries ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh should you put it in a recharger or a {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh maybe that's a good idea , +Marketing: Ma maybe a home station . +Project Manager: just to put it on your television and just s recharge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you never have to use any batteries . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Maybe that's a good idea , but yeah , we have to look at the price now I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , how m how mu how how expensive uh is a normal recharger ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Well uh how much is your uh standards uh mobile phone recharger ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you buy it uh separately from your phone it's probably expensive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know what the project uh projection costs are for such a thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Maybe have {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh if you th look at the market , it's probably {disfmarker} it's still the best way just to put batteries in it , because maybe it's too expensive . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a home station is uh a really good idea , because uh lots of people are {disfmarker} uh lose their remote control and don't know where it is , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: and now you can put it always at the same place . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe it's {disfmarker} Therefore it's a good idea , but maybe it's expensive . +User Interface: Maybe uh use it as a separate option . Sell it uh separately . +Marketing: Yeah . You can {disfmarker} yeah , you can buy it with it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I have a mouse that's uh uh also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rechargeable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and you just have normal batteries that you can recharge and just put it in the station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you can change your batteries , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: The option , just the option , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh I I set something on paper already , {gap} size , looks , uh usable , uh the buttons on usable places , uh the the on off button must be on top , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it has to lay good in the hand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it be {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} does it has to b have to be um uh like a different form than a normal remote control +Marketing: Yeah , I don't I don't know I don't know +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think we have to look at that , +Marketing: if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause well you can do {gap} the standard way , but then you won't {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can make it very special , to create our own um looks , +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: but it's very hard to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N uh if if we want to make it special , we probably have to do a lot of testing , if it really works . +User Interface: Well you can um have uh {vocalsound} the basic things on the same place , like on off button on top and the T_V_ channels one two three four as a block , and then the volume uh obviously on t on top , so you can see . +Marketing: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the rest is uh you don't use that often , so if you have a clear button with an good icon on it , it should be clear as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it doesn't matter what place it is on the remote control I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you can do something unique with that . +Industrial Designer: And what we have to think about too is uh uh buttons that you use often are um maybe uh like when you fold it open , when you have it closed , you {vocalsound} can still uh do the th the functions . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , what Paul already said . +Project Manager: Yeah , just for the T_V_ and just the normal function , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh on on top are the the basic options on top , +Industrial Designer: But n {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , but uh i {vocalsound} basically when I'm watching T_V_ I'm just using like five buttons or so , +Marketing: and if you fold it open {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe it's +User Interface: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: That's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: maybe it's very hard to to make it fold open and to l look like it's very uh uh {disfmarker} what's it's called ? +Marketing: Mm . If you if if you make to fold open it's or also an {disfmarker} uh the strength uh is not s as good as a normal uh remote control . +Project Manager: {gap} Maybe it's hard t +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's right . So maybe we have to to uh keep it like mm a square , just normal remote control {gap} . +User Interface: Okay , but yeah . +Project Manager: Just think about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to close this uh to finish this uh meeting , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's some more things . We have uh another thirty minutes , so then we're going to meet again . So you know what you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um for m for me uh the Marketing Expert , the user requirements uh specification , do I need to think as a user , a as a a a only the looks and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , what you want to do with it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think this {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you have to n know if it's for s a T_V_ , a D_V_D_ player , all that things . Also from a user , but all these things together . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah , it's also about strength and uh for everything uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , everything . +User Interface: Yeah , I also wrote down some stuff +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: that you want on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no maybe not not uh {gap} , that's not a f that's something for for for {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Technical fun fu +Project Manager: That's not for you . Just if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what's in the market , what's normal , uh what kind of uh buttons do you have . +User Interface: What do you want to do with your remote control , what do you need on your remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's alright . +User Interface: I already wrote some down , some ideas . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , just {disfmarker} is that okay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: There's already a document in the folder about it . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: So see you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well done . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For the next time you have to uh put it exactly on the square , so {disfmarker} your laptop . +User Interface: I will . +Marketing: Oh Paul . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It didn't say that . +Project Manager: No , sorry . +User Interface: Your fault . +Marketing: Ciao . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye bye . +User Interface: Bye bye . +","A project team consisting of a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a Marketing expert, and a User Interface specialist convene to discuss and design a new remote control. Team members experience minor technical issues with their computers during the meeting. They focus on creating an original, trendy, and user-friendly product, laying out a three-step design process: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The project aims to make a universal remote control within a €25 price range, aiming for a €50 million profit through large European market sales. Ideas are considered, like incorporating a touchscreen and rechargeable batteries, but practicality and cost are concerns. They debate the physical design, button placement for ease of use by various age groups, and the need for durability. The initial steps are sketched, with the marketing expert tasked with gathering user requirements and preferences, while the team agrees to reconvene in 30 minutes to continue the discussion." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: to {disfmarker} to handle . +Grad D: Is that good ? +Grad C: Right . Yeah , I 've have never handled them . +Grad B: Goats eat cans , to my understanding . Tin cans . +Grad D: Did we need to do these things ? +Grad C: Wow . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Could I hit {disfmarker} hit F - seven to do that ? on the {disfmarker} Robert ? +Grad A: I 'm +Grad B: Oh , the remote will do it OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Cuz I 'm already up there ? +Grad A: in control here . +Grad B: You are in control . Already ? +Grad D: Wow , we 're all so high tech here . Yet another p PowerPoint presentation . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Well it makes it easier {pause} to do +Grad D: Certainly does . +Grad B: So , {pause} we were {disfmarker} Ah ! +Grad C: Johno , where are you ? +Grad B: OK . So , Let 's see . Which one of these buttons will do this for me ? Aha ! OK . +Grad C: Should you go back to the first one ? +Grad B: Do I wanna go back to the first one ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: I 'm sorry I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , {pause} just to {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . Introduce . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , um {vocalsound} Well , "" the search for the middle layer "" . It 's basically uh talks about uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It just refers to the fact that uh {pause} one of main things we had to do was to {pause} decide what the intermediate sort of nodes were , +Grad D: I can read ! I 'm kidding . +Grad C: you know , because {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But if you really want to find out what it 's about you have to {pause} click on the little {pause} light bulb . +Grad B: Although I 've {disfmarker} I 've never {disfmarker} I don't know what the light bulb is for . I didn't i install that into my {pause} PowerPoint presentation . +Grad A: It opens the Assistant that tells you that the font type is too small . +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Do you wanna try ? +Grad D: Ach u +Grad B: I 'd prefer not to . +Grad A: OK . Continue . +Grad D: It 's a needless good idea . Is that the idea ? +Grad A: Why are you doing this in this mode and not in the presentation mode ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because I 'm gonna switch to the JavaBayes program +Grad A: Oh ! OK . Of course . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and then {pause} if I do that it 'll mess everything up . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Is that OK ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's OK . +Grad A: Sure . +Grad C: Can you maximize the window ? +Grad D: Proceed . +Grad B: You want me to {disfmarker} Wait , what do you want me to do ? +Grad C: Can you maximize the window so all that stuff on the side isn't {disfmarker} doesn't appear ? +Grad A: No , It 's OK . It 's {disfmarker} It 'll work . +Grad B: Well I can do that , but then I have to end the presentation in the middle so I can go back to open up +Grad C: OK , fine . +Grad B: Here , let 's see if I can {disfmarker} +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: Very nice . +Grad B: Is that better ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I 'll also get rid of this "" Click to add notes "" . OK . +Grad D: Perfect . +Grad B: So then the features we decided {disfmarker} or we decided we were {disfmarker} talked about , right ? Uh the {disfmarker} the prosody , the discourse , {pause} verb choice . You know . We had a list of things like "" to go "" and "" to visit "" and what not . The "" landmark - iness "" of uh {disfmarker} I knew you 'd like that . +Grad D: Nice coinage . +Grad B: Thank you . uh , of a {disfmarker} of a building . Whether the and this i we actually have a separate feature but I decided to put it on the same line {pause} for space . "" Nice walls "" {vocalsound} which we can look up because I mean if you 're gonna {pause} get real close to a building in the Tango mode , right , there 's gotta be a reason for it . And it 's either because you 're in route to something else or you wanna look at the walls . The context , which in this case we 've limited to {pause} "" business person "" , "" tourist "" , or {pause} "" unknown "" , the time of day , and "" open to suggestions "" , isn't actually a feature . It 's {pause} "" We are open to suggestions . "" +Grad D: Right . can I just ask the nice walls part of it is that {vocalsound} uh , in this particular domain {disfmarker} you said {disfmarker} be {disfmarker} i it could be on two different lines but are you saying that in this particular domain it happens the {disfmarker} that landmark - iness cor is correlated with +Grad B: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad C: No . We have a separate +Grad B: They 're separate things . +Grad C: feature . +Grad D: their being nice w +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I either could put "" nice walls "" on its own line or "" open to suggestions "" off the slide . +Grad C: Like you could have a p +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} By "" nice "" you mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: You {disfmarker} Like you could have a post office with uh {disfmarker} you know , nice murals or something . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Or one time I was at this {disfmarker} +Grad D: So "" nice walls "" is a stand in for like architecturally it , uh {disfmarker} significant +Grad B: But see the thing is , if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Architecturally appealing from the outside . +Grad D: or something like that . OK . +Grad B: Yeah but if it 's architecturally significant you might be able to see it from {disfmarker} Like you m might be able to "" Vista "" it , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? And be able to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Appreciate it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , versus , like , I was at this place in Europe where they had little carvings of , like , dead people on the walls or something . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I don't remember w +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: It was a long time ago . +Grad D: There 's a lot of those . +Grad B: But if you looked at it real close , you could see the {disfmarker} the in intricacy of the {disfmarker} of the walls . +Grad D: OK . So that count as {disfmarker} counts as a nice wall . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} OK . Right . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} +Grad D: Something you want to inspect at close range {pause} because it 's interesting . +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Robert ? +Grad A: Well there {disfmarker} there is a term {pause} that 's often used . That 's "" saliency "" , or the "" salience "" of an object . And I was just wondering whether that 's the same as what you describe as "" landmark - iness "" . But it 's really not . I mean an object can be very salient +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: but not a landmark at all . +Grad D: Not a landmark at all . There 's landmark for um , touristic reasons and landmark for I don't know navigational reasons or something . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , we meant , uh , touristic reasons . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . but you can imagine maybe wanting the oth both kinds of things there for different um , goals . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Tourist - y landmarks also happen to be {disfmarker} Wouldn't {disfmarker} couldn't they also be {disfmarker} They 're not exclusive groups , are they ? Like {pause} non - tourist - y landmarks and +Grad A: Or it can be als +Grad B: direct navigational {disfmarker} +Grad D: They 're not mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Right . Definitely . +Grad B: OK , So our initial idea was not very satisfying , {pause} because {disfmarker} uh our initial idea was basically all the features pointing to the output node . Uh . +Grad D: So , a big flat structure . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: And uh , so we {disfmarker} Reasons being , you know , it 'd be a pain to set up all the probabilities for that . If we moved onto the next step and did learning of some sort , uh according Bhaskara we 'd be handicapped . I don't know belief - nets very well . +Grad C: Well usually , I mean , you know , N {disfmarker} If you have N features , then it 's two to the N {disfmarker} {pause} or exponential in N . +Grad B: And they wouldn't look pretty . So . +Grad C: Yeah , they 'd all be like pointing to the one node . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh . So then our next idea was to add a middle layer , right ? So the thinking behind that was {vocalsound} we have the features that we 've drawn {pause} from the communication of some {disfmarker} Like , the someone s The person at the screen is trying to communicate some abstract idea , like "" I 'm {disfmarker} "" the {disfmarker} the abstract idea being "" I am a tourist I want to go {pause} to this place . "" Right ? So we 're gonna set up features along the lines of where they want to go and {pause} what they 've said previously and whatnot . And then we have {pause} the means {vocalsound} that they should use . Right ? but the middle thing , we were thinking along the lines of maybe trying to figure out , like , the concept of whether they 're a tourist {pause} or {pause} whether they 're running an errand or something like that along those lines . Or {disfmarker} Yes , we could things we couldn't extract the {disfmarker} from the data , the hidden variables . Yes , good . So then the hidden variables {disfmarker} hair variables we came up with were whether someone was on a tour , running an errand , or whether they were in a hurry , because we were thinking uh , if they were in a hurry there 'd be less likely to {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} or th +Grad C: Want to do Vista , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: right ? Because {pause} if you want to view things you wouldn't be in a hurry . +Grad B: Or they might be more likely to be using the place that they want to go to as a {disfmarker} like a {pause} navigational point to go to another place . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Whether the destination was their final destination , whether the destination was closed . Those are all {disfmarker} And then "" Let 's look at the belief - net "" {comment} OK . So that means that I should switch to the {pause} other program . Um right now it 's still kind of {pause} in a toy {pause} version of it , because we didn't know the probabilities of {disfmarker} {pause} or {disfmarker} Well I 'll talk about it when I get the picture up . +Grad A: No one knows it . +Grad B: OK . So this right {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} Let 's see . What happens if I maximize this ? There we go . But uh {disfmarker} So . The mode {pause} basically has three different {pause} outputs . The probability {disfmarker} whether the probability of a Vista , Tango , or Enter . Um {disfmarker} The "" context "" , we simplified . Basically it 's just the businessman , the tourist , unknown . "" Verb used "" is actually personally amusing mainly because it 's {disfmarker} it 's just whether the verb is a Tango verb , an Enter verb , or a {pause} Vista verb . +Grad C: Yeah , that one needs a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are those mutually exclusive sets ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Not at all . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that needs a lot of work . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: But uh {vocalsound} {pause} that would 've made the probably significantly be more complicated to enter , +Grad D: Got it . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so we decided that for the purposes of this {pause} it 'd be simpler to just have three verbs . +Grad D: Yeah . Simple . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Stab at it . Yep . +Grad B: Right . Um {disfmarker} Why don't you mention things about this , Bhaskara , that I am {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} that are not coming to my mind right now . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so note the four nodes down there , the {disfmarker} sort of , the things that are not directly extracted . Actually , the five things . The "" closed "" is also not directly extracted I guess , from the uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well i it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: From the {pause} utterance ? +Grad B: it 's so it sort of is +Grad C: Actually , no , wait . +Grad B: because it 's {disfmarker} because have the {disfmarker} the time of day +Grad C: It is . OK , "" closed "" sort of is . +Grad B: and the close it just had the {disfmarker} er and what time it closed . +Grad C: Right , so f Right , but the other ones , the final destination , the whether they 're doing business , whether they 're in a hurry , and whether they 're tourists , that kind of thing is all uh {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} you know probabilistically depends on the other things . +Grad D: Inferred from the other ones ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And the mode , you know , depends on all those things only . +Grad B: Yeah the {disfmarker} {pause} the actual parse is somewhere up around in here . +Grad C: Yeah . So we haven't uh , managed {disfmarker} Like we don't have nodes for "" discourse "" and "" parse "" , although like in some sense they are parts of this belief - net . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The idea is that we just extract those features from them , so we don't actually have a node for the entire parse , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: because we 'd never do inference on it anyway , so . +Grad D: So some of the {disfmarker} the top row of things {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's "" Disc admission fee "" ? +Grad C: whether they discuss the admission fees . So we looked at the data and in a lot of data people were saying things like {vocalsound} "" Can I get to this place ? "" +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: "" What is the admission fee ? "" . So that 's like a huge uh clue that they 're trying to Enter the place rather than uh to Tango or Vista , +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: so . +Grad D: I see . +Grad B: There were {disfmarker} there 'd be other things besides just the admission fee , but {pause} you know , {pause} we didn't have {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That was like our example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: That was the {pause} initial one that we found . +Grad D: OK . So there are certain cues that are very strong {pause} either lexical or topic - based um , concept cues +Grad B: From the discourse that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: for one of those . And then in that second row {pause} or whatever that row of Time of Day through that {disfmarker} So all of those {disfmarker} Some of them come from the utterance and some of them are sort of {vocalsound} either world knowledge or situational {pause} things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? So that you have no distinction between those and OK . +Grad B: One , uh {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Um , anything else you want to say Bhaskara ? +Grad C: Um . +Grad D: "" Unmark @ @ Time of Day "" +Grad C: Yeah , I m I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're are a couple of more things . +Grad B: One thing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean Uh . I would actually suggest we go through this one more time so we {disfmarker} we all uh , agree on what {disfmarker} what the meaning of these things is at the moment and maybe {vocalsound} what changes we {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , th OK . so one thing I {disfmarker} I 'm you know unsure about , is how we have the discus uh {disfmarker} the "" admission fee "" thing set up . So one {pause} thing that we were thinking was {vocalsound} by doing the layers like this , Uh {disfmarker} we kept um {disfmarker} things from directly affecting the mode {pause} beyond the concept , but you could see perhaps discus the "" admission fee "" going directly to the mode pointing at "" Enter "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? Versus pointing to just at "" tourist "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But we just decided to keep all the things we extracted {pause} to point at the middle and then {pause} down . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Why is the landmark {disfmarker} OK . The landmark is facing to the tourists . That 's because we 're talking about landmarks as touristic landmarks not as possible um +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Navigational landmarks , +Grad D: Navigational cue . +Grad A: navigational landmarks +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: so Mm - hmm . Then {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , that would be {pause} whatever building they referred to . +Grad D: Prosody . +Grad C: Right . So let 's see . The variables . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Disc - "" admission fee "" is a binary thing , "" time of day "" is like morning , afternoon , night . Is that the deal ? Yeah . +Grad B: That 's how we have it currently set up , +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: but it could be , {pause} you know , based upon hour +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Whatever granularity . +Grad B: or {pause} dis we could discrete it {disfmarker} des descret - ize it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Normally context will include a huge amount of information , but um , we are just using the particular {vocalsound} part of the context which consists of the switch that they flick to indicate whether they 're a tourist or not , I guess . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: OK . So that 's given in their input . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} Right , +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: so it 's not really all of context . Similarly prosody is not all of prosody but simply {vocalsound} for our purposes whether or not they appear tense or relaxed . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . that 's very nice , huh ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} So the context is a switch between tourist or non - tourist ? +Grad C: and +Grad A: Or also unknown ? +Grad B: Or un {pause} unknown , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Unknown , right ? +Grad D: So final dest So it seems like that would really help you for doing business versus tourist , +Grad C: Which is th Which one ? +Grad D: but OK . so the the context being um , e I don't know if that question 's sort of in general , "" are you {disfmarker} "" I mean the {disfmarker} ar ar are do they allow business people to be doing non - business things at the moment ? +Grad C: Yeah , it does . +Grad D: OK . So then you just have some probabilities over {disfmarker} +Grad C: Everything is probablistic , and {disfmarker} There 's always {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . {disfmarker} over which which of those it is . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , right . So then landmark is {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . "" Verb used "" is like , right now we only have three values , but in general they would be a probability distribution over all verbs . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Rather , let me rephrase that . It {disfmarker} it can take values {vocalsound} in the set of all verbs , that they could possibly use . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um "" nice walls "" is binary , "" closed "" is binary "" final destination "" , again {disfmarker} Yeah , all those are binary I guess . And "" mode "" is one of three things . +Grad A: So , the {disfmarker} the middle layer is also binary ? No . +Grad C: Yeah , anything with a question mark after it in that picture is a binary node . +Grad A: Uh . It {disfmarker} Yeah . But all those things without question marks are also binary . Right ? +Grad C: Which things ? +Grad A: Nice walls ? +Grad B: Wi +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh . "" Nice walls "" is uh {disfmarker} something that we extract from our world knowledge . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , a Oh yeah . Sorry . It is binary . +Grad B: It is binary but it doesn't have question mark because it 's extracted . +Grad C: That 's true . Yeah . OK , I see your point . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I gotcha . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah , similarly "" closed "" , I guess . +Grad A: So we can either be in a hurry or not , but we cannot be in a medium hurry at the moment ? +Grad C: Well , we To do that we would add another uh {disfmarker} value for that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And that would require s updating the probability distribution for "" mode "" as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because it would now have to like uh {disfmarker} take that possibility into account . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Take a conti +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So um , of course this will happen when we think more about the kinds of verbs that are used in each cases +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but you can imagine that it 's verb plus various other things that are also not in the bottom layer that would {disfmarker} that would help you {disfmarker} Like it 's a conjunction of , I don't know , you know , the verb used and some other stuff that {disfmarker} that would {vocalsound} {pause} determine {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . Other syntactic information you mean ? +Grad D: Yeah . Exactly . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of the landmark is {disfmarker} is sort of the object right ? the argument in a sense ? +Grad D: Usually . I {disfmarker} I don't know if that 's always the case I {disfmarker} I guess haven't looked at the data as much as you guys have . So . Um . +Grad A: that 's always warping on something {disfmarker} some entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {disfmarker} Uh maybe at this stage we will {disfmarker} we do want to {disfmarker} uh sort of get {disfmarker} uh modifiers in there +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: because they may also tell us whether the person is in a hurry or not +Grad B: I want to get to the church quickly , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: That would be a cue . +Grad A: what 's the fastest way +Grad C: Yeah , correct . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Um . OK . +Grad B: Right . Excellent . Do we have anything else to say about this ? +Grad C: We can do a little demo . +Grad B: Oh the Yeah , we could . But the demo doesn't work very well . +Grad A: No , then it wouldn't be a demo I was just gonna s +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} We can do a demo in the sense that we can um , {vocalsound} just ob observe the fact that this will , in fact do inference . +Grad B: Observe nodes . +Grad C: So we can , you know , set some of the uh nodes and then try to find the probability of other nodes . +Grad D: Yeah . Go ahead . +Grad B: OK . Dat - dat - dah . What should I observe ? +Grad C: Just se set a few of them . You don't have to do the whole thing that we did last time . Just like uh , {vocalsound} maybe the fact that they use a certain verb {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Actually forget the verb . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: just uh {disfmarker} I don't know , say they discussed the admission fee {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the place has nice walls +Grad B: I love nice walls , OK ? I 'm a big fan . +Grad C: and it 's night . +Grad D: it 's starting to grow on me +Grad B: And the time of day is night ? +Grad C: Yeah , no wait . That {disfmarker} that doesn't uh {disfmarker} it 's not really consistent . They don't discuss the admission fee . Make that false . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad C: And it 's night . +Grad B: Oh , they {disfmarker} OK . Oh whoops . I forgot to uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That didn't work . +Grad B: Ach ! +Grad D: I 'd like to do that again . +Grad B: One thing that bugs me about JavaBayes is you have to click that and do this . +Grad D: Yeah . That seems kind of redundant but . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That all you want ? +Grad C: Yes . +Grad B: OK . So let 's see . I want {pause} to query , +Grad C: "" Go "" and , right , "" query "" . +Grad B: right ? the mode . OK , and then on here {disfmarker} So let 's see . +Grad C: So that {pause} is the probability that they 're Entering , Vista - ing or Tango - ing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: So slightly {pause} biased {pause} toward "" Tango "" ing +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: If it 's night time , {pause} they have not discussed admission fee , and the n walls are nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: So , yeah . I guess that {pause} sort of makes sense . The reason I say the {pause} demo doesn't work very well is yesterday we uh {disfmarker} {pause} observed everything in favor of {pause} taking a tour , and it came up as "" Tango "" , right ? Over and over again . We couldn't {disfmarker} we couldn't figure out how to turn it off of "" Tango "" . +Grad D: So . Uh - huh . +Grad C: It loves the Tango . +Grad D: Huh ! Um . +Grad C: Well , that 's obviously just to do with our probabilities . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Like , {pause} we totally hand - tuned the probabilities , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: right . We were like {vocalsound} "" hmm , well if the person does this and this and this , let 's say forty percent for this , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: fifty per "" Like , you know . So obviously that 's gonna happen . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it +Grad D: Maybe the bias toward "" Tango "" ing was yours , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's at {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} So we have to like fit the probabilities . +Grad B: Spent my youth practicing the tango de la muerte . +Grad D: So , the real case ? +Grad A: However you know , it {disfmarker} The purpose was not really , at this stage , to come up with meaningful probabilities but to get thinking about that hidden middle layer . And so th +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: We would actually {disfmarker} I guess once we look at the data more we 'll get more hidden {pause} nodes , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: but I 'd like to see more . Not because it would {pause} expedite the probabilities , cuz it wouldn't . It would actually slow that down tremendously . +Grad C: Um . Well , yeah , I guess . +Grad B: But . +Grad C: Not that much though . Only a little early . +Grad B: No , I think we should have uh {disfmarker} exponentially more {pause} middle nodes than features we 've extracted . I 'm ju I 'm just jo +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Are "" doing business "" versus "" tourist "" {disfmarker} They refer to your current task . Like {disfmarker} like current thing you want to do at this moment . +Grad C: Um . Yeah , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting point . Whether you 're {disfmarker} It 's whether {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are th +Grad C: I think it 's more like "" Are you are tourist ? are you in Ham - like Heidelberg for a {disfmarker} "" +Grad D: Oh , so , I thought that was directly given by the context {pause} switch . +Grad C: That 's a different thing . What if the context , which is not set , but still they say things like , "" I want to go {pause} uh , see the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the castle and uh , et cetera . "" +Grad A: Is it {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well the I kind of {pause} thought of "" doing business "" as more of running an errand type thing . +Grad C: Yeah . Business on the other hand is , uh , definitely what you 're doing . +Grad A: So if you run out of cash as a tourist , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you need to go to the AT +Grad B: So {pause} i wi th +Grad D: OK . Oh , I see , you may have a task . wh you have to go get money and so you are doing business at that stage . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: "" How do I get to the bank ? "" +Grad D: I see . Hmm . +Grad C: And that 'll affect whether you want to enter or you if you {disfmarker} kinda thing . +Grad D: OK . So the "" tourists "" node {pause} should be {pause} um , very consistent with the context node . Right ? If you say that 's more their {disfmarker} in general what their background is . +Grad C: Yeah , I think this context node is a bit of a {disfmarker} I don't know , like in d Uh {disfmarker} Do we {pause} wanna have {disfmarker} Like it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Are you assuming that or not ? Like is that to be {disfmarker} I mean if that 's accurate then that would determine tourist node . +Grad C: If the context were to set one way or another , that like strongly uh um , says something about whether {disfmarker} whether or not they 're tourists . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So what 's interesting is when it 's not {disfmarker} when it 's set to "" unknown "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: We - what set the {disfmarker} they set the context to "" unknown "" ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Right now we haven't observed it , so I guess it 's sort of averaging over all those three possibilities . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: But yes , you can set it to un "" unknown "" . +Grad A: And if we now do {disfmarker} leave everything else as is the results should be the same , +Grad B: Oops . +Grad A: right ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Well no , because we {disfmarker} Th - the way we set the probabilities {vocalsound} might not have {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an issue , right ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Pretty much the same ? +Grad C: Yeah , it is . So the issue is that um in belief - nets , it 's not common to do what we did of like having , you know , a d bunch of values and then "" unknown "" as an actual value . What 's common is you just like don't observe the variable , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: right , and then just marginalizes {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We didn't do this because we felt that there 'd {disfmarker} I guess we were thinking in terms of a switch that actually {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were thi Yeah , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: We were th +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} I don't know y what the right thing is to do for that . I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't know if I totally am happy with {vocalsound} the way it is . +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} Can we , um {disfmarker} How long would it take to {disfmarker} to add another {pause} node on the observatory and , um , play around with it ? +Grad C: Another node on what ? +Grad B: Uh , well it depends on how many things it 's linked to . +Grad A: Let 's just say make it really simple . If we create {pause} something that for example would be um {disfmarker} So th some things can be landmarks in your sense but {pause} they {pause} can never be entered ? So for example s a statue . +Grad C: Good point . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {pause} maybe we wanna have "" landmark "" {pause} meaning now "" enterable landmark "" versus , um something that 's simply just a vista point , for example . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad A: Yeah ? uh , a statue or um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So basically it 's addressing a variable that 's "" enterable or not "" . So like an "" enterable , question mark "" . +Grad B: Also {disfmarker} {pause} you know , didn't we have a {pause} size as one ? The size of the landmark . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Cuz if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um . Not when we were doing this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: but I guess at some point we did . +Grad B: For some reason I had that {disfmarker} OK , that was a thought that I had at one point but then went away . +Grad C: So you want to have a {disfmarker} a node for like whether or not it can be entered ? +Grad A: Well , for example , if we include that , yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: um , accessibility or something , yeah ? "" Is it {disfmarker} Can it be entered ? "" +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: then of course , this is {pause} sort of binary as well . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: And then um , there 's also the question whether it may be entered . In the sense that , you know , if it 's {pause} Tom {disfmarker} the house of Tom Cruise , you know , it 's enterable but you may not enter it . You know ? You 're not allowed to . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Unless you are , whatever , his {disfmarker} his divorce lawyer or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah ? and um {disfmarker} And these are very observable sort of from the {disfmarker} from the ontology sort of things . +Grad B: Way Does it actually help to distinguish between those two cases though ? Whether it 's practically speaking enterable , or actually physically enterable {pause} or not ? +Grad A: y y If {disfmarker} If you 're running an errand you maybe more likely to be able to enter places that are usually not {vocalsound} al w you 're not usually {disfmarker} not allowed to uh m +Grad D: It seems like it would for uh , uh {pause} determining whether they wanna go into it or not . +Grad B: Well I can see why {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz they {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's get this uh b clearer . S so it 's matrix between if it 's not enterable , period . +Grad B: Whether it 's a {disfmarker} Whether it 's a public building , and whether it 's {disfmarker} actually has a door . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: This is sort of uh +Grad B: So Tom Cruise 's house is {pause} not a public building +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but it has a door . But the thing is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK , sh explain to me why it 's necessary {pause} to distinguish between whether something has a door and is {pause} not public . Or , if something {disfmarker} It seems like it 's equivalent to say that it doesn't have a door a {pause} and it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Or "" not public "" and "" not a door "" are equivalent things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: it seems like in practice . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . So we would have {disfmarker} What does it mean , then , that we have to {disfmarker} we have an object type statue . That really is an object type . So there is {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a bunch of statues . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: And then we have , for example , an object type , {pause} hmm , that 's a hotel . How about hotels ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So , the most famous building in Heidelberg is actually a hotel . It 's the hotel Zum Ritter , which is the only Renaissance building in Heidelberg that was left after {pause} the big destruction and for the Thirty Years War , blah - blah - blah . +Grad B: Hmm . Does it have nice walls ? +Grad A: It has wonderful walls . Um - And lots of detail , c and carvings , engravings and so forth , +Grad B: Excellent . +Grad A: so . But , um , it 's still an unlikely candidate for the Tango mode I {pause} must say . But . Um . So {disfmarker} s So if you are a d Well it 's very tricky . So I guess your question is {disfmarker} so far I have no really arg no real argument why to differentiate between statues as {disfmarker} statues and houses of celebrities , from that point of view . Huh . OK . Let {disfmarker} Let 's do a {disfmarker} Can we add , just so I can see how it 's done , uh , a "" has door "" {pause} property or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: What would it , uh , connect to ? Like , what would , uh , it affect ? +Grad A: Um , I think , um , it might affect {disfmarker} Oh actually it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it wouldn't affect any of our nodes , right ? +Grad C: What I was thinking was if you had a {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it affects th The "" doing business "" is certainly not . +Grad B: You could affect {disfmarker} {pause} Theoretically you could affect "" doing business "" with "" has door "" . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: It should , um , inhibit that , +Grad C: Right . +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad A: right ? +Grad C: Yeah , I don't know if JavaBayes is nice about that . It might be that if you add a new thing pointing to a variable , you just like {disfmarker} it just overwrites everything . But {pause} you can check . +Grad B: Well , {pause} we have it saved . So . {vocalsound} We can rel open it up again . +Grad C: OK . It 's true . +Grad B: The {pause} safety net . +Grad D: I think you could just add it . I mean , I have before OK . Whew ! +Grad C: Well that 's fine , but we have to see the function now . Has it become all point fives or not ? +Grad D: Oh , right . +Grad B: Let 's see . So this is "" has door "" Uh , true , false . That 's acceptable . And I want to edit the function going to that , right ? Oh no . +Grad C: No . This is fine , +Grad B: Right . It was fine . +Grad C: this business . +Grad B: added this one . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: This {disfmarker} +Grad C: What would be nice if it {disfmarker} is if it just like kept the old function for either value but . Nope . Didn't {pause} do it . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Oh wait , it might be {disfmarker} Did we w Yes , that 's not good . +Grad C: That 's {pause} kind of annoying . +Grad A: OK , so just dis dismiss everything . Close it and {disfmarker} and load up the old state so {pause} it doesn't screw {disfmarker} screw that up . +Grad B: Let 's see . Oops . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Maybe you can read in ? +Grad C: Ha - So have you used JavaBayes a lot ? +Grad D: Yes . Really {vocalsound} I ha I 've {disfmarker} I haven't used it a lot and I haven't used it in the last you know many months so +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: um , uh , we can ask someone . +Grad C: It might be worth uh {disfmarker} asking around . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: Like , we looked at sort of uh {disfmarker} a page that had like a bunch of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . Srini {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Yeah , S I guess he 'd be the person . +Grad D: Srini 's the one to ask I would say . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . He might know . +Grad C: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: And . +Grad C: I mean in a way this is a lot of good features in Java it 's cra has a GUI and it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess those are the main two things . It does learning , it has {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: No it doesn't , actually . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think it did learning . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Maybe it did a little bit of learning , +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: I don't remember . +Grad C: Oh right . Maybe you 're right . OK . Right . But uh {disfmarker} it 's free . +Grad B: Which is w quite positive , yeah . +Grad C: But uh , yeah . Maybe another thing that uh {disfmarker} But I mean its interface is not the greatest . So . +Grad B: But actually it had an interface . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: A lot of them were like , you know . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Command line . +Grad B: Huh . +Grad A: What is the c code ? Can w can we see that ? How do you write the code +Grad B: The c +Grad A: or do you actually never have to write any code there ? +Grad C: Yeah . There is actually a text file that you can edit . But it 's {disfmarker} You don't have to do that . +Grad B: There 's like an XML format for {pause} Bayes - nets . +Grad C: Is it XML ? +Grad B: The - there is one . I don't know if this uses it . +Grad C: Oh , I see . No this doesn't use it . +Grad B: But it {disfmarker} +Grad C: I didn't think it did . +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad C: You can look at the text file . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But do you have it here ? +Grad B: Uh , yes I do actually . +Grad C: Well , maybe you don't . +Grad B: Let me see . +Grad C: Oh yes , of course . +Grad B: Oh man , +Grad C: Like , there 's the {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't n {pause} Is there an ampersand in DOS ? +Grad C: Nope . Just s l start up a new DOS . +Grad B: We - That 's alright . I can probably double cli click on it . +Grad C: Or {disfmarker} Yeah , right . +Grad A: n uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: Let 's see , come on . +Grad C: It 'll ask you what you {disfmarker} what it wants {disfmarker} what you want to open it with and see what BAT , I guess . +Grad B: One of these days , it should open this , theoretically . +Grad A: Go {disfmarker} Right mouse . Open with . +Grad B: Oh there we go . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} Oh ! +Grad B: Maybe it was just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh ! W Ah , it was dead . To the world . +Grad D: God ! +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Through the old Notepad . That 's my favorite editor . +Grad B: I like {disfmarker} I like Word Pad because it has the uh {disfmarker} the returns , +Grad A: Wordpad ? I {disfmarker} +Grad B: the carriage returns on some of them . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad B: You know how they get "" auto - fills "" I guess , +Grad A: Mmm - hmm . +Grad B: or whatever you call it . +Grad C: Anyway , there it is . +Grad A: So this is sort of LISP - y ? No . +Grad C: Uh , Yeah . +Grad B: It just basically looks like it just specifies a bunch of +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . That 's how actual probability tables are specified . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: As , like , lists of numbers . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So theoretically you could edit that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It just that {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: But {pause} they 're not very friendly . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah the ordering isn't very clear on {disfmarker} +Grad C: So you 'd have to like figure out {disfmarker} Like you have to go and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . The layout {pause} of the table . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually we could write a program that could generate this . +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think so . +Grad B: Yeah you could . +Grad D: You could . +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were doing it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah we can maybe write an interface th for uh entering probability distributions easily , something like {disfmarker} like a little script . That might {vocalsound} be worth it . +Grad A: And that might do . +Grad D: Yeah . I actually seem to recall Srini complaining about something to do with Entering probability so this is probably +Grad C: The other thing is it is in Java +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: so . +Grad B: We could {pause} manipulate the source {pause} itself ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Do you have the true source files or just the class ? +Grad B: I don't know if he actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . we do +Grad B: Does he {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I saw directory called "" source "" , +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I didn't e +Grad C: or {disfmarker} Yeah . Go up one ? +Grad B: Up one . Ah yes , good . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: "" Source "" . That 's {disfmarker} that 's quite nice . +Grad C: I don't know if it actually manipulate the source , though . That might be a bit complicated . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think it might {disfmarker} it might be simpler to just {pause} have a script that , you know {disfmarker} It 's , like , friendly , +Grad D: The d the data tables . +Grad C: it allows you enter things well . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: But if th if there is an XML {pause} file that {disfmarker} or format that it can also read {disfmarker} I mean it just reads this , right ? When it starts . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah I know there is an {disfmarker} I was looking on the we web page and he 's updated it for an XML version of I guess Bayes - nets . There 's a Bayes - net spec for {disfmarker} in XML . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: He 's {disfmarker} Like this guy has ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: The JavaBayes guy ? So {disfmarker} but , e he doesn't use it . So in what sense has he updated it ? +Grad B: Well th you can either {disfmarker} you ca or you can read both . +Grad C: Oh . I see . +Grad B: To my understanding . +Grad C: OK . That would be awesome . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Because uh {disfmarker} Well at least the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I could have misread the web page , I have a habit of doing that , but . +Grad A: OK , wonderful . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: So you got more slides ? +Grad B: Do I have more slides ? Um yes , one more . "" Future Work "" . I think every presentation have a should have a "" Future Work "" slide . But uh it 's basically {disfmarker} we already talked about all this stuff , so . +Grad C: Um . The additional thing is I guess learning the probabilities , {pause} also . E That 's maybe , I don't know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh that 's future future work . +Grad C: Does {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Very future . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And of course if you have a presentation that doesn't {disfmarker} have something that doesn't work at all , then you have "" What I learned "" , as a slide . +Grad D: Can't you have both ? +Grad B: You could . My first approach failed . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: What I learned . OK , so I think that uh our presentation 's finished . +Grad A: Good . +Grad B: I know what I like about these meetings is one person will nod , and then the next person will nod , and then it just goes all the way around the room . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I missed my turn . +Grad B: No I {disfmarker} Earlier I went {nonvocalsound} and Bhaskara went {nonvocalsound} and you did it . You did it . +Grad A: It 's like yawning . +Grad D: It 's like yawning . +Grad A: And this announcement was in stereo . +Grad C: Ha . +Grad A: OK . So this means um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Should I pull up the {pause} net again ? +Grad D: Yeah . Could you put the {disfmarker} the um , net up again ? +Grad B: Yes . There we go . +Grad D: Thanks . +Grad B: And actually I was {disfmarker} cuz I got a wireless mike on . +Grad D: So a more general thing than "" discussed admission fee "" um , could be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering whether the context , the background context of the discourse {vocalsound} might be {disfmarker} I don't know , if there 's a way to define it or maybe you know generalize it some way um , there might be other cues that , say , um , in the last few utterances there has been something that has strongly associated with say one of the particular modes uh , I don't know if that might be {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I think we {disfmarker} +Grad D: uh , and {disfmarker} and into that node would be various {disfmarker} various things that {disfmarker} that could have specifically come up . +Grad A: I think a {disfmarker} a sort of general strategy here {disfmarker} You know , this is {disfmarker} this is excellent because {disfmarker} um it gets you thinking along these terms {disfmarker} is that maybe we ob we could observe a couple of um discourse phenomena such as the admission fee , and something else and something else , that happened in the discourse before . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} let 's make those four . And maybe there are two um {disfmarker} So maybe this could be sort of a separate region of the net , {pause} which has two {disfmarker} {pause} has it 's own middle layer . Maybe this , you know , has some {pause} kind {pause} of um , funky thing that di if this and this may influence these hidden nodes of the discourse which is maybe something that is uh , a more general version of the actual {pause} phenomenon that you can observe . So things that point towards {disfmarker} +Grad B: So instead of single node , for {pause} like , if they said the word "" admission fee "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Exactly . +Grad B: "" admission fee "" , or maybe , you know , "" how much to enter "" +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: or you know something , other cues . +Grad D: Opening hours or something like that . +Grad B: Exactly . That would all f funnel into one node that would {pause} constitute entrance requirements or something like that . +Grad A: So "" pay a visit "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: uh uh d +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I mean it sort of get into plan recognition kinds of things in the discourse . I mean that 's like the bigger um , version of it . +Grad A: Exactly . Yeah ? And then maybe there are some discourse acts if they happened before , um it 's more for um a cue that the person actually wants to get somewhere else and that you are in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a route um , sort of proceeding past these things , so this would be just something that {disfmarker} where you want to pass it . Hmm ? Is that it ? However these are of course then the {disfmarker} the nodes , the observed nodes , for your middle layer . So this {pause} again points to "" final destination "" , "" doing business "" , "" tourist hurry "" and so forth . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Yeah ? And so then we can say , "" OK . we have a whole {pause} region {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} in a e +Grad D: That 's a whole set of discourse related cues to your middle layer . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . And this is just {disfmarker} then just one . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad A: So e because at the end the more we um {disfmarker} add , you know , the more spider - web - ish it 's going to become in the middle and the more of hand editing . It 's going to get very ugly . But with this way we could say "" OK , these are the {pause} discourse phenomena . They ra may have there own hidden layer {pause} that points to some of {pause} the {disfmarker} the real hidden layer , um or the general hidden layer . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: And the same we will be able to do for syntactic information , the verbs used , the object types used , modifiers . And maybe there 's a hidden layer for that . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad A: And so forth and so forth . Then we have context . +Grad C: Yeah . So essentially a lot of those nodes can be expanded into little Bayes - nets of their own . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Precisely . So . +Grad B: One thing that 's kind of been bugging me when I {disfmarker} more I look at this is that the {disfmarker} I guess , the fact that the {disfmarker} there 's a complete separation between the {pause} observed features and in the output . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: I mean , it makes it cleaner , but then uh {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad C: That 's true . +Grad B: For instance if the discourse does {disfmarker} +Grad D: What do you mean by that ? +Grad B: well for instance , the "" discourse admission fee "" {pause} node seems like it should point directly to the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: or increase the probability of "" enter {pause} directly "" versus "" going there via tourist "" . +Grad C: Yeah . Or we could like add more , uh , sort of middle nodes . Like we could add a node like do they want to enter it , which is affected by admission fee and by whether it 's closed and by whether it has a door . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So it 's like {disfmarker} There are {disfmarker} Those are the two options . Either like make an arrow directly or put a new node . +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: that makes sense . +Grad A: Yeah . And if it {disfmarker} if you do it {disfmarker} If you could connect it too hard you may get such phenomenon that {disfmarker} like "" So how much has it cost to enter ? "" and the answer is two hundred fifty dollars , and then the persons says um "" Yeah I want to see it . "" Yeah ? meaning "" It 's way out of my budget "" um {disfmarker} +Grad B: There are places in Germany where it costs two hundred fifty dollars to enter ? +Grad A: Um , nothing comes to mind . Without thinking too hard . Um , maybe , yeah of course , um opera premiers . +Grad B: Really ? +Grad A: So you know . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or any good old Pink Floyd concert . +Grad B: I see . If you want to see "" The Magic Flute "" or something . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Or maybe um , a famous restaurant . or , I don't know . There are various things that you might w not want to eat a {pause} meal there but {pause} your own table . +Grad B: The Spagos of Heidelberg . +Grad A: I think that the h I mean nothing beats the {disfmarker} the admission charge prices in Japan . So there , two hundred dollars is {disfmarker} is moderate for getting into a discotheque . You know . Then again , everything else is free then once you 're ins in there . +Grad C: Really . +Grad A: Food and drink and so forth . So . I mean . But i you know , i we can {disfmarker} Something {disfmarker} Somebody can have discussed the admission fee and u the answer {pause} is s if we {disfmarker} um , you know , um {disfmarker} still , based on that result is never going to enter that building . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: You know ? Because it 's just too expensive . +Grad B: Oh yeah , I think I see . So the discourse refers to "" admission fee "" but it just turns out that they change their mind in the middle of the discourse . +Grad D: Yeah . you have to have some notion of not just {disfmarker} I mean there 's a {disfmarker} there 's change across several turns of discourse +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so {vocalsound} I don't know how {disfmarker} if any of this was discussed {disfmarker} but how i if it all this is going to interact with {vocalsound} whatever general {vocalsound} uh , other {disfmarker} other discourse processing that might be happen . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . +Grad D: I mean . +Grad B: What sort of discourse {pause} processing is uh {disfmarker} are the {disfmarker} How much is built into SmartKom and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It works like this . The uh , um {disfmarker} I mean . The first thing we get is that {pause} already the intention is sort of t They tried to figure out the intention , right ? simply by parsing it . And this um {disfmarker} m won't differentiate between all modes , yeah ? but at least it 'll tell us "" OK here we have something that {disfmarker} somebody that wants to go someplace , now it 's up for us to figure out what kind of going there is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {pause} is happening , and um , if the discourse takes a couple of turns before everything {disfmarker} all the information is needed , what happens is you know the parser parses it and then it 's handed on to the discourse history which is , um o one of the most elaborate {disfmarker} elaborate modules . It 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the {disfmarker} the whole memory of the entire system , that knows what {disfmarker} wh who said what , which was {disfmarker} what was presented . It helps an an anaphora resolution and it {disfmarker} and it fills in all the structures that are omitted , so , {pause} um , because you say "" OK , {pause} how can I get to the castle ? "" Oh , how {disfmarker} how much is it ? "" and um "" yeah I would like uh {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} to g let 's do it "" and so forth . So even without an a ana {pause} anaphora somebody has to make sure that information we had earlier on is still here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Because not every module keeps a memory of everything that happened . so {vocalsound} whenever the uh , um person is not actually rejecting what happened before , so as in "" No I really don't want to see that movie . I 'd rather stay home and watch TV "" um {disfmarker} What movie was selected in what cinema in what town is {disfmarker} is going to be sort of added into the disc into the representations every di at each dialogue step , by the discourse model {disfmarker} discourse {pause} model , Yeah , that 's what it 's called . and , um , it does some help in the anaphora resolution and it also helps in coordinating the gesture screen issues . So a person pointing to something on the screen , you know , the discourse model actually stores what was presented at what location on the s on the screen +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: so it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a rather huge {vocalsound} {disfmarker} huge thing but um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} um {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} we can {pause} sort of {disfmarker} It has a very clear interface . We can query it whether admission fees were discussed in the last turn and {disfmarker} and the turn before that or you know how {pause} deep we want to search +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: um {disfmarker} which is a question . How deep do we want to sear , you know ? Um {disfmarker} but we should {pause} try to keep in mind that , you know , we 're doing this sort of for research , so we {disfmarker} we should find a limit that 's reasonable and not go , you know , all the way back to Adam and Eve . You know , did that person ever discuss admissions fee {disfmarker} fees in his entire life ? And the dialogues are pretty {disfmarker} pretty you know {vocalsound} concise and {disfmarker} Anyway . +Grad D: So one thing that might be helpful which is implicit in the {pause} use of "" admission fee discussion "" as a cue for entry , {vocalsound} {pause} is thinking about the plans that various people might have . Like all the different {vocalsound} sort of general schemas that they might be following OK . This person is um , finding out information about this thing in order to go {pause} in as a tourist or finding out how to get to this place {pause} in order to do business . Um , because then {pause} anything that 's a cue for one of the steps {pause} would be slight evidence for that overall plan . Um , I don't know . They 're {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in non in sort of more traditional AI kinds of plan recognition things you sort of have {vocalsound} {pause} you know , some idea at each turn of agent doing something , "" OK , wha what plans is this a {disfmarker} consistent with ? "" and then get s some more information and then you see {pause} "" here 's a sequence that this sort of roughly fits into "" . It {disfmarker} it might be useful here too . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I don't know how you know you 'd have to {vocalsound} {pause} figure out what knowl what knowledge representation would work for that . +Grad A: I mean the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u u +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's in the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these plan schemas . I mean there are some {disfmarker} some of them are extremely elaborate , you know . "" What do you need {disfmarker} need to buy a ticket ? "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? and it {disfmarker} it 's fifty steps , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: huh ? just for buying a ticket {pause} at a ticket counter , you know , and {disfmarker} and maybe that 's helpful to look at it {disfmarker} to look at those . It 's amazing what human beings can do . W when we talked uh we had the example , you know , of you being uh {disfmarker} a s a person on a ticket counter working at railway station and somebody r runs up to you with a suitcase in his hands , says {vocalsound} New York and you say Track seven , huh ? And it 's because you know that that person actually is following , you know {disfmarker} You execute a whole plan of going through a hundred and fifty steps , you know , without any information other than "" New York "" , huh ? inferring everything from the context . So , works . Um , even though there is probably no train from here to New York , right ? +Grad D: Mmm . Not direct . +Grad B: You 'd uh probably have to transfer in Chicago . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But uh {disfmarker} it 's possible . Um , no you probably have to transfer also somewhere else . Right ? Is that t San Francisco , Chicago ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that possible ? +Grad B: One time I saw a report on trains , and I think there is a l I don't know if {disfmarker} I thought there was a line that went from somewhere , maybe it was Sacramento to Chicago , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but there was like a California to Chicago line of some sort . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: I could be wrong though . It was a while ago . +Grad D: The Transcontinental Railroad , doesn't that ring a bell ? +Grad B: Yeah but I don't know if it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think it has to exist somewhere . +Grad B: They might have blown it up . +Grad A: Well it never went all the way , right ? I mean you always had to change trains at Omaha , +Grad D: Well most of the way . +Grad A: right ? One track ended there and the other one started at {disfmarker} five meters away from that +Grad D: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: and {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well . {pause} You seem to know better than we do so . +Grad A: yeah ? Has anybody ever been on an Amtrak ? +Grad D: I have . But not transcontinentally . +Grad B: I 'm frightened by Amtrak myself . +Grad C: What ? Why ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} They seem to have a lot of accidents on the Amtrak . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad A: Their reputation is very bad . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: huh ? It 's not maybe reality . +Grad D: It 's not like German trains . Like German trains are really great so . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} you know , I don't know whether it 's {disfmarker} which ones are safer , you know , statistically . +Grad D: Um , but they 're faster . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Much faster . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And there 's much more of them . Yeah , they 're Yeah , it 's {pause} way better +Grad A: yeah I used {disfmarker} um Amtrak quite a bit on the east coast and I was surprised . It was actually OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know , on Boston New York , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: New York Rhode Island , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: whatever , +Grad C: I 've done that kind of thing . +Grad A: Boston . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} That 's {pause} a different issue . +Grad B: This is going to be an interesting transcript . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I want to see what it does with uh "" landmark - iness "" . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Let 's all say it a few more times . +Grad B: It 'd help it figure it out . +Grad C: So . +Grad D: Just kidding . Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: So by the way tha that structure {pause} that Robert drew on the board was like more um , {vocalsound} {pause} cue - type - based , right , here 's like we 're gonna {vocalsound} segment off a bit of stuff that comes from discourse and then {pause} some of the things we 're talking about here are more {disfmarker} you know , we mentioned maybe {pause} if they talk about {pause} um , I don't know , entering or som you know like they might be more task - based . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: So I {disfmarker} I don't know if there {disfmarker} There 's obviously some {disfmarker} m more than one way of organizing {pause} the variables into something +Grad A: I think that um {disfmarker} What you guys did is really nicely sketching out different tasks , and maybe some of their conditions . +Grad D: so . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: One task is more likely you 're in a hurry when you do that kind of s doing business , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} and less in a hurry when uh {disfmarker} you 're a tourist Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} tourists may have {disfmarker} never have final destinations , you know because they are eternally traveling around so {vocalsound} maybe what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what happened {disfmarker} what might happen is that we do get this sort of task - based middle layer , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then we 'll get these sub - middle layers , that are more cue - based . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . That feed into those ? +Grad A: Nah ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Might be {disfmarker} might be a nice dichotomy of {disfmarker} of the world . So , um I suggest w to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to proceed with this in {disfmarker} in the sense that {pause} maybe throughout this week the three of us will {disfmarker} will talk some more about maybe segmenting off different regions , and we make up some {disfmarker} {pause} some toy a observable "" nodes "" {disfmarker} is that what th +Grad B: Refined y re just refine the {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the technical term ? +Grad C: OK . For which ? +Grad A: For the uh {disfmarker} nodes that are observable ? The "" outer layer "" ? +Grad C: Just observable nodes , +Grad B: The features , +Grad C: evidence nodes ? +Grad B: I don't know , whatever you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Feature ma make up some features for those {disfmarker} Identify {pause} four regions , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: maybe make up some features for each region and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh , uh {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} middle layer for those . And then these should then connect somehow to the more plan - based deep space +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Basically just refine {pause} some of the more general nodes . +Grad A: Yep . The - they {disfmarker} they will be aud ad - hoc for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for some time to come . +Grad C: Yeah , this is totally like {disfmarker} The probabilities and all are completely ad - hoc . We need to look at all of them . I mean but , they 're even like {vocalsound} {pause} I mean like , close to the end we were like , uh , you know we were like uh {vocalsound} really ad - hoc . +Grad D: It 's a even distribution . Like , whatever . +Grad C: Right ? Cuz if it 's like , uh {disfmarker} If it 's four things coming in , right ? And , say , some of them have like three possibilities and all that . So you 're thinking like {disfmarker} like a hundred and forty four or something {pause} possible things {disfmarker} numbers to enter , +Grad D: And {disfmarker} That 's terrible . +Grad C: right ? So . +Grad B: Some of them are completely absurd too , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want to enter , but it 's closed , +Grad D: That 's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: it 's night time , you know there are tourists and all this weird stuff happens at the line up and you 're like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the only like possible interpretation is that they are like {disfmarker} come here just to rob the museum or {pause} something to that effect . +Grad B: confused . +Grad D: In which case you 're supposed to alert the authorities , {vocalsound} and see appropriate action . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , another thing to do , um , is also to , um {disfmarker} I guess to ask around people about other Bayes - net packages . Is Srini gonna be {pause} at the meeting tomorrow , do you know ? +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad A: The day after tomorrow . +Grad C: Wait {disfmarker} +Grad D: Quite possibly . +Grad A: Wednesday . +Grad C: Day after tomorrow . +Grad D: Oh , oh , sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Sorry , Wednesday , +Grad B: Who 's talking on Wednesday ? +Grad C: Maybe we can ask him about it . +Grad D: yeah . Mmm . +Grad B: I haven't {disfmarker} J Jerry never sent out a {disfmarker} sent out an email , did he , ever ? +Grad C: No . But he mentioned at the last meeting that someone was going to be talking , I forget who . +Grad A: Oh , isn't Ben ? +Grad C: Uh . +Grad D: Ben ? +Grad A: Ben , then , +Grad D: I think it 's Ben actually , +Grad A: Ben . +Grad B: Ah ! +Grad D: yeah , um , giving his job talk I think . um , Sorry . I was just reading the screen . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} That will be one {disfmarker} one thing we could do . I actually uh , have {disfmarker} Um , also we can uh , start looking at the SmartKom tables and I will {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: I actually wanted to show that {pause} to you guys now but um . +Grad B: Do you want to {pause} trade ? +Grad A: Um , no I {disfmarker} I actually made a mistake because it {disfmarker} it fell asleep and when Linux falls asleep on my machine it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't wake up ever , so I had to reboot +Grad D: Oh , no . +Grad A: And if I reboot without a network , I will not be able to start SmartKom , because I need to have a network . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'll do that t maybe uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But . OK . But once you start {disfmarker} sart start SmartKom you can be on {disfmarker} You don't have to be on a network anymore . Is that the deal ? +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: Ah , interesting . +Grad B: Why does SmartKom need a network ? +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it looks up some stuff that , {pause} you know , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} is in the {disfmarker} written by the operating system only if it {disfmarker} if you get a DHCP request , so it {disfmarker} you know , my computer does not know its IP address , you know ? +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: You know . So . Unless it boots up with networking . +Grad B: It 's plugged in . Yeah . +Grad A: And I don't have an IP address , they can't look up {disfmarker} they don't know who localhost is , and so forth and so forth . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Always fun . But it 's a , um , simple solution . We can just um , go downstairs and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and look at this , but maybe not today . The other thing um {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} oh yeah , OK , I have to report {vocalsound} um , data collection . We interviewed Fey , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: She 's willing to do it , meaning be the wizard for the data collection , also {vocalsound} maybe transcribe a little bit , if she has to , but also recruiting subjects , organizing them , and so forth . So that looks good . Jerry however suggested that we should uh have a trial run with her , see whether she can actually do all the uh spontaneous , eloquent and creativeness that we uh expect of the wizard . And I talked to Liz about this and it looks as if Friday afternoon will be the time when we have a first trial run for the data . +Grad C: So who would be the subject {pause} of this trial run ? +Grad A: Pardon me ? +Grad C: Who {disfmarker} Will there be a {disfmarker} Is one {disfmarker} Is you {disfmarker} one of you gonna be the subject ? Like are you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um Liz also volunteered to be the first subject , {vocalsound} which I think might be even better than us guys . +Grad D: Good . +Grad B: One of us , yeah . +Grad A: If we do need her for the technical stuff , then of course one of you has to sort of uh {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad B: I like how we 've {disfmarker} you guys have successfully narrowed it down . "" Is one of you going to be the subject ? "" Is one of you {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad D: Reference . I haven't done it yet . +Grad C: Well I just figured it has to be someone who 's , um , familiar enough with the data to cause problems for the wizard , so we can , uh , see if they 're you know good . +Grad D: Oh plants ? e u someone who can plant difficult things . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean that 's what we wanna {pause} check , right ? +Grad A: Um , +Grad D: Well , in this case it 's a p it 's a {pause} sort of testing of the wizard rather than of the subject . +Grad C: Isn't that what it is ? +Grad D: It 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: yes w we {disfmarker} we would like to test the wizard , but {vocalsound} you know , if we take a subject that is completely unfamiliar with the task , or any of the set up , we get a more realistic +Grad C: I guess that would be reasonable . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: you know , set up as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . I know . That 's probably a good enough test of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Sort of having an actively antagonistic , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . That might be a little unfair . Um . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm sure if we uh , {disfmarker} You think there 's a chance we might need Liz for , whatever , the technical side of things ? I 'm sure we can get {pause} other people around who don't know anything {pause} um , if we want another subject . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: You know . Like I can drag Ben into it or something . Although he might cause problems but . So , is it a experimental setup for the um , data collection {pause} totally {pause} ready {disfmarker} determined ? +Grad B: I like that . "" Test the wizard . "" I want that on a T - shirt . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} experimental setup u on the technical issue yes , except we st I think we still need uh {disfmarker} a recording device for the wizard , just a tape recorder that 's running in a room . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But um {disfmarker} in terms of specifying the scenario , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} we 've gotten a little further +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: but um {disfmarker} we wanted to wait until we know who is the wizard , and have the wizard partake in the {pause} ultimate {pause} sort of definition probe . So {disfmarker} so if {disfmarker} if on Friday it turns out that she really likes it and {disfmarker} and we really like her , then nothing should stop us from sitting down next week and {vocalsound} {comment} getting all the details completely figured out . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So the ideal task um , {pause} will have {pause} whatever I don't know how much the structure of the evolving Bayes - net {vocalsound} {pause} will af affect {disfmarker} Like we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna be able to collect {vocalsound} as much of the variables that are needed for that , +Grad A: Mmm - yea - some . +Grad D: right ? in the course of the task ? Well not all of them but you know . +Grad A: Bu - e e e I 'm even {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this Tango , Enter , Vista is sort of , itself , an ad - hoc scenario . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the basic u um idea behind the uh {pause} data collection was the following . The data we get from Munich is {pause} very command line , simple linguistic stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hardly anything complicated . No metaphors whatsoever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Not a rich language . So we wanted just to collect data , to get {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} elicits more , uh , that elicits richer language . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we actually did not want to constrain it too much , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know ? Just see what people say . And then maybe we 'll discover the phenomenon {disfmarker} the phenomena that we want to solve , you know , with {pause} whatever engine we {disfmarker} we come up with . Um . So this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a parallel track , you know , there {disfmarker} they hopefully meet , +Grad D: OK . So in other words this data collection is {pause} more general . +Grad A: but since {disfmarker} +Grad D: It could {disfmarker} it could {pause} be used for not just this task . +Grad A: It should tell us , you know , what kind of phenomenon could occur , it should tell us also maybe something about the difference between people who think they speak to a computer versus people who think they speak to a human being +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the sort of differences there . So it may get us some more information on the human - machine pragmatics , um , that no one knows anything about , as of yesterday . And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} nothing has changed {comment} since then , so . Uh . And secondly , now that of course we have sort of started to lick blood with this , and especially since um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Johno can't stop Tango - ing , {vocalsound} we may actually include , you know , those {disfmarker} those intentions . So now I think we should maybe have at least one navigational task with {disfmarker} with sort of explicit {disfmarker} uh +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: not ex it 's implicit that the person wants to enter , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and maybe some task where it 's more or less explicit that the person wants to take a picture , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or see it or something . So that we can label it . I mean , that 's how we get a corpus that we can label . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Exactly . +Grad A: Whereas , you know , if we 'd just get data we 'd never know what they actually wanted , we 'd get no cues . Yep . +Grad B: Alrighty . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: That was that . +Grad B: So is this the official end of the meeting now ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Looks like it . +Grad C: So what 's "" Economics , the fallacy "" ? +Grad A: Ma +Grad B: I just randomly {pause} label things . So that has nothing to do with economics or anything . +Grad C: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Maybe we ought to switch off these things before we continue . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: OK . Switching o +","The conversation appears to be a meeting among several graduate students (referred to as Grads A, B, C, and D), possibly part of a research group, discussing the development and refinement of a Bayesian network for a task involving human-computer interaction, specifically within the context of the SmartKom project. They are also planning data collection involving human subjects to generate a more diverse linguistic dataset. + +In the meeting, Grad C presents their current models and explains the rationale behind adding a ""middle layer"" to the Bayesian network. The Grads discuss the semantics of features such as ""landmark - iness"" and the meanings ascribed to different nodes in the network, such as the context of the discourse and prosody. The grad students brainstorm how to accurately capture the decision-making process of users who are navigating to places like landmarks, businesses, or running errands. + +Grad D inquires about the justification for structuring the network in its current form and why certain nodes do not point directly to the output. The conversation delves into adjusting probability distributions and the granularity of the nodes. Grads A and B discuss the user's potential actions (Tango, Enter, Vista) as stand-ins for different ways to interact with locations—for instance, viewing or entering them. + +As the discussion progresses, they touch on the inclusion of factors like verbal choice, time of day, openness to suggestions, context, and discourse features. They consider how certain lexical or topic-based cues may influence the network's output, hinting at a complex interaction of linguistic factors that determine user intentions when interacting with a system like SmartKom. + +The conversation shifts toward the specifics of their experimental setup for data collection, emphasizing the need to validate the capacity of a human ""wizard"" to simulate the system's interface in an experiment. The researchers plan to test the wizard and finalize the experimental scenario with the wizard’s contribution. + +The meeting wraps up with the group discussing the practicality of the proposed model, the possibility of including different middle layers for cues and tasks, and how these may feed into the overall plan-based structure of the network. The utility of this structure for the data collection from SmartKom is also discussed, with the goal of understanding the nuances of human-machine pragmatics and collecting a richer linguistic dataset that covers more complex interactions beyond what is already available from the SmartKom project. + +The group appears to be motivated by the need for more complex and diverse human-computer interaction data, as well as the challenge of structuring a Bayesian network that can effectively model the variety of user intentions and behaviors. They conclude with plans for further refining their approach and testing the wizard in preparation for data collection." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi everyone , hope you had a nice lunch . Um {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright we're moving on to conceptual design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Scuse me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bless you . +Project Manager: Um , I'll just review what we did in our last meeting . Um , {vocalsound} under marketing we targeted our audience , and {disfmarker} Um , yeah . That was {vocalsound} generally {vocalsound} {disfmarker} how helpful that was . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , then we considered some design options with how it should look , um , we discussed an iPod-like button system which , uh , we haven't concluded but we're {disfmarker} Right , um {disfmarker} So , if you all have presentations to do , we can see what {disfmarker} where you've come from our last time . Does everyone have presentations ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Would anybody like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I've been looking at the components design . Um . Mostly by consulting remote control diagrams from the internet and also by incorporating design ideas from the last project meeting . Um , so we need some custom design parts , and other parts we'll just use standard . Um , I assume we'll be custom designing our case , probably a hard plastic or some other material case , to protect the remote and the locator . And we'll need to custom desi design a circuit board , because the circuit board has to take the button input and send it to the output so you have to design that each time . But once we come up with a design we'll send it to the circuit people and they'll just print it out . Um , standard parts include the buttons and the wheels , um the iPod-style wheel . The infrared L_E_D_ is actually gonna be included in the circuit board that comes with it . Um , we need a radio sender and receiver , those are standard . And al we also need a beeper or buzzer or other sort of noise thing for locating the remote . So we have some material options . Um , we can use rubber , plastic , wood or titanium . Um , I'd recommend against titanium because it can only be used in the flat cases and it's really heavy . Um , and the rubber case requires rubber buttons , so if we definitely want plastic buttons , we shouldn't have a rubber case . +Project Manager: And why not wood ? +Industrial Designer: And , +Project Manager: And why not wood ? {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hmm ? {vocalsound} Uh , well we can use wood . {vocalsound} I don't know why we'd want to . Um and also we should note that if we want an iPod-style wheel button , it's gonna require a m qu slightly more expensive chip . We can't use the minimal chip , we need the next higher grade , which is called regular . I don't think it's much more expensive , but it is more expensive . So that's what I've got on design . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Marketing: Um , can I do next ? 'Cause I have to say something about the material +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: which is quite shocking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha . Mm . Right , um , I have been searching the current trends , um , both on the web and via fashion-watchers , and the findings are that the first thing to aim for is a fashion uh , fancy look and feel . Um . Next comes technologic technology and the innovations to do with that . And th last thing is the easy to use um factor . Um , fancy look and feel goes far beyond the functionality of the thing , but I suppose that is included in in the ease of use . Um , our fashion-watchers in Milan and Paris have decided , well noticed , that f the fruit and vegetable theme is the {vocalsound} is the current trend +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and and therefore um we need to go for that if we want , you know , wh whatever our motto is . Um . For fashion , we go for fashion . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: The fashion in electronics . So we want to put the fashion electronics , we need to go fruit and vegetables . And also go for a spongy feel , so the the question of our technology whate is Industrial Designer . As to the material should be limited to {disfmarker} I don't know how spongy it can be , should discuss this together , I don't know how spongy can be achieved but apparently that's the way to go . Um . I I have been thinking about this fruit and vegetable thing and I prefer fruits to vegetables , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's just a personal opinion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think people like to have a fruit instead of a vegetables in their sitting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh those are just suggestions and also we need to decide whether this should be printed , so that still has to do with the material discuss should we print the fruit stuff , or should the actual remote look like a fruit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and finally again with the spongy . It has to be technologically innovative so maybe again our Industrial Designer should look into that or find {disfmarker} come up with a solution that's better than mine . Um , yeah , to summarise these are the points that need to be um , touched in order to get a good decision , and hopefully our User Interface has more to say about the matter . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Thank you for your attention . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: I think it's the next {disfmarker} it's the blue one , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , uh , there we go . {vocalsound} Uh . Okay . Um . Well so that fruit and vegetables thing huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I actually wasn't aware of the {vocalsound} new trends in electronics +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Neither was I . Well it's a trend in fashion , in clothing and um {vocalsound} fabrics . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but you're not gonna wear your remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so okay , let me get this right . Okay , uh {disfmarker} Okay , alright anyway . Um {vocalsound} here we go . Conceptual User Interface . Trying {disfmarker} we're gonna try to talk about , um {vocalsound} what kind of uh {disfmarker} how people are actually going to be using this iPod-ish remote control , based on fruit vegetable design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And , um , basically , so , this is a touched ba a touch-based graphical interface system . {vocalsound} Uh , so people are going to be looking at this little screen . Um , kind of {disfmarker} I mean I assume , are we still on the screen idea ? +Project Manager: Oh we s hadn't discussed it last time . +User Interface: 'Cause if we're gonna have to ha if we have this {disfmarker} it just seems like in order to have someone going around and using the um {vocalsound} the wheel +Project Manager: You need a screen for it ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it seems like you would need a screen . +Industrial Designer: You need a screen with music because you're looking for a specific song , like you know that band or whatever . With T_V_ channels it's , you know , one two three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But like if you think about it {disfmarker} yeah but if {disfmarker} so is it just {disfmarker} okay . So , b you you're gonna have to switch to like D_V_D_ and like other things like that , aren't you ? +Project Manager: We're , um , we're actually not having D_V_D_ , +User Interface: Are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that was one of th I I was {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: sorry , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I meant to update you on that . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . Okay . +Marketing: But the screen can come up on the telly , the {disfmarker} she said . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That correct ? +User Interface: So anyway if {disfmarker} well we just {disfmarker} we need to {disfmarker} Okay so if we're not gonna have a screen {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} okay . So basically it's just gonna be a wheel then ? And you're just gonna {disfmarker} I mean I think you're gonna have to have some kind of a {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: Graphical interface ? +User Interface: Yeah like you're g +Marketing: Uh on the {disfmarker} you can have it on the telly though . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah like you're gonna have to be able to switch to like a mode where you can {disfmarker} okay we're not choosing that , I guess . But like choose channel control , like if you wa Because people aren't gonna be able to have like , um , you know , channels one two three four five six seven eight nine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} people seems to be {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} Yeah , I know what you're saying , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know . But you're gonna have to scroll to get channels . So um {vocalsound} I guess that's wh why I was thinking you may need to have some kind of a screen because {disfmarker} So that people can go arou go back and forth and choose if {disfmarker} or or {disfmarker} then again if you just {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I c I can see like some kind of a thing where like you sort of have like the number come up on the T_V_ like what channel you're on . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You can just scroll and you can just get to like five or like twelve or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But but imagine someone with s +Industrial Designer: My flatmates actually had one with a wheel , and it it did show up on the T_V_ . +User Interface: I oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But i what if you have satellite and you have like two hundred channels . Then to get to channel one eighty nine you have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause you'll have to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They have to r wheel really fast . +User Interface: but you can quickly s you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I think the wheel goes through like a hundred channels , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: at least on theirs . +User Interface: Yeah if you do , it w so it would have to be {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean so you basically just kinda need to figure out like what kind of , you know , range we need to have on the wheel , and um {disfmarker} So you're either {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you know , th you're either doing this motion to like control the channels or like once once you stop that , you know , you can like tap for , um , different +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , whatchamacallits , different um , you know , functions like volume or , like you can tap just to get to different channels . Like if you just wanted to go to like {disfmarker} from five to six you could tap or someth +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And then there's also the concern about you know um {vocalsound} how do you get to the menu if you wanna change the brightness of your television , or if you want to um {vocalsound} you know switch around , I don't know , like , these different modes like turn on the timer or like something something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah I mean with that many options , you'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I'd think that the screen would be better , +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because you could have that menu option , sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would think so too , like {disfmarker} So I mean {disfmarker} and it seems it w it does seem a little silly to have this screen if you hardly are ever using it , you know , because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but then again it would {disfmarker} it does make kind of {disfmarker} if the screen's sort of just like an option that , like , is just there and you're not really using it , that's kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive according to the design people . +User Interface: m yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's the only thing though . +Industrial Designer: You have to get a {disfmarker} an advanced chip if you wanna have a screen in , which is more expensive than the regular chip , which is more expensive than the minimal . +User Interface: Yeah . So then basically it has to have some way to get to get to a mode on the television where you're doing , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can get to {disfmarker} you know , you can {disfmarker} Like maybe it'll be that central button that , like , then you hit that and then you can {disfmarker} it brings up like the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you can just scroll around , like , to do the timer , to do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the T_V_ is the screen , that {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So it would have all these different options of changing +User Interface: Yeah . But the remote itself isn't really cluttered up . +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Look it even has settings . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} you can just take theirs and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well we don't want the screen I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} 'cause that just {disfmarker} it does seem like , it {disfmarker} that would be , like , incredibly expensive , but {disfmarker} I dunno , and then {disfmarker} so , it just im really all you need is , like , this little wheel then , and you can control everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , right . What if {disfmarker} I mean , if you're thinking of the design of it now , like the a you know , physical attributes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um , and you just have this , it's like just a long silver thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or whatever we're thinking . I mean are you you gonna have any buttons on that besides power and this thing ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't seem that you would need anything besides pow I mean and the power button could even be like hold down the menu button for like longer than one second and it turns on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . So can we imagine that this would be smaller than the remote controls that you showed us before . I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah definitely . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Like , I think we're looking at something that could be , like like even maybe like a cir I'm f I'm seeing almost like a circular sort of like handheld like thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean it it needs to be easy to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but should be comfortable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: somehow it needs to be easy to like manipulate and use your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean how do how do {disfmarker} I'm not really {disfmarker} Like when I use an iPod , I end up just kind of using my index finger to like control it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've seen some people just going like that with their thumb , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Or your thumb or something . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I use it like that . +Industrial Designer: W when we had the wheely remote control , we {disfmarker} it was on the top I think , if you held it like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , were there buttons on there as well ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well it had the wheely thing and then it had those eighteen different buttons that I don't know what they do . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we just used the top part . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I mean I think it could be pretty small . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Like , I d I mean , you you want it to be large enough that you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if , um , you had like a b a cover that went over buttons that you don't use very much ? Like you {disfmarker} so you could slide it up if you needed to like change the contrast or something like that ? So the options are there but they're not in interfering with the design and the practicality of it . +User Interface: But can't you just get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do {disfmarker} do you know what I'm talking about though ? Like , uh , yeah just something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah like maybe something on the side where you slip a panel down and it's got a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +User Interface: K +Marketing: Well you can have it on the settings , +Project Manager: Yeah , that you can flip over , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: no ? +User Interface: Yeah , But , I mean , do you need that ? If if you can get to , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so long as you're able to bring up the menu on the T_V_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah I mean I guess that's the thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is is {disfmarker} if w I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That keeps it +Project Manager: if we can do this , that'd probably be {disfmarker} +User Interface: really {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh you wouldn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I just don't think you would even need it . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I guess we have to look into the , um , like , the programming , how this {disfmarker} how they actually programme these things , and if that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh how they make the menu show up on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: yeah . I mean it {disfmarker} would y would {disfmarker} that would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I mean you can do it , +Marketing: They already do it . +Industrial Designer: I believe it's ins it's gotta be inside the T_V_ , not inside the remote . +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it doesn't seem that hard . I mean I've never bought a remote . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +User Interface: It sounds like this remote's going to be purchased separately from the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well they usually are . +User Interface: which is a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: My {disfmarker} I've never bought just a remote , like , so I don't I don't really know . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I guess that's right . It always comes with the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , um {disfmarker} but I mean it's {disfmarker} I've never had a hard time with like my remotes , like bringing up the menu screen if you need to like change the date or whatever , you know . And I don't think that should uh that should be too hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} most of the ones we've had have had the menu button , 'cause it's not like you need to have a button access to like change the contrast or something . 'Cause it just doesn't come up every day or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Well so {disfmarker} So , do we need {disfmarker} I dunno . Well I guess we have to you know think about {disfmarker} But I mean you just basically need the output signal you know to be able to bring it up . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what it does anyway . +Marketing: But also if you have it on the screen you can actually write everything out , because the problem with buttons is you {disfmarker} like , they have these sort of abbreviations and codes that you're supposed to understand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you don't know they mean , yeah , it's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I never get it . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Never ever . +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , you mean if we have this screen like the iPod screen ? +Marketing: Well on the telly . +Industrial Designer: Or on the T_V_ too . +User Interface: On the telly , okay , yeah . So yeah I think , I mean , I think I think the touch-based graphical interface is a really uh cool idea +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you know it is so obnoxious to like have to push those {disfmarker} like okay now I hit this {disfmarker} you know , you have your little guide out and you're like , hit this button twice , like to activate the date . +Project Manager: Mm . And it is technologically innovative in a way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: so that fits with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I guess . And it is trendy , the iPods are {vocalsound} really hot right now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: B Yeah . +Marketing: Did you did you get that pc picture on {disfmarker} did they provide you with that picture on the web ? +User Interface: Um , yeah , by web research , yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's quite interesting . What are we going to do about this vegetable thing that I'm dreading ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , I was gonna say . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: You said uh people want spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , one of your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: one of the material options is a sort of rubber that's {gap} in like those stress ball things . So , that would be spongy . +User Interface: Oh , okay , that would be cool . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just nice feel , but I hate spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , c that's e that would be kind of {disfmarker} oh , you know , usually like the touch pad things are kind of a hard plastic typ mouse type , you know , thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean definitely the area round it . +User Interface: But what if we ha what if we had like a spongy sort of like stress balley kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you're like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it could work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or what if we integrated the {vocalsound} the uh the f what if the whole thing about the fruit and vegetables +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we somehow made it tactilely fash you know , we c tapped into that , so like it feels like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't think I'd want it to feel like a banana . +User Interface: a vegetable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it could be like mobiles that just {disfmarker} you just put a cover . +Project Manager: An orange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If it's a small thing , you c instead of creating an object for it that looks like a banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which frankly I'm not particularly fond of , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um you could just have covers and then your mobile f it's like a mobile phone thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You know you had {disfmarker} there was a time when they had all these different covers for mobiles . +Industrial Designer: You could do like the computers where they have like the grapefruit , apple machine and they have like the blueberry , like all the colours are named after fruits . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . You could name it after fruits and vegetables , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And it could {disfmarker} the colour can fit your sitting room , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if you have red sitting room you can have strawberry , and then if you have a green one you can have {disfmarker} well I don't know . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what if {disfmarker} what +User Interface: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah , colours . +Project Manager: I'm just forming this idea in my head of how this thing is looking . If you have like that stress ball material kind of as what you're actually holding in your hand , so like what you're feeling is comfortable , and then there's more of a hard plastic thing where that thing is . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And on that hard plastic thing you can change either the colour or the fruit or vegetable that's on there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} 'cause I I'm thinking of silver because those are our company colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unfortunately they don't have silver fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I do I dunno . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean how are you how are you all envisioning by what we've just {disfmarker} the feedback we've just got about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe a ball . +Project Manager: A ball ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know , a squashy ball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A relaxing squashy ball . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That you can p +User Interface: That's in the shape of a fruit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well I {disfmarker} see you're thinking , it's weird , you're thinking the opposite of me 'cause you're thinking you change the the hard bit +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I'm thinking how do you change the hard {disfmarker} would you put a um sticker sort of ? Because I was thinking if you have a cover for the squashy bit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is just {disfmarker} Okay . Say that's the s say that's the squashy bit . Squashy . +Marketing: Oh , okay , yeah . Yeah I was thinking of getting a cover for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That {disfmarker} see I was thinking this s +Marketing: Which is cheaper . +Project Manager: sorry {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I don't know if it's cheaper actually . +Project Manager: I was thinking this bit here would be the cover and like that's your actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And like this {disfmarker} you could have like you could have like cherries and {vocalsound} things around there . +User Interface: Oh I like that shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking sort of a single ball shape . +Project Manager: I was thinking if it was like this {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So you're holding a squishy ball +Project Manager: 'cause the way you were describing the the iPod and the thi the roll thingy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then it has a {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's like it has to be s +Project Manager: It's almost like your thumb is farther up , +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so if if you could squish it lower then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So it wouldn't be very big in either {disfmarker} like how big ? This big , and then you just do that , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know what you meant , yeah . +User Interface: What if , yeah , what if the squishy , oh so so you're saying the squishy part's like detachable , and you can {disfmarker} so so maybe one you know {disfmarker} you can have like the broccoli squishy thing , and then you could have like the banana squishy thing {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you could get {disfmarker} you could have your choice , you know ? +Marketing: Well just a li I can't des like condom thingy , like a a cover . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} well the question is , which one's easiest to change and we can just contact our relevant department for that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and just see what the cost is for covering that or covering that , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and for now we can do two prototypes maybe and then hi try and ask users what the best is , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Um . That's nicer . I think it's nicer to have a drawing 'cause it's neater . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Well that's not very neat , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I mean I think uh {disfmarker} and I think the handhe I think the handheld part is definitely {disfmarker} So you could make that into the fruit and vegetable part . +Marketing: If it's a bit like those juggling balls , you can change shape according to your {disfmarker} to the way you hold it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could squish it . +Marketing: If it's got sand in it maybe , or something , you {disfmarker} it it just moulds to your hand . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So where are the fruit and vegetables now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess they would be either in the colour of that plastic face on the front , or in the colour of the squishy thing underneath . +User Interface: Fruits and veg . +Marketing: We we don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And the rest is the company {disfmarker} the company colour's silver ? +Project Manager: It was , yeah , silver and yellow . It l it looks like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could promote the banana one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I mean that's another question , where are we gonna {disfmarker} we we should have the logo somewhere on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Should also fit the batteries , which we haven't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the batteries would have to go right under the plastic case . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th and that would {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Especially if you're switching out the squishy part . Then you need to have the other part just be sort of a single unit that you can snap off . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think , um it'd be interesting to have the b the squishy bit . The part that you , yeah , can change into the different , you know , trendy vegetables and fruits . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . You'd spend so much time like squishing it to your own personal hand . Then you'd get a new one and you'd have to do it all over again . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No but it does it automatically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Does it automatically ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: I don't know what the rest of my notes mean because they were made for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But if someone {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: components concept . Question mark . Energy . Question mark . +Industrial Designer: That was me . +Project Manager: Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh right right . Yeah . Um , so what d but what do we know about energy ? I mean we're gonna use batteries right ? And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh we actually had an option of batteries , solar power , and um a dynamo , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is something I don't know what it is . Something to do with torches . +Marketing: Oh , a dynamo is {disfmarker} ah , {vocalsound} it's a bicycle . It's a bicycle mechanism . It's the en it's like if if something moves , when it moves , it stores energy . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah , the other one was the other one was a kinetic thing where you'd basically have to wind it yourself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I sort of picked battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's quite sweet . +Industrial Designer: We could have talked about doing a wind-up or a dynamo or a solar power . Um but I think solar power's not available with the rubber case anyways . +Project Manager: I think batteries sound good . +Industrial Designer: It {vocalsound} it seems a little weird for a living room anyways . +Project Manager: What does everyone else think ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The dynamo would be interesting {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . But dynamo {disfmarker} the the fact with dynamo is , the moment you move it , it c it {vocalsound} creates energy on its own . +Project Manager: What about Kryptonite ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Which is quite cool . So if you throw it , it's gonna store loads of energy , and you don't need to buy a battery 'cause they're quite f I find them annoying . But we need to find cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Don't know the cost . +Industrial Designer: Didn't have enough data to actually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does anyone have costs on the on the web ? +Industrial Designer: All it said was it gave sort of relative , some chips are more expensive than others , sort of things . It didn't give me any actual cost . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Most of the stuff is pretty cheap though bought in bulk . So I don't think it's that much of a problem . Like the chip is probably the most expensive part . +Project Manager: What does chip on print mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um , for things like remote controls , um , they stamp out a chip , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: calculators too I think . Um , so you can mass produce 'em pretty cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's not like a computer , you can't like reprogramme your remo remote controls , it's like stamped onto the chip . +Project Manager: Right . So , chip on print is just {disfmarker} means like that they're mass-produced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And case ? Uh I guess that's what we've been talking about , +Industrial Designer: Case is what we were discussing yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Casing . Yeah . {gap} thinking of like syntactic case and thi +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} let's see . Is there anything else we need to +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: talk about ? Oh when we move on , you two are going to be playing with play-dough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and working on the look and feel of the design and user interface design . And you're gonna be doing protu product evaluation . So you'll get mm m more instructions from your personal coach . +Marketing: Oh , thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: See you soon . Does it matter that I end early ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} it's strange because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How how early is it ? I didn't get a pop-up thing that said {disfmarker} +","**Summary of Team Meeting on Remote Control Design Project** + +The meeting began with the Project Manager greeting the team after their lunch break and moving the discussion toward the conceptual design phase of a remote control project. During the preceding session, they had targeted their audience under the marketing segment and discussed the effectiveness of their strategies. + +The Industrial Designer outlined the components design by referencing remote control diagrams from the internet and incorporating ideas from the last project meeting. The design would require custom parts such as the case and circuit board, complemented with standard components like buttons, wheels, and infrared LEDs. A radio sender and receiver were specified, as well as a beeper or buzzer for locator functionality. Material options were discussed, with a recommendation against using titanium due to its weight and limitations with design. The possibility of using rubber, plastic, wood, or other materials was debated, taking into consideration the desired integration of an iPod-style wheel, which would necessitate a more expensive chip. + +The Marketing representative reported on current trends in fashion, emphasizing the importance of a fancy look and feel, technological innovation, and usability. Trends noticed by fashion-watchers in Milan and Paris pointed to a fruit and vegetable theme dominating the scene, influencing the Marketing team's direction on design for a fashion-forward electronic product. A desire for a ""spongy feel"" to the product was also reported, making it a key point for exploration in terms of material and user experience. + +The User Interface team member raised concerns about the feasibility of integrating the fruit and vegetable theme into a user interface. There was discussion on whether the product would have a screen or if the existing television screen could be utilized for on-screen menus, prompted by user input on the remote's wheel. The team considered challenges like navigating through a large number of channels, usability across different modes, and how to access various television functions through the remote's design. + +The discussion evolved into a brainstorming session about potential designs for the remote. The team contemplated a minimalistic approach with few buttons, utilizing the wheel for primary interaction and incorporating a screen for interactive feedback. The Industrial Designer suggested that the squishy, stress-ball-like material could contribute to a spongy feel, while also considering the practicality and aesthetics of the product. + +There was a consensus on aiming for a smaller remote control size, which could be made more comfortable and fashionable by allowing users to customize it with interchangeable covers, inspired by popular trends from the fashion industry. The possibility of naming the colour options after fruits and vegetables was also discussed, as was the introduction of squishy materials to enhance the tactile experience. + +Energy options, including batteries, solar power, and a possible dynamo, were briefly touched upon, with the team leaning towards conventional battery usage for practical reasons. The discussion also covered the mass production process of remote control chips, realizing that the chip is likely to be the most expensive component, especially if including advanced features such as screens. + +Finally, the Project Manager assigned tasks to team members: the Industrial Designer and User Interface designer would work on play-dough prototypes, exploring the form and ergonomic aspects of the design, while the Marketing representative was assigned product evaluation, likely to delve deeper into trend analysis and consumer preferences. + +The meeting, filled with collaborative discussion and idea-sharing, concluded with the understanding that the individuals involved would receive further directives from their personal coaches. The remote control project henceforth would take shape as a fashion-forward, user-friendly, and innovative device with touch-based interface options inspired by the latest trends in lifestyle and technology. The Project Manager did not specify whether ending the meeting earlier than scheduled would be an issue." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just forgot their name , so uh you're i sorry , I just forgot them all . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to write it down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fine . +Project Manager: Do you know them or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The names ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: For for for my sur um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Jens . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , but your b your surname . +Marketing: Uh Damman . D_ A_ W_ . +Project Manager: W_O_ da . Okay . +Marketing: Uh uh M_ M_ . I mean M_ . Double M_ . +Project Manager: Okay . And what's your name ? +User Interface: Paul Wiezer . Paul Wiezer . +Project Manager: W_I_E_S_ z Z_ or S_ ? +User Interface: A_ E_ Z_ zee zee +Project Manager: Uh uh zee {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: E_ R_ . +Project Manager: What's your name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh Martijn . +Project Manager: Yeah , but your surname . {vocalsound} Your surname . +Industrial Designer: What ? Uh Abbing . A_ B_ B_ I_ N_ G_ . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I was a little short on time , +Project Manager: Yeah , me too , so that's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , same here . +Project Manager: No no no , I just fi first my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Uh let's see . Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So let's have a look , we have forty minutes , so it's it's more than enough . {gap} Okay , perfect . So we have {disfmarker} Oh no , what's that ? So so we have uh forty minutes for this uh for this second meeting , and we have to make uh sure that we going t that we are sure , that we are , +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: that we know what we're going to make uh th what the product is going to like {disfmarker} look like . Uh first I have the notes of the last meeting , so I showed uh show them to you . Oh , sorry about that , I just escape this one . How do I escape this ? How do I I escape this s uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Uh left . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: And show , sorry . Okay , so let's have a look s at this one . Okay , so the f the f the points we had last meeting was the um {disfmarker} Should be a univ uh universal remote control {disfmarker} No , that's {disfmarker} I uh s I just got a email from the from the personal coach and it should be a T_V_ remote control only . So have you changed that part ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} yeah , it still has to be uh f a r a remote control for kids and elderly . It's it's still the same . Um {disfmarker} All these points uh we have to look at . You all know them . But uh there's another point . The um uh the main uh people of interest of this company are forty plus people . So they're old and not younger people . So we have to look at that as well . 'Specially old people , maybe bi bigger buttons or something , I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh so {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} yeah , that's it , so just you can do your presentation for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one first ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh it doesn't matter , just start with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Functional requirements , yeah +Marketing: Okay . Well my name is Jens Damman , but we're in a group , and I I will start it . Wait . Um I've used a marketing report on uh the site . Uh I think you've uh read it too . Uh and uh f and furthermore I uh surfed the o the other site . +Project Manager: I I didn't read i read it , so it's not for me , +Marketing: You didn't read it ? +Project Manager: I didn't get it uh anyway . +User Interface: No , I didn don't thing we got it . +Project Manager: It's only for you . +Marketing: Oh okay , I I was the only one who get it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay it was uh uh uh um um {vocalsound} a report about uh an experiment with uh a lot of users . And uh they had a lot of findings in their report uh with statistical uh uh uh thing uh with statistical uh proof . So I um I had three pages with findings and sev a lot of uh a lot of findings . So we can use this uh to uh create our own remote control . Uh seventy five percent of the users find uh most remote controls ugly . Yeah , I think uh uh that's a lot , so we have to make a beautiful remote control . Uh eighty percent of users would spend when uh a remote control will l uh look fancy . I think this fits uh at the {vocalsound} uh what what uh Michael said about uh older people . Older people will uh spend more money uh for uh something uh uh what's good . Because younger people are more critical uh about uh uh where they spend their money money at . Uh seventy five percent uh seventy five percent of the users say they zap a lot . Well okay , that's uh normal . I think uh we we have to make uh good zap buttons . But that's one of our requirements . +Project Manager: The last point is quite an interesting {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Um Martijn alr already said it . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: And uh maybe our uh fold open system is is a good one , but {disfmarker} I don't think it's uh +Project Manager: Yeah , we should have the ten percent on the on the top , +Marketing: reachable . +Project Manager: then you're you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , the ten percent on the top , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that's a good one . Um uh page two . Remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . That's exactly what we said about um maybe a home station for uh for it uh to uh recharge the batteries or something . Uh I thought mo maybe we could make a clap system , so when you {vocalsound} clap your hands it will beep or something . Uh you must find it uh quickly . +User Interface: Uh . Maybe just a button on the home station . So remote control beeps when you click that button on the home station . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Yeah , we can uh combine that . Uh it takes too much time to learn how to use a r new remote control . Uh I think we must t uh take a look at this . It's only uh th thirty four of the {vocalsound} thirty four percent . But it's uh a tough one . Because if we make a ha whole new product , our own style , we we c uh this is so difficult , uh a difficulty I think . Uh next , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . Yeah , but only if they zap a lot , and they watch over five hours T_V_ or something . I don't {disfmarker} We we haven't {disfmarker} Uh we mustn't look too much at uh the last point . Okay , last page . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the last uh experiment uh was about gadgets , like uh speech recognition . We didn't uh think about that already . And uh an L_C_D_ on the remote control . We already thought about that . Um uh they finally had a conclusion that younger people um uh under an age of f forty five are uh more interested in new features . And but they're more critical . And older people uh want to spend uh more money . {vocalsound} But uh they uh they don't want to uh have a lot of uh new features , because they're in their old uh thinking way . And they want to keep the old uh things the old things . {gap} +Project Manager: So we have uh a new uh age of forty plus . +Marketing: But y But you but you already said that the uh company was about uh forty plus uh clients ? +Project Manager: People . So yeah , so we just can skip the L_C_D_ r on the remote control , +Marketing: I I think we can speak , uh we can skip speech recognition uh directly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because it's not reachable for twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: It's too {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um then {disfmarker} I have my personal uh preference . Okay , that's {vocalsound} not very good , because I thought about television , D_V_D_ player , stereo and V_C_R_ . I had a question about . But it's already out of the question , this . Um my point is , well , I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If we ma uh make a a remote uh control for only television , I think it's hard to uh sell it for twenty five Euros . But it's the exercise . +Project Manager: Because it's too expensive . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: Yeah , only only for television uh {disfmarker} On the market you can now buy for twenty Euros a remote control for everything . And we only make it for television , so we mi mm we m must made it make it uh very special . +User Interface: Yeah , but good usability , so you can use it . +Marketing: Okay , I told about the home station . Uh it must be simple , because uh our the the elderly people uh needs to use it . And I I found a motto . And we put the fashion in electronics . And that's uh the motto we are uh referenced to uh for our uh our style . We we have to make a {vocalsound} a new product . We have to be um {disfmarker} Yeah . One of a kind , I think . +Project Manager: So it has to look uh uh uh unique , +User Interface: Unique . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The company is about our uh th th their own fashion , their own style . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But old people are not looking for that . +User Interface: Uh I think mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not really . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think the main thing is the usability , that's where we can uh make it a special product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: to k to keep it simple when you {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh we also have to stand out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I thought about it , yes . +User Interface: 'cause there are already , like you said , so many controls out that support lot of stuff . But we have to make sure that we're better usability , and stand out by just looks of it . So make it just a different colour or different shape , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , this was uh my presentation . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Paul , you can do the next one if you want . +Marketing: You can ask some questions or something . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah well {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: It's on the on the uh net net uh thing , +User Interface: There it is . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: Okay . Technical functions design . Okay , well , so we have s mm uh broad audience . Isn't {disfmarker} that isn't true anymore . But um we have elderly people , so we need to keep it simple . Uh the way I want to keep it simple is to use the sen uh standard . So standardised uh methods like uh on all uh remote controls . Not too full , like uh Jens already said , only ten percent is being used . +Project Manager: So what do you think of only the numbers and the on-off button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I have it on the next page . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But yes uh basic functions like numbers and that sort of stuff . Um so the options that we put on there should be easy to use , and 'cause you have more room then , and for elderly people big buttons . Uh an icon on it or text on it , so it's very clear what that buttons does . So it doesn't take much time to figure out uh how to use it . Um a way to find out uh what people use is maybe just to use uh questionnaires on the internet or just ask some random people , elderly people what they use , what they want on a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to find out . But there is already in a one done . Of functions I could think of . Uh volume , channels , the the basic according to {gap} . Just one two three etcetera . Uh text service options . Um basic on-off . And I found an uh {disfmarker} Could I think of favourites ? I always look up the same um pages on text and always have to click the number . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But if you could make a new option , that you just have to press one button and you get on your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you have to remember what favourite is what channel . So you might as well remember the number . Or not ? +Project Manager: Maybe i maybe it's too complicated , +User Interface: No y +Project Manager: but not sure {gap} . +User Interface: Well +Project Manager: It's a good idea , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} It was just a thought . So I'm , I u {disfmarker} I would find it handy , I think , when you just press one button and you get on six six six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . But um how can you remember what uh channel uh connects to what favourite button ? +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: what I was reading on the page . Uh a remote control just sends commands , basics commands to uh the television . So switch to channel six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: So uh button six says says six . And if you make favourites , it can say six six six in a row . Just numbers . That can be in the in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But uh uh for a user to to remember , if I press that button it goes to that channel . +User Interface: Well if you said a favourite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but isn't it hard to remember ? Like favourite one and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mayb for me it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well i +Project Manager: If I use my telephone , I never use those buttons to to to call sh Never . +User Interface: Never ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , neither do I . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh are you ? +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay now , m maybe not . +Project Manager: If I don't do it , maybe old people {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , maybe elderly people uh . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: They don't like new features . So maybe not . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um well play , pause . I dunno if that's usable +Project Manager: It's not , it's still not {disfmarker} It's not anymore n uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: when {disfmarker} Not anymore for T_V_ . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Right , on off . {vocalsound} I dunno , miss {disfmarker} Did I miss any other buttons , basic buttons ? I couldn't think of any other , 'specially not for T_V_ . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just on the front as well . No , that's the only th the only thing you need . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh the p uh next and previous . Previous I know , but next channel ? +User Interface: Just the channel um uh {disfmarker} What I mean is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't thi +Marketing: Forward . +Industrial Designer: Li like a web browser , +User Interface: Six seven eight or five . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Just very simple . +Industrial Designer: But uh um there's also a button to uh go to the channel you've been before . Like a web browser back button . +User Interface: Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +User Interface: I don't have {disfmarker} Uh I did {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know what it is , but I think it's all too difficult for old people . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: No . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think you use that . Y only when you want to go to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , just use uh when you wanna switch between channels all the time . +Project Manager: And how do you want to uh do it , like if you have a channel above ten ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Normally you can press one , zero or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think um f Especially for older peo elderly people use standard buttons . So you have that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A ten plus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the ten plus button . Just uh one one pressing , or quickly after each other . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: To just keep it simple and standard uh features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w wouldn't it be a problem to uh {disfmarker} Because you h have to be fast enough . Maybe the elderly people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah mayb +Marketing: It gets some seconds . +User Interface: But I think that's in the T_V_ as well . That's how the uh the T_V_ T_V_ handles it . But you can have a button that says um two two st two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's no it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have uh like a five seconds period to press those two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but that's th mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's what Paul says . It's not a remote control uh uh that um uh makes the T_V_ um do one two . It's the T_V_ who depends that it must be two seconds or three seconds or one second that you must uh type one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So if you have a universal T_V_ controller , you needed one button that has two uh stripes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have a a period of , I dunno , five seconds to press those buttons , and that {disfmarker} And not for elderly people to look , one two uh press and aim and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: But do we still need a two level remote control ? Because if we only have that l only f +Marketing: It's only for television now . +User Interface: So I I don't think so . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Uh I just thought of another one . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Most things in modern T_V_s are also on the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you also need a menu button . And then uh navigation uh {disfmarker} But we can integrate that with volume and previous and next , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you have +Industrial Designer: I I think you ha really have to divide between functions you often use , like um uh m maybe uh switch channels and uh volume and k that kind of things , and uh the menu button . +User Interface: four arrows . +Industrial Designer: Because you n almost never use menu button . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it's still still a good idea , I'm not sure . You'll also have to use a mute button to to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , a mute button . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Don't think so . +Project Manager: I don't know where where you have to put it . +User Interface: Yeah well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's that's {disfmarker} I think that's the layers that produce . Now I have to figure out what's uh what to put on . What we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: And later we can d uh do the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , uh now my personal preferences . Uh using the standards , basic {disfmarker} Um I think that we should stand out uh unique , being unique with the design . So we have to , I dunno , uh make a different shape than usual . So when you are in the shop and you see our T_V_ controller hanging , that it stands out . Not just in in the row when you see all the same uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . Does it have to be {disfmarker} Uh it has to be uh with different colours +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I dunno . Different colours um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can give it out in different colours . You can choose blue or yellow +Project Manager: It's like a iMac or something . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just to make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Well why not ? Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's fa That's fancy . That's uh fashion . +Project Manager: But it looks cheap as well , because it's a small thing . It's only twenty five Euros . It looks very cheap if you make it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , maybe you can look at uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Oh , you just {disfmarker} I dunno what happened . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Who ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to look at mobile phones , that's right . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they're uh designed very well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And well basically are the same , just a bit smaller . You think you can't make a T_V_ controller too small , 'cause then you will always lo always lose it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh well , I think that's a good example . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: we hurry up a bit , because otherwise we won't make it . +User Interface: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: Is it fin Are you finished ? +User Interface: Well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I I'm finished . I think we discussed everything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , the working design . The method I used is uh search the web . Just the web page provided . Um {disfmarker} Basically I'm I'm not very technical uh uh educated , but uh I could figure it out . Um basically what happens is you press a button , uh then a circuit gets closed by pressing the button , uh like a switch . And by closing that certain circuit , the chip knows uh what bu button is pressed . So like you press a one , that circuit is closed and uh {disfmarker} Then the chip produces a pattern . Like a Morse code to uh {disfmarker} And and sends that to the uh L_E_D_ . That's the uh light emitting diode , I think . Um and the light emitting diode is uh producing infrared light . That's un uh invisible to the human eye . And uh transmit that uh to the T_V_ . However it has also an uh a visible uh diode that's uh blinking red if you look in it . And that's uh another diode , I believe . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because infrared is not visible . So that's er uh do two different things +Project Manager: So we we also have to have a LED li LED light on it ? +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Yeah . I I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh j Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I'm not sure if it's the same thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's usable . +User Interface: Ain't it just to to indicate that it's transmitting ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's active . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just a green one , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} If you use it , it's green or the red , it's r green . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I think it's in the case that it's active . It's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , when you press it . +Project Manager: But if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I it's it's just uh the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red's l shows up like something's wrong , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: and green is like it's okay , you press the button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Maybe depends on uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ma on on most on most uh uh remote controls it's red . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we make it red . +User Interface: But maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: we don't have to make it red . Maybe integrate it in the design as well . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} The whole the whole uh remote control becomes uh green if you press the buttons . Uh that's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I think uh the batteries will be uh {vocalsound} a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Oh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Empty . +User Interface: maybe it's it is would an e No . Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we have a recharger in it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: If we can still make that then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't have to be red . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to indicate something's on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That it's working . That it's not not the batteries are low . +Project Manager: But it's cool if it was green . +User Interface: Yeah . It's it's not very important , +Project Manager: Green or red or whatever , it is cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know . Just to indicate it's working . +User Interface: So mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh the receptor in the T_V_ senses the pattern . So we have to understand what patterns are used to , you know , to make it universal . So that it can be used with all the T_V_s . We have to really understand what patterns are used , so we can uh o On the {disfmarker} Otherwise it won't work . +User Interface: So we have to uh make buttons for that as well , to make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . I I uh {disfmarker} The chip um uh is producing the pattern . So we have to make a chip that produces patterns to , y you know , to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An automatically search function for each television , or something . +Industrial Designer: That are working . Yeah , or {disfmarker} I dunno how it's uh exactly how it works . It wasn't explained there . +User Interface: Well , I I use a universal uh remote control , +Marketing: Uh I kno +User Interface: and {gap} list of all the T_V_s you have , etcetera . And you have to put in a number , so it works on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . +Marketing: Oh , I have a modern one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And the modern one you you uh you type uh search , and the LED began to blink blink blink . And uh uh uh after uh a short time the television turns off . And then you know , oh it it's the right one . And you can stop it , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: and then it's okay . So you don't have to search for your television or your code . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It uh search uh the pattern for itself . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: so we use that . +Industrial Designer: So it uh {disfmarker} We have to make a a s a bit more intelligent chip than the standard one . Because you have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just say {disfmarker} Can you s just say it again , because I was just looking {disfmarker} There's just a short {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . Well uh y you have this chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh when the circuit is closed , it produces the pattern . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh ma basically for uh brands of T_V_ these patterns are different . So like when you press a one on one T_V_ it go go to one . And on the other T_V_ it won't work , basically . So uh basically what you have to do is uh get these patterns right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh by d uh that can be done by uh just uh cha yeah , changing this pattern all the time . +Marketing: Changing the signal . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} What he's doing when he's configuring this pattern , this chip , uh is trying to switch off the television . And when it's uh switched off , you can push a button as uh it's working now , so {disfmarker} And then he saves that setting +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then um it's working . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the right uh option . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well uh the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a bit technical , and I hadn't {disfmarker} I w I was a little short on time . Um but I think I understand it . Um the energy source is uh the battery , basically . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um that's connecting to all the components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because it has to be fed with energy . Okay . Uh the subcomponent is uh w I I think it is uh the button pressed . So basically when you press a button , a switch get closed . Um that's connecting to a chip . So the chip knows what button you pressed . And the chip sends out uh the pattern to the infrared bulb . I didn didn't put the description by this one . Th this is a normal bulb . So the normal flashing light . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's the LED , L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and this is a LED too . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But this one is producing infrared light +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: that's invisible . And this one is producing normal light . +Project Manager: So we can make the normal one also a normal light . Not a LED light , but as a normal one . To flash up your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if you if you use the buttons , uh both of them works . But one you can't see and one indicates that you use a button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , presu Yeah yeah yeah . Because uh when you button press a button and it doesn't work , it can {disfmarker} Basically if the battery is low , it won't work . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe you have to uh put uh a small light around the button you push . So you see green if you push that button . +Industrial Designer: Huh , that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm I think it's unnecessary power uh you use then . +Project Manager: Yeah , but if you u if you do that , you know that you're uh sending a signal . +User Interface: No , y Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} you also know which button you p +Marketing: But then have to be on the in the all uh remote control have to be LEDs . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Everywhere in the r +Project Manager: But does it make any difference for the energy you use ? You got still one LED . +User Interface: No I don't think so , but {disfmarker} Yeah , i it it will look different , and I think we need to find something else . +Project Manager: That looks different , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise we will just make another standard , and our uh motto also is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is LEDs uh beneath the the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah , w around the buttons , or in the buttons even . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm like when you push it +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , then then won't {disfmarker} Then you won't see it . +Industrial Designer: n n Yeah . You have your finger over the button . So you can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: It must be around it then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or m maybe on top of the {disfmarker} A green light is flashing +Marketing: Yeah , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Not not not not here , but here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . There . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The same as a telephone , or a mobile phone , or what do you mean ? +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , we're thinking about it . +Project Manager: If you push {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh on a mobile phone , in the dark uh +Project Manager: It lights up . Everything lights up . That's a good idea . +User Interface: everything lights up . Why ain't that on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It it only takes a l a little energy and it's not that much . +User Interface: Yeah , if uh a mobile phone a phone can do it , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's a good idea for old people as well . +User Interface: Yeah , i if you're in the dark , you can't see the remote . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's only few LEDs . Only four or something . Four LED . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I dunno . But if we use a battery station , which I think we will use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea , okay . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We'll have enough power +Project Manager: Everything agre +Industrial Designer: to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Everyone agrees with that , or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Maybe what Paul said , uh under the {disfmarker} on the on the home station , uh a button to uh to call your uh remote control , that it beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then you {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But you have to make a sound device in it then . +User Interface: And also it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , there must be sound in it . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , it shouldn't take much {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . B maybe it's that that's a little too hard to make . Especially for that kind of money . Because it's i it has to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh , twenty five Euros , I think we can make it . +User Interface: Uh I th +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Production cost is uh t uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: Bec Twelve and a half , okay . But but we only have to make it for television , and um we must have something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: I think uh you also have uh {vocalsound} remote controls with a lot of options . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we lose about ninety percent of those options . So I think you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . We have to give our customers some extras . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we will save money with that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Are you almost finished or just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the personal preference , I didn't fill it out . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because I was short on time . +Project Manager: No worry . +Industrial Designer: But um {disfmarker} Basically what we could do too is uh have a Bluetooth uh integration . +Project Manager: Yeah , I just want to talk some {disfmarker} about some more . So maybe you have to {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . Wh what's that ? So uh {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . We have some new uh project requirements . We have to have a look what they are . They're still in um {disfmarker} Uh teletext has become outdated since the popularity of internet . So a teletext option , maybe we have to skip that one . I'm not sure . I don't think so , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I I think a lot of people use uh teletext , still use . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's it's on your comp it's on your television . It's only one button . So I don't think it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: We definitely should use it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh what I told you . The remote control should only be used for a television . So that's maybe easier . And um the the forty plus people , I already told you . Oh no , sorry . Oh , this is a problem . Oh sorry about that . The new product should reach a new market with customers are the younger than forty . So it should be flashy or just more interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Okay , that's {disfmarker} It changes things . +Project Manager: I'm sorry about that . I just I just didn't read it well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So does it make some decision about that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Changes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That kinda changes the whole situation . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well yeah , then we have to make some nice features . I think uh the thing in the dark is a good way , +Project Manager: That still stays . +User Interface: to make it more like a mobile phone . More modern . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's important I think and {disfmarker} +Marketing: L_C_D_ doesn't work for uh twelve and a half Euros I think . +User Interface: And I d I don't don't think it's very usable in a remote control , especially when you only have T_V_ functions on it . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ah {disfmarker} I I don't y you'll use it often , because you can see on the television wh what channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I'm watching uh the channel one . Okay . {vocalsound} No , it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I tho I think that's not usable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: So , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . What other features can we put in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think you you have to make it a bit flashy and and popular . And uh then the usability is not that required , because the {disfmarker} Like in the mobile phones , usability is not that good I think . +Marketing: But uh some of you had uh something to read about um {vocalsound} uh speech uh recognition . About you said one and the television turns on one . Is that reachable maybe ? +Industrial Designer: I didn't read {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's very {disfmarker} That's fancy . That's cool . +User Interface: It's very fashion . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read any +Marketing: Twelve and you've got twelve . +Industrial Designer: b Yeah . Yeah okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I know . +Marketing: Only the numbers , only numbers . Uh furthermore nothing . But only the numbers , one to twenty or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That should be cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to integrate that as well . If it's possible . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it's possible , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive actually . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: I dunno . I didn't read it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Why should it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if i if i +Project Manager: You only have a microphone in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't have information about that . +Industrial Designer: But it has to work . And and and does it have to work only in English , or in Dutch too or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah that's a problem , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And and uh w Yeah ? +Marketing: Uh only in English . Only in English I think . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} But uh I dunno how that works then . Uh does your uh {disfmarker} Does it lie in the centre of the room and can you scream from wherever +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's probably my job to figure that out , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh one to have in channel one ? +Marketing: No , that {disfmarker} Yeah , then th we have to think about that . But do {vocalsound} do we do it ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: It's more if we if we do it . +User Interface: I dunno . So , is it very usable ? That's what I'm looking at . +Industrial Designer: And and do you have to speak in in like in a thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's too hard to uh to realise that . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We have short time to to put it on the market , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +Project Manager: so that {disfmarker} We have to do a lot of testing before we can do that . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . {gap} +Project Manager: We make uh make uh , we can make th th the new remote control very flashy . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: In uh indeed uh the languages are a difficult thing . Uh because we we have a lot of languages . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I d Yeah . I don't think it's uh useful enough to take the effort to design something with uh speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: And and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and also if if you have a good speech uh speech recognition , you can just throw the uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A uh someone says that uh give me one Coke , and the T_V_ turns uh to one . +Industrial Designer: the remote away . Mm . Hmm . Mm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . Well yeah , +Marketing: it's not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's the right command . And then you have to say uh T_V_ channel one , or something . Not just one , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Hmm yeah , T_V_ one . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , but th that becomes your f Uh uh because that's very hard for uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Well I dunno . But I don't think , it just ain't useful enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have to make some decisions . So +Marketing: Okay , no speech recognition . +Project Manager: you can see on the uh {disfmarker} So we have to know what we're going to put on . Do we , do we make uh a light under the under the n under the numbers and everything ? Do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: If you press something , it lights up for a few seconds , so you can see what other but buttons there are , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , we just take that one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And what else , we have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Also the one in the dark . So uh {disfmarker} It lights up when it's dark ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} Oh th I thought would , that that would be the same . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you push something , it it all lights up . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it mustn't work all the time . +User Interface: Yes , that's what I mean . +Marketing: It uh uh it have to work only when you use it . +Project Manager: Or you can switch it on or something . +Marketing: So if you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe when you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , if you use one button , it must turn uh on for twenty seconds , and then it must turn off . +User Interface: yeah . It lights up all . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . You have to {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . That's what I said . It's the same as the telephone . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay yeah . D Yeah , alright . Yeah . +Project Manager: And do we use a a {disfmarker} Uh what's it called ? Like a iMac , {gap} if you can look through it . Or just a normal remote control . +User Interface: Maybe just as an option , w like we discussed , like iPod . +Industrial Designer: Mm , maybe it's a good idea . +User Interface: Different colours , uh maybe use even different fonts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh phones . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Different colours . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so y you just make it th through {disfmarker} You look through it ? +Marketing: A see-through . Mm , that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh as an option maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . And so the buttons we have , this is , yeah , this is normal . We put in the the simple buttons on the top , +User Interface: It's the standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and probably the the the more complicated buttons down there . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: But you have {disfmarker} You had a lot of different buttons . +User Interface: we but we don't {disfmarker} We don't really have any complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe you have you have to {disfmarker} Uh when you use teletec teletext , you can press a green or a red button to go to the next one , or to go to the previous one . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but {disfmarker} Yeah , well w I think the buttons are very easy . With just uh standard buttons we just have so little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O but maybe you can put um the g the options of teletext on the second level of the remote control . Because you ne almost never use it . +User Interface: No , I don't need don't need {disfmarker} Uh teletext options are only four buttons or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but younger people I think um more often use the internet and elderly people often use teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: I use teletext as well . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I use te teletext every day , I think . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . For me too , it is . So we just keep it one level then ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , one level . And I think , uh 'cause um we don't have that many buttons , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think the design is most important . You can d uh integrate the buttons in the design very much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause {gap} simple buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you put one above it , it's clear . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's it for toda for {disfmarker} We're going to have a lunch lunch break . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How long is lunch break ? +Project Manager: So yeah , you know what you have to do . This is uh this is it . You get your meal and everything , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Trendwatching . Okay . That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yo . +Project Manager: So , we're finished for t for this time . We're going to have some lunch . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bye . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Uh . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","In the conversation, the project team is discussing the development of a new remote control aimed at people over forty. However, towards the end they receive new requirements indicating the product should target a younger audience under forty, which necessitates changes in design and functionality to make it more flashy and interesting. The meeting involves the Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer. + +They thoroughly debate the features and design of the remote control, touching on points such as the necessity for big buttons and simple functions for easy use, particularly by the elderly. Marketing presents findings from a report about user preferences, suggesting the need for a visually appealing design. They discuss potential features such as a homing function to locate the remote, the importance of standardization for user friendliness, and the inclusion of backlighting for better visibility in the dark. + +The conversation concludes with the team agreeing on several features, including lighting up when buttons are pressed and standard buttons on the top with less frequently used ones on the bottom. The new requirement of targeting younger users leads to considerations of adding trendy elements like see-through materials and possibly speech recognition. They decide to continue the discussion after a lunch break." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD C: Eight , eight ? +PhD D: This is three . +PhD C: Three . +PhD D: Yep . Yep . +Professor B: Test . Hmm . Let 's see . Move it bit . Test ? Test ? OK , I guess it 's alright . So , let 's see . Yeah , Barry 's not here and Dave 's not here . Um , I can say about {disfmarker} just q just quickly to get through it , that Dave and I submitted this ASRU . +PhD A: This is for ASRU . +Professor B: Yeah . So . Um . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting . I mean , basically we 're dealing with rever reverberation , and , um , when we deal with pure reverberation , the technique he 's using works really , really well . Uh , and when they had the reverberation here , uh , we 'll measure the signal - to - noise ratio and it 's , uh , about nine DB . So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: um , +PhD A: You mean , from the actual , uh , recordings ? +Professor B: a fair amount of {disfmarker} +PhD D: k +PhD A: It 's nine DB ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} And actually it brought up a question which may be relevant to the Aurora stuff too . Um , I know that when you figured out the filters that we 're using for the Mel scale , there was some experimentation that went on at {disfmarker} at , uh {disfmarker} at OGI . Um , but one of the differences that we found between the two systems that we were using , {comment} the {disfmarker} the Aurora HTK system baseline system {comment} and the system that we were {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh , other system we were using , the uh , the SRI system , was that the SRI system had maybe a , um , hundred hertz high - pass . And the , uh , Aurora HTK , it was like twenty . +PhD D: Yep . S sixty - four . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: S sixty - four . +Professor B: Sixty - four ? Uh . +PhD D: Yeah , if you 're using the baseline . +Professor B: Is that the ba band center ? +PhD D: No , the edge . +Professor B: The edge is really , uh , sixty - four ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: For some reason , uh , Dave thought it was twenty , +PhD D: So the , uh , center would be somewhere around like hundred +Professor B: but . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} hundred {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} fi hundred hertz . +Professor B: But do you know , for instance , h how far down it would be at twenty hertz ? What the {disfmarker} how much rejection would there be at twenty hertz , let 's say ? +PhD D: At twenty hertz . +Professor B: Yeah , any idea what the curve looks like ? +PhD D: Twenty hertz frequency {disfmarker} Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's zero at twenty hertz , right ? The filter ? +PhD C: Yea - actually , the left edge of the first filter is at sixty - four . +PhD D: Sixt - s sixty - four . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So anything less than sixty - four is zero . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: It 's actually set to zero ? What kind of filter is that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is this {disfmarker} oh , from the {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: It {disfmarker} This is the filter bank in the frequency domain that starts at sixty - four . +Professor B: Oh , so you , uh {disfmarker} so you really set it to zero , the FFT ? +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a weight on the ball spectrum . Triangular weighting . +Professor B: Right . OK . Um {disfmarker} OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's a little different than Dave thought , I think . But {disfmarker} but , um , still , it 's possible that we 're getting in some more noise . So I wonder , is it {disfmarker} @ @ Was there {disfmarker} their experimentation with , uh , say , throwing away that filter or something ? And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , throwing away the first ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've tried including the full {disfmarker} full bank . Right ? From zero to four K . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And that 's always worse than using sixty - four hertz . +Professor B: Right , but the question is , whether sixty - four hertz is {disfmarker} is , uh , too , uh , low . +PhD D: Yeah , I mean , make it a hundred or so ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I t I think I 've tried a hundred and it was more or less the same , or slightly worse . +Professor B: On what test set ? +PhD D: On the same , uh , SpeechDat - Car , Aurora . +Professor B: Um , it was on the SpeechDat - Car . +PhD D: Yeah . So I tried a hundred to four K . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , +PhD D: So it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: and on {disfmarker} and on the , um , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits also ? +PhD D: No , no , no . I think I just tried it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Mmm . That 'd be something to look at sometime because what , um , eh , he was looking at was performance in this room . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Would that be more like {disfmarker} Well , you 'd think that 'd be more like SpeechDat - Car , I guess , in terms of the noise . The SpeechDat - Car is more , uh , sort of roughly stationary , a lot of it . And {disfmarker} and TI - digits maybe is not so much as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . OK . Well , maybe it 's not a big deal . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , that was just something we wondered about . But , um , uh , certainly a lot of the noise , uh , is , uh , below a hundred hertz . Uh , the signal - to - noise ratio , you know , looks a fair amount better if you {disfmarker} if you high - pass filter it from this room . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um {disfmarker} but it 's still pretty noisy . Even {disfmarker} even for a hundred hertz up , it 's {disfmarker} it 's still fairly noisy . The signal - to - noise ratio is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is actually still pretty bad . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I mean , the main {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's on th that 's on the f the far field ones though , right ? Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's on the far field . Yeah , the near field 's pretty good . +PhD A: So wha what is , uh {disfmarker} what 's causing that ? +Professor B: Well , we got a {disfmarker} a video projector in here , uh , and , uh {disfmarker} which we keep on during every {disfmarker} every session we record , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: which , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w we were aware of +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but we thought it wasn't a bad thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , that 's a nice noise source . Uh , and there 's also the , uh {disfmarker} uh , air conditioning . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Which , uh , you know , is a pretty low frequency kind of thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} So , those are {disfmarker} those are major components , I think , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: uh , for the stationary kind of stuff . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , but , um , it , uh {disfmarker} I guess , I {disfmarker} maybe I said this last week too but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it really became apparent to us that we need to {disfmarker} to take account of noise . And , uh , so I think when {disfmarker} when he gets done with his prelim study I think {vocalsound} one of the next things we 'd want to do is to take this , uh {disfmarker} uh , noise , uh , processing stuff and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , synthesize some speech from it . +PhD A: When are his prelims ? +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} Um , I think in about , um , a little less than two weeks . +PhD A: Oh . Wow . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Uh , it might even be sooner . Uh , let 's see , this is the sixteenth , seventeenth ? Yeah , I don't know if he 's before {disfmarker} It might even be in a week . +PhD A: So , I +Professor B: A week , +PhD A: Huh . I {disfmarker} I guessed that they were gonna do it some time during the semester +Professor B: week and a half . +PhD A: but they 'll do it any time , huh ? +Professor B: They seem to be {disfmarker} Well , the semester actually is starting up . +PhD A: Is it already ? +Professor B: Yeah , the semester 's late {disfmarker} late August they start here . +PhD A: Yikes . +Professor B: So they do it right at the beginning of the semester . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yep . I mean , that {disfmarker} that was sort of one {disfmarker} I mean , the overall results seemed to be first place in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the case of either , um , artificial reverberation or a modest sized training set . Uh , either way , uh , i uh , it helped a lot . And {disfmarker} But if you had a {disfmarker} a really big training set , a recognizer , uh , system that was capable of taking advantage of a really large training set {disfmarker} I thought that {disfmarker} One thing with the HTK is that is has the {disfmarker} as we 're using {disfmarker} the configuration we 're using is w s is {disfmarker} being bound by the terms of Aurora , we have all those parameters just set as they are . So even if we had a hundred times as much data , we wouldn't go out to , you know , ten or t or a hundred times as many Gaussians or anything . So , um , it 's kind of hard to take advantage of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of big chunks of data . Uh , whereas the other one does sort of expand as you have more training data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor B: It does it automatically , actually . And so , um , uh , that one really benefited from the larger set . And it was also a diverse set with different noises and so forth . Uh , so , um , that , uh {disfmarker} that seemed to be {disfmarker} So , if you have that {disfmarker} that better recognizer that can {disfmarker} that can build up more parameters , and if you , um , have the natural room , which in this case has a p a pretty bad signal - to - noise ratio , then in that case , um , the right thing to do is just do {disfmarker} u use speaker adaptation . And {disfmarker} and not bother with {disfmarker} with this acoustic , uh , processing . But I think that that would not be true if we did some explicit noise - processing as well as , uh , the convolutional kind of things we were doing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . That 's sort of what we found . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: I , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , started working on the uh {disfmarker} Mississippi State recognizer . So , I got in touch with Joe and {disfmarker} and , uh , from your email and things like that . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: And , uh , they added me to the list {disfmarker} uh , the mailing list . +PhD D: OK , great . +PhD A: And he gave me all of the pointers and everything that I needed . And so I downloaded the , um {disfmarker} There were two things , uh , that they had to download . One was the , uh , I guess the software . And another wad {disfmarker} was a , um , sort of like a sample {disfmarker} a sample run . So I downloaded the software and compiled all of that . And it compiled fine . +PhD D: Eight . +PhD A: No problems . +PhD D: Oh , eh , great . +PhD A: And , um , I grabbed the sample stuff but I haven't , uh , compiled it . +PhD D: That sample was released only yesterday or the day before , right ? +PhD A: No {disfmarker} Well , I haven't grabbed that one yet . So there 's two . +PhD D: Oh , there is another short sample set {disfmarker} +PhD A: There was another short one , yeah . +PhD D: o o sample . +PhD A: And so I haven't grabbed the latest one that he just , uh , put out yet . +PhD D: OK . Oh , OK . F Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Um , but , the software seemed to compile fine and everything , so . And , um , So . +Professor B: Is there any word yet about the issues about , um , adjustments for different feature sets or anything ? +PhD A: No , I {disfmarker} I d You asked me to write to him and I think I forgot to ask him about that . Or if I did ask him , he didn't reply . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I don't remember yet . Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll d I 'll double check that and ask him again . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's like that {disfmarker} that could r turn out to be an important issue for us . +PhD D: Hmm . Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe I 'll send it to the list . Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have , uh , already frozen those in i insertion penalties and all those stuff is what {disfmarker} I feel . Because they have this document explaining the recognizer . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And they have these tables with , uh , various language model weights , insertion penalties . +PhD A: OK , I haven't seen that one yet . +PhD D: u +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Uh , it 's th it 's there on that web . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: And , uh , on that , I mean , they have run some experiments using various insertion penalties and all those {disfmarker} +PhD A: And so they 've picked {disfmarker} the values . +PhD D: Yeah , I think they pi p +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: yeah , they picked the values from {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: For r w what test set ? +PhD D: Uh , p the one that they have reported is a NIST evaluation , Wall Street Journal . +Professor B: But that has nothing to do with what we 're testing on , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . No . So they 're , like {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So they are actually trying to , uh , fix that {disfmarker} those values using the clean , uh , training part of the Wall Street Journal . Which is {disfmarker} I mean , the Aurora . Aurora has a clean subset . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: I mean , they want to train it and then this {disfmarker} they 're going to run some evaluations . +Professor B: So they 're set they 're setting it based on that ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So now , we may come back to the situation where we may be looking for a modification of the features to account for the fact that we can't modify these parameters . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} but it 's still worth , I think , just {disfmarker} since {disfmarker} you know , just chatting with Joe about the issue . +PhD A: Yeah , OK . Do you think that 's something I should just send to him +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: or do you think I should send it to this {disfmarker} there 's an {disfmarker} a m a mailing list . +Professor B: Well , it 's not a secret . I mean , we 're , you know , certainly willing to talk about it with everybody , but I think {disfmarker} I think that , um {disfmarker} um , it 's probably best to start talking with him just to {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh @ @ {comment} you know , it 's a dialogue between two of you about what {disfmarker} you know , what does he think about this and what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} what could be done about it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor B: Um , if you get ten people in {disfmarker} involved in it there 'll be a lot of perspectives based on , you know , how {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: you know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But , I mean , I think it all should come up eventually , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there is any , uh , uh , way to move in {disfmarker} a way that would {disfmarker} that would , you know , be more open to different kinds of features . But if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if there isn't , and it 's just kind of shut down and {disfmarker} and then also there 's probably not worthwhile bringing it into a larger forum where {disfmarker} where political issues will come in . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: Oh . So this is now {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's compiled under Solaris ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD D: Because he {disfmarker} there was some mail r saying that it 's {disfmarker} may not be stable for Linux and all those . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , i that was a particular version . +PhD D: SUSI +PhD A: Yeah , SUSI or whatever it was +PhD D: yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: but we don't have that . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Should be OK . +PhD D: OK , that 's fine . +PhD A: Yeah , it compiled fine actually . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: No {disfmarker} no errors . Nothing . So . +Professor B: Uh , this is slightly off topic +PhD D: That 's good . +Professor B: but , uh , I noticed , just glancing at the , uh , Hopkins workshop , uh , web site that , uh , um {disfmarker} one of the thing I don't know {disfmarker} Well , we 'll see how much they accomplish , but one of the things that they were trying to do in the graphical models thing was to put together a {disfmarker} a , uh , tool kit for doing , uh r um , arbitrary graphical models for , uh , speech recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} And Jeff , uh {disfmarker} the two Jeffs were +PhD A: Who 's the second Jeff ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , uh , do you know Geoff Zweig ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: Oh . Uh , he {disfmarker} he , uh {disfmarker} he was here for a couple years +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: and he , uh {disfmarker} got his PHD . He {disfmarker} And he 's , uh , been at IBM for the last couple years . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Wow . That would be neat . +Professor B: Uh , so he did {disfmarker} he did his PHD on dynamic Bayes - nets , uh , for {disfmarker} for speech recognition . He had some continuity built into the model , presumably to handle some , um , inertia in the {disfmarker} in the production system , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Um , I 've been playing with , first , the , um , VAD . Um , {vocalsound} so it 's exactly the same approach , but the features that the VAD neural network use are , uh , MFCC after noise compensation . Oh , I think I have the results . +Professor B: What was it using before ? +PhD C: Before it was just P L +PhD D: +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah , it was actually {disfmarker} No . Not {disfmarker} I mean , it was just the noisy features I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +PhD C: noisy {disfmarker} noisy features . +PhD D: not compensated . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} This is what we get after {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So , actually , we , yeah , here the features are noise compensated and there is also the LDA filter . Um , and then it 's a pretty small neural network which use , um , {vocalsound} nine frames of {disfmarker} of six features from C - zero to C - fives , plus the first derivatives . And it has one hundred hidden units . +PhD A: Is that nine frames u s uh , centered around the current frame ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: S so , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's how many {disfmarker} how many inputs ? +PhD C: So it 's twelve times nine . +Professor B: Twelve times nine inputs , and a hundred , uh , hidden . +PhD C: Hidden and +PhD D: Two outputs . +PhD C: two outputs . +Professor B: Two outputs . OK . So I guess about eleven thousand parameters , which {disfmarker} actually shouldn't be a problem , even in {disfmarker} in small phones . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s so what is different between this and {disfmarker} and what you {disfmarker} +PhD C: It should be OK . So the previous syst It 's based on the system that has a fifty - three point sixty - six percent improvement . It 's the same system . The only thing that changed is the n a p eh {disfmarker} a es the estimation of the silence probabilities . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +PhD C: Which now is based on , uh , cleaned features . +Professor B: And , it 's a l it 's a lot better . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not bad , but the problem is still that the latency is too large . +Professor B: What 's the latency ? +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the latency of the VAD is two hundred and twenty milliseconds . And , uh , the VAD is used uh , i for on - line normalization , and it 's used before the delta computation . So if you add these components it goes t to a hundred and seventy , right ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . You started off with two - twenty and you ended up with one - seventy ? +PhD C: With two an two hundred and seventy . +Professor B: Two - seventy . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} Yeah , if you add the c delta comp delta computation +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: which is done afterwards . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's two - twenty . I the is this {disfmarker} are these twenty - millisecond frames ? Is that why ? Is it after downsampling ? or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The two - twenty is one hundred milliseconds for the um {disfmarker} No , it 's forty milliseconds for t for the , uh , uh , cleaning of the speech . Um {disfmarker} then there is , um , the neural network which use nine frames . So it adds forty milliseconds . +Professor B: a OK . +PhD C: Um , after that , um , you have the um , filtering of the silence probabilities . Which is a million filter it , and it creates a one hundred milliseconds delay . So , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD D: Plus there is a delta at the input . +PhD C: Yeah , and there is the delta at the input which is , +Professor B: One hundred milliseconds for smoothing . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , median . +PhD C: +PhD D: It 's like forty plus {disfmarker} forty {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then forty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . Forty {disfmarker} This forty plus twenty , plus one hundred . +Professor B: forty p +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's two hundred actually . +PhD C: Yeah , there are twenty that comes from {disfmarker} There is ten that comes from the LDA filters also . Right ? +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Uh , so it 's two hundred and ten , yeah . +PhD D: If you are using {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Plus the frame , +PhD D: t If you are using three frames {disfmarker} +PhD C: so it 's two - twenty . +PhD D: If you are phrasing f {comment} using three frames , it is thirty here for delta . +PhD C: Yeah , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's five frames , but . +PhD D: So five frames , that 's twenty . OK , so it 's who un {comment} two hundred and ten . +Professor B: Uh , p Wait a minute . It 's forty {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forty for the {disfmarker} for the cleaning of the speech , +PhD C: So . Forty cleaning . +Professor B: forty for the I N {disfmarker} ANN , a hundred for the smoothing . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Well , but at ten {disfmarker} , +PhD C: Twenty for the delta . +Professor B: Twenty for delta . +PhD D: At th {nonvocalsound} At the input . I mean , that 's at the input to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Delta at input to net ? +PhD D: And there i +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So it 's like s five , six cepstrum plus delta at nine {disfmarker} nine frames of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then ten milliseconds for {disfmarker} +PhD D: Fi - There 's an LDA filter . +Professor B: ten milliseconds for LDA filter , and t and ten {disfmarker} another ten milliseconds you said for the frame ? +PhD C: For the frame I guess . I computed two - twenty {disfmarker} Yeah , well , it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's for the fr {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And then there 's delta besides that ? +PhD C: So this is the features that are used by our network and then afterwards , you have to compute the delta on the , uh , main feature stream , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: which is um , delta and double - deltas , which is fifty milliseconds . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , the {disfmarker} after the noise part , the forty {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the other hundred and eighty {disfmarker} Well , I mean , Wait a minute . Some of this is , uh {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is in parallel , isn't it ? I mean , the LDA {disfmarker} Oh , you have the LDA as part of the V D - uh , VAD ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The VAD use , uh , LDA filtered features also . +Professor B: Oh , it does ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Ah . So in that case there isn't too much in parallel . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . There is , um , just downsampling , upsampling , and the LDA . +Professor B: Um , so the delta at the end is how much ? +PhD C: It 's fifty . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty . Alright . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: But well , we could probably put the delta , um , {vocalsound} before on - line normalization . It should not that make a big difference , +PhD A: What if you used a smaller window for the delta ? +PhD C: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Could that help a little bit ? I mean , I guess there 's a lot of things you could do to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: So +PhD C: but , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if you {disfmarker} if you put the delta before the , uh , ana on - line {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then it could go in parallel . +PhD C: Cuz i +Professor B: And then y then you don't have that additive {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yep . +PhD C: cuz the time constant of the on - line normalization is pretty long compared to the delta window , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: so . It should not make {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And you ought to be able to shove tw , uh {disfmarker} sh uh {disfmarker} pull off twenty milliseconds from somewhere else to get it under two hundred , right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is two hundred the d +Professor B: The hundred milla +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: mill a hundred milliseconds for smoothing is sort of an arbitrary amount . It could be eighty and {disfmarker} and probably do @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD A: i a hun +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Wh - what 's the baseline you need to be under ? Two hundred ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know . They 're still arguing about it . +PhD C: +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I mean , if it 's two {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} if it 's two - fifty , then we could keep the delta where it is if we shaved off twenty . If it 's two hundred , if we shaved off twenty , we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , meet it by moving the delta back . +PhD A: So , how do you know that what you have is too much if they 're still deciding ? +Professor B: Uh , we don't , but it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , the main thing is that since that we got burned last time , and {disfmarker} you know , by not worrying about it very much , we 're just staying conscious of it . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: And so , th I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if a week before we have to be done someone says , "" Well , you have to have fifty milliseconds less than you have now "" , it would be pretty frantic around here . So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , OK . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: But still , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a pretty big , uh , win . And it doesn't seem like you 're {disfmarker} in terms of your delay , you 're , uh , that {disfmarker} +Professor B: He added a bit on , I guess , because before we were {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} had {disfmarker} were able to have the noise , uh , stuff , uh , and the LVA be in parallel . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: And now he 's {disfmarker} he 's requiring it to be done first . +PhD C: Well , but I think the main thing , maybe , is the cleaning of the speech , which takes forty milliseconds or so . +Professor B: Right . Well , so you say {disfmarker} let 's say ten milliseconds {disfmarker} seconds for the LDA . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} the LDA is , well , pretty short right now . +Professor B: Well , ten . And then forty for the other . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , the LDA {disfmarker} LDA {disfmarker} we don't know , is , like {disfmarker} is it very crucial for the features , right ? +PhD C: No . I just {disfmarker} This is the first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right , +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} maybe the LDA 's not very useful then . +Professor B: so you could start pulling back , +PhD D: S s h +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor B: But I think you have {disfmarker} +PhD D: l +Professor B: I mean , you have twenty for delta computation which y now you 're sort of doing twice , right ? But yo w were you doing that before ? +PhD C: Mmm . Well , in the proposal , um , the input of the VAD network were just three frames , I think . +PhD D: On the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Just {disfmarker} Yeah , just the static , no delta . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Uh , static features . +Professor B: So , what you have now is fort uh , forty for the {disfmarker} the noise , twenty for the delta , and ten for the LDA . That 's seventy milliseconds of stuff which was formerly in parallel , +PhD C: +Professor B: right ? So I think , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the difference as far as the timing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , and you could experiment with cutting various pieces of these back a bit , but {disfmarker} I mean , we 're s we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not in terrible shape . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what it seems like to me . It 's pretty good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not like it 's adding up to four hundred milliseconds or something . +PhD A: Where {disfmarker} where is this {disfmarker} where is this fifty - seven point O two in {disfmarker} in comparison to the last evaluation ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's better than anything , uh , anybody got . +PhD A: Oh , is that right ? +PhD C: Yeah . The best was fifty - four point five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Point s +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh +PhD C: And our system was forty - nine , but with the neural network . +PhD A: Wow . So this is almost ten percent . +Professor B: With the f with the neural net . Yeah , and r and {disfmarker} +PhD C: It would +PhD D: Yeah , so this is {disfmarker} this is like the first proposal . The proposal - one . It was forty - four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And we still don't have the neural net in . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow . +Professor B: You know . So it 's {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing better . +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} this is really good . +Professor B: I mean , we 're getting better recognition . I mean , I 'm sure other people working on this are not sitting still either , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , the important thing is that we learn how to do this better , and , you know . So . Um , Yeah . So , our , um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can see the kind of {disfmarker} kind of numbers that we 're having , say , on SpeechDat - Car which is a hard task , cuz it 's really , um {disfmarker} I think it 's just sort of {disfmarker} sort of reasonable numbers , starting to be . I mean , it 's still terri +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , even for a well - matched case it 's sixty percent error rate reduction , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Probably half . Good ! +PhD C: Um , Yeah . So actually , this is in between {vocalsound} what we had with the previous VAD and what Sunil did with an IDL VAD . Which gave sixty - two percent improvement , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's almost that . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's almost an average somewhere around {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? Say that last part again ? +PhD C: So , if you use , like , an IDL VAD , uh , for dropping the frames , +PhD D: o o Or the best we can get . +PhD C: the best that we can get {disfmarker} i That means that we estimate the silence probability on the clean version of the utterances . Then you can go up to sixty - two percent error rate reduction , globally . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So that would be even {disfmarker} That wouldn't change this number down here to sixty - two ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you were get +PhD C: If you add a g good v very good VAD , that works as well as a VAD working on clean speech , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: then you wou you would go {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's sort of the best you could hope for . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Probably . Yeah . So fi si fifty - three is what you were getting with the old VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and sixty - two with the {disfmarker} the , you know , quote , unquote , cheating VAD . And fifty - seven is what you got with the real VAD . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Uh , yeah , the next thing is , I started to play {disfmarker} Well , I don't want to worry too much about the delay , no . Maybe it 's better to wait +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: for the decision +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: from the committee . Uh , but I started to play with the , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , tandem neural network . Mmm I just did the configuration that 's very similar to what we did for the February proposal . And {disfmarker} Um . So . There is a f a first feature stream that use uh straight MFCC features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , these features actually . And the other stream is the output of a neural network , using as input , also , these , um , cleaned MFCC . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Those are th those are th what is going into the tandem net ? +PhD C: I don't have the comp Mmm ? +PhD A: Those two ? +PhD C: So there is just this feature stream , {comment} the fifteen MFCC plus delta and double - delta . +Professor B: No . +PhD A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Um , so it 's {disfmarker} makes forty - five features {comment} that are used as input to the HTK . And then , there is {disfmarker} there are more inputs that comes from the tandem MLP . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK . I see . +Professor B: Yeah , h he likes to use them both , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: cuz then it has one part that 's discriminative , +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: one part that 's not . +PhD A: Right . OK . +PhD C: So , um , uh , yeah . Right now it seems that {disfmarker} i I just tested on SpeechDat - Car while the experiment are running on your {disfmarker} on TI - digits . Well , it improves on the well - matched and the mismatched conditions , but it get worse on the highly mismatched . Um , +PhD A: Compared to these numbers ? +PhD C: Compared to these numbers , yeah . Um , +Professor B: y +PhD C: like , on the well - match and medium mismatch , the gain is around five percent relative , but it goes down a lot more , like fifteen percent on the HM case . +Professor B: You 're just using the full ninety features ? +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y you have ninety features ? +PhD C: i I have , um {disfmarker} From the networks , it 's twenty - eight . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: And from the other side it 's forty - five . +PhD C: So , d i It 's forty - five . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you have seventy - three features , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and you 're just feeding them like that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: There isn't any KLT or anything ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . There 's a KLT after the neural network , as {disfmarker} as before . +PhD A: That 's how you get down to twenty - eight ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Why twenty - eight ? +PhD C: I don't know . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Uh . It 's {disfmarker} i i i It 's because it 's what we did for the first proposal . We tested , uh , trying to go down +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: It 's a multiple of seven . +PhD C: and Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Um . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I wanted to do something very similar to the proposal as a first {disfmarker} first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: But we have to {disfmarker} for sure , we have to go down , because the limit is now sixty features . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , uh , we have to find a way to decrease the number of features . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , it seems funny that {disfmarker} I don't know , maybe I don't u quite understand everything , {comment} but that adding features {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I guess if you 're keeping the back - end fixed . Maybe that 's it . Because it seems like just adding information shouldn't give worse results . But I guess if you 're keeping the number of Gaussians fixed in the recognizer , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: But , I mean , just in general , adding information {disfmarker} Suppose the information you added , well , was a really terrible feature and all it brought in was noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} so , um {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} or suppose it wasn't completely terrible , but it was completely equivalent to another one feature that you had , except it was noisier . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? In that case you wouldn't necessarily expect it to be better at all . +PhD A: Oh , yeah , I wasn't necessarily saying it should be better . I 'm just surprised that you 're getting fifteen percent relative worse on the wel +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But it 's worse . +Professor B: On the highly mismatched condition . +PhD A: On the highly mismatch . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So , "" highly mismatched condition "" means that in fact your training is a bad estimate of your test . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So having {disfmarker} having , uh , a g a l a greater number of features , if they aren't maybe the right features that you use , certainly can e can easily , uh , make things worse . I mean , you 're right . If you have {disfmarker} if you have , uh , lots and lots of data , and you have {disfmarker} and your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your training is representative of your test , then getting more sources of information should just help . But {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't necessarily work that way . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I wonder , um , Well , what 's your {disfmarker} what 's your thought about what to do next with it ? +PhD C: Um , I don't know . I 'm surprised , because I expected the neural net to help more when there is more mismatch , as it was the case for the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , was the training set same as the p the February proposal ? OK . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's the same training set , so it 's TIMIT with the TI - digits ' , uh , noises , uh , added . +PhD D: +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we might {disfmarker} uh , we might have to experiment with , uh better training sets . Again . But , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} The other thing is , I mean , before you found that was the best configuration , but you might have to retest those things now that we have different {disfmarker} The rest of it is different , right ? So , um , uh , For instance , what 's the effect of just putting the neural net on without the o other {disfmarker} other path ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , you know what the straight features do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That gives you this . You know what it does in combination . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You don't necessarily know what {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if you did the {disfmarker} Would it make sense to do the KLT on the full set of combined features ? Instead of just on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I g I guess . Um . The reason I did it this ways is that in February , it {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we tested different things like that , so , having two KLT , having just a KLT for a network , or having a global KLT . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you tried the global KLT before +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: and it didn't really {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . And , uh , th Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: The differences between these configurations were not huge , but {disfmarker} it was marginally better with this configuration . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Professor B: But , yeah , that 's obviously another thing to try , +PhD C: Um . +Professor B: since things are {disfmarker} things are different . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I guess if the {disfmarker} These are all {disfmarker} so all of these seventy - three features are going into , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the HMM . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And is {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} i i are {disfmarker} are any deltas being computed of tha of them ? +PhD C: Of the straight features , yeah . +Professor B: n Not of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . But n th the , um , tandem features are u used as they are . +Professor B: Are not . +PhD C: So , yeah , maybe we can add some context from these features also as {disfmarker} Dan did in {disfmarker} in his last work . +Professor B: Could . i Yeah , but the other thing I was thinking was , um {disfmarker} Uh , now I lost track of what I was thinking . But . +PhD A: What is the {disfmarker} You said there was a limit of sixty features or something ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What 's the relation between that limit and the , um , forty - eight {disfmarker} uh , forty eight hundred bits per second ? +Professor B: Oh , I know what I was gonna say . +PhD C: Um , not {disfmarker} no relation . +Professor B: No relation . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't understand , +PhD C: The f the forty - eight hundred bits is for transmission of some features . +PhD A: because i I mean , if you 're only using h +PhD C: And generally , i it {disfmarker} s allows you to transmit like , fifteen , uh , cepstrum . +Professor B: The issue was that , um , this is supposed to be a standard that 's then gonna be fed to somebody 's recognizer somewhere which might be , you know , it {disfmarker} it might be a concern how many parameters are use {disfmarker} u used and so forth . And so , uh , they felt they wanted to set a limit . So they chose sixty . Some people wanted to use hundreds of parameters and {disfmarker} and that bothered some other people . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: u And so they just chose that . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's kind of r arbitrary too . But {disfmarker} but that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of what was chosen . I {disfmarker} I remembered what I was going to say . What I was going to say is that , um , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe with the noise removal , uh , these things are now more correlated . So you have two sets of things that are kind of uncorrelated , uh , within themselves , but they 're pretty correlated with one another . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , they 're being fed into these , uh , variants , only Gaussians and so forth , and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so maybe it would be a better idea now than it was before to , uh , have , uh , one KLT over everything , to de - correlate it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: Maybe . You know . +PhD D: What are the S N Rs in the training set , TIMIT ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , ranging from zero to clean ? Yeah . From zero to clean . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So we found this {disfmarker} this , uh {disfmarker} this Macrophone data , and so forth , that we were using for these other experiments , to be pretty good . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} i after you explore these other alternatives , that might be another way to start looking , is {disfmarker} is just improving the training set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , we were getting , uh , lots better recognition using that , than {disfmarker} Of course , you do have the problem that , um , u i {comment} we are not able to increase the number of Gaussians , uh , or anything to , uh , uh , to match anything . So we 're only improving the training of our feature set , but that 's still probably something . +PhD A: So you 're saying , add the Macrophone data to the training of the neural net ? The tandem net ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the only place that we can train . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We can't train the other stuff with anything other than the standard amount , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: so . Um , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what was it trained on again ? The one that you used ? +PhD C: It 's TIMIT with noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's rather a small {disfmarker} +Professor B: How big is the net , by the way ? +PhD C: Um , Uh , it 's , uh , five hundred hidden units . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: And again , you did experiments back then where you made it bigger and it {disfmarker} and that was {disfmarker} that was sort of the threshold point . Much less than that , it was worse , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: much more than that , it wasn't much better . Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . @ @ ? +PhD D: So is it {disfmarker} is it though the performance , big relation in the high ma high mismatch has something to do with the , uh , cleaning up that you {disfmarker} that is done on the TIMIT after adding noise ? +PhD C: +PhD D: So {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i All the noises are from the TI - digits , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? So you {disfmarker} i +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} k uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it it 's like the high mismatch of the SpeechDat - Car after cleaning up , maybe having more noise than the {disfmarker} the training set of TIMIT after clean {disfmarker} s after you do the noise clean - up . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: I mean , earlier you never had any compensation , you just trained it straight away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it had like all these different conditions of S N Rs , actually in their training set of neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But after cleaning up you have now a different set of S N Rs , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: For the training of the neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} is it something to do with the mismatch that {disfmarker} that 's created after the cleaning up , like the high mismatch {disfmarker} +PhD C: You mean the {disfmarker} the most noisy occurrences on SpeechDat - Car might be a lot more noisy than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Of {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , the SNR after the noise compensation of the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Oh , so {disfmarker} Right . So the training {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the neural net is being trained with noise compensated stuff . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Which makes sense , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , you 're saying {disfmarker} Yeah , the noisier ones are still going to be , even after our noise compensation , are still gonna be pretty noisy . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , so now the after - noise compensation the neural net is seeing a different set of S N Rs than that was originally there in the training set . Of TIMIT . Because in the TIMIT it was zero to some clean . +Professor B: Right . Yes . +PhD D: So the net saw all the SNR @ @ conditions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Now after cleaning up it 's a different set of SNR . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And that SNR may not be , like , com covering the whole set of S N Rs that you 're getting in the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Right , but the SpeechDat - Car data that you 're seeing is also reduced in noise by the noise compensation . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , it is . But , I 'm saying , there could be some {disfmarker} some issues of {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , if the initial range of SNR is different , we {disfmarker} the problem was already there before . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it depends on whether you believe that the noise compensation is equally reducing the noise on the test set and the training set . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: On the test set , yeah . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , you 're saying there 's a mismatch in noise that wasn't there before , +PhD D: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if they were both the same before , then if they were both reduic reduced equally , then , there would not be a mismatch . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , this may be {disfmarker} Heaven forbid , this noise compensation process may be imperfect , but . Uh , so maybe it 's treating some things differently . +PhD C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} that could be seen from the TI - digits , uh , testing condition because , um , the noises are from the TI - digits , right ? Noise {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So cleaning up the TI - digits and if the performance goes down in the TI - digits mismatch {disfmarker} high mismatch like this {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training , yeah . +PhD D: on a clean training , or zero DB testing . +PhD C: Yeah , we 'll {disfmarker} so we 'll see . Uh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Then it 's something to do . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , one of the things about {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , the Macrophone data , um , I think , you know , it was recorded over many different telephones . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so , there 's lots of different kinds of acoustic conditions . I mean , it 's not artificially added noise or anything . So it 's not the same . I don't think there 's anybody recording over a car from a car , but {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's varied enough that if {disfmarker} if doing this adjustments , uh , and playing around with it doesn't , uh , make it better , the most {disfmarker} uh , it seems like the most obvious thing to do is to improve the training set . Um {disfmarker} I mean , what we were {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} the condition {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it gave us an enormous amount of improvement in what we were doing with Meeting Recorder digits , even though there , again , these m Macrophone digits were very , very different from , uh , what we were going on here . I mean , we weren't talking over a telephone here . But it was just {disfmarker} I think just having a {disfmarker} a nice variation in acoustic conditions was just a good thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah , actually {vocalsound} to s eh , what I observed in the HM case is that the number of deletion dramatically increases . It {disfmarker} it doubles . +Professor B: Number of deletions . +PhD C: When I added the num the neural network it doubles the number of deletions . Yeah , so I don't you know {vocalsound} how to interpret that , but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Me either . +PhD C: t +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and did {disfmarker} an other numbers stay the same ? Insertion substitutions stay the same ? +PhD C: They p stayed the same , +PhD A: Roughly ? +PhD C: they {disfmarker} maybe they are a little bit uh , lower . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: They are a little bit better . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Did they increase the number of deletions even for the cases that got better ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Say , for the {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , it doesn't . +Professor B: So it 's only the highly mismatched ? +PhD C: No . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} Remind me again , the "" highly mismatched "" means that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , sorry ? +PhD C: It 's clean training {disfmarker} Well , close microphone training and distant microphone , um , high speed , I think . +Professor B: Close mike training {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} The most noisy cases are the distant microphone for testing . +Professor B: Right . So {disfmarker} Well , maybe the noise subtraction is subtracting off speech . +PhD C: Separating . Yeah . +Professor B: Wh +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean , but without the neural network it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's better . It 's just when we add the neural networks . +Professor B: Yeah , right . +PhD C: The feature are the same except that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , that 's right , that 's right . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well that {disfmarker} that says that , you know , the , um {disfmarker} the models in {disfmarker} in , uh , the recognizer are really paying attention to the neural net features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , yeah , actually {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the TIMIT noises {pause} are sort of a range of noises and they 're not so much the stationary driving kind of noises , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty different . Isn't it ? +PhD C: Uh , there is a car noise . So there are f just four noises . Um , uh , "" Car "" , I think , "" Babble "" , +PhD D: "" Babble . "" +PhD C: "" Subway "" , right ? and {disfmarker} +PhD D: "" Street "" or "" Airport "" or something . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} "" Street "" isn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or "" Train station "" . +PhD C: "" Train station "" , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} it 's mostly {disfmarker} Well , "" Car "" is stationary , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: "" Babble "" , it 's a stationary background plus some voices , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: some speech over it . And the other two are rather stationary also . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I think that if you run it {disfmarker} Actually , you {disfmarker} maybe you remember this . When you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old experiments when you ran with the neural net only , and didn't have this side path , um , uh , with the {disfmarker} the pure features as well , did it make things better to have the neural net ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Was it about the same ? Uh , w i +PhD C: It was {disfmarker} b a little bit worse . +Professor B: Than {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Than just the features , yeah . +Professor B: So , until you put the second path in with the pure features , the neural net wasn't helping at all . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's interesting . +PhD C: It was helping , uh , if the features are b were bad , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean . Just plain P L Ps or M F +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: C Cs . as soon as we added LDA on - line normalization , and {vocalsound} all these things , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: They were doing similar enough things . Well , I still think it would be k sort of interesting to see what would happen if you just had the neural net without the side thing . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the thing I {disfmarker} I have in mind is , uh , maybe you 'll see that the results are not just a little bit worse . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Maybe that they 're a lot worse . You know ? And , um {disfmarker} But if on the ha other hand , uh , it 's , say , somewhere in between what you 're seeing now and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , what you 'd have with just the pure features , then maybe there is some problem of a {disfmarker} of a , uh , combination of these things , or correlation between them somehow . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it really is that the net is hurting you at the moment , then I think the issue is to focus on {disfmarker} on , uh , improving the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what 's the overall effe I mean , you haven't done all the experiments but you said it was i somewhat better , say , five percent better , for the first two conditions , and fifteen percent worse for the other one ? But it 's {disfmarker} but of course that one 's weighted lower , +PhD C: Y yeah , oh . Yeah . +Professor B: so I wonder what the net effect is . +PhD C: I d I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it was one or two percent . That 's not that bad , but it was l like two percent relative worse on SpeechDat - Car . I have to {disfmarker} to check that . Well , I have {disfmarker} I will . +PhD D: Well , it will {disfmarker} overall it will be still better even if it is fifteen percent worse , because the fifteen percent worse is given like f w twenty - five {disfmarker} point two five eight . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Right . So the {disfmarker} so the worst it could be , if the others were exactly the same , is four , +PhD D: Is it like {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , in fact since the others are somewhat better {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's four . Is i So either it 'll get cancelled out , or you 'll get , like , almost the same . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} it was slightly worse . +PhD D: Slightly bad . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , +Professor B: Yeah , it should be pretty close to cancelled out . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You know , I 've been wondering about something . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: In the , um {disfmarker} a lot of the , um {disfmarker} the Hub - five systems , um , recently have been using LDA . and {disfmarker} and they , um {disfmarker} They run LDA on the features right before they train the models . So there 's the {disfmarker} the LDA is {disfmarker} is right there before the H M +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So , you guys are using LDA but it seems like it 's pretty far back in the process . +PhD D: Uh , this LDA is different from the LDA that you are talking about . The LDA that you {disfmarker} saying is , like , you take a block of features , like nine frames or something , {comment} and then do an LDA on it , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and then reduce the dimensionality to something like twenty - four or something like that . +PhD A: Yeah , you c you c you can . +PhD D: And then feed it to HMM . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} you know , you 're just basically i +PhD D: Yeah , so this is like a two d two dimensional tile . +PhD A: You 're shifting the feature space . Yeah . +PhD D: So this is a two dimensional tile . And the LDA that we are f applying is only in time , not in frequency {disfmarker} high cost frequency . So it 's like {disfmarker} more like a filtering in time , rather than doing a r +PhD A: Ah . OK . So what i what about , um {disfmarker} i u what i w I mean , I don't know if this is a good idea or not , but what if you put {disfmarker} ran the other kind of LDA , uh , on your features right before they go into the HMM ? +PhD D: Uh , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . No , actually , I think {disfmarker} i +PhD D: m +PhD C: Well . What do we do with the ANN is {disfmarker} is something like that except that it 's not linear . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's like a nonlinear discriminant analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . Right , it 's the {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} Right . The {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah , so it 's sort of like {disfmarker} +PhD C: But . +PhD A: The tandem stuff is kind of like i nonlinear LDA . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: I g +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But I mean , w but the other features that you have , um , th the non - tandem ones , +PhD C: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in the proposal , they were transformed u using PCA , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah , it might be that LDA could be better . +Professor B: The a the argument i is kind of i in {disfmarker} and it 's not like we really know , but the argument anyway is that , um , uh , we always have the prob I mean , discriminative things are good . LDA , neural nets , they 're good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , they 're good because you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you learn to distinguish between these categories that you want to be good at distinguishing between . And PCA doesn't do that . It {disfmarker} PAC - PCA {disfmarker} low - order PCA throws away pieces that are uh , maybe not {disfmarker} not gonna be helpful just because they 're small , basically . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But , uh , the problem is , training sets aren't perfect and testing sets are different . So you f you {disfmarker} you face the potential problem with discriminative stuff , be it LDA or neural nets , that you are training to discriminate between categories in one space but what you 're really gonna be g getting is {disfmarker} is something else . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And so , uh , Stephane 's idea was , uh , let 's feed , uh , both this discriminatively trained thing and something that 's not . So you have a good set of features that everybody 's worked really hard to make , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then , uh , you {disfmarker} you discriminately train it , but you also take the path that {disfmarker} that doesn't have that , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and putting those in together . And that {disfmarker} that seem So it 's kind of like a combination of the {disfmarker} uh , what , uh , Dan has been calling , you know , a feature {disfmarker} uh , you know , a feature combination versus posterior combination or something . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , you have the posterior combination but then you get the features from that and use them as a feature combination with these {disfmarker} these other things . And that seemed , at least in the last one , as he was just saying , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} when he only did discriminative stuff , i it actually was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} it didn't help at all in this particular case . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: There was enough of a difference , I guess , between the testing and training . But by having them both there {disfmarker} The fact is some of the time , the discriminative stuff is gonna help you . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And some of the time it 's going to hurt you , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and by combining two information sources if , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you wouldn't necessarily then want to do LDA on the non - tandem features because now you 're doing something to them that {disfmarker} +Professor B: That i i I think that 's counter to that idea . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: Now , again , it 's {disfmarker} we 're just trying these different things . We don't really know what 's gonna work best . But if that 's the hypothesis , at least it would be counter to that hypothesis to do that . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , and in principle you would think that the neural net would do better at the discriminant part than LDA . +PhD A: Right . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} y +Professor B: Though , maybe not . +PhD A: Yeah . Exactly . I mean , we , uh {disfmarker} we were getting ready to do the tandem , uh , stuff for the Hub - five system , and , um , Andreas and I talked about it , and the idea w the thought was , "" Well , uh , yeah , that i you know {disfmarker} th the neural net should be better , but we should at least have uh , a number , you know , to show that we did try the LDA in place of the neural net , so that we can you know , show a clear path . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: You know , that you have it without it , then you have the LDA , then you have the neural net , and you can see , theoretically . So . I was just wondering {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Did {disfmarker} did you do that +PhD A: Um . No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} tha that 's a {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's what {disfmarker} that 's what we 're gonna do next as soon as I finish this other thing . So . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . No , well , that 's a good idea . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: We just want to show . +Professor B: i Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , it {disfmarker} everybody believes it , +Professor B: Oh , no it 's a g +PhD A: but you know , we just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no , but it might not {disfmarker} not even be true . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a great idea . I mean , one of the things that always disturbed me , uh , in the {disfmarker} the resurgence of neural nets that happened in the eighties was that , um , a lot of people {disfmarker} Because neural nets were pretty easy to {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} a lot of people were just using them for all sorts of things without , uh , looking at all into the linear , uh {disfmarker} uh , versions of them . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , people were doing recurrent nets but not looking at IIR filters , and {disfmarker} You know , I mean , uh , so I think , yeah , it 's definitely a good idea to try it . +PhD A: Yeah , and everybody 's putting that on their {vocalsound} systems now , and so , I that 's what made me wonder about this , +Professor B: Well , they 've been putting them in their systems off and on for ten years , +PhD A: but . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , what I mean is it 's {disfmarker} it 's like in the Hub - five evaluations , you know , and you read the system descriptions and everybody 's got , {vocalsound} you know , LDA on their features . +Professor B: And now they all have that . I see . +PhD A: And so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: It 's the transformation they 're estimating on {disfmarker} Well , they are trained on the same data as the final HMM are . +PhD A: Yeah , so it 's different . Yeah , exactly . Cuz they don't have these , you know , mismatches that {disfmarker} that you guys have . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that 's why I was wondering if maybe it 's not even a good idea . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't know . I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about it , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: I mean , part of why {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think part of why you were getting into the KLT {disfmarker} Y you were describing to me at one point that you wanted to see if , uh , you know , getting good orthogonal features was {disfmarker} and combining the {disfmarker} the different temporal ranges {disfmarker} was the key thing that was happening or whether it was this discriminant thing , right ? So you were just trying {disfmarker} I think you r I mean , this is {disfmarker} it doesn't have the LDA aspect but th as far as the orthogonalizing transformation , you were trying that at one point , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think you were . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Does something . It doesn't work as well . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , yeah , I 've been exploring a parallel VAD without neural network with , like , less latency using SNR and energy , um , after the cleaning up . So what I 'd been trying was , um , uh {disfmarker} After the b after the noise compensation , n I was trying t to f find a f feature based on the ratio of the energies , that is , cl after clean and before clean . So that if {disfmarker} if they are , like , pretty c close to one , which means it 's speech . And if it is n if it is close to zero , which is {disfmarker} So it 's like a scale @ @ probability value . So I was trying , uh , with full band and multiple bands , m ps uh {disfmarker} separating them to different frequency bands and deriving separate decisions on each bands , and trying to combine them . Uh , the advantage being like it doesn't have the latency of the neural net if it {disfmarker} if it can +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: g And {pause} it gave me like , uh , one point {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} more than one percent relative improvement . So , from fifty - three point six it went to fifty f four point eight . So it 's , like , only slightly more than a percent improvement , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: just like {disfmarker} Which means that it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing a slightly better job than the previous VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , at a l lower delay . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} i d I 'm sorry , +PhD D: so {disfmarker} u +Professor B: does it still have the median {pause} filter stuff ? +PhD D: It still has the median filter . +Professor B: So it still has most of the delay , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: it just doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so d with the delay , that 's gone is the input , which is the sixty millisecond . The forty plus {pause} twenty . +Professor B: Well , w i +PhD D: At the input of the neural net you have this , uh , f nine frames of context plus the delta . +Professor B: Oh , plus the delta , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . So that delay , plus the LDA . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , so the delay is only the forty millisecond of the noise cleaning , plus the hundred millisecond smoothing at the output . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . So . Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} di the biggest {disfmarker} The problem f for me was to find a consistent threshold that works {pause} well across the different databases , because I t I try to make it work on tr SpeechDat - Car +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and it fails on TI - digits , or if I try to make it work on that it 's just the Italian or something , it doesn't work on the Finnish . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , um . So there are {disfmarker} there was , like , some problem in balancing the deletions and insertions when I try different thresholds . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} I 'm still trying to make it better by using some other features from the {disfmarker} after the p clean up {disfmarker} maybe , some , uh , correlation {disfmarker} auto - correlation or some s additional features of {disfmarker} to mainly the improvement of the VAD . I 've been trying . +Professor B: Now this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this , uh , "" before and after clean "" , it sounds like you think that 's a good feature . That {disfmarker} that , it {disfmarker} you th think that the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i it appears to be a good feature , right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What about using it in the neural net ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , eventually we could {disfmarker} could just +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so that 's the {disfmarker} Yeah . So we 've been thinking about putting it into the neural net also . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because they did {disfmarker} that itself {disfmarker} +PhD C: Then you don't have to worry about the thresholds and {disfmarker} +PhD D: There 's a threshold and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: but just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} if we can live with the latency or cut the latencies elsewhere , then {disfmarker} then that would be a , uh , good thing . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anybody {disfmarker} has anybody {disfmarker} you guys or {disfmarker} or Naren , uh , somebody , tried the , uh , um , second th second stream thing ? Uh . +PhD D: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I just h put the second stream in place and , uh ran one experiment , but just like {disfmarker} just to know that everything is fine . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So it was like , uh , forty - five cepstrum plus twenty - three mel {disfmarker} log mel . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and , just , like , it gave me the baseline performance of the Aurora , which is like zero improvement . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So I just tried it on Italian just to know that everything is {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I didn't export anything out of it because it was , like , a weird feature set . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , what I think , you know , would be more what you 'd want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , uh , put it into another neural net . Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} But , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not quite there yet . So we have to {vocalsound} figure out the neural nets , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The uh , other thing I was wondering was , um , if the neural net , um , has any {disfmarker} because of the different noise con unseen noise conditions for the neural net , where , like , you train it on those four noise conditions , while you are feeding it with , like , a additional {disfmarker} some four plus some {disfmarker} f few more conditions which it hasn't seen , actually , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: from the {disfmarker} f f while testing . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Right . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} instead of just h having c uh , those cleaned up t cepstrum , sh should we feed some additional information , like {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We have the VAD flag . I mean , should we f feed the VAD flag , also , at the input so that it {disfmarker} it has some additional discriminating information at the input ? +PhD C: Hmm - hmm ! Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Wh - uh , the {disfmarker} the VAD what ? +PhD D: We have the VAD information also available at the back - end . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So if it is something the neural net is not able to discriminate the classes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Because most of it is sil I mean , we have dropped some silence f We have dropped so silence frames ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , we haven't dropped silence frames still . +PhD C: Uh , still not . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Th +PhD D: the b b biggest classification would be the speech and silence . So , by having an additional , uh , feature which says "" this is speech and this is nonspeech "" , I mean , it certainly helps in some unseen noise conditions for the neural net . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} Do y do you have that feature available for the test data ? +PhD D: Well , I mean , we have {disfmarker} we are transferring the VAD to the back - end {disfmarker} feature to the back - end . Because we are dropping it at the back - end after everything {disfmarker} all the features are computed . +PhD A: Oh , oh , I see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: so the neural {disfmarker} so that is coming from a separate neural net or some VAD . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Which is {disfmarker} which is certainly giving a +PhD A: So you 're saying , feed that , also , into {pause} the neural net . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} Yeah . So it it 's an {disfmarker} additional discriminating information . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +PhD D: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: You could feed it into the neural net . The other thing {comment} you could do is just , um , p modify the , uh , output probabilities of the {disfmarker} of the , uh , uh , um , neural net , tandem neural net , {comment} based on the fact that you have a silence probability . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you have an independent estimator of what the silence probability is , and you could multiply the two things , and renormalize . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you 'd have to do the nonlinearity part and deal with that . Uh , I mean , go backwards from what the nonlinearity would , you know {disfmarker} would be . +PhD D: Through {disfmarker} t to the soft max . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , so {disfmarker} maybe , yeah , when {disfmarker} +PhD A: But in principle wouldn't it be better to feed it in ? And let the net do that ? +Professor B: Well , u Not sure . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean , let 's put it this way . I mean , y you {disfmarker} you have this complicated system with thousands and thousand parameters +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and you can tell it , uh , "" Learn this thing . "" Or you can say , "" It 's silence ! Go away ! "" I mean , I mean , i Doesn't {disfmarker} ? I think {disfmarker} I think the second one sounds a lot more direct . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what if you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Right . So , what if you then , uh {disfmarker} since you know this , what if you only use the neural net on the speech portions ? +Professor B: Well , uh , +PhD C: That 's what {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I guess that 's the same . Uh , that 's similar . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , y you 'd have to actually run it continuously , +PhD A: But I mean {disfmarker} I mean , train the net only on {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} Well , no , you want to train on {disfmarker} on the nonspeech also , because that 's part of what you 're learning in it , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to generate , that it 's {disfmarker} it has to distinguish between . +PhD D: Speech . +PhD A: But I mean , if you 're gonna {disfmarker} if you 're going to multiply the output of the net by this other decision , uh , would {disfmarker} then you don't care about whether the net makes that distinction , right ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . But this other thing isn't perfect . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: So that you bring in some information from the net itself . +PhD A: Right , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only thing that {disfmarker} that bothers me about all this is that I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the fact {disfmarker} i i It 's sort of bothersome that you 're getting more deletions . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} So I might maybe look at , is it due to the fact that um , the probability of the silence at the output of the network , is , uh , +Professor B: Is too high . +PhD C: too {disfmarker} too high or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So maybe {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD C: If it 's the case , then multiplying it again by {disfmarker} i by something ? +PhD D: It may not be {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it may be too {disfmarker} it 's too high in a sense , like , everything is more like a , um , flat probability . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh - eee - hhh . +PhD D: So , like , it 's not really doing any distinction between speech and nonspeech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . +PhD D: or , I mean , different {disfmarker} among classes . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Be interesting to look at the {disfmarker} Yeah , for the {disfmarker} I wonder if you could do this . But if you look at the , um , highly mism high mismat the output of the net on the high mismatch case and just look at , you know , the distribution versus the {disfmarker} the other ones , do you {disfmarker} do you see more peaks or something ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , like the entropy of the {disfmarker} the output , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , for instance . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} bu +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it seems that the VAD network doesn't {disfmarker} Well , it doesn't drop , uh , too many frames because the dele the number of deletion is reasonable . But it 's just when we add the tandem , the final MLP , and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only problem is you don't want to ta I guess wait for the output of the VAD before you can put something into the other system , +PhD C: u +Professor B: cuz that 'll shoot up the latency a lot , right ? Am I missing something here ? +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 's maybe a problem with what I was just saying . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} I I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: But if you were gonna put it in as a feature it means you already have it by the time you get to the tandem net , right ? +PhD D: Um , well . We {disfmarker} w we don't have it , actually , +Professor B: No . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it has a high rate energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: the VAD has a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's kind of done in {disfmarker} I mean , some of the things are , not in parallel , but certainly , it would be in parallel with the {disfmarker} with a tandem net . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: In time . So maybe , if that doesn't work , um {disfmarker} But it would be interesting to see if that was the problem , anyway . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then I guess another alternative would be to take the feature that you 're feeding into the VAD , and feeding it into the other one as well . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then maybe it would just learn {disfmarker} learn it better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's an interesting thing to try to see , if what 's going on is that in the highly mismatched condition , it 's , um , causing deletions by having this silence probability up {disfmarker} up too high , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at some point where the VAD is saying it 's actually speech . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Which is probably true . +PhD C: So , m +Professor B: Cuz {disfmarker} Well , the V A if the VAD said {disfmarker} since the VAD is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is right a lot , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Anyway . Might be . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , we just started working with it . But these are {disfmarker} these are some good ideas I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , and the other thing {disfmarker} Well , there are other issues maybe for the tandem , like , uh , well , do we want to , w uh n Do we want to work on the targets ? Or , like , instead of using phonemes , using more context dependent units ? +PhD A: For the tandem net you mean ? +PhD C: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm thinking , also , a w about Dan 's work where he {disfmarker} he trained {vocalsound} a network , not on phoneme targets but on the HMM state targets . And {disfmarker} it was giving s slightly better results . +Professor B: Problem is , if you are going to run this on different m test sets , including large vocabulary , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: um , +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . I was just thinking maybe about , like , generalized diphones , and {disfmarker} come up with a {disfmarker} a reasonable , not too large , set of context dependent units , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . And then anyway we would have to reduce this with the KLT . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , maybe . But I d I d it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i it 's all worth looking at , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it sounds to me like , uh , looking at the relationship between this and the {disfmarker} speech noise stuff is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is probably a key thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That and the correlation between stuff . +PhD A: So if , uh {disfmarker} if the , uh , high mismatch case had been more like the , uh , the other two cases {comment} in terms of giving you just a better performance , {comment} how would this number have changed ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Oh , it would be {disfmarker} Yeah . Around five percent better , I guess . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} i +PhD A: y Like sixty ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know what 's it 's gonna be the TI - digits yet . He hasn't got the results back yet . +PhD C: Yeah . If you extrapolate the SpeechDat - Car well - matched and medium - mismatch , it 's around , yeah , maybe five . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Yeah . So this would be sixty - two ? +Professor B: Sixty - two . +PhD A: Which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Sixty - two , yeah . +PhD D: Somewhere around sixty , must be . Right ? Yeah . +PhD C: Well , it 's around five percent , because it 's {disfmarker} s Right ? If everything is five percent . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: All the other ones were five percent , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I d I d I just have the SpeechDat - Car right now , so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's running {disfmarker} it shou we should have the results today during the afternoon , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} Well . +Professor B: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} So I won't be here for {disfmarker} +PhD A: When {disfmarker} When do you leave ? +Professor B: Uh , I 'm leaving next Wednesday . May or may not be in in the morning . I leave in the afternoon . Um , +PhD A: But you 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} +PhD A: are you {disfmarker} you 're not gonna be around this afternoon ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , well . I 'm talking about next week . I 'm leaving {disfmarker} leaving next Wednesday . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: This afternoon {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Oh , right , for the Meeting meeting ? Yeah , that 's just cuz of something on campus . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . But , um , yeah , so next week I won't , and the week after I won't , cuz I 'll be in Finland . And the week after that I won't . By that time you 'll be {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , you 'll both be gone {pause} from here . So there 'll be no {disfmarker} definitely no meeting on {disfmarker} on September sixth . Uh , +PhD A: What 's September sixth ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Uh , that 's during Eurospeech . +PhD A: Oh , oh , right . OK . +Professor B: So , uh , Sunil will be in Oregon . Uh , Stephane and I will be in Denmark . Uh {disfmarker} Right ? So it 'll be a few weeks , really , before we have a meeting of the same cast of characters . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} I guess , just {disfmarker} I mean , you guys should probably meet . And maybe Barry {disfmarker} Barry will be around . And {disfmarker} and then uh , uh , we 'll start up again with Dave and {disfmarker} Dave and Barry and Stephane and us on the , uh , twentieth . No . Thirteenth ? About a month ? +PhD A: So , uh , you 're gonna be gone for the next three weeks or something ? +Professor B: I 'm gone for two and a half weeks starting {disfmarker} starting next Wed - late next Wednesday . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} you won't be at the next three of these meetings . Is that right ? +Professor B: Uh , I won't {disfmarker} it 's probably four because of {disfmarker} is it three ? Let 's see , twenty - third , thirtieth , sixth . That 's right , next three . And the {disfmarker} the third one won't {disfmarker} probably won't be a meeting , cuz {disfmarker} cuz , uh , Su - Sunil , Stephane , and I will all not be here . +PhD A: Oh , right . Right . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} So it 's just , uh , the next two where there will be {disfmarker} there , you know , may as well be meetings , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but I just won't be at them . And then starting up on the thirteenth , {nonvocalsound} uh , we 'll have meetings again but we 'll have to do without Sunil here somehow . +PhD A: When do you go back ? +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Thirty - first , August . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Cool . +PhD A: When is the evaluation ? November , or something ? +Professor B: Yeah , it was supposed to be November fifteenth . Has anybody heard anything different ? +PhD C: I don't know . The meeting in {disfmarker} is the five and six of December . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: p s It 's like {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tentatively all full . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , that 's a proposed date , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , um {disfmarker} so the evaluation should be on a week before or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yep . But , no , this is good progress . So . Uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Guess we 're done . Digits ? Yep . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's a wrap . +","In the conversation, participants discuss various technical aspects of speech recognition research. Professor B, PhD A, PhD C, and PhD D cover topics such as processing techniques for dealing with reverberation, signal-to-noise ratio measurements, filter adjustments, and the impact of different background noises like air conditioning and projectors on signal processing. + +Professor B talks about a technique he and Dave submitted for ASRU, mentioning the technique's effectiveness in dealing with pure reverberation. PhD D and Professor B discuss the specifics of filter configurations and consider the application to the Aurora system, particularly focusing on high-pass filters and frequency edges. + +They explore the possibility of the noise processing mechanism being imperfect and discuss how this might affect the signal-to-noise ratio and the ultimate speech recognition performance. The importance of training data in the performance of the systems is highlighted, with Professor B suggesting the use of Macrophone data to improve the training set. + +PhD A and PhD D are also working on a recognizer at Mississippi State, discussing the software and sample runs for the project. Participants considered the effect of latency in their Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and signal processing, seeking ways to reduce it to improve system responsiveness. + +Lastly, they discussed future meetings and Professor B's travel plans, establishing that there will be a break in their regular meetings due to various individuals' absences. + +In summary, the conversation mainly revolves around technical details of their ongoing speech recognition projects, with a focus on noise processing techniques, filter configurations, and training data's impact on system performance. They also discuss some logistical details related to their meetings and project collaborations." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm So , ready ? {gap} +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: No not really Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Crap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , {vocalsound} I I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: It's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your judgement it's {disfmarker} is biased . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh thi this remote control will stay a prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , so whe where is the remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we are {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let's go for our detailed design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So I will still play the role of the secretary , and we'll have um first the project presentation by our User Interface Designer , David Jordan , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and our Industrial Designer , Baba . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we'll have to evaluate the uh {disfmarker} your proposed remote control , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and um have an idea of the price that uh this thing will cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And in case if we're {disfmarker} we all agree on the fabrica of um building of this remote control , we'll evaluate the um production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe I will let the {disfmarker} our two designers talk about so their {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have slides . +Project Manager: You have s oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oops . +User Interface: Ah , +Industrial Designer: Effectively one slide and maybe we can discuss everything . +User Interface: Product prod +Marketing: What slides ? +User Interface: Yep . Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} So , this is our product or prototype . This is made by clay . +Project Manager: Looks strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the basic colour is uh yellow and red . Yellow is uh our company colour , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: uh red it's uh is more attractive . So we used two basic colour , yellow and red . And the shape , there's two basic shape . The first is a circle and the second is a triangle s piece . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} we call it a mushroom design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's looks like some mushroom , so we call it mushroom design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So this is a introduction of our product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Genetically modified mushroom I will say , but +User Interface: Next a mo +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} keep on speaking . +User Interface: yeah , so next slide . So there are several key features of our pr prototype . The first is that it is fuzzy . I'm sure this would be the unique design the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I'm sure {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe , I hope so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's a fuzzy design , and a unique design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Um , and uh the second key feature is that uh s circle channel um selection . In the traditional key uh traditional controller use button to to select the channel but now we have a s circle , so we can turn this ball to t to select channel . +Project Manager: Chan +User Interface: So it's quite convenient for user to use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , but don't touch {disfmarker} don't destroy your prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay . Uh the third feature is a stable triangle base . Uh this sta uh this triangle base is very stable , so uh so it's it's um it's unlikely you cannot found it . So it's v Um , you can put it in the table so you can turn the the ball to cha to select the channel and there's some cute button . You c can can you can see the the shape of the buttons n is a mushroom , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Everything's mushroom . So we can call our remote control the mushroom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , everything's mushroom . Mush Mushroom design , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's not like really mushroom because you have uh you know uh {vocalsound} like lemon shape , you know , centre {vocalsound} is yellow and t d +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th that's why if you put it in the table , be careful , somebody will eat it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To integrate , you know {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I hope nobody will eat it {gap} You know , to integrate the fruit aspect , you know the {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} in +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah , because mushroom was not in the trends . I mean there was fruits {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: Really ? But {disfmarker} Fruit and vegetable , +Project Manager: Vegetables . Mushroom is a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: so mushroom was a kind of you know {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think it is . +Project Manager: It's vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Mushroom ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'm not sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So th it's something eatable . +Industrial Designer: We can {disfmarker} it's a veg a kind of vegetable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you know we we integrated them with different colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But anyway this is not a mushroom anyway , so it's fine . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think we take into account what you said about fruit and vegetable {gap} you know . This , you know , very enlighted colours , you know . +Marketing: No , I mean , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Inspira inspiration is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And inspired colour +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} and very sophisticated material , so . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: And so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next slide . +User Interface: Uh , no this our only two slides . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So what we w what I can add is that , you know {vocalsound} he talk about what is outside , so what is inside is what we dis what we talked before about , you know , the chip , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it is a low level chip , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we cut it to see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , we don't need to k {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know wi {vocalsound} the low level chips inside and you know the L_C_D_ button and the i +User Interface: Okay . So where's the battery battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery it is under {gap} . +Project Manager: In the base . +Industrial Designer: It is in th in {disfmarker} in the base , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the basement . In the basement . +User Interface: Base . Here ? +Project Manager: And where is the solar solar cell ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we say uh we sa we said solar . +Project Manager: Where is the solar cell ? +Industrial Designer: In fact this this this this is a kind of you know revolutionary solar receptor that we can put outside and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Do you think it won't be {disfmarker} It won't cris increase the price ? +User Interface: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay , we'll see after . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} but it it's might be okay , so . +Project Manager: We will have first to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it might be okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , mister money , what's your opinion according to this remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean , we gonna try to measure how good it is instead of just talking about {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we had three keys {disfmarker} {vocalsound} key points to uh for this remote control design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and first one was uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So w we'll try to judge this feature uh with a one to seven scale , one being uh no , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh just let me check . +Industrial Designer: So , four point {disfmarker} three point five , it means it's acceptable . +Marketing: One one being true , and seven being false . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: Ouch . So +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Do we have a fancy look and feel , according to you ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think you have nice colours . {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The sha the bowl shape people like . +User Interface: Yeah , the shape is unique , and the colour {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'll agree it's unique , but is it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it really fancy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} So it depend on how d do you define fancy . +Marketing: Yeah I mean , fancy was was defined by s fruit and vegetable look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} you have the lemon aspect of this th this {vocalsound} this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if you change {disfmarker} if you take the buttons out , and maybe do things like that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do Don't do that , please . +Marketing: I dunno where the lemon is , but +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it's it's i this shape is a lemon like , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it's not obvious . +Project Manager: It would be bet more like a lemon ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because i +Marketing: I dunno , maybe improving the texture of like having it less smooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Less button . +User Interface: Uh so , my mush {disfmarker} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Looks like more fruit . Maybe a pineapple ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but you don't have any button now . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: And you know , you have the finger here , with the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh yeah , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , it's getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks {vocalsound} more like a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: So that's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: That's great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the use for that ? +Industrial Designer: I have no idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , for turn turn the ball . If you want to turn the ball , it's very it's very convenient for you to to to turn the ball to change the channel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And where is the voice recognition ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . Ah , it's embedded , your microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Th this th th there's two two functions . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Wait th that's the second point . +User Interface: This is microphone array {disfmarker} +Marketing: First one is we have to judge the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: If it is fancy or not . +Project Manager: Okay . Is it better like that ? +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Looks {disfmarker} okay , +Industrial Designer: So we can we can say t +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's say it's a pineapple now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The colour , is the colour acceptable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colour is okay , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: So the shape now . +Marketing: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I would say there is more {disfmarker} too much red . +Project Manager: now you took it . +Industrial Designer: It's too much red ? +Marketing: Um if +Industrial Designer: In the basement ? +Project Manager: It looks like a pineapple with cherry on top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . So , from one to seven ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will give {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh {disfmarker} Seven is the ma the maximum ? +Industrial Designer: I'll gi +Marketing: No , seven is false and one is true . +Industrial Designer: I'll give two or three . +Project Manager: Three , I will say three . +Industrial Designer: Three , it's okay . Three , three . Three is fine for me . +Marketing: Three ? +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Isn't it bitter like that {gap} ? +Marketing: Three . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then {vocalsound} uh let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What other {disfmarker} +Marketing: The other criterion is is it technologically uh technologically in innovative . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to use ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Feasible ? {vocalsound} You said previously that you {disfmarker} there's um microphone inside an +Industrial Designer: Ye uh {disfmarker} Embedded . +User Interface: Yeah , this is microphone array , in fact . +Industrial Designer: It's a micro array , okay . +User Interface: There four microphone . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay , +User Interface: So they they they they {disfmarker} there's a microphone array . +Project Manager: and you have the {disfmarker} there's the technology inside that recognise simple vocal comments ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you can turn it so maybe it's techno technologically innov innovative ? +User Interface: So you can capture voice {disfmarker} yeah , you c +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can capture s voice from different directions . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I think you {disfmarker} you've never seen a rou a round remote control , so it is {disfmarker} I +Marketing: Yeah bu but when you say technologically it's more uh I dunno , in the core , or single . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have tactile buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I see , you have microphone array embedded . You have {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's good . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's good . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , th that's another really good point . Maybe {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: I think technically it's acceptable , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So using the same scale , two ? +Project Manager: Two ? I would say two +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah , two . It's it's fine , so . +Project Manager: . You agree ? +User Interface: Yeah , I agree . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's better like that , isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now maybe the most critical one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} L last one w I would like to judge is is it easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Eh , for th the vocal command yes , it's might be easy . But it's just speaking . +User Interface: Yeah , it's very easy . +Industrial Designer: You just need the command . +User Interface: You can use this in this way . +Marketing: Yeah but this this turning {disfmarker} can you can you just re explain me the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As a principle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Please . +User Interface: Th this is the base . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can turn to change the channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but how how intuitive is it to turn things to change channels ? +User Interface: You just tu turn d d +Industrial Designer: I think maybe if you he +Project Manager: Oh , ok I understand . +Marketing: Like if you want to go from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You take take {vocalsound} the remote , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you hear some click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you can turn like that to change the channel ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but imagine you y +Project Manager: I think it's quite easy to so s zapping , but maybe it will be too fast . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I'm I'm no I'm not definitely convinced it's it's the best way to {disfmarker} if you wanna jump from , I dunno , one to twenty ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's difficult . That's dif that's difficult . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: How can you go directly to twenty , for example ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} if y uh if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it depend on the the angle you turn the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I agree . I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y how {disfmarker} you need to know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I mean if you're fro from two ? +User Interface: I if if this is a channel one . So it c it could be channel two , channel three , channel four , channel five . +Industrial Designer: I think something that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have a {vocalsound} , like that , and so on . +User Interface: So change . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ju just imagine you have fifty fifty channels uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Y uh fifth channel divided by the num by the {disfmarker} by three hundred thirteen degree . +Marketing: We're not talking {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: So you got how many degree you you {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but y but you have to go through all the channels if you want to go {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can if you have a scale , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , you don't have to y no it's uh when you when you stop t uh when you stop , the the turn , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the angle you stop is the angle you {disfmarker} is the channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . How d how do you know this angle is th is the correct one ? +User Interface: It's it's very easy , because you kn you know how many channel are there in the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you count {gap} one degree , two degrees , no . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . You can do it . +Marketing: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a bit difficult . +User Interface: I think so {vocalsound} I think so you can do it . {vocalsound} I think so , you can just change . +Industrial Designer: I think b but the the vocal command is easy too . You can say fifty and fifty it's okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah voc vocal command is okay . But w we've said previously that maybe it's not going to be th l the main {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's uh also a number , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but when you're zapping you're changing from one channel to the other , so you're passing through all the channels . So , when you say I want to go to the channel number twenty that's {disfmarker} you've decided to go to channel twenty , so you can say channel twenty , or channel four , because you really want to go on this channel . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah , and y that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But if you really want to to do zapping you you don't really know what you want to do , you can turn it . +Marketing: And this would be more for browsing , ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just go through all the channels and maybe stop if there is something interesting ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . To see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems to be good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good choice , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean you're famous . You {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also you can , if you i +Project Manager: {gap} yeah , what's what's this cherry ? +User Interface: You ca you can turn this . Or you ca you can you can also turn this . +Industrial Designer: It is a turn off t turn off button , maybe . +User Interface: For this you can tune it's for tune . You you if you want to skip from channel one to channel two , you you skip this . If you want to from uh skip from channel one to channel ten you tune this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like fine , from coarse to fine . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: This is coarse , this is fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . That's +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's coarse to fine design . +Industrial Designer: that's very technologic , so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay the uh th this looks better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah is is {disfmarker} this is , from one channel to maybe to ten channel . +Industrial Designer: S But I di I didn't see where the t f the turn off t turn on turn off button so much activates +User Interface: This is from one channel to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th you have the vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's k {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: On off . +Industrial Designer: on off , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but it has to be on to recognise fas +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Most of the time you have the {disfmarker} yeah it's a sleeping remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , sleeping . +Marketing: Ah , that's not the ecological part , yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . W that why we have the solar ti yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To compensate {gap} . +Marketing: Solar . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So , which number ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to use , it's very relative but three it's fine , I think , it's reasonable three . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Three ? +User Interface: Yeah , agree , agree . +Marketing: So reasonably , is four , is one ? +Industrial Designer: Three f three for me , it's o it's okay . +Marketing: So , three . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four or three . Maybe you can vote to see how many everybody gives and {disfmarker} no and just take the mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And what's your opinion ? +Industrial Designer: Will you give four ? +Marketing: Uh we wouldn't say , I mean , those are sort of agreed but this one would be more five to me . +Industrial Designer: Five ? Yeah , so maybe if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh w w what do y what uh {disfmarker} you compare with traditional uh um tr traditional controller ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's easier than traditional controller . If you use traditional controller you have to put a button , but now you don't have to put button , you have {disfmarker} you just turn the turn the ball . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y you know {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's two kind of balls , +Marketing: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: the smaller the the the {disfmarker} so you can c you can c you can control the scale . +Marketing: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: But in the traditional controller , how do {disfmarker} how can you control the scale ? +Marketing: Uh by pushing zero after after the first one . +Industrial Designer: You just push two button , zero and and one . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , yeah , y you you can do it , but you can also do it in the b if you you do not wa if you do not want to browsing all the channel you can just p there's also a button here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are there some buttons ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , this function is just for your browsing , from one channel to th the next one , the next s sn s , the th the third one . +Project Manager: It's not what you said previously . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Previously you said that turning this was the fine {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if you're changing your mind . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Fine to coarse . +Project Manager: Fine to coarse . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And from ten to ten channels here . +User Interface: Y one to ten , ten to twelve , uh ten to t uh twenty . Ten to twenty and this one , t one two three four five six , like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh there's different scale , so you can you can choose how much do you want to sc +Marketing: Okay . But this this has to stay on the table , right ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This has to stay on the table . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In fact on a flat place {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i this is just a base . You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but then uh when you turn turn it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , no no , no . You can't put it out . +Industrial Designer: Oh ye yes , that's right . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just your turning from the base . You need to have everything in hand . If you want to turn , you can't use it and turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's impossible . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: You need to put it on and turn . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . You know tha that's the weak point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You use your y +Marketing: because with a traditional one you just have one hand . +Project Manager: Yeah , but nobody would be able to take it in the pocket and bring it in the kitchen and say I've lost the remote control . +Industrial Designer: my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So th this is a d next generation controller . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nobody would take it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Yeah , you would never you would never lose this one , yeah . +Project Manager: So nobody w will lost {disfmarker} lose it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah maybe , maybe may +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's the next prototype , maybe we cou +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay okay , okay . +Project Manager: S maybe we can change from th +Industrial Designer: Four . Maybe four , it's okay . +User Interface: Four . Okay . +Project Manager: Four ? Easy to use , four . +Industrial Designer: I'll put four . +Project Manager: Gonna say four . +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable . +Marketing: Uh it's even easier to {disfmarker} maybe . +Industrial Designer: You can you can erase with this er yeah . +Marketing: Ok +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable , so . So it's nine , +Marketing: So , average ? +Industrial Designer: nine over three . +User Interface: Three ? +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Trois . Three . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's {gap} . +User Interface: Trois . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It need maybe some wo further work , but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially on the easy to use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh s yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: target . +Industrial Designer: Might {disfmarker} it might be fine . +Project Manager: So , th the project is accepted ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I d m I think that it will be good to do some more work to transform this into a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you re we really want to have a fruitful remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So uh mm mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's the finance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay and we we had a project prototype presentation with the evaluation . So as we all agree to accept , under certain conditions , the prototype , we'll have look to the final sh financial view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we need to calculate the production cost . As I said in the first meeting we need to have so a remote control that would cost not more than twelve and point fifty Euros . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if not {disfmarker} if it's not the case y you would have to redesign it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , just have a look at the {disfmarker} okay here is the Excel sheet , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it has the energy source . We have hand dynamo . No , we don't use that . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We have battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have battery . +Project Manager: Kinetic , we don't have it , I suppose , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but we have solar cells . +Industrial Designer: um solar cells , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , how many do y do you need , solar cells ? Do you think one would be enough , or {disfmarker} such as {vocalsound} as number of branches ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I think in each ball you have three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Three ? +Industrial Designer: three uh yeah , three , yeah . Three {gap} three solar cells . +Project Manager: So , electronic . Single simple chip on print ? Just one would be necessary ? +Industrial Designer: S s simple , simple , yeah . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Zero for the others . And sample sensor , sample speaker . One ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . One maybe , yeah . +Project Manager: As we have voice recognition , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So the case . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is sh it {gap} +Marketing: So we are all already nineteen . +Industrial Designer: Wooden . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just keep on going , just to have an idea . +User Interface: The solar cell is too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} Yes a wooden pl I and that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's no wood , so plastic just only , I think . +Project Manager: yeah , but what what about case ? Uncurved , flat , single curved , double curved . I think it's more like double curved . +Marketing: That's gonna be double curved , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Double curve , yeah , double curve . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: One , you have . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh wood ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} yeah , a a rubber uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Rather four buttons . +Project Manager: Uh do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Oh no , interface . +Project Manager: Y maybe , two ? We have two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Y y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's special colours , sure . +Project Manager: Push button . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , we have four . +Industrial Designer: Five ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Scroll wheel . We don no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: It it's more like integrated scor . +Industrial Designer: I think that this will be like a scroll wheel , actually . +User Interface: No no . +Marketing: Yeah tha that's wheel . +Industrial Designer: Y you tu you turn you turn it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no no , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe two scroll wheel , as we have the coarse coarse to fine scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Okay , yeah , yeah . Scr +Project Manager: So , no button supplements ? +Marketing: I think the price is okay . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , no . +Project Manager: Okay we {disfmarker} I think we have problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_C_ display , maybe . Interface . +Project Manager: I think we s if we keep on adding things {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's okay . {vocalsound} {gap} fine {gap} . +Project Manager: so we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah w one of the m key point is solar cells . +Project Manager: Maybe if w t if suppose if we change and we g put just one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has it changed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was stage one , so . +Marketing: No y i it did change , but +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have change the electronics to {disfmarker} from from the the the sample sensor to regular chip . Oh . +Marketing: just imagine we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to delete the the sample sensor , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} the the voice recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: no ? +Marketing: Yeah but this one one of the feature we were not really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's the one it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: m maybe we ha we have two versions , the first version , the basic version . +Industrial Designer: I think you can transform the wood into plastic , maybe . +User Interface: Advanced version we have speak . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh it seems that this can be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be better . +Industrial Designer: yeah , wood into plastic and it it should be fine . +User Interface: Plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's one of the requirement . +Project Manager: Because we have red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , red and yellow . +Project Manager: Red and yellow . +User Interface: Wait . +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +User Interface: We we can we can we c {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could turn we could turn everything in either yellow or black . +User Interface: yellow . +Marketing: Black then is a regular colour , so . +Project Manager: I think so we need {disfmarker} if we try to have a kind of +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , one . +Project Manager: pineapple bee . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . So push button then it's it's the next expensive one . +Project Manager: Yeah . An but we have integrated scroll wheel with push dut button . And I think this is one . Integrated scroll wheel push button +Marketing: Yeah , thi this might be . +Project Manager: . So we'll {disfmarker} we have only one ? And push button . +Marketing: Close to . +Project Manager: So if we have all integrated i in the scroll wheel and push button , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One . I can remove maybe f you have five with push buttons , so we can just , I dunno , try to modify some of them to have {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so what's the bottleneck ? +User Interface: How about we change the sale ? +Marketing: Double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curve . We can transform the double curve into single c yeah . +Project Manager: Something flat . +Industrial Designer: F some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but flat {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S uncurved . Yeah , maybe not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single curve {gap} . +Marketing: Case , what's the ca +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Single curve should be fine , so . Oh , what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Nearly . +User Interface: Ah we have one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then one Euro left . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe don't bat no battery , only solar cells . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's a bad idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think there's a problem with the push push button . We only need maybe just one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two ? +Project Manager: Just one . +Industrial Designer: One . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's fine . That's fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} Agree . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} yeah , you will have {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have one button , +Industrial Designer: {gap} One s one scroll wheel , so +Marketing: one wheel . +Project Manager: So one button , and s scroll wheel with push button on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the vocal chord , it's fine . {gap} It I th it's fine . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's good they're not charging anything for that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , yeah . It think we we've done good job , as the cost is +User Interface: Cou could we have look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve fifty e +User Interface: Could we have look at the p the the prod the p the cost ? +Marketing: Yeah y actually it's wrong . We're not under twelve Euros and a half . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's under or equal . It's not written . Sometimes it's under or equal . +Industrial Designer: It's fine . It's under or equal . It's fine , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . So let's say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +User Interface: Wha what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's fine , twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . Which part is the most expensive part ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Solar cells . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: The solar cells , r is i is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's not t t +Project Manager: I think , yeah . But it would i be interesting for our marketing team , to make a lot of advertisement concerning these solar cells to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to be able to si to sell it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Cheaper . +Marketing: That's nice argument , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with mi +Marketing: but if it's it's still four our of twelve . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} it is really really uh really very very expensive , though . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but it will be technologically innova innovative , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but we just have one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's easy to use and powerful , as the remote control a has only one button . +Marketing: Easy . I don't know about powerful . Yeah . +Project Manager: Easy , powerful . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use . It's very easy to use . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So I don't think we need to redesign the p the product . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh that's what we've just done . +Industrial Designer: We've done it with {disfmarker} it is under the {disfmarker} if it was low , high or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So what are we going to do with this project evaluation ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we have just have to discuss if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , it's fine . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: So did you enjoy your clay modelling ? +User Interface: Yes . Of course . This is my job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Was it a nice way to create your remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh it's good , to to create a control instead of a computer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I find it really funny and amazing and interesting to go through all the process to {disfmarker} from the beginning to the end . And designing , looking at the chips , the solar cells and uh and it was very {vocalsound} informative for {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for the marketing guy ? +Marketing: Uh tha that was good but we should have more brainstorming like meetings , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yep {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'Cause we just presenting one is presenting his stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: next one his stuff and then we try to combine afterwards , so it {disfmarker} um . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: And new ideas about new products , maybe , wi which would be fashion and uh and yellow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow . {vocalsound} I think you can think about a yellow T_V_ now after {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a fruit T_V_ or I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It can be an interesting I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , just lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a lemon T_V_ it'd be {vocalsound} yellow lemon . +User Interface: Yeah , but y you know the traditional T_V_ it's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's flat , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah it's flat , +Project Manager: Squared ? +User Interface: yeah the shape is very boring . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . It's really boring , yeah . +User Interface: Could we come up with new T_V_ with {disfmarker} such as this kind of T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have base , triangle base so you the T_V_ you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah , the lemon T_V_ with the pineapple remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's {disfmarker} that would be really interesting , actually . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Because the T_V_ you {vocalsound} also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that's interesting . You could f we could do a kind of fruit collection of electronics things . Electronic device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Device devi +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but just don't trust too much the trends . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fruit ? {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause fruit and vegetables it won't last for ten years uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe la next year it will be insects . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe two years it's dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think it's good to follow the f flow and you know make it now and after , you know , if the people change their mind you change also the product . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is good because it's not a long long life product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: T_V_ is more like fifteen years , maybe , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . That's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: If you have a lemon lemon T_V_ for +Industrial Designer: We can think about T_V_ with you know where you can change you know the aspects o like for the cell phones , you know . +Marketing: fifteen years {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Customable T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you customise it every ti so every ti if people change , you just change the appearance , and y y you can keep {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Ah such {disfmarker} yeah . You've already said mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Tha that would that would make it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can keep the global appearan +Project Manager: Yeah , and following {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The mood of persons , the fashions uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's interesting , maybe we can create a a line of uh T_V_ with uh a a tr +Industrial Designer: We int {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , T_V_ , yeah . A T_V_ for autumn and a T_V_ for winter , you know , so it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what i and do w is it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: So I think the costs are within the budget . We're just at twelve fifty Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the pr {gap} at {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you think you can celebrate your creation ? +User Interface: And you can celebrate your leadership . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , thanks a lot . {vocalsound} Thank you , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think f {vocalsound} it's really a celebrating object . {vocalsound} So it's yellow and very {disfmarker} a very ha it's very happy , so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's a pr it's like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's party party remote control . +Project Manager: The thing now is to to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sell it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , go and sell it . Goo and good luck , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay and the twelve fifty {disfmarker} twelve uh twelve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Twenty five Euros , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It should be fine . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's maybe a little bit expensive . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: It's cheap , yeah . {vocalsound} No , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's not so expensive . +Marketing: I'm not so happy about the fruit shape , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It should be it should be fine , you know , actually . {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe what you can do a test . Put it outside , and if bees come , {vocalsound} it's really fruit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think I like {vocalsound} the the colour a the colour are very good , so actually so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But don't put sugar in it , it's not working . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colours are uh {disfmarker} it's perfect , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's perfect , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . Uh yeah , another thing is the logo is missing still . +Industrial Designer: I p is th y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the colour , I think the colour is more {disfmarker} is most important , +Industrial Designer: the the yellow ball thing that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I I don't think you have ever seen something like that before for a remote control . +Marketing: Still that was one of the requirements we had . It's {disfmarker} yeah but it {disfmarker} I don't think it's such a problem just putting the logo somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Uh f like y we can we can put some uh double R_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we decided to have something yellow and red , for the costs . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can just integrate it on th on one side , the double R_ . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah , yeah . That's actually good idea , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we have the logo , we have the colour , and we have the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: So we have to give a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so we have the slogan too . +User Interface: So we have give him {disfmarker} give it a cute name . +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: th no , it's the it's the pineapple control {disfmarker} remote control . +User Interface: Mush mushroom controller . +Marketing: Cute na You cannot say mushroom because it's not the trend . +Project Manager: It's a pineapple now , it has changed . It's a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: It's not a mushroom . {vocalsound} It's a pineapple remote controls . +Marketing: It's not the trend . +Project Manager: Pineapple . +User Interface: Pa Pine apple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pineapple remote remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but just flying saucer , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With cherry on top . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I would say flying saucer . +Industrial Designer: Oh unid uh unidentified remote control , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more appropriate , somehow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's that's pineapple remote control . I think it's fine . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Will you buy one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I will try {vocalsound} I'll try {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to . Okay uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five {vocalsound} Euro . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . I can hel I will try versions so to see how easy easy to manage {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah you told me you h you d you d you lost your control your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I always lose my {disfmarker} Yeah , so so i if it is a universal one I can use it with my T_V_ , so it would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you need to buy one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One thing I like is the shape , because you know it's not like the uh the remote controls you can put in your pocket , on uh in your jacket . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Traditional one ? Yeah . So this one and this one . What do you choose ? +Project Manager: I prefer the laser remote control . {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think I would choose this one because of the colour . It's +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What do you choose ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's will enlight your house , your home and your T_V_ , so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . Maybe next if we decide to do something we'd {disfmarker} can put light inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah that would be uh an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but that's going to be expensive , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We had some problems {vocalsound} going to twelve Euros and uh I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it it would be interesting to {disfmarker} just to see if we can {disfmarker} if people will buy this one , and maybe add some features to it after yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , afterwards , if +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: if it's a new trend . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah that's that fine . So we can celebrate now . That's our new product . +Project Manager: Champagne {gap} , mister Baba . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: We should celebrate . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's fine . It's {disfmarker} I like it {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Next time . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So buy one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'll buy one here . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I will close this . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we have finished the designing and the evaluation of our remote control +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we have a nearly final product . +Marketing: Our final prototype which {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Final prototype , yeah , ye yeah . +Project Manager: Final prototype , right . +User Interface: Prototype , yeah . +Project Manager: So , thank you very much . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Very productive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: S so who is going to take the remote control ? +","The transcript you provided appears to be an exchange between members of a product development team involved in the creation, evaluation, and potential marketing of a new type of remote control. This group seems multidisciplinary, consisting of individuals in roles such as a project manager, an industrial designer, a user interface designer, and someone from marketing. The discussion is both technical and creative, emphasizing the iterative process of brainstorming, design, cost estimation, and concerns regarding marketability. + +From the conversation, we gather that the team is reviewing a prototype remote control with a unique design that they refer to as a ""mushroom"" design initially, then later as a ""pineapple"" design potentially due to its yellow and red colors, shapes reminiscent of fruit, and specific features. They are trying to develop a remote that aligns with current trends and the company's branding, with yellow being a company color and red seen as attractive. The team debates various features such as color choice, number and type of buttons, pricing, and even whether the remote should have voice recognition or solar cells as power sources. + +The team appears to be working through some challenges with the design, trying to reach consensus on various points such as the ease of use, technological innovation, and how the remote actually functions, with the goal of meeting specific cost parameters. It's also apparent in the dialogue that the team is concerned with ensuring that the final product won't exceed a maximum cost of 12.50 Euros, forcing them to make compromises on the design and features to fit this budget constraint. + +Throughout the discussion, they explore numerous aspects that include the aesthetics of the remote—its ""fancy look and feel""—and its usability. There's particular attention given to the novel method of channel selection, which involves turning parts of the remote control (described as balls) to select channels, a feature that might be technologically innovative but has raised concerns about how intuitive and easy it is to use. + +The project manager coordinates and leads the discussion, at times taking on the role of secretary to facilitate the meeting. There's also some levity and humor in the conversation, with team members considering whether the remote's design might attract animals like bees if it looks too much like a fruit. Furthermore, there's mention of envisioning a broader range of products with similar design philosophies, suggesting that they're thinking ahead about how this product could fit into or spearhead a new line of aesthetically and technologically innovative devices. + +By the end of the transcript, the group seems to settle into the idea of this remote being a prototype, acknowledging that while the design is largely agreed upon and cost-effective, there are aspects of the remote that could be improved or further developed and marketed. There appears to be a mix of satisfaction at having reached their design goals within the constraints and an awareness that there's more work to be done to refine the product for the market." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Uh , is it the twenty - fourth ? +PhD F: now we 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh Chuck , is the mike type wireless {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . +PhD A: wireless headset ? OK . +PhD F: Yes . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: For you it is . +Professor C: Yeah . We uh {disfmarker} we abandoned the lapel because they sort of were not too {disfmarker} not too hot , not too cold , they were {disfmarker} you know , they were {vocalsound} uh , far enough away that you got more background noise , uh , and uh {disfmarker} and so forth +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but they weren't so close that they got quite the {disfmarker} you know , the really good {disfmarker} No , th +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} I mean they didn't {disfmarker} Wait a minute . I 'm saying that wrong . They were not so far away that they were really good representative distant mikes , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but on the other hand they were not so close that they got rid of all the interference . So it was no {disfmarker} didn't seem to be a good point to them . On the other hand if you only had to have one mike in some ways you could argue the lapel was a good choice , precisely because it 's in the middle . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: There 's uh , some kinds of junk that you get with these things that you don't get with the lapel uh , little mouth clicks and breaths and so forth are worse with these than with the lapel , but given the choice we {disfmarker} there seemed to be very strong opinions for uh , getting rid of lapels . +PhD A: The mike number is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , +PhD F: Uh , your mike number 's written on the back of that unit there . +PhD A: Oh yeah . One . +PhD F: And then the channel number 's usually one less than that . +PhD A: Oh , OK . OK . +PhD F: It - it 's one less than what 's written on the back of your {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD F: yeah . So you should be zero , actually . +PhD A: Hello ? Yeah . +PhD F: For your uh , channel number . +PhD A: Yep , yep . +Professor C: And you should do a lot of talking so we get a lot more of your pronunciations . no , they don't {disfmarker} don't have a {disfmarker} have any Indian pronunciations . +PhD F: So what we usually do is um , we typically will have our meetings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: and then at the end of the meetings we 'll read the digits . Everybody goes around and reads the digits on the {disfmarker} the bottom of their forms . +Professor C: Session R +PhD D: R - nineteen ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: R - nineteen . +PhD F: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} This is session R - nineteen . +Professor C: If you say so . O K . Do we have anything like an agenda ? What 's going on ? Um . I guess um . So . One thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sunil 's here for the summer ? +Professor C: Sunil 's here for the summer , right . Um , so , one thing is to talk about a kick off meeting maybe uh , and then just uh , I guess uh , progress reports individually , and then uh , plans for where we go between now and then , pretty much . Um . +PhD F: I could say a few words about um , some of the uh , compute stuff that 's happening around here , so that people in the group know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . OK . Why don't you start with that ? That 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD F: We um {disfmarker} So we just put in an order for about twelve new machines , uh , to use as sort of a compute farm . And um , uh , we ordered uh , SUN - Blade - one - hundreds , and um , I 'm not sure exactly how long it 'll take for those to come in , but , uh , in addition , we 're running {disfmarker} So the plan for using these is , uh , we 're running P - make and Customs here and Andreas has sort of gotten that all uh , fixed up and up to speed . And he 's got a number of little utilities that make it very easy to um , {vocalsound} run things using P - make and Customs . You don't actually have to write P - make scripts and things like that . The simplest thing {disfmarker} And I can send an email around or , maybe I should do an FAQ on the web site about it or something . Um , +Professor C: How about an email that points to the FAQ , +PhD F: there 's a c +Professor C: you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: so that you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , there 's a command , uh , that you can use called "" run command "" . "" Run dash command "" , "" run hyphen command "" . And , if you say that and then some job that you want to execute , uh , it will find the fastest currently available machine , and export your job to that machine , and uh {disfmarker} and run it there and it 'll duplicate your environment . So you can try this as a simple test with uh , the L S command . So you can say "" run dash command L S "" , and , um , it 'll actually export that {vocalsound} LS command to some machine in the institute , and um , do an LS on your current directory . So , substitute LS for whatever command you want to run , and um {disfmarker} And that 's a simple way to get started using {disfmarker} using this . And , so , soon , when we get all the new machines up , {vocalsound} um , e then we 'll have lots more compute to use . Now th one of the nice things is that uh , each machine that 's part of the P - make and Customs network has attributes associated with it . Uh , attributes like how much memory the machine has , what its speed is , what its operating system , and when you use something like "" run command "" , you can specify those attributes for your program . For example if you only want your thing to run under Linux , you can give it the Linux attribute , and then it will find the fastest available Linux machine and run it on that . So . You can control where your jobs go , to a certain extent , all the way down to an individual machine . Each machine has an attribute which is the name of itself . So you can give that as an attribute and it 'll only run on that . If there 's already a job running , on some machine that you 're trying to select , your job will get queued up , and then when that resource , that machine becomes available , your job will get exported there . So , there 's a lot of nice features to it and it kinda helps to balance the load of the machines and uh , right now Andreas and I have been the main ones using it and we 're {disfmarker} Uh . The SRI recognizer has all this P - make customs stuff built into it . +Professor C: So as I understand , you know , he 's using all the machines and you 're using all the machines , +PhD F: So . +Professor C: is the rough division of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Exactly . Yeah , you know , I {disfmarker} I sort of got started {comment} using the recognizer just recently and uh , uh I fired off a training job , and then I fired off a recognition job and I get this email about midnight from Andreas saying , "" uh , are you running two {vocalsound} trainings simultaneously s my m my jobs are not getting run . "" So I had to back off a little bit . But , soon as we get some more machines then uh {disfmarker} then we 'll have more compute available . So , um , that 's just a quick update about what we 've got . So . +Grad G: Um , I have {disfmarker} I have a question about the uh , parallelization ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So , um , let 's say I have like , a thousand little {disfmarker} little jobs to do ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um , how do I do it with "" run command "" ? I mean do {disfmarker} +PhD F: You could write a script uh , which called run command on each sub - job +Grad G: Uh - huh . A thousand times ? +PhD F: right ? But you probably wanna be careful with that +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: because um , you don't wanna saturate the network . Uh , so , um , you know , you should {disfmarker} you should probably not run more than , say ten jobs yourself at any one time , uh , just because then it would keep other people {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , too much file transfer and stuff . +PhD F: Well it 's not that so much as that , you know , e with {disfmarker} if everybody ran fifty jobs at once then it would just bring everything to a halt and , you know , people 's jobs would get delayed , so it 's sort of a sharing thing . Um , +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: so you should try to limit it to somet sometim some number around ten jobs at a time . Um . So if you had a script for example that had a thousand things it needed to run , um , you 'd somehow need to put some logic in there if you were gonna use "" run command "" , uh , to only have ten of those going at a time . And uh , then , when one of those finished you 'd fire off another one . Um , +Professor C: I remember I {disfmarker} I forget whether it was when the Rutgers or {disfmarker} or Hopkins workshop , I remember one of the workshops I was at there were {disfmarker} everybody was real excited cuz they got twenty - five machines and there was some kind of P - make like thing that sit sent things out . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So all twenty - five people were sending things to all twenty - five machines +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} and things were a lot less efficient than if you 'd just use your own machine . +PhD F: Yeah . Yep . Yeah , exactly . Yeah , you have to be a little bit careful . +Professor C: as I recall , but . Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD F: Um , but uh , you can also {disfmarker} If you have that level of parallelization um , and you don't wanna have to worry about writing the logic in {disfmarker} in a Perl script to take care of that , you can use um , P - make +Grad G: Just do P - make . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} and you basically write a Make file that uh , you know your final job depends on these one thousand things , +Grad G: s Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and when you run P - make , uh , on your Make file , you can give it the dash capital J and {disfmarker} and then a number , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and that number represents how many uh , machines to use at once . And then it 'll make sure that it never goes above that . +Grad G: Right . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: Right . OK . +PhD F: I can get some documentation . +PhD D: So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not systematically queued . I mean all the jobs are running . If you launch twenty jobs , they are all running . Alright . +PhD F: It depends . If you {disfmarker} "" Run command "" , that I mentioned before , is {disfmarker} doesn't know about other things that you might be running . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So , it would be possible to run a hundred run jobs at once , +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: and they wouldn't know about each other . But if you use P - make , then , it knows about all the jobs that it has to run +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and it can control , uh , how many it runs simultaneously . +Professor C: So "" run command "" doesn't use P - make , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: It uses "" export "" underlyingly . But , if you {disfmarker} i It 's meant to be run one job at a time ? So you could fire off a thousand of those , and it doesn't know {disfmarker} any one of those doesn't know about the other ones that are running . +Professor C: So why would one use that rather than P - make ? +PhD F: Well , if you have , um {disfmarker} Like , for example , uh if you didn't wanna write a P - make script and you just had a , uh {disfmarker} an HTK training job that you know is gonna take uh , six hours to run , and somebody 's using , uh , the machine you typically use , you can say "" run command "" and your HTK thing and it 'll find another machine , the fastest currently available machine and {disfmarker} and run your job there . +Professor C: Now , does it have the same sort of behavior as P - make , which is that , you know , if you run something on somebody 's machine and they come in and hit a key then it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . Yeah , there are um {disfmarker} Right . So some of the machines at the institute , um , have this attribute called "" no evict "" . And if you specify that , in {disfmarker} in one of your attribute lines , then it 'll go to a machine which your job won't be evicted from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But , the machines that don't have that attribute , if a job gets fired up on that , which could be somebody 's desktop machine , and {disfmarker} and they were at lunch , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: they come back from lunch and they start typing on the console , then your machine will get evicted {disfmarker} your job {comment} will get evicted from their machine and be restarted on another machine . Automatically . So {disfmarker} which can cause you to lose time , right ? If you had a two hour job , and it got halfway through and then somebody came back to their machine and it got evicted . So . If you don't want your job to run on a machine where it could be evicted , then you give it the minus {disfmarker} the attribute , you know , "" no evict "" , and it 'll pick a machine that it can't be evicted from . So . +Professor C: Um , what {disfmarker} what about {disfmarker} I remember always used to be an issue , maybe it 's not anymore , that if you {disfmarker} if something required {disfmarker} if your machine required somebody hitting a key in order to evict things that are on it so you could work , but if you were logged into it from home ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and you weren't hitting any keys ? cuz you were , home ? +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how that works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , it seems like Andreas did something for that . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: Um . +Professor C: OK . We can ask him sometime . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I don't know whether it monitors the keyboard or actually looks at the console TTY , so maybe if you echoed something to the you know , dev {disfmarker} dev console or something . +Professor C: You probably wouldn't ordinarily , though . Yeah . Right ? You probably wouldn't ordinarily . +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor C: I mean you sort of {disfmarker} you 're at home and you 're trying to log in , and it takes forever to even log you in , and you probably go , "" screw this "" , +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah , so , um , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . I {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I 'm not sure about that one . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD F: But uh . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Uh , I need a little orientation about this environment and uh scr s how to run some jobs here because I never d did anything so far with this X emissions +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So , I think maybe I 'll ask you after the meeting . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and also uh , Stephane 's a {disfmarker} a really good resource for that if you can't find me . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yep . OK , sure +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Especially with regard to the Aurora stuff . +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: He {disfmarker} he knows that stuff better than I do . +Professor C: OK . Well , why don't we uh , uh , Sunil since you 're {vocalsound} haven't {disfmarker} haven't been at one of these yet , why don't yo you tell us what 's {disfmarker} what 's up with you ? Wh - what you 've been up to , hopefully . +PhD A: Um . Yeah . So , uh , shall I start from {disfmarker} Well I don't know how may I {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} OK . Uh , I think I 'll start from the post uh Aurora submission maybe . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , after the submission the {disfmarker} what I 've been working on mainly was to take {disfmarker} take other s submissions and then over their system , what they submitted , because we didn't have any speech enhancement system in {disfmarker} in ours . So {disfmarker} So I tried uh , And u First I tried just LDA . And then I found that uh , I mean , if {disfmarker} if I combine it with LDA , it gives @ @ improvement over theirs . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are y are you saying LDA ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: LDA . OK . +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} just the LDA filters . I just plug in {disfmarker} I just take the cepstral coefficients coming from their system and then plug in LDA on top of that . But the LDA filter that I used was different from what we submitted in the proposal . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What I did was {vocalsound} I took the LDA filter 's design using clean speech , uh , mainly because the speech is already cleaned up after the enhancement so , instead of using this , uh , narrow {disfmarker} narrow band LDA filter that we submitted uh , I got new filters . So that seems to be giving {disfmarker} uh , improving over their uh , system . Slightly . But , not very significantly . And uh , that was uh , showing any improvement over {disfmarker} final {disfmarker} by plugging in an LDA . And uh , so then after {disfmarker} after that I {disfmarker} I added uh , on - line normalization also on top of that . And that {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there also I n I found that I have to make some changes to their time constant that I used because th it has a {disfmarker} a mean and variance update time constant and {disfmarker} which is not suitable for the enhanced speech , and whatever we try it on with proposal - one . But um , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't play with that time constant a lot , I just t g I just found that I have to reduce the value {disfmarker} I mean , I have to increase the time constant , or reduce the value of the update value . That 's all I found So I have to . Uh , Yeah . And uh , uh , the other {disfmarker} other thing what I tried was , I just um , uh , took the baseline and then ran it with the endpoint inf uh th information , just the Aurora baseline , to see that how much the baseline itself improves by just supplying the information of the {disfmarker} I mean the w speech and nonspeech . And uh , I found that the baseline itself improves by twenty - two percent by just giving the wuh . +Professor C: Uh , can you back up a second , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I missed something , uh , I guess my mind wandered . Ad - ad When you added the on - line normalization and so forth , uh , uh things got better again ? +PhD A: Yeah . No . +Professor C: or is it ? +PhD A: No . No , things didn't get better with the same time constant that we used . +Professor C: Did it not ? No , no . With a different time constant . +PhD A: With the different time constant I found that {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't get an improvement over not using on - line normalization , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: because I {disfmarker} I found that I would have change the value of the update factor . +Professor C: No you didn't , OK . +PhD A: But I didn't play it with play {disfmarker} play quite a bit to make it better than . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's still not {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: I mean , the on - line normalization didn't give me any improvement . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: And uh , so , +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: oh yeah So I just stopped there with the uh , speech enhancement . The {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was the {disfmarker} adding the uh , endpoint information to the baseline and that itself gives like twenty - two percent because the {disfmarker} the second {disfmarker} the new phase is going to be with the endpointed speech . And just to get a feel of how much the baseline itself is going to change by adding this endpoint information , I just , uh , use {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: So people won't even have to worry about , uh , doing speech - nonspeech then . +PhD A: Yeah that 's , that 's what the feeling is like . They 're going to give the endpoint information . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor C: G I guess the issue is that people do that anyway , +PhD F: I see . +Professor C: everybody does that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and they wanted to see , given that you 're doing that , what {disfmarker} what are the best features that you should use . +PhD F: Yeah , I see . +PhD A: So , +Professor C: I mean clearly they 're interact . So I don't know that I entirely agree with it . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but it might be uh {disfmarker} In some ways it might be better t to {disfmarker} rather than giving the endpoints , to have a standard that everybody uses and then interacts with . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know . It 's {disfmarker} it 's still someth reasonable . +PhD F: So , are people supposed to assume that there is uh {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are people not supposed to use any speech outside of those endpoints ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or can you then use speech outside of it for estimating background noise and things ? +PhD A: No . No . That i I {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , exactly . I guess that is {disfmarker} that is where the consensus is . Like y you will {disfmarker} you will {disfmarker} You 'll be given the information about the beginning and the end of speech but the whole speech is available to you . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: So it should make the spectral subtraction style things work even better , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: because you don't have the mistakes in it . Yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} The baseline itself {disfmarker} I mean , it improves by twenty - two percent . I found that in s one of the SpeechDat - Car cases , that like , the Spanish one improves by just fifty percent by just putting the endpoint . w +PhD F: Wow . +PhD A: I mean you don't need any further speech enhancement with fifty . So , uh , +PhD F: So the baseline itself improves by fifty percent . +PhD A: Yeah , by fifty percent . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Wow . +Professor C: So it 's g it 's gonna be harder to {vocalsound} beat that actually . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that is when uh , the {disfmarker} the qualification criteria was reduced from fifty percent to something like twenty - five percent for well - matched . And I think they have {disfmarker} they have actually changed their qualification c criteria now . And uh , Yeah , I guess after that , I just went home f I just had a vacation fo for four weeks . Uh . +Professor C: OK . No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} good update . +PhD A: Ye Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I came back and I started working on uh , some other speech enhancement algorithm . I mean , so {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} from the submission what I found that people have tried spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering . These are the main uh , approaches where people have tried , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: so just to {disfmarker} just to fill the space with some f few more speech enhancement algorithms to see whether it improves a lot , I {disfmarker} I 've been working on this uh , signal subspace approach for speech enhancement where you take the noisy signal and then decomposing the signal s and the noise subspace and then try to estimate the clean speech from the signal plus noise subspace . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 've been actually running some s So far I 've been trying it only on Matlab . I have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test whether it works first or not +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then I 'll p port it to C and I 'll update it with the repository once I find it it giving any some positive result . So , yeah . +Professor C: S So you s you So you said one thing I want to jump on for a second . So {disfmarker} so now you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting tuned into the repository thing that he has here +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} so we we 'll have a {vocalsound} single place where the stuff is . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: Cool . Um , so maybe uh , just briefly , you could remind us about the related experiments . Cuz you did some stuff that you talked about last week , I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , where you were also combining something {disfmarker} both of you I guess were both combining something from the uh , French Telecom system with {vocalsound} the u uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was system one or system two , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . It was system one . So +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: we {disfmarker} The main thing that we did is just to take the spectral subtraction from the France Telecom , which provide us some speech samples that are uh , with noise removed . +Professor C: So I let me {disfmarker} let me just stop you there . So then , one distinction is that uh , you were taking the actual France Telecom features and then applying something to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , no there is a slight different . Uh I mean , which are extracted at the handset because they had another back - end blind equalization {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's what I mean . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But u u Sorry , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah , I 'm not being {disfmarker} I 'm not being clear . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: What I meant was you had something like cepstra or something , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And so one difference is that , I guess you were taking spectra . +PhD A: The speech . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But I guess it 's the s exactly the same thing because on the heads uh , handset they just applied this Wiener filter and then compute cepstral features , +PhD A: Yeah , the cepstral f The difference is like {disfmarker} There may be a slight difference in the way {disfmarker} +PhD D: right ? or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: because they use exactly the baseline system for converting the cepstrum once you have the speech . I mean , if we are using our own code for th I mean that {disfmarker} that could be the only difference . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: I mean , there is no other difference . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But you got some sort of different result . So I 'm trying to understand it . But uh , I th +PhD D: Yeah , well I think we should uh , have a table with all the result because I don't know I uh , I don't exactly know what are your results ? But , +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but so we did this , and another difference I guess is that we just applied uh , proposal - one system after this without {disfmarker} well , with our modification to reduce the delay of the {disfmarker} the LDA filters , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and +PhD B: And the filter {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well there are slight modifications , but it was the full proposal - one . In your case , if you tried just putting LDA , then maybe on - line normalization {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Only LDA . Yeah . Af - I {disfmarker} after that I added on - line normalization , yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So we just tried directly to {disfmarker} to just , keep the system as it was and , um , when we plug the spectral subtraction it improves uh , signif significantly . Um , but , what seems clear also is that we have to retune the time constants of the on - line normalization . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Because if we keep the value that was submitted uh , it doesn't help at all . You can remove on - line normalization , or put it , it doesn't change anything . Uh , uh , as long as you have the spectral subtraction . But , you can still find some kind of optimum somewhere , and we don't know where exactly +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: but , uh . +PhD A: Yeah , I assume . +Professor C: So it sounds like you should look at some tables of results or something +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: and see where i where the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where they were different and what we can learn from it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: without any change . OK . +PhD B: But it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: It 's the new . +PhD D: with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with changes , +PhD A: with +PhD B: The new . +PhD D: because we change it the system to have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh yeah , I mean the {disfmarker} the new LDA filters . +PhD B: The new . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} OK . +PhD D: Yeah . LDA filters . There are other things that we finally were shown to improve also like , the sixty - four hertz cut - off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: w Uh , it doesn't seem to hurt on TI - digits , finally . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Maybe because of other changes . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Um , well there are some {vocalsound} minor changes , yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , right now if we look at the results , it 's , um , always better than {disfmarker} it seems always better than France Telecom for mismatch and high - mismatch . And it 's still slightly worse for well - matched . +PhD B: But +PhD D: Um , but this is not significant . But , the problem is that it 's not significant , but if you put this in the , mmm , uh , spreadsheet , it 's still worse . Even with very minor {disfmarker} uh , even if it 's only slightly worse for well - matched . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And significantly better for HM . Uh , but , well . I don't think it 's importa important because when they will change their metric , uh , uh , mainly because of uh , when you p you plug the um , frame dropping in the baseline system , it will improve a lot HM , and MM , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: so , um , I guess what will happen {disfmarker} I don't know what will happen . But , the different contribution , I think , for the different test set will be more even . +PhD A: Because the {disfmarker} your improvement on HM and MM will also go down significantly in the spreadsheet so . But the {pause} the well - matched may still {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean the well - matched may be the one which is least affected by adding the endpoint information . +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the MM {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: MM and HM are going to be v hugely affected by it . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so um , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . But they d the {disfmarker} everything I mean is like , but there that 's how they reduce {disfmarker} why they reduce the qualification to twenty - five percent or some {disfmarker} something on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But are they changing the weighting ? +PhD A: Uh , no , I guess they are going ahead with the same weighting . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So there 's nothing on {disfmarker} +Professor C: I don't understand that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I guess I {disfmarker} I haven't been part of the discussion , so , um , it seems to me that the well - matched condition is gonna be unusual , +PhD A: Usual . +Professor C: in this case . Unusual . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Because , um , you don't actually have good matches ordinarily for what any @ @ {disfmarker} particular person 's car is like , or +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: uh , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: It seems like something like the middle one is {disfmarker} is more natural . +PhD A: Hmm . Right . +Professor C: So I don't know why the {pause} well - matched is uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , but actually the well {disfmarker} well the well - matched um , uh , I mean the {disfmarker} the well - matched condition is not like , uh , the one in TI - digits where uh , you have all the training , uh , conditions exactly like replicated in the testing condition also . It 's like , this is not calibrated by SNR or something . The well - matched has also some {disfmarker} some mismatch in that which is other than the {disfmarker} +Professor C: The well wa matched has mismatch ? +PhD A: has {disfmarker} has also some slight mismatches , unlike the TI - digits where it 's like prefectly matched +PhD F: Perfect to match . +PhD A: because it 's artificially added noise . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: But this is natural recording . +Professor C: Yeah . So remind me of what well - matched meant ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} the well - matched is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: You 've told me many times . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} the well - matched is defined like it 's seventy percent of the whole database is used for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , so it means that if the database is large enough , it 's matched . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because it +PhD A: OK , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: in each set you have a range of conditions {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So , I mean , yeah , unless they deliberately chose it to be different , which they didn't because they want it to be well - matched , it is pretty much {disfmarker} You know , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's sort of saying if you {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not guaranteed though . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , it 's not guaranteed . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah because the m the main {disfmarker} major reason for the m +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: the main mismatch is coming from the amount of noise and the silence frames and all those present in the database actually . +Professor C: Again , if you have enough {disfmarker} if you have enough {disfmarker} +PhD A: No yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So it 's sort of i i it 's sort of saying OK , so you {disfmarker} much as you train your dictation machine for talking into your computer , um , you {disfmarker} you have a car , and so you drive it around a bunch and {disfmarker} and record noise conditions , or something , and then {disfmarker} I don't think that 's very realistic , I mean I th +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I you know , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , I guess they 're saying that if you were a company that was selling the stuff commercially , that you would have a bunch of people driving around in a bunch of cars , and {disfmarker} and you would have something that was roughly similar and maybe that 's the argument , but I 'm not sure I buy it , so . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh , So What else is going on ? +PhD D: Mmm . You Yeah . We are playing {disfmarker} we are also playing , trying to put other spectral subtraction mmm , in the code . Um , it would be a very simple spectral subtraction , on the um , mel energies which I already tested but without the um frame dropping actually , and I think it 's important to have frame dropping if you use spectral subtraction . +PhD F: Is it {disfmarker} is spectral subtraction typically done on the {disfmarker} after the mel , uh , scaling or is it done on the FFT bins ? +PhD D: Um , +PhD F: Does it matter , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I don't know . Well , it 's both {disfmarker} both uh , cases can i +PhD F: Oh . +PhD D: Yeah . So - some of the proposal , uh , we 're doing this on the bin {disfmarker} on the FFT bins , +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: others on the um , mel energies . You can do both , but I cannot tell you what 's {disfmarker} which one might be better or {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: I guess if you want to reconstruct the speech , it may be a good idea to do it on FFT bins . +PhD D: I don't know . Yeah , but +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: But for speech recognition , it may not . I mean it may not be very different if you do it on mel warped or whether you do it on FFT . So you 're going to do a linear weighting anyway after that . +PhD F: I see . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Yeah ? +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: So , it may not be really a big different . +PhD D: Well , it gives something different , but I don't know what are the , pros and cons of both . +PhD A: It I Uh - huh . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD A: So +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: The other thing is like when you 're putting in a speech enhancement technique , uh , is it like one stage speech enhancement ? Because everybody seems to have a mod two stages of speech enhancement in all the proposals , which is really giving them some improvement . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean they just do the same thing again once more . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} So , there 's something that is good about doing it {disfmarker} I mean , to cleaning it up once more . +PhD D: Yeah , it might be . +PhD A: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: so we can {disfmarker} +PhD D: So maybe in my implementation I should also try to inspire me from this kind of thing +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what +Professor C: Well , the other thing would be to combine what you 're doing . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: I mean maybe one or {disfmarker} one or the other of the things that you 're doing would benefit from the other happening first . +PhD A: That 's wh Yeah . So , +Professor C: Right , so he 's doing a signal subspace thing , maybe it would work better if you 'd already done some simple spectral subtraction , or maybe vi maybe the other way around , +PhD D: Yeah , mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: you know ? +PhD A: So I 've been thinking about combining the Wiener filtering with signal subspace , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean just to see all {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some such permutation combination to see whether it really helps or not . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: How is it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm ignorant about this , how does {disfmarker} I mean , since Wiener filter also assumes that you 're {disfmarker} that you 're adding together the two signals , how is {disfmarker} how is that differ from signal subspace ? +PhD A: The signal subspace ? The {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: The signal subspace approach has actually an in - built Wiener filtering in it . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . It is like a KL transform followed by a Wiener filter . Is the signal is {disfmarker} is a signal substrate . +Professor C: Oh , oh , OK so the difference is the KL . +PhD A: So , the {disfmarker} the different {disfmarker} the c the {disfmarker} the advantage of combining two things is mainly coming from the signal subspace approach doesn't work very well if the SNR is very bad . It 's {disfmarker} it works very poorly with the poor SNR conditions , and in colored noise . +Professor C: I see . So essentially you could do simple spectral subtraction , followed by a KL transform , followed by a +PhD A: Wiener filtering . It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a cascade of two s +Professor C: Wiener filter . Yeah , in general , you don't {disfmarker} that 's right you don't wanna othorg orthogonalize if the things are noisy . Actually . Um , that was something that uh , Herve and I were talking about with um , the multi - band stuff , that if you 're converting things to from uh , bands , groups of bands into cepstral coef you know , local sort of local cepstral coefficients that it 's not that great to do it if it 's noisy . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . Yeah . So . +Professor C: Uh , so . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that 's one reason maybe we could combine s some {disfmarker} something to improve SNR a little bit , first stage , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then do a something in the second stage which could take it further . +PhD D: What was your point about {disfmarker} about colored noise there ? +PhD A: Oh , the colored noise uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: the colored noise {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the v the signal subspace approach has {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it actually depends on inverting the matrices . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} ac the covariance matrix of the noise . So if {disfmarker} if it is not positive definite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean it has a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't behave very well if it is not positive definite ak It works very well with white noise because we know for sure that it has a positive definite . +Professor C: So you should do spectral subtraction and then add noise . +PhD A: So the way they get around is like they do an inverse filtering , first of the colo colored noise +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then make the noise white , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then finally when you reconstruct the speech back , you do this filtering again . +PhD D: Yeah , right . +Professor C: I was only half kidding . I mean if you {disfmarker} sort of {vocalsound} you do the s spectral subtraction , that also gets rid {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and then you {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then add a little bit l noise {disfmarker} noise addition {disfmarker} I mean , that sort of what J {disfmarker} JRASTA does , in a way . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: If you look at what JRASTA doing essentially i i it 's equivalent to sort of adding a little {disfmarker} adding a little noise , +PhD A: Huh ? Uh - huh . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: in order to get rid of the effects of noise . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , yeah . So there is this . And maybe we {disfmarker} well we find some people so that {vocalsound} uh , agree to maybe work with us , and they have implementation of VTS techniques so it 's um , Vector Taylor Series that are used to mmm , {vocalsound} uh f to model the transformation between clean cepstra and noisy cepstra . So . Well , if you take the standard model of channel plus noise , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a nonlinear eh uh , transformation in the cepstral domain . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yes . +PhD D: And uh , there is a way to approximate this using uh , first - order or second - order Taylor Series and it can be used for {vocalsound} uh , getting rid of the noise and the channel effect . +Professor C: Who is doing this ? +PhD D: Uh w working in the cepstral domain ? So there is one guy in Grenada , +PhD B: Yeah , in Grenada one of my friend . +PhD D: and another in {pause} uh , Lucent that I met at ICASSP . +Professor C: Who 's the guy in Grenada ? +PhD D: uh , +PhD B: Uh , Jose Carlos Segura . +Professor C: I don't know him . +PhD A: This VTS has been proposed by CMU ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is it {disfmarker} is it the CMU ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Originally the idea was from CMU . +PhD A: From C . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's again a different thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that could be tried . Um , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , so at any rate , you 're looking general , uh , standing back from it , looking at ways to combine one form or another of uh , noise removal , uh , with {disfmarker} with these other things we have , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , looks like a worthy thing to {disfmarker} to do here . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But , yeah . But for sure there 's required to {disfmarker} that requires to re - check everything else , and re - optimize the other things +Professor C: Oh yeah . +PhD D: and , for sure the on - line normalization may be the LDA filter . Um , +Professor C: Well one of the {disfmarker} seems like one of the things to go through next week when Hari 's here , +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz Hari 'll have his own ideas too {disfmarker} or {pause} I guess not next week , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: week and a half , uh , will be sort of go through these alternatives , what we 've seen so far , and come up with some game plans . Um . You know . So , I mean one way would {disfmarker} he Here are some alternate visions . I mean one would be , you look at a few things very quickly , you pick on something that looks like it 's promising and then everybody works really hard on the same {disfmarker} different aspects of the same thing . Another thing would be to have t to {disfmarker} to pick two pol two plausible things , and {disfmarker} and you know , have t sort of two working things for a while until we figure out what 's better , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then , you know , uh , but , w um , uh , he 'll have some ideas on that too . +PhD A: The other thing is to , uh {disfmarker} Most of the speech enhancement techniques have reported results on small vocabulary tasks . But we {disfmarker} we going to address this Wall Street Journal in our next stage , which is also going to be a noisy task so s very few people have reported something on using some continuous speech at all . So , there are some {disfmarker} I mean , I was looking at some literature on speech enhancement applied to large vocabulary tasks and spectral subtraction doesn't seems to be the thing to do for large vocabulary tasks . And it 's {disfmarker} Always people have shown improvement with Wiener filtering and maybe subspace approach over spectral subtraction everywhere . But if we {disfmarker} if we have to use simple spectral subtraction , we may have to do some optimization {pause} to make it work @ @ . +Professor C: So they 're making {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} Somebody 's generating Wall Street Journal with additive {disfmarker} artificially added noise or something ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Sort of a {disfmarker} sort of like what they did with TI - digits , and ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: I m I guess Guenter Hirsch is in charge of that . Guenter Hirsch and TI . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Maybe Roger {disfmarker} r Roger , maybe in charge of . +Professor C: And then they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh , uh , generating HTK scripts to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I don't know . There are {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} there is no {disfmarker} I don't know if they are converging on HTK or are using some Mississippi State , +Professor C: Mis - Mississippi State maybe , +PhD A: yeah . I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: yeah . Yeah , so that 'll be a little {disfmarker} little task in itself . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , well we 've {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true for the additive noise , y artificially added noise we 've always used small vocabulary too . But for n there 's been noisy speech this larv large vocabulary that we 've worked with in Broadcast News . So we we did the Broadcast News evaluation +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and some of the focus conditions were noisy and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had additive n +Professor C: But we {disfmarker} but we didn't do spectral subtraction . We were doing our funny stuff , right ? We were doing multi multi uh , multi - stream and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But it , you know , we di stuff we did helped . I mean it , did something . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So . Um , now we have this um , meeting data . You know , like the stuff we 're {comment} recording right now , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh , that we have uh , for the {disfmarker} uh , the quote - unquote noisy data there is just {disfmarker} noisy and reverberant actually . It 's the far field mike . And uh , we have uh , the digits that we do at the end of these things . And that 's what most o again , most of our work has been done with that , with {disfmarker} with uh , connected digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um , but uh , we have recognition now with some of the continuous speech , large vocabulary continuous speech , using Switchboard {disfmarker} uh , Switchboard recognizer , +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: uh , no training , {vocalsound} from this , just {disfmarker} just plain using the Switchboard . +PhD A: Oh . You just take the Switchboard trained {disfmarker} ? Yeah , +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're doing , +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: yeah . Now there are some adaptation though , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . That 's cool . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that uh , Andreas has been playing with , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: but we 're hop uh , actually uh , Dave and I were just talking earlier today about maybe at some point not that distant future , trying some of the techniques that we 've talked about on , uh , some of the large vocabulary data . Um , I mean , I guess no one had done {disfmarker} yet done test one on the distant mike using uh , the SRI recognizer and , uh , +PhD F: I don't {disfmarker} not that I know of . +Professor C: Yeah , cuz everybody 's scared . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You 'll see a little smoke coming up from the {disfmarker} the CPU or something {vocalsound} trying to {disfmarker} trying to do it , +PhD F: That 's right +Professor C: but uh , yeah . But , you 're right that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's a real good point , that uh , we {disfmarker} we don't know yeah , uh , I mean , what if any of these ta I guess that 's why they 're pushing that in the uh {disfmarker} in the evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , But um , Good . OK . Anything else going on ? at you guys ' end , +PhD B: I don't have good result , with the {disfmarker} inc including the new parameters , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I don't have good result . Are {pause} similar or a little bit worse . +PhD A: With what {disfmarker} what other new p new parameter ? +Grad G: You 're talking about your voicing ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So maybe {disfmarker} You probably need to back up a bit +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: seeing as how Sunil , +PhD B: I tried to include another new parameter to the traditional parameter , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD B: the coe the cepstrum coefficient , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: that , like , the auto - correlation , the R - zero and R - one over R - zero +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and another estimation of the var the variance of the difference for {disfmarker} of the spec si uh , spectrum of the signal and {disfmarker} and the spectrum of time after filt mel filter bank . +PhD A: I 'm so sorry . I didn't get it . +PhD B: Nuh . Well . Anyway . The {disfmarker} First you have the sp the spectrum of the signal , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and you have the {disfmarker} on the other side you have the output of the mel filter bank . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: You can extend the coefficient of the mel filter bank and obtain an approximation of the spectrum of the signal . +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +PhD B: I do the difference {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: I found a difference at the variance of this different +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: because , suppose we {disfmarker} we think that if the variance is high , maybe you have n uh , noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And if the variance is small , maybe you have uh , speech . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to To {disfmarker} The idea is to found another feature for discriminate between voice sound and unvoice sound . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And we try to use this new feature {disfmarker} feature . And I did experiment {disfmarker} I need to change {disfmarker} to obtain this new feature I need to change the size {disfmarker} the window size {disfmarker} size . of the a of the {disfmarker} analysis window size , to have more information . +PhD A: Yeah . Make it longer . +PhD B: Uh , sixty - two point five milliseconds I think . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And I do {disfmarker} I did two type of experiment to include this feature directly with the {disfmarker} with the other feature and to train a neural network to select it voice - unvoice - silence {disfmarker} silence +PhD A: Unvoiced . Well . +PhD B: and to {disfmarker} to concat this new feature . But the result are n with the neural network I have more or less the same result . +PhD A: As using just the cepstrum , +PhD B: Result . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's neve e e sometime it 's worse , sometime it 's a little bit better , but not significantly . +PhD A: Uh , is it with TI - digits , or with {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} No , I work with eh , Italian and Spanish basically . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD B: And if I don't y use the neural network , and use directly the feature the results are worse . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But Doesn't help . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I really wonder though . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean we 've had these discussions before , and {disfmarker} and one of the things that struck me was that {disfmarker} uh , about this line of thought that was particularly interesting to me was that we um {disfmarker} whenever you condense things , uh , in an irreversible way , um , you throw away some information . And , that 's mostly viewed on as a good thing , in the way we use it , because we wanna suppress things that will cause variability for uh particular , uh , phonetic units . Um , but , you 'll do throw something away . And so the question is , uh , can we figure out if there 's something we 've thrown away that we shouldn't have . And um . So , when they were looking at the difference between the filter bank and the FFT that was going into the filter bank , I was thinking "" oh , OK , so they 're picking on something they 're looking on it to figure out noise , or voice {disfmarker} voiced property whatever . "" So that {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Maybe that helps to drive the {disfmarker} the thought process of coming up with the features . But for me sort of the interesting thing was , "" well , but is there just something in that difference which is useful ? "" So another way of doing it , maybe , would be just to take the FFT uh , power spectrum , and feed it into a neural network , +PhD B: To know {disfmarker} +Professor C: and then use it , you know , in combination , or alone , or {disfmarker} or whatever +PhD F: Wi - with what targets ? +PhD A: Voiced , unvoiced is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no . +PhD A: Oh . Or anything . +Professor C: No the {disfmarker} just the same {disfmarker} same way we 're using {disfmarker} I mean , the same way that we 're using the filter bank . +PhD F: Phones . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Exact way {disfmarker} the same way we 're using the filter bank . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , the filter bank is good for all the reasons that we say it 's good . But it 's different . And , you know , maybe if it 's used in combination , it will get at something that we 're missing . And maybe , you know , using , orth you know , KLT , or uh , um , adding probabilities , I mean , all th all the different ways that we 've been playing with , that we would let the {disfmarker} essentially let the neural network determine what is it that 's useful , that we 're missing here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , but there is so much variability in the power spectrum . +Professor C: Well , that 's probably why y i it would be unlikely to work as well by itself , but it might help in combination . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have to tell you , I can't remember the conference , but , uh , I think it 's about ten years ago , I remember going to one of the speech conferences and {disfmarker} and uh , I saw within very short distance of one another a couple different posters that showed about the wonders of some auditory inspired front - end or something , and a couple posters away it was somebody who compared one to uh , just putting in the FFT and the FFT did slightly better . So I mean the {disfmarker} i i It 's true there 's lots of variability , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but again we have these wonderful statistical mechanisms for quantifying that a that variability , and you know , doing something reasonable with it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , uh , It - it 's same , you know , argument that 's gone both ways about uh , you know , we have these data driven filters , in LDA , and on the other hand , if it 's data driven it means it 's driven by things that have lots of variability , and that are necessarily {disfmarker} not necessarily gonna be the same in training and test , so , in some ways it 's good to have data driven things , and in some ways it 's bad to have data driven things . So , +PhD A: Yeah , d +Professor C: part of what we 're discovering , is ways to combine things that are data driven than are not . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so anyway , it 's just a thought , that {disfmarker} that if we {disfmarker} if we had that {disfmarker} maybe it 's just a baseline uh , which would show us "" well , what are we really getting out of the filters "" , or maybe i i probably not by itself , but in combination , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , maybe there 's something to be gained from it , and let the {disfmarker} But , you know , y you 've only worked with us for a short time , maybe in a year or two you w you will actually come up with the right set of things to extract from this information . But , maybe the neural net and the H M Ms could figure it out quicker than you . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's just a thought . +PhD B: I can {disfmarker} I will try to do that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one um p one thing is like what {disfmarker} before we started using this VAD in this Aurora , the {disfmarker} th what we did was like , I {disfmarker} I guess most of you know about this , adding this additional speech - silence bit to the cepstrum and training the HMM on that . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: That is just a binary feature and that seems to be {vocalsound} improving a lot on the SpeechDat - Car where there is a lot of noise but not much on the TI - digits . So , a adding an additional feature to distin to discriminate between speech and nonspeech was helping . That 's it . +PhD D: Wait {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry ? +PhD A: Yeah , we actually added an additional binary feature to the cepstrum , just the baseline . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD B: You did some experiment . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the case of TI - digits it didn't actually give us anything , because there wasn't any f anything to discriminate between speech , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: and it was very short . But Italian was like very {disfmarker} it was a huge improvement on Italian . +PhD D: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . But anyway the question is even more , is within speech , can we get some features ? Are we drop dropping information that can might be useful within speech , +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: I mean . To {disfmarker} maybe to distinguish between voice sound and unvoiced sounds ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: And it 's particularly more relevant now since we 're gonna be given the endpoints . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh . So . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: There was a paper in ICASSP {disfmarker} this ICASSP {disfmarker} over the uh extracting some higher - order uh , information from the cepstral coefficients and I forgot the name . Some is some harmonics I don't know , I can {disfmarker} I can pull that paper out from ICASSP . It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Talking cumulants or something ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ? Uh , I don't know . +Professor C: Cumulants or something . +PhD A: I don't remember . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} No . +PhD A: It wa it was taking the , um {disfmarker} It was about finding the higher - order moments of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD A: And I 'm not sure about whether it is the higher - order moments , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: cumulants , yeah . +PhD A: maybe higher - order cumulants +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Or m e +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , he was showing up uh some {disfmarker} something on noisy speech , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: some improvement on the noisy speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some small vocabulary tasks . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD A: So it was on PLP derived cepstral coefficients . +Professor C: Yeah , but again {disfmarker} You could argue that th that 's exactly what the neural network does . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So n neural network uh , is in some sense equivalent to computing , you know , higher - order moments of what you {disfmarker} +PhD A: trying to f to Moments , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . So . I mean , it doesn't do it very specifically , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and pretty {disfmarker} you know . But . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Uh , anything on your end you want to talk about ? Uh . +Grad G: Um , nothing I wanna really talk about . I can {disfmarker} I can just uh , um , share a little bit {disfmarker} Sunil hasn't {disfmarker} hasn't heard about uh , what I 've been doing . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , so , um , I told you I was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was getting prepared to take this qualifier exam . So basically that 's just , um , trying to propose um , uh , your next your {disfmarker} your following years of {disfmarker} of your PHD work , trying {disfmarker} trying to find a project to {disfmarker} to define and {disfmarker} and to work on . So , I 've been , uh , looking into , um , doing something about r uh , speech recognition using acoustic events . So , um , the idea is you have all these {disfmarker} these different events , for example voicing , nasality , R - coloring , you know burst or noise , uh , frication , that kinda stuff , um , building robust um , primary detectors for these acoustic events , and using the outputs of these robust detectors to do speech recognition . Um , and , um , these {disfmarker} these primary detectors , um , will be , uh , inspired by , you know , multi - band techniques , um , doing things , um , similar to Larry Saul 's work on , uh , graphical models to {disfmarker} to detect these {disfmarker} these , uh , acoustic events . And , um , so I {disfmarker} I been {disfmarker} I been thinking about that and some of the issues that I 've been running into are , um , exactly what {disfmarker} what kind of acoustic events I need , what {disfmarker} um , what acoustic events will provide a {disfmarker} a good enough coverage to {disfmarker} in order to do the later recognition steps . And , also , um , once I decide a set of acoustic events , um , h how do I {disfmarker} how do I get labels ? Training data for {disfmarker} for these acoustic events . And , then later on down the line , I can start playing with the {disfmarker} the models themselves , the {disfmarker} the primary detectors . Um , so , um , I kinda see {disfmarker} like , after {disfmarker} after building the primary detectors I see um , myself taking the outputs and feeding them in , sorta tandem style into {disfmarker} into a um , Gaussian mixtures HMM back - end , um , and doing recognition . Um . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's just generally what I 've been looking at . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , +Professor C: By {disfmarker} by the way , uh , the voiced - unvoiced version of that for instance could tie right in to what Carmen was looking at . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: So , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , um , if you {disfmarker} if a multi - band approach was helpful as {disfmarker} as I think it is , it seems to be helpful for determining voiced - unvoiced , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that one might be another thing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . Um , were {disfmarker} were you gonna say something ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad G: Oh . It looked {disfmarker} OK , never mind . Um , yeah . And so , this {disfmarker} this past week um , I 've been uh , looking a little bit into uh , TRAPS um , and doing {disfmarker} doing TRAPS on {disfmarker} on these e events too , just , um , seeing {disfmarker} seeing if that 's possible . Uh , and um , other than that , uh , I was kicked out of I - house for living there for four years . +Professor C: Oh no . So you live in a cardboard box in the street now +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: or , no ? +Grad G: Uh , well , s s som something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: In Albany , yeah . Yeah . And uh . Yep . That 's it . +Professor C: Suni - i d ' you v did uh {disfmarker} did you find a place ? +PhD A: Uh , no +Professor C: Is that out of the way ? +PhD A: not yet . Uh , yesterday I called up a lady who ha who will have a vacant room from May thirtieth and she said she 's interviewing two more people . So . And she would get back to me on Monday . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's only thing I have and Diane has a few more houses . She 's going to take some pictures and send me after I go back . So it 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD F: Oh . So you 're not down here permanently yet ? +PhD A: No . I 'm going back to OGI today . +PhD F: Ah ! Oh , OK . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor C: OK . And then , you 're coming back uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , i I mean , I {disfmarker} I p I plan to be here on thirty - first . +Professor C: Thirty - first , +PhD A: Yeah , well if there 's a house available or place to {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: Thirty - first . +Professor C: Well , I mean i i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I hope . +Professor C: They 're available , and they 'll be able to get you something , so worst comes to worst we 'll put you up in a hotel for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a while +PhD A: Yeah . So , in that case , I 'm going to be here on thirty - first definitely . +Professor C: until you {disfmarker} OK . +Grad E: You know , if you 're in a desperate situation and you need a place to stay , you could stay with me for a while . I 've got a spare bedroom right now . +PhD A: Oh . OK . Thanks . That sure is nice of you . So , it may be he needs more than me . +Grad G: Oh r oh . Oh no , no . My {disfmarker} my cardboard box is actually a nice spacious two bedroom apartment . +Professor C: So a two bedroom cardboard box . Th - that 's great . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor C: Thanks Dave . +Grad G: yeah +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Do y wanna say anything about {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you actually been {disfmarker} Uh , last week you were doing this stuff with Pierre , you were {disfmarker} you were mentioning . Is that {disfmarker} that something worth talking about , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um , it 's {disfmarker} Well , um , it {disfmarker} I don't think it directly relates . Um , well , so , I was helping a speech researcher named Pierre Divenyi and he 's int He wanted to um , look at um , how people respond to formant changes , I think . Um . So he {disfmarker} he created a lot of synthetic audio files of vowel - to - vowel transitions , and then he wanted a psycho - acoustic um , spectrum . And he wanted to look at um , how the energy is moving {pause} over time in that spectrum and compare that to the {disfmarker} to the listener tests . And , um . So , I gave him a PLP spectrum . And {disfmarker} to um {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he t wanted to track the peaks so he could look at how they 're moving . So I took the um , PLP LPC coefficients and um , I found the roots . This was something that Stephane suggested . I found the roots of the um , LPC polynomial to , um , track the peaks in the , um , PLP LPC spectra . +PhD A: well there is aligned spectral pairs , is like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Is that the aligned s +Professor C: It 's a r root LPC , uh , of some sort . +PhD A: Oh , no . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So you just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: instead of the log you took the root square , I mean cubic root or something . What di w I didn't get that . +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's taking the {disfmarker} finding the roots of the LPC polynomial . +PhD A: Polynomial . Yeah . Is that the line spectral {disfmarker} +Professor C: So it 's like line spectral pairs . +PhD A: Oh , it 's like line sp +Professor C: Except I think what they call line spectral pairs they push it towards the unit circle , don't they , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: to sort of ? But it {disfmarker} But uh , you know . But what we 'd used to do w when I did synthesis at National Semiconductor twenty years ago , the technique we were playing with initially was {disfmarker} was taking the LPC polynomial and {disfmarker} and uh , finding the roots . It wasn't PLP cuz Hynek hadn't invented it yet , but it was just LPC , and uh , we found the roots of the polynomial , And th When you do that , sometimes they 're f they 're what most people call formants , sometimes they 're not . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} Formant tracking with it can be a little tricky cuz you get these funny {vocalsound} values in {disfmarker} in real speech , +PhD F: So you just {disfmarker} You typically just get a few roots ? +Professor C: but . +PhD F: You know , two or three , +Professor C: Well you get these complex pairs . +PhD F: something like that ? +Professor C: And it depends on the order that you 're doing , but . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , um , if {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Every root that 's {disfmarker} Since it 's a real signal , the LPC polynomial 's gonna have real coefficients . So I think that means that every root that is not a real root {comment} is gonna be a c complex pair , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , of a complex value and its conjugate . Um . So for each {disfmarker} And if you look at that on the unit circle , um , one of these {disfmarker} one of the members of the pair will be a positive frequency , one will be a negative frequency , I think . So I just {disfmarker} So , um , f for the {disfmarker} I 'm using an eighth - order polynomial and I 'll get three or four of these pairs +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: which give me s which gives me three or four peak positions . +Professor C: This is from synthetic speech , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So if it 's from synthetic speech then maybe it 'll be cleaner . I mean for real speech in real {disfmarker} then what you end up having is , like I say , funny little things that are {disfmarker} don't exactly fit your notion of formants all that well . +PhD F: How did {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but mostly they are . +PhD D: But +Professor C: Mostly they do . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Mmm , +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and what {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} in what we were doing , which was not so much looking at things , it was OK +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: because it was just a question of quantization . Uh , we were just you know , storing {disfmarker} It was {disfmarker} We were doing , uh , stored speech , uh , quantization . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but uh , in your case um , you know {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually you have peaks that are not at the formant 's positions , but they are lower in energy +Grad E: But {disfmarker} there 's some of that , yes . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Well they are much lower . +PhD F: If this is synthetic speech can't you just get the formants directly ? I mean h how is the speech created ? +Grad E: It was created from a synthesizer , and um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't a formant synthesizer was it ? +Professor C: I bet it {disfmarker} it might have {disfmarker} may have been +Grad E: I {disfmarker} d d this {disfmarker} +Professor C: but maybe he didn't have control over it or something ? +Grad E: In {disfmarker} in fact w we {disfmarker} we could get , um , formant frequencies out of the synthesizer , as well . And , um , w one thing that the , um , LPC approach will hopefully give me in addition , um , is that I {disfmarker} I might be able to find the b the bandwidths of these humps as well . Um , Stephane suggested looking at each complex pair as a {disfmarker} like a se second - order IIR filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , but I don't think there 's a g a really good reason not to um , get the formant frequencies from the synthesizer instead . Except that you don't have the psycho - acoustic modeling in that . +Professor C: Yeah , so the actual {disfmarker} So you 're not getting the actual formants per se . You 're getting the {disfmarker} Again , you 're getting sort of the , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You 're getting something that is {disfmarker} is uh , af strongly affected by the PLP model . And so it 's more psycho - acoustic . So it 's a little {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's sort of {disfmarker} sort of a different thing . +PhD F: Oh , I see . That 's sort of the point . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . i Ordinarily , in a formant synthesizer , the bandwidths as well as the ban uh , formant centers are {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} Somewhere in the synthesizer that was put in , as {disfmarker} as what you {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but yeah , you view each complex pair as essentially a second - order section , which has , uh , band center and band width , and um , um {disfmarker} But . Yeah . O K . So , uh , yeah , you 're going back today and then back in a week I guess , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and . Yeah . Great ! Well , welcome . +PhD A: Thanks . +PhD F: I guess we should do digits quickly . +Professor C: Oh yeah , digits . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: I almost forgot that . +PhD B: Digits . +Professor C: I almost forgot our daily digits . +PhD F: You wanna go ahead ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD F: OK . +","In the conversation, multiple individuals are discussing various topics related to microphone technology, recording sessions, and advanced speech recognition research: + +- Professor C and Ph.D. F discuss the quality of lapel microphones and their decision to switch to headset microphones due to background noise issues. + +- Ph.D. A inquires about the type of microphone and channel assignments for the recording session. + +- Professor C mentions their kick-off meeting, discussing progress reports, and future plans for their research, while Ph.D. F offers to share information about computing resources and new machines for the compute farm. + +- Ph.D. F talks about using P-make and Customs for job distribution on the compute network and explains the ""run command"" utility that allows jobs to run on the quickest available machine with specific attributes. + +- Grad G seeks advice on handling parallelization and job queuing within their computational system. + +- Discussions progress to potential speech recognition projects such as using acoustic events for recognition and dealing with noisy speech data from large vocabulary tasks, such as the Wall Street Journal. + +- Ph.D. A provides updates on their work post-Aurora submission, mentioning efforts to integrate speech enhancement algorithms and experimenting with different techniques to improve performance in noisy conditions. + +- Professor C and the other researchers discuss formant tracking, spectral subtraction, and the benefits of multi-band approaches to detecting voicing. + +- Grad E shares his work with Pierre Divenyi on synthetic audio files and spectral peaks, considering the roots of LPC polynomials to track peak positions in the spectrum. + +- Professor C mentions finding housing arrangements for Ph.D. A and Grad G, and they closed their meeting with the daily digits task, which seems to be part of their recording routine. + +Overall, the conversation involves an in-depth technical discussion on improving speech recognition techniques and managing computational resources, as well as logistical matters like housing for new members." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Alright , so I 'm - I should read all of these numbers ? +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Piece of paper ? I could borrow ? +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: OK , so uh i um I don't know whether Ami 's coming or not um but I think we oughta just get started . +Grad E: Nancy is uh currently in Berkeley but not here ? +Grad C: Nancy 's still stick ? +Professor B: Don't know . Anyway +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , so there you go . Anyway , so my idea f for today and we can uh decide that that isn't the right thing to do was to at {disfmarker} spend at least part of the time trying to eh build the influence links , you know which sets of things are uh relevant to which decisions and actually I had uh specific s suggestion to start first with the path ones . The database ones being in some sense less interesting to us although probably have to be done and so to do that so there 's {disfmarker} and the idea was we were gonna do two things +Grad C: Is your mike on ? +Professor B: Ah . Oh right , well . Yeah . We were gonna do two things one of which is just lay out the influence structure of what we think influences what +Grad D: That 's funny . +Professor B: and then as a uh separate but related task uh particularly Bhaskara and I were going to try to decide what kinds of belief nodes are needed in order to um do what we {disfmarker} what we need to do . Once so but du we should sort of have all of the uh basic design of what influences what done before we decide exactly how to compute it . So I didn't {disfmarker} did you get a chance to look at all {disfmarker} yet ? +Grad D: Yeah , I looked at some of that stuff . +Professor B: Great . OK so let 's start with the uh belief - nets , the general influence stuff and then we 'll {disfmarker} then we 'll also at some point break and talk about the techy stuff . +Grad E: Well I think one could go there 's I think we can di discuss everything . First of all this I added , I knew from sort of basically this has to be there right ? Um +Professor B: Oh are you gonna go there or not ? Yeah , so one i +Grad E: Given {disfmarker} given uh uh not transverse the castle , the decision is does the person want to go there or is it just +Professor B: Right , true . Does have to be there . And I 'm sure we 'll find more as we go that +Grad E: And Hmm ? So Go - there in the first place or not is definitely uh one of the basic ones . We can start with that . Interesting effect . Um Is this basically true or false or maybe we 'll get +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which one ? +Grad E: what ? +Grad A: "" Go there "" . +Grad E: m right . +Professor B: so there is this question about +Grad E: Here we we actually get just probabilities , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: right for each down here . +Professor B: When we 're {disfmarker} yeah when we 're done . So {disfmarker} so +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the reason it might not be true or false is that we did have this idea of when so it 's , you know uh current @ @ and so forth and so on or not at all , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? And so that a decision would be do we want that so you could {disfmarker} two different things you could do , you could have all those values for Go - there or you could have Go - there be binary and given that you 're going there when . +Grad E: When . How . +Professor B: Yeah and so forth . +Grad E: Why , +Professor B: So I 'll let +Grad E: yeah . +Professor B: we 'll see . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad A: I mean it seems that you could um uh it seems that those things would be logically independent like you would wanna have them separate or binary , Go - there and then the {disfmarker} the possibilities of how to go there because {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's start that way . +Grad A: because , you know it might be easy to figure out that this person is going to need more film eventually from their utterance but it 's much more complex to query when would be the most appropriate time . +Grad E: Hmm . Hmm . OK . And so I 've tried to come up with some initial things one could observe so who is the user ? Everything that has user comes from the user model everything that has situation comes from the situation model - A . We should be be clear . But when it comes to sort of writing down when you {disfmarker} when you do these things is it here ? You sort of have to a write the values this can take . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: And here I was really uh in some s sometimes I was really sort of standing in front of a wall feeling very stupid because um {disfmarker} this case it 's pretty simple , but as we will see the other ones um for example if it 's a running budget so what are the discrete values of a running budget ? So maybe my understanding there is too impoverished . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: No uh +Grad E: How can I write here that this is something , a number that cr keeps on changing ? But OK . Thus is understandable ? +Grad A: Think so . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: So here for example . +Professor B: You 've s have you seen this before at all Keith , these belief - net things ? +Grad A: Uh , no , but I think I 'm following it . So far . +Grad E: So here is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we had that the user 's budget may influence the outcome of decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad E: There we wanted to keep sort of a running total of things . +Grad D: Is this like a number that represents how much money they have left to spend ? OK , h well I mean how is it different from user finance ? +Grad E: Um the finance is sort of here thought of as {disfmarker} as the financial policy a person carries out in his life , he {disfmarker} is he cheap , average , or spendy ? +Grad D: Alright . +Grad E: And um I didn't come uh maybe a user I don't know , I didn't want to write greediness , but +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Professor B: Or cheapness . +Grad E: Welcome . +Grad A: User thrift . +Grad E: Welcome . +Professor B: Thrift , that 's good . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Great . +Grad E: There it is . +Professor B: Yeah . So Keith w what 's behind this is actually a program that will once you fill all this in actually s solve your belief - nets for you and stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is not just a display , this is actually a GUI to a simulator that will if we tell it all the right things we 'll wind up with a functioning belief - net at the other end . +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad E: And it 's so simple even I can use it . +Grad A: Wow , that is simple . +Grad E: OK , so here was OK , I can think of uh people being cheap , average , or spendy or we can even have a {disfmarker} a finer scale moderately cheap , +Professor B: Doesn't matter . +Grad E: doesn't matter . Agree there but here um I wasn't sure what to write in . +Professor B: Let 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +Grad D: Well , I mean you 've written in {disfmarker} you 've written in what uh seems to be required like what else is {disfmarker} is do you want ? +Grad E: If that 's permissible then I 'm happy . +Professor B: Well yeah . So here 's {disfmarker} here 's what 's permissible is that you can arrange so that the um the value of that is gonna have to be updated and n it 's not a belief update , right ? It 's {disfmarker} you took some actions , you spent money and stuff , so the update of that is gonna have to be essentially external to the belief - net . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And then what you 're going to need is uh for the things that it influences . Well let 's {disfmarker} first of all let 's see if it does influence anything . And if it does influence anything then you 're gonna need something that converts from the {disfmarker} the number here to something that 's relevant to the decision there . So it could be ra they create different ranges that are relevant for different decisions or whatever {disfmarker} but for the moment this is just a node that is conditioned externally and might influence various things . +Grad E: Hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} this is where um OK anyways let 's forget it . +Professor B: Well that 's fine . Well anyway , go ahead . +Grad E: OK , and so this , oh that +Grad D: The other thing is that um every time that 's updated beliefs will have to be propagated but then the question is do you {disfmarker} do we wanna propagate beliefs every single time it 's updated or only when we need to ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's a good question . And uh does it have a lazy mode ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Uh Well , I mean , in Srini 's thing there was this thing {disfmarker} there was this um option like proper inferences which suggests that uh doesn't happen , automatically . +Professor B: Oh right . Yeah . S probably does . Yeah someone has to track that down , but I {disfmarker} but uh And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I think {disfmarker} actually uh +Grad E: I just accidentally Oops . +Professor B: one of the we w items for the uh user home base uh should be uh essentially non - local . I they 're only there for the day and they don't have a place that they 're staying . +Grad D: Well +Grad E: Oh just uh accidentally erased this , I {disfmarker} I just had values here such as uh um is he s we had in our list we had "" Is he staying in our hotel ? "" , "" Is he staying with friends ? "" , and so forth +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: uh so we 're OK . +Professor B: So it 's clear where w w w where we are right now . So my suggestion is we just pick uh +Grad E: Something down here ? +Professor B: one , you know one uh particular one of the uh well let 's do the first {disfmarker} first one let 's do the one that we sort of already think we did so w that was the {disfmarker} of the endpoint ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And um Oops . +Grad D: Is hmm +Grad E: Ah , +Grad D: So it 's true or false ? +Professor B: No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a +Grad E: OK . No no no , EVA . +Grad D: So +Grad E: Missed that one . +Grad C: What 's the difference between mode and endpoint ? +Grad D: I thought mode , yeah . +Professor B: although that +Grad E: Um mode was um +Professor B: Well , that 's +Grad D: Mode of transportation ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . Also true or false . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , he has he hasn't filled them in yet , is what 's true . +Grad D: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Did I or didn't I ? Ah . Probably nothing done yet , oh I just did it on the upper ones , OK . Makes sense . OK , so this was EVA . Maybe we can think of more things , cross +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Climb , rob . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: climb , emerge +Professor B: No no no , these are ju that 's just a point , +Grad C: Uh +Grad D: Well some of those are subsumed by approach . +Professor B: this is ju +Grad C: Would it be an endpoint if you were crossing over it ? +Grad A: The Charles Bridge , you know . +Professor B: Yeah , would be a f for a given segment . You know , you {disfmarker} y you go {disfmarker} first go the town square +Grad C: Well I eh +Grad A: No , I mean , if you go to re you know if you go to Prague or whatever one of your {disfmarker} your key points that you have to do is cross the Charles Bridge and doesn't really matter which way you cross which {disfmarker} where you end up at the end but the part {disfmarker} the good part is walking over it , so . +Professor B: That 's subtle , but true . Anyway so let 's just leave it three {disfmarker} with three for now +Grad E: Mm - hmm , mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: and let 's see if we can get it linked up just to get ourselves started . +Grad E: OK , we +Professor B: You 'll see it {disfmarker} you 'll see something comes up immediately , that the reason I wanna do this . +Grad E: w well the uh user was uh definitely more likely to enter if he 's a local +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: more likely to view if he 's a tourist um and then of course we had the fact that given the fact that he 's thrifty and there will be admission then we get all these cross um +Professor B: We did , but the three things w that {disfmarker} that it contributed to this in fact , the other two aren't up there . so one was the ontology +Grad E: We 'll d what type of building is it ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: And the {disfmarker} and the third thing we talked about was something from the discourse . +Grad E: What he has mentioned before . +Professor B: OK , so this is w Right , so what w I {disfmarker} what we seem to need here , this is why it starts getting into the technical stuff +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: the way we had been designing this , there were three intermediate nodes uh which were the endpoint decision as seen from the uh user model as seen from the ontology and as seen from the discourse . So each of those the way we had it designed , now we can change the design , but the design we had was there was a decision with the same three outcomes uh based on the th those three separate considerations +Grad A: mm - hmm +Professor B: so if we wanted to do that would have to put in uh three intermediate nodes +Grad E: Uh we can load it up it you know very simple . +Grad A: So +Professor B: and then what you and I have to talk about is , OK if we 're doing that and they get combined somehow uh how do they get combined ? But the {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're undoubtedly gonna be more things to worry about . +Grad E: So this was adjusted for this one mode thing . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's w w in our uh in {disfmarker} in Johno 's sort of pictogram everything that could contribute to whether a person wants to enter , view , or approach something . +Professor B: Oh , it was called mode , so this {disfmarker} this is m mode here means the same as endpoint . +Grad E: Is now this endpoint . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: OK , why don't we ch can we change that ? +Grad E: We can just rename that , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . You know , but that was actually , yeah unfortunately that was a um kind of an intermediate versio that 's I don't think what we would currently do . +Grad A: Can I ask about "" slurred "" and "" angry "" as inputs to this ? +Professor B: That 's a +Grad A: What {disfmarker} why ? +Grad D: Like they 're either true or false +Grad E: The prosody ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: and they uh oh I see . +Grad C: If the {disfmarker} if the person talking is angry or slurs their speech they might be tired or , you know +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . Drunk . +Grad D: Therefore +Grad C: And , you know , possibly uh +Grad A: Less likely to enter . +Grad C: some , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad D: uh I was thinking less likely to view +Professor B: Yeah . But that 's - that seems to , yeah . So {disfmarker} so my advice to do is {disfmarker} is get this down to what we think is actually likely to {disfmarker} to be a {disfmarker} a strong influence . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: But yeah , that was what he had in mind . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: So let 's think about this {disfmarker} this question of how do we wanna handle {disfmarker} so there 're two separate things . One is {disfmarker} uh at least two . One is how do we want to handle the notion of the ontology now what we talked about , and this is another technical thing Bhaskara , is uh can we arrange so that I think we can so that the belief - net itself has properties and the properties are filled in uh from on ontology items . So the {disfmarker} let 's take the case of the uh this endpoint thing , the notion was that if you had a few key properties like is this a tourist site , you know some kind of landmark is it a place of business uh is it something you physically could enter +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , et cetera . So that there 'd be certain properties that would fit into the decision node and then again as part of the ou outer controlling conditioning of this thing those would be set , so that some somehow someone would find this word , look it up in the ontology , pull out these properties , put it into the belief - net , and then the decision would flow . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now +Grad E: Seems to me that we 've sort of e em embedded a lot , em embedded a lot of these uh things we had in there previously in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some of the other final decisions done here , for example if we would know that this thing is exhibiting something um +Professor B: Right . Right . +Grad E: if it 's exhibiting itself it is a landmark , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: meaning more likely to be viewed +Professor B: Yep . +Grad E: if it is exhibiting pictures or sculptures and stuff like this , then it 's more likely to be entered . +Professor B: I uh that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's completely right and um I think that 's good , right ? So what {disfmarker} what that says is that we might be able to uh take and in particular so {disfmarker} so the ones we talked about were uh exhibiting and selling +Grad E: Accessibility . +Professor B: no , accessibility meant +Grad E: If it 's closed one probably won't enter . Or if it 's not accessible to a tourist ever the likelihood of that person actually wanting to enter it , +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: given that he knows it , of course . +Professor B: Alright . So let me suggest this . Uh w could you move those up about halfway . Uh The ones that you th And selling I guess . +Grad E: Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of these if it 's fixing things selling things , or servicing things +Professor B: Right . So here {disfmarker} here 's what it looks like to me . is that you want an intermediate structure which i uh is essentially the or of uh for this purpose of {disfmarker} of uh selling , f fixing , or servicing . So that it uh that is , for certain purposes , it becomes important but for this kind of purpose uh one of these places is quite like the other . Does that seem right ? So we di +Grad C: Basic you 're basically just merging those for just the sake of endpoint decision ? +Professor B: if we Yes . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if {disfmarker} well it may be more than endpoint decisions , so the idea would be that you might wanna merge those three +Grad E: These three ? +Professor B: Yeah . Eh ser s uh selling , fixing , and servicing . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: What ex um and so either those is true f or false ? +Professor B: Uh Uh well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i here 's where it gets a little tricky . +Grad D: So +Professor B: Uh from the belief - net point of view it is from another point of view of course it 's interest it 's {disfmarker} it 's important to know what it 's selling or servicing and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So for this decision it 's just uh true or false +Grad D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: and in th this is a case where the or seems just what you want . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that if any of those things is true then it 's the kind of place that you uh +Grad E: Um more likely to enter . +Professor B: are more likely to enter . +Grad D: So you just wanna have them all pointing to a summary thing ? +Professor B: You could , yeah . Yeah , so let 's do that . No no , no eh to {disfmarker} to an inter no , an intermediate node . +Grad D: T +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's the p part of the idea , is +Grad E: Um is {disfmarker} is that the object type node ? +Professor B: I d +Grad E: So are they the {disfmarker} is it the kind of object that sells , fixes , or services things ? +Professor B: Well , o open up object type and let 's see what its values are . +Grad E: Oh I just created it , it has none so far . +Professor B: Oh , well OK first of all it 's not objects , we called them entities , right ? +Grad E: Yeah . And then we have sort of the um +Professor B: Let 's say I put commercial . +Grad E: Yeah , I w I was just gonna commercial action inside where people p +Professor B: Well couldn't I do {disfmarker} let 's do commercial uh landmark and +Grad E: And where was the accessible , yeah . +Professor B: Well accessible I think is different cuz that 's tempor that {disfmarker} that varies temporally , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: whereas this is a +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: What would a hotel fall under ? +Professor B: I would call that a service , but {disfmarker} but I don't know . +Grad C: Well I mean in terms of entity type ? +Professor B: Say w w well it 's co I would s a a again for this purpose I think it 's commercial . Someplace you want to go in to do some kind of business . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Um what does the underscore - T at the end of each of those things signify ? +Grad E: Um things . So places that service things sell things or fix things and pe places that e exhibit things . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . That also points to entity type I guess . +Grad A: So we 're deriving um this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this feature of whether the {disfmarker} the main action at this place happens inside or outside or what we 're deriving that from what kind of activity is done there ? Couldn't you have it as just a primitive feature of the entity ? +Professor B: Well you could , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a choice . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So uh +Grad A: I mean it seems like that 's much more reliable cuz you could have outdoor places that sell things and you know indoor places that do something else +Professor B: Yeah , the problem with it is that it sort of putting in a feature just for one decision , +Grad A: and Hmm . +Professor B: now w we may wind up having to do that this i anyway , this i +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: at a mental level that 's what we we 're gonna have to sort out . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: So , you know what does this look like , what are {disfmarker} what are uh intermediate things that are worth computing , what are the features we need in order to make all these decisions +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and what 's the best way to organize this so that um it 's clean and {disfmarker} and consistent and all that sort of stuff . +Grad A: OK . I 'm just thinking about how people , human beings who know about places and places to go and so on would store this and it would probably {disfmarker} you wouldn't just sort of remember that they sell stuff and then deduce from that that it must be going on inside or something . +Grad E: Well I think an entity maybe should be regard as a vector of several possible things , it can either em do s do sell things , fix things , service things , exhibit things , it can be a landmark at the same time as doing these things , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's not either or mmm certainly a place can be a hotel and a famous site . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Many come to mind . Things can be generally um a landmark and be accessible . IE a {disfmarker} a castle or can be a landmark a or not accessible , some statue +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: you know can go inside . +Professor B: OK . Anyway so let me suggest you do something else . Uh which is to get rid {disfmarker} get rid of that l long link between who {disfmarker} the user and the endpoint . +Grad E: Could we just move it like this ? +Professor B: No no , I don't want the link there at all . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Because what we 're gonna want is an intermediate thing which is uh the endpoint decisi the endpoint decision based o on the user models , so what we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} what we talked about is three separate endpoint decisions , so let 's make a new node +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Just as a suggestion maybe you could "" save as "" to keep your old one nice and clean and so you can mess with this one . +Grad E: Mmm . The old one was not that not that important , I think but +Grad C: OK , well , not a big deal then . +Grad E: Let 's do it then . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} Isn't there a "" save as "" inside of java base ? +Grad E: But I can just take this +Grad C: OK . +Grad E: copy it somewhere else . This was user something +Professor B: Well this was +Grad E: or +Professor B: uh let 's p put it this {disfmarker} let 's do endpoint underbar - U . +Grad E: end point ? +Professor B: i endpoint , e end poi this is sa +Grad E: Ah . +Professor B: it 's the endpoint +Grad E: Gotcha , yeah . +Professor B: let 's say underbar - U , so that 's the endpoint decision uh as seen through the +Grad C: As related from the user model . +Professor B: Right . So let 's {disfmarker} let 's actually yeah so lin you can link that up to the +Grad E: Should I rename this {pause} too ? +Professor B: uh yeah , so that , I guess that 's endpoint uh +Grad E: It 's underscore - E . +Professor B: underscore - E for entity , and we may change all this , but . Right . And +Grad E: OK , shouldn't I be able to move them all ? No . Or {disfmarker} ? Can I ? Where ? What ? +Professor B: Oh I d eh I don't know . Actually , I guess the easiest thing would move {disfmarker} mo move the endpoint , well , go ahead . Just do whatever . +Grad E: Wasn't this possible ? +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: I think you have to be in move mode before +Grad E: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Good . Right . +Grad E: So now we 're looking for user related things that um +Professor B: Yeah . And uh maybe th maybe it 's just one who is the user , I don't know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe there 's more . +Grad A: Huh . +Grad E: Well if he 's usi if he 's in a car right now what was that people with Harry drove the car into the cafe +Professor B: Never mind . Uh anyway , this is crude . Now but the {disfmarker} now so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but then the question is uh so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we assume that some of these properties would come indirectly through an ontology , but then we had this third idea of input from the discourse . +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} should we finish this , +Professor B: Sure , +Grad E: I mean but surely the user interests +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: The user thrift , the user budget . +Grad E: yeah , yeah +Professor B: Well , maybe , I again , I d well , OK , put em in but what we 're gonna wanna do is actually uh +Grad C: Well is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Here this was one of my problems we have the user interest is a {disfmarker} is a vector of five hundred values , so um That 's from the user model , +Grad D: Oh you mean level of interest ? +Grad E: mm - hmm , no not levels of interest but things you can be interested in . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: somebody else has built this user model . +Grad D: Oh I see , +Grad E: Gothic churches versus Baroque townhouses versus +Grad D: right . So why is it oh it , so it 's like a vector of five hundred one 's or zero 's ? +Grad E: Yea - n is that +Grad D: Like for each thing are we {disfmarker} are you interested in it or not ? +Grad E: yeah uh I {disfmarker} I think +Grad D: I see . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . So uh you cou and so here let me give you two ways to handle that . Alright ? One is um you could ignore it . But the other thing you could do is have an {disfmarker} and this will give you the flavor of the {disfmarker} of what you could have a node that 's {disfmarker} that was a measure of the match between the object 's feature , you know , the match between the object the entity , I 'm sorry and the user . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor B: So you could have a k a "" fit "" node and again that would have to be computed by someone else +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh so that uh +Grad E: Just as a mental note uh +Professor B: Yeah , that 's all . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and should we say that this interests eh affects the likelihood of {disfmarker} of entering ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , we could . +Grad E: Yeah . And also if it 's an expensive place to enter , this may also +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Budget . +Grad A: User schedule . "" Do I have time to go in and climb all the way to the top of the Koelner Dome {comment} or do I just have to {disfmarker} "" "" time to take a picture of the outside ? "" +Grad E: Schedule ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: It seems like everything in a user model a affects {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well that 's what we don't wanna do , see that {disfmarker} se cuz then we get into huge combinatorics and stuff like that +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an +Grad C: Cuz if the , I mean , and if the user is tired , the user state , +Grad D: Well +Grad C: right , it would affect stuff , but I can't see why e anything w everything in the model wouldn't be +Professor B: Well , but +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: Well , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} we can't do that , so we we 're gonna have to +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: but this is a good discussion , we 're gonna have to somehow figure out uh some way to encapsulate that uh so if there 's some general notion of for example the uh relation to the time to do this to the amount of time the guy has or something like that is {disfmarker} is the uh compatibility with his current state , so that 's what you 'd have to do , you 'd have to get it down to something which uh was itself relatively compact , so it could be compatibility with his current state which would include his money and his time and {disfmarker} and his energy +Grad C: Yeah , just seems like it 'd push the problem back a level . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: It does . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad D: No but , it 's more than that , like the {disfmarker} the more sort of you break it up like because if you have everything pointing to one node it 's like exponential whereas if you like keep breaking it up more and more it 's not exponential anymore . +Professor B: So it yeah , there are two advantages . That 's tha there 's one technical one +Grad C: Sh - sh yeah , {disfmarker} +Professor B: and the other is it {disfmarker} it gets used +Grad C: S so we 'd basically be doing subgrouping ? Subgrouping , basically into mo +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: so basically make it more tree like going backwards ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . But it {disfmarker} there 's two advantages , one is the technical one that you don't wind up with such big exponential uh CBT 's , +Grad E: Bhaskara ? +Professor B: the other is it can be {disfmarker} it presumably can be used for multiple decisions . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that if you have this idea of the compatibility with the requirements of an action to the state of the user one could well imagine that that was u +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: not only is it sim is it cleaner to compute it separately but it could be that it 's used in multiple places . Anyway th so in general this is the design , this is really design problem . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , you 've got a signal , a d set of decisions um how do we do this ? +Grad E: What do I have under user state anyhow cuz I named that already something . Oh that 's tired , fresh , yeah . Maybe should be renamed into physical state . +Professor B: Or fat user fatigue even . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: That 's with a "" G "" ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Whatever . +Grad E: Then we can make a user state . +Professor B: What 's th what we 're talking about is compatibility . Uh or something , I don't know , but . +Grad C: I guess the {disfmarker} the question uh is It 's hard for me to imagine how everything wouldn't just contribute to user state again . Or user compatibility . +Professor B: Oh but the thing is that we uh uh we had some things that uh +Grad E: That don't . +Professor B: that don't +Grad E: The user interests and the user who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the user is are completely apart from the fact whether he is tired broke +Grad C: Sure , but other {disfmarker} I thought though the node we 're creating right now is user compatibility to the current action , right ? +Professor B: the right +Grad C: Seems like everything in the user model would contribute to whether or not the user was compatible with something . +Professor B: Uh maybe not . I mean the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} the issue is um would Even if it was true in some abstract general sense it might not be true in terms of the information we actually had and can make use of . And anyway we 're gonna have to find some way to cl uh get this sufficiently simple to make it feasible . +Grad E: Maybe um if we look at the {disfmarker} if we split it up again into sort of um if we look at the uh the endpoint again we {disfmarker} we said that for each of these things there are certain preconditions so you can only enter a place if you are not too tired to do so and also eh have the money to do so if it costs something so if you can afford it and perform it is preconditions . Viewing usually is cheap or free . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is that always true ? I don't know . +Grad C: Well , with the way we 're defining it I think yeah . +Professor B: W w but that eh viewing it without ent yeah view w with our definition of view it 's free cuz you +Grad E: And so is approaching . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Well what about the Grand Canyon , right ? No , never mind . I mean are there {disfmarker} are there large things that you would have to pay to get up close to like , I mean never mind , not in the current {disfmarker} +Professor B: No we have to enter the park . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Eh almost by definition um paying involves entering , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: ge going through some +Grad A: OK . Right , sure . +Professor B: Right . Uh So let me suggest we switch to another one , I mean clearly there 's more work to be done on this +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I think it 's gonna be more instructive to {disfmarker} to think about uh other decisions that we need to make in path land . And what they 're gonna look like . +Grad C: So you can save this one as and open up the old one , right and {disfmarker} and then everything would be clean . You could do it again . +Professor B: Why , I think it 's worth saving this one but I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to keep this one +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz I wanna see if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna reuse any of this stuff . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um so this might be What next ? +Professor B: Well you tell me , so in terms of the uh planner what 's {disfmarker} what 's a good one to do ? +Grad E: Well let 's {disfmarker} th this go there or not I think is a good one . +Professor B: Uh +Grad E: Is a very basic one . So what makes things more likely that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the fir see the first thing is , getting back to thing we left out of the other is the actual discourse . +Grad E: So +Professor B: So Keith this is gonna get into your world because uh we 're gonna want to know you know , which constructions indicate various of these properties +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: s and so I {disfmarker} I don't yet know how to do this , I guess we 're gonna wind up pulling out uh discourse properties like we have object properties and we don't know what they are yet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that the Go - there decision will have a node from uh discourse , and I guess why don't we just stick a discourse thing up there to be as a placeholder for +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we also had discourse features of course for the endpoint . +Professor B: Of {disfmarker} of course . +Grad E: Identified that +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and so again re that 's completely correct , we have the user model , the situation model here , we don't have the discourse model here yet . Much the same way as we didn't {disfmarker} we don't have the ontology here . +Professor B: Well the ontology we sort of said we would pull these various kinds of properties from the ontology like exhibiting , selling , and so forth . +Grad E: Really . +Professor B: So in some sense it 's {disfmarker} it 's there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But the discourse we don't have it represented at all yet . +Grad E: Yeah . Um This be specific for second year ? Um And {disfmarker} and we probably will have uh something like a discourse for endpoint . +Professor B: But if we do it 'll have the three values . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Professor B: It 'll have the EVA values if {disfmarker} if we have it . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . OK just for starters and here discourse um +Professor B: For Go - there , probably is true and false , let 's say . That 's what we talked about . +Grad E: um well , I think um we 're looking at the {disfmarker} the little data that we have , so people say how do I get to the castle and this usually means they wanna go there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So this should sort of push it in one direction +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: however people also sometimes say how do I get there in order to find out how to get there without wanting to go there . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And sometimes um people say where is it +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because they wanna know where it is but in most cases they probably +Professor B: Yeah , but that doesn't change the fact that you 're {disfmarker} you want these two values . +Grad E: Oh yeah , true . So this is sort of some external thing that takes all the discourse stuff and then says here it 's either {pause} yep , yay , A , or nay . Yeah . OK ? +Professor B: And they 'll be a y uh , a user Go - there and maybe that 's all , I don't know . +Grad D: Situation Go - there , I mean , because it 's {disfmarker} whether it 's open or not . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , good . +Grad D: That definitely interes +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: But that now that kind of um what 's the word +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: um the {disfmarker} that interacts with the uh EVA thing if they just wanna view it then it 's fine to go there when it 's closed whereas if they want to um +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so +Professor B: Right , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's where it starts getting to be uh uh essentially more interesting , so what uh Bhaskara says which is completely right is if you know that they 're only going to view it then it doesn't matter whether it 's closed or not +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in terms of uh uh you know , whether {disfmarker} whether you wanna go there . +Grad D: The time of day , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: right I {disfmarker} well , right . +Grad C: It does matter though if there 's like a strike or riot or something . +Professor B: Absolutely there are other situational things that do matter . +Grad D: Right . So yeah , that 's what I said just having one situational node may not be enough because this {disfmarker} that node by itself wouldn't distinguish +Professor B: Well i i it can have di various values . Yeah , but we eh you {disfmarker} you 're right it might not be enough . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean , see I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking that any node that begins with "" Go - there "" is either gonna be true or false . +Grad A: Well , what {disfmarker} Whoops . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Ah . I see that could be . +Grad A: Also , that node , I mean the Go - there s S node would just be fed by separate ones for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , there 's different things , the strikes and the +Professor B: Could be . Yeah . N +Grad D: Like situation traffic and so on . +Grad A: Yeah , the time of day . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so now the other thing that Bhaskara eh pointed out is what this says is that uh there sh should be a link , and this is where things are gonna get very messy from the endpoint uh decision +Grad D: I guess the final +Professor B: maybe the t they 're final re and , I guess the very bottom endpoint decision uh to the Go - there node . And I {disfmarker} don't worry about layout , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean then we 'll go {disfmarker} we 'll go nuts but +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Maybe we could um have intermediate node that just the Endpoint and the Go - there S node sort of fed into ? +Professor B: Could be , yeah . +Grad D: Right . Because that 's what we , I mean that 's why this situation comes up . +Professor B: Yeah . Well the Go - there , actually the Endpoint node could feed {disfmarker} feed into the Go - there S That 's right , +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor B: so the Endpoint node , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: make that up t t to the Go - there then +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and again we 'll have to do layout at some point , but something like that . Now it 's gonna be important not to have loops by the way . Uh really important in {disfmarker} in the belief worl net world not to have loops +Grad E: I was just gonna +Professor B: uh +Grad D: Yes . +Grad E: How long does it take you to {disfmarker} to compute uh +Professor B: No it 's much worse than that . It {disfmarker} if i loo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's not def i it 's not well defined if you 're there are loops , +Grad D: It {disfmarker} things don't converge , yeah . +Grad E: uh R recursive action ? +Professor B: you just you have to there are all sorts of ways of breaking it up so that there isn't uh OK . +Grad E: Uh but this isn't , this is {disfmarker} this line is just coming from over here . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , no it 's not a loop yet , I 'm just saying we {disfmarker} we , in no , in +Grad D: Yeah . Well , but the good thing is we {disfmarker} we could have loopy belief propagation which {vocalsound} we all love . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: Right . OK , so anyway , so that 's another decision . Uh what 's {disfmarker} what 's another decision you like ? +Grad E: OK , these have no parents yet , but I guess that sort of doesn't matter . Right ? +Professor B: Well , the idea is that you go there , you go comes from something about the user from something about the situation and the uh the discourse is {disfmarker} is a mystery . +Grad E: I mean this is sort of This comes from traffic and so forth , yeah . Sh - Should we just make some +Professor B: Sure , if you want . +Grad E: um if there 's parking maybe Mmm Oh who cares . OK . And if he has seen it already or not and so forth , +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: OK . Um and discourse is something that sort of should we make a Keith note here ? +Professor B: Sure . +Grad E: That sort of comes from Keith . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Just sort of so we don't forget . Oops . Have to get used to this . OK , whoops . +Grad A: Um actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then also the discourse endpoint , I {disfmarker} I guess endpoint sub - D is {disfmarker} if you wanna make it consistent . +Grad C: Wh - ah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um actually is this the {disfmarker} the right way to have it where um go there from the user and go there from the situation just sort of don't know about each other but they both feed the go there decision because isn't the , I mean +Professor B: I think so . S +Grad A: uh , hmm OK . But that still allows for the possibility of the {disfmarker} of the user model affecting our decision about whether a strike is the sort of thing which is going to keep this user away from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not , a Right . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} all that {disfmarker} that kind of decision making happens at the Go - there node . +Professor B: Uh y you {disfmarker} yeah you {disfmarker} i you {disfmarker} if you needed to do that . +Grad A: Uh . If you needed it to do that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: But uh OK I was just thinking I guess maybe I 'm conflating that user node with possible {disfmarker} possible asking of the user +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: you know hey there 's a strike on , uh does that affect whether or not you wanna go or something +Professor B: Ah . Good point , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know how we 're going to {disfmarker} t uh +Grad A: or Yeah , so that might not come out of a user model but , you know , directly out of interaction . +Professor B: Right . Uh I gu yes my curr you know , don't yeah yeah yeah that 's enough . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh My current idea on that would be that each of these decision nodes has questions associated with it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the question wouldn't itself be one of these conditional things +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: you know , given that you know there 's a strike do you still wanna go ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: But uh if you told him a bunch of stuff , then you would ask him do you wanna go ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor B: But I think trying to formulate the conditional question , that sounds too much . +Grad A: Right , right . Yeah . Right , sure , OK . +Professor B: To me . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , but let me {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} let 's stay with this a minute +Grad E: But +Professor B: because I want to do a little bit of organization . Before we get more into details . The organization is going to be that uh the flavor of what 's going on is going to be that uh as we s e sort of going to this detail indeed Keith is going to {disfmarker} to worry about the various constructions that people might use +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and Johno has committed himself to being the parser wizard , +Grad A: Alright . +Professor B: so what 's going to happen is that eventually like by the time he graduates , OK uh they 'll be some sort of system which is able to take the discourse in context and have outputs that can feed the rest of belief - net . I j wa I {disfmarker} I assume everybody knows that , I just wanna you know , get closure that that 'll be the game then , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so the semantics that you 'll get out of the discourse will be of values that go into the various discourse - based decision nodes . And now some of those will get fancier like mode of transportation and stuff so it isn't by any means uh necessarily a simple thing that you want out . So uh if there is an and there is mode of transportation +Grad E: And it there 's a sort of also a split if you loo if you blow this up and look at it in more detail there 's something that comes from the discourse in terms of what was actually just said what 's the utterance go giving us +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and then what 's the discourse history give us . +Professor B: Yeah , well that , well , we 'll have to decide uh how much of th where that goes . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: That 's uh two things then . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor B: an and it 's not clear yet . I mean it could be those are two separate things , it could be that the discourse gadget itself integrates em as {disfmarker} which would be my guess that you 'd have to do see in order to do reference and stuff like that um you 've gotta have both the current discourse and the context to say I wanna go back there , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: wow , what does that mean and uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm +Grad A: Now . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright . So +Grad E: But is th is this picture that 's emerging here just my wish that you have noticed already for symmetry or is it that we get for each {disfmarker} each decision on the very bottom we sort of get the sub - E , sub - D , sub - U and maybe a sub - O {disfmarker} "" O "" for "" ontology "" um meta node +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: but it might just +Professor B: It could be . +Grad E: could be +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this is getting into the thing I wanna talk about next , +Grad E: so this +Professor B: which is s if that 's true uh how do we wanna combine those ? O or when it 's true ? +Grad E: but this eh w wou wou would be nice though that , you know , we only have at most four at the moment um arrows going f to each of the uh bottom decisions . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: And four you {disfmarker} we can handle . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's too much ? +Professor B: Well i i it see i if it 's fou if it 's four things and each of them has four values it turns out to be a big CPT , it 's not s completely impossi I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not beyond what the system could solve but it 's probably beyond what we could actually uh write down . or learn . +Grad E: Right , true . +Professor B: Uh but , you know it 's four to the fourth . It 's pretty big . Uh . +Grad C: Two fifty - six , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: is that what that +Professor B: Yeah , I mean it 's and I don't think it 's gonna g e I don't think it 'll get worse than that by the way , so le that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a good +Grad D: Mmm yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} but four {disfmarker} didn't we decide that all of these had true or false ? So is {disfmarker} it 's four +Professor B: Uh for go there , but not f but not for {disfmarker} the other one 's three values for endpoint already . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I mean you need actually three to the five because uh well I mean if {disfmarker} if it has four inputs and then it itself has three values +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so I mean it can get big fast . +Grad E: Um for endpoint ? No it 's {disfmarker} it 's sh +Professor B: EV - it 's the EVA . +Grad E: yeah , down here , but this one only has two . +Professor B: No . +Grad D: No it still has three , +Professor B: Since ta they will still have three . +Grad D: EVA . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} so you 're uh uh from each point of view you 're making the same decision . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So from the point of view of the ob of the entity +Grad E: Want to view that , yeah yeah . C sl +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah +Grad D: This {disfmarker} and also , I mean , the other places where , like for example consider endpoint view , it has inputs coming from user budget , user thrift +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so even +Professor B: Those are not necessarily binary . S so we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna have to use some t care in the knowledge engineering to not have this explode . And in fact I think it doesn't in the sense that um Read it , you know actually with the underlying semantics and stuff I think it isn't like you have two hundred and fifty - six different uh ways of {disfmarker} of thinking about whether this user wants to go to some place . Alright . So we {disfmarker} we just have to figure out what the regularities are and and code them . But um What I was gonna suggest next is maybe we wanna work on this a little longer but I do want to also talk about the thing that we started into now of uh well it 's all fine to say all these arrows come into the si same place what rule of combination is used there . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So th yes they {disfmarker} so these things all affect it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: how do they affect it ? And belief - nets have their own beliefs about uh what are good ways to do that . So is it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clearer n clear enough what the issue is , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: right ? So do we wanna switch that now or we wanna do some more of this ? +Grad E: R basically w we just need to sort of in order to get some closure on this figure out how we 're gonna get this picture sort of uh completely messy . +Professor B: Well , here {disfmarker} he here 's one of the things that {disfmarker} that I th you sh you {disfmarker} no , I don't know how easy it is to do this in the interface but you {disfmarker} it would be great if you could actually just display at a given time uh all the things that you pick up , you click on "" endpoint "" , OK and everything else fades +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you just see the links that are relevant to that . And I does anybody remember the GUI on this ? +Grad C: Uh d I would almost say the other way to do that would be to open u or make you know N - many belief - nets and then open them every time you wanted to look at a different one +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: vers cuz uh +Grad E: It 's probably pretty easy do it {disfmarker} to do it in HTML , just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: HTML ? +Grad E: Yeah I have each of these thing each of the end belief - nets be {disfmarker} be a page and then you click on the thing and then li consider that it 's respective , +Professor B: Yeah the {disfmarker} well the b +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: but +Professor B: anyway so uh it clear that even with this if we put in all the arrows nobody is gonna be able to read the diagram . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , so e we have to figure out some eh eh uh basically display hack or something to do this because anyway I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} let me consi suggest that 's a s not a first - order consideration , we have two first - order considerations which is what are the uh influences A , A , and B how do they get combined mathematically , how do we display them is an issue , but um +Grad C: I don't , yeah I just don't think this has been designed to support something like that . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , it might soon , if this is gonna be used in a serious way like java base then it might soon be necessary to uh start modifying it for our purposes . +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and Um I {disfmarker} that seems like a perfectly feasible thing to get into , but um we have to know what we want first . OK , so why don't you tell us a little bit about decision nodes and what {disfmarker} what the choices might be for these ? +Grad D: So Ah , sorry . I guess that 's +Grad C: You can technically wear that as you 're talking . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's right , I guess I can do that . +Grad A: Darn . +Professor B: Put it in your , yeah . +Grad D: I guess this board works fine . So um recall the basic problem which is that um you have a belief - net and you have like a lot of different nodes all contributing to one node . Right ? So as we discussed specifying this kind of thing is a big pain and it 's so will take a long time to write down because for example if these S have three possibilities each and this has three possibilities then you know you have two hundred and forty - three possibilities which is already a lot of numbers to write down . So what um helps us in our situation is that these all have values in the same set , right ? These are all like saying EV or A , right ? So it 's not just a generalized situation like I mean basically we wanna just take a combination of {disfmarker} we wanna view each of these as experts ea who are each of them is making a decision based on some factors and we wanna sort of combine their decisions and create you know , um sorta weighted combination . +Grad E: Hmm . ROVER , the ROVER decision . +Grad D: The what decision ? +Grad E: ROVER . All of their outputs combined to make a decision . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So the problem is to specify the uh so the conditional property of this given all those , right ? That 's the way belief - nets are defined , like each node given its parents , right ? So um that 's what we want , we want for example P of um let 's call this guy Y and let 's call these X - one , X - two XN , right . So we want probability that Y equals , you know , for example um E given that these guys are I 'll just refer to this as like X um hat or something , uh the co like all of them ? Given that for example the data says you know , A , V , A , E , or something right ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: So we would like to do this kind of combination . +Professor B: Alright , so um Is that uh I {disfmarker} yeah , I just wanna make sure everybody is with us before he goes on . +Grad A: I think so , yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's cl e is {disfmarker} is it clear what he wants to compute ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . So , right . So Basically um {vocalsound} what we don't wanna do is to for every single combination of E and V and A and every single letter E , s give a number +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because that 's obviously not desirable . What we wanna do is find some principled way of um saying what each of these is and we want it to be a valid probability distribution , so we want it to um add up to one , right ? +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: So those are the two things that we uh need . So what uh I guess , what Jerry suggested earlier was basically that we , you know view these guys as voting and we just take the uh we essentially take um averages , right ? So for example here two people have voted for A , one has voted for V , and one has voted for E , so we could say that the probabilities are , you know , probability of being E is one over four , because one person voted for E out of four and similarly , probability of so this is probability of E s and then probability of A given all that is um two out of four and probability of V is one out of four . Right ? So that 's step {disfmarker} that 's the uh yeah that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the basic uh thing . Now +Grad E: Um Yeah . +Grad D: Is that all OK ? +Grad E: And that one outcome , that 's +Professor B: What ? +Grad E: it 's X {disfmarker} X - one voted for A X - two voted for V +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and so forth ? +Professor B: Y right . Yep . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: S so this assumes symmetry and equal weights and all this sort of things , which may or may not be a good assumption , +Grad E: That 's the outcome . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: so that +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . So step two is um right . So we 've assumed equal weights whereas it might turn out that you know , some w be that for example , what the um the actual the uh verbal content of what the person said , like what uh what might be uh somehow more uh important than the uh +Grad C: X - one matters more i than X - two or +Grad D: Right . Sure , so we don't wanna like give them all equal weight so currently we 've been giving them all weight one fourth so we could replace this by uh W - one , W - two , W - three , and W - four +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: right ? And in order for this to be a valid probability distribution for each um X - hat , we just need that the W 's sum to one . So they can be for example , you know you {disfmarker} you could have point one , point three , point two , and point four , say . +Grad E: That 's one . +Grad D: And that 'd be one . So that um also seems to work fine . And uh +Grad C: So I jus just to make sure I understand this , so in this case um we would still compute the average ? +Grad D: You 'd compute the weighted average , so the probability of E would be uh +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so it 'd be so in this case the probability that Y equals A would be uh {comment} W one times {disfmarker} +Grad A: Point three . +Grad C: or A or {disfmarker} let 's see , one full quarter times point one +Grad D: Not one quarter , +Grad A: No . +Grad D: so these numbers have been replaced with point one , point three , point two , and point four . So you can view these as gone . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Probability of +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So , alright . So this is uh step two . So the next possibility is that um we 've given just a single weight to each expert , right , whereas it might be the case that um in certain situations one of the experts is more uh reliable and in certain situations the other expert is more reliable . So the way this is handled is by what 's called a mixture of experts , so what you can have is you augment these diagrams like this so you have a new thing called "" H "" , OK ? This is a hidden variable . And what this is is it gets its input from X - one , X - two , X - three , and X - four , and what it does is it decides which of the experts is to be trusted in this particular situation . Right ? And then these guys all come here . OK . So this is sightly uh more complicated . So what 's going on is that um this H node looks at these four values of those guys and it decides in given these values which of these isn't likely to be more reliable or most reliable . So H produces some you know , it produces a number , either one , two , three , or four , in our situation , right ? Now this guy he looks at the value of H say it 's two , and then he just selects the uh thing . That 's all there is to say , I guess about it . Right , so you can have a mixture that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so the function of the thing that comes out of H is very different from the function of the other inputs . It 's driving how the other four are interpreted . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: So H passes a vector on to the next node ? +Grad D: It could . +Grad C: It could ? A vector of the weights as the se +Grad D: Yeah , it could +Grad C: oh . +Grad D: Sorry ? +Grad A: Well a vector with three zero 's and one one , right ? +Grad C: Oh it 's basically to tell the bottom node which one of the situations that it 's in or which one of the weighting systems +Grad D: Right , so I mean the way you desc +Grad C: W I was just , if you wanted to pay attention to more than one you could pass a w a weighting s system though too , couldn't you ? OK . +Grad A: Um Does H have to have another input to tell it alpha , beta , whatever , or is the {disfmarker} that 's determined by what the experts are saying , like the type of situ OK . Hmm . OK . OK . I mean It {disfmarker} it just seems that like without that {disfmarker} that outside input that you 've got a situation where , you know , like if {disfmarker} if uh X - one says no , you know , a low value coming out of X - on or i if X - one says no then ignore X - one , you know , I mean that seems like that 'd be weird , +Grad D: Yeah , well could be things like if X - two and X - three say yes then i ignore X - one also . +Grad A: right ? Oh , OK . OK . Alright , right . +Grad C: Oh The situations that H has , are they built into the net or OK , so they {disfmarker} they could either be hand coded or learned or OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: Based on training data , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yes . +Grad C: So you specify one of these things for every one of those possi possible situations . Oh yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . Um Well , I mean to learn them we need data , where are we gonna get data ? Well I mean we need data with people intentions , right ? +Grad A: Right , right . +Grad D: Which is slightly tricky . Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . But what 's the data about like , are we able to get these nodes from the data ? +Grad A: Like how thrifty the user is , or do we have access to that ? Mm - hmm . Oh right . Oh good . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Yeah , but that 's my question , like how do we {disfmarker} I mean , how do we have data about something like um um endpoint sub - E , or endpoint sub uh {pause} you know s S ? +Grad C: Well , basically you would say , based on {disfmarker} in this dialogue that we have which one of the things that they said eh whether it was the entity relations or whatever was the thing that determined what mode it was , +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad D: So this is what we wanna learn . Yep . Right . Hmm . Yeah . I don't think , well you have a {disfmarker} can you bring up the function thing ? Um w where is the thing that allows you to sort of +Grad C: That 's on the added variable , isn't it ? +Grad D: Oh function properties , is that it ? Hmm , I guess not . Yeah , that 's +Grad A: No . +Grad D: Right . OK . And um it so e either it 'll allow us to do everything which I think is unlikely , I think more likely it 'll allow us to do very few of these things and in that case we 'll have to um just write up little things that allow you to um create such CPU 's on your own in the java base format . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do because yeah I was assuming that 's what we 'd always do , it 's Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Ah . Well in terms of java base I think it 's basically what you see is what you get in I don't yeah , I would be surprised if it supports anything more than what we have right here . +Grad A: So Yeah . Yeah . By the way um uh just talking about uh about that general end of things uh is there gonna be data soon from what people say when they 're interacting with the system and so on ? Like , I mean , what kind of questions are being given {disfmarker} being asked ? Cuz {disfmarker} OK . Yeah yeah . OK . OK . Fey , you mean . OK . OK . O OK . OK . I 'm just wondering , because in terms of , you know , I mean uh w the figure {disfmarker} I was thinking about this figure that we talked about , fifty constructions or whatever that 's uh that 's a whole lot of constructions and um you know , I mean one might be f fairly pleased with getting a really good analysis of five maybe ten in a summer so , I mean I know we 're going for sort of a rough and ready . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . OK . OK . I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} uh I was talking about the , you know , if you wanted to do it really in detail and we don't really need all the detail for what we 're doing right now but anyway in terms of just narrowing that task you know which fifty do I do , I wanna see what people are using , so Well , it will inspire me . Right , sure sure . Right . Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . OK . Touche . Good enough . +","In a collaborative working session involving a team of graduate students and a professor, the group engaged in an in-depth discussion about the design and implementation of belief networks (belief-nets) to model decision-making processes in a user-interactive context. The conversation began with Grad A inquiring about whether they should read all the assigned numbers, which was acknowledged affirmatively by Professor B. + +Amidst the initial logistics of such as borrowing a piece of paper (requested by Grad E), the discussion shifted towards the absences of individuals named Ami and Nancy, hinting at larger team dynamics and typical academic meeting scenarios. + +The crux of the meeting focused on Professor B's intention to build influence links for decision-making and the importance of determining which sets of factors are relevant to particular decisions. With specific emphasis on ""path"" decisions over database ones, the team intended to lay out the influence structure and then subsequently decide the types of nodes required for belief-nets. + +Grad D humorously comments on the discussion before Professor B elaborates on the process of combining the influence structure with a practical task outlined for himself and another team member, Bhaskara. The aim was to decide how to compute different influences once the basic design was completed, highlighting the methodical approach needed in the complex process of creating a functioning belief-net. + +Grad E added a practical aspect to the exploration of the topic by addressing how specific aspects, such as a ""Go there"" decision, fall into the decision-making matrix. This unraveled a discussion on the true or false nature of such decisions, and how probabilities are considered in the modeling process. Here, the complexity of decision-making in belief-nets is underscored, debating whether actions should be binary or require more nuanced modeling. + +Professor B and the grads discussed user characteristics (like budget and thrift) and how to account for continuously changing variables such as a running budget within the belief-net's structure. There is a sense that the team is struggling with the application of real-world complexities into the belief-net modeling, illuminating the challenges faced in this type of computational simulation. + +The conversation touched upon the technical aspects and possibilities of belief-net simulators, mentioning a GUI tied to a functioning simulator that can result in a working belief-net, which Grad E finds amusingly simple enough for their use. + +Further into the discussion, the significance of user modeling comes into play with considerations of user interests, preferences, budgets, and even fatigue influencing the potential actions of an entity within the system. This complexity is compounded when attempting to translate abstract characteristics into quantifiable data that a belief-net can process and simulate. + +Throughout the conversation, the team grapples with how to streamline the vast combination of factors influencing decisions within the belief-net while avoiding computational overload. Concepts such as symmetry, equal weights, and a 'mixture of experts' are introduced to comprehend various sources of influence and how to refine them into manageable computational inputs. + +Moreover, the discussion touches on various meta-nodes' roles in the network, such as entity type or user state, concepts that reflect how underlying semantics can influence multiple decision points. Furthermore, they tackled the challenge of visually representing complex and interdependent structures without creating an unreadable diagram, leading to considerations of developing display hacks or utilizing simpler diagrams during planning. + +Key takeaways from the discussion revolved around creating weighted decision nodes that accounted for varying degrees of influence, the potential to derive conditional probability tables from training data, and the potential need to modify or extend existing software tools to suit the team's computational needs. + +In summary, the meeting enlightened the intricate work involved in translating human decision-making processes into computational models that consider both the user and situational context. The dialogue captured the iterative process and the detailed analytical thinking necessary for the creation of belief-nets, encompassing both theoretical and technical challenges such as data acquisition, model design, and system capabilities." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Hello . Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Hello . Ah . +Project Manager: You have to put it exactly on the on the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Plate ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I took your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Should I bring my uh pen too ? +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} yeah , no , +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's for me , I just have to make some notes . I got my uh mouse . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh I also forgot my mouse , +User Interface: Mouse . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: but I don't need my mouse , I think . +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Come on . There we are . +Industrial Designer: My laptop is crashing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Damn computers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cr +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Help help help . +User Interface: Let's just check one more time . Mm . +Marketing: Can you hear me ? Hello ? +Project Manager: Uh actually my laptop doesn't work , +Marketing: Test . +Project Manager: {gap} switch it on again . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: Oh no . +Marketing: Check . Okay . I think it works . +Industrial Designer: Test test . Yes , it's working . +Project Manager: So you all read what we are going to do or not ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: I think my laptop is a bit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: etchy . +Project Manager: I just made a a simple uh presentation . So you {gap} put some things in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . How does this work ? I dunno . {gap} +User Interface: One uh {disfmarker} most to the right . +Industrial Designer: Uh p +User Interface: Yes that one . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Press F_ eleven . +Project Manager: Ah cool . Okay . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's my name , {gap} . Uh we're going to make uh a remote control , you already know that . Just have a look , are we going to {disfmarker} uh this agenda of our meeting . You know , this is about twenty five minutes , this meeting . So um the {gap} thing we have to know is you already know what we're going to do , you also read what this the things {disfmarker} or , not yet , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay . So um , yeah , it has to be original , trendy , user-friendly {gap} that's what we're going to design . Uh first we have uh uh three steps of uh making the the remote control . Fir the first thing is th the functional design , that's very important . We have to look what the needs are , the effects of the functional design , and and how the mm the the remote control works , so that's where we're going to look in the functional design , it's for the f next meeting . The the second thing is the conceptual design , that's what it {disfmarker} that's uh the spe the specifications of the components and the properties and the specifications of the user interface . And we have to look what uh the market is doing for {disfmarker} what kind of uh remote controls are in the market . And the third thing is uh the detailed design um and that's exa yeah , you know what it is , it's exactly how it looks and whatever . {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} uh no , this is a {disfmarker} these are two smartboards , with the uh f uh s an introduction of that one . And you already saw {disfmarker} you know all that that you here can put uh things in the the red project uh map . +Marketing: Folder , +Project Manager: Folder , okay . +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: So no okay {gap} have a look at that one . Okay . So uh what we're going to do first is um so you can read . {vocalsound} You have to uh draw uh a favourite animal on the whiteboard +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um and say why it's your favourite animal . So and you have {disfmarker} this is just to try it out and we have to uh use a different pen colours and different thickness of the pen . So okay , so first have to show you , maybe you can come here to have a look how it works . Yes ? +Marketing: Ah I can see it now . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This a new page , it's okay . Use pen format . and a different colour can use here {gap} no I just take the pink . You take {disfmarker} oh there's no pink , okay , oh just purple , okay . +User Interface: Purple . +Project Manager: No blue . And uh line width {vocalsound} ten . Okay uh just take {disfmarker} what I'm going to draw is an elephant . Just draw slowly , because otherwise it won't work . It's a very nice elephant , you can see . I dunno what it looks {disfmarker} but it doesn't matter . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Looks very nice . +Project Manager: I just h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like this ? Oh no {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It look like a dinosaurs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A pink elephant . +Project Manager: Because I like {disfmarker} uh okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just takes so long , okay . Whatever , just . You erased this one . It's a bit slow you can see , this is a bit annoying . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so just for you guys just one of you can draw a painting if you want . Just don't +Marketing: Let me try one . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} yeah , just u use it like that , yeah . That's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Okay and then uh what's the colour ? How do I do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's in format . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . I'll take this one . Uh there has to be water , +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No it has to be an animal , so if that's it's {disfmarker} it should be a shna snake or something . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , but it's an animal it's an animal that lives in the water . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The water is important . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So I first uh draw the water . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Okay , and now I make the animal . It's a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: cool . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . So . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is a worm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm yeah , that's nice . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , who next ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh do you have to write down why {disfmarker} uh that doesn't matter , just {disfmarker} it's to get used to the whiteboard , but it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Just make a new blank new blank page . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well Paul ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Like this ? +Project Manager: Yeah , not too far to the to the t pen top . +User Interface: Okay . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: let's make it um a dog . Ooh . +Project Manager: Maybe you should hold your pen a bit more to the back , so that {disfmarker} no , to the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Ah okay . +Marketing: I think it's a pig . +User Interface: A pig ? +Project Manager: No , it's a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I can make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a dog . +User Interface: a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A sheep ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh we d only have twenty five minutes , so {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take it easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay , I make a cat of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I was gonna make a cat too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Use your fantasy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , not too quick . +Project Manager: Just hold it more more to the back then you don't have {gap} +User Interface: No +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: I have it . I just draw too quick I think . Okay , that's it . More . +Project Manager: No , that's okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to get used to it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I thought these pens would be just um {disfmarker} uh you write it down and you download it to Word , you already did it or no ? No , not yet , okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: But it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: it {disfmarker} but you actually got to write on the paper . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: You really got to write on that paper . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but I d I I thought it would be just in in in uh typed words in Word , +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's a real pen . +Project Manager: so that's not +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just a picture . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} it's just a picture . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: it's not that cool as I th thought it would be . +User Interface: You really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y you can you can't edit in the {disfmarker} edit it in Word . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: It's a donkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know , what time did we start this meeting , I'm not sure . +User Interface: Uh I think it was uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half past . +Marketing: Half past ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Brilliant . +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Nice , eh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , thank you . Now we just have to save everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is definitely the best one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh what we know is that we have to sell this uh remote control for about twenty five Euros . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excuse me . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . And uh we have to make a profit of fifty million Euros , so we have to uh use a big market in Europe . The production cost are about half the price of selling price , +User Interface: Piece of cake . +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: Uh easy . +Project Manager: So can someone make a a calculation about how many we have to sell of these to make fifty million , I dunno . Uh so we're gonna have {gap} a little discussion about um what experience are with a remote control the {gap} and everything , so just have a look how it {disfmarker} we think about remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah , my first question was does it have to be a {vocalsound} a universal remote control ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's a good question . +Marketing: Because we sell it uh uh uh lonely from the t and not with the television , we sell it uh apart . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I'm not I'm not sure , +Marketing: So I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's not mm {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it probably would be universal . +User Interface: Universal . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And only television ? Or more devices ? +Project Manager: I don't think you can buy a a a universal uh remote control for twenty five Euros , so {disfmarker} not sure , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm , maybe , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh you can buy a re a universal uh control for uh only twenty uh Euros +Project Manager: Okay , so we we just say we just say that's universal remote control . Okay , perfect . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: And uh also for the V_C_R_ and uh D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: Yeah , everything +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} so a lot of buttons {vocalsound} on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , probably . +User Interface: Not just a T_V_ . +Project Manager: No , just everything . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . so yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what what what's a remote control , it's just a black thing with some buttons on it , it's not {disfmarker} nothing very special , but um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we can try to make it special . +Project Manager: yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So do you have any ideas how it has to look for for usability or user {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I th I thought about um making it the same uh style as the television , {gap} {disfmarker} we don't have uh the same television uh all the time , so uh that's no matter . {vocalsound} Um if we uh control the V_C_R_ and the D_V_D_ player player with it uh it has to be clear , because uh kids and uh elderly are gonna use it , so uh it's not only for the uh technical persons . Um I think it must be a very good control , so you can uh uh uh act uh {vocalsound} use it from uh everywhere in your room , the the infrared uh thing must be from very good quality . +Project Manager: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . Should be a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Nothing {gap} N +Industrial Designer: And how big should it be ? +Marketing: No . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} It shouldn't be too big , +Marketing: I dunno um {disfmarker} +User Interface: but I don't think we can make it too small , 'cause it has to have a lot of functions , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We can't make it smaller than the things we see now I think . +Project Manager: Just big enough for the buttons we have , that's that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to make something uh like uh mobile phones that you can uh fold it opem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe then you can make it s smaller and uniquer , +Marketing: Yes +User Interface: maybe more trendy . +Project Manager: But you you you you think about uh uh one you can fold open . +User Interface: Fold open , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: where you can see uh more options . I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , that's cool . Maybe for the D_V_D_ pla player or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: n +Marketing: that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , something uh on top , just dren general things like volume and T_V_ channels and inside things you don't use that often . +Marketing: Ah right right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or you c +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: O or you could th think of an uh uh a small touch screen on the remote control . +Marketing: Oh that's good , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah b I wanted {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why should you use a touchscreen on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh maybe be uh it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are buttons on it . +User Interface: No you can make an uh manual in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or um maybe to keep it uh easy and uh small . +Project Manager: Okay . But it's not t t t too expensive to put a touchscreen on it . +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh like a a to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's much uh {disfmarker} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it would . +Marketing: Yeah but it's not reachable I think , touch screen . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And we have to care for uh the strength of the remote control , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because uh uh remote controls are most uh things in the house that falls down on the ground and it get often uh broken . +Project Manager: Yeah . So . And if you have a touch screen in it , it's definitely too too fragile uh fragile . +User Interface: Yeah , too fragile . +Marketing: Yeah and a lots uh uh lots of kids use it and touchscreen is not uh kids uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . You can put games on your remote control . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Kid-proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh how about the batteries ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh should you put it in a recharger or a {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh maybe that's a good idea , +Marketing: Ma maybe a home station . +Project Manager: just to put it on your television and just s recharge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you never have to use any batteries . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Maybe that's a good idea , but yeah , we have to look at the price now I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , how m how mu how how expensive uh is a normal recharger ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Well uh how much is your uh standards uh mobile phone recharger ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you buy it uh separately from your phone it's probably expensive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know what the project uh projection costs are for such a thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Maybe have {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh if you th look at the market , it's probably {disfmarker} it's still the best way just to put batteries in it , because maybe it's too expensive . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a home station is uh a really good idea , because uh lots of people are {disfmarker} uh lose their remote control and don't know where it is , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: and now you can put it always at the same place . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe it's {disfmarker} Therefore it's a good idea , but maybe it's expensive . +User Interface: Maybe uh use it as a separate option . Sell it uh separately . +Marketing: Yeah . You can {disfmarker} yeah , you can buy it with it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I have a mouse that's uh uh also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rechargeable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and you just have normal batteries that you can recharge and just put it in the station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you can change your batteries , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: The option , just the option , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh I I set something on paper already , {gap} size , looks , uh usable , uh the buttons on usable places , uh the the on off button must be on top , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it has to lay good in the hand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it be {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} does it has to b have to be um uh like a different form than a normal remote control +Marketing: Yeah , I don't I don't know I don't know +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think we have to look at that , +Marketing: if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause well you can do {gap} the standard way , but then you won't {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can make it very special , to create our own um looks , +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: but it's very hard to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N uh if if we want to make it special , we probably have to do a lot of testing , if it really works . +User Interface: Well you can um have uh {vocalsound} the basic things on the same place , like on off button on top and the T_V_ channels one two three four as a block , and then the volume uh obviously on t on top , so you can see . +Marketing: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the rest is uh you don't use that often , so if you have a clear button with an good icon on it , it should be clear as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it doesn't matter what place it is on the remote control I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you can do something unique with that . +Industrial Designer: And what we have to think about too is uh uh buttons that you use often are um maybe uh like when you fold it open , when you have it closed , you {vocalsound} can still uh do the th the functions . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , what Paul already said . +Project Manager: Yeah , just for the T_V_ and just the normal function , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh on on top are the the basic options on top , +Industrial Designer: But n {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , but uh i {vocalsound} basically when I'm watching T_V_ I'm just using like five buttons or so , +Marketing: and if you fold it open {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe it's +User Interface: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: That's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: maybe it's very hard to to make it fold open and to l look like it's very uh uh {disfmarker} what's it's called ? +Marketing: Mm . If you if if you make to fold open it's or also an {disfmarker} uh the strength uh is not s as good as a normal uh remote control . +Project Manager: {gap} Maybe it's hard t +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's right . So maybe we have to to uh keep it like mm a square , just normal remote control {gap} . +User Interface: Okay , but yeah . +Project Manager: Just think about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to close this uh to finish this uh meeting , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's some more things . We have uh another thirty minutes , so then we're going to meet again . So you know what you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um for m for me uh the Marketing Expert , the user requirements uh specification , do I need to think as a user , a as a a a only the looks and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , what you want to do with it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think this {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you have to n know if it's for s a T_V_ , a D_V_D_ player , all that things . Also from a user , but all these things together . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah , it's also about strength and uh for everything uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , everything . +User Interface: Yeah , I also wrote down some stuff +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: that you want on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no maybe not not uh {gap} , that's not a f that's something for for for {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Technical fun fu +Project Manager: That's not for you . Just if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what's in the market , what's normal , uh what kind of uh buttons do you have . +User Interface: What do you want to do with your remote control , what do you need on your remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's alright . +User Interface: I already wrote some down , some ideas . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , just {disfmarker} is that okay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: There's already a document in the folder about it . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: So see you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well done . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For the next time you have to uh put it exactly on the square , so {disfmarker} your laptop . +User Interface: I will . +Marketing: Oh Paul . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It didn't say that . +Project Manager: No , sorry . +User Interface: Your fault . +Marketing: Ciao . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye bye . +User Interface: Bye bye . +","The conversation was a team meeting involving a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing Expert, and User Interface Specialist about designing a new remote control. The discussion began with technical issues such as forgotten mice and laptop crashes. After resolving the technical problems and using a whiteboard for a drawing exercise, the Project Manager laid out the three stages of the remote control design: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. + +The team agreed that the remote would be universal, aimed at a broad market with a sale price of around 25 Euros and a production cost of roughly half that. They discussed the potential of a rechargeable option, ensuring the remote is durable, and the possibility of incorporating a touchscreen. There was also consideration of ergonomic design, usability for children and the elderly, and the need for clear buttons and icons. The remote should work well from various angles in the room and have a strong infrared signal. + +There was a suggestion to make the remote foldable to be more compact and unique, with basic functions accessible without unfolding. A touch screen feature was considered for added functionality, but they discussed its impact on cost and fragility. There were also debates on how to make the remote aesthetically appealing, brand-specific versus universal, and what form it should take. They concluded that batteries might still be the best power option, but a rechargeable docking station was an appealing idea. + +The Marketing Expert's role was clarified to involve considering user requirements and not just aesthetics. They aimed to cater to different devices, ensure the remote control is strong, user-friendly, and ergonomic. + +Finally, they planned to reconvene in 30 minutes for further discussions, with tasks assigned such as investigating market standards for buttons. The team exchanged pleasantries and reminders for the next session as the meeting wrapped up." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's start our second me meeting on {vocalsound} conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: as the previous meeting I will be the secretary +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we will have three presentations and we'll have to decide on the remote control concept and finally we'll close the decision . So I will first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y you do the minutes first , or ? +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: I I think I will let uh our User Interface Designer speak first , Mister David Jordan . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So , we'll {disfmarker} S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: technical accessoire ? +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: Interface ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This . +User Interface: Mm . So uh first I will present the concept of user interface . Um there's three concepts in the user interface . So first one it's a Google controller . The second is a fancy controller . The last one is uh intelligent controller . So there are three concepts in our controller . Um n next I will explain one by one , the first is Google controller . Um , so I want the controller to be easy to use , but with sophisticated functions . So it's a combination of easy to use and um sophisticated functions . Uh this is a first concept of our controller . The second concept is a fancy controller , um so we want give the customers the impression that our controller is very attractive , um they can easy recognise our controller among a lot of products , so so the u the user f the the u user interface should be very very cute , very very g um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: A nice one . +User Interface: attractive . Such like this , there are several uh examples in the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm not sure the one in the middle {vocalsound} is very attractive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's very , you know +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very big , +User Interface: if you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard f i it's easy for you to remember it . {vocalsound} Or to recognise it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll have big discussion I suppose after that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So the last uh concept is intelligent . We want uh we want our controller to be smart , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: so maybe we should uh use um uh technology , such as speech recognition technology and gesture recognition technology , so we need to have coop some cooperation with some research institute on speech recognition and um gesture recognition . Um With this advanced features we {disfmarker} I think we can attract a lot of user . +Project Manager: Okay . Something else ? +User Interface: Okay . No . There {disfmarker} this is the three concepts of our controller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just have one question , because for the intelligent controller , {vocalsound} you said that we can use the voice recognition or the gesture recognition , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but as the um expert told us , most of the people want to use the remote control to zap t to zap between channels . Do you think they will be able to use gestures ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because , if they do all the time the same gesture , as you said previously in the last meeting , maybe they will get injuries because of that ? +User Interface: Y +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: or if you say channel three channel three two three four six five , I think they will be bored after a while . You don't think so ? +User Interface: Uh I think some time it's very uh convenient to use voice interface and gesture interface than use button . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: For example , if you cannot find your uh {vocalsound} controller , you can just uh {vocalsound} just just uh speak something such as , yeah , one two . +Project Manager: I +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {vocalsound} that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good point , so . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you got a cold . You have a mute remote controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So you can use your gesture . That's no problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but how how is {disfmarker} how risky is it to trust like speech recognition or gesture recognition ? +Project Manager: Broken arm ? +User Interface: For limited vocabulary speech recognition is very reliable and for s limited vocabulary gesture recognition is also very {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you have a family watching T_V_ , and if they want to use their private remote control in the same time , do you think it will work ? Everybody wanting to change channel in the same time ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this this {disfmarker} but this would never happen anyway . +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah , they cannot speak at the same time . +Project Manager: If you have one brother and one sister +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they want to watch their favourite uh T_V_ programme , +Marketing: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so they say oh channel four channel three channel four channel three all the time , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Yeah , it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: but the same can happen even with it you know this kind of remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I don't think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you have the remote control , so maybe you can keep it f with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right . +Project Manager: You're not you're not obliged to share it . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay , you mean it could be a problem for this kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's the advantage of intelligent controller . Even you h you have the controller , I can {vocalsound} I can say channel three , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} it's {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: so it's c come to channel three , +Marketing: No , but this is disadvant disadvantage . +User Interface: I don't have to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a disadvantage . +User Interface: It's advantage . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And mayb maybe we can have the switching mode to pass from you know voice controller to +Project Manager: Yeah , but one other question . +Industrial Designer: manual controllers , eh . +Project Manager: How how much will it cost ? +Industrial Designer: No , more expensive maybe . +User Interface: How much ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because I suppose we need to do research to have something working . +User Interface: No no we we d we we just are use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some some efficient . +Marketing: Uh if you if if you use the basic {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no we just um have some cooperation with some research institute , we don't have to do some basic research on this field . +Project Manager: So you think it won't cost an {disfmarker} Not a lot for us ? Or ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} because uh this technology is uh um for limited wor or limited wor uh lexical recognition , it's very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} yeah . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's changing how the remote control is gonna be built . Because then you need uh {disfmarker} I mean this doesn't have uh the power to do recognition , for example . +Industrial Designer: Well y y you have also the language problem , +User Interface: No it's uh {disfmarker} Even for the f um because the the vocabulary {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you know when you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it it have to be universal , +Project Manager: Yeah . I agree with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so . +User Interface: The vocabulary is very small , so that's not a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but there is one problem that uh Baba talked about is the international +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: remote control . We need something that is international . Suppose we're {disfmarker} we want to sell it in France . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The recognition system will be able to understand French . If you want to go to England , it will be able to understand English , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah , the key , the key um the key of our {disfmarker} the key feature of our controller is that it's it has some some um adaptation +Marketing: Yeah , this could be downloaded by the web maybe , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you know . The product {disfmarker} The pro +User Interface: mechanism . It's It's it means when you when you sell this controller in China it's can recognise Chinese . It's r if you sell this controller in France it can recognise French . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's a very smart , it's a very smart controller maybe {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: And with no increase in the pri production price of the remote control ? +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because of this product uh this technology has already been developed . +Project Manager: Yeah , but how will you {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the problem is how to s you know if this is a push button controller , you can send this con this remote control everywhere in the world , the same one . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you have the language , you have to develop for each country . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh n Yeah , yeah tha that's why we have to do language adaptation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but for each country you have to do one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because uh the for example for Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Even for each f for even for different family we have to do d yeah we would we have to do adaptation to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Seems to be quite complex . +Marketing: but then w Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Comple +User Interface: No , it's not so complex {vocalsound} . +Marketing: we have to take care of the twelve Euros +Project Manager: And what about voice recognition , do we have microphones ? +Marketing: problem . +Project Manager: And where will be they ? Do you think if we're far from television it will work ? +User Interface: No no no it's not {disfmarker} I think that's n that's not a problem because you you don't have to wear a microphone . It it just {disfmarker} the microphone is embedded in the controller . +Project Manager: Yeah , but where is the controller ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Where is the controller ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in your family , in your home . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but then it's it's like this uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: here it's uh an object . But here you say you want to use i uh s technology . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah you can you can embed it uh microphone here . +Industrial Designer: A microphone maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , but wha what is the use of voice or gesture recognition if you have a remote control li like this , if you have an object . If you want to use voice or gesture you need to be free , without any object . +Industrial Designer: To talk to the to the T_V_ maybe . +Project Manager: You just want to interact with television . +User Interface: Yeah yeah just {disfmarker} you just put the controller here , then you +Industrial Designer: I if you say one , he switch to channel , +User Interface: you use your command +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: and you do s your gesture . +Project Manager: but you can lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it's n y {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you lose it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So well for example if it is somewhere in the room if i maybe if it is in the table there you can always say s channel one and the t the remote control gives the order to the T_V_ to switch to channel one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay you {disfmarker} so you can build a kind of black box +Industrial Designer: Devic +Project Manager: and put it on T_V_ and just to recognize gestures and voice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah but so you need a camera and you know a microphone {vocalsound} inside your remote control . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you would still have the buttons . Or is it {disfmarker} do you think it should be only voice recognition and gesture recognition ? Or you you still have the possibility to use buttons ? +User Interface: think it {disfmarker} we should give the uh flexibility to the user and we think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: You can see {disfmarker} they can switch form one modality to another . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . It's a bit risky risky . +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: And maybe it will be quite {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's quite inter quite attractive . +Industrial Designer: But I think that , you know , switching from one country to to another will be a problem , so {disfmarker} although y y +User Interface: Well , if you do language adaptation , there should be no problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: We should have confidence in technology . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , we should . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Hmm . So , what do you think ? We'll try the controllers you'd prefer . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: Which kind of controller would you prefer to use , you as a remote control user ? +Marketing: If if {disfmarker} I mean , uh I'm sure if the user pays the same price , he's happy to have recognition . +User Interface: More features , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if if if it like doubles uh +Industrial Designer: I think he need a control that is very reliable , +Marketing: no one would would be interested . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So I think it would be better not to do any intelligent controller and to stay with the Google controller or a fancy controller . Maybe try to mix the Google controller and the fancy controller ? Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just want to have something {disfmarker} controller which is in a kind of intelligent controller , easy to use , sophisticated and fancy . You think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah but if if you stick to um {disfmarker} stick to the first two parts . So what's the difference between our controller with other products in the market ? There's no k features of our controller , so is there is there any necessary to design new controller without any breakthrough features ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . No , +User Interface: Would y would you replace your controller with a controller with similar function if you do not have some some function inside it that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not really the {disfmarker} we +Marketing: Y +Industrial Designer: we can add for example some function like for browsing in internet , so {disfmarker} or something like that . But uh I think a user need {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you y that's a fun that's not the function of the controller , that's a function of T_V_ . You can replace your T_V_ with a new T_V_ with internet browsing function , +Marketing: No , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you need you need new remote controller then . Because if you wanna browse internet or , I don't know , if you wanna type something , +Industrial Designer: Don't have a {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: if we can send email from it . +User Interface: But it's not the {disfmarker} only the problem {disfmarker} only the issue of controller , it's it's also the issue of the T_V_ . +Marketing: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Because the p the problem I can see with with the voice or the gesture itself wh what can happen in a family i i for example if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cause for example {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but we do we do we we we cannot rely one hundred percent on these features to u to use the controller , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh we want so +User Interface: but with the features of our controller such as you have the feature of voice recognition in your mobile but you seldom use it , your mobile , but you when you choose a new mobile , you choose the one with voice recognition . +Marketing: Yeah , you wou you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: the feature is not one hundred percent reliable , but it's a feature to distinguish our product from our {disfmarker} from other products . +Project Manager: Yeah , but w we we want something th that works all the time , every day , every hour , for everyone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And for all the person of the family maybe , +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't need to tune it . +Industrial Designer: so , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if if if if you're if you ar if you already have a product it works one hundred percent reliable , would you replace it with another one ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not ? If it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for example the goo y +Industrial Designer: Because you have new {disfmarker} +Marketing: you say we would we would to have a Google-like controller . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't see how adding speech or gesture recognition would make the remote control look more like Google . Google is {vocalsound} is simple , works fine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so I I guess if can have a remote control that is really basic , simple and works fine , it's already a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh yes , but there's no big difference between the traditional controller . +Marketing: Uh thi this {disfmarker} I mean , the user is not only interested in having speech or gesture recognition +User Interface: The {disfmarker} then nn +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: no . +Marketing: if he has something that works fine and is really {vocalsound} fancy , looks nice and it's easy easy to use , easy to use . +User Interface: Tha +Project Manager: Not too expensive too . +User Interface: But the there's there's n there's n not enough motivation for them to replace their old controller with a new one if there's no key feature in the new controller . +Marketing: See {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean , I I know it's more interesting to develop a remote controller with speech and gesture and whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you have to think , the user is the one who gonna buy the product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and so . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: I mean , that's the point . +Project Manager: let's go to the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll be able to take a decision after that , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Working ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , working design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the {vocalsound} next one ? I uh {disfmarker} it's not this one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's uh oth the oth {vocalsound} so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the working design . Sorry . {vocalsound} Component design . +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this yeah {disfmarker} so this is the described use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? Are you inst +Project Manager: Uh I think there's something wrong with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: It did didn't r receive it . Didn't receive it . +Project Manager: Maybe you you record it somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +User Interface: Participant one . Participant one . +Project Manager: Interface concept . No . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Maybe I record recorded directly on the {disfmarker} Computer . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} Nope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . Yes . +Project Manager: It seems that we have a problem with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you remember what you had to say or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can say it to you without . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe we can first come to +Project Manager: No , I think it will be more interesting to start with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh to Frahan . With Frahan , then you can prepare your slides , +Marketing: I think it's more interesting what he says , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: then present it later . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: exac +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You will had s some more information in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it will be interesting after your presentation to have um Baba's presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In fact , I don't know , +Project Manager: So . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I s because i in my presentation I don't have here with {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} It was in fact the design use to show you the design of what is inside a what is inside and what are the different component of the r +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: of the remote control . So it will be interesting so I could show you some some picture of what is inside +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so . So I {disfmarker} in fact the the {disfmarker} f something I want to discuss is which kind of material are we going to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so will {disfmarker} it will be wooden wooden di wooden remote control or a a plastic remote control like this one . So and {vocalsound} in which which which kind will be the the different bu button , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it can be some , you know , classic pushbutton like this one , or you have also some button like L_C_D_ where you know , the button the buttons are unlighted during the night , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or , you know , you can see them in the darkness . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the other thing I want to discuss also is which kind of alimentation , electric alimentation do you want to have , so will it be for example uh d uh solar energy alimentation +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: or will it be a battery like the classical battery so . And I think that for example for the alimentation it would be good to have uh both of them , so so for example in some country where you are in the the countryside and you are far from , you know , the cities uh for example in some place in in S Senegal , so if you have electric if you have solar alimentation , you just , when you want to have recharger or remote control power you just put it on the sun and after one hour you can come +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so it can be interesting for people to have this kind of remote con It can be something interesting to make people buy it , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's an added value to the remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah mm . +Project Manager: and maybe it can attract all the ecological k yeah consumers +Industrial Designer: Ecologists , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and but about the the price of adding this solar battery , would it be something really that will increase the price of production more , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? +Industrial Designer: Alrigh In fact , having them both will {disfmarker} if we want to have battery , regular battery and and {vocalsound} the solar energy battery it could be {disfmarker} it'll it will add a little bit of the price , +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: but it will be an added value also that will be compensated , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so hmm . +Project Manager: And what tha what about the uh materials ? +Industrial Designer: And the materials , it depends for example you {disfmarker} if you have a wooden material it can be more {disfmarker} the plastic material is more common +Project Manager: Impersonal , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's very resistant but , you know , something wooden will be like , I don't know high cl so a special high class , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Special for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or you know , you can have some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and i if you {disfmarker} we want to put fashion in electronics maybe we can try to do something with wood . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even if it is not completely wood , but just a part of the , you know , will be wooden , in wood +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and it can be interesting . +Project Manager: Mm okay , seems to be interesting , mm . +Industrial Designer: And so the last point is y also would do you want to have some very cheap integrated cir circuits , chips , or do you have low level or or very very expensive , it depends , but I think that low level will be , you know , it is an interim module . +Project Manager: Yeah , we want something easy to use and {disfmarker} so I think maybe something very low level wou would be enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you think that we will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it will fit on the price we want , twel twelve Euros , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So wood . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: And what about the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: I think the buttons I pr I prefer , you know , the L_C_D_ you know {vocalsound} lighted buttons because , you know , it's {disfmarker} I don't know {vocalsound} um yeah , in the dark , it's fashion +Project Manager: No it's fashion , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it's related to how beautiful it is or uh if you want to watch T_V_ in the darkness or if you want to lo find your find your your remote control that is lost , you know in the darkness it's very easy so , right . +Marketing: What about the touch scr touch screen ? For example . It's it's expensive I I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think a touch screen {vocalsound} will be t as expensive as the L_C_D_ buttons so . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} And it is a kind of other design , I mean . It can also be interesting to have this kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you got email ? +Project Manager: I dunno . {vocalsound} I think we have only {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh five minutes left . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Participant four ? Functional requirements ? +Marketing: Uh no , trend watching . {vocalsound} The other one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think so , just {disfmarker} Yeah , so just to meet the user requirements I would just do a s short anal analysis of the remote control market and to kind of um have a better overview of what's the fashion in general I've checked more than only the remote control market , so next . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So again , it's pretty much similar to what I've said in the previous meeting . Um user really really want a fancy look and feel . They're not so so interested in uh functional look and feel , okay . Like the one you've shown , David , with all the buttons and {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} i i it sounds good technically +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's it's not what they want and uh {disfmarker} So , second point is they still want it it to be technologically innovative , so maybe it's sort of related to what you've said with the speech recognition and so on . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: At the same time , it's important that it's easy to use . So that were the three first points from the remote control uh analysis . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Now i if we look at fashion in general um {disfmarker} Okay . Wha what we really see this year is that uh everything from clothes to shoes and furniture is is inspired by fruits and vegetables , +Industrial Designer: Ah yes . +Marketing: okay , so I think we really have to take this into account for the design of the the thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause it's it's really what people want . Even if it's in general fashion , we want it to be in the remote control . And then uh if if we take the ordering or the ranking of all the points , fancy look and feel has , on a score of seven would have six as importance . Uh the remote control has to be technologically innovative , it's three . Then easy to use uh it's not so important actually with respect to other y other ones . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we see fancy look an look and feel is the most important one , and then if we combine this with the fashion uh from Milan and Paris +Industrial Designer: And fruit and vegetables yeah . +Marketing: we go to the fruits and vede vegetables . And the other point I haven't mention is people wan want to have a spongy touch , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: okay so this is this maybe doesn't really fit with the wooden design . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the problem is which kind of material do you need to to be spongy ? +Marketing: Yeah thi this is this would be like um +Industrial Designer: Pla S +Marketing: plastic-like , but rubber , mayb maybe , you know , rubber-like uh +Industrial Designer: Very stuff {disfmarker} Okay , rubber rubber desi okay , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: device , so um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , tha tha that was the main point , I think , from the trend in fashion . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have to take decisions about the component concepts , about the energy . So , {vocalsound} as you say you want something technologically innovative , maybe using solar energy and {disfmarker} with battery would be something interesting , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Solar . +Marketing: Yeah , so when I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: maybe will attract +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: It will be a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: pro-ecology consumers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh cheap imprint so you s you propose low level chips would be uh enough to have something working well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Case . +User Interface: Later ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you think {gap} case . Something spongy . {vocalsound} Someth no wood . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No wood but {disfmarker} Plastic ? +Marketing: Maybe not no wood , but I mean ma maybe not the part you touching you know . +Industrial Designer: Would some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pla +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we can have wood for example in the bottom and , you know . It depends on the design we want , +Marketing: Yeah , maybe the base . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: It's it's natural . +Marketing: But still y +Project Manager: Th The feeling is natural , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's natural +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and i +Project Manager: so maybe we can stay with wood . +Industrial Designer: And it can be correlated to energy , solar energy , so for the marketing aspect , you know , saying that it's ecol +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's not exactly right for the spongy point of view . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , it's not right , so . +Project Manager: But it's still fashion . +Marketing: But we could maybe have both like part of wood and some rubber for the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: or +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: something that you can {vocalsound} into it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and what about the user interface concept ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Google and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Google and fancy ? +Industrial Designer: and fancy , f how about the the voice ? {vocalsound} And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because I think that with the voice and gesture recognition there are still some disadvantages with this . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can do some marketing studies asking people if they're interested +User Interface: Uh yes . +Industrial Designer: and how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It It is an an interesting concept to see {disfmarker} to have uh voice control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: The smart controller . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} and the problem is I I'm we can infer i if you have v voice control why not to put it directly on the the T_V_ , so speak directly to the T_V_ and you don't need a remote control actually , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: but you need a receiver to recognize the gestures and the voice . +Industrial Designer: But it will be embedded on the T_V_ and not on the remote control , so . +Project Manager: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} d +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll just focus on the Google controller plus the fancy controller , +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe try to mix them these two concepts together , just in one and do a remote control with solar energy and batteries and with lev low level chips and wood . +User Interface: Yeah . It's good . +Project Manager: And L_C_D_ buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think for these supplements the solar energy would be something quite interesting and not maybe too difficult to add . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . And pf what can we think a supplement to {disfmarker} +Marketing: What interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah , for the interface something {disfmarker} added value . +Industrial Designer: I think the supplement can be the voice {vocalsound} . It is just , you know , it is not the most important , but it can be a part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With a module ? You mean the remote control with a mur module if you want you can just use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: commands , words and use them when you don't want to use your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To push button , yeah , yeah . Even it is for s just some kids , you know , switching channels one two three four . +Project Manager: Turning the T_V_ o on o or off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , turning {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Not very complex commands , but easy commands , +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: adding some vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple ones ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simple ones for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So the next meeting will start in thirty meeti minutes {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} we'll {disfmarker} you will all have to work in in your direction . So you will have to work on the look and feel design , to have the easy to use , powerful and fancy remote control with some added value such as the uh simple vocal commands recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh you will have to work more , Baba , on the um spongy way to to add spongy um touch to the buttons {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} expensive buttons {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , to make some new {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and try to find maybe a nice shape for the wooden remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And I sup I think we'll have to evaluate th the product too . +Marketing: Yeah , no not forgetting about the fruits and vegetables trends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If possible . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And remember as as I said last meeting , we really have to build a fashion remote control and uh the colour of the um the society will be really {disfmarker} it will be seen in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Need it to be , okay . +Project Manager: So you will have {disfmarker} Baba and David Jordan you will have to work together on the prototype and you will have next time to show us um modelling a cl a clay remote control , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so you will have to model model something . +User Interface: Okay . Yep +Project Manager: And I think that some specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: no more questions , we can close the session . +Industrial Designer: Sounds good , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","The team gathered for their second meeting on the conceptual design of a new remote control. The Project Manager reiterated that they would have three presentations to work through and finalize the remote control concept. The User Interface Designer presented three concepts: a Google controller with simplicity and sophisticated functions, a fancy controller designed to be visually attractive and stand out, and an intelligent controller that employs speech and gesture recognition technology. + +During the discussions, concerns were raised about the practicality of the gesture and speech recognition, such as potential injuries from repeated gestures, annoyance from repeated voice commands, and the effectiveness in a shared family environment. + +The Industrial Designer discussed materials for the remote, suggesting options like wood and plastic, as well as the type of buttons and power supply, including the possibility of solar charging. It was posited that solar energy could add ecological appeal. + +Marketing provided insights on user preferences from market trends, highlighting a desire for a fancy look and feel, a spongy touch, and an inclination toward fruit and vegetable-inspired designs in fashion, which could potentially influence the product design. + +After weighing the options, the team decided to focus on combining the Google and fancy controller concepts and possibly include simple voice command features as a supplementary option. The remote would use solar energy and batteries, low-level chips, and potentially wood material, paying attention to market trends like eco-friendliness and a unique design inspired by fruits and vegetables. Specific instructions for prototype development were to be given by a personal coach, and the team agreed to develop a clay model for the next meeting. The Project Manager emphasized that the final product should embody the company's colour and fashion-forward ethos." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we'll try to zip through this , since we're short on time . Welcome everybody . Um hope your sessions went well . Um so this is our functional design meeting , we're going to consider um user needs , technical effects , and the working design of our remote control . Um I've been taking meetings on the minute minutes on the meetings {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , and I'll be putting them in the shared documents folder so if there's anything you need to refer to you can find them in there . Um I I'll get the ones up for next time , um they're not finished yet . Right . Um so can we have updates from everyone from what you've worked on just kind of a quick summary of anything interesting that you'd like to share or discuss in this {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I can start if you want . Mm . +Project Manager: sure . +Marketing: Is there an order ? No . +Project Manager: Hm ? +Marketing: We haven't decided on an order . +Project Manager: No , any any order's fine . Yeah . +Marketing: First . Okay . Um , how do I put this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll just put the cable in . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , sorry . +Marketing: {gap} Is that it ? Can you see ? {vocalsound} Oh , here . Okay . So what happens it doesn't work ? +Project Manager: It sh it takes a few seconds I think . +Industrial Designer: You may need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes you have to do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it in the right thing ? +Industrial Designer: it's like a three set setting cycle , so press it a couple times , hold down function and then press F_ eight . +Marketing: Oh wait , um . Uh . You need to help me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then press function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and F_ eight . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Could you just plug it back into hers because she had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait . +User Interface: oh . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} is that it ? +Industrial Designer: Adjusting . +Project Manager: Here we are . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The cable might be a little loose or something . Oh , you got it . +Marketing: Right here we are . +Project Manager: Oh . Is it on ? +Marketing: We're here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , um . In order to see what the functional requirements were to be found , um a hundred people were tested in a usability laboratory through just their habits to n know their habits were observed and questionnaires were given out . Um , the findings in in some cases matched what we were talking about . Custome Customers and users don't like the way remote controls look , they don't like the way they feel , they don't think they match their operating behaviour , and an example is what we were talking about , the buttons , they only use ten per cent of the buttons , so later on there's a study of the buttons that they use most and I think we should design according to these buttons . Easy to lose , and R_S_I_ . I don't know what R_S_I_ means . Um the person that did the questionnaire obviously did , I don't have a clue . +Project Manager: Hm . +Marketing: Um , according to the frequency of use and the relevance of each buttons , I have made a list of the buttons that we should focus on in order of importance . So the most important buttons are those to do with channel selection . They're used about a hundred and sixty times per hour . And um yeah so and and people like to zap a lot apparently , so this is the order . Channel selection , teletext , volume , and power . The other ones are the settings , and they're used less than {disfmarker} you know zero point eight to zero point five times per hour , and this means that I think we can we could have like a a button for all the settings , and then , just one , and then from there go on to the audio on the screen , either on the remote or on the television . Um , about the screen , and speech recognition , some people are more willing than others to actually pay for that . And if we look at the market , f people from well from fifteen to thirty five year old year olds , I don't really know how to describe this , um ninety one to seventy six percent of people in that age range are willing to pay more for this sort of product , while people that are above thirty five years ol um years old go from thirty five percent to eight percent , so people that are sixty five for example wouldn't actually pay for this sort of thing . Um I don't I don't know um what the decision to be made is , but I think that the people that actually do buy remotes m more are those like teenagers and young professionals and um , most likely , but we should discuss this together . {vocalsound} And that's all I have to say about the matter , {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Shall I {disfmarker} what do I do ? Do I give this to someone else ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Just move right on . +User Interface: Right . So get this . Okay so now I need to press F_ eight , what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh function F_ eight . +Marketing: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: 'Kay . What's function ? +Project Manager: It's the little blue {disfmarker} w it's the one {disfmarker} th +User Interface: Oh function , I see it . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: There we go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should be {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um . This my presentation about the uh technical functions design and I basically just tried to focus on um {vocalsound} just what what functions we need and how to make that the best function for the user . So uh and I just sort of like thought about it myself and looked on the internet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And okay so basically um {vocalsound} I think i uh like it is really important that we sort of get this done in a user friendly and fashionable way . Um {vocalsound} so I think things like uh you know keeping buttons together that {disfmarker} like close together that um {vocalsound} are used in the same way , uh {vocalsound} or um maybe that making 'em the same colour , keeping the number of buttons the uh leas you know to a minimum , and also things like is it is it um is it uh {disfmarker} can you c y small enough large enough I'm not sure we c I guess we would need to do some research about , I would , about what size is appropriate and that sort of thing , um but basically we need to make sure that it turns on and off the T_V_ . Does it have like capacity to change the channels ? Um {vocalsound} does it do {disfmarker} or do we need to have like functions for cable or V_C_R_ ? And then , is it findable , and uh how do we wanna do that ? And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just thought that these two remotes were pretty boring , um I dunno if this will work but {disfmarker} And I think we can find something that's more fun to look at and use than either of those . {vocalsound} Just I mean I like the one on the right better , just because it does have fewer buttons , uh but I mean I think we sh can sort of think about things like um {vocalsound} like colour and you know size , shapes , that sort of thing , to best fit the user . {vocalsound} That concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . You need the little thingy . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: How do I um {disfmarker} +Marketing: S That's on view . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay so this is on the working design , which is sort of the uh mechanical functions of the remote , um and the method I used was to basically look at existing designs and incorporate ideas from our last meeting . Um so I think we need two basic functions which is just the basic remote functions , the user can input a channel or volume setting and it will be output to the T_V_ . And also we talked about um a location function where maybe you could press a button on the T_V_ and it would send sort of signal to the remote where it would beep or flash or vibrate or whatever to tell you where the remote is . So the components we need are an energy source to power the remote , um input which would probably be buttons , although um we just talked about voice recognition , processor to take the information , um something to transmit it to the T_V_ , and we also need something on the remote that would receive the location signal and have an output , like possibly a beep or a vibration . And also you need a sender for location signal , which would probably be a separate um thing that we'd have to sell with the remote and people could stick it on their T_V_ or stick it on their wall . And this is just sort of an overview of how the remote works . Power comes from the battery , goes to the chip , um and then it is sent from there to an infrared bulb which is probably the easiest way to send to the T_V_ . And then for the location function , you would have a sender on the T_V_ which would output some sort of signal , um we could use I_R_ but we'd probably wanna use radio instead . That signal would go to a receiver which it would process it , and it would be output in the form of a buzzer or a light lighting up . Um so my personal preferences for how to build the remote would probably be uh , battery for the energy source , that way you wouldn't have to plug it in , um a button pad for input , um we can purchase a pre-made chip which will handle all the processing stuff , I_R_ transmitter to communicate to the T_V_ , that's just sort of standard , um so most T_V_s have an I_R_ receiver . Probably a radio receiver to send out location function and to receive it and I'd probably say a buzzer for the location function on the remote itself . So that concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Do you know about like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: I dunno , you seem like you know about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I d I was an engineer before I came here . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you everybody . Um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} we'll discuss that and then I just wanna mention some new project requirements that came in . Um , teletext is apparently outdated , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} due to internet popularity , so that's off the list . Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: also our remote should be used only for television , um , no extra internet kinda fancy things , just the remote and the television . Um and also we need to incorporate our corporate image onto this , so um the phrase is , we put fashion in electronics , so let's be fashionable I guess . Um if we have something {disfmarker} I mean silver and and gold or yellow are our colours , so if we had a like a kind of silver one like you saw , and yellow writing , something like that . Okay . Um . So we need to make some decisions on the remote control functions . Um , yeah . {vocalsound} Do {disfmarker} Let's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess we should yeah make some kind of brainstorming , see what we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like in terms of +Marketing: How it looks or {disfmarker} +User Interface: how it looks , or like what it does ? +Project Manager: wha what {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} well probably our target group and how it's gonna going to appeal to our target group and I dunno the the s +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: the buttons and what it does and that sort of thing . So . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . So {disfmarker} Is our target group then people {disfmarker} so do we wanna go ahead and design this thing with the finder button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think that seems to {disfmarker} yeah . Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's easy to implement . +User Interface: Okay . So the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the buzzer you mean , +User Interface: yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Locator . +Marketing: yeah , for sure , yeah . +User Interface: So then our target age group would be the nineteen to thirty five range , +Project Manager: Yeah , teenagers and young professionals . +User Interface: what was it ? +Marketing: Well that's for speech recognition . +Project Manager: Oh , uh . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: And screen . That's only for speech recognition and screen . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking about that but uh I mean speech recognition is really hard to programme , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and also , if the T_V_ is on it's making sound and the people on the T_V_ are talking , and if somebody says like one , then the T_V_'s gonna switch itself to channel one , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} it seems like a silly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how you would implement it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just put the values {vocalsound} in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if if you consider our budget , it probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um the screen is the same as what , {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's a cool idea but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if you consider our budget , to h have speech recognition programmed in every single remote might be a little pricey . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm happy with that . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Hu yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Completely . +User Interface: Okay so are we gonna have just some kind of a {disfmarker} like we'll have the buzzer on the som like on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Well you would have to have a button on a T_V_ or on your wall or some place {gap} since the T_V_ already has power . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you click the button , it's gonna send out a signal , and I was thinking , I_R_ is line of sight , so unless the remote is like actually in front of the T_V_ it's not gonna work , um so probably like a radio signal like on a on a cell phone . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sends out a signal and then the the remote hears the signal and so it beeps probably . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So you you'd need like a separate base for that or like something you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It would have to be sold separately because if the sender's on the remote then you'd have to find the remote first to click the button to find the remote {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: right . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So do you plug it in the T_ {disfmarker} you plug it in T_V_ , this thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it'd probably just stick it on your T_V_ so if you need to find the remote , click the button . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: So it's now like a two-part thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it would be a two part package . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So we get to design that too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it fashionable . Um , okay . +Project Manager: So do you think even though we're not talking about speek speech recognition our target group should still be teenagers and young professionals . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: Yeah . Just there . +Project Manager: Huh . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Are we um should that thing be on the {vocalsound} thing to put the {disfmarker} you s you talking about a home for it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you still want to build a little thing next to the telly or to p hang on the wall or shall we leave that for now ? +Project Manager: We probably leave that . I mean I guess one takes care of the other , like um if you can yeah if you can call it then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Then it can live anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . For the {disfmarker} so you have that button , that {disfmarker} so there's {disfmarker} is there a light or shall we leave just have a radio ? +Industrial Designer: Um on the T_V_ or on the phone ? +Marketing: Are we just having a radio ? On the phone . +Industrial Designer: Um it seemed like a {disfmarker} a beep seemed the most reasonable to me , +User Interface: T +Marketing: You don't need a light . Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's what the phone has , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean when you need to find your phone , you just have someone call it {vocalsound} and it starts ringing somewhere and then you can figure out that it's in the couch or wherever . +Project Manager: And like if the if the phone's under the couch , you might not see the light , so +Marketing: You can hear it's under the couch yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So i Yeah . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} {gap} So need the other buttons . So we have this {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: So I mean the two remotes that you had shown r I don't remember who showed them {vocalsound} , yeah you you did um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was me . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they're {disfmarker} I mean one looked like it was for V_C_R_ type thing , and the other looked like just television . +User Interface: I think w I think they're both sort of just like general remo they're both general remotes . +Project Manager: Oh really . 'Cause that that is something we have to decide , is whether we want to have V_C_R_ capabilities . +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: Does anyone know if V_C_R_s are the same across {disfmarker} international ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: They're not , no . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you'd need like a whole different set of buttons for everybody's V_C_R_s . +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It not V_H_S_ here ? +Project Manager: But D_V_D_ probably is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , other than that region and coding thing . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and if we're if we're targeting young professionals and teenagers , I mean it's gonna be D_V_D_ type , that's the the technology these days . +Marketing: But V_C_R_s {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , for sure . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So . Okay , let's see if I can {disfmarker} I think still though , it shouldn't be that hard to take {disfmarker} like just reduce the number of buttons you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like 'cause if you just have like one menu button , that works like with a you know , or you can just kind of scroll through the options u that come up on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well for sure we need the um {disfmarker} I think we can just design the channels ? I mean power's just a button , and it's not used that much , +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: s and it's usually that red +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's quite nice to keep it like red . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , I've seen some remotes that {disfmarker} where you just hold one , like if you hold one down it's it's a different colour than the other buttons but that turns it on . So you don't actually have a separate power button , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: It seems like that would be hard though . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean , like because unless you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It might be confusing . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Just 'cause I wouldn't {disfmarker} I would probably pick it up and just be like uh why is there no on button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Besides you like to be able to go power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I never think to hold something down . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have the power {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . B {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I guess . So we definitely want a power button and numbers . Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well even um iPod thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , like um , I don't know if people like this but if you want to reduce the number , of buttons , instead of having like one to nine , have a sort of +User Interface: That sort of like joystick flat touch thing , yeah . +Marketing: scrolling {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Because people li seem {disfmarker} now the iPod's out people seem to like this thing that there's no {disfmarker} Know you don't have one two three four five {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think that's an interesting idea , 'cause it's cool , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: it's it's funny like you f like I just {disfmarker} I don't have an iPod but like I , you know , I just like started messing around with one of my friend's the other day , and you just sort of and {disfmarker} it's funny how you pick it up and you just figure out how to use it quite easily , like it's not that hard , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's just {disfmarker} and it's one thing which has everything . +User Interface: Yeah , and it is {disfmarker} yeah . It is really {disfmarker} but do you need a screen then , do you have to have a screen then ? +Marketing: Well can't it tell the {disfmarker} like can't you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can have the number going around in the corner . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: you can have the number on the telly going like one two three four five once you scroll and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Okay so we have this like scrolling sort of button . +Project Manager: Oh that's gonna {disfmarker} Is that like on on a mouse pad where like kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a disc . Yeah . Yeah . It's like {disfmarker} it's just like the same technology as a mouse pad . +Project Manager: okay . I've never used one . No . +Marketing: It's like l this {disfmarker} like that , and then you do that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and then . +Marketing: And then you can have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you actually just want to zap , you can have like a thing {vocalsound} like that , and that , and then it can just be plus and minus . +User Interface: Okay . So like it's like a little part of the circle that {disfmarker} Or it {disfmarker} oh so it's just a region of the circle that you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i +User Interface: zap . +Marketing: Yeah , click o actually click on to have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We could we could even have four buttons , like , if that's the if that's the mouse , you could have the volume and the channel changers just like on that as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So volume could be like the top it and the bottom {disfmarker} So do you need to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't it rotate though , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: so it'll be moving around . +User Interface: Well y you have to you have to like be able to change the function of it to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you mean the function ? +User Interface: I mean like okay , 'cause so {disfmarker} I dunno , I guess {disfmarker} Okay {disfmarker} so when you g scroll your thumb like around it , it'll s like say you're go you're going clockwise . That that means you're gonna go up the channels , and then you scroll the other way and it'll go down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you wanna switch to the {disfmarker} to u do you have to switch to a function where like y so you're either in that mode or you're in the mode where like it just has like the four like you know this is channel that way , that's that way and volume is up and down . +Marketing: Yeah but it knows for some reason . +User Interface: It just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The iPod knows . +User Interface: It just kno {vocalsound} the iPod knows . {vocalsound} S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} If it works on an iPod then it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . So you just you just can either do this or like you can just touch it if you want . +Industrial Designer: I don't have one . +Marketing: Well for the volume you have to press the middle , and then go up . +User Interface: Okay . That's what I mean . Okay . Okay so you have to like press this middle region and then you can scroll up , go up and down . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: So it's like holding {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} well if you do that it goes , but if you {disfmarker} like that makes more sense 'cause there's already ones with up and down here , that I've seen . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} o And you you {disfmarker} is there an extra actual button ? Or are you actually {disfmarker} you're just using the mouse to go up and down . +Marketing: Well what you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like a b +Marketing: for the iPod you press an {disfmarker} w right if you're on the channel let's say , then you press on the middle and then if you do that again the volume goes up , and if you do that it goes down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But if you wanna keep it with volume here and here , I'm pretty sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean if if you're gonna this for channels , right , then y wouldn't the volume need to be separate somehow ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like you could just have {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: you could click and then have it up and down , +Project Manager: Oh you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think we can go on the fact that it does just work with the iPod . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: But the only thing is like , iPods are so expensive , like , it has to be {disfmarker} is that part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that what makes them expensi I think it's all of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +User Interface: yeah , I dunno , I dunno . +Project Manager: they have so much memory though , that's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't think so ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's the wheel dealy . +Marketing: I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's the uh h it's their capabili I mean they {disfmarker} it can hold what like five thousand songs or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm thinking we could {disfmarker} if if we're hav So ba I mean but an iPod just has that circle thing you know . +Industrial Designer: And they're re-programmable aren't they ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can put on your songs and then put on a different set , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's probably why they're expensive , they're like little computers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . Well like since it just has the circle thing , you could make it a qui a kind of cool shape , like it could be a cool sort of you know , because it could be circular , you know , or something weird like that , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Well it could just be simple instead of being a l mass . Because , the other thing , I didn't tell you all my presentation {vocalsound} , is that people find it {disfmarker} find that it's a big waste of time to have to learn how to use your remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that's another thing they complained about . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , what other buttons were there ? Volume {disfmarker} oh we've ts just said that . +User Interface: So okay . +Marketing: Channel selection . +User Interface: This is just for T_V_ , it's not for {disfmarker} or it is {disfmarker} does need to be compatible with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} A D_V_D_ is simple , you just have play , pause , eject , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know actually our our new project requirements , I'm not sure if they meant o onl use only for television as in not for D_V_D_ or just not internet type things . +User Interface: So how do you switch {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu . +Industrial Designer: and menu maybe . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll I'll check that and update you on the next {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . So like if we had that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we'll hold off on that 'cause {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But s yeah uh . +Marketing: But D_V_D_ players usually have their own remote . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So , I know I'm not c really clear on what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's cool to have it all on one , because you wanna turn it on then you wanna turn up the volume , and then you wanna go to the menu , so you don't wanna switch . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: So you'd have to have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} you would have to have like a function switch button , you know somewhere so like you can {disfmarker} you're either on T_V_ , you're on D_V_D_ or you're on V_C_R_ , or you're like . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well but D_V_D_ is only like four buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , it is only fun +User Interface: but I mean like to switch the fun so like to switch the function of the little circle disc , the touch pad . +Project Manager: But i Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . But I think the circle only does {disfmarker} channel isn't applicable to D_V_D_ really 'cause you don't wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but volume is and volume is actually controlled on the T_V_ so you don't have to switch . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} but I'm saying like , does it make sense to have like some kind of a button , so like you're {disfmarker} if you're on T_V_ , like you can switch channels , but then if uh if you're on D_V_D_ then like the channel bu like the the region of the disc that was for channels is for like switching to different tracks or s you know , to different {disfmarker} I mean do we need to think about that , +Project Manager: Um , yeah , let's think about it +User Interface: that like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes we can try that . +Project Manager: 'cause we need to wrap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","The conversation involves a functional design meeting led by the Project Manager, focusing on the design of a new remote control while considering user needs, technical aspects, and working design. Marketing begins by sharing findings from a study: customers find remote controls unattractive and only use around 10% of the buttons frequently, suggesting the design should prioritize commonly used buttons like channel selection, teletext, volume, and power. + +User Interface discusses minimal button design, keeping them together, and making them user-friendly and fashionable according to color and size. They suggest incorporating fewer buttons and inquiry about adding capabilities for cable and VCR control. + +Industrial Designer talks about the working design, which should include a location function to help users find the remote. They recommend including a battery for power, a button for input, and an IR transmitter. For the location function, they propose a radio signal receiver that triggers a beep or light on the remote. + +Throughout the conversation, there are technical difficulties with sharing presentations and managing the equipment, demonstrating the need for a user-friendly design in their own work. + +The group discusses new project requirements to eliminate teletext due to its obsolescence and focus the remote solely on TV control, without extra internet features. They consider incorporating corporate colors (silver and gold/yellow) into the design for fashion appeal. + +Discussions move towards focusing on teenagers and young professionals as the target group and consider whether sophisticated functions like voice recognition are viable for the remote considering budget constraints. + +In the end, they brainstorm design aspects, such as button layouts, the inclusion of a finder function, and compatibility with DVD players. The Project Manager plans to clarify the new project requirements and suggest a follow-up discussion." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","In a collaborative meeting guided by a Project Manager, a team composed of members from Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Design convened to discuss the development of a new remote control device infused with innovative design and features. The dialogue commenced with participants setting up their equipment, leading to a casual interaction marked by minor mishaps and interjections, establishing an atmosphere of informal collaboration. + +The meeting advanced into a conceptual design discussion, wherein the Project Manager recapitulated the progress made from the previous meeting, confirming the team's slight advancement. Key topics included the need to nix voice recognition and teletext due to feasibility constraints while considering the integration of the company's image into the design. Notably, the participants pondered a unique flip design with a distinct shell-like shape, divergent from typical designs. Important research tasks encompassed rechargeable batteries, a loss prevention alarm, and targeting young business demographics as potential customers. + +As part of their trend-watching endeavor, Marketing presented insights derived from a market research study involving 100 subjects. The study identified three primary desires for remote controls: an appealing look and feel, technological innovation, and ease of use – in that order of priority. Fashion consultations in Paris and Milan contributed additional foresight, highlighting an emerging penchant for fruit and vegetable themes and spongy material textures in design. + +The team agreed to prioritize the fruit and vegetable color motifs while factoring in material options such as plastic, wood, titanium, and rubber, considering practicality and cost. A focus emerged on applying a spongy feel to the rubber parts, aligning with current trends, with discussion circling the potential for rubber fasciae to enable customizable aesthetics. + +A thorough exploration of battery options ensued, with members weighing the merits of standard, solar, and kinetic charging against considerations such as convenience, durability, and size constraints. The consensus favored kinetic charging, akin to self-winding wristwatches, for its less demanding maintenance. + +The industrial designer outlined the technical components, introducing a standardized chip for remote control signal emission and suggesting the use of watch-type batteries compatible with kinetic charging. The group envisioned an interface combining rubber buttons for frequent commands with an LCD touch display for other functions. Furthermore, the possibility of including voice recognition features to locate the remote control—pending cost evaluation—was enthusiastically discussed. + +Material choices revealed a preference for a plastic base case with a rubber overlay to enhance grip comfort and provide design versatility. As the session drew to a close, decisions centered on utilizing kinetic charging, LCD for the main interfacing, fruit-colored rubber skins, and incorporating voice recognition as a unique selling point. + +Throughout the meeting, participants exhibited a dynamic exchange of ideas, demonstrating an interplay between creative brainstorming and technical considerations. The endeavor culminated in an amalgamation of form and function, seeking a blend of cutting-edge design and user-centric functionality. Their decisions intended to encapsulate enhanced usability and distinctive aesthetics while attuning to market trends and company image. + +In conclusion, the team crafted a comprehensive plan for a remote control device that, while still requiring final costing and feasibility studies, showcased their commitment to redefining the standard remote control experience with an eye towards innovation and fashion." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Hello . Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Hello . Ah . +Project Manager: You have to put it exactly on the on the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Plate ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I took your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Should I bring my uh pen too ? +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} yeah , no , +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's for me , I just have to make some notes . I got my uh mouse . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh I also forgot my mouse , +User Interface: Mouse . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: but I don't need my mouse , I think . +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Come on . There we are . +Industrial Designer: My laptop is crashing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Damn computers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cr +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Help help help . +User Interface: Let's just check one more time . Mm . +Marketing: Can you hear me ? Hello ? +Project Manager: Uh actually my laptop doesn't work , +Marketing: Test . +Project Manager: {gap} switch it on again . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: Oh no . +Marketing: Check . Okay . I think it works . +Industrial Designer: Test test . Yes , it's working . +Project Manager: So you all read what we are going to do or not ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: I think my laptop is a bit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: etchy . +Project Manager: I just made a a simple uh presentation . So you {gap} put some things in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . How does this work ? I dunno . {gap} +User Interface: One uh {disfmarker} most to the right . +Industrial Designer: Uh p +User Interface: Yes that one . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Press F_ eleven . +Project Manager: Ah cool . Okay . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's my name , {gap} . Uh we're going to make uh a remote control , you already know that . Just have a look , are we going to {disfmarker} uh this agenda of our meeting . You know , this is about twenty five minutes , this meeting . So um the {gap} thing we have to know is you already know what we're going to do , you also read what this the things {disfmarker} or , not yet , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay . So um , yeah , it has to be original , trendy , user-friendly {gap} that's what we're going to design . Uh first we have uh uh three steps of uh making the the remote control . Fir the first thing is th the functional design , that's very important . We have to look what the needs are , the effects of the functional design , and and how the mm the the remote control works , so that's where we're going to look in the functional design , it's for the f next meeting . The the second thing is the conceptual design , that's what it {disfmarker} that's uh the spe the specifications of the components and the properties and the specifications of the user interface . And we have to look what uh the market is doing for {disfmarker} what kind of uh remote controls are in the market . And the third thing is uh the detailed design um and that's exa yeah , you know what it is , it's exactly how it looks and whatever . {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} uh no , this is a {disfmarker} these are two smartboards , with the uh f uh s an introduction of that one . And you already saw {disfmarker} you know all that that you here can put uh things in the the red project uh map . +Marketing: Folder , +Project Manager: Folder , okay . +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: So no okay {gap} have a look at that one . Okay . So uh what we're going to do first is um so you can read . {vocalsound} You have to uh draw uh a favourite animal on the whiteboard +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um and say why it's your favourite animal . So and you have {disfmarker} this is just to try it out and we have to uh use a different pen colours and different thickness of the pen . So okay , so first have to show you , maybe you can come here to have a look how it works . Yes ? +Marketing: Ah I can see it now . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This a new page , it's okay . Use pen format . and a different colour can use here {gap} no I just take the pink . You take {disfmarker} oh there's no pink , okay , oh just purple , okay . +User Interface: Purple . +Project Manager: No blue . And uh line width {vocalsound} ten . Okay uh just take {disfmarker} what I'm going to draw is an elephant . Just draw slowly , because otherwise it won't work . It's a very nice elephant , you can see . I dunno what it looks {disfmarker} but it doesn't matter . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Looks very nice . +Project Manager: I just h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like this ? Oh no {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It look like a dinosaurs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A pink elephant . +Project Manager: Because I like {disfmarker} uh okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just takes so long , okay . Whatever , just . You erased this one . It's a bit slow you can see , this is a bit annoying . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so just for you guys just one of you can draw a painting if you want . Just don't +Marketing: Let me try one . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} yeah , just u use it like that , yeah . That's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Okay and then uh what's the colour ? How do I do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's in format . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . I'll take this one . Uh there has to be water , +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No it has to be an animal , so if that's it's {disfmarker} it should be a shna snake or something . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , but it's an animal it's an animal that lives in the water . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The water is important . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So I first uh draw the water . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Okay , and now I make the animal . It's a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: cool . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . So . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is a worm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm yeah , that's nice . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , who next ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh do you have to write down why {disfmarker} uh that doesn't matter , just {disfmarker} it's to get used to the whiteboard , but it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Just make a new blank new blank page . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well Paul ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Like this ? +Project Manager: Yeah , not too far to the to the t pen top . +User Interface: Okay . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: let's make it um a dog . Ooh . +Project Manager: Maybe you should hold your pen a bit more to the back , so that {disfmarker} no , to the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Ah okay . +Marketing: I think it's a pig . +User Interface: A pig ? +Project Manager: No , it's a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I can make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a dog . +User Interface: a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A sheep ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh we d only have twenty five minutes , so {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take it easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay , I make a cat of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I was gonna make a cat too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Use your fantasy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , not too quick . +Project Manager: Just hold it more more to the back then you don't have {gap} +User Interface: No +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: I have it . I just draw too quick I think . Okay , that's it . More . +Project Manager: No , that's okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to get used to it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I thought these pens would be just um {disfmarker} uh you write it down and you download it to Word , you already did it or no ? No , not yet , okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: But it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: it {disfmarker} but you actually got to write on the paper . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: You really got to write on that paper . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but I d I I thought it would be just in in in uh typed words in Word , +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's a real pen . +Project Manager: so that's not +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just a picture . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} it's just a picture . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: it's not that cool as I th thought it would be . +User Interface: You really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y you can you can't edit in the {disfmarker} edit it in Word . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: It's a donkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know , what time did we start this meeting , I'm not sure . +User Interface: Uh I think it was uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half past . +Marketing: Half past ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Brilliant . +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Nice , eh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , thank you . Now we just have to save everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is definitely the best one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh what we know is that we have to sell this uh remote control for about twenty five Euros . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excuse me . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . And uh we have to make a profit of fifty million Euros , so we have to uh use a big market in Europe . The production cost are about half the price of selling price , +User Interface: Piece of cake . +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: Uh easy . +Project Manager: So can someone make a a calculation about how many we have to sell of these to make fifty million , I dunno . Uh so we're gonna have {gap} a little discussion about um what experience are with a remote control the {gap} and everything , so just have a look how it {disfmarker} we think about remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah , my first question was does it have to be a {vocalsound} a universal remote control ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's a good question . +Marketing: Because we sell it uh uh uh lonely from the t and not with the television , we sell it uh apart . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I'm not I'm not sure , +Marketing: So I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's not mm {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it probably would be universal . +User Interface: Universal . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And only television ? Or more devices ? +Project Manager: I don't think you can buy a a a universal uh remote control for twenty five Euros , so {disfmarker} not sure , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm , maybe , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh you can buy a re a universal uh control for uh only twenty uh Euros +Project Manager: Okay , so we we just say we just say that's universal remote control . Okay , perfect . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: And uh also for the V_C_R_ and uh D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: Yeah , everything +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} so a lot of buttons {vocalsound} on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , probably . +User Interface: Not just a T_V_ . +Project Manager: No , just everything . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . so yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what what what's a remote control , it's just a black thing with some buttons on it , it's not {disfmarker} nothing very special , but um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we can try to make it special . +Project Manager: yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So do you have any ideas how it has to look for for usability or user {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I th I thought about um making it the same uh style as the television , {gap} {disfmarker} we don't have uh the same television uh all the time , so uh that's no matter . {vocalsound} Um if we uh control the V_C_R_ and the D_V_D_ player player with it uh it has to be clear , because uh kids and uh elderly are gonna use it , so uh it's not only for the uh technical persons . Um I think it must be a very good control , so you can uh uh uh act uh {vocalsound} use it from uh everywhere in your room , the the infrared uh thing must be from very good quality . +Project Manager: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . Should be a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Nothing {gap} N +Industrial Designer: And how big should it be ? +Marketing: No . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} It shouldn't be too big , +Marketing: I dunno um {disfmarker} +User Interface: but I don't think we can make it too small , 'cause it has to have a lot of functions , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We can't make it smaller than the things we see now I think . +Project Manager: Just big enough for the buttons we have , that's that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to make something uh like uh mobile phones that you can uh fold it opem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe then you can make it s smaller and uniquer , +Marketing: Yes +User Interface: maybe more trendy . +Project Manager: But you you you you think about uh uh one you can fold open . +User Interface: Fold open , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: where you can see uh more options . I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , that's cool . Maybe for the D_V_D_ pla player or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: n +Marketing: that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , something uh on top , just dren general things like volume and T_V_ channels and inside things you don't use that often . +Marketing: Ah right right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or you c +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: O or you could th think of an uh uh a small touch screen on the remote control . +Marketing: Oh that's good , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah b I wanted {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why should you use a touchscreen on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh maybe be uh it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are buttons on it . +User Interface: No you can make an uh manual in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or um maybe to keep it uh easy and uh small . +Project Manager: Okay . But it's not t t t too expensive to put a touchscreen on it . +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh like a a to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's much uh {disfmarker} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it would . +Marketing: Yeah but it's not reachable I think , touch screen . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And we have to care for uh the strength of the remote control , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because uh uh remote controls are most uh things in the house that falls down on the ground and it get often uh broken . +Project Manager: Yeah . So . And if you have a touch screen in it , it's definitely too too fragile uh fragile . +User Interface: Yeah , too fragile . +Marketing: Yeah and a lots uh uh lots of kids use it and touchscreen is not uh kids uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . You can put games on your remote control . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Kid-proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh how about the batteries ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh should you put it in a recharger or a {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh maybe that's a good idea , +Marketing: Ma maybe a home station . +Project Manager: just to put it on your television and just s recharge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you never have to use any batteries . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Maybe that's a good idea , but yeah , we have to look at the price now I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , how m how mu how how expensive uh is a normal recharger ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Well uh how much is your uh standards uh mobile phone recharger ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you buy it uh separately from your phone it's probably expensive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know what the project uh projection costs are for such a thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Maybe have {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh if you th look at the market , it's probably {disfmarker} it's still the best way just to put batteries in it , because maybe it's too expensive . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a home station is uh a really good idea , because uh lots of people are {disfmarker} uh lose their remote control and don't know where it is , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: and now you can put it always at the same place . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe it's {disfmarker} Therefore it's a good idea , but maybe it's expensive . +User Interface: Maybe uh use it as a separate option . Sell it uh separately . +Marketing: Yeah . You can {disfmarker} yeah , you can buy it with it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I have a mouse that's uh uh also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rechargeable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and you just have normal batteries that you can recharge and just put it in the station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you can change your batteries , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: The option , just the option , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh I I set something on paper already , {gap} size , looks , uh usable , uh the buttons on usable places , uh the the on off button must be on top , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it has to lay good in the hand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it be {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} does it has to b have to be um uh like a different form than a normal remote control +Marketing: Yeah , I don't I don't know I don't know +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think we have to look at that , +Marketing: if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause well you can do {gap} the standard way , but then you won't {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can make it very special , to create our own um looks , +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: but it's very hard to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N uh if if we want to make it special , we probably have to do a lot of testing , if it really works . +User Interface: Well you can um have uh {vocalsound} the basic things on the same place , like on off button on top and the T_V_ channels one two three four as a block , and then the volume uh obviously on t on top , so you can see . +Marketing: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the rest is uh you don't use that often , so if you have a clear button with an good icon on it , it should be clear as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it doesn't matter what place it is on the remote control I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you can do something unique with that . +Industrial Designer: And what we have to think about too is uh uh buttons that you use often are um maybe uh like when you fold it open , when you have it closed , you {vocalsound} can still uh do the th the functions . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , what Paul already said . +Project Manager: Yeah , just for the T_V_ and just the normal function , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh on on top are the the basic options on top , +Industrial Designer: But n {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , but uh i {vocalsound} basically when I'm watching T_V_ I'm just using like five buttons or so , +Marketing: and if you fold it open {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe it's +User Interface: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: That's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: maybe it's very hard to to make it fold open and to l look like it's very uh uh {disfmarker} what's it's called ? +Marketing: Mm . If you if if you make to fold open it's or also an {disfmarker} uh the strength uh is not s as good as a normal uh remote control . +Project Manager: {gap} Maybe it's hard t +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's right . So maybe we have to to uh keep it like mm a square , just normal remote control {gap} . +User Interface: Okay , but yeah . +Project Manager: Just think about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to close this uh to finish this uh meeting , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's some more things . We have uh another thirty minutes , so then we're going to meet again . So you know what you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um for m for me uh the Marketing Expert , the user requirements uh specification , do I need to think as a user , a as a a a only the looks and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , what you want to do with it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think this {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you have to n know if it's for s a T_V_ , a D_V_D_ player , all that things . Also from a user , but all these things together . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah , it's also about strength and uh for everything uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , everything . +User Interface: Yeah , I also wrote down some stuff +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: that you want on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no maybe not not uh {gap} , that's not a f that's something for for for {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Technical fun fu +Project Manager: That's not for you . Just if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: what's in the market , what's normal , uh what kind of uh buttons do you have . +User Interface: What do you want to do with your remote control , what do you need on your remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's alright . +User Interface: I already wrote some down , some ideas . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , just {disfmarker} is that okay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: There's already a document in the folder about it . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: So see you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well done . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For the next time you have to uh put it exactly on the square , so {disfmarker} your laptop . +User Interface: I will . +Marketing: Oh Paul . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It didn't say that . +Project Manager: No , sorry . +User Interface: Your fault . +Marketing: Ciao . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye bye . +User Interface: Bye bye . +","The transcript describes a meeting involving a project manager, an industrial designer, someone from marketing, and a user interface specialist. The group is tasked with the creation of a unique, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control, targeting a selling price of about 25 Euros and aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros. The meeting reflects an informal and collaborative atmosphere, with moments of light-hearted banter and technical conversation as they work through various aspects of the design and functionality of the remote control. + +The summary of the meeting is as follows: + +The meeting opened with routine pleasantries among team members. However, technical issues quickly surfaced, including problems with laptops crashing and missing equipment like mice and pens. Despite this, the group worked to overcome these small challenges to focus on the agenda of the meeting. The project manager had prepared a basic presentation outlining the design process divided into functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The team discussed the market competition and the importance of differentiating their remote control. + +The project manager led an ice-breaking exercise where team members were to draw their favorite animals on a smartboard using different pen colors and thicknesses to familiarize themselves with the technology. Though the exercise seemed to be met with mild amusement, it served its purpose for loosening up the team and preparing them for the work ahead. + +The team then delved into the detailed discussion of the remote control they were to design. The price point and the need for a sizable European market were highlighted, with the marketing person noting the product's need to be clear and user-friendly, catering to all users including children and the elderly. + +The project manager had an idea to make the remote control fold open, enabling a more compact, trendy design while still housing numerous functions. This led to discussions on whether to include a touchscreen—considered too costly and fragile—and the possibility of making the remote's batteries rechargeable, potentially through a charging station to be purchased separately. + +The group explored additional ideas such as ensuring the remote control is sturdy enough to withstand falls, as families and children frequently use it. They discussed having a home station to counteract the common problem of misplaced remote controls. In terms of form and usability, they highlighted the importance of the remote sitting comfortably in one's hand and questioned if it should diverge from the conventional black, button-laden design. + +The team agreed that the core TV functions should be readily available when the remote is closed, and that less frequently used functions could be accessed when opened. They considered maintaining the basic button layout, which people are accustomed to, while possibly creating a unique aspect for less common functions on the remote. + +Concluding the meeting, the project manager emphasized the importance of understanding the market norms, user requirements, and competitors' products. There was a mention of a follow-up meeting in thirty minutes to discuss further steps. Lastly, the project manager reminded the user interface specialist to ensure laptops are placed correctly on their charging squares in the future to avoid power issues. + +Overall, the meeting was characterized by teamwork and a shared drive to create a remote control that innovatively blends functionality with user-friendliness and market awareness. The team was to reconvene shortly to continue their project planning." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Help . {gap} It's up there ? That screen's black . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay . Okay , that's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: Are we done ? Right , okay um , this is our second meeting and I might be a bit all over the place . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , right our agenda for today , do you want us to give you a second ? +Marketing: Uh , no that's okay , +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: I'll go over what we decided last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , we decided upon a universal control , one handset for all , T_V_ , video equipment . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Um , that it was important that the product was accessible to a wide range of consumers , wide age range , not limiting anyone . We decided it was important to reflect the company's image in our product , we put fashion in electronics , you know that kind of s thing . Um , our budget would have to affect um {disfmarker} try not to reflect our budget , um that we might have a bit of {disfmarker} oh oh you can see it , okay {vocalsound} . Um dissonance between what our budget was and what we want it to look like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um want it to look uncluttered , undaunting to the customer . We discussed a flip-open design , um reducing the size of the control and an electronic panel um for further features like programming , things like that . Okay . Um , three presentations , I've got written here so shall we hear from Marketing first ? +Marketing: Um is it okay if I postpone that til later , I just want to get access to a little bit more information , +Project Manager: No that's fine , that's fine . {gap} +Marketing: is that okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah I'll go first . Can I grab the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unplug me . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . What do I have to press ? Oh , F_ eight ? +Project Manager: Um , F_N_ function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . Okay . Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep there we go . Okay this is uh the working design , presented by me , the uh Industrial Designer extraordinaire . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , this is where I went a bit mad with PowerPoint so . What {disfmarker} the first thing {disfmarker} question I asked was what are we trying to design ? Well , a device which basically just sends the signal to the T_V_ to change its state , whether that be the power , or the channel um or the volume , everything is just um some sort of signal to change the state of the T_V_ or other appliance that it's sending the signal to . Um , so I decided I'd have a look at what th other people have designed and try and take some inspiration from that . But uh although we will want to be taking ideas from other people , we wanna make sure that our design stands out and I thought that was something that {disfmarker} well it wasn't really my area because {vocalsound} I'm dealing with the inside really . So um , yeah I ran out of time so I couldn't do this one as fun as the last one {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and uh {vocalsound} I found out that most uh controls use some form of infrared to send signals to the T_V_ presumably because of the cost issue of uh something like uh the same thing that computers use , wireless and , you don't need to send very much information . Um , most of them are powered by some form of battery . Now our one , I'm I'm not sure whether we want to look at the size issue because most of them are powered by triple A_ batteries but those can be quite bulky so I d I didn't know if you wanted to look at something else um so we could shrink down the size of the control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Could I {disfmarker} can I interject to ask a question there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: is that appropriate ? You're saying the triple A_ batteries are small or the {gap} surrounding it ? +Industrial Designer: Um no no , if you if you look at if you look at most remote controls they're quite they're quite chunky and that's because of the size of the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: they have to be obviously this certain size to fit those batteries in . +Marketing: Right , the triple A_s are the smallest you can get are they not , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: They are . +Industrial Designer: well you can you can get the sort of circular round ones but I'm just wondering about power consumption +Marketing: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: and how much you need to send the data across . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , and d which leads sort of onto the next point about 'em being small and easy to carry round . Um , now the ones at the moment are small but I was just wondering if we could look at something a bit smaller . {vocalsound} Now the main components I came up with um were obviously the power source for the batteries 'cause otherwise it's not gonna work , uh as I said about the {disfmarker} w which batteries we were gonna choose , we can uh discuss that later and then you obviously need something to decode the information that you're putting in from from the controller Now these have a wireless range of up to about five metres which is sort of suitable for anyone who's watching the T_V_ unless they're in a cinema , which not most people do so as we're applying to the most audience that should be fine . And then I was uh {disfmarker} just had a quick look at the external design but I d I left that mostly to the uh interface designer . And so this is what I had as the basic idea of what we wanna do . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's not a proper circuit , I'm not sure if it'd work or not , I'm not even confident that those are the real um the real way you'd wire it up but anyway , we've just got the the power going to the infrared bulb with the chip and the {vocalsound} uh U_I_ interface um which would basically , when you when you pressed anything it would {disfmarker} the chip would convert it into some form of I_R_ data which could be decoded by the T_V_ receiver , which obviously means that we're gonna have to conform to {vocalsound} whatever um whatever form of communication that the T_V_s are already using and since that that's another use and {disfmarker} reason to use that infrared because that's what all T_V_s use at the moment . And then finally , um we want uh the {disfmarker} it to be available to a wide audience at a low cost so all the components that I've put forward are uh low in cost so that that should be good . Um it should should be different enough um from the alternative products to get a good consumer base , we were talking about it before and also just something that I was thinking about , uh because they're small they're also easy to lose so if we could look into some way of {disfmarker} d dunno some anti-going down the side of the sofa {vocalsound} thing that you could have , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} th that was just sort of a general point there . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And that's uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: That's a very important part , it came up in our market research findings too so I can refer to that , whenever you like me to present . +Industrial Designer: Alright okay , and yeah , that's that's what I came up with there , +Project Manager: Okay , thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: so if you wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , would you like to continue on from that ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: 'Kay . It can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or , maybe move the laptop over . +User Interface: okay , that's okay with me . {gap} further . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Oops . Why's it not working ? F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: F_ function . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Mm why's it in the right ? +Marketing: No . The plug hasn't come out at the bottom , has it ? No . +User Interface: Yeah , it's connecting {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , no yeah it's just {gap} . +Marketing: Meter adjusting . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Oh , there {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . Actually mm some of my points might overlap with what William's just mention , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but basically my method was like uh whatever brainstorming we did in the last meeting , just a couple of valuable points and started developing on that and there might be some missing loops in this thing which I think we'll uh take a feedback from the marketing because um , I haven't had some marketing data and basically every product is marketable . So purpose , as William already said , I would put it to simplify the interaction with T_V_ to make make it as simple as possible . And to summarise I I would say it's {disfmarker} it should be user-friendly by being easy to use , rather than having a lot of complex button because you can have an engineering {gap} maybe having hundred buttons and maybe having uh a remote control which has the main features like volume control or channel ch changing the channel or whatever . But we are to to make it unique so that people want to buy it , will {gap} this two features together . So what the concept is to have a flip-top model . The main functions such as which are like often used will be on the top and the complex functions which say you {disfmarker} you can say like the y young generation or trendy generation want to pr say programme their favourite channels or whatever , can be put in the middle part of the f flip-top . So it's like {disfmarker} it could be accessed by a wide ra range of uh audience and we can punch in new f features such as uh {disfmarker} added features such as shock proof body and maybe a design to appeal to a lot of people . Findings most people prefer us user-friendly rather than complex remote controls because there are times like uh people have used a remote control for say a year or something and they they are not used maybe thirty to forty percent of the buttons so it's not {disfmarker} of no use of punching in the uh {disfmarker} trying to put in those things in {disfmarker} on the top of the remote control and try to confuse the user . As we saw we we have to make a profit also so we we can maybe go for an economies of a higher production mm by fifty million we said ? Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: with that I think we'll be able to achieve economies of scale also , so we can give in {disfmarker} add in more features and make it less costly . Um , that's {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} if you ask me personally , I would make uh flip-top with a trendy uh uh design and s maybe we we should look at also like the buttons whe whether they are like soft or little hard because they are times when the buttons tend to be a bit hard after uh continuous use {disfmarker} usage and all that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in overall a simple and uh user-friendly design . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh any comments like , if you want ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um , I think we'll chat about it at the end , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay so if anyone wants to write something down that they want to bring up at the end , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ooh , it's vibrating , that's strange . Oh , God . Right , okay . +User Interface: I think you'll have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have I got to keep this here ? +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it matter ? +User Interface: It'll have to {disfmarker} this can't be pulled . +Marketing: I'll have t I'll have to move it won't I ? +Project Manager: We just do the best we can . +Marketing: Uh , whoops . +User Interface: You'll have to push it a bit more . +Marketing: Will it manage ? Bit more , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: oh dear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah this is more than enough . Okay . +Industrial Designer: There we go , I've got a bit more of the cable {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There we go . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah I think you can pull it out now . +Marketing: Thank you , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: just pull it closer a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Uh you should be able to {gap} and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you might . +Industrial Designer: yeah , there you go . +Marketing: Get it right over , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: Ah . Look at that . +Marketing: Okay , um , I'm going to look at the functional requirements from the marketing point of view and uh obviously our starting point with marketing is always market research . {vocalsound} Um , so that's where we started , we used our our usability lab , the company's usability lab , we did our usual selection methods to get a cross-section of the general public , male and female , all age groups from fifteen upwards and um we observed them in the lab , just their general use of the remote control , you can see we had a hundred subjects there . {vocalsound} Our findings , lots of findings , I've just summarised some of them here . The overall thing which I've I've got at the top there in italics is that users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls , so it has obvious design implications there . Um , we found that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Eighty percent would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy , we were quite surprised by that finding , but um that's quite a high proportion of our our , you know , international target group are prepared to spend more money for something that's a bit nicer looking . Um , current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user overall . For example , you can see below there , seventy five percent of users zap a lot , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you've got your person sunk back in the sofa channel-hopping . So again there's power implications there . {vocalsound} Um , fifty percent of users only use ten percent of the buttons , so again a big design issue there . Um and possibly we can also cut back on cost if we don't have so many functions actually on the remote control . Um the biggest frustrations that people found with regard to personal preferences were um something that you you mentioned earlier , uh remote controls are often lost in the room , it's a slipping down the back of the sofa type of thing , uh fifty percent were were particularly frustrated by that . Uh thirty four percent of people take {disfmarker} said they take too much time to learn to use and I think that ties in with the um the previous finding of people only using ten percent of the buttons , they just can't be bothered to learn about the other functions . Um , um slightly more than a quarter of people said it was bad for uh repetitive strain injury . You know those small movements of the remote control can lead to kind of shoulder and elbow problems . Um the vast majority of the thirty five and under age group would like um a liquid crystal display and speech recognition , again that was to aid I think in uh {disfmarker} when they've lost the actual remote control , some kind of speech recognition . Something we didn't put to them , but which I'm thinking of now is um even if perhaps the lost control can give off a bleep every now and again til you find it or a flashing light , possibly . Um , that trend reverses in the older age groups . So thirty fives and unders who would like those two features , that kind of evens out thirty five to forty five and in the older age group it kind of reverses , they're not so bothered with this . {vocalsound} I had marvellous tables and things that I could show you , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: but I think I'll just keep it simple , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: if there's any more information I can email you extra details , +User Interface: {gap} That's fine . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: is that okay ? +Project Manager: Right , um +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: we have new project requirements , um we're not going to be using teletext , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um apparently the consumers consider it outdated with the internet now . Um {vocalsound} our control is only going to be for T_V_ , it's not going to be a combined control , which limits you know all of the different things that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it limits the cost for us , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it also makes it easier to understand for the consumer . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , so can we not programme a video with this remote control ? +Project Manager: It says for T_V_ only , so {vocalsound} looks like it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just channel-hopping . +Project Manager: yeah , I think maybe Sky things like that might be incorporated into it , but {vocalsound} I don't know , what do you think ? It just said , for T_V_ only . But I mean , general T_V_ controls do do video as well . +Marketing: Would that imply video use ? +Industrial Designer: T yeah yeah . I d well I dunno 'cause uh the w if you've g +Project Manager: I mean you bu well som you get com you get combined T_V_ and videos don't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yes . +Industrial Designer: and if you got if you got a Sky box , they have one of those plus boxes , you can record straight off the T_V_ anyway so on to on to like the T_V_ hard drive or so . +Project Manager: Mm . I think we assume that it's still got play and stop functions and {vocalsound} programming . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Anything about that on the market research or something like regarding whether people want a combined something like that ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um we didn't really look into that but remember we found that finding that most people only use about uh ten percent of the buttons , +User Interface: Ten perc +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think th th those do tend to be the basic channel-hopping things and on and off for the video , fast-forwarding , so on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's sort of general knowledge that people do find programming their videos a nightmare {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ju um just as an idea on the uh speech recognition thing that pr it'd probably be quite expensive to incorporate an entire speech recognition thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Pens +Industrial Designer: and they're not that great anyway . +Marketing: In fact I've just called up that table there , +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: we asked those two questions , the table relates to both questions , so we didn't differentiate . Would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen , that's multi-function remote and would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: So you can see how the the yes no sort of varies across the age group there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and a substantial number of don't knows in the older age group , I think that's just general fear of new technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but um on on that again I just thought {disfmarker} 'cause you can get those key chains now and you whistle and then it'll let off a loud noise to let you know where it is +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: bu +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I thought that could be quite a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We do have a budget limitation that we can't control ourselves , so I think when we can take a cheaper option which still does the same kinda thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um because it is something I {disfmarker} it needs to be {disfmarker} the thing that you use to find it needs to be something that you don't lose , you were saying whistling , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe {vocalsound} on the T_V_ {disfmarker} you could put like a pack on the T_V_ or something so you can't see the remote , you go and press the button on top of the T_V_ and it beeps +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and you're like oh okay it's over there , something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . That's a super idea . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} that sounds a lot cheaper to me . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the third thing was that we have to make sure the corporate image is very much incorporated into the handset . Um so we want logo , we want um fashionable , trendy , I mean what you were talking about with the marketing . Um , people paying more for it to look good . Um , we need to focus on that as well . +Marketing: Yes , further market research will be needed to kind of focus on what that is , it's gonna be different for a fifteen year old th for somebody who's sixty +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and also across the world if we're aiming at the international market . What is um attractive to a trendy New Yorker and what is attractive to a retired South African , I dunno , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you get the idea . It's it's gonna vary around the world . At the end of the day , th the engineering design is one thing , it's the user interface design that may {disfmarker} and th the sort of you know fashionable aspect of it we might have to change for different markets round the world . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So are we talking of a single model or maybe five , six designs {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Well y yeah you could you could have a number of different designs +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: I mean inside they'd be essentially exactly the same . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The features could be same and the body could look slightly different . +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about {disfmarker} you were talking about the buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um the controls that are coming out now have kind of big , rubber buttons , not tiny little one , big , rubber buttons , but what about , I mean , 'cause we got to make it original , what about um you know with the touch screen computers +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Yeah , yeah that's what I was just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um so you {disfmarker} it's like a little panel that you touch rather than a button which shouldn't wear out as much either , not sure about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No , well no 'cause you wouldn't have to {disfmarker} you don't actually have to press them you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't have to press it , you just have to put your thumb onto it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , think that might appeal {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of Japan , I'm thinking uh young , um office people , +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: trendy kind of a thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes it will appeal to sections of the market def +Project Manager: Um , but quite , um , easily labelled so that anyone can {gap} oh yeah that's obvious what that's for +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and it's not daunting to maybe the older generations , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But also er ergonomics as we're saying with the different designs , ergonomics uh there's sort of physically different things 'cause um {vocalsound} if you've ever seen the X_ Box they had to make two different sized controllers because people in Japan wouldn't buy it because the controller was physically to big +Project Manager: Were too big . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} they're c uh just generally Japanese people have smaller hands +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they couldn't get round the controller which is uh {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} 'cause you {disfmarker} obviously you can have bigger buttons for some countries or something and smaller ones for others . +User Interface: Yeah , uh maybe to {disfmarker} as uh {disfmarker} it it was indicated that uh uh risk uh of uh repeated use , the injuries , maybe a touch screen could be a better option for that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So , a bigger b okay so y you're dividing designs based on not only segment age groups , you're desi uh dividing it according to the countries also , the market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe for U_S_ and all you can have a slightly bigger remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe in Japan and all you need to have a small , yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to design one product +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Huh . +Project Manager: and then the company can take it wherever they want to uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: in the sense that they can make it smaller , or they can make it bigger or they can change the features slightly , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Th the internal d engineering design has got to remain the same , yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: It's gonna be the same , so we need to focus on just one thing , not get bogged down in lots of different um possibilities , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . I'm concerned , when you read the the R_S_I_ issue again , repetitive strain injury , I don't think just moving your finger around on a small screen is going to deal with that enough , I think that is still a kind of a question mark issue how we deal with that . Um , R_S_I_ tends to be caused by repetitive small movements . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm j I really can't get my head round this one , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: this may have to be postponed to a future meeting but it's something we should think about . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah I was just thinking about how you could combat that 'cause {disfmarker} without without doing something where you have to move your arm around to change the channel +Marketing: Mm . I know , and it becomes ridiculous , yes I know . +Industrial Designer: and it becomes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or a speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which is extremely expensive , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's the only way that you kind of avoid that kind of issue . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Mm-hmm . Do we have to initially um , you know looking at the findings here , focus on a younger age group initially and then broaden out the market later . Do we really have to go for everyone right away ? Um . +User Interface: We could focus on the biggest market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: If say people between age group of twenty to thirty five are the biggest market ? +Industrial Designer: Ge uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And when we've been throwing up our ideas we're automatically talking about business people , young people , trendy people . +Project Manager: We are {disfmarker} we're talking about um the type of company that we're working for as well . That they want um it to be fashionable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they want it to be trendy and you wouldn't automatically assume {disfmarker} associate that with the older generations . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now with the baby boomers , the older generations are actually larger , they have a greater population than us young people , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but I don't think we're focusing on that , I think we are focusing on a sort of mid-range um , business kind of class type people . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I'm just thinking of budgetary issues too , for when it does get to the sort of broad scale marketing stage , we want to , you know , not waste money , not be profligate +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh you know focus on where the idea will be taken up , first {disfmarker} it's most likely to be taken up first of all where the main purchasing power is coming from for a product like this . +Project Manager: Okay , so the remote control functions . Um we've got the T_V_ , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we've got the video , now there's um I can't remember what it's called , the little code at the end of programme details , +Industrial Designer: Video plus . +Project Manager: yes . We could use that as an alternative to programming in times , things like that , is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I always found that really easy when I discovered it , um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you've got your general record anyway so if you {disfmarker} there's a programme on you want to put record on , that's fine , but if you do want to tape something in two days time and you're not sure if you're going to , you put the number in +Industrial Designer: Just whack in the number . +Project Manager: and it's just a number , it's not a date , it's not a time , it's not a channel , it's not when it finishes , it's not anything like that , +Industrial Designer: And you w {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just a number . +Industrial Designer: yeah . And you wouldn't you wouldn't need uh a whole host of extra buttons for that , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: you just need one 'cause you've already got all the numbers there anyway , +Project Manager: You've already got the numbers for typing in anyway . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Right , I've not come across that function but it sounds wonderful {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: after um {disfmarker} if you look in the newspaper , T_V_ guide or any T_V_ guide there's a five , six digit number afterwards +Industrial Designer: It's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that's the number you put in and it's recorded that it's going to be on on Tuesdays at ten o'clock on the seventeenth +Marketing: Ah , hmm . +Project Manager: so you don't have to worry about dates and you don't have to worry about times , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: um and it has been around for quite a long time . +Industrial Designer: It's been been around for a long time it's just it's not very well advertised as to how to use it and things . +Project Manager: No it's not um but I think if awareness was kind of brought to the forefront about that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Superb . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Though if y if you've got something like Sky anyway you can just click on it {disfmarker} you can just press the button on the programme once and it'll record that programme when it's on +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and you press it on it twice and it'll record the whole series . +Marketing: Excellent , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But just to have that function would be would be really good . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just run this past you while it occurs to me , I don't mean to quickly jump from one subject to another , but just discussing the different age groups and targeting the different age groups it occurs to me , {gap} to produce our own mobile phones , that that's kind of what led us on to comparing T_V_ remote controls with with their design features , um , chain companies like Carphone Warehouse , you can pop in anytime with a phone that you bought for them w if you've got any problems with it and they'll fix it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they'll phone the company , you can use their telephones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Is it worthwhile with with our retail outlets having a a similar um kind of service so that if older users were deterred from buying this , if they know they can just pop into one of our high street outlets , th you know , which button is it I press for this ? Th as free as a free aspect of our service , would that not make it more attractive to them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But the only problem is that with a mobile phone you signed for a contract so they um {disfmarker} the companies who uh who you deal with have actually {disfmarker} they've they've got an obligation to to help you out +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also {disfmarker} I mean it's it's fair enough to have some sort of help service but I I'm not sure how much the cost would be of having {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The functionality of it in the sense that you're sitting there , you're pressing this button and your T_V_'s not doing it . Taking your T_V_ and your control and saying look this is what I'm doing , it's not working , what should I do ? +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} Yes +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it was something as simple as you couldn't change the channel , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: but I mean for {disfmarker} if there were any more {disfmarker} or are we absolutely definite it's only gonna be for T_V_ and video , +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: we're not gonna put any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} okay , just a thought . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean instru instruction books I feel c I reckon can cover that . +Project Manager: Instruction manuals . But I mean they're {disfmarker} there's customer service , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: there will be a customer service number thing that you can phone up and speak to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Department , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Project Manager: and that way there's no call out charge , there's no extra , t the person has to walk to a shop on the high street , um . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it will be too much of an effort for a person to {disfmarker} for a phone maybe he might walk down the street , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but for a remote he will just refer to the manual and all that . +Industrial Designer: And they're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not for such simple functions +Industrial Designer: yeah , they should be f yeah . +Marketing: because we're focusing on that , +Project Manager: Mm . But we should focus on making the manual as user-friendly as possible +Marketing: yes okay . +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: because a lot of them are just tiny little writing and lots and lots of pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Puts people off reading them so they just do the obvious , yes . +Project Manager: It does , +Industrial Designer: It's the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you just put it in the drawer until something goes wrong +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: and then you try and search through it , so that should be something we think about . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , what other functions ? We need {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we need a design um decision now , but we should think about {disfmarker} c 'cause you've got the dilemma between {disfmarker} oh batteries , that's what I was thinking about . Mobile phone batteries , what kinda battery is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're they're specially made for the for the mobile phones , but they come with a charger , I mean you could you could bundle a charger in with it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they la they they last quite a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and if you had uh {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} th the thing that you get with mobile house phones , you sit it in its charger when you're not using it or t at night or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it doesn't really matter 'cause it never really runs out 'cause it lasts a long time once it is charged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , something like that should reduce the size of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if {disfmarker} yeah if you if you had if you had one of those {disfmarker} uh just coming back to your other point about pressing the button and setting off the bleeper in the room that could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it could be on that {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah on that as well so . +User Interface: So are we talking of a concept of a rechargeable something on the remote ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: some sort of docking station or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Rechargeable with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: So the rechargeable which would be your field . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah th yeah that that'd be fine , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also that would mean they wouldn't have to go out buying batteries all the time . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which it is cheaper in the long run as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , th the shape you got trendy . I don't wanna big box with lots of things , you don't want a tiny sort of little thing either , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because then you have got the repetitive strain injury no matter how many {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much you try and make it simple , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we don't w I mean so many remote controls look absolutely identical , +Project Manager: They do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: these long , brown things with the same coloured buttons all crammed in on the s the surface . We definitely {disfmarker} an ob an obvious thing , a very simple thing is to get away from these brown rectangles , we don't want that . +Project Manager: Okay so we've got a flip-screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking of a design which Nokia h uh came up with almost six or seven years back . Basically we have a flat one it it looks like a box , like a chocolate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's very strenuous because your thumb is slightly up , so they came up with something like this , curled up , so here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you don't have to {disfmarker} you don't bend your thumb too much , so it's like uh you can say a banana shape kind of thing , curled up like a boat . +Marketing: Slightly curved , curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: G uh so what happens is you don't have to press your thumb too down like . So it's already curled up so your thumb doesn't +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it's kind of moulded to your hand anyway . +User Interface: y yeah so we can have a s like you know moulded according to your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: the way you h hold of {disfmarker} it's kind of semi-circular in the bottom , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I wouldn't say exactly semi-circular but yeah smooth . +Project Manager: Can you look into the company logo ? Um , things that are associated with the company in view to trying to incorporate that into the design of the product . +User Interface: Current . +Project Manager: I mean for example , if it was a C_ or something like that , you could have it in a vague C_ shape that opens up kind of like a shell , or something , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um something along those lines to be able to incorporate it quite um obviously into the design , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: while also making it quite different from anything else that's there . +User Interface: We could look in at that but {disfmarker} Mm . What we were talking is to make it more rather than like sea-shells , +Marketing: I mean look at the mobile . +User Interface: logo could become as {disfmarker} you could put a logo in the corner of uh the model , rather than you know , trying to make it like a sea shell or whatever you were ta telling like . +Project Manager: Well we need to think about how it's gonna look different . +Marketing: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that sounds a really attractive idea , +User Interface: A sea shell ? +Marketing: I've not come across anything like that before , if it kind of {disfmarker} yeah and that opens out into your flip-top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then it's nice t to h you can make it lightweight plastic , nice to hold in the palm of the hand and just because you're having to actually insert in between the two covers , that's gonna take care of some of the repetitive strain injury trying p prevent a lot of that I would think . I think it's a really nice idea +User Interface: Yeah we could look in at that . +Marketing: and plus you can get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know even though we're using plastic , you can still {disfmarker} I mean think of the designs you can get in plastic , we can do a nice conch shell or scallop shell exterior . +Project Manager: Or you could do um different , like you get with mobile phones , different fascias . You could have different kind of casings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you could have like psychedelic ones for younger people and sleek ones and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Less chance of it being lost too , it's not like a chocolate brown lozenge that's gonna go down the sofa +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and people might want to put it on their mantelpiece or whatever as a ki if it looks attractive enough as a kind of ornament they don't {disfmarker} not gonna lose it so much {vocalsound} either . It's easier to {disfmarker} bit nice to handle . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah maybe we could come at some say five , six des designs and then choose which are {disfmarker} whichever appeals the most like , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: that could be the most common design . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we can like think of five , six designs . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , I think we have to round it up , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just quickly um go over the new project requirements so that I haven't missed anything . +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: So it's no teletext , it's only for T_V_ and by implication video , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: our corporate image should be incorporated in the remote control , um something about Videoplus . +Project Manager: That was um in cutting down the number {disfmarker} that was kinda separate that was cutting down the number of functions , making it simpler so instead of having lots of things you put in for date {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . Right , so when they press for programming you {disfmarker} it comes up on the L_C_D_ , a reminder about using Videoplus ? So that they have a look at the guide and {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} is this nothing to do with the project requirements , is this just {disfmarker} that was an add-on feature ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} kinda takes the place of having a button to press for the date and having the button to press for the channel , things like that . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Right . Right , so it's kind of doing away with the programming feature ? +Project Manager: Um it could be it c It {disfmarker} yes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be uh adv advertisement feature , um rather than design feature , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: you know , drawing attention to that . And it also paid um lip service in the instruction manual , 'cause it's very simple so putting it down in words should be helpful . +Marketing: Mm , and the rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Was there anything else there that we {disfmarker} in the new new project requirements ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: We've got the buttons but I think we'll work through that with the design of it , um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's not at the moment a requirement , it's something we're looking at , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: what preference {disfmarker} so it may come round to market research at some point to see what people would like . +Project Manager: And we've talked about um there being an alarm or something , a beeping for being lost , um . +User Interface: For detection , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Learning how to use it should be as simple as possible . But there aren't gonna be that func that many functions incorporated into it so it should be fine and the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the instruction manual , I don't know if we deal with that , um . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , +Project Manager: Yep , +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and different from what's out there . Yep , I think that's us . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: What would you specifically like marketing to look at before the next meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or shall I just sort of generally look at all the issues involved ? +Project Manager: I think you might get guidance , but um I th Instruction manuals , 'cause there tends to be a demonised thing , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: u um , they're {disfmarker} everyone's got like a big pile of them , but no one really uses them . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Whoops , questionnaire four . +User Interface: We should f +Project Manager: Yes , right . Okay . +User Interface: I think it's time for us to get back to {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we're at lunchtime now I think . +Project Manager: Right , okay . I think you can email me , if there's any more questions . Um and I'll be able to not answer them . +","In a project meeting about a universal TV remote control design, the team discusses various aspects like marketing research findings, user interface concepts, and industrial design considerations such as battery size and type. They agree the product should be accessible, reflect the company’s trendy image, and they also consider using rechargeable batteries and a docking station. The marketing team will focus on user-friendly instruction manuals next. The remote should stand out, potentially through a shell design, with possibly a variety of fascias for customization and appeal to different demographics. Key points include aligning with a youthful, trendy corporate image and ensuring functions are simple to address issues like repetitive strain injury. The remote won't include teletext, just TV and possibly video control, and may use Videoplus for simpler programming. The meeting ends with the decision to email follow-up questions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","In a recent conceptual design meeting led by the Project Manager, team members from Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Design gathered to discuss the development of a remote control product targeting young business-minded consumers. The discussion centered around properties, materials, user interfaces, and incorporation of current trends into the design. + +The meeting began with the typical pre-meeting set up, evidenced by minor hiccups such as ""Oops"" from the User Interface representative and a small note of ""good grief"" from Marketing, suggesting a little frustration or habitual stress in the group dynamics. + +The project had various constraints and updates. It was noted that teletext could not be used as a universal control mechanism and that voice recognition was no longer being considered due to prior decision-making. A new flip design was proposed with an original shape that deviated from the market norm. + +The Industrial Designer had been investigating rechargeable batteries, with a few options like standard AA and AAA batteries, dynamo charging, solar charging, and kinetic charging being debated. Dynamo charging was dismissed as impractical, and concerns about the practicality of solar charging due to inadequate lighting conditions were expressed. Ultimately, kinetic charging appeared as a favorable option, akin to the technology in wristwatches, due to its low maintenance and continuous charge from movement. + +Marketing presented the need for trend-watching, conscientiously integrating feedback from a hundred person market study and insights from fashion consultants in Paris and Milan. The feedback highlighted the consumer preference for remote controls with a stylish appearance over purely functional designs. In particular, vibrant, fresh designs inspired by upcoming fashion trends like fruit and vegetable themes were discussed, including the incorporation of spongy materials as opposed to the traditional hard plastics. + +A significant discussion revolved around the design and functionality of the remote. There was talk of a dual-layered approach with standard buttons for common features like volume and channel control, coupled with an advanced interactive LCD screen for additional controls. The interface would minimize clutter and confusion by consistent design choices and possibly integrate voice recognition, making the device locatable by voice prompts – a 'where is the remote' function that would lead the remote to audibly respond or emit a sound. + +A variety of charging and power options were considered, from conventional batteries to innovative methods like integrated solar or kinetic charging. The group agreed on a kinetic charging mechanism due to its convenience and the elegance it would add to the design. A decision was made to go with a plastic shell case, customizable and retail-friendly with a rubber overlay for a spongy feel, reflecting the fashion trends. + +Voice recognition emerged as a prominent feature with potential appeal but hinged on financial viability. The team aimed to push the boundaries of design, considering the adaptability and desirability of new features, including user personalization in changing the remote's exterior rubber casings according to fashion and personal preference. + +The key takeaways from the meeting reflected a heavy focus on a product that blended the latest trends, offered personalization, and addressed usability with technological innovation. The team developed a common vision for a remote control that would captivate their target market through unique design elements, practical features, and a focus on customer experience. + +Before wrapping up, they reviewed decisions such as the kinetic charging choice, plastic and rubber materials for the case, an internal LCD display, compatibility with market trends, and the need for further cost analysis on voice recognition. A follow-up questionnaire or feedback session seemed likely to confirm the direction and finalize the design considerations, promising attendees with a clear vision of the path forward." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Help . {gap} It's up there ? That screen's black . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay . Okay , that's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: Are we done ? Right , okay um , this is our second meeting and I might be a bit all over the place . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , right our agenda for today , do you want us to give you a second ? +Marketing: Uh , no that's okay , +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: I'll go over what we decided last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , we decided upon a universal control , one handset for all , T_V_ , video equipment . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Um , that it was important that the product was accessible to a wide range of consumers , wide age range , not limiting anyone . We decided it was important to reflect the company's image in our product , we put fashion in electronics , you know that kind of s thing . Um , our budget would have to affect um {disfmarker} try not to reflect our budget , um that we might have a bit of {disfmarker} oh oh you can see it , okay {vocalsound} . Um dissonance between what our budget was and what we want it to look like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um want it to look uncluttered , undaunting to the customer . We discussed a flip-open design , um reducing the size of the control and an electronic panel um for further features like programming , things like that . Okay . Um , three presentations , I've got written here so shall we hear from Marketing first ? +Marketing: Um is it okay if I postpone that til later , I just want to get access to a little bit more information , +Project Manager: No that's fine , that's fine . {gap} +Marketing: is that okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah I'll go first . Can I grab the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unplug me . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . What do I have to press ? Oh , F_ eight ? +Project Manager: Um , F_N_ function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . Okay . Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep there we go . Okay this is uh the working design , presented by me , the uh Industrial Designer extraordinaire . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , this is where I went a bit mad with PowerPoint so . What {disfmarker} the first thing {disfmarker} question I asked was what are we trying to design ? Well , a device which basically just sends the signal to the T_V_ to change its state , whether that be the power , or the channel um or the volume , everything is just um some sort of signal to change the state of the T_V_ or other appliance that it's sending the signal to . Um , so I decided I'd have a look at what th other people have designed and try and take some inspiration from that . But uh although we will want to be taking ideas from other people , we wanna make sure that our design stands out and I thought that was something that {disfmarker} well it wasn't really my area because {vocalsound} I'm dealing with the inside really . So um , yeah I ran out of time so I couldn't do this one as fun as the last one {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and uh {vocalsound} I found out that most uh controls use some form of infrared to send signals to the T_V_ presumably because of the cost issue of uh something like uh the same thing that computers use , wireless and , you don't need to send very much information . Um , most of them are powered by some form of battery . Now our one , I'm I'm not sure whether we want to look at the size issue because most of them are powered by triple A_ batteries but those can be quite bulky so I d I didn't know if you wanted to look at something else um so we could shrink down the size of the control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Could I {disfmarker} can I interject to ask a question there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: is that appropriate ? You're saying the triple A_ batteries are small or the {gap} surrounding it ? +Industrial Designer: Um no no , if you if you look at if you look at most remote controls they're quite they're quite chunky and that's because of the size of the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: they have to be obviously this certain size to fit those batteries in . +Marketing: Right , the triple A_s are the smallest you can get are they not , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: They are . +Industrial Designer: well you can you can get the sort of circular round ones but I'm just wondering about power consumption +Marketing: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: and how much you need to send the data across . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , and d which leads sort of onto the next point about 'em being small and easy to carry round . Um , now the ones at the moment are small but I was just wondering if we could look at something a bit smaller . {vocalsound} Now the main components I came up with um were obviously the power source for the batteries 'cause otherwise it's not gonna work , uh as I said about the {disfmarker} w which batteries we were gonna choose , we can uh discuss that later and then you obviously need something to decode the information that you're putting in from from the controller Now these have a wireless range of up to about five metres which is sort of suitable for anyone who's watching the T_V_ unless they're in a cinema , which not most people do so as we're applying to the most audience that should be fine . And then I was uh {disfmarker} just had a quick look at the external design but I d I left that mostly to the uh interface designer . And so this is what I had as the basic idea of what we wanna do . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's not a proper circuit , I'm not sure if it'd work or not , I'm not even confident that those are the real um the real way you'd wire it up but anyway , we've just got the the power going to the infrared bulb with the chip and the {vocalsound} uh U_I_ interface um which would basically , when you when you pressed anything it would {disfmarker} the chip would convert it into some form of I_R_ data which could be decoded by the T_V_ receiver , which obviously means that we're gonna have to conform to {vocalsound} whatever um whatever form of communication that the T_V_s are already using and since that that's another use and {disfmarker} reason to use that infrared because that's what all T_V_s use at the moment . And then finally , um we want uh the {disfmarker} it to be available to a wide audience at a low cost so all the components that I've put forward are uh low in cost so that that should be good . Um it should should be different enough um from the alternative products to get a good consumer base , we were talking about it before and also just something that I was thinking about , uh because they're small they're also easy to lose so if we could look into some way of {disfmarker} d dunno some anti-going down the side of the sofa {vocalsound} thing that you could have , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} th that was just sort of a general point there . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And that's uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: That's a very important part , it came up in our market research findings too so I can refer to that , whenever you like me to present . +Industrial Designer: Alright okay , and yeah , that's that's what I came up with there , +Project Manager: Okay , thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: so if you wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , would you like to continue on from that ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: 'Kay . It can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or , maybe move the laptop over . +User Interface: okay , that's okay with me . {gap} further . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Oops . Why's it not working ? F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: F_ function . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Mm why's it in the right ? +Marketing: No . The plug hasn't come out at the bottom , has it ? No . +User Interface: Yeah , it's connecting {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , no yeah it's just {gap} . +Marketing: Meter adjusting . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Oh , there {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . Actually mm some of my points might overlap with what William's just mention , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but basically my method was like uh whatever brainstorming we did in the last meeting , just a couple of valuable points and started developing on that and there might be some missing loops in this thing which I think we'll uh take a feedback from the marketing because um , I haven't had some marketing data and basically every product is marketable . So purpose , as William already said , I would put it to simplify the interaction with T_V_ to make make it as simple as possible . And to summarise I I would say it's {disfmarker} it should be user-friendly by being easy to use , rather than having a lot of complex button because you can have an engineering {gap} maybe having hundred buttons and maybe having uh a remote control which has the main features like volume control or channel ch changing the channel or whatever . But we are to to make it unique so that people want to buy it , will {gap} this two features together . So what the concept is to have a flip-top model . The main functions such as which are like often used will be on the top and the complex functions which say you {disfmarker} you can say like the y young generation or trendy generation want to pr say programme their favourite channels or whatever , can be put in the middle part of the f flip-top . So it's like {disfmarker} it could be accessed by a wide ra range of uh audience and we can punch in new f features such as uh {disfmarker} added features such as shock proof body and maybe a design to appeal to a lot of people . Findings most people prefer us user-friendly rather than complex remote controls because there are times like uh people have used a remote control for say a year or something and they they are not used maybe thirty to forty percent of the buttons so it's not {disfmarker} of no use of punching in the uh {disfmarker} trying to put in those things in {disfmarker} on the top of the remote control and try to confuse the user . As we saw we we have to make a profit also so we we can maybe go for an economies of a higher production mm by fifty million we said ? Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: with that I think we'll be able to achieve economies of scale also , so we can give in {disfmarker} add in more features and make it less costly . Um , that's {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} if you ask me personally , I would make uh flip-top with a trendy uh uh design and s maybe we we should look at also like the buttons whe whether they are like soft or little hard because they are times when the buttons tend to be a bit hard after uh continuous use {disfmarker} usage and all that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in overall a simple and uh user-friendly design . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh any comments like , if you want ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um , I think we'll chat about it at the end , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay so if anyone wants to write something down that they want to bring up at the end , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ooh , it's vibrating , that's strange . Oh , God . Right , okay . +User Interface: I think you'll have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have I got to keep this here ? +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it matter ? +User Interface: It'll have to {disfmarker} this can't be pulled . +Marketing: I'll have t I'll have to move it won't I ? +Project Manager: We just do the best we can . +Marketing: Uh , whoops . +User Interface: You'll have to push it a bit more . +Marketing: Will it manage ? Bit more , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: oh dear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah this is more than enough . Okay . +Industrial Designer: There we go , I've got a bit more of the cable {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There we go . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah I think you can pull it out now . +Marketing: Thank you , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: just pull it closer a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Uh you should be able to {gap} and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you might . +Industrial Designer: yeah , there you go . +Marketing: Get it right over , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: Ah . Look at that . +Marketing: Okay , um , I'm going to look at the functional requirements from the marketing point of view and uh obviously our starting point with marketing is always market research . {vocalsound} Um , so that's where we started , we used our our usability lab , the company's usability lab , we did our usual selection methods to get a cross-section of the general public , male and female , all age groups from fifteen upwards and um we observed them in the lab , just their general use of the remote control , you can see we had a hundred subjects there . {vocalsound} Our findings , lots of findings , I've just summarised some of them here . The overall thing which I've I've got at the top there in italics is that users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls , so it has obvious design implications there . Um , we found that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Eighty percent would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy , we were quite surprised by that finding , but um that's quite a high proportion of our our , you know , international target group are prepared to spend more money for something that's a bit nicer looking . Um , current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user overall . For example , you can see below there , seventy five percent of users zap a lot , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you've got your person sunk back in the sofa channel-hopping . So again there's power implications there . {vocalsound} Um , fifty percent of users only use ten percent of the buttons , so again a big design issue there . Um and possibly we can also cut back on cost if we don't have so many functions actually on the remote control . Um the biggest frustrations that people found with regard to personal preferences were um something that you you mentioned earlier , uh remote controls are often lost in the room , it's a slipping down the back of the sofa type of thing , uh fifty percent were were particularly frustrated by that . Uh thirty four percent of people take {disfmarker} said they take too much time to learn to use and I think that ties in with the um the previous finding of people only using ten percent of the buttons , they just can't be bothered to learn about the other functions . Um , um slightly more than a quarter of people said it was bad for uh repetitive strain injury . You know those small movements of the remote control can lead to kind of shoulder and elbow problems . Um the vast majority of the thirty five and under age group would like um a liquid crystal display and speech recognition , again that was to aid I think in uh {disfmarker} when they've lost the actual remote control , some kind of speech recognition . Something we didn't put to them , but which I'm thinking of now is um even if perhaps the lost control can give off a bleep every now and again til you find it or a flashing light , possibly . Um , that trend reverses in the older age groups . So thirty fives and unders who would like those two features , that kind of evens out thirty five to forty five and in the older age group it kind of reverses , they're not so bothered with this . {vocalsound} I had marvellous tables and things that I could show you , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: but I think I'll just keep it simple , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: if there's any more information I can email you extra details , +User Interface: {gap} That's fine . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: is that okay ? +Project Manager: Right , um +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: we have new project requirements , um we're not going to be using teletext , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um apparently the consumers consider it outdated with the internet now . Um {vocalsound} our control is only going to be for T_V_ , it's not going to be a combined control , which limits you know all of the different things that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it limits the cost for us , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it also makes it easier to understand for the consumer . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , so can we not programme a video with this remote control ? +Project Manager: It says for T_V_ only , so {vocalsound} looks like it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just channel-hopping . +Project Manager: yeah , I think maybe Sky things like that might be incorporated into it , but {vocalsound} I don't know , what do you think ? It just said , for T_V_ only . But I mean , general T_V_ controls do do video as well . +Marketing: Would that imply video use ? +Industrial Designer: T yeah yeah . I d well I dunno 'cause uh the w if you've g +Project Manager: I mean you bu well som you get com you get combined T_V_ and videos don't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yes . +Industrial Designer: and if you got if you got a Sky box , they have one of those plus boxes , you can record straight off the T_V_ anyway so on to on to like the T_V_ hard drive or so . +Project Manager: Mm . I think we assume that it's still got play and stop functions and {vocalsound} programming . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Anything about that on the market research or something like regarding whether people want a combined something like that ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um we didn't really look into that but remember we found that finding that most people only use about uh ten percent of the buttons , +User Interface: Ten perc +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think th th those do tend to be the basic channel-hopping things and on and off for the video , fast-forwarding , so on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's sort of general knowledge that people do find programming their videos a nightmare {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ju um just as an idea on the uh speech recognition thing that pr it'd probably be quite expensive to incorporate an entire speech recognition thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Pens +Industrial Designer: and they're not that great anyway . +Marketing: In fact I've just called up that table there , +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: we asked those two questions , the table relates to both questions , so we didn't differentiate . Would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen , that's multi-function remote and would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: So you can see how the the yes no sort of varies across the age group there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and a substantial number of don't knows in the older age group , I think that's just general fear of new technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but um on on that again I just thought {disfmarker} 'cause you can get those key chains now and you whistle and then it'll let off a loud noise to let you know where it is +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: bu +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I thought that could be quite a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We do have a budget limitation that we can't control ourselves , so I think when we can take a cheaper option which still does the same kinda thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um because it is something I {disfmarker} it needs to be {disfmarker} the thing that you use to find it needs to be something that you don't lose , you were saying whistling , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe {vocalsound} on the T_V_ {disfmarker} you could put like a pack on the T_V_ or something so you can't see the remote , you go and press the button on top of the T_V_ and it beeps +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and you're like oh okay it's over there , something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . That's a super idea . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} that sounds a lot cheaper to me . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the third thing was that we have to make sure the corporate image is very much incorporated into the handset . Um so we want logo , we want um fashionable , trendy , I mean what you were talking about with the marketing . Um , people paying more for it to look good . Um , we need to focus on that as well . +Marketing: Yes , further market research will be needed to kind of focus on what that is , it's gonna be different for a fifteen year old th for somebody who's sixty +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and also across the world if we're aiming at the international market . What is um attractive to a trendy New Yorker and what is attractive to a retired South African , I dunno , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you get the idea . It's it's gonna vary around the world . At the end of the day , th the engineering design is one thing , it's the user interface design that may {disfmarker} and th the sort of you know fashionable aspect of it we might have to change for different markets round the world . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So are we talking of a single model or maybe five , six designs {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Well y yeah you could you could have a number of different designs +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: I mean inside they'd be essentially exactly the same . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The features could be same and the body could look slightly different . +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about {disfmarker} you were talking about the buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um the controls that are coming out now have kind of big , rubber buttons , not tiny little one , big , rubber buttons , but what about , I mean , 'cause we got to make it original , what about um you know with the touch screen computers +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Yeah , yeah that's what I was just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um so you {disfmarker} it's like a little panel that you touch rather than a button which shouldn't wear out as much either , not sure about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No , well no 'cause you wouldn't have to {disfmarker} you don't actually have to press them you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't have to press it , you just have to put your thumb onto it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , think that might appeal {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of Japan , I'm thinking uh young , um office people , +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: trendy kind of a thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes it will appeal to sections of the market def +Project Manager: Um , but quite , um , easily labelled so that anyone can {gap} oh yeah that's obvious what that's for +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and it's not daunting to maybe the older generations , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But also er ergonomics as we're saying with the different designs , ergonomics uh there's sort of physically different things 'cause um {vocalsound} if you've ever seen the X_ Box they had to make two different sized controllers because people in Japan wouldn't buy it because the controller was physically to big +Project Manager: Were too big . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} they're c uh just generally Japanese people have smaller hands +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they couldn't get round the controller which is uh {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} 'cause you {disfmarker} obviously you can have bigger buttons for some countries or something and smaller ones for others . +User Interface: Yeah , uh maybe to {disfmarker} as uh {disfmarker} it it was indicated that uh uh risk uh of uh repeated use , the injuries , maybe a touch screen could be a better option for that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So , a bigger b okay so y you're dividing designs based on not only segment age groups , you're desi uh dividing it according to the countries also , the market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe for U_S_ and all you can have a slightly bigger remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe in Japan and all you need to have a small , yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to design one product +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Huh . +Project Manager: and then the company can take it wherever they want to uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: in the sense that they can make it smaller , or they can make it bigger or they can change the features slightly , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Th the internal d engineering design has got to remain the same , yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: It's gonna be the same , so we need to focus on just one thing , not get bogged down in lots of different um possibilities , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . I'm concerned , when you read the the R_S_I_ issue again , repetitive strain injury , I don't think just moving your finger around on a small screen is going to deal with that enough , I think that is still a kind of a question mark issue how we deal with that . Um , R_S_I_ tends to be caused by repetitive small movements . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm j I really can't get my head round this one , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: this may have to be postponed to a future meeting but it's something we should think about . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah I was just thinking about how you could combat that 'cause {disfmarker} without without doing something where you have to move your arm around to change the channel +Marketing: Mm . I know , and it becomes ridiculous , yes I know . +Industrial Designer: and it becomes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or a speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which is extremely expensive , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's the only way that you kind of avoid that kind of issue . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Mm-hmm . Do we have to initially um , you know looking at the findings here , focus on a younger age group initially and then broaden out the market later . Do we really have to go for everyone right away ? Um . +User Interface: We could focus on the biggest market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: If say people between age group of twenty to thirty five are the biggest market ? +Industrial Designer: Ge uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And when we've been throwing up our ideas we're automatically talking about business people , young people , trendy people . +Project Manager: We are {disfmarker} we're talking about um the type of company that we're working for as well . That they want um it to be fashionable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they want it to be trendy and you wouldn't automatically assume {disfmarker} associate that with the older generations . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now with the baby boomers , the older generations are actually larger , they have a greater population than us young people , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but I don't think we're focusing on that , I think we are focusing on a sort of mid-range um , business kind of class type people . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I'm just thinking of budgetary issues too , for when it does get to the sort of broad scale marketing stage , we want to , you know , not waste money , not be profligate +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh you know focus on where the idea will be taken up , first {disfmarker} it's most likely to be taken up first of all where the main purchasing power is coming from for a product like this . +Project Manager: Okay , so the remote control functions . Um we've got the T_V_ , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we've got the video , now there's um I can't remember what it's called , the little code at the end of programme details , +Industrial Designer: Video plus . +Project Manager: yes . We could use that as an alternative to programming in times , things like that , is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I always found that really easy when I discovered it , um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you've got your general record anyway so if you {disfmarker} there's a programme on you want to put record on , that's fine , but if you do want to tape something in two days time and you're not sure if you're going to , you put the number in +Industrial Designer: Just whack in the number . +Project Manager: and it's just a number , it's not a date , it's not a time , it's not a channel , it's not when it finishes , it's not anything like that , +Industrial Designer: And you w {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just a number . +Industrial Designer: yeah . And you wouldn't you wouldn't need uh a whole host of extra buttons for that , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: you just need one 'cause you've already got all the numbers there anyway , +Project Manager: You've already got the numbers for typing in anyway . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Right , I've not come across that function but it sounds wonderful {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: after um {disfmarker} if you look in the newspaper , T_V_ guide or any T_V_ guide there's a five , six digit number afterwards +Industrial Designer: It's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that's the number you put in and it's recorded that it's going to be on on Tuesdays at ten o'clock on the seventeenth +Marketing: Ah , hmm . +Project Manager: so you don't have to worry about dates and you don't have to worry about times , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: um and it has been around for quite a long time . +Industrial Designer: It's been been around for a long time it's just it's not very well advertised as to how to use it and things . +Project Manager: No it's not um but I think if awareness was kind of brought to the forefront about that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Superb . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Though if y if you've got something like Sky anyway you can just click on it {disfmarker} you can just press the button on the programme once and it'll record that programme when it's on +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and you press it on it twice and it'll record the whole series . +Marketing: Excellent , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But just to have that function would be would be really good . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just run this past you while it occurs to me , I don't mean to quickly jump from one subject to another , but just discussing the different age groups and targeting the different age groups it occurs to me , {gap} to produce our own mobile phones , that that's kind of what led us on to comparing T_V_ remote controls with with their design features , um , chain companies like Carphone Warehouse , you can pop in anytime with a phone that you bought for them w if you've got any problems with it and they'll fix it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they'll phone the company , you can use their telephones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Is it worthwhile with with our retail outlets having a a similar um kind of service so that if older users were deterred from buying this , if they know they can just pop into one of our high street outlets , th you know , which button is it I press for this ? Th as free as a free aspect of our service , would that not make it more attractive to them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But the only problem is that with a mobile phone you signed for a contract so they um {disfmarker} the companies who uh who you deal with have actually {disfmarker} they've they've got an obligation to to help you out +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also {disfmarker} I mean it's it's fair enough to have some sort of help service but I I'm not sure how much the cost would be of having {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The functionality of it in the sense that you're sitting there , you're pressing this button and your T_V_'s not doing it . Taking your T_V_ and your control and saying look this is what I'm doing , it's not working , what should I do ? +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} Yes +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it was something as simple as you couldn't change the channel , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: but I mean for {disfmarker} if there were any more {disfmarker} or are we absolutely definite it's only gonna be for T_V_ and video , +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: we're not gonna put any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} okay , just a thought . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean instru instruction books I feel c I reckon can cover that . +Project Manager: Instruction manuals . But I mean they're {disfmarker} there's customer service , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: there will be a customer service number thing that you can phone up and speak to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Department , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Project Manager: and that way there's no call out charge , there's no extra , t the person has to walk to a shop on the high street , um . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it will be too much of an effort for a person to {disfmarker} for a phone maybe he might walk down the street , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but for a remote he will just refer to the manual and all that . +Industrial Designer: And they're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not for such simple functions +Industrial Designer: yeah , they should be f yeah . +Marketing: because we're focusing on that , +Project Manager: Mm . But we should focus on making the manual as user-friendly as possible +Marketing: yes okay . +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: because a lot of them are just tiny little writing and lots and lots of pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Puts people off reading them so they just do the obvious , yes . +Project Manager: It does , +Industrial Designer: It's the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you just put it in the drawer until something goes wrong +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: and then you try and search through it , so that should be something we think about . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , what other functions ? We need {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we need a design um decision now , but we should think about {disfmarker} c 'cause you've got the dilemma between {disfmarker} oh batteries , that's what I was thinking about . Mobile phone batteries , what kinda battery is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're they're specially made for the for the mobile phones , but they come with a charger , I mean you could you could bundle a charger in with it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they la they they last quite a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and if you had uh {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} th the thing that you get with mobile house phones , you sit it in its charger when you're not using it or t at night or something , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it doesn't really matter 'cause it never really runs out 'cause it lasts a long time once it is charged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , something like that should reduce the size of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if {disfmarker} yeah if you if you had if you had one of those {disfmarker} uh just coming back to your other point about pressing the button and setting off the bleeper in the room that could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it could be on that {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah on that as well so . +User Interface: So are we talking of a concept of a rechargeable something on the remote ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: some sort of docking station or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Rechargeable with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: So the rechargeable which would be your field . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah th yeah that that'd be fine , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also that would mean they wouldn't have to go out buying batteries all the time . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which it is cheaper in the long run as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , th the shape you got trendy . I don't wanna big box with lots of things , you don't want a tiny sort of little thing either , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because then you have got the repetitive strain injury no matter how many {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much you try and make it simple , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we don't w I mean so many remote controls look absolutely identical , +Project Manager: They do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: these long , brown things with the same coloured buttons all crammed in on the s the surface . We definitely {disfmarker} an ob an obvious thing , a very simple thing is to get away from these brown rectangles , we don't want that . +Project Manager: Okay so we've got a flip-screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking of a design which Nokia h uh came up with almost six or seven years back . Basically we have a flat one it it looks like a box , like a chocolate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's very strenuous because your thumb is slightly up , so they came up with something like this , curled up , so here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you don't have to {disfmarker} you don't bend your thumb too much , so it's like uh you can say a banana shape kind of thing , curled up like a boat . +Marketing: Slightly curved , curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: G uh so what happens is you don't have to press your thumb too down like . So it's already curled up so your thumb doesn't +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it's kind of moulded to your hand anyway . +User Interface: y yeah so we can have a s like you know moulded according to your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: the way you h hold of {disfmarker} it's kind of semi-circular in the bottom , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I wouldn't say exactly semi-circular but yeah smooth . +Project Manager: Can you look into the company logo ? Um , things that are associated with the company in view to trying to incorporate that into the design of the product . +User Interface: Current . +Project Manager: I mean for example , if it was a C_ or something like that , you could have it in a vague C_ shape that opens up kind of like a shell , or something , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um something along those lines to be able to incorporate it quite um obviously into the design , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: while also making it quite different from anything else that's there . +User Interface: We could look in at that but {disfmarker} Mm . What we were talking is to make it more rather than like sea-shells , +Marketing: I mean look at the mobile . +User Interface: logo could become as {disfmarker} you could put a logo in the corner of uh the model , rather than you know , trying to make it like a sea shell or whatever you were ta telling like . +Project Manager: Well we need to think about how it's gonna look different . +Marketing: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that sounds a really attractive idea , +User Interface: A sea shell ? +Marketing: I've not come across anything like that before , if it kind of {disfmarker} yeah and that opens out into your flip-top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then it's nice t to h you can make it lightweight plastic , nice to hold in the palm of the hand and just because you're having to actually insert in between the two covers , that's gonna take care of some of the repetitive strain injury trying p prevent a lot of that I would think . I think it's a really nice idea +User Interface: Yeah we could look in at that . +Marketing: and plus you can get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know even though we're using plastic , you can still {disfmarker} I mean think of the designs you can get in plastic , we can do a nice conch shell or scallop shell exterior . +Project Manager: Or you could do um different , like you get with mobile phones , different fascias . You could have different kind of casings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you could have like psychedelic ones for younger people and sleek ones and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Less chance of it being lost too , it's not like a chocolate brown lozenge that's gonna go down the sofa +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and people might want to put it on their mantelpiece or whatever as a ki if it looks attractive enough as a kind of ornament they don't {disfmarker} not gonna lose it so much {vocalsound} either . It's easier to {disfmarker} bit nice to handle . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah maybe we could come at some say five , six des designs and then choose which are {disfmarker} whichever appeals the most like , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: that could be the most common design . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we can like think of five , six designs . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , I think we have to round it up , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Can I just quickly um go over the new project requirements so that I haven't missed anything . +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: So it's no teletext , it's only for T_V_ and by implication video , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: our corporate image should be incorporated in the remote control , um something about Videoplus . +Project Manager: That was um in cutting down the number {disfmarker} that was kinda separate that was cutting down the number of functions , making it simpler so instead of having lots of things you put in for date {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . Right , so when they press for programming you {disfmarker} it comes up on the L_C_D_ , a reminder about using Videoplus ? So that they have a look at the guide and {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} is this nothing to do with the project requirements , is this just {disfmarker} that was an add-on feature ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} kinda takes the place of having a button to press for the date and having the button to press for the channel , things like that . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Right . Right , so it's kind of doing away with the programming feature ? +Project Manager: Um it could be it c It {disfmarker} yes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be uh adv advertisement feature , um rather than design feature , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: you know , drawing attention to that . And it also paid um lip service in the instruction manual , 'cause it's very simple so putting it down in words should be helpful . +Marketing: Mm , and the rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Was there anything else there that we {disfmarker} in the new new project requirements ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: We've got the buttons but I think we'll work through that with the design of it , um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's not at the moment a requirement , it's something we're looking at , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: what preference {disfmarker} so it may come round to market research at some point to see what people would like . +Project Manager: And we've talked about um there being an alarm or something , a beeping for being lost , um . +User Interface: For detection , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Learning how to use it should be as simple as possible . But there aren't gonna be that func that many functions incorporated into it so it should be fine and the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the instruction manual , I don't know if we deal with that , um . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , +Project Manager: Yep , +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and different from what's out there . Yep , I think that's us . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: What would you specifically like marketing to look at before the next meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or shall I just sort of generally look at all the issues involved ? +Project Manager: I think you might get guidance , but um I th Instruction manuals , 'cause there tends to be a demonised thing , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: u um , they're {disfmarker} everyone's got like a big pile of them , but no one really uses them . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Whoops , questionnaire four . +User Interface: We should f +Project Manager: Yes , right . Okay . +User Interface: I think it's time for us to get back to {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we're at lunchtime now I think . +Project Manager: Right , okay . I think you can email me , if there's any more questions . Um and I'll be able to not answer them . +","During the meeting, the project team, including a Project Manager, Marketing, Industrial Designer, and User Interface representative, discusses various aspects of developing a universal remote control. The project is in the early stages, and they are brainstorming design ideas and features. + +The Project Manager begins by recapping decisions from the last meeting, where they agreed on creating a universal control, ensuring it's accessible to a wide age range, and reflecting the company's image. They ponder over budget constraints and how to make the product look high quality without exceeding the budget. + +The Industrial Designer discusses the design of the remote, considering infrared technology for signal transmission, battery size, and power requirements. The team debates using AAA batteries for power and their impact on the remote's size. They also consider the ease of use and portability, touching on the issue of remotes getting lost easily, proposing potential solutions like a feature to prevent it from slipping into the sofa. + +The User Interface representative suggests a flip-open design with simple functionality on the top and more complex features inside. They highlight the importance of being user-friendly and discuss the production cost benefits of economies of scale. + +Marketing presents research findings, revealing consumers' dislike for the current aesthetic of remotes and a willingness to pay more for visually appealing designs. They note users' frustrations with remote controls' complexities and potential health issues like repetitive strain injury (RSI). Younger users showed interest in advanced features like LCD screens and speech recognition, which are less appealing to older users. + +After discussing various ideas, the Project Manager states the new project requirements: no teletext, TV-only functionality, incorporating the corporate image into the handset, and possibly integrating Videoplus for easier recording functionality. The team also considers rechargeable batteries with a docking station and making the instruction manual user-friendly. + +The team contemplates various ergonomic designs, debating a unique shape like a seashell that could be both functional and visually appealing. They discuss potential for customizable exteriors, similar to mobile phone fascias. + +As the meeting concludes, they agree to focus on a design that's different from existing remotes, emphasizing simplicity, affordability, and reflecting the corporate image. They think about seeking further market research on preferences for certain features and contemplating the ease of use to prevent RSI. Marketing is tasked to consider how to make the instruction manual more user-friendly, and the team plans to communicate further via email to solidify their ideas." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 20thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a reminder to all members, in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not be connected to the video conference. I want to remind those who are participating by video conference that, when they talk, they must use the channel that corresponds to the language they are speaking in. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. We are moving on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on. We will now move on to document submissions. The honourable minister, Mr. Blair. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, today I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2019 annual report on the RCMPs use of the law enforcement justification provisions. This report addresses the RCMP's use of specified provisions within the law enforcement justification regime, which is set out in subsections 25 to 25 of the Criminal Code. This report also documents the nature of the investigations in which these provisions were used. +The Chair: On tabling of documents, we have Minister Sajjan. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, pursuant to Standing Order 32, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2018-19 progress report on Canada's national action plan for the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security. +The Chair: Now we'll go to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of a special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Members who are participating in the meeting in person are kindly asked to bring the signed certificate to the office once the petition has been presented. Presenting petitions, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, I rise to present two petitions. They both pertain to the protection of our natural world. One is an e-petition, and it relates to the threat to pollinators globally. We know that honey bees and other pollinators are essential to food production. The petitioners note that research from around the world points to a threat to pollinators, particularly from a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The European Union has taken action on this. The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to practise a precautionary principle and remove from use neonicotinoids in Canada to protect our pollinators. The second petition relates to the ongoing threat to the southern resident killer whales. These iconic whales are much beloved in SaanichGulf Islands, throughout coastal British Columbia and indeed across Canada. The petitioners are calling for more action to be taken as the population of southern resident killer whales continues to decline, more action for boat-free safety zones, more prohibitions around whale tourism to make sure that the whales are safe from those who are keen to watch them from too close a distance, and more of a credible enforcement regime to support these measures to keep the southern resident killer whale population in our waters and not on the list of species that have become extinct. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, for over 10 years, members of Parliament from various parties have been trying to pass legislation to deal with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Irwin Cotler, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Senator Salma Ataullahjan and I have all proposed bills on this. The petitioners want the House to support Bill S-204. This is another bill that would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. I'm sure petitioners would want me to add that, given the urgency of this issue, perhaps the government could consider bringing forward a government bill on this issue, which would allow the process to move much faster. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise here today to present a petition from Canadian citizens in support of motion M-1, which was placed in this House by my colleague the member for New WestminsterBurnaby on the green new deal. These citizens point out that climate change has escalated into a global climate emergency and that Canada must act with ambition and urgency. They call on the government to support M-1, a made in Canada green new deal, to take bold and rapid action to adopt socially equitable climate action to tackle the climate emergency and address worsening socio-economic and racial inequalities at the same time while ending fossil fuel subsidies, closing offshore tax havens, and supporting workers impacted by the transition by creating well-paying, unionized jobs in the shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and privilege to table e-petition 2577, which was sponsored by Chris Alemany from Port Alberni and is supported by 5,183 petitioners. They're calling on the Government of Canada to work urgently across party lines and in partnership with provincial and territorial governments to implement a guaranteed, consistent, national and livable universal basic income system for all Canadians. The petition is very timely, coming almost one year to the day since the completion of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which also called on the government to establish a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians. Whether it's about providing a safety net to get through a global pandemic, the means to keep your children out of poverty at any time, or simply being able to afford safe housing or transportation, it's time for Canada to have this conversation. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour and a privilege to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of NanaimoLadysmith. People are concerned about gas fracking and the use of methane and the destruction that methane causes to our atmosphere and with climate change. They're calling on the government to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on the Wet'suwet'en territory, and by ordering the RCMP to dismantle their exclusion zone and to stand down. They also call on the government to schedule nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentswhich is something that we're happy to see has been happening and I commend the government for that effortand to prioritize the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, like Canada, Guyana is part of the Commonwealth, and many constituents of Winnipeg North have raised the issue with regard to the presidential election back in March, when it was being called into question. There have been some very positive indications in recent days, but the petitioners are asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to be aware of what's taking place in Guyana, and as much as possible, to be advocates for democracy and make sure that we're being diligent in supporting what the people of Guyana want to see. +The Chair: I just want to remind the honourable members, when presenting petitions, to be as concise as possible. I notice they're starting to stretch a bit and it's something we all tend to do. Now we'll go to Statements by Members. The first statement will be from Mr. Lefebvre. +Mr. Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I just want to say thank you to the industrious people of Sudbury who have risen to the challenge and joined forces in the face of COVID-19. I am proud of all my constituents, and all Canadians, including first responders, volunteers, health care and essential workers, local miners, the farmers and produce growers who are feeding our families, and local businesses who are staying connected with their staff. I also salute all our homegrown innovations such as ProStitch and King Sportswear face masks; Crosscut Distillery hand sanitizer; Nobel Prize winner SNOLAB's work on ventilators, which earned a federal contract; Vale Canada's $1 million in seed capital to small firms developing COVID-19 health solutions; and many more. We are all in the same boat, but we will get out of it together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, Pitt Meadows is one of Canada's most beautiful communities. It's tucked in between the Fraser and Pitt rivers and is in the shadow of Golden Ears mountain. Most of the area consists of farmland, golf courses, parks and conservation areas. It also has Pitt Lake, which is among the largest freshwater tidal lakes in the world. Pitt Meadows' history dates back thousands of years with Katzie First Nation. In the 1900s Dutch immigrants drained and diked the marshes allowing for today's bumper crops of cranberries and blueberries. It's hard to believe that this community is only a short commute to Vancouver and has one of the nation's busiest general aviation airports. Last weekend the community came together to celebrate Pitt Meadows Day a little differently because of COVID. In a great show of community spirit, from their front yards and balconies, thousands of residents came out to cheer for first responders and essential workers as we paraded throughout the city. I am thankful to have raised my family here, taught in the schools and to now be the member of Parliament representing this wonderful community. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Kelloway. +Mr. Mike Kelloway (Cape BretonCanso, Lib.): Mr. Chair, over the last few months I have watched constituents in my riding come together to look out for one another during these challenging times. Regardless of how deep and painful this pandemic has been, it continues to amaze me just how brightly the collective character of Cape BretonCanso shines through. Whether it is someone like Glen Muise, who delivers iPads to seniors' homes so they can connect with loved ones, teachers who deliver meals to students in need, Liam and Lucus Sakalauskas, two young boys who keep youth informed across the east coast, or Rose Fitzgerald, who delivered bouquets made from the remaining flowers from her shop to essential workers across her county, constituents in Cape BretonCanso have stepped up to support their community and to support those in need. Mr. Chair, as you know it is with great pride that I represent my constituents in Cape BretonCanso. The people in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia care deeply about one another. They know that as a community, we're only as strong as our most vulnerable people, and I cannot help but be filled with joy when I see these gestures happening across my riding. Thanks so much. +The Chair: Ms. Brub, go ahead. +Ms. Sylvie Brub (AbitibiBaie-JamesNunavikEeyou, BQ): Mr.Chair, unacceptable incidents of police brutality against aboriginals have prompted former member Romeo Saganash, whose commitment I commend, to call for a commission of inquiry similar to the Viens commission in Quebec. The Bloc is open to the idea, but we shouldn't wait for such an inquiry to be recommended to take action. There are already potential solutions for taking action. Commissions have been issuing reports for decades, and Ottawa has been tabling them. Last year alone, the Viens report and the report stemming from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls contained dozens of recommendations. The federal government must work with indigenous peoples, Quebec and the provinces to establish adequate funding for indigenous police forces. Civilian ethics organizations should be created to oversee the RCMP. Police officers and the general population must be better educated on indigenous realities and cultures. Hundreds of pages must be written and actions taken to restore confidence in law enforcement so as to achieve the long-overdue reconciliation. Let's take action. +The Chair: I give the floor to Mr.MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr.Chair, on behalf of myself and my parliamentary colleagues, I want to congratulate students from our high school class of 2020. We know that, owing to the pandemic, graduation celebrations will be different this year, as students will be deprived of their prom, their graduation ceremony and, in some cases, their goodbyes to friends and teachers. I know how disappointed students from the high schools of duVersant, LeCarrefour, Nicolas-Gatineau, de l'rablire, Collge Saint-Alexandre, Collge Nouvelles Frontires, Collge Saint-Joseph, Philemon-Wright and other regional schools, are not to be able to celebrate their five years of incredible efforts surrounded by their families and friends who were by their side on a daily basis. However, that takes nothing away from their accomplishment. So when they receive their diploma, here is what I will say to them: Surge ahead! The future belongs to you. Be ambitious, follow your dreams and, most importantly, continue to change the Outaouais and the world! The class of 2020 will be remembered for a long time. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am delighted to rise to talk about the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, which is now under construction in my riding in Winnipeg. This state-of-the-art addictions recovery facility was made into a reality by Scott, Anne and Darcy Oake in memory of their son and brother Bruce, who passed away tragically from an accidental overdose in 2011. The Bruce Oake Recovery Centre will provide help to thousands of Manitobans to manage their addiction and reintegrate into the community. I was proud to support this project when I voted for it during my time on Winnipeg City Council. The addictions crisis in Canada needs action. With approximately eight million Canadians suffering from addictions, we need centres like these to help them recover so that no other family will face a heartbreaking loss due to addiction. I want to congratulate the Oakes for their commitment to making recovery for many a reality. Addictions affect us all, and we all have a part to play in contributing to the solution. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Jowhari. +Mr. Majid Jowhari (Richmond Hill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the compassion and generosity demonstrated in my riding of Richmond Hill. Week after week residents and organizations have come together to support our most vulnerable during a time of great difficulty. I want to thank the champions of the community who were generous enough to donate masks and other supplies as well as services. I would also like to recognize the charities and care centres which, upon receiving these donations, redoubled their efforts to serve their communities. Special thanks go to the Mon Sheong Foundation Long-Term Care Centre, Divine Favour Senior Homecare, the Community & Home Assistance to Seniors, the True Compassion Home Health centre, Blue Door, the Mosaic Interfaith Out of the Cold program, Yellow Brick House, Hill House Hospice, Community Living York South, and Parya Trillium Foundation for continuing to support the residents in my riding of Richmond Hill. The compassionate generosity demonstrated by these donors and organizations makes me proud to represent my community in Parliament. +The Chair: We'll now go to Madam Lalonde. +Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde (Orlans, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Usually, at this time of the year, I have the pleasure of being invited to the graduation ceremony of the grade12 students in Orlans. However, we will all have to adapt to a new reality this year. I cannot express enough how, in these exceptional times, I have witnessed the strength, resilience and community spirit of our graduates. I also know that a number of high schools have made significant efforts to celebrate the success of their graduating class. Young graduate Maryanne Collard was amazed to see that people from her school, the cole secondaire catholique Batrice-Desloges, had installed a sign in her garden to congratulate her on her academic success. As we move forward we must not forget that youth in this country are our future. We have a responsibility to be there for them and to believe in them. We will not fail. I thank the teachers, the support staff and school management who are continuing to do their work. Congratulations to all graduates of 2020. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Vis. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has changed and challenged how we go about our daily lives. For many this includes a shift to working from home or attending school remotely. The sad reality is that even before the crisis hit, most rural Canadians simply did not have access to a strong and stable Internet connection, even though Internet is an essential service. Those in underserved areas, including many parts of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, cannot work from home and their children cannot keep up with their classmates. For many of my indigenous constituents, Internet services are stuck in the 1990s because telecom companies don't want to serve them. I, along with my colleagues, launched community consultations to address this critical issue and provide solutions. We call on the government to outline and implement a concrete action plan to address Internet connectivity deficits between rural and urban Canada. This is an issue I will continue to press on until results are achieved. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. McLeod. +Mr. Michael McLeod (Northwest Territories, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Canada has been awarded its first-ever Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme. Congratulations go to Lutsl K' Dene First Nation and the Northwest Territory Mtis Nation, with support from Deninu K'ue First Nation and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, for the establishment of the Thaidene Nn territorial protected area. It's 14,000 square kilometres of the most beautiful land and waters you'll find anywhere on earth. I would also like to thank the previous minister of the environment for securing Canada's $7.9-million commitment, along with our visit to celebrate the new park last year. The award is given to groups that have exemplified actions to protect critical ecosystems and biodiversity for generations to come and to show how indigenous peoples and local communities have confronted legacies of disadvantage and discrimination in support of their communities and the world at large. Congratulations to Lutsl K'. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Liberal government has tabled $87 billion in spending and allocated just four hours for Parliament to study, debate and pass it. The allocated time is wholly inadequate. Canadians deserve to know how that money is being spent. They deserve to know that this government spending was scrutinized and passed through the rigours of Parliament. It is Canadian taxpayers of today and tomorrow who will have the responsibility to pay for this government's spending. It is Canadian workers and businesses who will have to do the hard work of rebuilding our economy. It is real Canadians who fall through the cracks when this Liberal government's programs fail to meet their intended goals. A rubber stamp under the guise of health and safety is not democracy. Canadians are owed better. Just as we gather four days a week for a hybrid committee meeting, parliamentarians can gather to do the full scope of the work that Canadians elected us to do. +The Chair: We now go to Mr. Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Our planet is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our daily lives have been turned upside down. I am thinking of you, our seniors, valuable individuals who built our country. You have gone through a very restrictive confinement. You have had to sacrifice time spent with your families. Our students also had to adapt. Their school year was turned on its head. Our graduating class, especially, saw their dream of a proper graduation vanish. The future belongs to them. They must follow their dreams. I want to say to all the essential staff and the many support organizations that they are really changing things. We have all taken on our important responsibility, that of following the guidelines. The results have been most compelling in my riding. I want to say how proud I am to represent you here, in the Canadian Parliament. I thank each and everyone of you. You are helping PortneufJacques-Cartier flourish. You have shown resilience, creativity, innovation and solidarity. That is commendable. Together, we will get through this ordeal and come out stronger. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, today I rise to honour Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg, led by women and non-binary individuals, who stood together and mobilized our city to state clearly that we will not stand by and stay silent in the face of police brutality. We will not stand by in the face of systemic racism. We will not stand by while we witness our bodies being abused by centuries of racism supported through legislation that has left us vulnerable at the hands of those who abuse their power. We will speak out against police violence. We will speak out against systemic racism. We will join together to ensure that laws are instituted that are designed to protect us, not abuse us. We will call out those who abuse their power. We will rise. We will rise. We will rise. To all the women and non-binary folks who are standing, I say, let's continue to sound our voices in solidarity and support of one another until indigenous and black lives are honoured and respected. Our liberation is intertwined. Solidarity. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, go ahead. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, this is not the time for governments to get complacent about COVID-19. However, the last few days have shown that we are once again dealing with a reckless Prime Minister. First, he locked down Parliament to avoid being accountable to the opposition, while the economic recovery must be prepared. He is refusing to provide an economic update, even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. We need to know how much flexibility we have in case of a second wave of the pandemic. He is refusing to hold a first ministers meeting on unconditional health transfers. The increase Quebec needs is for hiring health care staff before a second wave, and not after it. Finally, today, he is refusing to negotiate with any party to get his bill passed. He is behaving as if he had a majority government. This is not a time for recklessness. Governing means anticipating. I am asking the Prime Minister to pull himself together. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Uppal. +Hon. Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to give thanks and recognition to the contributions of many businesses and organizations across my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods that have stepped up in a major way during this pandemic. I joined my friends in the Filipino community who partnered with Mill Woods' Calvary Community Church to deliver care packages to seniors. Varinder Bhullar and his Green Scholars of Alberta team and Dil-E-Punjab restaurant provided thousands of free meals. Sikh Youth Edmonton delivered free groceries to families, seniors and students. Edmonton Towing and its full team with Dukh Nivaran Gudwara prepared food packages for any truckers who were coming through Edmonton. The Bhartiya Cultural Society Hindu temple provided free meals to anyone who needed them. Punjab Insurance and The Punjab chain of restaurants provided free meals in downtown Edmonton. The staff, nurses and doctors of Grey Nuns Community Hospital in the heart of Mill Woods have been keeping people safe and healthy. I want to thank our Mill Woods community as a whole for its continued strength, resilience and compassion as we move forward together. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today is Portugal Day, celebrated both in Portugal and around the world by Portuguese. In Canada, June has been recognized as Portuguese Heritage Month. We're truly happy to recognize the great contributions made by Canadians of Portuguese descent. This year is a difficult one, though, for all of us, including our Portuguese diaspora community across the globe that is deeply affected by the COVID situation. Our prayers and well wishes are with everyone. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our luso community of over half a million members in Canada from coast to coast for staying strong during these difficult times. Your warmth, hard work and team spirit resonate well across my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville and globally. As a Portuguese immigrant who came to Canada at the age of two with my family, I know this year will be a lot different from previous years. I encourage all of you to stay safe and enjoy a Portuguese meal, and please continue to support our local businesses. +The Chair: We now begin the period of questions for ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for sitting to substitute each other very safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is doing everything to avoid being accountable to Canadians. He is refusing to table a budget, refusing to provide an economic update and refusing to let the House of Commons do its work. Will he at least provide the Auditor General with the additional funding she needs to look into government expenditures? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, not only are we introducing a bill this afternoon to help Canadians with the Canada emergency response benefit and those living with disabilities, but we are also proposing to the opposition parties that we hold a debate and a vote on that. I hope the opposition parties will allow a vote and a debate in the House on this important bill. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister wants parliamentarians to vote on aspects of the government's spending. We want the Auditor General to be able to examine that government spending. Under the government, the Auditor General has had to do more with less, and her ability to conduct audits is being affected. The Auditor General has indicated that she will be able to do half as many audits, despite an almost doubling in the size of government spending. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we worked with the Auditor General to increase the funding of the Auditor General's office in 2018-19, and the equivalent of 38 full-time staff were added. We support the Auditor General, unlike the Conservative government, which fired 60 people from the Auditor General's office. We are now proposing that we sit down to debate legislation this afternoon, and I certainly hope that members opposite will vote for debate. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister is again engaged in revisionist history. He well knows that it was the Auditor General's office that volunteered to make administrative efficiencies, which did not affect its ability to do the job. In fact, as the interim auditor general, John Wiersema, said, We would not have proposed if we didnt think it was the right thing to do and that wed be able to carry out our role for Parliament. Only the government's refusal to grant that extra funding is hampering the Auditor General's ability to give Canadians the answers they deserve, and we wonder why. This is the government that cannot explain where 20,000 infrastructure projects went and where five billion dollars' worth of supposed infrastructure investments have gone. They can't identify that. Then there is, of course, the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank, which has completed precisely zero projects. Are these the reasons the Prime Minister is so intent on withholding funds from the Auditor General? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, talking of revisionist history, Stephen Harper's Conservatives cut $6.5 million from the Auditor General's budget and fired 60 staff. On the contrary, we worked with the Auditor General's office and increased its funding and added the equivalent of 38 new full-time staff. We will continue to demonstrate openness and transparency. We will continue to respect the officers of Parliament, whom the Conservatives, in their time in office, showed no respect for. We will continue to move forward in a way that has led, for example, to proposing debate and voting on important legislation this afternoon to help Canadians. The Conservatives don't seem to want that debate or vote. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's no surprise that the Prime Minister likes to reach back into history from before the 2015 election to justify his position. The 2015 election was the only time he got more votes than the Conservative Party did, so I understand why he likes to live in the past. In May, the interim auditor general said, Ten years ago, we were completing about 27 performance audits every year. With our current resources, we expect to be able to deliver 14 performance audits each year. That's half the number of audits, despite a massive explosion in government spending. The Auditor General's office has requested more funds to be able to do the job that Canadians expect to be done. Will the Prime Minister give those additional funds to the Auditor General's office, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we very much look forward to working with the new Auditor General to ensure that her office has the ability to continue the important audits and transparency measures that are foundational to our institutions. Speaking of what is foundational to our institutions, this afternoon we're putting forward a bill that would help Canadians across the country, and we've proposed to debate and vote on that bill. It actually looks like the Conservatives and other opposition parties might not want this. They have been complaining about not having debates and votes in Parliament, and now they're proposing not to have them. That's a little head-scratching. We hope they're going to help Canadians. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We may have a chance here to replace a problem with a good opportunity. This morning, we heard many groups and organizations that represent people with a disability express their concerns over the bill introduced by the government, which I feel is chocolate pudding containing cod liver oil. We agree with the chocolate pudding. We are favourable to helping people with a disability. People don't know the rules. They don't knowI am telling them nowthat a bill can be divided. It can be cut into parts and voted on in parts. The rest of the bill can be enhanced. I am saying to the Prime Minister that, if he presents the part on disabled individuals, it will be passed at the speed of light. He won't even see it happen. Is he prepared to divide the bill, so that we can work together to help people with a disability? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The bill that we are proposing this afternoon will certainly help people living with disabilities. We can always recognize that this is important, and every party should be open to it. We will also increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit from four-week intervals to two weeks. We will also expand the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses will have access to it. I am always willing to work with members of the opposition to ensure that we adopt these measures, all or some of the measures. We want to help Canadians. We look forward to debating and voting on this later today. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It is a glorious day. I heard all or some of the measures. That means that we are not adopting them all at the same time and that the bill is being split. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he is in fact going to split his bill so that we can address the various components separately, since they have nothing to do with each other, and improve them, in keeping with our mandate as elected officials? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our goal on this side of the House, and it is shared by all members of the House, is to help Canadians during the pandemic. We have put forward a number of measures that will help Canadians in a tangible way. Yes, that includes Canadians living with disabilities, but it also includes businesses that cannot, but should be able to, access the wage subsidy. In addition, we are going to make the Canada emergency response benefit more flexible. I look forward to continuing the discussions +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: We almost had some clarity, but one swallow does not make a summer. Yes, there is a need for discussions on the Canada emergency response benefit. The government says that it wants to transform the program into something very coercive, without admitting that the lack of an employment incentive has essentially sabotaged another program, the wage subsidy. That deserves some thought. That is what we are elected to do. We do not need to spend eight months on this, we can fix it in a few hours. When the government says that we are going to have to vote on this, it means rubber stamping its bill. We have the right to debate it, to have discussions and to improve it. I watched the election on the night of October21. It was a beautiful night. It was more fun than a hockey game. People elected a minority government. Can the government admit that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are not proposing only to vote on this bill this afternoon, we are proposing to debate it. It is the role and responsibility of all of us in the House to exchange ideas and to work together to help Canadians. That is exactly what we are proposing this afternoon. It is about helping people with disabilities, increasing the flexibility of the CERB, and expanding the scope of the wage subsidy so that more businesses have access to it. I look forward to debating this with my colleagues opposite. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have 43seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That will be enough. I would be remiss if I allowed the Prime Minister to mislead people quite unintentionallyI say this in accordance with the Standing Orders. When we introduce a bill, we discuss it at second reading, we vote, we continue to discuss it and we send it to committee. All that can be done very quickly. However, we must be able to amend and improve this bill. That is how the normal Parliament works. The government doesn't like being in a minority situation. It behaves as if it were a majority government, but it is not. Can we follow the real procedures of Parliament, do a proper job, and then have a vote that is likely to suit the majority of members, not just the Prime Minister? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, my hon. colleague seems to completely forget that we are going through a pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis requires different actions on our part. That is why we provided the text of the bill to the opposition parties four days ago. We have been working with them for hours over the past three or four days to amend the bill, if they had amendments to propose. That is how we are taking action to help Canadians quickly during this crisis, and that is what we will continue to do. +The Chair: Mr.Singh, you have the floor. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr.Chair, will the Prime Minister make a clear and direct commitment today to extend the CERB for families who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are introducing legislation this afternoon that will directly help Canadians living with disabilities, will expand the scope of the wage subsidy and will increase the flexibility of the Canada emergency response benefit. We hope to be able to debate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB for families in need, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I said, Mr. Chair, discussions are ongoing on that, but I can assure Canadians we will continue to be there for them and support them, as we have been. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, a family that needs to buy groceries can't take those pretty words and buy groceries with them. We're asking the Prime Minister to extend the CERB for families in need. Will the Prime Minister do that, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to be there for Canadians in the right way. We are engaged with stakeholders, with opposition parties and with Canadians to ensure that we continue to support them the way they need to be supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I can tell you what the right way is. Don from Burnaby sent me a note saying he's an arts worker and there is no forecast for his job to be reopened. He is now dependent on the CERB. He wants to go back to work, but there's no work. He sent an email saying he's faced with a grim realityhis wordsand he's frightened that if the CERB runs out, and it is planned to run out at the end of this month, then he will have no way to afford to make ends meet. Will the Prime Minister extend the CERB so Don does not have to live in fear? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, and as we have been saying from the beginning, we will continue to be there to support Canadians who need it. The member opposite is not actually looking at the fact that we are proposing three significant helps for Canadians this afternoon. We are proposing to help Canadians with disabilities, to expand the wage subsidy for more businesses and to create flexibility for the CERB. He doesn't even want to debate those things. He doesn't even want to be voting on them. Will the NDP allow us to move forward on these important measures for Canadians? +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about those measures. One of the things we asked the government to do five weeks ago was to bring in help for Canadians living with disabilities. Now the government's plan is only going to help 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Will the government commit to helping all Canadians living with disabilities and propose a plan that will do so? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP leader seems to have decided that rather than help 40%, or a significant portion, of people with disabilities, he wants to help none of them, because he's not going to allow the debate to move forward on this bill. That's unfortunate. We're always happy to look at how we can do more. We have demonstrated from the beginning that we want to do more for Canadians. I look forward to working with the NDP. I am hoping those members change their minds and allow us to have an important debate this afternoon. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I appreciate that the Prime Minister accepts that his plan only helps 40% of Canadians living with disabilities. Let's talk about the 60% who aren't being helped. They are veterans living with disabilities, those who receive CPP and those who receive disability payments. Often it's the poorest of Canadians living with disabilities who won't be helped with the plan the government is proposing. Will the government help all Canadians living with disabilities? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our proposal will help 100% of Canadians who receive the disability tax credit, including many veterans. The fact is that we are there to support the disability community. We are there to support Canadians with disabilities. Why is the NDP not allowing us to move forward on debating and voting on this important legislation? +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 43 seconds for a question and an answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, that's the exact problem with the Liberal proposal. It's a tax credit approach, which excludes the vast majority of Canadians living with disabilities. That is the wrong approach. We made it very clear that if the government extends the CERB, if it ensures there are no penalties on those who are desperately in need of help and if it helps all Canadians living with disabilities, we will move forward. Will the government do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I have said from the beginning, we look forward to continuing to work with the members opposite to keep moving forward to help Canadians. However, we need the opposition parties to actually choose to help Canadians and not to play political games. I hope we're going to be able to actually have a debate and a vote on this important legislation this afternoon. +The Chair: We're now going to take a short pause to allow staff to change up in a safe way respecting COVID-19 procedure. The floor now goes to Mr. Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, can the Prime Minister tell us whether we will have an economic update by the end of June? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is of course very important to be transparent. When the situation is stable, we will have +The Chair: Once again, the floor goes to Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, most of the provinces in Canada are working on tabling economic updates by the end of June. Why is the Liberal government unable to do so as well? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I understand the importance of transparency and that is why we are trying every day to explain our investments to Canadians and to continue to be transparent with them. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Liberal government announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending during the pandemic, but it still refuses to provide an economic update in order to be transparent with Canadians. In times of crisis, monitoring the situation is more important than ever. I repeat my question: why does this government not want to table an economic update by the end of June, when the provinces are doing so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Every day, we explain the economic situation, our investments, the changes we are making, and our programs to improve the situation of Canadians during the pandemic. We will continue our approach to being transparent. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The Parliamentary Budget Officer himself does not understand why the federal government cannot deliver an economic update when the provinces can. Why are the government and the minister defying the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent officer and is requesting an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach, which is one of transparency. We know that it's very difficult to make projections given the very dynamic nature of the situation. We think our approach of providing information daily is appropriate and we will continue to be transparent about our investments. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That is incredible. When we listen to the minister and the Prime Minister talk, you would think we were in the pesky terrible twos phase that children go through, when they keep saying no, no, no. I find it funny that the provinces are able to table an economic update in a crisis situation. The opposition parties are asking for it, as are experts and officials. When the time comes for the government to listen to the scientists, it has no problem doing so. However, if people do not think like the government, it ignores them. The provinces are doing it, the opposition parties are calling for it and the Parliamentary Budget Officer is calling for it. Why will the Minister of Finance not table an economic update so that all members of Parliament can do their verification work? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I will continue to provide daily information on our measures and investments. Projections are clearly very difficult to make. However, when the situation is more stable, we will be able to provide more information to Canadians. In the meantime, we will be adapting to the situation on a daily basis and making sure that we have the information we need to make our decisions and to make sure that Canadians understand our situation. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 45seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, one month ago, the Prime Minister announced with great fanfare that the eligibility criteria for the $40,000emergency loans for businesses would be more flexible to help self-employed entrepreneurs and businesses that pay themselves dividends to have access to them. However, as of todayit has been four weeks since that announcementbusinesses are still banging their heads on the doors of their financial institutions. They do not have access to the information because it is not available on official websites. In addition, even senior officials confirmed to me during a technical call on June2, last Tuesday, that this information would not be available for several weeks. Can the Minister of Finance, who says he wants to act quickly to help our businesses, explain why, after four weeks, it is still not possible to get the information the Prime Minister promised us from his doorstep? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been listening and responding to small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country. In fact, we have even announced the expansion of the program's eligibility criteria to include many owner-managed small businesses with payrolls of less than$20,000. The new criteria have forced financial institutions to adapt to be able to provide this program to new applicants. We are working around the clock to ensure that we are able to promptly provide small businesses across the country with the assistance they need. +The Chair: We will now proceed to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison (Niagara West, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's unemployment rate stands at 13.7%. That's the highest it's been in almost four decades. Many industries, like travel, hospitality and tourism, are getting crushed. We rely on a lot of hospitality and tourism in my riding of Niagara West. Can the government tell us what their plans are to help the travel, hospitality and tourism industry that so many of my constituents depend on? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his important question. I had a good conversation with the mayor of Niagara Falls recently, and we believe in the importance of the tourism sector. That's exactly why we've extended the wage subsidy until the end of August. There is the CEBA loan, the $40,000 loan. There is also spending through FedDev in my colleague's region. If he has clear, specific projects in the tourism sector that he needs help with, I would ask that he please come and see me and have a conversation. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, the message from the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Perrin Beatty, and also other industries, is that we need a clear and coherent plan from this government because there's a whole hodgepodge of regulations and confusion about what's going to happen through the strategy. What I've told the government is that we need a strategy to reflect local conditions that is consistent and has a clear timeline so that businesses can begin to open safely and with confidence. What is the government doing to make this happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we absolutely agree. It is important for businesses to have an understanding of the programs that we've put in place. We have been consulting with businesses on the appropriate way to extend the wage subsidy so that we can continue to support businesses as they turn towards a safe restart. We've also looked very carefully at how we can ensure that the programs that we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Allison. +Mr. Dean Allison: Mr. Chair, this government has come way short of meeting the Canadian demand for personal protective equipment. Some equipment procured from overseas has been substandard and couldn't be used. Because of the shortage, in my riding of Niagara West, dentists have to pay up to 10 times the amount for an N95 mask. Compared to early March, when will the government finally begin to produce enough PPE in Canada to meet Canadian demand? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. We have mobilized over 700 Canadian companies to help them retool and rescale their efforts to make more personal protective equipment in Canada as part of a made-in-Canada initiative. We're going to continue to work with industry to build up domestic capacity. +Mr. Dean Allison: Global News is reporting that Canada is struggling to secure a reliable source of PPE. What's the evidence of this? We know that the government procured 10 million substandard N95 masks that couldn't be used. Masks were sent back to suppliers for having flaws. We received mouldy swabs to be used in COVID-19 tests. Planes are arriving empty that should have been filled with PPE, and we received less than 5% of our total order of gloves. It's clear that Canada needs to rely on Canada for PPE. When will this government finally begin to take PPE equipment issues seriously and make enough in Canada to meet demands by Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member's questions were tainted with inaccuracies. Regarding the flights that returned from China without federal cargo, Air Canada did reimburse the federal government for that amount. In addition, with regard to the N95 masks that were referenced, the Government of Canada will not pay for masks that it does not use. Furthermore, as my colleague Minister Bains just stated, we are mobilizing and retooling the domestic industry. Over half of the face shields that we have received were produced in Canada. +Mr. Dean Allison: At a time when the Prime Minister has ordered Canadians to stay home and businesses to remain closed, at a time when Canadians have had to say goodbye to their relatives over Skype, at a time when Canadians are not allowed to get married, at a time when Canadians are being fined for taking their kids to the park, at a time when restaurants are being fined $800 for allowing customers to eat outside and not being socially distanced, in these times, the Prime Minister's son attended a mass gathering with thousands of people while not socially distancing. Mr. Chair, why is it that there seems to be one set of rules in this country for some people but a different set for the Prime Minister? Why the double standard? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as the member knows, this country has been gripped with the need to stand up with one another to fight the experience of racism that so many Canadians live with and that so many of our American cousins live with. As the member knows, local public health sets advice for regions that he specified, and I would encourage all Canadians to check with local public health advice before they resume activities. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu (StevestonRichmond East, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many Canadian veterans are noticing that medical providers are increasing their costs. Everything is more expensive these days, including medicine, etc. It can take upwards of a year for Veterans Affairs to adjust their rate scale to compensate, and they do not allow for retroactive reimbursement. What are the government's actions to alleviate this hardship for our men and women who stood guard for this country, our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Chair, the fact is that when we inherited the government, Veterans Affairs needed a lot of support from government. In fact, at that time, we invested $10 billion to make sure that Veterans Affairs was put in place and that we could provide the appropriate supports for veterans, like the pension for life, the centre of excellence on PTSD and the chronic pain centre of excellence. All of these things are so important. We have to realize that with government previously +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Chiu. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister, for answeringor respondingto my question, although that really did not provide an answer, in my humble opinion. Part of the side effect of spending hundreds of millions of dollars is inflation. My constituents in StevestonRichmond East are overwhelmingly finding this government's support for seniors inadequate. The opposition has put forward clear proposals, such as a one-time tax-free withdrawal being allowed for an RRSP or a RRIF. So far, the government has not taken any action on this. Why is the government ignoring suggestions to help Canadian seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want seniors to know that they are not alone. To help preserve their registered retirement income fund assets, we are reducing minimum withdrawals by 25% for 2020. We're also providing direct financial support so that seniors can get the help they need now. As the market is volatile during this time, we continue to look at all ways that we can best help seniors during this difficult time. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Mr. Chair, the Hong Kong government has arrested 9,000 civilians just in the past year. This is equivalent to the arrest of 42,000 people, proportional to Canada's population. It is anticipated that more unjust incarcerations will occur as Beijing imposes the national security law in Hong Kong. Has our government started preparing a list of names for Magnitsky-style sanctions, yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, as we have said, we and our allies are deeply concerned with Beijing's decision to impose a national security law on Hong Kong. With hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in its stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. The proposed law would also undermine the one country, two systems framework. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: I thank the minister for responding. Again, however, words are not enough. It's time for action, because the Chinese embassy has said, in response to Canada's expressed concern, that they deplore, reject and condemn our response and our concerns thus far. What are the conditions for this government using Magnitsky sanctions should China continue to incarcerate Canadians and jeopardize the human rights of its citizens? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we have been very clear. We will continue to encourage all parties to engage in peaceful and meaningful dialogue to address the legitimate concerns expressed by the Hong Kong population. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +The Chair: Mr. Chiu, we have about 22 seconds, so you have time for a very quick question and hopefully a very quick answer. +Mr. Kenny Chiu: Okay, here's a quick question. The Communist Chinese government has lied about COVID-19. They have issued statements against Canada and they have yet to release the two Canadians being held hostage. My constituents are concerned over this. When will this government listen to Canadians and call for a stronger, more effective and truly independent international investigation into COVID-19's origin? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 22 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a global pandemic, COVID-19. It is critically important that all countries in the world work together in a transparent, open and respectful manner so that we understand what is going on and how we can bring it to an end as quickly as possible. +The Chair: The next question will come from Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (RenfrewNipissingPembroke, CPC): Mr. Chair, if the government orders someone who has been exposed to a confirmed COVID case into a 14-day quarantine, why won't the government allow them to take an antibody test to lift the quarantine so they can go back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite may or may not know, testing strategies are determined by provinces and territories. Furthermore, the testing of a particular person has to be done at the right point in time +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, there have already been some tests that have been approved. My friend and colleague here, Colin Carrie, from the constituency of Oshawa, has a constituent who has a test. It's 90% accurate and it's being sold to the United States and other countries. Why won't they provide a DIN number to it so that Canadians have access to it as well, regardless of which province or territory they live in? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member is talking about two separate things. Any test kit that would be approved by Health Canada would be accessible to wherever that company chose to market that test kit. Furthermore, it's really important that test kits that are approved by Health Canada be accurate and have been tested with rigour with regard to their ability to provide credible and accurate information to the people who are using that test. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chair, the test has proven to have an accuracy rate of 90% in identifying whether or not an individual has antibodies. Why won't she allow it to be used here? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am happy to follow up with the member opposite's office when she is able to provide me with the name of the company. As you can imagine, there are many vendors trying to +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: How long will it take for an antibody test to be approved by this government once you have the name of the company and the test and the evidence in front of you? +The Chair: Before we go to the honourable minister, I just want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the chair and not directly. Go ahead, Minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have an expedited process that could be completed in as little as five to seven days, depending on the accuracy of the test and the information supplied by the vendor. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, will Health Canada use reputable data from other countries to speed their determinations about antibody effectiveness, or just continue to withhold access? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Canadians expect us, at Health Canada, to ensure the accuracy and the safety of all equipment approved for use in Canada. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chairman, if the minister can approve tests and studies within five days, why is it taking over 30, over 60, or over 90 days to approve an antibody test that exists? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I appreciate the member opposite's interest in urgent and quick approvals; however, sometimes, depending on the company, there may be further questions and further tests that need to be run to ensure the accuracy or safety of that equipment. Should she wish me to check into the process for a particular +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Have officials provided the government with a target for a daily antibody test to complete an initial survey or the initial phase of a study? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is talking about the work of the immunity task force, which is, as you know, a group of scientists who have been funded by the Government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gallant. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: Through you, Mr. Chair, would the minister please provide the names of the people on the task force to which she just referred? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I will forward those names to the office of the member opposite. +Mrs. Cheryl Gallant: I hope that will be within the next two days or so, and not wait until after the crisis has passed, Mr. Chairman. Why isn't the Prime Minister showing as much fervour for antibody testing as he is for getting a vaccine on the market? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I reject the premise of that question. In fact, the Prime Minister has shown fervour for all aspects of dealing with the coronavirus from the very inception of the virus on the world stage. To allege otherwise is quite disingenuous. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): When will the government give the Auditor General the funds she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): First, Mr. Chair, I would like to offer my congratulations to the new Auditor General for her appointment. On behalf of the government, I would also like to offer her our full support and collaboration +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: I share the minister's wish to congratulate the new Auditor General on her position. I will now ask him again when he will give her the funds she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, her role is essential to our democracy. We are eager to work with her. She's more than welcome to share her concerns directly with the government. I can assure her that my +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I didn't ask him if he would like to work with the Auditor General. I asked him if he will give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government has added 38 permanent staff positions to her office, while the Conservative government, under their leadership, cut the funding for more than 60 +The Chair: We'll move on to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, through you, I caution the minister to not mislead this House. If he will look at the committee transcripts of the time, he will know that it was the Auditor General's decision to reduce their own budget. The Conservatives did not cut positions. That is a matter of fact. The point is that the Auditor General now does not have the money to do her job. She has cut performance audits and she has stopped work on performance audits. When will this government give the Auditor General the money she needs to do her job? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: With us, it was 38 new positions, Mr. Chair. With them, it was 60 positions fewer. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this government has drastically expanded its spending and is avoiding accountability in every way it can. The finance committee yesterday, with the support of Liberal backbench MPs who are on that committee, unanimously passed a motion to fund the Auditor General in full so that her office can do her job. If this minister will not listen to me, will he at least listen to his own backbenchers? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, our government is fully committed to supporting the important and ongoing work of the Auditor General, an independent officer of Parliament. If the Auditor General identifies the need for additional resources, we will work with the Office of the Auditor General to ensure that they have all the resources they need to continue fulfilling their mandate efficiently and effectively. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, the Auditor General has consistently, since 2018, told this government that the office doesn't have enough funds. It's not a mystery. The Auditor General has told the public accounts committee that it cannot do its job. It's the first time in history that the Auditor General has had to tell public accounts that they don't have the resources to do their job. It's not a matter of if the Auditor General needs more funds. The Auditor General couldn't be more clear. When will this government actually do the right thing and fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, maybe I'm not making myself clear in English. I will switch to my native tongue, French, in case it becomes clearer. If the Auditor General identifies a need for additional resources, we will work with her to ensure that her office can continue to deliver its mandate efficiently and effectively. In addition, our government worked with the Auditor General to increase funding in 2018-09. With this increase, the office was able to add the equivalent of 38new full-time staff to its team. That's 38more employees +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, this isn't an if situation. The Auditor General has already told this government that her office does not have funds. This has been ongoing since 2018. I would ask the minister to please stop with the platitudes and actually just say yes or no. Will the government give the Auditor General the money that the Auditor General has already asked for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we have already increased the budget of the Office of the Auditor General in the 2018-19 period. +The Chair: Before we continue, we're going to suspend for a second to bring in the next chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): There's a point of order. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Madam Chair, I know that no member would knowingly mislead the House. No member wants to do that. It's always customary to give members a chance to correct the record, so I call upon the minister to do so now, and perhaps even the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister misled the House in his response to a question. I have here the transcripts of the public accounts committee, and they will confirm that the +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): This is beginning to sound a bit like debate. We will proceed. Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. First, I would like to take this opportunity to say hi from Portugal. I would also like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague and friend, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. Obrigado. While Quebec estimates its additional health care costs related to COVID-19 at $3billion, Ottawa is transferring around $115million, which is not even4%. Does the government recognize that this is clearly insufficient? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, as the member opposite knows, we invested an initial $500 million in transfers to the provinces and territories to manage the extreme pressure put on health care systems as a result of their supporting people living with COVID and in preventing COVID. We want to thank the provinces and territories for their work, and as the member opposite knows, we will continue to be there for the provinces and territories. This is a significant transfer, and we think +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, the minister says that this is a substantial transfer. Yes, it is a lot of money. The government is giving about $115million to Quebec, but that is not even 4%of what is being requested. Does the minister recognize that much more is needed? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: We have been working with the provinces and territories from the beginning to respond to the crisis. We have increased health care transfers, provided medical protective equipment and responded to all requests for assistance. We have been able to make so much progress in the fight against COVID-19 precisely because of this co-operation. Stirring up an imaginary quarrel between the federal government and Quebec +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: MadamChair, it isn't about squabbling, it's about needs. The share that the federal government is giving isn't enough. We should act now, before we see a possible second wave. What we're seeing today are the results of massive disinvestment by the federal government in health care. This isn't good enough. The government must act quickly. Can the government commit to better funding to the health care sector and to organizing a meeting with Quebec and the provinces on this exact topic, in September at the latest? We can't afford to wait. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister's response will have to be brief. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, with respect to the transfers to provinces and territories, the member opposite knows that our government, in our last mandate, significantly increased transfers to the provinces and territories for health services, including mental health and home care services. In fact, the funding we're providing is in addition to the $40 billion that was transferred +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Thank you, MadamChair. Tudo bem? Tudo bom? Today in La Presse, we learned that the government has extended its military presence in long-term care homes. Can the minister confirm this information, and can he also confirm that the presence of these 500soldiers is indeed in response to a request from the Government of Quebec? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, let me assure the member that when Quebec made a request for assistance at the beginning of April, we answered the call. When they asked for an extension of that, we said we would continue to provide that assistance. I had a conversation today with Minister Guilbault, my counterpart in Quebec, and we have renewed our commitment to continuing to provide assistance. That assistance can take additional forms and can include involving the Canadian Red Cross, but we remain committed to providing the assistance that Quebec needs. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: If I understand correctly, negotiations are still under way with the Government of Quebec, even though it needs these soldiers. The mission ends Friday. This isn't really the time to negotiate anymore. We have to make sure that the military will stay in our long-term care homes as long as we need their services in Quebec, and until new attendants have been trained. Can the minister confirm that the mission will indeed be extended? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to assure this House that we have assured Quebec that the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to provide support until such time as other trained professional people are able to do that job. We're working very hard with the Province of Quebec. We're working with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross. We will be there for Quebeckers because they need our help, and as long as they need our help, we'll be there to support them. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: This isn't the time to play cat-and-mouse. The only thing we have to do is to give the Government of Quebec what it's asking for. Quebec pays 23%of the army's budget, so Quebeckers are entitled to this support. Quebec has more than 5,000deaths from COVID-19, 90%of which have been in seniors' residences or long-term care homes. The military's presence is vital because they play an extraordinary and essential role. Will the minister commit to extending the mission now and putting an end to this uncertainty? It's certainly bad for both the military and the health care workers, who rely on this support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 10seconds. +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Madam Chair, let me be very clear. We have made a commitment to the Province of Quebec that we will continue to provide that support until the middle of September, exactly as they have requested, but we are also working to ensure that we have an sustainable, effective solution to the request that Quebec has made, so we're working with the Province of Quebec, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross to ensure the help that is needed is there. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Bryan May. +Mr. Bryan May (Cambridge, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure and an honour to be with you all today. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member of Parliament for Scarborough North. Madam Chair, COVID-19 continues to create challenges for all Canadians, including those with disabilities, and exacerbates those experienced by Canadians with disabilities. As we mark the end of National AccessAbility Week, I would like to remind our colleagues that our commitment to making Canada more inclusive and equitable is ongoing, including our passing of the Accessible Canada Act. Would the minister inform the House about the government's plans to support Canadians with disabilities who are experiencing increased costs due to COVID-19? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Madam Chair, last week was the first National AccessAbility Week that was legislated under the historic Accessible Canada Act, and I thank every party in this House for the consent they gave to that legislation. I'm hoping we have the same spirit of camaraderie for people with disabilities this afternoon. Since the beginning, Madam Chair, we have taken a disability inclusion approach on how we support people with disabilities in this time of pandemic, including the establishment of our COVID-19 disability advisory group, which has given us invaluable advice. I thank them so much for their contributions to our efforts. Last week we announced a suite of measures to support people with disabilities that complement existing measures that are in place. This includes a one-time payment of $600 to 1.25 million citizens with disabilities, which again is the subject matter of the legislation this afternoon, as well as a $15-million investment in an accessible workplace initiative that will ensure, moving forward.... We know that as we move back into employment situations it will be very tough for people with disabilities. Finally, there are five really exciting accessible technology initiatives, including working on point-of-sale terminals for Canadians who are blind or visually impaired. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You may have a very short question, Mr. May. +Mr. Bryan May: I want to take this opportunity to thank the minister and her department for all the work they are doing to ensure that accessibility is at the forefront of everybody's mind through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Chen is next. +Mr. Shaun Chen (Scarborough North, Lib.): Madam Chair, as humanity battles COVID-19, we are confronted by the stark realities of another disease. On May 25, George Floyd fell unconscious and died as a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. This all happened after the 46-year-old black man was handcuffed and put in a position where he could do no harm. In Canada, we have come a long way since Viola Desmond, yet there is much more to do. Anti-black racism is institutionalized, hidden under dominant narratives of a free and multicultural society. Hatred has no boundaries, whether it is against black communities or is anti-Asian sentiment fuelled by COVID-19. The question always is this: Who is next? We must all stand up together against hatred and for justice and reconciliation, to dismantle systems of oppression that long remained unquestioned. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that Canada is failing black youth, creating the conditions that push them into the justice system. To the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, my question is this: What is the government doing to address the unique challenges faced by black youth? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, the member for Scarborough North is absolutely correct. We must all do what we can to stand up against hatred and injustice. We often say that today's youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today, so we need to equip them for success by investing in youth. According to the 2016 census, black Canadians accounted for 1.2 million people, and more than a quarter of that population is under the age of 15. Socio-economic gaps, such as in employment and education, exist between black and non-black youth. We need to do better. Our government has brought forward youth so they can inform the decisions we make. We have Canada's first youth policy, and it was created by youth for youth to ensure that all young people are equipped to live healthy and fulfilling lives, and are empowered to create positive change for themselves and their communities. Our government launched the community support for black Canadian youth program, which supported 56 projects geared to address the unique challenges faced by black Canadian youth through the development of leadership skills and civic engagement, while empowering them through the promotion of black history, culture and identity. To address the challenges of the pandemic, our government has implemented a suite of measures designed to help youth and students, including with employment and service opportunities. My office is working with community organizations who serve black youth to make sure they too are both aware of and benefiting from these measures. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Mathyssen is next. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for TimminsJames Bay. Schools in many provinces remain closed, and many child care providers want to reopen. They must reduce their capacity due to COVID-19. Now more than ever we need universal, publicly funded child care to restart the economy. Will the government bring in legislation that would enshrine into law access to, and federal funding for, quality affordable child care? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Madam Chair, we are, of course, committed to investments in child care. We have constantly worked with provinces and territories to ensure that we provide the supports they need to provide quality, affordable and accessible child care. Since 2015, we have created over 40,000 child care spaces. We are committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: The government doesn't seem to understand that this is not universal child care. During COVID-19, women have lost the majority of jobs, and they have taken on the majority of additional child care responsibilities. Canadian women want and need to return to work, but this government doesn't understand that without affordable child care, they simply cannot re-enter the workforce. For 26 years, Liberal governments have been promising, but failing to deliver, a universal child care program. Parents are paying the price. How much longer do parents have to wait? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the important question. Since 2015, we have created 40,000 affordable, accessible, quality child care spaces across the country. We are on track to continue to invest $7.5 billion over 11 years to create additional child care spaces and support provinces and territories. We're constantly in touch with our counterparts to work to strengthen that sector. We are also keeping our promise and our commitment to create an additional 250,000 spaces. We will be there for parents as they get back to work, and we will continue to reinforce the early learning and child care sector. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You have time for a very short question, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Without universal child care, we are crippling our economy. We are not providing an affordable system, and this stops women from returning to work. Instead of helping parents return to work, the government is now bringing forward legislation that's penalizing them. Why is the government looking to sentence mothers and fathers to jail time and large fines when they cannot find the child care that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister has time for a short answer. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: We are committed to the early learning and child care sector. We will move forward with the creation of an early learning and child care secretariat. We will continue to invest in this sector. We recognize its importance. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. It's an honour to be here, and I'm hoping that you and your family stay safe at this time. COVID has shaken up Canada's middle class, so my question is for the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. This morning I spoke with a businesswoman. She runs her own business, a travel agency, but because of COVID she has been wiped out. She's on CERB, and it's ticking down. There's no work to go back to, so in four weeks she hits the economic wall. Will the minister fight for an extension of CERB so this woman can stay in the middle class? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we know how worried Canadians are as they see their final four-week period of the CERB approaching, and we're working very hard to ensure that the CERB continues to serve an important purpose as we move into economic recovery. I'll note that when we created the CERB, there was a different purpose in mind. We were asking people to stay home. Now we're asking people to go back to work if it's safe for them to do so. We're going to make sure that the wage subsidy and the CERB complement each other. In fact, the measures in today's legislation will help us to get the flexibility to be able to do just that. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We did give you a little more time. We will go to Mr. Angus. +Mr. Charlie Angus: Thank you for that. What I've seen with their legislation today is that they're talking about jailing people. We need a Minister of Middle Class Prosperity in a time of middle-class disparity, and she has talked about middle-class criminality. Let's talk about this again, about people going back to work. I spoke with a 51-year-old bartender. He's a professional; this is his job. There is no job to go back to. Will the minister assure us that this man will be able to stay in the middle class because the CERB will still be there in July, yes or no? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we've been helping Canadians by putting programs in place. We will continue to support families during the crisis, and afterwards as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Angus, you have time for a very short comment or question. +Mr. Charlie Angus: The issue here is that when COVID hit, millions of Canadians were living in such precarious working conditions that they didn't even have enough money to pay their rent. That is a damning indictment. In four weeks, those Canadians are going to hit the economic wall again. What I need to know from the minister, and what Canadians need to know, is whether she will commit, yes or no, that the CERB will be there for those who have no work to go back to. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer. +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have been helping families with a supplement to the Canada child benefit. We have put in place the Canada emergency response benefit. We will continue to find ways to support Canadian families during this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cooper. +Mr. Michael Cooper (St. AlbertEdmonton, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. It was all the way back on March 25 that the Minister of Finance stated that help for the energy sector was coming within hours, possibly days. Well, as it turns out, it hasn't been hours. It hasn't been days. It hasn't even been weeks. Indeed, months later, help has yet to arrive. Seventy-seven days after the minister made that statement, not a single energy company has received financing under EDC, the BDC, or the LEEFF program. As the energy sector faces an unprecedented liquidity crisis, how can this government possibly justify such a delay? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Madam Chair, weeks ago we opened applications through the business credit availability program to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We've also opened applications for measures that will be available to our larger players through our LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry. We will continue to support workers, and we will continue to do so to get through this unprecedented challenge. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, on June 2, the vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said, The entire industry is frustrated with the delay that we are facing. The Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and Resources has spoken about a gaping hole that exists in terms of support for the energy sector. The gaping hole that I'm speaking of is the EDC and BDC programs that this government has failed to deliver upon. Indeed, it was on April 17 that those programs were announced, and 54 days later, not only has not a single energy company received financing, but guess what? They can't even apply, and the eligibility criteria have yet to be finalized after 54 days. If that is not failing to deliver for the energy sector, what is? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Business Council of Alberta has said that the LEEFF program is a positive development showing that the federal government recognizes the needs and value of Canada's large corporations. We agree. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through two crises: the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war initiated by Russia and Saudi Arabia. That's why, weeks ago, we opened applications for liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. We also announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry to make sure these programs are effective. +Mr. Michael Cooper: Madam Chair, contrary to the representations of the minister, neither the EDC program nor BDC programs are accepting applications. Just yesterday officials from both BDC and EDC were before the finance committee, where I posed precisely those questions to them. We know, Madam Chair, that the application process isn't up and running and that eligibility criteria remain to be determined, but I guess this government has some good news for the energy sector after 77 days. Now energy sector companies can go on the BDC website and apply for email updates. Is that the kind of help the Minister of Finance had in mind after 77 days: email updates instead of real relief for the energy sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, the Alberta finance minister, Travis Toews, said in a LEEFF announcement that in combination with earlier measures for small and medium-sized companies, it represented an expression of confidence in our industries. It is essential that we support our oil and gas sector as it suffers through these two crisesas I said, the impact of COVID, and then on top of that, the effect of a global price war. We opened up applications for liquidity measures as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers asked. Their top five asks were all liquidity. We supported small and medium-sized players essential to the supply chain, who make up 85% of the jobs in that sector, and then we announced liquidity made available to our larger players through the LEEFF program. We will continue to work with industry and +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I now have to interrupt for a few moments to allow our technicians to change places. With that done, Monsieur Martel, you may now go ahead.. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): MadamChair, there has recently been positive progress in AndrGauthier's case, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Prime Minister for their co-operation in this matter. However, Mr.Gauthier is currently on his own in the United Arab Emirates, without a passport, waiting to settle civil lawsuits. What services does the minister intend to provide to help him, and when does he plan to repatriate AndrGauthier to Canada? +Hon. Marc Garneau: MadamChair, in all cases similar to Mr.Gauthier's, the Government of Canada, through its consular services, tries to do the best it can under the circumstances. This file is still active. +Mr. Richard Martel: The House recognized on February18, 2020, that the 15weeks of sickness benefits provided by employment insurance were insufficient. Citizens who became ill before March15 are now without help. They are being denied the CERB because they didn't lose their jobs because of COVID-19. They are being denied EI regular benefits because they are unable to work. In addition, some citizens are waiting for surgery, which is being delayed because of COVID-19. Is the government letting these people down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: No, MadamChair, that's absolutely not the case. Of course, we understand that people who are no longer receiving EI benefits should have access to the CERB. We have committed to extending the emergency sickness benefit to 26weeks. We're working with everyone here to make that happen. We're taking into account the needs and circumstances of all citizens in our efforts to help Canadians. +Mr. Richard Martel: I've called on the Minister of Economic Development several times to be more flexible in establishing these programs, so that they are better adapted to the realities of the regions. Recently, it was the SMEs in Montreal that were monopolizing the funds earmarked for the regions. When will the Liberal government listen to the needs of regions like SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for the opportunity to announce the good news that was mentioned on Radio-Canada this morning, namely, $71million more for the regions of Quebec. Of course, we're here for the regions. I will be happy to work with my colleague to ensure that the CFDC in his region can support businesses. We have to support businesses in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean and across the country. +Mr. Richard Martel: I think that's a canned speech. According to a survey conducted by the Universit de Trois-Rivires in Quebec, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is apparently the most economically affected by COVID-19. We have many projects, but they depend on the government's leadership to be carried out. Our region has forestry, the aluminum sector, GNL Qubec, tourism, the Port of Saguenay, Davie Canada, a military base and a tax centre. It's all here. We know we'll have to get the economy moving again soon. When will the government act to help our region? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Every day, we act to help my colleague's region. I've had good conversations with Promotion Saguenay. I've also spoken several times with various stakeholders in my colleague's beautiful region. We will always be there for them. I'd like to tell my colleague that there will be other announcements to support the economic development of the beautiful region of SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. I will be happy to work with him to achieve good results. +Mr. Richard Martel: Sustainable forestry development is at the heart of the economic development of Canada and for SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean. Canadians have reason to be proud of the use of the boreal forest in the fight against climate change. Currently, our innovative forest industry is experiencing many problems, and on top of that, there is the COVID-19 crisis. Who will defend our forestry workers? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Of course, we believe in the importance of regional economic development. That's why we're always there to defend our forestry workers. I will also be pleased to work with my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, who is very familiar with the matter and who knows the challenges faced by the various businesses in the forestry sector, as well as the employees. We will always be there to support employees and create more jobs across Quebec and the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota is next. Go ahead, please. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. We continue to see significant gaps in the Liberals' programs. There are still people who are falling through the cracks and being left behind. We are hearing from women who are pregnant or who have just given birth and are being left out or told to go back to work. When will this government stop letting Canadians down? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: We know that there are many situations of Canadians who are about to or are just going on maternity or parental benefits who might not have access to their EI benefits due to not having accumulated enough time for COVID reasons. We're working very hard to make sure, as we did for fish harvesters, that we support all Canadians in these situations. I look forward to advising Canadians of our approach on this very soon. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, that simply isn't good enough. This is something that has been brought to the government's attention for months now, and still nothing has been done. These families deserve answers now. Had the government conducted a GBA+ analysis, they would have discovered this prior to rolling out inadequate programs for women. Why wasn't a GBA+ conducted? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure everyone in this House that we are very aware and deeply concerned about the disproportionate impact of this pandemic on women and girls. We are working hard to ensure that everyone has the supports they need. As we move forward, we are, as I said earlier, taking into consideration improvements to the EI system, the wage subsidy and the future of CERB. All these play together as we work to provide a comprehensive forward-looking support package for Canadians. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, might I remind my honourable colleague that this Prime Minister said that every piece of legislation would go through a rigorous GBA+? Why was it not done? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we absolutely took into account the needs of women as we developed the CERB. I can tell you that women are benefiting significantly from this benefit. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, it is a simple question, and I will ask again. Why was GBA+ analysis not conducted for the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as I said, the needs of women and girls were taken into consideration every step of the way, from the beginning, as we worked to provide a comprehensive suite of support for Canadians across the country. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, if that's the case, then how did you miss these gaps? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member that we didn't miss gaps. We, from the beginning, looked to support as many people as possible. As we moved from supporting workers to supporting students to supporting seniors, and today to supporting people with disabilities, we are ensuring that everyone is covered by our measures. As this pandemic evolves and as we move into economic recovery, of course we're going to make sure that women in particular are supported in our measures. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, the minister needs to take the responsibility here. These women and families deserve answers. This is a real problem happening right now. You said you would conduct GBA+ analysis on all policy measures moving forward. Where is the assistance for these expectant mothers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I take responsibility. I'm very proud of how many senior women we have supported with our measures, how many women received the GST credit, how many women who lead families received the CCB one-time payment and how many women with disabilities will receive the disability support if we have all-party consent today. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, may I remind you to please direct your questions through the chair? +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, I will ask again, hoping for a straightforward answer from this minister. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: My goodness, Madam Chair. I'll say again how important it was from the very beginning that we took into account the needs of women and girls, and as we move forward into the economic recovery phase, how completely we make women at the core of every decision. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Sahota, you have 15 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Madam Chair, my question is still not answered. She keeps repeating the same answer. I'll keep asking the same question, hoping for a straightforward answer. Why was a GBA+ analysis not conducted on the COVID-19 relief programs? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Honourable minister, you have five seconds. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we've taken into account the needs of women and girls from the beginning, and we'll continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We go now to Mr. Carrie. +Mr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC): Madame Chair, on April 29 I asked Minister Blair why Lisa Freeman, a constituent of mine, wasn't able to participate in the Parole Board hearing of her father's murderer. The minister acknowledged that this had been a mistake and that victims would now be able to attend by telephone and video conference. Can the minister tell this House how many parole hearings have been conducted under this digital format with victims since April 29? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank my honourable colleague for the question. I'm glad to hear that Minister Blair was able to provide information on the specific case he raises. With regard to his question, we're happy to provide it to him in due course. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, on April 29 the minister said, and I quote, Steps have been taken to make it possible for victims to participate in those parole hearings virtually by phone or video conference. If the change has been made, can the minister please tell us how many hearings victims have been able to participate in by video conference? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, certainly we will confirm the number of hearings that may have occurred. With regard to the hearings under the Parole Board of Canada, we want to ensure that victims and others are able to participate in a fair and transparent manner. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madame Chair, the website says, To protect the health and safety of the public, offenders, Parole Board...members and staff in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PBC is currently conducting its hearings remotely via video conference or teleconference. However, when referring to victim participation, the PBC says it has Implemented technological and procedural enhancements in order to provide victims...the ability to participate...via telephone. If video conference is an option for staff and inmates, why is it not for victims? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I said, it is very important that all parties be able to participate before the Parole Board. The Parole Board has introduced technologies to allow victims to participate in a manner that is fair and that accords them the opportunity to express themselves. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, the minister is missing the point. For victims, besides the criminal trial, the Parole Board hearings are the only chance to participate in the judicial process. Why are victims not permitted on the video conference, while staff, panels and inmates are? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said now on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in the hearings before the Parole Board. This is as a result of technology and innovations introduced by the Parole Board. Of course, those opportunities will continue to exist going forward. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Then, Madam Chair, why did the minister and this government tell Canadians and the House that victims of crime have the opportunity to participate in parole hearings by video conference, when in fact they do not? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, as I've said, of course we are going to confirm the status of that particular request. In the meantime, as I've said on a number of occasions, victims are able to participate in these hearings. This is consistent with the fairness of those hearings and the due process we accord to them. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Madam Chair, it's been over a month. When will the minister finally give victims of crime the same right to parole hearings by video conference as he gives convicted inmates? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I reject that proposition. The Parole Board is a well-established tribunal that does allow for all parties, including victims, to participate in a manner that is fair, and that allows them to express themselves so those representations can be taken into account in the decisions of the Parole Board of Canada. +Mr. Colin Carrie: He can reject it as much as he wants, Madam Chair, but it seems he thinks it's fair that inmates have that right, but victims don't. We'll follow up with him on that. Brandon Hottot owns and operates a contracting business in my riding, and his company needs help. On May 19, the Prime Minister announced the government would allow sole proprietors and gig contractors to qualify for the Canada emergency business account; however, Brandon has still not been able to take advantage of this benefit. When can small business owners like Brandon expect this change to finally be made? It's been over three weeks, and the clock is ticking. +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Madam Chair, from the very beginning, we have been working hard to support our small businesses. Over 660,000 businesses today have received access to small business loans. I want to assure my colleague that additional support will be there within about a week. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Carrie, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Colin Carrie: Okay, Madam Chair. Shawn and Denise operate a gymnastics facility in Whitby and have been forced to close throughout COVID-19. As the economy begins to open, they are concerned about not having the money to pay their employees in the short term, especially at a reduced client capacity. Is the government extending the wage subsidy to small businesses that have been closed and are just beginning to open now? +Hon. Mary Ng: The wage subsidy has been extended until August 31. We hope businesses like that one will be able to take advantage of the wage subsidy to keep their employees on staff. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go now to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to put it on the record, because we may or may not be debating it, the draft embargoed bill that we've seen is unacceptable to members of the Green Party caucus. My questions will relate largely to those sections that are troublesome. I'll start with a question to the honourable minister for disabilities. I certainly appreciate her work and I know her intentions are the best, but part 3 of this bill allows for the information to be shared so people can get a one-time payment of $600, which is not enough to really deal with the COVID crisis for people with disabilities. It's clearand I thank the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party for making this point clearly in question periodit will reach approximately 40% of people with disabilities because of the structure of going through the disability tax credit. To the honourable minister, are other measures under consideration to reach the rest of the people in Canada with disabilities who need help? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, the disability support payment we are proposing and that we hope to get through the House today complements a whole suite of measures our government has put in place that people with disabilities have access to. We know that people with disabilities who were precariously employed are now taking advantage of the CERB. Students with disabilities get the student benefit, including a $750-per-month top-up for four months. Families with children with disabilities are getting the CCB payment. Disproportionately, people with disabilities are benefiting from the GST payment. I should talk about the provincial letters that are being delivered to recipients of provincial disability supports. All around, Madam Chair, we're trying to get to every citizen with a disability, and this measure fills an important gap. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Much worse than part 3, from our point of view, is the treatment of people who are at this point potentially to be jailed for refusing to return to work when it's considered reasonable and they are recipients of CERB. I wonder about the reasonableness here. It's a subjective test. This is a wrong-headed approach to go after people and threaten them. The retroactive section has already made the Canadian Civil Liberties Association question its constitutionality. To the minister, what's reasonable, and in whose eyes is it reasonable? In today's news, Hamilton's chief medical officer says there is a spike in cases among young people, who likely were exposed while taking public transit to get to work. Their commute wasn't safe. Who determines reasonableness in deciding it's not safe to go back to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, as with the current CERB, moving forward it tries to encompass the situations of people who are unemployed, people who can't work because of child care responsibilities, people who are ill or sick. Moving to a broad term of reasonableness allows us to look at the individual circumstances of the person. If we stuck to language like suitable or appropriate, that would qualify the job. We're trying to look at the person and their particular circumstances as we work to ensure that if someone is immunocompromised and can't take transit to their job, then it's reasonable for them not to take that job. That's the exact example we're trying to encompass with broad reasonableness criteria. +Ms. Elizabeth May: The approach is so very flawed, Madam Chair, in that it attempts to punish people as opposed to encouraging them. I think the Liberals have been overly influenced by the Conservative Party's cries that there's vast fraud, that Canadians are cheating. The reality is that if you want to create an incentive to go back to work, you don't threaten people. What you do is create a sliding scale. You let people continue to receive CERB, but maybe less as they begin to earn more, so that you have a transition on a sliding scale to go into the wage subsidy or into CERB. I ask the honourable minister this: How can it be considered fair to say that someone isn't eligible, even though they believed they were? The language in this bill, particularly at proposed paragraph 12.1 in the penalties section, is an unreasonable determination that someone has violated the act and is subject to jail time and heavy fines. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, because of parliamentary privilege, I can't and won't speak to specific acts of a piece of law that hasn't actually been introduced in the House, but I'll tell you that what we're trying to do is enhance our integrity measures. We're working with those people who made an honest mistake, those who took advantage of returning to work when they were still receiving the CERB. We're working with those people. We're absolutely confident that those people will find a path forward. We want to deal with intentional fraudsters, people who are criminally taking advantage of seniors. Members of this House have brought fact patterns to my attention and have said, Please deal with these. This is exactly what we're trying to deal with, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be sharing my time with the member from EsquimaltSaanichSooke. Tourism is a critical part of the economy throughout my riding, and after struggling with years of forest fires and floods, tourism was set to have a record-breaking year in 2020, but the COVID epidemic has burned tourism to the ground, in the words of a local leader. Thousands of jobs have evaporated. Over half of the tourism businesses in the region are facing imminent insolvency. Many of them are small seasonal operations that don't qualify for any of the government's COVID support programs. While funding for ad campaigns is appreciated, these businesses need direct support and they need certainty about that support. Can the finance minister pledge now to provide direct and timely support to tourism businesses in my riding? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you to my colleague for his important question. I agree with him. The tourism sector has been deeply impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. Yes, we were looking forward to another record-breaking year in 2020, but unfortunately the pandemic happened, and therefore many businesses were impacted. That's why, as a government, we're there to help with the wage subsidy, which has been extended until the end of August, as the tourism sector has been asking us to do; with the CEBA loans, the $40,000 loans, which also include a subsidy; and with the commercial rent relief. That said, we know the tourism sector also sometimes falls through the cracks. That's why we wanted to have a backstop. We came up with funding through the regional development agencies. In my colleague's riding, it's Western Economic Diversification. Some businesses have applied and have received funding. If there are more that need help, please come and see me. I would love to be there to help your community, help tourism +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings: A big part of tourism in my riding is the wine sector. One thing that has allowed the wine industry to grow so dramatically in the past few decades is the excise tax exemption. That exemption could likely end very soon if it is found to be non-compliant with our trade agreements. The industry has proposed a trade-legal replacement, the wine growers' value-added program. The finance minister has known about this situation for months. Can he assure this House and the industry that the government will act immediately to implement this program? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a very short answer, please. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work on this issue. We recognize how important the wine industry is in B.C., and I assure the honourable member that I will come back to him and give him an update. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Madam Chair, this is National Blood Donor Week in Canada. While blood and plasma donations are always important, during this pandemic they're critical. There's a simple and effective way to increase the blood supply: End the gay blood ban. More than 17 other countries have no deferral because they know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than identity-based exclusions. The Liberals must agree, because they promised this in two election campaigns. Will the Minister of Health do more than repeat those same promises today and instead take action to get this unscientific and discriminatory gay blood ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Madam Chair, I'm glad to be able to answer this very important question. We indeed want to fight against discrimination. We feel this particularly strongly in the context of the last few days and the last few weeks. We are also mindful of the important contribution of scientists and other experts in this area. We look forward to working with all members in this House in making progress on that issue. +Mr. Randall Garrison: The government knows I've been calling on friends, family and allies of the gay community to donate blood this week in the place of those of us who cannot. Not only do we need routine blood donations, but to do the research we need on possible prevention and treatment of COVID-19, we urgently need plasma donations from those who have recovered. This ban means that plasma donations are being rejected for no good scientific reason. Again, when will the Minister of Health act to get this ban lifted? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Madam Chair, I think the member used the right key words in referring to science and more prevention work to make sure that everyone lives in dignity and safety. Although there has been progress in the last few months and years on this important issue, there is more work to be done. +Mr. Randall Garrison: Six years ago this week, I tabled a motion in the House that called for an end to this homophobic and transphobic ban on blood donations from gay men, men who have sex with men and trans women. That was five ministers of health ago. At the time, I was told certain things had to happen before the ban could be lifted. These were all due to be completed earlier this year, before the COVID crisis. Since we appear to have cross-party support for my new motion, M-41, that I put on the notice paper this week, would the minister and the government agree to support a unanimous consent motion to proceed with M-41 immediately? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The honourable minister may give a short answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Madam Chair. Homophobia and transphobia are examples of discrimination and absolutely important things not only to recognize but to fight against. That's why we are pleased to have voices such as the member of Parliament's voice to make sure that we make progress in making sure that everyone in Canada lives in safety and in dignity. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): MadamChair, I will share my time with the honourable member for LongueuilSaint-Hubert. As Quebec starts to gradually emerge from the general lockdown, the outlook for the recovery of the tourism industry remains bleak. The economy of several regions of Quebec depends on tourism to ensure stability and balance, which will be beneficial in the coming months. Is the Minister of Finance prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit beyond 16weeks to ensure a living wage for tourism workers? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: MadamChair, as I said in English, we're working very hard to continue to be there for all Canadians, whether it's through the CERB or the Canada emergency wage subsidy. Please excuse me, I'm very tired. I'll continue in English. We're going to have news on this very soon, Madam Chair, but the point is that we want to make sure that all of these programs work well together, whether it's the wage subsidy or the CERB. We want to make sure that we incentivize work, but we still continue to be there for Canadians. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We read that the government wants to gradually replace the Canada emergency response benefit by using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. That's all well and good, but seasonal industries aren't entitled to it under the current criteria. If the minister is aware of the importance of the tourism industry in the economic cycle of our regions, he must commit to helping workers. If the clientele isn't there, the industry will simply no longer exist. We still need the Canada emergency response benefit. We simply need to make it an employment incentive so as not to hurt people who are lucky enough to be able to go back to work. The question is simple: will the government commit to renewing it? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, we are working hard to make sure we continue to support Canadians as we transition through economic recovery. We want to make sure that we support Canadians, but of course we don't want to disincentivize work. The CERB was created for a different purpose. We asked people to stay home to be safe and to self-isolate if they had symptoms. We want to make sure that as we ask people to go back to work, we don't disincentivize work, but the reality is that there won't be jobs there for everyone, and we need to continue to support everyone. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): MadamChair, I join my colleague in extending my good wishes to you on Portugal's national day. Apart from the fact that it is probably the most beautiful riding in Quebec, the riding of LongueuilSaint-Hubert has surely been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, both in terms of health and the economy. There are industries here, but also many service businesses, including bars, restaurants and theatres. But we aren't close to being able to go back and see a show by WajdiMouawad or FredPellerin, and that's a shame. We must work to calm the anxiety of these people. The arts sector was the first to stop its activities and will be the last to resume them. There is a lot of anxiety. The CERB ends on July4. Will the government extend the CERB, with an employment incentive? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: MadamChair, I thank my colleague for his question and all the work he's doing in arts and culture. From the outset, we've been there to support our artists and arts organizations. We introduced the Canada emergency response benefit, for example, but also the emergency wage subsidy, which we made available to non-governmental organizations. To ensure that people who receive royalties aren't penalized under the Canada emergency response benefit, we have adapted it. We announced a $500million fund to specifically help the arts and culture sector. In fact, we understand very well that this sector has been severely affected by the current crisis. We've been there for our artists and artisans, and we will continue to be. +Mr. Denis Trudel: Perfect. Instead of giving a long preamble, I'll ask a very simple question: will the CERB be extended on July5? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has the floor. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Madam Chair, I can assure the member opposite that in July we will be there for Canadian workers. +Mr. Denis Trudel: In my riding, a nice little restaurant called Crpe Caf on St-Charles Street in Longueuil has just closed its doors. It's final; it won't reopen. Another restaurant owner told me that he was going to reopen his restaurant, but he didn't know at what capacity. Would it be at 15%, 30%, 40%? No one knows. The speed at which the economy will recover is the big unknown. How many hours a week will it be able to offer its employees? Will it be 12hours, 15hours, 22hours? Will employees even want to return to work to put in 12hours a week? If the CERB isn't adjusted, nothing will happen. Will the government commit to extending the CERB and providing an employment incentive to get the economy moving again at full speed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: MadamChair, I know, of course, that the restaurant sector has been much affected. I have a great deal of empathy for what entrepreneurs and my colleague are going through in his riding. That's why we are currently helping our SMEs. We have money for economic development. The money is available through Canada Economic Development, or CED. If my colleague wants to work with me to provide support to restaurant owners and other restaurants in Longueuil, I'd be very happy to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will go to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Madam Chair, last month, on May 5, I asked the government how it plans to support the agriculture sector. The Liberals announced a $50-million food surplus purchase program as part of the agricultural aid package. Now, one month later, our farmers, who provide the food we need, are still waiting on funds to be delivered. The New Brunswick potato industry is sitting on a massive amount of last year's crop that, because of the pandemic, has no buyers. When will the Prime Minister and the government step up and deliver the support our farmers so desperately need? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, without question we want to continue to support farmers. My colleague Minister Bibeau has introduced hundreds of millions of dollars for farmers. In addition to that, we have provided relief and support for migrant workers, who are ensuring that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, when support for the agriculture sector was announced on May 4, our agriculture sector had been sounding the alarm for weeks that they needed help to continue to meet Canadians' food needs. It has been over a month since that announcement, and our farmers are still waiting for help. It is worth noting, Madam Chair, that vegetables like the potatoes in New Brunswick that I previously mentioned are perishable products. Our farmers do not have the luxury of time. Again, will the Prime Minister and this government make agriculture a priority and provide them with the support they desperately need right now? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Madam Chair, obviously we believe in the importance of our regions and our rural communities, and that's why we've always made sure that agriculture was at the core of many of the decisions throughout this pandemic. That's why our colleague Minister Bibeau, who is the Minister of Agriculture, has been there providing the right liquidity and the right support through this pandemic. Of course we want to make sure that we continue to partner with provinces and territories, because we need their help in this context to make sure that all together we show strong economic support for our farmers, who are going through tough times. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: On May 1 the Liberals introduced a sweeping firearms ban through an order in council that outlawed 1,500 firearms. Recent reports show that since then, more and more firearms are quietly being added to the list of banned firearms, including many common hunting rifles and shotguns. Madam Chair, our hunters, outfitters, dealers and sport shooters are some of the most vetted members of our society. Why does the Prime Minister insist on making criminals out of law-abiding firearms owners instead of dealing with the criminals we already have? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, I am very proud of this government's record when it comes to ensuring that we take out of our communities those guns that have one objective only, and that is to kill other people. We will always stand by that record, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to keep our communities safe. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, the Liberals have said that to compensate firearms owners, they will implement a national buyback program. Instead of targeting law-abiding firearms owners and their legally purchased private property, wouldn't the estimated quarter of a billion dollars needed to buy back these firearms be better utilized right now in supporting our agricultural sector, the very people who grow our food and literally keep our land? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: Madam Chair, of course we look forward to saying more about that, but of course we remain committed to taking those guns that have only one objective, and that is to kill people. The legislation we have introduced and the measures we have taken are designed to keep our communities safe, and of course we will do that. We will also continue to support farmers, introducing hundreds of millions of dollars in support because we know they are providing Canadians with affordable food. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Bragdon, you have time for a short question. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Madam Chair, many sole proprietors have been hit extremely hard by this pandemic. My office has heard from many who have been in business for nearly 30 years and have submitted hundreds of HST returns, yet still cannot access the CEBA funding because they do not have a business chequing account, as a lot of small business owners use their personal chequing accounts to do their business. The Liberals offered aid to sole proprietors but attached unnecessary hurdles that prevent many of them from accessing the funds they desperately need to keep their businesses afloat. When will these unnecessary hurdles be removed so businesses can start to receive the relief they so desperately need? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We will have a very short answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: We believe in the importance of making sure we're supporting our businesses, including sole proprietors. That is why our colleague, Minister Ng, the minister for small business, has been working on this and will continue to make sure we take the appropriate steps to recognize that. Meanwhile, people can definitely come to the regional development agencies if they don't have access to funding through banks, and that's a good way to make sure there is a backstop. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Please note that, pursuant to the Standing Order made on April20 and May26, the House has been recalled. Therefore, the committee will adjourn, and the House will begin sitting at 2:30p.m. The bells will be rung to call members, and a parade will begin the sitting. The meeting is adjourned. +","The meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic was called to order by the Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota (Nipissing–Timiskaming, Lib.). The meeting addressed a range of issues related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. + +Minister Bill Blair presented the RCMP's annual report on law enforcement justification provisions. Minister Harjit S. Sajjan tabled the progress report on Canada’s national action plan for the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace, and security. + +Additionally, various petitions were presented by members, including calls for action on protecting pollinators, threats to southern resident killer whales, forced organ harvesting, support for a green new deal, universal basic income, condemnation of gas fracking, and concern over the situation in Guyana. Several MPs conveyed thanks to their constituents for their efforts during the pandemic and discussed local achievements and initiatives. + +The Chair reminded members to be concise in their statements and noted the importance of presenting petitions and remarks through the Chair, maintaining correct parliamentary procedures. + +The conversation shifted to government bills and ministerial announcements, with emphasis on the current state and future of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), supporting Canadians with disabilities, and addressing the challenges facing various sectors, including agriculture and tourism, which are critical to regional economies across the country. The government's response to the need for blood donations, particularly regarding the policy on blood donations from gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, was also highlighted. + +Throughout the meeting, there was a clear concern for ensuring Canadians receive the necessary support as the economy moves toward recovery, while also holding the government accountable for the delivery and effectiveness of relief programs. The discussions reflected the urgency of responding to both the health crisis and its economic repercussions, with a focus on protecting vulnerable groups, promoting sustainable economic development, and maintaining public trust in government actions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So , I will open our functional design meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I will play role of the secretary . As also Program Ma Manager . So , we will have the three presentations from the In Industrial Designer , User Interface Designer and um +Industrial Designer: Industrial Design . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: What's your talk ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And after that we uh will have the uh new product requirements , the decision on the remote control functions , and we will close the meetings after . Mm so um I suppose the first to do the presentation will be the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , so you're participant two ? +Industrial Designer: One one . +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: No you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Three three , it's three +Project Manager: I'm participant one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I I think I'm a {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , did you save your presentation ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: In one . +Industrial Designer: In one , sorry {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Isn't that technical functions ? +Marketing: No sure . +Industrial Designer: So you didn't save it maybe . +Marketing: Uh +User Interface: It's mine . +Marketing: it's David Jordan . Course . +Industrial Designer: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Name's Jordan . So +Industrial Designer: David Jordan ? {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I'll {disfmarker} I let David Jordan do his presentation . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: No , no . Uh this one doesn't want to be moved , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Too great for email then . +User Interface: Okay , so . The first I will present the technical function design for user interface for our uh remote T_V_ control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh I I will focus on user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um so move to the next slide . As we know our remote c rem remote T_V_ control it's very {disfmarker} has very soph sophisticated functions , as we show from this picture . There's a lot of functions . Over , I think over s twelve or twenty s functions of a remote T_V_ control . So how can we um design a user interface with so sa with so many sophisticated functions ? Um , let's move to next slide . Um . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} so we want to design uh elegant , easy to use inter interface . A very good example is Google . As we know uh Google it's a very successful because his um powerful function , but with very easy to use user interface . Um so move to next s slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my job is to uh design a Google T_V_ controller {vocalsound} which I want to have sophisticated functions while with very easy to use user interface . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the end of the talk {vocalsound} the end of the presentation . +Project Manager: So you propose to to have the remote control which will be powerful . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} With sophisticated functions , +Project Manager: So powerful , +User Interface: but with very {disfmarker} yeah powerful . +Project Manager: many functions and very easy to use . +User Interface: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: So , I dunno , it's maybe difficult to have both , +Industrial Designer: To merge the two system huh . +Marketing: I mean the the one on the right doesn't look so simple +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You mean this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah you have to learn the manual before using this remote control , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But But this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if we have very very good user interface +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: it take less time for user to learn how to use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you {disfmarker} maybe you have some international standards , where you know , if you can use one is the other are {disfmarker} or almost the same , so the sign . +Project Manager: Oh you mean for the yeah pic pictograms or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . For example , I dunno here , escape , you know , you have escape in computers you have , so if you see escape , you know that it should be the same . +Marketing: Oh it should {disfmarker} okay , yeah . The user should know . +Industrial Designer: So you have to {disfmarker} The sh the user there {disfmarker} for example the power off button it is something very international , you know that {disfmarker} So . +Project Manager: Yeah um such as maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Go on , go back and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the question is how to merge you know the Google system to the system , alright . +Marketing: Yeah , that's gonna be the trick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's my job . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's your job {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's my job . It's not the easiest I've got to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , you will propose us something which is yeah so powerful and easy to use . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Powerful and easy to use . +Marketing: So that's the point . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the point . +Project Manager: So , next I propose the Industrial User Interface to present things . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: So you you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The rationale must be {vocalsound} design , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , Baba is the uh the Industrial Designer . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can move to the next slide . As you all know , you know m my job is to design you know uh to give an industrial design of the remote control . So the re basically the remote control will be , you know , infrared control , so the problem is how to relate the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: how to relate the remote control device , like for example this one I h I'm holding in my hand and the T_V_ . So , this one is leather bu based +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I propose a nifra infrared base {vocalsound} you know , so so for me I think that it is better {vocalsound} it's bet it's better to control T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you know , so it's it will be cheaper and it is less technology than , you know {disfmarker} For the cheap price we have , for the cheap price we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: So you mean that infrared control is a cheap technology ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's cheaper than laser , so {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do y you know the requirements for the remote control ? Twelve , nearly thirteen , +Marketing: What the cost is ? +Project Manager: yeah . The cost {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twelve , twelve a half . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think for the cost we want {disfmarker} for the cost we want {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it's better to have uh uh Let's see . Yeah . You can move to the next slide , so . So the di the differen the findings you know what you find inside the re i the the system here inside it is just , you know a bulb and an infrared bulb , so here for example the infrared bulb will be here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the bulb it will be somewhere inside . +Marketing: That might just {disfmarker} So . +Industrial Designer: You can go to the next slide . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some kind of pictures you know , here . You have the b the bulb , it is a blue the blue stuff here and the infrared and the infrared bulb it is the red stuff +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know and so and you have the other subcomponent that are not really here so important , so . +Project Manager: What is this ? +Industrial Designer: This is in fact some other component that are in between the electrical de the electronic device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Look . But here what I wanted to emphasise it is just you know the bulb and {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and the next slide , it is the last one it's {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I think it should be wire {vocalsound} wireless re remote con {vocalsound} Because you know , it's easier to manage and you know because you f the b the the battery problem can hold you know will you use a battery or the a wire to connected you . Or maybe some kind of thing that we can have both , but you know , I at my side prefer a wireless . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so if you have some question I didn't answer ? +Marketing: What's the average price of this technology then ? +Industrial Designer: Well the avera the average prices I think that this technology will cost , I dunno , around eight Euros , so . Or at least you know , the +User Interface: So what , the wireless remote control ? There's a wire {vocalsound} with remote control ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You'd {disfmarker} yes , you can . It's so so bres you have to decide how how you will you know , put some energy inside , so you can think about wireless or you know it's it's a question that we can raise , so . We can think that you know , with the wire , you know , without a wire . We can have both also . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think that uh {vocalsound} a cable between the remote control {vocalsound} and the T_V_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} won't be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No it wou maybe it will be cheaper {vocalsound} I dunno , I just may maybe you making a solu +Marketing: But this is what you would like to ask the user first and I don't think the user would be ready to have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wireless remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} well , yeah , I don't think he would , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but some pa I always want to have you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but in a sense {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: sometime I want to have wire because you know . +Project Manager: Yeah but as Industrial Designer , do you think that it will be feasible to have uh linked or to have link between the remote control and the television ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just asking you . Do you think it will be cheaper ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , {vocalsound} I don't {vocalsound} think it will be too much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could you answer please ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Have to think about the question , you know , 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think that you know you can always you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think wha wha with the wire it's mm cheaper but you know the wireless it's more practical , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think the wireless problem is more the um David Jordan's problem . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The wire ? +Project Manager: As it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's more your problem . Mayb maybe you have just to to kind of research or try to ask people if they will like something wireless or not . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh that's my job . That's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} I'm sorry . +Marketing: Now the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but , it should be an agreement , you know , because {disfmarker} even if you can think of the wireless , it is it's it is the job of the {vocalsound} the the g Graphical User Designer , but you know . If it is a lot cheaper and if you want to reach for example some the the money you have , if you want to use , {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} it can be good to have a wireless , it it is a question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: just think of um the usability . +User Interface: Design a wireless remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just think of the problem . If when you have wireless remote control and if you lose it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's would be easier to have {vocalsound} a link between the remote control and the television , +Marketing: Well that's actually one of the point , yeah ? True . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: This you will see in my presentation then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I will let you to do your presentation , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Which is participant four . So just trying to answer all the questions , if the user would be happy to have something or something else uh . We've made a study , so could you go to next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry for the functional recurrence . So that's the standard method for marketing , okay . We had one hundred subjects , um , we observe their remote control use in a lab and then after all the experiments they had to fill up a questionnaire , um , and see what was okay or not for them . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So then it's some statistics about what we observed and what they answered . Um actually seventy five percent of the users find m the most remote controls uh ugly , okay , so that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You mean the loo the look , the outside ? +Industrial Designer: The look , how it look like . +Marketing: Yeah , the the look is is bad for them +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so uh it's your job , David , maybe . Then eighty percent of users would spend more money um actually if if the remote controls were not so ugly . So this is where we could have uh yeah , good market , I guess , if people are ready to pay more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's it's interesting information , I think . And then um yeah , the remote controls like the one you've shown previously it's not so {disfmarker} doesn't fit the user requirements sometime , because it's too many buttons and so on . So we should change this as well . And uh users are actually zapping a lot , so they're using the device intensively , that's something to take into account as well . And um , you know , ten percent of the buttons are actually used in the remote control . And uh this is one of the main point for me . But I'll come back to it later . 'Kay . Could you go next slide ? Uh , so as you said uh , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is from the experiments we've done , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if we could solve this problem this would be interesting for the user , I think . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use the remote control for thirty five percent of the people . And uh remote control are really bad for R_S_I_ problems for twenty six percent of the users . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What is R_S_I_ ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ is like , when you're using the same um {disfmarker} doing the same movement several times , then you get injured . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah um okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay ? So , those numbers are less important then the previous one , but still it has to be taken to count . So last slide . Um so my pres personal preferences for this problem is we have to meet the user needs . If we can make it look fancy then we might sell more than our uh concurrent , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And definitely if it could have less buttons , still maybe the same number of um functions , but less buttons , +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: this would definitely be a good way of selling more . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm okay . And just to have uh an idea , do you think you as the User Interface Designer to would it be possible to have less buttons and still have the same functionality and to have powerful remote control , you think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sure ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think possible . Because we can {disfmarker} We can uh mix uh several function in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So lets you {disfmarker} then you have less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you think it will be easy to use ? +User Interface: But I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because if you have many functions just for one button it would be quite difficult for the user to know . +Marketing: Yeah , remember the user is not happy to read the +Industrial Designer: The manuals . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: manual . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you you can have a switch menu , so you can +Project Manager: Yeah , but it has to be intuitive . +User Interface: well for example {disfmarker} Yeah , I think so . Like for for example you can uh you can category the function i i into several classes . Then for um you can have a switch menu , so you put the switch menu to it it tend to this kind of this category of functions . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Okay , +User Interface: Then you you put the switch button , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: then it switch to another category of functions . Yeah . For example , if you have remote control you you can rem you can control your T_V_ and also you can control your uh recorder . +Industrial Designer: With a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there's a different functions , but i if you you {disfmarker} there's a button you can switch between control T_V_ and control your recorder . So we can has less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But what I'm not so sure is about how to make the remote control look funny {disfmarker} look fancy , not funny . +Industrial Designer: Look fancy . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is a question that should be asked to the {disfmarker} If you ask the people , maybe the the marketing people {gap} . +User Interface: Because different people have a different opinion about fancy . You know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , this is something we sh +User Interface: Because maybe a colourful is fancy for some people , but maybe simple and uh uniform colourful is fancy for some {disfmarker} for other peoples , so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But this was first step and {disfmarker} This was the first step , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the solution is to have many colours of {disfmarker} you know instead of having one grey standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think it will increase the price of the production of the remote control . +Marketing: Specially distribution , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , maybe . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: If you need to have special colours for remote controls it will cost more . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , personalised colour . Because you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it will cost little bit more . +User Interface: Yeah , because maybe some people prefer a red remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: some people prefer black remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is what we would ask to the users , so . +Project Manager: And also f +User Interface: Maybe we can have di di we can have uh several options , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so user can select which colour they prefer , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but as soon as you speak about options , it means that the price increases , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remember it's twelve Euros . +Project Manager: and we don't really want the price to be too too high , because we wanna be able to produce it . So , we want something fancy , as uh previously said , Florent , something very easy to use , powerful and also as uh it's written here , seventy five percent of users , they zap lot , so maybe just having many functions in one button is not that good if you want to zap a lot . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And they don't really want to zap between functions of their remote control , they want to zap between channels on T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} I think you have quite lot of points to to think about +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and to discuss it with uh the other members . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , is it okay for your presentation ? Nothing else to to add ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's done , just {disfmarker} yeah . If we would {disfmarker} if we could remember like , not too many buttons and make it look fancy , I think it would make it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Mm so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: So , I had some new information about the product requirements , so you will have to take care of it of it in your thinking , in your designing of the remote control . So the first one is that um for the designing of the remote control we don't really want to use the teletext anymore , as it's something that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Lame , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No yeah , because now everybody has internet at home , so it's better to use internet then teletext . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , you will have to think about it in your in in the design of your remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and also the remote control will only be used for television , so for y for you your designing , you're not {disfmarker} you won't be uh {disfmarker} you won't had {vocalsound} um buttons to just to manipulate {disfmarker} yeah to control the recorder or maybe the garage door or things like that . +User Interface: Control . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Project Manager: because if we want to to do remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which will be used for for the television , for the recorder , for the camcorder and all the others , it will become too complex and it will increase the pli the price and we can't do that . We really want to focus on the remote control for the television . Is it okay ? +User Interface: Okay . But there's balance between function and the cost . +Project Manager: So maybe it will be easier for you to to design it , to have very powerful and easy . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And also we want the image of the uh um real reaction be recognisable in the product , such as the colour and s the slogan . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean that's uh if uh you want to buy a remote control and if you go in a shop and if you see the remote control you will recognise directly that s it's our product . +User Interface: Mm-hm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you will have to use the colour of the product , of the um um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: of the uh of real reaction +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So . +Project Manager: and uh also {disfmarker} +Marketing: So has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . As we say , we put the fashion in electronics , so it has to be a fashion remote control . Fancy , fashion , powerful , easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Require lot of requirements , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For cheap {vocalsound} remote control , yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And cheap . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: A low cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . But uh that's your your job to find something mm matches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah , 'cause what I'm thinking is how will you will connect the T_V_ to internet , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think it's part of the remote control design anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe not , +Marketing: It's maybe more in browsing . +Project Manager: but mayb +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but this this mean that your T_V_ would be able to , you know , connect to internet , you know , surf the web . +User Interface: Yeah , there's that box in uh o of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: A pi There's that box in the T_V_ , so with the set box you you can connect internet with your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Ok +Marketing: Hm-mm . +User Interface: It's It's not so uh popular now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's pop I don't think it's popular , so that's the problem so . You had i if you are designing a remote control for you know +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the global usage , +User Interface: Global , +Industrial Designer: so if people don't have the technology . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So everybody is okay with the new requirements ? +User Interface: So I I so {disfmarker} As as for the colour , what what do you think ? +Project Manager: I think it has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow ? Do you think that people like the colour yellow ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yellow ? {gap} T_V_ remote control ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Min +Project Manager: Maybe you can change the colour , but the image of the society has to be recognised . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think if you have you know th like a yellow ribbon here is the double R_ . Or should be . +Project Manager: Why you go {disfmarker} It has to be fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so . Doesn't need to be completely yellow , +Project Manager: So you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but just mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . It has to be a fashion and really be uh the image of the society . Just when you enter you say oh , oh , it's real reaction . Think it's a re reaction remote control , so . +User Interface: Okay , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And also it has to be attractive , of course , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: because if you want to sale {disfmarker} to sell the remote control . It's okay ? +Marketing: Regarding the first line , what {disfmarker} So we're just expecting no more use of the teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} I dunno , but why , nobody's a threat to me . +Marketing: It's already changed for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it would be simpler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} I will close the meeting , um just after that we'll have lunch break . And you will have in thirty minutes individual work . Uh {disfmarker} Y you {disfmarker} You will have as the I_D_ I don't remember what is industr Industrial Designer to put um {disfmarker} pon +Marketing: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer , yeah . Component component , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and the User Interface Designer to work on the user interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And Florent to work my subject . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: And so specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the um session is closed . +Industrial Designer: Good . +Project Manager: And by the way , Mister David Jordan , please record your presentations in your own folder . {vocalsound} Not in mine . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} Okay , that's clear . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be better . {vocalsound} +","The functional design meeting for a remote control project was initiated by the Project Manager, who also played the role of the secretary. Three presentations were expected from the Industrial Designer, User Interface (UI) Designer, and a Marketing Expert. The UI Designer discussed designing a sophisticated yet user-friendly interface for the TV remote control, using Google's simplicity as an inspiration. The Industrial Designer suggested that the remote control should use inexpensive infrared technology rather than laser, aiming for a cost-friendly solution. Marketing highlighted user preferences and suggested that a good design could command a higher price, noting that most remote controls were considered unattractive, and a majority of users found them too complex. + +The Project Manager mentioned some new product requirements: eliminating teletext due to the prevalence of the internet, focusing on television-only use for the remote, and ensuring that the brand image of ""Real Reaction,"" including its color and slogan, was identifiable in the product design. The meeting concluded with the Project Manager instructing the team to record individual work in their own folders and advising that specific instructions would be sent by personal coaches." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are we {disfmarker} we're not allowed to dim the lights so people can see that a bit better ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's fine . Am I supposed to be standing up there ? Okay . +Marketing: So we've got both of these clipped on ? She gonna answer me or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , both of them , okay . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: God . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Jesus , it's gonna fall off {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Yep , yep . {vocalsound} Okay . Tu tu tu tu +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hi , good morning . +Project Manager: Um I'm Sarah , the Project Manager and this is our first meeting , surprisingly enough . Okay , this is our agenda , um {vocalsound} we will do some stuff , get to know each other a bit better to feel more comfortable with each other . Um then we'll go do tool training , talk about the project plan , discuss our own ideas and everything um and we've got twenty five minutes to do that , as far as I can understand . Now , we're developing a remote control which you probably already know . Um , we want it to be original , something that's uh {disfmarker} people haven't thought of , that's not out in the shops , um , trendy , appealing to a wide market , but you know , not a hunk of metal , and user-friendly , grannies to kids , maybe even pooches should be able to use it . Okay , um , first is the functional design , um this is where we all go off and do our individual work , um what needs need to be fulfilled by the product , um what effects the product has to have and how it's actually going to do that . Um , conceptual design , what we're thinking , how it's gonna go and then the detailed design , how we're actually gonna put it into practice and make it work . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right . We're gonna practice with the pens and draw our favourite animal on the white board , I'll go first , and um sum up the characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll leave space for everyone else . Um {disfmarker} What's missing ? We're running out of blue . Okay . I'm not gonna ask you to guess , I'm going to tell you that's supposed to be a tiger . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And I see them as majestic , and independent , and proud . +User Interface: Oh sorry . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now , who would like to go next ? +User Interface: Yeah , me . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Cat . Where did this come from ? +Project Manager: Is that your lapel then ? +User Interface: Uh , yep . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Thank you . Uh , maybe you can guess what I'm trying to make ? +Marketing: A kind of dog ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . It's actually sitting , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's sitting down . +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: it's sitting , it's not standing . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Okay , I see it as one thing it's very supportive . It's your best friend and your {disfmarker} you can talk to a dog , it can be your best friend , it doesn't discriminate between you , based on what you are . Second it's loyal and third thing it's got intuition . {gap} dogs can som sometimes can make out between a thief and a person +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so basically these are the three unique features I think belong to a dog . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'll have a go . +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +Marketing: Please , please leave me a space at the bottom , I'm little , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: you can get to the top , with standing on a chair . +Industrial Designer: Well since you guys have chosen the ones I wanted to do , I'll have to have to go for something a bit random . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does it look like a dog actually ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And also , my drawing skill isn't that great so , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , as you can see , the quality of the work today is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's outstandingly good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , now I'm gonna have to change what is was originally gonna be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because that looks like a beak now , so . {vocalsound} Yeah , it can be a crocodile , it can be a crocodile . +Marketing: Crocodile ? +Project Manager: Gonna be a bird . Is it gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well it was it was an {disfmarker} at first {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it's gonna be a bird . +Industrial Designer: firstly it was an attempt at a T_ Rex and then it sort of changed into a pelican +Marketing: O +Industrial Designer: but it can be a crocodile now actually {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's lovely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and uh I'll have to think on the spot of uh things that it is . Um +Marketing: Beauti that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh scary , uh strong , yeah that's about it I think {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} it's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , I'm very impressed with your artistic skills , +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: mine's {disfmarker} are dreadful . Oops this is now coming apart , let me just put the top in . +Industrial Designer: Wo {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hope that clicks in , I'll just {disfmarker} I'll hold it on , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oops , oh dear , what happened there ? +Project Manager: Technical help . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Hopefully that'll stay on , two-handed version . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , uh {disfmarker} Again this is off the top of my head , I was gonna do a big cat too , um . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Oh dear , it doesn't look what like what I want it to be {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: S Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: It's not a vampire bat honestly {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Uh and somewhere there's a body behind . +Industrial Designer: Okay , some sort of bird {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's my dreadful {disfmarker} that's the worst yet , that's {disfmarker} it's meant to be an eagle {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A seagu +User Interface: Eagle , okay . +Project Manager: right , +Industrial Designer: Ah eagle , right okay . +Project Manager: not a seagull {vocalsound} . +Marketing: you can tell it's a flying animal {vocalsound} could have been a seagull , I never thought of a seagull . An eagle , um again I'm thinking on my feet goodness . I suppose they're all so independent , I'd put that one down again . {vocalsound} Da dum um . +Industrial Designer: They're good at golf . +Marketing: Indepen independent , right , did you say they're good at golf ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Eagle . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no yeah , +Marketing: Are they ? +Industrial Designer: an eagle . +Marketing: Oh . Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not good at golf . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd say they're quite free-spirited , flying around everywhere , doing their own thing . And uh , birds of prey aren't they , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh dear , intrepid . I'll put that , intrepid . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go , +Project Manager: That's lovely . +Marketing: hope that pen's gonna be okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . That was fun , right . Um finance-wise , we've got a selling price at twenty five Euros , which I don't actually know what that is in Pounds , at all . Any ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It's about {disfmarker} +User Interface: One point four or something like that . +Industrial Designer: mm , mm yeah . +Marketing: Seventeen . +User Interface: One point four Euro would make a Pound or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D fifteen ? +Industrial Designer: yeah about seventeen , seventeen Pounds , something like that . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: Seventeen Pounds . +Project Manager: Okay , that's expensive . +Marketing: Should we be making notes of this ? We can just refer to this later can't we ? +Project Manager: I think so , I think so , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll be able to um pull it up , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: or I could put it in the shared folder or something . +Industrial Designer: Havi having said that though , if you wanna get one of those {disfmarker} the the ones on the market at the moment they're s they're about twenty pounds anyway . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , it'd still be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: yeah , we had to buy one {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Mm . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: so I suppose later it depends if we want to undercut the price , we d or or is it going to make our product look a cheapie-cheapie option ? +Project Manager: Yeah , um production cost's at twelve fifty , so +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay , pretty huge margin . +Project Manager: half of the selling price is taken up by building it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , and profit aim is fifty million Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: In our first year ? +Project Manager: Yi yes , um yeah , I presume so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So then {disfmarker} +Marketing: You've got market range international and you did say earlier it's got to be a {disfmarker} um accessible and usable by sort of all age groups +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: just t we're not focusing on business market , any particular thing , it's everyone +Project Manager: No , yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} user-friendly to everyone . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Big target group {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yes , yes , I don't think we have to {disfmarker} I don't think it's a case of worrying about different languages and things like that , um making that a key point , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: just that it's going to be in the international market like Australia , America , things like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences with remote controls ? I mean I've got {disfmarker} we got um {disfmarker} we had three videos , a T_V_ and a sort of amp thing all set up +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we got one of the universal remote controls , um that you programme each of your things into , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: that c +Project Manager: but that kept losing the signals so we'd have to re-programme it every now and again . I think it was quite a cheapie as well , so that might have had something to do with it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that was quite good , the fact that you could {disfmarker} You didn't have six remote controls sitting in front of you . +Industrial Designer: Use all the ones at the same time . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Okay , you wanna integrate everything into one like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you {disfmarker} +Marketing: My experience has only been being given the remote control with the object I buy , not doing any tampering with it and programming , using it to programme T_V_ and uh uh videos and things . But basically on , off , volume up and down , channel one , two , th that basic functions , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think I could go any further with it than that , so , I suppose it's got to be something usable by someone like me as well . +Project Manager: Yeah , the main {disfmarker} that's the main stuff anyway , I mean +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} and you don't want to {disfmarker} I hate I hate looking at a control and seeing a million tiny little buttons with tiny little words saying what they all do +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and just sitting there searching for the teletext button or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . And symbols that you don't necessarily understand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: symbols you're meant to understand that you don't . +User Interface: So simplification of symbols you could think of . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . When they're {disfmarker} when you've got the main things on the front of it and a section opens up or something to the other functions where you can do sound or options kind of recording , things like that inside it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it doesn't make {disfmarker} when you pick it up it doesn't make it really complicated to look at , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's obvious what you're doing , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Actually that just raises a point , I wonder what our design people think , but you know on a mobile phone , you can press a key and it gives you a menu , it's got a menu display , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Menu , alright . +Marketing: I wonder if incorporating that into the design of a remote control might be useful , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: so you've got a little L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Right , I was thinking on the same lines you , instead of having too many b buttons and make it complicated for the user , may h maybe have an L_C_D_ di display or something like that , like a mobile , yeah and with menus . +Marketing: With menus , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: And if it's s somewhat similar to what you have on mobile phone , people might find it easier to browse and navigate also maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the older generation ? What about granny and grandads ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean to save it lesser number . +Project Manager: Um , my grandad can answer his mobile phone , but he couldn't even dream of texting or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Can he programme his remote control or is it basic with that too ? +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't think they tape things , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandad's actually better than me at using teletext , so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think they use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . So that's a problem regardless of of any design modifications you you come up with , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: that's gonna be a problem anyway with the older generation perhaps , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , the age gap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what it just needs to be {disfmarker} as long as it's sort of self-intuitive and you can can work out what everything's doing , 'cause I mean , menus on sort of new phones now they've sort of got all these pictures and stuff which makes it fairly obvious what you're trying to do . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't know , I d +Industrial Designer: But I don't know how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't like the , you know the new phones that have kind of got a Windows-based running system . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I find it really confusing , I kept getting lost {vocalsound} in the phone , I di I've not got a new one but uh my friend got a new one +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and I was trying to do things with it and I just kept getting lost , but that's just me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't I don't know how for twenty fi , or twelve Euros fifty how much of a excellent screen you could get , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you'd you'd have to sort of keep it down to a black and white L_C_D_ thing anyway , I'd assume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Is it possible that that for the older generation you could have like an extra button that you press for large print like you do in large print books ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Teletext has got that option as well . +Marketing: Obviously it displays less on the screen , it displays less on the screen but as long as they can read it that's the main thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Or what about kind of a dual function ? In that you've got the basic buttons just for your play , volume , programme things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and also {disfmarker} and then a menu to go into with obvious pictures , obvious symbols and that's where you control recording and things like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm . The other thing is , just ch chucking into mobile phone f design features again , it could have a flip top remote control so that when you flip over the top , your screen is {disfmarker} you can have a bigger screen in the the flip over . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm , okay . S +Project Manager: I think that's a cost thing , I don't I don't know how much we're gonna know about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y +User Interface: It might +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: it might save a b bit of space , it's i instead of looking bulky , it might look small . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , no that's important . +User Interface: But it might have its cost implications . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , like smaller . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And there's no reason we need to make it look as fashionable and stylish as a mobile phone , it can still be lightweight plastic , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Something that's easily moulded and produced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I'm treading on your territory guys . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , right , okay +Industrial Designer: No uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we've got half an hour before the next meeting , so we're all gonna go off and do our individual things . Um I think that's probably about it and then we'll come back and liaise again and I get to do another fantastic PowerPoint presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just just a quick thing about the um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: about what you're saying about the uh {disfmarker} does does it need to be fashionable ? The sort of {disfmarker} I I had a quick look at the company website and it's like the the uh {disfmarker} we put the fashion into electronics , so I think think the whole design thing might be qui +Marketing: Ah right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you don't {disfmarker} you you can still have plastic +Marketing: Sure b y yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it'd look quite good but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it doesn't have to be that , you know {vocalsound} th that was my main point , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we don't have to use metal , I don't know if using plastic does make it cheaper , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I presume it would . +Project Manager: I would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: it would probably . I mean there's Sky remote controls and everything . They're kind of moulded and look a bit different , and the Telewest remote controls are silver plastic , which looks a bit smarter , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so yeah I guess that's stuff we can think about . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so let's break it up there . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , see you in half an hour . +Marketing: Do we go back to our room ? Yep ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +","The conversation appears to be among members of a team during a meeting, discussing the development of a new remote control. The team includes a Project Manager, a User Interface specialist, a Marketing representative, and an Industrial Designer. + +Team members first discuss practical matters such as lighting and mic attachment. The Project Manager, Sarah, outlines the meeting agenda, mentioning tool training, project plan discussion, and ideation for the remote control's unique and user-friendly design for a wide audience, including the elderly and potentially pets. + +The team does an icebreaker activity where they draw their favorite animals on a whiteboard and describe their characteristics, which seems to serve as a metaphor for the product features they aspire to create. + +The financial aspect is discussed, with a target selling price of 25 Euros and a production cost of 12.50 Euros, aiming for a 50 million Euro profit. They consider the price point in relation to competitors and express concerns about whether a low price might make the product seem of lesser quality. + +The team reflects on personal experiences with remote controls, targeting a balance between simplicity for all users (including the elderly) and advanced features. Ideas like using an LCD screen with a menu system, similar to mobile phones, are floated. However, they are also mindful of the cost implications, with particular consideration given to maintaining an intuitive design that appeals to their company's brand, which places an emphasis on fashion in electronics. + +They wrap up by planning to split up to work on individual tasks before the next meeting. + +In summary, the team discusses their task of designing an innovative, user-friendly, and fashionable remote control, considering functionality, design, financial targets, and user experience across generations. They engage in a creative drawing activity, brainstorm design features inspired by personal experiences with technology, and deliberate over balancing advanced features with user accessibility and production costs." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: G good morning . +User Interface: Good morning , Flores . Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? You should put the laptop uh right into the square . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For i for the cameras , yes . +User Interface: For the cameras Alright . +Project Manager: Good morning , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Good morning , {vocalsound} Mister P_M_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} I'm fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How are you today ? How was your business trip to Boston ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um well , actually I didn't go , didn't feel like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Geez . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Do you want to open it as read-only . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I guess I should close it here . +User Interface: You have the same message of uh Windows cannot um +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: sen oh stand-by . Close the the window . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the waiting is for our Marketing Expert , Ruud . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} That's right . Ruud . +Project Manager: Um project kick-off . +Industrial Designer: Is there a schedule for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , there is actually . Um I will li list the agenda for today . For this meeting . Good morning , Ruud . +Marketing: Good morning . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's important um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I shall close the door . +Project Manager: yeah , great . It's important that the laptops are um exactly on the square , um for the cameras . Okay . Okay . Um we're here to develop uh a new product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I'm sure you've had a mail from our account manager about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} and um this is the first meeting to to generate some uh uh some ideas about it . Um you are here in a specific role . Uh Ruud is here as the Marketing Expert , Roo is here as the User Interface Designer and Sebastian is here uh in the role of Industrial Designer . Is that correct ? +Industrial Designer: That's correct . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} we're going to do um uh uh a little tool training uh for the tools we are going to use uh during uh the meetings we are going to have here . Um then I will tell you a little bit about my idea of the project plan , uh and we will have a discussion . Uh this meeting should take no more than twenty five minutes , so we should keep that in mind . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um is there any room for a little presentation ? Uh maybe during the discussion uh section ? +Project Manager: There is ? Yeah , there is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay , this new product we are are g are going to develop , um it's a remote control , a television remote control . Um and first of all it should be original , it should be trendy and user-friendly . Those are kind of easy um uh uh goals , um and I'm sure we can find more goals for the for the product we are going to develop . {vocalsound} Um we will discuss uh later on more ideas about uh how the remote should look and how it sh it should function and all those kind of things . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The market , we should have a look at the market . Um {vocalsound} we are going to use a a pred a project method uh during uh this development , um which consists of three different design stages . Uh the functional design , the conceptual design and the detailed design , um all of these stages um um mean that we do some individual work , prepare , and then uh meet to discuss our uh uh the {gap} {disfmarker} the the progressions , yes . +User Interface: Progressions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the first stage , the functional design um we are going to search for the user requirements , and we will um make a specific {disfmarker} uh specification of that . Um {vocalsound} the second is the technical functional design , um what effect should the remote have ? Well in this case control t the the television I think . +User Interface: It's for the vision . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and the last one is the working design . How exactly does it work in the technical sense . Um the other design stages , uh we will discuss that later . So we'll kop it {disfmarker} keep it with the functional design . {vocalsound} Okay , um before we think about remote control we will um work with some of the tools we have uh here . Um as you see now I can give a presentation . {vocalsound} Um it's also possible to use this one as well . You can uh uh display pr uh two presentations if you want to . Um {vocalsound} to um presentate , to show us uh a file you'll need to uh place it in your project documents folder , which is on your desktop , at least it should be . Um then we have this electronic white-board system . {vocalsound} Um yeah , I will show that now . Um you can draw on the board using this pen . There are little um uh +User Interface: Sensors . +Project Manager: sensors , so do not grab it here , but a lit more a little bit more to the uh to the end . Um well , it {disfmarker} it's on the um eraser now , so we click the pen button . Okay , so not too fast writing . Um {vocalsound} you can insert a new um slide or or white-board uh uh file um by either using the insert function or by clicking the next button or the blank button . It's quite the same . Um all our um whi um uh SMARTboard um notes should be kept in the same file . So do not m make a new file . Just use this one uh during the day . {vocalsound} Um you can use the eraser to make something go away . +User Interface: But we all use the same white-board file +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: So we can work together on it while we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or should we only use it in the in the meetings ? +Project Manager: Yeah , in the meetings , only in the meetings . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's really like like a regu regular whiteboard . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . Yep . +Project Manager: Um you can choose the format , um {disfmarker} sorry . Uh {disfmarker} Let me see . Um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess it's maybe because I'm not s uh pen selected . Yep . Current colour , you can choose another colour . And um for example black , and you c I can choose the line width . Um so now I d have a different line width and uh colour . Okay . Quite easy , if you uh do have any questions , just c ask me . Um {vocalsound} to um {disfmarker} oh well , I'm {disfmarker} I wrote down the documents uh should be in the project documents folder if you want to uh discuss it with us . Um as a little training {vocalsound} um I will ask Ruud first to draw uh uh your own animal on a new slide uh with uh a different colour and a different line width than the one uh now selected . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um green . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An animal . Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh a wee rabbit . +User Interface: It's a bunny . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A rabbit . Okay , well great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Roo , could you do the same please ? But a different animal with a different colour and a different line width . +User Interface: But of course , Flores . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Blank . +Project Manager: Sebastian is thinking about the animal . +Industrial Designer: I'm just uh guessing what should be my favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I'm think about it too . {vocalsound} Format {gap} . Well , it looked more than a bunny than a cat , but {vocalsound} it works , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I'll give it a try . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It it should be a cat . +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm guessing a horse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: With a very small {vocalsound} legs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I was very good in drawing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You should feed that uh that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I guess you uh get the idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay . {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Beautiful . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so um you can use this at any time during the presentation if you want to . Um any questions {disfmarker} well , just just let me know . Um okay , back to our project . Um {vocalsound} the remote control we are going to develop um will have a selling price of about twenty five Euros . Uh the profit we are looking for for this product is fifty million Euros , which is quite a number . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we will focus this internationally , so the product will be sold um , if there is market uh interest , uh in in more than one country . And um the production costs should not be more than uh twelve Euro fifty , so we should keep that in mind by uh w w during the development , {vocalsound} um because uh , well , those are important numbers . Um then the discussion , maybe the time for Sebastian to show his presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um I have some technical uh issues which I would like to present to you uh before we start the discussion , because uh there might be some uh +Project Manager: Limitations . +Industrial Designer: influations influences . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um first about my role , role of the Industrial Designer . I would like to think about uh the implementation of uh of things , and the technical possibilities and impossibilities . So if someone of you comes up with uh ideas , uh I'll try to translate them in technical functions , but uh there might be some impossibilities . So that's one . {vocalsound} Uh I also will propose some uh um uh some implementations for that , but {disfmarker} well , these are quite the same . Sorry about that . Um and I also will remind people of some new technical possibilities which are available and which might be interesting to implement in our product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some uh initial ideas about some things um which are maybe nice to take with you in the upcoming uh discussion . One thing about uh interopera operability . Um I think a modern uh remote control should uh control a device {disfmarker} diverse subset of equipment . Uh for instance , uh D_V_D_ players , cell phones , video and audio equipment . So one re uh one remote control for all your equipment . +User Interface: And for a cell phone ? +Industrial Designer: Well , there should be some interoperabi interoperability between them . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it could come in handy . We should discuss that . Um and we should think about the way how these things uh should communicate with each other . We're not uh living in the uh nineteen eighties anymore , so infrared is not uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is not really uh hot uh technical stuff anymore . But you should uh think about the things like uh Bluetooth . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah , but the infrared , it's uh , well , a little bit old-fashioned , if you would call it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But all the T_V_s are uh equipped with infrared , so +Industrial Designer: But it's cost-effective . Yes . Mm-hmm . Well , not all , not all . +User Interface: y you you can {disfmarker} Most of them . +Industrial Designer: So that's the point . +User Interface: Or you shou sh use a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you should equip infrared and Bluetooth together in one remote . +Industrial Designer: Maybe , but that's uh something we should discuss +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh about every everybody should think about it . So that's just my role , I'll just uh give you uh everybody some technical input , and I think now the time is to have a little discussion about what uh the product should be and how it should look , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but take these things into account when you start the discussion . +Project Manager: Okay , so the the main por uh the main points you are uh telling us are focus on the inter uh operability , +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so one thing uh one remote control should uh control one or more uh pieces of equipment , +Project Manager: Okay , and and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the way of communicating with these equipments . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} that was your presentation ? Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} okay . Great . Um {vocalsound} I'll go back to my own presentation . Um {disfmarker} Mm . Okay . Um I I do think it's time now to to discuss uh mm some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Sebastian told us a few things about the technical implemen uh implications . Um there are other things like um {vocalsound} how to make it trendy , which is I think uh um most uh Ru uh Ruud's uh role . Um the way how it should be controlled by the user , which is uh Roo uh r uh during this part . Um so let's start with you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: H how do you think the remote should um function for the user ? +User Interface: Well , I had a few uh things in mind . Um well , the interoperability , just like uh Sebastian said , um the remote should work on different T_V_s or even different uh um {disfmarker} Yeah uh , what is it , devices ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um so i i I think it's a universal remote control for customers to buy just new in uh a store . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I think it should be something like that . +User Interface: It's not for uh for uh for uh Philips or whatever to buy our remote for their own product , +Project Manager: Okay , so we're we're going business to consumer , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: not {disfmarker} we're we're {disfmarker} it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I do I don't know that . It's no I have uh {disfmarker} don't have the information for it . +Industrial Designer: We're not developing this product for a specific vendor , are we ? +Project Manager: No . No . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: we're just developing this product , and we want to sell it to a very broad uh public , so it should fit to every device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , y do you agree ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think they're right , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well , the techni fu technical function uh {gap} {disfmarker} what you said is just by pressing the button you should change the state of the T_V_ . That's just the basic f technical function . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that was my {disfmarker} really my part for uh this session . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is that ease of use or uh is that more like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's just the fu the technical function is {vocalsound} pure what should the remote control do , wh what is his task uh as an uh as an uh device . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It just should change the T_V_'s state . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that's it . Um but furthermore {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you you see uh the buttons as a as a means of doing this ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , with buttons . +Industrial Designer: Or are there any o other controls ? +User Interface: Yeah , or maybe you want a touch-screen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are there only {disfmarker} any other cont Well , {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I've seen these remote controls with uh this little stick uh which you can move forward , sidewords . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: You know these things . And um it's very easy for a user to to switch {disfmarker} +User Interface: They're very vu vulnerable . +Industrial Designer: w yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to to switch b uh between uh channels or uh change uh between tracks on a on a C_D_ , on on a chapters , you know , on a D_V_D_ player . So maybe that's an idea , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: And for other user interface I had um , well , it's more industrial thing . Uh point at a T_V_ , I think it's it's quite disturbing when you always have to point directly to the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you must {vocalsound} point everywhere , so maybe infrared is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe not even pointed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , just don't even point it , so in that case infrared should uh maybe uh be restriction to that . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh is that uh {disfmarker} are there restriction for the range , the operating range too ? So when you're not able to point at the device um the range is very limited . +User Interface: Yeah , if you g if you go to radio or or {disfmarker} yeah . For T_V_ , you're always in in the neighbourhood of a T_V_ , so I don't think think the range should be a problem to that , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if you want to uh get it working with a radio , and you're in {disfmarker} outside your garden with just one uh speaker , then maybe the range should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , gentlemen , um uh just a reminder , we d we have five minutes left for this meeting +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Two more things . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Um You should able to feel the buttons without uh it mis um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to know what you do without looking at the buttons , so it should be as user interface um for feeling should be uh good to understand . +Project Manager: Okay , s yeah . +User Interface: You must feel the buttons for volume or whatever , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And of course you don't always know where all buttons are , so it should be visible al um {vocalsound} in dark too . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So when it's dark {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Those are two really uh user interface {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I'll write down glow in the dark . Is tha {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} That's perfect . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um uh I just want to hear uh Ruud's um input for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Do do you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you have anything already w um ab idea about how the market uh will respond to the {disfmarker} such a product ? Or what we should take um in account when developing such a product ? +Marketing: Uh I think most most things have already been said , like uh control multiple devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh , yeah , infrared might be an issue . +Project Manager: Because ? +Marketing: Uh well , he said about n abo what he said about pointing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But uh lots of devices already use infrared . So {disfmarker} we'll probably have to implement that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Okay , Sebastian , did you have any other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Um well yes , I had , uh about three minutes ago , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I've seem to forget them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forgot them . Um {disfmarker} oh yes , I remember . Um you said something about visibility in the dark . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um uh would it be nice for a user to have display on this uh remote control , on which you can see functions ? Which makes it easier to operate it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe I um {disfmarker} but it it can be quite simple , +Industrial Designer: I I don't know . +User Interface: you can just have white buttons with a black mark on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: The uh the the digits in black . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh then it's already visible in dark . So it it don't have to be a lightning or or a fancy +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {disfmarker} well , it can be for design , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , okay , because because we wa we want to develop a trendy product . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there's a cost limitation too . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , that's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve Euro fifty , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a big problem , I think . I think the the financial part of this project uh implicates that it's not going to be a high high-end product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The cost price is very low . +User Interface: Just remind something . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The digits of uh the the painting on the buttons should not fade . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +User Interface: You have a m uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Very good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Always have s the soft buttons , always uh clear the the the paint on it . The marks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um I ha I have one point f um which which comes in mind now . Um uh d I think the device should either be rechargeable very easily +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: um or it should not consume too much um power . Because it's very annoying if you need to change the batteries every s uh uh every other week . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um maybe we could um for example uh only light the buttons that are um uh applicable at that moment or {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Necessary , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . I dunno , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's more Sebastian's uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But then Bluetooth uh might be problem . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause I think Bluetooth uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's use uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well does it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I know it from the cell phone . +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , cell phones have uh integrated Bluetooth also and , well , it's {disfmarker} it seems to work uh quite okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh technically it will be possible . +User Interface: But you can't you can't use Bluetooth all the time , twenty four hours a day . +Project Manager: Okay . Gentlemen , I'm afraid we do not have any more time . +User Interface: Does it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you cannot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's over ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so we will go back to our own uh work . Um next meeting starts in thirty minutes and um , well , you know your o your individual actions or your personal coach will probably email you about th it . Um so this was it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Great . +","Summary: + +The project team, including a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing Expert, convened to discuss the development of a new product: a television remote control. Initially, they covered logistical aspects like ensuring laptops were placed correctly for camera recording. They briefly explored the project kick-off, the agenda, and a straightforward team introduction. + +The Project Manager outlined the three design stages of functional, conceptual, and detailed design, explaining they would start with functional design to determine user requirements. The team discussed the technical aspects and remote control functionalities like interoperability, communication methods, ease of use, and visibility in the dark. Ideas like control over multiple devices, including cell phones, were suggested, with a focus on business-to-consumer sales rather than for a specific vendor. + +Technical aspects discussed included the need for controlling various devices, the possibility of using a combination of infrared and Bluetooth, and the importance of the remote being user-friendly with features like glow-in-the-dark buttons. Pricing strategies were also touched on, noting a selling price of around 25 Euros, a targeted profit of 50 million Euros, and production costs not exceeding 12.50 Euros. + +The team agreed that the product should be universal and control numerous devices. The session concluded with a reminder of the budget constraints and ensuring designs accommodate these, as well as the project's goal to produce a trendy, user-friendly product that could possibly be rechargeable or energy-efficient. The team planned to conduct a discussion on more detailed ideas and technical presentations in the following meeting scheduled in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place by videoconference. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please activate your mic. When you are not speaking, leave your mic on mute. Of course, change the language when you change the language on the screen. I would remind hon. members that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel; if you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel; and should you wish to alternate between the two languages, as I just did, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking, each time you switch languages. In addition, please direct your remarks through the chair and speak slowly and clearly at all times to help our interpreters. Finally, for members who will be speaking, we strongly recommend that you use a headset. I recommend the headset for your fellow members, but also for the interpreters as it gets loud, up and down, and it squeaks. It really does make it difficult for them if you do not have the prescribed headsets. We'll go on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we will proceed to presenting petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. World Maternal Mental Health Day took place last week, and today I'd like to take a moment to present a very important petition on behalf of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative. Whereas perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are the most common obstetrical complication, whereas in Canada and worldwide 20% of women and 10% of men suffer from a perinatal mental illness, resulting in an annual economic cost to Canada of approximately $11 billion, and whereas the U.K., Australia and parts of the U.S. have perinatal mental health strategies and screening guidelines in place and Canada does not, the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative is calling upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to create a national perinatal mental health strategy that will provide direction, policy and funding to develop specialized, comprehensive perinatal mental health care services, which include universal screening and timely access to treatment for all women and men during pregnancy and the postpartum period. +Mr. Scott Reid (LanarkFrontenacKingston, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My petition relates to cystic fibrosis. If we were in the House now, as May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, one of the days this month we would all be wearing yellow roses in sympathy and solidarity with those who suffer from what is the number one disease killer in Canada of young people. The petitioners have asked us to look at the situation with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which is scheduled to go through some important and potentially detrimental regulatory changes very soon. They ask that the amendments to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board be rescinded, as these will restrict Canadians from receiving life-saving medications for cystic fibrosis and other illnesses, but in particular, a medicine called Trikafta, which can have the effect of treating cystic fibrosis in the case of 90% of cystic fibrosis sufferers. They ask the government to work with the provinces to find a strategy to jointly allow for the delivery of this life-saving medicine to Canadians across the country and to take a leadership role in negotiating a price for gene modulators throughout all the provinces of Canada. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to take the mike today, with all colleagues here. It's good to see you all virtually and safe. Petitioners in my community point out in this petition, which, of course, predates the pandemic, that the family doctor shortage is severe in this country. Nearly five million Canadians lack a regular family doctor. This problem is particularly profound in more rural areas, including, as the petitioners reference, the community in which I live, Sydney, British Columbia. We have a very significant crisis and a lack of family doctors. The petitioners call on the government to work with provinces and territories to find a collaborative, holistic solution so that every Canadian has a family doctor and we address the family doctor shortage. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Good morning, Mr. Chair. I'm presenting a timely petition today that emphasizes the concerns constituents in my riding of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon have with the Liberal government's inherently flawed and undemocratic approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed RCMP-vetted Canadians; to focus taxpayer dollars where they will actually increase public safety, which is on keeping at-risk youth from being involved in gangs and on anti-gang enforcement; and to provide our men and women in uniform at the Canada Border Services Agency with the resources they need to stop the flow of illegal guns into this country. Through this petition, my constituents take issue with how the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal weapons smugglers responsible for the violence in our communities. They note that the use of the phrase military-style assault rifle is purely political posturing, as the term is undefined in Canadian law. They also draw attention to the numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation +The Chair: I'd like to remind the honourable members that this is a concise prcis of what a petition says, not a speech. I'll let Mr. Vis continue. I'm sure he'll be very brief in wrapping up. +Mr. Brad Vis: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's sufficient. +The Chair: Okay. Now we'll go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a huge honour to table e-petition 2512, which was signed by 1,198 petitioners, primarily from the province of Nova Scotia. The Province of Nova Scotia invited multinational companies to scope out and develop expansive open-net salmon farming operations. The petitioners cite that the expansion would increase environmental degradation, as seen in similar aquaculture operations in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Norway, Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. It also, they cite, would pose risks to native fish stocks, pollute coastal ecosystems, impair at-risk wild Atlantic salmon, and threaten established fisheries and tourism operations. They also raise concerns that open-net fish farming would not create significant employment and would undermine existing lobster and other fisheries. They are calling on the government to uphold Bill C-68 and species-at-risk legislation, protect our oceans, ban expansion of open-net finfish aquaculture in our oceans, work to phase out any existing open-net fish farming operations currently in place and, lastly, invest in land-based, closed-containment finfish aquaculture. I want to thank these petitioners for fighting for clean oceans, for their local economy and for the well-being of Nova Scotia. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This petition was signed and sent in by constituents of my riding of NanaimoLadysmith. It calls upon the House of Commons to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on Wet'suwet'en territory, ordering the RCMP to dismantle its exclusion zone and stand down, scheduling nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentssomething that has already happened, thankfullyand prioritizing the real implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have the pleasure of presenting a petition on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East. The petitioners are asking that the Government of Canada not provide any financial assistance to Canadian airlines until they promptly provide full refunds for flights that were cancelled due to COVID-19. They are asking the same for any foreign airlines that fly to, within or from Canada. The petitioners feel that these Canadians are facing economic hardship and need a refund. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to questioning ministers. The first question will go to Mr. Albas. +Mr. Dan Albas (Central OkanaganSimilkameenNicola, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today we've learned that federal workers have been told to ignore obvious signs of fraud when it comes to applying for government benefits. Can the Prime Minister confirm that 200,000 applications have been flagged as potentially fraudulent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority from the beginning has been to make sure that Canadians get the support they need. We moved very quickly to get the Canada emergency response benefit out, to get the wage subsidy out and to help Canadians in this unprecedented situation. We recognize there will be challenges, and we are going to work through those challenges. Our priority every step of the way was to make sure we helped as many Canadians as possible. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, can the Prime Minister confirm that the instruction has been given to federal employees to ignore these 200,000 applications being flagged as potentially fraudulent? This is important. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our focus has been on helping as many people as we possible can. Our decision from the very beginning was to get the help out to people and figure out, with retroactive action if necessary, where and when there may have been fraudulent use. Our priority was getting that help out. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, this came from a memo issued by a deputy minister. Did the minister's office or the Prime Minister sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Again, in this unprecedented situation, our focus has been on helping as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Other parties might have made a different choice had they been in government, but our focus was getting help to people when they needed it as quickly as possible and cleaning it up afterwards. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, I asked a very simple question. Did the Prime Minister or his minister sign off on this memo that was issued by the deputy minister, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we have been focused entirely on getting help to Canadians when they need it, and that has meant that yes, there will be things we will need to clean up after the fact and work to fix, but getting that help into Canadians' pockets during this pandemic was our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: I'm asking the Prime Minister to show some accountability. Did he or his office sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, my office and I have been absolutely focused on getting the necessary help to Canadians. Perhaps, as Mr. Albas points out, other parties would have been slower to get the money out. We were flowing money to people who needed it. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the question was quite simple. Obviously the Prime Minister doesn't seem comfortable with the answer. Will he at least then commit to investigating every individual case of fraud, or will he write them off, as the story said? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, in this unprecedented situation Canadians have lost their jobs; they've lost their paycheques; they don't know how they're going to be able to support their loved ones and pay for their groceries. We made a decision as a country that we would be there for them and that has been and will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister can leave the cottage talk for the cottage. We're asking a very simple question here. Will he commit as a government to enforce the rule of law and to enforce the attestation that says that if someone commits fraud, the fraud will be pursued? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: My commitment as Prime Minister and as a government is to support and protect Canadians. That is what we are doing by giving them the support they need through this unprecedented situation. Perhaps other parties don't think it's important to support Canadians. We will keep focused on supporting Canadians. +Mr. Dan Albas: That's not what I'm asking here, Mr. Chair. The Conservatives supported the legislation that allowed those supports to go through. What we are asking about is fraud. All along we've been told fraud would be detected through audits after the fact, and we expect that to happen. Can the Prime Minister at least confirm that this will happen? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: When we made the determination that we needed to move quickly to help Canadians, we knew there would be a need to clean up after the fact, to go after fraudulent cases. We will do that. Our priority now and in the coming months is to ensure Canadians get the support they need, and our economy comes roaring back. That's what we're focused on. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the large employer emergency financing facility. That's good. What's even better is that he announced that the loans would be tied to conditions. One of those conditions forces companies not to resort to tax evasion or tax avoidance through tax havens. Excellent! Unfortunately, I quickly became disillusioned because it is more about abusive tax evasion and avoidance. Basically, we're talking about fraudsters. There are no conditions that would allow us to tighten the screws on profiteers. Companies that legally take advantage of tax havens to avoid paying their taxes will have access to the large employer emergency financing facility. Why does the Prime Minister continue to support the profiteers? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will always be there to counter tax evasion and tax avoidance. It's a priority of our government. There is no tolerance for tax evasion and tax avoidance. In the current situation, our priority is to help workers across the country who could lose their jobs or who have lost their jobs. That's why we are introducing measures that support workers, who will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'm delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that there's no tolerance for tax avoidance. The problem is that his remarks don't reflect reality. Tax avoidance is the legal use of tax havens. The five big Bay Street banks benefit from this, as do the big multinationals. It's time to tighten the screws on these companies. They have to pay their share. Will the Prime Minister and his government outlaw what is immoral? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, when we announced the large employer emergency funding facility, we recognized that those who wanted to receive tax dollars had to have paid their fair share of taxes. That's why we're putting in place measures to carefully assess the tax structures of these businesses before we loan money to them. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, sometimes a bank will relocate its most profitable activities carried out in Canada and register them in a subsidiary in the Bahamas, Barbados or another tax haven. Does the Prime Minister consider this bank to be paying its fair share of taxes in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will assess applications for the large employer emergency funding facility on a case-by-case basis. We don't expect the big banks to need these funds. Before we provide any money, we're going to make sure that whoever wants to access these funds is transparent about how the money is being managed, including internationally. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'll change the subject now. Consumers are paying more and more with their credit cards, which allows contactless payments in shops, not to mention online shopping. This benefits Visa and Mastercard, which charge appallingly high user fees, known as interchange fees. These are almost 10times higher than in Europe and Australia, and it costs our merchants a fortune. Can the Prime Minister follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping interchange fees at0.3%? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are always looking for ways to reduce costs for consumers. We have worked with the big banks and the financial industry to ensure that people who need it have access to the help they need. We're reassessing how we can lower costs for consumers. Right now, we're sending money to consumers across the country who need it to get through this crisis. That's what we'll continue to focus on. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the question doesn't concern consumers, but merchants. A credit card company, such as Visa and Mastercard, that charges a fee of 2.5%to3% per transaction undermines the merchant's profit margin and gets richer at the expense of consumers. I invite the Prime Minister to follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping these fees at0.3%. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we continue to work with financial institutions and the big banks to help consumers during this exceptional and difficult situation. Of course, there are some things we can look at over the longer term as well. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Instead of providing a universal direct payment for all, the government has decided to implement a complicated program that leaves many people behind. A single parent with four school-age children lost her spousal and child support due to COVID-19. She pays taxes on her spousal income, but she is not eligible for CERB. The Minister of Employment said that she is looking into this gap. It has been weeks, and still no action. Will the Prime Minister step in and fix this gap so that the single parents and their children can get the support they need during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I'm happy, Mr. Chair, to correct the honourable member by pointing out that we actually moved in the most rapid and simplest possible way in providing income replacement to millions upon millions of Canadians who needed it through the Canada emergency response benefit. However, as the member points out, when one moves quickly and efficiently, there will be gaps, and that's why we've been working diligently to try to fill those gaps. We want to make sure that Canadians who need help, get it. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: While the Minister of Employment has been aware of this for three weeks and says she is looking into it, there's still been no action. The truth of the matter is that single parents and their children who depend on spousal support and child maintenance are not getting support. Will the Prime Minister fix this gap? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We recognize the particular challenge faced by families, single parents and families with young children, which is why we increased the amount of the Canada child benefit to be able to support people in this particular moment. On top of that, we have looked to fill further gaps that have existed with the Canada emergency response benefit. Well over seven million Canadians have access to CERB, and we will continue to work with them +Ms. Jenny Kwan: That does not replace spousal support and child maintenance, Prime Minister. Across the country there is no national standard to address the homelessness crisis amidst this pandemic, leaving communities at heightened risk from COVID-19. Canadians who are homeless or living in substandard housing have no access to bathroom facilities for basic hygiene. Those living in crowded SROs and shelters cannot practise social distancing. The problem is particularly acute in my riding in the Downtown Eastside. While the B.C. government has implemented an initiative to house some of the homeless population in empty hotels in the short term, support from the federal government is needed to secure permanent solutions post-COVID-19. Will the Prime Minister commit to providing matching funds and take the right to adequate housing seriously? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I know that the honourable member wouldn't want to inadvertently mislead the House. The fact is, the federal government almost immediately sent significant resources, hundreds of millions of dollars, to shelters across the country to enable them to create facilities, including renting new spaces, to be able to house homeless people without increasing the danger of the spread of COVID-19. I recognize there's always more to do, but as we demonstrated with our national housing strategy, we are serious about fighting homelessness and supporting vulnerable Canadians, and we will continue to do that. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The Prime Minister must know that the money the federal government sent is deficient. Many people still remain homeless, and they are at risk. Cutting chronic homelessness by 50% over the next decade is not good enough, and that is this Prime Minister's national housing strategy. Will the government stop just making empty promises and ensure that every Canadian has the right to housing? Will he top up the support for provinces to at least match their funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, cutting chronic homelessness by 50% is an ambitious goal that no one else has ever been able to do as a government, and we are well on track for it. I would suggest that the member opposite not dismiss that as an empty promise, because we have demonstrated actions on it. I recognize there is more to do. There is always more to do. We will be there and continue to be there for vulnerable people, including homeless Canadians. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I would remind the Prime Minister that it was the federal Liberals who eliminated the national affordable housing program in 1993, so we have this homeless crisis today as a result of the Liberals. We in Vancouver East have the third-largest urban indigenous population in the country, yet we got less than 2% of the pandemic urban indigenous housing funding. They're overrepresented among the homeless population. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we recognize there is more to do in supporting urban indigenous people. We have moved forward, both through the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, to address the challenges facing urban aboriginal populations. We will continue to work with them, recognizing that they are among the most vulnerable people in Canada who deserve the right support from all orders of government, and we will be there to support them increasingly in the coming years. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen (PortageLisgar, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm hearing in my riding of PortageLisgar that individuals who are dealing with Service Canada through the mail are experiencing delays. It seems that the mail that's going to Service Canada has not been opened. In fact, one of my constituents sent documents, including a doctor's note, two months ago on March 12 and is now being told that she must resend them because they've never been opened. Can the government tell us whether this is a widespread problem, and how are they dealing with unopened mail at Service Canada? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we are doing everything that we can in Service Canada to meet the expectations of Canadians. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had unprecedented volumes, but we have redeployed thousands of staff to front-line services by phone and by other means. We had to close a number of the centres because of COVID-19 concerns and the safety and well-being of Canadians. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Is the minister aware whether this is a widespread problem? Is this happening rarely, or frequently? I'm hearing about it. I know, from many MPs, we are at the front lines of dealing with and helping constituents who are not only wanting to get support but also are trying to get programs unrelated to COVID-19. Is unopened mail a widespread problem at Service Canada? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to look into the particular case that the honourable member brings up. I am not aware of unopened mail being a widespread issue. I'm happy to work with the honourable member to see what happened in this individual case. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Thanks very much. Mr. Chair, the Iver Johnson single-shot rifle is a standard farm gun used by many farmers in my riding, in fact, passed down from generation to generation in some cases. Why are the Liberals making this gun illegal? What's the purpose of banning this particular farm rifle? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wish to advise the member that we worked very closely with the Canadian firearms program, with law enforcement and with their firearms verification to identify the makes, models and variants of nine rifles, all of which had in their earliest provenance a design for military use, for soldiers to use in combat. Those are the weapons that have been +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen: I would challenge the minister on that. I do not believe that he has been consulting with front-line officers. We're hearing from front-line officers that they are concerned about gangs, drug dealers and illegal weapons being smuggled across the border. They are not concerned with these types of farm rifles that are being used by our farmers and, in some cases, hunters. These are specifically used for hunting. So, Mr. Chair, we'd like to see the evidence on why the Liberals are once again targeting law-abiding Canadians, ignoring gangsters and drug dealers. Why are they banning the Iver Johnson? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a great opportunity, I think, when the member opposite says what the police are saying. Let's hear what the police are saying. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police declared that military assault rifles were produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and urged the government to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles, except for law enforcement and military purposes. The Ontario police leaders said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed rifles. They said, In our view, these weapons have no place in our communities and should be reserved for use by Canada's military and law enforcement. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen, we have about 50 seconds left. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Mr. Chair, we've seen this before, where the Liberals introduced a long-gun registry that cost billions of dollars and did absolutely nothing to stop violent crimes. This is a repeat of what the Liberals have done before. Is the minister saying that the Iver Johnson that farmers use is an assault rifle? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, what I'm saying, and what our regulations say very clearly, is that weapons that were designed not for hunting and not for sport purposes but for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers have no place in Canadian society. I would also advise the member that any Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many. We have far too many tragedies where these types of weapons have been used to kill Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. Is it true that Canada Revenue Agency employees who process applications for the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, have been asked to send the payment even if fraud had been detected, as was pointed out in a national media report today? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, our government considers these to be very difficult times for Canadians. We're going to do everything we can to support them by helping them pay for their housing and their groceries. I'm very proud of the public servants who work at the Canada Revenue Agency. Nearly sevenmillion +Mr. Alain Rayes: I repeat my question, which is extremely simple: Is it true that the Canada Revenue Agency sent a memo to its employees asking them to ignore the fraudsters and still send the CERB payments?? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: I'll finish my response, which was interrupted: Nearly 7.8million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit. The priority is for Canadians to be able to pay for their groceries and their housing. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Yes or no: Did the Canada Revenue Agency send a memo to its employeeswho are doing an exceptional job, I'd like to point outso that they would ignore the 200,000potential cases of fraud that they detected? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: The answer is no. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The CERB has been distributed since March25, so for seven weeks now. The federal government website clearly states that if an employee returns to work, the employee must pay back the CERB. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether employees who decide to return to work have to pay back the full $2,000per month, or only $500for week of the month? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: As I mentioned, we believe that Canadians are going through a very difficult time, and we need to support them. We need to help people pay for their groceries and their housing. That's what our government is committed to, and that's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, the extremely simple question I am asking the Minister comes from companies and workers. None of the officials dares to answer it when we call on technical matters, even though they are supposed to give us information that we can pass on to the public with complete transparency. So let me repeat my question; I don't think there can be a simpler one. The answer will benefit the workers and the companies that want access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy. If an employee is called back to workwhich is perfectly fineagrees to do so and wants to reimburse the CERB, must he reimburse $500for each week he works during the month, or the entire $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can clarify that Service Canada will work closely with anybody who transitions either from the CERB to the wage subsidy or from the CERB back to employment to ensure that there's no overpayment, but of course that there's no undue hardship on the individual. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That announcement was made seven weeks ago. The workers want to know how much they have to reimburse. The companies want to know the situation so that they can make decisions on salary assistance. It seems to me that my question is not complicated: do people have to reimburse $500for each week they work in a month, or the full monthly amount of $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that will depend on the individual circumstances of the particular worker. That's why Service Canada is reaching out to individuals to make it as seamless as possible for them. I can assure the member that nobody will be put in a difficult situation. I recognize that there is some uncertainty, but we're trying to address that. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 35seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The answers that we are getting today are incredible. This is unacceptable, in my view. If an employer complies with the hygiene conditions, can employees still refuse to return to work, and therefore continue to receive the CERB? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure all Canadians that at the same time as employees have a right to refuse work and employers have an obligation to ensure healthy and safe workplaces, we want all people to be able to go back to work and feel safe. There are established processes and federal and provincial labour processes for refusal to work, and at the end of the day the CERB is there for workers who aren't working due to COVID-19. +The Chair: We're going to have to go on from here. The next question will come from Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs and community members have been excluded from negotiations on a memorandum of understanding affecting land rights and titles. Only a few hereditary chiefs have been part of these secret negotiations. The elected chiefs have issued a press release asking for the government to halt the joint announcement scheduled for May 14 on the MOU until the community has had a chance to look at and understand how the MOU will affect them. Will the minister agree with the democratically elected chiefs and the Wet'suwet'en people they represent and delay any announcement until proper consultation can be completed? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I want to reassure the member that communication is ongoing with and between our partners on how to go forward on implementing the Wet'suwet'en rights and title with a Wet'suwet'en-led solution. We encourage the leaders to continue their ongoing, necessary and important conversations with their community on how they want to proceed on a path toward implementing their rights and title. As we work to rebuild Canada's relationship with the Wet'suwet'en, we need to give them space for these important discussions. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Minister, is that a yes that the signing will be delayed until the elected chiefs have a chance to look at the agreement? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I believe the elected chiefs have had a look at the agreement. These are very difficult conversations on complex issues around rights and title. This has been outstanding for a long time +Mr. Jamie Schmale: The current health crisis should not be used as an opportunity to sideline the Wet'suwet'en people and their elected chiefs. The federal government should be bringing the community together rather than actively excluding Wet'suwet'en members. The chiefs are so concerned that they are now calling for the resignation of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations for failure to engage in proper consultations, which has stoked divisions within the community. Will the minister reconsider and put in place a consultation process that honours both their traditional house system and the governance responsibilities of elected chiefs and councils? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Yet again, it's very important the member understand the engagement must take place and be led by the Wet'suwet'en nation. That means the elected chiefs and the hereditary chiefs need to work with all clan members as they determine how they wish to work with Canada and the Province of British Columbia to implement the rights and title of the Wet'suwet'en people. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I agree that the Wet'suwet'en should have the opportunity to look at the proposed agreement, but we are still seeing news coming out of the elected chiefs and the people they represent that they have not had a thorough chance to look at this proposed agreement. Will the minister delay the signing? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member will agree that there's a lot more work to do with all the parties. I believe, in terms of the kind of engagement that has taken place in the feast houses and the notification that took place even before COVID-19, that the work is under way and it will have to be Wet'suwet'en-led in terms of what eventually will be their choice as to how they implement their rights and title. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, for two weeks now the Liberals on the indigenous affairs committee have shut down Conservatives and witnesses every time we mention the word Wet'suwet'en. They don't want to talk about the issue, an issue that is very much aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. The Liberals profess to be the advocates for indigenous communities and the champions of reconciliation. Can the minister tell us why the Liberals are determined to shut down discussion and public debate? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I would have to disagree with the member. I don't believe that there's, at any time, an interest in shutting down discussion or debate. I think, though, that at the COVID committee the issues facing indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Mtis around COVID-19 are very important to them. We need to work with them to make sure they can keep their communities safe. +The Chair: Mr. Schmale, you have 30 seconds. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I would argue with the minister and challenge her to talk to her committee members. Each time Conservatives have brought up the topic of the Wet'suwet'en and the situation happening with the elected chiefs and the people they represent, we have been shut down every single time. When will the minister allow the public debate to happen? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, in a committee, it is the work of the committee and the decision of the committee. I believe the chair and all members want first nations, Inuit and Mtis to be able to keep their communities safe during COVID-19. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It has been three months since this pandemic started and the Liberals just got around to announcing help for seniors. Seniors are a priority and should be treated as such. Why do the Liberals treat seniors as an afterthought? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Thank you very much. There is definitely an interest in and support for our seniors. We've been working to support seniors since the very beginning of this pandemic. I've just had the opportunity to introduce additional measures today wherein we are introducing a one-time special payment for those who receive OAS. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: Nearly two months into living in some form of isolation, watching their retirement savings take a hit and having to take additional health precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eligible seniors are set to receive a one-time payment of up to $500. Why does this government consistently undervalue seniors compared with everyone else? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to make sure that my honourable colleague remembers that we have already given a GST top-up of almost $375 for single seniors and over $500 for couples. This is in addition to what we've just done today where, as you said, it's $500. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Abacus Data, 69% of Canadians feel that there will be a second wave in the pandemic, and 52% of Canadians believe that there is a shortage of medical equipment, including personal protective equipment. Given these surprising figures, what is the government's plan to bring in enough personal protective equipment, should there be a second wave of the pandemic? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Our government is aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies that Canada needs, from a diverse range of suppliers around the world and here at home. We're working directly with businesses across the country to rapidly scale up domestic production capacity to meet current and future needs. At this point, our primary focus is on front-line health care professionals, but we are also exploring federal government assistance in areas of essential services so that PPE exists where workers need it. We are following public health guidance on this issue in looking to see where we can best assist. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Public Services and Procurement Canada, despite 1.8 billion units of PPE being procured, less than 6% of N95 respirator orders have been filled, less than 8% of surgical mask orders have been filled, and just 1.4% of face shield orders have been filled. We know that orders are not deliveries, so what's the delay? +Hon. Anita Anand: Let me start by saying that we are working in an incredibly difficult and competitive global environment and are procuring millions of items: face shields, gowns, hand sanitizer, and N95 surgical masks, and ventilators every single day. There is a delay in the production of these goods, but we have had many deliveries coming into Canada, including over two million face shields +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: A national security expert from the University of Ottawa has said that the national emergency strategic stockpile has failed in the current crisis, resulting in some provinces such as Saskatchewan using expired PPE, and provinces such as Alberta using faulty PPE that cause rashes and headaches. What is the government doing to expedite procurement and to counter the risk of faulty PPE, given that 34 of the suppliers are from China, which has already supplied significant faulty PPE? +Hon. Anita Anand: I will start by saying that we have multiple supply chains operating at the same time, from China, and domestically, and from the United States and other countries around the world. Our first priority is to make sure that we get safe, effective equipment and supplies into the hands of our front-line health care workers. Given the global supply chains and their competitive nature, this is an ongoing project and we are having success for our front-line health care workers. +The Chair: We'll now go on to the next question from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Ten weeks ago the Minister of Fisheries, in responding to my question in question period, acknowledged that the lobster fishery was being negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and was facing losses of up to 95% of its Asian markets. Mr. Chair, on April 28 I asked the minister what she was doing to support harvesters who were left out of the $62.5 million aid package. She mentioned that she was looking at sector-specific areas to make sure that the issues were addressed. Can the minister tell us what the government's plan is to directly support seafood harvesters? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleague for that very good question. We know that the fish and seafood sector has been extremely adversely affected because of COVID-19. We've started to put measures in place to address the issue with the $62.5 million for processors, as well as to make sure that the CERB is available for seasonal workers as well as people who have run out of their fishery EI, but we know that more needs to be done. The fishery enterprises are uniquely structured, which is why we're looking at measures to address the concerns they have. I'm working with my provincial colleagues, as well as my caucus colleagues. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, most fishermen are not eligible for the wage subsidy program due to the stipulation that it cannot be used for employees who are related to their employer. Most fishing enterprises, like farm enterprises, are family oriented. Many fishermen have their wives, their sons, their uncles or their fathers working for them, and sometimes it's the whole family on the boat. Can the minister explain what the government's plan is to support fishermen who do not fit into any actual program and who desperately need direct financial help from the federal government to survive? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that, because of the unique structure of fishing enterprises, they are not eligible for many of the supports we have put in place. We have made changes to the CERB to make sure that people who run out of the fishers EI are eligible as well as seasonable workers. We know that more needs to be done for the harvesters directly. We are working on direct supports. We have put in place measures to address processors' concerns so that harvesters continue to have a place to sell their product. We know that more has to be done. I am working with my cabinet colleagues to find solutions, and I hope I will have more to say about that very soon. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: In recent weeks, lobster fishermen in the gulf region of the Maritimes were shocked to read an additional subsection of regulations that was added to their fishing conditions for the 2021 fishing season. This addition was for a catch limitation or quota to which none of the harvesters or advisory members were privy. This created quite a chill within the lobster fishery, for sure. Can the minister tell us how these detailed regulations managed to get added without her authorization, and can licence-holders expect to see these same regulations in their conditions when their season gets going in the future? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the people who brought to my attention the conditions that were put on licences in the gulf. Those were not done under my authorization. They were removed right away from the condition of licence, and they will not happen. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: My next question is for the Minister of Health. Mr. Chair, on Wednesday, February 26, after the death of 23-year-old Chantelle Lindsay from Nova Scotia due to complications from cystic fibrosis, I asked the Prime Minister whether the government was going to make Trikafta, which might have saved Chantelle's life, available to Canadians. Now that almost 12 weeks have passed, we understand that Vertex Pharmaceuticals has not yet applied to Health Canada for study. Many of my Conservative colleagues and I have recently sent a letter to the minister asking for an update on how we support those negotiations with Vertex. Can the Minister of Health tell us when this drug will be available to CF patients in Canada? +The Chair: Honourable minister, the floor is yours. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My heart goes out to the family of Chantelle, who are obviously suffering an unbearable loss. I agree with the member that we want to make sure that effective drugs are available in Canada. As the member has pointed out, Vertex has not applied to sell Trikafta in Canada. However, there is the special access program that makes drugs like Trikafta available. In fact, the majority of people who have applied through the special access program to get access to the drug have received access. I would encourage the member to continue his correspondence with the manufacturer, as will we. +The Chair: Mr. d'Entremont, you have 36 seconds. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the tourism season is already deeply affected by COVID-19. A number of industries, businesses and festivals are having to deal with considerable losses of income. In my constituency, tens of thousands of tourists use the ferry between Bar Harbor, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. What is the government planning to do to help the ferry to survive and to resume service next season, if the borders remain closed this summer? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): I have had the opportunity to speak to my colleague Mr.d'Entremont about solutions to assist people in the tourism sector all over the country, and particularly in the Atlantic region. In light of the new funding for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ACOA, I will be happy to work with him and with the leaders of the tourism sector. +The Chair: Mr.Savard-Tremblay, the floor is now yours. +Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-HyacintheBagot, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Despite all the upheaval it causes, the crisis we are experiencing, considerable in scope though it is, can also be an opportunity to begin a transition. What is essential in normal times may, during a crisis, become crucial. What is unjust may, in times of crisis, become frankly scandalous. In Quebec, we are generally allergic to blatant injustice and inequality. Yesterday, Ottawa announced new support for large companies. Many of us in Quebec feel that, when a company knocks on the state's door to ask for assistance, it is totally legitimate for the state to impose conditions before providing its support. We in the Bloc Qubcois feel that there should be a limit, a ceiling, on the assistance provided to large companies, in order to avoid abuses in executive compensation. That is also the prevalent position in Quebec. A few years ago, after the Bombardier affair in QuebecI will not dwell on that because Quebecers are all too familiar with itthree of the four political parties that sat in the National Assembly and that still sit these took a position of that kind. A number of civil society groups in Quebec share it also. The United States, which, you will agree, is no bastion of socialism, has already implemented similar policies for periods of crisis. The idea is to offer support, but with conditions. According to a report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on January2, the 100highest-paid CEOs in Canada earned 227times more in 2018 than the average worker. The average salary for workers increased by 2.6% between 2017 and 2018. Given that inflation was then at 2.3%, it can be said that there was practically no increase. By contrast, the salary increase for CEOs in the same period was 18%, even in cases where the companies suffered losses. Let us be clear that we were not in a crisis when that study was conducted. We cannot even imagine what the figures are today. At this point, we are no longer talking about a gap but an abyss. Wealth is concentrated at the top of the pyramid, but clearly does not flow down to the base. Does the government intend to put a ceiling on executive compensation to ensure that they are not the only ones to profits from the support at this time of crisis? The question is clear and I am asking you to give me a clear answer. If I don't get one, I am going to have to demand a new version of the Clarity Act. +The Chair: The honourable Minister has the floor. I would also like to remind members to ask their questions through the Chair +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We know that our approach has to help small and medium-size companies, but also large companies in order to provide a bridge to the end of the crisis. In our opinion, that is very important. It will protect the jobs of Canadians and the future of our economy. That's why the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility is very important. That said, we know that it is necessary and important to impose conditions. Yes, we do want to make sure that the facility is available for companies that are going to continue to support our economy, to protect their employees, and to make a significant contribution to our communities. That is why we have attached a number of major conditions to our approach. We will have more details on the subject in the coming days. We established from the outset that we had to impose conditions on executive compensation. That is very important. We are going to consider the rules and conditions that are needed in order for the facility to be available to the companies, the operations and the employees. Of course, conditions are required to ensure that the facility is available for operations, not for dividends or share buybacks, for example. We will impose conditions of that kind. We also want to make sure that we are aware of the situation the companies are in. For example, we want to be sure that they are not engaged in tax evasion. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Sgro. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. I will be sharing my time with the member for KingsHants. Canadian seniors are worried about COVID-19. In my own riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek, 30% of the population are 65 or older. We know they are one of the highest risk populations. During this time, their costs have gone up. They have had to spend extra on medication and grocery delivery, as many cannot leave their homes. I have also heard of many seniors who are facing extra dispensing fees. These costs all add up, and many seniors were already carefully budgeting before the pandemic. It is so important that our government be there to support them. Can the minister please tell us what our government is doing to ensure that vulnerable seniors get the support they need during this very difficult time? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte: My colleague is right. Seniors have faced increased costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and our government today has responded to that with additional action. We announced a one-time, tax-free payment of $300 for seniors eligible for OAS and an additional $200 for seniors eligible for GIS. This means there will be up to $500 for the most vulnerable seniors to help them with their financial security to get through this challenging time. Beyond this, we announced $20 million to expand the new horizons for seniors program to kick-start initiatives and services that will help seniorsfor example, to get grocery deliveries right to their door and to stay connected. We've worked tirelessly on this as well as on other recent measures like the GST credit to help the most vulnerable seniors. Thank you to my colleague for her advocacy. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): You have 30 seconds left, Ms. Sgro. Go ahead with a short question and a response. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to applaud the minister for that work. I know she's been working extremely hard to make sure that we get some additional announcements over and above all of the ones we have already made, so congratulations. Keep up the work. You know there is lots more we want to do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Please give a short response. Go ahead. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much to my honourable colleague for her advocacy. Thanks for everyone's advocacy. Seniors across the country have been communicating with us and letting us know their needs, and we have been responding. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now I'll go over to Mr. Blois. Go ahead. +Mr. Kody Blois (KingsHants, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a privilege to have a chance to speak on issues that matter to Canadians, whether it's from the floor of the House of Commons or, indeed, from my house here in Nova Scotia. It's great to see everyone across the country. Like my colleagues, I'd like to thank the staff of the House of Commons for their continued work to make sure that we have this forum to be able to continue the democratic process. I would also quickly like to thank my staff both here locally in KingsHants and in Ottawa for their continued work for my constituents. Mr. Chair, my question through you is to the minister of agriculture. In KingsHants, agriculture is an important economic driver for our economy. We have the greatest concentration of agriculture producers east of Montreal. From our beef industry to our wine industry and everything in-between, it is extremely important. We have the Kentville Research and Development Centre and the Hants County agricultural exhibition, the longest-standing exhibition in North America. We know that COVID-19 has had impacts on the agriculture industry to differing degrees. In particular, KingsHants is home to an important dairy sector. We also have a growing and important horticulture sector. Can the minister specifically provide an update to the House on the measures our government has taken on those two particular commodity groups that are so important in my riding? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are targeting support to some of the most critical challenges facing the food supply chain. Last Tuesday I was proud to announce our emergency processing fund for a total of $77.5 million, $50 million for the surplus food program and $125 million through AgriRecovery to support our beef and pork producers. Concerning the dairy sector in particular, I'm hopeful that tomorrow we will get the support of all of the parties to be able to respond to their request for an increase in their loan capacity from $300 million to $500 million. I would like to encourage all farmers to apply to the business risk management programs, including AgriStability, for which we have improved some of the mechanisms. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go on with questions, but I'll also just ask Mr. Blois to excuse me for mispronouncing his name. Let's go now to Mr. Masse for Windsor West. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP): During the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of Michigan has become an epicentre of the outbreak. The city of Detroit alone has more deaths than the entire province of Ontario. The border communities of Sarnia and Windsor have higher per capita infection rates than the rest of the province. Next week, the border restrictions between the U.S. and Canada expire. With the premiers of B.C., Quebec and Ontario opposing the opening of the border at this time, will the restrictions be extended, or is the Prime Minister discussing changing the restrictions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me assure the honourable member that, first and foremost, all decisions about Canada's border are taken by Canadians and with the health and safety of Canadians first and foremost in mind. When it comes to the current agreement's coming up next week, we are in very close conversations with Americans about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: What changes are on the table? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just be clear that I didn't speak about any changes; I spoke about a very collaborative conversation with our American neighbours about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: Are you discussing any changes to the current status right now? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I found during the NAFTA negotiations that negotiations are best not conducted in public, but let me just assure Canadians that the health and safety of Canadians is first and foremost. Our government is taking a cautious approach, and we're working effectively. +Mr. Brian Masse: This is not negotiation. This is whether there are changes on the table. What are they? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say that I think the honourable member was actually seeking to know what exactly is being discussed with our American partners. Let me just say that we are taking a very cautious approach to the health and safety of Canadians. A very collaborative discussion is happening. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will more information be shared between your government and the American government on Canadians and Americans crossing the border on both sides? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm not sure what the member is alluding to, but let me just say that the current arrangements are working extremely well. Non-essential travel is down very sharply. Essential travel, particularly for trade, continues, and that's a good thing, too. +Mr. Brian Masse: With border communities having more rates of infection, will they receive additional PPE and financial assistance to deal with the loosening of current border restrictions that is being discussed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just emphasize to the honourable member that on a couple of occasions he has implied that a loosening of the current restrictions is being discussed. Let me be very clear that this is his assertion; I have not said that. +Mr. Brian Masse: Apparently, we're meeting for nothing. I'll move to the large commercial banks who are profiteering off or squeezing Canadians during this public crisis. Credit card interest rates are still high from previous price-gouging levels. Despite numerous favours from the Liberals, there have not been significant changes. Vancity Savings Credit Union demonstrated leadership when it set credit card rates at zero. Will the government use its statutory powers and force the banks to offer the credit card relief that Vancity has already done? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say that we recognize the challenges that Canadians face, especially with issues like credit card rates. That's exactly why we've been working on this issue since we came into office. We came to an agreement on interchange fees that was important for consumers. Most recently, during the COVID-19 crisis, we've negotiated with the banks and encouraged them, and they have come out with reductions in their credit card fees that are significant, and deferrals for customers +Mr. Brian Masse: Will you use your statutory powers, yes or no, to do what Vancity has done to help Canadian consumers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: As I've said, Mr. Chair, we're continuing to support consumers. We're continuing to work together with banks to make sure that they are giving the kind of support necessary to their customers, and we've seen actions in this regard, supporting customers. +Mr. Brian Masse: Why do banks have to profit at higher interest rates on Canadian consumer and retailer exchange rates during COVID-19? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think it's important to clarify that banks have come forward and given deferrals to customers in trouble and cut their interest by half Mr. Brian Masse: Not on credit cards. Hon. Bill Morneau: and that's been important on credit cards. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There's time for one more short question. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will the minister use his powers if the banks continue to charge Canadian consumers interest rates that are higher than Vancity's? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we will continue to work with banks to ensure that they're supporting their customers. What banks have done on credit cards by cutting their fees in half is an important nod in that direction. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Next, we have Jacques Gourde. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Quebec is Canada's biggest producer of hydroelectricity, a renewable energy that is the pride of the Quebec nation. The only problem is that it seems to be a tough sell west of Quebec, in Ontario, for instance. This competitively priced power could help us reduce our environmental footprint and further cut greenhouse gas emissions. Will the government show leadership and allow Canada's provinces to share renewable energy through an energy corridor, as we proposed? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we are continuing to work towards that end. It is always very important to protect Canadians, and we are going to stick to that approach. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, Canada's dairy processors have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis and the new CanadaU.S.Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Some of them have incurred losses ranging from 10% to 50%, depending on the processed product. Will the government commit to granting import permits under CUSMA to Canada's dairy processors, not retailers directly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that dairy producers will receive fair compensation. I should also point out that we preserved supply management when negotiating the new NAFTA. That is important to Canada and Quebec, and I'm very pleased that we were able to do that. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the minister seems to be missing the issue in hand. Canada's dairy processors invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year to bring high-quality products to consumers, while contributing $19billion to GDP. Now those very processors are being asked to try to export Canadian value-added products. Will the minister commit to giving Canada's dairy processors import permits, instead of encouraging American multinationals? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question. I fully understand, as we all do, the important role processors play in our system and our country. I can assure the members of the House that we will continue to work with Canadian processors as the agreement comes into force. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, when it comes to the COVID-19 crisis, what Canadians will remember is that those with access to reliable high-speed Internet will have fared better, feeling less financial strain, than those who are cut off from the rest of the world. Is the government ready to invest in making high-speed Internet available to all Canadians, no matter where they live in the country? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Yes, we are, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the current economic situation could lead to the disappearance of Canada's tourism industry. The pain will be felt by thousands of Canadians, who will have to find new jobs in order to survive. Is the government going to protect the tourism-based economy by investing in tourism infrastructure and upgrades to ensure Canada's tourist regions are ready when the economy reopens? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Ms. Joly, you have to switch to the French channel and turn on your microphone. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes, I look forward to working with my fellow member on this issue. I know the tourism sector is important to him and, especially, his constituents. Let's work together to find ways to get this hard-hit sector moving again. Many people have lost their jobs and need assistance from the government. That is why we're here, providing a helping hand at this difficult time so they can come out the other side. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Continuing with questions, we'll go to the honourable member for SaskatoonUniversity, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor (SaskatoonUniversity, CPC): Good afternoon, everybody. With respect to entering Canada, does the government consider spousal reunification as essential travel, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: The CBSA has exercised the appropriate discretion in determining when a non-Canadian citizen, who has no status in Canada, attempts to enter the country for any consideration considered non-essential. They are turned back because we have restrictions in place for non-essential travel. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully to the minister, you're letting down Canadians. People are being stranded, and you need to do better as a government. Changing gears a little, all Canadians would agree, or can agree, that the Prime Minister requires suitable accommodation. Why did the government simply not tell Canadians that the Harrington cottage needed to be rebuilt and massively expanded? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would ask the honourable members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand: The NCC is an independent Crown corporation. It recognizes the importance of the official residences it has jurisdiction over. The work at Harrington Lake is part of a broader program to preserve and maintain and restore all official residences under NCC management, and we will support the NCC in its important work. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Was there something in particular that this government did not want Canadians to know about the cottage, or is secrecy all this government knows how to do? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, this information was and has been public since 2018. There is no effort to hide any information from the public in this regard. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully, Canadians feel misled on this, and we're not clear on what the expenses were, how large an expansion it was +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, the honourable government House leader. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I believe this has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic, so the questions are out of order, in my opinion. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable government House leader for his comment. Certainly the scope of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic does expect and anticipate that the subject matter will be related to the matter at hand, so I would ask honourable members to continue to keep within those bounds. Of course, members will also know that we're unable to gauge that until members have spoken, so I would ask members to keep on subject. Let's go back to Mr. Tochor to finish his question, and we have about two minutes remaining in this spot. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Yes, thank you, Chair. The point I was making was about transparency or lack of transparency that is hurting our efforts with COVID-19. Changing gears onto CERB, who came up with the number for CERB? Why is it $2,000? A senior gets $1,200, people with disabilities get $1,600, and now we've added another ad hoc program on top of those. I'd like to know a little more about how and who came up with those unique numbers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Working collaboratively between ESDC and the Department of Finance, we determined that that would be an appropriate amount, based on what workers were earning and what we anticipated they would need to live on, and what we anticipated they would be losing by way of employment income. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Your last question, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor: I have a really quick question, which I've heard in my office, on charities and non-profits that do not have their own payroll number and are ineligible for the wage subsidy. Does the Prime Minister have a program fix coming so that charities and non-profits can receive the wage subsidy? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we understand the important role that charities and non-profits are playing to help vulnerable Canadians at this difficult time. We have announced supports in the amount of $350 million to ensure that not only do they continue that great work, but also expand it to serve the most vulnerable to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Okay. We will move to the next questioner, Mr. Aboultaif from Edmonton Manning. Mr. Aboultaif, go ahead with your question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, last week markets were shocked when leaks regarding the state of our economy came to light before the market even opened. This caused worry to investors at home and abroad about the integrity of our markets and the nature of the leak, which is, in itself, unprecedented. Section 34 of the Statistics Act indicates the following: Every person who, after taking the oath set out in subsection 6, is guity of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to impreisonment for a term not exceeing five years or both: wilfully discloses or divulges directly or indirectly to any person not entitled under this Act to receive the same any information obtained by him in the course of his employment that might exert an influence on or affect the market value of any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article, or uses any information described in paragraph for the purpose of speculating in any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article My question for the minister is this: Does the government consider this case to be subject to paragraph 34 or 34 and a criminal offence, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, my hon. colleague is absolutely right that the current situation with regard to the COVID crisis is deeply problematic, and we want to make sure that any information we share with the Canadian public with regard to economic measures or labour market numbers follows the appropriate process. The breach that occurred is completely unacceptable. Our government has denounced this breach. That breach was not the way to deal with such sensitive information. The member has alluded to several paragraphs within the Statistics Act. I can assure him that we are looking into this matter and that Statistics Canada is looking into this issue as well. Going forward, we will ensure that such a breach does not occur again, because it's important that we continue to have the confidence of Canadians during this current health care crisis. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Okay, I will take that as a yes. So this matter should be investigated, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: As I have indicated very clearly, what has happened is completely unacceptable. This breach should not have occurred. This matter is being looked into, and we want to assure Canadians going forward that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Mr. Aboultaif. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: In that case, the minister said the matter will be looked into. Basically, my understanding of this case is that Statistics Canada is going to investigate itself, or does the minister think that the government should refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Sorry, could you repeat that question? I had a bit of an issue and could not hear the question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Will Statistics Canada investigate itself or will the government refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, there are appropriate protocols in place to look into such breaches. Those protocols will be followed, and the appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Aboultaif, you have about a minute left. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: The minister indicated that this will be investigated, but during the investigation into the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Liberal staff refused to co-operate. Will the minister commit today that all Liberal staff will co-operate with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, we've been clear that it's important that any such breach be taken seriously. What has happened is unacceptable, and we will ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to make sure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question, Mr. Aboultaif. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There's no doubt about the general terms, but I need to make sure that the government will commit that its staff will co-operate. Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: The process is very clear. The protocols are very clear. The law is very clear, and we will make sure that the process is followed and the law is upheld. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll continue. The next question will go to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I start my questions, I would like to thank the various ministers, parliamentary secretaries and the Speaker of the House for reaching out to me during the severe flooding in Fort McMurray. Your support during these trying times is much appreciated. The oil and gas industry is under severe strain. Over the past number of years, we have seen tremendous pressure on the federal government from anti-oil and gas lobby groups demanding that the oil sands be shut down. The federal Liberal government's response to the anti-oil lobby was the introduction of the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, which will prevent any major oil and gas projects from being developed in Canada; and the oil shipping ban, Bill C-48, for the northern coast of British Columbia, which also had a negative effect on the oil industry. These two bills alone pushed over $200 billion of investment out of Canada, causing the Alberta economy to retract to recession levels. To compound Alberta's economic problems, we have an international oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a huge drop in demand for oil. Mr. Chair, 48 days after the finance minister promised liquidity loans to oil producers and service companies, there are still no applications open for these loans. Can the honourable Minister of Natural Resources tell us when the Liberals will act on their promise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, I'm happy that we were able to announce today some liquidity measures for large cap corporations in the oil and gas sector. These measures will provide them with the liquidity that they needed, and this is also the liquidity that they asked for. It was on April 17 that we started liquidity measures for small and medium-sized businesses in the oil and gas industry, and those are the ones in which 85% of workers are affected. Today's measures will complete that. I'm very happy that we've had such people as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers come out and say that this is what they asked for and this is what they need, and we have produced what they need in order to ensure the future competitiveness of Canada's oil and gas sector. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, we have seen junior oil companies close their doors. The larger companies have sent contractors home and laid off employees. Many of these contractors are indigenous companies, and they are having a difficult time qualifying for programs to save their businesses. Can the honourable Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations inform us of the measures the government is taking to ensure there are no gaps in the current programs, and commit to review the eligibility criteria for owners of aboriginal businesses struggling to qualify for financial help? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, Canada's oil sector provides jobs for more than 576,000 people, including 11,000 indigenous people, in every part of Canada. It is essential that we support those businesses. It is essential that we support the many indigenous people who work in our oil and gas sector, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan. We have provided supports for those businesses, and we will continue to do so, also keeping in mind that in many of these communities the importance of public health and safety is foremost in our minds. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, western Canada oil storage is under extreme pressure. If thermal projects such as SAGD are shut down, those facilities could be lost forever. If the global oil markets remain oversupplied into the summer and industry must shut down production, what is the government's plan to ensure Canada's energy security and the economic future of the oil sands with the potential shutdown of oil production? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have worked with industry and with provinces on every front to ensure the stability of the oil and gas sector of our country. We have concentrated on workers. We need the workers in our oil and gas sector in order to lower emissions and achieve a greener economy. We need their determination and their ingenuity. We need to make sure that their jobs are held whole. Therefore, we are looking after workers and we are looking out for companies that hold onto those jobs for those workers. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, the government's assistance package for the Canadian oil and gas industry provides some hope to the industry. The lack of detail and action has led to some challenges. Can the minister clarify? On a medium-sized energy company's eligibility, if the company is in default to financial institutions, does it still qualify for the business credit availability program? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we know that our oil and gas sector is suffering through two crises. We have the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war, and we have been tackling both of these on each front. On April 17, we announced liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players. That made up 85% of the jobs in this sector. We have announced liquidity will be further made available to larger players. As well, through the BCAP, we are making sure that more companies are eligible so that they can remain whole and so they can hold onto the jobs that we need. +The Chair: The next question will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. It's lovely to see all of you. My first question is directed to the Prime Minister. It's a higher-level abstraction. As we all know, we're being told we need a vaccine, and the quest for a vaccine is all-consuming globally. However, people who think about this issue and the question of the power structure and profit motive, particularly Dr. Matthew Herder of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University, are questioning this model. We know that Jonas Salk never sought a patent on his polio vaccine. Can we ensure that public dollars for finding a vaccine will result in a product that is shared globally, openly, and is not for profit? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for her question. Our approach has been very clear when it comes to science. We have an open science model, and we're working with different partners and different jurisdictions to help develop vaccines and look at countermeasures and other therapeutics. Our goal is to make sure that we do so in a collaborative fashion, because this is a global pandemic, but make no mistake: If it's Canadian ingenuity and Canadian IP that's driving it, we want to support them as well. +Ms. Elizabeth May: As a follow-up to the minister's comment, I note it was interesting to see the claim made by this public health institute at Dalhousie about the wonderful research that was being done in Winnipeg on an Ebola vaccine. Because of the for-profit motive and the interests that big pharma had in seeing their market before they developed the product, it is alleged that the Ebola vaccine was actually delayed by the for-profit model. I wonder if we might consider examining this profit motive around the development of life-saving vaccines and other drugs. Is that a conversation the minister is having with others? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the member for her question. I'm working very closely with Minister Hajdu and the chief science advisor to look at all options. I'm glad the member highlighted the Ebola virus vaccine, which was developed here in Canada. I'm proud of the fact that the DNA sequencing for SARS was also done in Canada. We have incredible scientists and researchers. We are engaging with them and empowering them, and we will continue to share details of this with the public. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Changing gears, we know that the new regulations limiting what are described as military-style assault rifles and guns have been very controversial. It's very clear to me as an opposition member why we haven't seen legislation on any fast track. It's obviously not the sort of legislation that would gain unanimous consent. Wouldn't it be wise to table for first reading the entire legislative framework so that we know what we're talking about in the long term with regard to the buyback program and other aspects of this issue? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the member for the question. I want to assure her that at the first opportunity, we will bring forward legislation dealing with a number of aspects of our commitment to strengthen gun control in Canada, including legislation to deal with a buyback program, which we've indicated we will put in place. There are a number of other significant measures as well that we intend to bring forward to strengthen gun control legislation. We understand that it's a priority. The pandemic does not diminish our responsibility to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe, and we will bring that legislation forward at the first opportunity. +Ms. Elizabeth May: I confess that I was disappointed by this morning's announcement on support for seniors. I had been hoping for much more, because I hear from many seniors. I'm going to focus my question for the minister on the issue of seniors homes. Some that are being run by not-for-profit societies are actually running very well, certainly in my community, but they are facing increased costs that could bankrupt them. As yet, there's no program to help a well-run seniors home that is not experiencing a loss of revenue and has lots of staff working hard. These homes have increased costs for wages and increased costs for PPE and nowhere to look for help. Is there help coming? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I offer my gratitude to the many people who are working in these long-term care facilities day and night to keep seniors safe. The member certainly highlighted that there are not only additional expenses for some of the not-for-profit seniors homes, but also additional new measures that will increase all kinds of things, including costs. We continue to work with the provinces and territories and support them through, for example, generous transfers of money to boost their health care systems in ways that they think are most appropriate. We continue to have conversations at the health ministers' table on how we can support them. +The Chair: I'm afraid we're out of time on that one. The next question will go to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians are appalled by the disgraceful treatment of seniors in care homes across this country. Old folks are being left in soiled clothing and are going without baths for weeks. They are packed four to a room in dangerously unhealthy conditions. The situation is so bad that the armed forces had to be called in to intervene. To the Minister of Health, is her government prepared to take strong action to address this crisis in seniors health care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member has illustrated some of the horror stories that have appalled us all as Canadians and certainly as parliamentarians. We know that seniors deserve to live in dignity and safety with the utmost care, and that just hasn't been happening in this time of COVID and certainly, in some cases, in previous times as well. As the member knows, I've said publicly that I believe we need to hold long-term care homes to stronger standards. I have begun those preliminary conversations with my counterparts. I am working with many ministers across our government to think about how we do that, how we +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, if we treated children the way we do seniors in this country, social services would seize them. Over 80% of the deaths in Canada from COVID-19 have occurred in long-term care homes. Canada has the highest proportion of deaths in long-term care home settings among 14 comparable countries, including France, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. Canadians want action. What specifically is the minister going to do about the crisis in long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows that long-term care homes have rested largely in the jurisdiction of provincial governments and, in fact, municipal governments, which often run them and fund them partially as well. That's why it's important that we have those conversations with our provincial and territorial partners, but the member can rest assured that it is on the top of my priority list to engage with my colleagues all across the country, including many experts who have studied this issue multiple times, to come up with stronger standards so all seniors have quality of life, safety and dignity in their elder years. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, Canadians don't want politicians pointing fingers at each other; they want our seniors taken care of. COVID-19 didn't cause the problems; it exposed them. Decades of neglect by governments at all levels have resulted in this calamity. Not a single province or territory in Canada is meeting the minimum standards of hands-on care for seniors, and death rates from COVID-19 in private, for-profit facilities are two to three times that of public or non-profit homes. Will the minister agree with New Democrats that we need strong national standards, federal funding tied to enforcement and public delivery of care to effectively improve care for seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, certainly the member of Parliament has made an assertion that there is finger pointing. I don't think that's the case at all. As a matter of fact, what I hear from my colleagues at the provincial and territorial level is the willingness to collaborate on how, first of all, we get through this crisis together and strengthen safety for seniors in homes right now and then how we look to the future to build a stronger network of long-term care or care alternatives that will ensure that seniors have the right and the ability to live with dignity and safety in their homes. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what I'm not hearing is a single concrete proposal or measure that this minister is suggesting her government can take, but let me move to another subject. Like long-term care, COVID-19 has exposed other major gaps in our health care system. Millions of Canadians lost their prescription benefits when they lost their jobs, revealing the fundamental weakness of medical coverage tied to employment status. Will this government finally move to ensure all Canadians get the medicine they need by bringing in universal pharmacare at the earliest opportunity? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as you know, in the mandate that the Prime Minister gave to me, working on a national pharmacare plan is still there. I know it feels like a lifetime ago, but the member has very aptly illustrated why affordable medication is so important as part of a robust health care system. I look forward to continuing our work on ensuring that all Canadians can afford the medication they need. +The Chair: It is now over to Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister made a big announcement expressing his desire to launch an economic recovery plan that fast-tracks the transition to a green economy. MinisterGuilbeault, MinisterMcKenna and MinisterWilkinson were appointed to a group tasked with doing just that. Today, I worry that the group is nothing but an empty shell, a convenient post-crisis political pitch. On the natural resources front, the government's two main announcements primarily involve fossil fuels. We need only think of the $1.7billion being invested to clean up orphan wells. Perhaps there is an environmental component, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around yesterday's announcement by Export and Development Canada. It's going to lend TC Energy $500million to build its Coastal GasLink pipeline. That's $500million for a pipeline project that will eventually produce 8.6million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. How does the government reconcile that with its desire to transition to a green economy? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for the question. Certainly at this time, Canadians are most particularly focused on ensuring that support is provided so that they can put food on the table and pay their rent. We are starting to focus on the relaxation measures in many provinces and territories in Canada. That is the primary focus of the government, as it is of Canadians. Certainly as we move forward, we need to be thinking about the kind of society and economy that we want to create for the future. In that context, we need to learn lessons coming out of this experience, and certainly we need to ensure that we are addressing challenges that are on the horizon, including the challenge of climate change. Those are conversations that will need to be had as we move beyond this phase of the crisis, but at the current time, the focus is clearly on combatting the virus. +The Chair: Ms.Pauz has a point of order. +Ms. Monique Pauz (Repentigny, BQ): There was absolutely no interpretation while the minister was speaking. +The Chair: Since so many are having issues with the interpretation, let's take a quick break while I try to fix the problem on my end. I'm going to ask the minister to repeat his answer, and we'll see whether the interpretation comes through this time. If not, please let me know, Ms.Pauz and anyone else who doesn't hear it. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson: Of course, the issues of the future are very important. That means not just climate change, but also other challenges that we saw during the coronavirus crisis, challenges we need to take into account. Now, I think Canadians want us to take the time to focus on what is currently going on. We have put rules in place to protect Canadians. We really need to think about this. We need a plan. Of course, we need to think about the future, but I want Canadians +The Chair: Mr.Simard has the floor. +Mr. Mario Simard: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I want to tell you that, of all industries, the one best positioned to make the energy transition is probably the forestry industry. Unfortunately, in Canadaa petro statethere always seem to be two sets of rules when it comes to helping key industries, including providing liquidity support. Yesterday's announcement suggests that the $500million being provided by EDC is for a single project: Coastal GasLink. In 2017, under the softwood lumber action plan, EDC's entire budget for the forestry industry was exactly $500million. Now, EDC is shelling out $500million for just one project, Coastal GasLink, even though the whole of the forestry industry also received $500million when it needed EDC's support under a 2017 action plan to deal with tariffs. The industry accounts for 58,000jobs in Quebec and $6billion of Quebec's GDP. As I see it, there is a fundamental inequity. My question is for the natural resources minister. Does he think this situation is fair? Will he commit to providing the forestry industry with the same amount of liquidity being made available to the fossil fuel sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr.Chair, since 2017, our government has invested billions of dollars. I'll answer the question in English. Sorry. We launched our softwood lumber action plan to support workers in communities. We introduced funding through the strategic innovation fund specifically for forestry. Building on our work today, we have included traditional investments to make sure this sector innovates, diversifies and grows. Over these past two and a half months, I have spent an inordinate amount of time with CEOs, with heads of the forestry sectors from coast to coast to coast. A few days ago, I convened a meeting of CEOs from all parts of this country, from Quebec to British Columbia, to talk to them about solutions, about answers. The liquidity measures that were announced yesterday will help some of them. We will continue to work closely with industry to make sure we are there for them and that we stand by them through the COVID crisis, so we make sure that +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm hearing from small business owners like Joel, who runs a fitness club here in Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, and is very concerned that their landlords refuse to participate in the rent assistance program. These businesses have seen revenue drops between 50% and 100% and are asking for just 25% off their rent. When will the government help small businesses whose landlords refuse to be team players during this pandemic? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, first of all, we share the member's concern that small businesses be supported. That's why we've moved forward with a number of measures that are designed to be of assistance. With respect to rent support, we are encouraging landlords to support this measure. Obviously, rent and landlord-tenant relations are under provincial jurisdiction. At every opportunity I talk to the provincial finance ministers to encourage them to get engaged there. We will continue to support small businesses. We believe this program has significant merit. It allows for small businesses to significantly reduce their rent and for landlords to be protected with up to 75% of the rent. We think it is an excellent program. It will require the provinces to step forward and enforce it. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, here in B.C., businesses are preparing for phased reopening. A number of my constituents, including Kathy, who owns a beauty salon, are concerned about meeting the PPE requirements. What is the federal government doing to ensure businesses in my riding can get access to the PPE they need to keep their employees and customers safe when they reopen? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as a federal government, we are aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies. Our first priority is to provide PPE to our front-line health care workers. However, we are actively involved in trying to ascertain how the federal government can work with the provinces and territories to provide essential services and other businesses with PPE. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, Craig and Matt are co-owners of Wanstalls, a firearms retail outlet in downtown Maple Ridge that employs eight people and serves thousands of law-abiding firearm owners in my riding, people who are now made to feel like criminals by the Liberal government. Further, they are now stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of inventory that they can no longer sell. What are they supposed to do to keep open in this already tumultuous COVID environment? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's important to understand that none of the restrictions that we have put in place, the new prohibitions, in any way impact weapons that are used for the lawful purposes in Canada of hunting and sport shooting, so those weapons remain available to Canadians engaged in those lawful activities. We have prohibited weapons that were not intended for the legal purposes of hunting and sport shooting and for which firearms are available to Canadians. What we prohibited were weapons designed for another purpose, an unacceptable purpose. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, according to the CERB website, if a recipient earns over $1,000 in a reporting period, their entire $2,000 benefit must be repaid. I have constituents who are working part time and casually. They're worried that if they take an extra shift, they will lose their CERB, but if they refuse a shift, they will also lose their CERB. It's a classic Liberal catch-22. A worker may unknowingly make over the $1,000 by a couple of dollars. Does the government intend to make them repay all their CERB if they barely go over the threshold? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that is why we're working with individual eligible CERB recipients to make sure they are not put in positions of undue hardship. At the beginning, the registration restricted it to basically not working, and then we relaxed the condition to earning up to $1,000. I can assure the member that we will work with individuals. Service Canada is reaching out to people so that nobody is in the difficult position he is talking about. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: There's a point of order. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: There were some technical issues earlier during my fellow member Mario Simard's turn. Normally, each person gets five minutes. According to our calculations, he had about 45seconds left. This is a serious point of order. We shouldn't get the short end of the stick because we speak French in the House. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: All right. We'll check what happened, but I had stopped the clock. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I assure you he lost some time. +The Chair: The minister had to repeat his answer. We'll check and make sure it doesn't happen again. The good thing is that this is all being filmed, so we can watch the video back to see what happened. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, because the ministers chose to answer in French owing to a technical issue, their answers were unduly drawn out, which cost my fellow member speaking time. I think he should be given a chance to ask one last question, to be fair. Otherwise, French speakers are going to be at a major disadvantage. +The Chair: As I said, I'll check what happened and we'll have a solution for next time. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: We have another point of order. Mr.Guilbeault now has the floor. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I hope the member isn't suggesting that, because some members of the House are making an effort to speak French, they are unduly dragging out the time, as he seems to have said. Good for them, I say, for trying to speak a language they aren't necessarily comfortable in for the benefit of other members. +The Chair: I think a debate is brewing, but I'm sure that's not what people want, so I don't want an argument to break out over the fact that different languages are being spoken. We'll look into what happened and fix the problem so it doesn't happen again. We will go back to Mr. Dalton. You have about 30 seconds for a question. Thank you. Mr.Chair, many farmers in my riding and elsewhere are afraid they won't have enough workers this summer and fall. What is the government going to do to make sure those receiving the CERB and CESB have the right information and know about the job opportunities in the agri-food sector in our communities? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 15seconds to answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that while we are supporting Canadians through both the CERB and the CESB, we are creating tens of thousands of jobs, including in the agriculture sector, to make sure there is labour available in this important and essential sector. +The Chair: Those are all the questions we will have for today. I want to thank everyone. When I first got elected as Speaker, one of the things I mentioned was that you would want everyone who was watching, including your families and your friends, to be proud of you. I can honestly say that they would all be very proud of what we went through today. I am very proud of today's session. I want to thank everyone for wearing the headsets. I didn't see anybody answer without one, and it is very much appreciated, not only by our fellow members but also by the people who are translating into the other language that you are not speaking. Thank you all again. Have a good day everyone. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The summary of the provided transcript is as follows: + +The Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, opened the sixth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic, which took place via videoconference. He reminded the members to use their microphones and headsets properly and adhere to language channel guidelines for English and French. + +There were no ministerial announcements, so the meeting proceeded to presenting petitions. Various members presented petitions on topics including maternal mental health, cystic fibrosis medication access, family doctor shortages, firearm legislation, open-net fish farming, indigenous rights related to the Coastal GasLink project, airline refunds due to COVID-19 cancellations, and federal workers being told to overlook potential fraud in benefit applications. + +Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed questions about government benefits and fraud prevention measures. + +The committee discussed several topics, such as the plight of seniors during the pandemic and the recent announcement of financial assistance. Hon. Deb Schulte detailed measures to support seniors, including one-time payments for those on Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, as well as funding expansion for the New Horizons for Seniors Program. + +Questions were raised about procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE), with Hon. Anita Anand mentioning the aggressive procurement efforts by the government prioritizing frontline healthcare workers. + +Hon. Bill Blair responded to questions on firearms legislation, emphasizing the prohibition of weapons designed for combat and confirming continued essential trade despite border restrictions with the U.S. + +There were discussions on the economic challenges faced by industries such as fishing, oil and gas, tourism, and Forestry, with respective ministers addressing measures of support for these sectors. + +The members discussed transparency in government actions, including handling of breaches related to sensitive economic data and Covid-19 vaccine development, where an open science model was emphasized. + +Finally, there were exchanges on the conditions of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and labor shortages in agriculture, with members seeking clarity on government policies and assistance programs. + +The meeting concluded with the Chair expressing pride in the conduct of the session and gratitude for proper use of headsets, facilitating translation. The committee was adjourned until the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's not saved yet . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Our beautiful drawing . +Project Manager: So just f um {disfmarker} So this is our agenda . You're {disfmarker} F You're going to show your pr prototype presentation after me . +Marketing: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} Oh yeah . So these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So these are the um last notes we I made . If anything doesn't look right , just say it to me then . I don't have to put it in the report . +User Interface: Are we doing the the speech recognition ? Because we didn't have enough time to uh de um design the inside as well . +Project Manager: Okay , but it's still possible uh uh financially . So if you want to , it's okay . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Well then then we're gonna put it in . +Project Manager: Okay , just {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , just uh we have to design the inside then , but it should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Or are we making a slide open , like underneath ? Or fold open ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Slide open is uh quite usable for remote controls . +Industrial Designer: It's probably better . Yeah , s Like underneath uh you can slide it open and you {gap} other functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's may maybe uh a bit stronger as well . +Project Manager: Maybe that's better . Yeah , that's that's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so when you have a lot of room inside . +Industrial Designer: Think that's better . +User Interface: So you can make it very easy to use . 'Cause you can write a lot of comments besides it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So this is okay ? {gap} +User Interface: {gap} No . Yeah , we're gonna use the advanced chip then . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's {disfmarker} Uh I'll just have a look how much that is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Okay , for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Advanced chip was for uh spee Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think so . I don't know . +Project Manager: No , you have a different chip for speech recognition . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Project Manager: So I already calculated that and it's still in the budget . So it's okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: So you can show your prototype if you want to . +User Interface: Together ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Let's do it together . +User Interface: I'll give comments . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , we just made a Word file with the basic elements . Uh the look-and-feel model . Uh well the form , the case um as drawn there . Simply a square with uh round corners . So that's basically it . {vocalsound} Uh the material should be hard plastic . Uh colour changeable , and also transparent . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And colour and transparent , or just transparent , I don't know . Um then the elements . Uh we have {disfmarker} The functions are just basic . Like uh I've pointed them here . Mute function , on-off function , text functions . This uh switch channel . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this is the the num-pad . And the logo is over here , and the mic . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the scrollwheel , no ? You operate that with your pointing finger . +Marketing: Means {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you hold it like this in your right hand and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So how many functions do you need for for uh the microphone ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , speech recognition . Just {disfmarker} Only one button to say it's on or off . +User Interface: Um I didn't have a specification of that . But um I can imagine that you have to input your voice or something . +Industrial Designer: Uh I dunno . +User Interface: Um so I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe maybe uh you have to configure it . +User Interface: Yes , you need options to configure it , and after that you don't need 'em anymore . +Project Manager: So you can put it on the back as well if you want to . +User Interface: Yeah , you can {gap} put 'em all on the back . That's for sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or on the slide function , I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we haven't had time to design that , the slide pad . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: We also don't know how many buttons are required , or what kind of buttons . But {disfmarker} You have a lot of room if you can slide it open . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put it separate . +User Interface: You {disfmarker} Yeah I know . I can imagine you need at least four buttons or something . So {disfmarker} But it's enough room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um the position ? Yeah , you write uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You wrote this , so . +User Interface: Well the main , the main zap buttons are most central . That was the the most important thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So uh the best {gap} place , the best reach place {disfmarker} Um on-off buttons , text buttons , mute buttons are together and at a place they easily are , easy to find . Um the on-off button is a bit bigger , uh so it stands out . That way you don't have to make it red , 'cause it's will uh will show up . Uh scrollwheel is on the left side . It's {vocalsound} basically the be standard place for scrollwheel , as far as I know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But it's not uh impossible to use it , if you're left handed . So y Because you can use your thumb then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just just one thing now . Um y you need to have more uh one two th You've got one two three four five six seven eight nine . +User Interface: Okay yeah , they {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you missed the no uh the zero and uh the two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's that's below that then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It's uh twelve buttons . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just so you get that . +Marketing: Okay , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's rather important . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay , just we just missed that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But um I'll just uh {disfmarker} I'll get back to later . F the form well , we've taken that from the iPod , other popular technical device . So um should be popular . Um {disfmarker} The f uh the buttons creating ? Uh if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That or all round shapes , not uh rounded corners . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that , you know , you get a bit round feeling . Um we'll use hard plastic . Since that allows us to use uh two D_ buttons , uh non-rubber buttons . Colour changeable . Well and um the backlight thing , the thing that lights up . We have decided uh {vocalsound} in the the channel buttons , there's a little uh colour around it . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: And also in the num-pads , there's also colour {gap} light behind it . +Project Manager: And do you still can , do you still can choose what colour , kind of colour you want ? +User Interface: So when you pre Yeah . +Project Manager: How do you want to implement that ? Just on the {disfmarker} Maybe on the second level as well ? +User Interface: We're going to implement . Yeah . Mm just a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , these are just basic functions , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: All the non-basic are in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , just draw draw the second level , because we need that as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , there is one uh function I use uh daily , and it's not on the basic functions . It's uh to switch to uh uh your Scart . Play Station or uh D_V_D_ player . +Industrial Designer: Okay , maybe we use this button for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That function must be {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} Or you can uh i uh lay it uh beneath in the uh other uh functions . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , as well . +User Interface: I um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just make make a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: To your video device . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just draw a second level one and say all options that are still left or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A second level ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a a new blank one or {disfmarker} Or just here ? +Project Manager: No no , just on {disfmarker} Down there . +User Interface: Is i Ah okay . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: And h how does the second level come out ? +Project Manager: Just uh if you s +Marketing: Uh it slides uh along ? +User Interface: Um slides I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , y Maybe , yeah . +User Interface: It's +Marketing: From from the uh beneath ? +Project Manager: For the bottom . +User Interface: You can do it that it claps open , but I think that's not solid enough . +Project Manager: No , you gotta slide it . +User Interface: If that breaks then you're screwed . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's right . +User Interface: So it do doesn't even have to slide all the way open . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what do we need ? +User Interface: Uh i the the speech functions buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu ? +User Interface: Menu button . With uh maybe uh arrows . So you can uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: scroll in the , navigate the menu . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: God damn it . +Marketing: Scart ? +User Interface: {gap} I think we can even put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have one for the zero and one for the for the more digit uh channels . +Marketing: Uh yeah . And so y you keep you keep one , you have one left . Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you have one left for the {disfmarker} Right , the video channel , Play Station , etcetera . That's used pretty often . +Industrial Designer: So this is the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have a Play Station , mm you use it every day . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a f {vocalsound} basic uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Extern or something . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: You want to save that file as well ? The drawing ? +User Interface: That was it . +Industrial Designer: So here are multiple speech buttons , I don't know how many . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Doesn't really matter . Just just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't really matter . +Industrial Designer: I don't know the functions . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah well we don't have any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . What else ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: What else ? +User Interface: What else ? Uh menu buttons with arrows . +Industrial Designer: Uh menu . +Marketing: Yeah , to navigate . +User Interface: S Just uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} With arrows . +User Interface: Um I think it's best if we do . Mm where do we have {disfmarker} Or there . +Industrial Designer: Like a normal um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like on the normal uh {disfmarker} Like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with in the middle um a menu button . +User Interface: The menu button , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well we don't have any , anything on how many buttons speech requires . So you can't redesign it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe one button to switch the colour of your uh LEDs ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh and and you can hold it , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: you can hold it , and then the colours switch or mm multiple multiple buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just press it once , the colour should uh switch . Press again , the colour switch again maybe ? +Marketing: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Or we just make it three buttons , all the colours on it . Just red , yel uh red , green and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Th Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: If we have enough place , uh then we can do that . +Project Manager: That's that's very easy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those here . +Marketing: Colour buttons . And then we choose green , uh blue and red or +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So did we miss anything ? +User Interface: Yeah , maybe some uh some text next to the scroll wheel , that it is volume . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Some text uh buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but +Project Manager: No , ma on on o on the on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just uh {disfmarker} The volume logo . +Marketing: there's one there's one text button I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh wh Here ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Just make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , or th or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's one text button I prefer . That's the one uh that you use if you search for a page , uh like seven hundred , uh and it's counting from one hundred to two hundred , you will switch to your television and back to text . +User Interface: Yeah , we have that on the the text button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Did you think of that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you can switch back to normal telete teletext . You just switch it off and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh why not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just put it on those extra f extra function as well . +Marketing: Ex Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} Whoa {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well w we thought of a text button . And if you press it again , you get the the the +User Interface: I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sta the state you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just three stages , you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: through view . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the three stages . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b but but if you're in the second stage , the third stage is switch teletext off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can switch back from second to w first . +User Interface: No , it doesn't have to turn it off . Just don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . Just remember where it was . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it doesn't uh uh clear the the page . If you if you turn teletext on , you you set the seven hundred , and you turn it off , then the next time you turn it on , it still stays on seven hundred ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's to remember . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But maybe it's not the way {disfmarker} +User Interface: I dunno if {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's a functionality for the television . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think as well , but {disfmarker} Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . That's maybe one thing we can discuss about . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm nee uh {disfmarker} No , if i {vocalsound} uh the remote can send like the the code for seven hundred , page seven hundred to the television . Th th th if you switch it on . +User Interface: Yeah , in thi the the remote control in the +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you have to search every time again . +User Interface: the chip . +Industrial Designer: Th i +Project Manager: That's what what happening if you do it like that . But it's still the television that has to do that . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . Um do we need to fix that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's what the television does . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} most new T_V_s do uh collect all the pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those memory functions . +Marketing: But uh not not every every television , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Was uh this logo for uh volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's it ? +Project Manager: Is this prich pretty much it , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah , I I thought about one thing . Uh the buttons ? Uh from which material are they now ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . No no +User Interface: Just like your telephone , hard plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just hard plastic . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's too expensive to make it from a different material anyway . +Marketing: Because um if you use it a couple of years , some uh sometimes the numbers on the on the buttons are slide away , are uh {disfmarker} And maybe we can write the numbers below or above ? Or shall we just turn it on on the buttons ? +User Interface: I think just on the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think just um {disfmarker} +User Interface: If you do it abo above or below , it takes uh more space . +Marketing: Well yeah . That's too much place . +User Interface: I don't think the space is worth it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , just leave it . Just leave it . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you have that problem more often with rubber buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and i The most time {disfmarker} Yeah , with rubber buttons . Yeah , okay . {gap} Okay . Fine . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay , cool . Mm mm mm mm mm . Yeah , I don't know what this means . But I think we just evela evaluated this one . +Marketing: Yeah , I made some criteria uh , so we can uh ev evaluate our model . +Project Manager: Oh okay , you made some criteria . Okay , cool . Okay . +Marketing: I d d d I don't think if it's right . {vocalsound} That shall show it . +Project Manager: You have some usability criteria or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh no , uh all criterias we just argue about . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In the bottom . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Look-and-feel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , evaluation is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Evaluation crit Yeah , evaluation presentation . It's not in . Uh d it doesn't matter um {disfmarker} It only had two pages or something . {vocalsound} Um well I looked in the reports um from the marketing strategy , or uh of uh the the the the the the new needs and uh the market . The Italians uh , how they think about it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The research uh about uh the the comp uh the the the users and that kind of stuff . I made some criteria , and we have to test the criteria from one to zero . We sh we we we can give it uh a number , and then we can give ourself an average for our +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: um {vocalsound} model . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And this {disfmarker} These are all I I I found , or I wrote down . And um {vocalsound} we have to discuss about {vocalsound} , if we give it a one or a seven . +Project Manager: Uh I think uh if you have a kind of iPod idea . It quite beautiful . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: We are actu We are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , the the the difference be between uh beautiful and fancy uh look-and-feel is uh the the the outside uh beautiful uh like the iPod or something . And fancy's more like the mm uh f the flashing lights and the colours and {vocalsound} and that kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Flashy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Well I think we do {disfmarker} +Marketing: The LEDs . +User Interface: If it's really uh , if you can if you can get the iPod look , then it's beautiful , I think . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and what ki what kind of what kind of basic colours uh were you thought uh of ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah beautiful's is also a matter of taste . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: The basic colours are black or green or yellow ? +User Interface: Um basic colours , +Marketing: Or you haven't thought about {disfmarker} +User Interface: um yeah . Well you didn't say . +Marketing: Ho how do we make uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe um company colours ? +Project Manager: It's black . +User Interface: Black . +Marketing: Black and yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , yellow light . +User Interface: A bit a bit of yellow . +Marketing: Can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do we have yellow light ? No , not really , but it's possible . +User Interface: Not not not yellow {gap} , but just a bit of light yellow . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Black white , maybe ? +User Interface: Like white , also ni or uh always nice . +Industrial Designer: And what colours should the buttons be ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Because um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , different colours . This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , the same as th th the cover . But also th the light behind it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But can you change those too , with uh the switch ? +Project Manager: No , no . Make them {disfmarker} No , just make them black or grey or something . +User Interface: Yeah , grey . Just dark grey I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so what uh number do we give uh a beautiful ? Beautiful is uh really subjective , uh because it has to do lots with the colours . +User Interface: Well we have changeable fronts , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Changeable fronts , so ev for everyone for everyone it's something beautiful . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just give it a one . It's okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's perfect . I think it's just what you want . Or not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard to decide for us , but yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's ju so subjective . +User Interface: It it's {disfmarker} At least it's a lot better than uh current remote controls . +Project Manager: Okay , just give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A two . Okay . The fancy look-and-feel . That's about our uh flashing lights and the background uh lights uh from from from the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . And we can change the colours , so that's uh really fancy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are w are we changing uh {disfmarker} Or are they there uh backlights on the slide panel too ? Or n no back light ? +Marketing: Slide panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: No . No , it's only on the number , behind the numbers +User Interface: Mm . Not needed {gap} . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , not needed I think . +Industrial Designer: And and the switch channel is uh {disfmarker} There is a back light too ? +Project Manager: That as well , yeah . +Marketing: Oh , you mean th this here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's unnecessary . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What do I think is necessary necessary item ? +Marketing: It's pretty cool . If you slide it open , {vocalsound} it lights up . That's that's really fancy , but {vocalsound} I don't know if it's reachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Of course it's reachable . +Project Manager: It doesn't make {disfmarker} +Marketing: Then we do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , maybe just some light uh to to light it all up . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can see what's really there . Not just not re on the buttons or something . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a green light or some blue light . To light it all up . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mayb Okay . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just backlight . Not not the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th and the the normal backlights also not the buttons , but behind the buttons . So the buttons are just grey . +User Interface: Well yeah . Uh semi-transparent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , just only {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , fine . So I I think it's very fancy . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , that's how I think . +User Interface: Yeah , w we've done a a lot of detail in light , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I'll give it a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: Yeah , and you can uh also choose your light , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , this {disfmarker} It is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's cool . +Marketing: I think it's one . Okay , next . +Project Manager: This is a difficult one , because we we don't {disfmarker} Yeah , we don't know it about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Learnable ? Easy to use ? Yeah , we shall test it {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} it's it's very easy to use , but uh the second layer is not easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but you don't have to use that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you on don't have to pay attention to that second layer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That's th that's the main thing that's so good about it . +User Interface: So I think it's easy to use , but {disfmarker} And learnable is a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Learnable ? It's not not as fast as a usual uh uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it is . +Marketing: Because because I think I think the scroll wheel , uh it's very handy , but the first time you get this thing in your hands , it's not to use the scroll wheel . +User Interface: Well y just uh f +Marketing: I think uh you must uh seek for it , and up or down or +Project Manager: But the rest of it is very easy , +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh then the re +Project Manager: because there are so so n +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's very clear what it all does . +Industrial Designer: So so few information that you can easily decide what buttons w for what function . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But the second parts , uh like speech , etcetera , that will be harder to learn . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it is learnable um f i i In the first place it's very easy to use . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I think its scrollwheel is u easy to use as well , if you have ever used uh a different kind of uh of uh device . +Marketing: Yeah . But we we've got the two so two uh two or three uh new things , huh ? +User Interface: Device . +Marketing: And maybe we uh maybe learnable is in uh compare of old fashion uh remote controls . So we h we have speech , uh the scroll wheel , and um the the the slide . You must slide it . And that's not normal at the uh normal remote controls . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause I think learnable is a l a less than um {vocalsound} easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because easy to use comes after learnable . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} Easy to use is very cool , +Marketing: I I think it a three or something . +Project Manager: so just give it a two . +User Interface: Maybe three then . Learnable's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , but definitely better , much better than uh than uh than avera average , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh . The normal . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the one you showed is just all buttons and you don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , true . Then a two . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: New features . Techno technological innovative ? +Industrial Designer: The speech function and the colour . Colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The speech function is new . +User Interface: And the scrollwheel , backlights , slide . +Marketing: The scrollwheel and the slide . Uh I think the slide is pretty new . +Project Manager: Slide is not n is is not new . No . I already have a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I only saw it in a telephone , not in an remote control . +Project Manager: Uh I already have a V_C_R_ and it's about from nineteen eighty eight . And they all have a slide in it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's not new . +User Interface: But also slide that buttons come out , as well ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and the the the lightning ? +Project Manager: That's cool . +Marketing: Is that new ? +Project Manager: Yeah for a {disfmarker} Uh for a f +Marketing: The lighting's new . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm it's pretty new , I think . +Marketing: Scrollwheel . Speech ? +Industrial Designer: Speech is new . +User Interface: Different colours , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , different fronts for a remote control , I think that's new too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have a pretty new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are no games on it , that's that's {disfmarker} It's not a one , it's a two again . +User Interface: That would {disfmarker} And we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not not L_C_D_ or something . +User Interface: But then we also have the the home station . +Project Manager: If you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are forgetting about that now , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah , that's right . Rechargeable . +Marketing: Uh-oh . +User Interface: We don't +Marketing: Home-station . +User Interface: recharge . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we didn't draw that too , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's more like uh now . +Project Manager: Yeah , just draw it afterwards . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's just a normal th s simple thing . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Can you save it on the same , in the same map as the other ones ? In the the project uh map ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Just save , save as ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Uh save as ? No , that's not in the project . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it's a already in the folder . L like number seven . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , okay . Smart board . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This one is not yet in the {disfmarker} Oh oh . +Industrial Designer: I think it is . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: No , I think it is . +User Interface: Uh untitled ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it doesn't matter . Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But you still have to draw the resi the recharger . +Marketing: Uh all {vocalsound} the the seven , uh all the seven . +Project Manager: Okay . And new features , so we give it a two or also again a one ? No , I think i if you have games on it , then then you give you have a one . But not {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we are not extraordinary new or something . +Project Manager: No , just so it's still a two . +User Interface: N +Industrial Designer: Mm two , I think . +Marketing: Tha tha that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Targeted audience . Uh we are the targeted audience ? Do we like it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we we we searched for uh um {vocalsound} a young group , audience , beneath f forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , but l younger than forty . So we we are exactly the targeted group . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , but did we reach , um {vocalsound} with our uh style , the targeted audience ? +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: Th that's my question . +Project Manager: You get the fancy things for younger people . And you get the the aesthetic things for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We've got a one for fancy look-and-feel , and that's what attracts the young audience . So +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: think that's a two or a one . +Marketing: Um the only point is that we don't uh have uh uh {disfmarker} {gap} That's {gap} that's {gap} {vocalsound} That's this question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but s it {disfmarker} That's basically not not handy . And {vocalsound} I don't thi I don't see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So we targeted it ? But we didn't follow the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} No . Yeah , you could make a a front +User Interface: Mm . I think we followed the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: a front that's that's like uh like a banana , {vocalsound} or something . +Marketing: Tha these are the only latest uh trends I uh {vocalsound} get on my computer . +User Interface: Oh right . Well uh fruit and vegetables , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you get different colours . +User Interface: You can different front uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , th So we had we uh have uh a fruit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like a a f banana kind of front . +Marketing: Oh yeah . But spongy will never be . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: So we give ourself a three or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's eleven . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's the average ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven divided by six . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is one point eight three . +Marketing: A perfect score . {vocalsound} No , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: We're not too hard on ourselves . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is a a power indicator . So you can see how far it's charged up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: And and you need n uh a button to call it , to let it beep . +User Interface: To call . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's still {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Call {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we have to make a speaker then too . If you want to make it beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to skip that one . +User Interface: Okay . No no , I want that in . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah , but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can we can do it uh underneath the logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we need that . That's usable . That's really usable . +Industrial Designer: If you do uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th the speaker is very small as well , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I just got a financial um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes uh . +Project Manager: {gap} You s {vocalsound} saved it or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I did save it . +Project Manager: No . Okay , let's have a look at this one here , the production cost of it . If I forgot anything , just say it to me . It just is a battery . Yeah , there are some that they didn't mention , because recharge is not on the list . But okay . So I think we are pretty much in the right direction , because it's twelve point three Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Industrial Designer: But uh is uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is a regular chip incl and and a sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's both . +Marketing: Come on , it's perfect . Uh twelve point three point three . +Project Manager: Yeah , and single curved curved . +Industrial Designer: But but is it inc Does it include a a homestation or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's not on the list . But that shouldn't be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Can we make that for uh h twenty cents ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably . I just {disfmarker} The b the button supplements , I didn't I d I was wondering if this special colour maybe was {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} different fronts , but standard front won't be , yeah . +Project Manager: See it's {disfmarker} I think it's okay like this . +Marketing: Special form , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's hard to say . But maybe we have to um {disfmarker} Yeah , {gap} okay . Special colour , you can skip this one , because it's all quite normal . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We get different ones , that's all . So you can put a recharger in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But this is expensive , the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's four . +Marketing: Four . It's four Euros . +User Interface: Oh , them . Is that uh included ? In the twelve Euro or +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's included . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then we then we need to use it . +Industrial Designer: It's kind of weird that we {vocalsound} we get this information now , afterwards . Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so this is uh pretty much it this {gap} . +User Interface: Damn , solar cells are uh expensive . +Project Manager: So {gap} I just want you {disfmarker} Yeah , we just made it . So we can do the project evalu evaluation now for uh for everything together . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . We can do some discussion about this . Was there room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Paul , was there room for crea creativity ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh i Yeah , I think so . I think uh everyone uh {gap} already . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah m If we got a high mark for um uh innovativeness or innovativity +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a different style . +Industrial Designer: then there {vocalsound} we probably have been creative . +User Interface: I think we uh discussed a lot of things about it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We could make a lot of different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's creativity . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , so the leadership {disfmarker} Was there a leadership and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course there was . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you have to say about that ? +Industrial Designer: No , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Who was the leader ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Just normal discussion , I think . Not +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: one leader or something . +User Interface: One leader to check the time , etcetera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And make notes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: So more like a secretary . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh team work um {disfmarker} The the third meeting I think that one was pretty hard . We were not all {disfmarker} We were not um agree with every not agree with {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . We were not finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w we had so much information , that we get through email and just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not finished . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Uh I think we {vocalsound} we got wrong information at the wrong time . I think that was the m biggest problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh the prices . If we knew that before , we could have uh had discussion really uh s really quicker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , th that's weird . +Marketing: Yeah , because the prices uh could be twenty Euros or something now . +User Interface: Yeah , and if you had uh fifteen Euros , then we would {gap} it . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: We had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , finance . +Industrial Designer: So we're bacal basically just lucky to uh get the price right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the teamwork was okay . +Marketing: Yeah , uh everybody could speak their uh opinion . And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think uh everyone listen to each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like marketing said things and then we had to i include them in the design . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . Yeah , what I have to say about uh means . The smart board is okay . Digital pen is horrible . I dunno if you use it . But if you want to download it to your computer , it's doesn't work . +User Interface: It was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Just doesn't work . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Well uh smart board would be very uh nice to work with , if it worked really well . +Marketing: Digital pen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Just not work too slow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i if if it would be faster , it would be great . +Marketing: Yeah , the drawings are are hard to make , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , more accurate . Yeah , it's i It should be more accurate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Precise . +User Interface: And uh I think it would be great if you could edit it from , just with a mouse , from where you're sitting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Not just pointing out on it . +Project Manager: It's the same for the presenta for the presentations . You can do it from here . That's much easier than standing there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so you've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and p just point with a mouse . +User Interface: No use to draw on the board itself . It's just slows down . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Just old fashioned kinda blackboard style . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: But you might as well do it in normal computer style . +Project Manager: like {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , even harder to draw like this than black board style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . And it's far too slow this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You cou You could draw on it , but not as main function . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {gap} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Digital pen . +Project Manager: So we made it in time . {vocalsound} And we made a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We did it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the budget , yeah . +User Interface: New ideas found . +Marketing: New ideas . +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What's that ? +Marketing: For for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what it mean . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just think if we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To gather , or to uh work together , uh or new ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For remote control probably . +User Interface: I dunno . +Project Manager: No , for the project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: For remote control , a favourite for your text . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: No , for the prototype . New ideas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but still , you couldn't make a fancy a f you couldn't make a a prototype out of this . Because we don't have any sizes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's for the next team . We don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} You can't possibly do that in such a short time , I think . +User Interface: That's for {gap} . Yeah , this this is just the idea phase , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just brainstorming basically . +User Interface: Yeah . Details uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are we finished ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , I think just {disfmarker} I just write a final report . +User Interface: Quite early . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: No , we have only four minutes left . Uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +User Interface: Oh , what do we have to do now . Do we uh {disfmarker} I thought we were done at four o'clock ? +Industrial Designer: It's now quarter past three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} I should take some pictures uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm we can do it afterwards , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's play minesweeper . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I found it as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ti-din ti-din . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} One two three four five six seven cameras . Mm not bad . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that was it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Now we can look at this . +User Interface: This is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're probably not supposed to look at this , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The old versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the previous group . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They went for uh for a universal device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The touchscreen , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but also a different device {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Then an L_C_D_ uh would be handy . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Here are the basic functions in here , the selecting dev devices . +User Interface: Yeah , and touch screens for all our stuff , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I do agree with that . Yeah , tu-dum . English is not so hard by the way . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I'm breaking a world record here . +User Interface: Well , leader ? Project Manager ? +Marketing: Oh shit . {vocalsound} We've got a problem , Paul . +User Interface: You do ? Yeah , you have to make a choice . +Marketing: Yes . No it's your choice . +User Interface: Wow , that's pretty quick . +Marketing: Tu-dum . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh uh um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just pick one . +User Interface: You have to decide . It's the lower one . +Marketing: What's this ? A bomb or not a bo +User Interface: No no , the upper one is the bomb . +Marketing: This the bomb ? +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wrong . Shit . +User Interface: I knew it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I knew it . {vocalsound} Four in a row . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} That's too much work . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Come on . +Marketing: Is that previous work ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this one . +User Interface: I challenge you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's so stupid . No , that doesn't work . +User Interface: No , you gotta use the magic pen . Hmm . What if I put one there ? +Marketing: That's stupid . +User Interface: We'll see . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I don't agree . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah , you had two choices . That's gonna be draw . Or not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Too bad . +User Interface: I'll put it here . You are going to put it there . +Marketing: Yeah , then I put it there . {vocalsound} No one wins . +User Interface: It's a difficult choice , either here or there . +Industrial Designer: This is a very interesting design . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ugly . +Marketing: It's just the same as normal . +User Interface: Oh {gap} a pen . +Industrial Designer: Well it has a L_C_D_ , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Then do it correctly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Stupid design . Stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} And what else do we have ? +User Interface: Stupid , the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: 'Kay wait , I'm going to draw something and you must y {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What ? Okay , I'm going to guess what you're drawing . +Marketing: Okay , blank . +User Interface: No no , the new one . +Marketing: Oh . {gap} +User Interface: Uh they just don't save it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} I know uh . +User Interface: A house ? Yeah , you have to use the pen s stupid . +Project Manager: You have to save everything , you know that , huh ? +User Interface: No , not everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , everything . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Pen , select select pen . +Marketing: Pen . +Industrial Designer: It wants to know what we do in our spare time . +User Interface: Okay . It's a house . A plant ? +Marketing: No , it's {vocalsound} Only you can know it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I can know it . It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's uh very hard to draw . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that makes it easier . I think I know . No , wrong . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think I know what you're trying to draw , but it's wrong already . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , you missed the right side . +Marketing: Fuck . F +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , you're wrong , you're wrong +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little bit maybe , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} See where you're wrong now ? The entrance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay , the entrance is uh more to the left . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Warning . +User Interface: You're correct . +Marketing: Okay . But but but I think this part {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no you {vocalsound} made another mistake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . Yeah , there are a lot of mistakes , because the walls are thick like this . +User Interface: No I w Okay , I'm not that whiny . But uh there was a big hole here as well , and there as well . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . Uh here . Yeah , they're walking behind the walls . +User Interface: That's a kinda big mistake . {vocalsound} Warning , finish meeting now . Guys , I think we have to finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay this is a hard one . +User Interface: Uh ? +Industrial Designer: Boom-boa-ring-bing . +User Interface: What does it say ? +Industrial Designer: Fill in the questionnaire . What now ? +User Interface: Come on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No more chit-chat . +User Interface: Oh you gotta finish +Marketing: Che-che-che-che . +User Interface: over there ? In your own room ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm gonna be so lonely . +Marketing: Tu-dumm . Uh . +User Interface: Mm I'll clean that up later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is {disfmarker} That's my new interface . +User Interface: What's that ? +Marketing: That's a uh edited smiley . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tom-ti-dom . Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +","During the recorded discussion, a team of professionals, including a project manager, user interface designer, industrial designer, and marketing expert, are engaging in a collaborative process to develop a new remote control. They are utilizing a smart board for their design work, but seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with it, noting its slow response-time and clunky use compared to traditional methods like a mouse or standard blackboard. + +The team's focus is on the user interface and the overall design of the remote control. They are considering various features such as speech recognition, a slide-open component for additional functions, and a scroll wheel. They are also contemplating the addition of an advanced chip to improve the speed of the device, and they are concerned with financial feasibility. + +The conversation also touches on the aesthetics of the remote control, with discussions about the type of plastic to use and the possibility of having changeable colors for customization, which the Marketing team emphasizes. They also plan to include backlights behind buttons for improved visibility and a fancy look; however, they are challenged with ensuring that the features they consider are within the allocated budget of approximately 12 Euros. + +There is a notable suggestion to include a feature that allows users to locate the remote control by making it beep—a convenience function that everyone agrees is useful. The Project Manager, in particular, emphasizes the need to maintain the cost within the budget while adding any new features. + +The marketing expert reviews some research materials, suggesting criteria for evaluating the model which includes design aesthetics, user-friendliness (learnability and ease of use), innovation, and appeal to the target audience (which is under 40 years of age and likely to be attracted to the device's fancy features). There's a short discussion about whether the remote control will cater to current trends, such as designs resembling fruits and vegetables. + +Additionally, there is concern over pricing for certain components like solar cells, which they find to be too expensive, and a discussion about whether the remote control could be charged through a home station, making it rechargeable, a feature that wasn't initially considered in the pricing. + +At one point, the group decides to test the functionality of the smart board. They also reflect on the team's ability to work creatively and collaboratively, despite feeling that they were not given all the necessary information on time, like component prices, which could have influenced their design discussions and decisions. + +As the meeting comes to a conclusion, there's a clear understanding that while the primary design phase is ending, there's still work to be done, such as the physical prototype development, which they are leaving to a subsequent team. They also assess the value of the tools they've been using, such as the digital pen with the smart board, and note that it might be more optimal in other settings rather than their current use case. The team seems satisfied with their progress but acknowledges some caveats, including lack of leadership and the challenging nature of certain tasks like drawing on the smart board, before they wrap up this part of the project, potentially moving on to fill out a questionnaire as part of their process assessment." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and there is no substitute. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, is a further evidence session, number four, on our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Dafydd Evans, who is chair, ColegauCymru, and chief executive officer of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai; Kay Martin, principal of Cardiff and Vale College, also representing ColegauCymru; Nick Brazil, who is deputy principal, Gower College Swansea, also representing ColegauCymru; Dr Rachel Bowen, director of policy and development at ColegauCymru; and Ed Evans, who is the director and secretary of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association. Thank you all for attending. We're very pleased that you've been able to join us. If it's okay with you, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be asking my questions in Welsh. +Dafydd Evans: Could I start and then open it up? Thank you very much for the opportunity to give evidence. But just to give you the context, I think, if you were asking about the vast majority of subjects what the view of ColegauCymru would be, it would be quite unanimous, but I think on the Welsh bac there is a difference of opinion, and I'm sure you'll hear those differences on the panel before you today. We've possibly chosen this panel because there are differences of opinion. So, I just want to give you that context at the outset. To answer the specific question, no, I don't think that employers have a clear understanding of what the Welsh bac means or what it includes. Personally I don't think that even the title of the Welsh bac is helpful, because it doesn't say what's happening in the tin. So, I think the skills challenge certificate is a better title, and is something that people understand a lot better than the Welsh bac. So, no, I don't think that employers understand the value or what we're trying to achieve through the Welsh bac at present. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Which is a big problem. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, it's a huge problem, but not only to employers, but also to parents and young people, of course. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And I think that that varies by size of employer as well. That, certainly, where there are larger employers, who've got people who are able to follow policy developments across the education spectrum, they may have more capacity to follow changes, get up to date with how Welsh education is evolving. But we know that most employers in Wales are small or microbusinesses. And while there are lots of small engaged employers who have taken an interest and do understand, the vast majority are more focused on getting on with the day-to-day running of the business. And that means it's quite a challenge to understand what is the Welsh bac, what does it offer. And, certainly, when that's evolved over the past few years and there have been changes, it would have been quite difficult to keep up to date with those, I imagine. +Nick Brazil: Could I add to that? As do many of my colleagues within the colleges, we have a number of employer boards, which we regularly meet with—employers—and I cannot think back as to how many employers say to us, 'That is what we require—the Welsh bac—to come and work within our industry.' Most of what they are questioning is the level of professional qualifications and the quality of skills within those professional sectors. Not many of them have indicated that the Welsh bac is providing the skills that they require. I think many of them believe in the vision that was set out for the Welsh bac initially, but the Welsh bac has turned into quite a rigorous, some would say demanding, qualification, which is putting a lot of pressure on in terms of bureaucracy, in terms of staff and the student getting all the information together at the end of the year, and whether that's developing the skills that employers require is very questionable. And, as I said, from the employer boards that we have, very few of them understand the Welsh bac. They certainly don't mention the Welsh bac and, as I said, are very much questioning the qualifications that have been provided to develop the actual professional skills needed within the industries. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Kay, is that your experience? +Kay Martin: Certainly, it's very similar, and our employers want to make sure they get the right qualification. They're having enough headache getting around the differences with apprenticeships and the levy between England and Wales, and changes to qualifications. But they want them to get their main qualification. So, if you're an engineer, they want to get the engineering qualifications and they want them to be literate, numerate, and they want them to have digital skills. And that isn't captured necessarily in the Welsh baccalaureate. And, so, the understanding is quite limited amongst the employers we work with. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, finally, I know you've got strong views as an organisation. +Ed Evans: Do you mind if I carry on in English— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. +Ed Evans: —just so that a lot of our members will understand when I'm speaking. I think it's fair to say employers don't understand it, that's for sure, but I think if they did, they would really appreciate this. For my sector in particular—the civil engineering sector—and particularly the contracting sector, which depends very much on pupils who have come through from a less academic background, the Welsh bac gives them that ability, I guess, not to pursue so much of an academic focus, but to test them in terms of the challenges, but also, to—. And I think if it was working properly and we did have employers engaged in this, and supporting schools and colleges to deliver it, they would actually be learning a lot more directly from industry. And some children, some pupils, some young people, they respond far, far better to that. And I think that's the issue for me—that we've not really sold this to employers to actually engage with them. All of my understanding of this is literally as a parent, and that would be true of a lot of employers as well. So, perhaps there are differences across the sector, but I think, certainly for my sector, we would really value the growth of the Welsh baccalaureate. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are we going to do, then, to improve employers' understanding of the Welsh bac, and whose work is it to try to persuade employers that it is worth while, if you feel that it is worth while, of course? +Dafydd Evans: I think we need to review the qualification, and I think the voice of employers should be a key part of that review, so that employability skills and entrepreneurial skills have more of a role within that qualification. And I think that rather than it being done by the colleges or by a qualifications board, I think the employers—. And the only way we'll get employer buy-in is that if they feel ownership of what's being done. Because I think that's what the vision was for the Welsh baccalaureate—that it was going to improve skills for employment. But, somehow or other we've lost our way. The aim is an excellent one, but I think we've lost our way in terms of what we do present at the end of the day, and I think having more input from employers would be a great help. +Ed Evans: I will carry on in English, if that's okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, it's no problem. +Ed Evans: I would agree. I think we do need more employers involved in this. I think there are opportunities to join up employers and schools and education facilities a lot more than we do at the moment. I suppose that the bee in my bonnet is that we are involved in lots of social value-type contracts in this sector, and that to me is a perfect opportunity to tie in employers into schools and colleges and get that time and input from them into schools in a far more co-ordinated way. It happens at the moment. It's the community benefits clauses that are in construction contracts. They're there to serve a really good purpose, but it's become a little bit piecemeal and a little bit tokenistic, whereas the Welsh bac offers an opportunity—. It's something that's part of the curriculum. It's clearly not functioning well at the moment. It would benefit from that business input. So, why not link up those contractual clauses, which tie in employers and feed it directly into schools so that we have a far more structured way of getting employers into schools? At the moment it's a little bit—we'll pick up the phone, we'll get a phone call, and it'll be, 'Can you come and do something for us?' It's tokenistic. We need to be far more clever in terms of how we join these things up, and then I think you'll start to get that business input there, but let's not be ad hoc about it. +Kay Martin: Could I just add something? We've also got several other programmes that are engaging employers really well. Career Ready is a national programme, which we use in the college and which other colleges across the UK use. That's where employers mentor students so everyone has a mentor for the whole of the two years of the programme, from employment, and they all go out for at least six weeks' internship. So, they don't go for a day's work placement or two days—they go for six-week internships. Some learners have got real benefit from that and really raised their aspirations. We've got BTEC learners who have gone through that programme and gone into law degrees with Freshfields law in London, which is one of the top law firms in the world. So, there are lots of other programmes as well, and perhaps there's a way of joining it all up together. But, in the college, we've got several different programmes going on with employers and the Welsh bac is one of them, but it's not the one that engages employers the best, certainly in our college. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, do we get rid of it? +Lynne Neagle AM: You don't need to answer that. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I mean, if there are so many other programmes helping anyway, why do we need it? +Nick Brazil: I think that is a very good question, but I will go back to Ed's point, which I think was a very important point, which is that the initial vision for the Welsh bac—I think when we go back a number of years—was a really good, good vision for the Welsh bac. It was going to be an overarching qualification that developed these skills, and certainly employability skills, and I think it's lost its way since then. It's become a qualification and all the realms around becoming a qualification, and it's become very much focused on outcomes rather than necessarily skills. And that's what happens, unfortunately. But I think what Ed said is absolutely right: if you get the engagement of the employers—. But you've got to listen to what Kay said as well: there are programmes already out there. So, why are we focusing one way when there are already programmes that work extremely well? I will go to the enhanced programmes, enhanced engineering and programmes that we are running within our college and that I know run in other colleges, which are much, much more focused on skills, much more focused in linking with industry, and they work extremely well. The actual progress of learners into employment is happening. So, I think the question is: have we got programmes already in place, and do we need another one on top? But the vision initially for the Welsh bac, as I said, I will always be positive about. The vision was a good one. +Dafydd Evans: I'd like to expand on what Nick said. It's important for you to understand that although we always try and put the learner first, funding does drive behaviours, and the Welsh bac is fundable; Career Ready isn't. So, yes, there are options out there, but because we're so focused on qualifications and we will only fund qualifications, that drives certain behaviours, and I think you need as a committee to be very much aware of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but that was very useful information for us, because bearing in mind what Nick Brazil said—that the vision of this was created as almost something that could have the status of something like a Duke of Edinburgh award without necessarily being a compulsory qualification; what was important was that the learners got the skills. However, if getting the qualification is how you get the money, then you can see why schools—well, and indeed colleges—might be tempted to go for it. So, thank you for that. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Have you finished? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. What are your views on how well the Welsh bac, at all levels, helps to prepare learners for employment? We've spoken to quite a few learners, and again we've had variable opinions coming back, so it's quite how they, from their perspective—. +Dafydd Evans: I think that one of the problems is that there are a number of priorities. And one of the problems that we have is that we have a number of children coming in to the colleges, and they need to resit their GCSEs—in maths, English and Welsh. It's a valid priority for the Welsh Government for everyone to get a C grade in the core subjects. But that eats into the time that we have to teach young people. And so there's no room for everything in the curriculum somehow—no room in the funding or also in terms of the time and the capacity of the learner to be able to do that number of qualifications. So, the priorities, I think, across the sector—. We've given priority to GCSE resits rather than doing the Welsh bac at present. So, at levels 1 and 2, there are fewer and fewer doing 1 and 2 in the baccalaureate because they're resitting their GCSEs, and there is much more use of the Welsh bac at level 3, and A-level, and vocational level 3. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add to that? I think, again, there's a misconception. The Welsh bac is a combination of qualifications; it's not just one qualification—it's a combination. So, to develop the employability skills obviously is a key part, and developing the skills for employment is a key part. But when you are focused, if you are a learner, on developing or achieving certain qualifications to make up the Welsh bac—for example, resits, your main qualification, plus your work for the Welsh bac, which is the skills challenge certificate as well—that's a huge amount of work. And, obviously, when you're trying to achieve outcomes—and we all get funded on the outcomes—that becomes the priority, and sometimes then we lose the focus on the skills, which are ultimately what were supposed to be part of the development for employability. So, I think people lose the fact that the Welsh bac is a combination of things. And I think it was interesting, the comment that was made about the Duke of Edinburgh—I thought that's something that we need to think about. +Kay Martin: If I could just say as well, our job in the college is to develop skills and employable people, and we use every tool in our box to do that. And, as I said earlier, there are lots of things that we do. The Welsh bac, where it works really well, does help prepare them, I think, for employment, but it's not for everyone, because some people have to do the other things. Some people doing the equivalent of three A-levels, even in a vocational programme, it's too big for them. As you say, they're coming from schools, some of them with very few GCSEs, or they haven't got literacy and numeracy skills, they're being tested and many of them are below level 1 in terms of literacy and numeracy. So, I think it needs to be reviewed, to look at how we could make skilled and employable people. It helps prepare some people—the A-level students for university—but does it help my health and social care people become more skilled and employable? No, it doesn't. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And this, ultimately, has to be about what's in the best interests of learners, and a one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is there a difference in how the Welsh bac is valued by learners at the different levels that it is studied? ColegauCymru said that learners may have had a negative experience of the Welsh bac in previous study. +Dafydd Evans: That's been a new dimension lately, I think, in that, when the Welsh bac first hit FE, we were leading the way— +Kay Martin: Great advocates. +Dafydd Evans: —and great advocates. By now, of course, they're coming to us having been through a Welsh bac experience at school, and therefore many of the learners feel that there's repeating going on then—'Oh, we've done this at school already. Why are we doing it again at college?' So, I think that's a problem for us as well. +Kay Martin: Many have experienced a paper-based exercise rather than a real activity. So, at level 1 and level 2, it's not what we would call a crowd puller in colleges, but at level 3 it's more, especially for A-levels, because it can help them get into university, but even for the more able and talented—we were discussing this, weren't we? We have learners who do four A-levels, but they don't do the Welsh baccalaureate because they're part of the Seren network, and they are going to be applying for Oxbridge or high-level Russell Group universities. So, the Welsh bac, although it's technically universally adopted by universities, it isn't adopted by every admissions tutor in every university. So, to get into some areas, like dentistry, for example, and some of the other Seren-type activities, four A-levels is better. But in most colleges that have A-level students it's almost compulsory to do the Welsh bac as well, but normally that would be three A-levels and the Welsh bac—normally. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And then ColegauCymru say that, increasingly, the Welsh bac is not being offered at post-16 national and foundation level. So, are the different levels of the Welsh bac valued differently by further education professionals? +Nick Brazil: Yes. +Kay Martin: Yes. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Dr Rachel Bowen: Yes. +Ed Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I think we've got to bear in mind when the students come to us—certainly when they're level 1, level 2 learners—that a number of them have come from school and probably not done as well as they'd hoped at their GCSEs. Okay, they've come to us, they're trying to build themselves back up, build their skills back up, and adding another qualification on top, adding the Welsh bac on top, whether that's foundation or national, on top of what they have to do, which is a programme they've come and decided to do—think of the pressure that increases upon them. Plus the fact is that they are resitting; they're probably having to resit GCSE English and maths as well. That's a huge volume of work for a learner who's probably come from a low base to begin with and who hasn't achieved what they wanted to. The whole idea when we bring them in at that level is that we want to build their confidence, build them up and, hopefully, eventually they will go to the stage where maybe the Welsh bac will be beneficial to them, when they've potentially hopefully progressed to level 3. But I think it's questionable, certainly at national and foundation. And the important point that Dafydd raised was that there's a lot of repetition there in school, pre 16 to post 16 at those levels as well. So, learners don't come in banging at the door saying, 'We want to do the Welsh bac because it's exactly the same or very similar to what we did when we were in school.' They want to see some difference, they want to see some progress, and that's not necessarily the case in the foundation and national levels. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And we know that delivery in schools is of variable quality, so obviously that impacts on how learners have experienced it and perhaps how they view it when they get to FE college. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. A question, then, just to ColegauCymru: to what extent do you believe that universities in the main understand the value of the Welsh bac? +Kay Martin: Well, we don't think they do, really, especially the experience we have with some of our learners to go to Russell Group universities. They do allow sometimes that you can drop a grade. I talked earlier about my own daughter who was allowed to drop a grade in order to get into a Russell Group university because she had the Welsh bac as well, but it was a very paper-based exercise. But I think it is mixed, and it does depend on the admissions tutors and the areas that they're going into in universities. In some areas, and certainly the local universities around here—University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University—value it in a great number of subjects, particularly in sport, when our students go to Cardiff Met, and business studies, when our learners go to USW. It is valued by them and they accept it, but when people go further afield—and we're always trying to push our learners beyond. Where they can afford to go away to university, we encourage that. But some of the universities are not valuing the Welsh baccalaureate. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you have a supplementary, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You didn't mention Cardiff University there. +Kay Martin: Cardiff University—yes. My daughter's example—that was Cardiff University. So, they do, especially now it's graded at level 3. Then they do accept it. A great number of our learners get into Cardiff using the Welsh baccalaureate, but would their admissions tutors prefer four A-levels? Absolutely. +Nick Brazil: Could I jump in there? I've got to jump in there as, from the institution I'm in, we've had a long track record of getting learners into top universities. About 20 per cent of our learners go to Russell Group universities, and there is no doubt—in certainly 50 per cent of those, they do not value the Welsh bac. But if they do offer an option with the Welsh bac, they say it is on top of three A2-level grades. So, obviously, we've had that track record. I think the Seren programme that's been put in by the Welsh Government is looking to increase the numbers applying to top universities and top courses, but you look through the range, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects as well, across a number and range of universities, the Welsh bac is always added as the additional one. So, bear in mind, then, that Welsh students are fighting for places against Scottish, Northern Irish and, potentially, English students who are studying three subjects, whereas our Welsh students potentially could be doing three A2s, three A-level subjects plus the Welsh bac. And, as we talked about earlier on, the Welsh bac has evolved into quite a rigorous, you could say complicated, qualification, which puts added pressure on a learner in year 2 when they're trying to get possibly three A* grades. So, I think we need to consider that. In relation to the first answer, it is variable, and the admissions tutors throughout a lot of universities will make different decisions, and also make the decision dependent on whether it's a facilitating subject or an enabling subject, which the Russell Group report indicates about facilitating subjects, and Welsh bac at the moment is not a facilitating subject. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Maybe Dafydd can give us the picture from north Wales. +Dafydd Evans: I mentioned before coming in, in terms of the context—. Because of the nature of our catchment area, there is a greater percentage of our students staying in Welsh universities, and, as Kay said, Welsh universities are much more willing to recognise the bac. So, to a certain extent, it is less of a problem. But, naturally, we do have students who are looking to go out to universities in England in the Russell Group, and we're having the same experience there where there are differences between the policy that that university extols and what actually happens on the ground when students have interviews in those universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But in terms of Bangor and Glyndŵr University, there's no problem there, though. +Dafydd Evans: No, there is no problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Right, the next questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. I think you've already got into this bit of the discussion, but what are your views on how comparable the Welsh bac is to other qualifications? I don't know if you've got any more comments on that. +Dafydd Evans: Well, obviously, as we noted, it's become a very rigorous, very large qualification. Actually, it's probably larger than an A-level by now. And, therefore, regarding the rigour and so forth, that's absolutely fine, but I think one of the problems that you're hearing is that perhaps the Welsh bac is trying to be all things to all men. At one end of the spectrum it's trying to be a rigorous qualification that stands up to a Russell university's expectations, and on the other hand, it's trying to develop softer skills and employment skills for people going into work from a vocational area. Can the same product deliver those two outcomes? I'm certainly not sure, and perhaps we need to think: what are we trying to achieve with this qualification? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. +Kay Martin: Yes, and earlier, we talked as well about that difference for the A-level students. They know what it is. It's worth UCAS points. For the vocational students, some things like the Career Ready programme, which is used in other colleges, and WorldSkills, you know, where all colleges have really been pushing to get more learners into WorldSkills at national and international level. And for some of our learners, particularly if we take our engineering learners, then having somebody who has competed in Europe as a tiler or an electrician would, I think, make an employer think, 'I'd better look at this person', whereas the other one has done the Welsh bac—. I think they would look at the WorldSkills person first. And the investment we have to put into WorldSkills is huge. So, for some of our learners, we choose that you do WorldSkills, because that is going to be more valuable for you as a skill, and to show to an employer how much extra time you've put in. So, they put a lot of time—you know, to get somebody into a WorldSkills competition is not just a couple of hours a week, it isn't just the normal curriculum—they have extra time. They are more able and talented vocational learners, and that is more valuable to those learners and I think it's more valid for employers than the Welsh baccalaureate. +Nick Brazil: I think it's got to, extending on what Kay says—. It's got to be—. You know, it is comparable, as long as it's right for that learner's future. If it's right for the learner's future, absolutely it's comparable. But if a learner wants to go into a particular sector and the Welsh bac is not accepted, it's not comparable. But, then, if it is into a certain sector and the skills are being developed in the right manner for that sector, absolutely. But it's got to be right for the learner. +Julie Morgan AM: What are the reasons why some colleges do see it as being rigorous and others don't? Why does the view vary? +Ed Evans: Can I give perhaps an employer's perspective on that, which might be completely wrong, but it's been interesting listening to what's been said here? About a year ago, we bought the WJEC in to speak to our employers, or a number of them, just to explain to them what the Welsh bac was about—back to listening and about understanding, really, and it just was not there at all. I could see that most of the employers there were really impressed with it once they understood what it was about and they saw the opportunities at a whole host of levels. We've kind of gone into an university discussion here, but there are school leavers leaving at 16 or 18. The skills that they bring having gone through this process I think most of the employers could get, at least in my sector, they could understand—'I can see what that person can do.' But we've also seen it from university-educated people as well. They are a little bit too focused on the academic side of things. Those that bring a little bit of world experience, a little bit of the Welsh bac-type of things, just become far more rounded and useful people. I can understand why there's a certain obsession, almost, with the academic side of it, but I think we lose that vocational bit at our peril, and to a certain extent we probably haven't got it in many quarters anyway. So, for me, the Welsh bac helps to build that. Call it something else maybe, but that's what it should do. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And those skills that are learnt in the Welsh bac, can they be learnt in any of the other qualifications? Because I know that Cambridge university said to us they thought, in the four A-levels that they asked for, that those skills were there. +Kay Martin: It probably depends on the subjects that people are studying and the combination of subjects and the institution. Generally, in college, even if they're doing A-levels, they go out on some community projects or work-related education, without the Welsh bac—even if they're not doing that. So, it does depend on the subject, I think. +Dafydd Evans: I think there's a real danger of us perhaps becoming overly critical here as well of the Welsh bac in terms of—I don't think it's perfect by a long way, however, learners are getting some value out of that process. Certain learners in departments where they have really worked hard to contextualise the Welsh bac within the vocational area, within the A-level subjects that the learners are doing, are finding it very rewarding. So, there are some very positive things coming out there. I think what we're suggesting is there may be even better ways of doing it and better ways of explaining to people what it's about. +Nick Brazil: On this point about the skills being developed, I think that's debatable if all the skills that are supposed to be developed in the Welsh bac are being developed, and that's why I think there's a need to relook at it to make sure those skills are being developed fully. But I will go back to the point that I think a comparable qualification is comparable as long as it achieves the right outcome for that particular learner. If you force a learner to do something that is not necessarily going to achieve the outcome that they require in their future, is it the right thing to be doing for that learner? That's what my concern is. +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think the baccalaureate approach is best at producing independent, inquiry-based learners who have the skills to look to teachers not as sources of information but just for guidance. That whole sort of approach about creating inquisitive young people with the skills that we've discussed, that's a real positive. The chances are that we've lost some of that by trying to fit it into being a specific qualification. The approach is a positive one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, to both Rachel Bowen and Nick Brazil, if you don't mind. Both of you mentioned this is about skills and a piece of paper that demonstrates that you have these skills. At pre 16, would it be fair to say that there have been occasions when people have come presenting those pieces of paper but actually show none of the skills that they were supposed to have? The reason I'm asking this question, having had children who've gone through the process myself, is that in some schools, and I'm not saying all, doing the bac is something that everybody does in the last four weeks of term, and that undermines the whole idea of the bac anyway. It's just not fair on the learners or the people teaching the bac. Is that a fair observation? +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think it's perfectly possible for learners to reach FE college having attained the Welsh bac under the process that you've described, and without necessarily having gone through the holistic inquiry-based independent skills that we would want to see. +Nick Brazil: Yes, and at interview process or during an interview, or in the first week, you can see that they haven't developed those skills, and I think it is down to the variable models that have been put in place. There are lots of different models, and if you put, as I said, the model that you've described in place, there is no way, in that period of time, you're going to develop those skills. But that indicates, again, the value that people are putting on the qualification, if they are squeezing it into three or four weeks of term. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. It might be different post 16—I accept that. Okay. Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And obviously practice will differ across schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie, did you have any more questions? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I've finished, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now then, from Suzy, on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm wondering if I need to ask them, really, because I think I'm getting a strong sense that you all think that universal adoption is a bad idea at this moment in time. However, I do want to test something, because we have had witnesses who say that it would be a good idea because it reduces the amount of competition and advantage that certain institutions have. So, for example, we had an indication from the union representing Welsh-speaking teachers that if the baccalaureate was universally adopted, it would remove an artificial choice, basically, for learners, i.e. they were losing Welsh-speaking students who didn't want to do the bac to English-speaking institutions. So, I wonder if you could tell me how much the decision in your individual colleges not to offer bac is down to the opportunity that it presents you to attract students, particularly from sixth forms, where students may be obliged to do the bac. +Kay Martin: That is not the case, I would say. When a learner comes to us, we—. I'd like to think that all the staff in all the colleges do what is in the best interests of the learner. In some cases, it's to go back to school, and we absolutely say, 'You need to go back to school.' If somebody comes from a Welsh-medium school, then usually I will speak to the head and make sure that we have a programme in place, that either they're studying their programme bilingually or through the medium of Welsh, or that we make sure that they absolutely keep their Welsh language skills. We don't say, 'Come to us and you don't have to do the Welsh bac,' because if they do A-levels, we say it's compulsory, unless you're in the Seren group. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Well, that's the point; it's about English-speaking students, not just Welsh—. +Kay Martin: No, it isn't used. In the majority of colleges across Wales, it is absolutely not used as a recruitment tool, because most of us, as you see, we value the Welsh bac. We'd like some changes to the Welsh bac, but we value the Welsh bac in many cases. So, we wouldn't deliberately—. I mean, if a course in my college doesn't want to do the Welsh bac, they have to come and give me evidence about why they don't think it's fit and what they're going to do in place of it. So, we don't deliberately tell people, 'Come on in and you won't have to do it.' +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, can I run that across you all, in an outburst of honesty? +Dafydd Evans: Yes, absolutely. We universally adopt at level 3, but we don't at levels 1 and 2. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, for the reasons you've given in the evidence, actually. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, but across the whole of level 3, A-level and vocational, the Welsh bac is an integral part of the curriculum, and it isn't an option for the student to opt out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you let your Seren students opt out like they do in Cardiff and the Vale, or do they have to do it as well? +Dafydd Evans: We've forced—. No, sorry, 'forced' is not the word. [Laughter.] We have encouraged and persuaded everybody to do it. +Suzy Davies AM: So, that will be four A-levels plus bac. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I've got to be honest, at present, with our college, we do not ask. It's compulsory for A-level students to do the Welsh bac. It's an option of one of our choices—we have a large choice—and I think it comes back to that fact that we're just making the assumption all learners are getting all the correct advice and guidance from all the institutions. I think it's something we all need to consider across the nation, that all learners are getting the right advice and guidance for their future. I will go back to the point I made earlier—everything's comparable as long as it's the right thing for the learner's future, and I genuinely believe, and I'm sure a lot of colleagues believe, that that choice element is important to a learner, okay. If it is the right choice and if the Welsh bac is the right choice, that is correct, and we move that along. Obviously, we debated about where there are elements that need to change. But you've got to be doing the right things for the learner, and we are certainly not selling it, 'Come to us; you don't do the Welsh bac.' It is part of what we offer. It is part of what the college's curriculum offers—there is no doubt about that—and then people make a choice according to what they need to do to actually progress to what they need to do in their future. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I've just got one question for Mr Ed Evans, if that's okay. You explained earlier that if people knew what the bac was about in your sector, they'd value it more greatly, which I accept. Are you worried at all, though, that some of the more able and talented STEM students, in particular—who are needed in your sector, after all—might be deterred from doing those four A-levels because of the bac, because, presumably, you need a mix of these talents? You talked about the more able and talented vocational learners, but also you have more able and talented academic learners—presumably you need them all. +Ed Evans: We do. There's a big range, and some really high achievers coming into the sector as well. So, it is about that mix. I think the discussion that I've had with our employers has been around the academic side of things, if you like. The qualifications are well catered for. So, it's almost a given somebody's been through that route. What isn't there is some of those softer skills, but also some—. I was almost going to call commercial skills 'soft' there—. +Suzy Davies AM: Call them 'commercial'. +Ed Evans: Commercial skills are hard skills, which are very, very difficult to come by. So, the Welsh bac starts to do some of those things at different levels. Again, I'll come back to the input of businesses to support that delivery of commercial skills and so on, but I think I probably made that point earlier. So, I don't think it is a case of squeezing things out. There's clearly going to be different individuals who will cope better, and they will be, I guess, maybe guided as well by parents to a certain degree in terms of, 'You do those four and forget about that nonsense there', which is not helpful, but I can understand why that happens. So, for me, now, it's not a case of squeezing—. This should be seen as an important part of creating a rounded individual ready for employment. I guess that's what a lot of our employers saw the Welsh bac as being able to do. Whether that's a shared view is another matter. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add something to that? I think Ed's just said about the softer skills. Do the softer skills have to be developed through qualification? I think Kay mentioned a programme earlier on within her college. We run programmes as well. They're not qualifications, but they offer the opportunity to develop those softer skills. So, I think we're all in agreement about the development of the skills, but does it need to be through a qualification? +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've said that you make the decision in the best interests of the learner. Are you aware, then, of any young people who are coming to you from the Swansea area because they've got that flexibility, which they may not have in one of the local schools? +Nick Brazil: As I said, in terms of our offer, we offer a range in the curriculum. We're not going out there saying, 'Come to us for this particular reason.' +Lynne Neagle AM: No, but does anybody come to you and say, 'Well, actually, I've really come here because I don't have to do the Welsh bac'? +Nick Brazil: The honest answer is it's one of the first questions that people always ask. But, as I've said, as a parent, I've been to open evenings and other open evenings. It's generally a question that people ask, 'Do I have to do the Welsh bac?' It does come across not just in our open evenings, but in other open evenings that I've been to. It is always a question that people ask me. They do want to know that, and it's usually, as I said, one of the first questions that they ask. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that the parents asking the question or the pupil? +Nick Brazil: It's a combination. But, honest answer, I would say parents, a lot of the time, but the learners usually—as I said—have sometimes had not the best experience pre 16 and that's why they ask the question straight away. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I suggest that maybe, then, the perception that parents have is steering the way rather than the actual benefits for the pupil in your institution? If you're telling them, 'Come to us, you don't have to actually do it because we know you don't like it', is that the correct way of approaching education? +Nick Brazil: No. Education is about offering the range and offering it correctly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm being devil's advocate. +Nick Brazil: Yes, I know, I totally understand, but it's about offering the full range of qualification opportunities for learners. If you don't offer the full range, which, sometimes—if you, obviously, limit and you make qualifications compulsory, that can limit the choice of opportunities as well. So, I think what parents and learners are looking for is for the range of options. There are some places in, I would think, some sixth forms now, where certain qualifications may not be offered now because of the need to pick up an extra—Welsh bac. So, for example, modern foreign languages is reducing quite dramatically in Wales, and, I think, I picked up today a few schools had been saying that one of the reasons is, 'We have to put our focus on the Welsh bac to ensure that is achieved rather than giving the opportunity to do the modern foreign language.' +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it could be a short-sighted view because what some young people tell us is that at the time—and parents—they didn't really appreciate what skills they were actually learning, and by the time they'd got into employment, that working as a team, the communication skills, they thought, 'Ah, we did—. I know what this is about', and it all makes sense at that point. So, to try and, sort of, discourage it at a younger age may be doing them a disservice in the long run. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we'll move on now then to—. +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's a question. +Lynne Neagle AM: You do want an answer. Anybody want to pick that up? +Dafydd Evans: We certainly have experience of that, of young people coming in with quite a negative attitude, originally, to the Welsh bac and taking it on board. But where we are delivering it well, well contextualised, they've really enjoyed the experience, and very much valued the experience. So, yes, there are certainly instances of that happening, there's no doubt. +Ed Evans: We certainly see it, as employers. The penny drops after a few weeks or months. +Dafydd Evans: But don't underestimate the fact that if you had a poor experience of the Welsh bac at school, that perception is very difficult for us, as institutions, then, to change. Very difficult. +Dr Rachel Bowen: It does make it into quite an intensive selling process for colleges when they've got to overcome that negative perception. As people have said already, it is possible to talk parents and learners round, but then that's time spent having to do that selling job when we should be talking about other things. +Kay Martin: Can I just mention as well that there's a bigger job in helping parents to understand that the only qualifications in the world are not A-levels? Perhaps you might want to do an engineering BTEC programme, or you might want to do a health and social care, or you might want to do hospitality. You might want to do BTEC programmes, you can still go to university if that's what you want to do, or you can go into an apprenticeship afterwards, and selling that whole range to parents, because there is an overemphasis, by us all, on A-levels—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A lot of this has been covered, actually, but just on those final points there, I'm wondering whether you think that introducing a specialist teacher-training qualification to deliver the Welsh bac would actually help in some way in improving its status and perception and so on. What do you think about that? +Dafydd Evans: I'm not assured in terms of—yes, training is required regarding the Welsh bac, but where we are seeing it more successfully is where vocational lecturers have actually taken it on board. When we were bringing lecturers from outside—'Welsh bac specialists' in inverted commas—it was not working well. It has started to work well when our sports lecturers have taken the Welsh bac on board and have put it in the context of the sports curriculum. Therefore, no, I think that if it's going to be a success, it's got to be contextualised, and for the vocational lecturers to do that, and we've invested heavily in training those vocational lecturers to understand how to deliver the Welsh bac and get positive outcomes of the Welsh bac—. It's been an intensive staff development process. +Nick Brazil: And I think you've got to bear in mind that the number of the skills and the number of challenges that are done within the Welsh bac are done very similarly within the vocational qualification as well. So, a number of those staff have already got those skills and they're undertaking that. I suppose when it comes to the word 'credibility' used in terms of the qualification, yes, I'm sure it would raise that focus on it, but ultimately, it's taking away from the fact that we have got staff who've got those skills and they're developing them within other elements of the vocational qualifications they're doing. Something we were talking about earlier on is the fact is that, sometimes, that work is being repeated twice, because of the nature of the qualification. +Dawn Bowden AM: And have you got dedicated time? Because one of the things we picked up from schools was that teachers in particular were kind of fitting it in with other lessons, and therefore, it wasn't being, again, given the same perceived level of importance as doing A-levels were. But your lecturers would all have dedicated time to deliver— +Kay Martin: On their timetables, yes. And as you say, industry specialists delivering some of those things put them more into context. +Ed Evans: I was just going to add there, really, if you want to raise the profile amongst parents in particular, if you've got that far clearer link between businesses coming in to deliver this—. Apologies, I'd almost forgotten that we were in the Colegau thing, I was thinking 'schools' actually [Laughter.] But in terms of bringing those businesses into schools in a structured way, not an ad-hoc way, which is just a friend turning up to talk about something, a structured way—. We have a programme under way at the moment called 'contextualising the curriculum' in the sector that we hope to roll out. Now, if that was rolled out across the board—I'm not saying that it makes it easier for teachers in particular, but they are going to struggle to deliver some of these commercial and world-skilled, global areas, because it's not their bag. So, bring in some experts, bring in some business, raise the profile, and I think then, possibly, you'll start to get parents thinking, 'Actually, there is something more to this than just the academic bit.' +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I think all my other points have been answered, Chair. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Can I just ask—? You've all got slightly different policies; they don't have to do it in Swansea, in Cardiff and the Vale, they do unless they're in the Seren network, and in your college, everybody does it, even if they're doing four A-levels. Do you think that's a satisfactory situation, and are you satisfied with the communication and the guidance and the steer that everyone's getting from Welsh Government on this? Because we're meant to have a policy of universal adoption, but that doesn't really seem to be happening on the ground. +Kay Martin: And I think, if you'd asked us a few years ago, we were all heading for universal adoption, but because the Welsh bac has changed into something that isn't 100 per cent what we think it should be, then we've stopped the universal adoption, if you like. So, we are trying to do what's in the best interests of the learner, but I think, as you said, we've mentioned some other programmes, and if we could look at—. We've got industry experts in colleges. We've got industry experts that are brought into colleges as well, some more than others, to bring that to life, if you like. We've got mentorship programmes, we send people out, and we just need to incorporate that better. We need to spend less time in checking what they've done on assessment and more time in the doing, and the experiential learning that they need to do, rather than it being too much of a paper exercise. By the time you've done all the paperwork you haven't got time to do any of the learning. +Nick Brazil: I think, just to support Kay, we're going to need to go back to the original vision of the Welsh bac, which all of us would buy into 100 per cent. I think that has been lost as the qualification's developed over time, and, ultimately, I think all of us would like to see it go back to that to provide those skills that Ed has brought up and everything. I think we all support that. But is it quite right? I'm not sure at the moment. +Dafydd Evans: I'll agree. We visited Spain recently, and there they have an entrepreneurship and enterprise unit that is mandatory for everybody, but it appeared to be far more fit for purpose than the Welsh bac is currently. Therefore, I think what we're saying is, if we're going universal adoption, it can't be with this product. This product isn't the product to universally adopt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering our questions? It's been a very informative and interesting discussion. We will, as usual, send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your time this morning. Okay, item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, paper to note 2 is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales on home education, and paper to note 3 is the letter that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has sent to us in reply to our letter about free school meals. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Yes. +","The Children, Young People and Education Committee met to discuss the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification. Dafydd Evans and others representing ColegauCymru, with Ed Evans from the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, offered evidence. There was a consensus that employers, parents, and students lack clear understanding of the Welsh Baccalaureate's value and components. The panel discussed issues of its universal adoption and whether it prepares learners for employment. They observed the Welsh Baccalaureate helps some students but has become overly rigorous, akin to a large qualification. Educational institutions treat it differently; some make it compulsory, while others offer flexibility. + +For learners, it is more embraced at level 3 than at national and foundation levels. Universities' acknowledgment of the Welsh Baccalaureate is mixed, with some valuing it, especially when it is graded at level 3. However, there is also a feeling that some universities, particularly Russell Group ones, may prefer A-levels. The complexity and fit of the Welsh Baccalaureate for learner's future plans were questioned, and the need to revisit and potentially revamp it was suggested. The meeting concluded with the committee moving into a private session." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's not saved yet . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Our beautiful drawing . +Project Manager: So just f um {disfmarker} So this is our agenda . You're {disfmarker} F You're going to show your pr prototype presentation after me . +Marketing: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} Oh yeah . So these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So these are the um last notes we I made . If anything doesn't look right , just say it to me then . I don't have to put it in the report . +User Interface: Are we doing the the speech recognition ? Because we didn't have enough time to uh de um design the inside as well . +Project Manager: Okay , but it's still possible uh uh financially . So if you want to , it's okay . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Well then then we're gonna put it in . +Project Manager: Okay , just {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , just uh we have to design the inside then , but it should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Or are we making a slide open , like underneath ? Or fold open ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Slide open is uh quite usable for remote controls . +Industrial Designer: It's probably better . Yeah , s Like underneath uh you can slide it open and you {gap} other functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's may maybe uh a bit stronger as well . +Project Manager: Maybe that's better . Yeah , that's that's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so when you have a lot of room inside . +Industrial Designer: Think that's better . +User Interface: So you can make it very easy to use . 'Cause you can write a lot of comments besides it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So this is okay ? {gap} +User Interface: {gap} No . Yeah , we're gonna use the advanced chip then . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's {disfmarker} Uh I'll just have a look how much that is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Okay , for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Advanced chip was for uh spee Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think so . I don't know . +Project Manager: No , you have a different chip for speech recognition . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Project Manager: So I already calculated that and it's still in the budget . So it's okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: So you can show your prototype if you want to . +User Interface: Together ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Let's do it together . +User Interface: I'll give comments . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , we just made a Word file with the basic elements . Uh the look-and-feel model . Uh well the form , the case um as drawn there . Simply a square with uh round corners . So that's basically it . {vocalsound} Uh the material should be hard plastic . Uh colour changeable , and also transparent . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And colour and transparent , or just transparent , I don't know . Um then the elements . Uh we have {disfmarker} The functions are just basic . Like uh I've pointed them here . Mute function , on-off function , text functions . This uh switch channel . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this is the the num-pad . And the logo is over here , and the mic . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the scrollwheel , no ? You operate that with your pointing finger . +Marketing: Means {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you hold it like this in your right hand and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So how many functions do you need for for uh the microphone ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , speech recognition . Just {disfmarker} Only one button to say it's on or off . +User Interface: Um I didn't have a specification of that . But um I can imagine that you have to input your voice or something . +Industrial Designer: Uh I dunno . +User Interface: Um so I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe maybe uh you have to configure it . +User Interface: Yes , you need options to configure it , and after that you don't need 'em anymore . +Project Manager: So you can put it on the back as well if you want to . +User Interface: Yeah , you can {gap} put 'em all on the back . That's for sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or on the slide function , I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we haven't had time to design that , the slide pad . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: We also don't know how many buttons are required , or what kind of buttons . But {disfmarker} You have a lot of room if you can slide it open . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put it separate . +User Interface: You {disfmarker} Yeah I know . I can imagine you need at least four buttons or something . So {disfmarker} But it's enough room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um the position ? Yeah , you write uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You wrote this , so . +User Interface: Well the main , the main zap buttons are most central . That was the the most important thing . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So uh the best {gap} place , the best reach place {disfmarker} Um on-off buttons , text buttons , mute buttons are together and at a place they easily are , easy to find . Um the on-off button is a bit bigger , uh so it stands out . That way you don't have to make it red , 'cause it's will uh will show up . Uh scrollwheel is on the left side . It's {vocalsound} basically the be standard place for scrollwheel , as far as I know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But it's not uh impossible to use it , if you're left handed . So y Because you can use your thumb then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just just one thing now . Um y you need to have more uh one two th You've got one two three four five six seven eight nine . +User Interface: Okay yeah , they {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you missed the no uh the zero and uh the two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's that's below that then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It's uh twelve buttons . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just so you get that . +Marketing: Okay , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's rather important . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay , just we just missed that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But um I'll just uh {disfmarker} I'll get back to later . F the form well , we've taken that from the iPod , other popular technical device . So um should be popular . Um {disfmarker} The f uh the buttons creating ? Uh if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That or all round shapes , not uh rounded corners . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that , you know , you get a bit round feeling . Um we'll use hard plastic . Since that allows us to use uh two D_ buttons , uh non-rubber buttons . Colour changeable . Well and um the backlight thing , the thing that lights up . We have decided uh {vocalsound} in the the channel buttons , there's a little uh colour around it . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: And also in the num-pads , there's also colour {gap} light behind it . +Project Manager: And do you still can , do you still can choose what colour , kind of colour you want ? +User Interface: So when you pre Yeah . +Project Manager: How do you want to implement that ? Just on the {disfmarker} Maybe on the second level as well ? +User Interface: We're going to implement . Yeah . Mm just a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , these are just basic functions , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: All the non-basic are in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , just draw draw the second level , because we need that as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , there is one uh function I use uh daily , and it's not on the basic functions . It's uh to switch to uh uh your Scart . Play Station or uh D_V_D_ player . +Industrial Designer: Okay , maybe we use this button for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That function must be {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} Or you can uh i uh lay it uh beneath in the uh other uh functions . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , as well . +User Interface: I um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just make make a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: To your video device . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just draw a second level one and say all options that are still left or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A second level ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a a new blank one or {disfmarker} Or just here ? +Project Manager: No no , just on {disfmarker} Down there . +User Interface: Is i Ah okay . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: And h how does the second level come out ? +Project Manager: Just uh if you s +Marketing: Uh it slides uh along ? +User Interface: Um slides I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , y Maybe , yeah . +User Interface: It's +Marketing: From from the uh beneath ? +Project Manager: For the bottom . +User Interface: You can do it that it claps open , but I think that's not solid enough . +Project Manager: No , you gotta slide it . +User Interface: If that breaks then you're screwed . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's right . +User Interface: So it do doesn't even have to slide all the way open . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what do we need ? +User Interface: Uh i the the speech functions buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu ? +User Interface: Menu button . With uh maybe uh arrows . So you can uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: scroll in the , navigate the menu . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: God damn it . +Marketing: Scart ? +User Interface: {gap} I think we can even put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have one for the zero and one for the for the more digit uh channels . +Marketing: Uh yeah . And so y you keep you keep one , you have one left . Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you have one left for the {disfmarker} Right , the video channel , Play Station , etcetera . That's used pretty often . +Industrial Designer: So this is the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have a Play Station , mm you use it every day . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a f {vocalsound} basic uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Extern or something . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: You want to save that file as well ? The drawing ? +User Interface: That was it . +Industrial Designer: So here are multiple speech buttons , I don't know how many . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Doesn't really matter . Just just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't really matter . +Industrial Designer: I don't know the functions . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah well we don't have any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . What else ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: What else ? +User Interface: What else ? Uh menu buttons with arrows . +Industrial Designer: Uh menu . +Marketing: Yeah , to navigate . +User Interface: S Just uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} With arrows . +User Interface: Um I think it's best if we do . Mm where do we have {disfmarker} Or there . +Industrial Designer: Like a normal um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like on the normal uh {disfmarker} Like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with in the middle um a menu button . +User Interface: The menu button , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well we don't have any , anything on how many buttons speech requires . So you can't redesign it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe one button to switch the colour of your uh LEDs ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh and and you can hold it , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: you can hold it , and then the colours switch or mm multiple multiple buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just press it once , the colour should uh switch . Press again , the colour switch again maybe ? +Marketing: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Or we just make it three buttons , all the colours on it . Just red , yel uh red , green and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Th Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: If we have enough place , uh then we can do that . +Project Manager: That's that's very easy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those here . +Marketing: Colour buttons . And then we choose green , uh blue and red or +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So did we miss anything ? +User Interface: Yeah , maybe some uh some text next to the scroll wheel , that it is volume . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Some text uh buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but +Project Manager: No , ma on on o on the on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just uh {disfmarker} The volume logo . +Marketing: there's one there's one text button I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh wh Here ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Just make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , or th or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's one text button I prefer . That's the one uh that you use if you search for a page , uh like seven hundred , uh and it's counting from one hundred to two hundred , you will switch to your television and back to text . +User Interface: Yeah , we have that on the the text button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Did you think of that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you can switch back to normal telete teletext . You just switch it off and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh why not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just put it on those extra f extra function as well . +Marketing: Ex Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} Whoa {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well w we thought of a text button . And if you press it again , you get the the the +User Interface: I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sta the state you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just three stages , you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: through view . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the three stages . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b but but if you're in the second stage , the third stage is switch teletext off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can switch back from second to w first . +User Interface: No , it doesn't have to turn it off . Just don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . Just remember where it was . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it doesn't uh uh clear the the page . If you if you turn teletext on , you you set the seven hundred , and you turn it off , then the next time you turn it on , it still stays on seven hundred ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's to remember . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But maybe it's not the way {disfmarker} +User Interface: I dunno if {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's a functionality for the television . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think as well , but {disfmarker} Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . That's maybe one thing we can discuss about . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm nee uh {disfmarker} No , if i {vocalsound} uh the remote can send like the the code for seven hundred , page seven hundred to the television . Th th th if you switch it on . +User Interface: Yeah , in thi the the remote control in the +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you have to search every time again . +User Interface: the chip . +Industrial Designer: Th i +Project Manager: That's what what happening if you do it like that . But it's still the television that has to do that . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . Um do we need to fix that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's what the television does . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} most new T_V_s do uh collect all the pages . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those memory functions . +Marketing: But uh not not every every television , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Was uh this logo for uh volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's it ? +Project Manager: Is this prich pretty much it , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah , I I thought about one thing . Uh the buttons ? Uh from which material are they now ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . No no +User Interface: Just like your telephone , hard plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just hard plastic . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's too expensive to make it from a different material anyway . +Marketing: Because um if you use it a couple of years , some uh sometimes the numbers on the on the buttons are slide away , are uh {disfmarker} And maybe we can write the numbers below or above ? Or shall we just turn it on on the buttons ? +User Interface: I think just on the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think just um {disfmarker} +User Interface: If you do it abo above or below , it takes uh more space . +Marketing: Well yeah . That's too much place . +User Interface: I don't think the space is worth it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , just leave it . Just leave it . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you have that problem more often with rubber buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and i The most time {disfmarker} Yeah , with rubber buttons . Yeah , okay . {gap} Okay . Fine . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay , cool . Mm mm mm mm mm . Yeah , I don't know what this means . But I think we just evela evaluated this one . +Marketing: Yeah , I made some criteria uh , so we can uh ev evaluate our model . +Project Manager: Oh okay , you made some criteria . Okay , cool . Okay . +Marketing: I d d d I don't think if it's right . {vocalsound} That shall show it . +Project Manager: You have some usability criteria or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh no , uh all criterias we just argue about . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In the bottom . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Look-and-feel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , evaluation is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Evaluation crit Yeah , evaluation presentation . It's not in . Uh d it doesn't matter um {disfmarker} It only had two pages or something . {vocalsound} Um well I looked in the reports um from the marketing strategy , or uh of uh the the the the the the new needs and uh the market . The Italians uh , how they think about it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The research uh about uh the the comp uh the the the users and that kind of stuff . I made some criteria , and we have to test the criteria from one to zero . We sh we we we can give it uh a number , and then we can give ourself an average for our +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: um {vocalsound} model . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And this {disfmarker} These are all I I I found , or I wrote down . And um {vocalsound} we have to discuss about {vocalsound} , if we give it a one or a seven . +Project Manager: Uh I think uh if you have a kind of iPod idea . It quite beautiful . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: We are actu We are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , the the the difference be between uh beautiful and fancy uh look-and-feel is uh the the the outside uh beautiful uh like the iPod or something . And fancy's more like the mm uh f the flashing lights and the colours and {vocalsound} and that kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Flashy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Well I think we do {disfmarker} +Marketing: The LEDs . +User Interface: If it's really uh , if you can if you can get the iPod look , then it's beautiful , I think . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and what ki what kind of what kind of basic colours uh were you thought uh of ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah beautiful's is also a matter of taste . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: The basic colours are black or green or yellow ? +User Interface: Um basic colours , +Marketing: Or you haven't thought about {disfmarker} +User Interface: um yeah . Well you didn't say . +Marketing: Ho how do we make uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe um company colours ? +Project Manager: It's black . +User Interface: Black . +Marketing: Black and yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , yellow light . +User Interface: A bit a bit of yellow . +Marketing: Can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do we have yellow light ? No , not really , but it's possible . +User Interface: Not not not yellow {gap} , but just a bit of light yellow . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Black white , maybe ? +User Interface: Like white , also ni or uh always nice . +Industrial Designer: And what colours should the buttons be ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Because um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , different colours . This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , the same as th th the cover . But also th the light behind it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But can you change those too , with uh the switch ? +Project Manager: No , no . Make them {disfmarker} No , just make them black or grey or something . +User Interface: Yeah , grey . Just dark grey I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so what uh number do we give uh a beautiful ? Beautiful is uh really subjective , uh because it has to do lots with the colours . +User Interface: Well we have changeable fronts , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Changeable fronts , so ev for everyone for everyone it's something beautiful . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just give it a one . It's okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's perfect . I think it's just what you want . Or not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard to decide for us , but yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's ju so subjective . +User Interface: It it's {disfmarker} At least it's a lot better than uh current remote controls . +Project Manager: Okay , just give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A two . Okay . The fancy look-and-feel . That's about our uh flashing lights and the background uh lights uh from from from the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . And we can change the colours , so that's uh really fancy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are w are we changing uh {disfmarker} Or are they there uh backlights on the slide panel too ? Or n no back light ? +Marketing: Slide panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: No . No , it's only on the number , behind the numbers +User Interface: Mm . Not needed {gap} . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , not needed I think . +Industrial Designer: And and the switch channel is uh {disfmarker} There is a back light too ? +Project Manager: That as well , yeah . +Marketing: Oh , you mean th this here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's unnecessary . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What do I think is necessary necessary item ? +Marketing: It's pretty cool . If you slide it open , {vocalsound} it lights up . That's that's really fancy , but {vocalsound} I don't know if it's reachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Of course it's reachable . +Project Manager: It doesn't make {disfmarker} +Marketing: Then we do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , maybe just some light uh to to light it all up . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can see what's really there . Not just not re on the buttons or something . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a green light or some blue light . To light it all up . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mayb Okay . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just backlight . Not not the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th and the the normal backlights also not the buttons , but behind the buttons . So the buttons are just grey . +User Interface: Well yeah . Uh semi-transparent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , just only {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , fine . So I I think it's very fancy . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , that's how I think . +User Interface: Yeah , w we've done a a lot of detail in light , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I'll give it a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: Yeah , and you can uh also choose your light , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , this {disfmarker} It is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's cool . +Marketing: I think it's one . Okay , next . +Project Manager: This is a difficult one , because we we don't {disfmarker} Yeah , we don't know it about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Learnable ? Easy to use ? Yeah , we shall test it {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} it's it's very easy to use , but uh the second layer is not easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but you don't have to use that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you on don't have to pay attention to that second layer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That's th that's the main thing that's so good about it . +User Interface: So I think it's easy to use , but {disfmarker} And learnable is a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Learnable ? It's not not as fast as a usual uh uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it is . +Marketing: Because because I think I think the scroll wheel , uh it's very handy , but the first time you get this thing in your hands , it's not to use the scroll wheel . +User Interface: Well y just uh f +Marketing: I think uh you must uh seek for it , and up or down or +Project Manager: But the rest of it is very easy , +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh then the re +Project Manager: because there are so so n +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's very clear what it all does . +Industrial Designer: So so few information that you can easily decide what buttons w for what function . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But the second parts , uh like speech , etcetera , that will be harder to learn . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it is learnable um f i i In the first place it's very easy to use . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I think its scrollwheel is u easy to use as well , if you have ever used uh a different kind of uh of uh device . +Marketing: Yeah . But we we've got the two so two uh two or three uh new things , huh ? +User Interface: Device . +Marketing: And maybe we uh maybe learnable is in uh compare of old fashion uh remote controls . So we h we have speech , uh the scroll wheel , and um the the the slide . You must slide it . And that's not normal at the uh normal remote controls . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause I think learnable is a l a less than um {vocalsound} easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because easy to use comes after learnable . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} Easy to use is very cool , +Marketing: I I think it a three or something . +Project Manager: so just give it a two . +User Interface: Maybe three then . Learnable's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , but definitely better , much better than uh than uh than avera average , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh . The normal . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the one you showed is just all buttons and you don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep , true . Then a two . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: New features . Techno technological innovative ? +Industrial Designer: The speech function and the colour . Colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The speech function is new . +User Interface: And the scrollwheel , backlights , slide . +Marketing: The scrollwheel and the slide . Uh I think the slide is pretty new . +Project Manager: Slide is not n is is not new . No . I already have a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I only saw it in a telephone , not in an remote control . +Project Manager: Uh I already have a V_C_R_ and it's about from nineteen eighty eight . And they all have a slide in it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's not new . +User Interface: But also slide that buttons come out , as well ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and the the the lightning ? +Project Manager: That's cool . +Marketing: Is that new ? +Project Manager: Yeah for a {disfmarker} Uh for a f +Marketing: The lighting's new . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm it's pretty new , I think . +Marketing: Scrollwheel . Speech ? +Industrial Designer: Speech is new . +User Interface: Different colours , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , different fronts for a remote control , I think that's new too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have a pretty new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There are no games on it , that's that's {disfmarker} It's not a one , it's a two again . +User Interface: That would {disfmarker} And we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not not L_C_D_ or something . +User Interface: But then we also have the the home station . +Project Manager: If you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are forgetting about that now , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah , that's right . Rechargeable . +Marketing: Uh-oh . +User Interface: We don't +Marketing: Home-station . +User Interface: recharge . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we didn't draw that too , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's more like uh now . +Project Manager: Yeah , just draw it afterwards . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's just a normal th s simple thing . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Can you save it on the same , in the same map as the other ones ? In the the project uh map ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Just save , save as ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Uh save as ? No , that's not in the project . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it's a already in the folder . L like number seven . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , okay . Smart board . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This one is not yet in the {disfmarker} Oh oh . +Industrial Designer: I think it is . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: No , I think it is . +User Interface: Uh untitled ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it doesn't matter . Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But you still have to draw the resi the recharger . +Marketing: Uh all {vocalsound} the the seven , uh all the seven . +Project Manager: Okay . And new features , so we give it a two or also again a one ? No , I think i if you have games on it , then then you give you have a one . But not {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we are not extraordinary new or something . +Project Manager: No , just so it's still a two . +User Interface: N +Industrial Designer: Mm two , I think . +Marketing: Tha tha that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Targeted audience . Uh we are the targeted audience ? Do we like it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we we we searched for uh um {vocalsound} a young group , audience , beneath f forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , but l younger than forty . So we we are exactly the targeted group . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , but did we reach , um {vocalsound} with our uh style , the targeted audience ? +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: Th that's my question . +Project Manager: You get the fancy things for younger people . And you get the the aesthetic things for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We've got a one for fancy look-and-feel , and that's what attracts the young audience . So +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: think that's a two or a one . +Marketing: Um the only point is that we don't uh have uh uh {disfmarker} {gap} That's {gap} that's {gap} {vocalsound} That's this question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but s it {disfmarker} That's basically not not handy . And {vocalsound} I don't thi I don't see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So we targeted it ? But we didn't follow the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} No . Yeah , you could make a a front +User Interface: Mm . I think we followed the latest trends . +Industrial Designer: a front that's that's like uh like a banana , {vocalsound} or something . +Marketing: Tha these are the only latest uh trends I uh {vocalsound} get on my computer . +User Interface: Oh right . Well uh fruit and vegetables , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you get different colours . +User Interface: You can different front uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , th So we had we uh have uh a fruit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like a a f banana kind of front . +Marketing: Oh yeah . But spongy will never be . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: So we give ourself a three or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's eleven . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's the average ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven divided by six . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is one point eight three . +Marketing: A perfect score . {vocalsound} No , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: We're not too hard on ourselves . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is a a power indicator . So you can see how far it's charged up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: And and you need n uh a button to call it , to let it beep . +User Interface: To call . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , that's still {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Call {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we have to make a speaker then too . If you want to make it beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to skip that one . +User Interface: Okay . No no , I want that in . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah , but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can we can do it uh underneath the logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we need that . That's usable . That's really usable . +Industrial Designer: If you do uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th the speaker is very small as well , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I just got a financial um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes uh . +Project Manager: {gap} You s {vocalsound} saved it or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I did save it . +Project Manager: No . Okay , let's have a look at this one here , the production cost of it . If I forgot anything , just say it to me . It just is a battery . Yeah , there are some that they didn't mention , because recharge is not on the list . But okay . So I think we are pretty much in the right direction , because it's twelve point three Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Industrial Designer: But uh is uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is a regular chip incl and and a sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So that's both . +Marketing: Come on , it's perfect . Uh twelve point three point three . +Project Manager: Yeah , and single curved curved . +Industrial Designer: But but is it inc Does it include a a homestation or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , that's not on the list . But that shouldn't be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Can we make that for uh h twenty cents ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably . I just {disfmarker} The b the button supplements , I didn't I d I was wondering if this special colour maybe was {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} different fronts , but standard front won't be , yeah . +Project Manager: See it's {disfmarker} I think it's okay like this . +Marketing: Special form , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's hard to say . But maybe we have to um {disfmarker} Yeah , {gap} okay . Special colour , you can skip this one , because it's all quite normal . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We get different ones , that's all . So you can put a recharger in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But this is expensive , the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's four . +Marketing: Four . It's four Euros . +User Interface: Oh , them . Is that uh included ? In the twelve Euro or +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's included . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then we then we need to use it . +Industrial Designer: It's kind of weird that we {vocalsound} we get this information now , afterwards . Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so this is uh pretty much it this {gap} . +User Interface: Damn , solar cells are uh expensive . +Project Manager: So {gap} I just want you {disfmarker} Yeah , we just made it . So we can do the project evalu evaluation now for uh for everything together . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . We can do some discussion about this . Was there room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Paul , was there room for crea creativity ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh i Yeah , I think so . I think uh everyone uh {gap} already . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah m If we got a high mark for um uh innovativeness or innovativity +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a different style . +Industrial Designer: then there {vocalsound} we probably have been creative . +User Interface: I think we uh discussed a lot of things about it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We could make a lot of different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's creativity . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , so the leadership {disfmarker} Was there a leadership and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course there was . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you have to say about that ? +Industrial Designer: No , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Who was the leader ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Just normal discussion , I think . Not +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: one leader or something . +User Interface: One leader to check the time , etcetera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And make notes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: So more like a secretary . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh team work um {disfmarker} The the third meeting I think that one was pretty hard . We were not all {disfmarker} We were not um agree with every not agree with {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . We were not finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w we had so much information , that we get through email and just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not finished . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Uh I think we {vocalsound} we got wrong information at the wrong time . I think that was the m biggest problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh the prices . If we knew that before , we could have uh had discussion really uh s really quicker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , th that's weird . +Marketing: Yeah , because the prices uh could be twenty Euros or something now . +User Interface: Yeah , and if you had uh fifteen Euros , then we would {gap} it . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: We had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , finance . +Industrial Designer: So we're bacal basically just lucky to uh get the price right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the teamwork was okay . +Marketing: Yeah , uh everybody could speak their uh opinion . And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think uh everyone listen to each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like marketing said things and then we had to i include them in the design . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . Yeah , what I have to say about uh means . The smart board is okay . Digital pen is horrible . I dunno if you use it . But if you want to download it to your computer , it's doesn't work . +User Interface: It was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Just doesn't work . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Well uh smart board would be very uh nice to work with , if it worked really well . +Marketing: Digital pen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Just not work too slow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i if if it would be faster , it would be great . +Marketing: Yeah , the drawings are are hard to make , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , more accurate . Yeah , it's i It should be more accurate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Precise . +User Interface: And uh I think it would be great if you could edit it from , just with a mouse , from where you're sitting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Not just pointing out on it . +Project Manager: It's the same for the presenta for the presentations . You can do it from here . That's much easier than standing there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so you've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and p just point with a mouse . +User Interface: No use to draw on the board itself . It's just slows down . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Just old fashioned kinda blackboard style . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: But you might as well do it in normal computer style . +Project Manager: like {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , even harder to draw like this than black board style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . And it's far too slow this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You cou You could draw on it , but not as main function . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {gap} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Digital pen . +Project Manager: So we made it in time . {vocalsound} And we made a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We did it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the budget , yeah . +User Interface: New ideas found . +Marketing: New ideas . +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What's that ? +Marketing: For for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what it mean . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just think if we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To gather , or to uh work together , uh or new ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For remote control probably . +User Interface: I dunno . +Project Manager: No , for the project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: For remote control , a favourite for your text . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: No , for the prototype . New ideas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but still , you couldn't make a fancy a f you couldn't make a a prototype out of this . Because we don't have any sizes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's for the next team . We don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} You can't possibly do that in such a short time , I think . +User Interface: That's for {gap} . Yeah , this this is just the idea phase , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just brainstorming basically . +User Interface: Yeah . Details uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are we finished ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , I think just {disfmarker} I just write a final report . +User Interface: Quite early . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: No , we have only four minutes left . Uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +User Interface: Oh , what do we have to do now . Do we uh {disfmarker} I thought we were done at four o'clock ? +Industrial Designer: It's now quarter past three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} I should take some pictures uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm we can do it afterwards , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's play minesweeper . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I found it as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ti-din ti-din . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} One two three four five six seven cameras . Mm not bad . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that was it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Now we can look at this . +User Interface: This is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're probably not supposed to look at this , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The old versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the previous group . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They went for uh for a universal device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The touchscreen , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but also a different device {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Then an L_C_D_ uh would be handy . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Here are the basic functions in here , the selecting dev devices . +User Interface: Yeah , and touch screens for all our stuff , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I do agree with that . Yeah , tu-dum . English is not so hard by the way . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I'm breaking a world record here . +User Interface: Well , leader ? Project Manager ? +Marketing: Oh shit . {vocalsound} We've got a problem , Paul . +User Interface: You do ? Yeah , you have to make a choice . +Marketing: Yes . No it's your choice . +User Interface: Wow , that's pretty quick . +Marketing: Tu-dum . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh uh um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just pick one . +User Interface: You have to decide . It's the lower one . +Marketing: What's this ? A bomb or not a bo +User Interface: No no , the upper one is the bomb . +Marketing: This the bomb ? +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wrong . Shit . +User Interface: I knew it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I knew it . {vocalsound} Four in a row . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} That's too much work . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Come on . +Marketing: Is that previous work ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this one . +User Interface: I challenge you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's so stupid . No , that doesn't work . +User Interface: No , you gotta use the magic pen . Hmm . What if I put one there ? +Marketing: That's stupid . +User Interface: We'll see . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I don't agree . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah , you had two choices . That's gonna be draw . Or not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Too bad . +User Interface: I'll put it here . You are going to put it there . +Marketing: Yeah , then I put it there . {vocalsound} No one wins . +User Interface: It's a difficult choice , either here or there . +Industrial Designer: This is a very interesting design . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ugly . +Marketing: It's just the same as normal . +User Interface: Oh {gap} a pen . +Industrial Designer: Well it has a L_C_D_ , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Then do it correctly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Stupid design . Stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} And what else do we have ? +User Interface: Stupid , the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: 'Kay wait , I'm going to draw something and you must y {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What ? Okay , I'm going to guess what you're drawing . +Marketing: Okay , blank . +User Interface: No no , the new one . +Marketing: Oh . {gap} +User Interface: Uh they just don't save it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} I know uh . +User Interface: A house ? Yeah , you have to use the pen s stupid . +Project Manager: You have to save everything , you know that , huh ? +User Interface: No , not everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , everything . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Pen , select select pen . +Marketing: Pen . +Industrial Designer: It wants to know what we do in our spare time . +User Interface: Okay . It's a house . A plant ? +Marketing: No , it's {vocalsound} Only you can know it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I can know it . It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's uh very hard to draw . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that makes it easier . I think I know . No , wrong . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think I know what you're trying to draw , but it's wrong already . +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , you missed the right side . +Marketing: Fuck . F +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , you're wrong , you're wrong +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little bit maybe , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} See where you're wrong now ? The entrance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay , the entrance is uh more to the left . +Industrial Designer: Warning . Warning . +User Interface: You're correct . +Marketing: Okay . But but but I think this part {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no you {vocalsound} made another mistake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . Yeah , there are a lot of mistakes , because the walls are thick like this . +User Interface: No I w Okay , I'm not that whiny . But uh there was a big hole here as well , and there as well . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . Uh here . Yeah , they're walking behind the walls . +User Interface: That's a kinda big mistake . {vocalsound} Warning , finish meeting now . Guys , I think we have to finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay this is a hard one . +User Interface: Uh ? +Industrial Designer: Boom-boa-ring-bing . +User Interface: What does it say ? +Industrial Designer: Fill in the questionnaire . What now ? +User Interface: Come on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No more chit-chat . +User Interface: Oh you gotta finish +Marketing: Che-che-che-che . +User Interface: over there ? In your own room ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm gonna be so lonely . +Marketing: Tu-dumm . Uh . +User Interface: Mm I'll clean that up later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is {disfmarker} That's my new interface . +User Interface: What's that ? +Marketing: That's a uh edited smiley . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tom-ti-dom . Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +","The transcript presents a team meeting where project members discuss the design and functionalities of a remote control, including integration of speech recognition, sliding mechanisms, backlighting, customizable colors, and an advanced chip. Cost considerations, as well as user interface and industrial design perspectives, are taken into account. Challenges such as technical issues with the smart board and obtaining accurate price information are mentioned. The team evaluates their own performance on creativity, leadership, teamwork, and use of tools. They aim to complete an evaluation questionnaire as their meeting concludes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's start our second me meeting on {vocalsound} conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: as the previous meeting I will be the secretary +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we will have three presentations and we'll have to decide on the remote control concept and finally we'll close the decision . So I will first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y you do the minutes first , or ? +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: I I think I will let uh our User Interface Designer speak first , Mister David Jordan . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So , we'll {disfmarker} S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: technical accessoire ? +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: Interface ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This . +User Interface: Mm . So uh first I will present the concept of user interface . Um there's three concepts in the user interface . So first one it's a Google controller . The second is a fancy controller . The last one is uh intelligent controller . So there are three concepts in our controller . Um n next I will explain one by one , the first is Google controller . Um , so I want the controller to be easy to use , but with sophisticated functions . So it's a combination of easy to use and um sophisticated functions . Uh this is a first concept of our controller . The second concept is a fancy controller , um so we want give the customers the impression that our controller is very attractive , um they can easy recognise our controller among a lot of products , so so the u the user f the the u user interface should be very very cute , very very g um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: A nice one . +User Interface: attractive . Such like this , there are several uh examples in the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm not sure the one in the middle {vocalsound} is very attractive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's very , you know +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very big , +User Interface: if you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard f i it's easy for you to remember it . {vocalsound} Or to recognise it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll have big discussion I suppose after that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So the last uh concept is intelligent . We want uh we want our controller to be smart , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: so maybe we should uh use um uh technology , such as speech recognition technology and gesture recognition technology , so we need to have coop some cooperation with some research institute on speech recognition and um gesture recognition . Um With this advanced features we {disfmarker} I think we can attract a lot of user . +Project Manager: Okay . Something else ? +User Interface: Okay . No . There {disfmarker} this is the three concepts of our controller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just have one question , because for the intelligent controller , {vocalsound} you said that we can use the voice recognition or the gesture recognition , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but as the um expert told us , most of the people want to use the remote control to zap t to zap between channels . Do you think they will be able to use gestures ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because , if they do all the time the same gesture , as you said previously in the last meeting , maybe they will get injuries because of that ? +User Interface: Y +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: or if you say channel three channel three two three four six five , I think they will be bored after a while . You don't think so ? +User Interface: Uh I think some time it's very uh convenient to use voice interface and gesture interface than use button . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: For example , if you cannot find your uh {vocalsound} controller , you can just uh {vocalsound} just just uh speak something such as , yeah , one two . +Project Manager: I +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {vocalsound} that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good point , so . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you got a cold . You have a mute remote controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So you can use your gesture . That's no problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but how how is {disfmarker} how risky is it to trust like speech recognition or gesture recognition ? +Project Manager: Broken arm ? +User Interface: For limited vocabulary speech recognition is very reliable and for s limited vocabulary gesture recognition is also very {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you have a family watching T_V_ , and if they want to use their private remote control in the same time , do you think it will work ? Everybody wanting to change channel in the same time ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this this {disfmarker} but this would never happen anyway . +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah , they cannot speak at the same time . +Project Manager: If you have one brother and one sister +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they want to watch their favourite uh T_V_ programme , +Marketing: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so they say oh channel four channel three channel four channel three all the time , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Yeah , it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: but the same can happen even with it you know this kind of remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I don't think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you have the remote control , so maybe you can keep it f with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right . +Project Manager: You're not you're not obliged to share it . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay , you mean it could be a problem for this kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's the advantage of intelligent controller . Even you h you have the controller , I can {vocalsound} I can say channel three , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} it's {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: so it's c come to channel three , +Marketing: No , but this is disadvant disadvantage . +User Interface: I don't have to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a disadvantage . +User Interface: It's advantage . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And mayb maybe we can have the switching mode to pass from you know voice controller to +Project Manager: Yeah , but one other question . +Industrial Designer: manual controllers , eh . +Project Manager: How how much will it cost ? +Industrial Designer: No , more expensive maybe . +User Interface: How much ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because I suppose we need to do research to have something working . +User Interface: No no we we d we we just are use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some some efficient . +Marketing: Uh if you if if you use the basic {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no we just um have some cooperation with some research institute , we don't have to do some basic research on this field . +Project Manager: So you think it won't cost an {disfmarker} Not a lot for us ? Or ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} because uh this technology is uh um for limited wor or limited wor uh lexical recognition , it's very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} yeah . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's changing how the remote control is gonna be built . Because then you need uh {disfmarker} I mean this doesn't have uh the power to do recognition , for example . +Industrial Designer: Well y y you have also the language problem , +User Interface: No it's uh {disfmarker} Even for the f um because the the vocabulary {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you know when you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it it have to be universal , +Project Manager: Yeah . I agree with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so . +User Interface: The vocabulary is very small , so that's not a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but there is one problem that uh Baba talked about is the international +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: remote control . We need something that is international . Suppose we're {disfmarker} we want to sell it in France . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The recognition system will be able to understand French . If you want to go to England , it will be able to understand English , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah , the key , the key um the key of our {disfmarker} the key feature of our controller is that it's it has some some um adaptation +Marketing: Yeah , this could be downloaded by the web maybe , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you know . The product {disfmarker} The pro +User Interface: mechanism . It's It's it means when you when you sell this controller in China it's can recognise Chinese . It's r if you sell this controller in France it can recognise French . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's a very smart , it's a very smart controller maybe {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: And with no increase in the pri production price of the remote control ? +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because of this product uh this technology has already been developed . +Project Manager: Yeah , but how will you {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the problem is how to s you know if this is a push button controller , you can send this con this remote control everywhere in the world , the same one . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you have the language , you have to develop for each country . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh n Yeah , yeah tha that's why we have to do language adaptation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but for each country you have to do one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because uh the for example for Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Even for each f for even for different family we have to do d yeah we would we have to do adaptation to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Seems to be quite complex . +Marketing: but then w Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Comple +User Interface: No , it's not so complex {vocalsound} . +Marketing: we have to take care of the twelve Euros +Project Manager: And what about voice recognition , do we have microphones ? +Marketing: problem . +Project Manager: And where will be they ? Do you think if we're far from television it will work ? +User Interface: No no no it's not {disfmarker} I think that's n that's not a problem because you you don't have to wear a microphone . It it just {disfmarker} the microphone is embedded in the controller . +Project Manager: Yeah , but where is the controller ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Where is the controller ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in your family , in your home . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but then it's it's like this uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: here it's uh an object . But here you say you want to use i uh s technology . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah you can you can embed it uh microphone here . +Industrial Designer: A microphone maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , but wha what is the use of voice or gesture recognition if you have a remote control li like this , if you have an object . If you want to use voice or gesture you need to be free , without any object . +Industrial Designer: To talk to the to the T_V_ maybe . +Project Manager: You just want to interact with television . +User Interface: Yeah yeah just {disfmarker} you just put the controller here , then you +Industrial Designer: I if you say one , he switch to channel , +User Interface: you use your command +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: and you do s your gesture . +Project Manager: but you can lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it's n y {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you lose it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So well for example if it is somewhere in the room if i maybe if it is in the table there you can always say s channel one and the t the remote control gives the order to the T_V_ to switch to channel one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay you {disfmarker} so you can build a kind of black box +Industrial Designer: Devic +Project Manager: and put it on T_V_ and just to recognize gestures and voice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah but so you need a camera and you know a microphone {vocalsound} inside your remote control . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you would still have the buttons . Or is it {disfmarker} do you think it should be only voice recognition and gesture recognition ? Or you you still have the possibility to use buttons ? +User Interface: think it {disfmarker} we should give the uh flexibility to the user and we think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: You can see {disfmarker} they can switch form one modality to another . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . It's a bit risky risky . +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: And maybe it will be quite {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's quite inter quite attractive . +Industrial Designer: But I think that , you know , switching from one country to to another will be a problem , so {disfmarker} although y y +User Interface: Well , if you do language adaptation , there should be no problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: We should have confidence in technology . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , we should . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Hmm . So , what do you think ? We'll try the controllers you'd prefer . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: Which kind of controller would you prefer to use , you as a remote control user ? +Marketing: If if {disfmarker} I mean , uh I'm sure if the user pays the same price , he's happy to have recognition . +User Interface: More features , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if if if it like doubles uh +Industrial Designer: I think he need a control that is very reliable , +Marketing: no one would would be interested . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So I think it would be better not to do any intelligent controller and to stay with the Google controller or a fancy controller . Maybe try to mix the Google controller and the fancy controller ? Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just want to have something {disfmarker} controller which is in a kind of intelligent controller , easy to use , sophisticated and fancy . You think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah but if if you stick to um {disfmarker} stick to the first two parts . So what's the difference between our controller with other products in the market ? There's no k features of our controller , so is there is there any necessary to design new controller without any breakthrough features ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . No , +User Interface: Would y would you replace your controller with a controller with similar function if you do not have some some function inside it that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not really the {disfmarker} we +Marketing: Y +Industrial Designer: we can add for example some function like for browsing in internet , so {disfmarker} or something like that . But uh I think a user need {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you y that's a fun that's not the function of the controller , that's a function of T_V_ . You can replace your T_V_ with a new T_V_ with internet browsing function , +Marketing: No , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you need you need new remote controller then . Because if you wanna browse internet or , I don't know , if you wanna type something , +Industrial Designer: Don't have a {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: if we can send email from it . +User Interface: But it's not the {disfmarker} only the problem {disfmarker} only the issue of controller , it's it's also the issue of the T_V_ . +Marketing: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Because the p the problem I can see with with the voice or the gesture itself wh what can happen in a family i i for example if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cause for example {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but we do we do we we we cannot rely one hundred percent on these features to u to use the controller , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh we want so +User Interface: but with the features of our controller such as you have the feature of voice recognition in your mobile but you seldom use it , your mobile , but you when you choose a new mobile , you choose the one with voice recognition . +Marketing: Yeah , you wou you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: the feature is not one hundred percent reliable , but it's a feature to distinguish our product from our {disfmarker} from other products . +Project Manager: Yeah , but w we we want something th that works all the time , every day , every hour , for everyone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And for all the person of the family maybe , +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't need to tune it . +Industrial Designer: so , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if if if if you're if you ar if you already have a product it works one hundred percent reliable , would you replace it with another one ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not ? If it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for example the goo y +Industrial Designer: Because you have new {disfmarker} +Marketing: you say we would we would to have a Google-like controller . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't see how adding speech or gesture recognition would make the remote control look more like Google . Google is {vocalsound} is simple , works fine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so I I guess if can have a remote control that is really basic , simple and works fine , it's already a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh yes , but there's no big difference between the traditional controller . +Marketing: Uh thi this {disfmarker} I mean , the user is not only interested in having speech or gesture recognition +User Interface: The {disfmarker} then nn +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: no . +Marketing: if he has something that works fine and is really {vocalsound} fancy , looks nice and it's easy easy to use , easy to use . +User Interface: Tha +Project Manager: Not too expensive too . +User Interface: But the there's there's n there's n not enough motivation for them to replace their old controller with a new one if there's no key feature in the new controller . +Marketing: See {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean , I I know it's more interesting to develop a remote controller with speech and gesture and whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you have to think , the user is the one who gonna buy the product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and so . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: I mean , that's the point . +Project Manager: let's go to the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll be able to take a decision after that , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Working ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , working design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the {vocalsound} next one ? I uh {disfmarker} it's not this one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's uh oth the oth {vocalsound} so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the working design . Sorry . {vocalsound} Component design . +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this yeah {disfmarker} so this is the described use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? Are you inst +Project Manager: Uh I think there's something wrong with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: It did didn't r receive it . Didn't receive it . +Project Manager: Maybe you you record it somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +User Interface: Participant one . Participant one . +Project Manager: Interface concept . No . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Maybe I record recorded directly on the {disfmarker} Computer . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} Nope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . Yes . +Project Manager: It seems that we have a problem with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you remember what you had to say or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can say it to you without . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe we can first come to +Project Manager: No , I think it will be more interesting to start with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh to Frahan . With Frahan , then you can prepare your slides , +Marketing: I think it's more interesting what he says , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: then present it later . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: exac +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You will had s some more information in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it will be interesting after your presentation to have um Baba's presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In fact , I don't know , +Project Manager: So . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I s because i in my presentation I don't have here with {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} It was in fact the design use to show you the design of what is inside a what is inside and what are the different component of the r +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: of the remote control . So it will be interesting so I could show you some some picture of what is inside +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so . So I {disfmarker} in fact the the {disfmarker} f something I want to discuss is which kind of material are we going to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so will {disfmarker} it will be wooden wooden di wooden remote control or a a plastic remote control like this one . So and {vocalsound} in which which which kind will be the the different bu button , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it can be some , you know , classic pushbutton like this one , or you have also some button like L_C_D_ where you know , the button the buttons are unlighted during the night , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or , you know , you can see them in the darkness . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the other thing I want to discuss also is which kind of alimentation , electric alimentation do you want to have , so will it be for example uh d uh solar energy alimentation +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: or will it be a battery like the classical battery so . And I think that for example for the alimentation it would be good to have uh both of them , so so for example in some country where you are in the the countryside and you are far from , you know , the cities uh for example in some place in in S Senegal , so if you have electric if you have solar alimentation , you just , when you want to have recharger or remote control power you just put it on the sun and after one hour you can come +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so it can be interesting for people to have this kind of remote con It can be something interesting to make people buy it , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's an added value to the remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah mm . +Project Manager: and maybe it can attract all the ecological k yeah consumers +Industrial Designer: Ecologists , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and but about the the price of adding this solar battery , would it be something really that will increase the price of production more , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? +Industrial Designer: Alrigh In fact , having them both will {disfmarker} if we want to have battery , regular battery and and {vocalsound} the solar energy battery it could be {disfmarker} it'll it will add a little bit of the price , +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: but it will be an added value also that will be compensated , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so hmm . +Project Manager: And what tha what about the uh materials ? +Industrial Designer: And the materials , it depends for example you {disfmarker} if you have a wooden material it can be more {disfmarker} the plastic material is more common +Project Manager: Impersonal , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's very resistant but , you know , something wooden will be like , I don't know high cl so a special high class , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Special for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or you know , you can have some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and i if you {disfmarker} we want to put fashion in electronics maybe we can try to do something with wood . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even if it is not completely wood , but just a part of the , you know , will be wooden , in wood +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and it can be interesting . +Project Manager: Mm okay , seems to be interesting , mm . +Industrial Designer: And so the last point is y also would do you want to have some very cheap integrated cir circuits , chips , or do you have low level or or very very expensive , it depends , but I think that low level will be , you know , it is an interim module . +Project Manager: Yeah , we want something easy to use and {disfmarker} so I think maybe something very low level wou would be enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you think that we will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it will fit on the price we want , twel twelve Euros , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So wood . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: And what about the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: I think the buttons I pr I prefer , you know , the L_C_D_ you know {vocalsound} lighted buttons because , you know , it's {disfmarker} I don't know {vocalsound} um yeah , in the dark , it's fashion +Project Manager: No it's fashion , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it's related to how beautiful it is or uh if you want to watch T_V_ in the darkness or if you want to lo find your find your your remote control that is lost , you know in the darkness it's very easy so , right . +Marketing: What about the touch scr touch screen ? For example . It's it's expensive I I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think a touch screen {vocalsound} will be t as expensive as the L_C_D_ buttons so . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} And it is a kind of other design , I mean . It can also be interesting to have this kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you got email ? +Project Manager: I dunno . {vocalsound} I think we have only {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh five minutes left . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Participant four ? Functional requirements ? +Marketing: Uh no , trend watching . {vocalsound} The other one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think so , just {disfmarker} Yeah , so just to meet the user requirements I would just do a s short anal analysis of the remote control market and to kind of um have a better overview of what's the fashion in general I've checked more than only the remote control market , so next . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So again , it's pretty much similar to what I've said in the previous meeting . Um user really really want a fancy look and feel . They're not so so interested in uh functional look and feel , okay . Like the one you've shown , David , with all the buttons and {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} i i it sounds good technically +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's it's not what they want and uh {disfmarker} So , second point is they still want it it to be technologically innovative , so maybe it's sort of related to what you've said with the speech recognition and so on . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: At the same time , it's important that it's easy to use . So that were the three first points from the remote control uh analysis . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Now i if we look at fashion in general um {disfmarker} Okay . Wha what we really see this year is that uh everything from clothes to shoes and furniture is is inspired by fruits and vegetables , +Industrial Designer: Ah yes . +Marketing: okay , so I think we really have to take this into account for the design of the the thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause it's it's really what people want . Even if it's in general fashion , we want it to be in the remote control . And then uh if if we take the ordering or the ranking of all the points , fancy look and feel has , on a score of seven would have six as importance . Uh the remote control has to be technologically innovative , it's three . Then easy to use uh it's not so important actually with respect to other y other ones . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we see fancy look an look and feel is the most important one , and then if we combine this with the fashion uh from Milan and Paris +Industrial Designer: And fruit and vegetables yeah . +Marketing: we go to the fruits and vede vegetables . And the other point I haven't mention is people wan want to have a spongy touch , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: okay so this is this maybe doesn't really fit with the wooden design . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the problem is which kind of material do you need to to be spongy ? +Marketing: Yeah thi this is this would be like um +Industrial Designer: Pla S +Marketing: plastic-like , but rubber , mayb maybe , you know , rubber-like uh +Industrial Designer: Very stuff {disfmarker} Okay , rubber rubber desi okay , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: device , so um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , tha tha that was the main point , I think , from the trend in fashion . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have to take decisions about the component concepts , about the energy . So , {vocalsound} as you say you want something technologically innovative , maybe using solar energy and {disfmarker} with battery would be something interesting , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Solar . +Marketing: Yeah , so when I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: maybe will attract +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: It will be a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: pro-ecology consumers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh cheap imprint so you s you propose low level chips would be uh enough to have something working well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Case . +User Interface: Later ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you think {gap} case . Something spongy . {vocalsound} Someth no wood . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No wood but {disfmarker} Plastic ? +Marketing: Maybe not no wood , but I mean ma maybe not the part you touching you know . +Industrial Designer: Would some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pla +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we can have wood for example in the bottom and , you know . It depends on the design we want , +Marketing: Yeah , maybe the base . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: It's it's natural . +Marketing: But still y +Project Manager: Th The feeling is natural , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's natural +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and i +Project Manager: so maybe we can stay with wood . +Industrial Designer: And it can be correlated to energy , solar energy , so for the marketing aspect , you know , saying that it's ecol +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's not exactly right for the spongy point of view . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , it's not right , so . +Project Manager: But it's still fashion . +Marketing: But we could maybe have both like part of wood and some rubber for the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: or +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: something that you can {vocalsound} into it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and what about the user interface concept ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Google and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Google and fancy ? +Industrial Designer: and fancy , f how about the the voice ? {vocalsound} And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because I think that with the voice and gesture recognition there are still some disadvantages with this . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can do some marketing studies asking people if they're interested +User Interface: Uh yes . +Industrial Designer: and how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It It is an an interesting concept to see {disfmarker} to have uh voice control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: The smart controller . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} and the problem is I I'm we can infer i if you have v voice control why not to put it directly on the the T_V_ , so speak directly to the T_V_ and you don't need a remote control actually , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: but you need a receiver to recognize the gestures and the voice . +Industrial Designer: But it will be embedded on the T_V_ and not on the remote control , so . +Project Manager: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} d +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll just focus on the Google controller plus the fancy controller , +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe try to mix them these two concepts together , just in one and do a remote control with solar energy and batteries and with lev low level chips and wood . +User Interface: Yeah . It's good . +Project Manager: And L_C_D_ buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think for these supplements the solar energy would be something quite interesting and not maybe too difficult to add . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . And pf what can we think a supplement to {disfmarker} +Marketing: What interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah , for the interface something {disfmarker} added value . +Industrial Designer: I think the supplement can be the voice {vocalsound} . It is just , you know , it is not the most important , but it can be a part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With a module ? You mean the remote control with a mur module if you want you can just use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: commands , words and use them when you don't want to use your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To push button , yeah , yeah . Even it is for s just some kids , you know , switching channels one two three four . +Project Manager: Turning the T_V_ o on o or off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , turning {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Not very complex commands , but easy commands , +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: adding some vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple ones ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simple ones for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So the next meeting will start in thirty meeti minutes {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} we'll {disfmarker} you will all have to work in in your direction . So you will have to work on the look and feel design , to have the easy to use , powerful and fancy remote control with some added value such as the uh simple vocal commands recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh you will have to work more , Baba , on the um spongy way to to add spongy um touch to the buttons {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} expensive buttons {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , to make some new {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and try to find maybe a nice shape for the wooden remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And I sup I think we'll have to evaluate th the product too . +Marketing: Yeah , no not forgetting about the fruits and vegetables trends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If possible . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And remember as as I said last meeting , we really have to build a fashion remote control and uh the colour of the um the society will be really {disfmarker} it will be seen in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Need it to be , okay . +Project Manager: So you will have {disfmarker} Baba and David Jordan you will have to work together on the prototype and you will have next time to show us um modelling a cl a clay remote control , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so you will have to model model something . +User Interface: Okay . Yep +Project Manager: And I think that some specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: no more questions , we can close the session . +Industrial Designer: Sounds good , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","Summary: + +The meeting began with the Project Manager initiating the second session on conceptual design for a remote control. They indicated their role as secretary and outlined the agenda, which included three presentations and a decision on the remote control concept before concluding the meeting. Marketing interjected briefly with a question about minutes, but the focus quickly returned to the presentations. + +The User Interface Designer, Mr. David Jordan, was called to present first. He introduced three user interface concepts: Google controller, fancy controller, and intelligent controller. The Google controller was characterized as easy to use with sophisticated functions. The fancy controller was designed to stand out and be recognized easily, with a very attractive interface. Lastly, the intelligent controller was meant to be smart, possibly employing speech and gesture recognition technologies. The User Interface Designer suggested potential partnerships with research institutes to integrate advanced technology into the controller. + +Discussion ensued regarding the practicality and appeal of these features, with emphasis on their potential for uniqueness in the market, their technological feasibility, and concerns about user acceptance. Specific concerns about gesture recognition leading to injuries from repeated motions were raised. Additionally, the usefulness of voice recognition in various scenarios was debated, especially about its reliability and how it would function in family settings where multiple people may want to control the TV simultaneously. + +The conversation then shifted to the cost implications of integrating advanced technologies into the remote control, with considerations about research and development costs and how to manage the integration of voice and gesture recognition features within the design, particularly in an international market with varying languages. + +The Industrial Designer brought up the physical aspects of the remote control, such as the choice of materials (wood vs. plastic) and whether to use classic pushbuttons or illuminated LCD buttons. They also considered different power sources, including the possibility of a remote control that uses both solar energy and conventional batteries. This was linked to market trends toward ecological products. + +Marketing presented findings on market and fashion trends, emphasizing that users prioritized a fancy look and feel over technological innovations. They also noted the current trend of designs being inspired by fruits and vegetables and the desire for a spongy touch to the remote control, which could influence the choice of materials and the overall design. + +The group agreed that while technological innovation like voice recognition was valuable, they should not compromise on reliability and ease of use. Suggestions were made to create a remote control that combined the Google and fancy controller concepts with the added value of simple voice commands. + +The Project Manager concluded the meeting by advising team members on their specific tasks. For the next meeting, the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer were to work on a prototype that would reflect the discussed fashionable design aspects, integrating a spongy feel with eco-friendly elements. + +In essence, the team settled on working towards a remote control with a unique design inspired by current fashion trends, which would be easy to use, potentially incorporating simple voice commands without overly complicating the device, considering cost implications, and catering to the ecological consciousness of modern consumers." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we can start ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Suppose I have to do my presentation . {vocalsound} Eh um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . It's Ada Longmund ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , I'll present myself , I'm Ada Longmund , and as you may know it , I'm the pr project manager . So um we will have to um speak about m the project . Our project project is to create um a new remote control and as you may know there's lot of industrials interesting in creating a remote control , so the remote control has to be original , trendy and um user-friendly . Record . So the project method is the following . So if we're um the functional design , you have to do uh any individual work and uh also work with uh meetings talking with each other . Uh it will be the same for the conceptual design and also the same for the detailed design . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The tool training is to try out the white board , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe someone ha we have to {gap} this whiteboard , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe you can draw your favourite animal +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and make a list of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: So right now ? +Project Manager: I don't know if we have to do it now , maybe later later . +User Interface: So yeah I think you can do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the selling price of the product will be twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite good price , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I it's it's reasonable , s quite {disfmarker} yeah . Twenty five . +Marketing: It's reasonable , I think , yeah . +Project Manager: And uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it will uh be a an international remote control , +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as we want to sell it in the entire world , and the product costs will be not more than twelve Euros and fifty centimes . So , as you will discuss about the remote control you will have to experience your um {disfmarker} with the remote control . Um just uh maybe be imaginative with {vocalsound} remote const con controls , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: try to create something new and people would like to to buy . And {vocalsound} and the next meeting will start in thirty minutes , so you'll ha all have your spethisfispis specif specific role and you know {disfmarker} I suppose you know what you have to do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I I hope so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh you will have to work on the design and also to work on the design of th technical fun functions of the remote control and think of the user requirement specifications . +Marketing: Those things just refer to each of each of us , I think . AMI +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I_D_ , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I_D_ is for the Industrial Design , yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And U_I_D_ , it's for the User Interface Designer , +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: and Marketing Expert , it's me . +Industrial Designer: AMI yeah project . +Project Manager: So I will manage all all the group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} you will be the manager {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can manage all this , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +Project Manager: So you have questions ? +Marketing: Um . Not really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: you all know what the parts of the work you have to do . +Marketing: So which {disfmarker} you , the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: No I'm user interf I'm user interface design . +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Design , yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you ? +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Designer so . +Project Manager: Mm okay . +User Interface: Okay . So what's the difference between +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: user interface design d industrial design ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean , you have to know . Ah , you have to know it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's difficult . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's your job , so I hope you you know what it is . +Industrial Designer: You know very soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suppose you have to design it and you have to take care of the industrial way to transform it . +User Interface: Okay , so I make uh u user interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You you de you implement the core functions in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And i maybe you will transform it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I think the user the user interface design is {disfmarker} he will design how the user will you know {disfmarker} the relation between the user and you know the remote control so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use it . Make make {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the uh industrial design , it is how the object will look like . +User Interface: Maybe I think uh uh i industrial design's uh , it's the function design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So the materi +User Interface: I design the user f user interface , you design the function . +Project Manager: Maybe , it is the outside and the inside . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay right . But {disfmarker} I was thinking that he's a user {disfmarker} 'cause the user interface to design for example where the but button will be , you know . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I don't know . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well . You know . +Industrial Designer: I'm the industrial designer . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay . Not the other one . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So and the marketing expert will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just go I'm trying to give you some trends about what should be done and what the users would like to have +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then thi this would {vocalsound} I guess converged to the User Interface Designer wi and then Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Okay . +Project Manager: And when designing y the remote control just remember that uh it has to be a kind of international product . So you don't have to do something really specific , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: as everybody everybody will have to use it , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's sor the same as keyboards . You know , you have Qwerty , Azerty , French and U_K_ keyboard , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: so really the remote control to be international . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh simple . +Project Manager: As we want to maximise the benefit . +User Interface: And easy to use . +Marketing: And you have to keep it under twelve Euros and f fifty , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you have to keep in mind that the product cost won't be maxim more than twelve dot fifty Euros . +User Interface: Ah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And to be sure that really people will be interested in buying a new remote control with maybe new functionalities that don't exist in the mm existing remote controls now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , is it okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . It's clear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There was a step about drawing something in the in the board , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe should go and draw an animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is it ? {vocalsound} Are we supposed to do right now ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah , you try . Try first . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right it's it's from the left to the ri {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you think we have to do it now ? +Industrial Designer: I d I was thinking but I n I'm not sure now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can draw something which is very simple . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want me to draw something ? +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Product manager {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Everybody {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , let's go , +User Interface: Oh , maybe we should bring Kemy here . +Project Manager: I will try . +User Interface: Kemy is really good at drawing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Many {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think everybody should do it , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's not matter {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You're going to draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh it's the same as mine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a fat cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It is not a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the fat cat , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you draw uh um rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , hat ha rat . +Marketing: A rat ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yes you have to draw a rat if you want a rat . +Project Manager: No . A mouse is not too difficult . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's your rat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mouse is okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Just go , +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: you you the closest to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: go {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right , but in grow , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Jus +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: everybody has to grow {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , I draw . The only thing I can draw is like this . Oh . Oh . Oh . +Marketing: A duck . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You love the eyes . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: What are you {disfmarker} I don {vocalsound} no idea , so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that was the eyes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: A clown . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Rabbit . +Industrial Designer: It's a rabbit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Pikachu . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a rabbit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Bugs Bunny one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's not so bad so . +User Interface: The only thing I can draw , because it's very simple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh . So what else ? This was my favourite one , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you don't have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A fish . +Marketing: Right . A fish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's a that's a fish ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's try to draw something . +Project Manager: You forgot the chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , doesn't look so fine . +Industrial Designer: Have to be really careful . +Project Manager: Fish and chips . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: Ah {vocalsound} it's my turn . +Marketing: it's your turn . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , be careful . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So . {gap} {gap} It's ok +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of +User Interface: No problem , no problem . +Industrial Designer: So , what can I draw some more ? +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} ? No . Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's a se it's my priority this one . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: A person ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . It's a really crazy dog {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Dog . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Transfer . It's a dog in a village . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So what are you sug going to do now ? {gap} +Marketing: I think it's done . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's done ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Just have to {disfmarker} present project , +User Interface: So we have break . +Project Manager: discuss a little bit about it . +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: Oh , we have twenty five minutes for the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , if you have questions . +User Interface: Oh . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know what time is it ? No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: You know your job ? you know your job ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have an idea yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You know your job ? +Industrial Designer: I have an idea of my job {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} yeah so . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +","In this dialogue-based sequence, Ada Longmund, the Project Manager, starts off by checking if everyone is ready to begin. With verbal affirmations from the Marketing department, Ada announces that they will proceed with a project presentation. Amidst the vocal hesitations and pauses, Ada briefly introduces herself and outlines the project's goal: to design an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control, noting that there is significant industrial interest in such a product. + +The project methodology is then discussed by Ada, emphasizing the importance of individual work, collaborative meetings, and communication across different stages of the project: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. A team-building exercise is suggested involving the use of a whiteboard to draw one's favorite animal, although the timing of this activity appears uncertain. + +A critical point introduced by Ada is the selling price of the remote control, firmly set at twenty-five Euros, to ensure the product is reasonably affordable. To maintain profitability, the production cost is capped at twelve Euros and fifty cents, pushing the team to be imaginative and create a design that will appeal to buyers globally. + +As the conversation progresses, roles within the team are clarified, with departments referred to by their initials: I_D_ for Industrial Design, U_I_D_ for User Interface Design, and Marketing. Ada confirms her role as the manager who will oversee the entire group, prompting her to query if there are any doubts or questions. + +An ensuing discussion reveals confusion and a need for clarification about the differences between user interface design and industrial design. Marketing chimes in with a reminder that understanding one's job responsibilities is critical. The teams eventually settle on a rough distinction: User interface design concerns the user's interaction with the remote control, while industrial design focuses on the remote's aesthetic and functional features. + +Ada reiterates the importance of creating an international product that appeals to a broad audience and is not prohibitively costly to manufacture. The group is encouraged to innovate and think of new functionalities that do not currently exist in the market. + +A back-and-forth about the whiteboard drawing exercise leads to some team members attempting to sketch various animals with mixed results. Light-hearted banter ensues as the quality and nature of the drawings are discussed, reflecting an informal attempt at team bonding. + +As the time for the next meeting draws near, the Project Manager concludes by reminding everyone to prepare for their specific role in the upcoming session. The dialogue ends with the participants confirming they understand their duties and discussing their schedule for the next meeting. + +Overall, the conversation captures the early stages of a project where team roles and project objectives are set against a backdrop of team-building exercises. The informal tone suggests a comfortable working relationship among the members, with Ada steering the group towards a collective understanding of their task to design an affordable, innovative, and internationally appealing remote control." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place by videoconference. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please activate your mic. When you are not speaking, leave your mic on mute. Of course, change the language when you change the language on the screen. I would remind hon. members that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel; if you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel; and should you wish to alternate between the two languages, as I just did, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking, each time you switch languages. In addition, please direct your remarks through the chair and speak slowly and clearly at all times to help our interpreters. Finally, for members who will be speaking, we strongly recommend that you use a headset. I recommend the headset for your fellow members, but also for the interpreters as it gets loud, up and down, and it squeaks. It really does make it difficult for them if you do not have the prescribed headsets. We'll go on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we will proceed to presenting petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. World Maternal Mental Health Day took place last week, and today I'd like to take a moment to present a very important petition on behalf of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative. Whereas perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are the most common obstetrical complication, whereas in Canada and worldwide 20% of women and 10% of men suffer from a perinatal mental illness, resulting in an annual economic cost to Canada of approximately $11 billion, and whereas the U.K., Australia and parts of the U.S. have perinatal mental health strategies and screening guidelines in place and Canada does not, the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative is calling upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to create a national perinatal mental health strategy that will provide direction, policy and funding to develop specialized, comprehensive perinatal mental health care services, which include universal screening and timely access to treatment for all women and men during pregnancy and the postpartum period. +Mr. Scott Reid (LanarkFrontenacKingston, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My petition relates to cystic fibrosis. If we were in the House now, as May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, one of the days this month we would all be wearing yellow roses in sympathy and solidarity with those who suffer from what is the number one disease killer in Canada of young people. The petitioners have asked us to look at the situation with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which is scheduled to go through some important and potentially detrimental regulatory changes very soon. They ask that the amendments to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board be rescinded, as these will restrict Canadians from receiving life-saving medications for cystic fibrosis and other illnesses, but in particular, a medicine called Trikafta, which can have the effect of treating cystic fibrosis in the case of 90% of cystic fibrosis sufferers. They ask the government to work with the provinces to find a strategy to jointly allow for the delivery of this life-saving medicine to Canadians across the country and to take a leadership role in negotiating a price for gene modulators throughout all the provinces of Canada. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to take the mike today, with all colleagues here. It's good to see you all virtually and safe. Petitioners in my community point out in this petition, which, of course, predates the pandemic, that the family doctor shortage is severe in this country. Nearly five million Canadians lack a regular family doctor. This problem is particularly profound in more rural areas, including, as the petitioners reference, the community in which I live, Sydney, British Columbia. We have a very significant crisis and a lack of family doctors. The petitioners call on the government to work with provinces and territories to find a collaborative, holistic solution so that every Canadian has a family doctor and we address the family doctor shortage. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Good morning, Mr. Chair. I'm presenting a timely petition today that emphasizes the concerns constituents in my riding of MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon have with the Liberal government's inherently flawed and undemocratic approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed RCMP-vetted Canadians; to focus taxpayer dollars where they will actually increase public safety, which is on keeping at-risk youth from being involved in gangs and on anti-gang enforcement; and to provide our men and women in uniform at the Canada Border Services Agency with the resources they need to stop the flow of illegal guns into this country. Through this petition, my constituents take issue with how the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal weapons smugglers responsible for the violence in our communities. They note that the use of the phrase military-style assault rifle is purely political posturing, as the term is undefined in Canadian law. They also draw attention to the numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation +The Chair: I'd like to remind the honourable members that this is a concise prcis of what a petition says, not a speech. I'll let Mr. Vis continue. I'm sure he'll be very brief in wrapping up. +Mr. Brad Vis: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's sufficient. +The Chair: Okay. Now we'll go to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a huge honour to table e-petition 2512, which was signed by 1,198 petitioners, primarily from the province of Nova Scotia. The Province of Nova Scotia invited multinational companies to scope out and develop expansive open-net salmon farming operations. The petitioners cite that the expansion would increase environmental degradation, as seen in similar aquaculture operations in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Norway, Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. It also, they cite, would pose risks to native fish stocks, pollute coastal ecosystems, impair at-risk wild Atlantic salmon, and threaten established fisheries and tourism operations. They also raise concerns that open-net fish farming would not create significant employment and would undermine existing lobster and other fisheries. They are calling on the government to uphold Bill C-68 and species-at-risk legislation, protect our oceans, ban expansion of open-net finfish aquaculture in our oceans, work to phase out any existing open-net fish farming operations currently in place and, lastly, invest in land-based, closed-containment finfish aquaculture. I want to thank these petitioners for fighting for clean oceans, for their local economy and for the well-being of Nova Scotia. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This petition was signed and sent in by constituents of my riding of NanaimoLadysmith. It calls upon the House of Commons to commit to upholding the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by immediately halting all existing and planned construction of the Coastal GasLink project on Wet'suwet'en territory, ordering the RCMP to dismantle its exclusion zone and stand down, scheduling nation-to-nation talks between the Wet'suwet'en nation and the federal and provincial governmentssomething that has already happened, thankfullyand prioritizing the real implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have the pleasure of presenting a petition on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East. The petitioners are asking that the Government of Canada not provide any financial assistance to Canadian airlines until they promptly provide full refunds for flights that were cancelled due to COVID-19. They are asking the same for any foreign airlines that fly to, within or from Canada. The petitioners feel that these Canadians are facing economic hardship and need a refund. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to questioning ministers. The first question will go to Mr. Albas. +Mr. Dan Albas (Central OkanaganSimilkameenNicola, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today we've learned that federal workers have been told to ignore obvious signs of fraud when it comes to applying for government benefits. Can the Prime Minister confirm that 200,000 applications have been flagged as potentially fraudulent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority from the beginning has been to make sure that Canadians get the support they need. We moved very quickly to get the Canada emergency response benefit out, to get the wage subsidy out and to help Canadians in this unprecedented situation. We recognize there will be challenges, and we are going to work through those challenges. Our priority every step of the way was to make sure we helped as many Canadians as possible. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, can the Prime Minister confirm that the instruction has been given to federal employees to ignore these 200,000 applications being flagged as potentially fraudulent? This is important. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our focus has been on helping as many people as we possible can. Our decision from the very beginning was to get the help out to people and figure out, with retroactive action if necessary, where and when there may have been fraudulent use. Our priority was getting that help out. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, this came from a memo issued by a deputy minister. Did the minister's office or the Prime Minister sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Again, in this unprecedented situation, our focus has been on helping as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. Other parties might have made a different choice had they been in government, but our focus was getting help to people when they needed it as quickly as possible and cleaning it up afterwards. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, I asked a very simple question. Did the Prime Minister or his minister sign off on this memo that was issued by the deputy minister, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we have been focused entirely on getting help to Canadians when they need it, and that has meant that yes, there will be things we will need to clean up after the fact and work to fix, but getting that help into Canadians' pockets during this pandemic was our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: I'm asking the Prime Minister to show some accountability. Did he or his office sign off on this memo? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, my office and I have been absolutely focused on getting the necessary help to Canadians. Perhaps, as Mr. Albas points out, other parties would have been slower to get the money out. We were flowing money to people who needed it. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the question was quite simple. Obviously the Prime Minister doesn't seem comfortable with the answer. Will he at least then commit to investigating every individual case of fraud, or will he write them off, as the story said? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, in this unprecedented situation Canadians have lost their jobs; they've lost their paycheques; they don't know how they're going to be able to support their loved ones and pay for their groceries. We made a decision as a country that we would be there for them and that has been and will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Dan Albas: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister can leave the cottage talk for the cottage. We're asking a very simple question here. Will he commit as a government to enforce the rule of law and to enforce the attestation that says that if someone commits fraud, the fraud will be pursued? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: My commitment as Prime Minister and as a government is to support and protect Canadians. That is what we are doing by giving them the support they need through this unprecedented situation. Perhaps other parties don't think it's important to support Canadians. We will keep focused on supporting Canadians. +Mr. Dan Albas: That's not what I'm asking here, Mr. Chair. The Conservatives supported the legislation that allowed those supports to go through. What we are asking about is fraud. All along we've been told fraud would be detected through audits after the fact, and we expect that to happen. Can the Prime Minister at least confirm that this will happen? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: When we made the determination that we needed to move quickly to help Canadians, we knew there would be a need to clean up after the fact, to go after fraudulent cases. We will do that. Our priority now and in the coming months is to ensure Canadians get the support they need, and our economy comes roaring back. That's what we're focused on. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the large employer emergency financing facility. That's good. What's even better is that he announced that the loans would be tied to conditions. One of those conditions forces companies not to resort to tax evasion or tax avoidance through tax havens. Excellent! Unfortunately, I quickly became disillusioned because it is more about abusive tax evasion and avoidance. Basically, we're talking about fraudsters. There are no conditions that would allow us to tighten the screws on profiteers. Companies that legally take advantage of tax havens to avoid paying their taxes will have access to the large employer emergency financing facility. Why does the Prime Minister continue to support the profiteers? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will always be there to counter tax evasion and tax avoidance. It's a priority of our government. There is no tolerance for tax evasion and tax avoidance. In the current situation, our priority is to help workers across the country who could lose their jobs or who have lost their jobs. That's why we are introducing measures that support workers, who will continue to be our priority. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'm delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that there's no tolerance for tax avoidance. The problem is that his remarks don't reflect reality. Tax avoidance is the legal use of tax havens. The five big Bay Street banks benefit from this, as do the big multinationals. It's time to tighten the screws on these companies. They have to pay their share. Will the Prime Minister and his government outlaw what is immoral? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, when we announced the large employer emergency funding facility, we recognized that those who wanted to receive tax dollars had to have paid their fair share of taxes. That's why we're putting in place measures to carefully assess the tax structures of these businesses before we loan money to them. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, sometimes a bank will relocate its most profitable activities carried out in Canada and register them in a subsidiary in the Bahamas, Barbados or another tax haven. Does the Prime Minister consider this bank to be paying its fair share of taxes in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we will assess applications for the large employer emergency funding facility on a case-by-case basis. We don't expect the big banks to need these funds. Before we provide any money, we're going to make sure that whoever wants to access these funds is transparent about how the money is being managed, including internationally. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, I'll change the subject now. Consumers are paying more and more with their credit cards, which allows contactless payments in shops, not to mention online shopping. This benefits Visa and Mastercard, which charge appallingly high user fees, known as interchange fees. These are almost 10times higher than in Europe and Australia, and it costs our merchants a fortune. Can the Prime Minister follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping interchange fees at0.3%? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are always looking for ways to reduce costs for consumers. We have worked with the big banks and the financial industry to ensure that people who need it have access to the help they need. We're reassessing how we can lower costs for consumers. Right now, we're sending money to consumers across the country who need it to get through this crisis. That's what we'll continue to focus on. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the question doesn't concern consumers, but merchants. A credit card company, such as Visa and Mastercard, that charges a fee of 2.5%to3% per transaction undermines the merchant's profit margin and gets richer at the expense of consumers. I invite the Prime Minister to follow the example of Europe and Australia by capping these fees at0.3%. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we continue to work with financial institutions and the big banks to help consumers during this exceptional and difficult situation. Of course, there are some things we can look at over the longer term as well. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Instead of providing a universal direct payment for all, the government has decided to implement a complicated program that leaves many people behind. A single parent with four school-age children lost her spousal and child support due to COVID-19. She pays taxes on her spousal income, but she is not eligible for CERB. The Minister of Employment said that she is looking into this gap. It has been weeks, and still no action. Will the Prime Minister step in and fix this gap so that the single parents and their children can get the support they need during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I'm happy, Mr. Chair, to correct the honourable member by pointing out that we actually moved in the most rapid and simplest possible way in providing income replacement to millions upon millions of Canadians who needed it through the Canada emergency response benefit. However, as the member points out, when one moves quickly and efficiently, there will be gaps, and that's why we've been working diligently to try to fill those gaps. We want to make sure that Canadians who need help, get it. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: While the Minister of Employment has been aware of this for three weeks and says she is looking into it, there's still been no action. The truth of the matter is that single parents and their children who depend on spousal support and child maintenance are not getting support. Will the Prime Minister fix this gap? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We recognize the particular challenge faced by families, single parents and families with young children, which is why we increased the amount of the Canada child benefit to be able to support people in this particular moment. On top of that, we have looked to fill further gaps that have existed with the Canada emergency response benefit. Well over seven million Canadians have access to CERB, and we will continue to work with them +Ms. Jenny Kwan: That does not replace spousal support and child maintenance, Prime Minister. Across the country there is no national standard to address the homelessness crisis amidst this pandemic, leaving communities at heightened risk from COVID-19. Canadians who are homeless or living in substandard housing have no access to bathroom facilities for basic hygiene. Those living in crowded SROs and shelters cannot practise social distancing. The problem is particularly acute in my riding in the Downtown Eastside. While the B.C. government has implemented an initiative to house some of the homeless population in empty hotels in the short term, support from the federal government is needed to secure permanent solutions post-COVID-19. Will the Prime Minister commit to providing matching funds and take the right to adequate housing seriously? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I know that the honourable member wouldn't want to inadvertently mislead the House. The fact is, the federal government almost immediately sent significant resources, hundreds of millions of dollars, to shelters across the country to enable them to create facilities, including renting new spaces, to be able to house homeless people without increasing the danger of the spread of COVID-19. I recognize there's always more to do, but as we demonstrated with our national housing strategy, we are serious about fighting homelessness and supporting vulnerable Canadians, and we will continue to do that. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The Prime Minister must know that the money the federal government sent is deficient. Many people still remain homeless, and they are at risk. Cutting chronic homelessness by 50% over the next decade is not good enough, and that is this Prime Minister's national housing strategy. Will the government stop just making empty promises and ensure that every Canadian has the right to housing? Will he top up the support for provinces to at least match their funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, cutting chronic homelessness by 50% is an ambitious goal that no one else has ever been able to do as a government, and we are well on track for it. I would suggest that the member opposite not dismiss that as an empty promise, because we have demonstrated actions on it. I recognize there is more to do. There is always more to do. We will be there and continue to be there for vulnerable people, including homeless Canadians. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I would remind the Prime Minister that it was the federal Liberals who eliminated the national affordable housing program in 1993, so we have this homeless crisis today as a result of the Liberals. We in Vancouver East have the third-largest urban indigenous population in the country, yet we got less than 2% of the pandemic urban indigenous housing funding. They're overrepresented among the homeless population. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we recognize there is more to do in supporting urban indigenous people. We have moved forward, both through the Minister of Indigenous Services and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, to address the challenges facing urban aboriginal populations. We will continue to work with them, recognizing that they are among the most vulnerable people in Canada who deserve the right support from all orders of government, and we will be there to support them increasingly in the coming years. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen (PortageLisgar, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm hearing in my riding of PortageLisgar that individuals who are dealing with Service Canada through the mail are experiencing delays. It seems that the mail that's going to Service Canada has not been opened. In fact, one of my constituents sent documents, including a doctor's note, two months ago on March 12 and is now being told that she must resend them because they've never been opened. Can the government tell us whether this is a widespread problem, and how are they dealing with unopened mail at Service Canada? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we are doing everything that we can in Service Canada to meet the expectations of Canadians. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had unprecedented volumes, but we have redeployed thousands of staff to front-line services by phone and by other means. We had to close a number of the centres because of COVID-19 concerns and the safety and well-being of Canadians. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Is the minister aware whether this is a widespread problem? Is this happening rarely, or frequently? I'm hearing about it. I know, from many MPs, we are at the front lines of dealing with and helping constituents who are not only wanting to get support but also are trying to get programs unrelated to COVID-19. Is unopened mail a widespread problem at Service Canada? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to look into the particular case that the honourable member brings up. I am not aware of unopened mail being a widespread issue. I'm happy to work with the honourable member to see what happened in this individual case. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Thanks very much. Mr. Chair, the Iver Johnson single-shot rifle is a standard farm gun used by many farmers in my riding, in fact, passed down from generation to generation in some cases. Why are the Liberals making this gun illegal? What's the purpose of banning this particular farm rifle? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wish to advise the member that we worked very closely with the Canadian firearms program, with law enforcement and with their firearms verification to identify the makes, models and variants of nine rifles, all of which had in their earliest provenance a design for military use, for soldiers to use in combat. Those are the weapons that have been +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Bergen. +Hon. Candice Bergen: I would challenge the minister on that. I do not believe that he has been consulting with front-line officers. We're hearing from front-line officers that they are concerned about gangs, drug dealers and illegal weapons being smuggled across the border. They are not concerned with these types of farm rifles that are being used by our farmers and, in some cases, hunters. These are specifically used for hunting. So, Mr. Chair, we'd like to see the evidence on why the Liberals are once again targeting law-abiding Canadians, ignoring gangsters and drug dealers. Why are they banning the Iver Johnson? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a great opportunity, I think, when the member opposite says what the police are saying. Let's hear what the police are saying. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police declared that military assault rifles were produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and urged the government to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles, except for law enforcement and military purposes. The Ontario police leaders said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed rifles. They said, In our view, these weapons have no place in our communities and should be reserved for use by Canada's military and law enforcement. +The Chair: Ms. Bergen, we have about 50 seconds left. +Hon. Candice Bergen: Mr. Chair, we've seen this before, where the Liberals introduced a long-gun registry that cost billions of dollars and did absolutely nothing to stop violent crimes. This is a repeat of what the Liberals have done before. Is the minister saying that the Iver Johnson that farmers use is an assault rifle? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, what I'm saying, and what our regulations say very clearly, is that weapons that were designed not for hunting and not for sport purposes but for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers have no place in Canadian society. I would also advise the member that any Canadian killed by gun violence is one too many. We have far too many tragedies where these types of weapons have been used to kill Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Rayes. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. Is it true that Canada Revenue Agency employees who process applications for the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, have been asked to send the payment even if fraud had been detected, as was pointed out in a national media report today? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, our government considers these to be very difficult times for Canadians. We're going to do everything we can to support them by helping them pay for their housing and their groceries. I'm very proud of the public servants who work at the Canada Revenue Agency. Nearly sevenmillion +Mr. Alain Rayes: I repeat my question, which is extremely simple: Is it true that the Canada Revenue Agency sent a memo to its employees asking them to ignore the fraudsters and still send the CERB payments?? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: I'll finish my response, which was interrupted: Nearly 7.8million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit. The priority is for Canadians to be able to pay for their groceries and their housing. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Yes or no: Did the Canada Revenue Agency send a memo to its employeeswho are doing an exceptional job, I'd like to point outso that they would ignore the 200,000potential cases of fraud that they detected? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: The answer is no. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The CERB has been distributed since March25, so for seven weeks now. The federal government website clearly states that if an employee returns to work, the employee must pay back the CERB. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether employees who decide to return to work have to pay back the full $2,000per month, or only $500for week of the month? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: As I mentioned, we believe that Canadians are going through a very difficult time, and we need to support them. We need to help people pay for their groceries and their housing. That's what our government is committed to, and that's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, the extremely simple question I am asking the Minister comes from companies and workers. None of the officials dares to answer it when we call on technical matters, even though they are supposed to give us information that we can pass on to the public with complete transparency. So let me repeat my question; I don't think there can be a simpler one. The answer will benefit the workers and the companies that want access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy. If an employee is called back to workwhich is perfectly fineagrees to do so and wants to reimburse the CERB, must he reimburse $500for each week he works during the month, or the entire $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can clarify that Service Canada will work closely with anybody who transitions either from the CERB to the wage subsidy or from the CERB back to employment to ensure that there's no overpayment, but of course that there's no undue hardship on the individual. +Mr. Alain Rayes: That announcement was made seven weeks ago. The workers want to know how much they have to reimburse. The companies want to know the situation so that they can make decisions on salary assistance. It seems to me that my question is not complicated: do people have to reimburse $500for each week they work in a month, or the full monthly amount of $2,000? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that will depend on the individual circumstances of the particular worker. That's why Service Canada is reaching out to individuals to make it as seamless as possible for them. I can assure the member that nobody will be put in a difficult situation. I recognize that there is some uncertainty, but we're trying to address that. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes, you have 35seconds left. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The answers that we are getting today are incredible. This is unacceptable, in my view. If an employer complies with the hygiene conditions, can employees still refuse to return to work, and therefore continue to receive the CERB? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure all Canadians that at the same time as employees have a right to refuse work and employers have an obligation to ensure healthy and safe workplaces, we want all people to be able to go back to work and feel safe. There are established processes and federal and provincial labour processes for refusal to work, and at the end of the day the CERB is there for workers who aren't working due to COVID-19. +The Chair: We're going to have to go on from here. The next question will come from Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs and community members have been excluded from negotiations on a memorandum of understanding affecting land rights and titles. Only a few hereditary chiefs have been part of these secret negotiations. The elected chiefs have issued a press release asking for the government to halt the joint announcement scheduled for May 14 on the MOU until the community has had a chance to look at and understand how the MOU will affect them. Will the minister agree with the democratically elected chiefs and the Wet'suwet'en people they represent and delay any announcement until proper consultation can be completed? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I want to reassure the member that communication is ongoing with and between our partners on how to go forward on implementing the Wet'suwet'en rights and title with a Wet'suwet'en-led solution. We encourage the leaders to continue their ongoing, necessary and important conversations with their community on how they want to proceed on a path toward implementing their rights and title. As we work to rebuild Canada's relationship with the Wet'suwet'en, we need to give them space for these important discussions. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Minister, is that a yes that the signing will be delayed until the elected chiefs have a chance to look at the agreement? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I believe the elected chiefs have had a look at the agreement. These are very difficult conversations on complex issues around rights and title. This has been outstanding for a long time +Mr. Jamie Schmale: The current health crisis should not be used as an opportunity to sideline the Wet'suwet'en people and their elected chiefs. The federal government should be bringing the community together rather than actively excluding Wet'suwet'en members. The chiefs are so concerned that they are now calling for the resignation of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations for failure to engage in proper consultations, which has stoked divisions within the community. Will the minister reconsider and put in place a consultation process that honours both their traditional house system and the governance responsibilities of elected chiefs and councils? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Yet again, it's very important the member understand the engagement must take place and be led by the Wet'suwet'en nation. That means the elected chiefs and the hereditary chiefs need to work with all clan members as they determine how they wish to work with Canada and the Province of British Columbia to implement the rights and title of the Wet'suwet'en people. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I agree that the Wet'suwet'en should have the opportunity to look at the proposed agreement, but we are still seeing news coming out of the elected chiefs and the people they represent that they have not had a thorough chance to look at this proposed agreement. Will the minister delay the signing? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member will agree that there's a lot more work to do with all the parties. I believe, in terms of the kind of engagement that has taken place in the feast houses and the notification that took place even before COVID-19, that the work is under way and it will have to be Wet'suwet'en-led in terms of what eventually will be their choice as to how they implement their rights and title. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, for two weeks now the Liberals on the indigenous affairs committee have shut down Conservatives and witnesses every time we mention the word Wet'suwet'en. They don't want to talk about the issue, an issue that is very much aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. The Liberals profess to be the advocates for indigenous communities and the champions of reconciliation. Can the minister tell us why the Liberals are determined to shut down discussion and public debate? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I would have to disagree with the member. I don't believe that there's, at any time, an interest in shutting down discussion or debate. I think, though, that at the COVID committee the issues facing indigenous communities, first nations, Inuit and Mtis around COVID-19 are very important to them. We need to work with them to make sure they can keep their communities safe. +The Chair: Mr. Schmale, you have 30 seconds. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: I would argue with the minister and challenge her to talk to her committee members. Each time Conservatives have brought up the topic of the Wet'suwet'en and the situation happening with the elected chiefs and the people they represent, we have been shut down every single time. When will the minister allow the public debate to happen? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, in a committee, it is the work of the committee and the decision of the committee. I believe the chair and all members want first nations, Inuit and Mtis to be able to keep their communities safe during COVID-19. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It has been three months since this pandemic started and the Liberals just got around to announcing help for seniors. Seniors are a priority and should be treated as such. Why do the Liberals treat seniors as an afterthought? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Thank you very much. There is definitely an interest in and support for our seniors. We've been working to support seniors since the very beginning of this pandemic. I've just had the opportunity to introduce additional measures today wherein we are introducing a one-time special payment for those who receive OAS. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: Nearly two months into living in some form of isolation, watching their retirement savings take a hit and having to take additional health precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, eligible seniors are set to receive a one-time payment of up to $500. Why does this government consistently undervalue seniors compared with everyone else? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to make sure that my honourable colleague remembers that we have already given a GST top-up of almost $375 for single seniors and over $500 for couples. This is in addition to what we've just done today where, as you said, it's $500. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Abacus Data, 69% of Canadians feel that there will be a second wave in the pandemic, and 52% of Canadians believe that there is a shortage of medical equipment, including personal protective equipment. Given these surprising figures, what is the government's plan to bring in enough personal protective equipment, should there be a second wave of the pandemic? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Our government is aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies that Canada needs, from a diverse range of suppliers around the world and here at home. We're working directly with businesses across the country to rapidly scale up domestic production capacity to meet current and future needs. At this point, our primary focus is on front-line health care professionals, but we are also exploring federal government assistance in areas of essential services so that PPE exists where workers need it. We are following public health guidance on this issue in looking to see where we can best assist. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: According to Public Services and Procurement Canada, despite 1.8 billion units of PPE being procured, less than 6% of N95 respirator orders have been filled, less than 8% of surgical mask orders have been filled, and just 1.4% of face shield orders have been filled. We know that orders are not deliveries, so what's the delay? +Hon. Anita Anand: Let me start by saying that we are working in an incredibly difficult and competitive global environment and are procuring millions of items: face shields, gowns, hand sanitizer, and N95 surgical masks, and ventilators every single day. There is a delay in the production of these goods, but we have had many deliveries coming into Canada, including over two million face shields +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Mrs. Kusie. +Mrs. Stephanie Kusie: A national security expert from the University of Ottawa has said that the national emergency strategic stockpile has failed in the current crisis, resulting in some provinces such as Saskatchewan using expired PPE, and provinces such as Alberta using faulty PPE that cause rashes and headaches. What is the government doing to expedite procurement and to counter the risk of faulty PPE, given that 34 of the suppliers are from China, which has already supplied significant faulty PPE? +Hon. Anita Anand: I will start by saying that we have multiple supply chains operating at the same time, from China, and domestically, and from the United States and other countries around the world. Our first priority is to make sure that we get safe, effective equipment and supplies into the hands of our front-line health care workers. Given the global supply chains and their competitive nature, this is an ongoing project and we are having success for our front-line health care workers. +The Chair: We'll now go on to the next question from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Ten weeks ago the Minister of Fisheries, in responding to my question in question period, acknowledged that the lobster fishery was being negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and was facing losses of up to 95% of its Asian markets. Mr. Chair, on April 28 I asked the minister what she was doing to support harvesters who were left out of the $62.5 million aid package. She mentioned that she was looking at sector-specific areas to make sure that the issues were addressed. Can the minister tell us what the government's plan is to directly support seafood harvesters? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleague for that very good question. We know that the fish and seafood sector has been extremely adversely affected because of COVID-19. We've started to put measures in place to address the issue with the $62.5 million for processors, as well as to make sure that the CERB is available for seasonal workers as well as people who have run out of their fishery EI, but we know that more needs to be done. The fishery enterprises are uniquely structured, which is why we're looking at measures to address the concerns they have. I'm working with my provincial colleagues, as well as my caucus colleagues. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, most fishermen are not eligible for the wage subsidy program due to the stipulation that it cannot be used for employees who are related to their employer. Most fishing enterprises, like farm enterprises, are family oriented. Many fishermen have their wives, their sons, their uncles or their fathers working for them, and sometimes it's the whole family on the boat. Can the minister explain what the government's plan is to support fishermen who do not fit into any actual program and who desperately need direct financial help from the federal government to survive? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that, because of the unique structure of fishing enterprises, they are not eligible for many of the supports we have put in place. We have made changes to the CERB to make sure that people who run out of the fishers EI are eligible as well as seasonable workers. We know that more needs to be done for the harvesters directly. We are working on direct supports. We have put in place measures to address processors' concerns so that harvesters continue to have a place to sell their product. We know that more has to be done. I am working with my cabinet colleagues to find solutions, and I hope I will have more to say about that very soon. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: In recent weeks, lobster fishermen in the gulf region of the Maritimes were shocked to read an additional subsection of regulations that was added to their fishing conditions for the 2021 fishing season. This addition was for a catch limitation or quota to which none of the harvesters or advisory members were privy. This created quite a chill within the lobster fishery, for sure. Can the minister tell us how these detailed regulations managed to get added without her authorization, and can licence-holders expect to see these same regulations in their conditions when their season gets going in the future? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the people who brought to my attention the conditions that were put on licences in the gulf. Those were not done under my authorization. They were removed right away from the condition of licence, and they will not happen. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: My next question is for the Minister of Health. Mr. Chair, on Wednesday, February 26, after the death of 23-year-old Chantelle Lindsay from Nova Scotia due to complications from cystic fibrosis, I asked the Prime Minister whether the government was going to make Trikafta, which might have saved Chantelle's life, available to Canadians. Now that almost 12 weeks have passed, we understand that Vertex Pharmaceuticals has not yet applied to Health Canada for study. Many of my Conservative colleagues and I have recently sent a letter to the minister asking for an update on how we support those negotiations with Vertex. Can the Minister of Health tell us when this drug will be available to CF patients in Canada? +The Chair: Honourable minister, the floor is yours. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My heart goes out to the family of Chantelle, who are obviously suffering an unbearable loss. I agree with the member that we want to make sure that effective drugs are available in Canada. As the member has pointed out, Vertex has not applied to sell Trikafta in Canada. However, there is the special access program that makes drugs like Trikafta available. In fact, the majority of people who have applied through the special access program to get access to the drug have received access. I would encourage the member to continue his correspondence with the manufacturer, as will we. +The Chair: Mr. d'Entremont, you have 36 seconds. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the tourism season is already deeply affected by COVID-19. A number of industries, businesses and festivals are having to deal with considerable losses of income. In my constituency, tens of thousands of tourists use the ferry between Bar Harbor, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. What is the government planning to do to help the ferry to survive and to resume service next season, if the borders remain closed this summer? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): I have had the opportunity to speak to my colleague Mr.d'Entremont about solutions to assist people in the tourism sector all over the country, and particularly in the Atlantic region. In light of the new funding for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ACOA, I will be happy to work with him and with the leaders of the tourism sector. +The Chair: Mr.Savard-Tremblay, the floor is now yours. +Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-HyacintheBagot, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Despite all the upheaval it causes, the crisis we are experiencing, considerable in scope though it is, can also be an opportunity to begin a transition. What is essential in normal times may, during a crisis, become crucial. What is unjust may, in times of crisis, become frankly scandalous. In Quebec, we are generally allergic to blatant injustice and inequality. Yesterday, Ottawa announced new support for large companies. Many of us in Quebec feel that, when a company knocks on the state's door to ask for assistance, it is totally legitimate for the state to impose conditions before providing its support. We in the Bloc Qubcois feel that there should be a limit, a ceiling, on the assistance provided to large companies, in order to avoid abuses in executive compensation. That is also the prevalent position in Quebec. A few years ago, after the Bombardier affair in QuebecI will not dwell on that because Quebecers are all too familiar with itthree of the four political parties that sat in the National Assembly and that still sit these took a position of that kind. A number of civil society groups in Quebec share it also. The United States, which, you will agree, is no bastion of socialism, has already implemented similar policies for periods of crisis. The idea is to offer support, but with conditions. According to a report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on January2, the 100highest-paid CEOs in Canada earned 227times more in 2018 than the average worker. The average salary for workers increased by 2.6% between 2017 and 2018. Given that inflation was then at 2.3%, it can be said that there was practically no increase. By contrast, the salary increase for CEOs in the same period was 18%, even in cases where the companies suffered losses. Let us be clear that we were not in a crisis when that study was conducted. We cannot even imagine what the figures are today. At this point, we are no longer talking about a gap but an abyss. Wealth is concentrated at the top of the pyramid, but clearly does not flow down to the base. Does the government intend to put a ceiling on executive compensation to ensure that they are not the only ones to profits from the support at this time of crisis? The question is clear and I am asking you to give me a clear answer. If I don't get one, I am going to have to demand a new version of the Clarity Act. +The Chair: The honourable Minister has the floor. I would also like to remind members to ask their questions through the Chair +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We know that our approach has to help small and medium-size companies, but also large companies in order to provide a bridge to the end of the crisis. In our opinion, that is very important. It will protect the jobs of Canadians and the future of our economy. That's why the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility is very important. That said, we know that it is necessary and important to impose conditions. Yes, we do want to make sure that the facility is available for companies that are going to continue to support our economy, to protect their employees, and to make a significant contribution to our communities. That is why we have attached a number of major conditions to our approach. We will have more details on the subject in the coming days. We established from the outset that we had to impose conditions on executive compensation. That is very important. We are going to consider the rules and conditions that are needed in order for the facility to be available to the companies, the operations and the employees. Of course, conditions are required to ensure that the facility is available for operations, not for dividends or share buybacks, for example. We will impose conditions of that kind. We also want to make sure that we are aware of the situation the companies are in. For example, we want to be sure that they are not engaged in tax evasion. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Sgro. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. I will be sharing my time with the member for KingsHants. Canadian seniors are worried about COVID-19. In my own riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek, 30% of the population are 65 or older. We know they are one of the highest risk populations. During this time, their costs have gone up. They have had to spend extra on medication and grocery delivery, as many cannot leave their homes. I have also heard of many seniors who are facing extra dispensing fees. These costs all add up, and many seniors were already carefully budgeting before the pandemic. It is so important that our government be there to support them. Can the minister please tell us what our government is doing to ensure that vulnerable seniors get the support they need during this very difficult time? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Deb Schulte: My colleague is right. Seniors have faced increased costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and our government today has responded to that with additional action. We announced a one-time, tax-free payment of $300 for seniors eligible for OAS and an additional $200 for seniors eligible for GIS. This means there will be up to $500 for the most vulnerable seniors to help them with their financial security to get through this challenging time. Beyond this, we announced $20 million to expand the new horizons for seniors program to kick-start initiatives and services that will help seniorsfor example, to get grocery deliveries right to their door and to stay connected. We've worked tirelessly on this as well as on other recent measures like the GST credit to help the most vulnerable seniors. Thank you to my colleague for her advocacy. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): You have 30 seconds left, Ms. Sgro. Go ahead with a short question and a response. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to applaud the minister for that work. I know she's been working extremely hard to make sure that we get some additional announcements over and above all of the ones we have already made, so congratulations. Keep up the work. You know there is lots more we want to do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Please give a short response. Go ahead. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much to my honourable colleague for her advocacy. Thanks for everyone's advocacy. Seniors across the country have been communicating with us and letting us know their needs, and we have been responding. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now I'll go over to Mr. Blois. Go ahead. +Mr. Kody Blois (KingsHants, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a privilege to have a chance to speak on issues that matter to Canadians, whether it's from the floor of the House of Commons or, indeed, from my house here in Nova Scotia. It's great to see everyone across the country. Like my colleagues, I'd like to thank the staff of the House of Commons for their continued work to make sure that we have this forum to be able to continue the democratic process. I would also quickly like to thank my staff both here locally in KingsHants and in Ottawa for their continued work for my constituents. Mr. Chair, my question through you is to the minister of agriculture. In KingsHants, agriculture is an important economic driver for our economy. We have the greatest concentration of agriculture producers east of Montreal. From our beef industry to our wine industry and everything in-between, it is extremely important. We have the Kentville Research and Development Centre and the Hants County agricultural exhibition, the longest-standing exhibition in North America. We know that COVID-19 has had impacts on the agriculture industry to differing degrees. In particular, KingsHants is home to an important dairy sector. We also have a growing and important horticulture sector. Can the minister specifically provide an update to the House on the measures our government has taken on those two particular commodity groups that are so important in my riding? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are targeting support to some of the most critical challenges facing the food supply chain. Last Tuesday I was proud to announce our emergency processing fund for a total of $77.5 million, $50 million for the surplus food program and $125 million through AgriRecovery to support our beef and pork producers. Concerning the dairy sector in particular, I'm hopeful that tomorrow we will get the support of all of the parties to be able to respond to their request for an increase in their loan capacity from $300 million to $500 million. I would like to encourage all farmers to apply to the business risk management programs, including AgriStability, for which we have improved some of the mechanisms. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go on with questions, but I'll also just ask Mr. Blois to excuse me for mispronouncing his name. Let's go now to Mr. Masse for Windsor West. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP): During the COVID-19 pandemic, the State of Michigan has become an epicentre of the outbreak. The city of Detroit alone has more deaths than the entire province of Ontario. The border communities of Sarnia and Windsor have higher per capita infection rates than the rest of the province. Next week, the border restrictions between the U.S. and Canada expire. With the premiers of B.C., Quebec and Ontario opposing the opening of the border at this time, will the restrictions be extended, or is the Prime Minister discussing changing the restrictions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me assure the honourable member that, first and foremost, all decisions about Canada's border are taken by Canadians and with the health and safety of Canadians first and foremost in mind. When it comes to the current agreement's coming up next week, we are in very close conversations with Americans about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: What changes are on the table? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just be clear that I didn't speak about any changes; I spoke about a very collaborative conversation with our American neighbours about next steps. +Mr. Brian Masse: Are you discussing any changes to the current status right now? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I found during the NAFTA negotiations that negotiations are best not conducted in public, but let me just assure Canadians that the health and safety of Canadians is first and foremost. Our government is taking a cautious approach, and we're working effectively. +Mr. Brian Masse: This is not negotiation. This is whether there are changes on the table. What are they? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say that I think the honourable member was actually seeking to know what exactly is being discussed with our American partners. Let me just say that we are taking a very cautious approach to the health and safety of Canadians. A very collaborative discussion is happening. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will more information be shared between your government and the American government on Canadians and Americans crossing the border on both sides? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm not sure what the member is alluding to, but let me just say that the current arrangements are working extremely well. Non-essential travel is down very sharply. Essential travel, particularly for trade, continues, and that's a good thing, too. +Mr. Brian Masse: With border communities having more rates of infection, will they receive additional PPE and financial assistance to deal with the loosening of current border restrictions that is being discussed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just emphasize to the honourable member that on a couple of occasions he has implied that a loosening of the current restrictions is being discussed. Let me be very clear that this is his assertion; I have not said that. +Mr. Brian Masse: Apparently, we're meeting for nothing. I'll move to the large commercial banks who are profiteering off or squeezing Canadians during this public crisis. Credit card interest rates are still high from previous price-gouging levels. Despite numerous favours from the Liberals, there have not been significant changes. Vancity Savings Credit Union demonstrated leadership when it set credit card rates at zero. Will the government use its statutory powers and force the banks to offer the credit card relief that Vancity has already done? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say that we recognize the challenges that Canadians face, especially with issues like credit card rates. That's exactly why we've been working on this issue since we came into office. We came to an agreement on interchange fees that was important for consumers. Most recently, during the COVID-19 crisis, we've negotiated with the banks and encouraged them, and they have come out with reductions in their credit card fees that are significant, and deferrals for customers +Mr. Brian Masse: Will you use your statutory powers, yes or no, to do what Vancity has done to help Canadian consumers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: As I've said, Mr. Chair, we're continuing to support consumers. We're continuing to work together with banks to make sure that they are giving the kind of support necessary to their customers, and we've seen actions in this regard, supporting customers. +Mr. Brian Masse: Why do banks have to profit at higher interest rates on Canadian consumer and retailer exchange rates during COVID-19? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think it's important to clarify that banks have come forward and given deferrals to customers in trouble and cut their interest by half Mr. Brian Masse: Not on credit cards. Hon. Bill Morneau: and that's been important on credit cards. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There's time for one more short question. Go ahead, Mr. Masse. +Mr. Brian Masse: Will the minister use his powers if the banks continue to charge Canadian consumers interest rates that are higher than Vancity's? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we will continue to work with banks to ensure that they're supporting their customers. What banks have done on credit cards by cutting their fees in half is an important nod in that direction. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Next, we have Jacques Gourde. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Quebec is Canada's biggest producer of hydroelectricity, a renewable energy that is the pride of the Quebec nation. The only problem is that it seems to be a tough sell west of Quebec, in Ontario, for instance. This competitively priced power could help us reduce our environmental footprint and further cut greenhouse gas emissions. Will the government show leadership and allow Canada's provinces to share renewable energy through an energy corridor, as we proposed? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we are continuing to work towards that end. It is always very important to protect Canadians, and we are going to stick to that approach. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, Canada's dairy processors have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis and the new CanadaU.S.Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Some of them have incurred losses ranging from 10% to 50%, depending on the processed product. Will the government commit to granting import permits under CUSMA to Canada's dairy processors, not retailers directly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that dairy producers will receive fair compensation. I should also point out that we preserved supply management when negotiating the new NAFTA. That is important to Canada and Quebec, and I'm very pleased that we were able to do that. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the minister seems to be missing the issue in hand. Canada's dairy processors invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year to bring high-quality products to consumers, while contributing $19billion to GDP. Now those very processors are being asked to try to export Canadian value-added products. Will the minister commit to giving Canada's dairy processors import permits, instead of encouraging American multinationals? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question. I fully understand, as we all do, the important role processors play in our system and our country. I can assure the members of the House that we will continue to work with Canadian processors as the agreement comes into force. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, when it comes to the COVID-19 crisis, what Canadians will remember is that those with access to reliable high-speed Internet will have fared better, feeling less financial strain, than those who are cut off from the rest of the world. Is the government ready to invest in making high-speed Internet available to all Canadians, no matter where they live in the country? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Yes, we are, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Jacques Gourde: Mr.Chair, the current economic situation could lead to the disappearance of Canada's tourism industry. The pain will be felt by thousands of Canadians, who will have to find new jobs in order to survive. Is the government going to protect the tourism-based economy by investing in tourism infrastructure and upgrades to ensure Canada's tourist regions are ready when the economy reopens? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: Ms. Joly, you have to switch to the French channel and turn on your microphone. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Yes, I look forward to working with my fellow member on this issue. I know the tourism sector is important to him and, especially, his constituents. Let's work together to find ways to get this hard-hit sector moving again. Many people have lost their jobs and need assistance from the government. That is why we're here, providing a helping hand at this difficult time so they can come out the other side. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Continuing with questions, we'll go to the honourable member for SaskatoonUniversity, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor (SaskatoonUniversity, CPC): Good afternoon, everybody. With respect to entering Canada, does the government consider spousal reunification as essential travel, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: The CBSA has exercised the appropriate discretion in determining when a non-Canadian citizen, who has no status in Canada, attempts to enter the country for any consideration considered non-essential. They are turned back because we have restrictions in place for non-essential travel. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully to the minister, you're letting down Canadians. People are being stranded, and you need to do better as a government. Changing gears a little, all Canadians would agree, or can agree, that the Prime Minister requires suitable accommodation. Why did the government simply not tell Canadians that the Harrington cottage needed to be rebuilt and massively expanded? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would ask the honourable members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand: The NCC is an independent Crown corporation. It recognizes the importance of the official residences it has jurisdiction over. The work at Harrington Lake is part of a broader program to preserve and maintain and restore all official residences under NCC management, and we will support the NCC in its important work. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Was there something in particular that this government did not want Canadians to know about the cottage, or is secrecy all this government knows how to do? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, this information was and has been public since 2018. There is no effort to hide any information from the public in this regard. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Respectfully, Canadians feel misled on this, and we're not clear on what the expenses were, how large an expansion it was +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, the honourable government House leader. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I believe this has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic, so the questions are out of order, in my opinion. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable government House leader for his comment. Certainly the scope of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic does expect and anticipate that the subject matter will be related to the matter at hand, so I would ask honourable members to continue to keep within those bounds. Of course, members will also know that we're unable to gauge that until members have spoken, so I would ask members to keep on subject. Let's go back to Mr. Tochor to finish his question, and we have about two minutes remaining in this spot. +Mr. Corey Tochor: Yes, thank you, Chair. The point I was making was about transparency or lack of transparency that is hurting our efforts with COVID-19. Changing gears onto CERB, who came up with the number for CERB? Why is it $2,000? A senior gets $1,200, people with disabilities get $1,600, and now we've added another ad hoc program on top of those. I'd like to know a little more about how and who came up with those unique numbers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Working collaboratively between ESDC and the Department of Finance, we determined that that would be an appropriate amount, based on what workers were earning and what we anticipated they would need to live on, and what we anticipated they would be losing by way of employment income. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Your last question, Mr. Tochor. +Mr. Corey Tochor: I have a really quick question, which I've heard in my office, on charities and non-profits that do not have their own payroll number and are ineligible for the wage subsidy. Does the Prime Minister have a program fix coming so that charities and non-profits can receive the wage subsidy? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we understand the important role that charities and non-profits are playing to help vulnerable Canadians at this difficult time. We have announced supports in the amount of $350 million to ensure that not only do they continue that great work, but also expand it to serve the most vulnerable to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Okay. We will move to the next questioner, Mr. Aboultaif from Edmonton Manning. Mr. Aboultaif, go ahead with your question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, last week markets were shocked when leaks regarding the state of our economy came to light before the market even opened. This caused worry to investors at home and abroad about the integrity of our markets and the nature of the leak, which is, in itself, unprecedented. Section 34 of the Statistics Act indicates the following: Every person who, after taking the oath set out in subsection 6, is guity of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to impreisonment for a term not exceeing five years or both: wilfully discloses or divulges directly or indirectly to any person not entitled under this Act to receive the same any information obtained by him in the course of his employment that might exert an influence on or affect the market value of any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article, or uses any information described in paragraph for the purpose of speculating in any stocks, bonds or other security or any product or article My question for the minister is this: Does the government consider this case to be subject to paragraph 34 or 34 and a criminal offence, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, my hon. colleague is absolutely right that the current situation with regard to the COVID crisis is deeply problematic, and we want to make sure that any information we share with the Canadian public with regard to economic measures or labour market numbers follows the appropriate process. The breach that occurred is completely unacceptable. Our government has denounced this breach. That breach was not the way to deal with such sensitive information. The member has alluded to several paragraphs within the Statistics Act. I can assure him that we are looking into this matter and that Statistics Canada is looking into this issue as well. Going forward, we will ensure that such a breach does not occur again, because it's important that we continue to have the confidence of Canadians during this current health care crisis. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Okay, I will take that as a yes. So this matter should be investigated, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: As I have indicated very clearly, what has happened is completely unacceptable. This breach should not have occurred. This matter is being looked into, and we want to assure Canadians going forward that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Mr. Aboultaif. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: In that case, the minister said the matter will be looked into. Basically, my understanding of this case is that Statistics Canada is going to investigate itself, or does the minister think that the government should refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Sorry, could you repeat that question? I had a bit of an issue and could not hear the question. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: Will Statistics Canada investigate itself or will the government refer this to the RCMP? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, there are appropriate protocols in place to look into such breaches. Those protocols will be followed, and the appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Aboultaif, you have about a minute left. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: The minister indicated that this will be investigated, but during the investigation into the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Liberal staff refused to co-operate. Will the minister commit today that all Liberal staff will co-operate with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, we've been clear that it's important that any such breach be taken seriously. What has happened is unacceptable, and we will ensure that the appropriate steps are taken to make sure that such breaches do not occur going forward. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question, Mr. Aboultaif. Go ahead. +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There's no doubt about the general terms, but I need to make sure that the government will commit that its staff will co-operate. Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: The process is very clear. The protocols are very clear. The law is very clear, and we will make sure that the process is followed and the law is upheld. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll continue. The next question will go to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I start my questions, I would like to thank the various ministers, parliamentary secretaries and the Speaker of the House for reaching out to me during the severe flooding in Fort McMurray. Your support during these trying times is much appreciated. The oil and gas industry is under severe strain. Over the past number of years, we have seen tremendous pressure on the federal government from anti-oil and gas lobby groups demanding that the oil sands be shut down. The federal Liberal government's response to the anti-oil lobby was the introduction of the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, which will prevent any major oil and gas projects from being developed in Canada; and the oil shipping ban, Bill C-48, for the northern coast of British Columbia, which also had a negative effect on the oil industry. These two bills alone pushed over $200 billion of investment out of Canada, causing the Alberta economy to retract to recession levels. To compound Alberta's economic problems, we have an international oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a huge drop in demand for oil. Mr. Chair, 48 days after the finance minister promised liquidity loans to oil producers and service companies, there are still no applications open for these loans. Can the honourable Minister of Natural Resources tell us when the Liberals will act on their promise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, I'm happy that we were able to announce today some liquidity measures for large cap corporations in the oil and gas sector. These measures will provide them with the liquidity that they needed, and this is also the liquidity that they asked for. It was on April 17 that we started liquidity measures for small and medium-sized businesses in the oil and gas industry, and those are the ones in which 85% of workers are affected. Today's measures will complete that. I'm very happy that we've had such people as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers come out and say that this is what they asked for and this is what they need, and we have produced what they need in order to ensure the future competitiveness of Canada's oil and gas sector. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, we have seen junior oil companies close their doors. The larger companies have sent contractors home and laid off employees. Many of these contractors are indigenous companies, and they are having a difficult time qualifying for programs to save their businesses. Can the honourable Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations inform us of the measures the government is taking to ensure there are no gaps in the current programs, and commit to review the eligibility criteria for owners of aboriginal businesses struggling to qualify for financial help? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, Canada's oil sector provides jobs for more than 576,000 people, including 11,000 indigenous people, in every part of Canada. It is essential that we support those businesses. It is essential that we support the many indigenous people who work in our oil and gas sector, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan. We have provided supports for those businesses, and we will continue to do so, also keeping in mind that in many of these communities the importance of public health and safety is foremost in our minds. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, western Canada oil storage is under extreme pressure. If thermal projects such as SAGD are shut down, those facilities could be lost forever. If the global oil markets remain oversupplied into the summer and industry must shut down production, what is the government's plan to ensure Canada's energy security and the economic future of the oil sands with the potential shutdown of oil production? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have worked with industry and with provinces on every front to ensure the stability of the oil and gas sector of our country. We have concentrated on workers. We need the workers in our oil and gas sector in order to lower emissions and achieve a greener economy. We need their determination and their ingenuity. We need to make sure that their jobs are held whole. Therefore, we are looking after workers and we are looking out for companies that hold onto those jobs for those workers. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Mr. Chair, the government's assistance package for the Canadian oil and gas industry provides some hope to the industry. The lack of detail and action has led to some challenges. Can the minister clarify? On a medium-sized energy company's eligibility, if the company is in default to financial institutions, does it still qualify for the business credit availability program? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we know that our oil and gas sector is suffering through two crises. We have the impacts of COVID and the effects of a global price war, and we have been tackling both of these on each front. On April 17, we announced liquidity measures to support the small and medium-sized players. That made up 85% of the jobs in this sector. We have announced liquidity will be further made available to larger players. As well, through the BCAP, we are making sure that more companies are eligible so that they can remain whole and so they can hold onto the jobs that we need. +The Chair: The next question will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. It's lovely to see all of you. My first question is directed to the Prime Minister. It's a higher-level abstraction. As we all know, we're being told we need a vaccine, and the quest for a vaccine is all-consuming globally. However, people who think about this issue and the question of the power structure and profit motive, particularly Dr. Matthew Herder of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University, are questioning this model. We know that Jonas Salk never sought a patent on his polio vaccine. Can we ensure that public dollars for finding a vaccine will result in a product that is shared globally, openly, and is not for profit? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for her question. Our approach has been very clear when it comes to science. We have an open science model, and we're working with different partners and different jurisdictions to help develop vaccines and look at countermeasures and other therapeutics. Our goal is to make sure that we do so in a collaborative fashion, because this is a global pandemic, but make no mistake: If it's Canadian ingenuity and Canadian IP that's driving it, we want to support them as well. +Ms. Elizabeth May: As a follow-up to the minister's comment, I note it was interesting to see the claim made by this public health institute at Dalhousie about the wonderful research that was being done in Winnipeg on an Ebola vaccine. Because of the for-profit motive and the interests that big pharma had in seeing their market before they developed the product, it is alleged that the Ebola vaccine was actually delayed by the for-profit model. I wonder if we might consider examining this profit motive around the development of life-saving vaccines and other drugs. Is that a conversation the minister is having with others? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the member for her question. I'm working very closely with Minister Hajdu and the chief science advisor to look at all options. I'm glad the member highlighted the Ebola virus vaccine, which was developed here in Canada. I'm proud of the fact that the DNA sequencing for SARS was also done in Canada. We have incredible scientists and researchers. We are engaging with them and empowering them, and we will continue to share details of this with the public. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Changing gears, we know that the new regulations limiting what are described as military-style assault rifles and guns have been very controversial. It's very clear to me as an opposition member why we haven't seen legislation on any fast track. It's obviously not the sort of legislation that would gain unanimous consent. Wouldn't it be wise to table for first reading the entire legislative framework so that we know what we're talking about in the long term with regard to the buyback program and other aspects of this issue? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the member for the question. I want to assure her that at the first opportunity, we will bring forward legislation dealing with a number of aspects of our commitment to strengthen gun control in Canada, including legislation to deal with a buyback program, which we've indicated we will put in place. There are a number of other significant measures as well that we intend to bring forward to strengthen gun control legislation. We understand that it's a priority. The pandemic does not diminish our responsibility to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe, and we will bring that legislation forward at the first opportunity. +Ms. Elizabeth May: I confess that I was disappointed by this morning's announcement on support for seniors. I had been hoping for much more, because I hear from many seniors. I'm going to focus my question for the minister on the issue of seniors homes. Some that are being run by not-for-profit societies are actually running very well, certainly in my community, but they are facing increased costs that could bankrupt them. As yet, there's no program to help a well-run seniors home that is not experiencing a loss of revenue and has lots of staff working hard. These homes have increased costs for wages and increased costs for PPE and nowhere to look for help. Is there help coming? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I offer my gratitude to the many people who are working in these long-term care facilities day and night to keep seniors safe. The member certainly highlighted that there are not only additional expenses for some of the not-for-profit seniors homes, but also additional new measures that will increase all kinds of things, including costs. We continue to work with the provinces and territories and support them through, for example, generous transfers of money to boost their health care systems in ways that they think are most appropriate. We continue to have conversations at the health ministers' table on how we can support them. +The Chair: I'm afraid we're out of time on that one. The next question will go to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians are appalled by the disgraceful treatment of seniors in care homes across this country. Old folks are being left in soiled clothing and are going without baths for weeks. They are packed four to a room in dangerously unhealthy conditions. The situation is so bad that the armed forces had to be called in to intervene. To the Minister of Health, is her government prepared to take strong action to address this crisis in seniors health care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member has illustrated some of the horror stories that have appalled us all as Canadians and certainly as parliamentarians. We know that seniors deserve to live in dignity and safety with the utmost care, and that just hasn't been happening in this time of COVID and certainly, in some cases, in previous times as well. As the member knows, I've said publicly that I believe we need to hold long-term care homes to stronger standards. I have begun those preliminary conversations with my counterparts. I am working with many ministers across our government to think about how we do that, how we +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Davies. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, if we treated children the way we do seniors in this country, social services would seize them. Over 80% of the deaths in Canada from COVID-19 have occurred in long-term care homes. Canada has the highest proportion of deaths in long-term care home settings among 14 comparable countries, including France, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. Canadians want action. What specifically is the minister going to do about the crisis in long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows that long-term care homes have rested largely in the jurisdiction of provincial governments and, in fact, municipal governments, which often run them and fund them partially as well. That's why it's important that we have those conversations with our provincial and territorial partners, but the member can rest assured that it is on the top of my priority list to engage with my colleagues all across the country, including many experts who have studied this issue multiple times, to come up with stronger standards so all seniors have quality of life, safety and dignity in their elder years. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, Canadians don't want politicians pointing fingers at each other; they want our seniors taken care of. COVID-19 didn't cause the problems; it exposed them. Decades of neglect by governments at all levels have resulted in this calamity. Not a single province or territory in Canada is meeting the minimum standards of hands-on care for seniors, and death rates from COVID-19 in private, for-profit facilities are two to three times that of public or non-profit homes. Will the minister agree with New Democrats that we need strong national standards, federal funding tied to enforcement and public delivery of care to effectively improve care for seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, certainly the member of Parliament has made an assertion that there is finger pointing. I don't think that's the case at all. As a matter of fact, what I hear from my colleagues at the provincial and territorial level is the willingness to collaborate on how, first of all, we get through this crisis together and strengthen safety for seniors in homes right now and then how we look to the future to build a stronger network of long-term care or care alternatives that will ensure that seniors have the right and the ability to live with dignity and safety in their homes. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what I'm not hearing is a single concrete proposal or measure that this minister is suggesting her government can take, but let me move to another subject. Like long-term care, COVID-19 has exposed other major gaps in our health care system. Millions of Canadians lost their prescription benefits when they lost their jobs, revealing the fundamental weakness of medical coverage tied to employment status. Will this government finally move to ensure all Canadians get the medicine they need by bringing in universal pharmacare at the earliest opportunity? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as you know, in the mandate that the Prime Minister gave to me, working on a national pharmacare plan is still there. I know it feels like a lifetime ago, but the member has very aptly illustrated why affordable medication is so important as part of a robust health care system. I look forward to continuing our work on ensuring that all Canadians can afford the medication they need. +The Chair: It is now over to Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister made a big announcement expressing his desire to launch an economic recovery plan that fast-tracks the transition to a green economy. MinisterGuilbeault, MinisterMcKenna and MinisterWilkinson were appointed to a group tasked with doing just that. Today, I worry that the group is nothing but an empty shell, a convenient post-crisis political pitch. On the natural resources front, the government's two main announcements primarily involve fossil fuels. We need only think of the $1.7billion being invested to clean up orphan wells. Perhaps there is an environmental component, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around yesterday's announcement by Export and Development Canada. It's going to lend TC Energy $500million to build its Coastal GasLink pipeline. That's $500million for a pipeline project that will eventually produce 8.6million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. How does the government reconcile that with its desire to transition to a green economy? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for the question. Certainly at this time, Canadians are most particularly focused on ensuring that support is provided so that they can put food on the table and pay their rent. We are starting to focus on the relaxation measures in many provinces and territories in Canada. That is the primary focus of the government, as it is of Canadians. Certainly as we move forward, we need to be thinking about the kind of society and economy that we want to create for the future. In that context, we need to learn lessons coming out of this experience, and certainly we need to ensure that we are addressing challenges that are on the horizon, including the challenge of climate change. Those are conversations that will need to be had as we move beyond this phase of the crisis, but at the current time, the focus is clearly on combatting the virus. +The Chair: Ms.Pauz has a point of order. +Ms. Monique Pauz (Repentigny, BQ): There was absolutely no interpretation while the minister was speaking. +The Chair: Since so many are having issues with the interpretation, let's take a quick break while I try to fix the problem on my end. I'm going to ask the minister to repeat his answer, and we'll see whether the interpretation comes through this time. If not, please let me know, Ms.Pauz and anyone else who doesn't hear it. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson: Of course, the issues of the future are very important. That means not just climate change, but also other challenges that we saw during the coronavirus crisis, challenges we need to take into account. Now, I think Canadians want us to take the time to focus on what is currently going on. We have put rules in place to protect Canadians. We really need to think about this. We need a plan. Of course, we need to think about the future, but I want Canadians +The Chair: Mr.Simard has the floor. +Mr. Mario Simard: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I want to tell you that, of all industries, the one best positioned to make the energy transition is probably the forestry industry. Unfortunately, in Canadaa petro statethere always seem to be two sets of rules when it comes to helping key industries, including providing liquidity support. Yesterday's announcement suggests that the $500million being provided by EDC is for a single project: Coastal GasLink. In 2017, under the softwood lumber action plan, EDC's entire budget for the forestry industry was exactly $500million. Now, EDC is shelling out $500million for just one project, Coastal GasLink, even though the whole of the forestry industry also received $500million when it needed EDC's support under a 2017 action plan to deal with tariffs. The industry accounts for 58,000jobs in Quebec and $6billion of Quebec's GDP. As I see it, there is a fundamental inequity. My question is for the natural resources minister. Does he think this situation is fair? Will he commit to providing the forestry industry with the same amount of liquidity being made available to the fossil fuel sector? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr.Chair, since 2017, our government has invested billions of dollars. I'll answer the question in English. Sorry. We launched our softwood lumber action plan to support workers in communities. We introduced funding through the strategic innovation fund specifically for forestry. Building on our work today, we have included traditional investments to make sure this sector innovates, diversifies and grows. Over these past two and a half months, I have spent an inordinate amount of time with CEOs, with heads of the forestry sectors from coast to coast to coast. A few days ago, I convened a meeting of CEOs from all parts of this country, from Quebec to British Columbia, to talk to them about solutions, about answers. The liquidity measures that were announced yesterday will help some of them. We will continue to work closely with industry to make sure we are there for them and that we stand by them through the COVID crisis, so we make sure that +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Dalton. +Mr. Marc Dalton (Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm hearing from small business owners like Joel, who runs a fitness club here in Pitt MeadowsMaple Ridge, and is very concerned that their landlords refuse to participate in the rent assistance program. These businesses have seen revenue drops between 50% and 100% and are asking for just 25% off their rent. When will the government help small businesses whose landlords refuse to be team players during this pandemic? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, first of all, we share the member's concern that small businesses be supported. That's why we've moved forward with a number of measures that are designed to be of assistance. With respect to rent support, we are encouraging landlords to support this measure. Obviously, rent and landlord-tenant relations are under provincial jurisdiction. At every opportunity I talk to the provincial finance ministers to encourage them to get engaged there. We will continue to support small businesses. We believe this program has significant merit. It allows for small businesses to significantly reduce their rent and for landlords to be protected with up to 75% of the rent. We think it is an excellent program. It will require the provinces to step forward and enforce it. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, here in B.C., businesses are preparing for phased reopening. A number of my constituents, including Kathy, who owns a beauty salon, are concerned about meeting the PPE requirements. What is the federal government doing to ensure businesses in my riding can get access to the PPE they need to keep their employees and customers safe when they reopen? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as a federal government, we are aggressively buying life-saving equipment and supplies. Our first priority is to provide PPE to our front-line health care workers. However, we are actively involved in trying to ascertain how the federal government can work with the provinces and territories to provide essential services and other businesses with PPE. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, Craig and Matt are co-owners of Wanstalls, a firearms retail outlet in downtown Maple Ridge that employs eight people and serves thousands of law-abiding firearm owners in my riding, people who are now made to feel like criminals by the Liberal government. Further, they are now stuck with tens of thousands of dollars of inventory that they can no longer sell. What are they supposed to do to keep open in this already tumultuous COVID environment? +Hon. Bill Blair: It's important to understand that none of the restrictions that we have put in place, the new prohibitions, in any way impact weapons that are used for the lawful purposes in Canada of hunting and sport shooting, so those weapons remain available to Canadians engaged in those lawful activities. We have prohibited weapons that were not intended for the legal purposes of hunting and sport shooting and for which firearms are available to Canadians. What we prohibited were weapons designed for another purpose, an unacceptable purpose. +Mr. Marc Dalton: Mr. Chair, according to the CERB website, if a recipient earns over $1,000 in a reporting period, their entire $2,000 benefit must be repaid. I have constituents who are working part time and casually. They're worried that if they take an extra shift, they will lose their CERB, but if they refuse a shift, they will also lose their CERB. It's a classic Liberal catch-22. A worker may unknowingly make over the $1,000 by a couple of dollars. Does the government intend to make them repay all their CERB if they barely go over the threshold? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, that is why we're working with individual eligible CERB recipients to make sure they are not put in positions of undue hardship. At the beginning, the registration restricted it to basically not working, and then we relaxed the condition to earning up to $1,000. I can assure the member that we will work with individuals. Service Canada is reaching out to people so that nobody is in the difficult position he is talking about. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: There's a point of order. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: There were some technical issues earlier during my fellow member Mario Simard's turn. Normally, each person gets five minutes. According to our calculations, he had about 45seconds left. This is a serious point of order. We shouldn't get the short end of the stick because we speak French in the House. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: All right. We'll check what happened, but I had stopped the clock. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I assure you he lost some time. +The Chair: The minister had to repeat his answer. We'll check and make sure it doesn't happen again. The good thing is that this is all being filmed, so we can watch the video back to see what happened. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, because the ministers chose to answer in French owing to a technical issue, their answers were unduly drawn out, which cost my fellow member speaking time. I think he should be given a chance to ask one last question, to be fair. Otherwise, French speakers are going to be at a major disadvantage. +The Chair: As I said, I'll check what happened and we'll have a solution for next time. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: We have another point of order. Mr.Guilbeault now has the floor. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I hope the member isn't suggesting that, because some members of the House are making an effort to speak French, they are unduly dragging out the time, as he seems to have said. Good for them, I say, for trying to speak a language they aren't necessarily comfortable in for the benefit of other members. +The Chair: I think a debate is brewing, but I'm sure that's not what people want, so I don't want an argument to break out over the fact that different languages are being spoken. We'll look into what happened and fix the problem so it doesn't happen again. We will go back to Mr. Dalton. You have about 30 seconds for a question. Thank you. Mr.Chair, many farmers in my riding and elsewhere are afraid they won't have enough workers this summer and fall. What is the government going to do to make sure those receiving the CERB and CESB have the right information and know about the job opportunities in the agri-food sector in our communities? +The Chair: The honourable minister has 15seconds to answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that while we are supporting Canadians through both the CERB and the CESB, we are creating tens of thousands of jobs, including in the agriculture sector, to make sure there is labour available in this important and essential sector. +The Chair: Those are all the questions we will have for today. I want to thank everyone. When I first got elected as Speaker, one of the things I mentioned was that you would want everyone who was watching, including your families and your friends, to be proud of you. I can honestly say that they would all be very proud of what we went through today. I am very proud of today's session. I want to thank everyone for wearing the headsets. I didn't see anybody answer without one, and it is very much appreciated, not only by our fellow members but also by the people who are translating into the other language that you are not speaking. Thank you all again. Have a good day everyone. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The Chair of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic, Hon. Anthony Rota, opens the meeting addressing the need for proper microphone activation and language channel selection for the interpreters' convenience. Despite plans for ministerial announcements, there are none, leading to presentations of petitions on various matters including maternal mental health, cystic fibrosis medication access, family doctor shortages, firearms legislation concerns, risks of open-net salmon farming, and rights of Indigenous Peoples in resource development. + +Questions to ministers cover a range of topics including federal worker instructions on dealing with fraudulent pandemic benefit claims, creation of a national perinatal mental health strategy, access to medications for cystic fibrosis, PPE provision for businesses, and strategies for the reopening and financial support of affected industries during the pandemic. The session also touches upon issues like the COVID-19 impact on long-term care homes, pharmacare, and gun control regulations. + +During the meeting, technical issues with French interpretation are raised, and there's a brief discussion regarding lost speaking time due to these issues. The session ends with recognition of adherence to proper usage of headsets and thanks for the respectful participation. The committee adjourns until the next day." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","The conversation involves a project manager, a marketing representative, an industrial designer, and a user interface designer discussing various aspects of a new remote control design. The dialogue contains several instances of filler words and incomplete sentences, indicative of natural speech patterns. + +During the meeting, they discuss decisions about the design, materials, functionality, and energy sources for the remote control. The key points mentioned include: + +1. The need for colourful and soft materials for the remote control to appeal to younger consumers. +2. Considerations of using fruit and vegetable themes and spongy materials for the design, probably influenced by current fashion trends for the targeted age group. +3. Discussion about the energy source, with solar power and traditional batteries being the chosen options. +4. Implementation of voice recognition technology and scroll-wheels for functionality. +5. Decisions on using rubber for the casing and potentially offering interchangeable covers to cater to both young and older target groups. +6. There are concerns about the durability of markings on rubber buttons and the need for the remote to have a good grip. +7. Suggestions to make the remote control round or oval-shaped and possibly feature kinetic energy source in addition to batteries. +8. Debate over the use of an LCD display, with the decision trending towards not including it to keep the design simple and cost-effective. +9. Further discussions were required on integrating corporate colours into the design and ensuring that the interface is easy to use. + +The project manager concludes that the industrial designer and user interface designer need to collaborate on creating a prototype drawing on the SMARTboard, with everyone else contributing to the finalisation of the design. The group is scheduled to reconvene in 30 minutes to review the prototype." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","During a collaborative conference call, a team consisting of a Project Manager (PM), Marketing, User Interface (UI) and Industrial Designers discuss various aspects and decisions for developing a new remote control. The conversation began with the Project Manager asking if there were any last-minute changes needed before progressing with the discussed concept. Marketing, after initially stating no changes were necessary, pondered whether new information could lead to changes, similar to a previous incident. The PM confirmed that no new information was available, and they had the same details as before. + +Joining the call were other team members, including the Industrial Designer and User Interface representative, who began by engaging in light-hearted small talk about habitual tardiness and possible punishments for lateness. The PM then set the meeting agenda, which included reviewing meeting minutes, discussing the remote control concept, and individual presentations. + +The Marketing representative presented their findings, emphasizing the importance of innovation, a fancy look, and feel over ease of use, and mentioned that the current trend for young people included colorful and spongy materials inspired by fruits, vegetables, and TV shows like Sponge Bob, while older groups preferred dark colors and simple shapes. This led to a discussion about the potential design and materials for the remote, suggesting colorful and soft materials for appeals to a younger demographic. + +The PM encouraged sharing individual notes and ideas for the shared folder to facilitate the preparation of the final report. The team also discussed various functionalities and potential technological innovations. For example, they explored the idea of incorporating voice recognition and debated the practicality of a remote that still required pointed direction at a television despite voice commands. + +The discussion moved on to specific presentations by each team member. The UI representative revisited ideas of voice recognition and round buttons for channel programming and volume control. The designer shared examples of advanced high-tech designs with unusual shapes and a practical mock-up of a simple oval-shaped yellow remote control concept. + +The Industrial Designer delved into the technical components and requirements for producing the remote, including casing, energy sources like hand dynamos and kinetic energy, and components such as chips necessary for functionality like voice recognition. They covered the implications of different design choices on the ability to incorporate various technologies and features. They also noted the manufacturing division’s capabilities and limitations in terms of advanced manufacturing techniques. + +Throughout the conversation, the team deliberated over specifics like the material of the casing, which decided to be soft, possibly rubber for a spongy feel, and the use of colorful designs that resonate with a younger target audience. They discussed the integration of corporate colors, grey and yellow, and decided against using an LCD display to keep the design and function straightforward and within budget. + +The dialogue also highlighted practical challenges like the challenge of ensuring durability of the design, especially regarding the symbols on the buttons, which might wear off over time if made of rubber. The team agreed on the importance of easy-to-use interface controls aligned with the rounded shape of the remote control, such as integrating scroll wheels or buttons within thumb's reach. + +The meeting progressed towards defining the next steps, which involved the UI and Industrial Designer collaborating closely on a prototype drawing. The PM concluded that the next phase would focus on design and feel, product evaluation, and ensuring that corporate identity is reflected in the product, along with a summary of the decisions made, which would be captured in minutes and placed in a shared folder. + +The Project Manager wrapped up the meeting by reminding the team of the importance of adhering to the financial side of the project and ensuring that decisions taken are feasible from the manufacturing point of view. The goal was to design a remote that would appeal to their young target market, with consideration for the innovative features, ease of use, and a tactile, colorful design. The call ended with the team members agreeing to reconvene in thirty minutes, with the Industrial Designer tasked to put the agreed points online. The PM reminded them to continue collaboration leading up to the prototype development." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Uh , is it the twenty - fourth ? +PhD F: now we 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh Chuck , is the mike type wireless {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . +PhD A: wireless headset ? OK . +PhD F: Yes . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: For you it is . +Professor C: Yeah . We uh {disfmarker} we abandoned the lapel because they sort of were not too {disfmarker} not too hot , not too cold , they were {disfmarker} you know , they were {vocalsound} uh , far enough away that you got more background noise , uh , and uh {disfmarker} and so forth +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but they weren't so close that they got quite the {disfmarker} you know , the really good {disfmarker} No , th +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} I mean they didn't {disfmarker} Wait a minute . I 'm saying that wrong . They were not so far away that they were really good representative distant mikes , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but on the other hand they were not so close that they got rid of all the interference . So it was no {disfmarker} didn't seem to be a good point to them . On the other hand if you only had to have one mike in some ways you could argue the lapel was a good choice , precisely because it 's in the middle . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: There 's uh , some kinds of junk that you get with these things that you don't get with the lapel uh , little mouth clicks and breaths and so forth are worse with these than with the lapel , but given the choice we {disfmarker} there seemed to be very strong opinions for uh , getting rid of lapels . +PhD A: The mike number is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , +PhD F: Uh , your mike number 's written on the back of that unit there . +PhD A: Oh yeah . One . +PhD F: And then the channel number 's usually one less than that . +PhD A: Oh , OK . OK . +PhD F: It - it 's one less than what 's written on the back of your {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD F: yeah . So you should be zero , actually . +PhD A: Hello ? Yeah . +PhD F: For your uh , channel number . +PhD A: Yep , yep . +Professor C: And you should do a lot of talking so we get a lot more of your pronunciations . no , they don't {disfmarker} don't have a {disfmarker} have any Indian pronunciations . +PhD F: So what we usually do is um , we typically will have our meetings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: and then at the end of the meetings we 'll read the digits . Everybody goes around and reads the digits on the {disfmarker} the bottom of their forms . +Professor C: Session R +PhD D: R - nineteen ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: R - nineteen . +PhD F: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} This is session R - nineteen . +Professor C: If you say so . O K . Do we have anything like an agenda ? What 's going on ? Um . I guess um . So . One thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sunil 's here for the summer ? +Professor C: Sunil 's here for the summer , right . Um , so , one thing is to talk about a kick off meeting maybe uh , and then just uh , I guess uh , progress reports individually , and then uh , plans for where we go between now and then , pretty much . Um . +PhD F: I could say a few words about um , some of the uh , compute stuff that 's happening around here , so that people in the group know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . OK . Why don't you start with that ? That 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD F: We um {disfmarker} So we just put in an order for about twelve new machines , uh , to use as sort of a compute farm . And um , uh , we ordered uh , SUN - Blade - one - hundreds , and um , I 'm not sure exactly how long it 'll take for those to come in , but , uh , in addition , we 're running {disfmarker} So the plan for using these is , uh , we 're running P - make and Customs here and Andreas has sort of gotten that all uh , fixed up and up to speed . And he 's got a number of little utilities that make it very easy to um , {vocalsound} run things using P - make and Customs . You don't actually have to write P - make scripts and things like that . The simplest thing {disfmarker} And I can send an email around or , maybe I should do an FAQ on the web site about it or something . Um , +Professor C: How about an email that points to the FAQ , +PhD F: there 's a c +Professor C: you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: so that you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , there 's a command , uh , that you can use called "" run command "" . "" Run dash command "" , "" run hyphen command "" . And , if you say that and then some job that you want to execute , uh , it will find the fastest currently available machine , and export your job to that machine , and uh {disfmarker} and run it there and it 'll duplicate your environment . So you can try this as a simple test with uh , the L S command . So you can say "" run dash command L S "" , and , um , it 'll actually export that {vocalsound} LS command to some machine in the institute , and um , do an LS on your current directory . So , substitute LS for whatever command you want to run , and um {disfmarker} And that 's a simple way to get started using {disfmarker} using this . And , so , soon , when we get all the new machines up , {vocalsound} um , e then we 'll have lots more compute to use . Now th one of the nice things is that uh , each machine that 's part of the P - make and Customs network has attributes associated with it . Uh , attributes like how much memory the machine has , what its speed is , what its operating system , and when you use something like "" run command "" , you can specify those attributes for your program . For example if you only want your thing to run under Linux , you can give it the Linux attribute , and then it will find the fastest available Linux machine and run it on that . So . You can control where your jobs go , to a certain extent , all the way down to an individual machine . Each machine has an attribute which is the name of itself . So you can give that as an attribute and it 'll only run on that . If there 's already a job running , on some machine that you 're trying to select , your job will get queued up , and then when that resource , that machine becomes available , your job will get exported there . So , there 's a lot of nice features to it and it kinda helps to balance the load of the machines and uh , right now Andreas and I have been the main ones using it and we 're {disfmarker} Uh . The SRI recognizer has all this P - make customs stuff built into it . +Professor C: So as I understand , you know , he 's using all the machines and you 're using all the machines , +PhD F: So . +Professor C: is the rough division of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Exactly . Yeah , you know , I {disfmarker} I sort of got started {comment} using the recognizer just recently and uh , uh I fired off a training job , and then I fired off a recognition job and I get this email about midnight from Andreas saying , "" uh , are you running two {vocalsound} trainings simultaneously s my m my jobs are not getting run . "" So I had to back off a little bit . But , soon as we get some more machines then uh {disfmarker} then we 'll have more compute available . So , um , that 's just a quick update about what we 've got . So . +Grad G: Um , I have {disfmarker} I have a question about the uh , parallelization ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So , um , let 's say I have like , a thousand little {disfmarker} little jobs to do ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um , how do I do it with "" run command "" ? I mean do {disfmarker} +PhD F: You could write a script uh , which called run command on each sub - job +Grad G: Uh - huh . A thousand times ? +PhD F: right ? But you probably wanna be careful with that +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: because um , you don't wanna saturate the network . Uh , so , um , you know , you should {disfmarker} you should probably not run more than , say ten jobs yourself at any one time , uh , just because then it would keep other people {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , too much file transfer and stuff . +PhD F: Well it 's not that so much as that , you know , e with {disfmarker} if everybody ran fifty jobs at once then it would just bring everything to a halt and , you know , people 's jobs would get delayed , so it 's sort of a sharing thing . Um , +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: so you should try to limit it to somet sometim some number around ten jobs at a time . Um . So if you had a script for example that had a thousand things it needed to run , um , you 'd somehow need to put some logic in there if you were gonna use "" run command "" , uh , to only have ten of those going at a time . And uh , then , when one of those finished you 'd fire off another one . Um , +Professor C: I remember I {disfmarker} I forget whether it was when the Rutgers or {disfmarker} or Hopkins workshop , I remember one of the workshops I was at there were {disfmarker} everybody was real excited cuz they got twenty - five machines and there was some kind of P - make like thing that sit sent things out . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So all twenty - five people were sending things to all twenty - five machines +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} and things were a lot less efficient than if you 'd just use your own machine . +PhD F: Yeah . Yep . Yeah , exactly . Yeah , you have to be a little bit careful . +Professor C: as I recall , but . Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD F: Um , but uh , you can also {disfmarker} If you have that level of parallelization um , and you don't wanna have to worry about writing the logic in {disfmarker} in a Perl script to take care of that , you can use um , P - make +Grad G: Just do P - make . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} and you basically write a Make file that uh , you know your final job depends on these one thousand things , +Grad G: s Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and when you run P - make , uh , on your Make file , you can give it the dash capital J and {disfmarker} and then a number , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and that number represents how many uh , machines to use at once . And then it 'll make sure that it never goes above that . +Grad G: Right . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: Right . OK . +PhD F: I can get some documentation . +PhD D: So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not systematically queued . I mean all the jobs are running . If you launch twenty jobs , they are all running . Alright . +PhD F: It depends . If you {disfmarker} "" Run command "" , that I mentioned before , is {disfmarker} doesn't know about other things that you might be running . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So , it would be possible to run a hundred run jobs at once , +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: and they wouldn't know about each other . But if you use P - make , then , it knows about all the jobs that it has to run +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and it can control , uh , how many it runs simultaneously . +Professor C: So "" run command "" doesn't use P - make , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: It uses "" export "" underlyingly . But , if you {disfmarker} i It 's meant to be run one job at a time ? So you could fire off a thousand of those , and it doesn't know {disfmarker} any one of those doesn't know about the other ones that are running . +Professor C: So why would one use that rather than P - make ? +PhD F: Well , if you have , um {disfmarker} Like , for example , uh if you didn't wanna write a P - make script and you just had a , uh {disfmarker} an HTK training job that you know is gonna take uh , six hours to run , and somebody 's using , uh , the machine you typically use , you can say "" run command "" and your HTK thing and it 'll find another machine , the fastest currently available machine and {disfmarker} and run your job there . +Professor C: Now , does it have the same sort of behavior as P - make , which is that , you know , if you run something on somebody 's machine and they come in and hit a key then it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . Yeah , there are um {disfmarker} Right . So some of the machines at the institute , um , have this attribute called "" no evict "" . And if you specify that , in {disfmarker} in one of your attribute lines , then it 'll go to a machine which your job won't be evicted from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But , the machines that don't have that attribute , if a job gets fired up on that , which could be somebody 's desktop machine , and {disfmarker} and they were at lunch , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: they come back from lunch and they start typing on the console , then your machine will get evicted {disfmarker} your job {comment} will get evicted from their machine and be restarted on another machine . Automatically . So {disfmarker} which can cause you to lose time , right ? If you had a two hour job , and it got halfway through and then somebody came back to their machine and it got evicted . So . If you don't want your job to run on a machine where it could be evicted , then you give it the minus {disfmarker} the attribute , you know , "" no evict "" , and it 'll pick a machine that it can't be evicted from . So . +Professor C: Um , what {disfmarker} what about {disfmarker} I remember always used to be an issue , maybe it 's not anymore , that if you {disfmarker} if something required {disfmarker} if your machine required somebody hitting a key in order to evict things that are on it so you could work , but if you were logged into it from home ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and you weren't hitting any keys ? cuz you were , home ? +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how that works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , it seems like Andreas did something for that . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: Um . +Professor C: OK . We can ask him sometime . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I don't know whether it monitors the keyboard or actually looks at the console TTY , so maybe if you echoed something to the you know , dev {disfmarker} dev console or something . +Professor C: You probably wouldn't ordinarily , though . Yeah . Right ? You probably wouldn't ordinarily . +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor C: I mean you sort of {disfmarker} you 're at home and you 're trying to log in , and it takes forever to even log you in , and you probably go , "" screw this "" , +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah , so , um , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . I {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I 'm not sure about that one . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD F: But uh . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Uh , I need a little orientation about this environment and uh scr s how to run some jobs here because I never d did anything so far with this X emissions +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So , I think maybe I 'll ask you after the meeting . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and also uh , Stephane 's a {disfmarker} a really good resource for that if you can't find me . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yep . OK , sure +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Especially with regard to the Aurora stuff . +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: He {disfmarker} he knows that stuff better than I do . +Professor C: OK . Well , why don't we uh , uh , Sunil since you 're {vocalsound} haven't {disfmarker} haven't been at one of these yet , why don't yo you tell us what 's {disfmarker} what 's up with you ? Wh - what you 've been up to , hopefully . +PhD A: Um . Yeah . So , uh , shall I start from {disfmarker} Well I don't know how may I {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} OK . Uh , I think I 'll start from the post uh Aurora submission maybe . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , after the submission the {disfmarker} what I 've been working on mainly was to take {disfmarker} take other s submissions and then over their system , what they submitted , because we didn't have any speech enhancement system in {disfmarker} in ours . So {disfmarker} So I tried uh , And u First I tried just LDA . And then I found that uh , I mean , if {disfmarker} if I combine it with LDA , it gives @ @ improvement over theirs . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are y are you saying LDA ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: LDA . OK . +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} just the LDA filters . I just plug in {disfmarker} I just take the cepstral coefficients coming from their system and then plug in LDA on top of that . But the LDA filter that I used was different from what we submitted in the proposal . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What I did was {vocalsound} I took the LDA filter 's design using clean speech , uh , mainly because the speech is already cleaned up after the enhancement so , instead of using this , uh , narrow {disfmarker} narrow band LDA filter that we submitted uh , I got new filters . So that seems to be giving {disfmarker} uh , improving over their uh , system . Slightly . But , not very significantly . And uh , that was uh , showing any improvement over {disfmarker} final {disfmarker} by plugging in an LDA . And uh , so then after {disfmarker} after that I {disfmarker} I added uh , on - line normalization also on top of that . And that {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there also I n I found that I have to make some changes to their time constant that I used because th it has a {disfmarker} a mean and variance update time constant and {disfmarker} which is not suitable for the enhanced speech , and whatever we try it on with proposal - one . But um , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't play with that time constant a lot , I just t g I just found that I have to reduce the value {disfmarker} I mean , I have to increase the time constant , or reduce the value of the update value . That 's all I found So I have to . Uh , Yeah . And uh , uh , the other {disfmarker} other thing what I tried was , I just um , uh , took the baseline and then ran it with the endpoint inf uh th information , just the Aurora baseline , to see that how much the baseline itself improves by just supplying the information of the {disfmarker} I mean the w speech and nonspeech . And uh , I found that the baseline itself improves by twenty - two percent by just giving the wuh . +Professor C: Uh , can you back up a second , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I missed something , uh , I guess my mind wandered . Ad - ad When you added the on - line normalization and so forth , uh , uh things got better again ? +PhD A: Yeah . No . +Professor C: or is it ? +PhD A: No . No , things didn't get better with the same time constant that we used . +Professor C: Did it not ? No , no . With a different time constant . +PhD A: With the different time constant I found that {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't get an improvement over not using on - line normalization , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: because I {disfmarker} I found that I would have change the value of the update factor . +Professor C: No you didn't , OK . +PhD A: But I didn't play it with play {disfmarker} play quite a bit to make it better than . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's still not {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: I mean , the on - line normalization didn't give me any improvement . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: And uh , so , +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: oh yeah So I just stopped there with the uh , speech enhancement . The {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was the {disfmarker} adding the uh , endpoint information to the baseline and that itself gives like twenty - two percent because the {disfmarker} the second {disfmarker} the new phase is going to be with the endpointed speech . And just to get a feel of how much the baseline itself is going to change by adding this endpoint information , I just , uh , use {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: So people won't even have to worry about , uh , doing speech - nonspeech then . +PhD A: Yeah that 's , that 's what the feeling is like . They 're going to give the endpoint information . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor C: G I guess the issue is that people do that anyway , +PhD F: I see . +Professor C: everybody does that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and they wanted to see , given that you 're doing that , what {disfmarker} what are the best features that you should use . +PhD F: Yeah , I see . +PhD A: So , +Professor C: I mean clearly they 're interact . So I don't know that I entirely agree with it . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but it might be uh {disfmarker} In some ways it might be better t to {disfmarker} rather than giving the endpoints , to have a standard that everybody uses and then interacts with . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know . It 's {disfmarker} it 's still someth reasonable . +PhD F: So , are people supposed to assume that there is uh {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are people not supposed to use any speech outside of those endpoints ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or can you then use speech outside of it for estimating background noise and things ? +PhD A: No . No . That i I {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , exactly . I guess that is {disfmarker} that is where the consensus is . Like y you will {disfmarker} you will {disfmarker} You 'll be given the information about the beginning and the end of speech but the whole speech is available to you . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: So it should make the spectral subtraction style things work even better , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: because you don't have the mistakes in it . Yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} The baseline itself {disfmarker} I mean , it improves by twenty - two percent . I found that in s one of the SpeechDat - Car cases , that like , the Spanish one improves by just fifty percent by just putting the endpoint . w +PhD F: Wow . +PhD A: I mean you don't need any further speech enhancement with fifty . So , uh , +PhD F: So the baseline itself improves by fifty percent . +PhD A: Yeah , by fifty percent . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Wow . +Professor C: So it 's g it 's gonna be harder to {vocalsound} beat that actually . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that is when uh , the {disfmarker} the qualification criteria was reduced from fifty percent to something like twenty - five percent for well - matched . And I think they have {disfmarker} they have actually changed their qualification c criteria now . And uh , Yeah , I guess after that , I just went home f I just had a vacation fo for four weeks . Uh . +Professor C: OK . No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} good update . +PhD A: Ye Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I came back and I started working on uh , some other speech enhancement algorithm . I mean , so {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} from the submission what I found that people have tried spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering . These are the main uh , approaches where people have tried , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: so just to {disfmarker} just to fill the space with some f few more speech enhancement algorithms to see whether it improves a lot , I {disfmarker} I 've been working on this uh , signal subspace approach for speech enhancement where you take the noisy signal and then decomposing the signal s and the noise subspace and then try to estimate the clean speech from the signal plus noise subspace . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 've been actually running some s So far I 've been trying it only on Matlab . I have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test whether it works first or not +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then I 'll p port it to C and I 'll update it with the repository once I find it it giving any some positive result . So , yeah . +Professor C: S So you s you So you said one thing I want to jump on for a second . So {disfmarker} so now you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting tuned into the repository thing that he has here +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} so we we 'll have a {vocalsound} single place where the stuff is . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: Cool . Um , so maybe uh , just briefly , you could remind us about the related experiments . Cuz you did some stuff that you talked about last week , I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , where you were also combining something {disfmarker} both of you I guess were both combining something from the uh , French Telecom system with {vocalsound} the u uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was system one or system two , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . It was system one . So +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: we {disfmarker} The main thing that we did is just to take the spectral subtraction from the France Telecom , which provide us some speech samples that are uh , with noise removed . +Professor C: So I let me {disfmarker} let me just stop you there . So then , one distinction is that uh , you were taking the actual France Telecom features and then applying something to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , no there is a slight different . Uh I mean , which are extracted at the handset because they had another back - end blind equalization {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's what I mean . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But u u Sorry , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah , I 'm not being {disfmarker} I 'm not being clear . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: What I meant was you had something like cepstra or something , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And so one difference is that , I guess you were taking spectra . +PhD A: The speech . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But I guess it 's the s exactly the same thing because on the heads uh , handset they just applied this Wiener filter and then compute cepstral features , +PhD A: Yeah , the cepstral f The difference is like {disfmarker} There may be a slight difference in the way {disfmarker} +PhD D: right ? or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: because they use exactly the baseline system for converting the cepstrum once you have the speech . I mean , if we are using our own code for th I mean that {disfmarker} that could be the only difference . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: I mean , there is no other difference . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But you got some sort of different result . So I 'm trying to understand it . But uh , I th +PhD D: Yeah , well I think we should uh , have a table with all the result because I don't know I uh , I don't exactly know what are your results ? But , +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but so we did this , and another difference I guess is that we just applied uh , proposal - one system after this without {disfmarker} well , with our modification to reduce the delay of the {disfmarker} the LDA filters , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and +PhD B: And the filter {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well there are slight modifications , but it was the full proposal - one . In your case , if you tried just putting LDA , then maybe on - line normalization {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Only LDA . Yeah . Af - I {disfmarker} after that I added on - line normalization , yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So we just tried directly to {disfmarker} to just , keep the system as it was and , um , when we plug the spectral subtraction it improves uh , signif significantly . Um , but , what seems clear also is that we have to retune the time constants of the on - line normalization . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Because if we keep the value that was submitted uh , it doesn't help at all . You can remove on - line normalization , or put it , it doesn't change anything . Uh , uh , as long as you have the spectral subtraction . But , you can still find some kind of optimum somewhere , and we don't know where exactly +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: but , uh . +PhD A: Yeah , I assume . +Professor C: So it sounds like you should look at some tables of results or something +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: and see where i where the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where they were different and what we can learn from it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: without any change . OK . +PhD B: But it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: It 's the new . +PhD D: with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with changes , +PhD A: with +PhD B: The new . +PhD D: because we change it the system to have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh yeah , I mean the {disfmarker} the new LDA filters . +PhD B: The new . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} OK . +PhD D: Yeah . LDA filters . There are other things that we finally were shown to improve also like , the sixty - four hertz cut - off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: w Uh , it doesn't seem to hurt on TI - digits , finally . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Maybe because of other changes . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Um , well there are some {vocalsound} minor changes , yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , right now if we look at the results , it 's , um , always better than {disfmarker} it seems always better than France Telecom for mismatch and high - mismatch . And it 's still slightly worse for well - matched . +PhD B: But +PhD D: Um , but this is not significant . But , the problem is that it 's not significant , but if you put this in the , mmm , uh , spreadsheet , it 's still worse . Even with very minor {disfmarker} uh , even if it 's only slightly worse for well - matched . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And significantly better for HM . Uh , but , well . I don't think it 's importa important because when they will change their metric , uh , uh , mainly because of uh , when you p you plug the um , frame dropping in the baseline system , it will improve a lot HM , and MM , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: so , um , I guess what will happen {disfmarker} I don't know what will happen . But , the different contribution , I think , for the different test set will be more even . +PhD A: Because the {disfmarker} your improvement on HM and MM will also go down significantly in the spreadsheet so . But the {pause} the well - matched may still {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean the well - matched may be the one which is least affected by adding the endpoint information . +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the MM {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: MM and HM are going to be v hugely affected by it . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so um , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . But they d the {disfmarker} everything I mean is like , but there that 's how they reduce {disfmarker} why they reduce the qualification to twenty - five percent or some {disfmarker} something on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But are they changing the weighting ? +PhD A: Uh , no , I guess they are going ahead with the same weighting . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So there 's nothing on {disfmarker} +Professor C: I don't understand that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I guess I {disfmarker} I haven't been part of the discussion , so , um , it seems to me that the well - matched condition is gonna be unusual , +PhD A: Usual . +Professor C: in this case . Unusual . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Because , um , you don't actually have good matches ordinarily for what any @ @ {disfmarker} particular person 's car is like , or +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: uh , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: It seems like something like the middle one is {disfmarker} is more natural . +PhD A: Hmm . Right . +Professor C: So I don't know why the {pause} well - matched is uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , but actually the well {disfmarker} well the well - matched um , uh , I mean the {disfmarker} the well - matched condition is not like , uh , the one in TI - digits where uh , you have all the training , uh , conditions exactly like replicated in the testing condition also . It 's like , this is not calibrated by SNR or something . The well - matched has also some {disfmarker} some mismatch in that which is other than the {disfmarker} +Professor C: The well wa matched has mismatch ? +PhD A: has {disfmarker} has also some slight mismatches , unlike the TI - digits where it 's like prefectly matched +PhD F: Perfect to match . +PhD A: because it 's artificially added noise . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: But this is natural recording . +Professor C: Yeah . So remind me of what well - matched meant ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} the well - matched is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: You 've told me many times . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} the well - matched is defined like it 's seventy percent of the whole database is used for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , so it means that if the database is large enough , it 's matched . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because it +PhD A: OK , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: in each set you have a range of conditions {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So , I mean , yeah , unless they deliberately chose it to be different , which they didn't because they want it to be well - matched , it is pretty much {disfmarker} You know , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's sort of saying if you {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not guaranteed though . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , it 's not guaranteed . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah because the m the main {disfmarker} major reason for the m +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: the main mismatch is coming from the amount of noise and the silence frames and all those present in the database actually . +Professor C: Again , if you have enough {disfmarker} if you have enough {disfmarker} +PhD A: No yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So it 's sort of i i it 's sort of saying OK , so you {disfmarker} much as you train your dictation machine for talking into your computer , um , you {disfmarker} you have a car , and so you drive it around a bunch and {disfmarker} and record noise conditions , or something , and then {disfmarker} I don't think that 's very realistic , I mean I th +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I you know , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , I guess they 're saying that if you were a company that was selling the stuff commercially , that you would have a bunch of people driving around in a bunch of cars , and {disfmarker} and you would have something that was roughly similar and maybe that 's the argument , but I 'm not sure I buy it , so . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh , So What else is going on ? +PhD D: Mmm . You Yeah . We are playing {disfmarker} we are also playing , trying to put other spectral subtraction mmm , in the code . Um , it would be a very simple spectral subtraction , on the um , mel energies which I already tested but without the um frame dropping actually , and I think it 's important to have frame dropping if you use spectral subtraction . +PhD F: Is it {disfmarker} is spectral subtraction typically done on the {disfmarker} after the mel , uh , scaling or is it done on the FFT bins ? +PhD D: Um , +PhD F: Does it matter , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I don't know . Well , it 's both {disfmarker} both uh , cases can i +PhD F: Oh . +PhD D: Yeah . So - some of the proposal , uh , we 're doing this on the bin {disfmarker} on the FFT bins , +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: others on the um , mel energies . You can do both , but I cannot tell you what 's {disfmarker} which one might be better or {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: I guess if you want to reconstruct the speech , it may be a good idea to do it on FFT bins . +PhD D: I don't know . Yeah , but +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: But for speech recognition , it may not . I mean it may not be very different if you do it on mel warped or whether you do it on FFT . So you 're going to do a linear weighting anyway after that . +PhD F: I see . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Yeah ? +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: So , it may not be really a big different . +PhD D: Well , it gives something different , but I don't know what are the , pros and cons of both . +PhD A: It I Uh - huh . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD A: So +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: The other thing is like when you 're putting in a speech enhancement technique , uh , is it like one stage speech enhancement ? Because everybody seems to have a mod two stages of speech enhancement in all the proposals , which is really giving them some improvement . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean they just do the same thing again once more . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} So , there 's something that is good about doing it {disfmarker} I mean , to cleaning it up once more . +PhD D: Yeah , it might be . +PhD A: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: so we can {disfmarker} +PhD D: So maybe in my implementation I should also try to inspire me from this kind of thing +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what +Professor C: Well , the other thing would be to combine what you 're doing . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: I mean maybe one or {disfmarker} one or the other of the things that you 're doing would benefit from the other happening first . +PhD A: That 's wh Yeah . So , +Professor C: Right , so he 's doing a signal subspace thing , maybe it would work better if you 'd already done some simple spectral subtraction , or maybe vi maybe the other way around , +PhD D: Yeah , mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: you know ? +PhD A: So I 've been thinking about combining the Wiener filtering with signal subspace , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean just to see all {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some such permutation combination to see whether it really helps or not . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: How is it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm ignorant about this , how does {disfmarker} I mean , since Wiener filter also assumes that you 're {disfmarker} that you 're adding together the two signals , how is {disfmarker} how is that differ from signal subspace ? +PhD A: The signal subspace ? The {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: The signal subspace approach has actually an in - built Wiener filtering in it . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . It is like a KL transform followed by a Wiener filter . Is the signal is {disfmarker} is a signal substrate . +Professor C: Oh , oh , OK so the difference is the KL . +PhD A: So , the {disfmarker} the different {disfmarker} the c the {disfmarker} the advantage of combining two things is mainly coming from the signal subspace approach doesn't work very well if the SNR is very bad . It 's {disfmarker} it works very poorly with the poor SNR conditions , and in colored noise . +Professor C: I see . So essentially you could do simple spectral subtraction , followed by a KL transform , followed by a +PhD A: Wiener filtering . It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a cascade of two s +Professor C: Wiener filter . Yeah , in general , you don't {disfmarker} that 's right you don't wanna othorg orthogonalize if the things are noisy . Actually . Um , that was something that uh , Herve and I were talking about with um , the multi - band stuff , that if you 're converting things to from uh , bands , groups of bands into cepstral coef you know , local sort of local cepstral coefficients that it 's not that great to do it if it 's noisy . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . Yeah . So . +Professor C: Uh , so . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that 's one reason maybe we could combine s some {disfmarker} something to improve SNR a little bit , first stage , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then do a something in the second stage which could take it further . +PhD D: What was your point about {disfmarker} about colored noise there ? +PhD A: Oh , the colored noise uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: the colored noise {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the v the signal subspace approach has {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it actually depends on inverting the matrices . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} ac the covariance matrix of the noise . So if {disfmarker} if it is not positive definite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean it has a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't behave very well if it is not positive definite ak It works very well with white noise because we know for sure that it has a positive definite . +Professor C: So you should do spectral subtraction and then add noise . +PhD A: So the way they get around is like they do an inverse filtering , first of the colo colored noise +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then make the noise white , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then finally when you reconstruct the speech back , you do this filtering again . +PhD D: Yeah , right . +Professor C: I was only half kidding . I mean if you {disfmarker} sort of {vocalsound} you do the s spectral subtraction , that also gets rid {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and then you {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then add a little bit l noise {disfmarker} noise addition {disfmarker} I mean , that sort of what J {disfmarker} JRASTA does , in a way . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: If you look at what JRASTA doing essentially i i it 's equivalent to sort of adding a little {disfmarker} adding a little noise , +PhD A: Huh ? Uh - huh . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: in order to get rid of the effects of noise . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , yeah . So there is this . And maybe we {disfmarker} well we find some people so that {vocalsound} uh , agree to maybe work with us , and they have implementation of VTS techniques so it 's um , Vector Taylor Series that are used to mmm , {vocalsound} uh f to model the transformation between clean cepstra and noisy cepstra . So . Well , if you take the standard model of channel plus noise , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a nonlinear eh uh , transformation in the cepstral domain . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yes . +PhD D: And uh , there is a way to approximate this using uh , first - order or second - order Taylor Series and it can be used for {vocalsound} uh , getting rid of the noise and the channel effect . +Professor C: Who is doing this ? +PhD D: Uh w working in the cepstral domain ? So there is one guy in Grenada , +PhD B: Yeah , in Grenada one of my friend . +PhD D: and another in {pause} uh , Lucent that I met at ICASSP . +Professor C: Who 's the guy in Grenada ? +PhD D: uh , +PhD B: Uh , Jose Carlos Segura . +Professor C: I don't know him . +PhD A: This VTS has been proposed by CMU ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is it {disfmarker} is it the CMU ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Originally the idea was from CMU . +PhD A: From C . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's again a different thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that could be tried . Um , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , so at any rate , you 're looking general , uh , standing back from it , looking at ways to combine one form or another of uh , noise removal , uh , with {disfmarker} with these other things we have , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , looks like a worthy thing to {disfmarker} to do here . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But , yeah . But for sure there 's required to {disfmarker} that requires to re - check everything else , and re - optimize the other things +Professor C: Oh yeah . +PhD D: and , for sure the on - line normalization may be the LDA filter . Um , +Professor C: Well one of the {disfmarker} seems like one of the things to go through next week when Hari 's here , +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz Hari 'll have his own ideas too {disfmarker} or {pause} I guess not next week , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: week and a half , uh , will be sort of go through these alternatives , what we 've seen so far , and come up with some game plans . Um . You know . So , I mean one way would {disfmarker} he Here are some alternate visions . I mean one would be , you look at a few things very quickly , you pick on something that looks like it 's promising and then everybody works really hard on the same {disfmarker} different aspects of the same thing . Another thing would be to have t to {disfmarker} to pick two pol two plausible things , and {disfmarker} and you know , have t sort of two working things for a while until we figure out what 's better , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then , you know , uh , but , w um , uh , he 'll have some ideas on that too . +PhD A: The other thing is to , uh {disfmarker} Most of the speech enhancement techniques have reported results on small vocabulary tasks . But we {disfmarker} we going to address this Wall Street Journal in our next stage , which is also going to be a noisy task so s very few people have reported something on using some continuous speech at all . So , there are some {disfmarker} I mean , I was looking at some literature on speech enhancement applied to large vocabulary tasks and spectral subtraction doesn't seems to be the thing to do for large vocabulary tasks . And it 's {disfmarker} Always people have shown improvement with Wiener filtering and maybe subspace approach over spectral subtraction everywhere . But if we {disfmarker} if we have to use simple spectral subtraction , we may have to do some optimization {pause} to make it work @ @ . +Professor C: So they 're making {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} Somebody 's generating Wall Street Journal with additive {disfmarker} artificially added noise or something ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Sort of a {disfmarker} sort of like what they did with TI - digits , and ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: I m I guess Guenter Hirsch is in charge of that . Guenter Hirsch and TI . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Maybe Roger {disfmarker} r Roger , maybe in charge of . +Professor C: And then they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh , uh , generating HTK scripts to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I don't know . There are {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} there is no {disfmarker} I don't know if they are converging on HTK or are using some Mississippi State , +Professor C: Mis - Mississippi State maybe , +PhD A: yeah . I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: yeah . Yeah , so that 'll be a little {disfmarker} little task in itself . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , well we 've {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true for the additive noise , y artificially added noise we 've always used small vocabulary too . But for n there 's been noisy speech this larv large vocabulary that we 've worked with in Broadcast News . So we we did the Broadcast News evaluation +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and some of the focus conditions were noisy and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had additive n +Professor C: But we {disfmarker} but we didn't do spectral subtraction . We were doing our funny stuff , right ? We were doing multi multi uh , multi - stream and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But it , you know , we di stuff we did helped . I mean it , did something . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So . Um , now we have this um , meeting data . You know , like the stuff we 're {comment} recording right now , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh , that we have uh , for the {disfmarker} uh , the quote - unquote noisy data there is just {disfmarker} noisy and reverberant actually . It 's the far field mike . And uh , we have uh , the digits that we do at the end of these things . And that 's what most o again , most of our work has been done with that , with {disfmarker} with uh , connected digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um , but uh , we have recognition now with some of the continuous speech , large vocabulary continuous speech , using Switchboard {disfmarker} uh , Switchboard recognizer , +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: uh , no training , {vocalsound} from this , just {disfmarker} just plain using the Switchboard . +PhD A: Oh . You just take the Switchboard trained {disfmarker} ? Yeah , +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're doing , +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: yeah . Now there are some adaptation though , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . That 's cool . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that uh , Andreas has been playing with , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: but we 're hop uh , actually uh , Dave and I were just talking earlier today about maybe at some point not that distant future , trying some of the techniques that we 've talked about on , uh , some of the large vocabulary data . Um , I mean , I guess no one had done {disfmarker} yet done test one on the distant mike using uh , the SRI recognizer and , uh , +PhD F: I don't {disfmarker} not that I know of . +Professor C: Yeah , cuz everybody 's scared . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You 'll see a little smoke coming up from the {disfmarker} the CPU or something {vocalsound} trying to {disfmarker} trying to do it , +PhD F: That 's right +Professor C: but uh , yeah . But , you 're right that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's a real good point , that uh , we {disfmarker} we don't know yeah , uh , I mean , what if any of these ta I guess that 's why they 're pushing that in the uh {disfmarker} in the evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , But um , Good . OK . Anything else going on ? at you guys ' end , +PhD B: I don't have good result , with the {disfmarker} inc including the new parameters , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I don't have good result . Are {pause} similar or a little bit worse . +PhD A: With what {disfmarker} what other new p new parameter ? +Grad G: You 're talking about your voicing ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So maybe {disfmarker} You probably need to back up a bit +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: seeing as how Sunil , +PhD B: I tried to include another new parameter to the traditional parameter , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD B: the coe the cepstrum coefficient , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: that , like , the auto - correlation , the R - zero and R - one over R - zero +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and another estimation of the var the variance of the difference for {disfmarker} of the spec si uh , spectrum of the signal and {disfmarker} and the spectrum of time after filt mel filter bank . +PhD A: I 'm so sorry . I didn't get it . +PhD B: Nuh . Well . Anyway . The {disfmarker} First you have the sp the spectrum of the signal , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and you have the {disfmarker} on the other side you have the output of the mel filter bank . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: You can extend the coefficient of the mel filter bank and obtain an approximation of the spectrum of the signal . +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +PhD B: I do the difference {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: I found a difference at the variance of this different +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: because , suppose we {disfmarker} we think that if the variance is high , maybe you have n uh , noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And if the variance is small , maybe you have uh , speech . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to To {disfmarker} The idea is to found another feature for discriminate between voice sound and unvoice sound . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And we try to use this new feature {disfmarker} feature . And I did experiment {disfmarker} I need to change {disfmarker} to obtain this new feature I need to change the size {disfmarker} the window size {disfmarker} size . of the a of the {disfmarker} analysis window size , to have more information . +PhD A: Yeah . Make it longer . +PhD B: Uh , sixty - two point five milliseconds I think . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And I do {disfmarker} I did two type of experiment to include this feature directly with the {disfmarker} with the other feature and to train a neural network to select it voice - unvoice - silence {disfmarker} silence +PhD A: Unvoiced . Well . +PhD B: and to {disfmarker} to concat this new feature . But the result are n with the neural network I have more or less the same result . +PhD A: As using just the cepstrum , +PhD B: Result . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's neve e e sometime it 's worse , sometime it 's a little bit better , but not significantly . +PhD A: Uh , is it with TI - digits , or with {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} No , I work with eh , Italian and Spanish basically . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD B: And if I don't y use the neural network , and use directly the feature the results are worse . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But Doesn't help . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I really wonder though . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean we 've had these discussions before , and {disfmarker} and one of the things that struck me was that {disfmarker} uh , about this line of thought that was particularly interesting to me was that we um {disfmarker} whenever you condense things , uh , in an irreversible way , um , you throw away some information . And , that 's mostly viewed on as a good thing , in the way we use it , because we wanna suppress things that will cause variability for uh particular , uh , phonetic units . Um , but , you 'll do throw something away . And so the question is , uh , can we figure out if there 's something we 've thrown away that we shouldn't have . And um . So , when they were looking at the difference between the filter bank and the FFT that was going into the filter bank , I was thinking "" oh , OK , so they 're picking on something they 're looking on it to figure out noise , or voice {disfmarker} voiced property whatever . "" So that {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Maybe that helps to drive the {disfmarker} the thought process of coming up with the features . But for me sort of the interesting thing was , "" well , but is there just something in that difference which is useful ? "" So another way of doing it , maybe , would be just to take the FFT uh , power spectrum , and feed it into a neural network , +PhD B: To know {disfmarker} +Professor C: and then use it , you know , in combination , or alone , or {disfmarker} or whatever +PhD F: Wi - with what targets ? +PhD A: Voiced , unvoiced is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no . +PhD A: Oh . Or anything . +Professor C: No the {disfmarker} just the same {disfmarker} same way we 're using {disfmarker} I mean , the same way that we 're using the filter bank . +PhD F: Phones . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Exact way {disfmarker} the same way we 're using the filter bank . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , the filter bank is good for all the reasons that we say it 's good . But it 's different . And , you know , maybe if it 's used in combination , it will get at something that we 're missing . And maybe , you know , using , orth you know , KLT , or uh , um , adding probabilities , I mean , all th all the different ways that we 've been playing with , that we would let the {disfmarker} essentially let the neural network determine what is it that 's useful , that we 're missing here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , but there is so much variability in the power spectrum . +Professor C: Well , that 's probably why y i it would be unlikely to work as well by itself , but it might help in combination . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have to tell you , I can't remember the conference , but , uh , I think it 's about ten years ago , I remember going to one of the speech conferences and {disfmarker} and uh , I saw within very short distance of one another a couple different posters that showed about the wonders of some auditory inspired front - end or something , and a couple posters away it was somebody who compared one to uh , just putting in the FFT and the FFT did slightly better . So I mean the {disfmarker} i i It 's true there 's lots of variability , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but again we have these wonderful statistical mechanisms for quantifying that a that variability , and you know , doing something reasonable with it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , uh , It - it 's same , you know , argument that 's gone both ways about uh , you know , we have these data driven filters , in LDA , and on the other hand , if it 's data driven it means it 's driven by things that have lots of variability , and that are necessarily {disfmarker} not necessarily gonna be the same in training and test , so , in some ways it 's good to have data driven things , and in some ways it 's bad to have data driven things . So , +PhD A: Yeah , d +Professor C: part of what we 're discovering , is ways to combine things that are data driven than are not . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so anyway , it 's just a thought , that {disfmarker} that if we {disfmarker} if we had that {disfmarker} maybe it 's just a baseline uh , which would show us "" well , what are we really getting out of the filters "" , or maybe i i probably not by itself , but in combination , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , maybe there 's something to be gained from it , and let the {disfmarker} But , you know , y you 've only worked with us for a short time , maybe in a year or two you w you will actually come up with the right set of things to extract from this information . But , maybe the neural net and the H M Ms could figure it out quicker than you . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's just a thought . +PhD B: I can {disfmarker} I will try to do that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one um p one thing is like what {disfmarker} before we started using this VAD in this Aurora , the {disfmarker} th what we did was like , I {disfmarker} I guess most of you know about this , adding this additional speech - silence bit to the cepstrum and training the HMM on that . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: That is just a binary feature and that seems to be {vocalsound} improving a lot on the SpeechDat - Car where there is a lot of noise but not much on the TI - digits . So , a adding an additional feature to distin to discriminate between speech and nonspeech was helping . That 's it . +PhD D: Wait {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry ? +PhD A: Yeah , we actually added an additional binary feature to the cepstrum , just the baseline . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD B: You did some experiment . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the case of TI - digits it didn't actually give us anything , because there wasn't any f anything to discriminate between speech , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: and it was very short . But Italian was like very {disfmarker} it was a huge improvement on Italian . +PhD D: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . But anyway the question is even more , is within speech , can we get some features ? Are we drop dropping information that can might be useful within speech , +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: I mean . To {disfmarker} maybe to distinguish between voice sound and unvoiced sounds ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: And it 's particularly more relevant now since we 're gonna be given the endpoints . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh . So . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: There was a paper in ICASSP {disfmarker} this ICASSP {disfmarker} over the uh extracting some higher - order uh , information from the cepstral coefficients and I forgot the name . Some is some harmonics I don't know , I can {disfmarker} I can pull that paper out from ICASSP . It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Talking cumulants or something ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ? Uh , I don't know . +Professor C: Cumulants or something . +PhD A: I don't remember . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} No . +PhD A: It wa it was taking the , um {disfmarker} It was about finding the higher - order moments of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD A: And I 'm not sure about whether it is the higher - order moments , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: cumulants , yeah . +PhD A: maybe higher - order cumulants +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Or m e +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , he was showing up uh some {disfmarker} something on noisy speech , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: some improvement on the noisy speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some small vocabulary tasks . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD A: So it was on PLP derived cepstral coefficients . +Professor C: Yeah , but again {disfmarker} You could argue that th that 's exactly what the neural network does . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So n neural network uh , is in some sense equivalent to computing , you know , higher - order moments of what you {disfmarker} +PhD A: trying to f to Moments , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . So . I mean , it doesn't do it very specifically , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and pretty {disfmarker} you know . But . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Uh , anything on your end you want to talk about ? Uh . +Grad G: Um , nothing I wanna really talk about . I can {disfmarker} I can just uh , um , share a little bit {disfmarker} Sunil hasn't {disfmarker} hasn't heard about uh , what I 've been doing . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , so , um , I told you I was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was getting prepared to take this qualifier exam . So basically that 's just , um , trying to propose um , uh , your next your {disfmarker} your following years of {disfmarker} of your PHD work , trying {disfmarker} trying to find a project to {disfmarker} to define and {disfmarker} and to work on . So , I 've been , uh , looking into , um , doing something about r uh , speech recognition using acoustic events . So , um , the idea is you have all these {disfmarker} these different events , for example voicing , nasality , R - coloring , you know burst or noise , uh , frication , that kinda stuff , um , building robust um , primary detectors for these acoustic events , and using the outputs of these robust detectors to do speech recognition . Um , and , um , these {disfmarker} these primary detectors , um , will be , uh , inspired by , you know , multi - band techniques , um , doing things , um , similar to Larry Saul 's work on , uh , graphical models to {disfmarker} to detect these {disfmarker} these , uh , acoustic events . And , um , so I {disfmarker} I been {disfmarker} I been thinking about that and some of the issues that I 've been running into are , um , exactly what {disfmarker} what kind of acoustic events I need , what {disfmarker} um , what acoustic events will provide a {disfmarker} a good enough coverage to {disfmarker} in order to do the later recognition steps . And , also , um , once I decide a set of acoustic events , um , h how do I {disfmarker} how do I get labels ? Training data for {disfmarker} for these acoustic events . And , then later on down the line , I can start playing with the {disfmarker} the models themselves , the {disfmarker} the primary detectors . Um , so , um , I kinda see {disfmarker} like , after {disfmarker} after building the primary detectors I see um , myself taking the outputs and feeding them in , sorta tandem style into {disfmarker} into a um , Gaussian mixtures HMM back - end , um , and doing recognition . Um . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's just generally what I 've been looking at . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , +Professor C: By {disfmarker} by the way , uh , the voiced - unvoiced version of that for instance could tie right in to what Carmen was looking at . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: So , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , um , if you {disfmarker} if a multi - band approach was helpful as {disfmarker} as I think it is , it seems to be helpful for determining voiced - unvoiced , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that one might be another thing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . Um , were {disfmarker} were you gonna say something ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad G: Oh . It looked {disfmarker} OK , never mind . Um , yeah . And so , this {disfmarker} this past week um , I 've been uh , looking a little bit into uh , TRAPS um , and doing {disfmarker} doing TRAPS on {disfmarker} on these e events too , just , um , seeing {disfmarker} seeing if that 's possible . Uh , and um , other than that , uh , I was kicked out of I - house for living there for four years . +Professor C: Oh no . So you live in a cardboard box in the street now +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: or , no ? +Grad G: Uh , well , s s som something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: In Albany , yeah . Yeah . And uh . Yep . That 's it . +Professor C: Suni - i d ' you v did uh {disfmarker} did you find a place ? +PhD A: Uh , no +Professor C: Is that out of the way ? +PhD A: not yet . Uh , yesterday I called up a lady who ha who will have a vacant room from May thirtieth and she said she 's interviewing two more people . So . And she would get back to me on Monday . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's only thing I have and Diane has a few more houses . She 's going to take some pictures and send me after I go back . So it 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD F: Oh . So you 're not down here permanently yet ? +PhD A: No . I 'm going back to OGI today . +PhD F: Ah ! Oh , OK . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor C: OK . And then , you 're coming back uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , i I mean , I {disfmarker} I p I plan to be here on thirty - first . +Professor C: Thirty - first , +PhD A: Yeah , well if there 's a house available or place to {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: Thirty - first . +Professor C: Well , I mean i i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I hope . +Professor C: They 're available , and they 'll be able to get you something , so worst comes to worst we 'll put you up in a hotel for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a while +PhD A: Yeah . So , in that case , I 'm going to be here on thirty - first definitely . +Professor C: until you {disfmarker} OK . +Grad E: You know , if you 're in a desperate situation and you need a place to stay , you could stay with me for a while . I 've got a spare bedroom right now . +PhD A: Oh . OK . Thanks . That sure is nice of you . So , it may be he needs more than me . +Grad G: Oh r oh . Oh no , no . My {disfmarker} my cardboard box is actually a nice spacious two bedroom apartment . +Professor C: So a two bedroom cardboard box . Th - that 's great . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor C: Thanks Dave . +Grad G: yeah +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Do y wanna say anything about {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you actually been {disfmarker} Uh , last week you were doing this stuff with Pierre , you were {disfmarker} you were mentioning . Is that {disfmarker} that something worth talking about , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um , it 's {disfmarker} Well , um , it {disfmarker} I don't think it directly relates . Um , well , so , I was helping a speech researcher named Pierre Divenyi and he 's int He wanted to um , look at um , how people respond to formant changes , I think . Um . So he {disfmarker} he created a lot of synthetic audio files of vowel - to - vowel transitions , and then he wanted a psycho - acoustic um , spectrum . And he wanted to look at um , how the energy is moving {pause} over time in that spectrum and compare that to the {disfmarker} to the listener tests . And , um . So , I gave him a PLP spectrum . And {disfmarker} to um {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he t wanted to track the peaks so he could look at how they 're moving . So I took the um , PLP LPC coefficients and um , I found the roots . This was something that Stephane suggested . I found the roots of the um , LPC polynomial to , um , track the peaks in the , um , PLP LPC spectra . +PhD A: well there is aligned spectral pairs , is like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Is that the aligned s +Professor C: It 's a r root LPC , uh , of some sort . +PhD A: Oh , no . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So you just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: instead of the log you took the root square , I mean cubic root or something . What di w I didn't get that . +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's taking the {disfmarker} finding the roots of the LPC polynomial . +PhD A: Polynomial . Yeah . Is that the line spectral {disfmarker} +Professor C: So it 's like line spectral pairs . +PhD A: Oh , it 's like line sp +Professor C: Except I think what they call line spectral pairs they push it towards the unit circle , don't they , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: to sort of ? But it {disfmarker} But uh , you know . But what we 'd used to do w when I did synthesis at National Semiconductor twenty years ago , the technique we were playing with initially was {disfmarker} was taking the LPC polynomial and {disfmarker} and uh , finding the roots . It wasn't PLP cuz Hynek hadn't invented it yet , but it was just LPC , and uh , we found the roots of the polynomial , And th When you do that , sometimes they 're f they 're what most people call formants , sometimes they 're not . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} Formant tracking with it can be a little tricky cuz you get these funny {vocalsound} values in {disfmarker} in real speech , +PhD F: So you just {disfmarker} You typically just get a few roots ? +Professor C: but . +PhD F: You know , two or three , +Professor C: Well you get these complex pairs . +PhD F: something like that ? +Professor C: And it depends on the order that you 're doing , but . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , um , if {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Every root that 's {disfmarker} Since it 's a real signal , the LPC polynomial 's gonna have real coefficients . So I think that means that every root that is not a real root {comment} is gonna be a c complex pair , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , of a complex value and its conjugate . Um . So for each {disfmarker} And if you look at that on the unit circle , um , one of these {disfmarker} one of the members of the pair will be a positive frequency , one will be a negative frequency , I think . So I just {disfmarker} So , um , f for the {disfmarker} I 'm using an eighth - order polynomial and I 'll get three or four of these pairs +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: which give me s which gives me three or four peak positions . +Professor C: This is from synthetic speech , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So if it 's from synthetic speech then maybe it 'll be cleaner . I mean for real speech in real {disfmarker} then what you end up having is , like I say , funny little things that are {disfmarker} don't exactly fit your notion of formants all that well . +PhD F: How did {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but mostly they are . +PhD D: But +Professor C: Mostly they do . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Mmm , +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and what {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} in what we were doing , which was not so much looking at things , it was OK +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: because it was just a question of quantization . Uh , we were just you know , storing {disfmarker} It was {disfmarker} We were doing , uh , stored speech , uh , quantization . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but uh , in your case um , you know {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually you have peaks that are not at the formant 's positions , but they are lower in energy +Grad E: But {disfmarker} there 's some of that , yes . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Well they are much lower . +PhD F: If this is synthetic speech can't you just get the formants directly ? I mean h how is the speech created ? +Grad E: It was created from a synthesizer , and um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't a formant synthesizer was it ? +Professor C: I bet it {disfmarker} it might have {disfmarker} may have been +Grad E: I {disfmarker} d d this {disfmarker} +Professor C: but maybe he didn't have control over it or something ? +Grad E: In {disfmarker} in fact w we {disfmarker} we could get , um , formant frequencies out of the synthesizer , as well . And , um , w one thing that the , um , LPC approach will hopefully give me in addition , um , is that I {disfmarker} I might be able to find the b the bandwidths of these humps as well . Um , Stephane suggested looking at each complex pair as a {disfmarker} like a se second - order IIR filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , but I don't think there 's a g a really good reason not to um , get the formant frequencies from the synthesizer instead . Except that you don't have the psycho - acoustic modeling in that . +Professor C: Yeah , so the actual {disfmarker} So you 're not getting the actual formants per se . You 're getting the {disfmarker} Again , you 're getting sort of the , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You 're getting something that is {disfmarker} is uh , af strongly affected by the PLP model . And so it 's more psycho - acoustic . So it 's a little {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's sort of {disfmarker} sort of a different thing . +PhD F: Oh , I see . That 's sort of the point . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . i Ordinarily , in a formant synthesizer , the bandwidths as well as the ban uh , formant centers are {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} Somewhere in the synthesizer that was put in , as {disfmarker} as what you {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but yeah , you view each complex pair as essentially a second - order section , which has , uh , band center and band width , and um , um {disfmarker} But . Yeah . O K . So , uh , yeah , you 're going back today and then back in a week I guess , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and . Yeah . Great ! Well , welcome . +PhD A: Thanks . +PhD F: I guess we should do digits quickly . +Professor C: Oh yeah , digits . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: I almost forgot that . +PhD B: Digits . +Professor C: I almost forgot our daily digits . +PhD F: You wanna go ahead ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD F: OK . +","Professor C and PhD F discussed the use of wireless headsets over lapel microphones due to issues with background noise and interference. They noted strong opinions in favor of abandoning lapel mics. PhD F explained details about microphone channels and numbers. The conversation then turned to a discussion about new machines for a compute farm, the P-make and Customs network for running jobs, and features like ""run command"" for job distribution. Grad G raised a question about parallelizing smaller jobs using ""run command,"" and PhD F provided advice on not saturating the network. There were updates on experiments with speech enhancement techniques and feature extraction, talks of future plans, and shared interest in applying these methods to large vocabulary tasks. PhD A discussed post-Aurora submission work on speech enhancement and LDA filters for cleaner speech, and interest in signal subspace approaches. Grad G mentioned preparing for a qualifying exam, with plans for speech recognition using acoustic events. PhD B shared less successful experiments involving the addition of new features to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced speech. Grad E helped a researcher, Pierre, with psycho-acoustic spectra from synthetic speech using PLP and root LPC. The meeting concluded with a reminder to read the digits, which is a task at the end of their meetings." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Ah , so comfortable . +Grad F: Smooth . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Good . I know that he 's going to like , Taiwan and other places to eat . So . +Grad D: On ? Am I on ? +Grad A: Yep . Yep . +Grad D: I think I 'm on ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Good . Good . +Grad A: Bye . +Grad B: Actually {disfmarker} +Grad F: I just had one of the most frustrating meetings of my career . +Grad A: It 's definitely not the most frustrating meeting I 've ever had . +Grad D: You a You 're {disfmarker} you remember you 're being recorded at this point . +Grad A: Oh , yeah , so , w we didn't yet specify with whom . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: But um . +Professor E: Uh , right . +Grad A: So that 's why Keith and I are going to be a little dazed for the first half m the meeting . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Huh . Yeah , I 'm just gonna sit here and +Professor E: Right . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I avoided that as long as I could for you guys , +Grad F: growl . +Professor E: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: For which we thank you , by the way . +Grad A: Are very appreciative , yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: I know you were {disfmarker} you were doing that , but , anyway . +Grad D: Oh yeah , how di how d exactly did , uh , that paper lead to anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: Oh , I could tell you had a rough day , man ! +Grad D: Nah . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: I love that story . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a great story . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Oh my goodness . +Grad C: Oh yeah , um , Liz suggested we could start off by uh , doing the digits all at the same time . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: All at the same time . I don't know if {disfmarker} I would get distracted and confused , probably . +Professor E: e +Grad A: Really ? Do we have to like , synchronize ? +Professor E: Well , I think you 're supposed to {disfmarker} OK . We can do this . +Grad F: Are you being silly ? +Grad D: Oh wait do we have t +Professor E: Everybody 's got different digits , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: right ? +Grad D: Yeah , do we have to time them at the same time or just overlapping {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh . +Grad A: You 're kidding . +Grad C: No , no , just {disfmarker} just start whenever you want . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: And any rate ? +Professor E: e yeah , the +Grad F: Alright . +Professor E: Well , they {disfmarker} they have s they have the close talking microphones for each of us , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor E: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: yeah , there 's separate channels . +Grad F: Alright . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: So when I say +Grad F: Just plug one ear . +Grad A: You lose . +Professor E: OK . +Grad F: OK , bye ! That was a great meeting ! +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: Alright . +Grad F: So - {vocalsound} Now , uh , why ? +Grad C: Just to save time . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: Does matter for them . +Grad A: Are we gonna start all our meetings out that way from now on ? +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Oh . Too bad . I kinda like it . +Grad F: Well , could we ? +Grad D: It 's strangely satisfying . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's a ritual . +Grad D: Are we to r Just to make sure I know what 's going on , we 're talking about Robert 's thesis proposal today ? Is that +Grad C: We could . +Grad D: true ? +Grad A: We are ? +Grad C: We might . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , you {disfmarker} you had s you said there were two things that you might wanna do . One was rehearse your i i talk {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh yes , and that too . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not rehearse , I mean , I have just not spent any time on it , so I can show you what I 've got , get your input on it , and maybe some suggestions , that would be great . And the same is true for the proposal . I will have time to do some revision and some additional stuff on various airplanes and trains . So , um . I don't know how much of a chance you had to actually read it +Grad A: I haven't looked at it +Grad C: because {disfmarker} +Grad A: yet , +Grad C: but you could always send me comments per electronic mail +Grad A: but I will . +Grad C: and they will be incorporated . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} It basically says , well "" this is construal "" , and then it continues to say that one could potentially build a probabilistic relational model that has some general , domain - general rules how things are construed , and then the idea is to use ontology , situation , user , and discourse model to instantiate elements in the classes of the probabilistic relational model {pause} to do some inferences in terms of what is being construed as what +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: in our beloved tourism domain . But , with a focus on +Grad A: Can I s Sorry . +Grad F: I think I need a copy of this , yes . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: OK , we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can pass {disfmarker} pass my , uh {disfmarker} we can pass my extra copy around . +Grad F: I is there an extra copy around ? +Grad A: Uh . He sent it . OK . You can keep it . +Grad D: Er , actually , my only copy , now that I think about it , +Grad F: Alrigh +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , I don't {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} I don't need it . +Grad D: but . I already read half of it , so it 's OK . +Grad C: Um , actually this is the {disfmarker} the newest version after your comments , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no I s I s I see this has got the castle in it , and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad D: Oh , maybe the version I didn't have that I {disfmarker} mine {disfmarker} the w did the one you sent on the email have the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: That was the most recent one ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I think so . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . Cuz I read halfway but I didn't see a castle thing . +Grad A: I 'm changing this . Just so you know . +Grad C: Yeah , +Grad A: But , anyway . +Grad C: um , if you would have checked your email you may have received a note from Yees asking you to send me the , uh , up - to - d +Grad A: Oh . Oh , sorry . OK . Sorry . +Grad C: current formalism thing that you presented . +Grad A: OK . I will . OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: But for this it doesn't matter . But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can talk about it later . That 's not even ready , so . Um , OK ! Go on t to , uh , whatever . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm making changes . "" Don't worry about that . "" OK . Mmm - mmm . Oh ! OK , sorry , go on . +Grad C: And any type of comment whether it 's a spelling or a syntax or +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: readability {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . On page five . +Grad C: Interesting . +Grad A: Anyway . And y uh , email any time , but most usefully before {disfmarker} +Grad D: The twenty - first I 'm assuming . +Grad A: The twenty - first ? +Grad C: Twenty - ninth . +Professor E: No , this is the twenty - first . +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: What , today 's the twenty - first ? +Grad F: Well , better hurry up then ! +Grad D: Oh , man ! +Grad A: Before the twenty - ninth , +Grad C: The twenty - ninth . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: That 's when I 'm meeting with Wolfgang Wahlster to sell him this idea . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: OK ? Then I 'm also going to present a little talk at EML , about what we have done here and so of course , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna start out with this slide , so the most relevant aspects of our stay here , and um , then I 'm asking them to imagine that they 're standing somewhere in Heidelberg and someone asks them in the morning {disfmarker} The Cave Forty - Five is a {disfmarker} is a well - known discotheque which is certainly not open at that {disfmarker} that time . And so +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: they 're supposed to imagine that , you know , do they think the person wants to go there , or just know where it is ? Uh , which is probably not , uh , the case in that discotheque example , or in the Bavaria example , you just want to know where it is . And so forth . So basically we can make a point that here is ontological knowledge but if it 's nine {disfmarker} nine PM in the evening then the discotheque question would be , for example , one that might ask for directions instead of just location . Um , {vocalsound} and so forth and so forth . That 's sort of motivating it . Then what have we done so far ? We had our little bit of , um , um , SmartKom stuff , that we did , um , everth +Grad F: Oh , you 've got the parser done . Sorry . +Grad C: That 's the {disfmarker} not the construction parser . That 's the , uh , tablet - based parser , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: Easy parser . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and the generation outputter . +Grad D: Halfway done ? Yeah . +Grad C: That 's done . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: You have to change those strategies , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: right ? That 's , ten words ? +Grad D: Yeah . Well , i it , you know . Maybe twelve . +Grad C: Twelve ? OK . And , um , and Fey is doing the synthesis stuff as we speak . That 's all about that . Then I 'm going to talk about the data , you know these things about {disfmarker} uh , actually I have an example , probably . Two s Can you hear that ? Or should I turn the l volume on . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I could hear it . +Grad D: I I can hear it . +Grad F: I heard it . +Grad D: They might not hear it in the {disfmarker} well maybe they will . I don't know . +Grad A: This was an actual , um , subject ? Ah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Sounds like Fey . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: But they 're {disfmarker} they 're mimicking the synthesis when they speak to the computer , +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Grad C: the {disfmarker} you can observe that all the time , they 're trying to match their prosody onto the machine . +Grad F: Oh really . Interesting . Oh , it 's pretty slow . +Grad C: Yeah , you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wh +Grad F: The system breaking . +Grad A: What is the s ? Oh ! +Grad C: OK . And so forth and so forth . Um , I will talk about our problems with the rephrasing , and how we solved it , and some preliminary observations , also , um , I 'm not gonna put in the figures from Liz , but I thought it would interesting to , uh , um , point out that it 's basically the same . Um , as in every human - human telephone conversation , and the human - computer telephone conversation is of course quite d quite different from , uh , some first , uh , observations . Then sort of feed you back to our original problem cuz , uh {disfmarker} how to get there , what actually is happening there today , and then maybe talk about the big picture here , e tell a little bit {disfmarker} as much as I {pause} can about the NTL story . I {disfmarker} I wa I do wanna , um {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure about this , whether I should put this in , um , that , you know , you have these two sort of different ideas that are {disfmarker} or two different camps of people envisioning how language understanding works , and then , {vocalsound} talk a bit about the embodied and simulation approach favored here and as a prelude , I 'll talk about monkeys in Italy . And , um , Srini was gonna send me some slides but he didn't do it , so from {disfmarker} but I have the paper , I can make a resume of that , and then I stole an X - schema from one of your talks I think . +Grad A: Oh . I was like , "" where 'd you get that ? "" OK . +Grad F: Yeah , that looks familiar . +Grad A: "" Looks familiar . "" +Grad C: I think that 's Bergen , Chang , something , or the other . +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: Whatever . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} now I 'm not going to bring that . So that 's basically what I have , so far , and the rest is for airplanes . So X - schemas , then , I would like to do {disfmarker} talk about the construction aspect and then at the end about our Bayes - net . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: End of story . Anything I forgot that we should mention ? Oh , maybe the FMRI stuff . Should I mention the fact that , um , we 're also actually started {disfmarker} going to start to look at people 's brains in a more direct way ? +Professor E: You certainly can . I mean I y I you know , I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad A: You might just wanna like , tack that on , as a comment , to something . +Professor E: Right , um . +Grad C: "" Future activities "" something . +Professor E: Well , the time to mention it , if you mention it , is when you talk about mirror neurons , then you should talk about the more recent stuff , about the kicking +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: and , you know , the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} that the plan is to see to what extent the {disfmarker} you 'll get the same phenomena with stories about this , so that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and that we 're planning to do this , um , which , we are . So that 's one thing . Um . Depends . I mean , there is a , um , whole language learning story , OK ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: which , uh , actually , i i even on your five - layer slide , you {disfmarker} you 've got an old one that {disfmarker} that leaves that off . +Grad C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do have it here . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Um . And , of course , you know , the {disfmarker} the big picture is this bit . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: But , you know , it would {disfmarker} But I don't think I {disfmarker} I am capable of {disfmarker} of do pulling this off and doing justice to the matter . I mean , there is interesting stuff in her terms of how language works , so the emergentism story would be nice to be {disfmarker} you know , it would be nice to tell people how {disfmarker} what 's happening there , plus how the , uh , language learning stuff works , +Professor E: OK , so , so anyway , I {disfmarker} I agree that 's not central . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: What you might wanna do is , um , and may not , but you might wanna {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} rip off a bunch of the slides on the anal there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} we 've got various i generations of slides that show language analysis , and matching to the underlying image schemas , and , um , how the construction and simulation {disfmarker} that ho that whole th +Grad C: Yeah , th that {disfmarker} that 's c that comes up to the X - schema slide , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: so basically I 'm gonna steal that from Nancy , +Grad A: OK , I can give you a more recent {disfmarker} if you want {disfmarker} +Grad C: one of Nancy 's st +Grad A: well , that might have enough . +Grad C: Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , but I also have stuff you {disfmarker} trash you left over , +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: your quals and your triple - AI . +Professor E: The quals w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quals slides would be fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: You could get it out of there , or some +Grad A: Which I can even email you then , you know , like there probably was a little {disfmarker} few changes , not a big deal . Yeah , you could steal anything you want , I don't care . Which you 've already done , obviously . So . Sorry +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't feel bad about it at all +Grad A: No , you shouldn't . +Grad C: because {disfmarker} because you are on the , uh , title . +Grad A: Oh , that 's great , that 's great . +Grad C: I mean on the {disfmarker} the , you 're {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} see , that 's you . +Grad A: I 'm glad to see propagation . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: Hmm ? Propagated ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad C: I mean I might even mention that this work you 're doing is sort of also with the MPI in Leipzig , so . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly related , um , +Grad C: Because , um , EML is building up a huge thing in Leipzig . +Grad A: might wanna say . Is it ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} It 's on biocomputation . Would {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , it 's different , this is the , uh , DNA building , or someth the double helix building . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Kind of a different level of analysis . +Professor E: The {disfmarker} yeah it was {disfmarker} it turns out that if {disfmarker} if you have multiple billions of dollars , y you can do all sorts of weird things , and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Wait , they 're building a building in the shape of DNA , +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: is that what you said ? +Professor E: Roughly , yeah . +Grad F: Oh ! Oh boy ! +Grad A: O +Professor E: Including cr cross - bridges , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: and +Grad A: Oh my god ! +Grad F: That 's brilliant ! Hhh . +Professor E: You d you really {disfmarker} now I I spent {disfmarker} the last time I was there I spent maybe two hours hearing this story which is , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Of what +Grad D: Y You definitely wanna w don't wanna waste that money on research , +Grad A: the building ? +Grad D: you know ? +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: That 's horrible . +Professor E: Right . Well , no , no , y i there 's infinite money . See you th you th you then fill it with researchers . +Grad A: And give them more money . They just want a fun place for them to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor E: Right . Right . +Grad F: And everybody gets a trampoline in their office . +Grad C: Well , the {disfmarker} the offices are actually a little {disfmarker} the , think of um , ramps , coming out of the double helix and then you have these half - domes , glass half - domes , and the offices are in {disfmarker} in the glass half - dome . +Grad A: Really ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Alright , let 's stop talking about this . +Grad A: Does it exist yet ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: They are w now building it ? +Grad C: Uh , as a model . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: But I th +Professor E: So , yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point , th th that the date , the , uh , a lot of the {disfmarker} this is interacting with , uh , people in Italy but also definitely the people in Leipzig and the {disfmarker} the b the combination of the biology and the Leipzig connection might be interesting to these guys , yeah . OK . OK . Anyway ! Enough of that , let 's talk about your thesis proposal . +Grad C: Yeah , if somebody has something to say . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad F: You might want to , uh , double - check the spellings of the authors ' names on your references , you had a few , uh , misspells in your slides , there . Like I believe you had "" Jackendorf "" . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: Uh , unless there 's a person called "" Jackendorf "" , +Grad A: On that one ? +Professor E: No , no , no . +Grad F: yeah . But that 's the only thing I noticed in there . +Grad A: In the presentation ? +Grad F: In the presentation . +Grad A: I 'll probably {disfmarker} I c might have {disfmarker} I 'll probably have comments for you separately , not important . Anyway . +Grad C: Oh , in the presentation here . +Grad A: Yeah , that 's what he was talking about . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: I was ac actually worried about bibtex . Uh . No , that 's quite possible . That 's copy and paste from something . +Professor E: So I did note i i it looks like the , uh , metaphor didn't get in yet . +Grad C: Uh , it did , there is a reference to Srini {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , s reference is one thing , the question is is there any place {disfmarker} Oh , did you put in something about , +Grad A: Metonymy and metaphor here , right ? +Professor E: uh , the individual , we 'd talked about putting in something about people had , uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah , OK . Good . I see where you have it . So the top of the second {disfmarker} of pa page two you have a sentence . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , what I meant is , I think even before you give this , to Wahlster , uh , you should , unless you put it in the text , and I don't think it 's there yet , about {disfmarker} we talked about is the , um , scalability that you get by , um , combining the constructions with the general construal mechanism . Is that in there ? +Grad C: Yeah , mmm . Um . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so where {disfmarker} where is it , cuz I 'll have to take a look . +Grad C: Um , but I {disfmarker} I did not focus on that aspect but , um {disfmarker} Ehhh , um , it 's just underneath , uh , um , that reference to metaphor . So it 's the last paragraph before two . So on page two , um , the main focus {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , OK . Yeah . +Grad C: But that 's really {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's not about that , is it ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: No , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it s says it but it doesn't say {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it d it d +Grad C: Why . +Professor E: yeah , it doesn't give the punch line . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Cuz let me tell the gang what I think the punch line is , because it 's actually important , which is , that , the constructions , that , uh , Nancy and Keith and friends are doing , uh , are , in a way , quite general but cover only base cases . And to make them apply to metaphorical cases and metonymic cases and all those things , requires this additional mechanism , of construal . And the punch line is , he claimed , that if you do this right , you can get essentially orthogonality , that if you introduce a new construction at {disfmarker} at the base level , it should com uh , interact with all the metonymies and metaphors so that all of the projections of it also should work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , similarly , if you introduce a new metaphor , it should then uh , compose with all of the constructions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: And it {disfmarker} to the extent that that 's true then {disfmarker} then it 's a big win over anything that exists . +Grad D: So does that mean instead of having tons and tons of rules in your context - free grammar you just have these base constructs and then a general mechanism for coercing them . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . So that , you know , for example , uh , in the metaphor case , that you have a kind of direct idea of a source , path , and goal and any metaphorical one {disfmarker} and abstract goals and all that sort of stuff {comment} {disfmarker} you can do the same grammar . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor E: And it is the same grammar . But , um , the trick is that the {disfmarker} the way the construction 's written it requires that the object of the preposition for example be a container . Well , "" trouble "" isn't a container , but it gets constr construed as a c container . +Grad D: Right . +Professor E: Et cetera . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's where this , um , +Grad D: So with construal you don't have to have a construction for every possible thing that can fill the rule . +Professor E: Right . So 's it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a very big deal , i i in this framework , and the thesis proposal as it stands doesn't , um , I don't think , say that as clearly as it could . +Grad C: No , it doesn't say it at all . No . Even though {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One could argue what {disfmarker} if there are basic cases , even . I mean , it seems like nothing is context - free . +Professor E: Oh , nothing is context - free , but there are basic cases . That is , um , there are physical containers , there are physical paths , there {disfmarker} you know , et cetera . +Grad C: But "" walked into the cafe and ordered a drink , "" and "" walked into the cafe and broke his nose , "" that 's sort of {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , it doesn't mean that they 're unambiguous . +Grad C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , a cafe can be construed as a container , or it can be construed you know as {disfmarker} as a obstacle , +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Professor E: or as some physical object . So there are multiple construals . And in fact that 's part of what has to be done . This is why there 's this interaction between the analysis and the construal . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor E: The b the {disfmarker} the double arrow . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: So , uh , yeah , I mean , it doesn't magically make ambiguity go away . +Grad C: No . +Professor E: But it does say that , uh , if you walked into the cafe and broke your nose , then you are construing the cafe as an obstacle . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And if that 's not consistent with other things , then you 've gotta reject that reading . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: You con {disfmarker} you conditioned me with your first sentence , and so I thought , "" Why would he walk into the cafe and then somehow break his nose ? "" uh , oh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: He slipped on the wet floor . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: You don't find that usage , uh {disfmarker} uh , I checked for it in the Brown national corpus . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: The "" walk into it "" never really means , w as in walked smack {disfmarker} +Professor E: But "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Yeah , but , y y if you find "" walked smacked into the cafe "" or "" slammed into the wall "" {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no , but "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Because you will find "" run into , "" uh , +Grad D: Cars run into telephone poles all the time . +Professor E: well , or "" into the cafe "" for that m +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: you know {disfmarker} "" His car ran into the cafe . "" +Grad C: Yeah . Or you can run into an old friend , or run . +Professor E: Well , you can "" run into "" in that sense too . +Grad A: Yeah , "" run into "" might even be more impact sense than , you know , container sense . +Professor E: But , uh , Right . +Grad F: Depends . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Like , "" run into an old friend "" , it probably needs its own construction . I mean , uh , you know , George would have I 'm sure some exa complicated ex reason why it really was an instance of something else +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and maybe it is , but , um , there are idioms and my guess is that 's one of them , but , um {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: All contact . I mean , there there 's contact that doesn't {disfmarker} social contact , whatever . I mean . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Sudden surprising contact , +Professor E: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Right . i Yeah , it 's more {disfmarker} +Grad F: right ? +Grad A: Forceful . +Grad F: But of course , no , i i I mean it has a life of its own . It 's sort of partially inspired by the spatial {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , this is this motivated {disfmarker} but yeah {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: oh yeah , mo for sure , motivated , but then you can't parse on motivated . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor E: Uh , +Grad A: Too bad . +Grad D: You should get a T - shirt that says that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} there 's lots of things you could make T - shirts out of , but , uh , this has gotten {disfmarker} I mean wh We don't need the words to that . +Grad C: Pro - probably not your marks in the kitchen , today . +Grad A: What ? Oh , no no no no no no no no no , we 're not going there . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not your marks . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK , so , um , +Grad F: In other news . +Professor E: anything else you want to ask us about the thesis proposal , you got {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Professor E: We could look at a particular thing and give you feedback on it . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i what would have been really nice is to find an example for all of this , uh , from our domain . So maybe if we w if we can make one up {pause} now , that would be c incredibly helpful . +Grad A: So , w where it should illustrate +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: uh {disfmarker} wh when you say all this , do you mean , like , I don't know , the related work stuff , +Grad C: How {disfmarker} +Grad A: as well as , mappings ? +Grad C: w Well we have , for example , a canonical use of something +Professor E: Right {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} r +Grad C: and y it 's , you know , we have some constructions and then it 's construed as something , and then we {disfmarker} we may get the same constructions with a metaphorical use that 's also relevant to the {disfmarker} to the domain . +Professor E: OK , f let 's {disfmarker} let 's suppose you use "" in "" and "" on "" . I mean , that 's what you started with . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So "" in the bus "" and "" on the bus , "" um , that 's actually a little tricky in English because to some extent they 're synonyms . OK . +Grad C: I had two hours w with George on this , so it , +Professor E: OK , what did he say . +Grad A: Did you ? +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: Join the club . +Professor E: Right . Oh , h that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" On the bus "" is a m is a metaphorical metonymy that relates some meta path metaphorically and you 're on {disfmarker} on that path and th w I mean it 's {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} there 's a platform notion , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I believe all that , it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? "" he 's on the {disfmarker} standing on the bus waving to me . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: But th the regular as we speak "" J Johno was on the bus to New York , "" +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: um , uh , he 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh , what did I call it here , the transportation schema , something , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: where you can be on the first flight , on the second flight , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: and you can be , you know , on the wagon . +Professor E: Right . So {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you {disfmarker} what you want to do . I mean you could do something much simpler +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: like "" under the bus , "" or something , where {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} unfortunately , this is not really something a tourist would ever say . So . +Professor E: Well , unless he was repairing it or something , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: but yeah . +Grad C: But um . +Professor E: Uh , but OK . +Grad C: So in terms of the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad A: I see . +Grad C: We had {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} initially we 'd {disfmarker} started discussing the "" out of film . "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: And there 's a lot of "" out of "" analysis , so , um , +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: could we capture that with a different construal of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's a little {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} we 've thought about it before , uh t uh {disfmarker} to use the examples in other papers , and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little complicated . Cuz you 're like , it 's a state of {disfmarker} there 's resource , +Grad F: Out of {disfmarker} out of film , in particular . +Grad A: right , and like , what is film , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: the state {disfmarker} you know . You 're out of the state of having film , right ? and somehow film is standing for the re the resour the state of having some resource is just labeled as that resource . +Grad F: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . +Grad F: yeah , I mean , +Grad A: It 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad F: but {disfmarker} and plus the fact that there 's also s I mean , can you say , like , "" The film ran out "" you know , or , maybe you could say something like "" The film is out "" +Grad A: Yeah , is film the trajector ? +Grad F: so like the {disfmarker} the film went away from where it should be , namely with you , or something , right ? You know . The {disfmarker} the film {disfmarker} the film is gone , right ? Um , I never really knew what was going on , I mean I {disfmarker} I find it sort of a little bit farfetched to say that {disfmarker} that "" I 'm out of film "" means that I have left the state of having film or something like that , +Grad A: It 's weird . That {disfmarker} +Grad F: but . +Grad A: Or , "" having "" is also , um , associated with location , +Professor E: Uh . +Grad A: right ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: so if the film left , you know {disfmarker} state is being near film . +Grad C: So running {disfmarker} running out of something is different from being out of somewhere . +Professor E: Or being out of something as , uh {disfmarker} as well . So "" running out of it "" definitely has a process aspect to it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But that 's from run , yeah . +Professor E: So , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: b that 's OK , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} b but the difference +Grad C: Is the d the final state of running out of something is being out of it . +Professor E: is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . So th +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . You got there . +Grad A: That part is fine . +Grad F: You got to out of it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor E: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so nob so no one has in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} of the , uh , professional linguists , +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: they haven't {disfmarker} there was this whole thesis on "" out of "" . +Grad A: There was ? Who ? +Professor E: Well , there {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} or there was a paper on it . +Grad F: Out . +Professor E: Huh ? +Grad F: There was one on {disfmarker} on "" out "" or "" out of "" ? +Professor E: There was a Well , it may be just "" out "" . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor E: I think there was "" over "" but there was also a paper on "" out "" . +Grad F: Yeah , Lind - Susan Lindner , +Grad A: Oh , yeah , you 're right . Yeah . +Professor E: Or something . +Grad F: right ? The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} "" the syrup spread out "" ? +Professor E: Yeah , and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: That kind of thing ? +Grad A: Yeah . And undoubtably there 's been reams of work about it in cognitive linguistics , +Professor E: OK . But anyway . We 're not gonna do that between now and next week . +Grad A: but . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not one of the y it 's more straightforward ones {disfmarker} forward ones to defend , so you probably don't want to use it for the purposes {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: th these are {disfmarker} you 're addressing like , computational linguists , +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: right . Or {disfmarker} are you ? +Grad C: There 's gonna be four computational linguists , +Grad A: OK . But more emphasis on the computational ? Or emphasis on the linguist ? +Grad C: computer it 's {disfmarker} More {disfmarker} there 's going to be the {disfmarker} just four computational linguists , by coincidence , but the rest is , whatever , biocomputing people and physicists . +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Professor E: No no no , but not for your talk . I 'm - we 're worrying about the th the thes +Grad C: Oh , the thesis ! +Grad A: Oh , I meant this , +Professor E: it 's just for one guy . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's computa should be very computational , +Grad A: you know , like {disfmarker} OK . So I would try to {disfmarker} I would stay away from one that involves weird construal stuff . +Grad C: and , uh , someth +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: You know , it 's an obvious one {disfmarker} +Grad F: Totally weird stuff . +Grad C: I mean the {disfmarker} the old bakery example might be nice , +Grad A: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" Is there a bakery around here "" . So if you c we really just construe it as a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Around ? +Grad C: No , it 's the bakery itself {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad C: is it a building ? uh , that you want to go to ? or is it something to eat that you want to buy ? +Grad A: Oh , oh yeah . Yeah , we 've thought about that . Right . Right . +Grad C: And then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Nnn . No . What ? "" Bakery "" can't be something you 're gonna eat . +Professor E: No , no . The question is d do you wanna {disfmarker} do you wanna construe {disfmarker} do you wanna constr - strue +Grad F: Sh +Grad D: It 's a speech - act . +Professor E: r Exactly . It 's because do you wanna c do you want to view the bakery as a p a place that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} i for example , if {disfmarker} y +Grad A: Yeah . Where you can get baked goods . +Professor E: Well th well , that 's one . You want to buy something . But the other is , uh , yo you might have smelled a smell and are just curious about whether there 'd be a bakery in the neighborhood , or , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: um , pfff you know , you wonder how people here make their living , and {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of reasons why you might be asking about the existence of a bakery +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: that doesn't mean , "" I want to buy some baked goods . "" +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: But {vocalsound} um , those are interesting examples but it 's not clear that they 're mainly construal examples . +Grad A: So it 's a lot of pragmatics , there , that +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's all sorts of stuff going on . +Grad A: might be beyond what you want to do . +Professor E: So let 's {disfmarker} so let 's think about this from the point of view of construal . So let 's first do a {disfmarker} So the metonymy thing is probably the easiest and a and actually the {disfmarker} Though , the one you have isn't quite {disfmarker} +Grad A: You mean the s You mean "" the steak wants to pay "" ? +Professor E: N no not that one , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} the sort of background . This is the t uh , page five . +Grad D: About Plato and the book ? +Grad A: Oh . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Um . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: How much does it cost ? +Professor E: Just beyond that . +Grad F: Onward . +Grad C: Where is the castle ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: A castle . +Grad C: How old is it ? How much does it cost ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: To go in , that 's like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Two hundred million dollars . +Professor E: Right . It 's not for sale . Uh . So +Grad F: Yeah , I think that 's a good example , actually . +Grad C: S +Grad A: Yeah , that 's good . u +Grad C: But as Nancy just su suggested it 's probably ellipticus . +Grad A: Ellipsis . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad A: Like , "" it "" doesn't refer to "" thing , "" it refers to acti you know , j thing standing for activ most relevant activity for a tourist {disfmarker} you could think of it that way , but . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , shoot , isn't that {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , my argument here is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same thing as "" Plato 's on the top shelf , "" +Grad F: figuring that out is what this is about . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah , no , I I agree . +Grad C: I 'm con you know , th that you can refer to a book of Plato by using "" Plato , "" +Grad A: Yeah . No no , I {disfmarker} I 'm agreeing that this is a good , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: and you can refer back to it , and so you can {disfmarker} Castles have {disfmarker} as tourist sites , have admission fees , so you can say "" Where is the castle , how much does it cost ? "" Um . "" How far is it from here ? "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , You 're also not referring to the width of the object , or so , +Grad A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: www . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Can we think of a nice metaphorical use of "" where "" in the tourist 's domain ? Um . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor E: So you know it 's {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can sometimes use "" where "" f for "" when "" +Grad F: O +Professor E: in the sense of , you know , um , where {disfmarker} wh where {disfmarker} where was , um , "" where was Heidelberg , um , in the Thirty Years ' War ? "" Or something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . +Professor E: You know , or some such thing . Um . +Grad F: Like what side were they on , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: Yeah . Essentially , yeah . +Grad F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: OK . I was like , "" Huh ? It was here . "" Like {disfmarker} {comment} Um . +Professor E: But anyway th so there are {disfmarker} there are cases like that . Um , +Grad A: Ah ! Or like its developmental state or something like that , you could {disfmarker} I guess you could get that . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: I mean , there 's also things like {disfmarker} I mean , s um , I guess I could ask something like "" Where can I find out about blah - blah - blah "" in a sort of {disfmarker} doesn't nece I don't necessarily have to care about the spatial location , just give me a phone number +Professor E: Yeah . There certainly is that , yeah . +Grad F: and I 'll call them or something like that ? +Professor E: You know , "" Where could I learn its opening hours , "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But that 's not metaphorical . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: It 's another {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: So we 're thinking about , um , or we could also think about , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor E: How about "" I 'm in a hurry "" ? +Grad A: State . +Professor E: It i But it 's a state {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the issue is , is that {disfmarker} it may be just a usage , +Grad F: Hmm ? +Professor E: you know , that it 's not particularly metaphorical , I don't know . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . So you want a more exotic one {disfmarker} version of that . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah , right . +Grad A: I 'm really into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Ah ! How about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm in {disfmarker} I 'm in a state of exhaustion "" ? +Grad A: Do you really say that ? +Professor E: or something like that , which a tourist w Huh ? +Grad A: Would you really say that ? +Professor E: A st uh , well , you can certainly say , um , you know , "" I 'm in overload . "" Tu - stur tourists will often say that . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad D: I I 'm really into art . +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna say , like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , you can do that ? Really ? Of course that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's definitely a , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Fixed . +Grad A: A fixed expression , yeah . +Professor E: that 's a , uh {disfmarker} Right . But . {disfmarker} +Grad A: There 're too {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of fixed expressions I don't {disfmarker} like uh "" I 'm out of sorts now ! "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Like {comment} "" I 'm in trouble ! "" +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} when , uh {disfmarker} just f u the data that I 've looked at so far that rec +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: I mean , there 's tons of cases for polysemy . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So , you know , mak re making reference to buildings as institutions , as containers , as build +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: you know , whatever . Um , so ib in mus for example , in museums , you know , as a building or as something where pictures hang versus , you know , ev something that puts on exhibits , so forth . +Professor E: Right . As an institution , +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: yeah . +Grad C: Um . +Grad A: Why don't you want to use any of those ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: So y you don't wanna use one that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} No , but this {disfmarker} that 's what I have , you know , started doing . +Professor E: The castle {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that old castle one is sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Metonymy , polysemy . +Grad D: I love Van Gogh . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: "" I wanna go see the Van Gogh . "" +Professor E: Ah ! +Grad F: Oh geez . +Grad A: Anyway , I 'm sorry . +Grad C: But I think the argument should be {disfmarker} uh , can be made that , you know , despite the fact that this is not the most met metaphorical domain , because people interacting with HTI systems try to be straightforward and less lyrical , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: construal still is , uh , you know , completely , um , key in terms of finding out any of these things , so , um . +Professor E: Right . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a reasonable point , that it {disfmarker} in this domain you 're gonna get less metaphor and more metonymy . +Grad C: We , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} I looked {disfmarker} with a student I looked at the entire database that we have on Heidelberg for cases of metonymy . +Professor E: And polysemy , and stuff like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Hardly anything . So not even in descriptions w did we find anything , um , relevant . +Grad F: I have to go . +Professor E: Alright . Yeah . +Grad C: But OK this is just something we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see , um , +Professor E: Right . s See you . +Grad C: and deal with . +Professor E: OK , well . I guess if anybody has additional suggestions , +Grad C: I mean maybe the "" where is something "" question as a whole , you know , can be construed as , u i locational versus instructional request . +Professor E: w Yeah . +Grad C: So , if we 're not talk about the lexic +Grad A: Location versus what ? +Grad C: instruction . +Grad A: Instruction . Oh , directions ? Yeah . +Professor E: Sure . +Grad A: Oh , I thought that was {disfmarker} definitely treated as an example of construal . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? +Grad C: Yeah but then you 're not on the lexical level , that 's sort of one level higher . +Grad A: Oh , you want a lexical example . +Grad C: But I don't need it . +Professor E: Well , you might want both . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Also it would be nice to get {disfmarker} ultimately to get a nice mental space example , +Professor E: We {disfmarker} +Grad C: so , even temporal references are {disfmarker} just in the spatial domain are rare . +Professor E: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's easy to make up plausible ones . +Grad C: When {disfmarker} when you 're getting information on objects . +Professor E: You know . +Grad C: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , you know {disfmarker} you know , where r Yeah . What color was this in {disfmarker} in in the nain nineteenth century . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: What was this p instead of {disfmarker} wh what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} how was this painted , what color was this painted , um , was this alleyway open . +Grad C: Yeah , maybe we can include that also in our second , uh , data run . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad C: We c we can show people pictures of objects and then have then ask the system about the objects and engage in conversation on the history and the art and the architecture and so forth . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . So why don't we plan to give you feedback electronically . Wish you a good trip . All success . +Grad D: For some reason when you said "" feedback electronically "" I thought of that {disfmarker} you ever see the Simpsons where they 're {disfmarker} like the family 's got the buzzers and they buzz each other when they don't like what the other one is saying ? +Grad A: Yeah . That 's the {disfmarker} first one , I think . The very very first one . +Grad D: It was a very early one . I don't know if it 's the first one . +Grad A: Mmm . Mmm . +","The summary of the transcript involves multiple individuals engaging in a seemingly informal and fragmented conversation that touches upon several topics, primarily focused on academia and research. Individuals referred to as Grad A, Grad B, Grad C, Grad D, Grad F, and Professor E discuss ongoing projects, challenges, proposals, and an upcoming meeting to sell a particular idea. + +The conversation begins with casual comments on comfort and agreement, hinting at the preparation for a presentation or meeting (""Are we on?""). Grad F shares the frustration of experiencing one of the most frustrating meetings, though Grad A does not seem to agree with the severity. It seems there is a discussion about an individual visiting Taiwan and other places to eat, to which Grad A and Grad D confirm they are being recorded, perhaps indicating a research context in which their dialogue is being documented. + +Professor E joins the conversation, and there’s mention of preparing for a meeting, possibly indicating that some of the participants might be slightly disoriented due to previous tasks or discussions. Grad F acknowledges Professor E for avoiding a certain unnamed situation for as long as possible, though it's unclear what this might be about. + +Grad D asks an intriguing question about how a paper led to anti-lock brakes, which appears to be an insider story amongst the group. The conversation drifts into a somewhat technical and academic juncture, discussing probable topics for an upcoming thesis proposal or presentation involving a probabilistic relational model with a focus on a tourism domain. Grad C outlines the contents and aims of the related work, incorporating various domain models, and is open to suggestions and comments before a stated deadline (which may be misunderstood as there's confusion about the exact date). + +There's also discussion surrounding efficient methods of starting meetings, mentioning simultaneous actions, but it eventually seems like a tongue-in-cheek idea. Humor mixes with practicalities as Grad F jokingly suggests plugging one ear as a tacit acknowledgment of the chaos that might ensue from the suggested synchronous approach. + +The conversation continues with Grad C requesting feedback on a specific document that others in the group have either read or plan to provide comments on. The thesis proposal content is critically analyzed by all participants, particularly focusing on issues such as the instantiation of elements within classes of the presented probabilistic relational model. The document deals with a wide array of complex concepts, including ontology, situational models, user models, and discourse models within the contextual domain of tourism. + +Talks about sending comments via email and the significance of incorporating various types of feedback pertaining to grammar and readability signify the collaborative nature of the project. Grad F points out a spelling mistake (""interesting"") as an aside in the substantive conversation about the proposal’s content, emphasizing attention to detail amidst broader discussions. + +Towards the end of the transcript, Professor E provides strategic advice on structuring the proposal, highlighting the importance of showing the scalability of construal mechanisms in language processing, which is central to the theoretical framework being discussed. It delves into the complexity of language understanding and related concepts, encompassing embodied cognition, simulation approaches, and functionalities of the mentioned system. Grad C also plans to present the findings to an audience, including computational linguists and others, which contributes to the project's multidisciplinary nature. + +The conversation is technical, dense with academic jargon, and indicative of a group of graduate students and a professor involved in complex research, intricately connected by detailed knowledge of their individual subject matters, shared research goals, and a comfortable semblance of professional camaraderie. +" +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Uh , is it the twenty - fourth ? +PhD F: now we 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh Chuck , is the mike type wireless {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . +PhD A: wireless headset ? OK . +PhD F: Yes . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: For you it is . +Professor C: Yeah . We uh {disfmarker} we abandoned the lapel because they sort of were not too {disfmarker} not too hot , not too cold , they were {disfmarker} you know , they were {vocalsound} uh , far enough away that you got more background noise , uh , and uh {disfmarker} and so forth +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but they weren't so close that they got quite the {disfmarker} you know , the really good {disfmarker} No , th +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} I mean they didn't {disfmarker} Wait a minute . I 'm saying that wrong . They were not so far away that they were really good representative distant mikes , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but on the other hand they were not so close that they got rid of all the interference . So it was no {disfmarker} didn't seem to be a good point to them . On the other hand if you only had to have one mike in some ways you could argue the lapel was a good choice , precisely because it 's in the middle . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: There 's uh , some kinds of junk that you get with these things that you don't get with the lapel uh , little mouth clicks and breaths and so forth are worse with these than with the lapel , but given the choice we {disfmarker} there seemed to be very strong opinions for uh , getting rid of lapels . +PhD A: The mike number is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , +PhD F: Uh , your mike number 's written on the back of that unit there . +PhD A: Oh yeah . One . +PhD F: And then the channel number 's usually one less than that . +PhD A: Oh , OK . OK . +PhD F: It - it 's one less than what 's written on the back of your {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD F: yeah . So you should be zero , actually . +PhD A: Hello ? Yeah . +PhD F: For your uh , channel number . +PhD A: Yep , yep . +Professor C: And you should do a lot of talking so we get a lot more of your pronunciations . no , they don't {disfmarker} don't have a {disfmarker} have any Indian pronunciations . +PhD F: So what we usually do is um , we typically will have our meetings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: and then at the end of the meetings we 'll read the digits . Everybody goes around and reads the digits on the {disfmarker} the bottom of their forms . +Professor C: Session R +PhD D: R - nineteen ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: R - nineteen . +PhD F: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} This is session R - nineteen . +Professor C: If you say so . O K . Do we have anything like an agenda ? What 's going on ? Um . I guess um . So . One thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sunil 's here for the summer ? +Professor C: Sunil 's here for the summer , right . Um , so , one thing is to talk about a kick off meeting maybe uh , and then just uh , I guess uh , progress reports individually , and then uh , plans for where we go between now and then , pretty much . Um . +PhD F: I could say a few words about um , some of the uh , compute stuff that 's happening around here , so that people in the group know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . OK . Why don't you start with that ? That 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD F: We um {disfmarker} So we just put in an order for about twelve new machines , uh , to use as sort of a compute farm . And um , uh , we ordered uh , SUN - Blade - one - hundreds , and um , I 'm not sure exactly how long it 'll take for those to come in , but , uh , in addition , we 're running {disfmarker} So the plan for using these is , uh , we 're running P - make and Customs here and Andreas has sort of gotten that all uh , fixed up and up to speed . And he 's got a number of little utilities that make it very easy to um , {vocalsound} run things using P - make and Customs . You don't actually have to write P - make scripts and things like that . The simplest thing {disfmarker} And I can send an email around or , maybe I should do an FAQ on the web site about it or something . Um , +Professor C: How about an email that points to the FAQ , +PhD F: there 's a c +Professor C: you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: so that you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , there 's a command , uh , that you can use called "" run command "" . "" Run dash command "" , "" run hyphen command "" . And , if you say that and then some job that you want to execute , uh , it will find the fastest currently available machine , and export your job to that machine , and uh {disfmarker} and run it there and it 'll duplicate your environment . So you can try this as a simple test with uh , the L S command . So you can say "" run dash command L S "" , and , um , it 'll actually export that {vocalsound} LS command to some machine in the institute , and um , do an LS on your current directory . So , substitute LS for whatever command you want to run , and um {disfmarker} And that 's a simple way to get started using {disfmarker} using this . And , so , soon , when we get all the new machines up , {vocalsound} um , e then we 'll have lots more compute to use . Now th one of the nice things is that uh , each machine that 's part of the P - make and Customs network has attributes associated with it . Uh , attributes like how much memory the machine has , what its speed is , what its operating system , and when you use something like "" run command "" , you can specify those attributes for your program . For example if you only want your thing to run under Linux , you can give it the Linux attribute , and then it will find the fastest available Linux machine and run it on that . So . You can control where your jobs go , to a certain extent , all the way down to an individual machine . Each machine has an attribute which is the name of itself . So you can give that as an attribute and it 'll only run on that . If there 's already a job running , on some machine that you 're trying to select , your job will get queued up , and then when that resource , that machine becomes available , your job will get exported there . So , there 's a lot of nice features to it and it kinda helps to balance the load of the machines and uh , right now Andreas and I have been the main ones using it and we 're {disfmarker} Uh . The SRI recognizer has all this P - make customs stuff built into it . +Professor C: So as I understand , you know , he 's using all the machines and you 're using all the machines , +PhD F: So . +Professor C: is the rough division of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Exactly . Yeah , you know , I {disfmarker} I sort of got started {comment} using the recognizer just recently and uh , uh I fired off a training job , and then I fired off a recognition job and I get this email about midnight from Andreas saying , "" uh , are you running two {vocalsound} trainings simultaneously s my m my jobs are not getting run . "" So I had to back off a little bit . But , soon as we get some more machines then uh {disfmarker} then we 'll have more compute available . So , um , that 's just a quick update about what we 've got . So . +Grad G: Um , I have {disfmarker} I have a question about the uh , parallelization ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So , um , let 's say I have like , a thousand little {disfmarker} little jobs to do ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um , how do I do it with "" run command "" ? I mean do {disfmarker} +PhD F: You could write a script uh , which called run command on each sub - job +Grad G: Uh - huh . A thousand times ? +PhD F: right ? But you probably wanna be careful with that +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: because um , you don't wanna saturate the network . Uh , so , um , you know , you should {disfmarker} you should probably not run more than , say ten jobs yourself at any one time , uh , just because then it would keep other people {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , too much file transfer and stuff . +PhD F: Well it 's not that so much as that , you know , e with {disfmarker} if everybody ran fifty jobs at once then it would just bring everything to a halt and , you know , people 's jobs would get delayed , so it 's sort of a sharing thing . Um , +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: so you should try to limit it to somet sometim some number around ten jobs at a time . Um . So if you had a script for example that had a thousand things it needed to run , um , you 'd somehow need to put some logic in there if you were gonna use "" run command "" , uh , to only have ten of those going at a time . And uh , then , when one of those finished you 'd fire off another one . Um , +Professor C: I remember I {disfmarker} I forget whether it was when the Rutgers or {disfmarker} or Hopkins workshop , I remember one of the workshops I was at there were {disfmarker} everybody was real excited cuz they got twenty - five machines and there was some kind of P - make like thing that sit sent things out . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So all twenty - five people were sending things to all twenty - five machines +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} and things were a lot less efficient than if you 'd just use your own machine . +PhD F: Yeah . Yep . Yeah , exactly . Yeah , you have to be a little bit careful . +Professor C: as I recall , but . Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD F: Um , but uh , you can also {disfmarker} If you have that level of parallelization um , and you don't wanna have to worry about writing the logic in {disfmarker} in a Perl script to take care of that , you can use um , P - make +Grad G: Just do P - make . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} and you basically write a Make file that uh , you know your final job depends on these one thousand things , +Grad G: s Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and when you run P - make , uh , on your Make file , you can give it the dash capital J and {disfmarker} and then a number , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and that number represents how many uh , machines to use at once . And then it 'll make sure that it never goes above that . +Grad G: Right . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: Right . OK . +PhD F: I can get some documentation . +PhD D: So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not systematically queued . I mean all the jobs are running . If you launch twenty jobs , they are all running . Alright . +PhD F: It depends . If you {disfmarker} "" Run command "" , that I mentioned before , is {disfmarker} doesn't know about other things that you might be running . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So , it would be possible to run a hundred run jobs at once , +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: and they wouldn't know about each other . But if you use P - make , then , it knows about all the jobs that it has to run +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and it can control , uh , how many it runs simultaneously . +Professor C: So "" run command "" doesn't use P - make , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: It uses "" export "" underlyingly . But , if you {disfmarker} i It 's meant to be run one job at a time ? So you could fire off a thousand of those , and it doesn't know {disfmarker} any one of those doesn't know about the other ones that are running . +Professor C: So why would one use that rather than P - make ? +PhD F: Well , if you have , um {disfmarker} Like , for example , uh if you didn't wanna write a P - make script and you just had a , uh {disfmarker} an HTK training job that you know is gonna take uh , six hours to run , and somebody 's using , uh , the machine you typically use , you can say "" run command "" and your HTK thing and it 'll find another machine , the fastest currently available machine and {disfmarker} and run your job there . +Professor C: Now , does it have the same sort of behavior as P - make , which is that , you know , if you run something on somebody 's machine and they come in and hit a key then it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yes . Yeah , there are um {disfmarker} Right . So some of the machines at the institute , um , have this attribute called "" no evict "" . And if you specify that , in {disfmarker} in one of your attribute lines , then it 'll go to a machine which your job won't be evicted from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But , the machines that don't have that attribute , if a job gets fired up on that , which could be somebody 's desktop machine , and {disfmarker} and they were at lunch , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: they come back from lunch and they start typing on the console , then your machine will get evicted {disfmarker} your job {comment} will get evicted from their machine and be restarted on another machine . Automatically . So {disfmarker} which can cause you to lose time , right ? If you had a two hour job , and it got halfway through and then somebody came back to their machine and it got evicted . So . If you don't want your job to run on a machine where it could be evicted , then you give it the minus {disfmarker} the attribute , you know , "" no evict "" , and it 'll pick a machine that it can't be evicted from . So . +Professor C: Um , what {disfmarker} what about {disfmarker} I remember always used to be an issue , maybe it 's not anymore , that if you {disfmarker} if something required {disfmarker} if your machine required somebody hitting a key in order to evict things that are on it so you could work , but if you were logged into it from home ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and you weren't hitting any keys ? cuz you were , home ? +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how that works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh , it seems like Andreas did something for that . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: Um . +Professor C: OK . We can ask him sometime . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I don't know whether it monitors the keyboard or actually looks at the console TTY , so maybe if you echoed something to the you know , dev {disfmarker} dev console or something . +Professor C: You probably wouldn't ordinarily , though . Yeah . Right ? You probably wouldn't ordinarily . +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor C: I mean you sort of {disfmarker} you 're at home and you 're trying to log in , and it takes forever to even log you in , and you probably go , "" screw this "" , +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah , so , um , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . I {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I 'm not sure about that one . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD F: But uh . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Uh , I need a little orientation about this environment and uh scr s how to run some jobs here because I never d did anything so far with this X emissions +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So , I think maybe I 'll ask you after the meeting . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and also uh , Stephane 's a {disfmarker} a really good resource for that if you can't find me . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yep . OK , sure +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Especially with regard to the Aurora stuff . +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: He {disfmarker} he knows that stuff better than I do . +Professor C: OK . Well , why don't we uh , uh , Sunil since you 're {vocalsound} haven't {disfmarker} haven't been at one of these yet , why don't yo you tell us what 's {disfmarker} what 's up with you ? Wh - what you 've been up to , hopefully . +PhD A: Um . Yeah . So , uh , shall I start from {disfmarker} Well I don't know how may I {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} OK . Uh , I think I 'll start from the post uh Aurora submission maybe . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , after the submission the {disfmarker} what I 've been working on mainly was to take {disfmarker} take other s submissions and then over their system , what they submitted , because we didn't have any speech enhancement system in {disfmarker} in ours . So {disfmarker} So I tried uh , And u First I tried just LDA . And then I found that uh , I mean , if {disfmarker} if I combine it with LDA , it gives @ @ improvement over theirs . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are y are you saying LDA ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: LDA . OK . +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} just the LDA filters . I just plug in {disfmarker} I just take the cepstral coefficients coming from their system and then plug in LDA on top of that . But the LDA filter that I used was different from what we submitted in the proposal . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What I did was {vocalsound} I took the LDA filter 's design using clean speech , uh , mainly because the speech is already cleaned up after the enhancement so , instead of using this , uh , narrow {disfmarker} narrow band LDA filter that we submitted uh , I got new filters . So that seems to be giving {disfmarker} uh , improving over their uh , system . Slightly . But , not very significantly . And uh , that was uh , showing any improvement over {disfmarker} final {disfmarker} by plugging in an LDA . And uh , so then after {disfmarker} after that I {disfmarker} I added uh , on - line normalization also on top of that . And that {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there also I n I found that I have to make some changes to their time constant that I used because th it has a {disfmarker} a mean and variance update time constant and {disfmarker} which is not suitable for the enhanced speech , and whatever we try it on with proposal - one . But um , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't play with that time constant a lot , I just t g I just found that I have to reduce the value {disfmarker} I mean , I have to increase the time constant , or reduce the value of the update value . That 's all I found So I have to . Uh , Yeah . And uh , uh , the other {disfmarker} other thing what I tried was , I just um , uh , took the baseline and then ran it with the endpoint inf uh th information , just the Aurora baseline , to see that how much the baseline itself improves by just supplying the information of the {disfmarker} I mean the w speech and nonspeech . And uh , I found that the baseline itself improves by twenty - two percent by just giving the wuh . +Professor C: Uh , can you back up a second , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I missed something , uh , I guess my mind wandered . Ad - ad When you added the on - line normalization and so forth , uh , uh things got better again ? +PhD A: Yeah . No . +Professor C: or is it ? +PhD A: No . No , things didn't get better with the same time constant that we used . +Professor C: Did it not ? No , no . With a different time constant . +PhD A: With the different time constant I found that {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't get an improvement over not using on - line normalization , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: because I {disfmarker} I found that I would have change the value of the update factor . +Professor C: No you didn't , OK . +PhD A: But I didn't play it with play {disfmarker} play quite a bit to make it better than . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's still not {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: I mean , the on - line normalization didn't give me any improvement . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: And uh , so , +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: oh yeah So I just stopped there with the uh , speech enhancement . The {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was the {disfmarker} adding the uh , endpoint information to the baseline and that itself gives like twenty - two percent because the {disfmarker} the second {disfmarker} the new phase is going to be with the endpointed speech . And just to get a feel of how much the baseline itself is going to change by adding this endpoint information , I just , uh , use {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: So people won't even have to worry about , uh , doing speech - nonspeech then . +PhD A: Yeah that 's , that 's what the feeling is like . They 're going to give the endpoint information . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor C: G I guess the issue is that people do that anyway , +PhD F: I see . +Professor C: everybody does that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and they wanted to see , given that you 're doing that , what {disfmarker} what are the best features that you should use . +PhD F: Yeah , I see . +PhD A: So , +Professor C: I mean clearly they 're interact . So I don't know that I entirely agree with it . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but it might be uh {disfmarker} In some ways it might be better t to {disfmarker} rather than giving the endpoints , to have a standard that everybody uses and then interacts with . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know . It 's {disfmarker} it 's still someth reasonable . +PhD F: So , are people supposed to assume that there is uh {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are people not supposed to use any speech outside of those endpoints ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or can you then use speech outside of it for estimating background noise and things ? +PhD A: No . No . That i I {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , exactly . I guess that is {disfmarker} that is where the consensus is . Like y you will {disfmarker} you will {disfmarker} You 'll be given the information about the beginning and the end of speech but the whole speech is available to you . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: So it should make the spectral subtraction style things work even better , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: because you don't have the mistakes in it . Yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} The baseline itself {disfmarker} I mean , it improves by twenty - two percent . I found that in s one of the SpeechDat - Car cases , that like , the Spanish one improves by just fifty percent by just putting the endpoint . w +PhD F: Wow . +PhD A: I mean you don't need any further speech enhancement with fifty . So , uh , +PhD F: So the baseline itself improves by fifty percent . +PhD A: Yeah , by fifty percent . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Wow . +Professor C: So it 's g it 's gonna be harder to {vocalsound} beat that actually . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that is when uh , the {disfmarker} the qualification criteria was reduced from fifty percent to something like twenty - five percent for well - matched . And I think they have {disfmarker} they have actually changed their qualification c criteria now . And uh , Yeah , I guess after that , I just went home f I just had a vacation fo for four weeks . Uh . +Professor C: OK . No , that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} good update . +PhD A: Ye Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I came back and I started working on uh , some other speech enhancement algorithm . I mean , so {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} from the submission what I found that people have tried spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering . These are the main uh , approaches where people have tried , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: so just to {disfmarker} just to fill the space with some f few more speech enhancement algorithms to see whether it improves a lot , I {disfmarker} I 've been working on this uh , signal subspace approach for speech enhancement where you take the noisy signal and then decomposing the signal s and the noise subspace and then try to estimate the clean speech from the signal plus noise subspace . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 've been actually running some s So far I 've been trying it only on Matlab . I have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test whether it works first or not +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then I 'll p port it to C and I 'll update it with the repository once I find it it giving any some positive result . So , yeah . +Professor C: S So you s you So you said one thing I want to jump on for a second . So {disfmarker} so now you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting tuned into the repository thing that he has here +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} so we we 'll have a {vocalsound} single place where the stuff is . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: Cool . Um , so maybe uh , just briefly , you could remind us about the related experiments . Cuz you did some stuff that you talked about last week , I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , where you were also combining something {disfmarker} both of you I guess were both combining something from the uh , French Telecom system with {vocalsound} the u uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was system one or system two , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . It was system one . So +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: we {disfmarker} The main thing that we did is just to take the spectral subtraction from the France Telecom , which provide us some speech samples that are uh , with noise removed . +Professor C: So I let me {disfmarker} let me just stop you there . So then , one distinction is that uh , you were taking the actual France Telecom features and then applying something to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , no there is a slight different . Uh I mean , which are extracted at the handset because they had another back - end blind equalization {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's what I mean . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But u u Sorry , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah , I 'm not being {disfmarker} I 'm not being clear . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: What I meant was you had something like cepstra or something , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And so one difference is that , I guess you were taking spectra . +PhD A: The speech . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But I guess it 's the s exactly the same thing because on the heads uh , handset they just applied this Wiener filter and then compute cepstral features , +PhD A: Yeah , the cepstral f The difference is like {disfmarker} There may be a slight difference in the way {disfmarker} +PhD D: right ? or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: because they use exactly the baseline system for converting the cepstrum once you have the speech . I mean , if we are using our own code for th I mean that {disfmarker} that could be the only difference . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: I mean , there is no other difference . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But you got some sort of different result . So I 'm trying to understand it . But uh , I th +PhD D: Yeah , well I think we should uh , have a table with all the result because I don't know I uh , I don't exactly know what are your results ? But , +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but so we did this , and another difference I guess is that we just applied uh , proposal - one system after this without {disfmarker} well , with our modification to reduce the delay of the {disfmarker} the LDA filters , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and +PhD B: And the filter {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well there are slight modifications , but it was the full proposal - one . In your case , if you tried just putting LDA , then maybe on - line normalization {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Only LDA . Yeah . Af - I {disfmarker} after that I added on - line normalization , yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So we just tried directly to {disfmarker} to just , keep the system as it was and , um , when we plug the spectral subtraction it improves uh , signif significantly . Um , but , what seems clear also is that we have to retune the time constants of the on - line normalization . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Because if we keep the value that was submitted uh , it doesn't help at all . You can remove on - line normalization , or put it , it doesn't change anything . Uh , uh , as long as you have the spectral subtraction . But , you can still find some kind of optimum somewhere , and we don't know where exactly +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: but , uh . +PhD A: Yeah , I assume . +Professor C: So it sounds like you should look at some tables of results or something +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: and see where i where the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where they were different and what we can learn from it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: without any change . OK . +PhD B: But it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: It 's the new . +PhD D: with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with changes , +PhD A: with +PhD B: The new . +PhD D: because we change it the system to have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh yeah , I mean the {disfmarker} the new LDA filters . +PhD B: The new . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} OK . +PhD D: Yeah . LDA filters . There are other things that we finally were shown to improve also like , the sixty - four hertz cut - off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: w Uh , it doesn't seem to hurt on TI - digits , finally . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Maybe because of other changes . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Um , well there are some {vocalsound} minor changes , yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , right now if we look at the results , it 's , um , always better than {disfmarker} it seems always better than France Telecom for mismatch and high - mismatch . And it 's still slightly worse for well - matched . +PhD B: But +PhD D: Um , but this is not significant . But , the problem is that it 's not significant , but if you put this in the , mmm , uh , spreadsheet , it 's still worse . Even with very minor {disfmarker} uh , even if it 's only slightly worse for well - matched . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And significantly better for HM . Uh , but , well . I don't think it 's importa important because when they will change their metric , uh , uh , mainly because of uh , when you p you plug the um , frame dropping in the baseline system , it will improve a lot HM , and MM , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: so , um , I guess what will happen {disfmarker} I don't know what will happen . But , the different contribution , I think , for the different test set will be more even . +PhD A: Because the {disfmarker} your improvement on HM and MM will also go down significantly in the spreadsheet so . But the {pause} the well - matched may still {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean the well - matched may be the one which is least affected by adding the endpoint information . +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the MM {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: MM and HM are going to be v hugely affected by it . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so um , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . But they d the {disfmarker} everything I mean is like , but there that 's how they reduce {disfmarker} why they reduce the qualification to twenty - five percent or some {disfmarker} something on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But are they changing the weighting ? +PhD A: Uh , no , I guess they are going ahead with the same weighting . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So there 's nothing on {disfmarker} +Professor C: I don't understand that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I guess I {disfmarker} I haven't been part of the discussion , so , um , it seems to me that the well - matched condition is gonna be unusual , +PhD A: Usual . +Professor C: in this case . Unusual . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Because , um , you don't actually have good matches ordinarily for what any @ @ {disfmarker} particular person 's car is like , or +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: uh , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: It seems like something like the middle one is {disfmarker} is more natural . +PhD A: Hmm . Right . +Professor C: So I don't know why the {pause} well - matched is uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , but actually the well {disfmarker} well the well - matched um , uh , I mean the {disfmarker} the well - matched condition is not like , uh , the one in TI - digits where uh , you have all the training , uh , conditions exactly like replicated in the testing condition also . It 's like , this is not calibrated by SNR or something . The well - matched has also some {disfmarker} some mismatch in that which is other than the {disfmarker} +Professor C: The well wa matched has mismatch ? +PhD A: has {disfmarker} has also some slight mismatches , unlike the TI - digits where it 's like prefectly matched +PhD F: Perfect to match . +PhD A: because it 's artificially added noise . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: But this is natural recording . +Professor C: Yeah . So remind me of what well - matched meant ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} the well - matched is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: You 've told me many times . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} the well - matched is defined like it 's seventy percent of the whole database is used for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , so it means that if the database is large enough , it 's matched . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because it +PhD A: OK , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: in each set you have a range of conditions {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So , I mean , yeah , unless they deliberately chose it to be different , which they didn't because they want it to be well - matched , it is pretty much {disfmarker} You know , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's sort of saying if you {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not guaranteed though . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , it 's not guaranteed . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah because the m the main {disfmarker} major reason for the m +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: the main mismatch is coming from the amount of noise and the silence frames and all those present in the database actually . +Professor C: Again , if you have enough {disfmarker} if you have enough {disfmarker} +PhD A: No yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So it 's sort of i i it 's sort of saying OK , so you {disfmarker} much as you train your dictation machine for talking into your computer , um , you {disfmarker} you have a car , and so you drive it around a bunch and {disfmarker} and record noise conditions , or something , and then {disfmarker} I don't think that 's very realistic , I mean I th +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I you know , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , I guess they 're saying that if you were a company that was selling the stuff commercially , that you would have a bunch of people driving around in a bunch of cars , and {disfmarker} and you would have something that was roughly similar and maybe that 's the argument , but I 'm not sure I buy it , so . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh , So What else is going on ? +PhD D: Mmm . You Yeah . We are playing {disfmarker} we are also playing , trying to put other spectral subtraction mmm , in the code . Um , it would be a very simple spectral subtraction , on the um , mel energies which I already tested but without the um frame dropping actually , and I think it 's important to have frame dropping if you use spectral subtraction . +PhD F: Is it {disfmarker} is spectral subtraction typically done on the {disfmarker} after the mel , uh , scaling or is it done on the FFT bins ? +PhD D: Um , +PhD F: Does it matter , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I don't know . Well , it 's both {disfmarker} both uh , cases can i +PhD F: Oh . +PhD D: Yeah . So - some of the proposal , uh , we 're doing this on the bin {disfmarker} on the FFT bins , +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: others on the um , mel energies . You can do both , but I cannot tell you what 's {disfmarker} which one might be better or {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: I guess if you want to reconstruct the speech , it may be a good idea to do it on FFT bins . +PhD D: I don't know . Yeah , but +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: But for speech recognition , it may not . I mean it may not be very different if you do it on mel warped or whether you do it on FFT . So you 're going to do a linear weighting anyway after that . +PhD F: I see . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Yeah ? +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD A: So , it may not be really a big different . +PhD D: Well , it gives something different , but I don't know what are the , pros and cons of both . +PhD A: It I Uh - huh . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD A: So +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: The other thing is like when you 're putting in a speech enhancement technique , uh , is it like one stage speech enhancement ? Because everybody seems to have a mod two stages of speech enhancement in all the proposals , which is really giving them some improvement . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean they just do the same thing again once more . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} So , there 's something that is good about doing it {disfmarker} I mean , to cleaning it up once more . +PhD D: Yeah , it might be . +PhD A: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: so we can {disfmarker} +PhD D: So maybe in my implementation I should also try to inspire me from this kind of thing +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what +Professor C: Well , the other thing would be to combine what you 're doing . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: I mean maybe one or {disfmarker} one or the other of the things that you 're doing would benefit from the other happening first . +PhD A: That 's wh Yeah . So , +Professor C: Right , so he 's doing a signal subspace thing , maybe it would work better if you 'd already done some simple spectral subtraction , or maybe vi maybe the other way around , +PhD D: Yeah , mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: you know ? +PhD A: So I 've been thinking about combining the Wiener filtering with signal subspace , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean just to see all {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some such permutation combination to see whether it really helps or not . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: How is it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm ignorant about this , how does {disfmarker} I mean , since Wiener filter also assumes that you 're {disfmarker} that you 're adding together the two signals , how is {disfmarker} how is that differ from signal subspace ? +PhD A: The signal subspace ? The {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: The signal subspace approach has actually an in - built Wiener filtering in it . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . It is like a KL transform followed by a Wiener filter . Is the signal is {disfmarker} is a signal substrate . +Professor C: Oh , oh , OK so the difference is the KL . +PhD A: So , the {disfmarker} the different {disfmarker} the c the {disfmarker} the advantage of combining two things is mainly coming from the signal subspace approach doesn't work very well if the SNR is very bad . It 's {disfmarker} it works very poorly with the poor SNR conditions , and in colored noise . +Professor C: I see . So essentially you could do simple spectral subtraction , followed by a KL transform , followed by a +PhD A: Wiener filtering . It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a cascade of two s +Professor C: Wiener filter . Yeah , in general , you don't {disfmarker} that 's right you don't wanna othorg orthogonalize if the things are noisy . Actually . Um , that was something that uh , Herve and I were talking about with um , the multi - band stuff , that if you 're converting things to from uh , bands , groups of bands into cepstral coef you know , local sort of local cepstral coefficients that it 's not that great to do it if it 's noisy . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . Yeah . So . +Professor C: Uh , so . +PhD A: So that {disfmarker} that 's one reason maybe we could combine s some {disfmarker} something to improve SNR a little bit , first stage , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then do a something in the second stage which could take it further . +PhD D: What was your point about {disfmarker} about colored noise there ? +PhD A: Oh , the colored noise uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: the colored noise {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the v the signal subspace approach has {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it actually depends on inverting the matrices . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} ac the covariance matrix of the noise . So if {disfmarker} if it is not positive definite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean it has a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't behave very well if it is not positive definite ak It works very well with white noise because we know for sure that it has a positive definite . +Professor C: So you should do spectral subtraction and then add noise . +PhD A: So the way they get around is like they do an inverse filtering , first of the colo colored noise +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then make the noise white , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: and then finally when you reconstruct the speech back , you do this filtering again . +PhD D: Yeah , right . +Professor C: I was only half kidding . I mean if you {disfmarker} sort of {vocalsound} you do the s spectral subtraction , that also gets rid {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and then you {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then add a little bit l noise {disfmarker} noise addition {disfmarker} I mean , that sort of what J {disfmarker} JRASTA does , in a way . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: If you look at what JRASTA doing essentially i i it 's equivalent to sort of adding a little {disfmarker} adding a little noise , +PhD A: Huh ? Uh - huh . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: in order to get rid of the effects of noise . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , yeah . So there is this . And maybe we {disfmarker} well we find some people so that {vocalsound} uh , agree to maybe work with us , and they have implementation of VTS techniques so it 's um , Vector Taylor Series that are used to mmm , {vocalsound} uh f to model the transformation between clean cepstra and noisy cepstra . So . Well , if you take the standard model of channel plus noise , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a nonlinear eh uh , transformation in the cepstral domain . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yes . +PhD D: And uh , there is a way to approximate this using uh , first - order or second - order Taylor Series and it can be used for {vocalsound} uh , getting rid of the noise and the channel effect . +Professor C: Who is doing this ? +PhD D: Uh w working in the cepstral domain ? So there is one guy in Grenada , +PhD B: Yeah , in Grenada one of my friend . +PhD D: and another in {pause} uh , Lucent that I met at ICASSP . +Professor C: Who 's the guy in Grenada ? +PhD D: uh , +PhD B: Uh , Jose Carlos Segura . +Professor C: I don't know him . +PhD A: This VTS has been proposed by CMU ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is it {disfmarker} is it the CMU ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Originally the idea was from CMU . +PhD A: From C . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's again a different thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that could be tried . Um , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , so at any rate , you 're looking general , uh , standing back from it , looking at ways to combine one form or another of uh , noise removal , uh , with {disfmarker} with these other things we have , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , looks like a worthy thing to {disfmarker} to do here . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But , yeah . But for sure there 's required to {disfmarker} that requires to re - check everything else , and re - optimize the other things +Professor C: Oh yeah . +PhD D: and , for sure the on - line normalization may be the LDA filter . Um , +Professor C: Well one of the {disfmarker} seems like one of the things to go through next week when Hari 's here , +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz Hari 'll have his own ideas too {disfmarker} or {pause} I guess not next week , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: week and a half , uh , will be sort of go through these alternatives , what we 've seen so far , and come up with some game plans . Um . You know . So , I mean one way would {disfmarker} he Here are some alternate visions . I mean one would be , you look at a few things very quickly , you pick on something that looks like it 's promising and then everybody works really hard on the same {disfmarker} different aspects of the same thing . Another thing would be to have t to {disfmarker} to pick two pol two plausible things , and {disfmarker} and you know , have t sort of two working things for a while until we figure out what 's better , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then , you know , uh , but , w um , uh , he 'll have some ideas on that too . +PhD A: The other thing is to , uh {disfmarker} Most of the speech enhancement techniques have reported results on small vocabulary tasks . But we {disfmarker} we going to address this Wall Street Journal in our next stage , which is also going to be a noisy task so s very few people have reported something on using some continuous speech at all . So , there are some {disfmarker} I mean , I was looking at some literature on speech enhancement applied to large vocabulary tasks and spectral subtraction doesn't seems to be the thing to do for large vocabulary tasks . And it 's {disfmarker} Always people have shown improvement with Wiener filtering and maybe subspace approach over spectral subtraction everywhere . But if we {disfmarker} if we have to use simple spectral subtraction , we may have to do some optimization {pause} to make it work @ @ . +Professor C: So they 're making {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} Somebody 's generating Wall Street Journal with additive {disfmarker} artificially added noise or something ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Sort of a {disfmarker} sort of like what they did with TI - digits , and ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: I m I guess Guenter Hirsch is in charge of that . Guenter Hirsch and TI . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: Maybe Roger {disfmarker} r Roger , maybe in charge of . +Professor C: And then they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh , uh , generating HTK scripts to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I don't know . There are {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} there is no {disfmarker} I don't know if they are converging on HTK or are using some Mississippi State , +Professor C: Mis - Mississippi State maybe , +PhD A: yeah . I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: yeah . Yeah , so that 'll be a little {disfmarker} little task in itself . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , well we 've {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true for the additive noise , y artificially added noise we 've always used small vocabulary too . But for n there 's been noisy speech this larv large vocabulary that we 've worked with in Broadcast News . So we we did the Broadcast News evaluation +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and some of the focus conditions were noisy and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had additive n +Professor C: But we {disfmarker} but we didn't do spectral subtraction . We were doing our funny stuff , right ? We were doing multi multi uh , multi - stream and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: But it , you know , we di stuff we did helped . I mean it , did something . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So . Um , now we have this um , meeting data . You know , like the stuff we 're {comment} recording right now , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh , that we have uh , for the {disfmarker} uh , the quote - unquote noisy data there is just {disfmarker} noisy and reverberant actually . It 's the far field mike . And uh , we have uh , the digits that we do at the end of these things . And that 's what most o again , most of our work has been done with that , with {disfmarker} with uh , connected digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um , but uh , we have recognition now with some of the continuous speech , large vocabulary continuous speech , using Switchboard {disfmarker} uh , Switchboard recognizer , +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: uh , no training , {vocalsound} from this , just {disfmarker} just plain using the Switchboard . +PhD A: Oh . You just take the Switchboard trained {disfmarker} ? Yeah , +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're doing , +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: yeah . Now there are some adaptation though , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . That 's cool . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that uh , Andreas has been playing with , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: but we 're hop uh , actually uh , Dave and I were just talking earlier today about maybe at some point not that distant future , trying some of the techniques that we 've talked about on , uh , some of the large vocabulary data . Um , I mean , I guess no one had done {disfmarker} yet done test one on the distant mike using uh , the SRI recognizer and , uh , +PhD F: I don't {disfmarker} not that I know of . +Professor C: Yeah , cuz everybody 's scared . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You 'll see a little smoke coming up from the {disfmarker} the CPU or something {vocalsound} trying to {disfmarker} trying to do it , +PhD F: That 's right +Professor C: but uh , yeah . But , you 're right that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's a real good point , that uh , we {disfmarker} we don't know yeah , uh , I mean , what if any of these ta I guess that 's why they 're pushing that in the uh {disfmarker} in the evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , But um , Good . OK . Anything else going on ? at you guys ' end , +PhD B: I don't have good result , with the {disfmarker} inc including the new parameters , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I don't have good result . Are {pause} similar or a little bit worse . +PhD A: With what {disfmarker} what other new p new parameter ? +Grad G: You 're talking about your voicing ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So maybe {disfmarker} You probably need to back up a bit +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: seeing as how Sunil , +PhD B: I tried to include another new parameter to the traditional parameter , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD B: the coe the cepstrum coefficient , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: that , like , the auto - correlation , the R - zero and R - one over R - zero +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and another estimation of the var the variance of the difference for {disfmarker} of the spec si uh , spectrum of the signal and {disfmarker} and the spectrum of time after filt mel filter bank . +PhD A: I 'm so sorry . I didn't get it . +PhD B: Nuh . Well . Anyway . The {disfmarker} First you have the sp the spectrum of the signal , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and you have the {disfmarker} on the other side you have the output of the mel filter bank . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: You can extend the coefficient of the mel filter bank and obtain an approximation of the spectrum of the signal . +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +PhD B: I do the difference {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: I found a difference at the variance of this different +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: because , suppose we {disfmarker} we think that if the variance is high , maybe you have n uh , noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And if the variance is small , maybe you have uh , speech . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to To {disfmarker} The idea is to found another feature for discriminate between voice sound and unvoice sound . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And we try to use this new feature {disfmarker} feature . And I did experiment {disfmarker} I need to change {disfmarker} to obtain this new feature I need to change the size {disfmarker} the window size {disfmarker} size . of the a of the {disfmarker} analysis window size , to have more information . +PhD A: Yeah . Make it longer . +PhD B: Uh , sixty - two point five milliseconds I think . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: And I do {disfmarker} I did two type of experiment to include this feature directly with the {disfmarker} with the other feature and to train a neural network to select it voice - unvoice - silence {disfmarker} silence +PhD A: Unvoiced . Well . +PhD B: and to {disfmarker} to concat this new feature . But the result are n with the neural network I have more or less the same result . +PhD A: As using just the cepstrum , +PhD B: Result . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's neve e e sometime it 's worse , sometime it 's a little bit better , but not significantly . +PhD A: Uh , is it with TI - digits , or with {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} No , I work with eh , Italian and Spanish basically . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD B: And if I don't y use the neural network , and use directly the feature the results are worse . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But Doesn't help . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I really wonder though . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean we 've had these discussions before , and {disfmarker} and one of the things that struck me was that {disfmarker} uh , about this line of thought that was particularly interesting to me was that we um {disfmarker} whenever you condense things , uh , in an irreversible way , um , you throw away some information . And , that 's mostly viewed on as a good thing , in the way we use it , because we wanna suppress things that will cause variability for uh particular , uh , phonetic units . Um , but , you 'll do throw something away . And so the question is , uh , can we figure out if there 's something we 've thrown away that we shouldn't have . And um . So , when they were looking at the difference between the filter bank and the FFT that was going into the filter bank , I was thinking "" oh , OK , so they 're picking on something they 're looking on it to figure out noise , or voice {disfmarker} voiced property whatever . "" So that {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Maybe that helps to drive the {disfmarker} the thought process of coming up with the features . But for me sort of the interesting thing was , "" well , but is there just something in that difference which is useful ? "" So another way of doing it , maybe , would be just to take the FFT uh , power spectrum , and feed it into a neural network , +PhD B: To know {disfmarker} +Professor C: and then use it , you know , in combination , or alone , or {disfmarker} or whatever +PhD F: Wi - with what targets ? +PhD A: Voiced , unvoiced is like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no . +PhD A: Oh . Or anything . +Professor C: No the {disfmarker} just the same {disfmarker} same way we 're using {disfmarker} I mean , the same way that we 're using the filter bank . +PhD F: Phones . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Exact way {disfmarker} the same way we 're using the filter bank . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , the filter bank is good for all the reasons that we say it 's good . But it 's different . And , you know , maybe if it 's used in combination , it will get at something that we 're missing . And maybe , you know , using , orth you know , KLT , or uh , um , adding probabilities , I mean , all th all the different ways that we 've been playing with , that we would let the {disfmarker} essentially let the neural network determine what is it that 's useful , that we 're missing here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , but there is so much variability in the power spectrum . +Professor C: Well , that 's probably why y i it would be unlikely to work as well by itself , but it might help in combination . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have to tell you , I can't remember the conference , but , uh , I think it 's about ten years ago , I remember going to one of the speech conferences and {disfmarker} and uh , I saw within very short distance of one another a couple different posters that showed about the wonders of some auditory inspired front - end or something , and a couple posters away it was somebody who compared one to uh , just putting in the FFT and the FFT did slightly better . So I mean the {disfmarker} i i It 's true there 's lots of variability , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but again we have these wonderful statistical mechanisms for quantifying that a that variability , and you know , doing something reasonable with it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , uh , It - it 's same , you know , argument that 's gone both ways about uh , you know , we have these data driven filters , in LDA , and on the other hand , if it 's data driven it means it 's driven by things that have lots of variability , and that are necessarily {disfmarker} not necessarily gonna be the same in training and test , so , in some ways it 's good to have data driven things , and in some ways it 's bad to have data driven things . So , +PhD A: Yeah , d +Professor C: part of what we 're discovering , is ways to combine things that are data driven than are not . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so anyway , it 's just a thought , that {disfmarker} that if we {disfmarker} if we had that {disfmarker} maybe it 's just a baseline uh , which would show us "" well , what are we really getting out of the filters "" , or maybe i i probably not by itself , but in combination , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , maybe there 's something to be gained from it , and let the {disfmarker} But , you know , y you 've only worked with us for a short time , maybe in a year or two you w you will actually come up with the right set of things to extract from this information . But , maybe the neural net and the H M Ms could figure it out quicker than you . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's just a thought . +PhD B: I can {disfmarker} I will try to do that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one um p one thing is like what {disfmarker} before we started using this VAD in this Aurora , the {disfmarker} th what we did was like , I {disfmarker} I guess most of you know about this , adding this additional speech - silence bit to the cepstrum and training the HMM on that . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: That is just a binary feature and that seems to be {vocalsound} improving a lot on the SpeechDat - Car where there is a lot of noise but not much on the TI - digits . So , a adding an additional feature to distin to discriminate between speech and nonspeech was helping . That 's it . +PhD D: Wait {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry ? +PhD A: Yeah , we actually added an additional binary feature to the cepstrum , just the baseline . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD B: You did some experiment . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the case of TI - digits it didn't actually give us anything , because there wasn't any f anything to discriminate between speech , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: and it was very short . But Italian was like very {disfmarker} it was a huge improvement on Italian . +PhD D: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . But anyway the question is even more , is within speech , can we get some features ? Are we drop dropping information that can might be useful within speech , +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: I mean . To {disfmarker} maybe to distinguish between voice sound and unvoiced sounds ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: And it 's particularly more relevant now since we 're gonna be given the endpoints . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Uh . So . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: There was a paper in ICASSP {disfmarker} this ICASSP {disfmarker} over the uh extracting some higher - order uh , information from the cepstral coefficients and I forgot the name . Some is some harmonics I don't know , I can {disfmarker} I can pull that paper out from ICASSP . It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Talking cumulants or something ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ? Uh , I don't know . +Professor C: Cumulants or something . +PhD A: I don't remember . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} No . +PhD A: It wa it was taking the , um {disfmarker} It was about finding the higher - order moments of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD A: And I 'm not sure about whether it is the higher - order moments , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: cumulants , yeah . +PhD A: maybe higher - order cumulants +Professor C: Oh . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Or m e +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , he was showing up uh some {disfmarker} something on noisy speech , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: some improvement on the noisy speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some small vocabulary tasks . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD A: So it was on PLP derived cepstral coefficients . +Professor C: Yeah , but again {disfmarker} You could argue that th that 's exactly what the neural network does . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So n neural network uh , is in some sense equivalent to computing , you know , higher - order moments of what you {disfmarker} +PhD A: trying to f to Moments , yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . So . I mean , it doesn't do it very specifically , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and pretty {disfmarker} you know . But . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Uh , anything on your end you want to talk about ? Uh . +Grad G: Um , nothing I wanna really talk about . I can {disfmarker} I can just uh , um , share a little bit {disfmarker} Sunil hasn't {disfmarker} hasn't heard about uh , what I 've been doing . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , so , um , I told you I was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was getting prepared to take this qualifier exam . So basically that 's just , um , trying to propose um , uh , your next your {disfmarker} your following years of {disfmarker} of your PHD work , trying {disfmarker} trying to find a project to {disfmarker} to define and {disfmarker} and to work on . So , I 've been , uh , looking into , um , doing something about r uh , speech recognition using acoustic events . So , um , the idea is you have all these {disfmarker} these different events , for example voicing , nasality , R - coloring , you know burst or noise , uh , frication , that kinda stuff , um , building robust um , primary detectors for these acoustic events , and using the outputs of these robust detectors to do speech recognition . Um , and , um , these {disfmarker} these primary detectors , um , will be , uh , inspired by , you know , multi - band techniques , um , doing things , um , similar to Larry Saul 's work on , uh , graphical models to {disfmarker} to detect these {disfmarker} these , uh , acoustic events . And , um , so I {disfmarker} I been {disfmarker} I been thinking about that and some of the issues that I 've been running into are , um , exactly what {disfmarker} what kind of acoustic events I need , what {disfmarker} um , what acoustic events will provide a {disfmarker} a good enough coverage to {disfmarker} in order to do the later recognition steps . And , also , um , once I decide a set of acoustic events , um , h how do I {disfmarker} how do I get labels ? Training data for {disfmarker} for these acoustic events . And , then later on down the line , I can start playing with the {disfmarker} the models themselves , the {disfmarker} the primary detectors . Um , so , um , I kinda see {disfmarker} like , after {disfmarker} after building the primary detectors I see um , myself taking the outputs and feeding them in , sorta tandem style into {disfmarker} into a um , Gaussian mixtures HMM back - end , um , and doing recognition . Um . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's just generally what I 've been looking at . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , +Professor C: By {disfmarker} by the way , uh , the voiced - unvoiced version of that for instance could tie right in to what Carmen was looking at . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: So , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know , um , if you {disfmarker} if a multi - band approach was helpful as {disfmarker} as I think it is , it seems to be helpful for determining voiced - unvoiced , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that one might be another thing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . Um , were {disfmarker} were you gonna say something ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad G: Oh . It looked {disfmarker} OK , never mind . Um , yeah . And so , this {disfmarker} this past week um , I 've been uh , looking a little bit into uh , TRAPS um , and doing {disfmarker} doing TRAPS on {disfmarker} on these e events too , just , um , seeing {disfmarker} seeing if that 's possible . Uh , and um , other than that , uh , I was kicked out of I - house for living there for four years . +Professor C: Oh no . So you live in a cardboard box in the street now +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: or , no ? +Grad G: Uh , well , s s som something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad G: In Albany , yeah . Yeah . And uh . Yep . That 's it . +Professor C: Suni - i d ' you v did uh {disfmarker} did you find a place ? +PhD A: Uh , no +Professor C: Is that out of the way ? +PhD A: not yet . Uh , yesterday I called up a lady who ha who will have a vacant room from May thirtieth and she said she 's interviewing two more people . So . And she would get back to me on Monday . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's only thing I have and Diane has a few more houses . She 's going to take some pictures and send me after I go back . So it 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +PhD F: Oh . So you 're not down here permanently yet ? +PhD A: No . I 'm going back to OGI today . +PhD F: Ah ! Oh , OK . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor C: OK . And then , you 're coming back uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , i I mean , I {disfmarker} I p I plan to be here on thirty - first . +Professor C: Thirty - first , +PhD A: Yeah , well if there 's a house available or place to {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: Thirty - first . +Professor C: Well , I mean i i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I hope . +Professor C: They 're available , and they 'll be able to get you something , so worst comes to worst we 'll put you up in a hotel for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a while +PhD A: Yeah . So , in that case , I 'm going to be here on thirty - first definitely . +Professor C: until you {disfmarker} OK . +Grad E: You know , if you 're in a desperate situation and you need a place to stay , you could stay with me for a while . I 've got a spare bedroom right now . +PhD A: Oh . OK . Thanks . That sure is nice of you . So , it may be he needs more than me . +Grad G: Oh r oh . Oh no , no . My {disfmarker} my cardboard box is actually a nice spacious two bedroom apartment . +Professor C: So a two bedroom cardboard box . Th - that 's great . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor C: Thanks Dave . +Grad G: yeah +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Do y wanna say anything about {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you actually been {disfmarker} Uh , last week you were doing this stuff with Pierre , you were {disfmarker} you were mentioning . Is that {disfmarker} that something worth talking about , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um , it 's {disfmarker} Well , um , it {disfmarker} I don't think it directly relates . Um , well , so , I was helping a speech researcher named Pierre Divenyi and he 's int He wanted to um , look at um , how people respond to formant changes , I think . Um . So he {disfmarker} he created a lot of synthetic audio files of vowel - to - vowel transitions , and then he wanted a psycho - acoustic um , spectrum . And he wanted to look at um , how the energy is moving {pause} over time in that spectrum and compare that to the {disfmarker} to the listener tests . And , um . So , I gave him a PLP spectrum . And {disfmarker} to um {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he t wanted to track the peaks so he could look at how they 're moving . So I took the um , PLP LPC coefficients and um , I found the roots . This was something that Stephane suggested . I found the roots of the um , LPC polynomial to , um , track the peaks in the , um , PLP LPC spectra . +PhD A: well there is aligned spectral pairs , is like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Is that the aligned s +Professor C: It 's a r root LPC , uh , of some sort . +PhD A: Oh , no . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So you just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: instead of the log you took the root square , I mean cubic root or something . What di w I didn't get that . +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's taking the {disfmarker} finding the roots of the LPC polynomial . +PhD A: Polynomial . Yeah . Is that the line spectral {disfmarker} +Professor C: So it 's like line spectral pairs . +PhD A: Oh , it 's like line sp +Professor C: Except I think what they call line spectral pairs they push it towards the unit circle , don't they , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: to sort of ? But it {disfmarker} But uh , you know . But what we 'd used to do w when I did synthesis at National Semiconductor twenty years ago , the technique we were playing with initially was {disfmarker} was taking the LPC polynomial and {disfmarker} and uh , finding the roots . It wasn't PLP cuz Hynek hadn't invented it yet , but it was just LPC , and uh , we found the roots of the polynomial , And th When you do that , sometimes they 're f they 're what most people call formants , sometimes they 're not . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} Formant tracking with it can be a little tricky cuz you get these funny {vocalsound} values in {disfmarker} in real speech , +PhD F: So you just {disfmarker} You typically just get a few roots ? +Professor C: but . +PhD F: You know , two or three , +Professor C: Well you get these complex pairs . +PhD F: something like that ? +Professor C: And it depends on the order that you 're doing , but . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , um , if {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Every root that 's {disfmarker} Since it 's a real signal , the LPC polynomial 's gonna have real coefficients . So I think that means that every root that is not a real root {comment} is gonna be a c complex pair , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , of a complex value and its conjugate . Um . So for each {disfmarker} And if you look at that on the unit circle , um , one of these {disfmarker} one of the members of the pair will be a positive frequency , one will be a negative frequency , I think . So I just {disfmarker} So , um , f for the {disfmarker} I 'm using an eighth - order polynomial and I 'll get three or four of these pairs +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: which give me s which gives me three or four peak positions . +Professor C: This is from synthetic speech , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So if it 's from synthetic speech then maybe it 'll be cleaner . I mean for real speech in real {disfmarker} then what you end up having is , like I say , funny little things that are {disfmarker} don't exactly fit your notion of formants all that well . +PhD F: How did {disfmarker} +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but mostly they are . +PhD D: But +Professor C: Mostly they do . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Mmm , +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and what {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} in what we were doing , which was not so much looking at things , it was OK +PhD D: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: because it was just a question of quantization . Uh , we were just you know , storing {disfmarker} It was {disfmarker} We were doing , uh , stored speech , uh , quantization . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but uh , in your case um , you know {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually you have peaks that are not at the formant 's positions , but they are lower in energy +Grad E: But {disfmarker} there 's some of that , yes . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Well they are much lower . +PhD F: If this is synthetic speech can't you just get the formants directly ? I mean h how is the speech created ? +Grad E: It was created from a synthesizer , and um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't a formant synthesizer was it ? +Professor C: I bet it {disfmarker} it might have {disfmarker} may have been +Grad E: I {disfmarker} d d this {disfmarker} +Professor C: but maybe he didn't have control over it or something ? +Grad E: In {disfmarker} in fact w we {disfmarker} we could get , um , formant frequencies out of the synthesizer , as well . And , um , w one thing that the , um , LPC approach will hopefully give me in addition , um , is that I {disfmarker} I might be able to find the b the bandwidths of these humps as well . Um , Stephane suggested looking at each complex pair as a {disfmarker} like a se second - order IIR filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , but I don't think there 's a g a really good reason not to um , get the formant frequencies from the synthesizer instead . Except that you don't have the psycho - acoustic modeling in that . +Professor C: Yeah , so the actual {disfmarker} So you 're not getting the actual formants per se . You 're getting the {disfmarker} Again , you 're getting sort of the , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You 're getting something that is {disfmarker} is uh , af strongly affected by the PLP model . And so it 's more psycho - acoustic . So it 's a little {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} It 's sort of {disfmarker} sort of a different thing . +PhD F: Oh , I see . That 's sort of the point . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . i Ordinarily , in a formant synthesizer , the bandwidths as well as the ban uh , formant centers are {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} Somewhere in the synthesizer that was put in , as {disfmarker} as what you {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but yeah , you view each complex pair as essentially a second - order section , which has , uh , band center and band width , and um , um {disfmarker} But . Yeah . O K . So , uh , yeah , you 're going back today and then back in a week I guess , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: and . Yeah . Great ! Well , welcome . +PhD A: Thanks . +PhD F: I guess we should do digits quickly . +Professor C: Oh yeah , digits . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: I almost forgot that . +PhD B: Digits . +Professor C: I almost forgot our daily digits . +PhD F: You wanna go ahead ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD F: OK . +","In a recent meeting involving several professors and PhD candidates, various topics related to microphone technology, speech recognition, and acoustic modeling were discussed. At the beginning of the conversation, there was a discussion about the choice of microphones for recording, as lapel microphones were abandoned in favor of wireless headsets due to issues with background noise and interference. + +Professor C, PhD F, and PhD A discussed the pros and cons of different microphone setups. Professor C noted that lapel microphones picked up too much background noise and interference, leading the team to prefer wireless headsets, although they weren't perfect either. Issues such as mouth clicks and breath sounds were mentioned as being more pronounced with headsets compared to lapel mics. + +A new order for compute machines was also brought up by PhD F. Twelve new SUN-Blade-100 machines were on order to create a compute farm. These would support the use of P-make and Customs for efficient distributed computing. PhD F explained the functionalities of the system, which included attributes for system selection based on criteria like memory, speed, operating system, etc. This setup, he explained, would help balance load across machines and run jobs in an optimized manner. + +Grad G expressed interest in the parallelization process and how to manage multiple small jobs using ""run command,"" a tool to export jobs to the fastest available machine. PhD F advised careful resource use so as not to saturate the network, reminding of the network's shared nature. + +Professor C recalled experiences with inefficient use of distributed systems at past workshops and the importance of careful planning to avoid overloading the system. PhD F continued with an update on the status of SRI recognizer customization and the ongoing use with Andreas. They conversed about the prospects of eviction policies of jobs and managing resources. + +PhD A then voiced the need for orientation on the environment and running jobs, which could be assisted by other team members like Stephane. Professor C asked PhD A to provide an update on his efforts since he'd been away for some time. + +PhD A shared updates on his work since the Aurora submission, focusing on speech enhancement systems. He experimented with LDA filters and on-line normalization to improve recognition performance on enhanced speech datasets. He specifically looked at the effect of endpoint information on baselines, mentioning significant improvement on Spanish SpeechDat-Car datasets. + +Professor C and PhD A discussed changes to the Aurora evaluation framework, specifically regarding the weighting and qualification criteria for the new phase of the assessment. There was confusion and concern about the emphasis on the well-matched condition, which was not fully representative of real-world scenarios. + +The conversation then shifted to the topic of additional spectral subtraction and other speech enhancement techniques, particularly their efficacy in large vocabulary tasks like the upcoming noisy Wall Street Journal task. PhD A pointed out that spectral subtraction might not be ideal for larger tasks, where other strategies like Wiener filtering might be more appropriate. + +Towards the end of the meeting, Grad G provided an update on his research directions, emphasizing the use of acoustic events in robust speech recognition. He explored the need for robust detectors for various acoustic events, the sourcing of adequate training data, and the integration of these detectors' outputs with a back-end HMM-based recognizer. + +PhD B shared his endeavors in exploring new parameters that could contribute to distinguishing between voiced and unvoiced sounds. He conducted experiments including various coefficients and attempting to use a neural network for feature selection, but the results were inconclusive or not significantly different from baseline. + +Grad E offered assistance to PhD A in finding accommodation upon his return to the Institute, demonstrating the collaborative environment among the members. + +The meeting concluded with plans to perform the routine task of recording digits for their database, a process that assists in developing and testing speech recognition systems." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: OK , +PhD F: That 's looks strange . +Grad B: now we 're on and it seems to be working . +Postdoc E: Oh there we go . +PhD C: One two three four five six +PhD A: That is weird . +Postdoc E: This looks good . +PhD A: It 's like when it 's been sitting for a long time or something . +Grad B: So , I mean {disfmarker} I don't know what it is . But all {disfmarker} all I know is that it seems like every time I am up here after a meeting , and I start it , it works fine . And if I 'm up here and I start it and we 're all sitting here waiting to have a meeting , it gives me that error message and I have not yet sat down with {disfmarker} been able to get that error message in a point where I can sit down and find out where it 's occurring in the code . +PhD A: Next time you get it maybe we should write it down . +Grad B: Yep , we will . One of these days . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Was it a pause , or {disfmarker} ? OK . Was it on "" pause "" or something ? +Grad B: No . +Postdoc E: OK . Don't know . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} so the uh , the new procedural change that just got suggested , which I think is a good idea is that um , we do the digit recordings at the end . And that way , if we 're recording somebody else 's uh meeting , and a number of the participants have to run off to some other meeting and don't have the time , uh , then they can run off . It 'll mean we 'll get somewhat fewer uh , sets of digits , but um , I think that way we 'll cut into people 's time , um , if someone 's on strict time uh , less . So , I th I think {disfmarker} I think we should start doing that . Um , so , uh , let 's see , we were having a discussion the other day , maybe we should bring that up , about uh , the nature of the data that we are collecting . uh @ @ that uh , we should have a fair amount of data that is um , collected for the same meeting , so that we can , uh {disfmarker} I don't know . Wh - what {disfmarker} what were some of the points again about that ? Is it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , well , OK , I 'll back up . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , at the previous {disfmarker} at last week 's meeting , this meeting I was griping {vocalsound} about wanting to get more data and I {disfmarker} I talked about this with Jane and Adam , um , and was thinking of this mostly just so that we could do research on this data um , since we 'll have a new {disfmarker} this new student di does wanna work with us , +PhD A: Well , great . +PhD F: th the guy that was at the last meeting . +PhD A: Great . +PhD F: And he 's already funded part - time , so we 'll only be paying him for sort of for half of the normal part - time , +PhD A: What a deal . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: And what 's he interested in , specifically ? +PhD F: So he 's {disfmarker} comes from a signal - processing background , but I liked him a lot cuz he 's very interested in higher level things , like language , and disfluencies and all kinds of eb maybe prosody , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Great . +PhD F: so he 's just getting his feet wet in that . Anyway , I thought OK , maybe we should have enough data so that if he starts {disfmarker} he 'd be starting in January , next semester that we 'd have , you know , enough data to work with . +Grad B: Right . +PhD F: But , um , Jane and Adam brought up a lot of good points that just posting a note to Berkeley people to have them come down here has some problems in that you m you need to make sure that the speakers are who you want and that the meeting type is what you want , and so forth . So , I thought about that and I think it 's still possible , um , but I 'd rather try to get more regular meetings of types that we know about , and hear , then sort of a mish - mosh of a bunch of one {disfmarker} one - time {disfmarker} +Grad B: One offs ? +PhD F: Yeah , just because it would be very hard to process the data in all senses , both to get the , um {disfmarker} to figure out what type of meeting it is and to do any kind of higher level work on it , like well , I was talking to Morgan about things like summarization , or what 's this meeting about . I mean it 's very different if you have a group that 's just giving a report on what they did that week , versus coming to a decision and so forth . So . Then I was um , talking to Morgan about some {pause} new proposed work in this area , sort of a separate issue from what the student would be working on where I was thinking of doing some kind of summarization of meetings or trying to find cues in both the utterances and in the utterance patterns , like in numbers of overlaps and amount of speech , sort of raw cues from the interaction that can be measured from the signals and from the diff different microphones that point to sort of hot spots in the meeting , or things where stuff is going on that might be important for someone who didn't attend to {pause} listen to . And in that uh , regard , I thought we definitely w will need {disfmarker} it 'd b it 'd be nice for us to have a bunch of data from a few different domains , or a few different kinds of meetings . So this {disfmarker} this meeting is one of them , although I 'm not sure I can participate if I {disfmarker} You know , I would feel very strange being part of a meeting that you were then analysing later for things like summarization . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , and then there are some others that menti that Morgan mentioned , like the front - end meeting {pause} and maybe a networking {pause} group meeting . +Grad B: Right . Yep . Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're hoping that they 'll let us start recording regularly . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} So if that were the case then I think we 'd have enough . +Grad B: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But basically , for anything where you 're trying to get a summarization of some kind of meeting {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} meaning out of the meeting , um , it would be too hard to have fifty different kinds of meetings where we didn't really have a good grasp on what does it mean to summarize , +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} rather we should have different meetings by the same group but hopefully that have different summaries . And then we need a couple that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} {pause} We don't wanna just have one group because that might be specific to that particular group , but @ @ three or four different kinds . +Grad B: Yeah , we have a lot of overlap between this meeting and the morning meeting . +Professor D: S So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: See , I 've never listened to the data for the front - end {pause} meeting . +Grad B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've only had three . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: OK . But maybe that 's enough . So , in general , I was thinking more data but also data where we hold some parameters constant or fairly similar , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a meeting about of people doing a certain kind of work where at least half the participants each time are the same . +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now , let {disfmarker} l l let me just give you the other side to that cuz I ca because I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that , but I think there is a complimentary piece to it too . Uh , for other kinds of research , particularly the acoustic oriented research , I actually feel the opposite need . I 'd like to have lots of different people . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor D: As many people here a a and talking about the kind of thing that you were just talking about it would have uh too few people from my point of view . I 'd like to have many different speakers . So , um I think I would also very much like us to have a fair amount of really random scattered meetings , of somebody coming down from campus , and {disfmarker} and uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , sure , if we can get more from them , fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: but if we only get one or two from each group , that still could be useful acoustically just because we 'd have close and distant microphones with different people . +PhD F: Yeah , I definitely agree with that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Definitely . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Can I {disfmarker} can I say about that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the issues that I think Adam and I raised were more a matter of advertising so that you get more native speakers . Because I think if you just say {disfmarker} an And in particular , my suggestion was to advertise to linguistics grad students because there you 'd have so people who 'd have proficiency enough in English that {disfmarker} that uh , it would be useful for {disfmarker} for purposes {disfmarker} You know . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But you know , I think I 've been {disfmarker} I 've I {disfmarker} I 've gathered data from undergrads at {disfmarker} on campus and if you just post randomly to undergrads I think you 'd get such a mixed bag that it would be hard to know how much conversation you 'd have at all . And {disfmarker} and the English you 'd have {disfmarker} The language models would be really hard to build +Professor D: Well , you want to i +Postdoc E: because it would not really be {disfmarker} it would be an interlanguage rather than {pause} than a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , uh , first place , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we 'd just want to have random people come down and talk to one another , I think there should be a meeting that has some goal and point cuz I {disfmarker} I think that 's what we 're investigating , +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD F: It has to be a {disfmarker} a pre - existing meeting , {pause} like a meeting that would otherwise happen anyway . +Professor D: so +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So I was {disfmarker} I was thinking more in terms of talking to professors uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , senior uh , uh , d and uh , doctoral students who are leading projects and offering to them that they have their {disfmarker} hold their meeting down here . +PhD F: That 's I think what we {disfmarker} and I agree with . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting ! +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . Oh , interesting ! +Professor D: Uh , that 's the first point . The second point is um I think that for some time now , going back through BeRP I think that we have had speakers that we 've worked with who had non - native accents and I th I think that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . I 'm not saying accents . u The accent 's not the problem . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Postdoc E: No , it 's more a matter of uh , proficiency , e e just simply fluency . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I mean , I deal with people on {disfmarker} on campus who {disfmarker} I think sometimes people , undergraduates um in computer science uh , have language skills that make , you know {disfmarker} that their {disfmarker} their fluency and writing skills are not so strong . +Professor D: Oh ! You 're not talking about foreign language at all . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , just talking about . +Professor D: You 're just talking about {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , e I just think , +Grad B: We all had the same thought . +Postdoc E: but you know , it 's like when you get into the graduate level , uh , no problem . I mean , I 'm not saying accents . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , then we 're completely gone . +Postdoc E: I 'm say I 'm saying fluency . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} the habits are already burnt in . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . I 'm just saying fluency . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think that , um {disfmarker} I think that the only thing we should say in the advertisement is that the meeting should be held in English . And {disfmarker} and I think if it 's a pre - existing meeting and it 's held in English , {comment} I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably OK if a few of the people don't have uh , g particularly good English skills . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK , now can I {disfmarker} can I say the other aspect of this from my perspective which is that um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this {disfmarker} this issue , you have a corpus out there , it should be used for {disfmarker} for multiple things cuz it 's so expensive to put together . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Right . +Postdoc E: And if people want to approach {disfmarker} Um , i so I know {pause} e e {pause} You know this {disfmarker} The idea of computational linguistics and probabilistic grammars and all may not be the focus of this group , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: but the idea of language models , which are fund you know generally speaking uh , you know , t t terms of like the amount of benefit per dollar spent or an hour invested in preparing the data , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: if you have a choice between people who are pr more proficient in {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} um , i more fluent , more {disfmarker} more close to being academic English , then it would seem to me to be a good thing . +Professor D: I guess {disfmarker} I maybe {disfmarker} Hmm . I +Postdoc E: Because otherwise y you don't have the ability to have {disfmarker} Uh , so if {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of idiolects that 's the worst possible case . If you have people who are using English as a {disfmarker} as an interlanguage because they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} uh , they can't speak in their native languages and {disfmarker} but their interlanguage isn't really a match to any existing , uh , language model , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: this is the worst case scenario . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's pretty much what you 're going to have in the networking group . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: because {disfmarker} because they {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} the network group is almost entirely Germans and Spaniards . +Postdoc E: Well Oh . But the thing is , I think that these people are of high enough level in their {disfmarker} in their language proficiency that {disfmarker} +Professor D: I see . +Postdoc E: And I 'm not objecting to accents . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just thinking that we have to think at a {disfmarker} at a higher level view , could we have a language model , a {disfmarker} a grammar {disfmarker} a grammar , basically , that um , wo would be a {disfmarker} a possibility . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So y so if you wanted to bring in a model like Dan Jurafsky 's model , an and do some top - down stuff , it {disfmarker} to help th the bottom - up and merge the things or whatever , uh , it seems like um , I don't see that there 's an argument {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I think is that why not have the corpus , since it 's so expensive to put together , uh , useful for the widest range of {disfmarker} of central corp things that people generally use corpora for and which are , you know , used in computational linguistics . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's my point . Which {disfmarker} which includes both top - down and bottom - up . +PhD C: It 's difficult . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , well , i i let 's {disfmarker} let 's see what we can get . I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I think that if we 're aiming at {disfmarker} at uh , groups of graduate students and professors and so forth who are talking about things together , and it 's from the Berkeley campus , probably most of it will be OK , +Postdoc E: Yes , that 's fine . That 's fine . Exactly . And my point in m in my note to Liz was I think that undergrads are an iff iffy population . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . OK . +PhD F: I definitely agree with that , I mean , for this purpose . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Well , not to mention the fact that I would be hesitant certainly to take anyone under eighteen , probably even an anyone under twenty - one . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Grads and professors , fine . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +Professor D: Oh , you age - ist ! +Grad B: What 's that ? Well , age - ist . {comment} The "" eighteen "" is because of the consent form . +Postdoc E: Age - ist . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , Yeah . +Grad B: We 'd hafta get {disfmarker} find their parent to sign for them . +PhD C: "" Age - ist "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I have a {disfmarker} uh , um , question . Well , Morgan , you were mentioning that Mari may not use the k equipment from IBM if they found something else , cuz there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} yeah , they 're d they 're uh {disfmarker} assessing whether they should do that or y do something else , hopefully over the next few weeks . +PhD F: Cuz I mean , one remote possibility is that if we st if we inherited that equipment , if she weren't using it , could we set up a room in the linguistics department ? And {disfmarker} and I mean , there {disfmarker} there may be a lot more {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or in psych , or in comp wherever , in another building where we could um , record people there . I think we 'd have a better chance +Grad B: I think we 'd need a real motivated partner to do that . We 'd need to find someone on campus who was interested in this . +PhD F: Right , but {disfmarker} Right . But if there were such a {disfmarker} I mean it 's a remote possibility , then um , you know , one of us could you know , go up there and record the meeting or something rather than bring all of them down here . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD F: So it 's just a just a thought if they end up not using the {disfmarker} the hardware . +Professor D: Well , the other thing {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the other thing that I was hoping to do in the first place was to turn it into some kind of portable thing so you could wheel it around . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Uh . But . Um , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I know that space is really scarce on {disfmarker} at least in CS . You know , to {disfmarker} to actually find a room that we could use regularly might actually be very difficult . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: But you may not need a separate room , you know , +Grad B: That 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the idea is , if they have a meeting room and they can guarantee that the equipment will be safe and so forth , and if one of us is up there once a week to record the meeting or something {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor D: Well , maybe John would let us put it into the phonology lab or something . +PhD F: Huh . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: You know . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I think it 's not out of the question . +Grad B: Yeah , I think it would be interesting because then we could regularly get another meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . So . +Grad B: another type of meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you need , uh , another portable thing a another portable equipment to {disfmarker} to do , eh , more e easier the recording process , eh , out from ICSI . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Eh and probably . I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Eh , if you {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} to record , eh , a seminar or a class , eh , in the university , you {disfmarker} you need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It - it would be eh eh very difficult to {disfmarker} to put , {vocalsound} eh , a lot of , eh , head phones eh in different people when you have to {disfmarker} to record only with , eh , this kind of , eh , d device . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , but {disfmarker} I think if we {disfmarker} if we wanna just record with the tabletop microphones , that 's easy . +PhD C: Oh - yeah . +Grad B: Right ? That 's very easy , +PhD C: Ye - Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: but that 's not the corpus that we 're collecting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Actually , that 's a int that raises an interesting point that came up in our discussion that 's maybe worth repeating . We realized that , um , when we were talking about this that , OK , there 's these different things that we want to do with it . So , um , it 's true that we wanna be selective in some ways , uh , the way that you were speaking about with , uh , not having an interlingua and uh , these other issues . But on the other hand , it 's not necessarily true that we need all of the corpus to satisfy all of it . So , a a as per the example that we wanna have a fair amount that 's done with a small n recorded with a small , uh , typ number of types of meetings But we can also have another part that 's , uh , just one or two meetings of each of a {disfmarker} of a range of them and that 's OK too . Uh , i We realized in discussion that the other thing is , what about this business of distant and close microphones ? I mean , we really wanna have a substantial amount recorded this way , that 's why we did it . But {pause} what about {disfmarker} For th for these issues of summarization , a lot of these higher level things you don't really need the distant microphone . +PhD F: Right , I mean , I c I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: And you don't really need the close microphone , you mean . +Professor D: You actually don't . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yea - yeah yeah , you actually don't really even need any fancy microphone . +Postdoc E: Which one did you mean ? +Professor D: You d You don't ne it doesn't {disfmarker} you just need some microphone , somewhere . +Grad B: Ye - Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: You can use found data . +Grad B: Tape recorder . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you can . +Professor D: You need some microphone , +PhD F: You can +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: use {disfmarker} Um , but I think that any {pause} data that we spend a lot of effort {nonvocalsound} to collect , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: you know , each person who 's interested in {disfmarker} I mean , we have a cou we have a bunch of different , um , slants and perspectives on what it 's useful for , um , they need to be taking charge of making sure they 're getting enough of the kind of data that they want . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} So in my case , um , I think there w there is enough data for some kinds of projects and not enough for others . +Grad B: Not enough for others , right . +PhD F: And so {nonvocalsound} I 'm looking and thinking , "" Well I 'd be glad to walk over and record people and so {nonvocalsound} forth if it 's {disfmarker} to help th in my interest . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And other people need to do that for themselves , uh , h or at least discuss it so that we can find some optimal {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right . So that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But I think that {disfmarker} I 'm raising that cuz I think it 's relevant exactly for this idea up there that if you think about , "" Well , gee , we have this really complicated setup to do , "" well maybe you don't . +Grad B: Yeah . For some of it . +Professor D: Maybe if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If really all you want is to have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a recording that 's good enough to get a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a transcription from later , you just need to grab a tape recorder and go up and make a recording . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could have a fairly {disfmarker} We could just get a DAT machine and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I agree with {nonvocalsound} Jane , though , on the other hand that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So that might be true , you may say for instance , summarization , or something that sounds very language oriented . You may say well , "" Oh yeah , you just do that from transcripts of a radio show . "" I mean , you don't even need the speech signal . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: But what you {disfmarker} what I was thinking is long term what would be neat is to be able to pick up on um {disfmarker} Suppose you just had a distant microphone there and you really wanted to be able to determine this . There 's lots of cues you 're not gonna have . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So I {pause} do think that long term you should always try to satisfy the greatest number of {disfmarker} of interests and have this parallel information , which is really what makes this corpus powerful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Special ? Yep . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD F: Otherwise , you know , lots of other sites can propose {disfmarker} individual studies , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh but I {disfmarker} I think that the uh {vocalsound} i We can't really underestimate the difficulty {disfmarker} shouldn't really u underestimate the difficulty of getting a setup like this up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: And so , {disfmarker} uh it took quite a while to get that together and to say , "" Oh , we 'll just do it up there , "" {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: If you 're talking about something simple , where you throw away a lot of these dimensions , then you can do that right away . Talking about something that has all of these different facets that we have here , it won't happen quickly , it won't be easy , and there 's all sorts of issues about th you know {vocalsound} keeping the equipment safe , or else hauling it around , and all sorts of o +PhD F: So then maybe we should {nonvocalsound} {pause} try to bring people here . +Grad B: Here . +Professor D: I think the first priority should be to pry {comment} to get {disfmarker} try to get people to come here . +PhD F: I mean , that 's that 's {disfmarker} OK , so +Professor D: We 're set up for it . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: The room is {disfmarker} is really , uh , underused . +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: I thought the free lunch idea was a great idea . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought so too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Free lunch is good . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} And I think we can get people to come here , that {disfmarker} But the issue is you definitely wanna make sure that the kind of group you 're getting is the right group so that you don't waste a lot of your time {nonvocalsound} and the overhead in bringing people down . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No crunchy food . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {comment} Well , it would be {pause} lunch afterwards . +Grad B: Well , I was thinking , lunch after . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . And they 'd have to do their digits or they don't get dessert . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , they have to do their digits or they don't {comment} get {disfmarker} they don't {comment} get their food . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , I had a {disfmarker} I spoke with some people up at Haas Business School who volunteered . +Professor D: Yeah +Grad B: Should I pursue that ? +PhD F: Oh , definitely , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . So . They {disfmarker} they originally {disfmarker} They 've decided not to do {disfmarker} go into speech . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So I 'm not sure whether they 'll still be so willing to volunteer , but I 'll send an email and ask . +Professor D: Tell them about the free lunch . +Grad B: I 'll tell them about the free lunch . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: And they 'll say there 's no such thing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I 'd love to get people that are not linguists or engineers , cuz these are both weird {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The oth the other h +PhD F: well , I know , I shouldn't say that . +Grad B: That 's alright . No , the they {disfmarker} they 're very weird . +PhD F: We need a wider sampling . +PhD A: "" Beep . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , "" beep "" +Grad B: The problem with engineers is "" beep . "" +Professor D: Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} They make funny sounds . The o the o the other {disfmarker} The other thing is , uh , that we {disfmarker} we talked about is give to them {disfmarker} uh , burn an extra CD - ROM . +Grad B: Yep . Let them have their meeting . +Professor D: and give them {disfmarker} So if they want a {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} basically and audio record of their {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I thought that was {disfmarker} I thought he meant , "" Give them a music CD , "" like they g {vocalsound} Then he said a CD of the {disfmarker} of their speech +Professor D: Oh . +PhD F: and I guess it depends of what kind of audience you 're talking to , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , I personally {nonvocalsound} would not want a {nonvocalsound} CD {comment} of my meeting , +Grad B: Mmm . Of the meeting ? +PhD F: but {vocalsound} maybe {disfmarker} yeah , {pause} maybe you 're +Professor D: If you 're having some planning meeting of some sort and uh you 'd like {disfmarker} +PhD F: right . {comment} Right . Right . +PhD A: Oh , that 's a good idea . +Grad B: It 'd be fun . I think it would just be fun , you know , if nothing else , you know . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: It 's a novelty item . +Professor D: But it als It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also I think builds up towards the goal . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: We 're saying , "" Look , you know , you 're gonna get this . Is - is isn't that neat . Then you 're gonna go home with it . It 's actually p It 's probably gonna be pretty useless to you , +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: but you 'll ge appreciate , you know , where it 's useful and where it 's useless , +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: and then , we 're gonna move this technology , so it 'll become useful . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD F: No , I think that 's a great idea , actually . +PhD A: What if you could tell them that you 'll give them the {disfmarker} the transcripts when they come back ? +Postdoc E: Alth +PhD F: But we might need a little more to incentivize them , {comment} that 's all . +Grad B: Oh , yeah . I mean , anyone can have the transcripts . So . I thought we could point that out . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , that 's interesting . +Postdoc E: I hav I have to uh raise a little eensy - weensy concern about doing th giving them the CD immediately , because of these issues of , you know , this kind of stuff , {comment} where maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know ? +Professor D: Good point . That 's a very good point . +Postdoc E: So . +Professor D: So we can {disfmarker} so we can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: We could burn it after it 's been cleared with the transcript stage . +Professor D: r Right . +Postdoc E: And then they {disfmarker} they get a CD , but just not the same day . +PhD F: Oh , right . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} It should be the same CD - ROM that we distribute publically , +Grad B: That 's a good point . Right , it can't be the internal one . +PhD F: right ? +Professor D: Although it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Otherwise they 're not allowed to play it for anyone . +Postdoc E: There we go . +Grad B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I like that . Well put . Well put . So , after the transcript screening phase . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc E: Things have been weeded out . +PhD F: Otherwise we 'd need two lawyer stages . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right , say {comment} "" Yeah , well , I got this CD , and , Your Honor , I {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +Professor D: Yeah so that 's {disfmarker} so let 's start with Haas , and Yeah . +PhD F: Sorry to have to {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Sorry I have to {pause} leave . +Professor D: Oh , that 's fine . +PhD F: I will be here full - time next week . +Grad B: OK , see you . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: No . Bye . +Professor D: That 's alright . +PhD A: See you . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: See you . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see . So that was that topic , and {vocalsound} then um , I guess another topic would be {vocalsound} where are we in the whole disk resources {pause} question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: We are slowly slowly getting to the point where we have uh enough sp room to record meetings . So I uh did a bunch of archiving , and still doing a bunch of archiving , I {disfmarker} I 'm in the midst of doing the P - files from uh , {vocalsound} Broadcast News . and it took eleven hours {comment} {vocalsound} to do {disfmarker} to uh copy it . +PhD C: Eleven ? +Grad B: And it 'll take another eleven to do the clone . +PhD A: Where did you copy it to ? +Grad B: Well , it 's Abbott . It 's Abbott , so it just {disfmarker} But it 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of data . +Professor D: Sk - It 's copying from one place on Abbott to another place on Abbott ? +Grad B: Tape . +PhD C: Tape ? +PhD A: Oh , on the tape . +Professor D: Oh ! +Grad B: I did an archive . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Ah ! +Grad B: So I 'm archiving it , and then I 'm gonna delete the files . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: So that will give us ten gigabytes of free space . +PhD C: Eleven hours ? +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: Oh . +Postdoc E: Yeah , the archiving m {pause} program does take a long time . +Grad B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . And so one That {disfmarker} that will be done , like , in about two hours . And so uh , {vocalsound} at that point we 'll be able to record five more meetings . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: One thing {disfmarker} The good news about that {disfmarker} that is that once {disfmarker} once it 's archived , it 's pretty quick to get back . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Is it ? +Postdoc E: I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The other direction is fast , but this direction is really slow . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , especially because I 'm generating a clone , also . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . And that takes a while . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Generating a clone ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a good point . +Grad B: Two copies . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +Grad B: One offsite , one onsite . +PhD A: Oh ! Hunh ! +Professor D: S +Postdoc E: Now , what will uh {disfmarker} Is the plan to g {pause} to {disfmarker} So {pause} stuff will be saved , it 's just that you 're relocating it ? I mean , so we 're gonna get more disk space ? Or did I {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: No , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these are the P - files from Broadcast News , which are regeneratable {disfmarker} regeneratable +Postdoc E: OK . Oh , good . I see . +Grad B: um , if we really need to , but we had a lot of them . And {disfmarker} for the full , uh , hundred forty hour sets . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: And so they {disfmarker} they were two gigabytes per file and we had six of them or something . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Wow . Wow . +Professor D: W w we are getting more space . We are getting , uh , another disk rack and {disfmarker} and four thirty - six gigabyte disks . Uh {pause} so {pause} uh {pause} but that 's not gonna happen instantaneously . +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +Grad B: Or maybe six . +Professor D: Or maybe six ? +Grad B: The SUN , ha uh , takes more disks than the Andatico one did . The SUN rack takes {disfmarker} {comment} Th - One took four and one took six , or maybe it was eight and twelve . Whatever it was , it was , {pause} you know , fifty percent more . +Professor D: How many {disfmarker} How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is there a difference in price or something ? +Grad B: Well , what happened is that we {disfmarker} we bought all our racks and disks from Andatico for years , according to Dave , and Andatico got bought by another company and doubled their prices . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: And so , uh , we 're looking into other vendors . "" We "" {disfmarker} By "" we "" of course I mean Dave . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So . +PhD A: Hmm . I 've been looking at the , uh , Aurora data and , um , first {disfmarker} first look at it , there were basically three directories on there that could be moved . One was called Aurora , one was Spanish , which was Carmen 's Spanish stuff , and the other one was , um , SPINE . +Grad B: SPINE . +PhD A: And so , um , I wrote to Dan and he was very concerned that the SPINE stuff was moving to a non - backed - up disk . So , um , I realized that well , probably not all of that should be moved , just {pause} the {pause} CD - ROM type data , the {disfmarker} {pause} the static data . So I moved that , and then um , I asked him to check out and see if it was OK . before I actually deleted the old stuff , um , but I haven't heard back yet . I told him he could delete it if he wanted to , I haven't checked {pause} today to see if he 's deleted it or not . And then Carmen 's stuff , I realized that when I had copied all of her stuff to XA , I had copied stuff there that was dynamic data . And so , I had to redo that one and just copy over the static data . And so I need to get with her now and delete the old stuff off the disk . And then I lo haven't done any of the Aurora stuff . I have to meet with , uh , Stephane to do that . So . +Professor D: So , but , uh y you 're figuring you can record another five meetings or something with the space that you 're clearing up from the Broadcast News , but , we have some other disks , some of which you 're using for Aurora , but are we g do we have some other {disfmarker} other space now ? +Grad B: Yep . So , so , uh , we have space on the current disk right now , where Meeting Recorder is , and that 's probably enough for about four meetings . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Is that the one that has {disfmarker} is that DC ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . Yep . No , no , well , it 's wherever the Meeting Recorder currently is . I think it 's DI . +PhD A: OK , I {disfmarker} but the stuff I 'm moving from Aurora is on the DC disk that we {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't remember . Th - I think it 's DC - It 's whatever that one is . +PhD A: OK , DC . +Grad B: I just don't remember , it might be DC . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And that has enough for about four more meetings right now . Yeah , I mean we were at a hundred percent and then we dropped down to eighty - six for reasons I don't understand . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , someone deleted something somewhere . And so we have some room again . And then with Broadcast News , that 's five or six more meetings , so , you know , we have a couple weeks . Uh , so , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think we 're OK , until we get the new disk . +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: So should , um {disfmarker} One question I had for you was , um , we need {disfmarker} {pause} we sh probably should move the Aurora an and all that other stuff off of the Meeting Recorder disk . Is there another backed - up {pause} disk that you know of that would {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: We should put it onto the Broadcast News one . That 's probably the best thing to do . And that way we consolidate Meeting Recorder onto one disk {pause} rather than spreading them out . +PhD A: OK . Right . Right . Do you know what {disfmarker} happen to know what disk that is off {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad B: No . I mean , I can tell you , I just don't know off the top of my head . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Alright , I 'll find out from you . +Grad B: But , so we could ' jus just do that at the end of today , once the archive is complete , and I 've verified it . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz that 'll give us plenty of disk . +Professor D: Uh , OK , @ @ {comment} So , uh , then I guess th the last thing I 'd had on my {disfmarker} my agenda was just to hear {disfmarker} hear an update on {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} what Jose has been doing , +PhD C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor D: so +PhD C: I have , eh , {vocalsound} The result of my work during the last days . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Thank you for your information because I {disfmarker} I read . Eh , and the {disfmarker} the last , eh , days , eh , I work , eh , in my house , eh , in a lot of ways and thinking , reading eh , different things about the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recording project . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD C: And I have , eh , some ideas . Eh , this information is very {disfmarker} very useful . Because {vocalsound} you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the distribution , now . +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to hear it . Glad to hear it . +PhD C: But for me , eh is interesting because , eh , eh , here 's i is the demonstration of the overlap , eh , {pause} problem . +Grad B: I 've seen it already . +PhD C: It 's a real problem , {comment} a frequently problem {comment} uh , because you have overlapping zones eh , eh , eh , all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Throughout the meeting . +PhD C: Eh , by a moment I have , eh , nnn , the , eh , {pause} n I {disfmarker} I did a mark of all the overlapped zones in the meeting recording , with eh , a exact {pause} mark . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Oh , you did that by hand ? +PhD C: Heh ? That 's eh , yet b b Yeah , by {disfmarker} b b by hand {disfmarker} by hand because , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} "" Why . "" +Grad B: Can I see that ? Can I get a copy ? +Professor D: Oh . +PhD C: My {disfmarker} my idea is to work {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don I don't @ @ {disfmarker} I don't know , eh , if , eh , it will be possible because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't a lot {disfmarker} eh , enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to work . uh , only just eh , six months , as you know , but , eh , my idea is , eh , is very interesting to {disfmarker} to work {pause} in {disfmarker} in the line of , eh , automatic segmenter . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh but eh , eh , in my opinion , {pause} we need eh , eh , a reference {pause} eh session to {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to evaluate the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the tool . +Grad B: Yes , absolutely . And so are you planning to do that or have you done that already ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No , no , with i +Grad B: Have you done that or are you planning to do that ? +PhD C: Sorry ? No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} plan to do that . +Grad B: OK . Darn ! +PhD C: I plan {disfmarker} I plan , but eh , eh , the idea {vocalsound} is the {disfmarker} is the following . Now , {vocalsound} eh , I need ehm , {vocalsound} to detect eh all the overlapping zones exactly . I {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will eh , talk about eh , {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the blackboard about the {disfmarker} my ideas . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Duration . +PhD C: Eh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} This information eh , with eh , exactly time marks eh , for the overlapping zones {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} overlapping zone , and eh , a speaker {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a pure speech eh , eh , speaker zone . I mean , eh zones eh of eh speech of eh , one speaker without any {disfmarker} any eh , noise eh , any {disfmarker} any acoustic event eh that eh , eh , w eh , is not eh , speech , real speech . And , I need t true eh , silence for that , because my {disfmarker} my idea is to {disfmarker} to study the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the set of parameters eh , what , eh , are more m more discriminant to eh , classify . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: the overlapping zones in cooperation with the speech {pause} eh zones . The idea is {pause} to eh {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} eh , I 'm not sure to {disfmarker} eh yet , but eh my idea is to use a {disfmarker} a cluster {pause} {vocalsound} eh algorithm or , nnn , a person strong in neural net algorithm to eh {disfmarker} to eh study what is the , eh , the property of the different feat eh feature , eh , to classify eh speech and overlapping eh speech . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: And my idea is eh , it would be interesting to {disfmarker} to have eh , {vocalsound} a control set . And my control set eh , will be the eh , silence , silence without eh , any {disfmarker} any noise . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Which means that we 'd still {disfmarker} You 'd hear the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , fans . +PhD C: Yeah , acoustic with this . {comment} With {disfmarker} with , yeah , the background . +Postdoc E: Yeah . {comment} That 's interesting . This is like a ground level , with {disfmarker} It 's not it 's not total silence . +PhD C: Eh , I {disfmarker} I mean eh , noise eh , eh claps eh , tape clips , eh , the difference eh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , eh , event eh , which , eh , eh , has , eh eh , a hard effect of distorti spectral distortion in the {disfmarker} in the eh {pause} speech . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so you intend to hand - mark those and exclude them ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I have mark in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} Not in all {disfmarker} in all the {disfmarker} the file , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: only eh , eh , nnn , {pause} mmm , I have eh , ehm {pause} I don't remind {comment} what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quantity , but eh , I {disfmarker} I have marked enough speech on over and all the overlapping zones . I have , eh , {pause} two hundred and thirty , more or less , overlapping zones , and is similar to {disfmarker} to this information , +Grad B: Whew ! Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: because with the program , I cross {pause} the information of uh , of Jane {comment} with eh , my my segmentation by hand . And {pause} is eh , mor more similar . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Glad to hear it . Good . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Sorry , sorry . +Professor D: Go ahead . +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the idea is , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I will use , eh , {disfmarker} I want {disfmarker} {pause} My idea is , eh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} {comment} {nonvocalsound} to classify . +Grad B: I should 've {pause} got the digital camera . Oh well . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I need eh , the exact eh , mark of the different , eh , eh , zones because I {disfmarker} I want to put , eh , for eh , each frame a label {pause} indicating . It 's a sup supervised and , eh , hierarchical clustering process . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I put , eh , eh , for each frame {nonvocalsound} a label indicating what is th the type , what is the class , eh , which it belong . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh , I mean , the class you will {nonvocalsound} overlapping speech "" overlapping "" is a class , eh , "" speech "" {nonvocalsound} @ @ the class {pause} that 's +Grad B: Nonspeech . +PhD A: These will be assigned by hand ? +PhD C: a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ha I h I {disfmarker} I put the mark by hand , +PhD A: Based on the {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +PhD C: because , eh , {vocalsound} my idea is , eh , in {disfmarker} in the first session , I need , eh , {pause} I {disfmarker} I need , eh , to be sure that the information eh , that , eh , I {disfmarker} I will cluster , is {disfmarker} is right . Because , eh , eh , if not , eh , I will {disfmarker} I will , eh , return to the speech file to analyze eh , what is the problems , +Grad B: Well , training , and validation . Sure . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh . And {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I 'd prefer {disfmarker} I would prefer , the to {disfmarker} to have , eh , this labeled automatically , but , eh , eh , fro th I need truth . +PhD A: You need truth . Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , but this is what you 're starting with . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: I 've gotta ask you . So , uh , the difference between the top two , i So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I start at the bottom , so "" silence "" is clear . By "" speech "" do you mean speech by one sp by one person only ? +PhD C: Speech {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc E: So this is un OK , and then and then the top includes people speaking at the same time , or {disfmarker} or a speaker and a breath overlapping , someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} or clicking , overlapping with speech {disfmarker} So , that {disfmarker} that 's all those possibilities in the top one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad B: One or two or more . +PhD C: One , two , three . but No , by th by the moment n Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Eh , in the first moment , because , eh , eh , I {disfmarker} I have information , eh , of the overlapping zones , eh , information about if the , eh , overlapping zone is , eh , from a speech , clear speech , from a one to a two eh speaker , {pause} or three speaker , or is {disfmarker} is the zone where the breath of a speaker eh , overlaps eh , onto eh , a speech , another , especially speech . +Postdoc E: So it 's basi it 's basically speech wi som with {disfmarker} with something overlapping , which could be speech but doesn't need to be . +PhD C: No , no , es especially {pause} eh , overlapping speech {pause} from , eh , different eh , eh , speaker . Eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but there 's {disfmarker} but , I think she 's saying "" Where do you {disfmarker} In these three categories , where do you put the instances in which there is one person speaking and other sounds which are not speech ? "" +PhD C: Ah ! +Professor D: Which category do you put that in ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's my question . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , he here I {disfmarker} I put eh speech from eh , from , eh , one speaker {pause} without , eh , eh , any {disfmarker} any {disfmarker} any events more . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +Professor D: Right , so where do you put speech from one speaker that does have a nonspeech event at the same time ? +PhD C: Where ? Where {disfmarker} What is the class ? +Professor D: Which catege which category ? +Postdoc E: Like a c +PhD C: No . By the moment , no . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , that 's what he was saying before . +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} by the @ @ no , @ @ because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to limit the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} nnn , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the study . +Professor D: Oh , so you {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not marked . +Postdoc E: Oh . So you don't {disfmarker} i i it 's not in that {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . Got it . Fine . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're not using all of the data . +Grad B: Yeah , so that 's what he was saying before , is that he excluded those . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} All {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , you mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So you 're ignoring overlapping events unless they 're speech with speech . +PhD C: Yeah , be Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's fine . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: "" Why ? Why ? What 's the reason ? "" because {pause} i it 's the first study . the first +Professor D: Oh , no {disfmarker} no , it 's a perfectly sensible way to go . We just wondered {disfmarker} trying to understand what {disfmarker} what you were doing . +Postdoc E: We 're just +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah cuz you 've talked about other overlapping events in the past . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So , this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} a subset . +PhD C: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} in the future , the {disfmarker} the idea is to {disfmarker} to extend {pause} the class , +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: to consider all the {disfmarker} all the information , you {disfmarker} you mentioned before +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't think we were asking for that . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: but eh , the {disfmarker} the first idea {disfmarker} Because eh , I don't know {pause} what hap what will happen {comment} with the study . +Professor D: We were jus just trying to understand {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah , we just wanted to know what the category was here . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Sure . +PhD A: Is your silence category pure silence , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . i it 's pure {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if there was a door - slam or something ? +PhD C: No , no , it 's pure silence . +PhD A: Pure silence . +PhD C: It 's the control set . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: OK ? It 's the control set . It 's pure si pure silence {comment} with the {disfmarker} with the machine on the {disfmarker} on the roof . +Professor D: What you {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} w {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think what you m I think what you mean {vocalsound} is that it 's nonspeech segments that don't have impulsive noises . +Grad B: With the fan . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Cuz you 're calling {disfmarker} what you 're calling "" event "" is somebody coughing {vocalsound} or clicking , or rustling paper , or hitting something , which are impulsive noises . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But steady - state noises are part of the background . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Which , are being , included in that . Right ? +PhD C: h here yet , yet I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh , there are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} some kind of noises that , eh , don't {disfmarker} don't wanted to {disfmarker} to be in that , eh , in that control set . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So it 's like a signal - noise situation . Yeah . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But I prefer , I prefer at {disfmarker} at the first , eh , the {disfmarker} the silence with eh , this eh this kind of the {disfmarker} of eh {disfmarker} of noise . +Postdoc E: Well , steady state . +Professor D: Right , it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} "" Background "" might be {disfmarker} might be a better word than "" silence "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's just sort of that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the background acoustic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . So {disfmarker} Fine . Go on . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is only {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: And , um , with this information {vocalsound} The idea is eh , eh , nnn , I have a label for {disfmarker} for each , eh , frame and , eh with a cluster eh {disfmarker} algorithm I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , we needed to get the categories , yeah . +PhD C: Sorry . And eh I am going {pause} to prepare a test bed , eh , well , eh , a {disfmarker} a set of {pause} feature structure eh , eh , models . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: And {pause} my idea is +Grad B: "" Tone "" , whatever . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} because I have a pitch extractor yet . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I have to {disfmarker} to test , but eh I {disfmarker} +PhD A: You have your own ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: I ha I have prepare . Is a modified version of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of a pitch tracker , eh , from , eh , Standar - eh Stanford University {disfmarker} in Stanford ? No . From , eh , em , {vocalsound} Cambridge {pause} University . +PhD A: Oh ! What 's it written in ? +PhD C: Eh , em , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember what is the {disfmarker} the name of the {disfmarker} of the author , because I {disfmarker} I have several {disfmarker} I have eh , eh , em , eh , library tools , from eh , Festival and {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} from Edinburgh eh , from Cambridge , eh , and from our department . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} And I have to {disfmarker} because , {vocalsound} in general the pitch tracker , doesn't work {comment} {vocalsound} very well and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Bad . Right . But , you know , as a feature , it might be OK . So , we don't know . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} And {pause} th the idea is to {disfmarker} to , eh , to obtain , eh , {pause} for example , eh , {pause} {vocalsound} eh diff eh , eh , different {disfmarker} well , no , a great number of eh FEC for example , eh , {pause} eh , twenty - five , eh , thirty {disfmarker} thirty parameters , eh , for {disfmarker} for each one . And in a first eh , nnn , step in the investi in the research in eh , my idea is try to , eh , to prove , what is the performance of the difference parameter , eh {pause} to classify {pause} the different , eh , what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the front - end approach to classify eh , the different , eh , frames of each class {pause} eh and what is the {disfmarker} the , nnn , nnn , nnn , eh , what is the , the error {pause} eh , of the data +Grad B: Supervised clustering . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: This is the {disfmarker} the eh , first idea +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and the second {pause} is try to {disfmarker} eh , to use {pause} some ideas eh , similar to the linear discriminant analysis . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh ? Eh , similar , because the the idea is to {disfmarker} to study {pause} what is the contribution of eh , each parameter to the process of classify correctly the different {disfmarker} the different parameters . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . What sort of classifier ar ? +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the classifier is {disfmarker} nnn by the moment is eh {disfmarker} is eh , similar , nnn , that the classifier used eh , in a quantifier {disfmarker} vectorial quantifier is eh , used to {disfmarker} to eh , some distance {pause} to {disfmarker} to put eh , a vector eh , in {disfmarker} in a class different . +Grad B: Unimodal ? +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} Yeah ? W with a model , is {disfmarker} is only to cluster using a eh , @ @ or a similarity . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So is it just one cluster per {disfmarker} +PhD C: A another possibility it to use eh a netw netw a neural network . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: But eh what 's the p {vocalsound} What is my idea ? What 's the problem I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I see in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} you use the {disfmarker} the neural network ? If {disfmarker} w when {pause} this kind of eh , mmm , cluster , clustering algorithm to can test , to can eh observe what happened you {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} you can't eh , eh put up with your hand {comment} in the different parameter , +Grad B: Right , you can't analyse it . +PhD C: but eh {disfmarker} If you use a neural net is {disfmarker} is a good idea , but eh you don't know what happened in the interior of the neural net . +Professor D: Well , actually , you can do sensitivity analyses which show you what the importance of the different parce pieces of the input are . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's hard to {disfmarker} w w what you {disfmarker} It 's hard to tell on a neural net is what 's going on internally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But it 's actually not that hard to analyse it and figure out the effects of different inputs , especially if they 're all normalized . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , using something simpler first I think is probably fine . +Professor D: Well , this isn't tru if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you really wonder what different if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Decision tree . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , then a decision tree is really good , but the thing is here he 's {disfmarker} he 's not {disfmarker} he 's not like he has one you know , a bunch of very distinct variables , like pitch and this {disfmarker} he 's talking about , like , a all these cepstral coefficients , and so forth , +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: in which case a a any reasonable classifier is gonna be a mess , and it 's gonna be hard to figure out what {disfmarker} what uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will include too the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the differential de derivates too . +Grad B: Deltas , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: yeah . So . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I mean , I think the other thing that one {disfmarker} I mean , this is , I think a good thing to do , to sort of look at these things at least {disfmarker} See what I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} Let me tell you what I would do . I would take just a few features . Instead of taking all the MFCC 's , or all the PLP 's or whatever , I would just take a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? Like {disfmarker} like C - one , C - two , something like that , so that you can visualize it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and look at these different examples and look at scatter plots . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so before you do {disfmarker} build up any kind of fancy classifiers , just take a look in two dimensions , at how these things are split apart . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: That I think will give you a lot of insight of what is likely to be a useful feature when you put it into a more complicated classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And the second thing is , once you actually get to the point of building these classifiers , {vocalsound} @ @ what this lacks so far is the temporal properties . So if you 're just looking at a frame and a time , you don't know anything about , you know , the structure of it over time , and so you may wanna build @ @ {disfmarker} build a Markov model of some sort uh , or {disfmarker} or else have features that really are based on um on {disfmarker} on some bigger chunk of time . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Context window ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But I think this is a good place to start . But don't uh anyway , this is my suggestion , is don't just , you know , throw in twenty features at it , the deltas , and the delta del and all that into some classifier , even {disfmarker} even if it 's K - nearest - neighbors , you still won't know +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: what it 's doing , even {disfmarker} You know it 's Uh , I think to know what it 's {disfmarker} to have a better feeling for what it 's +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: look at {disfmarker} at som some picture that shows you , "" Here 's {disfmarker} These things uh , uh are {disfmarker} offer some separation . "" {vocalsound} And , uh , in LPC , uh , the thing to particularly look at is , I think {disfmarker} is something {vocalsound} like , uh , the residual {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Um So . +PhD C: Yeah . S +Postdoc E: Can I ask ? It strikes me that there 's another piece of information um , that might be useful and that 's simply the transition . So , w if you go from a transition of silence to overlap versus a transition from silence to speech , there 's gonna be a b a big informative area there , it seems to me . +PhD C: Yeah , because {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah . But eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Is my my {disfmarker} my own vision , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the project . +Grad B: So , some sort of {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder project , for me , has eh , two {vocalsound} eh , w has eh several parts , several p {vocalsound} objective +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , because it 's a {disfmarker} a great project . But eh , at the first , in the acoustic , eh , eh , parts of the project , eh I think {pause} you eh {disfmarker} we have eh {vocalsound} {pause} two main eh objective . One {disfmarker} one of these is to {disfmarker} eh to detect the change , the acoustic change . And {vocalsound} for that , if you don't use , eh , {vocalsound} eh , a speech recognizer , eh broad class , or not broad class to {disfmarker} to try to {disfmarker} to {pause} {pause} {vocalsound} to label the different frames , I think {pause} the Ike criterion {pause} or BIC criterion eh will be enough to detect the change . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Probably . {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to t prove . Uh , probably . When you you have , eh , eh s eh the transition of speech or {disfmarker} or silence eh to overlap zone , this criterion is enough with {disfmarker} {pause} probably with , eh , this kind of , eh , eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more eh use eh {disfmarker} use eh {disfmarker} used eh em {pause} normal , regular eh parameter MF - MFCC . you {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the mark . You can find the {disfmarker} nnn , the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . But eh eh I {disfmarker} I understand that you {disfmarker} your objective is {pause} to eh classify , to know that eh that zone {pause} not is only {comment} a new zone in the {disfmarker} in the file , that eh you have eh , but you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to know that this is overlap zone . because in the future you will eh try to {disfmarker} to process that zone with a non - regular eh eh speech recognizer model , I suppose . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you will pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to process the overlapping z eh zone with another kind of algorithm +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: because it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to obtain the transcription {pause} from eh using eh eh a regular , normal speech recognizer . That , you know , {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the idea . And so {vocalsound} eh the , nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the system {pause} eh will have two models . +Postdoc E: Clustering . +PhD C: A model to detect more acc the mor most accurately possible that is p uh , will be possible the , eh {disfmarker} the mark , the change and another {disfmarker} another model will @ @ {pause} or several models , to try s but {disfmarker} eh several model eh robust models , sample models to try to classify the difference class . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I didn't understand you {disfmarker} what you said . What {disfmarker} what model ? +Postdoc E: +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the classifiers of the of the n to detect the different class to the different zones before try to {disfmarker} to recognize , eh with eh {disfmarker} to transcribe , with eh a speech recognizer . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And my idea is to use eh , for example , a neural net +Postdoc E: So p +PhD C: with {pause} the {pause} information we obtain from this eh {disfmarker} this eh study of the parameter with the {pause} selected {pause} parameter to try to eh {disfmarker} to put the class of each frame . Eh {pause} for {pause} the difference {pause} zone +Grad B: Features . Yeah . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you eh , eh {pause} have obtained in the first eh , step {pause} with the {pause} for example , BIC eh , eh {pause} criterion compare model +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You I don't - u +Professor D: OK , but , I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} in any event we 're agreed that the first step is {disfmarker} +PhD C: i +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Because what we had before for {disfmarker} for uh , speaker change detection did not include these overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So the first thing is for you to {disfmarker} to build up something that will detect the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? So again , I think the first thing to do to detect the overlaps is to look at these uh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad B: Features ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} again , the things you 've written up there I think are way too {disfmarker} way too big . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? If you 're talking about , say , twelfth {disfmarker} twelfth - order uh MFCC 's or something like that it 's just way too much . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: You won't be able to look at it . All you 'll be able to do is put it into a classifier and see how well it does . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Whereas I think if you have things {disfmarker} if you pick one or two dimensional things , or three of you have some very fancy display , uh , and look at how the {disfmarker} the different classes separate themselves out , you 'll have much more insight about what 's going on . +PhD C: It will be enough . +Professor D: Well , you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get a feeling for what 's happening , you know , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: so if you look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Suppose you look at first and second - order cepstral coefficients for some one of these kinds of things and you find that the first - order is much more effective than the second , {vocalsound} and then you look at the third and there 's not {disfmarker} and not too much there , {vocalsound} you may just take first and second - order cepstral coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: right ? And with LPC , I think LPC per se isn't gonna tell you much more than {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than the other , maybe . Uh , and uh on the other hand , the LPC residual , the energy in the LPC residual , {vocalsound} will say how well , uh {vocalsound} the low - order LPC {vocalsound} model 's fitting it , which should be {vocalsound} pretty poorly for two two or more {vocalsound} people speaking at the same time , and it should be pretty well , for w for {disfmarker} for one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And so {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} i again , if you take a few of these things that are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} prob um {comment} {pause} promising features and look at them in pairs , {vocalsound} uh , I think you 'll have much more of a sense of "" OK , I now have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , doing a bunch of these analyses , I now have ten likely candidates . "" And then you can do decision trees or whatever to see how they combine . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I 've got a question . +PhD C: Yeah . This +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Sorry . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: but eh , eh {vocalsound} eh eh eh I don't know it is the first eh way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} do that and I would eh like to {disfmarker} to know what eh , your opinion . Eh {vocalsound} all this study in the f in the first moment , I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I will pretend to do {comment} with eh eh equalizes speech . The {disfmarker} the equalizes speech , the speech eh , the mixes of speech . +Grad B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: With what ? With what ? +Grad B: Right . Mixed . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the mix , mixed speech . +Postdoc E: "" Mixed "" . Thank you . +PhD C: Eh , why ? Because eh the spectral distortion is {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} more eh {disfmarker} a lot eh clearer , very much clearer if we compare with the PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: PDA speech file is eh {disfmarker} it will be eh difficult . I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it 's messier . +PhD C: Yeah , +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the PDA is messier . +PhD C: fff ! {comment} Because the n the noise eh to sp the signal - to - noise relation is eh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is low . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , I think that that 's a good way to start . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad B: But . +PhD C: I don't know eh uh i i that eh the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the result of the {disfmarker} of the study eh with eh {disfmarker} with eh this eh {disfmarker} this speech , the mix speech eh {pause} will work {pause} exactly {pause} with the {pause} eh PDA files . +Grad B: It would be interesting in itself to see . Well , I think that would be an interesting result . +PhD C: eh What , I {disfmarker} I mean , what what is the effect of the low ' signal to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to noise relation , you know , eh with {disfmarker} +Professor D: N u We Well , I think {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's not a {disfmarker} it 's not at all unreasonable . It makes sense to start with the simpler signal because if you have features which don't {disfmarker} aren't even helpful in the high signal - to - noise ratio , then there 's no point in putting them into the low signal ratio , one would think , anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And so , if you can get {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Uh again , my prescription would be that you would , with a mixed signal , you would take a collection of possible uh , features {vocalsound} look at them , look at how these different classes that you 've marked , separate themselves , {comment} {vocalsound} and then collect , uh in pairs , {vocalsound} and then collect ten of them or something , and then proceed {vocalsound} with a bigger classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then if you can get that to work well , then you go to the other signal . And then , and you and you know , they won't work as well , but how m you know , how much {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then you can re - optimize , and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . But it I think it would be interesting to try a couple with both . Because it {disfmarker} I think it would be interesting to see if some features work well with close mixed , and {disfmarker} And don't {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Ah , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that it also , it could be {vocalsound} useful to do this exploratory analysis where you 're looking at scatter plots and so on in both cases . Sure . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} the eh parameter we found , eh , eh {vocalsound} worked with both eh , speech file , +Postdoc E: That 's good . +PhD C: but eh what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relation of eh {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} performance when eh you use eh the , eh eh speech file the PDA speech files . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I don't know . +Professor D: Right . +PhD C: But it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it will be important . Because eh people eh eh , different groups eh has eh experience with this eh kind of problem . Is {disfmarker} eh is not easy eh to {disfmarker} to solve , because if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have seen the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from eh PDA , and s some parts is {comment} very difficult because you {disfmarker} you don't see the spectrum {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +Grad B: Right . Yeah , they 're totally hidden . +PhD C: Is very difficult to apply eh , eh a parameter to detect change when you don't see . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Well , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's another reason why very simple features , things like energy , and things {disfmarker} things like harmonicity , and {vocalsound} residual energy are uh , yeah are {disfmarker} are better to use than very complex ones because they 'll be more reliable . +PhD C: But I suppose {disfmarker} +Grad B: Are probably better , yep . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will put eh the energy here . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Ch - Chuck was gonna ask something I guess . +PhD C: You have a question . +PhD A: Yeah , I {pause} maybe this is a dumb question , but w I thought it would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I thought it would be easier if you used a PDA +Professor D: Nah . +PhD A: because can't you , couldn't you like use beam - forming or something to detect speaker overlaps ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , if you used the array , rather than the signal from just one . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , no , you you 're {disfmarker} you 're right +Grad B: But that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: that {disfmarker} In fact , if we made use of the fact that there are two microphones , you do have some location information . which we don't have with the one and {disfmarker} and so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that not allowed with this project ? +Professor D: Uh , well , no , I mean , we we don't have any rules , r really . +PhD A: But I didn't mean {disfmarker} I w {pause} Given {disfmarker} given the goal . +Professor D: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an additional interesting question . +PhD A: I mean , is {disfmarker} is that violation of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . No . Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , I think you wanna know whether you can do it with one , because you know it 's not necessarily true that every device that you 're trying to do this with will have two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , if , on the other hand , we show that there 's a huge advantage with two , well then that could be a real point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , we don't n even know yet what the effect of detecting {disfmarker} having the ability to detect overlaps is . You know , maybe it doesn't matter too much . +PhD A: Right . Right . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , this is all pretty early stages . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But no , you 're absolutely right . That 's {pause} a good thing to consider . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: There {disfmarker} there is a complication though , and that is if a person turns their back to the {disfmarker} to the PDA , then some of the positional information goes away ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does , i it d it does , but the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that so much as {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And then , And if they 're on the access {disfmarker} {comment} on the axis of it , that was the other thing I was thinking . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} You mentioned this last time , that {disfmarker} that if {disfmarker} if you 're straight down the midline , then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} the r the left - right 's gonna be different , +Grad B: Yeah , we hav need to put it on a little turntable , +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , it 's +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in his case , I mean , he 's closer to it anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems to me that {disfmarker} that it 's not {disfmarker} a p uh , you know , it 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the topograph the topology of it is {disfmarker} is a little bit complicated . +Grad B: But it 's another source of information . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know ho +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} Sorry . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think because the the the distance between the two microph eh , microphone , eh , in the PDA is very near . But it 's uh {disfmarker} from my opinion , it 's an interesting idea to {disfmarker} to try to study the binaural eh problem eh , with information , because I {disfmarker} I found difference between the {disfmarker} the speech from {disfmarker} from each micro eh , in the PDA . +PhD A: I would guess {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's timing difference . It - it 's not amplitude , +Postdoc E: Oh yeah ! Oh I agree ! And we use it ourselves . +Professor D: right ? S Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , I know {disfmarker} I n I know that 's a very important cue . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just saying that the way we 're seated around a table , is not the same with respect to each {disfmarker} to each person with respect to the PDA , +PhD C: No . No . No , no , no . +Postdoc E: so we 're gonna have a lot of differences with ref respect to the speaker . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's fine . +PhD A: But th I don't think that matters , though . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so i @ @ {comment} I think the issue is , "" Is there a clean signal coming from only one direction ? "" +PhD A: Right . +Professor D: If it 's not coming from just one direction , if it {disfmarker} if th if there 's a broader pattern , it means that it 's more likely there 's multiple people speaking , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: wherever they are . +PhD A: So it 's sort of like how {disfmarker} how confused is it about where the beam is . +Professor D: Is it a {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , is there a narrow {disfmarker} Is there a narrow beam pattern or is it a {disfmarker} a distributed beam pattern ? So if there 's a distributed beam pattern , then it looks more like it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh , multiple people . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Wherever you are , even if he moves around . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah . OK , it just {disfmarker} it just seemed to me that {disfmarker} uh , that this isn't the ideal type of separation . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} I can see the value o +Professor D: Oh , ideal would be to have the wall filled with them , but I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But the thing is just having two mikes {disfmarker} If you looked at that thing on {disfmarker} on Dan 's page , it was {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when there were two people speaking , and it looked really really different . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah yeah . OK . +PhD A: What looked different ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , well , basic he was looking at correlation . +Grad B: Cross - co cross - correlation . +PhD C: Correlation , yeah . +Professor D: Just cross - correlation between two sides . +PhD A: Did - Sorry , b uh I 'm not sure what Dan 's page is that you mean . He was looking at the two {disfmarker} +Professor D: So cross - correlation is pretty sensitive . +Postdoc E: Uh , his a web page . +Professor D: You take the signal from the two microphones and you cros and you cross - correlate them with different lags . +Grad B: Subtract them . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And you find {disfmarker} They get peaks . +Professor D: OK . So when one person is speaking , then wherever they happen to be at the point when they 're speaking , {vocalsound} then there 's a pretty big maximum right around that point in the l in {disfmarker} in the lag . +PhD A: OK . OK . +Professor D: So if {disfmarker} at whatever angle you are , {vocalsound} at some lag corresponding to the time difference between the two there , you get this boost in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the cross - correlation value {disfmarker} function . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so if there 's two {disfmarker} +Grad B: And if there are multiple people talking , you 'll see two peaks . +Professor D: It 's spread out . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , let me ask you , if {disfmarker} if both people were over there , it would be less effective than if one was there and one was across , catty - corner ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . The - the {disfmarker} Oh , I 'm sorry , +Postdoc E: No ? +Professor D: if they 're right next to one another ? +PhD A: If I was {disfmarker} if I was here and Morgan was there and we were both talking , it wouldn't work . +Professor D: i i +Postdoc E: Next {disfmarker} next one over n over {comment} on this side of the P {disfmarker} PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: There we go . Good example , the same one I 'm asking . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , e I see . +PhD A: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Versus you {disfmarker} versus {disfmarker} you know , and we 're catty - corner across the table , and I 'm farther away from this one and you 're farther away from that one . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} or even if , like , if people were sitting right across from each other , you couldn't tell the difference either . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems like that would be pretty strong . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Across {disfmarker} the same axis , you don't have as much to differentiate . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , we d yeah , we don't have a third dimension there . Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And so my point was just that it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be differentially {disfmarker} differentially varia valuable . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not to say {disfmarker} I mean , I certainly think it 's extremely val {comment} And we {disfmarker} we humans {pause} n n depend on {pause} you know , these {disfmarker} these binaural cues . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But it 's almost {disfmarker} but it 's almost a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think what you 're talking about i there 's two things . +Postdoc E: But . +Grad B: Must do . {comment} Yeah . +Professor D: There 's a sensitivity issue , and then there 's a pathological error uh issue . So th the one where someone is just right directly in line is sort of a pathological error . +Postdoc E: Yes . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: If someone just happens to be sitting right there then we won't get good information from it . +Postdoc E: OK . and i and if there {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} And if it 's the two of you guys on the same side {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , if they 're {disfmarker} if they 're close , it 's just a question of the sensitivity . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So if the sensitivity is good enough {disfmarker} and we just {disfmarker} we just don't have enough , uh , experience with it to know how {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . Yeah yeah , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not trying to argue against using it , by any means . I just wanted to point out that {disfmarker} that weakness , that it 's topo topologically impossible to get it perfect for everybody . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And I think Dan is still working on it . So . He actually {disfmarker} he wrote me about it a little bit , so . +Postdoc E: Great . No , I don't mean to discourage that at all . +Professor D: I mean , the other thing you can do {disfmarker} uh , if {disfmarker} I mean , i We 're assuming that it would be a big deal just to get somebody {disfmarker} convince somebody to put two microphones in the PDA . But if you h put a third in , {vocalsound} you could put in the other axis . And then you know {disfmarker} then you 're sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , then {disfmarker} then you pretty much could cover {disfmarker} +PhD A: Once you got two {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well what about just doing it from these mikes ? +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD A: You know ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: It will be more interesting to study the PZM because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the separation {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh @ @ {comment} {vocalsound} But - but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , we can we 'll be {disfmarker} all of this is there for us to study . +Grad B: Then they 're much broader . Yeah , we can do whatever we want . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but the thing is , uh , one of the {disfmarker} at least one of the things I was hoping to get at with this is what can we do with what we think would be the normal situation if some people get together and one of them has a PDA . +Grad B: Whatever you 're interested in . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I was asking about , what are the constraints ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the constraint of one question that I think both Adam and I were {disfmarker} were {disfmarker} were interested in . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but {disfmarker} you know if you can instrument a room , this is really minor league compared with what some people are doing , right ? Some people at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} uh , yeah , at Brown and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} at uh {pause} um and at Cape , +Grad B: Big micro @ @ arrays . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Didn't they have something at Cape ? +Professor D: they both have these , you know , big arrays on the wall . And you know , if you could do that , you 've got microphones all over the place +Grad B: Very finely . +Professor D: uh , you know p tens of microphones , and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! I saw a demo . +PhD C: Oh , right , oh , yeah . +Professor D: And if you do that then you can really get very nice uh kind of selectivity {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , I saw one that was like a hundred microphones , a ten by ten array . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: And you could {disfmarker} In a noisy room , they could have all kinds of noises and you can zoom right in on somebody . +PhD C: Hundred . +Grad B: And they had very precision . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Very complex , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Ye - Pretty much . Yeah . +Grad B: It was all in software and they {disfmarker} and you could pick out an individual beam and listen to it . +PhD A: That is cool . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: It was {disfmarker} yeah , it was interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , the reason why I haven't focused on that as the fir my first concern is because um , I 'm interested in what happens for people , random people out in some random place where they 're p having an impromptu discussion . And you can't just always go , "" well , let 's go to this heavily instrumented room that we spent tens of thousands of dollars to se to set up "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: No , what you need to do is you 'd have a little fabric thing that you unroll and hang on a wall . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It has all these mikes and it has a plug - in jack to the PDA . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: But I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing actually , that gets at this a little bit of something else I 'd like to do , is what happens if you have two P D +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and they communicate with each other ? And then {disfmarker} You know , they 're in random positions , the likelihood that {disfmarker} I mean , basically there wouldn't be any {disfmarker} l likely to be any kind of nulls , if you even had two . If you had three or four it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Ooo ! +Grad B: That 's on my web pages . +PhD A: Network ! +Grad B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: Though {disfmarker} All sorts of interesting things you can do with that , +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: I mean , not only can you do microphone arrays , but you can do all sorts of um multi - band as well . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So it 's {disfmarker} it would be neat . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +PhD A: I still like my rug on the wall idea , so if anybody patents that , then {disfmarker} +Grad B: But {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , you could have strips that you stick to your clothing . +Grad B: in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah ! +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Hats ? +Grad B: In terms of the research {pause} th research , it 's really {disfmarker} it 's whatever the person who is doing the research wants to do . +PhD A: Shirts . +Grad B: So if {disfmarker} if Jose is interested in that , that 's great . But if {disfmarker} if he 's not , that 's great too . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} i I {disfmarker} i I would actually kind of like us to wind it down , see if we can still get to the end of the , uh , birthdays thing there . +Grad B: Catch some tea ? Um . +Professor D: So +Grad B: Well , I had a couple things that I did wanna bring out . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: One is , do we need to sign new {disfmarker} these again ? +Postdoc E: Well , it 's slightly different . So I {disfmarker} I would say it would be a good idea . +PhD A: Are they new ? +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's slightly different . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: Oh , this morning we didn't sign anything cuz we said that if anybody had signed it already , we didn't have to . +Grad B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I should 've checked with Jane first , but the ch the form has changed . +Postdoc E: It 's slightly different . +Grad B: So we may wanna have everyone sign the new form . +Professor D: Ah - oh . +PhD C: OK . +Grad B: Um , I had some things I wanted to talk about with the thresholding stuff I 'm doing . +Postdoc E: I had to make one {disfmarker} +Grad B: But , if we 're in a hurry , we can put that off . Um and then also anonymity , how we want to anonymize the data . Uh . +Postdoc E: Well , should I {disfmarker} I mean I have some results to present , but I mean I guess we won't have time to do that this time . But it seems like um the anonymization is uh , is also something that we might wanna discuss in greater length . +Professor D: Um . I mean , wha what {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: If {disfmarker} if we 're about to wind down , I think {disfmarker} what I would prefer is that we uh , delay the anonymization thing till next week , and I would like to present the results that I have on the overlaps . +PhD A: We still have to do this , too , right ? +Professor D: Right . +PhD A: Digits ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: No - well , we don't have to do digits . +Professor D: Well , why don't we {disfmarker} Uh , so @ @ OK . @ @ {comment} It sounds like u uh , there were {disfmarker} there were a couple technical things people would like to talk about . Why don't we just take a couple minutes to {disfmarker} to briefly {comment} do them , and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then we {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , go ahead , Jane . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} Oh , I 'd prefer to have more time for my results . e Could I do that next week maybe ? +Professor D: OK . Oh , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: OK , that 's what I 'm asking . +Professor D: Oh yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: And I think the anonymization , if y if you want to proceed with that now , I just think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a discussion which also n really deserves a lo a {disfmarker} you know , more that just a minute . +Professor D: We could s +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I really do think that , because you raised a couple of possibilities yourself , you and I have discussed it previously , and there are different ways that people approach it , e and I think we should {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright . We 're {disfmarker} we 're just {disfmarker} We 're getting enough data now that I 'd sort of like to do it now , before I get overwhelmed with {disfmarker} once we decide how to do it +Postdoc E: Well , OK . +Grad B: going and dealing with it . +Postdoc E: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . I {disfmarker} I 'll give you the short version , but I do think it 's an issue that we can't resolve in five minutes . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: OK , so {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the short thing is um , we have uh , tape recording uh , uh , sorry , digitized recor recordings . Those we won't be able to change . If someone says "" Hey , Roger so - and - so "" . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: So that 's gonna stay that person 's name . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like the transcript , the question becomes what symbol are you gonna put in there for everybody 's name , and whether you 're gonna put it in the text where he says "" Hey Roger "" or are we gonna put that person 's anonymized name in instead ? +Grad B: No , because then that would give you a mapping , and you don't wanna have a mapping . +Postdoc E: OK , so first decision is , we 're gonna anonymize the same name for the speaker identifier and also in the text whenever the speaker 's name is mentioned . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No . Because that would give you a mapping between the speaker 's real name and the tag we 're using , and we don't want {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I don't think you understood what I {disfmarker} what I said . +Grad B: OK . +Postdoc E: So {disfmarker} uh , so in {disfmarker} within the context of an utterance , someone says "" So , Roger , what do you think ? "" OK . Then , uh , it seems to me that {disfmarker} Well , maybe I {disfmarker} uh it seems to me that if you change the name , the transcript 's gonna disagree with the audio , and you won't be able to use that . +PhD A: Right , you don't wanna do that . +Grad B: We don't {disfmarker} we wanna {disfmarker} we ha we want the transcript to be "" Roger "" . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Because if we made the {disfmarker} the transcript be the tag that we 're using for Roger , someone who had the transcript and the audio would then have a mapping between the anonymized name and the real name , and we wanna avoid that . +Postdoc E: OK , well , but then there 's this issue of if we 're gonna use this for a discourse type of thing , then {disfmarker} and , you know , Liz was mentioning stuff in a previous meeting about gaze direction and who 's {disfmarker} who 's the addressee and all , then to have "" Roger "" be the thing in the utterance and then actually have the speaker identifier who was "" Roger "" be "" Frank "" , that 's going to be really confusing and make it pretty much useless for discourse analysis . +Grad B: Oh . Ugh ! That 's a good point . +Postdoc E: Now , if you want to , you know , I mean , in some cases , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I know that Susan Ervin - Tripp in some of hers , uh , actually did do uh , um , a filter of the s signal where the person 's name was mentioned , except +Professor D: Yeah Yeah , once you get to the publication you can certainly do that . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} cer and I {disfmarker} So , I mean , the question then becomes one level back . Um , how important is it for a person to be identified by first name versus full name ? Well , on the one hand , uh , it 's not a full identity , we 're taking all these precautions , um and they 'll be taking precautions , which are probably even the more important ones , to {disfmarker} they 'll be reviewing the transcripts , to see if there 's something they don't like {disfmarker} {comment} OK . So , maybe , uh , maybe that 's enough protection . On the other hand , this is a small {disfmarker} this is a small pool , and people who say things about topic X e who are researchers and well - known in the field , they 'll be identifiable and simply from the {disfmarker} from the first name . However , taking one step further back , they 'd be identifiable anyway , even if we changed all the names . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: So , is it really , um {disfmarker} {comment} You know ? +Grad B: Ugh ! +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I did some results , which I 'll report on n next time , which do mention individual speakers by name . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Now , there , the Human Subjects Committee is very precise . You don't wanna mention subjects by name in published reports . Now , it would be very possible for me to take those data put them in a {disfmarker} in a study , and just change everybody 's name for the purpose of the publication . And someone who looked {disfmarker} +Professor D: You can go , you know , uh , "" Z "" {vocalsound} uh , for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , exactly . Doesn't matter if {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . Um , yeah , I mean , t it doesn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not knowledgeable about this , but it certainly doesn't bother me to have someone 's first name in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the transcript . +Postdoc E: That 's the same thing you saw . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh , I think {disfmarker} you don't wanna have their full name to be uh , listed . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and in the form that they sign , it does say "" your first name may arise in the course of the meetings "" . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . So again , th the issue is if you 're tracking discourse things , you know , if someone says , uh , uh , "" Frank said this "" and then you wanna connect it to something later , you 've gotta have this part where that 's "" Frank colon "" . +Postdoc E: Or "" your name "" . +Grad B: Yeah , shoot ! +Professor D: Right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} you know , even more i i uh , immediate than that just being able to , uh {disfmarker} Well , it just seems like to track {disfmarker} track from one utterance to the next utterance who 's speaking and who 's speaking to whom , cuz that can be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: S i You know , "" You raised the point , So - and - so "" , it 's be kind of nice to be able to know who "" you "" was . +Grad B: Shoot ! +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I 'm thinking too much . +Postdoc E: And ac {comment} and actually you remember {disfmarker} furthermore , you remember last time we had this discussion of how you know , I was sort of avoiding mentioning people 's names , +Professor D: Yeah , I was too . Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} and we made the decision that was kind of artificial . Well , I mean , if we 're going to step in after the fact and change people 's names in the transcript , we 've basically done something one step worse . +Grad B: Yep . Well , I would sug I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} don't wanna change the names in the transcript , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but that 's because I 'm focused so much on the acoustics instead of on the discourse , and so I think that 's a really good point . +Postdoc E: Misleading . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: You 're right , this is going to require more thought . +Professor D: Yeah . L let me just back up this to make a {disfmarker} a brief comment about the , uh , what we 're covering in the meeting . Uh I realize when you 're doing this that uh {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't realize that you had a bunch of things that you wanted to talk about . Uh , and so , uh {disfmarker} and so I was proceeding some somewhat at random , frankly . So I think what would be helpful would be uh , i and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll mention this to {disfmarker} to Liz and Andreas too , that um , before the meeting if anybody could send me , any {disfmarker} any , uh , uh , agenda items that they were interested in and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take the role of organizing them uh , into {disfmarker} into the agenda , +Postdoc E: OK . Sure . +Professor D: but I 'd be very pleased to have everyone else {vocalsound} completely make up the agenda . I 've no desire to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to make it up , but if {disfmarker} if no one 's told me things , then I 'm just proceeding from my {disfmarker} my guesses , and {disfmarker} and uh , and i ye yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry it ended up with your out your time to {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm just always asking Jose what he 's doing , you know , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and so it 's {disfmarker} {pause} There 's uh , there 's obviously other things going on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Oh , it 's not a problem . Not a problem . Yeah . I just {disfmarker} I just couldn't do it in two minutes . +Grad B: How will we {disfmarker} how would the person who 's doing the transcript even know who they 're talking about ? Do you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD A: "" The person who 's doing the transcript {disfmarker} "" {comment} The IBM people ? +Grad B: Yeah . I mean , so so {disfmarker} how is that information gonna get labeled anyway ? +Postdoc E: How do you mean , who {disfmarker} what they 're {disfmarker} who they 're talking about ? +Grad B: I mean , so if I 'm saying in a meeting , "" oh and Bob , by the way , wanted {disfmarker} wanted to do so - and - so "" , +Postdoc E: How do you mean ? +PhD A: They 're just gonna write "" Bob "" on it or do @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad B: if you 're doing {disfmarker} Yeah , @ @ they 're just gonna write "" Bob "" . And so . If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're doing discourse analysis , +Postdoc E: They won't be able to change it themselves . +Professor D: What ar how are they gonna do any of this ? +Grad B: Yeah , really . +Postdoc E: Well , I {disfmarker} I 'm betting we 're gonna have huge chunks that are just totally un untranscribable by them . +Professor D: I mean , they 're gonna say speaker - one , or speaker - two or speaker I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They can't do that . +PhD C: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , the current one they don't do speaker identity . +PhD C: +Grad B: because in NaturallySpeaking , or , excuse me , in ViaVoice , it 's only one person . and so in their current conventions there are no multiple speaker conventions . +Professor D: So it may just be one long transcript of a bunch of words . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh . {vocalsound} I think that {disfmarker} My understanding from Yen Is it Yen - Ching ? Is that how you pronounce her name ? +Professor D: Uh {pause} Yu - Ching , Yu - Ching . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , uh Yu - Ching ? Yu - Ching ? +Grad B: y Yu - Ching . +Postdoc E: was that um , they will {disfmarker} that they will adopt the {disfmarker} part of the conventions that {disfmarker} that we discussed , where they put speaker identifier down . But , you know , h they won't know these people , so I think it 's {disfmarker} Well , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll adopt some convention but we haven't specified to them {disfmarker} So they 'll do something like speaker - one , speaker - two , is what I bet , but I 'm betting there 'll be huge variations in the accuracy of {disfmarker} of their labeling the speakers . We 'll have to review the transcripts in any case . +Professor D: And it {disfmarker} and it may very well be {disfmarker} I mean , since they 're not going to sit there and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and worry ab about , uh , it being the same speaker , they may very well go the {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the first se the first time it changes to another speaker , that 'll be speaker - two . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: And the next time it 'll be speaker - three even if it 's actually speaker - one . +Postdoc E: You know {disfmarker} Uh - huh . You know , that would be a very practical solution on their part . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's a good idea . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but then we would need to label it . +Grad B: Yeah we {disfmarker} we can probably regenerate it pretty easily from the close - talking mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And that 's OK . +PhD C: +Postdoc E: Yes , I was thinking , the temp the time values of when it changes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . But I mean that doesn't {disfmarker} This doesn't answer the {disfmarker} the question . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 'd be very efficient . +Grad B: The p It 's a good point , "" which {disfmarker} what do you do for discourse tracking ? "" +PhD C: Because y y you don't know to know , eh {disfmarker} you don't need to know what i what is the iden identification of the {disfmarker} of the speakers . You only eh want to know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm . For {disfmarker} for acoustics you don't but for discourse you do . +Professor D: Well , you do . +PhD C: Ah , for discourse , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if someone says , uh , "" what {disfmarker} what is Jose doing ? "" and then Jose says something , you need to know that that was Jose responding . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , +Grad B: Ugh , {comment} that 's a problem . +Professor D: Uh , so . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Unless we adopt a different set of norms which is to not id to make a point of not identifying people by name , which then leads you to be more contextually ex explicit . +PhD A: That would be hard . +Postdoc E: Well , people are very flexible . You know ? I mean , so when we did this las last week , I felt that you know , now , Andreas may , uh , @ @ {comment} uh , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} i sometimes people think of something else at the same time and they miss a sentence or something , and {disfmarker} and because he missed something , then he missed the r the initial introduction of who we were talking about , and was {disfmarker} was unable to do the tracking . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But I felt like most of us were doing the tracking and knew who we were talking about and we just weren't mentioning the name . So , people are really flexible . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But , you know , like , at the beginning of this meeting {disfmarker} Or , you I think said , {pause} you know , or s Liz , said something about um , uh , "" is Mari gonna use the equipment ? "" I mean , how would you say that ? +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD A: I mean , you have to really think , you know , about what you 're saying bef +Grad B: if you wanted to anonymize . +PhD C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , is {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Is you know who up in you know where ? "" +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Use the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think it would be really hard if we made a policy where we didn't say names , plus we 'd have to tell everybody else . +Grad B: Yeah , darn ! I mean , what I was gonna say is that the other option is that we could bleep out the names . +Postdoc E: Well , it +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: but then , again that kills your discourse analysis . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Ugh ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I don't know , my own two cents worth is that you don't do anything about what 's in the recordings , you only anonymize to the extent you can , the speakers have signed the forms and all . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the issue . +Grad B: Well , but that but that {disfmarker} as I said , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that works great for the acoustics , but it {disfmarker} it hurts you a lot for trying to do discourse . +Postdoc E: Well . +PhD A: Why ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Because you don't have a map of who 's talking versus {pause} their {pause} name that they 're being referred to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Th - Bec +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought we were gonna get it labelled speaker - one , speaker - two {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sure but , h then you have to know that Jose is speaker - one and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Why do you have to know his name ? +Professor D: OK , so suppose someone says , "" well I don't know if I really heard what {disfmarker} uh , what Jose said . "" +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , Jose responds . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And part of your learning about the dialogue is Jose responding to it . But it doesn't say "" Jose "" , it says "" speaker - five "" . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} uh {pause} u +PhD A: Oh , I see , you wanna associated the word "" Jose "" in the dialogue with the fact that then he responded . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Someone who 's doing discourse would wanna do that . +Professor D: And so , if we pass out the data to someone else , and it says "" speaker - five "" there , we also have to pass them this little guide that says that speaker - five is Jose , +Grad B: And that violates our privacy . +Professor D: and if were gonna do that we might as well {comment} give them "" Jose "" {disfmarker} say it was "" Jose "" . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: And that violates our privacy issue . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Now , I {disfmarker} I think that we have these two phases in the {disfmarker} in the data , which is the one which is o our use , University of Washington 's use , IBM , SRI . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And within that , it may be that it 's sufficient to not uh change the {disfmarker} to not incorporate anonymization yet , but always , always in the publications we have to . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And I think also , when we take it that next step and distribute it to the world , we have to . But I {disfmarker} but I don that 's {disfmarker} that 's a long way from now and {disfmarker} and it 's a matter of {disfmarker} between now and then of d of deciding how {disfmarker} +Grad B: Making some decisions ? +Postdoc E: i i it {disfmarker} You know , it may be s that we we 'll need to do something like actually X out that part of the um {disfmarker} the audio , and just put in brackets "" speaker - one "" . +Grad B: Yeah . For the public one . +PhD C: the ? ? +Grad B: You know , what we could do also is have more than one version of release . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad B: One that 's public and one {disfmarker} one that requires licensing . And so the licensed one would {disfmarker} w we could {disfmarker} it would be a sticky limitation . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} Well , we can talk about that later . +Postdoc E: I think that 's risky . I think that the public should be the same . I think that when we do that world release , it should be the same . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I agree . I {disfmarker} I agree with Jane . +Postdoc E: For a bunch of reasons , legal . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} need to have a consistent licensing policy of some sort , and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But I also think a consistent licensing policy is important . +PhD A: Well , one thing to to take into consideration is w are there any um {disfmarker} For example , the people who are funding this work , they want this work to get out and be useful for discourse . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: If we all of a sudden do this and then release it to the public and it 's not longer useful for discourse , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , depending on how much editing we do , you might be able to {pause} still have it useful . because for discourse you don't need the audio . Right ? So you could bleep out the names in the audio . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and use the anonymized one through the transcript . +PhD A: But if you release both {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . +Postdoc E: Excuse me . We {disfmarker} we do need audio for discourse . +Grad B: But , n excuse me , but you could bleep out just the names . +Professor D: She {disfmarker} No , but she 's saying , from the argument before , she wants to be able to say if someone said "" Jose "" in their {disfmarker} in their thing , and then connect to so to what he said later , then you need it . +Grad B: Right . But in the transcript , you could say , everywhere they said "" Jose "" that you could replace it with "" speaker - seven "" . +Professor D: Oh I see . I see . +Postdoc E: Yeah . But I {disfmarker} {pause} I also wanna say that people {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then it wouldn't meet {disfmarker} match the audio anymore . But it would be still useful for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But if both of those are publically available {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad B: But they {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: And th and the other thing is if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if Liz were here , {vocalsound} what she might say is that she wants to look if things that cut across between the audio and the dialogue , +Postdoc E: Well , you see ? So , it 's complicated . +Professor D: and so , {vocalsound} uh , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . Sorry . +Postdoc E: I think we have to think about w @ @ {comment} how . I think that this can't be decided today . +Grad B: Yeah , OK , good point . +Postdoc E: But it 's g but I think it was good to introduce the thing and we can do it next time . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think {disfmarker} when I wrote you that email I wasn't thinking it was a big can of worms , but I guess it is . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: OK . Yeah , a lot of these things are . +Grad B: Discourse . +Postdoc E: Well it {disfmarker} Discourse , you know {disfmarker} Also I wanted to make the point that {disfmarker} that discourse is gonna be more than just looking at a transcript . +Grad B: Yeah , ab absolutely . Oh , yeah , sure . +Postdoc E: It 's gonna be looking at a t You know , and prosod prosodic stuff is involved , and that means you 're going to be listening to the audio , and then you come directly into this {disfmarker} confronting this problem . +PhD A: Maybe we should just not allow anybody to do research on discourse , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD A: and then , we wouldn't have to worry about it . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , we should just market it to non - English speaking countries . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , maybe we should only have meetings between people who don't know one another and who are also amnesiacs who don't know their own name . +Grad B: Did you read the paper on Eurospeech ? +Postdoc E: We could have little labels . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna introduce my Reservoir Dogs solution again , which is everyone has like "" Mister White "" , "" Mister Pink "" , {vocalsound} "" Mister Blue "" . +PhD A: Mister White . +Grad B: Yeah . Did you read the paper a few years ago where they were reversing the syllables ? They were di they they had the utterances . and they would extract out the syllables and they would play them backwards . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} so , the syllables were in the same order , with respect to each other , but the acous +Grad B: Everything was in the same order , but they were {disfmarker} the individual syll {comment} syllables were played backwards . And you could listen to it , {pause} and it would sound the same . +PhD A: What did it sound like ? +Grad B: People had no difficulty in interpreting it . So what we need is something that 's the reverse , that a speech recognizer works exactly the same on it but people can't understand it . +Professor D: Oh , well that 's {disfmarker} there 's an easy way to do that . Jus - jus just play it all backwards . +Grad B: Oh right . The speech recognizer 's totally symmetric , isn't it . +Professor D: What , what does the speech recognizer care ? +Grad B: Ah , anyway . +Professor D: Um , +Postdoc E: Oh , do we do digits ? Or {disfmarker} ? What do we do ? +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} OK , we 'll quickly do digits . +Professor D: Let 's do digits . Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we already missed the party . +Postdoc E: Or do we just quit ? +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , go off here . +PhD A: I think it would be fun sometime to read them with different intonations . like as if you were talking like , "" nine eight six eight seven ? "" +Postdoc E: Well , you know , in the {disfmarker} in the one I transcribed , I did find a couple instances {disfmarker} {pause} I found one instance of contrastive stress , where it was like the string had a {disfmarker} li So it was like "" nine eight two four , nine nine two four "" . +PhD A: Oh , really . So they were like looking ahead , +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: huh ? +Postdoc E: Well , they differed . I mean , at that {disfmarker} that session I did feel like they did it more as sentences . But , um , sometimes people do it as phone numbers . {comment} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I {pause} am sort of interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} And sometimes , you know , I s And I {disfmarker} I never know . When I do it , I {disfmarker} I ask myself what I 'm doing each time . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Well , I was thinking that it must get kind of boring for the people who are gonna have to transcribe this +Postdoc E: and I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They may as well throw in some interesting intonations . +Grad B: Well , except , +Postdoc E: I like your question intonation . +Grad B: yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's very funny . I haven't heard that one . +Grad B: We have the transcript . We have the actual numbers they 're reading , so we 're not necessarily depending on that . OK , I 'm gonna go off . +","The dialogue outlined above appears to be a meeting involving a diverse group including graduate students, a postdoc, PhDs, and a professor. The group is discussing various aspects of a research project that involves the recording and analysis of meetings, possibly for the development of a speech recognition system or similar computational linguistics work. The participants are exploring technical challenges, procedural changes, and the nature of the data collection process for their project. + +One technical issue raised by Grad B and PhD F concerns an error message that appears intermittently in the code running their meetings. Grad B discusses the pattern of the error's occurrence and intends to note it down for further troubleshooting. There is a suggestion to alter the procedure for recording digits at the end of meetings to accommodate members who need to leave early. + +PhD F expresses a desire to collect more data to enable a new student to conduct research using the collected data. The student is part-time funded and comes from a signal-processing background but has a strong interest in higher-level language aspects such as disfluencies and prosody. + +The group discusses the ramifications of inviting other groups to their meetings to obtain a robust and varied dataset. There is concern over the type of meetings recorded and ensuring that they meet specific criteria for the team's research. PhD F raises the point of summarizing meetings and extracting significant interaction cues from the signals and various microphones, indicating an interest in understanding meeting dynamics. + +The conversation shifts to planning the collection of diverse data and coordinating with subjects. There is extensive discussion about reaching out to different departments or groups like the Haas Business School to source data for recording regularly. They are also aware of the acoustic challenges associated with different speaker environments and the need for a variety of meeting types in their research. + +Professor D points out the necessity of having both diverse speakers and a selection from random meetings to fulfill acoustic and computational linguistics research needs. The debate turns to the ideal speaker profiles for the linguistics model, highlighting the requirement for speakers who are fluent enough in English to be understood. + +There is an undercurrent of concern about maintaining speaker anonymity within the collected data. The group deliberates on the implications of using actual speaker names in research publications and the potential need to anonymize or alter recordings to protect subjects' identities. This leads to a broader discussion about the feasibility and practicality of anonymizing the corpus for discourse analysis. They acknowledge potential issues that may arise with their anonymization approach, given that datasets might be distributed publicly in the future. + +Throughout the discussion, there is an evident tension between the need to ensure speaker privacy and the requirements for conducting meaningful discourse analysis, which benefits from knowing the identities operating in the dialogues. It becomes apparent that while the group wants to anonymize the data for wider distribution eventually, they also must retain enough contextual and speaker-specific information for internal research purposes. + +The meeting exhibits a collaborative problem-solving approach but also reveals the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of linguistic data collection and analysis. The group is navigating the intricacies of conducting research ethically while aiming to achieve robust results that could contribute significantly to the fields of computational linguistics and speech recognition. + +Towards the end of the meeting, they decide that more time is needed to discuss important matters like data anonymization, and they agree to continue the conversation in subsequent meetings. The urgency to complete some tasks, such as digit readings, also comes up, but due to time constraints, the group only briefly touches on this before concluding the discussion." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: That's the same as uh on the top of it uh with the the round uh button . +Industrial Designer: Like this one . +User Interface: But uh we don't uh we don't uh {disfmarker} we do think it's um well {disfmarker} what if with ease of use , w which prefers the {disfmarker} which the the customer of the user prefers . +Industrial Designer: It's important . Uh I think th this is device which which has a learning curve . Um novice users u use this device as uh normal users use uh a c a remote control . And after a while they start to develop uh some skills in the the voice recognition functions , and then they will not use this dial as often . But other users who are new to this device need something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They n they need to understand what {disfmarker} uh how to change channels and uh change the volume , so it's easier for them +Project Manager: Could could I see the scroll bar as uh as as a sort of shortcut ? A a and the voice recognition as well , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe so . Yes , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th maybe you could uh could uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's it's another approach , it's more that our um {gap} . {vocalsound} There are there are many ways of doing uh things uh on such a device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's it's quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . And and the case is is rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , rubber ? +Project Manager: And the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Plastic or rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are plastic or rubber . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the colouring ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yellow with uh +Project Manager: {gap} with with grey or black . +Industrial Designer: grey or black or something like that . Whatever cost uh cost uh the least . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll we'll come to that later . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . Anything else to add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Uh maybe we should uh think about these buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , you could use two of them to programme the um channels on the two channel button , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'cause you have to assign two channel {disfmarker} new channels . +Industrial Designer: but these are tasks that are only executed once , I think . +Project Manager: M uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or not ? +Project Manager: M m but maybe you do want a programme button to uh for example activate the voice recognition , or train the voice voice recognition . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well okay . Okay , yeah , that's right . Or something li like that . +User Interface: And a button for disabling the voice recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah al although by pressing the button for I n don't know two , three seconds , you could also say it {disfmarker} you'd disable it with a little beep and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but o okay , that that's not really really important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the basic idea , yeah . Of our prototype . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The basic {disfmarker} okay . Okay . Um you thought of some evaluation crit criteria ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name is not name +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are nameless . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , I used the {gap} {disfmarker} the uh {gap} documents . And these uh were the most important criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it spongy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should be . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's uh how the fashion guys uh state it . Fancy look and feel . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So just walk through it step by step . I mean , is it fancy , everything {disfmarker} I believe uh I believe it's fancy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well appar +Industrial Designer: I believe it's fancy too . +Marketing: Yeah , but apparently uh we shouldn't evaluate yet . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: this {disfmarker} these are the cr uh the criteria . +Marketing: Yeah , I think these are the most important criteria . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh +Project Manager: the then we'll switch to my presentation . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's about it . +Project Manager: The production costs . The costs are not under {disfmarker} Can I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's w way above um uh above the the the twelve Euro fifty . +User Interface: Yikes . +Project Manager: And what makes it very expensive is uh for example the solar cell . So I guess we should skip that , +Industrial Designer: Well it's very expensive . +Project Manager: because it's not that important . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why does the price and and the s oh , one uh exa +Project Manager: Yeah , the the price , the the number of items and the the sum . +User Interface: yeah . The number of uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Um well , this is what I would call our luxury model . Um if you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you look at the uh w w w what we could do to make it more um {vocalsound} to make it {vocalsound} just between the twelve Euro fifty , um then I did the following changes . Twelve Euro forty cents I came up with by leaving out the solar cells , um by not using the voice recognition feature , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it's uh it's a four Euro uh addition to the price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I believe {disfmarker} Uh , push-button , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It makes it the thirteen {disfmarker} yeah . Push-buttons are {disfmarker} buttons are are not the most expensive , but do add extra cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} yeah , th this design is not um within our price model . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I'm afraid it's not complete . Because we use spec uh specic uh special materials , the last item . And you have not added one item there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's c way too expensive . +Project Manager: It's still too expensive , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's that's only for the buttons . +Project Manager: I I guess if we leave the {disfmarker} if we leave this one out , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the button we can use plastic . +Project Manager: oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh maybe not use the special form . +User Interface: And the pla uh {disfmarker} And a plastic b just plastic buttons , a plas uh instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It becomes a very dull remote control , I know . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But it's the board decision . Um {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , b basically it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} when when this is our only option , we should even consider changing the casing , because I think there's very little added value in uh an enhanced case with these dull functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , I know . Maybe we should look at an {disfmarker} uh focus on another uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Type of m maybe another market segment . +Project Manager: Yeah , m uh maybe not not all that fancy , but just way way more easy uh uh um basic +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh m maximise the profits +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} maybe that's better . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could uh {disfmarker} we should go for straight and simple , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not what uh has been asked . +Project Manager: I know , I know . +Industrial Designer: So we should kick the board's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Although I think we {disfmarker} yeah , but we could still make uh a remote control that ap uh um applies um more to young people uh by giving it another colour already . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so it is possible to make uh uh a device that attracts a little bit more to young people . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um but uh I agree it's it's not a fancy high-tech uh device . Definitely not , no . {vocalsound} It's not that innovative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or however you s pronounce that . +User Interface: Yeah , too bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so , okay . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Oh , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is the wrong one . So uh that means redesign . {vocalsound} We do not have the time o uh now to to redesign the product . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} but we can evaluate the process and um uh uh the satisfaction on how things went . Um I'm not sure if we need to evaluate uh the device first . I guess {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well , since we're not gonna manufacture it anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it's good to do it anyway , because if we evaluate it , we we can also determine if our objectives are good . +Project Manager: We l we can learn . Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d it is it is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yay . Is it ? Is it fancy ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Um the yellow rubber , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You like the rubber , uh Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's not that fancy . +Project Manager: No , I'll I'll I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I mean I think uh {disfmarker} I think it would have been more fancy if we used the titanium housing {disfmarker} the casing . It would be even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You like tita {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh , you really like titanium . I'm I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a flavour as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It has flavour . Yes , that's right . {vocalsound} You should taste it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , +Marketing: Is it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but but it {disfmarker} but that's fancy in the way um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean fancy has has a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It has to do with fashion , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's trendy trendy , fun {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So do {disfmarker} +Marketing: And w +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah , w what they want {disfmarker} wanted was uh colours and soft materials . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So in that way {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it's fancy . +Project Manager: It applies . It {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well , just {vocalsound} give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: It's not the ultimate uh fancy two , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think I th I think it would have been {disfmarker} I would have think {disfmarker} uh it could have been more fancy by using the double-curved case . It would have been even more fancy , but we decided not to , because if we use a double-curved case , we could not use solar . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's sti that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Looking at the user uh needs , we only uh don't {disfmarker} we don't have the double-curved case . We w we do have uh the rubber , we do have the colours . That's two out of three . So I believe uh we are close uh to two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree too . It's okay . We did {gap} {disfmarker} yes , we did good . +Marketing: Okay , and uh was it innovative ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: with the voice recognition feature and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's not in it . Ov or can we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: No , we are evaluating this this uh design now . This prototype . +Industrial Designer: Well , let's let's {disfmarker} this product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it is . I think it's innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And the scroll uh wheel . The solar {disfmarker} not many remotes have the solar , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . It could have been a little bit more innovative u by using the kinetic uh energy source , but it's it's way too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That would have been a thrill . +Industrial Designer: yes , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh also a uh two ? +Industrial Designer: I think uh it's a two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: I'm not sure . {vocalsound} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah , the voice recognition of course is hard to learn , I think . Well , hard {disfmarker} it's not for the for the e for the elderly . They won't use it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , but there are two parts in this remote control . What you see here is is the basic part . Everybody can use it , so that's easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's for a novice user . When you have a more advanced , elaborate user , well , such a user really would like to explore all these additional functions . So in that in that way it is advanced , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think it's easy to use for for both uh types of users . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} I think a three . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} It's maybe {disfmarker} it's not very uh easy for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wouldn't give it more . +Project Manager: Uh I'm doubting {disfmarker} doubting as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the p the most important function is easy to use . The the zapping , channel switching , volume . But the more advanced functions are probably a bit harder . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh two or three ? Three ? Wha wh what would be your guess ? I mean ease of use um does not only apply to the most basic functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It's the uh it's it's overall . Is the device easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . You're right in that , but I {gap} {disfmarker} I guess uh an advanced user will will find the voice recognition function easy to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because he is already {disfmarker} he or she is already an advanced user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: After all , I think {disfmarker} personally I would give a two . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh Roo , a three ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Good question . Uh I'll go uh for the two . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , it's two , two and three . Two threes . So that's ten . +Project Manager: So I could make it e easy ? +User Interface: If you make it a four it will be three in general . +Industrial Designer: So that's w No , two and a half . +User Interface: If he makes it a four . Not a three . +Industrial Designer: Six and four . Six and four is ten . Divided by four is two and a half . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Darn . Nee . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm ? Huh ? +Project Manager: Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A seven , a three {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: Yeah . I yeah {gap} . +User Interface: A four and a three together . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four ? +User Interface: Yeah , you have a two , he has a two . Three ? +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Marketing: two , two , three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And a three ? +Project Manager: I haven't said anything yet . +User Interface: Nee . I know . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , but if I would say a three , then it's six , and four is ten . Divided by four is two point five . +Industrial Designer: Divided by four . +User Interface: Yes . So if you want to have the conclusion as a three {disfmarker} three . Then you would make a four . If you fill out a four {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'm filling in a three . +Industrial Designer: That's not even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} so it will be a two point five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But that's not possible to fill in , +Project Manager: Yes , it is . +Industrial Designer: so we have to round it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it easy to find ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have a veto . {vocalsound} Exactly . It's not about the content , it's about {disfmarker} okay , um is it easy to f Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: we haven't re uh re uh really worked it out , but you c you can you can just say find and he repeats find . +Industrial Designer: It it most definitely is {disfmarker} it's very easy . +Project Manager: Yeah , or beeps or {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's the that's the the basic idea of the the speaker uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Maybe {disfmarker} Uh I I think I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm here , I'm here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: something like that . Maybe you have to uh programme it once , so to that l respond to uh a certain word or a certain sentence , something like where are you , and then it will sing I'm here . So something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But even without it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , I th +Project Manager: we should not uh stay too long on this subject uh because of the time , but I personally give it a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Right , well . The feel of the remote control is spongy . Well , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it can't be more spongy . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it can be . There are cases um in which the outside casing is {disfmarker} um can be {disfmarker} uh how d how do you prono is is moldable . +User Interface: Was it one of our options ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's not one of our option , +Marketing: No . Uh +Project Manager: No okay , but but +User Interface: So , in the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but when you look in the market , when you look {disfmarker} +Marketing: this this was a most spongy option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for the options given , it's the most spongy one . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not that's not uh what they are talking about , I think . Because we compare all these uh characteristics {disfmarker} characteristics with uh market {disfmarker} uh with with the real market . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there are uh remote controls out there which are a lot more spongy . They're out there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're out there . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think in this case in this case we've done the best we could . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it's not good enough , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Industrial Designer: so it's a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I wan I'll take one . +Industrial Designer: You take one ? What do you give it ? +Marketing: Well yeah , it depends , 'cause it's the most spongy we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but you have to name a fig uh a number . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Because we need to go on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for the time . +Marketing: Well , if I give it a one there'll be one hell of a calculation . +User Interface: It will be a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll just give it a two and make this a one point five . +Industrial Designer: No no no . Uh I'll I'll change it , I'll make it m my my mark will be a four . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The remote control offers enough features . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , Ruud , what what do you think about it ? +Marketing: Well , the basic layout doesn't offem {disfmarker} offer much , but the voice recognition could add a lot . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically it's it's completely programmable . +Marketing: Yeah , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can add very m much functionality by uh using the voice recognition mode . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: So it's quite advanced . +Project Manager: What what we didn't talk about is um uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it ha doesn't has the digits . I believe it's {disfmarker} If you uh ask yourself it offers enough features , I don't I don't think it is {disfmarker} it has all the features um a normal remote has . +Project Manager: I think it has . +Marketing: Uh depends on what you uh implement in the speech feat +Project Manager: Yeah . Bec because you can um {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it , but you do have uh remote controls that are able to adapt another signal . So , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: you place a a regular uh remote control in front of the other one , hit the one or the two or the three , whatever , and it r records the uh the um {gap} {disfmarker} the the signals . +Industrial Designer: Has uh the signals sent to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Signal . +Project Manager: So you could uh uh uh enter any comment you like , as long it's able to {disfmarker} as long as our device is able to reproduce the infrared signal . So I think th this uh this is uh a a remote control with a very high level of features . +Industrial Designer: Absolutely . +Project Manager: Although there are i a few buttons , but the inside is is quite uh advanced . +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that {disfmarker} that's its power , I guess , because uh a regular programmable uh remote control contains , well , uh really a lot of buttons . At at least uh forty buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's quite s complicated to get uh to get used to . And this is quite s simple . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: You can use your voice to to programme it . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um let's give it a number . I'll give it uh a one . For for the {disfmarker} for this t uh type of market , I think it's a one . +User Interface: I'll give a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll give it a one . +Marketing: Um I think think a one , 'cause {gap} v with a voice recognition you could add anything you want , so that's like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . I I've {disfmarker} I think we've uh succe succeed in in developing a product that's actually quite good , but not for this kind of market , and not for this kind of price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So high quality , low acceptance . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: The product is is is uh b high qua uh has a high quality and and is uh advanced . But {vocalsound} whether or not our clients are are um willing to pay twenty five Euros for this kind of device is doub is {disfmarker} well , is not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: D do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree . I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe even because it doesn't look advanced . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe we should have a radar uh {vocalsound} function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: But we could {disfmarker} couldn't uh {disfmarker} what what's the selling price ? Fifty ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Uh twenty five . And costs were twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But even now , if only our production costs w {vocalsound} uh were exceeded the double , Think . Production cost was {disfmarker} were t uh was twenty two ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh {gap} selling price uh would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M about fifty Euros . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's quite ex +User Interface: That's price , but w w +Industrial Designer: well , it's not it's not very expensive for a remote control that that has this functionality . +User Interface: No . An original remote control of any T_V_ kind , uh a Phillips remote control , y you pay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's more than fifty Euros . It's quite expensive , yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I kn I know uh from a few years ago , it it it costed hundred Gilders . +Project Manager: Bu but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah , I know , but you're paying for th for the brand , because there are uh remote controls which control your stereo , television , D_V_D_ , C_D_ player , for under twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , but you can you c Yes , but you can learn this thing , all these functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's easier to use because those uh remote controls don't offer voice recognition +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and this one does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think it's worth its price . +Project Manager: Okay . Um you had an overall rating . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} with these ratings uh +Project Manager: That's counting . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's about one point five . Something like that . +Marketing: should be about one point s seven , +User Interface: Four six seven eight . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Nine divided by six . +Project Manager: Okay . Um we'll go further on with the the rest of the evaluation . About the project itself , not about the product . Um {disfmarker} What did you think about uh the process , the project process ? Ruud ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to translate that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any any other {disfmarker} Uh , Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ye +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The process was good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But w um we weren't aware of the prices of the costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And and that was the the big deal . I if we knew that before , we c we could have made +Industrial Designer: Mm . Actually , we had {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the choice between {gap} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Better decision . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: We had we had too little information actually . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} And uh um the the the {disfmarker} well , looking at room for creativity , there was w way too {disfmarker} the the choice of components was way too narrow . +Project Manager: Less . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there was not really a process of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we could we we could be {disfmarker} we could've been creative . But um it was tempered by the choice of components and the the price . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Yes . +Marketing: The prices . +Industrial Designer: Well , in the first meeting we we already were very creative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We we thought of possibilities {vocalsound} who are not possible uh with the the current uh offer of uh manufacturing components . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're tempered by that , yes . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo ? Any other thoughts on that ? +User Interface: No , no . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: You agree , okay . Uh leadership . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Roo's on for his promotion . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we're a good team . +Project Manager: I think so too , it's it's it's uh of course a laboratory environment . I missed it um to be able to contact you in between and uh say uh , hey Roo uh {gap} . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I tried once , but that was not allowed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but but si uh w w w {gap} {disfmarker} when taken in account the the situation , uh I think we performed pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the means , the SMARTboard , the digital pen . Did you like 'em ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . The digital pen was okay , but SMARTboard was really bad . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because of the response +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Response +Industrial Designer: The response is very slow +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the possibilities are very limited . It's not accurate . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it it has {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , it's not accurate . The p the pointing of the pen is not um the place where it it writes its {disfmarker} um uh where it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Draws . +User Interface: Yeah , where it draws . It's uh {disfmarker} the drawing on on the b on the board is {gap} r right from the pen . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it it had to be um better aligned , or what's the word ? +User Interface: You to take in account that your {disfmarker} you m +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +User Interface: yeah uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's {disfmarker} it needs to be calibrateds . +User Interface: It's too slow {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It it was calibrated just before this meeting . Uh the one before , the third meeting . +Industrial Designer: It is ? +Project Manager: So uh it's not the calibration , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: it's the thing itself , I think . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , w uh did you use the pen a lot ? Or not at all ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Not at all . +Marketing: Not really . +Project Manager: Okay . I thought it was quite a handy uh thing , +Industrial Designer: I I think so too . +Project Manager: although I would like to see um O_C_R_ . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +User Interface: If it has O_C_R_ {vocalsound} , uh I think uh I would use , but uh I I just uh took notes for myself and and and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It w it w yeah . It was necessary for me to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To digitise them . +User Interface: Yeah , because if I want something on the computer , I just type it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I type faster than I write . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think it's a great solution for uh for uh a known problem , uh writing down some notes , some some inf uh information , and then um forgetting your notebook somewhere and losing all that information . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because you have everything in one place and it's quite easy quite easy {disfmarker} it's it's possible to make this information digital and share it with others in a quite easy way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a good product . I only think it's th the the shape of the pen is too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not quite uh ergonomic . Eco ergonomic . +User Interface: Economic . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um {disfmarker} What w Uh Ruud , what did you think about the SMARTboards ? +Marketing: Oh , I only use it to draw a rabbit , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , you can't really decide . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can't say much about it . +Project Manager: I missed a feature to easily select uh a slide and uh distribute it to the laptops . I think that would be very easy if you could say okay , I want to use this for my own work or my own presentation further on or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: No , or the other way around . +Project Manager: Or the other way around , that you could show {disfmarker} but m +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: But y you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's quite what PowerPoint does . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: if you save this image , you can open it in your shared work folder . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's almost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , but we couldn't use that feature , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: so I missed it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We weren't able to do that . At least the {disfmarker} um I wasn't explained how to do such a th +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {gap} . A and the function of of filling an an uh an oval or an an object . +Industrial Designer: An object , yes . Yes . +User Interface: I it's not possible {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The drawing cap capabilities are very limited . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And and uh w you were {disfmarker} when you're using uh Windows , you're used to a certain interface and certain buttons , uh which you can use for drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of these buttons don't appear here . So it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh it looks like paint actually . +Project Manager: Okay , so y it {disfmarker} it's not even as advanced as paint . +Industrial Designer: Not not uh n not {gap} way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite uh limited . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , the project is evaluated . Um but , well , we need to redesign uh the product . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh , very good , celebration . +Project Manager: Celebrate +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pop uh pop up the champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: It was a privilege working with you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you're dismissed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think we are uh ready . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: To private rooms ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I see some action over there . +Project Manager: Private room , Roo . That sounds quite scary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No , let's find uh the way to {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} uh we're done , we're finished , {gap} I believe . So , are there any more cycles in this process ? I think not . +Project Manager: I don't believe so . Well , maybe we'd {disfmarker} get an email . Thank you for your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But um how much time did we get for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: And how much time is left ? +Project Manager: A minute or or ten maybe . M +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah , ten or five . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So , we can uh redesign our uh {disfmarker} Uh I would like to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I think we we we all know what the redesign should be . A simple , dull , uh one-coloured box . +Marketing: And no added value . At all . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it's just the same product that is already on the market . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: But you see the problem , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: y you can't continue your uh your line . Well , it's fluffy alright . {vocalsound} Spongy . A giraffe ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is that ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a giraffe eating a {disfmarker} eating leaves from a tree . +Project Manager: It's blue tongue . +Marketing: In interesting design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} This is a new model . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So you're actually promoting Bluetooth . Or blue tongue . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Blue tongue . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh uh it it does uh have a natural uh feeling . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's spongy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . {vocalsound} That is uh {disfmarker} it's a new feature next to Bluetooth to um disable all Bluetooth devices . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Blue tongue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Let's wrap it up . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're done here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Gentlemen , thank you for your cooperation . +Industrial Designer: Thank you Mister manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now , {vocalsound} let's have uh a bottle of champagne . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . Leave it here . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: That's alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} +","The conversation involves a team discussing the design and features of a device. The User Interface (UI) representative discusses the user preference for buttons, while the Industrial Designer (ID) mentions a learning curve and the potential for users to utilize voice recognition after gaining familiarity with the device. They agree on the need for ease of use, especially for novice users. + +The Project Manager (PM) inquires about features like a scroll bar and coloring, while the discussion also covers material considerations like plastic and rubber for casing and buttons, as well as color options. They discuss keeping costs low, with a preference for colors like yellow, grey, or black. + +The team touches on the functionality of programming channels, voice recognition uses, and the potential for a button to disable voice recognition. They deliberate on evaluation criteria, with the Marketing team using documents to identify key criteria, and there's talk of a fancy look and feel. + +Costs are a significant concern, as they discuss the expense of features like solar cells and the importance of cost-cutting measures. They explore reducing features, using cheaper materials, and potentially targeting a different market segment to meet cost objectives—with the idea of a simpler, less advanced device being proposed. + +Ultimately, they discuss an overall evaluation, addressing aspects like fanciness, ease of use, innovation, and whether the remote offers enough features. There's a consensus that the prototype might be good but may not fit the target market or price point well. + +In the end, they touch upon the project process, leadership, the use of technology like SMARTboards and digital pens, with comments on their limitations and advantages. They acknowledge that complete information wasn't available during the process, affecting decision-making. + +The conversation ends with the project being evaluated but needing a redesign, and the team prepares to wrap up the meeting, expressing pride in their work, despite the challenges." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think I 'm zero . +Professor B: Wow ! Unprecedented . +PhD C: Hello , hello , hello , hello . +PhD E: Ah +Grad F: Wh - what causes the crash ? +PhD A: Did you fix something ? +PhD C: Hello . +PhD E: Five , five . +PhD C: Hello , hello . +Grad F: Oh , maybe it 's the turning {disfmarker} turning off and turning on of the mike , right ? +Professor B: Uh , you think that 's you ? Oh . +PhD C: Aaa - aaa - aaa . +Grad F: Yeah , OK , mine 's working . +PhD C: OK . That 's me . +Professor B: OK . OK . So , um I guess we are {pause} um {pause} gonna do the digits at the end . Uh +PhD D: Channel {disfmarker} channel three , yeah . +PhD C: Channel two . +PhD D: OK . +PhD E: Mmm , channel five ? Doesn't work ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the mike number there , uh {pause} Uh , mike number five , and {pause} channel {disfmarker} channel four . +PhD C: Two . +PhD A: Is it written on her sheet , I believe . +PhD E: No ? Ah , +PhD D: Mike four . +Grad F: Watch this . +PhD E: era el cuatro . +Grad F: Yep , that 's me . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: But , channel +PhD E: Yeah yeah yeah . +Professor B: This is you . +PhD E: OK . I saw that . Ah {disfmarker} yeah , it 's OK . +Professor B: Yeah . And I 'm channel uh two I think , +PhD C: Ooo . +Professor B: or channel {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think I 'm channel two . +Professor B: Oh , I 'm channel {disfmarker} must be channel one . Channel one ? +PhD E: Channel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I decided to talk about that . +Professor B: Yes , OK . OK . So uh {pause} I also copied uh the results that we all got in the mail I think from uh {disfmarker} {pause} from OGI and we 'll go {disfmarker} go through them also . So where are we on {disfmarker} {pause} on uh {vocalsound} {pause} our runs ? +PhD D: Uh so . {pause} uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So {pause} As I was already said , we {disfmarker} we mainly focused on uh four kind of features . +Professor B: Excuse me . +PhD D: The PLP , the PLP with JRASTA , the MSG , and the MFCC from the baseline Aurora . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , and we focused for the {disfmarker} the test part on the English and the Italian . Um . We 've trained uh several neural networks on {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on the TI - digits English {pause} and on the Italian data and also on the broad uh {pause} English uh French and uh Spanish databases . Mmm , so there 's our result tables here , for the tandem approach , and um , actually what we {disfmarker} we @ @ observed is that if the network is trained on the task data it works pretty well . +Professor B: OK . Our {disfmarker} our uh {disfmarker} {pause} There 's a {disfmarker} {pause} We 're pausing for a photo {disfmarker} +PhD C: Chicken on the grill . Try that corner . +PhD A: How about over th from the front of the room ? +PhD C: Yeah , it 's longer . +Professor B: We 're pausing for a photo opportunity here . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . So . +Grad F: Oh wait wait wait wait wait . Wait . +PhD C: Get out of the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Hold on . Hold on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Let me give you a black screen . +Professor B: He 's facing this way . What ? OK , this {disfmarker} this would be a {pause} good section for our silence detection . +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um Oh . +Grad F: Musical chairs everybody ! +Professor B: OK . So um , {pause} you were saying {pause} about the training data {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so if the network is trained on the task data um {pause} tandem works pretty well . And uh actually we have uh , results are similar Only on , +PhD A: Do you mean if it 's trained only on {disfmarker} On data from just that task , +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: that language ? +PhD D: Just that task . But actually we didn't train network on {pause} uh both types of data I mean {pause} uh {pause} phonetically ba phonetically balanced uh data and task data . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: We only did either task {disfmarker} task data or {pause} uh broad {pause} data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {pause} Yeah . So , +Professor B: So how {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} clearly it 's gonna be good then +PhD A: So what 's th +Professor B: but the question is how much {pause} worse is it {pause} if you have broad data ? I mean , {pause} my assump From what I saw from the earlier results , uh I guess last week , {pause} was that um , {pause} if you {pause} trained on one language and tested on another , say , that {pause} the results were {disfmarker} were relatively poor . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but the question is if you train on one language {pause} but you have a broad coverage {pause} and then test in another , {pause} does that {disfmarker} {pause} is that improve things {pause} i c in comparison ? +PhD D: If we use the same language ? +Professor B: No , no , no . Different lang So {pause} um {pause} If you train on TI - digits {pause} and test on Italian digits , {pause} you do poorly , {pause} let 's say . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't have the numbers in front of me , +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah but I did not uh do that . +Professor B: so I 'm just imagining . E So , you didn't train on {pause} TIMIT and test on {disfmarker} {pause} on Italian digits , say ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} No , we did four {disfmarker} four kind of {disfmarker} of testing , actually . The first testing is {pause} with task data {disfmarker} So , with nets trained on task data . So for Italian on the Italian speech @ @ . The second test is trained on a single language um with broad database , but the same language as the t task data . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: But for Italian we choose Spanish which {pause} we assume is close to Italian . The third test is by using , um the three language database +Professor B: W which in {disfmarker} +PhD D: and the fourth is +Professor B: It has three languages . That 's including the w the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} +PhD D: This includes {disfmarker} +Professor B: the one that it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: In +PhD D: But {pause} not digits . I mean it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: The three languages {pause} is not digits , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: it 's the broad {pause} data . OK . +PhD D: Yeah And the fourth test is uh {pause} excluding from these three languages the language {pause} that is {pause} the task language . +Professor B: Oh , OK , yeah , so , that is what I wanted to know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I just wasn't saying it very well , I guess . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So um {pause} for uh TI - digits for ins example {pause} uh when we go from TI - digits training to {pause} TIMIT training {pause} uh we lose {pause} uh around ten percent , uh . The error rate increase u of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of ten percent , relative . +Professor B: Relative . Right . +PhD D: So this is not so bad . And then when we jump to the multilingual data it 's uh it become worse and , well Around uh , let 's say , {pause} twenty perc twenty percent further . +Professor B: Ab - about how much ? +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: Twenty percent further ? +PhD D: Twenty to {disfmarker} to thirty percent further . Yeah . +PhD A: And so , remind me , the multilingual stuff is just the broad data . Right ? It 's not the digits . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's the combination of {pause} two things there . It 's {pause} removing the {pause} task specific {pause} training and {pause} it 's adding other languages . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: But the first step is al already removing the task s specific from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD A: Already , right right right . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So they were sort of building {pause} here ? +PhD D: And we lose {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {pause} So , basically when it 's trained on the {disfmarker} the multilingual broad data {pause} um or number {disfmarker} so , the {disfmarker} the {pause} ratio of our error rates uh with the {pause} baseline error rate is around {pause} uh one point one . +Professor B: Yes . {vocalsound} And it 's something like one point three of {disfmarker} of the {pause} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: I i if you compare everything to the first case at the baseline , you get something like one point one for the {disfmarker} for the using the same language but a different task , and something like one point three {pause} for three {disfmarker} three languages {pause} broad stuff . +PhD D: No no no . Uh same language we are at uh {disfmarker} for at English at O point eight . So it improves , {pause} compared to the baseline . But {disfmarker} So . Le - let me . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD D: Tas - task data +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant something different by baseline +PhD D: we are u Yeah . +Professor B: So let me {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} Um , {pause} so , {pause} um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK , fine . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's use the conventional meaning of baseline . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} By baseline here I meant {pause} uh using the task specific data . +PhD D: Oh yeah , the f Yeah , OK . +Professor B: But uh {disfmarker} {pause} uh , because that 's what you were just doing with this ten percent . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I was just {disfmarker} I just trying to understand that . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor B: So if we call {pause} a factor of w just one , just normalized to one , the word error rate {pause} that you have {pause} for using TI - digits as {disfmarker} as {pause} training and TI - digits as test , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: uh different words , I 'm sure , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} {pause} but uh , uh the same {pause} task and so on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we call that "" one "" , {pause} then what you 're saying is {pause} that the word error rate {pause} for the same language but using {pause} uh different training data than you 're testing on , say TIMIT and so forth , {pause} it 's one point one . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , it 's around one point one . +Professor B: Right . And if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: you {pause} do {pause} go to {pause} three languages including the English , {pause} it 's something like one point three . That 's what you were just saying , I think . +PhD D: Ye Uh , more actually . +PhD A: One point four ? +PhD D: If I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's an additional thirty percent . +PhD D: What would you say ? Around one point four +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: And if you exclude {pause} English , {pause} from this combination , what 's that ? +PhD D: If we exclude English , {pause} um {pause} there is {pause} not much difference with the {pause} data with English . +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's interesting . {pause} That 's interesting . Do you see ? Because {disfmarker} Uh , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} No , that {disfmarker} that 's important . So what {disfmarker} what it 's saying here is just that "" yes , there is a reduction {pause} in performance , {pause} when you don't {pause} um {pause} have the s {pause} when you don't have {pause} um +PhD A: Task data . +Professor B: Wait a minute , th th the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: No , actually {pause} it 's interesting . So it 's {disfmarker} So when you go to a different task , there 's actually not so {pause} different . It 's when you went to these {disfmarker} So what 's the difference between two and three ? Between the one point one case and the one point four case ? I 'm confused . +PhD A: It 's multilingual . +PhD D: Yeah . The only difference it 's {disfmarker} is that it 's multilingual {disfmarker} Um +Professor B: Cuz in both {disfmarker} in both {disfmarker} both of those cases , you don't have the same task . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah sure . +Professor B: So is {disfmarker} is the training data for the {disfmarker} for this one point four case {disfmarker} does it include the training data for the one point one case ? +PhD D: Uh yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , a fraction of it . +PhD D: A part of it , yeah . +Professor B: How m how much bigger is it ? +PhD D: Um {pause} It 's two times , +Grad F: Yeah , um . +PhD D: actually ? Yeah . Um . The English data {disfmarker} {pause} No , the multilingual databases are two times the {pause} broad English {pause} data . We just wanted to keep this , w well , not too huge . So . +Professor B: So it 's two times , but it includes the {disfmarker} but it includes the broad English data . +PhD D: I think so . Do you {disfmarker} Uh , Yeah . +Professor B: And the broad English data is what you got this one point one {pause} with . So that 's TIMIT basically right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's band - limited TIMIT . This is all eight kilohertz sampling . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Downs Right . +Professor B: So you have band - limited TIMIT , {pause} gave you uh almost as good as a result as using TI - digits {pause} on a TI - digits test . OK ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Um {pause} and {pause} um But , {pause} when you add in more training data but keep the neural net the same size , {pause} it {pause} um performs worse on the TI - digits . OK , now all of this is {disfmarker} {pause} This is noisy {pause} TI - digits , I assume ? Both training and test ? +PhD D: +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Um OK . Well . {pause} We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just need to uh {disfmarker} So I mean it 's interesting that h going to a different {disfmarker} different task didn't seem to hurt us that much , and going to a different language um It doesn't seem to matter {disfmarker} The difference between three and four is not particularly great , so that means that {pause} whether you have the language in or not is not such a big deal . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: It sounds like um {pause} uh {pause} we may need to have more {pause} of uh things that are similar to a target language or {disfmarker} I mean . {pause} You have the same number of parameters in the neural net , you haven't increased the size of the neural net , and maybe there 's just {disfmarker} {pause} just not enough {pause} complexity to it to represent {pause} the variab increased variability in the {disfmarker} in the training set . That {disfmarker} that could be . Um {pause} So , what about {disfmarker} So these are results with {pause} uh th {pause} that you 're describing now , that {pause} they are pretty similar for the different features or {disfmarker} {pause} or uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , let me check . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . This was for the PLP , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . The {disfmarker} Yeah . For the PLP with JRASTA the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} This is quite the same {pause} tendency , {pause} with a slight increase of the error rate , {pause} uh if we go to {disfmarker} to TIMIT . And then it 's {disfmarker} it gets worse with the multilingual . Um . Yeah . There {disfmarker} there is a difference actually with {disfmarker} b between PLP and JRASTA is that {pause} JRASTA {pause} seems to {pause} perform better with the highly mismatched {pause} condition {pause} but slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse {pause} for the well matched condition . Mmm . +Professor B: I have a suggestion , actually , even though it 'll delay us slightly , would {disfmarker} would you mind {pause} running into the other room and making {pause} copies of this ? Cuz we 're all sort of {disfmarker} If we c if we could look at it , while we 're talking , I think it 'd be +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} {pause} Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll sing a song or dance or something while you {vocalsound} do it , too . +PhD A: So um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Alright . +PhD A: Go ahead . Ah , while you 're gone I 'll ask s some of my questions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , this way and just slightly to the left , yeah . +PhD A: The um {disfmarker} What was {disfmarker} Was this number {pause} forty or {disfmarker} It was roughly the same as this one , {pause} he said ? When you had the two language versus the three language ? +Professor B: Um . That 's what he was saying . +PhD A: That 's where he removed English , +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: right ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: It sometimes , actually , depends on what features you 're using . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but i it sounds like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} He {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean . That 's interesting because {pause} it {disfmarker} it seems like what it 's saying is not so much that you got hurt {pause} uh because {pause} you {pause} uh didn't have so much representation of English , because in the other case you don't get hurt any more , at least when {pause} it seemed like uh it {disfmarker} it might simply be a case that you have something that is just much more diverse , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but you have the same number of parameters representing it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I wonder {disfmarker} were um all three of these nets {pause} using the same output ? This multi - language {pause} uh labelling ? +Grad F: He was using uh sixty - four phonemes from {pause} SAMPA . +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So this would {disfmarker} {pause} From this you would say , "" well , it doesn't really matter if we put Finnish {pause} into {pause} the training of the neural net , {pause} if there 's {pause} gonna be , {pause} you know , Finnish in the test data . "" Right ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it sounds {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , we have to be careful , cuz we haven't gotten a good result yet . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And comparing different bad results can be {pause} tricky . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {pause} I think it does suggest that it 's not so much uh {pause} uh cross {pause} language as cross type of speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we did {disfmarker} Oh yeah , the other thing I was asking him , though , is that I think that in the case {disfmarker} Yeah , you {disfmarker} you do have to be careful because of com compounded results . I think we got some earlier results {pause} in which you trained on one language and tested on another and you didn't have {pause} three , but you just had one {pause} language . So you trained on {pause} one type of digits and tested on another . Didn - Wasn't there something of that ? Where you , {pause} say , trained on Spanish and tested on {disfmarker} on TI - digits , or the other way around ? Something like that ? +PhD E: No . +Professor B: I thought there was something like that , {pause} that he showed me {pause} last week . We 'll have to wait till we get {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , that would be interesting . +Professor B: Um , This may have been what I was asking before , Stephane , but {disfmarker} {pause} but , um , wasn't there something that you did , {pause} where you trained {pause} on one language and tested on another ? I mean no {disfmarker} no mixture but just {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'll get it for you . +PhD D: Uh , no , no . +Professor B: We 've never just trained on one lang +PhD D: Training on a single language , you mean , and testing on the other one ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , no . +PhD E: Not yet . +PhD D: So the only {pause} task that 's similar to this is the training on two languages , and {comment} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But we 've done a bunch of things where we just trained on one language . Right ? I mean , you haven't {disfmarker} you haven't done all your tests on multiple languages . +PhD D: Uh , No . Either thi this is test with {pause} uh the same language {pause} but from the broad data , or it 's test with {pause} uh different languages also from the broad data , excluding the {disfmarker} So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's three or {disfmarker} three and four . +PhD E: The early experiment that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Did you do different languages from digits ? +PhD D: Uh . No . You mean {pause} training digits {pause} on one language and using the net {pause} to recognize on the other ? +PhD A: Digits on another language ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: See , I thought you showed me something like that last week . You had a {disfmarker} you had a little {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , {pause} No , I don't think so . +Professor B: Um What {disfmarker} +PhD C: These numbers are uh {pause} ratio to baseline ? +Professor B: So , I mean wha what 's the {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this chart {disfmarker} this table that we 're looking at {pause} is um , show is all testing for TI - digits , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Bigger is worse . +PhD D: So you have uh basically two {pause} uh parts . +Grad F: This is error rate , I think . +PhD C: Ratio . +Grad F: No . {pause} No . +PhD D: The upper part is for TI - digits +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD D: and it 's divided in three {pause} rows {pause} of four {disfmarker} four rows each . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And the first four rows is well - matched , then the s the second group of four rows is mismatched , and {pause} finally highly mismatched . And then the lower part is for Italian and it 's the same {disfmarker} {pause} the same thing . +PhD A: So , so the upper part is training {pause} TI - digits ? +PhD D: So . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the HTK results , I mean . So it 's {pause} HTK training testings {pause} with different kind of features +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: and what appears in the {pause} uh left column is {pause} the networks that are used for doing this . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: So . Uh Yeah . +Professor B: Well , What was is that i What was it that you had {pause} done {pause} last week when you showed {disfmarker} Do you remember ? Wh - when you showed me {pause} the {disfmarker} your table last week ? +PhD D: It - It was part of these results . Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: So where is the baseline {pause} for the TI - digits {pause} located in here ? +PhD D: You mean the HTK Aurora baseline ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's uh the one hundred number . It 's , well , all these numbers are the ratio {pause} with respect to the baseline . +PhD A: Ah ! Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: So this is word {disfmarker} word error rate , so a high number is bad . +PhD D: Yeah , this is {pause} a word error rate ratio . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: OK , I see . +PhD D: Yeah . So , seventy point two means that {pause} we reduced the error rate uh by thirty {disfmarker} thirty percent . +PhD A: OK , OK , gotcha . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: OK , {vocalsound} so if we take +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: uh um let 's see PLP {pause} uh with on - line {pause} normalization and {pause} delta - del so that 's this thing you have circled here {pause} in the second column , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: um {pause} and "" multi - English "" refers to what ? +PhD D: To TIMIT . Mmm . Then you have {pause} uh MF , {pause} MS and ME which are for French , Spanish and English . And , yeah . Actually I {disfmarker} {pause} I uh forgot to say that {pause} the multilingual net are trained {pause} on {pause} uh {pause} features without the s derivatives uh but with {pause} increased frame numbers . Mmm . And we can {disfmarker} we can see on the first line of the table that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it 's slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse when we don't use delta but it 's not {disfmarker} {pause} not that much . +Professor B: Right . So w w So , I 'm sorry . I missed that . What 's MF , MS and ME ? +PhD A: Multi - French , Multi - Spanish +PhD D: So . Multi - French , Multi - Spanish , and Multi - English . +Professor B: Uh OK . So , it 's {pause} uh {pause} broader vocabulary . Then {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK so I think what I 'm {disfmarker} what I saw in your smaller chart that I was thinking of was {disfmarker} was {pause} there were some numbers I saw , I think , that included these multiple languages and it {disfmarker} and I was seeing {pause} that it got worse . I {disfmarker} I think that was all it was . You had some very limited results that {disfmarker} at that point +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: which showed {pause} having in these {disfmarker} these other languages . In fact it might have been just this last category , {pause} having two languages broad that were {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where English was removed . So that was cross language and the {disfmarker} and the result was quite poor . What I {disfmarker} {pause} we hadn't seen yet was that if you added in the English , it 's still poor . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um now , what 's the noise condition {pause} um {pause} of the training data {disfmarker} +PhD D: Still poor . +Professor B: Well , I think this is what you were explaining . The noise condition is the same {disfmarker} It 's the same uh Aurora noises uh , in all these cases {pause} for the training . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: So there 's not a {pause} statistical {disfmarker} sta a strong st {pause} statistically different {pause} noise characteristic between {pause} uh the training and test +PhD D: No these are the s s s same noises , +Professor B: and yet we 're seeing some kind of effect {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah . At least {disfmarker} at least for the first {disfmarker} {pause} for the well - matched , +Grad F: Well matched condition . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: So there 's some kind of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an effect from having these {disfmarker} uh this broader coverage um Now I guess what we should try doing with this is try {pause} testing these on u this same sort of thing on {disfmarker} you probably must have this {pause} lined up to do . To try the same t {pause} with the exact same training , do testing on {pause} the other languages . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: On {disfmarker} on um {disfmarker} So . Um , oh I well , wait a minute . You have this here , for the Italian . That 's right . OK , so , {pause} So . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , so for the Italian the results are {vocalsound} uh {pause} stranger um {pause} Mmm . So what appears is that perhaps Spanish is {pause} not very close to Italian because uh , well , {pause} when using the {disfmarker} the network trained only on Spanish it 's {disfmarker} {pause} the error rate is {pause} almost uh twice {pause} the baseline error rate . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . {vocalsound} Uh . +Professor B: Well , I mean , let 's see . Is there any difference in {disfmarker} So it 's in {pause} the uh {disfmarker} So you 're saying that {pause} when you train on English {pause} and {pause} uh {pause} and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: No , you don't have training on English testing {disfmarker} +PhD D: There {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} another difference , is that the noise {disfmarker} the noises are different . +Professor B: In {disfmarker} in what ? +PhD D: Well , For {disfmarker} for the Italian part I mean the {pause} uh {pause} the um {pause} networks are trained with noise from {pause} Aurora {disfmarker} TI - digits , +PhD E: Aurora - two . +PhD D: mmm . +Professor B: And the noise is different in th +PhD D: Yeah . And perhaps the noise are {pause} quite different from the noises {pause} in the speech that Italian . +Professor B: Do we have any um {pause} test sets {pause} uh in {pause} any other language that um have the same noise as in {pause} the Aurora ? +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm , no . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Can I ask something real quick ? In {disfmarker} in the upper part {disfmarker} {pause} in the English {pause} stuff , {pause} it looks like the very best number is sixty point nine ? and that 's in the uh {disfmarker} {pause} the third {pause} section in the upper part under PLP JRASTA , sort of the middle column ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I is that {pause} a noisy condition ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So that 's matched training ? Is that what that is ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} no , the third part , so it 's uh {pause} highly mismatched . So . Training and {pause} test noise are different . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} why do you get your best number in {disfmarker} Wouldn't you get your best number in the clean case ? +PhD C: Well , it 's relative to the um {pause} baseline mismatching +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK so these are not {disfmarker} OK , alright , I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . And then {disfmarker} so , in the {disfmarker} in the um {disfmarker} {pause} in the {pause} non - mismatched clean case , {pause} your best one was under MFCC ? That sixty - one point four ? +PhD D: Yeah . {pause} But it 's not a clean case . It 's {pause} a noisy case but {pause} uh training and test noises are the same . +PhD A: Oh ! So this upper third ? +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Uh that 's still noisy ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , OK . +PhD D: So it 's always noisy basically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , {pause} well , the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK ? Um {pause} So uh , I think this will take some {pause} looking at , thinking about . But , {pause} what is uh {disfmarker} what is currently running , that 's {disfmarker} uh , i that {disfmarker} just filling in the holes here or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? {comment} {pause} pretty much ? +PhD D: Uh , no we don't plan to fill the holes +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: but {pause} actually there is something important , is that {pause} um we made a lot of assumption concerning the on - line normalization and we just noticed {pause} uh recently that {pause} uh the {pause} approach that we were using {pause} was not {pause} uh {pause} leading to very good results {pause} when we {pause} used the straight features to HTK . Um {pause} {pause} Mmm . So basically d {pause} if you look at the {disfmarker} at the left of the table , {pause} the first uh row , {pause} with eighty - six , one hundred , and forty - three and seventy - five , these are the results we obtained for Italian {pause} uh with {pause} straight {pause} mmm , PLP features {pause} using on - line normalization . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . And the , mmm {disfmarker} what 's {pause} in the table , just {pause} at the left of the PLP twelve {pause} on - line normalization column , so , the numbers seventy - nine , fifty - four and {pause} uh forty - two {pause} are the results obtained by uh Pratibha with {pause} uh his on - line normalization {disfmarker} uh her on - line normalization approach . +PhD A: Where is that ? seventy - nine , fifty +Professor B: Uh , it 's just sort of sitting right on the uh {disfmarker} the column line . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Fifty - one ? This {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh I see , OK . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} Yeah . +PhD D: Just {disfmarker} uh Yeah . So these are the results of {pause} OGI with {pause} on - line normalization and straight features to HTK . And the previous result , eighty - six and so on , {pause} are with our {pause} features straight to HTK . +Professor B: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: So {pause} what we see that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} there is that um {pause} uh the way we were doing this was not correct , but {pause} still {pause} the networks {pause} are very good . When we use the networks {pause} our number are better that {pause} uh Pratibha results . +PhD E: We improve . +Professor B: So , do you know what was wrong with the on - line normalization , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . There were diff there were different things and {pause} basically , {pause} the first thing is the mmm , {pause} alpha uh {pause} value . So , the recursion {pause} uh {pause} part . um , {pause} I used point five percent , {pause} which was the default value in the {disfmarker} {pause} in the programs here . And Pratibha used five percent . +Professor B: Uh +PhD D: So it adapts more {pause} quickly +Professor B: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , but , yeah . I assume that this was not important because {pause} uh previous results from {disfmarker} from Dan and {disfmarker} show that basically {pause} the {pause} both {disfmarker} both values g give the same {disfmarker} same {pause} uh results . It was true on uh {pause} TI - digits but it 's not true on Italian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , second thing is the initialization of the {pause} stuff . Actually , {pause} uh what we were doing is to start the recursion from the beginning of the {pause} utterance . And using initial values that are the global mean and variances {pause} measured across the whole database . +Professor B: Right . Right . +PhD D: And Pratibha did something different is that he {disfmarker} uh she initialed the um values of the mean and variance {pause} by computing {pause} this on the {pause} twenty - five first frames of each utterance . Mmm . There were other minor differences , the fact that {pause} she used fifteen dissities instead s instead of thirteen , and that she used C - zero instead of log energy . Uh , but the main differences concerns the recursion . So . {pause} Uh , I changed the code uh and now we have a baseline that 's similar to the OGI baseline . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's slightly {pause} uh different because {pause} I don't exactly initialize the same way she does . Actually I start , {pause} mmm , I don't wait to a fifteen {disfmarker} twenty - five {disfmarker} twenty - five frames {pause} before computing a mean and the variance {pause} to e to {disfmarker} to start the recursion . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I use the on - line scheme and only start the re recursion after the twenty - five {disfmarker} {pause} twenty - fifth frame . But , well it 's similar . So {pause} uh I retrained {pause} the networks with {pause} these {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the networks are retaining with these new {pause} features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So basically what I expect is that {pause} these numbers will a little bit go down but {pause} perhaps not {disfmarker} not so much +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: because {pause} I think the neural networks learn perhaps {pause} to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: even if the features are not {pause} normalized . It {disfmarker} it will learn how to normalize and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , but I think that {pause} given the pressure of time we probably want to draw {disfmarker} because of that {pause} especially , we wanna draw some conclusions from this , do some reductions {pause} in what we 're looking at , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and make some strong decisions for what we 're gonna do testing on before next week . So do you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} w did you have something going on , on the side , with uh multi - band {pause} or {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on this , +PhD D: Yeah {vocalsound} I +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: No , I {disfmarker} we plan to start this uh so , act actually we have discussed uh {pause} @ @ um , these {disfmarker} what we could do {pause} more as a {disfmarker} as a research and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we were thinking perhaps that {pause} uh {pause} the way we use the tandem is not {disfmarker} Uh , well , there is basically perhaps a flaw in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the stuff because {pause} we {pause} trained the networks {disfmarker} If we trained the networks on the {disfmarker} on {pause} a language and a t or a specific {pause} task , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um , what we ask is {disfmarker} to the network {disfmarker} is to put the bound the decision boundaries somewhere in the space . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD D: And uh {pause} mmm and ask the network to put one , {pause} at one side of the {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a particular phoneme at one side of the boundary {disfmarker} decision boundary and one for another phoneme at the other side . And {pause} so there is kind of reduction of the information there that 's not correct because if we change task {pause} and if the phonemes are not in the same context in the new task , {pause} obviously the {pause} decision boundaries are not {disfmarker} {pause} should not be at the same {pause} place . +Professor B: I di +PhD D: But the way the feature gives {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the way the network gives the features is that it reduce completely the {disfmarker} {pause} it removes completely the information {disfmarker} {pause} a lot of information from the {disfmarker} the features {pause} by uh {pause} uh {pause} placing the decision boundaries at {pause} optimal places for {pause} one kind of {pause} data but {pause} this is not the case for another kind of data . +Professor B: It 's a trade - off , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? Any - anyway go ahead . +PhD D: Yeah . So uh what we were thinking about is perhaps {pause} um one way {pause} to solve this problem is increase the number of {pause} outputs of the neural networks . Doing something like , um {pause} um phonemes within context and , well , basically context dependent phonemes . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you could make {pause} the same argument , it 'd be just as legitimate , {pause} for hybrid systems {pause} as well . Right . +PhD D: Yeah but , we know that {disfmarker} +Professor B: And in fact , {pause} th things get better with context dependent {pause} versions . Right ? +PhD D: Ye - yeah but here it 's something different . We want to have features +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: uh well , {pause} um . +Professor B: Yeah , but it 's still true {pause} that what you 're doing {pause} is you 're ignoring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're coming up with something to represent , {pause} whether it 's a distribution , {pause} probability distribution or features , you 're coming up with a set of variables {pause} that are representing {pause} uh , {pause} things that vary w over context . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , and you 're {pause} putting it all together , ignoring the differences in context . That {disfmarker} that 's true {pause} for the hybrid system , it 's true for a tandem system . So , for that reason , when you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a hybrid system , {pause} when you incorporate context one way or another , {pause} you do get better scores . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK ? But I {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a big deal {pause} to get that . I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of {disfmarker} And once you {disfmarker} the other thing is that once you represent {disfmarker} start representing more and more context {pause} it is {pause} uh {pause} much more {pause} um specific {pause} to a particular task in language . So um Uh , the {disfmarker} {pause} the acoustics associated with {pause} uh a particular context , for instance you may have some kinds of contexts that will never occur {pause} in one language and will occur frequently in the other , so the qu the issue of getting enough training {pause} for a particular kind of context becomes harder . We already actually don't have a huge amount of training data um +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mmm , I mean , {pause} the {disfmarker} the way we {disfmarker} we do it now is that we have a neural network and {pause} basically {pause} the net network is trained almost to give binary decisions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {pause} uh {disfmarker} binary decisions about phonemes . Nnn {disfmarker} Uh It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Almost . But I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does give a distribution . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {pause} it is true that if there 's two phones that are very similar , {pause} that {pause} uh {pause} the {disfmarker} {pause} i it may prefer one but it will {pause} give a reasonably high value to the other , too . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , sure but uh {pause} So basically it 's almost binary decisions and {pause} um the idea of using more {pause} classes is {pause} to {pause} get something that 's {pause} less binary decisions . +Professor B: Oh no , but it would still be even more of a binary decision . It {disfmarker} it 'd be even more of one . Because then you would say {pause} that in {disfmarker} that this phone in this context is a one , {pause} but the same phone in a slightly different context is a zero . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: That would be even {disfmarker} even more distinct of a binary decision . I actually would have thought you 'd wanna go the other way and have fewer classes . +PhD D: Yeah , but if {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean for instance , the {disfmarker} the thing I was arguing for before , but again which I don't think we have time to try , {pause} is something in which you would modify the code so you could train to have several outputs on and use articulatory features +PhD D: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz then that would {disfmarker} that would go {disfmarker} {pause} that would be much broader and cover many different situations . But if you go to very very fine categories , it 's very {pause} binary . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah , perhaps you 're right , but you have more classes so {pause} you {disfmarker} you have more information in your features . So , {vocalsound} Um {pause} You have more information in the {pause} uh +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +PhD D: posteriors vector um which means that {disfmarker} But still the information is relevant +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's information that helps to discriminate , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if it 's possible to be able to discriminate {pause} among the phonemes in context . +Professor B: Well it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's an interesting thought . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean we {disfmarker} we could disagree about it at length +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the real thing is if you 're interested in it you 'll probably try it +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we 'll see . But {disfmarker} but what I 'm more concerned with now , as an operational level , is {pause} uh , you know , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: what do we do in four or five days ? Uh , and {disfmarker} {pause} so we have {pause} to be concerned {pause} with Are we gonna look at any combinations of things , you know once the nets get retrained so you have this problem out of it . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , are we going to look at {pause} multi - band ? Are we gonna look at combinations of things ? Uh , what questions are we gonna ask , uh now that , I mean , {pause} we should probably turn shortly to this O G I note . Um , how are we going to {pause} combine {pause} with what they 've been focusing on ? Uh , {pause} Uh we haven't been doing any of the L D A RASTA sort of thing . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And they , although they don't talk about it in this note , um , {pause} there 's um , {pause} the issue of the {pause} um Mu law {pause} business {pause} uh {pause} versus the logarithm , um , {pause} so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what i what is going on right now ? What 's right {disfmarker} you 've got {pause} nets retraining , Are there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any H T K {pause} trainings {disfmarker} testings going on ? +PhD D: N +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm trying the HTK with eh , {pause} PLP twelve on - line delta - delta and MSG filter {pause} together . +Professor B: The combination , I see . +PhD E: The combination , yeah . But I haven't result {vocalsound} at this moment . +Professor B: MSG and {disfmarker} and PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And is this with the revised {pause} on - line normalization ? +PhD E: Ye - Uh , with the old {pause} older , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Old one . So it 's using all the nets for that +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: but again we have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} We have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} maybe it 's not making too much difference , +PhD E: Yeah . But {pause} We can know soon . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: Uh so there is this combination , yeah . Working on combination obviously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , I will start work on multi - band . And {pause} we {pause} plan to work also on the idea of using both {pause} features {pause} and net outputs . +PhD E: +PhD D: Um . And {pause} we think that {pause} with this approach perhaps {pause} we could reduce the number of outputs of the neural network . Um , So , get simpler networks , because we still have the features . So we have um {pause} come up with um {pause} different kind of {pause} broad phonetic categories . And we have {disfmarker} Basically we have three {pause} types of broad phonetic classes . Well , something using place of articulation which {disfmarker} which leads to {pause} nine , I think , {pause} broad classes . Uh , another which is based on manner , which is {disfmarker} is also something like nine classes . And then , {pause} something that combine both , and we have {pause} twenty f {pause} twenty - five ? +Grad F: Twenty - seven . +PhD D: Twenty - seven broad classes . So like , uh , oh , I don't know , like back vowels , front vowels . +Professor B: So what you do {disfmarker} um I just wanna understand +PhD D: Um For the moments we do not {disfmarker} don't have nets , +Professor B: so {pause} You have two net or three nets ? Was this ? How many {disfmarker} how many nets do you have ? No nets . +PhD D: I mean , {pause} It 's just {disfmarker} Were we just changing {pause} the labels to retrain nets {pause} with fewer out outputs . +PhD E: Begin to work in this . We are @ @ . +Professor B: Right . But {disfmarker} but I didn't understand {disfmarker} +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} the software currently just has {disfmarker} uh a {disfmarker} allows for I think , the one {disfmarker} one hot output . So you 're having multiple nets and combining them , or {disfmarker} ? Uh , how are you {disfmarker} how are you coming up with {disfmarker} If you say {pause} uh {pause} If you have a place {pause} characteristic and a manner characteristic , how do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: It - It 's the single net , +PhD A: I think they have one output . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Oh , it 's just one net . +PhD D: It 's one net with {pause} um {pause} twenty - seven outputs +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: mm - hmm +PhD D: if we have twenty - seven classes , +Professor B: I see . I see , OK . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's basically a standard net with fewer {pause} classes . +Professor B: So you 're sort of going the other way of what you were saying a bit ago instead of {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah . B b including the features , yeah . +Grad F: But including the features . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I don't think this {pause} will work {pause} alone . I think it will get worse because Well , I believe the effect that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of too reducing too much the information is {pause} basically {disfmarker} basically what happens +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But you think if you include that {pause} plus the other features , +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Yeah , because {pause} there is perhaps one important thing that the net {pause} brings , and OGI show showed that , is {pause} the distinction between {pause} sp speech and silence Because these nets are trained on well - controlled condition . I mean the labels are obtained on clean speech , and we add noise after . So this is one thing And But perhaps , something intermediary using also {pause} some broad classes could {disfmarker} could bring so much more information . Uh . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so again then we have these broad classes and {disfmarker} well , somewhat broad . I mean , it 's twenty - seven instead of sixty - four , {pause} basically . And you have the original features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Which are PLP , or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then uh , just to remind me , all of that goes {pause} into {disfmarker} uh , that all of that is transformed by uh , uh , K - KL or something , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . There will probably be , +PhD E: Mu . +PhD D: yeah , one single KL to transform everything +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} {pause} uh , +PhD E: No transform the PLP +PhD D: per +PhD E: and only transform the other I 'm not sure . +Professor B: Well no , +PhD D: This is {pause} still something {pause} that +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I see . +PhD D: yeah , we {pause} don't know {disfmarker} +Professor B: So there 's a question of whether you would {disfmarker} +PhD E: Two e @ @ it 's one . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . Whether you would transform together or just one . Yeah . Might wanna try it both ways . But that 's interesting . So that 's something that you 're {disfmarker} you haven't trained yet but are preparing to train , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um {pause} {pause} Yeah , so I think Hynek will be here Monday . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Monday or Tuesday . So +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: So I think , you know , we need to {pause} choose the {disfmarker} choose the experiments carefully , so we can get uh key {disfmarker} {pause} key questions answered {pause} uh before then +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {pause} leave other ones aside even if it {pause} leaves incomplete {pause} tables {vocalsound} {pause} someplace , uh {pause} uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really time to {disfmarker} {pause} time to choose . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , let me pass this out , {pause} by the way . Um These are {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} {pause} did I interrupt you ? +PhD E: Yeah , I have one . +Professor B: Were there other things that you wanted to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , no . I don't think so . +PhD E: +PhD D: Yeah , I have one . +Grad G: Oh , thanks . +Professor B: Ah ! {pause} OK . {pause} OK , we have {pause} lots of them . +PhD E: We have one . +Professor B: OK , so {vocalsound} um , Something I asked {disfmarker} So they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing {pause} the {disfmarker} the VAD I guess they mean voice activity detection So again , it 's the silence {disfmarker} So they 've just trained up a net {pause} which has two outputs , I believe . Um {vocalsound} I asked uh {pause} Hynek whether {disfmarker} I haven't talked to Sunil {disfmarker} I asked Hynek whether {pause} they compared that to {pause} just taking the nets we already had {pause} and summing up the probabilities . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} To get the speech {disfmarker} voice activity detection , or else just using the silence , {pause} if there 's only one {pause} silence output . Um {pause} And , he didn't think they had , um . But on the other hand , maybe they can get by with a smaller net and {pause} maybe {pause} sometimes you don't run the other , maybe there 's a computational advantage to having a separate net , anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So um Their uh {disfmarker} {pause} the results look pretty good . Um , {pause} I mean , not uniformly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , there 's a {disfmarker} an example or two {pause} that you can find , where it made it slightly worse , but {pause} uh in {disfmarker} in all but a couple {pause} examples . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: But they have a question of the result . Um how are trained the {disfmarker} the LDA filter ? How obtained the LDA filter ? +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: I I 'm sorry . I don't understand your question . +PhD E: Yes , um the LDA filter {pause} needs some {pause} training set {pause} to obtain the filter . Maybe I don't know exactly how {pause} they are obtained . +Professor B: It 's on {pause} training . +PhD E: Training , with the training test of each {disfmarker} You understand me ? +Professor B: No . +PhD E: Yeah , uh for example , {pause} LDA filter {pause} need a set of {disfmarker} {pause} a set of training {pause} to obtain the filter . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And maybe {pause} for the Italian , for the TD {pause} TE on for Finnish , these filter are {disfmarker} are obtained with their own training set . +Professor B: Yes , I don't know . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very good question , then {disfmarker} now that it {disfmarker} {pause} I understand it . It 's "" yeah , where does the LDA come from ? "" In the {disfmarker} In {pause} earlier experiments , they had taken LDA {pause} from a completely different database , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , because maybe it the same situation that the neural network training with their own +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: set . +Professor B: So that 's a good question . Where does it come from ? Yeah , I don't know . Um , {pause} but uh to tell you the {pause} truth , I wasn't actually looking at the LDA so much when I {disfmarker} I was looking at it I was {pause} mostly thinking about the {disfmarker} {pause} the VAD . And um , it ap {pause} it ap Oh what does {disfmarker} what does ASP ? Oh that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: The features , yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: I don't understand also +Professor B: It says "" baseline ASP "" . +PhD E: what is {disfmarker} {pause} what is the difference between ASP and uh baseline over ? +PhD C: ASP . +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Anybody know {pause} any {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . There it is . +Professor B: Um Cuz there 's "" baseline Aurora "" {pause} above it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} This is mostly better than baseline , although in some cases it 's a little worse , in a couple cases . +PhD C: Well , it says baseline ASP is twenty - three mill {pause} minus thirteen . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , it says what it is . But I don't how that 's different {pause} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: From the baseline . {comment} OK . +Professor B: I think this was {disfmarker} {pause} I think this is the same point we were at when {disfmarker} when we were up in Oregon . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} {pause} I think it 's the C - zero {disfmarker} using C - zero instead of log energy . +PhD E: Ah , OK , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it 's this . +Professor B: Oh . OK . +PhD E: yeah . +PhD D: It should be that , yeah . +PhD A: They s they say in here that the VAD is not used as an additional feature . +Professor B: Shouldn't it be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Does {disfmarker} does anybody know how they 're using it ? +Professor B: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what they 're doing here is , {pause} i +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if you look down at the block diagram , {pause} um , {pause} they estimate {disfmarker} they get a {disfmarker} {pause} they get an estimate {pause} of whether it 's speech or silence , +PhD A: But that {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then they have a median filter of it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so um , {pause} basically they 're trying to find stretches . The median filter is enforcing a {disfmarker} i it having some continuity . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You find stretches where the {pause} combination of the {pause} frame wise VAD and the {disfmarker} {pause} the median filter say that there 's a stretch of silence . And then it 's going through and just throwing the data away . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't understand . You mean it 's throwing out frames ? Before {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's throwing out chunks of frames , yeah . There 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the median filter is enforcing that it 's not gonna be single cases of frames , or isolated frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's throwing out frames and the thing is {pause} um , {pause} what I don't understand is how they 're doing this with H T +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what I was just gonna ask . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: How can you just throw out frames ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you {disfmarker} you can , +PhD D: i +Professor B: right ? I mean y you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: it stretches again . For single frames I think it would be pretty hard . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But if you say speech starts here , speech ends there . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Huh . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , you can basically remove the {disfmarker} the frames from the feature {disfmarker} feature files . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , so I mean in the {disfmarker} i i in the {disfmarker} in the decoding , you 're saying that we 're gonna decode from here to here . +PhD D: I t +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're treating it , {pause} you know , like uh {disfmarker} well , it 's not isolated word , but {disfmarker} but connected , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the text they say that this {disfmarker} this is a tentative block diagram of a possible configuration we could think of . So that sort of sounds like they 're not doing that yet . +Professor B: Well . {pause} No they {disfmarker} they have numbers though , right ? So I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing something like that . I think that they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} I think what I mean by tha that is they 're trying to come up with a block diagram that 's plausible for the standard . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean from the point of view of {disfmarker} of uh reducing the number of bits you have to transmit it 's not a bad idea to detect silence anyway . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . I 'm just wondering what exactly did they do up in this table if it wasn't this . +Professor B: Um . But it 's {disfmarker} the thing is it 's that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Certainly it would be tricky about it intrans in transmitting voice , {pause} uh uh for listening to , is that these kinds of things {pause} uh cut {pause} speech off a lot . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? And so {pause} um +PhD A: Plus it 's gonna introduce delays . +Professor B: It does introduce delays but they 're claiming that it 's {disfmarker} it 's within the {disfmarker} {pause} the boundaries of it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the LDA introduces delays , and b {pause} what he 's suggesting this here is a parallel path so that it doesn't introduce {pause} uh , any more delay . I it introduces two hundred milliseconds of delay but at the same {pause} time the LDA {pause} down here {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} Wh what 's the difference between TLDA and SLDA ? +PhD C: Temporal and spectral . +Professor B: Ah , thank you . +PhD E: Temporal LDA . +Professor B: Yeah , you would know that . +PhD C: Yeah +Professor B: So um . The temporal LDA does in fact include the same {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} well , by {disfmarker} by saying this is a b a tentative block di diagram I think means {pause} if you construct it this way , this {disfmarker} this delay would work in that way +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: and then it 'd be OK . They {disfmarker} they clearly did actually remove {pause} silent sections in order {disfmarker} because they {pause} got these {pause} word error rate {pause} results . So um I think that it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to do that in this because in fact , it 's gonna give a better word error result and therefore will help within an evaluation . Whereas to whether this would actually be in a final standard , I don't know . Um . Uh , as you know , part of the problem with evaluation right now is that the {pause} word models are pretty bad and nobody wants {disfmarker} {pause} has {disfmarker} has approached improving them . So {pause} it 's possible that a lot of the problems {pause} with so many insertions and so forth would go away if they were better word models {pause} to begin with . So {pause} this might just be a temporary thing . But {disfmarker} But , on the other hand , and maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's a decent idea . So um The question we 're gonna wanna go {pause} through next week when Hynek shows up I guess is given that we 've been {disfmarker} if you look at what we 've been trying , we 're uh looking at {pause} uh , by then I guess , combinations of features and multi - band Uh , and we 've been looking at {pause} cross - language , cross {pause} task {pause} issues . And they 've been not so much looking at {pause} the cross task uh multiple language issues . But they 've been looking at uh {disfmarker} {pause} at these issues . At the on - line normalization and the uh {pause} voice activity detection . And I guess when he comes here we 're gonna have to start deciding about {pause} um what do we choose {pause} from what we 've looked at {pause} to um blend with {pause} some group of things in what they 've looked at And once we choose that , {pause} how do we split up the {pause} effort ? Uh , because we still have {disfmarker} even once we choose , {pause} we 've still got {pause} uh another {pause} month or so , I mean there 's holidays in the way , but {disfmarker} but uh {pause} I think the evaluation data comes January thirty - first so there 's still a fair amount of time {pause} to do things together it 's just that they probably should be somewhat more coherent between the two sites {pause} in that {disfmarker} that amount of time . +PhD A: When they removed the silence frames , did they insert some kind of a marker so that the recognizer knows it 's {disfmarker} {pause} knows when it 's time to back trace or something ? +Professor B: Well , see they , I {disfmarker} I think they 're Um . I don't know the {disfmarker} {pause} the specifics of how they 're doing it . They 're {disfmarker} {pause} they 're getting around the way the recognizer works because they 're not allowed to {pause} um , change the scripts {pause} for the recognizer , {pause} I believe . +PhD A: Oh , right . Maybe they 're just inserting some nummy frames or something ? +Professor B: So . Uh . Uh , you know that 's what I had thought . But I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they are . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean that 's {disfmarker} sort of what {disfmarker} the way I had imagined would happen is that on the other side , yeah you p put some low level noise or something . Probably don't want all zeros . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Most recognizers don't like zeros but {vocalsound} but {pause} you know , {pause} put some epsilon in or some rand +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: sorry epsilon random variable {pause} in or something . +PhD A: Some constant vector . I mean i w Or something {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not a constant but it doesn't , uh {disfmarker} don't like to divide by the variance of that , but I mean it 's +PhD A: That 's right . But something that {disfmarker} what I mean is something that is {pause} very distinguishable from {pause} speech . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that the {disfmarker} the silence model in HTK will always pick it up . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's what I thought they would do . or else , uh {pause} uh maybe there is some indicator to tell it to start and stop , I don't know . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But whatever they did , I mean they have to play within the rules of this specific evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We c we can find out . +PhD A: Cuz you gotta do something . Otherwise , if it 's just a bunch of speech , stuck together {disfmarker} +Professor B: No they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It would do badly +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: and it didn't so badly , right ? So they did something . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh . So , OK , So I think {pause} this brings me up to date a bit . It hopefully brings other {pause} people up to date a bit . And um Um {pause} I think {disfmarker} Uh , I wanna look at these numbers off - line a little bit and think about it and {disfmarker} {pause} and talk with everybody uh , {pause} outside of this meeting . Um , but uh No I mean it sounds like {disfmarker} I mean {pause} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are the usual number of {disfmarker} of {pause} little {disfmarker} little problems and bugs and so forth but it sounds like they 're getting ironed out . And now we 're {pause} seem to be kind of in a position to actually {pause} uh , {pause} look at stuff and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and compare things . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty good . Um {pause} I don't know what the {disfmarker} One of the things I wonder about , {pause} coming back to the first results you talked about , is {disfmarker} is {pause} how much , {pause} uh {pause} things could be helped {pause} by more parameters . And uh {disfmarker} {pause} And uh how many more parameters we can afford to have , {vocalsound} {pause} in terms of the uh computational limits . Because anyway when we go to {pause} twice as much data {pause} and have the same number of parameters , particularly when it 's twice as much data and it 's quite diverse , um , I wonder if having twice as many parameters would help . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , just have a bigger hidden layer . Uh But {disfmarker} I doubt it would {pause} help by forty per cent . But {vocalsound} {pause} but uh +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Just curious . How are we doing on the {pause} resources ? Disk , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think we 're alright , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: um , {pause} not much problems with that . +Professor B: Computation ? +PhD D: It 's OK . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well this table took uh {pause} more than five days to get back . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , well . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Are {disfmarker} were you folks using Gin ? That 's a {disfmarker} that just died , you know ? +PhD D: Mmm , no . You were using Gin {comment} perhaps , yeah ? No . +PhD E: No . +Professor B: No ? Oh , that 's good . +Grad F: It just died . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , {pause} we 're gonna get a replacement {pause} server that 'll be a faster server , {pause} actually . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor B: That 'll be {disfmarker} It 's a {pause} seven hundred fifty megahertz uh SUN +PhD D: Hmm . {comment} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {pause} But it won't be installed for {pause} a little while . +PhD C: Tonic . +Professor B: U Go ahead . +Grad G: Do we {disfmarker} Do we have that big new IBM machine the , I think in th +Professor B: We have the {pause} little tiny IBM machine {vocalsound} {pause} that might someday grow up to be a big {pause} IBM machine . It 's got s slots for eight , uh IBM was donating five , I think we only got two so far , processors . We had originally hoped we were getting eight hundred megahertz processors . They ended up being five fifty . So instead of having eight processors that were eight hundred megahertz , we ended up with two {pause} that are five hundred and fifty megahertz . And more are supposed to come soon and there 's only a moderate amount of dat of memory . So I don't think {pause} anybody has been sufficiently excited by it to {pause} spend much time {pause} uh {pause} with it , but uh {vocalsound} Hopefully , {pause} they 'll get us some more {pause} parts , soon and {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , I think that 'll be {disfmarker} once we get it populated , {pause} that 'll be a nice machine . I mean we will ultimately get eight processors in there . And uh {disfmarker} and uh a nice amount of memory . Uh so it 'll be a pr pretty fast Linux machine . +Grad G: And if we can do things on Linux , {pause} some of the machines we have going already , like Swede ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um It seems pretty fast . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} I think Fudge is pretty fast too . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean you can check with uh {pause} Dave Johnson . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} I think the machine is just sitting there . And it does have two processors , you know and {disfmarker} {pause} Somebody could do {disfmarker} {pause} you know , uh , check out {pause} uh the multi - threading {pause} libraries . And {pause} I mean i it 's possible that the {disfmarker} I mean , I guess the prudent thing to do would be for somebody to do the work on {disfmarker} {pause} on getting our code running {pause} on that machine with two processors {pause} even though there aren't five or eight . There 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's gonna be debugging hassles and then we 'd be set for when we did have five or eight , to have it really be useful . But . {pause} Notice how I said somebody and {vocalsound} turned my head your direction . That 's one thing you don't get in these recordings . You don't get the {disfmarker} {pause} don't get the visuals but {disfmarker} +Grad G: I is it um {pause} mostly um the neural network trainings that are {pause} um slowing us down or the HTK runs that are slowing us down ? +Professor B: Uh , I think yes . Uh , {vocalsound} Isn't that right ? I mean I think you 're {disfmarker} you 're sort of held up by both , right ? If the {disfmarker} if the neural net trainings were a hundred times faster {pause} you still wouldn't {pause} be anything {disfmarker} running through these a hundred times faster because you 'd {pause} be stuck by the HTK trainings , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But if the HTK {disfmarker} I mean I think they 're both {disfmarker} It sounded like they were roughly equal ? Is that about right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad G: Because , um {pause} I think that 'll be running Linux , and Sw - Swede and Fudge are already running Linux so , {pause} um I could try to get {pause} um the train the neural network trainings or the HTK stuff running under Linux , and to start with I 'm {pause} wondering which one I should pick first . +Professor B: Uh , probably the neural net cuz it 's probably {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's um {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . They both {disfmarker} HTK we use for {pause} um {pause} this Aurora stuff Um {pause} Um , I think {pause} It 's not clear yet what we 're gonna use {pause} for trainings uh {disfmarker} Well , {pause} there 's the trainings uh {disfmarker} is it the training that takes the time , or the decoding ? Uh , is it about equal {pause} between the two ? For {disfmarker} for Aurora ? +PhD D: For HTK ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} Yeah . For the Aurora ? +PhD D: Uh Training is longer . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't know how we can {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} Do we have HTK source ? Is that {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: You would think that would fairly trivially {disfmarker} the training would , anyway , th the testing {pause} uh I don't {disfmarker} I don't {pause} think would {pause} parallelize all that well . But I think {pause} that {pause} you could {pause} certainly do d um , {pause} distributed , sort of {disfmarker} {pause} Ah , no , it 's the {disfmarker} {pause} each individual {pause} sentence is pretty tricky to parallelize . But you could split up the sentences in a test set . +PhD A: They have a {disfmarker} they have a thing for doing that and th they have for awhile , in H T And you can parallelize the training . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD A: And run it on several machines +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD A: and it just basically keeps counts . And there 's something {disfmarker} {pause} a final {pause} thing that you run and it accumulates all the counts together . +Professor B: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: I don't what their scripts are {pause} set up to do for the Aurora stuff , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Something that we haven't really settled on yet is other than {pause} this Aurora stuff , {pause} uh what do we do , large vocabulary {pause} training slash testing {pause} for uh tandem systems . Cuz we hadn't really done much with tandem systems for larger stuff . Cuz we had this one collaboration with CMU and we used SPHINX . Uh , we 're also gonna be collaborating with SRI and we have their {disfmarker} have theirs . Um {pause} So {pause} I don't know Um . So I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the advantage of going with the neural net thing is that we 're gonna use the neural net trainings , no matter what , for a lot of the things we 're doing , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: whereas , w exactly which HMM {disfmarker} Gaussian - mixture - based HMM thing we use is gonna depend uh So with that , maybe we should uh {vocalsound} go to our {nonvocalsound} digit recitation task . And , it 's about eleven fifty . Canned . Uh , I can {disfmarker} I can start over here . Great , uh , could you give Adam a call . Tell him to He 's at two nine seven seven . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: OK . I think we can {vocalsound} @ @ You know Herve 's coming tomorrow , right ? Herve will be giving a talk , yeah , talk at eleven . Did uh , did everybody sign these consent Er everybody Has everyone signed a consent form before , on previous meetings ? You don't have to do it again each time Yes . microphones off +","In a collaborative meeting at a research group, participants discuss various technical issues they encounter during their work on speech recognition and pattern recognition projects. They troubleshoot problems with microphone channels, address crashes, and propose solutions. Most of the discussion involves technical jargon and the adaptation of systems to work across different languages and tasks. The group also considers whether incorporating more parameters could improve their models, and weighs computational resource constraints. They discuss the potential of using neural networks to detect voice activity and plan for upcoming work, including collaborations with other institutions and preparing for a presentation by an upcoming visiting researcher, Herve. Consent forms for the meeting's recording are mentioned, indicating the session's contributions to a corpus of research data." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So , I will open our functional design meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I will play role of the secretary . As also Program Ma Manager . So , we will have the three presentations from the In Industrial Designer , User Interface Designer and um +Industrial Designer: Industrial Design . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: What's your talk ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And after that we uh will have the uh new product requirements , the decision on the remote control functions , and we will close the meetings after . Mm so um I suppose the first to do the presentation will be the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , so you're participant two ? +Industrial Designer: One one . +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: No you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Three three , it's three +Project Manager: I'm participant one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I I think I'm a {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , did you save your presentation ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: In one . +Industrial Designer: In one , sorry {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Isn't that technical functions ? +Marketing: No sure . +Industrial Designer: So you didn't save it maybe . +Marketing: Uh +User Interface: It's mine . +Marketing: it's David Jordan . Course . +Industrial Designer: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Name's Jordan . So +Industrial Designer: David Jordan ? {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I'll {disfmarker} I let David Jordan do his presentation . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: No , no . Uh this one doesn't want to be moved , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Too great for email then . +User Interface: Okay , so . The first I will present the technical function design for user interface for our uh remote T_V_ control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh I I will focus on user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um so move to the next slide . As we know our remote c rem remote T_V_ control it's very {disfmarker} has very soph sophisticated functions , as we show from this picture . There's a lot of functions . Over , I think over s twelve or twenty s functions of a remote T_V_ control . So how can we um design a user interface with so sa with so many sophisticated functions ? Um , let's move to next slide . Um . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} so we want to design uh elegant , easy to use inter interface . A very good example is Google . As we know uh Google it's a very successful because his um powerful function , but with very easy to use user interface . Um so move to next s slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my job is to uh design a Google T_V_ controller {vocalsound} which I want to have sophisticated functions while with very easy to use user interface . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the end of the talk {vocalsound} the end of the presentation . +Project Manager: So you propose to to have the remote control which will be powerful . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} With sophisticated functions , +Project Manager: So powerful , +User Interface: but with very {disfmarker} yeah powerful . +Project Manager: many functions and very easy to use . +User Interface: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: So , I dunno , it's maybe difficult to have both , +Industrial Designer: To merge the two system huh . +Marketing: I mean the the one on the right doesn't look so simple +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You mean this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah you have to learn the manual before using this remote control , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But But this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if we have very very good user interface +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: it take less time for user to learn how to use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you {disfmarker} maybe you have some international standards , where you know , if you can use one is the other are {disfmarker} or almost the same , so the sign . +Project Manager: Oh you mean for the yeah pic pictograms or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . For example , I dunno here , escape , you know , you have escape in computers you have , so if you see escape , you know that it should be the same . +Marketing: Oh it should {disfmarker} okay , yeah . The user should know . +Industrial Designer: So you have to {disfmarker} The sh the user there {disfmarker} for example the power off button it is something very international , you know that {disfmarker} So . +Project Manager: Yeah um such as maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Go on , go back and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the question is how to merge you know the Google system to the system , alright . +Marketing: Yeah , that's gonna be the trick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's my job . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's your job {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's my job . It's not the easiest I've got to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , you will propose us something which is yeah so powerful and easy to use . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Powerful and easy to use . +Marketing: So that's the point . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the point . +Project Manager: So , next I propose the Industrial User Interface to present things . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: So you you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The rationale must be {vocalsound} design , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , Baba is the uh the Industrial Designer . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can move to the next slide . As you all know , you know m my job is to design you know uh to give an industrial design of the remote control . So the re basically the remote control will be , you know , infrared control , so the problem is how to relate the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: how to relate the remote control device , like for example this one I h I'm holding in my hand and the T_V_ . So , this one is leather bu based +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I propose a nifra infrared base {vocalsound} you know , so so for me I think that it is better {vocalsound} it's bet it's better to control T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you know , so it's it will be cheaper and it is less technology than , you know {disfmarker} For the cheap price we have , for the cheap price we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: So you mean that infrared control is a cheap technology ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's cheaper than laser , so {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do y you know the requirements for the remote control ? Twelve , nearly thirteen , +Marketing: What the cost is ? +Project Manager: yeah . The cost {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twelve , twelve a half . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think for the cost we want {disfmarker} for the cost we want {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it's better to have uh uh Let's see . Yeah . You can move to the next slide , so . So the di the differen the findings you know what you find inside the re i the the system here inside it is just , you know a bulb and an infrared bulb , so here for example the infrared bulb will be here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the bulb it will be somewhere inside . +Marketing: That might just {disfmarker} So . +Industrial Designer: You can go to the next slide . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some kind of pictures you know , here . You have the b the bulb , it is a blue the blue stuff here and the infrared and the infrared bulb it is the red stuff +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know and so and you have the other subcomponent that are not really here so important , so . +Project Manager: What is this ? +Industrial Designer: This is in fact some other component that are in between the electrical de the electronic device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Look . But here what I wanted to emphasise it is just you know the bulb and {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and the next slide , it is the last one it's {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I think it should be wire {vocalsound} wireless re remote con {vocalsound} Because you know , it's easier to manage and you know because you f the b the the battery problem can hold you know will you use a battery or the a wire to connected you . Or maybe some kind of thing that we can have both , but you know , I at my side prefer a wireless . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so if you have some question I didn't answer ? +Marketing: What's the average price of this technology then ? +Industrial Designer: Well the avera the average prices I think that this technology will cost , I dunno , around eight Euros , so . Or at least you know , the +User Interface: So what , the wireless remote control ? There's a wire {vocalsound} with remote control ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You'd {disfmarker} yes , you can . It's so so bres you have to decide how how you will you know , put some energy inside , so you can think about wireless or you know it's it's a question that we can raise , so . We can think that you know , with the wire , you know , without a wire . We can have both also . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think that uh {vocalsound} a cable between the remote control {vocalsound} and the T_V_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} won't be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No it wou maybe it will be cheaper {vocalsound} I dunno , I just may maybe you making a solu +Marketing: But this is what you would like to ask the user first and I don't think the user would be ready to have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wireless remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} well , yeah , I don't think he would , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but some pa I always want to have you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but in a sense {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: sometime I want to have wire because you know . +Project Manager: Yeah but as Industrial Designer , do you think that it will be feasible to have uh linked or to have link between the remote control and the television ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just asking you . Do you think it will be cheaper ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , {vocalsound} I don't {vocalsound} think it will be too much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could you answer please ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Have to think about the question , you know , 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think that you know you can always you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think wha wha with the wire it's mm cheaper but you know the wireless it's more practical , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think the wireless problem is more the um David Jordan's problem . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The wire ? +Project Manager: As it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's more your problem . Mayb maybe you have just to to kind of research or try to ask people if they will like something wireless or not . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh that's my job . That's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} I'm sorry . +Marketing: Now the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but , it should be an agreement , you know , because {disfmarker} even if you can think of the wireless , it is it's it is the job of the {vocalsound} the the g Graphical User Designer , but you know . If it is a lot cheaper and if you want to reach for example some the the money you have , if you want to use , {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} it can be good to have a wireless , it it is a question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: just think of um the usability . +User Interface: Design a wireless remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just think of the problem . If when you have wireless remote control and if you lose it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's would be easier to have {vocalsound} a link between the remote control and the television , +Marketing: Well that's actually one of the point , yeah ? True . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: This you will see in my presentation then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I will let you to do your presentation , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Which is participant four . So just trying to answer all the questions , if the user would be happy to have something or something else uh . We've made a study , so could you go to next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry for the functional recurrence . So that's the standard method for marketing , okay . We had one hundred subjects , um , we observe their remote control use in a lab and then after all the experiments they had to fill up a questionnaire , um , and see what was okay or not for them . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So then it's some statistics about what we observed and what they answered . Um actually seventy five percent of the users find m the most remote controls uh ugly , okay , so that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You mean the loo the look , the outside ? +Industrial Designer: The look , how it look like . +Marketing: Yeah , the the look is is bad for them +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so uh it's your job , David , maybe . Then eighty percent of users would spend more money um actually if if the remote controls were not so ugly . So this is where we could have uh yeah , good market , I guess , if people are ready to pay more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's it's interesting information , I think . And then um yeah , the remote controls like the one you've shown previously it's not so {disfmarker} doesn't fit the user requirements sometime , because it's too many buttons and so on . So we should change this as well . And uh users are actually zapping a lot , so they're using the device intensively , that's something to take into account as well . And um , you know , ten percent of the buttons are actually used in the remote control . And uh this is one of the main point for me . But I'll come back to it later . 'Kay . Could you go next slide ? Uh , so as you said uh , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is from the experiments we've done , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if we could solve this problem this would be interesting for the user , I think . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use the remote control for thirty five percent of the people . And uh remote control are really bad for R_S_I_ problems for twenty six percent of the users . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What is R_S_I_ ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ is like , when you're using the same um {disfmarker} doing the same movement several times , then you get injured . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah um okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay ? So , those numbers are less important then the previous one , but still it has to be taken to count . So last slide . Um so my pres personal preferences for this problem is we have to meet the user needs . If we can make it look fancy then we might sell more than our uh concurrent , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And definitely if it could have less buttons , still maybe the same number of um functions , but less buttons , +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: this would definitely be a good way of selling more . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm okay . And just to have uh an idea , do you think you as the User Interface Designer to would it be possible to have less buttons and still have the same functionality and to have powerful remote control , you think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sure ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think possible . Because we can {disfmarker} We can uh mix uh several function in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So lets you {disfmarker} then you have less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you think it will be easy to use ? +User Interface: But I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because if you have many functions just for one button it would be quite difficult for the user to know . +Marketing: Yeah , remember the user is not happy to read the +Industrial Designer: The manuals . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: manual . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you you can have a switch menu , so you can +Project Manager: Yeah , but it has to be intuitive . +User Interface: well for example {disfmarker} Yeah , I think so . Like for for example you can uh you can category the function i i into several classes . Then for um you can have a switch menu , so you put the switch menu to it it tend to this kind of this category of functions . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Okay , +User Interface: Then you you put the switch button , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: then it switch to another category of functions . Yeah . For example , if you have remote control you you can rem you can control your T_V_ and also you can control your uh recorder . +Industrial Designer: With a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there's a different functions , but i if you you {disfmarker} there's a button you can switch between control T_V_ and control your recorder . So we can has less buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But what I'm not so sure is about how to make the remote control look funny {disfmarker} look fancy , not funny . +Industrial Designer: Look fancy . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is a question that should be asked to the {disfmarker} If you ask the people , maybe the the marketing people {gap} . +User Interface: Because different people have a different opinion about fancy . You know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , this is something we sh +User Interface: Because maybe a colourful is fancy for some people , but maybe simple and uh uniform colourful is fancy for some {disfmarker} for other peoples , so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But this was first step and {disfmarker} This was the first step , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the solution is to have many colours of {disfmarker} you know instead of having one grey standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think it will increase the price of the production of the remote control . +Marketing: Specially distribution , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , maybe . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: If you need to have special colours for remote controls it will cost more . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , personalised colour . Because you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it will cost little bit more . +User Interface: Yeah , because maybe some people prefer a red remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: some people prefer black remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is what we would ask to the users , so . +Project Manager: And also f +User Interface: Maybe we can have di di we can have uh several options , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so user can select which colour they prefer , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but as soon as you speak about options , it means that the price increases , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: remember it's twelve Euros . +Project Manager: and we don't really want the price to be too too high , because we wanna be able to produce it . So , we want something fancy , as uh previously said , Florent , something very easy to use , powerful and also as uh it's written here , seventy five percent of users , they zap lot , so maybe just having many functions in one button is not that good if you want to zap a lot . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And they don't really want to zap between functions of their remote control , they want to zap between channels on T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} I think you have quite lot of points to to think about +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and to discuss it with uh the other members . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , is it okay for your presentation ? Nothing else to to add ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's done , just {disfmarker} yeah . If we would {disfmarker} if we could remember like , not too many buttons and make it look fancy , I think it would make it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Mm so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: So , I had some new information about the product requirements , so you will have to take care of it of it in your thinking , in your designing of the remote control . So the first one is that um for the designing of the remote control we don't really want to use the teletext anymore , as it's something that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Lame , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No yeah , because now everybody has internet at home , so it's better to use internet then teletext . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , you will have to think about it in your in in the design of your remote control , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and also the remote control will only be used for television , so for y for you your designing , you're not {disfmarker} you won't be uh {disfmarker} you won't had {vocalsound} um buttons to just to manipulate {disfmarker} yeah to control the recorder or maybe the garage door or things like that . +User Interface: Control . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Project Manager: because if we want to to do remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which will be used for for the television , for the recorder , for the camcorder and all the others , it will become too complex and it will increase the pli the price and we can't do that . We really want to focus on the remote control for the television . Is it okay ? +User Interface: Okay . But there's balance between function and the cost . +Project Manager: So maybe it will be easier for you to to design it , to have very powerful and easy . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And also we want the image of the uh um real reaction be recognisable in the product , such as the colour and s the slogan . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean that's uh if uh you want to buy a remote control and if you go in a shop and if you see the remote control you will recognise directly that s it's our product . +User Interface: Mm-hm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So you will have to use the colour of the product , of the um um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: of the uh of real reaction +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So . +Project Manager: and uh also {disfmarker} +Marketing: So has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . As we say , we put the fashion in electronics , so it has to be a fashion remote control . Fancy , fashion , powerful , easy to use . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Require lot of requirements , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For cheap {vocalsound} remote control , yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And cheap . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: A low cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . But uh that's your your job to find something mm matches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah , 'cause what I'm thinking is how will you will connect the T_V_ to internet , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think it's part of the remote control design anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe not , +Marketing: It's maybe more in browsing . +Project Manager: but mayb +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but this this mean that your T_V_ would be able to , you know , connect to internet , you know , surf the web . +User Interface: Yeah , there's that box in uh o of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: A pi There's that box in the T_V_ , so with the set box you you can connect internet with your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Ok +Marketing: Hm-mm . +User Interface: It's It's not so uh popular now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's pop I don't think it's popular , so that's the problem so . You had i if you are designing a remote control for you know +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the global usage , +User Interface: Global , +Industrial Designer: so if people don't have the technology . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So everybody is okay with the new requirements ? +User Interface: So I I so {disfmarker} As as for the colour , what what do you think ? +Project Manager: I think it has to be yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow ? Do you think that people like the colour yellow ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yellow ? {gap} T_V_ remote control ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Min +Project Manager: Maybe you can change the colour , but the image of the society has to be recognised . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think if you have you know th like a yellow ribbon here is the double R_ . Or should be . +Project Manager: Why you go {disfmarker} It has to be fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so . Doesn't need to be completely yellow , +Project Manager: So you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but just mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . It has to be a fashion and really be uh the image of the society . Just when you enter you say oh , oh , it's real reaction . Think it's a re reaction remote control , so . +User Interface: Okay , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And also it has to be attractive , of course , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: because if you want to sale {disfmarker} to sell the remote control . It's okay ? +Marketing: Regarding the first line , what {disfmarker} So we're just expecting no more use of the teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} I dunno , but why , nobody's a threat to me . +Marketing: It's already changed for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it would be simpler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} I will close the meeting , um just after that we'll have lunch break . And you will have in thirty minutes individual work . Uh {disfmarker} Y you {disfmarker} You will have as the I_D_ I don't remember what is industr Industrial Designer to put um {disfmarker} pon +Marketing: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer , yeah . Component component , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and the User Interface Designer to work on the user interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And Florent to work my subject . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: And so specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the um session is closed . +Industrial Designer: Good . +Project Manager: And by the way , Mister David Jordan , please record your presentations in your own folder . {vocalsound} Not in mine . +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} Okay , that's clear . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be better . {vocalsound} +","In a comprehensive summary of the above dialogue, we witness a functional design meeting that takes place with the aim of discussing and strategizing the design and marketing aspects of a new remote control product. The project manager initiates the meeting, assuming the role of both the secretary and the program manager. The attendees include experts from various fields: an Industrial Designer, a User Interface Designer, and a Marketing Expert. + +The meeting involves a series of presentations, starting with the User Interface Designer who details plans for a sophisticated, yet user-friendly interface for a TV remote control. Drawing inspiration from Google's simple and powerful interface, the goal is to design a remote that is powerful in function but remains extremely easy to operate. This presentation leads to a discussion among the team, with concerns voiced about the difficulty of merging simplicity with a multitude of functions. Visual aids like pictograms and international standards are considered to help users intuitively understand the control functions. + +Next, the Industrial Designer addresses the physical aspects of the remote control, proposing an infrared-based design as a cost-effective solution. A concern arises about whether to create both wired and wireless options – but revelatory market studies suggest that consumers prefer wireless, despite potential pricing issues. Following a brief deliberation on technological feasibility, the conversation returns to the overarching focus on practicality and user preference. + +Marketing then takes the floor, presenting statistical insights from user studies. Their data show that most users find existing remotes aesthetically unpleasing and difficult to learn to use, with only a fraction of the buttons being employed regularly. This information sharpens the Product Team's focus on creating a remote that has a smaller number of buttons, is visually appealing, and satisfies the intensive use by consumers. The Marketing Expert emphasizes the sales potential of a remote that meets these criteria and the willingness of consumers to pay more for a well-designed product. + +Post-presentations, the Project Manager introduces fresh product requirements, centered around eliminating teletext functionality and dedicating the remote exclusively for TV use to avoid complexity and additional costs. It is highlighted that the remote should also reflect the brand identity of Real Reaction through recognizable color schemes and slogans. + +In the wrap-up, individuals are assigned tasks based on their domain of expertise with an emphasis on integrating the new product requirements into their designs. In conclusion, as the meeting adjourns, the Project Manager reminds David Jordan to maintain organizational systems by saving his presentations in his own designated folder. This dialogue encapsulates a typical collaborative design process, encompassing the exchange of ideas, the tackling of functional and aesthetic dilemmas, and the definitive aim of aligning product design with user needs and market trends." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD C: What channel am I on ? +PhD E: Channel . +PhD C: Oh , channel two . +PhD G: Make sure to turn your microphone on . +PhD E: Channel . +PhD G: There 's a battery . +Grad B: There we go . +PhD G: OK . Your channel number 's already on this blank sheet . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: So you just {disfmarker} If you can {disfmarker} +Professor F: Channel five ? Channel five . +PhD E: Channel whatever . +Professor F: I 'm on channel five . +Grad B: Camera one , camera two . +PhD E: What am I ? +Professor F: Little low ? +PhD E: Channel four ? +Professor F: Channel five . +PhD E: This number four ? OK . +Professor F: Channel five . OK . +PhD G: The gai the gain 's up at it {disfmarker} what it usually is , +Professor F: Is it ? +PhD G: but if you think it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's sort of a default . But I can set it higher if you like . +Professor F: Oh . Maybe it should be a little higher . +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: It 's not showing much . Test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test , test . OK , that {disfmarker} that seems better ? Yeah ? OK , good . Ah , that 's good , that 's good . That 's Ahh . Mmm . So I {disfmarker} I had a question for Adam . Have we started already ? +PhD G: Well , we started recording , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Is Jane around or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I saw her earlier . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} +PhD G: She can just walk in , I guess , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . She 'll probably come up . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Since we 're starting late I figured we 'd better just start . +Professor F: Yeah . Great idea . I was gonna ask Adam to , uh , say if he thought anymore about the demo stuff because {vocalsound} it occurred to me that this is late May and the DARPA meeting is in {pause} mid July . Uh , but {vocalsound} I don't remember w what we {disfmarker} I know that we were gonna do something with the transcriber interface is one thing , but I thought there was a second thing . Anybody remember ? +PhD G: Well , we were gonna do a mock - up , like , question answering or something , I thought , that was totally separate from the interface . Do you remember ? Remember , like , asking questions and retrieving , {vocalsound} but in a pre - stored fashion . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD G: That was the thing we talked about , I think , before the transcriber {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Come on in . +Professor F: Alright . So anyway , you have to sort out that out and get somebody going on it cuz we 're {disfmarker} got a {disfmarker} got a month left basically . So . +PhD G: You like these . Right ? OK , good . +Professor F: OK . Um OK . So , what are we g else we got ? You got {disfmarker} you just wrote a bunch of stuff . +PhD G: No . That was all , um , previously here . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD G: I was writing {pause} the digits and then I realized I could xerox them , +Professor F: Oh , oh . +PhD G: because I didn't want people to turn their heads from these microphones . So . We all , by the way , have the same digit form , for the record . So . +Professor F: That 's cool . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , the choice is , uh , which {disfmarker} which do we want more , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the comparison , uh , {vocalsound} of everybody saying them at the same time or the comparison of people saying the same digits at different times that {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: It 's just cuz I didn't have any more digit sheets . +Professor F: I know that . But , you know , which opportunity should we +PhD G: So . Yeah . +PhD C: Unison . +Professor F: exploit ? {vocalsound} Unison . +PhD G: I mean , it {disfmarker} Actually it might be good to have them separately and have the same exact strings . I mean , we could use them for normalizing or something , but it of course goes more quickly doing them in unison . +Professor F: I guess we 'll see +PhD G: I don't know . +Professor F: i I guess it 's dependent on +PhD G: See how long we go . +Professor F: how long we go and how good the snack is out there . +PhD E: But anyway , they won't be identical as somebody is saying zero in some {disfmarker} sometimes , you know , saying O , and so , it 's not i not identical . +Professor F: Yeah . Hmm . Get some advance intelligence . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to train . +PhD G: We 'd be like a chorus . +PhD E: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . We 'd have to get s get some experience . +PhD C: Greek chorus . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: Yeah . Really {pause} boring chorus . Um . Do we {pause} have an agenda ? Adam usually tries to put those together , but he 's ill . +PhD D: I 've got a couple of things to talk about . +Professor F: So . Yeah . Uh ju what {disfmarker} what might those be ? +PhD D: Uh , IBM stuff and , um , just getting {vocalsound} uh , meeting information organized . +Professor F: Meeting info organized . OK . Um . +PhD C: Are you implying that it 's currently disorganized ? +PhD D: In my mind . +Professor F: Is there stuff that 's happened about , um , uh , the {pause} SRI recognizer et cetera , tho those things that were happening before with {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Well . +Professor F: Y y you guys were doing a bunch of experiments with different front - ends and then with {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is that still sort of where it was , uh , the other day ? +PhD C: We 're improving . +Professor F: We 're improving . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You saw the note that the PLP now is getting basically the same as the MFCC . +Professor F: Right . +PhD D: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . Actually it looks like it 's getting better . +Professor F: Right . Oh . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} but it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Just with {disfmarker} with age , kind of . +PhD C: With age . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , that 's not d directly related to me . Doesn't mean we can't talk about it . Um , it seems {disfmarker} It looks l I haven't {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} The experiment is still not complete , but , um , it looks like the vocal tract length normalization is working beautifully , actually , w using the warp factors that we computed for the SRI system and just applying them to the {vocalsound} ICSI front - end . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . That 's pretty funny . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So you just need to {pause} copy over to this one . +PhD C: Just had to take the reciprocal of the number because they have different meanings in the two systems . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: Ah ! Yeah . Well , that 's always good to do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: But one issue actually that just came up in discussion with Liz and {disfmarker} and Don was , um , as far as meeting recognition is concerned , um , we would really like to , uh , move , uh , to , uh , doing the recognition on automatic segmentations . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Because in all our previous experiments , we had the {disfmarker} uh , you know , we were essentially cheating by having the , um , you know , the h the hand - segmentations as the basis of the recognition . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so now with Thilo 's segmenter working so well , I think we should {pause} consider doing a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . So . +Grad B: Come on . +PhD C: uh , doing {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . We {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Y think {disfmarker} you think we should increase the error rate . +PhD E: Anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: That - that 's what I wanted to do anyway , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: so we should just get together and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And even {disfmarker} The good thing is that since you , um , have high recall , {comment} even if you have low precision cuz you 're over - generating , that 's good because we could train noise models in the recognizer for these kinds of , uh , transients and things that come from the microphones , +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: but {vocalsound} I know that if we run recognition unconstrained on a whole waveform , we do very poorly because we 're {disfmarker} we 're getting insertions in places what {disfmarker} that you may well be cutting out . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So we do need some kind of pre - segmentation . +PhD C: We should {disfmarker} we should consider doing some extra things , like , um , you know , retraining or adapting the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the models for background noise to the {disfmarker} to this environment , for instance . +PhD G: Mmm . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And , yeah , using Thilo 's , you know , posteriors or some kind of {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . +PhD G: right now they 're {disfmarker} they 're discrete , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yes or no for a speaker , to consider those particular speaker background models . +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: So . There 's lots of ins interesting things that could be done . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . We should do that . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: Good . So , uh , why don't we , uh , do the IBM stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , talked with Brian and gave him the alternatives to the single beep at the end of each utterance that we had generated before . +Professor F: You had some {pause} thing about that ? Right . +PhD D: And so {disfmarker} +Professor F: The , uh , Chuck chunks . +PhD D: Yeah . The Chuck chunks . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: Right . And so he talked it over with the transcriber and the transcriber thought that the easiest thing for them would be if there was a beep and then the nu a number , a digit , and then a beep , uh , at the beginning of each one +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that would help keep them from getting lost . And , um , {vocalsound} so Adam wrote a little script to generate those style , uh , beeps +PhD C: Where 'd you get the digits from ? +PhD D: and so we 're {disfmarker} I came up here and just recorded the numbers one through ten . +Postdoc A: They sound really good . +PhD D: So . Does it sound OK ? +PhD G: That 's a great idea . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . We just used those . +PhD C: And do you splice them into the {pause} waveform ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . He {disfmarker} then he d I recorded {disfmarker} Actually , I recorded one through ten three times at three different speeds and then he picked . +PhD C: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: He liked the fastest one , so he just cut those out {vocalsound} and spliced them in between , uh , two beeps . +Postdoc A: It sounds like a radio announcer 's voice . Really . +PhD E: It will be funny uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Does it ? +PhD E: It will be funny when you 're really reading digits , and then there are the chunks with {disfmarker} with your {pause} digits in ? +PhD D: Yeah . With my {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Oh that 's right . +PhD G: Oh , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Now actually , +PhD D: That 'll throw them , +Postdoc A: we 're {disfmarker} Are we handling {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: huh ? +Professor F: Uh , maybe we should have you record A , B , C for those or something . +PhD D: Yeah . {comment} Huh ! Maybe . And she said it wasn't gonna {disfmarker} the transcriber said it wouldn't be a problem cuz they can actually make a template , uh , that has beep , number , beep . So for them it 'll be very quick +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} to put those in there {vocalsound} when they 're transcribing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: So , um , we {disfmarker} We 're gonna send them one more sample meeting , uh , and Thilo has run his segmentation . Adam 's gonna generate the chunked file . And then , um , I 'll give it to Brian and they can try that out . And when we get that back we 'll see if that sort of fixes the problem we had with , uh , too many beeps in the last transcription . +Professor F: OK . Do w do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Do you have any idea of the turn - around on {disfmarker} on those steps you just said ? +PhD G: Great . +PhD D: Uh . Our s our {disfmarker} On our side ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD D: or including IBM 's ? +Professor F: Including IBM 's . +PhD D: Well , I don't know . The last one seemed like it took a couple of weeks . Um , maybe even three . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: Uh , that 's just the I B M side . Our side is quick . I mean , I {disfmarker} I don't know . How long does your {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It should @ @ be finished today or something . Yeah . +Professor F: Well , I meant the overall thing . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: e e u u {comment} The reason I 'm asking is because , uh , Jane and I have just been talking , and she 's just been doing . {vocalsound} Uh , e a , you know , further hiring of transcribers . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so we don't sort of really know exactly what they 'll be doing , how long they 'll be doing it , and so forth , because right now she has no choice but to operate in the mode that we already have working . +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: And , uh , so it 'd be {disfmarker} It 'd be good to sort of get that resolved , uh , soon as we could , +PhD D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I hope @ @ {comment} we can get a better estimate from this {pause} one that we send them . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . Um . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't know yet how long that 'll take . +Professor F: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} I mean in particular I would {disfmarker} I would really hope that when we do this DARPA meeting in July that we sort of have {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're into production mode , somehow {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , that we {disfmarker} we actually {vocalsound} have a stream going and we know how {disfmarker} how well it does and how {disfmarker} and how it operates . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: I think that would {disfmarker} that would certainly be a {disfmarker} a very good thing to know . +PhD D: Right . Right . +Professor F: OK . Uh . Maybe before we do the meeting info organize thing , maybe you could say relevant stuff about where we are in transcriptions . +Postdoc A: OK . So , um , we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , the transcribers have continued to work past what I 'm calling "" set one "" , which was the s the set that I 've been , uh {disfmarker} OK , talking about up to this point , but , uh , they 've gotten five meetings done in that set . Right now they 're in the process of being edited . Um , the , um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I hired two transcribers today . I 'm thinking of hiring another one , which will {disfmarker} because we 've had a lot of attrition . And that will bring our total to {disfmarker} +Professor F: They die off after they do this for a while . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's various things . +PhD D: Burn - out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So , one of them had a baby . Um , you know , one of them really w wasn't planning {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that was an unfor unforeseen side effect of {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Eh , one of them , um , had never planned to work past January . I mean , it 's th all these various things , cuz we , you know , we presented it as possibly a month project back in January and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Um , so it makes sense . Uh , through attrition we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} we 're down to {disfmarker} to two , but they 're really solid . We 're really lucky the two that we kept . And , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't mean {disfmarker} I don't mean anything against the others . {comment} What I mean is we 've got a good cause {disfmarker} a good core . No . We had a good core {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , they won't hear this since they 're going . They won't be transcribing this meeting . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but still . I mean , I d it 's just a matter of we {disfmarker} w we 're {disfmarker} we 've got , uh , +Professor F: No backs . +Postdoc A: two of the ones who {disfmarker} who , um , ha had been putting in a lot of hours up to this point and they 're continuing to put in a {disfmarker} a lot of hours , which is wonderful , and excellent work . And so , then , in addition , um , I hired two more today and I 'm planning to h hire a third one with this {disfmarker} within this coming week , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but the plan is {disfmarker} just as , uh , Morgan was saying we discussed this , and the plan right now is to keep the staff on the {disfmarker} on the leaner side , you know , rather than hiring , like , eight to ten right now , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: because if the IBM thing comes through really quickly , then , um , we wouldn't wanna have to , uh , you know , lay people off and stuff . So . And this way it 'll {disfmarker} I mean , I got really a lot of response for {disfmarker} for my notice and I think I could hire additional people if I {pause} wish to . +Professor F: Yeah . An - and the other thing is , I mean , in the unlikely event {disfmarker} and since we 're so far from this , it 's a little hard to plan this way {disfmarker} in the unlikely event that we actually find {vocalsound} that we have , uh , transcribers on staff who are twiddling their thumbs because , you know , there 's , you know , {vocalsound} all the stuff that {disfmarker} that was sitting there has been transcribed and they 're {disfmarker} and they 're faster {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline is faster than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , than the generation , um , eh , i in {disfmarker} in the day {disfmarker} e event that that day actually dawns , uh , I {disfmarker} I bet we could find some other stuff for them to do . +Postdoc A: Oh , yes . +Professor F: So I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} that , eh , eh , a as we were talking , if we {disfmarker} if we hire twelve , then we could , you know , run into a problem later . I mean , we also just couldn't sustain that forever . But {disfmarker} but , um {disfmarker} for all sorts of reasons {disfmarker} but if we hire f you know , f we have five on staff {disfmarker} five or six on staff at any given time , then {vocalsound} it 's a small enough number so we can be flexible either way . +Postdoc A: Good . OK . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: It 'd be great , too , if , um , we can {disfmarker} we might need some help again getting the tighter boundaries or some hand {disfmarker} to experiment with , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , to have a ground truth for this segmentation work , which {disfmarker} I guess you have some already that was really helpful , and we could probably use more . +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . That was a thing I {disfmarker} I planned working on , is , uh , to use the {disfmarker} the transcriptions which are done by now , and to {disfmarker} to use them as , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh . Oh , the new ones +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: with the tighter boundaries . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . And to use them for {disfmarker} for training a {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} fo whatever . Yeah . To {disfmarker} to create some speech - nonspeech labels out of them , and {disfmarker} Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that 's a thing w was {disfmarker} w what I 'm just looking into . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pre - segmentations are so much {disfmarker} are s so extremely helpful . Now there was , uh , I g guess {disfmarker} So , a couple weeks ago I needed some new ones and it happened to be during the time that he was on vacation {disfmarker} f for just very few days you were away . But it happened to be during that time I needed one , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: so I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so I started them on the non - pre - segmented and then switched them over to yours and , um , they , um {disfmarker} you know , they always appreciate that when they have that available . And he 's , uh , usually , eh , uh , um {disfmarker} Um . So they really appreciate it . But I was gonna say that they do adjust it once in a while . You know , once in a while there 's something like , +PhD E: Yeah , sure . +Postdoc A: um , and e Actually you talked to them . Didn't you ? Did you ? Have you {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . I talked to Helen . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and she was {disfmarker} And so , I asked her {disfmarker} I mean , They 're very perceptive . I really want to have this meeting of the transcribers . I haven't done it yet , but I wanna do that and she 's out of town , um , for a couple of weeks , but I wanna do that when she returns . Um , cuz she was saying , you know , in a {disfmarker} in a span of very short period {disfmarker} we asked {disfmarker} It seems like the ones that need to be adjusted are these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things , and she was saying the short utterances , uh , the , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Postdoc A: you know , I mean , you 're {disfmarker} You 're aware of this . But {disfmarker} but actually i it 's so correct for so much of the time , that it 's an enormous time saver +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and it just gets tweaked a little around the boundaries . So . +PhD G: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Um . Yeah . I think it 'd be interesting to combine these . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Is there actually a record of where they change ? I mean , you can compare , do a diff on the {disfmarker} just so that we {vocalsound} knew {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: You could do it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's complicated in that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} hhh , i hhh , i +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , when {disfmarker} when they create new {disfmarker} yeah , new segments or something , it will be , uh , not that easy but {disfmarker} hmm . I think {pause} one could do that . +PhD G: I mean , if we keep a old copy of the old time marks +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: just so that if we run it we know whether we 're {disfmarker} which ones were cheating +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . That would be great , yeah , to know that . +PhD G: and +Postdoc A: There is a {disfmarker} there is one problem with that and that is when they start part way through then what I do is I merge what they 've done with the pre - segmented version . +PhD G: which one would be good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: So it 's not a pure {disfmarker} it 's not a pure condition . Wha - what you 'd really like is that they started with pre - segmented and were pre - segmented all the way through . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it wasn't possible for about four of the recent ones . But , it will be possible in the future +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: because we {disfmarker} we 're , um . +PhD E: It would . +PhD G: Mmm , that 's great . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . As long as we have a record , I guess , of the original {pause} automatic one , we can always find out how well {pause} we would do fr from the recognition side by using those boundaries . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , a completely non - cheating version . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Also if you need someone to record this meeting , I mean , I 'm happy to {disfmarker} for the transcribers {disfmarker} I could do it , or Chuck or Adam . +Postdoc A: Thank you . +Professor F: OK . So , uh , u you were saying something about organizing the meeting info ? +PhD D: Yeah . So , um , uh , Jane and Adam and I had a meeting where we talked about the reorganization of the {pause} directory structure for all of the meeting {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did you record it ? +PhD D: No . For all the Meeting Recorder data . We should have . Um . And so we 've got a plan for what we 're gonna do there . And then , Jane also s prepared a {disfmarker} um , started getting all of the {disfmarker} the meetings organized , so she prepared a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spreadsheet , which I spent the last couple of days adding to . So I went through all of the data that we have collected so far , and have been putting it into , uh , a spreadsheet {vocalsound} with start time , the date , the old meeting name , the new meeting name , the number of speakers , the duration of the meeting , comments , you know , what its transcription status is , all that kind of stuff . And so , the idea is that we can take this and then export it as HTML and put it on the Meeting Recorder web page so we can keep people updated about what 's going on . +PhD G: Oh , great . +PhD D: Um , I 've gotta get some more information from Jane cuz I have some {disfmarker} some gaps here that I need to get her to fill in , but {vocalsound} so far , um , {vocalsound} as of Monday , the fourteenth , um , we 've had a total number of meeting sixty - two hours of meetings that we have collected . And , um {disfmarker} Uh , some other interesting things , average number of speakers per meeting is six . Um , and I 'm gonna have on here the total amount that 's been transcribed so far , but I 've got a bunch of {disfmarker} uh , that 's what I have to talk to Jane about , figuring out exactly which ones have {disfmarker} have been completed and so forth . But , um , {vocalsound} this 'll be a nice thing that we can put up on the {disfmarker} the web site and people can {vocalsound} be informed of the status of various different ones . And {vocalsound} it 'll also list , uh , like under the status , if it 's at IBM or if it 's at ICSI , uh , or if it 's completed or which ones we 're excluding and {disfmarker} and there 's a place for comments , so we can , {vocalsound} um , say why we 're excluding things and so forth . So . +Professor F: Now would the ones that , um , are already transcribed {disfmarker} we h we have enough there that c you know , we 've already done some studies and so forth and {disfmarker} um , shouldn't we go through and do the business - es u of {disfmarker} of having the , um , uh , participants approve it , uh , for {disfmarker} approve the transcriptions for distribution and so forth ? +Postdoc A: Um , interesting idea . In principle , I {disfmarker} I would say yes , although I still am doing some {disfmarker} the final - pass editing , trying to convert it over to the master file as the {disfmarker} being the channelized version and it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it seems like I get into that a certain way and then something else intervenes {comment} and I have to stop . Cleaning up the things like the , uh , uh , places where the transcriber was uncertain , and {disfmarker} and doing spot - checking here and there . So , um , uh , I guess it would make sense to wait until th that 's done , um , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , le let me put in another sort of a milestone kind of {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I did with the , uh , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the pipeline . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , we are gonna have this DARPA {pause} meeting in the middle of July , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: and I think it w it 'd be {disfmarker} given that we 've been {disfmarker} we 've given a couple public talks about it already , spaced by months and months , I think it 'd be pretty bad if we continued to say none of this is available . Um . +Postdoc A: It 'll certainly be done by then . Yeah . +Professor F: Right . So we can s we {disfmarker} we wanna be able to say "" here is a subset that is available right now "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Professor F: and that 's has been through the legal issues and so forth . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor F: So . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . So that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor F: So , by {disfmarker} before July . +PhD C: And they don't have to approve , you know , th an edited version , they can just give their approval to whatever version +Postdoc A: Well , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , in principle , yes . But , I mean , i if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if somebody actually did get into some legal issue with it then we +PhD C: Bu Yeah . But th I mean , the editing will continue . Presumably if {disfmarker} if s errors are found , they will be fixed , but they won't change the {disfmarker} the content of the meetings . +PhD D: Content , really . +Postdoc A: Well , see , this is the {disfmarker} this is the issue . Subtleties . +PhD C: So . +PhD G: Well , i if Jane is clarifying question question , then , you know , how can they agree to it before they know her final version ? +Postdoc A: The other thing , too , is there can be subtleties where a person uses this word instead of that word , which @ @ {comment} could 've been transcribed in the other way . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Thing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And no and they wouldn't have {vocalsound} been slanderous if it had been this other word . You know ? +Professor F: I it {disfmarker} you know , there there is a point at which I agree it becomes ridiculous because , you know , you could do this final thing and then a year from now somebody could say , you know , that should be a period and not a question mark . Right ? And you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's no way that we 're gonna go back and ask everybody "" do you approve this , uh , you know {disfmarker} this document now ? "" So {disfmarker} So I think what it is is that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that they sign {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't looked at it in a while , but it has to be open enough that it sort of says "" OK , from now on {disfmarker} you know , now that I 've read this , you can use {disfmarker} do anything you want with these data . "" +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And , uh {disfmarker} But , i I think we wanna {disfmarker} So , assuming that it 's in that kind of wording , which I don't remember , {vocalsound} um , I think i we just wanna have enough confidence ourselves that it 's so close to the final form it 's gonna be in , a year from now that they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I agree . Mmm . I totally agree . It 's just , uh , a question of , {vocalsound} uh , if {disfmarker} if the person is using the transcript as the way of them judging what they said and whether it was slanderous , {vocalsound} then it seems like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i it needs to be more correct than if we could count on them re - listening to the meeting . +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: Because it becomes , eh , in a way a {disfmarker} a f uh , a legal document i if they 've agreed to that . +Professor F: Well , I forget how we end Right . I forget how we ended up on this , but I remember my taking the position {vocalsound} of not making it so {disfmarker} so easy for everybody to observe everything and Adam was taking the position of {disfmarker} of having it be really straightforward for people to check every aspect of it including the audio . And I don't remember who won , Adam or me , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , {vocalsound} if it 's only the transcript , though {disfmarker} I mean , th this {disfmarker} this is my point , that {disfmarker} that +Professor F: uh , the {disfmarker} Uh , that that 's why I 'm bringing this up again , because I can't remember how we ended up . +Postdoc A: then it becomes {disfmarker} +Professor F: That it was the transcrip He wanted to do a web interface that would make it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , if it 's just the audio {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: that would give you access to the transcript and the audio . That 's what Adam wanted . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And I don't remember how we ended up . +PhD G: I mean , with the web interface it 's interesting , because you could allow the person who signs to be informed when their transcript changes , or something like that . And , I mean , I would say "" no "" . Like , I don't wanna know , but some people might be really {vocalsound} interested and then y In other words , they would be informed if there was some significant change other than typos and things like that . +Professor F: You decided you were whispering Satanic incantations under your breath when you were {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , {vocalsound} I don't know what happened to the small heads thing , but I j {vocalsound} Um , I 'm just saying that , like , you know , you can sort of say that any things that are deemed {disfmarker} +Professor F: They disappeared from view . +PhD G: Anyway . I mean , I agree that at some point people {vocalsound} probably won't care about typos but they would care about significant meaning changes and then they could be asked for their consent , I guess , if {disfmarker} if those change . Cuz assumi {vocalsound} assuming we {disfmarker} we don't really distribute things that have any significant changes from what they sign anyway . +PhD C: Tha That 's {disfmarker} How about having them approve the audio and not the transcripts ? +PhD G: Oh , my God . +Postdoc A: That would be simpler , +Professor F: Uh . +Postdoc A: if we could count on them listening . +PhD G: But no one will listen to the hours and hours of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Talk . +PhD C: Well , that 's O K . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: We just have to give them a chance to listen to it , and if they don't , that 's their problem . +Grad B: hmm , hmm . +PhD G: You {disfmarker} you d That 's like {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Unfortunately , uh , in {disfmarker} in the sign thing that they signed , it says "" transcripts "" . +PhD C: No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc A: "" You 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be provided the transcripts when they 're available . "" +PhD C: Really ? +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I I {disfmarker} I think +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: that 's a lot to ask for people that have been in a lot of meetings . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: W anyway , haven't we {disfmarker} we 've gone down this path a number of times . I know this can lead to extended conversations and {disfmarker} and not really get anywhere , so let {disfmarker} let me just suggest that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , off - line that , uh , the people involved figure it out and take care of it before it 's July . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor F: OK . So {disfmarker} so that in July we can tell people {vocalsound} "" yes , we have this and you can use it "" . +Postdoc A: Yes . It 's done , ready , available . Good . +Professor F: Uh . So , let 's see . What else we got ? Uh . Don did {disfmarker} did a report about his project in class and , uh {disfmarker} an oral and written {disfmarker} written version . +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: So that was stuff he was doing with you . Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I guess one thing we 're learning is that the amount {disfmarker} We have eight meetings there because we couldn't use the non - native {disfmarker} all non - native meetings and {vocalsound} it 's , well , probably below threshold on enough data for us for the things we 're looking at because the {vocalsound} prosodic features are {pause} very noisy and so you {disfmarker} you need a lot of data in order to model them . Um , so we 're starting to see some patterns and we 're hoping that maybe with , {vocalsound} I don't know , double or triple the data {disfmarker} with twenty meetings or so , that we would start to get better results . But we did find that some of the features that , I gue Jane would know about , that are expressing sort of the {vocalsound} distance of , um , {vocalsound} boundaries from peaks in the utterance and {vocalsound} some {pause} local , um , range {disfmarker} pitch range effects , like how close people are to their floor , are showing up in these classifiers , which are also being given some word features that are cheating , cuz they 're true words . Um , so these are based on forced alignment . Word features like , um , word frequency and whether or not something 's a backchannel and so forth . So , we 're starting to see , I think , some interesting patterns . +Professor F: So the dominant features , including everything , were those {disfmarker} those quasi - cheating things . Right ? Where these are {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sometimes not . +PhD G: I think it depends what you 're looking at , a actually . +Grad B: Yeah . Sometimes {pause} positions in sentences obviously , or in spurts , was helpful . I don't know if that 's cheating , too . +PhD G: Right . Um , +PhD C: Spurts wouldn't be . Right ? +PhD G: spurts is not cheating except that of course you know the real words , +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: but roughly speaking , the recognized words are gonna give you a similar type of position . +Grad B: Right . Would they give you the same number of words , though ? +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's either early or late . +PhD C: No +PhD G: Not exactly , but i +Grad B: But ra somewhat ? +Professor F: On the average . +PhD G: Y yeah it should be . Well , we don't know and actually that 's one of the things we 're interested in doing , is a sort of {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Have you tried using just time , as opposed to number of words ? +PhD G: So . +Grad B: I think ti uh {disfmarker} Just p time position , like when the word starts ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: I don't know if that was in the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , no , I mean t time {disfmarker} time position relative to the beginning of the spurt . +PhD G: Eh {disfmarker} You know , uh +Grad B: Start . +PhD G: Yeah , +Grad B: Yeah . There 's all these things to do . +PhD G: uh , we didn't try it , but it 's s +Grad B: Like , there 's a lot of different features you could just pull out . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean that wouldn't be cheating because you can detect pause {pause} pretty well within the time . +Grad B: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: How about time position normalized by speak +PhD G: And it depends on speaking rate {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: speaking rate . Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's actually why I didn't use it at first . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: But we {disfmarker} one of the interesting things was I guess you reported on some te punctuation type {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD G: finding sentence boundaries , finding disfluency boundaries , and then I had done some work on finding from the foreground speech whether or not someone was likely to interrupt , so where {disfmarker} you know , if I 'm talking now and someone {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Andreas is about to interrupt me , is he gonna choose a certain place in my speech , either prosodically or word - based . And there the prosodic features actually showed up and a neat thing {disfmarker} even though the word features were available . And a neat thing there too is I tried some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} putting the speaker {disfmarker} So , I gave everybody {vocalsound} a short version of their name . So the real names are in there , which we couldn't use . Uh , we should use I Ds or something . And those don't show up . So that means that overall , um , it wasn't just modeling Morgan , or it wasn't just modeling a single person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , but was sort of trying to , {vocalsound} uh , get a general idea {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the tree classifier was trying to find general locations that were applicable to different speakers , even though there are huge speaker effects . So . The {disfmarker} but the main limitation now is I {disfmarker} because we 're only looking at things that happen every {vocalsound} ten words or every twenty words , we need more {disfmarker} more data and more data per speaker . So . It 'd also be interesting to look at the EDU meetings because we did include meeting type as a feature , so whether you were in a r Meeting Recorder meeting or a Robustness meeting did matter {vocalsound} to {pause} interrupts because there are just fewer interrupts in the Robustness meetings . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And so the classifier learns more about Morgan than it does about sort of the average person , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: which is {vocalsound} not bad . It 'd probably do better than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , but it wasn't generalizing . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} And I think Don , um {disfmarker} Well , we have a long list of things he 's starting to look at now over the summer , where we can {disfmarker} And he 'll be able to report on more things {pause} in the future . But it was great that we could at least go from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , Jane 's transcripts and the , {vocalsound} uh , recognizer output and get it {pause} to this point . And I think it 's something Mari can probably use in her preliminary report {disfmarker} like , "" yeah , we 're at the point where we 're training these classifiers and we 're just {vocalsound} reporting very preliminary but suggestive results that {vocalsound} some features , both word and pro prosodic , work . "" The other thing that was interesting to me is that the pitch features are better than in Switchboard . And I think that really is from the close - talking mikes , cuz the pitch processing that was done has much cleaner behavior than {disfmarker} than the Switchboard telephone bandwidth . +PhD C: W wh wh wh Better in what sense ? +PhD G: Um . Well , first of all , the pitch tracks are m have less , um , halvings and doublings than {disfmarker} than Switchboard and there 's a lot less dropout , so if you ask how many regions where you would normally expect some vowels to be occurring {vocalsound} are completely devoid of pitch information , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: in other words the pitch tracker just didn't get a high enough probability of voicing for words {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for , you know , five word +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD G: there are much fewer than in Switchboard . So the missing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We had a big missing data problem in Switchboard and , so the features weren't as reliable cuz they were often just not available . +PhD D: Could it have to do with the {disfmarker} the lower frequency cut - off on the Switchboard ? +PhD G: So that 's actually good . Ma - maybe . I mean , the tele we had telephone bandwidth for Switchboard and we had the an annoying sort of telephone handset movement problem that I think may also affect it . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: So we 're just getting better signals in {disfmarker} in this data . Which is nice . So . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Anyway , Don 's been doing a great job and we hope to continue with , um , Andreas 's help and also some of Thilo 's help on this , +Professor F: Great . +PhD E: Y +PhD G: to {disfmarker} to try to get a non - cheating version of how all this would work . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor F: Has {disfmarker} has , uh {disfmarker} ? We just {disfmarker} I think , just talked about this the other day , but h has {disfmarker} has anybody had a chance to try changing , uh , insertion penalty sort of things with the {disfmarker} with the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , using the tandem system input for the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Oh , yeah . I tried that . It didn't , um , help dramatically . The {disfmarker} +PhD D: Were they out of balance ? I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't notice . +PhD C: There were a little {disfmarker} the relative number of {disfmarker} I think there were a higher number of deletions , actually . +Professor F: Oh . +PhD C: So , you , uh {disfmarker} So , actually it {disfmarker} it preferred to have a positive {disfmarker} er , negative insertion penalty , +PhD G: Deletions ? +PhD C: which means {vocalsound} that , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But , you know , it didn't change {vocalsound} th the {disfmarker} by adjusting that {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . The error changed by probably one percent or so . But , you know , given that that word error rate is so high , that 's not a {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} So that 's not the problem . +PhD C: That 's not the problem . No . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: But , uh , we s just , um , uh {disfmarker} you know , Chuck and I talked and the {pause} @ @ {comment} next thing to do is probably to tune the {disfmarker} um , the size of the Gaussian system , um , @ @ {comment} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} to this feature vector , which we haven't done at all . We just used the same {vocalsound} configuration as we used for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the standard system . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} for instance , uh , Dan {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Dan just sent me a message saying that CMU used , um , {vocalsound} something like ten Gaussians per cluster {disfmarker} You know , each {disfmarker} each mixture has ten {pause} Gaussians +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . We 're using sixty - four , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and we 're using sixty - four , +PhD D: right ? +PhD C: so that 's {vocalsound} obviously a big difference +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: and it might be way off and give very poorly trained , uh , you know , Gaussians that way , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: uh , an and poorly trained mixture weights . So {disfmarker} so , we have {disfmarker} The turn - around time on the training when we train only the {disfmarker} a male system with , uh , you know , our small training set , is {vocalsound} less than twenty - four hours , so we can run lots of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , basically just brute force , try a whole bunch of different um , settings . +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: And , uh , with the new machines it 'll be even better . So . +Professor F: Yeah . We get twelve of those , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: huh ? +PhD C: But the PLP features work {disfmarker} um , uh , you know , continue to improve the , +Professor F: OK . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} As I said before , the {disfmarker} uh using Dan 's , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization option works very well . So , um , @ @ {comment} I ran one experiment where we 're just {vocalsound} did the vocal tract le normalization only in the test data , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I didn't bother to retrain {pause} the models at all , and it improved by one percent , which is about what we get with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with , you know , just @ @ {comment} actually doing both training and test normalization , um , with , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the standard system . So , in a few hours we 'll have the numbers for the {disfmarker} for retraining everything with vocal tract length normalization and {disfmarker} So , that might even improve it further . +Professor F: Great . +PhD C: So , it looks like the P L - fea P features {comment} do very well now with {disfmarker} after having figured out all these little tricks to {disfmarker} to get it to work . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: Good . +PhD G: Wait . So you mean you improve one percent over a system that doesn't have any V T L in it already ? +PhD C: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . So then {disfmarker} then we 'll have our baseline to {disfmarker} to compare the currently hideous , uh , uh , new thing with . +PhD C: Right . a Right . And {disfmarker} and what that suggests also is of course that the current Switchboard {pause} MLP isn't trained on very good features . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , because it was trained on whatever , you know , was used , uh , last time you did Hub - five stuff , which didn't have any of the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . But all of these effects were j like a couple percent . +PhD C: Uh . +Professor F: Right ? I mean , y the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , but if you add them all up you have , uh , almost five percent difference now . +Professor F: Add {pause} all of them . I thought one was one point five percent and one was point eight . +PhD C: Yeah . And now we have another percent with the V T +Professor F: That 's three point three . +PhD C: Um , actually , and it 's , um , What 's actually qu interesting is that with {disfmarker} um , well , you m prob maybe another half percent if you do the VTL in training , and then interestingly , if you optimize you get more of a win out of rescoring the , um , {vocalsound} uh , the N best lists , uh , and optimizing the weights , um , uh than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Than you do with the standard ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . But the part that 's actually adjustment of the front - end per se as opposed to doing {disfmarker} putting VTLN in or something is {disfmarker} it was a couple percent . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: Right ? It was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there was one thing that was one and a half percent and one that was point eight . So {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} let me see if I remember what they were . One of them {vocalsound} was , uh , the change to , uh {disfmarker} because it did it all at once , {comment} to {disfmarker} uh , from bark scale to mel scale , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: which I really feel like saying in quotes , because @ @ {comment} they 're essentially the same scale but the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but any i individual particular implementation of those things puts things in a particular place . +PhD G: Yeah . Why did that cha ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So that 's why I wanted to look {disfmarker} I still haven't looked at it yet . I {disfmarker} I wanna look at exactly where the filters were in the two , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's probably something like there 's one fewer or one more filter in the sub {vocalsound} one kilohertz band +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and for whatever reason with this particular experiment it was better one way or the other . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Um , it could be there 's something more fundamental but it {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I don't know it yet . And the other {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} that was like one and a half or something , and then there was point eight percent , which was {disfmarker} what was the other thing ? +PhD D: Well , that was combined with the triangular . Right ? +Professor F: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} those two were together . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: We d weren't able to separate them out cuz it was just done in one thing . But then there was a point eight percent which was something else . +PhD D: The low - frequency cut - off . +Professor F: Do you remember the {disfmarker} ? Oh , yeah . So that was {disfmarker} that was , uh {disfmarker} that one I can claim credit for , uh , i in terms of screwing it up in the first place . So that someone e until someone else fixed it , which is that , um , I never put {disfmarker} when I u We had some problems before with offsets . This inf this went back to , uh , I think Wall Street Journal . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So we {disfmarker} we had , uh {disfmarker} ea everybody else who was doing Wall Street Journal knew that there were big DC offsets in th in these data {disfmarker} in those data and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and nobody happened to mention it to us , +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: and we were getting these , like , really terrible results , like two , three times the error everybody else was getting . And then in casual conversation someone ment mentioned "" uh , well , I guess , you know , of course you 're taking care of the offsets . "" I said "" what offsets ? "" +Grad B: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And at that point , you know , we were pretty new to the data and we 'd never really , like , looked at it on a screen and then when we just put it on the screen {comment} and wroop ! +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: there 's this big DC offset . So , um , in PLP +PhD G: There was a {disfmarker} like a hum or some or {disfmarker} when they recorded it ? +Professor F: No . It 's just , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not at all uncommon for {disfmarker} for recorded electronics to have different , um , DC offsets . +PhD G: Or just {disfmarker} ? Huh . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , no big deal . It 's {disfmarker} you know , you could have ten , twenty , maybe thirty millivolts , whatever , and it 's consistently in there . The thing is , most people 's front - ends have pre - emphasis with it , with zero at zero frequency , so that it 's irrelevant . Uh , but with P L P , we didn't actually have that . We had {disfmarker} we had the equivalent of pre - emphasis in a {disfmarker} a , uh , Fletcher - Munson style weighting that occurs in the middle of P L but it doesn't actually have a zero at zero frequency , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: like , eh , uh , typical simple fr pre - emphasis does . We had something more fancy . It was later on it didn't have that . So at that point I reali "" oh sh we better have a {disfmarker} have a high - pass filter "" just , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just take care of the problem . So I put in a high - pass filter at , uh , I think ninety {disfmarker} ninety hertz or so {vocalsound} uh , for a sixteen kilohertz sampling rate . And I never put anything in to adjust it for different {disfmarker} different sampling rates . And so {disfmarker} well , so , you know , the code doesn't know anything about that and so this is all at eight kilohertz and so it was at forty - five hertz instead of at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} instead of at ninety . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor F: So , um , I don't know if Dan fixed it or {disfmarker} or , uh , what he {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , he made it a parameter . +Professor F: He made it a parameter . So . Yeah , I guess if he did it right , he did fix it and then {disfmarker} and then it 's taking care of sampling rate , which is great . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what is the parameter ? +Professor F: He had a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it , uh , just the f lower cut - off that you want ? +PhD C: It 's called , uh , {vocalsound} H - HPF . +Professor F: H {disfmarker} Yeah . Does HPF on {disfmarker} on his feat feature . +PhD C: u And {disfmarker} but HPF , you know , when you put a number after it , uses that as the hertz value of the cut - off . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor F: I mean , frankly , we never did that with the RASTA filter either , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so the RASTA filter is actually doing a different thing in the modulation spectral domain depending on what sampling rate you 're doing , which is {vocalsound} another old {disfmarker} old bug of mine . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , um {disfmarker} Um . So that {disfmarker} that was the problem there was th we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we had always intended to cut off below a hundred hertz +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and it just wasn't doing it , so now it is . So , {vocalsound} that hep that helped us by , like , eight tenths of a percent . It {pause} still wasn't a big deal . +PhD C: OK . Well , but , um {disfmarker} Well , uh , again , after completing the {pause} current experiments , we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can add up all the uh differences +Professor F: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} an +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , I guess my {disfmarker} my point was that {disfmarker} that , um , the hybrid system thing that we did was , uh , primitive in many ways . +PhD C: Y Right . +Professor F: And I think I agree with you that if we fixed lots of different things and they would all add up , we would probably have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a competitive system . But I think not that much of it is due to the front - end per se . I think maybe a couple percent of it is , as far as I can see from this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unless you call {disfmarker} well , if you call VTL the front - en front - end , that 's , uh , a little more . But that 's sort of more both , kind of . +PhD D: One experiment we should {disfmarker} we 'll probably need to do though when {disfmarker} um , at some point , is , since we 're using that same {disfmarker} the net that was trained on PLP without all these things in it , for the tandem system , we may wanna go back and retrain , +Professor F: Right ? But . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I meant , in fact . Yeah . +PhD D: yeah , yeah , for the tandem . You know , so we can see if it {disfmarker} what effect it has on the tandem processing . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so , the thing is {disfmarker} is do we expect {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh At this point I 'm as I mean , you know {disfmarker} e I 'm wondering is it {disfmarker} Can we expect , uh , a tandem system to do better than a properly trained {disfmarker} you know , a Gaussian system trained directly on the features with , you know , the right ch choice of {pause} parameters ? +Professor F: Well , that 's what we 're seeing in other areas . Yes . Right ? So , it 's {disfmarker} so , um , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: So , we {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but we may not . I mean , if it doesn't perform as well , we may not know why . Right ? Cuz we need to do the exact experiment . +PhD C: Right . +Professor F: I mean , the reason to think it should is because you 're putting in the same information and you 're transforming it to be more discriminative . So . Um . Now the thing is , in some databases I wouldn't expect it to necessarily give you much and {disfmarker} and part of what I view as the real power of it is that it {pause} gives you a transformational capability {vocalsound} for taking all sorts of different wild things that we do , not just th the standard front - end , but other things , like with multiple streams and so forth , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and allows you to feed them to the other system with this {disfmarker} through this funnel . Um , so I think {disfmarker} I think that 's the real power of it . I wouldn't expect huge in huge improvements . Um , but it should at least be roughly the same and maybe a little better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: If it 's , you know , like way way worse then , you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: So , Morgan , an another thing that Andreas and I were talking about was , so @ @ {comment} in the first experiment that he did {vocalsound} we just took the whole fifty - six , uh , outputs and that 's , um , basically compared to a thirty - nine input feature vector from either MFCC or PLP . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But one thing we could do is {disfmarker} +Professor F: Let {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} let me just ask you something . When you say take the fifty - six outputs , these are the pre final nonlinearity {pause} outputs +PhD D: Yeah . Through the regular tandem outputs . +Professor F: and they 're {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} through the KLT . +PhD D: Through the KLT . All that kinda stuff . +Professor F: OK . And so {disfmarker} so then you u Do you use all fifty - six of the KLT +PhD D: That 's what we did . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Right ? So one thing we were wondering is , if we did principal components and , say , took out just thirteen , and then did deltas and double - deltas on that {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Yes . +PhD D: so we treated the th first thirteen as though they were {vocalsound} standard features . +Professor F: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , did Dan do experiments like that to {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh . Talk with Stephane . He did some things like that . It was either him or Carmen . I forget . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: I mean these were all different databases and different {disfmarker} you know , in HTK and all that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: so i it {disfmarker} it may not apply . But my recollection of it was that it didn't make it better but it didn't make it worse . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor F: But , again , given all these differences , maybe it 's more important in your case that you not take a lot of these low - variance , uh , components . +PhD D: Cuz in a sense , the net 's already got quite a bit of context in those features , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: so if we did deltas and double - deltas on top of those , we 're getting sort of even more . +Professor F: Which could be good or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . Worth trying . +PhD C: But there the main point is that , um , you know , it took us a while but we have the procedure for coupling the two systems {vocalsound} debugged now and {disfmarker} I mean , there 's still conceivably some bug somewhere in the way we 're feeding the tandem features {disfmarker} uh , either generating them or feeding them to this {disfmarker} to the {vocalsound} SRI system , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: There might be , cuz that 's a pretty big difference . +PhD C: Yeah . And I 'm wondering how we can {disfmarker} how we can debug that . +Professor F: But +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean how {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm actually f quite sure that the {disfmarker} feeding the {pause} features into the system and training it up , +Professor F: What if {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that 's essentially the same as we use with the ce with the P L P fe features . And that 's obviously working great . So . I um . +PhD D: Yeah . There could be a bug in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} somewhere before that . +PhD C: There {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} another degree of freedom is how do you generate the K L T transform ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? We to +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor F: well , and another one is the normalization of the inputs to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: These nets are trained with particular normalization and when that gets screwed up it {disfmarker} it can really hurt it . +PhD D: I 'm doing what Eric {disfmarker} E Eric coached me through then {disfmarker} that part of it , so I 'm pretty confident in that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD D: I mean , the only slight difference is that I use normalization values that , um , Andreas calculated from the original {comment} PLP , +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: which is right . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: N Yeah . So , I u I do {disfmarker} Oh , we actually don't do that normalization for the PLP , do we ? For the st just the straight PLP features ? +PhD C: No . The {disfmarker} the SRI system does it . +PhD D: S R I system does that . Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . Well , you might e e +PhD C: So , there 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} there is room for bugs that we might not have discovered , +PhD D: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I would actually double check with Stephane at this point , +PhD C: but {disfmarker} +Professor F: cuz he 's probably the one here {disfmarker} I mean , he and Dan are the ones who are at this point most experienced with the tandem +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: thing and there may {disfmarker} there may be some little bit here and there that is not {disfmarker} not being handled right . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's hard with features , cuz you don't know what they should look like . I mean , you can't just , like , print the {disfmarker} the values out in ASCII and , you know , look at them , see if they 're {disfmarker} +Professor F: Not unless you had a lot of time +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Professor F: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: eh , and also they 're not {disfmarker} I mean , as I understand it , you {disfmarker} you don't have a way to optimize the features for the final word error . Right ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD G: I mean , these are just discriminative , but they 're not , um , optimized for the final {disfmarker} +PhD C: They 're optimized for phone discrimination , not for {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . So it {disfmarker} there 's always this question of whether you might do better with those features if there was a way to train it for the word error metric that you 're actually {disfmarker} that you 're actually {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's right . Well , the other {disfmarker} Yeah , th the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - Mmm . +Professor F: Well , you actually are . But {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} but in an indirect way . +PhD G: Well , right . It 's indirect , so you don't know {disfmarker} +Professor F: So wha w what {disfmarker} an and you may not be in this case , come to think of it , because , uh , you 're just taking something that 's trained up elsewhere . So , what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} what you do in the full procedure {vocalsound} is you , um , uh , have an embedded training . So in fact you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the net is trained on , uh , uh , a , uh , Viterbi alignment of the training data that comes from your full system . And so that 's where the feedback comes all around , so that it is actually discriminant . You can prove that it 's {disfmarker} it 's a , uh {disfmarker} If you believe in the Viterbi assumption that , uh , getting the best path , uh , is almost equivalent to getting the best , uh , total probability , um , then you actually do improve that by , uh {disfmarker} by training up on local {disfmarker} local , uh {disfmarker} local frames . But , um , we aren't actually doing that here , because we did {disfmarker} we did that for a hybrid system , and now we 're plugging it into another system and so it isn't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i i it wouldn't quite apply here . +PhD C: Do y +PhD D: So another huge experiment we could do would be to take the tandem features , uh , do SRI forced alignments using those features , and then re - do the net with those . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mmm , uh {disfmarker} Exactly . Exactly . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So that you can optimize it for the word error . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Another thing is since you 're not using the net for recognition per se but just for this transformation , it 's probably bigger than it needs to be . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So that would save a lot of time . +PhD C: And there 's a mismatch in the phone sets . So , you 're using a l a long a larger phone set than what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Actually all those things could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could , uh {disfmarker} could affect it as well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: The other thing , uh , just to mention that Stephane {disfmarker} this was an innovation of Stephane 's , which was a pretty neat one , uh , and might particularly apply {vocalsound} here , given all these things we 're mentioning . Um , Stephane 's idea was that , um , discriminant , uh , approaches are great . Even the local ones , given , you know , these potential outer loops which , you know , you can convince yourself turn into the global ones . Um , however , there 's times when it {pause} is not good . Uh , when {pause} something about the test set is different enough from the training set that {disfmarker} that , uh , the discrimination that you 're learning is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not a good one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , uh , his idea was to take as the input feature vector to the , uh , Gaussian mixture system , {vocalsound} uh , a concatenation of the neural net outputs and the regular features . +PhD C: Oh , we already talked about that . +PhD G: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: El +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Didn't you {disfmarker} did you {pause} do that already +PhD C: Yeah . No , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} when I first started corresponding with Dan about how to go about this , I think that was one of the things that we definitely went there . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Oh . That makes a lot of sense . Huh . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I 'm sure that Stephane wasn't the first to think of it , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor F: but actually Stephane did it +PhD C: Uh - huh . And i does it help ? +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and it helped a lot . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's our current best {disfmarker} best system in the , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , in the Aurora thing . +PhD C: Oh . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: And do you do a KLT transform on the con on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: As {disfmarker} you should never do worse . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I , uh , missed what you said . +PhD C: Do you {disfmarker} d you do a KLT transform on the combined feature vector ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor F: Well , actually , I , uh {disfmarker} you should check with him , because he tried several different combinations . +PhD C: Because you end up with this huge feature vector , so that might be a problem , a unless you do some form of dimensionality reduction . +Professor F: Yeah . I , uh , th what I don't remember is which came out best . So he did one where he put o put e the whole thing into one KLT , and another one , since the {disfmarker} the PLP things are already orthogonalized , he left them alone and {disfmarker} and just did a KLT on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the net outputs +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor F: and then concatenated that . And I don't remember which was better . +PhD D: Did he {disfmarker} did he try to {disfmarker} ? So he always ended up with a feature vector that was {pause} twice as long as either one of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: No . I don't know , i I {disfmarker} I don't know . You have to check with him . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Actually , I have to run . +Professor F: I 'm into big ideas these days . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . +PhD G: We need to close up cuz I need to save the data and , um , get a call . +Professor F: Not to mention the fact that we 're missing snacks . Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Uh +PhD G: Did people wanna do the digits +Professor F: Um . +PhD G: or , um , do them together ? +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I g I think , given that we 're in a hurry for snacks , maybe we should do them together . +PhD G: I don't know . Should we just {disfmarker} ? OK . I mean , are we trying to do them {nonvocalsound} in synchrony ? That might be fun . +Professor F: Well , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} You know , it 's not gonna work out +PhD G: Adam 's not here , so he 's not here to tell me no . +Professor F: but we could {disfmarker} we could just , uh , uh , see if we find a rhythm , you know , what {disfmarker} +PhD G: Sure . +Professor F: Uh , O 's or zeroes , we wanna agree on that ? +PhD G: Maybe just whatever people would naturally do ? I don't know . +Professor F: Oh , but if we were a singing group , we would wanna decide . Right ? +PhD G: Be harmony . Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Postdoc A: Mine 's identical to yours . +Professor F: We might wa +Postdoc A: Is that correct ? +PhD G: Sorry . So I set up and we didn't have {pause} enough digit forms +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: So these are excellent . +PhD G: so I xeroxed the same one seven times . +Postdoc A: Oh . I see . +Professor F: Why don't we do zer i Anyone have a problem with saying zero ? Is zero OK ? +PhD G: No . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . One and a two and three . +PhD G: e +Professor F: Once more with feeling . +PhD G: And th +Professor F: No , just k just kidding . Oh , yeah . It was . +","Summary: + +The group discusses technical issues related to their research, primarily focusing on a channel/tuning issue and a microphone setup for recording. They are sorting out channels, ensuring microphones are active, and addressing battery concerns. They also discuss creating mock-ups and question-answering systems for an upcoming DARPA meeting, emphasizing the need for starting the recognition on automatic segmentations rather than hand-segmented data for meeting recognition. There's mention of the transcriber interface and tasks associated with it. Moreover, they touch upon the need for accurate segmentation in their transcriptions, the difficulty of handling the high insertion rate in recognition, and discuss various feature extraction methods, including tandem features and their optimization. Different PhDs and a Professor contribute to this technical discourse, with references to previous experiments and plans for future ones. They also talk about hiring transcribers, transcription processes, and legal issues related to releasing transcribed data. Towards the end, they playfully attempt a synchronized group reading of digits." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Hefin David, and we've got no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest? Can I just, then, declare for the record that I chair the cross-party group on suicide prevention and that Samaritans Cymru, who are appearing before us later, provide the secretariat for that group, just for that to be on the record? Item 2, then, is an evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school, and I'm very pleased to welcome our panel of witnesses this morning: Sharon Davies, head of learning, Torfaen County Borough Council and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; Nick Williams, director of education, Swansea city and county council, and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; and David Hopkins, interim head of education at the Welsh Local Government Association. Thank you very much, all of you, for attending. We've got a lot of ground we'd like to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. And if I can just start by asking you what you believe the main reasons are for the increase in the number of exclusions from school. +Nick Williams: I'll start, if that's okay. I think one of the things we're experiencing across the system in Wales is more examples of very challenging behaviour. I think the prevalence of ASD—autism spectrum disorder—and trying to get the learners the right provision is sometimes a challenge. Obviously, I can speak more about my own local authority in Swansea: the numbers have increased about fourfold over the last five, six years, so what's presenting as difficult behaviour can also sometimes be additional learning needs as well, and the system's struggling a little bit to catch up to have enough capacity to do that, so that is placing pressure on schools and then, in turn, pressure on the EOTAS, including our pupil referral units, because, obviously, we just probably haven't got enough capacity at the moment in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Anybody got anything to add to that, or—? +Sharon Davies: No, I think that's what we're seeing in Torfaen as well. I'd second that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, to what extent, then, do local authorities have clear strategies for support and reintegration, and a continuum of provision to meet the needs of learners who are either at risk of exclusion, or disengagement? +Nick Williams: Well, we've just developed a behaviour and well-being strategy, which, with our schools—and I'm aware, because I work in the south-west and mid Wales region, and I know some of the other local authorities have something similar, and, similarly, I chair the EOTAS network across Wales, and I know many local authorities are going in that direction, so that has a tiered approach, or staged approach, or whichever, so that there's universal provision. I think it's something that—you know, we need to make sure that our staff and our schools are well-equipped to meet these needs, but there will always, unfortunately, be some learners who need more specialist provision. So, it's equipping them with those sorts of skills, really. I think it's certainly moved forward from where we were two of three years ago. But there's a little bit of lag in the system, trying to bring everybody up to the same, consistent level. But I think work is afoot in nearly all local authorities, as far as I'm aware. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of school accountability measures, do you think that they have had an impact on the rise in exclusions? +Sharon Davies: When we're looking at the accountabilities, there's a huge amount of pressures on schools to perform, and I think the whole culture that the schools are within does play an element of it to some—. There is a shift in that culture. We are seeing a change with the interim measures coming on board, but I think there's going to be a lag in the system before we see that having a knock-on effect on our learners, because, undoubtedly, there are pressures on schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, you've seen an improvement since the capped 9 has been brought in? +Sharon Davies: I think it's early to say, but certainly we're working towards that improvement. I can only speak for Torfaen—we've been working really hard on our exclusions and working with our schools to ensure that the curriculum is broad and balanced, and accounts for every learner within the system. +Nick Williams: May I answer this in Welsh? +Lynne Neagle AM: Of course, yes. +Nick Williams: The messages that the Government is conveying to us and the messages we convey as directors and councils are important as well. So, we always tell them that it's the progression of the children in the future that's important, not just reaching up to the level. So, it's more complex than that, and it's important to share that. And in fairness to Estyn—Estyn has changed its mind as well. So, messages such as those are being conveyed now, and I think that the schools do understand now the expectation and what's expected of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of parents, what are local authorities doing to actually engage parents of children and young people who are either EOTAS or at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Nick Williams: I'll answer this in English. Again, I know perhaps Swansea and Neath Port Talbot—we have a team-around-the-family approach. So, as you say, it's more complicated than just the child behaving in a certain way, or being school-anxious, whatever the issue is. So, it's sort of bringing all of the agencies together to try and look at how we can proactively solve problems and support the families. Because nearly always, the behaviours that are demonstrated, or come out in schools, or whatever provision, is obviously probably greater in the home environment, so there's a whole—. We understand the complexities and the need for a whole-family, almost, approach to support. +Lynne Neagle AM: And do you think that all local authorities have got that understanding across Wales? +Sharon Davies: I would say the majority have. +Nick Williams: Yes. +Sharon Davies: Yes, it's quite common practice. As Nick mentioned, it is about that multi-agency approach—it is working with social care, working with health colleagues, to look at the whole package that goes into these families and to our learners. +Nick Williams: Certainly with schools, I know across Wales we've done a lot of training on adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed practice, so at least people can perhaps better understand some of the reasons why this behaviour is coming through, whereas in the past—I'm thinking myself, now, as a teacher—they were just difficult behaviours. I didn't really know the background to possibly why those behaviours were coming through. So, I think we are more informed as a profession. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on funding from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: May I begin, maybe, with a question, generally speaking—? We're all aware of the funding issues and the challenges of funding that face schools in general. So, can this lead to more exclusions, because additional learning needs have been hit in light of these challenges, and then that the side-effects of that creates more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: In particular now with the new Act coming into force, that's going to place more pressure on the system. In Torfaen, we know that we have schools that are looking at their funding—they are behind, and they have to make these hard choices. And sometimes, they have to look at every aspect within the school in terms of their learners, then, and that does place additional pressure on the schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is the additional learning needs sector being adversely affected, worse than—? +Sharon Davies: I'm not sure whether it's being worse affected, but certainly there's pressure, in particular with the new Act coming in, and that's going to place more pressure on the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But maybe we need to spend more in light of the new Act? +Sharon Davies: Yes. +Nick Williams: Yes, certainly. +Sian Hughes: What is your experience, then? +Nick Williams: The same, really. But just sometimes, the Government doesn't think about the staff in the pupil referral units, because we've gone back to the Government to tell them, 'Right, you've provided money to school staff, but what about staff that need training—perhaps more than staff in the school sector?' And in fairness, they have addressed that, but perhaps it's not at the forefront of their minds when they're thinking of providing funding to the schools. So, it's a little bit of an afterthought. But this will be needed in the future, certainly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And maybe I can ask the WLGA: are the difficulties that can arise between the money that is kept back by local authorities and the funding that goes directly to schools—can that therefore affect the kind of provision that's happening from authority to authority? +David Hopkins: Yes, sure. The delegation levels are already very high in most authority areas, and we've got agreements in place with the Government to make sure that more money, or as much money as possible, is devolved to schools. So, I don't think that's a direct factor. I think the factors that really affect exclusions, which is where I think the question came from: you've got the very narrow measure at the end of key stage 4 attainment, which I think has put pressure on some schools, certainly, and headteachers have felt that—sometimes excluded, or otherwise put into another school as a consequence, which is regrettable, but that's what's happened. And on the additional learning needs side, whilst the Minister has currently made some more money available, if we look at experiences that have happened in England, in particular, because there are direct parallels there with legislation, we know from those experiences that ALN funding has become increasingly under pressure—there have been big issues around tribunals, to the point where local authorities at one point almost gave up going to tribunals, because they were losing them time and time again. So, there are financial pressures there, but I don't think the levels of delegation have any impact on that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But just the pressures coming in with the new Act et cetera could mean more expulsions. +David Hopkins: It shouldn't, but it could. It's difficult to know how headteachers and governing bodies will react. If they're under pressure financially or in terms of performance measures, they will react in a particular way. Culturally, we've got to get to the point, I think, particularly with the new curriculum coming in, where we say, 'Look, forget the narrow measures that you're being judged by. We're trying to agree with partners, including Estyn and the Welsh Government, a broader range of measures.' That, in a sense, may provide opportunities for schools, and local authorities, to look more constructively at this whole area. So, that's one area, but you're right, I think the ALN legislation will put pressures on, not just local authorities and schools, but also on the post-16 sector, because we're talking now about a wider age range—doing up to 25 as well. So, we've got a host of issues, I think, there to consider and work our way through. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is the fact that there's variation from term to term, from week to week sometimes, in the level of provision that a school is going to have to provide for trying to retain those pupils in mainstream schools—is the fact that there is so much variation creating a specific challenge, and maybe that that leads to more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: As you say, because it changes, it's difficult then to plan ahead, and from year to year and also, as you've said, within the term. Perhaps you have provision for more learners coming in or moving, and then that causes the pressure within the system, then, because you haven't planned for them, and therefore there's no spare funding there to draw on. +Nick Williams: Also, in fairness to PRUs, we've been trying to work on the fact that, if children move out of school, the funding follows them. We don't want a lag in the system, because they have to meet the challenge of the pupils, but the money is still in the schools, because it's once a year that they have that funding. +Sian Hughes: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What more can be done, and by whom, to support collaborative working between schools, PRUs and local authorities to ensure that there is a continuum of provision and support for learners? +Nick Williams: Well, one of the things I think that has improved a lot is the networking within the PRU sector. We meet on a regular basis, and that's nationally. And the EOTAS group meets regionally as well. So, there's definitely a better sharing of practice. We put on some very, very good conferences as one form of professional learning. But it's also important—. And we're talking about professional learning for any teacher or provider, or it's sometimes the more informal training they receive by making visits, joint visits, to provision and also using the expertise that we do have within the sector to work more closely with our schools, and vice versa, particularly around the curriculum. And I think this is the opportunity the new curriculum provides, providing our staff have the funding to do that and the opportunities we need to be creating around that as well. But in the past, there might well have been some staff who perhaps hadn't had those school experiences and vice versa. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can I just ask you about transition arrangements, because I know some of the issues that have arisen in my own constituency is when a pupil is in a PRU and then trying to get back into mainstream education? It isn't a clear, sort of, going from one to the other—sometimes a child can find themselves at home because they're not able to get back into the school setting, the main school setting. How are you addressing that? +Nick Williams: Well, again, I can only speak for ourselves. We've had a big investment of time, and there will be money and through band B, we're building a brand-new PRU provision in Swansea, which will be open in January 2021. So, we've recognised that, so that we have our staff working very closely with the schools. There's an integration through a part-time timetable back into school, and we continue to support them during that process. But then, when they're back in school, that support doesn't stop—that support continues, and then there's a managed reduction in that support. And that's proven very successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It sounds to me very—. Yes, good—. +Nick Williams: But I'll be honest with you, the more challenging your learners are the ones who are coming to the end of their statutory education, your key stage 4. It is far, far more difficult when they're 15, 16 to get them back into mainstream. So, then you're looking more at how you transit, then, into further education and colleges and so on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Thank you. In your view— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, have you got anything to add, Sharon, in terms of—? Because, obviously, we've had the Swansea perspective. I mean, how effective are Torfaen at reintegrating young people into mainstream education? +Sharon Davies: As Nick said, it does get more difficult at key stage 4, and it's working, then, with—. It comes back to that team-around-the-family approach, to ensure what is needed for that learner to go back into school, what can the school provide. It's looking at the whole package of support, then, that surrounds not just the learner but the family, whether it's transport—it's looking at the whole agenda, then, to ensure that everything is in place for that learner to go back to school, where it's possible. +David Hopkins: I think, Chair, at least one authority is looking at how they can best retain all pupils in the school setting, but it's early days yet for looking at that. I mean, that's an ideal, obviously, but it does mean looking at your funding constructively and carefully, and it brings—. The principle is fine, but it does bring a host of other issues with it, if you see what I mean. But it's certainly a model worth looking at. It's been tried elsewhere, and we keep an eye on that, but we don't really know what the outcomes have been long term with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: And which authority is that? +David Hopkins: I don't think I'm allowed to say at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. And where is it being tried elsewhere? In England, is it? +David Hopkins: Oxfordshire. +Sharon Davies: A few years ago, I used to be a primary headteacher in England, so we were looking at different models, then, at various conferences, and I believe Oxford, as a local authority—they had a PRU, and they had discussions with their secondary schools, then, whether to get rid of the PRU, as such, and give the money back into schools. But they looked at a partnership within the schools, then, to say, 'Okay, you can have the money, but there's got to be terms of reference'—not quite a service level agreement, but the schools worked together as a partnership, then, so that they couldn't keep moving the children around, the learners around. It's looking at how well that worked. It started off really well, but that was a few years ago, so I don't know whether it's continued now. But that was a model that, at the time, that local authority looked at to get more money into schools and to get schools, then, to have that responsibility—that they didn't offload the learners elsewhere. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nick, you wanted to—. +Nick Williams: Yes, sorry. We do something similar in Swansea. We've operated this now for almost three years, where we devolve—the word is 'devolve', as opposed to 'delegate'—the money to secondary schools to try and give them some extra resource to manage the process, and they have to produce an action plan, which we monitor, about how they're using that funding. But, obviously, we recognise that—and it's back to your original question, the first question—we still have learners, unfortunately, despite pretty effective support and provision in nearly all our schools, because of the very, very challenging behaviour we're experiencing, who do need additional and bespoke support, which in fairness the school can't provide. So, it's a mixed economy, if you like, in Swansea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. So, in your view, though, what are the reasons for the delays that some children experience in accessing EOTAS provision? +Nick Williams: Capacity— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What? Sorry, I missed that. +Nick Williams: Sorry. Capacity: we just haven't got enough spaces in some cases, some year groups and so on. Obviously, given what I've said as well, and I'm sure it'd be the same for all local authorities, we've got to have robust systems and panels and so on to make sure that everything possible has been done to meet the needs of the learner in their home provision, if you like, the home school. So, there might be a time period when the learners are on a part-time timetable, which isn't ideal, I accept, but again, it's working with the families and the youngsters. Also, for us as well we've reinvigorated our managed move provision and discussion. We have somebody who oversees that and works very closely with our secondary schools so that we give almost a second chance to learners. Sometimes, it works really well; sometimes, the learner turns around and says, 'Actually, I preferred it in my old school.' So, there's a cooling-off period as well. I think the learner voice is very important there, because—. We've got to have a package, I think, that is quite wide in its offer. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What would be the advantages or disadvantages, then, of local authorities having commissioning frameworks for providers, and for EOTAS providers to have approved status? +Nick Williams: Obviously, we do do that, but we're struggling sometimes for additional provision—very important around safeguarding. However, we don't want to make it too difficult, so that we haven't got any providers coming forward either. So, it's a little bit of a balancing act. But, first and foremost, safeguarding is at the forefront of our thinking. But I think, then, we need to perhaps think about how the staff in that sort of additional provision—what sort of training and support they have. At the moment, that is a struggle for us, because we're managing those pressures in our own provision whilst we go out and observe through a provision framework to make sure that the provision is—. But, to actually offer some additional training is a challenge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. To what extent do local authorities know about the level of EOTAS provision that is organised by individual schools, whether in an FE college or otherwise off the school site? +Nick Williams: I can only speak for Swansea. We know, as part of that plan that we ask our schools to send in, they have to put down where that provision is. And obviously, as part of the visits, as well, to the schools by the challenge advisers, the school should be monitoring that provision and quality assuring that provision. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And how is safeguarding monitored in terms of privately run EOTAS? Independent. +Nick Williams: The schools would have to make sure that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But is that happening, do you know? +Nick Williams: Yes, because schools do take safeguarding very, very seriously. They see the importance of it. It's their prime driver in many ways. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And is there a role for local authorities in quality assuring, monitoring or evaluating the EOTAS provision organised by individual schools? +Nick Williams: Yes, but a lot of the additional provision is provision we also use, in our experience. So, if it's MTP or something through the college, like a mechanics course or something like that, we're probably using it ourselves. So, it is quality assured, if you like, by two sides. +Sharon Davies: In Torfaen, our secondary schools have set out their own TCP—Torfaen curriculum panel—which looks at alternative provision. So, you've got senior leaders there who attend those meetings. The meetings are facilitated and they're currently undergoing a review of the alternate provisions each school is doing because, sometimes, it's worked in the past, but what they're seeing now is that it's not quite working now, and it's understanding why. Is it due to the complexity of the learners coming through? Or is it that the providers are not offering what the learners are seeking any more? So, it's looking as well at, coming back to that curriculum offer, is it the right curriculum offer for those learners? And the training of the staff, do we have the right staff? It's capacity, then. It's just quality assuring the provision. Just because it's worked in the past—it's about keeping that momentum going. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And should local authorities take a greater role in quality assuring individual tuition? +Sharon Davies: Can I just ask what you mean by individual tuition? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I suppose individual tuition in terms of each individual, I would assume that means. +Sharon Davies: Okay. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I wouldn't like to think anyone was falling through— +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the purpose of the question is around home tuition, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Individual tuition in terms of we wouldn't want any child, if they're away from a main-school setting, to slip through the net in terms of tuition, or safeguarding even. +Sharon Davies: I suppose the difficulty with home tuition is, as a local authority, we're restricted on how much access we get into the home. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Well, I appreciate that, and that's the—[Inaudible.] +Sharon Davies: Therefore, it's really difficult then to quality assure, because unless the families invite us in there's very little—. We are restricted in that respect. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about if they're in a private setting? +Nick Williams: If they're following a restricted timetable or whatever, because maybe they're school anxious and so on, and we're trying to get them into our provision like that, the home-tuition staff work for us. We don't use agency staff, for instance, to go in and provide a few hours of provision, or to go to the local library. So, for whatever reason their needs at the moment can't be met in a school or in approved provision, then the staff who do provide some education, or if it's for medical reasons, they work for us in the local authority. So, we're not using— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is that widespread around Wales? +Nick Williams: I don't really know the answer to that, I'm sorry. I can only speak for Swansea. +Sharon Davies: We're very similar to that. +David Hopkins: Historically, there has been a general pattern, and if you're making a provision you will quality assure it, clearly. I think your question is probably about other forms of provision and how do you quality assure those. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Absolutely, yes. +David Hopkins: And that's more difficult to answer, I suspect. +Lynne Neagle AM: What we were driving at was home tuition that is commissioned by the local authority, but I think Nick has answered that now, really, if that's a consistent answer for local authorities. Can I just ask, before we move on, in the WLGA paper, you say you're concerned about the 'potential impact of changes to the registration of pupils who are EOTAS and the implications for the management of data/funding/joint working'. Can you expand on those concerns for the committee? +Nick Williams: I think it's, you know— +Lynne Neagle AM: It was the WLGA paper, actually. +David Hopkins: It was a joint paper. You go on. +Nick Williams: It's about getting that money following the learner and so on, and that shared ownership of the learner that the schools need to keep, because we want them reintegrated back into schools—that's the aim of any provision that we put in. It's not permanent—except, for certain learners, that might be the case—so they're still, if you like, part and parcel of the school. I think one of your other colleagues asked about the off-rolling, if you like—another term that's used—of students when they get to GCSEs so they don't count in schools' data. We're trying to very much move away from that, through the messages that we all give our schools. The messages that governors and headteachers then give to their staff. So: 'They're our learners. They're the most vulnerable learners we've got.' And for the individuals, for the families, and for society, if we can't support these learners—we know the links then to crime, and the cost to us as a society as well. So, it's in all our interests to do the very best for these learners. +Lynne Neagle AM: You won't get any arguments from us on that. Siân Gwenllian has got some questions on the curriculum. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I just want to discuss a little about the curriculum as it stands, and thinking about transferring to a new curriculum, of course. What are the challenges? I'll begin with the WLGA, in general, and ask you, in both your areas, what are the challenges to ensure that EOTAS learners have access to a broad and balanced curriculum, and that there are learning opportunities that are appropriate for them? What are the challenges associated with that? +David Hopkins: In general terms—. You differentiate there between EOTAS and PRUs. PRUs: clearly, we know that they are following a set curriculum; they are inspected; they are under the control of the local authorities. So, we're happy and content that that is moving along and that the balance is there. Where home tuition is provided through the local authority, as has been discussed, again, there should be safeguards there to make sure that that quality assurance takes into account what the pupil is receiving. You can't always guarantee what then happens in the home. As you say, particular things happen there, and they may not get that. But that's a matter the authority has got to be aware of and tackle. It's more difficult where, I suspect, it's being provided by a third party that's been commissioned. The commissioning arrangements should ask for those things to be put into place; it's all about the monitoring then. But that's a very general, broad-brush answer. I couldn't give you a definitive one of what's happening across Wales. My colleagues can probably tell you what's happening in their localities, and that would be helpful. But in general: PRUs, yes, we'd be satisfied; home tuition that is commissioned and managed through the local authority, yes, we would be satisfied; other areas, we would not be able to give a definitive answer on, is my guess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does that worry you? +David Hopkins: Me? +Sian Gwenllian AM: The WLGA. +David Hopkins: Of course it's a concern. If you can't guarantee quality in any shape or form for a young person, it is a concern. +Nick Williams: In the region, we do collaborate with each other in terms of staff training. Certainly, they also work with school staff as well. So, the developments are quite positive currently, but there is work to do, I agree. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the how curriculum is at present, are you happy that it's being delivered? +Nick Williams: To be honest, we are— +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the PRUs? +Nick Williams: To be honest, they are broad and balanced. They have to be broad and balanced currently. But there's working together now in terms of the new curriculum, and using the opportunity that exists now to collaborate with school staff as well. +Sharon Davies: Collaboration, I think, is the answer, between the PRUs and the schools. Collaborate and have joint working to ensure that the learners have what they need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I can see how collaborative working with the units can work—because they're under your control—the problem is the other parts of the system, in a way. +Nick Williams: They're not with other people all the time; they just go for something So, they would still have literacy and numeracy and Welsh—that would still be provided in the PRU. So, they're not out all the time. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, it's beyond the PRUs I'm talking about. If a pupil is in a PRU, you are telling me that they have the curriculum. But for those who are in homes, or in private provision, perhaps who are not in your experience—. Maybe, this morning, we're getting a picture of the best practice, and we're not going under the surface to where things aren't as good in some areas. Do you agree that there is that inconsistency? What we're hearing about now are the best elements. +Nick Williams: Consistency is developing across Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With the curriculum? +Nick Williams: Yes, and in terms of collaboration. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it is developing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. Questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. It's really around support. It follows on a little bit from what Siân was saying. Can I also just refer back to the point that David was making earlier on about ALN and the extent to which ALN support is available to learners in EOTAS? The information that we've had is that it's difficult enough in mainstream schools, but in an EOTAS setting, it's particularly challenging. So, how can that be improved? What can we do to address that? The reason I'm saying that is there are particular needs of learners in an EOTAS setting—that's why they're there, quite often. So, it's almost more important that that ALN provision follows them through. +David Hopkins: If a child has additional needs, of course they should be met, whatever the setting. But I take your point. There's a possibility that—. Again, going back to the previous question, we would know within, say a PRU or any local authority commissioned or delivered tuition—whatever form that took—then those needs definitely should be being met. I can't tell you hand on heart whether they all are or not—I don’t know—but they should be. Once you get out of that very tightly regulated part of the system, then, again, if a child has a particular need, of course that need should be met, but it becomes increasingly difficult. So, I think there possibly is an issue there, but I don't know whether my colleagues have a greater understanding of that. But there certainly may well be an issue there. +Dawn Bowden AM: There is a disconnect between what should be happening and what actually is happening, isn't there? Even in some local authority PRUs where we expect all of this to be happening, we know that it’s not; we know that the full curriculum is not being provided either. The basic numeracy, literacy and well-being stuff is taking place, but there is discrepancy of provision, even in local authority commissioned EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I think there will be variations in provision, but I would say that, within the local authority maintained sector, that provision should be being made. If it's not, the local authority concerned should be aware of that and should be dealing with that. +Nick Williams: We've probably—[Inaudible.]—in Swansea if you look at the inspections of the provision. Going back some years, they weren't— What you're describing, it was true. However, the most recent inspection is very positive, and not that we recognise that there's no work to be done; we're not being complacent. But to answer your question, I think the biggest challenge is the capacity. So, I suppose that comes down to additional funding, because I'd like a dedicated educational psychologist spending their time possibly only with our PRU youngsters and EOTAS provision, but we haven't got the capacity because of the demands on us from the wider system. +Dawn Bowden AM: And—. Sorry, go on. +Sharon Davies: It's kind of what Nick said about capacity, but it's also ensuring the right staff as well, because sometimes, you may have them, but if they move on, or retire, or whatever, there's not a bus load, if you like, of people with that expertise. Because sometimes it takes years to build up on that expertise, and therefore, it's quite niche, and once that person has moved on, it's really difficult to start all over again. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Absolutely. It's more than just one person—it's the whole training package that goes around that capacity as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and I'll come back to that in a moment. +Nick Williams: But I think that's something we could do better. I think we need to be more—. Because that's not just down to money, it's making sure that we perhaps offer, through our teacher training colleges, the opportunity for them to spend some time. At the moment, a newly qualified teacher can't work in this type of provision, which you can argue, that's fine, they need to perhaps get mainstream first. But we need a group of people in the future to fill those gaps. So, that should be built in to their teacher training, and even through their ongoing professional development, both ways—staff actually coming out to schools, going into our provision and vise versa—because you can also get very isolated if you've worked in PRUs for—. You've got very specialist skills, but you perhaps need those wider experiences as well. So, we could be doing more there, and I think that's probably, the group I chair, a discussion we need to have. +Dawn Bowden AM: And on that point, actually, we did hear from Estyn the point you were making about the staff leaving and there are very small numbers of staff working in that provision. There really isn't the capacity for them to access professional training. Is that your experience? And if so, what can we do about that? +Sharon Davies: I think it's limited. I think it is getting better, as Nick mentioned. There are networks now, there are conferences. It is an improving picture, but I think it's limited. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, okay. So, is there any way that local authorities can encourage specialist teachers and educational psychologists to actually share expertise with independent providers of EOTAS? +Nick Williams: Yes, but again, it's a capacity issue, because if we take them out of the provision, it's difficult for perhaps a supply teacher to come in and manage that class because of the demands. So, it's not an easy conundrum. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. But you're saying, really, take it back to teacher training and start at that point so that every teacher has at least some basic awareness of dealing with education in that setting. I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Or whether there's an opportunity, if somebody wants to lead into that more, that there's an opportunity to do it; that there's an offer there, if they want to specialise more into that area. But at the minute, there isn't that option. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Can I just take you back to pupil support? We talked about ALN. What about access to mental health services? What's your experience of EOTAS learners' access to mental health support? +Nick Williams: Again, even in the region there's variation there because we've got three health boards over the footprint of the south-west and mid Wales region. So, it varies. That's my understanding, anyway, and I think that's similar across Wales. Ours hasn't been great, to be honest with you. And that's one of the positive steps, that health boards have to have a DECLO now—don't ask me, I can't remember what the exact abbreviation is—but we've met with the designated education clinical lead officer, and I think those partnerships will be strong in the future. But it's also us then having a well-being strategy and support that is universal. So, there's counselling and so on to make sure that the learners are going through, if you like—. Not that we're trying to stop them going through, but we're trying to deal with them appropriately at the different stages so that they're not inundated either. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, of course. But is your experience also that a lack of mental health support in mainstream schools could potentially be leading to more learners ending up in an EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I was going to say, about the question, I think there's a general deficit in child and adolescent mental health services, for example. I'm not criticising the services, I'm just saying the capacity isn't there, as we would like. So, I think there's probably a more general issue there that would, in turn, translate into pupils who've got additional needs, whether they're in EOTAS, PRU or wherever. I suspect—I've not got an evidence base to offer you, but there's a very long-standing problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, you had a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just to return to teacher training, and you say that new teachers can't go straight into a unit, and maybe more emphasis is needed on that aspect. But generally speaking, if there's an increase in challenging behaviour, are new teachers able—? They don't have the experience, but are they equipped well enough to deal with that? Because we hear of so many people leaving the profession because of this challenging behaviour, and again, I wonder if the system has adequately caught up with that. And we need—not just in this aspect—but we need to look at the system holistically to be more prepared to deal with challenging behaviour. Do you know what I'm saying? +Nick Williams: It's not just—. If people decide not to go into teaching after having training, it's not just because of challenging behaviour. There is a change now. There is more time for students in schools, so that helps. You need the theory, but also the practice—that's important to have somebody who can mentor you in the school and that shows good practice. Then there are the policies that the school uses to assure that there is consistency across the whole school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But if we're facing a situation where there are fewer wanting to go into the profession and we are losing those most experienced people, then it creates a great big challenge, doesn't it? We're looking at something very limited here, but we need to look at it in the bigger picture of what's happening. Would you agree with that? +Sharon Davies: Yes, certainly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sharon, the CAMHS in-reach project is operational in Gwent, but my understanding is that they don't include PRUs. Is that right? +Sharon Davies: I don't know if that is the—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's fine, that's my understanding. I just wanted to ask, then, the Gwent attachment team has been working with PRUs in Gwent, and the committee is familiar with the work of the Gwent attachment team, can you just tell us what you think the impact of that has been in terms of support for staff and embedding that awareness of attachment and early trauma in the PRUs? +Sharon Davies: I think any form of professional learning, it's positive, and, therefore, as we alluded to earlier, it's that expertise training for the PRU then and for the staff there. It's having a positive impact. At the minute, I don't know what the overall impact is. I think it's early days, but it seems to be positive. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet, I think some of the areas have been covered. Is there anything you want to pick up from the—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think the rural aspect—are you aware that there are any issues relating to transport for EOTAS learners, particularly in more rural parts or areas of Wales? +Nick Williams: Certainly, in our region, in Powys, from north Powys, when you're almost in Oswestry, down to Ystradgynlais, which is not far from me. So, you've got provision for those types of learners there. I think they've got provision in the north and south of the county, but you're still talking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What provision in the north? +Nick Williams: I think there's a PRU provision in the north of Powys and one in the south— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, north of Powys. +Nick Williams: North Powys. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, I thought you meant north Wales. Sorry. +Nick Williams: Sorry. But even so, the distances that those learners are having to travel are huge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I've got a—. It's a big issue. +Nick Williams: For myself, and I'd hazard a guess, Torfaen, we're relatively compact, aren't we, so it's not such an issue. +Lynne Neagle AM: Has the WLGA got any comment on the transport issue? +David Hopkins: I'm not aware of issues, if I'm honest, but then again, it may be something we've not investigated. I'm quite happy to look at that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time. We have probably got a few areas that we'll write to you about, if that's okay. Can I thank you for your attendance this morning? We will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for attending. The committee will break until 10:20, but can Members not shoot off for a sec, please? Okay, can I welcome everybody back to our next evidence session, which is our sixth evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school? I'm very pleased to welcome Sarah Stone, executive director for Wales of Samaritans; Liz Williams, policy and communications officer at Samaritans; and Dr Ian Johnson, who is the manager of children and young people's mental health at Mind Cymru. Thank you all for attending. If it's okay, we'll go straight and questions. If I can just start by asking you what you think the main reasons are why we are seeing this increase in the numbers of children and young people being excluded from school. +Sarah Stone: I think you were going to—. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's a very difficult subject, because, in many cases, we're not really sure what the data looks like. We get these things from quite a broad perspective, and we don't actually see the extent of the reasons why. If you look at, for example, the statistical release, then you get a sense of why people are being excluded, but they tend to be—. It's a very reductionist discussion, so you see reasons like persistent disruptive behaviour, verbal abuse or physical assaults, but you don't actually get the underlying factors that are influencing that. Now, we know that that information exists, because, obviously, schools don't exclude anybody lightly, and I speak as someone who's been until this academic year a governor on secondary and primary schools. So, there's a great deal of paper trail, but that doesn't seem to really find its way up to a higher level. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And how concerned are you about the trend that we're seeing of an increase in younger children being excluded, and what do you think the reasons might be for that? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's very concerning that we're seeing increases amongst younger children in particular. Those have gone up quite substantially in the past few years, and a lot of the evidence that we're hearing is quite anecdotal, so it tends to be around the behavioural issues or underlying issues, and there's a lot of discussion about the adverse childhood experiences agenda and how that's—. So, there's a better understanding of that, but I'm not in a position at the moment, really, to be able to explain why primary schools maybe are actually taking that position and excluding more than they used to. +Sarah Stone: What I would say is that the reason that Samaritans did our report on exclusions from school rested with—. They began with anecdotal information coming through to us around individual distress and from projects working with young people who'd been excluded. And there are projects that are working with young people who are being excluded—I mean primary school children. And the major thing we say in our report is that we—. So, this is enough to ask us some serious questions, to which we don't know the answer, unless we actually do some serious work on this. So, I would reiterate what we say in our report: that we need to examine this. It's a really important issue, and the life trajectory of those young people is being impacted by their exclusion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You may not be able to answer this, but to what extent do you think school accountability measures are having an impact on the numbers of exclusions? +Dr Ian Johnson: Well, I think it's very interesting, looking at Estyn's pupil registration practices report from October last year, which looks at off-rolling, and I think that you see, specifically at year 10 to 11, a strong impact: around 4 per cent of pupils are off-rolled between year 10 and 11, but you're also seeing a number between 1.5 and 2 per cent that are off-rolled in any given year between year 8/year 9, year 9/year 10. So, I think it's clear that there's been a substantial increase in the numbers off-rolled in that year 10 to 11, but what I think is concerning for me is the normalisation, throughout the system, at secondary school level, where there's off-rolling between year 7/8, year 8/9. Based around there being around 30,000 to 32,000 in each cohort, then you're looking at 500 to 600 children in any given year, and I think we need to understand why that is the norm, what could be done around that, as well as looking into the obvious impact of that at year 10 to 11. The Estyn work is quite factual. It's looking at the numbers. I think we need to dig a bit deeper and understand the story behind that and whether there's a specific reason why schools are doing that, related to the accountability measures. It'll be interesting to see the impact of changes towards capped 9 et cetera, but I think we need a bit more qualitative work on that rather than just the quantitative work that's currently available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Liz Williams: I think there's also a problem with schools only being measured on academic outcomes rather than the journey travelled by the child and the efforts put in by the school to nurture the well-being of children who are particularly vulnerable. So, I suppose, if you consider that, this is something that definitely needs to be looked at further so that there's incentive for schools to keep children who are perhaps demonstrating challenging behaviour or perhaps aren't attaining brilliant grades. So, I think that's something that needs to be looked at further. +Sarah Stone: And, just finally, if that's okay, just to cross-refer the committee to the loneliness and isolation strategy, to which we made extensive representations on this issue. A part of the strategy talks about using our approach to accountability to recognise inclusive schools and reduce incentives to remove pupils from schools. So, that is a commitment in that strategy. It's a really important commitment to make a reality of that, because, actually, what is happening, I think, is that there are incentives that are perverse around this issue. +Dr Ian Johnson: Could I just come in on that? I think there's an interesting, again, qualitative, quantitative, element to what happens to those children who move into PRU, EOTAS provision in their earlier years in school and those as they reach a later point in their school career. So, I think there's a question, then, about—I was talking earlier about those children who move in in years 7/8, 8/9, et cetera, and how they loop back into the mainstream education system, what happens to them, but then what happens to those who may be reaching the end of their formal education career and move into EOTAS, PRU provision, and what happens to those young people afterwards? I'm sure we'll pick up some of that as we go through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders around the support for learners who are at risk of becoming EOTAS. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. To what extent is adequate support provided to pupils who are at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Sarah Stone: Okay. So, this was a major focus around the piece of work that we did, and we came up with a range of suggestions. I think the quick answer is that what we've seen is a strong indication that it isn't, and that it's—. But also that it's not simply a question of the young person, that it's a question of the whole school environment and how that interacts with the challenges that a young person might be facing. So, there are a couple of big things to say on this one. One is that we want to promote a compassionate response and an informed response by everybody in the school to distressed young people—and that distress may show in a number of ways, not necessarily just as obvious distress. So, I think it's understanding that, having a confident response and, obviously, this links with expressing suicidal thoughts and distress as well, which may not come out in exactly that way—but being able to respond where young people are expressing suicidal thoughts. And I think if we connect this with the agenda around adverse childhood experiences, and if you see the young person—. I think what we as Samaritans really wanted to do was to focus on the distressed individual—that's what we do, it's what we're majorly about. So, a young person who is experiencing a whole range of adversity in their own life may be presenting at school in a very challenging way, perhaps. That school may also be their only safe place, and I think that's just a really simple thing just to keep remembering. Hearing headteachers and teachers talk about this, a lot of them are very aware of that, and there are some great examples of schools working to reduce exclusions and understanding the fork in the road that exclusion or not exclusion represents in the life of that young person. There are restorative justice-type approaches being used by schools in Cardiff that seem extraordinarily inspiring. I've heard—. There's been so much interest in this piece of work that we've done, and I've spoken to many educators since, and so it's doing what we needed to do, which is to get people talking about it. Because I think it's not about providing a simplistic answer to this question of support, it is understanding that it's a whole-school question. It's building on the excellent work that is being done by schools in different parts of Wales, joining that up and making that much more general. So, I think that's the opportunity: is to really recognise that this is a big issue, and that, if you don't hold young people within an educational setting, the lifetime consequences for them, including their elevated risk of suicide—it's very hard to reverse that. So, I think we want to focus on a distressed young person and how we respond to that, and it's amazing to move someone on from where they started, and loads of teachers will tell you examples of how they've done that and how they've felt that's not sufficiently recognised by the measures that they're subjected to. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's an issue where it's very important both to focus on the individual, but also on the macro situation, and, as Sarah mentioned, I think the whole-school approach, which is something that's been discussed within this committee, as part of the 'Mind over matter' work, is something that is hugely important. And that's why that should be—there should be statutory provision regarding a whole-school approach. Because understanding—. That prevention operating all the way through the whole-school community will, hopefully, be very effective in providing support levels, ensuring that that support is in place from the very beginning, all the way through primary school, all the way through secondary school, to ensure that learners are being supported and that that is something that's at the forefront of people's considerations whenever they're considering what a pupil is doing, and why they might be doing it. And that then also links back into consideration around adverse childhood experiences. But, generally, just that thinking about the behaviour and the emotional response first, I think, is hugely important in this context. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And what do you think could be done more, and by whom, to help schools to support pupils to remain in mainstream education? +Sarah Stone: So, this is where we set out nine recommendations in our report and I think the major message is, as I said before, that we don't have a simple answer to this one. However, there are a number of things that we need to do: we need to recognise the impact of adverse childhood experiences; we need to train teachers so that they have an understanding response and are much more confident in that; we need to learn from what works; we need to listen to the voices of young people themselves. That's terribly important, because—. I know this committee is very well aware of that, because you've done very good work listening to the direct voices of young people, but they are very often able to articulate quite a lot about what is needed. I would also add to that that we would want young people themselves to be skilled up in understanding and recognising their own emotions, because this is about putting in place that awareness, that consciousness, if you like, about being able to name and recognise feelings. There's great international evidence on the importance of that and the benefit of it, which was carried out when the new curriculum was being developed, and the health aspect of that. So, we've kind of done that work in Wales. What we would like to see is that new curriculum around health and well-being and mental health and awareness being in the curriculum, so that young people, on a statutory basis—. Otherwise, you're entrenching the differences and the inequalities between teaching across Wales, because the good will do it, and perhaps others will find it much harder. So, that's a major message as well. So, I think there's a menu, if you like, and some of it is very much about respecting the experience of teachers and of schools and working with them, because this is about working with their will to do things well. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think what's important, and maybe it's implicit within the question about helping to support pupils remain in mainstream schools, is working out what is the best support at this point in time for the young person. So, that has to be taken deeply into consideration. Obviously, the schools provide whatever support they can, but what is the best for the young person at this time? And that answer will differ from individual to individual. I think it is important to have the learner voice playing a role within this, and it's important to get more of a child-centred voice around this. One of the projects that Mind will be working on in Wales in the next year is regarding an inclusive education inquiry, where we'll be forefronting the voices of young people within the evidence, because at the moment a lot of the evidence that we have is data-driven or anecdotal, and I think we want to get to the bottom of how young people feel, and how they find this. Sarah's referred to the curriculum. I think there's a lot to be done, still, with regard to PRU and EOTAS with the new curriculum, and, hopefully, we'll be able to outline some of that in terms of questions later on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are your views on the balance between funding being used for diagnosis and support, because I know that the Samaritans report suggested that funding tends to go into diagnosis rather than support? How can the balance be addressed? +Liz Williams: I think it's a really difficult balance, but it was something that was brought up in the research stages of our report. So, we held a round table during the research period, and participants said that they were particularly concerned about the lack of awareness and knowledge of children who had additional learning needs. And, obviously, this is quite serious because these children are at risk of being excluded and are over-represented in excluded groups. And they were particularly concerned about children who were sort of on the cusp, or not properly diagnosed, and a lot of these children would have things like attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and, again, these made up the cohort of pupils who were excluded. So, when you consider that, you tend to think, actually, diagnosis could be really useful, so that staff are aware of the pupil's needs, and maybe aware of why the child might be demonstrating challenging behaviour. However, what participants did say was that unless there was a proper understanding of the child's condition or additional learning needs, and that the proper support was there, then diagnosis alone wasn't of value. So, I think one of the participants said that up to 50 per cent of learners in a classroom could have an additional learning need, so, again, if the support isn't there, that child isn't going to benefit from diagnosis. And what was really highlighted is the importance of the school being inclusive, and for that child, regardless of whether they had an additional learning need or not, to have proper opportunity to progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And, then, to what extent are schools aware of the impact of early trauma ACEs, and how are schools adapting their practices to take account of them? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really capable of saying that on an individual level. We're aware, as you've heard from previous evidence from heads of education, et cetera, directors of education, that work is going on on an all-Wales basis, and there's obviously an awful lot of work that's going on on the ACEs agenda. I referred to being a previous school governor, and that's somewhere that's become a trauma-informed school, and they have established that and are widening that base. I think that what the school does though is something that has to loop back, as I said, with the curriculum changes as we're going forward. There's a concern that I have at the moment regarding the progress on EOTAS and PRU within the new curriculum, and there's work that I think will still need to be done, and something that I'm sure will be considered by this committee when it deals with the curriculum assessment Bill when it comes forward later on in the year, because there were comments made by the education Minister, I think, in response to Suzy Davies, in the statement in January, that we're talking about disallowing areas of the curriculum on the basis of the individual learner, to which I have no concern in itself. However, the emotional and mental health well-being needs of this particularly vulnerable group of people needs to be centre stage. So, the role of the health and well-being area of learning and experience, and the role of mental health and emotional well-being within the curriculum, is hugely important. +Sarah Stone: And I think, just to add to that around the impact of early trauma, I think one of the things that we at Samaritans are particularly aware of is the impact of loneliness and isolation on individuals and how that can help to drive distress and suicidal ideation. That sense of belongingness is recognised by the research as being critical to functioning well as a human being. We are social beings. And one of the ways in which early trauma and adversity, if that leads to exclusion from a range of groups, is to lead to lifelong isolation. It's something that comes out when you look at middle-aged men. You look at a trajectory that goes back towards their early years, very often, and Samaritans is about to release some research on that very point. So, there's a connection between what happens in later life and what happens here. There's also, if we look at the numbers of exclusions around boys, and we're looking at much higher suicide rates and numbers of other issues around men—. Again, I think it's important to see this whole picture— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It's very bad in north Wales. Our figures are very worrying. +Sarah Stone: Yes, exactly. So, there's a bigger picture here. I would say that we want to do something to mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences, and we have this great opportunity to release the potential of those young people whose, often, strength and resilience is quite extraordinary in circumstances that many of us would find hard to imagine. So, we need to look at the assets that young people have as well, which you can work with. So, I think if there's a real opportunity to create a change, this is one of them. This issue about exclusions and PRUs—this is a chance to make that ambition real. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you so much. Very good. +Liz Williams: Just to reiterate what Sarah said, looking at our research, which, obviously, isn't yet published but will be soon, it really is quite shocking how these men fell through the net so many times when they were young, and, actually, how many missed opportunities there were to intervene in the cycles of inequality. It is quite clear from that research that these stages where children are demonstrating challenging behaviour are the first signs of distress. So actually, this is where we should be intervening. So, I think like Sarah said, it is really important to see this as a preventative agenda. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A few questions around providing support for learners. You've set out very clearly what you think needs to happen in your report, your nine points and so on, but what's your view on the support currently provided, both in a school setting and EOTAS settings for mental health support? Have you been able to get that sort of information? Have you got a sense of—? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really in a position to answer fully as to what's going on. I think that part of the problem is there's not really a national picture that we can pick up in terms of data or information regarding this, and I think that's really why there's been such a push towards seeing this in the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure. So much of your evidence is anecdotal, is it? It's people that have been referred to you, come to you for help, and you just—or your own research. What—? +Dr Ian Johnson: The research that we're going to do is really where we're at, and that's because we feel that there is a gap there regarding how young people are experiencing this within the school environment and in general. I think, in particular, we're aware of increases—quite substantial increases in some cases—regarding self-harm, and concern that manifests itself slightly differently between girls and boys. Specifically, I think there's now an increasing focus on self-harm behaviour amongst girls in the 15 to 19 age range, but we're not entirely sure of how good the support is at schools. My experience of projects that I've been involved in—I was previously in front of this committee as part of the Time to Change Wales project—was that, overall, it depends quite strongly on the senior management team and their commitment. Where the SMT has taken a lead, then it feels that schools are really doing something. Where the SMT are, perhaps, a bit more laissez-faire regarding this, then it feels that maybe schools are not making such a step forward. And to come back to the point, that's why we feel that whole-school approach guidance needs to be statutory, because we'll otherwise reach some quite uneven outcomes, because those who are doing it well will really push ahead and those that are not so engaged will not be helping their pupils in the way that they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the EOTAS or PRU provision is going to be much more challenging then, isn't it, then main school provision. I suppose that was what I was trying to get at as well, whether you get a sense that there may be some progress being made in mainstream schools, is that following through in PRUs and EOTAS provision? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'll just be honest: right now, I couldn't give you an answer on that. I think that is something that, perhaps, slightly concerns me about the whole field is not being able to get a national feel for these issues. I would suspect that there are pockets of very good practice. I've heard discussions about things being done regionally and nationally, but I think it would be good to be able to see what that best practice looks like and how well it's done. +Dawn Bowden AM: I appreciate you're not educationalists and you wouldn't necessarily have all of that information, but have you got any sense of—again, whether this is anecdotal or from cases that are referred to you—evidence of schools off-rolling pupils with mental health problems? If you've got any evidence of that, what might the impact of that be on the individuals? +Liz Williams: Yes, I think that certainly does happen. I suppose we know this anecdotally from Samaritans research, but also I have experience of working in pupil referral units and working with some really vulnerable children, and I think there is a sense sometimes that these children are labelled as naughty and disruptive. So, children who have additional learning needs or a communication problem that potentially is undiagnosed or not really properly understood. I think when children have mental health problems and additional learning needs, often they can find the school environment really difficult. I've worked with children who have told me that they just don't enjoy being in the classroom because they feel incredibly anxious. They don't feel they can contribute to the school environment, they don't feel like they're keeping up with their classmates and, as a result, they demonstrate challenging behaviour so that they can leave the classroom. I think that's very sad. As a result, these children aren't always understood and are off-rolled in some cases. But, like Sarah said earlier, there are certainly examples of really good practice, and I suppose this links in to what approaches schools, pupil referral units and EOTAS should take to vulnerable children with mental health problems. One example I can give you is that, at one pupil referral unit, the children would get really distressed and really disruptive towards the end of the day on a Friday. I suppose that, in some schools, the teachers would have thought, 'This is ridiculous, they're disrupting the lessons', but what the teachers knew is that these children would go home, they would face such adversity, wouldn't always get a meal, would be exposed to things they shouldn't be exposed to, and the teachers were able to respond to that with compassion and empathy. But, obviously, seeing behind behaviour is really, really difficult, and I don't think teachers should have to do this alone, they should be properly trained and properly equipped. Even going up to a child—and I suppose this goes back to mental health support. Ideally, as Samaritans, we would want suicide prevention plans to be embedded in schools and to be part of the culture of schools, but obviously this can't happen if teachers aren't properly equipped and don't have the confidence to go up to a student and ask them if they're struggling. In our compassion in education toolkit, we highlight the importance of asking a child, 'Are you self-harming?', if there are signs; 'Have you tried to take your own life?', if there are signs. But obviously that's a very difficult conversation to have. So, yes, there are certainly examples of best practice, but I do believe that, if school staff aren't properly equipped and trained, off-rolling pupils, especially at key stage 4, where obviously you will hold those grades, is definitely something that they don't necessarily have the incentive to prevent. So it's worth looking at that. +Dawn Bowden AM: You touched, in the beginning of that response, on children being labelled as naughty. To what extent have you come across that? Is that quite prevalent? Is that quite common? +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes. I think it's really down to the school. I think it's down to experience and it's down to the teacher. I think it links up with the question we were asked before about diagnosis and support. Lots of children with communication difficulties especially, if they haven't been formally diagnosed, they are certainly the ones that are deemed naughty, because I suppose people think, 'Well, you should be doing well, you're bright. You should be thriving in school.' But that's not always the case. Children can be incredibly anxious, have mental health problems, obviously, are exposed to ACEs and things that go on at home that not necessarily every teacher would know about. So, I think there are definitely children who are labelled 'naughty', and I think children also play up to that as well. Like I said, if children are very anxious in the school environment and in the classroom, if they know they can get out of the classroom and get into a safe space, they will do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And then that labelling of a 'naughty' child is actually the impediment to getting that child the support that they need. +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes, and I think that's where formal diagnosis can be helpful. I think the doors are open then to much more school support. So, yes, I think it is down to how the school approach it, and it goes back to the whole-school approach and having emotional and mental health on a statutory basis in the curriculum. It embeds emotional well-being into the culture of the school, and it means that students might know when they need help, how to be more resilient and helping themselves, and when and how to ask for help from the teachers. So, I think it's really important. +Dr Ian Johnson: If I can just pick up on one of those points, Mind Cymru conducted a series of focus groups around Wales to inform our response to the new curriculum. One of the comments that I think struck home most strongly with me was a young boy saying that, because the same teacher was responsible for pastoral and behaviour, because he had been labelled as naughty or a troublemaker, he felt uncomfortable in terms of going to that same person within the school in order to disclose the problems he was having, because there was a fear of not being believed or accepted, or it being considered as an excuse for poor behaviour, rather than them being taken seriously. I wouldn't want to over-egg that point, but I think it is an important consideration from a learners' perspective. 'If I disclose a problem, if I want to talk to somebody, are there appropriate considerations within the school setting where I can turn to somebody who maybe I might not have the greatest relationship with in other contexts?' I'd also just like to come back to the off-rolling question if I may, just quite briefly. As I said at the outset of the evidence here, Estyn conducted a piece of work on pupil registration practices that showed a substantially higher amount of off-rolling between year 10 and 11, but also a consistent level—1.5 per cent to 2 per cent—in other secondary school years. But we don't have the qualitative material to understand how much of that is related to mental health factors, and how much—because we're in discussion about school accountability—might drive some of that at year 10/11. But we don't know why that baseline of 500/600 young people every year is there within our schools. I think that needs further investigation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thanks for that. Can I just ask you a couple of other questions about the impact of particular circumstances, and whether you've come across any issues relating to Welsh-medium provision to support the mental health and well-being of learners as an issue—that it's not been available, Welsh-medium support, for those learners? Have you come across that at all? +Dr Ian Johnson: We haven't necessarily come across it, but we haven't been looking for it either. The Estyn report notes that there are generally fewer off-rollings from Welsh-medium education to EOTAS. There are a number of potential reasons for that. That can include the complete lack of EOTAS provision within a local area. It could be the socio-economic profile, because exclusions, et cetera, are substantially higher amongst those who are eligible for free school meals, and in many parts of Wales the socio-economic profile of a Welsh-medium education school is slightly different. We are not aware of any particular work that's been done to examine the needs and the provision of Welsh-medium EOTAS. Therefore, my suspicion, without any particular evidence, would be that it happens on a local authority basis, possibly on an incidental basis, depending on the quality and the ability of staff, and possibly more prevalent therefore in west and north-west Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. We can come back to that again, I'm sure. Do you know whether there's any impact on learners where there are actually delays in accessing EOTAS, again in terms of mental health conditions, if there's a delay in getting them to the appropriate provision? Have you got any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, of the impact on that? +Sarah Stone: Not specifically researched on that situation. I think, again, there is so much that we don't actually know and that we should know a lot more about, but I think there are some things that we can say about delays for young people who are not either in education or in anything else, and they're connected with the issues anyway. So, if you understand that there's a strong link between inequality and exclusion, and that the most likely young people to be excluded have other disadvantages as well, that's a really important issue to understand. So, being out of school or out of education for any time is going to exacerbate those pre-existing inequalities, and I can't emphasis that enough. This is exacerbating this cycle of inequality and disadvantage. So, being outside your peer group makes you vulnerable. It makes you vulnerable, and I guess the longer that continues I would expect the worse that impact and that uncertainty would be. So, there's the impact on loneliness and young people seeking an alternative community to the school one. Since the publication of our report, we have had an extraordinary level of interest from people concerned about crime. So, we've talked to the youth justice board, we've met with the police, there's a huge level of concern about county lines and about home-growing drug gangs, and the fodder that those young people are for people who will engage them in all sorts of activities, which are hugely damaging both to themselves and also to the wider society. So, I think we need to understand there's a lot at stake here for wider society in holding young people, and not allowing gaps to grow where they are not held. I would just refer you to the child death review on suicide and suspected suicide by young people, which came out very recently from Public Health Wales and Swansea University, and that looked at 33 young people who died by suicide over the past few years. One thing that came through that and was reflected in one of their suggestions for action was that those young people had not been held in education or training or employment, had slipped through all sorts of systems, and were extremely vulnerable. So, I think that's a really big message: that we need to try to hold people and not allow those gaps—where they're not held within their society—to lengthen and become really, really difficult. So, I think that's my major message on that particular one. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just ask, as a follow on from that, whether you've got any views on the potential impact of individual tuition on learners' well-being? So, home tuition, for instance: are pupils going to be on their own doing that? That might be in their best interest, or do you have any concerns that it might not be? +Liz Williams: I suppose we don't have actual evidence to show the impact home schooling has on pupils, but what we do know and something that is of huge concern, I suppose, to most people is that there's no central data on how many young people are home schooled. So, it's quite likely that these children are hidden or invisible and could be at a huge risk of the adverse problems that are related to exclusion more generally. Also, it is a concern, if children aren't registered with any school, how they get back into school, how they reintroduce back into the schooling environment, if that's what people think is best for them. So, I think that is a concern: not having that transparency of data. And just to reiterate Sarah's point, I suppose, home schooling could tackle the more academic side of things, so it would mean that that child is still receiving an education, but it might not necessarily help with the adverse effects of exclusion, like loneliness and isolation. That child still isn't with its own peer group. That is something that came out of the men's research, as Sarah mentioned. These men, who are now middle aged and are at the highest risk of dying by suicide, weren't always interacting with children their own age, and that did cause problems in later life. So, I think it's definitely something we don't know enough about, but I think we need to know more about. +Dr Ian Johnson: There are two questions within there, regarding the delay in entering provision and the effect of long term individual teaching. I think there are occasions on which individual tuition will be beneficial, because there may be a reason why somebody is uncomfortable and unable to operate within an educational setting. However, it may be that, on a longer term basis, that is not entirely appropriate. But it's very much an individual matter. What concerns me, I think, is the idea of there being a gap between mainstream education and entering any form of EOTAS provision due to capacity or otherwise, because that is a period in time—. We don't know whether there's the causation of or exacerbation of mental health issues amongst those in EOTAS, but it's clear that—well, it seems intuitive that a gap between being in mainstream education and EOTAS is unhelpful, not least their rights to an education, but also the feelings that young people who are probably in quite a confused and troubled state may have during that gap and how long that gap can endure. I will refer back: there was a recommendation by Estyn in their 2016 report on EOTAS regarding CAMHS support for children within those settings, I don't know whether there's been any particular progress within that—and especially the mixture of issues that may be related to both mental health and also neurodevelopmental issues and whether those are more or less likely amongst this vulnerable part of the population. +Sarah Stone: Just to draw your attention to it, I think there's an acknowledgment that there's a lot we don't know about this. Again, in the loneliness and isolation strategy, there's a commitment to analyse existing education and health data to explore correlations between exclusions or being educated other than at school and mental well-being, including loneliness and isolation. So, I think that's a very welcome commitment to try to expand our understanding in this area, because there may be some pluses as well as minuses, but actually there is so much that we don't know about this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Siân Gwenllian. I think some of them have been covered, but— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in general, once a young person or a child has been excluded, is there enough support for them, not just on the educational side, but in general? Are we supporting these young people, these most vulnerable young people, once they're in the position of having been excluded? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'd say that that's something that's possibly happening locally, but we don't have a national picture. One of the things we have already noted is the time between being excluded and entering some kind of EOTAS provision. So, that in itself—and I've heard people talking about the capacity issues—shows what's happening to these children, at a time when they are most vulnerable because they are outside of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And who should be supporting them? Are we being clear enough with regard to who should be giving them the support? They've been excluded, so obviously the education system has a responsibility, but are we clear enough in terms of who else's responsibility this is, and who should be co-ordinating that support? +Dr Ian Johnson: The truth is, the responsibility lies on the local education authority in that context, I would say. The point is that, often, these children deal with several other institutions. So, it's incredibly important that any service is interweaved into that setting around the child or the children who are in this situation. More information is needed about this. When I was talking earlier about inclusive education, or some kind of investigation into this, that's the kind of thing I'd look at: how to bridge that gap and what kind of support will be available. I'm concerned, of course, in terms of education, whether there is enough funding available to ensure this. But because this is a very vulnerable group, we need to take responsibility in exactly the same way, perhaps, as corporate parenting plays a role there. We need to look at that kind of system, and how we help these individuals. I know there are figures available on local authorities, but I can't remember them off the top of my head, but maybe that's something to look at. +Liz Williams: And as Ian just said, although there's a lot of responsibility by the school and the local authority, I suppose some responsibility also sits with the parent as well. But for the parents to support their child, either if they're at risk of being excluded or if the child is already in EOTAS, and that parent wants to make sure that the child is having the best education possible, the parent has to have the right amount of information. They must know where to go for support themselves, and I think that a parent can't necessarily know the rights of their child to education and what their child is supposed to be having if they're not provided with all of the information. And I'm sure this is dependent on the school or dependent on the local authority, but that's something worth thinking about as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, unless you want to sum up—? +Dr Ian Johnson: Just a comment, really, on the new curriculum and ensuring that EOTAS provision includes this, and how the whole-school approach will work within EOTAS, and how we ensure that the provision is available through the medium of Welsh, as we were referring to earlier, on a national level. Is it possible that it can be worked out within the local consortia, for example? How do we ensure that the teachers—? If it's initial teacher training, or if they're newly qualified teachers, or if they're more experienced, how will this be implemented through the system? Because I think that children in EOTAS situations are usually more vulnerable than others, and therefore there is a need to prioritise their well-being and their mental health. We talk a lot about certificates and so forth, and qualifications, but ensuring everybody's well-being is important, and an important outcome of the work. So, we're thinking of this whole-school approach and how it works within the new curriculum, and this is a vital point for the years to come. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we finish, then, is there anything you wanted to add in terms of what the committee could recommend about professional development for staff that would enhance this provision in this area? +Liz Williams: Yes, absolutely. I think it's so important for teachers to be equipped with the training and to understand the link between inequality and all the things that come under that term, and challenging behaviour, and I think if teachers are aware of that, and trained properly to deal with that, the risk of exclusion will ultimately lessen. And I think with regard to how that can happen, I think, in some cases, mental health training and mental health awareness training is supplementary at times, with just teacher's training, but I think it should be embedded in the initial teacher's training, so that, more than anything, as well as being equipped with the skills, teachers have the confidence to deal with those really challenging situations. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Ian? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think that's the importance of a whole-school approach, and that being statutory, because that will ensure that everybody within the school community has that knowledge and awareness and knows what to do and where to signpost people. It means foregrounding and having that in the heart of the school ethos, and I think that turning the school into somewhere that considers mental health and emotional well-being first, rather than waiting for a problem—I think that's the key to improving the well-being of our future generations. +Sarah Stone: I just think it would be great if the community would recognise the link between inequality, adverse childhood experiences, and the opportunity that there is in avoiding a young person falling out of school, and out of anything, and out of sight. So, I think, the other side of this is that this is a real moment of opportunity to intervene positively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for your evidence. It's been a really valuable and worthwhile session. As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr. +Liz Williams: Diolch yn fawr. +Sarah Stone: Diolch yn fawr. +Dr Ian Johnson: Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4, then, is papers to note. Just one paper today, which is the Welsh Government's response to the committee's report on the scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget 2020-1. Are Members happy to note that? Thank you. Item 5, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting discussed various issues, including the rise in school exclusions in Wales. Apologies were received from Suzy Davies and Hefin David, with no substitutions. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting and declared her involvement in the cross-party group on suicide prevention. The panel comprised representatives from educational councils and the Welsh Local Government Association discussing factors contributing to the increase in exclusions, such as challenging behavior and additional learning needs. Strategies for support and reintegration of at-risk learners were examined, as well as the impact of school accountability measures on exclusions. Local authorities highlighted initiatives to engage parents and collaborative efforts between schools and PRUs to manage exclusions. Questions on funding pressures, particularly with the new Additional Learning Needs Act, and the challenges of variation in provision were raised. There was a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of having commissioning frameworks for EOTAS providers and the role of local authorities in quality-assuring privately run EOTAS, including individual tuition. + +Samaritans and Mind Cymru officials then addressed the committee, expressing concerns about the impact of school exclusions on children's mental health and the importance of a whole-school approach to support at-risk learners. They emphasized the need for teacher training in mental health awareness and for statutory guidance for schools to prioritize emotional well-being. The links between inequality, adverse childhood experiences, and the risk of exclusion were highlighted, along with the lack of national data on Welsh-medium support for mental health and delays in accessing EOTAS. Samaritans called for suicide prevention plans to be part of the school culture and for more research into home schooling and its impact. Mind Cymru mentioned an upcoming inclusive education inquiry to center young people's experiences. + +Finally, the committee noted the Welsh Government's response to their report on the draft budget and agreed to meet privately for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: OK , +PhD F: That 's looks strange . +Grad B: now we 're on and it seems to be working . +Postdoc E: Oh there we go . +PhD C: One two three four five six +PhD A: That is weird . +Postdoc E: This looks good . +PhD A: It 's like when it 's been sitting for a long time or something . +Grad B: So , I mean {disfmarker} I don't know what it is . But all {disfmarker} all I know is that it seems like every time I am up here after a meeting , and I start it , it works fine . And if I 'm up here and I start it and we 're all sitting here waiting to have a meeting , it gives me that error message and I have not yet sat down with {disfmarker} been able to get that error message in a point where I can sit down and find out where it 's occurring in the code . +PhD A: Next time you get it maybe we should write it down . +Grad B: Yep , we will . One of these days . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Was it a pause , or {disfmarker} ? OK . Was it on "" pause "" or something ? +Grad B: No . +Postdoc E: OK . Don't know . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} so the uh , the new procedural change that just got suggested , which I think is a good idea is that um , we do the digit recordings at the end . And that way , if we 're recording somebody else 's uh meeting , and a number of the participants have to run off to some other meeting and don't have the time , uh , then they can run off . It 'll mean we 'll get somewhat fewer uh , sets of digits , but um , I think that way we 'll cut into people 's time , um , if someone 's on strict time uh , less . So , I th I think {disfmarker} I think we should start doing that . Um , so , uh , let 's see , we were having a discussion the other day , maybe we should bring that up , about uh , the nature of the data that we are collecting . uh @ @ that uh , we should have a fair amount of data that is um , collected for the same meeting , so that we can , uh {disfmarker} I don't know . Wh - what {disfmarker} what were some of the points again about that ? Is it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , well , OK , I 'll back up . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , at the previous {disfmarker} at last week 's meeting , this meeting I was griping {vocalsound} about wanting to get more data and I {disfmarker} I talked about this with Jane and Adam , um , and was thinking of this mostly just so that we could do research on this data um , since we 'll have a new {disfmarker} this new student di does wanna work with us , +PhD A: Well , great . +PhD F: th the guy that was at the last meeting . +PhD A: Great . +PhD F: And he 's already funded part - time , so we 'll only be paying him for sort of for half of the normal part - time , +PhD A: What a deal . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: And what 's he interested in , specifically ? +PhD F: So he 's {disfmarker} comes from a signal - processing background , but I liked him a lot cuz he 's very interested in higher level things , like language , and disfluencies and all kinds of eb maybe prosody , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Great . +PhD F: so he 's just getting his feet wet in that . Anyway , I thought OK , maybe we should have enough data so that if he starts {disfmarker} he 'd be starting in January , next semester that we 'd have , you know , enough data to work with . +Grad B: Right . +PhD F: But , um , Jane and Adam brought up a lot of good points that just posting a note to Berkeley people to have them come down here has some problems in that you m you need to make sure that the speakers are who you want and that the meeting type is what you want , and so forth . So , I thought about that and I think it 's still possible , um , but I 'd rather try to get more regular meetings of types that we know about , and hear , then sort of a mish - mosh of a bunch of one {disfmarker} one - time {disfmarker} +Grad B: One offs ? +PhD F: Yeah , just because it would be very hard to process the data in all senses , both to get the , um {disfmarker} to figure out what type of meeting it is and to do any kind of higher level work on it , like well , I was talking to Morgan about things like summarization , or what 's this meeting about . I mean it 's very different if you have a group that 's just giving a report on what they did that week , versus coming to a decision and so forth . So . Then I was um , talking to Morgan about some {pause} new proposed work in this area , sort of a separate issue from what the student would be working on where I was thinking of doing some kind of summarization of meetings or trying to find cues in both the utterances and in the utterance patterns , like in numbers of overlaps and amount of speech , sort of raw cues from the interaction that can be measured from the signals and from the diff different microphones that point to sort of hot spots in the meeting , or things where stuff is going on that might be important for someone who didn't attend to {pause} listen to . And in that uh , regard , I thought we definitely w will need {disfmarker} it 'd b it 'd be nice for us to have a bunch of data from a few different domains , or a few different kinds of meetings . So this {disfmarker} this meeting is one of them , although I 'm not sure I can participate if I {disfmarker} You know , I would feel very strange being part of a meeting that you were then analysing later for things like summarization . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , and then there are some others that menti that Morgan mentioned , like the front - end meeting {pause} and maybe a networking {pause} group meeting . +Grad B: Right . Yep . Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're hoping that they 'll let us start recording regularly . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} So if that were the case then I think we 'd have enough . +Grad B: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But basically , for anything where you 're trying to get a summarization of some kind of meeting {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} meaning out of the meeting , um , it would be too hard to have fifty different kinds of meetings where we didn't really have a good grasp on what does it mean to summarize , +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} rather we should have different meetings by the same group but hopefully that have different summaries . And then we need a couple that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} {pause} We don't wanna just have one group because that might be specific to that particular group , but @ @ three or four different kinds . +Grad B: Yeah , we have a lot of overlap between this meeting and the morning meeting . +Professor D: S So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: See , I 've never listened to the data for the front - end {pause} meeting . +Grad B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've only had three . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: OK . But maybe that 's enough . So , in general , I was thinking more data but also data where we hold some parameters constant or fairly similar , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a meeting about of people doing a certain kind of work where at least half the participants each time are the same . +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now , let {disfmarker} l l let me just give you the other side to that cuz I ca because I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that , but I think there is a complimentary piece to it too . Uh , for other kinds of research , particularly the acoustic oriented research , I actually feel the opposite need . I 'd like to have lots of different people . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor D: As many people here a a and talking about the kind of thing that you were just talking about it would have uh too few people from my point of view . I 'd like to have many different speakers . So , um I think I would also very much like us to have a fair amount of really random scattered meetings , of somebody coming down from campus , and {disfmarker} and uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , sure , if we can get more from them , fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: but if we only get one or two from each group , that still could be useful acoustically just because we 'd have close and distant microphones with different people . +PhD F: Yeah , I definitely agree with that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Definitely . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Can I {disfmarker} can I say about that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the issues that I think Adam and I raised were more a matter of advertising so that you get more native speakers . Because I think if you just say {disfmarker} an And in particular , my suggestion was to advertise to linguistics grad students because there you 'd have so people who 'd have proficiency enough in English that {disfmarker} that uh , it would be useful for {disfmarker} for purposes {disfmarker} You know . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But you know , I think I 've been {disfmarker} I 've I {disfmarker} I 've gathered data from undergrads at {disfmarker} on campus and if you just post randomly to undergrads I think you 'd get such a mixed bag that it would be hard to know how much conversation you 'd have at all . And {disfmarker} and the English you 'd have {disfmarker} The language models would be really hard to build +Professor D: Well , you want to i +Postdoc E: because it would not really be {disfmarker} it would be an interlanguage rather than {pause} than a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , uh , first place , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we 'd just want to have random people come down and talk to one another , I think there should be a meeting that has some goal and point cuz I {disfmarker} I think that 's what we 're investigating , +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD F: It has to be a {disfmarker} a pre - existing meeting , {pause} like a meeting that would otherwise happen anyway . +Professor D: so +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So I was {disfmarker} I was thinking more in terms of talking to professors uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , senior uh , uh , d and uh , doctoral students who are leading projects and offering to them that they have their {disfmarker} hold their meeting down here . +PhD F: That 's I think what we {disfmarker} and I agree with . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting ! +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . Oh , interesting ! +Professor D: Uh , that 's the first point . The second point is um I think that for some time now , going back through BeRP I think that we have had speakers that we 've worked with who had non - native accents and I th I think that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . I 'm not saying accents . u The accent 's not the problem . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Postdoc E: No , it 's more a matter of uh , proficiency , e e just simply fluency . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I mean , I deal with people on {disfmarker} on campus who {disfmarker} I think sometimes people , undergraduates um in computer science uh , have language skills that make , you know {disfmarker} that their {disfmarker} their fluency and writing skills are not so strong . +Professor D: Oh ! You 're not talking about foreign language at all . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , just talking about . +Professor D: You 're just talking about {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , e I just think , +Grad B: We all had the same thought . +Postdoc E: but you know , it 's like when you get into the graduate level , uh , no problem . I mean , I 'm not saying accents . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , then we 're completely gone . +Postdoc E: I 'm say I 'm saying fluency . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} the habits are already burnt in . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . I 'm just saying fluency . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think that , um {disfmarker} I think that the only thing we should say in the advertisement is that the meeting should be held in English . And {disfmarker} and I think if it 's a pre - existing meeting and it 's held in English , {comment} I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably OK if a few of the people don't have uh , g particularly good English skills . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK , now can I {disfmarker} can I say the other aspect of this from my perspective which is that um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this {disfmarker} this issue , you have a corpus out there , it should be used for {disfmarker} for multiple things cuz it 's so expensive to put together . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Right . +Postdoc E: And if people want to approach {disfmarker} Um , i so I know {pause} e e {pause} You know this {disfmarker} The idea of computational linguistics and probabilistic grammars and all may not be the focus of this group , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: but the idea of language models , which are fund you know generally speaking uh , you know , t t terms of like the amount of benefit per dollar spent or an hour invested in preparing the data , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: if you have a choice between people who are pr more proficient in {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} um , i more fluent , more {disfmarker} more close to being academic English , then it would seem to me to be a good thing . +Professor D: I guess {disfmarker} I maybe {disfmarker} Hmm . I +Postdoc E: Because otherwise y you don't have the ability to have {disfmarker} Uh , so if {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of idiolects that 's the worst possible case . If you have people who are using English as a {disfmarker} as an interlanguage because they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} uh , they can't speak in their native languages and {disfmarker} but their interlanguage isn't really a match to any existing , uh , language model , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: this is the worst case scenario . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's pretty much what you 're going to have in the networking group . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: because {disfmarker} because they {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} the network group is almost entirely Germans and Spaniards . +Postdoc E: Well Oh . But the thing is , I think that these people are of high enough level in their {disfmarker} in their language proficiency that {disfmarker} +Professor D: I see . +Postdoc E: And I 'm not objecting to accents . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just thinking that we have to think at a {disfmarker} at a higher level view , could we have a language model , a {disfmarker} a grammar {disfmarker} a grammar , basically , that um , wo would be a {disfmarker} a possibility . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So y so if you wanted to bring in a model like Dan Jurafsky 's model , an and do some top - down stuff , it {disfmarker} to help th the bottom - up and merge the things or whatever , uh , it seems like um , I don't see that there 's an argument {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I think is that why not have the corpus , since it 's so expensive to put together , uh , useful for the widest range of {disfmarker} of central corp things that people generally use corpora for and which are , you know , used in computational linguistics . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's my point . Which {disfmarker} which includes both top - down and bottom - up . +PhD C: It 's difficult . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , well , i i let 's {disfmarker} let 's see what we can get . I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I think that if we 're aiming at {disfmarker} at uh , groups of graduate students and professors and so forth who are talking about things together , and it 's from the Berkeley campus , probably most of it will be OK , +Postdoc E: Yes , that 's fine . That 's fine . Exactly . And my point in m in my note to Liz was I think that undergrads are an iff iffy population . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . OK . +PhD F: I definitely agree with that , I mean , for this purpose . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Well , not to mention the fact that I would be hesitant certainly to take anyone under eighteen , probably even an anyone under twenty - one . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Grads and professors , fine . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +Professor D: Oh , you age - ist ! +Grad B: What 's that ? Well , age - ist . {comment} The "" eighteen "" is because of the consent form . +Postdoc E: Age - ist . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , Yeah . +Grad B: We 'd hafta get {disfmarker} find their parent to sign for them . +PhD C: "" Age - ist "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I have a {disfmarker} uh , um , question . Well , Morgan , you were mentioning that Mari may not use the k equipment from IBM if they found something else , cuz there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} yeah , they 're d they 're uh {disfmarker} assessing whether they should do that or y do something else , hopefully over the next few weeks . +PhD F: Cuz I mean , one remote possibility is that if we st if we inherited that equipment , if she weren't using it , could we set up a room in the linguistics department ? And {disfmarker} and I mean , there {disfmarker} there may be a lot more {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or in psych , or in comp wherever , in another building where we could um , record people there . I think we 'd have a better chance +Grad B: I think we 'd need a real motivated partner to do that . We 'd need to find someone on campus who was interested in this . +PhD F: Right , but {disfmarker} Right . But if there were such a {disfmarker} I mean it 's a remote possibility , then um , you know , one of us could you know , go up there and record the meeting or something rather than bring all of them down here . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD F: So it 's just a just a thought if they end up not using the {disfmarker} the hardware . +Professor D: Well , the other thing {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the other thing that I was hoping to do in the first place was to turn it into some kind of portable thing so you could wheel it around . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Uh . But . Um , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I know that space is really scarce on {disfmarker} at least in CS . You know , to {disfmarker} to actually find a room that we could use regularly might actually be very difficult . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: But you may not need a separate room , you know , +Grad B: That 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the idea is , if they have a meeting room and they can guarantee that the equipment will be safe and so forth , and if one of us is up there once a week to record the meeting or something {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor D: Well , maybe John would let us put it into the phonology lab or something . +PhD F: Huh . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: You know . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I think it 's not out of the question . +Grad B: Yeah , I think it would be interesting because then we could regularly get another meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . So . +Grad B: another type of meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you need , uh , another portable thing a another portable equipment to {disfmarker} to do , eh , more e easier the recording process , eh , out from ICSI . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Eh and probably . I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Eh , if you {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} to record , eh , a seminar or a class , eh , in the university , you {disfmarker} you need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It - it would be eh eh very difficult to {disfmarker} to put , {vocalsound} eh , a lot of , eh , head phones eh in different people when you have to {disfmarker} to record only with , eh , this kind of , eh , d device . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , but {disfmarker} I think if we {disfmarker} if we wanna just record with the tabletop microphones , that 's easy . +PhD C: Oh - yeah . +Grad B: Right ? That 's very easy , +PhD C: Ye - Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: but that 's not the corpus that we 're collecting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Actually , that 's a int that raises an interesting point that came up in our discussion that 's maybe worth repeating . We realized that , um , when we were talking about this that , OK , there 's these different things that we want to do with it . So , um , it 's true that we wanna be selective in some ways , uh , the way that you were speaking about with , uh , not having an interlingua and uh , these other issues . But on the other hand , it 's not necessarily true that we need all of the corpus to satisfy all of it . So , a a as per the example that we wanna have a fair amount that 's done with a small n recorded with a small , uh , typ number of types of meetings But we can also have another part that 's , uh , just one or two meetings of each of a {disfmarker} of a range of them and that 's OK too . Uh , i We realized in discussion that the other thing is , what about this business of distant and close microphones ? I mean , we really wanna have a substantial amount recorded this way , that 's why we did it . But {pause} what about {disfmarker} For th for these issues of summarization , a lot of these higher level things you don't really need the distant microphone . +PhD F: Right , I mean , I c I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: And you don't really need the close microphone , you mean . +Professor D: You actually don't . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yea - yeah yeah , you actually don't really even need any fancy microphone . +Postdoc E: Which one did you mean ? +Professor D: You d You don't ne it doesn't {disfmarker} you just need some microphone , somewhere . +Grad B: Ye - Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: You can use found data . +Grad B: Tape recorder . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you can . +Professor D: You need some microphone , +PhD F: You can +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: use {disfmarker} Um , but I think that any {pause} data that we spend a lot of effort {nonvocalsound} to collect , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: you know , each person who 's interested in {disfmarker} I mean , we have a cou we have a bunch of different , um , slants and perspectives on what it 's useful for , um , they need to be taking charge of making sure they 're getting enough of the kind of data that they want . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} So in my case , um , I think there w there is enough data for some kinds of projects and not enough for others . +Grad B: Not enough for others , right . +PhD F: And so {nonvocalsound} I 'm looking and thinking , "" Well I 'd be glad to walk over and record people and so {nonvocalsound} forth if it 's {disfmarker} to help th in my interest . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And other people need to do that for themselves , uh , h or at least discuss it so that we can find some optimal {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right . So that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But I think that {disfmarker} I 'm raising that cuz I think it 's relevant exactly for this idea up there that if you think about , "" Well , gee , we have this really complicated setup to do , "" well maybe you don't . +Grad B: Yeah . For some of it . +Professor D: Maybe if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If really all you want is to have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a recording that 's good enough to get a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a transcription from later , you just need to grab a tape recorder and go up and make a recording . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could have a fairly {disfmarker} We could just get a DAT machine and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I agree with {nonvocalsound} Jane , though , on the other hand that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So that might be true , you may say for instance , summarization , or something that sounds very language oriented . You may say well , "" Oh yeah , you just do that from transcripts of a radio show . "" I mean , you don't even need the speech signal . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: But what you {disfmarker} what I was thinking is long term what would be neat is to be able to pick up on um {disfmarker} Suppose you just had a distant microphone there and you really wanted to be able to determine this . There 's lots of cues you 're not gonna have . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So I {pause} do think that long term you should always try to satisfy the greatest number of {disfmarker} of interests and have this parallel information , which is really what makes this corpus powerful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Special ? Yep . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD F: Otherwise , you know , lots of other sites can propose {disfmarker} individual studies , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh but I {disfmarker} I think that the uh {vocalsound} i We can't really underestimate the difficulty {disfmarker} shouldn't really u underestimate the difficulty of getting a setup like this up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: And so , {disfmarker} uh it took quite a while to get that together and to say , "" Oh , we 'll just do it up there , "" {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: If you 're talking about something simple , where you throw away a lot of these dimensions , then you can do that right away . Talking about something that has all of these different facets that we have here , it won't happen quickly , it won't be easy , and there 's all sorts of issues about th you know {vocalsound} keeping the equipment safe , or else hauling it around , and all sorts of o +PhD F: So then maybe we should {nonvocalsound} {pause} try to bring people here . +Grad B: Here . +Professor D: I think the first priority should be to pry {comment} to get {disfmarker} try to get people to come here . +PhD F: I mean , that 's that 's {disfmarker} OK , so +Professor D: We 're set up for it . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: The room is {disfmarker} is really , uh , underused . +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: I thought the free lunch idea was a great idea . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought so too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Free lunch is good . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} And I think we can get people to come here , that {disfmarker} But the issue is you definitely wanna make sure that the kind of group you 're getting is the right group so that you don't waste a lot of your time {nonvocalsound} and the overhead in bringing people down . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No crunchy food . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {comment} Well , it would be {pause} lunch afterwards . +Grad B: Well , I was thinking , lunch after . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . And they 'd have to do their digits or they don't get dessert . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , they have to do their digits or they don't {comment} get {disfmarker} they don't {comment} get their food . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , I had a {disfmarker} I spoke with some people up at Haas Business School who volunteered . +Professor D: Yeah +Grad B: Should I pursue that ? +PhD F: Oh , definitely , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . So . They {disfmarker} they originally {disfmarker} They 've decided not to do {disfmarker} go into speech . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So I 'm not sure whether they 'll still be so willing to volunteer , but I 'll send an email and ask . +Professor D: Tell them about the free lunch . +Grad B: I 'll tell them about the free lunch . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: And they 'll say there 's no such thing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I 'd love to get people that are not linguists or engineers , cuz these are both weird {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The oth the other h +PhD F: well , I know , I shouldn't say that . +Grad B: That 's alright . No , the they {disfmarker} they 're very weird . +PhD F: We need a wider sampling . +PhD A: "" Beep . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , "" beep "" +Grad B: The problem with engineers is "" beep . "" +Professor D: Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} They make funny sounds . The o the o the other {disfmarker} The other thing is , uh , that we {disfmarker} we talked about is give to them {disfmarker} uh , burn an extra CD - ROM . +Grad B: Yep . Let them have their meeting . +Professor D: and give them {disfmarker} So if they want a {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} basically and audio record of their {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I thought that was {disfmarker} I thought he meant , "" Give them a music CD , "" like they g {vocalsound} Then he said a CD of the {disfmarker} of their speech +Professor D: Oh . +PhD F: and I guess it depends of what kind of audience you 're talking to , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , I personally {nonvocalsound} would not want a {nonvocalsound} CD {comment} of my meeting , +Grad B: Mmm . Of the meeting ? +PhD F: but {vocalsound} maybe {disfmarker} yeah , {pause} maybe you 're +Professor D: If you 're having some planning meeting of some sort and uh you 'd like {disfmarker} +PhD F: right . {comment} Right . Right . +PhD A: Oh , that 's a good idea . +Grad B: It 'd be fun . I think it would just be fun , you know , if nothing else , you know . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: It 's a novelty item . +Professor D: But it als It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also I think builds up towards the goal . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: We 're saying , "" Look , you know , you 're gonna get this . Is - is isn't that neat . Then you 're gonna go home with it . It 's actually p It 's probably gonna be pretty useless to you , +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: but you 'll ge appreciate , you know , where it 's useful and where it 's useless , +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: and then , we 're gonna move this technology , so it 'll become useful . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD F: No , I think that 's a great idea , actually . +PhD A: What if you could tell them that you 'll give them the {disfmarker} the transcripts when they come back ? +Postdoc E: Alth +PhD F: But we might need a little more to incentivize them , {comment} that 's all . +Grad B: Oh , yeah . I mean , anyone can have the transcripts . So . I thought we could point that out . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , that 's interesting . +Postdoc E: I hav I have to uh raise a little eensy - weensy concern about doing th giving them the CD immediately , because of these issues of , you know , this kind of stuff , {comment} where maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know ? +Professor D: Good point . That 's a very good point . +Postdoc E: So . +Professor D: So we can {disfmarker} so we can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: We could burn it after it 's been cleared with the transcript stage . +Professor D: r Right . +Postdoc E: And then they {disfmarker} they get a CD , but just not the same day . +PhD F: Oh , right . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} It should be the same CD - ROM that we distribute publically , +Grad B: That 's a good point . Right , it can't be the internal one . +PhD F: right ? +Professor D: Although it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Otherwise they 're not allowed to play it for anyone . +Postdoc E: There we go . +Grad B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I like that . Well put . Well put . So , after the transcript screening phase . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc E: Things have been weeded out . +PhD F: Otherwise we 'd need two lawyer stages . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right , say {comment} "" Yeah , well , I got this CD , and , Your Honor , I {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +Professor D: Yeah so that 's {disfmarker} so let 's start with Haas , and Yeah . +PhD F: Sorry to have to {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Sorry I have to {pause} leave . +Professor D: Oh , that 's fine . +PhD F: I will be here full - time next week . +Grad B: OK , see you . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: No . Bye . +Professor D: That 's alright . +PhD A: See you . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: See you . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see . So that was that topic , and {vocalsound} then um , I guess another topic would be {vocalsound} where are we in the whole disk resources {pause} question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: We are slowly slowly getting to the point where we have uh enough sp room to record meetings . So I uh did a bunch of archiving , and still doing a bunch of archiving , I {disfmarker} I 'm in the midst of doing the P - files from uh , {vocalsound} Broadcast News . and it took eleven hours {comment} {vocalsound} to do {disfmarker} to uh copy it . +PhD C: Eleven ? +Grad B: And it 'll take another eleven to do the clone . +PhD A: Where did you copy it to ? +Grad B: Well , it 's Abbott . It 's Abbott , so it just {disfmarker} But it 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of data . +Professor D: Sk - It 's copying from one place on Abbott to another place on Abbott ? +Grad B: Tape . +PhD C: Tape ? +PhD A: Oh , on the tape . +Professor D: Oh ! +Grad B: I did an archive . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Ah ! +Grad B: So I 'm archiving it , and then I 'm gonna delete the files . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: So that will give us ten gigabytes of free space . +PhD C: Eleven hours ? +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: Oh . +Postdoc E: Yeah , the archiving m {pause} program does take a long time . +Grad B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . And so one That {disfmarker} that will be done , like , in about two hours . And so uh , {vocalsound} at that point we 'll be able to record five more meetings . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: One thing {disfmarker} The good news about that {disfmarker} that is that once {disfmarker} once it 's archived , it 's pretty quick to get back . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Is it ? +Postdoc E: I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The other direction is fast , but this direction is really slow . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , especially because I 'm generating a clone , also . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . And that takes a while . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Generating a clone ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a good point . +Grad B: Two copies . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +Grad B: One offsite , one onsite . +PhD A: Oh ! Hunh ! +Professor D: S +Postdoc E: Now , what will uh {disfmarker} Is the plan to g {pause} to {disfmarker} So {pause} stuff will be saved , it 's just that you 're relocating it ? I mean , so we 're gonna get more disk space ? Or did I {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: No , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these are the P - files from Broadcast News , which are regeneratable {disfmarker} regeneratable +Postdoc E: OK . Oh , good . I see . +Grad B: um , if we really need to , but we had a lot of them . And {disfmarker} for the full , uh , hundred forty hour sets . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: And so they {disfmarker} they were two gigabytes per file and we had six of them or something . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Wow . Wow . +Professor D: W w we are getting more space . We are getting , uh , another disk rack and {disfmarker} and four thirty - six gigabyte disks . Uh {pause} so {pause} uh {pause} but that 's not gonna happen instantaneously . +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +Grad B: Or maybe six . +Professor D: Or maybe six ? +Grad B: The SUN , ha uh , takes more disks than the Andatico one did . The SUN rack takes {disfmarker} {comment} Th - One took four and one took six , or maybe it was eight and twelve . Whatever it was , it was , {pause} you know , fifty percent more . +Professor D: How many {disfmarker} How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is there a difference in price or something ? +Grad B: Well , what happened is that we {disfmarker} we bought all our racks and disks from Andatico for years , according to Dave , and Andatico got bought by another company and doubled their prices . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: And so , uh , we 're looking into other vendors . "" We "" {disfmarker} By "" we "" of course I mean Dave . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So . +PhD A: Hmm . I 've been looking at the , uh , Aurora data and , um , first {disfmarker} first look at it , there were basically three directories on there that could be moved . One was called Aurora , one was Spanish , which was Carmen 's Spanish stuff , and the other one was , um , SPINE . +Grad B: SPINE . +PhD A: And so , um , I wrote to Dan and he was very concerned that the SPINE stuff was moving to a non - backed - up disk . So , um , I realized that well , probably not all of that should be moved , just {pause} the {pause} CD - ROM type data , the {disfmarker} {pause} the static data . So I moved that , and then um , I asked him to check out and see if it was OK . before I actually deleted the old stuff , um , but I haven't heard back yet . I told him he could delete it if he wanted to , I haven't checked {pause} today to see if he 's deleted it or not . And then Carmen 's stuff , I realized that when I had copied all of her stuff to XA , I had copied stuff there that was dynamic data . And so , I had to redo that one and just copy over the static data . And so I need to get with her now and delete the old stuff off the disk . And then I lo haven't done any of the Aurora stuff . I have to meet with , uh , Stephane to do that . So . +Professor D: So , but , uh y you 're figuring you can record another five meetings or something with the space that you 're clearing up from the Broadcast News , but , we have some other disks , some of which you 're using for Aurora , but are we g do we have some other {disfmarker} other space now ? +Grad B: Yep . So , so , uh , we have space on the current disk right now , where Meeting Recorder is , and that 's probably enough for about four meetings . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Is that the one that has {disfmarker} is that DC ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . Yep . No , no , well , it 's wherever the Meeting Recorder currently is . I think it 's DI . +PhD A: OK , I {disfmarker} but the stuff I 'm moving from Aurora is on the DC disk that we {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't remember . Th - I think it 's DC - It 's whatever that one is . +PhD A: OK , DC . +Grad B: I just don't remember , it might be DC . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And that has enough for about four more meetings right now . Yeah , I mean we were at a hundred percent and then we dropped down to eighty - six for reasons I don't understand . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , someone deleted something somewhere . And so we have some room again . And then with Broadcast News , that 's five or six more meetings , so , you know , we have a couple weeks . Uh , so , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think we 're OK , until we get the new disk . +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: So should , um {disfmarker} One question I had for you was , um , we need {disfmarker} {pause} we sh probably should move the Aurora an and all that other stuff off of the Meeting Recorder disk . Is there another backed - up {pause} disk that you know of that would {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: We should put it onto the Broadcast News one . That 's probably the best thing to do . And that way we consolidate Meeting Recorder onto one disk {pause} rather than spreading them out . +PhD A: OK . Right . Right . Do you know what {disfmarker} happen to know what disk that is off {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad B: No . I mean , I can tell you , I just don't know off the top of my head . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Alright , I 'll find out from you . +Grad B: But , so we could ' jus just do that at the end of today , once the archive is complete , and I 've verified it . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz that 'll give us plenty of disk . +Professor D: Uh , OK , @ @ {comment} So , uh , then I guess th the last thing I 'd had on my {disfmarker} my agenda was just to hear {disfmarker} hear an update on {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} what Jose has been doing , +PhD C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor D: so +PhD C: I have , eh , {vocalsound} The result of my work during the last days . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Thank you for your information because I {disfmarker} I read . Eh , and the {disfmarker} the last , eh , days , eh , I work , eh , in my house , eh , in a lot of ways and thinking , reading eh , different things about the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recording project . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD C: And I have , eh , some ideas . Eh , this information is very {disfmarker} very useful . Because {vocalsound} you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the distribution , now . +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to hear it . Glad to hear it . +PhD C: But for me , eh is interesting because , eh , eh , here 's i is the demonstration of the overlap , eh , {pause} problem . +Grad B: I 've seen it already . +PhD C: It 's a real problem , {comment} a frequently problem {comment} uh , because you have overlapping zones eh , eh , eh , all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Throughout the meeting . +PhD C: Eh , by a moment I have , eh , nnn , the , eh , {pause} n I {disfmarker} I did a mark of all the overlapped zones in the meeting recording , with eh , a exact {pause} mark . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Oh , you did that by hand ? +PhD C: Heh ? That 's eh , yet b b Yeah , by {disfmarker} b b by hand {disfmarker} by hand because , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} "" Why . "" +Grad B: Can I see that ? Can I get a copy ? +Professor D: Oh . +PhD C: My {disfmarker} my idea is to work {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don I don't @ @ {disfmarker} I don't know , eh , if , eh , it will be possible because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't a lot {disfmarker} eh , enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to work . uh , only just eh , six months , as you know , but , eh , my idea is , eh , is very interesting to {disfmarker} to work {pause} in {disfmarker} in the line of , eh , automatic segmenter . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh but eh , eh , in my opinion , {pause} we need eh , eh , a reference {pause} eh session to {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to evaluate the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the tool . +Grad B: Yes , absolutely . And so are you planning to do that or have you done that already ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No , no , with i +Grad B: Have you done that or are you planning to do that ? +PhD C: Sorry ? No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} plan to do that . +Grad B: OK . Darn ! +PhD C: I plan {disfmarker} I plan , but eh , eh , the idea {vocalsound} is the {disfmarker} is the following . Now , {vocalsound} eh , I need ehm , {vocalsound} to detect eh all the overlapping zones exactly . I {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will eh , talk about eh , {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the blackboard about the {disfmarker} my ideas . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Duration . +PhD C: Eh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} This information eh , with eh , exactly time marks eh , for the overlapping zones {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} overlapping zone , and eh , a speaker {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a pure speech eh , eh , speaker zone . I mean , eh zones eh of eh speech of eh , one speaker without any {disfmarker} any eh , noise eh , any {disfmarker} any acoustic event eh that eh , eh , w eh , is not eh , speech , real speech . And , I need t true eh , silence for that , because my {disfmarker} my idea is to {disfmarker} to study the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the set of parameters eh , what , eh , are more m more discriminant to eh , classify . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: the overlapping zones in cooperation with the speech {pause} eh zones . The idea is {pause} to eh {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} eh , I 'm not sure to {disfmarker} eh yet , but eh my idea is to use a {disfmarker} a cluster {pause} {vocalsound} eh algorithm or , nnn , a person strong in neural net algorithm to eh {disfmarker} to eh study what is the , eh , the property of the different feat eh feature , eh , to classify eh speech and overlapping eh speech . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: And my idea is eh , it would be interesting to {disfmarker} to have eh , {vocalsound} a control set . And my control set eh , will be the eh , silence , silence without eh , any {disfmarker} any noise . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Which means that we 'd still {disfmarker} You 'd hear the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , fans . +PhD C: Yeah , acoustic with this . {comment} With {disfmarker} with , yeah , the background . +Postdoc E: Yeah . {comment} That 's interesting . This is like a ground level , with {disfmarker} It 's not it 's not total silence . +PhD C: Eh , I {disfmarker} I mean eh , noise eh , eh claps eh , tape clips , eh , the difference eh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , eh , event eh , which , eh , eh , has , eh eh , a hard effect of distorti spectral distortion in the {disfmarker} in the eh {pause} speech . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so you intend to hand - mark those and exclude them ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I have mark in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} Not in all {disfmarker} in all the {disfmarker} the file , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: only eh , eh , nnn , {pause} mmm , I have eh , ehm {pause} I don't remind {comment} what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quantity , but eh , I {disfmarker} I have marked enough speech on over and all the overlapping zones . I have , eh , {pause} two hundred and thirty , more or less , overlapping zones , and is similar to {disfmarker} to this information , +Grad B: Whew ! Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: because with the program , I cross {pause} the information of uh , of Jane {comment} with eh , my my segmentation by hand . And {pause} is eh , mor more similar . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Glad to hear it . Good . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Sorry , sorry . +Professor D: Go ahead . +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the idea is , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I will use , eh , {disfmarker} I want {disfmarker} {pause} My idea is , eh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} {comment} {nonvocalsound} to classify . +Grad B: I should 've {pause} got the digital camera . Oh well . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I need eh , the exact eh , mark of the different , eh , eh , zones because I {disfmarker} I want to put , eh , for eh , each frame a label {pause} indicating . It 's a sup supervised and , eh , hierarchical clustering process . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I put , eh , eh , for each frame {nonvocalsound} a label indicating what is th the type , what is the class , eh , which it belong . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh , I mean , the class you will {nonvocalsound} overlapping speech "" overlapping "" is a class , eh , "" speech "" {nonvocalsound} @ @ the class {pause} that 's +Grad B: Nonspeech . +PhD A: These will be assigned by hand ? +PhD C: a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ha I h I {disfmarker} I put the mark by hand , +PhD A: Based on the {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +PhD C: because , eh , {vocalsound} my idea is , eh , in {disfmarker} in the first session , I need , eh , {pause} I {disfmarker} I need , eh , to be sure that the information eh , that , eh , I {disfmarker} I will cluster , is {disfmarker} is right . Because , eh , eh , if not , eh , I will {disfmarker} I will , eh , return to the speech file to analyze eh , what is the problems , +Grad B: Well , training , and validation . Sure . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh . And {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I 'd prefer {disfmarker} I would prefer , the to {disfmarker} to have , eh , this labeled automatically , but , eh , eh , fro th I need truth . +PhD A: You need truth . Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , but this is what you 're starting with . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: I 've gotta ask you . So , uh , the difference between the top two , i So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I start at the bottom , so "" silence "" is clear . By "" speech "" do you mean speech by one sp by one person only ? +PhD C: Speech {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc E: So this is un OK , and then and then the top includes people speaking at the same time , or {disfmarker} or a speaker and a breath overlapping , someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} or clicking , overlapping with speech {disfmarker} So , that {disfmarker} that 's all those possibilities in the top one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad B: One or two or more . +PhD C: One , two , three . but No , by th by the moment n Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Eh , in the first moment , because , eh , eh , I {disfmarker} I have information , eh , of the overlapping zones , eh , information about if the , eh , overlapping zone is , eh , from a speech , clear speech , from a one to a two eh speaker , {pause} or three speaker , or is {disfmarker} is the zone where the breath of a speaker eh , overlaps eh , onto eh , a speech , another , especially speech . +Postdoc E: So it 's basi it 's basically speech wi som with {disfmarker} with something overlapping , which could be speech but doesn't need to be . +PhD C: No , no , es especially {pause} eh , overlapping speech {pause} from , eh , different eh , eh , speaker . Eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but there 's {disfmarker} but , I think she 's saying "" Where do you {disfmarker} In these three categories , where do you put the instances in which there is one person speaking and other sounds which are not speech ? "" +PhD C: Ah ! +Professor D: Which category do you put that in ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's my question . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , he here I {disfmarker} I put eh speech from eh , from , eh , one speaker {pause} without , eh , eh , any {disfmarker} any {disfmarker} any events more . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +Professor D: Right , so where do you put speech from one speaker that does have a nonspeech event at the same time ? +PhD C: Where ? Where {disfmarker} What is the class ? +Professor D: Which catege which category ? +Postdoc E: Like a c +PhD C: No . By the moment , no . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , that 's what he was saying before . +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} by the @ @ no , @ @ because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to limit the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} nnn , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the study . +Professor D: Oh , so you {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not marked . +Postdoc E: Oh . So you don't {disfmarker} i i it 's not in that {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . Got it . Fine . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're not using all of the data . +Grad B: Yeah , so that 's what he was saying before , is that he excluded those . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} All {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , you mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So you 're ignoring overlapping events unless they 're speech with speech . +PhD C: Yeah , be Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's fine . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: "" Why ? Why ? What 's the reason ? "" because {pause} i it 's the first study . the first +Professor D: Oh , no {disfmarker} no , it 's a perfectly sensible way to go . We just wondered {disfmarker} trying to understand what {disfmarker} what you were doing . +Postdoc E: We 're just +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah cuz you 've talked about other overlapping events in the past . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So , this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} a subset . +PhD C: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} in the future , the {disfmarker} the idea is to {disfmarker} to extend {pause} the class , +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: to consider all the {disfmarker} all the information , you {disfmarker} you mentioned before +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't think we were asking for that . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: but eh , the {disfmarker} the first idea {disfmarker} Because eh , I don't know {pause} what hap what will happen {comment} with the study . +Professor D: We were jus just trying to understand {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah , we just wanted to know what the category was here . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Sure . +PhD A: Is your silence category pure silence , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . i it 's pure {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if there was a door - slam or something ? +PhD C: No , no , it 's pure silence . +PhD A: Pure silence . +PhD C: It 's the control set . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: OK ? It 's the control set . It 's pure si pure silence {comment} with the {disfmarker} with the machine on the {disfmarker} on the roof . +Professor D: What you {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} w {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think what you m I think what you mean {vocalsound} is that it 's nonspeech segments that don't have impulsive noises . +Grad B: With the fan . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Cuz you 're calling {disfmarker} what you 're calling "" event "" is somebody coughing {vocalsound} or clicking , or rustling paper , or hitting something , which are impulsive noises . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But steady - state noises are part of the background . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Which , are being , included in that . Right ? +PhD C: h here yet , yet I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh , there are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} some kind of noises that , eh , don't {disfmarker} don't wanted to {disfmarker} to be in that , eh , in that control set . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So it 's like a signal - noise situation . Yeah . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But I prefer , I prefer at {disfmarker} at the first , eh , the {disfmarker} the silence with eh , this eh this kind of the {disfmarker} of eh {disfmarker} of noise . +Postdoc E: Well , steady state . +Professor D: Right , it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} "" Background "" might be {disfmarker} might be a better word than "" silence "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's just sort of that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the background acoustic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . So {disfmarker} Fine . Go on . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is only {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: And , um , with this information {vocalsound} The idea is eh , eh , nnn , I have a label for {disfmarker} for each , eh , frame and , eh with a cluster eh {disfmarker} algorithm I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , we needed to get the categories , yeah . +PhD C: Sorry . And eh I am going {pause} to prepare a test bed , eh , well , eh , a {disfmarker} a set of {pause} feature structure eh , eh , models . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: And {pause} my idea is +Grad B: "" Tone "" , whatever . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} because I have a pitch extractor yet . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I have to {disfmarker} to test , but eh I {disfmarker} +PhD A: You have your own ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: I ha I have prepare . Is a modified version of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of a pitch tracker , eh , from , eh , Standar - eh Stanford University {disfmarker} in Stanford ? No . From , eh , em , {vocalsound} Cambridge {pause} University . +PhD A: Oh ! What 's it written in ? +PhD C: Eh , em , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember what is the {disfmarker} the name of the {disfmarker} of the author , because I {disfmarker} I have several {disfmarker} I have eh , eh , em , eh , library tools , from eh , Festival and {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} from Edinburgh eh , from Cambridge , eh , and from our department . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} And I have to {disfmarker} because , {vocalsound} in general the pitch tracker , doesn't work {comment} {vocalsound} very well and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Bad . Right . But , you know , as a feature , it might be OK . So , we don't know . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} And {pause} th the idea is to {disfmarker} to , eh , to obtain , eh , {pause} for example , eh , {pause} {vocalsound} eh diff eh , eh , different {disfmarker} well , no , a great number of eh FEC for example , eh , {pause} eh , twenty - five , eh , thirty {disfmarker} thirty parameters , eh , for {disfmarker} for each one . And in a first eh , nnn , step in the investi in the research in eh , my idea is try to , eh , to prove , what is the performance of the difference parameter , eh {pause} to classify {pause} the different , eh , what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the front - end approach to classify eh , the different , eh , frames of each class {pause} eh and what is the {disfmarker} the , nnn , nnn , nnn , eh , what is the , the error {pause} eh , of the data +Grad B: Supervised clustering . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: This is the {disfmarker} the eh , first idea +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and the second {pause} is try to {disfmarker} eh , to use {pause} some ideas eh , similar to the linear discriminant analysis . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh ? Eh , similar , because the the idea is to {disfmarker} to study {pause} what is the contribution of eh , each parameter to the process of classify correctly the different {disfmarker} the different parameters . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . What sort of classifier ar ? +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the classifier is {disfmarker} nnn by the moment is eh {disfmarker} is eh , similar , nnn , that the classifier used eh , in a quantifier {disfmarker} vectorial quantifier is eh , used to {disfmarker} to eh , some distance {pause} to {disfmarker} to put eh , a vector eh , in {disfmarker} in a class different . +Grad B: Unimodal ? +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} Yeah ? W with a model , is {disfmarker} is only to cluster using a eh , @ @ or a similarity . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So is it just one cluster per {disfmarker} +PhD C: A another possibility it to use eh a netw netw a neural network . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: But eh what 's the p {vocalsound} What is my idea ? What 's the problem I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I see in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} you use the {disfmarker} the neural network ? If {disfmarker} w when {pause} this kind of eh , mmm , cluster , clustering algorithm to can test , to can eh observe what happened you {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} you can't eh , eh put up with your hand {comment} in the different parameter , +Grad B: Right , you can't analyse it . +PhD C: but eh {disfmarker} If you use a neural net is {disfmarker} is a good idea , but eh you don't know what happened in the interior of the neural net . +Professor D: Well , actually , you can do sensitivity analyses which show you what the importance of the different parce pieces of the input are . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's hard to {disfmarker} w w what you {disfmarker} It 's hard to tell on a neural net is what 's going on internally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But it 's actually not that hard to analyse it and figure out the effects of different inputs , especially if they 're all normalized . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , using something simpler first I think is probably fine . +Professor D: Well , this isn't tru if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you really wonder what different if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Decision tree . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , then a decision tree is really good , but the thing is here he 's {disfmarker} he 's not {disfmarker} he 's not like he has one you know , a bunch of very distinct variables , like pitch and this {disfmarker} he 's talking about , like , a all these cepstral coefficients , and so forth , +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: in which case a a any reasonable classifier is gonna be a mess , and it 's gonna be hard to figure out what {disfmarker} what uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will include too the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the differential de derivates too . +Grad B: Deltas , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: yeah . So . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I mean , I think the other thing that one {disfmarker} I mean , this is , I think a good thing to do , to sort of look at these things at least {disfmarker} See what I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} Let me tell you what I would do . I would take just a few features . Instead of taking all the MFCC 's , or all the PLP 's or whatever , I would just take a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? Like {disfmarker} like C - one , C - two , something like that , so that you can visualize it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and look at these different examples and look at scatter plots . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so before you do {disfmarker} build up any kind of fancy classifiers , just take a look in two dimensions , at how these things are split apart . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: That I think will give you a lot of insight of what is likely to be a useful feature when you put it into a more complicated classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And the second thing is , once you actually get to the point of building these classifiers , {vocalsound} @ @ what this lacks so far is the temporal properties . So if you 're just looking at a frame and a time , you don't know anything about , you know , the structure of it over time , and so you may wanna build @ @ {disfmarker} build a Markov model of some sort uh , or {disfmarker} or else have features that really are based on um on {disfmarker} on some bigger chunk of time . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Context window ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But I think this is a good place to start . But don't uh anyway , this is my suggestion , is don't just , you know , throw in twenty features at it , the deltas , and the delta del and all that into some classifier , even {disfmarker} even if it 's K - nearest - neighbors , you still won't know +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: what it 's doing , even {disfmarker} You know it 's Uh , I think to know what it 's {disfmarker} to have a better feeling for what it 's +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: look at {disfmarker} at som some picture that shows you , "" Here 's {disfmarker} These things uh , uh are {disfmarker} offer some separation . "" {vocalsound} And , uh , in LPC , uh , the thing to particularly look at is , I think {disfmarker} is something {vocalsound} like , uh , the residual {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Um So . +PhD C: Yeah . S +Postdoc E: Can I ask ? It strikes me that there 's another piece of information um , that might be useful and that 's simply the transition . So , w if you go from a transition of silence to overlap versus a transition from silence to speech , there 's gonna be a b a big informative area there , it seems to me . +PhD C: Yeah , because {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah . But eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Is my my {disfmarker} my own vision , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the project . +Grad B: So , some sort of {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder project , for me , has eh , two {vocalsound} eh , w has eh several parts , several p {vocalsound} objective +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , because it 's a {disfmarker} a great project . But eh , at the first , in the acoustic , eh , eh , parts of the project , eh I think {pause} you eh {disfmarker} we have eh {vocalsound} {pause} two main eh objective . One {disfmarker} one of these is to {disfmarker} eh to detect the change , the acoustic change . And {vocalsound} for that , if you don't use , eh , {vocalsound} eh , a speech recognizer , eh broad class , or not broad class to {disfmarker} to try to {disfmarker} to {pause} {pause} {vocalsound} to label the different frames , I think {pause} the Ike criterion {pause} or BIC criterion eh will be enough to detect the change . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Probably . {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to t prove . Uh , probably . When you you have , eh , eh s eh the transition of speech or {disfmarker} or silence eh to overlap zone , this criterion is enough with {disfmarker} {pause} probably with , eh , this kind of , eh , eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more eh use eh {disfmarker} use eh {disfmarker} used eh em {pause} normal , regular eh parameter MF - MFCC . you {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the mark . You can find the {disfmarker} nnn , the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . But eh eh I {disfmarker} I understand that you {disfmarker} your objective is {pause} to eh classify , to know that eh that zone {pause} not is only {comment} a new zone in the {disfmarker} in the file , that eh you have eh , but you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to know that this is overlap zone . because in the future you will eh try to {disfmarker} to process that zone with a non - regular eh eh speech recognizer model , I suppose . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you will pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to process the overlapping z eh zone with another kind of algorithm +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: because it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to obtain the transcription {pause} from eh using eh eh a regular , normal speech recognizer . That , you know , {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the idea . And so {vocalsound} eh the , nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the system {pause} eh will have two models . +Postdoc E: Clustering . +PhD C: A model to detect more acc the mor most accurately possible that is p uh , will be possible the , eh {disfmarker} the mark , the change and another {disfmarker} another model will @ @ {pause} or several models , to try s but {disfmarker} eh several model eh robust models , sample models to try to classify the difference class . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I didn't understand you {disfmarker} what you said . What {disfmarker} what model ? +Postdoc E: +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the classifiers of the of the n to detect the different class to the different zones before try to {disfmarker} to recognize , eh with eh {disfmarker} to transcribe , with eh a speech recognizer . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And my idea is to use eh , for example , a neural net +Postdoc E: So p +PhD C: with {pause} the {pause} information we obtain from this eh {disfmarker} this eh study of the parameter with the {pause} selected {pause} parameter to try to eh {disfmarker} to put the class of each frame . Eh {pause} for {pause} the difference {pause} zone +Grad B: Features . Yeah . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you eh , eh {pause} have obtained in the first eh , step {pause} with the {pause} for example , BIC eh , eh {pause} criterion compare model +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You I don't - u +Professor D: OK , but , I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} in any event we 're agreed that the first step is {disfmarker} +PhD C: i +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Because what we had before for {disfmarker} for uh , speaker change detection did not include these overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So the first thing is for you to {disfmarker} to build up something that will detect the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? So again , I think the first thing to do to detect the overlaps is to look at these uh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad B: Features ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} again , the things you 've written up there I think are way too {disfmarker} way too big . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? If you 're talking about , say , twelfth {disfmarker} twelfth - order uh MFCC 's or something like that it 's just way too much . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: You won't be able to look at it . All you 'll be able to do is put it into a classifier and see how well it does . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Whereas I think if you have things {disfmarker} if you pick one or two dimensional things , or three of you have some very fancy display , uh , and look at how the {disfmarker} the different classes separate themselves out , you 'll have much more insight about what 's going on . +PhD C: It will be enough . +Professor D: Well , you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get a feeling for what 's happening , you know , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: so if you look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Suppose you look at first and second - order cepstral coefficients for some one of these kinds of things and you find that the first - order is much more effective than the second , {vocalsound} and then you look at the third and there 's not {disfmarker} and not too much there , {vocalsound} you may just take first and second - order cepstral coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: right ? And with LPC , I think LPC per se isn't gonna tell you much more than {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than the other , maybe . Uh , and uh on the other hand , the LPC residual , the energy in the LPC residual , {vocalsound} will say how well , uh {vocalsound} the low - order LPC {vocalsound} model 's fitting it , which should be {vocalsound} pretty poorly for two two or more {vocalsound} people speaking at the same time , and it should be pretty well , for w for {disfmarker} for one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And so {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} i again , if you take a few of these things that are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} prob um {comment} {pause} promising features and look at them in pairs , {vocalsound} uh , I think you 'll have much more of a sense of "" OK , I now have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , doing a bunch of these analyses , I now have ten likely candidates . "" And then you can do decision trees or whatever to see how they combine . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I 've got a question . +PhD C: Yeah . This +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Sorry . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: but eh , eh {vocalsound} eh eh eh I don't know it is the first eh way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} do that and I would eh like to {disfmarker} to know what eh , your opinion . Eh {vocalsound} all this study in the f in the first moment , I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I will pretend to do {comment} with eh eh equalizes speech . The {disfmarker} the equalizes speech , the speech eh , the mixes of speech . +Grad B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: With what ? With what ? +Grad B: Right . Mixed . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the mix , mixed speech . +Postdoc E: "" Mixed "" . Thank you . +PhD C: Eh , why ? Because eh the spectral distortion is {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} more eh {disfmarker} a lot eh clearer , very much clearer if we compare with the PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: PDA speech file is eh {disfmarker} it will be eh difficult . I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it 's messier . +PhD C: Yeah , +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the PDA is messier . +PhD C: fff ! {comment} Because the n the noise eh to sp the signal - to - noise relation is eh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is low . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , I think that that 's a good way to start . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad B: But . +PhD C: I don't know eh uh i i that eh the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the result of the {disfmarker} of the study eh with eh {disfmarker} with eh this eh {disfmarker} this speech , the mix speech eh {pause} will work {pause} exactly {pause} with the {pause} eh PDA files . +Grad B: It would be interesting in itself to see . Well , I think that would be an interesting result . +PhD C: eh What , I {disfmarker} I mean , what what is the effect of the low ' signal to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to noise relation , you know , eh with {disfmarker} +Professor D: N u We Well , I think {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's not a {disfmarker} it 's not at all unreasonable . It makes sense to start with the simpler signal because if you have features which don't {disfmarker} aren't even helpful in the high signal - to - noise ratio , then there 's no point in putting them into the low signal ratio , one would think , anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And so , if you can get {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Uh again , my prescription would be that you would , with a mixed signal , you would take a collection of possible uh , features {vocalsound} look at them , look at how these different classes that you 've marked , separate themselves , {comment} {vocalsound} and then collect , uh in pairs , {vocalsound} and then collect ten of them or something , and then proceed {vocalsound} with a bigger classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then if you can get that to work well , then you go to the other signal . And then , and you and you know , they won't work as well , but how m you know , how much {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then you can re - optimize , and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . But it I think it would be interesting to try a couple with both . Because it {disfmarker} I think it would be interesting to see if some features work well with close mixed , and {disfmarker} And don't {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Ah , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that it also , it could be {vocalsound} useful to do this exploratory analysis where you 're looking at scatter plots and so on in both cases . Sure . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} the eh parameter we found , eh , eh {vocalsound} worked with both eh , speech file , +Postdoc E: That 's good . +PhD C: but eh what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relation of eh {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} performance when eh you use eh the , eh eh speech file the PDA speech files . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I don't know . +Professor D: Right . +PhD C: But it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it will be important . Because eh people eh eh , different groups eh has eh experience with this eh kind of problem . Is {disfmarker} eh is not easy eh to {disfmarker} to solve , because if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have seen the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from eh PDA , and s some parts is {comment} very difficult because you {disfmarker} you don't see the spectrum {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +Grad B: Right . Yeah , they 're totally hidden . +PhD C: Is very difficult to apply eh , eh a parameter to detect change when you don't see . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Well , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's another reason why very simple features , things like energy , and things {disfmarker} things like harmonicity , and {vocalsound} residual energy are uh , yeah are {disfmarker} are better to use than very complex ones because they 'll be more reliable . +PhD C: But I suppose {disfmarker} +Grad B: Are probably better , yep . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will put eh the energy here . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Ch - Chuck was gonna ask something I guess . +PhD C: You have a question . +PhD A: Yeah , I {pause} maybe this is a dumb question , but w I thought it would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I thought it would be easier if you used a PDA +Professor D: Nah . +PhD A: because can't you , couldn't you like use beam - forming or something to detect speaker overlaps ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , if you used the array , rather than the signal from just one . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , no , you you 're {disfmarker} you 're right +Grad B: But that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: that {disfmarker} In fact , if we made use of the fact that there are two microphones , you do have some location information . which we don't have with the one and {disfmarker} and so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that not allowed with this project ? +Professor D: Uh , well , no , I mean , we we don't have any rules , r really . +PhD A: But I didn't mean {disfmarker} I w {pause} Given {disfmarker} given the goal . +Professor D: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an additional interesting question . +PhD A: I mean , is {disfmarker} is that violation of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . No . Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , I think you wanna know whether you can do it with one , because you know it 's not necessarily true that every device that you 're trying to do this with will have two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , if , on the other hand , we show that there 's a huge advantage with two , well then that could be a real point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , we don't n even know yet what the effect of detecting {disfmarker} having the ability to detect overlaps is . You know , maybe it doesn't matter too much . +PhD A: Right . Right . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , this is all pretty early stages . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But no , you 're absolutely right . That 's {pause} a good thing to consider . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: There {disfmarker} there is a complication though , and that is if a person turns their back to the {disfmarker} to the PDA , then some of the positional information goes away ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does , i it d it does , but the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that so much as {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And then , And if they 're on the access {disfmarker} {comment} on the axis of it , that was the other thing I was thinking . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} You mentioned this last time , that {disfmarker} that if {disfmarker} if you 're straight down the midline , then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} the r the left - right 's gonna be different , +Grad B: Yeah , we hav need to put it on a little turntable , +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , it 's +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in his case , I mean , he 's closer to it anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems to me that {disfmarker} that it 's not {disfmarker} a p uh , you know , it 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the topograph the topology of it is {disfmarker} is a little bit complicated . +Grad B: But it 's another source of information . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know ho +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} Sorry . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think because the the the distance between the two microph eh , microphone , eh , in the PDA is very near . But it 's uh {disfmarker} from my opinion , it 's an interesting idea to {disfmarker} to try to study the binaural eh problem eh , with information , because I {disfmarker} I found difference between the {disfmarker} the speech from {disfmarker} from each micro eh , in the PDA . +PhD A: I would guess {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's timing difference . It - it 's not amplitude , +Postdoc E: Oh yeah ! Oh I agree ! And we use it ourselves . +Professor D: right ? S Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , I know {disfmarker} I n I know that 's a very important cue . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just saying that the way we 're seated around a table , is not the same with respect to each {disfmarker} to each person with respect to the PDA , +PhD C: No . No . No , no , no . +Postdoc E: so we 're gonna have a lot of differences with ref respect to the speaker . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's fine . +PhD A: But th I don't think that matters , though . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so i @ @ {comment} I think the issue is , "" Is there a clean signal coming from only one direction ? "" +PhD A: Right . +Professor D: If it 's not coming from just one direction , if it {disfmarker} if th if there 's a broader pattern , it means that it 's more likely there 's multiple people speaking , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: wherever they are . +PhD A: So it 's sort of like how {disfmarker} how confused is it about where the beam is . +Professor D: Is it a {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , is there a narrow {disfmarker} Is there a narrow beam pattern or is it a {disfmarker} a distributed beam pattern ? So if there 's a distributed beam pattern , then it looks more like it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh , multiple people . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Wherever you are , even if he moves around . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah . OK , it just {disfmarker} it just seemed to me that {disfmarker} uh , that this isn't the ideal type of separation . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} I can see the value o +Professor D: Oh , ideal would be to have the wall filled with them , but I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But the thing is just having two mikes {disfmarker} If you looked at that thing on {disfmarker} on Dan 's page , it was {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when there were two people speaking , and it looked really really different . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah yeah . OK . +PhD A: What looked different ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , well , basic he was looking at correlation . +Grad B: Cross - co cross - correlation . +PhD C: Correlation , yeah . +Professor D: Just cross - correlation between two sides . +PhD A: Did - Sorry , b uh I 'm not sure what Dan 's page is that you mean . He was looking at the two {disfmarker} +Professor D: So cross - correlation is pretty sensitive . +Postdoc E: Uh , his a web page . +Professor D: You take the signal from the two microphones and you cros and you cross - correlate them with different lags . +Grad B: Subtract them . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And you find {disfmarker} They get peaks . +Professor D: OK . So when one person is speaking , then wherever they happen to be at the point when they 're speaking , {vocalsound} then there 's a pretty big maximum right around that point in the l in {disfmarker} in the lag . +PhD A: OK . OK . +Professor D: So if {disfmarker} at whatever angle you are , {vocalsound} at some lag corresponding to the time difference between the two there , you get this boost in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the cross - correlation value {disfmarker} function . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so if there 's two {disfmarker} +Grad B: And if there are multiple people talking , you 'll see two peaks . +Professor D: It 's spread out . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , let me ask you , if {disfmarker} if both people were over there , it would be less effective than if one was there and one was across , catty - corner ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . The - the {disfmarker} Oh , I 'm sorry , +Postdoc E: No ? +Professor D: if they 're right next to one another ? +PhD A: If I was {disfmarker} if I was here and Morgan was there and we were both talking , it wouldn't work . +Professor D: i i +Postdoc E: Next {disfmarker} next one over n over {comment} on this side of the P {disfmarker} PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: There we go . Good example , the same one I 'm asking . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , e I see . +PhD A: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Versus you {disfmarker} versus {disfmarker} you know , and we 're catty - corner across the table , and I 'm farther away from this one and you 're farther away from that one . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} or even if , like , if people were sitting right across from each other , you couldn't tell the difference either . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems like that would be pretty strong . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Across {disfmarker} the same axis , you don't have as much to differentiate . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , we d yeah , we don't have a third dimension there . Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And so my point was just that it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be differentially {disfmarker} differentially varia valuable . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not to say {disfmarker} I mean , I certainly think it 's extremely val {comment} And we {disfmarker} we humans {pause} n n depend on {pause} you know , these {disfmarker} these binaural cues . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But it 's almost {disfmarker} but it 's almost a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think what you 're talking about i there 's two things . +Postdoc E: But . +Grad B: Must do . {comment} Yeah . +Professor D: There 's a sensitivity issue , and then there 's a pathological error uh issue . So th the one where someone is just right directly in line is sort of a pathological error . +Postdoc E: Yes . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: If someone just happens to be sitting right there then we won't get good information from it . +Postdoc E: OK . and i and if there {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} And if it 's the two of you guys on the same side {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , if they 're {disfmarker} if they 're close , it 's just a question of the sensitivity . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So if the sensitivity is good enough {disfmarker} and we just {disfmarker} we just don't have enough , uh , experience with it to know how {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . Yeah yeah , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not trying to argue against using it , by any means . I just wanted to point out that {disfmarker} that weakness , that it 's topo topologically impossible to get it perfect for everybody . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And I think Dan is still working on it . So . He actually {disfmarker} he wrote me about it a little bit , so . +Postdoc E: Great . No , I don't mean to discourage that at all . +Professor D: I mean , the other thing you can do {disfmarker} uh , if {disfmarker} I mean , i We 're assuming that it would be a big deal just to get somebody {disfmarker} convince somebody to put two microphones in the PDA . But if you h put a third in , {vocalsound} you could put in the other axis . And then you know {disfmarker} then you 're sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , then {disfmarker} then you pretty much could cover {disfmarker} +PhD A: Once you got two {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well what about just doing it from these mikes ? +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD A: You know ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: It will be more interesting to study the PZM because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the separation {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh @ @ {comment} {vocalsound} But - but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , we can we 'll be {disfmarker} all of this is there for us to study . +Grad B: Then they 're much broader . Yeah , we can do whatever we want . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but the thing is , uh , one of the {disfmarker} at least one of the things I was hoping to get at with this is what can we do with what we think would be the normal situation if some people get together and one of them has a PDA . +Grad B: Whatever you 're interested in . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I was asking about , what are the constraints ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the constraint of one question that I think both Adam and I were {disfmarker} were {disfmarker} were interested in . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but {disfmarker} you know if you can instrument a room , this is really minor league compared with what some people are doing , right ? Some people at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} uh , yeah , at Brown and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} at uh {pause} um and at Cape , +Grad B: Big micro @ @ arrays . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Didn't they have something at Cape ? +Professor D: they both have these , you know , big arrays on the wall . And you know , if you could do that , you 've got microphones all over the place +Grad B: Very finely . +Professor D: uh , you know p tens of microphones , and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! I saw a demo . +PhD C: Oh , right , oh , yeah . +Professor D: And if you do that then you can really get very nice uh kind of selectivity {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , I saw one that was like a hundred microphones , a ten by ten array . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: And you could {disfmarker} In a noisy room , they could have all kinds of noises and you can zoom right in on somebody . +PhD C: Hundred . +Grad B: And they had very precision . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Very complex , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Ye - Pretty much . Yeah . +Grad B: It was all in software and they {disfmarker} and you could pick out an individual beam and listen to it . +PhD A: That is cool . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: It was {disfmarker} yeah , it was interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , the reason why I haven't focused on that as the fir my first concern is because um , I 'm interested in what happens for people , random people out in some random place where they 're p having an impromptu discussion . And you can't just always go , "" well , let 's go to this heavily instrumented room that we spent tens of thousands of dollars to se to set up "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: No , what you need to do is you 'd have a little fabric thing that you unroll and hang on a wall . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It has all these mikes and it has a plug - in jack to the PDA . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: But I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing actually , that gets at this a little bit of something else I 'd like to do , is what happens if you have two P D +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and they communicate with each other ? And then {disfmarker} You know , they 're in random positions , the likelihood that {disfmarker} I mean , basically there wouldn't be any {disfmarker} l likely to be any kind of nulls , if you even had two . If you had three or four it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Ooo ! +Grad B: That 's on my web pages . +PhD A: Network ! +Grad B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: Though {disfmarker} All sorts of interesting things you can do with that , +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: I mean , not only can you do microphone arrays , but you can do all sorts of um multi - band as well . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So it 's {disfmarker} it would be neat . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +PhD A: I still like my rug on the wall idea , so if anybody patents that , then {disfmarker} +Grad B: But {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , you could have strips that you stick to your clothing . +Grad B: in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah ! +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Hats ? +Grad B: In terms of the research {pause} th research , it 's really {disfmarker} it 's whatever the person who is doing the research wants to do . +PhD A: Shirts . +Grad B: So if {disfmarker} if Jose is interested in that , that 's great . But if {disfmarker} if he 's not , that 's great too . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} i I {disfmarker} i I would actually kind of like us to wind it down , see if we can still get to the end of the , uh , birthdays thing there . +Grad B: Catch some tea ? Um . +Professor D: So +Grad B: Well , I had a couple things that I did wanna bring out . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: One is , do we need to sign new {disfmarker} these again ? +Postdoc E: Well , it 's slightly different . So I {disfmarker} I would say it would be a good idea . +PhD A: Are they new ? +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's slightly different . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: Oh , this morning we didn't sign anything cuz we said that if anybody had signed it already , we didn't have to . +Grad B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I should 've checked with Jane first , but the ch the form has changed . +Postdoc E: It 's slightly different . +Grad B: So we may wanna have everyone sign the new form . +Professor D: Ah - oh . +PhD C: OK . +Grad B: Um , I had some things I wanted to talk about with the thresholding stuff I 'm doing . +Postdoc E: I had to make one {disfmarker} +Grad B: But , if we 're in a hurry , we can put that off . Um and then also anonymity , how we want to anonymize the data . Uh . +Postdoc E: Well , should I {disfmarker} I mean I have some results to present , but I mean I guess we won't have time to do that this time . But it seems like um the anonymization is uh , is also something that we might wanna discuss in greater length . +Professor D: Um . I mean , wha what {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: If {disfmarker} if we 're about to wind down , I think {disfmarker} what I would prefer is that we uh , delay the anonymization thing till next week , and I would like to present the results that I have on the overlaps . +PhD A: We still have to do this , too , right ? +Professor D: Right . +PhD A: Digits ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: No - well , we don't have to do digits . +Professor D: Well , why don't we {disfmarker} Uh , so @ @ OK . @ @ {comment} It sounds like u uh , there were {disfmarker} there were a couple technical things people would like to talk about . Why don't we just take a couple minutes to {disfmarker} to briefly {comment} do them , and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then we {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , go ahead , Jane . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} Oh , I 'd prefer to have more time for my results . e Could I do that next week maybe ? +Professor D: OK . Oh , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: OK , that 's what I 'm asking . +Professor D: Oh yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: And I think the anonymization , if y if you want to proceed with that now , I just think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a discussion which also n really deserves a lo a {disfmarker} you know , more that just a minute . +Professor D: We could s +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I really do think that , because you raised a couple of possibilities yourself , you and I have discussed it previously , and there are different ways that people approach it , e and I think we should {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright . We 're {disfmarker} we 're just {disfmarker} We 're getting enough data now that I 'd sort of like to do it now , before I get overwhelmed with {disfmarker} once we decide how to do it +Postdoc E: Well , OK . +Grad B: going and dealing with it . +Postdoc E: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . I {disfmarker} I 'll give you the short version , but I do think it 's an issue that we can't resolve in five minutes . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: OK , so {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the short thing is um , we have uh , tape recording uh , uh , sorry , digitized recor recordings . Those we won't be able to change . If someone says "" Hey , Roger so - and - so "" . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: So that 's gonna stay that person 's name . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like the transcript , the question becomes what symbol are you gonna put in there for everybody 's name , and whether you 're gonna put it in the text where he says "" Hey Roger "" or are we gonna put that person 's anonymized name in instead ? +Grad B: No , because then that would give you a mapping , and you don't wanna have a mapping . +Postdoc E: OK , so first decision is , we 're gonna anonymize the same name for the speaker identifier and also in the text whenever the speaker 's name is mentioned . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No . Because that would give you a mapping between the speaker 's real name and the tag we 're using , and we don't want {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I don't think you understood what I {disfmarker} what I said . +Grad B: OK . +Postdoc E: So {disfmarker} uh , so in {disfmarker} within the context of an utterance , someone says "" So , Roger , what do you think ? "" OK . Then , uh , it seems to me that {disfmarker} Well , maybe I {disfmarker} uh it seems to me that if you change the name , the transcript 's gonna disagree with the audio , and you won't be able to use that . +PhD A: Right , you don't wanna do that . +Grad B: We don't {disfmarker} we wanna {disfmarker} we ha we want the transcript to be "" Roger "" . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Because if we made the {disfmarker} the transcript be the tag that we 're using for Roger , someone who had the transcript and the audio would then have a mapping between the anonymized name and the real name , and we wanna avoid that . +Postdoc E: OK , well , but then there 's this issue of if we 're gonna use this for a discourse type of thing , then {disfmarker} and , you know , Liz was mentioning stuff in a previous meeting about gaze direction and who 's {disfmarker} who 's the addressee and all , then to have "" Roger "" be the thing in the utterance and then actually have the speaker identifier who was "" Roger "" be "" Frank "" , that 's going to be really confusing and make it pretty much useless for discourse analysis . +Grad B: Oh . Ugh ! That 's a good point . +Postdoc E: Now , if you want to , you know , I mean , in some cases , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I know that Susan Ervin - Tripp in some of hers , uh , actually did do uh , um , a filter of the s signal where the person 's name was mentioned , except +Professor D: Yeah Yeah , once you get to the publication you can certainly do that . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} cer and I {disfmarker} So , I mean , the question then becomes one level back . Um , how important is it for a person to be identified by first name versus full name ? Well , on the one hand , uh , it 's not a full identity , we 're taking all these precautions , um and they 'll be taking precautions , which are probably even the more important ones , to {disfmarker} they 'll be reviewing the transcripts , to see if there 's something they don't like {disfmarker} {comment} OK . So , maybe , uh , maybe that 's enough protection . On the other hand , this is a small {disfmarker} this is a small pool , and people who say things about topic X e who are researchers and well - known in the field , they 'll be identifiable and simply from the {disfmarker} from the first name . However , taking one step further back , they 'd be identifiable anyway , even if we changed all the names . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: So , is it really , um {disfmarker} {comment} You know ? +Grad B: Ugh ! +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I did some results , which I 'll report on n next time , which do mention individual speakers by name . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Now , there , the Human Subjects Committee is very precise . You don't wanna mention subjects by name in published reports . Now , it would be very possible for me to take those data put them in a {disfmarker} in a study , and just change everybody 's name for the purpose of the publication . And someone who looked {disfmarker} +Professor D: You can go , you know , uh , "" Z "" {vocalsound} uh , for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , exactly . Doesn't matter if {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . Um , yeah , I mean , t it doesn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not knowledgeable about this , but it certainly doesn't bother me to have someone 's first name in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the transcript . +Postdoc E: That 's the same thing you saw . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh , I think {disfmarker} you don't wanna have their full name to be uh , listed . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and in the form that they sign , it does say "" your first name may arise in the course of the meetings "" . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . So again , th the issue is if you 're tracking discourse things , you know , if someone says , uh , uh , "" Frank said this "" and then you wanna connect it to something later , you 've gotta have this part where that 's "" Frank colon "" . +Postdoc E: Or "" your name "" . +Grad B: Yeah , shoot ! +Professor D: Right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} you know , even more i i uh , immediate than that just being able to , uh {disfmarker} Well , it just seems like to track {disfmarker} track from one utterance to the next utterance who 's speaking and who 's speaking to whom , cuz that can be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: S i You know , "" You raised the point , So - and - so "" , it 's be kind of nice to be able to know who "" you "" was . +Grad B: Shoot ! +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I 'm thinking too much . +Postdoc E: And ac {comment} and actually you remember {disfmarker} furthermore , you remember last time we had this discussion of how you know , I was sort of avoiding mentioning people 's names , +Professor D: Yeah , I was too . Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} and we made the decision that was kind of artificial . Well , I mean , if we 're going to step in after the fact and change people 's names in the transcript , we 've basically done something one step worse . +Grad B: Yep . Well , I would sug I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} don't wanna change the names in the transcript , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but that 's because I 'm focused so much on the acoustics instead of on the discourse , and so I think that 's a really good point . +Postdoc E: Misleading . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: You 're right , this is going to require more thought . +Professor D: Yeah . L let me just back up this to make a {disfmarker} a brief comment about the , uh , what we 're covering in the meeting . Uh I realize when you 're doing this that uh {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't realize that you had a bunch of things that you wanted to talk about . Uh , and so , uh {disfmarker} and so I was proceeding some somewhat at random , frankly . So I think what would be helpful would be uh , i and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll mention this to {disfmarker} to Liz and Andreas too , that um , before the meeting if anybody could send me , any {disfmarker} any , uh , uh , agenda items that they were interested in and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take the role of organizing them uh , into {disfmarker} into the agenda , +Postdoc E: OK . Sure . +Professor D: but I 'd be very pleased to have everyone else {vocalsound} completely make up the agenda . I 've no desire to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to make it up , but if {disfmarker} if no one 's told me things , then I 'm just proceeding from my {disfmarker} my guesses , and {disfmarker} and uh , and i ye yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry it ended up with your out your time to {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm just always asking Jose what he 's doing , you know , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and so it 's {disfmarker} {pause} There 's uh , there 's obviously other things going on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Oh , it 's not a problem . Not a problem . Yeah . I just {disfmarker} I just couldn't do it in two minutes . +Grad B: How will we {disfmarker} how would the person who 's doing the transcript even know who they 're talking about ? Do you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD A: "" The person who 's doing the transcript {disfmarker} "" {comment} The IBM people ? +Grad B: Yeah . I mean , so so {disfmarker} how is that information gonna get labeled anyway ? +Postdoc E: How do you mean , who {disfmarker} what they 're {disfmarker} who they 're talking about ? +Grad B: I mean , so if I 'm saying in a meeting , "" oh and Bob , by the way , wanted {disfmarker} wanted to do so - and - so "" , +Postdoc E: How do you mean ? +PhD A: They 're just gonna write "" Bob "" on it or do @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad B: if you 're doing {disfmarker} Yeah , @ @ they 're just gonna write "" Bob "" . And so . If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're doing discourse analysis , +Postdoc E: They won't be able to change it themselves . +Professor D: What ar how are they gonna do any of this ? +Grad B: Yeah , really . +Postdoc E: Well , I {disfmarker} I 'm betting we 're gonna have huge chunks that are just totally un untranscribable by them . +Professor D: I mean , they 're gonna say speaker - one , or speaker - two or speaker I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They can't do that . +PhD C: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , the current one they don't do speaker identity . +PhD C: +Grad B: because in NaturallySpeaking , or , excuse me , in ViaVoice , it 's only one person . and so in their current conventions there are no multiple speaker conventions . +Professor D: So it may just be one long transcript of a bunch of words . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh . {vocalsound} I think that {disfmarker} My understanding from Yen Is it Yen - Ching ? Is that how you pronounce her name ? +Professor D: Uh {pause} Yu - Ching , Yu - Ching . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , uh Yu - Ching ? Yu - Ching ? +Grad B: y Yu - Ching . +Postdoc E: was that um , they will {disfmarker} that they will adopt the {disfmarker} part of the conventions that {disfmarker} that we discussed , where they put speaker identifier down . But , you know , h they won't know these people , so I think it 's {disfmarker} Well , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll adopt some convention but we haven't specified to them {disfmarker} So they 'll do something like speaker - one , speaker - two , is what I bet , but I 'm betting there 'll be huge variations in the accuracy of {disfmarker} of their labeling the speakers . We 'll have to review the transcripts in any case . +Professor D: And it {disfmarker} and it may very well be {disfmarker} I mean , since they 're not going to sit there and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and worry ab about , uh , it being the same speaker , they may very well go the {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the first se the first time it changes to another speaker , that 'll be speaker - two . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: And the next time it 'll be speaker - three even if it 's actually speaker - one . +Postdoc E: You know {disfmarker} Uh - huh . You know , that would be a very practical solution on their part . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's a good idea . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but then we would need to label it . +Grad B: Yeah we {disfmarker} we can probably regenerate it pretty easily from the close - talking mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And that 's OK . +PhD C: +Postdoc E: Yes , I was thinking , the temp the time values of when it changes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . But I mean that doesn't {disfmarker} This doesn't answer the {disfmarker} the question . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 'd be very efficient . +Grad B: The p It 's a good point , "" which {disfmarker} what do you do for discourse tracking ? "" +PhD C: Because y y you don't know to know , eh {disfmarker} you don't need to know what i what is the iden identification of the {disfmarker} of the speakers . You only eh want to know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm . For {disfmarker} for acoustics you don't but for discourse you do . +Professor D: Well , you do . +PhD C: Ah , for discourse , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if someone says , uh , "" what {disfmarker} what is Jose doing ? "" and then Jose says something , you need to know that that was Jose responding . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , +Grad B: Ugh , {comment} that 's a problem . +Professor D: Uh , so . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Unless we adopt a different set of norms which is to not id to make a point of not identifying people by name , which then leads you to be more contextually ex explicit . +PhD A: That would be hard . +Postdoc E: Well , people are very flexible . You know ? I mean , so when we did this las last week , I felt that you know , now , Andreas may , uh , @ @ {comment} uh , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} i sometimes people think of something else at the same time and they miss a sentence or something , and {disfmarker} and because he missed something , then he missed the r the initial introduction of who we were talking about , and was {disfmarker} was unable to do the tracking . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But I felt like most of us were doing the tracking and knew who we were talking about and we just weren't mentioning the name . So , people are really flexible . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But , you know , like , at the beginning of this meeting {disfmarker} Or , you I think said , {pause} you know , or s Liz , said something about um , uh , "" is Mari gonna use the equipment ? "" I mean , how would you say that ? +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD A: I mean , you have to really think , you know , about what you 're saying bef +Grad B: if you wanted to anonymize . +PhD C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , is {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Is you know who up in you know where ? "" +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Use the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think it would be really hard if we made a policy where we didn't say names , plus we 'd have to tell everybody else . +Grad B: Yeah , darn ! I mean , what I was gonna say is that the other option is that we could bleep out the names . +Postdoc E: Well , it +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: but then , again that kills your discourse analysis . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Ugh ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I don't know , my own two cents worth is that you don't do anything about what 's in the recordings , you only anonymize to the extent you can , the speakers have signed the forms and all . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the issue . +Grad B: Well , but that but that {disfmarker} as I said , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that works great for the acoustics , but it {disfmarker} it hurts you a lot for trying to do discourse . +Postdoc E: Well . +PhD A: Why ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Because you don't have a map of who 's talking versus {pause} their {pause} name that they 're being referred to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Th - Bec +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought we were gonna get it labelled speaker - one , speaker - two {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sure but , h then you have to know that Jose is speaker - one and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Why do you have to know his name ? +Professor D: OK , so suppose someone says , "" well I don't know if I really heard what {disfmarker} uh , what Jose said . "" +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , Jose responds . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And part of your learning about the dialogue is Jose responding to it . But it doesn't say "" Jose "" , it says "" speaker - five "" . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} uh {pause} u +PhD A: Oh , I see , you wanna associated the word "" Jose "" in the dialogue with the fact that then he responded . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Someone who 's doing discourse would wanna do that . +Professor D: And so , if we pass out the data to someone else , and it says "" speaker - five "" there , we also have to pass them this little guide that says that speaker - five is Jose , +Grad B: And that violates our privacy . +Professor D: and if were gonna do that we might as well {comment} give them "" Jose "" {disfmarker} say it was "" Jose "" . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: And that violates our privacy issue . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Now , I {disfmarker} I think that we have these two phases in the {disfmarker} in the data , which is the one which is o our use , University of Washington 's use , IBM , SRI . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And within that , it may be that it 's sufficient to not uh change the {disfmarker} to not incorporate anonymization yet , but always , always in the publications we have to . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And I think also , when we take it that next step and distribute it to the world , we have to . But I {disfmarker} but I don that 's {disfmarker} that 's a long way from now and {disfmarker} and it 's a matter of {disfmarker} between now and then of d of deciding how {disfmarker} +Grad B: Making some decisions ? +Postdoc E: i i it {disfmarker} You know , it may be s that we we 'll need to do something like actually X out that part of the um {disfmarker} the audio , and just put in brackets "" speaker - one "" . +Grad B: Yeah . For the public one . +PhD C: the ? ? +Grad B: You know , what we could do also is have more than one version of release . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad B: One that 's public and one {disfmarker} one that requires licensing . And so the licensed one would {disfmarker} w we could {disfmarker} it would be a sticky limitation . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} Well , we can talk about that later . +Postdoc E: I think that 's risky . I think that the public should be the same . I think that when we do that world release , it should be the same . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I agree . I {disfmarker} I agree with Jane . +Postdoc E: For a bunch of reasons , legal . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} need to have a consistent licensing policy of some sort , and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But I also think a consistent licensing policy is important . +PhD A: Well , one thing to to take into consideration is w are there any um {disfmarker} For example , the people who are funding this work , they want this work to get out and be useful for discourse . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: If we all of a sudden do this and then release it to the public and it 's not longer useful for discourse , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , depending on how much editing we do , you might be able to {pause} still have it useful . because for discourse you don't need the audio . Right ? So you could bleep out the names in the audio . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and use the anonymized one through the transcript . +PhD A: But if you release both {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . +Postdoc E: Excuse me . We {disfmarker} we do need audio for discourse . +Grad B: But , n excuse me , but you could bleep out just the names . +Professor D: She {disfmarker} No , but she 's saying , from the argument before , she wants to be able to say if someone said "" Jose "" in their {disfmarker} in their thing , and then connect to so to what he said later , then you need it . +Grad B: Right . But in the transcript , you could say , everywhere they said "" Jose "" that you could replace it with "" speaker - seven "" . +Professor D: Oh I see . I see . +Postdoc E: Yeah . But I {disfmarker} {pause} I also wanna say that people {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then it wouldn't meet {disfmarker} match the audio anymore . But it would be still useful for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But if both of those are publically available {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad B: But they {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: And th and the other thing is if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if Liz were here , {vocalsound} what she might say is that she wants to look if things that cut across between the audio and the dialogue , +Postdoc E: Well , you see ? So , it 's complicated . +Professor D: and so , {vocalsound} uh , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . Sorry . +Postdoc E: I think we have to think about w @ @ {comment} how . I think that this can't be decided today . +Grad B: Yeah , OK , good point . +Postdoc E: But it 's g but I think it was good to introduce the thing and we can do it next time . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think {disfmarker} when I wrote you that email I wasn't thinking it was a big can of worms , but I guess it is . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: OK . Yeah , a lot of these things are . +Grad B: Discourse . +Postdoc E: Well it {disfmarker} Discourse , you know {disfmarker} Also I wanted to make the point that {disfmarker} that discourse is gonna be more than just looking at a transcript . +Grad B: Yeah , ab absolutely . Oh , yeah , sure . +Postdoc E: It 's gonna be looking at a t You know , and prosod prosodic stuff is involved , and that means you 're going to be listening to the audio , and then you come directly into this {disfmarker} confronting this problem . +PhD A: Maybe we should just not allow anybody to do research on discourse , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD A: and then , we wouldn't have to worry about it . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , we should just market it to non - English speaking countries . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , maybe we should only have meetings between people who don't know one another and who are also amnesiacs who don't know their own name . +Grad B: Did you read the paper on Eurospeech ? +Postdoc E: We could have little labels . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna introduce my Reservoir Dogs solution again , which is everyone has like "" Mister White "" , "" Mister Pink "" , {vocalsound} "" Mister Blue "" . +PhD A: Mister White . +Grad B: Yeah . Did you read the paper a few years ago where they were reversing the syllables ? They were di they they had the utterances . and they would extract out the syllables and they would play them backwards . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} so , the syllables were in the same order , with respect to each other , but the acous +Grad B: Everything was in the same order , but they were {disfmarker} the individual syll {comment} syllables were played backwards . And you could listen to it , {pause} and it would sound the same . +PhD A: What did it sound like ? +Grad B: People had no difficulty in interpreting it . So what we need is something that 's the reverse , that a speech recognizer works exactly the same on it but people can't understand it . +Professor D: Oh , well that 's {disfmarker} there 's an easy way to do that . Jus - jus just play it all backwards . +Grad B: Oh right . The speech recognizer 's totally symmetric , isn't it . +Professor D: What , what does the speech recognizer care ? +Grad B: Ah , anyway . +Professor D: Um , +Postdoc E: Oh , do we do digits ? Or {disfmarker} ? What do we do ? +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} OK , we 'll quickly do digits . +Professor D: Let 's do digits . Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we already missed the party . +Postdoc E: Or do we just quit ? +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , go off here . +PhD A: I think it would be fun sometime to read them with different intonations . like as if you were talking like , "" nine eight six eight seven ? "" +Postdoc E: Well , you know , in the {disfmarker} in the one I transcribed , I did find a couple instances {disfmarker} {pause} I found one instance of contrastive stress , where it was like the string had a {disfmarker} li So it was like "" nine eight two four , nine nine two four "" . +PhD A: Oh , really . So they were like looking ahead , +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: huh ? +Postdoc E: Well , they differed . I mean , at that {disfmarker} that session I did feel like they did it more as sentences . But , um , sometimes people do it as phone numbers . {comment} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I {pause} am sort of interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} And sometimes , you know , I s And I {disfmarker} I never know . When I do it , I {disfmarker} I ask myself what I 'm doing each time . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Well , I was thinking that it must get kind of boring for the people who are gonna have to transcribe this +Postdoc E: and I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They may as well throw in some interesting intonations . +Grad B: Well , except , +Postdoc E: I like your question intonation . +Grad B: yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's very funny . I haven't heard that one . +Grad B: We have the transcript . We have the actual numbers they 're reading , so we 're not necessarily depending on that . OK , I 'm gonna go off . +","The meeting discussed several technical and logistical issues related to the research project, including anonymization of speaker names for public release of audio and transcripts, how to maintain usefulness for discourse analysis, and the possibility of using multiple microphones for binaural analysis. They also mentioned the need to redo consent forms due to slight changes. There was a recognition that more time was needed to make decisions regarding the anonymization problem, which affects both acoustics and discourse analysis. They agreed that it was important to handle anonymization carefully before worldwide public release and it was suggested to have consistent licensing policies. Further discussion on anonymization and results on overlaps was postponed to the next meeting. There was also a brief mention of doing speaker digits with different intonations as a fun way to vary the usually monotonous task." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: OK , +PhD F: That 's looks strange . +Grad B: now we 're on and it seems to be working . +Postdoc E: Oh there we go . +PhD C: One two three four five six +PhD A: That is weird . +Postdoc E: This looks good . +PhD A: It 's like when it 's been sitting for a long time or something . +Grad B: So , I mean {disfmarker} I don't know what it is . But all {disfmarker} all I know is that it seems like every time I am up here after a meeting , and I start it , it works fine . And if I 'm up here and I start it and we 're all sitting here waiting to have a meeting , it gives me that error message and I have not yet sat down with {disfmarker} been able to get that error message in a point where I can sit down and find out where it 's occurring in the code . +PhD A: Next time you get it maybe we should write it down . +Grad B: Yep , we will . One of these days . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Was it a pause , or {disfmarker} ? OK . Was it on "" pause "" or something ? +Grad B: No . +Postdoc E: OK . Don't know . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} so the uh , the new procedural change that just got suggested , which I think is a good idea is that um , we do the digit recordings at the end . And that way , if we 're recording somebody else 's uh meeting , and a number of the participants have to run off to some other meeting and don't have the time , uh , then they can run off . It 'll mean we 'll get somewhat fewer uh , sets of digits , but um , I think that way we 'll cut into people 's time , um , if someone 's on strict time uh , less . So , I th I think {disfmarker} I think we should start doing that . Um , so , uh , let 's see , we were having a discussion the other day , maybe we should bring that up , about uh , the nature of the data that we are collecting . uh @ @ that uh , we should have a fair amount of data that is um , collected for the same meeting , so that we can , uh {disfmarker} I don't know . Wh - what {disfmarker} what were some of the points again about that ? Is it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , well , OK , I 'll back up . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , at the previous {disfmarker} at last week 's meeting , this meeting I was griping {vocalsound} about wanting to get more data and I {disfmarker} I talked about this with Jane and Adam , um , and was thinking of this mostly just so that we could do research on this data um , since we 'll have a new {disfmarker} this new student di does wanna work with us , +PhD A: Well , great . +PhD F: th the guy that was at the last meeting . +PhD A: Great . +PhD F: And he 's already funded part - time , so we 'll only be paying him for sort of for half of the normal part - time , +PhD A: What a deal . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: And what 's he interested in , specifically ? +PhD F: So he 's {disfmarker} comes from a signal - processing background , but I liked him a lot cuz he 's very interested in higher level things , like language , and disfluencies and all kinds of eb maybe prosody , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Great . +PhD F: so he 's just getting his feet wet in that . Anyway , I thought OK , maybe we should have enough data so that if he starts {disfmarker} he 'd be starting in January , next semester that we 'd have , you know , enough data to work with . +Grad B: Right . +PhD F: But , um , Jane and Adam brought up a lot of good points that just posting a note to Berkeley people to have them come down here has some problems in that you m you need to make sure that the speakers are who you want and that the meeting type is what you want , and so forth . So , I thought about that and I think it 's still possible , um , but I 'd rather try to get more regular meetings of types that we know about , and hear , then sort of a mish - mosh of a bunch of one {disfmarker} one - time {disfmarker} +Grad B: One offs ? +PhD F: Yeah , just because it would be very hard to process the data in all senses , both to get the , um {disfmarker} to figure out what type of meeting it is and to do any kind of higher level work on it , like well , I was talking to Morgan about things like summarization , or what 's this meeting about . I mean it 's very different if you have a group that 's just giving a report on what they did that week , versus coming to a decision and so forth . So . Then I was um , talking to Morgan about some {pause} new proposed work in this area , sort of a separate issue from what the student would be working on where I was thinking of doing some kind of summarization of meetings or trying to find cues in both the utterances and in the utterance patterns , like in numbers of overlaps and amount of speech , sort of raw cues from the interaction that can be measured from the signals and from the diff different microphones that point to sort of hot spots in the meeting , or things where stuff is going on that might be important for someone who didn't attend to {pause} listen to . And in that uh , regard , I thought we definitely w will need {disfmarker} it 'd b it 'd be nice for us to have a bunch of data from a few different domains , or a few different kinds of meetings . So this {disfmarker} this meeting is one of them , although I 'm not sure I can participate if I {disfmarker} You know , I would feel very strange being part of a meeting that you were then analysing later for things like summarization . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , and then there are some others that menti that Morgan mentioned , like the front - end meeting {pause} and maybe a networking {pause} group meeting . +Grad B: Right . Yep . Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're hoping that they 'll let us start recording regularly . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} So if that were the case then I think we 'd have enough . +Grad B: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But basically , for anything where you 're trying to get a summarization of some kind of meeting {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} meaning out of the meeting , um , it would be too hard to have fifty different kinds of meetings where we didn't really have a good grasp on what does it mean to summarize , +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} rather we should have different meetings by the same group but hopefully that have different summaries . And then we need a couple that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} {pause} We don't wanna just have one group because that might be specific to that particular group , but @ @ three or four different kinds . +Grad B: Yeah , we have a lot of overlap between this meeting and the morning meeting . +Professor D: S So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: See , I 've never listened to the data for the front - end {pause} meeting . +Grad B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've only had three . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: OK . But maybe that 's enough . So , in general , I was thinking more data but also data where we hold some parameters constant or fairly similar , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a meeting about of people doing a certain kind of work where at least half the participants each time are the same . +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now , let {disfmarker} l l let me just give you the other side to that cuz I ca because I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that , but I think there is a complimentary piece to it too . Uh , for other kinds of research , particularly the acoustic oriented research , I actually feel the opposite need . I 'd like to have lots of different people . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor D: As many people here a a and talking about the kind of thing that you were just talking about it would have uh too few people from my point of view . I 'd like to have many different speakers . So , um I think I would also very much like us to have a fair amount of really random scattered meetings , of somebody coming down from campus , and {disfmarker} and uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , sure , if we can get more from them , fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: but if we only get one or two from each group , that still could be useful acoustically just because we 'd have close and distant microphones with different people . +PhD F: Yeah , I definitely agree with that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Definitely . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Can I {disfmarker} can I say about that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the issues that I think Adam and I raised were more a matter of advertising so that you get more native speakers . Because I think if you just say {disfmarker} an And in particular , my suggestion was to advertise to linguistics grad students because there you 'd have so people who 'd have proficiency enough in English that {disfmarker} that uh , it would be useful for {disfmarker} for purposes {disfmarker} You know . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But you know , I think I 've been {disfmarker} I 've I {disfmarker} I 've gathered data from undergrads at {disfmarker} on campus and if you just post randomly to undergrads I think you 'd get such a mixed bag that it would be hard to know how much conversation you 'd have at all . And {disfmarker} and the English you 'd have {disfmarker} The language models would be really hard to build +Professor D: Well , you want to i +Postdoc E: because it would not really be {disfmarker} it would be an interlanguage rather than {pause} than a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , uh , first place , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we 'd just want to have random people come down and talk to one another , I think there should be a meeting that has some goal and point cuz I {disfmarker} I think that 's what we 're investigating , +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD F: It has to be a {disfmarker} a pre - existing meeting , {pause} like a meeting that would otherwise happen anyway . +Professor D: so +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So I was {disfmarker} I was thinking more in terms of talking to professors uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , senior uh , uh , d and uh , doctoral students who are leading projects and offering to them that they have their {disfmarker} hold their meeting down here . +PhD F: That 's I think what we {disfmarker} and I agree with . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting ! +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . Oh , interesting ! +Professor D: Uh , that 's the first point . The second point is um I think that for some time now , going back through BeRP I think that we have had speakers that we 've worked with who had non - native accents and I th I think that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . I 'm not saying accents . u The accent 's not the problem . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Postdoc E: No , it 's more a matter of uh , proficiency , e e just simply fluency . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I mean , I deal with people on {disfmarker} on campus who {disfmarker} I think sometimes people , undergraduates um in computer science uh , have language skills that make , you know {disfmarker} that their {disfmarker} their fluency and writing skills are not so strong . +Professor D: Oh ! You 're not talking about foreign language at all . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , just talking about . +Professor D: You 're just talking about {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , e I just think , +Grad B: We all had the same thought . +Postdoc E: but you know , it 's like when you get into the graduate level , uh , no problem . I mean , I 'm not saying accents . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , then we 're completely gone . +Postdoc E: I 'm say I 'm saying fluency . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The {disfmarker} the habits are already burnt in . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . I 'm just saying fluency . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think that , um {disfmarker} I think that the only thing we should say in the advertisement is that the meeting should be held in English . And {disfmarker} and I think if it 's a pre - existing meeting and it 's held in English , {comment} I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably OK if a few of the people don't have uh , g particularly good English skills . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK , now can I {disfmarker} can I say the other aspect of this from my perspective which is that um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this {disfmarker} this issue , you have a corpus out there , it should be used for {disfmarker} for multiple things cuz it 's so expensive to put together . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Right . +Postdoc E: And if people want to approach {disfmarker} Um , i so I know {pause} e e {pause} You know this {disfmarker} The idea of computational linguistics and probabilistic grammars and all may not be the focus of this group , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: but the idea of language models , which are fund you know generally speaking uh , you know , t t terms of like the amount of benefit per dollar spent or an hour invested in preparing the data , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: if you have a choice between people who are pr more proficient in {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} um , i more fluent , more {disfmarker} more close to being academic English , then it would seem to me to be a good thing . +Professor D: I guess {disfmarker} I maybe {disfmarker} Hmm . I +Postdoc E: Because otherwise y you don't have the ability to have {disfmarker} Uh , so if {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of idiolects that 's the worst possible case . If you have people who are using English as a {disfmarker} as an interlanguage because they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} uh , they can't speak in their native languages and {disfmarker} but their interlanguage isn't really a match to any existing , uh , language model , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: this is the worst case scenario . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's pretty much what you 're going to have in the networking group . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: because {disfmarker} because they {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} the network group is almost entirely Germans and Spaniards . +Postdoc E: Well Oh . But the thing is , I think that these people are of high enough level in their {disfmarker} in their language proficiency that {disfmarker} +Professor D: I see . +Postdoc E: And I 'm not objecting to accents . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just thinking that we have to think at a {disfmarker} at a higher level view , could we have a language model , a {disfmarker} a grammar {disfmarker} a grammar , basically , that um , wo would be a {disfmarker} a possibility . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So y so if you wanted to bring in a model like Dan Jurafsky 's model , an and do some top - down stuff , it {disfmarker} to help th the bottom - up and merge the things or whatever , uh , it seems like um , I don't see that there 's an argument {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I think is that why not have the corpus , since it 's so expensive to put together , uh , useful for the widest range of {disfmarker} of central corp things that people generally use corpora for and which are , you know , used in computational linguistics . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's my point . Which {disfmarker} which includes both top - down and bottom - up . +PhD C: It 's difficult . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , well , i i let 's {disfmarker} let 's see what we can get . I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I think that if we 're aiming at {disfmarker} at uh , groups of graduate students and professors and so forth who are talking about things together , and it 's from the Berkeley campus , probably most of it will be OK , +Postdoc E: Yes , that 's fine . That 's fine . Exactly . And my point in m in my note to Liz was I think that undergrads are an iff iffy population . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . OK . +PhD F: I definitely agree with that , I mean , for this purpose . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Well , not to mention the fact that I would be hesitant certainly to take anyone under eighteen , probably even an anyone under twenty - one . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Grads and professors , fine . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +Professor D: Oh , you age - ist ! +Grad B: What 's that ? Well , age - ist . {comment} The "" eighteen "" is because of the consent form . +Postdoc E: Age - ist . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , Yeah . +Grad B: We 'd hafta get {disfmarker} find their parent to sign for them . +PhD C: "" Age - ist "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I have a {disfmarker} uh , um , question . Well , Morgan , you were mentioning that Mari may not use the k equipment from IBM if they found something else , cuz there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} yeah , they 're d they 're uh {disfmarker} assessing whether they should do that or y do something else , hopefully over the next few weeks . +PhD F: Cuz I mean , one remote possibility is that if we st if we inherited that equipment , if she weren't using it , could we set up a room in the linguistics department ? And {disfmarker} and I mean , there {disfmarker} there may be a lot more {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or in psych , or in comp wherever , in another building where we could um , record people there . I think we 'd have a better chance +Grad B: I think we 'd need a real motivated partner to do that . We 'd need to find someone on campus who was interested in this . +PhD F: Right , but {disfmarker} Right . But if there were such a {disfmarker} I mean it 's a remote possibility , then um , you know , one of us could you know , go up there and record the meeting or something rather than bring all of them down here . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD F: So it 's just a just a thought if they end up not using the {disfmarker} the hardware . +Professor D: Well , the other thing {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the other thing that I was hoping to do in the first place was to turn it into some kind of portable thing so you could wheel it around . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Uh . But . Um , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I know that space is really scarce on {disfmarker} at least in CS . You know , to {disfmarker} to actually find a room that we could use regularly might actually be very difficult . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: But you may not need a separate room , you know , +Grad B: That 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the idea is , if they have a meeting room and they can guarantee that the equipment will be safe and so forth , and if one of us is up there once a week to record the meeting or something {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor D: Well , maybe John would let us put it into the phonology lab or something . +PhD F: Huh . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: You know . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I think it 's not out of the question . +Grad B: Yeah , I think it would be interesting because then we could regularly get another meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . So . +Grad B: another type of meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you need , uh , another portable thing a another portable equipment to {disfmarker} to do , eh , more e easier the recording process , eh , out from ICSI . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Eh and probably . I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Eh , if you {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} to record , eh , a seminar or a class , eh , in the university , you {disfmarker} you need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It - it would be eh eh very difficult to {disfmarker} to put , {vocalsound} eh , a lot of , eh , head phones eh in different people when you have to {disfmarker} to record only with , eh , this kind of , eh , d device . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , but {disfmarker} I think if we {disfmarker} if we wanna just record with the tabletop microphones , that 's easy . +PhD C: Oh - yeah . +Grad B: Right ? That 's very easy , +PhD C: Ye - Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: but that 's not the corpus that we 're collecting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Actually , that 's a int that raises an interesting point that came up in our discussion that 's maybe worth repeating . We realized that , um , when we were talking about this that , OK , there 's these different things that we want to do with it . So , um , it 's true that we wanna be selective in some ways , uh , the way that you were speaking about with , uh , not having an interlingua and uh , these other issues . But on the other hand , it 's not necessarily true that we need all of the corpus to satisfy all of it . So , a a as per the example that we wanna have a fair amount that 's done with a small n recorded with a small , uh , typ number of types of meetings But we can also have another part that 's , uh , just one or two meetings of each of a {disfmarker} of a range of them and that 's OK too . Uh , i We realized in discussion that the other thing is , what about this business of distant and close microphones ? I mean , we really wanna have a substantial amount recorded this way , that 's why we did it . But {pause} what about {disfmarker} For th for these issues of summarization , a lot of these higher level things you don't really need the distant microphone . +PhD F: Right , I mean , I c I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: And you don't really need the close microphone , you mean . +Professor D: You actually don't . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yea - yeah yeah , you actually don't really even need any fancy microphone . +Postdoc E: Which one did you mean ? +Professor D: You d You don't ne it doesn't {disfmarker} you just need some microphone , somewhere . +Grad B: Ye - Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: You can use found data . +Grad B: Tape recorder . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you can . +Professor D: You need some microphone , +PhD F: You can +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: use {disfmarker} Um , but I think that any {pause} data that we spend a lot of effort {nonvocalsound} to collect , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: you know , each person who 's interested in {disfmarker} I mean , we have a cou we have a bunch of different , um , slants and perspectives on what it 's useful for , um , they need to be taking charge of making sure they 're getting enough of the kind of data that they want . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} So in my case , um , I think there w there is enough data for some kinds of projects and not enough for others . +Grad B: Not enough for others , right . +PhD F: And so {nonvocalsound} I 'm looking and thinking , "" Well I 'd be glad to walk over and record people and so {nonvocalsound} forth if it 's {disfmarker} to help th in my interest . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And other people need to do that for themselves , uh , h or at least discuss it so that we can find some optimal {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right . So that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But I think that {disfmarker} I 'm raising that cuz I think it 's relevant exactly for this idea up there that if you think about , "" Well , gee , we have this really complicated setup to do , "" well maybe you don't . +Grad B: Yeah . For some of it . +Professor D: Maybe if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If really all you want is to have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a recording that 's good enough to get a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a transcription from later , you just need to grab a tape recorder and go up and make a recording . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could have a fairly {disfmarker} We could just get a DAT machine and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I agree with {nonvocalsound} Jane , though , on the other hand that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So that might be true , you may say for instance , summarization , or something that sounds very language oriented . You may say well , "" Oh yeah , you just do that from transcripts of a radio show . "" I mean , you don't even need the speech signal . +Professor D: Right . +PhD F: But what you {disfmarker} what I was thinking is long term what would be neat is to be able to pick up on um {disfmarker} Suppose you just had a distant microphone there and you really wanted to be able to determine this . There 's lots of cues you 're not gonna have . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So I {pause} do think that long term you should always try to satisfy the greatest number of {disfmarker} of interests and have this parallel information , which is really what makes this corpus powerful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Special ? Yep . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD F: Otherwise , you know , lots of other sites can propose {disfmarker} individual studies , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh but I {disfmarker} I think that the uh {vocalsound} i We can't really underestimate the difficulty {disfmarker} shouldn't really u underestimate the difficulty of getting a setup like this up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: And so , {disfmarker} uh it took quite a while to get that together and to say , "" Oh , we 'll just do it up there , "" {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: If you 're talking about something simple , where you throw away a lot of these dimensions , then you can do that right away . Talking about something that has all of these different facets that we have here , it won't happen quickly , it won't be easy , and there 's all sorts of issues about th you know {vocalsound} keeping the equipment safe , or else hauling it around , and all sorts of o +PhD F: So then maybe we should {nonvocalsound} {pause} try to bring people here . +Grad B: Here . +Professor D: I think the first priority should be to pry {comment} to get {disfmarker} try to get people to come here . +PhD F: I mean , that 's that 's {disfmarker} OK , so +Professor D: We 're set up for it . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: The room is {disfmarker} is really , uh , underused . +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: I thought the free lunch idea was a great idea . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought so too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Free lunch is good . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} And I think we can get people to come here , that {disfmarker} But the issue is you definitely wanna make sure that the kind of group you 're getting is the right group so that you don't waste a lot of your time {nonvocalsound} and the overhead in bringing people down . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No crunchy food . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {comment} Well , it would be {pause} lunch afterwards . +Grad B: Well , I was thinking , lunch after . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . And they 'd have to do their digits or they don't get dessert . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , they have to do their digits or they don't {comment} get {disfmarker} they don't {comment} get their food . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , I had a {disfmarker} I spoke with some people up at Haas Business School who volunteered . +Professor D: Yeah +Grad B: Should I pursue that ? +PhD F: Oh , definitely , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . So . They {disfmarker} they originally {disfmarker} They 've decided not to do {disfmarker} go into speech . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So I 'm not sure whether they 'll still be so willing to volunteer , but I 'll send an email and ask . +Professor D: Tell them about the free lunch . +Grad B: I 'll tell them about the free lunch . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: And they 'll say there 's no such thing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad B: So . +PhD F: I 'd love to get people that are not linguists or engineers , cuz these are both weird {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The oth the other h +PhD F: well , I know , I shouldn't say that . +Grad B: That 's alright . No , the they {disfmarker} they 're very weird . +PhD F: We need a wider sampling . +PhD A: "" Beep . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , "" beep "" +Grad B: The problem with engineers is "" beep . "" +Professor D: Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} They make funny sounds . The o the o the other {disfmarker} The other thing is , uh , that we {disfmarker} we talked about is give to them {disfmarker} uh , burn an extra CD - ROM . +Grad B: Yep . Let them have their meeting . +Professor D: and give them {disfmarker} So if they want a {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} basically and audio record of their {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I thought that was {disfmarker} I thought he meant , "" Give them a music CD , "" like they g {vocalsound} Then he said a CD of the {disfmarker} of their speech +Professor D: Oh . +PhD F: and I guess it depends of what kind of audience you 're talking to , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , I personally {nonvocalsound} would not want a {nonvocalsound} CD {comment} of my meeting , +Grad B: Mmm . Of the meeting ? +PhD F: but {vocalsound} maybe {disfmarker} yeah , {pause} maybe you 're +Professor D: If you 're having some planning meeting of some sort and uh you 'd like {disfmarker} +PhD F: right . {comment} Right . Right . +PhD A: Oh , that 's a good idea . +Grad B: It 'd be fun . I think it would just be fun , you know , if nothing else , you know . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad B: It 's a novelty item . +Professor D: But it als It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also I think builds up towards the goal . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: We 're saying , "" Look , you know , you 're gonna get this . Is - is isn't that neat . Then you 're gonna go home with it . It 's actually p It 's probably gonna be pretty useless to you , +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: but you 'll ge appreciate , you know , where it 's useful and where it 's useless , +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: and then , we 're gonna move this technology , so it 'll become useful . "" +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD F: No , I think that 's a great idea , actually . +PhD A: What if you could tell them that you 'll give them the {disfmarker} the transcripts when they come back ? +Postdoc E: Alth +PhD F: But we might need a little more to incentivize them , {comment} that 's all . +Grad B: Oh , yeah . I mean , anyone can have the transcripts . So . I thought we could point that out . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , that 's interesting . +Postdoc E: I hav I have to uh raise a little eensy - weensy concern about doing th giving them the CD immediately , because of these issues of , you know , this kind of stuff , {comment} where maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know ? +Professor D: Good point . That 's a very good point . +Postdoc E: So . +Professor D: So we can {disfmarker} so we can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: We could burn it after it 's been cleared with the transcript stage . +Professor D: r Right . +Postdoc E: And then they {disfmarker} they get a CD , but just not the same day . +PhD F: Oh , right . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} It should be the same CD - ROM that we distribute publically , +Grad B: That 's a good point . Right , it can't be the internal one . +PhD F: right ? +Professor D: Although it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Otherwise they 're not allowed to play it for anyone . +Postdoc E: There we go . +Grad B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I like that . Well put . Well put . So , after the transcript screening phase . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc E: Things have been weeded out . +PhD F: Otherwise we 'd need two lawyer stages . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right , say {comment} "" Yeah , well , I got this CD , and , Your Honor , I {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +Professor D: Yeah so that 's {disfmarker} so let 's start with Haas , and Yeah . +PhD F: Sorry to have to {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Sorry I have to {pause} leave . +Professor D: Oh , that 's fine . +PhD F: I will be here full - time next week . +Grad B: OK , see you . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: No . Bye . +Professor D: That 's alright . +PhD A: See you . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: See you . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see . So that was that topic , and {vocalsound} then um , I guess another topic would be {vocalsound} where are we in the whole disk resources {pause} question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: We are slowly slowly getting to the point where we have uh enough sp room to record meetings . So I uh did a bunch of archiving , and still doing a bunch of archiving , I {disfmarker} I 'm in the midst of doing the P - files from uh , {vocalsound} Broadcast News . and it took eleven hours {comment} {vocalsound} to do {disfmarker} to uh copy it . +PhD C: Eleven ? +Grad B: And it 'll take another eleven to do the clone . +PhD A: Where did you copy it to ? +Grad B: Well , it 's Abbott . It 's Abbott , so it just {disfmarker} But it 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of data . +Professor D: Sk - It 's copying from one place on Abbott to another place on Abbott ? +Grad B: Tape . +PhD C: Tape ? +PhD A: Oh , on the tape . +Professor D: Oh ! +Grad B: I did an archive . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Ah ! +Grad B: So I 'm archiving it , and then I 'm gonna delete the files . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: So that will give us ten gigabytes of free space . +PhD C: Eleven hours ? +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: Oh . +Postdoc E: Yeah , the archiving m {pause} program does take a long time . +Grad B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . And so one That {disfmarker} that will be done , like , in about two hours . And so uh , {vocalsound} at that point we 'll be able to record five more meetings . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: One thing {disfmarker} The good news about that {disfmarker} that is that once {disfmarker} once it 's archived , it 's pretty quick to get back . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Is it ? +Postdoc E: I mean , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The other direction is fast , but this direction is really slow . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , especially because I 'm generating a clone , also . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So . And that takes a while . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Generating a clone ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a good point . +Grad B: Two copies . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +Grad B: One offsite , one onsite . +PhD A: Oh ! Hunh ! +Professor D: S +Postdoc E: Now , what will uh {disfmarker} Is the plan to g {pause} to {disfmarker} So {pause} stuff will be saved , it 's just that you 're relocating it ? I mean , so we 're gonna get more disk space ? Or did I {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: No , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these are the P - files from Broadcast News , which are regeneratable {disfmarker} regeneratable +Postdoc E: OK . Oh , good . I see . +Grad B: um , if we really need to , but we had a lot of them . And {disfmarker} for the full , uh , hundred forty hour sets . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: And so they {disfmarker} they were two gigabytes per file and we had six of them or something . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Wow . Wow . +Professor D: W w we are getting more space . We are getting , uh , another disk rack and {disfmarker} and four thirty - six gigabyte disks . Uh {pause} so {pause} uh {pause} but that 's not gonna happen instantaneously . +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +Grad B: Or maybe six . +Professor D: Or maybe six ? +Grad B: The SUN , ha uh , takes more disks than the Andatico one did . The SUN rack takes {disfmarker} {comment} Th - One took four and one took six , or maybe it was eight and twelve . Whatever it was , it was , {pause} you know , fifty percent more . +Professor D: How many {disfmarker} How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is there a difference in price or something ? +Grad B: Well , what happened is that we {disfmarker} we bought all our racks and disks from Andatico for years , according to Dave , and Andatico got bought by another company and doubled their prices . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: Oh . +Grad B: And so , uh , we 're looking into other vendors . "" We "" {disfmarker} By "" we "" of course I mean Dave . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So . +PhD A: Hmm . I 've been looking at the , uh , Aurora data and , um , first {disfmarker} first look at it , there were basically three directories on there that could be moved . One was called Aurora , one was Spanish , which was Carmen 's Spanish stuff , and the other one was , um , SPINE . +Grad B: SPINE . +PhD A: And so , um , I wrote to Dan and he was very concerned that the SPINE stuff was moving to a non - backed - up disk . So , um , I realized that well , probably not all of that should be moved , just {pause} the {pause} CD - ROM type data , the {disfmarker} {pause} the static data . So I moved that , and then um , I asked him to check out and see if it was OK . before I actually deleted the old stuff , um , but I haven't heard back yet . I told him he could delete it if he wanted to , I haven't checked {pause} today to see if he 's deleted it or not . And then Carmen 's stuff , I realized that when I had copied all of her stuff to XA , I had copied stuff there that was dynamic data . And so , I had to redo that one and just copy over the static data . And so I need to get with her now and delete the old stuff off the disk . And then I lo haven't done any of the Aurora stuff . I have to meet with , uh , Stephane to do that . So . +Professor D: So , but , uh y you 're figuring you can record another five meetings or something with the space that you 're clearing up from the Broadcast News , but , we have some other disks , some of which you 're using for Aurora , but are we g do we have some other {disfmarker} other space now ? +Grad B: Yep . So , so , uh , we have space on the current disk right now , where Meeting Recorder is , and that 's probably enough for about four meetings . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Is that the one that has {disfmarker} is that DC ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . Yep . No , no , well , it 's wherever the Meeting Recorder currently is . I think it 's DI . +PhD A: OK , I {disfmarker} but the stuff I 'm moving from Aurora is on the DC disk that we {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't remember . Th - I think it 's DC - It 's whatever that one is . +PhD A: OK , DC . +Grad B: I just don't remember , it might be DC . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And that has enough for about four more meetings right now . Yeah , I mean we were at a hundred percent and then we dropped down to eighty - six for reasons I don't understand . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , someone deleted something somewhere . And so we have some room again . And then with Broadcast News , that 's five or six more meetings , so , you know , we have a couple weeks . Uh , so , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think we 're OK , until we get the new disk . +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: So should , um {disfmarker} One question I had for you was , um , we need {disfmarker} {pause} we sh probably should move the Aurora an and all that other stuff off of the Meeting Recorder disk . Is there another backed - up {pause} disk that you know of that would {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: We should put it onto the Broadcast News one . That 's probably the best thing to do . And that way we consolidate Meeting Recorder onto one disk {pause} rather than spreading them out . +PhD A: OK . Right . Right . Do you know what {disfmarker} happen to know what disk that is off {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad B: No . I mean , I can tell you , I just don't know off the top of my head . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Alright , I 'll find out from you . +Grad B: But , so we could ' jus just do that at the end of today , once the archive is complete , and I 've verified it . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz that 'll give us plenty of disk . +Professor D: Uh , OK , @ @ {comment} So , uh , then I guess th the last thing I 'd had on my {disfmarker} my agenda was just to hear {disfmarker} hear an update on {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} what Jose has been doing , +PhD C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor D: so +PhD C: I have , eh , {vocalsound} The result of my work during the last days . +Professor D: OK . +PhD C: Thank you for your information because I {disfmarker} I read . Eh , and the {disfmarker} the last , eh , days , eh , I work , eh , in my house , eh , in a lot of ways and thinking , reading eh , different things about the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recording project . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD C: And I have , eh , some ideas . Eh , this information is very {disfmarker} very useful . Because {vocalsound} you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the distribution , now . +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to hear it . Glad to hear it . +PhD C: But for me , eh is interesting because , eh , eh , here 's i is the demonstration of the overlap , eh , {pause} problem . +Grad B: I 've seen it already . +PhD C: It 's a real problem , {comment} a frequently problem {comment} uh , because you have overlapping zones eh , eh , eh , all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Throughout the meeting . +PhD C: Eh , by a moment I have , eh , nnn , the , eh , {pause} n I {disfmarker} I did a mark of all the overlapped zones in the meeting recording , with eh , a exact {pause} mark . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Oh , you did that by hand ? +PhD C: Heh ? That 's eh , yet b b Yeah , by {disfmarker} b b by hand {disfmarker} by hand because , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} "" Why . "" +Grad B: Can I see that ? Can I get a copy ? +Professor D: Oh . +PhD C: My {disfmarker} my idea is to work {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow ! +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don I don't @ @ {disfmarker} I don't know , eh , if , eh , it will be possible because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't a lot {disfmarker} eh , enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to work . uh , only just eh , six months , as you know , but , eh , my idea is , eh , is very interesting to {disfmarker} to work {pause} in {disfmarker} in the line of , eh , automatic segmenter . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh but eh , eh , in my opinion , {pause} we need eh , eh , a reference {pause} eh session to {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to evaluate the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the tool . +Grad B: Yes , absolutely . And so are you planning to do that or have you done that already ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No , no , with i +Grad B: Have you done that or are you planning to do that ? +PhD C: Sorry ? No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} plan to do that . +Grad B: OK . Darn ! +PhD C: I plan {disfmarker} I plan , but eh , eh , the idea {vocalsound} is the {disfmarker} is the following . Now , {vocalsound} eh , I need ehm , {vocalsound} to detect eh all the overlapping zones exactly . I {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will eh , talk about eh , {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the blackboard about the {disfmarker} my ideas . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Duration . +PhD C: Eh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} This information eh , with eh , exactly time marks eh , for the overlapping zones {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} overlapping zone , and eh , a speaker {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a pure speech eh , eh , speaker zone . I mean , eh zones eh of eh speech of eh , one speaker without any {disfmarker} any eh , noise eh , any {disfmarker} any acoustic event eh that eh , eh , w eh , is not eh , speech , real speech . And , I need t true eh , silence for that , because my {disfmarker} my idea is to {disfmarker} to study the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the set of parameters eh , what , eh , are more m more discriminant to eh , classify . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: the overlapping zones in cooperation with the speech {pause} eh zones . The idea is {pause} to eh {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} eh , I 'm not sure to {disfmarker} eh yet , but eh my idea is to use a {disfmarker} a cluster {pause} {vocalsound} eh algorithm or , nnn , a person strong in neural net algorithm to eh {disfmarker} to eh study what is the , eh , the property of the different feat eh feature , eh , to classify eh speech and overlapping eh speech . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: And my idea is eh , it would be interesting to {disfmarker} to have eh , {vocalsound} a control set . And my control set eh , will be the eh , silence , silence without eh , any {disfmarker} any noise . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Which means that we 'd still {disfmarker} You 'd hear the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , fans . +PhD C: Yeah , acoustic with this . {comment} With {disfmarker} with , yeah , the background . +Postdoc E: Yeah . {comment} That 's interesting . This is like a ground level , with {disfmarker} It 's not it 's not total silence . +PhD C: Eh , I {disfmarker} I mean eh , noise eh , eh claps eh , tape clips , eh , the difference eh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , eh , event eh , which , eh , eh , has , eh eh , a hard effect of distorti spectral distortion in the {disfmarker} in the eh {pause} speech . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so you intend to hand - mark those and exclude them ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I have mark in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} Not in all {disfmarker} in all the {disfmarker} the file , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: only eh , eh , nnn , {pause} mmm , I have eh , ehm {pause} I don't remind {comment} what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quantity , but eh , I {disfmarker} I have marked enough speech on over and all the overlapping zones . I have , eh , {pause} two hundred and thirty , more or less , overlapping zones , and is similar to {disfmarker} to this information , +Grad B: Whew ! Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: because with the program , I cross {pause} the information of uh , of Jane {comment} with eh , my my segmentation by hand . And {pause} is eh , mor more similar . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Glad to hear it . Good . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Sorry , sorry . +Professor D: Go ahead . +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the idea is , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I will use , eh , {disfmarker} I want {disfmarker} {pause} My idea is , eh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} {comment} {nonvocalsound} to classify . +Grad B: I should 've {pause} got the digital camera . Oh well . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I need eh , the exact eh , mark of the different , eh , eh , zones because I {disfmarker} I want to put , eh , for eh , each frame a label {pause} indicating . It 's a sup supervised and , eh , hierarchical clustering process . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I put , eh , eh , for each frame {nonvocalsound} a label indicating what is th the type , what is the class , eh , which it belong . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh , I mean , the class you will {nonvocalsound} overlapping speech "" overlapping "" is a class , eh , "" speech "" {nonvocalsound} @ @ the class {pause} that 's +Grad B: Nonspeech . +PhD A: These will be assigned by hand ? +PhD C: a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ha I h I {disfmarker} I put the mark by hand , +PhD A: Based on the {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +PhD C: because , eh , {vocalsound} my idea is , eh , in {disfmarker} in the first session , I need , eh , {pause} I {disfmarker} I need , eh , to be sure that the information eh , that , eh , I {disfmarker} I will cluster , is {disfmarker} is right . Because , eh , eh , if not , eh , I will {disfmarker} I will , eh , return to the speech file to analyze eh , what is the problems , +Grad B: Well , training , and validation . Sure . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh . And {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I 'd prefer {disfmarker} I would prefer , the to {disfmarker} to have , eh , this labeled automatically , but , eh , eh , fro th I need truth . +PhD A: You need truth . Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , but this is what you 're starting with . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: I 've gotta ask you . So , uh , the difference between the top two , i So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I start at the bottom , so "" silence "" is clear . By "" speech "" do you mean speech by one sp by one person only ? +PhD C: Speech {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc E: So this is un OK , and then and then the top includes people speaking at the same time , or {disfmarker} or a speaker and a breath overlapping , someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} or clicking , overlapping with speech {disfmarker} So , that {disfmarker} that 's all those possibilities in the top one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad B: One or two or more . +PhD C: One , two , three . but No , by th by the moment n Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Eh , in the first moment , because , eh , eh , I {disfmarker} I have information , eh , of the overlapping zones , eh , information about if the , eh , overlapping zone is , eh , from a speech , clear speech , from a one to a two eh speaker , {pause} or three speaker , or is {disfmarker} is the zone where the breath of a speaker eh , overlaps eh , onto eh , a speech , another , especially speech . +Postdoc E: So it 's basi it 's basically speech wi som with {disfmarker} with something overlapping , which could be speech but doesn't need to be . +PhD C: No , no , es especially {pause} eh , overlapping speech {pause} from , eh , different eh , eh , speaker . Eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but there 's {disfmarker} but , I think she 's saying "" Where do you {disfmarker} In these three categories , where do you put the instances in which there is one person speaking and other sounds which are not speech ? "" +PhD C: Ah ! +Professor D: Which category do you put that in ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's my question . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , he here I {disfmarker} I put eh speech from eh , from , eh , one speaker {pause} without , eh , eh , any {disfmarker} any {disfmarker} any events more . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +Professor D: Right , so where do you put speech from one speaker that does have a nonspeech event at the same time ? +PhD C: Where ? Where {disfmarker} What is the class ? +Professor D: Which catege which category ? +Postdoc E: Like a c +PhD C: No . By the moment , no . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , that 's what he was saying before . +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} by the @ @ no , @ @ because I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to limit the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} nnn , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the study . +Professor D: Oh , so you {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not marked . +Postdoc E: Oh . So you don't {disfmarker} i i it 's not in that {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . Got it . Fine . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're not using all of the data . +Grad B: Yeah , so that 's what he was saying before , is that he excluded those . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} All {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , you mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So you 're ignoring overlapping events unless they 're speech with speech . +PhD C: Yeah , be Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's fine . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: "" Why ? Why ? What 's the reason ? "" because {pause} i it 's the first study . the first +Professor D: Oh , no {disfmarker} no , it 's a perfectly sensible way to go . We just wondered {disfmarker} trying to understand what {disfmarker} what you were doing . +Postdoc E: We 're just +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah cuz you 've talked about other overlapping events in the past . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So , this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} a subset . +PhD C: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} in the future , the {disfmarker} the idea is to {disfmarker} to extend {pause} the class , +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: to consider all the {disfmarker} all the information , you {disfmarker} you mentioned before +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't think we were asking for that . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: but eh , the {disfmarker} the first idea {disfmarker} Because eh , I don't know {pause} what hap what will happen {comment} with the study . +Professor D: We were jus just trying to understand {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah , we just wanted to know what the category was here . +Grad B: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Sure . +PhD A: Is your silence category pure silence , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . i it 's pure {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if there was a door - slam or something ? +PhD C: No , no , it 's pure silence . +PhD A: Pure silence . +PhD C: It 's the control set . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: OK ? It 's the control set . It 's pure si pure silence {comment} with the {disfmarker} with the machine on the {disfmarker} on the roof . +Professor D: What you {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} w {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think what you m I think what you mean {vocalsound} is that it 's nonspeech segments that don't have impulsive noises . +Grad B: With the fan . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Cuz you 're calling {disfmarker} what you 're calling "" event "" is somebody coughing {vocalsound} or clicking , or rustling paper , or hitting something , which are impulsive noises . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But steady - state noises are part of the background . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Which , are being , included in that . Right ? +PhD C: h here yet , yet I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh , there are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} some kind of noises that , eh , don't {disfmarker} don't wanted to {disfmarker} to be in that , eh , in that control set . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: So it 's like a signal - noise situation . Yeah . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But I prefer , I prefer at {disfmarker} at the first , eh , the {disfmarker} the silence with eh , this eh this kind of the {disfmarker} of eh {disfmarker} of noise . +Postdoc E: Well , steady state . +Professor D: Right , it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} "" Background "" might be {disfmarker} might be a better word than "" silence "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's just sort of that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the background acoustic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . So {disfmarker} Fine . Go on . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is only {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: And , um , with this information {vocalsound} The idea is eh , eh , nnn , I have a label for {disfmarker} for each , eh , frame and , eh with a cluster eh {disfmarker} algorithm I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , we needed to get the categories , yeah . +PhD C: Sorry . And eh I am going {pause} to prepare a test bed , eh , well , eh , a {disfmarker} a set of {pause} feature structure eh , eh , models . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: And {pause} my idea is +Grad B: "" Tone "" , whatever . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} because I have a pitch extractor yet . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I have to {disfmarker} to test , but eh I {disfmarker} +PhD A: You have your own ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD C: I ha I have prepare . Is a modified version of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of a pitch tracker , eh , from , eh , Standar - eh Stanford University {disfmarker} in Stanford ? No . From , eh , em , {vocalsound} Cambridge {pause} University . +PhD A: Oh ! What 's it written in ? +PhD C: Eh , em , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember what is the {disfmarker} the name of the {disfmarker} of the author , because I {disfmarker} I have several {disfmarker} I have eh , eh , em , eh , library tools , from eh , Festival and {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} from Edinburgh eh , from Cambridge , eh , and from our department . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} And I have to {disfmarker} because , {vocalsound} in general the pitch tracker , doesn't work {comment} {vocalsound} very well and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Bad . Right . But , you know , as a feature , it might be OK . So , we don't know . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} And {pause} th the idea is to {disfmarker} to , eh , to obtain , eh , {pause} for example , eh , {pause} {vocalsound} eh diff eh , eh , different {disfmarker} well , no , a great number of eh FEC for example , eh , {pause} eh , twenty - five , eh , thirty {disfmarker} thirty parameters , eh , for {disfmarker} for each one . And in a first eh , nnn , step in the investi in the research in eh , my idea is try to , eh , to prove , what is the performance of the difference parameter , eh {pause} to classify {pause} the different , eh , what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the front - end approach to classify eh , the different , eh , frames of each class {pause} eh and what is the {disfmarker} the , nnn , nnn , nnn , eh , what is the , the error {pause} eh , of the data +Grad B: Supervised clustering . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: This is the {disfmarker} the eh , first idea +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and the second {pause} is try to {disfmarker} eh , to use {pause} some ideas eh , similar to the linear discriminant analysis . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Eh ? Eh , similar , because the the idea is to {disfmarker} to study {pause} what is the contribution of eh , each parameter to the process of classify correctly the different {disfmarker} the different parameters . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . What sort of classifier ar ? +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the classifier is {disfmarker} nnn by the moment is eh {disfmarker} is eh , similar , nnn , that the classifier used eh , in a quantifier {disfmarker} vectorial quantifier is eh , used to {disfmarker} to eh , some distance {pause} to {disfmarker} to put eh , a vector eh , in {disfmarker} in a class different . +Grad B: Unimodal ? +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} Yeah ? W with a model , is {disfmarker} is only to cluster using a eh , @ @ or a similarity . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So is it just one cluster per {disfmarker} +PhD C: A another possibility it to use eh a netw netw a neural network . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: But eh what 's the p {vocalsound} What is my idea ? What 's the problem I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I see in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} you use the {disfmarker} the neural network ? If {disfmarker} w when {pause} this kind of eh , mmm , cluster , clustering algorithm to can test , to can eh observe what happened you {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} you can't eh , eh put up with your hand {comment} in the different parameter , +Grad B: Right , you can't analyse it . +PhD C: but eh {disfmarker} If you use a neural net is {disfmarker} is a good idea , but eh you don't know what happened in the interior of the neural net . +Professor D: Well , actually , you can do sensitivity analyses which show you what the importance of the different parce pieces of the input are . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: It 's hard to {disfmarker} w w what you {disfmarker} It 's hard to tell on a neural net is what 's going on internally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But it 's actually not that hard to analyse it and figure out the effects of different inputs , especially if they 're all normalized . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , using something simpler first I think is probably fine . +Professor D: Well , this isn't tru if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you really wonder what different if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Decision tree . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , then a decision tree is really good , but the thing is here he 's {disfmarker} he 's not {disfmarker} he 's not like he has one you know , a bunch of very distinct variables , like pitch and this {disfmarker} he 's talking about , like , a all these cepstral coefficients , and so forth , +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: in which case a a any reasonable classifier is gonna be a mess , and it 's gonna be hard to figure out what {disfmarker} what uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will include too the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the differential de derivates too . +Grad B: Deltas , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: yeah . So . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I mean , I think the other thing that one {disfmarker} I mean , this is , I think a good thing to do , to sort of look at these things at least {disfmarker} See what I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} Let me tell you what I would do . I would take just a few features . Instead of taking all the MFCC 's , or all the PLP 's or whatever , I would just take a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? Like {disfmarker} like C - one , C - two , something like that , so that you can visualize it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and look at these different examples and look at scatter plots . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so before you do {disfmarker} build up any kind of fancy classifiers , just take a look in two dimensions , at how these things are split apart . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: That I think will give you a lot of insight of what is likely to be a useful feature when you put it into a more complicated classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And the second thing is , once you actually get to the point of building these classifiers , {vocalsound} @ @ what this lacks so far is the temporal properties . So if you 're just looking at a frame and a time , you don't know anything about , you know , the structure of it over time , and so you may wanna build @ @ {disfmarker} build a Markov model of some sort uh , or {disfmarker} or else have features that really are based on um on {disfmarker} on some bigger chunk of time . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Context window ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But I think this is a good place to start . But don't uh anyway , this is my suggestion , is don't just , you know , throw in twenty features at it , the deltas , and the delta del and all that into some classifier , even {disfmarker} even if it 's K - nearest - neighbors , you still won't know +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: what it 's doing , even {disfmarker} You know it 's Uh , I think to know what it 's {disfmarker} to have a better feeling for what it 's +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: look at {disfmarker} at som some picture that shows you , "" Here 's {disfmarker} These things uh , uh are {disfmarker} offer some separation . "" {vocalsound} And , uh , in LPC , uh , the thing to particularly look at is , I think {disfmarker} is something {vocalsound} like , uh , the residual {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Um So . +PhD C: Yeah . S +Postdoc E: Can I ask ? It strikes me that there 's another piece of information um , that might be useful and that 's simply the transition . So , w if you go from a transition of silence to overlap versus a transition from silence to speech , there 's gonna be a b a big informative area there , it seems to me . +PhD C: Yeah , because {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I {disfmarker} Yeah . But eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Is my my {disfmarker} my own vision , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the project . +Grad B: So , some sort of {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder project , for me , has eh , two {vocalsound} eh , w has eh several parts , several p {vocalsound} objective +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: eh , because it 's a {disfmarker} a great project . But eh , at the first , in the acoustic , eh , eh , parts of the project , eh I think {pause} you eh {disfmarker} we have eh {vocalsound} {pause} two main eh objective . One {disfmarker} one of these is to {disfmarker} eh to detect the change , the acoustic change . And {vocalsound} for that , if you don't use , eh , {vocalsound} eh , a speech recognizer , eh broad class , or not broad class to {disfmarker} to try to {disfmarker} to {pause} {pause} {vocalsound} to label the different frames , I think {pause} the Ike criterion {pause} or BIC criterion eh will be enough to detect the change . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Probably . {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to t prove . Uh , probably . When you you have , eh , eh s eh the transition of speech or {disfmarker} or silence eh to overlap zone , this criterion is enough with {disfmarker} {pause} probably with , eh , this kind of , eh , eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more eh use eh {disfmarker} use eh {disfmarker} used eh em {pause} normal , regular eh parameter MF - MFCC . you {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the mark . You can find the {disfmarker} nnn , the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . But eh eh I {disfmarker} I understand that you {disfmarker} your objective is {pause} to eh classify , to know that eh that zone {pause} not is only {comment} a new zone in the {disfmarker} in the file , that eh you have eh , but you have to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to know that this is overlap zone . because in the future you will eh try to {disfmarker} to process that zone with a non - regular eh eh speech recognizer model , I suppose . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you will pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to process the overlapping z eh zone with another kind of algorithm +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: because it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to obtain the transcription {pause} from eh using eh eh a regular , normal speech recognizer . That , you know , {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the idea . And so {vocalsound} eh the , nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the system {pause} eh will have two models . +Postdoc E: Clustering . +PhD C: A model to detect more acc the mor most accurately possible that is p uh , will be possible the , eh {disfmarker} the mark , the change and another {disfmarker} another model will @ @ {pause} or several models , to try s but {disfmarker} eh several model eh robust models , sample models to try to classify the difference class . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I didn't understand you {disfmarker} what you said . What {disfmarker} what model ? +Postdoc E: +PhD C: Eh , the {disfmarker} the classifiers of the of the n to detect the different class to the different zones before try to {disfmarker} to recognize , eh with eh {disfmarker} to transcribe , with eh a speech recognizer . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And my idea is to use eh , for example , a neural net +Postdoc E: So p +PhD C: with {pause} the {pause} information we obtain from this eh {disfmarker} this eh study of the parameter with the {pause} selected {pause} parameter to try to eh {disfmarker} to put the class of each frame . Eh {pause} for {pause} the difference {pause} zone +Grad B: Features . Yeah . +PhD C: you {disfmarker} you eh , eh {pause} have obtained in the first eh , step {pause} with the {pause} for example , BIC eh , eh {pause} criterion compare model +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You I don't - u +Professor D: OK , but , I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} in any event we 're agreed that the first step is {disfmarker} +PhD C: i +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Because what we had before for {disfmarker} for uh , speaker change detection did not include these overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: So the first thing is for you to {disfmarker} to build up something that will detect the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? So again , I think the first thing to do to detect the overlaps is to look at these uh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad B: Features ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} again , the things you 've written up there I think are way too {disfmarker} way too big . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK ? If you 're talking about , say , twelfth {disfmarker} twelfth - order uh MFCC 's or something like that it 's just way too much . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: You won't be able to look at it . All you 'll be able to do is put it into a classifier and see how well it does . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Whereas I think if you have things {disfmarker} if you pick one or two dimensional things , or three of you have some very fancy display , uh , and look at how the {disfmarker} the different classes separate themselves out , you 'll have much more insight about what 's going on . +PhD C: It will be enough . +Professor D: Well , you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get a feeling for what 's happening , you know , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: so if you look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Suppose you look at first and second - order cepstral coefficients for some one of these kinds of things and you find that the first - order is much more effective than the second , {vocalsound} and then you look at the third and there 's not {disfmarker} and not too much there , {vocalsound} you may just take first and second - order cepstral coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: right ? And with LPC , I think LPC per se isn't gonna tell you much more than {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than the other , maybe . Uh , and uh on the other hand , the LPC residual , the energy in the LPC residual , {vocalsound} will say how well , uh {vocalsound} the low - order LPC {vocalsound} model 's fitting it , which should be {vocalsound} pretty poorly for two two or more {vocalsound} people speaking at the same time , and it should be pretty well , for w for {disfmarker} for one . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And so {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} i again , if you take a few of these things that are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} prob um {comment} {pause} promising features and look at them in pairs , {vocalsound} uh , I think you 'll have much more of a sense of "" OK , I now have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , doing a bunch of these analyses , I now have ten likely candidates . "" And then you can do decision trees or whatever to see how they combine . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I 've got a question . +PhD C: Yeah . This +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Sorry . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: but eh , eh {vocalsound} eh eh eh I don't know it is the first eh way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} do that and I would eh like to {disfmarker} to know what eh , your opinion . Eh {vocalsound} all this study in the f in the first moment , I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I will pretend to do {comment} with eh eh equalizes speech . The {disfmarker} the equalizes speech , the speech eh , the mixes of speech . +Grad B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: With what ? With what ? +Grad B: Right . Mixed . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the mix , mixed speech . +Postdoc E: "" Mixed "" . Thank you . +PhD C: Eh , why ? Because eh the spectral distortion is {disfmarker} {comment} {pause} more eh {disfmarker} a lot eh clearer , very much clearer if we compare with the PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: PDA speech file is eh {disfmarker} it will be eh difficult . I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it 's messier . +PhD C: Yeah , +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the PDA is messier . +PhD C: fff ! {comment} Because the n the noise eh to sp the signal - to - noise relation is eh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is low . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , I think that that 's a good way to start . +PhD C: And , {vocalsound} I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad B: But . +PhD C: I don't know eh uh i i that eh the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the result of the {disfmarker} of the study eh with eh {disfmarker} with eh this eh {disfmarker} this speech , the mix speech eh {pause} will work {pause} exactly {pause} with the {pause} eh PDA files . +Grad B: It would be interesting in itself to see . Well , I think that would be an interesting result . +PhD C: eh What , I {disfmarker} I mean , what what is the effect of the low ' signal to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to noise relation , you know , eh with {disfmarker} +Professor D: N u We Well , I think {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's not a {disfmarker} it 's not at all unreasonable . It makes sense to start with the simpler signal because if you have features which don't {disfmarker} aren't even helpful in the high signal - to - noise ratio , then there 's no point in putting them into the low signal ratio , one would think , anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And so , if you can get {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Uh again , my prescription would be that you would , with a mixed signal , you would take a collection of possible uh , features {vocalsound} look at them , look at how these different classes that you 've marked , separate themselves , {comment} {vocalsound} and then collect , uh in pairs , {vocalsound} and then collect ten of them or something , and then proceed {vocalsound} with a bigger classifier . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then if you can get that to work well , then you go to the other signal . And then , and you and you know , they won't work as well , but how m you know , how much {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: And then you can re - optimize , and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . But it I think it would be interesting to try a couple with both . Because it {disfmarker} I think it would be interesting to see if some features work well with close mixed , and {disfmarker} And don't {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Ah , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that it also , it could be {vocalsound} useful to do this exploratory analysis where you 're looking at scatter plots and so on in both cases . Sure . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} the eh parameter we found , eh , eh {vocalsound} worked with both eh , speech file , +Postdoc E: That 's good . +PhD C: but eh what is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relation of eh {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} performance when eh you use eh the , eh eh speech file the PDA speech files . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah , I don't know . +Professor D: Right . +PhD C: But it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it will be important . Because eh people eh eh , different groups eh has eh experience with this eh kind of problem . Is {disfmarker} eh is not easy eh to {disfmarker} to solve , because if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have seen the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from eh PDA , and s some parts is {comment} very difficult because you {disfmarker} you don't see the spectrum {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +Grad B: Right . Yeah , they 're totally hidden . +PhD C: Is very difficult to apply eh , eh a parameter to detect change when you don't see . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Well , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's another reason why very simple features , things like energy , and things {disfmarker} things like harmonicity , and {vocalsound} residual energy are uh , yeah are {disfmarker} are better to use than very complex ones because they 'll be more reliable . +PhD C: But I suppose {disfmarker} +Grad B: Are probably better , yep . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will put eh the energy here . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Ch - Chuck was gonna ask something I guess . +PhD C: You have a question . +PhD A: Yeah , I {pause} maybe this is a dumb question , but w I thought it would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I thought it would be easier if you used a PDA +Professor D: Nah . +PhD A: because can't you , couldn't you like use beam - forming or something to detect speaker overlaps ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , if you used the array , rather than the signal from just one . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah , no , you you 're {disfmarker} you 're right +Grad B: But that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: that {disfmarker} In fact , if we made use of the fact that there are two microphones , you do have some location information . which we don't have with the one and {disfmarker} and so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that not allowed with this project ? +Professor D: Uh , well , no , I mean , we we don't have any rules , r really . +PhD A: But I didn't mean {disfmarker} I w {pause} Given {disfmarker} given the goal . +Professor D: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an additional interesting question . +PhD A: I mean , is {disfmarker} is that violation of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . No . Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , I think you wanna know whether you can do it with one , because you know it 's not necessarily true that every device that you 're trying to do this with will have two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , if , on the other hand , we show that there 's a huge advantage with two , well then that could be a real point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , we don't n even know yet what the effect of detecting {disfmarker} having the ability to detect overlaps is . You know , maybe it doesn't matter too much . +PhD A: Right . Right . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , this is all pretty early stages . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But no , you 're absolutely right . That 's {pause} a good thing to consider . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: There {disfmarker} there is a complication though , and that is if a person turns their back to the {disfmarker} to the PDA , then some of the positional information goes away ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does , i it d it does , but the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that so much as {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And then , And if they 're on the access {disfmarker} {comment} on the axis of it , that was the other thing I was thinking . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} You mentioned this last time , that {disfmarker} that if {disfmarker} if you 're straight down the midline , then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} the r the left - right 's gonna be different , +Grad B: Yeah , we hav need to put it on a little turntable , +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , it 's +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in his case , I mean , he 's closer to it anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems to me that {disfmarker} that it 's not {disfmarker} a p uh , you know , it 's {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the topograph the topology of it is {disfmarker} is a little bit complicated . +Grad B: But it 's another source of information . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know ho +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} Sorry . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think because the the the distance between the two microph eh , microphone , eh , in the PDA is very near . But it 's uh {disfmarker} from my opinion , it 's an interesting idea to {disfmarker} to try to study the binaural eh problem eh , with information , because I {disfmarker} I found difference between the {disfmarker} the speech from {disfmarker} from each micro eh , in the PDA . +PhD A: I would guess {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's timing difference . It - it 's not amplitude , +Postdoc E: Oh yeah ! Oh I agree ! And we use it ourselves . +Professor D: right ? S Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , I know {disfmarker} I n I know that 's a very important cue . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just saying that the way we 're seated around a table , is not the same with respect to each {disfmarker} to each person with respect to the PDA , +PhD C: No . No . No , no , no . +Postdoc E: so we 're gonna have a lot of differences with ref respect to the speaker . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's fine . +PhD A: But th I don't think that matters , though . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so i @ @ {comment} I think the issue is , "" Is there a clean signal coming from only one direction ? "" +PhD A: Right . +Professor D: If it 's not coming from just one direction , if it {disfmarker} if th if there 's a broader pattern , it means that it 's more likely there 's multiple people speaking , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: wherever they are . +PhD A: So it 's sort of like how {disfmarker} how confused is it about where the beam is . +Professor D: Is it a {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , is there a narrow {disfmarker} Is there a narrow beam pattern or is it a {disfmarker} a distributed beam pattern ? So if there 's a distributed beam pattern , then it looks more like it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh , multiple people . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Wherever you are , even if he moves around . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah . OK , it just {disfmarker} it just seemed to me that {disfmarker} uh , that this isn't the ideal type of separation . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} I can see the value o +Professor D: Oh , ideal would be to have the wall filled with them , but I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But the thing is just having two mikes {disfmarker} If you looked at that thing on {disfmarker} on Dan 's page , it was {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when there were two people speaking , and it looked really really different . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah yeah . OK . +PhD A: What looked different ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , well , basic he was looking at correlation . +Grad B: Cross - co cross - correlation . +PhD C: Correlation , yeah . +Professor D: Just cross - correlation between two sides . +PhD A: Did - Sorry , b uh I 'm not sure what Dan 's page is that you mean . He was looking at the two {disfmarker} +Professor D: So cross - correlation is pretty sensitive . +Postdoc E: Uh , his a web page . +Professor D: You take the signal from the two microphones and you cros and you cross - correlate them with different lags . +Grad B: Subtract them . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And you find {disfmarker} They get peaks . +Professor D: OK . So when one person is speaking , then wherever they happen to be at the point when they 're speaking , {vocalsound} then there 's a pretty big maximum right around that point in the l in {disfmarker} in the lag . +PhD A: OK . OK . +Professor D: So if {disfmarker} at whatever angle you are , {vocalsound} at some lag corresponding to the time difference between the two there , you get this boost in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the cross - correlation value {disfmarker} function . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so if there 's two {disfmarker} +Grad B: And if there are multiple people talking , you 'll see two peaks . +Professor D: It 's spread out . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , let me ask you , if {disfmarker} if both people were over there , it would be less effective than if one was there and one was across , catty - corner ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . The - the {disfmarker} Oh , I 'm sorry , +Postdoc E: No ? +Professor D: if they 're right next to one another ? +PhD A: If I was {disfmarker} if I was here and Morgan was there and we were both talking , it wouldn't work . +Professor D: i i +Postdoc E: Next {disfmarker} next one over n over {comment} on this side of the P {disfmarker} PDA . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: There we go . Good example , the same one I 'm asking . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , e I see . +PhD A: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Versus you {disfmarker} versus {disfmarker} you know , and we 're catty - corner across the table , and I 'm farther away from this one and you 're farther away from that one . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} or even if , like , if people were sitting right across from each other , you couldn't tell the difference either . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Postdoc E: It seems like that would be pretty strong . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Across {disfmarker} the same axis , you don't have as much to differentiate . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , we d yeah , we don't have a third dimension there . Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And so my point was just that it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be differentially {disfmarker} differentially varia valuable . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not to say {disfmarker} I mean , I certainly think it 's extremely val {comment} And we {disfmarker} we humans {pause} n n depend on {pause} you know , these {disfmarker} these binaural cues . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: But it 's almost {disfmarker} but it 's almost a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think what you 're talking about i there 's two things . +Postdoc E: But . +Grad B: Must do . {comment} Yeah . +Professor D: There 's a sensitivity issue , and then there 's a pathological error uh issue . So th the one where someone is just right directly in line is sort of a pathological error . +Postdoc E: Yes . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: If someone just happens to be sitting right there then we won't get good information from it . +Postdoc E: OK . and i and if there {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} And if it 's the two of you guys on the same side {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , if they 're {disfmarker} if they 're close , it 's just a question of the sensitivity . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor D: So if the sensitivity is good enough {disfmarker} and we just {disfmarker} we just don't have enough , uh , experience with it to know how {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . Yeah yeah , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not trying to argue against using it , by any means . I just wanted to point out that {disfmarker} that weakness , that it 's topo topologically impossible to get it perfect for everybody . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And I think Dan is still working on it . So . He actually {disfmarker} he wrote me about it a little bit , so . +Postdoc E: Great . No , I don't mean to discourage that at all . +Professor D: I mean , the other thing you can do {disfmarker} uh , if {disfmarker} I mean , i We 're assuming that it would be a big deal just to get somebody {disfmarker} convince somebody to put two microphones in the PDA . But if you h put a third in , {vocalsound} you could put in the other axis . And then you know {disfmarker} then you 're sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , then {disfmarker} then you pretty much could cover {disfmarker} +PhD A: Once you got two {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well what about just doing it from these mikes ? +Postdoc E: Interesting . +PhD A: You know ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: It will be more interesting to study the PZM because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the separation {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh @ @ {comment} {vocalsound} But - but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , we can we 'll be {disfmarker} all of this is there for us to study . +Grad B: Then they 're much broader . Yeah , we can do whatever we want . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but the thing is , uh , one of the {disfmarker} at least one of the things I was hoping to get at with this is what can we do with what we think would be the normal situation if some people get together and one of them has a PDA . +Grad B: Whatever you 're interested in . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I was asking about , what are the constraints ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the constraint of one question that I think both Adam and I were {disfmarker} were {disfmarker} were interested in . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but {disfmarker} you know if you can instrument a room , this is really minor league compared with what some people are doing , right ? Some people at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} uh , yeah , at Brown and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} at uh {pause} um and at Cape , +Grad B: Big micro @ @ arrays . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Didn't they have something at Cape ? +Professor D: they both have these , you know , big arrays on the wall . And you know , if you could do that , you 've got microphones all over the place +Grad B: Very finely . +Professor D: uh , you know p tens of microphones , and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! I saw a demo . +PhD C: Oh , right , oh , yeah . +Professor D: And if you do that then you can really get very nice uh kind of selectivity {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , I saw one that was like a hundred microphones , a ten by ten array . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: And you could {disfmarker} In a noisy room , they could have all kinds of noises and you can zoom right in on somebody . +PhD C: Hundred . +Grad B: And they had very precision . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Very complex , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Ye - Pretty much . Yeah . +Grad B: It was all in software and they {disfmarker} and you could pick out an individual beam and listen to it . +PhD A: That is cool . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: It was {disfmarker} yeah , it was interesting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But , the reason why I haven't focused on that as the fir my first concern is because um , I 'm interested in what happens for people , random people out in some random place where they 're p having an impromptu discussion . And you can't just always go , "" well , let 's go to this heavily instrumented room that we spent tens of thousands of dollars to se to set up "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: No , what you need to do is you 'd have a little fabric thing that you unroll and hang on a wall . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It has all these mikes and it has a plug - in jack to the PDA . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: But I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing actually , that gets at this a little bit of something else I 'd like to do , is what happens if you have two P D +Grad B: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: and they communicate with each other ? And then {disfmarker} You know , they 're in random positions , the likelihood that {disfmarker} I mean , basically there wouldn't be any {disfmarker} l likely to be any kind of nulls , if you even had two . If you had three or four it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Ooo ! +Grad B: That 's on my web pages . +PhD A: Network ! +Grad B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: Though {disfmarker} All sorts of interesting things you can do with that , +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad B: I mean , not only can you do microphone arrays , but you can do all sorts of um multi - band as well . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So it 's {disfmarker} it would be neat . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +PhD A: I still like my rug on the wall idea , so if anybody patents that , then {disfmarker} +Grad B: But {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , you could have strips that you stick to your clothing . +Grad B: in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah ! +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Hats ? +Grad B: In terms of the research {pause} th research , it 's really {disfmarker} it 's whatever the person who is doing the research wants to do . +PhD A: Shirts . +Grad B: So if {disfmarker} if Jose is interested in that , that 's great . But if {disfmarker} if he 's not , that 's great too . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} i I {disfmarker} i I would actually kind of like us to wind it down , see if we can still get to the end of the , uh , birthdays thing there . +Grad B: Catch some tea ? Um . +Professor D: So +Grad B: Well , I had a couple things that I did wanna bring out . +Professor D: OK . +Grad B: One is , do we need to sign new {disfmarker} these again ? +Postdoc E: Well , it 's slightly different . So I {disfmarker} I would say it would be a good idea . +PhD A: Are they new ? +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's slightly different . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: Oh , this morning we didn't sign anything cuz we said that if anybody had signed it already , we didn't have to . +Grad B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I should 've checked with Jane first , but the ch the form has changed . +Postdoc E: It 's slightly different . +Grad B: So we may wanna have everyone sign the new form . +Professor D: Ah - oh . +PhD C: OK . +Grad B: Um , I had some things I wanted to talk about with the thresholding stuff I 'm doing . +Postdoc E: I had to make one {disfmarker} +Grad B: But , if we 're in a hurry , we can put that off . Um and then also anonymity , how we want to anonymize the data . Uh . +Postdoc E: Well , should I {disfmarker} I mean I have some results to present , but I mean I guess we won't have time to do that this time . But it seems like um the anonymization is uh , is also something that we might wanna discuss in greater length . +Professor D: Um . I mean , wha what {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: If {disfmarker} if we 're about to wind down , I think {disfmarker} what I would prefer is that we uh , delay the anonymization thing till next week , and I would like to present the results that I have on the overlaps . +PhD A: We still have to do this , too , right ? +Professor D: Right . +PhD A: Digits ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: No - well , we don't have to do digits . +Professor D: Well , why don't we {disfmarker} Uh , so @ @ OK . @ @ {comment} It sounds like u uh , there were {disfmarker} there were a couple technical things people would like to talk about . Why don't we just take a couple minutes to {disfmarker} to briefly {comment} do them , and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and then we {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , go ahead , Jane . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} Oh , I 'd prefer to have more time for my results . e Could I do that next week maybe ? +Professor D: OK . Oh , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: OK , that 's what I 'm asking . +Professor D: Oh yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: And I think the anonymization , if y if you want to proceed with that now , I just think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a discussion which also n really deserves a lo a {disfmarker} you know , more that just a minute . +Professor D: We could s +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I really do think that , because you raised a couple of possibilities yourself , you and I have discussed it previously , and there are different ways that people approach it , e and I think we should {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright . We 're {disfmarker} we 're just {disfmarker} We 're getting enough data now that I 'd sort of like to do it now , before I get overwhelmed with {disfmarker} once we decide how to do it +Postdoc E: Well , OK . +Grad B: going and dealing with it . +Postdoc E: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . I {disfmarker} I 'll give you the short version , but I do think it 's an issue that we can't resolve in five minutes . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: OK , so {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the short thing is um , we have uh , tape recording uh , uh , sorry , digitized recor recordings . Those we won't be able to change . If someone says "" Hey , Roger so - and - so "" . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc E: So that 's gonna stay that person 's name . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like the transcript , the question becomes what symbol are you gonna put in there for everybody 's name , and whether you 're gonna put it in the text where he says "" Hey Roger "" or are we gonna put that person 's anonymized name in instead ? +Grad B: No , because then that would give you a mapping , and you don't wanna have a mapping . +Postdoc E: OK , so first decision is , we 're gonna anonymize the same name for the speaker identifier and also in the text whenever the speaker 's name is mentioned . +PhD A: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No . Because that would give you a mapping between the speaker 's real name and the tag we 're using , and we don't want {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I don't think you understood what I {disfmarker} what I said . +Grad B: OK . +Postdoc E: So {disfmarker} uh , so in {disfmarker} within the context of an utterance , someone says "" So , Roger , what do you think ? "" OK . Then , uh , it seems to me that {disfmarker} Well , maybe I {disfmarker} uh it seems to me that if you change the name , the transcript 's gonna disagree with the audio , and you won't be able to use that . +PhD A: Right , you don't wanna do that . +Grad B: We don't {disfmarker} we wanna {disfmarker} we ha we want the transcript to be "" Roger "" . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Because if we made the {disfmarker} the transcript be the tag that we 're using for Roger , someone who had the transcript and the audio would then have a mapping between the anonymized name and the real name , and we wanna avoid that . +Postdoc E: OK , well , but then there 's this issue of if we 're gonna use this for a discourse type of thing , then {disfmarker} and , you know , Liz was mentioning stuff in a previous meeting about gaze direction and who 's {disfmarker} who 's the addressee and all , then to have "" Roger "" be the thing in the utterance and then actually have the speaker identifier who was "" Roger "" be "" Frank "" , that 's going to be really confusing and make it pretty much useless for discourse analysis . +Grad B: Oh . Ugh ! That 's a good point . +Postdoc E: Now , if you want to , you know , I mean , in some cases , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I know that Susan Ervin - Tripp in some of hers , uh , actually did do uh , um , a filter of the s signal where the person 's name was mentioned , except +Professor D: Yeah Yeah , once you get to the publication you can certainly do that . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} cer and I {disfmarker} So , I mean , the question then becomes one level back . Um , how important is it for a person to be identified by first name versus full name ? Well , on the one hand , uh , it 's not a full identity , we 're taking all these precautions , um and they 'll be taking precautions , which are probably even the more important ones , to {disfmarker} they 'll be reviewing the transcripts , to see if there 's something they don't like {disfmarker} {comment} OK . So , maybe , uh , maybe that 's enough protection . On the other hand , this is a small {disfmarker} this is a small pool , and people who say things about topic X e who are researchers and well - known in the field , they 'll be identifiable and simply from the {disfmarker} from the first name . However , taking one step further back , they 'd be identifiable anyway , even if we changed all the names . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: So , is it really , um {disfmarker} {comment} You know ? +Grad B: Ugh ! +Postdoc E: Now , in terms of like {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I did some results , which I 'll report on n next time , which do mention individual speakers by name . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Now , there , the Human Subjects Committee is very precise . You don't wanna mention subjects by name in published reports . Now , it would be very possible for me to take those data put them in a {disfmarker} in a study , and just change everybody 's name for the purpose of the publication . And someone who looked {disfmarker} +Professor D: You can go , you know , uh , "" Z "" {vocalsound} uh , for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , exactly . Doesn't matter if {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . Um , yeah , I mean , t it doesn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not knowledgeable about this , but it certainly doesn't bother me to have someone 's first name in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the transcript . +Postdoc E: That 's the same thing you saw . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh , I think {disfmarker} you don't wanna have their full name to be uh , listed . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and in the form that they sign , it does say "" your first name may arise in the course of the meetings "" . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . So again , th the issue is if you 're tracking discourse things , you know , if someone says , uh , uh , "" Frank said this "" and then you wanna connect it to something later , you 've gotta have this part where that 's "" Frank colon "" . +Postdoc E: Or "" your name "" . +Grad B: Yeah , shoot ! +Professor D: Right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} you know , even more i i uh , immediate than that just being able to , uh {disfmarker} Well , it just seems like to track {disfmarker} track from one utterance to the next utterance who 's speaking and who 's speaking to whom , cuz that can be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: S i You know , "" You raised the point , So - and - so "" , it 's be kind of nice to be able to know who "" you "" was . +Grad B: Shoot ! +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I 'm thinking too much . +Postdoc E: And ac {comment} and actually you remember {disfmarker} furthermore , you remember last time we had this discussion of how you know , I was sort of avoiding mentioning people 's names , +Professor D: Yeah , I was too . Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} and we made the decision that was kind of artificial . Well , I mean , if we 're going to step in after the fact and change people 's names in the transcript , we 've basically done something one step worse . +Grad B: Yep . Well , I would sug I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} don't wanna change the names in the transcript , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but that 's because I 'm focused so much on the acoustics instead of on the discourse , and so I think that 's a really good point . +Postdoc E: Misleading . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: You 're right , this is going to require more thought . +Professor D: Yeah . L let me just back up this to make a {disfmarker} a brief comment about the , uh , what we 're covering in the meeting . Uh I realize when you 're doing this that uh {disfmarker} I mean , I didn't realize that you had a bunch of things that you wanted to talk about . Uh , and so , uh {disfmarker} and so I was proceeding some somewhat at random , frankly . So I think what would be helpful would be uh , i and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll mention this to {disfmarker} to Liz and Andreas too , that um , before the meeting if anybody could send me , any {disfmarker} any , uh , uh , agenda items that they were interested in and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take the role of organizing them uh , into {disfmarker} into the agenda , +Postdoc E: OK . Sure . +Professor D: but I 'd be very pleased to have everyone else {vocalsound} completely make up the agenda . I 've no desire to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to make it up , but if {disfmarker} if no one 's told me things , then I 'm just proceeding from my {disfmarker} my guesses , and {disfmarker} and uh , and i ye yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry it ended up with your out your time to {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm just always asking Jose what he 's doing , you know , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and so it 's {disfmarker} {pause} There 's uh , there 's obviously other things going on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Oh , it 's not a problem . Not a problem . Yeah . I just {disfmarker} I just couldn't do it in two minutes . +Grad B: How will we {disfmarker} how would the person who 's doing the transcript even know who they 're talking about ? Do you know what I 'm saying ? +PhD A: "" The person who 's doing the transcript {disfmarker} "" {comment} The IBM people ? +Grad B: Yeah . I mean , so so {disfmarker} how is that information gonna get labeled anyway ? +Postdoc E: How do you mean , who {disfmarker} what they 're {disfmarker} who they 're talking about ? +Grad B: I mean , so if I 'm saying in a meeting , "" oh and Bob , by the way , wanted {disfmarker} wanted to do so - and - so "" , +Postdoc E: How do you mean ? +PhD A: They 're just gonna write "" Bob "" on it or do @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad B: if you 're doing {disfmarker} Yeah , @ @ they 're just gonna write "" Bob "" . And so . If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're doing discourse analysis , +Postdoc E: They won't be able to change it themselves . +Professor D: What ar how are they gonna do any of this ? +Grad B: Yeah , really . +Postdoc E: Well , I {disfmarker} I 'm betting we 're gonna have huge chunks that are just totally un untranscribable by them . +Professor D: I mean , they 're gonna say speaker - one , or speaker - two or speaker I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They can't do that . +PhD C: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , the current one they don't do speaker identity . +PhD C: +Grad B: because in NaturallySpeaking , or , excuse me , in ViaVoice , it 's only one person . and so in their current conventions there are no multiple speaker conventions . +Professor D: So it may just be one long transcript of a bunch of words . +Grad B: Yep . +Postdoc E: Oh . {vocalsound} I think that {disfmarker} My understanding from Yen Is it Yen - Ching ? Is that how you pronounce her name ? +Professor D: Uh {pause} Yu - Ching , Yu - Ching . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , uh Yu - Ching ? Yu - Ching ? +Grad B: y Yu - Ching . +Postdoc E: was that um , they will {disfmarker} that they will adopt the {disfmarker} part of the conventions that {disfmarker} that we discussed , where they put speaker identifier down . But , you know , h they won't know these people , so I think it 's {disfmarker} Well , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll adopt some convention but we haven't specified to them {disfmarker} So they 'll do something like speaker - one , speaker - two , is what I bet , but I 'm betting there 'll be huge variations in the accuracy of {disfmarker} of their labeling the speakers . We 'll have to review the transcripts in any case . +Professor D: And it {disfmarker} and it may very well be {disfmarker} I mean , since they 're not going to sit there and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and worry ab about , uh , it being the same speaker , they may very well go the {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} the first se the first time it changes to another speaker , that 'll be speaker - two . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor D: And the next time it 'll be speaker - three even if it 's actually speaker - one . +Postdoc E: You know {disfmarker} Uh - huh . You know , that would be a very practical solution on their part . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's a good idea . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but then we would need to label it . +Grad B: Yeah we {disfmarker} we can probably regenerate it pretty easily from the close - talking mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And that 's OK . +PhD C: +Postdoc E: Yes , I was thinking , the temp the time values of when it changes . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: So . But I mean that doesn't {disfmarker} This doesn't answer the {disfmarker} the question . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: But that {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 'd be very efficient . +Grad B: The p It 's a good point , "" which {disfmarker} what do you do for discourse tracking ? "" +PhD C: Because y y you don't know to know , eh {disfmarker} you don't need to know what i what is the iden identification of the {disfmarker} of the speakers . You only eh want to know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm . For {disfmarker} for acoustics you don't but for discourse you do . +Professor D: Well , you do . +PhD C: Ah , for discourse , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if someone says , uh , "" what {disfmarker} what is Jose doing ? "" and then Jose says something , you need to know that that was Jose responding . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , +Grad B: Ugh , {comment} that 's a problem . +Professor D: Uh , so . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Unless we adopt a different set of norms which is to not id to make a point of not identifying people by name , which then leads you to be more contextually ex explicit . +PhD A: That would be hard . +Postdoc E: Well , people are very flexible . You know ? I mean , so when we did this las last week , I felt that you know , now , Andreas may , uh , @ @ {comment} uh , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} i sometimes people think of something else at the same time and they miss a sentence or something , and {disfmarker} and because he missed something , then he missed the r the initial introduction of who we were talking about , and was {disfmarker} was unable to do the tracking . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: But I felt like most of us were doing the tracking and knew who we were talking about and we just weren't mentioning the name . So , people are really flexible . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But , you know , like , at the beginning of this meeting {disfmarker} Or , you I think said , {pause} you know , or s Liz , said something about um , uh , "" is Mari gonna use the equipment ? "" I mean , how would you say that ? +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD A: I mean , you have to really think , you know , about what you 're saying bef +Grad B: if you wanted to anonymize . +PhD C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , is {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Is you know who up in you know where ? "" +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Use the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think it would be really hard if we made a policy where we didn't say names , plus we 'd have to tell everybody else . +Grad B: Yeah , darn ! I mean , what I was gonna say is that the other option is that we could bleep out the names . +Postdoc E: Well , it +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: but then , again that kills your discourse analysis . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Ugh ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I don't know , my own two cents worth is that you don't do anything about what 's in the recordings , you only anonymize to the extent you can , the speakers have signed the forms and all . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the issue . +Grad B: Well , but that but that {disfmarker} as I said , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that works great for the acoustics , but it {disfmarker} it hurts you a lot for trying to do discourse . +Postdoc E: Well . +PhD A: Why ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Because you don't have a map of who 's talking versus {pause} their {pause} name that they 're being referred to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Th - Bec +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought we were gonna get it labelled speaker - one , speaker - two {disfmarker} +Grad B: Sure but , h then you have to know that Jose is speaker - one and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Why do you have to know his name ? +Professor D: OK , so suppose someone says , "" well I don't know if I really heard what {disfmarker} uh , what Jose said . "" +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , Jose responds . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And part of your learning about the dialogue is Jose responding to it . But it doesn't say "" Jose "" , it says "" speaker - five "" . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} uh {pause} u +PhD A: Oh , I see , you wanna associated the word "" Jose "" in the dialogue with the fact that then he responded . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Someone who 's doing discourse would wanna do that . +Professor D: And so , if we pass out the data to someone else , and it says "" speaker - five "" there , we also have to pass them this little guide that says that speaker - five is Jose , +Grad B: And that violates our privacy . +Professor D: and if were gonna do that we might as well {comment} give them "" Jose "" {disfmarker} say it was "" Jose "" . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: And that violates our privacy issue . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Now , I {disfmarker} I think that we have these two phases in the {disfmarker} in the data , which is the one which is o our use , University of Washington 's use , IBM , SRI . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And within that , it may be that it 's sufficient to not uh change the {disfmarker} to not incorporate anonymization yet , but always , always in the publications we have to . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And I think also , when we take it that next step and distribute it to the world , we have to . But I {disfmarker} but I don that 's {disfmarker} that 's a long way from now and {disfmarker} and it 's a matter of {disfmarker} between now and then of d of deciding how {disfmarker} +Grad B: Making some decisions ? +Postdoc E: i i it {disfmarker} You know , it may be s that we we 'll need to do something like actually X out that part of the um {disfmarker} the audio , and just put in brackets "" speaker - one "" . +Grad B: Yeah . For the public one . +PhD C: the ? ? +Grad B: You know , what we could do also is have more than one version of release . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad B: One that 's public and one {disfmarker} one that requires licensing . And so the licensed one would {disfmarker} w we could {disfmarker} it would be a sticky limitation . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} Well , we can talk about that later . +Postdoc E: I think that 's risky . I think that the public should be the same . I think that when we do that world release , it should be the same . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I agree . I {disfmarker} I agree with Jane . +Postdoc E: For a bunch of reasons , legal . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} need to have a consistent licensing policy of some sort , and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But I also think a consistent licensing policy is important . +PhD A: Well , one thing to to take into consideration is w are there any um {disfmarker} For example , the people who are funding this work , they want this work to get out and be useful for discourse . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: If we all of a sudden do this and then release it to the public and it 's not longer useful for discourse , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , depending on how much editing we do , you might be able to {pause} still have it useful . because for discourse you don't need the audio . Right ? So you could bleep out the names in the audio . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and use the anonymized one through the transcript . +PhD A: But if you release both {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . +Postdoc E: Excuse me . We {disfmarker} we do need audio for discourse . +Grad B: But , n excuse me , but you could bleep out just the names . +Professor D: She {disfmarker} No , but she 's saying , from the argument before , she wants to be able to say if someone said "" Jose "" in their {disfmarker} in their thing , and then connect to so to what he said later , then you need it . +Grad B: Right . But in the transcript , you could say , everywhere they said "" Jose "" that you could replace it with "" speaker - seven "" . +Professor D: Oh I see . I see . +Postdoc E: Yeah . But I {disfmarker} {pause} I also wanna say that people {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then it wouldn't meet {disfmarker} match the audio anymore . But it would be still useful for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But if both of those are publically available {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad B: But they {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: And th and the other thing is if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if Liz were here , {vocalsound} what she might say is that she wants to look if things that cut across between the audio and the dialogue , +Postdoc E: Well , you see ? So , it 's complicated . +Professor D: and so , {vocalsound} uh , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . Sorry . +Postdoc E: I think we have to think about w @ @ {comment} how . I think that this can't be decided today . +Grad B: Yeah , OK , good point . +Postdoc E: But it 's g but I think it was good to introduce the thing and we can do it next time . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think {disfmarker} when I wrote you that email I wasn't thinking it was a big can of worms , but I guess it is . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: OK . Yeah , a lot of these things are . +Grad B: Discourse . +Postdoc E: Well it {disfmarker} Discourse , you know {disfmarker} Also I wanted to make the point that {disfmarker} that discourse is gonna be more than just looking at a transcript . +Grad B: Yeah , ab absolutely . Oh , yeah , sure . +Postdoc E: It 's gonna be looking at a t You know , and prosod prosodic stuff is involved , and that means you 're going to be listening to the audio , and then you come directly into this {disfmarker} confronting this problem . +PhD A: Maybe we should just not allow anybody to do research on discourse , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD A: and then , we wouldn't have to worry about it . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , we should just market it to non - English speaking countries . +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , maybe we should only have meetings between people who don't know one another and who are also amnesiacs who don't know their own name . +Grad B: Did you read the paper on Eurospeech ? +Postdoc E: We could have little labels . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna introduce my Reservoir Dogs solution again , which is everyone has like "" Mister White "" , "" Mister Pink "" , {vocalsound} "" Mister Blue "" . +PhD A: Mister White . +Grad B: Yeah . Did you read the paper a few years ago where they were reversing the syllables ? They were di they they had the utterances . and they would extract out the syllables and they would play them backwards . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} so , the syllables were in the same order , with respect to each other , but the acous +Grad B: Everything was in the same order , but they were {disfmarker} the individual syll {comment} syllables were played backwards . And you could listen to it , {pause} and it would sound the same . +PhD A: What did it sound like ? +Grad B: People had no difficulty in interpreting it . So what we need is something that 's the reverse , that a speech recognizer works exactly the same on it but people can't understand it . +Professor D: Oh , well that 's {disfmarker} there 's an easy way to do that . Jus - jus just play it all backwards . +Grad B: Oh right . The speech recognizer 's totally symmetric , isn't it . +Professor D: What , what does the speech recognizer care ? +Grad B: Ah , anyway . +Professor D: Um , +Postdoc E: Oh , do we do digits ? Or {disfmarker} ? What do we do ? +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} OK , we 'll quickly do digits . +Professor D: Let 's do digits . Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we already missed the party . +Postdoc E: Or do we just quit ? +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , go off here . +PhD A: I think it would be fun sometime to read them with different intonations . like as if you were talking like , "" nine eight six eight seven ? "" +Postdoc E: Well , you know , in the {disfmarker} in the one I transcribed , I did find a couple instances {disfmarker} {pause} I found one instance of contrastive stress , where it was like the string had a {disfmarker} li So it was like "" nine eight two four , nine nine two four "" . +PhD A: Oh , really . So they were like looking ahead , +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: huh ? +Postdoc E: Well , they differed . I mean , at that {disfmarker} that session I did feel like they did it more as sentences . But , um , sometimes people do it as phone numbers . {comment} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I {pause} am sort of interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} And sometimes , you know , I s And I {disfmarker} I never know . When I do it , I {disfmarker} I ask myself what I 'm doing each time . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: Well , I was thinking that it must get kind of boring for the people who are gonna have to transcribe this +Postdoc E: and I {disfmarker} +PhD A: They may as well throw in some interesting intonations . +Grad B: Well , except , +Postdoc E: I like your question intonation . +Grad B: yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's very funny . I haven't heard that one . +Grad B: We have the transcript . We have the actual numbers they 're reading , so we 're not necessarily depending on that . OK , I 'm gonna go off . +","In the conversation, the participants discuss technical strategies for analyzing speech data, particularly regarding the detection of overlapping speech and utilizing audio for discourse analysis. + +Grad B mentions the need to sign new consent forms due to slight changes in the document. Grad B also raises issues related to thresholding in their work but decides to postpone the discussion due to time constraints. There is a discussion about how to anonymize data for privacy reasons while still preserving its utility for research, particularly discourse analysis. Various approaches such as bleeping out names in audio recordings, using anonymized tags, and releasing public versions of the data are considered. + +PhD F mentions the intention to hand-mark overlapping speech zones for future automatic segmentation and classifier development, and their plan to utilize particular speech features for classifying overlaps. They discuss the importance of identifying both the speaker and the content for discourse analysis. The conversation also touches on technical details like using pitch extractors, cepstral coefficients, and the potential application of neural networks for this purpose. + +Postdoc E expresses a wish to present their results on overlaps at the next meeting and suggests prolonging the discussion on anonymizing data due to its complexity. They argue that while it may be feasible to anonymize data for acoustic analysis, anonymizing discourse could be problematic as it hinders the tracking of dialogue flow and speaker engagement. + +Professor D clarifies the agenda-setting procedure for future meetings by encouraging participants to submit their topics in advance. The conversation concludes with the group deciding to do digit readings, which are part of their experimental protocol, despite missing an event. + +Summary: +The group discusses strategies for speech data analysis, focusing on issues of overlapping speech and discourse analysis. They deliberate on the anonymization of participant names for privacy while retaining research utility, with suggestions ranging from bleeping out names in the audio to anonymizing speaker tags. The conversation touches on both technical approaches to speech analysis and the logistics of organizing meeting agendas and consent forms. The need for further and more in-depth discussion on anonymization is recognized, and procedural aspects of the group's work are planned for future sessions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","In the discussed meeting, the project team covered several aspects of product development for a remote control aimed at a younger audience. The project manager convened the meeting and requested updates on various tasks. The marketing representative presented findings indicating the importance of innovation, a fancy look and feel, colorful designs, and spongy materials, particularly for a younger demographic. The industrial designer shared potential design options and constraints, including the choice between different casing shapes and materials. The user interface designer discussed incorporating voice recognition and suggested a simple, ergonomic design for the remote. + +Throughout the meeting, the team discussed the importance of using rubber for a spongy feel and the market appeal of colorful designs. They considered energy sources, with a focus on battery and solar as complementary options. On the technical side, they decided on using a regular chip to support their design choices, discarding the L_C_D_ display to maintain simplicity and cost-effectiveness. They also deliberated on the feasibility of scroll-wheels and suitable buttons for the design. + +The team planned to incorporate the company's color scheme and possibly offer exchangeable covers to cater to both young and older demographics. They discussed manufacturing limitations, eventually deciding that the industrial designer and user interface designer would work together on a prototype drawing, taking into account the decisions made regarding materials, energy sources, and overall design approach. The project manager will be on holiday and requested the team's developments to be added to the shared folder upon completion. The next steps involve refining the design and considering how the finished product will align with market research insights and technical feasibility." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Ah , so comfortable . +Grad F: Smooth . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Good . I know that he 's going to like , Taiwan and other places to eat . So . +Grad D: On ? Am I on ? +Grad A: Yep . Yep . +Grad D: I think I 'm on ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Good . Good . +Grad A: Bye . +Grad B: Actually {disfmarker} +Grad F: I just had one of the most frustrating meetings of my career . +Grad A: It 's definitely not the most frustrating meeting I 've ever had . +Grad D: You a You 're {disfmarker} you remember you 're being recorded at this point . +Grad A: Oh , yeah , so , w we didn't yet specify with whom . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: But um . +Professor E: Uh , right . +Grad A: So that 's why Keith and I are going to be a little dazed for the first half m the meeting . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Huh . Yeah , I 'm just gonna sit here and +Professor E: Right . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I avoided that as long as I could for you guys , +Grad F: growl . +Professor E: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: For which we thank you , by the way . +Grad A: Are very appreciative , yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: I know you were {disfmarker} you were doing that , but , anyway . +Grad D: Oh yeah , how di how d exactly did , uh , that paper lead to anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: Oh , I could tell you had a rough day , man ! +Grad D: Nah . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: I love that story . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a great story . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Oh my goodness . +Grad C: Oh yeah , um , Liz suggested we could start off by uh , doing the digits all at the same time . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: All at the same time . I don't know if {disfmarker} I would get distracted and confused , probably . +Professor E: e +Grad A: Really ? Do we have to like , synchronize ? +Professor E: Well , I think you 're supposed to {disfmarker} OK . We can do this . +Grad F: Are you being silly ? +Grad D: Oh wait do we have t +Professor E: Everybody 's got different digits , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: right ? +Grad D: Yeah , do we have to time them at the same time or just overlapping {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh . +Grad A: You 're kidding . +Grad C: No , no , just {disfmarker} just start whenever you want . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: And any rate ? +Professor E: e yeah , the +Grad F: Alright . +Professor E: Well , they {disfmarker} they have s they have the close talking microphones for each of us , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor E: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: yeah , there 's separate channels . +Grad F: Alright . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: So when I say +Grad F: Just plug one ear . +Grad A: You lose . +Professor E: OK . +Grad F: OK , bye ! That was a great meeting ! +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: Alright . +Grad F: So - {vocalsound} Now , uh , why ? +Grad C: Just to save time . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: Does matter for them . +Grad A: Are we gonna start all our meetings out that way from now on ? +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Oh . Too bad . I kinda like it . +Grad F: Well , could we ? +Grad D: It 's strangely satisfying . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's a ritual . +Grad D: Are we to r Just to make sure I know what 's going on , we 're talking about Robert 's thesis proposal today ? Is that +Grad C: We could . +Grad D: true ? +Grad A: We are ? +Grad C: We might . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , you {disfmarker} you had s you said there were two things that you might wanna do . One was rehearse your i i talk {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh yes , and that too . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not rehearse , I mean , I have just not spent any time on it , so I can show you what I 've got , get your input on it , and maybe some suggestions , that would be great . And the same is true for the proposal . I will have time to do some revision and some additional stuff on various airplanes and trains . So , um . I don't know how much of a chance you had to actually read it +Grad A: I haven't looked at it +Grad C: because {disfmarker} +Grad A: yet , +Grad C: but you could always send me comments per electronic mail +Grad A: but I will . +Grad C: and they will be incorporated . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} It basically says , well "" this is construal "" , and then it continues to say that one could potentially build a probabilistic relational model that has some general , domain - general rules how things are construed , and then the idea is to use ontology , situation , user , and discourse model to instantiate elements in the classes of the probabilistic relational model {pause} to do some inferences in terms of what is being construed as what +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: in our beloved tourism domain . But , with a focus on +Grad A: Can I s Sorry . +Grad F: I think I need a copy of this , yes . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: OK , we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can pass {disfmarker} pass my , uh {disfmarker} we can pass my extra copy around . +Grad F: I is there an extra copy around ? +Grad A: Uh . He sent it . OK . You can keep it . +Grad D: Er , actually , my only copy , now that I think about it , +Grad F: Alrigh +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , I don't {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} I don't need it . +Grad D: but . I already read half of it , so it 's OK . +Grad C: Um , actually this is the {disfmarker} the newest version after your comments , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no I s I s I see this has got the castle in it , and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad D: Oh , maybe the version I didn't have that I {disfmarker} mine {disfmarker} the w did the one you sent on the email have the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: That was the most recent one ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I think so . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . Cuz I read halfway but I didn't see a castle thing . +Grad A: I 'm changing this . Just so you know . +Grad C: Yeah , +Grad A: But , anyway . +Grad C: um , if you would have checked your email you may have received a note from Yees asking you to send me the , uh , up - to - d +Grad A: Oh . Oh , sorry . OK . Sorry . +Grad C: current formalism thing that you presented . +Grad A: OK . I will . OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: But for this it doesn't matter . But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can talk about it later . That 's not even ready , so . Um , OK ! Go on t to , uh , whatever . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm making changes . "" Don't worry about that . "" OK . Mmm - mmm . Oh ! OK , sorry , go on . +Grad C: And any type of comment whether it 's a spelling or a syntax or +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: readability {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . On page five . +Grad C: Interesting . +Grad A: Anyway . And y uh , email any time , but most usefully before {disfmarker} +Grad D: The twenty - first I 'm assuming . +Grad A: The twenty - first ? +Grad C: Twenty - ninth . +Professor E: No , this is the twenty - first . +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: What , today 's the twenty - first ? +Grad F: Well , better hurry up then ! +Grad D: Oh , man ! +Grad A: Before the twenty - ninth , +Grad C: The twenty - ninth . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: That 's when I 'm meeting with Wolfgang Wahlster to sell him this idea . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: OK ? Then I 'm also going to present a little talk at EML , about what we have done here and so of course , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna start out with this slide , so the most relevant aspects of our stay here , and um , then I 'm asking them to imagine that they 're standing somewhere in Heidelberg and someone asks them in the morning {disfmarker} The Cave Forty - Five is a {disfmarker} is a well - known discotheque which is certainly not open at that {disfmarker} that time . And so +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: they 're supposed to imagine that , you know , do they think the person wants to go there , or just know where it is ? Uh , which is probably not , uh , the case in that discotheque example , or in the Bavaria example , you just want to know where it is . And so forth . So basically we can make a point that here is ontological knowledge but if it 's nine {disfmarker} nine PM in the evening then the discotheque question would be , for example , one that might ask for directions instead of just location . Um , {vocalsound} and so forth and so forth . That 's sort of motivating it . Then what have we done so far ? We had our little bit of , um , um , SmartKom stuff , that we did , um , everth +Grad F: Oh , you 've got the parser done . Sorry . +Grad C: That 's the {disfmarker} not the construction parser . That 's the , uh , tablet - based parser , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: Easy parser . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and the generation outputter . +Grad D: Halfway done ? Yeah . +Grad C: That 's done . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: You have to change those strategies , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: right ? That 's , ten words ? +Grad D: Yeah . Well , i it , you know . Maybe twelve . +Grad C: Twelve ? OK . And , um , and Fey is doing the synthesis stuff as we speak . That 's all about that . Then I 'm going to talk about the data , you know these things about {disfmarker} uh , actually I have an example , probably . Two s Can you hear that ? Or should I turn the l volume on . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I could hear it . +Grad D: I I can hear it . +Grad F: I heard it . +Grad D: They might not hear it in the {disfmarker} well maybe they will . I don't know . +Grad A: This was an actual , um , subject ? Ah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Sounds like Fey . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: But they 're {disfmarker} they 're mimicking the synthesis when they speak to the computer , +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Grad C: the {disfmarker} you can observe that all the time , they 're trying to match their prosody onto the machine . +Grad F: Oh really . Interesting . Oh , it 's pretty slow . +Grad C: Yeah , you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wh +Grad F: The system breaking . +Grad A: What is the s ? Oh ! +Grad C: OK . And so forth and so forth . Um , I will talk about our problems with the rephrasing , and how we solved it , and some preliminary observations , also , um , I 'm not gonna put in the figures from Liz , but I thought it would interesting to , uh , um , point out that it 's basically the same . Um , as in every human - human telephone conversation , and the human - computer telephone conversation is of course quite d quite different from , uh , some first , uh , observations . Then sort of feed you back to our original problem cuz , uh {disfmarker} how to get there , what actually is happening there today , and then maybe talk about the big picture here , e tell a little bit {disfmarker} as much as I {pause} can about the NTL story . I {disfmarker} I wa I do wanna , um {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure about this , whether I should put this in , um , that , you know , you have these two sort of different ideas that are {disfmarker} or two different camps of people envisioning how language understanding works , and then , {vocalsound} talk a bit about the embodied and simulation approach favored here and as a prelude , I 'll talk about monkeys in Italy . And , um , Srini was gonna send me some slides but he didn't do it , so from {disfmarker} but I have the paper , I can make a resume of that , and then I stole an X - schema from one of your talks I think . +Grad A: Oh . I was like , "" where 'd you get that ? "" OK . +Grad F: Yeah , that looks familiar . +Grad A: "" Looks familiar . "" +Grad C: I think that 's Bergen , Chang , something , or the other . +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: Whatever . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} now I 'm not going to bring that . So that 's basically what I have , so far , and the rest is for airplanes . So X - schemas , then , I would like to do {disfmarker} talk about the construction aspect and then at the end about our Bayes - net . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: End of story . Anything I forgot that we should mention ? Oh , maybe the FMRI stuff . Should I mention the fact that , um , we 're also actually started {disfmarker} going to start to look at people 's brains in a more direct way ? +Professor E: You certainly can . I mean I y I you know , I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad A: You might just wanna like , tack that on , as a comment , to something . +Professor E: Right , um . +Grad C: "" Future activities "" something . +Professor E: Well , the time to mention it , if you mention it , is when you talk about mirror neurons , then you should talk about the more recent stuff , about the kicking +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: and , you know , the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} that the plan is to see to what extent the {disfmarker} you 'll get the same phenomena with stories about this , so that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and that we 're planning to do this , um , which , we are . So that 's one thing . Um . Depends . I mean , there is a , um , whole language learning story , OK ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: which , uh , actually , i i even on your five - layer slide , you {disfmarker} you 've got an old one that {disfmarker} that leaves that off . +Grad C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do have it here . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Um . And , of course , you know , the {disfmarker} the big picture is this bit . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: But , you know , it would {disfmarker} But I don't think I {disfmarker} I am capable of {disfmarker} of do pulling this off and doing justice to the matter . I mean , there is interesting stuff in her terms of how language works , so the emergentism story would be nice to be {disfmarker} you know , it would be nice to tell people how {disfmarker} what 's happening there , plus how the , uh , language learning stuff works , +Professor E: OK , so , so anyway , I {disfmarker} I agree that 's not central . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: What you might wanna do is , um , and may not , but you might wanna {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} rip off a bunch of the slides on the anal there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} we 've got various i generations of slides that show language analysis , and matching to the underlying image schemas , and , um , how the construction and simulation {disfmarker} that ho that whole th +Grad C: Yeah , th that {disfmarker} that 's c that comes up to the X - schema slide , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: so basically I 'm gonna steal that from Nancy , +Grad A: OK , I can give you a more recent {disfmarker} if you want {disfmarker} +Grad C: one of Nancy 's st +Grad A: well , that might have enough . +Grad C: Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , but I also have stuff you {disfmarker} trash you left over , +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: your quals and your triple - AI . +Professor E: The quals w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quals slides would be fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: You could get it out of there , or some +Grad A: Which I can even email you then , you know , like there probably was a little {disfmarker} few changes , not a big deal . Yeah , you could steal anything you want , I don't care . Which you 've already done , obviously . So . Sorry +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't feel bad about it at all +Grad A: No , you shouldn't . +Grad C: because {disfmarker} because you are on the , uh , title . +Grad A: Oh , that 's great , that 's great . +Grad C: I mean on the {disfmarker} the , you 're {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} see , that 's you . +Grad A: I 'm glad to see propagation . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: Hmm ? Propagated ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad C: I mean I might even mention that this work you 're doing is sort of also with the MPI in Leipzig , so . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly related , um , +Grad C: Because , um , EML is building up a huge thing in Leipzig . +Grad A: might wanna say . Is it ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} It 's on biocomputation . Would {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , it 's different , this is the , uh , DNA building , or someth the double helix building . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Kind of a different level of analysis . +Professor E: The {disfmarker} yeah it was {disfmarker} it turns out that if {disfmarker} if you have multiple billions of dollars , y you can do all sorts of weird things , and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Wait , they 're building a building in the shape of DNA , +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: is that what you said ? +Professor E: Roughly , yeah . +Grad F: Oh ! Oh boy ! +Grad A: O +Professor E: Including cr cross - bridges , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: and +Grad A: Oh my god ! +Grad F: That 's brilliant ! Hhh . +Professor E: You d you really {disfmarker} now I I spent {disfmarker} the last time I was there I spent maybe two hours hearing this story which is , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Of what +Grad D: Y You definitely wanna w don't wanna waste that money on research , +Grad A: the building ? +Grad D: you know ? +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: That 's horrible . +Professor E: Right . Well , no , no , y i there 's infinite money . See you th you th you then fill it with researchers . +Grad A: And give them more money . They just want a fun place for them to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor E: Right . Right . +Grad F: And everybody gets a trampoline in their office . +Grad C: Well , the {disfmarker} the offices are actually a little {disfmarker} the , think of um , ramps , coming out of the double helix and then you have these half - domes , glass half - domes , and the offices are in {disfmarker} in the glass half - dome . +Grad A: Really ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Alright , let 's stop talking about this . +Grad A: Does it exist yet ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: They are w now building it ? +Grad C: Uh , as a model . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: But I th +Professor E: So , yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point , th th that the date , the , uh , a lot of the {disfmarker} this is interacting with , uh , people in Italy but also definitely the people in Leipzig and the {disfmarker} the b the combination of the biology and the Leipzig connection might be interesting to these guys , yeah . OK . OK . Anyway ! Enough of that , let 's talk about your thesis proposal . +Grad C: Yeah , if somebody has something to say . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad F: You might want to , uh , double - check the spellings of the authors ' names on your references , you had a few , uh , misspells in your slides , there . Like I believe you had "" Jackendorf "" . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: Uh , unless there 's a person called "" Jackendorf "" , +Grad A: On that one ? +Professor E: No , no , no . +Grad F: yeah . But that 's the only thing I noticed in there . +Grad A: In the presentation ? +Grad F: In the presentation . +Grad A: I 'll probably {disfmarker} I c might have {disfmarker} I 'll probably have comments for you separately , not important . Anyway . +Grad C: Oh , in the presentation here . +Grad A: Yeah , that 's what he was talking about . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: I was ac actually worried about bibtex . Uh . No , that 's quite possible . That 's copy and paste from something . +Professor E: So I did note i i it looks like the , uh , metaphor didn't get in yet . +Grad C: Uh , it did , there is a reference to Srini {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , s reference is one thing , the question is is there any place {disfmarker} Oh , did you put in something about , +Grad A: Metonymy and metaphor here , right ? +Professor E: uh , the individual , we 'd talked about putting in something about people had , uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah , OK . Good . I see where you have it . So the top of the second {disfmarker} of pa page two you have a sentence . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , what I meant is , I think even before you give this , to Wahlster , uh , you should , unless you put it in the text , and I don't think it 's there yet , about {disfmarker} we talked about is the , um , scalability that you get by , um , combining the constructions with the general construal mechanism . Is that in there ? +Grad C: Yeah , mmm . Um . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so where {disfmarker} where is it , cuz I 'll have to take a look . +Grad C: Um , but I {disfmarker} I did not focus on that aspect but , um {disfmarker} Ehhh , um , it 's just underneath , uh , um , that reference to metaphor . So it 's the last paragraph before two . So on page two , um , the main focus {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , OK . Yeah . +Grad C: But that 's really {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's not about that , is it ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: No , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it s says it but it doesn't say {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it d it d +Grad C: Why . +Professor E: yeah , it doesn't give the punch line . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Cuz let me tell the gang what I think the punch line is , because it 's actually important , which is , that , the constructions , that , uh , Nancy and Keith and friends are doing , uh , are , in a way , quite general but cover only base cases . And to make them apply to metaphorical cases and metonymic cases and all those things , requires this additional mechanism , of construal . And the punch line is , he claimed , that if you do this right , you can get essentially orthogonality , that if you introduce a new construction at {disfmarker} at the base level , it should com uh , interact with all the metonymies and metaphors so that all of the projections of it also should work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , similarly , if you introduce a new metaphor , it should then uh , compose with all of the constructions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: And it {disfmarker} to the extent that that 's true then {disfmarker} then it 's a big win over anything that exists . +Grad D: So does that mean instead of having tons and tons of rules in your context - free grammar you just have these base constructs and then a general mechanism for coercing them . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . So that , you know , for example , uh , in the metaphor case , that you have a kind of direct idea of a source , path , and goal and any metaphorical one {disfmarker} and abstract goals and all that sort of stuff {comment} {disfmarker} you can do the same grammar . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor E: And it is the same grammar . But , um , the trick is that the {disfmarker} the way the construction 's written it requires that the object of the preposition for example be a container . Well , "" trouble "" isn't a container , but it gets constr construed as a c container . +Grad D: Right . +Professor E: Et cetera . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's where this , um , +Grad D: So with construal you don't have to have a construction for every possible thing that can fill the rule . +Professor E: Right . So 's it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a very big deal , i i in this framework , and the thesis proposal as it stands doesn't , um , I don't think , say that as clearly as it could . +Grad C: No , it doesn't say it at all . No . Even though {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One could argue what {disfmarker} if there are basic cases , even . I mean , it seems like nothing is context - free . +Professor E: Oh , nothing is context - free , but there are basic cases . That is , um , there are physical containers , there are physical paths , there {disfmarker} you know , et cetera . +Grad C: But "" walked into the cafe and ordered a drink , "" and "" walked into the cafe and broke his nose , "" that 's sort of {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , it doesn't mean that they 're unambiguous . +Grad C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , a cafe can be construed as a container , or it can be construed you know as {disfmarker} as a obstacle , +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Professor E: or as some physical object . So there are multiple construals . And in fact that 's part of what has to be done . This is why there 's this interaction between the analysis and the construal . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor E: The b the {disfmarker} the double arrow . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: So , uh , yeah , I mean , it doesn't magically make ambiguity go away . +Grad C: No . +Professor E: But it does say that , uh , if you walked into the cafe and broke your nose , then you are construing the cafe as an obstacle . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And if that 's not consistent with other things , then you 've gotta reject that reading . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: You con {disfmarker} you conditioned me with your first sentence , and so I thought , "" Why would he walk into the cafe and then somehow break his nose ? "" uh , oh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: He slipped on the wet floor . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: You don't find that usage , uh {disfmarker} uh , I checked for it in the Brown national corpus . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: The "" walk into it "" never really means , w as in walked smack {disfmarker} +Professor E: But "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Yeah , but , y y if you find "" walked smacked into the cafe "" or "" slammed into the wall "" {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no , but "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Because you will find "" run into , "" uh , +Grad D: Cars run into telephone poles all the time . +Professor E: well , or "" into the cafe "" for that m +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: you know {disfmarker} "" His car ran into the cafe . "" +Grad C: Yeah . Or you can run into an old friend , or run . +Professor E: Well , you can "" run into "" in that sense too . +Grad A: Yeah , "" run into "" might even be more impact sense than , you know , container sense . +Professor E: But , uh , Right . +Grad F: Depends . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Like , "" run into an old friend "" , it probably needs its own construction . I mean , uh , you know , George would have I 'm sure some exa complicated ex reason why it really was an instance of something else +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and maybe it is , but , um , there are idioms and my guess is that 's one of them , but , um {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: All contact . I mean , there there 's contact that doesn't {disfmarker} social contact , whatever . I mean . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Sudden surprising contact , +Professor E: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Right . i Yeah , it 's more {disfmarker} +Grad F: right ? +Grad A: Forceful . +Grad F: But of course , no , i i I mean it has a life of its own . It 's sort of partially inspired by the spatial {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , this is this motivated {disfmarker} but yeah {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: oh yeah , mo for sure , motivated , but then you can't parse on motivated . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor E: Uh , +Grad A: Too bad . +Grad D: You should get a T - shirt that says that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} there 's lots of things you could make T - shirts out of , but , uh , this has gotten {disfmarker} I mean wh We don't need the words to that . +Grad C: Pro - probably not your marks in the kitchen , today . +Grad A: What ? Oh , no no no no no no no no no , we 're not going there . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not your marks . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK , so , um , +Grad F: In other news . +Professor E: anything else you want to ask us about the thesis proposal , you got {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Professor E: We could look at a particular thing and give you feedback on it . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i what would have been really nice is to find an example for all of this , uh , from our domain . So maybe if we w if we can make one up {pause} now , that would be c incredibly helpful . +Grad A: So , w where it should illustrate +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: uh {disfmarker} wh when you say all this , do you mean , like , I don't know , the related work stuff , +Grad C: How {disfmarker} +Grad A: as well as , mappings ? +Grad C: w Well we have , for example , a canonical use of something +Professor E: Right {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} r +Grad C: and y it 's , you know , we have some constructions and then it 's construed as something , and then we {disfmarker} we may get the same constructions with a metaphorical use that 's also relevant to the {disfmarker} to the domain . +Professor E: OK , f let 's {disfmarker} let 's suppose you use "" in "" and "" on "" . I mean , that 's what you started with . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So "" in the bus "" and "" on the bus , "" um , that 's actually a little tricky in English because to some extent they 're synonyms . OK . +Grad C: I had two hours w with George on this , so it , +Professor E: OK , what did he say . +Grad A: Did you ? +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: Join the club . +Professor E: Right . Oh , h that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" On the bus "" is a m is a metaphorical metonymy that relates some meta path metaphorically and you 're on {disfmarker} on that path and th w I mean it 's {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} there 's a platform notion , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I believe all that , it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? "" he 's on the {disfmarker} standing on the bus waving to me . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: But th the regular as we speak "" J Johno was on the bus to New York , "" +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: um , uh , he 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh , what did I call it here , the transportation schema , something , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: where you can be on the first flight , on the second flight , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: and you can be , you know , on the wagon . +Professor E: Right . So {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you {disfmarker} what you want to do . I mean you could do something much simpler +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: like "" under the bus , "" or something , where {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} unfortunately , this is not really something a tourist would ever say . So . +Professor E: Well , unless he was repairing it or something , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: but yeah . +Grad C: But um . +Professor E: Uh , but OK . +Grad C: So in terms of the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad A: I see . +Grad C: We had {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} initially we 'd {disfmarker} started discussing the "" out of film . "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: And there 's a lot of "" out of "" analysis , so , um , +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: could we capture that with a different construal of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's a little {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} we 've thought about it before , uh t uh {disfmarker} to use the examples in other papers , and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little complicated . Cuz you 're like , it 's a state of {disfmarker} there 's resource , +Grad F: Out of {disfmarker} out of film , in particular . +Grad A: right , and like , what is film , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: the state {disfmarker} you know . You 're out of the state of having film , right ? and somehow film is standing for the re the resour the state of having some resource is just labeled as that resource . +Grad F: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . +Grad F: yeah , I mean , +Grad A: It 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad F: but {disfmarker} and plus the fact that there 's also s I mean , can you say , like , "" The film ran out "" you know , or , maybe you could say something like "" The film is out "" +Grad A: Yeah , is film the trajector ? +Grad F: so like the {disfmarker} the film went away from where it should be , namely with you , or something , right ? You know . The {disfmarker} the film {disfmarker} the film is gone , right ? Um , I never really knew what was going on , I mean I {disfmarker} I find it sort of a little bit farfetched to say that {disfmarker} that "" I 'm out of film "" means that I have left the state of having film or something like that , +Grad A: It 's weird . That {disfmarker} +Grad F: but . +Grad A: Or , "" having "" is also , um , associated with location , +Professor E: Uh . +Grad A: right ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: so if the film left , you know {disfmarker} state is being near film . +Grad C: So running {disfmarker} running out of something is different from being out of somewhere . +Professor E: Or being out of something as , uh {disfmarker} as well . So "" running out of it "" definitely has a process aspect to it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But that 's from run , yeah . +Professor E: So , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: b that 's OK , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} b but the difference +Grad C: Is the d the final state of running out of something is being out of it . +Professor E: is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . So th +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . You got there . +Grad A: That part is fine . +Grad F: You got to out of it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor E: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so nob so no one has in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} of the , uh , professional linguists , +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: they haven't {disfmarker} there was this whole thesis on "" out of "" . +Grad A: There was ? Who ? +Professor E: Well , there {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} or there was a paper on it . +Grad F: Out . +Professor E: Huh ? +Grad F: There was one on {disfmarker} on "" out "" or "" out of "" ? +Professor E: There was a Well , it may be just "" out "" . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor E: I think there was "" over "" but there was also a paper on "" out "" . +Grad F: Yeah , Lind - Susan Lindner , +Grad A: Oh , yeah , you 're right . Yeah . +Professor E: Or something . +Grad F: right ? The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} "" the syrup spread out "" ? +Professor E: Yeah , and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: That kind of thing ? +Grad A: Yeah . And undoubtably there 's been reams of work about it in cognitive linguistics , +Professor E: OK . But anyway . We 're not gonna do that between now and next week . +Grad A: but . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not one of the y it 's more straightforward ones {disfmarker} forward ones to defend , so you probably don't want to use it for the purposes {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: th these are {disfmarker} you 're addressing like , computational linguists , +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: right . Or {disfmarker} are you ? +Grad C: There 's gonna be four computational linguists , +Grad A: OK . But more emphasis on the computational ? Or emphasis on the linguist ? +Grad C: computer it 's {disfmarker} More {disfmarker} there 's going to be the {disfmarker} just four computational linguists , by coincidence , but the rest is , whatever , biocomputing people and physicists . +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Professor E: No no no , but not for your talk . I 'm - we 're worrying about the th the thes +Grad C: Oh , the thesis ! +Grad A: Oh , I meant this , +Professor E: it 's just for one guy . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's computa should be very computational , +Grad A: you know , like {disfmarker} OK . So I would try to {disfmarker} I would stay away from one that involves weird construal stuff . +Grad C: and , uh , someth +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: You know , it 's an obvious one {disfmarker} +Grad F: Totally weird stuff . +Grad C: I mean the {disfmarker} the old bakery example might be nice , +Grad A: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" Is there a bakery around here "" . So if you c we really just construe it as a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Around ? +Grad C: No , it 's the bakery itself {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad C: is it a building ? uh , that you want to go to ? or is it something to eat that you want to buy ? +Grad A: Oh , oh yeah . Yeah , we 've thought about that . Right . Right . +Grad C: And then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Nnn . No . What ? "" Bakery "" can't be something you 're gonna eat . +Professor E: No , no . The question is d do you wanna {disfmarker} do you wanna construe {disfmarker} do you wanna constr - strue +Grad F: Sh +Grad D: It 's a speech - act . +Professor E: r Exactly . It 's because do you wanna c do you want to view the bakery as a p a place that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} i for example , if {disfmarker} y +Grad A: Yeah . Where you can get baked goods . +Professor E: Well th well , that 's one . You want to buy something . But the other is , uh , yo you might have smelled a smell and are just curious about whether there 'd be a bakery in the neighborhood , or , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: um , pfff you know , you wonder how people here make their living , and {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of reasons why you might be asking about the existence of a bakery +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: that doesn't mean , "" I want to buy some baked goods . "" +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: But {vocalsound} um , those are interesting examples but it 's not clear that they 're mainly construal examples . +Grad A: So it 's a lot of pragmatics , there , that +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's all sorts of stuff going on . +Grad A: might be beyond what you want to do . +Professor E: So let 's {disfmarker} so let 's think about this from the point of view of construal . So let 's first do a {disfmarker} So the metonymy thing is probably the easiest and a and actually the {disfmarker} Though , the one you have isn't quite {disfmarker} +Grad A: You mean the s You mean "" the steak wants to pay "" ? +Professor E: N no not that one , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} the sort of background . This is the t uh , page five . +Grad D: About Plato and the book ? +Grad A: Oh . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Um . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: How much does it cost ? +Professor E: Just beyond that . +Grad F: Onward . +Grad C: Where is the castle ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: A castle . +Grad C: How old is it ? How much does it cost ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: To go in , that 's like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Two hundred million dollars . +Professor E: Right . It 's not for sale . Uh . So +Grad F: Yeah , I think that 's a good example , actually . +Grad C: S +Grad A: Yeah , that 's good . u +Grad C: But as Nancy just su suggested it 's probably ellipticus . +Grad A: Ellipsis . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad A: Like , "" it "" doesn't refer to "" thing , "" it refers to acti you know , j thing standing for activ most relevant activity for a tourist {disfmarker} you could think of it that way , but . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , shoot , isn't that {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , my argument here is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same thing as "" Plato 's on the top shelf , "" +Grad F: figuring that out is what this is about . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah , no , I I agree . +Grad C: I 'm con you know , th that you can refer to a book of Plato by using "" Plato , "" +Grad A: Yeah . No no , I {disfmarker} I 'm agreeing that this is a good , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: and you can refer back to it , and so you can {disfmarker} Castles have {disfmarker} as tourist sites , have admission fees , so you can say "" Where is the castle , how much does it cost ? "" Um . "" How far is it from here ? "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , You 're also not referring to the width of the object , or so , +Grad A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: www . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Can we think of a nice metaphorical use of "" where "" in the tourist 's domain ? Um . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor E: So you know it 's {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can sometimes use "" where "" f for "" when "" +Grad F: O +Professor E: in the sense of , you know , um , where {disfmarker} wh where {disfmarker} where was , um , "" where was Heidelberg , um , in the Thirty Years ' War ? "" Or something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . +Professor E: You know , or some such thing . Um . +Grad F: Like what side were they on , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: Yeah . Essentially , yeah . +Grad F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: OK . I was like , "" Huh ? It was here . "" Like {disfmarker} {comment} Um . +Professor E: But anyway th so there are {disfmarker} there are cases like that . Um , +Grad A: Ah ! Or like its developmental state or something like that , you could {disfmarker} I guess you could get that . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: I mean , there 's also things like {disfmarker} I mean , s um , I guess I could ask something like "" Where can I find out about blah - blah - blah "" in a sort of {disfmarker} doesn't nece I don't necessarily have to care about the spatial location , just give me a phone number +Professor E: Yeah . There certainly is that , yeah . +Grad F: and I 'll call them or something like that ? +Professor E: You know , "" Where could I learn its opening hours , "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But that 's not metaphorical . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: It 's another {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: So we 're thinking about , um , or we could also think about , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor E: How about "" I 'm in a hurry "" ? +Grad A: State . +Professor E: It i But it 's a state {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the issue is , is that {disfmarker} it may be just a usage , +Grad F: Hmm ? +Professor E: you know , that it 's not particularly metaphorical , I don't know . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . So you want a more exotic one {disfmarker} version of that . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah , right . +Grad A: I 'm really into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Ah ! How about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm in {disfmarker} I 'm in a state of exhaustion "" ? +Grad A: Do you really say that ? +Professor E: or something like that , which a tourist w Huh ? +Grad A: Would you really say that ? +Professor E: A st uh , well , you can certainly say , um , you know , "" I 'm in overload . "" Tu - stur tourists will often say that . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad D: I I 'm really into art . +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna say , like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , you can do that ? Really ? Of course that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's definitely a , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Fixed . +Grad A: A fixed expression , yeah . +Professor E: that 's a , uh {disfmarker} Right . But . {disfmarker} +Grad A: There 're too {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of fixed expressions I don't {disfmarker} like uh "" I 'm out of sorts now ! "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Like {comment} "" I 'm in trouble ! "" +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} when , uh {disfmarker} just f u the data that I 've looked at so far that rec +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: I mean , there 's tons of cases for polysemy . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So , you know , mak re making reference to buildings as institutions , as containers , as build +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: you know , whatever . Um , so ib in mus for example , in museums , you know , as a building or as something where pictures hang versus , you know , ev something that puts on exhibits , so forth . +Professor E: Right . As an institution , +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: yeah . +Grad C: Um . +Grad A: Why don't you want to use any of those ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: So y you don't wanna use one that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} No , but this {disfmarker} that 's what I have , you know , started doing . +Professor E: The castle {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that old castle one is sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Metonymy , polysemy . +Grad D: I love Van Gogh . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: "" I wanna go see the Van Gogh . "" +Professor E: Ah ! +Grad F: Oh geez . +Grad A: Anyway , I 'm sorry . +Grad C: But I think the argument should be {disfmarker} uh , can be made that , you know , despite the fact that this is not the most met metaphorical domain , because people interacting with HTI systems try to be straightforward and less lyrical , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: construal still is , uh , you know , completely , um , key in terms of finding out any of these things , so , um . +Professor E: Right . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a reasonable point , that it {disfmarker} in this domain you 're gonna get less metaphor and more metonymy . +Grad C: We , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} I looked {disfmarker} with a student I looked at the entire database that we have on Heidelberg for cases of metonymy . +Professor E: And polysemy , and stuff like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Hardly anything . So not even in descriptions w did we find anything , um , relevant . +Grad F: I have to go . +Professor E: Alright . Yeah . +Grad C: But OK this is just something we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see , um , +Professor E: Right . s See you . +Grad C: and deal with . +Professor E: OK , well . I guess if anybody has additional suggestions , +Grad C: I mean maybe the "" where is something "" question as a whole , you know , can be construed as , u i locational versus instructional request . +Professor E: w Yeah . +Grad C: So , if we 're not talk about the lexic +Grad A: Location versus what ? +Grad C: instruction . +Grad A: Instruction . Oh , directions ? Yeah . +Professor E: Sure . +Grad A: Oh , I thought that was {disfmarker} definitely treated as an example of construal . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? +Grad C: Yeah but then you 're not on the lexical level , that 's sort of one level higher . +Grad A: Oh , you want a lexical example . +Grad C: But I don't need it . +Professor E: Well , you might want both . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Also it would be nice to get {disfmarker} ultimately to get a nice mental space example , +Professor E: We {disfmarker} +Grad C: so , even temporal references are {disfmarker} just in the spatial domain are rare . +Professor E: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's easy to make up plausible ones . +Grad C: When {disfmarker} when you 're getting information on objects . +Professor E: You know . +Grad C: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , you know {disfmarker} you know , where r Yeah . What color was this in {disfmarker} in in the nain nineteenth century . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: What was this p instead of {disfmarker} wh what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} how was this painted , what color was this painted , um , was this alleyway open . +Grad C: Yeah , maybe we can include that also in our second , uh , data run . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad C: We c we can show people pictures of objects and then have then ask the system about the objects and engage in conversation on the history and the art and the architecture and so forth . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . So why don't we plan to give you feedback electronically . Wish you a good trip . All success . +Grad D: For some reason when you said "" feedback electronically "" I thought of that {disfmarker} you ever see the Simpsons where they 're {disfmarker} like the family 's got the buzzers and they buzz each other when they don't like what the other one is saying ? +Grad A: Yeah . That 's the {disfmarker} first one , I think . The very very first one . +Grad D: It was a very early one . I don't know if it 's the first one . +Grad A: Mmm . Mmm . +","Participants in a discussion (Grads A, B, C, D, F, and Professor E) engage in various topics and issues related to their research and academic work. They touch upon matters pertaining to upcoming meetings, a presentation Grads C and A are preparing, the analysis of the term ""out of,"" metonymy and metaphor in language, and the importance of construal for understanding linguistic references within the tourism domain. + +Themes include: +- Preparing a presentation with computational linguistics content. +- Discussing how linguistic terms like ""out of"" can be construed in different contexts. +- The challenge of finding relevant metaphorical or metonymic linguistic examples within tourism-focused human-technology interaction data. +- Feedback on a thesis proposal that should ideally include various construal levels, guidelines concerning feedback deadlines, and collaboration acknowledgments. +- A proposed concept involves building out an example to illustrate polysemy, metonymy, and construal, preferably linked to spatial domains or temporal references in the tourism context. + +The conversation also reveals planning stress, the importance of clear communication within the group, and a touch of academic humor." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: to {disfmarker} to handle . +Grad D: Is that good ? +Grad C: Right . Yeah , I 've have never handled them . +Grad B: Goats eat cans , to my understanding . Tin cans . +Grad D: Did we need to do these things ? +Grad C: Wow . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Could I hit {disfmarker} hit F - seven to do that ? on the {disfmarker} Robert ? +Grad A: I 'm +Grad B: Oh , the remote will do it OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Cuz I 'm already up there ? +Grad A: in control here . +Grad B: You are in control . Already ? +Grad D: Wow , we 're all so high tech here . Yet another p PowerPoint presentation . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Well it makes it easier {pause} to do +Grad D: Certainly does . +Grad B: So , {pause} we were {disfmarker} Ah ! +Grad C: Johno , where are you ? +Grad B: OK . So , Let 's see . Which one of these buttons will do this for me ? Aha ! OK . +Grad C: Should you go back to the first one ? +Grad B: Do I wanna go back to the first one ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: I 'm sorry I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , {pause} just to {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . Introduce . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , um {vocalsound} Well , "" the search for the middle layer "" . It 's basically uh talks about uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It just refers to the fact that uh {pause} one of main things we had to do was to {pause} decide what the intermediate sort of nodes were , +Grad D: I can read ! I 'm kidding . +Grad C: you know , because {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But if you really want to find out what it 's about you have to {pause} click on the little {pause} light bulb . +Grad B: Although I 've {disfmarker} I 've never {disfmarker} I don't know what the light bulb is for . I didn't i install that into my {pause} PowerPoint presentation . +Grad A: It opens the Assistant that tells you that the font type is too small . +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Do you wanna try ? +Grad D: Ach u +Grad B: I 'd prefer not to . +Grad A: OK . Continue . +Grad D: It 's a needless good idea . Is that the idea ? +Grad A: Why are you doing this in this mode and not in the presentation mode ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because I 'm gonna switch to the JavaBayes program +Grad A: Oh ! OK . Of course . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and then {pause} if I do that it 'll mess everything up . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Is that OK ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's OK . +Grad A: Sure . +Grad C: Can you maximize the window ? +Grad D: Proceed . +Grad B: You want me to {disfmarker} Wait , what do you want me to do ? +Grad C: Can you maximize the window so all that stuff on the side isn't {disfmarker} doesn't appear ? +Grad A: No , It 's OK . It 's {disfmarker} It 'll work . +Grad B: Well I can do that , but then I have to end the presentation in the middle so I can go back to open up +Grad C: OK , fine . +Grad B: Here , let 's see if I can {disfmarker} +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: Very nice . +Grad B: Is that better ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I 'll also get rid of this "" Click to add notes "" . OK . +Grad D: Perfect . +Grad B: So then the features we decided {disfmarker} or we decided we were {disfmarker} talked about , right ? Uh the {disfmarker} the prosody , the discourse , {pause} verb choice . You know . We had a list of things like "" to go "" and "" to visit "" and what not . The "" landmark - iness "" of uh {disfmarker} I knew you 'd like that . +Grad D: Nice coinage . +Grad B: Thank you . uh , of a {disfmarker} of a building . Whether the and this i we actually have a separate feature but I decided to put it on the same line {pause} for space . "" Nice walls "" {vocalsound} which we can look up because I mean if you 're gonna {pause} get real close to a building in the Tango mode , right , there 's gotta be a reason for it . And it 's either because you 're in route to something else or you wanna look at the walls . The context , which in this case we 've limited to {pause} "" business person "" , "" tourist "" , or {pause} "" unknown "" , the time of day , and "" open to suggestions "" , isn't actually a feature . It 's {pause} "" We are open to suggestions . "" +Grad D: Right . can I just ask the nice walls part of it is that {vocalsound} uh , in this particular domain {disfmarker} you said {disfmarker} be {disfmarker} i it could be on two different lines but are you saying that in this particular domain it happens the {disfmarker} that landmark - iness cor is correlated with +Grad B: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad C: No . We have a separate +Grad B: They 're separate things . +Grad C: feature . +Grad D: their being nice w +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I either could put "" nice walls "" on its own line or "" open to suggestions "" off the slide . +Grad C: Like you could have a p +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} By "" nice "" you mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: You {disfmarker} Like you could have a post office with uh {disfmarker} you know , nice murals or something . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Or one time I was at this {disfmarker} +Grad D: So "" nice walls "" is a stand in for like architecturally it , uh {disfmarker} significant +Grad B: But see the thing is , if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Architecturally appealing from the outside . +Grad D: or something like that . OK . +Grad B: Yeah but if it 's architecturally significant you might be able to see it from {disfmarker} Like you m might be able to "" Vista "" it , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? And be able to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Appreciate it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , versus , like , I was at this place in Europe where they had little carvings of , like , dead people on the walls or something . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I don't remember w +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: It was a long time ago . +Grad D: There 's a lot of those . +Grad B: But if you looked at it real close , you could see the {disfmarker} the in intricacy of the {disfmarker} of the walls . +Grad D: OK . So that count as {disfmarker} counts as a nice wall . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} OK . Right . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} +Grad D: Something you want to inspect at close range {pause} because it 's interesting . +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Robert ? +Grad A: Well there {disfmarker} there is a term {pause} that 's often used . That 's "" saliency "" , or the "" salience "" of an object . And I was just wondering whether that 's the same as what you describe as "" landmark - iness "" . But it 's really not . I mean an object can be very salient +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: but not a landmark at all . +Grad D: Not a landmark at all . There 's landmark for um , touristic reasons and landmark for I don't know navigational reasons or something . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , we meant , uh , touristic reasons . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . but you can imagine maybe wanting the oth both kinds of things there for different um , goals . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Tourist - y landmarks also happen to be {disfmarker} Wouldn't {disfmarker} couldn't they also be {disfmarker} They 're not exclusive groups , are they ? Like {pause} non - tourist - y landmarks and +Grad A: Or it can be als +Grad B: direct navigational {disfmarker} +Grad D: They 're not mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Right . Definitely . +Grad B: OK , So our initial idea was not very satisfying , {pause} because {disfmarker} uh our initial idea was basically all the features pointing to the output node . Uh . +Grad D: So , a big flat structure . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: And uh , so we {disfmarker} Reasons being , you know , it 'd be a pain to set up all the probabilities for that . If we moved onto the next step and did learning of some sort , uh according Bhaskara we 'd be handicapped . I don't know belief - nets very well . +Grad C: Well usually , I mean , you know , N {disfmarker} If you have N features , then it 's two to the N {disfmarker} {pause} or exponential in N . +Grad B: And they wouldn't look pretty . So . +Grad C: Yeah , they 'd all be like pointing to the one node . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh . So then our next idea was to add a middle layer , right ? So the thinking behind that was {vocalsound} we have the features that we 've drawn {pause} from the communication of some {disfmarker} Like , the someone s The person at the screen is trying to communicate some abstract idea , like "" I 'm {disfmarker} "" the {disfmarker} the abstract idea being "" I am a tourist I want to go {pause} to this place . "" Right ? So we 're gonna set up features along the lines of where they want to go and {pause} what they 've said previously and whatnot . And then we have {pause} the means {vocalsound} that they should use . Right ? but the middle thing , we were thinking along the lines of maybe trying to figure out , like , the concept of whether they 're a tourist {pause} or {pause} whether they 're running an errand or something like that along those lines . Or {disfmarker} Yes , we could things we couldn't extract the {disfmarker} from the data , the hidden variables . Yes , good . So then the hidden variables {disfmarker} hair variables we came up with were whether someone was on a tour , running an errand , or whether they were in a hurry , because we were thinking uh , if they were in a hurry there 'd be less likely to {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} or th +Grad C: Want to do Vista , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: right ? Because {pause} if you want to view things you wouldn't be in a hurry . +Grad B: Or they might be more likely to be using the place that they want to go to as a {disfmarker} like a {pause} navigational point to go to another place . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Whether the destination was their final destination , whether the destination was closed . Those are all {disfmarker} And then "" Let 's look at the belief - net "" {comment} OK . So that means that I should switch to the {pause} other program . Um right now it 's still kind of {pause} in a toy {pause} version of it , because we didn't know the probabilities of {disfmarker} {pause} or {disfmarker} Well I 'll talk about it when I get the picture up . +Grad A: No one knows it . +Grad B: OK . So this right {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} Let 's see . What happens if I maximize this ? There we go . But uh {disfmarker} So . The mode {pause} basically has three different {pause} outputs . The probability {disfmarker} whether the probability of a Vista , Tango , or Enter . Um {disfmarker} The "" context "" , we simplified . Basically it 's just the businessman , the tourist , unknown . "" Verb used "" is actually personally amusing mainly because it 's {disfmarker} it 's just whether the verb is a Tango verb , an Enter verb , or a {pause} Vista verb . +Grad C: Yeah , that one needs a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are those mutually exclusive sets ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Not at all . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that needs a lot of work . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: But uh {vocalsound} {pause} that would 've made the probably significantly be more complicated to enter , +Grad D: Got it . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so we decided that for the purposes of this {pause} it 'd be simpler to just have three verbs . +Grad D: Yeah . Simple . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Stab at it . Yep . +Grad B: Right . Um {disfmarker} Why don't you mention things about this , Bhaskara , that I am {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} that are not coming to my mind right now . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so note the four nodes down there , the {disfmarker} sort of , the things that are not directly extracted . Actually , the five things . The "" closed "" is also not directly extracted I guess , from the uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well i it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: From the {pause} utterance ? +Grad B: it 's so it sort of is +Grad C: Actually , no , wait . +Grad B: because it 's {disfmarker} because have the {disfmarker} the time of day +Grad C: It is . OK , "" closed "" sort of is . +Grad B: and the close it just had the {disfmarker} er and what time it closed . +Grad C: Right , so f Right , but the other ones , the final destination , the whether they 're doing business , whether they 're in a hurry , and whether they 're tourists , that kind of thing is all uh {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} you know probabilistically depends on the other things . +Grad D: Inferred from the other ones ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And the mode , you know , depends on all those things only . +Grad B: Yeah the {disfmarker} {pause} the actual parse is somewhere up around in here . +Grad C: Yeah . So we haven't uh , managed {disfmarker} Like we don't have nodes for "" discourse "" and "" parse "" , although like in some sense they are parts of this belief - net . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The idea is that we just extract those features from them , so we don't actually have a node for the entire parse , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: because we 'd never do inference on it anyway , so . +Grad D: So some of the {disfmarker} the top row of things {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's "" Disc admission fee "" ? +Grad C: whether they discuss the admission fees . So we looked at the data and in a lot of data people were saying things like {vocalsound} "" Can I get to this place ? "" +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: "" What is the admission fee ? "" . So that 's like a huge uh clue that they 're trying to Enter the place rather than uh to Tango or Vista , +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: so . +Grad D: I see . +Grad B: There were {disfmarker} there 'd be other things besides just the admission fee , but {pause} you know , {pause} we didn't have {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That was like our example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: That was the {pause} initial one that we found . +Grad D: OK . So there are certain cues that are very strong {pause} either lexical or topic - based um , concept cues +Grad B: From the discourse that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: for one of those . And then in that second row {pause} or whatever that row of Time of Day through that {disfmarker} So all of those {disfmarker} Some of them come from the utterance and some of them are sort of {vocalsound} either world knowledge or situational {pause} things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? So that you have no distinction between those and OK . +Grad B: One , uh {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Um , anything else you want to say Bhaskara ? +Grad C: Um . +Grad D: "" Unmark @ @ Time of Day "" +Grad C: Yeah , I m I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're are a couple of more things . +Grad B: One thing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean Uh . I would actually suggest we go through this one more time so we {disfmarker} we all uh , agree on what {disfmarker} what the meaning of these things is at the moment and maybe {vocalsound} what changes we {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , th OK . so one thing I {disfmarker} I 'm you know unsure about , is how we have the discus uh {disfmarker} the "" admission fee "" thing set up . So one {pause} thing that we were thinking was {vocalsound} by doing the layers like this , Uh {disfmarker} we kept um {disfmarker} things from directly affecting the mode {pause} beyond the concept , but you could see perhaps discus the "" admission fee "" going directly to the mode pointing at "" Enter "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? Versus pointing to just at "" tourist "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But we just decided to keep all the things we extracted {pause} to point at the middle and then {pause} down . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Why is the landmark {disfmarker} OK . The landmark is facing to the tourists . That 's because we 're talking about landmarks as touristic landmarks not as possible um +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Navigational landmarks , +Grad D: Navigational cue . +Grad A: navigational landmarks +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: so Mm - hmm . Then {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , that would be {pause} whatever building they referred to . +Grad D: Prosody . +Grad C: Right . So let 's see . The variables . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Disc - "" admission fee "" is a binary thing , "" time of day "" is like morning , afternoon , night . Is that the deal ? Yeah . +Grad B: That 's how we have it currently set up , +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: but it could be , {pause} you know , based upon hour +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Whatever granularity . +Grad B: or {pause} dis we could discrete it {disfmarker} des descret - ize it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Normally context will include a huge amount of information , but um , we are just using the particular {vocalsound} part of the context which consists of the switch that they flick to indicate whether they 're a tourist or not , I guess . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: OK . So that 's given in their input . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} Right , +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: so it 's not really all of context . Similarly prosody is not all of prosody but simply {vocalsound} for our purposes whether or not they appear tense or relaxed . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . that 's very nice , huh ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} So the context is a switch between tourist or non - tourist ? +Grad C: and +Grad A: Or also unknown ? +Grad B: Or un {pause} unknown , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Unknown , right ? +Grad D: So final dest So it seems like that would really help you for doing business versus tourist , +Grad C: Which is th Which one ? +Grad D: but OK . so the the context being um , e I don't know if that question 's sort of in general , "" are you {disfmarker} "" I mean the {disfmarker} ar ar are do they allow business people to be doing non - business things at the moment ? +Grad C: Yeah , it does . +Grad D: OK . So then you just have some probabilities over {disfmarker} +Grad C: Everything is probablistic , and {disfmarker} There 's always {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . {disfmarker} over which which of those it is . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , right . So then landmark is {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . "" Verb used "" is like , right now we only have three values , but in general they would be a probability distribution over all verbs . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Rather , let me rephrase that . It {disfmarker} it can take values {vocalsound} in the set of all verbs , that they could possibly use . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um "" nice walls "" is binary , "" closed "" is binary "" final destination "" , again {disfmarker} Yeah , all those are binary I guess . And "" mode "" is one of three things . +Grad A: So , the {disfmarker} the middle layer is also binary ? No . +Grad C: Yeah , anything with a question mark after it in that picture is a binary node . +Grad A: Uh . It {disfmarker} Yeah . But all those things without question marks are also binary . Right ? +Grad C: Which things ? +Grad A: Nice walls ? +Grad B: Wi +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh . "" Nice walls "" is uh {disfmarker} something that we extract from our world knowledge . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , a Oh yeah . Sorry . It is binary . +Grad B: It is binary but it doesn't have question mark because it 's extracted . +Grad C: That 's true . Yeah . OK , I see your point . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I gotcha . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah , similarly "" closed "" , I guess . +Grad A: So we can either be in a hurry or not , but we cannot be in a medium hurry at the moment ? +Grad C: Well , we To do that we would add another uh {disfmarker} value for that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And that would require s updating the probability distribution for "" mode "" as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because it would now have to like uh {disfmarker} take that possibility into account . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Take a conti +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So um , of course this will happen when we think more about the kinds of verbs that are used in each cases +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but you can imagine that it 's verb plus various other things that are also not in the bottom layer that would {disfmarker} that would help you {disfmarker} Like it 's a conjunction of , I don't know , you know , the verb used and some other stuff that {disfmarker} that would {vocalsound} {pause} determine {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . Other syntactic information you mean ? +Grad D: Yeah . Exactly . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of the landmark is {disfmarker} is sort of the object right ? the argument in a sense ? +Grad D: Usually . I {disfmarker} I don't know if that 's always the case I {disfmarker} I guess haven't looked at the data as much as you guys have . So . Um . +Grad A: that 's always warping on something {disfmarker} some entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {disfmarker} Uh maybe at this stage we will {disfmarker} we do want to {disfmarker} uh sort of get {disfmarker} uh modifiers in there +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: because they may also tell us whether the person is in a hurry or not +Grad B: I want to get to the church quickly , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: That would be a cue . +Grad A: what 's the fastest way +Grad C: Yeah , correct . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Um . OK . +Grad B: Right . Excellent . Do we have anything else to say about this ? +Grad C: We can do a little demo . +Grad B: Oh the Yeah , we could . But the demo doesn't work very well . +Grad A: No , then it wouldn't be a demo I was just gonna s +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} We can do a demo in the sense that we can um , {vocalsound} just ob observe the fact that this will , in fact do inference . +Grad B: Observe nodes . +Grad C: So we can , you know , set some of the uh nodes and then try to find the probability of other nodes . +Grad D: Yeah . Go ahead . +Grad B: OK . Dat - dat - dah . What should I observe ? +Grad C: Just se set a few of them . You don't have to do the whole thing that we did last time . Just like uh , {vocalsound} maybe the fact that they use a certain verb {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Actually forget the verb . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: just uh {disfmarker} I don't know , say they discussed the admission fee {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the place has nice walls +Grad B: I love nice walls , OK ? I 'm a big fan . +Grad C: and it 's night . +Grad D: it 's starting to grow on me +Grad B: And the time of day is night ? +Grad C: Yeah , no wait . That {disfmarker} that doesn't uh {disfmarker} it 's not really consistent . They don't discuss the admission fee . Make that false . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad C: And it 's night . +Grad B: Oh , they {disfmarker} OK . Oh whoops . I forgot to uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That didn't work . +Grad B: Ach ! +Grad D: I 'd like to do that again . +Grad B: One thing that bugs me about JavaBayes is you have to click that and do this . +Grad D: Yeah . That seems kind of redundant but . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That all you want ? +Grad C: Yes . +Grad B: OK . So let 's see . I want {pause} to query , +Grad C: "" Go "" and , right , "" query "" . +Grad B: right ? the mode . OK , and then on here {disfmarker} So let 's see . +Grad C: So that {pause} is the probability that they 're Entering , Vista - ing or Tango - ing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: So slightly {pause} biased {pause} toward "" Tango "" ing +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: If it 's night time , {pause} they have not discussed admission fee , and the n walls are nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: So , yeah . I guess that {pause} sort of makes sense . The reason I say the {pause} demo doesn't work very well is yesterday we uh {disfmarker} {pause} observed everything in favor of {pause} taking a tour , and it came up as "" Tango "" , right ? Over and over again . We couldn't {disfmarker} we couldn't figure out how to turn it off of "" Tango "" . +Grad D: So . Uh - huh . +Grad C: It loves the Tango . +Grad D: Huh ! Um . +Grad C: Well , that 's obviously just to do with our probabilities . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Like , {pause} we totally hand - tuned the probabilities , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: right . We were like {vocalsound} "" hmm , well if the person does this and this and this , let 's say forty percent for this , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: fifty per "" Like , you know . So obviously that 's gonna happen . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it +Grad D: Maybe the bias toward "" Tango "" ing was yours , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's at {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} So we have to like fit the probabilities . +Grad B: Spent my youth practicing the tango de la muerte . +Grad D: So , the real case ? +Grad A: However you know , it {disfmarker} The purpose was not really , at this stage , to come up with meaningful probabilities but to get thinking about that hidden middle layer . And so th +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: We would actually {disfmarker} I guess once we look at the data more we 'll get more hidden {pause} nodes , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: but I 'd like to see more . Not because it would {pause} expedite the probabilities , cuz it wouldn't . It would actually slow that down tremendously . +Grad C: Um . Well , yeah , I guess . +Grad B: But . +Grad C: Not that much though . Only a little early . +Grad B: No , I think we should have uh {disfmarker} exponentially more {pause} middle nodes than features we 've extracted . I 'm ju I 'm just jo +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Are "" doing business "" versus "" tourist "" {disfmarker} They refer to your current task . Like {disfmarker} like current thing you want to do at this moment . +Grad C: Um . Yeah , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting point . Whether you 're {disfmarker} It 's whether {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are th +Grad C: I think it 's more like "" Are you are tourist ? are you in Ham - like Heidelberg for a {disfmarker} "" +Grad D: Oh , so , I thought that was directly given by the context {pause} switch . +Grad C: That 's a different thing . What if the context , which is not set , but still they say things like , "" I want to go {pause} uh , see the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the castle and uh , et cetera . "" +Grad A: Is it {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well the I kind of {pause} thought of "" doing business "" as more of running an errand type thing . +Grad C: Yeah . Business on the other hand is , uh , definitely what you 're doing . +Grad A: So if you run out of cash as a tourist , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you need to go to the AT +Grad B: So {pause} i wi th +Grad D: OK . Oh , I see , you may have a task . wh you have to go get money and so you are doing business at that stage . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: "" How do I get to the bank ? "" +Grad D: I see . Hmm . +Grad C: And that 'll affect whether you want to enter or you if you {disfmarker} kinda thing . +Grad D: OK . So the "" tourists "" node {pause} should be {pause} um , very consistent with the context node . Right ? If you say that 's more their {disfmarker} in general what their background is . +Grad C: Yeah , I think this context node is a bit of a {disfmarker} I don't know , like in d Uh {disfmarker} Do we {pause} wanna have {disfmarker} Like it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Are you assuming that or not ? Like is that to be {disfmarker} I mean if that 's accurate then that would determine tourist node . +Grad C: If the context were to set one way or another , that like strongly uh um , says something about whether {disfmarker} whether or not they 're tourists . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So what 's interesting is when it 's not {disfmarker} when it 's set to "" unknown "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: We - what set the {disfmarker} they set the context to "" unknown "" ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Right now we haven't observed it , so I guess it 's sort of averaging over all those three possibilities . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: But yes , you can set it to un "" unknown "" . +Grad A: And if we now do {disfmarker} leave everything else as is the results should be the same , +Grad B: Oops . +Grad A: right ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Well no , because we {disfmarker} Th - the way we set the probabilities {vocalsound} might not have {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an issue , right ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Pretty much the same ? +Grad C: Yeah , it is . So the issue is that um in belief - nets , it 's not common to do what we did of like having , you know , a d bunch of values and then "" unknown "" as an actual value . What 's common is you just like don't observe the variable , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: right , and then just marginalizes {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We didn't do this because we felt that there 'd {disfmarker} I guess we were thinking in terms of a switch that actually {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were thi Yeah , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: We were th +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} I don't know y what the right thing is to do for that . I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't know if I totally am happy with {vocalsound} the way it is . +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} Can we , um {disfmarker} How long would it take to {disfmarker} to add another {pause} node on the observatory and , um , play around with it ? +Grad C: Another node on what ? +Grad B: Uh , well it depends on how many things it 's linked to . +Grad A: Let 's just say make it really simple . If we create {pause} something that for example would be um {disfmarker} So th some things can be landmarks in your sense but {pause} they {pause} can never be entered ? So for example s a statue . +Grad C: Good point . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {pause} maybe we wanna have "" landmark "" {pause} meaning now "" enterable landmark "" versus , um something that 's simply just a vista point , for example . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad A: Yeah ? uh , a statue or um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So basically it 's addressing a variable that 's "" enterable or not "" . So like an "" enterable , question mark "" . +Grad B: Also {disfmarker} {pause} you know , didn't we have a {pause} size as one ? The size of the landmark . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Cuz if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um . Not when we were doing this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: but I guess at some point we did . +Grad B: For some reason I had that {disfmarker} OK , that was a thought that I had at one point but then went away . +Grad C: So you want to have a {disfmarker} a node for like whether or not it can be entered ? +Grad A: Well , for example , if we include that , yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: um , accessibility or something , yeah ? "" Is it {disfmarker} Can it be entered ? "" +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: then of course , this is {pause} sort of binary as well . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: And then um , there 's also the question whether it may be entered . In the sense that , you know , if it 's {pause} Tom {disfmarker} the house of Tom Cruise , you know , it 's enterable but you may not enter it . You know ? You 're not allowed to . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Unless you are , whatever , his {disfmarker} his divorce lawyer or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah ? and um {disfmarker} And these are very observable sort of from the {disfmarker} from the ontology sort of things . +Grad B: Way Does it actually help to distinguish between those two cases though ? Whether it 's practically speaking enterable , or actually physically enterable {pause} or not ? +Grad A: y y If {disfmarker} If you 're running an errand you maybe more likely to be able to enter places that are usually not {vocalsound} al w you 're not usually {disfmarker} not allowed to uh m +Grad D: It seems like it would for uh , uh {pause} determining whether they wanna go into it or not . +Grad B: Well I can see why {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz they {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's get this uh b clearer . S so it 's matrix between if it 's not enterable , period . +Grad B: Whether it 's a {disfmarker} Whether it 's a public building , and whether it 's {disfmarker} actually has a door . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: This is sort of uh +Grad B: So Tom Cruise 's house is {pause} not a public building +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but it has a door . But the thing is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK , sh explain to me why it 's necessary {pause} to distinguish between whether something has a door and is {pause} not public . Or , if something {disfmarker} It seems like it 's equivalent to say that it doesn't have a door a {pause} and it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Or "" not public "" and "" not a door "" are equivalent things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: it seems like in practice . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . So we would have {disfmarker} What does it mean , then , that we have to {disfmarker} we have an object type statue . That really is an object type . So there is {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a bunch of statues . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: And then we have , for example , an object type , {pause} hmm , that 's a hotel . How about hotels ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So , the most famous building in Heidelberg is actually a hotel . It 's the hotel Zum Ritter , which is the only Renaissance building in Heidelberg that was left after {pause} the big destruction and for the Thirty Years War , blah - blah - blah . +Grad B: Hmm . Does it have nice walls ? +Grad A: It has wonderful walls . Um - And lots of detail , c and carvings , engravings and so forth , +Grad B: Excellent . +Grad A: so . But , um , it 's still an unlikely candidate for the Tango mode I {pause} must say . But . Um . So {disfmarker} s So if you are a d Well it 's very tricky . So I guess your question is {disfmarker} so far I have no really arg no real argument why to differentiate between statues as {disfmarker} statues and houses of celebrities , from that point of view . Huh . OK . Let {disfmarker} Let 's do a {disfmarker} Can we add , just so I can see how it 's done , uh , a "" has door "" {pause} property or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: What would it , uh , connect to ? Like , what would , uh , it affect ? +Grad A: Um , I think , um , it might affect {disfmarker} Oh actually it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it wouldn't affect any of our nodes , right ? +Grad C: What I was thinking was if you had a {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it affects th The "" doing business "" is certainly not . +Grad B: You could affect {disfmarker} {pause} Theoretically you could affect "" doing business "" with "" has door "" . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: It should , um , inhibit that , +Grad C: Right . +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad A: right ? +Grad C: Yeah , I don't know if JavaBayes is nice about that . It might be that if you add a new thing pointing to a variable , you just like {disfmarker} it just overwrites everything . But {pause} you can check . +Grad B: Well , {pause} we have it saved . So . {vocalsound} We can rel open it up again . +Grad C: OK . It 's true . +Grad B: The {pause} safety net . +Grad D: I think you could just add it . I mean , I have before OK . Whew ! +Grad C: Well that 's fine , but we have to see the function now . Has it become all point fives or not ? +Grad D: Oh , right . +Grad B: Let 's see . So this is "" has door "" Uh , true , false . That 's acceptable . And I want to edit the function going to that , right ? Oh no . +Grad C: No . This is fine , +Grad B: Right . It was fine . +Grad C: this business . +Grad B: added this one . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: This {disfmarker} +Grad C: What would be nice if it {disfmarker} is if it just like kept the old function for either value but . Nope . Didn't {pause} do it . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Oh wait , it might be {disfmarker} Did we w Yes , that 's not good . +Grad C: That 's {pause} kind of annoying . +Grad A: OK , so just dis dismiss everything . Close it and {disfmarker} and load up the old state so {pause} it doesn't screw {disfmarker} screw that up . +Grad B: Let 's see . Oops . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Maybe you can read in ? +Grad C: Ha - So have you used JavaBayes a lot ? +Grad D: Yes . Really {vocalsound} I ha I 've {disfmarker} I haven't used it a lot and I haven't used it in the last you know many months so +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: um , uh , we can ask someone . +Grad C: It might be worth uh {disfmarker} asking around . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: Like , we looked at sort of uh {disfmarker} a page that had like a bunch of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . Srini {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Yeah , S I guess he 'd be the person . +Grad D: Srini 's the one to ask I would say . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . He might know . +Grad C: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: And . +Grad C: I mean in a way this is a lot of good features in Java it 's cra has a GUI and it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess those are the main two things . It does learning , it has {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: No it doesn't , actually . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think it did learning . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Maybe it did a little bit of learning , +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: I don't remember . +Grad C: Oh right . Maybe you 're right . OK . Right . But uh {disfmarker} it 's free . +Grad B: Which is w quite positive , yeah . +Grad C: But uh , yeah . Maybe another thing that uh {disfmarker} But I mean its interface is not the greatest . So . +Grad B: But actually it had an interface . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: A lot of them were like , you know . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Command line . +Grad B: Huh . +Grad A: What is the c code ? Can w can we see that ? How do you write the code +Grad B: The c +Grad A: or do you actually never have to write any code there ? +Grad C: Yeah . There is actually a text file that you can edit . But it 's {disfmarker} You don't have to do that . +Grad B: There 's like an XML format for {pause} Bayes - nets . +Grad C: Is it XML ? +Grad B: The - there is one . I don't know if this uses it . +Grad C: Oh , I see . No this doesn't use it . +Grad B: But it {disfmarker} +Grad C: I didn't think it did . +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad C: You can look at the text file . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But do you have it here ? +Grad B: Uh , yes I do actually . +Grad C: Well , maybe you don't . +Grad B: Let me see . +Grad C: Oh yes , of course . +Grad B: Oh man , +Grad C: Like , there 's the {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't n {pause} Is there an ampersand in DOS ? +Grad C: Nope . Just s l start up a new DOS . +Grad B: We - That 's alright . I can probably double cli click on it . +Grad C: Or {disfmarker} Yeah , right . +Grad A: n uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: Let 's see , come on . +Grad C: It 'll ask you what you {disfmarker} what it wants {disfmarker} what you want to open it with and see what BAT , I guess . +Grad B: One of these days , it should open this , theoretically . +Grad A: Go {disfmarker} Right mouse . Open with . +Grad B: Oh there we go . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} Oh ! +Grad B: Maybe it was just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh ! W Ah , it was dead . To the world . +Grad D: God ! +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Through the old Notepad . That 's my favorite editor . +Grad B: I like {disfmarker} I like Word Pad because it has the uh {disfmarker} the returns , +Grad A: Wordpad ? I {disfmarker} +Grad B: the carriage returns on some of them . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad B: You know how they get "" auto - fills "" I guess , +Grad A: Mmm - hmm . +Grad B: or whatever you call it . +Grad C: Anyway , there it is . +Grad A: So this is sort of LISP - y ? No . +Grad C: Uh , Yeah . +Grad B: It just basically looks like it just specifies a bunch of +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . That 's how actual probability tables are specified . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: As , like , lists of numbers . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So theoretically you could edit that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It just that {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: But {pause} they 're not very friendly . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah the ordering isn't very clear on {disfmarker} +Grad C: So you 'd have to like figure out {disfmarker} Like you have to go and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . The layout {pause} of the table . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually we could write a program that could generate this . +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think so . +Grad B: Yeah you could . +Grad D: You could . +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were doing it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah we can maybe write an interface th for uh entering probability distributions easily , something like {disfmarker} like a little script . That might {vocalsound} be worth it . +Grad A: And that might do . +Grad D: Yeah . I actually seem to recall Srini complaining about something to do with Entering probability so this is probably +Grad C: The other thing is it is in Java +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: so . +Grad B: We could {pause} manipulate the source {pause} itself ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Do you have the true source files or just the class ? +Grad B: I don't know if he actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . we do +Grad B: Does he {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I saw directory called "" source "" , +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I didn't e +Grad C: or {disfmarker} Yeah . Go up one ? +Grad B: Up one . Ah yes , good . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: "" Source "" . That 's {disfmarker} that 's quite nice . +Grad C: I don't know if it actually manipulate the source , though . That might be a bit complicated . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think it might {disfmarker} it might be simpler to just {pause} have a script that , you know {disfmarker} It 's , like , friendly , +Grad D: The d the data tables . +Grad C: it allows you enter things well . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: But if th if there is an XML {pause} file that {disfmarker} or format that it can also read {disfmarker} I mean it just reads this , right ? When it starts . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah I know there is an {disfmarker} I was looking on the we web page and he 's updated it for an XML version of I guess Bayes - nets . There 's a Bayes - net spec for {disfmarker} in XML . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: He 's {disfmarker} Like this guy has ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: The JavaBayes guy ? So {disfmarker} but , e he doesn't use it . So in what sense has he updated it ? +Grad B: Well th you can either {disfmarker} you ca or you can read both . +Grad C: Oh . I see . +Grad B: To my understanding . +Grad C: OK . That would be awesome . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Because uh {disfmarker} Well at least the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I could have misread the web page , I have a habit of doing that , but . +Grad A: OK , wonderful . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: So you got more slides ? +Grad B: Do I have more slides ? Um yes , one more . "" Future Work "" . I think every presentation have a should have a "" Future Work "" slide . But uh it 's basically {disfmarker} we already talked about all this stuff , so . +Grad C: Um . The additional thing is I guess learning the probabilities , {pause} also . E That 's maybe , I don't know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh that 's future future work . +Grad C: Does {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Very future . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And of course if you have a presentation that doesn't {disfmarker} have something that doesn't work at all , then you have "" What I learned "" , as a slide . +Grad D: Can't you have both ? +Grad B: You could . My first approach failed . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: What I learned . OK , so I think that uh our presentation 's finished . +Grad A: Good . +Grad B: I know what I like about these meetings is one person will nod , and then the next person will nod , and then it just goes all the way around the room . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I missed my turn . +Grad B: No I {disfmarker} Earlier I went {nonvocalsound} and Bhaskara went {nonvocalsound} and you did it . You did it . +Grad A: It 's like yawning . +Grad D: It 's like yawning . +Grad A: And this announcement was in stereo . +Grad C: Ha . +Grad A: OK . So this means um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Should I pull up the {pause} net again ? +Grad D: Yeah . Could you put the {disfmarker} the um , net up again ? +Grad B: Yes . There we go . +Grad D: Thanks . +Grad B: And actually I was {disfmarker} cuz I got a wireless mike on . +Grad D: So a more general thing than "" discussed admission fee "" um , could be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering whether the context , the background context of the discourse {vocalsound} might be {disfmarker} I don't know , if there 's a way to define it or maybe you know generalize it some way um , there might be other cues that , say , um , in the last few utterances there has been something that has strongly associated with say one of the particular modes uh , I don't know if that might be {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I think we {disfmarker} +Grad D: uh , and {disfmarker} and into that node would be various {disfmarker} various things that {disfmarker} that could have specifically come up . +Grad A: I think a {disfmarker} a sort of general strategy here {disfmarker} You know , this is {disfmarker} this is excellent because {disfmarker} um it gets you thinking along these terms {disfmarker} is that maybe we ob we could observe a couple of um discourse phenomena such as the admission fee , and something else and something else , that happened in the discourse before . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} let 's make those four . And maybe there are two um {disfmarker} So maybe this could be sort of a separate region of the net , {pause} which has two {disfmarker} {pause} has it 's own middle layer . Maybe this , you know , has some {pause} kind {pause} of um , funky thing that di if this and this may influence these hidden nodes of the discourse which is maybe something that is uh , a more general version of the actual {pause} phenomenon that you can observe . So things that point towards {disfmarker} +Grad B: So instead of single node , for {pause} like , if they said the word "" admission fee "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Exactly . +Grad B: "" admission fee "" , or maybe , you know , "" how much to enter "" +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: or you know something , other cues . +Grad D: Opening hours or something like that . +Grad B: Exactly . That would all f funnel into one node that would {pause} constitute entrance requirements or something like that . +Grad A: So "" pay a visit "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: uh uh d +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I mean it sort of get into plan recognition kinds of things in the discourse . I mean that 's like the bigger um , version of it . +Grad A: Exactly . Yeah ? And then maybe there are some discourse acts if they happened before , um it 's more for um a cue that the person actually wants to get somewhere else and that you are in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a route um , sort of proceeding past these things , so this would be just something that {disfmarker} where you want to pass it . Hmm ? Is that it ? However these are of course then the {disfmarker} the nodes , the observed nodes , for your middle layer . So this {pause} again points to "" final destination "" , "" doing business "" , "" tourist hurry "" and so forth . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Yeah ? And so then we can say , "" OK . we have a whole {pause} region {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} in a e +Grad D: That 's a whole set of discourse related cues to your middle layer . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . And this is just {disfmarker} then just one . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad A: So e because at the end the more we um {disfmarker} add , you know , the more spider - web - ish it 's going to become in the middle and the more of hand editing . It 's going to get very ugly . But with this way we could say "" OK , these are the {pause} discourse phenomena . They ra may have there own hidden layer {pause} that points to some of {pause} the {disfmarker} the real hidden layer , um or the general hidden layer . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: And the same we will be able to do for syntactic information , the verbs used , the object types used , modifiers . And maybe there 's a hidden layer for that . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad A: And so forth and so forth . Then we have context . +Grad C: Yeah . So essentially a lot of those nodes can be expanded into little Bayes - nets of their own . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Precisely . So . +Grad B: One thing that 's kind of been bugging me when I {disfmarker} more I look at this is that the {disfmarker} I guess , the fact that the {disfmarker} there 's a complete separation between the {pause} observed features and in the output . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: I mean , it makes it cleaner , but then uh {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad C: That 's true . +Grad B: For instance if the discourse does {disfmarker} +Grad D: What do you mean by that ? +Grad B: well for instance , the "" discourse admission fee "" {pause} node seems like it should point directly to the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: or increase the probability of "" enter {pause} directly "" versus "" going there via tourist "" . +Grad C: Yeah . Or we could like add more , uh , sort of middle nodes . Like we could add a node like do they want to enter it , which is affected by admission fee and by whether it 's closed and by whether it has a door . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So it 's like {disfmarker} There are {disfmarker} Those are the two options . Either like make an arrow directly or put a new node . +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: that makes sense . +Grad A: Yeah . And if it {disfmarker} if you do it {disfmarker} If you could connect it too hard you may get such phenomenon that {disfmarker} like "" So how much has it cost to enter ? "" and the answer is two hundred fifty dollars , and then the persons says um "" Yeah I want to see it . "" Yeah ? meaning "" It 's way out of my budget "" um {disfmarker} +Grad B: There are places in Germany where it costs two hundred fifty dollars to enter ? +Grad A: Um , nothing comes to mind . Without thinking too hard . Um , maybe , yeah of course , um opera premiers . +Grad B: Really ? +Grad A: So you know . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or any good old Pink Floyd concert . +Grad B: I see . If you want to see "" The Magic Flute "" or something . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Or maybe um , a famous restaurant . or , I don't know . There are various things that you might w not want to eat a {pause} meal there but {pause} your own table . +Grad B: The Spagos of Heidelberg . +Grad A: I think that the h I mean nothing beats the {disfmarker} the admission charge prices in Japan . So there , two hundred dollars is {disfmarker} is moderate for getting into a discotheque . You know . Then again , everything else is free then once you 're ins in there . +Grad C: Really . +Grad A: Food and drink and so forth . So . I mean . But i you know , i we can {disfmarker} Something {disfmarker} Somebody can have discussed the admission fee and u the answer {pause} is s if we {disfmarker} um , you know , um {disfmarker} still , based on that result is never going to enter that building . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: You know ? Because it 's just too expensive . +Grad B: Oh yeah , I think I see . So the discourse refers to "" admission fee "" but it just turns out that they change their mind in the middle of the discourse . +Grad D: Yeah . you have to have some notion of not just {disfmarker} I mean there 's a {disfmarker} there 's change across several turns of discourse +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so {vocalsound} I don't know how {disfmarker} if any of this was discussed {disfmarker} but how i if it all this is going to interact with {vocalsound} whatever general {vocalsound} uh , other {disfmarker} other discourse processing that might be happen . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . +Grad D: I mean . +Grad B: What sort of discourse {pause} processing is uh {disfmarker} are the {disfmarker} How much is built into SmartKom and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It works like this . The uh , um {disfmarker} I mean . The first thing we get is that {pause} already the intention is sort of t They tried to figure out the intention , right ? simply by parsing it . And this um {disfmarker} m won't differentiate between all modes , yeah ? but at least it 'll tell us "" OK here we have something that {disfmarker} somebody that wants to go someplace , now it 's up for us to figure out what kind of going there is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {pause} is happening , and um , if the discourse takes a couple of turns before everything {disfmarker} all the information is needed , what happens is you know the parser parses it and then it 's handed on to the discourse history which is , um o one of the most elaborate {disfmarker} elaborate modules . It 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the {disfmarker} the whole memory of the entire system , that knows what {disfmarker} wh who said what , which was {disfmarker} what was presented . It helps an an anaphora resolution and it {disfmarker} and it fills in all the structures that are omitted , so , {pause} um , because you say "" OK , {pause} how can I get to the castle ? "" Oh , how {disfmarker} how much is it ? "" and um "" yeah I would like uh {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} to g let 's do it "" and so forth . So even without an a ana {pause} anaphora somebody has to make sure that information we had earlier on is still here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Because not every module keeps a memory of everything that happened . so {vocalsound} whenever the uh , um person is not actually rejecting what happened before , so as in "" No I really don't want to see that movie . I 'd rather stay home and watch TV "" um {disfmarker} What movie was selected in what cinema in what town is {disfmarker} is going to be sort of added into the disc into the representations every di at each dialogue step , by the discourse model {disfmarker} discourse {pause} model , Yeah , that 's what it 's called . and , um , it does some help in the anaphora resolution and it also helps in coordinating the gesture screen issues . So a person pointing to something on the screen , you know , the discourse model actually stores what was presented at what location on the s on the screen +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: so it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a rather huge {vocalsound} {disfmarker} huge thing but um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} um {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} we can {pause} sort of {disfmarker} It has a very clear interface . We can query it whether admission fees were discussed in the last turn and {disfmarker} and the turn before that or you know how {pause} deep we want to search +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: um {disfmarker} which is a question . How deep do we want to sear , you know ? Um {disfmarker} but we should {pause} try to keep in mind that , you know , we 're doing this sort of for research , so we {disfmarker} we should find a limit that 's reasonable and not go , you know , all the way back to Adam and Eve . You know , did that person ever discuss admissions fee {disfmarker} fees in his entire life ? And the dialogues are pretty {disfmarker} pretty you know {vocalsound} concise and {disfmarker} Anyway . +Grad D: So one thing that might be helpful which is implicit in the {pause} use of "" admission fee discussion "" as a cue for entry , {vocalsound} {pause} is thinking about the plans that various people might have . Like all the different {vocalsound} sort of general schemas that they might be following OK . This person is um , finding out information about this thing in order to go {pause} in as a tourist or finding out how to get to this place {pause} in order to do business . Um , because then {pause} anything that 's a cue for one of the steps {pause} would be slight evidence for that overall plan . Um , I don't know . They 're {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in non in sort of more traditional AI kinds of plan recognition things you sort of have {vocalsound} {pause} you know , some idea at each turn of agent doing something , "" OK , wha what plans is this a {disfmarker} consistent with ? "" and then get s some more information and then you see {pause} "" here 's a sequence that this sort of roughly fits into "" . It {disfmarker} it might be useful here too . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I don't know how you know you 'd have to {vocalsound} {pause} figure out what knowl what knowledge representation would work for that . +Grad A: I mean the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u u +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's in the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these plan schemas . I mean there are some {disfmarker} some of them are extremely elaborate , you know . "" What do you need {disfmarker} need to buy a ticket ? "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? and it {disfmarker} it 's fifty steps , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: huh ? just for buying a ticket {pause} at a ticket counter , you know , and {disfmarker} and maybe that 's helpful to look at it {disfmarker} to look at those . It 's amazing what human beings can do . W when we talked uh we had the example , you know , of you being uh {disfmarker} a s a person on a ticket counter working at railway station and somebody r runs up to you with a suitcase in his hands , says {vocalsound} New York and you say Track seven , huh ? And it 's because you know that that person actually is following , you know {disfmarker} You execute a whole plan of going through a hundred and fifty steps , you know , without any information other than "" New York "" , huh ? inferring everything from the context . So , works . Um , even though there is probably no train from here to New York , right ? +Grad D: Mmm . Not direct . +Grad B: You 'd uh probably have to transfer in Chicago . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But uh {disfmarker} it 's possible . Um , no you probably have to transfer also somewhere else . Right ? Is that t San Francisco , Chicago ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that possible ? +Grad B: One time I saw a report on trains , and I think there is a l I don't know if {disfmarker} I thought there was a line that went from somewhere , maybe it was Sacramento to Chicago , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but there was like a California to Chicago line of some sort . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: I could be wrong though . It was a while ago . +Grad D: The Transcontinental Railroad , doesn't that ring a bell ? +Grad B: Yeah but I don't know if it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think it has to exist somewhere . +Grad B: They might have blown it up . +Grad A: Well it never went all the way , right ? I mean you always had to change trains at Omaha , +Grad D: Well most of the way . +Grad A: right ? One track ended there and the other one started at {disfmarker} five meters away from that +Grad D: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: and {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well . {pause} You seem to know better than we do so . +Grad A: yeah ? Has anybody ever been on an Amtrak ? +Grad D: I have . But not transcontinentally . +Grad B: I 'm frightened by Amtrak myself . +Grad C: What ? Why ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} They seem to have a lot of accidents on the Amtrak . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad A: Their reputation is very bad . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: huh ? It 's not maybe reality . +Grad D: It 's not like German trains . Like German trains are really great so . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} you know , I don't know whether it 's {disfmarker} which ones are safer , you know , statistically . +Grad D: Um , but they 're faster . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Much faster . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And there 's much more of them . Yeah , they 're Yeah , it 's {pause} way better +Grad A: yeah I used {disfmarker} um Amtrak quite a bit on the east coast and I was surprised . It was actually OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know , on Boston New York , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: New York Rhode Island , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: whatever , +Grad C: I 've done that kind of thing . +Grad A: Boston . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} That 's {pause} a different issue . +Grad B: This is going to be an interesting transcript . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I want to see what it does with uh "" landmark - iness "" . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Let 's all say it a few more times . +Grad B: It 'd help it figure it out . +Grad C: So . +Grad D: Just kidding . Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: So by the way tha that structure {pause} that Robert drew on the board was like more um , {vocalsound} {pause} cue - type - based , right , here 's like we 're gonna {vocalsound} segment off a bit of stuff that comes from discourse and then {pause} some of the things we 're talking about here are more {disfmarker} you know , we mentioned maybe {pause} if they talk about {pause} um , I don't know , entering or som you know like they might be more task - based . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: So I {disfmarker} I don't know if there {disfmarker} There 's obviously some {disfmarker} m more than one way of organizing {pause} the variables into something +Grad A: I think that um {disfmarker} What you guys did is really nicely sketching out different tasks , and maybe some of their conditions . +Grad D: so . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: One task is more likely you 're in a hurry when you do that kind of s doing business , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} and less in a hurry when uh {disfmarker} you 're a tourist Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} tourists may have {disfmarker} never have final destinations , you know because they are eternally traveling around so {vocalsound} maybe what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what happened {disfmarker} what might happen is that we do get this sort of task - based middle layer , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then we 'll get these sub - middle layers , that are more cue - based . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . That feed into those ? +Grad A: Nah ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Might be {disfmarker} might be a nice dichotomy of {disfmarker} of the world . So , um I suggest w to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to proceed with this in {disfmarker} in the sense that {pause} maybe throughout this week the three of us will {disfmarker} will talk some more about maybe segmenting off different regions , and we make up some {disfmarker} {pause} some toy a observable "" nodes "" {disfmarker} is that what th +Grad B: Refined y re just refine the {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the technical term ? +Grad C: OK . For which ? +Grad A: For the uh {disfmarker} nodes that are observable ? The "" outer layer "" ? +Grad C: Just observable nodes , +Grad B: The features , +Grad C: evidence nodes ? +Grad B: I don't know , whatever you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Feature ma make up some features for those {disfmarker} Identify {pause} four regions , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: maybe make up some features for each region and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh , uh {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} middle layer for those . And then these should then connect somehow to the more plan - based deep space +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Basically just refine {pause} some of the more general nodes . +Grad A: Yep . The - they {disfmarker} they will be aud ad - hoc for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for some time to come . +Grad C: Yeah , this is totally like {disfmarker} The probabilities and all are completely ad - hoc . We need to look at all of them . I mean but , they 're even like {vocalsound} {pause} I mean like , close to the end we were like , uh , you know we were like uh {vocalsound} really ad - hoc . +Grad D: It 's a even distribution . Like , whatever . +Grad C: Right ? Cuz if it 's like , uh {disfmarker} If it 's four things coming in , right ? And , say , some of them have like three possibilities and all that . So you 're thinking like {disfmarker} like a hundred and forty four or something {pause} possible things {disfmarker} numbers to enter , +Grad D: And {disfmarker} That 's terrible . +Grad C: right ? So . +Grad B: Some of them are completely absurd too , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want to enter , but it 's closed , +Grad D: That 's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: it 's night time , you know there are tourists and all this weird stuff happens at the line up and you 're like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the only like possible interpretation is that they are like {disfmarker} come here just to rob the museum or {pause} something to that effect . +Grad B: confused . +Grad D: In which case you 're supposed to alert the authorities , {vocalsound} and see appropriate action . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , another thing to do , um , is also to , um {disfmarker} I guess to ask around people about other Bayes - net packages . Is Srini gonna be {pause} at the meeting tomorrow , do you know ? +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad A: The day after tomorrow . +Grad C: Wait {disfmarker} +Grad D: Quite possibly . +Grad A: Wednesday . +Grad C: Day after tomorrow . +Grad D: Oh , oh , sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Sorry , Wednesday , +Grad B: Who 's talking on Wednesday ? +Grad C: Maybe we can ask him about it . +Grad D: yeah . Mmm . +Grad B: I haven't {disfmarker} J Jerry never sent out a {disfmarker} sent out an email , did he , ever ? +Grad C: No . But he mentioned at the last meeting that someone was going to be talking , I forget who . +Grad A: Oh , isn't Ben ? +Grad C: Uh . +Grad D: Ben ? +Grad A: Ben , then , +Grad D: I think it 's Ben actually , +Grad A: Ben . +Grad B: Ah ! +Grad D: yeah , um , giving his job talk I think . um , Sorry . I was just reading the screen . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} That will be one {disfmarker} one thing we could do . I actually uh , have {disfmarker} Um , also we can uh , start looking at the SmartKom tables and I will {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: I actually wanted to show that {pause} to you guys now but um . +Grad B: Do you want to {pause} trade ? +Grad A: Um , no I {disfmarker} I actually made a mistake because it {disfmarker} it fell asleep and when Linux falls asleep on my machine it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't wake up ever , so I had to reboot +Grad D: Oh , no . +Grad A: And if I reboot without a network , I will not be able to start SmartKom , because I need to have a network . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'll do that t maybe uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But . OK . But once you start {disfmarker} sart start SmartKom you can be on {disfmarker} You don't have to be on a network anymore . Is that the deal ? +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: Ah , interesting . +Grad B: Why does SmartKom need a network ? +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it looks up some stuff that , {pause} you know , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} is in the {disfmarker} written by the operating system only if it {disfmarker} if you get a DHCP request , so it {disfmarker} you know , my computer does not know its IP address , you know ? +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: You know . So . Unless it boots up with networking . +Grad B: It 's plugged in . Yeah . +Grad A: And I don't have an IP address , they can't look up {disfmarker} they don't know who localhost is , and so forth and so forth . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Always fun . But it 's a , um , simple solution . We can just um , go downstairs and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and look at this , but maybe not today . The other thing um {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} oh yeah , OK , I have to report {vocalsound} um , data collection . We interviewed Fey , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: She 's willing to do it , meaning be the wizard for the data collection , also {vocalsound} maybe transcribe a little bit , if she has to , but also recruiting subjects , organizing them , and so forth . So that looks good . Jerry however suggested that we should uh have a trial run with her , see whether she can actually do all the uh spontaneous , eloquent and creativeness that we uh expect of the wizard . And I talked to Liz about this and it looks as if Friday afternoon will be the time when we have a first trial run for the data . +Grad C: So who would be the subject {pause} of this trial run ? +Grad A: Pardon me ? +Grad C: Who {disfmarker} Will there be a {disfmarker} Is one {disfmarker} Is you {disfmarker} one of you gonna be the subject ? Like are you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um Liz also volunteered to be the first subject , {vocalsound} which I think might be even better than us guys . +Grad D: Good . +Grad B: One of us , yeah . +Grad A: If we do need her for the technical stuff , then of course one of you has to sort of uh {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad B: I like how we 've {disfmarker} you guys have successfully narrowed it down . "" Is one of you going to be the subject ? "" Is one of you {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad D: Reference . I haven't done it yet . +Grad C: Well I just figured it has to be someone who 's , um , familiar enough with the data to cause problems for the wizard , so we can , uh , see if they 're you know good . +Grad D: Oh plants ? e u someone who can plant difficult things . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean that 's what we wanna {pause} check , right ? +Grad A: Um , +Grad D: Well , in this case it 's a p it 's a {pause} sort of testing of the wizard rather than of the subject . +Grad C: Isn't that what it is ? +Grad D: It 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: yes w we {disfmarker} we would like to test the wizard , but {vocalsound} you know , if we take a subject that is completely unfamiliar with the task , or any of the set up , we get a more realistic +Grad C: I guess that would be reasonable . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: you know , set up as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . I know . That 's probably a good enough test of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Sort of having an actively antagonistic , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . That might be a little unfair . Um . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm sure if we uh , {disfmarker} You think there 's a chance we might need Liz for , whatever , the technical side of things ? I 'm sure we can get {pause} other people around who don't know anything {pause} um , if we want another subject . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: You know . Like I can drag Ben into it or something . Although he might cause problems but . So , is it a experimental setup for the um , data collection {pause} totally {pause} ready {disfmarker} determined ? +Grad B: I like that . "" Test the wizard . "" I want that on a T - shirt . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} experimental setup u on the technical issue yes , except we st I think we still need uh {disfmarker} a recording device for the wizard , just a tape recorder that 's running in a room . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But um {disfmarker} in terms of specifying the scenario , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} we 've gotten a little further +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: but um {disfmarker} we wanted to wait until we know who is the wizard , and have the wizard partake in the {pause} ultimate {pause} sort of definition probe . So {disfmarker} so if {disfmarker} if on Friday it turns out that she really likes it and {disfmarker} and we really like her , then nothing should stop us from sitting down next week and {vocalsound} {comment} getting all the details completely figured out . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So the ideal task um , {pause} will have {pause} whatever I don't know how much the structure of the evolving Bayes - net {vocalsound} {pause} will af affect {disfmarker} Like we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna be able to collect {vocalsound} as much of the variables that are needed for that , +Grad A: Mmm - yea - some . +Grad D: right ? in the course of the task ? Well not all of them but you know . +Grad A: Bu - e e e I 'm even {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this Tango , Enter , Vista is sort of , itself , an ad - hoc scenario . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the basic u um idea behind the uh {pause} data collection was the following . The data we get from Munich is {pause} very command line , simple linguistic stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hardly anything complicated . No metaphors whatsoever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Not a rich language . So we wanted just to collect data , to get {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} elicits more , uh , that elicits richer language . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we actually did not want to constrain it too much , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know ? Just see what people say . And then maybe we 'll discover the phenomenon {disfmarker} the phenomena that we want to solve , you know , with {pause} whatever engine we {disfmarker} we come up with . Um . So this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a parallel track , you know , there {disfmarker} they hopefully meet , +Grad D: OK . So in other words this data collection is {pause} more general . +Grad A: but since {disfmarker} +Grad D: It could {disfmarker} it could {pause} be used for not just this task . +Grad A: It should tell us , you know , what kind of phenomenon could occur , it should tell us also maybe something about the difference between people who think they speak to a computer versus people who think they speak to a human being +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the sort of differences there . So it may get us some more information on the human - machine pragmatics , um , that no one knows anything about , as of yesterday . And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} nothing has changed {comment} since then , so . Uh . And secondly , now that of course we have sort of started to lick blood with this , and especially since um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Johno can't stop Tango - ing , {vocalsound} we may actually include , you know , those {disfmarker} those intentions . So now I think we should maybe have at least one navigational task with {disfmarker} with sort of explicit {disfmarker} uh +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: not ex it 's implicit that the person wants to enter , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and maybe some task where it 's more or less explicit that the person wants to take a picture , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or see it or something . So that we can label it . I mean , that 's how we get a corpus that we can label . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Exactly . +Grad A: Whereas , you know , if we 'd just get data we 'd never know what they actually wanted , we 'd get no cues . Yep . +Grad B: Alrighty . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: That was that . +Grad B: So is this the official end of the meeting now ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Looks like it . +Grad C: So what 's "" Economics , the fallacy "" ? +Grad A: Ma +Grad B: I just randomly {pause} label things . So that has nothing to do with economics or anything . +Grad C: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Maybe we ought to switch off these things before we continue . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: OK . Switching o +","The conversation appears to be among a group of graduate students or researchers (Grad A, Grad B, Grad C, Grad D) discussing a project, likely related to a presentation on utilizing Bayesian networks for some form of human-computer interaction or communication analysis. They are planning to collect data to elicit richer language, comparing how people interact with computers versus human beings. They discussed the possibility of having a person (Fey) act as a ""wizard"" to mimic computer responses during data collection and considered having a trial run on Friday with Liz as the subject to evaluate the wizard's performance. + +They also considered the scenarios for data collection, such as navigational tasks where users may want to enter a location or take a picture. They mentioned the importance of labeling the collected data to understand the users' intentions. + +The conversation also touched upon technical set up issues, refining features in a Bayesian network, and how different tasks (like Tango, Enter, Vista) within the network might inform their data collection approach. There were some tangential discussions about train systems, the reliability of Amtrak, and the potential for economic fallacies, signaling they were wrapping up the meeting. They also agreed to switch off their recording equipment." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: to {disfmarker} to handle . +Grad D: Is that good ? +Grad C: Right . Yeah , I 've have never handled them . +Grad B: Goats eat cans , to my understanding . Tin cans . +Grad D: Did we need to do these things ? +Grad C: Wow . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Could I hit {disfmarker} hit F - seven to do that ? on the {disfmarker} Robert ? +Grad A: I 'm +Grad B: Oh , the remote will do it OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Cuz I 'm already up there ? +Grad A: in control here . +Grad B: You are in control . Already ? +Grad D: Wow , we 're all so high tech here . Yet another p PowerPoint presentation . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Well it makes it easier {pause} to do +Grad D: Certainly does . +Grad B: So , {pause} we were {disfmarker} Ah ! +Grad C: Johno , where are you ? +Grad B: OK . So , Let 's see . Which one of these buttons will do this for me ? Aha ! OK . +Grad C: Should you go back to the first one ? +Grad B: Do I wanna go back to the first one ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: I 'm sorry I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , {pause} just to {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . Introduce . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , um {vocalsound} Well , "" the search for the middle layer "" . It 's basically uh talks about uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It just refers to the fact that uh {pause} one of main things we had to do was to {pause} decide what the intermediate sort of nodes were , +Grad D: I can read ! I 'm kidding . +Grad C: you know , because {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But if you really want to find out what it 's about you have to {pause} click on the little {pause} light bulb . +Grad B: Although I 've {disfmarker} I 've never {disfmarker} I don't know what the light bulb is for . I didn't i install that into my {pause} PowerPoint presentation . +Grad A: It opens the Assistant that tells you that the font type is too small . +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Do you wanna try ? +Grad D: Ach u +Grad B: I 'd prefer not to . +Grad A: OK . Continue . +Grad D: It 's a needless good idea . Is that the idea ? +Grad A: Why are you doing this in this mode and not in the presentation mode ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because I 'm gonna switch to the JavaBayes program +Grad A: Oh ! OK . Of course . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and then {pause} if I do that it 'll mess everything up . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Is that OK ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's OK . +Grad A: Sure . +Grad C: Can you maximize the window ? +Grad D: Proceed . +Grad B: You want me to {disfmarker} Wait , what do you want me to do ? +Grad C: Can you maximize the window so all that stuff on the side isn't {disfmarker} doesn't appear ? +Grad A: No , It 's OK . It 's {disfmarker} It 'll work . +Grad B: Well I can do that , but then I have to end the presentation in the middle so I can go back to open up +Grad C: OK , fine . +Grad B: Here , let 's see if I can {disfmarker} +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: Very nice . +Grad B: Is that better ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I 'll also get rid of this "" Click to add notes "" . OK . +Grad D: Perfect . +Grad B: So then the features we decided {disfmarker} or we decided we were {disfmarker} talked about , right ? Uh the {disfmarker} the prosody , the discourse , {pause} verb choice . You know . We had a list of things like "" to go "" and "" to visit "" and what not . The "" landmark - iness "" of uh {disfmarker} I knew you 'd like that . +Grad D: Nice coinage . +Grad B: Thank you . uh , of a {disfmarker} of a building . Whether the and this i we actually have a separate feature but I decided to put it on the same line {pause} for space . "" Nice walls "" {vocalsound} which we can look up because I mean if you 're gonna {pause} get real close to a building in the Tango mode , right , there 's gotta be a reason for it . And it 's either because you 're in route to something else or you wanna look at the walls . The context , which in this case we 've limited to {pause} "" business person "" , "" tourist "" , or {pause} "" unknown "" , the time of day , and "" open to suggestions "" , isn't actually a feature . It 's {pause} "" We are open to suggestions . "" +Grad D: Right . can I just ask the nice walls part of it is that {vocalsound} uh , in this particular domain {disfmarker} you said {disfmarker} be {disfmarker} i it could be on two different lines but are you saying that in this particular domain it happens the {disfmarker} that landmark - iness cor is correlated with +Grad B: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad C: No . We have a separate +Grad B: They 're separate things . +Grad C: feature . +Grad D: their being nice w +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I either could put "" nice walls "" on its own line or "" open to suggestions "" off the slide . +Grad C: Like you could have a p +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} By "" nice "" you mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: You {disfmarker} Like you could have a post office with uh {disfmarker} you know , nice murals or something . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Or one time I was at this {disfmarker} +Grad D: So "" nice walls "" is a stand in for like architecturally it , uh {disfmarker} significant +Grad B: But see the thing is , if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Architecturally appealing from the outside . +Grad D: or something like that . OK . +Grad B: Yeah but if it 's architecturally significant you might be able to see it from {disfmarker} Like you m might be able to "" Vista "" it , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? And be able to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Appreciate it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , versus , like , I was at this place in Europe where they had little carvings of , like , dead people on the walls or something . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I don't remember w +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: It was a long time ago . +Grad D: There 's a lot of those . +Grad B: But if you looked at it real close , you could see the {disfmarker} the in intricacy of the {disfmarker} of the walls . +Grad D: OK . So that count as {disfmarker} counts as a nice wall . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} OK . Right . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} +Grad D: Something you want to inspect at close range {pause} because it 's interesting . +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Robert ? +Grad A: Well there {disfmarker} there is a term {pause} that 's often used . That 's "" saliency "" , or the "" salience "" of an object . And I was just wondering whether that 's the same as what you describe as "" landmark - iness "" . But it 's really not . I mean an object can be very salient +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: but not a landmark at all . +Grad D: Not a landmark at all . There 's landmark for um , touristic reasons and landmark for I don't know navigational reasons or something . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , we meant , uh , touristic reasons . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . but you can imagine maybe wanting the oth both kinds of things there for different um , goals . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Tourist - y landmarks also happen to be {disfmarker} Wouldn't {disfmarker} couldn't they also be {disfmarker} They 're not exclusive groups , are they ? Like {pause} non - tourist - y landmarks and +Grad A: Or it can be als +Grad B: direct navigational {disfmarker} +Grad D: They 're not mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Right . Definitely . +Grad B: OK , So our initial idea was not very satisfying , {pause} because {disfmarker} uh our initial idea was basically all the features pointing to the output node . Uh . +Grad D: So , a big flat structure . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: And uh , so we {disfmarker} Reasons being , you know , it 'd be a pain to set up all the probabilities for that . If we moved onto the next step and did learning of some sort , uh according Bhaskara we 'd be handicapped . I don't know belief - nets very well . +Grad C: Well usually , I mean , you know , N {disfmarker} If you have N features , then it 's two to the N {disfmarker} {pause} or exponential in N . +Grad B: And they wouldn't look pretty . So . +Grad C: Yeah , they 'd all be like pointing to the one node . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh . So then our next idea was to add a middle layer , right ? So the thinking behind that was {vocalsound} we have the features that we 've drawn {pause} from the communication of some {disfmarker} Like , the someone s The person at the screen is trying to communicate some abstract idea , like "" I 'm {disfmarker} "" the {disfmarker} the abstract idea being "" I am a tourist I want to go {pause} to this place . "" Right ? So we 're gonna set up features along the lines of where they want to go and {pause} what they 've said previously and whatnot . And then we have {pause} the means {vocalsound} that they should use . Right ? but the middle thing , we were thinking along the lines of maybe trying to figure out , like , the concept of whether they 're a tourist {pause} or {pause} whether they 're running an errand or something like that along those lines . Or {disfmarker} Yes , we could things we couldn't extract the {disfmarker} from the data , the hidden variables . Yes , good . So then the hidden variables {disfmarker} hair variables we came up with were whether someone was on a tour , running an errand , or whether they were in a hurry , because we were thinking uh , if they were in a hurry there 'd be less likely to {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} or th +Grad C: Want to do Vista , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: right ? Because {pause} if you want to view things you wouldn't be in a hurry . +Grad B: Or they might be more likely to be using the place that they want to go to as a {disfmarker} like a {pause} navigational point to go to another place . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Whether the destination was their final destination , whether the destination was closed . Those are all {disfmarker} And then "" Let 's look at the belief - net "" {comment} OK . So that means that I should switch to the {pause} other program . Um right now it 's still kind of {pause} in a toy {pause} version of it , because we didn't know the probabilities of {disfmarker} {pause} or {disfmarker} Well I 'll talk about it when I get the picture up . +Grad A: No one knows it . +Grad B: OK . So this right {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} Let 's see . What happens if I maximize this ? There we go . But uh {disfmarker} So . The mode {pause} basically has three different {pause} outputs . The probability {disfmarker} whether the probability of a Vista , Tango , or Enter . Um {disfmarker} The "" context "" , we simplified . Basically it 's just the businessman , the tourist , unknown . "" Verb used "" is actually personally amusing mainly because it 's {disfmarker} it 's just whether the verb is a Tango verb , an Enter verb , or a {pause} Vista verb . +Grad C: Yeah , that one needs a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are those mutually exclusive sets ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Not at all . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that needs a lot of work . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: But uh {vocalsound} {pause} that would 've made the probably significantly be more complicated to enter , +Grad D: Got it . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so we decided that for the purposes of this {pause} it 'd be simpler to just have three verbs . +Grad D: Yeah . Simple . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Stab at it . Yep . +Grad B: Right . Um {disfmarker} Why don't you mention things about this , Bhaskara , that I am {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} that are not coming to my mind right now . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so note the four nodes down there , the {disfmarker} sort of , the things that are not directly extracted . Actually , the five things . The "" closed "" is also not directly extracted I guess , from the uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well i it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: From the {pause} utterance ? +Grad B: it 's so it sort of is +Grad C: Actually , no , wait . +Grad B: because it 's {disfmarker} because have the {disfmarker} the time of day +Grad C: It is . OK , "" closed "" sort of is . +Grad B: and the close it just had the {disfmarker} er and what time it closed . +Grad C: Right , so f Right , but the other ones , the final destination , the whether they 're doing business , whether they 're in a hurry , and whether they 're tourists , that kind of thing is all uh {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} you know probabilistically depends on the other things . +Grad D: Inferred from the other ones ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And the mode , you know , depends on all those things only . +Grad B: Yeah the {disfmarker} {pause} the actual parse is somewhere up around in here . +Grad C: Yeah . So we haven't uh , managed {disfmarker} Like we don't have nodes for "" discourse "" and "" parse "" , although like in some sense they are parts of this belief - net . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The idea is that we just extract those features from them , so we don't actually have a node for the entire parse , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: because we 'd never do inference on it anyway , so . +Grad D: So some of the {disfmarker} the top row of things {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's "" Disc admission fee "" ? +Grad C: whether they discuss the admission fees . So we looked at the data and in a lot of data people were saying things like {vocalsound} "" Can I get to this place ? "" +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: "" What is the admission fee ? "" . So that 's like a huge uh clue that they 're trying to Enter the place rather than uh to Tango or Vista , +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: so . +Grad D: I see . +Grad B: There were {disfmarker} there 'd be other things besides just the admission fee , but {pause} you know , {pause} we didn't have {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That was like our example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: That was the {pause} initial one that we found . +Grad D: OK . So there are certain cues that are very strong {pause} either lexical or topic - based um , concept cues +Grad B: From the discourse that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: for one of those . And then in that second row {pause} or whatever that row of Time of Day through that {disfmarker} So all of those {disfmarker} Some of them come from the utterance and some of them are sort of {vocalsound} either world knowledge or situational {pause} things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Right ? So that you have no distinction between those and OK . +Grad B: One , uh {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Um , anything else you want to say Bhaskara ? +Grad C: Um . +Grad D: "" Unmark @ @ Time of Day "" +Grad C: Yeah , I m I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're are a couple of more things . +Grad B: One thing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean Uh . I would actually suggest we go through this one more time so we {disfmarker} we all uh , agree on what {disfmarker} what the meaning of these things is at the moment and maybe {vocalsound} what changes we {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , th OK . so one thing I {disfmarker} I 'm you know unsure about , is how we have the discus uh {disfmarker} the "" admission fee "" thing set up . So one {pause} thing that we were thinking was {vocalsound} by doing the layers like this , Uh {disfmarker} we kept um {disfmarker} things from directly affecting the mode {pause} beyond the concept , but you could see perhaps discus the "" admission fee "" going directly to the mode pointing at "" Enter "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? Versus pointing to just at "" tourist "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But we just decided to keep all the things we extracted {pause} to point at the middle and then {pause} down . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Why is the landmark {disfmarker} OK . The landmark is facing to the tourists . That 's because we 're talking about landmarks as touristic landmarks not as possible um +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Navigational landmarks , +Grad D: Navigational cue . +Grad A: navigational landmarks +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: so Mm - hmm . Then {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , that would be {pause} whatever building they referred to . +Grad D: Prosody . +Grad C: Right . So let 's see . The variables . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Disc - "" admission fee "" is a binary thing , "" time of day "" is like morning , afternoon , night . Is that the deal ? Yeah . +Grad B: That 's how we have it currently set up , +Grad A: Yep . +Grad B: but it could be , {pause} you know , based upon hour +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Whatever granularity . +Grad B: or {pause} dis we could discrete it {disfmarker} des descret - ize it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Normally context will include a huge amount of information , but um , we are just using the particular {vocalsound} part of the context which consists of the switch that they flick to indicate whether they 're a tourist or not , I guess . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: OK . So that 's given in their input . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} Right , +Grad D: Right ? +Grad C: so it 's not really all of context . Similarly prosody is not all of prosody but simply {vocalsound} for our purposes whether or not they appear tense or relaxed . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . that 's very nice , huh ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} So the context is a switch between tourist or non - tourist ? +Grad C: and +Grad A: Or also unknown ? +Grad B: Or un {pause} unknown , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Unknown , right ? +Grad D: So final dest So it seems like that would really help you for doing business versus tourist , +Grad C: Which is th Which one ? +Grad D: but OK . so the the context being um , e I don't know if that question 's sort of in general , "" are you {disfmarker} "" I mean the {disfmarker} ar ar are do they allow business people to be doing non - business things at the moment ? +Grad C: Yeah , it does . +Grad D: OK . So then you just have some probabilities over {disfmarker} +Grad C: Everything is probablistic , and {disfmarker} There 's always {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . {disfmarker} over which which of those it is . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , right . So then landmark is {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . "" Verb used "" is like , right now we only have three values , but in general they would be a probability distribution over all verbs . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Rather , let me rephrase that . It {disfmarker} it can take values {vocalsound} in the set of all verbs , that they could possibly use . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um "" nice walls "" is binary , "" closed "" is binary "" final destination "" , again {disfmarker} Yeah , all those are binary I guess . And "" mode "" is one of three things . +Grad A: So , the {disfmarker} the middle layer is also binary ? No . +Grad C: Yeah , anything with a question mark after it in that picture is a binary node . +Grad A: Uh . It {disfmarker} Yeah . But all those things without question marks are also binary . Right ? +Grad C: Which things ? +Grad A: Nice walls ? +Grad B: Wi +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh . "" Nice walls "" is uh {disfmarker} something that we extract from our world knowledge . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah , a Oh yeah . Sorry . It is binary . +Grad B: It is binary but it doesn't have question mark because it 's extracted . +Grad C: That 's true . Yeah . OK , I see your point . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I gotcha . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: Yeah , similarly "" closed "" , I guess . +Grad A: So we can either be in a hurry or not , but we cannot be in a medium hurry at the moment ? +Grad C: Well , we To do that we would add another uh {disfmarker} value for that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And that would require s updating the probability distribution for "" mode "" as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because it would now have to like uh {disfmarker} take that possibility into account . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Take a conti +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So um , of course this will happen when we think more about the kinds of verbs that are used in each cases +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but you can imagine that it 's verb plus various other things that are also not in the bottom layer that would {disfmarker} that would help you {disfmarker} Like it 's a conjunction of , I don't know , you know , the verb used and some other stuff that {disfmarker} that would {vocalsound} {pause} determine {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . Other syntactic information you mean ? +Grad D: Yeah . Exactly . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of the landmark is {disfmarker} is sort of the object right ? the argument in a sense ? +Grad D: Usually . I {disfmarker} I don't know if that 's always the case I {disfmarker} I guess haven't looked at the data as much as you guys have . So . Um . +Grad A: that 's always warping on something {disfmarker} some entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {disfmarker} Uh maybe at this stage we will {disfmarker} we do want to {disfmarker} uh sort of get {disfmarker} uh modifiers in there +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: because they may also tell us whether the person is in a hurry or not +Grad B: I want to get to the church quickly , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: That would be a cue . +Grad A: what 's the fastest way +Grad C: Yeah , correct . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Um . OK . +Grad B: Right . Excellent . Do we have anything else to say about this ? +Grad C: We can do a little demo . +Grad B: Oh the Yeah , we could . But the demo doesn't work very well . +Grad A: No , then it wouldn't be a demo I was just gonna s +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} We can do a demo in the sense that we can um , {vocalsound} just ob observe the fact that this will , in fact do inference . +Grad B: Observe nodes . +Grad C: So we can , you know , set some of the uh nodes and then try to find the probability of other nodes . +Grad D: Yeah . Go ahead . +Grad B: OK . Dat - dat - dah . What should I observe ? +Grad C: Just se set a few of them . You don't have to do the whole thing that we did last time . Just like uh , {vocalsound} maybe the fact that they use a certain verb {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Actually forget the verb . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: just uh {disfmarker} I don't know , say they discussed the admission fee {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the place has nice walls +Grad B: I love nice walls , OK ? I 'm a big fan . +Grad C: and it 's night . +Grad D: it 's starting to grow on me +Grad B: And the time of day is night ? +Grad C: Yeah , no wait . That {disfmarker} that doesn't uh {disfmarker} it 's not really consistent . They don't discuss the admission fee . Make that false . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad C: And it 's night . +Grad B: Oh , they {disfmarker} OK . Oh whoops . I forgot to uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That didn't work . +Grad B: Ach ! +Grad D: I 'd like to do that again . +Grad B: One thing that bugs me about JavaBayes is you have to click that and do this . +Grad D: Yeah . That seems kind of redundant but . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That all you want ? +Grad C: Yes . +Grad B: OK . So let 's see . I want {pause} to query , +Grad C: "" Go "" and , right , "" query "" . +Grad B: right ? the mode . OK , and then on here {disfmarker} So let 's see . +Grad C: So that {pause} is the probability that they 're Entering , Vista - ing or Tango - ing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: So slightly {pause} biased {pause} toward "" Tango "" ing +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: If it 's night time , {pause} they have not discussed admission fee , and the n walls are nice . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: So , yeah . I guess that {pause} sort of makes sense . The reason I say the {pause} demo doesn't work very well is yesterday we uh {disfmarker} {pause} observed everything in favor of {pause} taking a tour , and it came up as "" Tango "" , right ? Over and over again . We couldn't {disfmarker} we couldn't figure out how to turn it off of "" Tango "" . +Grad D: So . Uh - huh . +Grad C: It loves the Tango . +Grad D: Huh ! Um . +Grad C: Well , that 's obviously just to do with our probabilities . +Grad B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: Like , {pause} we totally hand - tuned the probabilities , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: right . We were like {vocalsound} "" hmm , well if the person does this and this and this , let 's say forty percent for this , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: fifty per "" Like , you know . So obviously that 's gonna happen . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Grad A: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it +Grad D: Maybe the bias toward "" Tango "" ing was yours , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's at {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} So we have to like fit the probabilities . +Grad B: Spent my youth practicing the tango de la muerte . +Grad D: So , the real case ? +Grad A: However you know , it {disfmarker} The purpose was not really , at this stage , to come up with meaningful probabilities but to get thinking about that hidden middle layer . And so th +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: We would actually {disfmarker} I guess once we look at the data more we 'll get more hidden {pause} nodes , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: but I 'd like to see more . Not because it would {pause} expedite the probabilities , cuz it wouldn't . It would actually slow that down tremendously . +Grad C: Um . Well , yeah , I guess . +Grad B: But . +Grad C: Not that much though . Only a little early . +Grad B: No , I think we should have uh {disfmarker} exponentially more {pause} middle nodes than features we 've extracted . I 'm ju I 'm just jo +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Are "" doing business "" versus "" tourist "" {disfmarker} They refer to your current task . Like {disfmarker} like current thing you want to do at this moment . +Grad C: Um . Yeah , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting point . Whether you 're {disfmarker} It 's whether {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} +Grad D: And are th +Grad C: I think it 's more like "" Are you are tourist ? are you in Ham - like Heidelberg for a {disfmarker} "" +Grad D: Oh , so , I thought that was directly given by the context {pause} switch . +Grad C: That 's a different thing . What if the context , which is not set , but still they say things like , "" I want to go {pause} uh , see the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the castle and uh , et cetera . "" +Grad A: Is it {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well the I kind of {pause} thought of "" doing business "" as more of running an errand type thing . +Grad C: Yeah . Business on the other hand is , uh , definitely what you 're doing . +Grad A: So if you run out of cash as a tourist , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you need to go to the AT +Grad B: So {pause} i wi th +Grad D: OK . Oh , I see , you may have a task . wh you have to go get money and so you are doing business at that stage . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: "" How do I get to the bank ? "" +Grad D: I see . Hmm . +Grad C: And that 'll affect whether you want to enter or you if you {disfmarker} kinda thing . +Grad D: OK . So the "" tourists "" node {pause} should be {pause} um , very consistent with the context node . Right ? If you say that 's more their {disfmarker} in general what their background is . +Grad C: Yeah , I think this context node is a bit of a {disfmarker} I don't know , like in d Uh {disfmarker} Do we {pause} wanna have {disfmarker} Like it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Are you assuming that or not ? Like is that to be {disfmarker} I mean if that 's accurate then that would determine tourist node . +Grad C: If the context were to set one way or another , that like strongly uh um , says something about whether {disfmarker} whether or not they 're tourists . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So what 's interesting is when it 's not {disfmarker} when it 's set to "" unknown "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: We - what set the {disfmarker} they set the context to "" unknown "" ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Right now we haven't observed it , so I guess it 's sort of averaging over all those three possibilities . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: But yes , you can set it to un "" unknown "" . +Grad A: And if we now do {disfmarker} leave everything else as is the results should be the same , +Grad B: Oops . +Grad A: right ? +Grad B: No . +Grad C: Well no , because we {disfmarker} Th - the way we set the probabilities {vocalsound} might not have {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an issue , right ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Pretty much the same ? +Grad C: Yeah , it is . So the issue is that um in belief - nets , it 's not common to do what we did of like having , you know , a d bunch of values and then "" unknown "" as an actual value . What 's common is you just like don't observe the variable , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: right , and then just marginalizes {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We didn't do this because we felt that there 'd {disfmarker} I guess we were thinking in terms of a switch that actually {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were thi Yeah , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: We were th +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} I don't know y what the right thing is to do for that . I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't know if I totally am happy with {vocalsound} the way it is . +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} Can we , um {disfmarker} How long would it take to {disfmarker} to add another {pause} node on the observatory and , um , play around with it ? +Grad C: Another node on what ? +Grad B: Uh , well it depends on how many things it 's linked to . +Grad A: Let 's just say make it really simple . If we create {pause} something that for example would be um {disfmarker} So th some things can be landmarks in your sense but {pause} they {pause} can never be entered ? So for example s a statue . +Grad C: Good point . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {pause} maybe we wanna have "" landmark "" {pause} meaning now "" enterable landmark "" versus , um something that 's simply just a vista point , for example . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad A: Yeah ? uh , a statue or um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So basically it 's addressing a variable that 's "" enterable or not "" . So like an "" enterable , question mark "" . +Grad B: Also {disfmarker} {pause} you know , didn't we have a {pause} size as one ? The size of the landmark . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Cuz if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um . Not when we were doing this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: but I guess at some point we did . +Grad B: For some reason I had that {disfmarker} OK , that was a thought that I had at one point but then went away . +Grad C: So you want to have a {disfmarker} a node for like whether or not it can be entered ? +Grad A: Well , for example , if we include that , yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: um , accessibility or something , yeah ? "" Is it {disfmarker} Can it be entered ? "" +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: then of course , this is {pause} sort of binary as well . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: And then um , there 's also the question whether it may be entered . In the sense that , you know , if it 's {pause} Tom {disfmarker} the house of Tom Cruise , you know , it 's enterable but you may not enter it . You know ? You 're not allowed to . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Unless you are , whatever , his {disfmarker} his divorce lawyer or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah ? and um {disfmarker} And these are very observable sort of from the {disfmarker} from the ontology sort of things . +Grad B: Way Does it actually help to distinguish between those two cases though ? Whether it 's practically speaking enterable , or actually physically enterable {pause} or not ? +Grad A: y y If {disfmarker} If you 're running an errand you maybe more likely to be able to enter places that are usually not {vocalsound} al w you 're not usually {disfmarker} not allowed to uh m +Grad D: It seems like it would for uh , uh {pause} determining whether they wanna go into it or not . +Grad B: Well I can see why {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz they {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's get this uh b clearer . S so it 's matrix between if it 's not enterable , period . +Grad B: Whether it 's a {disfmarker} Whether it 's a public building , and whether it 's {disfmarker} actually has a door . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: This is sort of uh +Grad B: So Tom Cruise 's house is {pause} not a public building +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but it has a door . But the thing is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: OK , sh explain to me why it 's necessary {pause} to distinguish between whether something has a door and is {pause} not public . Or , if something {disfmarker} It seems like it 's equivalent to say that it doesn't have a door a {pause} and it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Or "" not public "" and "" not a door "" are equivalent things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: it seems like in practice . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . So we would have {disfmarker} What does it mean , then , that we have to {disfmarker} we have an object type statue . That really is an object type . So there is {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a bunch of statues . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: And then we have , for example , an object type , {pause} hmm , that 's a hotel . How about hotels ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So , the most famous building in Heidelberg is actually a hotel . It 's the hotel Zum Ritter , which is the only Renaissance building in Heidelberg that was left after {pause} the big destruction and for the Thirty Years War , blah - blah - blah . +Grad B: Hmm . Does it have nice walls ? +Grad A: It has wonderful walls . Um - And lots of detail , c and carvings , engravings and so forth , +Grad B: Excellent . +Grad A: so . But , um , it 's still an unlikely candidate for the Tango mode I {pause} must say . But . Um . So {disfmarker} s So if you are a d Well it 's very tricky . So I guess your question is {disfmarker} so far I have no really arg no real argument why to differentiate between statues as {disfmarker} statues and houses of celebrities , from that point of view . Huh . OK . Let {disfmarker} Let 's do a {disfmarker} Can we add , just so I can see how it 's done , uh , a "" has door "" {pause} property or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: What would it , uh , connect to ? Like , what would , uh , it affect ? +Grad A: Um , I think , um , it might affect {disfmarker} Oh actually it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it wouldn't affect any of our nodes , right ? +Grad C: What I was thinking was if you had a {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it affects th The "" doing business "" is certainly not . +Grad B: You could affect {disfmarker} {pause} Theoretically you could affect "" doing business "" with "" has door "" . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: It should , um , inhibit that , +Grad C: Right . +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad A: right ? +Grad C: Yeah , I don't know if JavaBayes is nice about that . It might be that if you add a new thing pointing to a variable , you just like {disfmarker} it just overwrites everything . But {pause} you can check . +Grad B: Well , {pause} we have it saved . So . {vocalsound} We can rel open it up again . +Grad C: OK . It 's true . +Grad B: The {pause} safety net . +Grad D: I think you could just add it . I mean , I have before OK . Whew ! +Grad C: Well that 's fine , but we have to see the function now . Has it become all point fives or not ? +Grad D: Oh , right . +Grad B: Let 's see . So this is "" has door "" Uh , true , false . That 's acceptable . And I want to edit the function going to that , right ? Oh no . +Grad C: No . This is fine , +Grad B: Right . It was fine . +Grad C: this business . +Grad B: added this one . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: This {disfmarker} +Grad C: What would be nice if it {disfmarker} is if it just like kept the old function for either value but . Nope . Didn't {pause} do it . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Oh wait , it might be {disfmarker} Did we w Yes , that 's not good . +Grad C: That 's {pause} kind of annoying . +Grad A: OK , so just dis dismiss everything . Close it and {disfmarker} and load up the old state so {pause} it doesn't screw {disfmarker} screw that up . +Grad B: Let 's see . Oops . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Maybe you can read in ? +Grad C: Ha - So have you used JavaBayes a lot ? +Grad D: Yes . Really {vocalsound} I ha I 've {disfmarker} I haven't used it a lot and I haven't used it in the last you know many months so +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: um , uh , we can ask someone . +Grad C: It might be worth uh {disfmarker} asking around . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: Like , we looked at sort of uh {disfmarker} a page that had like a bunch of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . Srini {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Yeah , S I guess he 'd be the person . +Grad D: Srini 's the one to ask I would say . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . He might know . +Grad C: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: And . +Grad C: I mean in a way this is a lot of good features in Java it 's cra has a GUI and it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess those are the main two things . It does learning , it has {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: No it doesn't , actually . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: I didn't think it did learning . +Grad C: What ? +Grad B: Maybe it did a little bit of learning , +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: I don't remember . +Grad C: Oh right . Maybe you 're right . OK . Right . But uh {disfmarker} it 's free . +Grad B: Which is w quite positive , yeah . +Grad C: But uh , yeah . Maybe another thing that uh {disfmarker} But I mean its interface is not the greatest . So . +Grad B: But actually it had an interface . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: A lot of them were like , you know . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Command line . +Grad B: Huh . +Grad A: What is the c code ? Can w can we see that ? How do you write the code +Grad B: The c +Grad A: or do you actually never have to write any code there ? +Grad C: Yeah . There is actually a text file that you can edit . But it 's {disfmarker} You don't have to do that . +Grad B: There 's like an XML format for {pause} Bayes - nets . +Grad C: Is it XML ? +Grad B: The - there is one . I don't know if this uses it . +Grad C: Oh , I see . No this doesn't use it . +Grad B: But it {disfmarker} +Grad C: I didn't think it did . +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad C: You can look at the text file . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But do you have it here ? +Grad B: Uh , yes I do actually . +Grad C: Well , maybe you don't . +Grad B: Let me see . +Grad C: Oh yes , of course . +Grad B: Oh man , +Grad C: Like , there 's the {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't n {pause} Is there an ampersand in DOS ? +Grad C: Nope . Just s l start up a new DOS . +Grad B: We - That 's alright . I can probably double cli click on it . +Grad C: Or {disfmarker} Yeah , right . +Grad A: n uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Let 's see . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: Let 's see , come on . +Grad C: It 'll ask you what you {disfmarker} what it wants {disfmarker} what you want to open it with and see what BAT , I guess . +Grad B: One of these days , it should open this , theoretically . +Grad A: Go {disfmarker} Right mouse . Open with . +Grad B: Oh there we go . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} Oh ! +Grad B: Maybe it was just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh ! W Ah , it was dead . To the world . +Grad D: God ! +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Through the old Notepad . That 's my favorite editor . +Grad B: I like {disfmarker} I like Word Pad because it has the uh {disfmarker} the returns , +Grad A: Wordpad ? I {disfmarker} +Grad B: the carriage returns on some of them . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad B: You know how they get "" auto - fills "" I guess , +Grad A: Mmm - hmm . +Grad B: or whatever you call it . +Grad C: Anyway , there it is . +Grad A: So this is sort of LISP - y ? No . +Grad C: Uh , Yeah . +Grad B: It just basically looks like it just specifies a bunch of +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . That 's how actual probability tables are specified . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: As , like , lists of numbers . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So theoretically you could edit that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It just that {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: But {pause} they 're not very friendly . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah the ordering isn't very clear on {disfmarker} +Grad C: So you 'd have to like figure out {disfmarker} Like you have to go and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . The layout {pause} of the table . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually we could write a program that could generate this . +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think so . +Grad B: Yeah you could . +Grad D: You could . +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Grad B: We were doing it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah we can maybe write an interface th for uh entering probability distributions easily , something like {disfmarker} like a little script . That might {vocalsound} be worth it . +Grad A: And that might do . +Grad D: Yeah . I actually seem to recall Srini complaining about something to do with Entering probability so this is probably +Grad C: The other thing is it is in Java +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: so . +Grad B: We could {pause} manipulate the source {pause} itself ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Do you have the true source files or just the class ? +Grad B: I don't know if he actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . we do +Grad B: Does he {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I saw directory called "" source "" , +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I didn't e +Grad C: or {disfmarker} Yeah . Go up one ? +Grad B: Up one . Ah yes , good . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: "" Source "" . That 's {disfmarker} that 's quite nice . +Grad C: I don't know if it actually manipulate the source , though . That might be a bit complicated . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think it might {disfmarker} it might be simpler to just {pause} have a script that , you know {disfmarker} It 's , like , friendly , +Grad D: The d the data tables . +Grad C: it allows you enter things well . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: But if th if there is an XML {pause} file that {disfmarker} or format that it can also read {disfmarker} I mean it just reads this , right ? When it starts . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah I know there is an {disfmarker} I was looking on the we web page and he 's updated it for an XML version of I guess Bayes - nets . There 's a Bayes - net spec for {disfmarker} in XML . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: He 's {disfmarker} Like this guy has ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: The JavaBayes guy ? So {disfmarker} but , e he doesn't use it . So in what sense has he updated it ? +Grad B: Well th you can either {disfmarker} you ca or you can read both . +Grad C: Oh . I see . +Grad B: To my understanding . +Grad C: OK . That would be awesome . +Grad D: Oh . +Grad B: Because uh {disfmarker} Well at least the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I could have misread the web page , I have a habit of doing that , but . +Grad A: OK , wonderful . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: So you got more slides ? +Grad B: Do I have more slides ? Um yes , one more . "" Future Work "" . I think every presentation have a should have a "" Future Work "" slide . But uh it 's basically {disfmarker} we already talked about all this stuff , so . +Grad C: Um . The additional thing is I guess learning the probabilities , {pause} also . E That 's maybe , I don't know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh that 's future future work . +Grad C: Does {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Very future . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And of course if you have a presentation that doesn't {disfmarker} have something that doesn't work at all , then you have "" What I learned "" , as a slide . +Grad D: Can't you have both ? +Grad B: You could . My first approach failed . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: What I learned . OK , so I think that uh our presentation 's finished . +Grad A: Good . +Grad B: I know what I like about these meetings is one person will nod , and then the next person will nod , and then it just goes all the way around the room . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I missed my turn . +Grad B: No I {disfmarker} Earlier I went {nonvocalsound} and Bhaskara went {nonvocalsound} and you did it . You did it . +Grad A: It 's like yawning . +Grad D: It 's like yawning . +Grad A: And this announcement was in stereo . +Grad C: Ha . +Grad A: OK . So this means um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Should I pull up the {pause} net again ? +Grad D: Yeah . Could you put the {disfmarker} the um , net up again ? +Grad B: Yes . There we go . +Grad D: Thanks . +Grad B: And actually I was {disfmarker} cuz I got a wireless mike on . +Grad D: So a more general thing than "" discussed admission fee "" um , could be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering whether the context , the background context of the discourse {vocalsound} might be {disfmarker} I don't know , if there 's a way to define it or maybe you know generalize it some way um , there might be other cues that , say , um , in the last few utterances there has been something that has strongly associated with say one of the particular modes uh , I don't know if that might be {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I think we {disfmarker} +Grad D: uh , and {disfmarker} and into that node would be various {disfmarker} various things that {disfmarker} that could have specifically come up . +Grad A: I think a {disfmarker} a sort of general strategy here {disfmarker} You know , this is {disfmarker} this is excellent because {disfmarker} um it gets you thinking along these terms {disfmarker} is that maybe we ob we could observe a couple of um discourse phenomena such as the admission fee , and something else and something else , that happened in the discourse before . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} let 's make those four . And maybe there are two um {disfmarker} So maybe this could be sort of a separate region of the net , {pause} which has two {disfmarker} {pause} has it 's own middle layer . Maybe this , you know , has some {pause} kind {pause} of um , funky thing that di if this and this may influence these hidden nodes of the discourse which is maybe something that is uh , a more general version of the actual {pause} phenomenon that you can observe . So things that point towards {disfmarker} +Grad B: So instead of single node , for {pause} like , if they said the word "" admission fee "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Exactly . +Grad B: "" admission fee "" , or maybe , you know , "" how much to enter "" +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: or you know something , other cues . +Grad D: Opening hours or something like that . +Grad B: Exactly . That would all f funnel into one node that would {pause} constitute entrance requirements or something like that . +Grad A: So "" pay a visit "" {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: uh uh d +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: Yeah ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I mean it sort of get into plan recognition kinds of things in the discourse . I mean that 's like the bigger um , version of it . +Grad A: Exactly . Yeah ? And then maybe there are some discourse acts if they happened before , um it 's more for um a cue that the person actually wants to get somewhere else and that you are in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a route um , sort of proceeding past these things , so this would be just something that {disfmarker} where you want to pass it . Hmm ? Is that it ? However these are of course then the {disfmarker} the nodes , the observed nodes , for your middle layer . So this {pause} again points to "" final destination "" , "" doing business "" , "" tourist hurry "" and so forth . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Yeah ? And so then we can say , "" OK . we have a whole {pause} region {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} in a e +Grad D: That 's a whole set of discourse related cues to your middle layer . +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . And this is just {disfmarker} then just one . +Grad D: Right ? +Grad A: So e because at the end the more we um {disfmarker} add , you know , the more spider - web - ish it 's going to become in the middle and the more of hand editing . It 's going to get very ugly . But with this way we could say "" OK , these are the {pause} discourse phenomena . They ra may have there own hidden layer {pause} that points to some of {pause} the {disfmarker} the real hidden layer , um or the general hidden layer . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad A: And the same we will be able to do for syntactic information , the verbs used , the object types used , modifiers . And maybe there 's a hidden layer for that . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad A: And so forth and so forth . Then we have context . +Grad C: Yeah . So essentially a lot of those nodes can be expanded into little Bayes - nets of their own . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Precisely . So . +Grad B: One thing that 's kind of been bugging me when I {disfmarker} more I look at this is that the {disfmarker} I guess , the fact that the {disfmarker} there 's a complete separation between the {pause} observed features and in the output . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: I mean , it makes it cleaner , but then uh {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad C: That 's true . +Grad B: For instance if the discourse does {disfmarker} +Grad D: What do you mean by that ? +Grad B: well for instance , the "" discourse admission fee "" {pause} node seems like it should point directly to the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: or increase the probability of "" enter {pause} directly "" versus "" going there via tourist "" . +Grad C: Yeah . Or we could like add more , uh , sort of middle nodes . Like we could add a node like do they want to enter it , which is affected by admission fee and by whether it 's closed and by whether it has a door . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: So it 's like {disfmarker} There are {disfmarker} Those are the two options . Either like make an arrow directly or put a new node . +Grad B: Yeah , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: that makes sense . +Grad A: Yeah . And if it {disfmarker} if you do it {disfmarker} If you could connect it too hard you may get such phenomenon that {disfmarker} like "" So how much has it cost to enter ? "" and the answer is two hundred fifty dollars , and then the persons says um "" Yeah I want to see it . "" Yeah ? meaning "" It 's way out of my budget "" um {disfmarker} +Grad B: There are places in Germany where it costs two hundred fifty dollars to enter ? +Grad A: Um , nothing comes to mind . Without thinking too hard . Um , maybe , yeah of course , um opera premiers . +Grad B: Really ? +Grad A: So you know . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or any good old Pink Floyd concert . +Grad B: I see . If you want to see "" The Magic Flute "" or something . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Or maybe um , a famous restaurant . or , I don't know . There are various things that you might w not want to eat a {pause} meal there but {pause} your own table . +Grad B: The Spagos of Heidelberg . +Grad A: I think that the h I mean nothing beats the {disfmarker} the admission charge prices in Japan . So there , two hundred dollars is {disfmarker} is moderate for getting into a discotheque . You know . Then again , everything else is free then once you 're ins in there . +Grad C: Really . +Grad A: Food and drink and so forth . So . I mean . But i you know , i we can {disfmarker} Something {disfmarker} Somebody can have discussed the admission fee and u the answer {pause} is s if we {disfmarker} um , you know , um {disfmarker} still , based on that result is never going to enter that building . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: You know ? Because it 's just too expensive . +Grad B: Oh yeah , I think I see . So the discourse refers to "" admission fee "" but it just turns out that they change their mind in the middle of the discourse . +Grad D: Yeah . you have to have some notion of not just {disfmarker} I mean there 's a {disfmarker} there 's change across several turns of discourse +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so {vocalsound} I don't know how {disfmarker} if any of this was discussed {disfmarker} but how i if it all this is going to interact with {vocalsound} whatever general {vocalsound} uh , other {disfmarker} other discourse processing that might be happen . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . +Grad D: I mean . +Grad B: What sort of discourse {pause} processing is uh {disfmarker} are the {disfmarker} How much is built into SmartKom and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It works like this . The uh , um {disfmarker} I mean . The first thing we get is that {pause} already the intention is sort of t They tried to figure out the intention , right ? simply by parsing it . And this um {disfmarker} m won't differentiate between all modes , yeah ? but at least it 'll tell us "" OK here we have something that {disfmarker} somebody that wants to go someplace , now it 's up for us to figure out what kind of going there is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {pause} is happening , and um , if the discourse takes a couple of turns before everything {disfmarker} all the information is needed , what happens is you know the parser parses it and then it 's handed on to the discourse history which is , um o one of the most elaborate {disfmarker} elaborate modules . It 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the {disfmarker} the whole memory of the entire system , that knows what {disfmarker} wh who said what , which was {disfmarker} what was presented . It helps an an anaphora resolution and it {disfmarker} and it fills in all the structures that are omitted , so , {pause} um , because you say "" OK , {pause} how can I get to the castle ? "" Oh , how {disfmarker} how much is it ? "" and um "" yeah I would like uh {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} to g let 's do it "" and so forth . So even without an a ana {pause} anaphora somebody has to make sure that information we had earlier on is still here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Because not every module keeps a memory of everything that happened . so {vocalsound} whenever the uh , um person is not actually rejecting what happened before , so as in "" No I really don't want to see that movie . I 'd rather stay home and watch TV "" um {disfmarker} What movie was selected in what cinema in what town is {disfmarker} is going to be sort of added into the disc into the representations every di at each dialogue step , by the discourse model {disfmarker} discourse {pause} model , Yeah , that 's what it 's called . and , um , it does some help in the anaphora resolution and it also helps in coordinating the gesture screen issues . So a person pointing to something on the screen , you know , the discourse model actually stores what was presented at what location on the s on the screen +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: so it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a rather huge {vocalsound} {disfmarker} huge thing but um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} um {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} we can {pause} sort of {disfmarker} It has a very clear interface . We can query it whether admission fees were discussed in the last turn and {disfmarker} and the turn before that or you know how {pause} deep we want to search +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: um {disfmarker} which is a question . How deep do we want to sear , you know ? Um {disfmarker} but we should {pause} try to keep in mind that , you know , we 're doing this sort of for research , so we {disfmarker} we should find a limit that 's reasonable and not go , you know , all the way back to Adam and Eve . You know , did that person ever discuss admissions fee {disfmarker} fees in his entire life ? And the dialogues are pretty {disfmarker} pretty you know {vocalsound} concise and {disfmarker} Anyway . +Grad D: So one thing that might be helpful which is implicit in the {pause} use of "" admission fee discussion "" as a cue for entry , {vocalsound} {pause} is thinking about the plans that various people might have . Like all the different {vocalsound} sort of general schemas that they might be following OK . This person is um , finding out information about this thing in order to go {pause} in as a tourist or finding out how to get to this place {pause} in order to do business . Um , because then {pause} anything that 's a cue for one of the steps {pause} would be slight evidence for that overall plan . Um , I don't know . They 're {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in non in sort of more traditional AI kinds of plan recognition things you sort of have {vocalsound} {pause} you know , some idea at each turn of agent doing something , "" OK , wha what plans is this a {disfmarker} consistent with ? "" and then get s some more information and then you see {pause} "" here 's a sequence that this sort of roughly fits into "" . It {disfmarker} it might be useful here too . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I don't know how you know you 'd have to {vocalsound} {pause} figure out what knowl what knowledge representation would work for that . +Grad A: I mean the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u u +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's in the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these plan schemas . I mean there are some {disfmarker} some of them are extremely elaborate , you know . "" What do you need {disfmarker} need to buy a ticket ? "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? and it {disfmarker} it 's fifty steps , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: huh ? just for buying a ticket {pause} at a ticket counter , you know , and {disfmarker} and maybe that 's helpful to look at it {disfmarker} to look at those . It 's amazing what human beings can do . W when we talked uh we had the example , you know , of you being uh {disfmarker} a s a person on a ticket counter working at railway station and somebody r runs up to you with a suitcase in his hands , says {vocalsound} New York and you say Track seven , huh ? And it 's because you know that that person actually is following , you know {disfmarker} You execute a whole plan of going through a hundred and fifty steps , you know , without any information other than "" New York "" , huh ? inferring everything from the context . So , works . Um , even though there is probably no train from here to New York , right ? +Grad D: Mmm . Not direct . +Grad B: You 'd uh probably have to transfer in Chicago . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But uh {disfmarker} it 's possible . Um , no you probably have to transfer also somewhere else . Right ? Is that t San Francisco , Chicago ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that possible ? +Grad B: One time I saw a report on trains , and I think there is a l I don't know if {disfmarker} I thought there was a line that went from somewhere , maybe it was Sacramento to Chicago , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but there was like a California to Chicago line of some sort . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: I could be wrong though . It was a while ago . +Grad D: The Transcontinental Railroad , doesn't that ring a bell ? +Grad B: Yeah but I don't know if it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think it has to exist somewhere . +Grad B: They might have blown it up . +Grad A: Well it never went all the way , right ? I mean you always had to change trains at Omaha , +Grad D: Well most of the way . +Grad A: right ? One track ended there and the other one started at {disfmarker} five meters away from that +Grad D: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: and {vocalsound} sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well . {pause} You seem to know better than we do so . +Grad A: yeah ? Has anybody ever been on an Amtrak ? +Grad D: I have . But not transcontinentally . +Grad B: I 'm frightened by Amtrak myself . +Grad C: What ? Why ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} They seem to have a lot of accidents on the Amtrak . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad A: Their reputation is very bad . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: huh ? It 's not maybe reality . +Grad D: It 's not like German trains . Like German trains are really great so . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} you know , I don't know whether it 's {disfmarker} which ones are safer , you know , statistically . +Grad D: Um , but they 're faster . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Much faster . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And there 's much more of them . Yeah , they 're Yeah , it 's {pause} way better +Grad A: yeah I used {disfmarker} um Amtrak quite a bit on the east coast and I was surprised . It was actually OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know , on Boston New York , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: New York Rhode Island , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: whatever , +Grad C: I 've done that kind of thing . +Grad A: Boston . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} That 's {pause} a different issue . +Grad B: This is going to be an interesting transcript . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I want to see what it does with uh "" landmark - iness "" . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Let 's all say it a few more times . +Grad B: It 'd help it figure it out . +Grad C: So . +Grad D: Just kidding . Right . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: So by the way tha that structure {pause} that Robert drew on the board was like more um , {vocalsound} {pause} cue - type - based , right , here 's like we 're gonna {vocalsound} segment off a bit of stuff that comes from discourse and then {pause} some of the things we 're talking about here are more {disfmarker} you know , we mentioned maybe {pause} if they talk about {pause} um , I don't know , entering or som you know like they might be more task - based . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: So I {disfmarker} I don't know if there {disfmarker} There 's obviously some {disfmarker} m more than one way of organizing {pause} the variables into something +Grad A: I think that um {disfmarker} What you guys did is really nicely sketching out different tasks , and maybe some of their conditions . +Grad D: so . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: One task is more likely you 're in a hurry when you do that kind of s doing business , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} and less in a hurry when uh {disfmarker} you 're a tourist Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} tourists may have {disfmarker} never have final destinations , you know because they are eternally traveling around so {vocalsound} maybe what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what happened {disfmarker} what might happen is that we do get this sort of task - based middle layer , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then we 'll get these sub - middle layers , that are more cue - based . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . That feed into those ? +Grad A: Nah ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Might be {disfmarker} might be a nice dichotomy of {disfmarker} of the world . So , um I suggest w to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to proceed with this in {disfmarker} in the sense that {pause} maybe throughout this week the three of us will {disfmarker} will talk some more about maybe segmenting off different regions , and we make up some {disfmarker} {pause} some toy a observable "" nodes "" {disfmarker} is that what th +Grad B: Refined y re just refine the {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the technical term ? +Grad C: OK . For which ? +Grad A: For the uh {disfmarker} nodes that are observable ? The "" outer layer "" ? +Grad C: Just observable nodes , +Grad B: The features , +Grad C: evidence nodes ? +Grad B: I don't know , whatever you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Feature ma make up some features for those {disfmarker} Identify {pause} four regions , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: maybe make up some features for each region and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh , uh {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} middle layer for those . And then these should then connect somehow to the more plan - based deep space +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Basically just refine {pause} some of the more general nodes . +Grad A: Yep . The - they {disfmarker} they will be aud ad - hoc for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for some time to come . +Grad C: Yeah , this is totally like {disfmarker} The probabilities and all are completely ad - hoc . We need to look at all of them . I mean but , they 're even like {vocalsound} {pause} I mean like , close to the end we were like , uh , you know we were like uh {vocalsound} really ad - hoc . +Grad D: It 's a even distribution . Like , whatever . +Grad C: Right ? Cuz if it 's like , uh {disfmarker} If it 's four things coming in , right ? And , say , some of them have like three possibilities and all that . So you 're thinking like {disfmarker} like a hundred and forty four or something {pause} possible things {disfmarker} numbers to enter , +Grad D: And {disfmarker} That 's terrible . +Grad C: right ? So . +Grad B: Some of them are completely absurd too , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want to enter , but it 's closed , +Grad D: That 's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: it 's night time , you know there are tourists and all this weird stuff happens at the line up and you 're like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the only like possible interpretation is that they are like {disfmarker} come here just to rob the museum or {pause} something to that effect . +Grad B: confused . +Grad D: In which case you 're supposed to alert the authorities , {vocalsound} and see appropriate action . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , another thing to do , um , is also to , um {disfmarker} I guess to ask around people about other Bayes - net packages . Is Srini gonna be {pause} at the meeting tomorrow , do you know ? +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad A: The day after tomorrow . +Grad C: Wait {disfmarker} +Grad D: Quite possibly . +Grad A: Wednesday . +Grad C: Day after tomorrow . +Grad D: Oh , oh , sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Sorry , Wednesday , +Grad B: Who 's talking on Wednesday ? +Grad C: Maybe we can ask him about it . +Grad D: yeah . Mmm . +Grad B: I haven't {disfmarker} J Jerry never sent out a {disfmarker} sent out an email , did he , ever ? +Grad C: No . But he mentioned at the last meeting that someone was going to be talking , I forget who . +Grad A: Oh , isn't Ben ? +Grad C: Uh . +Grad D: Ben ? +Grad A: Ben , then , +Grad D: I think it 's Ben actually , +Grad A: Ben . +Grad B: Ah ! +Grad D: yeah , um , giving his job talk I think . um , Sorry . I was just reading the screen . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +Grad A: So the uh {disfmarker} That will be one {disfmarker} one thing we could do . I actually uh , have {disfmarker} Um , also we can uh , start looking at the SmartKom tables and I will {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: I actually wanted to show that {pause} to you guys now but um . +Grad B: Do you want to {pause} trade ? +Grad A: Um , no I {disfmarker} I actually made a mistake because it {disfmarker} it fell asleep and when Linux falls asleep on my machine it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't wake up ever , so I had to reboot +Grad D: Oh , no . +Grad A: And if I reboot without a network , I will not be able to start SmartKom , because I need to have a network . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'll do that t maybe uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But . OK . But once you start {disfmarker} sart start SmartKom you can be on {disfmarker} You don't have to be on a network anymore . Is that the deal ? +Grad A: Yep . +Grad C: Ah , interesting . +Grad B: Why does SmartKom need a network ? +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it looks up some stuff that , {pause} you know , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} is in the {disfmarker} written by the operating system only if it {disfmarker} if you get a DHCP request , so it {disfmarker} you know , my computer does not know its IP address , you know ? +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: You know . So . Unless it boots up with networking . +Grad B: It 's plugged in . Yeah . +Grad A: And I don't have an IP address , they can't look up {disfmarker} they don't know who localhost is , and so forth and so forth . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Always fun . But it 's a , um , simple solution . We can just um , go downstairs and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and look at this , but maybe not today . The other thing um {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} oh yeah , OK , I have to report {vocalsound} um , data collection . We interviewed Fey , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: She 's willing to do it , meaning be the wizard for the data collection , also {vocalsound} maybe transcribe a little bit , if she has to , but also recruiting subjects , organizing them , and so forth . So that looks good . Jerry however suggested that we should uh have a trial run with her , see whether she can actually do all the uh spontaneous , eloquent and creativeness that we uh expect of the wizard . And I talked to Liz about this and it looks as if Friday afternoon will be the time when we have a first trial run for the data . +Grad C: So who would be the subject {pause} of this trial run ? +Grad A: Pardon me ? +Grad C: Who {disfmarker} Will there be a {disfmarker} Is one {disfmarker} Is you {disfmarker} one of you gonna be the subject ? Like are you {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um Liz also volunteered to be the first subject , {vocalsound} which I think might be even better than us guys . +Grad D: Good . +Grad B: One of us , yeah . +Grad A: If we do need her for the technical stuff , then of course one of you has to sort of uh {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad B: I like how we 've {disfmarker} you guys have successfully narrowed it down . "" Is one of you going to be the subject ? "" Is one of you {disfmarker} jump in . +Grad D: Reference . I haven't done it yet . +Grad C: Well I just figured it has to be someone who 's , um , familiar enough with the data to cause problems for the wizard , so we can , uh , see if they 're you know good . +Grad D: Oh plants ? e u someone who can plant difficult things . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean that 's what we wanna {pause} check , right ? +Grad A: Um , +Grad D: Well , in this case it 's a p it 's a {pause} sort of testing of the wizard rather than of the subject . +Grad C: Isn't that what it is ? +Grad D: It 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: yes w we {disfmarker} we would like to test the wizard , but {vocalsound} you know , if we take a subject that is completely unfamiliar with the task , or any of the set up , we get a more realistic +Grad C: I guess that would be reasonable . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: you know , set up as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . I know . That 's probably a good enough test of {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Sort of having an actively antagonistic , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . That might be a little unfair . Um . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm sure if we uh , {disfmarker} You think there 's a chance we might need Liz for , whatever , the technical side of things ? I 'm sure we can get {pause} other people around who don't know anything {pause} um , if we want another subject . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: You know . Like I can drag Ben into it or something . Although he might cause problems but . So , is it a experimental setup for the um , data collection {pause} totally {pause} ready {disfmarker} determined ? +Grad B: I like that . "" Test the wizard . "" I want that on a T - shirt . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} experimental setup u on the technical issue yes , except we st I think we still need uh {disfmarker} a recording device for the wizard , just a tape recorder that 's running in a room . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But um {disfmarker} in terms of specifying the scenario , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} we 've gotten a little further +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: but um {disfmarker} we wanted to wait until we know who is the wizard , and have the wizard partake in the {pause} ultimate {pause} sort of definition probe . So {disfmarker} so if {disfmarker} if on Friday it turns out that she really likes it and {disfmarker} and we really like her , then nothing should stop us from sitting down next week and {vocalsound} {comment} getting all the details completely figured out . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So the ideal task um , {pause} will have {pause} whatever I don't know how much the structure of the evolving Bayes - net {vocalsound} {pause} will af affect {disfmarker} Like we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna be able to collect {vocalsound} as much of the variables that are needed for that , +Grad A: Mmm - yea - some . +Grad D: right ? in the course of the task ? Well not all of them but you know . +Grad A: Bu - e e e I 'm even {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this Tango , Enter , Vista is sort of , itself , an ad - hoc scenario . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the basic u um idea behind the uh {pause} data collection was the following . The data we get from Munich is {pause} very command line , simple linguistic stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hardly anything complicated . No metaphors whatsoever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Not a rich language . So we wanted just to collect data , to get {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} elicits more , uh , that elicits richer language . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we actually did not want to constrain it too much , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know ? Just see what people say . And then maybe we 'll discover the phenomenon {disfmarker} the phenomena that we want to solve , you know , with {pause} whatever engine we {disfmarker} we come up with . Um . So this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a parallel track , you know , there {disfmarker} they hopefully meet , +Grad D: OK . So in other words this data collection is {pause} more general . +Grad A: but since {disfmarker} +Grad D: It could {disfmarker} it could {pause} be used for not just this task . +Grad A: It should tell us , you know , what kind of phenomenon could occur , it should tell us also maybe something about the difference between people who think they speak to a computer versus people who think they speak to a human being +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the sort of differences there . So it may get us some more information on the human - machine pragmatics , um , that no one knows anything about , as of yesterday . And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} nothing has changed {comment} since then , so . Uh . And secondly , now that of course we have sort of started to lick blood with this , and especially since um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Johno can't stop Tango - ing , {vocalsound} we may actually include , you know , those {disfmarker} those intentions . So now I think we should maybe have at least one navigational task with {disfmarker} with sort of explicit {disfmarker} uh +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: not ex it 's implicit that the person wants to enter , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and maybe some task where it 's more or less explicit that the person wants to take a picture , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or see it or something . So that we can label it . I mean , that 's how we get a corpus that we can label . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Exactly . +Grad A: Whereas , you know , if we 'd just get data we 'd never know what they actually wanted , we 'd get no cues . Yep . +Grad B: Alrighty . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: That was that . +Grad B: So is this the official end of the meeting now ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Looks like it . +Grad C: So what 's "" Economics , the fallacy "" ? +Grad A: Ma +Grad B: I just randomly {pause} label things . So that has nothing to do with economics or anything . +Grad C: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Maybe we ought to switch off these things before we continue . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: OK . Switching o +","Summary: + +A meeting took place to discuss the progress and future steps of a collaborative project involving a Bayesian Network (Bayes-net) for data analysis. Participants ""Grad A,"" ""Grad B,"" ""Grad C,"" and ""Grad D"" were present, discussing various aspects such as scenario refinement, testing a wizard for data collection, recording devices needed, and task scenarios for eliciting rich language data. The focus was on enhancing the data collection process for better quality linguistic data and planning to connect different phenomena with appropriate engine solutions. The upcoming data collection trial with a new wizard named Fey was mentioned, with a trial scheduled for Friday afternoon. The intention is to collect natural language data from subjects to see the differences between human-machine and human-human communication, focusing on richer language and potential phenomena. The possibility of including navigational tasks was suggested to help label the data with implicit intentions like entering or photographing a location. The meeting ended with a decision to further discuss segmenting off different regions of the Bayes-net and developing toy observable nodes for each region, and refining general nodes to connect to plan-based deep space in the network." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Ah , so comfortable . +Grad F: Smooth . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Good . I know that he 's going to like , Taiwan and other places to eat . So . +Grad D: On ? Am I on ? +Grad A: Yep . Yep . +Grad D: I think I 'm on ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: Good . Good . +Grad A: Bye . +Grad B: Actually {disfmarker} +Grad F: I just had one of the most frustrating meetings of my career . +Grad A: It 's definitely not the most frustrating meeting I 've ever had . +Grad D: You a You 're {disfmarker} you remember you 're being recorded at this point . +Grad A: Oh , yeah , so , w we didn't yet specify with whom . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: But um . +Professor E: Uh , right . +Grad A: So that 's why Keith and I are going to be a little dazed for the first half m the meeting . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Huh . Yeah , I 'm just gonna sit here and +Professor E: Right . Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I avoided that as long as I could for you guys , +Grad F: growl . +Professor E: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: For which we thank you , by the way . +Grad A: Are very appreciative , yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: I know you were {disfmarker} you were doing that , but , anyway . +Grad D: Oh yeah , how di how d exactly did , uh , that paper lead to anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: Oh , I could tell you had a rough day , man ! +Grad D: Nah . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: I love that story . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a great story . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Oh my goodness . +Grad C: Oh yeah , um , Liz suggested we could start off by uh , doing the digits all at the same time . +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: All at the same time . I don't know if {disfmarker} I would get distracted and confused , probably . +Professor E: e +Grad A: Really ? Do we have to like , synchronize ? +Professor E: Well , I think you 're supposed to {disfmarker} OK . We can do this . +Grad F: Are you being silly ? +Grad D: Oh wait do we have t +Professor E: Everybody 's got different digits , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: right ? +Grad D: Yeah , do we have to time them at the same time or just overlapping {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh . +Grad A: You 're kidding . +Grad C: No , no , just {disfmarker} just start whenever you want . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: And any rate ? +Professor E: e yeah , the +Grad F: Alright . +Professor E: Well , they {disfmarker} they have s they have the close talking microphones for each of us , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor E: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: yeah , there 's separate channels . +Grad F: Alright . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: So when I say +Grad F: Just plug one ear . +Grad A: You lose . +Professor E: OK . +Grad F: OK , bye ! That was a great meeting ! +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: Alright . +Grad F: So - {vocalsound} Now , uh , why ? +Grad C: Just to save time . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: Does matter for them . +Grad A: Are we gonna start all our meetings out that way from now on ? +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Oh . Too bad . I kinda like it . +Grad F: Well , could we ? +Grad D: It 's strangely satisfying . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's a ritual . +Grad D: Are we to r Just to make sure I know what 's going on , we 're talking about Robert 's thesis proposal today ? Is that +Grad C: We could . +Grad D: true ? +Grad A: We are ? +Grad C: We might . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , you {disfmarker} you had s you said there were two things that you might wanna do . One was rehearse your i i talk {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh yes , and that too . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not rehearse , I mean , I have just not spent any time on it , so I can show you what I 've got , get your input on it , and maybe some suggestions , that would be great . And the same is true for the proposal . I will have time to do some revision and some additional stuff on various airplanes and trains . So , um . I don't know how much of a chance you had to actually read it +Grad A: I haven't looked at it +Grad C: because {disfmarker} +Grad A: yet , +Grad C: but you could always send me comments per electronic mail +Grad A: but I will . +Grad C: and they will be incorporated . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} It basically says , well "" this is construal "" , and then it continues to say that one could potentially build a probabilistic relational model that has some general , domain - general rules how things are construed , and then the idea is to use ontology , situation , user , and discourse model to instantiate elements in the classes of the probabilistic relational model {pause} to do some inferences in terms of what is being construed as what +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: in our beloved tourism domain . But , with a focus on +Grad A: Can I s Sorry . +Grad F: I think I need a copy of this , yes . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: OK , we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can pass {disfmarker} pass my , uh {disfmarker} we can pass my extra copy around . +Grad F: I is there an extra copy around ? +Grad A: Uh . He sent it . OK . You can keep it . +Grad D: Er , actually , my only copy , now that I think about it , +Grad F: Alrigh +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , I don't {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} I don't need it . +Grad D: but . I already read half of it , so it 's OK . +Grad C: Um , actually this is the {disfmarker} the newest version after your comments , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no I s I s I see this has got the castle in it , and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad D: Oh , maybe the version I didn't have that I {disfmarker} mine {disfmarker} the w did the one you sent on the email have the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: That was the most recent one ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I think so . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . Cuz I read halfway but I didn't see a castle thing . +Grad A: I 'm changing this . Just so you know . +Grad C: Yeah , +Grad A: But , anyway . +Grad C: um , if you would have checked your email you may have received a note from Yees asking you to send me the , uh , up - to - d +Grad A: Oh . Oh , sorry . OK . Sorry . +Grad C: current formalism thing that you presented . +Grad A: OK . I will . OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: But for this it doesn't matter . But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can talk about it later . That 's not even ready , so . Um , OK ! Go on t to , uh , whatever . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm making changes . "" Don't worry about that . "" OK . Mmm - mmm . Oh ! OK , sorry , go on . +Grad C: And any type of comment whether it 's a spelling or a syntax or +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: readability {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad F: There 's only one "" S "" in "" interesting "" . On page five . +Grad C: Interesting . +Grad A: Anyway . And y uh , email any time , but most usefully before {disfmarker} +Grad D: The twenty - first I 'm assuming . +Grad A: The twenty - first ? +Grad C: Twenty - ninth . +Professor E: No , this is the twenty - first . +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: What , today 's the twenty - first ? +Grad F: Well , better hurry up then ! +Grad D: Oh , man ! +Grad A: Before the twenty - ninth , +Grad C: The twenty - ninth . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: That 's when I 'm meeting with Wolfgang Wahlster to sell him this idea . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: OK ? Then I 'm also going to present a little talk at EML , about what we have done here and so of course , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna start out with this slide , so the most relevant aspects of our stay here , and um , then I 'm asking them to imagine that they 're standing somewhere in Heidelberg and someone asks them in the morning {disfmarker} The Cave Forty - Five is a {disfmarker} is a well - known discotheque which is certainly not open at that {disfmarker} that time . And so +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: they 're supposed to imagine that , you know , do they think the person wants to go there , or just know where it is ? Uh , which is probably not , uh , the case in that discotheque example , or in the Bavaria example , you just want to know where it is . And so forth . So basically we can make a point that here is ontological knowledge but if it 's nine {disfmarker} nine PM in the evening then the discotheque question would be , for example , one that might ask for directions instead of just location . Um , {vocalsound} and so forth and so forth . That 's sort of motivating it . Then what have we done so far ? We had our little bit of , um , um , SmartKom stuff , that we did , um , everth +Grad F: Oh , you 've got the parser done . Sorry . +Grad C: That 's the {disfmarker} not the construction parser . That 's the , uh , tablet - based parser , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: Easy parser . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: and the generation outputter . +Grad D: Halfway done ? Yeah . +Grad C: That 's done . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: You have to change those strategies , +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: right ? That 's , ten words ? +Grad D: Yeah . Well , i it , you know . Maybe twelve . +Grad C: Twelve ? OK . And , um , and Fey is doing the synthesis stuff as we speak . That 's all about that . Then I 'm going to talk about the data , you know these things about {disfmarker} uh , actually I have an example , probably . Two s Can you hear that ? Or should I turn the l volume on . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I could hear it . +Grad D: I I can hear it . +Grad F: I heard it . +Grad D: They might not hear it in the {disfmarker} well maybe they will . I don't know . +Grad A: This was an actual , um , subject ? Ah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Sounds like Fey . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: But they 're {disfmarker} they 're mimicking the synthesis when they speak to the computer , +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Grad C: the {disfmarker} you can observe that all the time , they 're trying to match their prosody onto the machine . +Grad F: Oh really . Interesting . Oh , it 's pretty slow . +Grad C: Yeah , you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wh +Grad F: The system breaking . +Grad A: What is the s ? Oh ! +Grad C: OK . And so forth and so forth . Um , I will talk about our problems with the rephrasing , and how we solved it , and some preliminary observations , also , um , I 'm not gonna put in the figures from Liz , but I thought it would interesting to , uh , um , point out that it 's basically the same . Um , as in every human - human telephone conversation , and the human - computer telephone conversation is of course quite d quite different from , uh , some first , uh , observations . Then sort of feed you back to our original problem cuz , uh {disfmarker} how to get there , what actually is happening there today , and then maybe talk about the big picture here , e tell a little bit {disfmarker} as much as I {pause} can about the NTL story . I {disfmarker} I wa I do wanna , um {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure about this , whether I should put this in , um , that , you know , you have these two sort of different ideas that are {disfmarker} or two different camps of people envisioning how language understanding works , and then , {vocalsound} talk a bit about the embodied and simulation approach favored here and as a prelude , I 'll talk about monkeys in Italy . And , um , Srini was gonna send me some slides but he didn't do it , so from {disfmarker} but I have the paper , I can make a resume of that , and then I stole an X - schema from one of your talks I think . +Grad A: Oh . I was like , "" where 'd you get that ? "" OK . +Grad F: Yeah , that looks familiar . +Grad A: "" Looks familiar . "" +Grad C: I think that 's Bergen , Chang , something , or the other . +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: Whatever . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} now I 'm not going to bring that . So that 's basically what I have , so far , and the rest is for airplanes . So X - schemas , then , I would like to do {disfmarker} talk about the construction aspect and then at the end about our Bayes - net . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: End of story . Anything I forgot that we should mention ? Oh , maybe the FMRI stuff . Should I mention the fact that , um , we 're also actually started {disfmarker} going to start to look at people 's brains in a more direct way ? +Professor E: You certainly can . I mean I y I you know , I don't know {disfmarker} +Grad A: You might just wanna like , tack that on , as a comment , to something . +Professor E: Right , um . +Grad C: "" Future activities "" something . +Professor E: Well , the time to mention it , if you mention it , is when you talk about mirror neurons , then you should talk about the more recent stuff , about the kicking +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: and , you know , the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} that the plan is to see to what extent the {disfmarker} you 'll get the same phenomena with stories about this , so that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and that we 're planning to do this , um , which , we are . So that 's one thing . Um . Depends . I mean , there is a , um , whole language learning story , OK ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: which , uh , actually , i i even on your five - layer slide , you {disfmarker} you 've got an old one that {disfmarker} that leaves that off . +Grad C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do have it here . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Um . And , of course , you know , the {disfmarker} the big picture is this bit . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: But , you know , it would {disfmarker} But I don't think I {disfmarker} I am capable of {disfmarker} of do pulling this off and doing justice to the matter . I mean , there is interesting stuff in her terms of how language works , so the emergentism story would be nice to be {disfmarker} you know , it would be nice to tell people how {disfmarker} what 's happening there , plus how the , uh , language learning stuff works , +Professor E: OK , so , so anyway , I {disfmarker} I agree that 's not central . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: What you might wanna do is , um , and may not , but you might wanna {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} rip off a bunch of the slides on the anal there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} we 've got various i generations of slides that show language analysis , and matching to the underlying image schemas , and , um , how the construction and simulation {disfmarker} that ho that whole th +Grad C: Yeah , th that {disfmarker} that 's c that comes up to the X - schema slide , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: so basically I 'm gonna steal that from Nancy , +Grad A: OK , I can give you a more recent {disfmarker} if you want {disfmarker} +Grad C: one of Nancy 's st +Grad A: well , that might have enough . +Grad C: Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , but I also have stuff you {disfmarker} trash you left over , +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: your quals and your triple - AI . +Professor E: The quals w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the quals slides would be fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: You could get it out of there , or some +Grad A: Which I can even email you then , you know , like there probably was a little {disfmarker} few changes , not a big deal . Yeah , you could steal anything you want , I don't care . Which you 've already done , obviously . So . Sorry +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't feel bad about it at all +Grad A: No , you shouldn't . +Grad C: because {disfmarker} because you are on the , uh , title . +Grad A: Oh , that 's great , that 's great . +Grad C: I mean on the {disfmarker} the , you 're {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} see , that 's you . +Grad A: I 'm glad to see propagation . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: Hmm ? Propagated ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad C: I mean I might even mention that this work you 're doing is sort of also with the MPI in Leipzig , so . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly related , um , +Grad C: Because , um , EML is building up a huge thing in Leipzig . +Grad A: might wanna say . Is it ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} It 's on biocomputation . Would {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , it 's different , this is the , uh , DNA building , or someth the double helix building . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Kind of a different level of analysis . +Professor E: The {disfmarker} yeah it was {disfmarker} it turns out that if {disfmarker} if you have multiple billions of dollars , y you can do all sorts of weird things , and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Wait , they 're building a building in the shape of DNA , +Grad A: What ? +Grad D: is that what you said ? +Professor E: Roughly , yeah . +Grad F: Oh ! Oh boy ! +Grad A: O +Professor E: Including cr cross - bridges , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: and +Grad A: Oh my god ! +Grad F: That 's brilliant ! Hhh . +Professor E: You d you really {disfmarker} now I I spent {disfmarker} the last time I was there I spent maybe two hours hearing this story which is , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Of what +Grad D: Y You definitely wanna w don't wanna waste that money on research , +Grad A: the building ? +Grad D: you know ? +Professor E: Right . +Grad D: That 's horrible . +Professor E: Right . Well , no , no , y i there 's infinite money . See you th you th you then fill it with researchers . +Grad A: And give them more money . They just want a fun place for them to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor E: Right . Right . +Grad F: And everybody gets a trampoline in their office . +Grad C: Well , the {disfmarker} the offices are actually a little {disfmarker} the , think of um , ramps , coming out of the double helix and then you have these half - domes , glass half - domes , and the offices are in {disfmarker} in the glass half - dome . +Grad A: Really ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Alright , let 's stop talking about this . +Grad A: Does it exist yet ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: They are w now building it ? +Grad C: Uh , as a model . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: But I th +Professor E: So , yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point , th th that the date , the , uh , a lot of the {disfmarker} this is interacting with , uh , people in Italy but also definitely the people in Leipzig and the {disfmarker} the b the combination of the biology and the Leipzig connection might be interesting to these guys , yeah . OK . OK . Anyway ! Enough of that , let 's talk about your thesis proposal . +Grad C: Yeah , if somebody has something to say . +Professor E: Yep . +Grad F: You might want to , uh , double - check the spellings of the authors ' names on your references , you had a few , uh , misspells in your slides , there . Like I believe you had "" Jackendorf "" . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: Uh , unless there 's a person called "" Jackendorf "" , +Grad A: On that one ? +Professor E: No , no , no . +Grad F: yeah . But that 's the only thing I noticed in there . +Grad A: In the presentation ? +Grad F: In the presentation . +Grad A: I 'll probably {disfmarker} I c might have {disfmarker} I 'll probably have comments for you separately , not important . Anyway . +Grad C: Oh , in the presentation here . +Grad A: Yeah , that 's what he was talking about . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: I was ac actually worried about bibtex . Uh . No , that 's quite possible . That 's copy and paste from something . +Professor E: So I did note i i it looks like the , uh , metaphor didn't get in yet . +Grad C: Uh , it did , there is a reference to Srini {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , s reference is one thing , the question is is there any place {disfmarker} Oh , did you put in something about , +Grad A: Metonymy and metaphor here , right ? +Professor E: uh , the individual , we 'd talked about putting in something about people had , uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah , OK . Good . I see where you have it . So the top of the second {disfmarker} of pa page two you have a sentence . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , what I meant is , I think even before you give this , to Wahlster , uh , you should , unless you put it in the text , and I don't think it 's there yet , about {disfmarker} we talked about is the , um , scalability that you get by , um , combining the constructions with the general construal mechanism . Is that in there ? +Grad C: Yeah , mmm . Um . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so where {disfmarker} where is it , cuz I 'll have to take a look . +Grad C: Um , but I {disfmarker} I did not focus on that aspect but , um {disfmarker} Ehhh , um , it 's just underneath , uh , um , that reference to metaphor . So it 's the last paragraph before two . So on page two , um , the main focus {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , OK . Yeah . +Grad C: But that 's really {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's not about that , is it ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: No , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it s says it but it doesn't say {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it d it d +Grad C: Why . +Professor E: yeah , it doesn't give the punch line . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Cuz let me tell the gang what I think the punch line is , because it 's actually important , which is , that , the constructions , that , uh , Nancy and Keith and friends are doing , uh , are , in a way , quite general but cover only base cases . And to make them apply to metaphorical cases and metonymic cases and all those things , requires this additional mechanism , of construal . And the punch line is , he claimed , that if you do this right , you can get essentially orthogonality , that if you introduce a new construction at {disfmarker} at the base level , it should com uh , interact with all the metonymies and metaphors so that all of the projections of it also should work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , similarly , if you introduce a new metaphor , it should then uh , compose with all of the constructions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: And it {disfmarker} to the extent that that 's true then {disfmarker} then it 's a big win over anything that exists . +Grad D: So does that mean instead of having tons and tons of rules in your context - free grammar you just have these base constructs and then a general mechanism for coercing them . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . So that , you know , for example , uh , in the metaphor case , that you have a kind of direct idea of a source , path , and goal and any metaphorical one {disfmarker} and abstract goals and all that sort of stuff {comment} {disfmarker} you can do the same grammar . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor E: And it is the same grammar . But , um , the trick is that the {disfmarker} the way the construction 's written it requires that the object of the preposition for example be a container . Well , "" trouble "" isn't a container , but it gets constr construed as a c container . +Grad D: Right . +Professor E: Et cetera . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's where this , um , +Grad D: So with construal you don't have to have a construction for every possible thing that can fill the rule . +Professor E: Right . So 's it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a very big deal , i i in this framework , and the thesis proposal as it stands doesn't , um , I don't think , say that as clearly as it could . +Grad C: No , it doesn't say it at all . No . Even though {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One could argue what {disfmarker} if there are basic cases , even . I mean , it seems like nothing is context - free . +Professor E: Oh , nothing is context - free , but there are basic cases . That is , um , there are physical containers , there are physical paths , there {disfmarker} you know , et cetera . +Grad C: But "" walked into the cafe and ordered a drink , "" and "" walked into the cafe and broke his nose , "" that 's sort of {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , it doesn't mean that they 're unambiguous . +Grad C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , a cafe can be construed as a container , or it can be construed you know as {disfmarker} as a obstacle , +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Professor E: or as some physical object . So there are multiple construals . And in fact that 's part of what has to be done . This is why there 's this interaction between the analysis and the construal . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Professor E: The b the {disfmarker} the double arrow . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: So , uh , yeah , I mean , it doesn't magically make ambiguity go away . +Grad C: No . +Professor E: But it does say that , uh , if you walked into the cafe and broke your nose , then you are construing the cafe as an obstacle . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And if that 's not consistent with other things , then you 've gotta reject that reading . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: You con {disfmarker} you conditioned me with your first sentence , and so I thought , "" Why would he walk into the cafe and then somehow break his nose ? "" uh , oh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: He slipped on the wet floor . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: You don't find that usage , uh {disfmarker} uh , I checked for it in the Brown national corpus . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: The "" walk into it "" never really means , w as in walked smack {disfmarker} +Professor E: But "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Yeah , but , y y if you find "" walked smacked into the cafe "" or "" slammed into the wall "" {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , no , but "" run into "" does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Because you will find "" run into , "" uh , +Grad D: Cars run into telephone poles all the time . +Professor E: well , or "" into the cafe "" for that m +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: you know {disfmarker} "" His car ran into the cafe . "" +Grad C: Yeah . Or you can run into an old friend , or run . +Professor E: Well , you can "" run into "" in that sense too . +Grad A: Yeah , "" run into "" might even be more impact sense than , you know , container sense . +Professor E: But , uh , Right . +Grad F: Depends . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Like , "" run into an old friend "" , it probably needs its own construction . I mean , uh , you know , George would have I 'm sure some exa complicated ex reason why it really was an instance of something else +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and maybe it is , but , um , there are idioms and my guess is that 's one of them , but , um {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: All contact . I mean , there there 's contact that doesn't {disfmarker} social contact , whatever . I mean . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad F: Sudden surprising contact , +Professor E: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Right . i Yeah , it 's more {disfmarker} +Grad F: right ? +Grad A: Forceful . +Grad F: But of course , no , i i I mean it has a life of its own . It 's sort of partially inspired by the spatial {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , this is this motivated {disfmarker} but yeah {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: oh yeah , mo for sure , motivated , but then you can't parse on motivated . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor E: Uh , +Grad A: Too bad . +Grad D: You should get a T - shirt that says that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} there 's lots of things you could make T - shirts out of , but , uh , this has gotten {disfmarker} I mean wh We don't need the words to that . +Grad C: Pro - probably not your marks in the kitchen , today . +Grad A: What ? Oh , no no no no no no no no no , we 're not going there . +Grad C: Not {disfmarker} not your marks . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK , so , um , +Grad F: In other news . +Professor E: anything else you want to ask us about the thesis proposal , you got {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Professor E: We could look at a particular thing and give you feedback on it . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i what would have been really nice is to find an example for all of this , uh , from our domain . So maybe if we w if we can make one up {pause} now , that would be c incredibly helpful . +Grad A: So , w where it should illustrate +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: uh {disfmarker} wh when you say all this , do you mean , like , I don't know , the related work stuff , +Grad C: How {disfmarker} +Grad A: as well as , mappings ? +Grad C: w Well we have , for example , a canonical use of something +Professor E: Right {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} r +Grad C: and y it 's , you know , we have some constructions and then it 's construed as something , and then we {disfmarker} we may get the same constructions with a metaphorical use that 's also relevant to the {disfmarker} to the domain . +Professor E: OK , f let 's {disfmarker} let 's suppose you use "" in "" and "" on "" . I mean , that 's what you started with . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So "" in the bus "" and "" on the bus , "" um , that 's actually a little tricky in English because to some extent they 're synonyms . OK . +Grad C: I had two hours w with George on this , so it , +Professor E: OK , what did he say . +Grad A: Did you ? +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: Join the club . +Professor E: Right . Oh , h that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" On the bus "" is a m is a metaphorical metonymy that relates some meta path metaphorically and you 're on {disfmarker} on that path and th w I mean it 's {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} there 's a platform notion , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I believe all that , it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? "" he 's on the {disfmarker} standing on the bus waving to me . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: But th the regular as we speak "" J Johno was on the bus to New York , "" +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: um , uh , he 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh , what did I call it here , the transportation schema , something , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: where you can be on the first flight , on the second flight , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: and you can be , you know , on the wagon . +Professor E: Right . So {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you {disfmarker} what you want to do . I mean you could do something much simpler +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: like "" under the bus , "" or something , where {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} unfortunately , this is not really something a tourist would ever say . So . +Professor E: Well , unless he was repairing it or something , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: but yeah . +Grad C: But um . +Professor E: Uh , but OK . +Grad C: So in terms of the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad A: I see . +Grad C: We had {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} initially we 'd {disfmarker} started discussing the "" out of film . "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: And there 's a lot of "" out of "" analysis , so , um , +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: could we capture that with a different construal of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's a little {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} we 've thought about it before , uh t uh {disfmarker} to use the examples in other papers , and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little complicated . Cuz you 're like , it 's a state of {disfmarker} there 's resource , +Grad F: Out of {disfmarker} out of film , in particular . +Grad A: right , and like , what is film , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: the state {disfmarker} you know . You 're out of the state of having film , right ? and somehow film is standing for the re the resour the state of having some resource is just labeled as that resource . +Grad F: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . +Grad F: yeah , I mean , +Grad A: It 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad F: but {disfmarker} and plus the fact that there 's also s I mean , can you say , like , "" The film ran out "" you know , or , maybe you could say something like "" The film is out "" +Grad A: Yeah , is film the trajector ? +Grad F: so like the {disfmarker} the film went away from where it should be , namely with you , or something , right ? You know . The {disfmarker} the film {disfmarker} the film is gone , right ? Um , I never really knew what was going on , I mean I {disfmarker} I find it sort of a little bit farfetched to say that {disfmarker} that "" I 'm out of film "" means that I have left the state of having film or something like that , +Grad A: It 's weird . That {disfmarker} +Grad F: but . +Grad A: Or , "" having "" is also , um , associated with location , +Professor E: Uh . +Grad A: right ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: so if the film left , you know {disfmarker} state is being near film . +Grad C: So running {disfmarker} running out of something is different from being out of somewhere . +Professor E: Or being out of something as , uh {disfmarker} as well . So "" running out of it "" definitely has a process aspect to it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . But that 's from run , yeah . +Professor E: So , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: b that 's OK , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} b but the difference +Grad C: Is the d the final state of running out of something is being out of it . +Professor E: is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . So th +Professor E: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . You got there . +Grad A: That part is fine . +Grad F: You got to out of it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor E: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so nob so no one has in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} of the , uh , professional linguists , +Grad A: Uh . +Professor E: they haven't {disfmarker} there was this whole thesis on "" out of "" . +Grad A: There was ? Who ? +Professor E: Well , there {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} or there was a paper on it . +Grad F: Out . +Professor E: Huh ? +Grad F: There was one on {disfmarker} on "" out "" or "" out of "" ? +Professor E: There was a Well , it may be just "" out "" . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor E: I think there was "" over "" but there was also a paper on "" out "" . +Grad F: Yeah , Lind - Susan Lindner , +Grad A: Oh , yeah , you 're right . Yeah . +Professor E: Or something . +Grad F: right ? The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} "" the syrup spread out "" ? +Professor E: Yeah , and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: That kind of thing ? +Grad A: Yeah . And undoubtably there 's been reams of work about it in cognitive linguistics , +Professor E: OK . But anyway . We 're not gonna do that between now and next week . +Grad A: but . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not one of the y it 's more straightforward ones {disfmarker} forward ones to defend , so you probably don't want to use it for the purposes {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: th these are {disfmarker} you 're addressing like , computational linguists , +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: right . Or {disfmarker} are you ? +Grad C: There 's gonna be four computational linguists , +Grad A: OK . But more emphasis on the computational ? Or emphasis on the linguist ? +Grad C: computer it 's {disfmarker} More {disfmarker} there 's going to be the {disfmarker} just four computational linguists , by coincidence , but the rest is , whatever , biocomputing people and physicists . +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Professor E: No no no , but not for your talk . I 'm - we 're worrying about the th the thes +Grad C: Oh , the thesis ! +Grad A: Oh , I meant this , +Professor E: it 's just for one guy . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's computa should be very computational , +Grad A: you know , like {disfmarker} OK . So I would try to {disfmarker} I would stay away from one that involves weird construal stuff . +Grad C: and , uh , someth +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: You know , it 's an obvious one {disfmarker} +Grad F: Totally weird stuff . +Grad C: I mean the {disfmarker} the old bakery example might be nice , +Grad A: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: "" Is there a bakery around here "" . So if you c we really just construe it as a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Around ? +Grad C: No , it 's the bakery itself {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh . +Grad C: is it a building ? uh , that you want to go to ? or is it something to eat that you want to buy ? +Grad A: Oh , oh yeah . Yeah , we 've thought about that . Right . Right . +Grad C: And then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Nnn . No . What ? "" Bakery "" can't be something you 're gonna eat . +Professor E: No , no . The question is d do you wanna {disfmarker} do you wanna construe {disfmarker} do you wanna constr - strue +Grad F: Sh +Grad D: It 's a speech - act . +Professor E: r Exactly . It 's because do you wanna c do you want to view the bakery as a p a place that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} i for example , if {disfmarker} y +Grad A: Yeah . Where you can get baked goods . +Professor E: Well th well , that 's one . You want to buy something . But the other is , uh , yo you might have smelled a smell and are just curious about whether there 'd be a bakery in the neighborhood , or , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: um , pfff you know , you wonder how people here make their living , and {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of reasons why you might be asking about the existence of a bakery +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: that doesn't mean , "" I want to buy some baked goods . "" +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: But {vocalsound} um , those are interesting examples but it 's not clear that they 're mainly construal examples . +Grad A: So it 's a lot of pragmatics , there , that +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's all sorts of stuff going on . +Grad A: might be beyond what you want to do . +Professor E: So let 's {disfmarker} so let 's think about this from the point of view of construal . So let 's first do a {disfmarker} So the metonymy thing is probably the easiest and a and actually the {disfmarker} Though , the one you have isn't quite {disfmarker} +Grad A: You mean the s You mean "" the steak wants to pay "" ? +Professor E: N no not that one , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} the sort of background . This is the t uh , page five . +Grad D: About Plato and the book ? +Grad A: Oh . +Professor E: No . +Grad A: Um . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: How much does it cost ? +Professor E: Just beyond that . +Grad F: Onward . +Grad C: Where is the castle ? +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: A castle . +Grad C: How old is it ? How much does it cost ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: To go in , that 's like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Two hundred million dollars . +Professor E: Right . It 's not for sale . Uh . So +Grad F: Yeah , I think that 's a good example , actually . +Grad C: S +Grad A: Yeah , that 's good . u +Grad C: But as Nancy just su suggested it 's probably ellipticus . +Grad A: Ellipsis . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad A: Like , "" it "" doesn't refer to "" thing , "" it refers to acti you know , j thing standing for activ most relevant activity for a tourist {disfmarker} you could think of it that way , but . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , shoot , isn't that {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , my argument here is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same thing as "" Plato 's on the top shelf , "" +Grad F: figuring that out is what this is about . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah , no , I I agree . +Grad C: I 'm con you know , th that you can refer to a book of Plato by using "" Plato , "" +Grad A: Yeah . No no , I {disfmarker} I 'm agreeing that this is a good , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: and you can refer back to it , and so you can {disfmarker} Castles have {disfmarker} as tourist sites , have admission fees , so you can say "" Where is the castle , how much does it cost ? "" Um . "" How far is it from here ? "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , You 're also not referring to the width of the object , or so , +Grad A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: www . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Can we think of a nice metaphorical use of "" where "" in the tourist 's domain ? Um . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor E: So you know it 's {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can sometimes use "" where "" f for "" when "" +Grad F: O +Professor E: in the sense of , you know , um , where {disfmarker} wh where {disfmarker} where was , um , "" where was Heidelberg , um , in the Thirty Years ' War ? "" Or something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . +Professor E: You know , or some such thing . Um . +Grad F: Like what side were they on , +Grad A: What ? +Professor E: Yeah . Essentially , yeah . +Grad F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: OK . I was like , "" Huh ? It was here . "" Like {disfmarker} {comment} Um . +Professor E: But anyway th so there are {disfmarker} there are cases like that . Um , +Grad A: Ah ! Or like its developmental state or something like that , you could {disfmarker} I guess you could get that . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Professor E: Um . +Grad F: I mean , there 's also things like {disfmarker} I mean , s um , I guess I could ask something like "" Where can I find out about blah - blah - blah "" in a sort of {disfmarker} doesn't nece I don't necessarily have to care about the spatial location , just give me a phone number +Professor E: Yeah . There certainly is that , yeah . +Grad F: and I 'll call them or something like that ? +Professor E: You know , "" Where could I learn its opening hours , "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: But that 's not metaphorical . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: It 's another {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor E: So we 're thinking about , um , or we could also think about , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor E: How about "" I 'm in a hurry "" ? +Grad A: State . +Professor E: It i But it 's a state {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the issue is , is that {disfmarker} it may be just a usage , +Grad F: Hmm ? +Professor E: you know , that it 's not particularly metaphorical , I don't know . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . So you want a more exotic one {disfmarker} version of that . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah , right . +Grad A: I 'm really into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Ah ! How about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm in {disfmarker} I 'm in a state of exhaustion "" ? +Grad A: Do you really say that ? +Professor E: or something like that , which a tourist w Huh ? +Grad A: Would you really say that ? +Professor E: A st uh , well , you can certainly say , um , you know , "" I 'm in overload . "" Tu - stur tourists will often say that . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad D: I I 'm really into art . +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna say , like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh , you can do that ? Really ? Of course that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's definitely a , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Fixed . +Grad A: A fixed expression , yeah . +Professor E: that 's a , uh {disfmarker} Right . But . {disfmarker} +Grad A: There 're too {disfmarker} there 're all sorts of fixed expressions I don't {disfmarker} like uh "" I 'm out of sorts now ! "" +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Like {comment} "" I 'm in trouble ! "" +Grad C: Well I {disfmarker} when , uh {disfmarker} just f u the data that I 've looked at so far that rec +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: I mean , there 's tons of cases for polysemy . +Professor E: Right . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So , you know , mak re making reference to buildings as institutions , as containers , as build +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: you know , whatever . Um , so ib in mus for example , in museums , you know , as a building or as something where pictures hang versus , you know , ev something that puts on exhibits , so forth . +Professor E: Right . As an institution , +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: yeah . +Grad C: Um . +Grad A: Why don't you want to use any of those ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: So y you don't wanna use one that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} No , but this {disfmarker} that 's what I have , you know , started doing . +Professor E: The castle {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that old castle one is sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Metonymy , polysemy . +Grad D: I love Van Gogh . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad A: "" I wanna go see the Van Gogh . "" +Professor E: Ah ! +Grad F: Oh geez . +Grad A: Anyway , I 'm sorry . +Grad C: But I think the argument should be {disfmarker} uh , can be made that , you know , despite the fact that this is not the most met metaphorical domain , because people interacting with HTI systems try to be straightforward and less lyrical , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: construal still is , uh , you know , completely , um , key in terms of finding out any of these things , so , um . +Professor E: Right . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a reasonable point , that it {disfmarker} in this domain you 're gonna get less metaphor and more metonymy . +Grad C: We , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} I looked {disfmarker} with a student I looked at the entire database that we have on Heidelberg for cases of metonymy . +Professor E: And polysemy , and stuff like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Hardly anything . So not even in descriptions w did we find anything , um , relevant . +Grad F: I have to go . +Professor E: Alright . Yeah . +Grad C: But OK this is just something we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see , um , +Professor E: Right . s See you . +Grad C: and deal with . +Professor E: OK , well . I guess if anybody has additional suggestions , +Grad C: I mean maybe the "" where is something "" question as a whole , you know , can be construed as , u i locational versus instructional request . +Professor E: w Yeah . +Grad C: So , if we 're not talk about the lexic +Grad A: Location versus what ? +Grad C: instruction . +Grad A: Instruction . Oh , directions ? Yeah . +Professor E: Sure . +Grad A: Oh , I thought that was {disfmarker} definitely treated as an example of construal . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? +Grad C: Yeah but then you 're not on the lexical level , that 's sort of one level higher . +Grad A: Oh , you want a lexical example . +Grad C: But I don't need it . +Professor E: Well , you might want both . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Also it would be nice to get {disfmarker} ultimately to get a nice mental space example , +Professor E: We {disfmarker} +Grad C: so , even temporal references are {disfmarker} just in the spatial domain are rare . +Professor E: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's easy to make up plausible ones . +Grad C: When {disfmarker} when you 're getting information on objects . +Professor E: You know . +Grad C: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , you know {disfmarker} you know , where r Yeah . What color was this in {disfmarker} in in the nain nineteenth century . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: What was this p instead of {disfmarker} wh what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} how was this painted , what color was this painted , um , was this alleyway open . +Grad C: Yeah , maybe we can include that also in our second , uh , data run . +Professor E: Uh . +Grad C: We c we can show people pictures of objects and then have then ask the system about the objects and engage in conversation on the history and the art and the architecture and so forth . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . So why don't we plan to give you feedback electronically . Wish you a good trip . All success . +Grad D: For some reason when you said "" feedback electronically "" I thought of that {disfmarker} you ever see the Simpsons where they 're {disfmarker} like the family 's got the buzzers and they buzz each other when they don't like what the other one is saying ? +Grad A: Yeah . That 's the {disfmarker} first one , I think . The very very first one . +Grad D: It was a very early one . I don't know if it 's the first one . +Grad A: Mmm . Mmm . +","In the conversation, participants Grad A, Grad F, Grad D, Grad B, Grad C, and Professor E engage in a discussion that involves several topics related to their academic work. Initially, the conversation revolves around the general comfort and functioning of recording devices, preparing for a presentation or meeting. Grad F expresses frustration from a previous meeting, while Grad A assures everyone that they'll be recording. + +Grad A mentions that they and ""Keith"" will be dazed for a meeting due to an unspecified reason, and they thank Professor E, who seems to have postponed something as long as possible on their behalf. Professor E and the grads then discuss a more technical matter involving digits and close-talking microphones, with each person having separate channels for recording. + +The conversation shifts to Grad D's curiosity about a paper that led to anti-lock brakes and a story about it that both Grad F and Grad D find interesting. Grad C suggests a synchronized action for the start of meetings, but the idea receives a mixed response, with Grad A liking the ritualistic aspect. + +They further delve into a complicated academic topic that involves a thesis proposal by Grad C related to probabilistic relational models, situation models, and their application to the tourism domain. Grad C is looking for feedback on the proposal, and various edits and clarifications are being suggested by Grad A, Professor E, and others. There is also mention of plans to present at EML and a meeting with Wolfgang Wahlster to pitch an idea. + +The group discusses challenges in language understanding, metaphor, and construction within their respective disciplines, including computational linguistics and embodied simulation approach. They brainstorm examples of metonymy, metaphor, and construal in tourism queries, like ""How much does it cost to go into the castle?"" and ""I'm in a hurry,"" to illustrate their points about language use and interpretation. + +Grad A and Professor E discuss potentially referencing FMRI studies in connection to mirror neurons when giving a talk about language learning. + +Professor E states the big win of their research work is that if a new construction or metaphor is introduced, it should interact with and apply to all sorts of different uses, promoting scalability. Grad D adds that this means less need for many context-specific grammar rules. + +The group plans to give Grad C feedback electronically on their thesis proposal and wishes them a successful trip. The conversation ends with a light-hearted reference to a Simpsons episode by Grad D involving buzzers. + +Overall, the conversation is a mixture of academic discussion, brainstorming, planning for future presentations and meetings, technical setup for recording devices, and lighthearted moments among colleagues." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi everyone , hope you had a nice lunch . Um {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright we're moving on to conceptual design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Scuse me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bless you . +Project Manager: Um , I'll just review what we did in our last meeting . Um , {vocalsound} under marketing we targeted our audience , and {disfmarker} Um , yeah . That was {vocalsound} generally {vocalsound} {disfmarker} how helpful that was . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , then we considered some design options with how it should look , um , we discussed an iPod-like button system which , uh , we haven't concluded but we're {disfmarker} Right , um {disfmarker} So , if you all have presentations to do , we can see what {disfmarker} where you've come from our last time . Does everyone have presentations ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Would anybody like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I've been looking at the components design . Um . Mostly by consulting remote control diagrams from the internet and also by incorporating design ideas from the last project meeting . Um , so we need some custom design parts , and other parts we'll just use standard . Um , I assume we'll be custom designing our case , probably a hard plastic or some other material case , to protect the remote and the locator . And we'll need to custom desi design a circuit board , because the circuit board has to take the button input and send it to the output so you have to design that each time . But once we come up with a design we'll send it to the circuit people and they'll just print it out . Um , standard parts include the buttons and the wheels , um the iPod-style wheel . The infrared L_E_D_ is actually gonna be included in the circuit board that comes with it . Um , we need a radio sender and receiver , those are standard . And al we also need a beeper or buzzer or other sort of noise thing for locating the remote . So we have some material options . Um , we can use rubber , plastic , wood or titanium . Um , I'd recommend against titanium because it can only be used in the flat cases and it's really heavy . Um , and the rubber case requires rubber buttons , so if we definitely want plastic buttons , we shouldn't have a rubber case . +Project Manager: And why not wood ? +Industrial Designer: And , +Project Manager: And why not wood ? {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hmm ? {vocalsound} Uh , well we can use wood . {vocalsound} I don't know why we'd want to . Um and also we should note that if we want an iPod-style wheel button , it's gonna require a m qu slightly more expensive chip . We can't use the minimal chip , we need the next higher grade , which is called regular . I don't think it's much more expensive , but it is more expensive . So that's what I've got on design . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Marketing: Um , can I do next ? 'Cause I have to say something about the material +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: which is quite shocking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha . Mm . Right , um , I have been searching the current trends , um , both on the web and via fashion-watchers , and the findings are that the first thing to aim for is a fashion uh , fancy look and feel . Um . Next comes technologic technology and the innovations to do with that . And th last thing is the easy to use um factor . Um , fancy look and feel goes far beyond the functionality of the thing , but I suppose that is included in in the ease of use . Um , our fashion-watchers in Milan and Paris have decided , well noticed , that f the fruit and vegetable theme is the {vocalsound} is the current trend +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and and therefore um we need to go for that if we want , you know , wh whatever our motto is . Um . For fashion , we go for fashion . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: The fashion in electronics . So we want to put the fashion electronics , we need to go fruit and vegetables . And also go for a spongy feel , so the the question of our technology whate is Industrial Designer . As to the material should be limited to {disfmarker} I don't know how spongy it can be , should discuss this together , I don't know how spongy can be achieved but apparently that's the way to go . Um . I I have been thinking about this fruit and vegetable thing and I prefer fruits to vegetables , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's just a personal opinion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think people like to have a fruit instead of a vegetables in their sitting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh those are just suggestions and also we need to decide whether this should be printed , so that still has to do with the material discuss should we print the fruit stuff , or should the actual remote look like a fruit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and finally again with the spongy . It has to be technologically innovative so maybe again our Industrial Designer should look into that or find {disfmarker} come up with a solution that's better than mine . Um , yeah , to summarise these are the points that need to be um , touched in order to get a good decision , and hopefully our User Interface has more to say about the matter . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Thank you for your attention . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: I think it's the next {disfmarker} it's the blue one , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , uh , there we go . {vocalsound} Uh . Okay . Um . Well so that fruit and vegetables thing huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I actually wasn't aware of the {vocalsound} new trends in electronics +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Neither was I . Well it's a trend in fashion , in clothing and um {vocalsound} fabrics . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but you're not gonna wear your remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so okay , let me get this right . Okay , uh {disfmarker} Okay , alright anyway . Um {vocalsound} here we go . Conceptual User Interface . Trying {disfmarker} we're gonna try to talk about , um {vocalsound} what kind of uh {disfmarker} how people are actually going to be using this iPod-ish remote control , based on fruit vegetable design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And , um , basically , so , this is a touched ba a touch-based graphical interface system . {vocalsound} Uh , so people are going to be looking at this little screen . Um , kind of {disfmarker} I mean I assume , are we still on the screen idea ? +Project Manager: Oh we s hadn't discussed it last time . +User Interface: 'Cause if we're gonna have to ha if we have this {disfmarker} it just seems like in order to have someone going around and using the um {vocalsound} the wheel +Project Manager: You need a screen for it ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it seems like you would need a screen . +Industrial Designer: You need a screen with music because you're looking for a specific song , like you know that band or whatever . With T_V_ channels it's , you know , one two three . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But like if you think about it {disfmarker} yeah but if {disfmarker} so is it just {disfmarker} okay . So , b you you're gonna have to switch to like D_V_D_ and like other things like that , aren't you ? +Project Manager: We're , um , we're actually not having D_V_D_ , +User Interface: Are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that was one of th I I was {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: sorry , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I meant to update you on that . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . Okay . +Marketing: But the screen can come up on the telly , the {disfmarker} she said . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That correct ? +User Interface: So anyway if {disfmarker} well we just {disfmarker} we need to {disfmarker} Okay so if we're not gonna have a screen {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} okay . So basically it's just gonna be a wheel then ? And you're just gonna {disfmarker} I mean I think you're gonna have to have some kind of a {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: Graphical interface ? +User Interface: Yeah like you're g +Marketing: Uh on the {disfmarker} you can have it on the telly though . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah like you're gonna have to be able to switch to like a mode where you can {disfmarker} okay we're not choosing that , I guess . But like choose channel control , like if you wa Because people aren't gonna be able to have like , um , you know , channels one two three four five six seven eight nine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} people seems to be {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} Yeah , I know what you're saying , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know . But you're gonna have to scroll to get channels . So um {vocalsound} I guess that's wh why I was thinking you may need to have some kind of a screen because {disfmarker} So that people can go arou go back and forth and choose if {disfmarker} or or {disfmarker} then again if you just {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I c I can see like some kind of a thing where like you sort of have like the number come up on the T_V_ like what channel you're on . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You can just scroll and you can just get to like five or like twelve or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But but imagine someone with s +Industrial Designer: My flatmates actually had one with a wheel , and it it did show up on the T_V_ . +User Interface: I oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But i what if you have satellite and you have like two hundred channels . Then to get to channel one eighty nine you have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause you'll have to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They have to r wheel really fast . +User Interface: but you can quickly s you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I think the wheel goes through like a hundred channels , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: at least on theirs . +User Interface: Yeah if you do , it w so it would have to be {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean so you basically just kinda need to figure out like what kind of , you know , range we need to have on the wheel , and um {disfmarker} So you're either {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you know , th you're either doing this motion to like control the channels or like once once you stop that , you know , you can like tap for , um , different +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , whatchamacallits , different um , you know , functions like volume or , like you can tap just to get to different channels . Like if you just wanted to go to like {disfmarker} from five to six you could tap or someth +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And then there's also the concern about you know um {vocalsound} how do you get to the menu if you wanna change the brightness of your television , or if you want to um {vocalsound} you know switch around , I don't know , like , these different modes like turn on the timer or like something something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah I mean with that many options , you'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I'd think that the screen would be better , +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because you could have that menu option , sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would think so too , like {disfmarker} So I mean {disfmarker} and it seems it w it does seem a little silly to have this screen if you hardly are ever using it , you know , because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but then again it would {disfmarker} it does make kind of {disfmarker} if the screen's sort of just like an option that , like , is just there and you're not really using it , that's kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive according to the design people . +User Interface: m yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's the only thing though . +Industrial Designer: You have to get a {disfmarker} an advanced chip if you wanna have a screen in , which is more expensive than the regular chip , which is more expensive than the minimal . +User Interface: Yeah . So then basically it has to have some way to get to get to a mode on the television where you're doing , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can get to {disfmarker} you know , you can {disfmarker} Like maybe it'll be that central button that , like , then you hit that and then you can {disfmarker} it brings up like the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you can just scroll around , like , to do the timer , to do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the T_V_ is the screen , that {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So it would have all these different options of changing +User Interface: Yeah . But the remote itself isn't really cluttered up . +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Look it even has settings . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} you can just take theirs and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well we don't want the screen I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} 'cause that just {disfmarker} it does seem like , it {disfmarker} that would be , like , incredibly expensive , but {disfmarker} I dunno , and then {disfmarker} so , it just im really all you need is , like , this little wheel then , and you can control everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , right . What if {disfmarker} I mean , if you're thinking of the design of it now , like the a you know , physical attributes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um , and you just have this , it's like just a long silver thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or whatever we're thinking . I mean are you you gonna have any buttons on that besides power and this thing ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't seem that you would need anything besides pow I mean and the power button could even be like hold down the menu button for like longer than one second and it turns on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . So can we imagine that this would be smaller than the remote controls that you showed us before . I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah definitely . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Like , I think we're looking at something that could be , like like even maybe like a cir I'm f I'm seeing almost like a circular sort of like handheld like thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean it it needs to be easy to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but should be comfortable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: somehow it needs to be easy to like manipulate and use your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean how do how do {disfmarker} I'm not really {disfmarker} Like when I use an iPod , I end up just kind of using my index finger to like control it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've seen some people just going like that with their thumb , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Or your thumb or something . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I use it like that . +Industrial Designer: W when we had the wheely remote control , we {disfmarker} it was on the top I think , if you held it like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , were there buttons on there as well ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well it had the wheely thing and then it had those eighteen different buttons that I don't know what they do . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we just used the top part . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I mean I think it could be pretty small . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Like , I d I mean , you you want it to be large enough that you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if , um , you had like a b a cover that went over buttons that you don't use very much ? Like you {disfmarker} so you could slide it up if you needed to like change the contrast or something like that ? So the options are there but they're not in interfering with the design and the practicality of it . +User Interface: But can't you just get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do {disfmarker} do you know what I'm talking about though ? Like , uh , yeah just something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah like maybe something on the side where you slip a panel down and it's got a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +User Interface: K +Marketing: Well you can have it on the settings , +Project Manager: Yeah , that you can flip over , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: no ? +User Interface: Yeah , But , I mean , do you need that ? If if you can get to , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so long as you're able to bring up the menu on the T_V_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah I mean I guess that's the thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is is {disfmarker} if w I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That keeps it +Project Manager: if we can do this , that'd probably be {disfmarker} +User Interface: really {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh you wouldn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I just don't think you would even need it . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I guess we have to look into the , um , like , the programming , how this {disfmarker} how they actually programme these things , and if that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh how they make the menu show up on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: yeah . I mean it {disfmarker} would y would {disfmarker} that would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I mean you can do it , +Marketing: They already do it . +Industrial Designer: I believe it's ins it's gotta be inside the T_V_ , not inside the remote . +User Interface: you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it doesn't seem that hard . I mean I've never bought a remote . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +User Interface: It sounds like this remote's going to be purchased separately from the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well they usually are . +User Interface: which is a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: My {disfmarker} I've never bought just a remote , like , so I don't I don't really know . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I guess that's right . It always comes with the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , um {disfmarker} but I mean it's {disfmarker} I've never had a hard time with like my remotes , like bringing up the menu screen if you need to like change the date or whatever , you know . And I don't think that should uh that should be too hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} most of the ones we've had have had the menu button , 'cause it's not like you need to have a button access to like change the contrast or something . 'Cause it just doesn't come up every day or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Well so {disfmarker} So , do we need {disfmarker} I dunno . Well I guess we have to you know think about {disfmarker} But I mean you just basically need the output signal you know to be able to bring it up . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what it does anyway . +Marketing: But also if you have it on the screen you can actually write everything out , because the problem with buttons is you {disfmarker} like , they have these sort of abbreviations and codes that you're supposed to understand , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you don't know they mean , yeah , it's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I never get it . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Never ever . +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , you mean if we have this screen like the iPod screen ? +Marketing: Well on the telly . +Industrial Designer: Or on the T_V_ too . +User Interface: On the telly , okay , yeah . So yeah I think , I mean , I think I think the touch-based graphical interface is a really uh cool idea +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you know it is so obnoxious to like have to push those {disfmarker} like okay now I hit this {disfmarker} you know , you have your little guide out and you're like , hit this button twice , like to activate the date . +Project Manager: Mm . And it is technologically innovative in a way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: so that fits with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I guess . And it is trendy , the iPods are {vocalsound} really hot right now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: B Yeah . +Marketing: Did you did you get that pc picture on {disfmarker} did they provide you with that picture on the web ? +User Interface: Um , yeah , by web research , yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's quite interesting . What are we going to do about this vegetable thing that I'm dreading ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , I was gonna say . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: You said uh people want spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , one of your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: one of the material options is a sort of rubber that's {gap} in like those stress ball things . So , that would be spongy . +User Interface: Oh , okay , that would be cool . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just nice feel , but I hate spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , c that's e that would be kind of {disfmarker} oh , you know , usually like the touch pad things are kind of a hard plastic typ mouse type , you know , thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean definitely the area round it . +User Interface: But what if we ha what if we had like a spongy sort of like stress balley kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you're like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it could work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or what if we integrated the {vocalsound} the uh the f what if the whole thing about the fruit and vegetables +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we somehow made it tactilely fash you know , we c tapped into that , so like it feels like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't think I'd want it to feel like a banana . +User Interface: a vegetable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it could be like mobiles that just {disfmarker} you just put a cover . +Project Manager: An orange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If it's a small thing , you c instead of creating an object for it that looks like a banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which frankly I'm not particularly fond of , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um you could just have covers and then your mobile f it's like a mobile phone thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You know you had {disfmarker} there was a time when they had all these different covers for mobiles . +Industrial Designer: You could do like the computers where they have like the grapefruit , apple machine and they have like the blueberry , like all the colours are named after fruits . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . You could name it after fruits and vegetables , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And it could {disfmarker} the colour can fit your sitting room , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so if you have red sitting room you can have strawberry , and then if you have a green one you can have {disfmarker} well I don't know . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what if {disfmarker} what +User Interface: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah , colours . +Project Manager: I'm just forming this idea in my head of how this thing is looking . If you have like that stress ball material kind of as what you're actually holding in your hand , so like what you're feeling is comfortable , and then there's more of a hard plastic thing where that thing is . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And on that hard plastic thing you can change either the colour or the fruit or vegetable that's on there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} 'cause I I'm thinking of silver because those are our company colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unfortunately they don't have silver fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I do I dunno . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean how are you how are you all envisioning by what we've just {disfmarker} the feedback we've just got about the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe a ball . +Project Manager: A ball ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know , a squashy ball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A relaxing squashy ball . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That you can p +User Interface: That's in the shape of a fruit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: well I {disfmarker} see you're thinking , it's weird , you're thinking the opposite of me 'cause you're thinking you change the the hard bit +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I'm thinking how do you change the hard {disfmarker} would you put a um sticker sort of ? Because I was thinking if you have a cover for the squashy bit , like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is just {disfmarker} Okay . Say that's the s say that's the squashy bit . Squashy . +Marketing: Oh , okay , yeah . Yeah I was thinking of getting a cover for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That {disfmarker} see I was thinking this s +Marketing: Which is cheaper . +Project Manager: sorry {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I don't know if it's cheaper actually . +Project Manager: I was thinking this bit here would be the cover and like that's your actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And like this {disfmarker} you could have like you could have like cherries and {vocalsound} things around there . +User Interface: Oh I like that shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking sort of a single ball shape . +Project Manager: I was thinking if it was like this {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So you're holding a squishy ball +Project Manager: 'cause the way you were describing the the iPod and the thi the roll thingy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then it has a {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's like it has to be s +Project Manager: It's almost like your thumb is farther up , +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so if if you could squish it lower then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So it wouldn't be very big in either {disfmarker} like how big ? This big , and then you just do that , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know what you meant , yeah . +User Interface: What if , yeah , what if the squishy , oh so so you're saying the squishy part's like detachable , and you can {disfmarker} so so maybe one you know {disfmarker} you can have like the broccoli squishy thing , and then you could have like the banana squishy thing {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you could get {disfmarker} you could have your choice , you know ? +Marketing: Well just a li I can't des like condom thingy , like a a cover . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} well the question is , which one's easiest to change and we can just contact our relevant department for that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and just see what the cost is for covering that or covering that , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and for now we can do two prototypes maybe and then hi try and ask users what the best is , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Um . That's nicer . I think it's nicer to have a drawing 'cause it's neater . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Well that's not very neat , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . I mean I think uh {disfmarker} and I think the handhe I think the handheld part is definitely {disfmarker} So you could make that into the fruit and vegetable part . +Marketing: If it's a bit like those juggling balls , you can change shape according to your {disfmarker} to the way you hold it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could squish it . +Marketing: If it's got sand in it maybe , or something , you {disfmarker} it it just moulds to your hand . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So where are the fruit and vegetables now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess they would be either in the colour of that plastic face on the front , or in the colour of the squishy thing underneath . +User Interface: Fruits and veg . +Marketing: We we don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And the rest is the company {disfmarker} the company colour's silver ? +Project Manager: It was , yeah , silver and yellow . It l it looks like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could promote the banana one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I mean that's another question , where are we gonna {disfmarker} we we should have the logo somewhere on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Should also fit the batteries , which we haven't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the batteries would have to go right under the plastic case . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th and that would {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Especially if you're switching out the squishy part . Then you need to have the other part just be sort of a single unit that you can snap off . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think , um it'd be interesting to have the b the squishy bit . The part that you , yeah , can change into the different , you know , trendy vegetables and fruits . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . You'd spend so much time like squishing it to your own personal hand . Then you'd get a new one and you'd have to do it all over again . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No but it does it automatically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Does it automatically ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: I don't know what the rest of my notes mean because they were made for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But if someone {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: components concept . Question mark . Energy . Question mark . +Industrial Designer: That was me . +Project Manager: Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh right right . Yeah . Um , so what d but what do we know about energy ? I mean we're gonna use batteries right ? And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh we actually had an option of batteries , solar power , and um a dynamo , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is something I don't know what it is . Something to do with torches . +Marketing: Oh , a dynamo is {disfmarker} ah , {vocalsound} it's a bicycle . It's a bicycle mechanism . It's the en it's like if if something moves , when it moves , it stores energy . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah , the other one was the other one was a kinetic thing where you'd basically have to wind it yourself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I sort of picked battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's quite sweet . +Industrial Designer: We could have talked about doing a wind-up or a dynamo or a solar power . Um but I think solar power's not available with the rubber case anyways . +Project Manager: I think batteries sound good . +Industrial Designer: It {vocalsound} it seems a little weird for a living room anyways . +Project Manager: What does everyone else think ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The dynamo would be interesting {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . But dynamo {disfmarker} the the fact with dynamo is , the moment you move it , it c it {vocalsound} creates energy on its own . +Project Manager: What about Kryptonite ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Which is quite cool . So if you throw it , it's gonna store loads of energy , and you don't need to buy a battery 'cause they're quite f I find them annoying . But we need to find cost . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Don't know the cost . +Industrial Designer: Didn't have enough data to actually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does anyone have costs on the on the web ? +Industrial Designer: All it said was it gave sort of relative , some chips are more expensive than others , sort of things . It didn't give me any actual cost . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Most of the stuff is pretty cheap though bought in bulk . So I don't think it's that much of a problem . Like the chip is probably the most expensive part . +Project Manager: What does chip on print mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um , for things like remote controls , um , they stamp out a chip , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: calculators too I think . Um , so you can mass produce 'em pretty cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's not like a computer , you can't like reprogramme your remo remote controls , it's like stamped onto the chip . +Project Manager: Right . So , chip on print is just {disfmarker} means like that they're mass-produced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And case ? Uh I guess that's what we've been talking about , +Industrial Designer: Case is what we were discussing yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Casing . Yeah . {gap} thinking of like syntactic case and thi +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} let's see . Is there anything else we need to +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: talk about ? Oh when we move on , you two are going to be playing with play-dough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and working on the look and feel of the design and user interface design . And you're gonna be doing protu product evaluation . So you'll get mm m more instructions from your personal coach . +Marketing: Oh , thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: See you soon . Does it matter that I end early ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} it's strange because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How how early is it ? I didn't get a pop-up thing that said {disfmarker} +","The project team reconvened post-lunch to progress with the conceptual design. The project manager reviewed the last meeting's work, including identifying the target audience under marketing and discussing design options with an iPod-like button system. Presentations were expected from all departments. + +The Industrial Designer presented component designs sourced from internet remote control diagrams, suggesting custom design parts and standard components like buttons and an iPod-style wheel. They debated material options, ruling out titanium for being heavy and suggesting a hard plastic or other materials for the case. + +Marketing discussed current trends, emphasizing the importance of a fashion-forward look and feel, technology, and ease of use. They mentioned a trend towards fruit and vegetable themes, suggesting a spongy feel material. + +User Interface (UI) discussed a touch-based graphical system, weighing the necessity of a screen. A debate ensued on the practicality of the interface without a screen, concluding that the TV could display the graphical interface, potentially avoiding the cost and complexity of a built-in screen for the remote. + +The discussion shifted towards the remote's physical design, including material and shape considerations for comfort, technological convenience, and trend alignment. The possibility of changing the design to match fashion trends was considered, such as through interchangeable 'squishy' covers evoking fruits or vegetables. + +Finally, energy options were briefly touched on, with batteries being the default choice, while dynamo and kinetic energy were dismissed for being impractical for a living room context. The team agreed to work on prototypes, with further evaluation to come. The meeting concluded ahead of schedule." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bonjour . +User Interface: It won't wake up . Yeah . I was a bit early . Like {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Why ? +User Interface: No , I just came in . Uh normally I was one of them . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Come on . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Check check check check . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: Why won't it wake up ? Is it on ? +Marketing: The power light doesn't work . You turned it off . +User Interface: But how ? Ah , there it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I received an email with uh a few possibilities on uh the materials . So I'll discuss them with you . +Project Manager: Okay , we're just going to the {gap} later . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I received an email as well . +Project Manager: So we're going to talk about the conceptual model . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So that's me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . So {disfmarker} Uh okay . Okay , so I just show you the m the no mm mm the the the the the the minutes , minute . {gap} What's it called , I dunno . Whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , so we just talked about uh {disfmarker} Oh you want me to show that there or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: just tell us . +Project Manager: we just talked about it looks . Has to look nice . Usability is very important . People don't want to spend money on something that's similar to cheaper ones . Um {disfmarker} It has to be very basic , not too many buttons . Light switches on if you use a button . Uh text T_V_ still has to be a possibility . And it has to be easy to learn . That were the things I uh make minutes of . And the functions are volume , channel to choose channels , an on-off , a mute uh button , and a text T_V_ button . That are the functions . That right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I just want to give you uh Mike again , the first uh presentation of your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall I start ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} No . Okay well {disfmarker} I received an email {disfmarker} Okay . I searched the web , uh and uh I searched uh on this d document , recent investigation of the remote control market . It has been done in Italy uh Italy and in uh another country in Europe , I forget it . Uh but uh they found out the most important aspect for remote controls happens to be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look and feel . So it's very important for us to create something new . So what Michael just said , it must be uh some very different from ordinary uh remote controls . Fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and interface . Uh this uh aspect is the most important one . Uh it came out of the research . It uh is twice important as the following . {vocalsound} The second uh most important aspect is that a remote control should it uh technological innovative . Uh that stands for uh uh new technical uh features . And then uh that uh {disfmarker} This is a point of discussion , because we just decided that we don't make use of uh L_C_D_ or uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But um {vocalsound} this is the second uh important uh aspect , and I think uh we must use some of the new technology , to be uh innovative . +Project Manager: But we already have the flashing flashing light on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh maybe maybe something new . +User Interface: Yeah , more . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: We have to discuss about it s uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , I'll I'll get back on it . +Marketing: features not uh do not exist in current remote controls . And that's very hard I think . Uh the third one is the aspect of the remote control should be easy to use . But uh that was an overall uh point . We already discussed that . Um I've got one picture . Uh d our our target group uh we thought about was young and trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So I took uh that part of the webpage . And it says uh fashion-watchers of uh uh Pari {vocalsound} uh France and uh Italy , yeah , uh have detected the following trends . This trends I th uh trend I think it's not um that meaningful for us , maybe . But it's about uh clothes and shoes . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But the uh the next uh aspect also in contrast to last year , the feel of material is expe uh uh is expected to be spongy . +User Interface: Spongy . +Marketing: But spongy , what what does spongy says ? +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +User Interface: Spongy , like sponge . +Marketing: Spongy . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So rubber , kind of . +User Interface: Uh soft materials . +Project Manager: But maybe th that's al definitely a good idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you've you're you drop y your remote control very often on the ground . So it has to be {vocalsound} flexible . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it's something that uh it stand there . But I didn't knew uh knew what it means . So spongy means y Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like a sponge . +User Interface: Soft , sponge . +Marketing: So it's also a stress-ball . +Project Manager: That's a good {disfmarker} That's a good idea . If it's de like that . That's good , a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , somewhat like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a bit like like the the the the {gap} remote control ? +User Interface: How are you gonna make it ? +Project Manager: R_ soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've some uh material uh information , but I'll give you it later in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do I think ? Uh because a fancy look is the most important thing uh for remote control uh control , I think about changeable fronts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh maybe a see-through one in a a fruit front . Because it's uh it's hot . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh some basic uh colour fronts . {vocalsound} Uh so we can make uh five different fronts to start with or something . Uh maybe an extraordinary shape , like a sponge . {vocalsound} Uh or uh , yeah , just another shape than a normal uh remote control ha uh has . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh something round in it , or uh maybe not uh not uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I dun dunno . We have to discuss about that . Uh y yeah . Main point uh still uh is the technolo technological innovative . Yeah , how do we do that ? Maybe speech ? We ma must have some kind of gadget . +User Interface: Yeah , I'll get back on that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very uh difficult to to to do it . +Marketing: Intro +Project Manager: Because it's only twelve and a half Euros you have to spend on every remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , that's the problem . That's the main problem . +User Interface: I got f also an email from the the technology department . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Maybe we watch the first uh the next two presentations . +User Interface: They have done uh research about it , and uh even more possibilities now with speech . So they recommended using it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll check what they exact mean . +Marketing: Uh let's first watch Paul's presentation first then . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well actually we have don't have an idea how much it's gonna cost . But maybe it's cheap +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and it's easy to implement . +User Interface: th that's the only problem . I d They don't say how much it will cost , so {disfmarker} Um but uh +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: if we implement uh speech recognition , I think it would be better to implement L_C_D_ as well . +Marketing: Oh . It's mass production . So you can say , you can {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Since you have to uh configure speech thing . +Project Manager: But that's definitely more expensive than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's something I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah . But how uh we we're gonna make many of those . So we can start a mass production , and then the cost will still will be {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , but a telephone {gap} {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But a telephone also have a L_C_D_ and and it's about t two hundred Euros . +User Interface: Yeah , so uh we gotta de +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to decide on that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . That was this ? +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I got an email uh {disfmarker} And it says uh the chip can be uh simple , regular or advanced . And {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} They say uh a display requires an advanced chip . And this is more expensive than all the other chips . So +User Interface: L_D_C_ doesn't require {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's m the most expensive . Yeah , it says in the email . The display requires an advanced chip . +User Interface: Okay . And speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably too . +User Interface: Advanced {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I I haven't got anything about speech recognition , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll I'll give you my design . +Industrial Designer: Well it d That's that's the most expensive chip , we need . If we're doing uh if we're doing a display . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well we can {disfmarker} I had uh to make a sort of a design . So I did some searching on the internet . I watched the old remote controls and news com remote como uh remote controls . I think we should um {disfmarker} This is one of the modern remote controls of the moment . I think we should go more to the iPod and M_P_ three players . Mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah , just modern modern but still uh basic . +User Interface: More modern . Y yes . Um you probably have to make it a bit bigger and a bit smaller . 'Cause remote con control , you can see it here , you have to bo reach both out {disfmarker} both sides . And here you just have one , few buttons . So that's that's the main difference . But looks uh I definitely think we should go like this . And then changeable fonts , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: It's the most important part , I think . But {disfmarker} And the home base is something like that , something simple . Well and then I just ordered the the buttons a bit . Uh basic buttons . On-off , mute . And th maybe two others , I dunno . Text buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe the teletext tel +User Interface: Yeah , text button , maybe there and there . And then the colour buttons , if we want it on . I don't find it very usable , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I don't uh {disfmarker} I don't like it . +User Interface: Uh I don't think it's fits in the the modern theme as well . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: and then yeah we saw the the pla display , in the the iPod . They can put the basic buttons , one , two , three , four . And uh f above ten . {vocalsound} And I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} That's on on the display . +User Interface: No no . That th there is no display there . But it's on the place of the display . And I think we should uh light this up much more than that part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So the focus is on these two parts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you don't see all the buttons you else need . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it sounds very difficult to use . Because um the volume and channel is on the on the the bottom of it . +User Interface: Uh well um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you can't use your thumb for it . +User Interface: This is how it is now . Um {disfmarker} Here uh {disfmarker} Well we have volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I think it is on uh on the bottom too . +Project Manager: down there . But it's not not the best best . +User Interface: Yeah . Well here we have also side scrolls . I dunno if we can use that . Do we want to use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , for volume . For volume , or a channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've I've got something of that uh too . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: For volume ? Well then we can even simplify it more . +Industrial Designer: Scroll . +User Interface: By just putting the volume on the side . +Project Manager: And the channels as well . +User Interface: And and just channel buttons here . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: But I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or uh maybe uh {disfmarker} The channel buttons are often used . And you can't use them now with your thumb , because the thing is not , it's not easy to control . +User Interface: Well . Yeah , well it's {disfmarker} Basically it's it's here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , m maybe we cho should put that on top , and buttons we we don't use on , in the bottom . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's better . +User Interface: They're on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just th th th other buttons like text T_V_ . Put that on the button bottom . +Industrial Designer: Because uh you can't hold it . You can't hold it th the control and push the buttons . +User Interface: You mean uh these to the low ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Except from the on-off button . +User Interface: Oh okay . Well , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I think w you'll use uh the switch channels buttons uh more often than the normal uh channel buttons , like one two three . So maybe we can put that on the bottom . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Maybe . I dunno , but yeah we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like zapping is just switching one channel at a time . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it's not easy if it's below . It's harder to zap . So I think uh it should be should be easy to {gap} . I think it's pretty standard , these rubber buttons on the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And uh if you don't light 'em up , they don't uh {vocalsound} you don't see 'em very good . +Industrial Designer: That's that's good , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's modern to light this area up , and to light this area up . So the focus gets on these parts and not on there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: But uh the position of course can be different . It's s We have to look uh what's easy to use , and how it's easier to use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can uh switch these to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I dunno if it l will look good , if you put those on t on the bottom half . +Industrial Designer: No , I think th the the top buttons are okay . They sh Those should be on top . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh we we can switch those two , +User Interface: Those two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And uh , yeah , you have to make sure it's easy to uh {disfmarker} Yes , it has to be big enough so you can hold it , right . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Well that's that's my findings . So uh my personal opinion is that we should go more modern look . M_P_ three player . And uh well um if we want to put in speech rec recognition or something , we {disfmarker} I don't think we should put it on top then . I think that , if we're gonna put in more technology , that you need to be able to uh switch it open . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's cool . +User Interface: To use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So if you put in uh speech recognition , you need so more uh many more buttons . Which won't look good on the front side I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: So that's something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have to keep it simple . +Project Manager: We have to decide this this lecture , or this this this uh fifty minutes , yeah , how it is gonna look . +User Interface: Yeah . What we're gonna do . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , the component design . I looked at uh some similar devices , and uh my own common knowledge . So uh this was on the web site . If you aim at a young public , you should use materials that are soft with primary colours like green , blue , red . So flashy kinda colours . Uh shapes should be curved , so round shapes . Not {disfmarker} Nothing square-like . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} Hmm , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well uh iPod is trendy . And it is well curved {gap} square . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Square . Like . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm is uh has round corners I think . +User Interface: Okay . So not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we shouldn't have too square corners and that kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Not uh the old uh box look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um sports and gaming device style characteristics . I don't know exactly what that means , but it should be , well yeah , popular kind of +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to put our Real Reaction logo as well on the on the {vocalsound} remote control . +Industrial Designer: looking , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So the colours also . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have ha to ma make it in black , black , yellow . +User Interface: Black yellow control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe the sides in yellow and the the the top in black . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm n Not that weird , because we definitely want to make it kind of flashy , to attract a young public . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} I don't think the the colours black and yellow go well together . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We make i Maybe you can put yellow on the side and black on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: No , okay . That's a that's a sen That's just a matter of tastes , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have to use uh kind of flashy colours , I think . +User Interface: Uh can't we use um different uh fron uh fronts , with all with the the logo on it ? Can we do that ? So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's cool . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like fronts in in red and yellow and blue +Project Manager: And still trans +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Still still transparent . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But with all with logo on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well this is a remote control , a very old one . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the components . The case has just a {disfmarker} Here's black . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make it som Maybe we have to make it from soft material . Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . But anyways uh it should be transparent . We decided that , huh ? +User Interface: Well one of the options . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} Just like a mobile phone , you can make um different fronts on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So you can just replace them I think . That was the idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: or just uh release one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just give five with them , just in a box . {vocalsound} Five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Or just uh sell different ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but y you could you could make 'em uh uh like blue and transparent . +Project Manager: Yeah . Cool . +Industrial Designer: So you can still th look through it . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the buttons . Normal rubber I think . Like normal ordinary buttons . Soft . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I uh I dunno . +Project Manager: It it could be like a Nokia , like {gap} plastic . +User Interface: A more {disfmarker} Yeah , just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's better prob +Industrial Designer: With the hard hard buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think uh rubber really has an odd look . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . The the the new uh new modern uh remote controls , uh the buttons are part of the {vocalsound} uh the style , I think is part of the remote control itself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it's one uh a one uh out of one shape . Uh it's n doesn't {disfmarker} Is {vocalsound} uh a button uh um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do you say it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's all on one level . +Marketing: It it didn't it i it don't come out of the {vocalsound} on the background . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on one level . +Marketing: It is in uh the c a remote control uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know what you mean . So we have to keep it on the one level . Like th the top it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like mobile phones . Like uh the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's chos So that should be hard plastic . Then the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno what uh kind of material it is . +Industrial Designer: I think . Or maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe you can m make a uh round fluff or soft material . Just only the basic uh +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: basic remote control from normal plastic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the rounds of it from softer s +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the L_E_D_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: The normal infrared L_E_D_ I think s sufficient . And back light L_E_D_s . +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: But I think we have to make the case transparent , otherwise the back light won't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y i if you {disfmarker} The numbers could be can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh you can just make them around the buttons uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Or it runs the whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can still make it transparent . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They can choose . +User Interface: Yeah , you can halfs transparent , +Industrial Designer: Or no +User Interface: or just that it's comes out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Good . And in green colour , the back lights +User Interface: Different , I think , also . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Blue or red . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Whatever you want it , I think . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh depends on the colour of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can't choo You can't choose it when you buy it . +Marketing: Uh i {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to choose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but I think there are multiple colour LEDs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I I know {disfmarker} I dunno . Is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but can you change it if you already bought the the remote control ? +User Interface: Yeah , it can . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: 'Cause this a mo mib uh mobile phone as well . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's it's more impor more expensive . +Project Manager: Maybe put some different ones in it . Doesn't matter . It's just {disfmarker} No , just some LED . +User Interface: I have the mo mi I have a blinking light on my phone . +Industrial Designer: I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I can change the colour of it . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . Just make it some different colours . Blue , red and green , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Maybe it's too expensive , but it {disfmarker} I th I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , we don't put put in any fancier technology yet . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then uh some more technical things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know what it is , but it should be there {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um this is the normal circuit board , like a chip board in in a lot of uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to hurry up a bit , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} So we d we just need this and {vocalsound} this transistors and resonators . There's all these kind of things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um they they basically said that that's almost the same on any uh remote controls . +User Interface: I'm sure we can fit in . +Industrial Designer: So I guess we j we just need that . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what they do or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Okay yeah , +User Interface: We just {disfmarker} +Marketing: you can you can change {disfmarker} Yeah . No . +Industrial Designer: Nah , but they just said we need it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the battery contacts , like normal batteries ca you can put in . +Project Manager: Yeah , a recharger maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , we have to make sure to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: We still want to have a recharger , don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that still the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it i We don't wanna have a ar an {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Accu . +Project Manager: A recha Oh no . Uh {disfmarker} Battery . It's just a battery . Yeah . +User Interface: Re recharger . Base station . +Industrial Designer: Y uh just just batteries , rechargeable batteries . +User Interface: Yeah , batteries . Yes , rechargeable batteries , I think's best . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Not a separate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , just rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Okay . And uh a chip , that's this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Then uh I received some possibilities . Um for the energy source we can use batteries or a kinetic uh {disfmarker} Like with the pulse watch . So it operates on your wrist kinda . +Marketing: Ah cool . Okay . +Project Manager: But normally you put a remote control on the table or on the couch . +User Interface: So if you hold it , it gets powered . +Industrial Designer: If you hold it . Yeah , I don't think it will work , and {disfmarker} Or we can also use solar cells . But you mostly use it indoors , +Project Manager: It's dark in the room . No . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's just batteries , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's cheaper {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and we can use the home station kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um cases , flat , so uncurved . Uh two D_ curved is um like front to the back . And three D_ curved is also in depth . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's possible . Uh but with three D_ uh curved uh remote controls , we must use rubber buttons . +User Interface: Mm . So +Industrial Designer: So we can't use the flat buttons . +User Interface: we need uh two D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think . Um these kinda materials can be used . +Project Manager: But it doesn't really matter , we just make it plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so too . +Project Manager: The scroll wheels , that's cool . That's for the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , scroll wheels um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . We can use multiple scroll wheels , w if we want to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think just the volume is enough . +User Interface: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} For channels it's not handy , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because you scroll too fast . +Industrial Designer: And uh the L_C_D_ . So we need uh the expensive , most expensive chip , if we use an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's an opportunity . Just skip it . Because we don't have time for that to to put it in . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then we we use m must use the second most expensive chip . So th so the regular chip . Because we use scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} Yeah , that was it I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh are are we using a a rubber case , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just sk +Industrial Designer: We haven't decided yet . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to skip that one as well . It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I don't think a rubber case looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L +Marketing: Uh but we have to do something about the trend . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i it it should be soft . You said so ? +Marketing: The trend is uh spong spongy uh and uh fruit or fresh fresh . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . That {disfmarker} Uh fruit and veg , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh now we have nothing about uh about those those two . +User Interface: Yeah , fruit and veg can be just the covers . +Marketing: Uh yeah i Just {disfmarker} Just on front . +User Interface: So you can {gap} the the spongy {disfmarker} yeah , I dunno . I can't imagine a soft remote control . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Neith uh I don't like it uh neither . +Project Manager: No . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just can't imagine it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So just hard plastic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Titanium . It's mentioned here uh . +Industrial Designer: Titanium , uh I think it's too expensive . +Project Manager: But maybe the form has to be a bit different . Not the sh the square form . Just a bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: more rounded . +Industrial Designer: you can make it curved or mm round . But just in two D_ , not in depth . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} We have to decide which one we're going to choose from these . What exactly . Because we have to know it . So the energy uh is the recharger . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: We already know that . Just a normal battery . +User Interface: Yeah . We have batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . The chip-on-print is a normal one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Regular . +Project Manager: Okay , the case is just a plastic one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah , the chip is the the regular one . +Project Manager: Yeah , re Yeah , regular . Yeah , okay . Yeah , regular . +Industrial Designer: You have the simple one , regular and advanced . So it's b should be regular uh the second . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think I'll just check it . +Project Manager: And we need a plastic case , with a scroll wheel . {gap} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: That's pretty much it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And a flashy light . +User Interface: User interface concept . +Project Manager: So uh I'm not sure . But we do I don't know if we expected to draw on this one at this moment . But {gap} +User Interface: I dunno either . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Or should we do it in the next meeting ? +User Interface: Uh I_D_ and U_I_D_ work together on prototype drawing on smart board . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's for the next one . +Industrial Designer: So we should did it here ? +Project Manager: That's for th +User Interface: So we're staying here ? +Project Manager: Uh that {disfmarker} I think that's the next next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Or should we do it in the next meeting ? Okay . +Project Manager: But you definitely get a specific instruction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so now we're ka thirty minutes alone again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But th think about something that's more rounded . Just {disfmarker} And more {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh I dunno . But the iPod and etcetera , M_P_ three players , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Uh a bit . Just just on the top or on the bottom . +User Interface: Just a bit cur Okay , I'll see if I can see any of those . +Project Manager: Maybe the wheel can be uh like uh like this . O um if you draw it like this , you get a {disfmarker} What the fuck is it ? {vocalsound} Okay . Mm {disfmarker} Doesn't work . {vocalsound} You see what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Project Manager: If I draw here {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It draws about four centimetres lower than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: Nah okay . Just {gap} . Maybe you can make it like this . And this is all the wheel for volume . So that you just um {disfmarker} It's all rounded , so you can do uh turn this one . +Industrial Designer: Like a very big scroll-wheel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but just not on the top , but uh on the side of it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we {vocalsound} have this at the moment . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you'll get a a lot of uh volume changing when it's not wanted . +User Interface: Yeah , you {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'd have this . Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's a little problem , of course , as well . +Industrial Designer: I think it's probably better . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but maybe we can make a a plastic , so that you i if you like drop it , it won't change the volume . Only if you use your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe you just have to make it uh {disfmarker} That's not scrollable too easy . +Project Manager: Like this . And uh what's the channel choose ? Where do we uh put that ? Still on the bottom +Industrial Designer: I think in middle . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh wh what is the middle part ? +Project Manager: That's the numbers . +User Interface: Numbers , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think th the numbers should be in the bottom , and and the switch channel in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah , I agree as well . +Project Manager: It doesn't make a difference , if you put the s uh the switch channels on side of each other or on top of each other . +User Interface: Use the dz +Project Manager: Because you already have the volume here , so {disfmarker} You can also put it here one butt and the other one there . Next to each other . {gap} back and forth . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So you can also can put it all on the top , and this , you keep this empty . Because you have to hold it as well . +Industrial Designer: Or you could do the switch channel up button above the the numbers and switch channel down button below . +Project Manager: But that's not {gap} want to zap very quick , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh zapping is the highest priority . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Is this a opportunity , +User Interface: And then you use those uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or you don't want a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , of course uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I think we we should bu uh put 'em on top of each other , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Because then it's it's easy to know m if I push the the the up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But still the next {disfmarker} It's still the next one . Doesn't make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the top the top button is is like you switch channel up , and down button is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you put them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but fo from left to right is exactly the same . It ma it doesn't make a big difference . +User Interface: Yeah . I I think it's {disfmarker} It's it's obvious , I think . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I I think uh left to right is more often associated with volume , and top down is more with uh channel changing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's not not {disfmarker} It's not al uh always the same . +Project Manager: But it's exactly th +Industrial Designer: In uh {disfmarker} On most on most remote controls . +Marketing: Every remote control's uh different . +User Interface: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if we use that , they will probably have a long learning uh time . +Project Manager: I dunno . I {disfmarker} You already have the volume on the side , +User Interface: No , uh I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so you can't make it you can't ma make a mistake . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it's s so simple +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but that's for that's for you , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay I'll d I'll take a look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so hmm . What did {disfmarker} What else we have to discuss about ? I dunno . +User Interface: Think we need to work uh thirty minutes again ? +Marketing: Yeah , we have to care that it r uh looks really new . Because uh we still hold on to the uh ordinary uh uh square uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause wha what I see the only difference i i i in fact is that we use a scroll-wheel on the outside . +Project Manager: And the LED . +User Interface: No , you have uh {disfmarker} It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but i i it should be round in in shape . +User Interface: Uh the current uh controllers are all black and plastic . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to look at that image of the iPod . +Marketing: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: More that uh kind of style . +Marketing: And a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not not the old grey black {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Some some kind of bling bling uh mm can we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where you can put a ve Uh we have {disfmarker} If we do it like that we have below have we uh a lot of room to put a nice logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh the logo was has to be on there . Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Uh and how many uh fronts uh fronts do we put on the market then ? Uh five or something ? +Project Manager: Yeah , five . Let's give five . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Or more or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can buy separate ones and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And um uh {vocalsound} uh buy the product . You buy , you get one . And uh basic . +User Interface: Yeah . Um +Marketing: Or you can choose one uh if you buy the project . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . That's your choice , I think huh . +Industrial Designer: No , tha that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So y you can put the bottom of the remote control in recharger ? Is that is that a good good opportunity ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So you could put it like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so top down . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah , you sl uh you let it slide in the docking station . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to design that w as well ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: The docking station ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: But th Yeah , that can be very simple . Least . +Marketing: Yeah , we can b It c it could be just just a square , just a packet . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a recharger . +User Interface: Yeah , just where you're around something . Li Yeah , we had one example . +Industrial Designer: But we have to make contacts on the on the remote control and the recharger as well . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Which w +Marketing: but that's a round one . Maybe we can choose then . +User Interface: Here you see one that's very round . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , okay . +User Interface: So I think that can be all kind of shapes . +Project Manager: But maybe you can just round up the corners a bit . That's all . +Industrial Designer: Of the remote control ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just round it up {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so y you don't want uh this uh like the iPod {gap} . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: More rounded . Yeah , I think it will just look like more like this one . Since it's {disfmarker} This is also rounded . +Project Manager: No , just just the corners . +User Interface: I think i +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah okay , tho those are al already a bit cornered . Mm {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can we can do all kinds of uh {disfmarker} As long as it isn is in two D_ we can use all kind of round shapes . +Project Manager: Shapes . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but then we have to think of something totally new . +Industrial Designer: Not in depth . Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , if if we want to make it kind of , yeah , new . +User Interface: I've uh {disfmarker} I had a lot of picture of old ones . And all curves have already been done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit annoying , isn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . What do we do wrong ? Hmm . Just just more like this and not uh a square . +User Interface: Yeah okay , yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we could do a lot of , lot more curving . I would do it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I know we can do a lot more , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like in this kind of shape or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's very annoying . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I dunno if it's handy . +User Interface: {gap} I think it will only look more like the old remote controls . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The olden the olden ones had looked like just a square thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . But uh I had a lot of pictures {disfmarker} Oh I can show you here {vocalsound} what the old ones look like . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Curves , curves . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You've more {gap} there as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It wasn't very small one . {gap} very simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That is for elderly . +Project Manager: So we have to make a decision , what kind of form it's gonna have t going to have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think if w My opinion . If we just uh take the iPod , and the same look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh light or just whatever colour , but the same light colours . And uh just with uh together with uh the back-lights b look will look very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No rubber buttons or something . Just together with the back-lights you'll get a totally new look . More like the M_P_ three player M_ um P_ M_ P_ three player . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have the scroll button inside . {gap} Okay . +User Interface: Yes . Just a simple scrollb +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But why do we have to round it on the t bottom then ? Of {disfmarker} Skip that one as well . +User Interface: Doesn't have to be . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , though that's a trend . If we want to make it . But yeah , I'm not a Trendwatcher , you are . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh the t the trend is +Project Manager: Rubber spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: spongy and fruity . +User Interface: Yeah . No . Spongy +Marketing: But yeah . +Industrial Designer: Spongeball kinda . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not not a lot of trends I uh I found uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have s still one minute left . So just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's okay if you just keep it a bit square . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , +Marketing: It {disfmarker} The th th +Industrial Designer: I d I don't know n something about ergonomic kind of fits-in-the-hand uh stuff . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I I think it's still for older people . You j still have older people . It's only annoying if it if it's like that f formed like that , like f Whatever . Just you have a normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we're we're aiming at a young public . +Marketing: There is one {disfmarker} There's just one overall important aspect is that we must make it fancy and it looks original , and I hope we can uh make it look not like the iPod itself . It must have uh uh uh a very different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} idea . But {vocalsound} you're {disfmarker} If you look at the way remote controls are now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But i it is it is it is already fancy . Because of the lights on the bottom of it . That's already fancy . +User Interface: And if you make it look like the iPod {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , they're all the same . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So that's already a very big change +Project Manager: Uh maybe maybe make the the mm the {vocalsound} wha what's it called uh scroll wheel . Make it in in yellow or something . Just like the colours of Real Reaction . +User Interface: compared to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Ye yeah . Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: Could . +Marketing: Uh yeah , but uh if you the f uh front , the scroll wheel will still uh be yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I think {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: It's right . +User Interface: Think the scroll wheel {vocalsound} won't be very big . Since if you put it uh somewhere , the chances that it will scroll are too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it will just be a small small scroll wheel . So it won't uh stick out much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the ones we are going to draw there . Maybe we have to ask uh to the the mm to her if it has {vocalsound} if it can work better than this . Because it doesn't work properly . So maybe you have to ask her . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Well , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: maybe we can just open images there , and I'll paint and paint . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . That's probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll be able to do a better job . +Marketing: If you set the pen yeah , he will draw here . Doesn't work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so just finish it . So we make it a bit like m that one probably . Yeah . Is that okay ? +Marketing: Yeah , I'll see it . +User Interface: Bu Yeah , I agree more like iPod {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , only the colour and the flashy light and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: We just we just skip the the the voca or was it the the speech recognition . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Speech . Yeah , do we s keep that ? Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or keep that ? It's okay . But you'd definitely need a +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: advanced chip . +User Interface: then it w {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , I don't know . Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we we have to build in a microphone and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's very easy . We already have uh the beeping of the {gap} home station , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and I do I don't know anything about that . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't receive any information on speech recognition , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh strange that I received {vocalsound} the information about that . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's hard . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the ma the main points I I I uh just said . We have to be original and uh technological innovative . Becau +Project Manager: Can we just put it speech recognition in it as well , +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay ? +User Interface: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ma +User Interface: shall we {gap} it open then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The function of that in there . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And we need a {disfmarker} Probably we need a uh advanced chip then . +Industrial Designer: Fine . Yeah , we probably do . +Project Manager: But it doesn't say anything about it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: does it ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any f information about the cost . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We started with information about the cost was now th +User Interface: I just I just received the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I have I have some some information about the cost . But just a about the chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And how much is the chip ? The the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , our division has developed a new speech recognition feature , the integrated programmable sample sensor simple speaker u unit . +Industrial Designer: Just in inexpensive or {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is a very small electronic unit , will give a standard answer after it recognise a question . +Marketing: And how how does it work ? Is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Doesn't say . Just {disfmarker} You say record , followed by your question sample , and after a few seconds the answer uh sample . Because uh {disfmarker} So it works like uh good morning remote control , and then the remote control says good morning . +Project Manager: It doesn't has to say anything . Just {disfmarker} You have to just talk to {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah uh th that's just {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it say does it say something back ? +Project Manager: Okay , we have to stop it now . So just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . Yeah , it {disfmarker} Well that's integrated in the chip , so if you use the speech recognition , that's in it . +Project Manager: Okay , that's a r That's that's a advanced {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But i it's a separate chip . +User Interface: I dunno , but if we use speech recognition , that will be in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know anything about this , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we just decide not to put it in , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Nah . +Project Manager: because it's too difficult . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it it would be would be a good feature feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we just put it in , because it's a good feature . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to stop now . +User Interface: No no worries about the cost , etcetera . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} +User Interface: And there's a chip in it that will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have to stop it now . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Fine . +","The team discusses the design of a new remote control, touching on various aspects such as appearance, functionality, and materials. They aim to produce a trendy, young-appealing product with a fancy look incorporating some new technology without an LCD or speech recognition due to cost concerns. They want a simple design, avoiding many buttons, and consider implementing a flashing light, volume, channel selection, on-off, mute, and text TV buttons. They discuss using different materials, including spongy textures, and the importance of a good grip. The remote should be easy to use and possibly have changeable fronts. They also explore marketing trends, with an emphasis on an original look-and-feel and technological innovation, even touching on the idea of speech recognition but are constrained by a budget of €12.50 per unit. They need to decide on many aspects and may consider adding advanced features like speech recognition if the cost allows it." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Alright . +Grad C: So are you {disfmarker} +Professor E: So . +Grad C: Are we going ? +Professor E: It is uh , must be February fifteenth . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yu I think the date 's written in there , yep . And actually if everyone could cross out the R - nine next to "" Session "" , and write MR eleven . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . We didn't have a front - end meeting today . +Grad C: And let 's remember also to make sure that one 's {comment} gets marked as unread , unused . +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: MR eleven . +Grad C: MR eleven . +Postdoc F: That sounds like a spy code . +Professor E: Mmm . OK . So . +Grad C: There 's lots of clicking I 'm sure as I 'm trying to get this to work {pause} correctly . +Professor E: Agenda . Any agenda items today ? +Grad C: I wanna talk a little bit about getting {disfmarker} how we 're gonna to get people to edit bleeps , parts of the meeting that they don't want to include . What I 've done so far , and I wanna get some opinions on , how to {disfmarker} how to finish it up . +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: I wanna ask about um , some aud audio monitoring on some of the {pause} um {pause} well some of the equipment . In particular , the {disfmarker} well uh , that 's just what I wanna ask . +Professor E: OK audio monitoring , Jane . +Postdoc F: Ba - based on some of the tran uh {disfmarker} i In listening to {pause} some of these meetings that have already been recorded there are sometimes big spikes on particular things , and in pact {disfmarker} in fact this one I 'm talking on is one of {disfmarker} of the ones that showed up in one of the meetings , +Grad C: Oh really . +Postdoc F: so I {disfmarker} +PhD B: "" Spikes "" , you mean like uh , instantaneous click type spikes , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Spikes ? +Grad C: Clicks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD B: Huh . +Postdoc F: And I don't know what the e electronics is but . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , I think it 's +PhD A: Touching . +Grad C: uh , it {disfmarker} it could be a number of things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: It could be touching and fiddling , and the other thing is that it could {disfmarker} the fact that it 's on a wired mike is suspicious . It might be a connector . +Postdoc F: Oh , OK . Well maybe {disfmarker} Then we don't really have to talk about that as an {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could try an experiment and say "" OK , I 'm about to test for spikes "" , +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I take that off the agenda . +PhD B: and then wiggle the thing there , and then go and when they go to transcribe it , it could , ask them to come and get you . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: "" Come get me when you transcribe this and see if there 's spikes . "" +Postdoc F: Oh that {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um . +Postdoc F: Well , OK . +PhD B: No I 'm just {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , were this a professional audio recording , {vocalsound} what we would do {disfmarker} {comment} what you would do is {disfmarker} in testing it is , you would actually do all this wiggling and make sure that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that things are not giving that kind of performance . And if they are , then they can't be used . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So . Um . Let 's see . I guess {pause} I would like to have a discussion about you know where we are on uh , recording , transcription you know , basically you know where we are on the corpus . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: And then um , the other thing which I would like to talk about which is a real meta - quest , I think , deal is , uh , agendas . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start with that actually . Uh , um . {vocalsound} Andreas brought up the fact that he would kinda like to know , if possible , what we were gonna be talking about because he 's sort of peripherally involved to this point , and if there 's gonna be a topic about {disfmarker} discussion about something that he uh strongly cares about then he would come and {disfmarker} And I think part of {disfmarker} part of his motivation with this is that he 's trying to help us out , in the {disfmarker} because of uh the fact that the meetings are {disfmarker} are tending to become reasonably large now on days when everybody shows up and so , he figures he could help that out by not showing {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and I 'm sure help out his own time . by not showing up if it 's a meeting that he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} So , uh in order {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think that this is a wish on his part . Uh . It 's actually gonna be hard because it seems like a lot of times uh things come up that are unanticipated and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: But um , we could try anyway , uh , do another try at coming up with the agenda uh , at some point before the meeting , uh , say the day before . +Grad C: Well maybe it would be a good idea for one of us to {pause} like on Wednesday , or Tuesday send out a reminder for people to send in agenda items . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK . You {disfmarker} you wanna volunteer to do that ? +Grad C: Sure . +Professor E: OK . Alright so we 'll send out agenda request . +Grad C: Let me +Professor E: Uh . +PhD B: That 'll be {disfmarker} I think that 'll help {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'll put that on my spare brain or it will not {pause} get done . +PhD B: That 'll help a lot , actually . +Professor E: Yeah , I have to tell you for the uh {disfmarker} for the admin meeting that we have , Lila does that um every time before an admin meeting . And uh , she ends up getting the agenda requests uh , uh ten minutes before the meeting . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {comment} But . Uh . {comment} But we can try . Maybe it 'll work . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe . Weirder things have happened . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I 'm wondering if he were to just , uh , specify particular topics , I mean . Maybe we 'd be able to meet that request of his a little more . +PhD B: I would {disfmarker} I would also guess that as we get more into processing the data and things like that there 'll be more things of interest to him . +Grad C: Well then {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Actually it {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} this maybe brings up another topic which is um {disfmarker} So we 're done with that topic . The other topic I was thinking of was the sta status on microphones and channels , and all that . +Grad C: Yeah , actually I {disfmarker} I was going to say we need to {pause} talk about that too . +Professor E: Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why don't we do that . +Grad C: OK . Um , the new microphones , the two new ones are in . Um . {pause} And they are being assembled as we speak , I hope . And I didn't bring my car today so I 'm gonna pick them up tomorrow . Um , and then the other question I was thinking about is {disfmarker} well , a couple things . First of all , if the other headsets are a lot more comfortable , we should probably just go ahead and get them . So we 'll have to evaluate that when they come in , +PhD A: +Grad C: and get people 's opinions on {disfmarker} on what they think of them . Um , then the other question I had is maybe we should get another wireless . Another wireless setup . I mean it 's expensive , but it does seem to be {pause} better than the wired . +Professor E: So how many channels do you get to have in a wireless setup ? +Grad C: Um , well , I 'm pretty sure that you can daisy - chain them together so what we would do is replace the wired mikes with wireless . So we currently have one base station with six wireless mike , possibility of six wireless receivers , and apparently you can chain those together . And so we could replace our wired mikes with wireless if we bought another base station and more wireless mikes . +Professor E: So , um . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} So , you know it 's still , it 's fifteen minus six . +Professor E: So let 's see we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? So we could have up to nine . +Professor E: And right now we can have up to six . +Grad C: Right . And we have five , we 're getting one more . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And it 's um , about nine hundred dollars for the base station , and then eight hundred per channel . +Professor E: Oh . So yeah so the only {disfmarker} Beyond the mike {disfmarker} the cost of the mikes the only thing is the base station that 's nine hundred dollars . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh , we should do it . +Grad C: OK . OK , so I 'll look into how you daisy - chain them and {disfmarker} and then just go ahead and order them . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: I don't quite understand how that {disfmarker} how that works , . If {disfmarker} So we 're not increasing the number of channels . OK . +Grad C: No , we 're just replacing the wired {disfmarker} the two wired that are still working , +PhD B: OK . I see . +Grad C: along with a couple of the wired that aren't working , one of the wired that 's not working , with a wireless . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Three wireds work , +Professor E: Basically we found {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I guess three wireds work , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . But we 've had more problems with that . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: And that sort of bypasses the whole {disfmarker} the whole Jimbox thing and all that . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: And so um , we {disfmarker} we seem to have uh , a reliable way of getting the data in , which is through the ra Sony radio mikes , as long as we 're conscious about the batteries . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That seems to be the key issue . +Grad C: Everyone 's battery OK ? +PhD B: I checked them this morning , they should be . +Grad C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} That 's the only thing with them . But the quality seems really good and {disfmarker} Um I heard from UW that they 're {disfmarker} they 're uh very close to getting their , uh setup purchased . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're buying something that you can just sort of buy off the shelf . +Grad C: Well we should talk to them about it because I know that SRI is also in the process of looking at stuff , and so , you know , what we should try to keep everyone {disfmarker} on the same page with that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: SRI , really ? +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Grad C: They got sa apparent Well , Maybe {pause} this needs to be bleeped out ? I have no clue . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know how much of it 's public . +Professor E: Probably we shouldn't {disfmarker} probably we shouldn't talk about funding stuff . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . But anyway there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh , uh other activities that are going on there and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and NIST and UW . So . Um . But {disfmarker} but yeah I thin I think that at least the message we can tell other people is that our experience is {disfmarker} is quite positive with the Sony , +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: uh , radio - mikes . Now the one thing that you have said that actually concerns me a little is you 're talking about changing the headsets meaning changing the connector , which means some hand - soldering or something , right ? +Grad C: Uh , no , we 're having the {disfmarker} them do it . +Professor E: No ? +Grad C: So it 's so hand - soldering it , but I 'm not doing it . +Professor E: Oh . +Grad C: So , they {disfmarker} they charge +Professor E: OK . Nothing against you and your hand - soldering +Grad C: right . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 've never seen my hand - soldering . But uh , a as I said they 're coming in . +Professor E: Uh , OK , so that 's being done professionally and {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: As professionally as I guess you can get it done . +Professor E: Well , it could {disfmarker} if they do a lot of it , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean i it 's just their repair shop . Right ? Their maintenance people . +Professor E: Well , we 'll see what it {disfmarker} it 's like . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} tha that can be quite good . Th - this {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . Good . Yeah . So let 's go with that . +Grad C: And , I mean we 'll see , tomorrow , you know , what it looks like . +Professor E: Uh , Yeah . So , um , uh , Dave isn't here but he was going to start working on some things with the digits . Uh , so he 'll be interested in what 's going on with that . I guess {disfmarker} Was {disfmarker} the decision last time was that the {disfmarker} the uh transcribers were going to be doing stuff with the digits as well ? Has that started , or is that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Uh , it would be to use his interface and I was going to meet with him today about that . +Grad C: Right , so , the decision was that Jane did not want the transcribers to be doing any of the paperwork . So I did the {disfmarker} all that last week . So all the {disfmarker} all the forms are now {pause} on the computer . And uh , then I have a bunch of scripts that we 'll read those and let the uh {pause} transcribers use different tools . And I just want to talk to Jane about how we transition to using those . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . So he has a nice set up that they {disfmarker} it w it will be efficient for them to do that . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll take too long . +Professor E: So anyway {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , you know , just uh , a matter of a few days I suspect . +Professor E: So anyway I think we {disfmarker} we have at least one uh , user for the digits once they get done , which will be Dave . +Grad C: Right . I 've already done five or six {pause} sets . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: So if he wanted to , you know , just have a few to start with , he could . You know , and I also have a bunch of scripts that will , like , generate P - files and run recognition on them also . +Professor E: Yeah , he might {disfmarker} he might be asking {disfmarker} Right . OK . Uh , is Dave {disfmarker} I don't know if Dave is on the list , if he 's invited to these meetings , uh if he knows . +Postdoc F: I don't tend to get an invitation myself for them even . +PhD A: No , no . +Grad C: Uh , we don't have a active one but I 'll make sure he 's on the list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Should we call him ? I mean is he {disfmarker} d is he definitely not available today ? +Professor E: I don't know . +Postdoc F: Should I call his office and see ? +PhD A: He was in . +Grad C: I mean , he 's still taking classes , so uh , he may well have conflicts . +Professor E: Uh , well i it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , he was in {pause} s +Postdoc F: He wasn't there at cof +Professor E: Yeah , so this might be a conflict for him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . Uh , so . +Grad C: Yeah didn't he say his signal - processing class was like {pause} Tuesdays and Thursdays ? +PhD A: I think he has a class . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . He might have . +Grad C: Oh well , whatever . +Grad D: You talking about David Gelbart ? +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . +Grad D: Yeah , I think he 's taking two twenty - five A which is now . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad D: So . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: OK . So , that 's why we 're not seeing him . OK . Uh , transcriptions , uh , beyond the digits , where we are , and so on . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor E: And the {disfmarker} and the recordings also , +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor E: just where we are . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , so um , should we {disfmarker} we don't wan wanna do the recording status first , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Well , we have about thirty - two hours uh as of , I guess a week and a half ago , so we probably now have about thirty - five hours . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} How much of that is digits ? It 's uh {disfmarker} that 's including digits , +Grad C: That 's including digits . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: I haven't separated it out so I have no clue how much of that is digits . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So anyway there 's at least probably thirty hours , or something of {disfmarker} There 's got to be more than thirty hour {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: Of {disfmarker} of non - digits ? +Professor E: i it couldn't {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Of non - digits . +Grad C: Yeah , absolutely . I mean , the digits don't take up that much time . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Postdoc F: OK , and the transcribers h I , uh , don't have the exact numbers , but I {pause} think it would come to about eleven hours that are finished uh , transcribing from them right now . The next step is to {disfmarker} that I 'm working on is to insure that the data are clean first , and then channelized . What I mean by clean is that they 're spell - checked , that the mark - up is consistent all the way throughout , and also that we now incorporate these additional conventions that uh , Liz requested in terms of um , um {pause} in terms of having a s a systematic handling of numbers , and acronyms which I hadn't been specific about . Um , for example , i they 'll say uh "" ninety - two "" . And you know , so how {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Nine two , +Postdoc F: e Exactly . +Grad C: right . +Postdoc F: So if you just say "" nine two "" , the {disfmarker} there are many s ways that could have been expressed . An - and I just had them {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , a certain number of them did put the words down , but now we have a convention which also involves having it followed by , um , a gloss th and things . +PhD B: You know , Jane ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , one suggestion and you may already be doing this , but I 've noticed in the past that when I 've gone through transcriptions and you know in {disfmarker} in order to build lexicons and things , if you um , just take all the transcriptions and separate them into words and then alphabetize them , {comment} a lot of times just scanning down that list you 'll find a lot of {pause} inconsistencies and mis +Grad C: Misspelled . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You 're talking about the type token frequency listings , and I use those too . Y you mean just uh {pause} on each {disfmarker} on each line there 's a one word right ? It 's one token from the {disfmarker} from the corpus . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , those are e extremely efficient and I and I {disfmarker} I agree that 's a very good use of it . +PhD B: Oh so you already have that , OK . +Postdoc F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a way {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} You know , the spell - check basically does that but {disfmarker} but in addition {disfmarker} yes , that 's {disfmarker} that 's exactly the strategy I wanna do in terms of locating these things which are you know colloquial spoken forms which aren't in the lexicon . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Cuz a lot of times they 'll appear next to each other , and uh , +Postdoc F: Exactly . And then you ca then you can do a s +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: i in alphabetized lists , they 'll appear next to each other and {disfmarker} and so it makes it easier . +Postdoc F: Absolutely . I agree . That 's a very good {disfmarker} that 's a very good uh , suggestion . And that was {disfmarker} that 's my strategy for handling a lot of these things , in terms of things that need to be glossed . I didn't get to that point but {disfmarker} So there are numbers , then there are acronyms , and then um , there 's a {disfmarker} he she wants the uh , actually a {disfmarker} an explicit marker of what type of comment this is , so i curly b inside the curly brackets I 'm gonna put either "" VOC "" for vocalized , like cough or like laugh or whatever , "" NONVOC "" for door - slam , and "" GLOSS "" for things that have to do with {disfmarker} if they said a s a spoken form with this {disfmarker} m this pronunciation error . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I already had that convention +PhD B: Oh that 's great . +Postdoc F: but I {disfmarker} I haven't been asking these people to do it systematically cuz I think it most {disfmarker} ha most efficiently handled by uh {disfmarker} by a {disfmarker} a filter . That was what I was always planing on . So that , you know you get a whole long list {disfmarker} exactly what you 're saying , you get a whole list of things that say "" curly bracket laugh curly bracket "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: then y you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you risk less error if you handle it by a filter , than if you have this transcriber ch laboriously typing in sort of a VOC space , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: so man So many ways that error prone . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Postdoc F: So , um , {vocalsound} um I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going to convert that via a filter , into these tagged uh , subcategorized comments , and same thing with you know , we see you get a subset when you do what you 're saying , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: you end up with a s with uh , you 're collapsing across a frequency you just have the tokens +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and you can um , have a filter which more efficiently makes those changes . But the numbers and acronyms have to be handled by hand , because , you know I mean , jus +Grad C: You don't know what they could be . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah now TIMIT 's clear um {pause} and PLP is clear but uh there are things that are not so well known , in {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or have variant {disfmarker} u u uses like the numbers you can say "" nine two "" or you can say "" ninety - two "" , +Grad C: So how are you doing the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and uh I 'd handle the numbers individually . +Grad C: How are you doing the uh , acronyms so if I say PZM what would it appear on the transcript ? +Postdoc F: It would be separate {disfmarker} The letters would be separated in space +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc F: and potentially they 'll have a curly bracket thing afterwards e but I 'm not sure if that 's necessary , clarifying what it is , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so gloss of {pause} whatever . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: I don't know if that 's really necessary to do that . Maybe it 's a nice thing to do because of it then indicating this is uh , a step away from i indicating that it really is intentional that those spaces are there , and indicating why they 're there to indicate that it 's uh {vocalsound} the you know , {comment} uh enumerated , or i +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: it 's not a good way of saying {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {vocalsound} specific uh way of stating these {disfmarker} these letters . +Grad C: Right . So it sounds good . +Postdoc F: And so anyway , the clean {disfmarker} those are those things and then channelized is to then um , get it into this multichannel format . And at that point then it 's ready for use by Liz and Don . But that 's been my top priority {disfmarker} beyond getting it tanel channelized , the next step is to work on tightening up the boundaries of the time bins . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: And uh , Thilo had a {disfmarker} e e a breakthrough with this {disfmarker} this last week in terms of getting the channel - based um uh s s speech - nonspeech segmentation um , up and running and I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't been able to use that yet cuz I 'm working s re this is my top priority {disfmarker} get the data clean , and channelized . +PhD A: I actually gave +Grad C: Have you also been doing spot checks , Jane ? +Postdoc F: Oh yes . +Grad C: Okay , good . +Postdoc F: Well you see that 's part of the cleaning process . I spent um actually um I have a segment of ten minutes that was transcribed by two of our transcribers , +Grad C: Oh good . Good . +Postdoc F: and I went through it last night , it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost spooky how similar these are , word for word . And there are some differences in commas cuz commas I {disfmarker} I left them discretion at commas . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: Uh {disfmarker} and so because it 's not part of our st of our ne needed conventions . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And um , and {disfmarker} so they 'll be a difference in commas , but it 's word - by - word the same , in {disfmarker} in huge patches of the data . And I have t ten minute stretch where I can {disfmarker} where I can show that . And {disfmarker} and sometimes it turns out that one of these transcribers has a better ear for technical jargon , and the other one has a better ear for colloquial speech . So um , the one i i the colloquial speech person picked up "" gobbledy - gook "" . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And the other one didn't . And on this side , this one 's picking up things like "" neural nets "" and the one that 's good on the sp o on th the vocabulary on the uh colloquial didn't . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: When {disfmarker} for the person who missed "" gobbledy - gook "" what did they put ? +Postdoc F: It was an interesting approximation , put in parentheses , cuz I have this convention that , i if they 're not sure what it was , they put it in parentheses . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc F: So they tried to approximate it , but it was {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh good . +Postdoc F: it was spelled GABBL {disfmarker} +PhD B: Sort of how it sounds . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . More of an attempt to {disfmarker} I mean apparently it was very clear to her that these {disfmarker} the a this {disfmarker} this was a sound {disfmarker} these are the sounds , +Grad C: It was a technical term that she didn't recognize , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Yeah . But she knew that she didn't know it . Maybe it was a technical ter exactly . But she {disfmarker} even though her technical perception is just really {disfmarker} uh you know I 've {disfmarker} I 'm tempted to ask her if she 's taken any courses in this area or if she 's taken cognitive science courses +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc F: then cuz "" neural nets "" and {disfmarker} oh she has some things that are {disfmarker} oh "" downsampled "" , she got that right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And some of these are rather {pause} uh unexpected . +Grad C: Obscure , yeah . +Postdoc F: But ch ten solid uh {disfmarker} m ch s chunk of ten solid minutes where they both coded the same data . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and again the main track that you 're working with is elev eleven hours ? +Postdoc F: And um {disfmarker} +Professor E: Is that right ? +Postdoc F: Yes exactly . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . +Postdoc F: And that 's part of this {disfmarker} Eleven hours . +Professor E: Is that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} that including digits ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes it is . +Professor E: So let 's say roughly {pause} ten hours or so of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean it 's probably more than that but {disfmarker} but with {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of non - digits . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 'd be more than that because I {disfmarker} my recollection is the minutes {disfmarker} that da digits don't take more than half a minute . Per person . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: But um {pause} the {disfmarker} the total set that I gave them is twelve hours of tape , +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: But they haven't gotten to the end of that yet . +Professor E: Oh , I see . +Postdoc F: So they 're still working {disfmarker} some of them are {disfmarker} Two of them are still working on completing that . Yeah . +PhD B: Boy , they 're moving right along . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . They are . Mm - hmm . They 're very efficient . There 're some who have more hours that they devote to it than others . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's the deal with {disfmarker} with your {disfmarker} +PhD A: The channel u thing ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , it 's just uh , I ran the recognizer {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} {comment} speech - nonspeech detector on different channels and , it 's just in uh {disfmarker} in this new multi - channel format and output , and I just gave one {disfmarker} one meeting to {disfmarker} to Liz who wanted to {disfmarker} to try it for {disfmarker} for the recognizer +Professor E: Oh , I see . +PhD A: as uh , apparently the recognizer had problems with those long chunks of speech , which took too much memory or whatever , +Professor E: Right . +PhD A: and so {pause} she {disfmarker} she will try that I think +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm working on it . So , I hope {disfmarker} +Grad C: Is this anything different than the HMM system you were using before ? +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: No . Uh , I {pause} mmm , use some {disfmarker} some different features but not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: The basic thing is this HMM base . +Grad C: So there 's still no {disfmarker} no knowledge using different channels at the same time . +PhD A: There is some , uh as the energy is normalized across channels +Grad C: You know what I mean ? Across all of them . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So . But basically that 's one of the main changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . What are some of the other features ? Besides the energy ? You said you 're trying some different features , or something . +PhD A: Oh I just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mmm , I just use um our loudness - based things now as they {disfmarker} before there were {disfmarker} they were some in {disfmarker} in the log domain and I {disfmarker} I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Cu - Cube root ? +PhD A: Yeah . To {disfmarker} No , I changed this to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the loudness thingy with the {disfmarker} with the +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Ah . +PhD A: how do you call it ? I 'm not sure . With the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: Fletcher Munson ? No . +PhD A: I 'm not sure about the term . +Professor E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Uh , I 'll look it up . And say it to you . +Professor E: Yeah , alright . +PhD A: Uh , OK , and {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's basically the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing . Yeah , and I {disfmarker} and I tried t to normalize uh {disfmarker} uh the features , there 's loudness and modified loudness , um , within one channel , +Professor E: OK . +PhD A: because they 're , {vocalsound} yeah to {disfmarker} to be able to distinguish between foreground and background speech . And it works quite well . But , not always . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: Good . +Professor E: Um , let 's see . I think the uh {disfmarker} Were {disfmarker} were you basically done with the transcription part ? So I guess the next thing is this uh {disfmarker} bleep editing . +Grad C: Right . So the {disfmarker} The idea is that we need to have {disfmarker} We need to provide the transcripts to every participant of every meeting to give them an opportunity to bleep out sections they don't want . So I 've written a bunch of tools that will generate web pages , uh with the transcription in it so that they can click on them and piece {disfmarker} pieces and they can scroll through and read them , and then they can check on each one if they want it excluded . And then , it 's a form , HTML form , so they can submit it and it will end up sending me email with the times that they want excluded . And so , uh , some of the questions on this is what do we do about the privacy issue . And so I thought about this a little bit and I think the best way to do it is every participant will have a password , +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: a single password . Each person will have a single password , user name and password . And then each meeting , we 'll only allow the participants who were at that meeting to look at it . And that way each person only has to remember one password . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I can't help but wonder if this is maybe a little more elaborate than is needed . I mean if people have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for me I would actually want to have some pieces of paper that had the transcription and I would sort of flip through it . And then {pause} um {pause} if I thought it was OK , I 'd say "" it 's OK "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And , I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean it depends how this really ends up working out , but I guess my thought was that the occasion of somebody wondering whether something was OK or not and needing to listen to it was gonna be extremely rare . +Grad C: Right , I mean so th th th the fact that you could listen to it over the web is a minor thing that I had already done for {pause} other reasons . +Professor E: OK . +Grad C: And so that {disfmarker} that 's a minor part of it , I just wanted some web interface so that people {disfmarker} you didn't actually have to send everyone the text . So m what my intention to do is that as the transcripts become ready , um {pause} I would take them , and generate the web pages and send email to every participant or contact them using the contact method they wanted , and just uh , tell them , "" here 's the web page "" , um , "" you need a password "" . So th th question number one is how do we distribute the passwords , and question number two is how else do we wanna provide this information if they want it . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} I think what I was sort of saying is that if you just say {vocalsound} "" here is a {disfmarker} here is {disfmarker} "" I mean this maybe it sounds paleolithic but {disfmarker} but I just thought if you handed them some sheets of paper , that said , uh , "" here 's what was said in this transcription is it OK with you ? and if it is , here 's this other sheet of paper that you sign that says that it 's OK "" . +Grad C: I think that um there are a subset of people who will want printouts that we can certainly provide . +Professor E: And then they 'd hand it back to you . +Grad C: But certainly I wouldn't want a printout . These are big , and I would much rather be {pause} ha be able to just sit and leaf through it . +Professor E: You find it easier to go through a large {disfmarker} I mean how do you read books ? +Grad C: Well I certainly read books by hand . But for something like this , I think it 's easier to do it on the web . +Professor E: Really ? I mean , it {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz you 're gonna get , you know , if I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in a bunch of meetings and I don't wanna get a stack of these . I wanna just be able to go to {disfmarker} go to the web site {comment} and visit it as I want . +Professor E: Going to a web site is easy , but flipping through a hundred pounds {disfmarker} a hundred pages of stuff is not easy on the web . +Grad C: Well , I don't think it 's that much harder than , paper . So . +Professor E: Really ? +Postdoc F: I have one question . So are you thinking that um the person would have a transcript and go strictly from the transcript ? Because I {disfmarker} I do think that there 's a benefit to being able to hear the tone of voice and the {disfmarker} +Professor E: So here 's the way I was imagining it , and maybe I 'm wrong , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: but the way I imagined it was that um , the largest set of people is gonna go "" oh yeah , I didn't say anything funny in that meeting just go ahead , where 's the {disfmarker} where 's the release ? "" And then there 'll be a subset of people , right ? {disfmarker} OK there 's {disfmarker} I mean think of who it is we 've been recording mostly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: OK there 'll be a subset of people , who um , will say uh "" well , yeah , I really would like to see that . "" And for them , the easiest way to flip through , if it 's a really large document , I mean unless you 're searching . Searching , of course , should be electronic , but if you 're not {disfmarker} so if you provide some search mechanism you go to every place they said something or something like that , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but see then we 're getting more elaborate with this thing . Um if {disfmarker} if uh you don't have search mechanisms you just sort of have this really , really long document , I mean whenever I 've had a really , really long document that it was sitting on the web , I 've always ended up printing it out . I mean , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're not necessarily gonna be sitting at the desk all the time , you wanna figure you have a train ride , and there 's all these situations where {disfmarker} where I {disfmarker} I mean , this is how I was imagining it , anyway . And then I figured , that out of that group , there would be a subset who would go "" hmm you know I 'm really not sure about this section here , "" and then that group would need it {disfmarker} S It seems like i if I 'm right in that , it seems like you 're setting it up for the most infrequent case , rather than for the most frequent case . So that uh , now we have to worry about privacy , +Grad C: Well , no fre for the most {disfmarker} +Professor E: we have to worry about all these passwords , for different people +Grad C: For the most frequent case they just say {pause} "" it 's OK "" and then they 're done . And I think {pause} almost everyone would rather do that by email than any other method . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The other thing too is it seems like {disfmarker} +Professor E: Um , yeah , that 's true . +Postdoc F: Go ahead . +Grad C: I mean , cuz you don't have to visit the web page if you don't want to . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: I guess {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess we don't need their signature . I guess an email OK is alright . +Grad C: Oh that was another thing I {disfmarker} I had assumed that we didn't need their signature , that it {disfmarker} that an email approval was sufficient . But {pause} I don't actually know . +PhD B: Are {disfmarker} are people going to be allowed to bleep out sections of a meeting where they weren't speaking ? +Grad C: Yes . If someone feels strongly enough about it , then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think they should be allowed to do that . +Postdoc F: I also {disfmarker} mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that means other people are editing what you say ? +Professor E: Uh {pause} I don't know about that . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't know if I like that . +Grad C: Well , the only other choice is that the person would say "" no , don't distribute this meeting at all "" , and I would rather they were able to edit out other people then just say "" don't distribute it at all "" . +Professor E: But th what they signed in the consent form , was something that said you can use my voice . +Grad C: Well , but if {disfmarker} if someone is having a conversation , and you only bleep out one side of it , that 's not sufficient . +Professor E: Right ? Yeah . Yeah , but that 's our decision then . Right ? +Grad C: Um , I don't think so . I mean , because if I object to the conversation . +Professor E: I think it is . +Grad C: If I say "" we were having a conversation , and I consider that conversation private , "" and I consider that your side of it is enough for other people to infer , I wanna be able to bleep out your side . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} I agree that the consent forms were {disfmarker} uh , I cons agree with what Adam 's saying , that {vocalsound} um , the consent form did leave open this possibility that they could edit things which they found offensive whe whether they said them or didn't say them . +Professor E: I see . OK , well , if that 's what it said . +Postdoc F: And the other thing is from the standpoint of the l of the l I 'm not a law lawyer , but it strikes me that {vocalsound} uh , we wouldn't want someone to say "" oh yes , I was a little concerned about it but {vocalsound} it was too hard to access "" . So I think it 's kind of nice to have this facility to listen to it . Now {disfmarker} in terms of like editing it by hand , I mean I think it 's {disfmarker} i some people would find that easier to specify the bleep part by having a document they edited . But {disfmarker} but it seems to me that sometimes um , you know i if a person had a bad day , and they had a tone in their voice that they didn't really like , you know it 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be able to listen to it and be sure that that was OK . +Grad C: I mean I can certainly provide a printable version if people want it . Um . +Professor E: Um {pause} I mean it 's also a mixture of people , I mean some people are r do their work primarily by sitting at the computer , flipping around the web , and others do not . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: Others would consider it {disfmarker} this uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of skills that they would have to gain . You know ? +Grad C: Well I think most of the people in the meetings are the former . +Professor E: It depends on what meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +PhD B: So far . +Grad C: So . +Professor E: In the meetings so far , yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor E: But we 're trying to expand this , right ? +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I actually think that paper is the more universal thing . +Grad C: And that {disfmarker} Well , but if they want to print it out that 's alright . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: I think everyone in the meeting can access the web . +Professor E: No , I think we have to be able to print it out . It 's not just if they want to print it out . I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK , so does that mean that I can't use email ? Or what ? +Postdoc F: Cuz you could send it through email you 're thinking . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I th +Grad C: Well , I don't think I {disfmarker} +Professor E: well {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} there was this {disfmarker} +Grad C: well I don't think we can send the text through email because of the privacy issues . +Professor E: No . +Postdoc F: Good . For security ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK good . +Professor E: Right . +Grad C: Um . So giving them , you think a web site to say , "" if you wanna print it out here it is "" , is not sufficient ? +Postdoc F: Good point . +PhD A: Yeah . I +Professor E: Certainly for everybody who 's been in the meetings so far it would be sufficient . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm just thinking for people that that 's not sufficient for , what {disfmarker} the only sufficient thing would be for me to walk up to them and hand it to them . +Professor E: I 'm just wondering about {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: You could mail it to them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Get an a mailing address . +Grad C: Equivalent . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I think it 's easier to drop in the box . +PhD A: Just put the button on {disfmarker} on the web page which say "" please send me the {disfmarker} the scripts "" . +Grad C: That 's right . +Postdoc F: Oh that 's interesting . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: What um {disfmarker} When you display it on the web page , what are {disfmarker} what are you showing them ? Utterances , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so can they bleep within an utterance ? +Grad C: No . Whole utterances only . +PhD B: Whole utterances . +Grad C: And that was just convenience for my sake , that it 's uh , uh it would end up being fairly difficult to edit the transcripts if we would do it at the sub - utterance level . Because this way I can just delete an entire line out of a transcript file rather than have to do it by hand . +Professor E: There 's another aspect to this which maybe {disfmarker} is part of why this is bothering me . Um , I think you 're really trying very hard to make this as convenient as possible for people to do this . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: I mean that 's why I did the web form , because for me that would be my most convenient . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understand . +PhD B: I know where you 're going . +Professor E: I think that 's the bad idea . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor E: See because you 're gon you 're {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Really . You 're gonna end up with all these little patchy things , whereas really what we want to do is have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the bias towards letting it go . Because nob you know it {disfmarker} There was a {disfmarker} one or twi once or twice , in the re in the meetings we 've heard , where somebody said something that they might be embarrassed by , but overall people are talking about technical topics . Nobody 's gonna get hurt . Nobody 's being l libeled . You know , this is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're covering {disfmarker} We 're playing the lawyer 's game , and we 're playing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're looking for the extreme case . If we really orient it towards that extreme case , make it really easy , we 're gonna end up encouraging a headache . That {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} I 'm sort of psyching myself out here , I {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I guess I don't see having a few phrases here and there in a meeting being that mu much of a headache , bleeped out . +Professor E: but I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: So . +PhD B: I think what Morgan 's saying is the easier it is , the more is gonna be bleeped . +Professor E: but i And {disfmarker} and it really depends on what kind of research you 're doing . I think some researchers who are gonna be working with this corpus years from now are really gonna be cursing the fact that there 's a bunch of stuff in there {comment} that 's missing from the dialogue . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know , it depends on the kind of research they 're doing , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: but it might be , uh {pause} it might be really a {disfmarker} a pain . And , you know where it 's really gonna hurt somebody , in some way {disfmarker} the one who said it or someone who is being spoken about , {comment} we definitely want to allow the option of it being bleeped out . But I really think we wanna make it the rare incidence . And {disfmarker} and uh , I am just a little worried about making it so easy for people to do , and so much fun ! {vocalsound} that they 're gonna go through and bleep out stuff . +Postdoc F: So much fun . +Professor E: and they can bleep out stuff they don't like too , right from somebody else , as you say , you know , so "" well I didn't like what he said . "" +Grad C: Well I don't see any way of avoiding that . I mean , we have to provi we have promised that we would provide them the transcript and that they can remove parts that they don't like . So that the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . No , no , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} +Grad C: The only question is {disfmarker} +Professor E: You - you 've talked me into that , but I {disfmarker} I just think that we should make it harder to do . +Grad C: The problem is if it 's harder for them it 's also harder for me . Whereas this web interface , I just get email , it 's all formatted , it 's all ready to go and I can just insert it . +Professor E: So maybe you don't give them access to the web interface unless they really need it . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so +Postdoc F: Well I guess {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor E: I 'm sorry {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} So maybe this is a s a way out of it . +Postdoc F: Hmm . +Professor E: You 've provided something that 's useful for you to do {disfmarker} handle , and useful for someone else if they need it . But I think the issue of privacy and ease and so forth should be that uh , they get access to this if they really need it . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you 're saying the {disfmarker} the sequence would be more like first Adam goes to the contact lists , contacts them via whatever their preferred method is , to see if they want to review the meeting . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: And then if they don't , you 're done . If they do , then he provides them access to the {disfmarker} the web site . +Grad C: Well , to some extent I have to do that anyway because as I said we have to distribute passwords . +Professor E: W w +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} a printed - out form . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , +Professor E: y but you don't necessarily have to distribute passwords is what I 'm saying . +Grad C: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Only if they want it . +Grad C: what I 'm saying is that I can't just email them the password because that 's not secure . So they have to call me and ask . +Professor E: No , no , no . But you aren't necessarily giving them {disfmarker} Right . But {disfmarker} we don't even necessarily need to end up distributing passwords at all . +PhD A: +Grad C: Well , we do because of privacy . We can't just make it openly available on the web . +Professor E: No , no . You 're missing the point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: We 're {disfmarker} We 're trying i We 're trying to make it less of an obvious just l l l l uh fall off a log , to do this . +Postdoc F: Not everyone gets a password , unless they ask for it . +Professor E: Right ? So th so what I would see , is that first you contact them and ask them if they would like to review it for to check for the {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor E: not just for fun , OK ? but to {disfmarker} to check this for uh things that they 're worried about having said or if they 're willing to just send an approval of it , at {disfmarker} from their memory . Um {disfmarker} and , uh , and we should think carefully actually we should review {disfmarker} go through how that 's worded , OK ? Then , if someone uh {disfmarker} wants to review it , uh , and I know you don't like this , but I 'm offering this as a suggestion , is that {disfmarker} is that we then give them a print out . And then if they say that "" I have a potential problem with these things , "" then , you {disfmarker} you say "" OK well you might wanna hear this in context to s think if you need that , "" you issue them a password , i in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} the problem with what you 're suggesting is it 's not just inconvenient for them , it 's inconvenient for me . Because that means multiple contacts every time {disfmarker} for every single meeting every time anyone wants anything . I would much prefer to have all be automatic , they visit the web site if they want to . Obviously they don't have to . +Professor E: I know you 'd prefer it , but the proble +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor E: we have {disfmarker} +Grad C: So I think you 're thinking people are going to arbitrarily start bleeping and I just don't think that 's gonna happen . +Professor E: there 's a problem with it . +Postdoc F: I 'm also concerned about the spirit of the {disfmarker} of the informed consent thing . Cuz I think if they feel that uh , it 's {disfmarker} I th I th You know , if it turns out that something gets published in this corpus that someone really should have eliminated and didn't detect , then it could have been because of their own negligence that they didn't pursue that next level and get the password and do that , um , but {disfmarker} but they might be able to argue "" oh well it was cumbersome , and I was busy and it was gonna take me too much time to trace it down "" . So it could that the burden would come back onto us . So I 'm a little bit worried about uh , making it harder for them , from the legal standpoint . +Professor E: Well you can go too far in that direction , and you need to find somewhere between I think , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad C: It seems to me that sending them email , saying "" if you have an O - OK reply to this email and say OK , +Professor E: because {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Grad C: If you have a problem with it contact me and I 'll give you a password "" , seems like is a perfectly , reasonable compromise . And if they want a printout they can print it out themselves . +Postdoc F: Or we could print it up for them , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I mean we could offer that {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there 's uh , another aspect to that and that is that in the informed consent form , um , my impression is that they {disfmarker} that we offered them at the very least that they definitely would have access to the transcript . And {disfmarker} and I ha +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know that there 's a chance of really skipping that stage . I mean I {disfmarker} I thought that you were {disfmarker} Maybe I misinterpreted what you said but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: Having access to it doesn't necessarily mean , that {disfmarker} having it +Grad C: Having it . +Postdoc F: Giving it to them . +Grad C: Well the in {disfmarker} +Professor E: right ? It just means they have the right to have it . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad C: the consent form is right in there if anyone wants to look at it , +Postdoc F: Alright . Fine . OK . Fair enough . +Grad C: so . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: D you want me to grab one ? +Postdoc F: Sh - sh well I could {disfmarker} I 'm closer . +Grad C: Yeah , but you 're wired +Postdoc F: I could {disfmarker} +Grad C: aren't you ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That is true . +Professor E: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean I don't wanna fool them , +Postdoc F: I don't know {disfmarker} +Professor E: I just meant that e every {disfmarker} ev any time you say anything to anyone there is in fact a {disfmarker} a bias that is presented , +Postdoc F: Oh yeah yeah {disfmarker} oh I know . +Professor E: right ? +Grad C: "" If you agree to participate you 'll have the opportunity to have anything ex anything excised , which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" +Professor E: of {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . Yeah . +Grad C: "" Once a transcript is available we will ask your permission to include the data in the corpus for the r larger research community . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: There again you will be allowed to indicate any sections that you 'd prefer to have excised from the database , and they will m be removed both from the transcript and the recording . "" +Postdoc F: Hmm . Well that 's more open than I realized . +Grad C: Well , I mean it {disfmarker} The one question is definitely clear with anything as opposed to just what you said . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , uh no that {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} tha +Postdoc F: Tha - that 's true . That 's more severe , but the next one says the transcript will be around . +Professor E: that 's right . +Postdoc F: And it doesn't {comment} really say we 'll send it to you , or wi it 'll be available for you on the web , or anything . +PhD B: I think it probably leaves it open how we get it to them . +Professor E: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: At least it more often . Yeah . It means also we don't have to g To give it to them . I mean like {disfmarker} like Morgan was saying they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Grad C: They just have to make sure that it is available to them . +Postdoc F: It 's available to them if they ask for it . +Professor E: Yeah , OK , so . wh um {disfmarker} I think I have an idea that may be sat may satisfy both you and me in this which is , um , it 's a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we just go over carefully how these notes to people are worded . So I {disfmarker} I just want it to be worded in such a way where it gives the strong impre it gives very , I mean nothing hidden , v very strongly the bias that we would really like to use all of these data . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: That {disfmarker} that we really would rather it wasn't a patchwork of things tossed out , +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor E: that it would be better for , um , our , uh , field if that is the case . But if you really think something is gonna {disfmarker} And I don't think there 's anything in the legal aspects that {disfmarker} that is hurt by our expressing that bias . +Postdoc F: Great . Great , great . +Professor E: And then {disfmarker} then my concern about {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . I agree . +Professor E: you know you might be right , it may be it was just paranoia on my part , uh but people just {disfmarker} See I 'm @ @ worried about this interface so much fun {vocalsound} that people start bleeping stuff out {comment} {vocalsound} just as {disfmarker} just because they can . +Grad C: It 's just a check box next to the text , it 's not any fun at all . +Professor E: Yeah . Well I don't know . I kind of had fun when you played me something that was bleeped out . You know . +Grad C: Well , but they won't get that feedback . +Professor E: I +Grad C: All {disfmarker} no because it doesn't automatically bleep it at the time . +Professor E: Oh they won't ? +Grad C: It just sends me {disfmarker} +Professor E: Oh good . So you haven't made it so much fun . +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: Oh good . +Grad C: It just sends me the time intervals . +Professor E: OK , +Grad C: And then at some point I 'll incorporate them all and put bleeps . I mean I don't wanna have t ha do that yet until we actually release the data +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: because um , then we have to have two copies of every meeting and we 're already short on disk space . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So I {disfmarker} I wanna {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just keep the times until we actually wanna release the data and then we bleep it . +Professor E: OK . Alright , so I think {disfmarker} Yeah so if we have if {disfmarker} i Again let 's you know , sort of circulate the {disfmarker} the wording on each of these things and get it right , +Grad C: Well since you seem to feel heart uh , strongest about it , would you like to do the first pass ? +Professor E: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK . Uh , fair enough . Turn about is fair play , +Postdoc F: Al - Also it ther there is this other question , the legal question that {disfmarker} that Adam 's raised , uh about whether we need a concrete signature , or email c i suffices or whatever +Professor E: Sorry . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and I don't know how that works . i There 's something down there about "" if you agree to {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about it with one of my background processes +Grad C: I don't think so . +Professor E: and I {disfmarker} uh it 's {disfmarker} uh it 's uh , it 's fine to do the email . +Postdoc F: Ah . Fine . +Grad C: Yeah because thi th they 're signing here that they 're agreeing to the paragraph which says "" you 'll be given an opportunity . "" +Professor E: OK . +Postdoc F: Good . OK . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: And so I don't think they need another signature . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} Well and furthermore I {disfmarker} it 's now fairly routine in a lot of arrangements that I do with people on contracts and so forth that {disfmarker} that uh if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's that sort of thing where you 're you 're saying uh "" OK I agree , we want eighty hours of this person at such - and - such amount , and I agree that 's OK , "" uh if it 's a follow up to some other agreement where there was a signature it 's often done in email now +Grad C: Right . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . +Postdoc F: Great . +Professor E: Um . +Grad C: So I guess I probably should at the minimum , think about how to present it in a printed form . I 'm not really sure what 's best with that . The problem is a lot of them are really short , +Postdoc F: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: and so I don't necessarily wanna do one per line . But I don't know how else to do it . +Postdoc F: Well I s I also have this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice you have it uh , viewab her {comment} hearable on the {disfmarker} on the web for those who might wonder about um , the non nonverbal side , I mean I {disfmarker} I agree that our bias should be as {disfmarker} as expressed here , and {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I think it 's nice that a person could check . Cuz sometimes you know you {disfmarker} the words on a {disfmarker} on the page , come out soun sounding different in terms of the {pause} social dynamics if they hear it . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I realize we shouldn't emphasize that people {comment} you know , shouldn't borrow trouble . What it comes down to but {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah I think actually {disfmarker} my opinion probably is that the only time someone will need to listen to it is if the transcript is uh not good . You know , if {disfmarker} if there are lots of mumbles and parentheses and things like that . +Postdoc F: Oh , you know , or what if there was an error in the transcript that didn't get detected and there was a whole uh {disfmarker} i segment a against some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personal {vocalsound} i th +Grad C: Right . That was all mumbled ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: I think Microsoft is +Postdoc F: Yeah exactly +PhD A: Oh , +Grad C: Sorry transcribers . +Postdoc F: Or {disfmarker} or even {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or even {comment} there was a {disfmarker} a line you know about how "" hmm - mmm - mmm {comment} Bill Gates duh - duh - duh - duh . "" +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} but it was all {disfmarker} the words were all visible , but they didn't end up i some there was a slip in the transcript . +PhD A: Oh , God . +Grad C: They 're gonna hate this meeting . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's true . +Grad C: Actually Liz will like it . You know , but . +Professor E: Liz will like it . We had a pretty strong disagreement going there . +Grad C: Yep , yep , that 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . So I don't know . I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess we 're assuming that the transcript is a close enough approximation and that {disfmarker} that my double checking will be {pause} so close to absolutely perfect that it {disfmarker} that nothing will slip by . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} some something might sometime , and they {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that they said , they might {disfmarker} i i I mean , you might be very accurate in putting down what they actually said , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but , when they hear it , themselves , they may hear something different because they know what they meant . +Postdoc F: I don't know how to notate that . +PhD B: Sarcasm , +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD B: how do you {disfmarker} how do you indicate sarcasm ? +Postdoc F: Yeah that 's right . +Professor E: No , I 'm serious . So {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} so we might {disfmarker} we might get some feedback from people that such - and - such was , you know , not {disfmarker} not really what I said . +Grad C: Yeah . Well that would be good to get , definitely . +Professor E: Yeah , but , Yeah , sure . +Grad C: Just for corrections . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad C: So um , in terms of password distribution , I think phone is really the only way to do it , phone and in person . Or mail , physical mail . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Or if for leave it on their voice mail . +PhD B: Any sub - word level thing . +Grad C: Any sub - wor Yeah , OK . I mean you could do it with PGP or things like that but it 's too complex . +Postdoc F: You know I just realized something , which is of {disfmarker} e th this question about the {disfmarker} uh the possible mismatch of {disfmarker} I mean i well , and actually also the lawyer saying that um , we shouldn't really have them {disfmarker} have the people believing that they will be cleared by our checks . You know ? +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean . So it 's like i in a way it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the responsibility still on them to listen to the tape and {disfmarker} and hear the transcript , to have that be the {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well yeah , but you can't dep I mean , most people will not wanna take the time to do that , though . +Postdoc F: Yeah , OK , fair enough . And they 're s they 're absorbing the responsibility themselves . +Professor E: And they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not um {disfmarker} Yeah , good . +Professor E: But I mean if you were at a meeting , and {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} you don't think , at least , that you said anything funny and the meeting was about , you know , some {disfmarker} some funny thing about semantics or something , or uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: You probably won't listen to it . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It is true that tec that the content is technical , I {disfmarker} and so i and we 're not having these discussions which {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I mean , when I listen to these things , I don't find things that are questionable , in other people 's speech or in my own . +Professor E: Yeah . You would think it would be rare , +Postdoc F: Just {disfmarker} It should be very rare . +Professor E: I mean we 're not talking about the energy crisis or something , people have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad C: How about them energy crises . +Professor E: Yeah . I think we 're uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Done ? +Professor E: Kind of done . Actually , I was gonna {disfmarker} Di - Did you have anything n that 's going on , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Not really . No . Um , {vocalsound} my project is going along but um , I 'm really just here to um fill the project uh {disfmarker} the overall progress . I don't really have anything specific to {disfmarker} to talk about . +Professor E: Yeah . That 's fine . I just didn't wanna go by you , if you had something . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor E: You don't have anything to say . +PhD B: No . +Professor E: Nah . +Grad C: +Professor E: Transcribers , he was rattling the b marbles in his brain back and forth just then this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +Grad C: Shall we do digits ? +Professor E: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Um , oh by the way I did find a bunch {disfmarker} +Grad D: It um +Grad C: Uh , we should count out how many more digits to forms do we have back there ? +PhD B: There were quite a few . Uh . +Grad C: That 's what I thought . I f I was going through them all and I found actually a lot filed in with them , that were blanks , that no one had actually read . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad C: And so we still have more than I thought we did . +PhD B: Oh good . +Grad C: So , we have a few more digits before we 're done . +PhD B: You know having this headset reminds me of like working at Burger King or something . +Grad C: Oops . +Postdoc F: Oh , did you do that ? +PhD A: Burger King +Grad C: I 'd like a burger with that , +PhD B: No I never did . +Grad C: do you want fries with that ? +Professor E: Wow . +PhD B: But I feel like I could now . +Grad C: And {pause} +","In the conversation, the group, which includes Professor E, Grad C, Postdoc F, PhD A, PhD B, and Grad D, discusses various administrative and technical issues related to their project. The key points discussed include: + +1. Confirmation of Session Date and Changes: + - The session's date, February 15th, is confirmed. + - A request to cross out ""R-9"" and replace it with ""MR eleven"" next to ""Session."" + - Reminder to mark certain unused notes appropriately. + +2. Editing Bleeps in Meeting Transcripts: + - Grad C discusses a method for allowing people to edit out parts of the meeting they don’t want to be included. They have prepared tools and want feedback on how to finish setting it up. + +3. Audio Monitoring Concerns: + - Postdoc F raises concerns about audio quality, mentioning spikes and potential electronic issues like connector problems. + - Suggests experimenting with equipment to test for spikes. + - There’s discussion about professional audio testing and the importance of reliable recording methods. + +4. Discussion on Microphones and Transcription Status: + - Microphones being assembled and possibility of buying more comfortable headsets. + - Discussion about having more wireless channels for microphones due to superior quality compared to wired mikes. + - Current transcription and recording status, including how much has been completed and the process of making data ‘clean’ and ‘channelized.’ + +5. Privacy, Consent, and Bleep Editing Procedure: + - Professor E and Grad C discuss the process and potential inconveniences of allowing participants to bleep out sections of the recorded meetings for privacy reasons. + - The procedure for individuals who want to review the transcripts includes using passwords for online access or potentially providing printouts. + - There’s discussion about the legal and practical implications of the consent forms that participants signed, and the team acknowledges the need to balance convenience for participants with ensuring valuable data for research. + - Proposes to draft communication carefully to encourage the release of full unedited data while respecting privacy concerns. + +6. Distributing Passwords and Transcripts: + - Possibilities for distributing passwords securely, such as phone calls or in-person handoffs, are discussed. + - They explore how to make transcripts available in a printed form. + +7. Other Business: + - Casual conversation about past experiences and work, like working at Burger King, and a mention of having more digits (possibly code for more tasks or data points) before they are done with a certain phase of the project. + +Overall, the conversation mainly revolves around managing the process for editing meeting transcripts for privacy, ensuring audio quality for recordings, and handling the technical aspects of microphones and transcription equipment for their project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Hefin David, and we've got no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest? Can I just, then, declare for the record that I chair the cross-party group on suicide prevention and that Samaritans Cymru, who are appearing before us later, provide the secretariat for that group, just for that to be on the record? Item 2, then, is an evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school, and I'm very pleased to welcome our panel of witnesses this morning: Sharon Davies, head of learning, Torfaen County Borough Council and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; Nick Williams, director of education, Swansea city and county council, and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; and David Hopkins, interim head of education at the Welsh Local Government Association. Thank you very much, all of you, for attending. We've got a lot of ground we'd like to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. And if I can just start by asking you what you believe the main reasons are for the increase in the number of exclusions from school. +Nick Williams: I'll start, if that's okay. I think one of the things we're experiencing across the system in Wales is more examples of very challenging behaviour. I think the prevalence of ASD—autism spectrum disorder—and trying to get the learners the right provision is sometimes a challenge. Obviously, I can speak more about my own local authority in Swansea: the numbers have increased about fourfold over the last five, six years, so what's presenting as difficult behaviour can also sometimes be additional learning needs as well, and the system's struggling a little bit to catch up to have enough capacity to do that, so that is placing pressure on schools and then, in turn, pressure on the EOTAS, including our pupil referral units, because, obviously, we just probably haven't got enough capacity at the moment in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Anybody got anything to add to that, or—? +Sharon Davies: No, I think that's what we're seeing in Torfaen as well. I'd second that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, to what extent, then, do local authorities have clear strategies for support and reintegration, and a continuum of provision to meet the needs of learners who are either at risk of exclusion, or disengagement? +Nick Williams: Well, we've just developed a behaviour and well-being strategy, which, with our schools—and I'm aware, because I work in the south-west and mid Wales region, and I know some of the other local authorities have something similar, and, similarly, I chair the EOTAS network across Wales, and I know many local authorities are going in that direction, so that has a tiered approach, or staged approach, or whichever, so that there's universal provision. I think it's something that—you know, we need to make sure that our staff and our schools are well-equipped to meet these needs, but there will always, unfortunately, be some learners who need more specialist provision. So, it's equipping them with those sorts of skills, really. I think it's certainly moved forward from where we were two of three years ago. But there's a little bit of lag in the system, trying to bring everybody up to the same, consistent level. But I think work is afoot in nearly all local authorities, as far as I'm aware. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of school accountability measures, do you think that they have had an impact on the rise in exclusions? +Sharon Davies: When we're looking at the accountabilities, there's a huge amount of pressures on schools to perform, and I think the whole culture that the schools are within does play an element of it to some—. There is a shift in that culture. We are seeing a change with the interim measures coming on board, but I think there's going to be a lag in the system before we see that having a knock-on effect on our learners, because, undoubtedly, there are pressures on schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, you've seen an improvement since the capped 9 has been brought in? +Sharon Davies: I think it's early to say, but certainly we're working towards that improvement. I can only speak for Torfaen—we've been working really hard on our exclusions and working with our schools to ensure that the curriculum is broad and balanced, and accounts for every learner within the system. +Nick Williams: May I answer this in Welsh? +Lynne Neagle AM: Of course, yes. +Nick Williams: The messages that the Government is conveying to us and the messages we convey as directors and councils are important as well. So, we always tell them that it's the progression of the children in the future that's important, not just reaching up to the level. So, it's more complex than that, and it's important to share that. And in fairness to Estyn—Estyn has changed its mind as well. So, messages such as those are being conveyed now, and I think that the schools do understand now the expectation and what's expected of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of parents, what are local authorities doing to actually engage parents of children and young people who are either EOTAS or at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Nick Williams: I'll answer this in English. Again, I know perhaps Swansea and Neath Port Talbot—we have a team-around-the-family approach. So, as you say, it's more complicated than just the child behaving in a certain way, or being school-anxious, whatever the issue is. So, it's sort of bringing all of the agencies together to try and look at how we can proactively solve problems and support the families. Because nearly always, the behaviours that are demonstrated, or come out in schools, or whatever provision, is obviously probably greater in the home environment, so there's a whole—. We understand the complexities and the need for a whole-family, almost, approach to support. +Lynne Neagle AM: And do you think that all local authorities have got that understanding across Wales? +Sharon Davies: I would say the majority have. +Nick Williams: Yes. +Sharon Davies: Yes, it's quite common practice. As Nick mentioned, it is about that multi-agency approach—it is working with social care, working with health colleagues, to look at the whole package that goes into these families and to our learners. +Nick Williams: Certainly with schools, I know across Wales we've done a lot of training on adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed practice, so at least people can perhaps better understand some of the reasons why this behaviour is coming through, whereas in the past—I'm thinking myself, now, as a teacher—they were just difficult behaviours. I didn't really know the background to possibly why those behaviours were coming through. So, I think we are more informed as a profession. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on funding from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: May I begin, maybe, with a question, generally speaking—? We're all aware of the funding issues and the challenges of funding that face schools in general. So, can this lead to more exclusions, because additional learning needs have been hit in light of these challenges, and then that the side-effects of that creates more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: In particular now with the new Act coming into force, that's going to place more pressure on the system. In Torfaen, we know that we have schools that are looking at their funding—they are behind, and they have to make these hard choices. And sometimes, they have to look at every aspect within the school in terms of their learners, then, and that does place additional pressure on the schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is the additional learning needs sector being adversely affected, worse than—? +Sharon Davies: I'm not sure whether it's being worse affected, but certainly there's pressure, in particular with the new Act coming in, and that's going to place more pressure on the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But maybe we need to spend more in light of the new Act? +Sharon Davies: Yes. +Nick Williams: Yes, certainly. +Sian Hughes: What is your experience, then? +Nick Williams: The same, really. But just sometimes, the Government doesn't think about the staff in the pupil referral units, because we've gone back to the Government to tell them, 'Right, you've provided money to school staff, but what about staff that need training—perhaps more than staff in the school sector?' And in fairness, they have addressed that, but perhaps it's not at the forefront of their minds when they're thinking of providing funding to the schools. So, it's a little bit of an afterthought. But this will be needed in the future, certainly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And maybe I can ask the WLGA: are the difficulties that can arise between the money that is kept back by local authorities and the funding that goes directly to schools—can that therefore affect the kind of provision that's happening from authority to authority? +David Hopkins: Yes, sure. The delegation levels are already very high in most authority areas, and we've got agreements in place with the Government to make sure that more money, or as much money as possible, is devolved to schools. So, I don't think that's a direct factor. I think the factors that really affect exclusions, which is where I think the question came from: you've got the very narrow measure at the end of key stage 4 attainment, which I think has put pressure on some schools, certainly, and headteachers have felt that—sometimes excluded, or otherwise put into another school as a consequence, which is regrettable, but that's what's happened. And on the additional learning needs side, whilst the Minister has currently made some more money available, if we look at experiences that have happened in England, in particular, because there are direct parallels there with legislation, we know from those experiences that ALN funding has become increasingly under pressure—there have been big issues around tribunals, to the point where local authorities at one point almost gave up going to tribunals, because they were losing them time and time again. So, there are financial pressures there, but I don't think the levels of delegation have any impact on that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But just the pressures coming in with the new Act et cetera could mean more expulsions. +David Hopkins: It shouldn't, but it could. It's difficult to know how headteachers and governing bodies will react. If they're under pressure financially or in terms of performance measures, they will react in a particular way. Culturally, we've got to get to the point, I think, particularly with the new curriculum coming in, where we say, 'Look, forget the narrow measures that you're being judged by. We're trying to agree with partners, including Estyn and the Welsh Government, a broader range of measures.' That, in a sense, may provide opportunities for schools, and local authorities, to look more constructively at this whole area. So, that's one area, but you're right, I think the ALN legislation will put pressures on, not just local authorities and schools, but also on the post-16 sector, because we're talking now about a wider age range—doing up to 25 as well. So, we've got a host of issues, I think, there to consider and work our way through. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is the fact that there's variation from term to term, from week to week sometimes, in the level of provision that a school is going to have to provide for trying to retain those pupils in mainstream schools—is the fact that there is so much variation creating a specific challenge, and maybe that that leads to more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: As you say, because it changes, it's difficult then to plan ahead, and from year to year and also, as you've said, within the term. Perhaps you have provision for more learners coming in or moving, and then that causes the pressure within the system, then, because you haven't planned for them, and therefore there's no spare funding there to draw on. +Nick Williams: Also, in fairness to PRUs, we've been trying to work on the fact that, if children move out of school, the funding follows them. We don't want a lag in the system, because they have to meet the challenge of the pupils, but the money is still in the schools, because it's once a year that they have that funding. +Sian Hughes: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What more can be done, and by whom, to support collaborative working between schools, PRUs and local authorities to ensure that there is a continuum of provision and support for learners? +Nick Williams: Well, one of the things I think that has improved a lot is the networking within the PRU sector. We meet on a regular basis, and that's nationally. And the EOTAS group meets regionally as well. So, there's definitely a better sharing of practice. We put on some very, very good conferences as one form of professional learning. But it's also important—. And we're talking about professional learning for any teacher or provider, or it's sometimes the more informal training they receive by making visits, joint visits, to provision and also using the expertise that we do have within the sector to work more closely with our schools, and vice versa, particularly around the curriculum. And I think this is the opportunity the new curriculum provides, providing our staff have the funding to do that and the opportunities we need to be creating around that as well. But in the past, there might well have been some staff who perhaps hadn't had those school experiences and vice versa. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can I just ask you about transition arrangements, because I know some of the issues that have arisen in my own constituency is when a pupil is in a PRU and then trying to get back into mainstream education? It isn't a clear, sort of, going from one to the other—sometimes a child can find themselves at home because they're not able to get back into the school setting, the main school setting. How are you addressing that? +Nick Williams: Well, again, I can only speak for ourselves. We've had a big investment of time, and there will be money and through band B, we're building a brand-new PRU provision in Swansea, which will be open in January 2021. So, we've recognised that, so that we have our staff working very closely with the schools. There's an integration through a part-time timetable back into school, and we continue to support them during that process. But then, when they're back in school, that support doesn't stop—that support continues, and then there's a managed reduction in that support. And that's proven very successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It sounds to me very—. Yes, good—. +Nick Williams: But I'll be honest with you, the more challenging your learners are the ones who are coming to the end of their statutory education, your key stage 4. It is far, far more difficult when they're 15, 16 to get them back into mainstream. So, then you're looking more at how you transit, then, into further education and colleges and so on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Thank you. In your view— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, have you got anything to add, Sharon, in terms of—? Because, obviously, we've had the Swansea perspective. I mean, how effective are Torfaen at reintegrating young people into mainstream education? +Sharon Davies: As Nick said, it does get more difficult at key stage 4, and it's working, then, with—. It comes back to that team-around-the-family approach, to ensure what is needed for that learner to go back into school, what can the school provide. It's looking at the whole package of support, then, that surrounds not just the learner but the family, whether it's transport—it's looking at the whole agenda, then, to ensure that everything is in place for that learner to go back to school, where it's possible. +David Hopkins: I think, Chair, at least one authority is looking at how they can best retain all pupils in the school setting, but it's early days yet for looking at that. I mean, that's an ideal, obviously, but it does mean looking at your funding constructively and carefully, and it brings—. The principle is fine, but it does bring a host of other issues with it, if you see what I mean. But it's certainly a model worth looking at. It's been tried elsewhere, and we keep an eye on that, but we don't really know what the outcomes have been long term with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: And which authority is that? +David Hopkins: I don't think I'm allowed to say at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. And where is it being tried elsewhere? In England, is it? +David Hopkins: Oxfordshire. +Sharon Davies: A few years ago, I used to be a primary headteacher in England, so we were looking at different models, then, at various conferences, and I believe Oxford, as a local authority—they had a PRU, and they had discussions with their secondary schools, then, whether to get rid of the PRU, as such, and give the money back into schools. But they looked at a partnership within the schools, then, to say, 'Okay, you can have the money, but there's got to be terms of reference'—not quite a service level agreement, but the schools worked together as a partnership, then, so that they couldn't keep moving the children around, the learners around. It's looking at how well that worked. It started off really well, but that was a few years ago, so I don't know whether it's continued now. But that was a model that, at the time, that local authority looked at to get more money into schools and to get schools, then, to have that responsibility—that they didn't offload the learners elsewhere. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nick, you wanted to—. +Nick Williams: Yes, sorry. We do something similar in Swansea. We've operated this now for almost three years, where we devolve—the word is 'devolve', as opposed to 'delegate'—the money to secondary schools to try and give them some extra resource to manage the process, and they have to produce an action plan, which we monitor, about how they're using that funding. But, obviously, we recognise that—and it's back to your original question, the first question—we still have learners, unfortunately, despite pretty effective support and provision in nearly all our schools, because of the very, very challenging behaviour we're experiencing, who do need additional and bespoke support, which in fairness the school can't provide. So, it's a mixed economy, if you like, in Swansea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. So, in your view, though, what are the reasons for the delays that some children experience in accessing EOTAS provision? +Nick Williams: Capacity— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What? Sorry, I missed that. +Nick Williams: Sorry. Capacity: we just haven't got enough spaces in some cases, some year groups and so on. Obviously, given what I've said as well, and I'm sure it'd be the same for all local authorities, we've got to have robust systems and panels and so on to make sure that everything possible has been done to meet the needs of the learner in their home provision, if you like, the home school. So, there might be a time period when the learners are on a part-time timetable, which isn't ideal, I accept, but again, it's working with the families and the youngsters. Also, for us as well we've reinvigorated our managed move provision and discussion. We have somebody who oversees that and works very closely with our secondary schools so that we give almost a second chance to learners. Sometimes, it works really well; sometimes, the learner turns around and says, 'Actually, I preferred it in my old school.' So, there's a cooling-off period as well. I think the learner voice is very important there, because—. We've got to have a package, I think, that is quite wide in its offer. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What would be the advantages or disadvantages, then, of local authorities having commissioning frameworks for providers, and for EOTAS providers to have approved status? +Nick Williams: Obviously, we do do that, but we're struggling sometimes for additional provision—very important around safeguarding. However, we don't want to make it too difficult, so that we haven't got any providers coming forward either. So, it's a little bit of a balancing act. But, first and foremost, safeguarding is at the forefront of our thinking. But I think, then, we need to perhaps think about how the staff in that sort of additional provision—what sort of training and support they have. At the moment, that is a struggle for us, because we're managing those pressures in our own provision whilst we go out and observe through a provision framework to make sure that the provision is—. But, to actually offer some additional training is a challenge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. To what extent do local authorities know about the level of EOTAS provision that is organised by individual schools, whether in an FE college or otherwise off the school site? +Nick Williams: I can only speak for Swansea. We know, as part of that plan that we ask our schools to send in, they have to put down where that provision is. And obviously, as part of the visits, as well, to the schools by the challenge advisers, the school should be monitoring that provision and quality assuring that provision. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And how is safeguarding monitored in terms of privately run EOTAS? Independent. +Nick Williams: The schools would have to make sure that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But is that happening, do you know? +Nick Williams: Yes, because schools do take safeguarding very, very seriously. They see the importance of it. It's their prime driver in many ways. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And is there a role for local authorities in quality assuring, monitoring or evaluating the EOTAS provision organised by individual schools? +Nick Williams: Yes, but a lot of the additional provision is provision we also use, in our experience. So, if it's MTP or something through the college, like a mechanics course or something like that, we're probably using it ourselves. So, it is quality assured, if you like, by two sides. +Sharon Davies: In Torfaen, our secondary schools have set out their own TCP—Torfaen curriculum panel—which looks at alternative provision. So, you've got senior leaders there who attend those meetings. The meetings are facilitated and they're currently undergoing a review of the alternate provisions each school is doing because, sometimes, it's worked in the past, but what they're seeing now is that it's not quite working now, and it's understanding why. Is it due to the complexity of the learners coming through? Or is it that the providers are not offering what the learners are seeking any more? So, it's looking as well at, coming back to that curriculum offer, is it the right curriculum offer for those learners? And the training of the staff, do we have the right staff? It's capacity, then. It's just quality assuring the provision. Just because it's worked in the past—it's about keeping that momentum going. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And should local authorities take a greater role in quality assuring individual tuition? +Sharon Davies: Can I just ask what you mean by individual tuition? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I suppose individual tuition in terms of each individual, I would assume that means. +Sharon Davies: Okay. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I wouldn't like to think anyone was falling through— +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the purpose of the question is around home tuition, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Individual tuition in terms of we wouldn't want any child, if they're away from a main-school setting, to slip through the net in terms of tuition, or safeguarding even. +Sharon Davies: I suppose the difficulty with home tuition is, as a local authority, we're restricted on how much access we get into the home. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Well, I appreciate that, and that's the—[Inaudible.] +Sharon Davies: Therefore, it's really difficult then to quality assure, because unless the families invite us in there's very little—. We are restricted in that respect. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about if they're in a private setting? +Nick Williams: If they're following a restricted timetable or whatever, because maybe they're school anxious and so on, and we're trying to get them into our provision like that, the home-tuition staff work for us. We don't use agency staff, for instance, to go in and provide a few hours of provision, or to go to the local library. So, for whatever reason their needs at the moment can't be met in a school or in approved provision, then the staff who do provide some education, or if it's for medical reasons, they work for us in the local authority. So, we're not using— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is that widespread around Wales? +Nick Williams: I don't really know the answer to that, I'm sorry. I can only speak for Swansea. +Sharon Davies: We're very similar to that. +David Hopkins: Historically, there has been a general pattern, and if you're making a provision you will quality assure it, clearly. I think your question is probably about other forms of provision and how do you quality assure those. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Absolutely, yes. +David Hopkins: And that's more difficult to answer, I suspect. +Lynne Neagle AM: What we were driving at was home tuition that is commissioned by the local authority, but I think Nick has answered that now, really, if that's a consistent answer for local authorities. Can I just ask, before we move on, in the WLGA paper, you say you're concerned about the 'potential impact of changes to the registration of pupils who are EOTAS and the implications for the management of data/funding/joint working'. Can you expand on those concerns for the committee? +Nick Williams: I think it's, you know— +Lynne Neagle AM: It was the WLGA paper, actually. +David Hopkins: It was a joint paper. You go on. +Nick Williams: It's about getting that money following the learner and so on, and that shared ownership of the learner that the schools need to keep, because we want them reintegrated back into schools—that's the aim of any provision that we put in. It's not permanent—except, for certain learners, that might be the case—so they're still, if you like, part and parcel of the school. I think one of your other colleagues asked about the off-rolling, if you like—another term that's used—of students when they get to GCSEs so they don't count in schools' data. We're trying to very much move away from that, through the messages that we all give our schools. The messages that governors and headteachers then give to their staff. So: 'They're our learners. They're the most vulnerable learners we've got.' And for the individuals, for the families, and for society, if we can't support these learners—we know the links then to crime, and the cost to us as a society as well. So, it's in all our interests to do the very best for these learners. +Lynne Neagle AM: You won't get any arguments from us on that. Siân Gwenllian has got some questions on the curriculum. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I just want to discuss a little about the curriculum as it stands, and thinking about transferring to a new curriculum, of course. What are the challenges? I'll begin with the WLGA, in general, and ask you, in both your areas, what are the challenges to ensure that EOTAS learners have access to a broad and balanced curriculum, and that there are learning opportunities that are appropriate for them? What are the challenges associated with that? +David Hopkins: In general terms—. You differentiate there between EOTAS and PRUs. PRUs: clearly, we know that they are following a set curriculum; they are inspected; they are under the control of the local authorities. So, we're happy and content that that is moving along and that the balance is there. Where home tuition is provided through the local authority, as has been discussed, again, there should be safeguards there to make sure that that quality assurance takes into account what the pupil is receiving. You can't always guarantee what then happens in the home. As you say, particular things happen there, and they may not get that. But that's a matter the authority has got to be aware of and tackle. It's more difficult where, I suspect, it's being provided by a third party that's been commissioned. The commissioning arrangements should ask for those things to be put into place; it's all about the monitoring then. But that's a very general, broad-brush answer. I couldn't give you a definitive one of what's happening across Wales. My colleagues can probably tell you what's happening in their localities, and that would be helpful. But in general: PRUs, yes, we'd be satisfied; home tuition that is commissioned and managed through the local authority, yes, we would be satisfied; other areas, we would not be able to give a definitive answer on, is my guess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does that worry you? +David Hopkins: Me? +Sian Gwenllian AM: The WLGA. +David Hopkins: Of course it's a concern. If you can't guarantee quality in any shape or form for a young person, it is a concern. +Nick Williams: In the region, we do collaborate with each other in terms of staff training. Certainly, they also work with school staff as well. So, the developments are quite positive currently, but there is work to do, I agree. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the how curriculum is at present, are you happy that it's being delivered? +Nick Williams: To be honest, we are— +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the PRUs? +Nick Williams: To be honest, they are broad and balanced. They have to be broad and balanced currently. But there's working together now in terms of the new curriculum, and using the opportunity that exists now to collaborate with school staff as well. +Sharon Davies: Collaboration, I think, is the answer, between the PRUs and the schools. Collaborate and have joint working to ensure that the learners have what they need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I can see how collaborative working with the units can work—because they're under your control—the problem is the other parts of the system, in a way. +Nick Williams: They're not with other people all the time; they just go for something So, they would still have literacy and numeracy and Welsh—that would still be provided in the PRU. So, they're not out all the time. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, it's beyond the PRUs I'm talking about. If a pupil is in a PRU, you are telling me that they have the curriculum. But for those who are in homes, or in private provision, perhaps who are not in your experience—. Maybe, this morning, we're getting a picture of the best practice, and we're not going under the surface to where things aren't as good in some areas. Do you agree that there is that inconsistency? What we're hearing about now are the best elements. +Nick Williams: Consistency is developing across Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With the curriculum? +Nick Williams: Yes, and in terms of collaboration. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it is developing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. Questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. It's really around support. It follows on a little bit from what Siân was saying. Can I also just refer back to the point that David was making earlier on about ALN and the extent to which ALN support is available to learners in EOTAS? The information that we've had is that it's difficult enough in mainstream schools, but in an EOTAS setting, it's particularly challenging. So, how can that be improved? What can we do to address that? The reason I'm saying that is there are particular needs of learners in an EOTAS setting—that's why they're there, quite often. So, it's almost more important that that ALN provision follows them through. +David Hopkins: If a child has additional needs, of course they should be met, whatever the setting. But I take your point. There's a possibility that—. Again, going back to the previous question, we would know within, say a PRU or any local authority commissioned or delivered tuition—whatever form that took—then those needs definitely should be being met. I can't tell you hand on heart whether they all are or not—I don’t know—but they should be. Once you get out of that very tightly regulated part of the system, then, again, if a child has a particular need, of course that need should be met, but it becomes increasingly difficult. So, I think there possibly is an issue there, but I don't know whether my colleagues have a greater understanding of that. But there certainly may well be an issue there. +Dawn Bowden AM: There is a disconnect between what should be happening and what actually is happening, isn't there? Even in some local authority PRUs where we expect all of this to be happening, we know that it’s not; we know that the full curriculum is not being provided either. The basic numeracy, literacy and well-being stuff is taking place, but there is discrepancy of provision, even in local authority commissioned EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I think there will be variations in provision, but I would say that, within the local authority maintained sector, that provision should be being made. If it's not, the local authority concerned should be aware of that and should be dealing with that. +Nick Williams: We've probably—[Inaudible.]—in Swansea if you look at the inspections of the provision. Going back some years, they weren't— What you're describing, it was true. However, the most recent inspection is very positive, and not that we recognise that there's no work to be done; we're not being complacent. But to answer your question, I think the biggest challenge is the capacity. So, I suppose that comes down to additional funding, because I'd like a dedicated educational psychologist spending their time possibly only with our PRU youngsters and EOTAS provision, but we haven't got the capacity because of the demands on us from the wider system. +Dawn Bowden AM: And—. Sorry, go on. +Sharon Davies: It's kind of what Nick said about capacity, but it's also ensuring the right staff as well, because sometimes, you may have them, but if they move on, or retire, or whatever, there's not a bus load, if you like, of people with that expertise. Because sometimes it takes years to build up on that expertise, and therefore, it's quite niche, and once that person has moved on, it's really difficult to start all over again. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Absolutely. It's more than just one person—it's the whole training package that goes around that capacity as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and I'll come back to that in a moment. +Nick Williams: But I think that's something we could do better. I think we need to be more—. Because that's not just down to money, it's making sure that we perhaps offer, through our teacher training colleges, the opportunity for them to spend some time. At the moment, a newly qualified teacher can't work in this type of provision, which you can argue, that's fine, they need to perhaps get mainstream first. But we need a group of people in the future to fill those gaps. So, that should be built in to their teacher training, and even through their ongoing professional development, both ways—staff actually coming out to schools, going into our provision and vise versa—because you can also get very isolated if you've worked in PRUs for—. You've got very specialist skills, but you perhaps need those wider experiences as well. So, we could be doing more there, and I think that's probably, the group I chair, a discussion we need to have. +Dawn Bowden AM: And on that point, actually, we did hear from Estyn the point you were making about the staff leaving and there are very small numbers of staff working in that provision. There really isn't the capacity for them to access professional training. Is that your experience? And if so, what can we do about that? +Sharon Davies: I think it's limited. I think it is getting better, as Nick mentioned. There are networks now, there are conferences. It is an improving picture, but I think it's limited. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, okay. So, is there any way that local authorities can encourage specialist teachers and educational psychologists to actually share expertise with independent providers of EOTAS? +Nick Williams: Yes, but again, it's a capacity issue, because if we take them out of the provision, it's difficult for perhaps a supply teacher to come in and manage that class because of the demands. So, it's not an easy conundrum. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. But you're saying, really, take it back to teacher training and start at that point so that every teacher has at least some basic awareness of dealing with education in that setting. I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Or whether there's an opportunity, if somebody wants to lead into that more, that there's an opportunity to do it; that there's an offer there, if they want to specialise more into that area. But at the minute, there isn't that option. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Can I just take you back to pupil support? We talked about ALN. What about access to mental health services? What's your experience of EOTAS learners' access to mental health support? +Nick Williams: Again, even in the region there's variation there because we've got three health boards over the footprint of the south-west and mid Wales region. So, it varies. That's my understanding, anyway, and I think that's similar across Wales. Ours hasn't been great, to be honest with you. And that's one of the positive steps, that health boards have to have a DECLO now—don't ask me, I can't remember what the exact abbreviation is—but we've met with the designated education clinical lead officer, and I think those partnerships will be strong in the future. But it's also us then having a well-being strategy and support that is universal. So, there's counselling and so on to make sure that the learners are going through, if you like—. Not that we're trying to stop them going through, but we're trying to deal with them appropriately at the different stages so that they're not inundated either. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, of course. But is your experience also that a lack of mental health support in mainstream schools could potentially be leading to more learners ending up in an EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I was going to say, about the question, I think there's a general deficit in child and adolescent mental health services, for example. I'm not criticising the services, I'm just saying the capacity isn't there, as we would like. So, I think there's probably a more general issue there that would, in turn, translate into pupils who've got additional needs, whether they're in EOTAS, PRU or wherever. I suspect—I've not got an evidence base to offer you, but there's a very long-standing problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, you had a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just to return to teacher training, and you say that new teachers can't go straight into a unit, and maybe more emphasis is needed on that aspect. But generally speaking, if there's an increase in challenging behaviour, are new teachers able—? They don't have the experience, but are they equipped well enough to deal with that? Because we hear of so many people leaving the profession because of this challenging behaviour, and again, I wonder if the system has adequately caught up with that. And we need—not just in this aspect—but we need to look at the system holistically to be more prepared to deal with challenging behaviour. Do you know what I'm saying? +Nick Williams: It's not just—. If people decide not to go into teaching after having training, it's not just because of challenging behaviour. There is a change now. There is more time for students in schools, so that helps. You need the theory, but also the practice—that's important to have somebody who can mentor you in the school and that shows good practice. Then there are the policies that the school uses to assure that there is consistency across the whole school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But if we're facing a situation where there are fewer wanting to go into the profession and we are losing those most experienced people, then it creates a great big challenge, doesn't it? We're looking at something very limited here, but we need to look at it in the bigger picture of what's happening. Would you agree with that? +Sharon Davies: Yes, certainly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sharon, the CAMHS in-reach project is operational in Gwent, but my understanding is that they don't include PRUs. Is that right? +Sharon Davies: I don't know if that is the—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's fine, that's my understanding. I just wanted to ask, then, the Gwent attachment team has been working with PRUs in Gwent, and the committee is familiar with the work of the Gwent attachment team, can you just tell us what you think the impact of that has been in terms of support for staff and embedding that awareness of attachment and early trauma in the PRUs? +Sharon Davies: I think any form of professional learning, it's positive, and, therefore, as we alluded to earlier, it's that expertise training for the PRU then and for the staff there. It's having a positive impact. At the minute, I don't know what the overall impact is. I think it's early days, but it seems to be positive. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet, I think some of the areas have been covered. Is there anything you want to pick up from the—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think the rural aspect—are you aware that there are any issues relating to transport for EOTAS learners, particularly in more rural parts or areas of Wales? +Nick Williams: Certainly, in our region, in Powys, from north Powys, when you're almost in Oswestry, down to Ystradgynlais, which is not far from me. So, you've got provision for those types of learners there. I think they've got provision in the north and south of the county, but you're still talking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What provision in the north? +Nick Williams: I think there's a PRU provision in the north of Powys and one in the south— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, north of Powys. +Nick Williams: North Powys. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, I thought you meant north Wales. Sorry. +Nick Williams: Sorry. But even so, the distances that those learners are having to travel are huge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I've got a—. It's a big issue. +Nick Williams: For myself, and I'd hazard a guess, Torfaen, we're relatively compact, aren't we, so it's not such an issue. +Lynne Neagle AM: Has the WLGA got any comment on the transport issue? +David Hopkins: I'm not aware of issues, if I'm honest, but then again, it may be something we've not investigated. I'm quite happy to look at that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time. We have probably got a few areas that we'll write to you about, if that's okay. Can I thank you for your attendance this morning? We will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for attending. The committee will break until 10:20, but can Members not shoot off for a sec, please? Okay, can I welcome everybody back to our next evidence session, which is our sixth evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school? I'm very pleased to welcome Sarah Stone, executive director for Wales of Samaritans; Liz Williams, policy and communications officer at Samaritans; and Dr Ian Johnson, who is the manager of children and young people's mental health at Mind Cymru. Thank you all for attending. If it's okay, we'll go straight and questions. If I can just start by asking you what you think the main reasons are why we are seeing this increase in the numbers of children and young people being excluded from school. +Sarah Stone: I think you were going to—. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's a very difficult subject, because, in many cases, we're not really sure what the data looks like. We get these things from quite a broad perspective, and we don't actually see the extent of the reasons why. If you look at, for example, the statistical release, then you get a sense of why people are being excluded, but they tend to be—. It's a very reductionist discussion, so you see reasons like persistent disruptive behaviour, verbal abuse or physical assaults, but you don't actually get the underlying factors that are influencing that. Now, we know that that information exists, because, obviously, schools don't exclude anybody lightly, and I speak as someone who's been until this academic year a governor on secondary and primary schools. So, there's a great deal of paper trail, but that doesn't seem to really find its way up to a higher level. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And how concerned are you about the trend that we're seeing of an increase in younger children being excluded, and what do you think the reasons might be for that? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's very concerning that we're seeing increases amongst younger children in particular. Those have gone up quite substantially in the past few years, and a lot of the evidence that we're hearing is quite anecdotal, so it tends to be around the behavioural issues or underlying issues, and there's a lot of discussion about the adverse childhood experiences agenda and how that's—. So, there's a better understanding of that, but I'm not in a position at the moment, really, to be able to explain why primary schools maybe are actually taking that position and excluding more than they used to. +Sarah Stone: What I would say is that the reason that Samaritans did our report on exclusions from school rested with—. They began with anecdotal information coming through to us around individual distress and from projects working with young people who'd been excluded. And there are projects that are working with young people who are being excluded—I mean primary school children. And the major thing we say in our report is that we—. So, this is enough to ask us some serious questions, to which we don't know the answer, unless we actually do some serious work on this. So, I would reiterate what we say in our report: that we need to examine this. It's a really important issue, and the life trajectory of those young people is being impacted by their exclusion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You may not be able to answer this, but to what extent do you think school accountability measures are having an impact on the numbers of exclusions? +Dr Ian Johnson: Well, I think it's very interesting, looking at Estyn's pupil registration practices report from October last year, which looks at off-rolling, and I think that you see, specifically at year 10 to 11, a strong impact: around 4 per cent of pupils are off-rolled between year 10 and 11, but you're also seeing a number between 1.5 and 2 per cent that are off-rolled in any given year between year 8/year 9, year 9/year 10. So, I think it's clear that there's been a substantial increase in the numbers off-rolled in that year 10 to 11, but what I think is concerning for me is the normalisation, throughout the system, at secondary school level, where there's off-rolling between year 7/8, year 8/9. Based around there being around 30,000 to 32,000 in each cohort, then you're looking at 500 to 600 children in any given year, and I think we need to understand why that is the norm, what could be done around that, as well as looking into the obvious impact of that at year 10 to 11. The Estyn work is quite factual. It's looking at the numbers. I think we need to dig a bit deeper and understand the story behind that and whether there's a specific reason why schools are doing that, related to the accountability measures. It'll be interesting to see the impact of changes towards capped 9 et cetera, but I think we need a bit more qualitative work on that rather than just the quantitative work that's currently available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Liz Williams: I think there's also a problem with schools only being measured on academic outcomes rather than the journey travelled by the child and the efforts put in by the school to nurture the well-being of children who are particularly vulnerable. So, I suppose, if you consider that, this is something that definitely needs to be looked at further so that there's incentive for schools to keep children who are perhaps demonstrating challenging behaviour or perhaps aren't attaining brilliant grades. So, I think that's something that needs to be looked at further. +Sarah Stone: And, just finally, if that's okay, just to cross-refer the committee to the loneliness and isolation strategy, to which we made extensive representations on this issue. A part of the strategy talks about using our approach to accountability to recognise inclusive schools and reduce incentives to remove pupils from schools. So, that is a commitment in that strategy. It's a really important commitment to make a reality of that, because, actually, what is happening, I think, is that there are incentives that are perverse around this issue. +Dr Ian Johnson: Could I just come in on that? I think there's an interesting, again, qualitative, quantitative, element to what happens to those children who move into PRU, EOTAS provision in their earlier years in school and those as they reach a later point in their school career. So, I think there's a question, then, about—I was talking earlier about those children who move in in years 7/8, 8/9, et cetera, and how they loop back into the mainstream education system, what happens to them, but then what happens to those who may be reaching the end of their formal education career and move into EOTAS, PRU provision, and what happens to those young people afterwards? I'm sure we'll pick up some of that as we go through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders around the support for learners who are at risk of becoming EOTAS. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. To what extent is adequate support provided to pupils who are at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Sarah Stone: Okay. So, this was a major focus around the piece of work that we did, and we came up with a range of suggestions. I think the quick answer is that what we've seen is a strong indication that it isn't, and that it's—. But also that it's not simply a question of the young person, that it's a question of the whole school environment and how that interacts with the challenges that a young person might be facing. So, there are a couple of big things to say on this one. One is that we want to promote a compassionate response and an informed response by everybody in the school to distressed young people—and that distress may show in a number of ways, not necessarily just as obvious distress. So, I think it's understanding that, having a confident response and, obviously, this links with expressing suicidal thoughts and distress as well, which may not come out in exactly that way—but being able to respond where young people are expressing suicidal thoughts. And I think if we connect this with the agenda around adverse childhood experiences, and if you see the young person—. I think what we as Samaritans really wanted to do was to focus on the distressed individual—that's what we do, it's what we're majorly about. So, a young person who is experiencing a whole range of adversity in their own life may be presenting at school in a very challenging way, perhaps. That school may also be their only safe place, and I think that's just a really simple thing just to keep remembering. Hearing headteachers and teachers talk about this, a lot of them are very aware of that, and there are some great examples of schools working to reduce exclusions and understanding the fork in the road that exclusion or not exclusion represents in the life of that young person. There are restorative justice-type approaches being used by schools in Cardiff that seem extraordinarily inspiring. I've heard—. There's been so much interest in this piece of work that we've done, and I've spoken to many educators since, and so it's doing what we needed to do, which is to get people talking about it. Because I think it's not about providing a simplistic answer to this question of support, it is understanding that it's a whole-school question. It's building on the excellent work that is being done by schools in different parts of Wales, joining that up and making that much more general. So, I think that's the opportunity: is to really recognise that this is a big issue, and that, if you don't hold young people within an educational setting, the lifetime consequences for them, including their elevated risk of suicide—it's very hard to reverse that. So, I think we want to focus on a distressed young person and how we respond to that, and it's amazing to move someone on from where they started, and loads of teachers will tell you examples of how they've done that and how they've felt that's not sufficiently recognised by the measures that they're subjected to. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's an issue where it's very important both to focus on the individual, but also on the macro situation, and, as Sarah mentioned, I think the whole-school approach, which is something that's been discussed within this committee, as part of the 'Mind over matter' work, is something that is hugely important. And that's why that should be—there should be statutory provision regarding a whole-school approach. Because understanding—. That prevention operating all the way through the whole-school community will, hopefully, be very effective in providing support levels, ensuring that that support is in place from the very beginning, all the way through primary school, all the way through secondary school, to ensure that learners are being supported and that that is something that's at the forefront of people's considerations whenever they're considering what a pupil is doing, and why they might be doing it. And that then also links back into consideration around adverse childhood experiences. But, generally, just that thinking about the behaviour and the emotional response first, I think, is hugely important in this context. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And what do you think could be done more, and by whom, to help schools to support pupils to remain in mainstream education? +Sarah Stone: So, this is where we set out nine recommendations in our report and I think the major message is, as I said before, that we don't have a simple answer to this one. However, there are a number of things that we need to do: we need to recognise the impact of adverse childhood experiences; we need to train teachers so that they have an understanding response and are much more confident in that; we need to learn from what works; we need to listen to the voices of young people themselves. That's terribly important, because—. I know this committee is very well aware of that, because you've done very good work listening to the direct voices of young people, but they are very often able to articulate quite a lot about what is needed. I would also add to that that we would want young people themselves to be skilled up in understanding and recognising their own emotions, because this is about putting in place that awareness, that consciousness, if you like, about being able to name and recognise feelings. There's great international evidence on the importance of that and the benefit of it, which was carried out when the new curriculum was being developed, and the health aspect of that. So, we've kind of done that work in Wales. What we would like to see is that new curriculum around health and well-being and mental health and awareness being in the curriculum, so that young people, on a statutory basis—. Otherwise, you're entrenching the differences and the inequalities between teaching across Wales, because the good will do it, and perhaps others will find it much harder. So, that's a major message as well. So, I think there's a menu, if you like, and some of it is very much about respecting the experience of teachers and of schools and working with them, because this is about working with their will to do things well. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think what's important, and maybe it's implicit within the question about helping to support pupils remain in mainstream schools, is working out what is the best support at this point in time for the young person. So, that has to be taken deeply into consideration. Obviously, the schools provide whatever support they can, but what is the best for the young person at this time? And that answer will differ from individual to individual. I think it is important to have the learner voice playing a role within this, and it's important to get more of a child-centred voice around this. One of the projects that Mind will be working on in Wales in the next year is regarding an inclusive education inquiry, where we'll be forefronting the voices of young people within the evidence, because at the moment a lot of the evidence that we have is data-driven or anecdotal, and I think we want to get to the bottom of how young people feel, and how they find this. Sarah's referred to the curriculum. I think there's a lot to be done, still, with regard to PRU and EOTAS with the new curriculum, and, hopefully, we'll be able to outline some of that in terms of questions later on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are your views on the balance between funding being used for diagnosis and support, because I know that the Samaritans report suggested that funding tends to go into diagnosis rather than support? How can the balance be addressed? +Liz Williams: I think it's a really difficult balance, but it was something that was brought up in the research stages of our report. So, we held a round table during the research period, and participants said that they were particularly concerned about the lack of awareness and knowledge of children who had additional learning needs. And, obviously, this is quite serious because these children are at risk of being excluded and are over-represented in excluded groups. And they were particularly concerned about children who were sort of on the cusp, or not properly diagnosed, and a lot of these children would have things like attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and, again, these made up the cohort of pupils who were excluded. So, when you consider that, you tend to think, actually, diagnosis could be really useful, so that staff are aware of the pupil's needs, and maybe aware of why the child might be demonstrating challenging behaviour. However, what participants did say was that unless there was a proper understanding of the child's condition or additional learning needs, and that the proper support was there, then diagnosis alone wasn't of value. So, I think one of the participants said that up to 50 per cent of learners in a classroom could have an additional learning need, so, again, if the support isn't there, that child isn't going to benefit from diagnosis. And what was really highlighted is the importance of the school being inclusive, and for that child, regardless of whether they had an additional learning need or not, to have proper opportunity to progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And, then, to what extent are schools aware of the impact of early trauma ACEs, and how are schools adapting their practices to take account of them? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really capable of saying that on an individual level. We're aware, as you've heard from previous evidence from heads of education, et cetera, directors of education, that work is going on on an all-Wales basis, and there's obviously an awful lot of work that's going on on the ACEs agenda. I referred to being a previous school governor, and that's somewhere that's become a trauma-informed school, and they have established that and are widening that base. I think that what the school does though is something that has to loop back, as I said, with the curriculum changes as we're going forward. There's a concern that I have at the moment regarding the progress on EOTAS and PRU within the new curriculum, and there's work that I think will still need to be done, and something that I'm sure will be considered by this committee when it deals with the curriculum assessment Bill when it comes forward later on in the year, because there were comments made by the education Minister, I think, in response to Suzy Davies, in the statement in January, that we're talking about disallowing areas of the curriculum on the basis of the individual learner, to which I have no concern in itself. However, the emotional and mental health well-being needs of this particularly vulnerable group of people needs to be centre stage. So, the role of the health and well-being area of learning and experience, and the role of mental health and emotional well-being within the curriculum, is hugely important. +Sarah Stone: And I think, just to add to that around the impact of early trauma, I think one of the things that we at Samaritans are particularly aware of is the impact of loneliness and isolation on individuals and how that can help to drive distress and suicidal ideation. That sense of belongingness is recognised by the research as being critical to functioning well as a human being. We are social beings. And one of the ways in which early trauma and adversity, if that leads to exclusion from a range of groups, is to lead to lifelong isolation. It's something that comes out when you look at middle-aged men. You look at a trajectory that goes back towards their early years, very often, and Samaritans is about to release some research on that very point. So, there's a connection between what happens in later life and what happens here. There's also, if we look at the numbers of exclusions around boys, and we're looking at much higher suicide rates and numbers of other issues around men—. Again, I think it's important to see this whole picture— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It's very bad in north Wales. Our figures are very worrying. +Sarah Stone: Yes, exactly. So, there's a bigger picture here. I would say that we want to do something to mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences, and we have this great opportunity to release the potential of those young people whose, often, strength and resilience is quite extraordinary in circumstances that many of us would find hard to imagine. So, we need to look at the assets that young people have as well, which you can work with. So, I think if there's a real opportunity to create a change, this is one of them. This issue about exclusions and PRUs—this is a chance to make that ambition real. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you so much. Very good. +Liz Williams: Just to reiterate what Sarah said, looking at our research, which, obviously, isn't yet published but will be soon, it really is quite shocking how these men fell through the net so many times when they were young, and, actually, how many missed opportunities there were to intervene in the cycles of inequality. It is quite clear from that research that these stages where children are demonstrating challenging behaviour are the first signs of distress. So actually, this is where we should be intervening. So, I think like Sarah said, it is really important to see this as a preventative agenda. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A few questions around providing support for learners. You've set out very clearly what you think needs to happen in your report, your nine points and so on, but what's your view on the support currently provided, both in a school setting and EOTAS settings for mental health support? Have you been able to get that sort of information? Have you got a sense of—? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really in a position to answer fully as to what's going on. I think that part of the problem is there's not really a national picture that we can pick up in terms of data or information regarding this, and I think that's really why there's been such a push towards seeing this in the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure. So much of your evidence is anecdotal, is it? It's people that have been referred to you, come to you for help, and you just—or your own research. What—? +Dr Ian Johnson: The research that we're going to do is really where we're at, and that's because we feel that there is a gap there regarding how young people are experiencing this within the school environment and in general. I think, in particular, we're aware of increases—quite substantial increases in some cases—regarding self-harm, and concern that manifests itself slightly differently between girls and boys. Specifically, I think there's now an increasing focus on self-harm behaviour amongst girls in the 15 to 19 age range, but we're not entirely sure of how good the support is at schools. My experience of projects that I've been involved in—I was previously in front of this committee as part of the Time to Change Wales project—was that, overall, it depends quite strongly on the senior management team and their commitment. Where the SMT has taken a lead, then it feels that schools are really doing something. Where the SMT are, perhaps, a bit more laissez-faire regarding this, then it feels that maybe schools are not making such a step forward. And to come back to the point, that's why we feel that whole-school approach guidance needs to be statutory, because we'll otherwise reach some quite uneven outcomes, because those who are doing it well will really push ahead and those that are not so engaged will not be helping their pupils in the way that they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the EOTAS or PRU provision is going to be much more challenging then, isn't it, then main school provision. I suppose that was what I was trying to get at as well, whether you get a sense that there may be some progress being made in mainstream schools, is that following through in PRUs and EOTAS provision? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'll just be honest: right now, I couldn't give you an answer on that. I think that is something that, perhaps, slightly concerns me about the whole field is not being able to get a national feel for these issues. I would suspect that there are pockets of very good practice. I've heard discussions about things being done regionally and nationally, but I think it would be good to be able to see what that best practice looks like and how well it's done. +Dawn Bowden AM: I appreciate you're not educationalists and you wouldn't necessarily have all of that information, but have you got any sense of—again, whether this is anecdotal or from cases that are referred to you—evidence of schools off-rolling pupils with mental health problems? If you've got any evidence of that, what might the impact of that be on the individuals? +Liz Williams: Yes, I think that certainly does happen. I suppose we know this anecdotally from Samaritans research, but also I have experience of working in pupil referral units and working with some really vulnerable children, and I think there is a sense sometimes that these children are labelled as naughty and disruptive. So, children who have additional learning needs or a communication problem that potentially is undiagnosed or not really properly understood. I think when children have mental health problems and additional learning needs, often they can find the school environment really difficult. I've worked with children who have told me that they just don't enjoy being in the classroom because they feel incredibly anxious. They don't feel they can contribute to the school environment, they don't feel like they're keeping up with their classmates and, as a result, they demonstrate challenging behaviour so that they can leave the classroom. I think that's very sad. As a result, these children aren't always understood and are off-rolled in some cases. But, like Sarah said earlier, there are certainly examples of really good practice, and I suppose this links in to what approaches schools, pupil referral units and EOTAS should take to vulnerable children with mental health problems. One example I can give you is that, at one pupil referral unit, the children would get really distressed and really disruptive towards the end of the day on a Friday. I suppose that, in some schools, the teachers would have thought, 'This is ridiculous, they're disrupting the lessons', but what the teachers knew is that these children would go home, they would face such adversity, wouldn't always get a meal, would be exposed to things they shouldn't be exposed to, and the teachers were able to respond to that with compassion and empathy. But, obviously, seeing behind behaviour is really, really difficult, and I don't think teachers should have to do this alone, they should be properly trained and properly equipped. Even going up to a child—and I suppose this goes back to mental health support. Ideally, as Samaritans, we would want suicide prevention plans to be embedded in schools and to be part of the culture of schools, but obviously this can't happen if teachers aren't properly equipped and don't have the confidence to go up to a student and ask them if they're struggling. In our compassion in education toolkit, we highlight the importance of asking a child, 'Are you self-harming?', if there are signs; 'Have you tried to take your own life?', if there are signs. But obviously that's a very difficult conversation to have. So, yes, there are certainly examples of best practice, but I do believe that, if school staff aren't properly equipped and trained, off-rolling pupils, especially at key stage 4, where obviously you will hold those grades, is definitely something that they don't necessarily have the incentive to prevent. So it's worth looking at that. +Dawn Bowden AM: You touched, in the beginning of that response, on children being labelled as naughty. To what extent have you come across that? Is that quite prevalent? Is that quite common? +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes. I think it's really down to the school. I think it's down to experience and it's down to the teacher. I think it links up with the question we were asked before about diagnosis and support. Lots of children with communication difficulties especially, if they haven't been formally diagnosed, they are certainly the ones that are deemed naughty, because I suppose people think, 'Well, you should be doing well, you're bright. You should be thriving in school.' But that's not always the case. Children can be incredibly anxious, have mental health problems, obviously, are exposed to ACEs and things that go on at home that not necessarily every teacher would know about. So, I think there are definitely children who are labelled 'naughty', and I think children also play up to that as well. Like I said, if children are very anxious in the school environment and in the classroom, if they know they can get out of the classroom and get into a safe space, they will do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And then that labelling of a 'naughty' child is actually the impediment to getting that child the support that they need. +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes, and I think that's where formal diagnosis can be helpful. I think the doors are open then to much more school support. So, yes, I think it is down to how the school approach it, and it goes back to the whole-school approach and having emotional and mental health on a statutory basis in the curriculum. It embeds emotional well-being into the culture of the school, and it means that students might know when they need help, how to be more resilient and helping themselves, and when and how to ask for help from the teachers. So, I think it's really important. +Dr Ian Johnson: If I can just pick up on one of those points, Mind Cymru conducted a series of focus groups around Wales to inform our response to the new curriculum. One of the comments that I think struck home most strongly with me was a young boy saying that, because the same teacher was responsible for pastoral and behaviour, because he had been labelled as naughty or a troublemaker, he felt uncomfortable in terms of going to that same person within the school in order to disclose the problems he was having, because there was a fear of not being believed or accepted, or it being considered as an excuse for poor behaviour, rather than them being taken seriously. I wouldn't want to over-egg that point, but I think it is an important consideration from a learners' perspective. 'If I disclose a problem, if I want to talk to somebody, are there appropriate considerations within the school setting where I can turn to somebody who maybe I might not have the greatest relationship with in other contexts?' I'd also just like to come back to the off-rolling question if I may, just quite briefly. As I said at the outset of the evidence here, Estyn conducted a piece of work on pupil registration practices that showed a substantially higher amount of off-rolling between year 10 and 11, but also a consistent level—1.5 per cent to 2 per cent—in other secondary school years. But we don't have the qualitative material to understand how much of that is related to mental health factors, and how much—because we're in discussion about school accountability—might drive some of that at year 10/11. But we don't know why that baseline of 500/600 young people every year is there within our schools. I think that needs further investigation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thanks for that. Can I just ask you a couple of other questions about the impact of particular circumstances, and whether you've come across any issues relating to Welsh-medium provision to support the mental health and well-being of learners as an issue—that it's not been available, Welsh-medium support, for those learners? Have you come across that at all? +Dr Ian Johnson: We haven't necessarily come across it, but we haven't been looking for it either. The Estyn report notes that there are generally fewer off-rollings from Welsh-medium education to EOTAS. There are a number of potential reasons for that. That can include the complete lack of EOTAS provision within a local area. It could be the socio-economic profile, because exclusions, et cetera, are substantially higher amongst those who are eligible for free school meals, and in many parts of Wales the socio-economic profile of a Welsh-medium education school is slightly different. We are not aware of any particular work that's been done to examine the needs and the provision of Welsh-medium EOTAS. Therefore, my suspicion, without any particular evidence, would be that it happens on a local authority basis, possibly on an incidental basis, depending on the quality and the ability of staff, and possibly more prevalent therefore in west and north-west Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. We can come back to that again, I'm sure. Do you know whether there's any impact on learners where there are actually delays in accessing EOTAS, again in terms of mental health conditions, if there's a delay in getting them to the appropriate provision? Have you got any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, of the impact on that? +Sarah Stone: Not specifically researched on that situation. I think, again, there is so much that we don't actually know and that we should know a lot more about, but I think there are some things that we can say about delays for young people who are not either in education or in anything else, and they're connected with the issues anyway. So, if you understand that there's a strong link between inequality and exclusion, and that the most likely young people to be excluded have other disadvantages as well, that's a really important issue to understand. So, being out of school or out of education for any time is going to exacerbate those pre-existing inequalities, and I can't emphasis that enough. This is exacerbating this cycle of inequality and disadvantage. So, being outside your peer group makes you vulnerable. It makes you vulnerable, and I guess the longer that continues I would expect the worse that impact and that uncertainty would be. So, there's the impact on loneliness and young people seeking an alternative community to the school one. Since the publication of our report, we have had an extraordinary level of interest from people concerned about crime. So, we've talked to the youth justice board, we've met with the police, there's a huge level of concern about county lines and about home-growing drug gangs, and the fodder that those young people are for people who will engage them in all sorts of activities, which are hugely damaging both to themselves and also to the wider society. So, I think we need to understand there's a lot at stake here for wider society in holding young people, and not allowing gaps to grow where they are not held. I would just refer you to the child death review on suicide and suspected suicide by young people, which came out very recently from Public Health Wales and Swansea University, and that looked at 33 young people who died by suicide over the past few years. One thing that came through that and was reflected in one of their suggestions for action was that those young people had not been held in education or training or employment, had slipped through all sorts of systems, and were extremely vulnerable. So, I think that's a really big message: that we need to try to hold people and not allow those gaps—where they're not held within their society—to lengthen and become really, really difficult. So, I think that's my major message on that particular one. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just ask, as a follow on from that, whether you've got any views on the potential impact of individual tuition on learners' well-being? So, home tuition, for instance: are pupils going to be on their own doing that? That might be in their best interest, or do you have any concerns that it might not be? +Liz Williams: I suppose we don't have actual evidence to show the impact home schooling has on pupils, but what we do know and something that is of huge concern, I suppose, to most people is that there's no central data on how many young people are home schooled. So, it's quite likely that these children are hidden or invisible and could be at a huge risk of the adverse problems that are related to exclusion more generally. Also, it is a concern, if children aren't registered with any school, how they get back into school, how they reintroduce back into the schooling environment, if that's what people think is best for them. So, I think that is a concern: not having that transparency of data. And just to reiterate Sarah's point, I suppose, home schooling could tackle the more academic side of things, so it would mean that that child is still receiving an education, but it might not necessarily help with the adverse effects of exclusion, like loneliness and isolation. That child still isn't with its own peer group. That is something that came out of the men's research, as Sarah mentioned. These men, who are now middle aged and are at the highest risk of dying by suicide, weren't always interacting with children their own age, and that did cause problems in later life. So, I think it's definitely something we don't know enough about, but I think we need to know more about. +Dr Ian Johnson: There are two questions within there, regarding the delay in entering provision and the effect of long term individual teaching. I think there are occasions on which individual tuition will be beneficial, because there may be a reason why somebody is uncomfortable and unable to operate within an educational setting. However, it may be that, on a longer term basis, that is not entirely appropriate. But it's very much an individual matter. What concerns me, I think, is the idea of there being a gap between mainstream education and entering any form of EOTAS provision due to capacity or otherwise, because that is a period in time—. We don't know whether there's the causation of or exacerbation of mental health issues amongst those in EOTAS, but it's clear that—well, it seems intuitive that a gap between being in mainstream education and EOTAS is unhelpful, not least their rights to an education, but also the feelings that young people who are probably in quite a confused and troubled state may have during that gap and how long that gap can endure. I will refer back: there was a recommendation by Estyn in their 2016 report on EOTAS regarding CAMHS support for children within those settings, I don't know whether there's been any particular progress within that—and especially the mixture of issues that may be related to both mental health and also neurodevelopmental issues and whether those are more or less likely amongst this vulnerable part of the population. +Sarah Stone: Just to draw your attention to it, I think there's an acknowledgment that there's a lot we don't know about this. Again, in the loneliness and isolation strategy, there's a commitment to analyse existing education and health data to explore correlations between exclusions or being educated other than at school and mental well-being, including loneliness and isolation. So, I think that's a very welcome commitment to try to expand our understanding in this area, because there may be some pluses as well as minuses, but actually there is so much that we don't know about this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Siân Gwenllian. I think some of them have been covered, but— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in general, once a young person or a child has been excluded, is there enough support for them, not just on the educational side, but in general? Are we supporting these young people, these most vulnerable young people, once they're in the position of having been excluded? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'd say that that's something that's possibly happening locally, but we don't have a national picture. One of the things we have already noted is the time between being excluded and entering some kind of EOTAS provision. So, that in itself—and I've heard people talking about the capacity issues—shows what's happening to these children, at a time when they are most vulnerable because they are outside of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And who should be supporting them? Are we being clear enough with regard to who should be giving them the support? They've been excluded, so obviously the education system has a responsibility, but are we clear enough in terms of who else's responsibility this is, and who should be co-ordinating that support? +Dr Ian Johnson: The truth is, the responsibility lies on the local education authority in that context, I would say. The point is that, often, these children deal with several other institutions. So, it's incredibly important that any service is interweaved into that setting around the child or the children who are in this situation. More information is needed about this. When I was talking earlier about inclusive education, or some kind of investigation into this, that's the kind of thing I'd look at: how to bridge that gap and what kind of support will be available. I'm concerned, of course, in terms of education, whether there is enough funding available to ensure this. But because this is a very vulnerable group, we need to take responsibility in exactly the same way, perhaps, as corporate parenting plays a role there. We need to look at that kind of system, and how we help these individuals. I know there are figures available on local authorities, but I can't remember them off the top of my head, but maybe that's something to look at. +Liz Williams: And as Ian just said, although there's a lot of responsibility by the school and the local authority, I suppose some responsibility also sits with the parent as well. But for the parents to support their child, either if they're at risk of being excluded or if the child is already in EOTAS, and that parent wants to make sure that the child is having the best education possible, the parent has to have the right amount of information. They must know where to go for support themselves, and I think that a parent can't necessarily know the rights of their child to education and what their child is supposed to be having if they're not provided with all of the information. And I'm sure this is dependent on the school or dependent on the local authority, but that's something worth thinking about as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, unless you want to sum up—? +Dr Ian Johnson: Just a comment, really, on the new curriculum and ensuring that EOTAS provision includes this, and how the whole-school approach will work within EOTAS, and how we ensure that the provision is available through the medium of Welsh, as we were referring to earlier, on a national level. Is it possible that it can be worked out within the local consortia, for example? How do we ensure that the teachers—? If it's initial teacher training, or if they're newly qualified teachers, or if they're more experienced, how will this be implemented through the system? Because I think that children in EOTAS situations are usually more vulnerable than others, and therefore there is a need to prioritise their well-being and their mental health. We talk a lot about certificates and so forth, and qualifications, but ensuring everybody's well-being is important, and an important outcome of the work. So, we're thinking of this whole-school approach and how it works within the new curriculum, and this is a vital point for the years to come. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we finish, then, is there anything you wanted to add in terms of what the committee could recommend about professional development for staff that would enhance this provision in this area? +Liz Williams: Yes, absolutely. I think it's so important for teachers to be equipped with the training and to understand the link between inequality and all the things that come under that term, and challenging behaviour, and I think if teachers are aware of that, and trained properly to deal with that, the risk of exclusion will ultimately lessen. And I think with regard to how that can happen, I think, in some cases, mental health training and mental health awareness training is supplementary at times, with just teacher's training, but I think it should be embedded in the initial teacher's training, so that, more than anything, as well as being equipped with the skills, teachers have the confidence to deal with those really challenging situations. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Ian? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think that's the importance of a whole-school approach, and that being statutory, because that will ensure that everybody within the school community has that knowledge and awareness and knows what to do and where to signpost people. It means foregrounding and having that in the heart of the school ethos, and I think that turning the school into somewhere that considers mental health and emotional well-being first, rather than waiting for a problem—I think that's the key to improving the well-being of our future generations. +Sarah Stone: I just think it would be great if the community would recognise the link between inequality, adverse childhood experiences, and the opportunity that there is in avoiding a young person falling out of school, and out of anything, and out of sight. So, I think, the other side of this is that this is a real moment of opportunity to intervene positively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for your evidence. It's been a really valuable and worthwhile session. As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr. +Liz Williams: Diolch yn fawr. +Sarah Stone: Diolch yn fawr. +Dr Ian Johnson: Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4, then, is papers to note. Just one paper today, which is the Welsh Government's response to the committee's report on the scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget 2020-1. Are Members happy to note that? Thank you. Item 5, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","Summary: + +The conversation begins with Lynne Neagle AM chairing a Children, Young People and Education Committee session where apologies are noted from Suzy Davies and Hefin David. Neagle, who chairs the cross-party group on suicide prevention, declares that Samaritans Cymru provides secretariat support for the group and notes they'll be appearing later in the session. The committee is conducting an inquiry on education other than at school (EOTAS). + +The panel of witnesses includes three education professionals: Sharon Davies from Torfaen County Borough Council, Nick Williams from Swansea City and County Council, both representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, and David Hopkins from the Welsh Local Government Association. + +Discussions center around the increase in school exclusions, where challenging behavior, prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and additional learning needs are cited as key issues contributing to the rise. The capacity to handle these needs within the system is discussed as strained. Local authorities' strategies for support and reintegration of at-risk or disengaged learners are mentioned, including behavior and well-being strategies, multi-agency approaches, and training on adverse childhood experiences. + +School accountability measures are debated in terms of their impact on exclusions. The panel discusses the pressure on schools to perform academically and the cultural shift in accountability measures. They comment on the need for consistent level and equipped staff for managing such situations. + +Questions were raised about the engagement of parents of EOTAS children or those at risk of becoming EOTAS. The importance of family involvement and understanding the complexities of each case is emphasized. Variations in local authority funding and delegation levels are covered, with concerns regarding the sufficiency of financial resources, especially with the new Act for additional learning needs. + +The discussion also addresses the challenges posed by the variability in school funding as well as the issues related to off-rolling and transitions for pupils moving from PRUs back to mainstream education. The need for collaborative working between schools, PRUs, and local authorities is highlighted to ensure continuity of provision and support. Quality assurance, monitoring, and evaluation across different providers and local authorities are considered essential for maintaining standards in education and safeguarding. + +Lastly, members of the committee sought clarity on the role of local authorities in supporting EOTAS learners, the reasons for delays in accessing EOTAS, and the advantages or disadvantages of having commissioning frameworks for EOTAS providers. The quality of individual tuition and how local authorities ensure safeguarding in privately run and home tuition settings are also questioned. The WLGA paper mentions concerns about the management of data, funding, and joint working due to changes in the registration of EOTAS pupils. + +In summary, the key topics discussed include the rise in school exclusions, local strategies for support and reintegration, school accountability, parental engagement, the impact of funding on educational provision, challenges with transitions and off-rolling, and the role of local authorities in ensuring quality education and safeguarding for EOTAS learners." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think I 'm zero . +Professor B: Wow ! Unprecedented . +PhD C: Hello , hello , hello , hello . +PhD E: Ah +Grad F: Wh - what causes the crash ? +PhD A: Did you fix something ? +PhD C: Hello . +PhD E: Five , five . +PhD C: Hello , hello . +Grad F: Oh , maybe it 's the turning {disfmarker} turning off and turning on of the mike , right ? +Professor B: Uh , you think that 's you ? Oh . +PhD C: Aaa - aaa - aaa . +Grad F: Yeah , OK , mine 's working . +PhD C: OK . That 's me . +Professor B: OK . OK . So , um I guess we are {pause} um {pause} gonna do the digits at the end . Uh +PhD D: Channel {disfmarker} channel three , yeah . +PhD C: Channel two . +PhD D: OK . +PhD E: Mmm , channel five ? Doesn't work ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the mike number there , uh {pause} Uh , mike number five , and {pause} channel {disfmarker} channel four . +PhD C: Two . +PhD A: Is it written on her sheet , I believe . +PhD E: No ? Ah , +PhD D: Mike four . +Grad F: Watch this . +PhD E: era el cuatro . +Grad F: Yep , that 's me . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: But , channel +PhD E: Yeah yeah yeah . +Professor B: This is you . +PhD E: OK . I saw that . Ah {disfmarker} yeah , it 's OK . +Professor B: Yeah . And I 'm channel uh two I think , +PhD C: Ooo . +Professor B: or channel {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think I 'm channel two . +Professor B: Oh , I 'm channel {disfmarker} must be channel one . Channel one ? +PhD E: Channel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I decided to talk about that . +Professor B: Yes , OK . OK . So uh {pause} I also copied uh the results that we all got in the mail I think from uh {disfmarker} {pause} from OGI and we 'll go {disfmarker} go through them also . So where are we on {disfmarker} {pause} on uh {vocalsound} {pause} our runs ? +PhD D: Uh so . {pause} uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So {pause} As I was already said , we {disfmarker} we mainly focused on uh four kind of features . +Professor B: Excuse me . +PhD D: The PLP , the PLP with JRASTA , the MSG , and the MFCC from the baseline Aurora . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , and we focused for the {disfmarker} the test part on the English and the Italian . Um . We 've trained uh several neural networks on {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} on the TI - digits English {pause} and on the Italian data and also on the broad uh {pause} English uh French and uh Spanish databases . Mmm , so there 's our result tables here , for the tandem approach , and um , actually what we {disfmarker} we @ @ observed is that if the network is trained on the task data it works pretty well . +Professor B: OK . Our {disfmarker} our uh {disfmarker} {pause} There 's a {disfmarker} {pause} We 're pausing for a photo {disfmarker} +PhD C: Chicken on the grill . Try that corner . +PhD A: How about over th from the front of the room ? +PhD C: Yeah , it 's longer . +Professor B: We 're pausing for a photo opportunity here . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . So . +Grad F: Oh wait wait wait wait wait . Wait . +PhD C: Get out of the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Hold on . Hold on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Let me give you a black screen . +Professor B: He 's facing this way . What ? OK , this {disfmarker} this would be a {pause} good section for our silence detection . +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um Oh . +Grad F: Musical chairs everybody ! +Professor B: OK . So um , {pause} you were saying {pause} about the training data {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so if the network is trained on the task data um {pause} tandem works pretty well . And uh actually we have uh , results are similar Only on , +PhD A: Do you mean if it 's trained only on {disfmarker} On data from just that task , +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: that language ? +PhD D: Just that task . But actually we didn't train network on {pause} uh both types of data I mean {pause} uh {pause} phonetically ba phonetically balanced uh data and task data . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: We only did either task {disfmarker} task data or {pause} uh broad {pause} data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {pause} Yeah . So , +Professor B: So how {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} clearly it 's gonna be good then +PhD A: So what 's th +Professor B: but the question is how much {pause} worse is it {pause} if you have broad data ? I mean , {pause} my assump From what I saw from the earlier results , uh I guess last week , {pause} was that um , {pause} if you {pause} trained on one language and tested on another , say , that {pause} the results were {disfmarker} were relatively poor . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but the question is if you train on one language {pause} but you have a broad coverage {pause} and then test in another , {pause} does that {disfmarker} {pause} is that improve things {pause} i c in comparison ? +PhD D: If we use the same language ? +Professor B: No , no , no . Different lang So {pause} um {pause} If you train on TI - digits {pause} and test on Italian digits , {pause} you do poorly , {pause} let 's say . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't have the numbers in front of me , +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah but I did not uh do that . +Professor B: so I 'm just imagining . E So , you didn't train on {pause} TIMIT and test on {disfmarker} {pause} on Italian digits , say ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} No , we did four {disfmarker} four kind of {disfmarker} of testing , actually . The first testing is {pause} with task data {disfmarker} So , with nets trained on task data . So for Italian on the Italian speech @ @ . The second test is trained on a single language um with broad database , but the same language as the t task data . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: But for Italian we choose Spanish which {pause} we assume is close to Italian . The third test is by using , um the three language database +Professor B: W which in {disfmarker} +PhD D: and the fourth is +Professor B: It has three languages . That 's including the w the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} +PhD D: This includes {disfmarker} +Professor B: the one that it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: In +PhD D: But {pause} not digits . I mean it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: The three languages {pause} is not digits , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: it 's the broad {pause} data . OK . +PhD D: Yeah And the fourth test is uh {pause} excluding from these three languages the language {pause} that is {pause} the task language . +Professor B: Oh , OK , yeah , so , that is what I wanted to know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I just wasn't saying it very well , I guess . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So um {pause} for uh TI - digits for ins example {pause} uh when we go from TI - digits training to {pause} TIMIT training {pause} uh we lose {pause} uh around ten percent , uh . The error rate increase u of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of ten percent , relative . +Professor B: Relative . Right . +PhD D: So this is not so bad . And then when we jump to the multilingual data it 's uh it become worse and , well Around uh , let 's say , {pause} twenty perc twenty percent further . +Professor B: Ab - about how much ? +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: Twenty percent further ? +PhD D: Twenty to {disfmarker} to thirty percent further . Yeah . +PhD A: And so , remind me , the multilingual stuff is just the broad data . Right ? It 's not the digits . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's the combination of {pause} two things there . It 's {pause} removing the {pause} task specific {pause} training and {pause} it 's adding other languages . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: But the first step is al already removing the task s specific from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD A: Already , right right right . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So they were sort of building {pause} here ? +PhD D: And we lose {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {pause} So , basically when it 's trained on the {disfmarker} the multilingual broad data {pause} um or number {disfmarker} so , the {disfmarker} the {pause} ratio of our error rates uh with the {pause} baseline error rate is around {pause} uh one point one . +Professor B: Yes . {vocalsound} And it 's something like one point three of {disfmarker} of the {pause} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: I i if you compare everything to the first case at the baseline , you get something like one point one for the {disfmarker} for the using the same language but a different task , and something like one point three {pause} for three {disfmarker} three languages {pause} broad stuff . +PhD D: No no no . Uh same language we are at uh {disfmarker} for at English at O point eight . So it improves , {pause} compared to the baseline . But {disfmarker} So . Le - let me . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD D: Tas - task data +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant something different by baseline +PhD D: we are u Yeah . +Professor B: So let me {disfmarker} let me {disfmarker} Um , {pause} so , {pause} um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK , fine . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's use the conventional meaning of baseline . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} By baseline here I meant {pause} uh using the task specific data . +PhD D: Oh yeah , the f Yeah , OK . +Professor B: But uh {disfmarker} {pause} uh , because that 's what you were just doing with this ten percent . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I was just {disfmarker} I just trying to understand that . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor B: So if we call {pause} a factor of w just one , just normalized to one , the word error rate {pause} that you have {pause} for using TI - digits as {disfmarker} as {pause} training and TI - digits as test , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: uh different words , I 'm sure , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} {pause} but uh , uh the same {pause} task and so on . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we call that "" one "" , {pause} then what you 're saying is {pause} that the word error rate {pause} for the same language but using {pause} uh different training data than you 're testing on , say TIMIT and so forth , {pause} it 's one point one . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , it 's around one point one . +Professor B: Right . And if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: you {pause} do {pause} go to {pause} three languages including the English , {pause} it 's something like one point three . That 's what you were just saying , I think . +PhD D: Ye Uh , more actually . +PhD A: One point four ? +PhD D: If I {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So , it 's an additional thirty percent . +PhD D: What would you say ? Around one point four +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: And if you exclude {pause} English , {pause} from this combination , what 's that ? +PhD D: If we exclude English , {pause} um {pause} there is {pause} not much difference with the {pause} data with English . +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD D: So . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's interesting . {pause} That 's interesting . Do you see ? Because {disfmarker} Uh , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} No , that {disfmarker} that 's important . So what {disfmarker} what it 's saying here is just that "" yes , there is a reduction {pause} in performance , {pause} when you don't {pause} um {pause} have the s {pause} when you don't have {pause} um +PhD A: Task data . +Professor B: Wait a minute , th th the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: No , actually {pause} it 's interesting . So it 's {disfmarker} So when you go to a different task , there 's actually not so {pause} different . It 's when you went to these {disfmarker} So what 's the difference between two and three ? Between the one point one case and the one point four case ? I 'm confused . +PhD A: It 's multilingual . +PhD D: Yeah . The only difference it 's {disfmarker} is that it 's multilingual {disfmarker} Um +Professor B: Cuz in both {disfmarker} in both {disfmarker} both of those cases , you don't have the same task . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah sure . +Professor B: So is {disfmarker} is the training data for the {disfmarker} for this one point four case {disfmarker} does it include the training data for the one point one case ? +PhD D: Uh yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , a fraction of it . +PhD D: A part of it , yeah . +Professor B: How m how much bigger is it ? +PhD D: Um {pause} It 's two times , +Grad F: Yeah , um . +PhD D: actually ? Yeah . Um . The English data {disfmarker} {pause} No , the multilingual databases are two times the {pause} broad English {pause} data . We just wanted to keep this , w well , not too huge . So . +Professor B: So it 's two times , but it includes the {disfmarker} but it includes the broad English data . +PhD D: I think so . Do you {disfmarker} Uh , Yeah . +Professor B: And the broad English data is what you got this one point one {pause} with . So that 's TIMIT basically right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's band - limited TIMIT . This is all eight kilohertz sampling . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Downs Right . +Professor B: So you have band - limited TIMIT , {pause} gave you uh almost as good as a result as using TI - digits {pause} on a TI - digits test . OK ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Um {pause} and {pause} um But , {pause} when you add in more training data but keep the neural net the same size , {pause} it {pause} um performs worse on the TI - digits . OK , now all of this is {disfmarker} {pause} This is noisy {pause} TI - digits , I assume ? Both training and test ? +PhD D: +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Um OK . Well . {pause} We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just need to uh {disfmarker} So I mean it 's interesting that h going to a different {disfmarker} different task didn't seem to hurt us that much , and going to a different language um It doesn't seem to matter {disfmarker} The difference between three and four is not particularly great , so that means that {pause} whether you have the language in or not is not such a big deal . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: It sounds like um {pause} uh {pause} we may need to have more {pause} of uh things that are similar to a target language or {disfmarker} I mean . {pause} You have the same number of parameters in the neural net , you haven't increased the size of the neural net , and maybe there 's just {disfmarker} {pause} just not enough {pause} complexity to it to represent {pause} the variab increased variability in the {disfmarker} in the training set . That {disfmarker} that could be . Um {pause} So , what about {disfmarker} So these are results with {pause} uh th {pause} that you 're describing now , that {pause} they are pretty similar for the different features or {disfmarker} {pause} or uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , let me check . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . This was for the PLP , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . The {disfmarker} Yeah . For the PLP with JRASTA the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} This is quite the same {pause} tendency , {pause} with a slight increase of the error rate , {pause} uh if we go to {disfmarker} to TIMIT . And then it 's {disfmarker} it gets worse with the multilingual . Um . Yeah . There {disfmarker} there is a difference actually with {disfmarker} b between PLP and JRASTA is that {pause} JRASTA {pause} seems to {pause} perform better with the highly mismatched {pause} condition {pause} but slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse {pause} for the well matched condition . Mmm . +Professor B: I have a suggestion , actually , even though it 'll delay us slightly , would {disfmarker} would you mind {pause} running into the other room and making {pause} copies of this ? Cuz we 're all sort of {disfmarker} If we c if we could look at it , while we 're talking , I think it 'd be +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . OK . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} {pause} Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll sing a song or dance or something while you {vocalsound} do it , too . +PhD A: So um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Alright . +PhD A: Go ahead . Ah , while you 're gone I 'll ask s some of my questions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , this way and just slightly to the left , yeah . +PhD A: The um {disfmarker} What was {disfmarker} Was this number {pause} forty or {disfmarker} It was roughly the same as this one , {pause} he said ? When you had the two language versus the three language ? +Professor B: Um . That 's what he was saying . +PhD A: That 's where he removed English , +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: right ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: It sometimes , actually , depends on what features you 're using . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but i it sounds like {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} He {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean . That 's interesting because {pause} it {disfmarker} it seems like what it 's saying is not so much that you got hurt {pause} uh because {pause} you {pause} uh didn't have so much representation of English , because in the other case you don't get hurt any more , at least when {pause} it seemed like uh it {disfmarker} it might simply be a case that you have something that is just much more diverse , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but you have the same number of parameters representing it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I wonder {disfmarker} were um all three of these nets {pause} using the same output ? This multi - language {pause} uh labelling ? +Grad F: He was using uh sixty - four phonemes from {pause} SAMPA . +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So this would {disfmarker} {pause} From this you would say , "" well , it doesn't really matter if we put Finnish {pause} into {pause} the training of the neural net , {pause} if there 's {pause} gonna be , {pause} you know , Finnish in the test data . "" Right ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it sounds {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , we have to be careful , cuz we haven't gotten a good result yet . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And comparing different bad results can be {pause} tricky . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {pause} I think it does suggest that it 's not so much uh {pause} uh cross {pause} language as cross type of speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we did {disfmarker} Oh yeah , the other thing I was asking him , though , is that I think that in the case {disfmarker} Yeah , you {disfmarker} you do have to be careful because of com compounded results . I think we got some earlier results {pause} in which you trained on one language and tested on another and you didn't have {pause} three , but you just had one {pause} language . So you trained on {pause} one type of digits and tested on another . Didn - Wasn't there something of that ? Where you , {pause} say , trained on Spanish and tested on {disfmarker} on TI - digits , or the other way around ? Something like that ? +PhD E: No . +Professor B: I thought there was something like that , {pause} that he showed me {pause} last week . We 'll have to wait till we get {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , that would be interesting . +Professor B: Um , This may have been what I was asking before , Stephane , but {disfmarker} {pause} but , um , wasn't there something that you did , {pause} where you trained {pause} on one language and tested on another ? I mean no {disfmarker} no mixture but just {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'll get it for you . +PhD D: Uh , no , no . +Professor B: We 've never just trained on one lang +PhD D: Training on a single language , you mean , and testing on the other one ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , no . +PhD E: Not yet . +PhD D: So the only {pause} task that 's similar to this is the training on two languages , and {comment} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But we 've done a bunch of things where we just trained on one language . Right ? I mean , you haven't {disfmarker} you haven't done all your tests on multiple languages . +PhD D: Uh , No . Either thi this is test with {pause} uh the same language {pause} but from the broad data , or it 's test with {pause} uh different languages also from the broad data , excluding the {disfmarker} So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's three or {disfmarker} three and four . +PhD E: The early experiment that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Did you do different languages from digits ? +PhD D: Uh . No . You mean {pause} training digits {pause} on one language and using the net {pause} to recognize on the other ? +PhD A: Digits on another language ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: See , I thought you showed me something like that last week . You had a {disfmarker} you had a little {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , {pause} No , I don't think so . +Professor B: Um What {disfmarker} +PhD C: These numbers are uh {pause} ratio to baseline ? +Professor B: So , I mean wha what 's the {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this chart {disfmarker} this table that we 're looking at {pause} is um , show is all testing for TI - digits , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Bigger is worse . +PhD D: So you have uh basically two {pause} uh parts . +Grad F: This is error rate , I think . +PhD C: Ratio . +Grad F: No . {pause} No . +PhD D: The upper part is for TI - digits +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD D: and it 's divided in three {pause} rows {pause} of four {disfmarker} four rows each . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And the first four rows is well - matched , then the s the second group of four rows is mismatched , and {pause} finally highly mismatched . And then the lower part is for Italian and it 's the same {disfmarker} {pause} the same thing . +PhD A: So , so the upper part is training {pause} TI - digits ? +PhD D: So . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the HTK results , I mean . So it 's {pause} HTK training testings {pause} with different kind of features +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: and what appears in the {pause} uh left column is {pause} the networks that are used for doing this . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: So . Uh Yeah . +Professor B: Well , What was is that i What was it that you had {pause} done {pause} last week when you showed {disfmarker} Do you remember ? Wh - when you showed me {pause} the {disfmarker} your table last week ? +PhD D: It - It was part of these results . Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: So where is the baseline {pause} for the TI - digits {pause} located in here ? +PhD D: You mean the HTK Aurora baseline ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's uh the one hundred number . It 's , well , all these numbers are the ratio {pause} with respect to the baseline . +PhD A: Ah ! Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: So this is word {disfmarker} word error rate , so a high number is bad . +PhD D: Yeah , this is {pause} a word error rate ratio . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: OK , I see . +PhD D: Yeah . So , seventy point two means that {pause} we reduced the error rate uh by thirty {disfmarker} thirty percent . +PhD A: OK , OK , gotcha . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: OK , {vocalsound} so if we take +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: uh um let 's see PLP {pause} uh with on - line {pause} normalization and {pause} delta - del so that 's this thing you have circled here {pause} in the second column , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: um {pause} and "" multi - English "" refers to what ? +PhD D: To TIMIT . Mmm . Then you have {pause} uh MF , {pause} MS and ME which are for French , Spanish and English . And , yeah . Actually I {disfmarker} {pause} I uh forgot to say that {pause} the multilingual net are trained {pause} on {pause} uh {pause} features without the s derivatives uh but with {pause} increased frame numbers . Mmm . And we can {disfmarker} we can see on the first line of the table that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {pause} it 's slightly {disfmarker} slightly worse when we don't use delta but it 's not {disfmarker} {pause} not that much . +Professor B: Right . So w w So , I 'm sorry . I missed that . What 's MF , MS and ME ? +PhD A: Multi - French , Multi - Spanish +PhD D: So . Multi - French , Multi - Spanish , and Multi - English . +Professor B: Uh OK . So , it 's {pause} uh {pause} broader vocabulary . Then {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK so I think what I 'm {disfmarker} what I saw in your smaller chart that I was thinking of was {disfmarker} was {pause} there were some numbers I saw , I think , that included these multiple languages and it {disfmarker} and I was seeing {pause} that it got worse . I {disfmarker} I think that was all it was . You had some very limited results that {disfmarker} at that point +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: which showed {pause} having in these {disfmarker} these other languages . In fact it might have been just this last category , {pause} having two languages broad that were {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where English was removed . So that was cross language and the {disfmarker} and the result was quite poor . What I {disfmarker} {pause} we hadn't seen yet was that if you added in the English , it 's still poor . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um now , what 's the noise condition {pause} um {pause} of the training data {disfmarker} +PhD D: Still poor . +Professor B: Well , I think this is what you were explaining . The noise condition is the same {disfmarker} It 's the same uh Aurora noises uh , in all these cases {pause} for the training . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: So there 's not a {pause} statistical {disfmarker} sta a strong st {pause} statistically different {pause} noise characteristic between {pause} uh the training and test +PhD D: No these are the s s s same noises , +Professor B: and yet we 're seeing some kind of effect {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah . At least {disfmarker} at least for the first {disfmarker} {pause} for the well - matched , +Grad F: Well matched condition . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: So there 's some kind of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an effect from having these {disfmarker} uh this broader coverage um Now I guess what we should try doing with this is try {pause} testing these on u this same sort of thing on {disfmarker} you probably must have this {pause} lined up to do . To try the same t {pause} with the exact same training , do testing on {pause} the other languages . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: On {disfmarker} on um {disfmarker} So . Um , oh I well , wait a minute . You have this here , for the Italian . That 's right . OK , so , {pause} So . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , so for the Italian the results are {vocalsound} uh {pause} stranger um {pause} Mmm . So what appears is that perhaps Spanish is {pause} not very close to Italian because uh , well , {pause} when using the {disfmarker} the network trained only on Spanish it 's {disfmarker} {pause} the error rate is {pause} almost uh twice {pause} the baseline error rate . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . {vocalsound} Uh . +Professor B: Well , I mean , let 's see . Is there any difference in {disfmarker} So it 's in {pause} the uh {disfmarker} So you 're saying that {pause} when you train on English {pause} and {pause} uh {pause} and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: No , you don't have training on English testing {disfmarker} +PhD D: There {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} another difference , is that the noise {disfmarker} the noises are different . +Professor B: In {disfmarker} in what ? +PhD D: Well , For {disfmarker} for the Italian part I mean the {pause} uh {pause} the um {pause} networks are trained with noise from {pause} Aurora {disfmarker} TI - digits , +PhD E: Aurora - two . +PhD D: mmm . +Professor B: And the noise is different in th +PhD D: Yeah . And perhaps the noise are {pause} quite different from the noises {pause} in the speech that Italian . +Professor B: Do we have any um {pause} test sets {pause} uh in {pause} any other language that um have the same noise as in {pause} the Aurora ? +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm , no . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Can I ask something real quick ? In {disfmarker} in the upper part {disfmarker} {pause} in the English {pause} stuff , {pause} it looks like the very best number is sixty point nine ? and that 's in the uh {disfmarker} {pause} the third {pause} section in the upper part under PLP JRASTA , sort of the middle column ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I is that {pause} a noisy condition ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So that 's matched training ? Is that what that is ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} no , the third part , so it 's uh {pause} highly mismatched . So . Training and {pause} test noise are different . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} why do you get your best number in {disfmarker} Wouldn't you get your best number in the clean case ? +PhD C: Well , it 's relative to the um {pause} baseline mismatching +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: OK so these are not {disfmarker} OK , alright , I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . And then {disfmarker} so , in the {disfmarker} in the um {disfmarker} {pause} in the {pause} non - mismatched clean case , {pause} your best one was under MFCC ? That sixty - one point four ? +PhD D: Yeah . {pause} But it 's not a clean case . It 's {pause} a noisy case but {pause} uh training and test noises are the same . +PhD A: Oh ! So this upper third ? +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Uh that 's still noisy ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Ah , OK . +PhD D: So it 's always noisy basically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , {pause} well , the {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: OK ? Um {pause} So uh , I think this will take some {pause} looking at , thinking about . But , {pause} what is uh {disfmarker} what is currently running , that 's {disfmarker} uh , i that {disfmarker} just filling in the holes here or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? {comment} {pause} pretty much ? +PhD D: Uh , no we don't plan to fill the holes +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: but {pause} actually there is something important , is that {pause} um we made a lot of assumption concerning the on - line normalization and we just noticed {pause} uh recently that {pause} uh the {pause} approach that we were using {pause} was not {pause} uh {pause} leading to very good results {pause} when we {pause} used the straight features to HTK . Um {pause} {pause} Mmm . So basically d {pause} if you look at the {disfmarker} at the left of the table , {pause} the first uh row , {pause} with eighty - six , one hundred , and forty - three and seventy - five , these are the results we obtained for Italian {pause} uh with {pause} straight {pause} mmm , PLP features {pause} using on - line normalization . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . And the , mmm {disfmarker} what 's {pause} in the table , just {pause} at the left of the PLP twelve {pause} on - line normalization column , so , the numbers seventy - nine , fifty - four and {pause} uh forty - two {pause} are the results obtained by uh Pratibha with {pause} uh his on - line normalization {disfmarker} uh her on - line normalization approach . +PhD A: Where is that ? seventy - nine , fifty +Professor B: Uh , it 's just sort of sitting right on the uh {disfmarker} the column line . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Fifty - one ? This {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh I see , OK . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} Yeah . +PhD D: Just {disfmarker} uh Yeah . So these are the results of {pause} OGI with {pause} on - line normalization and straight features to HTK . And the previous result , eighty - six and so on , {pause} are with our {pause} features straight to HTK . +Professor B: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: So {pause} what we see that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} there is that um {pause} uh the way we were doing this was not correct , but {pause} still {pause} the networks {pause} are very good . When we use the networks {pause} our number are better that {pause} uh Pratibha results . +PhD E: We improve . +Professor B: So , do you know what was wrong with the on - line normalization , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . There were diff there were different things and {pause} basically , {pause} the first thing is the mmm , {pause} alpha uh {pause} value . So , the recursion {pause} uh {pause} part . um , {pause} I used point five percent , {pause} which was the default value in the {disfmarker} {pause} in the programs here . And Pratibha used five percent . +Professor B: Uh +PhD D: So it adapts more {pause} quickly +Professor B: Yes . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , but , yeah . I assume that this was not important because {pause} uh previous results from {disfmarker} from Dan and {disfmarker} show that basically {pause} the {pause} both {disfmarker} both values g give the same {disfmarker} same {pause} uh results . It was true on uh {pause} TI - digits but it 's not true on Italian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , second thing is the initialization of the {pause} stuff . Actually , {pause} uh what we were doing is to start the recursion from the beginning of the {pause} utterance . And using initial values that are the global mean and variances {pause} measured across the whole database . +Professor B: Right . Right . +PhD D: And Pratibha did something different is that he {disfmarker} uh she initialed the um values of the mean and variance {pause} by computing {pause} this on the {pause} twenty - five first frames of each utterance . Mmm . There were other minor differences , the fact that {pause} she used fifteen dissities instead s instead of thirteen , and that she used C - zero instead of log energy . Uh , but the main differences concerns the recursion . So . {pause} Uh , I changed the code uh and now we have a baseline that 's similar to the OGI baseline . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's slightly {pause} uh different because {pause} I don't exactly initialize the same way she does . Actually I start , {pause} mmm , I don't wait to a fifteen {disfmarker} twenty - five {disfmarker} twenty - five frames {pause} before computing a mean and the variance {pause} to e to {disfmarker} to start the recursion . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I use the on - line scheme and only start the re recursion after the twenty - five {disfmarker} {pause} twenty - fifth frame . But , well it 's similar . So {pause} uh I retrained {pause} the networks with {pause} these {disfmarker} well , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the networks are retaining with these new {pause} features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So basically what I expect is that {pause} these numbers will a little bit go down but {pause} perhaps not {disfmarker} not so much +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: because {pause} I think the neural networks learn perhaps {pause} to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: even if the features are not {pause} normalized . It {disfmarker} it will learn how to normalize and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , but I think that {pause} given the pressure of time we probably want to draw {disfmarker} because of that {pause} especially , we wanna draw some conclusions from this , do some reductions {pause} in what we 're looking at , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and make some strong decisions for what we 're gonna do testing on before next week . So do you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} w did you have something going on , on the side , with uh multi - band {pause} or {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on this , +PhD D: Yeah {vocalsound} I +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: No , I {disfmarker} we plan to start this uh so , act actually we have discussed uh {pause} @ @ um , these {disfmarker} what we could do {pause} more as a {disfmarker} as a research and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we were thinking perhaps that {pause} uh {pause} the way we use the tandem is not {disfmarker} Uh , well , there is basically perhaps a flaw in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the stuff because {pause} we {pause} trained the networks {disfmarker} If we trained the networks on the {disfmarker} on {pause} a language and a t or a specific {pause} task , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um , what we ask is {disfmarker} to the network {disfmarker} is to put the bound the decision boundaries somewhere in the space . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD D: And uh {pause} mmm and ask the network to put one , {pause} at one side of the {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for a particular phoneme at one side of the boundary {disfmarker} decision boundary and one for another phoneme at the other side . And {pause} so there is kind of reduction of the information there that 's not correct because if we change task {pause} and if the phonemes are not in the same context in the new task , {pause} obviously the {pause} decision boundaries are not {disfmarker} {pause} should not be at the same {pause} place . +Professor B: I di +PhD D: But the way the feature gives {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the way the network gives the features is that it reduce completely the {disfmarker} {pause} it removes completely the information {disfmarker} {pause} a lot of information from the {disfmarker} the features {pause} by uh {pause} uh {pause} placing the decision boundaries at {pause} optimal places for {pause} one kind of {pause} data but {pause} this is not the case for another kind of data . +Professor B: It 's a trade - off , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? Any - anyway go ahead . +PhD D: Yeah . So uh what we were thinking about is perhaps {pause} um one way {pause} to solve this problem is increase the number of {pause} outputs of the neural networks . Doing something like , um {pause} um phonemes within context and , well , basically context dependent phonemes . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you could make {pause} the same argument , it 'd be just as legitimate , {pause} for hybrid systems {pause} as well . Right . +PhD D: Yeah but , we know that {disfmarker} +Professor B: And in fact , {pause} th things get better with context dependent {pause} versions . Right ? +PhD D: Ye - yeah but here it 's something different . We want to have features +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: uh well , {pause} um . +Professor B: Yeah , but it 's still true {pause} that what you 're doing {pause} is you 're ignoring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're coming up with something to represent , {pause} whether it 's a distribution , {pause} probability distribution or features , you 're coming up with a set of variables {pause} that are representing {pause} uh , {pause} things that vary w over context . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , and you 're {pause} putting it all together , ignoring the differences in context . That {disfmarker} that 's true {pause} for the hybrid system , it 's true for a tandem system . So , for that reason , when you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a hybrid system , {pause} when you incorporate context one way or another , {pause} you do get better scores . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK ? But I {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a big deal {pause} to get that . I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of {disfmarker} And once you {disfmarker} the other thing is that once you represent {disfmarker} start representing more and more context {pause} it is {pause} uh {pause} much more {pause} um specific {pause} to a particular task in language . So um Uh , the {disfmarker} {pause} the acoustics associated with {pause} uh a particular context , for instance you may have some kinds of contexts that will never occur {pause} in one language and will occur frequently in the other , so the qu the issue of getting enough training {pause} for a particular kind of context becomes harder . We already actually don't have a huge amount of training data um +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mmm , I mean , {pause} the {disfmarker} the way we {disfmarker} we do it now is that we have a neural network and {pause} basically {pause} the net network is trained almost to give binary decisions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {pause} uh {disfmarker} binary decisions about phonemes . Nnn {disfmarker} Uh It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Almost . But I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does give a distribution . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {pause} it is true that if there 's two phones that are very similar , {pause} that {pause} uh {pause} the {disfmarker} {pause} i it may prefer one but it will {pause} give a reasonably high value to the other , too . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , sure but uh {pause} So basically it 's almost binary decisions and {pause} um the idea of using more {pause} classes is {pause} to {pause} get something that 's {pause} less binary decisions . +Professor B: Oh no , but it would still be even more of a binary decision . It {disfmarker} it 'd be even more of one . Because then you would say {pause} that in {disfmarker} that this phone in this context is a one , {pause} but the same phone in a slightly different context is a zero . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: That would be even {disfmarker} even more distinct of a binary decision . I actually would have thought you 'd wanna go the other way and have fewer classes . +PhD D: Yeah , but if {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean for instance , the {disfmarker} the thing I was arguing for before , but again which I don't think we have time to try , {pause} is something in which you would modify the code so you could train to have several outputs on and use articulatory features +PhD D: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz then that would {disfmarker} that would go {disfmarker} {pause} that would be much broader and cover many different situations . But if you go to very very fine categories , it 's very {pause} binary . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah , perhaps you 're right , but you have more classes so {pause} you {disfmarker} you have more information in your features . So , {vocalsound} Um {pause} You have more information in the {pause} uh +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +PhD D: posteriors vector um which means that {disfmarker} But still the information is relevant +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's information that helps to discriminate , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if it 's possible to be able to discriminate {pause} among the phonemes in context . +Professor B: Well it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's an interesting thought . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean we {disfmarker} we could disagree about it at length +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the real thing is if you 're interested in it you 'll probably try it +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {pause} and {pause} we 'll see . But {disfmarker} but what I 'm more concerned with now , as an operational level , is {pause} uh , you know , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: what do we do in four or five days ? Uh , and {disfmarker} {pause} so we have {pause} to be concerned {pause} with Are we gonna look at any combinations of things , you know once the nets get retrained so you have this problem out of it . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , are we going to look at {pause} multi - band ? Are we gonna look at combinations of things ? Uh , what questions are we gonna ask , uh now that , I mean , {pause} we should probably turn shortly to this O G I note . Um , how are we going to {pause} combine {pause} with what they 've been focusing on ? Uh , {pause} Uh we haven't been doing any of the L D A RASTA sort of thing . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And they , although they don't talk about it in this note , um , {pause} there 's um , {pause} the issue of the {pause} um Mu law {pause} business {pause} uh {pause} versus the logarithm , um , {pause} so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what i what is going on right now ? What 's right {disfmarker} you 've got {pause} nets retraining , Are there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any H T K {pause} trainings {disfmarker} testings going on ? +PhD D: N +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm trying the HTK with eh , {pause} PLP twelve on - line delta - delta and MSG filter {pause} together . +Professor B: The combination , I see . +PhD E: The combination , yeah . But I haven't result {vocalsound} at this moment . +Professor B: MSG and {disfmarker} and PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And is this with the revised {pause} on - line normalization ? +PhD E: Ye - Uh , with the old {pause} older , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Old one . So it 's using all the nets for that +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: but again we have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} We have the hope that it {disfmarker} {pause} maybe it 's not making too much difference , +PhD E: Yeah . But {pause} We can know soon . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: Uh so there is this combination , yeah . Working on combination obviously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , I will start work on multi - band . And {pause} we {pause} plan to work also on the idea of using both {pause} features {pause} and net outputs . +PhD E: +PhD D: Um . And {pause} we think that {pause} with this approach perhaps {pause} we could reduce the number of outputs of the neural network . Um , So , get simpler networks , because we still have the features . So we have um {pause} come up with um {pause} different kind of {pause} broad phonetic categories . And we have {disfmarker} Basically we have three {pause} types of broad phonetic classes . Well , something using place of articulation which {disfmarker} which leads to {pause} nine , I think , {pause} broad classes . Uh , another which is based on manner , which is {disfmarker} is also something like nine classes . And then , {pause} something that combine both , and we have {pause} twenty f {pause} twenty - five ? +Grad F: Twenty - seven . +PhD D: Twenty - seven broad classes . So like , uh , oh , I don't know , like back vowels , front vowels . +Professor B: So what you do {disfmarker} um I just wanna understand +PhD D: Um For the moments we do not {disfmarker} don't have nets , +Professor B: so {pause} You have two net or three nets ? Was this ? How many {disfmarker} how many nets do you have ? No nets . +PhD D: I mean , {pause} It 's just {disfmarker} Were we just changing {pause} the labels to retrain nets {pause} with fewer out outputs . +PhD E: Begin to work in this . We are @ @ . +Professor B: Right . But {disfmarker} but I didn't understand {disfmarker} +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} the software currently just has {disfmarker} uh a {disfmarker} allows for I think , the one {disfmarker} one hot output . So you 're having multiple nets and combining them , or {disfmarker} ? Uh , how are you {disfmarker} how are you coming up with {disfmarker} If you say {pause} uh {pause} If you have a place {pause} characteristic and a manner characteristic , how do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: It - It 's the single net , +PhD A: I think they have one output . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Oh , it 's just one net . +PhD D: It 's one net with {pause} um {pause} twenty - seven outputs +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: mm - hmm +PhD D: if we have twenty - seven classes , +Professor B: I see . I see , OK . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Well , it 's basically a standard net with fewer {pause} classes . +Professor B: So you 're sort of going the other way of what you were saying a bit ago instead of {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , but I think {disfmarker} Yeah . B b including the features , yeah . +Grad F: But including the features . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I don't think this {pause} will work {pause} alone . I think it will get worse because Well , I believe the effect that {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of too reducing too much the information is {pause} basically {disfmarker} basically what happens +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But you think if you include that {pause} plus the other features , +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Yeah , because {pause} there is perhaps one important thing that the net {pause} brings , and OGI show showed that , is {pause} the distinction between {pause} sp speech and silence Because these nets are trained on well - controlled condition . I mean the labels are obtained on clean speech , and we add noise after . So this is one thing And But perhaps , something intermediary using also {pause} some broad classes could {disfmarker} could bring so much more information . Uh . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so again then we have these broad classes and {disfmarker} well , somewhat broad . I mean , it 's twenty - seven instead of sixty - four , {pause} basically . And you have the original features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Which are PLP , or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then uh , just to remind me , all of that goes {pause} into {disfmarker} uh , that all of that is transformed by uh , uh , K - KL or something , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . There will probably be , +PhD E: Mu . +PhD D: yeah , one single KL to transform everything +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} {pause} uh , +PhD E: No transform the PLP +PhD D: per +PhD E: and only transform the other I 'm not sure . +Professor B: Well no , +PhD D: This is {pause} still something {pause} that +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I see . +PhD D: yeah , we {pause} don't know {disfmarker} +Professor B: So there 's a question of whether you would {disfmarker} +PhD E: Two e @ @ it 's one . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . Whether you would transform together or just one . Yeah . Might wanna try it both ways . But that 's interesting . So that 's something that you 're {disfmarker} you haven't trained yet but are preparing to train , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um {pause} {pause} Yeah , so I think Hynek will be here Monday . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Monday or Tuesday . So +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: So I think , you know , we need to {pause} choose the {disfmarker} choose the experiments carefully , so we can get uh key {disfmarker} {pause} key questions answered {pause} uh before then +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {pause} leave other ones aside even if it {pause} leaves incomplete {pause} tables {vocalsound} {pause} someplace , uh {pause} uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really time to {disfmarker} {pause} time to choose . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , let me pass this out , {pause} by the way . Um These are {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} {pause} did I interrupt you ? +PhD E: Yeah , I have one . +Professor B: Were there other things that you wanted to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , no . I don't think so . +PhD E: +PhD D: Yeah , I have one . +Grad G: Oh , thanks . +Professor B: Ah ! {pause} OK . {pause} OK , we have {pause} lots of them . +PhD E: We have one . +Professor B: OK , so {vocalsound} um , Something I asked {disfmarker} So they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing {pause} the {disfmarker} the VAD I guess they mean voice activity detection So again , it 's the silence {disfmarker} So they 've just trained up a net {pause} which has two outputs , I believe . Um {vocalsound} I asked uh {pause} Hynek whether {disfmarker} I haven't talked to Sunil {disfmarker} I asked Hynek whether {pause} they compared that to {pause} just taking the nets we already had {pause} and summing up the probabilities . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} To get the speech {disfmarker} voice activity detection , or else just using the silence , {pause} if there 's only one {pause} silence output . Um {pause} And , he didn't think they had , um . But on the other hand , maybe they can get by with a smaller net and {pause} maybe {pause} sometimes you don't run the other , maybe there 's a computational advantage to having a separate net , anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So um Their uh {disfmarker} {pause} the results look pretty good . Um , {pause} I mean , not uniformly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , there 's a {disfmarker} an example or two {pause} that you can find , where it made it slightly worse , but {pause} uh in {disfmarker} in all but a couple {pause} examples . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: But they have a question of the result . Um how are trained the {disfmarker} the LDA filter ? How obtained the LDA filter ? +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: I I 'm sorry . I don't understand your question . +PhD E: Yes , um the LDA filter {pause} needs some {pause} training set {pause} to obtain the filter . Maybe I don't know exactly how {pause} they are obtained . +Professor B: It 's on {pause} training . +PhD E: Training , with the training test of each {disfmarker} You understand me ? +Professor B: No . +PhD E: Yeah , uh for example , {pause} LDA filter {pause} need a set of {disfmarker} {pause} a set of training {pause} to obtain the filter . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And maybe {pause} for the Italian , for the TD {pause} TE on for Finnish , these filter are {disfmarker} are obtained with their own training set . +Professor B: Yes , I don't know . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very good question , then {disfmarker} now that it {disfmarker} {pause} I understand it . It 's "" yeah , where does the LDA come from ? "" In the {disfmarker} In {pause} earlier experiments , they had taken LDA {pause} from a completely different database , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , because maybe it the same situation that the neural network training with their own +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: set . +Professor B: So that 's a good question . Where does it come from ? Yeah , I don't know . Um , {pause} but uh to tell you the {pause} truth , I wasn't actually looking at the LDA so much when I {disfmarker} I was looking at it I was {pause} mostly thinking about the {disfmarker} {pause} the VAD . And um , it ap {pause} it ap Oh what does {disfmarker} what does ASP ? Oh that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: The features , yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: I don't understand also +Professor B: It says "" baseline ASP "" . +PhD E: what is {disfmarker} {pause} what is the difference between ASP and uh baseline over ? +PhD C: ASP . +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Anybody know {pause} any {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . There it is . +Professor B: Um Cuz there 's "" baseline Aurora "" {pause} above it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} This is mostly better than baseline , although in some cases it 's a little worse , in a couple cases . +PhD C: Well , it says baseline ASP is twenty - three mill {pause} minus thirteen . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , it says what it is . But I don't how that 's different {pause} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: From the baseline . {comment} OK . +Professor B: I think this was {disfmarker} {pause} I think this is the same point we were at when {disfmarker} when we were up in Oregon . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: I think {disfmarker} {pause} I think it 's the C - zero {disfmarker} using C - zero instead of log energy . +PhD E: Ah , OK , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it 's this . +Professor B: Oh . OK . +PhD E: yeah . +PhD D: It should be that , yeah . +PhD A: They s they say in here that the VAD is not used as an additional feature . +Professor B: Shouldn't it be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Does {disfmarker} does anybody know how they 're using it ? +Professor B: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what they 're doing here is , {pause} i +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if you look down at the block diagram , {pause} um , {pause} they estimate {disfmarker} they get a {disfmarker} {pause} they get an estimate {pause} of whether it 's speech or silence , +PhD A: But that {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then they have a median filter of it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so um , {pause} basically they 're trying to find stretches . The median filter is enforcing a {disfmarker} i it having some continuity . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You find stretches where the {pause} combination of the {pause} frame wise VAD and the {disfmarker} {pause} the median filter say that there 's a stretch of silence . And then it 's going through and just throwing the data away . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't understand . You mean it 's throwing out frames ? Before {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's throwing out chunks of frames , yeah . There 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the median filter is enforcing that it 's not gonna be single cases of frames , or isolated frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's throwing out frames and the thing is {pause} um , {pause} what I don't understand is how they 're doing this with H T +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what I was just gonna ask . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: How can you just throw out frames ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you {disfmarker} you can , +PhD D: i +Professor B: right ? I mean y you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: it stretches again . For single frames I think it would be pretty hard . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But if you say speech starts here , speech ends there . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Huh . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , you can basically remove the {disfmarker} the frames from the feature {disfmarker} feature files . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , so I mean in the {disfmarker} i i in the {disfmarker} in the decoding , you 're saying that we 're gonna decode from here to here . +PhD D: I t +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're treating it , {pause} you know , like uh {disfmarker} well , it 's not isolated word , but {disfmarker} but connected , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the text they say that this {disfmarker} this is a tentative block diagram of a possible configuration we could think of . So that sort of sounds like they 're not doing that yet . +Professor B: Well . {pause} No they {disfmarker} they have numbers though , right ? So I think they 're {disfmarker} they 're doing something like that . I think that they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} I think what I mean by tha that is they 're trying to come up with a block diagram that 's plausible for the standard . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I mean from the point of view of {disfmarker} of uh reducing the number of bits you have to transmit it 's not a bad idea to detect silence anyway . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . I 'm just wondering what exactly did they do up in this table if it wasn't this . +Professor B: Um . But it 's {disfmarker} the thing is it 's that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Certainly it would be tricky about it intrans in transmitting voice , {pause} uh uh for listening to , is that these kinds of things {pause} uh cut {pause} speech off a lot . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? And so {pause} um +PhD A: Plus it 's gonna introduce delays . +Professor B: It does introduce delays but they 're claiming that it 's {disfmarker} it 's within the {disfmarker} {pause} the boundaries of it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the LDA introduces delays , and b {pause} what he 's suggesting this here is a parallel path so that it doesn't introduce {pause} uh , any more delay . I it introduces two hundred milliseconds of delay but at the same {pause} time the LDA {pause} down here {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} Wh what 's the difference between TLDA and SLDA ? +PhD C: Temporal and spectral . +Professor B: Ah , thank you . +PhD E: Temporal LDA . +Professor B: Yeah , you would know that . +PhD C: Yeah +Professor B: So um . The temporal LDA does in fact include the same {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} well , by {disfmarker} by saying this is a b a tentative block di diagram I think means {pause} if you construct it this way , this {disfmarker} this delay would work in that way +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: and then it 'd be OK . They {disfmarker} they clearly did actually remove {pause} silent sections in order {disfmarker} because they {pause} got these {pause} word error rate {pause} results . So um I think that it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to do that in this because in fact , it 's gonna give a better word error result and therefore will help within an evaluation . Whereas to whether this would actually be in a final standard , I don't know . Um . Uh , as you know , part of the problem with evaluation right now is that the {pause} word models are pretty bad and nobody wants {disfmarker} {pause} has {disfmarker} has approached improving them . So {pause} it 's possible that a lot of the problems {pause} with so many insertions and so forth would go away if they were better word models {pause} to begin with . So {pause} this might just be a temporary thing . But {disfmarker} But , on the other hand , and maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's a decent idea . So um The question we 're gonna wanna go {pause} through next week when Hynek shows up I guess is given that we 've been {disfmarker} if you look at what we 've been trying , we 're uh looking at {pause} uh , by then I guess , combinations of features and multi - band Uh , and we 've been looking at {pause} cross - language , cross {pause} task {pause} issues . And they 've been not so much looking at {pause} the cross task uh multiple language issues . But they 've been looking at uh {disfmarker} {pause} at these issues . At the on - line normalization and the uh {pause} voice activity detection . And I guess when he comes here we 're gonna have to start deciding about {pause} um what do we choose {pause} from what we 've looked at {pause} to um blend with {pause} some group of things in what they 've looked at And once we choose that , {pause} how do we split up the {pause} effort ? Uh , because we still have {disfmarker} even once we choose , {pause} we 've still got {pause} uh another {pause} month or so , I mean there 's holidays in the way , but {disfmarker} but uh {pause} I think the evaluation data comes January thirty - first so there 's still a fair amount of time {pause} to do things together it 's just that they probably should be somewhat more coherent between the two sites {pause} in that {disfmarker} that amount of time . +PhD A: When they removed the silence frames , did they insert some kind of a marker so that the recognizer knows it 's {disfmarker} {pause} knows when it 's time to back trace or something ? +Professor B: Well , see they , I {disfmarker} I think they 're Um . I don't know the {disfmarker} {pause} the specifics of how they 're doing it . They 're {disfmarker} {pause} they 're getting around the way the recognizer works because they 're not allowed to {pause} um , change the scripts {pause} for the recognizer , {pause} I believe . +PhD A: Oh , right . Maybe they 're just inserting some nummy frames or something ? +Professor B: So . Uh . Uh , you know that 's what I had thought . But I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they are . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean that 's {disfmarker} sort of what {disfmarker} the way I had imagined would happen is that on the other side , yeah you p put some low level noise or something . Probably don't want all zeros . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Most recognizers don't like zeros but {vocalsound} but {pause} you know , {pause} put some epsilon in or some rand +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: sorry epsilon random variable {pause} in or something . +PhD A: Some constant vector . I mean i w Or something {disfmarker} +Professor B: Maybe not a constant but it doesn't , uh {disfmarker} don't like to divide by the variance of that , but I mean it 's +PhD A: That 's right . But something that {disfmarker} what I mean is something that is {pause} very distinguishable from {pause} speech . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that the {disfmarker} the silence model in HTK will always pick it up . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's what I thought they would do . or else , uh {pause} uh maybe there is some indicator to tell it to start and stop , I don't know . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: But whatever they did , I mean they have to play within the rules of this specific evaluation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We c we can find out . +PhD A: Cuz you gotta do something . Otherwise , if it 's just a bunch of speech , stuck together {disfmarker} +Professor B: No they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It would do badly +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: and it didn't so badly , right ? So they did something . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh . So , OK , So I think {pause} this brings me up to date a bit . It hopefully brings other {pause} people up to date a bit . And um Um {pause} I think {disfmarker} Uh , I wanna look at these numbers off - line a little bit and think about it and {disfmarker} {pause} and talk with everybody uh , {pause} outside of this meeting . Um , but uh No I mean it sounds like {disfmarker} I mean {pause} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are the usual number of {disfmarker} of {pause} little {disfmarker} little problems and bugs and so forth but it sounds like they 're getting ironed out . And now we 're {pause} seem to be kind of in a position to actually {pause} uh , {pause} look at stuff and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and compare things . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty good . Um {pause} I don't know what the {disfmarker} One of the things I wonder about , {pause} coming back to the first results you talked about , is {disfmarker} is {pause} how much , {pause} uh {pause} things could be helped {pause} by more parameters . And uh {disfmarker} {pause} And uh how many more parameters we can afford to have , {vocalsound} {pause} in terms of the uh computational limits . Because anyway when we go to {pause} twice as much data {pause} and have the same number of parameters , particularly when it 's twice as much data and it 's quite diverse , um , I wonder if having twice as many parameters would help . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , just have a bigger hidden layer . Uh But {disfmarker} I doubt it would {pause} help by forty per cent . But {vocalsound} {pause} but uh +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Just curious . How are we doing on the {pause} resources ? Disk , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think we 're alright , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: um , {pause} not much problems with that . +Professor B: Computation ? +PhD D: It 's OK . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well this table took uh {pause} more than five days to get back . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , well . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Are {disfmarker} were you folks using Gin ? That 's a {disfmarker} that just died , you know ? +PhD D: Mmm , no . You were using Gin {comment} perhaps , yeah ? No . +PhD E: No . +Professor B: No ? Oh , that 's good . +Grad F: It just died . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , {pause} we 're gonna get a replacement {pause} server that 'll be a faster server , {pause} actually . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor B: That 'll be {disfmarker} It 's a {pause} seven hundred fifty megahertz uh SUN +PhD D: Hmm . {comment} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {pause} But it won't be installed for {pause} a little while . +PhD C: Tonic . +Professor B: U Go ahead . +Grad G: Do we {disfmarker} Do we have that big new IBM machine the , I think in th +Professor B: We have the {pause} little tiny IBM machine {vocalsound} {pause} that might someday grow up to be a big {pause} IBM machine . It 's got s slots for eight , uh IBM was donating five , I think we only got two so far , processors . We had originally hoped we were getting eight hundred megahertz processors . They ended up being five fifty . So instead of having eight processors that were eight hundred megahertz , we ended up with two {pause} that are five hundred and fifty megahertz . And more are supposed to come soon and there 's only a moderate amount of dat of memory . So I don't think {pause} anybody has been sufficiently excited by it to {pause} spend much time {pause} uh {pause} with it , but uh {vocalsound} Hopefully , {pause} they 'll get us some more {pause} parts , soon and {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , I think that 'll be {disfmarker} once we get it populated , {pause} that 'll be a nice machine . I mean we will ultimately get eight processors in there . And uh {disfmarker} and uh a nice amount of memory . Uh so it 'll be a pr pretty fast Linux machine . +Grad G: And if we can do things on Linux , {pause} some of the machines we have going already , like Swede ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um It seems pretty fast . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} I think Fudge is pretty fast too . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean you can check with uh {pause} Dave Johnson . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} I think the machine is just sitting there . And it does have two processors , you know and {disfmarker} {pause} Somebody could do {disfmarker} {pause} you know , uh , check out {pause} uh the multi - threading {pause} libraries . And {pause} I mean i it 's possible that the {disfmarker} I mean , I guess the prudent thing to do would be for somebody to do the work on {disfmarker} {pause} on getting our code running {pause} on that machine with two processors {pause} even though there aren't five or eight . There 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's gonna be debugging hassles and then we 'd be set for when we did have five or eight , to have it really be useful . But . {pause} Notice how I said somebody and {vocalsound} turned my head your direction . That 's one thing you don't get in these recordings . You don't get the {disfmarker} {pause} don't get the visuals but {disfmarker} +Grad G: I is it um {pause} mostly um the neural network trainings that are {pause} um slowing us down or the HTK runs that are slowing us down ? +Professor B: Uh , I think yes . Uh , {vocalsound} Isn't that right ? I mean I think you 're {disfmarker} you 're sort of held up by both , right ? If the {disfmarker} if the neural net trainings were a hundred times faster {pause} you still wouldn't {pause} be anything {disfmarker} running through these a hundred times faster because you 'd {pause} be stuck by the HTK trainings , +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But if the HTK {disfmarker} I mean I think they 're both {disfmarker} It sounded like they were roughly equal ? Is that about right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad G: Because , um {pause} I think that 'll be running Linux , and Sw - Swede and Fudge are already running Linux so , {pause} um I could try to get {pause} um the train the neural network trainings or the HTK stuff running under Linux , and to start with I 'm {pause} wondering which one I should pick first . +Professor B: Uh , probably the neural net cuz it 's probably {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} {pause} it 's um {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . They both {disfmarker} HTK we use for {pause} um {pause} this Aurora stuff Um {pause} Um , I think {pause} It 's not clear yet what we 're gonna use {pause} for trainings uh {disfmarker} Well , {pause} there 's the trainings uh {disfmarker} is it the training that takes the time , or the decoding ? Uh , is it about equal {pause} between the two ? For {disfmarker} for Aurora ? +PhD D: For HTK ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} Yeah . For the Aurora ? +PhD D: Uh Training is longer . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't know how we can {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} Do we have HTK source ? Is that {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: You would think that would fairly trivially {disfmarker} the training would , anyway , th the testing {pause} uh I don't {disfmarker} I don't {pause} think would {pause} parallelize all that well . But I think {pause} that {pause} you could {pause} certainly do d um , {pause} distributed , sort of {disfmarker} {pause} Ah , no , it 's the {disfmarker} {pause} each individual {pause} sentence is pretty tricky to parallelize . But you could split up the sentences in a test set . +PhD A: They have a {disfmarker} they have a thing for doing that and th they have for awhile , in H T And you can parallelize the training . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD A: And run it on several machines +Professor B: Aha ! +PhD A: and it just basically keeps counts . And there 's something {disfmarker} {pause} a final {pause} thing that you run and it accumulates all the counts together . +Professor B: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: I don't what their scripts are {pause} set up to do for the Aurora stuff , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Something that we haven't really settled on yet is other than {pause} this Aurora stuff , {pause} uh what do we do , large vocabulary {pause} training slash testing {pause} for uh tandem systems . Cuz we hadn't really done much with tandem systems for larger stuff . Cuz we had this one collaboration with CMU and we used SPHINX . Uh , we 're also gonna be collaborating with SRI and we have their {disfmarker} have theirs . Um {pause} So {pause} I don't know Um . So I {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the advantage of going with the neural net thing is that we 're gonna use the neural net trainings , no matter what , for a lot of the things we 're doing , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: whereas , w exactly which HMM {disfmarker} Gaussian - mixture - based HMM thing we use is gonna depend uh So with that , maybe we should uh {vocalsound} go to our {nonvocalsound} digit recitation task . And , it 's about eleven fifty . Canned . Uh , I can {disfmarker} I can start over here . Great , uh , could you give Adam a call . Tell him to He 's at two nine seven seven . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: OK . I think we can {vocalsound} @ @ You know Herve 's coming tomorrow , right ? Herve will be giving a talk , yeah , talk at eleven . Did uh , did everybody sign these consent Er everybody Has everyone signed a consent form before , on previous meetings ? You don't have to do it again each time Yes . microphones off +","In the conversation, various members of the team, including professors, PhD students, and a graduate student, discuss technical details related to their ongoing projects with a focus on feature extraction, voice activity detection, and the performance of different systems under various conditions. + +They discuss the use of different channels, microphones, and neural network training methods, as well as the issues with the data involving English and Italian languages. The team also reviews the specifics of a Voice Activity Detection (VAD) implementation and how the detection of silences and speech can impact the performance of their recognition systems. It's suggested that the detection system could remove frames perceived as silent before analysis by the recognizer. They consider whether this is within the constraints of the standard they must adhere to and its potential application in a final standard. + +The team has to manage computational resources effectively for tasks such as neural network trainings and HTK (Hidden Markov Model Toolkit) evaluations. Questions are raised about how certain components like the LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) fit in and if they are trained on the specific datasets for each language or task. + +Towards the end of the discussion, they deliberate on the pathways for integrating their work with what has been accomplished at another site (OGI). Prioritization of experiments and decisions on which features and models to pursue in the immediate future are considered important. The team also touches on logistical issues such as hardware limitations, computational resources, and which aspect - either neural network training or HTK evaluations - is the current computational bottleneck. They also talk about potential strategies for running experiments on Linux machines. + +Lastly, they mention an upcoming talk by Herve, presumably a collaborator or guest speaker, and conclude the meeting by preparing for a digit recitation task, which seems to be a part of their project experiments or evaluation. Some administrative and logistics details are briefly mentioned before the conversation ends with a reminder to call Adam. The conversation is technical and fragmented, indicating that the attendees are familiar with the context and nuances of the research project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: If you leave them on the whole time you get to look like a noodle the whole time . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Is that someone's ? +Project Manager: Is that {gap} . +User Interface: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} three , apparently . +User Interface: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , you all switched on . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep , me too . +Project Manager: I presume we're good to go . Okay , um minutes um we decided to use a kinetic charger , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: standard chip , um 'cause it can come in various different sizes , it wasn't uh uh gonna be a problem factor . We wanted a stand-by function . The case material is gonna be soft , rubbery , changeable . Um buttons with a combination of L_C_D_ and rubber according to the design . Um bright funky designs inspired by fruit , keeping with the hip kind of feel . Um {vocalsound} and to try and incorporate voice recognition software into our design until we can find out more about the cost of things like that . Um {vocalsound} and the rubber buttons that we'll use will be anti-R_S_I_ . Okay ? Prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Is that {gap} for us ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: I think that would be you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Me and William worked on a prototype , and I think William is going to make a p presentation on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , shall I show ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll show . Though do you do you wanna do you wanna sh do you wanna hold it +User Interface: I can hold it like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Make sure the camera's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll show you the presentation . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can I just nick your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes you can . Wait a second , I'll get it out . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Whoa . +User Interface: It looks +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Going a bit crazy over here . +User Interface: crazy {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Um not now . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You should have one of those things and you can just take it off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ta-da . +User Interface: Oh , where are the hinges ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: this is our look and feel presentation , the final {disfmarker} our final presentation . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And we'll first look at the exterior of what we've uh come up with over there . Um +User Interface: 'Kay . You able to look {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: It's gonna have a a plastic body {vocalsound} um with a sort of standard colour , either we're thinking some something fairly neutral like a a white or a light blue or something . +User Interface: Yep . {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is underneath the rubberised the rubberised uh outer casing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um which there'd be sort of a wide choice {disfmarker} they would be attached , but we can we can come up with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um the um wide choice of colours and sort of patterns , so you've got you've got a lot of customisation with it . Um {vocalsound} it's obviously an a sort of clam-shell design {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the um the top L_C_D_ screen that you can see that would b would be sort of um {vocalsound} how do you say , it's {disfmarker} yeah yeah , it would be sort of inset into the into the top +User Interface: The black and white touch screen wherein people can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So it's flush . +Industrial Designer: and the buttons at the bottom would d +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so so it'll fully close flat . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And working on the inside we've um already said {disfmarker} d decided on the kinetic batteries , which {disfmarker} actually , thinking about it now , could y could also probably attach to the flipping open and shut as well , so that you could probably get a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So put it in the top section rather than the bottom sections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the top part that's {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Um we decided that um the voice recognition system , it did actually say on the email that they were sort of coming in {vocalsound} and they were fairly easy to get a-hold of , so we presumed that they'd also be quite cheap . So you'd have something like where you'd shout out , where where is the remote and it'll shout back , I'm here , or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} yeah . It wo it won't shout out I'm here or something . It'll just shout out I'm here , or something to similar effect . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm under the sofa . +User Interface: Ah oka +Project Manager: Or , that would be too complicated . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if it was going like I d well tha that could be something for next time , maybe . You can have a remote that tells you exactly where it is . Um the standard , there's {disfmarker} be a standard transmission with the T_V_ using using all the standard chips that we've talked about . +Project Manager: Infrared {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um it would it would have {disfmarker} obviously 'cause it's split over two two different layers , it would need two separate P_C_B_s , so it would be joined at the hinge through some sort of cabling . {vocalsound} And uh because , obviously , all T_V_s use this , the same infrared medium , we'd just be using using the same thing to transmit the data . And the infrared um sender would be on the {disfmarker} on one of the bot the bottom layer , just at the front of the {disfmarker} we haven't {disfmarker} I don't think we actually put it on . +Project Manager: Like here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +User Interface: Infrared could be here also . Yeah , here . +Project Manager: Okay . Actually , no , it would be {disfmarker} it would have to be on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on the front on the front side of that , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . So when it's {disfmarker} even if it's open here , the signals would go {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh right , yeah , okay , yeah , I've got you . It's still pointing , +Industrial Designer: So when you've actually got it open , it would be facing the T_V_ . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that would make sense . +Industrial Designer: And then finally um on to the interface . {vocalsound} The top screen , as we said , is {disfmarker} would be an inset um black and white L_C_D_ s touch screen +User Interface: {gap} This one right here . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} yeah would uh have all of all of the the available functions for for the remote on it , uh whereas the bot the bottom screen would just contain the standard buttons , like the vo volume up and down , channel up and down , power on and off , and uh things to that effect . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And now we've {disfmarker} we also decided on the inside , we could possibly either have um some some kind of sort of bezzled uh logo on it , or something inset , or maybe an engraving of the logo on the top . +User Interface: Which is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not interfering with the outside kind of look of the product +Industrial Designer: No d not not actually . No , not uh interfering with l the whole look of the the product when it's uh on the thing . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: once it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look up to it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And finally that's how we put the fashion back into electronics , +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: as that is {disfmarker} that's the company logo {gap} . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Wrapping it all up , okay . +Marketing: Well done . +Project Manager: Um I've now got evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Certainly . +User Interface: So this is the one . Sorry . +Project Manager: It's to be presented {gap} . +Industrial Designer: There you go . {gap} . +Marketing: Logged in ? Thank you . Oops . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Evaluation . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm um I I think this is {gap} chip . +Project Manager: It's quite similar to what it was before , though . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: This stage of the evaluation is really for us as a team to evaluate if we have now got a product specification and prototype design that meets the the criteria that we got from our market research . {vocalsound} So this is the first stage of the evaluation . Now , the collection of the criteria , as we saw in our previous meeting , was based on the user requirements and trends found in the marketing reports and marketing strategy of our company . So it's what we've discussed in the last meeting , are we actually meeting those trends and requirements ? Now the findings that we came up with , just a recap , are here . The criteria that we want in this remote control are a fancy look and feel , technological innovation , it should be easy to use , it should incorporate current fashion trends , and those {disfmarker} the two main ones , they were the spongy texture and the fruit and vegetable strong design colours . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The design should minimise R_S_I_ and be easy to locate and we were still um uh slightly ambivalent as to whether to use voice recognition there , though that did seem to be the favoured strategy , but there was also , on the sideline , the though of maybe having a beeper function . {vocalsound} Okay , so we can come back to that slide , if you don't have a note of those . I'll just show you how we're going to evaluate our own feedback to this , to what we have so far . We're going to use a seven point scale , where one is true and seven is false . We look at each of those criteria that I've just mentioned , I'll call that slide back up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I will just do a preliminary rating of all those criteria on the whiteboard here . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Does that seem clear ? Any questions there ? +User Interface: Ah , it's perfect . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we're going to look at these crite So +User Interface: Is it everybody is going to evaluate , or just the Market {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: we're going to come to {disfmarker} w we'll discuss each one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we'll come to a consensus rating between one and seven . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: One is true , seven is false . Right . So I won't write all of that out again . It will just be criteria one , two , three , four , five , six , or A_ , B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ to confuse it with the number rating . B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ . {vocalsound} This is where I realise how tiny I actually am . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just write small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Criteria and rating . Actually , it might be an idea , if we each did give our own individual rating , and we could take an average at the end . How about that ? +User Interface: Yeah , so you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Okay . So I'll just separate the ratings by obliques , and if we go one , two , three , four , we know who's who . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Criteria A_ , the fancy look and feel . How do we feel about this prototype model relating to fancy {disfmarker} it is a fancy look and feel . One is true , seven is false . My own rating for that would be a two . One is true and seven is false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd uh yeah I'd probably put it uh {vocalsound} two {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: I'll just go this way . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: two or three . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: No , three . Three . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I would say two . +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would say four . +Marketing: A four , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Adding those up , we've got a six and a five , eleven divided by four is what ? Uh two and three quarters , it that right . +User Interface: Almost three . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Two and three quarters ? +User Interface: I think yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Two point seven five , there we go . {vocalsound} Okay , criteria B_ , criterion B_ , technologically innovative . I would give that a three . +Industrial Designer: I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Okay . Not that you're biased {vocalsound} in that it {disfmarker} the designer . +Industrial Designer: No , no , not at all . +Project Manager: A two . +User Interface: Oh sorry , I I got it wrong . The first one rating , I'm sorry . Can you just make it two ? The first . +Marketing: The average {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I just {gap} it the other way . +Marketing: oh , for you ? You want your rating to be a two ? Is that what you're saying ? +User Interface: Uh in {gap} Yep , I just got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So , I'll work out the average for that again at the end . It's a very slightly altered {disfmarker} Okay , +User Interface: two point f +Marketing: and we're just waiting for your rating +Project Manager: It's just two point five for that one . +Marketing: f +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Two point five , okay . Losing one decimal place , that's okay . +User Interface: One is a {gap} , seven is false , okay . +Marketing: So what are you rating for this one , Paw ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . So that is eight . That brings it down to two , +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: nice and simple , yeah . Okay , ease of use . Easy to use ? Based on what you've said there , I would say a one , true . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: I would say a two . I would say a two . +Marketing: A two , okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two . I should've said a two to make the arithmetic easy , shouldn't I ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll just put almost two , +Project Manager: One point seven f five . +Marketing: because I'm not gonna get into silly decimal places . +Project Manager: Okay , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Or we {disfmarker} or if we want to really bring it down , we can do later . Um mm now we're looking at +Industrial Designer: D_ . +Marketing: it incorporates current fashion trends , now that's particularly in relation to our market research findings about the spongy texture to the exterior and the fruit and vegetable design colours . +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . So I'm just thinking , before I give it my rating , you were limited in the use of materials for your prototype here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this actually going to be the colours that you would use ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , the the base colour was um {vocalsound} white or or like or l sort of a light blue , +User Interface: White . With {disfmarker} for the plastic ? Uh blue . +Industrial Designer: but the changeable fa faces would uh allow you to get any {disfmarker} basically any one of a number of colours that uh th it's full sort of customised . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Any {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we could use any strong fruit and veg colours and that's what we're intending to do . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the spongy feel is no problem with that . +User Interface: Yeah , because you'll be having a {disfmarker} Because of the rubber case . +Industrial Designer: No , no , 'cause th that's that's the the spongy feel would be in the rubber that you put round it , that {disfmarker} otherwise it's just sort of hard plastic . +Marketing: Okay . In that case it's got to be a one for me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll give it a one as well . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: Everybody ? Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That part was nice and easy . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Uh moving on to does the design minimise repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think we've really touched on that a lot . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: We've we've discussed it , we haven't really come up with anything that we felt could feasibly reduce that . We've talked about pointers , but the very use of a remote control , if you're someone who's zapping , who's sitting like that , and we found so many people did , how do you minimise that on such a small device ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the type of button that we're gonna use in the bottom half , the material , minimises R_S_I_ +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: it's meant to . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe because it's slightl +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: with the size that we've got it's quite small , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but with the amount of stuff we're putting on it isn't that much . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe because there's more space , it's not kind of moving around trying to hit accurately the buttons in between . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Right . +Project Manager: It's quite obvious just big buttons . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . I think I'm gonna have to be neutral on that and give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'd uh I'd f I'd go for a five , actually , +Marketing: A five , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four and a four okay . +User Interface: Four . +Marketing: Twenty one {disfmarker} is that twenty one ? +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that's four point two five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: And finally , last but not least , easy to locate . Now we talked about voice recognition , we talked about a beeper , have we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: have the designers come to any dec real decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was it was uh a voice voice recognition , +User Interface: Voice r recognition . +Marketing: It was the I'm here thing , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: yep . And are we happy with the costs on that ? That is going to be feasible , cost-wise . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} yeah , that's feasible . +Marketing: That sounds good then . I'd go for a {disfmarker} I ca we can adjust the volume on that , just as we could volume on T_V_ . So if sombody's in the other room or if T_V_s in different rooms , or . +Industrial Designer: Um I think it would r I think it would probably be a a stand it would be a stand +Project Manager: A standard . +Industrial Designer: it would be quite loud . +Project Manager: It would be . +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it would be s p +Marketing: You built into the feature . +Project Manager: And if you didn't hear it in the room that you were standing in , then you'd realise that it wasn't in that room , you'd go into another room . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Logical . That's a one for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +Marketing: One +Project Manager: One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and one , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I do realise that we might be being fairly biased , 'cause it is our product , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: how do we feel about this ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +Marketing: We've got our our {disfmarker} we've got the highest rating of meeting the specifications that is definitely true for two of the uh six criteria there . That is for um incorporates current fashion trends and is easy to locate . The lowest rating we've got , which is really n it's not terribly low , i it's close around neutral is for uh the minimisation of repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} Do we feel on the basis of tha of these evaluation findings that we can go ahead and now produce this as a prototype and market it , or do we have to make further modifications ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: W I thin yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: We happy to go ahead ? +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah . I think we're set . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I think for most of those ratings that it's high enough at the upper end of the scale for us to go ahead with that , and I really doubt if on the basis of current technology and our current capabilities , we could actually do much more to minimise that . +Project Manager: Do much apart from having a huge big {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I know . Okay . Well , I hope that's uh clear to the team . Is there anything you would like to to ask me about the findings before I sum up ? +Project Manager: Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Good . Fine then . I'll just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I've got finance here now . I'm gonna plug this in so you can all see it , if that's okay . Um . +Marketing: Oh yes . +User Interface: You want me to b unplug that ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +User Interface: That's all . Yes . +Project Manager: Thanks . Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now I presume that the screen will go blank , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um {disfmarker} Okay . We just type numbers into this and we come out with the final value . So are we still on for kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . See , it woulda been handy to have this at the beginning . Um it might have influenced our choice . Right , what's happening with the electronics ? +Industrial Designer: It was a regular chip on print +User Interface: Chip on print . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Oh , no , no , no , the um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} you you've put in three for the number of kinetic cells , there should just be one . In the top , it's the number +Project Manager: Oh , right , +Industrial Designer: of c yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: So , would there be two ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah , just a {disfmarker} no , one reg v uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one of them and one sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And they're double curved . No . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Project Manager: One double curve . +Industrial Designer: Y Two , +User Interface: Two curves , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's two . +Marketing: But it has a slightly flattened bottom so it can sit . So it can rest . +Project Manager: So what's a single curve then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say I'd say it was w +Marketing: It would just be a flat bottom with one curve . {gap} like a domed thing . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single-cu +Project Manager: So just one double {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One double-curved . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Plastic and rubber . +Industrial Designer: no , 'cause one {disfmarker} yeah , one's double-curved , and then the other one's +Marketing: The other curves at the sides , but it's slightly flattened at the bottom so it doesn't roll over . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Um we've got plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: a plastic . +Project Manager: haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Plastic one and maybe rubber point five . +Industrial Designer: And special colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No I think rubber , since it's being used just as a casing , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can put point five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it allows the point five , yeah . We can use that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does it mean if you put point five for that ? +User Interface: It means we are not using a lot of rubber actually . We're using just a very low quantity of rubber compared to plastic . +Project Manager: It would be like saying we're using {disfmarker} See , it says case material . So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we're not actually using plastic in the case , are we ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , that's {disfmarker} it's as an extra . +Project Manager: It's including , it's including . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't that shouldn't be actually on there , because that's not incorporated in the cost of the remote you get . +Marketing: But it is gonna be part of the total cost , and there's nowhere else we can we can put that in , is there ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: There's nowhere else we can code for the the rubber used in the casing . So do we not have to account for it in the cost somewhere there ? +Project Manager: Okay , we'll just put it in as we'll put in as half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or sh we should just put it in as one , because the plastic is zero anyway . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: No , we don't step on anyone's toes . Okay , special colour , do we need that ? +Marketing: Might do , if we go for some of the more exotic aubergines and such like colours . +Project Manager: N yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Interface . +User Interface: Push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: the push-button's one and L_C_ display one . +User Interface: An One . +Project Manager: Buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: S +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we could change the battery also . Instead of going for kinetic how about going for a standard battery . +Marketing: Has that not made any d if you click off that square now , has that not made any difference ? +Project Manager: Has that not gone up ? +Industrial Designer: Well yes . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} oh , it's brought it slightly down . +Project Manager: Oh no , it was seven five it's changed not a lot . +Marketing: So is is uncurved completely and just actually making the rubber case the curved thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: is that going to make a difference ? +User Interface: Uncurved , flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , it's not made any difference , has it? . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: it just surprises one . +Industrial Designer: we'll have {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's gone up again . +Project Manager: Oh , it's not calculated it . +Industrial Designer: No , no , you've got to click off to calculate it again . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's brought it down slightly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's not a lot though . +User Interface: {gap} . {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: C it might uh you might you might be assuming that that is in Euros . It could be in Dollars . And then it would be fine , because the exchange range would make it about twelve . +Project Manager: We haven't been dealin we haven't been dealing with dollars though , +Marketing: Is there anything on the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Ri I think it's in Euro {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , so the highest we've got is the electronics here . Um {vocalsound} and the interface . +Marketing: If we tr um . If we moved away from our much loved idea of a kinetic battery and just went with the standard batteries , would that make a huge difference ? +User Interface: And going to a regular bat Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the standard , it {vocalsound} um it would make one difference . The biggest one would be taking away {disfmarker} if you took away {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I feel is , customers never said anything about the battery {gap} . +Industrial Designer: If you to +User Interface: It's internal , nobody looks into the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But shape and colours , that's something we shouldn't comprimi +Marketing: And people are used to buying batteries , +Industrial Designer: If if you take away the voice , +Marketing: they're not gonna say I'm not getting this , 'cause I've got to buy a battery for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: I I do I don't like to say it , but if you take away the voice recognition , then you've got it . +User Interface: Where's that special form ? Mm mm mm . +Marketing: Should we see what difference it makes ? +Project Manager: Where's the +Industrial Designer: Yeah i yeah . +Project Manager: where's the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: No 'cause it's samples sens sample speaker . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you took away that , that'll make it twelve point three five . +Project Manager: Well the kinetic is three . If we change it to the battery it's {disfmarker} that's minus three . +Industrial Designer: They {vocalsound} n n yeah , but you p minus three plus two . +Project Manager: Oh , right . I keep seeing zero . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We can do it some other way , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: we can do {disfmarker} it doesn't have to be voice recognition . We could do the voice recognition for , you know , business class or something , you know , like an upgraded version . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You could choose to have that or not . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} but I mean in {disfmarker} I don't see why we have to sell it for twenty five Euros now , because they w they were saying they were quite willing to pay more for better product . +Marketing: But we're still working to um head o +Project Manager: So should we just change the design specification then ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it costly . +Marketing: We can put in our recommendations . If we if we're working to head office specifications as {disfmarker} this is what this project team's working for , we can put in our recommendations for what we've we've found and what we {disfmarker} the consensus that we've come to as a result of the meetings . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c we could s +Marketing: But we need to work to that specification to start with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could say {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I think the voice recognition sounds wonderful , but our object is so distinctive that that in itself is gonna make it easier to locate as a f you know in a first instance . Um as you say , we can offer the voice recognition initially to business class customers +Project Manager: Okay , we can make the price fit , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I s +Project Manager: and then say if we'd had our budget , we would've had this , +Industrial Designer: And then say we recommend {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because it also sets it apart from the crowd . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we've done all the background work to go for that if they want it . +Project Manager: They like their gadgets , they like something that's completely different . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {vocalsound} s something completely different associated with your company . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if we take voice recognition out {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That'll do it . Twelve point three five . +User Interface: Yeah we are close to the budget . +Marketing: {gap} we are . +Industrial Designer: Is it twelve point fif was it twelve point fifty ? +User Interface: Two five . +Project Manager: It's two point five . No , it's twelve point two five . +Marketing: Are you sure ? Sorry , not meaning to doubt your words there . +Project Manager: Yeah well two , twelve point two five times two is twenty five , +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Are they really going to quibble about ten P_ ? Or point zero one of a Euro ? +User Interface: It's twelve point five maybe , then . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Marketing: Which is less than ten P_ . +User Interface: I don't know what {disfmarker} it said fifty percent of the cost . So half of the price would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think the agenda one was where the um price was , wasn't it ? No . +User Interface: I think it is the first one . +Marketing: That's today's kick off meeting , {gap} . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Marketing: Mm . {gap} I thought that's what it was . +User Interface: So we are under the budget . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Well done , people . +Marketing: So we're okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: is that uh got us covered for the electronics then ? We don't need something else to take that place ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that that was just a bought-on extra , you could just take that out and that would be fine , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Seems fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that's brilliant . +User Interface: Except voice recognition , everything is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we've done that . Okay . Product evaluation . We've done room for creativity , haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because we've got decisions that we would have made that we weren't {disfmarker} didn't feel able to make . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I presume we discussed leadership and teamwork . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um in the sense that um did you feel like a team ? Or did you feel like {vocalsound} uh autonomy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say , as a team . +User Interface: I think we had a nice time . +Marketing: Although we had our separate tasks , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: there was so much interaction , so much that we needed to um bounce off each other . +Industrial Designer: Find out from each other , yeah . +Marketing: And I've certainly felt heard , listened to in that in relevant areas we've been able to , you know , give and take and adjust our remit where necessary . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think there was uh very constructive feedback by everybody . It's not like people trying to cut each other . There is more of uh true cohesive teamwork . We came to a very predic creative design , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I think . And Sarah , you coordinated the work very well . +Project Manager: Thank you . How did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no , I thought it it went really well and I yeah , I I feel that everyone was listened to and all the points that were raised seem to have been sorted out , although we didn't quite make the voice recognition in there , but that's that's good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would have made it into the final product if it was actually {disfmarker} if if if we'd seen the marketing before the initial specification was put out , I think maybe it would've come out a d little different , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I liked the fact that we could say an idea and it'd be suggested that that wasn't the best idea , but no one felt like shot down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , y it didn't matter it saying what you thought , because if it wasn't something that was that relevant , then it didn't matter , 'cause it was just another idea in the field . I like that . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: teamwork . Well you two created that wonderful specimen of a Play-Doh model . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that was the best part +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} uh I'm still not caught up . +User Interface: of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But that's nothing to do with the teamwork at all . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Maybe we should think of branching out into children's toys and fake mobile phones as a side line . And fake R_C_s . +Project Manager: Maybe . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: No , that was quite fun . Um {vocalsound} means , whiteboard , digital pens , etcetera , what does that mean ? Any ideas ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Discuss which ones {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do we evaluate the materials we had for communicating and sharing information ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Could it've been better , was it adequate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I think we probably woulda used the outer email system more , had we actually had had more time and if we'd been separated more . +Project Manager: Had time to kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause we could just sort of say , sorry what did you say about that or what do you think about that , rather than having to email it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it was nice having it there . Um like the whole picture of the thing . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} moving around the room . {vocalsound} But I think it's good , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh we spent times individually . I never thought of a remote control with a flip top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's new ideas in general , +Marketing: It's really borrowing from other areas , it's , you know , bringing things from other areas in , +Project Manager: rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it so it's {disfmarker} I mean nothing is new , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but it's applying it to a d in a different area . +Industrial Designer: Vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . Well +User Interface: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they have to come from somewhere , don't they ? +Marketing: Absolutely , yeah . +User Interface: The thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And as sh as w sorry , +User Interface: Yep , sorry , +Project Manager: you go . +User Interface: go on Sarah . +Project Manager: Um as was shown by {vocalsound} your presentation with all of the other controls , remote controls , no one's thought about it particularly . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean they're slightly different , so if someone's been shut in the room and said make ours a bit different from everyone else's , 'cause it's w something we should think about , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but obviously no one's put any great deal of thought into it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I do I don't think the the companies are really concerned . They're just like we've got a D_V_D_ player , does anyone remember the remote control ? Can't you get the one that we used for the last one ? Yeah , just jazz it up a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh d they don't really think about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because normally , the remote control isn't the product which they're trying to ship . They're trying to ship the D_V_D_ player , the video player , the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , the focus isn't on to that , yeah . +Project Manager: But then when it everything is really smart , and you've just got this big chunk of black thing sitting on your coffee table , it doesn't go , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean if you could have something that's a proper funky thing , a funky item that's individual , individual to you , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean they could even go into um you go in with an idea and they design it on Photoshop and then they just get it printed on the plastic , you would pray {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you would pay a lot extra , because it's individually being {disfmarker} a plastic was being made for you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But people could {gap} have anything that they wanted . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Surprising to me is like uh people give a lot of attention to modifying mobile phones , like a real want to see a new launch or something like that . +Project Manager: Because of the produ Mm . +User Interface: And new f television products coming up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but nobody giving uh much idea to this . Like Sarah was telling , everything's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's really good that this has been very market research based , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because {vocalsound} just going back to mobile phones , I mean this is the first change in remote control devices that I can really , you know , say is is obvious and visible . We see it in mobile phones a lot , and tha that's where we've borrowed a lot of our ide our ideas from . There are innovations in that that people don't really want . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see people wanting a model of the phone they were really happy with , and they can't get it anymore +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and it's innovation for innovation's sake , and I think it's wonderful our company's so R_ and D_ based . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , it's innovation for money's sake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The the people have to keep buying . +Marketing: But forcing it onto people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . It's things that , you know , they might want to buy the thing they really want . +Project Manager: And you can't get {disfmarker} you've got your handset that works fine , but you can't get the battery anymore for that type of phone , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because the phones have moved on , things like that . +Marketing: Or there isn't a cover to fit it or whatever , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: It's madness . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: See I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In closing {disfmarker} There we go . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} our costs are below budget with recommendations that they {disfmarker} the budget be increased , but I think {disfmarker} I don't know , d what do you think ? Do you think that's takes into account um overheads like us being well paid kind of a thing ? And the heating for the building , do you think our budget includes everything , all the costs that are going out ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well . +Marketing: I think it was just the produc uh just the production cost of the phone . +Industrial Designer: I think that was just the the physical . +Project Manager: So it looks {disfmarker} well it looks like it's gonna be fifty percent profit , you've still got all of the overheads to come out of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So maybe increasing it , you would also have to increase the price that it's sold at . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe fifty percent more . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} but you were saying that that's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} yeah I don't {disfmarker} from the market research . +Marketing: But I think in the remit that we were given , it was very specific . I think we've done what we were required to do , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and I think there'll have to be another project team or a new project for us to look at at those kind of things . I don't think that's something we have to look at and find a way of raising the cash for . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we've done very well to get within budget +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and it still makes such an innovative item +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that I think people are really gonna want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's a shame it won't ever get made . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Who knows ? +Project Manager: Maybe it will . +Marketing: Maybe it will . Maybe they are gonna steal our ideas +Project Manager: Maybe someone'll r run down and patent it . +Industrial Designer: I it's top secret . Um it's it is it's a conspiracy going on here . That's what it is . +Marketing: and sell it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the project has been evaluated well and truly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and we've got the meeting survey and questionnaire . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There's a final questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , so we've got about fifty minutes to catch up with {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everything that I fell behind with , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so I'll be delegating in my um role as Project Supervisor , +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so good luck . +User Interface: Celebration , you didn't talk about that . +Project Manager: I think the celebration is the twenty five pounds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Either that or we'll be dancing on the desks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Questionnaire . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Is that it then ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , just the last , I think . +Industrial Designer: Awesome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I've got minutes for two of the meeting and the last thingy . +Marketing: Questionnaire done . Oh , I didn't have to rate you on how much you influenced the meeting this time . +Industrial Designer: Was that not the questionnaire for the {disfmarker} how you felt you'd done in your thing ? +Marketing: Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: I don't think . +Marketing: But do we not sometimes evaluate in these meetings too ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the s +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} yeah , questionnaire seven was the one I did just before the meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I just got con +","During a project meeting, the team discussed specifics about a prototype for a remote control. The Project Manager emphasized a kinetic charger, various chip sizes, a standby function, and a soft, rubbery, changeable case material. Fruit-inspired designs and voice recognition features were considered to meet trendy and hip design preferences. After a prototype presentation and discussions about the product's exterior and technological features, the team conducted an evaluation using a seven-point scale, focusing on criteria such as design, ease of use, and fashion trends. + +The team also explored budget concerns, looking to fit their prototype within the finance limits set. They considered removing voice recognition to reduce costs, but also noted their willingness to pay more for a better product. Throughout the meeting, the team showcased effective teamwork and communication, utilizing various tools such as the whiteboard and digital pens. In the end, they completed their evaluation, provided feedback on the meeting process, and managed to stay within budget with some recommendations for the future." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: If you leave them on the whole time you get to look like a noodle the whole time . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Is that someone's ? +Project Manager: Is that {gap} . +User Interface: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} three , apparently . +User Interface: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , you all switched on . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep , me too . +Project Manager: I presume we're good to go . Okay , um minutes um we decided to use a kinetic charger , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: standard chip , um 'cause it can come in various different sizes , it wasn't uh uh gonna be a problem factor . We wanted a stand-by function . The case material is gonna be soft , rubbery , changeable . Um buttons with a combination of L_C_D_ and rubber according to the design . Um bright funky designs inspired by fruit , keeping with the hip kind of feel . Um {vocalsound} and to try and incorporate voice recognition software into our design until we can find out more about the cost of things like that . Um {vocalsound} and the rubber buttons that we'll use will be anti-R_S_I_ . Okay ? Prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Is that {gap} for us ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: I think that would be you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Me and William worked on a prototype , and I think William is going to make a p presentation on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , shall I show ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll show . Though do you do you wanna do you wanna sh do you wanna hold it +User Interface: I can hold it like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Make sure the camera's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll show you the presentation . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can I just nick your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes you can . Wait a second , I'll get it out . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Whoa . +User Interface: It looks +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Going a bit crazy over here . +User Interface: crazy {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Um not now . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You should have one of those things and you can just take it off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ta-da . +User Interface: Oh , where are the hinges ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: this is our look and feel presentation , the final {disfmarker} our final presentation . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And we'll first look at the exterior of what we've uh come up with over there . Um +User Interface: 'Kay . You able to look {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: It's gonna have a a plastic body {vocalsound} um with a sort of standard colour , either we're thinking some something fairly neutral like a a white or a light blue or something . +User Interface: Yep . {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is underneath the rubberised the rubberised uh outer casing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um which there'd be sort of a wide choice {disfmarker} they would be attached , but we can we can come up with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um the um wide choice of colours and sort of patterns , so you've got you've got a lot of customisation with it . Um {vocalsound} it's obviously an a sort of clam-shell design {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the um the top L_C_D_ screen that you can see that would b would be sort of um {vocalsound} how do you say , it's {disfmarker} yeah yeah , it would be sort of inset into the into the top +User Interface: The black and white touch screen wherein people can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So it's flush . +Industrial Designer: and the buttons at the bottom would d +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so so it'll fully close flat . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And working on the inside we've um already said {disfmarker} d decided on the kinetic batteries , which {disfmarker} actually , thinking about it now , could y could also probably attach to the flipping open and shut as well , so that you could probably get a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So put it in the top section rather than the bottom sections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the top part that's {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Um we decided that um the voice recognition system , it did actually say on the email that they were sort of coming in {vocalsound} and they were fairly easy to get a-hold of , so we presumed that they'd also be quite cheap . So you'd have something like where you'd shout out , where where is the remote and it'll shout back , I'm here , or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} yeah . It wo it won't shout out I'm here or something . It'll just shout out I'm here , or something to similar effect . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm under the sofa . +User Interface: Ah oka +Project Manager: Or , that would be too complicated . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if it was going like I d well tha that could be something for next time , maybe . You can have a remote that tells you exactly where it is . Um the standard , there's {disfmarker} be a standard transmission with the T_V_ using using all the standard chips that we've talked about . +Project Manager: Infrared {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um it would it would have {disfmarker} obviously 'cause it's split over two two different layers , it would need two separate P_C_B_s , so it would be joined at the hinge through some sort of cabling . {vocalsound} And uh because , obviously , all T_V_s use this , the same infrared medium , we'd just be using using the same thing to transmit the data . And the infrared um sender would be on the {disfmarker} on one of the bot the bottom layer , just at the front of the {disfmarker} we haven't {disfmarker} I don't think we actually put it on . +Project Manager: Like here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +User Interface: Infrared could be here also . Yeah , here . +Project Manager: Okay . Actually , no , it would be {disfmarker} it would have to be on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on the front on the front side of that , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . So when it's {disfmarker} even if it's open here , the signals would go {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh right , yeah , okay , yeah , I've got you . It's still pointing , +Industrial Designer: So when you've actually got it open , it would be facing the T_V_ . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that would make sense . +Industrial Designer: And then finally um on to the interface . {vocalsound} The top screen , as we said , is {disfmarker} would be an inset um black and white L_C_D_ s touch screen +User Interface: {gap} This one right here . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} yeah would uh have all of all of the the available functions for for the remote on it , uh whereas the bot the bottom screen would just contain the standard buttons , like the vo volume up and down , channel up and down , power on and off , and uh things to that effect . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And now we've {disfmarker} we also decided on the inside , we could possibly either have um some some kind of sort of bezzled uh logo on it , or something inset , or maybe an engraving of the logo on the top . +User Interface: Which is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not interfering with the outside kind of look of the product +Industrial Designer: No d not not actually . No , not uh interfering with l the whole look of the the product when it's uh on the thing . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: once it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look up to it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And finally that's how we put the fashion back into electronics , +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: as that is {disfmarker} that's the company logo {gap} . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Wrapping it all up , okay . +Marketing: Well done . +Project Manager: Um I've now got evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Certainly . +User Interface: So this is the one . Sorry . +Project Manager: It's to be presented {gap} . +Industrial Designer: There you go . {gap} . +Marketing: Logged in ? Thank you . Oops . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Evaluation . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm um I I think this is {gap} chip . +Project Manager: It's quite similar to what it was before , though . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: This stage of the evaluation is really for us as a team to evaluate if we have now got a product specification and prototype design that meets the the criteria that we got from our market research . {vocalsound} So this is the first stage of the evaluation . Now , the collection of the criteria , as we saw in our previous meeting , was based on the user requirements and trends found in the marketing reports and marketing strategy of our company . So it's what we've discussed in the last meeting , are we actually meeting those trends and requirements ? Now the findings that we came up with , just a recap , are here . The criteria that we want in this remote control are a fancy look and feel , technological innovation , it should be easy to use , it should incorporate current fashion trends , and those {disfmarker} the two main ones , they were the spongy texture and the fruit and vegetable strong design colours . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The design should minimise R_S_I_ and be easy to locate and we were still um uh slightly ambivalent as to whether to use voice recognition there , though that did seem to be the favoured strategy , but there was also , on the sideline , the though of maybe having a beeper function . {vocalsound} Okay , so we can come back to that slide , if you don't have a note of those . I'll just show you how we're going to evaluate our own feedback to this , to what we have so far . We're going to use a seven point scale , where one is true and seven is false . We look at each of those criteria that I've just mentioned , I'll call that slide back up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I will just do a preliminary rating of all those criteria on the whiteboard here . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Does that seem clear ? Any questions there ? +User Interface: Ah , it's perfect . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we're going to look at these crite So +User Interface: Is it everybody is going to evaluate , or just the Market {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: we're going to come to {disfmarker} w we'll discuss each one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we'll come to a consensus rating between one and seven . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: One is true , seven is false . Right . So I won't write all of that out again . It will just be criteria one , two , three , four , five , six , or A_ , B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ to confuse it with the number rating . B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ . {vocalsound} This is where I realise how tiny I actually am . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just write small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Criteria and rating . Actually , it might be an idea , if we each did give our own individual rating , and we could take an average at the end . How about that ? +User Interface: Yeah , so you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Okay . So I'll just separate the ratings by obliques , and if we go one , two , three , four , we know who's who . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Criteria A_ , the fancy look and feel . How do we feel about this prototype model relating to fancy {disfmarker} it is a fancy look and feel . One is true , seven is false . My own rating for that would be a two . One is true and seven is false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd uh yeah I'd probably put it uh {vocalsound} two {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: I'll just go this way . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: two or three . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: No , three . Three . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I would say two . +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would say four . +Marketing: A four , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Adding those up , we've got a six and a five , eleven divided by four is what ? Uh two and three quarters , it that right . +User Interface: Almost three . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Two and three quarters ? +User Interface: I think yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Two point seven five , there we go . {vocalsound} Okay , criteria B_ , criterion B_ , technologically innovative . I would give that a three . +Industrial Designer: I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Okay . Not that you're biased {vocalsound} in that it {disfmarker} the designer . +Industrial Designer: No , no , not at all . +Project Manager: A two . +User Interface: Oh sorry , I I got it wrong . The first one rating , I'm sorry . Can you just make it two ? The first . +Marketing: The average {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I just {gap} it the other way . +Marketing: oh , for you ? You want your rating to be a two ? Is that what you're saying ? +User Interface: Uh in {gap} Yep , I just got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So , I'll work out the average for that again at the end . It's a very slightly altered {disfmarker} Okay , +User Interface: two point f +Marketing: and we're just waiting for your rating +Project Manager: It's just two point five for that one . +Marketing: f +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Two point five , okay . Losing one decimal place , that's okay . +User Interface: One is a {gap} , seven is false , okay . +Marketing: So what are you rating for this one , Paw ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . So that is eight . That brings it down to two , +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: nice and simple , yeah . Okay , ease of use . Easy to use ? Based on what you've said there , I would say a one , true . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: I would say a two . I would say a two . +Marketing: A two , okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two . I should've said a two to make the arithmetic easy , shouldn't I ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll just put almost two , +Project Manager: One point seven f five . +Marketing: because I'm not gonna get into silly decimal places . +Project Manager: Okay , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Or we {disfmarker} or if we want to really bring it down , we can do later . Um mm now we're looking at +Industrial Designer: D_ . +Marketing: it incorporates current fashion trends , now that's particularly in relation to our market research findings about the spongy texture to the exterior and the fruit and vegetable design colours . +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . So I'm just thinking , before I give it my rating , you were limited in the use of materials for your prototype here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this actually going to be the colours that you would use ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , the the base colour was um {vocalsound} white or or like or l sort of a light blue , +User Interface: White . With {disfmarker} for the plastic ? Uh blue . +Industrial Designer: but the changeable fa faces would uh allow you to get any {disfmarker} basically any one of a number of colours that uh th it's full sort of customised . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Any {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we could use any strong fruit and veg colours and that's what we're intending to do . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the spongy feel is no problem with that . +User Interface: Yeah , because you'll be having a {disfmarker} Because of the rubber case . +Industrial Designer: No , no , 'cause th that's that's the the spongy feel would be in the rubber that you put round it , that {disfmarker} otherwise it's just sort of hard plastic . +Marketing: Okay . In that case it's got to be a one for me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll give it a one as well . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: Everybody ? Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That part was nice and easy . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Uh moving on to does the design minimise repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think we've really touched on that a lot . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: We've we've discussed it , we haven't really come up with anything that we felt could feasibly reduce that . We've talked about pointers , but the very use of a remote control , if you're someone who's zapping , who's sitting like that , and we found so many people did , how do you minimise that on such a small device ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the type of button that we're gonna use in the bottom half , the material , minimises R_S_I_ +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: it's meant to . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe because it's slightl +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: with the size that we've got it's quite small , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but with the amount of stuff we're putting on it isn't that much . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe because there's more space , it's not kind of moving around trying to hit accurately the buttons in between . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Right . +Project Manager: It's quite obvious just big buttons . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . I think I'm gonna have to be neutral on that and give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'd uh I'd f I'd go for a five , actually , +Marketing: A five , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four and a four okay . +User Interface: Four . +Marketing: Twenty one {disfmarker} is that twenty one ? +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that's four point two five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: And finally , last but not least , easy to locate . Now we talked about voice recognition , we talked about a beeper , have we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: have the designers come to any dec real decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was it was uh a voice voice recognition , +User Interface: Voice r recognition . +Marketing: It was the I'm here thing , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: yep . And are we happy with the costs on that ? That is going to be feasible , cost-wise . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} yeah , that's feasible . +Marketing: That sounds good then . I'd go for a {disfmarker} I ca we can adjust the volume on that , just as we could volume on T_V_ . So if sombody's in the other room or if T_V_s in different rooms , or . +Industrial Designer: Um I think it would r I think it would probably be a a stand it would be a stand +Project Manager: A standard . +Industrial Designer: it would be quite loud . +Project Manager: It would be . +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it would be s p +Marketing: You built into the feature . +Project Manager: And if you didn't hear it in the room that you were standing in , then you'd realise that it wasn't in that room , you'd go into another room . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Logical . That's a one for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +Marketing: One +Project Manager: One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and one , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I do realise that we might be being fairly biased , 'cause it is our product , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: how do we feel about this ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +Marketing: We've got our our {disfmarker} we've got the highest rating of meeting the specifications that is definitely true for two of the uh six criteria there . That is for um incorporates current fashion trends and is easy to locate . The lowest rating we've got , which is really n it's not terribly low , i it's close around neutral is for uh the minimisation of repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} Do we feel on the basis of tha of these evaluation findings that we can go ahead and now produce this as a prototype and market it , or do we have to make further modifications ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: W I thin yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: We happy to go ahead ? +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah . I think we're set . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I think for most of those ratings that it's high enough at the upper end of the scale for us to go ahead with that , and I really doubt if on the basis of current technology and our current capabilities , we could actually do much more to minimise that . +Project Manager: Do much apart from having a huge big {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I know . Okay . Well , I hope that's uh clear to the team . Is there anything you would like to to ask me about the findings before I sum up ? +Project Manager: Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Good . Fine then . I'll just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I've got finance here now . I'm gonna plug this in so you can all see it , if that's okay . Um . +Marketing: Oh yes . +User Interface: You want me to b unplug that ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +User Interface: That's all . Yes . +Project Manager: Thanks . Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now I presume that the screen will go blank , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um {disfmarker} Okay . We just type numbers into this and we come out with the final value . So are we still on for kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . See , it woulda been handy to have this at the beginning . Um it might have influenced our choice . Right , what's happening with the electronics ? +Industrial Designer: It was a regular chip on print +User Interface: Chip on print . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Oh , no , no , no , the um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} you you've put in three for the number of kinetic cells , there should just be one . In the top , it's the number +Project Manager: Oh , right , +Industrial Designer: of c yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: So , would there be two ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah , just a {disfmarker} no , one reg v uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one of them and one sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And they're double curved . No . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Project Manager: One double curve . +Industrial Designer: Y Two , +User Interface: Two curves , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's two . +Marketing: But it has a slightly flattened bottom so it can sit . So it can rest . +Project Manager: So what's a single curve then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say I'd say it was w +Marketing: It would just be a flat bottom with one curve . {gap} like a domed thing . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single-cu +Project Manager: So just one double {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One double-curved . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Plastic and rubber . +Industrial Designer: no , 'cause one {disfmarker} yeah , one's double-curved , and then the other one's +Marketing: The other curves at the sides , but it's slightly flattened at the bottom so it doesn't roll over . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Um we've got plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: a plastic . +Project Manager: haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Plastic one and maybe rubber point five . +Industrial Designer: And special colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No I think rubber , since it's being used just as a casing , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can put point five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it allows the point five , yeah . We can use that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does it mean if you put point five for that ? +User Interface: It means we are not using a lot of rubber actually . We're using just a very low quantity of rubber compared to plastic . +Project Manager: It would be like saying we're using {disfmarker} See , it says case material . So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we're not actually using plastic in the case , are we ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , that's {disfmarker} it's as an extra . +Project Manager: It's including , it's including . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't that shouldn't be actually on there , because that's not incorporated in the cost of the remote you get . +Marketing: But it is gonna be part of the total cost , and there's nowhere else we can we can put that in , is there ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: There's nowhere else we can code for the the rubber used in the casing . So do we not have to account for it in the cost somewhere there ? +Project Manager: Okay , we'll just put it in as we'll put in as half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or sh we should just put it in as one , because the plastic is zero anyway . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: No , we don't step on anyone's toes . Okay , special colour , do we need that ? +Marketing: Might do , if we go for some of the more exotic aubergines and such like colours . +Project Manager: N yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Interface . +User Interface: Push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: the push-button's one and L_C_ display one . +User Interface: An One . +Project Manager: Buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: S +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we could change the battery also . Instead of going for kinetic how about going for a standard battery . +Marketing: Has that not made any d if you click off that square now , has that not made any difference ? +Project Manager: Has that not gone up ? +Industrial Designer: Well yes . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} oh , it's brought it slightly down . +Project Manager: Oh no , it was seven five it's changed not a lot . +Marketing: So is is uncurved completely and just actually making the rubber case the curved thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: is that going to make a difference ? +User Interface: Uncurved , flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , it's not made any difference , has it? . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: it just surprises one . +Industrial Designer: we'll have {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's gone up again . +Project Manager: Oh , it's not calculated it . +Industrial Designer: No , no , you've got to click off to calculate it again . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's brought it down slightly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's not a lot though . +User Interface: {gap} . {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: C it might uh you might you might be assuming that that is in Euros . It could be in Dollars . And then it would be fine , because the exchange range would make it about twelve . +Project Manager: We haven't been dealin we haven't been dealing with dollars though , +Marketing: Is there anything on the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Ri I think it's in Euro {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , so the highest we've got is the electronics here . Um {vocalsound} and the interface . +Marketing: If we tr um . If we moved away from our much loved idea of a kinetic battery and just went with the standard batteries , would that make a huge difference ? +User Interface: And going to a regular bat Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the standard , it {vocalsound} um it would make one difference . The biggest one would be taking away {disfmarker} if you took away {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I feel is , customers never said anything about the battery {gap} . +Industrial Designer: If you to +User Interface: It's internal , nobody looks into the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But shape and colours , that's something we shouldn't comprimi +Marketing: And people are used to buying batteries , +Industrial Designer: If if you take away the voice , +Marketing: they're not gonna say I'm not getting this , 'cause I've got to buy a battery for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: I I do I don't like to say it , but if you take away the voice recognition , then you've got it . +User Interface: Where's that special form ? Mm mm mm . +Marketing: Should we see what difference it makes ? +Project Manager: Where's the +Industrial Designer: Yeah i yeah . +Project Manager: where's the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: No 'cause it's samples sens sample speaker . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you took away that , that'll make it twelve point three five . +Project Manager: Well the kinetic is three . If we change it to the battery it's {disfmarker} that's minus three . +Industrial Designer: They {vocalsound} n n yeah , but you p minus three plus two . +Project Manager: Oh , right . I keep seeing zero . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We can do it some other way , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: we can do {disfmarker} it doesn't have to be voice recognition . We could do the voice recognition for , you know , business class or something , you know , like an upgraded version . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You could choose to have that or not . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} but I mean in {disfmarker} I don't see why we have to sell it for twenty five Euros now , because they w they were saying they were quite willing to pay more for better product . +Marketing: But we're still working to um head o +Project Manager: So should we just change the design specification then ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it costly . +Marketing: We can put in our recommendations . If we if we're working to head office specifications as {disfmarker} this is what this project team's working for , we can put in our recommendations for what we've we've found and what we {disfmarker} the consensus that we've come to as a result of the meetings . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c we could s +Marketing: But we need to work to that specification to start with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could say {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I think the voice recognition sounds wonderful , but our object is so distinctive that that in itself is gonna make it easier to locate as a f you know in a first instance . Um as you say , we can offer the voice recognition initially to business class customers +Project Manager: Okay , we can make the price fit , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I s +Project Manager: and then say if we'd had our budget , we would've had this , +Industrial Designer: And then say we recommend {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because it also sets it apart from the crowd . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we've done all the background work to go for that if they want it . +Project Manager: They like their gadgets , they like something that's completely different . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {vocalsound} s something completely different associated with your company . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if we take voice recognition out {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That'll do it . Twelve point three five . +User Interface: Yeah we are close to the budget . +Marketing: {gap} we are . +Industrial Designer: Is it twelve point fif was it twelve point fifty ? +User Interface: Two five . +Project Manager: It's two point five . No , it's twelve point two five . +Marketing: Are you sure ? Sorry , not meaning to doubt your words there . +Project Manager: Yeah well two , twelve point two five times two is twenty five , +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Are they really going to quibble about ten P_ ? Or point zero one of a Euro ? +User Interface: It's twelve point five maybe , then . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Marketing: Which is less than ten P_ . +User Interface: I don't know what {disfmarker} it said fifty percent of the cost . So half of the price would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think the agenda one was where the um price was , wasn't it ? No . +User Interface: I think it is the first one . +Marketing: That's today's kick off meeting , {gap} . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Marketing: Mm . {gap} I thought that's what it was . +User Interface: So we are under the budget . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Well done , people . +Marketing: So we're okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: is that uh got us covered for the electronics then ? We don't need something else to take that place ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that that was just a bought-on extra , you could just take that out and that would be fine , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Seems fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that's brilliant . +User Interface: Except voice recognition , everything is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we've done that . Okay . Product evaluation . We've done room for creativity , haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because we've got decisions that we would have made that we weren't {disfmarker} didn't feel able to make . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I presume we discussed leadership and teamwork . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um in the sense that um did you feel like a team ? Or did you feel like {vocalsound} uh autonomy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say , as a team . +User Interface: I think we had a nice time . +Marketing: Although we had our separate tasks , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: there was so much interaction , so much that we needed to um bounce off each other . +Industrial Designer: Find out from each other , yeah . +Marketing: And I've certainly felt heard , listened to in that in relevant areas we've been able to , you know , give and take and adjust our remit where necessary . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think there was uh very constructive feedback by everybody . It's not like people trying to cut each other . There is more of uh true cohesive teamwork . We came to a very predic creative design , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I think . And Sarah , you coordinated the work very well . +Project Manager: Thank you . How did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no , I thought it it went really well and I yeah , I I feel that everyone was listened to and all the points that were raised seem to have been sorted out , although we didn't quite make the voice recognition in there , but that's that's good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would have made it into the final product if it was actually {disfmarker} if if if we'd seen the marketing before the initial specification was put out , I think maybe it would've come out a d little different , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I liked the fact that we could say an idea and it'd be suggested that that wasn't the best idea , but no one felt like shot down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , y it didn't matter it saying what you thought , because if it wasn't something that was that relevant , then it didn't matter , 'cause it was just another idea in the field . I like that . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: teamwork . Well you two created that wonderful specimen of a Play-Doh model . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that was the best part +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} uh I'm still not caught up . +User Interface: of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But that's nothing to do with the teamwork at all . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Maybe we should think of branching out into children's toys and fake mobile phones as a side line . And fake R_C_s . +Project Manager: Maybe . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: No , that was quite fun . Um {vocalsound} means , whiteboard , digital pens , etcetera , what does that mean ? Any ideas ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Discuss which ones {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do we evaluate the materials we had for communicating and sharing information ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Could it've been better , was it adequate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I think we probably woulda used the outer email system more , had we actually had had more time and if we'd been separated more . +Project Manager: Had time to kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause we could just sort of say , sorry what did you say about that or what do you think about that , rather than having to email it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it was nice having it there . Um like the whole picture of the thing . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} moving around the room . {vocalsound} But I think it's good , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh we spent times individually . I never thought of a remote control with a flip top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's new ideas in general , +Marketing: It's really borrowing from other areas , it's , you know , bringing things from other areas in , +Project Manager: rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it so it's {disfmarker} I mean nothing is new , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but it's applying it to a d in a different area . +Industrial Designer: Vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . Well +User Interface: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they have to come from somewhere , don't they ? +Marketing: Absolutely , yeah . +User Interface: The thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And as sh as w sorry , +User Interface: Yep , sorry , +Project Manager: you go . +User Interface: go on Sarah . +Project Manager: Um as was shown by {vocalsound} your presentation with all of the other controls , remote controls , no one's thought about it particularly . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean they're slightly different , so if someone's been shut in the room and said make ours a bit different from everyone else's , 'cause it's w something we should think about , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but obviously no one's put any great deal of thought into it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I do I don't think the the companies are really concerned . They're just like we've got a D_V_D_ player , does anyone remember the remote control ? Can't you get the one that we used for the last one ? Yeah , just jazz it up a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh d they don't really think about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because normally , the remote control isn't the product which they're trying to ship . They're trying to ship the D_V_D_ player , the video player , the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , the focus isn't on to that , yeah . +Project Manager: But then when it everything is really smart , and you've just got this big chunk of black thing sitting on your coffee table , it doesn't go , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean if you could have something that's a proper funky thing , a funky item that's individual , individual to you , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean they could even go into um you go in with an idea and they design it on Photoshop and then they just get it printed on the plastic , you would pray {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you would pay a lot extra , because it's individually being {disfmarker} a plastic was being made for you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But people could {gap} have anything that they wanted . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Surprising to me is like uh people give a lot of attention to modifying mobile phones , like a real want to see a new launch or something like that . +Project Manager: Because of the produ Mm . +User Interface: And new f television products coming up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but nobody giving uh much idea to this . Like Sarah was telling , everything's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's really good that this has been very market research based , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because {vocalsound} just going back to mobile phones , I mean this is the first change in remote control devices that I can really , you know , say is is obvious and visible . We see it in mobile phones a lot , and tha that's where we've borrowed a lot of our ide our ideas from . There are innovations in that that people don't really want . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see people wanting a model of the phone they were really happy with , and they can't get it anymore +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and it's innovation for innovation's sake , and I think it's wonderful our company's so R_ and D_ based . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , it's innovation for money's sake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The the people have to keep buying . +Marketing: But forcing it onto people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . It's things that , you know , they might want to buy the thing they really want . +Project Manager: And you can't get {disfmarker} you've got your handset that works fine , but you can't get the battery anymore for that type of phone , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because the phones have moved on , things like that . +Marketing: Or there isn't a cover to fit it or whatever , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: It's madness . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: See I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In closing {disfmarker} There we go . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} our costs are below budget with recommendations that they {disfmarker} the budget be increased , but I think {disfmarker} I don't know , d what do you think ? Do you think that's takes into account um overheads like us being well paid kind of a thing ? And the heating for the building , do you think our budget includes everything , all the costs that are going out ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well . +Marketing: I think it was just the produc uh just the production cost of the phone . +Industrial Designer: I think that was just the the physical . +Project Manager: So it looks {disfmarker} well it looks like it's gonna be fifty percent profit , you've still got all of the overheads to come out of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So maybe increasing it , you would also have to increase the price that it's sold at . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe fifty percent more . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} but you were saying that that's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} yeah I don't {disfmarker} from the market research . +Marketing: But I think in the remit that we were given , it was very specific . I think we've done what we were required to do , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and I think there'll have to be another project team or a new project for us to look at at those kind of things . I don't think that's something we have to look at and find a way of raising the cash for . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we've done very well to get within budget +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and it still makes such an innovative item +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that I think people are really gonna want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's a shame it won't ever get made . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Who knows ? +Project Manager: Maybe it will . +Marketing: Maybe it will . Maybe they are gonna steal our ideas +Project Manager: Maybe someone'll r run down and patent it . +Industrial Designer: I it's top secret . Um it's it is it's a conspiracy going on here . That's what it is . +Marketing: and sell it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the project has been evaluated well and truly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and we've got the meeting survey and questionnaire . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There's a final questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , so we've got about fifty minutes to catch up with {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everything that I fell behind with , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so I'll be delegating in my um role as Project Supervisor , +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so good luck . +User Interface: Celebration , you didn't talk about that . +Project Manager: I think the celebration is the twenty five pounds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Either that or we'll be dancing on the desks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Questionnaire . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Is that it then ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , just the last , I think . +Industrial Designer: Awesome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I've got minutes for two of the meeting and the last thingy . +Marketing: Questionnaire done . Oh , I didn't have to rate you on how much you influenced the meeting this time . +Industrial Designer: Was that not the questionnaire for the {disfmarker} how you felt you'd done in your thing ? +Marketing: Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: I don't think . +Marketing: But do we not sometimes evaluate in these meetings too ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the s +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} yeah , questionnaire seven was the one I did just before the meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I just got con +","The conversation involves a project team discussing the development of a new product (assumedly a remote control), focusing on design specifications, cost evaluation, and meeting market research criteria. The Project Manager begins with a decision to use a kinetic charger and standard chip for the product due to size flexibility, a standby function, and anti-RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) soft, rubbery, changeable case material with fruit-inspired bright designs. They also consider incorporating voice recognition software, dependent on cost. + +The Industrial Designer presents a prototype, highlighting that the planned product will have a clamshell design, a plastic body with options for strong customizable colors, and rubber casing for a spongy feel. The product will feature an LCD touch screen, standard buttons for essential functions, and will transmit signals using infrared technology. The team considers having a voice recognition feature that allows the remote to respond to a voice command for locating it. + +During their evaluation, Marketing introduces a 7-point scale to rate the prototype against criteria from market research, including fancy look, technological innovation, ease of use, compliance with fashion trends, minimizing RSI, and ease of locating the device. + +When discussing financial aspects, the Project Manager leads an exercise to ensure the costs stay under the budget of 25 Euros. They debate the necessity of features like voice recognition and kinetic batteries versus standard batteries to meet cost limitations. Ultimately, they decide to propose voice recognition as an optional feature for an upgraded version to keep the base costs within budget. + +The team reflects on their teamwork and project process, noting effective collaboration and sharing of ideas, and expresses a wish that the innovative product concept could actually be realized. + +The conversation ends with the Project Manager mentioning a meeting survey and questionnaire presumably finalized by the team members, with some closing administrative tasks to be handled." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: That's the same as uh on the top of it uh with the the round uh button . +Industrial Designer: Like this one . +User Interface: But uh we don't uh we don't uh {disfmarker} we do think it's um well {disfmarker} what if with ease of use , w which prefers the {disfmarker} which the the customer of the user prefers . +Industrial Designer: It's important . Uh I think th this is device which which has a learning curve . Um novice users u use this device as uh normal users use uh a c a remote control . And after a while they start to develop uh some skills in the the voice recognition functions , and then they will not use this dial as often . But other users who are new to this device need something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They n they need to understand what {disfmarker} uh how to change channels and uh change the volume , so it's easier for them +Project Manager: Could could I see the scroll bar as uh as as a sort of shortcut ? A a and the voice recognition as well , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe so . Yes , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th maybe you could uh could uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's it's another approach , it's more that our um {gap} . {vocalsound} There are there are many ways of doing uh things uh on such a device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's it's quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . And and the case is is rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , rubber ? +Project Manager: And the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Plastic or rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are plastic or rubber . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the colouring ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yellow with uh +Project Manager: {gap} with with grey or black . +Industrial Designer: grey or black or something like that . Whatever cost uh cost uh the least . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll we'll come to that later . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . Anything else to add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Uh maybe we should uh think about these buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , you could use two of them to programme the um channels on the two channel button , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'cause you have to assign two channel {disfmarker} new channels . +Industrial Designer: but these are tasks that are only executed once , I think . +Project Manager: M uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or not ? +Project Manager: M m but maybe you do want a programme button to uh for example activate the voice recognition , or train the voice voice recognition . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well okay . Okay , yeah , that's right . Or something li like that . +User Interface: And a button for disabling the voice recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah al although by pressing the button for I n don't know two , three seconds , you could also say it {disfmarker} you'd disable it with a little beep and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but o okay , that that's not really really important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the basic idea , yeah . Of our prototype . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The basic {disfmarker} okay . Okay . Um you thought of some evaluation crit criteria ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name is not name +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are nameless . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , I used the {gap} {disfmarker} the uh {gap} documents . And these uh were the most important criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it spongy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should be . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's uh how the fashion guys uh state it . Fancy look and feel . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So just walk through it step by step . I mean , is it fancy , everything {disfmarker} I believe uh I believe it's fancy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well appar +Industrial Designer: I believe it's fancy too . +Marketing: Yeah , but apparently uh we shouldn't evaluate yet . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: this {disfmarker} these are the cr uh the criteria . +Marketing: Yeah , I think these are the most important criteria . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh +Project Manager: the then we'll switch to my presentation . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's about it . +Project Manager: The production costs . The costs are not under {disfmarker} Can I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's w way above um uh above the the the twelve Euro fifty . +User Interface: Yikes . +Project Manager: And what makes it very expensive is uh for example the solar cell . So I guess we should skip that , +Industrial Designer: Well it's very expensive . +Project Manager: because it's not that important . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why does the price and and the s oh , one uh exa +Project Manager: Yeah , the the price , the the number of items and the the sum . +User Interface: yeah . The number of uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Um well , this is what I would call our luxury model . Um if you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you look at the uh w w w what we could do to make it more um {vocalsound} to make it {vocalsound} just between the twelve Euro fifty , um then I did the following changes . Twelve Euro forty cents I came up with by leaving out the solar cells , um by not using the voice recognition feature , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it's uh it's a four Euro uh addition to the price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I believe {disfmarker} Uh , push-button , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It makes it the thirteen {disfmarker} yeah . Push-buttons are {disfmarker} buttons are are not the most expensive , but do add extra cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} yeah , th this design is not um within our price model . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I'm afraid it's not complete . Because we use spec uh specic uh special materials , the last item . And you have not added one item there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's c way too expensive . +Project Manager: It's still too expensive , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's that's only for the buttons . +Project Manager: I I guess if we leave the {disfmarker} if we leave this one out , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the button we can use plastic . +Project Manager: oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh maybe not use the special form . +User Interface: And the pla uh {disfmarker} And a plastic b just plastic buttons , a plas uh instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It becomes a very dull remote control , I know . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But it's the board decision . Um {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , b basically it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} when when this is our only option , we should even consider changing the casing , because I think there's very little added value in uh an enhanced case with these dull functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , I know . Maybe we should look at an {disfmarker} uh focus on another uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Type of m maybe another market segment . +Project Manager: Yeah , m uh maybe not not all that fancy , but just way way more easy uh uh um basic +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh m maximise the profits +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} maybe that's better . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could uh {disfmarker} we should go for straight and simple , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not what uh has been asked . +Project Manager: I know , I know . +Industrial Designer: So we should kick the board's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Although I think we {disfmarker} yeah , but we could still make uh a remote control that ap uh um applies um more to young people uh by giving it another colour already . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so it is possible to make uh uh a device that attracts a little bit more to young people . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um but uh I agree it's it's not a fancy high-tech uh device . Definitely not , no . {vocalsound} It's not that innovative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or however you s pronounce that . +User Interface: Yeah , too bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so , okay . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Oh , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is the wrong one . So uh that means redesign . {vocalsound} We do not have the time o uh now to to redesign the product . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} but we can evaluate the process and um uh uh the satisfaction on how things went . Um I'm not sure if we need to evaluate uh the device first . I guess {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well , since we're not gonna manufacture it anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it's good to do it anyway , because if we evaluate it , we we can also determine if our objectives are good . +Project Manager: We l we can learn . Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d it is it is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yay . Is it ? Is it fancy ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Um the yellow rubber , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You like the rubber , uh Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's not that fancy . +Project Manager: No , I'll I'll I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I mean I think uh {disfmarker} I think it would have been more fancy if we used the titanium housing {disfmarker} the casing . It would be even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You like tita {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh , you really like titanium . I'm I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a flavour as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It has flavour . Yes , that's right . {vocalsound} You should taste it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , +Marketing: Is it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but but it {disfmarker} but that's fancy in the way um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean fancy has has a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It has to do with fashion , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's trendy trendy , fun {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So do {disfmarker} +Marketing: And w +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah , w what they want {disfmarker} wanted was uh colours and soft materials . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So in that way {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it's fancy . +Project Manager: It applies . It {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well , just {vocalsound} give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: It's not the ultimate uh fancy two , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think I th I think it would have been {disfmarker} I would have think {disfmarker} uh it could have been more fancy by using the double-curved case . It would have been even more fancy , but we decided not to , because if we use a double-curved case , we could not use solar . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's sti that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Looking at the user uh needs , we only uh don't {disfmarker} we don't have the double-curved case . We w we do have uh the rubber , we do have the colours . That's two out of three . So I believe uh we are close uh to two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree too . It's okay . We did {gap} {disfmarker} yes , we did good . +Marketing: Okay , and uh was it innovative ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: with the voice recognition feature and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's not in it . Ov or can we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: No , we are evaluating this this uh design now . This prototype . +Industrial Designer: Well , let's let's {disfmarker} this product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it is . I think it's innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And the scroll uh wheel . The solar {disfmarker} not many remotes have the solar , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . It could have been a little bit more innovative u by using the kinetic uh energy source , but it's it's way too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That would have been a thrill . +Industrial Designer: yes , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh also a uh two ? +Industrial Designer: I think uh it's a two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: I'm not sure . {vocalsound} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah , the voice recognition of course is hard to learn , I think . Well , hard {disfmarker} it's not for the for the e for the elderly . They won't use it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , but there are two parts in this remote control . What you see here is is the basic part . Everybody can use it , so that's easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's for a novice user . When you have a more advanced , elaborate user , well , such a user really would like to explore all these additional functions . So in that in that way it is advanced , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think it's easy to use for for both uh types of users . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} I think a three . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} It's maybe {disfmarker} it's not very uh easy for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wouldn't give it more . +Project Manager: Uh I'm doubting {disfmarker} doubting as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the p the most important function is easy to use . The the zapping , channel switching , volume . But the more advanced functions are probably a bit harder . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh two or three ? Three ? Wha wh what would be your guess ? I mean ease of use um does not only apply to the most basic functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It's the uh it's it's overall . Is the device easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . You're right in that , but I {gap} {disfmarker} I guess uh an advanced user will will find the voice recognition function easy to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because he is already {disfmarker} he or she is already an advanced user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: After all , I think {disfmarker} personally I would give a two . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh Roo , a three ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Good question . Uh I'll go uh for the two . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , it's two , two and three . Two threes . So that's ten . +Project Manager: So I could make it e easy ? +User Interface: If you make it a four it will be three in general . +Industrial Designer: So that's w No , two and a half . +User Interface: If he makes it a four . Not a three . +Industrial Designer: Six and four . Six and four is ten . Divided by four is two and a half . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Darn . Nee . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm ? Huh ? +Project Manager: Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A seven , a three {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: Yeah . I yeah {gap} . +User Interface: A four and a three together . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four ? +User Interface: Yeah , you have a two , he has a two . Three ? +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Marketing: two , two , three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And a three ? +Project Manager: I haven't said anything yet . +User Interface: Nee . I know . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , but if I would say a three , then it's six , and four is ten . Divided by four is two point five . +Industrial Designer: Divided by four . +User Interface: Yes . So if you want to have the conclusion as a three {disfmarker} three . Then you would make a four . If you fill out a four {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'm filling in a three . +Industrial Designer: That's not even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} so it will be a two point five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But that's not possible to fill in , +Project Manager: Yes , it is . +Industrial Designer: so we have to round it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it easy to find ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have a veto . {vocalsound} Exactly . It's not about the content , it's about {disfmarker} okay , um is it easy to f Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: we haven't re uh re uh really worked it out , but you c you can you can just say find and he repeats find . +Industrial Designer: It it most definitely is {disfmarker} it's very easy . +Project Manager: Yeah , or beeps or {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's the that's the the basic idea of the the speaker uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Maybe {disfmarker} Uh I I think I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm here , I'm here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: something like that . Maybe you have to uh programme it once , so to that l respond to uh a certain word or a certain sentence , something like where are you , and then it will sing I'm here . So something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But even without it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , I th +Project Manager: we should not uh stay too long on this subject uh because of the time , but I personally give it a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Right , well . The feel of the remote control is spongy . Well , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it can't be more spongy . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it can be . There are cases um in which the outside casing is {disfmarker} um can be {disfmarker} uh how d how do you prono is is moldable . +User Interface: Was it one of our options ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's not one of our option , +Marketing: No . Uh +Project Manager: No okay , but but +User Interface: So , in the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but when you look in the market , when you look {disfmarker} +Marketing: this this was a most spongy option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for the options given , it's the most spongy one . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not that's not uh what they are talking about , I think . Because we compare all these uh characteristics {disfmarker} characteristics with uh market {disfmarker} uh with with the real market . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there are uh remote controls out there which are a lot more spongy . They're out there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're out there . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think in this case in this case we've done the best we could . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it's not good enough , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Industrial Designer: so it's a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I wan I'll take one . +Industrial Designer: You take one ? What do you give it ? +Marketing: Well yeah , it depends , 'cause it's the most spongy we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but you have to name a fig uh a number . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Because we need to go on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for the time . +Marketing: Well , if I give it a one there'll be one hell of a calculation . +User Interface: It will be a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll just give it a two and make this a one point five . +Industrial Designer: No no no . Uh I'll I'll change it , I'll make it m my my mark will be a four . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The remote control offers enough features . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , Ruud , what what do you think about it ? +Marketing: Well , the basic layout doesn't offem {disfmarker} offer much , but the voice recognition could add a lot . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically it's it's completely programmable . +Marketing: Yeah , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can add very m much functionality by uh using the voice recognition mode . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: So it's quite advanced . +Project Manager: What what we didn't talk about is um uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it ha doesn't has the digits . I believe it's {disfmarker} If you uh ask yourself it offers enough features , I don't I don't think it is {disfmarker} it has all the features um a normal remote has . +Project Manager: I think it has . +Marketing: Uh depends on what you uh implement in the speech feat +Project Manager: Yeah . Bec because you can um {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it , but you do have uh remote controls that are able to adapt another signal . So , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: you place a a regular uh remote control in front of the other one , hit the one or the two or the three , whatever , and it r records the uh the um {gap} {disfmarker} the the signals . +Industrial Designer: Has uh the signals sent to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Signal . +Project Manager: So you could uh uh uh enter any comment you like , as long it's able to {disfmarker} as long as our device is able to reproduce the infrared signal . So I think th this uh this is uh a a remote control with a very high level of features . +Industrial Designer: Absolutely . +Project Manager: Although there are i a few buttons , but the inside is is quite uh advanced . +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that {disfmarker} that's its power , I guess , because uh a regular programmable uh remote control contains , well , uh really a lot of buttons . At at least uh forty buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's quite s complicated to get uh to get used to . And this is quite s simple . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: You can use your voice to to programme it . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um let's give it a number . I'll give it uh a one . For for the {disfmarker} for this t uh type of market , I think it's a one . +User Interface: I'll give a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll give it a one . +Marketing: Um I think think a one , 'cause {gap} v with a voice recognition you could add anything you want , so that's like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . I I've {disfmarker} I think we've uh succe succeed in in developing a product that's actually quite good , but not for this kind of market , and not for this kind of price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So high quality , low acceptance . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: The product is is is uh b high qua uh has a high quality and and is uh advanced . But {vocalsound} whether or not our clients are are um willing to pay twenty five Euros for this kind of device is doub is {disfmarker} well , is not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: D do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree . I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe even because it doesn't look advanced . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe we should have a radar uh {vocalsound} function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: But we could {disfmarker} couldn't uh {disfmarker} what what's the selling price ? Fifty ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Uh twenty five . And costs were twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But even now , if only our production costs w {vocalsound} uh were exceeded the double , Think . Production cost was {disfmarker} were t uh was twenty two ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh {gap} selling price uh would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M about fifty Euros . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's quite ex +User Interface: That's price , but w w +Industrial Designer: well , it's not it's not very expensive for a remote control that that has this functionality . +User Interface: No . An original remote control of any T_V_ kind , uh a Phillips remote control , y you pay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's more than fifty Euros . It's quite expensive , yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I kn I know uh from a few years ago , it it it costed hundred Gilders . +Project Manager: Bu but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah , I know , but you're paying for th for the brand , because there are uh remote controls which control your stereo , television , D_V_D_ , C_D_ player , for under twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , but you can you c Yes , but you can learn this thing , all these functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's easier to use because those uh remote controls don't offer voice recognition +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and this one does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think it's worth its price . +Project Manager: Okay . Um you had an overall rating . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} with these ratings uh +Project Manager: That's counting . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's about one point five . Something like that . +Marketing: should be about one point s seven , +User Interface: Four six seven eight . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Nine divided by six . +Project Manager: Okay . Um we'll go further on with the the rest of the evaluation . About the project itself , not about the product . Um {disfmarker} What did you think about uh the process , the project process ? Ruud ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to translate that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any any other {disfmarker} Uh , Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ye +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The process was good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But w um we weren't aware of the prices of the costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And and that was the the big deal . I if we knew that before , we c we could have made +Industrial Designer: Mm . Actually , we had {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the choice between {gap} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Better decision . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: We had we had too little information actually . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} And uh um the the the {disfmarker} well , looking at room for creativity , there was w way too {disfmarker} the the choice of components was way too narrow . +Project Manager: Less . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there was not really a process of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we could we we could be {disfmarker} we could've been creative . But um it was tempered by the choice of components and the the price . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Yes . +Marketing: The prices . +Industrial Designer: Well , in the first meeting we we already were very creative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We we thought of possibilities {vocalsound} who are not possible uh with the the current uh offer of uh manufacturing components . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're tempered by that , yes . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo ? Any other thoughts on that ? +User Interface: No , no . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: You agree , okay . Uh leadership . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Roo's on for his promotion . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we're a good team . +Project Manager: I think so too , it's it's it's uh of course a laboratory environment . I missed it um to be able to contact you in between and uh say uh , hey Roo uh {gap} . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I tried once , but that was not allowed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but but si uh w w w {gap} {disfmarker} when taken in account the the situation , uh I think we performed pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the means , the SMARTboard , the digital pen . Did you like 'em ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . The digital pen was okay , but SMARTboard was really bad . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because of the response +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Response +Industrial Designer: The response is very slow +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the possibilities are very limited . It's not accurate . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it it has {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , it's not accurate . The p the pointing of the pen is not um the place where it it writes its {disfmarker} um uh where it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Draws . +User Interface: Yeah , where it draws . It's uh {disfmarker} the drawing on on the b on the board is {gap} r right from the pen . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it it had to be um better aligned , or what's the word ? +User Interface: You to take in account that your {disfmarker} you m +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +User Interface: yeah uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's {disfmarker} it needs to be calibrateds . +User Interface: It's too slow {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It it was calibrated just before this meeting . Uh the one before , the third meeting . +Industrial Designer: It is ? +Project Manager: So uh it's not the calibration , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: it's the thing itself , I think . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , w uh did you use the pen a lot ? Or not at all ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Not at all . +Marketing: Not really . +Project Manager: Okay . I thought it was quite a handy uh thing , +Industrial Designer: I I think so too . +Project Manager: although I would like to see um O_C_R_ . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +User Interface: If it has O_C_R_ {vocalsound} , uh I think uh I would use , but uh I I just uh took notes for myself and and and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It w it w yeah . It was necessary for me to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To digitise them . +User Interface: Yeah , because if I want something on the computer , I just type it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I type faster than I write . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think it's a great solution for uh for uh a known problem , uh writing down some notes , some some inf uh information , and then um forgetting your notebook somewhere and losing all that information . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because you have everything in one place and it's quite easy quite easy {disfmarker} it's it's possible to make this information digital and share it with others in a quite easy way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a good product . I only think it's th the the shape of the pen is too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not quite uh ergonomic . Eco ergonomic . +User Interface: Economic . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um {disfmarker} What w Uh Ruud , what did you think about the SMARTboards ? +Marketing: Oh , I only use it to draw a rabbit , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , you can't really decide . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can't say much about it . +Project Manager: I missed a feature to easily select uh a slide and uh distribute it to the laptops . I think that would be very easy if you could say okay , I want to use this for my own work or my own presentation further on or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: No , or the other way around . +Project Manager: Or the other way around , that you could show {disfmarker} but m +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: But y you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's quite what PowerPoint does . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: if you save this image , you can open it in your shared work folder . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's almost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , but we couldn't use that feature , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: so I missed it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We weren't able to do that . At least the {disfmarker} um I wasn't explained how to do such a th +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {gap} . A and the function of of filling an an uh an oval or an an object . +Industrial Designer: An object , yes . Yes . +User Interface: I it's not possible {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The drawing cap capabilities are very limited . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And and uh w you were {disfmarker} when you're using uh Windows , you're used to a certain interface and certain buttons , uh which you can use for drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of these buttons don't appear here . So it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh it looks like paint actually . +Project Manager: Okay , so y it {disfmarker} it's not even as advanced as paint . +Industrial Designer: Not not uh n not {gap} way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite uh limited . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , the project is evaluated . Um but , well , we need to redesign uh the product . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh , very good , celebration . +Project Manager: Celebrate +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pop uh pop up the champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: It was a privilege working with you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you're dismissed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think we are uh ready . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: To private rooms ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I see some action over there . +Project Manager: Private room , Roo . That sounds quite scary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No , let's find uh the way to {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} uh we're done , we're finished , {gap} I believe . So , are there any more cycles in this process ? I think not . +Project Manager: I don't believe so . Well , maybe we'd {disfmarker} get an email . Thank you for your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But um how much time did we get for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: And how much time is left ? +Project Manager: A minute or or ten maybe . M +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah , ten or five . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So , we can uh redesign our uh {disfmarker} Uh I would like to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I think we we we all know what the redesign should be . A simple , dull , uh one-coloured box . +Marketing: And no added value . At all . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it's just the same product that is already on the market . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: But you see the problem , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: y you can't continue your uh your line . Well , it's fluffy alright . {vocalsound} Spongy . A giraffe ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is that ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a giraffe eating a {disfmarker} eating leaves from a tree . +Project Manager: It's blue tongue . +Marketing: In interesting design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} This is a new model . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So you're actually promoting Bluetooth . Or blue tongue . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Blue tongue . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh uh it it does uh have a natural uh feeling . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's spongy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . {vocalsound} That is uh {disfmarker} it's a new feature next to Bluetooth to um disable all Bluetooth devices . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Blue tongue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Let's wrap it up . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're done here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Gentlemen , thank you for your cooperation . +Industrial Designer: Thank you Mister manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now , {vocalsound} let's have uh a bottle of champagne . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . Leave it here . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: That's alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} +","The team discusses a prototype remote control's user interface, design, and cost, aiming for ease of use and customer preference. They consider a learning curve with voice recognition, and need for ease with basic functions like channel changing. They debate a scroll bar as a shortcut. Materials are discussed, including a rubber case and plastic or rubber buttons, with coloration in yellow with grey or black as cheaper options. There's an emphasis on keeping production costs low. + +The team evaluates design criteria like fanciness, innovation, ease of use, findability, and tactile sponginess, while discussing features like voice recognition and energy sources. Cost analysis suggests cutting features like solar cells to reduce prices, but materials and functionalities are debated in relation to market appeal and manufacturing costs. + +They conclude that their high-quality product doesn't fit the target market or price point well, and consider redesigning it for a different segment. Finally, they reflect on the project process, leadership, and tools used like the SMARTboard and digital pen, suggesting improvements and expressing satisfaction with team cooperation." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD C: Eight , eight ? +PhD D: This is three . +PhD C: Three . +PhD D: Yep . Yep . +Professor B: Test . Hmm . Let 's see . Move it bit . Test ? Test ? OK , I guess it 's alright . So , let 's see . Yeah , Barry 's not here and Dave 's not here . Um , I can say about {disfmarker} just q just quickly to get through it , that Dave and I submitted this ASRU . +PhD A: This is for ASRU . +Professor B: Yeah . So . Um . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting . I mean , basically we 're dealing with rever reverberation , and , um , when we deal with pure reverberation , the technique he 's using works really , really well . Uh , and when they had the reverberation here , uh , we 'll measure the signal - to - noise ratio and it 's , uh , about nine DB . So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: um , +PhD A: You mean , from the actual , uh , recordings ? +Professor B: a fair amount of {disfmarker} +PhD D: k +PhD A: It 's nine DB ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} And actually it brought up a question which may be relevant to the Aurora stuff too . Um , I know that when you figured out the filters that we 're using for the Mel scale , there was some experimentation that went on at {disfmarker} at , uh {disfmarker} at OGI . Um , but one of the differences that we found between the two systems that we were using , {comment} the {disfmarker} the Aurora HTK system baseline system {comment} and the system that we were {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh , other system we were using , the uh , the SRI system , was that the SRI system had maybe a , um , hundred hertz high - pass . And the , uh , Aurora HTK , it was like twenty . +PhD D: Yep . S sixty - four . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: S sixty - four . +Professor B: Sixty - four ? Uh . +PhD D: Yeah , if you 're using the baseline . +Professor B: Is that the ba band center ? +PhD D: No , the edge . +Professor B: The edge is really , uh , sixty - four ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: For some reason , uh , Dave thought it was twenty , +PhD D: So the , uh , center would be somewhere around like hundred +Professor B: but . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} hundred {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} fi hundred hertz . +Professor B: But do you know , for instance , h how far down it would be at twenty hertz ? What the {disfmarker} how much rejection would there be at twenty hertz , let 's say ? +PhD D: At twenty hertz . +Professor B: Yeah , any idea what the curve looks like ? +PhD D: Twenty hertz frequency {disfmarker} Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's zero at twenty hertz , right ? The filter ? +PhD C: Yea - actually , the left edge of the first filter is at sixty - four . +PhD D: Sixt - s sixty - four . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So anything less than sixty - four is zero . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: It 's actually set to zero ? What kind of filter is that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is this {disfmarker} oh , from the {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: It {disfmarker} This is the filter bank in the frequency domain that starts at sixty - four . +Professor B: Oh , so you , uh {disfmarker} so you really set it to zero , the FFT ? +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a weight on the ball spectrum . Triangular weighting . +Professor B: Right . OK . Um {disfmarker} OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's a little different than Dave thought , I think . But {disfmarker} but , um , still , it 's possible that we 're getting in some more noise . So I wonder , is it {disfmarker} @ @ Was there {disfmarker} their experimentation with , uh , say , throwing away that filter or something ? And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , throwing away the first ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've tried including the full {disfmarker} full bank . Right ? From zero to four K . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And that 's always worse than using sixty - four hertz . +Professor B: Right , but the question is , whether sixty - four hertz is {disfmarker} is , uh , too , uh , low . +PhD D: Yeah , I mean , make it a hundred or so ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I t I think I 've tried a hundred and it was more or less the same , or slightly worse . +Professor B: On what test set ? +PhD D: On the same , uh , SpeechDat - Car , Aurora . +Professor B: Um , it was on the SpeechDat - Car . +PhD D: Yeah . So I tried a hundred to four K . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , +PhD D: So it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: and on {disfmarker} and on the , um , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits also ? +PhD D: No , no , no . I think I just tried it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Mmm . That 'd be something to look at sometime because what , um , eh , he was looking at was performance in this room . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Would that be more like {disfmarker} Well , you 'd think that 'd be more like SpeechDat - Car , I guess , in terms of the noise . The SpeechDat - Car is more , uh , sort of roughly stationary , a lot of it . And {disfmarker} and TI - digits maybe is not so much as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . OK . Well , maybe it 's not a big deal . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , that was just something we wondered about . But , um , uh , certainly a lot of the noise , uh , is , uh , below a hundred hertz . Uh , the signal - to - noise ratio , you know , looks a fair amount better if you {disfmarker} if you high - pass filter it from this room . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um {disfmarker} but it 's still pretty noisy . Even {disfmarker} even for a hundred hertz up , it 's {disfmarker} it 's still fairly noisy . The signal - to - noise ratio is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is actually still pretty bad . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I mean , the main {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's on th that 's on the f the far field ones though , right ? Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's on the far field . Yeah , the near field 's pretty good . +PhD A: So wha what is , uh {disfmarker} what 's causing that ? +Professor B: Well , we got a {disfmarker} a video projector in here , uh , and , uh {disfmarker} which we keep on during every {disfmarker} every session we record , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: which , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w we were aware of +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but we thought it wasn't a bad thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , that 's a nice noise source . Uh , and there 's also the , uh {disfmarker} uh , air conditioning . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Which , uh , you know , is a pretty low frequency kind of thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} So , those are {disfmarker} those are major components , I think , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: uh , for the stationary kind of stuff . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , but , um , it , uh {disfmarker} I guess , I {disfmarker} maybe I said this last week too but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it really became apparent to us that we need to {disfmarker} to take account of noise . And , uh , so I think when {disfmarker} when he gets done with his prelim study I think {vocalsound} one of the next things we 'd want to do is to take this , uh {disfmarker} uh , noise , uh , processing stuff and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , synthesize some speech from it . +PhD A: When are his prelims ? +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} Um , I think in about , um , a little less than two weeks . +PhD A: Oh . Wow . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Uh , it might even be sooner . Uh , let 's see , this is the sixteenth , seventeenth ? Yeah , I don't know if he 's before {disfmarker} It might even be in a week . +PhD A: So , I +Professor B: A week , +PhD A: Huh . I {disfmarker} I guessed that they were gonna do it some time during the semester +Professor B: week and a half . +PhD A: but they 'll do it any time , huh ? +Professor B: They seem to be {disfmarker} Well , the semester actually is starting up . +PhD A: Is it already ? +Professor B: Yeah , the semester 's late {disfmarker} late August they start here . +PhD A: Yikes . +Professor B: So they do it right at the beginning of the semester . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yep . I mean , that {disfmarker} that was sort of one {disfmarker} I mean , the overall results seemed to be first place in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the case of either , um , artificial reverberation or a modest sized training set . Uh , either way , uh , i uh , it helped a lot . And {disfmarker} But if you had a {disfmarker} a really big training set , a recognizer , uh , system that was capable of taking advantage of a really large training set {disfmarker} I thought that {disfmarker} One thing with the HTK is that is has the {disfmarker} as we 're using {disfmarker} the configuration we 're using is w s is {disfmarker} being bound by the terms of Aurora , we have all those parameters just set as they are . So even if we had a hundred times as much data , we wouldn't go out to , you know , ten or t or a hundred times as many Gaussians or anything . So , um , it 's kind of hard to take advantage of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of big chunks of data . Uh , whereas the other one does sort of expand as you have more training data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor B: It does it automatically , actually . And so , um , uh , that one really benefited from the larger set . And it was also a diverse set with different noises and so forth . Uh , so , um , that , uh {disfmarker} that seemed to be {disfmarker} So , if you have that {disfmarker} that better recognizer that can {disfmarker} that can build up more parameters , and if you , um , have the natural room , which in this case has a p a pretty bad signal - to - noise ratio , then in that case , um , the right thing to do is just do {disfmarker} u use speaker adaptation . And {disfmarker} and not bother with {disfmarker} with this acoustic , uh , processing . But I think that that would not be true if we did some explicit noise - processing as well as , uh , the convolutional kind of things we were doing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . That 's sort of what we found . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: I , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , started working on the uh {disfmarker} Mississippi State recognizer . So , I got in touch with Joe and {disfmarker} and , uh , from your email and things like that . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: And , uh , they added me to the list {disfmarker} uh , the mailing list . +PhD D: OK , great . +PhD A: And he gave me all of the pointers and everything that I needed . And so I downloaded the , um {disfmarker} There were two things , uh , that they had to download . One was the , uh , I guess the software . And another wad {disfmarker} was a , um , sort of like a sample {disfmarker} a sample run . So I downloaded the software and compiled all of that . And it compiled fine . +PhD D: Eight . +PhD A: No problems . +PhD D: Oh , eh , great . +PhD A: And , um , I grabbed the sample stuff but I haven't , uh , compiled it . +PhD D: That sample was released only yesterday or the day before , right ? +PhD A: No {disfmarker} Well , I haven't grabbed that one yet . So there 's two . +PhD D: Oh , there is another short sample set {disfmarker} +PhD A: There was another short one , yeah . +PhD D: o o sample . +PhD A: And so I haven't grabbed the latest one that he just , uh , put out yet . +PhD D: OK . Oh , OK . F Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Um , but , the software seemed to compile fine and everything , so . And , um , So . +Professor B: Is there any word yet about the issues about , um , adjustments for different feature sets or anything ? +PhD A: No , I {disfmarker} I d You asked me to write to him and I think I forgot to ask him about that . Or if I did ask him , he didn't reply . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I don't remember yet . Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll d I 'll double check that and ask him again . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's like that {disfmarker} that could r turn out to be an important issue for us . +PhD D: Hmm . Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe I 'll send it to the list . Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have , uh , already frozen those in i insertion penalties and all those stuff is what {disfmarker} I feel . Because they have this document explaining the recognizer . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And they have these tables with , uh , various language model weights , insertion penalties . +PhD A: OK , I haven't seen that one yet . +PhD D: u +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Uh , it 's th it 's there on that web . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: And , uh , on that , I mean , they have run some experiments using various insertion penalties and all those {disfmarker} +PhD A: And so they 've picked {disfmarker} the values . +PhD D: Yeah , I think they pi p +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: yeah , they picked the values from {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: For r w what test set ? +PhD D: Uh , p the one that they have reported is a NIST evaluation , Wall Street Journal . +Professor B: But that has nothing to do with what we 're testing on , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . No . So they 're , like {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So they are actually trying to , uh , fix that {disfmarker} those values using the clean , uh , training part of the Wall Street Journal . Which is {disfmarker} I mean , the Aurora . Aurora has a clean subset . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: I mean , they want to train it and then this {disfmarker} they 're going to run some evaluations . +Professor B: So they 're set they 're setting it based on that ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So now , we may come back to the situation where we may be looking for a modification of the features to account for the fact that we can't modify these parameters . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} but it 's still worth , I think , just {disfmarker} since {disfmarker} you know , just chatting with Joe about the issue . +PhD A: Yeah , OK . Do you think that 's something I should just send to him +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: or do you think I should send it to this {disfmarker} there 's an {disfmarker} a m a mailing list . +Professor B: Well , it 's not a secret . I mean , we 're , you know , certainly willing to talk about it with everybody , but I think {disfmarker} I think that , um {disfmarker} um , it 's probably best to start talking with him just to {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh @ @ {comment} you know , it 's a dialogue between two of you about what {disfmarker} you know , what does he think about this and what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} what could be done about it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor B: Um , if you get ten people in {disfmarker} involved in it there 'll be a lot of perspectives based on , you know , how {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: you know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But , I mean , I think it all should come up eventually , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there is any , uh , uh , way to move in {disfmarker} a way that would {disfmarker} that would , you know , be more open to different kinds of features . But if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if there isn't , and it 's just kind of shut down and {disfmarker} and then also there 's probably not worthwhile bringing it into a larger forum where {disfmarker} where political issues will come in . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: Oh . So this is now {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's compiled under Solaris ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD D: Because he {disfmarker} there was some mail r saying that it 's {disfmarker} may not be stable for Linux and all those . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , i that was a particular version . +PhD D: SUSI +PhD A: Yeah , SUSI or whatever it was +PhD D: yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: but we don't have that . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Should be OK . +PhD D: OK , that 's fine . +PhD A: Yeah , it compiled fine actually . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: No {disfmarker} no errors . Nothing . So . +Professor B: Uh , this is slightly off topic +PhD D: That 's good . +Professor B: but , uh , I noticed , just glancing at the , uh , Hopkins workshop , uh , web site that , uh , um {disfmarker} one of the thing I don't know {disfmarker} Well , we 'll see how much they accomplish , but one of the things that they were trying to do in the graphical models thing was to put together a {disfmarker} a , uh , tool kit for doing , uh r um , arbitrary graphical models for , uh , speech recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} And Jeff , uh {disfmarker} the two Jeffs were +PhD A: Who 's the second Jeff ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , uh , do you know Geoff Zweig ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: Oh . Uh , he {disfmarker} he , uh {disfmarker} he was here for a couple years +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: and he , uh {disfmarker} got his PHD . He {disfmarker} And he 's , uh , been at IBM for the last couple years . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Wow . That would be neat . +Professor B: Uh , so he did {disfmarker} he did his PHD on dynamic Bayes - nets , uh , for {disfmarker} for speech recognition . He had some continuity built into the model , presumably to handle some , um , inertia in the {disfmarker} in the production system , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Um , I 've been playing with , first , the , um , VAD . Um , {vocalsound} so it 's exactly the same approach , but the features that the VAD neural network use are , uh , MFCC after noise compensation . Oh , I think I have the results . +Professor B: What was it using before ? +PhD C: Before it was just P L +PhD D: +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah , it was actually {disfmarker} No . Not {disfmarker} I mean , it was just the noisy features I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +PhD C: noisy {disfmarker} noisy features . +PhD D: not compensated . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} This is what we get after {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So , actually , we , yeah , here the features are noise compensated and there is also the LDA filter . Um , and then it 's a pretty small neural network which use , um , {vocalsound} nine frames of {disfmarker} of six features from C - zero to C - fives , plus the first derivatives . And it has one hundred hidden units . +PhD A: Is that nine frames u s uh , centered around the current frame ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: S so , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's how many {disfmarker} how many inputs ? +PhD C: So it 's twelve times nine . +Professor B: Twelve times nine inputs , and a hundred , uh , hidden . +PhD C: Hidden and +PhD D: Two outputs . +PhD C: two outputs . +Professor B: Two outputs . OK . So I guess about eleven thousand parameters , which {disfmarker} actually shouldn't be a problem , even in {disfmarker} in small phones . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s so what is different between this and {disfmarker} and what you {disfmarker} +PhD C: It should be OK . So the previous syst It 's based on the system that has a fifty - three point sixty - six percent improvement . It 's the same system . The only thing that changed is the n a p eh {disfmarker} a es the estimation of the silence probabilities . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +PhD C: Which now is based on , uh , cleaned features . +Professor B: And , it 's a l it 's a lot better . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not bad , but the problem is still that the latency is too large . +Professor B: What 's the latency ? +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the latency of the VAD is two hundred and twenty milliseconds . And , uh , the VAD is used uh , i for on - line normalization , and it 's used before the delta computation . So if you add these components it goes t to a hundred and seventy , right ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . You started off with two - twenty and you ended up with one - seventy ? +PhD C: With two an two hundred and seventy . +Professor B: Two - seventy . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} Yeah , if you add the c delta comp delta computation +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: which is done afterwards . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's two - twenty . I the is this {disfmarker} are these twenty - millisecond frames ? Is that why ? Is it after downsampling ? or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The two - twenty is one hundred milliseconds for the um {disfmarker} No , it 's forty milliseconds for t for the , uh , uh , cleaning of the speech . Um {disfmarker} then there is , um , the neural network which use nine frames . So it adds forty milliseconds . +Professor B: a OK . +PhD C: Um , after that , um , you have the um , filtering of the silence probabilities . Which is a million filter it , and it creates a one hundred milliseconds delay . So , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD D: Plus there is a delta at the input . +PhD C: Yeah , and there is the delta at the input which is , +Professor B: One hundred milliseconds for smoothing . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , median . +PhD C: +PhD D: It 's like forty plus {disfmarker} forty {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then forty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . Forty {disfmarker} This forty plus twenty , plus one hundred . +Professor B: forty p +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's two hundred actually . +PhD C: Yeah , there are twenty that comes from {disfmarker} There is ten that comes from the LDA filters also . Right ? +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Uh , so it 's two hundred and ten , yeah . +PhD D: If you are using {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Plus the frame , +PhD D: t If you are using three frames {disfmarker} +PhD C: so it 's two - twenty . +PhD D: If you are phrasing f {comment} using three frames , it is thirty here for delta . +PhD C: Yeah , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's five frames , but . +PhD D: So five frames , that 's twenty . OK , so it 's who un {comment} two hundred and ten . +Professor B: Uh , p Wait a minute . It 's forty {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forty for the {disfmarker} for the cleaning of the speech , +PhD C: So . Forty cleaning . +Professor B: forty for the I N {disfmarker} ANN , a hundred for the smoothing . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Well , but at ten {disfmarker} , +PhD C: Twenty for the delta . +Professor B: Twenty for delta . +PhD D: At th {nonvocalsound} At the input . I mean , that 's at the input to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Delta at input to net ? +PhD D: And there i +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So it 's like s five , six cepstrum plus delta at nine {disfmarker} nine frames of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then ten milliseconds for {disfmarker} +PhD D: Fi - There 's an LDA filter . +Professor B: ten milliseconds for LDA filter , and t and ten {disfmarker} another ten milliseconds you said for the frame ? +PhD C: For the frame I guess . I computed two - twenty {disfmarker} Yeah , well , it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's for the fr {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And then there 's delta besides that ? +PhD C: So this is the features that are used by our network and then afterwards , you have to compute the delta on the , uh , main feature stream , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: which is um , delta and double - deltas , which is fifty milliseconds . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , the {disfmarker} after the noise part , the forty {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the other hundred and eighty {disfmarker} Well , I mean , Wait a minute . Some of this is , uh {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is in parallel , isn't it ? I mean , the LDA {disfmarker} Oh , you have the LDA as part of the V D - uh , VAD ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The VAD use , uh , LDA filtered features also . +Professor B: Oh , it does ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Ah . So in that case there isn't too much in parallel . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . There is , um , just downsampling , upsampling , and the LDA . +Professor B: Um , so the delta at the end is how much ? +PhD C: It 's fifty . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty . Alright . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: But well , we could probably put the delta , um , {vocalsound} before on - line normalization . It should not that make a big difference , +PhD A: What if you used a smaller window for the delta ? +PhD C: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Could that help a little bit ? I mean , I guess there 's a lot of things you could do to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: So +PhD C: but , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if you {disfmarker} if you put the delta before the , uh , ana on - line {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then it could go in parallel . +PhD C: Cuz i +Professor B: And then y then you don't have that additive {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yep . +PhD C: cuz the time constant of the on - line normalization is pretty long compared to the delta window , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: so . It should not make {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And you ought to be able to shove tw , uh {disfmarker} sh uh {disfmarker} pull off twenty milliseconds from somewhere else to get it under two hundred , right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is two hundred the d +Professor B: The hundred milla +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: mill a hundred milliseconds for smoothing is sort of an arbitrary amount . It could be eighty and {disfmarker} and probably do @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD A: i a hun +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Wh - what 's the baseline you need to be under ? Two hundred ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know . They 're still arguing about it . +PhD C: +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I mean , if it 's two {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} if it 's two - fifty , then we could keep the delta where it is if we shaved off twenty . If it 's two hundred , if we shaved off twenty , we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , meet it by moving the delta back . +PhD A: So , how do you know that what you have is too much if they 're still deciding ? +Professor B: Uh , we don't , but it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , the main thing is that since that we got burned last time , and {disfmarker} you know , by not worrying about it very much , we 're just staying conscious of it . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: And so , th I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if a week before we have to be done someone says , "" Well , you have to have fifty milliseconds less than you have now "" , it would be pretty frantic around here . So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , OK . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: But still , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a pretty big , uh , win . And it doesn't seem like you 're {disfmarker} in terms of your delay , you 're , uh , that {disfmarker} +Professor B: He added a bit on , I guess , because before we were {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} had {disfmarker} were able to have the noise , uh , stuff , uh , and the LVA be in parallel . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: And now he 's {disfmarker} he 's requiring it to be done first . +PhD C: Well , but I think the main thing , maybe , is the cleaning of the speech , which takes forty milliseconds or so . +Professor B: Right . Well , so you say {disfmarker} let 's say ten milliseconds {disfmarker} seconds for the LDA . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} the LDA is , well , pretty short right now . +Professor B: Well , ten . And then forty for the other . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , the LDA {disfmarker} LDA {disfmarker} we don't know , is , like {disfmarker} is it very crucial for the features , right ? +PhD C: No . I just {disfmarker} This is the first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right , +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} maybe the LDA 's not very useful then . +Professor B: so you could start pulling back , +PhD D: S s h +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor B: But I think you have {disfmarker} +PhD D: l +Professor B: I mean , you have twenty for delta computation which y now you 're sort of doing twice , right ? But yo w were you doing that before ? +PhD C: Mmm . Well , in the proposal , um , the input of the VAD network were just three frames , I think . +PhD D: On the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Just {disfmarker} Yeah , just the static , no delta . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Uh , static features . +Professor B: So , what you have now is fort uh , forty for the {disfmarker} the noise , twenty for the delta , and ten for the LDA . That 's seventy milliseconds of stuff which was formerly in parallel , +PhD C: +Professor B: right ? So I think , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the difference as far as the timing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , and you could experiment with cutting various pieces of these back a bit , but {disfmarker} I mean , we 're s we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not in terrible shape . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what it seems like to me . It 's pretty good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not like it 's adding up to four hundred milliseconds or something . +PhD A: Where {disfmarker} where is this {disfmarker} where is this fifty - seven point O two in {disfmarker} in comparison to the last evaluation ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's better than anything , uh , anybody got . +PhD A: Oh , is that right ? +PhD C: Yeah . The best was fifty - four point five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Point s +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh +PhD C: And our system was forty - nine , but with the neural network . +PhD A: Wow . So this is almost ten percent . +Professor B: With the f with the neural net . Yeah , and r and {disfmarker} +PhD C: It would +PhD D: Yeah , so this is {disfmarker} this is like the first proposal . The proposal - one . It was forty - four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And we still don't have the neural net in . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow . +Professor B: You know . So it 's {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing better . +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} this is really good . +Professor B: I mean , we 're getting better recognition . I mean , I 'm sure other people working on this are not sitting still either , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , the important thing is that we learn how to do this better , and , you know . So . Um , Yeah . So , our , um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can see the kind of {disfmarker} kind of numbers that we 're having , say , on SpeechDat - Car which is a hard task , cuz it 's really , um {disfmarker} I think it 's just sort of {disfmarker} sort of reasonable numbers , starting to be . I mean , it 's still terri +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , even for a well - matched case it 's sixty percent error rate reduction , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Probably half . Good ! +PhD C: Um , Yeah . So actually , this is in between {vocalsound} what we had with the previous VAD and what Sunil did with an IDL VAD . Which gave sixty - two percent improvement , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's almost that . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's almost an average somewhere around {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? Say that last part again ? +PhD C: So , if you use , like , an IDL VAD , uh , for dropping the frames , +PhD D: o o Or the best we can get . +PhD C: the best that we can get {disfmarker} i That means that we estimate the silence probability on the clean version of the utterances . Then you can go up to sixty - two percent error rate reduction , globally . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So that would be even {disfmarker} That wouldn't change this number down here to sixty - two ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you were get +PhD C: If you add a g good v very good VAD , that works as well as a VAD working on clean speech , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: then you wou you would go {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's sort of the best you could hope for . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Probably . Yeah . So fi si fifty - three is what you were getting with the old VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and sixty - two with the {disfmarker} the , you know , quote , unquote , cheating VAD . And fifty - seven is what you got with the real VAD . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Uh , yeah , the next thing is , I started to play {disfmarker} Well , I don't want to worry too much about the delay , no . Maybe it 's better to wait +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: for the decision +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: from the committee . Uh , but I started to play with the , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , tandem neural network . Mmm I just did the configuration that 's very similar to what we did for the February proposal . And {disfmarker} Um . So . There is a f a first feature stream that use uh straight MFCC features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , these features actually . And the other stream is the output of a neural network , using as input , also , these , um , cleaned MFCC . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Those are th those are th what is going into the tandem net ? +PhD C: I don't have the comp Mmm ? +PhD A: Those two ? +PhD C: So there is just this feature stream , {comment} the fifteen MFCC plus delta and double - delta . +Professor B: No . +PhD A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Um , so it 's {disfmarker} makes forty - five features {comment} that are used as input to the HTK . And then , there is {disfmarker} there are more inputs that comes from the tandem MLP . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK . I see . +Professor B: Yeah , h he likes to use them both , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: cuz then it has one part that 's discriminative , +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: one part that 's not . +PhD A: Right . OK . +PhD C: So , um , uh , yeah . Right now it seems that {disfmarker} i I just tested on SpeechDat - Car while the experiment are running on your {disfmarker} on TI - digits . Well , it improves on the well - matched and the mismatched conditions , but it get worse on the highly mismatched . Um , +PhD A: Compared to these numbers ? +PhD C: Compared to these numbers , yeah . Um , +Professor B: y +PhD C: like , on the well - match and medium mismatch , the gain is around five percent relative , but it goes down a lot more , like fifteen percent on the HM case . +Professor B: You 're just using the full ninety features ? +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y you have ninety features ? +PhD C: i I have , um {disfmarker} From the networks , it 's twenty - eight . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: And from the other side it 's forty - five . +PhD C: So , d i It 's forty - five . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you have seventy - three features , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and you 're just feeding them like that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: There isn't any KLT or anything ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . There 's a KLT after the neural network , as {disfmarker} as before . +PhD A: That 's how you get down to twenty - eight ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Why twenty - eight ? +PhD C: I don't know . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Uh . It 's {disfmarker} i i i It 's because it 's what we did for the first proposal . We tested , uh , trying to go down +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: It 's a multiple of seven . +PhD C: and Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Um . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I wanted to do something very similar to the proposal as a first {disfmarker} first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: But we have to {disfmarker} for sure , we have to go down , because the limit is now sixty features . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , uh , we have to find a way to decrease the number of features . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , it seems funny that {disfmarker} I don't know , maybe I don't u quite understand everything , {comment} but that adding features {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I guess if you 're keeping the back - end fixed . Maybe that 's it . Because it seems like just adding information shouldn't give worse results . But I guess if you 're keeping the number of Gaussians fixed in the recognizer , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: But , I mean , just in general , adding information {disfmarker} Suppose the information you added , well , was a really terrible feature and all it brought in was noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} so , um {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} or suppose it wasn't completely terrible , but it was completely equivalent to another one feature that you had , except it was noisier . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? In that case you wouldn't necessarily expect it to be better at all . +PhD A: Oh , yeah , I wasn't necessarily saying it should be better . I 'm just surprised that you 're getting fifteen percent relative worse on the wel +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But it 's worse . +Professor B: On the highly mismatched condition . +PhD A: On the highly mismatch . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So , "" highly mismatched condition "" means that in fact your training is a bad estimate of your test . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So having {disfmarker} having , uh , a g a l a greater number of features , if they aren't maybe the right features that you use , certainly can e can easily , uh , make things worse . I mean , you 're right . If you have {disfmarker} if you have , uh , lots and lots of data , and you have {disfmarker} and your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your training is representative of your test , then getting more sources of information should just help . But {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't necessarily work that way . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I wonder , um , Well , what 's your {disfmarker} what 's your thought about what to do next with it ? +PhD C: Um , I don't know . I 'm surprised , because I expected the neural net to help more when there is more mismatch , as it was the case for the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , was the training set same as the p the February proposal ? OK . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's the same training set , so it 's TIMIT with the TI - digits ' , uh , noises , uh , added . +PhD D: +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we might {disfmarker} uh , we might have to experiment with , uh better training sets . Again . But , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} The other thing is , I mean , before you found that was the best configuration , but you might have to retest those things now that we have different {disfmarker} The rest of it is different , right ? So , um , uh , For instance , what 's the effect of just putting the neural net on without the o other {disfmarker} other path ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , you know what the straight features do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That gives you this . You know what it does in combination . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You don't necessarily know what {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if you did the {disfmarker} Would it make sense to do the KLT on the full set of combined features ? Instead of just on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I g I guess . Um . The reason I did it this ways is that in February , it {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we tested different things like that , so , having two KLT , having just a KLT for a network , or having a global KLT . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you tried the global KLT before +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: and it didn't really {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . And , uh , th Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: The differences between these configurations were not huge , but {disfmarker} it was marginally better with this configuration . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Professor B: But , yeah , that 's obviously another thing to try , +PhD C: Um . +Professor B: since things are {disfmarker} things are different . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I guess if the {disfmarker} These are all {disfmarker} so all of these seventy - three features are going into , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the HMM . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And is {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} i i are {disfmarker} are any deltas being computed of tha of them ? +PhD C: Of the straight features , yeah . +Professor B: n Not of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . But n th the , um , tandem features are u used as they are . +Professor B: Are not . +PhD C: So , yeah , maybe we can add some context from these features also as {disfmarker} Dan did in {disfmarker} in his last work . +Professor B: Could . i Yeah , but the other thing I was thinking was , um {disfmarker} Uh , now I lost track of what I was thinking . But . +PhD A: What is the {disfmarker} You said there was a limit of sixty features or something ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What 's the relation between that limit and the , um , forty - eight {disfmarker} uh , forty eight hundred bits per second ? +Professor B: Oh , I know what I was gonna say . +PhD C: Um , not {disfmarker} no relation . +Professor B: No relation . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't understand , +PhD C: The f the forty - eight hundred bits is for transmission of some features . +PhD A: because i I mean , if you 're only using h +PhD C: And generally , i it {disfmarker} s allows you to transmit like , fifteen , uh , cepstrum . +Professor B: The issue was that , um , this is supposed to be a standard that 's then gonna be fed to somebody 's recognizer somewhere which might be , you know , it {disfmarker} it might be a concern how many parameters are use {disfmarker} u used and so forth . And so , uh , they felt they wanted to set a limit . So they chose sixty . Some people wanted to use hundreds of parameters and {disfmarker} and that bothered some other people . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: u And so they just chose that . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's kind of r arbitrary too . But {disfmarker} but that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of what was chosen . I {disfmarker} I remembered what I was going to say . What I was going to say is that , um , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe with the noise removal , uh , these things are now more correlated . So you have two sets of things that are kind of uncorrelated , uh , within themselves , but they 're pretty correlated with one another . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , they 're being fed into these , uh , variants , only Gaussians and so forth , and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so maybe it would be a better idea now than it was before to , uh , have , uh , one KLT over everything , to de - correlate it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: Maybe . You know . +PhD D: What are the S N Rs in the training set , TIMIT ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , ranging from zero to clean ? Yeah . From zero to clean . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So we found this {disfmarker} this , uh {disfmarker} this Macrophone data , and so forth , that we were using for these other experiments , to be pretty good . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} i after you explore these other alternatives , that might be another way to start looking , is {disfmarker} is just improving the training set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , we were getting , uh , lots better recognition using that , than {disfmarker} Of course , you do have the problem that , um , u i {comment} we are not able to increase the number of Gaussians , uh , or anything to , uh , uh , to match anything . So we 're only improving the training of our feature set , but that 's still probably something . +PhD A: So you 're saying , add the Macrophone data to the training of the neural net ? The tandem net ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the only place that we can train . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We can't train the other stuff with anything other than the standard amount , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: so . Um , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what was it trained on again ? The one that you used ? +PhD C: It 's TIMIT with noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's rather a small {disfmarker} +Professor B: How big is the net , by the way ? +PhD C: Um , Uh , it 's , uh , five hundred hidden units . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: And again , you did experiments back then where you made it bigger and it {disfmarker} and that was {disfmarker} that was sort of the threshold point . Much less than that , it was worse , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: much more than that , it wasn't much better . Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . @ @ ? +PhD D: So is it {disfmarker} is it though the performance , big relation in the high ma high mismatch has something to do with the , uh , cleaning up that you {disfmarker} that is done on the TIMIT after adding noise ? +PhD C: +PhD D: So {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i All the noises are from the TI - digits , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? So you {disfmarker} i +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} k uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it it 's like the high mismatch of the SpeechDat - Car after cleaning up , maybe having more noise than the {disfmarker} the training set of TIMIT after clean {disfmarker} s after you do the noise clean - up . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: I mean , earlier you never had any compensation , you just trained it straight away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it had like all these different conditions of S N Rs , actually in their training set of neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But after cleaning up you have now a different set of S N Rs , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: For the training of the neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} is it something to do with the mismatch that {disfmarker} that 's created after the cleaning up , like the high mismatch {disfmarker} +PhD C: You mean the {disfmarker} the most noisy occurrences on SpeechDat - Car might be a lot more noisy than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Of {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , the SNR after the noise compensation of the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Oh , so {disfmarker} Right . So the training {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the neural net is being trained with noise compensated stuff . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Which makes sense , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , you 're saying {disfmarker} Yeah , the noisier ones are still going to be , even after our noise compensation , are still gonna be pretty noisy . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , so now the after - noise compensation the neural net is seeing a different set of S N Rs than that was originally there in the training set . Of TIMIT . Because in the TIMIT it was zero to some clean . +Professor B: Right . Yes . +PhD D: So the net saw all the SNR @ @ conditions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Now after cleaning up it 's a different set of SNR . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And that SNR may not be , like , com covering the whole set of S N Rs that you 're getting in the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Right , but the SpeechDat - Car data that you 're seeing is also reduced in noise by the noise compensation . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , it is . But , I 'm saying , there could be some {disfmarker} some issues of {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , if the initial range of SNR is different , we {disfmarker} the problem was already there before . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it depends on whether you believe that the noise compensation is equally reducing the noise on the test set and the training set . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: On the test set , yeah . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , you 're saying there 's a mismatch in noise that wasn't there before , +PhD D: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if they were both the same before , then if they were both reduic reduced equally , then , there would not be a mismatch . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , this may be {disfmarker} Heaven forbid , this noise compensation process may be imperfect , but . Uh , so maybe it 's treating some things differently . +PhD C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} that could be seen from the TI - digits , uh , testing condition because , um , the noises are from the TI - digits , right ? Noise {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So cleaning up the TI - digits and if the performance goes down in the TI - digits mismatch {disfmarker} high mismatch like this {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training , yeah . +PhD D: on a clean training , or zero DB testing . +PhD C: Yeah , we 'll {disfmarker} so we 'll see . Uh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Then it 's something to do . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , one of the things about {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , the Macrophone data , um , I think , you know , it was recorded over many different telephones . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so , there 's lots of different kinds of acoustic conditions . I mean , it 's not artificially added noise or anything . So it 's not the same . I don't think there 's anybody recording over a car from a car , but {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's varied enough that if {disfmarker} if doing this adjustments , uh , and playing around with it doesn't , uh , make it better , the most {disfmarker} uh , it seems like the most obvious thing to do is to improve the training set . Um {disfmarker} I mean , what we were {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} the condition {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it gave us an enormous amount of improvement in what we were doing with Meeting Recorder digits , even though there , again , these m Macrophone digits were very , very different from , uh , what we were going on here . I mean , we weren't talking over a telephone here . But it was just {disfmarker} I think just having a {disfmarker} a nice variation in acoustic conditions was just a good thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah , actually {vocalsound} to s eh , what I observed in the HM case is that the number of deletion dramatically increases . It {disfmarker} it doubles . +Professor B: Number of deletions . +PhD C: When I added the num the neural network it doubles the number of deletions . Yeah , so I don't you know {vocalsound} how to interpret that , but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Me either . +PhD C: t +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and did {disfmarker} an other numbers stay the same ? Insertion substitutions stay the same ? +PhD C: They p stayed the same , +PhD A: Roughly ? +PhD C: they {disfmarker} maybe they are a little bit uh , lower . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: They are a little bit better . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Did they increase the number of deletions even for the cases that got better ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Say , for the {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , it doesn't . +Professor B: So it 's only the highly mismatched ? +PhD C: No . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} Remind me again , the "" highly mismatched "" means that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , sorry ? +PhD C: It 's clean training {disfmarker} Well , close microphone training and distant microphone , um , high speed , I think . +Professor B: Close mike training {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} The most noisy cases are the distant microphone for testing . +Professor B: Right . So {disfmarker} Well , maybe the noise subtraction is subtracting off speech . +PhD C: Separating . Yeah . +Professor B: Wh +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean , but without the neural network it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's better . It 's just when we add the neural networks . +Professor B: Yeah , right . +PhD C: The feature are the same except that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , that 's right , that 's right . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well that {disfmarker} that says that , you know , the , um {disfmarker} the models in {disfmarker} in , uh , the recognizer are really paying attention to the neural net features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , yeah , actually {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the TIMIT noises {pause} are sort of a range of noises and they 're not so much the stationary driving kind of noises , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty different . Isn't it ? +PhD C: Uh , there is a car noise . So there are f just four noises . Um , uh , "" Car "" , I think , "" Babble "" , +PhD D: "" Babble . "" +PhD C: "" Subway "" , right ? and {disfmarker} +PhD D: "" Street "" or "" Airport "" or something . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} "" Street "" isn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or "" Train station "" . +PhD C: "" Train station "" , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} it 's mostly {disfmarker} Well , "" Car "" is stationary , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: "" Babble "" , it 's a stationary background plus some voices , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: some speech over it . And the other two are rather stationary also . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I think that if you run it {disfmarker} Actually , you {disfmarker} maybe you remember this . When you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old experiments when you ran with the neural net only , and didn't have this side path , um , uh , with the {disfmarker} the pure features as well , did it make things better to have the neural net ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Was it about the same ? Uh , w i +PhD C: It was {disfmarker} b a little bit worse . +Professor B: Than {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Than just the features , yeah . +Professor B: So , until you put the second path in with the pure features , the neural net wasn't helping at all . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's interesting . +PhD C: It was helping , uh , if the features are b were bad , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean . Just plain P L Ps or M F +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: C Cs . as soon as we added LDA on - line normalization , and {vocalsound} all these things , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: They were doing similar enough things . Well , I still think it would be k sort of interesting to see what would happen if you just had the neural net without the side thing . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the thing I {disfmarker} I have in mind is , uh , maybe you 'll see that the results are not just a little bit worse . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Maybe that they 're a lot worse . You know ? And , um {disfmarker} But if on the ha other hand , uh , it 's , say , somewhere in between what you 're seeing now and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , what you 'd have with just the pure features , then maybe there is some problem of a {disfmarker} of a , uh , combination of these things , or correlation between them somehow . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it really is that the net is hurting you at the moment , then I think the issue is to focus on {disfmarker} on , uh , improving the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what 's the overall effe I mean , you haven't done all the experiments but you said it was i somewhat better , say , five percent better , for the first two conditions , and fifteen percent worse for the other one ? But it 's {disfmarker} but of course that one 's weighted lower , +PhD C: Y yeah , oh . Yeah . +Professor B: so I wonder what the net effect is . +PhD C: I d I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it was one or two percent . That 's not that bad , but it was l like two percent relative worse on SpeechDat - Car . I have to {disfmarker} to check that . Well , I have {disfmarker} I will . +PhD D: Well , it will {disfmarker} overall it will be still better even if it is fifteen percent worse , because the fifteen percent worse is given like f w twenty - five {disfmarker} point two five eight . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Right . So the {disfmarker} so the worst it could be , if the others were exactly the same , is four , +PhD D: Is it like {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , in fact since the others are somewhat better {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's four . Is i So either it 'll get cancelled out , or you 'll get , like , almost the same . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} it was slightly worse . +PhD D: Slightly bad . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , +Professor B: Yeah , it should be pretty close to cancelled out . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You know , I 've been wondering about something . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: In the , um {disfmarker} a lot of the , um {disfmarker} the Hub - five systems , um , recently have been using LDA . and {disfmarker} and they , um {disfmarker} They run LDA on the features right before they train the models . So there 's the {disfmarker} the LDA is {disfmarker} is right there before the H M +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So , you guys are using LDA but it seems like it 's pretty far back in the process . +PhD D: Uh , this LDA is different from the LDA that you are talking about . The LDA that you {disfmarker} saying is , like , you take a block of features , like nine frames or something , {comment} and then do an LDA on it , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and then reduce the dimensionality to something like twenty - four or something like that . +PhD A: Yeah , you c you c you can . +PhD D: And then feed it to HMM . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} you know , you 're just basically i +PhD D: Yeah , so this is like a two d two dimensional tile . +PhD A: You 're shifting the feature space . Yeah . +PhD D: So this is a two dimensional tile . And the LDA that we are f applying is only in time , not in frequency {disfmarker} high cost frequency . So it 's like {disfmarker} more like a filtering in time , rather than doing a r +PhD A: Ah . OK . So what i what about , um {disfmarker} i u what i w I mean , I don't know if this is a good idea or not , but what if you put {disfmarker} ran the other kind of LDA , uh , on your features right before they go into the HMM ? +PhD D: Uh , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . No , actually , I think {disfmarker} i +PhD D: m +PhD C: Well . What do we do with the ANN is {disfmarker} is something like that except that it 's not linear . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's like a nonlinear discriminant analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . Right , it 's the {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} Right . The {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah , so it 's sort of like {disfmarker} +PhD C: But . +PhD A: The tandem stuff is kind of like i nonlinear LDA . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: I g +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But I mean , w but the other features that you have , um , th the non - tandem ones , +PhD C: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in the proposal , they were transformed u using PCA , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah , it might be that LDA could be better . +Professor B: The a the argument i is kind of i in {disfmarker} and it 's not like we really know , but the argument anyway is that , um , uh , we always have the prob I mean , discriminative things are good . LDA , neural nets , they 're good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , they 're good because you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you learn to distinguish between these categories that you want to be good at distinguishing between . And PCA doesn't do that . It {disfmarker} PAC - PCA {disfmarker} low - order PCA throws away pieces that are uh , maybe not {disfmarker} not gonna be helpful just because they 're small , basically . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But , uh , the problem is , training sets aren't perfect and testing sets are different . So you f you {disfmarker} you face the potential problem with discriminative stuff , be it LDA or neural nets , that you are training to discriminate between categories in one space but what you 're really gonna be g getting is {disfmarker} is something else . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And so , uh , Stephane 's idea was , uh , let 's feed , uh , both this discriminatively trained thing and something that 's not . So you have a good set of features that everybody 's worked really hard to make , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then , uh , you {disfmarker} you discriminately train it , but you also take the path that {disfmarker} that doesn't have that , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and putting those in together . And that {disfmarker} that seem So it 's kind of like a combination of the {disfmarker} uh , what , uh , Dan has been calling , you know , a feature {disfmarker} uh , you know , a feature combination versus posterior combination or something . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , you have the posterior combination but then you get the features from that and use them as a feature combination with these {disfmarker} these other things . And that seemed , at least in the last one , as he was just saying , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} when he only did discriminative stuff , i it actually was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} it didn't help at all in this particular case . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: There was enough of a difference , I guess , between the testing and training . But by having them both there {disfmarker} The fact is some of the time , the discriminative stuff is gonna help you . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And some of the time it 's going to hurt you , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and by combining two information sources if , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you wouldn't necessarily then want to do LDA on the non - tandem features because now you 're doing something to them that {disfmarker} +Professor B: That i i I think that 's counter to that idea . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: Now , again , it 's {disfmarker} we 're just trying these different things . We don't really know what 's gonna work best . But if that 's the hypothesis , at least it would be counter to that hypothesis to do that . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , and in principle you would think that the neural net would do better at the discriminant part than LDA . +PhD A: Right . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} y +Professor B: Though , maybe not . +PhD A: Yeah . Exactly . I mean , we , uh {disfmarker} we were getting ready to do the tandem , uh , stuff for the Hub - five system , and , um , Andreas and I talked about it , and the idea w the thought was , "" Well , uh , yeah , that i you know {disfmarker} th the neural net should be better , but we should at least have uh , a number , you know , to show that we did try the LDA in place of the neural net , so that we can you know , show a clear path . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: You know , that you have it without it , then you have the LDA , then you have the neural net , and you can see , theoretically . So . I was just wondering {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Did {disfmarker} did you do that +PhD A: Um . No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} tha that 's a {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's what {disfmarker} that 's what we 're gonna do next as soon as I finish this other thing . So . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . No , well , that 's a good idea . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: We just want to show . +Professor B: i Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , it {disfmarker} everybody believes it , +Professor B: Oh , no it 's a g +PhD A: but you know , we just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no , but it might not {disfmarker} not even be true . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a great idea . I mean , one of the things that always disturbed me , uh , in the {disfmarker} the resurgence of neural nets that happened in the eighties was that , um , a lot of people {disfmarker} Because neural nets were pretty easy to {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} a lot of people were just using them for all sorts of things without , uh , looking at all into the linear , uh {disfmarker} uh , versions of them . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , people were doing recurrent nets but not looking at IIR filters , and {disfmarker} You know , I mean , uh , so I think , yeah , it 's definitely a good idea to try it . +PhD A: Yeah , and everybody 's putting that on their {vocalsound} systems now , and so , I that 's what made me wonder about this , +Professor B: Well , they 've been putting them in their systems off and on for ten years , +PhD A: but . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , what I mean is it 's {disfmarker} it 's like in the Hub - five evaluations , you know , and you read the system descriptions and everybody 's got , {vocalsound} you know , LDA on their features . +Professor B: And now they all have that . I see . +PhD A: And so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: It 's the transformation they 're estimating on {disfmarker} Well , they are trained on the same data as the final HMM are . +PhD A: Yeah , so it 's different . Yeah , exactly . Cuz they don't have these , you know , mismatches that {disfmarker} that you guys have . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that 's why I was wondering if maybe it 's not even a good idea . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't know . I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about it , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: I mean , part of why {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think part of why you were getting into the KLT {disfmarker} Y you were describing to me at one point that you wanted to see if , uh , you know , getting good orthogonal features was {disfmarker} and combining the {disfmarker} the different temporal ranges {disfmarker} was the key thing that was happening or whether it was this discriminant thing , right ? So you were just trying {disfmarker} I think you r I mean , this is {disfmarker} it doesn't have the LDA aspect but th as far as the orthogonalizing transformation , you were trying that at one point , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think you were . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Does something . It doesn't work as well . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , yeah , I 've been exploring a parallel VAD without neural network with , like , less latency using SNR and energy , um , after the cleaning up . So what I 'd been trying was , um , uh {disfmarker} After the b after the noise compensation , n I was trying t to f find a f feature based on the ratio of the energies , that is , cl after clean and before clean . So that if {disfmarker} if they are , like , pretty c close to one , which means it 's speech . And if it is n if it is close to zero , which is {disfmarker} So it 's like a scale @ @ probability value . So I was trying , uh , with full band and multiple bands , m ps uh {disfmarker} separating them to different frequency bands and deriving separate decisions on each bands , and trying to combine them . Uh , the advantage being like it doesn't have the latency of the neural net if it {disfmarker} if it can +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: g And {pause} it gave me like , uh , one point {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} more than one percent relative improvement . So , from fifty - three point six it went to fifty f four point eight . So it 's , like , only slightly more than a percent improvement , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: just like {disfmarker} Which means that it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing a slightly better job than the previous VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , at a l lower delay . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} i d I 'm sorry , +PhD D: so {disfmarker} u +Professor B: does it still have the median {pause} filter stuff ? +PhD D: It still has the median filter . +Professor B: So it still has most of the delay , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: it just doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so d with the delay , that 's gone is the input , which is the sixty millisecond . The forty plus {pause} twenty . +Professor B: Well , w i +PhD D: At the input of the neural net you have this , uh , f nine frames of context plus the delta . +Professor B: Oh , plus the delta , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . So that delay , plus the LDA . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , so the delay is only the forty millisecond of the noise cleaning , plus the hundred millisecond smoothing at the output . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . So . Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} di the biggest {disfmarker} The problem f for me was to find a consistent threshold that works {pause} well across the different databases , because I t I try to make it work on tr SpeechDat - Car +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and it fails on TI - digits , or if I try to make it work on that it 's just the Italian or something , it doesn't work on the Finnish . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , um . So there are {disfmarker} there was , like , some problem in balancing the deletions and insertions when I try different thresholds . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} I 'm still trying to make it better by using some other features from the {disfmarker} after the p clean up {disfmarker} maybe , some , uh , correlation {disfmarker} auto - correlation or some s additional features of {disfmarker} to mainly the improvement of the VAD . I 've been trying . +Professor B: Now this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this , uh , "" before and after clean "" , it sounds like you think that 's a good feature . That {disfmarker} that , it {disfmarker} you th think that the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i it appears to be a good feature , right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What about using it in the neural net ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , eventually we could {disfmarker} could just +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so that 's the {disfmarker} Yeah . So we 've been thinking about putting it into the neural net also . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because they did {disfmarker} that itself {disfmarker} +PhD C: Then you don't have to worry about the thresholds and {disfmarker} +PhD D: There 's a threshold and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: but just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} if we can live with the latency or cut the latencies elsewhere , then {disfmarker} then that would be a , uh , good thing . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anybody {disfmarker} has anybody {disfmarker} you guys or {disfmarker} or Naren , uh , somebody , tried the , uh , um , second th second stream thing ? Uh . +PhD D: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I just h put the second stream in place and , uh ran one experiment , but just like {disfmarker} just to know that everything is fine . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So it was like , uh , forty - five cepstrum plus twenty - three mel {disfmarker} log mel . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and , just , like , it gave me the baseline performance of the Aurora , which is like zero improvement . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So I just tried it on Italian just to know that everything is {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I didn't export anything out of it because it was , like , a weird feature set . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , what I think , you know , would be more what you 'd want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , uh , put it into another neural net . Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} But , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not quite there yet . So we have to {vocalsound} figure out the neural nets , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The uh , other thing I was wondering was , um , if the neural net , um , has any {disfmarker} because of the different noise con unseen noise conditions for the neural net , where , like , you train it on those four noise conditions , while you are feeding it with , like , a additional {disfmarker} some four plus some {disfmarker} f few more conditions which it hasn't seen , actually , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: from the {disfmarker} f f while testing . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Right . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} instead of just h having c uh , those cleaned up t cepstrum , sh should we feed some additional information , like {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We have the VAD flag . I mean , should we f feed the VAD flag , also , at the input so that it {disfmarker} it has some additional discriminating information at the input ? +PhD C: Hmm - hmm ! Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Wh - uh , the {disfmarker} the VAD what ? +PhD D: We have the VAD information also available at the back - end . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So if it is something the neural net is not able to discriminate the classes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Because most of it is sil I mean , we have dropped some silence f We have dropped so silence frames ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , we haven't dropped silence frames still . +PhD C: Uh , still not . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Th +PhD D: the b b biggest classification would be the speech and silence . So , by having an additional , uh , feature which says "" this is speech and this is nonspeech "" , I mean , it certainly helps in some unseen noise conditions for the neural net . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} Do y do you have that feature available for the test data ? +PhD D: Well , I mean , we have {disfmarker} we are transferring the VAD to the back - end {disfmarker} feature to the back - end . Because we are dropping it at the back - end after everything {disfmarker} all the features are computed . +PhD A: Oh , oh , I see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: so the neural {disfmarker} so that is coming from a separate neural net or some VAD . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Which is {disfmarker} which is certainly giving a +PhD A: So you 're saying , feed that , also , into {pause} the neural net . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} Yeah . So it it 's an {disfmarker} additional discriminating information . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +PhD D: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: You could feed it into the neural net . The other thing {comment} you could do is just , um , p modify the , uh , output probabilities of the {disfmarker} of the , uh , uh , um , neural net , tandem neural net , {comment} based on the fact that you have a silence probability . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you have an independent estimator of what the silence probability is , and you could multiply the two things , and renormalize . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you 'd have to do the nonlinearity part and deal with that . Uh , I mean , go backwards from what the nonlinearity would , you know {disfmarker} would be . +PhD D: Through {disfmarker} t to the soft max . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , so {disfmarker} maybe , yeah , when {disfmarker} +PhD A: But in principle wouldn't it be better to feed it in ? And let the net do that ? +Professor B: Well , u Not sure . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean , let 's put it this way . I mean , y you {disfmarker} you have this complicated system with thousands and thousand parameters +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and you can tell it , uh , "" Learn this thing . "" Or you can say , "" It 's silence ! Go away ! "" I mean , I mean , i Doesn't {disfmarker} ? I think {disfmarker} I think the second one sounds a lot more direct . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what if you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Right . So , what if you then , uh {disfmarker} since you know this , what if you only use the neural net on the speech portions ? +Professor B: Well , uh , +PhD C: That 's what {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I guess that 's the same . Uh , that 's similar . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , y you 'd have to actually run it continuously , +PhD A: But I mean {disfmarker} I mean , train the net only on {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} Well , no , you want to train on {disfmarker} on the nonspeech also , because that 's part of what you 're learning in it , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to generate , that it 's {disfmarker} it has to distinguish between . +PhD D: Speech . +PhD A: But I mean , if you 're gonna {disfmarker} if you 're going to multiply the output of the net by this other decision , uh , would {disfmarker} then you don't care about whether the net makes that distinction , right ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . But this other thing isn't perfect . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: So that you bring in some information from the net itself . +PhD A: Right , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only thing that {disfmarker} that bothers me about all this is that I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the fact {disfmarker} i i It 's sort of bothersome that you 're getting more deletions . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} So I might maybe look at , is it due to the fact that um , the probability of the silence at the output of the network , is , uh , +Professor B: Is too high . +PhD C: too {disfmarker} too high or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So maybe {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD C: If it 's the case , then multiplying it again by {disfmarker} i by something ? +PhD D: It may not be {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it may be too {disfmarker} it 's too high in a sense , like , everything is more like a , um , flat probability . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh - eee - hhh . +PhD D: So , like , it 's not really doing any distinction between speech and nonspeech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . +PhD D: or , I mean , different {disfmarker} among classes . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Be interesting to look at the {disfmarker} Yeah , for the {disfmarker} I wonder if you could do this . But if you look at the , um , highly mism high mismat the output of the net on the high mismatch case and just look at , you know , the distribution versus the {disfmarker} the other ones , do you {disfmarker} do you see more peaks or something ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , like the entropy of the {disfmarker} the output , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , for instance . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} bu +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it seems that the VAD network doesn't {disfmarker} Well , it doesn't drop , uh , too many frames because the dele the number of deletion is reasonable . But it 's just when we add the tandem , the final MLP , and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only problem is you don't want to ta I guess wait for the output of the VAD before you can put something into the other system , +PhD C: u +Professor B: cuz that 'll shoot up the latency a lot , right ? Am I missing something here ? +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 's maybe a problem with what I was just saying . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} I I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: But if you were gonna put it in as a feature it means you already have it by the time you get to the tandem net , right ? +PhD D: Um , well . We {disfmarker} w we don't have it , actually , +Professor B: No . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it has a high rate energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: the VAD has a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's kind of done in {disfmarker} I mean , some of the things are , not in parallel , but certainly , it would be in parallel with the {disfmarker} with a tandem net . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: In time . So maybe , if that doesn't work , um {disfmarker} But it would be interesting to see if that was the problem , anyway . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then I guess another alternative would be to take the feature that you 're feeding into the VAD , and feeding it into the other one as well . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then maybe it would just learn {disfmarker} learn it better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's an interesting thing to try to see , if what 's going on is that in the highly mismatched condition , it 's , um , causing deletions by having this silence probability up {disfmarker} up too high , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at some point where the VAD is saying it 's actually speech . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Which is probably true . +PhD C: So , m +Professor B: Cuz {disfmarker} Well , the V A if the VAD said {disfmarker} since the VAD is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is right a lot , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Anyway . Might be . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , we just started working with it . But these are {disfmarker} these are some good ideas I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , and the other thing {disfmarker} Well , there are other issues maybe for the tandem , like , uh , well , do we want to , w uh n Do we want to work on the targets ? Or , like , instead of using phonemes , using more context dependent units ? +PhD A: For the tandem net you mean ? +PhD C: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm thinking , also , a w about Dan 's work where he {disfmarker} he trained {vocalsound} a network , not on phoneme targets but on the HMM state targets . And {disfmarker} it was giving s slightly better results . +Professor B: Problem is , if you are going to run this on different m test sets , including large vocabulary , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: um , +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . I was just thinking maybe about , like , generalized diphones , and {disfmarker} come up with a {disfmarker} a reasonable , not too large , set of context dependent units , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . And then anyway we would have to reduce this with the KLT . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , maybe . But I d I d it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i it 's all worth looking at , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it sounds to me like , uh , looking at the relationship between this and the {disfmarker} speech noise stuff is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is probably a key thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That and the correlation between stuff . +PhD A: So if , uh {disfmarker} if the , uh , high mismatch case had been more like the , uh , the other two cases {comment} in terms of giving you just a better performance , {comment} how would this number have changed ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Oh , it would be {disfmarker} Yeah . Around five percent better , I guess . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} i +PhD A: y Like sixty ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know what 's it 's gonna be the TI - digits yet . He hasn't got the results back yet . +PhD C: Yeah . If you extrapolate the SpeechDat - Car well - matched and medium - mismatch , it 's around , yeah , maybe five . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Yeah . So this would be sixty - two ? +Professor B: Sixty - two . +PhD A: Which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Sixty - two , yeah . +PhD D: Somewhere around sixty , must be . Right ? Yeah . +PhD C: Well , it 's around five percent , because it 's {disfmarker} s Right ? If everything is five percent . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: All the other ones were five percent , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I d I d I just have the SpeechDat - Car right now , so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's running {disfmarker} it shou we should have the results today during the afternoon , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} Well . +Professor B: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} So I won't be here for {disfmarker} +PhD A: When {disfmarker} When do you leave ? +Professor B: Uh , I 'm leaving next Wednesday . May or may not be in in the morning . I leave in the afternoon . Um , +PhD A: But you 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} +PhD A: are you {disfmarker} you 're not gonna be around this afternoon ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , well . I 'm talking about next week . I 'm leaving {disfmarker} leaving next Wednesday . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: This afternoon {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Oh , right , for the Meeting meeting ? Yeah , that 's just cuz of something on campus . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . But , um , yeah , so next week I won't , and the week after I won't , cuz I 'll be in Finland . And the week after that I won't . By that time you 'll be {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , you 'll both be gone {pause} from here . So there 'll be no {disfmarker} definitely no meeting on {disfmarker} on September sixth . Uh , +PhD A: What 's September sixth ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Uh , that 's during Eurospeech . +PhD A: Oh , oh , right . OK . +Professor B: So , uh , Sunil will be in Oregon . Uh , Stephane and I will be in Denmark . Uh {disfmarker} Right ? So it 'll be a few weeks , really , before we have a meeting of the same cast of characters . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} I guess , just {disfmarker} I mean , you guys should probably meet . And maybe Barry {disfmarker} Barry will be around . And {disfmarker} and then uh , uh , we 'll start up again with Dave and {disfmarker} Dave and Barry and Stephane and us on the , uh , twentieth . No . Thirteenth ? About a month ? +PhD A: So , uh , you 're gonna be gone for the next three weeks or something ? +Professor B: I 'm gone for two and a half weeks starting {disfmarker} starting next Wed - late next Wednesday . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} you won't be at the next three of these meetings . Is that right ? +Professor B: Uh , I won't {disfmarker} it 's probably four because of {disfmarker} is it three ? Let 's see , twenty - third , thirtieth , sixth . That 's right , next three . And the {disfmarker} the third one won't {disfmarker} probably won't be a meeting , cuz {disfmarker} cuz , uh , Su - Sunil , Stephane , and I will all not be here . +PhD A: Oh , right . Right . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} So it 's just , uh , the next two where there will be {disfmarker} there , you know , may as well be meetings , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but I just won't be at them . And then starting up on the thirteenth , {nonvocalsound} uh , we 'll have meetings again but we 'll have to do without Sunil here somehow . +PhD A: When do you go back ? +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Thirty - first , August . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Cool . +PhD A: When is the evaluation ? November , or something ? +Professor B: Yeah , it was supposed to be November fifteenth . Has anybody heard anything different ? +PhD C: I don't know . The meeting in {disfmarker} is the five and six of December . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: p s It 's like {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tentatively all full . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , that 's a proposed date , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , um {disfmarker} so the evaluation should be on a week before or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yep . But , no , this is good progress . So . Uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Guess we 're done . Digits ? Yep . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's a wrap . +","In this extensive research meeting, a group of experts composed of PhD students (PhD A, C, and D) and Professor B discuss various aspects and challenges of their ongoing work in automatic speech recognition (ASR). The primary focus is on fine-tuning the performance of their system, which is particularly intended for usage in reverberant environments and with various noise conditions. + +The team is analyzing the ramifications of reverberation and noise on signal quality, as evidenced by their measurement of the signal-to-noise ratio in the room being around nine decibels (dB). They delve into the details of filter specifications, particularly high-pass filtering at various frequency bands, acknowledging discrepancies in what they and their colleague Dave have considered to be the accurate boundary frequency. + +They mention submitting work to ASRU (Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop) and discuss the impact of parameters and configurational decisions on system performance, such as the Mel scale filter experimentation and the variations observed in comparing two baseline systems from HTK (Hidden Markov Model Toolkit) and SRI (not specified, but possibly could refer to SRI International). + +Professor B raises a complex issue regarding the effect of different feature sets on system performance, particularly when dealing with noise compensation and its effect on training data and speech recognition outcomes. They explore whether adjustments to feature sets might need to be reconsidered, especially when large training data sets are used. + +PhD D updates the group on an experiment using a tandem neural network, with a particular approach similar to previous work, yielding mixed results across different conditions. The tandem approach improves performance in well-matched and medium-mismatched conditions, but performs poorly in highly mismatched conditions where noise substantially differs from training data. + +There is a discussion about the effect of adding features to systems and how it can sometimes lead to worse performance, particularly when the additional information isn't properly attentive to the distinctions it's meant to infer, such as speech versus nonspeech. This discussion is crucial as it addresses how to properly leverage discriminative training within a system that also accommodates unseen noise conditions. + +The team debates strategies to improve the training set, mentioning the potential use of Macrophone data to increase variation in acoustic conditions. This topic emerges as particularly important for the potential to enhance the training of their feature set in light of the constraint that they cannot change the number of Gaussians in their system due to a fixity imposed by the Aurora framework. + +PhD C reports on their VAD (Voice Activity Detection) development, incorporating machine learning techniques in determining speech presence in noisy signals, finding substantial room for improvement in latency reduction. PhD D explores a parallel VAD approach using SNR and energy after noise compensation, which is simpler and less latent than the neural network. + +The group considers the benefits of feeding additional discriminative information into the neural net used in the tandem system, like a VAD signal. Furthermore, there's interest in exploring using context-dependent units like generalized diphones for training the tandem net instead of just phonemes, which could potentially capture more contextual acoustic cues. + +As the meeting concludes, they briefly touch on future plans, noting the absence of some members for upcoming meetings due to travels and conferences. They indicate that the next ASR evaluation is scheduled for mid-November, and the results from the day's afternoon experiments on SpeechDat-Car and TI-digits databases are yet to be reviewed. + +In summary, the meeting revolves around intricate details of configuring ASR systems for better accommodation of noise and reverberation, the importance of discriminative feature training, improvements in VAD systems, and the considerations for preparation for the upcoming evaluations." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are we {disfmarker} we're not allowed to dim the lights so people can see that a bit better ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's fine . Am I supposed to be standing up there ? Okay . +Marketing: So we've got both of these clipped on ? She gonna answer me or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , both of them , okay . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: God . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Jesus , it's gonna fall off {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Yep , yep . {vocalsound} Okay . Tu tu tu tu +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hi , good morning . +Project Manager: Um I'm Sarah , the Project Manager and this is our first meeting , surprisingly enough . Okay , this is our agenda , um {vocalsound} we will do some stuff , get to know each other a bit better to feel more comfortable with each other . Um then we'll go do tool training , talk about the project plan , discuss our own ideas and everything um and we've got twenty five minutes to do that , as far as I can understand . Now , we're developing a remote control which you probably already know . Um , we want it to be original , something that's uh {disfmarker} people haven't thought of , that's not out in the shops , um , trendy , appealing to a wide market , but you know , not a hunk of metal , and user-friendly , grannies to kids , maybe even pooches should be able to use it . Okay , um , first is the functional design , um this is where we all go off and do our individual work , um what needs need to be fulfilled by the product , um what effects the product has to have and how it's actually going to do that . Um , conceptual design , what we're thinking , how it's gonna go and then the detailed design , how we're actually gonna put it into practice and make it work . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right . We're gonna practice with the pens and draw our favourite animal on the white board , I'll go first , and um sum up the characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll leave space for everyone else . Um {disfmarker} What's missing ? We're running out of blue . Okay . I'm not gonna ask you to guess , I'm going to tell you that's supposed to be a tiger . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And I see them as majestic , and independent , and proud . +User Interface: Oh sorry . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now , who would like to go next ? +User Interface: Yeah , me . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Cat . Where did this come from ? +Project Manager: Is that your lapel then ? +User Interface: Uh , yep . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Thank you . Uh , maybe you can guess what I'm trying to make ? +Marketing: A kind of dog ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . It's actually sitting , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's sitting down . +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: it's sitting , it's not standing . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Okay , I see it as one thing it's very supportive . It's your best friend and your {disfmarker} you can talk to a dog , it can be your best friend , it doesn't discriminate between you , based on what you are . Second it's loyal and third thing it's got intuition . {gap} dogs can som sometimes can make out between a thief and a person +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so basically these are the three unique features I think belong to a dog . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'll have a go . +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +Marketing: Please , please leave me a space at the bottom , I'm little , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: you can get to the top , with standing on a chair . +Industrial Designer: Well since you guys have chosen the ones I wanted to do , I'll have to have to go for something a bit random . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does it look like a dog actually ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And also , my drawing skill isn't that great so , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , as you can see , the quality of the work today is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's outstandingly good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , now I'm gonna have to change what is was originally gonna be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because that looks like a beak now , so . {vocalsound} Yeah , it can be a crocodile , it can be a crocodile . +Marketing: Crocodile ? +Project Manager: Gonna be a bird . Is it gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well it was it was an {disfmarker} at first {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it's gonna be a bird . +Industrial Designer: firstly it was an attempt at a T_ Rex and then it sort of changed into a pelican +Marketing: O +Industrial Designer: but it can be a crocodile now actually {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's lovely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and uh I'll have to think on the spot of uh things that it is . Um +Marketing: Beauti that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh scary , uh strong , yeah that's about it I think {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} it's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , I'm very impressed with your artistic skills , +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: mine's {disfmarker} are dreadful . Oops this is now coming apart , let me just put the top in . +Industrial Designer: Wo {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hope that clicks in , I'll just {disfmarker} I'll hold it on , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oops , oh dear , what happened there ? +Project Manager: Technical help . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Hopefully that'll stay on , two-handed version . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , uh {disfmarker} Again this is off the top of my head , I was gonna do a big cat too , um . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Oh dear , it doesn't look what like what I want it to be {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: S Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: It's not a vampire bat honestly {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Uh and somewhere there's a body behind . +Industrial Designer: Okay , some sort of bird {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's my dreadful {disfmarker} that's the worst yet , that's {disfmarker} it's meant to be an eagle {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A seagu +User Interface: Eagle , okay . +Project Manager: right , +Industrial Designer: Ah eagle , right okay . +Project Manager: not a seagull {vocalsound} . +Marketing: you can tell it's a flying animal {vocalsound} could have been a seagull , I never thought of a seagull . An eagle , um again I'm thinking on my feet goodness . I suppose they're all so independent , I'd put that one down again . {vocalsound} Da dum um . +Industrial Designer: They're good at golf . +Marketing: Indepen independent , right , did you say they're good at golf ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Eagle . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no yeah , +Marketing: Are they ? +Industrial Designer: an eagle . +Marketing: Oh . Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not good at golf . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd say they're quite free-spirited , flying around everywhere , doing their own thing . And uh , birds of prey aren't they , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh dear , intrepid . I'll put that , intrepid . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go , +Project Manager: That's lovely . +Marketing: hope that pen's gonna be okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . That was fun , right . Um finance-wise , we've got a selling price at twenty five Euros , which I don't actually know what that is in Pounds , at all . Any ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It's about {disfmarker} +User Interface: One point four or something like that . +Industrial Designer: mm , mm yeah . +Marketing: Seventeen . +User Interface: One point four Euro would make a Pound or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D fifteen ? +Industrial Designer: yeah about seventeen , seventeen Pounds , something like that . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: Seventeen Pounds . +Project Manager: Okay , that's expensive . +Marketing: Should we be making notes of this ? We can just refer to this later can't we ? +Project Manager: I think so , I think so , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll be able to um pull it up , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: or I could put it in the shared folder or something . +Industrial Designer: Havi having said that though , if you wanna get one of those {disfmarker} the the ones on the market at the moment they're s they're about twenty pounds anyway . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , it'd still be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: yeah , we had to buy one {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Mm . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: so I suppose later it depends if we want to undercut the price , we d or or is it going to make our product look a cheapie-cheapie option ? +Project Manager: Yeah , um production cost's at twelve fifty , so +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay , pretty huge margin . +Project Manager: half of the selling price is taken up by building it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , and profit aim is fifty million Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: In our first year ? +Project Manager: Yi yes , um yeah , I presume so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So then {disfmarker} +Marketing: You've got market range international and you did say earlier it's got to be a {disfmarker} um accessible and usable by sort of all age groups +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: just t we're not focusing on business market , any particular thing , it's everyone +Project Manager: No , yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} user-friendly to everyone . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Big target group {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yes , yes , I don't think we have to {disfmarker} I don't think it's a case of worrying about different languages and things like that , um making that a key point , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: just that it's going to be in the international market like Australia , America , things like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences with remote controls ? I mean I've got {disfmarker} we got um {disfmarker} we had three videos , a T_V_ and a sort of amp thing all set up +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we got one of the universal remote controls , um that you programme each of your things into , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: that c +Project Manager: but that kept losing the signals so we'd have to re-programme it every now and again . I think it was quite a cheapie as well , so that might have had something to do with it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that was quite good , the fact that you could {disfmarker} You didn't have six remote controls sitting in front of you . +Industrial Designer: Use all the ones at the same time . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Okay , you wanna integrate everything into one like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you {disfmarker} +Marketing: My experience has only been being given the remote control with the object I buy , not doing any tampering with it and programming , using it to programme T_V_ and uh uh videos and things . But basically on , off , volume up and down , channel one , two , th that basic functions , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think I could go any further with it than that , so , I suppose it's got to be something usable by someone like me as well . +Project Manager: Yeah , the main {disfmarker} that's the main stuff anyway , I mean +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} and you don't want to {disfmarker} I hate I hate looking at a control and seeing a million tiny little buttons with tiny little words saying what they all do +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and just sitting there searching for the teletext button or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . And symbols that you don't necessarily understand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: symbols you're meant to understand that you don't . +User Interface: So simplification of symbols you could think of . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . When they're {disfmarker} when you've got the main things on the front of it and a section opens up or something to the other functions where you can do sound or options kind of recording , things like that inside it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it doesn't make {disfmarker} when you pick it up it doesn't make it really complicated to look at , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's obvious what you're doing , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Actually that just raises a point , I wonder what our design people think , but you know on a mobile phone , you can press a key and it gives you a menu , it's got a menu display , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Menu , alright . +Marketing: I wonder if incorporating that into the design of a remote control might be useful , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: so you've got a little L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Right , I was thinking on the same lines you , instead of having too many b buttons and make it complicated for the user , may h maybe have an L_C_D_ di display or something like that , like a mobile , yeah and with menus . +Marketing: With menus , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: And if it's s somewhat similar to what you have on mobile phone , people might find it easier to browse and navigate also maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the older generation ? What about granny and grandads ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean to save it lesser number . +Project Manager: Um , my grandad can answer his mobile phone , but he couldn't even dream of texting or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Can he programme his remote control or is it basic with that too ? +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't think they tape things , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandad's actually better than me at using teletext , so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think they use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . So that's a problem regardless of of any design modifications you you come up with , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: that's gonna be a problem anyway with the older generation perhaps , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , the age gap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what it just needs to be {disfmarker} as long as it's sort of self-intuitive and you can can work out what everything's doing , 'cause I mean , menus on sort of new phones now they've sort of got all these pictures and stuff which makes it fairly obvious what you're trying to do . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't know , I d +Industrial Designer: But I don't know how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't like the , you know the new phones that have kind of got a Windows-based running system . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I find it really confusing , I kept getting lost {vocalsound} in the phone , I di I've not got a new one but uh my friend got a new one +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and I was trying to do things with it and I just kept getting lost , but that's just me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't I don't know how for twenty fi , or twelve Euros fifty how much of a excellent screen you could get , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you'd you'd have to sort of keep it down to a black and white L_C_D_ thing anyway , I'd assume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Is it possible that that for the older generation you could have like an extra button that you press for large print like you do in large print books ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Teletext has got that option as well . +Marketing: Obviously it displays less on the screen , it displays less on the screen but as long as they can read it that's the main thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Or what about kind of a dual function ? In that you've got the basic buttons just for your play , volume , programme things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and also {disfmarker} and then a menu to go into with obvious pictures , obvious symbols and that's where you control recording and things like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm . The other thing is , just ch chucking into mobile phone f design features again , it could have a flip top remote control so that when you flip over the top , your screen is {disfmarker} you can have a bigger screen in the the flip over . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm , okay . S +Project Manager: I think that's a cost thing , I don't I don't know how much we're gonna know about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y +User Interface: It might +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: it might save a b bit of space , it's i instead of looking bulky , it might look small . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , no that's important . +User Interface: But it might have its cost implications . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , like smaller . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And there's no reason we need to make it look as fashionable and stylish as a mobile phone , it can still be lightweight plastic , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Something that's easily moulded and produced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I'm treading on your territory guys . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , right , okay +Industrial Designer: No uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we've got half an hour before the next meeting , so we're all gonna go off and do our individual things . Um I think that's probably about it and then we'll come back and liaise again and I get to do another fantastic PowerPoint presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just just a quick thing about the um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: about what you're saying about the uh {disfmarker} does does it need to be fashionable ? The sort of {disfmarker} I I had a quick look at the company website and it's like the the uh {disfmarker} we put the fashion into electronics , so I think think the whole design thing might be qui +Marketing: Ah right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you don't {disfmarker} you you can still have plastic +Marketing: Sure b y yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it'd look quite good but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it doesn't have to be that , you know {vocalsound} th that was my main point , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we don't have to use metal , I don't know if using plastic does make it cheaper , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I presume it would . +Project Manager: I would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: it would probably . I mean there's Sky remote controls and everything . They're kind of moulded and look a bit different , and the Telewest remote controls are silver plastic , which looks a bit smarter , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so yeah I guess that's stuff we can think about . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so let's break it up there . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , see you in half an hour . +Marketing: Do we go back to our room ? Yep ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +","In a team meeting, the Project Manager Sarah addresses the development of a new, original, user-friendly remote control appealing to a wide market. The team discusses the various device functionalities, designs, and consumer usability, including concerns about accessibility for the elderly. They touch upon financial aspects, aiming for a selling price of 25 Euros and a 50 million Euro profit goal. The meeting includes a brainstorming exercise drawing animals to represent desired product characteristics and discussions about potential interface designs, such as an LCD screen with menus for simplicity. The meeting concludes with reminders of the company's emphasis on fashionable electronics. The team parts ways to work on individual tasks before regrouping." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +User Interface: Hello . +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: Uh let me see . +User Interface: There's one of mine . +Project Manager: Okay . Roo , welcome back . +User Interface: Hello , Flores . +Project Manager: The waiting is for Sebastian . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There he is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is there any time for a cup of coffee ? +User Interface: We have a slight problem . {vocalsound} I opened uh the C_D_ ROM box uh guys . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can I get a cup of coffee ? +Project Manager: Uh no . You can't , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . +User Interface: So just cancel it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well , during my work I have no time either . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is life . {vocalsound} Sorry uh , Roo . +User Interface: Yeah , I opened the C_D_ ROM box . {vocalsound} Accidentally . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . People , welcome back with the second meeting . +User Interface: But it's alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um for now on the schedule are a few points . Uh first of all the opening , which we are doing now . Um second , I received um some new project requirements . I'm not sure if you received them as well , um but I will tell you about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then um the three of you uh prepared a presentation , I think ? Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Almost . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Almost , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we'll do your one uh uh as la uh the last . Um the top goal of this m +User Interface: But you can't upload your presentation from here , I believe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we will figure that out . Ca {vocalsound} can you try to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh if it if it if it's wireless I could just uh put it in the {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , w we will see . +User Interface: I don't think it's wireless here . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} it is , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Or it is . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Okay , great . +Marketing: Uh okay . +Project Manager: Um the top goal of this meeting is to reach a decision on the product , on the target group um and and the functions of the remote control , so keep that in mind . Um {vocalsound} we have forty minutes . So it's now {disfmarker} Yep . Okay . Um the new project requirements , first of all , um we didn't speak about it , but we should not um support teletext in the remote , um because our b um board uh feels that uh teletext is out of date and internet is replacing teletext . So um we are not even going to try to um implement it in our product . {vocalsound} It's a board decision . Um the remote control should only be used for television , because it's not uh f uh feasible , it's not uh w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} we we cannot make it because of the time to market um that we have to deal with . +User Interface: Time , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh the third requirement is that we should focus on customers that are younger than uh forty , {vocalsound} which is important for you , uh Ruud , and as well for uh Roo . Because the product should um be uh interesting and and uh should be bought by people younger than forty . Um {vocalsound} then for Roo , as well uh important , the corporate image should be recognisable in our product . So the colour colours and the slogan um do have to be uh in the product . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Is that clear ? Any questions on these requirements ? No ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the individual presentations , I th um Roo or Sebastian , who of you would like to start ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'll start . +Project Manager: Uh uh yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: great . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Oh , how can I uh {disfmarker} Geez , and sli and show . Um {disfmarker} Just uh press it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes . Alright . Um well w we uh we had discussed this already in the fin in the previous uh discussion . {vocalsound} Uh the method of the remote control is just {disfmarker} the function of remote control is basically to send messages to the television set . So that was the main uh important thing what a remote control should do . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Then I found uh two different kind of remote controls , the multi-function uh remote control with many possibilities , but um the lack of the feeling I already mentioned uh in the previous uh discussion . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the ease-of-use remote control with uh the less p possibilities but a great feeling in in touching the buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um but um {disfmarker} yeah . My personal preferences were ease of uh {disfmarker} the easy to use remote control , because uh the user-friendliness and uh {disfmarker} it can be more trendy in in user design . But um your new goal f was for uh people than {disfmarker} less than forty years old . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: So maybe um the multi-function can be implemented in uh in our design . But it should b I think it should be a combination , but teletext buttons are not uh in our design . So it should uh take out , well , eight buttons or so . But my {disfmarker} in {gap} my opinion , the the easy to use R_C_ is uh the best uh possi possibility for us . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh Ruud , did you get that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh b uh most . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the important thing here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's also i indeed uh uh Ruud's uh insight in the in the topic . +Marketing: Oh , user-friendly . +Project Manager: In the market , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , what what does the market want ? I I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , w we will s we all uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for uh for user desi uh user uh friendliness I uh should choose for the the ease of use remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Excuse me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Scusi . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Okay , it's still the right thing . Okay . Um well , there are some changes in the design requirements , so there are some changes in the method also . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um basically all this device has to do is send messages to a T_V_ set . And the m most easy way to do this is by uh sending pulses of infrared light to a T_V_ set . Well , I th I tried to uh implement a picture here , +User Interface: Energies and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's hardly readable . Can you see it ? +Project Manager: No , it's not visible . +Industrial Designer: No ? Well {disfmarker} Um , there's a energy source here . {vocalsound} And um basically there {disfmarker} it's connected to three things . The user interface connected to a chip , which is connected to the sender , which generates messages using uh infrared light , which are sent to the receiver . That's basically the idea . And there's a little picture , just for your imagination , how a device like this should look or can look . {vocalsound} Okay . Um what have I found . Usually these kind of things consist of a battery , infrared diode , buttons , chips , and circuit board . That's all . It's cased together , nothing more than that . {vocalsound} It's almost every piece of equipment um every piece of uh every T_V_ set is controlled infrared . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There are some exceptions , but most of all have uh infrared controls . And uh the more luxury uh remote controls have lithium buttons . And I think that's what we w +User Interface: The glow in the dark uh concept uh we discussed . +Industrial Designer: yes . In the {disfmarker} and it's a little more {disfmarker} a little bit more fancy also . So maybe we should consider that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I have a basic scheme of the things uh which are implemented . Um basically this is all there is . There's just one chip . There are a few buttons connected . Uh the buttons are lit . And the whole thing is transmitted by a infrared li diode , and there is not a power source here . {vocalsound} So that's basically the total design of this piece of equipment . +Project Manager: So it's fairly easy . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing more to it . It's fairly easy . It's been done many times before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Succeed in it also . +Industrial Designer: and I think we should uh we should c s succeed in in our plan to do this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so uh +Project Manager: good . +Industrial Designer: personally I think we should infra use infrared , because uh otherwise our device cannot uh communicate with uh almost every T_V_ set . So I think that uh should be clear . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh another important point is uh we really should use uh energy uh sparse , friendly components . Uh there are specially uh designed um energy-friendly components which consume uh far less power than uh conventional components . And um if we want to use uh a rechargeable design or uh a energy-save design , we should really implement them . {vocalsound} Um for cost-effectiveness , we should really use a very low-cost uh circuit board , um because most of the production cost are are in this uh part of the equipment . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um the money we save on using this we can use uh for elaborate fancy lighting uh techniques , blinking LEDs and all that kind of fancy stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And what's the um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh users will really uh will really like that . +User Interface: if we use the LEDs , i does it use much more energy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , they're p f uh power friendly LEDs also . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we can use them . So that's no problem . +User Interface: For the same costs , it's can be uh in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh no , they're uh they're a little bit more expensive , but by uh um um making {disfmarker} +User Interface: Combined with the low-cost circuit board so it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can we can make its I think . +Marketing: Well you could only lit uh the buttons {disfmarker} the buttons that are used most . So , the channel switching . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but the question is whether um two or four buttons makes uh m makes such a difference in the costs if you already plan to uh include fancy lightning techniques , I guess . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's the same as in the cell phone , just light in in the device that that shines on all the buttons , +Marketing: Hmm , true . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , it's not one light , it {disfmarker} there are more lights in a in a in a mobile device . +User Interface: Yeah , but not for each button one LED , I think . +Industrial Designer: No no no , no . That's right , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} well , this uh should be it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um have a think about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , Ruud . +Marketing: Oh , mine is already outdated . +Project Manager: Okay well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we ar we are very curio curious to what the market um will feel about such a product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Since uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any income is welcome . {vocalsound} Input . +Marketing: Okay , make {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Uh then I'm sure the target market is uh ten million units . Of {gap} {disfmarker} of which we should sell about uh forty percent to make the five million . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little bit more to the right ? {vocalsound} Yeah , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um since uh the other part is uh forty percent of the market , I uh thought earlier we might want to constrain that portion of the market . But uh since uh the requirements changed , that's uh not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , skip this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's {disfmarker} this till true , of course . That they only use ten percent the buttons . The buttons to zap are used the {disfmarker} about uh fifteen hundred times , when uh the power button is only used one time . And the volume button's only four times . So they're obv obviously uh the most important buttons . And uh lots of people complained they kin can't find their remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So we might want to build in a feature to uh support them . Some uh audio signal . Like uh home phones . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , that's interesting . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or a find {disfmarker} a finding function , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: that's definitely interesting . +Industrial Designer: That's quite a {disfmarker} yes . +Project Manager: It uh it separates our product from others uh as well . +User Interface: Sound signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: go on . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Well , I just said that . And uh {disfmarker} well , this obvious , and he also said it . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's what the market tells us . +Marketing: Uh that's about it , yes . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: The volume and uh the zap buttons are the mostly used . +Marketing: Uh mo uh zap buttons most . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Volume , they are {gap} uh use a lot . But more than all the other buttons . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it should just have a design {disfmarker} The perfect design for those {disfmarker} only those buttons . And first um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , we should focus on that , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Well , the technical uh {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are no technical difficulties . There's no um elaborate technique uh used in this uh kind of equipment . So um I don't think we have any hiccups there . So we can fully concentrate on developing a product that is really um what the market needs . So maybe it's a good idea to think about these buttons and and uh and a sound signal . +User Interface: Yeah , the sound signal . Just one thing I'm just wondering , {vocalsound} the sound signal , from where do you execute th the s sound ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a problem . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} Th that's a bit of {disfmarker} that's a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Another device is not a solution . +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Usually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe maybe like clapping in your hands , +User Interface: It should be uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like um turning on and off the the the lights . +Industrial Designer: Oh yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but maybe you'll uh get some new technologies for it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , there there are some devices who uh incorporate this technique already . Um there are video sets and um they have a special button , the find the remote control button . You press it and your T_V_ set starts to make a uh kind of weird sound , and your uh remote controls then start to beep . +Project Manager: Reports rep respend response to it . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} +User Interface: just like uh the phones Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , that's it . Yes , same thing . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But uh th +User Interface: But but T_V_s don't have all uh uh buttons . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , so we we should use something else . +Marketing: And you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because we do not have a a a a a home um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I believe you will have an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and usually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We do not control the T_V_ set so well . +Marketing: And even if the T_V_ set would have such a button , uh you would have to walk to your T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yes , m yes . S and we b we want {gap} to make so it's {gap} {disfmarker} is easy as possible for our customers , +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So what about the clapping technique ? Um because you se +User Interface: I'm convinced uh Sebastian will uh find uh one solution for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite complicated . Well , it's quite complicated . Because how can you separate the clapping sound from other sounds . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And b +Project Manager: Well , you see it a lot in in light uh lightning uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . Well , basically the characteristics uh the characteristics of clapping is just an increase in the volume , the amplitude of the sound , +Project Manager: Yeah , a peak . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which is uh generated a few times within a uh certain period of time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But there are many other sounds uh which are exactly the same from the point of view from a remote control . +Marketing: So if if you'd be watching a movie , it would constantly beep . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +User Interface: But we can have just uh uh a home stat uh f a base station next to the T_V_ . Just a little antenna or uh something . +Industrial Designer: so we don't want that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} Something like that . +User Interface: Well if you lost th +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: is there not something f something more easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think people would bother walking to the T_V_ and press that button because they lost the {disfmarker} their remote . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't think uh {gap} . +User Interface: Uh that's just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , and y the the most important thing for people is that there's a central point to which they can go and uh b uh perform a a some kind of uh {gap} . And then uh the remote control uh reports itself , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so w we should use have {disfmarker} uh we should use something like that . You do not want another device , which can be uh everywhere in the house , which you have to find first before you can find your remote control . +User Interface: {gap} just a base station next to the T_V_ is the best possibility . +Industrial Designer: Yes , something like that . But that will be very costly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , m maybe um w we uh we do agree on on the thing that the remote should have such a function , if it's possible within the costs and all that kind of things . +Industrial Designer: So that's not a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um maybe Sebastian should have uh a detailed look later on and um come up with a solution , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's his {disfmarker} his field of expertise . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . But um before I do that I w I want to warn you that uh by implementing this kind of a function the technical design will become more complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it will become more costly also . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Because there will be additional components which which uh will be used . And there are some implepe imp +User Interface: And do we even uh prefer the sound above the the LEDs , the lightning uh function ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I I think so , because um when you have a p newspaper over your remote control , you cannot see it . +User Interface: It's a unique item uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a distinction in the market . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It will be an {disfmarker} a unique feature of our remote control . +Project Manager: It's a different {disfmarker} exactly . It's an uni an unique feature , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um I think um it's worth um uh looking and and {disfmarker} probably more i interesting than uh than the lights . +User Interface: And just about uh the user interface , I came up with um {vocalsound} an easy remote control and an advanced remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: What should we choose in in design ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , um according to Ruud , um people do not use um all the extra features very very often . +User Interface: Well , the extra functions . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have the numbers r I have the numbers right here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well , t uh we won't support teletext which which was the third-most {disfmarker} the second-most used function . +User Interface: Used option . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we we do have a wise board , so I'm not questioning that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well {disfmarker} yeah , channel selection is obviously the most important . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so on the relevance scale uh the channel selection , the volume selection and the teletext . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , we skip that . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , so it just th the basic functions . And we don't have to use it for D_V_D_ players uh and all kind of stuff . +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nope . +Industrial Designer: So that's out of the question . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Just through uh the easy uh design . We can make uh a nice design when when there's not mu uh much buttons in it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh uh uh I think we should go for the easier one . +Industrial Designer: I think also . Yes . Well , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we should save costs uh by not implementing a lot of functions and uh the money that we can save from that we should use for uh having a nice design and uh thinking about the user interface +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ruud , how do you feel about that ? Uh do you agree , do you think the market would would respond to uh a simple {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh well if we um include other uh innovative functions {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh then they uh might , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause young people uh like new features . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Okay , so this is is kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh just a few buttons , trendy design , nice lightning effects wh and the sound . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , is it {disfmarker} maybe there's another possibility . You can make it look like an easy s piece of equipment , but it's quite elaborated , uh because it has many functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's more important to make the {disfmarker} make it look like a very uh friendly , easy to catch piece of equipment , but um nevertheless {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but are we not in in the in the manual uh {disfmarker} I mean if you have few buttons , no display , um I mean uh I guess it's l it's working with with a shift functions and um one button can uh +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Ok like that . Well , I was more thinking about a more elaborate way of controlling , by by these kinds of sticks or something like that . I don't know if if it's user-friendly . That's your field of expertise . +Project Manager: But but how does how does the remote uh report uh r uh give back to the user w in what state it is ? +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know yet . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we do not implement uh a user history . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . There's {disfmarker} no , but there's no way to do that , because we cannot implement that kind of the system . +Project Manager: I know , but but if we use uh like a stick , for example , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W Mm-hmm . Well , maybe we can use a light for that . When you move the stick to a to a position , maybe uh a light next to it can lit up . So you know I've just uh pushed the button , or I changed the channel or t uh turned up the volume . Something like that . +Marketing: And if you use that stick for volume control and channel uh selection , you have the m two most important functions in one uh button . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh and we could have other buttons for the for the advanced uh functions . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But does it {disfmarker} uh I then should n just use uh i instead of the stick , uh like many cell phones , just a round m well , +Project Manager: Yeah , draw draw it on the board . +User Interface: should we just use a {disfmarker} Um it's already uh {disfmarker} oh , we have a blank . Oh . +Industrial Designer: yeah , something like that . Oh +User Interface: It's just an easy uh way of of a round button what {disfmarker} which can be pushed in four directions . Instead of a stick . +Industrial Designer: It's not really a stick , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yes . +User Interface: A stick is v vulnerab vulnerable when it's falling down +Project Manager: Yeah , it can break down . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: or uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: just a round uh button should be the trick , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Yes , and this also looks more fancy , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it it will attract uh more uh uh public , I think . +Marketing: A younger uh {disfmarker} Huh . +Industrial Designer: But you're the marketing man . +Marketing: And it's also quite easy to use , so it'll {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh attract younger people because well new , and it might attract older people because it's easy to use . +User Interface: Geez . Well , volume and something uh like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The programme up and down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And the vol yeah , the pen doesn't uh really does what I want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , but w we still {vocalsound} we're still in the question of uh um uh putting in advanced options . Um Ruud just told us um the market is interested in some advanced uh new techniques . Um however , uh keeping it simple is is important for the costs and all all those kind of things . We need to find a balance between uh the advanced techniques and and the user-friendliness . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think our our next step to look at is just that . So I don't think it's {disfmarker} um we have something to do . Uh we can't discuss it right now , because n no one of us have {disfmarker} has the information to discuss about that , I think . +Project Manager: Um well , for {disfmarker} we do have to uh decide this this meeting . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes ? +Project Manager: We need to um have the uh the user function {disfmarker} uh the functions decided and um {vocalsound} uh our target audience . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: but teletext is so uh is just scrapped . 'Kay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . Do do you want a list of functions ? Do you want an explicit list ? Uh which uh incorporates all function available on the device ? +Project Manager: Um well , I do not want a full uh {disfmarker} it's not necessary to to have a full list , but I want um the kind of functions , for example uh th the most important are volume and uh programme selecting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: The ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , for example , that that's what we should think about . {gap} l how is the remote going to look ? Not not in the user interface , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , and just one function . The the the the programme to programme button , the switch to uh two channels , when you have uh something on channel four and something on channel six , just one button which which can uh change +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . A bit of a split mode . +Industrial Designer: Change . +Project Manager: Uh l like {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: Dual channel watch . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: m maybe I should write that down . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're the secretary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , um what's your last name ? +Marketing: Mielsen . +Project Manager: Mielsen , because I I was writing it down in the last uh {disfmarker} Mielsen . Right . Um I put all the minutes I make into the shared folder . So if you want to have a look at it , you know where to find it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm okay , +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: but make a s make a sub-folder for it , because it's starting to fill up already . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you want to do it , Sebastian . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Our B_S_C_ uh W_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . Programme . Uh dual channel . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's important . +Project Manager: And and do we want um the ten digits ? +User Interface: The ten digits ? Yeah , I believe so . +Industrial Designer: Well , are are you sure ? +Marketing: Well , if you want to go to channel ninety and you have th that button . +Industrial Designer: I'm not so sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's complicated , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but is that so relevant ? Because I don't think {disfmarker} but you should uh shou you should know that . If it were so . +User Interface: I wouldn't buy it personally . A remote control without the ten digits . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Uh and I think the most {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when +Project Manager: I agree actually . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just elder elder people would would buy it , +Industrial Designer: I can imagine when you're {disfmarker} when you have a satellite decoder and and you have , well , about six hundred channels , I can imagine you want this . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if you're uh a regular T_V_ user , and you just want uh to watch the the Dutch television networks , well , you can uh {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you can use uh about ten buttons . That's enough . +Project Manager: But we do have thirteen different Dutch channels . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . The older people only use five of them . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but how how often do you watch all these channels ? +Marketing: and if if we {disfmarker} And if we are targeting at the younger audience , they will probably watch more channels than the older people . +Project Manager: Often . +Industrial Designer: No , you're probably right . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But I think these uh ten uh buttons look a bit dull . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , it depends on the on the on the looks , on the on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The design . +User Interface: On the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , y then there should be {disfmarker} should done {disfmarker} be done something specific with it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c {vocalsound} you can d make them very fancy +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: by um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean Nokia , they have ten digits on their phones and it still looks very fancy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'm I'm {disfmarker} I do not agree {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you can experiment by {disfmarker} uh with with shape or with size or with colour , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Exactly , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um there are some numbers about uh speech recognition here that uh younger people would like it . Uh it might be expensive and uh hard to implement , but it would be a solution uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , speech . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it can be combined with the find the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um when you add uh speech recognition to your remote control , uh it's very easy to change uh the channel . That's one thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very easy uh to find your remote control . +Project Manager: To find {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that's a possibility , but I'm afraid it will be a bit costly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} If if we would um drop the ten digits +Industrial Designer: But maybe when we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but keep the programme and the volume , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because maybe people do not always want to use their voice , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , okay . +Marketing: Especially elder people uh don't like voice recognition . So then we should implement such a but +Project Manager: Yeah . But we do focus on younger people . We d it it's a board uh decision . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Well . I I think it should uh should work , it sh we should manage that . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: we have to i to make um a decision between the ten digits or the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , the voice recognition has the main adva has another advantage . It's mas it makes it very easy for us to implement the find uh find the remote control button {disfmarker} uh remote control function . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's a big advantage , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , g good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's only one disadvantage uh by implementing this . Um the power saving power saving will be a bit more difficult . So we can expect that there will be a less longer life to the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But maybe can {disfmarker} we we can think something smart about it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: There are some uh hybrid hybrid devices which incorporate a solar panel and rechargeable batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So when you just leave the device in a in a light room , it charges itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} But but can we manage it bu uh for the costs ? +Industrial Designer: You have to do nothing for it . +Marketing: M {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Twelve dollar fifty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because it seems like a very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe , maybe not . +Marketing: And uh if we if we could inc uh include a c a cradle in which it could recharge , then there wouldn't be uh a big problem . +Industrial Designer: I'll have to find that out . Yes . So {disfmarker} No , that's very cheap . +Marketing: 'Cause when {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is a cradle very cheap ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Oh , it's very cheap . That's no problem . It's just a a case with two uh metal contacts . +Project Manager: I know , b uh but there should be an adapter as well . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} Yes , but they're they're mass production . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They're very cheap . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it will cost us p practically nothing . +Project Manager: Okay . We we have uh about ten minutes left this meeting . Um {vocalsound} I would like to hear um {disfmarker} maybe maybe you all have th uh things not um spoken about , yeah , but that are important . Uh Ruud , you you came up with the voice recognition uh data . Uh are there other things about the market we should know ? +Marketing: Um I think we dealt with the most important information . Just that the younger part of uh the market isn't the forty percent we uh want to sell to . So we we should uh for least a bit uh look at the uh older people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But with uh buttons like that , which are easy to use , we uh might attract them too . So {disfmarker} I don't think that's a big problem +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: although we are focussing on younger people uh to make it uh profitable uh {disfmarker} Profitable . We we {disfmarker} yeah , we still need to take in account the the bit older people . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah , profitable . +Industrial Designer: Profitable . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: O okay . {vocalsound} Um Roo . {gap} {disfmarker} Nothing to add . +User Interface: I have nothing uh nothing to add , I think . +Project Manager: Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: Um I just want to make a summary of all all things uh spoken and uh the different possibilities . Um +Project Manager: Yeah ? Great . +Industrial Designer: so uh basically we've decided to implement a seemingly uh easy design . So on the outside it looks easy , but uh we can make it easy on the inside or elaborate on the inside . So that's one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those are the choices we have to make . But I think there's a big advantage in making it more elaborate by uh implementing uh speech techniques , uh voice recognition , that {disfmarker} these kinds of things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um it makes it also more uh attractable , I think , to our uh audience . Um there are some advantages and some disadvantages , and the main advantage is that we can implement uh fancy techniques , which uh I think our customers will like . The disadvantage is that there are some concerns about uh the the costs and um the things like uh battery lifetime , energy saving . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh another advantage is that the circuit board will become much more easier if we do not {disfmarker} do not implement these buttons . {vocalsound} If we just add uh uh a chip which does the voice recognition , uh our circuit board will become even more cheap . So that's another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that was the main issue , right ? The the board {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well , it wa it w it was an issue , but we also thought that {disfmarker} we already thought we should do it as cheaply as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And this even uh makes it more cheapy . +User Interface: But the cheaper the ch uh the the chip or th what was it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The board . +User Interface: The circuit board . +Industrial Designer: The circuit board . +User Interface: The fewer buttons you can use on it . +Project Manager: No , it's th +Industrial Designer: The fewer buttons you have , the ch ch the cheaper the circuit board , yes . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's the other way around , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's very cheap uh to incorporate uh uh an integrated circuit , a chip . So that's that's another advantage . +Project Manager: It shouldn't be a big issue . +User Interface: Well it {disfmarker} then we should just uh take a look at the costs and uh {disfmarker} especially for the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , because I don't know {disfmarker} Yes . I d I really don't know . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It can be costly . Maybe not . +Project Manager: I'm not sure how how we'll f uh determine the costs , I will have a look at it . Maybe you will get some information on that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure how how that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , I al I I hope my personal coach will uh {vocalsound} have a lo uh look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , great . Um {vocalsound} well , I think we're qui quite done . +User Interface: We're done , I think . +Project Manager: Um for now we will have the lunch break . +Industrial Designer: How nice . +Project Manager: Um I'm {disfmarker} don't know how long the break will be , but we'll find out . +User Interface: Me neither . +Project Manager: Um then we will have thirty minutes of time to perform our individual work , uh and I'm sure your personal coaches will uh assist you with it . Um I will put the minutes I just made in the project documents folder . If you want to look at it um well , just do . Um {vocalsound} the Interface Designer , um I would like to {disfmarker} the next meeting I would like to receive the uh components concept . +User Interface: Interface {disfmarker} industrial . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I'm sorry , yeah , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: User Interface Designer , uh Roo , I would like to see the user interface c uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Well , we understand . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um +User Interface: Uh the only problem is it {disfmarker} that it depends on the divisions {disfmarker} the decis uh decisions Sebastian makes . About the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , i it should be easy , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's w w what we concluded . It should be an easy interface with not so much buttons . S just a a p a p a volume and a programme one . And um {vocalsound} um yeah , some some fancy lights . +Industrial Designer: Mm yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that's what we decided . +Industrial Designer: So we drop the voice recognition ? +Project Manager: No no no , we didn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it shouldn't be integrated {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: yeah , it's {disfmarker} of course it's user interface , but um i I was talking about really the design of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well um do we really have to decide now +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: or can we decide next meeting ? +Project Manager: We can decide the next meeting . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Because I'll have some updated info on that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I guess all of you have i updated info . I'm sure the marketing expert will receive uh t uh you will do some trend watching . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And I'm sure the market will um uh {vocalsound} {gap} uh will change , adapt +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Adapt . +Industrial Designer: Adapt . +Marketing: Left . +Project Manager: and um so +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: we will see that . Um yeah , that's it for now . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Any other questions +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: or can we have the lunch ? +Industrial Designer: We can have the lunch . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll take the lunch . +Project Manager: Good . +","In the meeting, the project team, led by the Project Manager, discusses the design and functionality of a new remote control product. The User Interface Designer suggests focusing on ease of use and proposes an easy-to-use remote as the best option for their user profile (under forty years old). The Industrial Designer presents technical considerations, such as the benefits of using infrared signals for communication with TV sets and implementing low-cost circuit boards to save on production costs. They discuss the potential for incorporating fancy lighting, such as LEDs, and the importance of energy efficiency. + +They explore ideas for a ""find the remote control"" feature, possibly through an audio signal similar to phone finding features. The Marketing representative brings up market research, emphasizing that the target group is under forty. Keynotes also include the decision to not include teletext due to the company's belief that it's outdated and that the remote should only control televisions due to time to market considerations. + +Additionally, they discuss voice recognition features, which could also aid in locating the remote. However, there are concerns about the costs and implications for battery life. They consider options like rechargeable designs or solar panels to address battery concerns. The discussion also considers that the design should appeal to both younger and older users and includes the possibility of simplifying the design by removing less-used buttons in favor of more sophisticated internal features. + +The meeting wraps up with an agreement on the direction of the remote's design being easy to use and fancy yet efficient, with deliberation on advanced features like voice recognition to be finalized in the next meeting. They plan for individual work and future updates on the product concept, followed by a lunch break." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bonjour . +User Interface: It won't wake up . Yeah . I was a bit early . Like {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Why ? +User Interface: No , I just came in . Uh normally I was one of them . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Come on . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Check check check check . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: Why won't it wake up ? Is it on ? +Marketing: The power light doesn't work . You turned it off . +User Interface: But how ? Ah , there it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I received an email with uh a few possibilities on uh the materials . So I'll discuss them with you . +Project Manager: Okay , we're just going to the {gap} later . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I received an email as well . +Project Manager: So we're going to talk about the conceptual model . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So that's me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . So {disfmarker} Uh okay . Okay , so I just show you the m the no mm mm the the the the the the minutes , minute . {gap} What's it called , I dunno . Whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , so we just talked about uh {disfmarker} Oh you want me to show that there or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: just tell us . +Project Manager: we just talked about it looks . Has to look nice . Usability is very important . People don't want to spend money on something that's similar to cheaper ones . Um {disfmarker} It has to be very basic , not too many buttons . Light switches on if you use a button . Uh text T_V_ still has to be a possibility . And it has to be easy to learn . That were the things I uh make minutes of . And the functions are volume , channel to choose channels , an on-off , a mute uh button , and a text T_V_ button . That are the functions . That right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I just want to give you uh Mike again , the first uh presentation of your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall I start ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} No . Okay well {disfmarker} I received an email {disfmarker} Okay . I searched the web , uh and uh I searched uh on this d document , recent investigation of the remote control market . It has been done in Italy uh Italy and in uh another country in Europe , I forget it . Uh but uh they found out the most important aspect for remote controls happens to be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look and feel . So it's very important for us to create something new . So what Michael just said , it must be uh some very different from ordinary uh remote controls . Fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and interface . Uh this uh aspect is the most important one . Uh it came out of the research . It uh is twice important as the following . {vocalsound} The second uh most important aspect is that a remote control should it uh technological innovative . Uh that stands for uh uh new technical uh features . And then uh that uh {disfmarker} This is a point of discussion , because we just decided that we don't make use of uh L_C_D_ or uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But um {vocalsound} this is the second uh important uh aspect , and I think uh we must use some of the new technology , to be uh innovative . +Project Manager: But we already have the flashing flashing light on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh maybe maybe something new . +User Interface: Yeah , more . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: We have to discuss about it s uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , I'll I'll get back on it . +Marketing: features not uh do not exist in current remote controls . And that's very hard I think . Uh the third one is the aspect of the remote control should be easy to use . But uh that was an overall uh point . We already discussed that . Um I've got one picture . Uh d our our target group uh we thought about was young and trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So I took uh that part of the webpage . And it says uh fashion-watchers of uh uh Pari {vocalsound} uh France and uh Italy , yeah , uh have detected the following trends . This trends I th uh trend I think it's not um that meaningful for us , maybe . But it's about uh clothes and shoes . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But the uh the next uh aspect also in contrast to last year , the feel of material is expe uh uh is expected to be spongy . +User Interface: Spongy . +Marketing: But spongy , what what does spongy says ? +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +User Interface: Spongy , like sponge . +Marketing: Spongy . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So rubber , kind of . +User Interface: Uh soft materials . +Project Manager: But maybe th that's al definitely a good idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you've you're you drop y your remote control very often on the ground . So it has to be {vocalsound} flexible . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it's something that uh it stand there . But I didn't knew uh knew what it means . So spongy means y Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like a sponge . +User Interface: Soft , sponge . +Marketing: So it's also a stress-ball . +Project Manager: That's a good {disfmarker} That's a good idea . If it's de like that . That's good , a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , somewhat like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a bit like like the the the the {gap} remote control ? +User Interface: How are you gonna make it ? +Project Manager: R_ soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've some uh material uh information , but I'll give you it later in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do I think ? Uh because a fancy look is the most important thing uh for remote control uh control , I think about changeable fronts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh maybe a see-through one in a a fruit front . Because it's uh it's hot . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh some basic uh colour fronts . {vocalsound} Uh so we can make uh five different fronts to start with or something . Uh maybe an extraordinary shape , like a sponge . {vocalsound} Uh or uh , yeah , just another shape than a normal uh remote control ha uh has . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh something round in it , or uh maybe not uh not uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I dun dunno . We have to discuss about that . Uh y yeah . Main point uh still uh is the technolo technological innovative . Yeah , how do we do that ? Maybe speech ? We ma must have some kind of gadget . +User Interface: Yeah , I'll get back on that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very uh difficult to to to do it . +Marketing: Intro +Project Manager: Because it's only twelve and a half Euros you have to spend on every remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , that's the problem . That's the main problem . +User Interface: I got f also an email from the the technology department . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Maybe we watch the first uh the next two presentations . +User Interface: They have done uh research about it , and uh even more possibilities now with speech . So they recommended using it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll check what they exact mean . +Marketing: Uh let's first watch Paul's presentation first then . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well actually we have don't have an idea how much it's gonna cost . But maybe it's cheap +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and it's easy to implement . +User Interface: th that's the only problem . I d They don't say how much it will cost , so {disfmarker} Um but uh +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: if we implement uh speech recognition , I think it would be better to implement L_C_D_ as well . +Marketing: Oh . It's mass production . So you can say , you can {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Since you have to uh configure speech thing . +Project Manager: But that's definitely more expensive than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's something I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah . But how uh we we're gonna make many of those . So we can start a mass production , and then the cost will still will be {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , but a telephone {gap} {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But a telephone also have a L_C_D_ and and it's about t two hundred Euros . +User Interface: Yeah , so uh we gotta de +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to decide on that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . That was this ? +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I got an email uh {disfmarker} And it says uh the chip can be uh simple , regular or advanced . And {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} They say uh a display requires an advanced chip . And this is more expensive than all the other chips . So +User Interface: L_D_C_ doesn't require {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's m the most expensive . Yeah , it says in the email . The display requires an advanced chip . +User Interface: Okay . And speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably too . +User Interface: Advanced {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I I haven't got anything about speech recognition , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll I'll give you my design . +Industrial Designer: Well it d That's that's the most expensive chip , we need . If we're doing uh if we're doing a display . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well we can {disfmarker} I had uh to make a sort of a design . So I did some searching on the internet . I watched the old remote controls and news com remote como uh remote controls . I think we should um {disfmarker} This is one of the modern remote controls of the moment . I think we should go more to the iPod and M_P_ three players . Mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah , just modern modern but still uh basic . +User Interface: More modern . Y yes . Um you probably have to make it a bit bigger and a bit smaller . 'Cause remote con control , you can see it here , you have to bo reach both out {disfmarker} both sides . And here you just have one , few buttons . So that's that's the main difference . But looks uh I definitely think we should go like this . And then changeable fonts , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: It's the most important part , I think . But {disfmarker} And the home base is something like that , something simple . Well and then I just ordered the the buttons a bit . Uh basic buttons . On-off , mute . And th maybe two others , I dunno . Text buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe the teletext tel +User Interface: Yeah , text button , maybe there and there . And then the colour buttons , if we want it on . I don't find it very usable , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I don't uh {disfmarker} I don't like it . +User Interface: Uh I don't think it's fits in the the modern theme as well . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: and then yeah we saw the the pla display , in the the iPod . They can put the basic buttons , one , two , three , four . And uh f above ten . {vocalsound} And I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} That's on on the display . +User Interface: No no . That th there is no display there . But it's on the place of the display . And I think we should uh light this up much more than that part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So the focus is on these two parts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you don't see all the buttons you else need . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it sounds very difficult to use . Because um the volume and channel is on the on the the bottom of it . +User Interface: Uh well um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you can't use your thumb for it . +User Interface: This is how it is now . Um {disfmarker} Here uh {disfmarker} Well we have volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I think it is on uh on the bottom too . +Project Manager: down there . But it's not not the best best . +User Interface: Yeah . Well here we have also side scrolls . I dunno if we can use that . Do we want to use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , for volume . For volume , or a channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've I've got something of that uh too . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: For volume ? Well then we can even simplify it more . +Industrial Designer: Scroll . +User Interface: By just putting the volume on the side . +Project Manager: And the channels as well . +User Interface: And and just channel buttons here . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: But I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or uh maybe uh {disfmarker} The channel buttons are often used . And you can't use them now with your thumb , because the thing is not , it's not easy to control . +User Interface: Well . Yeah , well it's {disfmarker} Basically it's it's here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , m maybe we cho should put that on top , and buttons we we don't use on , in the bottom . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's better . +User Interface: They're on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just th th th other buttons like text T_V_ . Put that on the button bottom . +Industrial Designer: Because uh you can't hold it . You can't hold it th the control and push the buttons . +User Interface: You mean uh these to the low ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Except from the on-off button . +User Interface: Oh okay . Well , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I think w you'll use uh the switch channels buttons uh more often than the normal uh channel buttons , like one two three . So maybe we can put that on the bottom . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Maybe . I dunno , but yeah we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like zapping is just switching one channel at a time . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it's not easy if it's below . It's harder to zap . So I think uh it should be should be easy to {gap} . I think it's pretty standard , these rubber buttons on the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And uh if you don't light 'em up , they don't uh {vocalsound} you don't see 'em very good . +Industrial Designer: That's that's good , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's modern to light this area up , and to light this area up . So the focus gets on these parts and not on there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: But uh the position of course can be different . It's s We have to look uh what's easy to use , and how it's easier to use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can uh switch these to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I dunno if it l will look good , if you put those on t on the bottom half . +Industrial Designer: No , I think th the the top buttons are okay . They sh Those should be on top . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh we we can switch those two , +User Interface: Those two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And uh , yeah , you have to make sure it's easy to uh {disfmarker} Yes , it has to be big enough so you can hold it , right . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Well that's that's my findings . So uh my personal opinion is that we should go more modern look . M_P_ three player . And uh well um if we want to put in speech rec recognition or something , we {disfmarker} I don't think we should put it on top then . I think that , if we're gonna put in more technology , that you need to be able to uh switch it open . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's cool . +User Interface: To use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So if you put in uh speech recognition , you need so more uh many more buttons . Which won't look good on the front side I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: So that's something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have to keep it simple . +Project Manager: We have to decide this this lecture , or this this this uh fifty minutes , yeah , how it is gonna look . +User Interface: Yeah . What we're gonna do . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , the component design . I looked at uh some similar devices , and uh my own common knowledge . So uh this was on the web site . If you aim at a young public , you should use materials that are soft with primary colours like green , blue , red . So flashy kinda colours . Uh shapes should be curved , so round shapes . Not {disfmarker} Nothing square-like . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} Hmm , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well uh iPod is trendy . And it is well curved {gap} square . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Square . Like . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm is uh has round corners I think . +User Interface: Okay . So not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we shouldn't have too square corners and that kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Not uh the old uh box look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um sports and gaming device style characteristics . I don't know exactly what that means , but it should be , well yeah , popular kind of +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to put our Real Reaction logo as well on the on the {vocalsound} remote control . +Industrial Designer: looking , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So the colours also . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have ha to ma make it in black , black , yellow . +User Interface: Black yellow control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe the sides in yellow and the the the top in black . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm n Not that weird , because we definitely want to make it kind of flashy , to attract a young public . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} I don't think the the colours black and yellow go well together . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We make i Maybe you can put yellow on the side and black on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: No , okay . That's a that's a sen That's just a matter of tastes , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have to use uh kind of flashy colours , I think . +User Interface: Uh can't we use um different uh fron uh fronts , with all with the the logo on it ? Can we do that ? So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's cool . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like fronts in in red and yellow and blue +Project Manager: And still trans +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Still still transparent . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But with all with logo on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well this is a remote control , a very old one . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the components . The case has just a {disfmarker} Here's black . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make it som Maybe we have to make it from soft material . Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . But anyways uh it should be transparent . We decided that , huh ? +User Interface: Well one of the options . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} Just like a mobile phone , you can make um different fronts on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So you can just replace them I think . That was the idea , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: or just uh release one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just give five with them , just in a box . {vocalsound} Five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Or just uh sell different ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but y you could you could make 'em uh uh like blue and transparent . +Project Manager: Yeah . Cool . +Industrial Designer: So you can still th look through it . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the buttons . Normal rubber I think . Like normal ordinary buttons . Soft . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I uh I dunno . +Project Manager: It it could be like a Nokia , like {gap} plastic . +User Interface: A more {disfmarker} Yeah , just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's better prob +Industrial Designer: With the hard hard buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think uh rubber really has an odd look . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . The the the new uh new modern uh remote controls , uh the buttons are part of the {vocalsound} uh the style , I think is part of the remote control itself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It it's one uh a one uh out of one shape . Uh it's n doesn't {disfmarker} Is {vocalsound} uh a button uh um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do you say it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's all on one level . +Marketing: It it didn't it i it don't come out of the {vocalsound} on the background . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on one level . +Marketing: It is in uh the c a remote control uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know what you mean . So we have to keep it on the one level . Like th the top it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like mobile phones . Like uh the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's chos So that should be hard plastic . Then the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno what uh kind of material it is . +Industrial Designer: I think . Or maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe you can m make a uh round fluff or soft material . Just only the basic uh +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: basic remote control from normal plastic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the rounds of it from softer s +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Then the L_E_D_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: The normal infrared L_E_D_ I think s sufficient . And back light L_E_D_s . +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: But I think we have to make the case transparent , otherwise the back light won't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y i if you {disfmarker} The numbers could be can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh you can just make them around the buttons uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Or it runs the whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can still make it transparent . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They can choose . +User Interface: Yeah , you can halfs transparent , +Industrial Designer: Or no +User Interface: or just that it's comes out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Good . And in green colour , the back lights +User Interface: Different , I think , also . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Blue or red . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Whatever you want it , I think . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh depends on the colour of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can't choo You can't choose it when you buy it . +Marketing: Uh i {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to choose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but I think there are multiple colour LEDs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I I know {disfmarker} I dunno . Is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but can you change it if you already bought the the remote control ? +User Interface: Yeah , it can . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: 'Cause this a mo mib uh mobile phone as well . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's it's more impor more expensive . +Project Manager: Maybe put some different ones in it . Doesn't matter . It's just {disfmarker} No , just some LED . +User Interface: I have the mo mi I have a blinking light on my phone . +Industrial Designer: I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I can change the colour of it . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . Just make it some different colours . Blue , red and green , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . Maybe it's too expensive , but it {disfmarker} I th I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , we don't put put in any fancier technology yet . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then uh some more technical things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know what it is , but it should be there {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um this is the normal circuit board , like a chip board in in a lot of uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to hurry up a bit , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} So we d we just need this and {vocalsound} this transistors and resonators . There's all these kind of things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um they they basically said that that's almost the same on any uh remote controls . +User Interface: I'm sure we can fit in . +Industrial Designer: So I guess we j we just need that . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what they do or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Okay yeah , +User Interface: We just {disfmarker} +Marketing: you can you can change {disfmarker} Yeah . No . +Industrial Designer: Nah , but they just said we need it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the battery contacts , like normal batteries ca you can put in . +Project Manager: Yeah , a recharger maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , we have to make sure to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: We still want to have a recharger , don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that still the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it i We don't wanna have a ar an {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Accu . +Project Manager: A recha Oh no . Uh {disfmarker} Battery . It's just a battery . Yeah . +User Interface: Re recharger . Base station . +Industrial Designer: Y uh just just batteries , rechargeable batteries . +User Interface: Yeah , batteries . Yes , rechargeable batteries , I think's best . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Not a separate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , just rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Okay . And uh a chip , that's this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Then uh I received some possibilities . Um for the energy source we can use batteries or a kinetic uh {disfmarker} Like with the pulse watch . So it operates on your wrist kinda . +Marketing: Ah cool . Okay . +Project Manager: But normally you put a remote control on the table or on the couch . +User Interface: So if you hold it , it gets powered . +Industrial Designer: If you hold it . Yeah , I don't think it will work , and {disfmarker} Or we can also use solar cells . But you mostly use it indoors , +Project Manager: It's dark in the room . No . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's just batteries , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's cheaper {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and and we can use the home station kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um cases , flat , so uncurved . Uh two D_ curved is um like front to the back . And three D_ curved is also in depth . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's possible . Uh but with three D_ uh curved uh remote controls , we must use rubber buttons . +User Interface: Mm . So +Industrial Designer: So we can't use the flat buttons . +User Interface: we need uh two D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think . Um these kinda materials can be used . +Project Manager: But it doesn't really matter , we just make it plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so too . +Project Manager: The scroll wheels , that's cool . That's for the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , scroll wheels um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . We can use multiple scroll wheels , w if we want to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think just the volume is enough . +User Interface: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} For channels it's not handy , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because you scroll too fast . +Industrial Designer: And uh the L_C_D_ . So we need uh the expensive , most expensive chip , if we use an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's an opportunity . Just skip it . Because we don't have time for that to to put it in . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then we we use m must use the second most expensive chip . So th so the regular chip . Because we use scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} Yeah , that was it I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh are are we using a a rubber case , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh just sk +Industrial Designer: We haven't decided yet . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to skip that one as well . It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I don't think a rubber case looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L +Marketing: Uh but we have to do something about the trend . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , i it it should be soft . You said so ? +Marketing: The trend is uh spong spongy uh and uh fruit or fresh fresh . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . That {disfmarker} Uh fruit and veg , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh now we have nothing about uh about those those two . +User Interface: Yeah , fruit and veg can be just the covers . +Marketing: Uh yeah i Just {disfmarker} Just on front . +User Interface: So you can {gap} the the spongy {disfmarker} yeah , I dunno . I can't imagine a soft remote control . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Neith uh I don't like it uh neither . +Project Manager: No . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just can't imagine it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So just hard plastic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Titanium . It's mentioned here uh . +Industrial Designer: Titanium , uh I think it's too expensive . +Project Manager: But maybe the form has to be a bit different . Not the sh the square form . Just a bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: more rounded . +Industrial Designer: you can make it curved or mm round . But just in two D_ , not in depth . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} We have to decide which one we're going to choose from these . What exactly . Because we have to know it . So the energy uh is the recharger . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: We already know that . Just a normal battery . +User Interface: Yeah . We have batteries . +Project Manager: Okay . The chip-on-print is a normal one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Regular . +Project Manager: Okay , the case is just a plastic one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah , the chip is the the regular one . +Project Manager: Yeah , re Yeah , regular . Yeah , okay . Yeah , regular . +Industrial Designer: You have the simple one , regular and advanced . So it's b should be regular uh the second . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think I'll just check it . +Project Manager: And we need a plastic case , with a scroll wheel . {gap} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: That's pretty much it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And a flashy light . +User Interface: User interface concept . +Project Manager: So uh I'm not sure . But we do I don't know if we expected to draw on this one at this moment . But {gap} +User Interface: I dunno either . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Or should we do it in the next meeting ? +User Interface: Uh I_D_ and U_I_D_ work together on prototype drawing on smart board . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's for the next one . +Industrial Designer: So we should did it here ? +Project Manager: That's for th +User Interface: So we're staying here ? +Project Manager: Uh that {disfmarker} I think that's the next next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Or should we do it in the next meeting ? Okay . +Project Manager: But you definitely get a specific instruction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so now we're ka thirty minutes alone again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But th think about something that's more rounded . Just {disfmarker} And more {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , uh I dunno . But the iPod and etcetera , M_P_ three players , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Uh a bit . Just just on the top or on the bottom . +User Interface: Just a bit cur Okay , I'll see if I can see any of those . +Project Manager: Maybe the wheel can be uh like uh like this . O um if you draw it like this , you get a {disfmarker} What the fuck is it ? {vocalsound} Okay . Mm {disfmarker} Doesn't work . {vocalsound} You see what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Project Manager: If I draw here {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It draws about four centimetres lower than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: Nah okay . Just {gap} . Maybe you can make it like this . And this is all the wheel for volume . So that you just um {disfmarker} It's all rounded , so you can do uh turn this one . +Industrial Designer: Like a very big scroll-wheel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but just not on the top , but uh on the side of it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we {vocalsound} have this at the moment . +Industrial Designer: I think uh you'll get a a lot of uh volume changing when it's not wanted . +User Interface: Yeah , you {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'd have this . Is that okay ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's a little problem , of course , as well . +Industrial Designer: I think it's probably better . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but maybe we can make a a plastic , so that you i if you like drop it , it won't change the volume . Only if you use your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe you just have to make it uh {disfmarker} That's not scrollable too easy . +Project Manager: Like this . And uh what's the channel choose ? Where do we uh put that ? Still on the bottom +Industrial Designer: I think in middle . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh wh what is the middle part ? +Project Manager: That's the numbers . +User Interface: Numbers , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think th the numbers should be in the bottom , and and the switch channel in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah , I agree as well . +Project Manager: It doesn't make a difference , if you put the s uh the switch channels on side of each other or on top of each other . +User Interface: Use the dz +Project Manager: Because you already have the volume here , so {disfmarker} You can also put it here one butt and the other one there . Next to each other . {gap} back and forth . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So you can also can put it all on the top , and this , you keep this empty . Because you have to hold it as well . +Industrial Designer: Or you could do the switch channel up button above the the numbers and switch channel down button below . +Project Manager: But that's not {gap} want to zap very quick , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh zapping is the highest priority . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Is this a opportunity , +User Interface: And then you use those uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or you don't want a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , of course uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I think we we should bu uh put 'em on top of each other , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Because then it's it's easy to know m if I push the the the up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But still the next {disfmarker} It's still the next one . Doesn't make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the top the top button is is like you switch channel up , and down button is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you put them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but fo from left to right is exactly the same . It ma it doesn't make a big difference . +User Interface: Yeah . I I think it's {disfmarker} It's it's obvious , I think . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I I think uh left to right is more often associated with volume , and top down is more with uh channel changing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's not not {disfmarker} It's not al uh always the same . +Project Manager: But it's exactly th +Industrial Designer: In uh {disfmarker} On most on most remote controls . +Marketing: Every remote control's uh different . +User Interface: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if we use that , they will probably have a long learning uh time . +Project Manager: I dunno . I {disfmarker} You already have the volume on the side , +User Interface: No , uh I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so you can't make it you can't ma make a mistake . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it's s so simple +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but that's for that's for you , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , okay I'll d I'll take a look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so hmm . What did {disfmarker} What else we have to discuss about ? I dunno . +User Interface: Think we need to work uh thirty minutes again ? +Marketing: Yeah , we have to care that it r uh looks really new . Because uh we still hold on to the uh ordinary uh uh square uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause wha what I see the only difference i i i in fact is that we use a scroll-wheel on the outside . +Project Manager: And the LED . +User Interface: No , you have uh {disfmarker} It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but i i it should be round in in shape . +User Interface: Uh the current uh controllers are all black and plastic . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to look at that image of the iPod . +Marketing: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: More that uh kind of style . +Marketing: And a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not not the old grey black {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Some some kind of bling bling uh mm can we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where you can put a ve Uh we have {disfmarker} If we do it like that we have below have we uh a lot of room to put a nice logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh the logo was has to be on there . Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Uh and how many uh fronts uh fronts do we put on the market then ? Uh five or something ? +Project Manager: Yeah , five . Let's give five . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Or more or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can buy separate ones and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And um uh {vocalsound} uh buy the product . You buy , you get one . And uh basic . +User Interface: Yeah . Um +Marketing: Or you can choose one uh if you buy the project . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . That's your choice , I think huh . +Industrial Designer: No , tha that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So y you can put the bottom of the remote control in recharger ? Is that is that a good good opportunity ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So you could put it like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so top down . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah , you sl uh you let it slide in the docking station . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to design that w as well ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: The docking station ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: But th Yeah , that can be very simple . Least . +Marketing: Yeah , we can b It c it could be just just a square , just a packet . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a recharger . +User Interface: Yeah , just where you're around something . Li Yeah , we had one example . +Industrial Designer: But we have to make contacts on the on the remote control and the recharger as well . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Which w +Marketing: but that's a round one . Maybe we can choose then . +User Interface: Here you see one that's very round . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , okay . +User Interface: So I think that can be all kind of shapes . +Project Manager: But maybe you can just round up the corners a bit . That's all . +Industrial Designer: Of the remote control ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just round it up {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so y you don't want uh this uh like the iPod {gap} . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: More rounded . Yeah , I think it will just look like more like this one . Since it's {disfmarker} This is also rounded . +Project Manager: No , just just the corners . +User Interface: I think i +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah okay , tho those are al already a bit cornered . Mm {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we can we can do all kinds of uh {disfmarker} As long as it isn is in two D_ we can use all kind of round shapes . +Project Manager: Shapes . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but then we have to think of something totally new . +Industrial Designer: Not in depth . Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , if if we want to make it kind of , yeah , new . +User Interface: I've uh {disfmarker} I had a lot of picture of old ones . And all curves have already been done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit annoying , isn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . What do we do wrong ? Hmm . Just just more like this and not uh a square . +User Interface: Yeah okay , yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we could do a lot of , lot more curving . I would do it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I know we can do a lot more , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like in this kind of shape or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's very annoying . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I dunno if it's handy . +User Interface: {gap} I think it will only look more like the old remote controls . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The olden the olden ones had looked like just a square thing . +User Interface: Yeah okay . But uh I had a lot of pictures {disfmarker} Oh I can show you here {vocalsound} what the old ones look like . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Curves , curves . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You've more {gap} there as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It wasn't very small one . {gap} very simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That is for elderly . +Project Manager: So we have to make a decision , what kind of form it's gonna have t going to have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think if w My opinion . If we just uh take the iPod , and the same look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh light or just whatever colour , but the same light colours . And uh just with uh together with uh the back-lights b look will look very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No rubber buttons or something . Just together with the back-lights you'll get a totally new look . More like the M_P_ three player M_ um P_ M_ P_ three player . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have the scroll button inside . {gap} Okay . +User Interface: Yes . Just a simple scrollb +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But why do we have to round it on the t bottom then ? Of {disfmarker} Skip that one as well . +User Interface: Doesn't have to be . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , it's cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , though that's a trend . If we want to make it . But yeah , I'm not a Trendwatcher , you are . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh the t the trend is +Project Manager: Rubber spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: spongy and fruity . +User Interface: Yeah . No . Spongy +Marketing: But yeah . +Industrial Designer: Spongeball kinda . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not not a lot of trends I uh I found uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have s still one minute left . So just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's okay if you just keep it a bit square . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , +Marketing: It {disfmarker} The th th +Industrial Designer: I d I don't know n something about ergonomic kind of fits-in-the-hand uh stuff . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I I think it's still for older people . You j still have older people . It's only annoying if it if it's like that f formed like that , like f Whatever . Just you have a normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we're we're aiming at a young public . +Marketing: There is one {disfmarker} There's just one overall important aspect is that we must make it fancy and it looks original , and I hope we can uh make it look not like the iPod itself . It must have uh uh uh a very different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} idea . But {vocalsound} you're {disfmarker} If you look at the way remote controls are now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But i it is it is it is already fancy . Because of the lights on the bottom of it . That's already fancy . +User Interface: And if you make it look like the iPod {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , they're all the same . +User Interface: Yeah okay . So that's already a very big change +Project Manager: Uh maybe maybe make the the mm the {vocalsound} wha what's it called uh scroll wheel . Make it in in yellow or something . Just like the colours of Real Reaction . +User Interface: compared to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Ye yeah . Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could do that . +User Interface: Could . +Marketing: Uh yeah , but uh if you the f uh front , the scroll wheel will still uh be yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I think {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: It's right . +User Interface: Think the scroll wheel {vocalsound} won't be very big . Since if you put it uh somewhere , the chances that it will scroll are too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it will just be a small small scroll wheel . So it won't uh stick out much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the ones we are going to draw there . Maybe we have to ask uh to the the mm to her if it has {vocalsound} if it can work better than this . Because it doesn't work properly . So maybe you have to ask her . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Well , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: maybe we can just open images there , and I'll paint and paint . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . That's probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll be able to do a better job . +Marketing: If you set the pen yeah , he will draw here . Doesn't work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so just finish it . So we make it a bit like m that one probably . Yeah . Is that okay ? +Marketing: Yeah , I'll see it . +User Interface: Bu Yeah , I agree more like iPod {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , only the colour and the flashy light and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: We just we just skip the the the voca or was it the the speech recognition . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Speech . Yeah , do we s keep that ? Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or keep that ? It's okay . But you'd definitely need a +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: advanced chip . +User Interface: then it w {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , I don't know . Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we we have to build in a microphone and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's very easy . We already have uh the beeping of the {gap} home station , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and I do I don't know anything about that . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't receive any information on speech recognition , +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh strange that I received {vocalsound} the information about that . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's hard . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the ma the main points I I I uh just said . We have to be original and uh technological innovative . Becau +Project Manager: Can we just put it speech recognition in it as well , +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay ? +User Interface: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ma +User Interface: shall we {gap} it open then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we can put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The function of that in there . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And we need a {disfmarker} Probably we need a uh advanced chip then . +Industrial Designer: Fine . Yeah , we probably do . +Project Manager: But it doesn't say anything about it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: does it ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any f information about the cost . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We started with information about the cost was now th +User Interface: I just I just received the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I have I have some some information about the cost . But just a about the chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And how much is the chip ? The the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , our division has developed a new speech recognition feature , the integrated programmable sample sensor simple speaker u unit . +Industrial Designer: Just in inexpensive or {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is a very small electronic unit , will give a standard answer after it recognise a question . +Marketing: And how how does it work ? Is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Doesn't say . Just {disfmarker} You say record , followed by your question sample , and after a few seconds the answer uh sample . Because uh {disfmarker} So it works like uh good morning remote control , and then the remote control says good morning . +Project Manager: It doesn't has to say anything . Just {disfmarker} You have to just talk to {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah uh th that's just {disfmarker} It's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does it say does it say something back ? +Project Manager: Okay , we have to stop it now . So just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . Yeah , it {disfmarker} Well that's integrated in the chip , so if you use the speech recognition , that's in it . +Project Manager: Okay , that's a r That's that's a advanced {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But i it's a separate chip . +User Interface: I dunno , but if we use speech recognition , that will be in it as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know anything about this , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we just decide not to put it in , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Nah . +Project Manager: because it's too difficult . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it it would be would be a good feature feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we just put it in , because it's a good feature . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to stop now . +User Interface: No no worries about the cost , etcetera . +Project Manager: Okay , just {disfmarker} +User Interface: And there's a chip in it that will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have to stop it now . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Fine . +","Summary: + +The team is discussing the development of a new remote control, focusing on its design, functionality, and materials. The User Interface (UI) is having trouble with a device not waking up at the start of the conversation. Marketing emphasized the importance of an original, fancy look based on market research indicating that style is a priority for consumers, especially in the remote control market. + +The Project Manager lists key points for the remote control design: it should have a basic look with few buttons, be easy to use, offer functionalities like volume, channel selection, on-off switch, mute, and text TV. They also consider adding innovative features, possibly using new technologies. + +The Industrial Designer talks about different materials and suggests that the design should cater to a trendy, youthful demographic, with flashy colors and a soft, spongy feel. There's a suggestion to make the remote control durable and flexible, suitable for frequent drops. Marketing proposes interchangeable, colorful fronts and possibly a shape reminiscent of a sponge to stand out from ordinary designs. + +There's discussion on the technology side as well, such as whether to include an LCD or speech recognition. Opinions are divided due to cost considerations, as their budget per remote control is limited to twelve and a half Euros. + +Throughout the conversation, they also discuss different chip types, with the advanced chip needed for features like an LCD or speech recognition being more expensive. There's a push to finalize decisions about the design, the case material (hard plastic vs. rubber or titanium), and technical components like the type of LEDs to use. + +By the end of the conversation, the focus seems to be on finalizing a prototype that's modern in appearance (like an iPod), durable, and functional with basic buttons illuminated by LEDs. The team agrees to incorporate some fancy elements, like the flashy lights, but are still hashing out details about the form, materials, and additional features such as speech recognition. They acknowledge the importance of staying within cost limits while trying to incorporate the desirable new features and achieving a unique and appealing design." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","Project management, marketing, industrial design, and user interface teams met to discuss conceptual design for a remote control device. They considered market trends, materials, user-interface, and customer feedback. Key points include: + +- Decision to not use teletext and voice recognition, instead opting for a flip design with a shape different from the norm, possibly shell-like. +- Looked into rechargeable batteries and the port with an alarm for locating a lost remote. +- Target market is young business people. +- Marketing feedback emphasized a desire for a fancy look and feel, which is twice as important as technological innovation, and ease of use is a distant third. +- Trends show interest in fruit and vegetable themes and spongy materials. +- Decided on kinetic charging for the battery and discussed various design components such as LCD screens and rubber buttons. +- Discussed incorporating a speech recognition feature to locate the device by voice command. +- Debated various materials for the exterior, settling on customizable rubberized covers for a plastic body to keep the design trendy and adaptable. +- Agreed on maintaining a standardized layout for volume and channel controls but considered a more unique interface for the rest. +- Affirmed the incorporation of voice recognition to locate the device, given financial feasibility; alternatively, considered a whistle feature. + +The team will research costs and make decisions accordingly, focusing on creating a unique and trendsetting product." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and Jack Sargeant. Vikki Howells is substituting for Jack Sargeant. So, Vikki, welcome; it's good to see you in the committee. Item 2 this afternoon is our eleventh evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome Barry Hughes, who is Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales; Kwame Biney, who is senior policy advisor, CPS; and Iwan Jenkins, who is head of the complex casework unit, Crown Prosecution Service Cymru Wales. So thank you all for attending this afternoon. We're really looking forward to hearing your views on the Bill. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Barry Hughes: Perfectly happy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I would like to start just by looking in general at how the law currently stands, and how do you think the law as it currently stands today, and specifically in terms of reasonable punishment—how does that protect children. +Barry Hughes: Sorry, can I just be clear? How does the law as it presently stands protect children? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. +Barry Hughes: We have a range of offences created by the criminal law, going back to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 in the middle of the century before last, which provide for offences of assault against a variety of people, including, in particular, Acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which provides for offences that are specific to children. But the more general criminal legislation, such as the Offences Against the Person Act, does provide specifically for adults and children alike not to be subject to physical assault. In respect of children in particular, you'll be aware that we have section 58 of the Children Act 2004, which does make it a defence for a person accused of assaulting a child to argue that it was a case where they were acting only so as to impose reasonable punishment upon the child. That is a defence that is available for assault upon a child. By way of contrast, it is not available for an offence involving an adult. In that regard, it could be argued that children have fewer rights than adults. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, a review was undertaken by the Government back in 2007 that stated that retaining the law in its current form—that that would be the best thing to do because there's no evidence that it's not working satisfactorily. You are suggesting perhaps towards the end of your answer that there could be some change that's happened since 2007. +Barry Hughes: I think the law should reflect contemporary society and the law is evolutionary in nature, and should be evolutionary in nature. And just as if we go back 50 years there are types of behaviour that we might all have contemplated back then as being socially acceptable, many of those types of behaviour are not now, and the law has changed to reflect that. We don't need to go back a very long way to find, for example, that there was no such offence as raping one's married wife, and the law has changed to reflect the fact that that is simply not acceptable. And from what I've seen of the research, and I think back to the 2007 review, to which you've just referred, there is evidence within that review already that opinions are changing. And I've seen research more current than that that suggests that young people find it less acceptable to use reasonable punishment in chastising a child than do people of an older generation. Of course, as we move forward in time, the people who are young now are going to be the older adults of the future. So one would hope that the law will change to reflect the way in which people behave within society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. We have heard evidence as a committee that this proposed law would provide a much clearer legal framework—that is, to take out this reasonable punishment defence, that then would make things much clearer for parents and professionals. Does the CPS have a view on that? +Barry Hughes: I think it will make things clearer. I'm not sure it will make them much clearer, because if we get into some of the—. It may be helpful to look at some examples at some stage. And when it comes to prosecuting, it's often the case that things aren't just black and white; there are multiple shades of grey in between. We know that the Children Act did introduce a degree of clarity, in that it removed the defence of reasonable chastisement for offences of causing actual bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and various incidents of child cruelty under the Children and Young Persons Act. In that sense, matters were clarified, because up until that point it was not entirely clear. There were a series of Court of Appeal cases that sought to clarify the law, but that was at a time, at the end of the 1990s, the start of the 2000s, when we had the European convention on human rights and we had a quickly developing body of case law. And the Children Act was brought in to reflect the direction that the case law was moving in. A decision was clearly made back then in the early 2000s not to include common assault in the same category as actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm et cetera. So, there was a decision made back then that it was appropriate to do that. As we wind forward some 15 years, I have seen the research that suggests that some people see that the present legislation, and the way in which section 58 applies to reasonable chastisement for common assault of children—some people have interpreted that as saying that smacking is acceptable. I don't think that it is what it says, but there is a degree of confusion around that. And the reason why I say it's not as simple as that is, going back to my words a couple of minutes ago, it's rarely a case of being black and white; there are these degrees of grey. And removing that defence does make life clearer. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are the areas of grey that you refer to? Can you give a few examples? +Barry Hughes: If you take an example—so, one of the examples that I've heard discussed has been a child—a young child; let's say a five-year-old child by the side of a road—who darts to go out in the path of moving traffic. The parent grabs hold of the child and pulls them back. Now, technically, taking hold of the child at that point is an assault, because it's an unwanted imposition of physical force. But no-one's going to say that's anything like an assault that should come to the criminal courts. Of course, that would be utter nonsense. There's no hostility; it's simply taking hold of a child to protect them. At that point, the parent then seeks to admonish the child, tells them off and smacks the child on the legs. Now, that would probably be seen under the present law as reasonable chastisement. Probably. But so much depends upon the circumstances, whether this is something that happens frequently with the child, the size of the child, the parent, the force of the slap, the way in which it's imposed. So, that, I would say, sits at one end of the spectrum. As we move towards the other end of the spectrum, we might have repeated smacking, shouting, maybe hitting the child over the head as well. So, there is a spectrum of offending. Towards one end of the spectrum we move much closer towards something that would be criminal in nature. There'll be a point at which it crosses the threshold from something that needs to be reported to the police, and the police would take some form of action, and then, as we move through the tiers, it'll reach a stage where the police think this is a case that should be prosecuted and they would bring it to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. We would then decide the most appropriate means of dealing with it. And the absolute other end of the spectrum here is one where we decide it's an offence that we think is so serious that it should be charged and brought before a criminal court. That would be very much towards the serious end of the spectrum of the type of behaviour that I've just described to you. Does that help to illustrate that, at one end, it's relatively white and the other end it's relatively black, but in the middle we have the shades of grey? +Sian Gwenllian AM: But that would mean that there could be more prosecutions at the softer end. Because if you're removing this—we'll probably come on to that. +Barry Hughes: Shall I address that in terms—? Okay. So, you are probably aware, but forgive me if I just explain quickly anyway, when we approach a file of material evidence submitted by the police we apply the code for Crown prosecutors, which has a two-stage test. The first stage is whether there's sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and the second stage is—. And you only get to the second stage if the first stage is satisfied. If there isn't enough evidence, we don't go on to consider whether it's in the public interest, because we wouldn't put an offence before the courts if we didn't think there was a realistic prospect of conviction. So, we only get on to the public interest stage once the evidential stage is satisfied. So, to return to the point, if we have an offence where, let's say, there is a light smack at the time, the police apply the same code before they bring a case to us. We don't always agree with the police; generally we do, but we don't always agree. It's a matter for them whether they refer a matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. So, if a police officer takes witness statements in relation to that case—the light smacking on the leg—at present it's unlikely that would come to the CPS, because they would look at it and say, 'Reasonable chastisement provides for a defence.' If that defence is removed, then obviously there is a greater possibility that it would be referred to the CPS. I would like to think—and I think this is what will probably happen in practice—that the police would take a view that the evidential test may have been satisfied because the defence had been removed, but it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. It may be that the police decide that it is—it may have been two smacks, three smacks, so it moves towards the end of the spectrum that would suggest that matters are becoming rather more serious. So, it may be referred to the CPS for a charging decision. We would then apply independently the same test, and we would probably conclude that the evidential stage was met in that instance because the defence no longer exists, which takes us on to considering the public interest. In the circumstances that I've described, every case is going to be unique on its own facts, but in the circumstances that I've described, if it is just a light smack and it's a one-off and there's no history of this, it would probably be the sort of offence we'd decide it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But isn't it creating a new grey area in terms of the police now having to decide whether repeated smacking is in the public interest to at least refer it to you to decide about that? Do you know what I'm saying? +Barry Hughes: If this Bill goes through, then it will remove a defence, which will make it likely that the police will give this more consideration for referral to the CPS than beforehand, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will refer it, because it will depend on the facts of each individual case. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on the divergence between the law in England and Wales from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Hello. The Assembly doesn't have any legislative competence to impose duties on the CPS, as you know, in the absence of the Secretary of State's consent. What are the implications for implementing the Bill in Wales for that? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you two examples? One of the implications is this—and it's fairly obvious but it's still worth stressing—that the removal of the defence would mean that there would be more cases that would pass the evidential stage in Wales than there would be in England, because the defence would still apply there. That, therefore, raises issues in particular in terms of awareness of criminal offending for people from England who travel to Wales, because it's fairly evident that there would be a defence available in England that is not available in Wales. One of the examples that we talked about was if you consider a family on its way from England into Wales, travelling to Barry Island for a holiday, and troublesome children in the back of the car, harsh words and a small smack on the leg delivered while they're on the M4 going past Bristol would be subject to a defence. By the time we come over to this side of the water, there would be no such defence for the same journey, for the same act. And so, there are issues there in terms of the awareness of members of the public. The second example that I'll give you is that we already have within the United Kingdom a certain degree of divergence of laws, and the example I'll give to you is this: drink driving. In England and Wales, the limit for having micrograms of alcohol in your breath is 35 µg in 100 ml of breath. Across the border in Scotland, it drops to 22 µg. So, the same act—. As you drive into Scotland, you're probably okay to drive if you've got 34 µg; by the time you get into Scotland, you won't be. And the consequences for you are significant, because of course it's an offence in Scotland, and not an offence in England, but the punishment, namely disqualification, applies everywhere in the United Kingdom. So, we already have a degree of divergence of law, and the CPS recognises this. In our code, we have a specific provision that takes account of the potential divergence of Welsh law. We will issue policy guidance and charging standards to reflect any changes as they arise. And we think that we are sufficiently flexible to take account of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So, would you see the necessity for a memorandum of understanding, for instance, or it being useful in these circumstances, or are you quite satisfied that the current guidance code would cover that? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's yet to move from a Bill into an Act, so we'd need to make sure that happened. We know there would be a period of time, perhaps as much as two years, or maybe a little more, while that takes place. There will be a further series of awareness raising. We have strategic implementation groups—Iwan sits on that group. So, we would build ourselves up to come up with the appropriate guidance according to the circumstances. In terms of how we'd approach it within the Crown Prosecution Service in Cymru-Wales, my approach would be along the lines of working with Kwame and his colleagues to make sure that the guidance that we issue nationally suits both England and Wales. And when it comes to the practical application of the legislation in Wales, we would almost certainly work on the basis that the number of offences—and we might want to get into the number of potential offences, but my take on it is the number of offences is likely to be very small and we would probably have two or three specialists trained in this so that any case that comes through goes to people who've got a close network and can talk with each other— +Dawn Bowden AM: And that would be primarily around the public interest issue. +Barry Hughes: It would. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand. Okay. So you're obviously a key stakeholder in terms of this legislation and you're clearly very au fait with it and all its implications. What's actually been your involvement with the Government as they've been developing this legislation? +Barry Hughes: My own personal involvement? +Dawn Bowden AM: Or the service's. +Barry Hughes: Iwan and colleagues have had some involvement on a more routine basis. I met with a Minister and a Deputy Minister—I met with Huw Irranca-Davies a little while ago, and I met with Julie Morgan a few months ago—to discuss the overall implications, and then officials on both sides have been engaging with each other. It hasn't been a very close-knit involvement, but we have had enough involvement so that we've felt we've been able to offer views on how we would deal with the legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So you've been satisfied with the level of involvement that you've had. +Barry Hughes: Yes. I don't feel that it's been too much, nor do I feel we've been left on the side at all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Now, we've just talked about the divergence of criminal law, and this is probably the first time that there's been an obvious divergence between English and Welsh law, and so we were then talking about the guidance, weren't we, and whether that needs amending to reflect it. But I think you were saying that you felt, within the existing guidance, it could be dealt with, so you don't see a need to update or amend the guidance. +Barry Hughes: I think we would need to update the guidance, and it goes back to the application of the evidential stage, before the public interest stage. On the evidential stage, I doubt that we'll need to do much, other than to make people aware that the defence is not available in Wales in the same way that it is in England, and we might have some light-touch guidance around that. When it comes to the public interest stage, that's a little more specialist and I think we would need to develop more with respect to that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And are you satisfied that your staff in Wales—well, and in England, actually, across the border—will be sufficiently aware of the divergence in this area of law? +Barry Hughes: Not as of the present day. Give us a chance. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: But you would expect that to be something you would— +Barry Hughes: Yes, I have no doubt. To an extent, actually, I think I would say that staff in Wales are aware of this already, because in my role as chief Crown prosecutor, I publish a monthly blog and we talk about the things we're doing, so staff are aware. I've discussed with staff and they've seen my blog and we've put it on our website: there have been engagements with the Welsh Government that this is a piece of work in which we're interested and that is under way. So, actually, I'm probably being unfair to myself. I think most staff would probably be aware that we are involved in this and that it is something that, at present, may well happen. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And does that mean that there would also be a similar need for the CPS in England to be aware of the changes? +Barry Hughes: They would need to be aware, but not to the same extent. We have regular interchange of prosecutors between England and Wales. So, in my office in Cardiff, for example, because we work digitally, I have about 30 to 35 prosecutors who work for the CPS in London, and they work exclusively on London cases. But there are times when some of those prosecutors will prosecute at courts in Wales, and then there may be an interchange; they'll come to work for us on secondment, or they'll come to work for us permanently. We'd need to make sure that those people were brought up to speed on the fact that there are some aspects of Welsh law that diverge from English law. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's helpful, thank you. My final question, Chair, is just whether you think there are any other significant cross-border issues that arise from this potential legislation. +Barry Hughes: In addition to those that I've mentioned, probably not. It boils down to the fact that there's a defence in England for assaults upon children that isn't available in Wales if this Bill goes through, and then it's dealing with the consequences of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Suzy, and then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I was going to ask this question later, but I think it fits in—. I've forgotten what I was going to ask; this is terrible. Oh no, that's right—obviously, this Act is on a particular trajectory at the moment, and it's due to be introduced before the end of this Assembly. Do you think it would be better for us as scrutinisers of this Act if we could see the draft changes to CPS guidance on the public interest test before we make our final decision? +Barry Hughes: I honestly don't think that would necessarily be helpful. I've had some discussions with Kwame, who would have an involvement in this. What we would envisage is that we would simply want to take the present public interest factors, which are set out, in my view, very clearly in the code for Crown prosecutors, and we would provide a degree of detail around those that relates more specifically to the issues that we're discussing here. So, it would be taking principles of generality and according them a degree of specificity. And we'd need to work that up as we go along, and I think you'd run a risk of putting the cart before the horse, if I may put it like that. +Suzy Davies AM: It's just that, personally, I think the public interest test is critical in all this, and it would really help us to understand what it could look like before we commit to a particular course of action in supporting or not supporting the Bill, that was all. But thank you, anyway; I take your point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: My point is about the criminal law in Wales and England diverging in this particular instance, and we've been told that this is probably the first time it's happened. Can you think of any other examples where that divergence has happened and does it actually set some kind of precedent in motion? +Barry Hughes: There are other offences in Wales that don't exist in England, but they don't crop up very often. So, to give you examples, there is an offence of putting an electronic collar on your pet—let's not stretch that into children. [Laughter.] But, you know, sometimes—I'll be quiet. But putting an electronic collar on your pet that administers a shock is an offence in Wales; it's not an offence in England. There are also offences around the picking of cockles in west Wales, which is not an offence—. So, you can see there are some, but I would argue that the fact that you drive across the border into Scotland and commit an offence that you won't commit in England is possibly more significant for the general public. Of course, the topic we're discussing here is of real relevance for the general public, and you have heard evidence, I know, already, that comes from people who are quite strongly in favour and people quite strongly against it. One of the ways in which I've approached this is looking at it from the perspective of what the law is there for, which is to set out, in essence, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to use the law for that, but it signifies how society views a certain behaviour. I like to look at it from the perspective of the person who is being affected by this, namely the child, and the change in the law here would afford children a degree of protection that they don't presently have, but which they do have when they attain the age of 16.FootnoteLink So, I looked at this—. If I can give you another example. I've had considerable dealings over the years with offences against residents in care homes, and you'll have seen Winterbourne View, you'll have seen recently up in Durham, where we have adults who need to be looked after because of issues with their mental capacity, and sometimes, the carers become frustrated with them and they admonish them. Sometimes they admonish them verbally and then that turns into physical admonishment. In much the same way as children are vulnerable and are looked after and can be sometimes quite annoying—but there is a level of protection for an adult striking a child lightly under the present law that is not available to the same adult for striking that child when they turn 16. That seems to me to not necessarily fit with where we ought to be as a society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you think that what we're doing in Wales will be emulated in England at some point? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's certainly going through in parallel in Scotland, and there are a great many other countries around the world that already have this, including a large number of European countries. Who knows? Trying to get any legislation through Westminster at the moment—who knows? Not tomorrow, I'd say. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions around implementation now from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Can I just begin by asking you to help the committee out here in understanding how the burden of proof is going to work if this defence is removed? Because the issue of whether something is punishment or not is going to disappear, providing that it's clear that contact with a child has happened. Is that going to work on the presumption that that's an unlawful contact? Is that something the prosecution will still have to prove, or will it be for an accused parent to say, to use your example, 'I was just dragging them out of the traffic or stopping them putting their hands in the fire'? +Barry Hughes: I understand your point. There's no change whatsoever to the burden of proof, nor to the standard of proof. +Suzy Davies AM: Perhaps you can run us through it quickly. +Barry Hughes: If the defence argue that that act was—. So, we have to show that there's been an unlawful assault. So, if we remove the defence of reasonable chastisement, in a sense that alters some things but it doesn't alter the basic responsibility of the prosecution, which is to establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if the defence raise an argument and say, 'Well, look, that was a lawful act; I was only doing what I thought was reasonable in the circumstances', it's for the Crown to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great. +Barry Hughes: And we've got to disprove that to the criminal standard, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. So, you can certainly see—. I can see the potential for individuals who feel strongly about this to look to contest the matter, to not admit any wrongdoing at all and to take the matter to trial, and it would be our responsibility to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's really helpful for us to understand that. Obviously, when we're talking about CPS guidelines and all the rest, we've already come some distance down the process, haven't we? Have you got any views on what might be done to prevent cases even coming as far as arrest? Because one of the things that we have to consider is that once you're arrested, that is recorded somewhere and will appear in things like DBS checks in the future, even if it goes no further. Do you have any views on how intervention might work better earlier on, even at the point of the knock at the door? +Barry Hughes: From the perspective of the CPS, I'm not sure I can help you there. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fine. I was expecting that answer. +Barry Hughes: Simply because that's a matter for the police. Unlike in many other jurisdictions, we have no power whatsoever to direct the police, so if the police decide not to investigate—. I routinely get letters from members of the public outraged that the police have decided not to investigate their particular neighbour dispute or something, and they want us to do something about it and we can't. We can't direct the police. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, because I thought that was important to get on the record as well. We're looking at a period of a couple of years after this Act passes—if it does—for implementation. Is there anything at the moment that you think perhaps you still need to do as an organisation towards being in a position to practically implement this law? +Barry Hughes: I think we need to maintain the type of dialogue that we've built up with the Welsh Government and colleagues there. I think we need to keep abreast of things as they move forward. We need involvement—Iwan, for example, and the strategic implementation group. We have other members of my staff who are involved in the other work streams that feed through to that, and I believe that that involvement will ensure that we are sufficiently interconnected; that we can liaise, in turn, with Kwame and his colleagues in the headquarters to respond to things as they develop. So, I think we've got a network of contacts built up here that is adequate for the purpose—at least, 'adequate' might sound a little— +Suzy Davies AM: Sufficient. +Barry Hughes: Yes, perfectly sufficient. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're confident, by 2022, then, that you'll have changes to the CPS guidelines that are good to go, if you like. +Barry Hughes: Fit for purpose, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Okay, that's great. Bear with me a second—thank you very much—in your written evidence, you did welcome the indication from the Welsh Government that this reasonable period after Royal Assent would be necessary. Apart from the CPS guideline changes, which you'll be working through, is there anything else you think you might be needing to do apart from just keeping in touch? I'm just thinking: are there any practical and possibly financial implications for your workforce in this? +Barry Hughes: If this legislation goes through, there will be minor financial consequences for us and I don't see any significant financial consequences in the period between now and the Bill becoming law other than the time of ourselves in discussing this today. But there isn't anything significant. There's nothing that will impact upon our performance as the public prosecution service in that time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And what about afterwards, then? Because one of the pieces of thinking behind this Act is to collect data to see whether this change in the law actually works. Do you want to talk us through a little bit about how that might affect you? I don't know who to ask on this. +Barry Hughes: Certainly. Well, I think that we are going to need to maintain a clear record of any cases that are referred to the CPS from the police and that will—. Normally, we do this through our case management system, which is England-and-Wales wide, and you'd put a flag on. So, for example, domestic abuse, there's a flag for that, and assault on a child, there's a flag for that. But this would be a very specific flag for assault on a child—reasonable chastisement. Trying to get that through on a system that covers all of England and Wales—it's quite expensive, unbelievably; it wouldn't happen. So, we would keep a manual log of every referral. That would be unmanageable if we were dealing with hundreds and hundreds of cases. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're not anticipating hundreds and hundreds. +Barry Hughes: Not at all. Not at all. My take on it: I've seen and spoken with Matt Jukes about this, from South Wales Police; I have seen the justice impact assessment; I've seen the research that's been fed through from New Zealand; and I've seen our own response to a freedom of information request and the papers that the CPS put into the review that you mentioned earlier in 2007. I would be very surprised if we were to prosecute anything other than low single figures a year, if that much. If that much. We may have more referrals from the police, but I doubt it would be double the figure we prosecute, even. So, you're talking small numbers. Now, small numbers—and we might not have any. Okay? It depends. Obviously, if there's a really good awareness-raising campaign, you make it less likely. And, for us, prosecution—it's not the first port of call here at all. There are out-of-court disposals and there are all sorts of diversions that you will have discussed, and I know you've discussed, with the police and the police and crime commissioner. So, the numbers will be very small, which means we would be able to keep a clear track on those and, obviously, we would wish to keep the situation under review, and we'd reach a period of time after whatever—12, 18 months, maybe 24 months—where we'd look back to see how we are doing. And I'd like to think that we will be doing that in consultation with interested parties and stakeholders. We do this already with certain types of offences. We have what we call local scrutiny involvement panels. So, for offences such as racially aggravated offending, whether it's criminal damage or offence against the person, we will bring together interested parties, by which I mean people from outside the CPS, quite often third sector agencies that represent vulnerable groups. We'd bring them in and look through the cases. So, we open our books, show them our cases, and we have a very frank discussion. We involve the police in that as well. That, in turn, helps us shape and improve the way that we prosecute these cases and I can foresee that, after this legislation came in, we might get 18 months, two years down the road, and I can see us sitting in a room with some of the cases we've prosecuted, maybe cases we've decided not to prosecute, with the police and interested parties from both sides, to have a discussion about how we're doing with it all. And I'd like to think that the Welsh Government would be involved in that as well. +Suzy Davies AM: That's really helpful to know because, of course, one of the difficulties of dealing with the culture change, which is what the Minister's effectively after here, is that we are still talking about it in the context of criminal legislation. It's nobody's fault; that's just how it is. And what I'm hearing from you is that the chances of somebody who's currently protected by the defence and is not part of a bigger case where there's serial smacking or other difficulties in a family, for example—the chances of them getting to you in the first place are pretty low, and then the chances of them passing even the current public interest tests are pretty low. In which case, my question is: why are we bothering with this law rather than concentrating on a new piece of law, possibly through the civil system, which would achieve the culture change better? Maybe that's not a question you feel that you can answer, but you can see why I'm asking the question. +Barry Hughes: I can attempt an answer. I follow entirely where you're going. I agree, the chances are pretty low, but they're greater than they are presently. In other words, there is a greater degree of protection for children, and I think the value that would derive from this legislation is the message that it sends out. I go back to what I was saying to you right at the start, about the evolution of the law, and the way we've seen many other countries around the world adopt a very similar approach to that being proposed by the Welsh Government is, in my view, an evolution of the law. So, yes, there may not be many more prosecutions, but there won't be fewer than there are presently, because there's a greater degree of protection for children. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's really helpful, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on, can I just ask—? The Children Act 2004 applies to a child up to the age of 18— +Barry Hughes: Sixteen. +Lynne Neagle AM: You mentioned 16; that's what I wanted to clarify. Our understanding was that it went up to 18. +Barry Hughes: I'm reasonably confident that it's 16.FootnoteLink +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now specifically on prosecutions and potential alternatives from Vikki Howells. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already touched quite a bit on the issue of the public interest test. Is there anything else you'd like to put on record about the factors that the CPS would be taking into consideration when applying the public interest test in respect of this Bill? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you an example, which might illustrate the way in which things could be different? This is one, which—I give credit to Iwan for this, because he thought of it. If we take an adult with a small child—say, a four-year-old—in a supermarket, and the child is pulling cans off the shelves, it's quite annoying, and they keep doing it and keep doing it. The parent remonstrates, and the parent ends up finding that verbal admonishment is inadequate, and smacks the child lightly on the legs, which does the trick and the child stops. Presently, if someone in that supermarket were to report that to the police, I think the police would probably conclude that that is covered by the defence of reasonable chastisement. In other words, the evidential stage wouldn't be passed; you don't get on to consider the public interest. But if we have that same parent in there the following week, and you have the same happen again, presently, the defence would apply. Now, there comes a point in time when the defence stops applying. If that defence didn't apply at all, and we had a sequence of three offences, the public interest test would kick in, if I may put it like that, pretty quickly, because it would be repeated behaviour. So, that would be the distinction between how things are now and how they would be in the future, because the defence would not be available, so the public interest test would then come to the fore that much more quickly. So, when we apply the public interest test, the essence of it is about proportionality, and trying to come up with an approach that is proportionate to the offending. We look at the age of the offender, the age of the victim, we look at the circumstances, we look at the impact upon the victim, we look at the impact that's likely in relation to the suspect, and there is, within the code, a long list of matters that we take into account. Some of them are fairly obvious, such as previous convictions. If someone's got previous convictions for doing something wrong, it's more likely they're going to be prosecuted the next time. But there's no part of the law that says that prosecution will always follow. Mostly, it's reasonably obvious; the more serious an offence, the more likely you are to be prosecuted. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's really useful, and— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you move on, can I ask you a question? This morning the committee was meeting with groups of parents who are opposed to the Bill and groups of parents who are for the Bill, and one of the parents this morning was querying where the interests of the child would come into the public interest test. Now, I've looked at the code and there is a section about impact on the victim. Can you just clarify for the record how the best interests of the child would be taken into account in considering whether to go forward with a prosecution? +Barry Hughes: Normally, if there were an assault by someone else upon a child, outside the family, we would tend to take views from the parents of that child. In circumstances where both parents, arguably, are the suspects, we probably wouldn't be asking them. We would find another way, and we would talk with the police to ensure that we are informed about how the child feels about what has happened. It may be that there are—. I can foresee real difficulties in circumstances where we have parents who are separating where the children are being used, effectively, in divorce proceedings, for example, where we might have one parent saying there was a really bad impact upon the child and the other parent saying there wasn't. We'd want to find a way to cut through that to work out really from the police how does the child feel about that. So, we would tailor it to the circumstances of the particular incident to assess how the child feels about it. It's not determinative, nor is it determinative in cases where we prosecute for adult defendants inflicting some form of assault upon adult victims. It's not determinative but it is a factor that we take into account. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a supplementary on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. In the same session this morning I thought this was an interesting question raised by a parent, on the rights of the child side of things, where if a parent offers a child two forms of punishment because that child has done something that they know they shouldn't have, and they're given the option of, 'You can have a quick smack and a cwtch, or you're going to your bedroom for quarter of an hour', and the child is allowed to choose and the child chooses the smack, what happens then? I'm not offering any views on the fact that this choice has been given, but it was put to us today about how would that fall in the law once it were changed. +Barry Hughes: That's a really interesting question. There is a body of law that— +Suzy Davies AM: A child can't consent to assault. +Barry Hughes: Yes, you can't consent to a serious assault, apart from in certain—. The law is really quite difficult. So, for example, tattooing is a serious assault on one level, but you can consent to a tattoo. I can think of one case where a man branded his initials on a woman's buttocks, but she consented to it and the Court of Appeal held that they could consent to that. I can also think of a series of cases, which I won't get into here, that involve sadomasochistic behaviour between adults, some of which was really serious, and involved people willingly applying themselves to things that no sane person would do. And the Court of Appeal in that case, a case called Brown, said, 'No, that's going too far—you can't consent to that.' Then, you may have seen there was a case from the midlands recently where a gentleman operating a tattoo parlour was also involved in body surgery—splitting people's tongues. That went too far as well. So, there is again—I referred before to the spectrum of offending, and there is a clear spectrum of offending that you can realistically consent to and then you get to offending you can't consent to. So, the law has considered that in some depth. I'm still not entirely clear, and I speak as a lawyer. When it comes to much lesser assaults, the law is more unclear as to what you can consent to. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because we're talking below a certain standard here as well. Okay. +Barry Hughes: As to what you can consent to, it's less clear. It would need to be developed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Vikki. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you. I've got one further series of questions around out-of-court disposals, which you've already mentioned briefly. In your written evidence, you say there's ongoing work exploring diversion rather than prosecution in respect of this Bill. Firstly, could you tell us a bit more about the work that is being done to explore this as an option? +Barry Hughes: We've been working with the National Police Chiefs' Council. Their lead is deputy chief constable Sara Glen. She is responsible for developing the police approach to out-of-court disposals and simplifying the range of out-of-court disposals. There is quite a range, and life would be simpler and clearer to have fewer types of disposal with more clarity about what each one of them involved. I must say, this is primarily a matter for the police, because there are a great many offences or reports of crime that do not reach the CPS because they are dealt with by way of an out-of-court disposal. Any case that the police refer to us for a charging decision is going to be something—. There's a document called the director's guidance on charging, which is issued by the director of public prosecutions, which sets out offences the police may charge and offences the CPS may charge. Offences that the police refer to us for a charging decision will generally be offences where they feel that there should be a prosecution rather than an out-of-court disposal. There may be cases where it's genuinely very difficult to assess what's the best approach, in which case we will have a conversation with them, a meaningful conversation, about what's the best way to approach that particular case. There will also be cases, and we see these not that rarely, where the police will bring a case to us for a prosecution on the basis that satisfies the evidential stage and satisfies the public interest stage, and we take a different view on the public interest stage. So, we might say—for example, it involves a 15-year-old youth—we  think that diversion from the criminal justice system is a better disposal and we decide not to prosecute. We aren't responsible for administering the out-of-court disposal or indeed monitoring compliance with that disposal, if, for example, it has conditions attached, such as repayment of the damage caused to a window or a front gate. That's not our responsibility—that will fall to the police—but we can decide that an out-of-court disposal is a more appropriate disposal than a prosecution. Does that help? +Vikki Howells AM: It does. One final question on that then: creating a body of out-of-court disposals that are specific to this Bill—how would that actually work in practice do you think, given the fact that the Assembly's legislative competence to make provision on the face of the Bill is limited? +Barry Hughes: The way I might see it is that, clearly, policing's not devolved, the CPS is not devolved—the way I might see this is that, within Wales, you could build an infrastructure that provides for a range of out-of-court disposals. You can't direct the police or the CPS to point people towards that, but, if you build a good infrastructure, it's more likely that people will be pointed in that direction. +Vikki Howells AM: And who would build that infrastructure, in your opinion? +Barry Hughes: Somewhere within Wales—Welsh Government, local authorities, the police working in partnership. It may be that the police and crime commissioners use some of their commissioning powers to work something up. I'm not the right person to answer that question. +Vikki Howells AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If I could just ask about awareness raising, then: you mentioned the Bill in Scotland, but that Bill includes a duty on the Government to raise awareness of the change. There's no such duty proposed in this Bill. Do you think that's right or should this committee be saying that there should be a similar duty imposed in Wales? +Barry Hughes: I'm not sure it's for me to say whether there should be a duty or not. I can, however, say that I think the greater the level of awareness, the more likely it is that the Act, if passed, will achieve its intentions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And, in your written evidence, you mentioned the fact that there's no indication of any plans for awareness raising in England and that if a person from England is being prosecuted in Wales as a result of this change, a question could arise about the lack of knowledge about the different provisions that apply in Wales. Can I ask what approach the CPS currently takes in Wales if a law is unintentionally broken by someone who's come from outside the UK, for example? +Barry Hughes: It's straightforward: if someone comes to this country and commits an offence here—by this country, I'd say England or Wales; I'd treat them as one for these purposes—if someone comes from abroad and commits an offence that isn't an offence in their country, but is an offence here, then I'm afraid that ignorance of the law is no defence. So, raising awareness is important, and I saw, and I was pleased to see, that the media publicity surrounding this proposed legislation, which is now going through, reached as far afield as New York and had widespread media coverage across England and Wales, and I think the Government would be well placed here to take advantage of that willingness of the media to explore something, which is potentially divisive, and I think you've probably seen some of that. Anything like that is a good story, and a good story gets out there, which means you're more likely to make people aware of it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the unintended consequences from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we've discussed some of these already, but, for example, under the new law, or the proposed law, would one unintended consequence be that, if someone living in Wales who can't use the reasonable punishment defence—would their life prospects be different compared to those people in England, who will be able to use that defence? I think you've mentioned that in your written evidence. +Barry Hughes: Yes. Okay. A simple answer: if somebody in Wales is convicted—so, if it goes towards the end of the spectrum that is serious, which results in a prosecution—. It may be—the sort of circumstance I can see happening here is somebody who takes a principled stand and declines any form of out-of-court disposal and says, 'Prosecute me'. We probably would end up prosecuting, because it's a relatively serious offence. So, let's say it comes to court and let's say they end up being convicted of assaulting their child—in circumstances that would not have happened in England—then they would have a criminal conviction they wouldn't have in England, and that, inevitably, has an impact upon their life prospects. But I think, along the road there, there would have been an element of choice. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And do you think that that would be an isolated incident? +Barry Hughes: Yes, truly, I believe, an isolated incident. I've said before that I would be very surprised if we even had referrals that reached double figures on these cases. They're likely to be very limited. When the CPS was asked to conduct a survey across all of England and Wales—this was the review in 2007—it spanned just over a two-year period, and there were 12 cases that were brought up at that stage. Now, I have to say, I don't think that's entirely reliable, but it is indicative. We had a Freedom of Information Act request at one stage, which threw up something like three cases in a year. So, if you think about that as being all of England and Wales—and we make up about 5 per cent of the volume of criminal prosecutions nationally—you can see why I might say the numbers are likely to be small, for the reasons we've explored about getting past the evidential stage into the public interest. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you for that. In terms of thinking about another kind of unintended consequence, in terms of managing performance and all of the targets that the police need to reach, are we perhaps going to see some people going through the criminal justice system in an inappropriate way and contrary to the interests of the child, because we need to reach some target in terms of performance measures? +Barry Hughes: I have to say I think that extremely unlikely. In the CPS, we don't have targets for securing convictions or not. Clearly, we prosecute if we think that there's a reasonable prospect, a realistic prospect, of conviction and it's in the public interest, but we have no targets. And I would also say, because the numbers here are likely to be so small, any assertion of looking to meet targets—it's a tiny, tiny fragment of a drop in the ocean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What about—? There is a target for unsolved crimes, or unsolved offences. What if they fall into that category? Is that an unintended consequence? +Barry Hughes: I'm talking about something I don't have great knowledge of here. There was, at one stage, a series of targets for the police that bore down upon cases that secure what was called a sanction detection, which counted for Home Office figures. That disappeared some years ago. Some individual constabularies may still have targets, but, as far as I'm aware, we don't have a suite of national measures. The police are required to report against this, but we don't have targets. And, in my experience, the police are much more sensible these days than they may have been 20 years ago, in terms of trying to get cases charged in order to meet some notional target. It's much less of an issue than it ever was—much. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've mentioned this, namely the risk of malicious reporting against parents involved in private family law cases. This happens now, of course. Is that going to increase if we change the law? +Barry Hughes: There is greater potential for it to increase. I think the numbers, again, will be tiny, and dwarfed by the number of cases where we have to deal with the fallout between a relationship breakdown between partners—whether they be living within the same house or living in different houses. Regrettably, there are times when children are used as part of this ongoing dispute. Getting into the subtleties of the father, say, smacking the child in a way that was reasonable chastisement or was not reasonable chastisement is probably part of a much bigger piece here. I can see it potentially arising. It's not something that would cause me concern, simply because we already have a well-developed approach to dealing with the way in which we evaluate the evidence from parties who may well have a particular position that they want to reinforce, sometimes through exaggeration of basic facts and sometimes through fabrication. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are there any other unintended consequences that come to your mind if we introduce this law? +Barry Hughes: No, I think we've had a pretty helpful canter through most of the circumstances here that might happen. And I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Finally from me, therefore—another issue, in a way—the European convention on human rights. Would not introducing the new law mean, at some point, that Wales could get itself into difficulty because there is a breach of the human rights convention? And therefore England as well, at some point. +Barry Hughes: Right. How to approach that one? In the 2007 review to which we've referred already, the Government, the then Government, set out its position that it believes that section 58, in the way that it was drafted, is compliant with the European convention. There are various parties who would disagree with that, but that was the then Government's position. If Wales implements this legislation and it becomes part of the law, then, arguably, Wales would be more in compliance with ECHR than not, and England would be less so. But nonetheless, at present, I haven't seen any demurral from the position that was expressed in 2007, which is that they consider that the position that's been adopted with section 58 is compliant with the legislation. It may well be tested by case law; that's the way it's likely to happen. Some of the changes in this arena were driven by case law—so, that case I referred to, Regina v H, which was heard back in 2001 in the Court of Appeal, was significant in helping shape the direction of travel towards section 58. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And that case law not necessarily would have to happen within the UK—that case law could come from other countries within the European Union. +Barry Hughes: It could, but I would be a foolish man if I were to say what impact European jurisprudence might have upon us. [Laughter.] +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.]—like common law jurisdictions would be. +Barry Hughes: Yes. At this point in time, that'd be a bit of a punt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Suzy's touched on this mildly, but, in written evidence, you say that you do not consider that the costs of prosecuting cases made possible by the Bill will be of great significance to the Crown Prosecution Service, and you're basing that, from your evidence here today, on the low numbers of prosecutions. So, we've been asked by individuals, and we've had consultation responses from individuals, who've argued that there is no point creating legislation if people are not prosecuted for breaching it. What's your answer to that? +Barry Hughes: There is a huge body of legislation out there that outlaws certain offences, and I think probably about—. There are over—. From memory—please never hold me to this—but, from memory, there are something like 10,000 criminal offences; we probably prosecute 5 per cent of those in any given year. There are some offences on the statute—. I've been prosecuting for 32 years now; there are some offences that I've never come near and probably never will. But, nonetheless, the fact those offences exist sets out in terms what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. So, we have various defences to do with Acts. I remember seeing some about Antarctic stations and offences that might be committed there. Well, they're not something that we do, but it sets out what's tolerant—what's tolerable, sorry, and what isn't. So, the fact that we might not have many prosecutions is, for me, not a reason not to say that we shouldn't signify that certain behaviour is or is not acceptable. Clearly, we don't wish to criminalise everything—that would be a nonsense—or to attempt to set the boundaries by almost micromanaging what individuals do and don't do. The criminal law provides a general framework within which to operate, which most people tend to understand. So, awareness is important and it comes back to that point. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And then the explanatory memorandum says there is a shortage of registered intermediaries who assist child witnesses during police interview and when giving evidence in court. Is this a potential barrier to implementing this proposed law, and are there any other potential barriers you want to raise? +Barry Hughes: No. It's a potential barrier, but I don't think it is a barrier. There was a shortage of registered intermediaries in Wales, and I know that the Ministry of Justice have taken action to deal with that, and we have had a number of people who are now in a position to act as intermediaries. Now, of course, if they were to decide not to do that anymore, we may have a problem, but, in turn, we would be looking to recruit more people into those positions. So, yes, it has the potential to serve as a barrier, but in practice, I don't think it would be a barrier. I think, particularly given the very low numbers we're talking about, we would be able to manage it. I've got no significant concerns, I have to say. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending, the three of you, and for your answers, which have been fascinating and very clear and most helpful to the committee? You will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy. Thank you again for your time in coming here today. Diolch yn fawr. +Barry Hughes: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Business Committee requesting an extension on the deadline for the Bill, which has now been agreed. Paper to note 2 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services requesting some further information from CAFCASS Cymru on the Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Minister for Education regarding Diamond reform implementation ahead of our scrutiny session on 4 July. Are Members happy to note those? Item 4, then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","The conversation is a detailed discussion between Lynne Neagle AM, chairing the Children, Young People and Education Committee, and Barry Hughes, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales, with contributions from other committee members. The main topic is the examination of the implications of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. The conversation covers the current protections for children under the law, including the defense of reasonable punishment, potential changes and their implications, potential increases in prosecution numbers if the reasonableness defense is removed, the divergence of laws between England and Wales, and the practical and financial implications for the CPS. + +Barry Hughes explains that existing laws provide a range of offenses for assault, including those specific to children, but he notes the unique defense of ""reasonable punishment"" for a person accused of assaulting a child. He suggests that the law should evolve to reflect contemporary society and the evolution of acceptable behavior. + +Sian Gwenllian AM questions how the proposed law would make the legal framework clearer for parents and professionals, to which Hughes responds it would add clarity but not necessarily make things ""much clearer"" due to the complexities of prosecuting such cases. + +On the divergence of laws, Hughes reassures that the CPS can handle the differences in laws between England and Wales and that policies can be updated as needed. + +Suzy Davies AM inquires about the burden of proof and out-of-court disposals, and Hughes clarifies that the prosecution must satisfy the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and that out-of-court disposals are an ongoing consideration in terms of enabling diversion before prosecution. Also, Hughes discusses the prospect of data collection to assess the impact of the law change and asserts that the volume of cases arising from the proposed law change would be low. + +Lynne Neagle AM inquires about the lack of duty to raise awareness about the law change in Wales, to which Hughes speaks of the importance of awareness even though it's not a formal duty. + +Vikki Howells AM explores the idea of out-of-court disposals specific to this Bill and how it would work within Wales's legislative competence. + +Sian Gwenllian AM discusses unintended consequences, diverging criminal law implications, and the European Convention on Human Rights as related to the proposed Bill. + +Barry Hughes predicts that overall costs to the CPS for prosecuting cases under the Bill would not be significant due to the expected low number of prosecutions. He also addresses concerns about shortages of registered intermediaries who assist child witnesses. + +In conclusion, there are concerns about potential unintended consequences and divergence between laws in England and Wales, and an emphasis on the importance of raising public awareness. However, the CPS feels prepared to handle the changes proposed by the Bill." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are we {disfmarker} we're not allowed to dim the lights so people can see that a bit better ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's fine . Am I supposed to be standing up there ? Okay . +Marketing: So we've got both of these clipped on ? She gonna answer me or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , both of them , okay . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: God . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Jesus , it's gonna fall off {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Yep , yep . {vocalsound} Okay . Tu tu tu tu +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hi , good morning . +Project Manager: Um I'm Sarah , the Project Manager and this is our first meeting , surprisingly enough . Okay , this is our agenda , um {vocalsound} we will do some stuff , get to know each other a bit better to feel more comfortable with each other . Um then we'll go do tool training , talk about the project plan , discuss our own ideas and everything um and we've got twenty five minutes to do that , as far as I can understand . Now , we're developing a remote control which you probably already know . Um , we want it to be original , something that's uh {disfmarker} people haven't thought of , that's not out in the shops , um , trendy , appealing to a wide market , but you know , not a hunk of metal , and user-friendly , grannies to kids , maybe even pooches should be able to use it . Okay , um , first is the functional design , um this is where we all go off and do our individual work , um what needs need to be fulfilled by the product , um what effects the product has to have and how it's actually going to do that . Um , conceptual design , what we're thinking , how it's gonna go and then the detailed design , how we're actually gonna put it into practice and make it work . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right . We're gonna practice with the pens and draw our favourite animal on the white board , I'll go first , and um sum up the characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll leave space for everyone else . Um {disfmarker} What's missing ? We're running out of blue . Okay . I'm not gonna ask you to guess , I'm going to tell you that's supposed to be a tiger . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And I see them as majestic , and independent , and proud . +User Interface: Oh sorry . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now , who would like to go next ? +User Interface: Yeah , me . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Cat . Where did this come from ? +Project Manager: Is that your lapel then ? +User Interface: Uh , yep . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Thank you . Uh , maybe you can guess what I'm trying to make ? +Marketing: A kind of dog ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . It's actually sitting , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's sitting down . +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: it's sitting , it's not standing . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Okay , I see it as one thing it's very supportive . It's your best friend and your {disfmarker} you can talk to a dog , it can be your best friend , it doesn't discriminate between you , based on what you are . Second it's loyal and third thing it's got intuition . {gap} dogs can som sometimes can make out between a thief and a person +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so basically these are the three unique features I think belong to a dog . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'll have a go . +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +Marketing: Please , please leave me a space at the bottom , I'm little , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , okay . +Marketing: you can get to the top , with standing on a chair . +Industrial Designer: Well since you guys have chosen the ones I wanted to do , I'll have to have to go for something a bit random . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does it look like a dog actually ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And also , my drawing skill isn't that great so , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , as you can see , the quality of the work today is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's outstandingly good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , now I'm gonna have to change what is was originally gonna be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because that looks like a beak now , so . {vocalsound} Yeah , it can be a crocodile , it can be a crocodile . +Marketing: Crocodile ? +Project Manager: Gonna be a bird . Is it gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well it was it was an {disfmarker} at first {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it's gonna be a bird . +Industrial Designer: firstly it was an attempt at a T_ Rex and then it sort of changed into a pelican +Marketing: O +Industrial Designer: but it can be a crocodile now actually {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's lovely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and uh I'll have to think on the spot of uh things that it is . Um +Marketing: Beauti that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh scary , uh strong , yeah that's about it I think {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} it's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , I'm very impressed with your artistic skills , +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: mine's {disfmarker} are dreadful . Oops this is now coming apart , let me just put the top in . +Industrial Designer: Wo {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hope that clicks in , I'll just {disfmarker} I'll hold it on , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oops , oh dear , what happened there ? +Project Manager: Technical help . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Hopefully that'll stay on , two-handed version . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , uh {disfmarker} Again this is off the top of my head , I was gonna do a big cat too , um . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Oh dear , it doesn't look what like what I want it to be {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: S Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: It's not a vampire bat honestly {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Uh and somewhere there's a body behind . +Industrial Designer: Okay , some sort of bird {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's my dreadful {disfmarker} that's the worst yet , that's {disfmarker} it's meant to be an eagle {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A seagu +User Interface: Eagle , okay . +Project Manager: right , +Industrial Designer: Ah eagle , right okay . +Project Manager: not a seagull {vocalsound} . +Marketing: you can tell it's a flying animal {vocalsound} could have been a seagull , I never thought of a seagull . An eagle , um again I'm thinking on my feet goodness . I suppose they're all so independent , I'd put that one down again . {vocalsound} Da dum um . +Industrial Designer: They're good at golf . +Marketing: Indepen independent , right , did you say they're good at golf ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Eagle . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no yeah , +Marketing: Are they ? +Industrial Designer: an eagle . +Marketing: Oh . Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not good at golf . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd say they're quite free-spirited , flying around everywhere , doing their own thing . And uh , birds of prey aren't they , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh dear , intrepid . I'll put that , intrepid . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go , +Project Manager: That's lovely . +Marketing: hope that pen's gonna be okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . That was fun , right . Um finance-wise , we've got a selling price at twenty five Euros , which I don't actually know what that is in Pounds , at all . Any ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It's about {disfmarker} +User Interface: One point four or something like that . +Industrial Designer: mm , mm yeah . +Marketing: Seventeen . +User Interface: One point four Euro would make a Pound or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D fifteen ? +Industrial Designer: yeah about seventeen , seventeen Pounds , something like that . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: Seventeen Pounds . +Project Manager: Okay , that's expensive . +Marketing: Should we be making notes of this ? We can just refer to this later can't we ? +Project Manager: I think so , I think so , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll be able to um pull it up , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: or I could put it in the shared folder or something . +Industrial Designer: Havi having said that though , if you wanna get one of those {disfmarker} the the ones on the market at the moment they're s they're about twenty pounds anyway . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , it'd still be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: yeah , we had to buy one {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Mm . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: so I suppose later it depends if we want to undercut the price , we d or or is it going to make our product look a cheapie-cheapie option ? +Project Manager: Yeah , um production cost's at twelve fifty , so +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay , pretty huge margin . +Project Manager: half of the selling price is taken up by building it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , and profit aim is fifty million Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: In our first year ? +Project Manager: Yi yes , um yeah , I presume so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So then {disfmarker} +Marketing: You've got market range international and you did say earlier it's got to be a {disfmarker} um accessible and usable by sort of all age groups +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: just t we're not focusing on business market , any particular thing , it's everyone +Project Manager: No , yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} user-friendly to everyone . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Big target group {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yes , yes , I don't think we have to {disfmarker} I don't think it's a case of worrying about different languages and things like that , um making that a key point , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: just that it's going to be in the international market like Australia , America , things like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences with remote controls ? I mean I've got {disfmarker} we got um {disfmarker} we had three videos , a T_V_ and a sort of amp thing all set up +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we got one of the universal remote controls , um that you programme each of your things into , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: that c +Project Manager: but that kept losing the signals so we'd have to re-programme it every now and again . I think it was quite a cheapie as well , so that might have had something to do with it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that was quite good , the fact that you could {disfmarker} You didn't have six remote controls sitting in front of you . +Industrial Designer: Use all the ones at the same time . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Okay , you wanna integrate everything into one like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you {disfmarker} +Marketing: My experience has only been being given the remote control with the object I buy , not doing any tampering with it and programming , using it to programme T_V_ and uh uh videos and things . But basically on , off , volume up and down , channel one , two , th that basic functions , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think I could go any further with it than that , so , I suppose it's got to be something usable by someone like me as well . +Project Manager: Yeah , the main {disfmarker} that's the main stuff anyway , I mean +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} and you don't want to {disfmarker} I hate I hate looking at a control and seeing a million tiny little buttons with tiny little words saying what they all do +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and just sitting there searching for the teletext button or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . And symbols that you don't necessarily understand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: symbols you're meant to understand that you don't . +User Interface: So simplification of symbols you could think of . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . When they're {disfmarker} when you've got the main things on the front of it and a section opens up or something to the other functions where you can do sound or options kind of recording , things like that inside it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause it doesn't make {disfmarker} when you pick it up it doesn't make it really complicated to look at , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's obvious what you're doing , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Actually that just raises a point , I wonder what our design people think , but you know on a mobile phone , you can press a key and it gives you a menu , it's got a menu display , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Menu , alright . +Marketing: I wonder if incorporating that into the design of a remote control might be useful , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: so you've got a little L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Right , I was thinking on the same lines you , instead of having too many b buttons and make it complicated for the user , may h maybe have an L_C_D_ di display or something like that , like a mobile , yeah and with menus . +Marketing: With menus , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: And if it's s somewhat similar to what you have on mobile phone , people might find it easier to browse and navigate also maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the older generation ? What about granny and grandads ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean to save it lesser number . +Project Manager: Um , my grandad can answer his mobile phone , but he couldn't even dream of texting or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Can he programme his remote control or is it basic with that too ? +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't think they tape things , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandad's actually better than me at using teletext , so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think they use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Right . So that's a problem regardless of of any design modifications you you come up with , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: that's gonna be a problem anyway with the older generation perhaps , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , the age gap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what it just needs to be {disfmarker} as long as it's sort of self-intuitive and you can can work out what everything's doing , 'cause I mean , menus on sort of new phones now they've sort of got all these pictures and stuff which makes it fairly obvious what you're trying to do . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't know , I d +Industrial Designer: But I don't know how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't like the , you know the new phones that have kind of got a Windows-based running system . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I find it really confusing , I kept getting lost {vocalsound} in the phone , I di I've not got a new one but uh my friend got a new one +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and I was trying to do things with it and I just kept getting lost , but that's just me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't I don't know how for twenty fi , or twelve Euros fifty how much of a excellent screen you could get , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you'd you'd have to sort of keep it down to a black and white L_C_D_ thing anyway , I'd assume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Is it possible that that for the older generation you could have like an extra button that you press for large print like you do in large print books ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Teletext has got that option as well . +Marketing: Obviously it displays less on the screen , it displays less on the screen but as long as they can read it that's the main thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Or what about kind of a dual function ? In that you've got the basic buttons just for your play , volume , programme things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and also {disfmarker} and then a menu to go into with obvious pictures , obvious symbols and that's where you control recording and things like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm . The other thing is , just ch chucking into mobile phone f design features again , it could have a flip top remote control so that when you flip over the top , your screen is {disfmarker} you can have a bigger screen in the the flip over . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm , okay . S +Project Manager: I think that's a cost thing , I don't I don't know how much we're gonna know about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y +User Interface: It might +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: it might save a b bit of space , it's i instead of looking bulky , it might look small . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , no that's important . +User Interface: But it might have its cost implications . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , like smaller . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And there's no reason we need to make it look as fashionable and stylish as a mobile phone , it can still be lightweight plastic , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Something that's easily moulded and produced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I'm treading on your territory guys . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , right , okay +Industrial Designer: No uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we've got half an hour before the next meeting , so we're all gonna go off and do our individual things . Um I think that's probably about it and then we'll come back and liaise again and I get to do another fantastic PowerPoint presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Just just a quick thing about the um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: about what you're saying about the uh {disfmarker} does does it need to be fashionable ? The sort of {disfmarker} I I had a quick look at the company website and it's like the the uh {disfmarker} we put the fashion into electronics , so I think think the whole design thing might be qui +Marketing: Ah right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you don't {disfmarker} you you can still have plastic +Marketing: Sure b y yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it'd look quite good but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it doesn't have to be that , you know {vocalsound} th that was my main point , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we don't have to use metal , I don't know if using plastic does make it cheaper , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I presume it would . +Project Manager: I would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: it would probably . I mean there's Sky remote controls and everything . They're kind of moulded and look a bit different , and the Telewest remote controls are silver plastic , which looks a bit smarter , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so yeah I guess that's stuff we can think about . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so let's break it up there . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , see you in half an hour . +Marketing: Do we go back to our room ? Yep ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: I think so , yeah . +","In an informal and somewhat disorganized meeting, a cross-functional team consisting of roles like a Project Manager, User Interface specialist, Marketing representative, and Industrial Designer discussed the initial stages of developing a new remote control product. + +The meeting began with some confusion about practical arrangements, including issues with the lighting and where people were supposed to be standing, including grappling with microphones or clips. The group also performed an icebreaker activity where they drew their favorite animal on a whiteboard and shared what characteristics they attribute to them. This exercise was presumably meant to ease the atmosphere and encourage creativity. + +The Project Manager, named Sarah, led the discussion by outlining the agenda which focused on team introduction, tool training, discussing project plans, and soliciting individual ideas within a tight 25-minute timeframe. Sarah communicated the goal of developing an innovative remote control not currently available in the market, one that should be original, trendy, user-friendly, and appeal to a broad market range, including children and potentially pets. + +Sarah highlighted several phases of the design process they would be undertaking: functional, conceptual, and detailed design. During these phases, the team will consider what needs the product fulfills, its effects, and how it would be implemented practically. + +There was a brief interactive session where the team practiced using pens to draw on a whiteboard, and although it was filled with laughter and mild confusion—particularly when the drawings didn't quite turn out as intended—it showed the team's dynamic and the need for clarity in communication. + +Financial considerations were also addressed with a selling price set at twenty-five euros, which the team vaguely converted to approximately seventeen pounds. They mentioned a high profit aim of fifty million euros and noted that the production cost was half the selling price, making it twelve euros fifty cents. There was a brief confusion over whether to continuously take notes or if a shared document would be referenced later. They also discussed the positioning of their product in the market, striving to make it appealing and accessible to a large demographic rather than niche markets. + +As the team shared their individual experiences with remote controls, they began brainstorming features for the new product, emphasizing user-friendly elements. The Project Manager showed concern for how older generations would adapt to the new technology, suggesting a simple design with basic and advanced functionalities. One idea suggested by User Interface was to integrate an LCD display with a menu system similar to mobile phones, as a means to simplify the interface. Marketing pointed out various design features such as flip-top remote controls and highlighted that older generations might find these new technologies challenging. On this, the Industrial Designer noted that the company's tagline includes putting fashion into electronics, which implied that the design should indeed have a stylish aspect. + +After acknowledging an approaching meeting deadline, Sarah adjourned the session, giving the team half an hour to individually work on their tasks before regrouping. The disparate conversation threads throughout the meeting touched on many aspects of product development, from design considerations and financial constraints to market strategy and user experience—all of which need further integration and alignment moving forward. The meeting ended with the group confirming their next steps and the division back to their respective roles for further development of the remote control project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hmm . Okay everybody . Welcome to the detailed design meeting . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see . Our agenda . Last time we discussed the squishy fruitiness of {vocalsound} our remote controls and how we might pursue that . Um and I think {disfmarker} looks like we've come up with some ideas . Um and we also talked about materials we'd use and what kind of chip would be necessary . Um so for later in the meeting I've done a a spreadsheet of production costs so we'll take a look at that . Um and see if it's changed at all from when we last discussed it . Um {vocalsound} so actually I think {disfmarker} Yeah um f {vocalsound} you guys wanna give a prototype presentation of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay well um . So our design looks something like this . This being the wheel that you use to uh change channels or volume or whatever . This is a button , serves as the power button if you hold it down , and if you just tap on it I think it brings up the menu . And uh the base of the remote control , which has a squishy spongy rubbery feel , is interchangeable . So you can change the colour , according to your {disfmarker} to suit your living room or whatever . And it comes {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could change the vegetable , or fruit . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I can change the vegetable . +Project Manager: Oh is that broccoli ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one's broccoli {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this snaps off and you can put on whichever one you want . This is not to scale 'cause it would have the battery inside it . This is a mango . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} it's trendy fruit , it's not just ordinary fruits . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't have orange , you have mango . Um I guess strawberry's not as trendy , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S a very bright strawberry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we'll come up with a variety of trendy and exciting fruit designs for the remote control . And then people will be encouraged to buy three or five of them , because they'll need to switch 'em out . +User Interface: It's been a l +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's been a little bit difficult to um make sure that it's hand-holdable , and that the user can use it , you know , it's not too big . Uh but we think that this you know , this size will be okay and we will have to fit the battery case in there somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: And I guess the only other thing that we really didn't talk about was {disfmarker} or design yet actually , would be the um thing {disfmarker} the locator . How how {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the locator is just chip that's inside there . +User Interface: Okay so that's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the beeper's also inside there too somewhere +User Interface: So you have to have a button on your on your {disfmarker} you have to attach the button to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we didn't design that . +User Interface: Yeah we have {disfmarker} that that has yes yet to be designed . +Industrial Designer: But it would be coordinating with that of course . +User Interface: Yeah that c hey that that could you know match the handset . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could have a broccoli , or you could have a mango . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Tada . +Project Manager: Oh . Um if you wanna look in your project documents folder , there's an Excel spreadsheet . Um the only one that's in there , production costs . And if you open it up . Um I've just stuck the numbers in , it was a real challenge there . {vocalsound} But if I missed anything that we've gone over , or if you see something that has changed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean , we decided on batteries , and the regular chip would be necessary for the more advanced iPod-like button . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I said uncurved or flat . I think that's what you have there , is that right ? For the for the plastic part would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My impression was that flat meant like like one of those square remotes . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's really not very clear , because you got single curve and double curve and {disfmarker} d I dunno what that means . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One side is curved and then the other side is curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} yeah . If we're talking about the area just {disfmarker} oh I d I dunno . I guess we'd have to contact the company that makes them and see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so what else ? There's plastic for that area around the button . Um and then rubber would be the squishy like thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and lots of special colours actually . {vocalsound} Uh scroll wheel . Do you see anything that I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No I think that's alright . +Project Manager: Okay so that would make our total of eleven point nine , which is even less than twelve point five , which means we'd be making even more of a profit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if we sold a lot of squishy things . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Boo yeah . Okay . {vocalsound} S So {disfmarker} Mm . Did y what did you work on ? The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um evaluation criteria . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've got a presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . I think that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I need {disfmarker} where's the cable ? Right what happens is we have to um decide whether this this whole this whole project we've been working on actually um meets the standards we were set at the start . Um . Right . This doesn't {disfmarker} okay . Um the method is {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} well I've analysed the user requirements and integrated them to the trends found in marketing reports and in our company strategy marketing . And um the findings were that we need it to look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , and this is {disfmarker} everything's listed down . Um , look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , it has to be technologically innovative and it has to be easy to use . These are all things we looked at at the start , um and criteria that have to be met . We have to use a table , I'll show you that later , together to decide whether it meets the standards . And {vocalsound} we we have therefore in total um {disfmarker} We have five {disfmarker} we have eleven points according to which this should be evaluated . And um the cri well basically the findings are the same as the evaluation criteria . I would like to show you the table we have to use . Um . No . This is the table . Can you see this here ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um so the que the questions I've given you {disfmarker} c could you write that down ? True is one and and false is seven . And we'll just go through each point together , hopefully . Um . I think if each of us gives an opinion then they can be mixed somehow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno how it works exactly , I haven't been told . +User Interface: Yeah . Is it possible that we can bring this up on our own {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Yeah it's in the um {disfmarker} it's in the project documents . +User Interface: Is it meeting three minutes ? No it's not minutes . +Marketing: It's called evaluation criteria . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And it's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Huh , the PowerPoint one ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . You've found it all ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it was um {disfmarker} Yeah true's one . +User Interface: True's one and false is seven . +Marketing: Do you want us to discuss this together or do you want us to do it singly ? +Project Manager: Um we can do it separately and then discuss it +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah okay . +Project Manager: if if that's what people wanna do . +User Interface: So it's actually a scale . +Project Manager: Wait , one is true and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , +Project Manager: so these are the questions we're answering . And one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: yes it's {disfmarker} if it's fancy you put one , +Project Manager: One , right okay . +Marketing: if it's really unfancy it's seven . +Project Manager: If it's somewhere in between you put four . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Does it feel fancy ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Feels like play-dough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They shouldn't really be questions . Should be more like {disfmarker} Are the batteries easy to insert ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes ? Very very true . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I imagine they're somewhere on the front . We have a little case that you slip 'em in . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we just about ready ? +Marketing: Apparently I'm supposed to use the whiteboard . Do we {disfmarker} um is it necessary ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll just do um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah the the marker thing kinda stopped working last time we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Our animals will forever be there . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Un unless you feel you need it t to {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't feel any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: right um {disfmarker} Right so one point one ? We'll just go in a circle . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Marketing: Right . Ooh I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . One ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . Okay so do we just add it up and divide it by four ? Is that what the company does ? +Project Manager: I I think we should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's four if you wanna do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It adds to sixteen , so that's four . +Marketing: Oh no . It adds to thirteen . One five five two . +Industrial Designer: Oh I thought she said five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: One five five two is thirteen , over four for now . I think that's um {disfmarker} next ? +User Interface: Um three . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wasn't cheating I swear . +Marketing: Uh-oh . Right . One point three is {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's a one was true and seven was false ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} Okay , so you guys really didn't like it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh I thought it was the other way round . +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute . +Marketing: I really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought it was the other way round too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we do have about the same thing , we just have it the other way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah I I was thinking one means no points , you know , all the way up to the top {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It was one is true and {vocalsound} false is seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I should've kept the table up . +Project Manager: Oh gosh . Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll just I'll just reverse them all . It's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right , well I'm glad this came out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought you guys hated it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was like , why did you guys design it that way if you hated it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} Oh that's quite funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So , starting again , one point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Two . Okay , one point two ? +User Interface: Uh three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . Um , one point three ? +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: Ha . {vocalsound} Two point one ? +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: Uh two . +Industrial Designer: Uh two . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} I think I missed two . {vocalsound} Wait , is that two point one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I put it down as one point four for some reason . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One point four , one point five . Okay right +Marketing: Oh dear , okay . Sorry . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} I have two of them . +Industrial Designer: Mine has all kinds of problems . +Marketing: Two and one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry about that . T two point two , which is one point five . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: Uh three . Wait why did I put three ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: I meant one on mine too . +Marketing: Okay . Three point one . Is that correct on my slide ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: Three point one . I have four . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: One , four , three , three , three point two ? +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Uh . One . +Marketing: Three point three . +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Four point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Two . Four point two . +User Interface: Two . +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Two and four point three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: One , two . +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Right so I put one on that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll um I'll just do the calculations now if you want to continue . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or is it tedious ? I'm I'm sorry this was so tedious for everyone . +Project Manager: No no that's um {disfmarker} I think we should look at the ones that {vocalsound} like where s where people said four , where {disfmarker} um it looks like we might wanna discuss changing an aspect of the remote . +Marketing: I didn't know how else to do it . Okay . Well the worst ones were three point one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} does every ones have the slide ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three point one . +Project Manager: that was material . +Marketing: Slide show . Material {vocalsound} technologically innovative , okay . Um , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: do you want to change it ? What are the suggestions ? I don't know , anyone ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one is that again sorry ? Three point one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah that {disfmarker} it's three point one was not that good . Four point one . +Project Manager: Does the shape {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four point two ? +Project Manager: See I'm having I'm having trouble imagining the {disfmarker} is it uh gonna be the size , like the the controller ? It {disfmarker} or bigger ? +Industrial Designer: I think the wheel would probably be {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if we just smash all the vegetables down flat ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And like then it {disfmarker} you could hold it in your hand better . +Industrial Designer: I think the base would definitely be larger , 'cause some of these are not as easy to hold . They're kinda smallish . +Project Manager: Yeah . No but I imagine even if it was bigger , like if it's round and it's big then you you can't get {disfmarker} that's why remote controls are long because you have that thumb kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The flat one . Yeah . +Project Manager: so c they could all be bananas and cucumbers . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but I don't s I I personally don't think this is comfortable to to sit there , like it's an awkward position . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} yeah . But like if if you just squash them flat like and you made it flat {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well if they're that s uh stress ball stuff they would be pretty squishable . Mm . +User Interface: But it's still too big I think , in your hand . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And would it even resemble fruit that way ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah like certain ones {disfmarker} you'd have to limit the fruit selection , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like you could probably do a strawberry still . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think the broccoli would be out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You could do {gap} , although the broccoli is quite comfortable , I have to say , like {disfmarker} sorta like a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah that I I {disfmarker} when you were holding that before , it actually looked {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That looked really good . +User Interface: I don't know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are there any fruits that look like broccoli , no ? +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Not that I can think of . Rhubarb . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Rhubarb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that broccoli is my favourite actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} These obscure fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh despite the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we needn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if um the {disfmarker} it was just patterns on like {disfmarker} we we chose the shape or the sh shape could be whatever we wanted and then it would just be like a design on the rubber . +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: You know like like just a printed yeah or coloured yeah . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just colour , and not necessarily the shape of a strawberry . +User Interface: Yeah . That could work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Or I mean we could even have fruit like around {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: But if we if we need {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and just have the colour match or something . +Project Manager: yeah . And if we wanna incorporate the fruit thing somehow , there might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean if it if it in if it uh conflicts with the comfort of actually holdi holding the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . 'Cause yeah no-one wants to hold a remote that's uncomfortable obviously . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Or like {disfmarker} I dunno , some of 'em you can kind of think {disfmarker} see as like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: like you could {disfmarker} if it was only this {disfmarker} you know , if it was shaped like that , and it just had that . But you see the problem is you have to attach that , and this has to be detachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So like maybe that's just too big +Project Manager: Well see th the reason the broccoli works is you can kinda hold it like that , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which is a nice kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's sorta like a joystick . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I dunno . +Project Manager: I mean is there some way we could make it this kind of shape ? +User Interface: I guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause like kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could make it that shape but just have different colours , and call 'em the different fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or like even {disfmarker} +User Interface: Dif +Industrial Designer: We went with shape because we were having fun with the play-dough . +Project Manager: Or even like {disfmarker} Yeah like you said , like a joystick like that . You know ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Like uh we could do {disfmarker} I'm trying to think of other sha like fruits that are oddly shaped . +Project Manager: 'Cause that , I think {disfmarker} I mean that fits the whole round iPod idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you still have the comfort of holding it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} like if it's like this , you could put fruit designs and stuff on that part . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: But I mean it {disfmarker} do we have any other ideas about that ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could tr I don't know . +Marketing: Think the critical ones came out to be {disfmarker} yeah that one . {vocalsound} . Batteries easy to insert for some reason , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which can be easily {disfmarker} I think that's not a problem any more . +Project Manager: The batteries are going in the back ? +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} everyone gave that a one or a two . Yeah they'd probably be either on the front or the side of the remote . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: The reason I I ga I didn't give it a one {disfmarker} I think I gave it a three because I thought you'd have to like unc clip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No I imagine there'd be sort of a hatch door , +Project Manager: no you could {disfmarker} Just like any other one . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah um like on a normal remote . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So it would probably either in the f no it can't be in the front 'cause the I_R_'s right there , but it'd be on one of the sides probably . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I think everyone's under three anyway . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think it's {disfmarker} yeah those are the only two points . +User Interface: Cool . Well {disfmarker} Yeah the broccoli I guess wins . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I'd agree with changing the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , I was just having fun making strawberries and stuff . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We were a bit off task . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um so uh I can't think of any {disfmarker} So we'll have to like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . You could make the touch pad in th in different shapes , but then that kind of re-designs the whole project like , +Industrial Designer: It might also sort of annoy people if we get used to having the buttons in one shape . +User Interface: but you could do like {disfmarker} Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it would probably cost more to produce , 'cause they're irregular . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that's true . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I bet having different colours is a lot cheaper than having different shapes too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Which is why printing might be like {disfmarker} just printing the fruit on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Not really {disfmarker} Well we've done finance evaluation criteria , production evaluation . {vocalsound} Um so project evaluation . +Marketing: Do you want this and we can all {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: I guess we're supposed to discuss um the prod the process of the project and how satisfied {disfmarker} oh , oh it's alright . Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: It's alright yeah ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Did you feel there was a lot of room for creativity in the sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I did . +Project Manager: I mean fruit and squishiness . How c more creative can you get ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sponginess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The prototype making was very creatively stimulating +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we've come up with a product that's fun and meets all the criteria {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: And how was our leadership and teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it was good . We knew what we were doing . It was a very democratic process and everyone got to contribute . +Project Manager: Well I thought my leadership was crap personally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well you told us when to start and when to end , and that's all that matters . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me , am I allowed to say that ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: I think you were fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I'm never gonna do a management position , I know that now . +User Interface: You did a good job leading . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I thought we all worked very well together . +Marketing: Yeah we didn't {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} uh it all c sort of blended quite well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think it more than anything we didn't really have our set roles so much , as we just would be like {vocalsound} I don't know , all had ideas about it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Very democratic . No spats , that was good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and the means for like {disfmarker} the materials we used , how convenient were they ? Like the the pens , the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean we used {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I'm not a big fan of any Microsoft , PowerPoint or any of this stuff . +Project Manager: Are you a Mac person ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no I never touch Macs either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just use the Unix or the off market , sort of WordPerfect and all these other things . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Which isn't very user-friendly though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Well the problem is if you don't {disfmarker} like my new computer never has WordPerfect so I have to go track someone down who has an old disk and then I have to reinstall it . So I have all these documents I can't use now . But yeah I mean I guess it's okay . +User Interface: I felt like my {disfmarker} I dunno if it was just my role , but l but uh I di I thought that my {disfmarker} the information that was available to me was kind of just like {disfmarker} or maybe it was just the idea that we had . But there's kinda {disfmarker} it was kinda like okay , I don't really think {disfmarker} I dunno what I'm doing here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So I didn't really think it was helpful . So I kind of just made up my own stuff and I didn't really like the PowerPoint presentations , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so I kind of wrote a lot of notes instead . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah I d I don't really like PowerPoint personally , {vocalsound} think it's kinda stupid . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I never use it . +User Interface: Yeah but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can't say I found everything particularly helpful . Like I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It didn't really {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My first bit of information was like this child's drawn picture of how a remote works . +Marketing: I though it was brilliant no ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No mine was really helpful as in my stuff was quite helpful I think . +Project Manager: I mean m my problem {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it probably does . +User Interface: So like a f +Marketing: I think it depends on the role +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: no ? +Project Manager: 'Cause my problem was , you guys had access to like {disfmarker} they'd put {disfmarker} send you to sites and stuff right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: See I couldn't do that , so I didn't really know what you guys were doing . And when you were talking about it I was just like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know that's wh that's why I seemed so ignorant when when you were j explaining things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well mine was mostly made up except when they told me like you know titanium costs more than wood to make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As if you'd wanted to . +Marketing: Yeah . But it must have been quite difficult for them to build a whole um +Project Manager: System . Yeah . +Marketing: a whole system , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause of course they can't give you uh uh anything comparable to the internet for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , it {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well I think it's interesting how it all went together , like I had the stuff about how me how rubber's cheap , and you have how people want it to be spongy , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , huh . +Industrial Designer: It seems planned you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I kinda thought that um {disfmarker} I felt like I would go and like try to use my information , or like I'd make this stupid little presentation and then like I just would end up talking about something completely unrelated +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno I felt like I was off-task all the time . But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean we really got into talking about like personal practicalit like it wasn't necessarily what was like {disfmarker} we would never have thought of fruit or sponginess you know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If I hadn't been told that fruit was {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I think that {vocalsound} it it might be to see whether people actually all come up with the same thing . +Project Manager: Oh right . given certain information or {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like if everyone's given the same input {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a clue , anyway . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +Marketing: Um what's next ? Looks like {disfmarker} oh no that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you guys think of the pens ? +Marketing: It's quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It asks about that . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I wanna s +Industrial Designer: They're kinda hard to write with though . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I I've f forgotten once or twice to {vocalsound} check the box . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I I'd like to see what what it looks like on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're nicer than the pen that I'm using , because like your stuff actually shows up here , rather than having to look at the screen and write . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But even so , I dunno . +Project Manager: And new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's all very new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: no ? It's all very new . +User Interface: Yeah I think I'd like to um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I dunno . Like it was {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: I think the microphones are okay when you're sitting down , but like they're kinda clumsy I guess when you're {disfmarker} like when you're s going up to the whiteboard like . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Well they drop off if you like move too much . +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . But they're they're okay . +Industrial Designer: But I don't think we're supposed to be testing these microphones . Maybe we are . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I think , and I think that uh all this technology like {disfmarker} I guess some people must be interested in using it but I can't imagine finding it any more useful than like looking at someone's notes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , like I actually worked in a company , +User Interface: or like {disfmarker} I dunno . +Industrial Designer: and I had a role and I had to go to meetings . And like the last thing I would have wanted would be to have to watch a video 'cause I missed a meeting . Like usually I missed meetings deliberately . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's just {disfmarker} there's really not that much information that actually goes through a real meeting , like when you're actually at a real meeting in a real company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's mostly like rehashing old stuff . +User Interface: Hm . +Industrial Designer: And you're sort of going over general stuff that anybody who's sort of on task should already know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like the {disfmarker} there's just really not a lot of information that goes through . +Project Manager: Seems kind of like an excessive reiteration . +Industrial Designer: It seems like way overkill . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if I missed a meeting I could probably get it summed up in like one sentence . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't need to have to watch like a t two hour video with the sound and the transcript and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it would be {disfmarker} it's gotta be worth it to {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I'm just mostly curious about like what kind of person or like company would would really find it useful , 'cause can't really imagine , dunno . How about a p {vocalsound} a {gap} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Well does anyone wanna talk about fruit more while we still have time ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any other ideas for {disfmarker} +Marketing: What what's the end ? Are we are we supposed to um {disfmarker} you supposed to write a report ? Or we ending ? +Project Manager: Um we still have time if there's any other input . +Marketing: Is that the end ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} I think we did really well personally , which is why we've you know , gone through this so quickly . 'Cause I mean we've all {disfmarker} we all kind of agreed our product is satisfactory , it fits the budget , and it's trendy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . Um . +Marketing: End of meeting . You have to tell her , she {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think that's all for today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay we have to fill in all this stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} M meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Stuff stuff stuff . +Project Manager: Meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I've learned not to bring play-dough to meetings . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it would be a good idea , I like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's hard enough to get people actually paying attention . Especially if you have food . +Project Manager: So I guess we're supposed to write final reports . 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: All of us ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Hmm . +Marketing: Well there's al eight , nine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . Oh ooh . +Project Manager: Hmm . Or is that just me ? {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +In a design meeting, the team discusses the progress in creating a remote control with a focus on ""squishy fruitiness"" in its design and interchangeable elements such as color and, humorously, the type of fruit or vegetable. The Industrial Designer presents a prototype with features including a channel/volume wheel, a power/menu button, and an interchangeable spongy base, while also incorporating a locator chip and beeper. The Project Manager reviews production costs. They evaluate the design against initial criteria, discussing the remote's shape, holdability, and trendiness of fruit shapes like broccoli and mango. Although there's a slight mix-up with the evaluation scores, the overall consensus is to consider making the remote more ergonomic while possibly maintaining fruit-themed colors. The team also determines that the batteries should be easily insertable. After project evaluation, they conclude that the creative process was successful and that fruit and squishiness allowed for ample creativity. They reflect on their tools, roles, and information sources, with differing opinions on the usefulness of the technology and materials provided for the meeting. The meeting concludes with a consensus on the project's success, and the team seems to consider final reporting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: That's the same as uh on the top of it uh with the the round uh button . +Industrial Designer: Like this one . +User Interface: But uh we don't uh we don't uh {disfmarker} we do think it's um well {disfmarker} what if with ease of use , w which prefers the {disfmarker} which the the customer of the user prefers . +Industrial Designer: It's important . Uh I think th this is device which which has a learning curve . Um novice users u use this device as uh normal users use uh a c a remote control . And after a while they start to develop uh some skills in the the voice recognition functions , and then they will not use this dial as often . But other users who are new to this device need something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They n they need to understand what {disfmarker} uh how to change channels and uh change the volume , so it's easier for them +Project Manager: Could could I see the scroll bar as uh as as a sort of shortcut ? A a and the voice recognition as well , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe so . Yes , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th maybe you could uh could uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's it's another approach , it's more that our um {gap} . {vocalsound} There are there are many ways of doing uh things uh on such a device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's it's quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . And and the case is is rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , rubber ? +Project Manager: And the buttons ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Plastic or rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are plastic or rubber . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the colouring ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yellow with uh +Project Manager: {gap} with with grey or black . +Industrial Designer: grey or black or something like that . Whatever cost uh cost uh the least . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll we'll come to that later . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . Anything else to add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Uh maybe we should uh think about these buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , you could use two of them to programme the um channels on the two channel button , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'cause you have to assign two channel {disfmarker} new channels . +Industrial Designer: but these are tasks that are only executed once , I think . +Project Manager: M uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or not ? +Project Manager: M m but maybe you do want a programme button to uh for example activate the voice recognition , or train the voice voice recognition . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well okay . Okay , yeah , that's right . Or something li like that . +User Interface: And a button for disabling the voice recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah al although by pressing the button for I n don't know two , three seconds , you could also say it {disfmarker} you'd disable it with a little beep and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but o okay , that that's not really really important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the basic idea , yeah . Of our prototype . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The basic {disfmarker} okay . Okay . Um you thought of some evaluation crit criteria ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name is not name +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are nameless . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , I used the {gap} {disfmarker} the uh {gap} documents . And these uh were the most important criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it spongy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should be . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's uh how the fashion guys uh state it . Fancy look and feel . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So just walk through it step by step . I mean , is it fancy , everything {disfmarker} I believe uh I believe it's fancy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well appar +Industrial Designer: I believe it's fancy too . +Marketing: Yeah , but apparently uh we shouldn't evaluate yet . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: this {disfmarker} these are the cr uh the criteria . +Marketing: Yeah , I think these are the most important criteria . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh +Project Manager: the then we'll switch to my presentation . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's about it . +Project Manager: The production costs . The costs are not under {disfmarker} Can I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's w way above um uh above the the the twelve Euro fifty . +User Interface: Yikes . +Project Manager: And what makes it very expensive is uh for example the solar cell . So I guess we should skip that , +Industrial Designer: Well it's very expensive . +Project Manager: because it's not that important . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why does the price and and the s oh , one uh exa +Project Manager: Yeah , the the price , the the number of items and the the sum . +User Interface: yeah . The number of uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Um well , this is what I would call our luxury model . Um if you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if you look at the uh w w w what we could do to make it more um {vocalsound} to make it {vocalsound} just between the twelve Euro fifty , um then I did the following changes . Twelve Euro forty cents I came up with by leaving out the solar cells , um by not using the voice recognition feature , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it's uh it's a four Euro uh addition to the price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I believe {disfmarker} Uh , push-button , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It makes it the thirteen {disfmarker} yeah . Push-buttons are {disfmarker} buttons are are not the most expensive , but do add extra cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} yeah , th this design is not um within our price model . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I'm afraid it's not complete . Because we use spec uh specic uh special materials , the last item . And you have not added one item there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's c way too expensive . +Project Manager: It's still too expensive , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's that's only for the buttons . +Project Manager: I I guess if we leave the {disfmarker} if we leave this one out , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the button we can use plastic . +Project Manager: oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh maybe not use the special form . +User Interface: And the pla uh {disfmarker} And a plastic b just plastic buttons , a plas uh instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It becomes a very dull remote control , I know . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But it's the board decision . Um {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , b basically it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} when when this is our only option , we should even consider changing the casing , because I think there's very little added value in uh an enhanced case with these dull functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , I know . Maybe we should look at an {disfmarker} uh focus on another uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Type of m maybe another market segment . +Project Manager: Yeah , m uh maybe not not all that fancy , but just way way more easy uh uh um basic +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh m maximise the profits +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} maybe that's better . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could uh {disfmarker} we should go for straight and simple , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not what uh has been asked . +Project Manager: I know , I know . +Industrial Designer: So we should kick the board's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Although I think we {disfmarker} yeah , but we could still make uh a remote control that ap uh um applies um more to young people uh by giving it another colour already . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so it is possible to make uh uh a device that attracts a little bit more to young people . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um but uh I agree it's it's not a fancy high-tech uh device . Definitely not , no . {vocalsound} It's not that innovative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or however you s pronounce that . +User Interface: Yeah , too bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so , okay . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Oh , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: this is the wrong one . So uh that means redesign . {vocalsound} We do not have the time o uh now to to redesign the product . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} but we can evaluate the process and um uh uh the satisfaction on how things went . Um I'm not sure if we need to evaluate uh the device first . I guess {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well , since we're not gonna manufacture it anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Well , maybe it's good to do it anyway , because if we evaluate it , we we can also determine if our objectives are good . +Project Manager: We l we can learn . Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d it is it is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yay . Is it ? Is it fancy ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Um the yellow rubber , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You like the rubber , uh Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's not that fancy . +Project Manager: No , I'll I'll I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I mean I think uh {disfmarker} I think it would have been more fancy if we used the titanium housing {disfmarker} the casing . It would be even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You like tita {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh , you really like titanium . I'm I'm into it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a flavour as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It has flavour . Yes , that's right . {vocalsound} You should taste it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , +Marketing: Is it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but but it {disfmarker} but that's fancy in the way um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean fancy has has a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It has to do with fashion , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's trendy trendy , fun {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So do {disfmarker} +Marketing: And w +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah , w what they want {disfmarker} wanted was uh colours and soft materials . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So in that way {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it's fancy . +Project Manager: It applies . It {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well , just {vocalsound} give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: It's not the ultimate uh fancy two , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think I th I think it would have been {disfmarker} I would have think {disfmarker} uh it could have been more fancy by using the double-curved case . It would have been even more fancy , but we decided not to , because if we use a double-curved case , we could not use solar . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's sti that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Looking at the user uh needs , we only uh don't {disfmarker} we don't have the double-curved case . We w we do have uh the rubber , we do have the colours . That's two out of three . So I believe uh we are close uh to two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree too . It's okay . We did {gap} {disfmarker} yes , we did good . +Marketing: Okay , and uh was it innovative ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: with the voice recognition feature and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But that's not in it . Ov or can we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: No , we are evaluating this this uh design now . This prototype . +Industrial Designer: Well , let's let's {disfmarker} this product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it is . I think it's innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And the scroll uh wheel . The solar {disfmarker} not many remotes have the solar , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . It could have been a little bit more innovative u by using the kinetic uh energy source , but it's it's way too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That would have been a thrill . +Industrial Designer: yes , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So uh also a uh two ? +Industrial Designer: I think uh it's a two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: I'm not sure . {vocalsound} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah , the voice recognition of course is hard to learn , I think . Well , hard {disfmarker} it's not for the for the e for the elderly . They won't use it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , but there are two parts in this remote control . What you see here is is the basic part . Everybody can use it , so that's easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's for a novice user . When you have a more advanced , elaborate user , well , such a user really would like to explore all these additional functions . So in that in that way it is advanced , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think it's easy to use for for both uh types of users . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} I think a three . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} It's maybe {disfmarker} it's not very uh easy for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Wouldn't give it more . +Project Manager: Uh I'm doubting {disfmarker} doubting as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the p the most important function is easy to use . The the zapping , channel switching , volume . But the more advanced functions are probably a bit harder . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh two or three ? Three ? Wha wh what would be your guess ? I mean ease of use um does not only apply to the most basic functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It's the uh it's it's overall . Is the device easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . You're right in that , but I {gap} {disfmarker} I guess uh an advanced user will will find the voice recognition function easy to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because he is already {disfmarker} he or she is already an advanced user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: After all , I think {disfmarker} personally I would give a two . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh Roo , a three ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: Good question . Uh I'll go uh for the two . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , it's two , two and three . Two threes . So that's ten . +Project Manager: So I could make it e easy ? +User Interface: If you make it a four it will be three in general . +Industrial Designer: So that's w No , two and a half . +User Interface: If he makes it a four . Not a three . +Industrial Designer: Six and four . Six and four is ten . Divided by four is two and a half . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Darn . Nee . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm ? Huh ? +Project Manager: Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A seven , a three {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: Yeah . I yeah {gap} . +User Interface: A four and a three together . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four ? +User Interface: Yeah , you have a two , he has a two . Three ? +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Marketing: two , two , three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And a three ? +Project Manager: I haven't said anything yet . +User Interface: Nee . I know . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , but if I would say a three , then it's six , and four is ten . Divided by four is two point five . +Industrial Designer: Divided by four . +User Interface: Yes . So if you want to have the conclusion as a three {disfmarker} three . Then you would make a four . If you fill out a four {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'm filling in a three . +Industrial Designer: That's not even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} so it will be a two point five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But that's not possible to fill in , +Project Manager: Yes , it is . +Industrial Designer: so we have to round it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it easy to find ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have a veto . {vocalsound} Exactly . It's not about the content , it's about {disfmarker} okay , um is it easy to f Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: we haven't re uh re uh really worked it out , but you c you can you can just say find and he repeats find . +Industrial Designer: It it most definitely is {disfmarker} it's very easy . +Project Manager: Yeah , or beeps or {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's the that's the the basic idea of the the speaker uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Maybe {disfmarker} Uh I I think I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm here , I'm here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: something like that . Maybe you have to uh programme it once , so to that l respond to uh a certain word or a certain sentence , something like where are you , and then it will sing I'm here . So something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But even without it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , I th +Project Manager: we should not uh stay too long on this subject uh because of the time , but I personally give it a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um Sebastian ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Right , well . The feel of the remote control is spongy . Well , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it can't be more spongy . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it can be . There are cases um in which the outside casing is {disfmarker} um can be {disfmarker} uh how d how do you prono is is moldable . +User Interface: Was it one of our options ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's not one of our option , +Marketing: No . Uh +Project Manager: No okay , but but +User Interface: So , in the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but when you look in the market , when you look {disfmarker} +Marketing: this this was a most spongy option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for the options given , it's the most spongy one . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but that's not that's not uh what they are talking about , I think . Because we compare all these uh characteristics {disfmarker} characteristics with uh market {disfmarker} uh with with the real market . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there are uh remote controls out there which are a lot more spongy . They're out there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're out there . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think in this case in this case we've done the best we could . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but it's not good enough , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Industrial Designer: so it's a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I wan I'll take one . +Industrial Designer: You take one ? What do you give it ? +Marketing: Well yeah , it depends , 'cause it's the most spongy we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , but you have to name a fig uh a number . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Because we need to go on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for the time . +Marketing: Well , if I give it a one there'll be one hell of a calculation . +User Interface: It will be a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I'll just give it a two and make this a one point five . +Industrial Designer: No no no . Uh I'll I'll change it , I'll make it m my my mark will be a four . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You are {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The remote control offers enough features . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , Ruud , what what do you think about it ? +Marketing: Well , the basic layout doesn't offem {disfmarker} offer much , but the voice recognition could add a lot . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically it's it's completely programmable . +Marketing: Yeah , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can add very m much functionality by uh using the voice recognition mode . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: So it's quite advanced . +Project Manager: What what we didn't talk about is um uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it ha doesn't has the digits . I believe it's {disfmarker} If you uh ask yourself it offers enough features , I don't I don't think it is {disfmarker} it has all the features um a normal remote has . +Project Manager: I think it has . +Marketing: Uh depends on what you uh implement in the speech feat +Project Manager: Yeah . Bec because you can um {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it , but you do have uh remote controls that are able to adapt another signal . So , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: you place a a regular uh remote control in front of the other one , hit the one or the two or the three , whatever , and it r records the uh the um {gap} {disfmarker} the the signals . +Industrial Designer: Has uh the signals sent to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Signal . +Project Manager: So you could uh uh uh enter any comment you like , as long it's able to {disfmarker} as long as our device is able to reproduce the infrared signal . So I think th this uh this is uh a a remote control with a very high level of features . +Industrial Designer: Absolutely . +Project Manager: Although there are i a few buttons , but the inside is is quite uh advanced . +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that {disfmarker} that's its power , I guess , because uh a regular programmable uh remote control contains , well , uh really a lot of buttons . At at least uh forty buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's quite s complicated to get uh to get used to . And this is quite s simple . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: You can use your voice to to programme it . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um let's give it a number . I'll give it uh a one . For for the {disfmarker} for this t uh type of market , I think it's a one . +User Interface: I'll give a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll give it a one . +Marketing: Um I think think a one , 'cause {gap} v with a voice recognition you could add anything you want , so that's like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . I I've {disfmarker} I think we've uh succe succeed in in developing a product that's actually quite good , but not for this kind of market , and not for this kind of price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So high quality , low acceptance . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: The product is is is uh b high qua uh has a high quality and and is uh advanced . But {vocalsound} whether or not our clients are are um willing to pay twenty five Euros for this kind of device is doub is {disfmarker} well , is not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: D do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I agree . I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe even because it doesn't look advanced . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe we should have a radar uh {vocalsound} function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: But we could {disfmarker} couldn't uh {disfmarker} what what's the selling price ? Fifty ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Uh twenty five . And costs were twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But even now , if only our production costs w {vocalsound} uh were exceeded the double , Think . Production cost was {disfmarker} were t uh was twenty two ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh {gap} selling price uh would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M about fifty Euros . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's quite ex +User Interface: That's price , but w w +Industrial Designer: well , it's not it's not very expensive for a remote control that that has this functionality . +User Interface: No . An original remote control of any T_V_ kind , uh a Phillips remote control , y you pay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's more than fifty Euros . It's quite expensive , yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I kn I know uh from a few years ago , it it it costed hundred Gilders . +Project Manager: Bu but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah , I know , but you're paying for th for the brand , because there are uh remote controls which control your stereo , television , D_V_D_ , C_D_ player , for under twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , but you can you c Yes , but you can learn this thing , all these functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's easier to use because those uh remote controls don't offer voice recognition +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and this one does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think it's worth its price . +Project Manager: Okay . Um you had an overall rating . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} with these ratings uh +Project Manager: That's counting . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it's about one point five . Something like that . +Marketing: should be about one point s seven , +User Interface: Four six seven eight . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Nine divided by six . +Project Manager: Okay . Um we'll go further on with the the rest of the evaluation . About the project itself , not about the product . Um {disfmarker} What did you think about uh the process , the project process ? Ruud ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to translate that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any any other {disfmarker} Uh , Roo ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ye +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Roo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The process was good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But w um we weren't aware of the prices of the costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And and that was the the big deal . I if we knew that before , we c we could have made +Industrial Designer: Mm . Actually , we had {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the choice between {gap} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Better decision . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: We had we had too little information actually . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} And uh um the the the {disfmarker} well , looking at room for creativity , there was w way too {disfmarker} the the choice of components was way too narrow . +Project Manager: Less . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there was not really a process of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we could we we could be {disfmarker} we could've been creative . But um it was tempered by the choice of components and the the price . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Yes . +Marketing: The prices . +Industrial Designer: Well , in the first meeting we we already were very creative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We we thought of possibilities {vocalsound} who are not possible uh with the the current uh offer of uh manufacturing components . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're tempered by that , yes . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo ? Any other thoughts on that ? +User Interface: No , no . +Project Manager: Ruud ? +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: You agree , okay . Uh leadership . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Roo's on for his promotion . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we're a good team . +Project Manager: I think so too , it's it's it's uh of course a laboratory environment . I missed it um to be able to contact you in between and uh say uh , hey Roo uh {gap} . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I tried once , but that was not allowed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but but si uh w w w {gap} {disfmarker} when taken in account the the situation , uh I think we performed pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the means , the SMARTboard , the digital pen . Did you like 'em ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . The digital pen was okay , but SMARTboard was really bad . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because of the response +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Response +Industrial Designer: The response is very slow +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the possibilities are very limited . It's not accurate . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it it has {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , it's not accurate . The p the pointing of the pen is not um the place where it it writes its {disfmarker} um uh where it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Draws . +User Interface: Yeah , where it draws . It's uh {disfmarker} the drawing on on the b on the board is {gap} r right from the pen . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it it had to be um better aligned , or what's the word ? +User Interface: You to take in account that your {disfmarker} you m +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +User Interface: yeah uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's {disfmarker} it needs to be calibrateds . +User Interface: It's too slow {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It it was calibrated just before this meeting . Uh the one before , the third meeting . +Industrial Designer: It is ? +Project Manager: So uh it's not the calibration , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: it's the thing itself , I think . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , w uh did you use the pen a lot ? Or not at all ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Not at all . +Marketing: Not really . +Project Manager: Okay . I thought it was quite a handy uh thing , +Industrial Designer: I I think so too . +Project Manager: although I would like to see um O_C_R_ . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +User Interface: If it has O_C_R_ {vocalsound} , uh I think uh I would use , but uh I I just uh took notes for myself and and and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It w it w yeah . It was necessary for me to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To digitise them . +User Interface: Yeah , because if I want something on the computer , I just type it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I type faster than I write . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think it's a great solution for uh for uh a known problem , uh writing down some notes , some some inf uh information , and then um forgetting your notebook somewhere and losing all that information . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because you have everything in one place and it's quite easy quite easy {disfmarker} it's it's possible to make this information digital and share it with others in a quite easy way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a good product . I only think it's th the the shape of the pen is too big . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not quite uh ergonomic . Eco ergonomic . +User Interface: Economic . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um {disfmarker} What w Uh Ruud , what did you think about the SMARTboards ? +Marketing: Oh , I only use it to draw a rabbit , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , you can't really decide . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can't say much about it . +Project Manager: I missed a feature to easily select uh a slide and uh distribute it to the laptops . I think that would be very easy if you could say okay , I want to use this for my own work or my own presentation further on or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: No , or the other way around . +Project Manager: Or the other way around , that you could show {disfmarker} but m +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +User Interface: But y you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's quite what PowerPoint does . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know . +User Interface: if you save this image , you can open it in your shared work folder . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's almost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , but we couldn't use that feature , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: so I missed it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We weren't able to do that . At least the {disfmarker} um I wasn't explained how to do such a th +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {gap} . A and the function of of filling an an uh an oval or an an object . +Industrial Designer: An object , yes . Yes . +User Interface: I it's not possible {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The drawing cap capabilities are very limited . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And and uh w you were {disfmarker} when you're using uh Windows , you're used to a certain interface and certain buttons , uh which you can use for drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of these buttons don't appear here . So it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh it looks like paint actually . +Project Manager: Okay , so y it {disfmarker} it's not even as advanced as paint . +Industrial Designer: Not not uh n not {gap} way . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's quite uh limited . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , the project is evaluated . Um but , well , we need to redesign uh the product . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh , very good , celebration . +Project Manager: Celebrate +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pop uh pop up the champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: It was a privilege working with you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you're dismissed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think we are uh ready . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: To private rooms ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I see some action over there . +Project Manager: Private room , Roo . That sounds quite scary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No , let's find uh the way to {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} uh we're done , we're finished , {gap} I believe . So , are there any more cycles in this process ? I think not . +Project Manager: I don't believe so . Well , maybe we'd {disfmarker} get an email . Thank you for your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But um how much time did we get for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: And how much time is left ? +Project Manager: A minute or or ten maybe . M +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah , ten or five . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So , we can uh redesign our uh {disfmarker} Uh I would like to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I think we we we all know what the redesign should be . A simple , dull , uh one-coloured box . +Marketing: And no added value . At all . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it's just the same product that is already on the market . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: But you see the problem , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: y you can't continue your uh your line . Well , it's fluffy alright . {vocalsound} Spongy . A giraffe ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is that ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a giraffe eating a {disfmarker} eating leaves from a tree . +Project Manager: It's blue tongue . +Marketing: In interesting design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} This is a new model . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So you're actually promoting Bluetooth . Or blue tongue . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Blue tongue . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh uh it it does uh have a natural uh feeling . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's spongy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . {vocalsound} That is uh {disfmarker} it's a new feature next to Bluetooth to um disable all Bluetooth devices . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Blue tongue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Let's wrap it up . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're done here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Gentlemen , thank you for your cooperation . +Industrial Designer: Thank you Mister manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now , {vocalsound} let's have uh a bottle of champagne . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . Leave it here . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: That's alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} +","The discussion under review revolves around a collaborative product design meeting that includes team members from various disciplines – a User Interface specialist, an Industrial Designer, a Project Manager, and a Marketing representative. The dialogue is a complex interplay of ideas and considerations for an electronic device, potentially a remote control with novel features. + +The conversation starts with the User Interface professional describing an aspect of the user interface featuring a round button atop the device. The Industrial Designer chimes in, acknowledging the description and indicating the significance of a device that is accessible to use, comparing it to a regular remote control that gains additional functionality over time, such as voice recognition features for more skilled users. + +The Project Manager probes for clarifications, likening a scroll bar to a shortcut and querying about the potential of voice recognition to serve similarly. The Industrial Designer agrees, suggesting the importance of designing features that align with customer preferences, especially for new users who require an intuitive understanding of basic functions like changing channels and adjusting volume. + +As their discussion progresses, they address the materials to be used for the device's casing and buttons, considering the use of rubber and plastic, along with a color scheme involving yellow with grey or black, while being mindful of cost-effectiveness. + +The group explores the possibility of programming specific buttons for channel assignments, with the Industrial Designer pointing out that such tasks are usually one-time actions. The Project Manager and User Interface specialist suggest additional button functionalities, including the activation and deactivation of voice recognition. + +The conversation turns to evaluation criteria, where the goal is to assess if the device's aesthetics and functionalities meet the customer's needs. They debate the fancy factor and ease of use of the device. Though they recognize the voice recognition may have a learning curve, they still rate the design relatively well in these categories. + +Moving on to the commercial aspects, the Project Manager discusses production costs. The device has a luxury model with costly features like solar cells and voice recognition, making it more expensive than their budget allows. A stripped-down version without these features is proposed to achieve a cost goal of twelve euros and fifty cents. However, this results in a less innovative and less appealing product that might cater to a different market segment. + +The group also examines the possibility of reducing costs by changing materials, suggesting the use of just plastic for buttons to cut costs. They realize that such compromises will drastically alter the device's design and functionality, leading to a discussion about whether this would still appeal to their intended market. They express a need to reassess their approach, considering a simpler design that maximizes profit, possibly targeting a different customer base – one that does not require fancy, high-tech features. + +Through this intricate dialogue, the team assesses different aspects of the product, from user interface elements and industrial design ideas to market considerations and cost calculations. They recognize that the current design, despite its innovative potential, might not fit within the prescribed budget, thus necessitating further reevaluation and redesign efforts in line with the business objectives and market demands. They conclude that the device's ultimate design must be aligned with the production budget and the board's expectations for it to be a viable product." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Suzy Davies is going to be arriving a little bit late. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No? Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is an evidence session to scrutinise the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Claire Bennett, who is deputy director for curriculum and assessment. Thank you all for attending this morning, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking you what the main messages are that you've received during the feedback period on the draft curriculum. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Chair. If I may, I think it's important to understand what the level of that feedback has been. So, there was a concerted effort and a plan drawn up to try and ensure that there was as much engagement, knowledge and opportunity as possible. So, working through the regional consortia, approximately 120 separate events were organised, and we believe that in the region of 6,000 headteachers, teachers, governors and teaching assistants have actually had an opportunity to participate in those events. We also held a number of focus group sessions specifically for young people themselves, so that they could give us their feedback. There were 24 focus groups that were arranged for children and young people. We also held some specific events to engage with the business community. We'll all be familiar, won't we, with the narrative of, 'Oh, we're sending people out into the world of business without the skills that we as an employer are looking for'. So we thought it was really important to engage business so that they can have their say and their input into the process. And obviously we work very hard on making it as easy as possible via new technology for people to have their say. So, Members, I'm sure, will have been aware of the specific pages on Hwb that outlined the draft curriculum, and we had 275,000 unique visits to the Hwb curriculum pages. It's really interesting to see the breakdown of the areas of learning and experience—which particular AoLEs were the most popular and were being looked at the most—with our creative and performing arts and the creativity and the expressive arts being the most popular. So that's really interesting that people really wanted to engage in the content of that particular AoLE. What, then, have people said to us? Well, I'm really pleased that there has been broad support for the curriculum changes that we are proposing. There's real support for the need for change, because that's the first question, actually; why are we doing this, and why do we need to change? So, support for the need for change, and lots of support for the principle of a purpose-led curriculum. So, good levels of support for the four purposes, and that driving the content below it. Strong support for greater autonomy and agency for the profession—so, the ability of the profession to take a framework and then truly let them adapt it to meet the needs of the children that they are working with in their communities. Also, a great welcome of the emphasis on formative assessment and the importance of formative assessment. In terms of some of the things that people are asking us to look again at, some of that is around some of the language used. Can we clarify, can we simplify in some areas, are there things that are repeated in a variety of AoLEs? Can we use that as an overarching, rather than repeating ourselves? Can we simplify it and clarify some of the language? Also, in some areas—. It's interesting; in some areas people want it simplified and cut down, but in other areas, people say, 'Well actually, in this bit of it, we need a bit more detail, and a bit more depth and clarity'. So we'll be reflecting on all the feedback that we've had. That process has already started, but considering that this is a massive change, I have been hugely encouraged, actually, by the high levels of engagement and support for the broad principles of what we're doing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister. You said that you're reflecting on the messages that you've received. Are you able to give the committee any early indication of what level of change you anticipate making to the guidance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's really important and what has been the strength of the process to date is that we are not doing this to our profession, we are doing it with our profession. So, in the spirit of co-construction, the reflection on the feedback will continue to be primarily led by the existing infrastructure that we already had that got us to this stage at present. So, Members will be aware that we've slightly changed the model. We had our pioneer school model and we have slightly refined that now. Pioneers were asked if they wanted to continue in that process and to put themselves forward, and we've narrowed that down now to a smaller group of innovative schools. But above and beyond the innovative schools, we looked at individuals who have specific expertise in subject areas, and they're the first part of that process. So, they met last week to begin looking at the feedback, and we'll continue to use the processes that we have to reflect and refine. Are there big changes to the concept? No. Opportunities to do things better, explain things better, simplify where possible, where we've been told that that needs to happen, provide greater depth where we've been told that needs to happen—absolutely. We're definitely very alive and very willing to engage in those, but in terms of the overall concept, then no, no significant changes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. And what are the steps now before the final curriculum is published in January 2020? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, the quality—. We call them—it's not a very nice name—quality improvement practitioners, the QI practitioners. So, these are the subject specialists. They met last week to begin this process. In October, there will be a number of workshops lasting three days at a time where those practitioners will continue that process of feedback with our curriculum and assessment group and all those people involved. By November, we would expect the QI groups to have completed their work and would want them to be in a position to hand over the refinements to an editorial process, and that has to be done in both languages. I think it's really important that we don't do it in English and then we simply translate it into Welsh. So, the editorial process will then be engaged to draw up the final example. It also, then, hands over to the publication team to do all the work on the publication, our website team will then be working on it, and then we would expect final publication in January—am I right, Claire? +Claire Bennett: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, January. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some specific questions now on the legislation from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You've touched on the point that there's going to be some sort of change, and you've mentioned in your paper to us that further specific aspects of the framework of the curriculum are going to be included in the primary legislation. We want to know what those aspects will be and what has made you change your mind. +Kirsty Williams AM: The original proposal that we began working on was, in the legislation, to provide for the four purposes—so, the four purposes would be set out in the legislation—as well as putting in law the areas of learning and experience that you'll all be familiar with. Then, below that, we were going to legislate for a number of the cross-curricular aspects—so, the literacy, the numeracy and the digital competency—as well as some elements where we had already said that we were going to make that statutory, so, for instance, above and beyond what Graham Donaldson would have put in his original reports. A good example of that is relationships and sexuality education. I've already made an announcement that I was going to put RSE on the face of the Bill. So, the two main new areas that we are now working on to include within the Bill are to ensure that there is breadth within the curriculum for everybody—. So, we will make a statutory provision for the 'what matters' statements. So, we're bringing it a step lower again. Rather than simply, in law, leaving it at the AoLE level, we'll be bringing it down again to the 'what matters' statements within that, again, providing greater certainty and greater clarity about our expectations at a national level. We'll also be looking to include in the legislation provision for a statutory framework setting out our approach to progression in each of the AoLE areas. So, there has been in the Chamber—I can see Suzy is writing this down—Suzy has asked me questions about, 'How do you create a national expectation around progression?' We've reflected on that and our conversations with other people outside during this process, so we would look to have a statutory framework where our expectations of progression at a national level would be laid out. As I said, we are proposing those changes because of responses that we've had. One of the consistent worries that some people have had, whilst being very supportive of the overall aims, is how do you get that balance between individual autonomy in the school, but also ensure that there is some national expectation and that the variation on these important things is not so great as to cause concern. So, we've reflected on that. I set up a process—this was an open process, and we were open to listening to people. So, I think those will be the two main areas where we hadn't originally thought that we would legislate for, but that we will now legislate for. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Great. That's very helpful. I haven't got the 'what matters' statements in front of me— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, if you remember, we have the four purposes, and then we have the areas of learning and experience, and then, below the areas of learning and experience are the broad concepts that we would expect to be delivered in each of those areas of learning and experience. So, we're going to be refining some of those. Some of the feedback that we've had is that— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, will you be adding to those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Adding is not necessarily—no, not adding. But, for instance, the children have given us some interesting feedback about what they feel really matters in those areas of learning and experience. So, they'll be refined, but not added to, and then we will legislate for them, and that hadn't been the original intention. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Will they include mental health and well-being? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the area of learning and experience for well-being is already there, and underneath that area of learning title, there are the broad concepts of what matters, what we believe matters, in that area of learning, and it is that that we will now actually put into the legislation. Sorry, I'm not helping, because I haven't got them with me either to read them out. +Lynne Neagle AM: They are in the annex to the paper, Siân, and, obviously, mental health is in there. So, just to clarify, then, that would mean that every school would have to teach mental health by law. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, because the 'what matters' states very clearly the broad concepts in health and well-being. It refers to both physical and mental health, and we intend to legislate to ensure that the 'what matters' statements are a set given in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Claire, am I explaining it okay? +Claire Bennett: Yes, the 'what matters' are the articulation of the big ideas. These are the essence of the core content. So, the idea is to make sure that those are consistent, and then that still leaves huge flexibility underneath as to how to approach those, which particular topics to select in how to actually teach them. But the concept that you might not do one 'what matters'—it was never what was intended. They were always intended to represent, as a whole, the learning that every learner should get. They won't be literally in the Bill, because, obviously, you might want to change the emphasis, so that'll be provided for in subordinate legislation, but the provision will be there, and they will have the status of something that's not optional, basically, for a school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, it's not going to be on the face of the Bill—the mental health aspect, for example. And there are other matters that we've raised here. This is what I'm not clear about. You're saying that it's subordinate, but then you're saying— +Kirsty Williams AM: So, on the face of the Bill, we will make provision to say that the 'what matters' statements have to be delivered. Over time, the 'what matters' statements might change. So the actual wording of the 'what matters' statements will be in secondary legislation; the need to deliver and the requirement, the legal requirement to deliver the 'what matters' statement, will be on the face of the Bill. So, for instance, education is changing all the time. If I think, if we had sat here 20 years ago, we probably, in a 'what matters' statement on health and well-being, wouldn't have referred to mental health, 20 years ago, because our understanding as a society, our willingness as a society to engage in that—. So, if we had drawn up a 'what matters' statement even a decade ago, I suspect we wouldn't have talked about mental health. So, the concept of having to deliver the 'what matters' statement will be in the primary legislation; the actual wording, because otherwise if you wanted to change it you'd have to go through the entire process—. So, the wording of the 'what matters' statement will be in secondary legislation. The actual need and the compulsion, the expectation that you have to do that, will be on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this question of the distinction between primary and secondary legislation. The point you've made is one that Government has made with other legislation prior to this, but can I just ask you to consider the worthiness, if you like, or the good purpose of actually putting the wording of the 'what matters' statements, the first round of those, in the primary legislation on the basis that they can be amended through affirmative procedure secondary legislation when they need changing in due course? The reason I ask this is just to explain to the population of Wales that there is certainty at the first step, bearing in mind that it will change over the years—I completely accept that. But when you're amending primary legislation, you don't have to go through the whole process again—you can do it via secondary legislation provided the correct powers are put in the primary legislation to do that. So, I'm just asking you to consider that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, as I said, I think we've demonstrated that we're listening to people, that there has been concern expressed about certainty and having a national approach on some of these issues, and we have taken steps to address that and we'll continue to reflect, but, crucially, we'll continue to reflect with our partners who are co-constructing this with us. And I think the important thing to remember is that it's not Ministers or civil servants that are necessarily drawing up these 'what matters' statements, it is practitioners themselves, guided by experts in the field that are not teachers, that have come up with these things. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Obviously, the Bill will presumably come to this committee— +Kirsty Williams AM: We're assuming so. +Lynne Neagle AM: And we'll have an opportunity to influence it. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Moving on, therefore, to the religious education and relationships and sexuality education, I understand that you've had numerous responses to the White Paper surrounding this particular area. What are the main points that were raised with you and how do you intend to respond to what's been said? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, these two areas certainly have ensured that lots of people have responded. It's interesting that people are far more interested in what we may or may not do about these two subjects than maths, English, Welsh, science, but there we go; I guess it's the nature of the areas that we're talking about. With regard to religious education, we had a significant number of people that have expressed concerns about our approaches towards RE that were set out in the White Paper. I think amongst the things that people have objected to were—. There were very mixed views on the inclusion of a range of faiths and world religions included in that area of learning. Many people said that there needed to be a much clearer and stronger—and in some cases exclusive—focus on Christianity, as opposed to including other world religions and, indeed, non-religious views. So, secular views or spiritual—spirituality rather than organised religion. There were people who thought that RE shouldn't be compulsory at all and therefore our proposals to ensure that RE was compulsory, people objected to that, on the other—. And there were many responses that were concerned about and emphasised the need to respect parents' views. So, if a child's parents have certain views, those are to be respected. Of those respondents that agreed that RE should be a compulsory part of the curriculum, or were neutral—didn't express an opinion either way, but were neutral on the question—the issues that they were bringing forward were: a need for learners, as they saw it, to be prepared to be part of a diverse and multicultural society. So, they wanted RE to be much more broad-based and encompassing of world views and world religions. They felt that that was an important part of preparing a young person to live in a world that is, as you say, diverse with people of different views living in it. There is certainly a need to modernise RE; some people perceived the current curriculum as a bit old-fashioned. And also there was much feedback on making sure that the profession was ready to deliver a renewed, modernised RE curriculum. So, those are the issues around religious education— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I just—? Before you go on to the next section—is there evidence that this was a co-ordinated lobby to present a particular view and what is your response going to be to this? Obviously, there are always going to be lobbies presenting particular viewpoints. Our role, as politicians, is to lead, obviously, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Claire, would you say that it was a co-ordinated response? +Claire Bennett: It wasn't a campaign in the sense of it being completely consistent, but, certainly, I think people with a particular interest in this issues felt galvanised to respond to the White Paper on this issue—on this one and on relationships and sex education. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And your response? +Kirsty Williams AM: And my response: well, clearly, Siân, I need to consider those responses, and both for RE and RSE, I shall be making a statement in the near future of our intentions on how to respond to these issues. With regard to RSE, the key messages, again, are focused on whether children should be taught RSE at all and that this should not be in the curriculum and it shouldn't be a compulsory part of the curriculum—that this was not an area where the school system and the education system should be involved, and that it should be alone the preserve of parents to teach children about issues around relationships and sexuality education. There were some issues raised about potential challenges with staff in talking about issues that they perhaps personally did not agree with with regard to this curriculum. So, those were the main areas that people were concerned about. With regard to guaranteed access to a full curriculum, there were strong views that, again, it should be parents, and parents alone, that made decisions about whether their children should have access to the entirety of the curriculum rather than schools or the state setting those rules. So, I have to reflect on what has come back as part of the consultation exercise. I think these are really important aspects of our curriculum. I think if we are to achieve the four purposes, and that's how we have always got to think about it, and if we agree that those are the kind of people and individuals we want leaving our compulsory education system—how do we achieve those purposes? How are they healthy, confident individuals? How are we to prepare our children to be ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world? So, we will reflect on what has come back to us, but I do believe that these are important aspects of the curriculum, if we are to achieve the four purposes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. You've also mentioned that there will be a final draft of the curriculum at the start of next year. What is the timetable for the Bill itself and for seeking Royal Assent for that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, as I said earlier, the expectation is that we will publish a final version of the curriculum in January 2020, so schools will then have the opportunity to be really engaging in it. I have to say, I'm in schools most weeks, and many, many, many schools are already taking the opportunity, even on the draft, to begin to think about planning and, indeed, changing what they're doing in schools. I'm overwhelmed, actually, by the enthusiasm of the sector to embrace what is a massive change for them. So, that's January. We would expect to introduce the Bill following the Easter recess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That gives enough time, then, for it to be— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: —actually implemented in September— +Kirsty Williams AM: In 2022. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In 2022, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think what's really important is that we get the actual curriculum out in January itself, because that's the bit that schools are really concerned about, and then we will have the process here to underpin it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now on potential unintended consequences, and other matters relating to that, from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask what value you place on the work done by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods and the presentation so far and the paper to be presented by Dr Nigel Newton? +Kirsty Williams AM: I always—and Welsh Government are big supporters of WISERD and the work that they do, and, in fact, we need more research into Welsh education, not less. Therefore, I find their papers really helpful and help us to inform our work. I think what's really important in perhaps this piece of work is to say that I hope that, in the time where I've had an influence to influence over Welsh education, either as a backbencher or now as a Minister, equality and principles of equity have always driven what I've tried to achieve. And I would never undertake a policy reform that I thought would lead to less equity in the Welsh education system. Closing the attainment gap is a core element of the national mission for education in Wales and we would not proceed with anything that we thought could lead to an exacerbation of an achievement gap. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And how do you respond, then—? I mean, it's a balanced paper, it looks at pros and cons and there's a mixed picture from it. How do you respond to the specific statement that Dr Nigel Newton said that the curriculum could exacerbate segregation within schools between different groups of pupils? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think what the paper acknowledges is that there is no evidence that that will happen. These are 'coulds' and 'maybes' and things that we need, as a Government, to take into consideration as we plan this journey. There can't be any empirical research done at the moment because the curriculum isn't being delivered, but I understand, and we need listen to—. If there are concerns out there in the field that these are unintended consequences that we may fall into—that is the value of that piece of research that helps inform us. I have to say, though, the curriculum in itself is neither going to necessarily on its own hugely enhance equity nor detract from equity, in the sense that the curriculum is what's taught in our schools. There is an opportunity, I believe, that empowering teachers to be able to be more flexible in what they teach their children actually gives us an opportunity to deliver lessons that could be much more engaging and much more relevant to some of our schoolchildren than what they have at the moment. What will make the curriculum a success for all of our children, and I believe will have a bigger impact on children who are in danger of being left behind, are the four enabling purposes of the curriculum. So, the curriculum on its own can play a part, but it will only be as good as the four enabling elements that surround it. And that is strong leadership of our schools that ensures that there is no segregation, that has high expectation of all of our children, and delivers a curriculum within that setting that meets the needs of the children there. Secondly: excellent teaching. In the end, no education system, whatever its curriculum, can exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out. So, the curriculum can be the most exciting, wonderful—and I think it is exciting and I think it's wonderful—it can be the most exciting, wonderful thing in the world, but if teachers can't teach it effectively, if their pedagogy is not excellent, then the content itself—it won't work. Then we've got issues around assessment and accountability. So, how do you assess how children are doing in your new curriculum? How do you understand how that pupil, who has, you know—who could be vulnerable for a whole host of reasons, usually reasons outside of the school—? That pupil is vulnerable. How can you assess how that pupil is and move their learning along in an appropriate fashion? And then, finally, the well-being of the child. People sometimes say, 'Oh, you're going soft—typical, going soft'. But what we know is that we cannot expect children to learn unless we address issues around their well-being. But we also know that poor achievement is also detrimental to a child's well-being. There's been lots and lots of research done, not in a Welsh context but in other systems, where children are kept behind for a year. That has a massive impact on their well-being. So, good achievement leads to good well-being, but good well-being also leads to good achievement, and you can't separate the two. So, the curriculum on its own will not be enough. It is the four enabling objectives that sit around it, and we have to be cognisant of the WISERD's research, of course we do, to ensure that, as we're doing our professional learning, as we're planning well-being for our children, as we think about assessment methods and how we develop a culture of strong leaders in our schools—and we have some, we have many, but we need to do more to support them—it is that that will make the biggest difference, not just the content of the curriculum on its own. Although I do believe the flexibility that we're allowing people will, I think, lead to a curriculum and more meaningful lessons for some children in schools who are in danger of disengaging because they don't understand why they're being asked to learn what they're learning, they don't see the relevance of what they're learning to what they may want to do or how their lives are, or they don't see themselves reflected. So, for some of our communities, they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum that we're teaching at the moment. And, again, international research would suggest that, if you want a child to thrive, they have to see themselves and their community reflected in what they're learning in schools. +Hefin David AM: What the WISERD research suggests is that the senior management teams—the management teams—would certainly buy into what you've just said, but the classroom teachers would be a little bit more sceptical. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, classroom teachers are absolutely crucial to this, which is why, first of all, we've taken the difficult step to delay the implementation of the curriculum to give us the time that we need to make sure that it's not just school leaders but it is individual classroom practitioners who have the skills that they need to make the most of the opportunity that the curriculum allows them. +Hefin David AM: So, if we look at some of the statements that were in the presentation by WISERD at the seminar two comments jump out: 'We'll end up'—this is from classroom teachers— 'We'll end up with a different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' and 'there will be no consistency'. And consistency is the one I'd particularly like to focus on: 'there will be no consistency across all schools in how the new curriculum is delivered which could affect outcomes'. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we've just talked, haven't we, about trying to ensure that there is greater consistency and that's why we're changing our approach to the legislation around the Bill. So, in terms of progression steps, there will be a statutory framework to ensure that progression is the same wherever you are in Wales. So, as I said, we're using this report, we're using this feedback, to inform decisions going forward. In terms of—. Read the first bit again. Was it—[Interruption.] Accountability, yes. +Hefin David AM: Yes: 'different accountability framework to the aims and objectives of the new curriculum.' +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, as always, in education, teachers—understandably, because this is the regime that they have been a part of—immediately don't think about their pedagogy, they think about, 'How are judgments going to be made upon me as an individual?' And what we're trying to do is ensure that we are developing another accountability regime that is indeed in line with the purposes of the curriculum and doesn't work against the purposes of the curriculum. So, I understand why teachers are concerned. They spend a lot of time thinking about accountability and how they're going to be held accountable for their practice, but, again, what we want to do is provide reassurance that we are devising an accountability regime for our system that is in line with the purposes of the curriculum and puts us in line with the mainstream thought and reform process across the world of progressive education systems. +Hefin David AM: It was the segregation bit I was particularly interested in and the response with regard to disadvantaged pupils and pupils of lower attainment. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't—. I do not believe that any changes—and I would not pursue any changes that—would lead to a segregation. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And with regard to the connection between Welsh Government and local government and the concerns that the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Education Wales raised, what progress has been made on bridging the gap between—? Whether it's a perception gap or a practice gap, what progress has been made on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the last time we had this conversation in the committee I said that I think the comments that the WLGA and ADEW had made were reflective of an old piece of work and were not current and up to date, and I think progress had been made in that time, and I'm pleased to report the significant progress that's been made— +Hefin David AM: Bridges have been built. +Kirsty Williams AM: Bridges have been—. Well, from my perspective, the bridges were always there. But we've got renewed, energetic engagement from the WLGA and ADEW in all the arrangements that we have for the development of the curriculum and my understanding is that they have said publicly and in writing that they're very supportive of what's going on. +Hefin David AM: I'm sure they're watching and nodding vigorously now on Senedd.tv. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I will be with them tomorrow night and Friday morning and I'm sure if they've got any other views they'll let me know. +Hefin David AM: And the final question: there is a process, a model for this, which is Scotland. What kind of lessons are being learned from the introduction of their curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think the first thing to realise is that our curriculum is not a copycat of the Scottish curriculum, but it is always useful to reflect on how other systems have undertaken curriculum reform in their nation and to learn from any issues that have arisen. So, I think it's fair to say—and I spent time with some delegates from Scotland just this weekend at the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory conference that Wales hosted this year. Unfortunately, Minister Swinney was not able to attend at the very last minute because of Brexit preparedness work that he was involved in, but certainly their teaching union and their equivalent of the EWC in Scotland joined us as well as representatives from the Scottish Government, although not John himself, and they were very frank about some of the challenges that they had faced in introducing their curriculum. Part of that is about assessment and they had not really thought—. They spent all their time thinking about content and spent no time at all thinking about assessment. Assessment has been a crucial part of the process that we have been involved in. Professional learning, ensuring that the profession was properly prepared for the changes, I think they would agree that that wasn't necessarily—. The middle tier, which they don't have to the—. Well, they've got local authorities and regions, but whether they were truly engaged in what they were doing. So, I think we've learned—. Although our curriculum isn't a copycat, as I said, we have been able to learn from, and we've had people who have been deeply involved in the Scottish experience as part of some of our curriculum and assessment groups and some of the advice that we've had in terms of developing coherence. But, Steve, I don't know if—. You speak to your Scottish colleagues quite a lot. +Steve Davies: As I said, they're very forthright in sharing their learning and I think one of the critical elements was the extent to which assessment was considered at the outset alongside the curriculum content. So, that was critical, but we've embraced experts who were involved in that process who were part of our curriculum assessment group. So, they feed in throughout—not 'don't do this because Scotland has done it', but they feed some of that learning into the system. As the Minister said, we had seven other countries from across the world giving us feedback and input over four days as to where we can continue to look at what we're doing but also checks and balances against some of their experiences with this area of reform. +Kirsty Williams AM: The particular focus of this year's conference was on the issue of assessment and we were joined by colleagues from Scotland, from Ireland, from Iceland, from Finland, from Saskatchewan, from Nova Scotia and from Uruguay. +Hefin David AM: When did that take place? +Kirsty Williams AM: Where? +Hefin David AM: When. +Kirsty Williams AM: The weekend just gone. +Hefin David AM: Right. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. You've got a whole section on assessment, I don't know— +Suzy Davies AM: This isn't about assessment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: So, on the basis that this is not about assessment, you mentioned that one of the lessons learned from Scotland is that they said they spent too much time on curriculum content rather than assessment. Can you tell me a little bit about what you've learned about how they quality control the content, even though the content, of course, will be completely different in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, the content would be completely different. When I said they spent too much time, I said that the focus had been in their work about just talking about content and, actually, the assessment arrangements were bolted on at the end of the process. So, the curriculum was all designed and developed, it was sent out to schools, and then the question was raised: 'Oh, actually, what assessment methods—? How are going to assess how children are getting on?' But, Steve, you would have more details of their exact experience of quality control of the content— +Suzy Davies AM: Of the content, because every school is going to be very different at this. +Steve Davies: In terms of developing the guidance and the curriculum going out in January is concerned, I think—again, I don't want to be overly critical, but one of the findings was that they encouraged schools to go forth and multiply in terms of the materials and ideas and concepts that were coming through. What we learnt was to actually—the pioneer movement was to get a smaller group to develop those materials and look to engage through cluster groups. So, we had pioneers who worked with clusters to test the development of that concept before we were looking for schools to go away and develop a larger amount of content. So, in terms of the staging and measuring of bringing together the curriculum and the associated guidance, I think the time we've taken to actually get there and the strategy of using pioneer schools, external experts, back to pioneer schools, back to regions, or engaging regions in that, has been more measured and planned against a planned timescale, where everyone from the outset—with the exception of the extension of the one year—was clear on when we were going to be producing materials that would allow the profession to then take it and use it. I think—. Claire, do you want to add to that, or—? +Claire Bennett: I think, as we move forward, that kind of cluster approach remains really important. So, it's, as schools then think about, 'What am I going to do in my school?', that they're doing that in clusters together. When colleagues from the regional consortia were sharing their thinking with the curriculum assessment group last week, they were talking about the very specific and differentiated, I suppose, professional learning support that they would be offering to schools that have already done quite a lot of thinking and are quite far down this journey and then the kind of different sorts of approaches they would offer schools that are just starting out. Their emphasis was very much on this peer-to-peer sharing and support, so people aren't just going off in isolation. The other thing that will also help in that process will be the national network. So, there'll continue to be a focus for each area of learning and experience, bringing together the professional learning and the ongoing curriculum development, bringing together practitioners and experts and colleagues across the middle tier to give a bit of strategic direction and to be able to identify if there are areas where more support is needed. So, I think that a huge amount of thinking, particularly in the regions, has gone on into the practical support that can be given to schools, not just in engaging with the curriculum now, but then how they take it and think about then developing it in their schools. It feels like—I think Graham Donaldson was calling it a 'slow-burn process'. You don't start in 2022—people are already doing it and there's a lot of thought going into how to support continued sharing through the next two years. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think that's another difference, you see—that strong middle tier and the role that the middle tier is playing in Wales, which was absent in Scotland. So, this ability to work in networks to provide support to a network of schools, that wasn't available in the Scottish system and I think that makes—I think that helps us in the way that they just simply didn't have a structure that allowed them to do that. It's not a criticism of them; it's just that we have got a structure that we can utilise to do that support so that schools are not completely left on their own and they can be working with other schools, with their regional consortia, going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just have a quick—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Very quickly, because I want to move on to implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, sorry, I completely understand. Was one of the things that Scotland did—I don't want to use the word 'assess'—to monitor the pupil response to the curriculum as one of the means of deciding whether curricula in particular schools were working well enough? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know if they—. I don't know if they did, but one of the interesting things that we were reflecting on over the weekend is that, certainly some of the Canadian systems, in particular, which we were interested in, used pupil surveys as part of their accountability regime—so, actually taking the time to ask students how they felt, not just about the content of the new curriculum, but actually how they felt their school was doing. And so we're interested in looking, as I said, at some of the practices that other countries use to include pupil voice to find out what's happening. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's early thoughts, because we've only just heard about it ourselves. But that's the beauty of working with other countries. They found that particular useful and successful, and we're keen to see if we could do something similar. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'll keep my questions shorter. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Yes, just around preparations for the implementation, really. You touched on this briefly in response to some questions from Hefin David earlier on, but I'm just interested to know how the money that you announced for supporting teachers for the preparation of the implementation, how that's actually been used. What specifically have teachers been doing to prepare for its implementation? I know you've set aside about £24 million over two years. So, it's not an insignificant amount. I just wondered how that was being utilised. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, first of all, it's not an insignificant amount; it's the largest investment in professional learning since the history of devolution. So, you're right that it is not insignificant, and it was a hard-won resource, I can tell you, from my colleagues. Because, as I said earlier, the curriculum itself can be amazing, but if our teachers and our professionals are not equipped to deliver it, then all this change will be for nothing. So, investing in the profession is absolutely crucial. That money is being made available to each and every school and has empowered headteachers to really think, 'What are the professional needs of my school and the practitioners in my school?' Because, as we've just heard from Claire, there are some schools that have been part of the pioneer process from the very beginning and therefore are further along that development chain. There are other schools that maybe are only beginning now, now that it's published, to be really engaging with the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, there hasn't been a national programme, as such. +Kirsty Williams AM: There is a national element to it, but we've given the money to individual schools and individual headteachers because I have no way of knowing how each individual practitioner is ready or how much additional support they're going to need. There's no way I can know that. The people who do know that are the headteachers that are running our schools. But we have worked with the National Academy for Educational Leadership to put together a programme for headteachers, and that's national. The four regional consortia are working together to have a national approach for the first level of engagement. So, actually, the beginning of their discussion is about how you would implement a curriculum. The next stages will be much more focused on individual AoLE and area-specific professional learning. So, there is a national approach in terms of leadership. The regional consortia are working together to provide consistency for classroom teachers and teaching assistants, and then the next stage of that development is for subject specifics. Claire referred to the AoLE networks, and there's an opportunity then for people to engage in that. It's also important to say that that's not the end of the process. So, this September is the start of our new ITE courses, taught for the first time, and that's great. I'm concerned about what happens to people when they come out of ITE. So, we're looking at developing potentially a stronger set of support, again on a national basis, for those who are newly qualified, beginning their teaching career, because I don't think we've done that on a consistently good level across the country. We're also working with the regions to revisit and improve their coaching and mentoring schemes that they have across the system. We're also involved in—and I'm sure the committee has heard about it, so forgive me if I'm going over old ground—schools as learning organisations and the OECD work to support schools to develop that culture as a learning organisation. We know from very successful education systems in other parts of the world there is a strong, strong culture of self-evaluation as a first step in their school improvement system, and we've not been very good at that in Wales, we've not been strong at that, that's not the culture that we have had. We've kind of depended on a culture where a school does its thing and then somebody comes along and tells you whether you're good or bad, rather than the school really thinking itself deeply about, 'What are we doing well and what do we need to improve on?' So, the schools as learning organisations are an important part, again, so that money is being used for schools participating in that programme with support from the OECD. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And the money that you announced for this  professional development preparation, if you like, was for two years. So, there's going to clearly be an ongoing programme of preparation development and personal development, as well as anything else. But is there likely to be any more money allocated specifically beyond the two years that you've already allocated or is that going to be a question and negotiation with your colleagues? Or do you see what you've put in as being, 'This is what we need to develop or to prepare for the implementation. The rest would be what would be normal professional development beyond that'? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that was agreed was for a two-year period and, clearly, I continue to have conversations with the Minister for Finance and the First Minister around future allocations for professional learning, and I'm sure this committee and, indeed, members of this committee could help me in that task. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, fine. Can you tell us a bit about the innovation schools—the 16 innovation schools—and how you've made your decisions about who they might be, across which sectors, in primary, secondary and so on? So, basically, how they were selected and what you're expecting of them. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, all of our schools that had previously been pioneers were invited to apply to morph into the next phase, which is innovation schools, and they were asked to apply and there was a discussion held both internally within Welsh Government and with the consortia about which schools were best placed to be able to do that role and to continue to work with us, going forward. I think one of the lessons learned, and this was said in the committee, was that there was an upside to having pioneer schools, but there was a downside to having pioneer schools, and I think, at this stage of the game, we need to move away from that model and to really get the message to everybody that they all had to be pioneers now—everybody had to be a pioneer—because this is coming down the track and we don't want anybody just sitting there waiting until September 2022 and saying, 'Oh, gosh. I've got to do something new today'. Not that they would have done that, but—. So, the move away is partly to engender within the sector the fact that we've all got to engage in this now. The innovation schools have led to a very specific piece of work as we do the final refinement, and their main role is working with us on these final refinements to the content but also to the assessment issues and accountability issues. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes. There were 60 applicants from 170 previous pioneer schools. We've had 16—four per region. It was important that we engaged with the regions to get their view, and we've had evaluation being carried out— +Claire Bennett: Yes. So, during the first term of work, we asked them to really look at the curriculum as a whole—so, take the whole curriculum guidance and then think, 'How would I apply that in the school?, Does it make sense?, Can we work with it?, What are the issues?, What are the questions that arise for us for assessment?', and each of the schools produced a report setting out their reflections on, 'If I were putting this into practice—'. So, it's slightly different to the feedback we've had from other people, which has been more, 'Maybe you should emphasise this or change that wording' and kind of quite practical, and really about how you would realise this curriculum in a school. That's been drawn together into an overall report, drawing out the themes, by Wavehill, who are a kind of research company. It's been really useful, and the innovation schools met as part of the workshops last week. Having 16 headteachers in a room talking about how they see this curriculum and the way in which they would practically engage with it has been invaluable, in just making us think, even with all the practitioners that have been involved, 'How do we make this work for schools?', given that we've got schools and headteachers really engaging in the detail of how they would use it practically. So, it's been invaluable, and they're continuing on that work now this term to keep making sure that what we're doing is something that schools can actually realise practically. +Kirsty Williams AM: If you think of the pioneer model, pioneers were looking at specific aspects of the curriculum. So, you might have been a pioneer school because you had particular strengths in health and well-being, or you might have been a pioneer schools because you were particularly looking at professional learning needs to support the curriculum. This is about, at this stage, where we have a high degree of certainty about what it's going to look like, 'Actually, how do I as a school practically implement this in the round?', and the schools were chosen because of their ability to do that. But also we did need a mix of sector—secondary, primary—but also linguistically, to just try to make sure that this works in all the different types of schools we've got. Faith schools, as well, are involved. So, just trying the practical implementation now, now that we know exactly—not exactly— but we have a good idea what it's actually going to look like, so, 'How am I going to go about doing this?' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân has a supplementary. If I could ask as well, maybe you could provide the committee with a list of the new innovation schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, sure. No problem at all. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are you confident that every school across Wales is participating in this process of change now, because the danger is, in getting these pioneer schools—? I understand that they are discussing in clusters, and so on, but can you put your hand on your heart and say that every school is participating in this project now? +Steve Davies: I can't tell you that, absolutely, 100 per cent are definitely, totally, absolutely equally involved. The structure we've got in place across the regions is working with schools on their readiness to actually—not readiness to engage—start to deliver as we move through to the future. So, each region is a member of our operations board, which was in our governance structure. And we don't have a roll-call against all schools, but we require them, or request of them that they keep us informed of the networks. Every school is part of a network that links to it, and they gauge (1) the level of activity in it, (2) the outcomes of that work, because each of the networks, each of the clusters, produces work that the region brings together. But we've not got a monitoring system that says, 'Tick every box'. What I would say, and it touches on the point you raised earlier and in relation to Scotland, I think if we had 22 units of local authorities trying to do this, it would be incredibly complex and very difficult to deliver. At a regional level, we require the regions to engage with all schools through the cluster model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to clarify, because in your paper you talk about giving £30,000 to each, or to the innovation schools. Was that £30,000 each, or £30,000 for the project? +Kirsty Williams AM: Each school that participates in the innovation schools programme gets £30,000. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. My final question in this section is just about how we are going to deal with the issue of teachers who are not trained in Wales. So, teachers trained in England apply for jobs in Wales, but they obviously haven't been trained in the new curriculum. How are we actually going to deal with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, you're right—we will continue to have a system where teachers trained in Wales will teach in England and teachers trained in England or who have worked in England will come across the border, as well as teachers from other parts of the world coming to teach in our schools. I think that that will continue to happen. Indeed, when I'm feeling at my most confident and bullish about these issues, I think Wales will be a really attractive place to be a teacher because of the autonomy that we will be giving to our professionals, as well as an exciting new curriculum. So, I think, actually, potentially, we will have people coming across the border to teach here because it'll be a great place to be a professional. Clearly, already in some ways, programmes of study are already distinctive in Wales. We have a different exam board, if you're teaching at a secondary level. So, our programmes of study are already different and that does not preclude anybody from coming across to teach in our system from a different system. I believe that that's not a barrier to people continuing to do that. Clearly, there may be pedagogical concepts in the new curriculum that perhaps somebody who had trained in a different system would not be completely au fait with, but that is the ongoing role of professional learning within our school system, because we've just talked about the two years' worth of money; in an ideal world, if I was able to make long-term plans, I think there will be an ongoing, and there should always be an ongoing, provision for professional learning in our classrooms. And this shouldn't just be about just getting people ready for the curriculum and then taking away professional learning budgets. One of the ways in which I think we can attract teachers to Wales is to send a very clear message— and actually attract people into the profession and keep them in the profession, wherever they train—that you will have a career in teaching where you will be continually supported in your practice via professional learning. So, I do not see that this is an insurmountable issue. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, you'll still be recruiting on the basis of skills and adaptability and so on. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, of course. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got a lot of issues to cover, so I'm going to appeal for concise questions, concise answers. On to assessment, progression and accountability—Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. We've set the scene. What was the feedback like with regard to the draft assessment proposals? +Lynne Neagle AM: Excellent, concise question. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, the principles were broadly supported, Suzy. We received what I would describe as positive feedback regarding the emphasis placed on ongoing assessment that is there to support children's learning and progression. Key messages were perhaps to find a better way of expressing the purposes of assessment—we refer to a formative and summative assessment—and just being a bit clearer about what that actually means and being clear about definitions around it. But, generally, supported. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's a good concise answer as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, well done. +Suzy Davies AM: Obviously, we're all aware now of the distinction between assessment of pupils for their own progression and the evaluation of how a school does at certain points in its life cycle as well. Presumably, the way you're looking at this is to keep these items completely separate, and that evaluation and assessment proposals will be—. They're out in a separate document; their results are going to be coming forward in a separate document—is that right? There's a thick black line between these two concepts. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. I think some of the trouble that we've got ourselves in previously is because there has not been a clear distinction between assessment and accountability, and, when you start using assessment for accountability purposes, that's when, potentially, that assessment process gets corrupted and you have gaming. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, with the assessments, though, which is about pupil progression, will those results be published internally? Will parents get to see those? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes. And that should be the purpose for assessment. The primary purpose for assessment is for that professional to be able to know how to move that child's educational journey on, and you would absolutely expect professionals to have those conversations with parents, whether they're using formative methods of assessment or summative methods of assessment. So, absolutely, you would expect teachers to be sharing information around assessment methods, whichever type they use, with parents, to describe and to inform parents about what happens next for their child. +Suzy Davies AM: Right. I accept that. Is it realistic, then, to expect parents, families, communities, not to think about that information when they're drawing conclusions about the school, notwithstanding that formal evaluation of those schools is going to be done completely separately? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, parents will always be interested in how the overall institution is doing. But the conversations I have with parents, and I certainly feel this myself as a parent—I'm interested in how my child is doing, how my child is getting on in school, what are the issues that that child has, and, more importantly, what is the school going to do about it? So, if my child is struggling for whatever reason, what is the school going to do about that to help that child? If my child happens to be exceptionally able and talented, how are you as a school going to make the most of my child's talents and move them on to fulfil their potential? So, undoubtedly, I can't control assumptions that parents will make, but it is absolutely clear in this system, and my intention is, that teachers should share assessment methods and outcomes with parents to have that conversation about what happens next. But I am absolutely clear that we do have to make this distinction between assessment for learning and an accountability in the system, otherwise we drive—inadvertently; people don't set out to do it, but we drive a set of behaviours that has negative unintended outcomes. We only have to look at the debacle around BTEC science to know that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I understand that. So, how—? Can you just briefly give us an indication of how you think the accountability, on both sides of that thick black line—the methodology—is likely to change with this? You mentioned that there's going to be an independent review of performance measurements coming shortly; we know that some of the existing ones have been ditched in fairly recent legislation. Without pre-empting the findings of such a review, have you got your top three likely expected changes? +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: To accountability. Well, we're moving to a system of schools as learning organisations, and a greater emphasis on self-evaluation, with external verification of that by Estyn, our inspectors. +Suzy Davies AM: And that will be reflected in the school categorisation system as well—will those indicators change, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, categorisation—again, the purpose for categorisation is not to make a judgment on a school in the sense of a league table; it's a triage process, categorisation. +Suzy Davies AM: It's how it seen, though, sometimes. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, this is the issue, isn't it? This is the problem of designing a system where there are perfectly good reasons to introduce the system—and in this case it's a triage system to identify levels of support for a school. But then others come along and turn it into something else that it was never intended to be. And categorisation was never intended to be a way of expressing a league table of school performances; it's there to identify levels of support that a school can expect from its regional consortia. Now, we have, we have—we will continue to keep categorisation, but, since coming into office, we have tried to adapt categorisation simply away from pure data to a more formative assessment process, and categorisation will continue to evolve. The message is very clear: this is not to absolve our system of accountability. And the first level of accountability in that system has to be the professionalism of an individual member of staff—the moral purpose that I bring to my classroom today to do right by the children that are in front of me. That's the first level of our accountability, and therefore we have our new teaching standards. As a leader, we have new leadership standards. That's the first part of our accountability regime—the moral purpose our professionals bring to their work. So, categorisation will stay. Will it evolve? Yes, because it's been evolving over the last three years. This is about better accountability, smarter accountability, not less accountability. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just finally on that, there may be an argument, then, for scrapping categorisation, putting something else in place. But I suppose the core question is: how are the general public going to understand all those things that you've just mentioned about the teachers being able to teach, the leaders being able to lead, and how well a school is performing against KPIs on those measures? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, because we will still—. We will still have inspections, won't we? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's all going to go in through the Estyn reports. This is the kind of detail I'm after. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's the ultimate, isn't it? So, the ultimate is—. The ultimate system that we're going to get to and the ultimate arbiter and the part of the system that provides public assurance and public confidence ultimately ends in Estyn. But it starts with our teaching standards and the professionalism of individual members of staff. That's where it starts, and it ends in Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Will you just let me have this one? +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on, then. +Suzy Davies AM: I don't think I've quite followed that journey. Because I get the point of the end point being Estyn, and that's where the public assurance will be seen, but what about the public assurance at those early steps of the teaching standards and the leadership standards? Where will we see those demonstrated? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you would expect to see those demonstrated in the self-evaluation that a school will provide of itself, and then Estyn— +Suzy Davies AM: All right, so schools will be publishing self-evaluations annually, or something like that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, schools— +Steve Davies: The outcome of the self-evaluation is a school development plan. We expect those to be considerably enhanced. +Kirsty Williams AM: And available. +Steve Davies: We expect a series of priorities for a school to set itself as a result of prioritisation. We expect that to be published through the school website, so the outcomes of that. What we're looking at, in terms of what's brought to that, is not a narrow set of measures—just two measures, or one measure in a secondary school. The measures will still consider reflection on progress of children, but it'll also have reviews of mental health, well-being, how it approaches that and things that it wanted to do. It's broadening the evidence base. The school is evaluating—the outcome of that will be a development plan, annually published on the website. Within the plan, they will have a set area of priorities that they will be publishing. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the schools' ability—whether they do that well or whether they don't do it well—will be judged by Estyn. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, as my colleague Chair Dai Lloyd would say, 'Now we're into the needing serious agility territory'. So, we've got some questions on specific areas. Firstly from me: Qualifications Wales have told us that the curriculum must define qualifications rather than the other way around. What implications does that have for the amount of time that is needed to develop qualifications that are properly aligned with the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'd absolutely agree with Qualifications Wales. The qualifications have to arise out of the curriculum, and the qualifications should not be dictating the curriculum. Qualifications Wales, which I met with yesterday, I think—yes, yesterday; it seems a long time ago—will begin their national conversation about reform of qualifications as a result of curriculum reform in November. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. How is awareness and understanding of human rights, including children’s rights, being embedded in the new curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Children's rights, human rights—they've been key considerations throughout the design, and this is currently set out in overarching guidance and we continue to work with the children's commissioner's office to map the rights of the child across each area of learning and experience. And I'm delighted that the children's commissioner took the time to write to me during the feedback phase to say that they were very pleased that their initial assessment demonstrates that what we're proposing is a big step forward. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And how do you respond to the concerns expressed in the children's commissioner’s quarterly report of July 2019 that consultation materials for young people were not released until mid June, allowing just over a month for young people to engage? And they said it was disappointing that a plan was not in place at the start of the consultation period. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we undertook a specific programme of engagement with children and young people, as I said at the beginning. We had over 20 events where focus groups of young children were involved and we had a number of children who took the opportunity to feed back via different mechanisms. The output of that engagement and feedback has been drawn together into a report exploring learners' views about schools and learning. It's a powerful contribution and I think will actually effect change, especially in how the 'what matters' statements are worded. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Turning to the Welsh dimension in the new curriculum, the Learned Society of Wales has said that there needs to be a directory of resources to implement that Welsh dimension. Do you agree with that and will you be publishing such a resource? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have a separate programme of work that is looking at resources that are needed to support the curriculum. It's one of the conversations I had with Qualifications Wales yesterday to try to avoid the debacle that we've had previously, where we have new qualifications and the resources to support those qualifications aren't available. So, we're already having those conversations with Qualifications Wales and there is a piece of work that is ongoing to look at what are the resources that are necessary to support the curriculum. And this proposal by the Learned Society will be considered as part of that work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, in terms of the single continuum of learning with regard to the Welsh language, how are progression steps and achievement outcomes in Welsh-medium schools going to work and how are they going to work in English-medium schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Just on the Welsh dimension, I think it's really important that whatever resources we have to support the Welsh dimension are really, really, really broad and not confined to specific areas. I was in Swansea University just this week, looking at some of their Technocamp work that they're doing to help us with coding, and we had an amazing conversation about the Welsh contribution to the computing industry. And so my expectation is that that isn't taught in a history lesson—that, actually, when children are learning about coding, they get to hear that Welsh people have been at the forefront of developing this technology. So, that's—. When I talk about a Welsh dimension, I mean right the way across the curriculum, and I think that's important. With regard to—. The continuum for language will have to be contextualised depending on the setting where a child is being taught. We have to recognise—. We have to recognise that, and there will be progression points on that continuum that will be there to show progression both in Welsh language and in the English language, and they have to be contextualised. We recognise that children learning Welsh in a Welsh-medium school, their progressional on that point would be more speedy and quicker, and by the end of primary school they would be in a very different position than a child that was learning Welsh in an English-medium school. Vice versa—we've had this discussion before—if a child is going into Welsh medium, their progression in English perhaps from age three to seven would be very different from a child that was in an English-medium school, although the expectation would be that by 11 they would be in the same position. So, we have to contextualise that learning continuum depending on the medium of tuition with the school, but recognising that it is a progression. It isn't a start and never get any further. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With regard to the creative thinking element of PISA, I take it that you are adhering to the fact that the Welsh Government is opting out of the creative thinking tests with regard to PISA 2020. I don't entirely understand that because the new curriculum does place great emphasis on creative thinking and independent thinking. So, why not participate in these tests? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, for me, the key factor for making that decision, and I intend to stick to it, is in 2021 we will be expecting schools to be right in the middle of their preparation for the introduction of the new curriculum— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, so it's the timing. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, for me. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, later on, maybe when this is embedded— +Kirsty Williams AM: I think there could well be a different decision at a later date, but at 2021 this is not the right time to do it. Can I just say? In terms of creativity, Wales is seen as an exemplar by the OECD, especially our partnership with the Arts Council of Wales and creative learning through the arts. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I get that. That's why I don't understand why we're not actually going for it and showing how good we are through the PISA. But, I understand. +Kirsty Williams AM: There could well be a different decision, but for 2021 we're asking enough of people at the moment and this would be an unnecessary addition to cope with. I just don't think that that should be seen as us running away from it because we're worried about a lack of creativity in our education system. The very opposite is true. We are seen as exemplars by the OECD and some of the work that's been going on with creative learning through the schools is now being shared internationally. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you'll think about it for the next round of PISA. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh gosh, that shows that Siân thinks that I'll be here to make that decision. [Laughter.] That's very encouraging indeed. [Laughter.] +Steve Davies: One very quick technical point, Chair. We have not opted out of this. Countries were offered if they wished to take the invite to come into it, and a number of countries across the world are yet to make their decision on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet, you've got a question on physical activity. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can you give a guarantee that all children and young people, where appropriate, will take part in physical activity under the new curriculum for Wales? Also, how much time per week will the Government expect children and young people to spend undertaking physical activity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, all children will be given that opportunity, because if they are not then that school would be in breach of the expectations that will be set out in statute. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you monitor it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Again, Janet, I don't go around monitoring schools now. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, but through the systems and mechanisms in place. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course. As we've just said— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: How will you ensure that every child has that opportunity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as we've just said, ultimately, we are not getting rid of our school improvement services and regional consortia, nor are we getting rid of Estyn. So, one would expect the quality of the curriculum to be a key consideration of any visit that Estyn would make to a school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a question on early years. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. To what extent will the new curriculum allow for the continuity of the way that the foundation phase is taught? Will there be any significant differences and have the early years professionals been involved in the development of the curriculum to date? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, early years professionals have been involved in the curriculum to date. One of the advantages, I think, of the new curriculum is to take the pedagogical principles that underpin our approach to early years education actually further into children's educational journey. I'm sure, Suzy, that you've had conversations that—. We have a certain pedagogical approach until the age of seven, and then all of a sudden, at seven, it's like, 'Forget all of that now. Sit down, pick up your pen and do this.' That's been really uncomfortable for many practitioners in our primary sector. So, actually, yes, statutory and non-statutory provision have been involved in the development of the curriculum because, of course, some of this is going to be delivered in the non-statutory sector. I'm very welcoming and supportive of that, but those pedagogical principles will now be available throughout that child's educational journey, rather than the false divide we've got at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: So, aside from the purposes and the AoLEs, the type of teaching is unlikely to change in the foundation phase settings. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The other end of the scale now: you report that one of the themes of the feedback from further education has been the need to ensure that the transition to post-16 education is supported so that the systems don't just clash against each other. How are you working on the sector at the moment to make sure that there's a decent dovetail? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, that's really important. We don't want to do anything in pre-16 that stops people going on to be successful in post-16, whichever route the child or young person decides to take. FE have been involved in every single AoLE and they're a part of the curriculum and assessment group. So, colleagues in FE have been part of this process throughout. And then in the conversations we had yesterday with Qualifications Wales around what qualifications will look like, I was very keen to take the opportunity to emphasise that any changes to qualifications should be a gateway to further study in FE, whichever type of route the child took. But FE have been involved in this process from the very beginning. +Suzy Davies AM: And you're confident they're geared up to accepting young people who have been educated in this way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. FE continues to be one of the real strengths of our education system. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a question now on governance arrangements. Suzy, you're down to do that one—sorry, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think you actually answered this at the beginning, but just to confirm that you're carrying on with the same governance set-up, the different groups that you've got, and there's nothing being added there or taken away. +Kirsty Williams AM: No. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And just finally from me, then, on pupil referral units: what arrangements will be in place to ensure that they can benefit from the new curriculum and how is that going to be reflected in the legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, we've been taking advice from Brett Pugh, who chairs the education otherwise than at school improvement group, and this has been an area where we've had to think really, really, really, really, really hard. So, what we intend to do for EOTAS and PRU is to set a minimum of what we would expect a child to receive. So, that would be around the four purposes; that would be around the cross-cutting themes of literacy, numeracy and digital competency and health and well-being. So, that would be the baseline of our expectation, that every pupil would get that. After that, then there needs to be a discussion and a focus on what is in the best interests of that particular pupil. One of the things we know about sometimes in EOTAS is we have very able and talented students who don't get access to the range of qualifications and courses that they have the capability and the aptitude to do. We also have to consider, though, that for some children they may be out of school for reasons, and telling them that they've got to do a full curriculum may be hugely detrimental to their mental health and well-being. So, for instance, to give an example, you could have a child who's very ill, and saying to them, 'You have to carry the full load of a curriculum' could be inappropriate. So, we'll be setting a minimum standard, as I said, around the purposes, around the cross-cutting themes and health and well-being, and then there will be an expectation that in conjunction with the child and the family an appropriate addition would be put in place to meet the needs of that child, recognising that they could have very different needs. Is that clear? +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, yes, and it's something that we'll probably look to build on when we look at our inquiry on EOTAS, which is coming up. Thank you. That concludes our questions. We've covered a lot of ground. So, can I thank you for attending and thank your officials for coming today? As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3 then is papers to note. As Members will see, there are a substantial number of papers to note—23 in total, which are in a supplementary pack. As there are so many, can I suggest that we note them all together and then we've got an opportunity to return to some of them in the private session afterwards? Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Thank you. Item 4 then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? +","The summary of the conversation is as follows: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee held an evidence session scrutinizing the Welsh Government's progress in developing the new curriculum for Wales, with Lynne Neagle AM as the chair. Kirsty Williams AM, the Minister for Education, Steve Davies, the director of the education directorate, and Claire Bennett, the deputy director for curriculum and assessment, attended the meeting and provided pre-submitted documentation. Suzy Davies was expected to be late to the meeting. + +During the meeting, the Minister discussed the extensive feedback received during the draft curriculum consultation, emphasizing the broad support for curriculum changes, the need for change, and the principle of a purpose-led curriculum. Specific feedback included requests for clarifications and simplifications in language, as well as additional detail in certain areas. Kirsty Williams assured the committee that no major conceptual changes were anticipated but fine-tuning and improvements would definitely be considered. + +The Minister outlined further steps before the final curriculum publication in January 2020, including workshops and an editorial process involving subject specialists and an expectation of final publication in January 2020. + +Concerning legislation, the Committee received an explanation about the inclusion of specific aspects of the curriculum framework in the primary legislation, particularly the 'what matters' statements and a statutory framework for progression within the Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs). + +The discussion also considered issues of religious education and relationships and sexuality education, with significant public response on these topics. Kirsty Williams stated that forthcoming statements would address the main concerns and intentions in these areas. + +The timeline for the Bill related to the curriculum was discussed, with an introduction expected after the Easter recess. Assurance was given that the deployment and implementation of the new curriculum should be feasible by September 2022. + +Additional concerns were addressed regarding the equality of opportunity within the new curriculum, possible segregation between different groups of pupils, the relationship and communication between the Welsh Government and local government, and lessons learned from the experience of the Scottish curriculum. + +Finally, other topics briefly touched upon included the inclusion of physical activity and early years education within the new curriculum, the continuity from the foundation phase teaching, engagement with further education, and governance arrangements for the development process. Kirsty Williams confirmed that a minimum standard for pupil referral units and the inclusion of human rights and children’s rights are embedded in the new curriculum." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Hefin David, and we've got no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest? Can I just, then, declare for the record that I chair the cross-party group on suicide prevention and that Samaritans Cymru, who are appearing before us later, provide the secretariat for that group, just for that to be on the record? Item 2, then, is an evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school, and I'm very pleased to welcome our panel of witnesses this morning: Sharon Davies, head of learning, Torfaen County Borough Council and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; Nick Williams, director of education, Swansea city and county council, and representing the Association of Directors of Education in Wales; and David Hopkins, interim head of education at the Welsh Local Government Association. Thank you very much, all of you, for attending. We've got a lot of ground we'd like to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. And if I can just start by asking you what you believe the main reasons are for the increase in the number of exclusions from school. +Nick Williams: I'll start, if that's okay. I think one of the things we're experiencing across the system in Wales is more examples of very challenging behaviour. I think the prevalence of ASD—autism spectrum disorder—and trying to get the learners the right provision is sometimes a challenge. Obviously, I can speak more about my own local authority in Swansea: the numbers have increased about fourfold over the last five, six years, so what's presenting as difficult behaviour can also sometimes be additional learning needs as well, and the system's struggling a little bit to catch up to have enough capacity to do that, so that is placing pressure on schools and then, in turn, pressure on the EOTAS, including our pupil referral units, because, obviously, we just probably haven't got enough capacity at the moment in the system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Anybody got anything to add to that, or—? +Sharon Davies: No, I think that's what we're seeing in Torfaen as well. I'd second that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, to what extent, then, do local authorities have clear strategies for support and reintegration, and a continuum of provision to meet the needs of learners who are either at risk of exclusion, or disengagement? +Nick Williams: Well, we've just developed a behaviour and well-being strategy, which, with our schools—and I'm aware, because I work in the south-west and mid Wales region, and I know some of the other local authorities have something similar, and, similarly, I chair the EOTAS network across Wales, and I know many local authorities are going in that direction, so that has a tiered approach, or staged approach, or whichever, so that there's universal provision. I think it's something that—you know, we need to make sure that our staff and our schools are well-equipped to meet these needs, but there will always, unfortunately, be some learners who need more specialist provision. So, it's equipping them with those sorts of skills, really. I think it's certainly moved forward from where we were two of three years ago. But there's a little bit of lag in the system, trying to bring everybody up to the same, consistent level. But I think work is afoot in nearly all local authorities, as far as I'm aware. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of school accountability measures, do you think that they have had an impact on the rise in exclusions? +Sharon Davies: When we're looking at the accountabilities, there's a huge amount of pressures on schools to perform, and I think the whole culture that the schools are within does play an element of it to some—. There is a shift in that culture. We are seeing a change with the interim measures coming on board, but I think there's going to be a lag in the system before we see that having a knock-on effect on our learners, because, undoubtedly, there are pressures on schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, you've seen an improvement since the capped 9 has been brought in? +Sharon Davies: I think it's early to say, but certainly we're working towards that improvement. I can only speak for Torfaen—we've been working really hard on our exclusions and working with our schools to ensure that the curriculum is broad and balanced, and accounts for every learner within the system. +Nick Williams: May I answer this in Welsh? +Lynne Neagle AM: Of course, yes. +Nick Williams: The messages that the Government is conveying to us and the messages we convey as directors and councils are important as well. So, we always tell them that it's the progression of the children in the future that's important, not just reaching up to the level. So, it's more complex than that, and it's important to share that. And in fairness to Estyn—Estyn has changed its mind as well. So, messages such as those are being conveyed now, and I think that the schools do understand now the expectation and what's expected of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. In terms of parents, what are local authorities doing to actually engage parents of children and young people who are either EOTAS or at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Nick Williams: I'll answer this in English. Again, I know perhaps Swansea and Neath Port Talbot—we have a team-around-the-family approach. So, as you say, it's more complicated than just the child behaving in a certain way, or being school-anxious, whatever the issue is. So, it's sort of bringing all of the agencies together to try and look at how we can proactively solve problems and support the families. Because nearly always, the behaviours that are demonstrated, or come out in schools, or whatever provision, is obviously probably greater in the home environment, so there's a whole—. We understand the complexities and the need for a whole-family, almost, approach to support. +Lynne Neagle AM: And do you think that all local authorities have got that understanding across Wales? +Sharon Davies: I would say the majority have. +Nick Williams: Yes. +Sharon Davies: Yes, it's quite common practice. As Nick mentioned, it is about that multi-agency approach—it is working with social care, working with health colleagues, to look at the whole package that goes into these families and to our learners. +Nick Williams: Certainly with schools, I know across Wales we've done a lot of training on adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed practice, so at least people can perhaps better understand some of the reasons why this behaviour is coming through, whereas in the past—I'm thinking myself, now, as a teacher—they were just difficult behaviours. I didn't really know the background to possibly why those behaviours were coming through. So, I think we are more informed as a profession. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on funding from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: May I begin, maybe, with a question, generally speaking—? We're all aware of the funding issues and the challenges of funding that face schools in general. So, can this lead to more exclusions, because additional learning needs have been hit in light of these challenges, and then that the side-effects of that creates more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: In particular now with the new Act coming into force, that's going to place more pressure on the system. In Torfaen, we know that we have schools that are looking at their funding—they are behind, and they have to make these hard choices. And sometimes, they have to look at every aspect within the school in terms of their learners, then, and that does place additional pressure on the schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is the additional learning needs sector being adversely affected, worse than—? +Sharon Davies: I'm not sure whether it's being worse affected, but certainly there's pressure, in particular with the new Act coming in, and that's going to place more pressure on the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But maybe we need to spend more in light of the new Act? +Sharon Davies: Yes. +Nick Williams: Yes, certainly. +Sian Hughes: What is your experience, then? +Nick Williams: The same, really. But just sometimes, the Government doesn't think about the staff in the pupil referral units, because we've gone back to the Government to tell them, 'Right, you've provided money to school staff, but what about staff that need training—perhaps more than staff in the school sector?' And in fairness, they have addressed that, but perhaps it's not at the forefront of their minds when they're thinking of providing funding to the schools. So, it's a little bit of an afterthought. But this will be needed in the future, certainly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And maybe I can ask the WLGA: are the difficulties that can arise between the money that is kept back by local authorities and the funding that goes directly to schools—can that therefore affect the kind of provision that's happening from authority to authority? +David Hopkins: Yes, sure. The delegation levels are already very high in most authority areas, and we've got agreements in place with the Government to make sure that more money, or as much money as possible, is devolved to schools. So, I don't think that's a direct factor. I think the factors that really affect exclusions, which is where I think the question came from: you've got the very narrow measure at the end of key stage 4 attainment, which I think has put pressure on some schools, certainly, and headteachers have felt that—sometimes excluded, or otherwise put into another school as a consequence, which is regrettable, but that's what's happened. And on the additional learning needs side, whilst the Minister has currently made some more money available, if we look at experiences that have happened in England, in particular, because there are direct parallels there with legislation, we know from those experiences that ALN funding has become increasingly under pressure—there have been big issues around tribunals, to the point where local authorities at one point almost gave up going to tribunals, because they were losing them time and time again. So, there are financial pressures there, but I don't think the levels of delegation have any impact on that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But just the pressures coming in with the new Act et cetera could mean more expulsions. +David Hopkins: It shouldn't, but it could. It's difficult to know how headteachers and governing bodies will react. If they're under pressure financially or in terms of performance measures, they will react in a particular way. Culturally, we've got to get to the point, I think, particularly with the new curriculum coming in, where we say, 'Look, forget the narrow measures that you're being judged by. We're trying to agree with partners, including Estyn and the Welsh Government, a broader range of measures.' That, in a sense, may provide opportunities for schools, and local authorities, to look more constructively at this whole area. So, that's one area, but you're right, I think the ALN legislation will put pressures on, not just local authorities and schools, but also on the post-16 sector, because we're talking now about a wider age range—doing up to 25 as well. So, we've got a host of issues, I think, there to consider and work our way through. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is the fact that there's variation from term to term, from week to week sometimes, in the level of provision that a school is going to have to provide for trying to retain those pupils in mainstream schools—is the fact that there is so much variation creating a specific challenge, and maybe that that leads to more exclusions? +Sharon Davies: As you say, because it changes, it's difficult then to plan ahead, and from year to year and also, as you've said, within the term. Perhaps you have provision for more learners coming in or moving, and then that causes the pressure within the system, then, because you haven't planned for them, and therefore there's no spare funding there to draw on. +Nick Williams: Also, in fairness to PRUs, we've been trying to work on the fact that, if children move out of school, the funding follows them. We don't want a lag in the system, because they have to meet the challenge of the pupils, but the money is still in the schools, because it's once a year that they have that funding. +Sian Hughes: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What more can be done, and by whom, to support collaborative working between schools, PRUs and local authorities to ensure that there is a continuum of provision and support for learners? +Nick Williams: Well, one of the things I think that has improved a lot is the networking within the PRU sector. We meet on a regular basis, and that's nationally. And the EOTAS group meets regionally as well. So, there's definitely a better sharing of practice. We put on some very, very good conferences as one form of professional learning. But it's also important—. And we're talking about professional learning for any teacher or provider, or it's sometimes the more informal training they receive by making visits, joint visits, to provision and also using the expertise that we do have within the sector to work more closely with our schools, and vice versa, particularly around the curriculum. And I think this is the opportunity the new curriculum provides, providing our staff have the funding to do that and the opportunities we need to be creating around that as well. But in the past, there might well have been some staff who perhaps hadn't had those school experiences and vice versa. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Can I just ask you about transition arrangements, because I know some of the issues that have arisen in my own constituency is when a pupil is in a PRU and then trying to get back into mainstream education? It isn't a clear, sort of, going from one to the other—sometimes a child can find themselves at home because they're not able to get back into the school setting, the main school setting. How are you addressing that? +Nick Williams: Well, again, I can only speak for ourselves. We've had a big investment of time, and there will be money and through band B, we're building a brand-new PRU provision in Swansea, which will be open in January 2021. So, we've recognised that, so that we have our staff working very closely with the schools. There's an integration through a part-time timetable back into school, and we continue to support them during that process. But then, when they're back in school, that support doesn't stop—that support continues, and then there's a managed reduction in that support. And that's proven very successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It sounds to me very—. Yes, good—. +Nick Williams: But I'll be honest with you, the more challenging your learners are the ones who are coming to the end of their statutory education, your key stage 4. It is far, far more difficult when they're 15, 16 to get them back into mainstream. So, then you're looking more at how you transit, then, into further education and colleges and so on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Thank you. In your view— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, have you got anything to add, Sharon, in terms of—? Because, obviously, we've had the Swansea perspective. I mean, how effective are Torfaen at reintegrating young people into mainstream education? +Sharon Davies: As Nick said, it does get more difficult at key stage 4, and it's working, then, with—. It comes back to that team-around-the-family approach, to ensure what is needed for that learner to go back into school, what can the school provide. It's looking at the whole package of support, then, that surrounds not just the learner but the family, whether it's transport—it's looking at the whole agenda, then, to ensure that everything is in place for that learner to go back to school, where it's possible. +David Hopkins: I think, Chair, at least one authority is looking at how they can best retain all pupils in the school setting, but it's early days yet for looking at that. I mean, that's an ideal, obviously, but it does mean looking at your funding constructively and carefully, and it brings—. The principle is fine, but it does bring a host of other issues with it, if you see what I mean. But it's certainly a model worth looking at. It's been tried elsewhere, and we keep an eye on that, but we don't really know what the outcomes have been long term with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: And which authority is that? +David Hopkins: I don't think I'm allowed to say at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, okay. And where is it being tried elsewhere? In England, is it? +David Hopkins: Oxfordshire. +Sharon Davies: A few years ago, I used to be a primary headteacher in England, so we were looking at different models, then, at various conferences, and I believe Oxford, as a local authority—they had a PRU, and they had discussions with their secondary schools, then, whether to get rid of the PRU, as such, and give the money back into schools. But they looked at a partnership within the schools, then, to say, 'Okay, you can have the money, but there's got to be terms of reference'—not quite a service level agreement, but the schools worked together as a partnership, then, so that they couldn't keep moving the children around, the learners around. It's looking at how well that worked. It started off really well, but that was a few years ago, so I don't know whether it's continued now. But that was a model that, at the time, that local authority looked at to get more money into schools and to get schools, then, to have that responsibility—that they didn't offload the learners elsewhere. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nick, you wanted to—. +Nick Williams: Yes, sorry. We do something similar in Swansea. We've operated this now for almost three years, where we devolve—the word is 'devolve', as opposed to 'delegate'—the money to secondary schools to try and give them some extra resource to manage the process, and they have to produce an action plan, which we monitor, about how they're using that funding. But, obviously, we recognise that—and it's back to your original question, the first question—we still have learners, unfortunately, despite pretty effective support and provision in nearly all our schools, because of the very, very challenging behaviour we're experiencing, who do need additional and bespoke support, which in fairness the school can't provide. So, it's a mixed economy, if you like, in Swansea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. So, in your view, though, what are the reasons for the delays that some children experience in accessing EOTAS provision? +Nick Williams: Capacity— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What? Sorry, I missed that. +Nick Williams: Sorry. Capacity: we just haven't got enough spaces in some cases, some year groups and so on. Obviously, given what I've said as well, and I'm sure it'd be the same for all local authorities, we've got to have robust systems and panels and so on to make sure that everything possible has been done to meet the needs of the learner in their home provision, if you like, the home school. So, there might be a time period when the learners are on a part-time timetable, which isn't ideal, I accept, but again, it's working with the families and the youngsters. Also, for us as well we've reinvigorated our managed move provision and discussion. We have somebody who oversees that and works very closely with our secondary schools so that we give almost a second chance to learners. Sometimes, it works really well; sometimes, the learner turns around and says, 'Actually, I preferred it in my old school.' So, there's a cooling-off period as well. I think the learner voice is very important there, because—. We've got to have a package, I think, that is quite wide in its offer. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What would be the advantages or disadvantages, then, of local authorities having commissioning frameworks for providers, and for EOTAS providers to have approved status? +Nick Williams: Obviously, we do do that, but we're struggling sometimes for additional provision—very important around safeguarding. However, we don't want to make it too difficult, so that we haven't got any providers coming forward either. So, it's a little bit of a balancing act. But, first and foremost, safeguarding is at the forefront of our thinking. But I think, then, we need to perhaps think about how the staff in that sort of additional provision—what sort of training and support they have. At the moment, that is a struggle for us, because we're managing those pressures in our own provision whilst we go out and observe through a provision framework to make sure that the provision is—. But, to actually offer some additional training is a challenge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. To what extent do local authorities know about the level of EOTAS provision that is organised by individual schools, whether in an FE college or otherwise off the school site? +Nick Williams: I can only speak for Swansea. We know, as part of that plan that we ask our schools to send in, they have to put down where that provision is. And obviously, as part of the visits, as well, to the schools by the challenge advisers, the school should be monitoring that provision and quality assuring that provision. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And how is safeguarding monitored in terms of privately run EOTAS? Independent. +Nick Williams: The schools would have to make sure that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But is that happening, do you know? +Nick Williams: Yes, because schools do take safeguarding very, very seriously. They see the importance of it. It's their prime driver in many ways. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And is there a role for local authorities in quality assuring, monitoring or evaluating the EOTAS provision organised by individual schools? +Nick Williams: Yes, but a lot of the additional provision is provision we also use, in our experience. So, if it's MTP or something through the college, like a mechanics course or something like that, we're probably using it ourselves. So, it is quality assured, if you like, by two sides. +Sharon Davies: In Torfaen, our secondary schools have set out their own TCP—Torfaen curriculum panel—which looks at alternative provision. So, you've got senior leaders there who attend those meetings. The meetings are facilitated and they're currently undergoing a review of the alternate provisions each school is doing because, sometimes, it's worked in the past, but what they're seeing now is that it's not quite working now, and it's understanding why. Is it due to the complexity of the learners coming through? Or is it that the providers are not offering what the learners are seeking any more? So, it's looking as well at, coming back to that curriculum offer, is it the right curriculum offer for those learners? And the training of the staff, do we have the right staff? It's capacity, then. It's just quality assuring the provision. Just because it's worked in the past—it's about keeping that momentum going. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And should local authorities take a greater role in quality assuring individual tuition? +Sharon Davies: Can I just ask what you mean by individual tuition? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I suppose individual tuition in terms of each individual, I would assume that means. +Sharon Davies: Okay. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I wouldn't like to think anyone was falling through— +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the purpose of the question is around home tuition, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Individual tuition in terms of we wouldn't want any child, if they're away from a main-school setting, to slip through the net in terms of tuition, or safeguarding even. +Sharon Davies: I suppose the difficulty with home tuition is, as a local authority, we're restricted on how much access we get into the home. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Well, I appreciate that, and that's the—[Inaudible.] +Sharon Davies: Therefore, it's really difficult then to quality assure, because unless the families invite us in there's very little—. We are restricted in that respect. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about if they're in a private setting? +Nick Williams: If they're following a restricted timetable or whatever, because maybe they're school anxious and so on, and we're trying to get them into our provision like that, the home-tuition staff work for us. We don't use agency staff, for instance, to go in and provide a few hours of provision, or to go to the local library. So, for whatever reason their needs at the moment can't be met in a school or in approved provision, then the staff who do provide some education, or if it's for medical reasons, they work for us in the local authority. So, we're not using— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is that widespread around Wales? +Nick Williams: I don't really know the answer to that, I'm sorry. I can only speak for Swansea. +Sharon Davies: We're very similar to that. +David Hopkins: Historically, there has been a general pattern, and if you're making a provision you will quality assure it, clearly. I think your question is probably about other forms of provision and how do you quality assure those. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Absolutely, yes. +David Hopkins: And that's more difficult to answer, I suspect. +Lynne Neagle AM: What we were driving at was home tuition that is commissioned by the local authority, but I think Nick has answered that now, really, if that's a consistent answer for local authorities. Can I just ask, before we move on, in the WLGA paper, you say you're concerned about the 'potential impact of changes to the registration of pupils who are EOTAS and the implications for the management of data/funding/joint working'. Can you expand on those concerns for the committee? +Nick Williams: I think it's, you know— +Lynne Neagle AM: It was the WLGA paper, actually. +David Hopkins: It was a joint paper. You go on. +Nick Williams: It's about getting that money following the learner and so on, and that shared ownership of the learner that the schools need to keep, because we want them reintegrated back into schools—that's the aim of any provision that we put in. It's not permanent—except, for certain learners, that might be the case—so they're still, if you like, part and parcel of the school. I think one of your other colleagues asked about the off-rolling, if you like—another term that's used—of students when they get to GCSEs so they don't count in schools' data. We're trying to very much move away from that, through the messages that we all give our schools. The messages that governors and headteachers then give to their staff. So: 'They're our learners. They're the most vulnerable learners we've got.' And for the individuals, for the families, and for society, if we can't support these learners—we know the links then to crime, and the cost to us as a society as well. So, it's in all our interests to do the very best for these learners. +Lynne Neagle AM: You won't get any arguments from us on that. Siân Gwenllian has got some questions on the curriculum. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I just want to discuss a little about the curriculum as it stands, and thinking about transferring to a new curriculum, of course. What are the challenges? I'll begin with the WLGA, in general, and ask you, in both your areas, what are the challenges to ensure that EOTAS learners have access to a broad and balanced curriculum, and that there are learning opportunities that are appropriate for them? What are the challenges associated with that? +David Hopkins: In general terms—. You differentiate there between EOTAS and PRUs. PRUs: clearly, we know that they are following a set curriculum; they are inspected; they are under the control of the local authorities. So, we're happy and content that that is moving along and that the balance is there. Where home tuition is provided through the local authority, as has been discussed, again, there should be safeguards there to make sure that that quality assurance takes into account what the pupil is receiving. You can't always guarantee what then happens in the home. As you say, particular things happen there, and they may not get that. But that's a matter the authority has got to be aware of and tackle. It's more difficult where, I suspect, it's being provided by a third party that's been commissioned. The commissioning arrangements should ask for those things to be put into place; it's all about the monitoring then. But that's a very general, broad-brush answer. I couldn't give you a definitive one of what's happening across Wales. My colleagues can probably tell you what's happening in their localities, and that would be helpful. But in general: PRUs, yes, we'd be satisfied; home tuition that is commissioned and managed through the local authority, yes, we would be satisfied; other areas, we would not be able to give a definitive answer on, is my guess. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does that worry you? +David Hopkins: Me? +Sian Gwenllian AM: The WLGA. +David Hopkins: Of course it's a concern. If you can't guarantee quality in any shape or form for a young person, it is a concern. +Nick Williams: In the region, we do collaborate with each other in terms of staff training. Certainly, they also work with school staff as well. So, the developments are quite positive currently, but there is work to do, I agree. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the how curriculum is at present, are you happy that it's being delivered? +Nick Williams: To be honest, we are— +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the PRUs? +Nick Williams: To be honest, they are broad and balanced. They have to be broad and balanced currently. But there's working together now in terms of the new curriculum, and using the opportunity that exists now to collaborate with school staff as well. +Sharon Davies: Collaboration, I think, is the answer, between the PRUs and the schools. Collaborate and have joint working to ensure that the learners have what they need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I can see how collaborative working with the units can work—because they're under your control—the problem is the other parts of the system, in a way. +Nick Williams: They're not with other people all the time; they just go for something So, they would still have literacy and numeracy and Welsh—that would still be provided in the PRU. So, they're not out all the time. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, it's beyond the PRUs I'm talking about. If a pupil is in a PRU, you are telling me that they have the curriculum. But for those who are in homes, or in private provision, perhaps who are not in your experience—. Maybe, this morning, we're getting a picture of the best practice, and we're not going under the surface to where things aren't as good in some areas. Do you agree that there is that inconsistency? What we're hearing about now are the best elements. +Nick Williams: Consistency is developing across Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: With the curriculum? +Nick Williams: Yes, and in terms of collaboration. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but it is developing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. Questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. It's really around support. It follows on a little bit from what Siân was saying. Can I also just refer back to the point that David was making earlier on about ALN and the extent to which ALN support is available to learners in EOTAS? The information that we've had is that it's difficult enough in mainstream schools, but in an EOTAS setting, it's particularly challenging. So, how can that be improved? What can we do to address that? The reason I'm saying that is there are particular needs of learners in an EOTAS setting—that's why they're there, quite often. So, it's almost more important that that ALN provision follows them through. +David Hopkins: If a child has additional needs, of course they should be met, whatever the setting. But I take your point. There's a possibility that—. Again, going back to the previous question, we would know within, say a PRU or any local authority commissioned or delivered tuition—whatever form that took—then those needs definitely should be being met. I can't tell you hand on heart whether they all are or not—I don’t know—but they should be. Once you get out of that very tightly regulated part of the system, then, again, if a child has a particular need, of course that need should be met, but it becomes increasingly difficult. So, I think there possibly is an issue there, but I don't know whether my colleagues have a greater understanding of that. But there certainly may well be an issue there. +Dawn Bowden AM: There is a disconnect between what should be happening and what actually is happening, isn't there? Even in some local authority PRUs where we expect all of this to be happening, we know that it’s not; we know that the full curriculum is not being provided either. The basic numeracy, literacy and well-being stuff is taking place, but there is discrepancy of provision, even in local authority commissioned EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I think there will be variations in provision, but I would say that, within the local authority maintained sector, that provision should be being made. If it's not, the local authority concerned should be aware of that and should be dealing with that. +Nick Williams: We've probably—[Inaudible.]—in Swansea if you look at the inspections of the provision. Going back some years, they weren't— What you're describing, it was true. However, the most recent inspection is very positive, and not that we recognise that there's no work to be done; we're not being complacent. But to answer your question, I think the biggest challenge is the capacity. So, I suppose that comes down to additional funding, because I'd like a dedicated educational psychologist spending their time possibly only with our PRU youngsters and EOTAS provision, but we haven't got the capacity because of the demands on us from the wider system. +Dawn Bowden AM: And—. Sorry, go on. +Sharon Davies: It's kind of what Nick said about capacity, but it's also ensuring the right staff as well, because sometimes, you may have them, but if they move on, or retire, or whatever, there's not a bus load, if you like, of people with that expertise. Because sometimes it takes years to build up on that expertise, and therefore, it's quite niche, and once that person has moved on, it's really difficult to start all over again. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Absolutely. It's more than just one person—it's the whole training package that goes around that capacity as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and I'll come back to that in a moment. +Nick Williams: But I think that's something we could do better. I think we need to be more—. Because that's not just down to money, it's making sure that we perhaps offer, through our teacher training colleges, the opportunity for them to spend some time. At the moment, a newly qualified teacher can't work in this type of provision, which you can argue, that's fine, they need to perhaps get mainstream first. But we need a group of people in the future to fill those gaps. So, that should be built in to their teacher training, and even through their ongoing professional development, both ways—staff actually coming out to schools, going into our provision and vise versa—because you can also get very isolated if you've worked in PRUs for—. You've got very specialist skills, but you perhaps need those wider experiences as well. So, we could be doing more there, and I think that's probably, the group I chair, a discussion we need to have. +Dawn Bowden AM: And on that point, actually, we did hear from Estyn the point you were making about the staff leaving and there are very small numbers of staff working in that provision. There really isn't the capacity for them to access professional training. Is that your experience? And if so, what can we do about that? +Sharon Davies: I think it's limited. I think it is getting better, as Nick mentioned. There are networks now, there are conferences. It is an improving picture, but I think it's limited. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, okay. So, is there any way that local authorities can encourage specialist teachers and educational psychologists to actually share expertise with independent providers of EOTAS? +Nick Williams: Yes, but again, it's a capacity issue, because if we take them out of the provision, it's difficult for perhaps a supply teacher to come in and manage that class because of the demands. So, it's not an easy conundrum. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. But you're saying, really, take it back to teacher training and start at that point so that every teacher has at least some basic awareness of dealing with education in that setting. I understand that. +Sharon Davies: Or whether there's an opportunity, if somebody wants to lead into that more, that there's an opportunity to do it; that there's an offer there, if they want to specialise more into that area. But at the minute, there isn't that option. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Can I just take you back to pupil support? We talked about ALN. What about access to mental health services? What's your experience of EOTAS learners' access to mental health support? +Nick Williams: Again, even in the region there's variation there because we've got three health boards over the footprint of the south-west and mid Wales region. So, it varies. That's my understanding, anyway, and I think that's similar across Wales. Ours hasn't been great, to be honest with you. And that's one of the positive steps, that health boards have to have a DECLO now—don't ask me, I can't remember what the exact abbreviation is—but we've met with the designated education clinical lead officer, and I think those partnerships will be strong in the future. But it's also us then having a well-being strategy and support that is universal. So, there's counselling and so on to make sure that the learners are going through, if you like—. Not that we're trying to stop them going through, but we're trying to deal with them appropriately at the different stages so that they're not inundated either. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, of course. But is your experience also that a lack of mental health support in mainstream schools could potentially be leading to more learners ending up in an EOTAS provision. +David Hopkins: I was going to say, about the question, I think there's a general deficit in child and adolescent mental health services, for example. I'm not criticising the services, I'm just saying the capacity isn't there, as we would like. So, I think there's probably a more general issue there that would, in turn, translate into pupils who've got additional needs, whether they're in EOTAS, PRU or wherever. I suspect—I've not got an evidence base to offer you, but there's a very long-standing problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, you had a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just to return to teacher training, and you say that new teachers can't go straight into a unit, and maybe more emphasis is needed on that aspect. But generally speaking, if there's an increase in challenging behaviour, are new teachers able—? They don't have the experience, but are they equipped well enough to deal with that? Because we hear of so many people leaving the profession because of this challenging behaviour, and again, I wonder if the system has adequately caught up with that. And we need—not just in this aspect—but we need to look at the system holistically to be more prepared to deal with challenging behaviour. Do you know what I'm saying? +Nick Williams: It's not just—. If people decide not to go into teaching after having training, it's not just because of challenging behaviour. There is a change now. There is more time for students in schools, so that helps. You need the theory, but also the practice—that's important to have somebody who can mentor you in the school and that shows good practice. Then there are the policies that the school uses to assure that there is consistency across the whole school. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But if we're facing a situation where there are fewer wanting to go into the profession and we are losing those most experienced people, then it creates a great big challenge, doesn't it? We're looking at something very limited here, but we need to look at it in the bigger picture of what's happening. Would you agree with that? +Sharon Davies: Yes, certainly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sharon, the CAMHS in-reach project is operational in Gwent, but my understanding is that they don't include PRUs. Is that right? +Sharon Davies: I don't know if that is the—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's fine, that's my understanding. I just wanted to ask, then, the Gwent attachment team has been working with PRUs in Gwent, and the committee is familiar with the work of the Gwent attachment team, can you just tell us what you think the impact of that has been in terms of support for staff and embedding that awareness of attachment and early trauma in the PRUs? +Sharon Davies: I think any form of professional learning, it's positive, and, therefore, as we alluded to earlier, it's that expertise training for the PRU then and for the staff there. It's having a positive impact. At the minute, I don't know what the overall impact is. I think it's early days, but it seems to be positive. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet, I think some of the areas have been covered. Is there anything you want to pick up from the—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think the rural aspect—are you aware that there are any issues relating to transport for EOTAS learners, particularly in more rural parts or areas of Wales? +Nick Williams: Certainly, in our region, in Powys, from north Powys, when you're almost in Oswestry, down to Ystradgynlais, which is not far from me. So, you've got provision for those types of learners there. I think they've got provision in the north and south of the county, but you're still talking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What provision in the north? +Nick Williams: I think there's a PRU provision in the north of Powys and one in the south— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, north of Powys. +Nick Williams: North Powys. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Oh, sorry, I thought you meant north Wales. Sorry. +Nick Williams: Sorry. But even so, the distances that those learners are having to travel are huge. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I've got a—. It's a big issue. +Nick Williams: For myself, and I'd hazard a guess, Torfaen, we're relatively compact, aren't we, so it's not such an issue. +Lynne Neagle AM: Has the WLGA got any comment on the transport issue? +David Hopkins: I'm not aware of issues, if I'm honest, but then again, it may be something we've not investigated. I'm quite happy to look at that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time. We have probably got a few areas that we'll write to you about, if that's okay. Can I thank you for your attendance this morning? We will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for attending. The committee will break until 10:20, but can Members not shoot off for a sec, please? Okay, can I welcome everybody back to our next evidence session, which is our sixth evidence session for our inquiry on education otherwise than at school? I'm very pleased to welcome Sarah Stone, executive director for Wales of Samaritans; Liz Williams, policy and communications officer at Samaritans; and Dr Ian Johnson, who is the manager of children and young people's mental health at Mind Cymru. Thank you all for attending. If it's okay, we'll go straight and questions. If I can just start by asking you what you think the main reasons are why we are seeing this increase in the numbers of children and young people being excluded from school. +Sarah Stone: I think you were going to—. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's a very difficult subject, because, in many cases, we're not really sure what the data looks like. We get these things from quite a broad perspective, and we don't actually see the extent of the reasons why. If you look at, for example, the statistical release, then you get a sense of why people are being excluded, but they tend to be—. It's a very reductionist discussion, so you see reasons like persistent disruptive behaviour, verbal abuse or physical assaults, but you don't actually get the underlying factors that are influencing that. Now, we know that that information exists, because, obviously, schools don't exclude anybody lightly, and I speak as someone who's been until this academic year a governor on secondary and primary schools. So, there's a great deal of paper trail, but that doesn't seem to really find its way up to a higher level. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And how concerned are you about the trend that we're seeing of an increase in younger children being excluded, and what do you think the reasons might be for that? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's very concerning that we're seeing increases amongst younger children in particular. Those have gone up quite substantially in the past few years, and a lot of the evidence that we're hearing is quite anecdotal, so it tends to be around the behavioural issues or underlying issues, and there's a lot of discussion about the adverse childhood experiences agenda and how that's—. So, there's a better understanding of that, but I'm not in a position at the moment, really, to be able to explain why primary schools maybe are actually taking that position and excluding more than they used to. +Sarah Stone: What I would say is that the reason that Samaritans did our report on exclusions from school rested with—. They began with anecdotal information coming through to us around individual distress and from projects working with young people who'd been excluded. And there are projects that are working with young people who are being excluded—I mean primary school children. And the major thing we say in our report is that we—. So, this is enough to ask us some serious questions, to which we don't know the answer, unless we actually do some serious work on this. So, I would reiterate what we say in our report: that we need to examine this. It's a really important issue, and the life trajectory of those young people is being impacted by their exclusion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You may not be able to answer this, but to what extent do you think school accountability measures are having an impact on the numbers of exclusions? +Dr Ian Johnson: Well, I think it's very interesting, looking at Estyn's pupil registration practices report from October last year, which looks at off-rolling, and I think that you see, specifically at year 10 to 11, a strong impact: around 4 per cent of pupils are off-rolled between year 10 and 11, but you're also seeing a number between 1.5 and 2 per cent that are off-rolled in any given year between year 8/year 9, year 9/year 10. So, I think it's clear that there's been a substantial increase in the numbers off-rolled in that year 10 to 11, but what I think is concerning for me is the normalisation, throughout the system, at secondary school level, where there's off-rolling between year 7/8, year 8/9. Based around there being around 30,000 to 32,000 in each cohort, then you're looking at 500 to 600 children in any given year, and I think we need to understand why that is the norm, what could be done around that, as well as looking into the obvious impact of that at year 10 to 11. The Estyn work is quite factual. It's looking at the numbers. I think we need to dig a bit deeper and understand the story behind that and whether there's a specific reason why schools are doing that, related to the accountability measures. It'll be interesting to see the impact of changes towards capped 9 et cetera, but I think we need a bit more qualitative work on that rather than just the quantitative work that's currently available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Liz Williams: I think there's also a problem with schools only being measured on academic outcomes rather than the journey travelled by the child and the efforts put in by the school to nurture the well-being of children who are particularly vulnerable. So, I suppose, if you consider that, this is something that definitely needs to be looked at further so that there's incentive for schools to keep children who are perhaps demonstrating challenging behaviour or perhaps aren't attaining brilliant grades. So, I think that's something that needs to be looked at further. +Sarah Stone: And, just finally, if that's okay, just to cross-refer the committee to the loneliness and isolation strategy, to which we made extensive representations on this issue. A part of the strategy talks about using our approach to accountability to recognise inclusive schools and reduce incentives to remove pupils from schools. So, that is a commitment in that strategy. It's a really important commitment to make a reality of that, because, actually, what is happening, I think, is that there are incentives that are perverse around this issue. +Dr Ian Johnson: Could I just come in on that? I think there's an interesting, again, qualitative, quantitative, element to what happens to those children who move into PRU, EOTAS provision in their earlier years in school and those as they reach a later point in their school career. So, I think there's a question, then, about—I was talking earlier about those children who move in in years 7/8, 8/9, et cetera, and how they loop back into the mainstream education system, what happens to them, but then what happens to those who may be reaching the end of their formal education career and move into EOTAS, PRU provision, and what happens to those young people afterwards? I'm sure we'll pick up some of that as we go through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders around the support for learners who are at risk of becoming EOTAS. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. To what extent is adequate support provided to pupils who are at risk of becoming EOTAS? +Sarah Stone: Okay. So, this was a major focus around the piece of work that we did, and we came up with a range of suggestions. I think the quick answer is that what we've seen is a strong indication that it isn't, and that it's—. But also that it's not simply a question of the young person, that it's a question of the whole school environment and how that interacts with the challenges that a young person might be facing. So, there are a couple of big things to say on this one. One is that we want to promote a compassionate response and an informed response by everybody in the school to distressed young people—and that distress may show in a number of ways, not necessarily just as obvious distress. So, I think it's understanding that, having a confident response and, obviously, this links with expressing suicidal thoughts and distress as well, which may not come out in exactly that way—but being able to respond where young people are expressing suicidal thoughts. And I think if we connect this with the agenda around adverse childhood experiences, and if you see the young person—. I think what we as Samaritans really wanted to do was to focus on the distressed individual—that's what we do, it's what we're majorly about. So, a young person who is experiencing a whole range of adversity in their own life may be presenting at school in a very challenging way, perhaps. That school may also be their only safe place, and I think that's just a really simple thing just to keep remembering. Hearing headteachers and teachers talk about this, a lot of them are very aware of that, and there are some great examples of schools working to reduce exclusions and understanding the fork in the road that exclusion or not exclusion represents in the life of that young person. There are restorative justice-type approaches being used by schools in Cardiff that seem extraordinarily inspiring. I've heard—. There's been so much interest in this piece of work that we've done, and I've spoken to many educators since, and so it's doing what we needed to do, which is to get people talking about it. Because I think it's not about providing a simplistic answer to this question of support, it is understanding that it's a whole-school question. It's building on the excellent work that is being done by schools in different parts of Wales, joining that up and making that much more general. So, I think that's the opportunity: is to really recognise that this is a big issue, and that, if you don't hold young people within an educational setting, the lifetime consequences for them, including their elevated risk of suicide—it's very hard to reverse that. So, I think we want to focus on a distressed young person and how we respond to that, and it's amazing to move someone on from where they started, and loads of teachers will tell you examples of how they've done that and how they've felt that's not sufficiently recognised by the measures that they're subjected to. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think it's an issue where it's very important both to focus on the individual, but also on the macro situation, and, as Sarah mentioned, I think the whole-school approach, which is something that's been discussed within this committee, as part of the 'Mind over matter' work, is something that is hugely important. And that's why that should be—there should be statutory provision regarding a whole-school approach. Because understanding—. That prevention operating all the way through the whole-school community will, hopefully, be very effective in providing support levels, ensuring that that support is in place from the very beginning, all the way through primary school, all the way through secondary school, to ensure that learners are being supported and that that is something that's at the forefront of people's considerations whenever they're considering what a pupil is doing, and why they might be doing it. And that then also links back into consideration around adverse childhood experiences. But, generally, just that thinking about the behaviour and the emotional response first, I think, is hugely important in this context. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And what do you think could be done more, and by whom, to help schools to support pupils to remain in mainstream education? +Sarah Stone: So, this is where we set out nine recommendations in our report and I think the major message is, as I said before, that we don't have a simple answer to this one. However, there are a number of things that we need to do: we need to recognise the impact of adverse childhood experiences; we need to train teachers so that they have an understanding response and are much more confident in that; we need to learn from what works; we need to listen to the voices of young people themselves. That's terribly important, because—. I know this committee is very well aware of that, because you've done very good work listening to the direct voices of young people, but they are very often able to articulate quite a lot about what is needed. I would also add to that that we would want young people themselves to be skilled up in understanding and recognising their own emotions, because this is about putting in place that awareness, that consciousness, if you like, about being able to name and recognise feelings. There's great international evidence on the importance of that and the benefit of it, which was carried out when the new curriculum was being developed, and the health aspect of that. So, we've kind of done that work in Wales. What we would like to see is that new curriculum around health and well-being and mental health and awareness being in the curriculum, so that young people, on a statutory basis—. Otherwise, you're entrenching the differences and the inequalities between teaching across Wales, because the good will do it, and perhaps others will find it much harder. So, that's a major message as well. So, I think there's a menu, if you like, and some of it is very much about respecting the experience of teachers and of schools and working with them, because this is about working with their will to do things well. +Dr Ian Johnson: I think what's important, and maybe it's implicit within the question about helping to support pupils remain in mainstream schools, is working out what is the best support at this point in time for the young person. So, that has to be taken deeply into consideration. Obviously, the schools provide whatever support they can, but what is the best for the young person at this time? And that answer will differ from individual to individual. I think it is important to have the learner voice playing a role within this, and it's important to get more of a child-centred voice around this. One of the projects that Mind will be working on in Wales in the next year is regarding an inclusive education inquiry, where we'll be forefronting the voices of young people within the evidence, because at the moment a lot of the evidence that we have is data-driven or anecdotal, and I think we want to get to the bottom of how young people feel, and how they find this. Sarah's referred to the curriculum. I think there's a lot to be done, still, with regard to PRU and EOTAS with the new curriculum, and, hopefully, we'll be able to outline some of that in terms of questions later on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are your views on the balance between funding being used for diagnosis and support, because I know that the Samaritans report suggested that funding tends to go into diagnosis rather than support? How can the balance be addressed? +Liz Williams: I think it's a really difficult balance, but it was something that was brought up in the research stages of our report. So, we held a round table during the research period, and participants said that they were particularly concerned about the lack of awareness and knowledge of children who had additional learning needs. And, obviously, this is quite serious because these children are at risk of being excluded and are over-represented in excluded groups. And they were particularly concerned about children who were sort of on the cusp, or not properly diagnosed, and a lot of these children would have things like attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and, again, these made up the cohort of pupils who were excluded. So, when you consider that, you tend to think, actually, diagnosis could be really useful, so that staff are aware of the pupil's needs, and maybe aware of why the child might be demonstrating challenging behaviour. However, what participants did say was that unless there was a proper understanding of the child's condition or additional learning needs, and that the proper support was there, then diagnosis alone wasn't of value. So, I think one of the participants said that up to 50 per cent of learners in a classroom could have an additional learning need, so, again, if the support isn't there, that child isn't going to benefit from diagnosis. And what was really highlighted is the importance of the school being inclusive, and for that child, regardless of whether they had an additional learning need or not, to have proper opportunity to progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And, then, to what extent are schools aware of the impact of early trauma ACEs, and how are schools adapting their practices to take account of them? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really capable of saying that on an individual level. We're aware, as you've heard from previous evidence from heads of education, et cetera, directors of education, that work is going on on an all-Wales basis, and there's obviously an awful lot of work that's going on on the ACEs agenda. I referred to being a previous school governor, and that's somewhere that's become a trauma-informed school, and they have established that and are widening that base. I think that what the school does though is something that has to loop back, as I said, with the curriculum changes as we're going forward. There's a concern that I have at the moment regarding the progress on EOTAS and PRU within the new curriculum, and there's work that I think will still need to be done, and something that I'm sure will be considered by this committee when it deals with the curriculum assessment Bill when it comes forward later on in the year, because there were comments made by the education Minister, I think, in response to Suzy Davies, in the statement in January, that we're talking about disallowing areas of the curriculum on the basis of the individual learner, to which I have no concern in itself. However, the emotional and mental health well-being needs of this particularly vulnerable group of people needs to be centre stage. So, the role of the health and well-being area of learning and experience, and the role of mental health and emotional well-being within the curriculum, is hugely important. +Sarah Stone: And I think, just to add to that around the impact of early trauma, I think one of the things that we at Samaritans are particularly aware of is the impact of loneliness and isolation on individuals and how that can help to drive distress and suicidal ideation. That sense of belongingness is recognised by the research as being critical to functioning well as a human being. We are social beings. And one of the ways in which early trauma and adversity, if that leads to exclusion from a range of groups, is to lead to lifelong isolation. It's something that comes out when you look at middle-aged men. You look at a trajectory that goes back towards their early years, very often, and Samaritans is about to release some research on that very point. So, there's a connection between what happens in later life and what happens here. There's also, if we look at the numbers of exclusions around boys, and we're looking at much higher suicide rates and numbers of other issues around men—. Again, I think it's important to see this whole picture— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It's very bad in north Wales. Our figures are very worrying. +Sarah Stone: Yes, exactly. So, there's a bigger picture here. I would say that we want to do something to mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences, and we have this great opportunity to release the potential of those young people whose, often, strength and resilience is quite extraordinary in circumstances that many of us would find hard to imagine. So, we need to look at the assets that young people have as well, which you can work with. So, I think if there's a real opportunity to create a change, this is one of them. This issue about exclusions and PRUs—this is a chance to make that ambition real. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you so much. Very good. +Liz Williams: Just to reiterate what Sarah said, looking at our research, which, obviously, isn't yet published but will be soon, it really is quite shocking how these men fell through the net so many times when they were young, and, actually, how many missed opportunities there were to intervene in the cycles of inequality. It is quite clear from that research that these stages where children are demonstrating challenging behaviour are the first signs of distress. So actually, this is where we should be intervening. So, I think like Sarah said, it is really important to see this as a preventative agenda. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A few questions around providing support for learners. You've set out very clearly what you think needs to happen in your report, your nine points and so on, but what's your view on the support currently provided, both in a school setting and EOTAS settings for mental health support? Have you been able to get that sort of information? Have you got a sense of—? +Dr Ian Johnson: I don't think we're really in a position to answer fully as to what's going on. I think that part of the problem is there's not really a national picture that we can pick up in terms of data or information regarding this, and I think that's really why there's been such a push towards seeing this in the curriculum. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure. So much of your evidence is anecdotal, is it? It's people that have been referred to you, come to you for help, and you just—or your own research. What—? +Dr Ian Johnson: The research that we're going to do is really where we're at, and that's because we feel that there is a gap there regarding how young people are experiencing this within the school environment and in general. I think, in particular, we're aware of increases—quite substantial increases in some cases—regarding self-harm, and concern that manifests itself slightly differently between girls and boys. Specifically, I think there's now an increasing focus on self-harm behaviour amongst girls in the 15 to 19 age range, but we're not entirely sure of how good the support is at schools. My experience of projects that I've been involved in—I was previously in front of this committee as part of the Time to Change Wales project—was that, overall, it depends quite strongly on the senior management team and their commitment. Where the SMT has taken a lead, then it feels that schools are really doing something. Where the SMT are, perhaps, a bit more laissez-faire regarding this, then it feels that maybe schools are not making such a step forward. And to come back to the point, that's why we feel that whole-school approach guidance needs to be statutory, because we'll otherwise reach some quite uneven outcomes, because those who are doing it well will really push ahead and those that are not so engaged will not be helping their pupils in the way that they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the EOTAS or PRU provision is going to be much more challenging then, isn't it, then main school provision. I suppose that was what I was trying to get at as well, whether you get a sense that there may be some progress being made in mainstream schools, is that following through in PRUs and EOTAS provision? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'll just be honest: right now, I couldn't give you an answer on that. I think that is something that, perhaps, slightly concerns me about the whole field is not being able to get a national feel for these issues. I would suspect that there are pockets of very good practice. I've heard discussions about things being done regionally and nationally, but I think it would be good to be able to see what that best practice looks like and how well it's done. +Dawn Bowden AM: I appreciate you're not educationalists and you wouldn't necessarily have all of that information, but have you got any sense of—again, whether this is anecdotal or from cases that are referred to you—evidence of schools off-rolling pupils with mental health problems? If you've got any evidence of that, what might the impact of that be on the individuals? +Liz Williams: Yes, I think that certainly does happen. I suppose we know this anecdotally from Samaritans research, but also I have experience of working in pupil referral units and working with some really vulnerable children, and I think there is a sense sometimes that these children are labelled as naughty and disruptive. So, children who have additional learning needs or a communication problem that potentially is undiagnosed or not really properly understood. I think when children have mental health problems and additional learning needs, often they can find the school environment really difficult. I've worked with children who have told me that they just don't enjoy being in the classroom because they feel incredibly anxious. They don't feel they can contribute to the school environment, they don't feel like they're keeping up with their classmates and, as a result, they demonstrate challenging behaviour so that they can leave the classroom. I think that's very sad. As a result, these children aren't always understood and are off-rolled in some cases. But, like Sarah said earlier, there are certainly examples of really good practice, and I suppose this links in to what approaches schools, pupil referral units and EOTAS should take to vulnerable children with mental health problems. One example I can give you is that, at one pupil referral unit, the children would get really distressed and really disruptive towards the end of the day on a Friday. I suppose that, in some schools, the teachers would have thought, 'This is ridiculous, they're disrupting the lessons', but what the teachers knew is that these children would go home, they would face such adversity, wouldn't always get a meal, would be exposed to things they shouldn't be exposed to, and the teachers were able to respond to that with compassion and empathy. But, obviously, seeing behind behaviour is really, really difficult, and I don't think teachers should have to do this alone, they should be properly trained and properly equipped. Even going up to a child—and I suppose this goes back to mental health support. Ideally, as Samaritans, we would want suicide prevention plans to be embedded in schools and to be part of the culture of schools, but obviously this can't happen if teachers aren't properly equipped and don't have the confidence to go up to a student and ask them if they're struggling. In our compassion in education toolkit, we highlight the importance of asking a child, 'Are you self-harming?', if there are signs; 'Have you tried to take your own life?', if there are signs. But obviously that's a very difficult conversation to have. So, yes, there are certainly examples of best practice, but I do believe that, if school staff aren't properly equipped and trained, off-rolling pupils, especially at key stage 4, where obviously you will hold those grades, is definitely something that they don't necessarily have the incentive to prevent. So it's worth looking at that. +Dawn Bowden AM: You touched, in the beginning of that response, on children being labelled as naughty. To what extent have you come across that? Is that quite prevalent? Is that quite common? +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes. I think it's really down to the school. I think it's down to experience and it's down to the teacher. I think it links up with the question we were asked before about diagnosis and support. Lots of children with communication difficulties especially, if they haven't been formally diagnosed, they are certainly the ones that are deemed naughty, because I suppose people think, 'Well, you should be doing well, you're bright. You should be thriving in school.' But that's not always the case. Children can be incredibly anxious, have mental health problems, obviously, are exposed to ACEs and things that go on at home that not necessarily every teacher would know about. So, I think there are definitely children who are labelled 'naughty', and I think children also play up to that as well. Like I said, if children are very anxious in the school environment and in the classroom, if they know they can get out of the classroom and get into a safe space, they will do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And then that labelling of a 'naughty' child is actually the impediment to getting that child the support that they need. +Liz Williams: Absolutely, yes, and I think that's where formal diagnosis can be helpful. I think the doors are open then to much more school support. So, yes, I think it is down to how the school approach it, and it goes back to the whole-school approach and having emotional and mental health on a statutory basis in the curriculum. It embeds emotional well-being into the culture of the school, and it means that students might know when they need help, how to be more resilient and helping themselves, and when and how to ask for help from the teachers. So, I think it's really important. +Dr Ian Johnson: If I can just pick up on one of those points, Mind Cymru conducted a series of focus groups around Wales to inform our response to the new curriculum. One of the comments that I think struck home most strongly with me was a young boy saying that, because the same teacher was responsible for pastoral and behaviour, because he had been labelled as naughty or a troublemaker, he felt uncomfortable in terms of going to that same person within the school in order to disclose the problems he was having, because there was a fear of not being believed or accepted, or it being considered as an excuse for poor behaviour, rather than them being taken seriously. I wouldn't want to over-egg that point, but I think it is an important consideration from a learners' perspective. 'If I disclose a problem, if I want to talk to somebody, are there appropriate considerations within the school setting where I can turn to somebody who maybe I might not have the greatest relationship with in other contexts?' I'd also just like to come back to the off-rolling question if I may, just quite briefly. As I said at the outset of the evidence here, Estyn conducted a piece of work on pupil registration practices that showed a substantially higher amount of off-rolling between year 10 and 11, but also a consistent level—1.5 per cent to 2 per cent—in other secondary school years. But we don't have the qualitative material to understand how much of that is related to mental health factors, and how much—because we're in discussion about school accountability—might drive some of that at year 10/11. But we don't know why that baseline of 500/600 young people every year is there within our schools. I think that needs further investigation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thanks for that. Can I just ask you a couple of other questions about the impact of particular circumstances, and whether you've come across any issues relating to Welsh-medium provision to support the mental health and well-being of learners as an issue—that it's not been available, Welsh-medium support, for those learners? Have you come across that at all? +Dr Ian Johnson: We haven't necessarily come across it, but we haven't been looking for it either. The Estyn report notes that there are generally fewer off-rollings from Welsh-medium education to EOTAS. There are a number of potential reasons for that. That can include the complete lack of EOTAS provision within a local area. It could be the socio-economic profile, because exclusions, et cetera, are substantially higher amongst those who are eligible for free school meals, and in many parts of Wales the socio-economic profile of a Welsh-medium education school is slightly different. We are not aware of any particular work that's been done to examine the needs and the provision of Welsh-medium EOTAS. Therefore, my suspicion, without any particular evidence, would be that it happens on a local authority basis, possibly on an incidental basis, depending on the quality and the ability of staff, and possibly more prevalent therefore in west and north-west Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. We can come back to that again, I'm sure. Do you know whether there's any impact on learners where there are actually delays in accessing EOTAS, again in terms of mental health conditions, if there's a delay in getting them to the appropriate provision? Have you got any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, of the impact on that? +Sarah Stone: Not specifically researched on that situation. I think, again, there is so much that we don't actually know and that we should know a lot more about, but I think there are some things that we can say about delays for young people who are not either in education or in anything else, and they're connected with the issues anyway. So, if you understand that there's a strong link between inequality and exclusion, and that the most likely young people to be excluded have other disadvantages as well, that's a really important issue to understand. So, being out of school or out of education for any time is going to exacerbate those pre-existing inequalities, and I can't emphasis that enough. This is exacerbating this cycle of inequality and disadvantage. So, being outside your peer group makes you vulnerable. It makes you vulnerable, and I guess the longer that continues I would expect the worse that impact and that uncertainty would be. So, there's the impact on loneliness and young people seeking an alternative community to the school one. Since the publication of our report, we have had an extraordinary level of interest from people concerned about crime. So, we've talked to the youth justice board, we've met with the police, there's a huge level of concern about county lines and about home-growing drug gangs, and the fodder that those young people are for people who will engage them in all sorts of activities, which are hugely damaging both to themselves and also to the wider society. So, I think we need to understand there's a lot at stake here for wider society in holding young people, and not allowing gaps to grow where they are not held. I would just refer you to the child death review on suicide and suspected suicide by young people, which came out very recently from Public Health Wales and Swansea University, and that looked at 33 young people who died by suicide over the past few years. One thing that came through that and was reflected in one of their suggestions for action was that those young people had not been held in education or training or employment, had slipped through all sorts of systems, and were extremely vulnerable. So, I think that's a really big message: that we need to try to hold people and not allow those gaps—where they're not held within their society—to lengthen and become really, really difficult. So, I think that's my major message on that particular one. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just ask, as a follow on from that, whether you've got any views on the potential impact of individual tuition on learners' well-being? So, home tuition, for instance: are pupils going to be on their own doing that? That might be in their best interest, or do you have any concerns that it might not be? +Liz Williams: I suppose we don't have actual evidence to show the impact home schooling has on pupils, but what we do know and something that is of huge concern, I suppose, to most people is that there's no central data on how many young people are home schooled. So, it's quite likely that these children are hidden or invisible and could be at a huge risk of the adverse problems that are related to exclusion more generally. Also, it is a concern, if children aren't registered with any school, how they get back into school, how they reintroduce back into the schooling environment, if that's what people think is best for them. So, I think that is a concern: not having that transparency of data. And just to reiterate Sarah's point, I suppose, home schooling could tackle the more academic side of things, so it would mean that that child is still receiving an education, but it might not necessarily help with the adverse effects of exclusion, like loneliness and isolation. That child still isn't with its own peer group. That is something that came out of the men's research, as Sarah mentioned. These men, who are now middle aged and are at the highest risk of dying by suicide, weren't always interacting with children their own age, and that did cause problems in later life. So, I think it's definitely something we don't know enough about, but I think we need to know more about. +Dr Ian Johnson: There are two questions within there, regarding the delay in entering provision and the effect of long term individual teaching. I think there are occasions on which individual tuition will be beneficial, because there may be a reason why somebody is uncomfortable and unable to operate within an educational setting. However, it may be that, on a longer term basis, that is not entirely appropriate. But it's very much an individual matter. What concerns me, I think, is the idea of there being a gap between mainstream education and entering any form of EOTAS provision due to capacity or otherwise, because that is a period in time—. We don't know whether there's the causation of or exacerbation of mental health issues amongst those in EOTAS, but it's clear that—well, it seems intuitive that a gap between being in mainstream education and EOTAS is unhelpful, not least their rights to an education, but also the feelings that young people who are probably in quite a confused and troubled state may have during that gap and how long that gap can endure. I will refer back: there was a recommendation by Estyn in their 2016 report on EOTAS regarding CAMHS support for children within those settings, I don't know whether there's been any particular progress within that—and especially the mixture of issues that may be related to both mental health and also neurodevelopmental issues and whether those are more or less likely amongst this vulnerable part of the population. +Sarah Stone: Just to draw your attention to it, I think there's an acknowledgment that there's a lot we don't know about this. Again, in the loneliness and isolation strategy, there's a commitment to analyse existing education and health data to explore correlations between exclusions or being educated other than at school and mental well-being, including loneliness and isolation. So, I think that's a very welcome commitment to try to expand our understanding in this area, because there may be some pluses as well as minuses, but actually there is so much that we don't know about this. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Siân Gwenllian. I think some of them have been covered, but— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in general, once a young person or a child has been excluded, is there enough support for them, not just on the educational side, but in general? Are we supporting these young people, these most vulnerable young people, once they're in the position of having been excluded? +Dr Ian Johnson: I'd say that that's something that's possibly happening locally, but we don't have a national picture. One of the things we have already noted is the time between being excluded and entering some kind of EOTAS provision. So, that in itself—and I've heard people talking about the capacity issues—shows what's happening to these children, at a time when they are most vulnerable because they are outside of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And who should be supporting them? Are we being clear enough with regard to who should be giving them the support? They've been excluded, so obviously the education system has a responsibility, but are we clear enough in terms of who else's responsibility this is, and who should be co-ordinating that support? +Dr Ian Johnson: The truth is, the responsibility lies on the local education authority in that context, I would say. The point is that, often, these children deal with several other institutions. So, it's incredibly important that any service is interweaved into that setting around the child or the children who are in this situation. More information is needed about this. When I was talking earlier about inclusive education, or some kind of investigation into this, that's the kind of thing I'd look at: how to bridge that gap and what kind of support will be available. I'm concerned, of course, in terms of education, whether there is enough funding available to ensure this. But because this is a very vulnerable group, we need to take responsibility in exactly the same way, perhaps, as corporate parenting plays a role there. We need to look at that kind of system, and how we help these individuals. I know there are figures available on local authorities, but I can't remember them off the top of my head, but maybe that's something to look at. +Liz Williams: And as Ian just said, although there's a lot of responsibility by the school and the local authority, I suppose some responsibility also sits with the parent as well. But for the parents to support their child, either if they're at risk of being excluded or if the child is already in EOTAS, and that parent wants to make sure that the child is having the best education possible, the parent has to have the right amount of information. They must know where to go for support themselves, and I think that a parent can't necessarily know the rights of their child to education and what their child is supposed to be having if they're not provided with all of the information. And I'm sure this is dependent on the school or dependent on the local authority, but that's something worth thinking about as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, unless you want to sum up—? +Dr Ian Johnson: Just a comment, really, on the new curriculum and ensuring that EOTAS provision includes this, and how the whole-school approach will work within EOTAS, and how we ensure that the provision is available through the medium of Welsh, as we were referring to earlier, on a national level. Is it possible that it can be worked out within the local consortia, for example? How do we ensure that the teachers—? If it's initial teacher training, or if they're newly qualified teachers, or if they're more experienced, how will this be implemented through the system? Because I think that children in EOTAS situations are usually more vulnerable than others, and therefore there is a need to prioritise their well-being and their mental health. We talk a lot about certificates and so forth, and qualifications, but ensuring everybody's well-being is important, and an important outcome of the work. So, we're thinking of this whole-school approach and how it works within the new curriculum, and this is a vital point for the years to come. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we finish, then, is there anything you wanted to add in terms of what the committee could recommend about professional development for staff that would enhance this provision in this area? +Liz Williams: Yes, absolutely. I think it's so important for teachers to be equipped with the training and to understand the link between inequality and all the things that come under that term, and challenging behaviour, and I think if teachers are aware of that, and trained properly to deal with that, the risk of exclusion will ultimately lessen. And I think with regard to how that can happen, I think, in some cases, mental health training and mental health awareness training is supplementary at times, with just teacher's training, but I think it should be embedded in the initial teacher's training, so that, more than anything, as well as being equipped with the skills, teachers have the confidence to deal with those really challenging situations. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Ian? +Dr Ian Johnson: I think that's the importance of a whole-school approach, and that being statutory, because that will ensure that everybody within the school community has that knowledge and awareness and knows what to do and where to signpost people. It means foregrounding and having that in the heart of the school ethos, and I think that turning the school into somewhere that considers mental health and emotional well-being first, rather than waiting for a problem—I think that's the key to improving the well-being of our future generations. +Sarah Stone: I just think it would be great if the community would recognise the link between inequality, adverse childhood experiences, and the opportunity that there is in avoiding a young person falling out of school, and out of anything, and out of sight. So, I think, the other side of this is that this is a real moment of opportunity to intervene positively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for your evidence. It's been a really valuable and worthwhile session. As usual, we will send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr. +Liz Williams: Diolch yn fawr. +Sarah Stone: Diolch yn fawr. +Dr Ian Johnson: Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4, then, is papers to note. Just one paper today, which is the Welsh Government's response to the committee's report on the scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget 2020-1. Are Members happy to note that? Thank you. Item 5, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","The summary is a detailed record of a committee meeting discussing education otherwise than at school (EOTAS) and the increase in school exclusions in Wales. Lynne Neagle AM, chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, began by welcoming attendees and noting apologies. She disclosed her chairing of the cross-party suicide prevention group and Samaritans Cymru's secretariat role for it. The panel included Sharon Davies from Torfaen County Borough Council, Nick Williams from Swansea city and county council, and David Hopkins from the Welsh Local Government Association. They discussed the main reasons for school exclusions, the rise in exclusions of younger children, and the impact of school accountability measures. Local authorities' strategies for supporting at-risk learners and reintegration into mainstream education were examined. Questions about parental engagement, funding pressures, the additional learning needs (ALN) sector, and variation in provision were raised. There were concerns about the delay in accessing EOTAS programs, and the conversation underscored the lack of capacity to meet learner needs as a primary challenge. + +The session continued with testimony from representatives of Samaritans and Mind Cymru, Sarah Stone, Liz Williams, and Dr. Ian Johnson. They highlighted concerns about the mental health support available to pupils, the consequences of off-rolling practices, and the essential role schools play in keeping vulnerable children within the educational environment. They emphasized the need for comprehensive support, including professional development for staff to address mental health and equality issues within education. The link between adverse childhood experiences, inequalities, exclusions, and subsequent risks such as loneliness, social isolation, and susceptibility to crime was discussed, underscoring the importance of sustained educational engagement for at-risk youth. The panelists also touched upon the forthcoming curriculum changes in Wales, the significance of a statutory whole-school approach to mental health, and the necessity of adequately preparing educators to handle students' emotional needs. + +Overall, the dialogue in the committee meeting revealed complex challenges related to EOTAS, school exclusions, and student well-being, implicating a need for coordinated efforts across the education system, local authorities, and mental health services to improve outcomes for vulnerable children in Wales." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we'll try to zip through this , since we're short on time . Welcome everybody . Um hope your sessions went well . Um so this is our functional design meeting , we're going to consider um user needs , technical effects , and the working design of our remote control . Um I've been taking meetings on the minute minutes on the meetings {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , and I'll be putting them in the shared documents folder so if there's anything you need to refer to you can find them in there . Um I I'll get the ones up for next time , um they're not finished yet . Right . Um so can we have updates from everyone from what you've worked on just kind of a quick summary of anything interesting that you'd like to share or discuss in this {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I can start if you want . Mm . +Project Manager: sure . +Marketing: Is there an order ? No . +Project Manager: Hm ? +Marketing: We haven't decided on an order . +Project Manager: No , any any order's fine . Yeah . +Marketing: First . Okay . Um , how do I put this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll just put the cable in . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , sorry . +Marketing: {gap} Is that it ? Can you see ? {vocalsound} Oh , here . Okay . So what happens it doesn't work ? +Project Manager: It sh it takes a few seconds I think . +Industrial Designer: You may need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes you have to do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it in the right thing ? +Industrial Designer: it's like a three set setting cycle , so press it a couple times , hold down function and then press F_ eight . +Marketing: Oh wait , um . Uh . You need to help me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then press function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and F_ eight . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Could you just plug it back into hers because she had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait . +User Interface: oh . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} is that it ? +Industrial Designer: Adjusting . +Project Manager: Here we are . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The cable might be a little loose or something . Oh , you got it . +Marketing: Right here we are . +Project Manager: Oh . Is it on ? +Marketing: We're here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , um . In order to see what the functional requirements were to be found , um a hundred people were tested in a usability laboratory through just their habits to n know their habits were observed and questionnaires were given out . Um , the findings in in some cases matched what we were talking about . Custome Customers and users don't like the way remote controls look , they don't like the way they feel , they don't think they match their operating behaviour , and an example is what we were talking about , the buttons , they only use ten per cent of the buttons , so later on there's a study of the buttons that they use most and I think we should design according to these buttons . Easy to lose , and R_S_I_ . I don't know what R_S_I_ means . Um the person that did the questionnaire obviously did , I don't have a clue . +Project Manager: Hm . +Marketing: Um , according to the frequency of use and the relevance of each buttons , I have made a list of the buttons that we should focus on in order of importance . So the most important buttons are those to do with channel selection . They're used about a hundred and sixty times per hour . And um yeah so and and people like to zap a lot apparently , so this is the order . Channel selection , teletext , volume , and power . The other ones are the settings , and they're used less than {disfmarker} you know zero point eight to zero point five times per hour , and this means that I think we can we could have like a a button for all the settings , and then , just one , and then from there go on to the audio on the screen , either on the remote or on the television . Um , about the screen , and speech recognition , some people are more willing than others to actually pay for that . And if we look at the market , f people from well from fifteen to thirty five year old year olds , I don't really know how to describe this , um ninety one to seventy six percent of people in that age range are willing to pay more for this sort of product , while people that are above thirty five years ol um years old go from thirty five percent to eight percent , so people that are sixty five for example wouldn't actually pay for this sort of thing . Um I don't I don't know um what the decision to be made is , but I think that the people that actually do buy remotes m more are those like teenagers and young professionals and um , most likely , but we should discuss this together . {vocalsound} And that's all I have to say about the matter , {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Shall I {disfmarker} what do I do ? Do I give this to someone else ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Just move right on . +User Interface: Right . So get this . Okay so now I need to press F_ eight , what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh function F_ eight . +Marketing: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: 'Kay . What's function ? +Project Manager: It's the little blue {disfmarker} w it's the one {disfmarker} th +User Interface: Oh function , I see it . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: There we go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should be {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um . This my presentation about the uh technical functions design and I basically just tried to focus on um {vocalsound} just what what functions we need and how to make that the best function for the user . So uh and I just sort of like thought about it myself and looked on the internet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And okay so basically um {vocalsound} I think i uh like it is really important that we sort of get this done in a user friendly and fashionable way . Um {vocalsound} so I think things like uh you know keeping buttons together that {disfmarker} like close together that um {vocalsound} are used in the same way , uh {vocalsound} or um maybe that making 'em the same colour , keeping the number of buttons the uh leas you know to a minimum , and also things like is it is it um is it uh {disfmarker} can you c y small enough large enough I'm not sure we c I guess we would need to do some research about , I would , about what size is appropriate and that sort of thing , um but basically we need to make sure that it turns on and off the T_V_ . Does it have like capacity to change the channels ? Um {vocalsound} does it do {disfmarker} or do we need to have like functions for cable or V_C_R_ ? And then , is it findable , and uh how do we wanna do that ? And um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just thought that these two remotes were pretty boring , um I dunno if this will work but {disfmarker} And I think we can find something that's more fun to look at and use than either of those . {vocalsound} Just I mean I like the one on the right better , just because it does have fewer buttons , uh but I mean I think we sh can sort of think about things like um {vocalsound} like colour and you know size , shapes , that sort of thing , to best fit the user . {vocalsound} That concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . You need the little thingy . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: How do I um {disfmarker} +Marketing: S That's on view . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay so this is on the working design , which is sort of the uh mechanical functions of the remote , um and the method I used was to basically look at existing designs and incorporate ideas from our last meeting . Um so I think we need two basic functions which is just the basic remote functions , the user can input a channel or volume setting and it will be output to the T_V_ . And also we talked about um a location function where maybe you could press a button on the T_V_ and it would send sort of signal to the remote where it would beep or flash or vibrate or whatever to tell you where the remote is . So the components we need are an energy source to power the remote , um input which would probably be buttons , although um we just talked about voice recognition , processor to take the information , um something to transmit it to the T_V_ , and we also need something on the remote that would receive the location signal and have an output , like possibly a beep or a vibration . And also you need a sender for location signal , which would probably be a separate um thing that we'd have to sell with the remote and people could stick it on their T_V_ or stick it on their wall . And this is just sort of an overview of how the remote works . Power comes from the battery , goes to the chip , um and then it is sent from there to an infrared bulb which is probably the easiest way to send to the T_V_ . And then for the location function , you would have a sender on the T_V_ which would output some sort of signal , um we could use I_R_ but we'd probably wanna use radio instead . That signal would go to a receiver which it would process it , and it would be output in the form of a buzzer or a light lighting up . Um so my personal preferences for how to build the remote would probably be uh , battery for the energy source , that way you wouldn't have to plug it in , um a button pad for input , um we can purchase a pre-made chip which will handle all the processing stuff , I_R_ transmitter to communicate to the T_V_ , that's just sort of standard , um so most T_V_s have an I_R_ receiver . Probably a radio receiver to send out location function and to receive it and I'd probably say a buzzer for the location function on the remote itself . So that concludes my presentation . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Do you know about like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: I dunno , you seem like you know about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I d I was an engineer before I came here . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you everybody . Um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} we'll discuss that and then I just wanna mention some new project requirements that came in . Um , teletext is apparently outdated , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} due to internet popularity , so that's off the list . Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: also our remote should be used only for television , um , no extra internet kinda fancy things , just the remote and the television . Um and also we need to incorporate our corporate image onto this , so um the phrase is , we put fashion in electronics , so let's be fashionable I guess . Um if we have something {disfmarker} I mean silver and and gold or yellow are our colours , so if we had a like a kind of silver one like you saw , and yellow writing , something like that . Okay . Um . So we need to make some decisions on the remote control functions . Um , yeah . {vocalsound} Do {disfmarker} Let's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess we should yeah make some kind of brainstorming , see what we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like in terms of +Marketing: How it looks or {disfmarker} +User Interface: how it looks , or like what it does ? +Project Manager: wha what {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} well probably our target group and how it's gonna going to appeal to our target group and I dunno the the s +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: the buttons and what it does and that sort of thing . So . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . So {disfmarker} Is our target group then people {disfmarker} so do we wanna go ahead and design this thing with the finder button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think that seems to {disfmarker} yeah . Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's easy to implement . +User Interface: Okay . So the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the buzzer you mean , +User Interface: yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Locator . +Marketing: yeah , for sure , yeah . +User Interface: So then our target age group would be the nineteen to thirty five range , +Project Manager: Yeah , teenagers and young professionals . +User Interface: what was it ? +Marketing: Well that's for speech recognition . +Project Manager: Oh , uh . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: And screen . That's only for speech recognition and screen . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking about that but uh I mean speech recognition is really hard to programme , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and also , if the T_V_ is on it's making sound and the people on the T_V_ are talking , and if somebody says like one , then the T_V_'s gonna switch itself to channel one , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} it seems like a silly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how you would implement it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just put the values {vocalsound} in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if if you consider our budget , it probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um the screen is the same as what , {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's a cool idea but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if you consider our budget , to h have speech recognition programmed in every single remote might be a little pricey . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm happy with that . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Hu yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Completely . +User Interface: Okay so are we gonna have just some kind of a {disfmarker} like we'll have the buzzer on the som like on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Well you would have to have a button on a T_V_ or on your wall or some place {gap} since the T_V_ already has power . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you click the button , it's gonna send out a signal , and I was thinking , I_R_ is line of sight , so unless the remote is like actually in front of the T_V_ it's not gonna work , um so probably like a radio signal like on a on a cell phone . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sends out a signal and then the the remote hears the signal and so it beeps probably . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So you you'd need like a separate base for that or like something you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It would have to be sold separately because if the sender's on the remote then you'd have to find the remote first to click the button to find the remote {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: right . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So do you plug it in the T_ {disfmarker} you plug it in T_V_ , this thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it'd probably just stick it on your T_V_ so if you need to find the remote , click the button . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: So it's now like a two-part thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it would be a two part package . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So we get to design that too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it fashionable . Um , okay . +Project Manager: So do you think even though we're not talking about speek speech recognition our target group should still be teenagers and young professionals . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: Yeah . Just there . +Project Manager: Huh . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Are we um should that thing be on the {vocalsound} thing to put the {disfmarker} you s you talking about a home for it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you still want to build a little thing next to the telly or to p hang on the wall or shall we leave that for now ? +Project Manager: We probably leave that . I mean I guess one takes care of the other , like um if you can yeah if you can call it then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Then it can live anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . For the {disfmarker} so you have that button , that {disfmarker} so there's {disfmarker} is there a light or shall we leave just have a radio ? +Industrial Designer: Um on the T_V_ or on the phone ? +Marketing: Are we just having a radio ? On the phone . +Industrial Designer: Um it seemed like a {disfmarker} a beep seemed the most reasonable to me , +User Interface: T +Marketing: You don't need a light . Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's what the phone has , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean when you need to find your phone , you just have someone call it {vocalsound} and it starts ringing somewhere and then you can figure out that it's in the couch or wherever . +Project Manager: And like if the if the phone's under the couch , you might not see the light , so +Marketing: You can hear it's under the couch yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So i Yeah . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} {gap} So need the other buttons . So we have this {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: So I mean the two remotes that you had shown r I don't remember who showed them {vocalsound} , yeah you you did um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was me . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they're {disfmarker} I mean one looked like it was for V_C_R_ type thing , and the other looked like just television . +User Interface: I think w I think they're both sort of just like general remo they're both general remotes . +Project Manager: Oh really . 'Cause that that is something we have to decide , is whether we want to have V_C_R_ capabilities . +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: Does anyone know if V_C_R_s are the same across {disfmarker} international ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: They're not , no . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you'd need like a whole different set of buttons for everybody's V_C_R_s . +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It not V_H_S_ here ? +Project Manager: But D_V_D_ probably is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , other than that region and coding thing . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and if we're if we're targeting young professionals and teenagers , I mean it's gonna be D_V_D_ type , that's the the technology these days . +Marketing: But V_C_R_s {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , for sure . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So . Okay , let's see if I can {disfmarker} I think still though , it shouldn't be that hard to take {disfmarker} like just reduce the number of buttons you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like 'cause if you just have like one menu button , that works like with a you know , or you can just kind of scroll through the options u that come up on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well for sure we need the um {disfmarker} I think we can just design the channels ? I mean power's just a button , and it's not used that much , +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: s and it's usually that red +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think it's quite nice to keep it like red . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , I've seen some remotes that {disfmarker} where you just hold one , like if you hold one down it's it's a different colour than the other buttons but that turns it on . So you don't actually have a separate power button , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: It seems like that would be hard though . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean , like because unless you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It might be confusing . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Just 'cause I wouldn't {disfmarker} I would probably pick it up and just be like uh why is there no on button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Besides you like to be able to go power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I never think to hold something down . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I have the power {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . B {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I guess . So we definitely want a power button and numbers . Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well even um iPod thing {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , like um , I don't know if people like this but if you want to reduce the number , of buttons , instead of having like one to nine , have a sort of +User Interface: That sort of like joystick flat touch thing , yeah . +Marketing: scrolling {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Because people li seem {disfmarker} now the iPod's out people seem to like this thing that there's no {disfmarker} Know you don't have one two three four five {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think that's an interesting idea , 'cause it's cool , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: it's it's funny like you f like I just {disfmarker} I don't have an iPod but like I , you know , I just like started messing around with one of my friend's the other day , and you just sort of and {disfmarker} it's funny how you pick it up and you just figure out how to use it quite easily , like it's not that hard , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , it's just {disfmarker} and it's one thing which has everything . +User Interface: Yeah , and it is {disfmarker} yeah . It is really {disfmarker} but do you need a screen then , do you have to have a screen then ? +Marketing: Well can't it tell the {disfmarker} like can't you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can have the number going around in the corner . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: you can have the number on the telly going like one two three four five once you scroll and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Okay so we have this like scrolling sort of button . +Project Manager: Oh that's gonna {disfmarker} Is that like on on a mouse pad where like kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a disc . Yeah . Yeah . It's like {disfmarker} it's just like the same technology as a mouse pad . +Project Manager: okay . I've never used one . No . +Marketing: It's like l this {disfmarker} like that , and then you do that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and then . +Marketing: And then you can have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you actually just want to zap , you can have like a thing {vocalsound} like that , and that , and then it can just be plus and minus . +User Interface: Okay . So like it's like a little part of the circle that {disfmarker} Or it {disfmarker} oh so it's just a region of the circle that you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i +User Interface: zap . +Marketing: Yeah , click o actually click on to have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We could we could even have four buttons , like , if that's the if that's the mouse , you could have the volume and the channel changers just like on that as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So volume could be like the top it and the bottom {disfmarker} So do you need to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't it rotate though , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: so it'll be moving around . +User Interface: Well y you have to you have to like be able to change the function of it to like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you mean the function ? +User Interface: I mean like okay , 'cause so {disfmarker} I dunno , I guess {disfmarker} Okay {disfmarker} so when you g scroll your thumb like around it , it'll s like say you're go you're going clockwise . That that means you're gonna go up the channels , and then you scroll the other way and it'll go down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you wanna switch to the {disfmarker} to u do you have to switch to a function where like y so you're either in that mode or you're in the mode where like it just has like the four like you know this is channel that way , that's that way and volume is up and down . +Marketing: Yeah but it knows for some reason . +User Interface: It just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The iPod knows . +User Interface: It just kno {vocalsound} the iPod knows . {vocalsound} S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} If it works on an iPod then it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . So you just you just can either do this or like you can just touch it if you want . +Industrial Designer: I don't have one . +Marketing: Well for the volume you have to press the middle , and then go up . +User Interface: Okay . That's what I mean . Okay . Okay so you have to like press this middle region and then you can scroll up , go up and down . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: So it's like holding {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} well if you do that it goes , but if you {disfmarker} like that makes more sense 'cause there's already ones with up and down here , that I've seen . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} o And you you {disfmarker} is there an extra actual button ? Or are you actually {disfmarker} you're just using the mouse to go up and down . +Marketing: Well what you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like a b +Marketing: for the iPod you press an {disfmarker} w right if you're on the channel let's say , then you press on the middle and then if you do that again the volume goes up , and if you do that it goes down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But if you wanna keep it with volume here and here , I'm pretty sure {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean if if you're gonna this for channels , right , then y wouldn't the volume need to be separate somehow ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like you could just have {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: you could click and then have it up and down , +Project Manager: Oh you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think we can go on the fact that it does just work with the iPod . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: But the only thing is like , iPods are so expensive , like , it has to be {disfmarker} is that part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that what makes them expensi I think it's all of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +User Interface: yeah , I dunno , I dunno . +Project Manager: they have so much memory though , that's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't think so ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's the wheel dealy . +Marketing: I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's the uh h it's their capabili I mean they {disfmarker} it can hold what like five thousand songs or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm thinking we could {disfmarker} if if we're hav So ba I mean but an iPod just has that circle thing you know . +Industrial Designer: And they're re-programmable aren't they ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can put on your songs and then put on a different set , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's probably why they're expensive , they're like little computers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . Well like since it just has the circle thing , you could make it a qui a kind of cool shape , like it could be a cool sort of you know , because it could be circular , you know , or something weird like that , just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Well it could just be simple instead of being a l mass . Because , the other thing , I didn't tell you all my presentation {vocalsound} , is that people find it {disfmarker} find that it's a big waste of time to have to learn how to use your remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that's another thing they complained about . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , what other buttons were there ? Volume {disfmarker} oh we've ts just said that . +User Interface: So okay . +Marketing: Channel selection . +User Interface: This is just for T_V_ , it's not for {disfmarker} or it is {disfmarker} does need to be compatible with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} A D_V_D_ is simple , you just have play , pause , eject , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know actually our our new project requirements , I'm not sure if they meant o onl use only for television as in not for D_V_D_ or just not internet type things . +User Interface: So how do you switch {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu . +Industrial Designer: and menu maybe . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll I'll check that and update you on the next {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . So like if we had that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we'll hold off on that 'cause {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But s yeah uh . +Marketing: But D_V_D_ players usually have their own remote . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So , I know I'm not c really clear on what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's cool to have it all on one , because you wanna turn it on then you wanna turn up the volume , and then you wanna go to the menu , so you don't wanna switch . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: So you'd have to have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} you would have to have like a function switch button , you know somewhere so like you can {disfmarker} you're either on T_V_ , you're on D_V_D_ or you're on V_C_R_ , or you're like . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well but D_V_D_ is only like four buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , it is only fun +User Interface: but I mean like to switch the fun so like to switch the function of the little circle disc , the touch pad . +Project Manager: But i Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . But I think the circle only does {disfmarker} channel isn't applicable to D_V_D_ really 'cause you don't wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but it {disfmarker} it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but volume is and volume is actually controlled on the T_V_ so you don't have to switch . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} but I'm saying like , does it make sense to have like some kind of a button , so like you're {disfmarker} if you're on T_V_ , like you can switch channels , but then if uh if you're on D_V_D_ then like the channel bu like the the region of the disc that was for channels is for like switching to different tracks or s you know , to different {disfmarker} I mean do we need to think about that , +Project Manager: Um , yeah , let's think about it +User Interface: that like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes we can try that . +Project Manager: 'cause we need to wrap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","In a time-constrained functional design meeting attended by professionals from marketing, project management, user interface, and industrial design departments, the team convened to deliberate on the development of a remote control, focusing on user requirements, technical ramifications, and design elements. The Project Manager initiated the session, highlighting that minutes were being documented and would be accessible via the shared documents folder for future reference. + +Marketing opened the updates by presenting findings from a study that involved observing the habits of a hundred people in a usability lab and distributing questionnaires. It was found that users generally disliked the look and feel of remote controls, finding them incompatible with their operational behavior. Users were also noted to utilize only about ten percent of the remote's buttons, generally prioritizing channel selection, teletext, volume, and power functionalities—elements that the team agreed should heavily influence the design of the new remote. Marketing also emphasized user demographics, noting young users aged fifteen to thirty-five were more willing to pay for advanced features like screen and speech recognition than older users. + +The User Interface expert echoed the sentiment of creating a user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing design, proposing reduction of button numbers, grouping similar functions, and considering color coding and form factor to improve navigation and appeal. + +The Industrial Designer concentrated on the working design, suggesting the need to cover basic and advanced functionalities like a location feature that could assist users in finding misplaced remotes. The proposed components for the remote included an energy source, input mechanisms, a processor, a transmitter, and a receiver for signals from the television. The recommendation was to utilize a battery, a button pad, a standard infrared transmitter, and possibly a radio receiver for a location signal—an aspect that was underscored as adding value by potentially preventing the common issue of lost remotes. + +Technical interjections were made throughout the meeting to sort out minor issues like function button pressing procedures, with contributions from multiple attendees to resolve hitches encountered with presentation equipment. + +The meeting's final segment was devoted to brainstorming session planning and emphasizing the need to integrate the corporate image into the remote's design under the slogan ""we put fashion in electronics."" Emerging requirements necessitated the team to adapt to industry changes, such as excluding teletext due to the rise of internet usage, and stay focused on creating a product purely for controlling televisions rather than integrating internet features. + +As the session drew to a close, the project manager recapped the discussions and decisions made, stressing that upcoming meetings would continue to refine the design process. The concluding discussions revolved around user interface specifics, target demographics, the feasibility of integrating advanced features like speech recognition within budget constraints, and the overall design strategy aimed at creating an intuitive, minimalist remote control that meets the expectations of young, tech-savvy users." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hmm . Okay everybody . Welcome to the detailed design meeting . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see . Our agenda . Last time we discussed the squishy fruitiness of {vocalsound} our remote controls and how we might pursue that . Um and I think {disfmarker} looks like we've come up with some ideas . Um and we also talked about materials we'd use and what kind of chip would be necessary . Um so for later in the meeting I've done a a spreadsheet of production costs so we'll take a look at that . Um and see if it's changed at all from when we last discussed it . Um {vocalsound} so actually I think {disfmarker} Yeah um f {vocalsound} you guys wanna give a prototype presentation of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay well um . So our design looks something like this . This being the wheel that you use to uh change channels or volume or whatever . This is a button , serves as the power button if you hold it down , and if you just tap on it I think it brings up the menu . And uh the base of the remote control , which has a squishy spongy rubbery feel , is interchangeable . So you can change the colour , according to your {disfmarker} to suit your living room or whatever . And it comes {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could change the vegetable , or fruit . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I can change the vegetable . +Project Manager: Oh is that broccoli ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one's broccoli {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this snaps off and you can put on whichever one you want . This is not to scale 'cause it would have the battery inside it . This is a mango . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} it's trendy fruit , it's not just ordinary fruits . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't have orange , you have mango . Um I guess strawberry's not as trendy , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S a very bright strawberry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we'll come up with a variety of trendy and exciting fruit designs for the remote control . And then people will be encouraged to buy three or five of them , because they'll need to switch 'em out . +User Interface: It's been a l +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's been a little bit difficult to um make sure that it's hand-holdable , and that the user can use it , you know , it's not too big . Uh but we think that this you know , this size will be okay and we will have to fit the battery case in there somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: And I guess the only other thing that we really didn't talk about was {disfmarker} or design yet actually , would be the um thing {disfmarker} the locator . How how {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the locator is just chip that's inside there . +User Interface: Okay so that's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the beeper's also inside there too somewhere +User Interface: So you have to have a button on your on your {disfmarker} you have to attach the button to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we didn't design that . +User Interface: Yeah we have {disfmarker} that that has yes yet to be designed . +Industrial Designer: But it would be coordinating with that of course . +User Interface: Yeah that c hey that that could you know match the handset . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could have a broccoli , or you could have a mango . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Tada . +Project Manager: Oh . Um if you wanna look in your project documents folder , there's an Excel spreadsheet . Um the only one that's in there , production costs . And if you open it up . Um I've just stuck the numbers in , it was a real challenge there . {vocalsound} But if I missed anything that we've gone over , or if you see something that has changed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean , we decided on batteries , and the regular chip would be necessary for the more advanced iPod-like button . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I said uncurved or flat . I think that's what you have there , is that right ? For the for the plastic part would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My impression was that flat meant like like one of those square remotes . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's really not very clear , because you got single curve and double curve and {disfmarker} d I dunno what that means . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One side is curved and then the other side is curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} yeah . If we're talking about the area just {disfmarker} oh I d I dunno . I guess we'd have to contact the company that makes them and see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so what else ? There's plastic for that area around the button . Um and then rubber would be the squishy like thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and lots of special colours actually . {vocalsound} Uh scroll wheel . Do you see anything that I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No I think that's alright . +Project Manager: Okay so that would make our total of eleven point nine , which is even less than twelve point five , which means we'd be making even more of a profit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if we sold a lot of squishy things . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Boo yeah . Okay . {vocalsound} S So {disfmarker} Mm . Did y what did you work on ? The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um evaluation criteria . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've got a presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . I think that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I need {disfmarker} where's the cable ? Right what happens is we have to um decide whether this this whole this whole project we've been working on actually um meets the standards we were set at the start . Um . Right . This doesn't {disfmarker} okay . Um the method is {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} well I've analysed the user requirements and integrated them to the trends found in marketing reports and in our company strategy marketing . And um the findings were that we need it to look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , and this is {disfmarker} everything's listed down . Um , look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , it has to be technologically innovative and it has to be easy to use . These are all things we looked at at the start , um and criteria that have to be met . We have to use a table , I'll show you that later , together to decide whether it meets the standards . And {vocalsound} we we have therefore in total um {disfmarker} We have five {disfmarker} we have eleven points according to which this should be evaluated . And um the cri well basically the findings are the same as the evaluation criteria . I would like to show you the table we have to use . Um . No . This is the table . Can you see this here ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um so the que the questions I've given you {disfmarker} c could you write that down ? True is one and and false is seven . And we'll just go through each point together , hopefully . Um . I think if each of us gives an opinion then they can be mixed somehow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno how it works exactly , I haven't been told . +User Interface: Yeah . Is it possible that we can bring this up on our own {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Yeah it's in the um {disfmarker} it's in the project documents . +User Interface: Is it meeting three minutes ? No it's not minutes . +Marketing: It's called evaluation criteria . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And it's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Huh , the PowerPoint one ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . You've found it all ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it was um {disfmarker} Yeah true's one . +User Interface: True's one and false is seven . +Marketing: Do you want us to discuss this together or do you want us to do it singly ? +Project Manager: Um we can do it separately and then discuss it +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah okay . +Project Manager: if if that's what people wanna do . +User Interface: So it's actually a scale . +Project Manager: Wait , one is true and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , +Project Manager: so these are the questions we're answering . And one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: yes it's {disfmarker} if it's fancy you put one , +Project Manager: One , right okay . +Marketing: if it's really unfancy it's seven . +Project Manager: If it's somewhere in between you put four . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Does it feel fancy ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Feels like play-dough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They shouldn't really be questions . Should be more like {disfmarker} Are the batteries easy to insert ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes ? Very very true . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I imagine they're somewhere on the front . We have a little case that you slip 'em in . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we just about ready ? +Marketing: Apparently I'm supposed to use the whiteboard . Do we {disfmarker} um is it necessary ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll just do um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah the the marker thing kinda stopped working last time we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Our animals will forever be there . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Un unless you feel you need it t to {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't feel any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: right um {disfmarker} Right so one point one ? We'll just go in a circle . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Marketing: Right . Ooh I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . One ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . Okay so do we just add it up and divide it by four ? Is that what the company does ? +Project Manager: I I think we should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's four if you wanna do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It adds to sixteen , so that's four . +Marketing: Oh no . It adds to thirteen . One five five two . +Industrial Designer: Oh I thought she said five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: One five five two is thirteen , over four for now . I think that's um {disfmarker} next ? +User Interface: Um three . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wasn't cheating I swear . +Marketing: Uh-oh . Right . One point three is {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's a one was true and seven was false ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} Okay , so you guys really didn't like it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh I thought it was the other way round . +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute . +Marketing: I really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought it was the other way round too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we do have about the same thing , we just have it the other way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah I I was thinking one means no points , you know , all the way up to the top {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It was one is true and {vocalsound} false is seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I should've kept the table up . +Project Manager: Oh gosh . Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll just I'll just reverse them all . It's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right , well I'm glad this came out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought you guys hated it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was like , why did you guys design it that way if you hated it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} Oh that's quite funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So , starting again , one point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Two . Okay , one point two ? +User Interface: Uh three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . Um , one point three ? +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: Ha . {vocalsound} Two point one ? +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: Uh two . +Industrial Designer: Uh two . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} I think I missed two . {vocalsound} Wait , is that two point one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I put it down as one point four for some reason . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One point four , one point five . Okay right +Marketing: Oh dear , okay . Sorry . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} I have two of them . +Industrial Designer: Mine has all kinds of problems . +Marketing: Two and one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry about that . T two point two , which is one point five . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: Uh three . Wait why did I put three ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: I meant one on mine too . +Marketing: Okay . Three point one . Is that correct on my slide ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: Three point one . I have four . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: One , four , three , three , three point two ? +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Uh . One . +Marketing: Three point three . +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Four point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Two . Four point two . +User Interface: Two . +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Two and four point three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: One , two . +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Right so I put one on that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll um I'll just do the calculations now if you want to continue . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or is it tedious ? I'm I'm sorry this was so tedious for everyone . +Project Manager: No no that's um {disfmarker} I think we should look at the ones that {vocalsound} like where s where people said four , where {disfmarker} um it looks like we might wanna discuss changing an aspect of the remote . +Marketing: I didn't know how else to do it . Okay . Well the worst ones were three point one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} does every ones have the slide ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three point one . +Project Manager: that was material . +Marketing: Slide show . Material {vocalsound} technologically innovative , okay . Um , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: do you want to change it ? What are the suggestions ? I don't know , anyone ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one is that again sorry ? Three point one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah that {disfmarker} it's three point one was not that good . Four point one . +Project Manager: Does the shape {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four point two ? +Project Manager: See I'm having I'm having trouble imagining the {disfmarker} is it uh gonna be the size , like the the controller ? It {disfmarker} or bigger ? +Industrial Designer: I think the wheel would probably be {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if we just smash all the vegetables down flat ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And like then it {disfmarker} you could hold it in your hand better . +Industrial Designer: I think the base would definitely be larger , 'cause some of these are not as easy to hold . They're kinda smallish . +Project Manager: Yeah . No but I imagine even if it was bigger , like if it's round and it's big then you you can't get {disfmarker} that's why remote controls are long because you have that thumb kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The flat one . Yeah . +Project Manager: so c they could all be bananas and cucumbers . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but I don't s I I personally don't think this is comfortable to to sit there , like it's an awkward position . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} yeah . But like if if you just squash them flat like and you made it flat {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well if they're that s uh stress ball stuff they would be pretty squishable . Mm . +User Interface: But it's still too big I think , in your hand . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And would it even resemble fruit that way ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah like certain ones {disfmarker} you'd have to limit the fruit selection , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like you could probably do a strawberry still . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think the broccoli would be out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You could do {gap} , although the broccoli is quite comfortable , I have to say , like {disfmarker} sorta like a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah that I I {disfmarker} when you were holding that before , it actually looked {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That looked really good . +User Interface: I don't know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are there any fruits that look like broccoli , no ? +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Not that I can think of . Rhubarb . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Rhubarb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that broccoli is my favourite actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} These obscure fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh despite the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we needn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if um the {disfmarker} it was just patterns on like {disfmarker} we we chose the shape or the sh shape could be whatever we wanted and then it would just be like a design on the rubber . +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: You know like like just a printed yeah or coloured yeah . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just colour , and not necessarily the shape of a strawberry . +User Interface: Yeah . That could work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Or I mean we could even have fruit like around {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: But if we if we need {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and just have the colour match or something . +Project Manager: yeah . And if we wanna incorporate the fruit thing somehow , there might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean if it if it in if it uh conflicts with the comfort of actually holdi holding the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . 'Cause yeah no-one wants to hold a remote that's uncomfortable obviously . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Or like {disfmarker} I dunno , some of 'em you can kind of think {disfmarker} see as like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: like you could {disfmarker} if it was only this {disfmarker} you know , if it was shaped like that , and it just had that . But you see the problem is you have to attach that , and this has to be detachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So like maybe that's just too big +Project Manager: Well see th the reason the broccoli works is you can kinda hold it like that , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which is a nice kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's sorta like a joystick . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I dunno . +Project Manager: I mean is there some way we could make it this kind of shape ? +User Interface: I guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause like kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could make it that shape but just have different colours , and call 'em the different fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or like even {disfmarker} +User Interface: Dif +Industrial Designer: We went with shape because we were having fun with the play-dough . +Project Manager: Or even like {disfmarker} Yeah like you said , like a joystick like that . You know ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Like uh we could do {disfmarker} I'm trying to think of other sha like fruits that are oddly shaped . +Project Manager: 'Cause that , I think {disfmarker} I mean that fits the whole round iPod idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you still have the comfort of holding it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} like if it's like this , you could put fruit designs and stuff on that part . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: But I mean it {disfmarker} do we have any other ideas about that ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could tr I don't know . +Marketing: Think the critical ones came out to be {disfmarker} yeah that one . {vocalsound} . Batteries easy to insert for some reason , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which can be easily {disfmarker} I think that's not a problem any more . +Project Manager: The batteries are going in the back ? +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} everyone gave that a one or a two . Yeah they'd probably be either on the front or the side of the remote . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: The reason I I ga I didn't give it a one {disfmarker} I think I gave it a three because I thought you'd have to like unc clip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No I imagine there'd be sort of a hatch door , +Project Manager: no you could {disfmarker} Just like any other one . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah um like on a normal remote . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So it would probably either in the f no it can't be in the front 'cause the I_R_'s right there , but it'd be on one of the sides probably . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I think everyone's under three anyway . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think it's {disfmarker} yeah those are the only two points . +User Interface: Cool . Well {disfmarker} Yeah the broccoli I guess wins . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I'd agree with changing the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , I was just having fun making strawberries and stuff . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We were a bit off task . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um so uh I can't think of any {disfmarker} So we'll have to like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . You could make the touch pad in th in different shapes , but then that kind of re-designs the whole project like , +Industrial Designer: It might also sort of annoy people if we get used to having the buttons in one shape . +User Interface: but you could do like {disfmarker} Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it would probably cost more to produce , 'cause they're irregular . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that's true . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I bet having different colours is a lot cheaper than having different shapes too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Which is why printing might be like {disfmarker} just printing the fruit on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Not really {disfmarker} Well we've done finance evaluation criteria , production evaluation . {vocalsound} Um so project evaluation . +Marketing: Do you want this and we can all {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: I guess we're supposed to discuss um the prod the process of the project and how satisfied {disfmarker} oh , oh it's alright . Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: It's alright yeah ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Did you feel there was a lot of room for creativity in the sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I did . +Project Manager: I mean fruit and squishiness . How c more creative can you get ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sponginess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The prototype making was very creatively stimulating +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we've come up with a product that's fun and meets all the criteria {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: And how was our leadership and teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it was good . We knew what we were doing . It was a very democratic process and everyone got to contribute . +Project Manager: Well I thought my leadership was crap personally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well you told us when to start and when to end , and that's all that matters . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me , am I allowed to say that ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: I think you were fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I'm never gonna do a management position , I know that now . +User Interface: You did a good job leading . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I thought we all worked very well together . +Marketing: Yeah we didn't {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} uh it all c sort of blended quite well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think it more than anything we didn't really have our set roles so much , as we just would be like {vocalsound} I don't know , all had ideas about it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Very democratic . No spats , that was good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and the means for like {disfmarker} the materials we used , how convenient were they ? Like the the pens , the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean we used {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I'm not a big fan of any Microsoft , PowerPoint or any of this stuff . +Project Manager: Are you a Mac person ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no I never touch Macs either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just use the Unix or the off market , sort of WordPerfect and all these other things . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Which isn't very user-friendly though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Well the problem is if you don't {disfmarker} like my new computer never has WordPerfect so I have to go track someone down who has an old disk and then I have to reinstall it . So I have all these documents I can't use now . But yeah I mean I guess it's okay . +User Interface: I felt like my {disfmarker} I dunno if it was just my role , but l but uh I di I thought that my {disfmarker} the information that was available to me was kind of just like {disfmarker} or maybe it was just the idea that we had . But there's kinda {disfmarker} it was kinda like okay , I don't really think {disfmarker} I dunno what I'm doing here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So I didn't really think it was helpful . So I kind of just made up my own stuff and I didn't really like the PowerPoint presentations , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so I kind of wrote a lot of notes instead . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah I d I don't really like PowerPoint personally , {vocalsound} think it's kinda stupid . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I never use it . +User Interface: Yeah but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can't say I found everything particularly helpful . Like I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It didn't really {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My first bit of information was like this child's drawn picture of how a remote works . +Marketing: I though it was brilliant no ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No mine was really helpful as in my stuff was quite helpful I think . +Project Manager: I mean m my problem {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it probably does . +User Interface: So like a f +Marketing: I think it depends on the role +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: no ? +Project Manager: 'Cause my problem was , you guys had access to like {disfmarker} they'd put {disfmarker} send you to sites and stuff right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: See I couldn't do that , so I didn't really know what you guys were doing . And when you were talking about it I was just like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know that's wh that's why I seemed so ignorant when when you were j explaining things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well mine was mostly made up except when they told me like you know titanium costs more than wood to make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As if you'd wanted to . +Marketing: Yeah . But it must have been quite difficult for them to build a whole um +Project Manager: System . Yeah . +Marketing: a whole system , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause of course they can't give you uh uh anything comparable to the internet for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , it {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well I think it's interesting how it all went together , like I had the stuff about how me how rubber's cheap , and you have how people want it to be spongy , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , huh . +Industrial Designer: It seems planned you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I kinda thought that um {disfmarker} I felt like I would go and like try to use my information , or like I'd make this stupid little presentation and then like I just would end up talking about something completely unrelated +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno I felt like I was off-task all the time . But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean we really got into talking about like personal practicalit like it wasn't necessarily what was like {disfmarker} we would never have thought of fruit or sponginess you know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If I hadn't been told that fruit was {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I think that {vocalsound} it it might be to see whether people actually all come up with the same thing . +Project Manager: Oh right . given certain information or {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like if everyone's given the same input {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a clue , anyway . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +Marketing: Um what's next ? Looks like {disfmarker} oh no that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you guys think of the pens ? +Marketing: It's quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It asks about that . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I wanna s +Industrial Designer: They're kinda hard to write with though . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I I've f forgotten once or twice to {vocalsound} check the box . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I I'd like to see what what it looks like on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're nicer than the pen that I'm using , because like your stuff actually shows up here , rather than having to look at the screen and write . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But even so , I dunno . +Project Manager: And new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's all very new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: no ? It's all very new . +User Interface: Yeah I think I'd like to um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I dunno . Like it was {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: I think the microphones are okay when you're sitting down , but like they're kinda clumsy I guess when you're {disfmarker} like when you're s going up to the whiteboard like . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Well they drop off if you like move too much . +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . But they're they're okay . +Industrial Designer: But I don't think we're supposed to be testing these microphones . Maybe we are . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I think , and I think that uh all this technology like {disfmarker} I guess some people must be interested in using it but I can't imagine finding it any more useful than like looking at someone's notes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , like I actually worked in a company , +User Interface: or like {disfmarker} I dunno . +Industrial Designer: and I had a role and I had to go to meetings . And like the last thing I would have wanted would be to have to watch a video 'cause I missed a meeting . Like usually I missed meetings deliberately . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's just {disfmarker} there's really not that much information that actually goes through a real meeting , like when you're actually at a real meeting in a real company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's mostly like rehashing old stuff . +User Interface: Hm . +Industrial Designer: And you're sort of going over general stuff that anybody who's sort of on task should already know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like the {disfmarker} there's just really not a lot of information that goes through . +Project Manager: Seems kind of like an excessive reiteration . +Industrial Designer: It seems like way overkill . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if I missed a meeting I could probably get it summed up in like one sentence . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't need to have to watch like a t two hour video with the sound and the transcript and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it would be {disfmarker} it's gotta be worth it to {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I'm just mostly curious about like what kind of person or like company would would really find it useful , 'cause can't really imagine , dunno . How about a p {vocalsound} a {gap} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Well does anyone wanna talk about fruit more while we still have time ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any other ideas for {disfmarker} +Marketing: What what's the end ? Are we are we supposed to um {disfmarker} you supposed to write a report ? Or we ending ? +Project Manager: Um we still have time if there's any other input . +Marketing: Is that the end ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} I think we did really well personally , which is why we've you know , gone through this so quickly . 'Cause I mean we've all {disfmarker} we all kind of agreed our product is satisfactory , it fits the budget , and it's trendy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . Um . +Marketing: End of meeting . You have to tell her , she {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think that's all for today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay we have to fill in all this stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} M meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Stuff stuff stuff . +Project Manager: Meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I've learned not to bring play-dough to meetings . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it would be a good idea , I like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's hard enough to get people actually paying attention . Especially if you have food . +Project Manager: So I guess we're supposed to write final reports . 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: All of us ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Hmm . +Marketing: Well there's al eight , nine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . Oh ooh . +Project Manager: Hmm . Or is that just me ? {vocalsound} +","In a detailed design meeting, the project manager opens the discussion by welcoming the participants and referencing the previous session's topic of the ""squishy fruitiness"" of the remote controls. They mention that ideas regarding the design and materials to be used have been generated and the team will later review a spreadsheet detailing production costs to assess any changes since the last meeting. + +The industrial designer presents a physical model of the remote design, pointing out its features such as a wheel for changing channels or volume, and a multifunctional button that acts as both a power button and a menu opener. They highlight the base's squishy rubber texture, which is interchangeable, allowing for customization of color to match the user's living room decor. The designer shows different attachments that can be swapped out to resemble various fruits and vegetables, such as broccoli and mango, emphasizing the use of trendy fruit designs rather than ordinary ones. This strategy is expected to encourage consumers to purchase multiple items for variety. + +During the conversation, the user interface specialist points out challenges in ensuring the remote is sufficiently hand-holdable and recognizes the need to incorporate battery housing without compromising user comfort. There's also mention of including a locator chip and beeper within the remote for convenience. + +The marketing representative joins the conversation, leading to the discussion of the project's evaluation criteria and how it aligns with initial user requirements, technological innovation, ease of use, and the integration of trends found in marketing reports. They reveal the existence of a structured evaluation method utilized to gauge whether the project meets the established standards using an eleven-point evaluation table to be completed by the team. + +As the meeting continues, the group reviews financial aspects, with the project manager noting that projected costs are below previous estimates, indicating a potential increase in profit. This part of the discussion focuses on manufacturing costs related to the choice of materials like rubber and specific colors, and comments on the squishy design elements of the remote. + +Marketing further prompts the team to assess each criterion in the evaluation table to discuss changes that could improve the remote. Points of contention include the material innovation and ease of battery insertion, leading to debates over the remote's shape. A suggestion to flatten the 'fruit' shapes for a better grip sparks a brainstorming session where ideas like printing fruit patterns onto the rubber exterior are considered, potentially offering a compromise between creativity and user comfort. + +As the meeting nears its end, the group discusses overall project satisfaction, from creative freedom to teamwork and leadership. There is also dialogue on how helpful the materials and tools provided were, such as PowerPoint, the information distributed, and the technology used for the meeting, like the microphones and electronic pens. + +The project manager concludes the session asking for any final thoughts or ideas related to the 'fruit' theme of the remote, emphasizing satisfaction with the product's trendiness, budget fit, and overall design. The industrial designer humorously notes the distraction that can be caused by play-dough in a serious meeting environment. + +Finally, there is a suggestion that the team might need to write final reports, although it is unclear if this responsibility is for each individual or specific members. The meeting is then adjourned with a light-hearted note about the potential drawbacks of bringing playful materials to future meetings." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","The project team discussed various aspects of the remote control design, including changes according to the market situation, the use of solar and traditional batteries, and the decision against using an LCD display for cost reasons. They talked about having a curved, single-curved casing with rubber finishing in colorful designs that may include the company colors of grey and yellow. Other features discussed included voice recognition, scroll-wheels for volume control, and the possibility of interchangeable covers for customizability. The chips to be used will be regular, not advanced, as LCD displays will not be included. The group also decided that the buttons should possibly be made of rubber to give a spongy feel, which is desired by the target market. The next stages of the project include designing the look and feel, product evaluation, working together on the prototype drawing, and updating shared documentation with their decisions. The project manager mentioned planning holidays, and a follow-up meeting in thirty minutes was set to finalize the decisions." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's start our second me meeting on {vocalsound} conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: as the previous meeting I will be the secretary +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we will have three presentations and we'll have to decide on the remote control concept and finally we'll close the decision . So I will first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y you do the minutes first , or ? +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: I I think I will let uh our User Interface Designer speak first , Mister David Jordan . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So , we'll {disfmarker} S +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: technical accessoire ? +User Interface: No no no . +Project Manager: Interface ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: This . +User Interface: Mm . So uh first I will present the concept of user interface . Um there's three concepts in the user interface . So first one it's a Google controller . The second is a fancy controller . The last one is uh intelligent controller . So there are three concepts in our controller . Um n next I will explain one by one , the first is Google controller . Um , so I want the controller to be easy to use , but with sophisticated functions . So it's a combination of easy to use and um sophisticated functions . Uh this is a first concept of our controller . The second concept is a fancy controller , um so we want give the customers the impression that our controller is very attractive , um they can easy recognise our controller among a lot of products , so so the u the user f the the u user interface should be very very cute , very very g um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: A nice one . +User Interface: attractive . Such like this , there are several uh examples in the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm not sure the one in the middle {vocalsound} is very attractive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's very , you know +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very big , +User Interface: if you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's hard f i it's easy for you to remember it . {vocalsound} Or to recognise it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , why not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll have big discussion I suppose after that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So the last uh concept is intelligent . We want uh we want our controller to be smart , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: so maybe we should uh use um uh technology , such as speech recognition technology and gesture recognition technology , so we need to have coop some cooperation with some research institute on speech recognition and um gesture recognition . Um With this advanced features we {disfmarker} I think we can attract a lot of user . +Project Manager: Okay . Something else ? +User Interface: Okay . No . There {disfmarker} this is the three concepts of our controller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just have one question , because for the intelligent controller , {vocalsound} you said that we can use the voice recognition or the gesture recognition , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but as the um expert told us , most of the people want to use the remote control to zap t to zap between channels . Do you think they will be able to use gestures ? +User Interface: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because , if they do all the time the same gesture , as you said previously in the last meeting , maybe they will get injuries because of that ? +User Interface: Y +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: or if you say channel three channel three two three four six five , I think they will be bored after a while . You don't think so ? +User Interface: Uh I think some time it's very uh convenient to use voice interface and gesture interface than use button . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: For example , if you cannot find your uh {vocalsound} controller , you can just uh {vocalsound} just just uh speak something such as , yeah , one two . +Project Manager: I +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {vocalsound} that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good point , so . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you got a cold . You have a mute remote controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So you can use your gesture . That's no problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but how how is {disfmarker} how risky is it to trust like speech recognition or gesture recognition ? +Project Manager: Broken arm ? +User Interface: For limited vocabulary speech recognition is very reliable and for s limited vocabulary gesture recognition is also very {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but suppose you have a family watching T_V_ , and if they want to use their private remote control in the same time , do you think it will work ? Everybody wanting to change channel in the same time ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this this {disfmarker} but this would never happen anyway . +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah , they cannot speak at the same time . +Project Manager: If you have one brother and one sister +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they want to watch their favourite uh T_V_ programme , +Marketing: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so they say oh channel four channel three channel four channel three all the time , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Yeah , it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: but the same can happen even with it you know this kind of remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I don't think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you have the remote control , so maybe you can keep it f with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right . +Project Manager: You're not you're not obliged to share it . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay , you mean it could be a problem for this kind of stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's the advantage of intelligent controller . Even you h you have the controller , I can {vocalsound} I can say channel three , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} it's {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: so it's c come to channel three , +Marketing: No , but this is disadvant disadvantage . +User Interface: I don't have to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a disadvantage . +User Interface: It's advantage . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And mayb maybe we can have the switching mode to pass from you know voice controller to +Project Manager: Yeah , but one other question . +Industrial Designer: manual controllers , eh . +Project Manager: How how much will it cost ? +Industrial Designer: No , more expensive maybe . +User Interface: How much ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because I suppose we need to do research to have something working . +User Interface: No no we we d we we just are use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some some efficient . +Marketing: Uh if you if if you use the basic {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no we just um have some cooperation with some research institute , we don't have to do some basic research on this field . +Project Manager: So you think it won't cost an {disfmarker} Not a lot for us ? Or ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} because uh this technology is uh um for limited wor or limited wor uh lexical recognition , it's very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} yeah . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's changing how the remote control is gonna be built . Because then you need uh {disfmarker} I mean this doesn't have uh the power to do recognition , for example . +Industrial Designer: Well y y you have also the language problem , +User Interface: No it's uh {disfmarker} Even for the f um because the the vocabulary {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you know when you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it it have to be universal , +Project Manager: Yeah . I agree with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so . +User Interface: The vocabulary is very small , so that's not a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but there is one problem that uh Baba talked about is the international +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: remote control . We need something that is international . Suppose we're {disfmarker} we want to sell it in France . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The recognition system will be able to understand French . If you want to go to England , it will be able to understand English , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Yeah , the key , the key um the key of our {disfmarker} the key feature of our controller is that it's it has some some um adaptation +Marketing: Yeah , this could be downloaded by the web maybe , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you know . The product {disfmarker} The pro +User Interface: mechanism . It's It's it means when you when you sell this controller in China it's can recognise Chinese . It's r if you sell this controller in France it can recognise French . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's a very smart , it's a very smart controller maybe {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: And with no increase in the pri production price of the remote control ? +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because of this product uh this technology has already been developed . +Project Manager: Yeah , but how will you {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the problem is how to s you know if this is a push button controller , you can send this con this remote control everywhere in the world , the same one . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you have the language , you have to develop for each country . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh n Yeah , yeah tha that's why we have to do language adaptation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but for each country you have to do one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because uh the for example for Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Even for each f for even for different family we have to do d yeah we would we have to do adaptation to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Seems to be quite complex . +Marketing: but then w Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Comple +User Interface: No , it's not so complex {vocalsound} . +Marketing: we have to take care of the twelve Euros +Project Manager: And what about voice recognition , do we have microphones ? +Marketing: problem . +Project Manager: And where will be they ? Do you think if we're far from television it will work ? +User Interface: No no no it's not {disfmarker} I think that's n that's not a problem because you you don't have to wear a microphone . It it just {disfmarker} the microphone is embedded in the controller . +Project Manager: Yeah , but where is the controller ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Where is the controller ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in your family , in your home . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but then it's it's like this uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: here it's uh an object . But here you say you want to use i uh s technology . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah you can you can embed it uh microphone here . +Industrial Designer: A microphone maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , but wha what is the use of voice or gesture recognition if you have a remote control li like this , if you have an object . If you want to use voice or gesture you need to be free , without any object . +Industrial Designer: To talk to the to the T_V_ maybe . +Project Manager: You just want to interact with television . +User Interface: Yeah yeah just {disfmarker} you just put the controller here , then you +Industrial Designer: I if you say one , he switch to channel , +User Interface: you use your command +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: and you do s your gesture . +Project Manager: but you can lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it's n y {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you lose it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So well for example if it is somewhere in the room if i maybe if it is in the table there you can always say s channel one and the t the remote control gives the order to the T_V_ to switch to channel one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay you {disfmarker} so you can build a kind of black box +Industrial Designer: Devic +Project Manager: and put it on T_V_ and just to recognize gestures and voice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah but so you need a camera and you know a microphone {vocalsound} inside your remote control . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you would still have the buttons . Or is it {disfmarker} do you think it should be only voice recognition and gesture recognition ? Or you you still have the possibility to use buttons ? +User Interface: think it {disfmarker} we should give the uh flexibility to the user and we think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: You can see {disfmarker} they can switch form one modality to another . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . It's a bit risky risky . +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: And maybe it will be quite {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's quite inter quite attractive . +Industrial Designer: But I think that , you know , switching from one country to to another will be a problem , so {disfmarker} although y y +User Interface: Well , if you do language adaptation , there should be no problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: We should have confidence in technology . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , we should . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Hmm . So , what do you think ? We'll try the controllers you'd prefer . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: Which kind of controller would you prefer to use , you as a remote control user ? +Marketing: If if {disfmarker} I mean , uh I'm sure if the user pays the same price , he's happy to have recognition . +User Interface: More features , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if if if it like doubles uh +Industrial Designer: I think he need a control that is very reliable , +Marketing: no one would would be interested . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So I think it would be better not to do any intelligent controller and to stay with the Google controller or a fancy controller . Maybe try to mix the Google controller and the fancy controller ? Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just want to have something {disfmarker} controller which is in a kind of intelligent controller , easy to use , sophisticated and fancy . You think it's possible ? +User Interface: Yeah but if if you stick to um {disfmarker} stick to the first two parts . So what's the difference between our controller with other products in the market ? There's no k features of our controller , so is there is there any necessary to design new controller without any breakthrough features ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . No , +User Interface: Would y would you replace your controller with a controller with similar function if you do not have some some function inside it that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not really the {disfmarker} we +Marketing: Y +Industrial Designer: we can add for example some function like for browsing in internet , so {disfmarker} or something like that . But uh I think a user need {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you y that's a fun that's not the function of the controller , that's a function of T_V_ . You can replace your T_V_ with a new T_V_ with internet browsing function , +Marketing: No , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you need you need new remote controller then . Because if you wanna browse internet or , I don't know , if you wanna type something , +Industrial Designer: Don't have a {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: if we can send email from it . +User Interface: But it's not the {disfmarker} only the problem {disfmarker} only the issue of controller , it's it's also the issue of the T_V_ . +Marketing: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Because the p the problem I can see with with the voice or the gesture itself wh what can happen in a family i i for example if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cause for example {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but we do we do we we we cannot rely one hundred percent on these features to u to use the controller , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh we want so +User Interface: but with the features of our controller such as you have the feature of voice recognition in your mobile but you seldom use it , your mobile , but you when you choose a new mobile , you choose the one with voice recognition . +Marketing: Yeah , you wou you would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: the feature is not one hundred percent reliable , but it's a feature to distinguish our product from our {disfmarker} from other products . +Project Manager: Yeah , but w we we want something th that works all the time , every day , every hour , for everyone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And for all the person of the family maybe , +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You don't need to tune it . +Industrial Designer: so , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if if if if you're if you ar if you already have a product it works one hundred percent reliable , would you replace it with another one ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not ? If it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for example the goo y +Industrial Designer: Because you have new {disfmarker} +Marketing: you say we would we would to have a Google-like controller . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't see how adding speech or gesture recognition would make the remote control look more like Google . Google is {vocalsound} is simple , works fine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so I I guess if can have a remote control that is really basic , simple and works fine , it's already a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh yes , but there's no big difference between the traditional controller . +Marketing: Uh thi this {disfmarker} I mean , the user is not only interested in having speech or gesture recognition +User Interface: The {disfmarker} then nn +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: no . +Marketing: if he has something that works fine and is really {vocalsound} fancy , looks nice and it's easy easy to use , easy to use . +User Interface: Tha +Project Manager: Not too expensive too . +User Interface: But the there's there's n there's n not enough motivation for them to replace their old controller with a new one if there's no key feature in the new controller . +Marketing: See {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem , +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean , I I know it's more interesting to develop a remote controller with speech and gesture and whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But you have to think , the user is the one who gonna buy the product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and so . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: I mean , that's the point . +Project Manager: let's go to the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll be able to take a decision after that , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Working ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , working design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the {vocalsound} next one ? I uh {disfmarker} it's not this one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's uh oth the oth {vocalsound} so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the working design . Sorry . {vocalsound} Component design . +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this yeah {disfmarker} so this is the described use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? Are you inst +Project Manager: Uh I think there's something wrong with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: It did didn't r receive it . Didn't receive it . +Project Manager: Maybe you you record it somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +User Interface: Participant one . Participant one . +Project Manager: Interface concept . No . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Maybe I record recorded directly on the {disfmarker} Computer . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} Nope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . Yes . +Project Manager: It seems that we have a problem with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you remember what you had to say or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can say it to you without . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe we can first come to +Project Manager: No , I think it will be more interesting to start with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh to Frahan . With Frahan , then you can prepare your slides , +Marketing: I think it's more interesting what he says , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: then present it later . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: exac +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You will had s some more information in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it will be interesting after your presentation to have um Baba's presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In fact , I don't know , +Project Manager: So . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I s because i in my presentation I don't have here with {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , never mind . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} It was in fact the design use to show you the design of what is inside a what is inside and what are the different component of the r +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: of the remote control . So it will be interesting so I could show you some some picture of what is inside +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so . So I {disfmarker} in fact the the {disfmarker} f something I want to discuss is which kind of material are we going to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so will {disfmarker} it will be wooden wooden di wooden remote control or a a plastic remote control like this one . So and {vocalsound} in which which which kind will be the the different bu button , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it can be some , you know , classic pushbutton like this one , or you have also some button like L_C_D_ where you know , the button the buttons are unlighted during the night , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or , you know , you can see them in the darkness . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the other thing I want to discuss also is which kind of alimentation , electric alimentation do you want to have , so will it be for example uh d uh solar energy alimentation +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: or will it be a battery like the classical battery so . And I think that for example for the alimentation it would be good to have uh both of them , so so for example in some country where you are in the the countryside and you are far from , you know , the cities uh for example in some place in in S Senegal , so if you have electric if you have solar alimentation , you just , when you want to have recharger or remote control power you just put it on the sun and after one hour you can come +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} so it can be interesting for people to have this kind of remote con It can be something interesting to make people buy it , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's an added value to the remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah mm . +Project Manager: and maybe it can attract all the ecological k yeah consumers +Industrial Designer: Ecologists , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and but about the the price of adding this solar battery , would it be something really that will increase the price of production more , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? +Industrial Designer: Alrigh In fact , having them both will {disfmarker} if we want to have battery , regular battery and and {vocalsound} the solar energy battery it could be {disfmarker} it'll it will add a little bit of the price , +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: but it will be an added value also that will be compensated , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so hmm . +Project Manager: And what tha what about the uh materials ? +Industrial Designer: And the materials , it depends for example you {disfmarker} if you have a wooden material it can be more {disfmarker} the plastic material is more common +Project Manager: Impersonal , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's very resistant but , you know , something wooden will be like , I don't know high cl so a special high class , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Special for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or you know , you can have some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and i if you {disfmarker} we want to put fashion in electronics maybe we can try to do something with wood . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even if it is not completely wood , but just a part of the , you know , will be wooden , in wood +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and it can be interesting . +Project Manager: Mm okay , seems to be interesting , mm . +Industrial Designer: And so the last point is y also would do you want to have some very cheap integrated cir circuits , chips , or do you have low level or or very very expensive , it depends , but I think that low level will be , you know , it is an interim module . +Project Manager: Yeah , we want something easy to use and {disfmarker} so I think maybe something very low level wou would be enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you think that we will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it will fit on the price we want , twel twelve Euros , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: So wood . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: And what about the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: I think the buttons I pr I prefer , you know , the L_C_D_ you know {vocalsound} lighted buttons because , you know , it's {disfmarker} I don't know {vocalsound} um yeah , in the dark , it's fashion +Project Manager: No it's fashion , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it's related to how beautiful it is or uh if you want to watch T_V_ in the darkness or if you want to lo find your find your your remote control that is lost , you know in the darkness it's very easy so , right . +Marketing: What about the touch scr touch screen ? For example . It's it's expensive I I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think a touch screen {vocalsound} will be t as expensive as the L_C_D_ buttons so . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} And it is a kind of other design , I mean . It can also be interesting to have this kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you got email ? +Project Manager: I dunno . {vocalsound} I think we have only {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh five minutes left . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Participant four ? Functional requirements ? +Marketing: Uh no , trend watching . {vocalsound} The other one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think so , just {disfmarker} Yeah , so just to meet the user requirements I would just do a s short anal analysis of the remote control market and to kind of um have a better overview of what's the fashion in general I've checked more than only the remote control market , so next . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So again , it's pretty much similar to what I've said in the previous meeting . Um user really really want a fancy look and feel . They're not so so interested in uh functional look and feel , okay . Like the one you've shown , David , with all the buttons and {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} i i it sounds good technically +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's it's not what they want and uh {disfmarker} So , second point is they still want it it to be technologically innovative , so maybe it's sort of related to what you've said with the speech recognition and so on . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: At the same time , it's important that it's easy to use . So that were the three first points from the remote control uh analysis . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Now i if we look at fashion in general um {disfmarker} Okay . Wha what we really see this year is that uh everything from clothes to shoes and furniture is is inspired by fruits and vegetables , +Industrial Designer: Ah yes . +Marketing: okay , so I think we really have to take this into account for the design of the the thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause it's it's really what people want . Even if it's in general fashion , we want it to be in the remote control . And then uh if if we take the ordering or the ranking of all the points , fancy look and feel has , on a score of seven would have six as importance . Uh the remote control has to be technologically innovative , it's three . Then easy to use uh it's not so important actually with respect to other y other ones . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we see fancy look an look and feel is the most important one , and then if we combine this with the fashion uh from Milan and Paris +Industrial Designer: And fruit and vegetables yeah . +Marketing: we go to the fruits and vede vegetables . And the other point I haven't mention is people wan want to have a spongy touch , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: okay so this is this maybe doesn't really fit with the wooden design . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but the problem is which kind of material do you need to to be spongy ? +Marketing: Yeah thi this is this would be like um +Industrial Designer: Pla S +Marketing: plastic-like , but rubber , mayb maybe , you know , rubber-like uh +Industrial Designer: Very stuff {disfmarker} Okay , rubber rubber desi okay , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: device , so um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , tha tha that was the main point , I think , from the trend in fashion . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have to take decisions about the component concepts , about the energy . So , {vocalsound} as you say you want something technologically innovative , maybe using solar energy and {disfmarker} with battery would be something interesting , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Solar . +Marketing: Yeah , so when I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: maybe will attract +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: It will be a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: pro-ecology consumers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh cheap imprint so you s you propose low level chips would be uh enough to have something working well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Case . +User Interface: Later ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you think {gap} case . Something spongy . {vocalsound} Someth no wood . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No wood but {disfmarker} Plastic ? +Marketing: Maybe not no wood , but I mean ma maybe not the part you touching you know . +Industrial Designer: Would some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pla +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we can have wood for example in the bottom and , you know . It depends on the design we want , +Marketing: Yeah , maybe the base . +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: It's it's natural . +Marketing: But still y +Project Manager: Th The feeling is natural , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's natural +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and i +Project Manager: so maybe we can stay with wood . +Industrial Designer: And it can be correlated to energy , solar energy , so for the marketing aspect , you know , saying that it's ecol +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's not exactly right for the spongy point of view . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , it's not right , so . +Project Manager: But it's still fashion . +Marketing: But we could maybe have both like part of wood and some rubber for the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: or +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: something that you can {vocalsound} into it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and what about the user interface concept ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Google and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Google and fancy ? +Industrial Designer: and fancy , f how about the the voice ? {vocalsound} And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because I think that with the voice and gesture recognition there are still some disadvantages with this . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can do some marketing studies asking people if they're interested +User Interface: Uh yes . +Industrial Designer: and how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It It is an an interesting concept to see {disfmarker} to have uh voice control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: The smart controller . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} and the problem is I I'm we can infer i if you have v voice control why not to put it directly on the the T_V_ , so speak directly to the T_V_ and you don't need a remote control actually , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: but you need a receiver to recognize the gestures and the voice . +Industrial Designer: But it will be embedded on the T_V_ and not on the remote control , so . +Project Manager: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} d +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll just focus on the Google controller plus the fancy controller , +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe try to mix them these two concepts together , just in one and do a remote control with solar energy and batteries and with lev low level chips and wood . +User Interface: Yeah . It's good . +Project Manager: And L_C_D_ buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think for these supplements the solar energy would be something quite interesting and not maybe too difficult to add . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . And pf what can we think a supplement to {disfmarker} +Marketing: What interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah , for the interface something {disfmarker} added value . +Industrial Designer: I think the supplement can be the voice {vocalsound} . It is just , you know , it is not the most important , but it can be a part of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With a module ? You mean the remote control with a mur module if you want you can just use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: commands , words and use them when you don't want to use your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To push button , yeah , yeah . Even it is for s just some kids , you know , switching channels one two three four . +Project Manager: Turning the T_V_ o on o or off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , turning {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Not very complex commands , but easy commands , +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: so . +Project Manager: adding some vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple ones ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simple ones for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So the next meeting will start in thirty meeti minutes {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} we'll {disfmarker} you will all have to work in in your direction . So you will have to work on the look and feel design , to have the easy to use , powerful and fancy remote control with some added value such as the uh simple vocal commands recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh you will have to work more , Baba , on the um spongy way to to add spongy um touch to the buttons {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} expensive buttons {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , to make some new {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and try to find maybe a nice shape for the wooden remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And I sup I think we'll have to evaluate th the product too . +Marketing: Yeah , no not forgetting about the fruits and vegetables trends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If possible . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And remember as as I said last meeting , we really have to build a fashion remote control and uh the colour of the um the society will be really {disfmarker} it will be seen in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Need it to be , okay . +Project Manager: So you will have {disfmarker} Baba and David Jordan you will have to work together on the prototype and you will have next time to show us um modelling a cl a clay remote control , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so you will have to model model something . +User Interface: Okay . Yep +Project Manager: And I think that some specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: no more questions , we can close the session . +Industrial Designer: Sounds good , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","The project team had their second meeting on remote control concept design, with the project manager acting as secretary. Three presentations were on the agenda, and the focus was to settle on a remote control concept. The user interface designer presented three concepts: Google controller, fancy controller, and intelligent controller. The project manager voiced concerns over the practicality of voice and gesture recognition technology. The team discussed materials and components for production, considering wooden materials and solar-powered batteries as options for a more ecologically friendly product, and L_C_D_ buttons for visibility in the dark. The marketing department highlighted that current trends favored a fancy look and feel, and the influence of fruit/vegetable shapes in design. They also noted the need for innovative technology but easy usability. There was a consensus to try to combine Google controller features with a fancy design. The project manager emphasized the need for further work on a prototype for a fashion-forward, potentially eco-friendly remote control with simple voice command features. The team agreed to work on their respective elements before the next session, where they expect to see a clay model prototype." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and Jack Sargeant. Vikki Howells is substituting for Jack Sargeant. So, Vikki, welcome; it's good to see you in the committee. Item 2 this afternoon is our eleventh evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome Barry Hughes, who is Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales; Kwame Biney, who is senior policy advisor, CPS; and Iwan Jenkins, who is head of the complex casework unit, Crown Prosecution Service Cymru Wales. So thank you all for attending this afternoon. We're really looking forward to hearing your views on the Bill. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Barry Hughes: Perfectly happy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I would like to start just by looking in general at how the law currently stands, and how do you think the law as it currently stands today, and specifically in terms of reasonable punishment—how does that protect children. +Barry Hughes: Sorry, can I just be clear? How does the law as it presently stands protect children? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. +Barry Hughes: We have a range of offences created by the criminal law, going back to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 in the middle of the century before last, which provide for offences of assault against a variety of people, including, in particular, Acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which provides for offences that are specific to children. But the more general criminal legislation, such as the Offences Against the Person Act, does provide specifically for adults and children alike not to be subject to physical assault. In respect of children in particular, you'll be aware that we have section 58 of the Children Act 2004, which does make it a defence for a person accused of assaulting a child to argue that it was a case where they were acting only so as to impose reasonable punishment upon the child. That is a defence that is available for assault upon a child. By way of contrast, it is not available for an offence involving an adult. In that regard, it could be argued that children have fewer rights than adults. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, a review was undertaken by the Government back in 2007 that stated that retaining the law in its current form—that that would be the best thing to do because there's no evidence that it's not working satisfactorily. You are suggesting perhaps towards the end of your answer that there could be some change that's happened since 2007. +Barry Hughes: I think the law should reflect contemporary society and the law is evolutionary in nature, and should be evolutionary in nature. And just as if we go back 50 years there are types of behaviour that we might all have contemplated back then as being socially acceptable, many of those types of behaviour are not now, and the law has changed to reflect that. We don't need to go back a very long way to find, for example, that there was no such offence as raping one's married wife, and the law has changed to reflect the fact that that is simply not acceptable. And from what I've seen of the research, and I think back to the 2007 review, to which you've just referred, there is evidence within that review already that opinions are changing. And I've seen research more current than that that suggests that young people find it less acceptable to use reasonable punishment in chastising a child than do people of an older generation. Of course, as we move forward in time, the people who are young now are going to be the older adults of the future. So one would hope that the law will change to reflect the way in which people behave within society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. We have heard evidence as a committee that this proposed law would provide a much clearer legal framework—that is, to take out this reasonable punishment defence, that then would make things much clearer for parents and professionals. Does the CPS have a view on that? +Barry Hughes: I think it will make things clearer. I'm not sure it will make them much clearer, because if we get into some of the—. It may be helpful to look at some examples at some stage. And when it comes to prosecuting, it's often the case that things aren't just black and white; there are multiple shades of grey in between. We know that the Children Act did introduce a degree of clarity, in that it removed the defence of reasonable chastisement for offences of causing actual bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and various incidents of child cruelty under the Children and Young Persons Act. In that sense, matters were clarified, because up until that point it was not entirely clear. There were a series of Court of Appeal cases that sought to clarify the law, but that was at a time, at the end of the 1990s, the start of the 2000s, when we had the European convention on human rights and we had a quickly developing body of case law. And the Children Act was brought in to reflect the direction that the case law was moving in. A decision was clearly made back then in the early 2000s not to include common assault in the same category as actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm et cetera. So, there was a decision made back then that it was appropriate to do that. As we wind forward some 15 years, I have seen the research that suggests that some people see that the present legislation, and the way in which section 58 applies to reasonable chastisement for common assault of children—some people have interpreted that as saying that smacking is acceptable. I don't think that it is what it says, but there is a degree of confusion around that. And the reason why I say it's not as simple as that is, going back to my words a couple of minutes ago, it's rarely a case of being black and white; there are these degrees of grey. And removing that defence does make life clearer. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are the areas of grey that you refer to? Can you give a few examples? +Barry Hughes: If you take an example—so, one of the examples that I've heard discussed has been a child—a young child; let's say a five-year-old child by the side of a road—who darts to go out in the path of moving traffic. The parent grabs hold of the child and pulls them back. Now, technically, taking hold of the child at that point is an assault, because it's an unwanted imposition of physical force. But no-one's going to say that's anything like an assault that should come to the criminal courts. Of course, that would be utter nonsense. There's no hostility; it's simply taking hold of a child to protect them. At that point, the parent then seeks to admonish the child, tells them off and smacks the child on the legs. Now, that would probably be seen under the present law as reasonable chastisement. Probably. But so much depends upon the circumstances, whether this is something that happens frequently with the child, the size of the child, the parent, the force of the slap, the way in which it's imposed. So, that, I would say, sits at one end of the spectrum. As we move towards the other end of the spectrum, we might have repeated smacking, shouting, maybe hitting the child over the head as well. So, there is a spectrum of offending. Towards one end of the spectrum we move much closer towards something that would be criminal in nature. There'll be a point at which it crosses the threshold from something that needs to be reported to the police, and the police would take some form of action, and then, as we move through the tiers, it'll reach a stage where the police think this is a case that should be prosecuted and they would bring it to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. We would then decide the most appropriate means of dealing with it. And the absolute other end of the spectrum here is one where we decide it's an offence that we think is so serious that it should be charged and brought before a criminal court. That would be very much towards the serious end of the spectrum of the type of behaviour that I've just described to you. Does that help to illustrate that, at one end, it's relatively white and the other end it's relatively black, but in the middle we have the shades of grey? +Sian Gwenllian AM: But that would mean that there could be more prosecutions at the softer end. Because if you're removing this—we'll probably come on to that. +Barry Hughes: Shall I address that in terms—? Okay. So, you are probably aware, but forgive me if I just explain quickly anyway, when we approach a file of material evidence submitted by the police we apply the code for Crown prosecutors, which has a two-stage test. The first stage is whether there's sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and the second stage is—. And you only get to the second stage if the first stage is satisfied. If there isn't enough evidence, we don't go on to consider whether it's in the public interest, because we wouldn't put an offence before the courts if we didn't think there was a realistic prospect of conviction. So, we only get on to the public interest stage once the evidential stage is satisfied. So, to return to the point, if we have an offence where, let's say, there is a light smack at the time, the police apply the same code before they bring a case to us. We don't always agree with the police; generally we do, but we don't always agree. It's a matter for them whether they refer a matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. So, if a police officer takes witness statements in relation to that case—the light smacking on the leg—at present it's unlikely that would come to the CPS, because they would look at it and say, 'Reasonable chastisement provides for a defence.' If that defence is removed, then obviously there is a greater possibility that it would be referred to the CPS. I would like to think—and I think this is what will probably happen in practice—that the police would take a view that the evidential test may have been satisfied because the defence had been removed, but it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. It may be that the police decide that it is—it may have been two smacks, three smacks, so it moves towards the end of the spectrum that would suggest that matters are becoming rather more serious. So, it may be referred to the CPS for a charging decision. We would then apply independently the same test, and we would probably conclude that the evidential stage was met in that instance because the defence no longer exists, which takes us on to considering the public interest. In the circumstances that I've described, every case is going to be unique on its own facts, but in the circumstances that I've described, if it is just a light smack and it's a one-off and there's no history of this, it would probably be the sort of offence we'd decide it wouldn't be in the public interest to prosecute. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But isn't it creating a new grey area in terms of the police now having to decide whether repeated smacking is in the public interest to at least refer it to you to decide about that? Do you know what I'm saying? +Barry Hughes: If this Bill goes through, then it will remove a defence, which will make it likely that the police will give this more consideration for referral to the CPS than beforehand, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will refer it, because it will depend on the facts of each individual case. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on the divergence between the law in England and Wales from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Hello. The Assembly doesn't have any legislative competence to impose duties on the CPS, as you know, in the absence of the Secretary of State's consent. What are the implications for implementing the Bill in Wales for that? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you two examples? One of the implications is this—and it's fairly obvious but it's still worth stressing—that the removal of the defence would mean that there would be more cases that would pass the evidential stage in Wales than there would be in England, because the defence would still apply there. That, therefore, raises issues in particular in terms of awareness of criminal offending for people from England who travel to Wales, because it's fairly evident that there would be a defence available in England that is not available in Wales. One of the examples that we talked about was if you consider a family on its way from England into Wales, travelling to Barry Island for a holiday, and troublesome children in the back of the car, harsh words and a small smack on the leg delivered while they're on the M4 going past Bristol would be subject to a defence. By the time we come over to this side of the water, there would be no such defence for the same journey, for the same act. And so, there are issues there in terms of the awareness of members of the public. The second example that I'll give you is that we already have within the United Kingdom a certain degree of divergence of laws, and the example I'll give to you is this: drink driving. In England and Wales, the limit for having micrograms of alcohol in your breath is 35 µg in 100 ml of breath. Across the border in Scotland, it drops to 22 µg. So, the same act—. As you drive into Scotland, you're probably okay to drive if you've got 34 µg; by the time you get into Scotland, you won't be. And the consequences for you are significant, because of course it's an offence in Scotland, and not an offence in England, but the punishment, namely disqualification, applies everywhere in the United Kingdom. So, we already have a degree of divergence of law, and the CPS recognises this. In our code, we have a specific provision that takes account of the potential divergence of Welsh law. We will issue policy guidance and charging standards to reflect any changes as they arise. And we think that we are sufficiently flexible to take account of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So, would you see the necessity for a memorandum of understanding, for instance, or it being useful in these circumstances, or are you quite satisfied that the current guidance code would cover that? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's yet to move from a Bill into an Act, so we'd need to make sure that happened. We know there would be a period of time, perhaps as much as two years, or maybe a little more, while that takes place. There will be a further series of awareness raising. We have strategic implementation groups—Iwan sits on that group. So, we would build ourselves up to come up with the appropriate guidance according to the circumstances. In terms of how we'd approach it within the Crown Prosecution Service in Cymru-Wales, my approach would be along the lines of working with Kwame and his colleagues to make sure that the guidance that we issue nationally suits both England and Wales. And when it comes to the practical application of the legislation in Wales, we would almost certainly work on the basis that the number of offences—and we might want to get into the number of potential offences, but my take on it is the number of offences is likely to be very small and we would probably have two or three specialists trained in this so that any case that comes through goes to people who've got a close network and can talk with each other— +Dawn Bowden AM: And that would be primarily around the public interest issue. +Barry Hughes: It would. +Dawn Bowden AM: I understand. Okay. So you're obviously a key stakeholder in terms of this legislation and you're clearly very au fait with it and all its implications. What's actually been your involvement with the Government as they've been developing this legislation? +Barry Hughes: My own personal involvement? +Dawn Bowden AM: Or the service's. +Barry Hughes: Iwan and colleagues have had some involvement on a more routine basis. I met with a Minister and a Deputy Minister—I met with Huw Irranca-Davies a little while ago, and I met with Julie Morgan a few months ago—to discuss the overall implications, and then officials on both sides have been engaging with each other. It hasn't been a very close-knit involvement, but we have had enough involvement so that we've felt we've been able to offer views on how we would deal with the legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. So you've been satisfied with the level of involvement that you've had. +Barry Hughes: Yes. I don't feel that it's been too much, nor do I feel we've been left on the side at all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Now, we've just talked about the divergence of criminal law, and this is probably the first time that there's been an obvious divergence between English and Welsh law, and so we were then talking about the guidance, weren't we, and whether that needs amending to reflect it. But I think you were saying that you felt, within the existing guidance, it could be dealt with, so you don't see a need to update or amend the guidance. +Barry Hughes: I think we would need to update the guidance, and it goes back to the application of the evidential stage, before the public interest stage. On the evidential stage, I doubt that we'll need to do much, other than to make people aware that the defence is not available in Wales in the same way that it is in England, and we might have some light-touch guidance around that. When it comes to the public interest stage, that's a little more specialist and I think we would need to develop more with respect to that. +Dawn Bowden AM: And are you satisfied that your staff in Wales—well, and in England, actually, across the border—will be sufficiently aware of the divergence in this area of law? +Barry Hughes: Not as of the present day. Give us a chance. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: But you would expect that to be something you would— +Barry Hughes: Yes, I have no doubt. To an extent, actually, I think I would say that staff in Wales are aware of this already, because in my role as chief Crown prosecutor, I publish a monthly blog and we talk about the things we're doing, so staff are aware. I've discussed with staff and they've seen my blog and we've put it on our website: there have been engagements with the Welsh Government that this is a piece of work in which we're interested and that is under way. So, actually, I'm probably being unfair to myself. I think most staff would probably be aware that we are involved in this and that it is something that, at present, may well happen. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And does that mean that there would also be a similar need for the CPS in England to be aware of the changes? +Barry Hughes: They would need to be aware, but not to the same extent. We have regular interchange of prosecutors between England and Wales. So, in my office in Cardiff, for example, because we work digitally, I have about 30 to 35 prosecutors who work for the CPS in London, and they work exclusively on London cases. But there are times when some of those prosecutors will prosecute at courts in Wales, and then there may be an interchange; they'll come to work for us on secondment, or they'll come to work for us permanently. We'd need to make sure that those people were brought up to speed on the fact that there are some aspects of Welsh law that diverge from English law. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's helpful, thank you. My final question, Chair, is just whether you think there are any other significant cross-border issues that arise from this potential legislation. +Barry Hughes: In addition to those that I've mentioned, probably not. It boils down to the fact that there's a defence in England for assaults upon children that isn't available in Wales if this Bill goes through, and then it's dealing with the consequences of that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Suzy, and then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I was going to ask this question later, but I think it fits in—. I've forgotten what I was going to ask; this is terrible. Oh no, that's right—obviously, this Act is on a particular trajectory at the moment, and it's due to be introduced before the end of this Assembly. Do you think it would be better for us as scrutinisers of this Act if we could see the draft changes to CPS guidance on the public interest test before we make our final decision? +Barry Hughes: I honestly don't think that would necessarily be helpful. I've had some discussions with Kwame, who would have an involvement in this. What we would envisage is that we would simply want to take the present public interest factors, which are set out, in my view, very clearly in the code for Crown prosecutors, and we would provide a degree of detail around those that relates more specifically to the issues that we're discussing here. So, it would be taking principles of generality and according them a degree of specificity. And we'd need to work that up as we go along, and I think you'd run a risk of putting the cart before the horse, if I may put it like that. +Suzy Davies AM: It's just that, personally, I think the public interest test is critical in all this, and it would really help us to understand what it could look like before we commit to a particular course of action in supporting or not supporting the Bill, that was all. But thank you, anyway; I take your point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: My point is about the criminal law in Wales and England diverging in this particular instance, and we've been told that this is probably the first time it's happened. Can you think of any other examples where that divergence has happened and does it actually set some kind of precedent in motion? +Barry Hughes: There are other offences in Wales that don't exist in England, but they don't crop up very often. So, to give you examples, there is an offence of putting an electronic collar on your pet—let's not stretch that into children. [Laughter.] But, you know, sometimes—I'll be quiet. But putting an electronic collar on your pet that administers a shock is an offence in Wales; it's not an offence in England. There are also offences around the picking of cockles in west Wales, which is not an offence—. So, you can see there are some, but I would argue that the fact that you drive across the border into Scotland and commit an offence that you won't commit in England is possibly more significant for the general public. Of course, the topic we're discussing here is of real relevance for the general public, and you have heard evidence, I know, already, that comes from people who are quite strongly in favour and people quite strongly against it. One of the ways in which I've approached this is looking at it from the perspective of what the law is there for, which is to set out, in essence, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to use the law for that, but it signifies how society views a certain behaviour. I like to look at it from the perspective of the person who is being affected by this, namely the child, and the change in the law here would afford children a degree of protection that they don't presently have, but which they do have when they attain the age of 16.FootnoteLink So, I looked at this—. If I can give you another example. I've had considerable dealings over the years with offences against residents in care homes, and you'll have seen Winterbourne View, you'll have seen recently up in Durham, where we have adults who need to be looked after because of issues with their mental capacity, and sometimes, the carers become frustrated with them and they admonish them. Sometimes they admonish them verbally and then that turns into physical admonishment. In much the same way as children are vulnerable and are looked after and can be sometimes quite annoying—but there is a level of protection for an adult striking a child lightly under the present law that is not available to the same adult for striking that child when they turn 16. That seems to me to not necessarily fit with where we ought to be as a society. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you think that what we're doing in Wales will be emulated in England at some point? +Barry Hughes: Well, it's certainly going through in parallel in Scotland, and there are a great many other countries around the world that already have this, including a large number of European countries. Who knows? Trying to get any legislation through Westminster at the moment—who knows? Not tomorrow, I'd say. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions around implementation now from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Can I just begin by asking you to help the committee out here in understanding how the burden of proof is going to work if this defence is removed? Because the issue of whether something is punishment or not is going to disappear, providing that it's clear that contact with a child has happened. Is that going to work on the presumption that that's an unlawful contact? Is that something the prosecution will still have to prove, or will it be for an accused parent to say, to use your example, 'I was just dragging them out of the traffic or stopping them putting their hands in the fire'? +Barry Hughes: I understand your point. There's no change whatsoever to the burden of proof, nor to the standard of proof. +Suzy Davies AM: Perhaps you can run us through it quickly. +Barry Hughes: If the defence argue that that act was—. So, we have to show that there's been an unlawful assault. So, if we remove the defence of reasonable chastisement, in a sense that alters some things but it doesn't alter the basic responsibility of the prosecution, which is to establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if the defence raise an argument and say, 'Well, look, that was a lawful act; I was only doing what I thought was reasonable in the circumstances', it's for the Crown to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great. +Barry Hughes: And we've got to disprove that to the criminal standard, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. So, you can certainly see—. I can see the potential for individuals who feel strongly about this to look to contest the matter, to not admit any wrongdoing at all and to take the matter to trial, and it would be our responsibility to disprove that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's really helpful for us to understand that. Obviously, when we're talking about CPS guidelines and all the rest, we've already come some distance down the process, haven't we? Have you got any views on what might be done to prevent cases even coming as far as arrest? Because one of the things that we have to consider is that once you're arrested, that is recorded somewhere and will appear in things like DBS checks in the future, even if it goes no further. Do you have any views on how intervention might work better earlier on, even at the point of the knock at the door? +Barry Hughes: From the perspective of the CPS, I'm not sure I can help you there. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fine. I was expecting that answer. +Barry Hughes: Simply because that's a matter for the police. Unlike in many other jurisdictions, we have no power whatsoever to direct the police, so if the police decide not to investigate—. I routinely get letters from members of the public outraged that the police have decided not to investigate their particular neighbour dispute or something, and they want us to do something about it and we can't. We can't direct the police. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, because I thought that was important to get on the record as well. We're looking at a period of a couple of years after this Act passes—if it does—for implementation. Is there anything at the moment that you think perhaps you still need to do as an organisation towards being in a position to practically implement this law? +Barry Hughes: I think we need to maintain the type of dialogue that we've built up with the Welsh Government and colleagues there. I think we need to keep abreast of things as they move forward. We need involvement—Iwan, for example, and the strategic implementation group. We have other members of my staff who are involved in the other work streams that feed through to that, and I believe that that involvement will ensure that we are sufficiently interconnected; that we can liaise, in turn, with Kwame and his colleagues in the headquarters to respond to things as they develop. So, I think we've got a network of contacts built up here that is adequate for the purpose—at least, 'adequate' might sound a little— +Suzy Davies AM: Sufficient. +Barry Hughes: Yes, perfectly sufficient. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're confident, by 2022, then, that you'll have changes to the CPS guidelines that are good to go, if you like. +Barry Hughes: Fit for purpose, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Okay, that's great. Bear with me a second—thank you very much—in your written evidence, you did welcome the indication from the Welsh Government that this reasonable period after Royal Assent would be necessary. Apart from the CPS guideline changes, which you'll be working through, is there anything else you think you might be needing to do apart from just keeping in touch? I'm just thinking: are there any practical and possibly financial implications for your workforce in this? +Barry Hughes: If this legislation goes through, there will be minor financial consequences for us and I don't see any significant financial consequences in the period between now and the Bill becoming law other than the time of ourselves in discussing this today. But there isn't anything significant. There's nothing that will impact upon our performance as the public prosecution service in that time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And what about afterwards, then? Because one of the pieces of thinking behind this Act is to collect data to see whether this change in the law actually works. Do you want to talk us through a little bit about how that might affect you? I don't know who to ask on this. +Barry Hughes: Certainly. Well, I think that we are going to need to maintain a clear record of any cases that are referred to the CPS from the police and that will—. Normally, we do this through our case management system, which is England-and-Wales wide, and you'd put a flag on. So, for example, domestic abuse, there's a flag for that, and assault on a child, there's a flag for that. But this would be a very specific flag for assault on a child—reasonable chastisement. Trying to get that through on a system that covers all of England and Wales—it's quite expensive, unbelievably; it wouldn't happen. So, we would keep a manual log of every referral. That would be unmanageable if we were dealing with hundreds and hundreds of cases. +Suzy Davies AM: So, you're not anticipating hundreds and hundreds. +Barry Hughes: Not at all. Not at all. My take on it: I've seen and spoken with Matt Jukes about this, from South Wales Police; I have seen the justice impact assessment; I've seen the research that's been fed through from New Zealand; and I've seen our own response to a freedom of information request and the papers that the CPS put into the review that you mentioned earlier in 2007. I would be very surprised if we were to prosecute anything other than low single figures a year, if that much. If that much. We may have more referrals from the police, but I doubt it would be double the figure we prosecute, even. So, you're talking small numbers. Now, small numbers—and we might not have any. Okay? It depends. Obviously, if there's a really good awareness-raising campaign, you make it less likely. And, for us, prosecution—it's not the first port of call here at all. There are out-of-court disposals and there are all sorts of diversions that you will have discussed, and I know you've discussed, with the police and the police and crime commissioner. So, the numbers will be very small, which means we would be able to keep a clear track on those and, obviously, we would wish to keep the situation under review, and we'd reach a period of time after whatever—12, 18 months, maybe 24 months—where we'd look back to see how we are doing. And I'd like to think that we will be doing that in consultation with interested parties and stakeholders. We do this already with certain types of offences. We have what we call local scrutiny involvement panels. So, for offences such as racially aggravated offending, whether it's criminal damage or offence against the person, we will bring together interested parties, by which I mean people from outside the CPS, quite often third sector agencies that represent vulnerable groups. We'd bring them in and look through the cases. So, we open our books, show them our cases, and we have a very frank discussion. We involve the police in that as well. That, in turn, helps us shape and improve the way that we prosecute these cases and I can foresee that, after this legislation came in, we might get 18 months, two years down the road, and I can see us sitting in a room with some of the cases we've prosecuted, maybe cases we've decided not to prosecute, with the police and interested parties from both sides, to have a discussion about how we're doing with it all. And I'd like to think that the Welsh Government would be involved in that as well. +Suzy Davies AM: That's really helpful to know because, of course, one of the difficulties of dealing with the culture change, which is what the Minister's effectively after here, is that we are still talking about it in the context of criminal legislation. It's nobody's fault; that's just how it is. And what I'm hearing from you is that the chances of somebody who's currently protected by the defence and is not part of a bigger case where there's serial smacking or other difficulties in a family, for example—the chances of them getting to you in the first place are pretty low, and then the chances of them passing even the current public interest tests are pretty low. In which case, my question is: why are we bothering with this law rather than concentrating on a new piece of law, possibly through the civil system, which would achieve the culture change better? Maybe that's not a question you feel that you can answer, but you can see why I'm asking the question. +Barry Hughes: I can attempt an answer. I follow entirely where you're going. I agree, the chances are pretty low, but they're greater than they are presently. In other words, there is a greater degree of protection for children, and I think the value that would derive from this legislation is the message that it sends out. I go back to what I was saying to you right at the start, about the evolution of the law, and the way we've seen many other countries around the world adopt a very similar approach to that being proposed by the Welsh Government is, in my view, an evolution of the law. So, yes, there may not be many more prosecutions, but there won't be fewer than there are presently, because there's a greater degree of protection for children. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, that's really helpful, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on, can I just ask—? The Children Act 2004 applies to a child up to the age of 18— +Barry Hughes: Sixteen. +Lynne Neagle AM: You mentioned 16; that's what I wanted to clarify. Our understanding was that it went up to 18. +Barry Hughes: I'm reasonably confident that it's 16.FootnoteLink +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now specifically on prosecutions and potential alternatives from Vikki Howells. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already touched quite a bit on the issue of the public interest test. Is there anything else you'd like to put on record about the factors that the CPS would be taking into consideration when applying the public interest test in respect of this Bill? +Barry Hughes: Can I give you an example, which might illustrate the way in which things could be different? This is one, which—I give credit to Iwan for this, because he thought of it. If we take an adult with a small child—say, a four-year-old—in a supermarket, and the child is pulling cans off the shelves, it's quite annoying, and they keep doing it and keep doing it. The parent remonstrates, and the parent ends up finding that verbal admonishment is inadequate, and smacks the child lightly on the legs, which does the trick and the child stops. Presently, if someone in that supermarket were to report that to the police, I think the police would probably conclude that that is covered by the defence of reasonable chastisement. In other words, the evidential stage wouldn't be passed; you don't get on to consider the public interest. But if we have that same parent in there the following week, and you have the same happen again, presently, the defence would apply. Now, there comes a point in time when the defence stops applying. If that defence didn't apply at all, and we had a sequence of three offences, the public interest test would kick in, if I may put it like that, pretty quickly, because it would be repeated behaviour. So, that would be the distinction between how things are now and how they would be in the future, because the defence would not be available, so the public interest test would then come to the fore that much more quickly. So, when we apply the public interest test, the essence of it is about proportionality, and trying to come up with an approach that is proportionate to the offending. We look at the age of the offender, the age of the victim, we look at the circumstances, we look at the impact upon the victim, we look at the impact that's likely in relation to the suspect, and there is, within the code, a long list of matters that we take into account. Some of them are fairly obvious, such as previous convictions. If someone's got previous convictions for doing something wrong, it's more likely they're going to be prosecuted the next time. But there's no part of the law that says that prosecution will always follow. Mostly, it's reasonably obvious; the more serious an offence, the more likely you are to be prosecuted. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's really useful, and— +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you move on, can I ask you a question? This morning the committee was meeting with groups of parents who are opposed to the Bill and groups of parents who are for the Bill, and one of the parents this morning was querying where the interests of the child would come into the public interest test. Now, I've looked at the code and there is a section about impact on the victim. Can you just clarify for the record how the best interests of the child would be taken into account in considering whether to go forward with a prosecution? +Barry Hughes: Normally, if there were an assault by someone else upon a child, outside the family, we would tend to take views from the parents of that child. In circumstances where both parents, arguably, are the suspects, we probably wouldn't be asking them. We would find another way, and we would talk with the police to ensure that we are informed about how the child feels about what has happened. It may be that there are—. I can foresee real difficulties in circumstances where we have parents who are separating where the children are being used, effectively, in divorce proceedings, for example, where we might have one parent saying there was a really bad impact upon the child and the other parent saying there wasn't. We'd want to find a way to cut through that to work out really from the police how does the child feel about that. So, we would tailor it to the circumstances of the particular incident to assess how the child feels about it. It's not determinative, nor is it determinative in cases where we prosecute for adult defendants inflicting some form of assault upon adult victims. It's not determinative but it is a factor that we take into account. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, you've got a supplementary on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. In the same session this morning I thought this was an interesting question raised by a parent, on the rights of the child side of things, where if a parent offers a child two forms of punishment because that child has done something that they know they shouldn't have, and they're given the option of, 'You can have a quick smack and a cwtch, or you're going to your bedroom for quarter of an hour', and the child is allowed to choose and the child chooses the smack, what happens then? I'm not offering any views on the fact that this choice has been given, but it was put to us today about how would that fall in the law once it were changed. +Barry Hughes: That's a really interesting question. There is a body of law that— +Suzy Davies AM: A child can't consent to assault. +Barry Hughes: Yes, you can't consent to a serious assault, apart from in certain—. The law is really quite difficult. So, for example, tattooing is a serious assault on one level, but you can consent to a tattoo. I can think of one case where a man branded his initials on a woman's buttocks, but she consented to it and the Court of Appeal held that they could consent to that. I can also think of a series of cases, which I won't get into here, that involve sadomasochistic behaviour between adults, some of which was really serious, and involved people willingly applying themselves to things that no sane person would do. And the Court of Appeal in that case, a case called Brown, said, 'No, that's going too far—you can't consent to that.' Then, you may have seen there was a case from the midlands recently where a gentleman operating a tattoo parlour was also involved in body surgery—splitting people's tongues. That went too far as well. So, there is again—I referred before to the spectrum of offending, and there is a clear spectrum of offending that you can realistically consent to and then you get to offending you can't consent to. So, the law has considered that in some depth. I'm still not entirely clear, and I speak as a lawyer. When it comes to much lesser assaults, the law is more unclear as to what you can consent to. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because we're talking below a certain standard here as well. Okay. +Barry Hughes: As to what you can consent to, it's less clear. It would need to be developed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Vikki. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you. I've got one further series of questions around out-of-court disposals, which you've already mentioned briefly. In your written evidence, you say there's ongoing work exploring diversion rather than prosecution in respect of this Bill. Firstly, could you tell us a bit more about the work that is being done to explore this as an option? +Barry Hughes: We've been working with the National Police Chiefs' Council. Their lead is deputy chief constable Sara Glen. She is responsible for developing the police approach to out-of-court disposals and simplifying the range of out-of-court disposals. There is quite a range, and life would be simpler and clearer to have fewer types of disposal with more clarity about what each one of them involved. I must say, this is primarily a matter for the police, because there are a great many offences or reports of crime that do not reach the CPS because they are dealt with by way of an out-of-court disposal. Any case that the police refer to us for a charging decision is going to be something—. There's a document called the director's guidance on charging, which is issued by the director of public prosecutions, which sets out offences the police may charge and offences the CPS may charge. Offences that the police refer to us for a charging decision will generally be offences where they feel that there should be a prosecution rather than an out-of-court disposal. There may be cases where it's genuinely very difficult to assess what's the best approach, in which case we will have a conversation with them, a meaningful conversation, about what's the best way to approach that particular case. There will also be cases, and we see these not that rarely, where the police will bring a case to us for a prosecution on the basis that satisfies the evidential stage and satisfies the public interest stage, and we take a different view on the public interest stage. So, we might say—for example, it involves a 15-year-old youth—we  think that diversion from the criminal justice system is a better disposal and we decide not to prosecute. We aren't responsible for administering the out-of-court disposal or indeed monitoring compliance with that disposal, if, for example, it has conditions attached, such as repayment of the damage caused to a window or a front gate. That's not our responsibility—that will fall to the police—but we can decide that an out-of-court disposal is a more appropriate disposal than a prosecution. Does that help? +Vikki Howells AM: It does. One final question on that then: creating a body of out-of-court disposals that are specific to this Bill—how would that actually work in practice do you think, given the fact that the Assembly's legislative competence to make provision on the face of the Bill is limited? +Barry Hughes: The way I might see it is that, clearly, policing's not devolved, the CPS is not devolved—the way I might see this is that, within Wales, you could build an infrastructure that provides for a range of out-of-court disposals. You can't direct the police or the CPS to point people towards that, but, if you build a good infrastructure, it's more likely that people will be pointed in that direction. +Vikki Howells AM: And who would build that infrastructure, in your opinion? +Barry Hughes: Somewhere within Wales—Welsh Government, local authorities, the police working in partnership. It may be that the police and crime commissioners use some of their commissioning powers to work something up. I'm not the right person to answer that question. +Vikki Howells AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If I could just ask about awareness raising, then: you mentioned the Bill in Scotland, but that Bill includes a duty on the Government to raise awareness of the change. There's no such duty proposed in this Bill. Do you think that's right or should this committee be saying that there should be a similar duty imposed in Wales? +Barry Hughes: I'm not sure it's for me to say whether there should be a duty or not. I can, however, say that I think the greater the level of awareness, the more likely it is that the Act, if passed, will achieve its intentions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And, in your written evidence, you mentioned the fact that there's no indication of any plans for awareness raising in England and that if a person from England is being prosecuted in Wales as a result of this change, a question could arise about the lack of knowledge about the different provisions that apply in Wales. Can I ask what approach the CPS currently takes in Wales if a law is unintentionally broken by someone who's come from outside the UK, for example? +Barry Hughes: It's straightforward: if someone comes to this country and commits an offence here—by this country, I'd say England or Wales; I'd treat them as one for these purposes—if someone comes from abroad and commits an offence that isn't an offence in their country, but is an offence here, then I'm afraid that ignorance of the law is no defence. So, raising awareness is important, and I saw, and I was pleased to see, that the media publicity surrounding this proposed legislation, which is now going through, reached as far afield as New York and had widespread media coverage across England and Wales, and I think the Government would be well placed here to take advantage of that willingness of the media to explore something, which is potentially divisive, and I think you've probably seen some of that. Anything like that is a good story, and a good story gets out there, which means you're more likely to make people aware of it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the unintended consequences from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we've discussed some of these already, but, for example, under the new law, or the proposed law, would one unintended consequence be that, if someone living in Wales who can't use the reasonable punishment defence—would their life prospects be different compared to those people in England, who will be able to use that defence? I think you've mentioned that in your written evidence. +Barry Hughes: Yes. Okay. A simple answer: if somebody in Wales is convicted—so, if it goes towards the end of the spectrum that is serious, which results in a prosecution—. It may be—the sort of circumstance I can see happening here is somebody who takes a principled stand and declines any form of out-of-court disposal and says, 'Prosecute me'. We probably would end up prosecuting, because it's a relatively serious offence. So, let's say it comes to court and let's say they end up being convicted of assaulting their child—in circumstances that would not have happened in England—then they would have a criminal conviction they wouldn't have in England, and that, inevitably, has an impact upon their life prospects. But I think, along the road there, there would have been an element of choice. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And do you think that that would be an isolated incident? +Barry Hughes: Yes, truly, I believe, an isolated incident. I've said before that I would be very surprised if we even had referrals that reached double figures on these cases. They're likely to be very limited. When the CPS was asked to conduct a survey across all of England and Wales—this was the review in 2007—it spanned just over a two-year period, and there were 12 cases that were brought up at that stage. Now, I have to say, I don't think that's entirely reliable, but it is indicative. We had a Freedom of Information Act request at one stage, which threw up something like three cases in a year. So, if you think about that as being all of England and Wales—and we make up about 5 per cent of the volume of criminal prosecutions nationally—you can see why I might say the numbers are likely to be small, for the reasons we've explored about getting past the evidential stage into the public interest. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you for that. In terms of thinking about another kind of unintended consequence, in terms of managing performance and all of the targets that the police need to reach, are we perhaps going to see some people going through the criminal justice system in an inappropriate way and contrary to the interests of the child, because we need to reach some target in terms of performance measures? +Barry Hughes: I have to say I think that extremely unlikely. In the CPS, we don't have targets for securing convictions or not. Clearly, we prosecute if we think that there's a reasonable prospect, a realistic prospect, of conviction and it's in the public interest, but we have no targets. And I would also say, because the numbers here are likely to be so small, any assertion of looking to meet targets—it's a tiny, tiny fragment of a drop in the ocean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What about—? There is a target for unsolved crimes, or unsolved offences. What if they fall into that category? Is that an unintended consequence? +Barry Hughes: I'm talking about something I don't have great knowledge of here. There was, at one stage, a series of targets for the police that bore down upon cases that secure what was called a sanction detection, which counted for Home Office figures. That disappeared some years ago. Some individual constabularies may still have targets, but, as far as I'm aware, we don't have a suite of national measures. The police are required to report against this, but we don't have targets. And, in my experience, the police are much more sensible these days than they may have been 20 years ago, in terms of trying to get cases charged in order to meet some notional target. It's much less of an issue than it ever was—much. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've mentioned this, namely the risk of malicious reporting against parents involved in private family law cases. This happens now, of course. Is that going to increase if we change the law? +Barry Hughes: There is greater potential for it to increase. I think the numbers, again, will be tiny, and dwarfed by the number of cases where we have to deal with the fallout between a relationship breakdown between partners—whether they be living within the same house or living in different houses. Regrettably, there are times when children are used as part of this ongoing dispute. Getting into the subtleties of the father, say, smacking the child in a way that was reasonable chastisement or was not reasonable chastisement is probably part of a much bigger piece here. I can see it potentially arising. It's not something that would cause me concern, simply because we already have a well-developed approach to dealing with the way in which we evaluate the evidence from parties who may well have a particular position that they want to reinforce, sometimes through exaggeration of basic facts and sometimes through fabrication. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Are there any other unintended consequences that come to your mind if we introduce this law? +Barry Hughes: No, I think we've had a pretty helpful canter through most of the circumstances here that might happen. And I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Finally from me, therefore—another issue, in a way—the European convention on human rights. Would not introducing the new law mean, at some point, that Wales could get itself into difficulty because there is a breach of the human rights convention? And therefore England as well, at some point. +Barry Hughes: Right. How to approach that one? In the 2007 review to which we've referred already, the Government, the then Government, set out its position that it believes that section 58, in the way that it was drafted, is compliant with the European convention. There are various parties who would disagree with that, but that was the then Government's position. If Wales implements this legislation and it becomes part of the law, then, arguably, Wales would be more in compliance with ECHR than not, and England would be less so. But nonetheless, at present, I haven't seen any demurral from the position that was expressed in 2007, which is that they consider that the position that's been adopted with section 58 is compliant with the legislation. It may well be tested by case law; that's the way it's likely to happen. Some of the changes in this arena were driven by case law—so, that case I referred to, Regina v H, which was heard back in 2001 in the Court of Appeal, was significant in helping shape the direction of travel towards section 58. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And that case law not necessarily would have to happen within the UK—that case law could come from other countries within the European Union. +Barry Hughes: It could, but I would be a foolish man if I were to say what impact European jurisprudence might have upon us. [Laughter.] +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.]—like common law jurisdictions would be. +Barry Hughes: Yes. At this point in time, that'd be a bit of a punt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Suzy's touched on this mildly, but, in written evidence, you say that you do not consider that the costs of prosecuting cases made possible by the Bill will be of great significance to the Crown Prosecution Service, and you're basing that, from your evidence here today, on the low numbers of prosecutions. So, we've been asked by individuals, and we've had consultation responses from individuals, who've argued that there is no point creating legislation if people are not prosecuted for breaching it. What's your answer to that? +Barry Hughes: There is a huge body of legislation out there that outlaws certain offences, and I think probably about—. There are over—. From memory—please never hold me to this—but, from memory, there are something like 10,000 criminal offences; we probably prosecute 5 per cent of those in any given year. There are some offences on the statute—. I've been prosecuting for 32 years now; there are some offences that I've never come near and probably never will. But, nonetheless, the fact those offences exist sets out in terms what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. So, we have various defences to do with Acts. I remember seeing some about Antarctic stations and offences that might be committed there. Well, they're not something that we do, but it sets out what's tolerant—what's tolerable, sorry, and what isn't. So, the fact that we might not have many prosecutions is, for me, not a reason not to say that we shouldn't signify that certain behaviour is or is not acceptable. Clearly, we don't wish to criminalise everything—that would be a nonsense—or to attempt to set the boundaries by almost micromanaging what individuals do and don't do. The criminal law provides a general framework within which to operate, which most people tend to understand. So, awareness is important and it comes back to that point. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And then the explanatory memorandum says there is a shortage of registered intermediaries who assist child witnesses during police interview and when giving evidence in court. Is this a potential barrier to implementing this proposed law, and are there any other potential barriers you want to raise? +Barry Hughes: No. It's a potential barrier, but I don't think it is a barrier. There was a shortage of registered intermediaries in Wales, and I know that the Ministry of Justice have taken action to deal with that, and we have had a number of people who are now in a position to act as intermediaries. Now, of course, if they were to decide not to do that anymore, we may have a problem, but, in turn, we would be looking to recruit more people into those positions. So, yes, it has the potential to serve as a barrier, but in practice, I don't think it would be a barrier. I think, particularly given the very low numbers we're talking about, we would be able to manage it. I've got no significant concerns, I have to say. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending, the three of you, and for your answers, which have been fascinating and very clear and most helpful to the committee? You will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy. Thank you again for your time in coming here today. Diolch yn fawr. +Barry Hughes: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Business Committee requesting an extension on the deadline for the Bill, which has now been agreed. Paper to note 2 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services requesting some further information from CAFCASS Cymru on the Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Minister for Education regarding Diamond reform implementation ahead of our scrutiny session on 4 July. Are Members happy to note those? Item 4, then. Can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","In a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle AM welcomed everyone, noting apologies from Hefin David and Jack Sargeant, and introduced Vikki Howells as a substitute for Jack Sargeant. The committee discussed the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill with Barry Hughes, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales, Kwame Biney, senior policy advisor at CPS, and Iwan Jenkins, head of the complex casework unit at Crown Prosecution Service Cymru Wales. They explored the current protection of children under law, the potential changes due to the Bill, and how its passage might increase clarity in legal frameworks. The Bill could result in more cases being referred from police to CPS. The CPS officials discussed the possibility of low prosecution numbers and highlighted the significance of public interest in deciding cases. The CPS is gearing up for the legislative changes and is confident they’ll manage any added complexities. There was also a discussion about raising public awareness about the legal changes in Wales and England, data collection for out-of-court disposals, and the need for clear infrastructure to handle such disposals. Potential unintended consequences of the Bill were discussed, like increased malicious reporting amid family disputes, and the divergence of laws between Wales and England was considered. The CPS does not expect the Bill to bring significant financial implications for their service." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {gap} Do you need to change anything on it ? Because otherwise I will already open it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm , don't think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Unless uh things have suddenly change again . +Project Manager: Is it much changes ? +Marketing: Uh don't know . Maybe uh you've got new information , {vocalsound} like uh last time . +Project Manager: Uh I didn't {disfmarker} No no . I do hot have {disfmarker} Only the same information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Hello , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Hello hello Mister P_M_ . +Project Manager: I believe uh Miss uh Tentel is with us as well , in the control room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , that's where the thinking goes on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , it's that Roo again , always late . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bongiorno . +Project Manager: Bongiorno . +Industrial Designer: I think you should punish him . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You're the P_M_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Punish . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see some interesting {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: You wish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possibilities , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} People , welcome back . +User Interface: Welcome . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oop . +Project Manager: Um I have some points I would like to {disfmarker} uh some some issues I would like to point out . Um {vocalsound} first of all , um if you make minutes yourself as well , uh like Sebastian does , um could you put them on the shared folder ? If you do not make minutes , no problem , but it's easy for me to see what you uh wrote down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I could {disfmarker} uh can uh um use that in the in the report . {vocalsound} Um the second thing , um {vocalsound} I was th uh s thinking to myself , I have this little remote control , and I'm talking to it , but I still need to point to the television , because it works with infrared . That's quite strange . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come to that later , I g I think . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the agenda for now {disfmarker} uh uh are there any pre-discussion questions ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Not at all . +Project Manager: Okay . Um +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we wi we will have your individual presentations , uh then the decision on the remote control concept , um and uh the closing . Forty minutes in total for this . So um {vocalsound} I think we we can immedis immediately start with the individual presentations , um the progress you've made . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I think it might be smart to look at uh Ruud's um information first , because I understood there are some uh significant changes in the market situation . +Marketing: 'Kay . Hmm ? +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just press the okay button , it works . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Um yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . My method ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How surprising . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , findings . Uh {disfmarker} Ease of use is important , but uh innovation is more important , and a fancy look and feel is uh even more important . And uh some fashion watchers have found out that the young target group likes fruit and vegetables in their uh clothes , shoes and furniture , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that they want spongy material . Probably watch too much Sponge Bob . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the older group uh still prefers dark colours . Simple shapes {gap} uh m material . But we {disfmarker} since we are concentrating on uh the younger group {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh w wait a sec wait a se +Industrial Designer: Oh wait uh wait up . +Project Manager: uh could you go to the previous slide ? Um because I'm taking minutes +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um were the important themes enclose . Yeah {gap} okay . The feel of {gap} to be spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh so do you think um when fruit and vegetables are important for clothing and shoes that they are in remote controls also ? +Marketing: Well , uh one example given was this , so um I assume they just want something colourful . Not uh specifically uh an apple as a remote control or something . +Industrial Designer: Not something dull . +User Interface: But they like dark colours , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: you said in the p +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , uh the younger group likes uh more colourful uh objects . +User Interface: Okay . Well then I suggest that the corporate colours are grey and yellow . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: I had {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But can you can you go back to that slide ? The {disfmarker} uh +Marketing: Which one ? +Industrial Designer: just one slide back , +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: no no no . Yes . Okay , and the feel of the material has to be spongy . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Has it something to do with that uh natural feeling also , do you think ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh well , it might . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But personally I wouldn't like a sponge as a remote control . But {disfmarker} Maybe soft material or something . But not a real sponge . +Project Manager: Okay , so so , yeah , it might not be t uh it it shouldn't be too hard . It it {disfmarker} maybe it rubber or or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , and like uh the older group likes familiar materials , +User Interface: Or we could make {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: but that doesn't mean we should use wood , So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well , this this is an example of what they would like . But since we're conten concentrating on uh the younger group , I think we should use soft materials and uh make it colourful or uh like cell phones , exch exchangeable covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So we could provide both for the young and the old what they like . +Project Manager: Well , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: It's quite interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You could make a few v very colourful ones , and uh a very traditional co cover . +User Interface: Yeah , o o I'm thinking about uh the Bananarama telephone uh {vocalsound} telephone from uh Siemens . The yellow uh rubber telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: It's the it's the rubber uh cover . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is , it is i yeah . +User Interface: And it's uh colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It looks likes a banana . {vocalsound} We have the fruit , we have the colours . {vocalsound} We have the simple design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you know the phone ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know the phone , +Project Manager: It's the Siemens uh C_ twenty five , +Industrial Designer: but I can imagine it . +Project Manager: I believe it's it's the one the Post-bank uh gave away , +User Interface: Um thirty five . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that one , yes . +Project Manager: the very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the b the light blue and {vocalsound} it's also in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Now I kn uh {disfmarker} oh , I know , I know . Yes , I I've seen it . I've seen it . +Project Manager: You kn you know , Ruud , as well ? About th +Marketing: I've seen it , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Um uh +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . Do you have {gap} {disfmarker} uh thit {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Uh that's about it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so the the m uh important findings are uh innovation is more important than ease of use for the {disfmarker} our target group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And um colouring is important and and uh soft materials . +Marketing: Uh soft material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So ease of use is important , but technology is twice as important . And what was even more important ? +Marketing: Uh the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So that's the most important thing for our customers . +Marketing: Yes . Apparently . +Project Manager: Okay , Roo , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: could you do your presentation ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well , I don't ha really have much to add , um because most of things we already said in uh the previous uh discussion . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well it's good to to sum up uh the things we already thought about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the previous ideas were voice recognition and uh the round button for uh the p channel programming and uh volume . Well , a few interface I uh I found on the internet are are these . These are both with uh with voice recognition , but they're very advanced and very high-tech and {vocalsound} just um , well , a weird um shape . +Project Manager: Shape . +User Interface: So I suggest {disfmarker} I couldn't uh {disfmarker} I had a small uh mock-up uh {vocalsound} sign on the {vocalsound} on {gap} paper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it didn't work . My pen didn't load um the information . So I made a really simple {vocalsound} f uh a shape on uh {disfmarker} in um PowerPoint . But we could make uh a round uh an oval uh um remote control . Uh yellow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . But it's it's kind of uh it's kind of o organic , so that's very good . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what I'm thinking about , maybe um we should make very light but um uh a grip um {disfmarker} I mean this is how you hold a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um it shouldn't be too uh glatt , too slippery , +Industrial Designer: Slippery . +Project Manager: s because um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you have something like uh the Siemens phone , it's rubber . +Industrial Designer: You have to grab it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , exactly . +User Interface: So it's easy in your hand {disfmarker} Uh indeed . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . There are there are also remote controls who have uh a little shape underneath where you can put your fingers in , +Project Manager: Yeah , ex for your fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can get a really good grip on it . So you you don't have to um attain much pressure to it . It's it's a lot easier . +Project Manager: Yeah . It grips automatically . Yeah , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So m Yes . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'll I'll go into that deeper in my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh and um to add on um Ruud's information , in this um interface we can have uh high-tech with the voice recognition and uh , well , the the fancy colours and uh and so on , and still have the ease of use , because we have an easy interface . And all the other remote controls are high-tech in buttons and uh and so on . +Project Manager: Yeah . Way too much I think for our goal , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: So if you have the voice recognition , you can {vocalsound} you can programme like thirty uh um thirty c uh controls on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , b but I think we'll {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I'll I'll go into that , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there are are some possibilities and some impossibilities . Um I had a talk with uh our manufacturing uh division , and uh we had a talk about all the different components um who are in this design . Uh these are the things we've looked at . And of course I used the web to uh find my information . About the casing , we have three different casing possibilities . We have the uncurved or flat case . Uh that's the most common uh remote con control form uh we're used to is just a {disfmarker} it ju it's just a box . I'm sorry I I don't have any pictures of uh of this thing . {vocalsound} We have uh a curved one . It's uh curved in two dimensions . You have to imagine it's a bit like a wave form . So it's uh a little more advanced in its in its shape . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and we have an even more advanced uh shape , which is curved in three dimension . I c I think you can compare it a little bit with the uh big grey image uh you had in your presentation . The the big remote control , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite uh advanced and it's it's quite daring to to use I think . Um for these casings we have uh different types of finishing . We can use plastic , which is uh very slippery and maybe not so nice , but you can give it any colour , uh which is the same for rubber , but it's not slippery . We can use wood and titanium . Well , um we cannot use the titanium on the double curve cases . And these latex cases , there's there's just the plastic ones uh won't allow the use of solar cells as an energy source {disfmarker} source . Which brings me to the different energy sources . {vocalsound} Um well , we even seem to have uh hand dyn dynamos for uh powering our uh {vocalsound} remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You really have to imagine like {vocalsound} winding up your {disfmarker} uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it would be very new to the market , +Industrial Designer: I d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It would be very new , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's a kind of a retro uh style , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: this is quite interesting . Uh there's there's also a kinetic energy supply . So um when you're watching T_V_ uh or when you're {disfmarker} you you have to um make some kind of energy {disfmarker} kinetic energy by shaking the remote or throwing it against the wall , whatever you wish . +User Interface: Like the watch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It have {disfmarker} it it has to move , that's the the sense of it . And you can store the energy in the in the thing . +Project Manager: I think um , if if I can hook on to that , um the kinetic thing is very funny . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . It's very funny indeed . +Project Manager: I mean solar is {disfmarker} of course it's nice , but it's , well , your uh your calculator has a solar panel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Indeed . +Project Manager: Um hand dynamo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're watching a movie , how many times uh you take the the remote control and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , maybe m +User Interface: if uh if you have a watch , you have the kinetic uh idea in a watch also . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +User Interface: You you walk +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} but uh you {disfmarker} you're sitting on a couch . +Industrial Designer: But you know you know from your own watch {disfmarker} your watch uses uh a minimal con it consumes a minimal amount of energy . {gap} the the shaking of your body , which is almost uh every activity makes your uh body shake , uh it charges it . But uh the problem here is that it it supplies a a very little amount of kinetic energy . So I think uh you have a problem when you're watching a movie and uh you haven't moved the remote uh i remote control in a {disfmarker} in an amount of time , and you want t to switch uh the channel or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . And wha +Industrial Designer: well , m it might not work . So that's something you have to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , but maybe {vocalsound} maybe there's a possibility com to combine it with m uh traditional batteries , so we can save on the batteries +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um when there's enough kinet kinetic energy , use the kinetic energy , and otherwise use the batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , because I guess the voice recognition feature u consumes quite a f uh a lot of power . +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll come to that later . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And we of course have the traditional uh solar power , which is just uh uh uh uh uh a piece of material on the remote control which transfers light energy into electricity . {vocalsound} The user interface controls , um of course we have the push-buttons and uh we also have scroll-wheels . And these scroll-wheels can also be integrated with buttons . So it's just like a mouse . You can scroll 'em , you can also push it . Um {vocalsound} uh in the indicators we have the L_C_D_ displays , which means uh you can watch uh in a display w which channel you have chosen or something like that of the li amount of volume which is uh currently {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh and we also have double scroll-buttons , which are just two of these things . So we don't really have the the kind of button we had in mind in our uh uh in our last meeting , the the thing with the the round with the four {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Oh , we can just make four push-buttons in a form of a round . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . That is possible too . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But I th I don't think uh the scroll-wheels {disfmarker} I had some {disfmarker} I had some information about it too . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think {vocalsound} there's any possibility for us to use scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: I d I can't see uh any uh scenario where you would use a scroll-wheel with a button on it . +Industrial Designer: Well , mayb uh well , m me neither . Maybe when you integrate some functions . +Project Manager: This will be the remote , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um with uh maybe a channel selector . What about integrating a scroll-bar on this side ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh that's a possibility , +Industrial Designer: Uh it's do it's done before . +Project Manager: Because this is how you keep it {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's quite quite good , yes . +User Interface: But Flores , think about a scenario where y where you would use the scroll-button for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it's it {disfmarker} well , i what he means is there's an {disfmarker} button integrated in the scroll-wheel . +User Interface: A volume , okay . +Industrial Designer: There's no scenario where you use uh the button in the scroll-wheel . You just use the wheel . +Project Manager: Well , what about mute ? +Industrial Designer: About mute . +Project Manager: Thi i i m I guess uh th +Industrial Designer: Well , yes . +Project Manager: this is my volume button . And I can either on this side or this side um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yes . Well , okay . Well , that that that's one possibility , okay . +Project Manager: And click it to muten the device . +Industrial Designer: Well , okay . It's quite goods . +Project Manager: And and it makes it different from the traditional uh devices on this market . So I'm looking for a way to uh make it a little different than the traditional ones . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yes . +Project Manager: So maybe um {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} that's something you two uh need to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , wha what do you thing about uh a scroll-bar ? Uh scroll-wheel . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: Wheel . +Marketing: it's obvious obviously new . So it might attract uh the young customers . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} But it's done before , uh there are many other devices um like uh telephones and our uh radio , pocket radios . We use this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well , it's it's been done years ago and I don't see it anywhere now . +Project Manager: Well , all the Sony telephones use it , for example , for volume . +Industrial Designer: So maybe it's not no {gap} . +Project Manager: Nokia has a {disfmarker} well , okay , it's not really a scroll-wheel , but on their side th the the volume button is on the side , because you gri grab it like this . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yes , but it uses two separate buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . I know , it's not really a scroll-wheel . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't use a {disfmarker} {gap} . Well . Uh something for uh Roo here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For you too , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I believe uh if you have uh what we've earlier said , um the grip uh places in in the remote control . You have your hand on one place on the remote control , so you have to place all the buttons in a range of your thumb . +Industrial Designer: Wi within reach . Yes , you have to . +User Interface: So in that case uh the volume button on the side uh of the remote control would be perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} yes . Yeah , yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Sebastian . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um we have to know , if you want to use uh these rubber double-curved c uh case , um you must use these push uh push-buttons . There's no way you can integrate L_C_D_ displays . There's no way you can integrate scroll-wheels , because it's all curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's {disfmarker} there are no uh flat areas where you can incorporate these things . So that's a limitation . {vocalsound} About um the components , uh just the hardware . We basically have uh three types of chips we can use and uh these chips incorporate all the Logica and um um uh hardware that is needed to send uh to send a signal . Uh we have a simple , regular and advanced chip . And there is something like a sample sensor and sample speaker , which is a little cryptic uh to me . But I think that's the the voice recognition thing that we are uh thinking about . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , you can um {disfmarker} I have some information about it . Uh in the voice recognition you say a word {disfmarker} you can programme words like uh v uh volume up . Of mute , let's say mute . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . Okay . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um you programme it , you m mute and you g you give um an uh an action to it that that's really the mute function +Industrial Designer: okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: and uh when you speak in the the remote control , it repeats uh your saying . that's the sample sensor . So So if you say mute , it says mute again , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: and then it's um {disfmarker} well , I believe it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It performs the action . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then uh he he repeats its action what {disfmarker} which he believes it is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you say mute , he repeats mute and you {disfmarker} makes a computer sound mute , and then goes to the mute function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , so that's basically the the voice recognition item we were searching for . Okay . This sample sensor uh requires an regular chip , I thought . Um no op I'm not very sure . No , it's not in here . If we want to use the L_C_D_ display , we really need the advanced version , which is a bit l little bit more costly . If we want to use the scroll-wheels we need the regular version . And if we don't want to use uh any of these uh more advanced functions we can keep with the simple uh chip , which is a bit cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh well {disfmarker} uh +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: d did we already decide on the display ? To {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um no , but I think that's something for uh Roo here to think about . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , I don't have um {disfmarker} I haven't looked for uh for information about it , but I don't think information {disfmarker} uh y I don't think you need it on a display . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Especially when when we have to look at a cost , I don't think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I don't think either . +User Interface: 'cause uh {gap} uh all {disfmarker} any T_V_ can uh can uh view a digit on uh on screen , +Industrial Designer: No . I don't think you need it . +Project Manager: On screen display . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , well +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: my conclusion , um unfortunately the market has decided the {disfmarker} a little uh other than I thought . I thought um the market would like uh a sort m sort of titanium casing , but they seem to like natural uh stuff . So maybe we should think about uh wood finish . Um I've chosen the more battery with solar cell uh solution for the energy . It's more reliable , it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . +Industrial Designer: So I don't think we should use the dynamo thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kineti okay . +Industrial Designer: The kinetic thing it {gap} it's it's a possibility . It's it's more advanced , but I'm {disfmarker} I think you should combine it with batteries . +Project Manager: Okay , it's maybe a bit too too flashy , +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it will not {disfmarker} too advanced , +Project Manager: too {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh well . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} in in in some way it can give us an advance , because you will save on your batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that {disfmarker} that's the same with the solar cell . That's no different . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Yes . And I think it's more robust . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's more uh Uh it's more functional . +User Interface: But what about um the markets {vocalsound} uh wants colourfuls uh designs ? So if you use titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , but the uh um {disfmarker} that's what Sebastian said . +Industrial Designer: The titanium thing uh we have to skip it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He said uh this is what uh this is my personal preference . But but yet , I understood that the market is different . +User Interface: Okay . Oh , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think we should skip the titanium uh stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should uh use wood or something like that . +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: And I would think {disfmarker} +Marketing: And +Project Manager: r +Marketing: yeah , +Project Manager: rubber with colours . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} yeah , the older people liked wood . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , sorry . So it it needs to be rubber . +Marketing: No the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the younger people liked soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , spongy materials . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um well um these scroll-wheels , I think uh they they can be they can be handy . +User Interface: And they can be implemented with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Yes , they can . But they really need the regular chip , you cannot use the sa simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but we also {disfmarker} uh we already need the regular chip for the sample uh sensor speaker {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm not very sure . Maybe that's an uh {disfmarker} a different {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , +Project Manager: But but do we want the curved uh uh design , +User Interface: evalu +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think so , if you if you stick with the the simple uh straight-forward uh not curve design , i uh it's too dull . +Project Manager: I it's too dull . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think c our customers will like it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And um if you uh take the double-curved , uh then you cannot {disfmarker} um you can only use the rubber buttons and you cannot use the scroll-wheels . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think this is the best of two worlds . +Project Manager: Okay , what about um {vocalsound} the issue I um addressed at the beginning of the meeting ? Um the voice function w with the infrared uh issue . Because it it's of cour +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's it's {disfmarker} uh I uh I can imagine it's very dull to talk to a device w if you have to point to another device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's very unlogical . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But most infrared uh remote controls don't have to be pointed at all . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the there has to be some pointing at . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It depends also on your on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , if you if you take your hand before it , okay , it won't work , but you can point it just {vocalsound} to the other wall . +Project Manager: Well , it depends on your walls actually . If you have uh have um smooth walls , it it it probably {disfmarker} you're probably right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But if you have carpets on the wall , which our natural loving friends probably do have , then um {disfmarker} yeah , th th it might be a bit more of a issue . +Industrial Designer: All lights get absorbed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because the walls they they reflect the infrared light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} it has an {disfmarker} it's easier . Um I suggest we use the the sensor sample . Uh the sample sensor and sample speaker . Um with a with a regular chip . +User Interface: And the regular chip . +Industrial Designer: I think uh it gives us the advantage of {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and the scroll uh scroll-wheels . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like the scroll wheels uh idea . +Industrial Designer: And uh skip {disfmarker} and skip the L_C_D_ part . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it it's any uh value added thing . +User Interface: No . Think so too . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it looks {disfmarker} uh yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: according to Ruud , the the the market likes um new flashy technology , +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Project Manager: and I mean L_C_D_ is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's not very flashy and new . +Project Manager: well , ok I know , but it's m it's less um s standard +Marketing: Standard ? +Project Manager: than than {disfmarker} Well , we are not very w we do not know uh much about the the f the financial part . That's the problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because if we do have enough um space in in our finance , I would say do integrate it , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it it adds a little ext extra high-tech feeling to it . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: But we already have the scroll-wheels , the sp uh the speaker uh the speak recognition , the rubber , the fancy colours . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think our customers will go insane . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's too much . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I I agree . I think i Ruud , do you have any um anything you would like to um add or or maybe thoughts or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah , um n no , I don't think so . M +Project Manager: No ? Sebast uh nee , Roo ? {gap} Roo , do you have any other {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um no . Nothing more . +Project Manager: Nothing more . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh the n the next phase will be um the um {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sebas +Industrial Designer: what is the next phase {gap} f Flores ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , we we {vocalsound} need to describe uh decisions now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So um +Industrial Designer: So i +Project Manager: on the energy , well , we decided . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Chip . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: The case uh rubber with uh c one one uh one curve . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: User interface um +User Interface: Uh but uh can't scroll-wheels uh work with one uh one-curved case ? Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes , they can work . +User Interface: Sorry , yeah . +Industrial Designer: They cannot work with double-curved . +User Interface: Oh , sorry . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's that's problem . I'll check it for you . +Project Manager: Um then the corporate identity should be uh in the product . I guess that is something for Roo and Sebastian . Uh you talked about it before , the colours , grey and yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Keep it in mind . And um the buttons , well we talked about it now . The next phase , um Sebastian , um is um the design of the look and feel . The user interface design . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And for you , the product evaluation . Um I'm sure your personal coach will give you more information on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ need to work together on the prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And I'm going uh to plan my holidays . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The project drawing is for the next {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So you will be on the Bahamas . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's it's uh {disfmarker} when we come back in thirty minutes , uh you will have a uh prototype ready . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So can you uh give us a summary of all uh decisions we've made ? +Project Manager: Yeah ? I can . Um maybe one of you could write it down . +Industrial Designer: I'll do . +Project Manager: Great . Um {disfmarker} Uh you you need to help me . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . W start with the casing . +Project Manager: The casing is curved , single-curved . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay , single-curved case . Okay . What about the energy source ? +Project Manager: Traditional batteries uh and solar . +User Interface: But can there be uh wor can they work together ? Or do we have to choose between them ? +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: 'Cause if we have to choose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: they can be complementary . Uh al al I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I I think they can . Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Every device {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if not ? +Industrial Designer: It it should be . There should be really no problem . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They can be supplementary . That's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , um +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: th +Industrial Designer: So uh uh just uh the energy source is um the batteries and the solar . +Project Manager: Battery and solar , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . What about uh the finishing of the case ? We have decided we wanted to use the rubber ? +Project Manager: Yeah , with colourful rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh if it's possible with uh different um covers , but I'm not sure if our suppliers can uh can help us with uh with such uh uh a wish . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and I think we should use the company colours . Something like black and red . {gap} uh black and yellow . +Project Manager: Uh grey and yellow or black and yellow . Yeah . +User Interface: Grey and yellow . +Industrial Designer: Grey yellow , okay . +User Interface: Yellow case and grey buttons , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , although I don't think that's very colourful . Except for the yellow of course , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but um I could think of a more uh attractive uh c uh set of colours . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think it's uh {disfmarker} it's not very dull . It's quite modern actually . Don't you think ? +Project Manager: Well , I was more thinking about the fruit colours that the Ruud showed us before . +User Interface: I believe the {disfmarker} But you have already um {disfmarker} you must have a red uh on and off button . And um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it it doesn't have to be red . Uh I mean th uh I think these colours are really what our young people are looking for . Um so maybe it shouldn't even be two colours , it should be a full colour cover with such an image +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or or {disfmarker} I mean thinking in two colours is is too black and white for our m uh c uh market group , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or black and yellow . +Project Manager: Black and yellow , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh I'm afraid it's not possible to print a picture on uh the device . Because uh I agree it would be nice to have have something like that on the device itself . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there is . {vocalsound} Just a week ago , a keyboard manufacturer would print , +Industrial Designer: Oh , I've read . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: with {gap} and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: but our manufacturing department is not so advanced in its uh techniques . They're actually very slow in its techniques . +Project Manager: Okay , so we have to deal with wh what's possible here . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So I'm afraid it's not possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Um more f more more decisions we made . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: A scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: The scroll-heel . Yes , the voice recognition we already decided . +User Interface: Voice recognition , of course . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so scroll-wheel . But there will be some additional buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And th the {disfmarker} they should be spongy also , because they're they're rubber too . +Project Manager: Uh I'm going to leave that up to you two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what did you say ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh you can use {disfmarker} well , when you use the buttons , they'll they'll be made of rubber too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it has th the spongy uh feel also . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , or you could use plastic buttons . In the rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think rubber is nice . Because it uh i I mean what do you touch the button , and what do they want spongy uh uh devices , or or i +User Interface: Yeah , b But then you just have the the fact that um the drawings on the buttons will disappear eventually . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: What I said in the in the first uh discussion , uh the digit six on the button , it will disappear when it's from rubber . +Project Manager: Uh is that {disfmarker} uh does our our supplier say so ? +User Interface: It is not uh something uh {disfmarker} it's no information I read about it or so , but it's just from {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh didn't {disfmarker} did we inc uh include the digi digits or uh leave them to the speech recognition ? +User Interface: No , but but uh it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause things like uh volume could be uh placed next to the button . +Project Manager: Yeah . You could place a {disfmarker} um uh this this would be the button . +Marketing: There {disfmarker} the icons . +Project Manager: The scroll-wheel , I mean . And you could place the indica th th the signals the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , b yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Marketing: So you don't touch the icons that much . +User Interface: but then you have still the images on the rubber of the case . So still then , if you feel uh li uh if you feel your remote control , you just rub on the cover , so you rub on the painting . +Project Manager: No no , there's no painting , only uh yellow or {disfmarker} But it's into the rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , but but the the plus or the minus . +Project Manager: Yeah , but this is on the pla +User Interface: You have to draw the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , the signs . +Project Manager: yeah , I know . Um I think uh I know which you understand af uh I know what you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , it's on the cover . So if you uh {disfmarker} You just move the problem . +Project Manager: What about um making this rubber and making this plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I see what you mean . Well , maybe that's possible , because um uh our manufacturing division also offers plastic finishing . So maybe they can combine these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well actually , we should have it the other way around , I guess . A plastic cover with rubber finishing . I mean , this is this is the finishing . This is um what's on the edge . What you feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the front , on which the the buttons are doesn't have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'm I'm not so sure , +User Interface: Y uh can you separate these uh these {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it c should be Well , I'm not sure , I have to ask with manufacturing , but I'm I'm not sure that's what you want , because our customers specifically ask for the spongy feel , and that's what you get with rubber . So if you want the spongy feel , you need uh to make these buttons all all of rubber . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know , but do you touch this or do you touch this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think both . +Project Manager: I mean , I I never touch between the buttons . +User Interface: I do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I do . +User Interface: Or the s uh the sideways . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or the the back . Or the back . +Project Manager: Yeah , the side , exactly , the sideways . The side , but do you touch between the the {disfmarker} these buttons ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} Yes , especially when there are l a few buttons on it , you have uh a lot of space to touch . So you just have it in your hand completely or or {disfmarker} i you play with it . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , we do not have very much time uh left . Um I guess you two have to figure that out . I'm going to leave the decision to you , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um because you have to make its prototype , and um {disfmarker} yeah y you have the most knowledge about the suppliers , the possibilities and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm going to leave it {disfmarker} the decision with you . Um Sebastian , did you write enough decisions down ? +Industrial Designer: Um not quite . Um what about uh the chips ? We use the regular chip ? +User Interface: Regular . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use with {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} no , I think that's about it . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . With those regular chips we can still uh control advanced functions . The chip is is not really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only difference between the advanced and the regular version is that the advanced uh version of the chip supports L_C_D_ . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +Industrial Designer: And we've decided not to use L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , then I think we are uh quite finished . Um I'll see you guys in thirty minutes and um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . For the finishing touch . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah , um if you write {disfmarker} wrote anything down , uh could you put it on the shared folder ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um Sebastian has everything . +Project Manager: I know , but {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll put it online . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +","The meeting involves a project manager, marketing team, industrial designer, and user interface specialist discussing a remote control project. Key points include: + +- Marketing highlighted the target group’s preference for innovation, fancy looks, and spongy materials, with young people liking colorful items and older ones preferring dark colors and familiar materials. +- The team decided against an LCD display to keep costs down and maintain a focus on voice recognition, colorful rubber casings for a spongy feel, and possibly exchangeable covers. +- Prototype design, incorporating corporate colors (grey and yellow), and a single-curved shape, using a regular chip which supports the required functions without needing to go for a more expensive advanced chip. +- A combination of traditional batteries and solar cells was agreed upon as the energy source. +- Voice recognition and possibly a scroll-wheel were chosen as interaction methods. +- Further decisions were made about the case finishing, energy source, chip type, and how to integrate corporate identity into the product. +- The industrial designer and user interface specialist were tasked with collaborating to produce a prototype drawing for the next meeting. + +This summary condenses the major points and decisions made during the meeting, focusing on project specifications, design, and next steps." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we can start ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Suppose I have to do my presentation . {vocalsound} Eh um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . It's Ada Longmund ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , I'll present myself , I'm Ada Longmund , and as you may know it , I'm the pr project manager . So um we will have to um speak about m the project . Our project project is to create um a new remote control and as you may know there's lot of industrials interesting in creating a remote control , so the remote control has to be original , trendy and um user-friendly . Record . So the project method is the following . So if we're um the functional design , you have to do uh any individual work and uh also work with uh meetings talking with each other . Uh it will be the same for the conceptual design and also the same for the detailed design . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The tool training is to try out the white board , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe someone ha we have to {gap} this whiteboard , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe you can draw your favourite animal +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and make a list of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: So right now ? +Project Manager: I don't know if we have to do it now , maybe later later . +User Interface: So yeah I think you can do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the selling price of the product will be twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite good price , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I it's it's reasonable , s quite {disfmarker} yeah . Twenty five . +Marketing: It's reasonable , I think , yeah . +Project Manager: And uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it will uh be a an international remote control , +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as we want to sell it in the entire world , and the product costs will be not more than twelve Euros and fifty centimes . So , as you will discuss about the remote control you will have to experience your um {disfmarker} with the remote control . Um just uh maybe be imaginative with {vocalsound} remote const con controls , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: try to create something new and people would like to to buy . And {vocalsound} and the next meeting will start in thirty minutes , so you'll ha all have your spethisfispis specif specific role and you know {disfmarker} I suppose you know what you have to do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I I hope so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh you will have to work on the design and also to work on the design of th technical fun functions of the remote control and think of the user requirement specifications . +Marketing: Those things just refer to each of each of us , I think . AMI +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I_D_ , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I_D_ is for the Industrial Design , yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And U_I_D_ , it's for the User Interface Designer , +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? +Marketing: and Marketing Expert , it's me . +Industrial Designer: AMI yeah project . +Project Manager: So I will manage all all the group . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} you will be the manager {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can manage all this , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +Project Manager: So you have questions ? +Marketing: Um . Not really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: you all know what the parts of the work you have to do . +Marketing: So which {disfmarker} you , the Industrial Designer . +User Interface: No I'm user interf I'm user interface design . +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Design , yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you ? +Industrial Designer: I am the Industrial Designer so . +Project Manager: Mm okay . +User Interface: Okay . So what's the difference between +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: user interface design d industrial design ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean , you have to know . Ah , you have to know it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's difficult . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's your job , so I hope you you know what it is . +Industrial Designer: You know very soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suppose you have to design it and you have to take care of the industrial way to transform it . +User Interface: Okay , so I make uh u user interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You you de you implement the core functions in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And i maybe you will transform it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I think the user the user interface design is {disfmarker} he will design how the user will you know {disfmarker} the relation between the user and you know the remote control so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Use it . Make make {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the uh industrial design , it is how the object will look like . +User Interface: Maybe I think uh uh i industrial design's uh , it's the function design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So the materi +User Interface: I design the user f user interface , you design the function . +Project Manager: Maybe , it is the outside and the inside . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay right . But {disfmarker} I was thinking that he's a user {disfmarker} 'cause the user interface to design for example where the but button will be , you know . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I don't know . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Well . You know . +Industrial Designer: I'm the industrial designer . +Marketing: Oh , okay , okay . Not the other one . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So and the marketing expert will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just go I'm trying to give you some trends about what should be done and what the users would like to have +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then thi this would {vocalsound} I guess converged to the User Interface Designer wi and then Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Okay . +Project Manager: And when designing y the remote control just remember that uh it has to be a kind of international product . So you don't have to do something really specific , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: as everybody everybody will have to use it , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: it's sor the same as keyboards . You know , you have Qwerty , Azerty , French and U_K_ keyboard , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: so really the remote control to be international . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: And not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh simple . +Project Manager: As we want to maximise the benefit . +User Interface: And easy to use . +Marketing: And you have to keep it under twelve Euros and f fifty , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you have to keep in mind that the product cost won't be maxim more than twelve dot fifty Euros . +User Interface: Ah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's the problem . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: And to be sure that really people will be interested in buying a new remote control with maybe new functionalities that don't exist in the mm existing remote controls now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , is it okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . It's clear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There was a step about drawing something in the in the board , I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe should go and draw an animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is it ? {vocalsound} Are we supposed to do right now ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah , you try . Try first . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right it's it's from the left to the ri {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you think we have to do it now ? +Industrial Designer: I d I was thinking but I n I'm not sure now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can draw something which is very simple . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want me to draw something ? +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Product manager {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Everybody {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , let's go , +User Interface: Oh , maybe we should bring Kemy here . +Project Manager: I will try . +User Interface: Kemy is really good at drawing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Many {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think everybody should do it , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's not matter {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You're going to draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh it's the same as mine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a fat cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It is not a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the fat cat , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you draw uh um rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , hat ha rat . +Marketing: A rat ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yes you have to draw a rat if you want a rat . +Project Manager: No . A mouse is not too difficult . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's your rat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mouse is okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Just go , +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: you you the closest to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: go {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right , but in grow , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Jus +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: everybody has to grow {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , I draw . The only thing I can draw is like this . Oh . Oh . Oh . +Marketing: A duck . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You love the eyes . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} What's this ? +Industrial Designer: What are you {disfmarker} I don {vocalsound} no idea , so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that was the eyes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: A clown . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Rabbit . +Industrial Designer: It's a rabbit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Pikachu . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a rabbit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Bugs Bunny one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's not so bad so . +User Interface: The only thing I can draw , because it's very simple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh . So what else ? This was my favourite one , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you don't have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A fish . +Marketing: Right . A fish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's a that's a fish ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's try to draw something . +Project Manager: You forgot the chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , doesn't look so fine . +Industrial Designer: Have to be really careful . +Project Manager: Fish and chips . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: Ah {vocalsound} it's my turn . +Marketing: it's your turn . +User Interface: Oh . Okay , be careful . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So . {gap} {gap} It's ok +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of +User Interface: No problem , no problem . +Industrial Designer: So , what can I draw some more ? +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} ? No . Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's a se it's my priority this one . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: A person ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . It's a really crazy dog {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Dog . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Transfer . It's a dog in a village . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So what are you sug going to do now ? {gap} +Marketing: I think it's done . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's done ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Just have to {disfmarker} present project , +User Interface: So we have break . +Project Manager: discuss a little bit about it . +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: Oh , we have twenty five minutes for the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , if you have questions . +User Interface: Oh . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Know what time is it ? No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: You know your job ? you know your job ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have an idea yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You know your job ? +Industrial Designer: I have an idea of my job {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} yeah so . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +","The meeting involves a project manager named Ada Longmund and various team members, including marketing, an industrial designer, and a user interface designer, discussing the launch of a new remote control project. Ada emphasizes creating an original, trendy, and user-friendly product to sell internationally at a maximum cost of €12.50 and a selling price of €25. Teams must consider user requirements and functionalities, and aim for a product that appeals internationally. The group briefly engages in a team-building drawing exercise but predominantly focuses on clarifying roles and responsibilities for the remote control's design and marketing. The meeting ends with the team having clarity on their roles and a subsequent meeting planned in 30 minutes." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: G good morning . +User Interface: Good morning , Flores . Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? You should put the laptop uh right into the square . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For i for the cameras , yes . +User Interface: For the cameras Alright . +Project Manager: Good morning , Sebastian . +Industrial Designer: Good morning , {vocalsound} Mister P_M_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} I'm fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How are you today ? How was your business trip to Boston ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um well , actually I didn't go , didn't feel like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Geez . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Do you want to open it as read-only . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I guess I should close it here . +User Interface: You have the same message of uh Windows cannot um +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: sen oh stand-by . Close the the window . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the waiting is for our Marketing Expert , Ruud . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} That's right . Ruud . +Project Manager: Um project kick-off . +Industrial Designer: Is there a schedule for this meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , there is actually . Um I will li list the agenda for today . For this meeting . Good morning , Ruud . +Marketing: Good morning . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's important um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I shall close the door . +Project Manager: yeah , great . It's important that the laptops are um exactly on the square , um for the cameras . Okay . Okay . Um we're here to develop uh a new product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I'm sure you've had a mail from our account manager about it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} and um this is the first meeting to to generate some uh uh some ideas about it . Um you are here in a specific role . Uh Ruud is here as the Marketing Expert , Roo is here as the User Interface Designer and Sebastian is here uh in the role of Industrial Designer . Is that correct ? +Industrial Designer: That's correct . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} we're going to do um uh uh a little tool training uh for the tools we are going to use uh during uh the meetings we are going to have here . Um then I will tell you a little bit about my idea of the project plan , uh and we will have a discussion . Uh this meeting should take no more than twenty five minutes , so we should keep that in mind . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um is there any room for a little presentation ? Uh maybe during the discussion uh section ? +Project Manager: There is ? Yeah , there is . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay , this new product we are are g are going to develop , um it's a remote control , a television remote control . Um and first of all it should be original , it should be trendy and user-friendly . Those are kind of easy um uh uh goals , um and I'm sure we can find more goals for the for the product we are going to develop . {vocalsound} Um we will discuss uh later on more ideas about uh how the remote should look and how it sh it should function and all those kind of things . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The market , we should have a look at the market . Um {vocalsound} we are going to use a a pred a project method uh during uh this development , um which consists of three different design stages . Uh the functional design , the conceptual design and the detailed design , um all of these stages um um mean that we do some individual work , prepare , and then uh meet to discuss our uh uh the {gap} {disfmarker} the the progressions , yes . +User Interface: Progressions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the first stage , the functional design um we are going to search for the user requirements , and we will um make a specific {disfmarker} uh specification of that . Um {vocalsound} the second is the technical functional design , um what effect should the remote have ? Well in this case control t the the television I think . +User Interface: It's for the vision . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and the last one is the working design . How exactly does it work in the technical sense . Um the other design stages , uh we will discuss that later . So we'll kop it {disfmarker} keep it with the functional design . {vocalsound} Okay , um before we think about remote control we will um work with some of the tools we have uh here . Um as you see now I can give a presentation . {vocalsound} Um it's also possible to use this one as well . You can uh uh display pr uh two presentations if you want to . Um {vocalsound} to um presentate , to show us uh a file you'll need to uh place it in your project documents folder , which is on your desktop , at least it should be . Um then we have this electronic white-board system . {vocalsound} Um yeah , I will show that now . Um you can draw on the board using this pen . There are little um uh +User Interface: Sensors . +Project Manager: sensors , so do not grab it here , but a lit more a little bit more to the uh to the end . Um well , it {disfmarker} it's on the um eraser now , so we click the pen button . Okay , so not too fast writing . Um {vocalsound} you can insert a new um slide or or white-board uh uh file um by either using the insert function or by clicking the next button or the blank button . It's quite the same . Um all our um whi um uh SMARTboard um notes should be kept in the same file . So do not m make a new file . Just use this one uh during the day . {vocalsound} Um you can use the eraser to make something go away . +User Interface: But we all use the same white-board file +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: So we can work together on it while we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or should we only use it in the in the meetings ? +Project Manager: Yeah , in the meetings , only in the meetings . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: It's really like like a regu regular whiteboard . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . Yep . +Project Manager: Um you can choose the format , um {disfmarker} sorry . Uh {disfmarker} Let me see . Um {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess it's maybe because I'm not s uh pen selected . Yep . Current colour , you can choose another colour . And um for example black , and you c I can choose the line width . Um so now I d have a different line width and uh colour . Okay . Quite easy , if you uh do have any questions , just c ask me . Um {vocalsound} to um {disfmarker} oh well , I'm {disfmarker} I wrote down the documents uh should be in the project documents folder if you want to uh discuss it with us . Um as a little training {vocalsound} um I will ask Ruud first to draw uh uh your own animal on a new slide uh with uh a different colour and a different line width than the one uh now selected . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um green . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An animal . Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh a wee rabbit . +User Interface: It's a bunny . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A rabbit . Okay , well great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Roo , could you do the same please ? But a different animal with a different colour and a different line width . +User Interface: But of course , Flores . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Blank . +Project Manager: Sebastian is thinking about the animal . +Industrial Designer: I'm just uh guessing what should be my favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I'm think about it too . {vocalsound} Format {gap} . Well , it looked more than a bunny than a cat , but {vocalsound} it works , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I'll give it a try . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It it should be a cat . +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm guessing a horse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: With a very small {vocalsound} legs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I was very good in drawing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You should feed that uh that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , I guess you uh get the idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay . {vocalsound} Beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Beautiful . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so um you can use this at any time during the presentation if you want to . Um any questions {disfmarker} well , just just let me know . Um okay , back to our project . Um {vocalsound} the remote control we are going to develop um will have a selling price of about twenty five Euros . Uh the profit we are looking for for this product is fifty million Euros , which is quite a number . {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we will focus this internationally , so the product will be sold um , if there is market uh interest , uh in in more than one country . And um the production costs should not be more than uh twelve Euro fifty , so we should keep that in mind by uh w w during the development , {vocalsound} um because uh , well , those are important numbers . Um then the discussion , maybe the time for Sebastian to show his presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um I have some technical uh issues which I would like to present to you uh before we start the discussion , because uh there might be some uh +Project Manager: Limitations . +Industrial Designer: influations influences . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um first about my role , role of the Industrial Designer . I would like to think about uh the implementation of uh of things , and the technical possibilities and impossibilities . So if someone of you comes up with uh ideas , uh I'll try to translate them in technical functions , but uh there might be some impossibilities . So that's one . {vocalsound} Uh I also will propose some uh um uh some implementations for that , but {disfmarker} well , these are quite the same . Sorry about that . Um and I also will remind people of some new technical possibilities which are available and which might be interesting to implement in our product . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have some uh initial ideas about some things um which are maybe nice to take with you in the upcoming uh discussion . One thing about uh interopera operability . Um I think a modern uh remote control should uh control a device {disfmarker} diverse subset of equipment . Uh for instance , uh D_V_D_ players , cell phones , video and audio equipment . So one re uh one remote control for all your equipment . +User Interface: And for a cell phone ? +Industrial Designer: Well , there should be some interoperabi interoperability between them . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it could come in handy . We should discuss that . Um and we should think about the way how these things uh should communicate with each other . We're not uh living in the uh nineteen eighties anymore , so infrared is not uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is not really uh hot uh technical stuff anymore . But you should uh think about the things like uh Bluetooth . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah , but the infrared , it's uh , well , a little bit old-fashioned , if you would call it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But all the T_V_s are uh equipped with infrared , so +Industrial Designer: But it's cost-effective . Yes . Mm-hmm . Well , not all , not all . +User Interface: y you you can {disfmarker} Most of them . +Industrial Designer: So that's the point . +User Interface: Or you shou sh use a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you should equip infrared and Bluetooth together in one remote . +Industrial Designer: Maybe , but that's uh something we should discuss +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh about every everybody should think about it . So that's just my role , I'll just uh give you uh everybody some technical input , and I think now the time is to have a little discussion about what uh the product should be and how it should look , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but take these things into account when you start the discussion . +Project Manager: Okay , so the the main por uh the main points you are uh telling us are focus on the inter uh operability , +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so one thing uh one remote control should uh control one or more uh pieces of equipment , +Project Manager: Okay , and and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and the way of communicating with these equipments . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} that was your presentation ? Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} okay . Great . Um {vocalsound} I'll go back to my own presentation . Um {disfmarker} Mm . Okay . Um I I do think it's time now to to discuss uh mm some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um Sebastian told us a few things about the technical implemen uh implications . Um there are other things like um {vocalsound} how to make it trendy , which is I think uh um most uh Ru uh Ruud's uh role . Um the way how it should be controlled by the user , which is uh Roo uh r uh during this part . Um so let's start with you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: H how do you think the remote should um function for the user ? +User Interface: Well , I had a few uh things in mind . Um well , the interoperability , just like uh Sebastian said , um the remote should work on different T_V_s or even different uh um {disfmarker} Yeah uh , what is it , devices ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um so i i I think it's a universal remote control for customers to buy just new in uh a store . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I think it should be something like that . +User Interface: It's not for uh for uh for uh Philips or whatever to buy our remote for their own product , +Project Manager: Okay , so we're we're going business to consumer , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: not {disfmarker} we're we're {disfmarker} it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I do I don't know that . It's no I have uh {disfmarker} don't have the information for it . +Industrial Designer: We're not developing this product for a specific vendor , are we ? +Project Manager: No . No . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: we're just developing this product , and we want to sell it to a very broad uh public , so it should fit to every device . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh Ruud , y do you agree ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think they're right , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well , the techni fu technical function uh {gap} {disfmarker} what you said is just by pressing the button you should change the state of the T_V_ . That's just the basic f technical function . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So that was my {disfmarker} really my part for uh this session . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is that ease of use or uh is that more like um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's just the fu the technical function is {vocalsound} pure what should the remote control do , wh what is his task uh as an uh as an uh device . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It just should change the T_V_'s state . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So that's it . Um but furthermore {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you you see uh the buttons as a as a means of doing this ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , with buttons . +Industrial Designer: Or are there any o other controls ? +User Interface: Yeah , or maybe you want a touch-screen or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are there only {disfmarker} any other cont Well , {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I've seen these remote controls with uh this little stick uh which you can move forward , sidewords . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: You know these things . And um it's very easy for a user to to switch {disfmarker} +User Interface: They're very vu vulnerable . +Industrial Designer: w yes , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to to switch b uh between uh channels or uh change uh between tracks on a on a C_D_ , on on a chapters , you know , on a D_V_D_ player . So maybe that's an idea , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: And for other user interface I had um , well , it's more industrial thing . Uh point at a T_V_ , I think it's it's quite disturbing when you always have to point directly to the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you must {vocalsound} point everywhere , so maybe infrared is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe not even pointed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , just don't even point it , so in that case infrared should uh maybe uh be restriction to that . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh is that uh {disfmarker} are there restriction for the range , the operating range too ? So when you're not able to point at the device um the range is very limited . +User Interface: Yeah , if you g if you go to radio or or {disfmarker} yeah . For T_V_ , you're always in in the neighbourhood of a T_V_ , so I don't think think the range should be a problem to that , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if you want to uh get it working with a radio , and you're in {disfmarker} outside your garden with just one uh speaker , then maybe the range should be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , gentlemen , um uh just a reminder , we d we have five minutes left for this meeting +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Two more things . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Um You should able to feel the buttons without uh it mis um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to know what you do without looking at the buttons , so it should be as user interface um for feeling should be uh good to understand . +Project Manager: Okay , s yeah . +User Interface: You must feel the buttons for volume or whatever , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And of course you don't always know where all buttons are , so it should be visible al um {vocalsound} in dark too . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So when it's dark {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Those are two really uh user interface {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I'll write down glow in the dark . Is tha {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} That's perfect . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um uh I just want to hear uh Ruud's um input for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Do do you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you have anything already w um ab idea about how the market uh will respond to the {disfmarker} such a product ? Or what we should take um in account when developing such a product ? +Marketing: Uh I think most most things have already been said , like uh control multiple devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh , yeah , infrared might be an issue . +Project Manager: Because ? +Marketing: Uh well , he said about n abo what he said about pointing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But uh lots of devices already use infrared . So {disfmarker} we'll probably have to implement that . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . Okay , Sebastian , did you have any other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Um well yes , I had , uh about three minutes ago , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I've seem to forget them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forgot them . Um {disfmarker} oh yes , I remember . Um you said something about visibility in the dark . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um uh would it be nice for a user to have display on this uh remote control , on which you can see functions ? Which makes it easier to operate it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe I um {disfmarker} but it it can be quite simple , +Industrial Designer: I I don't know . +User Interface: you can just have white buttons with a black mark on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: The uh the the digits in black . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh then it's already visible in dark . So it it don't have to be a lightning or or a fancy +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {disfmarker} well , it can be for design , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , okay , because because we wa we want to develop a trendy product . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there's a cost limitation too . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , that's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve Euro fifty , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a big problem , I think . I think the the financial part of this project uh implicates that it's not going to be a high high-end product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The cost price is very low . +User Interface: Just remind something . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The digits of uh the the painting on the buttons should not fade . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +User Interface: You have a m uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Very good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Always have s the soft buttons , always uh clear the the the paint on it . The marks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um I ha I have one point f um which which comes in mind now . Um uh d I think the device should either be rechargeable very easily +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: um or it should not consume too much um power . Because it's very annoying if you need to change the batteries every s uh uh every other week . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um maybe we could um for example uh only light the buttons that are um uh applicable at that moment or {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Necessary , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . I dunno , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's more Sebastian's uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But then Bluetooth uh might be problem . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause I think Bluetooth uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's use uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well does it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I know it from the cell phone . +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , cell phones have uh integrated Bluetooth also and , well , it's {disfmarker} it seems to work uh quite okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh technically it will be possible . +User Interface: But you can't you can't use Bluetooth all the time , twenty four hours a day . +Project Manager: Okay . Gentlemen , I'm afraid we do not have any more time . +User Interface: Does it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you cannot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's over ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so we will go back to our own uh work . Um next meeting starts in thirty minutes and um , well , you know your o your individual actions or your personal coach will probably email you about th it . Um so this was it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Great . +","The team gathers for an initial project meeting about developing a new universal TV remote control. The meeting is focused on setting up tools such as laptop positioning for camera recording, introducing the SMARTboard electronic white-board system, and discussing the project plan which includes the functional, conceptual, and detailed design stages. The product aims to be original, trendy, user-friendly, and inter-operable across multiple devices. Constraints include a manufacturing cost limit of €12.50 and a project goal of €50 million profit. The meeting explores technical possibilities, limitations, and user interface requirements such as button visibility in the dark and not having to point the remote directly at the TV. The discussion also covers the potential for both infrared and Bluetooth connectivity, considering that many devices still use infrared, and the importance of durability, particularly ensuring that the button labels do not wear off. Finally, they contemplate power consumption, suggesting the remote should either be easily rechargeable or have low power usage. The meeting is meant to last 25 minutes, with another meeting scheduled in 30 minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: If you leave them on the whole time you get to look like a noodle the whole time . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Is that someone's ? +Project Manager: Is that {gap} . +User Interface: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} three , apparently . +User Interface: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , you all switched on . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep , me too . +Project Manager: I presume we're good to go . Okay , um minutes um we decided to use a kinetic charger , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: standard chip , um 'cause it can come in various different sizes , it wasn't uh uh gonna be a problem factor . We wanted a stand-by function . The case material is gonna be soft , rubbery , changeable . Um buttons with a combination of L_C_D_ and rubber according to the design . Um bright funky designs inspired by fruit , keeping with the hip kind of feel . Um {vocalsound} and to try and incorporate voice recognition software into our design until we can find out more about the cost of things like that . Um {vocalsound} and the rubber buttons that we'll use will be anti-R_S_I_ . Okay ? Prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Is that {gap} for us ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: I think that would be you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Me and William worked on a prototype , and I think William is going to make a p presentation on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , shall I show ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll show . Though do you do you wanna do you wanna sh do you wanna hold it +User Interface: I can hold it like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Make sure the camera's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll show you the presentation . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Can I just nick your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes you can . Wait a second , I'll get it out . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Whoa . +User Interface: It looks +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Going a bit crazy over here . +User Interface: crazy {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Um not now . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You should have one of those things and you can just take it off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ta-da . +User Interface: Oh , where are the hinges ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: this is our look and feel presentation , the final {disfmarker} our final presentation . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And we'll first look at the exterior of what we've uh come up with over there . Um +User Interface: 'Kay . You able to look {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: It's gonna have a a plastic body {vocalsound} um with a sort of standard colour , either we're thinking some something fairly neutral like a a white or a light blue or something . +User Interface: Yep . {gap} +Industrial Designer: This is underneath the rubberised the rubberised uh outer casing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um which there'd be sort of a wide choice {disfmarker} they would be attached , but we can we can come up with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um the um wide choice of colours and sort of patterns , so you've got you've got a lot of customisation with it . Um {vocalsound} it's obviously an a sort of clam-shell design {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the um the top L_C_D_ screen that you can see that would b would be sort of um {vocalsound} how do you say , it's {disfmarker} yeah yeah , it would be sort of inset into the into the top +User Interface: The black and white touch screen wherein people can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . So it's flush . +Industrial Designer: and the buttons at the bottom would d +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so so it'll fully close flat . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And working on the inside we've um already said {disfmarker} d decided on the kinetic batteries , which {disfmarker} actually , thinking about it now , could y could also probably attach to the flipping open and shut as well , so that you could probably get a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So put it in the top section rather than the bottom sections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the top part that's {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Um we decided that um the voice recognition system , it did actually say on the email that they were sort of coming in {vocalsound} and they were fairly easy to get a-hold of , so we presumed that they'd also be quite cheap . So you'd have something like where you'd shout out , where where is the remote and it'll shout back , I'm here , or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} yeah . It wo it won't shout out I'm here or something . It'll just shout out I'm here , or something to similar effect . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm under the sofa . +User Interface: Ah oka +Project Manager: Or , that would be too complicated . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if it was going like I d well tha that could be something for next time , maybe . You can have a remote that tells you exactly where it is . Um the standard , there's {disfmarker} be a standard transmission with the T_V_ using using all the standard chips that we've talked about . +Project Manager: Infrared {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um it would it would have {disfmarker} obviously 'cause it's split over two two different layers , it would need two separate P_C_B_s , so it would be joined at the hinge through some sort of cabling . {vocalsound} And uh because , obviously , all T_V_s use this , the same infrared medium , we'd just be using using the same thing to transmit the data . And the infrared um sender would be on the {disfmarker} on one of the bot the bottom layer , just at the front of the {disfmarker} we haven't {disfmarker} I don't think we actually put it on . +Project Manager: Like here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +User Interface: Infrared could be here also . Yeah , here . +Project Manager: Okay . Actually , no , it would be {disfmarker} it would have to be on the on the front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , on the front on the front side of that , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . So when it's {disfmarker} even if it's open here , the signals would go {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh right , yeah , okay , yeah , I've got you . It's still pointing , +Industrial Designer: So when you've actually got it open , it would be facing the T_V_ . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that would make sense . +Industrial Designer: And then finally um on to the interface . {vocalsound} The top screen , as we said , is {disfmarker} would be an inset um black and white L_C_D_ s touch screen +User Interface: {gap} This one right here . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} yeah would uh have all of all of the the available functions for for the remote on it , uh whereas the bot the bottom screen would just contain the standard buttons , like the vo volume up and down , channel up and down , power on and off , and uh things to that effect . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And now we've {disfmarker} we also decided on the inside , we could possibly either have um some some kind of sort of bezzled uh logo on it , or something inset , or maybe an engraving of the logo on the top . +User Interface: Which is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not interfering with the outside kind of look of the product +Industrial Designer: No d not not actually . No , not uh interfering with l the whole look of the the product when it's uh on the thing . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: once it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look up to it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And finally that's how we put the fashion back into electronics , +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +Industrial Designer: as that is {disfmarker} that's the company logo {gap} . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Wrapping it all up , okay . +Marketing: Well done . +Project Manager: Um I've now got evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Certainly . +User Interface: So this is the one . Sorry . +Project Manager: It's to be presented {gap} . +Industrial Designer: There you go . {gap} . +Marketing: Logged in ? Thank you . Oops . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Evaluation . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm um I I think this is {gap} chip . +Project Manager: It's quite similar to what it was before , though . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: This stage of the evaluation is really for us as a team to evaluate if we have now got a product specification and prototype design that meets the the criteria that we got from our market research . {vocalsound} So this is the first stage of the evaluation . Now , the collection of the criteria , as we saw in our previous meeting , was based on the user requirements and trends found in the marketing reports and marketing strategy of our company . So it's what we've discussed in the last meeting , are we actually meeting those trends and requirements ? Now the findings that we came up with , just a recap , are here . The criteria that we want in this remote control are a fancy look and feel , technological innovation , it should be easy to use , it should incorporate current fashion trends , and those {disfmarker} the two main ones , they were the spongy texture and the fruit and vegetable strong design colours . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The design should minimise R_S_I_ and be easy to locate and we were still um uh slightly ambivalent as to whether to use voice recognition there , though that did seem to be the favoured strategy , but there was also , on the sideline , the though of maybe having a beeper function . {vocalsound} Okay , so we can come back to that slide , if you don't have a note of those . I'll just show you how we're going to evaluate our own feedback to this , to what we have so far . We're going to use a seven point scale , where one is true and seven is false . We look at each of those criteria that I've just mentioned , I'll call that slide back up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and I will just do a preliminary rating of all those criteria on the whiteboard here . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Does that seem clear ? Any questions there ? +User Interface: Ah , it's perfect . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we're going to look at these crite So +User Interface: Is it everybody is going to evaluate , or just the Market {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: we're going to come to {disfmarker} w we'll discuss each one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we'll come to a consensus rating between one and seven . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is that okay ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: One is true , seven is false . Right . So I won't write all of that out again . It will just be criteria one , two , three , four , five , six , or A_ , B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ to confuse it with the number rating . B_ , C_ , D_ , E_ , F_ . {vocalsound} This is where I realise how tiny I actually am . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just write small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Criteria and rating . Actually , it might be an idea , if we each did give our own individual rating , and we could take an average at the end . How about that ? +User Interface: Yeah , so you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Okay . So I'll just separate the ratings by obliques , and if we go one , two , three , four , we know who's who . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Criteria A_ , the fancy look and feel . How do we feel about this prototype model relating to fancy {disfmarker} it is a fancy look and feel . One is true , seven is false . My own rating for that would be a two . One is true and seven is false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd uh yeah I'd probably put it uh {vocalsound} two {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: I'll just go this way . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: two or three . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: No , three . Three . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I would say two . +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would say four . +Marketing: A four , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Adding those up , we've got a six and a five , eleven divided by four is what ? Uh two and three quarters , it that right . +User Interface: Almost three . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Two and three quarters ? +User Interface: I think yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Two point seven five , there we go . {vocalsound} Okay , criteria B_ , criterion B_ , technologically innovative . I would give that a three . +Industrial Designer: I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Okay . Not that you're biased {vocalsound} in that it {disfmarker} the designer . +Industrial Designer: No , no , not at all . +Project Manager: A two . +User Interface: Oh sorry , I I got it wrong . The first one rating , I'm sorry . Can you just make it two ? The first . +Marketing: The average {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I just {gap} it the other way . +Marketing: oh , for you ? You want your rating to be a two ? Is that what you're saying ? +User Interface: Uh in {gap} Yep , I just got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So , I'll work out the average for that again at the end . It's a very slightly altered {disfmarker} Okay , +User Interface: two point f +Marketing: and we're just waiting for your rating +Project Manager: It's just two point five for that one . +Marketing: f +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Two point five , okay . Losing one decimal place , that's okay . +User Interface: One is a {gap} , seven is false , okay . +Marketing: So what are you rating for this one , Paw ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . So that is eight . That brings it down to two , +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: nice and simple , yeah . Okay , ease of use . Easy to use ? Based on what you've said there , I would say a one , true . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: I would say a two . I would say a two . +Marketing: A two , okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two . I should've said a two to make the arithmetic easy , shouldn't I ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll just put almost two , +Project Manager: One point seven f five . +Marketing: because I'm not gonna get into silly decimal places . +Project Manager: Okay , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Or we {disfmarker} or if we want to really bring it down , we can do later . Um mm now we're looking at +Industrial Designer: D_ . +Marketing: it incorporates current fashion trends , now that's particularly in relation to our market research findings about the spongy texture to the exterior and the fruit and vegetable design colours . +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . So I'm just thinking , before I give it my rating , you were limited in the use of materials for your prototype here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this actually going to be the colours that you would use ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , the the base colour was um {vocalsound} white or or like or l sort of a light blue , +User Interface: White . With {disfmarker} for the plastic ? Uh blue . +Industrial Designer: but the changeable fa faces would uh allow you to get any {disfmarker} basically any one of a number of colours that uh th it's full sort of customised . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Any {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we could use any strong fruit and veg colours and that's what we're intending to do . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the spongy feel is no problem with that . +User Interface: Yeah , because you'll be having a {disfmarker} Because of the rubber case . +Industrial Designer: No , no , 'cause th that's that's the the spongy feel would be in the rubber that you put round it , that {disfmarker} otherwise it's just sort of hard plastic . +Marketing: Okay . In that case it's got to be a one for me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll give it a one as well . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: Everybody ? Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That part was nice and easy . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Uh moving on to does the design minimise repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't think we've really touched on that a lot . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: We've we've discussed it , we haven't really come up with anything that we felt could feasibly reduce that . We've talked about pointers , but the very use of a remote control , if you're someone who's zapping , who's sitting like that , and we found so many people did , how do you minimise that on such a small device ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the type of button that we're gonna use in the bottom half , the material , minimises R_S_I_ +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: it's meant to . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe because it's slightl +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: with the size that we've got it's quite small , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but with the amount of stuff we're putting on it isn't that much . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe because there's more space , it's not kind of moving around trying to hit accurately the buttons in between . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Right . +Project Manager: It's quite obvious just big buttons . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . I think I'm gonna have to be neutral on that and give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'd uh I'd f I'd go for a five , actually , +Marketing: A five , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four and a four okay . +User Interface: Four . +Marketing: Twenty one {disfmarker} is that twenty one ? +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that's four point two five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: And finally , last but not least , easy to locate . Now we talked about voice recognition , we talked about a beeper , have we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: have the designers come to any dec real decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was it was uh a voice voice recognition , +User Interface: Voice r recognition . +Marketing: It was the I'm here thing , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: yep . And are we happy with the costs on that ? That is going to be feasible , cost-wise . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} yeah , that's feasible . +Marketing: That sounds good then . I'd go for a {disfmarker} I ca we can adjust the volume on that , just as we could volume on T_V_ . So if sombody's in the other room or if T_V_s in different rooms , or . +Industrial Designer: Um I think it would r I think it would probably be a a stand it would be a stand +Project Manager: A standard . +Industrial Designer: it would be quite loud . +Project Manager: It would be . +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it would be s p +Marketing: You built into the feature . +Project Manager: And if you didn't hear it in the room that you were standing in , then you'd realise that it wasn't in that room , you'd go into another room . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Logical . That's a one for me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +Marketing: One +Project Manager: One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and one , good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I do realise that we might be being fairly biased , 'cause it is our product , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: how do we feel about this ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +Marketing: We've got our our {disfmarker} we've got the highest rating of meeting the specifications that is definitely true for two of the uh six criteria there . That is for um incorporates current fashion trends and is easy to locate . The lowest rating we've got , which is really n it's not terribly low , i it's close around neutral is for uh the minimisation of repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} Do we feel on the basis of tha of these evaluation findings that we can go ahead and now produce this as a prototype and market it , or do we have to make further modifications ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: W I thin yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: We happy to go ahead ? +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah . I think we're set . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I think for most of those ratings that it's high enough at the upper end of the scale for us to go ahead with that , and I really doubt if on the basis of current technology and our current capabilities , we could actually do much more to minimise that . +Project Manager: Do much apart from having a huge big {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I know . Okay . Well , I hope that's uh clear to the team . Is there anything you would like to to ask me about the findings before I sum up ? +Project Manager: Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Good . Fine then . I'll just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I've got finance here now . I'm gonna plug this in so you can all see it , if that's okay . Um . +Marketing: Oh yes . +User Interface: You want me to b unplug that ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} +User Interface: That's all . Yes . +Project Manager: Thanks . Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now I presume that the screen will go blank , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um {disfmarker} Okay . We just type numbers into this and we come out with the final value . So are we still on for kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . See , it woulda been handy to have this at the beginning . Um it might have influenced our choice . Right , what's happening with the electronics ? +Industrial Designer: It was a regular chip on print +User Interface: Chip on print . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Oh , no , no , no , the um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {disfmarker} you you've put in three for the number of kinetic cells , there should just be one . In the top , it's the number +Project Manager: Oh , right , +Industrial Designer: of c yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: So , would there be two ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah , just a {disfmarker} no , one reg v uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one of them and one sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And they're double curved . No . +User Interface: Single-curved . +Project Manager: One double curve . +Industrial Designer: Y Two , +User Interface: Two curves , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's two . +Marketing: But it has a slightly flattened bottom so it can sit . So it can rest . +Project Manager: So what's a single curve then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say I'd say it was w +Marketing: It would just be a flat bottom with one curve . {gap} like a domed thing . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think I think it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single-cu +Project Manager: So just one double {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One double-curved . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Plastic and rubber . +Industrial Designer: no , 'cause one {disfmarker} yeah , one's double-curved , and then the other one's +Marketing: The other curves at the sides , but it's slightly flattened at the bottom so it doesn't roll over . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Um we've got plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: a plastic . +Project Manager: haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Plastic one and maybe rubber point five . +Industrial Designer: And special colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No I think rubber , since it's being used just as a casing , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can put point five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it allows the point five , yeah . We can use that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does it mean if you put point five for that ? +User Interface: It means we are not using a lot of rubber actually . We're using just a very low quantity of rubber compared to plastic . +Project Manager: It would be like saying we're using {disfmarker} See , it says case material . So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we're not actually using plastic in the case , are we ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , that's {disfmarker} it's as an extra . +Project Manager: It's including , it's including . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't that shouldn't be actually on there , because that's not incorporated in the cost of the remote you get . +Marketing: But it is gonna be part of the total cost , and there's nowhere else we can we can put that in , is there ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: There's nowhere else we can code for the the rubber used in the casing . So do we not have to account for it in the cost somewhere there ? +Project Manager: Okay , we'll just put it in as we'll put in as half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or sh we should just put it in as one , because the plastic is zero anyway . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: No , we don't step on anyone's toes . Okay , special colour , do we need that ? +Marketing: Might do , if we go for some of the more exotic aubergines and such like colours . +Project Manager: N yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Interface . +User Interface: Push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: the push-button's one and L_C_ display one . +User Interface: An One . +Project Manager: Buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: S +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we could change the battery also . Instead of going for kinetic how about going for a standard battery . +Marketing: Has that not made any d if you click off that square now , has that not made any difference ? +Project Manager: Has that not gone up ? +Industrial Designer: Well yes . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} oh , it's brought it slightly down . +Project Manager: Oh no , it was seven five it's changed not a lot . +Marketing: So is is uncurved completely and just actually making the rubber case the curved thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: is that going to make a difference ? +User Interface: Uncurved , flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , it's not made any difference , has it? . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: it just surprises one . +Industrial Designer: we'll have {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's gone up again . +Project Manager: Oh , it's not calculated it . +Industrial Designer: No , no , you've got to click off to calculate it again . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's brought it down slightly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's not a lot though . +User Interface: {gap} . {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: C it might uh you might you might be assuming that that is in Euros . It could be in Dollars . And then it would be fine , because the exchange range would make it about twelve . +Project Manager: We haven't been dealin we haven't been dealing with dollars though , +Marketing: Is there anything on the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Ri I think it's in Euro {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay , so the highest we've got is the electronics here . Um {vocalsound} and the interface . +Marketing: If we tr um . If we moved away from our much loved idea of a kinetic battery and just went with the standard batteries , would that make a huge difference ? +User Interface: And going to a regular bat Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the standard , it {vocalsound} um it would make one difference . The biggest one would be taking away {disfmarker} if you took away {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I feel is , customers never said anything about the battery {gap} . +Industrial Designer: If you to +User Interface: It's internal , nobody looks into the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But shape and colours , that's something we shouldn't comprimi +Marketing: And people are used to buying batteries , +Industrial Designer: If if you take away the voice , +Marketing: they're not gonna say I'm not getting this , 'cause I've got to buy a battery for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: I I do I don't like to say it , but if you take away the voice recognition , then you've got it . +User Interface: Where's that special form ? Mm mm mm . +Marketing: Should we see what difference it makes ? +Project Manager: Where's the +Industrial Designer: Yeah i yeah . +Project Manager: where's the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: No 'cause it's samples sens sample speaker . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you took away that , that'll make it twelve point three five . +Project Manager: Well the kinetic is three . If we change it to the battery it's {disfmarker} that's minus three . +Industrial Designer: They {vocalsound} n n yeah , but you p minus three plus two . +Project Manager: Oh , right . I keep seeing zero . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We can do it some other way , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: we can do {disfmarker} it doesn't have to be voice recognition . We could do the voice recognition for , you know , business class or something , you know , like an upgraded version . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You could choose to have that or not . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} but I mean in {disfmarker} I don't see why we have to sell it for twenty five Euros now , because they w they were saying they were quite willing to pay more for better product . +Marketing: But we're still working to um head o +Project Manager: So should we just change the design specification then ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make it costly . +Marketing: We can put in our recommendations . If we if we're working to head office specifications as {disfmarker} this is what this project team's working for , we can put in our recommendations for what we've we've found and what we {disfmarker} the consensus that we've come to as a result of the meetings . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c we could s +Marketing: But we need to work to that specification to start with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could say {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I think the voice recognition sounds wonderful , but our object is so distinctive that that in itself is gonna make it easier to locate as a f you know in a first instance . Um as you say , we can offer the voice recognition initially to business class customers +Project Manager: Okay , we can make the price fit , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I s +Project Manager: and then say if we'd had our budget , we would've had this , +Industrial Designer: And then say we recommend {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because it also sets it apart from the crowd . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we've done all the background work to go for that if they want it . +Project Manager: They like their gadgets , they like something that's completely different . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {vocalsound} s something completely different associated with your company . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if we take voice recognition out {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That'll do it . Twelve point three five . +User Interface: Yeah we are close to the budget . +Marketing: {gap} we are . +Industrial Designer: Is it twelve point fif was it twelve point fifty ? +User Interface: Two five . +Project Manager: It's two point five . No , it's twelve point two five . +Marketing: Are you sure ? Sorry , not meaning to doubt your words there . +Project Manager: Yeah well two , twelve point two five times two is twenty five , +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Are they really going to quibble about ten P_ ? Or point zero one of a Euro ? +User Interface: It's twelve point five maybe , then . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Marketing: Which is less than ten P_ . +User Interface: I don't know what {disfmarker} it said fifty percent of the cost . So half of the price would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think the agenda one was where the um price was , wasn't it ? No . +User Interface: I think it is the first one . +Marketing: That's today's kick off meeting , {gap} . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Marketing: Mm . {gap} I thought that's what it was . +User Interface: So we are under the budget . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Well done , people . +Marketing: So we're okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: is that uh got us covered for the electronics then ? We don't need something else to take that place ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that that was just a bought-on extra , you could just take that out and that would be fine , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Seems fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that's brilliant . +User Interface: Except voice recognition , everything is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we've done that . Okay . Product evaluation . We've done room for creativity , haven't we ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because we've got decisions that we would have made that we weren't {disfmarker} didn't feel able to make . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I presume we discussed leadership and teamwork . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um in the sense that um did you feel like a team ? Or did you feel like {vocalsound} uh autonomy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd say , as a team . +User Interface: I think we had a nice time . +Marketing: Although we had our separate tasks , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: there was so much interaction , so much that we needed to um bounce off each other . +Industrial Designer: Find out from each other , yeah . +Marketing: And I've certainly felt heard , listened to in that in relevant areas we've been able to , you know , give and take and adjust our remit where necessary . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think there was uh very constructive feedback by everybody . It's not like people trying to cut each other . There is more of uh true cohesive teamwork . We came to a very predic creative design , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I think . And Sarah , you coordinated the work very well . +Project Manager: Thank you . How did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no , I thought it it went really well and I yeah , I I feel that everyone was listened to and all the points that were raised seem to have been sorted out , although we didn't quite make the voice recognition in there , but that's that's good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would have made it into the final product if it was actually {disfmarker} if if if we'd seen the marketing before the initial specification was put out , I think maybe it would've come out a d little different , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I liked the fact that we could say an idea and it'd be suggested that that wasn't the best idea , but no one felt like shot down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , y it didn't matter it saying what you thought , because if it wasn't something that was that relevant , then it didn't matter , 'cause it was just another idea in the field . I like that . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: teamwork . Well you two created that wonderful specimen of a Play-Doh model . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that was the best part +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} uh I'm still not caught up . +User Interface: of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But that's nothing to do with the teamwork at all . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Maybe we should think of branching out into children's toys and fake mobile phones as a side line . And fake R_C_s . +Project Manager: Maybe . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: No , that was quite fun . Um {vocalsound} means , whiteboard , digital pens , etcetera , what does that mean ? Any ideas ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Discuss which ones {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do we evaluate the materials we had for communicating and sharing information ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Could it've been better , was it adequate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I think we probably woulda used the outer email system more , had we actually had had more time and if we'd been separated more . +Project Manager: Had time to kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause we could just sort of say , sorry what did you say about that or what do you think about that , rather than having to email it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it was nice having it there . Um like the whole picture of the thing . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} moving around the room . {vocalsound} But I think it's good , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh we spent times individually . I never thought of a remote control with a flip top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's new ideas in general , +Marketing: It's really borrowing from other areas , it's , you know , bringing things from other areas in , +Project Manager: rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it so it's {disfmarker} I mean nothing is new , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but it's applying it to a d in a different area . +Industrial Designer: Vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , no . Well +User Interface: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they have to come from somewhere , don't they ? +Marketing: Absolutely , yeah . +User Interface: The thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And as sh as w sorry , +User Interface: Yep , sorry , +Project Manager: you go . +User Interface: go on Sarah . +Project Manager: Um as was shown by {vocalsound} your presentation with all of the other controls , remote controls , no one's thought about it particularly . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean they're slightly different , so if someone's been shut in the room and said make ours a bit different from everyone else's , 'cause it's w something we should think about , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but obviously no one's put any great deal of thought into it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I do I don't think the the companies are really concerned . They're just like we've got a D_V_D_ player , does anyone remember the remote control ? Can't you get the one that we used for the last one ? Yeah , just jazz it up a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh d they don't really think about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because normally , the remote control isn't the product which they're trying to ship . They're trying to ship the D_V_D_ player , the video player , the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , the focus isn't on to that , yeah . +Project Manager: But then when it everything is really smart , and you've just got this big chunk of black thing sitting on your coffee table , it doesn't go , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean if you could have something that's a proper funky thing , a funky item that's individual , individual to you , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean they could even go into um you go in with an idea and they design it on Photoshop and then they just get it printed on the plastic , you would pray {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you would pay a lot extra , because it's individually being {disfmarker} a plastic was being made for you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But people could {gap} have anything that they wanted . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Surprising to me is like uh people give a lot of attention to modifying mobile phones , like a real want to see a new launch or something like that . +Project Manager: Because of the produ Mm . +User Interface: And new f television products coming up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but nobody giving uh much idea to this . Like Sarah was telling , everything's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's really good that this has been very market research based , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because {vocalsound} just going back to mobile phones , I mean this is the first change in remote control devices that I can really , you know , say is is obvious and visible . We see it in mobile phones a lot , and tha that's where we've borrowed a lot of our ide our ideas from . There are innovations in that that people don't really want . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see people wanting a model of the phone they were really happy with , and they can't get it anymore +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and it's innovation for innovation's sake , and I think it's wonderful our company's so R_ and D_ based . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , it's innovation for money's sake . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The the people have to keep buying . +Marketing: But forcing it onto people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . It's things that , you know , they might want to buy the thing they really want . +Project Manager: And you can't get {disfmarker} you've got your handset that works fine , but you can't get the battery anymore for that type of phone , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because the phones have moved on , things like that . +Marketing: Or there isn't a cover to fit it or whatever , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: It's madness . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: See I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In closing {disfmarker} There we go . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} our costs are below budget with recommendations that they {disfmarker} the budget be increased , but I think {disfmarker} I don't know , d what do you think ? Do you think that's takes into account um overheads like us being well paid kind of a thing ? And the heating for the building , do you think our budget includes everything , all the costs that are going out ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well . +Marketing: I think it was just the produc uh just the production cost of the phone . +Industrial Designer: I think that was just the the physical . +Project Manager: So it looks {disfmarker} well it looks like it's gonna be fifty percent profit , you've still got all of the overheads to come out of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So maybe increasing it , you would also have to increase the price that it's sold at . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe fifty percent more . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} but you were saying that that's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} yeah I don't {disfmarker} from the market research . +Marketing: But I think in the remit that we were given , it was very specific . I think we've done what we were required to do , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and I think there'll have to be another project team or a new project for us to look at at those kind of things . I don't think that's something we have to look at and find a way of raising the cash for . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we've done very well to get within budget +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and it still makes such an innovative item +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that I think people are really gonna want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's a shame it won't ever get made . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Who knows ? +Project Manager: Maybe it will . +Marketing: Maybe it will . Maybe they are gonna steal our ideas +Project Manager: Maybe someone'll r run down and patent it . +Industrial Designer: I it's top secret . Um it's it is it's a conspiracy going on here . That's what it is . +Marketing: and sell it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the project has been evaluated well and truly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and we've got the meeting survey and questionnaire . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There's a final questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , so we've got about fifty minutes to catch up with {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everything that I fell behind with , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so I'll be delegating in my um role as Project Supervisor , +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so good luck . +User Interface: Celebration , you didn't talk about that . +Project Manager: I think the celebration is the twenty five pounds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Either that or we'll be dancing on the desks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Questionnaire . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Is that it then ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , just the last , I think . +Industrial Designer: Awesome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I've got minutes for two of the meeting and the last thingy . +Marketing: Questionnaire done . Oh , I didn't have to rate you on how much you influenced the meeting this time . +Industrial Designer: Was that not the questionnaire for the {disfmarker} how you felt you'd done in your thing ? +Marketing: Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: I don't think . +Marketing: But do we not sometimes evaluate in these meetings too ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the s +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} yeah , questionnaire seven was the one I did just before the meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I just got con +","The meeting in question appears to be a project development session involving a team of professionals—Project Manager, User Interface designer, Marketing expert, and Industrial Designer—working collaboratively to prototype a new and innovative remote control. The dialogue captures a workflow where each member contributes from their area of expertise to bring the remote control concept to life within a set budget. + +The Project Manager plays a pivotal role in steering the discussion, ensuring that the creative process aligns with technical and financial feasibilities. The User Interface designer's input, although sparser, seems to be focused on practical implementation aspects. The Marketing expert consistently brings forward user requirements and market trends to ensure the product is market-ready and desirable, while the Industrial Designer spearheads the design and look-and-feel aspects of the prototype. + +Throughout the meeting, the team discusses a broad range of features and design choices for the remote control. A kinetic charger is considered for powering the device, projecting an eco-friendly image. Various sizes are accounted for, denoting inclusivity in design. + +A primary goal was to strike a balance between functionality and aesthetic appeal, leading to the decision of creating a fashionable, hip, and customizable product. Design inspirations include bright, funky designs themed after fruits, for a trendy appearance. Flexibility in the design is also notable, with a proposed soft, rubbery, and changeable case; buttons made of LCD and rubber based on the design; and a stand-by function. + +The conversation around the remote's design indicates it will be a clam-shell design with a touch screen on the top and large buttons integrated underneath, aiming for convenience and simplicity. Voice recognition technology is tabled as an innovative feature to locate the remote by sound, which brings in an interesting twist—an interactive element, enhancing the modern feel of the device. + +There was a distinct consideration for user comfort and health, with the anti-RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) featured buttons indicating thoughtfulness towards the user's physical well-being. The prototype's presentation included a mock-up that the Industrial Designer and User Interface designs collaboratively developed, showcasing the actual look and functionality they envisaged. + +A standout segment in the conversation revolves around the inclusion of voice recognition software, which was initially part of the plan. However, after some deliberation on costs and against the project's budgetary constraints, the team contemplates dropping this feature, highlighting the realistic compromises that often occur in product development. + +The session evolves into an evaluation phase, with the team using a 7-point scale to assess whether their design meets the set criteria drawn from market research. This includes evaluating the aesthetic appeal, technological innovation, ease of use, fashion alignment, RSI minimization, and ease of locating the remote. Changes are suggested to stay within the budget, like opting for standard batteries over kinetic and possibly removing the voice recognition feature. + +As the meeting concludes, the team seems satisfied with the final prototype that balances innovation with cost-effectiveness and practicality. Although the voice recognition feature may not make it to the final product due to the budget, the team considers suggesting it as an upscale feature for future iterations or premium customers. + +The dialogue imbues a sense of a dynamic and democratic creative process, characterized by negotiation, compromise, and mutual respect. Inputs from all disciplines are taken into account, reflecting a comprehensive and cross-functional approach to product development. Despite facing limitations and constraints, the team strategically navigates through to reach a consensus to create a remote control prototype that they believe has the potential to disrupt the market and yet remains within the pre-set financial boundaries." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hmm . Okay everybody . Welcome to the detailed design meeting . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see . Our agenda . Last time we discussed the squishy fruitiness of {vocalsound} our remote controls and how we might pursue that . Um and I think {disfmarker} looks like we've come up with some ideas . Um and we also talked about materials we'd use and what kind of chip would be necessary . Um so for later in the meeting I've done a a spreadsheet of production costs so we'll take a look at that . Um and see if it's changed at all from when we last discussed it . Um {vocalsound} so actually I think {disfmarker} Yeah um f {vocalsound} you guys wanna give a prototype presentation of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay well um . So our design looks something like this . This being the wheel that you use to uh change channels or volume or whatever . This is a button , serves as the power button if you hold it down , and if you just tap on it I think it brings up the menu . And uh the base of the remote control , which has a squishy spongy rubbery feel , is interchangeable . So you can change the colour , according to your {disfmarker} to suit your living room or whatever . And it comes {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could change the vegetable , or fruit . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I can change the vegetable . +Project Manager: Oh is that broccoli ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one's broccoli {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this snaps off and you can put on whichever one you want . This is not to scale 'cause it would have the battery inside it . This is a mango . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} it's trendy fruit , it's not just ordinary fruits . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't have orange , you have mango . Um I guess strawberry's not as trendy , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S a very bright strawberry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we'll come up with a variety of trendy and exciting fruit designs for the remote control . And then people will be encouraged to buy three or five of them , because they'll need to switch 'em out . +User Interface: It's been a l +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's been a little bit difficult to um make sure that it's hand-holdable , and that the user can use it , you know , it's not too big . Uh but we think that this you know , this size will be okay and we will have to fit the battery case in there somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: And I guess the only other thing that we really didn't talk about was {disfmarker} or design yet actually , would be the um thing {disfmarker} the locator . How how {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the locator is just chip that's inside there . +User Interface: Okay so that's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the beeper's also inside there too somewhere +User Interface: So you have to have a button on your on your {disfmarker} you have to attach the button to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we didn't design that . +User Interface: Yeah we have {disfmarker} that that has yes yet to be designed . +Industrial Designer: But it would be coordinating with that of course . +User Interface: Yeah that c hey that that could you know match the handset . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could have a broccoli , or you could have a mango . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Tada . +Project Manager: Oh . Um if you wanna look in your project documents folder , there's an Excel spreadsheet . Um the only one that's in there , production costs . And if you open it up . Um I've just stuck the numbers in , it was a real challenge there . {vocalsound} But if I missed anything that we've gone over , or if you see something that has changed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean , we decided on batteries , and the regular chip would be necessary for the more advanced iPod-like button . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I said uncurved or flat . I think that's what you have there , is that right ? For the for the plastic part would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My impression was that flat meant like like one of those square remotes . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's really not very clear , because you got single curve and double curve and {disfmarker} d I dunno what that means . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One side is curved and then the other side is curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} yeah . If we're talking about the area just {disfmarker} oh I d I dunno . I guess we'd have to contact the company that makes them and see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so what else ? There's plastic for that area around the button . Um and then rubber would be the squishy like thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and lots of special colours actually . {vocalsound} Uh scroll wheel . Do you see anything that I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No I think that's alright . +Project Manager: Okay so that would make our total of eleven point nine , which is even less than twelve point five , which means we'd be making even more of a profit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if we sold a lot of squishy things . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Boo yeah . Okay . {vocalsound} S So {disfmarker} Mm . Did y what did you work on ? The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um evaluation criteria . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've got a presentation . +Project Manager: Okay . I think that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I need {disfmarker} where's the cable ? Right what happens is we have to um decide whether this this whole this whole project we've been working on actually um meets the standards we were set at the start . Um . Right . This doesn't {disfmarker} okay . Um the method is {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} well I've analysed the user requirements and integrated them to the trends found in marketing reports and in our company strategy marketing . And um the findings were that we need it to look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , and this is {disfmarker} everything's listed down . Um , look in a certain way , feel in a certain way , it has to be technologically innovative and it has to be easy to use . These are all things we looked at at the start , um and criteria that have to be met . We have to use a table , I'll show you that later , together to decide whether it meets the standards . And {vocalsound} we we have therefore in total um {disfmarker} We have five {disfmarker} we have eleven points according to which this should be evaluated . And um the cri well basically the findings are the same as the evaluation criteria . I would like to show you the table we have to use . Um . No . This is the table . Can you see this here ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um so the que the questions I've given you {disfmarker} c could you write that down ? True is one and and false is seven . And we'll just go through each point together , hopefully . Um . I think if each of us gives an opinion then they can be mixed somehow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno how it works exactly , I haven't been told . +User Interface: Yeah . Is it possible that we can bring this up on our own {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Yeah it's in the um {disfmarker} it's in the project documents . +User Interface: Is it meeting three minutes ? No it's not minutes . +Marketing: It's called evaluation criteria . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And it's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Huh , the PowerPoint one ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . You've found it all ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it was um {disfmarker} Yeah true's one . +User Interface: True's one and false is seven . +Marketing: Do you want us to discuss this together or do you want us to do it singly ? +Project Manager: Um we can do it separately and then discuss it +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah okay . +Project Manager: if if that's what people wanna do . +User Interface: So it's actually a scale . +Project Manager: Wait , one is true and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , +Project Manager: so these are the questions we're answering . And one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: yes it's {disfmarker} if it's fancy you put one , +Project Manager: One , right okay . +Marketing: if it's really unfancy it's seven . +Project Manager: If it's somewhere in between you put four . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Does it feel fancy ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Feels like play-dough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They shouldn't really be questions . Should be more like {disfmarker} Are the batteries easy to insert ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes ? Very very true . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I imagine they're somewhere on the front . We have a little case that you slip 'em in . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we just about ready ? +Marketing: Apparently I'm supposed to use the whiteboard . Do we {disfmarker} um is it necessary ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll just do um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah the the marker thing kinda stopped working last time we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Our animals will forever be there . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Un unless you feel you need it t to {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't feel any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: right um {disfmarker} Right so one point one ? We'll just go in a circle . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Marketing: Right . Ooh I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . One ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . Okay so do we just add it up and divide it by four ? Is that what the company does ? +Project Manager: I I think we should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's four if you wanna do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It adds to sixteen , so that's four . +Marketing: Oh no . It adds to thirteen . One five five two . +Industrial Designer: Oh I thought she said five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: One five five two is thirteen , over four for now . I think that's um {disfmarker} next ? +User Interface: Um three . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wasn't cheating I swear . +Marketing: Uh-oh . Right . One point three is {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it's a one was true and seven was false ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} Okay , so you guys really didn't like it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh I thought it was the other way round . +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute . +Marketing: I really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought it was the other way round too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we do have about the same thing , we just have it the other way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah I I was thinking one means no points , you know , all the way up to the top {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It was one is true and {vocalsound} false is seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I should've kept the table up . +Project Manager: Oh gosh . Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll just I'll just reverse them all . It's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right , well I'm glad this came out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought you guys hated it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was like , why did you guys design it that way if you hated it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} Oh that's quite funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So , starting again , one point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Two . Okay , one point two ? +User Interface: Uh three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . Um , one point three ? +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: Ha . {vocalsound} Two point one ? +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: Uh two . +Industrial Designer: Uh two . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} I think I missed two . {vocalsound} Wait , is that two point one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I put it down as one point four for some reason . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One point four , one point five . Okay right +Marketing: Oh dear , okay . Sorry . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} I have two of them . +Industrial Designer: Mine has all kinds of problems . +Marketing: Two and one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry about that . T two point two , which is one point five . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: Uh three . Wait why did I put three ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: I meant one on mine too . +Marketing: Okay . Three point one . Is that correct on my slide ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Uh one . +Industrial Designer: Three point one . I have four . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: One , four , three , three , three point two ? +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Uh . One . +Marketing: Three point three . +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Four point one ? +User Interface: One . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Five . +Marketing: Two . Four point two . +User Interface: Two . +Industrial Designer: Three . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Two and four point three . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: One , two . +User Interface: One . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Right so I put one on that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll um I'll just do the calculations now if you want to continue . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or is it tedious ? I'm I'm sorry this was so tedious for everyone . +Project Manager: No no that's um {disfmarker} I think we should look at the ones that {vocalsound} like where s where people said four , where {disfmarker} um it looks like we might wanna discuss changing an aspect of the remote . +Marketing: I didn't know how else to do it . Okay . Well the worst ones were three point one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} does every ones have the slide ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three point one . +Project Manager: that was material . +Marketing: Slide show . Material {vocalsound} technologically innovative , okay . Um , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: do you want to change it ? What are the suggestions ? I don't know , anyone ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one is that again sorry ? Three point one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah that {disfmarker} it's three point one was not that good . Four point one . +Project Manager: Does the shape {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four point two ? +Project Manager: See I'm having I'm having trouble imagining the {disfmarker} is it uh gonna be the size , like the the controller ? It {disfmarker} or bigger ? +Industrial Designer: I think the wheel would probably be {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: What if we just smash all the vegetables down flat ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And like then it {disfmarker} you could hold it in your hand better . +Industrial Designer: I think the base would definitely be larger , 'cause some of these are not as easy to hold . They're kinda smallish . +Project Manager: Yeah . No but I imagine even if it was bigger , like if it's round and it's big then you you can't get {disfmarker} that's why remote controls are long because you have that thumb kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The flat one . Yeah . +Project Manager: so c they could all be bananas and cucumbers . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but I don't s I I personally don't think this is comfortable to to sit there , like it's an awkward position . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} yeah . But like if if you just squash them flat like and you made it flat {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well if they're that s uh stress ball stuff they would be pretty squishable . Mm . +User Interface: But it's still too big I think , in your hand . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And would it even resemble fruit that way ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah like certain ones {disfmarker} you'd have to limit the fruit selection , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: like you could probably do a strawberry still . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think the broccoli would be out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You could do {gap} , although the broccoli is quite comfortable , I have to say , like {disfmarker} sorta like a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah that I I {disfmarker} when you were holding that before , it actually looked {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That looked really good . +User Interface: I don't know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are there any fruits that look like broccoli , no ? +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Not that I can think of . Rhubarb . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Rhubarb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that broccoli is my favourite actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} These obscure fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh despite the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we needn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What if um the {disfmarker} it was just patterns on like {disfmarker} we we chose the shape or the sh shape could be whatever we wanted and then it would just be like a design on the rubber . +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: You know like like just a printed yeah or coloured yeah . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just colour , and not necessarily the shape of a strawberry . +User Interface: Yeah . That could work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Or I mean we could even have fruit like around {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: But if we if we need {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and just have the colour match or something . +Project Manager: yeah . And if we wanna incorporate the fruit thing somehow , there might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean if it if it in if it uh conflicts with the comfort of actually holdi holding the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . 'Cause yeah no-one wants to hold a remote that's uncomfortable obviously . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Or like {disfmarker} I dunno , some of 'em you can kind of think {disfmarker} see as like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: like you could {disfmarker} if it was only this {disfmarker} you know , if it was shaped like that , and it just had that . But you see the problem is you have to attach that , and this has to be detachable . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So like maybe that's just too big +Project Manager: Well see th the reason the broccoli works is you can kinda hold it like that , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which is a nice kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's sorta like a joystick . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I dunno . +Project Manager: I mean is there some way we could make it this kind of shape ? +User Interface: I guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause like kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could make it that shape but just have different colours , and call 'em the different fruits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or like even {disfmarker} +User Interface: Dif +Industrial Designer: We went with shape because we were having fun with the play-dough . +Project Manager: Or even like {disfmarker} Yeah like you said , like a joystick like that . You know ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Like uh we could do {disfmarker} I'm trying to think of other sha like fruits that are oddly shaped . +Project Manager: 'Cause that , I think {disfmarker} I mean that fits the whole round iPod idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you still have the comfort of holding it like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} like if it's like this , you could put fruit designs and stuff on that part . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: But I mean it {disfmarker} do we have any other ideas about that ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could tr I don't know . +Marketing: Think the critical ones came out to be {disfmarker} yeah that one . {vocalsound} . Batteries easy to insert for some reason , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which can be easily {disfmarker} I think that's not a problem any more . +Project Manager: The batteries are going in the back ? +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} everyone gave that a one or a two . Yeah they'd probably be either on the front or the side of the remote . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: The reason I I ga I didn't give it a one {disfmarker} I think I gave it a three because I thought you'd have to like unc clip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No I imagine there'd be sort of a hatch door , +Project Manager: no you could {disfmarker} Just like any other one . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah um like on a normal remote . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So it would probably either in the f no it can't be in the front 'cause the I_R_'s right there , but it'd be on one of the sides probably . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I think everyone's under three anyway . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think it's {disfmarker} yeah those are the only two points . +User Interface: Cool . Well {disfmarker} Yeah the broccoli I guess wins . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I'd agree with changing the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , I was just having fun making strawberries and stuff . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We were a bit off task . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um so uh I can't think of any {disfmarker} So we'll have to like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . You could make the touch pad in th in different shapes , but then that kind of re-designs the whole project like , +Industrial Designer: It might also sort of annoy people if we get used to having the buttons in one shape . +User Interface: but you could do like {disfmarker} Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it would probably cost more to produce , 'cause they're irregular . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that's true . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I bet having different colours is a lot cheaper than having different shapes too . +Project Manager: Yeah . Which is why printing might be like {disfmarker} just printing the fruit on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Not really {disfmarker} Well we've done finance evaluation criteria , production evaluation . {vocalsound} Um so project evaluation . +Marketing: Do you want this and we can all {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: I guess we're supposed to discuss um the prod the process of the project and how satisfied {disfmarker} oh , oh it's alright . Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: It's alright yeah ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Did you feel there was a lot of room for creativity in the sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I did . +Project Manager: I mean fruit and squishiness . How c more creative can you get ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sponginess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The prototype making was very creatively stimulating +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we've come up with a product that's fun and meets all the criteria {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: And how was our leadership and teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it was good . We knew what we were doing . It was a very democratic process and everyone got to contribute . +Project Manager: Well I thought my leadership was crap personally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well you told us when to start and when to end , and that's all that matters . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me , am I allowed to say that ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: I think you were fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I'm never gonna do a management position , I know that now . +User Interface: You did a good job leading . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I thought we all worked very well together . +Marketing: Yeah we didn't {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} uh it all c sort of blended quite well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think it more than anything we didn't really have our set roles so much , as we just would be like {vocalsound} I don't know , all had ideas about it but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Very democratic . No spats , that was good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and the means for like {disfmarker} the materials we used , how convenient were they ? Like the the pens , the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean we used {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I'm not a big fan of any Microsoft , PowerPoint or any of this stuff . +Project Manager: Are you a Mac person ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no I never touch Macs either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just use the Unix or the off market , sort of WordPerfect and all these other things . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Which isn't very user-friendly though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Well the problem is if you don't {disfmarker} like my new computer never has WordPerfect so I have to go track someone down who has an old disk and then I have to reinstall it . So I have all these documents I can't use now . But yeah I mean I guess it's okay . +User Interface: I felt like my {disfmarker} I dunno if it was just my role , but l but uh I di I thought that my {disfmarker} the information that was available to me was kind of just like {disfmarker} or maybe it was just the idea that we had . But there's kinda {disfmarker} it was kinda like okay , I don't really think {disfmarker} I dunno what I'm doing here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So I didn't really think it was helpful . So I kind of just made up my own stuff and I didn't really like the PowerPoint presentations , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so I kind of wrote a lot of notes instead . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah I d I don't really like PowerPoint personally , {vocalsound} think it's kinda stupid . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I never use it . +User Interface: Yeah but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can't say I found everything particularly helpful . Like I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It didn't really {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: My first bit of information was like this child's drawn picture of how a remote works . +Marketing: I though it was brilliant no ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No mine was really helpful as in my stuff was quite helpful I think . +Project Manager: I mean m my problem {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it probably does . +User Interface: So like a f +Marketing: I think it depends on the role +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think so . +Marketing: no ? +Project Manager: 'Cause my problem was , you guys had access to like {disfmarker} they'd put {disfmarker} send you to sites and stuff right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: See I couldn't do that , so I didn't really know what you guys were doing . And when you were talking about it I was just like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know that's wh that's why I seemed so ignorant when when you were j explaining things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well mine was mostly made up except when they told me like you know titanium costs more than wood to make a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As if you'd wanted to . +Marketing: Yeah . But it must have been quite difficult for them to build a whole um +Project Manager: System . Yeah . +Marketing: a whole system , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause of course they can't give you uh uh anything comparable to the internet for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , it {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well I think it's interesting how it all went together , like I had the stuff about how me how rubber's cheap , and you have how people want it to be spongy , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , huh . +Industrial Designer: It seems planned you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I kinda thought that um {disfmarker} I felt like I would go and like try to use my information , or like I'd make this stupid little presentation and then like I just would end up talking about something completely unrelated +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno I felt like I was off-task all the time . But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I mean we really got into talking about like personal practicalit like it wasn't necessarily what was like {disfmarker} we would never have thought of fruit or sponginess you know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If I hadn't been told that fruit was {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I think that {vocalsound} it it might be to see whether people actually all come up with the same thing . +Project Manager: Oh right . given certain information or {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like if everyone's given the same input {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a clue , anyway . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +Marketing: Um what's next ? Looks like {disfmarker} oh no that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you guys think of the pens ? +Marketing: It's quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It asks about that . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I wanna s +Industrial Designer: They're kinda hard to write with though . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I I've f forgotten once or twice to {vocalsound} check the box . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I I'd like to see what what it looks like on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're nicer than the pen that I'm using , because like your stuff actually shows up here , rather than having to look at the screen and write . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But even so , I dunno . +Project Manager: And new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's all very new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: no ? It's all very new . +User Interface: Yeah I think I'd like to um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I dunno . Like it was {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: I think the microphones are okay when you're sitting down , but like they're kinda clumsy I guess when you're {disfmarker} like when you're s going up to the whiteboard like . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Well they drop off if you like move too much . +User Interface: Yeah I dunno . But they're they're okay . +Industrial Designer: But I don't think we're supposed to be testing these microphones . Maybe we are . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I think , and I think that uh all this technology like {disfmarker} I guess some people must be interested in using it but I can't imagine finding it any more useful than like looking at someone's notes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , like I actually worked in a company , +User Interface: or like {disfmarker} I dunno . +Industrial Designer: and I had a role and I had to go to meetings . And like the last thing I would have wanted would be to have to watch a video 'cause I missed a meeting . Like usually I missed meetings deliberately . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's just {disfmarker} there's really not that much information that actually goes through a real meeting , like when you're actually at a real meeting in a real company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's mostly like rehashing old stuff . +User Interface: Hm . +Industrial Designer: And you're sort of going over general stuff that anybody who's sort of on task should already know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like the {disfmarker} there's just really not a lot of information that goes through . +Project Manager: Seems kind of like an excessive reiteration . +Industrial Designer: It seems like way overkill . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if I missed a meeting I could probably get it summed up in like one sentence . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't need to have to watch like a t two hour video with the sound and the transcript and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it would be {disfmarker} it's gotta be worth it to {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I'm just mostly curious about like what kind of person or like company would would really find it useful , 'cause can't really imagine , dunno . How about a p {vocalsound} a {gap} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Well does anyone wanna talk about fruit more while we still have time ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any other ideas for {disfmarker} +Marketing: What what's the end ? Are we are we supposed to um {disfmarker} you supposed to write a report ? Or we ending ? +Project Manager: Um we still have time if there's any other input . +Marketing: Is that the end ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} I think we did really well personally , which is why we've you know , gone through this so quickly . 'Cause I mean we've all {disfmarker} we all kind of agreed our product is satisfactory , it fits the budget , and it's trendy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . Um . +Marketing: End of meeting . You have to tell her , she {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think that's all for today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay we have to fill in all this stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} M meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Stuff stuff stuff . +Project Manager: Meeting adjourned . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I've learned not to bring play-dough to meetings . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it would be a good idea , I like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's hard enough to get people actually paying attention . Especially if you have food . +Project Manager: So I guess we're supposed to write final reports . 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: All of us ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Hmm . +Marketing: Well there's al eight , nine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . Oh ooh . +Project Manager: Hmm . Or is that just me ? {vocalsound} +","In the detailed design meeting, the project manager and team discuss the prototype of a new remote control design that features interchangeable, squishy, fruit-shaped bases, such as broccoli and mango. The industrial designer demonstrates the prototype, explaining the functionality of various parts like the wheel for changing channels/volume and the button that serves as both a power switch and menu opener. The user interface designer notes the challenge of ensuring the remote is comfortable to hold and use. + +The project manager also shares a spreadsheet detailing production costs, which appear lower than expected, indicating increased potential profit margins. + +Marketing discusses the evaluation criteria, presenting a system to assess whether the product meets predefined standards in terms of appearance, feel, technological innovation, and user-friendliness. The team debates the scores for each criterion, uncovering a moment of misunderstanding about the scoring system but eventually reach a consensus. + +They consider the customer appeal of the fruit-based design but address concerns about the practicality and ergonomics of holding certain fruit shapes. To resolve this, there is a suggestion to use fruit patterns or colors instead of actual shapes, still keeping the playful fruit theme. + +Finally, the team reflects on the project process, expressing satisfaction with the creative freedom and democratic approach to product development. They also comment on their various roles and the tools provided for the meeting but have mixed feelings about their effectiveness. The meeting concludes with thoughts on final reports and expressions of learning experiences from the meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: I'll wait until you're all um hooked up . +Marketing: Oh good grief . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Put it on in that way . +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: Thanks . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody , hope you've had fun . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: After lunch . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right um this is our conceptual design meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I think we're slightly ahead of ourselves from the last meeting , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah I was getting that impression as well . +Project Manager: I th I I think {disfmarker} yeah um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: This is where we talk about um properties , materials , user-interface and trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: Etcetera . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think we've touched on a few things to do with that already , but we'll just go over it . Um the minutes from the last time . Um we had a couple of um changes in our plans in that we couldn't use teletext , it wasn't gonna be a control for everything um and that we had to incorporate the image of the company into it somehow . Um we have decided on a {disfmarker} leaving out the voice recognition , we've decided on there being a flip design and um a different shape from what's normal . We were thinking a shell , but something along those lines , just a different shape from what's normal , um . You were going to look into the rechargeable batteries +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we were gonna think about the port and an alarm for getting it lost , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: things like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um and our market was going to be young , business , kind of range . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay , so shall we start with the first presentation ? +Marketing: Shall I ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yes if you feel {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We just connect up . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Thank you . There we go . Okay um so we decided on our market and so this feedback from the marketing department is really about trend watching . Um {vocalsound} the methods we used to decide on uh current trends and so on , market trends , were that we did our traditional {disfmarker} uh our usual market research study uh with a hundred subjects and the the general feedback from them is that the most im uh w I'm sorry I'm slightly tongue-tied after lunch , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's okay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry Project Manager {vocalsound} . Um we decided on the most important aspect i uh required in a remote control device and we'll come to that later . So that was one of the first things we did . Also with our company um being forerunners in uh putting fashion into technology , we also looked at a fashion update um using our consultants on fashion and design in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Uh so the general findings from that was uh in the market trends the most important aspect for remote controls were people want a fancy look and feel , rather than the the current functional look and feel of remote controls . They also also want a remote control to be technologically innovative , and of course , as we predicted , that it should be easy to use . Now I should point out that the first of those findings , fancy look and feel , is the most important , is twice as important as the second , technologically innovative , which is in turn twice as important as being easy to use . So possibly that the feature that we put first is actually third is still important , but it's third in order of preference for the the subject group we looked at . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , um , now the fashion update which relates to very personal preferences among our subject group , um we found from our um consultants in Paris and Milan who des attended all the design and fashion fairs there , that fruit and vegetables are going to be the theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . So should we be thinking of using something like that in our remote control design too ? There also seems to be um a trend towards a spongy feel to materials , uh again in contrast to last year . So a lot of interesting feedback there , both from our market research departments and from our people in Paris and Milan . Be interesting to see what our design people make of that . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay thank you very much . Um +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: let's start from the inside and work our way out . +User Interface: Fine . It's okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {gap} +Marketing: Unless anyone has any questions about that ? +Project Manager: I don't think so , not yet . +Marketing: Not yet ? 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um , yes , thank you . +Industrial Designer: That screwed in ? {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I hate those little things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: especially if you do them on too tight and you can't get the leverage on them to undo them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um this is uh all about the design of the actual components and the availability of the components we have in stock at the moment . Okay , first uh the {disfmarker} Into the method . The the main idea of the whole thing is just so you sh you just press buttons and it should activate things on the T_V_ and we discussed last meeting that it should be easy to find . Um also in this study I've looked into the availability of some of the materials , 'cause some of the things that we looked at last time aren't {disfmarker} un unfortunately aren't available . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Um , findings , I've got my nice little picture there . This is uh the chip called the T_A_ double one eight three five which is what's used in pretty much every remote control 'cause it sends out standard signals , based on your input and um it's pretty much used for all all T_V_ remotes at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Um and then we we're loo looking into battery options . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's um actually no rechargeable option available , so we {disfmarker} I saw the um the standard double A_ and triple A_ which we thought were a bit bit too bulky at the moment , dynamo charging , I thought that that might be a bit silly to be to be honest , +Project Manager: Wa {vocalsound} can you explain that ? +Industrial Designer: people won't {disfmarker} it's it's basically like wind-up radio . +Project Manager: Like a {disfmarker} right , okay . +Industrial Designer: So you wind up your remote control before you use it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what kind of {disfmarker} how l long can you get out of that , +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean can you pick it up and then wind it for two minutes and then that's it for the night ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , oh yeah I presu you wouldn't have to wind it for very long , but I don't I don't think it's really sort of necessary when you th you think of the next two options , like the the solar charging , 'cause most people have the light on in the room anyway so they could get {disfmarker} when when you got T_V_ . +Project Manager: That doesn't count though does it ? +Marketing: Does does light charge as as sunlight does ? +Project Manager: I thought it was U_V_ like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Artificial light ? +Industrial Designer: Is it ? Alright i +Project Manager: Any , any {disfmarker} +Marketing: Has to be solar . +User Interface: Yep . Regarding those sizes , which one you think will be light because we we have to take into consideration size also , so maybe a standard triple A_ might take lesser space or {disfmarker} and dynamo might take more space . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it would the d yeah the dynamo would take more space 'cause you actually need a physical sort of handle to wind up . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that solar is from the sun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't think it counts electric lights +Marketing: Mm . Artificial light , no . +Project Manager: no , but I mean not many {disfmarker} you don't want to limit your market . +Marketing: That's going to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean people who live in basement flats there's not that many people , but there are people . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I know , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: different parts of the world too , if we're if we're marketing internationally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and most people most people also watch T_V_ in the in the night anyway . +User Interface: Night . +Project Manager: Mm , but then it would be charging through the day , I think the point is that it charges through the day and then you've got it charged for the evening . +Industrial Designer: But I I think I think the the next one's the best anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic charging which is like you get it in r you get it in wrist watches +Project Manager: Yeah I've seen {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you d you don't even notice it . I mean the amount the amount of probably moving around you'd be doing all the time would would charge it up , I don't think you'd ever need to actually physically start shaking it up to make it work . +User Interface: And are these like uh {disfmarker} what are the life of the kinetic battery , it like it runs for long time ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah it's {disfmarker} it charges into um some form of {disfmarker} it's a smaller cell which it charges into and uh the si the size sort of a watch a watch battery , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they use them quite frequently in watches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that'll that would l would last for um well I do I d I'm not entirely sure how long it would last but I've never seen one run out {gap} . +User Interface: We c +Project Manager: But then if you think about a watch , it's on your wrist so it's on your whole bod it's on your body the whole time +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you're walking around , you're doing things , it is moving a lot of the time . If you'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean you switch the T_V_ on , then you put it on the side , then you pick it up to change it and then you put it on the side . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then again +Project Manager: Is it really gonna be enough ? +Industrial Designer: I I think it is because if you think about it , the watch , although it's only a tiny amount it's it's um {vocalsound} it's always moving for the whole day and they don't run out over night when you leave them on the side . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And th for the same the same reason , you're only using it for a v incredibly short amount of time just to send the signal and then you're finished with it +Project Manager: So it's not {disfmarker} the draw on it isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: no no I do I don't think the the draw on it would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could I just ask {disfmarker} referring back to solar charging , is that compatible with um standard batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I mean , could people put standard batteries in but with a s you know they could leave it in the sunlight for solar charging +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah I think I th uh g y you could have a dual um power thing +Marketing: or the two things not compatible ? +Project Manager: Like a dual kind of . +Industrial Designer: but the the thing with the solar cells is you would need to put them on the case and they {disfmarker} because , if you lie {gap} {disfmarker} on a calculator they they're qui they're quite big and they all they all look i identical . +Marketing: Mm . So that affects the exterior design . +User Interface: Solar would be slightly {gap} expensives . +Project Manager: Expensive as well . What kind of price are we looking at for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They're they're expensive , they don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's twelve point f +Project Manager: I presume the normal batteries are the cheapest ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the normal batteries would be the cheapest I'd presume then it would actually be the the solar charging ones , um but the {disfmarker} It's i I think they're not very resistant to dropping , +Project Manager: Solar . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if you drop stuff {disfmarker} yeah if you if you have y +Project Manager: Well they're not designed {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the size you'd need to charge a remote wouldn't be that big but I mean if {disfmarker} remotes always get thrown around and stuff , so . +Project Manager: Practical-wise okay . +Industrial Designer: Y I think {disfmarker} yeah , practically . I mean calculators you don't really throw around a lot {vocalsound} whereas remotes you do , +Project Manager: You do get a bit of wear +Industrial Designer: they can t +Project Manager: but don't calculators have a battery in them as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do , they {disfmarker} yeah they've got dual things , but they're {disfmarker} the batteries are smaller I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Another question is like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Again it de +User Interface: sorry . W w which one would last the longest , because we don't want customers to be like you know charging like a mobile phone every day . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: A remote control , like , +Industrial Designer: W m yeah +User Interface: so we have to s look at the life also . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so the {disfmarker} Yeah the the s if you if you had something du uh using the standard batteries and the solar charging , um , I don't think you'd {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} it would d well you know how long the standard double A_s would last in {disfmarker} or triple A_s would last . +Marketing: It would just detract from the attractiveness of the of the whole feature , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think i I think it would , yeah . +Marketing: i {vocalsound} it's not gonna add anything , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , can we add in uh an attachment to closing feature ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Can we think about that ? 'Cause if we're doing the kinetic thing and it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shouldn't we do some market research on that first before we add it in because I I personally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well add it in to think about um +Marketing: right , okay . +Project Manager: because , where am I ? If it is the kinetic thing and it is small and it is portable and it is a different shape and the kinetic is something people don't do kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're doing something original and different um but if you wore it if it's something you could just clip on your pocket then you would have that less , you you wouldn't lose it so much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But then maybe that's looking at someone who's just sitting on their own rather than +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the eternal battle for control of the controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not something that's come up in any of our uh focus groups and market research , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: it's not a thing that people are looking for +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: when we threw it open to the field yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But it's something to put on the side to think about maybe . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well I'll move on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , my second part of my findings uh the mo most current remotes use this silicone uh P_C_B_ board which {disfmarker} pr printed circuit board , which basically has these contacts that are really close together and then when you press down on the rubber button , it'll connect the circuit and each each switch is connected to two uh different legs on the chip and so sends a different message and that then uh gets translated by the chip into a code and then it's fired out of this L_E_D_ in the sequence of l on and off bursts . +Project Manager: What kind of things do we have to consider there ? Can we {disfmarker} what kind of size , does it come in varying sizes or is it just one size and we would have to fit the design of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well well this {disfmarker} the thi the thing about is um they they can be as big or as small as you want them to be because you can you can print circuit board like that that it's it's simply spaced like that so you can have {disfmarker} fit the n the size of the nine buttons in . If you if you see how thin the tracks are , you could you could s you could put them virtually right next to each other and have a much smaller switch on each one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you if you wanted to but um the {disfmarker} there is an option to do to do it like that , or you could have some sort of array of switches which I'll speak about in the next bit +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} And then to {disfmarker} uh yeah , so to conserve battery life the remote should be in a standby mode no while not being used . Now what I was thinking about that was {disfmarker} 'cause sometimes when y when you have these things , they've got little lights on behind the buttons , so you can see what all the buttons are , like on a mobile phone , they do it more often than on a than on a T_V_ remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could you could have lights behind the buttons and um after like five or ten seconds of not being used I'd have that turned off , if we decided to go for buttons that could light up . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case material , I've a been sent what the factory can actually give us , the {disfmarker} there's the plastic which I think we were gonna go for anyway as the main case {disfmarker} case housing +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the the main problems with the {disfmarker} well you could go for wood but I think it would be a bit impractical . Titanium um very expensive just to process , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which to make it is expensive , and rubber , well you're saying that people like this uh spongy feel this year , so perhaps uh some something made of rubber , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I was thinking more of the buttons , because the buttons which they've they've said that they've they've put across are what is used in some stress ball manufacture and it's meant to be anti R_S_I_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'm no I'm not sure how that would work because surely your fingers would still be moving over the short distances but that's what they said . Um the problem with the casing is that uh there's quite {vocalsound} um there's quite a few design restrictions that they've got on the shape of the case . If you go for titanium they can only do a standard box shape , whereas if you come to plastic they can they can be a little more {disfmarker} they can they can do sort of curved shapes . But whether whether or not {disfmarker} because we'd have it in two separate units +User Interface: Second thing is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hinged , yeah . +Industrial Designer: for the flip phone . +User Interface: yeah and second question is like , a mobile you can change the cover , you call it a skin or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So in this case if you're looking at like a customer can change the colour like from green , parrot green to chilli red or something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So is that feature available in like uh titanium , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I th +User Interface: or it's like only specific to plastic or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah in in titanium I don't I don't think it would be available at all really , the ju just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it w well you could make it available in the titanium , it was just it would be so expensive to buy a new case for it , because of the expense of how much titanium is is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's light and strong but I think it should be left for aircraft design rather than for for a remote . +Marketing: It does mark quite easily too if you let it fall . I've got a mobile phone myself which is titanium and it does mark very easily if you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I was just wondering if we make the basic mould out of plastic but have like a rubber cover that goes over , +Industrial Designer: Rubber , yeah . +Marketing: that would give the spongy feel , that also allows us to kind of have different fasciae for the phone . +Industrial Designer: And you can peel them off yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So instead of the fascia that comes off being plastic , the fascia that comes off would be the rubber , +Marketing: Like a rubber sleeve almost , yeah . +User Interface: Something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: like those pens that you get with the grip , that you can you can pull that off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That could be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} it would be comfortable to hold on also . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Very cheap way of changing the look of it and people can just buy a new one if they want to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's been really popular with mobile phones so I don't see why not . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Also the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: just just going back to the interface designs with the buttons , the {disfmarker} I kno we were planning to do some sort of touch screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now what I was saying before about instead of having {disfmarker} you could have just a bare P_C_B_ circuit board and I'm sure you could probably get it in different colours and so just by touching it with your finger it'd make the connection over {disfmarker} if you had them close enough , that would be one option . Um the second option th they offer rubber buttons , but I thought that an L_C_D_ type of screen {disfmarker} 'cause one they're incredibly thin um and don't take up much space , two they {disfmarker} you can have them in a sort of array and you can arrange the buttons on the screen in a sort of set thing and you could have them like a touch +User Interface: Sorry I didn't get the last part , you're talking of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: display . Uh what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just what you said I I didn't get the uh meaning of it completely , you're saying like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh on the on the L_C_D_ screen you could {disfmarker} becau you could fit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: the problem with it basically is that it's flat and so you can't do lots of curve {disfmarker} curved things with it , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but um you can {disfmarker} you wouldn't have {disfmarker} with the L_C_D_ you'd have the wires coming off , you wouldn't have that with the with the L_C_D_ , you'd only have that with the printed circuit board . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: With {disfmarker} W also with the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} s sorry to interrupt , I don't see why the curved thing is a problem , if we for example had a shell , once we open that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh it would be flat inside . +Industrial Designer: You could have a flat screen inside , yeah , +Marketing: yeah , so it'd be f yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I'm just wondering whether we want an L_C_D_ screen inside . +Marketing: Have I misunderstood you ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be like full colour , it would just be black and white , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but there'd be touch touch buttons , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: so you wouldn't be pressing down on 'em , w or we could have rubber buttons which are made of this material which is anti-R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: I think it would be good to have a contrast between , if the whole thing is gonna be this rubber thing it would be good to open it up and see something quite fancy looking inside . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Is rubber . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now how would you distinguish , if you had it bare , how would you distinguish where you had to press , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I hadn't I hadn't really thought of that to be honest . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just had another idea , I don't know if it helps with that , but just to do with the R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} Is it possible , just as an option , when we open it up , people can use their fingers to press the button , or we have inside like a small pointer thing when people want to {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could , you could have some sort of stylus that you could pull out +Project Manager: Like one of the palm pop thing . +Industrial Designer: but I I think they could get a bit easily lost , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Absolutely , f for somebody who {gap} very often , if he would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause I had {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It would have to be attached . +Marketing: They're easy to replace as well , cheap . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: a person who switches channels very often or does use a particular function very often will find it very irritating to use a {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and he might spoil the touch-pad very fast compared to a button like , if you keep punching with an pointer or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah just a thought {disfmarker} they wouldn't actually need one and they could use anything they've got , couldn't they ? A pencil or a pen , so they wouldn't really need a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we'll talk about that {disfmarker} so if you finish your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and we'll come back to that . +Industrial Designer: yeah that {disfmarker} that's the end of m my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's you , right okay . +User Interface: And just one small question before like you are {gap} , regarding the circuit , since we are hav having a flip-top , we can customise the two circuits for different type of buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like we are keeping the standard buttons on the top and the more complex buttons under this thing , so we can divide the circuit like you know . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah yeah that that would be fairly simple , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean you'd you'd actually have two separate {disfmarker} you'd have two separate circuit boards but they'd be joined by wires or like some cabling between them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause in the in the actual flip bit you'd have some linking . +Marketing: I'll just raise another point while it occurs to me , it kind of applies to both our designers here , so I'm not sure how it would fit in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: If we flip open , now you know how you've got some mirrors in nightclubs that are mirrors when you turn to them and you turn away and it gives like an advertising display , you seen those ? +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And they kind of respond to the turn of your body . Is it possible that when we open our flip-top shell it's a little compact mirror and when you press a button it then goes onto the phone display {disfmarker} th uh the remote control display thing . +Project Manager: We're marketing to guys as much as we are to women . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: They don't look at themselves ? Just a thought . +Project Manager: Well it's a remote control , you were sitting watching T_V_ are you gonna want to sort of open it and say oh shit I should go and have a shower and do my hair before I put the T_ {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I know what you mean , it's with us using the ideas for a mobile ph {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's with us using the ideas for mobile phones I kinda got sidetracked onto that I think , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , no . +Marketing: {gap} trying to think of other features we can build in that wouldn't cost too much +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but {gap} maybe we'll leave that one on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I mean you can {disfmarker} you could do it , you could have a {disfmarker} 'cause if you if you just put the full charge through an L_C_D_ display it'll completely blank it out , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if you could get any mirror effect on it , I'm not sure about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh I think {gap} forget about the mirror +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: that was just a very quick passing thought yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , uh would like to share something which I did here . First thing is uh basically on design we just took the input from the previous meeting , especially from the marketing and industrial design , to check on the customer needs and feasibility . Second is we checked into competitors , the picture here shows one of the standard models offered by competitors here . So y you generally see there's not much of variety and like marketing team said uh , people need trendy , they are bored of black and white . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you generally see rectangular shape , very monotonous kind of designs here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh second thing is there's too much of confusion here . No particular remote is standard . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Like , some some people have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Here you see this ? This is on a {disfmarker} I I I found th that uh only common feature is the ch uh channel control and uh volume control , rest other buttons , they are in a very disorganized and they are not consistent th with other models and all . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and second as already discussed with William , we are going to have m maybe a G_ G_U_I_ interface in the f in the middle of the flip-top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and g graphic user interface +Marketing: Sorry what does that stand for ? +Project Manager: Which means {disfmarker} +User Interface: basically which is what we d do in computer , have icons or touch pad or whatever , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you if {disfmarker} yeah if you have like buttons that appear on the screen in this L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Like you have on a l uh {disfmarker} icons or something y you have {disfmarker} is a good example of G_U_I_ graphic user interface . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So basically {gap} not point or click {gap} {disfmarker} Press any particular device , he just has to click on that particular icon to simplify . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And on the top m repetitive buttons which are like volume or channel changing and all could be on the pointing device , that means the use of button . So he need not use a pointer to keep changing the channel if a person is frequent surfer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we are having a combination of boards , so f on the s simpler board , on the top we have this button , rubber buttons , to keep frequently changing the channels . +Project Manager: Can we swap that round so th that the ones that we use all the time are on the bottom part ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Cause if you're thinking about holding it you would be using your thumbs to press , just like a mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No you'd hold it {disfmarker} you don't {disfmarker} if you flip it open then you'd be {disfmarker} Wouldn't you ? Isn't that the idea ? You us if we just use the shell as an example again , you open that , you've got your L_C_D_ display there and you've got the buttons there so you're holding it in the palm of your hand , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's what I was just saying , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah but you can do it with your thumb li +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then have the and then have the L_C_D_ at the top +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then be able to touch that for the {vocalsound} other controls , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay and you mean to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so have the um the volume and the programme , things like that , +User Interface: And the lower distance . +Project Manager: on the lower side . +User Interface: Oh f perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So the findings are too many cluttered buttons . Repetition of certain but buttons which I already explained , example the volume and channel control buttons . All are confusing and in inconsistent . Okay we had a latest finding of voice recognition , there was a mail which mentions that our division has developed a new speech recognition s feature . We have to check into the {disfmarker} for financial f feasibility whether we can incorporate it {disfmarker} this at a low cost , but for {disfmarker} like we had g um s response from the customers that they would like to have the feature of finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it could be like , where is the remote , and the remote answers I am here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Some kind of thing or it gives a b bleep sound or some kind of sound +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and if this can be incorporated this would be more uh {disfmarker} you can say trendy also ? And technologically innovative also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we we can check into the financial feasibility of incorporating this . My personal preferences would be like , as already {gap} uh marketing department , they want something to do with fruit so I wouldn't say the design should be like a fruit , but yeah we can take inspiration from fruit colours , like the vibrant colours , uh red chilli uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: tomato red or whatever and second thing is cer certain standard buttons we should have , like for example , i if you see the previous slide uh +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think most of the users would now be well acquainted with this cer central pattern , here , so we we we would not change h that particular pattern +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because i this is the most consistent thing in all remote controls . +Project Manager: I can't see that , is that play and stop and things ? +User Interface: This is central one , the one you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or is that volume and channel ? +User Interface: yeah volume and channel . So keep that m {disfmarker} that standardised because that's the most common feature across all models , if you look at all the models , it's here . This and voice recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Okay . Um I'm not sure how long we've got left , but we need to make a decision about um the things we've discussed . So , we agree on {disfmarker} Do we agree on the battery ? +User Interface: The kinetic . +Marketing: Kinetic ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , that means that there's no function for li the port , you know that it sits in , then pressing the button then having {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we could incorporate voice recognition for the finding it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a bi i it's like a g it's a gadget , it's a +Industrial Designer: I mean if {disfmarker} Yeah it is it is qui it's quite a cool feature to have +Project Manager: selling point . +Industrial Designer: and also if they've got it {disfmarker} if they've got these parts already in stock , then it won't be cheap to re-manufacture them , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh or it will be cheap sorry to re-manufacture them . So do you reckon that's a good idea that , where's the remote , I'm here thing ? I think that would be quite fun . +Project Manager: I think the only +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the only pitfall that we would have would be how much it's going to cost if that means we have to cut down somewhere else , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I think pretty much we've used cheap {disfmarker} relatively cheap and simple things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_'s not cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah to s th well it's it's not as expensive as it would be if it was full colour 'cause if we've just got a black and white one , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I mean they use them in calculators so . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Maybe we could start with the black and white . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That that way we could upgrade later {gap} . +Project Manager: And you could {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , we talked about kinetic charging , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: we've deci seem to have decided on that , did we decide on double A_ or triple A_ batteries ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well you cou um . +Project Manager: Do you want like a back-up ? +Marketing: No , one of the decisions we had to make was whether we had double A_ or triple A_ batteries 'cause they've still got to be charged this way haven't they ? +Industrial Designer: K no the kinetic ones come come with um a sort of w watch {disfmarker} a battery that goes in a watch . +Marketing: I oh I see . Right , okay , got you . +Industrial Designer: So it's a lot smaller , so it would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Got you on that okay , didn't realise . +Project Manager: Um , okay so we've got battery . The inside components is pretty standardised across the board isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So there's not a {disfmarker} really a decision to be made there , um . The buttons {disfmarker} what did you give us as our {disfmarker} The bare-board L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {disfmarker} well I think were {disfmarker} we're going for the L_C_D_ on that one , on the buttons , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: on the on the on on the top one we're gonna +Project Manager: On the top one okay you've got the touch +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: okay and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the bottom we were gonna have the rubber , the rubber ones , the anti-R_S_I_ ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . +Marketing: Sorry could you repeat that last part ? +Industrial Designer: Um , okay on {disfmarker} we've got the flip the flip-screen , the top one is gonna be the L_C_D_ and the bottom one is gonna be the rubberised buttons . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen . Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: And for the {disfmarker} sorry . +Project Manager: No , it's fine . +User Interface: For the body design I think plastic , uh w yeah +Industrial Designer: Plastic , +User Interface: we could use the body , +Project Manager: For the inside . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: for the inside and uh rubber as a padding or for the grip , something like to add to the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: so we decided on a rubber casing for the plastic shell , a variety of designs , +User Interface: Plast right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I think so , I think so . +Marketing: okay . and it is just uh {disfmarker} although it's rubberised and spongy , apart from that we're just going to go for sort of vegetable and fruit colours , we're not gonna try and make it actually a vegetable or fruit design or anything else , like a shell that we discussed , +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +Project Manager: No I think I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: just go for the colours . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't wanna be tacky if we've got a kind of different shape anyway +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: um the fact {disfmarker} the m the material that we would be using would be cheap , so we could make it red , we could make it um psychedelic , you know , we could make it black and white zebra stripes , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but that's not really what we're focusing on , what we're focusing on is the m you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: yes . So we could just pick anything . +Marketing: 'Kay . Mm-hmm . Is that going to be {disfmarker} this image I've got in my head of something kind of shaped like that , maybe about that size , made of plastic , fits into the palm of the hand , rubberised cover that's spongy . Is that really going to fit fancy look and feel which was the major thing that people wanted , market research , +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} it's different . +Project Manager: It's just different +Marketing: is that fancy {gap} ? +Project Manager: it's just different from everything else and I mean , I'm trying to imagine um clean looking houses , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: sort of beige and black +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um so you either want something that goes with that , which is what's on the market anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or you want something that contrasts as {vocalsound} you know like you get clocks now that are more of a talking point than an actual clock because they're so interesting and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm just kind of pushing at that to see if you came out with anything else , but I mean I totally agree . We looked at those remotes , I mean they are kind of anonymous , very similar looking things . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: This would definitely be different enough , I just wondered if anybody could come up with something even more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you would just have an {disfmarker} across the b you would have so many different options that you could do , you could have um a plain black one , you could have sparkly pink glittery ones for your little {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the thing is the rubberised covers are going to be s relatively cheap to produce , that if in a year's time we we get feedback from the design fairs that show something else is coming {disfmarker} I mean it's so easy for us to just produce that and it can be slipped on , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: And ones tha ones that have rubbery spikes {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is another beauty of it . +Project Manager: y you know , you could just go so far with it , +Industrial Designer: You can you can just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Acupressure , you could talk of acupressures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like a puffer fish , you could just , you could take it wherever , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so I think that's quite a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And finally the body should be retouchable , may maybe ch you can change the body or the case {disfmarker} casing {disfmarker} the case outside , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: it should be moulded {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} the design in such a way you can change it every time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah j with these rubber these rubberised ca +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: not the actual uh plastic outside case , just the rubber thing that goes round the outside . +User Interface: Okay . The rubber . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we've got five minutes , {vocalsound} um , or that might've been up for a while . +User Interface: Fine . +Marketing: Mm , so can I just recap uh Sarah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the decisions that we've made , kinetic charging , the watch-type batteries , um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display on th the top side of the flip top , rubberised buttons on the bottom side , we're gonna use fruit and vegetable colours for the rubber cover , the case itself is plastic . That's how far we've got , what else do we have to add to our decisions here ? +User Interface: Fine , uh we were talking of voice recognition also +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that {disfmarker} we are not {gap} for how to look it uh remote control if it's lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , are we looking at voice {gap} ? +Marketing: Yes , it was just , there was just a cost issue with that , but it's a good idea we just need to check on the cost , +User Interface: Or maybe like uh William was suggesting in the last thing some devices you put on key chains . +Marketing: is that right ? +User Interface: For l yeah , the whistle . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah the whistle ones , yeah . +User Interface: So we can {disfmarker} if financially voice recognition is not feasible we could go for a whistle . +Marketing: And incorporating the company logo ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh sorry I didn't mention this , but we'll be incorporating in the design . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I took it from the feedback you gave in the last meeting from y from y your report , it's not just a case of having a little R_R_ hidden somewhere , they do want it to be obvious that it's our product +Project Manager: Well they do , +Marketing: don't they ? +Project Manager: but I think we can {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's the only one of its kind on the market it's obviously gonna be ours . +Project Manager: well it is , it is , I think you just address that with um advertising . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , you associate the name with the individual product that it is +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that does the work for you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Obviously it'll have a logo on it just like everything , but everything else has a logo on it . The point is that it's got to stand out somehow differently but I think it does , without that +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so I'm not worried about that . +Marketing: Okay . Did we {disfmarker} I know at the last meeting we spoke about a beeper , I think that was you talked about a beeper for a location , have we just rejected that in favour of voice recognition then ? +Project Manager: Depending on how i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , depending on the expense of it . +Project Manager: I mean we've got this memo saying that it's something that the company's looking into , so +Industrial Designer: And they've got in stock , so yeah . +Project Manager: um that seems to make sense , but if it turns out that it's hugely expensive we'd have to cut down somewhere else , then it's worth thinking about . But I think we'll find out more about cost afterwards . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right I'm going to wrap it up there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: I got a end meeting now message on my mo +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah +Industrial Designer: Did it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so . Um +User Interface: Again a questionnaire huh ? +Project Manager: so I think we've probably got {disfmarker} it says , closing we have forty minutes +Marketing: You got to go through . +Project Manager: so I um think we've probably got about that time before we come back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's either that or we only had forty minutes to discuss what we just discussed and don't know how long that took {gap} . +User Interface: I think we are pretty going in a clear direction now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is everyone happy ? {vocalsound} Okay . +","In the meeting, the team discussed the conceptual design for a new remote control. The key decisions made included opting for kinetic charging with watch-type batteries, incorporating an LCD display on the top side of the flip-top, and rubberized buttons on the bottom side. The remote control would feature fruit and vegetable colors for the rubber cover over a plastic case, with the possibility of it being retouchable so users can change the case. Voice recognition was considered for locating a lost remote, but depending on the cost, an alternative whistling feature might be used. The product will stand out without relying on the company logo due to its unique design, which will be addressed in advertising. Towards the end, there was some confusion about how much time they had left for the meeting, but the team felt they were moving in a clear direction with the project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD C: Eight , eight ? +PhD D: This is three . +PhD C: Three . +PhD D: Yep . Yep . +Professor B: Test . Hmm . Let 's see . Move it bit . Test ? Test ? OK , I guess it 's alright . So , let 's see . Yeah , Barry 's not here and Dave 's not here . Um , I can say about {disfmarker} just q just quickly to get through it , that Dave and I submitted this ASRU . +PhD A: This is for ASRU . +Professor B: Yeah . So . Um . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting . I mean , basically we 're dealing with rever reverberation , and , um , when we deal with pure reverberation , the technique he 's using works really , really well . Uh , and when they had the reverberation here , uh , we 'll measure the signal - to - noise ratio and it 's , uh , about nine DB . So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: um , +PhD A: You mean , from the actual , uh , recordings ? +Professor B: a fair amount of {disfmarker} +PhD D: k +PhD A: It 's nine DB ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} And actually it brought up a question which may be relevant to the Aurora stuff too . Um , I know that when you figured out the filters that we 're using for the Mel scale , there was some experimentation that went on at {disfmarker} at , uh {disfmarker} at OGI . Um , but one of the differences that we found between the two systems that we were using , {comment} the {disfmarker} the Aurora HTK system baseline system {comment} and the system that we were {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh , other system we were using , the uh , the SRI system , was that the SRI system had maybe a , um , hundred hertz high - pass . And the , uh , Aurora HTK , it was like twenty . +PhD D: Yep . S sixty - four . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: S sixty - four . +Professor B: Sixty - four ? Uh . +PhD D: Yeah , if you 're using the baseline . +Professor B: Is that the ba band center ? +PhD D: No , the edge . +Professor B: The edge is really , uh , sixty - four ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: For some reason , uh , Dave thought it was twenty , +PhD D: So the , uh , center would be somewhere around like hundred +Professor B: but . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} hundred {disfmarker} hundred and {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} fi hundred hertz . +Professor B: But do you know , for instance , h how far down it would be at twenty hertz ? What the {disfmarker} how much rejection would there be at twenty hertz , let 's say ? +PhD D: At twenty hertz . +Professor B: Yeah , any idea what the curve looks like ? +PhD D: Twenty hertz frequency {disfmarker} Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's zero at twenty hertz , right ? The filter ? +PhD C: Yea - actually , the left edge of the first filter is at sixty - four . +PhD D: Sixt - s sixty - four . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So anything less than sixty - four is zero . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: It 's actually set to zero ? What kind of filter is that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is this {disfmarker} oh , from the {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +PhD C: It {disfmarker} This is the filter bank in the frequency domain that starts at sixty - four . +Professor B: Oh , so you , uh {disfmarker} so you really set it to zero , the FFT ? +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a weight on the ball spectrum . Triangular weighting . +Professor B: Right . OK . Um {disfmarker} OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's a little different than Dave thought , I think . But {disfmarker} but , um , still , it 's possible that we 're getting in some more noise . So I wonder , is it {disfmarker} @ @ Was there {disfmarker} their experimentation with , uh , say , throwing away that filter or something ? And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , throwing away the first ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , yeah , we {disfmarker} we 've tried including the full {disfmarker} full bank . Right ? From zero to four K . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And that 's always worse than using sixty - four hertz . +Professor B: Right , but the question is , whether sixty - four hertz is {disfmarker} is , uh , too , uh , low . +PhD D: Yeah , I mean , make it a hundred or so ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I t I think I 've tried a hundred and it was more or less the same , or slightly worse . +Professor B: On what test set ? +PhD D: On the same , uh , SpeechDat - Car , Aurora . +Professor B: Um , it was on the SpeechDat - Car . +PhD D: Yeah . So I tried a hundred to four K . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , +PhD D: So it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: and on {disfmarker} and on the , um , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits also ? +PhD D: No , no , no . I think I just tried it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Mmm . That 'd be something to look at sometime because what , um , eh , he was looking at was performance in this room . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Would that be more like {disfmarker} Well , you 'd think that 'd be more like SpeechDat - Car , I guess , in terms of the noise . The SpeechDat - Car is more , uh , sort of roughly stationary , a lot of it . And {disfmarker} and TI - digits maybe is not so much as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . OK . Well , maybe it 's not a big deal . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , that was just something we wondered about . But , um , uh , certainly a lot of the noise , uh , is , uh , below a hundred hertz . Uh , the signal - to - noise ratio , you know , looks a fair amount better if you {disfmarker} if you high - pass filter it from this room . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um {disfmarker} but it 's still pretty noisy . Even {disfmarker} even for a hundred hertz up , it 's {disfmarker} it 's still fairly noisy . The signal - to - noise ratio is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is actually still pretty bad . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I mean , the main {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's on th that 's on the f the far field ones though , right ? Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's on the far field . Yeah , the near field 's pretty good . +PhD A: So wha what is , uh {disfmarker} what 's causing that ? +Professor B: Well , we got a {disfmarker} a video projector in here , uh , and , uh {disfmarker} which we keep on during every {disfmarker} every session we record , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: which , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w we were aware of +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but we thought it wasn't a bad thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , that 's a nice noise source . Uh , and there 's also the , uh {disfmarker} uh , air conditioning . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Which , uh , you know , is a pretty low frequency kind of thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} So , those are {disfmarker} those are major components , I think , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: uh , for the stationary kind of stuff . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um , but , um , it , uh {disfmarker} I guess , I {disfmarker} maybe I said this last week too but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it really became apparent to us that we need to {disfmarker} to take account of noise . And , uh , so I think when {disfmarker} when he gets done with his prelim study I think {vocalsound} one of the next things we 'd want to do is to take this , uh {disfmarker} uh , noise , uh , processing stuff and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , synthesize some speech from it . +PhD A: When are his prelims ? +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} Um , I think in about , um , a little less than two weeks . +PhD A: Oh . Wow . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Uh , it might even be sooner . Uh , let 's see , this is the sixteenth , seventeenth ? Yeah , I don't know if he 's before {disfmarker} It might even be in a week . +PhD A: So , I +Professor B: A week , +PhD A: Huh . I {disfmarker} I guessed that they were gonna do it some time during the semester +Professor B: week and a half . +PhD A: but they 'll do it any time , huh ? +Professor B: They seem to be {disfmarker} Well , the semester actually is starting up . +PhD A: Is it already ? +Professor B: Yeah , the semester 's late {disfmarker} late August they start here . +PhD A: Yikes . +Professor B: So they do it right at the beginning of the semester . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yep . I mean , that {disfmarker} that was sort of one {disfmarker} I mean , the overall results seemed to be first place in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the case of either , um , artificial reverberation or a modest sized training set . Uh , either way , uh , i uh , it helped a lot . And {disfmarker} But if you had a {disfmarker} a really big training set , a recognizer , uh , system that was capable of taking advantage of a really large training set {disfmarker} I thought that {disfmarker} One thing with the HTK is that is has the {disfmarker} as we 're using {disfmarker} the configuration we 're using is w s is {disfmarker} being bound by the terms of Aurora , we have all those parameters just set as they are . So even if we had a hundred times as much data , we wouldn't go out to , you know , ten or t or a hundred times as many Gaussians or anything . So , um , it 's kind of hard to take advantage of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of big chunks of data . Uh , whereas the other one does sort of expand as you have more training data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor B: It does it automatically , actually . And so , um , uh , that one really benefited from the larger set . And it was also a diverse set with different noises and so forth . Uh , so , um , that , uh {disfmarker} that seemed to be {disfmarker} So , if you have that {disfmarker} that better recognizer that can {disfmarker} that can build up more parameters , and if you , um , have the natural room , which in this case has a p a pretty bad signal - to - noise ratio , then in that case , um , the right thing to do is just do {disfmarker} u use speaker adaptation . And {disfmarker} and not bother with {disfmarker} with this acoustic , uh , processing . But I think that that would not be true if we did some explicit noise - processing as well as , uh , the convolutional kind of things we were doing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . That 's sort of what we found . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: I , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , started working on the uh {disfmarker} Mississippi State recognizer . So , I got in touch with Joe and {disfmarker} and , uh , from your email and things like that . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: And , uh , they added me to the list {disfmarker} uh , the mailing list . +PhD D: OK , great . +PhD A: And he gave me all of the pointers and everything that I needed . And so I downloaded the , um {disfmarker} There were two things , uh , that they had to download . One was the , uh , I guess the software . And another wad {disfmarker} was a , um , sort of like a sample {disfmarker} a sample run . So I downloaded the software and compiled all of that . And it compiled fine . +PhD D: Eight . +PhD A: No problems . +PhD D: Oh , eh , great . +PhD A: And , um , I grabbed the sample stuff but I haven't , uh , compiled it . +PhD D: That sample was released only yesterday or the day before , right ? +PhD A: No {disfmarker} Well , I haven't grabbed that one yet . So there 's two . +PhD D: Oh , there is another short sample set {disfmarker} +PhD A: There was another short one , yeah . +PhD D: o o sample . +PhD A: And so I haven't grabbed the latest one that he just , uh , put out yet . +PhD D: OK . Oh , OK . F Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Um , but , the software seemed to compile fine and everything , so . And , um , So . +Professor B: Is there any word yet about the issues about , um , adjustments for different feature sets or anything ? +PhD A: No , I {disfmarker} I d You asked me to write to him and I think I forgot to ask him about that . Or if I did ask him , he didn't reply . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I don't remember yet . Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll d I 'll double check that and ask him again . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's like that {disfmarker} that could r turn out to be an important issue for us . +PhD D: Hmm . Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe I 'll send it to the list . Yeah . +PhD D: Cuz they have , uh , already frozen those in i insertion penalties and all those stuff is what {disfmarker} I feel . Because they have this document explaining the recognizer . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And they have these tables with , uh , various language model weights , insertion penalties . +PhD A: OK , I haven't seen that one yet . +PhD D: u +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Uh , it 's th it 's there on that web . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: And , uh , on that , I mean , they have run some experiments using various insertion penalties and all those {disfmarker} +PhD A: And so they 've picked {disfmarker} the values . +PhD D: Yeah , I think they pi p +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: yeah , they picked the values from {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: For r w what test set ? +PhD D: Uh , p the one that they have reported is a NIST evaluation , Wall Street Journal . +Professor B: But that has nothing to do with what we 're testing on , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . No . So they 're , like {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So they are actually trying to , uh , fix that {disfmarker} those values using the clean , uh , training part of the Wall Street Journal . Which is {disfmarker} I mean , the Aurora . Aurora has a clean subset . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: I mean , they want to train it and then this {disfmarker} they 're going to run some evaluations . +Professor B: So they 're set they 're setting it based on that ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So now , we may come back to the situation where we may be looking for a modification of the features to account for the fact that we can't modify these parameters . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But , um , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} but it 's still worth , I think , just {disfmarker} since {disfmarker} you know , just chatting with Joe about the issue . +PhD A: Yeah , OK . Do you think that 's something I should just send to him +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: or do you think I should send it to this {disfmarker} there 's an {disfmarker} a m a mailing list . +Professor B: Well , it 's not a secret . I mean , we 're , you know , certainly willing to talk about it with everybody , but I think {disfmarker} I think that , um {disfmarker} um , it 's probably best to start talking with him just to {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh @ @ {comment} you know , it 's a dialogue between two of you about what {disfmarker} you know , what does he think about this and what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} what could be done about it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor B: Um , if you get ten people in {disfmarker} involved in it there 'll be a lot of perspectives based on , you know , how {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: you know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But , I mean , I think it all should come up eventually , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there is any , uh , uh , way to move in {disfmarker} a way that would {disfmarker} that would , you know , be more open to different kinds of features . But if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if there isn't , and it 's just kind of shut down and {disfmarker} and then also there 's probably not worthwhile bringing it into a larger forum where {disfmarker} where political issues will come in . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: Oh . So this is now {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's compiled under Solaris ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD D: Because he {disfmarker} there was some mail r saying that it 's {disfmarker} may not be stable for Linux and all those . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , i that was a particular version . +PhD D: SUSI +PhD A: Yeah , SUSI or whatever it was +PhD D: yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: but we don't have that . +PhD D: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So . Should be OK . +PhD D: OK , that 's fine . +PhD A: Yeah , it compiled fine actually . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: No {disfmarker} no errors . Nothing . So . +Professor B: Uh , this is slightly off topic +PhD D: That 's good . +Professor B: but , uh , I noticed , just glancing at the , uh , Hopkins workshop , uh , web site that , uh , um {disfmarker} one of the thing I don't know {disfmarker} Well , we 'll see how much they accomplish , but one of the things that they were trying to do in the graphical models thing was to put together a {disfmarker} a , uh , tool kit for doing , uh r um , arbitrary graphical models for , uh , speech recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} And Jeff , uh {disfmarker} the two Jeffs were +PhD A: Who 's the second Jeff ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , uh , do you know Geoff Zweig ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: Oh . Uh , he {disfmarker} he , uh {disfmarker} he was here for a couple years +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: and he , uh {disfmarker} got his PHD . He {disfmarker} And he 's , uh , been at IBM for the last couple years . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Wow . That would be neat . +Professor B: Uh , so he did {disfmarker} he did his PHD on dynamic Bayes - nets , uh , for {disfmarker} for speech recognition . He had some continuity built into the model , presumably to handle some , um , inertia in the {disfmarker} in the production system , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Um , I 've been playing with , first , the , um , VAD . Um , {vocalsound} so it 's exactly the same approach , but the features that the VAD neural network use are , uh , MFCC after noise compensation . Oh , I think I have the results . +Professor B: What was it using before ? +PhD C: Before it was just P L +PhD D: +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah , it was actually {disfmarker} No . Not {disfmarker} I mean , it was just the noisy features I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +PhD C: noisy {disfmarker} noisy features . +PhD D: not compensated . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} This is what we get after {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So , actually , we , yeah , here the features are noise compensated and there is also the LDA filter . Um , and then it 's a pretty small neural network which use , um , {vocalsound} nine frames of {disfmarker} of six features from C - zero to C - fives , plus the first derivatives . And it has one hundred hidden units . +PhD A: Is that nine frames u s uh , centered around the current frame ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: S so , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's how many {disfmarker} how many inputs ? +PhD C: So it 's twelve times nine . +Professor B: Twelve times nine inputs , and a hundred , uh , hidden . +PhD C: Hidden and +PhD D: Two outputs . +PhD C: two outputs . +Professor B: Two outputs . OK . So I guess about eleven thousand parameters , which {disfmarker} actually shouldn't be a problem , even in {disfmarker} in small phones . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s so what is different between this and {disfmarker} and what you {disfmarker} +PhD C: It should be OK . So the previous syst It 's based on the system that has a fifty - three point sixty - six percent improvement . It 's the same system . The only thing that changed is the n a p eh {disfmarker} a es the estimation of the silence probabilities . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +PhD C: Which now is based on , uh , cleaned features . +Professor B: And , it 's a l it 's a lot better . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not bad , but the problem is still that the latency is too large . +Professor B: What 's the latency ? +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the latency of the VAD is two hundred and twenty milliseconds . And , uh , the VAD is used uh , i for on - line normalization , and it 's used before the delta computation . So if you add these components it goes t to a hundred and seventy , right ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . You started off with two - twenty and you ended up with one - seventy ? +PhD C: With two an two hundred and seventy . +Professor B: Two - seventy . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} Yeah , if you add the c delta comp delta computation +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: which is done afterwards . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's two - twenty . I the is this {disfmarker} are these twenty - millisecond frames ? Is that why ? Is it after downsampling ? or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The two - twenty is one hundred milliseconds for the um {disfmarker} No , it 's forty milliseconds for t for the , uh , uh , cleaning of the speech . Um {disfmarker} then there is , um , the neural network which use nine frames . So it adds forty milliseconds . +Professor B: a OK . +PhD C: Um , after that , um , you have the um , filtering of the silence probabilities . Which is a million filter it , and it creates a one hundred milliseconds delay . So , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD D: Plus there is a delta at the input . +PhD C: Yeah , and there is the delta at the input which is , +Professor B: One hundred milliseconds for smoothing . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , median . +PhD C: +PhD D: It 's like forty plus {disfmarker} forty {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then forty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . Forty {disfmarker} This forty plus twenty , plus one hundred . +Professor B: forty p +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's two hundred actually . +PhD C: Yeah , there are twenty that comes from {disfmarker} There is ten that comes from the LDA filters also . Right ? +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Uh , so it 's two hundred and ten , yeah . +PhD D: If you are using {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Plus the frame , +PhD D: t If you are using three frames {disfmarker} +PhD C: so it 's two - twenty . +PhD D: If you are phrasing f {comment} using three frames , it is thirty here for delta . +PhD C: Yeah , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's five frames , but . +PhD D: So five frames , that 's twenty . OK , so it 's who un {comment} two hundred and ten . +Professor B: Uh , p Wait a minute . It 's forty {disfmarker} {vocalsound} forty for the {disfmarker} for the cleaning of the speech , +PhD C: So . Forty cleaning . +Professor B: forty for the I N {disfmarker} ANN , a hundred for the smoothing . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Well , but at ten {disfmarker} , +PhD C: Twenty for the delta . +Professor B: Twenty for delta . +PhD D: At th {nonvocalsound} At the input . I mean , that 's at the input to the net . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Delta at input to net ? +PhD D: And there i +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So it 's like s five , six cepstrum plus delta at nine {disfmarker} nine frames of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And then ten milliseconds for {disfmarker} +PhD D: Fi - There 's an LDA filter . +Professor B: ten milliseconds for LDA filter , and t and ten {disfmarker} another ten milliseconds you said for the frame ? +PhD C: For the frame I guess . I computed two - twenty {disfmarker} Yeah , well , it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's for the fr {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And then there 's delta besides that ? +PhD C: So this is the features that are used by our network and then afterwards , you have to compute the delta on the , uh , main feature stream , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: which is um , delta and double - deltas , which is fifty milliseconds . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , the {disfmarker} after the noise part , the forty {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the other hundred and eighty {disfmarker} Well , I mean , Wait a minute . Some of this is , uh {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is in parallel , isn't it ? I mean , the LDA {disfmarker} Oh , you have the LDA as part of the V D - uh , VAD ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: The VAD use , uh , LDA filtered features also . +Professor B: Oh , it does ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Ah . So in that case there isn't too much in parallel . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . There is , um , just downsampling , upsampling , and the LDA . +Professor B: Um , so the delta at the end is how much ? +PhD C: It 's fifty . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty . Alright . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: But well , we could probably put the delta , um , {vocalsound} before on - line normalization . It should not that make a big difference , +PhD A: What if you used a smaller window for the delta ? +PhD C: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Could that help a little bit ? I mean , I guess there 's a lot of things you could do to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: So +PhD C: but , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if you {disfmarker} if you put the delta before the , uh , ana on - line {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then it could go in parallel . +PhD C: Cuz i +Professor B: And then y then you don't have that additive {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yep . +PhD C: cuz the time constant of the on - line normalization is pretty long compared to the delta window , +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: so . It should not make {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . And you ought to be able to shove tw , uh {disfmarker} sh uh {disfmarker} pull off twenty milliseconds from somewhere else to get it under two hundred , right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is two hundred the d +Professor B: The hundred milla +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: mill a hundred milliseconds for smoothing is sort of an arbitrary amount . It could be eighty and {disfmarker} and probably do @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , +PhD A: i a hun +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Wh - what 's the baseline you need to be under ? Two hundred ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know . They 're still arguing about it . +PhD C: +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I mean , if it 's two {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} if it 's two - fifty , then we could keep the delta where it is if we shaved off twenty . If it 's two hundred , if we shaved off twenty , we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , meet it by moving the delta back . +PhD A: So , how do you know that what you have is too much if they 're still deciding ? +Professor B: Uh , we don't , but it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , the main thing is that since that we got burned last time , and {disfmarker} you know , by not worrying about it very much , we 're just staying conscious of it . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: And so , th I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if a week before we have to be done someone says , "" Well , you have to have fifty milliseconds less than you have now "" , it would be pretty frantic around here . So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , OK . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: But still , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a pretty big , uh , win . And it doesn't seem like you 're {disfmarker} in terms of your delay , you 're , uh , that {disfmarker} +Professor B: He added a bit on , I guess , because before we were {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} had {disfmarker} were able to have the noise , uh , stuff , uh , and the LVA be in parallel . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: And now he 's {disfmarker} he 's requiring it to be done first . +PhD C: Well , but I think the main thing , maybe , is the cleaning of the speech , which takes forty milliseconds or so . +Professor B: Right . Well , so you say {disfmarker} let 's say ten milliseconds {disfmarker} seconds for the LDA . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} the LDA is , well , pretty short right now . +Professor B: Well , ten . And then forty for the other . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , the LDA {disfmarker} LDA {disfmarker} we don't know , is , like {disfmarker} is it very crucial for the features , right ? +PhD C: No . I just {disfmarker} This is the first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right , +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} maybe the LDA 's not very useful then . +Professor B: so you could start pulling back , +PhD D: S s h +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor B: But I think you have {disfmarker} +PhD D: l +Professor B: I mean , you have twenty for delta computation which y now you 're sort of doing twice , right ? But yo w were you doing that before ? +PhD C: Mmm . Well , in the proposal , um , the input of the VAD network were just three frames , I think . +PhD D: On the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Just {disfmarker} Yeah , just the static , no delta . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Uh , static features . +Professor B: So , what you have now is fort uh , forty for the {disfmarker} the noise , twenty for the delta , and ten for the LDA . That 's seventy milliseconds of stuff which was formerly in parallel , +PhD C: +Professor B: right ? So I think , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the difference as far as the timing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , and you could experiment with cutting various pieces of these back a bit , but {disfmarker} I mean , we 're s we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not in terrible shape . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's what it seems like to me . It 's pretty good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not like it 's adding up to four hundred milliseconds or something . +PhD A: Where {disfmarker} where is this {disfmarker} where is this fifty - seven point O two in {disfmarker} in comparison to the last evaluation ? +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's better than anything , uh , anybody got . +PhD A: Oh , is that right ? +PhD C: Yeah . The best was fifty - four point five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Point s +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh +PhD C: And our system was forty - nine , but with the neural network . +PhD A: Wow . So this is almost ten percent . +Professor B: With the f with the neural net . Yeah , and r and {disfmarker} +PhD C: It would +PhD D: Yeah , so this is {disfmarker} this is like the first proposal . The proposal - one . It was forty - four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And we still don't have the neural net in . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wow . +Professor B: You know . So it 's {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing better . +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} this is really good . +Professor B: I mean , we 're getting better recognition . I mean , I 'm sure other people working on this are not sitting still either , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , the important thing is that we learn how to do this better , and , you know . So . Um , Yeah . So , our , um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can see the kind of {disfmarker} kind of numbers that we 're having , say , on SpeechDat - Car which is a hard task , cuz it 's really , um {disfmarker} I think it 's just sort of {disfmarker} sort of reasonable numbers , starting to be . I mean , it 's still terri +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , even for a well - matched case it 's sixty percent error rate reduction , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Probably half . Good ! +PhD C: Um , Yeah . So actually , this is in between {vocalsound} what we had with the previous VAD and what Sunil did with an IDL VAD . Which gave sixty - two percent improvement , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's almost that . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's almost an average somewhere around {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? Say that last part again ? +PhD C: So , if you use , like , an IDL VAD , uh , for dropping the frames , +PhD D: o o Or the best we can get . +PhD C: the best that we can get {disfmarker} i That means that we estimate the silence probability on the clean version of the utterances . Then you can go up to sixty - two percent error rate reduction , globally . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: So that would be even {disfmarker} That wouldn't change this number down here to sixty - two ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you were get +PhD C: If you add a g good v very good VAD , that works as well as a VAD working on clean speech , +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: then you wou you would go {disfmarker} +PhD A: So that 's sort of the best you could hope for . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Probably . Yeah . So fi si fifty - three is what you were getting with the old VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and sixty - two with the {disfmarker} the , you know , quote , unquote , cheating VAD . And fifty - seven is what you got with the real VAD . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Uh , yeah , the next thing is , I started to play {disfmarker} Well , I don't want to worry too much about the delay , no . Maybe it 's better to wait +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: for the decision +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: from the committee . Uh , but I started to play with the , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , tandem neural network . Mmm I just did the configuration that 's very similar to what we did for the February proposal . And {disfmarker} Um . So . There is a f a first feature stream that use uh straight MFCC features . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , these features actually . And the other stream is the output of a neural network , using as input , also , these , um , cleaned MFCC . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Those are th those are th what is going into the tandem net ? +PhD C: I don't have the comp Mmm ? +PhD A: Those two ? +PhD C: So there is just this feature stream , {comment} the fifteen MFCC plus delta and double - delta . +Professor B: No . +PhD A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Um , so it 's {disfmarker} makes forty - five features {comment} that are used as input to the HTK . And then , there is {disfmarker} there are more inputs that comes from the tandem MLP . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK . I see . +Professor B: Yeah , h he likes to use them both , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: cuz then it has one part that 's discriminative , +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: one part that 's not . +PhD A: Right . OK . +PhD C: So , um , uh , yeah . Right now it seems that {disfmarker} i I just tested on SpeechDat - Car while the experiment are running on your {disfmarker} on TI - digits . Well , it improves on the well - matched and the mismatched conditions , but it get worse on the highly mismatched . Um , +PhD A: Compared to these numbers ? +PhD C: Compared to these numbers , yeah . Um , +Professor B: y +PhD C: like , on the well - match and medium mismatch , the gain is around five percent relative , but it goes down a lot more , like fifteen percent on the HM case . +Professor B: You 're just using the full ninety features ? +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y you have ninety features ? +PhD C: i I have , um {disfmarker} From the networks , it 's twenty - eight . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: And from the other side it 's forty - five . +PhD C: So , d i It 's forty - five . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you have seventy - three features , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and you 're just feeding them like that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: There isn't any KLT or anything ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . There 's a KLT after the neural network , as {disfmarker} as before . +PhD A: That 's how you get down to twenty - eight ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Why twenty - eight ? +PhD C: I don't know . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Uh . It 's {disfmarker} i i i It 's because it 's what we did for the first proposal . We tested , uh , trying to go down +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: It 's a multiple of seven . +PhD C: and Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Um . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I wanted to do something very similar to the proposal as a first {disfmarker} first try . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . That makes sense . +PhD C: But we have to {disfmarker} for sure , we have to go down , because the limit is now sixty features . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , uh , we have to find a way to decrease the number of features . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , it seems funny that {disfmarker} I don't know , maybe I don't u quite understand everything , {comment} but that adding features {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} I guess if you 're keeping the back - end fixed . Maybe that 's it . Because it seems like just adding information shouldn't give worse results . But I guess if you 're keeping the number of Gaussians fixed in the recognizer , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: But , I mean , just in general , adding information {disfmarker} Suppose the information you added , well , was a really terrible feature and all it brought in was noise . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} so , um {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} or suppose it wasn't completely terrible , but it was completely equivalent to another one feature that you had , except it was noisier . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? In that case you wouldn't necessarily expect it to be better at all . +PhD A: Oh , yeah , I wasn't necessarily saying it should be better . I 'm just surprised that you 're getting fifteen percent relative worse on the wel +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: But it 's worse . +Professor B: On the highly mismatched condition . +PhD A: On the highly mismatch . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So , "" highly mismatched condition "" means that in fact your training is a bad estimate of your test . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So having {disfmarker} having , uh , a g a l a greater number of features , if they aren't maybe the right features that you use , certainly can e can easily , uh , make things worse . I mean , you 're right . If you have {disfmarker} if you have , uh , lots and lots of data , and you have {disfmarker} and your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your training is representative of your test , then getting more sources of information should just help . But {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} It doesn't necessarily work that way . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I wonder , um , Well , what 's your {disfmarker} what 's your thought about what to do next with it ? +PhD C: Um , I don't know . I 'm surprised , because I expected the neural net to help more when there is more mismatch , as it was the case for the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , was the training set same as the p the February proposal ? OK . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's the same training set , so it 's TIMIT with the TI - digits ' , uh , noises , uh , added . +PhD D: +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we might {disfmarker} uh , we might have to experiment with , uh better training sets . Again . But , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} The other thing is , I mean , before you found that was the best configuration , but you might have to retest those things now that we have different {disfmarker} The rest of it is different , right ? So , um , uh , For instance , what 's the effect of just putting the neural net on without the o other {disfmarker} other path ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , you know what the straight features do . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That gives you this . You know what it does in combination . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You don't necessarily know what {disfmarker} +PhD A: What if you did the {disfmarker} Would it make sense to do the KLT on the full set of combined features ? Instead of just on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I g I guess . Um . The reason I did it this ways is that in February , it {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we tested different things like that , so , having two KLT , having just a KLT for a network , or having a global KLT . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you tried the global KLT before +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: and it didn't really {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . And , uh , th Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: The differences between these configurations were not huge , but {disfmarker} it was marginally better with this configuration . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Professor B: But , yeah , that 's obviously another thing to try , +PhD C: Um . +Professor B: since things are {disfmarker} things are different . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I guess if the {disfmarker} These are all {disfmarker} so all of these seventy - three features are going into , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the HMM . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And is {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} i i are {disfmarker} are any deltas being computed of tha of them ? +PhD C: Of the straight features , yeah . +Professor B: n Not of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: So . But n th the , um , tandem features are u used as they are . +Professor B: Are not . +PhD C: So , yeah , maybe we can add some context from these features also as {disfmarker} Dan did in {disfmarker} in his last work . +Professor B: Could . i Yeah , but the other thing I was thinking was , um {disfmarker} Uh , now I lost track of what I was thinking . But . +PhD A: What is the {disfmarker} You said there was a limit of sixty features or something ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What 's the relation between that limit and the , um , forty - eight {disfmarker} uh , forty eight hundred bits per second ? +Professor B: Oh , I know what I was gonna say . +PhD C: Um , not {disfmarker} no relation . +Professor B: No relation . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't understand , +PhD C: The f the forty - eight hundred bits is for transmission of some features . +PhD A: because i I mean , if you 're only using h +PhD C: And generally , i it {disfmarker} s allows you to transmit like , fifteen , uh , cepstrum . +Professor B: The issue was that , um , this is supposed to be a standard that 's then gonna be fed to somebody 's recognizer somewhere which might be , you know , it {disfmarker} it might be a concern how many parameters are use {disfmarker} u used and so forth . And so , uh , they felt they wanted to set a limit . So they chose sixty . Some people wanted to use hundreds of parameters and {disfmarker} and that bothered some other people . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: u And so they just chose that . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's kind of r arbitrary too . But {disfmarker} but that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of what was chosen . I {disfmarker} I remembered what I was going to say . What I was going to say is that , um , maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe with the noise removal , uh , these things are now more correlated . So you have two sets of things that are kind of uncorrelated , uh , within themselves , but they 're pretty correlated with one another . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , they 're being fed into these , uh , variants , only Gaussians and so forth , and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so maybe it would be a better idea now than it was before to , uh , have , uh , one KLT over everything , to de - correlate it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: Maybe . You know . +PhD D: What are the S N Rs in the training set , TIMIT ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , ranging from zero to clean ? Yeah . From zero to clean . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So we found this {disfmarker} this , uh {disfmarker} this Macrophone data , and so forth , that we were using for these other experiments , to be pretty good . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} i after you explore these other alternatives , that might be another way to start looking , is {disfmarker} is just improving the training set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , we were getting , uh , lots better recognition using that , than {disfmarker} Of course , you do have the problem that , um , u i {comment} we are not able to increase the number of Gaussians , uh , or anything to , uh , uh , to match anything . So we 're only improving the training of our feature set , but that 's still probably something . +PhD A: So you 're saying , add the Macrophone data to the training of the neural net ? The tandem net ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the only place that we can train . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: We can't train the other stuff with anything other than the standard amount , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: so . Um , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what was it trained on again ? The one that you used ? +PhD C: It 's TIMIT with noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's rather a small {disfmarker} +Professor B: How big is the net , by the way ? +PhD C: Um , Uh , it 's , uh , five hundred hidden units . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: And again , you did experiments back then where you made it bigger and it {disfmarker} and that was {disfmarker} that was sort of the threshold point . Much less than that , it was worse , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: much more than that , it wasn't much better . Hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . @ @ ? +PhD D: So is it {disfmarker} is it though the performance , big relation in the high ma high mismatch has something to do with the , uh , cleaning up that you {disfmarker} that is done on the TIMIT after adding noise ? +PhD C: +PhD D: So {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i All the noises are from the TI - digits , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? So you {disfmarker} i +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} k uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it it 's like the high mismatch of the SpeechDat - Car after cleaning up , maybe having more noise than the {disfmarker} the training set of TIMIT after clean {disfmarker} s after you do the noise clean - up . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: I mean , earlier you never had any compensation , you just trained it straight away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it had like all these different conditions of S N Rs , actually in their training set of neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But after cleaning up you have now a different set of S N Rs , right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: For the training of the neural net . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} is it something to do with the mismatch that {disfmarker} that 's created after the cleaning up , like the high mismatch {disfmarker} +PhD C: You mean the {disfmarker} the most noisy occurrences on SpeechDat - Car might be a lot more noisy than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Of {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , the SNR after the noise compensation of the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Oh , so {disfmarker} Right . So the training {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the neural net is being trained with noise compensated stuff . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Which makes sense , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , you 're saying {disfmarker} Yeah , the noisier ones are still going to be , even after our noise compensation , are still gonna be pretty noisy . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , so now the after - noise compensation the neural net is seeing a different set of S N Rs than that was originally there in the training set . Of TIMIT . Because in the TIMIT it was zero to some clean . +Professor B: Right . Yes . +PhD D: So the net saw all the SNR @ @ conditions . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Now after cleaning up it 's a different set of SNR . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And that SNR may not be , like , com covering the whole set of S N Rs that you 're getting in the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor B: Right , but the SpeechDat - Car data that you 're seeing is also reduced in noise by the noise compensation . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , it is . But , I 'm saying , there could be some {disfmarker} some issues of {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , if the initial range of SNR is different , we {disfmarker} the problem was already there before . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Because {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it depends on whether you believe that the noise compensation is equally reducing the noise on the test set and the training set . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: On the test set , yeah . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , you 're saying there 's a mismatch in noise that wasn't there before , +PhD D: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if they were both the same before , then if they were both reduic reduced equally , then , there would not be a mismatch . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , this may be {disfmarker} Heaven forbid , this noise compensation process may be imperfect , but . Uh , so maybe it 's treating some things differently . +PhD C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} that could be seen from the TI - digits , uh , testing condition because , um , the noises are from the TI - digits , right ? Noise {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: So cleaning up the TI - digits and if the performance goes down in the TI - digits mismatch {disfmarker} high mismatch like this {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training , yeah . +PhD D: on a clean training , or zero DB testing . +PhD C: Yeah , we 'll {disfmarker} so we 'll see . Uh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Maybe . +PhD D: Then it 's something to do . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , one of the things about {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , the Macrophone data , um , I think , you know , it was recorded over many different telephones . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so , there 's lots of different kinds of acoustic conditions . I mean , it 's not artificially added noise or anything . So it 's not the same . I don't think there 's anybody recording over a car from a car , but {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's varied enough that if {disfmarker} if doing this adjustments , uh , and playing around with it doesn't , uh , make it better , the most {disfmarker} uh , it seems like the most obvious thing to do is to improve the training set . Um {disfmarker} I mean , what we were {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} the condition {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it gave us an enormous amount of improvement in what we were doing with Meeting Recorder digits , even though there , again , these m Macrophone digits were very , very different from , uh , what we were going on here . I mean , we weren't talking over a telephone here . But it was just {disfmarker} I think just having a {disfmarker} a nice variation in acoustic conditions was just a good thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah , actually {vocalsound} to s eh , what I observed in the HM case is that the number of deletion dramatically increases . It {disfmarker} it doubles . +Professor B: Number of deletions . +PhD C: When I added the num the neural network it doubles the number of deletions . Yeah , so I don't you know {vocalsound} how to interpret that , but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Me either . +PhD C: t +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and did {disfmarker} an other numbers stay the same ? Insertion substitutions stay the same ? +PhD C: They p stayed the same , +PhD A: Roughly ? +PhD C: they {disfmarker} maybe they are a little bit uh , lower . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: They are a little bit better . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Did they increase the number of deletions even for the cases that got better ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Say , for the {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , it doesn't . +Professor B: So it 's only the highly mismatched ? +PhD C: No . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} Remind me again , the "" highly mismatched "" means that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Clean training and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , sorry ? +PhD C: It 's clean training {disfmarker} Well , close microphone training and distant microphone , um , high speed , I think . +Professor B: Close mike training {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} The most noisy cases are the distant microphone for testing . +Professor B: Right . So {disfmarker} Well , maybe the noise subtraction is subtracting off speech . +PhD C: Separating . Yeah . +Professor B: Wh +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean , but without the neural network it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's better . It 's just when we add the neural networks . +Professor B: Yeah , right . +PhD C: The feature are the same except that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , that 's right , that 's right . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well that {disfmarker} that says that , you know , the , um {disfmarker} the models in {disfmarker} in , uh , the recognizer are really paying attention to the neural net features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , yeah , actually {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} the TIMIT noises {pause} are sort of a range of noises and they 're not so much the stationary driving kind of noises , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty different . Isn't it ? +PhD C: Uh , there is a car noise . So there are f just four noises . Um , uh , "" Car "" , I think , "" Babble "" , +PhD D: "" Babble . "" +PhD C: "" Subway "" , right ? and {disfmarker} +PhD D: "" Street "" or "" Airport "" or something . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} "" Street "" isn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or "" Train station "" . +PhD C: "" Train station "" , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} it 's mostly {disfmarker} Well , "" Car "" is stationary , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: "" Babble "" , it 's a stationary background plus some voices , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: some speech over it . And the other two are rather stationary also . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I think that if you run it {disfmarker} Actually , you {disfmarker} maybe you remember this . When you {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old experiments when you ran with the neural net only , and didn't have this side path , um , uh , with the {disfmarker} the pure features as well , did it make things better to have the neural net ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Was it about the same ? Uh , w i +PhD C: It was {disfmarker} b a little bit worse . +Professor B: Than {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Than just the features , yeah . +Professor B: So , until you put the second path in with the pure features , the neural net wasn't helping at all . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's interesting . +PhD C: It was helping , uh , if the features are b were bad , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean . Just plain P L Ps or M F +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: C Cs . as soon as we added LDA on - line normalization , and {vocalsound} all these things , then {disfmarker} +Professor B: They were doing similar enough things . Well , I still think it would be k sort of interesting to see what would happen if you just had the neural net without the side thing . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the thing I {disfmarker} I have in mind is , uh , maybe you 'll see that the results are not just a little bit worse . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Maybe that they 're a lot worse . You know ? And , um {disfmarker} But if on the ha other hand , uh , it 's , say , somewhere in between what you 're seeing now and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , what you 'd have with just the pure features , then maybe there is some problem of a {disfmarker} of a , uh , combination of these things , or correlation between them somehow . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it really is that the net is hurting you at the moment , then I think the issue is to focus on {disfmarker} on , uh , improving the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what 's the overall effe I mean , you haven't done all the experiments but you said it was i somewhat better , say , five percent better , for the first two conditions , and fifteen percent worse for the other one ? But it 's {disfmarker} but of course that one 's weighted lower , +PhD C: Y yeah , oh . Yeah . +Professor B: so I wonder what the net effect is . +PhD C: I d I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it was one or two percent . That 's not that bad , but it was l like two percent relative worse on SpeechDat - Car . I have to {disfmarker} to check that . Well , I have {disfmarker} I will . +PhD D: Well , it will {disfmarker} overall it will be still better even if it is fifteen percent worse , because the fifteen percent worse is given like f w twenty - five {disfmarker} point two five eight . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Right . So the {disfmarker} so the worst it could be , if the others were exactly the same , is four , +PhD D: Is it like {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , in fact since the others are somewhat better {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's four . Is i So either it 'll get cancelled out , or you 'll get , like , almost the same . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} it was slightly worse . +PhD D: Slightly bad . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , +Professor B: Yeah , it should be pretty close to cancelled out . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You know , I 've been wondering about something . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: In the , um {disfmarker} a lot of the , um {disfmarker} the Hub - five systems , um , recently have been using LDA . and {disfmarker} and they , um {disfmarker} They run LDA on the features right before they train the models . So there 's the {disfmarker} the LDA is {disfmarker} is right there before the H M +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So , you guys are using LDA but it seems like it 's pretty far back in the process . +PhD D: Uh , this LDA is different from the LDA that you are talking about . The LDA that you {disfmarker} saying is , like , you take a block of features , like nine frames or something , {comment} and then do an LDA on it , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and then reduce the dimensionality to something like twenty - four or something like that . +PhD A: Yeah , you c you c you can . +PhD D: And then feed it to HMM . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} you know , you 're just basically i +PhD D: Yeah , so this is like a two d two dimensional tile . +PhD A: You 're shifting the feature space . Yeah . +PhD D: So this is a two dimensional tile . And the LDA that we are f applying is only in time , not in frequency {disfmarker} high cost frequency . So it 's like {disfmarker} more like a filtering in time , rather than doing a r +PhD A: Ah . OK . So what i what about , um {disfmarker} i u what i w I mean , I don't know if this is a good idea or not , but what if you put {disfmarker} ran the other kind of LDA , uh , on your features right before they go into the HMM ? +PhD D: Uh , it {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . No , actually , I think {disfmarker} i +PhD D: m +PhD C: Well . What do we do with the ANN is {disfmarker} is something like that except that it 's not linear . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's like a nonlinear discriminant analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . Right , it 's the {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} Right . The {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah , so it 's sort of like {disfmarker} +PhD C: But . +PhD A: The tandem stuff is kind of like i nonlinear LDA . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: I g +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But I mean , w but the other features that you have , um , th the non - tandem ones , +PhD C: Uh . Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in the proposal , they were transformed u using PCA , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah , it might be that LDA could be better . +Professor B: The a the argument i is kind of i in {disfmarker} and it 's not like we really know , but the argument anyway is that , um , uh , we always have the prob I mean , discriminative things are good . LDA , neural nets , they 're good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , they 're good because you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you learn to distinguish between these categories that you want to be good at distinguishing between . And PCA doesn't do that . It {disfmarker} PAC - PCA {disfmarker} low - order PCA throws away pieces that are uh , maybe not {disfmarker} not gonna be helpful just because they 're small , basically . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But , uh , the problem is , training sets aren't perfect and testing sets are different . So you f you {disfmarker} you face the potential problem with discriminative stuff , be it LDA or neural nets , that you are training to discriminate between categories in one space but what you 're really gonna be g getting is {disfmarker} is something else . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And so , uh , Stephane 's idea was , uh , let 's feed , uh , both this discriminatively trained thing and something that 's not . So you have a good set of features that everybody 's worked really hard to make , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then , uh , you {disfmarker} you discriminately train it , but you also take the path that {disfmarker} that doesn't have that , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and putting those in together . And that {disfmarker} that seem So it 's kind of like a combination of the {disfmarker} uh , what , uh , Dan has been calling , you know , a feature {disfmarker} uh , you know , a feature combination versus posterior combination or something . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , you have the posterior combination but then you get the features from that and use them as a feature combination with these {disfmarker} these other things . And that seemed , at least in the last one , as he was just saying , he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} when he only did discriminative stuff , i it actually was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} it didn't help at all in this particular case . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: There was enough of a difference , I guess , between the testing and training . But by having them both there {disfmarker} The fact is some of the time , the discriminative stuff is gonna help you . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And some of the time it 's going to hurt you , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and by combining two information sources if , you know {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you wouldn't necessarily then want to do LDA on the non - tandem features because now you 're doing something to them that {disfmarker} +Professor B: That i i I think that 's counter to that idea . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor B: Now , again , it 's {disfmarker} we 're just trying these different things . We don't really know what 's gonna work best . But if that 's the hypothesis , at least it would be counter to that hypothesis to do that . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , and in principle you would think that the neural net would do better at the discriminant part than LDA . +PhD A: Right . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} y +Professor B: Though , maybe not . +PhD A: Yeah . Exactly . I mean , we , uh {disfmarker} we were getting ready to do the tandem , uh , stuff for the Hub - five system , and , um , Andreas and I talked about it , and the idea w the thought was , "" Well , uh , yeah , that i you know {disfmarker} th the neural net should be better , but we should at least have uh , a number , you know , to show that we did try the LDA in place of the neural net , so that we can you know , show a clear path . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: You know , that you have it without it , then you have the LDA , then you have the neural net , and you can see , theoretically . So . I was just wondering {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Did {disfmarker} did you do that +PhD A: Um . No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} tha that 's a {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's what {disfmarker} that 's what we 're gonna do next as soon as I finish this other thing . So . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . No , well , that 's a good idea . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD A: We just want to show . +Professor B: i Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , it {disfmarker} everybody believes it , +Professor B: Oh , no it 's a g +PhD A: but you know , we just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no , but it might not {disfmarker} not even be true . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a great idea . I mean , one of the things that always disturbed me , uh , in the {disfmarker} the resurgence of neural nets that happened in the eighties was that , um , a lot of people {disfmarker} Because neural nets were pretty easy to {disfmarker} to use {disfmarker} a lot of people were just using them for all sorts of things without , uh , looking at all into the linear , uh {disfmarker} uh , versions of them . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , people were doing recurrent nets but not looking at IIR filters , and {disfmarker} You know , I mean , uh , so I think , yeah , it 's definitely a good idea to try it . +PhD A: Yeah , and everybody 's putting that on their {vocalsound} systems now , and so , I that 's what made me wonder about this , +Professor B: Well , they 've been putting them in their systems off and on for ten years , +PhD A: but . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , what I mean is it 's {disfmarker} it 's like in the Hub - five evaluations , you know , and you read the system descriptions and everybody 's got , {vocalsound} you know , LDA on their features . +Professor B: And now they all have that . I see . +PhD A: And so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . +PhD C: It 's the transformation they 're estimating on {disfmarker} Well , they are trained on the same data as the final HMM are . +PhD A: Yeah , so it 's different . Yeah , exactly . Cuz they don't have these , you know , mismatches that {disfmarker} that you guys have . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So that 's why I was wondering if maybe it 's not even a good idea . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't know . I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about it , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: I mean , part of why {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think part of why you were getting into the KLT {disfmarker} Y you were describing to me at one point that you wanted to see if , uh , you know , getting good orthogonal features was {disfmarker} and combining the {disfmarker} the different temporal ranges {disfmarker} was the key thing that was happening or whether it was this discriminant thing , right ? So you were just trying {disfmarker} I think you r I mean , this is {disfmarker} it doesn't have the LDA aspect but th as far as the orthogonalizing transformation , you were trying that at one point , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think you were . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Does something . It doesn't work as well . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , yeah , I 've been exploring a parallel VAD without neural network with , like , less latency using SNR and energy , um , after the cleaning up . So what I 'd been trying was , um , uh {disfmarker} After the b after the noise compensation , n I was trying t to f find a f feature based on the ratio of the energies , that is , cl after clean and before clean . So that if {disfmarker} if they are , like , pretty c close to one , which means it 's speech . And if it is n if it is close to zero , which is {disfmarker} So it 's like a scale @ @ probability value . So I was trying , uh , with full band and multiple bands , m ps uh {disfmarker} separating them to different frequency bands and deriving separate decisions on each bands , and trying to combine them . Uh , the advantage being like it doesn't have the latency of the neural net if it {disfmarker} if it can +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: g And {pause} it gave me like , uh , one point {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} more than one percent relative improvement . So , from fifty - three point six it went to fifty f four point eight . So it 's , like , only slightly more than a percent improvement , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: just like {disfmarker} Which means that it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing a slightly better job than the previous VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , at a l lower delay . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} i d I 'm sorry , +PhD D: so {disfmarker} u +Professor B: does it still have the median {pause} filter stuff ? +PhD D: It still has the median filter . +Professor B: So it still has most of the delay , +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: it just doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , so d with the delay , that 's gone is the input , which is the sixty millisecond . The forty plus {pause} twenty . +Professor B: Well , w i +PhD D: At the input of the neural net you have this , uh , f nine frames of context plus the delta . +Professor B: Oh , plus the delta , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . So that delay , plus the LDA . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , so the delay is only the forty millisecond of the noise cleaning , plus the hundred millisecond smoothing at the output . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . So . Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} di the biggest {disfmarker} The problem f for me was to find a consistent threshold that works {pause} well across the different databases , because I t I try to make it work on tr SpeechDat - Car +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and it fails on TI - digits , or if I try to make it work on that it 's just the Italian or something , it doesn't work on the Finnish . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So , um . So there are {disfmarker} there was , like , some problem in balancing the deletions and insertions when I try different thresholds . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} I 'm still trying to make it better by using some other features from the {disfmarker} after the p clean up {disfmarker} maybe , some , uh , correlation {disfmarker} auto - correlation or some s additional features of {disfmarker} to mainly the improvement of the VAD . I 've been trying . +Professor B: Now this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this , uh , "" before and after clean "" , it sounds like you think that 's a good feature . That {disfmarker} that , it {disfmarker} you th think that the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i it appears to be a good feature , right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What about using it in the neural net ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , eventually we could {disfmarker} could just +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so that 's the {disfmarker} Yeah . So we 've been thinking about putting it into the neural net also . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because they did {disfmarker} that itself {disfmarker} +PhD C: Then you don't have to worry about the thresholds and {disfmarker} +PhD D: There 's a threshold and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: but just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} if we can live with the latency or cut the latencies elsewhere , then {disfmarker} then that would be a , uh , good thing . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anybody {disfmarker} has anybody {disfmarker} you guys or {disfmarker} or Naren , uh , somebody , tried the , uh , um , second th second stream thing ? Uh . +PhD D: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I just h put the second stream in place and , uh ran one experiment , but just like {disfmarker} just to know that everything is fine . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So it was like , uh , forty - five cepstrum plus twenty - three mel {disfmarker} log mel . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and , just , like , it gave me the baseline performance of the Aurora , which is like zero improvement . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So I just tried it on Italian just to know that everything is {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I didn't export anything out of it because it was , like , a weird feature set . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , what I think , you know , would be more what you 'd want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , uh , put it into another neural net . Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} But , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not quite there yet . So we have to {vocalsound} figure out the neural nets , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The uh , other thing I was wondering was , um , if the neural net , um , has any {disfmarker} because of the different noise con unseen noise conditions for the neural net , where , like , you train it on those four noise conditions , while you are feeding it with , like , a additional {disfmarker} some four plus some {disfmarker} f few more conditions which it hasn't seen , actually , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: from the {disfmarker} f f while testing . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Right . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} instead of just h having c uh , those cleaned up t cepstrum , sh should we feed some additional information , like {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We have the VAD flag . I mean , should we f feed the VAD flag , also , at the input so that it {disfmarker} it has some additional discriminating information at the input ? +PhD C: Hmm - hmm ! Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Wh - uh , the {disfmarker} the VAD what ? +PhD D: We have the VAD information also available at the back - end . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So if it is something the neural net is not able to discriminate the classes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Because most of it is sil I mean , we have dropped some silence f We have dropped so silence frames ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , we haven't dropped silence frames still . +PhD C: Uh , still not . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Th +PhD D: the b b biggest classification would be the speech and silence . So , by having an additional , uh , feature which says "" this is speech and this is nonspeech "" , I mean , it certainly helps in some unseen noise conditions for the neural net . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} Do y do you have that feature available for the test data ? +PhD D: Well , I mean , we have {disfmarker} we are transferring the VAD to the back - end {disfmarker} feature to the back - end . Because we are dropping it at the back - end after everything {disfmarker} all the features are computed . +PhD A: Oh , oh , I see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I see . +PhD D: so the neural {disfmarker} so that is coming from a separate neural net or some VAD . +PhD A: OK . OK . +PhD D: Which is {disfmarker} which is certainly giving a +PhD A: So you 're saying , feed that , also , into {pause} the neural net . +PhD D: to {disfmarker} Yeah . So it it 's an {disfmarker} additional discriminating information . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +PhD D: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: You could feed it into the neural net . The other thing {comment} you could do is just , um , p modify the , uh , output probabilities of the {disfmarker} of the , uh , uh , um , neural net , tandem neural net , {comment} based on the fact that you have a silence probability . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you have an independent estimator of what the silence probability is , and you could multiply the two things , and renormalize . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you 'd have to do the nonlinearity part and deal with that . Uh , I mean , go backwards from what the nonlinearity would , you know {disfmarker} would be . +PhD D: Through {disfmarker} t to the soft max . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , so {disfmarker} maybe , yeah , when {disfmarker} +PhD A: But in principle wouldn't it be better to feed it in ? And let the net do that ? +Professor B: Well , u Not sure . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean , let 's put it this way . I mean , y you {disfmarker} you have this complicated system with thousands and thousand parameters +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and you can tell it , uh , "" Learn this thing . "" Or you can say , "" It 's silence ! Go away ! "" I mean , I mean , i Doesn't {disfmarker} ? I think {disfmarker} I think the second one sounds a lot more direct . +PhD A: What {disfmarker} what if you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Right . So , what if you then , uh {disfmarker} since you know this , what if you only use the neural net on the speech portions ? +Professor B: Well , uh , +PhD C: That 's what {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I guess that 's the same . Uh , that 's similar . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , y you 'd have to actually run it continuously , +PhD A: But I mean {disfmarker} I mean , train the net only on {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} Well , no , you want to train on {disfmarker} on the nonspeech also , because that 's part of what you 're learning in it , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to generate , that it 's {disfmarker} it has to distinguish between . +PhD D: Speech . +PhD A: But I mean , if you 're gonna {disfmarker} if you 're going to multiply the output of the net by this other decision , uh , would {disfmarker} then you don't care about whether the net makes that distinction , right ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . But this other thing isn't perfect . +PhD A: Ah . +Professor B: So that you bring in some information from the net itself . +PhD A: Right , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only thing that {disfmarker} that bothers me about all this is that I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the fact {disfmarker} i i It 's sort of bothersome that you 're getting more deletions . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} So I might maybe look at , is it due to the fact that um , the probability of the silence at the output of the network , is , uh , +Professor B: Is too high . +PhD C: too {disfmarker} too high or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . So maybe {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD C: If it 's the case , then multiplying it again by {disfmarker} i by something ? +PhD D: It may not be {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it may be too {disfmarker} it 's too high in a sense , like , everything is more like a , um , flat probability . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh - eee - hhh . +PhD D: So , like , it 's not really doing any distinction between speech and nonspeech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . +PhD D: or , I mean , different {disfmarker} among classes . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Be interesting to look at the {disfmarker} Yeah , for the {disfmarker} I wonder if you could do this . But if you look at the , um , highly mism high mismat the output of the net on the high mismatch case and just look at , you know , the distribution versus the {disfmarker} the other ones , do you {disfmarker} do you see more peaks or something ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , like the entropy of the {disfmarker} the output , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , for instance . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} bu +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it seems that the VAD network doesn't {disfmarker} Well , it doesn't drop , uh , too many frames because the dele the number of deletion is reasonable . But it 's just when we add the tandem , the final MLP , and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Now the only problem is you don't want to ta I guess wait for the output of the VAD before you can put something into the other system , +PhD C: u +Professor B: cuz that 'll shoot up the latency a lot , right ? Am I missing something here ? +PhD C: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 's maybe a problem with what I was just saying . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} I I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: But if you were gonna put it in as a feature it means you already have it by the time you get to the tandem net , right ? +PhD D: Um , well . We {disfmarker} w we don't have it , actually , +Professor B: No . +PhD D: because it 's {disfmarker} it has a high rate energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah . +PhD D: the VAD has a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's kind of done in {disfmarker} I mean , some of the things are , not in parallel , but certainly , it would be in parallel with the {disfmarker} with a tandem net . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: In time . So maybe , if that doesn't work , um {disfmarker} But it would be interesting to see if that was the problem , anyway . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then I guess another alternative would be to take the feature that you 're feeding into the VAD , and feeding it into the other one as well . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then maybe it would just learn {disfmarker} learn it better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's an interesting thing to try to see , if what 's going on is that in the highly mismatched condition , it 's , um , causing deletions by having this silence probability up {disfmarker} up too high , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at some point where the VAD is saying it 's actually speech . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Which is probably true . +PhD C: So , m +Professor B: Cuz {disfmarker} Well , the V A if the VAD said {disfmarker} since the VAD is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is right a lot , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Anyway . Might be . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , we just started working with it . But these are {disfmarker} these are some good ideas I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , and the other thing {disfmarker} Well , there are other issues maybe for the tandem , like , uh , well , do we want to , w uh n Do we want to work on the targets ? Or , like , instead of using phonemes , using more context dependent units ? +PhD A: For the tandem net you mean ? +PhD C: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: I 'm thinking , also , a w about Dan 's work where he {disfmarker} he trained {vocalsound} a network , not on phoneme targets but on the HMM state targets . And {disfmarker} it was giving s slightly better results . +Professor B: Problem is , if you are going to run this on different m test sets , including large vocabulary , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: um , +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mmm . I was just thinking maybe about , like , generalized diphones , and {disfmarker} come up with a {disfmarker} a reasonable , not too large , set of context dependent units , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . And then anyway we would have to reduce this with the KLT . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , maybe . But I d I d it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i it 's all worth looking at , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it sounds to me like , uh , looking at the relationship between this and the {disfmarker} speech noise stuff is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is probably a key thing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That and the correlation between stuff . +PhD A: So if , uh {disfmarker} if the , uh , high mismatch case had been more like the , uh , the other two cases {comment} in terms of giving you just a better performance , {comment} how would this number have changed ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Oh , it would be {disfmarker} Yeah . Around five percent better , I guess . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} i +PhD A: y Like sixty ? +Professor B: Well , we don't know what 's it 's gonna be the TI - digits yet . He hasn't got the results back yet . +PhD C: Yeah . If you extrapolate the SpeechDat - Car well - matched and medium - mismatch , it 's around , yeah , maybe five . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Yeah . So this would be sixty - two ? +Professor B: Sixty - two . +PhD A: Which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Sixty - two , yeah . +PhD D: Somewhere around sixty , must be . Right ? Yeah . +PhD C: Well , it 's around five percent , because it 's {disfmarker} s Right ? If everything is five percent . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: All the other ones were five percent , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I d I d I just have the SpeechDat - Car right now , so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's running {disfmarker} it shou we should have the results today during the afternoon , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} Well . +Professor B: Hmm . Well {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} So I won't be here for {disfmarker} +PhD A: When {disfmarker} When do you leave ? +Professor B: Uh , I 'm leaving next Wednesday . May or may not be in in the morning . I leave in the afternoon . Um , +PhD A: But you 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} +PhD A: are you {disfmarker} you 're not gonna be around this afternoon ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , well . I 'm talking about next week . I 'm leaving {disfmarker} leaving next Wednesday . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: This afternoon {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Oh , right , for the Meeting meeting ? Yeah , that 's just cuz of something on campus . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . But , um , yeah , so next week I won't , and the week after I won't , cuz I 'll be in Finland . And the week after that I won't . By that time you 'll be {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , you 'll both be gone {pause} from here . So there 'll be no {disfmarker} definitely no meeting on {disfmarker} on September sixth . Uh , +PhD A: What 's September sixth ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Uh , that 's during Eurospeech . +PhD A: Oh , oh , right . OK . +Professor B: So , uh , Sunil will be in Oregon . Uh , Stephane and I will be in Denmark . Uh {disfmarker} Right ? So it 'll be a few weeks , really , before we have a meeting of the same cast of characters . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} I guess , just {disfmarker} I mean , you guys should probably meet . And maybe Barry {disfmarker} Barry will be around . And {disfmarker} and then uh , uh , we 'll start up again with Dave and {disfmarker} Dave and Barry and Stephane and us on the , uh , twentieth . No . Thirteenth ? About a month ? +PhD A: So , uh , you 're gonna be gone for the next three weeks or something ? +Professor B: I 'm gone for two and a half weeks starting {disfmarker} starting next Wed - late next Wednesday . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} you won't be at the next three of these meetings . Is that right ? +Professor B: Uh , I won't {disfmarker} it 's probably four because of {disfmarker} is it three ? Let 's see , twenty - third , thirtieth , sixth . That 's right , next three . And the {disfmarker} the third one won't {disfmarker} probably won't be a meeting , cuz {disfmarker} cuz , uh , Su - Sunil , Stephane , and I will all not be here . +PhD A: Oh , right . Right . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} So it 's just , uh , the next two where there will be {disfmarker} there , you know , may as well be meetings , +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: but I just won't be at them . And then starting up on the thirteenth , {nonvocalsound} uh , we 'll have meetings again but we 'll have to do without Sunil here somehow . +PhD A: When do you go back ? +Professor B: So . +PhD D: Thirty - first , August . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So . Cool . +PhD A: When is the evaluation ? November , or something ? +Professor B: Yeah , it was supposed to be November fifteenth . Has anybody heard anything different ? +PhD C: I don't know . The meeting in {disfmarker} is the five and six of December . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: p s It 's like {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tentatively all full . Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , that 's a proposed date , I guess . +PhD C: Yeah , um {disfmarker} so the evaluation should be on a week before or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yep . But , no , this is good progress . So . Uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Guess we 're done . Digits ? Yep . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: It 's a wrap . +","This conversation features a group of researchers, including PhD students (PhD A, PhD C, PhD D) and a professor (Professor B), discussing ongoing work related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. They touch on topics such as reverberation issues, signal-to-noise ratio, filter adjustments, and differences between systems they are using or developing. They also delve into Voice Activity Detection (VAD), neural network enhancements, and their latest findings and experimental results. The team plans future meetings around members' availability and the upcoming evaluation for their project. The summary reflects technical deliberations on improving their ASR systems' performance amidst various challenges and data sets." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and there is no substitute. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, is a further evidence session, number four, on our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Dafydd Evans, who is chair, ColegauCymru, and chief executive officer of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai; Kay Martin, principal of Cardiff and Vale College, also representing ColegauCymru; Nick Brazil, who is deputy principal, Gower College Swansea, also representing ColegauCymru; Dr Rachel Bowen, director of policy and development at ColegauCymru; and Ed Evans, who is the director and secretary of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association. Thank you all for attending. We're very pleased that you've been able to join us. If it's okay with you, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be asking my questions in Welsh. +Dafydd Evans: Could I start and then open it up? Thank you very much for the opportunity to give evidence. But just to give you the context, I think, if you were asking about the vast majority of subjects what the view of ColegauCymru would be, it would be quite unanimous, but I think on the Welsh bac there is a difference of opinion, and I'm sure you'll hear those differences on the panel before you today. We've possibly chosen this panel because there are differences of opinion. So, I just want to give you that context at the outset. To answer the specific question, no, I don't think that employers have a clear understanding of what the Welsh bac means or what it includes. Personally I don't think that even the title of the Welsh bac is helpful, because it doesn't say what's happening in the tin. So, I think the skills challenge certificate is a better title, and is something that people understand a lot better than the Welsh bac. So, no, I don't think that employers understand the value or what we're trying to achieve through the Welsh bac at present. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Which is a big problem. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, it's a huge problem, but not only to employers, but also to parents and young people, of course. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And I think that that varies by size of employer as well. That, certainly, where there are larger employers, who've got people who are able to follow policy developments across the education spectrum, they may have more capacity to follow changes, get up to date with how Welsh education is evolving. But we know that most employers in Wales are small or microbusinesses. And while there are lots of small engaged employers who have taken an interest and do understand, the vast majority are more focused on getting on with the day-to-day running of the business. And that means it's quite a challenge to understand what is the Welsh bac, what does it offer. And, certainly, when that's evolved over the past few years and there have been changes, it would have been quite difficult to keep up to date with those, I imagine. +Nick Brazil: Could I add to that? As do many of my colleagues within the colleges, we have a number of employer boards, which we regularly meet with—employers—and I cannot think back as to how many employers say to us, 'That is what we require—the Welsh bac—to come and work within our industry.' Most of what they are questioning is the level of professional qualifications and the quality of skills within those professional sectors. Not many of them have indicated that the Welsh bac is providing the skills that they require. I think many of them believe in the vision that was set out for the Welsh bac initially, but the Welsh bac has turned into quite a rigorous, some would say demanding, qualification, which is putting a lot of pressure on in terms of bureaucracy, in terms of staff and the student getting all the information together at the end of the year, and whether that's developing the skills that employers require is very questionable. And, as I said, from the employer boards that we have, very few of them understand the Welsh bac. They certainly don't mention the Welsh bac and, as I said, are very much questioning the qualifications that have been provided to develop the actual professional skills needed within the industries. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Kay, is that your experience? +Kay Martin: Certainly, it's very similar, and our employers want to make sure they get the right qualification. They're having enough headache getting around the differences with apprenticeships and the levy between England and Wales, and changes to qualifications. But they want them to get their main qualification. So, if you're an engineer, they want to get the engineering qualifications and they want them to be literate, numerate, and they want them to have digital skills. And that isn't captured necessarily in the Welsh baccalaureate. And, so, the understanding is quite limited amongst the employers we work with. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, finally, I know you've got strong views as an organisation. +Ed Evans: Do you mind if I carry on in English— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. +Ed Evans: —just so that a lot of our members will understand when I'm speaking. I think it's fair to say employers don't understand it, that's for sure, but I think if they did, they would really appreciate this. For my sector in particular—the civil engineering sector—and particularly the contracting sector, which depends very much on pupils who have come through from a less academic background, the Welsh bac gives them that ability, I guess, not to pursue so much of an academic focus, but to test them in terms of the challenges, but also, to—. And I think if it was working properly and we did have employers engaged in this, and supporting schools and colleges to deliver it, they would actually be learning a lot more directly from industry. And some children, some pupils, some young people, they respond far, far better to that. And I think that's the issue for me—that we've not really sold this to employers to actually engage with them. All of my understanding of this is literally as a parent, and that would be true of a lot of employers as well. So, perhaps there are differences across the sector, but I think, certainly for my sector, we would really value the growth of the Welsh baccalaureate. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are we going to do, then, to improve employers' understanding of the Welsh bac, and whose work is it to try to persuade employers that it is worth while, if you feel that it is worth while, of course? +Dafydd Evans: I think we need to review the qualification, and I think the voice of employers should be a key part of that review, so that employability skills and entrepreneurial skills have more of a role within that qualification. And I think that rather than it being done by the colleges or by a qualifications board, I think the employers—. And the only way we'll get employer buy-in is that if they feel ownership of what's being done. Because I think that's what the vision was for the Welsh baccalaureate—that it was going to improve skills for employment. But, somehow or other we've lost our way. The aim is an excellent one, but I think we've lost our way in terms of what we do present at the end of the day, and I think having more input from employers would be a great help. +Ed Evans: I will carry on in English, if that's okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, it's no problem. +Ed Evans: I would agree. I think we do need more employers involved in this. I think there are opportunities to join up employers and schools and education facilities a lot more than we do at the moment. I suppose that the bee in my bonnet is that we are involved in lots of social value-type contracts in this sector, and that to me is a perfect opportunity to tie in employers into schools and colleges and get that time and input from them into schools in a far more co-ordinated way. It happens at the moment. It's the community benefits clauses that are in construction contracts. They're there to serve a really good purpose, but it's become a little bit piecemeal and a little bit tokenistic, whereas the Welsh bac offers an opportunity—. It's something that's part of the curriculum. It's clearly not functioning well at the moment. It would benefit from that business input. So, why not link up those contractual clauses, which tie in employers and feed it directly into schools so that we have a far more structured way of getting employers into schools? At the moment it's a little bit—we'll pick up the phone, we'll get a phone call, and it'll be, 'Can you come and do something for us?' It's tokenistic. We need to be far more clever in terms of how we join these things up, and then I think you'll start to get that business input there, but let's not be ad hoc about it. +Kay Martin: Could I just add something? We've also got several other programmes that are engaging employers really well. Career Ready is a national programme, which we use in the college and which other colleges across the UK use. That's where employers mentor students so everyone has a mentor for the whole of the two years of the programme, from employment, and they all go out for at least six weeks' internship. So, they don't go for a day's work placement or two days—they go for six-week internships. Some learners have got real benefit from that and really raised their aspirations. We've got BTEC learners who have gone through that programme and gone into law degrees with Freshfields law in London, which is one of the top law firms in the world. So, there are lots of other programmes as well, and perhaps there's a way of joining it all up together. But, in the college, we've got several different programmes going on with employers and the Welsh bac is one of them, but it's not the one that engages employers the best, certainly in our college. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, do we get rid of it? +Lynne Neagle AM: You don't need to answer that. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I mean, if there are so many other programmes helping anyway, why do we need it? +Nick Brazil: I think that is a very good question, but I will go back to Ed's point, which I think was a very important point, which is that the initial vision for the Welsh bac—I think when we go back a number of years—was a really good, good vision for the Welsh bac. It was going to be an overarching qualification that developed these skills, and certainly employability skills, and I think it's lost its way since then. It's become a qualification and all the realms around becoming a qualification, and it's become very much focused on outcomes rather than necessarily skills. And that's what happens, unfortunately. But I think what Ed said is absolutely right: if you get the engagement of the employers—. But you've got to listen to what Kay said as well: there are programmes already out there. So, why are we focusing one way when there are already programmes that work extremely well? I will go to the enhanced programmes, enhanced engineering and programmes that we are running within our college and that I know run in other colleges, which are much, much more focused on skills, much more focused in linking with industry, and they work extremely well. The actual progress of learners into employment is happening. So, I think the question is: have we got programmes already in place, and do we need another one on top? But the vision initially for the Welsh bac, as I said, I will always be positive about. The vision was a good one. +Dafydd Evans: I'd like to expand on what Nick said. It's important for you to understand that although we always try and put the learner first, funding does drive behaviours, and the Welsh bac is fundable; Career Ready isn't. So, yes, there are options out there, but because we're so focused on qualifications and we will only fund qualifications, that drives certain behaviours, and I think you need as a committee to be very much aware of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but that was very useful information for us, because bearing in mind what Nick Brazil said—that the vision of this was created as almost something that could have the status of something like a Duke of Edinburgh award without necessarily being a compulsory qualification; what was important was that the learners got the skills. However, if getting the qualification is how you get the money, then you can see why schools—well, and indeed colleges—might be tempted to go for it. So, thank you for that. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Have you finished? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. What are your views on how well the Welsh bac, at all levels, helps to prepare learners for employment? We've spoken to quite a few learners, and again we've had variable opinions coming back, so it's quite how they, from their perspective—. +Dafydd Evans: I think that one of the problems is that there are a number of priorities. And one of the problems that we have is that we have a number of children coming in to the colleges, and they need to resit their GCSEs—in maths, English and Welsh. It's a valid priority for the Welsh Government for everyone to get a C grade in the core subjects. But that eats into the time that we have to teach young people. And so there's no room for everything in the curriculum somehow—no room in the funding or also in terms of the time and the capacity of the learner to be able to do that number of qualifications. So, the priorities, I think, across the sector—. We've given priority to GCSE resits rather than doing the Welsh bac at present. So, at levels 1 and 2, there are fewer and fewer doing 1 and 2 in the baccalaureate because they're resitting their GCSEs, and there is much more use of the Welsh bac at level 3, and A-level, and vocational level 3. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add to that? I think, again, there's a misconception. The Welsh bac is a combination of qualifications; it's not just one qualification—it's a combination. So, to develop the employability skills obviously is a key part, and developing the skills for employment is a key part. But when you are focused, if you are a learner, on developing or achieving certain qualifications to make up the Welsh bac—for example, resits, your main qualification, plus your work for the Welsh bac, which is the skills challenge certificate as well—that's a huge amount of work. And, obviously, when you're trying to achieve outcomes—and we all get funded on the outcomes—that becomes the priority, and sometimes then we lose the focus on the skills, which are ultimately what were supposed to be part of the development for employability. So, I think people lose the fact that the Welsh bac is a combination of things. And I think it was interesting, the comment that was made about the Duke of Edinburgh—I thought that's something that we need to think about. +Kay Martin: If I could just say as well, our job in the college is to develop skills and employable people, and we use every tool in our box to do that. And, as I said earlier, there are lots of things that we do. The Welsh bac, where it works really well, does help prepare them, I think, for employment, but it's not for everyone, because some people have to do the other things. Some people doing the equivalent of three A-levels, even in a vocational programme, it's too big for them. As you say, they're coming from schools, some of them with very few GCSEs, or they haven't got literacy and numeracy skills, they're being tested and many of them are below level 1 in terms of literacy and numeracy. So, I think it needs to be reviewed, to look at how we could make skilled and employable people. It helps prepare some people—the A-level students for university—but does it help my health and social care people become more skilled and employable? No, it doesn't. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And this, ultimately, has to be about what's in the best interests of learners, and a one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is there a difference in how the Welsh bac is valued by learners at the different levels that it is studied? ColegauCymru said that learners may have had a negative experience of the Welsh bac in previous study. +Dafydd Evans: That's been a new dimension lately, I think, in that, when the Welsh bac first hit FE, we were leading the way— +Kay Martin: Great advocates. +Dafydd Evans: —and great advocates. By now, of course, they're coming to us having been through a Welsh bac experience at school, and therefore many of the learners feel that there's repeating going on then—'Oh, we've done this at school already. Why are we doing it again at college?' So, I think that's a problem for us as well. +Kay Martin: Many have experienced a paper-based exercise rather than a real activity. So, at level 1 and level 2, it's not what we would call a crowd puller in colleges, but at level 3 it's more, especially for A-levels, because it can help them get into university, but even for the more able and talented—we were discussing this, weren't we? We have learners who do four A-levels, but they don't do the Welsh baccalaureate because they're part of the Seren network, and they are going to be applying for Oxbridge or high-level Russell Group universities. So, the Welsh bac, although it's technically universally adopted by universities, it isn't adopted by every admissions tutor in every university. So, to get into some areas, like dentistry, for example, and some of the other Seren-type activities, four A-levels is better. But in most colleges that have A-level students it's almost compulsory to do the Welsh bac as well, but normally that would be three A-levels and the Welsh bac—normally. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And then ColegauCymru say that, increasingly, the Welsh bac is not being offered at post-16 national and foundation level. So, are the different levels of the Welsh bac valued differently by further education professionals? +Nick Brazil: Yes. +Kay Martin: Yes. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Dr Rachel Bowen: Yes. +Ed Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I think we've got to bear in mind when the students come to us—certainly when they're level 1, level 2 learners—that a number of them have come from school and probably not done as well as they'd hoped at their GCSEs. Okay, they've come to us, they're trying to build themselves back up, build their skills back up, and adding another qualification on top, adding the Welsh bac on top, whether that's foundation or national, on top of what they have to do, which is a programme they've come and decided to do—think of the pressure that increases upon them. Plus the fact is that they are resitting; they're probably having to resit GCSE English and maths as well. That's a huge volume of work for a learner who's probably come from a low base to begin with and who hasn't achieved what they wanted to. The whole idea when we bring them in at that level is that we want to build their confidence, build them up and, hopefully, eventually they will go to the stage where maybe the Welsh bac will be beneficial to them, when they've potentially hopefully progressed to level 3. But I think it's questionable, certainly at national and foundation. And the important point that Dafydd raised was that there's a lot of repetition there in school, pre 16 to post 16 at those levels as well. So, learners don't come in banging at the door saying, 'We want to do the Welsh bac because it's exactly the same or very similar to what we did when we were in school.' They want to see some difference, they want to see some progress, and that's not necessarily the case in the foundation and national levels. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And we know that delivery in schools is of variable quality, so obviously that impacts on how learners have experienced it and perhaps how they view it when they get to FE college. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. A question, then, just to ColegauCymru: to what extent do you believe that universities in the main understand the value of the Welsh bac? +Kay Martin: Well, we don't think they do, really, especially the experience we have with some of our learners to go to Russell Group universities. They do allow sometimes that you can drop a grade. I talked earlier about my own daughter who was allowed to drop a grade in order to get into a Russell Group university because she had the Welsh bac as well, but it was a very paper-based exercise. But I think it is mixed, and it does depend on the admissions tutors and the areas that they're going into in universities. In some areas, and certainly the local universities around here—University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University—value it in a great number of subjects, particularly in sport, when our students go to Cardiff Met, and business studies, when our learners go to USW. It is valued by them and they accept it, but when people go further afield—and we're always trying to push our learners beyond. Where they can afford to go away to university, we encourage that. But some of the universities are not valuing the Welsh baccalaureate. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you have a supplementary, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You didn't mention Cardiff University there. +Kay Martin: Cardiff University—yes. My daughter's example—that was Cardiff University. So, they do, especially now it's graded at level 3. Then they do accept it. A great number of our learners get into Cardiff using the Welsh baccalaureate, but would their admissions tutors prefer four A-levels? Absolutely. +Nick Brazil: Could I jump in there? I've got to jump in there as, from the institution I'm in, we've had a long track record of getting learners into top universities. About 20 per cent of our learners go to Russell Group universities, and there is no doubt—in certainly 50 per cent of those, they do not value the Welsh bac. But if they do offer an option with the Welsh bac, they say it is on top of three A2-level grades. So, obviously, we've had that track record. I think the Seren programme that's been put in by the Welsh Government is looking to increase the numbers applying to top universities and top courses, but you look through the range, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects as well, across a number and range of universities, the Welsh bac is always added as the additional one. So, bear in mind, then, that Welsh students are fighting for places against Scottish, Northern Irish and, potentially, English students who are studying three subjects, whereas our Welsh students potentially could be doing three A2s, three A-level subjects plus the Welsh bac. And, as we talked about earlier on, the Welsh bac has evolved into quite a rigorous, you could say complicated, qualification, which puts added pressure on a learner in year 2 when they're trying to get possibly three A* grades. So, I think we need to consider that. In relation to the first answer, it is variable, and the admissions tutors throughout a lot of universities will make different decisions, and also make the decision dependent on whether it's a facilitating subject or an enabling subject, which the Russell Group report indicates about facilitating subjects, and Welsh bac at the moment is not a facilitating subject. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Maybe Dafydd can give us the picture from north Wales. +Dafydd Evans: I mentioned before coming in, in terms of the context—. Because of the nature of our catchment area, there is a greater percentage of our students staying in Welsh universities, and, as Kay said, Welsh universities are much more willing to recognise the bac. So, to a certain extent, it is less of a problem. But, naturally, we do have students who are looking to go out to universities in England in the Russell Group, and we're having the same experience there where there are differences between the policy that that university extols and what actually happens on the ground when students have interviews in those universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But in terms of Bangor and Glyndŵr University, there's no problem there, though. +Dafydd Evans: No, there is no problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Right, the next questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. I think you've already got into this bit of the discussion, but what are your views on how comparable the Welsh bac is to other qualifications? I don't know if you've got any more comments on that. +Dafydd Evans: Well, obviously, as we noted, it's become a very rigorous, very large qualification. Actually, it's probably larger than an A-level by now. And, therefore, regarding the rigour and so forth, that's absolutely fine, but I think one of the problems that you're hearing is that perhaps the Welsh bac is trying to be all things to all men. At one end of the spectrum it's trying to be a rigorous qualification that stands up to a Russell university's expectations, and on the other hand, it's trying to develop softer skills and employment skills for people going into work from a vocational area. Can the same product deliver those two outcomes? I'm certainly not sure, and perhaps we need to think: what are we trying to achieve with this qualification? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. +Kay Martin: Yes, and earlier, we talked as well about that difference for the A-level students. They know what it is. It's worth UCAS points. For the vocational students, some things like the Career Ready programme, which is used in other colleges, and WorldSkills, you know, where all colleges have really been pushing to get more learners into WorldSkills at national and international level. And for some of our learners, particularly if we take our engineering learners, then having somebody who has competed in Europe as a tiler or an electrician would, I think, make an employer think, 'I'd better look at this person', whereas the other one has done the Welsh bac—. I think they would look at the WorldSkills person first. And the investment we have to put into WorldSkills is huge. So, for some of our learners, we choose that you do WorldSkills, because that is going to be more valuable for you as a skill, and to show to an employer how much extra time you've put in. So, they put a lot of time—you know, to get somebody into a WorldSkills competition is not just a couple of hours a week, it isn't just the normal curriculum—they have extra time. They are more able and talented vocational learners, and that is more valuable to those learners and I think it's more valid for employers than the Welsh baccalaureate. +Nick Brazil: I think it's got to, extending on what Kay says—. It's got to be—. You know, it is comparable, as long as it's right for that learner's future. If it's right for the learner's future, absolutely it's comparable. But if a learner wants to go into a particular sector and the Welsh bac is not accepted, it's not comparable. But, then, if it is into a certain sector and the skills are being developed in the right manner for that sector, absolutely. But it's got to be right for the learner. +Julie Morgan AM: What are the reasons why some colleges do see it as being rigorous and others don't? Why does the view vary? +Ed Evans: Can I give perhaps an employer's perspective on that, which might be completely wrong, but it's been interesting listening to what's been said here? About a year ago, we bought the WJEC in to speak to our employers, or a number of them, just to explain to them what the Welsh bac was about—back to listening and about understanding, really, and it just was not there at all. I could see that most of the employers there were really impressed with it once they understood what it was about and they saw the opportunities at a whole host of levels. We've kind of gone into an university discussion here, but there are school leavers leaving at 16 or 18. The skills that they bring having gone through this process I think most of the employers could get, at least in my sector, they could understand—'I can see what that person can do.' But we've also seen it from university-educated people as well. They are a little bit too focused on the academic side of things. Those that bring a little bit of world experience, a little bit of the Welsh bac-type of things, just become far more rounded and useful people. I can understand why there's a certain obsession, almost, with the academic side of it, but I think we lose that vocational bit at our peril, and to a certain extent we probably haven't got it in many quarters anyway. So, for me, the Welsh bac helps to build that. Call it something else maybe, but that's what it should do. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And those skills that are learnt in the Welsh bac, can they be learnt in any of the other qualifications? Because I know that Cambridge university said to us they thought, in the four A-levels that they asked for, that those skills were there. +Kay Martin: It probably depends on the subjects that people are studying and the combination of subjects and the institution. Generally, in college, even if they're doing A-levels, they go out on some community projects or work-related education, without the Welsh bac—even if they're not doing that. So, it does depend on the subject, I think. +Dafydd Evans: I think there's a real danger of us perhaps becoming overly critical here as well of the Welsh bac in terms of—I don't think it's perfect by a long way, however, learners are getting some value out of that process. Certain learners in departments where they have really worked hard to contextualise the Welsh bac within the vocational area, within the A-level subjects that the learners are doing, are finding it very rewarding. So, there are some very positive things coming out there. I think what we're suggesting is there may be even better ways of doing it and better ways of explaining to people what it's about. +Nick Brazil: On this point about the skills being developed, I think that's debatable if all the skills that are supposed to be developed in the Welsh bac are being developed, and that's why I think there's a need to relook at it to make sure those skills are being developed fully. But I will go back to the point that I think a comparable qualification is comparable as long as it achieves the right outcome for that particular learner. If you force a learner to do something that is not necessarily going to achieve the outcome that they require in their future, is it the right thing to be doing for that learner? That's what my concern is. +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think the baccalaureate approach is best at producing independent, inquiry-based learners who have the skills to look to teachers not as sources of information but just for guidance. That whole sort of approach about creating inquisitive young people with the skills that we've discussed, that's a real positive. The chances are that we've lost some of that by trying to fit it into being a specific qualification. The approach is a positive one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, to both Rachel Bowen and Nick Brazil, if you don't mind. Both of you mentioned this is about skills and a piece of paper that demonstrates that you have these skills. At pre 16, would it be fair to say that there have been occasions when people have come presenting those pieces of paper but actually show none of the skills that they were supposed to have? The reason I'm asking this question, having had children who've gone through the process myself, is that in some schools, and I'm not saying all, doing the bac is something that everybody does in the last four weeks of term, and that undermines the whole idea of the bac anyway. It's just not fair on the learners or the people teaching the bac. Is that a fair observation? +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think it's perfectly possible for learners to reach FE college having attained the Welsh bac under the process that you've described, and without necessarily having gone through the holistic inquiry-based independent skills that we would want to see. +Nick Brazil: Yes, and at interview process or during an interview, or in the first week, you can see that they haven't developed those skills, and I think it is down to the variable models that have been put in place. There are lots of different models, and if you put, as I said, the model that you've described in place, there is no way, in that period of time, you're going to develop those skills. But that indicates, again, the value that people are putting on the qualification, if they are squeezing it into three or four weeks of term. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. It might be different post 16—I accept that. Okay. Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And obviously practice will differ across schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie, did you have any more questions? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I've finished, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now then, from Suzy, on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm wondering if I need to ask them, really, because I think I'm getting a strong sense that you all think that universal adoption is a bad idea at this moment in time. However, I do want to test something, because we have had witnesses who say that it would be a good idea because it reduces the amount of competition and advantage that certain institutions have. So, for example, we had an indication from the union representing Welsh-speaking teachers that if the baccalaureate was universally adopted, it would remove an artificial choice, basically, for learners, i.e. they were losing Welsh-speaking students who didn't want to do the bac to English-speaking institutions. So, I wonder if you could tell me how much the decision in your individual colleges not to offer bac is down to the opportunity that it presents you to attract students, particularly from sixth forms, where students may be obliged to do the bac. +Kay Martin: That is not the case, I would say. When a learner comes to us, we—. I'd like to think that all the staff in all the colleges do what is in the best interests of the learner. In some cases, it's to go back to school, and we absolutely say, 'You need to go back to school.' If somebody comes from a Welsh-medium school, then usually I will speak to the head and make sure that we have a programme in place, that either they're studying their programme bilingually or through the medium of Welsh, or that we make sure that they absolutely keep their Welsh language skills. We don't say, 'Come to us and you don't have to do the Welsh bac,' because if they do A-levels, we say it's compulsory, unless you're in the Seren group. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Well, that's the point; it's about English-speaking students, not just Welsh—. +Kay Martin: No, it isn't used. In the majority of colleges across Wales, it is absolutely not used as a recruitment tool, because most of us, as you see, we value the Welsh bac. We'd like some changes to the Welsh bac, but we value the Welsh bac in many cases. So, we wouldn't deliberately—. I mean, if a course in my college doesn't want to do the Welsh bac, they have to come and give me evidence about why they don't think it's fit and what they're going to do in place of it. So, we don't deliberately tell people, 'Come on in and you won't have to do it.' +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, can I run that across you all, in an outburst of honesty? +Dafydd Evans: Yes, absolutely. We universally adopt at level 3, but we don't at levels 1 and 2. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, for the reasons you've given in the evidence, actually. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, but across the whole of level 3, A-level and vocational, the Welsh bac is an integral part of the curriculum, and it isn't an option for the student to opt out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you let your Seren students opt out like they do in Cardiff and the Vale, or do they have to do it as well? +Dafydd Evans: We've forced—. No, sorry, 'forced' is not the word. [Laughter.] We have encouraged and persuaded everybody to do it. +Suzy Davies AM: So, that will be four A-levels plus bac. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I've got to be honest, at present, with our college, we do not ask. It's compulsory for A-level students to do the Welsh bac. It's an option of one of our choices—we have a large choice—and I think it comes back to that fact that we're just making the assumption all learners are getting all the correct advice and guidance from all the institutions. I think it's something we all need to consider across the nation, that all learners are getting the right advice and guidance for their future. I will go back to the point I made earlier—everything's comparable as long as it's the right thing for the learner's future, and I genuinely believe, and I'm sure a lot of colleagues believe, that that choice element is important to a learner, okay. If it is the right choice and if the Welsh bac is the right choice, that is correct, and we move that along. Obviously, we debated about where there are elements that need to change. But you've got to be doing the right things for the learner, and we are certainly not selling it, 'Come to us; you don't do the Welsh bac.' It is part of what we offer. It is part of what the college's curriculum offers—there is no doubt about that—and then people make a choice according to what they need to do to actually progress to what they need to do in their future. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I've just got one question for Mr Ed Evans, if that's okay. You explained earlier that if people knew what the bac was about in your sector, they'd value it more greatly, which I accept. Are you worried at all, though, that some of the more able and talented STEM students, in particular—who are needed in your sector, after all—might be deterred from doing those four A-levels because of the bac, because, presumably, you need a mix of these talents? You talked about the more able and talented vocational learners, but also you have more able and talented academic learners—presumably you need them all. +Ed Evans: We do. There's a big range, and some really high achievers coming into the sector as well. So, it is about that mix. I think the discussion that I've had with our employers has been around the academic side of things, if you like. The qualifications are well catered for. So, it's almost a given somebody's been through that route. What isn't there is some of those softer skills, but also some—. I was almost going to call commercial skills 'soft' there—. +Suzy Davies AM: Call them 'commercial'. +Ed Evans: Commercial skills are hard skills, which are very, very difficult to come by. So, the Welsh bac starts to do some of those things at different levels. Again, I'll come back to the input of businesses to support that delivery of commercial skills and so on, but I think I probably made that point earlier. So, I don't think it is a case of squeezing things out. There's clearly going to be different individuals who will cope better, and they will be, I guess, maybe guided as well by parents to a certain degree in terms of, 'You do those four and forget about that nonsense there', which is not helpful, but I can understand why that happens. So, for me, now, it's not a case of squeezing—. This should be seen as an important part of creating a rounded individual ready for employment. I guess that's what a lot of our employers saw the Welsh bac as being able to do. Whether that's a shared view is another matter. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add something to that? I think Ed's just said about the softer skills. Do the softer skills have to be developed through qualification? I think Kay mentioned a programme earlier on within her college. We run programmes as well. They're not qualifications, but they offer the opportunity to develop those softer skills. So, I think we're all in agreement about the development of the skills, but does it need to be through a qualification? +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've said that you make the decision in the best interests of the learner. Are you aware, then, of any young people who are coming to you from the Swansea area because they've got that flexibility, which they may not have in one of the local schools? +Nick Brazil: As I said, in terms of our offer, we offer a range in the curriculum. We're not going out there saying, 'Come to us for this particular reason.' +Lynne Neagle AM: No, but does anybody come to you and say, 'Well, actually, I've really come here because I don't have to do the Welsh bac'? +Nick Brazil: The honest answer is it's one of the first questions that people always ask. But, as I've said, as a parent, I've been to open evenings and other open evenings. It's generally a question that people ask, 'Do I have to do the Welsh bac?' It does come across not just in our open evenings, but in other open evenings that I've been to. It is always a question that people ask me. They do want to know that, and it's usually, as I said, one of the first questions that they ask. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that the parents asking the question or the pupil? +Nick Brazil: It's a combination. But, honest answer, I would say parents, a lot of the time, but the learners usually—as I said—have sometimes had not the best experience pre 16 and that's why they ask the question straight away. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I suggest that maybe, then, the perception that parents have is steering the way rather than the actual benefits for the pupil in your institution? If you're telling them, 'Come to us, you don't have to actually do it because we know you don't like it', is that the correct way of approaching education? +Nick Brazil: No. Education is about offering the range and offering it correctly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm being devil's advocate. +Nick Brazil: Yes, I know, I totally understand, but it's about offering the full range of qualification opportunities for learners. If you don't offer the full range, which, sometimes—if you, obviously, limit and you make qualifications compulsory, that can limit the choice of opportunities as well. So, I think what parents and learners are looking for is for the range of options. There are some places in, I would think, some sixth forms now, where certain qualifications may not be offered now because of the need to pick up an extra—Welsh bac. So, for example, modern foreign languages is reducing quite dramatically in Wales, and, I think, I picked up today a few schools had been saying that one of the reasons is, 'We have to put our focus on the Welsh bac to ensure that is achieved rather than giving the opportunity to do the modern foreign language.' +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it could be a short-sighted view because what some young people tell us is that at the time—and parents—they didn't really appreciate what skills they were actually learning, and by the time they'd got into employment, that working as a team, the communication skills, they thought, 'Ah, we did—. I know what this is about', and it all makes sense at that point. So, to try and, sort of, discourage it at a younger age may be doing them a disservice in the long run. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we'll move on now then to—. +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's a question. +Lynne Neagle AM: You do want an answer. Anybody want to pick that up? +Dafydd Evans: We certainly have experience of that, of young people coming in with quite a negative attitude, originally, to the Welsh bac and taking it on board. But where we are delivering it well, well contextualised, they've really enjoyed the experience, and very much valued the experience. So, yes, there are certainly instances of that happening, there's no doubt. +Ed Evans: We certainly see it, as employers. The penny drops after a few weeks or months. +Dafydd Evans: But don't underestimate the fact that if you had a poor experience of the Welsh bac at school, that perception is very difficult for us, as institutions, then, to change. Very difficult. +Dr Rachel Bowen: It does make it into quite an intensive selling process for colleges when they've got to overcome that negative perception. As people have said already, it is possible to talk parents and learners round, but then that's time spent having to do that selling job when we should be talking about other things. +Kay Martin: Can I just mention as well that there's a bigger job in helping parents to understand that the only qualifications in the world are not A-levels? Perhaps you might want to do an engineering BTEC programme, or you might want to do a health and social care, or you might want to do hospitality. You might want to do BTEC programmes, you can still go to university if that's what you want to do, or you can go into an apprenticeship afterwards, and selling that whole range to parents, because there is an overemphasis, by us all, on A-levels—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A lot of this has been covered, actually, but just on those final points there, I'm wondering whether you think that introducing a specialist teacher-training qualification to deliver the Welsh bac would actually help in some way in improving its status and perception and so on. What do you think about that? +Dafydd Evans: I'm not assured in terms of—yes, training is required regarding the Welsh bac, but where we are seeing it more successfully is where vocational lecturers have actually taken it on board. When we were bringing lecturers from outside—'Welsh bac specialists' in inverted commas—it was not working well. It has started to work well when our sports lecturers have taken the Welsh bac on board and have put it in the context of the sports curriculum. Therefore, no, I think that if it's going to be a success, it's got to be contextualised, and for the vocational lecturers to do that, and we've invested heavily in training those vocational lecturers to understand how to deliver the Welsh bac and get positive outcomes of the Welsh bac—. It's been an intensive staff development process. +Nick Brazil: And I think you've got to bear in mind that the number of the skills and the number of challenges that are done within the Welsh bac are done very similarly within the vocational qualification as well. So, a number of those staff have already got those skills and they're undertaking that. I suppose when it comes to the word 'credibility' used in terms of the qualification, yes, I'm sure it would raise that focus on it, but ultimately, it's taking away from the fact that we have got staff who've got those skills and they're developing them within other elements of the vocational qualifications they're doing. Something we were talking about earlier on is the fact is that, sometimes, that work is being repeated twice, because of the nature of the qualification. +Dawn Bowden AM: And have you got dedicated time? Because one of the things we picked up from schools was that teachers in particular were kind of fitting it in with other lessons, and therefore, it wasn't being, again, given the same perceived level of importance as doing A-levels were. But your lecturers would all have dedicated time to deliver— +Kay Martin: On their timetables, yes. And as you say, industry specialists delivering some of those things put them more into context. +Ed Evans: I was just going to add there, really, if you want to raise the profile amongst parents in particular, if you've got that far clearer link between businesses coming in to deliver this—. Apologies, I'd almost forgotten that we were in the Colegau thing, I was thinking 'schools' actually [Laughter.] But in terms of bringing those businesses into schools in a structured way, not an ad-hoc way, which is just a friend turning up to talk about something, a structured way—. We have a programme under way at the moment called 'contextualising the curriculum' in the sector that we hope to roll out. Now, if that was rolled out across the board—I'm not saying that it makes it easier for teachers in particular, but they are going to struggle to deliver some of these commercial and world-skilled, global areas, because it's not their bag. So, bring in some experts, bring in some business, raise the profile, and I think then, possibly, you'll start to get parents thinking, 'Actually, there is something more to this than just the academic bit.' +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I think all my other points have been answered, Chair. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Can I just ask—? You've all got slightly different policies; they don't have to do it in Swansea, in Cardiff and the Vale, they do unless they're in the Seren network, and in your college, everybody does it, even if they're doing four A-levels. Do you think that's a satisfactory situation, and are you satisfied with the communication and the guidance and the steer that everyone's getting from Welsh Government on this? Because we're meant to have a policy of universal adoption, but that doesn't really seem to be happening on the ground. +Kay Martin: And I think, if you'd asked us a few years ago, we were all heading for universal adoption, but because the Welsh bac has changed into something that isn't 100 per cent what we think it should be, then we've stopped the universal adoption, if you like. So, we are trying to do what's in the best interests of the learner, but I think, as you said, we've mentioned some other programmes, and if we could look at—. We've got industry experts in colleges. We've got industry experts that are brought into colleges as well, some more than others, to bring that to life, if you like. We've got mentorship programmes, we send people out, and we just need to incorporate that better. We need to spend less time in checking what they've done on assessment and more time in the doing, and the experiential learning that they need to do, rather than it being too much of a paper exercise. By the time you've done all the paperwork you haven't got time to do any of the learning. +Nick Brazil: I think, just to support Kay, we're going to need to go back to the original vision of the Welsh bac, which all of us would buy into 100 per cent. I think that has been lost as the qualification's developed over time, and, ultimately, I think all of us would like to see it go back to that to provide those skills that Ed has brought up and everything. I think we all support that. But is it quite right? I'm not sure at the moment. +Dafydd Evans: I'll agree. We visited Spain recently, and there they have an entrepreneurship and enterprise unit that is mandatory for everybody, but it appeared to be far more fit for purpose than the Welsh bac is currently. Therefore, I think what we're saying is, if we're going universal adoption, it can't be with this product. This product isn't the product to universally adopt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering our questions? It's been a very informative and interesting discussion. We will, as usual, send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your time this morning. Okay, item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, paper to note 2 is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales on home education, and paper to note 3 is the letter that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has sent to us in reply to our letter about free school meals. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Yes. +","In a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee chaired by Lynne Neagle AM, the status of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification was scrutinized in an evidence session. The panel consisted of educational representatives and an employer with a diversity of views toward the qualification. Dafydd Evans, chair of ColegauCymru and CEO of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, Kay Martin, principal of Cardiff and Vale College, Nick Brazil, deputy principal at Gower College Swansea, Dr. Rachel Bowen, director of policy and development at ColegauCymru, and Ed Evans, director and secretary of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association were in attendance. + +There was a consensus that employers, parents, and young people have a limited understanding of what the Welsh Baccalaureate (Welsh bac) involves, posing a significant issue. Dafydd Evans emphasized that employers were generally unclear about the qualification's content and value. Dr. Bowen noted that larger employers may be more informed, but the majority of small or microbusinesses, which are prevalent in Wales, struggle with this understanding due to their focus on day-to-day business operations. + +Nick Brazil pointed out the lack of employer demand for the Welsh bac, arguing that it has become a bureaucratic and demanding qualification, deterring both educators and employers. Kay Martin echoed this sentiment, explaining that employers seek specific qualifications with literacy, numeracy, and digital skills, which the Welsh bac may not comprehensively cover. Ed Evans brought a different perspective, stating that if employers understood the Welsh bac, they would see its value, particularly for pupils coming from a less academically focused background. + +Sian Gwenllian AM pursued inquiries about how to improve employer understanding of the Welsh bac and its worth if deemed valuable. Dafydd Evans suggested that a review of the qualification with employer involvement could shift the focus more toward employability and entrepreneurial skills. Multiple panelists supported the idea that increased and structured employer engagement could lead to the qualification's better alignment with industry needs and expectations. + +The discussion also covered the variable valuing of the Welsh bac at different education levels, with higher tendency for adoption at the A-level and vocational level 3 over levels 1 and 2. There was acknowledgment that the Welsh bac's vision, aiming to be a rigorous and skills-oriented qualification, may have been somewhat derailed by its focus on outcomes over the development of practical employability skills. + +Universities' recognition of the Welsh bac was identified as inconsistent, with Welsh institutions generally more accepting, whereas universities outside Wales, particularly within the Russell Group, often do not equate the Welsh bac with A-levels when considering admissions. + +The session concluded with a private discussion among the committee members. Overall, the panel outlined the complexity of the Welsh bac in the context of employment readiness, emphasizing the need for reform and deeper industry engagement to ensure the qualification fulfills its intended purpose of preparing learners for the future workforce." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just forgot their name , so uh you're i sorry , I just forgot them all . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to write it down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fine . +Project Manager: Do you know them or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The names ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: For for for my sur um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Jens . +Project Manager: Yeah , no , but your b your surname . +Marketing: Uh Damman . D_ A_ W_ . +Project Manager: W_O_ da . Okay . +Marketing: Uh uh M_ M_ . I mean M_ . Double M_ . +Project Manager: Okay . And what's your name ? +User Interface: Paul Wiezer . Paul Wiezer . +Project Manager: W_I_E_S_ z Z_ or S_ ? +User Interface: A_ E_ Z_ zee zee +Project Manager: Uh uh zee {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: E_ R_ . +Project Manager: What's your name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh Martijn . +Project Manager: Yeah , but your surname . {vocalsound} Your surname . +Industrial Designer: What ? Uh Abbing . A_ B_ B_ I_ N_ G_ . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I was a little short on time , +Project Manager: Yeah , me too , so that's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , same here . +Project Manager: No no no , I just fi first my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Uh let's see . Which one was mine ? +Project Manager: So let's have a look , we have forty minutes , so it's it's more than enough . {gap} Okay , perfect . So we have {disfmarker} Oh no , what's that ? So so we have uh forty minutes for this uh for this second meeting , and we have to make uh sure that we going t that we are sure , that we are , +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: that we know what we're going to make uh th what the product is going to like {disfmarker} look like . Uh first I have the notes of the last meeting , so I showed uh show them to you . Oh , sorry about that , I just escape this one . How do I escape this ? How do I I escape this s uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Uh left . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: And show , sorry . Okay , so let's have a look s at this one . Okay , so the f the f the points we had last meeting was the um {disfmarker} Should be a univ uh universal remote control {disfmarker} No , that's {disfmarker} I uh s I just got a email from the from the personal coach and it should be a T_V_ remote control only . So have you changed that part ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} yeah , it still has to be uh f a r a remote control for kids and elderly . It's it's still the same . Um {disfmarker} All these points uh we have to look at . You all know them . But uh there's another point . The um uh the main uh people of interest of this company are forty plus people . So they're old and not younger people . So we have to look at that as well . 'Specially old people , maybe bi bigger buttons or something , I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Uh so {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} yeah , that's it , so just you can do your presentation for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which one first ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh it doesn't matter , just start with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Functional requirements , yeah +Marketing: Okay . Well my name is Jens Damman , but we're in a group , and I I will start it . Wait . Um I've used a marketing report on uh the site . Uh I think you've uh read it too . Uh and uh f and furthermore I uh surfed the o the other site . +Project Manager: I I didn't read i read it , so it's not for me , +Marketing: You didn't read it ? +Project Manager: I didn't get it uh anyway . +User Interface: No , I didn don't thing we got it . +Project Manager: It's only for you . +Marketing: Oh okay , I I was the only one who get it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay it was uh uh uh um um {vocalsound} a report about uh an experiment with uh a lot of users . And uh they had a lot of findings in their report uh with statistical uh uh uh thing uh with statistical uh proof . So I um I had three pages with findings and sev a lot of uh a lot of findings . So we can use this uh to uh create our own remote control . Uh seventy five percent of the users find uh most remote controls ugly . Yeah , I think uh uh that's a lot , so we have to make a beautiful remote control . Uh eighty percent of users would spend when uh a remote control will l uh look fancy . I think this fits uh at the {vocalsound} uh what what uh Michael said about uh older people . Older people will uh spend more money uh for uh something uh uh what's good . Because younger people are more critical uh about uh uh where they spend their money money at . Uh seventy five percent uh seventy five percent of the users say they zap a lot . Well okay , that's uh normal . I think uh we we have to make uh good zap buttons . But that's one of our requirements . +Project Manager: The last point is quite an interesting {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Um Martijn alr already said it . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: And uh maybe our uh fold open system is is a good one , but {disfmarker} I don't think it's uh +Project Manager: Yeah , we should have the ten percent on the on the top , +Marketing: reachable . +Project Manager: then you're you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , the ten percent on the top , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that's a good one . Um uh page two . Remote controls are often lost somewhere in the room . That's exactly what we said about um maybe a home station for uh for it uh to uh recharge the batteries or something . Uh I thought mo maybe we could make a clap system , so when you {vocalsound} clap your hands it will beep or something . Uh you must find it uh quickly . +User Interface: Uh . Maybe just a button on the home station . So remote control beeps when you click that button on the home station . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . Yeah , we can uh combine that . Uh it takes too much time to learn how to use a r new remote control . Uh I think we must t uh take a look at this . It's only uh th thirty four of the {vocalsound} thirty four percent . But it's uh a tough one . Because if we make a ha whole new product , our own style , we we c uh this is so difficult , uh a difficulty I think . Uh next , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . Yeah , but only if they zap a lot , and they watch over five hours T_V_ or something . I don't {disfmarker} We we haven't {disfmarker} Uh we mustn't look too much at uh the last point . Okay , last page . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the last uh experiment uh was about gadgets , like uh speech recognition . We didn't uh think about that already . And uh an L_C_D_ on the remote control . We already thought about that . Um uh they finally had a conclusion that younger people um uh under an age of f forty five are uh more interested in new features . And but they're more critical . And older people uh want to spend uh more money . {vocalsound} But uh they uh they don't want to uh have a lot of uh new features , because they're in their old uh thinking way . And they want to keep the old uh things the old things . {gap} +Project Manager: So we have uh a new uh age of forty plus . +Marketing: But y But you but you already said that the uh company was about uh forty plus uh clients ? +Project Manager: People . So yeah , so we just can skip the L_C_D_ r on the remote control , +Marketing: I I think we can speak , uh we can skip speech recognition uh directly , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because it's not reachable for twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: It's too {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um then {disfmarker} I have my personal uh preference . Okay , that's {vocalsound} not very good , because I thought about television , D_V_D_ player , stereo and V_C_R_ . I had a question about . But it's already out of the question , this . Um my point is , well , I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If we ma uh make a a remote uh control for only television , I think it's hard to uh sell it for twenty five Euros . But it's the exercise . +Project Manager: Because it's too expensive . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: Yeah , only only for television uh {disfmarker} On the market you can now buy for twenty Euros a remote control for everything . And we only make it for television , so we mi mm we m must made it make it uh very special . +User Interface: Yeah , but good usability , so you can use it . +Marketing: Okay , I told about the home station . Uh it must be simple , because uh our the the elderly people uh needs to use it . And I I found a motto . And we put the fashion in electronics . And that's uh the motto we are uh referenced to uh for our uh our style . We we have to make a {vocalsound} a new product . We have to be um {disfmarker} Yeah . One of a kind , I think . +Project Manager: So it has to look uh uh uh unique , +User Interface: Unique . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The company is about our uh th th their own fashion , their own style . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But old people are not looking for that . +User Interface: Uh I think mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not really . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think the main thing is the usability , that's where we can uh make it a special product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: to k to keep it simple when you {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh we also have to stand out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sorry I thought about it , yes . +User Interface: 'cause there are already , like you said , so many controls out that support lot of stuff . But we have to make sure that we're better usability , and stand out by just looks of it . So make it just a different colour or different shape , +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , this was uh my presentation . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Paul , you can do the next one if you want . +Marketing: You can ask some questions or something . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah well {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: It's on the on the uh net net uh thing , +User Interface: There it is . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: Okay . Technical functions design . Okay , well , so we have s mm uh broad audience . Isn't {disfmarker} that isn't true anymore . But um we have elderly people , so we need to keep it simple . Uh the way I want to keep it simple is to use the sen uh standard . So standardised uh methods like uh on all uh remote controls . Not too full , like uh Jens already said , only ten percent is being used . +Project Manager: So what do you think of only the numbers and the on-off button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I have it on the next page . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But yes uh basic functions like numbers and that sort of stuff . Um so the options that we put on there should be easy to use , and 'cause you have more room then , and for elderly people big buttons . Uh an icon on it or text on it , so it's very clear what that buttons does . So it doesn't take much time to figure out uh how to use it . Um a way to find out uh what people use is maybe just to use uh questionnaires on the internet or just ask some random people , elderly people what they use , what they want on a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to find out . But there is already in a one done . Of functions I could think of . Uh volume , channels , the the basic according to {gap} . Just one two three etcetera . Uh text service options . Um basic on-off . And I found an uh {disfmarker} Could I think of favourites ? I always look up the same um pages on text and always have to click the number . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But if you could make a new option , that you just have to press one button and you get on your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but then you have to remember what favourite is what channel . So you might as well remember the number . Or not ? +Project Manager: Maybe i maybe it's too complicated , +User Interface: No y +Project Manager: but not sure {gap} . +User Interface: Well +Project Manager: It's a good idea , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} It was just a thought . So I'm , I u {disfmarker} I would find it handy , I think , when you just press one button and you get on six six six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . But um how can you remember what uh channel uh connects to what favourite button ? +User Interface: Well uh +Project Manager: Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: what I was reading on the page . Uh a remote control just sends commands , basics commands to uh the television . So switch to channel six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: So uh button six says says six . And if you make favourites , it can say six six six in a row . Just numbers . That can be in the in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But uh uh for a user to to remember , if I press that button it goes to that channel . +User Interface: Well if you said a favourite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but isn't it hard to remember ? Like favourite one and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mayb for me it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well i +Project Manager: If I use my telephone , I never use those buttons to to to call sh Never . +User Interface: Never ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , neither do I . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh are you ? +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay now , m maybe not . +Project Manager: If I don't do it , maybe old people {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , maybe elderly people uh . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: They don't like new features . So maybe not . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um well play , pause . I dunno if that's usable +Project Manager: It's not , it's still not {disfmarker} It's not anymore n uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: when {disfmarker} Not anymore for T_V_ . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Right , on off . {vocalsound} I dunno , miss {disfmarker} Did I miss any other buttons , basic buttons ? I couldn't think of any other , 'specially not for T_V_ . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just on the front as well . No , that's the only th the only thing you need . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh the p uh next and previous . Previous I know , but next channel ? +User Interface: Just the channel um uh {disfmarker} What I mean is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't thi +Marketing: Forward . +Industrial Designer: Li like a web browser , +User Interface: Six seven eight or five . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Just very simple . +Industrial Designer: But uh um there's also a button to uh go to the channel you've been before . Like a web browser back button . +User Interface: Um I dunno . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +User Interface: I don't have {disfmarker} Uh I did {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know what it is , but I think it's all too difficult for old people . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: No . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't think you use that . Y only when you want to go to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , just use uh when you wanna switch between channels all the time . +Project Manager: And how do you want to uh do it , like if you have a channel above ten ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Normally you can press one , zero or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think um f Especially for older peo elderly people use standard buttons . So you have that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A ten plus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the ten plus button . Just uh one one pressing , or quickly after each other . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: To just keep it simple and standard uh features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w wouldn't it be a problem to uh {disfmarker} Because you h have to be fast enough . Maybe the elderly people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah mayb +Marketing: It gets some seconds . +User Interface: But I think that's in the T_V_ as well . That's how the uh the T_V_ T_V_ handles it . But you can have a button that says um two two st two stripes . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's no it's not a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have uh like a five seconds period to press those two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but that's th mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's what Paul says . It's not a remote control uh uh that um uh makes the T_V_ um do one two . It's the T_V_ who depends that it must be two seconds or three seconds or one second that you must uh type one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So if you have a universal T_V_ controller , you needed one button that has two uh stripes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have a a period of , I dunno , five seconds to press those buttons , and that {disfmarker} And not for elderly people to look , one two uh press and aim and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: But do we still need a two level remote control ? Because if we only have that l only f +Marketing: It's only for television now . +User Interface: So I I don't think so . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Uh I just thought of another one . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Most things in modern T_V_s are also on the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you also need a menu button . And then uh navigation uh {disfmarker} But we can integrate that with volume and previous and next , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so you have +Industrial Designer: I I think you ha really have to divide between functions you often use , like um uh m maybe uh switch channels and uh volume and k that kind of things , and uh the menu button . +User Interface: four arrows . +Industrial Designer: Because you n almost never use menu button . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it's still still a good idea , I'm not sure . You'll also have to use a mute button to to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , a mute button . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Don't think so . +Project Manager: I don't know where where you have to put it . +User Interface: Yeah well , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's that's {disfmarker} I think that's the layers that produce . Now I have to figure out what's uh what to put on . What we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: And later we can d uh do the design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , uh now my personal preferences . Uh using the standards , basic {disfmarker} Um I think that we should stand out uh unique , being unique with the design . So we have to , I dunno , uh make a different shape than usual . So when you are in the shop and you see our T_V_ controller hanging , that it stands out . Not just in in the row when you see all the same uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Yeah . Does it have to be {disfmarker} Uh it has to be uh with different colours +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I dunno . Different colours um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can give it out in different colours . You can choose blue or yellow +Project Manager: It's like a iMac or something . +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just to make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Well why not ? Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's fa That's fancy . That's uh fashion . +Project Manager: But it looks cheap as well , because it's a small thing . It's only twenty five Euros . It looks very cheap if you make it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , maybe you can look at uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Oh , you just {disfmarker} I dunno what happened . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Who ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to look at mobile phones , that's right . Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they're uh designed very well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And well basically are the same , just a bit smaller . You think you can't make a T_V_ controller too small , 'cause then you will always lo always lose it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh well , I think that's a good example . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: we hurry up a bit , because otherwise we won't make it . +User Interface: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: Is it fin Are you finished ? +User Interface: Well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I I'm finished . I think we discussed everything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , the working design . The method I used is uh search the web . Just the web page provided . Um {disfmarker} Basically I'm I'm not very technical uh uh educated , but uh I could figure it out . Um basically what happens is you press a button , uh then a circuit gets closed by pressing the button , uh like a switch . And by closing that certain circuit , the chip knows uh what bu button is pressed . So like you press a one , that circuit is closed and uh {disfmarker} Then the chip produces a pattern . Like a Morse code to uh {disfmarker} And and sends that to the uh L_E_D_ . That's the uh light emitting diode , I think . Um and the light emitting diode is uh producing infrared light . That's un uh invisible to the human eye . And uh transmit that uh to the T_V_ . However it has also an uh a visible uh diode that's uh blinking red if you look in it . And that's uh another diode , I believe . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because infrared is not visible . So that's er uh do two different things +Project Manager: So we we also have to have a LED li LED light on it ? +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Yeah . I I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh j Is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I'm not sure if it's the same thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's usable . +User Interface: Ain't it just to to indicate that it's transmitting ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's active . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just a green one , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} If you use it , it's green or the red , it's r green . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I think it's in the case that it's active . It's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , when you press it . +Project Manager: But if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I it's it's just uh the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red's l shows up like something's wrong , +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: and green is like it's okay , you press the button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: Maybe depends on uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ma on on most on most uh uh remote controls it's red . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we make it red . +User Interface: But maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: we don't have to make it red . Maybe integrate it in the design as well . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} The whole the whole uh remote control becomes uh green if you press the buttons . Uh that's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I think uh the batteries will be uh {vocalsound} a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Oh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Empty . +User Interface: maybe it's it is would an e No . Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we have a recharger in it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: If we can still make that then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't have to be red . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just to indicate something's on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That it's working . That it's not not the batteries are low . +Project Manager: But it's cool if it was green . +User Interface: Yeah . It's it's not very important , +Project Manager: Green or red or whatever , it is cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know . Just to indicate it's working . +User Interface: So mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh the receptor in the T_V_ senses the pattern . So we have to understand what patterns are used to , you know , to make it universal . So that it can be used with all the T_V_s . We have to really understand what patterns are used , so we can uh o On the {disfmarker} Otherwise it won't work . +User Interface: So we have to uh make buttons for that as well , to make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . I I uh {disfmarker} The chip um uh is producing the pattern . So we have to make a chip that produces patterns to , y you know , to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An automatically search function for each television , or something . +Industrial Designer: That are working . Yeah , or {disfmarker} I dunno how it's uh exactly how it works . It wasn't explained there . +User Interface: Well , I I use a universal uh remote control , +Marketing: Uh I kno +User Interface: and {gap} list of all the T_V_s you have , etcetera . And you have to put in a number , so it works on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . +Marketing: Oh , I have a modern one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And the modern one you you uh you type uh search , and the LED began to blink blink blink . And uh uh uh after uh a short time the television turns off . And then you know , oh it it's the right one . And you can stop it , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: and then it's okay . So you don't have to search for your television or your code . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It uh search uh the pattern for itself . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: so we use that . +Industrial Designer: So it uh {disfmarker} We have to make a a s a bit more intelligent chip than the standard one . Because you have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I just say {disfmarker} Can you s just say it again , because I was just looking {disfmarker} There's just a short {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . Well uh y you have this chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh when the circuit is closed , it produces the pattern . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh ma basically for uh brands of T_V_ these patterns are different . So like when you press a one on one T_V_ it go go to one . And on the other T_V_ it won't work , basically . So uh basically what you have to do is uh get these patterns right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh by d uh that can be done by uh just uh cha yeah , changing this pattern all the time . +Marketing: Changing the signal . +Industrial Designer: And um {disfmarker} What he's doing when he's configuring this pattern , this chip , uh is trying to switch off the television . And when it's uh switched off , you can push a button as uh it's working now , so {disfmarker} And then he saves that setting +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then um it's working . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the right uh option . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well uh the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a bit technical , and I hadn't {disfmarker} I w I was a little short on time . Um but I think I understand it . Um the energy source is uh the battery , basically . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um that's connecting to all the components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because it has to be fed with energy . Okay . Uh the subcomponent is uh w I I think it is uh the button pressed . So basically when you press a button , a switch get closed . Um that's connecting to a chip . So the chip knows what button you pressed . And the chip sends out uh the pattern to the infrared bulb . I didn didn't put the description by this one . Th this is a normal bulb . So the normal flashing light . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's the LED , L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and this is a LED too . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But this one is producing infrared light +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: that's invisible . And this one is producing normal light . +Project Manager: So we can make the normal one also a normal light . Not a LED light , but as a normal one . To flash up your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if you if you use the buttons , uh both of them works . But one you can't see and one indicates that you use a button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , presu Yeah yeah yeah . Because uh when you button press a button and it doesn't work , it can {disfmarker} Basically if the battery is low , it won't work . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe you have to uh put uh a small light around the button you push . So you see green if you push that button . +Industrial Designer: Huh , that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm I think it's unnecessary power uh you use then . +Project Manager: Yeah , but if you u if you do that , you know that you're uh sending a signal . +User Interface: No , y Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} you also know which button you p +Marketing: But then have to be on the in the all uh remote control have to be LEDs . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Everywhere in the r +Project Manager: But does it make any difference for the energy you use ? You got still one LED . +User Interface: No I don't think so , but {disfmarker} Yeah , i it it will look different , and I think we need to find something else . +Project Manager: That looks different , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise we will just make another standard , and our uh motto also is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is LEDs uh beneath the the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah , w around the buttons , or in the buttons even . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but mm like when you push it +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , then then won't {disfmarker} Then you won't see it . +Industrial Designer: n n Yeah . You have your finger over the button . So you can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: It must be around it then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or m maybe on top of the {disfmarker} A green light is flashing +Marketing: Yeah , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Not not not not here , but here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . There . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The same as a telephone , or a mobile phone , or what do you mean ? +User Interface: {gap} Yeah , we're thinking about it . +Project Manager: If you push {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh on a mobile phone , in the dark uh +Project Manager: It lights up . Everything lights up . That's a good idea . +User Interface: everything lights up . Why ain't that on a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It it only takes a l a little energy and it's not that much . +User Interface: Yeah , if uh a mobile phone a phone can do it , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's a good idea for old people as well . +User Interface: Yeah , i if you're in the dark , you can't see the remote . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's only few LEDs . Only four or something . Four LED . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , I dunno . But if we use a battery station , which I think we will use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea , okay . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We'll have enough power +Project Manager: Everything agre +Industrial Designer: to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Everyone agrees with that , or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Maybe what Paul said , uh under the {disfmarker} on the on the home station , uh a button to uh to call your uh remote control , that it beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then you {disfmarker} Okay , yeah . But you have to make a sound device in it then . +User Interface: And also it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , there must be sound in it . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , it shouldn't take much {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . B maybe it's that that's a little too hard to make . Especially for that kind of money . Because it's i it has to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh , twenty five Euros , I think we can make it . +User Interface: Uh I th +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Production cost is uh t uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: Bec Twelve and a half , okay . But but we only have to make it for television , and um we must have something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: I think uh you also have uh {vocalsound} remote controls with a lot of options . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we lose about ninety percent of those options . So I think you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . We have to give our customers some extras . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we will save money with that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Are you almost finished or just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the personal preference , I didn't fill it out . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because I was short on time . +Project Manager: No worry . +Industrial Designer: But um {disfmarker} Basically what we could do too is uh have a Bluetooth uh integration . +Project Manager: Yeah , I just want to talk some {disfmarker} about some more . So maybe you have to {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . Wh what's that ? So uh {disfmarker} Oh , sorry . We have some new uh project requirements . We have to have a look what they are . They're still in um {disfmarker} Uh teletext has become outdated since the popularity of internet . So a teletext option , maybe we have to skip that one . I'm not sure . I don't think so , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I I think a lot of people use uh teletext , still use . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's it's on your comp it's on your television . It's only one button . So I don't think it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: We definitely should use it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh what I told you . The remote control should only be used for a television . So that's maybe easier . And um the the forty plus people , I already told you . Oh no , sorry . Oh , this is a problem . Oh sorry about that . The new product should reach a new market with customers are the younger than forty . So it should be flashy or just more interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Mm . +User Interface: Okay , that's {disfmarker} It changes things . +Project Manager: I'm sorry about that . I just I just didn't read it well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So does it make some decision about that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Changes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That kinda changes the whole situation . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well yeah , then we have to make some nice features . I think uh the thing in the dark is a good way , +Project Manager: That still stays . +User Interface: to make it more like a mobile phone . More modern . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That's important I think and {disfmarker} +Marketing: L_C_D_ doesn't work for uh twelve and a half Euros I think . +User Interface: And I d I don't don't think it's very usable in a remote control , especially when you only have T_V_ functions on it . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm ah {disfmarker} I I don't y you'll use it often , because you can see on the television wh what channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I'm watching uh the channel one . Okay . {vocalsound} No , it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I tho I think that's not usable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: So , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . What other features can we put in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think you you have to make it a bit flashy and and popular . And uh then the usability is not that required , because the {disfmarker} Like in the mobile phones , usability is not that good I think . +Marketing: But uh some of you had uh something to read about um {vocalsound} uh speech uh recognition . About you said one and the television turns on one . Is that reachable maybe ? +Industrial Designer: I didn't read {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's very {disfmarker} That's fancy . That's cool . +User Interface: It's very fashion . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read any +Marketing: Twelve and you've got twelve . +Industrial Designer: b Yeah . Yeah okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I know . +Marketing: Only the numbers , only numbers . Uh furthermore nothing . But only the numbers , one to twenty or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That should be cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe we have to integrate that as well . If it's possible . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it's possible , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive actually . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: I dunno . I didn't read it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Why should it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh if i if i +Project Manager: You only have a microphone in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't have information about that . +Industrial Designer: But it has to work . And and and does it have to work only in English , or in Dutch too or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah that's a problem , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And and uh w Yeah ? +Marketing: Uh only in English . Only in English I think . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} But uh I dunno how that works then . Uh does your uh {disfmarker} Does it lie in the centre of the room and can you scream from wherever +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's probably my job to figure that out , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh one to have in channel one ? +Marketing: No , that {disfmarker} Yeah , then th we have to think about that . But do {vocalsound} do we do it ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: It's more if we if we do it . +User Interface: I dunno . So , is it very usable ? That's what I'm looking at . +Industrial Designer: And and do you have to speak in in like in a thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's too hard to uh to realise that . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We have short time to to put it on the market , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno . +Project Manager: so that {disfmarker} We have to do a lot of testing before we can do that . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . {gap} +Project Manager: We make uh make uh , we can make th th the new remote control very flashy . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , and uh and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: In uh indeed uh the languages are a difficult thing . Uh because we we have a lot of languages . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I d Yeah . I don't think it's uh useful enough to take the effort to design something with uh speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: And and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and also if if you have a good speech uh speech recognition , you can just throw the uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . A uh someone says that uh give me one Coke , and the T_V_ turns uh to one . +Industrial Designer: the remote away . Mm . Hmm . Mm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . Well yeah , +Marketing: it's not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's the right command . And then you have to say uh T_V_ channel one , or something . Not just one , +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Hmm yeah , T_V_ one . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , but th that becomes your f Uh uh because that's very hard for uh speech recognition . +User Interface: Well I dunno . But I don't think , it just ain't useful enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have to make some decisions . So +Marketing: Okay , no speech recognition . +Project Manager: you can see on the uh {disfmarker} So we have to know what we're going to put on . Do we , do we make uh a light under the under the n under the numbers and everything ? Do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: If you press something , it lights up for a few seconds , so you can see what other but buttons there are , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Okay , we just take that one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And what else , we have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Also the one in the dark . So uh {disfmarker} It lights up when it's dark ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} Oh th I thought would , that that would be the same . +User Interface: I didn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you push something , it it all lights up . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it mustn't work all the time . +User Interface: Yes , that's what I mean . +Marketing: It uh uh it have to work only when you use it . +Project Manager: Or you can switch it on or something . +Marketing: So if you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe when you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , if you use one button , it must turn uh on for twenty seconds , and then it must turn off . +User Interface: yeah . It lights up all . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . You have to {disfmarker} Yeah , that's right . That's what I said . It's the same as the telephone . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay yeah . D Yeah , alright . Yeah . +Project Manager: And do we use a a {disfmarker} Uh what's it called ? Like a iMac , {gap} if you can look through it . Or just a normal remote control . +User Interface: Maybe just as an option , w like we discussed , like iPod . +Industrial Designer: Mm , maybe it's a good idea . +User Interface: Different colours , uh maybe use even different fonts . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Like uh phones . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Different colours . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so y you just make it th through {disfmarker} You look through it ? +Marketing: A see-through . Mm , that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh as an option maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . And so the buttons we have , this is , yeah , this is normal . We put in the the simple buttons on the top , +User Interface: It's the standard {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and probably the the the more complicated buttons down there . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: But you have {disfmarker} You had a lot of different buttons . +User Interface: we but we don't {disfmarker} We don't really have any complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe you have you have to {disfmarker} Uh when you use teletec teletext , you can press a green or a red button to go to the next one , or to go to the previous one . +User Interface: Yeah okay , but {disfmarker} Yeah , well w I think the buttons are very easy . With just uh standard buttons we just have so little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O but maybe you can put um the g the options of teletext on the second level of the remote control . Because you ne almost never use it . +User Interface: No , I don't need don't need {disfmarker} Uh teletext options are only four buttons or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but younger people I think um more often use the internet and elderly people often use teletext . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: I use teletext as well . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I use te teletext every day , I think . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . For me too , it is . So we just keep it one level then ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , one level . And I think , uh 'cause um we don't have that many buttons , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I think the design is most important . You can d uh integrate the buttons in the design very much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause {gap} simple buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you put one above it , it's clear . +Project Manager: Okay . So that's it for toda for {disfmarker} We're going to have a lunch lunch break . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How long is lunch break ? +Project Manager: So yeah , you know what you have to do . This is uh this is it . You get your meal and everything , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Trendwatching . Okay . That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yo . +Project Manager: So , we're finished for t for this time . We're going to have some lunch . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bye . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Mm . Uh . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","During a meeting, the project manager struggles initially with recalling the names and details of the team members. The discussion moves to the task of designing a remote control, considering several factors such as functionality for kids and the elderly, preference for larger buttons, and a target market of people over 40. A marketing report indicates certain customer preferences regarding the aesthetic and functionality of remote controls, like the desire for an attractive design and only essential buttons being used. + +The project manager asserts the importance of button placement, suggesting the most-used functions should be easily accessible. The user interface designer, Paul Wiezer, suggests standardizing functions and button designs, including large, easy-to-identify buttons, while the industrial designer, Martijn Abbing, focuses on the technical aspects such as circuit design and compatibility across various TVs. + +Market findings are shared about user behavior, including preferences for aesthetically pleasing remote controls, common dislike for learning new remote functionalities, and the fact that most users do not utilize all buttons on their remotes. + +The team considers the idea of a remote that lights up in the dark, recharging stations, and a beeping function to locate the remote. They debate the feasibility and desirability of advanced features like speech recognition given their market and cost constraints. There's a desire to stand out by offering various colors or designs for the remote control. + +Near the end of the meeting, a new requirement surfaces challenging the initial market focus; now, the product must also appeal to customers younger than 40, which requires the design to be flashier and more interesting, potentially shifting some of the project's fundamental concepts. + +The meeting adjourns with an agreement to take a lunch break and an understanding of the direction in which the product development needs to proceed, particularly focusing on the design that appeals to both older and younger demographics." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David and there is no substitute. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, is a further evidence session, number four, on our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Dafydd Evans, who is chair, ColegauCymru, and chief executive officer of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai; Kay Martin, principal of Cardiff and Vale College, also representing ColegauCymru; Nick Brazil, who is deputy principal, Gower College Swansea, also representing ColegauCymru; Dr Rachel Bowen, director of policy and development at ColegauCymru; and Ed Evans, who is the director and secretary of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association. Thank you all for attending. We're very pleased that you've been able to join us. If it's okay with you, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be asking my questions in Welsh. +Dafydd Evans: Could I start and then open it up? Thank you very much for the opportunity to give evidence. But just to give you the context, I think, if you were asking about the vast majority of subjects what the view of ColegauCymru would be, it would be quite unanimous, but I think on the Welsh bac there is a difference of opinion, and I'm sure you'll hear those differences on the panel before you today. We've possibly chosen this panel because there are differences of opinion. So, I just want to give you that context at the outset. To answer the specific question, no, I don't think that employers have a clear understanding of what the Welsh bac means or what it includes. Personally I don't think that even the title of the Welsh bac is helpful, because it doesn't say what's happening in the tin. So, I think the skills challenge certificate is a better title, and is something that people understand a lot better than the Welsh bac. So, no, I don't think that employers understand the value or what we're trying to achieve through the Welsh bac at present. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Which is a big problem. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, it's a huge problem, but not only to employers, but also to parents and young people, of course. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And I think that that varies by size of employer as well. That, certainly, where there are larger employers, who've got people who are able to follow policy developments across the education spectrum, they may have more capacity to follow changes, get up to date with how Welsh education is evolving. But we know that most employers in Wales are small or microbusinesses. And while there are lots of small engaged employers who have taken an interest and do understand, the vast majority are more focused on getting on with the day-to-day running of the business. And that means it's quite a challenge to understand what is the Welsh bac, what does it offer. And, certainly, when that's evolved over the past few years and there have been changes, it would have been quite difficult to keep up to date with those, I imagine. +Nick Brazil: Could I add to that? As do many of my colleagues within the colleges, we have a number of employer boards, which we regularly meet with—employers—and I cannot think back as to how many employers say to us, 'That is what we require—the Welsh bac—to come and work within our industry.' Most of what they are questioning is the level of professional qualifications and the quality of skills within those professional sectors. Not many of them have indicated that the Welsh bac is providing the skills that they require. I think many of them believe in the vision that was set out for the Welsh bac initially, but the Welsh bac has turned into quite a rigorous, some would say demanding, qualification, which is putting a lot of pressure on in terms of bureaucracy, in terms of staff and the student getting all the information together at the end of the year, and whether that's developing the skills that employers require is very questionable. And, as I said, from the employer boards that we have, very few of them understand the Welsh bac. They certainly don't mention the Welsh bac and, as I said, are very much questioning the qualifications that have been provided to develop the actual professional skills needed within the industries. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Kay, is that your experience? +Kay Martin: Certainly, it's very similar, and our employers want to make sure they get the right qualification. They're having enough headache getting around the differences with apprenticeships and the levy between England and Wales, and changes to qualifications. But they want them to get their main qualification. So, if you're an engineer, they want to get the engineering qualifications and they want them to be literate, numerate, and they want them to have digital skills. And that isn't captured necessarily in the Welsh baccalaureate. And, so, the understanding is quite limited amongst the employers we work with. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And, finally, I know you've got strong views as an organisation. +Ed Evans: Do you mind if I carry on in English— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. +Ed Evans: —just so that a lot of our members will understand when I'm speaking. I think it's fair to say employers don't understand it, that's for sure, but I think if they did, they would really appreciate this. For my sector in particular—the civil engineering sector—and particularly the contracting sector, which depends very much on pupils who have come through from a less academic background, the Welsh bac gives them that ability, I guess, not to pursue so much of an academic focus, but to test them in terms of the challenges, but also, to—. And I think if it was working properly and we did have employers engaged in this, and supporting schools and colleges to deliver it, they would actually be learning a lot more directly from industry. And some children, some pupils, some young people, they respond far, far better to that. And I think that's the issue for me—that we've not really sold this to employers to actually engage with them. All of my understanding of this is literally as a parent, and that would be true of a lot of employers as well. So, perhaps there are differences across the sector, but I think, certainly for my sector, we would really value the growth of the Welsh baccalaureate. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What are we going to do, then, to improve employers' understanding of the Welsh bac, and whose work is it to try to persuade employers that it is worth while, if you feel that it is worth while, of course? +Dafydd Evans: I think we need to review the qualification, and I think the voice of employers should be a key part of that review, so that employability skills and entrepreneurial skills have more of a role within that qualification. And I think that rather than it being done by the colleges or by a qualifications board, I think the employers—. And the only way we'll get employer buy-in is that if they feel ownership of what's being done. Because I think that's what the vision was for the Welsh baccalaureate—that it was going to improve skills for employment. But, somehow or other we've lost our way. The aim is an excellent one, but I think we've lost our way in terms of what we do present at the end of the day, and I think having more input from employers would be a great help. +Ed Evans: I will carry on in English, if that's okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, it's no problem. +Ed Evans: I would agree. I think we do need more employers involved in this. I think there are opportunities to join up employers and schools and education facilities a lot more than we do at the moment. I suppose that the bee in my bonnet is that we are involved in lots of social value-type contracts in this sector, and that to me is a perfect opportunity to tie in employers into schools and colleges and get that time and input from them into schools in a far more co-ordinated way. It happens at the moment. It's the community benefits clauses that are in construction contracts. They're there to serve a really good purpose, but it's become a little bit piecemeal and a little bit tokenistic, whereas the Welsh bac offers an opportunity—. It's something that's part of the curriculum. It's clearly not functioning well at the moment. It would benefit from that business input. So, why not link up those contractual clauses, which tie in employers and feed it directly into schools so that we have a far more structured way of getting employers into schools? At the moment it's a little bit—we'll pick up the phone, we'll get a phone call, and it'll be, 'Can you come and do something for us?' It's tokenistic. We need to be far more clever in terms of how we join these things up, and then I think you'll start to get that business input there, but let's not be ad hoc about it. +Kay Martin: Could I just add something? We've also got several other programmes that are engaging employers really well. Career Ready is a national programme, which we use in the college and which other colleges across the UK use. That's where employers mentor students so everyone has a mentor for the whole of the two years of the programme, from employment, and they all go out for at least six weeks' internship. So, they don't go for a day's work placement or two days—they go for six-week internships. Some learners have got real benefit from that and really raised their aspirations. We've got BTEC learners who have gone through that programme and gone into law degrees with Freshfields law in London, which is one of the top law firms in the world. So, there are lots of other programmes as well, and perhaps there's a way of joining it all up together. But, in the college, we've got several different programmes going on with employers and the Welsh bac is one of them, but it's not the one that engages employers the best, certainly in our college. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, do we get rid of it? +Lynne Neagle AM: You don't need to answer that. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I mean, if there are so many other programmes helping anyway, why do we need it? +Nick Brazil: I think that is a very good question, but I will go back to Ed's point, which I think was a very important point, which is that the initial vision for the Welsh bac—I think when we go back a number of years—was a really good, good vision for the Welsh bac. It was going to be an overarching qualification that developed these skills, and certainly employability skills, and I think it's lost its way since then. It's become a qualification and all the realms around becoming a qualification, and it's become very much focused on outcomes rather than necessarily skills. And that's what happens, unfortunately. But I think what Ed said is absolutely right: if you get the engagement of the employers—. But you've got to listen to what Kay said as well: there are programmes already out there. So, why are we focusing one way when there are already programmes that work extremely well? I will go to the enhanced programmes, enhanced engineering and programmes that we are running within our college and that I know run in other colleges, which are much, much more focused on skills, much more focused in linking with industry, and they work extremely well. The actual progress of learners into employment is happening. So, I think the question is: have we got programmes already in place, and do we need another one on top? But the vision initially for the Welsh bac, as I said, I will always be positive about. The vision was a good one. +Dafydd Evans: I'd like to expand on what Nick said. It's important for you to understand that although we always try and put the learner first, funding does drive behaviours, and the Welsh bac is fundable; Career Ready isn't. So, yes, there are options out there, but because we're so focused on qualifications and we will only fund qualifications, that drives certain behaviours, and I think you need as a committee to be very much aware of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but that was very useful information for us, because bearing in mind what Nick Brazil said—that the vision of this was created as almost something that could have the status of something like a Duke of Edinburgh award without necessarily being a compulsory qualification; what was important was that the learners got the skills. However, if getting the qualification is how you get the money, then you can see why schools—well, and indeed colleges—might be tempted to go for it. So, thank you for that. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Have you finished? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. What are your views on how well the Welsh bac, at all levels, helps to prepare learners for employment? We've spoken to quite a few learners, and again we've had variable opinions coming back, so it's quite how they, from their perspective—. +Dafydd Evans: I think that one of the problems is that there are a number of priorities. And one of the problems that we have is that we have a number of children coming in to the colleges, and they need to resit their GCSEs—in maths, English and Welsh. It's a valid priority for the Welsh Government for everyone to get a C grade in the core subjects. But that eats into the time that we have to teach young people. And so there's no room for everything in the curriculum somehow—no room in the funding or also in terms of the time and the capacity of the learner to be able to do that number of qualifications. So, the priorities, I think, across the sector—. We've given priority to GCSE resits rather than doing the Welsh bac at present. So, at levels 1 and 2, there are fewer and fewer doing 1 and 2 in the baccalaureate because they're resitting their GCSEs, and there is much more use of the Welsh bac at level 3, and A-level, and vocational level 3. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add to that? I think, again, there's a misconception. The Welsh bac is a combination of qualifications; it's not just one qualification—it's a combination. So, to develop the employability skills obviously is a key part, and developing the skills for employment is a key part. But when you are focused, if you are a learner, on developing or achieving certain qualifications to make up the Welsh bac—for example, resits, your main qualification, plus your work for the Welsh bac, which is the skills challenge certificate as well—that's a huge amount of work. And, obviously, when you're trying to achieve outcomes—and we all get funded on the outcomes—that becomes the priority, and sometimes then we lose the focus on the skills, which are ultimately what were supposed to be part of the development for employability. So, I think people lose the fact that the Welsh bac is a combination of things. And I think it was interesting, the comment that was made about the Duke of Edinburgh—I thought that's something that we need to think about. +Kay Martin: If I could just say as well, our job in the college is to develop skills and employable people, and we use every tool in our box to do that. And, as I said earlier, there are lots of things that we do. The Welsh bac, where it works really well, does help prepare them, I think, for employment, but it's not for everyone, because some people have to do the other things. Some people doing the equivalent of three A-levels, even in a vocational programme, it's too big for them. As you say, they're coming from schools, some of them with very few GCSEs, or they haven't got literacy and numeracy skills, they're being tested and many of them are below level 1 in terms of literacy and numeracy. So, I think it needs to be reviewed, to look at how we could make skilled and employable people. It helps prepare some people—the A-level students for university—but does it help my health and social care people become more skilled and employable? No, it doesn't. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And this, ultimately, has to be about what's in the best interests of learners, and a one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is there a difference in how the Welsh bac is valued by learners at the different levels that it is studied? ColegauCymru said that learners may have had a negative experience of the Welsh bac in previous study. +Dafydd Evans: That's been a new dimension lately, I think, in that, when the Welsh bac first hit FE, we were leading the way— +Kay Martin: Great advocates. +Dafydd Evans: —and great advocates. By now, of course, they're coming to us having been through a Welsh bac experience at school, and therefore many of the learners feel that there's repeating going on then—'Oh, we've done this at school already. Why are we doing it again at college?' So, I think that's a problem for us as well. +Kay Martin: Many have experienced a paper-based exercise rather than a real activity. So, at level 1 and level 2, it's not what we would call a crowd puller in colleges, but at level 3 it's more, especially for A-levels, because it can help them get into university, but even for the more able and talented—we were discussing this, weren't we? We have learners who do four A-levels, but they don't do the Welsh baccalaureate because they're part of the Seren network, and they are going to be applying for Oxbridge or high-level Russell Group universities. So, the Welsh bac, although it's technically universally adopted by universities, it isn't adopted by every admissions tutor in every university. So, to get into some areas, like dentistry, for example, and some of the other Seren-type activities, four A-levels is better. But in most colleges that have A-level students it's almost compulsory to do the Welsh bac as well, but normally that would be three A-levels and the Welsh bac—normally. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. And then ColegauCymru say that, increasingly, the Welsh bac is not being offered at post-16 national and foundation level. So, are the different levels of the Welsh bac valued differently by further education professionals? +Nick Brazil: Yes. +Kay Martin: Yes. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Dr Rachel Bowen: Yes. +Ed Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I think we've got to bear in mind when the students come to us—certainly when they're level 1, level 2 learners—that a number of them have come from school and probably not done as well as they'd hoped at their GCSEs. Okay, they've come to us, they're trying to build themselves back up, build their skills back up, and adding another qualification on top, adding the Welsh bac on top, whether that's foundation or national, on top of what they have to do, which is a programme they've come and decided to do—think of the pressure that increases upon them. Plus the fact is that they are resitting; they're probably having to resit GCSE English and maths as well. That's a huge volume of work for a learner who's probably come from a low base to begin with and who hasn't achieved what they wanted to. The whole idea when we bring them in at that level is that we want to build their confidence, build them up and, hopefully, eventually they will go to the stage where maybe the Welsh bac will be beneficial to them, when they've potentially hopefully progressed to level 3. But I think it's questionable, certainly at national and foundation. And the important point that Dafydd raised was that there's a lot of repetition there in school, pre 16 to post 16 at those levels as well. So, learners don't come in banging at the door saying, 'We want to do the Welsh bac because it's exactly the same or very similar to what we did when we were in school.' They want to see some difference, they want to see some progress, and that's not necessarily the case in the foundation and national levels. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And we know that delivery in schools is of variable quality, so obviously that impacts on how learners have experienced it and perhaps how they view it when they get to FE college. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. A question, then, just to ColegauCymru: to what extent do you believe that universities in the main understand the value of the Welsh bac? +Kay Martin: Well, we don't think they do, really, especially the experience we have with some of our learners to go to Russell Group universities. They do allow sometimes that you can drop a grade. I talked earlier about my own daughter who was allowed to drop a grade in order to get into a Russell Group university because she had the Welsh bac as well, but it was a very paper-based exercise. But I think it is mixed, and it does depend on the admissions tutors and the areas that they're going into in universities. In some areas, and certainly the local universities around here—University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University—value it in a great number of subjects, particularly in sport, when our students go to Cardiff Met, and business studies, when our learners go to USW. It is valued by them and they accept it, but when people go further afield—and we're always trying to push our learners beyond. Where they can afford to go away to university, we encourage that. But some of the universities are not valuing the Welsh baccalaureate. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you have a supplementary, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You didn't mention Cardiff University there. +Kay Martin: Cardiff University—yes. My daughter's example—that was Cardiff University. So, they do, especially now it's graded at level 3. Then they do accept it. A great number of our learners get into Cardiff using the Welsh baccalaureate, but would their admissions tutors prefer four A-levels? Absolutely. +Nick Brazil: Could I jump in there? I've got to jump in there as, from the institution I'm in, we've had a long track record of getting learners into top universities. About 20 per cent of our learners go to Russell Group universities, and there is no doubt—in certainly 50 per cent of those, they do not value the Welsh bac. But if they do offer an option with the Welsh bac, they say it is on top of three A2-level grades. So, obviously, we've had that track record. I think the Seren programme that's been put in by the Welsh Government is looking to increase the numbers applying to top universities and top courses, but you look through the range, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects as well, across a number and range of universities, the Welsh bac is always added as the additional one. So, bear in mind, then, that Welsh students are fighting for places against Scottish, Northern Irish and, potentially, English students who are studying three subjects, whereas our Welsh students potentially could be doing three A2s, three A-level subjects plus the Welsh bac. And, as we talked about earlier on, the Welsh bac has evolved into quite a rigorous, you could say complicated, qualification, which puts added pressure on a learner in year 2 when they're trying to get possibly three A* grades. So, I think we need to consider that. In relation to the first answer, it is variable, and the admissions tutors throughout a lot of universities will make different decisions, and also make the decision dependent on whether it's a facilitating subject or an enabling subject, which the Russell Group report indicates about facilitating subjects, and Welsh bac at the moment is not a facilitating subject. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Maybe Dafydd can give us the picture from north Wales. +Dafydd Evans: I mentioned before coming in, in terms of the context—. Because of the nature of our catchment area, there is a greater percentage of our students staying in Welsh universities, and, as Kay said, Welsh universities are much more willing to recognise the bac. So, to a certain extent, it is less of a problem. But, naturally, we do have students who are looking to go out to universities in England in the Russell Group, and we're having the same experience there where there are differences between the policy that that university extols and what actually happens on the ground when students have interviews in those universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But in terms of Bangor and Glyndŵr University, there's no problem there, though. +Dafydd Evans: No, there is no problem there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Right, the next questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. I think you've already got into this bit of the discussion, but what are your views on how comparable the Welsh bac is to other qualifications? I don't know if you've got any more comments on that. +Dafydd Evans: Well, obviously, as we noted, it's become a very rigorous, very large qualification. Actually, it's probably larger than an A-level by now. And, therefore, regarding the rigour and so forth, that's absolutely fine, but I think one of the problems that you're hearing is that perhaps the Welsh bac is trying to be all things to all men. At one end of the spectrum it's trying to be a rigorous qualification that stands up to a Russell university's expectations, and on the other hand, it's trying to develop softer skills and employment skills for people going into work from a vocational area. Can the same product deliver those two outcomes? I'm certainly not sure, and perhaps we need to think: what are we trying to achieve with this qualification? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. +Kay Martin: Yes, and earlier, we talked as well about that difference for the A-level students. They know what it is. It's worth UCAS points. For the vocational students, some things like the Career Ready programme, which is used in other colleges, and WorldSkills, you know, where all colleges have really been pushing to get more learners into WorldSkills at national and international level. And for some of our learners, particularly if we take our engineering learners, then having somebody who has competed in Europe as a tiler or an electrician would, I think, make an employer think, 'I'd better look at this person', whereas the other one has done the Welsh bac—. I think they would look at the WorldSkills person first. And the investment we have to put into WorldSkills is huge. So, for some of our learners, we choose that you do WorldSkills, because that is going to be more valuable for you as a skill, and to show to an employer how much extra time you've put in. So, they put a lot of time—you know, to get somebody into a WorldSkills competition is not just a couple of hours a week, it isn't just the normal curriculum—they have extra time. They are more able and talented vocational learners, and that is more valuable to those learners and I think it's more valid for employers than the Welsh baccalaureate. +Nick Brazil: I think it's got to, extending on what Kay says—. It's got to be—. You know, it is comparable, as long as it's right for that learner's future. If it's right for the learner's future, absolutely it's comparable. But if a learner wants to go into a particular sector and the Welsh bac is not accepted, it's not comparable. But, then, if it is into a certain sector and the skills are being developed in the right manner for that sector, absolutely. But it's got to be right for the learner. +Julie Morgan AM: What are the reasons why some colleges do see it as being rigorous and others don't? Why does the view vary? +Ed Evans: Can I give perhaps an employer's perspective on that, which might be completely wrong, but it's been interesting listening to what's been said here? About a year ago, we bought the WJEC in to speak to our employers, or a number of them, just to explain to them what the Welsh bac was about—back to listening and about understanding, really, and it just was not there at all. I could see that most of the employers there were really impressed with it once they understood what it was about and they saw the opportunities at a whole host of levels. We've kind of gone into an university discussion here, but there are school leavers leaving at 16 or 18. The skills that they bring having gone through this process I think most of the employers could get, at least in my sector, they could understand—'I can see what that person can do.' But we've also seen it from university-educated people as well. They are a little bit too focused on the academic side of things. Those that bring a little bit of world experience, a little bit of the Welsh bac-type of things, just become far more rounded and useful people. I can understand why there's a certain obsession, almost, with the academic side of it, but I think we lose that vocational bit at our peril, and to a certain extent we probably haven't got it in many quarters anyway. So, for me, the Welsh bac helps to build that. Call it something else maybe, but that's what it should do. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And those skills that are learnt in the Welsh bac, can they be learnt in any of the other qualifications? Because I know that Cambridge university said to us they thought, in the four A-levels that they asked for, that those skills were there. +Kay Martin: It probably depends on the subjects that people are studying and the combination of subjects and the institution. Generally, in college, even if they're doing A-levels, they go out on some community projects or work-related education, without the Welsh bac—even if they're not doing that. So, it does depend on the subject, I think. +Dafydd Evans: I think there's a real danger of us perhaps becoming overly critical here as well of the Welsh bac in terms of—I don't think it's perfect by a long way, however, learners are getting some value out of that process. Certain learners in departments where they have really worked hard to contextualise the Welsh bac within the vocational area, within the A-level subjects that the learners are doing, are finding it very rewarding. So, there are some very positive things coming out there. I think what we're suggesting is there may be even better ways of doing it and better ways of explaining to people what it's about. +Nick Brazil: On this point about the skills being developed, I think that's debatable if all the skills that are supposed to be developed in the Welsh bac are being developed, and that's why I think there's a need to relook at it to make sure those skills are being developed fully. But I will go back to the point that I think a comparable qualification is comparable as long as it achieves the right outcome for that particular learner. If you force a learner to do something that is not necessarily going to achieve the outcome that they require in their future, is it the right thing to be doing for that learner? That's what my concern is. +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think the baccalaureate approach is best at producing independent, inquiry-based learners who have the skills to look to teachers not as sources of information but just for guidance. That whole sort of approach about creating inquisitive young people with the skills that we've discussed, that's a real positive. The chances are that we've lost some of that by trying to fit it into being a specific qualification. The approach is a positive one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, to both Rachel Bowen and Nick Brazil, if you don't mind. Both of you mentioned this is about skills and a piece of paper that demonstrates that you have these skills. At pre 16, would it be fair to say that there have been occasions when people have come presenting those pieces of paper but actually show none of the skills that they were supposed to have? The reason I'm asking this question, having had children who've gone through the process myself, is that in some schools, and I'm not saying all, doing the bac is something that everybody does in the last four weeks of term, and that undermines the whole idea of the bac anyway. It's just not fair on the learners or the people teaching the bac. Is that a fair observation? +Dr Rachel Bowen: I think it's perfectly possible for learners to reach FE college having attained the Welsh bac under the process that you've described, and without necessarily having gone through the holistic inquiry-based independent skills that we would want to see. +Nick Brazil: Yes, and at interview process or during an interview, or in the first week, you can see that they haven't developed those skills, and I think it is down to the variable models that have been put in place. There are lots of different models, and if you put, as I said, the model that you've described in place, there is no way, in that period of time, you're going to develop those skills. But that indicates, again, the value that people are putting on the qualification, if they are squeezing it into three or four weeks of term. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. It might be different post 16—I accept that. Okay. Thank you. +Dr Rachel Bowen: And obviously practice will differ across schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie, did you have any more questions? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I've finished, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now then, from Suzy, on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm wondering if I need to ask them, really, because I think I'm getting a strong sense that you all think that universal adoption is a bad idea at this moment in time. However, I do want to test something, because we have had witnesses who say that it would be a good idea because it reduces the amount of competition and advantage that certain institutions have. So, for example, we had an indication from the union representing Welsh-speaking teachers that if the baccalaureate was universally adopted, it would remove an artificial choice, basically, for learners, i.e. they were losing Welsh-speaking students who didn't want to do the bac to English-speaking institutions. So, I wonder if you could tell me how much the decision in your individual colleges not to offer bac is down to the opportunity that it presents you to attract students, particularly from sixth forms, where students may be obliged to do the bac. +Kay Martin: That is not the case, I would say. When a learner comes to us, we—. I'd like to think that all the staff in all the colleges do what is in the best interests of the learner. In some cases, it's to go back to school, and we absolutely say, 'You need to go back to school.' If somebody comes from a Welsh-medium school, then usually I will speak to the head and make sure that we have a programme in place, that either they're studying their programme bilingually or through the medium of Welsh, or that we make sure that they absolutely keep their Welsh language skills. We don't say, 'Come to us and you don't have to do the Welsh bac,' because if they do A-levels, we say it's compulsory, unless you're in the Seren group. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Well, that's the point; it's about English-speaking students, not just Welsh—. +Kay Martin: No, it isn't used. In the majority of colleges across Wales, it is absolutely not used as a recruitment tool, because most of us, as you see, we value the Welsh bac. We'd like some changes to the Welsh bac, but we value the Welsh bac in many cases. So, we wouldn't deliberately—. I mean, if a course in my college doesn't want to do the Welsh bac, they have to come and give me evidence about why they don't think it's fit and what they're going to do in place of it. So, we don't deliberately tell people, 'Come on in and you won't have to do it.' +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, can I run that across you all, in an outburst of honesty? +Dafydd Evans: Yes, absolutely. We universally adopt at level 3, but we don't at levels 1 and 2. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, for the reasons you've given in the evidence, actually. +Dafydd Evans: Yes, but across the whole of level 3, A-level and vocational, the Welsh bac is an integral part of the curriculum, and it isn't an option for the student to opt out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you let your Seren students opt out like they do in Cardiff and the Vale, or do they have to do it as well? +Dafydd Evans: We've forced—. No, sorry, 'forced' is not the word. [Laughter.] We have encouraged and persuaded everybody to do it. +Suzy Davies AM: So, that will be four A-levels plus bac. +Dafydd Evans: Yes. +Nick Brazil: I've got to be honest, at present, with our college, we do not ask. It's compulsory for A-level students to do the Welsh bac. It's an option of one of our choices—we have a large choice—and I think it comes back to that fact that we're just making the assumption all learners are getting all the correct advice and guidance from all the institutions. I think it's something we all need to consider across the nation, that all learners are getting the right advice and guidance for their future. I will go back to the point I made earlier—everything's comparable as long as it's the right thing for the learner's future, and I genuinely believe, and I'm sure a lot of colleagues believe, that that choice element is important to a learner, okay. If it is the right choice and if the Welsh bac is the right choice, that is correct, and we move that along. Obviously, we debated about where there are elements that need to change. But you've got to be doing the right things for the learner, and we are certainly not selling it, 'Come to us; you don't do the Welsh bac.' It is part of what we offer. It is part of what the college's curriculum offers—there is no doubt about that—and then people make a choice according to what they need to do to actually progress to what they need to do in their future. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I've just got one question for Mr Ed Evans, if that's okay. You explained earlier that if people knew what the bac was about in your sector, they'd value it more greatly, which I accept. Are you worried at all, though, that some of the more able and talented STEM students, in particular—who are needed in your sector, after all—might be deterred from doing those four A-levels because of the bac, because, presumably, you need a mix of these talents? You talked about the more able and talented vocational learners, but also you have more able and talented academic learners—presumably you need them all. +Ed Evans: We do. There's a big range, and some really high achievers coming into the sector as well. So, it is about that mix. I think the discussion that I've had with our employers has been around the academic side of things, if you like. The qualifications are well catered for. So, it's almost a given somebody's been through that route. What isn't there is some of those softer skills, but also some—. I was almost going to call commercial skills 'soft' there—. +Suzy Davies AM: Call them 'commercial'. +Ed Evans: Commercial skills are hard skills, which are very, very difficult to come by. So, the Welsh bac starts to do some of those things at different levels. Again, I'll come back to the input of businesses to support that delivery of commercial skills and so on, but I think I probably made that point earlier. So, I don't think it is a case of squeezing things out. There's clearly going to be different individuals who will cope better, and they will be, I guess, maybe guided as well by parents to a certain degree in terms of, 'You do those four and forget about that nonsense there', which is not helpful, but I can understand why that happens. So, for me, now, it's not a case of squeezing—. This should be seen as an important part of creating a rounded individual ready for employment. I guess that's what a lot of our employers saw the Welsh bac as being able to do. Whether that's a shared view is another matter. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. Thank you. +Nick Brazil: Can I just add something to that? I think Ed's just said about the softer skills. Do the softer skills have to be developed through qualification? I think Kay mentioned a programme earlier on within her college. We run programmes as well. They're not qualifications, but they offer the opportunity to develop those softer skills. So, I think we're all in agreement about the development of the skills, but does it need to be through a qualification? +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've said that you make the decision in the best interests of the learner. Are you aware, then, of any young people who are coming to you from the Swansea area because they've got that flexibility, which they may not have in one of the local schools? +Nick Brazil: As I said, in terms of our offer, we offer a range in the curriculum. We're not going out there saying, 'Come to us for this particular reason.' +Lynne Neagle AM: No, but does anybody come to you and say, 'Well, actually, I've really come here because I don't have to do the Welsh bac'? +Nick Brazil: The honest answer is it's one of the first questions that people always ask. But, as I've said, as a parent, I've been to open evenings and other open evenings. It's generally a question that people ask, 'Do I have to do the Welsh bac?' It does come across not just in our open evenings, but in other open evenings that I've been to. It is always a question that people ask me. They do want to know that, and it's usually, as I said, one of the first questions that they ask. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that the parents asking the question or the pupil? +Nick Brazil: It's a combination. But, honest answer, I would say parents, a lot of the time, but the learners usually—as I said—have sometimes had not the best experience pre 16 and that's why they ask the question straight away. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Can I suggest that maybe, then, the perception that parents have is steering the way rather than the actual benefits for the pupil in your institution? If you're telling them, 'Come to us, you don't have to actually do it because we know you don't like it', is that the correct way of approaching education? +Nick Brazil: No. Education is about offering the range and offering it correctly. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm being devil's advocate. +Nick Brazil: Yes, I know, I totally understand, but it's about offering the full range of qualification opportunities for learners. If you don't offer the full range, which, sometimes—if you, obviously, limit and you make qualifications compulsory, that can limit the choice of opportunities as well. So, I think what parents and learners are looking for is for the range of options. There are some places in, I would think, some sixth forms now, where certain qualifications may not be offered now because of the need to pick up an extra—Welsh bac. So, for example, modern foreign languages is reducing quite dramatically in Wales, and, I think, I picked up today a few schools had been saying that one of the reasons is, 'We have to put our focus on the Welsh bac to ensure that is achieved rather than giving the opportunity to do the modern foreign language.' +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it could be a short-sighted view because what some young people tell us is that at the time—and parents—they didn't really appreciate what skills they were actually learning, and by the time they'd got into employment, that working as a team, the communication skills, they thought, 'Ah, we did—. I know what this is about', and it all makes sense at that point. So, to try and, sort of, discourage it at a younger age may be doing them a disservice in the long run. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we'll move on now then to—. +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's a question. +Lynne Neagle AM: You do want an answer. Anybody want to pick that up? +Dafydd Evans: We certainly have experience of that, of young people coming in with quite a negative attitude, originally, to the Welsh bac and taking it on board. But where we are delivering it well, well contextualised, they've really enjoyed the experience, and very much valued the experience. So, yes, there are certainly instances of that happening, there's no doubt. +Ed Evans: We certainly see it, as employers. The penny drops after a few weeks or months. +Dafydd Evans: But don't underestimate the fact that if you had a poor experience of the Welsh bac at school, that perception is very difficult for us, as institutions, then, to change. Very difficult. +Dr Rachel Bowen: It does make it into quite an intensive selling process for colleges when they've got to overcome that negative perception. As people have said already, it is possible to talk parents and learners round, but then that's time spent having to do that selling job when we should be talking about other things. +Kay Martin: Can I just mention as well that there's a bigger job in helping parents to understand that the only qualifications in the world are not A-levels? Perhaps you might want to do an engineering BTEC programme, or you might want to do a health and social care, or you might want to do hospitality. You might want to do BTEC programmes, you can still go to university if that's what you want to do, or you can go into an apprenticeship afterwards, and selling that whole range to parents, because there is an overemphasis, by us all, on A-levels—. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. A lot of this has been covered, actually, but just on those final points there, I'm wondering whether you think that introducing a specialist teacher-training qualification to deliver the Welsh bac would actually help in some way in improving its status and perception and so on. What do you think about that? +Dafydd Evans: I'm not assured in terms of—yes, training is required regarding the Welsh bac, but where we are seeing it more successfully is where vocational lecturers have actually taken it on board. When we were bringing lecturers from outside—'Welsh bac specialists' in inverted commas—it was not working well. It has started to work well when our sports lecturers have taken the Welsh bac on board and have put it in the context of the sports curriculum. Therefore, no, I think that if it's going to be a success, it's got to be contextualised, and for the vocational lecturers to do that, and we've invested heavily in training those vocational lecturers to understand how to deliver the Welsh bac and get positive outcomes of the Welsh bac—. It's been an intensive staff development process. +Nick Brazil: And I think you've got to bear in mind that the number of the skills and the number of challenges that are done within the Welsh bac are done very similarly within the vocational qualification as well. So, a number of those staff have already got those skills and they're undertaking that. I suppose when it comes to the word 'credibility' used in terms of the qualification, yes, I'm sure it would raise that focus on it, but ultimately, it's taking away from the fact that we have got staff who've got those skills and they're developing them within other elements of the vocational qualifications they're doing. Something we were talking about earlier on is the fact is that, sometimes, that work is being repeated twice, because of the nature of the qualification. +Dawn Bowden AM: And have you got dedicated time? Because one of the things we picked up from schools was that teachers in particular were kind of fitting it in with other lessons, and therefore, it wasn't being, again, given the same perceived level of importance as doing A-levels were. But your lecturers would all have dedicated time to deliver— +Kay Martin: On their timetables, yes. And as you say, industry specialists delivering some of those things put them more into context. +Ed Evans: I was just going to add there, really, if you want to raise the profile amongst parents in particular, if you've got that far clearer link between businesses coming in to deliver this—. Apologies, I'd almost forgotten that we were in the Colegau thing, I was thinking 'schools' actually [Laughter.] But in terms of bringing those businesses into schools in a structured way, not an ad-hoc way, which is just a friend turning up to talk about something, a structured way—. We have a programme under way at the moment called 'contextualising the curriculum' in the sector that we hope to roll out. Now, if that was rolled out across the board—I'm not saying that it makes it easier for teachers in particular, but they are going to struggle to deliver some of these commercial and world-skilled, global areas, because it's not their bag. So, bring in some experts, bring in some business, raise the profile, and I think then, possibly, you'll start to get parents thinking, 'Actually, there is something more to this than just the academic bit.' +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I think all my other points have been answered, Chair. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Can I just ask—? You've all got slightly different policies; they don't have to do it in Swansea, in Cardiff and the Vale, they do unless they're in the Seren network, and in your college, everybody does it, even if they're doing four A-levels. Do you think that's a satisfactory situation, and are you satisfied with the communication and the guidance and the steer that everyone's getting from Welsh Government on this? Because we're meant to have a policy of universal adoption, but that doesn't really seem to be happening on the ground. +Kay Martin: And I think, if you'd asked us a few years ago, we were all heading for universal adoption, but because the Welsh bac has changed into something that isn't 100 per cent what we think it should be, then we've stopped the universal adoption, if you like. So, we are trying to do what's in the best interests of the learner, but I think, as you said, we've mentioned some other programmes, and if we could look at—. We've got industry experts in colleges. We've got industry experts that are brought into colleges as well, some more than others, to bring that to life, if you like. We've got mentorship programmes, we send people out, and we just need to incorporate that better. We need to spend less time in checking what they've done on assessment and more time in the doing, and the experiential learning that they need to do, rather than it being too much of a paper exercise. By the time you've done all the paperwork you haven't got time to do any of the learning. +Nick Brazil: I think, just to support Kay, we're going to need to go back to the original vision of the Welsh bac, which all of us would buy into 100 per cent. I think that has been lost as the qualification's developed over time, and, ultimately, I think all of us would like to see it go back to that to provide those skills that Ed has brought up and everything. I think we all support that. But is it quite right? I'm not sure at the moment. +Dafydd Evans: I'll agree. We visited Spain recently, and there they have an entrepreneurship and enterprise unit that is mandatory for everybody, but it appeared to be far more fit for purpose than the Welsh bac is currently. Therefore, I think what we're saying is, if we're going universal adoption, it can't be with this product. This product isn't the product to universally adopt. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, that's interesting. Okay. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering our questions? It's been a very informative and interesting discussion. We will, as usual, send you a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your time this morning. Okay, item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, paper to note 2 is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales on home education, and paper to note 3 is the letter that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has sent to us in reply to our letter about free school meals. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose in accordance with Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Yes. +","The conversation is between members of the Welsh Children, Young People and Education Committee and various representatives concerning the status of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification. The panel includes Dafydd Evans (Chair, ColegauCymru; CEO of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai), Kay Martin (Principal, Cardiff and Vale College; representing ColegauCymru), Nick Brazil (Deputy Principal, Gower College Swansea; representing ColegauCymru), Dr. Rachel Bowen (Director of Policy and Development, ColegauCymru), and Ed Evans (Director and Secretary of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association). + +Key points from the conversation include: + +- There's a lack of clear understanding among employers, parents, and young people about the value of the Welsh baccalaureate. Even its title is not seen as helpful in conveying what it involves. +- There's a significant difference of opinion among educators and employers regarding the value and effectiveness of the qualification. +- The Welsh baccalaureate is considered to be rigorous and demanding, possibly not matching the skills employers are seeking. +- Employers in the civil engineering sector, particularly ones from a less academic background, are believed to value the qualification if they had a better understanding of it. +- There is a need to review the qualification and align it more with employability and entrepreneurial skills, with more engagement from employers in the process. +- The current funding structure, which supports qualifications rather than non-qualification-based skill development programs, impacts how institutions prioritize the Welsh baccalaureate. +- The Welsh baccalaureate is not consistently being offered or required at all levels, particularly post-16 national and foundation levels. +- There's uncertainty about how well universities outside Wales understand and value the Welsh baccalaureate. +- There are concerns that the pressure from completing the Welsh baccalaureate alongside other qualifications could deter learners, especially A-level students aiming for top universities. +- Opinions are mixed on whether universal adoption of the Welsh baccalaureate is beneficial, with recognition that there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach for learners. +- Varied practices dictate how different colleges approach delivering the Welsh Baccalaureate, with some colleges requiring it universally at certain levels, while others offer it as an option or discourage it in favor of other programs. +- The Welsh baccalaureate, while beneficial when contextualized and delivered effectively, may need revision to make it a more universally adopted and valued qualification. + +The panel discusses these and other issues, offering insights and expressing a diversity of views on the future and implementation of the Welsh baccalaureate." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm So , ready ? {gap} +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: No not really Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Crap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , {vocalsound} I I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: It's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your judgement it's {disfmarker} is biased . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh thi this remote control will stay a prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , so whe where is the remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we are {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let's go for our detailed design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So I will still play the role of the secretary , and we'll have um first the project presentation by our User Interface Designer , David Jordan , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and our Industrial Designer , Baba . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we'll have to evaluate the uh {disfmarker} your proposed remote control , +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and um have an idea of the price that uh this thing will cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And in case if we're {disfmarker} we all agree on the fabrica of um building of this remote control , we'll evaluate the um production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe I will let the {disfmarker} our two designers talk about so their {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have slides . +Project Manager: You have s oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oops . +User Interface: Ah , +Industrial Designer: Effectively one slide and maybe we can discuss everything . +User Interface: Product prod +Marketing: What slides ? +User Interface: Yep . Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} So , this is our product or prototype . This is made by clay . +Project Manager: Looks strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the basic colour is uh yellow and red . Yellow is uh our company colour , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: uh red it's uh is more attractive . So we used two basic colour , yellow and red . And the shape , there's two basic shape . The first is a circle and the second is a triangle s piece . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} we call it a mushroom design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's looks like some mushroom , so we call it mushroom design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So this is a introduction of our product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Genetically modified mushroom I will say , but +User Interface: Next a mo +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} keep on speaking . +User Interface: yeah , so next slide . So there are several key features of our pr prototype . The first is that it is fuzzy . I'm sure this would be the unique design the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I'm sure {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe , I hope so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's a fuzzy design , and a unique design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Um , and uh the second key feature is that uh s circle channel um selection . In the traditional key uh traditional controller use button to to select the channel but now we have a s circle , so we can turn this ball to t to select channel . +Project Manager: Chan +User Interface: So it's quite convenient for user to use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , but don't touch {disfmarker} don't destroy your prototype . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay . Uh the third feature is a stable triangle base . Uh this sta uh this triangle base is very stable , so uh so it's it's um it's unlikely you cannot found it . So it's v Um , you can put it in the table so you can turn the the ball to cha to select the channel and there's some cute button . You c can can you can see the the shape of the buttons n is a mushroom , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Everything's mushroom . So we can call our remote control the mushroom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , everything's mushroom . Mush Mushroom design , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's not like really mushroom because you have uh you know uh {vocalsound} like lemon shape , you know , centre {vocalsound} is yellow and t d +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , th that's why if you put it in the table , be careful , somebody will eat it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To integrate , you know {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I hope nobody will eat it {gap} You know , to integrate the fruit aspect , you know the {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} in +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah , because mushroom was not in the trends . I mean there was fruits {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruits and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: Really ? But {disfmarker} Fruit and vegetable , +Project Manager: Vegetables . Mushroom is a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: so mushroom was a kind of you know {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think it is . +Project Manager: It's vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Mushroom ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'm not sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So th it's something eatable . +Industrial Designer: We can {disfmarker} it's a veg a kind of vegetable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you know we we integrated them with different colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But anyway this is not a mushroom anyway , so it's fine . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think we take into account what you said about fruit and vegetable {gap} you know . This , you know , very enlighted colours , you know . +Marketing: No , I mean , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Inspira inspiration is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And inspired colour +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} and very sophisticated material , so . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: And so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next slide . +User Interface: Uh , no this our only two slides . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So what we w what I can add is that , you know {vocalsound} he talk about what is outside , so what is inside is what we dis what we talked before about , you know , the chip , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it is a low level chip , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we cut it to see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , we don't need to k {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know wi {vocalsound} the low level chips inside and you know the L_C_D_ button and the i +User Interface: Okay . So where's the battery battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery it is under {gap} . +Project Manager: In the base . +Industrial Designer: It is in th in {disfmarker} in the base , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the basement . In the basement . +User Interface: Base . Here ? +Project Manager: And where is the solar solar cell ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we say uh we sa we said solar . +Project Manager: Where is the solar cell ? +Industrial Designer: In fact this this this this is a kind of you know revolutionary solar receptor that we can put outside and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Do you think it won't be {disfmarker} It won't cris increase the price ? +User Interface: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay , we'll see after . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} but it it's might be okay , so . +Project Manager: We will have first to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it might be okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , mister money , what's your opinion according to this remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean , we gonna try to measure how good it is instead of just talking about {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we had three keys {disfmarker} {vocalsound} key points to uh for this remote control design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and first one was uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So w we'll try to judge this feature uh with a one to seven scale , one being uh no , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh just let me check . +Industrial Designer: So , four point {disfmarker} three point five , it means it's acceptable . +Marketing: One one being true , and seven being false . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: Ouch . So +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Do we have a fancy look and feel , according to you ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: I think you have nice colours . {vocalsound} I don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The sha the bowl shape people like . +User Interface: Yeah , the shape is unique , and the colour {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'll agree it's unique , but is it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Is it really fancy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} So it depend on how d do you define fancy . +Marketing: Yeah I mean , fancy was was defined by s fruit and vegetable look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} you have the lemon aspect of this th this {vocalsound} this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if you change {disfmarker} if you take the buttons out , and maybe do things like that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do Don't do that , please . +Marketing: I dunno where the lemon is , but +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it's it's i this shape is a lemon like , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it's not obvious . +Project Manager: It would be bet more like a lemon ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because i +Marketing: I dunno , maybe improving the texture of like having it less smooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Less button . +User Interface: Uh so , my mush {disfmarker} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Looks like more fruit . Maybe a pineapple ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but you don't have any button now . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . I dunno . +Project Manager: And you know , you have the finger here , with the buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's uh yeah , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , it's getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks {vocalsound} more like a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: So that's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: That's great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the use for that ? +Industrial Designer: I have no idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , for turn turn the ball . If you want to turn the ball , it's very it's very convenient for you to to to turn the ball to change the channel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And where is the voice recognition ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . Ah , it's embedded , your microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Th this th th there's two two functions . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Wait th that's the second point . +User Interface: This is microphone array {disfmarker} +Marketing: First one is we have to judge the fancy look and feel . +Industrial Designer: If it is fancy or not . +Project Manager: Okay . Is it better like that ? +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Looks {disfmarker} okay , +Industrial Designer: So we can we can say t +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's say it's a pineapple now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The colour , is the colour acceptable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colour is okay , that's fine . +Industrial Designer: So the shape now . +Marketing: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I would say there is more {disfmarker} too much red . +Project Manager: now you took it . +Industrial Designer: It's too much red ? +Marketing: Um if +Industrial Designer: In the basement ? +Project Manager: It looks like a pineapple with cherry on top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . So , from one to seven ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will give {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh {disfmarker} Seven is the ma the maximum ? +Industrial Designer: I'll gi +Marketing: No , seven is false and one is true . +Industrial Designer: I'll give two or three . +Project Manager: Three , I will say three . +Industrial Designer: Three , it's okay . Three , three . Three is fine for me . +Marketing: Three ? +User Interface: 'Kay +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Isn't it bitter like that {gap} ? +Marketing: Three . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then {vocalsound} uh let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What other {disfmarker} +Marketing: The other criterion is is it technologically uh technologically in innovative . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to use ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Feasible ? {vocalsound} You said previously that you {disfmarker} there's um microphone inside an +Industrial Designer: Ye uh {disfmarker} Embedded . +User Interface: Yeah , this is microphone array , in fact . +Industrial Designer: It's a micro array , okay . +User Interface: There four microphone . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay , +User Interface: So they they they they {disfmarker} there's a microphone array . +Project Manager: and you have the {disfmarker} there's the technology inside that recognise simple vocal comments ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And you can turn it so maybe it's techno technologically innov innovative ? +User Interface: So you can capture voice {disfmarker} yeah , you c +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can capture s voice from different directions . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I think you {disfmarker} you've never seen a rou a round remote control , so it is {disfmarker} I +Marketing: Yeah bu but when you say technologically it's more uh I dunno , in the core , or single . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have tactile buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I see , you have microphone array embedded . You have {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's good . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's good . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , th that's another really good point . Maybe {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: I think technically it's acceptable , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So using the same scale , two ? +Project Manager: Two ? I would say two +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah , two . It's it's fine , so . +Project Manager: . You agree ? +User Interface: Yeah , I agree . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: It's better like that , isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now maybe the most critical one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} L last one w I would like to judge is is it easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: Eh , for th the vocal command yes , it's might be easy . But it's just speaking . +User Interface: Yeah , it's very easy . +Industrial Designer: You just need the command . +User Interface: You can use this in this way . +Marketing: Yeah but this this turning {disfmarker} can you can you just re explain me the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As a principle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Please . +User Interface: Th this is the base . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can turn to change the channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but how how intuitive is it to turn things to change channels ? +User Interface: You just tu turn d d +Industrial Designer: I think maybe if you he +Project Manager: Oh , ok I understand . +Marketing: Like if you want to go from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You take take {vocalsound} the remote , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If you hear some click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you can turn like that to change the channel ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but imagine you y +Project Manager: I think it's quite easy to so s zapping , but maybe it will be too fast . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I'm I'm no I'm not definitely convinced it's it's the best way to {disfmarker} if you wanna jump from , I dunno , one to twenty ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's difficult . That's dif that's difficult . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: How can you go directly to twenty , for example ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} if y uh if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it depend on the the angle you turn the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I agree . I agree . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y how {disfmarker} you need to know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I mean if you're fro from two ? +User Interface: I if if this is a channel one . So it c it could be channel two , channel three , channel four , channel five . +Industrial Designer: I think something that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have a {vocalsound} , like that , and so on . +User Interface: So change . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ju just imagine you have fifty fifty channels uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Y uh fifth channel divided by the num by the {disfmarker} by three hundred thirteen degree . +Marketing: We're not talking {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: So you got how many degree you you {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but y but you have to go through all the channels if you want to go {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can if you have a scale , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , you don't have to y no it's uh when you when you stop t uh when you stop , the the turn , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the angle you stop is the angle you {disfmarker} is the channel you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . How d how do you know this angle is th is the correct one ? +User Interface: It's it's very easy , because you kn you know how many channel are there in the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you count {gap} one degree , two degrees , no . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . You can do it . +Marketing: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a bit difficult . +User Interface: I think so {vocalsound} I think so you can do it . {vocalsound} I think so , you can just change . +Industrial Designer: I think b but the the vocal command is easy too . You can say fifty and fifty it's okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah voc vocal command is okay . But w we've said previously that maybe it's not going to be th l the main {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's uh also a number , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but when you're zapping you're changing from one channel to the other , so you're passing through all the channels . So , when you say I want to go to the channel number twenty that's {disfmarker} you've decided to go to channel twenty , so you can say channel twenty , or channel four , because you really want to go on this channel . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah , and y that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But if you really want to to do zapping you you don't really know what you want to do , you can turn it . +Marketing: And this would be more for browsing , ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just go through all the channels and maybe stop if there is something interesting ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . To see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems to be good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good choice , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean you're famous . You {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also you can , if you i +Project Manager: {gap} yeah , what's what's this cherry ? +User Interface: You ca you can turn this . Or you ca you can you can also turn this . +Industrial Designer: It is a turn off t turn off button , maybe . +User Interface: For this you can tune it's for tune . You you if you want to skip from channel one to channel two , you you skip this . If you want to from uh skip from channel one to channel ten you tune this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like fine , from coarse to fine . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: This is coarse , this is fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . That's +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's coarse to fine design . +Industrial Designer: that's very technologic , so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay the uh th this looks better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah is is {disfmarker} this is , from one channel to maybe to ten channel . +Industrial Designer: S But I di I didn't see where the t f the turn off t turn on turn off button so much activates +User Interface: This is from one channel to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , th you have the vocal commands . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's k {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: On off . +Industrial Designer: on off , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but it has to be on to recognise fas +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Most of the time you have the {disfmarker} yeah it's a sleeping remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , sleeping . +Marketing: Ah , that's not the ecological part , yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . W that why we have the solar ti yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To compensate {gap} . +Marketing: Solar . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So , which number ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to use , it's very relative but three it's fine , I think , it's reasonable three . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Three ? +User Interface: Yeah , agree , agree . +Marketing: So reasonably , is four , is one ? +Industrial Designer: Three f three for me , it's o it's okay . +Marketing: So , three . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four or three . Maybe you can vote to see how many everybody gives and {disfmarker} no and just take the mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And what's your opinion ? +Industrial Designer: Will you give four ? +Marketing: Uh we wouldn't say , I mean , those are sort of agreed but this one would be more five to me . +Industrial Designer: Five ? Yeah , so maybe if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh w w what do y what uh {disfmarker} you compare with traditional uh um tr traditional controller ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's easier than traditional controller . If you use traditional controller you have to put a button , but now you don't have to put button , you have {disfmarker} you just turn the turn the ball . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but y you know {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's two kind of balls , +Marketing: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: the smaller the the the {disfmarker} so you can c you can c you can control the scale . +Marketing: {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: But in the traditional controller , how do {disfmarker} how can you control the scale ? +Marketing: Uh by pushing zero after after the first one . +Industrial Designer: You just push two button , zero and and one . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , yeah , y you you can do it , but you can also do it in the b if you you do not wa if you do not want to browsing all the channel you can just p there's also a button here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are there some buttons ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , this function is just for your browsing , from one channel to th the next one , the next s sn s , the th the third one . +Project Manager: It's not what you said previously . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Previously you said that turning this was the fine {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if you're changing your mind . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Fine to coarse . +Project Manager: Fine to coarse . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And from ten to ten channels here . +User Interface: Y one to ten , ten to twelve , uh ten to t uh twenty . Ten to twenty and this one , t one two three four five six , like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh there's different scale , so you can you can choose how much do you want to sc +Marketing: Okay . But this this has to stay on the table , right ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This has to stay on the table . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In fact on a flat place {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i this is just a base . You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but then uh when you turn turn it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , no no , no . You can't put it out . +Industrial Designer: Oh ye yes , that's right . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just your turning from the base . You need to have everything in hand . If you want to turn , you can't use it and turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's impossible . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: You need to put it on and turn . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . You know tha that's the weak point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You use your y +Marketing: because with a traditional one you just have one hand . +Project Manager: Yeah , but nobody would be able to take it in the pocket and bring it in the kitchen and say I've lost the remote control . +Industrial Designer: my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So th this is a d next generation controller . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nobody would take it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Yeah , you would never you would never lose this one , yeah . +Project Manager: So nobody w will lost {disfmarker} lose it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah maybe , maybe may +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's the next prototype , maybe we cou +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay okay , okay . +Project Manager: S maybe we can change from th +Industrial Designer: Four . Maybe four , it's okay . +User Interface: Four . Okay . +Project Manager: Four ? Easy to use , four . +Industrial Designer: I'll put four . +Project Manager: Gonna say four . +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable . +Marketing: Uh it's even easier to {disfmarker} maybe . +Industrial Designer: You can you can erase with this er yeah . +Marketing: Ok +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , four it's more reasonable , so . So it's nine , +Marketing: So , average ? +Industrial Designer: nine over three . +User Interface: Three ? +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Trois . Three . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's {gap} . +User Interface: Trois . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It need maybe some wo further work , but it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially on the easy to use +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh s yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: target . +Industrial Designer: Might {disfmarker} it might be fine . +Project Manager: So , th the project is accepted ? +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , b I think {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I d m I think that it will be good to do some more work to transform this into a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you re we really want to have a fruitful remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So uh mm mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's the finance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay and we we had a project prototype presentation with the evaluation . So as we all agree to accept , under certain conditions , the prototype , we'll have look to the final sh financial view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we need to calculate the production cost . As I said in the first meeting we need to have so a remote control that would cost not more than twelve and point fifty Euros . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if not {disfmarker} if it's not the case y you would have to redesign it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , just have a look at the {disfmarker} okay here is the Excel sheet , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it has the energy source . We have hand dynamo . No , we don't use that . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We have battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have battery . +Project Manager: Kinetic , we don't have it , I suppose , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: but we have solar cells . +Industrial Designer: um solar cells , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , how many do y do you need , solar cells ? Do you think one would be enough , or {disfmarker} such as {vocalsound} as number of branches ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I think in each ball you have three {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Three ? +Industrial Designer: three uh yeah , three , yeah . Three {gap} three solar cells . +Project Manager: So , electronic . Single simple chip on print ? Just one would be necessary ? +Industrial Designer: S s simple , simple , yeah . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Zero for the others . And sample sensor , sample speaker . One ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . One maybe , yeah . +Project Manager: As we have voice recognition , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So the case . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is sh it {gap} +Marketing: So we are all already nineteen . +Industrial Designer: Wooden . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just keep on going , just to have an idea . +User Interface: The solar cell is too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} Yes a wooden pl I and that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's no wood , so plastic just only , I think . +Project Manager: yeah , but what what about case ? Uncurved , flat , single curved , double curved . I think it's more like double curved . +Marketing: That's gonna be double curved , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Double curve , yeah , double curve . +Project Manager: One ? +Industrial Designer: One , you have . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh wood ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} yeah , a a rubber uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Rather four buttons . +Project Manager: Uh do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Oh no , interface . +Project Manager: Y maybe , two ? We have two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Y y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's special colours , sure . +Project Manager: Push button . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , we have four . +Industrial Designer: Five ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Scroll wheel . We don no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: It it's more like integrated scor . +Industrial Designer: I think that this will be like a scroll wheel , actually . +User Interface: No no . +Marketing: Yeah tha that's wheel . +Industrial Designer: Y you tu you turn you turn it , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no no , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe two scroll wheel , as we have the coarse coarse to fine scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Okay , yeah , yeah . Scr +Project Manager: So , no button supplements ? +Marketing: I think the price is okay . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , no . +Project Manager: Okay we {disfmarker} I think we have problem . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_C_ display , maybe . Interface . +Project Manager: I think we s if we keep on adding things {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's okay . {vocalsound} {gap} fine {gap} . +Project Manager: so we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah w one of the m key point is solar cells . +Project Manager: Maybe if w t if suppose if we change and we g put just one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has it changed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was stage one , so . +Marketing: No y i it did change , but +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have change the electronics to {disfmarker} from from the the the sample sensor to regular chip . Oh . +Marketing: just imagine we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to delete the the sample sensor , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} the the voice recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: no ? +Marketing: Yeah but this one one of the feature we were not really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's the one it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: m maybe we ha we have two versions , the first version , the basic version . +Industrial Designer: I think you can transform the wood into plastic , maybe . +User Interface: Advanced version we have speak . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh it seems that this can be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be better . +Industrial Designer: yeah , wood into plastic and it it should be fine . +User Interface: Plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , do we need special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's one of the requirement . +Project Manager: Because we have red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , red and yellow . +Project Manager: Red and yellow . +User Interface: Wait . +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +User Interface: We we can we can we c {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could turn we could turn everything in either yellow or black . +User Interface: yellow . +Marketing: Black then is a regular colour , so . +Project Manager: I think so we need {disfmarker} if we try to have a kind of +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , one . +Project Manager: pineapple bee . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . So push button then it's it's the next expensive one . +Project Manager: Yeah . An but we have integrated scroll wheel with push dut button . And I think this is one . Integrated scroll wheel push button +Marketing: Yeah , thi this might be . +Project Manager: . So we'll {disfmarker} we have only one ? And push button . +Marketing: Close to . +Project Manager: So if we have all integrated i in the scroll wheel and push button , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One . I can remove maybe f you have five with push buttons , so we can just , I dunno , try to modify some of them to have {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so what's the bottleneck ? +User Interface: How about we change the sale ? +Marketing: Double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curve . We can transform the double curve into single c yeah . +Project Manager: Something flat . +Industrial Designer: F some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but flat {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S uncurved . Yeah , maybe not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single curve {gap} . +Marketing: Case , what's the ca +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Single curve should be fine , so . Oh , what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Nearly . +User Interface: Ah we have one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then one Euro left . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe don't bat no battery , only solar cells . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's a bad idea , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think there's a problem with the push push button . We only need maybe just one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two ? +Project Manager: Just one . +Industrial Designer: One . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's fine . That's fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . {vocalsound} Agree . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} yeah , you will have {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have one button , +Industrial Designer: {gap} One s one scroll wheel , so +Marketing: one wheel . +Project Manager: So one button , and s scroll wheel with push button on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the vocal chord , it's fine . {gap} It I th it's fine . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's good they're not charging anything for that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , yeah . It think we we've done good job , as the cost is +User Interface: Cou could we have look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: twelve fifty e +User Interface: Could we have look at the p the the prod the p the cost ? +Marketing: Yeah y actually it's wrong . We're not under twelve Euros and a half . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's under or equal . It's not written . Sometimes it's under or equal . +Industrial Designer: It's fine . It's under or equal . It's fine , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . So let's say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +User Interface: Wha what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's fine , twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . Which part is the most expensive part ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Solar cells . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think . +Industrial Designer: The solar cells , r is i is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's not t t +Project Manager: I think , yeah . But it would i be interesting for our marketing team , to make a lot of advertisement concerning these solar cells to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to be able to si to sell it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Cheaper . +Marketing: That's nice argument , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , with mi +Marketing: but if it's it's still four our of twelve . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} it is really really uh really very very expensive , though . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but it will be technologically innova innovative , so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but we just have one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's easy to use and powerful , as the remote control a has only one button . +Marketing: Easy . I don't know about powerful . Yeah . +Project Manager: Easy , powerful . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use . It's very easy to use . {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So I don't think we need to redesign the p the product . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh that's what we've just done . +Industrial Designer: We've done it with {disfmarker} it is under the {disfmarker} if it was low , high or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} So what are we going to do with this project evaluation ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we have just have to discuss if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , it's fine . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: So did you enjoy your clay modelling ? +User Interface: Yes . Of course . This is my job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Was it a nice way to create your remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh it's good , to to create a control instead of a computer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I find it really funny and amazing and interesting to go through all the process to {disfmarker} from the beginning to the end . And designing , looking at the chips , the solar cells and uh and it was very {vocalsound} informative for {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for the marketing guy ? +Marketing: Uh tha that was good but we should have more brainstorming like meetings , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yep {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'Cause we just presenting one is presenting his stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: next one his stuff and then we try to combine afterwards , so it {disfmarker} um . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: And new ideas about new products , maybe , wi which would be fashion and uh and yellow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yellow . {vocalsound} I think you can think about a yellow T_V_ now after {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a fruit T_V_ or I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It can be an interesting I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , just lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just a lemon T_V_ it'd be {vocalsound} yellow lemon . +User Interface: Yeah , but y you know the traditional T_V_ it's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's flat , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah it's flat , +Project Manager: Squared ? +User Interface: yeah the shape is very boring . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . It's really boring , yeah . +User Interface: Could we come up with new T_V_ with {disfmarker} such as this kind of T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have base , triangle base so you the T_V_ you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah , the lemon T_V_ with the pineapple remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's {disfmarker} that would be really interesting , actually . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Because the T_V_ you {vocalsound} also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that's interesting . You could f we could do a kind of fruit collection of electronics things . Electronic device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Device devi +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but just don't trust too much the trends . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fruit ? {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause fruit and vegetables it won't last for ten years uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe la next year it will be insects . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe two years it's dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think it's good to follow the f flow and you know make it now and after , you know , if the people change their mind you change also the product . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but this is good because it's not a long long life product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: T_V_ is more like fifteen years , maybe , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . That's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: If you have a lemon lemon T_V_ for +Industrial Designer: We can think about T_V_ with you know where you can change you know the aspects o like for the cell phones , you know . +Marketing: fifteen years {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Customable T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you customise it every ti so every ti if people change , you just change the appearance , and y y you can keep {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Ah such {disfmarker} yeah . You've already said mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Tha that would that would make it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can keep the global appearan +Project Manager: Yeah , and following {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The mood of persons , the fashions uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's interesting , maybe we can create a a line of uh T_V_ with uh a a tr +Industrial Designer: We int {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , T_V_ , yeah . A T_V_ for autumn and a T_V_ for winter , you know , so it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what i and do w is it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: So I think the costs are within the budget . We're just at twelve fifty Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the pr {gap} at {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you think you can celebrate your creation ? +User Interface: And you can celebrate your leadership . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , thanks a lot . {vocalsound} Thank you , mister David Jordan . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think f {vocalsound} it's really a celebrating object . {vocalsound} So it's yellow and very {disfmarker} a very ha it's very happy , so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's a pr it's like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's party party remote control . +Project Manager: The thing now is to to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sell it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , go and sell it . Goo and good luck , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay and the twelve fifty {disfmarker} twelve uh twelve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Twenty five Euros , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It should be fine . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's maybe a little bit expensive . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: It's cheap , yeah . {vocalsound} No , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's not so expensive . +Marketing: I'm not so happy about the fruit shape , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It should be it should be fine , you know , actually . {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe what you can do a test . Put it outside , and if bees come , {vocalsound} it's really fruit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think I like {vocalsound} the the colour a the colour are very good , so actually so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But don't put sugar in it , it's not working . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , the colours are uh {disfmarker} it's perfect , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's perfect , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . Uh yeah , another thing is the logo is missing still . +Industrial Designer: I p is th y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the colour , I think the colour is more {disfmarker} is most important , +Industrial Designer: the the yellow ball thing that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I I don't think you have ever seen something like that before for a remote control . +Marketing: Still that was one of the requirements we had . It's {disfmarker} yeah but it {disfmarker} I don't think it's such a problem just putting the logo somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Uh f like y we can we can put some uh double R_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we decided to have something yellow and red , for the costs . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can just integrate it on th on one side , the double R_ . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah , yeah . That's actually good idea , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we have the logo , we have the colour , and we have the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: So we have to give a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so we have the slogan too . +User Interface: So we have give him {disfmarker} give it a cute name . +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: th no , it's the it's the pineapple control {disfmarker} remote control . +User Interface: Mush mushroom controller . +Marketing: Cute na You cannot say mushroom because it's not the trend . +Project Manager: It's a pineapple now , it has changed . It's a pineapple . +Industrial Designer: It's not a mushroom . {vocalsound} It's a pineapple remote controls . +Marketing: It's not the trend . +Project Manager: Pineapple . +User Interface: Pa Pine apple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pineapple remote remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , but just flying saucer , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: With cherry on top . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I would say flying saucer . +Industrial Designer: Oh unid uh unidentified remote control , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more appropriate , somehow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's that's pineapple remote control . I think it's fine . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Will you buy one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I will try {vocalsound} I'll try {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try to . Okay uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Twenty five {vocalsound} Euro . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . I can hel I will try versions so to see how easy easy to manage {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah you told me you h you d you d you lost your control your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I always lose my {disfmarker} Yeah , so so i if it is a universal one I can use it with my T_V_ , so it would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you need to buy one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One thing I like is the shape , because you know it's not like the uh the remote controls you can put in your pocket , on uh in your jacket . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Traditional one ? Yeah . So this one and this one . What do you choose ? +Project Manager: I prefer the laser remote control . {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think I would choose this one because of the colour . It's +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What do you choose ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's will enlight your house , your home and your T_V_ , so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . Maybe next if we decide to do something we'd {disfmarker} can put light inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah that would be uh an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but that's going to be expensive , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We had some problems {vocalsound} going to twelve Euros and uh I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it it would be interesting to {disfmarker} just to see if we can {disfmarker} if people will buy this one , and maybe add some features to it after yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , afterwards , if +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: if it's a new trend . Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah that's that fine . So we can celebrate now . That's our new product . +Project Manager: Champagne {gap} , mister Baba . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: We should celebrate . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's it's fine . It's {disfmarker} I like it {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Next time . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So buy one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I'll buy one here . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I will close this . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we have finished the designing and the evaluation of our remote control +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we have a nearly final product . +Marketing: Our final prototype which {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Final prototype , yeah , ye yeah . +Project Manager: Final prototype , right . +User Interface: Prototype , yeah . +Project Manager: So , thank you very much . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Very productive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Industrial Designer: S so who is going to take the remote control ? +","In a collaborative project meeting, the team is evaluating a new remote control prototype. The Industrial Designer presents a clay prototype with a mushroom design, yellow and red colors, and unique features such as fuzzy texture and a circular channel selection. Concerns about cost, market trends, and user-friendliness are raised, with discussions about how to make the product more practical and cost-effective. + +Marketing is skeptical about the design following temporary trends, while the User Interface Designer highlights the product's innovative features. The Project Manager leads a cost analysis to ensure the product does not exceed the budget, resulting in adjustments such as simplifying the design. + +After reviewing the costs, the team debates potential names and the viability of the product in the market. Despite some hesitations, especially from Marketing, the team ends with a positive outlook, considering the prototype a ""party remote control"" and discusses ideas of creating a fruit-themed electronics collection. The meeting concludes with the team acknowledging the need for celebration and further product development discussions." diff --git a/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_train.csv b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_train.csv new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b824cfe --- /dev/null +++ b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_train.csv @@ -0,0 +1,271043 @@ +input,output +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: Sorry . Mental {disfmarker} mental Palm Pilot . Right . Hence {pause} no problem . +Grad F: Let 's see . So . What ? I 'm supposed to be on channel five ? Her . Nope . Doesn't seem to be , +Grad B: Hello {pause} I 'm channel one . +Grad F: yeah . +Grad D: +Grad E: What does your thing say on the back ? +Grad D: Testing . +Grad F: Nnn , five . Alright , I 'm five . +Grad D: Sibilance . Sibilance . {comment} {pause} Three , three . I am three . +Grad B: Eh . +Grad D: See , that matches the seat up there . So . +Grad F: Yeah , well , I g guess {pause} it 's coming up then , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} That starts counting from zero and these start counting from one . Ergo , the classic off - by - one error . +Grad B: But mine is correct . +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad E: No . +Grad B: It 's one . Channel one . +Grad D: Your mike {pause} number {pause} is what we 're t +Grad E: Look at the back . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh ! Oh . +Grad D: Ho ! +Grad B: So {disfmarker} +Grad D: I 've bested you again , Nancy . +Grad B: But your p No , but the paper 's correct . +Grad D: The paper is correct . +Grad B: Look at the paper . +Grad D: I didn't det I was saying the microphone , not the paper . +Professor C: Nnn , +Grad B: Oh . +Professor C: it 's n +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It 's always offset . Yeah . +Grad B: Yes , you 've bested me again . That 's how I think of our continuing interaction . Damn ! Foiled again ! +Grad D: So is Keith showing up ? He 's talking with George right now . Uh , is he gonna get a rip {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} rip himself away from {disfmarker} from that ? +Grad B: He 'll probably come later . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} He - he he 's probably not , is my guess . +Grad D: Oh , then it 's just gonna be the five of us ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , he {disfmarker} he was very affirmative in his way of saying he will be here at four . But {pause} you know , that was before he knew about that George lecture probably . +Professor C: Right . This {disfmarker} this is not {disfmarker} It 's not bad for the project if Keith is talking to George . OK . So my suggestion is we just +Grad B: Forge ahead . +Professor C: Forge ahead , yeah . +Grad E: Cool . +Grad B: Are you in charge ? +Grad E: Sure . Um . Well , I sort of had informal talks with most of you . So , Eva just reported she 's really happy about the {pause} CBT 's being in the same order in the XML as in the um {disfmarker} be Java declaration format +Grad F: Yeah . The e +Grad E: so you don't have to do too much in the style sheet transversion . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , so . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} uh , Java {disfmarker} the embedded Bayes {pause} wants to take input {disfmarker} uh , uh , a Bayes - net {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some Java notation and Eva is using the Xalan style sheet processor to convert the XML that 's output by the Java Bayes for the {disfmarker} into the , uh , E Bayes input . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad F: Actually , maybe I could try , like , emailing the guy and see if he has any something already . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad F: That 'd be weird , that he has both the Java Bayes and the embedded Bayes in {disfmarker} +Grad D: But that 's some sort of conversion program ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . And put them into different {pause} formats . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think you should demand things from him . +Grad F: Yep , he could do that , too . +Professor C: He charges so much . Right . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor C: No , I think it 's a good idea that you may as well ask . Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: And , um , well {pause} pretty mu pretty much on t on the top of my list , I would have asked Keith how the "" where is X ? "" {pause} hand parse is standing . Um . {pause} But we 'll skip that . Uh , there 's good news from Johno . The generation templates are done . +Grad D: So the trees {pause} for {disfmarker} the XML trees for the {disfmarker} for the gene for the synthesizer are written . So I just need to {pause} do the , uh {disfmarker} write a new set of {pause} tree combining rules . But I think those 'll be pretty similar to the old ones . So . Just gonna be {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh ! You were gonna send me a note about hiring {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yes . +Professor C: I didn't finish the sentence but he understood it . +Grad D: I know what he 's talking about . +Professor C: OK . But Nancy doesn't . +Grad B: Hiring somebody . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} w um {disfmarker} +Grad D: The guy . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} natural language generation {pause} produces not a {disfmarker} just a surface string that is fed into a text - to - speech but , a {pause} surface string with a syntax tree that 's fed into a concept - to - speech . +Professor C: No . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Better . +Grad E: Now and this concept - to - speech module has {pause} certain rules on how {pause} if you get the following syntactic structure , how to map this onto prosodic rules . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And Fey has foolheartedly agreed to rewrite uh , the German concept uh syntax - to - prosody rules {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't know she spoke German . +Grad E: No , she doesn't . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: But she speaks English . +Grad B: Oh . Rewrite the German ones into English . OK , got it . +Grad E: Into English . And um therefore {pause} the , uh {disfmarker} if it 's OK that we give her a couple of more hours per week , then {pause} she 'll do that . +Grad B: OK , got it . +Grad D: What {pause} language is that {pause} written i Is that that Scheme thing that you showed me ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's the LISP - type scheme . +Grad D: She knows how to program in Scheme ? I hope ? +Grad E: No , I {disfmarker} My guess is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I asked for a commented version of that file ? If we get that , then it 's {pause} doable , even without getting into it , even though the Scheme li uh , stuff is really well documented in the {pause} Festival . +Grad D: Well , I guess if you 're not used to functional programming , Scheme can be completely incomprehensible . Cuz , there 's no {disfmarker} Like {pause} there 's lots of unnamed functions +Professor C: Syntax . Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You know ? +Professor C: Anyway , it {disfmarker} We 'll sort this out . Um . But anyway , send me the note and then I 'll - I 'll check with , uh , Morgan on the money . I {disfmarker} I don't anticipate any problem but we have to {pause} ask . Oh , so this was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} You know , on the generation thing , um if {comment} sh y she 's really going to do that , then we should be able to get prosody as well . So it 'll say it 's nonsense with perfect intonation . +Grad D: Are we gonna {disfmarker} Can we change the voice of the {disfmarker} of the thing , because right now the voice sounds like a murderer . +Grad E: Yep . We ha we have to change the voice . +Grad B: Wh - Which one ? +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the little Smarticus {disfmarker} Smarticus sounds like a murderer . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad A: That 's good to know . +Grad D: "" I have your reservations . "" +Grad A: But I will not give them to you unless you come into my lair . +Grad E: It is {disfmarker} Uh , we have the choice between the , uh , usual Festival voices , which I already told the SmartKom people we aren't gonna use because they 're really bad . +Grad B: Festival ? +Professor C: It 's the name of some program , +Grad B: Oh , oh . Got it . OK . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} the synthesizer . +Grad A: You know , the usual party voices . +Grad E: But , um +Grad B: Yeah , I know . That doesn't sound , {vocalsound} exactly right either . +Grad E: OGI has , uh , crafted a couple of diphone type voices that are really nice and we 're going to use {pause} that . We can still , um , d agree on a gender , if we want . So we still have male or female . +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} Well , let 's just pick whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad B: Whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Uh . +Grad B: Unfortunately , probably male voices , a bit more research on . +Grad D: Does OGI stand for {disfmarker} ? {comment} Original German Institute ? +Professor C: Orego +Grad B: So . +Professor C: Or +Grad E: Oregon . +Grad B: Oregon Graduate Insti +Professor C: Oregon @ @ {comment} Graduate Institute +Grad D: Oh . +Grad E: Try Oregon . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor C: It turns out there 's the long - standing links with these guys in the speech group . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Professor C: Very long . +Grad D: Hmm ! +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: In fact , there 's this guy who 's basically got a joint appointment , Hynek {pause} Hermansky . He 's - spends a fair amount of time here . Anyway . Leave it . Won't be a problem . +Grad E: OK . And it 's probably also absolutely uninteresting for all of you to , um learn that as of twenty minutes ago , David and I , per accident , uh managed to get the whole SmartKom system running on the {disfmarker} uh , ICSI Linux machines with the ICSI NT machines thereby increasing the number of running SmartKom systems in this house from {pause} one on my laptop to three . +Grad B: Mmm , that 's good . +Grad D: How was this by accident ? +Grad B: Yeah , I know . Tha - that 's the part I didn't understand . +Grad E: Um , I suggested to try something that was really kind of {disfmarker} even though against better knowledge shouldn't have worked , but it worked . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Grad E: Intuition . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Will it work again , +Grad E: Maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe a bit for the AI i intuition thing . +Grad B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . And , um , we 'll never found out why . It - it 's just like why {disfmarker} why the generation ma the presentation manager is now working ? +Grad A: Hmm ! This is something you ha you get used to as a programmer , right ? +Grad E: Which +Grad A: You know , {comment} and it 's cool , it works out that way . +Grad E: Hmm . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the people at Saarbruecken and I decided not to touch it ever again . Yeah , that would work . OK . Um {disfmarker} I was gonna ask you where something is and what we know about that . +Grad A: Where {disfmarker} OK . +Grad B: Where the "" where is "" construction is . +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what thing is this ? +Grad E: Where is X ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Oh , but by {disfmarker} Uh , we can ask , uh , did you get to read all four hundred words ? +Professor C: I did . +Grad E: Was it OK ? Was it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I wa I was looking at it . It doesn't follow logically . It doesn't {disfmarker} The first paragraph doesn't seem to have any link to the second paragraph . +Grad A: And so on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . That {disfmarker} +Professor C: You know , i Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Grad D: Each paragraph is good , though . I li +Professor C: I i Yeah . Well , it it 's fine . +Grad A: It was written by committee . +Professor C: Anyway . Um . But c the meeting looks like it 's , it 's gonna be good . So . I think it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I didn't know about it until {pause} Robert told me , like , +Professor C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I ra I ran across it in {disfmarker} I don't even know where , you know {disfmarker} some just {disfmarker} some weird place . And , uh , yeah , I I 'm surprised I didn't know about it +Grad B: Y yeah . Well , yeah . I was like , why didn't Dan tell me ? +Professor C: since we know all the invited speakers , an +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Right , or some Anyway . So {disfmarker} But anyway , yeah . I so I {disfmarker} I did see that . Oh wha Yeah . Before we get started on this st so I also had a nice email correspondence with Daphne Kohler , who said yes indeed she would love to work with us on the , um , {disfmarker} you know , using these structured belief - nets and stuff but {pause} starting in August , that she 's also got a new student working on this and that we should get in touch with them again in August and then we 'll figure out a way for you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} you to get seriously connected with , um their group . So that 's , uh {disfmarker} looks pretty good . And um {disfmarker} Yeah , I 'll say it now . So , um {disfmarker} And it looks to me like {comment} we 're now at a good point to do something {disfmarker} start working on something really hard . We 've been so far working on things that are easy . +Grad A: Oh ! +Professor C: Uh , w Which is {comment} mental spaces and uh {disfmarker} and - or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: It 's hard . Yeah , it 's hard . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It 's a hard puzzle . But the other part of it is the way they connect to these , uh , probabilistic relational models . So {pause} there 's all the problems that the linguists know about , about mental spaces , and the cognitive linguists know about , but then there 's this problem of the belief - net people have only done a moderately good job of dealing with temporal belief - nets . Uh , which they call dynamic {disfmarker} they incorrectly call dynamic belief - nets . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: So there 's a term "" dynamic belief - net "" , doesn't mean that . It means time slices . And Srini used those and people use them . Uh . But one of the things I w would like to do over the next , uh , month , it may take more , {comment} is to st understand to what extent we can not only figure out the constructions for them for multiple worlds and uh sort of what the formalism will look like and where the slots and fillers will be , but also what that would translate into in terms of belief - net and the inferences . So the story is that if you have these probabilistic relational models , they 're set up , in principle , so that you can make new instances and instances connect to each other , and all that sort of stuff , so it should be feasible to set them up in such a way that if you 've got the past tense and the present tense and each of those is a separate {pause} uh , belief structure that they do their inferences with just the couplings that are appropriate . But that 's g that 's , as far as I can tell , it 's {disfmarker} it 's putting together two real hard problems . One is the linguistic part of what are the couplings and {disfmarker} and when you have a certain , uh , construction , that implies certain couplings and other couplings , you know , between let 's say between the past and the present , or any other one of these things and then we have this inference problem of exactly technically how does the belief - net work if it 's got um , let 's say one in {disfmarker} in , you know , different tenses or my beliefs and your beliefs , or any of these other ones of {disfmarker} of multiple models . So um you know , in the long run we need to solve both of those and my suggestion is that we start digging into them both , uh , in a way we that , you know , th hopefully turns out to be consistent , so that the {disfmarker} Um . And sometimes it 's actually easier to solve two hard problems than one +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: because they constrain each other . I mean if you 've got huge ra huge range of possible choices um {disfmarker} We 'll see . But anyway , so that 's , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh yeah , like uh , I solved the {disfmarker} the problem of um {disfmarker} we were talking about how do you {disfmarker} various issues of how come a plural noun gets to quote "" count as a noun phrase "" , you know , occur as an argument of a higher construction , but a bare singular stem doesn't get to act that way . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , and it would take a really long time to explain it now , but I 'm about to write it up this evening . I solved that at the same time as "" how do we keep adjectives from floating to the left of determiners and how do we keep all of that from floating outside the noun phrase "" to get something like "" I the kicked dog "" . Um . Did it {disfmarker} did it at once . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad A: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 'll be a similar thing . +Grad B: Cool . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I know , I th I I think that is gonna be sort of the key to this wh to th the big project of the summer of {disfmarker} of getting the constructions right is that people do manage to do this so there probably are some , uh , relatively clean rules , they 're just not context - free trees . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: And if we {disfmarker} if the formalism is {disfmarker} is good , then we should be able to have , you know , sort of moderate scale thing . And that by the way is {disfmarker} is , Keith , what I encouraged George to be talking with you about . Not the formalism yet +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but the phenomena . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: The p And {disfmarker} Oh , another thing , um there was this , uh thing that Nancy agreed to in a {disfmarker} in a weak moment this morning that +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: I was really strong . +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , sorry . In a {disfmarker} in a friendly moment . +Grad A: Same thing . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , that we were {disfmarker} that we 're gonna try to get a uh , first cut at the revised formalism by the end of next week . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK ? Probably skipping the mental spaces part . +Grad B: Seems {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . I do . +Professor C: Uh , just trying to write up essentially what {disfmarker} what you guys have worked out so that everybody has something to look at . We 've talked about it , but only the innermost inner group currently , uh , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Knows . +Professor C: knows , uh +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and not even all of them really do . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} The group as a whole knows but no individual member kno +Professor C: Well that that {disfmarker} yeah th there 's one of the advantages of a document , right ? , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is that it actually transfers from head to head . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So anyway . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ah , communication ! +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: Communication . +Grad A: Hunh ! +Professor C: Communication , documentation and stuff . Anyway , so , uh , with a little luck {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} l let 's , let 's have that as a goal anyway . +Grad A: So , uh , what was the date there ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Monday or {disfmarker} ? It 's a Friday . +Professor C: No , no , no . No , w uh {disfmarker} we 're talking about a week fr e end of next week . +Grad A: End of next week . +Grad B: But , uh , but {disfmarker} but the two of us will probably talk to you at well before th +Grad A: I thought you said beginning of n Yeah . +Grad B: I mean . Anyway , w let 's talk separately about how t +Grad A: Yeah , I have a busy weekend but after that {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Yeah , gung - ho . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so someti sometime next week . +Grad A: Great , +Professor C: Now if it turns out that that effort leads us into some big hole that 's fine . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: You know , if you say we 're {disfmarker} we 're dump {disfmarker} dump {disfmarker} dump . There 's a really hard problem we haven't solved yet {disfmarker} that , that 's just fine . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But at {disfmarker} at least sort of try and work out what the state of the art is right now . +Professor C: Right , t t if {disfmarker} to the extent that we have it , let 's write it +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: and to the extent we don't , let 's find out what we need to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So , uh +Grad E: Can we {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Is it worth {pause} thinking of an example out of our tourism thing domain , that involves a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a decent mental {pause} space shift {pause} or setting up {disfmarker} +Professor C: I think it is , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but I interrupted before Keith got to tell us what happened with "" where is the Powder - Tower ? "" or whatever +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Well . Uh , what was supposed to happen ? I 've sort of been actually caught up in some other ones , so , um , you know , I don't have a write - up of {disfmarker} or I haven't elaborated on the ideas that we were already talking about which were {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm , yeah . I think {disfmarker} I think we already came to the conclusion that we have two alternative {pause} paths that we {disfmarker} two alternative ways of representing it . One is sort of a {disfmarker} has a um +Grad A: It 's gone . +Grad E: um +Grad A: The question of whether the polysemy is sort of like in the construction or pragmatic . +Grad B: One of them was th Right . +Grad E: or comes {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: is resolved later . Yeah . +Grad A: I think it has to be the {disfmarker} the second case . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um , so d ' you {disfmarker} Is it clear what we 're talking about here ? +Grad B: I agree . +Grad A: The question is whether the construction is semantic or like ambiguous between asking for location and asking for path . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: So you might be {disfmarker} yeah , y And asking for directions . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um or {disfmarker} or whether the construction semantically , uh , is clearly only asking for location +Grad E: Should we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: but pragmatically that 's construed as meaning "" tell me how to get there "" . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad E: So {pause} assume these are two , uh , nodes we can observe in the Bayes - net . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So these are either true or false and it 's also just true {pause} or false . If we encounter a phrase such as "" where is X ? "" , should that set this to true and this to true , and the Bayes - net figures out which under the c situation in general is more likely ? Um , or should it just activate this , have this be false , and the Bayes - net figures out whether this actually now means {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh w that 's a s +Grad B: Slightly different . +Professor C: OK , so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a separate issue . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So I a I I th I agree with you that , um , it 's a disaster to try to make separate constructions for every uh , pragmatic reading , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although there are some that will need to be there . +Grad B: Good . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: I mean , there there 's some that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or have every construction list all the possible pragmatic implications of the same one . +Professor C: You can't do that either . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But , you know , c um {disfmarker} almost certainly "" can you pass the salt "" is a construction worth noting that there is this th this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Request . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Very yeah . +Grad A: So right , this one is maybe in the gray area . Is it {disfmarker} is it like that or is it just sort of obvious from world knowledge that no one {disfmarker} you wouldn't want to know the location without wanting to know how to get there or whatever . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: Ri Yeah . +Grad E: One Or in some cases , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite definitely +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: s so that you just know {disfmarker} wanna know where it is . +Grad A: Yeah . Well the question is basically , is this conventional or conversational implicature ? +Professor C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad B: Might be , yeah . +Professor C: And I guess , see , the more important thing at this stage is that we should be able to know how we would handle it in ei f in the short run it 's more important to know how we would treat {disfmarker} technically what we would do if we decided A and what we would do if we decided B , than it is t to decide A or B r right now . +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad B: Right . Right . +Grad A: Which of that is . {comment} Yeah , OK +Grad B: Which one it is . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Cuz there will be other k examples that are one way or the other . Right . +Professor C: W we know for sure that we have to be able to do both . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I guess {vocalsound} In the short run , let 's {disfmarker} let 's be real clear on h what the two alternatives would be . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: And then the {vocalsound} we had another idea floating around um , which we wanted to , uh , get your input on , and that concerns the {disfmarker} But the nice thing is w we would have a person that would like to work on it , and that 's Ir - Irina Gurevich from EML {pause} who is going to be visiting us , uh , the week before , uh , August and a little bit into August . And she would like to {vocalsound} apply the {pause} ontology that is , um {vocalsound} being crafted at EML . That 's not the one I sent you . The one I sent you was from GMD , out of a European CRUMPET . +Professor C: It was terrible . +Grad E: Agreed . Um , and one of the reas one of the {disfmarker} those ideas was , so , back to the old Johno observation that if y if you have a dialogue history {pause} and it said the word "" admission fee "" was uh , mentioned um , it 's more likely that the person actually wants to enter {pause} than just take a picture of it from the outside . Now what could imagine {disfmarker} to , you know , have a list for each construction of things that one should look up in the discourse history , yeah ? That 's the really stupid way . Then there is the {pause} really clever way that was suggested by Keith and then there is the , uh , middle way that I 'm suggesting and that is you {disfmarker} you get X , which is whatever , the castle . The ontology will tell us that castles have opening hours , that they have admission fees , they have whatever . And then , this is {disfmarker} We go via a thesaurus and look up {pause} certain linguistic surface structures {pause} that are related to these concepts and feed those through the dialogue history and check dynamically for each e entity . We look it up check whether any of these were mentioned and then activate the corresponding nodes on the discourse side . But Keith suggested that a {disfmarker} a much cleaner way would be {disfmarker} is , you know , to keep track of the discourse in such a way that you {disfmarker} if you know that something like that ha has been mentioned before , this just a continues to add up , you know , in th in a {disfmarker} +Grad A: So if someone mentions admission f fees , that activates an Enter schema which sticks around for a little while in your rep in the representation of what 's being talked about . And then when someone asks "" where is X ? "" you 've already got the {disfmarker} the Enter schema activated +Grad B: Kind of a priming +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and you 're able to {disfmarker} to conclude on it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: priming a spreading activation +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . So that 's certainly {pause} more {pause} realistic . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: I m I mean psychologically . Now technically +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um +Grad D: Well , uh , is it {disfmarker} doesn't it seem like if you just managed the dialogue history with a {disfmarker} a thread , that you know , kept track of ho of the activity of {disfmarker} I mean , cuz it would {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thread would know what nodes {pause} like , needed to be activated , so it could just keep track of {pause} how long it 's been since {pause} something 's been mentioned , and {pause} automatically load it in . +Professor C: Yeah . You could do that . Um . But here 's {disfmarker} here 's a way {disfmarker} in th in the bl Bayes - net you could {disfmarker} you could think about it this way , that if um {pause} at the time "" admissions fee "" was mentioned {pause} you could increase the probability {pause} that someone wanted to enter . +Grad B: Turn prior on . +Grad D: We - yeah {disfmarker} th th that 's what I wa I wasn't {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I wasn't thinking in terms of Enter schemas . I was just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Fair enough , OK , but , but , in terms of the c c the current implementation {disfmarker} right ? so that um +Grad B: It would already be higher in the {pause} context . +Professor C: th that th the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the conditional probability that someone {disfmarker} So at the time you mentioned it {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} this is essentially the Bayes - net equivalent of the spreading activation . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} In some ways it 's not as good but it 's {pause} the implementation we got . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . No , I mean +Professor C: We don't have a connectionist implementation . Now {disfmarker} Now my guess is that it 's not a question of time but it is a question of whether another {pause} intervening object has been mentioned . +Grad B: Yeah , relevance . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , we could look at dialo this is {disfmarker} Of course the other thing we ha we do is , is we have this data coming +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: which probably will blow all our theories , +Grad A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but skipping that {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but my guess is what {disfmarker} what 'll probably will happen , Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a proposed design . {comment} is that there 're certain constructions which , uh , for our purposes do change the probabilities of EVA decisions and various other kinds and th that the , uh , standard way that {disfmarker} that the these contexts work is sort of stack - like or whatever , but that 's sort of the most recent thing . And so it could be that {pause} when another uh , en tourist entity gets mentioned , you +Grad B: Renew +Professor C: re re essentially re - initiali you know , re - i essentially re - initialize the {pause} state . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And of course i if we had a fancier one with multiple worlds you could have {disfmarker} uh , you could keep track of what someone was {pause} uh saying about this and that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , "" I wanna go {disfmarker} in the morning +Grad A: "" Here 's my plan for today . +Professor C: I wanna {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Here 's my plan for tomorrow . "" +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} Yeah , in the morning morning I I 'm planning t to go shopping , +Grad A: hypothetically . +Professor C: in the afternoon to the Powder - Tower {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , tal so I 'm talking about shopping and then you say , uh , you know , well , um "" What 's it cost ? "" or something . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} Anyway . So one could well imagine , but not yet . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But I do th think that the {disfmarker} {comment} It 'll turn out that it 's gonna be {disfmarker} depend pretty much on whether there 's been an override . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , if {disfmarker} if you ask "" how much does a train ride and {disfmarker} and cinema around the vineyards cost ? "" and then somebody tells you it 's sixty dollars and then you say "" OK How much is , uh {disfmarker} I would like to {pause} visit the {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} whatever , something completely different , "" then I go to , you know , Point Reyes "" , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} it 's not more likely that you want to enter anything , but it 's , as a matter of fact , a complete rejection of entering by doing that . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So when you admit have admission fee and it changes something , it 's only for that particular {disfmarker} It 's relational , right ? It 's only for that particular object . +Professor C: Yeah , I th th Yeah . Well , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the simple idea is that it 's on it 's only for m for the current uh , tourist e entity of instre interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} I mean this {disfmarker} this function , so , has the current object been mentioned in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} with a question about {disfmarker} concerning its {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} It goes the other d it goes in the other direction . Is {disfmarker} When th When the {disfmarker} this is mentioned , {pause} the uh probability of {disfmarker} of , let 's say , entering changes +Grad B: Of that object . For {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor C: changes . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: You could just hav uh , just basically , ob it {disfmarker} It observes an {disfmarker} er , it sets the {disfmarker} a node for "" entered "" or "" true "" or something , +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Now , uh {disfmarker} But I think Ro - Robert 's right , that to determine that , OK ? you may well want to go through a th thesaurus +Grad D: "" discourse enter "" . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} So , if the issue is , if {disfmarker} so now th this construction has been matched and you say "" OK . Does this actually have any implications for our decisions ? "" Then there 's another piece of code {vocalsound} that presumably {pause} does that computation . +Grad B: So , sort of forward chaining in a way , rather than {pause} backward . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but what 's Robert 's saying is {disfmarker} is , and I think he 's right , {comment} is you don't want to try to build into the construction itself all the synonyms and all {disfmarker} you know , all the wo Uh maybe . I 'll have to think about that . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: I don't know . I mean it {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} I can thi I can think of arguments in either direction on that . But somehow you want to do it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Well , it 's just another , sort of , construction side is how to get at the possible inferences we can draw from the discourse history or changing of the {pause} probabilities , and - or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Guess it 's like {disfmarker} I g The other thing is , whether you have a m m user model that has , you know , whatever , a current plan , whatever , plans that had been discussed , and I don't know , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: What {disfmarker} uh , what 's the argument for putting it in the construction ? Is it just that {pause} the s synonym selection is better , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Oh , wel Well , the ar the {disfmarker} The argument is that you 're gonna have the {disfmarker} If you 've recognized the word , you 've recognized the word , which means you have a lexical construction for it , so you could just as well tag the lexical construction with the fact that it 's a uh , you know , thirty percent increase in probability of entering . You {disfmarker} So you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could invert {disfmarker} invert the whole thing , so you s you tag that information on to {pause} the lexicon +Grad D: Mmm . Oh , I see . +Professor C: since you had to recognize it anyway . That {disfmarker} that 's the argument in the other direction . at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} Yeah , and this is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Even though uh the lexical construction itself {disfmarker} out {disfmarker} out of context , uh , won't do it . I mean , y you have to keep track whether the person says +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: "" But I but I 'm not interested in the opening times "" is sort of a more a V type . +Professor C: Yeah there 's , yeah ther there 's that as well . +Grad E: Yep . Hmm . So . But , we 'll {disfmarker} uh , we have time to {disfmarker} This is a s just a sidetrack , but uh I think it 's also something that people have not done before , is um , sort of abuse an ontology for these kinds of , uh , inferences , on whether anything relevant to the current something has been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , has crept up in the dialogue history already , or not . And , um I have the , uh {disfmarker} If we wanted to have that function in the dialogue hi dialogue module of SmartKom , I have the written consent of Jan to put it in there . +Professor C: Good . OK . {comment} {vocalsound} Well , this {disfmarker} this is highly relevant to someone 's thesis . +Grad E: Yes , um . That 's {disfmarker} uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm keeping on good terms with Jan . +Professor C: You 've noticed that . OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So the point is , it 's very likely that Robert 's thesis is going to be along these lines , +Grad B: Oh , s +Professor C: and the local rules are if it 's your thesis , you get to decide how it 's done . OK . So if , you know {disfmarker} if this is {disfmarker} seriously , if this becomes part of your thesis , you can say , hey we 're gonna do it this way , that 's the way it 's done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yay , it 's not me . It 's always me when it 's someone 's thesis . +Professor C: No , no , no ! No , no . We 've got a lot {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of theses going . +Grad A: There 's a few of us around now . +Grad B: Now it 's not . Yay ! I know it is . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: Well , let 's {disfmarker} let 's talk after Friday the twenty - ninth . Then we 'll see how f f +Professor C: Right . So h he 's got a th he 's got a meet meeting in Germany with his thesis advisor . +Grad B: Yeah , he said he 's gonna f finish his thesis by then . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . I should try to finish it by then . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , right . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Um . Yeah . So I think {pause} in fact , That 's the other thing . uh , this is {disfmarker} this is , speaking of hard problems , {comment} this is a very good time um , to start trying to make explicit where construal comes in and {disfmarker} you know , where c where the construction per - se ends {pause} and where construal comes in , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've {disfmarker} we 've done quite a bit of that . +Professor C: cuz this is clearly part of th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: We 've been doing quite a bit of that . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well I said . But that 's part of what the f +Grad B: We have many jobs for you , Ro - Robert . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , he 's gonna need this . +Grad A: Yeah , it seems to always land in your category . +Grad B: The conclusion . +Grad A: You 're lucky . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So . {vocalsound} Right . So thing {disfmarker} That 's part of why we want the formalism , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is because th it is gonna have implicit in it +Grad E: Was I ? In the room ? +Grad B: No , you weren't there {pause} on purpose . Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Made it much easier to make these decisions . +Grad B: Obviously . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Well I {disfmarker} That 's tentative . +Grad A: Yeah . Right , right , right . +Professor C: They aren't decisions , they 're ju they 're just proposals . +Grad A: Yes . {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Grad B: No , they 're decisions . OK . +Professor C: Yeah , that {disfmarker} That 's the point , is {disfmarker} is th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Constraints . Let 's call them constraints , around which one has to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually , yeah . {vocalsound} There 's a problem with that word , too , though . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Anyway . But so that 's that 's w Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} he the decisions I made wer had to do with my thesis . So consequently don't I get to decide then that it 's Robert 's job ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: Anyhow . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad B: Well , I 'll just pick a piece of the problem and then just push the hard stuff into the center {pause} and say it 's Robert 's . Like . +Grad E: I 've always been {pause} completely in favor of consensus decisions , +Grad B: I can {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll find a way . +Professor C: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will , but um +Grad B: I haven't . {comment} OK . +Professor C: not {disfmarker} +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it might even be {pause} interesting then to {pause} say that I should be forced to um , sort of pull some of the ideas that have been floating in my head out of the , uh {disfmarker} out of the top hat +Professor C: Yes . +Grad E: and , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Always good . +Professor C: Right . So +Grad E: That metaphor is not going anywhere , you know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Ri - No . Absolutely . So , uh , wh you had {disfmarker} you know you ha You had done one draft . +Grad E: Yes , and , um , it 's {disfmarker} Ha - None of that is basically still around , +Grad B: I didn't get +Professor C: And a another draft OK . +Grad E: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: D i +Grad A: That 's normal . +Professor C: I i +Grad B: Oh , I guess it 's good I didn't read it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I 'm shocked . This is the first time I 've seen a thesis proposal change . Right . Anyway , uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad B: Really ? +Professor C: But , yeah , a second {disfmarker} that would be great . So , uh , a sec I mean you 're gonna need it anyway . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: and +Grad E: Yeah , and I would like to d discuss it and , you know , get you guys 's input +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: and make it sort of bomb - proof . +Grad B: Bomb proof ! +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: Good . +Grad E: Bullet - proof . +Grad B: Oh ! Oh , OK . +Grad E: That 's the word I was looking for . +Professor C: Both proof . +Grad A: Either way . +Grad B: Both . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Good luck . {vocalsound} Really . +Professor C: Uh So that , so th thi this {disfmarker} I mean , so this is the point , is we {disfmarker} we 're going to have to cycle through this , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but th the draft of the p proposal on the constructions is {disfmarker} is going to tell us a lot about {pause} what {pause} we think needs to be done by construal . And , um , we oughta be doing it . +Grad E: OK . Yeah , we need {disfmarker} we need some {disfmarker} Then we need to make some dates . Um . +Grad B: +Grad E: Meeting {disfmarker} regular meeting time for the summer , we really haven't found one . We did {pause} Thursdays one for a while . I just talked to Ami . It 's - it 's a coincidence that he can't do {disfmarker} couldn't do it today {pause} here . +Grad B: Usually , he can . +Grad E: Usually he has no real constraints . +Professor C: And the NTL meeting moved to Wednesday , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz of {disfmarker} of , uh +Grad E: Yeah , it was just an exception . +Professor C: Yeah , you weren't here , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} s uh , {disfmarker} And so , if that 's OK with you , +Grad A: It 's i Is it staying basically at the Wednesday noon ? +Professor C: you would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . It was th off this week , +Grad B: Yeah . I always thought it was staying . +Professor C: Yeah , it was th +Grad A: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought it was just this week that we were changing it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mmm . {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: And , um . How do we feel about doing it Wednesdays ? Because it seems to me that this is sort of a time where when we {pause} have things to discuss with other people , there {disfmarker} they seem to be s tons of people around . +Professor C: The only disadvantage {pause} is that it may interfere with other +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} subgroup meetings +Professor C: s you know , other {disfmarker} other {disfmarker} No , you {disfmarker} Uh , people in this group connecting with {disfmarker} with +Grad B: Those people who {pause} happen to be around . +Professor C: those people {pause} who {disfmarker} who might not be around so much . Uh , I don't care . I I uh you know I have no fixed {disfmarker} +Grad A: To tell you the truth , I 'd rath I 'd , I 'd {disfmarker} would like to avoid more than one ICSI meeting per day , if possible . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean . I don't know . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Whatever . +Professor C: No , that 's fine . I mean that {disfmarker} +Grad E: The {disfmarker} I 'd like to have them all in one day , +Grad A: Yeah , I can understand that . +Professor C: Well p +Grad E: so package them up and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: people {disfmarker} people differ in their tastes in this matter . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I 'm neutral . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . {pause} I 'm always here anyway , +Grad E: It 's OK , that {disfmarker} +Grad B: so {disfmarker} It doesn't matter . +Professor C: Yeah . @ @ That 's {disfmarker} Me too . I 'm basically {disfmarker} I 'm here . So . +Grad E: Well , if {disfmarker} one {pause} sort of thing is , this room is taken at {disfmarker} after three - thirty pr pretty much every day by the data collection . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: So we have subjects anyway {disfmarker} Except for this week , we have subjects in here . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: That 's why it was one . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So we just knew i +Grad B: So did you just say that Ami can't make one o ' +Grad E: No , he can . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So let 's say Thursday one . But for next week , this is a bit late . So {pause} I would suggest that we need to {disfmarker} to talk {disfmarker} +Grad B: Oh , oh , OK . +Grad E: OK . About the c the {disfmarker} th +Grad B: Could we do Thursday at one - thirty ? Would that {disfmarker} that be horrible ? +Grad E: No . Yes . +Grad B: Oh really ? +Grad E: Because , uh , this room is again taken at two - thirty by Morgan . +Grad B: Oh , OK . OK . You didn't tell me that . OK , that 's fine . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} s meeting recorder meeting meeting meeting recording on meeting meetings {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , OK , OK . OK . {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: Interesting . So you 're proposing that we meet Tuesday . +Grad E: How about that ? +Grad A: Next week . +Grad B: Well , we 're meeting Tuesday . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I could +Grad B: I mean we usually meet Tuesday {disfmarker} or l like , linguists {pause} um , at two . +Grad D: Would it {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . +Grad B: So . Do you want to meet again here bef +Grad D: And the s Is the Speech - Gen meeting still at {disfmarker} on Tuesdays ? +Grad E: I mean w Well , actually we w we we did scrap our Monday time just because Bhaskara couldn't come Monday . +Grad B: Hhh . {comment} Maybe I do need a Palm Pilot . +Grad E: So there 's {disfmarker} Nothing 's impeding Monday anymore {pause} either . +Grad A: That doesn't apply to a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Although I thought you wanted to go camping on Monday {disfmarker} er , take off Mondays a lot so you could go camping . +Grad E: Get a fresh start {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's another s thing . Yeah . But , um . I mean , there are also usually then holidays anyways . I mean {pause} like {disfmarker} {comment} Sometimes {pause} it works out that way . +Grad B: Usually ? +Grad E: So . Hmm ! +Grad B: Well , I mean , the linguists ' meeting {pause} i happens to be at two , but I think that 's {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad A: That should be relatively flexible be +Grad B: pretty flexible , I think . +Grad A: Yeah . There 's just {pause} sort of the two to four of us . +Grad B: So . The multiple meetings +Grad A: Right ? Yeah . So . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: And , you know , of course Nancy and I are just sort of always talking anyway and sometimes we do it in that room . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: So , you know , I mean . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} l forget about the b the camping thing . So let 's {disfmarker} eh , any other problems w w w ? But , I suggested Monday . If that 's a problem for me then I shouldn't {pause} suggest it . +Grad D: Ha - ha - ha . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Um , all of the proposed times sound fine with me . +Grad B: Same here . +Grad E: Monday ? +Professor C: OK , whate I mean {disfmarker} What I think Robert 's saying is that +Grad A: Earlier in the week +Professor C: earlier we {disfmarker} At least for next week , there 's a lot of stuff we want to get done , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: so why don't we plan to meet Monday +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: and {pause} we 'll see if we want to meet any more than that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: What time ? +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: At o o o o one , two , three {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: One , two , three ? Three 's too late . +Professor C: Oh , I i {pause} Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} Two is the earliest I can meet on Monday . +Grad E: Two - thirty ? OK , two . +Professor C: Here I 'm blissfully agreeing to things and realizing that I actually do have some stuff scheduled on Monday . +Grad A: Sure . Sounds great . Uh , so that 's the eighteenth . +Grad B: You guys will still remind me , right ? +Grad D: No way ! +Grad B: Y you 'll come and take all the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the headph the good headphones first and then remind me . +Grad E: W why do you {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . Sorry , two PM . +Grad E: And +Grad B: Why do I have this unless I 'm gonna write ? +Grad E: do I get to see th uh , your formalism before {pause} that ? +Grad B: Fine . Yes . Uh . Would you like to ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . I was actually gonna work on it for tomorrow {disfmarker} like this {disfmarker} this weekend . +Grad E: I wo I would like {disfmarker} I would sort of {pause} get a {disfmarker} get a notion of what {disfmarker} what you guys have in store for me . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well m @ @ you know , w maybe Mond - Maybe we can put {disfmarker} This is part of what we can do Monday , if we want . +Grad B: Yeah . I OK . +Grad A: Alright . +Grad B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is some {disfmarker} some version +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , so there was like , you know , m m in my head the goal to have like an intermediate version , like , everything I know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And then , w I would talk to you and figure out everything you know , that {disfmarker} you know , see if they 're consistent . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . Why don't w Maybe you and I should meet sort of more or less first thing Monday morning and then we can work on this . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . That 's f fine with me . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . I might {disfmarker} I might {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You - y +Grad B: s You said you 're busy {pause} over th until the weekend , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , sort of through the weekend because Kate has a photography show . +Grad B: That 's fine . So we might continue our email thing +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and that might be fine , too . So , maybe I 'll send you some {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , if you have time after this I 'll show you the noun phrase thing . +Grad B: OK . That would be cool . So . OK , and we 'll {disfmarker} You wanna m +Grad E: So the idea is on Monday at two we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see an intermediate version of the formalism for the constructions , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So that 's OK for you {disfmarker} +Grad E: and do an on - line merging with my construal {pause} ideas . +Grad B: Sure , sure . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: That 's OK . +Grad E: So it won't be , like , a for semi - formal presentation of my {pause} proposal . It 'll be more like towards {pause} finalizing that proposal . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz then you 'll find out more of what we 're making you do . +Grad E: OK , that 's fine . Yep , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm , hmm . +Grad E: Yikes . +Grad A: Oy , {comment} deadlines . +Grad B: We 'll make a presentation of your propo {comment} of your proposal . +Grad E: Perfect . Can you also write it up ? +Grad B: It 's like , "" this is what we 're doing . +Professor C: Abso +Grad B: And the complement is Robert . "" +Grad E: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you a style file , right ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: You just {disfmarker} +Grad B: I already sent you my fi {comment} my bib file . So . +Grad E: OK . And , um . Sounds good . +Grad A: Someday we also have to {disfmarker} we should probably talk about the other side of the "" where is X "" construction , which is the issue of , um , how do you simulate questions ? What does the simspec look like for a question ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Because {pause} it 's a little different . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , now , we we w +Grad A: We had to {disfmarker} we had an idea for this which seemed like it would probably work . +Professor C: Great . OK . Yeah . Simspec may need {disfmarker} we may n need to re - name that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So let 's think of a name for {disfmarker} for whatever the {disfmarker} this intermediate structure is . Oh , we talked about semspec , for "" semantic spec specification "" +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: and that seems {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: It 's more general +Professor C: You know , so it 's a m minimal change . +Grad B: Only have to change one vowel . That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} +Grad B: All the old like {vocalsound} graphs , +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: just change the {disfmarker} just , like , mark out the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cool . +Professor C: Right , a little substi substi You know , that 's what text substitution uh macros are for . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's good for you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's for the moment call it that until we think of something better . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: And , yeah , we absolutely need to find {disfmarker} Part of what was missing were markings of all sorts that weren't in there , incl including the questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: We didn't {disfmarker} we never did figure out how we were gonna do emphasis in {disfmarker} in uh , the semspec . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've talked a little bit about {pause} that , too , which {disfmarker} uh , uh , it 's hard for me to figure out with sort of our general linguistic issues , how they map onto this particular one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} OK , yeah , understood . +Professor C: But that 's part of the formalism {disfmarker} is got to be uh , how things like that get marked . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: W do you have data , like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You have preliminary {pause} data ? Cuz I know , you know , we 've been using this one easy sentence and I 'm sure you guys have {disfmarker} uh , maybe you are the one who 've been looking at {pause} the rest of it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , I +Grad B: it 'd {disfmarker} it 'd be useful for me , if we want to {pause} have it a little bit more data oriented . +Grad A: To tell you the truth , what I 've been looking at has not been the data so far , +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm {pause} mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just sort of said "" alright let 's see if I can get noun phrases and , uh , major verb co uh , constructions out of the way first . "" And I have not gotten them out of the way yet . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Surprise . So , um . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I have not really approached a lot of the data , but I mean obviously like these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the question one , since we have this idea about the indefinite pronoun thing and all that , you know , I ca can try and , um run with that , you know , try and do some of the sentence constructions now . It would make sense . +Grad E: OK . Do you wanna run the indefinite pronoun idea past Jerry ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Oh yeah , the basic idea is that um , uh {pause} you know {disfmarker} Uh , {vocalsound} let 's see {pause} if I can {pause} formulate this . +Grad E: So {pause} Mary fixed the car with a wrench . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So you perform the mental sum and then , you know , "" who fixed the car with a wrench ? "" You {pause} basically are told , to {disfmarker} to do this In the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} analogously to the way you would do "" someone fixed the car with a wrench "" . And then you hand it back to your hippocampus and find out {pause} what that , you know , +Grad A: Means . +Grad E: means , and then {pause} come up with that {disfmarker} so who that someone was . +Grad A: The WH question has this as sort of extra thing which says "" and when you 're done , tell me who fills that slot "" or w you know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , um . And , you know , this is sort of a nice way to do it , the idea of sort of saying that you treat {disfmarker} from the simulation point of view or whatever {disfmarker} you treat , uh , WH constructions similarly to uh , indefinite pronouns like "" someone fixed the car "" because {pause} lots of languages , um , have WH questions with an indefinite pronoun in situ or whatever , +Grad B: Use actually the same one . +Grad A: and you just get intonation to tell you that it 's a question . So it makes sense +Professor C: Alright , which is +Grad A: um +Professor C: Skolemization . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: In {disfmarker} in logic , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's actual Huh ? +Grad B: Right . {vocalsound} Let 's put a Skolem {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Skolem constant in , +Grad A: Yeah . shko +Professor C: What ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: yeah . Yeah . {pause} Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: That - that 's not {disfmarker} that 's not saying it 's bad , +Grad A: Right . Right . No . Of course . +Professor C: it 's just that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the logicians have {disfmarker} have , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . It makes sense from that point of view , too , which is actually better . +Grad E: come up with this +Grad A: So yeah , um . Anyway , but just that kind of thing and we 'll figure out exactly how to write that up and so on , but +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Uh , no , all the focus stuff . We sort of just dropped that cuz it was too weird and we didn't even know , like , what we were talking about {comment} exactly , what the object of study was . +Grad B: Um - mmm . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I mean , i part of {disfmarker} of what the exercise is , t by the end of next week , is to say what are the things that we just don't have answers for yet . +Grad A: Yeah . Yep . +Professor C: That 's fine . I mean +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you do wanna discuss focus {pause} background and then get me into that because {disfmarker} I mean , I wo I w scientifically worked on that for {disfmarker} for almost two years . +Grad A: Yeah . OK , then certainly we will . Good . +Grad B: Yeah , you should definitely , um be on on that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe by {disfmarker} after Monday we 'll {disfmarker} y you can see what things we are and aren't {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . w We should figure out what our questions are , for example , {vocalsound} to ask you . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Wel - then t Hans . Has {disfmarker} I haven't seen Hans Boas ? +Grad B: He 's been around . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Just maybe not today . +Professor C: OK . So has he been {disfmarker} been involved with this , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Eh . with us ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: I would say that tha that those discussions have been primarily , um , Keith and {disfmarker} Keith and me , but um like in th the meeting {disfmarker} I mean , he sort of {disfmarker} I thin like the last meeting we had , I think we were all very much part of it +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {pause} um +Grad A: Sometimes Hans has been sort of coming in there as sort of like a {pause} devil 's advocate type role or something , +Grad B: but different perspec Yeah . +Grad A: like {pause} "" This make {disfmarker} you know , I 'm going to pretend I 'm a linguist who has nothing to do with this . This makes no sense . "" And he 'll just go off on parts of it which {pause} definitely need fixing +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: but aren't where we 're at right now , so it 's +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} like what you call certain things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: which we decided long ago we don't care that much right now . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But in a sense , it 's good to know that he {pause} of all people {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: you know , like maybe a lot of people would have m much stronger reactions , so , you know , he 's like a relatively friendly linguist +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and yet a word like "" constraint "" causes a lot of problems . And , so . {pause} Right . So . +Professor C: OK . This is consistent with um the role I had suggested that he {disfmarker} he play , +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK , which was {pause} that o one of the things I would like to see happen is a paper that was tentatively called "" Towards a formal cognitive semantics "" which was addressed to these linguists {pause} uh {pause} who haven't been following {pause} this stuff at all . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {pause} it could be that he 's actually , at some level , thinking about how am I going to {pause} communicate this story {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , internally , we should just do {pause} whatever works , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: cuz it 's hard enough . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But {pause} if he g if he turns {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is really gonna turn around and help t to write this version that does {pause} connect with as many as possible of the {pause} other linguists in the world um {comment} then {disfmarker} then it becomes important to {pause} use terminology that doesn't make it hard {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Sure . +Professor C: I mean , it 's gonna be plenty hard for {disfmarker} for people to understand it as it is , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but y y you don't want to make it worse . +Grad A: Yeah . No , right . I mean , tha that role is {disfmarker} is , uh , indispensable +Professor C: So . +Grad A: but that 's not where sort of our heads were at in these meetings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: It was a little strange . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I just wanted t to I have to catch up with him , and I wanted t to get a feeling for that . OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I don't know what his take will be on these meetings exactly , you know . +Professor C: OK . Good . +Grad A: Cuz sometimes he sort of sounds like we 're talking a bunch of goobledy - gook from his point of view . +Grad B: I think it 's good when we 're {disfmarker} when we 're into data and looking at the {disfmarker} some specific linguistic phenomenon {pause} in {disfmarker} in English or in German , in particular , whatever , that 's great , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and Ben and {disfmarker} and Hans are , if {disfmarker} if anything , more {disfmarker} you know , they have more to say than , let 's say , I would about some of these things . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But when it 's like , well , w how do we capture these things , you know , I think it 's definitely been Keith and I who have d you know , who have worried more about the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well , that 's good . That 's {disfmarker} I I I think that should be the {disfmarker} the core group +Grad B: s Which is fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and {pause} um that 's , you know , I think {pause} very close to the maximum number of people working together that can get something done . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . We actually have {disfmarker} I think we have been making progress , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and its sort of surprising . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I definitely get that impression . Yeah . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad B: Yeah . So anyone else would like uh {comment} ruin the balance of {disfmarker} Anyway . +Professor C: Well , but {disfmarker} Well . But th th then w then we have to come back to the bigger group . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Great . And then we 're gon we 're gonna {disfmarker} because of this other big thing we haven't talked about is {pause} actually implementing this stuff ? So that I guess the three of us are gonna connect tomorrow about that . +Grad B: Yeah , we could talk tomorrow . I was just gonna say , though , that , for instance , there was {disfmarker} you know , out of a meeting with Johno {pause} came the suggestion that "" oh , could it be that the {pause} meaning {pause} constraints really aren't used for selection ? "" which has sort of been implicit {pause} in the parsing {pause} strategy we talked about . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: In which case we w we can just say that they 're the effects or the bindings . Which {pause} uh , so far , in terms of like putting up all the constraints as , you know , pushing them into type constraints , the {disfmarker} when I 've , you know , propo then proposed it to linguists who haven't yet given me {disfmarker} you know , we haven't yet thought of a reason that that wouldn't work . Right ? As long as we allow our type constraints to be reasonably {pause} complex . +Professor C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad B: So {disfmarker} Anyway , to be {disfmarker} to talk about later . +Professor C: Yeah , it has to in the sense that you 're gonna use them eventu it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's sort of a , um , generate and test kind of thing , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and if you over - generate then you 'll have to do more . I mean , if there are some constraints that you hold back and don't use uh , in your initial matching then you 'll match some things {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I d I don't think there 's any way that it could completely fail . It {disfmarker} it could be that uh , you wind up {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} The original bad idea of purely context - free grammars died because {pause} there were just vastly too many parses . You know , exponentially num num many parses . And so th the concern might be that {disfmarker} not that it would totally fail , but that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . That it would still generate too many . {comment} Right ? So by just having semantic even bringing semantics in for matching just in the form of j semantic types , right ? +Professor C: it would still genera +Grad B: Like "" conceptually these have to be construed as this , this , and this "" might still give us quite a few possibilities +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: that , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and it certainly helps a lot . +Professor C: We don't know , but , yeah . +Grad B: I mean , le let 's put it that way . So . +Professor C: No question . Yeah . And I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a perfectly fine place to start . You know , and say , let let 's see how far we can go this way . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well it definitely makes the problem easier . +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in favor of that . Uh , cuz I think i I think it 's {disfmarker} As you know , I think it 's real hard and if w if we {disfmarker} Right . +Grad B: So {pause} Friday , Monday +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Monday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So . OK , that 's {disfmarker} Tuesday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} {comment} th that 's the conclusion . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , you your dance card is {pause} completely filled now ? +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , and I have nothing to do this weekend but work . +Grad E: Why don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , that 's not really true , +Grad A: Bummer . +Grad B: but like {disfmarker} +Grad D: What about {disfmarker} What about DDR ? +Grad B: It 's almost true . +Grad F: +Grad B: Oh , I don't have it this weekend , so , tsk {comment} don't have to worry about that . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor C: DDR , he asked ? +Grad B: Speaking of dance , Dance Dance Revolution I can't believe I 'm {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} it 's like a game , but it 's for , like , dancing . Hard to {disfmarker} It 's like karaoke , but for dancing , and they tell you what {disfmarker} It 's amazing . It 's so much fun . Yeah , it 's so good . My friend has a home version and he brought it over , and we are so into it . It 's so amazing . Well , y you know of it ? I i i it 's one of your hobbies ? It 's great exercise , I must say . I can't wait to hear this . Uh - huh . Oh , definitely . They have , like , places {disfmarker} instead of like {disfmarker} Yeah , instead of karaoke bars now that have , like , DDR , like {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , I didn't until I started hanging out with this friend , who 's like "" Oh , well , I can bring over the DDR if you want . "" Oh , oh , Dance Dance Revolution {disfmarker} OK . He actually brought a clone called Stepping Selection , but it 's just as good . So . Anyw +","A group of graduates and a professor discuss various academic and project-related topics. They troubleshoot communication device channels, discuss the attendance of a member named Keith, and allocate project tasks. They debate how to handle certain linguistic constructs in their work and how to interpret ""where is X?"" inquiries in their model. They also consider the utilization of an ontology for discourse analysis, the implications of dialogue history on current discourse, and the potential collaboration with a visitor named Irina. The professor is updated on recent developments, and the group agrees to meet on Monday to review the intermediate version of a formalism for constructions and to integrate construal ideas. They touch upon the concept of simulating questions and how to represent this semantically, while also stressing the importance of a shared understanding for a broader linguistics audience. There's also a mention of a home version of a dancing game called Dance Dance Revolution." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , Project Manager , I have something to tell you . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I have a little problems with my laptop . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And uh s s s so I had a little less time to complete . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: No , a little problem , uh {vocalsound} big problem . I just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: What was it , problem ? +User Interface: Um , it didn't work anymore . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The laptop ? +User Interface: The entire Windows uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It hang {disfmarker} hung . +User Interface: It it hung . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha-ha . Oh . Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You're our Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome to the conceptual design meeting +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , hello again . Uh it's uh the same as the last time . Uh uh , also this time there will be uh three presentations . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we um must uh reach a decision on uh the remote control concepts . Um uh , and at the end , uh I uh , when I finish it off I have some uh input from uh a master class I uh {vocalsound} visited . {vocalsound} {gap} information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: During lunch , yeah . +Marketing: Master . +User Interface: He's the master , yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the the the concepts on uh {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} where we uh must reach a decision on . Um uh , our {disfmarker} from uh are of two sorts . +Marketing: Master of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Components concepts and user interface concepts . Uh , the first one is uh really about the the the the the total package uh with uh {disfmarker} Well , we have decided to do a {disfmarker} do the uh {disfmarker} with a touch-screen that must be a case around it so uh it won't be uh uh as breakable . Uh how how about the energy ? Can you uh can you reload it or uh just have batteries which you must exchange ? Uh , the user interface concept . Uh , with the type and uh the the supplements . So uh where to put what button . {vocalsound} And uh uh I would say uh {disfmarker} Jans , can you begin ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At the end , uh {disfmarker} I will take notes uh and at the end of the minutes uh will uh be at the shared folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , let me see . I think it's this one . Ha . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh , well , I'll be talking about the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , what I did was I reviewed previously used items uh by uh two two uh different uh age groups . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh below forty five and above . And uh I just uh watch what the differences are and I checked uh , well , what what d do we want , and {gap} how can we uh d aim a at uh the target group . Well uh what I found was that a senior um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} senior citizens uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ye Ah , it's {vocalsound} it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They , well , they like more the {disfmarker} they like the traditional materials , like wood and and such more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wood and chrome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh uh they like uh straightforward shapes . Um , uh they they they they like luxurious uh styles , where whereas the young and dynamic , they like a more uh soft materials . Think of the Teletubbies , for instance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh , soft and fluffy and colourful and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh , shapes are curved and round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y y you get {vocalsound} the picture . And uh they like sports and gaming , and that gives them uh the vitality . Uh , so w well uh , firs +Project Manager: One one little question . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um about the the material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh a soft material for a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'll I'll get to that . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you'll see . Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , well f first off , let's start start with the energy . W I uh I had a choice between uh a few different uh sources . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh the two basic sources that I found were the best possible were the battery uh versus kinetic . Uh kinetic , that's when you move something , then uh it gets energy . I figured , well that's ki kinda high-tech , when when you have a remote control that well , when you pick it up , it has power . That would be actually very nice , uh I figured . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could also use a battery , that's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but when the power gets low , you have to shake it or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah , you c just you have to shake it around a little bit . +Marketing: Uh , and uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then then it d then it has some more uh energy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well , y you could just go for a battery . Or you can go for both ? +User Interface: Oh , have you considered the option of using a solar panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I actually did . But uh the thing is about solar panel is you have to have l uh light . Well , sunlight preferably . +User Interface: W {gap} nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , and you you could you could use normal light , but uh you wouldn't get the same amount of energy that you would from a battery or something . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for uh ultimate b uh {vocalsound} n uh use of uh solar panels , you could actually use uh {disfmarker} you could use uh solar panels , but uh you ha you'd have to implement them into uh the remote control , leaving you uh a bit less space for the interface . +Marketing: Mm yeah . It's too less space . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} so i i it it wo what's actually {disfmarker} I I c just in f I've figured it out that well , uh seeing that you'll always be uh within the l uh distance of T_V_ , and the {disfmarker} from T_V_ there comes a a a whole bunch of light . So it would actually power itself uh from a T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well you just take up all the space , and you wouldn't uh have the full amount of power actually used . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you prefer kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} I I prefer kinetic because it's uh {disfmarker} well , the costs aren't that much higher , and um , ju just a bit more high-tech than than a normal battery . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you don't move a a remote control too much . +Industrial Designer: I mean , if {disfmarker} No , but uh d Well , you pick it up and you press buttons and y well , you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's enough to to keep the energy level uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well uh actually it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it it {disfmarker} if it isn't , you just shake it a bit and and add add with power up again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , what l what Jarek said , you could you could use a battery that you'd just keep it on the recharging whenever it moves . And for rest , you'd just add juice on the battery . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And when the battery doesn't work , I usually shake it too . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like slamming on it . {vocalsound} It's exactly the same . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: f furthermore , you you {disfmarker} we {gap} {disfmarker} uh checked uh the cases . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have uh different options uh concerning the cases . You ha I {disfmarker} you sim uh you simply add a basic uh standard uh model uh {disfmarker} it was kind of square and uh I figured that's a bit boring . So you you {disfmarker} we could go for uh the single curved or the double curved . Um , single curve , it's just a {disfmarker} well , uh , you know , it's just uh a nice curve . Or but but you could go in a in an double curves . And that's {gap} like several different dimensions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That gives you an whole new uh effec +Project Manager: Dynamic dynamic look ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that gives you a younger and uh more high-tech look , I f I figured . But , that uh we'll discuss later . +Marketing: But , are you going to draw it ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Th th yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You want me to draw in three-D_ ? +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I c I can't imagine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , yeah , I ca I ca I could I could show you . I could show you . +Marketing: I can't imagine how how how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh let's say y uh you uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that's your standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit your d standard design . But you could actually go like uh something like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh in three-D_ effect you could go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So y you you just {disfmarker} Yeah , this is a {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} bit uh difficulty in {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't take a major in art . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But but you could have uh uh a whole new uh the back back the the the depth , you could you could uh just play around a bit with . +Marketing: Oh , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You you don't have to use standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: A little artistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could {disfmarker} y It leaves more space for creativity . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh that might be an idea , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} just a {disfmarker} Well , furthermore , uh well , uh plastic versus rubber ? You {disfmarker} We could choose uh what uh what's better , plastic um or rubber . I I ch prefer rubber because it feels uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's soft and it's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like soft . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the material the younger people want uh , ain't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I mean uh plastic uh is {disfmarker} Plastic also has that cheap feeling to it , {vocalsound} like plastic uh {disfmarker} Your your {disfmarker} I usually associate plastic with uh something that's cheap . Uh that's maybe just me , but {disfmarker} Uh , we could uh uh , oh , talk about it later . Uh furthermore , buttons . Uh traditional uh or a touch screen . Well , we discussed it in a previous meeting , so I figured I'll just leave it at the L_C_D_ . And uh chip set , well uh if we are going to use traditional buttons , we could go uh with a simple chip set . But uh if we decide to go on a n uh um L_C_D_ screen , we would use an uh {disfmarker} we have to use an a advanced chip set . And that would bring uh the necessary costs with with it . So that's something we th have to keep in mind . If it isn't uh manageable uh budget-wise , we'd have to go over to uh to sim to simple buttons . +Marketing: Well , I think uh we're going to sell tell {disfmarker} ten millions of them . So uh I bet a big company in uh Korea or Taiwan , like uh Samsung , can give us uh a big discount on the chips , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: U usually , chips are uh aren't more expensive than one dollar . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably , but {disfmarker} But uh yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That that shouldn't be a real issue , I think . +Industrial Designer: That shouldn't shouldn't be uh that big a issue . I'll I'll I'll just add , uh uh I put a big summary here , so we could discuss it a bit . Uh {gap} what i what are your ideas {gap} concerning battery versus kinetic ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I think you should use kinetic as a back-up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you you should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , a combination . +User Interface: A combination , yeah . +Industrial Designer: A combination . Uh , {gap} you use the battery and w charge it up with kinetic . When you pick it up , it charges up . +Marketing: Yeah . Like an uh aku uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Acu uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , I know . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Just like the watch from Seiko . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Psycho-kinetic . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I con Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what do you think ? +Project Manager: I I uh I would prefer uh both uh too . +Industrial Designer: You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Both ? +Marketing: Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , well that would bring the m m some more costs , but I mean the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who cares , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the Project Manager's problem . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Buy a fifty cents battery and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . Fifty cent . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifty cent uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , why doesn't {disfmarker} And then we have single-curved versus double-curved . +User Interface: Well maybe I have something in my presentation to uh to cope with that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . No , we'll we'll just wait and uh {disfmarker} Uh , plastic versus rubber . Any ideas ? +Marketing: Rubber . +Project Manager: Rubber . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , rubber ? +User Interface: Um , isn't possible to make combination with kind of rubber is {gap} or bendable remotes where you've got a {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or do you think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I figured it will be m rather than hard {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rubber casing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Nah , rubber c uh this is a casing , yeah . Rubber casing , +Marketing: Rather hard . +Industrial Designer: because well if you use an uh d a touch-screen , uh it's just a casing uh around it . So um , you could go for plastic , but I figured {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well d Maybe I can ask it right now the question that I have . +Industrial Designer: I I I would choose rubber . +User Interface: Uh , is it possible uh of {disfmarker} is it necessary to make a touch-screen square ? It isn't , I think , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Well , m I don't know . No . +Marketing: Well , I think that touch-screens are generally square . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's the case you put around it that makes the shape . +User Interface: We're {disfmarker} We put fashion in electronics , +Industrial Designer: That isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: so maybe we can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah okay , but if you have a square uh L_C_D_ screen , and you put a case around it that has uh like bulbs or that that covers part of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would cover it . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that would solve the problem . +User Interface: Oh , yeah . Okay , I I get it . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's custom customisable and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} Uh uh so uh so what are the opinions ? Uh rubber or plastic ? I I I prefer rubber . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Me too . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you too ? +User Interface: That's good . +Industrial Designer: You sure ? You {gap} you you seemed to hesitate a bit . +User Interface: Well , as long a as long as it's it's uh it's firm , and you don't uh {disfmarker} it's not bendable or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I th I think that goes too far . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it it shouldn't it shouldn't flop over when you hold it in your hand uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , that that that that's gonna {disfmarker} The the chip set will hold it firm in place , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh and and uh and a L_C_D_ screen also {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might even bounce back when you drop it on the floor . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it {vocalsound} m might it might . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , tra uh traditional versus L_C_D_ , well I figured we we all set on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh , then also the simple versus advanced . Well I figure if we go for L_ L_C_D_ , we we should have the advanced . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't be a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well that's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Uh , you're welcome . +Marketing: Can I uh do my thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Do your thing , Tim . +Marketing: It uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do your thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bring it on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Expert map . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh {disfmarker} Last week +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I went to uh Paris and Milan for some trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: For marketing . Our research and development department and I went to Paris and Milan . In Paris and Milan , we uh asked different people , uh differing in age and in income , uh the amount of money to spend , um {vocalsound} what they like in design uh and material nowadays . Findings . Our main audience , uh so that's people below forty , uh prefer the following . At first , the colours of fruit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very basic colours , like Janus explained . Um , fresh colours , uh green , red , uh strawberry red , uh yellow , banana yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , considering material , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . They like spongy material , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Spongeball . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} yeah a sponge-ball . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like a s soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Janus m uh mentioned it also . I think he did some uh some findings himself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , the Teletubbies sh {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You wer you weren't in Paris ? {vocalsound} Okay . Like this . Like big uh g flashy colours . Fresh . +Project Manager: Flashy . Yeah . +Marketing: It's nice , I think . Okay , our secondary audience , uh people above forty a forty years in age , they like the dark traditional colours . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh materials like wood that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but wood is not a not a material you {disfmarker} which you build a a remote control of . +Industrial Designer: Well , you could . You you could . +Marketing: No n j just j just a w +Project Manager: Yeah but {vocalsound} never seen one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll float . +Marketing: No , okay , but just just a wooden uh look . +Project Manager: Case . Oh , a wooden look , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like uh you have those fake uh fake panels on the floor . +User Interface: Tables . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} that isn't wood anyway , but {disfmarker} Okay ? {vocalsound} But , that's our secondary audience . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , uh we decided to take mm yeah the people below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , that {disfmarker} this doesn't apply . 'Kay , the third . Uh , there're some overall thoughts about new remote controls . They have to look fancy . Um , they should be technological in innovative . That means uh there have to be fancy things in . Uh , and easy to use . But that's common . My personal preferences . We have to aim at a mu at the {gap} main audience . And uh , therefore use fresh colours . +Project Manager: Would you prefer uh uh {gap} that you can choose the colour of your uh remote control or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'll I'll come to that in a second point . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , think about removable covers , as seen in mobile telephon telephone market . To customise your own remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like the Nokia uh the removable covers , uh just put a red on it and go to the shop and buy a green one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Uh , a third , material being used uh could well be stuff like rubber . Um , two advantages . Uh , it fits within the current market trends . And uh it adds safety to your remote uh when you drop it . So {disfmarker} Uh to come back to your question , I think uh and the people in Milan and Paris also think that uh the rubber should be pretty hard . Like uh seen on regular mobile phones . Actually , they have a lot in common . The phones and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I actually saw a phone that you could use as a remote , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe you could use your remote as a phone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hey . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: There are numbers on it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That might be a next step . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , in my second sheet of personal preferences , uh we have to reconsider the speech function {vocalsound} uh recognition . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , it's very innovative . Innovative . +Project Manager: So that you say um S_P_S_S_ , and it goes to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You you can see that the market is just screaming for new technologies , like speak {disfmarker} uh speech recognition and stuff . But , we have to keep the cost in uh in mind , but it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it it can be uh very expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , second . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , building games like Snake or Tetris {vocalsound} to amuse the younger users . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , also the link with uh mobile phones . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't use that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} th games when you watching television , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} No , okay . But you don't use games when you're d when you're making a telephone call . It's just the same . +User Interface: When your parents are watching some boring program , you can take the remote and do something else . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: When you're at college . +Project Manager: You take your remote control with you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You take your uh remote with you to school . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . You al {vocalsound} you also take {vocalsound} uh t {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you take your IPac and go uh play games . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Well , I do that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And third , I stick with it , {vocalsound} the log-in functionality uh with the slogan , take parental control to a new dimension . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ooh . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh great {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: In {disfmarker} Okay . Um the interface contents . Well that's a just simple PowerPoint mock-up I want to m make it more as dynamic for you so I'll draw there . But , the main concept is um take one big touch screen . Um , always display the primary buttons clear and visible . Maybe even li like this with uh {vocalsound} u uses of a lot of space . And uh make the menu structure changeable . So if you press um system , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well m multiple system options can , maybe five or ten or or one , can fit in . Or maybe even a step further when you want to um t um have some other options that are not programmable with one horizontal button . And um other buttons can may be displayed here if that's necessary . And um well , how do {disfmarker} uh do we want to look at uh uh f um {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} Does a remote look {disfmarker} Well , it's {disfmarker} you've gotta hold it in one hand . So um the middle like all remotes have to be in a little bit small , so you can put it in inside your hands . And some remotes you can use with your thumb . But I think that's too difficult for this one . So you can make it s a little broader . Yeah . And here ? And maybe use your thumb on the on the main buttons . And use your other hands on the menu structure . So here are gonna be the program buttons . One , two {vocalsound} , three , four , et cetera . And the the volume control and program control maybe . And , down here , um , I added , this could be one uh big L_C_D_ . Um , the menu structure . So you can use it in uh in this way . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One thing you've gotta keep in mind , keep the remote clear of too much functions at the same time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} know that if you are changing the menu structure here , um {disfmarker} And well , I still believe you should keep displaying the buttons . But if you're programming the colour of the T_V_ , do not display twenty other options that are possible . Just keep it as simple as uh as possible . And do not use too many levels . Do not have to select a screen first and then brightness and then colour and un-plus , and um push plus twenty times . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But just the um uh just in one button if possible . And um , well , you kn you all know the T_V_ levels . Um , channel one , two . And when you get to n to uh to ten , ye and want to go back , uh well you have a problem . Just m most most modern T_V_s , you {gap} {disfmarker} you press one zero , and it goes to ten . And else , to one and through after that . So the s a button less . And um , things like teletext , put them in the menu . Things like um um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , what do you think about a back-and-forth come-up uh button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah w Yeah , I I find I must trying to uh tell it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} L like in uh internet explorer . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is uh volume plus and minus ? And this is program uh plus and minus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but does it {disfmarker} that is for uh going from four to five . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: But if you go from two to eight , and you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if you're watching Studio Sports on uh on seventeen , and your wife is watching some soap on two {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and on two . That you can switch switch easy . +User Interface: Well yes , I think that's a good idea . But um , well m my preference would to be put it in the menu structure . +Marketing: Yeah it is . Yeah . +User Interface: And if you're using that button a lot of times , well of course the menu will still be displayed on the screen . You just don't have to play games uh in-between . But if you're really switching between two channels , you won't have time uh to d use the other options . +Marketing: Mm no . +User Interface: Um , yeah already already told that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Yeah . That's my conclusion . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I think we can discuss a little about the the three uh kind of revolutionary things uh Tim uh came with . The parental control , the games , and the voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's n not uh too much decision on uh that one so uh {disfmarker} I think that parental control is a good function to uh to put in the remote . I don't know how you think about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I agree , just put it in the menu structure somewhere . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , yeah um system properties , um parental control . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} What I see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How I see it is you put it on the the remote and then you have like a Windows log-on screen with parents , children . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +User Interface: Um , w well , yeah . +Marketing: And w when you want to use the parents uh option , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it has to be fast . You don't want to to go down and watch the news at eight o'clock and turn it on and wait twenty seconds for for uh the log-on screen and then remember your code and all kinds of settings . +Marketing: Yeah , ok +Project Manager: No but I think most people uh find it uh much more important that their children don't watch uh sex or violence uh on the television , and uh wait uh ten or fifteen seconds longer , so they can uh finally watch it uh because of that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Why {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . You c may use {disfmarker} like when there's uh X_P_ , uh a simple log-on , d you just push uh one or two or three . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Pu push parents . +User Interface: And if you push parents , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} then then then you have to uh go to three-digit uh log-in . +User Interface: Yeah . To log in . Yeah . And if you puts a ye +Marketing: Like two one three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And it's in . +User Interface: And if you w you push p children , uh you don't have to uh log in , but you can only watch uh children's channels or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It automatically goes {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know if it's worth uh the time and effort we are going to spend on it . Because well it's a simple function , but it's gonna take a lot of resources and a lot of time um to programming it . Because you'll have to start working with the profiles and such . And I'm not sure if it's actually worth uh investing that much time and effort into it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well I think that's a b there's a big market for it , +Industrial Designer: I don't know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because uh you {disfmarker} Yeah , you read many times in magazines same kind of stuff , and you heard on the news that uh that he Yeah , they believe that children uh are influenced by the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . V violent T_V_ . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} Well , we're we're aiming uh to uh below uh forty uh years . But there are a lot of uh people will below forty who have uh children in young age uh who who want um to uh not watch uh violent or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe um some idea on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make through a remote as it is , but make an option to insert profiles , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause if my grandad would buy this remote , he wouldn't want to bother with all all the all the {gap} uh things to do . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make it an option in menu , ins install powerful profiles or something . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a that's a better idea ? +Marketing: Yeah , w It just has to be w when it's deliver out of the store , it has to be just simple and plain . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: But if you want to install it personally uh {disfmarker} If I got kids , and I could choose between uh two remote controls . One uh w with parent control and one without , and I would would buy the one with . +Project Manager: Yeah , with and one without . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , b well , still some question I have about how to incorporate those ones . +Marketing: I th Yeah . +User Interface: You're thinking about some channels they uh cannot see , but well , {vocalsound} I I {vocalsound} when I think , oh yeah , for the f for all the standard channels , and only for maybe after ten o'clock uh in the evening violent films and movies uh will come +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh maybe maybe some some timing uh will be uh needed {vocalsound} instead of uh of channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: because if you're watching uh , I don't know , you're in the {disfmarker} at day uh , cartoons will come up m on maybe Friday night . {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe it can work with show view . Uh , you you can control your video recorder with show view . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , when you tick in a number , it will uh start and end uh recording . But maybe there's some option that uh that t uh the kind of show view numbers are violent , and that they are blocked out . +User Interface: Yeah , the disadvantage vantage is that someone will has to send all the show-view numbers of the programs that they {gap} remotes and edit it all , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: will have to decide uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but yeah but that isn't possible . +User Interface: That isn't possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well , if you want to {disfmarker} I i i if we in incorporate uh the parental control , uh let's say we do , and and well whatever , cho uh child just goes up to the T_V_ and presses up {vocalsound} for instance . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well uh , nob nobody's stopping the child from uh well checking uh the channel . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Well , yeah you could say if parental control is only {disfmarker} it it'll go from fourteen to sixteen with the page-up then , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that {disfmarker} Well , I'm not sure because um for that to happen , you d you will have to receive a signal from the uh remote control , so it would , yeah , have to be constant uh constant signalling . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: What m what may be better is to incorporate an uh a separate device that uh that you can program with the remote control . And that uh provides parental control , for instance . And that's just an optional uh device . So there's n that's {disfmarker} there's {gap} {disfmarker} uh besides uh the remote control , you'll have a separate uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: I wouldn't put it in an optional device . That that then then then it becomes too much , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: If we do it , we we must do it in a kind of ways that like a profile , a parent profile , and a family profile , and otherwise . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on a separate menu uh option . +Marketing: And and you know w uh when you install another device , uh children can still go up to the T_V_ , p pop open uh the thing and and and g +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . That's true , +Marketing: go to a channel . +Industrial Designer: but uh at same instant , same happens when uh you have remote control . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah of course . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But , only difference is uh {vocalsound} the uh the people buying the remote control will now get the f added feature of parental control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and those people wouldn't uh necessary want it . +Marketing: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , you {disfmarker} you'd be +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But it's just an an added feature feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And what do you uh guys think of the games in the voice recognition ? I personally think that that becomes too much . +User Interface: Yeah , well yeah , I {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more like it gets you to the functionality , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mail too from management that it's very popular to use voice recon recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But I don't think when you're watching T_V_ uh , hearing loud noises from the T_V_ , someone screaming {vocalsound} one , and you f the channel switches , uh {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , like f voice recognition is too much , I think . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And games ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} games . It doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can see games happening . Yeah . +User Interface: W you can put it on chip anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} As long as it's {disfmarker} isn't a primary feature of the remote , +Marketing: That that doesn't c that doesn't co +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that that doesn't cost a lot of extra resources , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . So that will uh {disfmarker} that that that must be in it , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that will be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . So the games uh are in it . The voice recognition are not . And the parental control are +User Interface: Optional in +Project Manager: optional ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's in it . But too ma I I think so , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But how we do it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think also it's a good idea , buts very difficult to incorporate . So we should make it too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is t some menu uh function , you choose parental control , and maybe four files will emerge from menu where put it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh how how it's gonna work uh uh will f be a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh , but uh will there uh uh {disfmarker} Like the first idea uh from uh {disfmarker} You can buy it without and uh with parental contr control ? Or are we going to put it in and uh just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well {disfmarker} Ye I I think best would be uh to put it in and {vocalsound} make it an menu option . +Marketing: To put {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can put on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to put it in always . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . And you can just uh s when you buy it , you can select um personal preference , parental control on , and the password or something . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't know . I I figure if you had two different remotes , you could bo choose one with uh well uh uh a receiver in it . So you could actually easily uh build in uh parental control . But it would would be uh more expensive . So , a and that that way uh you could make cheap model and a expensive model . Could ma make the uh {gap} simple model and the deluxe model , uh for instance . +User Interface: Oh , it's a p Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but T_V_s aren't capable of sending . +Industrial Designer: Yes they are . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? I thought they were just +Project Manager: Yeah , you yo +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you have some T_V_s {gap} any {disfmarker} +Marketing: a able to receive . Yeah , some . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most often not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That is true , that is true . +User Interface: Well , maybe you just have to restrict it to what programs , where the parent says , you cannot watch channel seven , nine , and ten , and you cannot watch all channels after ten o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And there's just some little uh clock in the remote . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you could you could easily you could easily you could easily {gap} to the mote control . +Marketing: Yeah , j just some rules . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you still have the problem about uh the television itself . +User Interface: No , no , it's very simple . There uh th I h I've seen some of {gap} remotes who have a clock in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: So , the remote does doesn't transmit when it's after twelve clock . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But , on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: at least my T_V_ , is a is a compartment which you can press . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And there are buttons uh behind it which you can use , if you d if you don't if you don't have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , that's {disfmarker} To put it very blunt , that's not our problem . Just have um the parents buy uh some glue and uh {disfmarker} It's not not a part of the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is true . Yeah , that is true . +User Interface: You have to f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could you could go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , or make it ourselves very diffic +Industrial Designer: uh that that would actually make uh things a lot more easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just blame it on television and uh make it their problem . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I figured {disfmarker} I figure we could do that . Yeah , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm not sure what marketing thinks about it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or j Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I have to uh {vocalsound} consult my legal advisor about it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So uh I think we have decided on the things that {disfmarker} Uh from Janus , the energy , the combination between battery and kinetic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The case will be double-curved and uh rubber , in a fr flashy fruity colour uh that {disfmarker} with cover is removable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons will be uh touch-screen . Uh but there may not be too many buttons . And in the the menu structure , uh there must not to be uh {disfmarker} Five minutes to go . Uh , too uh too many levels . And uh it must be easy to use . The parental control will be incorporated , but it must be not too complex . And the games {gap} are in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we have uh we have decided uh , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Consensus . +Project Manager: Uh , little more . +Marketing: Oh . Oh . I I have one thing left . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe for uh Jerome . +User Interface: Yeah ? I'm listening . +Marketing: Um , the views . Maybe it's uh handy to build in an expert view and a simple view . +Project Manager: Like a like a moat or s or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: User profile . +Marketing: Like at {disfmarker} In the experts view , you have a lot of more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have that in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking about is just a menu structure , when you don't use it is simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . You use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: And when you push uh system properties , uh entire list pops up with e ev all kind of f stuff you can program . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's already incorporated a little in that concept . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay . Fairly enough . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you you could actually build in a function that you can program it yourself , for the more advanced users . +Marketing: Yeah , wh which buttons you like or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which buttons do you want to in it . Because you can you can like build in a back-forward button , and uh some po somebody would just want to watch two channels . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Just leave the other numbers away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could m have people want uh want that . +Project Manager: We take it to the other meeting , okay ? I have a little w uh little chat to do +Marketing: Okay . Go on . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah , sure . +Project Manager: and uh then we uh finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little chat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I went to uh a master class and uh uh two things uh are uh are uh {disfmarker} can come in handy uh for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: First thing uh is uh we talked about knowledge uh management . Knowledge engineering and uh uh the fact that uh that uh that the idea of knowledge , uh sharing and learning knowledge from other companies is {gap} uh like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's it's uh very hot at the moment , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's it's mostly for the management expert to to look what other uh +Marketing: Marketing . +Project Manager: marketing {disfmarker} or did I said management ? +Marketing: Management . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Just talking about myself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's my function , to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} W {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What other companies uh had to uh also with the the the the marketing campaign when they put on a newer remote , just some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Import export . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som some bench-marker . +Project Manager: Uh , they're a ha they're at {disfmarker} Yeah , benchmarking , that's the word I saw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh couldn't uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh another uh thing is uh there were there there was a survey , and um uh it came out that um people like to buy things from a single large provider , instead of those who uh are partnering uh with us . So , we must uh we must bring it as if uh Real Reaction is uh is big company , uh a trustful company , and uh it has m +Marketing: How {disfmarker} I know a marketing name for our product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: R_ th R_ to the third power . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: R_ three . Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I had a I had another idea to put uh uh the whole the whole idea of uh Real Reaction and uh uh uh a single brand and uh uh that kind of thing . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Project Manager: When you uh put on remote , you see a kind of a {disfmarker} just like when you telephone , you see a little uh animation . +User Interface: Uh , logo . Yeah ? +Marketing: Bling . +Project Manager: Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh with the with the with the motto , we put fashion in electronics . And then you go uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but it has to be like a split second , because {vocalsound} you have to put in a code also and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , you can show somebody a logo for point five seconds , they'll still remember it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . But w th the idea from this uh thing is that we must present it as a {disfmarker} as we are a a single large provider who will stand on our own . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it it l linger on every time you see it . +Industrial Designer: Well , if you if you have the l L_C_D_ screen , you can {gap} you can uh have a small logo i uh at the bottom . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it could just stay there . +Marketing: That spins around like all the time . +Project Manager: Mm yep , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Very annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that spins around or something . +Project Manager: Also also . But we we are uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: It it's just like a uh globe in Internet Explorer . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah y yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , something like that . A small icon . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh think about that kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} It's ok For f +Project Manager: That's what they said in the master class . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh , for the next meeting , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: N {vocalsound} Uh , next meeting starts in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Who uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So uh maybe you can go to Paris and Milan uh {vocalsound} once again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who who gave you the master class ? +Project Manager: The master class ? +Marketing: Ronald Betenberg ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Franz Mehler's . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , very special , uh next uh session . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh idea that you uh {disfmarker} the the industrial uh development uh centre {vocalsound} and uh user interface uh will work together on a prototype . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh will drawing it on the SMARTboard . So that's a kinda new uh thing . And um , the marketing expert will uh will uh ke he will be keeping busy with the product uh evaluation . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: But the most uh specific instructions will be sent to you by email . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we're going to work together right now ? +User Interface: Stay here and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , the {disfmarker} well , uh dids this what I uh what I heard . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: In the master class . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not in the master class . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you uh just wait for the specific instructions and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} P_ . +Project Manager: But I think it was a very uh very good uh session , uh gentlemen . +User Interface: Ah , no new email . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Me too . +Project Manager: I will thank you all . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well thank you too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you . Thank you very much . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thank you too , lord . +Project Manager: Give me a good evaluation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay guys , lot of success . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Industrial Designer: M Aye ? Cheers . +Project Manager: Cheers . See you in a half hour . +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: But keep an eye on your uh laptops for a real uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I'm not sure if we uh we {disfmarker} Because I saw something about individual actions . +Project Manager: Yeah , but th there's there's still the my uh instructions that you will work together . +User Interface: Yeah . Here ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's not my problem . +User Interface: Yeah . If you got a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bye-bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid manager . +Project Manager: The project manager always works alone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} Do you have new email ? +User Interface: No . Don't get what's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +","The conversation appears to involve a conceptual design meeting for a product called Real Reaction, which is some type of remote control. The participants are a project manager, a user interface designer, an industrial designer, and someone from marketing. The user interface designer begins by mentioning a problem with their laptop impacting their work time, which leads to a brief discussion about laptop issues. + +The meeting revolves around three presentations and the team needs to decide on remote control concepts. The industrial designer talks about different material preferences between younger audiences and senior citizens, as well as energy sources for the remote control, like batteries versus kinetic energy. The inclusion of solar panels was considered but not favored due to space and efficiency issues. + +The team discusses the possibility of kinetic energy for the remote, as well as the design considerations for the casing (such as single-curved or double-curved) and materials (plastic versus rubber). Touch screen functionality and button placement are also discussed, as well as chipset requirements depending on whether traditional buttons or an LCD screen are used. The marketing representative mentions that they researched design and material preferences in Paris and Milan, learning that the target audience (people below 40) prefer fresh colors and soft materials, while people above 40 prefer dark traditional colors. They also discuss adding features like parental controls, games, and voice recognition to the remote. + +The project manager notes that knowledge engineering and the image of the company as a large provider are essential, suggesting adding animations with the company's logo upon the remote's activation. The idea of using the SMARTboard for prototype development is introduced. + +The team reaches consensus on certain features, such as a combination of battery and kinetic energy, a double-curved and rubber case, a touchscreen with easy navigation, and the inclusion of games and parental controls (the latter should not be too complex). They agree to make the parental control an optional profile and to keep a close eye on their laptops for further instructions. They plan to reconvene in 30 minutes for a follow-up meeting. + +Overall, the meeting captures the process of discussing and deciding on various design and functionality aspects of the Real Reaction remote control product, considering market research, target audience, energy sources, materials, and practical features. The conversation focuses on blending technological innovation with user-friendly design to appeal to a modern, younger audience while also accommodating concerns such as effective parental controls." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay um , welcome to our detailed design meeting . I'm pretty excited . Let's start it's approximately fifteen forty or something like that . Okay um the agenda {disfmarker} we're gonna do an opening and then um I'll talk about the minutes from the last meeting , what we d discussed um , then we'll have the prototype presentation and a look at the evaluation criteria . We'll look at the finances and finally a {disfmarker} do a production evaluation and close . So , starting off with the um last {disfmarker} the last one , oh I don't have it here um , but we talked about energy , we're gonna use a kinetic battery um , we want to use a simple chip , because we're not gonna need a a shuffle um , we're gonna need a scroll um , we're choosing a latex case w in fruity colours that's curved and um we're using push buttons uh with a supplement of an on-screen menu . And it sounded like we had set um like eight or nine buttons , including five pre-set channels . Okay ? Let's do the look and feel design presentation first . +User Interface: Right , do you wanna start ? +Industrial Designer: Right , well we made three different prototypes and I guess we'll start with with this one . Um we have our colours not {disfmarker} are not fixed , but this is the general shape . Um it's {disfmarker} you hold it sort of either like like this in your left hand or you switch it over and uh it's easily adaptable to either hand . You can push the buttons with your thumb like a mobile phone , or you can push them with your index finger of your other hand , or even {disfmarker} I mean there's a whole variety , you can hold it like this and press it with your same index finger . Uh we have the on off button at the tip , very visible , very big . We have our up and down buttons , which are also gonna be our channel selectors , and we have our little menu button here . If you push {disfmarker} if you're just pushing these normally , they're the menu buttons , if {disfmarker} uh the volume buttons rather . If you press select once , they become channel changing buttons . If we press select three times , the menu with the other features and pro possibly also with your T_V_ channel choices shows up , and you have your five presets down here . Um if people wanna grab hold of that , see how it feels in your hand . That's our number one prototype . Um do you wanna present the potato , +Project Manager: {gap} like a little lightning in it . +Industrial Designer: or shall I present the Martian ? +User Interface: Okay , +Project Manager: The little lightning bolt in it , very cute . +User Interface: um {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} We call that one the rhombus , +Marketing: I could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The v the rhombus rhombus ? +User Interface: uh the rhombus . +Industrial Designer: That's the rhombus , yep . +User Interface: Um this one is known as the potato , uh it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how can I present it ? It's an ergonomic shape , so it it fits in your hand nicely . Um it's designed to be used either in your left hand or or in your right hand . Um I've gone here just for just for four buttons on this one . Um the two blue buttons here are for adjusting the volume . So you've got volume up and volume down on the other side here . Um the red ones are for uh changing channels , channel up and channel down and that's um moves between your favourite channels that you've selected . Uh this middle button here brings up the on-screen menu and when you're working in the on-screen menu you use the other four buttons to navigate around the menu system and the middle button uh to select and that's basically it , that's the potato . +Project Manager: Um on , off ? +User Interface: Uh that would be one of your channels , basically , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: so like channel zero would be t to switch switch the machine off , +Project Manager: Yeah we turn it off . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Could the middle button of the on-screen menu function as a power button ? +User Interface: Um not really , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: it would make it hard to turn the machine off , to turn your T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If you pressed and held it maybe . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , that that'd be one way of doing it , yeah . That'd work , yeah . +Marketing: If you like held it down , that would be on off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On off , that's a possibility , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And then finally we have um the Martian or the pear , either way . Um it's a bit different , just a little bit more of a creative feel . Uh you have the on off toggle stem on the top . {vocalsound} We have the five preset seeds {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you have on the sides to make it a little bit more three-dimensional , you have your channel changing , volume changing buttons and your menu button right here in the middle . So , that's for your consideration as well , plus it's an interesting talking point to have standing up . +User Interface: Let's pass . +Industrial Designer: We figured it could stand up like this on your table , if you wanted it to , if I made the bot the bottom flat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , what's the yellow one in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh the menu select button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I forgot . +Project Manager: {gap} Very interesting . {vocalsound} I think that one's my favourite . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} So that's our three prototypes . Um basically , in terms of making decisions , what we'd need to do is first of all decide on a form uh which of the three different shapes we want , then decide what kind of button layout we want , how many buttons , and then to choose what colours we want to make the buttons and if we wanna put any text on the device , like label on the buttons or put a brand name or or a logo on it or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We were we were thinking that normally we'd go for fruity colours , but maybe we're also thinking that your sort of middle aged man , for an example customer , might not want a fruity coloured remote , so m maybe we'd have one version that's a bit toned down , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: maybe with with less contrasts on it . Yeah , something still a little bright to make it hard to lose , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Would {disfmarker} Yeah , but we don't want it to look like a kids' toy {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Now that was one thing that we brought up over email . I don't know if you picked up your email , but um the f the um feature that we considered for it not getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well we were we were talking about that a little bit when we got that email and we think that each of these are so distinctive , that it {disfmarker} it's not just like another piece of technology around your house . It's gonna be somewhere that it can be seen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we're we're not thinking that it's gonna be as critical to have the loss {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it's like under covers or like in a couch you still can't see it . +Project Manager: It's really {disfmarker} Would it be very difficult to um just have an external device that like I dunno , you tape to your to your T_V_ um that when you press it you ha a little light beep goes off ? Do you think that would be conceptually possible ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it would be difficult technologically , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because if your if your remote's lost it's probably under the settee and in that case you can't you can't send an infrared sing signal to it to find it , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: s so it's {disfmarker} I'm not quite sure how it would work +Project Manager: That's true , mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then I wonder if it's if it's more just a gimmick then anything else . Uh I mean ho how many times do you really , seriously lose your remote control and would would a device like that actually help you to find it ? +Industrial Designer: There might be something that you can do in the circuit board and the chip to make it make a noise or something , but it would take a lot more development than we have this afternoon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , that's a fair evaluation . Getting lost . Um we {disfmarker} so we do we've decided not to worry about that for now . Okay 'cause {disfmarker} well , the designs are very bright , so you're right , they're gonna stick out , but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So d do people have a preference as far as feel and functionality ? Um . +Marketing: I feel like this is simil {vocalsound} or it's sort of what already exists so if we're trying to think of something sort of like new and fun , even though this is like what you're init I'm initially drawn to , just 'cause it's like comfortable and like not different . I sort of like this one , like I I don't know why , it just it's like small but still sort of like cute looking , I dunno . But I also like the b the side buttons on that one , like I think that's kind of neat . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I dunno how much any of this has to do with the fashionable , sort of cool looking thing that we also need to focus on {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Could we maybe have like an extra button on the top for on off ? So then w we wouldn't have to have like a dual function ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Ah , +Industrial Designer: that's good , that's good . +Marketing: there we go . +Industrial Designer: Here , stick it on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Put an extra the button on {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh why don't we do a product evaluation using your criteria , if you've developed some ? +Marketing: Well do we w {vocalsound} like I think we're supposed to have one that we do it for . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay . +Marketing: That was {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So where {disfmarker} +Marketing: I was a little vague on what exactly I'm supposed to do , but let me {disfmarker} I have to like write something on the whiteboard , so . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you need this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or just write on the white board ? +Marketing: No , I actually don't have like a PowerPointy thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: 'cause I think it would be redundant . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's kind of like uh like a joystick kind of thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh . +Project Manager: you know , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: kinda push it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a little smaller than that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , I kinda like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's hard to miss . +User Interface: It makes look more fruity as well . +Project Manager: Oh it does , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's kind of like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like a deformed foot , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There it could have a stem like that , 'cause I do l kind of like the stem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . It almost helps you ge keep a grip too , 'cause it goes in between fingers {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Interesting . +Project Manager: I like this one . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Variety of colours are nice . +Industrial Designer: is that where people are leaning then , the potato ? I like the idea of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think I'm leaning towards the potato . +Industrial Designer: I mean that's really gotten the simplicity of the buttons down , that one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I am worried about like um using a menu . Um in that {disfmarker} like i withing menus there are submenus , and so how do you get back to the main menu ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that {disfmarker} on the iPod , for example , you just {disfmarker} every time you wanna go back you hit the menu button again and it brings you back one level . +Project Manager: But that has a menu button separate from a select button , whereas if this one's both the menu and the select button ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: This is , it's {disfmarker} the up and down buttons are used for scrolling up and down for a list of choices . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You find the choice that you want and you press uh you press the right button uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could these be used for going to submenus +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so they're used for going into and out of your submenus , yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: maybe it can be one of those , if you press down and hold for two seconds , then it brings you back one level or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Well , as long as we have that in mind as we're designing it still , mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay , so which one are we sort of roughly looking at to address whether or not it meets our s um necessities , the yellowy one is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The potato ? Are we leaning towards the potato ? +User Interface: Potato . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think so . +Marketing: Okay , well we can obviously change it after we go through each different one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So basically what we need to do is some of the things that we've talked about before we need to make sure that that remote actually does conform to the things that we said it was going to . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So what we sort of wanna do is that we each need to separately rank each of the following things and then I'll tabulate an average just to make sure that it does meet that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we'll just go through them one at a time and we'll just go around and each of you can tell me on a scale of one to seven with one being really extremely true and seven being not true at all , or false , if the remote that we've created conforms to the following criteria . So we can do this one first . First we wanna know if it meets the fancy look and feel um objective . So like in my opinion the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} for now at least , the yellow one is probably somewhere in the middle so I'm gonna say it's like a three . That's just my opinion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does {vocalsound} each of you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I kind of think it's it's unique enough that I'd give it a one or a two . +Marketing: Okay , well give it a number , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I will give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno if it's it's creative . I dunno if fancy is the word I would use . I dunno if any of them are fancy in {disfmarker} I'd say two , because c unique . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll go for two . +Marketing: And two , awesome . Alright , and same sort of scale for functionality , is it functional ? I think it's extremely functional , I'm gonna give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One ? +User Interface: I think it's it's functional , it's also pretty basic , so I'll give it a two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um functional . I think it'll get everything done , I think it might be a little confusing at first , um , I don't know if that's gonna be a later one . +Marketing: Okay . Well there's some other ones , I will address that , +Project Manager: Okay , then I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: yeah . Awesome , okay . Um we wanna know next if it's technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Did you give a functional {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , she said it was one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um is it technologically innovative ? Mm . Not really , I mean not so much , 'cause we we don't have the L_C_D_ screen , we don't have fancy chip . Other than what it looks like , I dunno if it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , the kinetic battery . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the battery , that's it . +Marketing: I kinetic battery is a big one , so . +Industrial Designer: How many people would notice that , though ? +Marketing: Mm . But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they'll notice it after like a year , +Marketing: but we know it's there . +Project Manager: they'll be like hey , I have never changed the battery . +Marketing: And if it's made of like latex , that whole idea , that's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . Just the material . +Marketing: I'll give it a three . 'Cause it {disfmarker} we could've picked a lot of features that would've made it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I would say that it's {disfmarker} Yeah , like fancy versus creative it's it's different . But does that equal innovative ? I dunno . I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Alright . Everyone else ? +User Interface: I'd say it's technologically it's not it's not unique , I mean it's it's just {disfmarker} it is just pushbuttons um , so I I'd give it a four . +Project Manager: Think I'm gonna go with the four as well . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: I really like that kinetic battery though . +Marketing: Next , is it easy to use ? Just so you know , easy to learn will be separate , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: so don't overlap them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think it's really easy to use . I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Um I'll give it a one . Pretty hard to mess up . +User Interface: I'll say one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's say two . +Marketing: Alright . Um we next wanna see if it has a spongy quality +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {vocalsound} if indeed it's made of latex or rubber I {disfmarker} it's spongy all the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I wonder if it bounces when you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Ooh , that you couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be harder to break , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: harder to lose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause there would be less impact maybe , {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Iain , what do you give it ? +User Interface: I'd I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Alright and the next is , does it integrate some notion of fruits and vegetables {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Well , is it gonna be yellow ? +Industrial Designer: It it might be , 'cause that's our corporate colour , isn't it ? +Project Manager: That's right , yeah , corporate colour , we didn't keep that in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um well +Industrial Designer: We might wanna keep it yellow . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} I know it would make it a little less c a little more confusing , but if we had all the buttons in black , and a design in {disfmarker} and the outside in yellow , that'd be our corporate one and we could also have alternative colours , one a more conservative one , one that's more fruity . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , but if you had like a silvery kind of white or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and can we have like an R_R_ inscribed on the bottom or something ? +Industrial Designer: If we had a yellow {disfmarker} Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity , so fruity . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , so I think it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was inspired by the potato , so I think it's pretty fruity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think i it's kind of mangoey too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , mango +User Interface: Mangoey is better , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like mangoes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay , I'm giving it a one {vocalsound} the mango {gap} put me over . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's a much more trendy than a potato {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} what's everyone's numbers ? +Industrial Designer: one . +User Interface: Uh two . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright um , and does the design match the appropriate behaviour ? Remember earlier we discussed that people don't use a lot of buttons , that they use the channel flipping and the volume the most . I think we really took that into account a lot , so I'm gonna give it a one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Uh one . +Marketing: Did you say one , Rose ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Okay um , also we talked earlier about R_S_I_ and wanting to prevent um any sort of like Carpal Tunnely kind of thing . Do we think that the latex sort of grip appropriately takes that into account ? I think I'll give it a two , 'cause I almost feel like no matter what you do , something is gonna happen . +Project Manager: It's gonna be hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And if it's repetitive movement it is gonna be only four buttons that you're constantly pushing , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um um worth the risk , I think . +Project Manager: I like how it fits in the hand though so I I'd go with a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'll I'll say two as well . Because older people that aren't used to like texting with the thumb might find it a bit at first , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I'll I'll say two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , awesome . And the ease of learning it . I know you were saying that you're a little bit nervous about that , I dunno . It sort of reminds me of the iPod . I just got mine , I still haven't read the instruction book and I'm doing okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I'm not good at learning technology . So I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: The menu system and the the fact that multiple buttons are used for different things might be a bit confusing , but I think if it's one it's one of those things that it might take you five minutes to figure out , but you'll have it afterwards . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I'd I think I'd give it a two I guess . +User Interface: I think it it's probably a little harder then most remotes to learn , because you have to you have to use the menu system and you have to tell it what your favourite channels are +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +User Interface: and that could take a bit of learning at first , but +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: once you've , yeah once you'd learned how to use it , I think it is a lot easier . So I'd I'd give it a four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think I'd give it a four too . It's a pretty high learning curve , it'll be easy once you've done it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright , um also earlier we had something about losing it and so now we're not addressing that at all , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we can kind of say we addressed it with colour , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so in terms of not losing it , do you think that on a scale of one to seven , how easy or hard is it to lose ? I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a four , 'cause I think that you can still {disfmarker} if it's in between somewhere where you can't see it , you're kind of not gonna find it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but anywhere else it's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um I'd say I'd give it uh a three , I guess it depends on how tidy you are normally . +Project Manager: Mm I'd give it a four . +User Interface: Um I'll give it a five 'cause i it would be easy to lose something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Small too . +Marketing: Alright , we also said simplicity , {vocalsound} how w how well does it address just being simple ? +Industrial Designer: Simple to use or simple in design ? Do you know ? +Marketing: I think overall , 'cause we had said before our two main things were simplicity and fashion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so those are the next two things we're gonna look at . Separate from fancy , like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um it like wants to be simple but it's not like totally totally simple , so I'm gonna give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I'm {gap} give it a three I guess . +User Interface: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Alright , and fashionable ? +Project Manager: It's totally fashionable . I'd give it a one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's hot , I mean it's a mango , come on . +Project Manager: Mango . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean how fashionable can you make a remote ? I think it's bringing technology and fashion together real really well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's quite as fashionable as my robot remote +Project Manager: I do like uh the little Martian one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or alien or whatever he was . +Marketing: Yeah , the toggle on off switch , it's really appealing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Number . +Industrial Designer: Um two . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: And does it meet our like demographic need sort of for international appeal , that whole thing ? Just that it would se serve our audience . I don't see why not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think as long {disfmarker} if we offer in a {disfmarker} in at least three different colour arrangements . Um yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'll give it a a two {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll say two . +Marketing: Alright , did anyone have any other features that they think were important that we didn't talk about ? +Project Manager: Well um we didn't we didn't address the fact that it does need to b have a corporate logo , so let's let's make sure we keep that in mind that we ha that one of our colours concepts is corporate and has an R_R_ on it . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh {disfmarker} Well I think all of them should have an R_R_ . +Project Manager: All of them should have R_R_ , yeah . +Marketing: And so we're gonna do that , so it will address it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: fine . Okay . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: That's me . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're gonna look at finances . Um I have an Excel sheet that we're actually gonna calculate the cost um , so let me exit out of this first . Okay um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh my . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoa . +Project Manager: I know . Let me {gap} one more space . Gonna zoom in real quick . {gap} Okay . Hand dynamo . We're using kinetic battery , +Industrial Designer: Uh we're n using kinetic , yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Um and we're having one per {disfmarker} One , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um electronics . +Industrial Designer: Single . +Project Manager: Simple . +Industrial Designer: Simple , simple rather . +Marketing: Simple . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um the case . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh double-curved . +User Interface: Guess it's double-curved . It is pretty curvy . +Project Manager: It's very curvy , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I never did get a picture of those so I don't really know . Our case material supplements {disfmarker} oops , we just skipped by them . +Marketing: Well don't we need plastic , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we we {disfmarker} the plastic is the plastic for the inside is assumed . The supplement is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Provided , okay . +Project Manager: The wood ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I guess it was rubber rather than latex . +Project Manager: I mean the rubber . +Marketing: It was rubber and special colour , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Marketing: Do we have more than one special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we're using {disfmarker} we're gonna need at least two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Special colours , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what the se the basic colour is though . +Marketing: Per {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno where it {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Well , but we know that we're having at least three colours , +Project Manager: So let's y say three . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , are we talking about on each colour combination or are we , you know , we'll {disfmarker} like we'll have yellow and black . Is that two special colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . That I thi +Industrial Designer: Or or is white and black , then two more or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I thought that would be under yours . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I guess it's three , +Project Manager: We'll just say three . +Industrial Designer: three three {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Maybe the R_R_ will be in colour as well , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: so yeah . Interface , we're doing push buttons . And how many buttons do we have ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have six . +User Interface: We've got five {gap} . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Six , with the power . +User Interface: Oh {gap} +Marketing: Oh +User Interface: six . +Marketing: no , five . {gap} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . Oh , we'll {disfmarker} do we wa Are the buttons in special colour , special f I didn't get information on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , +Marketing: Oh wait . +Project Manager: buttons {disfmarker} oh , so um . So the case material will just have one colour , right , +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: but then the buttons will be in special colours ? +Industrial Designer: does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but if we're making multiple varieties of {disfmarker} this is where I'm getting confused . +Project Manager: We're saying per unit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} per unit , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , per unit . +Project Manager: Okay , so each unit will only have one colour on their {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright , and each button s +Project Manager: but the case is {disfmarker} could have up to thr I mean the buttons could ea could be up to three colours , 'cause that how it's designed there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I like it like that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Special form ? They're all kind of just push button , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Special material ? +Industrial Designer: Material , we want them rubber as well probably , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . Oh do {disfmarker} I have to do it per button , do I ? +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . I think they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if they're all gonna be rubber then it {disfmarker} that's what it matters . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause it wouldn't make sense otherwise , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause for the whole mat case material it's only one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} I mean it's two to make it rubber . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Oh wait , so maybe . +Project Manager: Thirteen point seven . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , what can we reduce ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's have our buttons all be one colour . +Marketing: Mm , I kind of like the buttons . +Project Manager: Let's see what that would do . It's only gonna bring us down to thirteen point three anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay um , are we sure this is double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Maybe it's single-curved , +Industrial Designer: We have no idea . +Project Manager: we have no idea . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , I didn't get any pictures . {vocalsound} It's single curved . +Marketing: It's single curved . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Well it's not the {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , it's the kinetic battery that's kind of expensive , but we have a simple chip , single curve , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: case material is rubber and it's a special colour , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's important . Six buttons {disfmarker} we have to have six buttons . +Industrial Designer: That is important . How did it get more expensive , what did you just change ? +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: It was it was thirteen and now it's fifteen . +Project Manager: No , okay , maybe not . I don't know what just happened . Now it's twelve . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What was our target price again ? +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five . Hey hey . +User Interface: Twelve point five . So we're just just about there . +Project Manager: So we're okay , I think . +Industrial Designer: We're all set then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ish . +Project Manager: Okay , we're all set . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um save . I saved that to our um our big shared folder , so you know . Um okay , back to agenda . {vocalsound} Um are the {disfmarker} are the costs under twelve fifty Euro ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , they are . +Project Manager: Let's move on to the project evaluation . Project process . Satisfaction with for example the room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , the means , any new ideas found . So I guess what we're gonna talk about here is just evaluating how we created this project , the information we got on the news , how we used it , if we were able to um , you know , use our creativity with the information , um how how well I guess I led it , um the {disfmarker} how well we worked together as a team , um the digital pens , the whiteboard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well . I felt very creative . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we've been successful +Industrial Designer: I enjoyed making the prototypes . +User Interface: in that we've achieved almost all of the design goals that we've set {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and we've come up with a finished project and we just about got {gap} cost . +Industrial Designer: I think we could've done even better with a little bit more information , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like what's a single-curved case , how many colours , what do colours count +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: things , but given given what we had I think that we did we did really well . Um I think we worked together pretty well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean {vocalsound} if I'd had more market research on the {gap} fruits and vegetables , maybe we could've taken that into account . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But the fruits and vegetables , they really {gap} my creativity , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I really did , the the whole mango idea was great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you think we could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I mean I thought the pen was a little distracting for me personally , like its heaviness , and like just being so conscious of like turning the pages , I dunno . That was a bit of a distraction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That was the last one , like I chose not to do a PowerPoint 'cause I didn't think it made sense to , so I liked that I had the option to do that and just to take my own notes and that whole sort of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think we all made um very significant contributions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think anybody dominated it , which I thought was really good , like each of us was able to um like each of you had your information and I uh I tried to facilitate it without like taking over , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I like our little finished products . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can we market this as the mango remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're funny . +Project Manager: Really cute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I kind of want one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we have that somewhere on the packaging ? I have a little R_R_ . +Marketing: I'm trying to think of a good pun that I could add there {gap} . +Project Manager: I know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's think of it like a little jingle . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the R_R_ , that's gonna be etched in . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hopefully not with just my fingernail at some point but um it's quite a useful little gadget . All thanks to Iain for the design of that one . +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay um +Industrial Designer: Mm . What did we find for new ideas ? +Project Manager: new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: People should really base their remotes on fruits and vegetables . +Project Manager: Definitely . Or or at least be c p creative enough to think of toggle switches mm +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: etcetera . +Industrial Designer: I I am really into the idea of kinetic batteries now after reading about them . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm so excited . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I didn't even know they existed . +Industrial Designer: I I knew you can get watches that had them , like really quite expensive watches that just never need a battery , 'cause you're always moving your wrist . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But in other things , I think it'd be really good . +Project Manager: I thi yeah , that's awesome . Um okay , closing . Are the costs within the budget ? Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Now there's the final questionnaire and meeting summary . Um so , this is the great product kids , I think we've created something really interesting and that we have a market for it , um especially if we can produce it at twelve point three +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we hope um {disfmarker} yeah . Make sure in your questionnaire to put down criticisms of both the process and the um the final results and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I do like the Martian remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we could choose more than one , that would be my second choice . +Marketing: Oh , that would definitely be my second choice . +Project Manager: Although the tog toggle +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm afraid I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's cool . Let's all let's all go for the yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I would break it . {vocalsound} I would break it . +Project Manager: It's cool . I think I would break it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It started because I wanted to have it as st as a stem +User Interface: Break the stem off . +Industrial Designer: and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} alright , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is {disfmarker} it started as a pear , but then it started looking more and more like a Martian +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: when I put the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Kind of looks like a penguin , like {vocalsound} with no eye {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take me to your leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , it's kind of a penguin . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: I like that it stands up . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Wow , maybe I should market it to some remote control company now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That was bound to happen.$ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , sad . +Industrial Designer: poor little thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , congratulations . Um . Anything else to say ? +Marketing: Nothing will come up until after our meeting's supposed to be over , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: its all timed . +Project Manager: Um anybody have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got more master classes , anybody else wanna like take a master's class ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really funny that you got spam in your work emails . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but check it out . So like there are all these like links , they don't go anywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But all that you need to keep in mind your {gap} knowledge management . Um just wanna make sure you do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No the first one that you sent like I didn't realise that it was a joke and I was like why did she send this to us ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very it's very work relevant , +Project Manager: It is . +Marketing: 'cause people send spam a lot . +Project Manager: Yes definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Let's see , +Project Manager: I'm very sad that I didn't get any links to the corporate website . {gap} . +Marketing: Oh here you can you can view . +Industrial Designer: what did I get through the corporate website ? It's just inspiration about circuit boards . +Marketing: You can just see what's up . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah it's it's really deep . Hold on . Takes a little while to get excited to load . That {disfmarker} the Excel thing is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is pretty neat . +Project Manager: I love Excel , +Marketing: Here , like , basically +Project Manager: it's one of my favourite programs . +Marketing: it's like inspiration , basically I'm gonna give you two sentences on fashion and that kind of thing , see . You didn't miss out that much . +Project Manager: I see , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my inspiration from from last time is the in interior of a remote control being taken apart bit by bit , talking about circuit boards . +Project Manager: Spongy . +Industrial Designer: I learned a lot actually . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I could probably take apart a remote control now if I really needed to . +Marketing: Oh wow . This one was cooler . I got a whole table and everything . +Industrial Designer: Now I have all about circuits and chips and transponders and {disfmarker} I wrote it all down , because I thought it would be relevant , like all the different parts of the inside of a remote control , but then they're like , you don't actually need this {disfmarker} you just need to talk about the case . +Marketing: That's like mine it was like , would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen or a multifunction remote control ? And then it didn't have like any kind of table , like awesome , I'm glad they asked that question and didn't report the result {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I I thought it was a little tricky having to hand around this thing . +Industrial Designer: It's really interesting though . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had a lot of the um {disfmarker} otherwise the technology {gap} today was kinda cool . +User Interface: I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That was really neat how I got emails +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: We didn't we didn't use the whiteboard that much . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Although I don't see how we could have very l at least for me +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah . If I'd gotten pictures of the different parts of the case , the different looks of the case , I would have probably drawn them up , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we weren't like voting on anything and I think usually , like whiteboards are good , you know like crossing out ideas , or like if we had had like a brainstorming period . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could've put our brainstorming stuff up there rather than just talking about it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but with only four people it doesn't really make sense . +Marketing: But I thought we were good orally . +Project Manager: And with and with the PowerPoint that we can all look at , like you can do all those things pretty much on PowerPoint +Industrial Designer: I think if you had a larger group {disfmarker} +Marketing: Get crazy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: as that's not as necessary to have . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And these might've made us more willing to like take notes than to like write up them here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause we all needed them separately , kind of on the whiteboards in this room . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because we're all gonna be working in different places . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} if we were all gonna stay in here all the time , then having the notes up on the whiteboard would've been alright , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but everyone needs their own , like specific notes , I guess . +Project Manager: Now when you were um creating your um prototypes here , did you work together or did you like do separate projects ? +User Interface: Uh we we worked together , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but we were making like we sort of made different shapes and then discussed how the how the buttons might work , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um and how we could like improve on the on the design . +Industrial Designer: So it was a bit of both really , we just kind of started out by each taking a colour of clay and just fooling around with it and I came up with that rhombus shape +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and he came up with the sort of potatoey , mangoey shape , and then just went from there really . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: It was fun . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So well done with the management , I felt well managed . +Project Manager: Oh thanks . +User Interface: I think we did well in first of all giving our meetings the time , +Project Manager: It's kinda fun . +User Interface: and second we actually we we did a good job of making firm decisions at the ends of the meetings . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That happened to me all the time though . +User Interface: I know what happens sometimes is that you tend to sort of have meetings and then people sorta drift away without anything actually really being decided . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think here we got we got clear and and decisive decisive points {gap} at the end of the meetings , so that we we knew where to go on from there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was quite worried at the end of the last meeting that we weren't getting {disfmarker} we didn't really have enough information to make firm decisions , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but we were able to do it regardless , so . I'm not usually a very decisive person , so it helped to have people say this needs to be done in five minutes . +Project Manager: This is what we'll do . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I found that we did {disfmarker} we could have used another five or ten minutes sometimes in the meetings . +Industrial Designer: Especially last time , +User Interface: Yeah , for some of the meetings , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah I think the last time we had a lot of information , but at the same time not quite enough , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you know what I mean , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like we we couldn't answer every single question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . And I I felt the first two meetings , that I was coming in with no information , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and not sort of made me really like , ooh I don't know {vocalsound} , throwing together PowerPoint out of no no information and then last time it was like the opposite . I had so much information and so much to talk about . +Project Manager: It was interesting what came out like later , like as I was doing the {disfmarker} when I was doing the breakdown on the agenda that they gave me um , that more points came out from your presentation even . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um . I'm a little {disfmarker} I am a little disappointed that we didn't do a {disfmarker} um something for losing the remote , because that was kind of a big point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} that was something like {disfmarker} in order to talk about that we would've had to have actual knowledge about circuit boards and {vocalsound} things like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well the problem was , even when we just were creating from the Excel file , there wasn't like a option to select to somehow have it included , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so there was no {disfmarker} we could be like yeah , it has it included . +Industrial Designer: I think we were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: There was no way for us to have +Project Manager: Considered the re +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: written down that it was really there . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we were just getting overenthusiastic with the task {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's interesting that they {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we really got into it , I mean I got into it as the day went on and I got really like , ooh I'm designing a remote control , I dunno if that's just me , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was interesting though that they put that fifty percent of people say they have frustration with losing their remote and yet they didn't provide us with information to um {disfmarker} we weren't provided with information to discuss that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know that like people people have like things they can put on their keys that you press it and it'll beep , but I but I'm sure that would require some kind of technology +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: that {disfmarker} I just don't know what it is , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think there are some of those like infomercial remotes that have things so you won't lose them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I mean we were talking about it and like i in my household at least , there's only about two places that the remote is ever +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause there's only one T_V_ and there's only like three chairs . +Marketing: That's like saying you're never gonna lose your keys , and I always do , anyway . You'll lose 'em in your pocket , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you just will forget that {disfmarker} or you like put it down somewhere that like made sense and then not remember , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: there's always ways to lose things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It d yeah , it depends on how organised you are personally , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or like I guess what the setup of the house is too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But , I mean {disfmarker} I am notorious for losing my keys , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just {disfmarker} I guess I've just never lost the remote . I put my keys in the refrigerator the other night {vocalsound} and couldn't find them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I was putting groceries away . +Marketing: That's funny . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: You you're taking stuff from a bag and putting them in the refrigerator and then go back to my room . +Project Manager: Can't get in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't get in , look all around the kitchen . Definitely in the vegetable drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's funny . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I always do that , leaving it in my coat , and then like using a different coat . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But I guess it's 'cause we don't carry remotes around that much . +Marketing: Yeah . Can't really take it into the other room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe with our little robot one we could've had him have a {disfmarker} robot , alien , pear , whatever he is , have a little voice like , I am located {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh a G_P_S_ system , {vocalsound} internal G_P_S_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh man . Here you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should make one that walks by itself . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Although if it's sitting still for too long . {vocalsound} Yes I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That really could get up and walk away {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or or like some crazy like electro-magnet , that you push it and it'll go zoom to the T_V_ and stick there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Or little {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Or just just a wheel , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like you'd have a remote for your remote , that'll {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but if you could attach them to the T_V_ , then you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} zoom {disfmarker} Yeah . Hmm . All kinds of possibilities . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . Sorry , I'm just um trying to update my minutes . I decided to {disfmarker} you know how I sent you the email saying that PowerPoint minutes will be complimentary , rather than like repeating them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just gonna make {disfmarker} I'm making full minutes , so that it'll include all of the agenda and all that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: 'Cause that seems a little more useful . +Industrial Designer: Wow . 'Cause you've had like the most typing and organising to do . +Project Manager: But I didn't have like information to sloth through either , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} How much of your PowerPoint was already done for you , every meeting . +Project Manager: Most of it , mm-hmm . I added slides , um I added a couple slides each time , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: but that was about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , I didn't even think about adding slides , 'cause I would just get slides with titles on them +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and fill them all in w didn't even think about adding more . +Project Manager: Well , the thing was they would provide y an agenda with s like several points , but it wouldn't have a slide for each point . And that's the only way I remember that I need to go other that point . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah. . +Project Manager: {gap} I know personally when I do PowerPoint , that's what I do and so {disfmarker} I had it once , even if it was just like the title of it , like the three presentations , and I would do your three . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You have you have to have the slogan on it or can it just be like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The slogan on it ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , definitely not . +Project Manager: No no no . +Marketing: Okay good . +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Cause I was like , it could go around the outside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't think we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we just need the um the R_R_ , +Industrial Designer: I think the R_ and R_ , especially if the yellow and black one . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Is it yellow and blue ? +Industrial Designer: Or yellow and blue . Lemme go to the web page . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just kinda going by the web page , 'cause they didn't give me any clear , like yellow , grey , or {gap} . +Marketing: Oh I guess it is black , grey . Grey is better than black , doesn't look so bumblebeeish . +Project Manager: I don't really like yellow in general . +Marketing: Hey now I understand the random like newsclippings . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Wasn't it interesting that um {disfmarker} I thought it was interesting that our market marketing um expert did not agree with the marketing um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: the marketing choices , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that was a bit of a conflict . +Marketing: I just feel like if you're really doing like a a really big market evaluation , you wouldn't just have like one set of source , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's kind of an {disfmarker} they were so not backed up , it would just be a sentence {gap} like we did a survey , this is what people said . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: S mm , I dunno . +Project Manager: People are stupid . +Industrial Designer: I guess it i it sort of a grey , isn't it ? Yellow and grey , but then the slogan's in blue . +Marketing: Well we got some grey and we got some blue buttons , we're good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we don't have the right colour clay anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe , like {disfmarker} I don't know . {gap} That could always be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well we're not , sadly , going to actually be producing this , so {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: If they ever come out with potato {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato mango shaped remotes . +Marketing: I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm claiming it intellectual property . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I can't believe a whole day is gone . I don't feel like it's been that long . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Get sucked in . Mm I haven't gotten questionnaire eight yet . +","In a detailed design meeting, the project manager outlines the agenda, starting with minutes from the last meeting, discussing energy choices such as the kinetic battery, a simple chip, and a latex case in fruity colors with push buttons. The team reviews three prototype designs named ""rhombus,"" ""potato,"" and ""Martian,"" discussing their shapes, colors, and functionality. Key considerations include user-friendliness, technological innovation with a focus on a kinetic battery, and the design's aesthetic appeal. There's also attention to the product's potential market and branding, including color variations and incorporating the corporate logo. Finances are addressed via an Excel sheet, with a target cost of 12.5 euros/unit considered. The project is wrapped up with a general evaluation of the creative process and teamwork, with notes that points such as a feature to prevent losing the remote were not fully addressed." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian, and I'm very pleased to welcome Helen Mary Jones, who is substituting for Siân today. Can I ask whether Members want to declare any interests, please? Can I just, then, place on record that I have got a son who was about to do A-levels, so is affected by the exam decision? We'll move on, then, to our substantive item today, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government around the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, who is director of the education directorate; Huw Morris, who is the group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning; and Rob Orford, who is the chief scientific adviser for health. Thank you all for coming. We know that this is a really difficult and pressurised time for everyone, and we appreciate your attendance. Minister, I understand you wanted to make an opening statement today. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, if that's okay, Chair. As you know, it's not usually my practice to do that, but I think it is important today. COVID-19 coronavirus is one of the most significant issues that the Welsh Government and the people of Wales have dealt with in recent times. Dealing with the impacts of this pandemic is extremely challenging. Things are changing on an hourly basis, and we have to make decisions quickly to ensure public safety. But I would like to assure you that our aim, and my aim, and my main concern as the education Minister is to protect all staff and pupils in our schools and other educational settings. But we also have a duty to ensure continuing and continuity of education. Public health is clearly the priority here, but that does not change our belief that no child should miss out on any education, unless absolutely necessary. So, the decision to close all schools from tomorrow for statutory education provision was not taken lightly, but I believe it was necessary, given the advice and recommendations that we had received from a public health perspective and the situation that was developing on the ground. From next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak, and I'm working with my colleagues in the Cabinet, with Government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans. The key areas that we're looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. This includes all of those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I can confirm that all maintained schools in Wales already have access to a range of digital tools that can support distance learning through the world-class Hwb digital learning platform, including virtual classrooms and video-conferencing facilities. A guide on what tools are available and how schools can use them has been developed and is being promoted widely. Yesterday, I announced that, whilst there are no easy choices, we have agreed that the best way forward is not to proceed with the summer exam series. Learners due to sit these exams will be awarded a fair grade to recognise their work, drawing on a range of information that is available, and I will announce further details shortly, but I felt it necessary to give early certainty to students and to staff. I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone working in education settings for the hard work that they have put in over the last few months in dealing with the virus and ensuring that pupils have been able to continue to learn. We need to continue to do this work together, as we face the continuing challenges posed by the coronavirus. Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister, for that statement. We'll go to questions from Members now, and I've got some questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I thank you, Kirsty, for your statement and the really difficult decisions that you've been having to make? You've already indicated in your statement this morning that these decisions are not taken lightly, and we understand that that is the case across Government. So, thank you for what you've been doing. You've outlined a little bit further there in your statement to us this morning about the new purpose. I take from what you're saying that you haven't really developed that yet in terms of exactly what that is going to look like. You've talked about the children of key workers, free school meals, additional learning needs. Is there anything else you can tell us about that at the moment and how you might staff the schools in those particular areas? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. So, you're absolutely right, our priority now is to operationalise, with colleagues in local government and schools, a practical response. And I have to say, we're working to timescales that I would have hoped to have avoided, but given the fact that we're having to make these decisions quite quickly, I hope that you will understand that perhaps where we start on Monday might change when we have more time and more opportunities to develop programmes going forward. Steve will be able to give you more details of the practical work that has already been going on, but our expectation will be that schools will be playing an important part in providing safe and secure places for children of those on the front-line response to dealing with the coronavirus to attend, and work is already under way with local authorities and individual schools on what that will look like for the emergency situation on Monday. Our other priority is indeed free school meals, and, again, where we eventually end up might be a different place to where we are on Monday. Again, we're responding to the emergency situation that there will be families that were expecting a free school meal on Monday, and, again, individual schools and local authorities are developing those plans at pace to be able to provide an emergency response as we work out a longer term plan to deal with the situation. The same thing also goes for additional learning needs, and attending to the needs of that particular group of learners. So, those conversations began a few days ago. I had the opportunity to meet with the First Minister and Andrew Morgan, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, yesterday to talk about what local government could do, and what they were already doing. Those plans in some places are already quite developed, and are now working at pace, but I hope you will understand that where we start on Monday is the emergency response, and that work will develop as we go forward. But, Steve, perhaps you could—? Because Steve was the one making all those phone calls and doing the practical operational stuff, rather than me. Steve. +Steve Davies: In short, the new purpose is to meet the needs of particular groups of children and young people. In some cases, some of the response to supporting free school meals, in the short term in particular, we may use the schools as part of that, and I'm certain that will happen in some cases. The second area is looking at how we support the children of key workers. Now, there is still work to be done on identifying exactly the categories of key workers, but I think it's really encouraging that in my discussions yesterday—I spoke with all 22 directors of education, and the examples we're picking up in their work with schools is they're already ahead of the curve in working with schools. So, schools have identified the number of children with health workers. It will grow, and we will need to look at that range. Then, the third area is vulnerable children. They're vulnerable sometimes in terms of education other than at school, vulnerable in terms of mental health, and for those children, as well as having an experience that we want to be planned, some have compared it to a snow day, particularly on Monday, when you're putting something together in the short term, but it will not be a formal curriculum that those children would normally go through. So, the range of activities—some will be focused on educational activities, some will be cultural, some will be sporting, and that plan will be developed on the basis of the age range of children, which in some cases may go from extremely young children up to those at the age of 16 in our all-through schools, but there will be a planned set of activities to cater for those children. What we are doing currently—I have staff back at Cathays Park who are in touch and working with directors of education to ensure that schools over the next two days will have been able to identify, at least at the earlier stage, in terms of health workers, the type and numbers of people. There are already schools who have informed us, and local authorities, of their plans for these activities to be starting next week, which is quite amazing, actually, given where we are. But we are expecting, and we're writing to schools today, that during the course of next week, headteachers to be in schools, and with their staff, taking into consideration the health guidance as to which staff should or should not be in, and in that period from next Monday through the two-week period, to Easter, we expect staff to be both planning for delivery post Easter, but also, as I said, building on and reflecting the good practice that's already in place for schools that have engaged in activities, and I'm sure a number of them will be inviting and enabling those children to come in on Monday. So, Monday will be a challenge for some, and not all will be delivering it, but we will be working so that we can get as much as possible delivered for those groups over the next two weeks, and particularly to have resilient programmes post Easter for the groups of children in those three categories that I said. +Dawn Bowden AM: Those that have been identified. Can I just clarify one thing? One of the identified vulnerable groups would clearly be children on the at-risk register. They would be included. +Steve Davies: Yes, definitely. Vulnerable children, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: In our discussions, we have asked local government to be working with the social services departments and individual schools to identify those children who may be in that situation. We know that, for some children, being at school is part of their safeguarding arrangements, and obviously we will need to be able to respond to those needs. +Steve Davies: I wrote specifically yesterday to all directors of education to be assured that, for those children, the register is up to date and the plans are in place. I'm working with Albert Heaney my colleague, the director for social services, who is meeting with the 22 directors of social services today to look to ensure that we are joined up in ensuring none of these children fall through the gap. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Hefin, and then Suzy. +Hefin David AM: A very quick and simple question: how are you going to communicate this to parents? There's a bigger picture and it's changing all the time, as you said. The Welsh Government have a route to communication. The most helpful thing I've seen is that Public Health Wales have a single website with information regarding the wider issue of the virus. How will this then be cascaded to schools, because there's obviously a time lag? So, have you considered how this is going to be communicated directly to parents? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using all of our platforms of communication to get these messages across. So, we're using the more informal methods of communication, but are relying on a systematic approach via individual directors and through to individual schools. Welsh Government already has a dedicated website page with all of the relevant information about coronavirus. We're looking, as quickly as we can, to have a frequently asked education questions page that we can update. Understandably, people are communicating to us on Twitter asking questions. It is impossible for the communications team here to be able to respond individually to every single person that is sending Facebook messages and sending tweets, so the best way we can do that is to collate the types of questions people are asking and then to be able to have a frequently updated question and answer page to try to respond to that. With regard to parents, for instance, we're aware of schools that have already sent a questionnaire out last night to parents saying, 'Do you consider yourself to be a key worker? Do you work in the NHS? Please let us know by tomorrow so we can put arrangements in place for your children.' So, schools are already taking the initiative and having those conversations with parents about what their needs will be. And, as I said, Hefin, will it be perfect on Monday? No. It won't be perfect by Monday, because we're working to such constrained timescales. But we will continue to build that resilience. We also have to think about systems that look at what might the epidemic do and have systems of resilience that may work next week, given the situation we find ourselves in with public health advice at the moment. But that public health advice may change. Therefore, have we got a system that will be resilient in those circumstances? These are some of the challenges that we're having to grapple with. So, as I said, what happens on Monday might look very different to where we are if schools are still off in May. So, I hope people will understand that we are working in those kinds of scenarios. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just on this question of vulnerable children, I'm just wondering how much discretion teachers are going to have in including individual children who may not be obviously under social services' care or on a risk register or whatever. Teachers know their pupils and, very sensitively, they could include people who may not be obviously in need. +Kirsty Williams AM: We would absolutely respect the professional judgment of individual headteachers to be able to have those conversations with their directors. As you said, quite rightly, they are the individuals who know their children best and know which children, perhaps, will need this extra support. We will put no constraints on those teachers trying to do that work. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The second part of my question is: there were going to be Easter holidays anyway, weren't there? What was going to happen about free-school-meal children during that period? Has that gone out of the window now, the normal holiday provision for children? Because that's not there normally, is it, except in separate— +Kirsty Williams AM: We do find ourselves in a strange situation. My understanding is what we're trying to work to is that we would have ongoing provision and not to make some strange, 'You get this for two weeks, then you don't get it for two weeks, and then you're back in.' My understanding is, in England, that is what they're going to do. We're trying to create a system where it will be seamless and it will not necessarily matter that two of those weeks were formally holidays. It won't matter to those nurses and doctors who will need to be in work during those weeks. We're trying to create a system that will run uniformly. That's our policy goal at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just briefly, building on Suzy's question, one particular group of children and young people that I hope will be eligible to be included in the potentially vulnerable category is young carers. For some of them, they may not be able to come into school because the people they're caring for may have to be excluded because of their conditions. But I think that, for other young carers, coming to school is an absolute lifeline, because they're working at home. So, I don't know if it's appropriate for you to specifically mention those in discussions with local authorities, but it's a group of young people who, again, may not be vulnerable in other ways, but because of their caring responsibilities they may need school. And the other group—and this, I suppose, goes back to Suzy's point about teachers knowing their young people—is the children who may be living in situations where they're at risk of witnessing domestic abuse. Again, these may very well not be children who are in any formal contact with social services, but being at home may be really not a good place for them to be. So, again, I'd put in an appeal for that to be something that perhaps can be raised with schools. If a teacher is worried about what a child's circumstances are like at home, whether they can be, as you said, Kirsty, included as one of the—. They may not be formally identified, but if the teacher knows that they're at risk, or there is an instinct that they're at risk, they might be able to be included in children who are allowed to take advantage of this special provision you're making at this difficult time. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will certainly raise those issues. We have to do that in the context of what is deliverable, and we also have to do that in the context of the public health advice that we are receiving as well. One of the reasons why schools are closing is to help manage this disease. We know that the ability for school closures to make a contribution to that diminishes if we have significant children in school still. So, we will take these issues into consideration, but remembering this is part of an epidemic mitigation plan. Rob is the expert on that, not me. +Rob Orford: Yes, absolutely. This is a rapidly-evolving problem and the scale is something that we haven't seen in 100 years, and so we're having to evolve and iterate things as we go. Next week, I think, will look different to this week. So, it kind of is what it is. We've all got a role to play, and schools certainly have a significant role to play in breaking those chains of transmission. Areas that we're worried about are displacement activities. If we close the schools, then people collect at others' houses. We need to send a really clear message that you're all part of the solution, and the things that you do by distancing yourselves from your friends and your family are really important for us to get on top of this outbreak. The more that we can do that, the easier it will be when we go forward. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I'm sure that that's true, but I'm sure that we wouldn't be wanting a child who's in a very pressured environment with perhaps a very difficult relationship between mum and dad—. It may be very important for those children to be out of that for some of the time. Hopefully, we're talking about relatively small numbers, but I just—. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will look at vulnerability in a holistic way. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, you had a supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Minister, and your team. Can I just put on record my thanks for all that you're having to endure at this moment? I think it's fair to say you have the support of Assembly Members and, indeed, our communities. Now, the question I have: if Cylch Meithrin have to close, where will they get money from to pay their staff? Because, currently, thankfully, there's support for businesses. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, we're not doing Cylch Meithrin at the moment; we are sticking with schools, as we discussed in advance. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just get some clarity, Steve, around what you were saying in terms of next week? Because I think the practical applications of this—and I understand that you don't know all of this yet, I understand that—the practical applications are what is coming to us, obviously, with constituents saying, 'Well, what's going to happen to that?' Just so that I can be clear, are you saying that, at this stage, every headteacher will be in school on Monday, as will all their staff? +Steve Davies: Within the scope of the guidance in terms of their health, the expectation—and this will be conveyed in letters by the Minister today, to be made clear—is that they are closing for the majority of pupils, but our expectation within the guidance is that the headteacher with their staff will be coming in; for some to start the delivery of what we just described, but that will probably be small numbers, but more importantly to plan to ensure that, after the formal Easter period, which is school holidays, the schools are geared to cater for the range of pupils that we've been discussing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, would you anticipate—again, I know this is all a bit 'if and when', and it depends on the changing nature of the advice, but from what you're saying, I think we can probably anticipate that, as we go forward, there will probably be fewer schools opening and operable—that we may be moving those children on to fewer sites. Would that possibly—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is a potential. So, we already know that one of our local authorities already has identified a strategic pattern of schools that they will want to operate in this way. That local authority has already chosen those locations, and is already having communications with how they will then staff those centres. So, that could well—. That, I expect, in the longer term, will be the nature of the provision that we will get to. But that's not for us to dictate. The local authorities are best placed to understand what is the best, pragmatic use of the resources that they have available; and of course those resources, primarily, are human beings. So, we've talked a lot this morning in the context of teaching staff, teaching assistants, but we're also having discussions with local authorities, and I met with the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services this week, to look at deploying youth workers, to look to be deploying other staff that the local authority may employ, like sports development officers. There may be cultural officers that can have something to offer. Welsh Government will be talking with a range of our partners who perhaps their normal activities can't continue at the moment, but actually have personnel who want to add to this effort, who want to be able to be part of a provision going forward in the longer term, to be able to provide a great place for children to be. We want to give parents, who we are asking—. Let's think about it, in these worst of times, we're asking parents to leave their children so that they can go and do essential work, and some of that essential work is putting themselves at risk, potentially. And we want to give those parents confidence that, when they leave their child with us, that child will receive something really worthwhile, and they can direct all of their attention to doing their job. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you—. Janet, have you got a supplementary on schools now, not on early years settings? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I lost the signal before, so it's a little bit confusing at this end, so bear with me. Just in terms of the closure of schools, I have been asked by teachers what does new purpose—you may have covered it, but bear in mind [Inaudible.]—mean in practice. And also, they're already asking what will next—? I know you said earlier that next week could look and probably will look significantly different than this week, but what can they expect to be happening next week in terms of this new purpose work? +Lynne Neagle AM: We've covered that, Janet. +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, Janet, I just want to say thank you very much for your kind comments. That's really, really kind of you. We will be sending a letter today to clarify those positions. So, each school will receive letters today about the expectations of schools next week. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think you're having trouble hearing us, aren't you, so I think—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, I heard that loud and clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: But I think you missed the earlier comments, when we went into some detail on the new purpose of schools. So, I'm sorry about that; we are having some problems with the connection. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, we couldn't get a signal. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just in relation to special schools and how they will fit into this new purpose arrangement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, they're absolutely central to that planning. We know, again, that some of these children are our most vulnerable and they are some of our most pressurised families. Therefore, the same situation that we've just described for maintained schools also applies to special schools. We'll be having discussions about what arrangements can be made for those children within their own usual settings. In some cases, that may not be possible. So, again, already local authorities are making different provision. Can I give a shout out to the work of Rhondda Cynon Taf in this regard, who are already doing some excellent work with regard to how they can keep in touch with their children who usually would attend their special schools. But, again, Steve can give more detail. +Steve Davies: I think special schools have already been hit by this challenge, because a significant proportion of their children, because of their conditions, have not been coming to school, they've been isolated. But the principle we've used there is, actually, even if it's a minority of children who go to those schools and are vulnerable, they deserve and need that support through the school. So, we would expect that to function with the focus on vulnerable children. But similarly, even in special schools, there will be children whose parents will be key workers, so we would expect them to apply that same principle. Just quickly in response to the earlier question, while we may bring some groups of children into separate schools, we’ll have to continue with the principle of keeping social distance and any provision for a child in a special school in a different setting would be unlikely, given the nature of the special school, so we would look to cater for that within the original school. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just a couple more questions from me. It’s likely, because I know it has already happened, that some schools might actually close before Monday. Some schools have already partially closed. Are you quite happy that headteachers still have the discretion to do that, if they feel that’s the right thing to do? +Kirsty Williams AM: In this situation, the discretion of the head still remains. As I said, we will be communicating with all schools today about our expectations, if at all possible, to have schools open for staff to do some of this planning and to be able to respond to these priority needs that we've just talked about. +Steve Davies: The rationale of headteachers for closing schools up to now has been that they can't cope with the safety of the children. I think, moving forward, it's unlikely that that would be a rationale that headteachers would want to use for not engaging and planning for the future. +Dawn Bowden AM: We're only talking about one more day, now, anyway, aren't we? So, just in terms of confirmed cases in schools, is your view at this stage that, if there is a confirmed case in a school, once that school has been deep-cleaned, it can reopen again? +Kirsty Williams AM: If we had a confirmed case in a school, then all the usual mechanisms arranged by Public Health Wales would kick in at that point. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And my final question is in relation to the position of early years and childcare settings. I know that kind of crosses over into somebody else's portfolio as well, but I think we know that. Certainly what I've seen, and I'm sure this is true elsewhere as well, we've seen nurseries closing down because the parents are actually taking the children out of those nurseries. I've got one in particular, there are kids from the ages of 6 to 12 years in there, and the parents are taking them out. They've got 30 staff there, catering for 200 children and no children to care for and the organisation, at this stage, is unable to claim on their insurance for the ongoing payment of those staff wages. Is there any advice that we can give to people in that situation at this stage? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. As you say, many of these settings are businesses—people's businesses and they play a hugely important role and it's a very worrying time for them. We have said that we will continue to pay for childcare, delivered under the childcare offer even when a child is unable, or a parent is unwilling, to take up that place. So, if that setting is receiving a childcare payment from the Welsh Government as part of our childcare offer, that will be paid, regardless of whether that child attends or not. And I know that we're also working with local authorities to ensure a similar position on Flying Start childcare and early education. So, that payment will be made, regardless of whether a child is attending. It's also important that childcare settings will be able to apply for the various packages of support that are being made available by my colleague, Ken Skates. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, then Janet. +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'd just like to turn that around from the parents' point of view. With schools closing, there are a lot of parents then losing 10 hours of free childcare, but from a settings point of view, they'll continue to be able to receive, for the time being, the nursery care. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, so the decision that has been taken by my colleague, Julie Morgan, is that settings should stay open at the moment unless public health changes. That's being kept under constant review on public health. Again, the issue is that we know that that childcare is vital to many families, especially—and we're particularly concerned about those individuals who are trying to help us overcome and solve these problems. If you have any specific questions about that, we'll be happy to take them back to Julie Morgan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is this the Cylch question? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Sorry, thank you. Yes, just basically, Cylch Meithrin, there are concerns—[Interruption.] +Lynne Neagle AM: We've lost Janet. We'll come back to her. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if the issue is about funding for Cylch Meithrin, these are not normal circumstances. As a Welsh Government, we will take every step to provide continuity of funding, if at all possible. We will overcome this, and when we overcome this situation we find ourselves in, we will need those childcare settings, we will need those private businesses and we will need our Cylch Meithrin to be there to respond and to be able to go on doing the job that they usually do for us. And if there is any way that we can, as a Government, ensure that that happens by carrying on funding things, even if they are not able to run, all usual—[Inaudible.]— around service-level agreements are off. I'm not setting the precedent—let me make that absolutely clear. [Laughter.] But, you know, we will not undermine businesses and voluntary provision like Cylch by withdrawing Welsh Government funding. I hope I've been clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: If we can move on to talk about exams, obviously you made the announcement yesterday. I completely understand that everything is a very fast-moving situation, but, as you know, there are a lot of questions that people have about young people who've put a lot of work in. Are you able to tell us any more today? In particular, have you got any idea about timescales now for setting out what the approach will be to handling the lack of summer exams? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, it is a devastating decision to have to have been taken, but I have done so on the very, very clear and unambiguous advice from Qualifications Wales. I met with Qualifications Wales and the WJEC yesterday. What was most important to them was that I made an early decision and I did not equivocate on what would happen for the exams. I was able to make an informal decision at that meeting, and then, of course, there is a formal process that we have to go through. That, now, allows Qualifications Wales and the exam board to operationalise that decision, and they will be communicating with schools as quickly as possible about what schools will need to do to ensure that the systems that they will now put in place can work. We are trying, as far as we can, as I understand it, to be able to mirror as closely as possible the usual results day, for instance. It might not be possible, because, of course, we're dealing with a situation that requires human beings to be involved in it, and those human beings could find themselves unwell. So, our best attempts will be to maintain the normal rhythm of an exams day in August, but that has to be caveated by the fact that we're dealing with difficult circumstances. But, the WJEC and Qualifications Wales will be making urgent communications to exam centres to explain what will need to happen next. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, you had a question on this. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think I raised it yesterday, Kirsty, but you were receiving loads of questions. I'd just ask for some further clarification about coursework, because only 30 per cent of that is done. Years 11 and 13, typically, in my case they're what's been raised with me—do you have any advice for them? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, all exams are cancelled, but year 11 and year 13 will be given a grade—I think that's a distinction that people need to be aware of. That is because those years and those grades are gateway qualifications, and they are points of movement in the education system. So, it's really important for those students that they are not disadvantaged in any way by not being able to receive a grade that helps them to make a decision as a qualifying step into what they will do next, whether that be university, whether that be a degree apprenticeship or whether that be going into sixth form, into a college, into an apprenticeship or into some work-based learning opportunities. That's why we have to focus on those children, because for them, it is absolutely critical that we do. We are at an advantage in Wales, can I say? Because of the nature of our examination system, those students already have a lot of externally assessed work that we can use as a basis to move forward on. Because we've kept our AS-levels, we have got that data. Because we have a GCSE system—. Our year 11s, if they're doing triple science, they've already done 40 per cent of their paper, so we're very fortunate. Because of the structures that we have got in our qualification system, there is already lots and lots of externally-verified work that we can use, alongside, potentially, teacher evaluation of students as well. And I think that's really important. We’re starting from a better base than simply having none of that externally-verified data. What will also be important is that these children have confidence in those qualifications, and so we will be looking at a modulated arrangement within Wales, and I know that Qualifications Wales are discussing with their counterparts across the UK a modulated system across the UK. So, actually, we can make sure that our standards are maintained by actually having that modulation across the UK. So, we know that those children never have to worry about the rigour that has gone into determining that grade. So, they can have real confidence. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. A supplementary question that might feed into that moderation. You'll know that the National Union of Students has suggested that black and minority ethnic children and children from the working class, on the whole, don't do as well, in terms of their assessment by their own teachers. I don't know what their evidence is for that. We also know, of course, that boys tend to do better in exams, and girls tend to do better at coursework, for whatever reason that is. So, just to ask you at this early stage to build in those considerations around potential unconscious bias into that overall system that you're talking about. And, of course, you are right to say that, because we have got some elements of external moderation here, those factors may be less for us in Wales than they might for colleagues in England. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are starting at a different base, thank goodness. So, you're quite right. As I said, students will have done unit 1 papers last year if they're GCSE students. Dare I say it, some might even have done early entry. So, we still have elements of coursework that are externally verified. So, children might well have done lots of oral exams in their English and in their Welsh language. So, we have lots of pieces of work that will have been externally verified. I certainly will ensure that these concerns are passed on. I'm sure that Qualifications Wales are thinking about it. I have every confidence that they and the WJEC will come up with a very comprehensive way of establishing those grades, but I have to say, in some ways, I have to step back now, because you would not expect me, in normal circumstances, to dictate to the WJEC how much percentage goes for that, and how much percentage is allocated for that; that would not be appropriate for a Minister. My job is to make the decision on the examinations on the basis of having confidence that what can be put in place is fair and is equitable, and I have confidence that that will be the case. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: A few things from me. One is, obviously, pupils are being asked to work at home as well now, some of whom will be doing GCSE and A-level courses. So, there's just a question, generally, from me— because we're encouraging these kids to carry on working—how that will be accommodated by Qualifications Wales, I guess, in this modulation process. It may be that your at-home work will be of a higher standard or a lower standard than a teacher would be expecting. Secondly, you mentioned the AS-levels, of course, as being of value at the moment, but we've got people in Year 12 who now won't be doing their ASs. Is there any steer at this stage about what they will be expected to do? Will they be doing two sets of exams next year, for example? Or is AS just off the table? In which case, how are the A2s going to be calculated in due course? And then, finally from me, we do have some vocational qualifications that are up for examination as well—your BTECs, and I think it's the Association of Accounting Technicians, which is a lot of computer-based learning—which is due to be examined within three weeks. Those aren’t A-levels or GCSEs. I appreciate that you may not have the answer just at the moment, but are they off as well is the question, I guess? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to AS-levels—no final decision has been made for exactly how those students will be treated. There are a range of options that could be used, but again, we will want to be thinking about student well-being, fairness and equity in that regard, and I will update Members as soon as I have received definitive advice from Qualifications Wales around that, and that hasn't happened yet. With regard to other types of qualifications, as you will be aware, the vast majority of BTECs is a modular, continually-assessed piece of work, and we would have every expectation that BTECs will be able to be awarded, but clearly, those conversations are with awarding bodies—they tend to be UK awarding bodies, rather then necessarily our WJEC exam board—and those conversations are ongoing. But I have every expectation that those qualifications will be awarded and, of course, because of their nature there's even more evidence of continued assessment. Huw, I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add about those types of qualifications. +Huw Morris: No. I think you've covered most of it. I don't have a definitive answer for the ATT qualification, but we can look into that and come back to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've just had a constituent ask, so that would be very helpful. And homeworking— +Kirsty Williams AM: Homeworking, right. +Suzy Davies AM: —is that going to count towards the assessments, overall assessments? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, potentially, as I said. I don't know the exact elements. What will be absolutely necessary is that Qualifications Wales and the WJEC will be able to give absolute clarity and simplicity around how those grades will be arrived at, because parents, teachers and students will want to know that, and my expectation is on them to be able to clearly communicate what elements will and will not be taken into consideration when awarding those grades. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. At least we covered it. Thank you, Minister—thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: And, just before we move on, have the universities across the UK indicated that they are content with this approach going forward—content to accept students on this basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly. There have been discussions with universities and UCAS, of course, that this also has a bearing on. One of the—. And the views of university and how university terms might be impacted is one of the ways and one of the reasons that we've factored in to making these decisions. Those discussions with universities are ongoing, aren't they, Huw? +Huw Morris: Yes. So, we've been in regular conversation with Universities Wales and through them with Universities UK and we've received every indication that the approach that's been adopted here has been welcomed by the institutions. Those conversations will continue as we work through the practicalities of how the gradings that are awarded are going to feed through into university admissions decisions and enrolment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Well, we've got some questions now from Suzy on the potential closures of colleges and universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's a very general question, really. I appreciate you've already indicated there are lots of ongoing conversations, but my understanding is whether colleges or universities close is pretty much still at their own discretion. We're going to be asking some questions on emergency legislation shortly, which may impact on the answer you can give today, but what sort of conversations are you having with FE and HE at the moment about how they decide? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're absolutely right. As we often say in this committee, universities are autonomous institutions—a status that they guard jealously and we would never want to question. Universities have been making the decision to move as much of their learning online as they possibly can and we continue to have conversations with them. Colleges are in a similar position, looking to do as much as they can to be able to provide continuity of learning via distance learning methods, and the Bill, potentially, does give us more powers of intervention in both the FE and the HE sector. +Suzy Davies AM: I might ask you about that in a minute, because I don't even know what the Bill says yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Huw, I don't know if there's anything you want to add. +Huw Morris: No—just to confirm what's been said and also to add in that independent training providers, similarly autonomous, like colleges and universities, have been moving in the same direction. We've been very impressed with the maturity and forward-planning that's been adopted by all of those institutions and their representative bodies. We've got consistency in the approach and a common desire, and investment in moving towards online support for students. +Suzy Davies AM: And there's still this safety net idea. Certainly, colleges have indicated, as with schools, that, for the most vulnerable learners, they'll have something in place that might permit attendance on an individual basis. +Huw Morris: That's my understanding, yes, and, again, we've been in regular conversation with them about that. My understanding is that they're going to spend the next week working through the detail of how that will work for the institutions. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fair enough. And, presumably, education maintenance allowance will still be paid. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Arrangements have been made to ensure that EMA continues to be paid to all students who are entitled. +Suzy Davies AM: That's right. You indicated that any Welsh Government support's going to stay, whatever the circumstances are—in your portfolio. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I'm doing my best, but it's an absolute yes on the EMA. There will be no disruption to EMA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. You might get some further questions on HE and FE. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got some further questions, indeed, from Helen Mary and then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Now or in a bit? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just further to EMA, of course, at the moment, that has an attendance qualification, doesn't it? And you don't get your EMA if you don't turn up. Should we take from your last answer that that attendance qualification doesn't apply anymore? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. They can't turn up if the institution is not open, and that's not their fault. +Helen Mary Jones AM: No, but that is something that's been a worry, so that's really encouraging to hear. Thinking about students in higher education, can you give an assurance that student maintenance payments will continue as normal? Is that the intention? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really good to hear. And have you given any special ministerial instruction to Student Finance Wales on processing applications for support or changes of circumstances, or is that something that's kind of ongoing at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Those conversations are ongoing with the Student Loans Company. As I said, we anticipate no disruption to—. We don't anticipate any change in the approach to students as a result of this. Individual student circumstances could well change and our expectation would be that the Student Loans Company would respond to that. All I would say is, just to remind people: people who work for the Student Loans Company are no more able to resist this disease than anybody else. There will undoubtedly in some cases be really practical challenges to service delivery, simply because organisations could be losing staff because of illness or the need to self-isolate or because they are reacting to social-distancing messages from the Government. So, I think we just need to bear that in mind: that these organisations are doing their best, but, if they are badly affected by staff numbers being off because of the virus, then I hope people will give them due consideration. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Yes, that makes sense, of course, because we've been told that universities won't be able to entirely close, because there will be students who can't go home— +Kirsty Williams AM: It is their home. +Helen Mary Jones AM: —overseas students, for example. What discussions have you been having with the sector to make sure that those students' basic needs are met, that there's still food, shelter, whatever they need? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, obviously, universities have a duty of care to those students that find themselves in those circumstances, and every conversation that Huw's been having would suggest that universities are well aware of their need to do that. +Huw Morris: We instituted a monitoring process very early on in the onset of the disease, not least because a number of institutions have campuses and activities in China and other parts of south-east Asia. And so, as the disease has progressed, we've seen lessons being learned from the support for students who are in isolation coming from there to the UK, and I am assured that the universities here in Wales have got processes in place that support those learners. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really helpful. And on this specifically—last question from me— have you considered whether students might need to be refunded some of their tuition fees, should the academic year not be completed? +Huw Morris: So, as the institutions move more and more of their material and some of their assessment online, clearly, there are lessons that will need to be taken on board. There are established quality assurance and enhancement procedures in institutions to enable the tutors and other supporters to make sure that that material meets their needs. The intention in all of these institutions is that they will complete their course of study. There are appeals mechanisms and feedback mechanisms through the students union and through course committees and other things within institutions to make sure that any concerns or incomplete work are addressed. Failing those institutional mechanisms, there is a UK-wide system through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for students to take forward any concerns that they have. So, we're confident that that system will be robust and will make sure that the students are getting a course of learning that meets their needs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: No, Mr Morris has answered my question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got a couple more questions now on vulnerable learners. I've got Helen Mary, then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I think, Chair, the Minister has already answered what the—. But thinking just a little bit more broadly about the mental health and well-being of staff and learners across a range of educational settings, or, indeed, young people who can't access educational settings, what considerations are you giving to how that mental health and well-being might be supported through what is an incredibly difficult time for everyone? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that is correct. So, our expectation would be that during a prolonged period of closure—which I think, if we're honest, we have to acknowledge is what we're looking at—we would expect school staff—well-being staff, for instance in school—to be doing check-ins—phone check-ins, potentially, or FaceTime check-ins, with students, just to keep in touch with them as we go forward. We'll be looking to promote amongst young people a range of online facilities that are available—so, for instance, Meic website—so, looking to use a variety of platforms. We do, of course, have the formal NHS counselling services. I'm concerned, of course, that for some children their access to their counsellor is via their school. We know that, and we're just double checking the capacity of online counselling that already exists—online counselling tools that children already use because they don't want to go to the counsellor in the school and be seen in the school corridor going to the counsellor. They're already using those online methods and we expect to be able to continue, as far as possible, those kinds of mechanisms where children can have their mental health needs and their questions answered, and their worries. I think we have to remember that this is a really worrying time for children and young people. One of the reasons, again, that we wanted to keep schools going as long as possible—and teachers have been working so hard to do that—is because that routine of going into school and that normality is one that we've needed and wanted to maintain. Children will have worries about their own health; they'll have worries about the health of their parents and their grandparents; they will be consuming potentially media and news stories that have empty supermarket shelves. So, we need to understand, and I think we will also have to recognise, that this support will have to be ongoing once we're back to normal, and we will have to continue to look to support children in the longer term who will have lived through this experience. They are incredibly resilient, and they have been the champions of some of our public health messages. They are so much better and so much more compliant on the whole 'washing your hands' and things like that than even adults have been. So, they are incredibly resilient, but we also have to recognise that it can be a really worrying time for them. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Can I just—? Just a supplementary to that—you've mentioned already, Kirsty, the importance of youth services, and, particularly thinking voluntarily youth services, you've given the commitment, when were talking about Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin earlier, that services that are part-funded by grants through the Welsh Government, for example, thinking of the national youth voluntary service—will those be able to be maintained even if settings have had to be shut as well? Obviously, local authorities will have to make their own decisions about whether youth settings are kept open, but, in terms of the direct support from Welsh Government, can organisations that receive it rely on that through this time? +Kirsty Williams AM: No formal decision has been made, but if people are in receipt of a Government grant from my department to run a service and that service can no longer run because of the public— +Helen Mary Jones AM: Because it's not safe. +Kirsty Williams AM: —because it's not safe to do so, I do not foresee that we will be turning around and saying, 'We'll have our money back, thank you very much.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That will make a lot of people happy, thank you. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, we are facing unprecedented circumstances. The normal rules of engagement have to change and, those organisations, we'll need them to be providing youth services for children when we are back to normal, and we wouldn't want to do anything that would undermine their ability to do that. Our call to the youth service is a call to arms, though. When we're trying to maintain services for vulnerable children and for front-line staff children, they have a valuable role to play and I know that local government and the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services are already in discussion about how youth services—. Many of our youth services work on an outreach basis. Those traditional youth clubs, because of austerity, are not necessarily there anymore, so they are well used to being out and about and doing outreach work, and they will have an important part to play in the services that we talked about earlier. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, briefly, and then we're going to take one final question from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Hefin David AM: All right. I'll declare an interest as a parent of a child with additional learning needs, although the question I'm about to ask doesn't reflect her interests. Additional learning needs pupils who are waiting outcomes of referrals—if they're currently waiting an outcome of a referral, will that process will be suspended or will it continue as normal? And, if it is suspended, will it pick up where it left off from this point? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the ability to deliver business as usual has been massively compromised. I'm sure people will try and continue to do their normal activities and their normal jobs, but that might not be possible. I will have to check that, Hefin, to be honest. I don't want to give you any false assurance if, actually, the intelligence on the ground is that that simply will not be able to happen. But we don't— +Hefin David AM: Can we have a clear line on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't want to jeopardise anybody, but as I said, some of the normal services are simply not available as everybody turns their attention to trying to respond to the pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Final question—because I know that the Minister's got a lot of things that she needs to get on with—from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not going to ask you if you'll use any powers you get under the emergency legislation, but are you able to give us some indication of what they might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. For instance, the Bill will provide Welsh Ministers with powers to temporarily close schools or other educational institutions, childcare premises; powers to give temporary continuity direction—so, actually, the other way around, force things to be open—and to be able to direct resources. So, that includes, as I said, I could direct something to stay open if that institution was trying to close down. The powers also give flexibility to maybe be able to direct staff to other institutions that they would not normally work in, if that was part of our resilience needs. We'd also be looking at, for instance, relaxing requirements around ratios in childcare settings, or we might be wanting to do things around food. So, obviously, we have rules around the level of nutrition that schools should be giving their children. If there is a continuing role for schools in providing food, we might have to be a bit more flexible about what that might look like. So, those kinds of flexibilities—to be able to suspend things, direct things—that we would not normally have in normal circumstances. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish this one off—you may not be able to answer this one, in all fairness—in those situations where it's the Government who says 'no' to various things, does that then help people in the situation of Dawn's nursery, and insurance claims suddenly become more likely? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not an expert on insurance, and I don't know if anybody here can help me. But what my understanding is, is that even where Government has given a direction that does not necessarily mean that you will be covered by your insurance. What we're finding in the private sector is that insurance companies are not paying out, because even when a Government has directed it, they do not regard this as a disruption to business. So, the insurance industry is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I accept that. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not my area of expertise, but from what I understand from discussions around the Cabinet table, this is particularly problematic. Let me give you an example about how we've been trying to overcome some of this—it feels like an awfully long time ago now— you'll be aware that we gave directions earlier around cancellation of school trips abroad. Trying to make sure that that direction came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, rather than the Department for Education was a real battle, because again there were fears that, unless that advice came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, insurance would not kick in, and that was a two-day discussion. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. This is helpful to know, actually. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, these are the kinds of things that we're grappling with. But, as I said, thinking about it, that was only last week, but it feels like an aeon ago. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not holding you to that, but it helps us manage the questions we get asked. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but as I said, insurance is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but thank you for answering. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending this morning, and your officials? We do recognise what an incredibly challenging time this is, and we'd like to place on record our thanks to all of you for the work that you're doing to try and see us through this crisis. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you again, all of you, for your attendance. Item 3, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The committee convened to discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting, and Kirsty Williams AM, the Minister for Education, made an opening statement highlighting the significant issues posed by the pandemic. Williams stated that the priority is to protect staff and pupils and to ensure the continuity of education, with public health being a key focus. Decisions were quickly made, including the closure of all schools from tomorrow, moving towards new functions such as supporting the most in need, including front-line workers responding to the outbreak. Free school meals and support for children with additional learning needs were discussed, along with digital platforms to aid distance learning. + +Williams announced the cancellation of the summer exam series, noting that affected learners would receive grades recognizing their work based on various information sources. Further details would be announced soon. She expressed gratitude to education sector workers for their efforts during these difficult months. + +Questions from committee members were raised about several topics, including how schools will operate under new conditions, support for children of key workers, free school meals, additional learning needs, communication with parents, and the status of special schools and early years settings. Clarity was provided on payments continuing for the Childcare Offer despite service disruptions. + +The universities' response to the situation, including continued provision for vulnerable learners and maintenance of support payments, was also discussed. The potential use of emergency legislation powers to temporarily close or direct educational institutions was briefly touched upon. + +The meeting concluded with a motion to exclude the public for the remaining proceedings. The Minister for Education and her officials were thanked for their attendance and efforts to manage the education sector during the pandemic." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Is this okay ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . Fine now . Oh , it's not liking us , it went that-a-way . Computer adjusting . Oh . Uh . Okay . {vocalsound} So . Right . You ready back there ? {vocalsound} Uh okay . Welcome everyone . Um this is the kick-off meeting for the day . Um we're the new group uh to create a new remote control for Real Reaction . As you can see our agenda is to open up the meeting , um become acquainted with each other , um have a little training on tools , uh create a plan , discuss things and and we only have twenty minut twenty five minutes total . Okay . The new remote control is to be original , trendy and user-friendly . That , Steph , is your part , is the user-friendliness . The originality um is gonna take all of us . Um the trendiness we'll probably go look at {disfmarker} for some marketing research information from you , Sarah . Um and we'll get on with it . Okay , so we'll have a functional design individual work um with meeting and then conceptual design t and then detailed design . Okay ? Right . Everybody's supposed to try out the whiteboard . Kate , why don't you try it first , if you can either bring your things with you , I guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if I can pick up with all these bits and pieces , hang on . +Project Manager: And while you're doing that we'll try and figure out how to hook these things on as well , 'cause we're all gonna have to be able to walk around . +Industrial Designer: Uh right , so you want an animal and the characteristics of that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have to be able to recognise what animal it is ? {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I do not think so , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Are we all gonna draw a cat ? +Project Manager: I think it's just to try out the whiteboard . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Only animal I could thin I could draw {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Its a sort of bunny rabbit cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can tell it's not a bunny rabbit by the ears . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um I suppose it should have a mouth as well , sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: Great . And the characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um the favourite characteristics of the cat um {disfmarker} the whiskers I think , um because they're the easiest to draw . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: In fact , I'll give it some more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , and the tail +Project Manager: Fantastic . Since you're handy as well , why don't you do yours next , Steph . I think it's to get us used to using the pen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . Um sure it's not to test our artistic {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no . {vocalsound} A mouse-y ? +Industrial Designer: It's a mouse . +User Interface: That's not a mouse-y , no . +Industrial Designer: No it's not a mouse . It's a wombat . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's a ratty . +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: A what ? +Project Manager: Rat . +User Interface: A ratty . +Project Manager: Not a mouse , a rat . +Industrial Designer: A webbed foot . Webbed f {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's clothes . That's it's clothes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a ratty with a with a with a very long tail . +Project Manager: And your favourite characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: I love whiskers . Uh they're intelligent and they're cheeky {vocalsound} and uh fantastic pets +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: and very friendly . +Project Manager: Okay . Kate ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And they sit on your shoulder and whisper the answers to your homework in your ear when you're doing your homework . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Oh , a fish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Gosh , +User Interface: A shark ? +Industrial Designer: why didn't I think of fish ? That's even easier to draw than cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} this is very representational fish . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fine . +Marketing: Um I like them because they're sleek +Project Manager: Favourite characteristics ? +Marketing: and they have a lot of freedom but they also do n uh swim in groups , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So they have team elements . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you have a favourite one ? +Project Manager: I'm afraid I'm with Steph . And I think your pen's running out of whatever . But I'm afraid I take the coward's way out , and the cat's looking the other way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's hiding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um cats are sometimes very independent . My parents had cats . Uh and they can mm decide for themselves what is best . Okay . Now um {vocalsound} we have to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to make this and this remote control has to be sold {disfmarker} um we're to sell it for twenty five Euros , with a profit aim ultimately of fifty million Euros . That tells you something about how many um we have to sell on an international scale . Um would be an awful lot of these , would be like what , a hundred million of them um to make twenty five Euros on each one and to make a total profit of fifty million . Um the production is to only cost twelve and a half Euros per item . Now if they cost twelve and a half , you're selling it for twenty five , you're making twelve and a half Euros each . Um and we're to make a profit of fifty million , that's t uh {disfmarker} can you do the maths and how many are we selling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if that's the um {disfmarker} If fifty percent is normal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mark-up ? +Marketing: B yeah . Um I would think would be more like sixty percent . But um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I have two thoughts . One hundred , fifty percent . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And and your question is how many do we have to sell ? +Project Manager: Yes , 'cause our market um is international and your problem is {disfmarker} has to do with marketing of {disfmarker} you know , you gotta know how many we're going to be selling to know how big a market you have to target and who is that . +Marketing: At twenty five . Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To give you a pretty good idea of where you're looking . +Marketing: So that's four million of them ? +Project Manager: Something like that ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's fifty million Euros . In order to make fifty million Euros , and you're only getting twelve and a half each {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if we make {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a lot of selling . Two four {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Four million . +Project Manager: To be fifty , be four million . You'd have to sell four million . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right . Experience with a remote control . Any of you use of remote control for a television or D_V_D_ or something ? You're both nodding , +Industrial Designer: That that that's the sorta product we're talking about , one that will work for a {disfmarker} in a home environment , for a T_V_s and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: all three . Well I've seen some remote controls that are for more than one device at a time , but I also have heard about them not working well or not well co-ordinated and you wind up working with this one for thi this three and then this one over here for another . +User Interface: It is true that you always sit around {disfmarker} you know , you're sitting on your sofa and you wanna change something , there's five different remotes , and one for the D_V_D_ and one for the video and one for cable and one for whatever else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Y yeah . +Project Manager: And they don't always talk to each other . +User Interface: But I presume this is t I presume this is just for television . +Project Manager: Don't know . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are there any um ideas for the remote ? What would it be for and what group would be be for ? We have to think about that one . +Marketing: We could make a Hello Kitty +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: themed remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think one in b bright colours would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think one that works would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could totally go for the Japan-a-mation . Well I mean there's also the cachet that um uh the Japanese make great {vocalsound} products . Electrical {disfmarker} their industrial design is very good . +User Interface: I think one that doesn't have lots of superfluous functions . Like I've got one at home that has well , apart from the obvious , channels , channel up , channel down , volume , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: you know , subtitles , mute , there's a lotta buttons that I've got no idea what they do , like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's a really good point , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because I think one of the things that {disfmarker} being somewhat computer literate , we tend to um go to menus and then make choices , you know , so if it's like an uh volume button , you know , you can go in and say mute or or volume . We don't need to have like the l the numbers if we also have uh uh channel up channel down . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Mm . We can make it smart like an iPod , you know , make everything menus . +User Interface: Ooh , closing the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I know this sounds like it was very quick , +User Interface: That was quick . +Project Manager: but the I think that's the industrial design is the first one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that's Kate , for the working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And user , that's you S Steph , for the technical functions design , and for marketing the user requirements specification . I think there's going to be a lot of {disfmarker} we have to help each other and work through this as a group , and I think we all , you know , {vocalsound} we like our kitty-cat and our rat and our fish , but I think we all have to like each other um to get this done . Uh as it says , we're gonna get individual instructions , but uh I don't think they allowed a lot of extra time , so I think a little bit of less of this and more at do will set us in good stead . Do you all agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright . Um then I don't see any reason to prolong it and f we should finish this meeting at ni right now and go into other things . Alright , so this is the end of the first meeting . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you all . +","**Summary:** + +A project team gathered to initiate creating a new remote control design for Real Reaction. The project manager outlined the objective: to produce an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control with responsibilities distributed among the team. The meeting featured a brief exercise utilizing the whiteboard to help team members become accustomed to the tools. The project must ensure profitability, with the remote priced at €25, costing €12.50 to produce, and aiming for a €50 million profit—implying around 4 million units sold internationally. The discussion touched on various potential features and market strategies for the remote, emphasizing user-friendliness and avoiding unnecessary functions. The manager suggested mutual support within the team and an efficient workflow moving forward, before swiftly concluding the kick-off meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Du +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks for coming to this meeting . +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: S how we doing on our remote ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have some {disfmarker} we have some ideas and some uh ideas for what people want . +User Interface: Uh we yes s I've lo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've done the role that I was asked to do anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright let's just go over the agenda real quick for this meeting . See if I can't get things uh moving along here a little bit better . Um I'll go over what we went over last time , which shouldn't take long . Then I believe each of you have a presentation . Um I've was sent a a couple more requirements for our remote , what they want . Um then we can come to a conclusion on uh what we want the remote to do , um and how it's going to do it hopefully . And uh then we'll have the closing . {vocalsound} Um which we'll have forty minutes for . Uh let's see , the last meeting we went over um {vocalsound} who was responsible for what . I'm responsible for leading the meetings , keeping the notes , uh and coming up with the final presentation . Um Corinne is our Marketing Expert . She's gonna figure out what what um the consumer wants . Um {vocalsound} Ryan is our User Interface Designer . And Manuel is the Industrial Designer . So you're gonna come up with the ideas Ryan , and you're gonna pick 'em apart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided our remote , uh we want it to be a universal remote uh that everyone would want . Um we want to be modern , um fun , different . Uh it needs to be sturdy , um easy to find , so we gonna have that locator function . Um and we want to be different . Um and then we went over a couple of different ideas . Ball-shaped phone . The keyboard shape . Um we decided that it should probably be one-handed . Something we could use with one hand . Um and that was our last meeting . So um why don't um {disfmarker} Do each of you have a presentation ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . I'll hand it off to you and um {disfmarker} Does anyone {disfmarker} do you wanna go first ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can maybe see what uh what the people want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was it ? Function ? +Industrial Designer: Eight . F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight ? Well . {vocalsound} How do I get it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Slide show . +Project Manager: To go to the next one ? +Marketing: Oh right right right . +Project Manager: Yeah you click on that guy . +Marketing: That one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . Well , this is my report , which is going to be based pretty much on a survey that I was sent . Oh gosh , I've no idea . {vocalsound} G +User Interface: Just press the arrow keys I think . Usually goes to it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry I actually need to see something else on my screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think . +Marketing: And then ? Again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You want it to be on both screens , or just just yours ? +Marketing: No I want something else on mine . Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah but I think you have to hit escape . And then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay but now you don't have that . +Project Manager: Oh hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry guys . +Project Manager: I know . I did the same thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then it should come up here shortly . 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So is there no way I can give you the slideshow and +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} oh give us the slideshow and something on your screen ? +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . You could maybe minimise that screen and then have them both up at the same time I think . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . Okay . Um so first of all , the method that I used was by doing some marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: by um doing research on some interviews that were conducted . And then some internet research . And I was sent a report that was {disfmarker} I think there were a hundred remote users that they interviewed . And so I will show you some of the results from that , which I think will be helpful . Um okay here are some of the findings . They said that the users dislike the look and feel of their current remote controls . And seventy five percent of the users find their remote controls to be ugly . Which is a fairly significant number I would say . And eighty percent of the users would be willing to spend more money if they could get a remote that would look fancy . So I think that earlier we were onto something when we were talking about having it be a modern cool look , I think that's definitely important . Um they say that current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot . And if anyone could clarify what that means ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just jus +User Interface: Is is it j just just +Marketing: Zap , does that just mean like changing the channel ? +User Interface: just using it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Um and fifty percent of the users say that they're only using ten percent of the buttons on their remote control . And there was something else , they kept track of the frequency per hour in using certain buttons . And some of them it looks like barely need to be included at all . Of course channel selection is used the most frequently . And then teletext was the next . Volume and then power . And then audio settings and screen settings and channel settings were practically never used . So I think we could definitely eliminate or somehow combine a lot of the functions into one button . Um the biggest user frustrations , as we said fifty percent of people find that their remotes are lost somewhere , and so I think a tracking device of some sort would be a good idea . They said it take {disfmarker} thirty four percent said it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . And twenty six percent said that the controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: Just repetitive strain injury . I think . That's what I guess . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . And so bas okay . Um as far as speech recognition goes , um the younger group looks like they're all for it . From the fifteen to twenty five age group over ninety percent said they would pay more . And it kind of just went down incrementally . The groups at {disfmarker} the older they get it looks like the less willing they are to pay , so maybe we could discuss this and think {disfmarker} and decide if we think it's worth investing in this . At least if we're targeting the younger groups . And so in conclusion . Some things that I drew from this are that I think we were correct . We definitely need to focus on a new modern appearance , since so many people seem to be concerned about the ugliness of their remote control . Um a multifunctional remote could be a good thing to explore . So you only have one rather than five different remotes sitting all over your room . Uh we need to simplify the remote and reduce the number of buttons , get rid of the ones that don't seem to be serving much purpose . And then lastly I thought that maybe we could discuss the idea of speech recognition . And that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Very nice . Now we actually have some ideas of what what people want , what we should focus on . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wait can I look at that real quick ? {gap} . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Sorry did you guys get time to write everything that you needed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Having just listened to what Corinne just said , I'll draw on some of the things as well . {vocalsound} {gap} Some things that sort of relevant to what I wanna say . 'Kay so I'm just gonna yeah approach the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} the method I used was to explore the uh technical functions of a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And t s simplest approach that I came to is is to change , programme and operate an electronic device remotely . I mean that's an obvious thing to say , but it's not attached to the device that you want to control . Um I had some things sent to me . Not very much . To look at similar devices . Um defined in some them . And then the personal preferences that I will suggest . Um we discussed a universal one . Um like it's just been brought up again then . But I think a universal remote control is actually quite a difficult object to design , and po possibly within maybe the budget that we do it , um because you'd need to know all the spef specifications of a all the like electronic companies . I'm not sure have you ever come across a universal remote control yourself , but you have to {disfmarker} i they're a nightmare to use . You have to set them , reset them to everything . Um and that would only add buttons . Whereas I think the aim is to take away buttons . So I think it'd be better maybe to concentrate on maybe just a universal one for T_V_s . Um or maybe just one that you could we could design and then different people , manufacturers could use it to set to their specifications , if if the aim is to get something that's unique in design . Um {disfmarker} Okay here here's just two pictures of remote controls . They're just simple T_V_ remote controls . But one is uh user-centred . That is the one on the left . And you can straight away see there's less buttons . And the other one is {gap} engineer-centred where that's more uh specified for the sort of the elaborate piece of equipment it's trying to control um {disfmarker} {gap} which appeals more to the product that we want , and on what the {gap} have said and the market research and stuff {gap} probably looking at something that should be user-centred . Fewer buttons , simpler to use , and if ten percent um is hidden away {disfmarker} if ten percent is what's used , maybe the other fifty percent , the buttons that are used very rarely like programming , they could be hidden maybe under {disfmarker} some remote controls you might have come across have maybe a little flip thi thing where they're hidden away . And the main buttons are the ones you or the ones you come across . Um and finally , um uh sort I've sort of covered that , our product I think should be user interface orientated . Um {disfmarker} Like I said to concentrate on T_V_ remote control , a universal remote might be too complex . Um and as what it , the major findings {gap} market researchers have said , it's the image and the appearance that people di dislike . So that we should concentrate on something that would set a trend . And that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} cable there . Thank you . +Project Manager: What was your last conclusion on that one ? Focus on uh the i +User Interface: On something on the image of it . +Project Manager: the image of it . +User Interface: Uh the f the actual design . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Good . Good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Gonna talk to you about the working design of the interiors basically which is what dictates the design the both the interface basically and the outer appearance because this is all the stuff that needs to go in there . Right . So unfortunately the people who were supposed to do this little presentation for me obviously were too drunk to actually accomplish it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um {vocalsound} I'm going to do a lot of the stuff on the board . Um just {disfmarker} This is the basic basic premise of a remote control . Um the basic function is to send messages to another system . Okay so much is clear . An energy source feeds an integrated circuit , like a chip , that can compose messages . {vocalsound} Often in the form of infrared bits . This is the most mostly used . Um there's uh also some sound systems but infrared is the better or the more more used system . Um parts are cheaper as well . A user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages . This is where my people screwed up basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'm going to explain that on the board rather . Um what we have is different components that obviously need to go in there . We'll start with an energy source . Right . Um which is usually a battery right ? {vocalsound} Since it's not feasible to add a cable to that . This energy source of course is connected to the the user interface itself {vocalsound} . Uh which can be buttons , whatever , which in fact controls a chip . Right ? This is the user interface and there we have the chip . Um the way this goes normally is that this chip then controls an infrared lamp . That sends out the signal . Of course the signal differs accordingly . Um depending on what the chip tells the infrared lan lamp . And {disfmarker} Of course that's controlled , the chip itself is controlled by the user interface . The way you normally normally do it is that you add a little device such as a lamp to the whole thing as well , so that you know that it's working basically . You press something , you get a response . Which is also comparatively um important on one of those devices . Now this , what we're talking about here , or what I think should be discussed are these two components mostly . The the uh energy source for one thing can be altered . What we probably cannot alter is of course the infrared , the sending device basically , the infrared lamp . We cannot change the chip which controls the infrared lamp . Right ? These two are components that we have to use , and these are dictated by the whole function of the whole thing . Um the lamp can be put onto the desi the device . It c it doesn't have to be there . This can be discussed as well . {vocalsound} The user interface . That's something we can also discuss . Um as we've heard uh speech recognition is the hype obviously in the moment . Speech recognition um interface , we don't know that . Or if we just do the usual button thing . Or we have a touch pad or something like that {disfmarker} that's something we can discuss . And of course the energy source . Batteries . Solar cells . Who knows ? {vocalsound} Of course it's always a question whether these these components are in fact {vocalsound} available cheap enough , developed enough . But that's like I s I suppose rather up to marketing , and not to +Project Manager: So we could {disfmarker} the the +Industrial Designer: to the industrial design department . +Project Manager: the more complex we make it of course , the more expensive {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Expensive it's gonna be get uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: But people have said that they would {disfmarker} well younger generations of people have said that they would pay more for a speech recognition remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So possibly it might be worth the investment . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think speech recognition was uh one of those things where um they have to be really good for them to work . 'Cause sometimes you find yourself just saying things over and o {gap} if it's on your phone . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I agree . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you need to sort of take into light languages and then {vocalsound} different dialects I suppose as well . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} myself I find , when you , h when there's something like spee speech recognition . Like uh you call on the phone and you try to change your telephone or power or something . Sometimes they have a a speech recognition on the other end , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you say one for this , and you find yours , like you said , saying the same thing over and over and over . I find myself , especially if I'm in a crowd of people , looking really silly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe if you're sitting on your couch with a bunch of people then you know , you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: And wou I don't know if would would you want to keep saying stuff if you were watching stuff . If you were watching something would you sort of be wanting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume up . Volume down . Change the channel , you know channel up , channel down ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I I don't know . +Marketing: Another thing about these figures is ninety one percent of the youngest age groups said they'd do it , but probably a lot of them that's actually their parents money . Like I don't know if they would actually go out and purchase this themselves , a fifteen year old you know . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} As well it'd be j the gimmick factor for the younger people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But practically I don't think it's {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a , it's a gimmick factor that they like at first , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It'll wear off . +Marketing: Gets old yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} Let's see here . +User Interface: Do you wanna put your cord back in ? +Project Manager: Yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Trade you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I was sent a couple of things to modify our uh new requirements . Um the remote's only gonna be for the television , which is good because we already decided {disfmarker} y your your research showed that uh not only is a universal remote more complicated , it's more cost , more costly . And your re uh research showed that you know most of the people don't even use it . I think uh you said fifty percent of the people only use half the or ten percent of the buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we remove the universal remote then that solves that problem . Um no teletext . Um {disfmarker} So we don't have to worry about that . Um but we do have to use the the company wants us to incorporate the corporate colour and our slogan , which is we put the fashion in electronics . And our corporate colours are grey and yellow . And we could probably get away with black too but {disfmarker} So those are the three um the three new requirements that that I was told we need to use . Um from all all three of your uh presentations , I think that we were on the right track a lot in our last meeting . We want something that looks good . Um we want something that's simple . We want something that you can find easily . Um {disfmarker} And the speech recognition I I guess is kind of uh give or take . It's gonna cost more . S the young the younger people say that they like it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um it's probably , I would say , probably not worth the investment at this point in time . So maybe we should just do away with speech recognition . Um {disfmarker} And that way we can focus on our form . +User Interface: I did have have a thought about the sort of the tracking thing . Is that {disfmarker} if it came with maybe a holder or holster , whatever you wanna call it . Um that you you should put it back in . Your remote . But if you don't put it back in , you press something like a little button on that , and that just sort of sends out a beep {vocalsound} to find where it is or something . Just by infrared . That shouldn't be too complex I would've thought . +Project Manager: That'd be , that'd be good if we were going with our our ball . +User Interface: Yeah it would be quite good . +Project Manager: Or or with {disfmarker} you know I guess with any form that that would be good . +User Interface: The ball could sit on a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: You know that could be the charger . For you know +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we could use rechargeable batteries in the remote . And that would be {disfmarker} or solar . Or you know {disfmarker} However , however you wanted to go about it , the holder could also be the charging unit . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the locator button . Um and if it were the ball you'd no longer have to have a flat space on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um like +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: if +Industrial Designer: you still do . +Project Manager: we still have the how to hold on to it +Industrial Designer: You s you still {disfmarker} W yeah . You put it on t on the couch table . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's gonna roll away . +Industrial Designer: While you're watching , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Rolls away +Industrial Designer: it's gonna roll off . So +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's not an issue really . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So I guess after the meeting {vocalsound} we'll have some questionnaires . And uh and some summaries for for what's going on . Um then we'll take lunch . Then we can come back and uh work on our individual work . Um {disfmarker} I'll do the minutes . Uh let's see . It looks like you're already on your way for uh working with the components . Um chips , the what chips we need +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: and what uh you know how to power it and whatnot . User interface concept , we want it to be something simple . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Minimal number of buttons . I guess our , I guess our main um main thing that we should focus on until then is probably deciding on a certain look , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Did you have time earlier to to work on that . Did you guys feel you have enough time in between our meetings to get everything done that you need to get done ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll yeah I'll have a look , try {gap} look at the actual appearance in the next break . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I th I I do still think it needs to be something that is ultimately one-handed . The ball is probably not a good idea . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And even something that's held like that might be difficult . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that I think it still has to be a variation . On maybe a a rect on a rectangle but maybe not necessarily as boring , as plain as a rectangle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Shall we maybe shoot for a a specific uh target group ? That way we could l I mean if it were , if we were shooting for young guys then it's um a certain look to the remote . Or girls or older people ? Um {disfmarker} Would that {disfmarker} you think that would help us find um a specific form ? That we would would wanna pick out ? +User Interface: D I don't know if that might cope with like the trend-watching . I {gap} find anything more on that . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah not yet but maybe by the next meeting we'll have some info on that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . So um we know that the remote's gonna have to be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we'll just say we've got a colour scheme for it . Um yellow and {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know yellow it's nice and bright , with the buttons being grey or black . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And our slogan pasted somewhere on it , on the the bottom +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or the +User Interface: Bottom perhaps +Project Manager: you know . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we could sketch a {disfmarker} so basically all of our remotes all of our typical remotes now are just kind of a rectangular sort . You know . Um maybe we could flare it or something . You know . So it's more {disfmarker} of course this will look like a bone then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} go ahead and erase this . Um {disfmarker} Hope everyone memorised that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} I mean it might be to look at sort of the the shape and trend of like things like mobile phones , and the shapes that the they've been going . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: They've gone from big brick block things , which is {gap} a remote control is , to sort of slinky small things . +Project Manager: Yeah everybody's got a mobile phone right ? Except for me now . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But they are all , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , mobile phones um they've kind of taken a turn to where they're really small . Um which may defeat our purpose for being able to locate our remote all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: But then again you don't want you know like the first mobile phone that was this big +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you had a handbag to carry it around in . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we've got basically what remotes look like now is kind of what we're what we're stuck with . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we could go with a square or something . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +Project Manager: Um you know with minimal number of buttons . I guess you've got you know one through nine . For typing in your channels . Uh you've got volume , up and down . Channel up and down . +Marketing: Power . +Project Manager: Power . Usually at the top . Um a mute . +Industrial Designer: That's the classical design . +Project Manager: That's that's pretty much all you need I think . Um {disfmarker} A menu button , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So you know . If you , if we want the remote to do other things like um {disfmarker} or I guess the T_V_ to be able to change the tint and the colour and you know all those kind of things that are built into T_V_s , we just have that under one standard menu button where you go in , press the menu button , scroll up and down to select it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talking of which maybe a scrolling function is not not too bad . +Project Manager: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talk about maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} f look at that from the side , there maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is technically the easiest option . Would probably be like a scrolling , little scrolling wheel like this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Like a wheel on your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sort of like that . +Project Manager: Sort of . +Industrial Designer: You can even if we're coming from mice , we can even add a click function , where you , in order to verify the information you just press it down . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Also when it comes to the ergonomics of the whole thing , if you wanna make it square for the looks of it , then maybe to make it more comfortable to hold the whole thing , you add a little bulge down here . Just which maybe from an engineering point this could be holding the the batteries and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I know . You know what I'm getting at here , +Project Manager: Look g yeah . Looks good . +Industrial Designer: fel look at it from the side . It's {gap} like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} Then you hold it in your hand like this . And maybe you bring the buttons nearer to the {disfmarker} or the imp more important buttons nearer to the to the side . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To the thumb . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Mm . +User Interface: To the thumb yeah . Maybe the buttons could like uh decrease in s the bigger ones you know they could actually be bigger in size than the ones that are less important , the smaller here . +Industrial Designer: Right . You can also have it , maybe , talking about mobile phones again , sliding open . With the lesser used functions on this part , +User Interface: Yeah . Behind . +Industrial Designer: and then it slides into that part . And out . +User Interface: Definitely . {gap} just like o on a sort of side view . Something that you know it would sort of fit in the hand better . So you know you just sort of have your hand +Industrial Designer: Mm well I was just thinking , this this of course causes +User Interface: Yeah . Right on the {disfmarker} and your thumb would be up here type thing . +Industrial Designer: causes a problem um for left or right-handed people actually . So . +User Interface: Yeah that's also true . {gap} instantly sort of always going for the right-handed person . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: But I mean {gap} the older so +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} is everyone {disfmarker} who in here's right-handed , left-handed ? You guys all right-handed ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . So +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm left-handed but I , so I can say that most things are designed for right-handed people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's right . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like the written language . {vocalsound} Or English . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe you could buy like a special left-handed version of the remote . {vocalsound} Special order . +Project Manager: Maybe . Ow . I would say I mean it should be probably designed for a right-handed p person . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but that's that's good . That's {disfmarker} w I think we've got a kind of a good plan there . Um {disfmarker} At least for what buttons we're gonna use . Um {disfmarker} So we've got uh {disfmarker} I like the scroll , the scroll action and the {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I'm just just thinking maybe if it was um circular um with the sort of {disfmarker} that sort of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the sort of early idea we had , with the way that was more like that , whereas this is just a one-handed thing that you sort of almost wrap round the thumb . So you'd have your , you'd put your hand into there with the thumb there . And then your thumb would do {disfmarker} you'd have all the buttons sort of round here . And that I think could work . On any hand . If you just had it like wrapped round there . Left or right . +Project Manager: Yeah . Kinda like holding a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {vocalsound} That minimises it size-wise as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Minimise its size . It could be you know really quite small . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Then there's maybe another point of making it a two-in-one kind of thing . If we have a smaller a smaller device that actually fits into the big one . You give it the full functions in here , and just a couple of functions in there . Like your zap zapping device is just u channels up-down , uh volume , and on-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Zapping functions . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could be good . +Project Manager: So two remotes in one . But then would be easier to lose one or the other . +Industrial Designer: That's right . Means the big one has to be sufficiently big . And perhaps heavy , so you can't move it around . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It actually is your coffee table . +Industrial Designer: Make it a piece of furniture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} yes . Yes , there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or a statue or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Well we need to finish up here . Um {disfmarker} So for the next {disfmarker} So for the next um {disfmarker} before the next meeting w uh sh shall we work on {disfmarker} you're watching trends to see what what kind of new information we've got going on . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Manuel you're going to work on the components for for what we're gonna use . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Let's go with our our uh rounded kind of fit in your hand {disfmarker} let's explore uh the the uh possibility of having the two-piece . So one for the the quick zapping um and possibly one you know with just that rounded part that fits into your hand . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And Ryan you work on um how how well they'll work with the us with the user . So both of those concepts . +User Interface: How well it'll work yeah . +Project Manager: And uh okay I think we made some good progress here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} see you in {disfmarker} I dunno . I gu I guess we'll take lunch in about uh half an hour . {vocalsound} Or I guess we'll be taking lunch shortly and then then in about half an hour after that we'll probably have another meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +","Summary: + +During the meeting, the project team, consisting of the Project Manager, Marketing Expert, User Interface Designer, and Industrial Designer, discussed the development of a new television remote. The Project Manager recapped responsibilities and progress, including the need for a universal remote that is modern, fun, different, sturdy, and easy to find, with a locator function. Marketing presented consumer research highlighting a preference for a modern appearance and a simpler remote with fewer buttons, as well as a potential interest in speech recognition among younger users. The User Interface Designer suggested focusing on a user-friendly TV remote rather than a universal one, while the Industrial Designer outlined the key components of a remote and proposed a discussion on alternative energy sources and interfaces, such as speech recognition. + +The team discussed new requirements of limiting the remote to TV functions and incorporating the company's corporate colors and slogan. They also agreed that speech recognition might not be worth the investment at the current time. Ideas for the remote design included a one-handed device, possibly a rounded shape that fits in the hand, with fewer buttons, and a scrolling function for ease of use. They considered a two-piece remote, with one part for basic functions and a smaller detachable part for quick channel and volume changes. + +By the end of the meeting, the Project Manager assigned tasks to the team members based on the discussion. Marketing would watch for consumer trends, Industrial Designer would work on the components, and User Interface Designer would focus on user interaction. They planned to reconvene after lunch." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good . +Industrial Designer: Beep . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: So well uh +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: welcome everyone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um as you may have noticed I uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: created separate folders because it was uh tending to get a little busy in our uh shared project documents uh folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't know if everybody uh put their own uh documents in the right folder , which is for now the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: That's new one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We didn't make any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , we should save that one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I'll move this one . +User Interface: Didn't we just do that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , save in the folder . Save as project . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh no , this is just one big document , so you can leave that wherever it is . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we have a evaluation left here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Agenda . +Project Manager: Well not main documents this time . Oh uh yes . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: I have it open myself I guess . Um well the detailed design meeting {disfmarker} Huh ? We're finally getting somewhere hopefully . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um what are we going to do ? I've opened it already . Um I'm still going to take some minutes , and if I'm right , you two are going to give a prototype presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Aren't you ? +User Interface: We could . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , you are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh m did you do something with evaluation criteria ? +Marketing: Yep . Yep . +Project Manager: Good . And we have a correct agenda . And uh then we have to look at something which is less nice , the finance uh aspect , whether we can afford what we have designed , +User Interface: Oops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and if we can we can uh commence the final part which is the production or project evaluation , how did we work together and what are the results , and how happy are we with those . Okay , well finance uh will be later . Now I'd like to give the word to you two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: Get up stand up . {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we made a prototype . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: We first start with the overall uh {disfmarker} This is about the total remote control . +Industrial Designer: View . +User Interface: We made it green . +Industrial Designer: Just example colour , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh there's one of the colours we would like to uh see in our prototype . +User Interface: It's a fresh colour . And uh the screen light blue . Oh uh this the scroll button and the microphone on the on the sides here under . And the R_ and R_ logo , it just says R_ and R_ now , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay ? +User Interface: Any questions so far ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Big microphone . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just uh just an idea about how to m th that could also be possible . +Marketing: Oh okay . That's the place where it's going to be , not the size . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh well , it's an idea in a {disfmarker} so . +User Interface: Oh y you {disfmarker} perhaps you should make it a bit big , so people know it's there and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do not forget it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To function it it doesn't really have to be sm uh big of course . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Of course . +Industrial Designer: The microphone could be just a minor uh hole uh on the left uh button . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um +Marketing: Small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we also made some uh ideas about how uh the options menu would work . Uh using the scroll button on sides uh y uh I uh um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You push the scroll button +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you push the scroll button +User Interface: and it's claps out if there's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a drop down menu or a pull out menu comes out and uh you get uh you get the options uh becoming available . For example uh T_V_ settings , uh remote settings , et cetera . +User Interface: Remote settings , et cetera . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh you can scroll down too with the scroll uh button , uh as you can see {disfmarker} oh , it's here , just push it in , uh the menu comes out like this and uh i it all becomes visible . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And you could also touch it so that it comes out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's c +User Interface: and and use the the the scroll thing as a {disfmarker} with your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Indeed . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um it's also uh nice to see that um we made a small uh menu , uh the options menu uh becoming available when pressing the uh scroll uh button , and the opportunity to use the teletext , whi which is used uh {disfmarker} which should still be used and we think that it's uh very handy to put it uh not uh under the options menu , but in uh {disfmarker} Yes . In an apart uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So a separate button for for text , +Industrial Designer: In a separate button , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Perhaps we should use the teletext sign in p yeah . +Industrial Designer: A sign , yeah , just like {disfmarker} Okay , indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Forgot . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can uh modify that later . Okay . Would you like to make any comments about next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , this is the total interface uh that f of the L_C_D_ screen . Uh the numbers , which is pretty straight forward . We put ano an an extra button in . We can erase it , but {disfmarker} It's the button where you can switch channels . {gap} just when you are one and you go to two , you can {disfmarker} or if you go to five , you can go back to one with that button . Yeah , that one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Previous page , yeah , indeed . +User Interface: It has a name . And uh uh we put that in , +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +User Interface: I thought it would be handy there . Uh this the one number or two numbers button . Below that , the page and the sound . And uh in the middle the the mute . Uh battery indicator . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's quite large . +User Interface: It's {vocalsound} it's a bit big . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the on off uh knop , the stand by uh knop . Or at least it should look like it . And the options uh of teletext . +Industrial Designer: Okay . You can see very clearly now that the uh teletext and options menu isn't uh taking uh much uh {disfmarker} uh it's taking much part of the screen , so it's very uh {disfmarker} when you uh {vocalsound} when you use it , doesn't uh become irritating to see . +User Interface: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you put it on the top you always get see the the options menu . 'Cause people regularly uh read from left top to right down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well this about it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . Looks good . +User Interface: I will put it back on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the nice green . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I just missed when I was typing {disfmarker} The R_R_ stands for ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's the logo of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Logo , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . It's th th right now it's only R_ R_ , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Full screen . +Project Manager: I would have recognised it if it were the right colours of course . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shit . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , the evaluation criteria , +User Interface: Oh full screen , yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Evaluation . 'Kay , my task was this time to put up a questionnaire by which we can evaluate the design of the remote control by the questions we {gap} {disfmarker} requirements from the {disfmarker} of the users . My name , my job , okay . +Industrial Designer: My name , my job . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods . Questionnaire with seven point scale from one to seven , from true to false , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: like question , is remote big enough , we can say it's true or it's false by steps . One means absolutely not true , seven {gap} {disfmarker} means true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The three important things of refa {vocalsound} {gap} are uh from th of this year is {disfmarker} are , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you used the PowerPoint {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: is the remote control fancy enough , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: is it in innovative enough , and is it easy enough to use . And then evaluation itself . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: First question . Is the design fancy enough ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project Manager , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Well it's {disfmarker} looks fancy , especially with the green colour . And the the curves which we decided , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Only what happened to the single curve we spoke about last meeting ? +User Interface: It uh {disfmarker} oh it's in the background . Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now uh the single curved idea was uh {disfmarker} Yeah , okay , you ge um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y you should make uh a sideways uh view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The sideways view , uh that that that ma +User Interface: It will be , I guess . Oh , we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ho not that pen . {vocalsound} Not that pen . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: g {vocalsound} I would {vocalsound} {disfmarker} smart board . +Project Manager: it might work one time , huh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Suppose so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh can I draw here or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think . +User Interface: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , you can . +User Interface: So it would be uh something like this from the side , but with a bit of uh curve here , +Industrial Designer: it works . +User Interface: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the single curve indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . So if you v flip it like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Here's {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's not very {disfmarker} i it's also uh very handy if you make a side curve way to make the the remote control very thin at the bottom uh at a bottom at a bottom . Uh make it uh rather thick on the top , because uh on the top it has uh the screen , which takes uh in some uh space , and the batteries can be located over there , +User Interface: Yeah . So you just make the back of this part a bit bigger , +Industrial Designer: so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that it lays a bit o +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Isn't going to be a little bit heavy at the top ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a bit of problem maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: With two batteries , the whole print plate and t and top , and if you're holding it quite a lot I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I think yeah , the battery should be in here , because it's just nothing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , indeed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to rate uh these things now ? +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise I think i +Marketing: Yeah , we have to rate . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is it fancy enough ? True is one , false is seven . So fancy enough means , does it comes to the younger people and the elder people . +User Interface: I think it does . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +User Interface: I if you don't make it green , then the elder people won't won't like it . +Industrial Designer: It's pretty fancy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I have to agree , all the colour colours don don doesn't matter that m that much now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} you get th +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's only design . +User Interface: I think it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the design . +Project Manager: Well I think uh especially because of the microphone and the L_C_D_ screen also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know whether older people will use it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Very new thing . Well {disfmarker} Fancy {gap} the old people will . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it a two or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: A two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} It's true , it's a one . {vocalsound} Very fancy . +User Interface: Huh ? Alright , it's a one . {vocalsound} Oh it's a one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's a two . {vocalsound} Little bit strange we have to judge that ourselves , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I n used {disfmarker} I wouldn I should use that one , but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's a one uh {disfmarker} Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , no it's two ? True is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Very true , is it very true or isn't that true ? +Project Manager: Well I'd say two on a scale {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they think it's very true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very true , because we designed it to be very fancy , +Marketing: Yeah , I think two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fancy , I think . +User Interface: We should perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have you ever seen a remote control like this ? +Project Manager: No , okay well , that's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , okay , +User Interface: That not . +Industrial Designer: so so it's fancy . +Marketing: That's fancy enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , one two . +Marketing: Then ? +Project Manager: That doesn't matter that much , so make it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's give it a two . Is it innovative ? +User Interface: I think it is , +Marketing: Enough . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: because it has an L_C_D_ screen , a mi microphone . +Project Manager: m +Industrial Designer: And uh uh the scroll is rubber , +User Interface: It's from rubber . +Marketing: We have for the search function . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so s Eno enough to {gap} I think . +Marketing: The scroller a bit {disfmarker} I think it's it's a one yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a one I think . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: True . Also huh uh-huh {disfmarker} the buttons , are they easy to find ? That was a big requirement of the old people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , because they're right on your screen . So you can use the b the the arrows . They're right on your screen , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: so I don't know where you'd search . +Industrial Designer: With the ones {gap} +Marketing: Are all the buttons easy to find ? Not only this buttons , all the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I think they are . The options are it {disfmarker} uh little bit harder , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you touch the options then it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Take a harder look , yeah , sure . +Marketing: I think th it's +Industrial Designer: It's easier than the regular uh remote control . +Marketing: easy t +Project Manager: Yeah , and you use these buttons the most , +Marketing: Yeah , I think this is easy now . I think th I think the options buttons are not the the easiest way to to +Project Manager: huh ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No they're not , but they're they're they are easy to find . +Marketing: to handle . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are a lot easier to find than uh th than on the regular remote controls +Marketing: I would rate it a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: where you have to uh find out what {disfmarker} which sign or icon means on uh every button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , that's true , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So you have t you have to use the the the manual to understand most {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's that's vantage of L_C_D_ screen , you can have text . +Project Manager: So which number are we going to fill in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I would say yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh it's a two , at least . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: A two , yeah ? +User Interface: you can make it a two . +Project Manager: Two , three and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not perfect , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: A three ? +Project Manager: Okay , so we have two , two , three . +Industrial Designer: And why is that ? +Marketing: I personally think , because I d I don't think i maybe it's easy to use , it has to be easy to find right away . I I think if you have the button at the right , I don't think you can find the option button that easy . +User Interface: Yeah , but you don't have t have to use the button on the right . You can touch it . +Marketing: You can touch it . +User Interface: Yeah . You you can touch options . +Industrial Designer: It said bo both the options . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but you have y then you have here s written option on here , the teletext button , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , then okay , good . Then I think also two , yeah . +User Interface: You can touch options +Project Manager: A two , okay , +User Interface: and it's comes out . +Project Manager: because we have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two , a two . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The uh the um {disfmarker} Below . +Project Manager: It's the box below it , +Industrial Designer: Uh the next question the next question . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Otherwise we have two results in one question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's different . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , next question . +Marketing: It's easy to use , as well for younger as elderl elderly people . +User Interface: For young people I think it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Young means sixteen to forty years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And elderly from forty eight to their death . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it's the most useful uh remote control ever to be manufactured . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In the entire mankind . +Project Manager: Okay , you're very enthusiastic about your own design , +Marketing: Also if you're sixty years old {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but because it has the regular uh controls , li uh as you can see in the screen now , and uh you don't have all the other options uh always uh on your screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's t I think it's really easy to use . You want these options to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Also +Project Manager: As well for the for the older people ? +Industrial Designer: Uh sure . +Marketing: Yeah , as well as your {disfmarker} if you're fif sixty years old , you're holding one of those things in your hand {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah , but they they don't want the uh extra options , right ? +Marketing: No , but we're going to th make this f for a all kind of people , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And would it be easy for them to use the speech recognition ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Marketing: so it it it has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: but so they could {disfmarker} Uh I think it is . If they read a manual . +Project Manager: Because that might {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you read the manual , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps that is one of the most uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} always . +Project Manager: M maybe that's the most user friendly and easy to use . +User Interface: Because it it's not it's not it's it's not uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Uh because a lot of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You say you say uh record to to the to the speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Channel one , channel four , yeah . +User Interface: then you say the question and the answer . And that's everything it does , the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well maybe that would make it even more easy to use for them . +User Interface: Yeah . I think it would make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it does . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because all the people who can't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it two . +Marketing: Also two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a two . Sure , two . +Marketing: Not a seven for this {gap} ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: I'd say three . +Marketing: I would also say three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have three three two two +User Interface: Oh . You ? +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Two and a half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , a three , I see . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three ? No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Give me more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Another question . +Marketing: Remotes overwhelmed with buttons . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No , that that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um I mean , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: that's definitely one . +Marketing: Tha that's a one , I think , that's definitely a one . +Industrial Designer: That's definitely our uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh nee , oh seven is it ? It is . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: the remote score . +Industrial Designer: A false , yeah . +Project Manager: but I think you should make it one scale with with one being good and seven being bad , +Marketing: Yeah , I think isn't , this has to be something like isn't overwhelmed . +Project Manager: because otherwise we can't uh calculate anything from the results , +User Interface: It's not overwhelmed . Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Okay , a one , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: because we designed for that , huh ? +Marketing: Remote control has uh colours that different {disfmarker} that meet different target groups . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause we make them in different colours , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so that they uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: is optional . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I though w we had about single colours , +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: but you can also make uh a wood colour , not just one single colour but a wood-like thing , +User Interface: Yeah . That it that it looks like wood , like something , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: can't you ? +Marketing: Also with rubber ? +User Interface: Uh I think you can . +Project Manager: Whether it looks like wood , it isn't w it isn't wood +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it feels like rubber , +Project Manager: You can make a print on rubber , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: can't you ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's a one then , +User Interface: Well but then when you scratch it it does come off . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a one ? +User Interface: So that's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is it is harder to +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Do you have many questions ? +Marketing: Uh I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh we have time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Geez . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} We also {disfmarker} We have to get to the money . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting paid . We're getting paid . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The material used is spongy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: that that's uh that's a one , that's m rubber . +Project Manager: What {gap} spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's very spongy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: I th think it's not the most spongy thing . +User Interface: but not {disfmarker} it's not very spongy , because it's hard rubber . I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's a three , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because you want to make it uh rather flexible but not too flexible , +User Interface: Hard but {disfmarker} Yeah . You can {vocalsound} break it . +Industrial Designer: because it has a L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hard to lose , +Marketing: Remote control is hard to lose . +Industrial Designer: yeah it sh and it's easy to find . +User Interface: Y yeah , you could you could call it . +Marketing: Y you can't you can't lose it if you're sixty years old . If first time see the thing you didn didn't adjust uh {disfmarker} set the microphone , and then you lose it , then you have lost it . +User Interface: Yeah , y you can lose it , but it isn't hard to lose . +Marketing: It isn't hard , no . I think I think this is a two , personally . +User Interface: Two . That it's hard to lose ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , it it is {disfmarker} there's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose . +Project Manager: so isn't hard to lose you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a six , you think ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't hard to lose . +User Interface: So it's a two . Yeah , you can lose it , so I don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can't lose it . +User Interface: you can make it a three I {gap} {disfmarker} It does have an {disfmarker} a built in function . +Marketing: Or if you're you're sixty years old , your demands {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but a har A hard to lose is good . So it should {disfmarker} this question should be hard to lose . It's difficult to lose it . +User Interface: Nee . Hard to lose . Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this this is hard to lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is hard to lose . Yeah , so then this is {disfmarker} it is almost true , +Industrial Designer: This {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A two . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think also . +User Interface: so a two . +Project Manager: A two . +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And most all because of the option to {disfmarker} Whoa . +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's okay . That happens above also . But maybe when you scroll away and back it will be normal , +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah ? Oh , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yep . Oh , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: it isn't , +User Interface: Oh well , +Project Manager: well okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: {gap} put the cor cursor {gap} on the {gap} . +Project Manager: Remember . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Click . +Marketing: Remote control mainly be sold to younger people . +User Interface: I think it will , +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah ? True ? Very true ? +User Interface: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} a +Marketing: No , I don't think very true because the colours . +User Interface: a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have the colours . Um we have the buttons is {disfmarker} aren't that that much . +Industrial Designer: Materials , yeah . +Marketing: Nah , the material isn't that {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's much more younger . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . So ma uh make it make it a two . +Marketing: So I don I think I think it's a three . +Project Manager: Well I think it's it's uh a lower number , so better because w we designed it for young people especially , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: didn't we ? +User Interface: I think it's a two +Marketing: but I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: I think because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Questions ? +Industrial Designer: A two ? I think it's two . I think it's two too , two too too . +Project Manager: Two . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: Two two two . {vocalsound} Let's make everything a two . +Marketing: In the features ? +Project Manager: Dissatisfy younger people . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Younger people . It has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well perhaps not . +User Interface: What did {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because younger peoples are cr critical and they wanted a lot of features on this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Well that {disfmarker} it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Well , n not exactly but uh uh if it had some games on it or something like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's for a remote control I think it i {vocalsound} it would satisfy those needs . +User Interface: I think they like the speech . You could call to your uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech possibility , +User Interface: yeah , and the screen , +Industrial Designer: the colours . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen and scroll . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Scroll options , yeah . +Marketing: I I think they'll be quite met with their expectations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but those are more fancy functions , not not really many features or something . +User Interface: Right , that that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It has relatively few features , +User Interface: those are features . +Marketing: It's three features , basically , +Project Manager: with {disfmarker} +Marketing: the L_C_D_ {gap} touch screen is feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Marketing: The microphone is a feature . +User Interface: aren't the features {disfmarker} the microphone's feature and that you can change the channel's feature , and that you can change the volume is feature , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that you can change the options of the remote , uh uh something like that . Yeah . +Project Manager: Ours had other features with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . I think {disfmarker} yeah , and then you have the audio settings , channel setting , video settings . +Industrial Designer: The easy volume up button . +User Interface: Those are features . +Industrial Designer: Remote {disfmarker} younger people usually use the remote control to put on the volume . {vocalsound} Turn uh turn up the volume . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Enough features ? +Marketing: So I've chos I shou I think it's it's it's a one . Personally , yeah . I think once you've {disfmarker} 'cause you have the channel features b uh you have the uh screen features , audio features , the {disfmarker} you have all buttons on it which you'd like , microphone extra , L_C_D_ screen extra , scroll thing extra . +Project Manager: Okay , you think one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +User Interface: I think two or three . +Project Manager: You . {gap} three , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: I'd say three , so two it is then +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah uh a two a two . {vocalsound} Just another two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make it make it a two . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One two three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or make it uh a fucking two . +User Interface: We like two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You can see the remote control is {gap} R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Yeah , there's R_ and R_ in front . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} Has {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's not the colour , so maybe you should make two , but it has R_ and R_ . +Marketing: oh yeah , do did have {disfmarker} nah y you have the black one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And we'll probably make also a yellow one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but not R_ and R_ yellow I think . +Project Manager: maybe maybe two . Well m th but the logo is on on the front , +Industrial Designer: Okay , true , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe two . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} a two , yeah , +User Interface: One d on i it's the colours and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: X_ marks spot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the menu is avail that is available is easy to use . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is , but I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's easier to use than a regular remote control , because when you push on the options menu , you get the the the various options uh entirely explained . Entirely explained . +Marketing: Yeah , tha that's so true . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Instead of uh just finding out what an icon means on a button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you can navigate easier , because wi with the {disfmarker} you have to push the the the arrows and {disfmarker} with a normal T_V_ uh remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can navigate . Uh . +Marketing: I think that wou that would be quite hard to learn to use it . +Industrial Designer: You're not satisfied , okay . Let's start over again then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I'm not not convinc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's make a different remote . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's go th for {vocalsound} inhalation of air] +User Interface: Menu . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it would be a t yeah , two . +User Interface: A two ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A two . +Marketing: Now lower . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , well that's that's pretty good , +User Interface: We only have twos . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just twos . One three and a few ones . +Industrial Designer: And three . +Marketing: So okay , we have one three , a one , that that have to got up . {gap} +User Interface: Two threes . +Marketing: Two two two two two . +User Interface: We m mostly have twos , so it's pretty good . +Marketing: So two , yeah . The average is a two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The average . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is quite good +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: in my opinion . That {gap} +User Interface: We can be happy . +Marketing: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Save . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: What is it ? It's like a bug or something . +Industrial Designer: It's a fly . +User Interface: A fly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh m +User Interface: A f butterfly . +Marketing: Top . +User Interface: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: That was your evaluation uh show , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , so we don't have to calculate anything because of um these results . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: No , it's two . The average is two . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: It's good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um let's see {disfmarker} oh , it isn't asked to save but it did already {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah , I uh uh I uh saved it . +Project Manager: And this {gap} Everything okay . Well , the next part uh might be a little bit difficult to do in a group , but I am willing to try it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we are going to look at the finance and I have a nice Excel sheet to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Redesign . No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And um I'm not sure if I put it in the project folder . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: look on that . Um and we're going to calculate the production costs , and if they are uh under or at twelve Euro fifty , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're good , and if they're not we're going to uh re-design , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we have to do that uh very very quick I think , +User Interface: So we're going to erase features or something . +Project Manager: yes . Um I don't know if I +User Interface: Do you have the cost +Project Manager: put the Excel sheet in the +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's hope . +Project Manager: n not in the +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} f fifty five Euros . +Project Manager: folder . I think it's +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's still in my own documents folder . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We're goin still going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh shit . +User Interface: I doubt it . Perhaps we've got features that don't exist in the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah mm yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , +Marketing: The microphone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: it was in my uh my information , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It i It wasn't too much . +Marketing: Yeah ? {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe you're going scrap scrap it . +Industrial Designer: As well as the L_C_D_ screen . Whoa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well this is it . +User Interface: Well , if it doesn't work {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um maybe I could ask one of you to uh fill it in , so that I can also uh take minutes , +User Interface: I want to fill it in , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh maybe the other can uh use that thing to count uh numerous functions . +Marketing: No prob . Ah . +User Interface: But you should uh direct {disfmarker} +Marketing: Count it ? Li like write it be +Project Manager: Well we have to count some things and we have to think about some things . But you have to fill in this column , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Count it . You got Excel to count . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The number of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: No , uh count uh number of functions , because for every button you have to pay {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: and there are different screen shots , so {disfmarker} or different different screens , +Industrial Designer: Well I dra +Marketing: Ah , okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: uh Danny , Danny , I'll do that , +Marketing: Huh ? Yeah ? Oh , yea yeah , you design it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I draw the uh +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: We've got a battery , one or t two batteries , or not ? nee one battery , with two small batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's it's more about the energy source , huh ? Do you use a hand dynamo , a battery , kinetic or solar cells ? +User Interface: Yeah . I would do a battery {disfmarker} we do . Right ? +Marketing: Solar cell . No +Project Manager: We'll wait . +User Interface: A battery . One battery , +Industrial Designer: No , no solar cell , no no no no . +Marketing: it took a battery ? +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No hand dynamo . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Electronics , simple chip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have {disfmarker} +User Interface: advanced chip , right ? +Marketing: No , we have sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: On advanced chip . +Marketing: But b al but we also have sample speaker , do +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: so this one and this one . Uh we ha we have um single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , we already on nine . +User Interface: what ? Are we ? Oh yay . +Marketing: We have double curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The single . +Industrial Designer: Single nee single curved . Double curved was uh uh see uh ju three dimensional . +Marketing: Single . +Industrial Designer: But it isn't three dimensional , +User Interface: Oh the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't curved in a l +Marketing: This one is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not going to work uh people . We have rubber . +Marketing: This one is curved like this , +Project Manager: I'll just fill it in . +Marketing: right . It's curved like this . +Industrial Designer: No no no , +Project Manager: Um rubber indeed ? +Industrial Designer: single curved is like this . Uh that's the only curve you made , +Marketing: Yeah , bu what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: not th uh curved like that . That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , but we have curves like it and it . +User Interface: Thirteen ? +Marketing: There are two curves , right ? Oh , okay I understand , I understand . +User Interface: With a scroll wheel , +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: right ? Is he integrated ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber . +User Interface: No , eh ? I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Push button . No , we don't have push button . +Industrial Designer: we gotta integrate scroll wheel and push button , because when you push it and you w it won't just pu uh makes possible to s +User Interface: Oh yeah , right , we want it to {disfmarker} it's not it's not {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not going to work ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fifteen , oh , too bad . {vocalsound} Oh but with special colour we have . A special form , right ? +Industrial Designer: But now button supplements . We don't got the button supplements . +User Interface: Oh , we don't have any buttons , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eighteen and a half , +User Interface: Yeah , we need to uh +Marketing: damn . +Industrial Designer: Damn . +Marketing: We have to lower it with six points . +User Interface: No , uh we have fifteen and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Twelve and half . +User Interface: oh , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +Marketing: We could use {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I would lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: We could lose the scroll wheel . You could make it just a regular scroll wheel . +User Interface: But you can't push it , so you have to tap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you can't push it you have to tap the the options window uh button here and then uh scroll down with the d with uh {vocalsound} with uh the button . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will be our best bet . +User Interface: So normal scroll wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Normal scroll wheel . +User Interface: And I think we should lose the curve . +Marketing: I think we should scrap the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Lose {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's four pri it four units . +User Interface: Yeah , but if you {disfmarker} would i it is a new feature , it it's something special . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we don't exactly need the single {disfmarker} We don't need a curve . +Marketing: But w d wha +User Interface: No , the curve doesn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S possible to lose curve . +Marketing: Curved then it will be square . +User Interface: No , then it will {disfmarker} won't uh stand up from the table . Then it would just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Was that {disfmarker} does that mean to it , single curve ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's meant with scr uh with s curve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The curve is uh in a dimension . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If you make it a flat one , s n it's no curve , you got no curves . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We would lose this one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but tha that that only is one . +User Interface: Yeah , we could s yeah , a bit . +Industrial Designer: No , two . +Marketing: No , one . +User Interface: Sixteen point three . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , indeed . +Marketing: So we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we also have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to make {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could could we do it on a regular chip on print or something ? +Marketing: No , otherwise we don't have an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: No ? Ma y you just can't do that , or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: And what did you change ? You changed the uh scroll wheel +User Interface: We changed th +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the single curved to uncurved . +Marketing: Single curved . +Project Manager: Oh , but it's just one +Marketing: Flat . Yeah , so that does doesn't doesn't that mu I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: point , so maybe you should should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Scrap sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you should you should drop the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: The sample speaker is two d wait , f s four points . +Marketing: That that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's t +Marketing: Yes , four points . +Project Manager: And then you can keep the curve . +User Interface: Yeah , but it is uh it it is a new feature , +Project Manager: Or can't you ? +User Interface: it is something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh becau uh when you lose the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but what what else what else uh do you want to scrap ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: F You have to {disfmarker} we have to scrap four points . +User Interface: Yeah , that's difficult . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or make it on a hand dynamo , but {vocalsound} I don't think that will work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ma make it with wood instead of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Make it w uh when you made it uh uh uh a remote control of wood ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make it titanium instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't make a remote control of {disfmarker} Ah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: it it i +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , it also {disfmarker} uh it also takes one point less . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh a wooden remote control only helps for uh old people we discussed , +User Interface: Oh . Oh can I ask something ? +Project Manager: yes ? +User Interface: What is special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Is that the wood uh wood uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it is . +User Interface: this , we have to have that one too ? +Industrial Designer: It isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: What ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's only a half . But I think the only option is to drop the uh sample speaker . +Marketing: Yeah . Sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: To knock the sample speaker , yeah . And sample sensor . +User Interface: Th then we still have too much +Marketing: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: if we use the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But m yeah , course , +Marketing: three . Point three . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we we scrap that one ? +Industrial Designer: What we'll have . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Let's make it thirteen or fourteen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: See , a po +Marketing: Point twelve {gap} . +User Interface: three . {vocalsound} We need point three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's a colour . Don't make it wood . +Industrial Designer: A colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but a wood {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can make it brown , dark brown , not wood . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's special colour , is it a all kind of colours ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special colours , fruity colours . +User Interface: It's also green or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: no that that's just normal colour {disfmarker} fruit colours . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's a special colour than just rubber colour . +Marketing: Normal colours , yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to add something to the rubber to make it green . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You don't say here's green rubber . +Industrial Designer: They don't sell green rubber plants . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but then I d I don't think we can ever make to a twelve and half . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , you can , you should {disfmarker} you have to lose {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then we have to scrap L_C_D_ display , we have to scrap uh +User Interface: No , it is the scroll wheel , I guess . +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: s advanced chip . No then we have to scrap everything we got because how many colours we gonna make ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the scroll wheel and make it totally uh depending uh dependent on uh the touch screen +Marketing: Five ? Then we have two . +User Interface: A push , +Marketing: S +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: touch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} then it's possible to make . And then you can {vocalsound} and then you can add to the colours . +Marketing: Then we can make {disfmarker} add two colours on it . Yeah , two colours {gap} it . +Industrial Designer: Special c +User Interface: Switch colours . +Industrial Designer: Okay , if you lose uh {vocalsound} if you lose the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It was such a great idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You lose this one , you got eleven point five +Marketing: They can add two colours . +Industrial Designer: and you make i and then you can make uh the spec single curve , for example . +Marketing: But the colours . Um how ma uh the colours like l she told , is that all the colours we add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How d uh uh how many colours ? +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Industrial Designer: Special colours , all the colours you want , because you want to make p +Marketing: Yeah , but we we we are {disfmarker} we have yellow , red , uh black , titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh when you use more than one colour , it's a special colour . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: But I think when you use the colour that's not originally the rubber then you use special colour , +Industrial Designer: I suppose . +User Interface: 'cause you have to add it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but the rubbers alls original black . +User Interface: Yeah , so you always lose the special colour . You co you could make it always black , like normal remote . +Marketing: Yeah b Yeah , but we're gonna make it yellow {disfmarker} uh red , and then you add {disfmarker} you have two special colours on top of the one we have now . +Industrial Designer: Nee we we also want to make ano another colour . +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Yeah , we should u +Marketing: Yeah , but m +User Interface: Yeah . We have to make this like four or five or something . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: That's what it means . +Marketing: because we have more colours than only black . +Project Manager: Yeah , but isn't it per remote that you pay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} then I think I p I don I don't think they me mean they're special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half ? +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Is it per remote ? +Project Manager: I think you pay half per remote . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: So each remote with a special colour . +User Interface: and you {disfmarker} one colour per remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed , yeah . +User Interface: So then it is one . +Industrial Designer: You don't need four of those {vocalsound} uh four of those special colours in one in one remote . +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay , true . True , true . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have two points spare . +Project Manager: So the battery , +Marketing: Nee one point . +Project Manager: we have um advanced chip on print . +User Interface: One . So it would be curved , single curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because of {disfmarker} thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well you can at least make it curved again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So y you just can't make a nice remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , single curve . +Project Manager: Because that was very important , +User Interface: It's too bad for the speaker . +Project Manager: huh ? So it's curved , it's still that {disfmarker} so we we dropped the speech recognition together with the speaker . +User Interface: Should we change that tha that that's a one if not , +Marketing: Mm yep . +Project Manager: We dropped the scroll wheel . +User Interface: or not ? Could you copy it ? +Project Manager: And the rest is the same , +User Interface: And make it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? Am I right ? +Marketing: Y yea the scroll wheel is dropped . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The entire uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Huh . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Perhaps you can then copy page or so . Ooh . No . Oh you you made the entire {disfmarker} could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Undo , undo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: Undo . +User Interface: not {disfmarker} Well {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So , 'kay . +User Interface: Would you ? +Industrial Designer: Twenty minutes ? +User Interface: By the {disfmarker} Perhaps you can save this one , and then copy or something . Add it copy page . Select all . +Project Manager: No , but you c yeah . +User Interface: Alright , something went wrong . +Marketing: Tap . +Project Manager: Okay , but this this new remote we can afford . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It doesn't work . Let's forget . +Marketing: It should've work . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you had this list at start ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm ? No , I hadn't . +Industrial Designer: Alright . When did you receive this list ? +Project Manager: I just received it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: They don't work so hard at the finance department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: ignore that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . I suppose this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too bad . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we lose the scroll wheel , +User Interface: Yeah . The microphone . +Industrial Designer: the s +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the microphone . +User Interface: A and we changed something , I guess , or not ? We {disfmarker} Oh no . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Twelve Euro fifty . Um and did you try to make a new design , or what were you trying to do ? +User Interface: Yeah , I tried to copy that one , but it didn't work . +Project Manager: It didn't work . +User Interface: So we could fix it like tha that it's like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . Strange . +User Interface: You could select it all , but then you can't erase . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Strange . +Project Manager: Oh , you can arrange {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can only re erase ? +User Interface: Erase . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: When you saw th li uh {disfmarker} Earlier when we selected it , w I couldn't erase anything . +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +Project Manager: Hmm , can't you then just say copy ? +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Project Manager: New page . Paste . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Select none . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just up somewhere b uh besides it , +Marketing: {gap} just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and now you can erase . +User Interface: I don't think I can , but uh we can try . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we already try . +Project Manager: Well it should be possible . +User Interface: Oh , yeah , +Project Manager: Oh no . +User Interface: no , ha-ha . +Project Manager: Well you can draw over it with white uh pen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , we tried it earlier . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's very much work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but that's also useful for the evaluation , because I think uh we have a prototype now +Marketing: Evaluation drops . +Project Manager: which we can afford and uh we only need to draw a little bit to get a good uh design . Doodle . And I think we should then move on to the production evaluation because of the time . +Marketing: And erase the mic . +User Interface: Yeah , goodbye mic . +Industrial Designer: All I need is no mic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's see , we can save this now . +User Interface: Oh , I already erased half of the line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bon chance {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And move back to here . +User Interface: Too bad , oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like this ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Still looks nice . +Project Manager: And then all green . Okay , well thank you . +User Interface: Oh , that's erase . +Marketing: Looks like a iPod . +Project Manager: Oh , no {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Hey , but you can erase that . +Industrial Designer: add {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit weird . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Oh , now I'm {gap} line . +Industrial Designer: S Difference between lines and text and the pen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . All I need is {gap} mic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you can't erase this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm , strange . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Okay , well uh +User Interface: it's weird . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just leave it at this and quickly save . +Marketing: Station page . +Project Manager: Um and then we are going to the project or product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Huh , looks fucking boring now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We just did {gap} our project evaluation . Um well , I think I can sit for that since it's almost my final slide . Um what did you think about uh the process ? How satisfied are we ? +Industrial Designer: Deadlines were sometimes very short . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Bu but stressful . You think , no , my presentation isn't ready . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And stressful . +Marketing: I think we {disfmarker} it should be b it would be better if we worked a little bit together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we worked through each other , +Project Manager: And you could ask things . +User Interface: Yeah , you had information I didn't have +Marketing: something he said {disfmarker} +User Interface: and then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , and you had information I also had , +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so some some things I had in my presentation , they already told , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for me it sometimes was a surprise who was going to present what , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So yeah , that {disfmarker} I don't think that is the best way to work at {disfmarker} for such project . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So you would say uh communicate during our individual uh work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , no , or maybe session of five minutes together or something , and then work separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but why not work here together , for example ? +User Interface: Yeah , you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why should we be separated from each other in those difference {disfmarker} uh different rooms ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well , probably to simulate the whole working uh process , +User Interface: I think so too . Yeah , but then you can work together too +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: huh , th {gap} you can't have a meeting uh for several weeks . +User Interface: when {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah m yeah , like she told . Then you can work together too by mail or by , I dunno , chat , something , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: A chat would also be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh , oh right . +Marketing: but now we're completely separated from each other . I don't think that was the best way , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the technology was uh fantastic . {gap} +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , the technology's okay . +User Interface: I I don't really like the board , it doesn't really work great . Sometimes I think {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Work now ? +Marketing: Yeah okay , but I don I do I think becau that's because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps it is e +User Interface: It does work , but sometimes it doesn't erase or it doesn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , perhaps it is easier to get one of those uh dig digital pens or so and to uh {disfmarker} and lay it next to that keyboard over there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can draw uh {disfmarker} see it over th on the screen . +Marketing: Yeah , like the f like a plotters or something , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . Yep yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: So you don't think the SMARTboard is is really useful +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's useful , but not m +User Interface: it is useful , +Marketing: Yeah , it is useful , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it doesn't really work all the time . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Th the pen doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put this pen on the screen uh uh for exam and line is d being drawn at at two or three centimetres uh below . +User Interface: The line is a bit off . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's maybe a bit unnatural also . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: you can point to where you want the line to be . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The project uh {disfmarker} because of the deadlines you didn't had the time to uh {disfmarker} have , you didn't have time to uh {disfmarker} to make a very uh qualitati qualitative uh presentation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you used uh this uh the different PowerPoint presentations uh in which you put your uh material in the {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That wasn't me . Uh {vocalsound} so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wasn't me . +Project Manager: the means , we discussed the smart board , and what about uh this digital pen ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I I used it , +Marketing: I didn't use it at all . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it it was {disfmarker} you can use it , it's quite handy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , well +Industrial Designer: But I didn't {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I use it as a a normal pen and and and only you use it to uh get it on the computer , +User Interface: Yeah , I used it to y to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah , it did work pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I used it too , but {disfmarker} oh well . +User Interface: I don't think why you would want to use it actually , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: but it it does work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because it shou +Marketing: No {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: To make some designs , +Marketing: It is it is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it is very easy . +Marketing: yeah , it is easy for {disfmarker} to design something and then load it in your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then you can show it to everybody . +Industrial Designer: But to write it th yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It doesn't really write normally . +Marketing: Yeah . It's b bi little bit too big to write . +User Interface: It's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's too big , it's too fat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fat document , those . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um and what about the teamwork ? +User Interface: I think it was great , +Marketing: Team work was okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I think so too . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Only thing that we worked through , past each other . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: but that was {disfmarker} it was our assignment , +Marketing: With some things that was only problem , +User Interface: Yeah , but it was because we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: but furthermore better . +Project Manager: and maybe I should walk out of the room when you discuss uh this point , the leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I thought it was good , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , no prob . Ah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not too much , not too too too too {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And creativity ? Well , when we look at this I'd say we have been creative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the room for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There was room for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was the idea to be creative , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You got some standard ideas in your head {vocalsound} and this what came out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you get get stuff from the from the computer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The information uh was sometimes uh a little bit too late +Marketing: Little bit uh lo yeah . Too late {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it it took a lot of time before you got your ema +User Interface: You just sit there for ten minutes . Yeah , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: where is that email ? +Marketing: I played I think seven times Solitaire something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You did ? Well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I didn't have time for that . +User Interface: did you ? Is it on there ? {vocalsound} Is it on there ? +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I didn't find the {disfmarker} didn't look but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: At some times I {disfmarker} Sometimes I received like like five emails at at one moment , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Was searching and searching . +Marketing: Oh right , +User Interface: I didn't look , +Marketing: it is there . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I I never got that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I always {disfmarker} +User Interface: I got like one email after ten minutes or something . +Project Manager: I even got spam . {vocalsound} Or something like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what we said . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So does this {disfmarker} I think lik oh and information was a bit low I think , sometimes , +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} not a lot uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: in in in in the beginning I didn't understand what what to do . +User Interface: No , the first one . +Industrial Designer: No , w I didn't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't know uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like I {disfmarker} with with the remote {gap} and I never new we have t we had to uh {disfmarker} yeah made a made a rec a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Make a r +User Interface: nee . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And I didn't know what to do for the first ten minutes before we got here , +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: so I went , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No stepping on the table and then looking at the internet page . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I was working and working and work {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just looking at the screen and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} but after all we can say uh we are satisfied , but it it could've been uh better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When we get uh {disfmarker} when we have {disfmarker} we would have gotten uh more information . +User Interface: Yeah , an +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Faster . +Industrial Designer: more information about the costs . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be handy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: First of all I didn't think uh that we were able to make an L_C_D_ screen uh {disfmarker} first point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it was possible uh {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it only costs four units . Uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea uh so tha actually you could make an L_C_D_ screen but no mic , or it could make mic but no L_C_D_ screen , when you look at that . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was a bit mean to put it in the end . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh what were the other points to to improve this whole process ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , I dunno . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Think that's about it . +Marketing: Nothing . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we got it already . +User Interface: Heavier um {disfmarker} less heavy laptops . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're pretty heavy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Faster laptop . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . They were they were just fine . +User Interface: But that's not really uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And furthermore the the the network was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Everything you loaded was also +User Interface: Yeah , everything worked . +Marketing: av available there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And so more time uh w might have improved the the quality of work , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is what you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , but that {disfmarker} It's now half past four {disfmarker} half past three , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just the the off hours between that you will work alone . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Then it pops up {disfmarker} pop up screen came . Five minutes in the meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hm . Mm . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so more time during the individual work phases . Um okay well uh +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: I just got my warning for the last five minutes , so I'll move on to I guess my last slide , +User Interface: You did ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yes , which is the closing . Well uh , we managed , but we did it very quickly . I don't know if that's the best way to {disfmarker} when it isn't {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} when it is too expensive to quickly re-arrange it and say , okay , this is it , +User Interface: Oh , right . +Project Manager: but we had to do it , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh , because we have to have a design , and that is within the budget . And we evaluated . Maybe we should re-evaluate uh the product , but we did that before , and we also evaluated the project . And I think uh everybody's uh very happy . At least I am , with the results , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh celebration , well , for the three of you , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh I have to write the final report now . +User Interface: Champagne . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh {vocalsound} well , thank you very much for your co-operation , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I had a very nice day so far . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: No prob . +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Do we get another email ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bling . {vocalsound} You're fired . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you do . +User Interface: I I think we have to fill in a questionnaire again , +Project Manager: Yeah I have t +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we also have to go to our own rooms again , but um {disfmarker} well +User Interface: We do ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I at least . But maybe you can try uh to make a screen shot of this , so I can try to include it in the final report . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh th that that one ? +Industrial Designer: You cannot {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can save it . +Project Manager: {gap} wants to , but at least this one . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} it isn't a picture or , well , is it ? +Project Manager: I know , we should remove this , +Industrial Designer: You s uh file save as the J_ PEG J_ PEG . +Project Manager: but it won't h Okay . And uh please put it in the project folder then , huh . +Marketing: Can you find it as a J_ PEG ? +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: isn't possible . But you can make a screen shot , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , well I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: I hereby officially close the meeting and uh I hope to see you uh soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} In uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In about five minutes . +User Interface: Uh oh , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +User Interface: export . +Project Manager: I think we'll be a bit a bit longer , +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} okay . Well , happy celebration , huh ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +User Interface: Images . +Industrial Designer: Whoo-hoo . Let's let's have party . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebra {vocalsound} +User Interface: How big do you want the images ? +Marketing: Or shouldn't I ? +Industrial Designer: Let's have some fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How big ? Uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: not too big . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: This one ? +Project Manager: Whatever you think is good . +Marketing: Six hundred . No , +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: that uh is one thousand twenty four . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think eight hundred six hundred is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If it browse . +Marketing: Nah , name . {gap} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Desktop . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Well it isn't on the desktop . +Marketing: Hey . +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I do not know . +User Interface: You can only save it in my documents . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh ? +Marketing: Oh my God . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , alright . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ten . +User Interface: Can we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why can't we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebration time , come on . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Peace out nigger . Entree +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +","The conversation is a meeting involving a project manager, industrial designer, user interface specialist, and a marketing team member. They are discussing the organization of shared project documents and the design of a prototype remote control. They've created separate folders to tidy up the busy shared folder and are verifying if documents are correctly placed. They touch upon the design aspects of the remote control, including color choices and button functions, with the industrial designer and user interface specialist planning to give a prototype presentation. + +The project manager brings up the evaluation criteria and the agenda, mentioning the need to address financial aspects to ensure the designed product can be afforded before moving into production. Concerns about the size of the microphone on the prototype and the visibility of options on the screen are discussed. They consider the functionality and user-friendliness of the prototype for different age groups, including the use of a microphone for speech recognition. + +During the financial evaluation, they face the challenge of ensuring the product design meets the budget constraint of twelve Euro fifty. This leads to a discussion on which features to keep or drop, such as the decision to remove the microphone and change the scroll wheel to meet cost targets. + +They evaluate their process and project teamwork, discussing the use of different technologies like smart boards, digital pens, and the information flow within the team. Concerns are raised about the timeliness of receiving information and the inability to communicate effectively during individual working phases. There is a consensus on the need for better collaboration and communication tools. + +In conclusion, the meeting involves discussing design details, financial constraints, evaluation criteria, technology use, and team collaboration processes. Despite finding solutions within their budget and achieving a final design, there are lessons learned about improving their workflow and communication for future projects." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , that's not gonna work . {vocalsound} Oh , alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Um alright . +Marketing: Uh , uh , um . +Project Manager: I'll just put that there . Uh as you all know we're here to create a brand new fantastic remote . Uh I'm Nick Debusk , I'm the Project Manager . Uh we'll just get started with everyone kind of letting each other know who they are and what you're doing , what your what your role is um . Go ahead . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I am Corinne Whiting and I will be the Marketing Expert and in each of the three phases I will have a different role . In the function design phase I will be talking about user requirement specification , and this means what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , and I'll be doing research to figure this out . In the conceptual design phase I will be dealing with trend watching and I'll be doing marketing research on the web . And then finally in the um detailed design phase I will be doing product evaluation and so I will be collecting the requirements and ranking all the requirements to see how we did . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Hiya , I'm Ryan . Um I'm the User Interface Designer . Um likewise I've three different roles for each stage of design . Um the functional design is looking at the tex technical functions of a remote control . Um in the concept design , the user interface , how the user reacts with the the product . And the detailed design um {vocalsound} sort of like the user interface design , what they might be looking for , uh things like fashions , what makes wha how we're gonna make it special . That's about it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} I'm Manuel and I'm the Industrial Designer in in this project um . In the functional design phase I'm {disfmarker} I'll be dealing mostly with the requirements , um we'll discuss what the prog what functions the the product has to fulfil and so and so on . Um I suppose we'll work pretty much together on that one . Um um in the conceptual design um I'll be pro mostly dealing with properties and materials um of our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the detailed design {disfmarker} in the detailed design I'll be concerned with the look and feel of the product itself , um so we're pretty much working together obviously on the design front here . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um so we've got our opening , our our agenda is the opening , uh acquaintance which we've kinda done . Uh tool training , project plan discussion and then closing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh grand total of twenty five minutes we have here . Um so we are putting together a new remote control . Um we want it to be something original . Um of course we're a {disfmarker} not only a electronics company but a fashion um conscious electronics company , so we want it to be trendy um and we want it to be easy to use . {vocalsound} Um we've got the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design um which basically is is the three of you um . And w uh {vocalsound} well um functional design um . Um do we have {disfmarker} um any ideas of of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe d let's just throw out some ideas of what kind of remote control we want to have , and then we can go into how we're gonna design it and and how we're gonna do the detailing on it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well uh s function of remote control is just just {disfmarker} you know , change channels is its main function . +Project Manager: So we want it to be um a T_V_ remote or {disfmarker} I I mean do we want it to to do other things besides just be a a television remote ? +User Interface: Oh right . I suppose you c try make it a universal remote +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: for {disfmarker} could work on all sort of electrical products in in one person's house . But , you know , they all sorta have the same role changing channels , volumes and then programming . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think they all work on the same prin principle as well sorta like {disfmarker} I don't actually know . {gap} But is it just infra-red ? Is that standard ? +Project Manager: I I think {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , r universal remote . +User Interface: Ye yeah . +Project Manager: Um this is my first uh go-round with creating a remote control , +Marketing: Huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ours too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we're all in the same boat here . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um one thing I thought of with the remote control is you always lose 'em . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So if there's a g a way of finding it quite easily , I thought that'd be quite good quite a good feature . +Marketing: Mm . Ch +Project Manager: So we should we should set our remote control up to where it has a uh +Marketing: Like a tracking device ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: like a tracking device or or like a a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh you can get those key {disfmarker} well you could whistle or make a noise +Project Manager: It makes a noise , +User Interface: and it'd beep . +Project Manager: there's a button on the T_V_ that you press +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Be good . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Generally , all remotes are sort of quite similar in their appearance . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do we want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just long . +Project Manager: so they're kinda like long and rectangular . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we want something crazy ? +User Interface: Black usually . +Project Manager: You know , we want something new that's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lot more modern . +Project Manager: A m a modern {disfmarker} so our remote should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think so . Maybe sorta spherical or something . A ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe like user-friendly , like a little +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , where you can use both hands , like a little keyboard type thing . +User Interface: People {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I thought maybe , because people always tend to throw a remote control about the place to one another {disfmarker} if it was in a ball , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: and maybe the actual controls are inside or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well there are of course certain restrictions , you can't have it be any form and fulfil all functions at the same time , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so there are always the {disfmarker} some restrictions we have to apply here . Um however um one question is how stable is that thing supposed to be , that refers to the material , pretty much um . What are we gonna build that thing out of ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: How sturdy is it gonna be ? Do we want it to last longer or rather have people whatever , have to buy one every half a year ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} yeah , so we want it to be sturdy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want it to to hold up to somebody's child , you know , throwing it across the room or , as you said , people kinda throw it , so ball-shaped , uh you know , if it were ball-shaped maybe , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be cased on the outside and t everything could be inside . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um so we want it to be modern , fun , sturdy , um {disfmarker} So our form and our function . Um we want it to be um easy to find . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What else {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} what else do we want it to to do ? So we want it to be universal . It's something that we're supposed to sell for about twenty five Euros um and you know , goals for profits are I think somewhere around uh fifty million Euros , what they wanna make on it , so . +Marketing: Mm . Also since we're partners of the International Remote Control Association , maybe we wanna make it something that would globally appeal . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: That's more on the research end , but {disfmarker} the marketing . +Project Manager: So marketing , you know , how {disfmarker} maybe uh marketing , you could s find out what is the most universally um appealing {vocalsound} remote control out there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And maybe as far as design goes , maybe we could have different ones for different target audiences , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: 'cause maybe one won't apply to all of the countries we're targeting . +User Interface: Ye Small . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you guys have any ideas for what it should look like ? Maybe we could draw it up on the on the board over there . Some ideas ? We want it to be a b a ball , +User Interface: {gap} I'd {disfmarker} I could draw sorta the ball idea . +Project Manager: you know , we'll draw up we'll draw up the ball and maybe th um where the buttons are located . +User Interface: My original idea was just simply sort of a sphere , where maybe you {disfmarker} this is where it's connected together , and then when you open it out , it could fol it could be maybe flip , like a flip phone , and then when you fold it out the middle {disfmarker} Maybe a hinge that'll have to be the strongest part of it . If that {disfmarker} if we did use a hinge , or if it was just two parts , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you'd have just sorta you you you know , your buttons . Thing is inside I think , sometimes remotes have too many buttons , so maybe as simple as possible , um as few buttons inside as possible . Um , I dunno , what's the idea for . Just something {disfmarker} maybe if you ha if it had like if some kind of like light or something or lights around it . It's looking a bit like something out of Star Wars at the moment though , to be fair . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But yeah . +Marketing: Futuristic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was a sorta simple idea I had +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then you know you could {gap} about {disfmarker} Right , it would almost be like a ball . So that was just just an idea I had . I don't know whether anybody else has other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Right . One problem you'd get with this design is um {disfmarker} the ball is a nice idea because of it's stability really , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but of course , since it's a ball , it'll roll , so we'd have to have it flat on one side at least , down here somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe f yeah . +Industrial Designer: take away that part . That's one of the big issues . Also also you risk the hinges here . That's that's um a problem . +User Interface: Yeah , that's g that's a good idea . Yeah . The idea {disfmarker} it didn't have to necessarily be f a hinge , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's that's {vocalsound} interesting of course , +User Interface: that was just one idea though . +Industrial Designer: but that's of course a weak point , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How would we go about um making you know {disfmarker} getting rid of our weak points ? What {disfmarker} I mean would we just have a flat spot on the bottom of the ball ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not to put you on the spot , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} E No no , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: What did you say your title was again ? +Industrial Designer: N n +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You're the the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm your Industrial Designer , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so i b well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the point is that {vocalsound} well maybe {disfmarker} I dunno . The shape is perhaps not the most ideal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: As as stable as it is , there must be a compromise between um stability and design here , so . +User Interface: Well I I suppose that things become {gap} design . But I mean i +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was trying to think of like the design of others . I can't think of anything other than a long rectangle for remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: maybe small , sort of fatter ones , but there's nothing being done sort of out of left field , yeah . +Project Manager: It's not new , it's not innovative , it's {disfmarker} you know , everybody does long remote because it's easy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's stable um . +Marketing: 'Kay , I'll draw something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , go ahead . +Marketing: My idea was just to have it be kind of like a keyboard type shape , you know , like video games +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: l so . But maybe {disfmarker} I mean that would be kinda big and bulky . We could also try to do the hinge thing , so it could like flip out that way . I don't know . {vocalsound} That's my idea . +User Interface: I think definitely doing something different +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I mean maybe design something , that's sort of like {vocalsound} suppose not everybody's everybody's hand's the same , but something that would maybe fit in the hand easier . +Project Manager: Something with a grip . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , with a grip . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Because even {disfmarker} I suppose even with the ball +User Interface: It still might be hard to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it still not the ho easiest thing to hold , yeah . +Project Manager: it might not be the easiest to hold onto um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So perhaps the the joystick {disfmarker} the the keyboard idea might work better . +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But then again , people like to use one hand to flip and one hand to hold their soda , so maybe maybe we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +User Interface: It's d yeah . I think it's definitely got to be a a one-handed a one-handed job . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I feel like I'm just shooting everything down here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You're the boss , you're {vocalsound} allowed to . +Industrial Designer: Well with the one-handed design you also have the the problem of the size w 'cause you know from cell phones , they can be too small . So if the remote is too small it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: if it's small it probably looks better , but may not be th as functional . So for that there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: unfortunately we've got about five minutes here {vocalsound} to come up with our um remote control idea and start rolling with it . Um we've talked about our experiences with remote control and um we've got a couple ideas um . Let's see here . What if we had what if we had not only um {disfmarker} say we went with the ball the ball function um , but maybe we give it sort of grips along the side s um to make it easier to hold on to . So you know um s so it's easier to hold onto that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course that'll then remove some of our our ball . Unless this unless this part were raised , so say the cover flips over and covers that part . So the grip is {disfmarker} No , that wouldn't work either um . But if we're gonna make it flat on the bottom , then that eliminates our ball anyways . So if it were flat on the bottom and then had the sorta grips on the side here I guess , um and then {vocalsound} flat uh {disfmarker} And then we have the problem with the hinge . So if we're flat on the bottom , it's not gonna roll away , it'll stay where we want . +Industrial Designer: The question is also , I dunno , d do you really always want to open that thing when you have to use it ? +Project Manager: Mm , that's true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's probably going to lie around opened all the time anyway , so I don't know if a lid is a good idea . From stabil stability point of view uh it certainly is , but also you have to face it and take into account the more of these things break by accident , uh the more we sell . So it's {disfmarker} don't make it too stable {vocalsound} uh . +Project Manager: So we don't have it flip open . We just have a ball {disfmarker} +User Interface: But then maybe to go back to the to th s something along those things then . +Industrial Designer: To the other design . +Project Manager: Okay , so then we forget the ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks cool though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks cool , but it's really not {disfmarker} it's not functional um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} functional . +Project Manager: So we've got our sort of keyboard kind . What if we flipped it around here , so that it were um {disfmarker} Sorry , that doesn't look anything like what you {vocalsound} had there . Um so it's up and down , you hold it this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course then it's it's like the rectangular {vocalsound} again , only with a couple of jutting out points . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . +Project Manager: But it's one-handed um . +Industrial Designer: Question is what makes those game pads functional ? W I think that's pretty much the form for full hand . So it's a round shape underneath that makes it comfy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: makes it nice , so that's the essential part . Except for that I think we'll not {disfmarker} probably not get a get away from some longer design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you also have to know which way around to point this thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: You know , all +Project Manager: because it doesn't have a cord , like joysticks do . +Industrial Designer: that dif batteries {disfmarker} right , and {disfmarker} Batteries go weak as well , so um after a while you have to point it towards the uh towards the equipment you wanna control with it , right ? So , have to m show which is the front , which is the back . +Project Manager: Is it possible to have it to where it would work with a like a sensor on either side ? So that either way you're pointing it it would work . +Industrial Designer: I suppose you could do that . O of course the more technology you stick in that , the more it'll cost , so . +Project Manager: More expensive and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Course you can do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean of course it'll be evident after a while or {disfmarker} if you look at it , it'll it'll be evident which way around to point it , since you have the the numbers and the and the {vocalsound} the buttons and stuff , +Project Manager: True . +Industrial Designer: but um it's rather about an instinctual thing , +User Interface: Put it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like you just grab it , you don't have to s look at it , you know , which way around to point it . Otherwise the design of {disfmarker} or the the point of putting two sensors on both sides um would probably work . +User Interface: Even if you designed it {disfmarker} in some {disfmarker} in a way that you know , isn't a rectangle , but still pointed in a direction that had definite points . So if that's your thing and you got something like that instead , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and there's your s you kn you know which way you're gonna pointing it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry to interrupt , but we have a warning to finish . +Project Manager: Are we out of time ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well , just to finish up , should we s go with this plan , start making some {disfmarker} Are good ideas , what are not . +Industrial Designer: Let's . +User Interface: Does it say {disfmarker} what does it say for n +Industrial Designer: Obviously {disfmarker} +User Interface: it says on there what we need to do for the next meeting , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . Must finish now , so . +User Interface: T +Project Manager: And then marketing will look and see what uh what people want . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Okay . And Project Manager will design a better meeting for next {vocalsound} time around , be a little bit more prepared . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh alright , good meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","The conversation involves a project team discussing the creation of a new remote control. Nick Debusk, the Project Manager, leads the meeting. Corinne Whiting from Marketing outlines her roles across the three design phases, which include user requirement specification, trend watching, and product evaluation. Ryan, the User Interface Designer, and Manuel, the Industrial Designer, also detail their responsibilities in each phase, which concentrate on technical functions, user interaction, properties, materials, look, and feel of the product. + +The team agrees that the remote should be original, trendy, and user-friendly. They consider making it a universal remote that stands out in design and is sturdy enough for regular use. An initial idea for a ball-shaped remote with a tracking feature is debated; however, concerns about functionality and stability lead to discussions of alternative shapes and features, such as grips for easier handling. + +Marketing suggests considering global appeal and different designs for various target markets. The team throws around various ideas, including a ball that doesn't roll, joypad styles, and more ergonomic designs, but they struggle with practicality and cost considerations. + +In the end, time constraints force the team to wrap up the meeting without a final decision. The Project Manager plans to organize a better-structured meeting next time, with Marketing tasked to research what users want, which will hopefully steer the project toward a more concrete direction." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome everyone to our next meeting . I'm busy writing and busy leading the meeting , but um I've prepared a little presentation once again um or at least an agenda I think uh the biggest part of the presentation will be uh on your side . Um we are here at the conceptual design meeting , which is hereby opened . Um once again I will try to uh write some minutes which I just from the previous meeting uh placed inside our project folder , which was quite some typing . Um today we once again have uh three presentations , if I'm right , and after that we will take a decision on the remote control concepts . And just as the last time we have forty minutes to accomplish that . Okay , well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'd say let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um in the same order as last time ? +Industrial Designer: W sure . +User Interface: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , take it away . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay uh welcome you all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Components design , um {vocalsound} uh first of all uh I would like to uh uh accommodate some of those uh things I uh uh {disfmarker} elaborate some of the things I did . I I elaborated on the concept . What should be um uh said about uh the components , uh its properties and what kind of materials should we use to uh to make uh one of those r remote controls . Uh well first of all I've uh d subtracted some of the components that is that are used uh are w w um {vocalsound} you know from what uh the remote control's formed . Uh first of all , the case , the case , the surrounding of the of the the remote control . {vocalsound} I would like to uh give you an idea of uh how I thought about . +Marketing: Don't destroy my giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Giraffe's gone now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay um the case was is made from rubber , I suppose . There's one of the {disfmarker} because when you use a remote control a lot of people uh will uh will uh drop their remote control +Marketing: Drop it . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they break uh becau the uh titanium was also an option . But uh it's a very expensive material . Uh rubber is , I think , uh the best suitable uh material uh to use uh for our uh for our remote control . Um it's poss it's also possible to uh create fancy colours with rubber . Uh rubber l makes it easy to uh to to {disfmarker} it lets lets itself colour . Uh titanium uh you have to paint it and with that uh it's possible to scratch it or uh yeah make it ugly . Uh rubber uh the total uh piece of rubber that's sor uh that's that's used uh to make the case is uh the same colour , so if you scratch it it's still the same colour , perhaps uh it's a little bit damaged . But it's a very strong material . Um {vocalsound} I h I had an idea single covered uh curved , sorry , single curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so it's t two dimensional . I think it's uh it's best to draw oh +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: green . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bright colour . Fancy colour . Forward . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} New . Blank . Okay . +Marketing: You have to go t +Industrial Designer: Let's make it uh black . Okay . I thought of an idea like this . Oh {gap} that . {vocalsound} Um delete . Blank . Okay . So it also looks nice when it's on your table . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you get uh it doesn't lay flat down on the table , but it's c it's stands . +Marketing: Oh it's a side view . +Industrial Designer: Side view yes it's side view so uh I I'm not technically good at th three D_ modelling , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh it's just an idea I had so it's uh it's very uh so its also looks nice when it's on the table . Um the graphical user interface and the buttons , uh we also thought about that already . Uh I thought about uh the L_C_D_ touch screen , which is uh is easy to clean too . One of the great uh advantages of the L_C_D_ screen you just use some {gap} or uh another uh cleaning uh uh cl some cleaning stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um it should be made of strong plastic and it should be bright . Well I already uh s uh explained some properties of that material and I think uh well we also we almost concluded about that uh this should uh be uh our uh button component . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh that's all about uh the buttons . Uh the batteries , uh we also thought about that already , uh will be chargeable with uh uh an option for a mount station so you can uh put the uh {vocalsound} the remote control in a mount station so its charges itself up instead of uh plugging it in or something like that . Questions , {gap} ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no no no no . Just looking . +Industrial Designer: And they should be long lasting , not uh not be empty uh in about uh two minutes or uh thirty minutes or forty minutes of use . And next step is the chip uh th the component that's uh makes or transmits the signal to the television . Uh there was an option to use s a rather simple chip but I think uh because uh of our uh highly uh requiring uh requirements , there should be an advanced chip in it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: with uh also the ability to uh facilitate speaker speech recognition uh which unfortunately is still in a test phase , so uh there should be some more uh investigation on that side . Uh my personal preferences uh I also overheard in the last meeting that there shou we should use uh our own business colours . That was correct , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think they are rather boring for um for use with rubber . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , business colours I thought it was the the slogan and uh the corporate image , so yeah , it needs colour , +Industrial Designer: Okay they should be m sh they should be in mind , +Project Manager: but I don't think you have to make the entire thing in the corporate colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wasn't it ? Okay so it d it doesn't says uh to uh have the slogan ? +Project Manager: It must be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay okay . Well that's possible of course . +User Interface: You can put the R_ and R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could make a little R_ and R_ {gap} on the top of the machine . Uh so they are {vocalsound} pretty boring , I suggest , because just the availability with rubber to make fantastic colours uh and also in a lot of possible colours , so it's possible to make very uh fancy uh remote controls which peopl uh who people in which people will find they're uh interesting . And uh will buy uh {vocalsound} them faster when they look at the same old grey or black uh colours . Uh s as I said uh before rubber is uh is impossible to damage severely imp instead of uh of course you can break it when you you when you break it in s for example with a pair of scissors or something like that , but i if you drop it it's not uh broken uh right away s instead of using uh plastic , hard plastic or uh titanium . And I personally liked uh the single curved uh remote control , because it yeah it makes sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's all about my uh my findings . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: I will go next . +Marketing: Mm mm mm . Next . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Alright so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought a little bit about the interface . Uh how it should look . And uh {vocalsound} uh we uh determined that will not be no buttons , but only an L_C_D_ screen , so I had to uh look on that . And the design is therefore based on what we just uh uh thought of . Uh first there are some new findings and new technology for speech recognition . And this is that uh um uh uh you you ask you give a question through through the device and it answers you . And they already uh put this in an in a coffee maker . And so that it you say uh good morning , uh coffee maker , and it says t says to you back good morning Joe or what's your name . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: This uh and there's an easy way to uh program that uh you say record into the device into the speaker and then you say the question and three seconds later you say the answer and then when you say the question it gives you the answer . Um perhaps it's useful , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: perhaps for because people um lose the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: they can yell uh remote where are you and {gap} calls or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's true . +User Interface: And perhaps we could uh implement that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then I have to go out of the presentation because I tried to make some kind of a a idea of how it should look like +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I can't draw , so uh don't {vocalsound} make too much of it {vocalsound} . I tried to uh the L_C_D_ screen I tried to sort of to draw {gap} . I thought uh at least uh the icon for the volume . I don't know if there is an icon for the program , but +Industrial Designer: Not just a P_ . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: P_ yeah , just a P_ . +User Interface: So uh +Industrial Designer: .. . {gap} +User Interface: and then the buttons above and uh below +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the and the and the mute button also recognisable as an icon . Um . +Marketing: Where's where's the button for two {gap} ? +User Interface: I forgot that one . {vocalsound} I thought I forgot something , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh and uh the numbers , that should be a bit larger I think it's not really on scale and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Um an options button . And I thought the the button for teletext apar uh apart because it's not really options , I think . It's uh options is the settings of the remote and of the T_V_ and that kind of uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So could call it settings or something . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: But this is a bit uh how I thought it . And uh the L_C_D_ uh somewhere on the remote . Perhaps we could be more curvy the remote perhaps should , so that it's better in your hand or something uh . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , +User Interface: But uh and and uh a microph microphone for the speech uh recognition if we want to implement that . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Uh and then uh if you press the op options button , now we have an example of and then you should get the other options with what what you could do and that you could do with something like this this . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {gap} . +User Interface: And uh it's also uh I thought think we discussed uh earlier that uh older people don't really want to use uh these extra settings . And older people a also don't really want to use this uh th this kind of option menus . So they want to u use one button and then something happens , and not choose with uh this kind of uh {disfmarker} And you could put in a an a really s little scrolling device on the side of your uh remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you could scroll scroll uh across these uh things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +User Interface: That's an option . And that was my uh finding dinge . +Project Manager: Thanks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now our third +Industrial Designer: Go Danny , go Danny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: team member with his presentation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I'm going to tell you something about a trend watching . The trends from the past years , what the people like , what the youngsters like , what the elderly people liked about shapes , colours , material and stuff . 'Kay . The method I used was {disfmarker} Like I told I watched the trends from the past years about colours , shapes , material they wanted uh from elderly and young people . So we can keep that in mind for designing f uh the device itself . Findings I made . The most important thing people liked last year was that the remote control should be look look fancy . The second important thing that w should be if inv in innov innovative , okay , like the L_C_D_ screen that's {vocalsound} quite innovative so that should be great meeting for this . And the third thing is it should be easy to use . I think with only one menu , four button , channel , volume , it should also be enough for easy to use . The personal preferences for the young people , they liked fruity colours like uh banana yellow , uh strawberry red and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Fruity ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Grass green . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Like that . The round shapes , and soft material m materials like the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: It should be soft uh i it should feeling spongy or s Sponge Bob like things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's build it into a sponge . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Th Elderly people like au colours which y are being seen in autumn like um woods um dark brown , red , deep reds and stuff . They liked square shapes with round edges . And hard materials like wood , um titanium . They those kind of materials they liked . This is a bit like the young peoples like the fruity colours , innovative , all the colours you see , the blue , the red , the white , the yellow , that stuff . And then I th I I personally thought the front side of the shape should be something for the youngsters like like +Project Manager: Oh y {vocalsound} +Marketing: this or something . It's it's a bit like a banana . And the colour should be yellow , or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And for the elderly people just plain old . Because we decided to have two kind of remotes , two designs , or was it two colours ? +User Interface: It was one remote , I think , +Marketing: Different colours , yeah . +User Interface: different colours . +Marketing: We should decide whether it's going to be with round shapes . I think like my colleague , you said , is that's e better , or for the elderly people something like like the iPod or something , with round squares . Simple but +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So that's it . +Project Manager: So for the older people , a more traditional uh form . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That is my {disfmarker} Yeah , like the older o older colours I can maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could you could uh change the colours , that was also the idea . I don't know which shape you should should take , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Colours th the elderly people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess changing colours will be easier than changing uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Changing just the shape of the uh remote control ? +Project Manager: the shape of it . +User Interface: Perhaps you could find something in the middle . Round but square . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: round corners , but s but square , yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe then both groups won't buy it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh i i if you do it uh uh square , with round corners but a little uh in the middle of it uh i Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you mean , kind of like a {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} wait , like {vocalsound} like this {vocalsound} uh a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's a bit square , but it's also a bit uh round . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like a beer glass . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: So but then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know what you mean . +User Interface: Same sides . {vocalsound} But that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's also easy to to have {vocalsound} to to put in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah but that's also how other remotes are shaped , so that's uh {disfmarker} But perhaps that's a good thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so that's easy to use . People know the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will recognise that's as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Look something like that {gap} . Autumn colours like red , brown . +Industrial Designer: Uh when I saw your d Oh . +Marketing: They liked the wood a lot . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we could give it like wooden loo look look or something in that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , kinda like old cars , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a bit bit old school style renaissance , medieval kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Swords . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let's put it all together . +Marketing: Those kind of {disfmarker} Yeah , those kind of things . So you see the big difference between the young people ? Fresh , exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And the old people , old and boring . +User Interface: But that's easily to do with the colour , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: That's easy to do with the colours , I think . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easier to do in colour than in shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah we think so too . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Because otherwise we have to {gap} get different shapes , and colour {gap} way easier than yeah the shapes . In material yeah rubber , rubber is , like I said , young people like more soft materials and spongy ones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and the old people like {vocalsound} plain wood . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have to decide if we're going to use real hard rubber , or soft rubber . Or something something between that . +User Interface: Yeah think uh {disfmarker} Also in between . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Soft rubber . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} soft rubber +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: which you can you can feel in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you {disfmarker} Um . +User Interface: I don't think you should be able to mould it , +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It should shouldn't be {gap} . +Marketing: No . Or or wh what's something harder . No no no but but you have to like like like a a eraser or something . That's the bit you can press it in , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or something harder . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Bit like this kind of rubber . This uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , something like this , yeah . +User Interface: But it's quite hard , this . +Marketing: Yeah it's quite hard but you can press it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's feels kind s spongy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think it's rubber . +Marketing: No . N n n +Project Manager: So we need a spongy feeling . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh did you have something about uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are you going to invite Sponge Bob , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we should first decide about shape , I think . +Industrial Designer: Ding ding . +User Interface: Which uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I think that's the better thing to do . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Then you can fit the L_C_D_ screen in it , +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: and can decide uh . +Industrial Designer: Um I also s uh can't help but notice {vocalsound} that you uh used an {disfmarker} you had a remote control {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the L_C_D_ screen was uh rather small . Um . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: w I think that L_C_D_ screen should be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it's supposed to be bit s bit s bit +Industrial Designer: .. . This was your size , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think it should be larger . +Marketing: Yeah three quarter of the of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , three quarters . So uh so you don't have to put your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} oh . +Marketing: Yeah the buttons won't get that small when the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh new , blank . So uh when you get {vocalsound} this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh kinda like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or should it be larger ? +Marketing: Larger I think . +Industrial Designer: Larger ? Because you want to put your hands {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you pu +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Now you can put your hand there and then you won't touch the screen . +Industrial Designer: You want +Marketing: becau because you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Perhaps that's best . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , true , true , true true . +Industrial Designer: Your thumb here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But not on the screen because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's uh that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Looks a bit like a Game Boy now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put your f Yeah but if yo if you make the the L_C_D_ screen as large as the remote control itself , uh you'll {vocalsound} you'll always get some {disfmarker} +User Interface: You always touch it , +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Going to be very greasy and stuff . +Marketing: But it won't get that small because you have how much ? Nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen buttons on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One to zero , the two digit , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah you don't want it too small . How yeah how large {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to you have to {disfmarker} Because some fat people with d thick fingers will press three buttons at same time . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah they have thick fingers {gap} . But if you wanna make it in international , Japanese uh people got uh rather small hands +Marketing: Yeah true , +Industrial Designer: and we got these large {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} Yeah , we have we have the zoom option , right ? +Industrial Designer: Zoom opt Ah yeah of course , yeah . You can make it larger to to uh to uh with accompanying uh greater fields to push the button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And we won't include a a pen , or something to point , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: hey , we we want to do it with our fingers , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Your fingers , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Y you could include a pen +Industrial Designer: You don't want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because if you lose the pen uh if you lose the pen uh you can't use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Use a pen You you c you can lose the pen . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think people want to use a remote with with their fingers because th they're used to that +Marketing: Yeah {gap} the fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah o yeah {gap} , if they think it's handy to use a pen . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah I think this uh this is a good size for the screen . I don't know how how large the actual remote should be but a little bit like this , or something . +Project Manager: And maybe we have to add a tissue to remove the grease from all the fingers , huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} You can do {gap} whatever uh any uh cloth . +Marketing: Yeah but that that can be {gap} with plain soft tissue . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay well +Marketing: you can buy those at {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe , if I can interrupt you , maybe I should uh should show some points on which we uh should take a decision . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can discuss these points . {gap} those points um energy question mark . How how should we uh supply the thing with energy and how {disfmarker} are we going to do it with separate docking station and then put {gap} in it . Uh chip on print and case . Those are points my uh coach advised me to discuss here , but I hope you have ideas about them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think energy were batteries and then uh and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So that's the the the first point . +Marketing: Maybe it's better to to include rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: We already decided that on the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: which you can recharge through the docking station . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Just like with the telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if the badg the batteries are dead +Industrial Designer: I kinda like your {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you can re you can uh change them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you got some uh some of those uh uh wireless uh mice ? Mouse . Computer mouse . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah like those . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like those kind of batteries . +User Interface: {vocalsound} but it should be th I think normal batteries , +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: not not like two or two uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , normal plain you {disfmarker} No normal plain batteries you can buy at the supermarket or retail shop . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple rechargeable uh batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um what was with the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: The chip on print ? Um {disfmarker} Uh you gotta f Yeah . I think so . Chip on print with a with a {vocalsound} simple uh a sim not a simple but a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Print plate . +Industrial Designer: We also discussed that . Didn't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but how did this how does that with a L_C_D_ screen ? You still have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . You always have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Beg your pardon ? +Marketing: You always have a print plate , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course , yeah . +Marketing: right ? Always , so {disfmarker} I dunno what w what we have to decide about that . +Project Manager: Yeah well it's a good question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It just was in there +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well uh +Project Manager: and I didn't have any information about it , +Industrial Designer: chip on print , I think what they mean uh with the regular rubber buttons that you got , uh it's always clear for the remote control when you press uh a certain button . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But when you got a L_C_D_ screen , with no uh with not {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the buttons are not always on the same place , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: for example if you enlarge a button , or if you got several options uh appearing on your screen , uh the co-ordinations aren't always the same . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you got a regular button , th the button of stand-by is always on the same place and you got on the and on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but the p print plate of L_ L_C_D_ screen is more advanced than a normal print plate , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so that that's not of any discussion , I think . +Project Manager: Well you need some kind of C_P_U_ , I guess . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I suppose so . +Marketing: Mm , I don't I dunno I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is a simple C_P_U_ but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah okay but I d I I don't know if nor o s it's quite a simple L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it has to uh b +Marketing: Yeah , it's quite a simple L_C_D_ screen . I think they don't need that big of C_P_U_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it the the remote control has to know whether you're in a settings menu or just uh you just want to turn up the volume . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , true true . True . +Industrial Designer: So it has to have some kind of a calculation unit or C_P_U_ +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: to know uh in which state you are and uh which button you are pressing in at the right moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Because we're projecting projecting the buttons on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And a touch screen makes it uh possible to uh to get the co-ordination of your finger on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the case , yeah we already discussed the case , +User Interface: It's rubber . +Industrial Designer: we wanted to make it from rubber +User Interface: Yeah but but a hard rubber like this ? +Industrial Designer: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or softer rubber or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh hard rubber I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's the easy to ha uh to to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It bounces back from the floor where you {vocalsound} throw it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah sure , look {vocalsound} . +Marketing: We have different colours . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah this in different colours ? +Industrial Designer: D +Marketing: So the shapes is something between the square shapes with round colo corners and a round shapes ? No I don't think , I think it's more round than square . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's a bit . But I think it should be a bit longer , perhaps . +Marketing: So it meets I think it meets more the young people than the older people . +Project Manager: Yeah . But that's what we want , {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , that's our target . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's our main target . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lower than forty years , I think +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well and how about my idea uh of making it um with one single curve ? +Marketing: it was . +Industrial Designer: So i +Marketing: Oh yeah that that {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I thought that was a quite good +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because it's a gadget and you want to show it off , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah you have a fancy design , then , right away . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it +Marketing: You can put it on your table with the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you don't have to put it {disfmarker} get it in your hand , you can put it next to you +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then dive it in +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: and {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a lot easier . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So , so +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you got uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Did you write that down ? Uh got a single curved uh rubber f uh fancy coloured {vocalsound} remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can't you You can't oh , you c you can draw it on your paper and then load it on the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but I wrote it down . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's pretty easy but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And load it on the the user the server . +Project Manager: What about the user interface , there are also some some questions uh about the concepts I think you have some ideas on that {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: You you showed your drawing . +User Interface: I had what I just uh I should {gap} again . I miss a few buttons , but . Well . At least uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what we should also have on , I just remembered , um a menu to go back through the first uh {gap} if if you touch options , you can't go back to this uh right away now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , you have to go back . Yeah uh uh . +User Interface: This {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Isn't it better to have the sound and the general buttons horizontal ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: With the minus and the plus . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's easier than {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I I thought it was uh easier to handle this way , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but I don't know what they think . +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Would you like the the buttons horizontal or v vertical ? +Marketing: For sound and channel . +User Interface: Th +Industrial Designer: Depends on the screen . If you make the screen vertical it doesn't matter . If you make it uh in a rectangle {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right well if we make it like this , I think if you +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I so it's it's it's it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: put it like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Square . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's it's easier to have it something like {disfmarker} Oh a button uh minus here , plus over here . A minus here , plus over here . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh , okay . +Marketing: And on here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The other buttons and on here {vocalsound} the top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The options and then you have something like uh the P_ over here , +User Interface: But I think I wou +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: and the sound . +User Interface: I think that's a matter of what you're used to . +Marketing: Something uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think I would put a plus and a min uh here . And then the P_ in the mid in the middle and the sound uh in the middle . +Industrial Designer: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: Something like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Take your time . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Plus minus plus uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: minus . +User Interface: but I think when you are holding it , you could press the minus and the plus and with the other finger the minus and the plus . +Marketing: Yeah I think you're going to s you're going to use it with one thumb . +User Interface: Yeah but I think {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} Perhaps I have some examples . +Industrial Designer: W +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll leave that to the usability engineering then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who's the usability engineering ? +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: She is . {gap} +User Interface: But I'm going to look if I've got some examples +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause perhaps you should choose what's most often used . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} 'Cause they can use that better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Consistency . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {gap} {disfmarker} I have that those s numbers . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} Here is our {disfmarker} here are uh +Marketing: Or a good watch . +User Interface: I don't really know . +Marketing: B +Project Manager: Everybody's searching in his data . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Channel selection . Per hour one hundred and sixty eight . Volume selection four times an hour +User Interface: Yeah but {gap} {disfmarker} But I mean if it's usually plus or min above each other or next to each other on a normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So not how much {disfmarker} n not how often it's used , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: W what's what's usual or normal . +Marketing: Yeah , that depends on on on the remote . +User Interface: Yes I'm looking here . But here's it's below , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: here also , and now here's here's next to each other . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: I think it's {gap} it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {gap} because I have two televisions at home . One is horizontal , one is vertical , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it does it doesn't really matter , +Marketing: so it depends . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Depends . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: I think the the the volume was usually uh above each other , because you go higher and down . +Marketing: Yeah , lower . +User Interface: And the the pay the the the program is next to each other , because you would go further and back . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's how it's is usually {gap} when I look here +Marketing: True . +User Interface: that's what I see . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um . Let's cut to the chase . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got to change . +Project Manager: Yeah well I think we have we don't have to decide about that now how where we will put the buttons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: just the +Marketing: Yeah is it is user interface . +Project Manager: concepts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Component . +User Interface: This concept is in the actual design , but you should know where you would place a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well le Yeah . Interface , yeah . +User Interface: And the speech uh shall we implement that ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we just heard about the new uh technology , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Technologies , uh . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easy for that , where are you , but then it says I'm here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But then you should also find a place {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Makes it possible to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could if you do it like this you could put it in a corner or something . You can talk into the corner . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , a microphone , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Not even necessary , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because a lotta {disfmarker} you can make a very sensitive microphone , so it makes it possible to uh {vocalsound} just put it arou uh underneath it or on the on the bottom of the uh remote . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe at the bottom where you can can hel hold it with you hand that there's also a microphone uh +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , that's also {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: over there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: So , in the middle or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's not import I think that's not im very important +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because yeah , it doesn't matter where the microphone is . +User Interface: {gap} but you should uh decide where you want to put it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , sure , okay , +User Interface: Right ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well tha +Marketing: Um I think where it isn't seen +Industrial Designer: Underneath ? {gap} Indeed . It shouldn't be uh very uh visible . +Marketing: the most . +User Interface: You could p you could put it in a logo of the company . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Inside . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , why no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe just in the the spot you just pointed out +Marketing: I i between the round of the R_ . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think it should be in a in an important position where people can see it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it is the the unique uh idea of our remote , huh , the the speech control . +User Interface: Yeah . So where do you want to put it ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Well maybe where the one hand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it doesn't makes it uh any more fancy because you get to see uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah actually it does {vocalsound} because it you can you can find it better if you use it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: It's a way for you to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: So it makes more sense just 'cause other remotes don't have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But are we talking about the button , or about the microphone ? +User Interface: About a microphone , +Project Manager: Yeah because a microphone is very small thing , +User Interface: there is no button . +Project Manager: but you can make it look like it's big so as its its really an important function of the remote . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think the left s under corner should be the best . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Where isn't {disfmarker} i it isn't most in sight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well put it there . I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't doesn't really matter . +Marketing: No . Actually doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So ? +User Interface: Alright . Any more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So well uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Interface type . +Project Manager: type , supplements , anything . Yeah , well we already s discussed that , huh , the the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ yeah , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh supplements well the supplement is to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} I think {disfmarker} I thought the , like you said , like scroll {vocalsound} next to the remote isn't that handy . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's better to just {gap} up what you'd like to do on the screen . If you want to go back you have to back button go back , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: if you want to choose audio settings you press audio settings and it goes to that s sub-menu . +Industrial Designer: Hey , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: the the young people do like uh scroll uh +Industrial Designer: Use the scroll . Yeah I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah ? You do like it ? +Industrial Designer: So why not , on on side . +User Interface: Or at least {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know if it's really the scroll , but the menu {gap} they like most , and I think you can never get through a menu great with a scroll uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fast , yeah . So if you've got a settings , if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think it is is faster . Becau I think the scroll's easier if you have a lot of options , +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but if you don't have a lot of option then {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} it's f uh +Industrial Designer: You have a lot of options , +User Interface: we have five or four or something . +Industrial Designer: because when you use {disfmarker} Yeah you get w when you use uh the settings menu for example to look up some uh uh some channels on your uh on your television , you should scroll scroll down uh on a menu which probably does not fit on your screen . +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah , okay , true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So then it's uh very handy to to scroll down , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you make just a rubber just like uh on your mouse or . Just put it on the side and it's very easy to use . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , no problem . +Project Manager: And I think I would it would make even more fancy because you have another interesting thing on the side +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: which you can touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's also different . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Well there's our five minutes uh warning . Um any more uh questions about about the design or the user interface or different components , everyone ? +Marketing: Um . No , colours are clear , +Project Manager: Everybody think they can can +Marketing: shape is clear , material is clear . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what's the standard colour ? +Project Manager: work for that ? +Marketing: And a standard , +Project Manager: Is there a standard colour ? +Marketing: yeah we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I +Marketing: no we have different colour . +Industrial Designer: You got you got different colours , +Marketing: How many colours are we going to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should you should have a black one +Industrial Designer: but you should have a standard colour . +User Interface: because uh I think black is standard . +Marketing: Black . Yeah , black I think is is the standard . +Industrial Designer: Black ? With the with the yellow uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if you want to be different , then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dark grey , something like this this colour or something . +Industrial Designer: Just a regular uh remote colour . +Marketing: Yeah like like yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then have uh different covers uh to use . +Marketing: Or or silver . I think it's better to have silver nowadays . +User Interface: Silver . +Industrial Designer: Silver , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you see more silver than black . +Industrial Designer: You see a lot of t uh silver televisions . +Project Manager: But still silver and black are {disfmarker} well +User Interface: Silver rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah the the silver black are our main colours . Yeah . +Project Manager: silver is new but also traditional , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we have silver , black and between those {vocalsound} is like I dunno s five colours between them or something . +Project Manager: Yeah w what about a yellow thing , I mean it +Industrial Designer: Yeah y I think it's better to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah it'll be a banana yellow , we have . +Project Manager: could be ugly , but it's definitely fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But +Marketing: R red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah . That's right . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you use uh silver , uh rubber s silver rubber isn't fancy . +Marketing: Green , wood , brown . Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: When you use titanium , silver is fancy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when you use silver rubber , it isn't fancy . Silver has to shine , and rubber doesn't shine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Especially when it's made of soft rubber like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You understand ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand . +Project Manager: Yeah I would think about colours like uh red , yellow , green , blue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah o of course . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The fruity colours and the autumn colours , like red and brown , {gap} dark red and brown . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all kind of colour . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . Fruity loops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Maroon . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and do we have to have a normal black one , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who's pinging ? +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You are pingin +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I thought we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You ping . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that wraps it up ? Everybody knows uh what to do ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I wrote it down here . I wrote it down here what to do um . +User Interface: Well I don't know what to do , +Industrial Designer: Well not what to do . Not what to do . +User Interface: but . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next meeting is once again in thirty minutes . Um here are the individual actions , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and especially notice that uh the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer are going to work together on a prototype drawing on a smart board , +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: and of course to all four of us uh specific instructions will be emailed by our personal coach . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: tough . We'll be available . +User Interface: But do we have to {disfmarker} We'll work together , but do we have to stay here , or do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I'd say just wait uh for email and uh find out . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thin I think we should work {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay well that was what I had to say , uh , +User Interface: Yeah I think {gap} . +Project Manager: final thoughts from anyone , or ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: We're finished . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Finished . +User Interface: So we have to keep talking English now ? {vocalsound} +","In an extensive and detailed conceptual design meeting, the project manager initiated the session and highlighted their multitasking role – leading the meeting while also writing up minutes, similar to the previous session. They mentioned the agenda, which included reviewing three presentations followed by a critical decision on remote control concepts, all scheduled within an allocated timeframe of forty minutes. + +The first presentation was delivered by the Industrial Designer, who focused on the design and components of the remote control. They suggested rubber as the preferred material for the casing due to its durability and ease of coloring without the risk of visible scratches, unlike titanium which, while robust, is expensive and prone to visible wear. The designer proposed a one-dimensional design with a curved form factor for aesthetic appeal and practicality when it’s placed on a table. + +The Marketing team member humorously mentioned, ""Don't destroy my giraffe,"" indicating a lighter, perhaps informal atmosphere, and later contributed insights from trend analysis, emphasizing the preference for fancy, innovative, and easy-to-use features. They also distinguished between the color and material preferences of younger consumers (who favor bright, fruity colors and soft materials) and older demographics (who lean towards autumnal colors, hard materials, and more traditional shapes). + +The User Interface (UI) specialist brought forth ideas about the interface of the remote control, the advancements in speech recognition technology, and introduced a preliminary sketch that considered an LCD touchscreen to replace traditional buttons for operations like volume and channel control. Different designs and layout positions for the buttons were also discussed, suggesting that the most common configurations found in existing remotes should be considered. + +During the collaborative discussion, numerous factors were taken into account, including material choice (rubber with the potential for multiple colors), button placement and accessibility, and the incorporation of a rechargeable battery and a charging dock. The potential inclusion of speech recognition features – still in the testing phase – was another innovative aspect debated. + +Participants conducted a dynamic conversation about the size and actuation of the LCD touchscreen, with an understanding that the interface should be large enough to be easily navigable but appropriately designed so that fingers would not accidentally activate unwanted controls. They chewed over the necessity of integrating a microphone for speech recognition into the design, with placement suggestions ranging from visible to discreet. + +There were mixed opinions on the inclusion of a scroll function. While it's potentially useful for navigating extensive options, the need for simplicity and familiarity was also emphasized. Color choices for the remote rounded out the debate, with a recommendation for standard colors (e.g., black or silver) and a wider range of vibrant options to appeal to different tastes and age groups. + +By the close of the meeting, the Project Manager reasserted the plan for actions, assigning the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer to collaborate on a prototype drawing. They also indicated that personalized instructions would be provided by their coach via email. The meeting wrapped up with consensus on the decisions and the contributors looking forward to the next steps. The recording ends with a casual conversation about the language used during the meeting, suggesting a multilingual team environment." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the third meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, April20, the committee is meeting for the purposes of considering ministerial announcements, allowing members to present petitions, and questioning ministers of the crown, including the Prime Minister, in respect of the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand there's an agreement to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six members of the Canadian Armed Forces who lost their lives last Wednesday in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece. We'll return to order. Colleagues, we meet today to continue our discussion about how our country is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. As we do, Canadians, like everyone around the world, are doing their best to live their lives until things improve. Meanwhile, as we look towards the future, I believe that it is also important to remember our past and to continue to mark the important moments in our shared history. At this very moment, the Dominion Carillonneur, Dr. Andrea McCrady, is performing a special recital to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by the Canadian Forces. In May 1945, Canadian Forces played a major role in liberating the Dutch people from Nazi occupation. May 5 is now a national holiday in the Netherlands that commemorates the event and the great friendship that now exists between our two countries. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Please be aware that the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. Let me remind you that, as in the House or in committee, members may not take photographs of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure orderly meetings, I will outline a few rules. Interpretation of this video conference will be done as it is at normal committee meetings and in the House. At the bottom of your screen, you can choose floor, English or French. As you have seen, I change as I am speaking. I have now switched over to English in order to speak English. If you look at the bottom, you have a little flag that indicates whether it's English or French, and that's how we will be speaking. It makes it easier. That was where we had a little bit of a glitch in the last session. I understand that there are no statements by ministers. We can now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that petitions presented during a meeting of the special committee must already have been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure that the petition is considered to have been properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for petitions certified in a previous Parliament should be emailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. on the day before the committee. I thank all the members for their usual co-operation. Thank you all. Now we'll proceed to presenting petitions. Our first petition comes from the honourable member for Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions today. The first petition is with respect to government Bill C-7. Petitioners raised concerns that this bill removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime. It includes removing the mandatory 10-day reflection period and the number of required witnesses who will witness a person's consent. The petitioners urge the House of Commons to immediately discontinue the removal of safeguards for people requesting euthanasia, and to put in place additional measures to protect vulnerable people. This would require that bill to be amended or not passed. The second petition is with respect to Senate public bill S-204. This is on organ harvesting and trafficking. Petitioners call on members of the House, and hopefully the Senate as well, to support Bill S-204, which would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It would also create provisions under which a person could be made inadmissible to Canada if they had been involved in organ harvesting or trafficking. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Thank you. I want to remind all the members that there are specific headsets that have been mandated to all of us. If you don't have one, please talk to your IT ambassador and they will get one to you as quickly as possible. The reason for them is not so much for what you hear, but that our interpreters are working and there are work conditions that really make it difficult. Part of that is not having the appropriate boom on your headset, which will make it very difficult for them to hear and interpret for our members. Now we go to the member for BeachesEast York, Mr. Erskine-Smith. +Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (BeachesEast York, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I had to learn how to tie my tie all over again. It's been so long. I want to thank Jenna Robar, who's led this petition e-2453. The petitioners have noted that there are approximately 60 indigenous languages in Canada and that 2019, last year, was declared by the UN to be the year of indigenous languages. They draw attention to article 13 of the UNDRIP and to the TRC's calls to action numbers 13 to 16. Fundamentally, they call upon the Government of Canada to recognize indigenous languages as being official languages of Canada and to have each language recognized nationally, with implementations on regional and provincial levels, acknowledging that many regions have different languages. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am proud to present a petition on behalf of one of my constituents, Myles Lynch of St. Andrews West in my riding. Myles made history as the first Canadian ever to survive three double-lung transplants. Myles lives with cystic fibrosis and has had three lung transplants in the last five years, and he's only 22 years old. Myles created a documentary called 8 Thousand Myles, which had a few showings in my riding. It documented his journey across Canada. One thing Myles has been advocating for is the creation of a national opt-out program for organ donation. Myles asked me how he could help raise awareness of that issue. I mentioned to him e-petitions online and getting people across the country to sign them. I am proud to have this certified today, with 1,318 signatures, asking the Standing Committee on Health to launch a study into the feasibility of the creation of a national opt-out program. I give kudos to Myles not only for his strength personally but also for his advocacy for others and for saving lives in our country by advocating for a better and an improved organ donation system. Kudos to Myles. I'm proud to present this petition today. +Mr. Peter Julian (New WestminsterBurnaby, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'm very pleased to present this certified petition on behalf of several dozen residents of Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton, Ontario, who add their voices to those of the thousands upon thousands of Canadians who have signed similar petitions. Given that Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events, and at the same time our society, as you know, is suffering from worsening social and economic inequalitieshalf of Canadian families are only $200 away from insolvency in any given monthand particularly given the pandemic that we are currently experiencing, these petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to support motion M-1, a made-in-Canada green new deal that I am presenting in front of the House of Commons. It calls on Canada to take bold and rapid action to tackle the climate emergency, and to put in place a shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to table a petition on behalf of constituents from CourtenayAlberni. They are concerned, obviously, about fentanyl-related deaths. Over 12,000 Canadians have died over the last four years due to fentanyl-poisoned sources. They cite that the current war on drugs has been costly and grossly ineffective; that it has resulted in widespread stigma towards addiction and against those who use illicit drugs; and that criminalization of particular substances has resulted in the establishment of a drug trade that now trafficks dangerous and lethal products such as fentanyl. They are citing that regulating to ensure safe sources, with proper measures and bylaws, will reduce the criminal element associated with street drugs. Problematic substance use is a health issue and is not resolved through criminalization of personal possession and consumption. They are calling on the Government of Canada to declare the current opioid overdose and fenanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act. They are calling for the government to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession, as has been done in Portugal and other countries, and to create with urgency and immediacy a system to provide safe and unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm presenting a petition today that contains the concerns of Canadians in my riding with the government's approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petition highlights that the Liberal government's December 5, 2019, Speech from the Throne contains numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation; that the term military-style assault rifles is a political phrase undefined in Canadian law; that municipalities are constitutionally unable to enact criminal law to ban handguns in their jurisdictions; that the experts, including chiefs of police, agree that banning firearms and requiring law-abiding gun owners to follow more unnecessary red tape will not increase public safety; that the majority of guns used in violent crimes are smuggled into Canada from the United States; and that the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal gun traffickers responsible for violence in our communities. The petitioners in MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon are calling on the government to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed, RCMP-vetted Canadians; and to focus our limited resources on anti-gang enforcement, on reducing the involvement of at-risk youth and gangs, on mental health and on providing the Canada Border Services Agency with the tools they need to do their job effectively. +The Chair: Very good. That's all for petitions today. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind honourable members that no member shall be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the question should do so by simply turning on their mike and speaking. I want to again remind honourable members to use the boom on the official headsets so that everything runs smoothly, not only for ourselves but also for the interpreters. We start the question period with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Although we are right in the middle of a pandemic and the government has agreed to set aside all parliamentary business in order to concentrate solely on eliminating the virus in Canada and its impacts, the Prime Minister is deceiving Canadians by introducing measures to punish law-abiding firearm owners. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, I feel that all Canadians were affected by the massacre in Nova Scotia. Once again, too many families are facing tragedy and tremendous grief. During the last election campaign, we promised to ban military-style assault weapons, and that is exactly what we have done. We will be working with members from all parties in order to continue strengthening gun control. It is a shame that, once more, the Conservatives do not want to strengthen gun control in the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I understand the Prime Minister's reply. However, I would like to know whether he considers that, with this order in council, organized crime, street gangs and other criminals are simply going to turn in their weapons. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: This is indeed only a first step, but it is an important one. We are doing other things to eliminate or restrict handguns in our municipalities, to strengthen the control at our borders, and to implement other measures. I am pleased to hear the hon. member speak of those measures, because we are going to work together in the House to strengthen gun control. I hope that the Conservative Party will be part of that discussion in a positive way, in order to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I can simply say to the Prime Minister that the Conservative Party has always been committed to battling criminals, not law-abiding citizens. Speaking of criminals, we know that, even before the pandemic, the Prime Minister had asked the Parole Board of Canada to release prisoners more easily and more quickly. Now we are learning that, because of the pandemic, some releases are happening very quickly. The Minister of Public Safety told us that the people were approaching the end of their sentences or were older, but we are learning in the media that some dangerous criminals are being released. Can the Prime Minister give us an explanation? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The protection, the safety and the health of all Canadians are important for the government. This is why we have taken additional measures in our correctional services to ensure that guards and inmates are protected. We have indeed opened the doors to some more speedy releases, but only in very specific cases that present little or no danger for Canadians. We have managed to find the right balance. We must protect Canadians and we must also ensure that they are safe. Those two things go hand-in-hand. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So is the Prime Minister confirming to us that no dangerous criminals have been precipitously released so that they do not have to experience COVID-19 within the walls? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There are very strict rules and principles to ensure that people posing a threat to society are not released. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have one minute left. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Chinese government has not been transparent with the rest of the world about the coronavirus. Australia asked for an in-depth investigation, but has received threats from the communist regime. Is Canada going to stand by its allies in the Five Eyes and demand that the Chinese government be completely transparent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We continue to stand in solidarity with our allies, including the Five Eyes, as they have stood in solidarity with Canada in terms of the two Canadians who have been unjustly detained for a long time in China. In the coming months and years, we expect to obtain answers to all our questions about the origin of this pandemic, including questions that are important for China. At the same time, we are going to work hard to ensure that all Canadians have the equipment and the protection they need to get through this pandemic. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am sorry that I do not have my official headset. I was elsewhere, and I did not bring it with me. I hope that you can still hear me properly. For some days, discussions have been going on between people from the Bloc Qubcois and people from the government with a view to collaboratively coming up with a proposal for seniors in Quebec and Canada. The gist of our proposal is to temporarily increase the old age security by about $25per week, or $110per month. By the way, I hate the term ""old age security. I prefer ""senior security. The discussion has been going on for some time and it's a proposal that we made in the election campaign. We are asking for it to be done at this point, at least temporarily. Parliament stopped sitting in the middle of March. We are now in May, and seniors still have nothing. They are impatient themselves, and we spend a good part of our days answering them. Given that impatience, I realized I should not be the one answering them, it should be the Prime Minister. So here is my question for the Prime Minister: what are you doing to seek a solution that will increase the purchasing power of seniors in Quebec and Canada in the very short term? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Clearly, seniors need support and significant services from us because of COVID-19. Our priority was to implement income replacement benefits for workers who have lost their jobs because of COVID-19. Then we announced different measures, including measures for seniors. The most vulnerable seniors are going to receive reimbursement of the GST, which will help them very quickly. We have also reduced by 25% the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds. We have also channelled $9million through the United Way, to help the most vulnerable seniors. Absolutely, I recognize that more must be done. I am very pleased that we have been able to work with other parliamentarians, including those in the Bloc Qubcois, to hear these concerns and to find the best way to help seniors in the short term. In terms of the pandemic, they have concerns about their physical security, but also about their financial security. We will have more to say about this soon. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the last few hours, the Prime Minister has indicated that he could need the cooperation of other parties, including the Bloc Qubcois, on a completely different matter. We are very open to that discussion, but we want the same openness when we are asking for something to serve the people of Quebec. The cost of a basket of groceries has increased for seniors, as it has for everyone else. It's true for all seniors over 65years old, of course. The current old age pension represents less than half of the Canada emergency student benefit. It represents less than one third of the basic Canada emergency response benefit. Seniors in my constituency, as in any other of the 338constituencies, are asking what we are doing. They are asking how there can be nothing for them. When will there be something for them? I want to be able to give them an answer of some kind. What is the Prime Minister's answer? I will repeat it to them. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There will be announcements in the coming days on the way in which we will be able to help seniors, particularly the most vulnerable seniors. We recognize that the cost of a basket of groceries is increasing for everyone. That is why we have to do better for our seniors. There are horror stories, whether about the CHSLDs, or about our most vulnerable seniors across the country. Far too many families are experiencing tremendous grief. There are seniors who are alone, seniors who are afraid of falling ill without ever seeing their grandchildren or their children again. We have to be there for those who belong to that great generation that fought for us during the second world war. Now we have to fight for them in their homes. That is exactly what we are going to do. +The Chair: We'll go to the next question. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, every day I hear from people who are struggling to pay their bills and to keep a roof over their head. Instead of making sure that Canadians get the help they need, the government has created complicated programs that are still letting people fall through the cracks. If the Prime Minister won't commit to a universal benefit, will he at least commit to removing the restrictive eligibility criteria that are leaving the most vulnerable people behind? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we knew, when this pandemic hit, that we needed to help Canadians who were suffering from coast to coast to coast, particularly the most vulnerable. That is why we moved forward rapidly with the Canada emergency response benefit, which has helped over seven million individual Canadians and has made a huge difference. We had to move very quickly to get this money out to people, and that is exactly what we did. We also recognized that there would be a need to do more. That is why since that moment, we have continually worked on reaching out to the most vulnerable and supporting them as well. We have more to do, but we knew that targeted approaches were what was most needed. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government continues to leave people behind. I spoke to a woman in my riding who was homeless last year. She recently found a job and a place to live. However, because she didn't make $5,000 last year, when the pandemic hit she didn't qualify for any benefits. She didn't qualify, but she is one of the people who need it the most. I'm wondering why the Prime Minister doesn't think she deserves our support. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our focus throughout this crisis has been on helping the most vulnerable with targeted measures that will lift Canadians out of poverty and will support them. Over the past five years, we've lifted over a million people out of poverty in this country, and we've continued to put the most vulnerable at the heart of everything we're doing. We will continue to. We've put significant investments forward to charitable organizations and foundations that are helping the most vulnerable. At the same time, we will continue to look for more ways to help even more than the seven million Canadians who successfully receive the CERB. We recognize there's more to do, and we will continue trying to do everything we can in this unprecedented situation. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government is weirdly committed to eligibility criteria that result in regular people not getting the support they need, but not so committed to criteria for corporations and billionaires who get our help. If a company is cheating the public, using offshore tax havens not to pay its fair share, it should not be eligible for government bailouts or benefits. Other countries, like Poland, Denmark and France, have made this commitment, and if they can do it, so can we. The Prime Minister said one thing one day and another the next. Will he commit now that if a company has money in offshore tax havens, it will not receive public funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the measures we've put forward are focused on helping workers who lose their jobs, regardless of the companies they work for. It is a shame to hear the NDP, which used to be the party of workers, choosing to judge workers by which multinational they work for. We have moved forward with a wage subsidy such that the employers are obliged to pass every single penny on to the workers. That is not help for the companies. That is help for the workers, and that has been our focus all the way through: ordinary Canadians who need support because they are unable to work because of COVID-19. That has been our priority, and that is what Canadians need right now. Of course, we continue to have very strong measures to fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion. We spent a billion dollars to strengthen our Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, can I ask my last question? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We will continue to do that. +The Chair: I'm just going to pause the time for a moment. I want to remind honourable members that we're trying to stay within committee rules, which state that the length of a question and the length of an answer should be approximately the same amount of time. I just want to remind our members of that. I'll go back to Ms. Collins. She has about 45 seconds left, and hopefully that's about half and half for the question and the answer. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Thanks so much, Mr. Chair. My last question is about housing and homelessness. My community was facing a crisis long before the pandemic hit, and now people who are living on the streets or in parks don't have the luxury of following public health advice and just staying home. In Victoria, the province and the municipality have stepped up with solutions to house people, at least for the short term, in local hotels. Will the federal government respond to this immediate crisis and provide the needed investments in long-term, stable housing? +The Chair: The right honourable Prime Minister, in 25 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Chair, we have moved forward with a historic national housing strategy that puts $40 billion toward housing. Working with partners, we have reduced poverty by over a million people in this country, but there is more to do. We are reducing homelessness by half with historic investments. We recognize that during this pandemic there's even more to do for vulnerable Canadians, and we are partnering with orders of government to make sure that happens. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): A point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: Order. Mr.Godin has a point of order. +Mr. Jol Godin: Mr.Chair, I cannot hear the French interpretation. Could we please check so that I can hear in French what the Prime Minister is saying? +The Chair: Okay. Can we check that? +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I can try speaking English. I believe I was on the English tab, as is important. Are you hearing the translation now? +The Chair: That is exactly what the issue was. I just want to point that out to all the members. I'm speaking English right now and I'm on the English toggle at the bottom of the screen. It does create a bit of a disjoint when we're speaking, but it's the way to get around that so we have interpretation that works for everyone. The next question will go to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, as this is our first opportunity to meet in any forum, I want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the families of the brave men and women who lost their lives in the helicopter crash. I know that I speak for all parliamentarians when I extend our sympathy to their families and loved ones. Mr. Chair, I want to raise with the Prime Minister an issue that I've raised several times before, and that is a gap in the wage subsidy program. There is a company in my riding that employs thousands of people across the country. Last year, they acquired another company. Those companies separately would qualify for the wage subsidy, but because of rules that the government designed, together they do not. Even though collectively they have experienced a massive drop in revenue and would otherwise be eligible, so far they've been unable to get confirmation that they will be able to access the program. As a result, thousands of jobs are threatened. Will the Prime Minister be able to deliver some good news to people who work for Brandt Tractor all across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the honourable member for his question and for his advocacy for his community and businesses in his riding. As I told him when we spoke directly, Finance officials have been directly in contact with the company in his riding. We recognize that there are particular elements in regard to this company that are challenging around application for the wage subsidy, but I know that Finance officials are working very hard to try to make sure that everyone who needs the subsidy gets it, so that the workers in his community can get the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister knows that there are many companies across the country that fall into this category as well, so we're hoping for some good news. Just flagging the time and date, it is well into May now and important decisions have to be made in very short order. There are other aspects of the government's plans to help get people through this crisis that are also causing people to fall through the cracks. The plan to help businesses with rent applies only after a business has lost 70% of their revenue. As provinces start to open up, many companies are going to be faced with a very difficult decision of operating at perhaps 35% or 45% of regular revenues. They will not be able to access these programs and, in many cases, there is going to be a disincentive to reopen and put people back to work. Will the Prime Minister amend these programs to provide for more flexibility so that more and more Canadians can start to return to work in the weeks ahead? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we are in an unprecedented crisis and we had to move quickly to support workers and to support families across the country, and that's exactly what we did. We're going to continue to work to try to respond to the reality that people and businesses are facing right across the country. I am eager to be faced with the challenge of how to ease off in these measures so that people can get back to work. We are getting closer to that point, but we are not there yet. We are still focused very much on giving the supports to workers and families that are so necessary in this time of crisis. As different provinces move forward towards reopening, as we look at different paths forward, I know that I will be able to count on all members in the House and, indeed, on Canadians from coast to coast to coast to figure out together what the best way will be to move forward on keeping us safe and restoring economic activity in the right way. That will be good to work on together once we get there. +The Chair: We have about a minute left for maybe a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, no one is disputing the need to move quickly. We are now in May, though, and these programs have been announced for weeks. Canadians have been accessing them. The problems with them have been flagged for the government for weeks as well, but we're also going to see an additional challenge, where people who are receiving the emergency response benefit, who may have the option to go back to work and work some hours, are faced with a hard cap of $1,000 a month before they lose the CERB. Conservatives are proposing a progressive system, a more flexible system, where people will be able to earn more without losing their benefits as businesses ramp up but before normal working hours are restored. Again, will the Prime Minister build in some flexibility to lift the restrictive ceiling on what people can earn before losing benefits so that it always pays more to work? +The Chair: I believe the timer is telling all of us that the time is up, but I'll give the right honourable Prime Minister about 30 seconds to answer that, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority was getting support for Canadians right across the country with the CERB, with the wage subsidy and with other measures for students, for seniors, for farmers and for agricultural producers. That has been our priority, and that's what we have worked on. I hear the concerns that the Conservative Party has around disincentives. We are going to work with communities and with industry as we look to reopen, to make sure that people have opportunities to work and are not penalized for it. However, our overarching priority was allowing Canadians to be confident in their ability to stay home, care for their loved ones, buy groceries and pay their rent so that we could keep safe during this pandemic. That's exactly what we did. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu now. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Mr. Chair, seniors in my riding are struggling. We've heard the Prime Minister admit that fixed incomes for some of them are down, rent is increasing and the price of groceries is increasing. He's been saying for weeks that in the coming days, something would be announced for seniors. The fact is that the Liberals ran on an election promise to increase the old age security. Which of the days in the coming weeks will they keep their promise to seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, after a lifetime of hard work, of course Canadians deserve peace of mind when it comes to their retirement security. COVID-19 is definitely having a disproportionate impact on seniors. They have a greater need for services and supports. Happily, their pensions and their benefits are still flowing, unlike for so many of those who have lost their jobs, but it's still tough. We introduced measures Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Which day? Hon. Deb Schulte: at the beginning of April. People received a GST credit, a supplementary payment that was $400 on average for single seniors and $600 for couples. That was of significant help to low- and moderate-income seniors. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Yes, Mr. Chair. I think you had reminded us as members that the amount of time for the answer should be similar to the amount of time for the question. I would just ask the minister to keep to that. I would like to go to my second question. +The Chair: I want to remind all honourable members to keep their answers as well as their questions as concise as possible. Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Very good, Mr. Chair. My riding is on the border of Canada and the U.S. We see a number of inconsistencies in what is considered essential travel with regard to the U.S. and actually in the interpretation of different CBSA agents. While we have Americans coming over to buy cheaper prescription medications and to fish, individuals in my riding who are trying to get auditors over so that they can be approved for export businesses are being declined. We have people who have purchased masts from Canadian producers for their boats, and who want to come and pick them up, who are not being allowed to do that. People trying to sell plasma into the U.S. are being denied. When will they clarify the rules to the CBSA agents so that essential travel and trade and commerce, including individual commerce, is understood? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, we have implemented very rigorous rules that have been well documented and understood by CBSA to stop all non-essential travel. Those measures have been very successful. We've seen a 99% reduction in international travel coming into Canada. At the same time, we recognize the importance of maintaining essential supply routes so that goods and services could reach Canada and we could put groceries on our shelves. We also recognize the important work that essential workers do on both sides of the border. We have provided CBSA with clarification. Their interpretation of those rules has been broadly consistent. I've heard from a number of our colleagues in caucus with concerns about individual cases. When we receive those inquiries, we follow up immediately. I want to assure the member that we'll continue to do that. The work we are doing to stop non-essential travel has been important for the health and safety of Canadians, and we will continue with that work. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, my next question has to do with sole proprietor businesses. We see that many of them are not eligible for any of the benefit packages that have been rolled outEI, CERB, the wage subsidy, etc. What is the government going to do to address sole proprietors who are currently falling through the cracks? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, first, let me say that we absolutely recognize there are businesses across the country of all sizes that are finding this to be extremely difficult. The intent of the measures we put forward is obviously not only to give individuals a bridge but to give businesses a bridge. We are looking at ways that we can ensure that the Canada emergency business account has the broadest possible application. More than 500,000 businesses have already been approved for these loans, representing over $20 billion. We are looking at ways we can consider that eligibility process, recognizing that we need to make sure that the program continues to have its desired impact, and we will have more to say on that. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, this is my first appearance, so I hope you can hear me okay. +The Chair: We can hear you fine. Please proceed. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to see everyone's faces. On April 3, the fisheries minister said opening dates would be determined by harvesters. Since then the minister has overruled the will of harvesters in Prince Edward Island and in the gulf who voted to start their seasons on time, but she has allowed harvesters from her own riding to proceed with their seasons as scheduled, giving them access to markets weeks before their competitors. This double standard is severely unfair and Atlantic harvesters are furious, as demonstrated during the protests on the Canso Causeway yesterday. When will the minister stop abusing her position and start respecting fish harvesters by opening up lobster fishing areas 23, 24 and 26? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Mr. Chair, when making decisions with regard to when seasons open, a number of factors are taken into account. They are complex decisions that take into account what is necessary for processors to be ready for the season, what is necessary for harvesters to be ready for the season, as well socio-economic impacts on the area. We're looking at all of those measures when we make these decisions. We do not make them lightly. They are difficult decisions to make. In the decisions we've made around the gulf, one of the main things we heard from all of those areas is that it was very important for them to start on the same date. That is why the decision was made to start on the 15th of May. We're looking forward to seeing the harvesters out on the water. We're looking forward to the product that they bring in. We'll continue do everything we can to support the industry. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Minister. I believe the time +The Chair: Excuse me. No, the hon. minister had another 15 seconds coming to her. I'd like to remind hon. members not to interrupt a person while they are speaking. I'll do my best to try to keep it about level. Maybe I'll start muting if it's necessary, but interrupting is not going to solve anything. Mr. Arnold, I'll let you continue. You have three minutes and nine seconds left. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. West coast fishing tourism is a key economic driver in British Columbia, especially in coastal communities, and yet the public fishery gets no respect from the government. Last year, the public fishery was weakened by restrictions based on ideology and not science. A year later, the fisheries minister refuses even to discuss viable, science-based solutions to conserve B.C.'s public fisheries. Does the minister and her government have a will and a plan to support Canada's west coast fisheries and the communities they sustain? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, the fishery is important in every coastal community. I recognize its value for our economy, as well as what it means to our coastal communities. That's why we continue to work with those communities and with the fisheries to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to support them. During these extremely difficult times, we're working on measures with the fishery in B.C., as well as on the Atlantic coast and eastern Quebec, to make sure that we're delivering for them and that all of the issues they're having are being addressed. +The Chair: Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, Canada's seniors, especially those on basic incomes, are being hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis as they face new rising costs and scarcity of services. Seniors require adequate caregiver supports, physical safety and freedom to access their savings to reinforce their financial security. Why has the government failed to recognize the increasing challenges that seniors are facing? Will the government support Canada's senior citizens? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to assure my hon. colleague that the government has been focused on seniors during this challenging time. We have provided a GST credit supplement of $400 for single seniors and $600 for couples, for low- and modest-income seniors. We have also ensured that the Canada emergency response benefit is there for seniors who have lost income due to COVID-19. We've made them eligible. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Arnold. Mr. Arnold, you have a minutehopefully a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On April 23, my colleagues and I called on the government to create a program that would match students seeking employment with employers in Canada's essential food supply chains. What has the government done to match students and other Canadians seeking employment with employers in the agriculture and agri-food sectors, including those in the fish and seafood sector? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we're doing all we can to make sure, using our existing employment programs, that we create opportunities for students to work and get work experience this summer. We know that this is going to be really tough, especially in areas like agriculture, so we have dedicated streams for agriculture sector employers to access students with help from the government, and a number of different initiatives including Canada summer jobs, which I'm really excited to see the results of in the coming days. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to the next question from Ms. Harder. Ms. Rempel, do you have a point of order? +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. With my colleague, Mr. Arnold, it's the second time that I note you've threatened to cut off a Conservative microphone. I'm just wondering, given that this isn't the House of Commons and it's structured as a committee, what standing order would give you the right to cut off a member of Parliament using a mute button. It seems a little dictatorial, and I was just wondering whether you could clarify that, based on the Standing Orders. +The Chair: I don't think I threatened to use mute, but thank you for bringing that up. I am trying to keep the rules where the questions and the answers are equal, so that there are no interruptions on either side. That's how we're going to continue. I didn't use the mute. I did it verbally and I think that's a little more civil way of doing it. I hope you approve. I'm not asking you to comment on that. We'll go over to Ms. Harder. Thank you. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: But, on the point of order, Mr. Chair, you actually, to me, last week, and to Mr. Arnold, did suggest that you were going to use the mute button. +The Chair: I believe that if we take everything out and go over it.... Bring the papers with the actual verbiage on it where I threatened, and we'll go over it, but I don't think this is the venue to do that. If you want to bring forward a point of order, I'm all in favour of it. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: Well, I am bringing forward a point of order. I've asked you to clarify +The Chair: Very good. We'll look into it and get back to you. Thank you. We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Canadians have outrightly expressed outrage and disappointment with the government's initiative to put a gun ban in place. Does the minister stand by his comment that these changes would have prevented the tragedy in Nova Scotia? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 15 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: We have heard from health professionals, women's rights organizations, victims groups and the police and our unions. They're all very supportive of the government's measure to ban weapons that have no place in a civil society and were designed to kill people. +Ms. Rachael Harder: It's interesting that the minister is misleading Canadians in that comment because the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has actually said that a gun ban will do nothing of the sort, that it actually will not protect Canadians. So I'd be curious. How many criminals will see guns seized because of the changes that have been implemented by the Liberal government? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, let's actually quote what the police have said. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed assault rifles. The chief in Toronto said that taking those assault rifles off the streets contributes to public safety, and the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs has declared that military assault rifles are produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and they urged successive governments to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The answer to that question is zero. Absolutely no criminals will see their guns seized based on the Liberals' legislation that's coming forward because it actually goes after those who legally own and use their firearms. Can the Prime Minister please tell us why he decided to go after law-abiding citizens instead of actually going after criminals who have gotten their firearms in an illegal manner and then used them to commit crimes? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 25 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, to be very clear, the order in council actually is targeted at weapons, weapons that were designed for military use, and in their design and in their intent, to kill people, they've actually been used in this country, at cole Polytechnique; in Moncton; at a Quebec City mosque; in Fredericton; at Mayerthorpe and most recently in Nova Scotia. These are weapons that really have no place.... They are being used and have been used in Canada and around the world to commit mass murder, and in the interest of public safety and at the urging +The Chair: We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Thank you. Now I understand the Prime Minister has his food prepared for him at 24 Sussex Drive and then it's delivered to him at the cottage where he lives. Contrary to his privileged understanding, food actually originates with farmers. Now, they're in a crisis right now, which means that regular Canadians are actually at risk of not having food available for them at the grocery stores where they purchase theirs. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture requested $2.6 billion to help them out. Today, the government announced one-tenth of this amount. Why doesn't the Prime Minister care about the women and the men who work incredibly hard to keep Canada fed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, let me assure the hon. member that our government cares very, very much about the women and men who work so hard to feed our country. Let me just say I am grateful to all the farmers, like my dad, who are out in their fields right now getting ready for seeding. We, as Canadians, are lucky to be citizens of an agricultural superpower, and our government believes in supporting our farmers and ranchers. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm confused as to why the Prime Minister didn't take my question, and at a bare minimum as to why the agriculture minister doesn't feel it's important enough for her to be a part of this discussion today. When we have farmers who produce for Canadians on a daily basis and they're asking some serious and some very important questions, and we don't even have a minister who's willing to come to the table and engage in this conversation, that's shameful. Several meat-packing plants have been forced to shut down because of COVID-19 and, as a result, farmers are forced to hold stock longer than expected. Cattle producers in my region are spending more than $60,000 a day to keep their livestock fed while they wait for processing plants to reopen. The amount that was announced today by the federal government is a drop in the bucket. It's a crumb. When will the government take this seriously and at least implement a set-aside program for those who are beef producers in Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just say that I feel there is nothing shameful at all in having me, the Deputy Prime Minister, answer questions about agriculture. I am actually very proud to speak up for Canada's amazing farmers, for our country's amazing ranchers, for our amazing pork producers and our poultry producers. I feel so close to our farmers. I love them and our government supports them. Today, we announced $252 million of support for our producers. They need it. They deserve it. We're here for them. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the six military heroes who lost their lives at sea last week. I'm sure that all members of the House stand shoulder to shoulder with the families, with the crew of the HMCS Fredericton and, indeed, with the entire Canadian Armed Forces community during this time of grief. Can the Minister of National Defence give us an update as to the Cyclone helicopter crash off the coast of Greece last week? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, the deaths of the Canadian Armed Forces members are felt by all, and especially the families. Our condolences go out to them. Our number one priority is to make sure that we look after them, and that's exactly what we are doing. Currently, the investigation is ongoing. Our investigative team is currently on the ground. I actually spoke with the Italian minister of defence and he promised full support for this investigation and any support that's required. +The Chair: I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off there, if we're going by the rules that were pointed out by the House. Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to Minister Sajjan again, I'm going to change gears a bit. I know that back in early January, military intelligence through CF Intelligence Command was reporting, through the chain of command, the novel coronavirus and the outbreak in Wuhan. On what date was he, as Minister of National Defence, given his first intelligence briefing on the outbreak and the pandemic in China? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, we have been following this crisis from day one. We work with our Five Eyes intelligence sources and this has been a whole-of-government effort, right from the beginning. I can assure you that our response to this pandemic has been with all the necessary information. Obviously, I can't discuss the intelligence in this forum, but I can assure you that our response has been well informed with the correct information. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, we know that intelligence was going up the chain of command in National Defence. It was reported in the media that in early January the hierarchy within the Canadian Armed Forces was being made aware of the coronavirus outbreak. I asked you, Minister, when you became aware of it and what you did with that intelligence. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I get regular briefings on intelligence. Yes, I was made aware of this in January. As with all our intelligence, we work together from a whole-of-government perspective with all of our intelligence agencies. One thing I can assure you is that our response has been well informed with all the correct information that is provided to me and other members of cabinet. +Mr. James Bezan: What was that timeline? From the time you were first told, Minister Sajjan, about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, what did you do with that intelligence? When did you give it to the Prime Minister or to Minister Hajdu as the Minister of Health? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me say that our government's response to this global pandemic has of course been informed by the excellent work of Canadian intelligence agencies throughout. We have been working on this from very early on. On January 2, PHAC first spoke with provincial health authorities to alert them to the situation. On January 14, it convened a meeting of all provincial health authorities. In January, the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the incident response group, and in January we increased screening at all major airports. All of these actions were informed by the work of our excellent intelligence community, and of course our work with our Five Eyes, NATO and NORAD allies. +Mr. James Bezan: I want to come back +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. James Bezan: I still have 30 seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Can I go ahead, Mr.Chair? +The Chair: Yes, go ahead. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. In an interview with Grald Fillion, tax expert Andr Lareau, who specializes in tax havens, pointed out that $350billion Canadian is parked in just 12tax havens. Companies are using tax havens for financing, operations and intellectual property activities. Mr.Lareau also notes that the government is aware that all of this Canadian money is stashed in tax havens but is doing nothing about it. He said that it's time for Canada to tackle the problem given that it has a $250-billion deficit, and that if it doesn't act now to change things, it never will. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to outlaw the corporate use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, as soon as we took office, in 2015, our government made cracking down on tax evaders in Canada and abroad a priority. That's precisely why we put nearly a billion dollars towards that effort. I realize that my fellow member is impatient, but he has to understand that this is a very complex issue. Under our leadership, in three years, the Canada Revenue Agency has undertaken twice as many audits related to offshore tax evasion as it did in the 10years the Conservatives were in power. As we speak, the agency is conducting more than 50criminal investigations tied to international tax evasion. I repeat, this is a top priority for our government. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: You're right, I am very impatient, because whenever I bring up the fact that companies are using tax havens legally, the minister misses the point and tells me that she is going after fraudsters. I am talking about the legal use of tax havens by companies. Since Parliament began sitting virtually, it's been mentioned a few times that Denmark and Poland have decided to deal with the issue. Even France's finance minister, Bruno LeMaire, said that companies with subsidiaries in tax havens would not be eligible for public assistance. We hear thePrime Minister and other government officials say all the time that the wage subsidies are going to workers, so I'd like to cite another examplebanks. The government is injecting huge amounts of cash into the financial system and repurchasing troubled assets in massive quantities, and yet, the five major banks in Toronto, alone, are continuing to save billions of dollars every year by artificially redirecting their profits to tax havens. This is unacceptable. This has nothing to do with wages for workers, and everything to do with the repurchase of troubled assets, cash flow and billions of dollars that the government could be going after. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to make the corporate use of tax havens illegal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, our government is taking unprecedented steps through the Canada emergency wage subsidy measure to support businesses and workers affected by COVID-19. This is largely a trust-based program, and we will not tolerate abuse. Anyone who tries to bypass the rules will face serious consequences. Applicants have to designate an individual to attest to the truth of their claim. What's more, any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face a fine of up to 225% of the wage subsidy amount and up to five years in prison. The Canada Revenue Agency also has a myriad of tools at its disposal to detect a fraudulent claim. As I mentioned, cracking down on tax evasion is a priority for our government. +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds to ask your question, and about the same for the answer. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. That's an excellent answer, but it has nothing to do with my question. The Minister of Finance has the power to fix the problem now. Although completely immoral, the use of tax havens by companies is legal under section5907 of the Income Tax Regulations. Through simple regulatory amendments, the finance minister could put an end to this kind of abuse. We are going to have a $250-billion deficit to pay off, and everyone is going to have to chip in, including the rich who are currently taking advantage of the system. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, thanks to a historic billion-dollar investment, our government has given the agency the resources it needs to do the job, and we are starting to see results. I set up an expert advisory committee to provide us with guidance and recommendations. We tightened the rules for the voluntary disclosures program. We signed tax information exchange agreements with a number of countries. We audit four jurisdictions a year. We also work closely with the OECD. +The Chair: We now move on to another member. The next questioner is Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'm sharing my time slot with the member for SurreyNewton. In the wake of COVID-19, so many Canadians have been affected in so many ways. Financial loss and other burdens are having a huge impact on families across our country. I'm proud of how the Government of Canada has been beside Canadians through every step of this pandemic and has supported Canadians when they needed it most. In BonavistaBurinTrinity and across our country, our commercial fishery has seen many challenges and impacts. Last week, my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, announced an investment that will ensure resilience of the food system by allowing Canada's fish and seafood processing sector to safely and efficiently process, store, package and distribute healthy, high-quality products on to the plates of Canadians. The fish harvesters in my riding are fearful of what will happen within this industry and their immediate futures. They are facing a reduction in available markets and market prices. They are asking what our government is putting in place to assist in these extremely challenging times. When can we expect to hear an answer to our harvesters' requests for assistance? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague from BonavistaBurinTrinity for keeping us well aware of what's happening in his riding with harvesters and with processors. We know how important the fish and seafood sector is to our rural communities, our coastal communities. It's the backbone and the lifeblood of our communities and that's why we want to be there to support them. We've already taken steps by making sure that the CERB is now able to be accessed by people who are seasonal workers. As well, we are making sure that people who are running out of fishers EI are also able to qualify for it. We also have made an investment of $62.5 million to support our processors to make sure they are able to be ready for the challenges that they are going to face because of COVID-19. We know there is more to do. We know that the harvesters need support. We are working with our partners across industry to make sure we're hearing what their major concerns are. We know they are going to have some very challenging times this season. We will have more to say about that and what we will be able to do in the coming days. +The Chair: The next questioner is Mr. Dhaliwal. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (SurreyNewton, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all +The Chair: We have a point of order. Mr. Kurek. +Mr. Damien Kurek (Battle RiverCrowfoot, CPC): Sorry, but there seems to be an issue with the audio. I'm unable to hear the honourable member. +The Chair: It is very faint. Mr. Dhaliwal, can you check your audio to make sure everything's working well? +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: It was +The Chair: There we go. It's fine now. I think what happened was the boom had fallen down and it wasn't being picked up. There you go. Very good. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all vantage points in the supply chainfrom manufacturers to retailers, transport companies to warehousing. With provinces and territories moving at different speeds and implementing different protocols for reopening the economy, there is a lot of confusion in my local business community on the timing and logistics of how this will happen. With so many different parts of the supply chain operating in different jurisdictions, and with each business serving unique roles on this spectrum, how can the federal government serve to best coordinate with the provinces and territories so that the supply chain can be implemented smoothly as we embark on our economic recovery? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for his question and for his hard work. One of the most important things the federal government can do when it comes to the reopening of the Canadian economy is to work in close collaboration with the premiers of the provinces and territories. That's why I was so pleased that last week the Prime Minister, together with all the first ministers of the country, was able to issue a statement around the principles that will be guiding our entire country as we move towards a restart. This is so important because, as my colleague has pointed out, all of our business, our economic activity, happens across the country. It happens across provincial and territorial boundaries. I would really also like to take this opportunity to thank the first ministers across the country. They belong to different parties, but everyone has really been able to put partisanship aside. We have been able to work together in fighting coronavirus, and we are going to work together in the future to keep on fighting coronavirus and to reopen Canada. Thank you. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to represent my constituents virtually during this challenging period of physical distancing. I'd like to start by asking about supports for workers. In Alberta, meat-packing plants are directly responsible for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 cases. The government and management ignored the pleas of workers and did not put effective safety protocols in place to deal with COVID-19. Now, two workers are dead, at least six more are in intensive care and COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire through these communities. There are over 1,400 cases. Yesterday, employees were forced back to work even though their concerns had not been addressed. On March 27, regarding the CERB, the Minister of Finance said that if workers don't feel comfortable in their work, if they decide to stay home, they can apply for the benefit, yet the website says differently. Will the minister guarantee that every Canadian receiving CERB, EI or the CESB will not lose their benefits if they refuse to return to work or to accept work that is unsafe due to COVID-19? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me thank the member, first of all, for her really very important question. I think all of us share the concern for Canada's essential workers who are keeping us safe, putting food on our tables and often working in difficult conditions. When it comes to the Cargill plant, this is an issue that our government has been very closely engaged in. My colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has spoken with her provincial counterpart and the head of the plant. The decisions about suspending and reopening are taken by local and provincial health authorities. To the question my colleague asked about workers, it is absolutely the case that no Canadian should feel they need to work in an environment that is unsafe, and it is also very much the case that any Canadian who is feeling unwell should stay at home. This is the way that collectively we take care of ourselves and we take care +The Chair: We will go on to Ms. McPherson for the next question. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I just want to be clear, because I'm not a hundred per cent sure that I got an answer in that response, so I'll try one more time. Knowing that workers have a fundamental right to refuse unsafe work, can the minister confirm one hundred per cent that if workers refuse unsafe work, they will be able to access the CERB, or was the Minister of Finance incorrect when he spoke on March 27? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm sorry, but I was struggling with my mute button. I apologize. Let me just be very clear. No Canadian worker at any time should feel obliged to go to work in unsafe conditions. +Ms. Heather McPherson: But then could they access the CERB? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: In a time of coronavirus that is even more the case, and the government of course should not penalize workers for doing the right thing and declining to go to work in unsafe conditions. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair to avoid back and forth, just to try to keep some order in the meeting. Ms. McPherson, please continue. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I'm sorry, Chair. I have another question on the protection for workers. At the meat-packing plant, workers are calling for the plant to be shut down. In fact, we know that 85% of workers are afraid for their safety. If the provincial government won't shut down the plant, will the federal government shut down unsafe plants through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, let me be very clear that my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has been in touch with provincial authorities. She has been in touch with the plant. The duties of the food inspection agency, of course, are to ensure that the food produced at the plant is safe. That is what inspectors are trained to do and what they are focused on. We are working closely with provincial authorities and with health authorities to ensure that +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson: Mr. Chair, this will be one of my final questions on the meat-packing plant in Alberta. Can the finance minister please let us know if Cargill, a company that is owned by billionaires, with business in Luxembourg, a known tax haven, has received any federal funding this year for COVID-related support? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: This is a tough time for Canadians, and our government is doing everything it can to support them. More than 7million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit, which the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada administer. I want to say how proud I am of the work the agency is doing; staff worked tirelessly to get the program up and running in record time. MinisterQualtrough is responsible for developing the eligibility criteria and processing the claims. +The Chair: We are moving on to the next question. We'll continue now with Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question today is for the Prime Minister. Potato farmers in New Brunswick and across Canada are sitting on massive stores of potatoes that were destined for the restaurant industry, but due to the pandemic, they now have no customers. It's estimated that there is $300 million worth of potatoes still sitting in storage. What is the Prime Minister's plan for the helping farmers offload these potatoes so that they are ready for the 2020 season? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I think all of us as Canadians are proud of the great potato farmers across the country. We are aware that the coronavirus, by keeping us away from restaurants where we eat french fries, has had a profound effect on the market for potatoes. The program announced today by the Prime Minister and my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, will be very helpful for potato farmers, including with the surplus food program that starts with a $50 million fund, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bragdon now. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, thank you. With an estimated $300 million worth of potatoes in storage, the announced funding from the government today simply doesn't go far enough. In 2018 the New Brunswick potato industry lost over $20 million. It is estimated this year that the financial loss will exceed $40 million. For many producers still recovering from the hit they took in 2018, another major loss is totally unacceptable. How does the Prime Minister plan to mitigate these shortfalls and allow farmers to continue to grow the food we so desperately need? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the honourable member spoke about farmers generally. The program today is $252 million, which comes on top of the broad range of other programs that farmers, of course, have access to. On potato farmers, in particular, I agree with the honourable member that this is a specific area of concern. I think all Canadians would like to see those potatoes not be wasted but be used, and that's why the $50 million for surplus food purchase is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, farmers across all agricultural sectors are hurting during this pandemic. The $16-billion beef industry is expected to take a massive hit due to the closures and reduced production of the meat-packing plants. Does the government truly believe that the announced $125 million that is shared between beef, poultry and pork producers will be enough to support these multi-billion dollar industries so they can put food on the tables of Canadians? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the honourable member that our beef, pork and poultry producers are absolutely essential for our country. I am very pleased as a Canadian that we have security that comes from being a country that produces not only enough food for ourselves, but also enough food to feed the world. That is why the $125 million specifically to support our beef, pork and poultry producers is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, the government's announcement of $252 million for the agriculture sector falls well short of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's request for immediate government relief for farmers. The president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Mary Robinson, put it today something like this: that if the farmhouse is on fire, the government has offered the equivalent of a bucket of water. This will not go nearly far enough to help those in a desperate situation. Does the government have a plan to offer more than just crumbs to keep the vital agriculture sector operating and providing the food we so desperately need? When will the government finally make those who literally keep our land and grow our food a priority in this time of crisis? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I don't know about the honourable member, but where I come from, $252 million is not just crumbs. I know that Canadian farmers don't feel that $252 million is nothing, either. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two other aspects of the essential support for farmers that we announced today: the $77 million to support food processors, which will not only be important for the processors, but helpful for the farmers who produce products that go to them; and the $250 million that we would like to add to the Canadian Dairy Commission's line of credit to raise it to half a billion dollars, which will be very helpful to our essential dairy farmers. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question. Go ahead, Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Mr. Chair, a couple in my riding has had to shut down their business, and they are on CERB. They were shocked when their 16-year-old son also qualified, and he is receiving $8,000 on the basis of part-time work throughout the school year. Why is the government handing out a windfall to teenagers who are living at home while denying university students and ignoring seniors on fixed incomes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, any individual who has lost work for COVID reasons is eligible for the CERB, regardless of their personal circumstances. If you made $5,000 in the past year and are a resident of Canada, you qualify for the CERB. This is not a matter of differentiating between the personal circumstances of individuals but of acknowledging that many workers in different situations have lost their work or have had their work significantly reduced because of COVID. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Clearly, high school students would not have the same needs as university students and our seniors who are suffering at this time. The government's own findings on banning handguns and assault firearms state, In all cases the data does not conclusively demonstrate that these handgun or assault weapon bans have led to reductions in gun violence. Why is the Prime Minister so bent on penalizing law-abiding firearms owners when he should be focusing on funding our CBSA officers first, giving them the resources they need to seize smuggled firearms at our borders? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I note with some interest that when we brought forward legislation in a budget in the last two years to increase the number of officers at the border, the member opposite voted against it. I'm very pleased to hear that she now supports it. Let us be very clear. The evidence is overwhelming that these weapons are designed to be used, and have been used, to kill innocent people. Countries that adopt sensible gun policiesplaces like New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdomhave all recognized that there's no place for these weapons in a civil society. We promised Canadians that we would act on that concern. There have been far too many people killed with these weapons, and even most recently, to honour and respect the terrible tragedy in Nova Scotia, the time to act is now, and we've acted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Last week the Minister of Agriculture said, Step by step we are giving our farmers...the tools they need to continue their...work. On April 30, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called on the minister to create a $2.6-billion fund to maintain food security in Canada. This morning, the Prime Minister announced $252 million, hit-and-miss, across the agriculture sector. With all due respect, this is a slap in the face to our farmers and the agri-food sector. Instead of being here to speak to this announcement, the minister has chosen to do a press conference. This certainly reveals how seriously the minister takes this virtual sitting and parliamentary accountability. If the deputy minister is going to answer the question in her place, how does she see it is right to be providing $9 billion to students and only crumbs to our agriculture sector? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, first of all, let me say I do not, as has now been suggested by two members opposite, consider it in any way shameful that I should be answering questions about our support for the agricultural sector. Our government strongly supports our farmers. I have to say I personally very strongly support our farmers and have a strong personal connection to them. The $252 million of support is real and meaningful, and it is directed exactly where it is needed. It is directed at food processors, beef and pork producers and the dairy sector. As to the question about students, let me just point out that farm kids are students too, and farm kids will be benefiting from the support for students. I know they, their parents and grandparents are very +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Time is up. +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux, the next question goes to you. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Meat packing plants like Quebec-based Olymel are extremely worried that they won't be able to stay open throughout the pandemic. In the summer, these plants rely on students to do overtime and fill in for full-time employees on vacation. However, the Canada emergency student benefit makes it possible for these much-needed workers to stay home while still collecting the same amount of money. That's why the government must adjust its current summer job program for students in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. When is the government going to make these critical changes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure you that we are doing our best efforts to not disincentivize work. We know we need to support students with income support, but we also need to create jobs. We are looking at ways we can create additional jobs through Canada summer jobs, through the +The Chair: There is a point of order. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, what the minister is saying is not being interpreted. +The Chair: We'll just check to see how the technology is going. Is everything okay now? +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Yes, it's working. +The Chair: Let's try that again, Minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Last week, as part of the measures announced around supporting our students, we announced the creation of 76,000 additional jobs, including jobs in the agriculture and processing sectors. We know we need to work directly with employers to ensure they have the people they need. This is exactly what we're doing through our youth employment and skills strategy, and that's what we'll continue to do. We won't apologize for supporting students with income support in these difficult times. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I'm not sure the minister understood my question about the Canada emergency student benefit. I am very concerned about the agricultural sector, but the tourist and horticultural sectors are also on my mind. A number of business owners in my riding have reached out to me because the shortage of student workers is forcing them to shut down for the summer. This government has pulled the rug out from under them with the benefit it introduced for students. Minister, what do you have to say to those business owners in the tourist and horticultural sectors whom you are not helping? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, with all due respect, I believe we are helping students. We've heard very clearly from the students that they want to work and want to serve in their communities in this time of crisis. That's why we're creating additional employment opportunities and an income support mechanism that allows them to work. We're going to continue to look at ways we can support them through additional opportunities this summer. We know they want to work and they want to serve. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I hope that we'll see some concrete results. Pork and beef producers are feeling the impact of the country's shutdown triggered by the pandemic. Processing plants are suspending operations and buyers are tearing up their contracts. For the past five years, the government has been saying that the programs to help producers will be improved. Now more than ever, producers need these programs. However, the programs haven't been reviewed yet. When will the government make these changes, including the changes to agristability, and when can producers access them? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: We announced over $77 million in assistance for food processors to help them protect their workers and deal with the costs associated with the coronavirus. To help livestock and pork producers, we established agrirecovery, a national initiative that will provide $125million to help producers adapt to market changes. We're launching +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I understand some of what the minister is saying. The measures announced at noon today received a very cold reception from the entire agriculture and agri-food sector, since the sector had asked for about $2.6billion. I think that it's important to support our agri-food industry and our farms, given the significant need for sovereignty. Many Canadians in the agriculture and agri-food sector have made this clear, as I was saying earlier. Something must be done quickly, before our country becomes completely dependent on its neighbours. Has the government considered making significant changes to the various programs currently in place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our country, Canada, will never depend on its neighbours or any other country for food. Canada is a major beef, pork and grain producer. Canada is an agricultural superpower and we should all take pride in that. I want to mention another significant part of our announcement today, which is the $50million surplus food purchase program. This is very significant. I think that all Canadians must support this initiative. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We'll now move on to the next question. Mr.Calkins, the member for RedDeerLacombe, has the floor. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Madam Chair, how will the government's forced confiscation of law-abiding firearms owners' property prevent criminals from illegally acquiring firearms from the United States? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, in response to that, I would simply remind the member that we have made it very clear that these weapons have no place in civil society, so we have prohibited military-style assault weapons that have been designed to be used to kill people and have been used to kill people. I would also advise the member we will bring forward legislation to deal more effectively at the border. We'll make significant new investments in border services officers and in police. We'll bring forward new authorities, new offences, new penalties to deal with people who smuggle weapons across the border. We're also bringing in new regulations for the storage of weapons to make it more difficult for people to steal these guns. To deal with people who purchase them illegally and sell them illegally, there will be new offences and penalties to make ensure that they face the consequences. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: The government previously has said that decisions like classifying firearms should be left to experts. The recent decision was purely political and it flies in the face of evidence-based policy. A legal opinion that's already been obtained says that the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun with the choke removed is in excess of 20 millimetres. That means every 12-gauge shotgun with a choke in it with that choke removed is now prohibited. That is the same firearm that Olympic trap shooters, Olympic skeet shooters, duck hunters and geese hunters all across our country use on a very regular basis. Why did the government abandon an evidence-based policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to correct the member. First of all, we have prohibited large-bore weapons, such as grenade launchers, but with reference to the 10-gauge shotgun and the 12-gauge shotgun, I would simply remind the member that the bore of a 10-gauge shotgun is 19.69 millimetres in width and the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun is 18.53 millimetres in width, both of them under the size for prohibition and therefore not covered in the new prohibitions that the government introduced on Friday. I'm afraid his expert opinion is wrong. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, the opinion is that of one of the foremost experts we have in Canada when it comes to firearms legislation. If the entirety of the barrel length is considered, then the removal of the choke makes that barrel in excess of 20 millimetres. I would appreciate the minister clarifying that for law-abiding firearms owners. There is no plan for a buyback program in this policy, and law-abiding firearms owners are not able currently to surrender their firearms. Given this, and the fact that law-abiding firearms owners aren't committing any gun violence, what was the government's immediate benefit of making this announcement on May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to clarify. Along with the prohibition that we have put in place, we have also, using the order in council, established an amnesty period, but the amnesty period is non-permissive grandfathering of those weapons. They cannot be used, they can't be taken to the range for shooting, they can't be used for hunting, they can't be sold and they can't be transferred, so we have put in strong measures to ensure that these weapons will not be available for use. We have also put in an amnesty period that will allow us to bring forward the legislation and a budget in order to effect a responsible, safe and effective buyback program to remove these weapons from society. I look forward to the member's support for those measures as we go forward. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, since January 1, 2002, any law-abiding citizen who was issued with a firearms licence by the government would have been cross-referenced with a continuous eligibility check 6,695 times up until May 1 of this year. How many times was this most recent mass murderer here in Canada checked against a criminal database since January 2002? +Hon. Bill Blair: As the member is probably aware, there is a very extensive investigation currently being conducted into that individual and how he acquired his firearms, and it's not appropriate to discuss that. However, I think what is appropriate is to recognize that the weapons that this individual had available to him are weapons that were not designed for target shooting or hunting purposes or any sporting purposes. They were designed for soldiers to kill soldiers. In the hands of someone who is intent on mass murder, they represent an unacceptable and deadly risk to Canadians, and that's why we have prohibited them. I'd also remind the member that other countries that have adopted sensible gun control laws, such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, have also implemented very similar bans. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to the hon. member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to start by giving my condolences for the crew from the HMCS Fredericton who died, and in particular to the family of Captain Kevin Hagen. He was originally a constituent from NanaimoLadysmith. Other countries are strongly recommending that all citizens wear masks wherever people gather indoors, including in schools, on public transit and in stores. Taiwan has effectively stopped the spread of the coronavirus by supplying people with masks and installing dispensers of hand sanitizer throughout public spaces. The Taiwanese do not do a lot of testing or contact tracing. They do not have a lockdown. Taiwan started in the top 10 countries affected by COVID-19, and today it is number 119. Will Canada follow Taiwan's example so we can lift the lockdown safely and get Canadians back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for his question. There's no doubt that masks can play a role in a layered approach to protecting Canadians' health and safety, but as the member has mentioned, there are many other aspects to ensuring that Canadians are safe no matter where they go. For example, it is of utmost importance that Canadians practise social distancing. Social distancing can provide the most protection, in fact, when you're out in public or you're in another place where there are other people. Wearing a non-medical mask can add a layer of protection, and certainly Dr. Tam has said that when physical distancing is not an option, Canadians should consider wearing a mask. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you. I'd like to give a shout-out to Martha and her team, who are doing a fundraiser for the SPCA by making masks for citizens in my riding. Madam Chair, many people are falling through the cracks in the pandemic relief plan, including seniors who face an increase in the cost of living and a loss of retirement investment income. Will the government make the CERB a universal benefit to ensure that all Canadians who need help get help? If not, will the government increase old age security and allow seniors to withdraw funds from their RRSP without penalties so that they can pay their bills? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, and I really appreciate the question. We do recognize that OAS and GIS are very important parts of the retirement income of Canadians, particularly lower-income seniors. We've already introduced measures like the GST credit supplement to help seniors. The CERB is there for working seniors who have lost income as a result of COVID-19. We've also reduced the mandatory retirement withdrawals by 25%, and we've also spent half a billion dollars to support organizations that assist vulnerable Canadians, including seniors +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are going back to Mr. Manly. Thank you. +Hon. Deb Schulte: I do recognize that there's more to be done. Thank you. +Mr. Paul Manly: Many small businesses do not meet the eligibility requirements for the various relief programs on offer, particularly sole proprietorships. I have a long list of businesses in my riding that are missing out. At the same time, we have large companies in this country that use tax havens and loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of public services. Will the government ensure that the needs of small businesses are met and withhold relief from corporations that use tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): I want to thank the hon. member for the question. Small businesses are indeed incredibly important to all of our communities across the country. That is why we have implemented many measures to help them weather this difficult period in COVID-19. Whether it is a small business loan, a wage subsidy or commercial rent assistance, or just lowering the cost by deferring GST or HST or customs duties, many measures have been put forward to help our small businesses through this very difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Manly, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Madam Chair. As we navigate this pandemic crisis, we are also in the middle of another major crisis: the climate emergency. Will this government develop its economic recovery plan for the pandemic with the climate emergency at the forefront of its planning? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 15 seconds. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (Minister of Environment and Climate Change): Thank you for the question. The focus of the government at the present time is on combatting the virus and on steps to start to relax some of the measures that have been taken. As we look forward, we need to learn from the experiences of this crisis as well as look forward to some of the looming crises on the horizon. Climate change is one of those, and we certainly intend to reflect on resilience for the economy as we move forward. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Ms. Ashton. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is to the Minister of Indigenous Services. First nations across northern Manitoba and many others across the country have been doing everything possible to keep COVID-19 out of their communities. Many here have implemented strict lockdowns or travel restrictions, but the federal government has done virtually nothing to deal with the chronic issues that have made them vulnerable in the first place, such as overcrowded housing and the lack of hospitals. We have to be very concerned about a possible second deadly wave of COVID-19. What is your government doing to support communities in the face of that possibility? Why isn't the government supporting the call for a ventilation centre in Berens River, a hospital in Cross Lake, a hospital in the Island Lake region? If the government couldn't act in time for this first wave of the pandemic, can it at least act in time for a potential second wave? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Indeed, Madam Chair, one of the reflections we have in coming out of this global pandemic is that we don't want to go into the next one with the same social determinants of health that have made indigenous communities more vulnerable and more susceptible to contracting and then spreading COVID-19. A lot of the historic housing funds that we have mobilized in order to address overcrowding in particular are cold comfort to those communities that are still finding themselves in overcrowded situations. In the staged approach to the epidemic and the onset of COVID-19, there are many measures that Indigenous Services Canada and as a whole of government we will deploy, including surge capacity, increased PPE, and nurses and doctors. Obviously, we are looking for a medical solution to a medical problem, and that is what we will spare no expense or resource to address as indigenous communities continue to face the looming threat of a second wave of COVID-19 as they start to relax some of their confinement procedures. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Again, Madam Chair, to the Minister of Indigenous Services, many of us across northern Canada are deeply concerned by the outbreak taking place in northern Saskatchewan, centred in La Loche. The outbreak started from a worker who came back from a work camp in Fort McMurray. These camps are making workers sick, and they are proving deadly for first nations and northern communities. These work camps put public health at risk during a pandemic. Your government says it's committed to doing everything it can to keep first nations safe, yet nothing has been done to support calls for pandemic shutdowns. Will you support first nations in their call for shutdowns during this pandemic to save lives now? +Hon. Marc Miller: Madam Chair, the situation in La Loche is a very pressing concern. Members won't be surprised to know that that number will only increase as the days go on and as we implement aggressive testing and contact tracing. We are working with surrounding first nations and communities and with the Mtis and Dene communities in La Loche to ensure that medical precautions are being put into place and that strict social distancing is being put into effect. This is a situation that is very much evolving minute by minute, and it is something for which we have deployed additional resources, along with Meadow Lake and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority to ensure that there is a health response to a health problem. Clearly, we need coordination with the provinces to ensure that we have a seamless approach +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question referred to La Loche, but this is a broader issue. There are many work camps, including here in our north, that first nations are extremely concerned about. Will your government step in to support their calls for temporary shutdowns at this time? +Hon. Marc Miller: One of the things we see as we see the evolving dynamic and the potential spreads, particularly the fear of clusters as communities, provinces, territories may choose to relax certain measures, is the need to have a more targeted approach as to how the economy reacts and deals with it, particularly in northern and vulnerable communities. This is something for which we will need to have a serious approach, with both the Minister of Natural Resources and also our provincial counterparts, to make sure that we aren't taking hasty measures to reopen the economy while we're trying to protectand this is our most important goalindigenous communities from getting exposed and spreading COVID-19. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Madam Chair, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries. Hundreds of fishers and their families here in Manitoba who work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation are desperately calling for emergency support. Many are calling on the federal government to also work with them and the FFMC to redirect their product to domestic markets and communities here at home to address the growing food insecurity people are facing. When will your government announce support for inland fishers, including here in Manitoba, and will you work to ensure that their product, healthy fish, can be provided here at home for people who need it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Madam Chair, we know that COVID-19 is having extreme impacts on northern first nations communities, especially with regard to fisheries in areas that rely on it for not only their livelihoods but also for the cultural importance. Indigenous harvesters are able to access through the aboriginal financial institutions the $306 million we've put in for support for indigenous small and medium-sized businesses. The funding allows for short-term interest-free loans as well as for non-repayable contributions. We also announced earlier that the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency has made available $15 million in non-repayable support for businesses. We know that there's more that needs to be done to support our first nations communities as well as our harvesters. We're doing everything we can and we will continue to make sure that we address those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I need to interrupt you. We'll now hear from ClaudeDeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Thank you, MadamChair. I don't want to talk about tax cheats. I don't want to talk about the $1billion that the government used to track down tax cheats. I want to ask the minister why she isn't taking this opportunity to learn from countries that are putting an end to tax avoidance in tax havens, a legal but immoral practice in this day and age. Can she explain why she isn't showing leadership by convincing cabinet to change course and eliminate the legal measure known as tax avoidance, which enables companies to avoid paying taxes and put money in tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, as soon as our government took office in 2015, we made it a priority to crack down on tax cheats. Our government's historic investments of almost $1 billion have ensured that the agency can access the necessary resources for its work. We're already starting to see the results. As I was saying, I established an expert advisory committee to advise us. We've also been working on tightening the rules of the voluntary disclosures program. We've entered into country-by-country agreements that make it possible to share information. We're auditing four countries a year. We're working with the OECD. Currently, over 50 criminal investigations are related to international tax evasion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms.DeBellefeuille has the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, does the minister realize that she's being filmed and recorded and that she isn't answering my question? I don't want to talk about cheats. I want to talk about companies that use a legal mechanism to avoid paying taxes and to put their money in tax havens. I can see that she doesn't want to answer my question. I'll ask her another question. Can she tell me how many companies legally take advantage of tax avoidance in tax havens? How much money escapes taxation through this legal mechanism? The government could invest this money in its economic recovery post-COVID-19. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, I completely understand my colleague's impatience. However, she must understand that this type of issue is very complex. Under the former Conservative government, the issue wasn't a priority at all. Regarding tax evasion abroad, our leadership made it possible for the agency to conduct twice as many audits in three years as it conducted in 10 years under the Conservatives. Over 50criminal investigations related to international tax evasion are ongoing. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Go ahead, Madame DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, I'm not impatient. However, I don't understand the government's lack of willingness to eliminate this mechanism, which is legal but completely immoral. Our questions remain unanswered. My next question is for the Minister of Finance. The Fdration de la relve agricole du Qubec and the UPA approached the Minister of Finance two weeks ago and still haven't received a response regarding the following issue. We know that many farms don't pay wages. As a result, these farms are being penalized because they aren't eligible for the $40,000 in loans available through the Canada emergency business account. To qualify for these loans, the farms needed a payroll of $20,000 to $1.5million in 2019. Does the Minister of Finance plan to respond to the farmers who want to access the $40,000 in loans? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Ms.DeBellefeuille. We know that the Canada emergency response benefit must be made available to the people who need it. +Mr. Damien Kurek: On a point of order +Hon. Bill Morneau: That's why we're considering our approach. Of course +Mr. Damien Kurek: I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): MinisterMorneau, please wait a moment. A member is raising a point of order. Mr. Kurek, do you have a point of order? You have to unmute yourself. +Mr. Damien Kurek: Yes. It's that the translation is at the same volume as the minister. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You'll have to put yourself on English. Rather, the minister has to put himself on French. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Sorry. I was on the English channel. We know that the people who need the Canada emergency response benefit must have access to it. That's why we're considering the challenges each time. If I receive a letter, I'll look at it. Once we have a response, we'll pass it directly on to the member. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): This question is for the tourism minister. The tourism ministry was one of the first and hardest-hit industries during this crisis, yet despite the Prime Minister's announcement over three weeks ago now of a plan to bring forward a tourism-specific aid package to help the businesses who employ millions of unemployed Canadians who work in tourism, there's still been nothing from this government. When will the government finally act to provide help to this nearly crippled industry? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, obviously we know that the tourism sector has been deeply impacted. I had the chance to talk to many of the leaders in the sector, and clearly there's a lot of anxiety. We also had the chance to work with all the G20 ministers of tourism all together, and we know we have to act +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards: I didn't really get much of an answer there. I hear a lot about talking and not much on action. Tourism-based communities like the ones in Banff and Canmore, which I represent, are tourism-based economies and have unemployment rates of 85% or higher. They also don't qualify for a lot of the programs because they're seasonal businesses and make most or all of their revenues for the year from May to October, so they're at risk of losing their entire season. I have a couple of very specific questions. Will the government consider making changes to the programs to make sure that seasonal businesses can get help? What does the government plan to do to help the tourism industry recover after the pandemic? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you. Obviously, the tourism sector has access to many measures, including the CEBA account, the $40,000 account. They also have access to the wage subsidy. They have access to rent relief. They will be having access also to funding through the regional development agencies, and we'll be coming up with the details soon. Of course, in my colleague's riding of Banff, which is a fantastic place and a tourism gem, they will have access to the support through WD, western economic diversification. If there are particular cases you would like to raise with me, I would be more than happy to talk to you to see how, on the ground, we can help the tourism operators. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, clearly the tourism minister hasn't been listening. She says she's talking to the industry. She's not hearing their concerns. What she just said does not address many of the concerns they have about being seasonal industries. It doesn't address anything about their concerns about the hard economic recovery they'll have after the pandemic. Let's try another minister and see if we can get some answers. Another industry that's very hard hit in my province and my riding is the oil and gas industry. It's another industry the Prime Minister has promised to help, but there hasn't been anything. Clearly there's a pattern here. The only so-called assistance there's been to help hurting Albertans in the oil patch has been measures to speed up the death of the industry that they work in. Will the Liberal government ever show any concern for Albertans? Will they bring forward a plan to preserve Canadian jobs? Will they put forward a plan to ensure the use of Canadian oil before oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): In fact, Mr. Chair, the federal government has taken several steps in recent weeks that will meaningfully support workers and communities that depend on this industry. We have the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which covers 75% of an employee's wages for the employer. We have more liquidity for oil and gas companies through new loans of $15 million to $60 million from the Business Development Bank of Canada. We continue to step forward in our response to the impacts of COVID-19 on my province here in Newfoundland and Labrador and on Alberta and Saskatchewan. These three provinces are being hit by two crises at the same time, a crisis of demand for oil and gas on the world markets and of course a crisis of public health with COVID-19. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, a lot of these things we're hearing about aren't going to actually help the industry to recover. What we need to see is the government give the industry and the private sector the opportunity to succeed. Maybe what they could do is consider expediting the approval of billions of dollars of private sector projects that would put thousands and thousands of Canadians back to work. Will the government consider looking at ways that we can expedite projects? Will they look at ways that we can encourage the use of Canadian oil before the use of oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have been working with our provincial partners. We have been working with businesses of all sizes in the oil and gas industry. We have been working with labour, concentrating on workers and concentrating on the companies that support those jobs to make sure that they remain whole and those jobs will be there for those workers. We're particularly proud of our orphan wells program, which was launched by the Alberta government in conjunction with us. It was launched last week. I am pleased to inform this House that the uptake on applications for that program is significantly higher than even we expected. +The Chair: That's all the time we have for questions today. I want to thank all the members for taking part. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. Thank you. +","The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota) opened the third meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. The committee's purpose was to consider ministerial announcements, allow members to present petitions, and question ministers and the Prime Minister regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. A moment of silence was held in memory of six Canadian Armed Forces members lost in a recent helicopter crash. Discussions also commemorated the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian Forces. + +Mr. Garnett Genuis presented two petitions, first concerning the removal of safeguards from the current euthanasia regime as part of Bill C-7 and secondly, on organ harvesting and trafficking, advocating support for Bill S-204. + +The Chair reminded members to use proper headsets to facilitate interpretation work. Various members then presented their respective petitions covering issues such as recognizing indigenous languages as official languages, implementing a national opt-out program for organ donation, addressing climate change through motion M-1 for a green new deal, and addressing the opioid overdose crisis with policy reform. + +Questions to ministers included topics such as the government handling of firearms ownership, the release of prisoners during the pandemic, the government's transparency with regards to actions taken against the COVID-19 pandemic, support to seniors and vulnerable populations, the wage subsidy program, relief measures for businesses, and health and housing concerns for Canadians. + +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus questioned the Prime Minister on measures that seem to punish law-abiding firearm owners, while Mr. Yves-Francois Blanchet sought specifics on government aid for seniors. Mr. Andrew Scheer questioned the parameters of financial relief programs, and Ms. Laurel Collins advocated for more inclusive eligibility criteria for benefits to help the most vulnerable. The discussion also broached the subject of corporations using offshore tax havens to evade public funds contributions. + +Mr. Mel Arnold addressed hardships faced by fish harvesters and the need for government action, while Mr. Brad Vis spoke of his constituents' concerns with the government's approach to firearms legislation. Discussions ensued regarding the various petitions and the urgent needs of different sectors, such as in agriculture and small businesses affected by the pandemic. + +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus further questioned the transparency and actions taken by the government in relation to the Chinese handling of the coronavirus outbreak, pressing on the need for solidarities like the Five Eyes. Throughout the session, various ministers, including the Prime Minister, responded to the questions and concerns raised, highlighting programs and commitments in place or forthcoming to address the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} How do you wear this thing ? +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm mm mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not too many cables and stuff . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Original . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is recorded ? Okay ? Okay so welcome everyone . So we are here for the kickoff meeting of uh the process of designing a new remote control . So I will first start with a warm welcome opening {vocalsound} stuff , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then uh we will uh see what will be uh our product and what will be the different step we will have to design it . And uh then we will uh discuss if we have few ideas and we will uh end uh by uh dispatching the different task you will be {disfmarker} you will have to fulfil to complete this process . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . Just one thing . Uh , you said twenty-five minutes , but I have something else to do uh , so gotta have another meeting uh soon , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so maybe you could hurry up a bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} sorry ? +User Interface: It's true . I have another meeting so if you could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have another meeting soon ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have to be quick . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , for the lawnmower project . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the the goal is to have a remote control so to have an advantage over our competitors we have to be original , we have to be trendy and we have to also try to be user-friendly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh the design step will be divided in three uh main points . First it will be the functional design . Third is the conceptual design and then is the desired design . So the functional design is to identify the main user needs , the technical function the remote control should fulfil . And then we will move to f conceptual design where we'll specify the different component involved , what kind of user interf interface we want and what are the different uh trend in user interface and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the desired devi design will consist in uh specifically implementing {vocalsound} and detailing the choice we've uh made in the second point . So I will now ask you which is very important for the design of a new remote control for to uh each of us to to draw uh your favourite animal on the white board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What an original idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you have any idea of which animal you want to show us ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} that's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no n +Project Manager: {vocalsound} n n {gap} +User Interface: Can I give you the +Project Manager: You should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} no ? But I don't have to say anything . When I'm drawing the orangutan . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} If you want to react uh about this wonderful drawing uh {vocalsound} I'll let you uh comment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's an abstract drawing of an orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay it's an abstract drawing . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think it's nice and original . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You should write y the name I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have a red colour . Usually orangutans have red hair so this is a very important but I don't have red pen , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: You want to draw something Christine ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh sorry . You have to imagine a little bit {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course your animal is recorded so it's not lost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry too {vocalsound} uh . +User Interface: Yes . I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wha what is this strange beast ? +Marketing: Is it beautiful ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is it a monster ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you know ? It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a cat ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Isn't it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought these things did not exist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Industrial Designer: Me {vocalsound} +Marketing: is it {disfmarker} like that . +User Interface: Ah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Is it better ? +Project Manager: Ah okay it's pretty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay it's your cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my cat . +User Interface: Does have a name ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The name is Caramel . +User Interface: Caramel . Ah-ha . +Industrial Designer: Caramel . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Olivier , do you want to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think I'm too short for the cables . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay I go , but next time you'll do something I'm sure . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm a bit short on cable . +User Interface: Next time I concentrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So what could I draw ? {vocalsound} Maybe I can draw like a very simplified cow . {vocalsound} I don't know if it looks like a cow {vocalsound} +User Interface: He looks like a bong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a what ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . No . +Industrial Designer: Quite squarey . +User Interface: Scary ? +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He also . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno it it looks more like a donkey in fact {vocalsound} I would say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I think we will be finished this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so I hope that it helps you uh in the process of designing a remote control . +User Interface: Is it for uh for putting a {disfmarker} for logos , no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's move on . So {disfmarker} Here the uh financial objective of our project . That is to say to to have a production cost lower than twelve point five Euros and have a selling price of twice that price t in order to target a profe profit of uh fifty uh million Euros . +User Interface: I is there a matter for a new remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah if it's trendy , original I d fulfil the user needs . +User Interface: Is it uh a single device remote control or is it a multi-device remote control ? +Project Manager: We have to discuss that point . +User Interface: Ah +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is not defined at all ? +Project Manager: yeah you you can suggest points like this . So what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: so we have to decide for example if it can control one device or multiple . So what's {disfmarker} what are your ideas about that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe I can have the {disfmarker} your opinion from the marketing side ? +User Interface: Well uh do we sell other stuff ? Uh if if we bundle the remote control with something uh to sell then it could be a single device , otherwise it could be programmable one otherwise who would buy a remote control from us . +Project Manager: Okay , so if it selled uh by its own i it it would rather be for multiple device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe it should be for multiple devices . And uh do you have any ideas um of uh design ideas or any uh uh technical requirement we we should uh fulfil ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think we shouldn't have too many b for my part . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , I couldn I cannot fi think of any requirements right now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If we don't have so many buttons could be nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Few buttons . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And do you have it also to be {disfmarker} to be lighted in order to be used in the dark ? Might be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And do you have any um any uh idea of the trend {disfmarker} the trend in domain , what it shouldn't {disfmarker} it should look like , or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Something which is not squarey maybe uh , not a box . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: With rou okay . Like for {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Something like that , least fits in your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The basic requirement . +Project Manager: So . Fit in your hand , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only a buck . +Project Manager: And also it have , i it may be {vocalsound} it may be important for the remote control to be uh {disfmarker} To , to resist to various shocks that can happen if it fall . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Waterproof . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Water-proof as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I think we should have a device {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it is original because you can uh use it in your uh {disfmarker} in your bath whereas the others can't . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe water-proof would be very original . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Havin having a water-proof remote control so that the people can uh use it in their bath . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: That could be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: B it seems uh so , but uh if you don't have an waterproof remote control it means you can just cover it with some plastic and you can sort of f +Project Manager: Yeah but , it is still something uh you have to buy and that is um not maybe very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And , and that's one of the {disfmarker} that's one of the shock {disfmarker} I mean there are people that have a remote control and they are worried that it's going to break and they put some extra plastic around it . +Project Manager: Yeah , mayb B +User Interface: That's people {gap} they actually do it themselves . +Project Manager: But maybe we can bulk it with uh already this plastic thing and uh the waterproof uh stuff as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} directly . +User Interface: I it will look a bulky in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can sell uh all that together , so so plastic protection and uh and a waterproof box as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That might be good uh track to follow . +User Interface: Like as an optional thing . +Project Manager: Optional or selled with it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I I think we should have something , most of the time I I lose my remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should have s uh special bu button on the T_V_ to make the remote control beeping . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh {disfmarker} But we don't design the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh something you whistle and uh the remote control uh beep . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Barks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , barks , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Barks . +Project Manager: So we can uh have a whistle uh remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah whistle . +Project Manager: I don't know , whistle-able ? {vocalsound} Th +Industrial Designer: Whistle tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whistle tracking yeah . Whistle tracking remote control . That's a good idea , that's very original and that's can uh improve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's that's quite cool , but uh of course we {disfmarker} you don't normally need uh any audio uh recording stuff on your remote control right ? +Project Manager: Yeah d d uh . +User Interface: So i it's just going to add t to the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah but s still we have to mm we have to {vocalsound} have an advantage over our competitors . I think this is a good advantage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's cool . I think I like the idea , but I'm not sure about the what you , +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask {disfmarker} +User Interface: who is giving {disfmarker} who's giving who's giving our budget . Who's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask the quest of that's uh design to the uh Industrial um Designer . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is you . +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so try to find that for next meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So next meeting is in thirty minutes or so uh . {vocalsound} Don't pani . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't panic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So so I will ask the Industrial Designer to find out more about this industrial design so any working {disfmarker} any working function we have discussed . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So then I will ask the User Interf Interface Designer to to think about the point we discussed like the number of buttons , the the fact that is lighted or not , things like that , and what would be convenient for the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And also um {vocalsound} I will ask the Market Expert to uh try to find out what are the absolute requirements , what is absolutely needed in a remote control uh for the user . So . And then uh I will uh just ask you to think about that and uh look at your mail because you will receive uh some good advice soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So . Thank you I think that's all for this point . +User Interface: Good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , so we come back in five minutes ? Half an hour . +Project Manager: Anyway you will receive some messages . {vocalsound} Be careful . You eat it ? Does it move uh ? Okay , but I don't know if it uh is still correctly uh {disfmarker} We'll see . +Industrial Designer: Ah . {gap} +","The summary presented is a representation of a kickoff meeting for a project team tasked with designing a new remote control. This eclectic transcript depicts a somewhat chaotic and unstructured brainstorming session. + +The Project Manager begins the meeting by greeting the team and outlining the agenda, although the User Interface (UI) designer quickly points out that they need the meeting to progress swiftly due to another commitment. As they move on, the Project Manager sets forth that in order to outdo competitors, the remote control must be original, trendy, and user-friendly. + +To achieve this, the Project Manager suggests a three-phase design strategy, encapsulating functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. In the functional phase, the team will identify the main user needs and technical functions. The conceptual phase will elaborate on the components involved and the user interface trends. The final phase will refine and implement the choices made in the previous step. + +In an unorthodox twist, team members are encouraged to draw their favorite animals on the board, which leads to banters about abstract depictions of orangutans and strangely shaped cats named Caramel, supposedly intended to spur creativity in the design process. + +The Project Manager brings the discussion back to the remote control's functionality and financial objectives, aiming for a production cost below twelve point five Euros to achieve a profit goal of fifty million Euros. There's uncertainty regarding whether the remote control should manage single or multiple devices – a decision left open for further discussion. + +Key considerations for the design include being trendy, user-friendly, minimal in buttons, illuminable for dark settings, ergonomic to fit in a hand, durable against shocks, and uniquely, waterproof. The Industrial Designer expresses a desire for fewer buttons, while the UI designer momentarily grapples with other potential requirements. + +Furthermore, a novel feature is suggested: making the remote control whistle-responsive so users can locate it easily – though this idea raises concerns about increasing manufacturing costs. Despite this, the Project Manager reasons that such an innovative feature could give them a competitive edge. + +The Project Manager delegates tasks for the next meeting to the Industrial Designer for further details on the product design, the UI designer to focus on user experience aspects like button count and lighting, and the Marketing Expert to research essential features for a remote control as per user expectations. + +In closing, the Project Manager indicates that there will be follow-up communication via email with additional guidance before the next gathering. + +Though filled with distractions, such as members worrying about cables and offhand comments, the meeting encapsulates a fledgling stage of creative brainstorming where ideas are fluid, and nothing is yet set in stone. The team discusses various features, considering practicality, market trends, and user convenience, while also humorously navigating interpersonal dynamics and the atypical remote control feature brainstorming through animal sketches." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Here we go again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My mouse is not working anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: when I put it in , is is going to beep beep beep . +Marketing: Oh , I got a nice little screen here over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got like this big black border uh on every side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: Everybody ready ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll I'll fix it . +User Interface: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: Welcome at the functional design meeting , again presented by Maarten . +Marketing: Yeah , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh this is the agenda , the opening . Uh , we've got three presentations . And I'm gonna show you some of the new projects requirements that were sent to me . And we're gonna make a decision on the remote control functions . We have uh forty minutes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , well this is the {vocalsound} the closing already . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} well we start off with the th the first presentation then . Uh , I think um in uh {disfmarker} we have to do it in uh in right order . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what the right order is . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Oh that . It won't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe we should start with the the technical functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: how can I get this on the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: Well it's you dumped the file in the uh in the sh in the project document folder . +User Interface: In project . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I've done that . +Project Manager: You've already done that ? +User Interface: No can that open . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well let's close this one . We'll just uh open a new one . +User Interface: Open it there . +Project Manager: Uh , well . Yes . Uh-oh . New thing . Oh yeah , uh I have to say something . Uh , due to some uh technical problems I haven't uh digitized the last uh the meeting minutes . But I'll uh make sure that uh happens next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} About the get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'll get this one uh in digital uh form too . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we're going to um uh talk about working design . Um , the method of the remote control is uh electrical energy , it activates a chip uh in the remote . It's an electrical circuit which compose uh messages in the form of uh uh infrared signals to control the television . Mm , it's a nowadays very uh known , a known uh uh technology . Um , the known technology can make a cost very low . Uh , it's a wild uh {disfmarker} a wide sale uh of uh remote controls in the world . And and the components are very uh very cheap . Um , Uh , diodes , uh bat batteries and uh uh LED lights , they're needed and they're uh everywhere available . Uh , again , it's a fair price . It's a common uh technology uh , like I told um {disfmarker} Uh , the circuit board , it's the most um important uh um part of the remote control . Uh , we can use for that uh fibreglass with copper wires , it's {disfmarker} it is uh {disfmarker} can be made as fast as printing paper . It's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's all very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're making it uh all the time . Uh , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and it's not uh very specialised uh technology . {vocalsound} I haven't come to here , but um I've got uh some uh images of uh remote controls . They were not uh very uh trendy or just uh just a remote control like everyone knows . So I don't know uh why I should put it here . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . But it's the technical side of the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but uh I uh haven't made it because uh of the time . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Well , we'll we'll have to skip that part then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you don't think it's a problem um to design uh the technical part of the remote control ? It's gonna be easy ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But nothing restricted for user interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah . M +User Interface: With technical {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , no , it's uh it's just a part of uh a known technology , yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Remote control is nothing special nowadays . +Project Manager: R regardless of what type of functions we want to implement . Doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , {gap} okay . +Industrial Designer: because of the {disfmarker} all the televisions uh {disfmarker} there are a few {disfmarker} maybe a couple of televisions with the new functions , +User Interface: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but is it useful to put them on a on a standard uh remote ? +Project Manager: Well , we'll see . We'll see later on . +User Interface: Well , the technical functions . Um , well I don't know if you got the same uh pictures as I got , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but uh I got these two , +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: and I think they're {disfmarker} we have to focus uh on uh the uh one hand the expert view or the novice user . {vocalsound} th I think it's it's very much uh depending on the user requirements , I don't s uh know who's doing t +Project Manager: Well , uh will there be some uh user requirements later on ? {vocalsound} The ones I {disfmarker} I've uh received from the account manager . +User Interface: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} I think that's very important to watch uh what kind of functions there we want to uh put in a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we'll keep this in mind , and then discuss it later on . +User Interface: Yeah , well y we can put functions in it when uh {disfmarker} yeah , when we uh get the user requirements uh and we can update it . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay , but this real this uh big d uh distinction between this type of remote . {gap} we should we should choose one uh {disfmarker} we should not compromise but uh really choose for uh expert viewer or novice v +Marketing: Yes , I agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Well , what {disfmarker} that's what you want {disfmarker} trying to say . +User Interface: Well , yeah w if you want try a a a huge market , if you want to reach a huge market , uh like elderly people and {disfmarker} we have to choose for novice user . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: But I don't know . It's it's really um depending on how how how far the the the remote controls are already in n um in use . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {vocalsound} some of these {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . Well , some of that will {disfmarker} Yeah , but i but it will be more clear when we come to the uh u uh some of the new requirements . +User Interface: Yeah , probably , yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , there are l at least uh basic functions , uh like just th the channels uh one till nine , uh on and off switch , which must be clear with a red button or something like that . Um , most standard uh have volume , of course , and a mute function , and , of course , the next and previous channel . I think that's just basic what we need . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And from that on we can {gap} user requirements what we need more . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I just um um I thought Joost was looking at the trendy {disfmarker} the trends in the markets , and I don't know if there uh are any um {disfmarker} uh if you put more functions , more buttons , maybe it's com becoming less trendy or something like that . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: M you can just {vocalsound} you can k {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I haven't really found a conclusion like that . +User Interface: you can keep it in mind that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . Uh , I th I thought the the {disfmarker} with less buttons you can make a more trendier uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: yeah , more trendier design , I think . I think . +Marketing: Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well , that's all I have to say , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that was it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Well , then the Marketing expert can uh tell us something about the current market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . It's alright . Um {disfmarker} Alright , I've done some research for functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} yes . The working method um {vocalsound} there were hundred uh uh w h one hundred people , uh how do you say uh , f watched using remote controls in the usability lab and they also uh filled out a questionnaire uh with a few questions . Uh , I've lined them up here . Uh , ask whether um common remote control looks good or not , about willingness to spend money on remote control , about zapping behaviour , and uh and stuff like that . I uh have found some interesting things . We do we do got a market . Um , {vocalsound} three out of four people claim m uh to find remote controls ugly . So if we make a trendy design , we sure have seventy fi seventy five percent of the market , which you can reach . Um , three out of four users uh zaps a lot , as I uh quoted here from the uh results . {vocalsound} Zap buttons are used one hundred and sixty eight times per hour . That's quite a lot . Um , {vocalsound} relevant options are , of course , power buttons . Although , only used once per hour . Uh , channel selection , volume and buttons for text , and the more um , yeah , other functions , like audio settings , video settings , sound settings are not said to be very important and uh very much used . Furthermore , fifty percent says uh they only use ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . That doesn't say we got {disfmarker} we can leave ninety percent off . But it sure um says we shouldn't make it too uh complicated . Fifty percent also claims uh to have lost a remote control very often in the room . And um {vocalsound} an important thing here , the most important customers uh , which is over seventy percent of our market , is in the age range of thirty six to sixty five years old . And uh elderly people , our market , are less interested in uh nice features , but more willingly to spend more money on remote controls . So , {vocalsound} what I was thinking {disfmarker} oh , wrong side . We shouldn't implement too much features on uh on our remote control , because elderly people will get th lost . Group features for a higher usability , uh what I was claiming in the previous meeting . Um , all the settings , about audio settings , video settings and channel settings , which are not very often used , we could group them uh on one button and make them accessible uh in one menu button or whatever , because they are used very rarely and well , it uh {disfmarker} there are a lot of options there , so we can really make uh {disfmarker} yeah , how do you say , we can spare at buttons over there . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , if you want to implement V_C_R_ and D_V_D_ options , group them in the button , not too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . Small buttons , so they won't be very um , how do you say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Visually presents . +Marketing: Yes , won't be very present , thank you . And a trendy look , well uh , although seventy percent of the market is uh {disfmarker} consists of elderly people uh who don't really care for trendy looks or whatever , I guess it can do no harm to make it trendy for the other thirty percent . That was kind of what I found . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well , then we {disfmarker} I'm gonna show you some of the new project requirements and then we gonna discuss on uh what features we find important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , well some of the uh new requirements {vocalsound} make some of your findings quite uh irrelevant , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because um uh s decided to put {disfmarker} They have decide to put two additional requirements forward . Well , now I see four . +Marketing: Two ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's kinda strange . Well , they say tele teletext becomes outdated since the popularity of the internet . Well , I think that may be so , but well , we can't just leave the teletext button off . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's impossible , I think . +User Interface: No way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No uh , I agree , I agree . +Project Manager: So the compromise we could make is just to make one teletext button , you know , like on and off , and don't make a lot of special {disfmarker} put a lot of special features on it to make it transparent or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much , no . +Project Manager: You know , it's just you want you want to be able to make use of teletext , but not to play with it that much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to think of that . The remote control should only be used for television . Otherwise , the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time t t ma uh the time to market . So maybe we should leave all D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ related features off completely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I think that uh that's what they're trying to say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , our current customers are within the age group of forty plus . New products should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty . So you uh talked about the elderly who were willing to spend more on a remote control and who were interested . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But , well , they're not relevant because we are aiming at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't really agree actually , to be honest . It's a very small market which we will approach then if we uh want to reach customers younger than forty . It's only like thirty percent of the total market . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it is {disfmarker} it's is a dif it's a fact that the th th that bigger market you're talking about , we already cover that . +Marketing: Mayb yeah ? +Project Manager: Our company already sells remote control to the older people , but we we also want , {vocalsound} you know , a new customer group . That's the one we haven't covered yet . So I think that's what the problem is . We haven't got remote controls for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well I think , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe we can compromise a little bit . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Maybe if it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much then , bu alright . +Project Manager: no no , but I think we have to just keep in mind what the older age group wants . So maybe we can make a remote control that's primarily interesting for the younger group , but isn't that bad for an older person either . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , our corporate image sh should stay recognisable in our products . Our product's corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . Okay , {vocalsound} something else nice to know . +User Interface: But what's our slogan ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? Yeah , {vocalsound} you will have to look that up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The slogan uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll have a look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's something about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Puts fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} I thought it w might be , let's make things better or something , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sense simplicity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sense and simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well , {vocalsound} let's go back to the the agenda . So we've now had to {disfmarker} the three presentations . We know about the new project requirements . That means we can uh well d yeah , discuss on the remote control functions . Well , if I can uh make a start , I think it's becoming more clear what kind of remote control it's gonna be , and I already talked about the {disfmarker} maybe you have a f familiar with the rem remote control that has the the can opener underneath it . I think we're we're looking for some {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we're looking for a really simple remote control with only basic T_V_ functions . Y well , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , to be honest , if um our uh aim group is uh till forty , not older than forty , maybe that's not very uh {disfmarker} yeah , we don't really need to have a simple remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can implement more functions then , because um {vocalsound} basically uh the younger people are more able to adapt to new technology +User Interface: Yeah , but wha +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and therefore will be a more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: M yeah , that's why um well a lot of um the use the requirements the the account manager sent me , I think they are are c are contradicting each other , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because they want a simpler design , and no uh other uh s functions than just T_V_ , but they s do aim at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , ma +User Interface: Yeah , but you sai you said that that a lot of functions aren't used . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So why should j we put this function in ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think more {disfmarker} I think uh people {disfmarker} younger people are more looking for just a trendy look than uh more functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think uh you {disfmarker} we can make some discuss uh distinctions in uh what kin in the , know , th th in functions you have {disfmarker} Y Well you have different kind of uh equipment in your room , like a t T_V_ and a D_V_D_ player . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: You can uh , know , you {gap} you can {vocalsound} make very d you can put very detailed functions regarding the T_V_ set on your remote control uh with the with uh the , you know , audio settings and uh v uh screen settings . We don't want that . I think that was {disfmarker} that became clear . We don't want . But w maybe we should put some func uh , I know that the younger people will most likely have a D_V_D_ player they want to , you know , they want to uh +Marketing: Yeah , control . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh you said {disfmarker} +Project Manager: control , remotely . +User Interface: Yeah , d yeah , but th the functions are not in the remote control we're making . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , yeah , th th the user requirements of the the {disfmarker} The new project requirements told us not to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's n Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe w Yeah . I think we maybe should {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well we should uh put some functions for other {disfmarker} maybe for other equipment on it . But just the basic functions . Maybe like rewind and wind , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: or n what d what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: But you can put them under the same button . +Marketing: Not much more than that . +Project Manager: Yeah , if {disfmarker} as far as possible . +Marketing: Yep . Or we can u u we could put 'em behind the flip-flap or whatever . +Project Manager: But what do you think ? +Marketing: So t +Project Manager: Do th should we implement features that uh uh or functions that {disfmarker} to control other devices ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No , you don't think so ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , new requirements say no . +Project Manager: Yeah , the new requirements say so . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you can put a play and stop and and rewind . +Project Manager: Well , maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe there there there is something th m most of the time these functions don't support the particular device as well as their their own remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , a lot of D_V_D_ players have some tricky settings with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i if it's too simple uh th they won't use the remote control , they use their own th th {vocalsound} with lot more functions . +Marketing: Y yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep , exactly . That's that's wha +Marketing: But but for for example , V_C_R_ , that's better example in this case . I think on a remote control for television you don't need to be able to programme uh the V_C_R_ to start recording at three P_M_ or whatever , +Project Manager: No no , you don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} No no , you don't need it . No , no . +User Interface: No , no . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: just play , stop , rewind and uh fast forward . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to think uh {disfmarker} w we have to think D_V_D_ I th uh , I guess , +Marketing: Yeah , I know , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so um but uh from my experience it's kinda {vocalsound} a lot of D_V_D_ players , you know , like forwarding , goes differently . Uh , you get two speed or eight speed or sixteen speed . It's c sometimes a bit difficult . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe if we just leave the D_V_D_ functional m uh {disfmarker} Well , I was thinking about putting it in , but concerning the project requirements and what you just said , I think we m should focus on the T_V_ then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} keep it simple and look more at th +Project Manager: And uh and it's just an uh a complimentary remote and not a universal one . If you want to keep it simple , you can make a universal remote . +User Interface: No . It's only for television . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . It's just a s it it should be something that is like a gadget on your coffee table , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there are there are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's just for when you you you jump on the couch , you pick up the the the nice remote , the simple one , just to put on the television , nothing more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , nothing more . Exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um , but what televis +Industrial Designer: But how wi how will you be able to handle a whole market ? There are uh a dozen of uh {disfmarker} dozens of of remote controls that have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we'll make w this one trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And simple . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user interface is easy . +Project Manager: Well , we we will come to that , but ju first on the on the functions . So we should put uh zap buttons on it . Um , also numbers , to uh to go to the specific channels . +User Interface: And the basic {disfmarker} yeah , basic functions , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , +User Interface: It's too much integrated in the other . +Project Manager: Okay , a t a teletext button should be there . But just one big teletext button , on and off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably . +Marketing: Yeah , and maybe two or three other options , but not {disfmarker} nothing more than that . I think stop function is very useful . If you have a uh a page which consists of more pages , and you are not a very quick reader , +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: then I think it's very irritating if the next page shows up , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I think that becomes too difficult , it's not a very common function and people will have to read up on their remote then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I use it very regularly , the action . I re I use it {vocalsound} quite often . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , but maybe you s yeah yeah , maybe y you do , but I've never heard of it in the first place . And +User Interface: Will you look {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have to {disfmarker} well t yeah , and t and teletext is becoming outdated . +User Interface: Look at the market . +Project Manager: We just want to see what programmes are on and what time it is probably . Yeah . I don't know . I think that that's kin getting too complex for our remote . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what you th guys think . +Marketing: Might be . Might be . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} uh , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} Sunday I always use it for the uh yeah , for the soccer uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you like to have a {disfmarker} such a s stop button ? Or do you think it uh {disfmarker} I think it's a kind of uh uh very rare and special function . +User Interface: Well , uh when you uh uh {disfmarker} when you look uh {disfmarker} for example um , a couple of weeks ago I looked at the {disfmarker} for the flights , and there are a lot of flights in one page , so if if th +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , it goes {disfmarker} Yeah , but that's kind of stuff we should do on the internet right now . That's why {vocalsound} it was uh said in the in the use in the r new requirements . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you could put +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on the z on the zap buttons you can put it to uh to uh access all the same pages . +Project Manager: Well yeah uh , +Industrial Designer: If you have seven pages , you can go up and down . +Project Manager: lots of new televisions can store pages , you know , and then you can just skip manually through them using {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: I think we should just put one teletext button on it . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: Then we meet uh the new requirements . we also meet the other thin y you sh you just re we have to choose for the the simple design , I guess . +User Interface: A simple {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , well , what functions do we have to decide on ? Or do we {disfmarker} uh I dunno if we have t stif specifically name all the functions we n we want . We have the zap and uh the volume . Should we do m make them very big ? The the the zap button . D d +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think the plus and the minus button should be uh quite present , +Project Manager: Th that's that's that's considered to be trendy also . +User Interface: But trendy , yeah . +Marketing: yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe you should place them on a {disfmarker} uh , in a special way ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can make uh a kind of a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , something or uh {vocalsound} somethin special way to to zap through the {disfmarker} it has to {vocalsound} s it has to be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , and quick . You have to use it very quickly . +User Interface: Original . It was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you grab the remote , your hands should be on top of the plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it {disfmarker} the buttons should make it um possible to to zap through your channels in a rapid {disfmarker} at a rapid pace . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , what should we decide on then ? I think in a in a case of this simple remote control , the technical aspects which uh weren't worked out already , but it w shouldn't be a problem then . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's o just signals uh {disfmarker} and the television d uh does the rest . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , okay , but we don't have to {disfmarker} uh , when we don't want to uh control other devices , I think it makes it even more simple . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Uh maybe we {disfmarker} uh uh the batteries maybe . If you use large batteries or small batter batteries . +Project Manager: I think +Industrial Designer: The most standard batteries . +Project Manager: I think that we should use uh d +User Interface: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think double A_ . +Project Manager: yeah , not not uh the b the watch kind +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} th the most uh {disfmarker} Well , it has to be simple , and I wi +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The most ordinary uh batteries . +Project Manager: Which are most likely to be found somewhere in the house , you know . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh . How much time do we ha we have left uh ? M m m more than thirty minutes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think about twenty minutes . +Project Manager: Uh ten twenty minutes . {vocalsound} Well , uh these these shouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Early break . +Industrial Designer: But i in a way we have to be uh uh special . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But that's that's {disfmarker} Do you uh have you have you think about tha thought about that ? How we can {disfmarker} what the extra touch can be . Do you suggest design or the shape or some gadget f f kind of feature or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe th m +Project Manager: Well , it was something about how we lose them . Maybe it should be a remote control when you you clap you hands it makes some noise or some gadget kind of thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that's n that's more for a for an age range or uh {vocalsound} ten to twelve or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: To find him . That's maybe {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , um a lot of people like to have such kind kind of kind of gay kind of things . It w it w should be like a birthday present or something that you give someone , and it is i {gap} has something nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , that's good one , yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe it w should have a big uh light that can flash or something on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or maybe it should {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or an {disfmarker} or the like the the can opener . Maybe it contains some feature that you don't normally link to a remote control . I think it's very impor because we're gonna make such a basic remote control , we have to do something to make it special . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's gonna cost twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye I think the can opener i is a brilliant idea actually , because television and beer is not a rare combination . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} well , it's already been done . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Nah . {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} and I think it's gonna be uh very uh {disfmarker} it has to be sturdy or something , so maybe with with bouncing pads so that you can just throw it on the floor or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {gap} it has to be used something special , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it has to , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: you know y not s people , when they buy it , they have to think , well this one lasts for a long time . We're really gonna use them . Not some thing you you throw away next week , you know . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: So maybe uh that's i I think that's {vocalsound} when uh when we decide on these type of functions , know , basic functions , uh it's very important to find something like this . So there's a very important task for you . And maybe we can all think about it . +User Interface: Be original , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , also for you maybe , when t you {disfmarker} it's very nice when you can be entra when you can be trendy , and and uh and al as in a friend {disfmarker} use friendly as well , you know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . And use friendly , yeah . +Project Manager: So big buttons , flashy design , and maybe some kind of gadget kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Must brain-storm . +Marketing: Yeah , a swapable front or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , or just different colours would be uh {disfmarker} I don't know if people also wanna spend more money on fronts for their uh remote control . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It could be be {disfmarker} Yeah , you never know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why not ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: More money for us . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and I think we have to make it quite big . +User Interface: Yeah . Quite big . Yeah , you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , definitely , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's to be uh a formed for your hand . +Project Manager: So , and and also because uh it is expensive . If you want it to be something , you know , it's ha doesn't have much functions {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: want to be {disfmarker} you don't want to get it l make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , it {disfmarker} it it should be f {vocalsound} be visible nearly anywhere in the room . As I uh as I said during my presentation , fifty percent uh o +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And shou and should ni look nice when you put it on a table . I I think you m might wanna put it uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: A standard or something . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , that it it it it stands up . Yeah , you have to put it on its {disfmarker} So it's like a vase or uh something you put on a table . +Marketing: Yeah . A face ? +Project Manager: {gap} no no , {gap} put stuff inside it . But , it's like like a statue or something {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or uh yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More like a joystick then . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I see what you mean , yep . +User Interface: It's like you have uh four phones . Something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , but you also can put it somewhere near the window in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you do that , but I don't know if that's possible within the production cost of twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: That it's it's fashionable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} I {gap} I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I in in the base we could like make uh a button , and if you push it , the remote control itself s makes noise . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: That's probably stupid , but uh as I found here uh , fifty percent , was it fifty ? +Industrial Designer: But that's that's fun for the first time , and then the second {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh fifty percent fifty percent often loses remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when it gets lost , how can you press the button to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No uh , of the base the the the the the the the thing you put it in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +User Interface: On the television . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , that's kind of nice . +User Interface: Oh , like this . +Marketing: If an {disfmarker} a button in in that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then also you don't even need batteries , because you can make it uh chargeable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: A char {vocalsound} chargeable . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you can ma make rechargeable one , yeah . Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that w yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , the pro No , well I think that it might be t p Well , nee but we don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Why not . +Project Manager: Maybe you , but {vocalsound} we don't know much about production cost , but when you {disfmarker} you can imagine that when you spend twenty five Euros on a remote control and it's a basic remote control , then the then the money {disfmarker} there must be money to spend on that kind of st you know , {gap} rechargeable units . +Industrial Designer: With recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should only cost twelve and a half Euros , of course . Aye ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but we would d ma we'd do it in Taiwan and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , it's not gonna be that expen +User Interface: Production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I I think it's a great idea . +User Interface: It should be possible . I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: S some kind of be I've never seen that before , and you make it uh um be uh , you see it with uh the mo the mouses nowadays . +User Interface: To make a base or something ? +Marketing: Yes . Yes , definitely . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but is that handy ? +Project Manager: Well , I {disfmarker} well it's really ch you can recharge it , so you ha never have the battery problem . That's one {gap} . +User Interface: It's it's it's it's +Project Manager: And uh you can always find your remote control up {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not the purpose to be handy , it's +Industrial Designer: But but remote controls remote controls nowadays can can last uh two years , three years , with with t two batteries . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . Well , maybe yeah , you could {disfmarker} when that's {disfmarker} when it's too costly , you could probably skip the recharger , +Industrial Designer: And then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you will {disfmarker} you do need uh also an {disfmarker} uh , also you would need a battery in the the base unit as well , you know . Does it makes it kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well y you you could connect that to two hundred to twenty volts , of course . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , but that's not {disfmarker} it's ugly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but then it's very easy to make it also a rechargeab I don't think that is gonna cost much to make it also a recharge function in it . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: On the other hand , if you don't do it , we can also make a nice bay . I mean , it looks trendy and still {vocalsound} still put a bleep function in it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: but um I think the bay is definitely uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . And make it , you know , we we um {disfmarker} Well , we uh {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it isn't a t a most uh costly uh remote control . We can save on the on the functions . We just {vocalsound} put some simple button in , make it big and sturdy , nothing more , and just make s sure there's some noise that it can make , or probably some kind of cheap light thing around it or that it uh that it lights up , +Marketing: Sure , why not . Yep . +Project Manager: it's also nice . And if you put it away , I think it's uh w we have to {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not a easy market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to something special . And for twenty five Euros people want something remote c special from your mote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: and we can't deliver that in r with uh regards to the functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: because we aren't gonna put {disfmarker} +Marketing: With eye candy , ear candy , whatever . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . And then uh when make it , you know , nice looking shape and this {gap} {disfmarker} and then you also you got the stand-up thing . Yeah . I think I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it must be must be a gadget to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , if it {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} well , we will see what's possible concerning the the costs , and if it's possible we'll do that . And we even try to save up on other stuff to make sure we can do such a thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the first thing we {disfmarker} the most likeable thing to to n to skip is then probably the recharge function or something . If that's too expensive , we won't do that . +User Interface: Yeah , we c +Project Manager: But it would be nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It would be nice , yes . +Project Manager: It's the idea . I know that batteries last long nowadays . And and what people just think about , well , I'll never have to buy any r batteries again , so y b because it's very annoying when your battery is empty . And you know then when you haven't batteries around , and probably for two weeks , your remo {gap} {disfmarker} I've experienced that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Most televisions break down before the battery pack is empty , so {vocalsound} yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . So , easy functions . Well , we will we will {disfmarker} I think we'll work that out , zapping , numbers on it , bi +User Interface: Or just give a beep when the battery's out or uh down . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's also annoying . +Marketing: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} 'cause as long as it stays {disfmarker} as it ke keeps working , you're not very motivated to do something about it . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} true . +Project Manager: Then it beeps all the time and {gap} . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: You don't want to have {disfmarker} ever have those problems , and you won't have if if you have the rechargeable {gap} . And you don't have to use the unit , you can also put it on the side if people don't like it . Uh , i i in the in the ma +Marketing: Why not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you pay for it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it w I mean , if if they pay for it because they think , oh , that's a great idea , I'm gonna use it . And when it , you know , when time goes by and they think , well , I'll never put him in the recharger , I think last long enough , then they put it on side and they can use it now and then . Then when they look {disfmarker} get m I I I know for sure that everybody who buys this remote control , within a couple of months of {disfmarker} they will be in the situation that they they're seeking for the remote control , they wanna see something quick and uh just push the button and th uh , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's brilliant . +Marketing: Bleep bleep bleep , oh there it is , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've never {disfmarker} it's so simple , but I've never seen it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: M maybe we should really {vocalsound} do this . +User Interface: And you can leave it just there . +Marketing: No . Nearly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay now , well , how much time have we got left ? These clocks aren't uh synched . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , now I've put uh {disfmarker} well , {gap} it is twenty p +User Interface: Yeah , I'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have ten minutes or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're uh we're done . I think . +User Interface: Uh fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: We've decided on the functions . Well , there is some {disfmarker} oh . There is a closing sheet . We have lunch break , and then we have thirty minutes of individual work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh {vocalsound} okay , I'll make sure {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} I had some problems with uh the digitising the the first minutes , the the s the next minutes won't be a problem , but I'll try to make sure the first one will be in the folder too , but maybe it won't work , but you'll see . I think these are more important than the first ones , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Can you make an uh uh a part of f folder for the minutes maybe ? +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: That not not everything in one one uh folder . +Marketing: Maarten , five minutes . +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes . Yeah , because uh I I d I did uh {disfmarker} the first minutes I did were were were a bit scratchy , you know . Then I did a s second one with a nicer layout , which I could uh , know , use for the other ones {gap} well , but uh I d think uh I forgot to do {disfmarker} put done under the first one , and when you go write a second uh it's get {disfmarker} it's not working {vocalsound} when you try to write second uh paper or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe . +Marketing: No , that's true uh , yeah . +Project Manager: And then you {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you had to overwrite it or someth I don't know . Becau I d uh , it was not my uh pen . +Marketing: Should we by the way draw um +Project Manager: {gap} this kind of looks you like . +Marketing: on our nice whiteboard , um a little uh idea of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of the shape . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , it would be nice . +User Interface: Or the sh +Marketing: I dunno . Has anyone got um {vocalsound} a little bit detailed ideas about the shape ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you get an idea of the shape ? +Marketing: I don't , for one . +Industrial Designer: Maybe like this pen . +Marketing: A bit bigger I guess , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , bigger . +User Interface: A little bit bigger , yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape is nice , it's um something different , and we want we want that . +Industrial Designer: It has to feel nice in your hand . +Project Manager: Well , I I {vocalsound} I have to say , I have this uh can opening remote control in my head most of all , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or I think some {disfmarker} maybe we should {disfmarker} no , that will be too costly . +User Interface: Oh , uh look {disfmarker} uh look at the pictures . +Project Manager: We shou we could also , that was a {disfmarker} would also be an idea , but I don't think it {disfmarker} I don't know if it exists already , you should like make Alessi or something design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: That would also be nice . But that's gonna {disfmarker} then you c then you don't +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} twelve and a half Euros ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you don't have t yeah it {disfmarker} that's not something i that's in the production cost {disfmarker} {gap} a one {disfmarker} it's a one time , you know {disfmarker} s was {disfmarker} it's a single cost . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but but then you can {disfmarker} nah , I don't thin I think that it would be more expensive , because I've bought the Alessi stuff more often and even small pencil holders or something are more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Would be a nice idea though . I don't know . I think it uh has to be a r {gap} it has to have round forms or something . Like something like that or so or so +Marketing: Something like that is very ergonomic . +Project Manager: And on th and then uh s a base unit underneath it . It's also round . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it in there uh {gap} wire on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh , I don't know , some some lights , a big but well . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , flash lights at the side . At the side , or something like that . +Project Manager: Volume and programme , yeah . +Marketing: Yes , volume and programme should be there I guess , because you hands wi uh y your hands will be in the smaller part . +Project Manager: And some of the extra funct Some of the extra functions over here . Numbers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and the numbers on top , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and lights ? How we're g well , maybe uh s a ring of {disfmarker} no , no , you have to {gap} {disfmarker} Maybe on the side of it . +Marketing: Maybe ro roun rounds +User Interface: Yeah , side of it . +Marketing: uh uh l sorry . +Project Manager: Along the side uh strip of {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Just two LEDs or something on the side . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe lights also around the volume and the p the plus minus programme buttons . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I also meant the the blinking li w you know , the ones that also blink when you try to uh uh locate your remote . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , theys have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh probably at the side . You know look at the front , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Exactly . When you you see it from the side , then it would look just {gap} like that . And then you have a strip of uh lights or something +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , and then there is {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , something like that , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , uh I think it's nice , for one thing . {gap} maybe put something on top of it {vocalsound} or , you know , like that's {disfmarker} looks funny . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . Or some bump . +Marketing: I think I think that'll be too big tha too big then . +Project Manager: Maybe some {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Bumper or something . +Project Manager: We'll have to think about it . I think we're we're done . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , we are . +Project Manager: We can save this one . +User Interface: Lunch break . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yes , I guess it's lunch time . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: Mm mm . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Half and hour ? +User Interface: Okay , five {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought our next uh next individual round was half an hour . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was what uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know about the lunch break . +Project Manager: Mm , we'll hear about it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . {gap} . {vocalsound} +","Summary of the conversation: + +The conversation involves members of a project team discussing the functional design of a new remote control. The Industrial Designer starts by mentioning technical aspects, explaining how the remote will use electrical energy to activate a chip, send infrared signals, and utilize cheap components like diodes, batteries, and LED lights. Discussions about the components being readily available and cost-effective ensue. + +The User Interface expert talks about focusing on either expert users or novice users and emphasizes the importance of user requirements in determining the functions of the remote. The Marketing expert has researched functional requirements, including customer preferences and behavior. They discovered that many people find remote controls unattractive and don't use most of the buttons. Most of the market is aged 36-65 and is more interested in spending money on a remote rather than on additional features. This suggests that the remote should have a simple, user-friendly design, with grouped features for higher usability. + +The Project Manager shares new project requirements, including avoiding teletext due to the rise of the internet, focusing the remote's use on televisions to avoid project complexity, targeting customers younger than 40, and ensuring the product aligns with the company's corporate image and includes its slogan and corporate color. + +Different ideas and features for the remote are thrown around, such as large buttons, simplicity, rechargeability, a trendy design, and possibly including a base that can make the remote beep for easy locating. There's a challenge to decide on the product's balance between appealing to a younger audience while not excluding older consumers. Creative ideas also involve how to make the remote special beyond its basic functions, such as including a gadget-like feature, a sturdy design, and considering its visual presence in a room. + +In conclusion, the team decides on basic functions for the remote, discusses the possibility of additional features for TV and possibly minor features for other devices like DVD players, and contemplates a stylish yet ergonomic design. Consideration is also given to making the remote stand out with unique features like rechargeability or a locator function. The meeting ends with the anticipation of lunch and further individual work sessions." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): Honourable members, I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 15thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Members will be participating via video conference or in person. I will remind you that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connecting by video conference. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up here on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining by video conference, I'd like to remind you to leave your microphones on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you need to be on the English channel for interpretation, and if you want to speak French, you should do so on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, please change to the channel for the language that you happen to be using at the time. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will now proceed to ministerial announcements. I invite the Right Hon. Prime Minister to take the floor. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I rise today to address what so many people of colour live with every day. Over the past few days, we've seen horrific reports of police violence against black men and women south of the border, but these are not isolated incidents or elsewhere problems. Prejudice, discrimination and violence are a lived reality for far too many people. They are a result of systems that far too often condone, normalize, perpetrate and perpetuate inequality and injustice against people of colour. As a country, we are not concerned bystanders simply watching what is happening next door. We are part of it. The calls for justice, for equality and for peace are found echoed in our communities, because anti-black racism is happening here, everywhere in Canada, every single day. This is something that our own staff, cabinet ministers and colleagues face even in these halls. Over the past few days, I've heard many of these personal stories directly from them. I'm not just talking about acts of violence. I'm also talking about microaggressions, which many of us may not even see. That is the daily reality of far too many racialized Canadians, and it needs to stop. When it comes to being an ally, I have made serious mistakes in the past, mistakes that I deeply regret and continue to learn from. I want to thank my colleagues, community leaders and fellow Canadians for opening my eyes to what is really going on in our communities and for helping me better understand both privilege and power. I'm not perfect, but not being perfect is not a free pass to not do the right thing. It's not an excuse to not step up, stand up for each other, be an ally. I know that for so many people listening right now, the last thing you want to hear is another speech on racism from a white politician. I'm not here today to describe a reality I do not know or to speak to a pain I have not felt. I'm here because I want you to know that our government is listening. We hear your calls for justice, equality and accountability. We acknowledge your frustration, your anger, your heartbreak. We see you. Since coming to office, our government has taken many concrete steps to fight anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and injustice across the country. We are working directly with the communities and their leaders to close the gaps that persist in Canada. For example, we have provided $9million to support programs for black Canadian youth. We have made significant investments to enable the Public Health Agency of Canada to provide more mental health services to people who have experienced racism or intergenerational trauma. We are helping community organizations to obtain funding to purchase equipment or lease space. We have also created the anti-racism secretariat, which has an envelope of $4.6million, to address systemic barriers, such as employment, justice and social participation, that perpetuate injustice. We have made progress, but we know the work is far from being done. Over the past five years, our government has worked with communities to recognize and address injustices. We've taken action to support community organizations, invest in better data and fight racism. While we've made some progress, there is still so much more to do, because here are the facts in Canada: Anti-black racism is real. Unconscious bias is real. Systemic discrimination is real. For millions of Canadians, it is their daily, lived reality. The pain and damage it causes are real too. Mr. Chair, every Canadian who has felt the weight of oppression, every student who has the courage to demand a better future, every person who marches and posts and reads and fights, from Vancouver to Montreal to Halifax, expects more than the status quo. They expect more and deserve better. The Government of Canada has a lot of work to do, but we're ready. We're ready to work with our opposition colleagues, community leaders and Canadians to make our country a more just and fair place. Racism never has a place in this country, and we will do everything we can to eradicate it from coast to coast to coast. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Over the past week, we have all been affected by the heartbreaking killing of George Floyd in the United States. The video is painful to watch. No one should ever have to plead for help while a crime is being committed, ignored by other members of law enforcement. The tragedy triggered marches, occupations, protests and, unfortunately, riots. However, I hope it has mostly sparked conversations. Racism is real, painful and unacceptable. No one should ever feel unsafe because of the colour of their skin, especially around police officers who have a duty and a responsibility to uphold the law for all. Here in Canada, we are fortunate to live in a country that is welcoming, tolerant and inclusive. Canada was a beacon of freedom to so many escaping slavery during the U.S. Civil War. Our nation has benefited immensely from great Canadians who overcame prejudices and discrimination to serve their communities and make Canada a better country: Lincoln Alexander, elected as a Conservative in 1968, was the first black member of Parliament and went on to become the first black cabinet minister; John Ware was born into slavery in South Carolina but, following the American Civil War, was a leading figure in bringing the first cattle to Alberta and spearheading the ranching industry that would become the backbone of the province; Josiah Henson escaped slavery to become a thriving businessman in Ontario; and of course, Viola Desmond challenged segregation in Nova Scotia. Black Canadians throughout history have not just built this nation with their contributions; they have also represented Canada with excellence and pride on the world stage, like Harry Jerome, who represented Canada in three Olympic Games and won a bronze medal in 1964. He would go on to become a teacher in British Columbia, once again serving with excellence to try to make a better world for the next generation. Throughout our history, black Canadians have put their lives on the line for their fellow Canadians, bravely serving around the world in our armed forces. While there are many things we can point to in our history with pride, that is not to say that we have a perfect record, nor that we are immune to the threat of racism or that anti-black racism is just an American problem. Canada has had its own dark episodes of racism that cannot be ignoredsadly, not just in our past. Every day, there are people who experience discrimination or racism in some form. Throughout this pandemic, we have seen a troubling spike in anti-Asian racism. No one should be attacked in their community or targeted on the bus because of the colour of their skin. Nor should places of worship be broken into and desecrated, like the synagogue in Montreal. The Conservatives condemn all acts of anti-semitism, racism and discrimination. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism or extremism of any kind. But the violence and destruction we have seen in response are not the answer. Millions of people are protesting peacefully across the United States and in Canada, and we must always protect the rights of people who are protesting peacefully and within the law for a just cause and separate them from those who exploit tragedies to commit acts of violence. Mr. Floyd's brother, Terrence, said that violence will not bring his brother back. Instead, he has called for peace and justice and urged the crowds to educate themselves and to vote. Out of such tragedy, Mr. Chair, that is a powerful message about how each one of us can use our democratic rights to effect change. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism and extremism of any kind. We are not born believing we are better than one another. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, and because of that, we are all equal. An infinite value exists in each one of us. Canada is an incredibly diverse country. Canada is a nation of immigrants that stands on the traditional territories of first nations, Inuit and Mtis people. Waves of newcomers have come to Canada for a better life because our country is built on a rock-solid foundation of enduring values, democratic institutions, the rule of law and fundamental and universal human rights. Everyone comes here because Canada is built on solid values, democratic institutions, and respect for the rule of law, as well as for fundamental, universal human rights. We must absolutely protect these values, because they are what sets us apart. They allow Canada to offer what so many other countries simply cannot. There are those who say that diversity is our strength, and that is true, but it doesn't quite capture the full picture. Diversity is the result of our strength, and our strength is and always has been our freedom. It is the freedom for people to preserve and pass on their cultural traditions and the opportunity to live in peace with those around them; the freedom to live your life with equality under the law, regardless of your race or ethnic background; and the economic freedom that so many governments around the world deny their people. It is that economic freedom that ensures that hard work pays off. It gives people the ability to work towards their dreams and choose their own path in life. Together, generations of Canadians who trace their roots back to countries around the world have built Canada to truly the greatest country on earth, the true north strong and free. To ensure that our people remain free, we must continue to fight attacks on our freedoms, including racism and all forms of brutality and injustice in Canada and around the world. Minority rights must be protected. Freedom of religion must be protected. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest must be protected. As John Diefenbaker said, I am a Canadian...free to speak without fear, free to worship...in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeloeilChambly. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. At a time of crisis when outrage is overwhelming the caution and fear of disease among thousands of people who, despite everything, take to the streets to express that outrage, we here in politics will have to be careful, once again, about the words we use. Indeed we are particularly inclined to give other people's words a meaning other than the one they would have liked to give them. Today, our dutyand I would say almost our only dutyis to express our solidarity, our sadness, our indignation and our anger, but above alland in saying this, I'm thinking of all my friends and acquaintances in the wonderful black community in Quebec and the UnitedStatesour friendship. We must try to be heard by all humans. Every time we talk about this, a small part of me surfaces, that of the non-practising but unrepentant anthropologist who wants to remind us that races do not exist. It is the frequency of manifestations of certain genetic traits favoured by geography and history, which in turn shape cultures. Racism expresses itself first and foremost through aggression against what is presumed to be the culture of others, difference. Each time difference instills fear, it is, of course, one time too many. We must learn to live equality in diversity, in itself an extraordinary thing. Governments in the U.S. have all been racist. Their racism has necessarily been expressed, at some point in their history, in their institutions. It has left its mark. It is the only thing that we have the right to call systemic racism or systemic discrimination. I am concerned when anyone suggests that we are all and collectively inclined to engage in systemic discrimination or when anyone claims to be a bulwark of virtue between us and the victims. I believe that the Canadian government is not racist, that the Quebec government is not racist, and that the governments of our municipalities are not racist either. I believe, however, that there may be traces of horrible things left in our institutions that colour our relationships with people of different origins or with people who were here long before us. So systemic racism probably exists. It should not denounce individuals, but it should encourage us to reread our rules to get rid of what might still be discriminatory in them. This day belongs to GeorgeFloyd. This day belongs to the black people of the UnitedStates. This day belongs to the black people of Quebec and Canada. We don't play politics at the funeral doors: we gather our thoughts, and let indignation and sadness be expressed. We leave the streets to those who need to speak with one voice, in peace. All that is peaceful is legitimate. Nothing that is violent is legitimate. The Prime Minister expressed the desire to implement concrete measures to fight racism. The first must be to show our solidarity and friendship. I'm proposing a very concrete measure, which is to give priority and expedited processing to the files of refugee claimantsespecially Haitian, especially black, but also of other originswho have expressed their desire to be part of the Quebec nation by putting themselves on the front line. He has the power and the duty to do so, and if he needs Parliament, let's do it tomorrow or right now. That way, words will become actions, and the next step will be all the more credible. In the meantime, our duty is to stand up for those who are afraid and against those who frighten them. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for Burnaby South. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Many, many Canadians were shocked to see the violence surrounding the murder of GeorgeFloyd. GeorgeFloyd's murder is a grim reminder that anti-black racism still exists and that it hits hard. Anti-black racism isn't only in the UnitedStates; it's here in Canada, too. Systemic racism against blacks, indigenous people and many other visible minorities is alive and well: racial profiling, economic inequality, social inequality, discriminatory hiring, trivialization of violence, excess incarceration, and so on. Things aren't moving forward because one government after another prefers pretty words to concrete action. When the time comes to act, they don't have the courage, they don't have the will to act. People are feeling a lot of grief and frustration, but we can turn that into action and justice. We must not just call for peace. I believe that we have to call for justice. Justice is the only way to create a better world. When people around the world saw the killing of George Floyd, it left all of us shaken to our core. It was chilling, the casual violence of anti-black racism, the callous taking of another human being's life. It hurt to the core. There was pain. There was sadness. There is anger, and rightly so. There is frustration. This isn't just an American problem. This is just as much a Canadian problem as well, and something that continues to exist across our country. Anti-black racism and anti-indigenous racism are real. People have suffered violence. Indigenous people and black people have suffered violence and have been killed at the hands of police here in Canada. I think about Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and the calls for justice for Regis. A black trans woman was killed in suspicious circumstances in an interaction with the police. I think about Stewart Kevin Andrews, a young indigenous man killed in an interaction with the police in Winnipeg. The anger and frustration are about this: How many more people need to die before there's action? How many more speeches will be made? How many more protests need to happen before something is done? How many more times will people plead to breathe? How many more times will they plead to live? What we're talking about is basic human dignity. How many more voices have to ask, demand, plead, beg for basic human dignity? People are angry. They're feeling like enough is enough. Why do they need to keep on asking? Why do black people, why do indigenous people need to keep on asking to be treated like humans? Why? You know, people are done with pretty speeches, particularly pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now if they wanted to. I'm standing in a hall of power, the chamber of the Commons, with a Prime Minister who has the power not just to say pretty words but to actually do something about this. The Prime Minister of this country has the power to go beyond pretty words and pretty speeches and do something. I don't have all the answers. I don't think any one person does. We're going to have to come up with those solutions together, but there are certainly some things we do know. Martin Luther King said, True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. That's what we need. We need justice. Killer Mike extolled that people should plan, plot, strategize, organize and then mobilize. Cardi B put it this way: Another way for the people to take powerI don't want to make everything political but it is what it isis by voting. So what do we vote for? We vote for a government to take action. I call on the Prime Minister, in this hall of power: If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending racial profiling in our country? If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-policing of black bodies? If the Prime Minister believes, truly believes, that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration of black people in this country? If the Prime Minister truly believes that black lives matter, will he commit to ensuring that there are race-based data to make better decisions? Will he commit to ensuring that there's access to education and to health resources? The Prime Minister has the power to do all these things right now. The Prime Minister simply needs to get it done. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, then similarly the Prime Minister must commit today to ending the racial profiling of indigenous people, the over-policing of indigenous people and the over-incarceration of indigenous people. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, the Prime Minister could stop taking indigenous kids to court; the Prime Minister could stop delaying the action on the calls for justice for the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. If the Prime Minister believes that indigenous lives matter, he could ensure that there's clean drinking water and access to justice and to education and housing right now. People are angry because they are frustrated and done with pretty words. People are angry because they're done with pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now. People don't want peace. They don't want an absence of tension. People want the presence of justice. People want justice. People deserve justice. People need justice, and justice is what people will get. Nothing less will do. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for SaanichGulf Islands +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is indeed a difficult day. It's a difficult week. These have been difficult weeks. I stand here and want to begin by acknowledging that we are all on the traditional territory of the Algonquin peoples, and again to say meegwetch, on a day like this when we're focusing on something so painful that really is beyond partisanship and that should bind us together as people who say we cannot tolerate racism, not in this country. But we know it's here. As the Prime Minister just said, Racism never has a place in this country. But we know it's here and we know it's living with us. We are facing, in this pandemic, two dangerous, invisible viruses. One is COVID-19 and the other one we've tolerated far too long, which is race-based hatred, hate speech and anti-black racism. Yes, black lives matter. I want to do nothing but just chant it in this place until we all stand together and say, Black lives matter. What we are seeing in the murder of George Floyd is exactly as my colleague from the Bloc Qubcois said: George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. There is victim upon victim upon victim. These victims have names. We must not forget their names. The first time a black man was killed when his last words were I can't breathe was in 2014, with Eric Garner. His mother did interviews this week. Imagine what she's going through, because George Floyd died on video also saying, I can't breathe, and the people who were stopping him from breathing, his killers, are the police. In the case of Eric Garner, the policemen were fired but never charged. In George Floyd's murder, at least one killer has been charged, but it doesn't do anything to ease the pain, nor, as my friend from the NDP said, does it quench the thirst for justice, because that's what people are crying out for. They're crying out for justice. The names just keep cascading. I had to look it up because I thought, when was it that the poor young man who was jogging was murdered by the father and son in the pickup truck? He was murdered by a retired policeman and his son in their pickup truck, in February. Breonna Taylor of Louisville was murdered in her own home by cops who thought she might have drugs there. They searched, and she didn't. What on earth allows this to keep happening over and over again? I looked at a site called Just Security and I thought these words from reporter Mia Bloom, who happens to be Canadian, were pretty clear on what puts you at risk of death in the United States of America, but also in Canada: driving while black, jogging while black, reporting while black, bird watching while black, selling lemonade while black can get you killed. The killers far too often are wearing a uniform. I want to go back to the words reporting while black, because this is something else we've seen in the last four days that we've never seen before, which is the deliberate targeting of reporters by police. Over 100 reporters have been injured in the United States in the last four days. One woman lost her eye. These are serious injuries. Sometimes reporters get in the way of riots and whatnot, but this is different. This is another element altogether. It seems that, in this place, when we have speeches and pretty words to denounce racism, we do it in a kind of cycle. After Colten Boushie's murder, we talked about anti-indigenous racism. We talked about the threat to our indigenous brothers and sisters across this country who also face racism on a daily basis. We talked about the fact that they are disproportionately in our prisons. Just within the last day, the report came down on the killing of Dale Culver in Prince George at the hands of the Prince George RCMP. This indigenous young man was 35 years old, and he was pepper-sprayed until he couldn't breathe. There will be charges in this case. That's the recommendation that just came down. We go through sequential moments where we can say Islamophobia is not okay. Six Muslims at prayer in Quebec City were murdered. We can all stand up and say we denounce Islamophobia. Or we can denounce anti-trans violence against individual trans people who are murdered. We denounce anti-Semitism when we see anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on the door of an Ottawa rabbi's home. We denounce it, but can we get to the root of it? As the honourable leader of the Conservative Party mentioned, in recent days we're seeing anti-Asian racism on the increase. We're seeing all this happen and we want to be good allies. We want to be a good ally to the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. We want to be a good ally. I am a woman of privilege. I got it by mere random accident of birth. I was born to white parents. Privilege is being white. We have to study our privilege. We have to acknowledge our privilege and we have to know, as the Prime Minister said, we're not perfect, but it doesn't give us a free pass to ignore that we have to stand up and we have to speak out. I am sitting so close to my friend here, our minister, Ahmed HussenI say your name out loud, but your tweets brought me to tearsthat this fine man faces racism in his own riding, that his three beautiful black boys have people turn away or clutch their purse or they're a little worried when the kids are around. It sounds exactly like what the Prime Minister just called the microaggressions that many of us might not even see. We can look at our own conduct and our own behaviour. In looking at these things, there is something I want to say, when we look at all these things that are happening and we wonder, what we can do about it. When we see a bully, when we hear hate speech, we have to speak up. We have to speak out and we have to say that the President of the United States is fomenting hatred and violence and it's shameful and shocking that he would grab a Bible, then use tear gas to clear peaceful protestors on a Washington street so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of an Episcopal church. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington had this to say, because she is a good ally: In no way do we support the President's incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation. In faithfulness to our Saviour who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd. That's what we must do in this place. We must acknowledge and speak up for justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, the report on which languishes a year later. We must stand up for justice and we must examine something very worrying. In 2006, the U.S. FBI warned that white supremacist groups were targeting police forces and joining them. If we're looking for real action, things we can do in this place, I call on us to have an inquiry and an examination to root out white supremacist groups in Canada and identify them for what they are, a terrorist threat in our midst. We must make sure they're not in our police forces, because if there is one thing scarier than a white supremacist with a gun, it's a white supremacist with a gun in uniform. Please, God, there are things we can do. Please, God, we love each other, take care of each other regardless of the colour of our skin, and pray for the United States of America. It's a country being ripped apart, and the ripping and the tearing is being done by people who should at this very time be consoling and leading and inspiring. Pray. Pray for Canada. Pray for each and every one of our beautiful black baby girls and boys, the indigenous baby girls and boys, the Asian kids. Wherever you look, reach out and be a good ally. Stand up and say, With my body I get between you and the cops. We have to be good allies. Right now, they're just pretty words. Thank you for listening. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I'd like to remind honourable members that any petition presented during the meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's difficult to follow that set of speeches. I have a petition on a serious issue dealing with plastic pollution. It creates a major impact on aquatic life but also on human health. It's estimated that 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles are ingested per person every year. A recent study shows that each washing cycle 120,000 to 730,000 microfibres are shed from clothes and go directly into waste water. Many of these microfibres are synthetic and therefore are microplastics. Washing machine discharge filters are currently available on the market and greatly reduce the amount of microfibres being released into waste water and thus the environment. This petition is calling on the government to legislate the requirement for all new washing machines to have discharge filters as of 2021 and to provide incentives to all residents of Canada to install discharge filters on current washing machines. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for Peace RiverWestlock. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to table a petition signed by Canadians who are concerned about Bill C-7. Given what we've seen in assisted living homes in this country and the devastation particularly in Ontario and Quebec, the petitioners are asking for the government to look into assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for SaanichGulf Islands. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise to present a petition today from a number of constituents calling for the government to act to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. There is a call to respect the Wet'suwet'en territory and to dismantle RCMP exclusion zones. This petition came some time ago. Some of these issues have been dealt with. I am particularly pleased to note that the nation-to-nation talks called for by petitioners between the Wet'suwet'en and the federal and provincial governments have taken place. I will take this moment if I may to thank the honourable ministers involved in that effort. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That will conclude the presenting of petitions. I would ask members who have presented petitions here in person in the House if they would be so kind as to bring their petitions to the table. That would be most appreciated. We'll now go to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would remind members to do their best to keep their member statement to a maximum of one minute. We'll start statements by members with Mr. Weiler, the member for West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country. +Mr. Patrick Weiler (West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I continue to be amazed by how the communities throughout my riding have stepped up to support our most vulnerable at our time of crisis. In many ways it has brought our communities closer together even while we stay physically distant. Nowhere is this more true than on the Sunshine Coast. Dedicated individuals immediately and organically mobilized the Sunshine Coast community task force to coordinate local government, non-profit and business efforts to provide critical services to the community. Social enterprises banded together to form the Sunshine Coast food service response, which provides ready-made meals and donates to food banks. Persephone Brewing and others deliver groceries to at-risk customers both on the coast and on isolated islands. The 101 Brewhouse + Distillery and Bruinwood Distillery quickly retooled their business to supply much-needed hand sanitizer to local hospitals and other front-line workers. COVID-19, like all crises, has highlighted true leadership in our society, and I am grateful for what they and all of our health care workers do every day to get us through this. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Medicine HatCardstonWarner, Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz (Medicine HatCardstonWarner, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have shown they're unwilling to put the protection and safety of Canadians ahead of political interests. They themselves are the greatest source of disinformation in this country. The Prime Minister told Canadians that they can buy a gun without a licence. Either purposely or because of ignorance, he left out the fact that doing so is a criminal offence with a five-year prison sentence. The Minister of Public Safety said he wouldn't target hunters, but then he went ahead and banned numerous bolt-action hunting rifles and made owning a shotgun a criminal offence. They have weakened the ability to protect our borders. They have ignored our rampant drug crisis, and they have weakened sentences for serious crimes, all while saying they take these issues very seriously. Today they tell us they are banning a new Liberal-invented type of firearm, a military-style assault rifle. It's time to be honest with Canadians. The Liberals would rather make people afraid of hunters, farmers and sport shooters than deal with the real issues like drugs, gangs, illegal smuggling and crime. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sgro, the hon. member for Humber RiverBlack Creek. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is in our most difficult moments when we truly see stunning displays of human spirit and generosity. On that note, today I wish to recognize the work of the Humber River Hospital in my riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek and to congratulate them on the success of their Humber front-line support fund and PPE drive. Not only have they been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic keeping our residents safe and healthy, but thanks to the generosity of those both in my riding and beyond, the Humber River Hospital has raised over $1 million and received over 400,000 pieces of personal protective equipment. This will be invaluable to the hospital as they continue to work with us and fight the good fight to keep us all healthy. I thank all those brave workers at the hospital, and I thank those generous individuals who have donated to this important cause. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for AbitibiTmiscamingue, Mr.Lemire, to take the floor. +Mr. Sbastien Lemire (AbitibiTmiscamingue, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am honoured to speak to you about a proud warrior. StephanLavoie had made the choice to say thank you to life. For several years, he had been using his fight against cancer, which he led with the help of natural products only, to ensure cancer services and care were improved, particularly in regions far from major centres. Mayor of Preissac, in the RCM of Abitibi, StephanLavoie passed away yesterday. I would like to extend my condolences to his wife, Anabelle, to his entire family and especially to his daughter, Astrid, who is only 20months old. Through his humanism, StephanLavoie was a warrior, a visionary and a great source of inspiration for all of us. To me, he was above all the perfect model of a committed and loving father. My thoughts also go out to the citizens of Preissac, to whom he leaves a dynamic legacy, and to the leaders of the Abitibi community. In our first conversation, he said to me, and I hope the House will echo it forever, that all of our decisions must be made with our children in mind. Stephan, rest in peace, dear friend. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for MontRoyal, Mr.Housefather, has the floor. +Mr. Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal, Lib.): It is with great sadness that I rise today to pay tribute to Tristan Roy, after his tragic passing exactly two weeks ago. Born in Saint-Fabien-sur-Mer, Tristan became a pillar of the MontRoyal community in1997 when he bought the old MontRoyal newspaper. When the city's oldest newspaper, the TMR Weekly Post ceased operations, Tristan registered the name and renamed his newspaper the TMR Poste de Mont-Royal. He created a truly bilingual newspaper, ensuring that TMR residents could receive their news in both French and English. His editorials and views on local issues carried enormous weight. I join Mayor Philippe Roy and the members of the town council in offering our sincere condolences to Tristan's wife, Anne-Marie, his daughter, Aril, and his son, Lancelot. We all considered Tristan to be a friend, an example of what a good journalist and editor should be and could be. He will be sorely missed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux, has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Mr.Chair, if you didn't already know, people from Beauce are proud. There is Marie-PhilipPoulin of Beauceville, who was named the best female hockey player in the world earlier this year, or AntonyAuclair of Notre-Dame-des-Pins. AntonyAuclair said, in a CBC article, that Beauce had prepared him for his arrival in the NFL. There is also GuillaumeCouture, from Sainte-Marie, who made his mother very proud, and everyone from Beauce indirectly, on the program Les Chefs again last night. It is this same pride that I see throughout the region, with companies like Revtech Systmes, in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, or PuriHaze, in Sainte-Marie, which have invented robots to decontaminate spaces. There are also local purchasing initiatives such as the #onlaici campaign by the Nouvelle-Beauce chamber of commerce and industry or Achetons beauceron, by the Saint-Georges chamber of commerce. Today I have but two words for my constituents: thank you. I thank them for continuing to encourage local businesses that greatly need it. I thank them for being loyal to their habits and to rolling up their sleeves to help their neighbours. I thank them for being proud and being residents of Beauce. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to the member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government has shown leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that Canadians remain safe and get the financial assistance they need. Eight million Canadians are receiving the Canada emergency response benefit. The Canada emergency business account and the Canada emergency wage subsidy ensure that the economy is ready to start up post-pandemic. Seniors received top-ups to the OAS and GIS, and families, the child care benefit. All of these measures are helping thousands of seniors and low-income families in my riding of Don Valley East. The feedback from my regular virtual town halls has also helped to fine-tune many of the programs. Many Canadians have shown generosity during this crisis. I want to particularly thank Saravanaa Bhavan and Happy Pops for donating food and frozen treats to our superhero front-line workers at local hospitals. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for VaughanWoodbridge, Mr. Sorbara. +Mr. Francesco Sorbara (VaughanWoodbridge, Lib.): Mr. Chair, even though this year's festivities for Italian Heritage Month will be done differently, the same spirit and vitality exists throughout virtual events happening across the country. Virtual events have seen Italian Canadians, through their generosity, raise over $1 million to help Italy during COVID-19. Today, June 2, Italian citizens celebrate the founding of the modern day Italian Republic. The Italian Canadian story remains one of passion, an adopted homeland filled with hard work, sacrifice and optimism. Generations of Italian Canadians have contributed much to shaping the inclusive and generous Canada that we know today. Our diversity is our strength, and I'm proud to be Italian Canadian. Let's all join together in proudly celebrating Italian Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, as communities begin to ease restrictions, I remain mystified that, according to this government, Parliament is not an essential service. If it were up to the Prime Minister, he would not have to answer to anyone. That is not how democracy works. We in the opposition have been long calling for the return of Parliament, which would be possible while still maintaining public health guidelines. Canadians deserve to be represented in the House of Commons by the elected member of Parliament. While the work we do in our constituencies is incredibly important, it is equally important to bring those voices back to Ottawa to debate, to question and to hold the government to account. This is fundamental to the role of an elected representative. The role of the opposition is crucial now more than ever when billions of dollars are being spent with little oversight. Our role as members of Parliament is to uphold our democracy and to be present. This is the greatest pandemic in our lifetime. Now is not the time to hide behind a podium. If this government were doing the best job for Canadians, they would not need to hide. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Brampton East, Mr. Sidhu. +Mr. Maninder Sidhu (Brampton East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to take a moment to highlight displays of generosity in my riding of Brampton East. This is just a small sample of the many individuals and organizations that have stepped up across Canada. Khalsa Aid has been providing food supplies with the help of Sperenza Banquet Hall, which has graciously provided the space to run a province-wide campaign out of Brampton East. Care4Cause has sent hundreds of prepared meals on a weekly basis to Good Shepherd Ministries to lessen their load. Navraj Brar at Pharmasave has offered free care packages to health care workers and hand sanitizer to the Peel Regional Police. Aujla Salon and Spa has partnered with GlobalMedic to help deliver over 10,000 pounds of food to local food banks. I would also like to point out the heroic efforts of our truck drivers, taxi drivers, grocery store clerks, nurses, doctors, paramedics and countless other front-line heroes. We see you and we are immensely grateful for the bravery you display each and every day. Thank you to everyone in Brampton East who has stepped up for their neighbour in their time of need. You are setting a great example of the kind of progress we can make as Canadians when we come together and support each other. I am truly honoured to represent you in Ottawa. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for WellingtonHalton Hills, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Mr. Chair, the House of Commons is shut down. Let's be clear. This is not the House of Commons. It's a committee where only statements, petitions and questions are allowed. There is no power to introduce motions, to test confidence or to vote. The government came to office promising greater democracy but they broke their promise on electoral reform. They tried to give the PMO the control over this House in motion 6, and yesterday's report confirms that they rigged the leaders debate in their favour in the last election. Now they've shuttered Parliament. Parliament sat through two world wars, the October crisis and previous pandemics and it survived the test, but not now. The people's representatives need to sit. People need their representation. Parliament and this House of Commons with its full powers needs to reopen and it needs to reopen now. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for ReginaQu'Appelle. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these past few months have been tremendously difficult for so many Canadians: sickness, losing loved ones, job losses, economic hardships, loneliness and isolation. The pandemic has taken its toll on so many. It is in these times of suffering and adversity that we have seen Canadians coming together to support each other and that brings us hope. Mosques, churches, synagogues and gurdwaras have all answered the call to help their communities. Whether it's providing meals to the hungry, clothing for the cold, or technology for those who need it most, these actions are true reflections of the kindness and generosity that Canadians are known for. While there are too many groups to mention them all, I want to thank Vikas Sharma and Care4Cause out of Brampton for the meals that they have been providing their community in that area and across the GTA. This group and thousands of others like it across the country are working tirelessly to ease the suffering of others and help those in need. Thank you, and God bless all the volunteers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to the honourable member for Winnipeg Centre. Ms. Gazan, go ahead. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise today in honour of National Indigenous History Month to speak truth about a history of racism in Canada that was built on the wrongful dispossession of lands from indigenous people and controlled through the use of police-state violence that has resulted in a loss of life, freedom, respect and dignity. Even today we continue to observe this reality in my very own city where we witnessed the killing of three indigenous youth by police in a span of 10 days this past April. This is not a coincidence. We have statistics. We have research, and we have stories of loved ones lost. We know it, and we see it in our lives every day. We need to address police violence throughout this country. Canadians are rising from coast to coast demanding this of all of us and sending a clear message that we must address systemic racism in all of its forms to ensure justice for all. There will never be reconciliation in the absence of justice. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Mr.Chair, Canada Post is literally not delivering the goods. But the postal service is an essential service, and even more so today because everything is done online, even local shopping. The current crisis partly explains the congestion, but it is mainly due to the fact that Canada Post forgot to join the 21stcentury. It has been left behind where others have made millions of dollars. Its platform isn't effective. It's now delivering more parcels, but it's losing money. There's a statement to make here, right now. In the immediate term, Canada Post must deal with the delays, and to do so, it needs the help of the Government of Canada. Canada Post needs to hire staff. If a collective agreement had finally been signed, it would make it easier to hire staff. We have been waiting for two and a half years. A premium for essential workers might also be appropriate. As I said, the postal service is an essential service, and it's time to give it the importance this status imposes. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Calgary Centre. Mr. McLean, go ahead. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, the prospects in Canada's oil fields are bleak in the near term. Capital spending forecasts and drilling activities sank to a 49-year low. This is a result of the temporary collapse in demand for our most valuable commodity and the one that contributes the most to our GDP, our balance of trade, and whose taxes support the social programs Canadians enjoy, $108 billion in GDP, $8 billion per year in government revenues, $77 billion in trade surplus. It is a rude blow to hard-working professionals who soldier past negligent government policies that have left a stain on another generation of western Canadians. We're talking about an industry here that directly employs over 200,000, including 11,000 indigenous Canadians. We're talking about an industry that contributes 75% of Canada's investment in clean technology. However, Canada's resource industry will still be resilient. Bad policy cannot permanently erase the work, the hope and the pride of forward thinkers and doers, and their efforts to continue building a great country. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Winnipeg South. Mr. Duguid, go ahead. +Mr. Terry Duguid (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today I want to give a special thank you to the health care workers at Victoria General Hospital, who are serving patients in our community here in Winnipeg South. Every day, doctors, nurses and staff work selflessly to take care of those in our community who need it most. Whether it's by keeping seniors connected with their families by using iPads or making sure that patients go home with a special care package, staff at the Vic are doing extraordinary work to make this difficult time just a little bit easier. I would also like to give a big shout-out to our wonderful small businesses in Winnipeg South that continue to show their appreciation by preparing meals for the hard-working staff at the Vic. Folks in our community continue to show what it means to be exemplary Canadians, and it is a great honour to represent them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This concludes the period for statements by members. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr.Chair, the staff of long-term care facilities for seniors are showing exceptional courage and dedication. FranoisLegault asked that the military personnel currently helping in facilities in Quebec stay until the fall. The Prime Minister said no. I'd like to hear the Prime Minister tell us why they can't stay. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, like all Canadians, I am deeply grateful for the extraordinary work that the Canadian Armed Forces are doing in long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario. Thanks to their reports, we've seen that the situation was even worse than we feared. The work our military is doing is extraordinary. We will continue to support them, but we know that having military personnel in our long-term care facilities isn't a long-term solution. Therefore, we are going to work with Quebec to find better long-term solutions. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, now that Bell Canada has decided to partner with Ericsson to deliver its 5G network, the Liberals will undoubtedly ban Huawei, but the Liberal inaction on Huawei is just another example of this government's weak leadership. Instead of deciding for himself a year ago, the Prime Minister is forcing the business community to make the decision for him. Why couldn't the Prime Minister have shown some backbone and banned Huawei a year ago? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our approach every step of the way has been to listen to experts, to work with allies and to listen to the counsel of our security and intelligence community, which has been looking into this issue. We know we need to make sure that Canadian businesses, Canadians and Canadian infrastructure are protected at the same time as we remain competitive in the world. That has guided our approach on this from the beginning. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The fact of the matter, Mr Chair, is that it hasn't. The former public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, promised in this House over a year ago that an answer on Huawei would be coming. Here we are, it's June 2, 2020, and they still haven't made a decision. On another topic, Mr. Chair, the President of the Treasury Board wrote to cabinet last week and said that transparency is important even in a time of crisis. I guess the Minister of Infrastructure didn't get that letter. She's refusing to tell us how much of a bonus she gave to the departing head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At a time when Canadians are struggling, it is disgusting that the Liberals are paying out bonuses to someone who accomplished nothing. Will the Prime Minister have a little respect for taxpayers and tell us exactly how much of a bonus the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank received? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the mandate of the Canada Infrastructure Bank is to find innovative ways to finance some of Canada's biggest infrastructure projects by leveraging private capital. The remuneration range of the former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. The opposition is looking backward. We're moving forward. The bank is moving into its next phase of development, now under the leadership of the new board chair, Michael Sabia, and will play an important role in the recovery when the time comes. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, only to a Liberal would an innovative approach to building infrastructure mean building absolutely nothing. The CEO of an infrastructure bank who accomplished zero completed infrastructure projects should not be receiving a bonus. I didn't ask a question about the remuneration. I didn't ask a question about the salary. This individual received a bonus. How much was that bonus? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, the remuneration range of this former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. In regard to further payments, we do not comment on personal HR and financial information of individuals in government. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, again, I did not ask about the remuneration. I asked about the bonus. The Canada Infrastructure Bank was a Liberal scheme designed to protect the investments of private investors and put all the risk onto taxpayers. Even with that model, do you know how many projects they completed? Zero. Yet, the individual in charge of that received a bonus from the Prime Minister. Apparently, to the Liberals, he was doing a good job. They might try to claim that it's arm's length and that they can't divulge this information, but we know that Minister Champagne personally intervened in the decision regarding the bonus of the Canada Infrastructure Bank's CEO. It's a simple question. How much did that individual receive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, five years ago, when we first got elected, we had to turn around the underinvestment that Stephen Harper's Conservatives had made in infrastructure across the country. Even during the depths of the 2008 recession, the investments they made were for things like doorknobs and signs. They went into debt and didn't have anything to show for it. We're going to continue to move forward on historic investments in infrastructure to build up this country. We're using innovative means like the infrastructure bank to do that. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, well before 1867, in what became Quebec, in New Brunswick, in Acadia, in Ontario and in the west, lay the seeds of what later became the provinces of Canada and Quebec. It can therefore be inferred that Canada is a creature of the provinces and that the provinces are not creatures of Canada. Could the Prime Minister read his answer to this question: who pays for the health transfers to the provinces? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have a country with a number of levels of government working together to serve Canadians. In times of crisis, but also in good times, Canadians expect that their governments will work together to provide the services and the care that they need. That is exactly what we are doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let me remind the Prime Minister that all the provinces and Quebec are asking for increased and recurring health transfers that are unconditional and sustainable. Who pays for the all-too-meagre benefits made available to the seniors of Quebec and Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have worked with Quebec and the other provinces to make sure that we invest in health transfers. We have made transfers of $500million, that's halfabillion dollars, because of the recent COVID-19 crisis. We will continue to work with the provinces in the long term. But, for the moment, we are working on the emergency situation in which we find ourselves. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, the Conservatives have backtracked on the wage subsidy, and I congratulate them for that. Who pays for the part of the wage subsidy program that will be going into the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, since this crisis began, we have made investments to protect jobs and workers, including accountants, human resources managers and receptionists. We are in the process of ensuring that people with all kinds of jobs in all kinds of organizations will be able to keep those jobs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, it is comforting to know that they are a little richer now, but some companies are under threat because the Liberal Party is a little richer. Who is going to pay for the fact that one company has been chosen by a closed call for tender? One company has been awarded a private contract, probably a foreign multinational, probably for 2021, while we are perfectly capable of doing the work in Quebec and in Canada. Who is going to pay for this gift to a private company that will be doing the Government of Canada's work? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are in a crisis. We are in the process of helping workers and helping Canadians by means of measures like the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and with the assistance to companies, We will continue to do what we must do to help workers all across the country so that we can come out of this crisis together. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Fundamentally, my impression was that, in a crisis, civil society turns to the state to find and implement solutions. I see that, in this case, and in all its operations, the Government of Canada takes money, about 20% of which comes from Quebec, and gives it to a private company, possibly a foreign company, so that it can tell us what will happen, although the first wave will have come and gone for a year already. Is the Prime Minister telling us that he is incapable of doing his job? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, Canadians expect their government to look after their health and the health of the economy. That is exactly what we are doing. We are here for workers, we are here for families, we are here for our seniors and for our students. We will continue to be here throughout this pandemic and as the economy reopens. That is what Canadians expect of us and we will meet their expectations. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchet, you have about 40seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, as I see it, the Prime Minister is contracting out his job with taxpayers' money, a part of which is going into his party's bank account for the next election. Is that the only explanation of his role he has for the residents of Quebec, a role that is currently protected by a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all across the country, including in Quebec, people are worried about their jobs because of the crisis that the pandemic is causing. We are providing a wage subsidy to organizations and to companies to ensure that people will receive their paycheques in order to support their families and pay their rent. That is what people expected from this government as a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Burnaby South, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, people are fed up with pretty words from people in power. The Prime Minister has the power to do something about the anti-black racism that Canada is faced with. Will the Prime Minister end racial profiling in Canada against black people once and for all? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this government was the first government to recognize anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and unconscious bias and to take concrete actions against them in the context of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent but also in the context of a country that stands up for human rights and protects everyone. We have made significant steps forward, but there is so much to do, and I look forward to working with all members in this House to do just that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I did not hear an answer. Will the Prime Minister end the racial profiling of black people in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our justice system unfairly targets in many situations racialized Canadians, including indigenous Canadians and black Canadians. We know we need to improve our justice system and rates of incarceration and we will work on it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister end the over-policing and over-incarceration of black and indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic discrimination means that people of colour are at greater risk of being incarcerated than others when facing negative outcomes in the justice system. We know we need to work on all the determinants of that. We will work as a country together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister make sure Canada is collecting disaggregated data on the impacts of COVID-19 on racialized people, particularly indigenous and black people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, not just on COVID-19 but on all ranges of data, we've made investments over the past years to Statistics Canada so that they are better able to collect data in a disaggregated fashion. We need to know what is happening within vulnerable communities. Disaggregated data will help, and we're working with provinces on the COVID-19 data. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: We know people are frustrated with anti-black racism. People are also incredibly frustrated with anti-indigenous racism. Will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration, over-policing and racial profiling of indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I referred to that in an earlier answer. Yes, we need to work to ensure that the rates of incarceration for indigenous people and for racialized Canadians are reduced. There are many measures we're working on to move forward to make our justice system fairer, to reduce systemic discrimination and eventually to eliminate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Here are two specific things we can do. I asked the Prime Minister if he will commit to stop taking indigenous kids to court, and if he will stop delaying the response to the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls calls for justice. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, tomorrow is the anniversary of the end of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry. We have been working over the past year with partners on the ground to formulate the measures and the response that needs to move forward. Many of those partners over the past months have been engaged in keeping their communities safe and working hard on that, and that has delayed the putting out of the report. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister stop taking indigenous kids to court when it comes to indigenous child welfare? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we agree that we need to compensate kids and indigenous peoples who have suffered harm at the hands of our child and family services over the past decades and we will do that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister commit to not just pretty words but real action ensuring that all indigenous communities have access to clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP needs to know that we have eliminated over 80 long-term boil water advisories through our work over the past years, and we are on track to eliminating all of them on time by next spring. This is something we committed to Canadians and we are doing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister needs to speak to indigenous communities who talk of a completely different reality. They do not have access to clean drinking water, and communities are going off the list only to return back on to the list of boil water advisories. Will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring all indigenous communities have clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, that was a commitment we made to Canadians and a commitment we are keeping. The member opposite continues to talk as if there has been no progress made. There has been significant progress made. We are on track to eliminating those boil water advisories. It would be great if the members opposite talked about some good news instead of just highlighting the very real problems that are there. There is good news and there is challenging news. We are working on those together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Mr. Chair, what share of Canada's national debt is owed to foreign lenders? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our fiscal situation in a responsible manner, and we'll continue to do that. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much does the Government of Canada owe to the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we would be happy to provide information. If the member would like to send my office questions directly, I'd be happy to provide this information. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: It turns out I did a week ago. They still haven't provided answers to the questions, in particular the question regarding who owns Canada's foreign-held debt. We know that roughly a third of our debt is owned by foreigners. How much of that debt is owned by lenders from the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we'd be happy to reply to these questions directly. We'll do so. We'll get to it in order, as we work through this crisis, making sure we focus on Canadians first. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much is owned by lenders from Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, we'd be happy to provide information in this regard should the member wish to send a request directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Which I have. Mr. Chair, moving along to the impacts of the debt on our people, how much would a 1% increase in the effective interest rate on Canada's national debt cost Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our treasury function responsibly. I'd be happy to get financial calculations to the member if he'd like to send those directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: All right, Mr. Chair, we'll try a different question, then, as we're not getting any answers. We have lower interest rates than ever before. Normally, it means you lock in those rates for the long run. Anybody who has a mortgage knows you lock in for the long run when rates are low. What percentage of Canada's national debt is locked in for more than five years? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to get this information to the member, but I would acknowledge that as we manage the treasury function for the Government of Canada, we look at the short term, the medium term and the long term. We think we have come up with a responsible approach to managing the ongoing debt that we have as a country. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, it turns out, according to Department of Finance officials, that less than 3% of Canada's recently added debt since March is for terms of more than five years. Why has this minister made Canada so susceptible to future interest rate hikes by failing to lock in the $371.5 billion of new debt he's added in the last two and a half months? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage the treasury function of the Government of Canada in a responsible way, making sure we consider what debt should be issued in a short term, a medium term and a long term, which we've been doing as the Government of Canada during our entire term and as previous governments have done as well. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Canadians would be wise not to hire this minister as their mortgage broker if they're looking to get the best rate. Let's move on to the Canadian household. The average household was $200 away from insolvency before this crisis began. How many Canadians would experience bankruptcy in the next 12 months if interest rates were to rise by an effective one percentage point? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we'd be happy to get calculations to the member. I would make the observation that what we've been working to do during the course of this pandemic is to support Canadians and support Canadian families by providing them income during a time when they don't have access to income because they're actually at home. We think that has supported them in a very, very positive way that allows us to ensure that we will have a continuing economy when we get through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Poilievre. Go ahead. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Unfortunately, we will have a $1-trillion debt when this fiscal year comes to an end. How much will the finance minister try to raise taxes if interest rates on that debt rise by, say, 1%? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I've said to the House previously, we do not intend to raise taxes. What the member opposite is suggesting is that we shouldn't be investing to support Canadians. I think the approach we've taken, with the emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy, has been particularly critical for enabling Canadians to get through a very challenging time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The floor goes to the honourable member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, my question goes to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Day after day, I speak with those involved in the world of agriculture and with witnesses appearing before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. The consensus is very clear: the business risk management programs are not working. When will the Minister become involved and make major changes to those programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, we have made commitments to producers all across the country. Some programs are already provided, including the risk management programs. I am working regularly with my colleagues in the provinces in order to improve them. We have also increased our contribution to various other programs, specifically in the meat sector, for pork or beef producers, and food processors. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, I have been hearing the same answers for several weeks now. Could the Minister simply give us a date? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I repeat that we are working regularly with producers and their representatives. In addition, I am working together with my provincial colleagues. We are going to determine where the gaps are and we will identify the sectors that most need our assistance. Then, we will determine the best way to provide them with the assistance they need. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, the government promised to set its share of the business risk management programs at 60%, even if a province or territory does not participate. Have the provinces received the money, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Here is how it works. Through the AgriRecovery program, we have provided $50million for pork producers and $50million for beef producers. The program is available everywhere, but the provinces are responsible for implementing it. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, when will that transfer be made? Can the minister simply give us a date? That is all we are asking. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would really like to be able to give a date, but the answer depends on each of the provinces. The provinces have to implement the program. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: However, Mr.Chair, the minister has told us that she is ready to transfer the funds, whether or not the provinces add any to the program. To date, we still have no answer in that regard. How does the Minister of Agriculture intend to make major changes to the various risk management programs by July, when the government has itself pushed back the federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Ministers of Agriculture to October? We have been meeting by Zoom for some time now. Why was that not able to be an option? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I meet with my provincial colleagues every week, either by conference call or by Zoom. I can assure my colleague about our ongoing collaboration with the provinces. As for the AgriRecovery program, once again, the provinces have to implement it and it is their choice to contribute their share of 40% or not, in whole or in part. However, our federal commitment on the 60% share is firm. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, if I understand correctly, there will be no changes to the various programs before November. The sectors of agriculture under supply management, like eggs and poultry producers in my constituency, who have been promised compensation for a long time, want to know when the money will be transferred to the producers who are working tirelessly to feed our country. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I know that poultry, egg and milk producers work extremely hard. Our commitment to them in terms of compensation in response to the three free-trade agreements is still firm. At the moment, we are concentrating on emergency programs. We will then proceed with that compensation. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. As I see it, I still have not had an answer. The country is moving towards more automation. I am thinking, for example, about the advances that many SMEs and farmers in my constituency could implement in their companies. Unfortunately, in the regions, the Internet is far from adequate. When will I be able to tell my constituents that reliable Internet service will be available in their homes? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I assure you that we recognize the importance of the Internet in rural regions. I myself represent a rural constituency and it is a challenge every day. We are working with our colleagues, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Rural Economic Development to speed up the implementation of programs along those lines. +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll now proceed to Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz: Mr. Chair, for the Minister of Public Safety, Minister Blair, how many times has the list of banned firearms changed since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): My understanding is that an order in council was made on May 1, and we have not made any changes to that order in council. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. How many more firearms have been added to the original prohibited list since that date? +Hon. Bill Blair: I suspect the member may be referring to the work that the RCMP has been doing through the Canadian firearms program in order to apply the order in council that was passed. +The Chair: Before we go to Mr. Motz, I want to ask all honourable members to ensure that they are on mute. We are getting some voices in the background. Mr. Motz, please continue. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many .22 calibre rifles, firearms, are on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: To be very clear, Mr. Chair, the banned list includes a number of assault-style rifles, including the AR-15. The member may be referring to a weapon that the RCMP has identified as using an AR-15 frame, which of course +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is a wrong answer, Mr. Chair. How many shotguns are now on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That is a bit of confusion put out by the gun lobby to frighten hunters. In fact, we did not prohibit any shotguns. +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is another untruth, Mr. Chair. Are there any airsoft guns on the prohibited list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's another bit of mistruth and deception put out by the gun lobby. In fact, there was a weapon called the Blackwater AR-15, which was a real gun that was prohibited, but the toy gun, the airsoft one, was not. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. I know some of those exact firearms that are on that list. Why is the RCMP continuing to add firearms to the prohibited list after the list was published? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it is a very important that the RCMP, as the agency responsible for administering the Canadian firearms program, continues to do its diligence to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: Why has there been no notice given to firearms owners, retailers or the police of the many changes to the banned firearms list? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, it is very important that the Canadian firearms program and the RCMP continue to do the important work of ensuring that Canadians are kept safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been transferred between licensed gun owners and/or retailers since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I do not have that information and, as the member probably knows, records are not kept by the government or by law enforcement about the transfer of firearms that are not restricted. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been retroactively changed to prohibited since May 1? Of the firearms that have been transferred, how many now are retroactively prohibited since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, on May 1, by order in council, we prohibited 1,500 somewhat different types of firearms, all based upon a military design. Those are the weapons that are prohibited. +Mr. Glen Motz: Since that time you have added almost 700 more, and none of those meet that category you are trying to establish. If a firearm that was not on the original prohibited list was transferred since May 1 and now that firearm appears on that prohibited list, are those transfers subject to a criminal prosecution? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, the member is asking me a question that is solely the responsibility of the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction, and that is their decision, not ours. +Mr. Glen Motz: The minister has said that the issuance of firearm licences and transfers was stopped recently due to a printer failure. We now know that to be completely false. There was no such failure, but an ordered shutdown. Who ordered the RCMP to withhold these services from law-abiding Canadians? +Hon. Bill Blair: I have absolutely no knowledge of the allegation the member has just made, Mr. Chair, and so I cannot really confirm or deny that it actually ever happened. +Mr. Glen Motz: Maybe the minister needs to check with his officials and find out who actually did the ordering. What does the minister believe to be the estimated cost of the firearms confiscation plan? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, there was no firearms confiscation plan. We will, however, be bringing legislation forward at the very first opportunity to facilitate a buyback program that will treat Canadians who purchased these firearms fairly. +Mr. Glen Motz: You can't buy back something that you never owned in the first place, Mr. Chair. These costs must include administration, price per firearm, as well as the industry costs. We know that industry costs are over $1 billion. If this minister doesn't know the cost, maybe he's as incompetent as our Minister of Finance. I am wondering, Chair, through you, why the law enforcement notes were removed from the firearms reference table? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that parliamentary language is something we need to respect in the House. We should be careful what we say. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to advise you and this House that our purpose is to protect the lives of Canadians, and we are taking strong action to strengthen gun control. We are not influenced by the gun lobby or by gun manufacturers, only by our interest in keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: We will now continue to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to start by thanking the government for listening to my proposals a couple of weeks ago regarding the extension of benefits for vulnerable Canadians who may not have been able to file their income tax by this week's deadline. There are millions of relieved seniors with GIS and parents with the child tax benefit and GST who now know they have a bit of time and protection and aren't to be cut off from their benefits. I'm hoping to go two for two here today, so there's no pressure to the Minister of Public Safety. I want to build on the comments last week from Ms. Gladu, my colleague from SarniaLambton, about family reunification between Canadians and Americans. Many constituents in my riding are concerned and are caught in this situation. I certainly support, and I think we support in this chamber, the idea of the extension for travel. However, it's now been three months since many spouses have seen each other, and there are Canadian and American children in custody arrangements who have seen their parent only on one side of the border or the other. After stating for months that reunifying families wasn't considered essential travel, I am thankful that he and the Prime Minister have now said that it is. Will the minister agree to the safe and fair proposal we outlined in our letter last week, which would exempt spouses, children and those with medical needs travelling back and forth with accompanying documentation, so that we can get people and their families back together? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for what I think is a very important question and I want to assure him that I have had similar conversations with members of this House from all parties and representing all parts of the country. We recognize the challenge that this particular policy of restricting non-essential travel has meant for families. It is not our intention and never will be our intention to separate families. We are working very closely with the CBSA to ensure that individuals are treated fairly. I want to share this with the member and honourable members of this House. Any change we make to our arrangement at the border will require a change by an order in council. Because there is a great deal of concern in our communities and from our provincial and territorial partners about the movement of people across our border, any change has to be discussed and negotiated with our provincial partners. Some of them, you may be aware, have expressed some concern, and we're addressing those concerns because we respect their concerns. At the same time we are working very hard, and I am very hopeful that we'll be able to resolve this challenge to the satisfaction of the many Canadians you and everyone else represents. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that when they are asking or answering a question, they should speak through the Chair and not directly to the other member. We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: We were looking at each other. It's a bad habit. To the minister, I appreciate the comments. I will just note that the Canadian and American governments have worked with provinces, as we have with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to repatriate Canadians from around the world. There have been quarantine protocols put in place to allow that. There are protocols and there is a precedence. I am just wondering why there is a delay in acknowledging the families part. I believe there is a precedent and I believe there is a background there, and I think we can, through an order in council or whatever measure, get people back with their families. Can the minister explain why reunifying families needs to be any different from repatriating Canadians from other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again I thank the member, because this is a very important issue and it's important to us as well. We have been working over the past couple of weeks very diligently on trying to find a resolution of this problem, because it is never our intention to separate families and we have all heard some very heart-wrenching concerns that have been raised. At the same time, I think it's important to work very closely, as we have done, with our provincial and territorial partners to ensure that we address the concerns they have raised. We are prepared to move forward and we are working very hard to resolve the concerns that were raised so that we can have a positive answer to those many families, and we +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: I appreciate that comment from the minister. I want to share the story of a constituent of mine, Mr. David Lee, from Cornwall. He and his wife Maria have been married for a couple of years now. She is an American citizen. They spend about five months of the year in Texas and five months in Cornwall and would generally travel about two months of the year. However, she couldn't come up to Canada because of the restrictions that have been put in place, and it's certainly putting a strain on them. Can the minister confirm that the three concerns we outlined in our letter are being discussed as part of reaching a solution or a resolution as soon as possible? The three concerns are that spouses and long-term partners can be reunited, that children with child custody arrangements can see both of their parents, and that if somebody needs to travel back or forth over the border for medical appointments, they can do that and can stay with their spouse. Can you confirm that all three are on the table and will be addressed? +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can confirm is that we're working hard to make sure we keep families together. I want to reiterate, because you raise a very important point, that when people cross the border they're still subject to the quarantine orders of public health. That's for the protection of all Canadians. You mentioned travelling back and forth across the border. If the travel is deemed essential, that is an exception, but if it is not deemed essential, then a person must go into quarantine for 14 days. That's one of the concerns the provinces have raised with us and one of the assurances they have sought. We're working to provide those assurances. +The Chair: Before we go to the next line of questioning, I want to remind the honourable members that we have interpreters who are working very hard to translate from one language to the other. I therefore ask you to speak a little more slowly out of consideration for the interpreters, who are doing a really good job. We'll now go to Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I've had the opportunity to talk with Mr. James Bogusz, CEO of the Regina Airport Authority, and he paints a grim picture. He expects the airport to be out of money by the end of the summer. The loss of the Regina International Airport would be devastating, not only to the city of Regina but also to southern Saskatchewan. The Liberal government has made a great show out of allegedly providing $330 million in assistance to airports through lease deferrals, but here is what it's not telling people: Airport lease payments are already tied to revenue and have been for many years, so when an airport's revenue goes down to zero, its lease payments to the federal government go down to zero, pandemic or no pandemic. That means the government has done absolutely nothing to help Canada's airports. Will the government commit today to providing real assistance to Canada's struggling airports? +Hon. Bill Blair: The Minister of Transport has been working very closely with airports, large and small, right across the country. We have continued to update our responses in this rapidly evolving situation. We've been in touch with each of the airports, and we've been working very hard to help them manage through these difficult times. We know that in some circumstances, continued operations at smaller airports have not been possible, but wherever possible we have done our very best to try to accommodate the very real financial challenges these airports are experiencing. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, Canada's airports are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and the Liberal government's response has been to defer their lease payments. These were already based on revenue, so these deferrals are effectively meaningless. In the meantime, the U.S. government's CARES program is providing $10 billion in grants and low-interest forgivable loans to support American airports. Will the government commit today to saving Canada's airports with a similar program of grants and forgivable loans? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we have worked very hard, and continue to do so, to make sure we provide supports to regional airports right across this country. We know how important air transport is to such a vast country and we know the tremendous work they do. They support communities and the Canadian economy. We're going to work very closely with them to make sure we provide the right supports to help them get through this difficult time, because we know how important they will be to the eventual restart of our economy. Their continued existence and success are important to that restart, and we'll work with them. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the airport crisis goes far beyond my home city of Regina. Airports are vital to Canada's economy, providing over 200,000 jobs nationwide and paying $13 billion in wages and $7 billion in taxes. However, now Canada's airports are on the brink of collapse, and the government has stood idly by as airports have lost over 90% of their revenue. Last month Joyce Carter, chair of the Canadian Airports Council, called on the government for a three-point plan for airport recovery. It includes the permanent elimination of ground leases, substantive loan and bond guarantees and a special plan to support smaller airports that provide vital supplies to rural and remote communities. Could the minister inform the committee if the government has done anything in response to the Canadian Airports Council's request? +Hon. Bill Blair: I would make the observation that all of our smaller regional airports are vital to the communities they serve. That's why it's important that we work with them all. The Minister of Transport is in regular communication and in ongoing discussions with airport authorities, large and small, right across this country on how we can continue to support them. There have been a number of proposals made by the industry itself and by some of the regional airports on what form that help can take. That's all part of a very important ongoing discussion. I believe it is clear that Canadians need our help, and we are there for Canadians to help them get back on their feet when we get through this pandemic. +The Chair: Mr. Kram, we have time for a 15-second question and a 15-second answer. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all started free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom. Why hasn't Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (MarkhamThornhill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the question. We, of course, are going to make sure that we will always act in the interests of Canadian businesses, and I want to assure Canadians that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the United Kingdom. We will make sure that our further work will always take into account the interests of Canadian businesses. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Therrien. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to know how many full-time and part-time employees are currently working for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): On a point of order, Mr.Chair. I am not sure that the number of employees at the Liberal Party, the Bloc Qubcois, or the Conservative Party is relevant to government management. +The Chair: I am not sure whether that is a point of order, but I will let Mr.Therrien continue. +Mr. Alain Therrien: If he stays with me, he will understand. He can trust me. I would like to know how many people work full time and part time for the Liberal Party of Canada. It is a simple question. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: A number of people do. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I know that they think its funny to pilfer taxpayers money from government coffers. But that is not our style. The Liberal Party took money through the emergency wage subsidy program. I would just like to know how many people work for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Bill Morneau: I do not know how many people work for the Liberal Party, but I can say that the emergency wage subsidy is for all sectors of the economy. That is how we can protect employees across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have 157MPs and they have known for two weeks that we are working on the wage subsidy. Not one member wondered how many people work for them. They are too busy helping themselves to the cookie jar. In an article in La Presse on May25, Liberal Party spokesman Braeden Caley said that between 75and 100employees were receiving wages subsidized through this program. Is that correct? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I am very focused on our concern, which is to protect Canadians across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. It is very important for them and for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Let's use a round number. Let's say 100employees. How many employees in the Liberal Party of Canada are threatened by the pandemic? You should know; it's your party. +The Chair: I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We stand by our approach of protecting employees across the country. We want to make sure that they have enough money to meet the challenges that they are facing during the pandemic. +Mr. Alain Therrien: I would actually say that they want to have enough money for their next election campaign. I would like to know how much taxpayers' money has been taken from the emergency wage subsidy program and will be used as election loot for the Liberal Party of Canada. How much money have you taken from the program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The emergency wage subsidy program allows us to protect 75% of the income that employees were earning before the crisis, to a maximum of $847. This is important for them and, of course, very important for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, since I am not getting an answer, let me share with you the very simple calculation I cobbled together. One hundred employees at $847 a week is $340,000a month. That is the amount of taxpayers' money that the Liberal Party is putting into its pockets. If we multiply that amount by threethat's three months, since it started on March15we get over $1million. That is the amount they will have put in their pockets, to be used as election loot for the Liberal Party. Given that the Liberals are extending the emergency wage subsidy, will their party continue to help itself to the money? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The purpose of the emergency wage subsidy is to protect employees. So every business must ensure that the money goes to the employees. That is very important. It is how employees and their incomes are protected. It will help millions of families across the country to be in a better situation. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you can ask a question of no more than 15seconds. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have already taken $1million out of the register, so that is settled. My question is twofold. First, are they going to pay back that $1million? Second, I hope they will not be taking another $1million by September. Can I at least be reassured of that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach to protect employees and businesses needing it during the crisis. +The Chair: We will take a short break so that our employees can safely change places. We can now continue. We'll go now to Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Centre. Mr. Chair, as parliamentarians, our greatest responsibility is to keep Canadians safe. During the previous Parliament, our government made significant investments in the CBSA and the RCMP, and provided funds to provinces and territories to invest in programs that combat gun and gang violence and support our communities in providing positive alternatives for youth engagement and activities. On May 1, our government banned assault-style weapons. This is something that we pledged to do during the last federal election and something that victims' groups, law enforcement and everyday Canadians called on for decades, but we must know that we need to take more action to keep our communities safe. Mr. Chair, I'm sure that this continues to be an important issue for many communities. Can the minister tell the House and the constituents of NewmarketAurora what further steps our government will take to keep Canadians safe? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I'd like to begin by thanking the honourable member for NewmarketAurora for his question and for his advocacy on behalf of the safety of his community. Mr. Chair, building upon historic investments that we made in the last Parliament in law enforcement dealing with guns and gangs, we took the important next step in our promise to strengthen Canada's gun control by prohibiting weapons that many in the law enforcement community, including the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, have said have no place in our communities. There is much more to do. We will build on these early steps by strengthening our work and our laws at the border, by taking steps to prevent the theft and criminal diversion of guns and also by making significant investments in kids, families and communities where the conditions give rise to gun violence right across Canada. Mr. Chair, we have much work to do, and we are committed to keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in cities and towns across Canada, small businesses are the backbones of our local economies. They are also pillars of our communities. Even during these challenging times, we have seen restaurants and other businesses step up to deliver meals to front-line workers and make donations to our local food banks. So many have supported Scarborough Health Network's meals on wheels program. Their leadership has been inspiring. I have heard from many small business owners in Scarborough, from dentists to small manufacturers, who are having trouble paying their commercial rents due to the sharp downturn in business caused by COVID-19. They are interested in how programs like the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program would help them to stay in business, but they worry that these programs may not be able to help if their landlords don't participate. These small businesses are crucial to our community. Could the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade please explain why it is so important that the landlords participate to help small businesses make it through the pandemic and how we are working to make this program a success, not just here in Scarborough but across Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member of Parliament for her advocacy for the people of Scarborough Centre on this really important question. While rent is an area of provincial responsibility, helping businesses across the country is all of our responsibility. This is why we have stepped up to provide rent relief to businesses while, at the same time, helping property owners maintain the rental income through this crisis. We are asking property owners to do their part in keeping small businesses and their employees to get through these challenging times, and to take advantage of our forgivable loans in order to help small businesses that are the hardest hit by reducing their rent by 75%. This is a win-win situation. Many landlords have already stepped up, and we salute their efforts. We will continue to do what we can to help protect and help our small businesses across Canada from coast to coast to coast. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): The $4-billion Canada housing benefit agreement was announced in 2017. It's supposed to provide up to $2,500 per year to help families in need with their rent. We know that poverty and inadequate housing are barriers felt even more by black, indigenous and racialized people. Can the minister tell us how many families have actually received this housing support? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for asking about this really special and unique housing benefit. We introduced the Canada housing benefit as part of the national housing strategy to help people as a bridge to permanent housing, people who are in core housing need, are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We have signed agreements with provinces. We hope all of them come to the table to sign this really important cost-sharing +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It has been two and a half years, and families in need are still waiting. Only one province has signed on, and there has been no national consultation on how such a benefit program would even be implemented. With so little federal leadership, the Canadian Alliance of Non-Profit Housing Associations has stepped up and done the work for the government. They have outlined five key principles to guide the implementation of the Canada housing benefit. Will the minister adopt those principles and get on with ensuring vulnerable families get the rental assistance they need? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, it is really unfortunate that the honourable member thinks that an investment of $55 billion and the commitment of a 10-year federal plan of leadership in affordable housing and community housing is a lack of leadership. It is quite the opposite. The Canada housing benefit is yet another important segment of the national housing strategy, which will ensure people have access to a safe, affordable place to call home. It is being signed by a number of provinces, not just one as the honourable member suggests. There are up to five provinces that have moved on signing on to the Canada housing benefit. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Then surely the minister can actually tell us how many families benefited from that program. The fact is that two and a half million families are paying more than 30% of their income on rent, and they have been hit hard by this pandemic. Reciting the same message box over and over again will not get them the help they need. Aside from going forward with a housing benefit program, will the government prioritize affordable housing stimulus spending as a key component of any post-COVID stimulus policy? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, joining with provinces and territories and providing real help to members of the community who are experiencing homelessness so they can have a permanent roof over their heads is real action. It's real leadership by our government as part of the Canada housing benefit. This is a real benefit that is going to households in core housing need, people who experience a core housing need and who need a permanent place to call home. The Canada housing benefit is providing real help to thousands and thousands of Canadian households. We will continue to provide that leadership in concert with provinces and territories. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Well, minister, I would say that B.C. is still looking for the government to step up. We bought our first hotel to house the homeless in permanent housing, and the government has yet to provide any funding to them. The next question is for the Minister of Immigration. The first migrant worker died yesterday due to COVID-19. Migrant workers are warehoused in a space with no barriers between each sleeping cot. Others are housed in crowded communal bunkhouses. What action will the minister take to address this alarming situation? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): I thank my colleague for the question, and I want to extend our sympathies regarding the temporary worker who passed away from COVID-19. Of course, we continue to support workers by ensuring that they have the accommodations and the spacing necessary to work when they are here providing food security for all Canadians. We're also providing support to farmers to ensure that those accommodations are made. We put in place the regulations and the rules that are necessary, and we continue to work very closely with our provincial partners as well as leaders in this sector so that we can protect workers and ensure that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: No one should have to endure such inhumane housing conditions and risk their lives to support their families. We rely on them to put food on the table for our families. They don't have access to health care and they don't have a pathway to permanent residence. Will the minister do the right thing and grant migrant workers health care coverage and ensure the government follows up on the principle that if you're good enough to work, you're good enough to stay? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: In fact, Mr. Chair, I would clarify that temporary foreign workers do have a pathway to permanent residence. Of course, that is an opportunity we will continue to offer those who are ensuring that Canadians have access to healthy, safe and affordable food. We will continue to make the investments that are necessary to maintain a high standard of professionalism and workplace safety. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, fisheries and oceans stakeholders and coastal communities face unprecedented threats from the COVID-19 crisis, and they deserve the support of all levels of government, including their own MPs. Yesterday the Liberal and NDP MPs banded together to restrict the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to just four hours of sitting in the summer months. Conservatives are ready to put in the hours to support Canadians, while the Liberals and NDP refuse to do the work. When will the Prime Minister tell his MPs to get back to work for the Canadians who need their support? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we all agree that committees are doing extremely important work, and that's why committees are meeting regularly. I would like to remind my colleague that the committees are masters of their own destiny and make their own decisions, not the government. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, it took months for DFO to realize that fish passage on the Fraser River was blocked at Big Bar. Then it took them seven more months to tender a contract to clear the blockage. Now that contract has tripled from $17.6 million to over $52.5 million without a single communications post from the minister's office. The original contract amount was clearly inadequate, so who ordered it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, since we found out about the landslide at Big Bar, our government has been extremely active in making sure that the salmon have a passage through. We know how critically important the salmon are to the Fraser River, as well as to the indigenous communities along the Fraser. We're working diligently to make sure that we get that passage cleared. So far, we've made significant progress, but we know there's more work that needs to be done. That's why we'll continue to work with indigenous communities and the province to make sure that these +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the fisheries minister's mandate letter from November of last year directed her to make new investments in fighting invasive species. Half a year later, the minister has failed to deliver. Canadians on the front line of prevention wrote the minister, and when they got a response five months later, it was devoid of any help. This government's delays are hurting Canada's fight against invasive species. When will the minister follow her Prime Minister's directive and make new investments in the fight against invasive species? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question. Invasive species are a real challenge for our waterways. We know that a lot more has to be done. We're working diligently to find the answers to deal with some of the problems we are seeing from invasive species. We are continuing to monitor situations in waterways. I am committed to making sure that I meet my commitments within my mandate letter, and I will have more to say on that soon. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the list of hunting and sport shooting firearms banned by Minister Blair's order in council continues to grow. What other hunting firearms does he plan to ban? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, the weapons we have prohibited are weapons that were not designed for hunting or sport shooting but for soldiers to use in combat. As law enforcement leaders right across the country have said many times, they have no place in our community, and we agree. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, I continue to hear from constituents in the North OkanaganShuswap who are unable to access supports under the Canada emergency business account or the emergency commercial rent assistance program. Business owners have also lost employees and can't get them to come back to work because of the lack of flexibility in the emergency response benefit and the emergency student benefit. When the Liberals shut down Parliament, they removed our ability to amend legislation and fix their failures. When will the government fix these problems and the programs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to look at the programs we've put out to support Canadians to make sure that they are actually having the desired impact. As we've moved along, we have said that we need to make amendments. We've committed to extending the wage subsidy, and of course we're looking at all the measures we've put out so we can ensure that people have the support they need during this crisis. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, an April 1 letter confirms that Deloitte Canada has been contracted to help supply PPE. Was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member is correct that we have contracted with Deloitte to assist us with our operations on the ground in China in order to have an A-to-Z procurement approach to delivering goods +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Can the minister confirm that this was, indeed, a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, there are a number of goods that need to be procured for Canadian health care professionals to be safe, and that's exactly +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Yes or no, was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will take that question back to my department and come back to the member with a further, fuller response. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, is Deloitte of Canada able to speak on behalf of PSPC? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, not at all. The contracts that we are entering into are made by us +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: What is the value of the contract with Deloitte? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, again, that is information that we are not going to release at this time. When the time is right, we will do so. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of the suppliers that are in contact with Deloitte of Canada are indigenous contractors. Has the government secured any contracts with indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers, as we are with many suppliers across Canada and internationally. We are working hard to make sure that we have diverse supply chains across the board, and that means including indigenous suppliers in that mix. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of these indigenous suppliers have previously been vetted by the federal government and are certified vendors. Is it appropriate for Deloitte to be recertifying these vendors? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the honourable member appears to have information regarding Deloitte's certification processes, which would not be outside what the government itself is doing. I encourage him to come forward with a question that actually responds to fact before +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Does the minister think that re-vetting suppliers is a good use of resources? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'll tell you what I think. I believe that Canada is in a crisis, and I am making every effort to order PPE as Canadian health care workers require. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, indigenous suppliers stand at the ready to supply PPE to Canada. Has the minister contracted with any indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers and will continue to ensure that Canada has a diverse supply chain in terms of manufacturers, in terms of products and in terms of countries. That is our commitment to Canadian health care workers +The Chair: Now we go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Has the government signed a contract with a single indigenous supplier? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I would like to say that we are continuing to make sure that our supplier list is confidential, because we are in a crisis and we do not want to jeopardize The Chair: We go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, on Friday the association for indigenous business could not name a single indigenous company that had been contracted. Have any of the contracts signed with the federal government between Deloitte Canada and PPE suppliers been filled? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the member is mistaken. Deloitte is not signing contracts on behalf of the Government of Canada. Deloitte is assisting with and sourcing manufacturers, and all contracts are signed by the government with manufacturers. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Mr.Chair, we have difficulty understanding the government's management of the border. The order between Canada and the United States has an exception allowing refugee claimants to submit their claims in Canada if they have family here and we accept them. However, hundreds of Canadian-American couples cannot be reunited, which is a problem. I find it hard to believe that the minister cannot quickly instruct border services officers to allow spouses to enter the country right now. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I appreciate very much the member's intervention and the long list of people he sent to me. I'm also working with a number of different families. We remain committed to keeping families together. As I advised this House earlier, Mr. Chair, we're working diligently with our provincial and territorial partners to take the steps necessary to enable people to stay united as they cross the borders and enter into Canada, but to do so safely and not put other Canadians at risk. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, letting a spouse come home will not put Canadians at risk. A survey conducted in Canada reveals that a large majority of Canadians do not trust the Chinese communist regime at all and do not want Huawei in Canada. The good news today is that BCE and Telus have decided not to do business with Huawei. Now that the government no longer has to worry about BCE and Telus, can they say today that no other company is going to use Huawei and that Huawei will be banned from Canada for 5G? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for his question. Our government will always protect our networks and ensure that Canadians have access to the latest innovations in telecommunications. A review of 5G technologies and their economic and security considerations is currently under way. We will ensure that Canadians' security and personal information will never be compromised. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Let me remind the minister that we have been working on this for years and that CSIS has confirmed that Huawei is unreliable as far as Canada's security is concerned. Right now, two Canadians are being unjustly detained by the Chinese communist regime. The same regime continues to lie to the world about COVID-19, block our exports, and terrorize the citizens of Hong Kong. When will the Prime Minister confirm that he is going to ban Huawei from developing 5G in Canada? It is a simple question. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let's be very clear. Canadians deserve to have access to the most beneficial 5G technology. At the same time, the safety and security of Canada's digital environment will be of paramount consideration. We're doing the work required and we're not basing that agenda on some media report, but instead ensuring that all scientific and security factors are taken into account. We are engaged in robust discussions with our Five Eyes partners, including the United States, and all our security agencies. Mr. Chair, we'll do the work necessary to +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus has the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: The minister does not need a sheet of paper, this matter has been clear for a long time. Everyone is saying that we need to ban Huawei from Canada. I have a quick question for the Minister of Finance. Bell and Telus had each estimated that removing Huawei from their development would cost $1billion. Today we have learned that these companies have decided not to use Huawei. Did the government decide to pay for this under wraps to get out of it? Having said that, my next question is more about the theft on May27. About 90,000surgical masks bound for the Quebec City UHC were stolen from the Toronto airport. As we all know, these masks are critical in the fight against COVID-19. Has the minister called for an investigation? When are we going to find out what happened to those stolen masks that were bound for Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will gladly look into this issue and get back to my colleague. Our procurements have reached 101 million surgical masks at this time, and they're being distributed to provinces, including Quebec. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have time to ask a 15-second question. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: It is a little strange. The masks were stolen in Toronto on May27. So they have been gone a long time. I just want to know if there is an investigation and if they will ever be found. I want to address another complex and important issue. A police officer from the Montreal area called me and told me about a current fraud. Some social assistance recipients learned about the CERB and applied for it. Building managers have received a lot of cheques addressed to social assistance recipients. They know it is not legal and it constitutes fraud. The police officer is asking me what to do with the cheques and to whom they should be sent. Should he give them to the fraudsters? How does that work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we have robust mechanisms in place to address CERB fraud. We understand that in delivering this benefit to a million Canadians to date, we had to put more of our integrity measures at the back, but make no mistake: Canadians who behave fraudulently will be held to account, and we will ensure that the money is either repaid or the cheques not cashed. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there remains a concern across Canada that delays in the criminal courts could result in criminals walking free. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recently said in an interview that amendments to the Criminal Code could allow this backlog to be addressed. Can the minister outline what work has been done to address the backlog, and when we can expect to see it addressed? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. I can assure him that we are working closely with our provincial and territorial counterparts, who have the primary responsible for the superior courts of justice and therefore the criminal law in their various jurisdictions for the administration of justice in criminal law. I can also say that we have formed an action committee co-chaired by me and the Chief Justice of Canada, again with a variety of different kinds of representation on that committee, to look at the restart of the justice system +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, weeks ago I raised these concerns with the minister over backlogs in the criminal courts and the risk they present to our justice system. The provinces have significant insight into how this can be addressed, and many provinces have been proactive with their court backlogs. Can the minister outline what work has been done with the provinces on this important issue? +Hon. David Lametti: We are working with the provinces. There are different practices in each province. We're working to serve in a coordinating role as a repository of information for best practices so that they can be shared across provinces. We're also looking at specific suggestions that provinces have made with respect to reforming the criminal law. +Hon. Rob Moore: Many owners of small businesses in my riding, and indeed in all of our ridings, are suffering right now and have received absolutely no help from this government because of technicalities. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister indicated the government was looking to expand access to the Canada emergency business account to include to those who operate their businesses out of a personal bank account. This is something that we've been calling for over the past several weeks, and businesses cannot wait any longer. Can the minister tell me what we should be telling our constituents about those who are caught up based on a technicality and are not able to access this important measure? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that really important question. I want to assure the small business owners in his community and all across the country just how important they are and how difficult a time this is for them. We absolutely understand. We are hearing you and we are working as hard and as fast as we can to make sure that those business owners get access to this very important support. I would like to highlight, though, that owners of 650,000 small businesses across the country are getting the loan support. Of course, there is more to do, and we will keep working hard for those business owners. +Hon. Rob Moore: The lack of access to high-speed Internet remains a major issue across my home province of New Brunswick. This is a significant barrier to rural economic development. It impacts the quality of life of rural constituents. The lack of progress and transparency on rural Internet is frustrating for residents, for municipal leaders and for small business owners who are already suffering due to COVID. When will a new plan for rural Internet be introduced, and how quickly can we expect it to be deployed? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, our government has a plan to connect Canadians to high-speed Internet. To date, we've set aside investments to connect a million households, and there's more work to be done. We will be announcing our next steps to connect more Canadians through the universal broadband funds in the days to come. I look forward to communities across the country benefiting from federal investments and the private investments that our investments will bring. +Hon. Rob Moore: On the issue of commercial rent, how is the government going to ensure that business owners whose landlords still refuse to participate in the government's program receive the support that they need to stay open at this time? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the member knows and would understand, rent between small business owners and landlords is a provincial jurisdiction. That said, we've moved forward to try to ensure that there's a process so that those landlords and the commercial tenants can work together to come up with a solution that will work for both. We're seeing landlords +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Nicholas Gibbs, Colten Boushie, Tina Fontaine, Alain Magloire and Breonna Taylor were not all born on the same side of the border, but they all lost their lives at the hand of the same cruel enemy: racism. We cannot, here in Canada, think higher of ourselves when we are reading the headlines of our neighbour. We cannot ignore our history, past or present. The final report from the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls stated that indigenous women and girls have faced a Canadian genocide. In 2018 a report revealed that a black person was almost 20 times more likely than a white person to be fatally shot by the Toronto police, and a 2019 report exposed systemic bias among the Montreal police force against black and indigenous people. Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. I am asking the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, as per her mandate, what exactly our government intends to do now to fight racism among its institutions. If the anti-racism secretariat has in fact been established, what priorities have been actioned? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): I would like to thank the member for that very important question. I will state that it is essential that we all work together, not only during this challenging time but during the times that come out of it. On the comments that were shared earlier, this is another life lost that should not have been lost. Yes, the anti-racism secretariat has been established. This is a resource not only for Canadians but also for government agencies to better the way in which we do work internally as well, including advancement opportunities. We know that the decision-making table does not reflect the diversity of our country. That's exactly why we came out with an open, transparent, merit-based appointment process: so that we can see the country's diversity reflected at the decision-making table. There is a lot more work to do. I can assure the member and all Canadians that my eyes are open, my ears are open and I am an ally. I will work as hard as possible to be that voice at the cabinet table. I cannot experience what it is to be a black Canadian, but I can tell you that your voices will be represented and they will be heard. I see you. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Mr. Chair, it has been four years since the settlement payment for sixties scoop survivors was approved. That resolution hasn't taken place. The pain continues. Why is it that the 12,500 class members who have been determined eligible still haven't received the payments they are owed? These people deserve justice without any delay, especially in light of COVID-19 and the added pressures facing communities. Can the minister confirm exactly when these survivors will receive the interim payment? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Thank you very much. Thank you for your advocacy on all these truly important things. As you know, because of the exceptional circumstance of COVID-19, the class counsel, with the support of Canada, was seeking direction from the courts to issue partial payments to the class members with a valid claim. On June 1 the Federal Court granted that order. A similar motion is before the Ontario Superior Court. Once granted, eligible class members can expect to receive partial payments of $21,000 over the coming weeks. Canada welcomes the Federal Court's +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Eighty per cent of people who are diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, will die within two to five years of receiving the diagnosis. The pandemic has made it more difficult than ever for these people to access medical appointments and treatment. They do not have the luxury of time. They want to live and to share moments with their families and their loved ones. The lack of urgency to approve new trials and therapies in Canada directly impacts the life expectancy of people with ALS. Can the Minister of Health commit to taking leadership on this file, removing the barriers to accessing these promising treatments and therapies, and ensuring that the costs of these treatments will be covered? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much for the very important question. We know that people living with ALS and their families struggle immensely every single day. Of course the member opposite has my commitment to work with the community and with manufacturers of drugs that are promising for ALS to expedite approval in a safe way that protects the health of Canadians but also provides treatment in an affordable way for all Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I can't breathe and I'm tired, and today we've heard a lot of progressive words from the Prime Minister, but he hasn't really said anything. If the Prime Minister will not provide leadership in this House, will anybody from his cabinet here today commit to taking concrete steps to address anti-black racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, yes, we do commit. That's exactly why we will listen more. We will acknowledge that racism is alive in Canada. We know we must do better. However, I also need the member to recognize that this work has started. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in the decision-making table better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN international +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, will the member then commit today to make it a legal requirement to collect race-based data across all the ministries? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the recently announced immunity task force is providing disaggregated data to decision-makers, because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. Yes, I will work across all departments to ensure that data is better collected. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, that's not a legal requirement. It is also not lost on the black community that the former Toronto chief of police, the architect of this country's largest profiling program under the guise of street checks or carding, was made this country's Minister of Public Safety by this Prime Minister. As the tragic consequence of the unlawful, unconstitutional and racist practices in Toronto, black people are 20 times more likely than non-black people to be murdered by police. Does the Minister of Public Safety now admit that the police practice of street checks and carding is in fact a significant factor in Canada's systemic anti-black and anti-indigenous racism, and will he act to immediately end it today? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let me be very clear. First of all, every Canadian is entitled to bias-free and culturally competent policing. I know from experience that there is nothing more corrosive to the relationship of trust that must exist between the police and racialized communities than the issue of racism or the biased influences of those decisions. Mr. Chair, racial profiling is not only abhorrent and unacceptable, it's in fact unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it's contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. We are working diligently within all of the federal agencies under my purview to ensure that all officers receive training on culturally competent and bias-free delivery of service. We remain committed to creating a diverse workforce that truly reflects and respects the diverse people of this country. +Mr. Matthew Green: Nobody knows better through experience about the corrosive practice of street checks than I do. Will the minister now apologize to the black community for the harm caused under his tenure as chief of police? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clear, Mr. Chair, I actually worked with the diverse communities of Toronto for nearly four decades. I worked with extraordinary leaders from the black community and I learned extensively from their lived experience. We worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of all of the people in all of our diverse communities. +Mr. Matthew Green: Bill C-51 was introduced by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals, including this Prime Minister. It declared indigenous, racial, economic justice, and environmental activists as domestic terrorists. Each province was mandated to enact anti-terrorism protocols, which became a direction for the local police to engage in the practice of street checks or racial profiling. Given what he has said today in the House, will this Minister of Public Safety work to repeal the changes made under Bill C-51? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I will repeat for the member opposite that racial profiling and bias in the delivery of policing service is not only unacceptable and abhorrent but unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it is contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It cannot ever be tolerated in policing in any place in Canada, but we learned from the lived experience of black and indigenous communities, who tell us that this is still their lived experience, so there is a great deal of work left to do. +The Chair: It is now Mr.Champoux's turn. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will be sharing my time with the honourable member for Joliette. Supplementary unemployment benefits, or SUBs, give employers the opportunity to enhance their employees' employment insurance benefits when they need to temporarily lay them off. A number of companies, including Soprema in Drummond, have done so with the guarantee that the government would maintain the SUB terms when employment insurance is converted to the CERB. However, surprise, surprise, when the employees applied for the CERB in May, they found that they did not meet the criteria because the amount of SUBs they have received exceeded $1,000, the CERB income limit. In addition, they must reimburse the CERB because they found that they were not eligible for it. So, what does the Minister of Finance intend to do to correct his error? +The Chair: We will pause for a second. We have a point of order on the floor. Go ahead, Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: I posed the most important question. I had 10 seconds left by my count on my time before I was cut off, and I would appreciate, given the seriousness of the conversation here today, if the honourable Minister of Public Safety will please answer the question: Will he apologize to the black community for the irreparable harm that was caused by the racist process of street checks and carding? +The Chair: The way I work it is that if there are 15 seconds or less, we go on to the next one, because it's not really enough time to ask a question and get an answer. I will move on to Mr. Champoux. He did ask a question, and we'll let Ms. Qualtrough, the honourable minister, answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are very much alive and in place for companies, employers and their employees. The CERB allows employers to top up an employee's wages to the maximum of a $1,000. As was said, Mr. Chair, in order to deliver this important critical benefit to Canadians, we had to go outside of the EI system. That decision was made, and as a result, eight million Canadians are being helped. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, SUBs do not have an employment insurance cap. Employers can contribute as much as they want, and they were assured that this would be the case with the CERB. Otherwise, they would have opted for another program. Let me put my question to the Minister of Finance again, in the hope that he will be the one to answer it. When does he intend to fix this error? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I thank the member for his question, Mr. Chair. As we can all appreciate, delivering a benefit of this magnitude as quickly as possible to as many Canadians as possible, both those who were EI eligible and those who were outside of EI, resulted in our having to take some decisions to streamline processes and the system. SUB plans are available for employers +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will continue on the subject of supplementary unemployment benefits. Let me remind everyone that Service Canada has entered into agreements with companies and is not honouring them. The victims are thousands and thousands of workers who have to reimburse the Canada emergency response benefit, as my colleague just explained. I also have the question my colleague from Drummond asked: why is the government not doing the same thing it does with employment insurance and not counting the benefits paid out as part of earned income? It is simple. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, as legislated, we needed to set up a straightforward, simple benefit to deliver to as many people as possible. The nuance and sophistication of the EI system was not available to us. As a result, as I said, eight million Canadians are getting the CERB. Service Canada is working with each and every employee who is in a repayment situation. We do not want to put anybody in a more difficult situation. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the truth is that the government has forgotten the thousands of workers covered under a supplementary unemployment benefit agreement. We are talking about mothers and fathers. When the government rolled out its Canada emergency response benefit, it was overwhelmed and it forgot about them. The government can fix it right here, right now. Does it want to do that? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, let me clarify that employees who were covered by a SUB plan prior to March 15 are indeed covered by that plan. We're working with employers to make sure that their workers have this benefit, regardless of whether or not the CERB is in place. Those who accessed EI after March 15 have been streamlined into the CERB process, and their employers can help them with up to $1,000 a month. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we really do not have the same information. Agreements were signed before March15 for subsequent periods, but there was an agreement with Service Canada. Companies have tried to contact Service Canada by telephone, but no one is answering. They have tried by email, but no one is replying either. The companies have decided to honour their part of the contract and pay out the SUB. However, the government says that, after the fact, it changed the rules that had previously applied, and it is no longer honouring its agreement. As I understand it, the government does not want to straighten out the situation, and that is unacceptable. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I want to reassure the honourable member that we have moved quickly to deal with the unprecedented volumes at Service Canada. We have set up a 1,500-agent call centre to help people through the CERB, as well as redeploying 3,000 additional staff to make sure that people are helped through the EI process. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question, which is from Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As of December 31, 2019, the total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications had already grown to over 46,000. These are the most recent public figures. What is the current total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications before Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): I am sorry, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for the question and for giving me the opportunity to respond to the Parliament of Canada from my home in Midgell. As I indicated earlier in the House of Commons, I can assure the member that one of my major priorities is to make sure that we deal with the backlog and that the veterans of Canada receive the benefits they truly deserve and need. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Those 46,000 applications from December of 2019 represent over 30,000 individual veterans. These are men and women who are suffering. How many individual veterans are currently caught in the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I again thank my colleague. The fact is that service delivery and providing support to our veterans are of course my top priorities. As you understand, with this pandemic there are some difficulties, but we are processing the same number of decisions daily. Our +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: On March 10, we learned that the average time that a veteran was waiting to have their disability benefit application processed had grown to 32 weeks. What is the current average time a veteran is waiting to have their disability benefit application processed? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as I indicated, what we're doing is working to make sure that we streamline the process, make sure that some of the applications can be done automatically. Some cannot, because we have to make sure that what's provided to the veteran is adequate for the disability they +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: It seems as though having numbers is a difficult challenge for this government. On March 10, the deputy minister of Veterans Affairs committed to providing the veterans affairs committee with an updated, written plan on how the department will resolve this backlog. This plan was to include timelines. When will the veterans affairs committee be provided with this plan? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that of course the veterans affairs committee does vitally important work. I know how important this piece of information is for them. My department is now working to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality we now face with the situation in the country. I can assure my honourable colleague +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Mr. Chair, I'm sure that the department had a draft plan prior to COVID-19, so I wonder if Mr. MacAulay can provide the committee with that plan right now, rather than wait. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that we are working diligently to make sure that this report is prepared, and prepared properly, for the committee. As I said before, I fully understand the importance of the committee and the great work it does +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Can the minister give us a timeline of when this report will be given to the committee? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it's difficult to give a timeline. I want to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality of the situation to make sure that the committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: The minister's mandate letter instructed Mr. MacAulay to implement a system of automatic approval for the most common disability applications. When will this system be implemented? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, of course this all ties in to the report that the veterans affairs committee is waiting for and to make sure that we're in place in order to make sure that the automatic approval can work and to make sure that veterans receive the proper +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: If automatic approval is implemented, does the minister know how many applications this measure will remove from the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it will remove a number from the backlog, because quite simply, if you're skydiving out of a plane, you're going to have knee problems, and if you're a gunner, you're going to have ear problems. These things should be done automatically, and that's exactly what we're working on. As I said before, other things are complicated. To make sure that the veteran receives the appropriate remuneration +The Chair: Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The Acting Chair, Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC), called the 15th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic to order. This hybrid meeting included members participating via video conference and in person. Mr. Stanton reminded members that if they are participating in person, they should not connect by video conference to prevent sound issues. Members in the chamber could listen to interpretation using earpieces on their desks. + +The Prime Minister, Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.), addressed systemic discrimination and violence against people of colour in Canada. He acknowledged personal mistakes from the past and emphasized the need for further actions against anti-black racism and systemic discrimination across the country. He outlined various government steps taken and investments made to support black Canadian communities and fight racism. + +The Honourable Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Andrew Scheer, discussed the killing of George Floyd in the United States, anti-black racism, and the need for justice. He emphasized Canada is not immune to racism and mentioned the history of black Canadians and their contributions. He condemned violence and destruction, highlighted the importance of peaceful protest, called for protecting fundamental freedoms, and condemned intolerance, racism, and extremism. + +The Acting Chair recognized other members for their statements on various topics, including local community efforts during the pandemic, the importance of addressing racism, supporting infrastructure projects, and the need for parliamentary debates to continue for better oversight during the crisis. + +The committee proceeded to question ministers on topics such as police violence against blacks, systemic discrimination, government aid programs during COVID-19, Canada's response to the COVID-19 crisis, compensation for agricultural sectors affected by trade agreements, high-speed Internet in rural areas, and measures against invasive species. + +Members also discussed the participation of migrant workers in Canada, the support for Canadians living with ALS, management of the Canada-U.S. border amid the pandemic, Huawei's potential involvement in Canada's 5G network, veterans' disability benefits, the backlog in the criminal courts, the struggle of small businesses, airport assistance during the pandemic, and the importance of addressing racism and discrimination in Canadian institutions. + +The meeting included discussions about parliamentary procedures, the transparency of government data and contracts, and the need for legislative amendments related to the justice system and other urgent matters. There were also calls for specific actions and commitments from the government to address pressing concerns." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: That should hopefully do the trick , um . 'Kay . Sorry about the small delay . Falling a little bit behind schedule . And that's uh fifteen twenty five . Okay . So just to try and roughly go over what we agreed in the last one , um we're gonna go for something uh uh how was it ? Uh The new black , I believe . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um something that looks good 'cause that seems to be in preference to actual functionality in the end , though we should never avoid functionality , of course . Uh many of our components are gonna be standard , off the shelf , but it seemed like we were gonna require at least an advanced chip and we were still very much for the idea of using an L_C_D_ display . Um other things were we were hoping to use rubber , most likely gonna be double curved , etcetera . Okay . So um due to your hard work , we might as well let the uh two designers go first , and uh show us the prototype . +User Interface: Okay , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Quite how the best way to do this is , I'm not sure , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I think if we both step up +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh outline our ideas . Okay . Now do {disfmarker} uh doing the prototype gave us a bit more insight into the ergonomics of the design . Um for one thing , it turned out that the only point at which it needs to be articulated for handedness is um is h i is down here for the uh L_E_D_ . As it turned out , the whole thing transfers from the right to left hand fairly well from the point of view of operating the uh function buttons and joystick , though it might be an idea to be able to a adjust the positions for the base of the joystick just a little bit for uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} ju just a thought . You could simply have a slightly ovoid shaped joystick that could then just be turn uh twisted round , so that the uh sticky uh so that the bit that sticks out a bit more is on one side or the other . But as you as you see with the uh {vocalsound} with holding it in the left hand , the L_ uh the L_C_D_ is nowhere useful , so that would need to be articulated uh if we're going to retain {gap} ergonomic design . Um now I I got your note about uh keeping the cost down . +Project Manager: I'm afraid yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll go into that a bit more , +User Interface: {gap} this design could be done with um with uh plastic casing . +Project Manager: but please go on . +User Interface: Though I would recommend around the grip part here in the middle , having maybe just a rubber grip over that which would allow for a slightly more sort of bio-morphic form , and a bit more ergonomic as well . As for the um as for the single curve , um well this edge and this edge , like I say it would be nice to have some curvature to it , but it's not absolutely necessary . Really the curve that's most needed is the underside so that the jo so that the joystick rests over the the edge of the hand like this . Um and you have the uh transmitter here and a wee speaker for the uh for the uh for the uh fi uh for the remote control finder . So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any further comments ? +Industrial Designer: Um obviously it's gonna be bulkier than how it looks , because it's gonna be flat on one side , so the L_C_D_ will be s sticking down like this , won't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it {disfmarker} you can't get it curved . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean the +Industrial Designer: Uh because of costs . +User Interface: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's plastic as well , so it won't be as comfortable on the hand . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean with the with the rubber design it could i you know it could pretty much mould very much to the to the user's hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: One nice wee feature if we could if we could still do the rubber , I though of was to have {gap} the uh rubber extend beyond the end of the uh {vocalsound} of the rigid substructure . So it has a wee sort of tail that you just drape over your wrist so it stays in position nicely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Lovely . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . Great . Um . +Marketing: Right . Yeah I've got a {disfmarker} if you load up my evaluation document . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent work . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Uh evaluation . {vocalsound} Basic point uh have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by . {vocalsound} Um then we will {disfmarker} it's a seven s um seven seven step kinda evaluation process . So um not seven steps , seven scale . So after we've finished doing all the ratings for each criteria , we average that and that will give us some type of uh confidence in our prototype . And uh the criteria {gap} based on Real Reactions' kinda goals and policies , marketing strategies , and also those I put together from the user requirements phase . 'Kay . Um if you flip the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , those are the criteria . And uh perhaps I could have put 'em a bit better , but you notice a few things that we've totally abandoned , which means {vocalsound} that uh the product will score very badly on some of those points . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Put it mildly . So we have um true ? One , t Seven , eight , oh . Fourth . Okay , so we have to go through each point . If we imagine it's actually straight , and just give it a a score . So um how well would you say the prototype is uh how well have we realised the dream of being able to stop remotes from from being lost , or to be able to find them once they are lost . I mean , uh is the homing thing still {disfmarker} the locator , is that still {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's still part of the design . +Marketing: Sure . And Adam , we can keep that in ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I believe so . So I mean I don't think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause that would mean doing something about the human element , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: but I'd like to think that we've done something about finding the damn thing once we have . +Marketing: T +User Interface: Mm . Mm . And making it a bright colour helps +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: with the {disfmarker} personally I would have gone for purple {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Bright colour . So we still have that noise thing , yeah ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Os on a scale of one to seven , how would you guys rate it for finding {gap} finding it once it's lost ? +User Interface: I'd say number one . +Marketing: Number one ? +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Number number one for the first criteria . +User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th {gap} I mean something I've found with uh w w with say tr trying to find uh a cordless phone or a m mobile , you can hear it , but you can't quite pin it dow pin down where it is . +Marketing: Yeah you can tell what room the mobile is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bu +Industrial Designer: What about {disfmarker} what if the the volume on the T_V_'s turned up massively and uh you just wanna turn down the volume {gap} can't find remote . Suppose you have to go to the T_V_ and do it manually . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Um +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like y you wouldn't hear the speaker {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here , um well what we'll do is +Marketing: You wanna say something ? +Project Manager: um if we can look at the criteria you're gonna evaluate , and then we'll come back to the product evaluation if that's alright . +Marketing: That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Um so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you've covered ? And then we'll come back pretty much promptly to this . +Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I is there any of these criteria that need any explaining ? Or is there anything that yous thought tha really would stand out compared to the others ? +Marketing: Um , a few . {vocalsound} Something I neglected from my initial research is that Real Reactions has a a goal strategy that all of the products be inspired by material fashion , and clothing fashion . That is why fruit and veg being popular in the home and in clothing was important and they want all their products to be somehow inspired by current trends in fashion . So they say we put the fashion in electronics , well they really mean it they they're very big on fashion , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so . That's this bit right here . And uh this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody ? I guess it's just the same as saying easy to use interface , so it's kinda condensed into one . And we can come back to it , you said . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly . Um . Okay . Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do . Um most of it stems from the use of the L_C_D_ which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well . Um the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a L_C_D_ , at which point we've removed a large part of how we were gonna interface , {gap} require more buttons , etcetera . Or what we did was that we um we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure . Um changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the um proposed costs and we're just scraping it in , we've got point two of a Euro left over there . So we're just managing it really . Even then as well , um there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I've used what I think's appropriate . With any luck that won't mean that we've incurred more cost than we can actually afford to . It blows a lot of our really good ideas kind of slightly to one side , for example the possibility of having a U_S_B_ connection is definitely not viable now . Um . +Marketing: Different languages ? +Project Manager: That should still be viable . We've got an advanced chip , we've got the use of the L_C_D_ . So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but what's something we need to decide on is how we're gonna go from here . {vocalsound} We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be . Um . We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and uh show you if you wish um . I really think as m much as it pains me is that we might have to go with plastic and some kind of solid design , possibly meaning that the L_C_D_ wouldn't be in this perfect place . It might be s stuck like slightly between what would be good for left handed and what would be good for a right handed person . +User Interface: Mm-hmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h {vocalsound} is have it um circular and have it s {vocalsound} so that the uh the pink {gap} actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So that uh th +Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions , unfortunately . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you have any data on how much um different prints cost ? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design um ? +Project Manager: Um b b b da is {disfmarker} you mean on the plastic , or ? +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Let's have a look . You now have as much information as I do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So as you can see here , for example , the battery really not very little choice in that one . We've gone for one of the cheaper options as well . Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we're gonna do what we're needing to . I've said single curved . We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it . Um plastic for some reason incurs no cost , which I've had to very much make advantage of , despite the fact that rubber's only got a value of two Euros per unit . Problem comes here as you can see in the interface . Um if I've read this thing correctly , then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it's not per push button . That might make sense , because then a numeric keypad would come in at um what , four point five Euros , which is an awful lot , so that could well be wrong . Even if we save point five there , it would just mean that we're most likely placing it in actually just gaining a colour for the unit , which has had to be put to one side . As you can see , the use of an L_C_ display um advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it's an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that wasn't quite what I think they had in mind with a joystick . +Marketing: Why would why would that be more expensive than an individual push button and scroll wheel together ? That's quite significantly expensive . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} that's something you'll have to take up with the bean counters . Um +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: as you can see I mean that's taken up well over half of the price . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um I'm very much open to suggestions of where we go , but because we need to shed what was four Euros off of the um the price of for what we really desired , this one comes in under price as you can see , but this was the one that sacrificed the material for the case and for the actual case design . +Marketing: We don't even have uh speakers here . The {disfmarker} like uh we uh {disfmarker} what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that ? Have we factored that in ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no , we haven't , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter , receiver , speakers . Plus the extra device itself that's gonna be on a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is that gonna be a button , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That'll {gap} it literally would just be a button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We might have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's too expensive {gap} isn't it ? +Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing {disfmarker} Mm . Oh good call , I missed that . +Marketing: I I mean it's not on here , but um . +Project Manager: {gap} that's a very valid point . +Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: So if we're gonna go with the L_C_ display , then that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's a hand dyna dynamo ? You have to wind it up ? +Project Manager: I believe so , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the um the fashion statement and such , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technology . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the L_C_D_ on the remote now . +Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and joystick , yeah . +Project Manager: Which I'm defining as scroll wheel . Um . +Marketing: And we couldn't replace the joystick , right ? Because we would need four extra buttons to replace it , up down left and right , and that would be more expensive than a {disfmarker} but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah it's just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be , that that's what I've labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ basically is the big selling point of +Project Manager: If we remove the L_C_ display , we could save ourselves +Industrial Designer: the remote . +Project Manager: a fair amount . Which you could {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's what makes it uh original though , +User Interface: Mm . I think {gap} if we remove the the L_C_ display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: and we just {gap} we could just put our branding on any other remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Um . Uh k +Project Manager: It's a shame . We should possibly have {disfmarker} If we could've increased the price we could've manufactured that and we could've got something far closer to what we were hoping to . +Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that {disfmarker} I mean it's a bit ridiculous that they're gonna charge us what is it , like this much money for three million if we're gonna buy three million components , +Project Manager: Again , you'll have to argue with the accountants on that one . +Marketing: you know . +Project Manager: Um but for the purposes of this meeting , I'm {disfmarker} we're gonna have to stick with these figures . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we're gonna keep the L_C_ display 'cause it's about what really separates us , {vocalsound} despite the cost it's gonna incur . Um +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: are people maybe not happy with , but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case , to keep the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Um yeah {gap} I mean one thing , I mean ho uh how much extra would it be to to keep I mean {vocalsound} keep the um the articulation ? +Project Manager: It's hard to tell . Um I would say that you're at least gonna take double curved , +User Interface: This is what I'm wondering . +Project Manager: and even then I'm not quite sure if that's incorporating the idea of articulation . +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: no , I think I I it d that it needn't require it to be double curved . +Industrial Designer: It can be s yeah , it can still be single curved , +User Interface: It's uh it's just {vocalsound} it's just {vocalsound} it's just that the case would come in t {vocalsound} would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Single curved with articulation ? +Industrial Designer: You just {gap} . +Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface ? 'Cause like we {disfmarker} do we have re restrictions on software ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we need for the joystick I think though . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , I mean +Marketing: Oh but there has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: and {vocalsound} I mean the uh I mean if you look uh if you look closer at the uh at the prototype here , the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight . Um I mean {gap} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the curves all o over {gap} hand , +User Interface: on the {gap} on the L_C_D_ I mean although we've done it with a curve it +Project Manager: is it ? +User Interface: could just as easily be done um without curves . The curve that's really needed is up here , +Marketing: {gap} joystick . +User Interface: to put uh to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand . +Marketing: Okay . Sure . Okay , my bad . +Project Manager: We wouldn't actually save a lot by reducing it anyway , so I mean for the purposes of this meeting maybe we can state that single curve still allows articulation . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal . +Marketing: So I think the product is not gonna perform so well for my criteria . +Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now . As long as {disfmarker} so are we gonna say {disfmarker} {gap} w we have to keep an eye on the time as well , but we're gonna say um single curved design {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait a minute . Sample speaker ? What is a sample speaker ? Is that somewhat similar to what we want ? +Project Manager: It could well be , +User Interface: Mm no +Project Manager: but at a cost of {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's that voice response thing that we got the email about . +Industrial Designer: Costs four . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But I thought it was just completely pointless . +Marketing: You got a email about voice response ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I did not , +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: so . +User Interface: B i basically it was {gap} saying that our labs had come up with a chip that you could , you know , say hello to , and it would say hello back in a friendly female voice {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah we'll definitely won't go with that one . +Marketing: We won't go with that one , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's voice recognition , so . +Marketing: I mean I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Um . So , okay yeah , battery definitely , {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it looks like we're gonna get rid of the whole loca {vocalsound} locator thing . +Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even slight well oh yeah , pretty much point two Euros , I'd say . So we'll leave that one for now . {gap} we'll just have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all ? +Project Manager: It's uh a case of um I'm uh slightly unsure . One {disfmarker} point five of a Euro for one push button doesn't sound quite right . So maybe it's a case of a push button is maybe one or more . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: At which point if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was {gap} for a case . Or had you already incorporated that ? +Marketing: Oh , special colour for the case . +Project Manager: Well you got point five there . It's literally a case of whether or not this is correct . I'm not quite sure if they're {disfmarker} I don't think they mean point five Euros per button . +User Interface: Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: l let's say that and then we can have our special coloured case +Project Manager: So +User Interface: and then we at least have {disfmarker} make it a little harder to lose . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: Because most m most remotes are a fairly dingy colour that gets camouflaged under any pile of crap in a living room . +Marketing: W what's the default colour ? White or black ? +Project Manager: Black's probably the normal colour you'd say , +User Interface: Or grey . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: I quite like that colour that you're fetching there , +User Interface: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh definitely for make it glow in the dark even better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So will we go with that then ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's not and we can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'll come back to uh your evaluation +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: which you're probably now going to pan us but there we go . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just to give you an idea , um you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well , I'm not sure how much time . We've not hit the five minute mark warning yet , +Marketing: Right okay . Okay . +Project Manager: but . +Industrial Designer: Think it's ten minutes left . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ten . +Marketing: 'Kay . Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost . Um . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Special colour . +Marketing: Special colour . +Project Manager: Mm mm four ? +Marketing: Uh uh four . +Project Manager: Three ? Mm . +User Interface: Three . I think we can do three . +Marketing: Three if we're being generous , I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th the special colour doesn't {disfmarker} would I think make a difference . +Marketing: Think we're being generous here with three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: It makes it stand out from {disfmarker} you know it's lost in a big pile of crap , it stands out from the rest of the crap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons . We're down to t two buttons , is it ? +User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick . +Project Manager: Two buttons . +Marketing: Okay , so that's a one . You know , +User Interface: Totally . +Marketing: where that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say we're doing well there . +Marketing: Okay , that was good . Easy to use interface , buttons menu , menus {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's yeah that's good . {vocalsound} 'Kay that's {disfmarker} we're not doing so badly . Um {vocalsound} easy to use {disfmarker} oh okay , let's forget that one . Fancy looking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As he models the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't get much fancier . +Marketing: Sure . And we could do whatever we like with the L_ L_C_D_ . Yeah let's just assume it's a good L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe I was panicking for no reason . +Industrial Designer: Are we going one on {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'd say we go two , 'cause like f the fanciest would be the double curved . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wouldn't it ? +Marketing: w maybe you'd be a bit too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . There we go . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: With the articulators . With bells on it . +Marketing: that's m that's that's better too . More accurate numbers . Technologically innovative . Well , we're getting rid of the locator thing +Project Manager: Which is a shame . +Marketing: which which +User Interface: Mm . I'd give it a three for this {disfmarker} for that . +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No need for teletext . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean the menus thing is something you don't normally see on um on a remote , +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} you see it in a lot of other places . +Marketing: Yeah , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And y what you're doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You say three ? I might go as far as two on that . Three . +User Interface: I'd give it a three . +Project Manager: I'd be tempted with three , yeah . +Marketing: Three . Okay . +Project Manager: We'll get panned on the next one , anyway . +Marketing: Okay . Materials that people find pleasing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , w +Marketing: Sponginess is what they really would have wanted , apparently . +Project Manager: It is , yeah . Don't blame them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um because of the way that we've minimalised the number of buttons and such . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic , it sucks . But it's no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have . +Marketing: That's true . It's not a step backwards . +Industrial Designer: {gap} five ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I'd s I I'd give it a six , to be honest . +Industrial Designer: Six ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay let's give it a six . +Industrial Designer: Six , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , that's totally thrown everything off balance . Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion . W we could . What colour were we gonna make it ? +Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , +User Interface: Um we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause we had yellow . If I were buying one , I'd go for purple . Leopard print would be cool . +Marketing: But um by this I think it's more a case of fruit and veg , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we gotta {gap} . I'd say the colour of the border there world {disfmarker} you'd find that , {gap} that's that'd stand out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Like yellow , yeah . It would also help keep the the product placement s +Industrial Designer: Logo , brand . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Is it inspired by {gap} clothing fashion ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Th th they're referring to the fruit and veg thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Is this like a banana type colour ? Could we stretch {disfmarker} no still , it's not shaped like a banana is {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's kinda {disfmarker} {gap} i +Project Manager: It's kind o it +User Interface: it won't be when it's been +Project Manager: probably {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh is that 'cause it's flat ? +User Interface: budgeted . +Marketing: What is {disfmarker} what fruit or veg is flat ? +User Interface: I I think s I I think this isn't {disfmarker} not particularly fruit and veggie . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow courgette . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean it's probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg , so , {vocalsound} what , four ? +Marketing: Four ? Oh that's it's very ambitious , +Project Manager: Is that being too generous ? +User Interface: Mm . I'd {vocalsound} I'd I don't think fruit and veg is the sole criterion . {vocalsound} Is the sole criterion for being um fashion {gap} fashionable or inspired by current fashions . +Marketing: yeah , um . +Project Manager: Oh dear , {gap} . +Marketing: Sure . Inspired by {gap} . +User Interface: Um I'd g I'd rate I'd rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually . +Industrial Designer: Well this this what we're gonna t this is their motto , like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we're we're not doing well on it . +Marketing: This is their strategy . I m imagine we actually had some money invested in this and the amount that we invest is gonna be proportional to the marks . Might {disfmarker} we might wanna be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one . +Project Manager: What would you think yourself ? +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} I mean it's it's not at all , right ? {vocalsound} In any way or shape or form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it's kind of curved +Marketing: We didn't m +Project Manager: and we can make it yellow , and that's pretty much banana like . +Marketing: Okay , the the yellow banana like thing is I think is okay . +Project Manager: Si it's got a curve to it . +Marketing: Right five . Is that {vocalsound} sound reasonable ? +Project Manager: Am I {disfmarker} do you think I'm stretching the uh the use of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll go with five . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} Yeah . 'Kay , so we have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven . So five , seven , ten , sixteen , twenty one . Which gives us an average of three . It's {disfmarker} well this would be in the middle . So we it's it's not bad . It's in the good section . +Project Manager: It's not bad and considering the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} don't pick the pen . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oops . Sorry . {vocalsound} I'm I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Y oh and you've knocked batteries out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um right okay it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S bad design , that thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in , to have a positive {disfmarker} you know , even based on the four of us being heavily biased , um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it was gonna be quite hard to get anything standing out I'd say possibly , based on um the the cost features . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Marketing: Even if we were to increase this entire thing by by seven , we were to go down a grade to to four , we would have to do {disfmarker} I mean we didn't we weren't that kinda optimistic too optim overly optimistic . You know like we didn't we didn't add we didn't subtract a whole seven points from these things , so I think we're definitely on the good bit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven , that's still only three extra points over seven . You know , it's {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Mm . Personally , I think given that the product um only replaces a single remote control +Marketing: we did it w it was okay . It was good . +User Interface: that you've already got , are people really gonna shell out twenty five Euros for something that's only marginally good ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it depends who your {disfmarker} who's {disfmarker} what the target people are , like you'd say maybe the fashion conscious +Project Manager: Maybe it's been targeted {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: women would be going , oh look at that , 's cool , it looks like a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's yellow , looks like a banana , it's cool it's gotta {disfmarker} look good in the sitting room . +Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket . +Industrial Designer: Rather than the L_C_D_ whereas uh more technical like like more uh people in with the latest technology {gap} it's good , it's got an L_C_D_ screen 's only got two buttons and a joystick . So , which which kind of people would be more likely to buy it ? +Project Manager: Probably the people technologically . They're usually the ones that buy pointless stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone , and she's had it for a long time , you know . She uses it to make phone calls and that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick , I mean that'll probably be the first one she decides not to buy , you know . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: She'd be like is this a remote control , I don't {disfmarker} how do you use it , and stuff like that . So even if it is really user friendly to us , but we're used to using menus all the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I s {vocalsound} I suppose one thing is that b because it's technically innovative , um for someone who's sort of technophobic , the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Um . +Marketing: I think it's totally uh radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But like radical good , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um don't know how lo much longer we've got . At least five minutes I think . Um quickly we'll pop onto project evaluation . Um . So , we've got these uh four criteria here for uh satisfaction . Does anybody want to um um do you have any opinions on any of them ? For example um {disfmarker} we'll work backwards I suppose . The ability to work on this project using the technology we've been presented with . Um {gap} people made good use of the uh pen and paper ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: I would say {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: got notes and doodles . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrote nearly a page , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but not {gap} . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure what the advantage for us using a digital pen might be . +User Interface: Well I think this is a {disfmarker} I think the digital pen's mostly for the benefit of the uh +Marketing: I think tracking . +User Interface: of the researchers studying this . It's all p goes into their corpus . +Project Manager: It must {disfmarker} +User Interface: Though it would have been nice to be able to transfer the um transfer our n our paper notes onto the uh computer ourselves . +Marketing: Yeah , that woulda been pretty good . +Project Manager: It does seem like the paper's still a heavy consideration for taking notes . So maybe this is literally just a way around it . Um I dunno . How are people satisfied with the teamwork we've managed to display today ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Good . +Marketing: yeah I liked it , yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership . As much as can be leadered in this uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: I li yeah , top marks . +Project Manager: Um last one we've got is room for creativity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Unti uh uh until uh until accounts came along , +Project Manager: Now , I think we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} squish . +Industrial Designer: We're burs bursting with creativity . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: We we're not lacking in ideas , you know it's {disfmarker} that was not the problem . +Project Manager: I think of {disfmarker} in the end , ideas that can be used {gap} sadly {gap} . Not so much that we weren't full of ideas , but of ones that are gonna allow us to actually build the thing . It's a bit of a pity . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I would have to agree on that . I think we needed a larger budget . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you're going to aim your a um product maybe at the technological kind of sector , then you can afford to maybe jack the price up slightly from what it is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because they will pay outrageous cash to {gap} +User Interface: Mm . I mean I th {vocalsound} I mean I think to r retaining the s the more sort of bio-morphic form in the articulation would gain more in s uh would gain more profit in sales than it would lose in uh +Project Manager: first on the market . +User Interface: in added expense . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the price was like {disfmarker} it was twice the w assembly cost . And would it have to be twice that ? It could be like coulda had the assembly {gap} like maybe fifteen Euro . +Project Manager: It could even {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll still settle for twenty five {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I suppose these are all that will have to be taken up with a at a different group at I guess . As to a {gap} the costs involved . But I mean we've got a a prototype . +User Interface: Such as it is . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I dunno , I I think it's gone okay today , considering the information that we've had at our disposal , and um such . +Marketing: Maybe the counts wou woulda been better if we had a list or more {disfmarker} Yeah , to begin with . +Industrial Designer: In the beginning , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably would have {disfmarker} mean we could have come up with a lot more solid design in the end , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would have to agree . It is very much a pity to um get so far into the stage and then find out that maybe some of your ideas are just a bit too expensive . Always hard to tell until you know the costs . Um . Okay . Are the costs within budget ? Well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they are now that we have our slightly less than capable product . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We've evaluated it , and we can say that we came out with a value of three . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Actually I want th one thing I would say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean something that could perhaps be part of the product mm the um m product testing market research process would be to uh produce mock-ups of both versions and see just how much of a difference the over {gap} going over-budget um m would make to sales . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: And like response from consumers {gap} . +User Interface: And we could even you know , market two versions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wee cheapie version with the nice bio-morphic rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the final one where you get to call it Hal . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: But we'll go into that later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: Right um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is there anything else that anybody would like to to add , um {gap} anything they think that's not been covered , before I quickly write up a final report . Um I dunno , I mean we've got a product . We maybe aren't as happy with it as we'd like to be , but we've got something we think we can maybe stick onto the the market and sell . And of course something we have been avoiding talking about 'cause of we've no information is selling them directly to the manufacturers . There is a huge market . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we've briefly touched on it but we've no more knowledge then there's little we can say on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So um unless anybody's got anything they'd like to add , we can maybe round this up slightly earlier than we'd need to and then we can finish up the writing and such . +User Interface: And I can get my bus . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh thank you for your participation . +Marketing: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was actually kind of upset you know at the budget , and that we had to cut a lot of stuff . It's like man , we we can't have the locator thing . And s yeah that's just bad . Do you think maybe {gap} the prices were were made ? +Project Manager: That {gap} a question we can ask {gap} . {vocalsound} +","The project team discusses finalizing a product that prioritizes aesthetic appeal, specifically a ""new black"" design theme. Due to budget constraints, the product will have standard, off-the-shelf components, an advanced chip, and an LCD display. The team considers ergonomics and possible functionalities, like a double-curved rubber design. However, cost concerns lead to compromises, such as using plastic casing and simplifying the design to fit within a tight budget, leading to the exclusion of features like a USB connection. + +During the evaluation process, the product scores moderately well against criteria such as ease of locating the remote, use of fewer buttons, ease of the interface, fanciness, and technological innovation. It performs less well in terms of materials and alignment with interior and clothing fashion trends. The team identifies that their market evaluation for the prototype might need to distinguish between fashion-conscious users and those more interested in technology. Constraints on creativity due to the budget and the practicality of the design lead to some dissatisfaction among team members. + +The session highlights the tension between innovation, financial limits, and market demands, with the team navigating these factors to produce a viable product concept." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the third meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, April20, the committee is meeting for the purposes of considering ministerial announcements, allowing members to present petitions, and questioning ministers of the crown, including the Prime Minister, in respect of the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand there's an agreement to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six members of the Canadian Armed Forces who lost their lives last Wednesday in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece. We'll return to order. Colleagues, we meet today to continue our discussion about how our country is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. As we do, Canadians, like everyone around the world, are doing their best to live their lives until things improve. Meanwhile, as we look towards the future, I believe that it is also important to remember our past and to continue to mark the important moments in our shared history. At this very moment, the Dominion Carillonneur, Dr. Andrea McCrady, is performing a special recital to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by the Canadian Forces. In May 1945, Canadian Forces played a major role in liberating the Dutch people from Nazi occupation. May 5 is now a national holiday in the Netherlands that commemorates the event and the great friendship that now exists between our two countries. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Please be aware that the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. Let me remind you that, as in the House or in committee, members may not take photographs of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure orderly meetings, I will outline a few rules. Interpretation of this video conference will be done as it is at normal committee meetings and in the House. At the bottom of your screen, you can choose floor, English or French. As you have seen, I change as I am speaking. I have now switched over to English in order to speak English. If you look at the bottom, you have a little flag that indicates whether it's English or French, and that's how we will be speaking. It makes it easier. That was where we had a little bit of a glitch in the last session. I understand that there are no statements by ministers. We can now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that petitions presented during a meeting of the special committee must already have been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure that the petition is considered to have been properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for petitions certified in a previous Parliament should be emailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. on the day before the committee. I thank all the members for their usual co-operation. Thank you all. Now we'll proceed to presenting petitions. Our first petition comes from the honourable member for Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions today. The first petition is with respect to government Bill C-7. Petitioners raised concerns that this bill removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime. It includes removing the mandatory 10-day reflection period and the number of required witnesses who will witness a person's consent. The petitioners urge the House of Commons to immediately discontinue the removal of safeguards for people requesting euthanasia, and to put in place additional measures to protect vulnerable people. This would require that bill to be amended or not passed. The second petition is with respect to Senate public bill S-204. This is on organ harvesting and trafficking. Petitioners call on members of the House, and hopefully the Senate as well, to support Bill S-204, which would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It would also create provisions under which a person could be made inadmissible to Canada if they had been involved in organ harvesting or trafficking. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Thank you. I want to remind all the members that there are specific headsets that have been mandated to all of us. If you don't have one, please talk to your IT ambassador and they will get one to you as quickly as possible. The reason for them is not so much for what you hear, but that our interpreters are working and there are work conditions that really make it difficult. Part of that is not having the appropriate boom on your headset, which will make it very difficult for them to hear and interpret for our members. Now we go to the member for BeachesEast York, Mr. Erskine-Smith. +Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (BeachesEast York, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I had to learn how to tie my tie all over again. It's been so long. I want to thank Jenna Robar, who's led this petition e-2453. The petitioners have noted that there are approximately 60 indigenous languages in Canada and that 2019, last year, was declared by the UN to be the year of indigenous languages. They draw attention to article 13 of the UNDRIP and to the TRC's calls to action numbers 13 to 16. Fundamentally, they call upon the Government of Canada to recognize indigenous languages as being official languages of Canada and to have each language recognized nationally, with implementations on regional and provincial levels, acknowledging that many regions have different languages. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am proud to present a petition on behalf of one of my constituents, Myles Lynch of St. Andrews West in my riding. Myles made history as the first Canadian ever to survive three double-lung transplants. Myles lives with cystic fibrosis and has had three lung transplants in the last five years, and he's only 22 years old. Myles created a documentary called 8 Thousand Myles, which had a few showings in my riding. It documented his journey across Canada. One thing Myles has been advocating for is the creation of a national opt-out program for organ donation. Myles asked me how he could help raise awareness of that issue. I mentioned to him e-petitions online and getting people across the country to sign them. I am proud to have this certified today, with 1,318 signatures, asking the Standing Committee on Health to launch a study into the feasibility of the creation of a national opt-out program. I give kudos to Myles not only for his strength personally but also for his advocacy for others and for saving lives in our country by advocating for a better and an improved organ donation system. Kudos to Myles. I'm proud to present this petition today. +Mr. Peter Julian (New WestminsterBurnaby, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'm very pleased to present this certified petition on behalf of several dozen residents of Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton, Ontario, who add their voices to those of the thousands upon thousands of Canadians who have signed similar petitions. Given that Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events, and at the same time our society, as you know, is suffering from worsening social and economic inequalitieshalf of Canadian families are only $200 away from insolvency in any given monthand particularly given the pandemic that we are currently experiencing, these petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to support motion M-1, a made-in-Canada green new deal that I am presenting in front of the House of Commons. It calls on Canada to take bold and rapid action to tackle the climate emergency, and to put in place a shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to table a petition on behalf of constituents from CourtenayAlberni. They are concerned, obviously, about fentanyl-related deaths. Over 12,000 Canadians have died over the last four years due to fentanyl-poisoned sources. They cite that the current war on drugs has been costly and grossly ineffective; that it has resulted in widespread stigma towards addiction and against those who use illicit drugs; and that criminalization of particular substances has resulted in the establishment of a drug trade that now trafficks dangerous and lethal products such as fentanyl. They are citing that regulating to ensure safe sources, with proper measures and bylaws, will reduce the criminal element associated with street drugs. Problematic substance use is a health issue and is not resolved through criminalization of personal possession and consumption. They are calling on the Government of Canada to declare the current opioid overdose and fenanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act. They are calling for the government to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession, as has been done in Portugal and other countries, and to create with urgency and immediacy a system to provide safe and unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm presenting a petition today that contains the concerns of Canadians in my riding with the government's approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petition highlights that the Liberal government's December 5, 2019, Speech from the Throne contains numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation; that the term military-style assault rifles is a political phrase undefined in Canadian law; that municipalities are constitutionally unable to enact criminal law to ban handguns in their jurisdictions; that the experts, including chiefs of police, agree that banning firearms and requiring law-abiding gun owners to follow more unnecessary red tape will not increase public safety; that the majority of guns used in violent crimes are smuggled into Canada from the United States; and that the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal gun traffickers responsible for violence in our communities. The petitioners in MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon are calling on the government to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed, RCMP-vetted Canadians; and to focus our limited resources on anti-gang enforcement, on reducing the involvement of at-risk youth and gangs, on mental health and on providing the Canada Border Services Agency with the tools they need to do their job effectively. +The Chair: Very good. That's all for petitions today. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind honourable members that no member shall be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the question should do so by simply turning on their mike and speaking. I want to again remind honourable members to use the boom on the official headsets so that everything runs smoothly, not only for ourselves but also for the interpreters. We start the question period with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Although we are right in the middle of a pandemic and the government has agreed to set aside all parliamentary business in order to concentrate solely on eliminating the virus in Canada and its impacts, the Prime Minister is deceiving Canadians by introducing measures to punish law-abiding firearm owners. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, I feel that all Canadians were affected by the massacre in Nova Scotia. Once again, too many families are facing tragedy and tremendous grief. During the last election campaign, we promised to ban military-style assault weapons, and that is exactly what we have done. We will be working with members from all parties in order to continue strengthening gun control. It is a shame that, once more, the Conservatives do not want to strengthen gun control in the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I understand the Prime Minister's reply. However, I would like to know whether he considers that, with this order in council, organized crime, street gangs and other criminals are simply going to turn in their weapons. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: This is indeed only a first step, but it is an important one. We are doing other things to eliminate or restrict handguns in our municipalities, to strengthen the control at our borders, and to implement other measures. I am pleased to hear the hon. member speak of those measures, because we are going to work together in the House to strengthen gun control. I hope that the Conservative Party will be part of that discussion in a positive way, in order to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I can simply say to the Prime Minister that the Conservative Party has always been committed to battling criminals, not law-abiding citizens. Speaking of criminals, we know that, even before the pandemic, the Prime Minister had asked the Parole Board of Canada to release prisoners more easily and more quickly. Now we are learning that, because of the pandemic, some releases are happening very quickly. The Minister of Public Safety told us that the people were approaching the end of their sentences or were older, but we are learning in the media that some dangerous criminals are being released. Can the Prime Minister give us an explanation? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The protection, the safety and the health of all Canadians are important for the government. This is why we have taken additional measures in our correctional services to ensure that guards and inmates are protected. We have indeed opened the doors to some more speedy releases, but only in very specific cases that present little or no danger for Canadians. We have managed to find the right balance. We must protect Canadians and we must also ensure that they are safe. Those two things go hand-in-hand. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So is the Prime Minister confirming to us that no dangerous criminals have been precipitously released so that they do not have to experience COVID-19 within the walls? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There are very strict rules and principles to ensure that people posing a threat to society are not released. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have one minute left. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Chinese government has not been transparent with the rest of the world about the coronavirus. Australia asked for an in-depth investigation, but has received threats from the communist regime. Is Canada going to stand by its allies in the Five Eyes and demand that the Chinese government be completely transparent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We continue to stand in solidarity with our allies, including the Five Eyes, as they have stood in solidarity with Canada in terms of the two Canadians who have been unjustly detained for a long time in China. In the coming months and years, we expect to obtain answers to all our questions about the origin of this pandemic, including questions that are important for China. At the same time, we are going to work hard to ensure that all Canadians have the equipment and the protection they need to get through this pandemic. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am sorry that I do not have my official headset. I was elsewhere, and I did not bring it with me. I hope that you can still hear me properly. For some days, discussions have been going on between people from the Bloc Qubcois and people from the government with a view to collaboratively coming up with a proposal for seniors in Quebec and Canada. The gist of our proposal is to temporarily increase the old age security by about $25per week, or $110per month. By the way, I hate the term ""old age security. I prefer ""senior security. The discussion has been going on for some time and it's a proposal that we made in the election campaign. We are asking for it to be done at this point, at least temporarily. Parliament stopped sitting in the middle of March. We are now in May, and seniors still have nothing. They are impatient themselves, and we spend a good part of our days answering them. Given that impatience, I realized I should not be the one answering them, it should be the Prime Minister. So here is my question for the Prime Minister: what are you doing to seek a solution that will increase the purchasing power of seniors in Quebec and Canada in the very short term? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Clearly, seniors need support and significant services from us because of COVID-19. Our priority was to implement income replacement benefits for workers who have lost their jobs because of COVID-19. Then we announced different measures, including measures for seniors. The most vulnerable seniors are going to receive reimbursement of the GST, which will help them very quickly. We have also reduced by 25% the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds. We have also channelled $9million through the United Way, to help the most vulnerable seniors. Absolutely, I recognize that more must be done. I am very pleased that we have been able to work with other parliamentarians, including those in the Bloc Qubcois, to hear these concerns and to find the best way to help seniors in the short term. In terms of the pandemic, they have concerns about their physical security, but also about their financial security. We will have more to say about this soon. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the last few hours, the Prime Minister has indicated that he could need the cooperation of other parties, including the Bloc Qubcois, on a completely different matter. We are very open to that discussion, but we want the same openness when we are asking for something to serve the people of Quebec. The cost of a basket of groceries has increased for seniors, as it has for everyone else. It's true for all seniors over 65years old, of course. The current old age pension represents less than half of the Canada emergency student benefit. It represents less than one third of the basic Canada emergency response benefit. Seniors in my constituency, as in any other of the 338constituencies, are asking what we are doing. They are asking how there can be nothing for them. When will there be something for them? I want to be able to give them an answer of some kind. What is the Prime Minister's answer? I will repeat it to them. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There will be announcements in the coming days on the way in which we will be able to help seniors, particularly the most vulnerable seniors. We recognize that the cost of a basket of groceries is increasing for everyone. That is why we have to do better for our seniors. There are horror stories, whether about the CHSLDs, or about our most vulnerable seniors across the country. Far too many families are experiencing tremendous grief. There are seniors who are alone, seniors who are afraid of falling ill without ever seeing their grandchildren or their children again. We have to be there for those who belong to that great generation that fought for us during the second world war. Now we have to fight for them in their homes. That is exactly what we are going to do. +The Chair: We'll go to the next question. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, every day I hear from people who are struggling to pay their bills and to keep a roof over their head. Instead of making sure that Canadians get the help they need, the government has created complicated programs that are still letting people fall through the cracks. If the Prime Minister won't commit to a universal benefit, will he at least commit to removing the restrictive eligibility criteria that are leaving the most vulnerable people behind? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we knew, when this pandemic hit, that we needed to help Canadians who were suffering from coast to coast to coast, particularly the most vulnerable. That is why we moved forward rapidly with the Canada emergency response benefit, which has helped over seven million individual Canadians and has made a huge difference. We had to move very quickly to get this money out to people, and that is exactly what we did. We also recognized that there would be a need to do more. That is why since that moment, we have continually worked on reaching out to the most vulnerable and supporting them as well. We have more to do, but we knew that targeted approaches were what was most needed. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government continues to leave people behind. I spoke to a woman in my riding who was homeless last year. She recently found a job and a place to live. However, because she didn't make $5,000 last year, when the pandemic hit she didn't qualify for any benefits. She didn't qualify, but she is one of the people who need it the most. I'm wondering why the Prime Minister doesn't think she deserves our support. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our focus throughout this crisis has been on helping the most vulnerable with targeted measures that will lift Canadians out of poverty and will support them. Over the past five years, we've lifted over a million people out of poverty in this country, and we've continued to put the most vulnerable at the heart of everything we're doing. We will continue to. We've put significant investments forward to charitable organizations and foundations that are helping the most vulnerable. At the same time, we will continue to look for more ways to help even more than the seven million Canadians who successfully receive the CERB. We recognize there's more to do, and we will continue trying to do everything we can in this unprecedented situation. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government is weirdly committed to eligibility criteria that result in regular people not getting the support they need, but not so committed to criteria for corporations and billionaires who get our help. If a company is cheating the public, using offshore tax havens not to pay its fair share, it should not be eligible for government bailouts or benefits. Other countries, like Poland, Denmark and France, have made this commitment, and if they can do it, so can we. The Prime Minister said one thing one day and another the next. Will he commit now that if a company has money in offshore tax havens, it will not receive public funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the measures we've put forward are focused on helping workers who lose their jobs, regardless of the companies they work for. It is a shame to hear the NDP, which used to be the party of workers, choosing to judge workers by which multinational they work for. We have moved forward with a wage subsidy such that the employers are obliged to pass every single penny on to the workers. That is not help for the companies. That is help for the workers, and that has been our focus all the way through: ordinary Canadians who need support because they are unable to work because of COVID-19. That has been our priority, and that is what Canadians need right now. Of course, we continue to have very strong measures to fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion. We spent a billion dollars to strengthen our Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, can I ask my last question? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We will continue to do that. +The Chair: I'm just going to pause the time for a moment. I want to remind honourable members that we're trying to stay within committee rules, which state that the length of a question and the length of an answer should be approximately the same amount of time. I just want to remind our members of that. I'll go back to Ms. Collins. She has about 45 seconds left, and hopefully that's about half and half for the question and the answer. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Thanks so much, Mr. Chair. My last question is about housing and homelessness. My community was facing a crisis long before the pandemic hit, and now people who are living on the streets or in parks don't have the luxury of following public health advice and just staying home. In Victoria, the province and the municipality have stepped up with solutions to house people, at least for the short term, in local hotels. Will the federal government respond to this immediate crisis and provide the needed investments in long-term, stable housing? +The Chair: The right honourable Prime Minister, in 25 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Chair, we have moved forward with a historic national housing strategy that puts $40 billion toward housing. Working with partners, we have reduced poverty by over a million people in this country, but there is more to do. We are reducing homelessness by half with historic investments. We recognize that during this pandemic there's even more to do for vulnerable Canadians, and we are partnering with orders of government to make sure that happens. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): A point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: Order. Mr.Godin has a point of order. +Mr. Jol Godin: Mr.Chair, I cannot hear the French interpretation. Could we please check so that I can hear in French what the Prime Minister is saying? +The Chair: Okay. Can we check that? +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I can try speaking English. I believe I was on the English tab, as is important. Are you hearing the translation now? +The Chair: That is exactly what the issue was. I just want to point that out to all the members. I'm speaking English right now and I'm on the English toggle at the bottom of the screen. It does create a bit of a disjoint when we're speaking, but it's the way to get around that so we have interpretation that works for everyone. The next question will go to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, as this is our first opportunity to meet in any forum, I want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the families of the brave men and women who lost their lives in the helicopter crash. I know that I speak for all parliamentarians when I extend our sympathy to their families and loved ones. Mr. Chair, I want to raise with the Prime Minister an issue that I've raised several times before, and that is a gap in the wage subsidy program. There is a company in my riding that employs thousands of people across the country. Last year, they acquired another company. Those companies separately would qualify for the wage subsidy, but because of rules that the government designed, together they do not. Even though collectively they have experienced a massive drop in revenue and would otherwise be eligible, so far they've been unable to get confirmation that they will be able to access the program. As a result, thousands of jobs are threatened. Will the Prime Minister be able to deliver some good news to people who work for Brandt Tractor all across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the honourable member for his question and for his advocacy for his community and businesses in his riding. As I told him when we spoke directly, Finance officials have been directly in contact with the company in his riding. We recognize that there are particular elements in regard to this company that are challenging around application for the wage subsidy, but I know that Finance officials are working very hard to try to make sure that everyone who needs the subsidy gets it, so that the workers in his community can get the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister knows that there are many companies across the country that fall into this category as well, so we're hoping for some good news. Just flagging the time and date, it is well into May now and important decisions have to be made in very short order. There are other aspects of the government's plans to help get people through this crisis that are also causing people to fall through the cracks. The plan to help businesses with rent applies only after a business has lost 70% of their revenue. As provinces start to open up, many companies are going to be faced with a very difficult decision of operating at perhaps 35% or 45% of regular revenues. They will not be able to access these programs and, in many cases, there is going to be a disincentive to reopen and put people back to work. Will the Prime Minister amend these programs to provide for more flexibility so that more and more Canadians can start to return to work in the weeks ahead? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we are in an unprecedented crisis and we had to move quickly to support workers and to support families across the country, and that's exactly what we did. We're going to continue to work to try to respond to the reality that people and businesses are facing right across the country. I am eager to be faced with the challenge of how to ease off in these measures so that people can get back to work. We are getting closer to that point, but we are not there yet. We are still focused very much on giving the supports to workers and families that are so necessary in this time of crisis. As different provinces move forward towards reopening, as we look at different paths forward, I know that I will be able to count on all members in the House and, indeed, on Canadians from coast to coast to coast to figure out together what the best way will be to move forward on keeping us safe and restoring economic activity in the right way. That will be good to work on together once we get there. +The Chair: We have about a minute left for maybe a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, no one is disputing the need to move quickly. We are now in May, though, and these programs have been announced for weeks. Canadians have been accessing them. The problems with them have been flagged for the government for weeks as well, but we're also going to see an additional challenge, where people who are receiving the emergency response benefit, who may have the option to go back to work and work some hours, are faced with a hard cap of $1,000 a month before they lose the CERB. Conservatives are proposing a progressive system, a more flexible system, where people will be able to earn more without losing their benefits as businesses ramp up but before normal working hours are restored. Again, will the Prime Minister build in some flexibility to lift the restrictive ceiling on what people can earn before losing benefits so that it always pays more to work? +The Chair: I believe the timer is telling all of us that the time is up, but I'll give the right honourable Prime Minister about 30 seconds to answer that, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority was getting support for Canadians right across the country with the CERB, with the wage subsidy and with other measures for students, for seniors, for farmers and for agricultural producers. That has been our priority, and that's what we have worked on. I hear the concerns that the Conservative Party has around disincentives. We are going to work with communities and with industry as we look to reopen, to make sure that people have opportunities to work and are not penalized for it. However, our overarching priority was allowing Canadians to be confident in their ability to stay home, care for their loved ones, buy groceries and pay their rent so that we could keep safe during this pandemic. That's exactly what we did. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu now. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Mr. Chair, seniors in my riding are struggling. We've heard the Prime Minister admit that fixed incomes for some of them are down, rent is increasing and the price of groceries is increasing. He's been saying for weeks that in the coming days, something would be announced for seniors. The fact is that the Liberals ran on an election promise to increase the old age security. Which of the days in the coming weeks will they keep their promise to seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, after a lifetime of hard work, of course Canadians deserve peace of mind when it comes to their retirement security. COVID-19 is definitely having a disproportionate impact on seniors. They have a greater need for services and supports. Happily, their pensions and their benefits are still flowing, unlike for so many of those who have lost their jobs, but it's still tough. We introduced measures Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Which day? Hon. Deb Schulte: at the beginning of April. People received a GST credit, a supplementary payment that was $400 on average for single seniors and $600 for couples. That was of significant help to low- and moderate-income seniors. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Yes, Mr. Chair. I think you had reminded us as members that the amount of time for the answer should be similar to the amount of time for the question. I would just ask the minister to keep to that. I would like to go to my second question. +The Chair: I want to remind all honourable members to keep their answers as well as their questions as concise as possible. Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Very good, Mr. Chair. My riding is on the border of Canada and the U.S. We see a number of inconsistencies in what is considered essential travel with regard to the U.S. and actually in the interpretation of different CBSA agents. While we have Americans coming over to buy cheaper prescription medications and to fish, individuals in my riding who are trying to get auditors over so that they can be approved for export businesses are being declined. We have people who have purchased masts from Canadian producers for their boats, and who want to come and pick them up, who are not being allowed to do that. People trying to sell plasma into the U.S. are being denied. When will they clarify the rules to the CBSA agents so that essential travel and trade and commerce, including individual commerce, is understood? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, we have implemented very rigorous rules that have been well documented and understood by CBSA to stop all non-essential travel. Those measures have been very successful. We've seen a 99% reduction in international travel coming into Canada. At the same time, we recognize the importance of maintaining essential supply routes so that goods and services could reach Canada and we could put groceries on our shelves. We also recognize the important work that essential workers do on both sides of the border. We have provided CBSA with clarification. Their interpretation of those rules has been broadly consistent. I've heard from a number of our colleagues in caucus with concerns about individual cases. When we receive those inquiries, we follow up immediately. I want to assure the member that we'll continue to do that. The work we are doing to stop non-essential travel has been important for the health and safety of Canadians, and we will continue with that work. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, my next question has to do with sole proprietor businesses. We see that many of them are not eligible for any of the benefit packages that have been rolled outEI, CERB, the wage subsidy, etc. What is the government going to do to address sole proprietors who are currently falling through the cracks? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, first, let me say that we absolutely recognize there are businesses across the country of all sizes that are finding this to be extremely difficult. The intent of the measures we put forward is obviously not only to give individuals a bridge but to give businesses a bridge. We are looking at ways that we can ensure that the Canada emergency business account has the broadest possible application. More than 500,000 businesses have already been approved for these loans, representing over $20 billion. We are looking at ways we can consider that eligibility process, recognizing that we need to make sure that the program continues to have its desired impact, and we will have more to say on that. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, this is my first appearance, so I hope you can hear me okay. +The Chair: We can hear you fine. Please proceed. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to see everyone's faces. On April 3, the fisheries minister said opening dates would be determined by harvesters. Since then the minister has overruled the will of harvesters in Prince Edward Island and in the gulf who voted to start their seasons on time, but she has allowed harvesters from her own riding to proceed with their seasons as scheduled, giving them access to markets weeks before their competitors. This double standard is severely unfair and Atlantic harvesters are furious, as demonstrated during the protests on the Canso Causeway yesterday. When will the minister stop abusing her position and start respecting fish harvesters by opening up lobster fishing areas 23, 24 and 26? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Mr. Chair, when making decisions with regard to when seasons open, a number of factors are taken into account. They are complex decisions that take into account what is necessary for processors to be ready for the season, what is necessary for harvesters to be ready for the season, as well socio-economic impacts on the area. We're looking at all of those measures when we make these decisions. We do not make them lightly. They are difficult decisions to make. In the decisions we've made around the gulf, one of the main things we heard from all of those areas is that it was very important for them to start on the same date. That is why the decision was made to start on the 15th of May. We're looking forward to seeing the harvesters out on the water. We're looking forward to the product that they bring in. We'll continue do everything we can to support the industry. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Minister. I believe the time +The Chair: Excuse me. No, the hon. minister had another 15 seconds coming to her. I'd like to remind hon. members not to interrupt a person while they are speaking. I'll do my best to try to keep it about level. Maybe I'll start muting if it's necessary, but interrupting is not going to solve anything. Mr. Arnold, I'll let you continue. You have three minutes and nine seconds left. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. West coast fishing tourism is a key economic driver in British Columbia, especially in coastal communities, and yet the public fishery gets no respect from the government. Last year, the public fishery was weakened by restrictions based on ideology and not science. A year later, the fisheries minister refuses even to discuss viable, science-based solutions to conserve B.C.'s public fisheries. Does the minister and her government have a will and a plan to support Canada's west coast fisheries and the communities they sustain? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, the fishery is important in every coastal community. I recognize its value for our economy, as well as what it means to our coastal communities. That's why we continue to work with those communities and with the fisheries to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to support them. During these extremely difficult times, we're working on measures with the fishery in B.C., as well as on the Atlantic coast and eastern Quebec, to make sure that we're delivering for them and that all of the issues they're having are being addressed. +The Chair: Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, Canada's seniors, especially those on basic incomes, are being hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis as they face new rising costs and scarcity of services. Seniors require adequate caregiver supports, physical safety and freedom to access their savings to reinforce their financial security. Why has the government failed to recognize the increasing challenges that seniors are facing? Will the government support Canada's senior citizens? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to assure my hon. colleague that the government has been focused on seniors during this challenging time. We have provided a GST credit supplement of $400 for single seniors and $600 for couples, for low- and modest-income seniors. We have also ensured that the Canada emergency response benefit is there for seniors who have lost income due to COVID-19. We've made them eligible. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Arnold. Mr. Arnold, you have a minutehopefully a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On April 23, my colleagues and I called on the government to create a program that would match students seeking employment with employers in Canada's essential food supply chains. What has the government done to match students and other Canadians seeking employment with employers in the agriculture and agri-food sectors, including those in the fish and seafood sector? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we're doing all we can to make sure, using our existing employment programs, that we create opportunities for students to work and get work experience this summer. We know that this is going to be really tough, especially in areas like agriculture, so we have dedicated streams for agriculture sector employers to access students with help from the government, and a number of different initiatives including Canada summer jobs, which I'm really excited to see the results of in the coming days. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to the next question from Ms. Harder. Ms. Rempel, do you have a point of order? +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. With my colleague, Mr. Arnold, it's the second time that I note you've threatened to cut off a Conservative microphone. I'm just wondering, given that this isn't the House of Commons and it's structured as a committee, what standing order would give you the right to cut off a member of Parliament using a mute button. It seems a little dictatorial, and I was just wondering whether you could clarify that, based on the Standing Orders. +The Chair: I don't think I threatened to use mute, but thank you for bringing that up. I am trying to keep the rules where the questions and the answers are equal, so that there are no interruptions on either side. That's how we're going to continue. I didn't use the mute. I did it verbally and I think that's a little more civil way of doing it. I hope you approve. I'm not asking you to comment on that. We'll go over to Ms. Harder. Thank you. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: But, on the point of order, Mr. Chair, you actually, to me, last week, and to Mr. Arnold, did suggest that you were going to use the mute button. +The Chair: I believe that if we take everything out and go over it.... Bring the papers with the actual verbiage on it where I threatened, and we'll go over it, but I don't think this is the venue to do that. If you want to bring forward a point of order, I'm all in favour of it. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: Well, I am bringing forward a point of order. I've asked you to clarify +The Chair: Very good. We'll look into it and get back to you. Thank you. We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Canadians have outrightly expressed outrage and disappointment with the government's initiative to put a gun ban in place. Does the minister stand by his comment that these changes would have prevented the tragedy in Nova Scotia? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 15 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: We have heard from health professionals, women's rights organizations, victims groups and the police and our unions. They're all very supportive of the government's measure to ban weapons that have no place in a civil society and were designed to kill people. +Ms. Rachael Harder: It's interesting that the minister is misleading Canadians in that comment because the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has actually said that a gun ban will do nothing of the sort, that it actually will not protect Canadians. So I'd be curious. How many criminals will see guns seized because of the changes that have been implemented by the Liberal government? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, let's actually quote what the police have said. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed assault rifles. The chief in Toronto said that taking those assault rifles off the streets contributes to public safety, and the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs has declared that military assault rifles are produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and they urged successive governments to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The answer to that question is zero. Absolutely no criminals will see their guns seized based on the Liberals' legislation that's coming forward because it actually goes after those who legally own and use their firearms. Can the Prime Minister please tell us why he decided to go after law-abiding citizens instead of actually going after criminals who have gotten their firearms in an illegal manner and then used them to commit crimes? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 25 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, to be very clear, the order in council actually is targeted at weapons, weapons that were designed for military use, and in their design and in their intent, to kill people, they've actually been used in this country, at cole Polytechnique; in Moncton; at a Quebec City mosque; in Fredericton; at Mayerthorpe and most recently in Nova Scotia. These are weapons that really have no place.... They are being used and have been used in Canada and around the world to commit mass murder, and in the interest of public safety and at the urging +The Chair: We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Thank you. Now I understand the Prime Minister has his food prepared for him at 24 Sussex Drive and then it's delivered to him at the cottage where he lives. Contrary to his privileged understanding, food actually originates with farmers. Now, they're in a crisis right now, which means that regular Canadians are actually at risk of not having food available for them at the grocery stores where they purchase theirs. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture requested $2.6 billion to help them out. Today, the government announced one-tenth of this amount. Why doesn't the Prime Minister care about the women and the men who work incredibly hard to keep Canada fed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, let me assure the hon. member that our government cares very, very much about the women and men who work so hard to feed our country. Let me just say I am grateful to all the farmers, like my dad, who are out in their fields right now getting ready for seeding. We, as Canadians, are lucky to be citizens of an agricultural superpower, and our government believes in supporting our farmers and ranchers. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm confused as to why the Prime Minister didn't take my question, and at a bare minimum as to why the agriculture minister doesn't feel it's important enough for her to be a part of this discussion today. When we have farmers who produce for Canadians on a daily basis and they're asking some serious and some very important questions, and we don't even have a minister who's willing to come to the table and engage in this conversation, that's shameful. Several meat-packing plants have been forced to shut down because of COVID-19 and, as a result, farmers are forced to hold stock longer than expected. Cattle producers in my region are spending more than $60,000 a day to keep their livestock fed while they wait for processing plants to reopen. The amount that was announced today by the federal government is a drop in the bucket. It's a crumb. When will the government take this seriously and at least implement a set-aside program for those who are beef producers in Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just say that I feel there is nothing shameful at all in having me, the Deputy Prime Minister, answer questions about agriculture. I am actually very proud to speak up for Canada's amazing farmers, for our country's amazing ranchers, for our amazing pork producers and our poultry producers. I feel so close to our farmers. I love them and our government supports them. Today, we announced $252 million of support for our producers. They need it. They deserve it. We're here for them. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the six military heroes who lost their lives at sea last week. I'm sure that all members of the House stand shoulder to shoulder with the families, with the crew of the HMCS Fredericton and, indeed, with the entire Canadian Armed Forces community during this time of grief. Can the Minister of National Defence give us an update as to the Cyclone helicopter crash off the coast of Greece last week? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, the deaths of the Canadian Armed Forces members are felt by all, and especially the families. Our condolences go out to them. Our number one priority is to make sure that we look after them, and that's exactly what we are doing. Currently, the investigation is ongoing. Our investigative team is currently on the ground. I actually spoke with the Italian minister of defence and he promised full support for this investigation and any support that's required. +The Chair: I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off there, if we're going by the rules that were pointed out by the House. Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to Minister Sajjan again, I'm going to change gears a bit. I know that back in early January, military intelligence through CF Intelligence Command was reporting, through the chain of command, the novel coronavirus and the outbreak in Wuhan. On what date was he, as Minister of National Defence, given his first intelligence briefing on the outbreak and the pandemic in China? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, we have been following this crisis from day one. We work with our Five Eyes intelligence sources and this has been a whole-of-government effort, right from the beginning. I can assure you that our response to this pandemic has been with all the necessary information. Obviously, I can't discuss the intelligence in this forum, but I can assure you that our response has been well informed with the correct information. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, we know that intelligence was going up the chain of command in National Defence. It was reported in the media that in early January the hierarchy within the Canadian Armed Forces was being made aware of the coronavirus outbreak. I asked you, Minister, when you became aware of it and what you did with that intelligence. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I get regular briefings on intelligence. Yes, I was made aware of this in January. As with all our intelligence, we work together from a whole-of-government perspective with all of our intelligence agencies. One thing I can assure you is that our response has been well informed with all the correct information that is provided to me and other members of cabinet. +Mr. James Bezan: What was that timeline? From the time you were first told, Minister Sajjan, about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, what did you do with that intelligence? When did you give it to the Prime Minister or to Minister Hajdu as the Minister of Health? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me say that our government's response to this global pandemic has of course been informed by the excellent work of Canadian intelligence agencies throughout. We have been working on this from very early on. On January 2, PHAC first spoke with provincial health authorities to alert them to the situation. On January 14, it convened a meeting of all provincial health authorities. In January, the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the incident response group, and in January we increased screening at all major airports. All of these actions were informed by the work of our excellent intelligence community, and of course our work with our Five Eyes, NATO and NORAD allies. +Mr. James Bezan: I want to come back +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. James Bezan: I still have 30 seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Can I go ahead, Mr.Chair? +The Chair: Yes, go ahead. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. In an interview with Grald Fillion, tax expert Andr Lareau, who specializes in tax havens, pointed out that $350billion Canadian is parked in just 12tax havens. Companies are using tax havens for financing, operations and intellectual property activities. Mr.Lareau also notes that the government is aware that all of this Canadian money is stashed in tax havens but is doing nothing about it. He said that it's time for Canada to tackle the problem given that it has a $250-billion deficit, and that if it doesn't act now to change things, it never will. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to outlaw the corporate use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, as soon as we took office, in 2015, our government made cracking down on tax evaders in Canada and abroad a priority. That's precisely why we put nearly a billion dollars towards that effort. I realize that my fellow member is impatient, but he has to understand that this is a very complex issue. Under our leadership, in three years, the Canada Revenue Agency has undertaken twice as many audits related to offshore tax evasion as it did in the 10years the Conservatives were in power. As we speak, the agency is conducting more than 50criminal investigations tied to international tax evasion. I repeat, this is a top priority for our government. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: You're right, I am very impatient, because whenever I bring up the fact that companies are using tax havens legally, the minister misses the point and tells me that she is going after fraudsters. I am talking about the legal use of tax havens by companies. Since Parliament began sitting virtually, it's been mentioned a few times that Denmark and Poland have decided to deal with the issue. Even France's finance minister, Bruno LeMaire, said that companies with subsidiaries in tax havens would not be eligible for public assistance. We hear thePrime Minister and other government officials say all the time that the wage subsidies are going to workers, so I'd like to cite another examplebanks. The government is injecting huge amounts of cash into the financial system and repurchasing troubled assets in massive quantities, and yet, the five major banks in Toronto, alone, are continuing to save billions of dollars every year by artificially redirecting their profits to tax havens. This is unacceptable. This has nothing to do with wages for workers, and everything to do with the repurchase of troubled assets, cash flow and billions of dollars that the government could be going after. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to make the corporate use of tax havens illegal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, our government is taking unprecedented steps through the Canada emergency wage subsidy measure to support businesses and workers affected by COVID-19. This is largely a trust-based program, and we will not tolerate abuse. Anyone who tries to bypass the rules will face serious consequences. Applicants have to designate an individual to attest to the truth of their claim. What's more, any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face a fine of up to 225% of the wage subsidy amount and up to five years in prison. The Canada Revenue Agency also has a myriad of tools at its disposal to detect a fraudulent claim. As I mentioned, cracking down on tax evasion is a priority for our government. +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds to ask your question, and about the same for the answer. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. That's an excellent answer, but it has nothing to do with my question. The Minister of Finance has the power to fix the problem now. Although completely immoral, the use of tax havens by companies is legal under section5907 of the Income Tax Regulations. Through simple regulatory amendments, the finance minister could put an end to this kind of abuse. We are going to have a $250-billion deficit to pay off, and everyone is going to have to chip in, including the rich who are currently taking advantage of the system. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, thanks to a historic billion-dollar investment, our government has given the agency the resources it needs to do the job, and we are starting to see results. I set up an expert advisory committee to provide us with guidance and recommendations. We tightened the rules for the voluntary disclosures program. We signed tax information exchange agreements with a number of countries. We audit four jurisdictions a year. We also work closely with the OECD. +The Chair: We now move on to another member. The next questioner is Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'm sharing my time slot with the member for SurreyNewton. In the wake of COVID-19, so many Canadians have been affected in so many ways. Financial loss and other burdens are having a huge impact on families across our country. I'm proud of how the Government of Canada has been beside Canadians through every step of this pandemic and has supported Canadians when they needed it most. In BonavistaBurinTrinity and across our country, our commercial fishery has seen many challenges and impacts. Last week, my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, announced an investment that will ensure resilience of the food system by allowing Canada's fish and seafood processing sector to safely and efficiently process, store, package and distribute healthy, high-quality products on to the plates of Canadians. The fish harvesters in my riding are fearful of what will happen within this industry and their immediate futures. They are facing a reduction in available markets and market prices. They are asking what our government is putting in place to assist in these extremely challenging times. When can we expect to hear an answer to our harvesters' requests for assistance? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague from BonavistaBurinTrinity for keeping us well aware of what's happening in his riding with harvesters and with processors. We know how important the fish and seafood sector is to our rural communities, our coastal communities. It's the backbone and the lifeblood of our communities and that's why we want to be there to support them. We've already taken steps by making sure that the CERB is now able to be accessed by people who are seasonal workers. As well, we are making sure that people who are running out of fishers EI are also able to qualify for it. We also have made an investment of $62.5 million to support our processors to make sure they are able to be ready for the challenges that they are going to face because of COVID-19. We know there is more to do. We know that the harvesters need support. We are working with our partners across industry to make sure we're hearing what their major concerns are. We know they are going to have some very challenging times this season. We will have more to say about that and what we will be able to do in the coming days. +The Chair: The next questioner is Mr. Dhaliwal. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (SurreyNewton, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all +The Chair: We have a point of order. Mr. Kurek. +Mr. Damien Kurek (Battle RiverCrowfoot, CPC): Sorry, but there seems to be an issue with the audio. I'm unable to hear the honourable member. +The Chair: It is very faint. Mr. Dhaliwal, can you check your audio to make sure everything's working well? +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: It was +The Chair: There we go. It's fine now. I think what happened was the boom had fallen down and it wasn't being picked up. There you go. Very good. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all vantage points in the supply chainfrom manufacturers to retailers, transport companies to warehousing. With provinces and territories moving at different speeds and implementing different protocols for reopening the economy, there is a lot of confusion in my local business community on the timing and logistics of how this will happen. With so many different parts of the supply chain operating in different jurisdictions, and with each business serving unique roles on this spectrum, how can the federal government serve to best coordinate with the provinces and territories so that the supply chain can be implemented smoothly as we embark on our economic recovery? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for his question and for his hard work. One of the most important things the federal government can do when it comes to the reopening of the Canadian economy is to work in close collaboration with the premiers of the provinces and territories. That's why I was so pleased that last week the Prime Minister, together with all the first ministers of the country, was able to issue a statement around the principles that will be guiding our entire country as we move towards a restart. This is so important because, as my colleague has pointed out, all of our business, our economic activity, happens across the country. It happens across provincial and territorial boundaries. I would really also like to take this opportunity to thank the first ministers across the country. They belong to different parties, but everyone has really been able to put partisanship aside. We have been able to work together in fighting coronavirus, and we are going to work together in the future to keep on fighting coronavirus and to reopen Canada. Thank you. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to represent my constituents virtually during this challenging period of physical distancing. I'd like to start by asking about supports for workers. In Alberta, meat-packing plants are directly responsible for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 cases. The government and management ignored the pleas of workers and did not put effective safety protocols in place to deal with COVID-19. Now, two workers are dead, at least six more are in intensive care and COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire through these communities. There are over 1,400 cases. Yesterday, employees were forced back to work even though their concerns had not been addressed. On March 27, regarding the CERB, the Minister of Finance said that if workers don't feel comfortable in their work, if they decide to stay home, they can apply for the benefit, yet the website says differently. Will the minister guarantee that every Canadian receiving CERB, EI or the CESB will not lose their benefits if they refuse to return to work or to accept work that is unsafe due to COVID-19? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me thank the member, first of all, for her really very important question. I think all of us share the concern for Canada's essential workers who are keeping us safe, putting food on our tables and often working in difficult conditions. When it comes to the Cargill plant, this is an issue that our government has been very closely engaged in. My colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has spoken with her provincial counterpart and the head of the plant. The decisions about suspending and reopening are taken by local and provincial health authorities. To the question my colleague asked about workers, it is absolutely the case that no Canadian should feel they need to work in an environment that is unsafe, and it is also very much the case that any Canadian who is feeling unwell should stay at home. This is the way that collectively we take care of ourselves and we take care +The Chair: We will go on to Ms. McPherson for the next question. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I just want to be clear, because I'm not a hundred per cent sure that I got an answer in that response, so I'll try one more time. Knowing that workers have a fundamental right to refuse unsafe work, can the minister confirm one hundred per cent that if workers refuse unsafe work, they will be able to access the CERB, or was the Minister of Finance incorrect when he spoke on March 27? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm sorry, but I was struggling with my mute button. I apologize. Let me just be very clear. No Canadian worker at any time should feel obliged to go to work in unsafe conditions. +Ms. Heather McPherson: But then could they access the CERB? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: In a time of coronavirus that is even more the case, and the government of course should not penalize workers for doing the right thing and declining to go to work in unsafe conditions. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair to avoid back and forth, just to try to keep some order in the meeting. Ms. McPherson, please continue. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I'm sorry, Chair. I have another question on the protection for workers. At the meat-packing plant, workers are calling for the plant to be shut down. In fact, we know that 85% of workers are afraid for their safety. If the provincial government won't shut down the plant, will the federal government shut down unsafe plants through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, let me be very clear that my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has been in touch with provincial authorities. She has been in touch with the plant. The duties of the food inspection agency, of course, are to ensure that the food produced at the plant is safe. That is what inspectors are trained to do and what they are focused on. We are working closely with provincial authorities and with health authorities to ensure that +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson: Mr. Chair, this will be one of my final questions on the meat-packing plant in Alberta. Can the finance minister please let us know if Cargill, a company that is owned by billionaires, with business in Luxembourg, a known tax haven, has received any federal funding this year for COVID-related support? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: This is a tough time for Canadians, and our government is doing everything it can to support them. More than 7million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit, which the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada administer. I want to say how proud I am of the work the agency is doing; staff worked tirelessly to get the program up and running in record time. MinisterQualtrough is responsible for developing the eligibility criteria and processing the claims. +The Chair: We are moving on to the next question. We'll continue now with Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question today is for the Prime Minister. Potato farmers in New Brunswick and across Canada are sitting on massive stores of potatoes that were destined for the restaurant industry, but due to the pandemic, they now have no customers. It's estimated that there is $300 million worth of potatoes still sitting in storage. What is the Prime Minister's plan for the helping farmers offload these potatoes so that they are ready for the 2020 season? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I think all of us as Canadians are proud of the great potato farmers across the country. We are aware that the coronavirus, by keeping us away from restaurants where we eat french fries, has had a profound effect on the market for potatoes. The program announced today by the Prime Minister and my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, will be very helpful for potato farmers, including with the surplus food program that starts with a $50 million fund, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bragdon now. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, thank you. With an estimated $300 million worth of potatoes in storage, the announced funding from the government today simply doesn't go far enough. In 2018 the New Brunswick potato industry lost over $20 million. It is estimated this year that the financial loss will exceed $40 million. For many producers still recovering from the hit they took in 2018, another major loss is totally unacceptable. How does the Prime Minister plan to mitigate these shortfalls and allow farmers to continue to grow the food we so desperately need? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the honourable member spoke about farmers generally. The program today is $252 million, which comes on top of the broad range of other programs that farmers, of course, have access to. On potato farmers, in particular, I agree with the honourable member that this is a specific area of concern. I think all Canadians would like to see those potatoes not be wasted but be used, and that's why the $50 million for surplus food purchase is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, farmers across all agricultural sectors are hurting during this pandemic. The $16-billion beef industry is expected to take a massive hit due to the closures and reduced production of the meat-packing plants. Does the government truly believe that the announced $125 million that is shared between beef, poultry and pork producers will be enough to support these multi-billion dollar industries so they can put food on the tables of Canadians? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the honourable member that our beef, pork and poultry producers are absolutely essential for our country. I am very pleased as a Canadian that we have security that comes from being a country that produces not only enough food for ourselves, but also enough food to feed the world. That is why the $125 million specifically to support our beef, pork and poultry producers is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, the government's announcement of $252 million for the agriculture sector falls well short of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's request for immediate government relief for farmers. The president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Mary Robinson, put it today something like this: that if the farmhouse is on fire, the government has offered the equivalent of a bucket of water. This will not go nearly far enough to help those in a desperate situation. Does the government have a plan to offer more than just crumbs to keep the vital agriculture sector operating and providing the food we so desperately need? When will the government finally make those who literally keep our land and grow our food a priority in this time of crisis? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I don't know about the honourable member, but where I come from, $252 million is not just crumbs. I know that Canadian farmers don't feel that $252 million is nothing, either. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two other aspects of the essential support for farmers that we announced today: the $77 million to support food processors, which will not only be important for the processors, but helpful for the farmers who produce products that go to them; and the $250 million that we would like to add to the Canadian Dairy Commission's line of credit to raise it to half a billion dollars, which will be very helpful to our essential dairy farmers. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question. Go ahead, Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Mr. Chair, a couple in my riding has had to shut down their business, and they are on CERB. They were shocked when their 16-year-old son also qualified, and he is receiving $8,000 on the basis of part-time work throughout the school year. Why is the government handing out a windfall to teenagers who are living at home while denying university students and ignoring seniors on fixed incomes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, any individual who has lost work for COVID reasons is eligible for the CERB, regardless of their personal circumstances. If you made $5,000 in the past year and are a resident of Canada, you qualify for the CERB. This is not a matter of differentiating between the personal circumstances of individuals but of acknowledging that many workers in different situations have lost their work or have had their work significantly reduced because of COVID. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Clearly, high school students would not have the same needs as university students and our seniors who are suffering at this time. The government's own findings on banning handguns and assault firearms state, In all cases the data does not conclusively demonstrate that these handgun or assault weapon bans have led to reductions in gun violence. Why is the Prime Minister so bent on penalizing law-abiding firearms owners when he should be focusing on funding our CBSA officers first, giving them the resources they need to seize smuggled firearms at our borders? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I note with some interest that when we brought forward legislation in a budget in the last two years to increase the number of officers at the border, the member opposite voted against it. I'm very pleased to hear that she now supports it. Let us be very clear. The evidence is overwhelming that these weapons are designed to be used, and have been used, to kill innocent people. Countries that adopt sensible gun policiesplaces like New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdomhave all recognized that there's no place for these weapons in a civil society. We promised Canadians that we would act on that concern. There have been far too many people killed with these weapons, and even most recently, to honour and respect the terrible tragedy in Nova Scotia, the time to act is now, and we've acted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Last week the Minister of Agriculture said, Step by step we are giving our farmers...the tools they need to continue their...work. On April 30, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called on the minister to create a $2.6-billion fund to maintain food security in Canada. This morning, the Prime Minister announced $252 million, hit-and-miss, across the agriculture sector. With all due respect, this is a slap in the face to our farmers and the agri-food sector. Instead of being here to speak to this announcement, the minister has chosen to do a press conference. This certainly reveals how seriously the minister takes this virtual sitting and parliamentary accountability. If the deputy minister is going to answer the question in her place, how does she see it is right to be providing $9 billion to students and only crumbs to our agriculture sector? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, first of all, let me say I do not, as has now been suggested by two members opposite, consider it in any way shameful that I should be answering questions about our support for the agricultural sector. Our government strongly supports our farmers. I have to say I personally very strongly support our farmers and have a strong personal connection to them. The $252 million of support is real and meaningful, and it is directed exactly where it is needed. It is directed at food processors, beef and pork producers and the dairy sector. As to the question about students, let me just point out that farm kids are students too, and farm kids will be benefiting from the support for students. I know they, their parents and grandparents are very +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Time is up. +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux, the next question goes to you. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Meat packing plants like Quebec-based Olymel are extremely worried that they won't be able to stay open throughout the pandemic. In the summer, these plants rely on students to do overtime and fill in for full-time employees on vacation. However, the Canada emergency student benefit makes it possible for these much-needed workers to stay home while still collecting the same amount of money. That's why the government must adjust its current summer job program for students in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. When is the government going to make these critical changes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure you that we are doing our best efforts to not disincentivize work. We know we need to support students with income support, but we also need to create jobs. We are looking at ways we can create additional jobs through Canada summer jobs, through the +The Chair: There is a point of order. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, what the minister is saying is not being interpreted. +The Chair: We'll just check to see how the technology is going. Is everything okay now? +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Yes, it's working. +The Chair: Let's try that again, Minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Last week, as part of the measures announced around supporting our students, we announced the creation of 76,000 additional jobs, including jobs in the agriculture and processing sectors. We know we need to work directly with employers to ensure they have the people they need. This is exactly what we're doing through our youth employment and skills strategy, and that's what we'll continue to do. We won't apologize for supporting students with income support in these difficult times. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I'm not sure the minister understood my question about the Canada emergency student benefit. I am very concerned about the agricultural sector, but the tourist and horticultural sectors are also on my mind. A number of business owners in my riding have reached out to me because the shortage of student workers is forcing them to shut down for the summer. This government has pulled the rug out from under them with the benefit it introduced for students. Minister, what do you have to say to those business owners in the tourist and horticultural sectors whom you are not helping? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, with all due respect, I believe we are helping students. We've heard very clearly from the students that they want to work and want to serve in their communities in this time of crisis. That's why we're creating additional employment opportunities and an income support mechanism that allows them to work. We're going to continue to look at ways we can support them through additional opportunities this summer. We know they want to work and they want to serve. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I hope that we'll see some concrete results. Pork and beef producers are feeling the impact of the country's shutdown triggered by the pandemic. Processing plants are suspending operations and buyers are tearing up their contracts. For the past five years, the government has been saying that the programs to help producers will be improved. Now more than ever, producers need these programs. However, the programs haven't been reviewed yet. When will the government make these changes, including the changes to agristability, and when can producers access them? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: We announced over $77 million in assistance for food processors to help them protect their workers and deal with the costs associated with the coronavirus. To help livestock and pork producers, we established agrirecovery, a national initiative that will provide $125million to help producers adapt to market changes. We're launching +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I understand some of what the minister is saying. The measures announced at noon today received a very cold reception from the entire agriculture and agri-food sector, since the sector had asked for about $2.6billion. I think that it's important to support our agri-food industry and our farms, given the significant need for sovereignty. Many Canadians in the agriculture and agri-food sector have made this clear, as I was saying earlier. Something must be done quickly, before our country becomes completely dependent on its neighbours. Has the government considered making significant changes to the various programs currently in place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our country, Canada, will never depend on its neighbours or any other country for food. Canada is a major beef, pork and grain producer. Canada is an agricultural superpower and we should all take pride in that. I want to mention another significant part of our announcement today, which is the $50million surplus food purchase program. This is very significant. I think that all Canadians must support this initiative. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We'll now move on to the next question. Mr.Calkins, the member for RedDeerLacombe, has the floor. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Madam Chair, how will the government's forced confiscation of law-abiding firearms owners' property prevent criminals from illegally acquiring firearms from the United States? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, in response to that, I would simply remind the member that we have made it very clear that these weapons have no place in civil society, so we have prohibited military-style assault weapons that have been designed to be used to kill people and have been used to kill people. I would also advise the member we will bring forward legislation to deal more effectively at the border. We'll make significant new investments in border services officers and in police. We'll bring forward new authorities, new offences, new penalties to deal with people who smuggle weapons across the border. We're also bringing in new regulations for the storage of weapons to make it more difficult for people to steal these guns. To deal with people who purchase them illegally and sell them illegally, there will be new offences and penalties to make ensure that they face the consequences. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: The government previously has said that decisions like classifying firearms should be left to experts. The recent decision was purely political and it flies in the face of evidence-based policy. A legal opinion that's already been obtained says that the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun with the choke removed is in excess of 20 millimetres. That means every 12-gauge shotgun with a choke in it with that choke removed is now prohibited. That is the same firearm that Olympic trap shooters, Olympic skeet shooters, duck hunters and geese hunters all across our country use on a very regular basis. Why did the government abandon an evidence-based policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to correct the member. First of all, we have prohibited large-bore weapons, such as grenade launchers, but with reference to the 10-gauge shotgun and the 12-gauge shotgun, I would simply remind the member that the bore of a 10-gauge shotgun is 19.69 millimetres in width and the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun is 18.53 millimetres in width, both of them under the size for prohibition and therefore not covered in the new prohibitions that the government introduced on Friday. I'm afraid his expert opinion is wrong. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, the opinion is that of one of the foremost experts we have in Canada when it comes to firearms legislation. If the entirety of the barrel length is considered, then the removal of the choke makes that barrel in excess of 20 millimetres. I would appreciate the minister clarifying that for law-abiding firearms owners. There is no plan for a buyback program in this policy, and law-abiding firearms owners are not able currently to surrender their firearms. Given this, and the fact that law-abiding firearms owners aren't committing any gun violence, what was the government's immediate benefit of making this announcement on May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to clarify. Along with the prohibition that we have put in place, we have also, using the order in council, established an amnesty period, but the amnesty period is non-permissive grandfathering of those weapons. They cannot be used, they can't be taken to the range for shooting, they can't be used for hunting, they can't be sold and they can't be transferred, so we have put in strong measures to ensure that these weapons will not be available for use. We have also put in an amnesty period that will allow us to bring forward the legislation and a budget in order to effect a responsible, safe and effective buyback program to remove these weapons from society. I look forward to the member's support for those measures as we go forward. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, since January 1, 2002, any law-abiding citizen who was issued with a firearms licence by the government would have been cross-referenced with a continuous eligibility check 6,695 times up until May 1 of this year. How many times was this most recent mass murderer here in Canada checked against a criminal database since January 2002? +Hon. Bill Blair: As the member is probably aware, there is a very extensive investigation currently being conducted into that individual and how he acquired his firearms, and it's not appropriate to discuss that. However, I think what is appropriate is to recognize that the weapons that this individual had available to him are weapons that were not designed for target shooting or hunting purposes or any sporting purposes. They were designed for soldiers to kill soldiers. In the hands of someone who is intent on mass murder, they represent an unacceptable and deadly risk to Canadians, and that's why we have prohibited them. I'd also remind the member that other countries that have adopted sensible gun control laws, such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, have also implemented very similar bans. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to the hon. member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to start by giving my condolences for the crew from the HMCS Fredericton who died, and in particular to the family of Captain Kevin Hagen. He was originally a constituent from NanaimoLadysmith. Other countries are strongly recommending that all citizens wear masks wherever people gather indoors, including in schools, on public transit and in stores. Taiwan has effectively stopped the spread of the coronavirus by supplying people with masks and installing dispensers of hand sanitizer throughout public spaces. The Taiwanese do not do a lot of testing or contact tracing. They do not have a lockdown. Taiwan started in the top 10 countries affected by COVID-19, and today it is number 119. Will Canada follow Taiwan's example so we can lift the lockdown safely and get Canadians back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for his question. There's no doubt that masks can play a role in a layered approach to protecting Canadians' health and safety, but as the member has mentioned, there are many other aspects to ensuring that Canadians are safe no matter where they go. For example, it is of utmost importance that Canadians practise social distancing. Social distancing can provide the most protection, in fact, when you're out in public or you're in another place where there are other people. Wearing a non-medical mask can add a layer of protection, and certainly Dr. Tam has said that when physical distancing is not an option, Canadians should consider wearing a mask. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you. I'd like to give a shout-out to Martha and her team, who are doing a fundraiser for the SPCA by making masks for citizens in my riding. Madam Chair, many people are falling through the cracks in the pandemic relief plan, including seniors who face an increase in the cost of living and a loss of retirement investment income. Will the government make the CERB a universal benefit to ensure that all Canadians who need help get help? If not, will the government increase old age security and allow seniors to withdraw funds from their RRSP without penalties so that they can pay their bills? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, and I really appreciate the question. We do recognize that OAS and GIS are very important parts of the retirement income of Canadians, particularly lower-income seniors. We've already introduced measures like the GST credit supplement to help seniors. The CERB is there for working seniors who have lost income as a result of COVID-19. We've also reduced the mandatory retirement withdrawals by 25%, and we've also spent half a billion dollars to support organizations that assist vulnerable Canadians, including seniors +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are going back to Mr. Manly. Thank you. +Hon. Deb Schulte: I do recognize that there's more to be done. Thank you. +Mr. Paul Manly: Many small businesses do not meet the eligibility requirements for the various relief programs on offer, particularly sole proprietorships. I have a long list of businesses in my riding that are missing out. At the same time, we have large companies in this country that use tax havens and loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of public services. Will the government ensure that the needs of small businesses are met and withhold relief from corporations that use tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): I want to thank the hon. member for the question. Small businesses are indeed incredibly important to all of our communities across the country. That is why we have implemented many measures to help them weather this difficult period in COVID-19. Whether it is a small business loan, a wage subsidy or commercial rent assistance, or just lowering the cost by deferring GST or HST or customs duties, many measures have been put forward to help our small businesses through this very difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Manly, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Madam Chair. As we navigate this pandemic crisis, we are also in the middle of another major crisis: the climate emergency. Will this government develop its economic recovery plan for the pandemic with the climate emergency at the forefront of its planning? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 15 seconds. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (Minister of Environment and Climate Change): Thank you for the question. The focus of the government at the present time is on combatting the virus and on steps to start to relax some of the measures that have been taken. As we look forward, we need to learn from the experiences of this crisis as well as look forward to some of the looming crises on the horizon. Climate change is one of those, and we certainly intend to reflect on resilience for the economy as we move forward. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Ms. Ashton. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is to the Minister of Indigenous Services. First nations across northern Manitoba and many others across the country have been doing everything possible to keep COVID-19 out of their communities. Many here have implemented strict lockdowns or travel restrictions, but the federal government has done virtually nothing to deal with the chronic issues that have made them vulnerable in the first place, such as overcrowded housing and the lack of hospitals. We have to be very concerned about a possible second deadly wave of COVID-19. What is your government doing to support communities in the face of that possibility? Why isn't the government supporting the call for a ventilation centre in Berens River, a hospital in Cross Lake, a hospital in the Island Lake region? If the government couldn't act in time for this first wave of the pandemic, can it at least act in time for a potential second wave? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Indeed, Madam Chair, one of the reflections we have in coming out of this global pandemic is that we don't want to go into the next one with the same social determinants of health that have made indigenous communities more vulnerable and more susceptible to contracting and then spreading COVID-19. A lot of the historic housing funds that we have mobilized in order to address overcrowding in particular are cold comfort to those communities that are still finding themselves in overcrowded situations. In the staged approach to the epidemic and the onset of COVID-19, there are many measures that Indigenous Services Canada and as a whole of government we will deploy, including surge capacity, increased PPE, and nurses and doctors. Obviously, we are looking for a medical solution to a medical problem, and that is what we will spare no expense or resource to address as indigenous communities continue to face the looming threat of a second wave of COVID-19 as they start to relax some of their confinement procedures. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Again, Madam Chair, to the Minister of Indigenous Services, many of us across northern Canada are deeply concerned by the outbreak taking place in northern Saskatchewan, centred in La Loche. The outbreak started from a worker who came back from a work camp in Fort McMurray. These camps are making workers sick, and they are proving deadly for first nations and northern communities. These work camps put public health at risk during a pandemic. Your government says it's committed to doing everything it can to keep first nations safe, yet nothing has been done to support calls for pandemic shutdowns. Will you support first nations in their call for shutdowns during this pandemic to save lives now? +Hon. Marc Miller: Madam Chair, the situation in La Loche is a very pressing concern. Members won't be surprised to know that that number will only increase as the days go on and as we implement aggressive testing and contact tracing. We are working with surrounding first nations and communities and with the Mtis and Dene communities in La Loche to ensure that medical precautions are being put into place and that strict social distancing is being put into effect. This is a situation that is very much evolving minute by minute, and it is something for which we have deployed additional resources, along with Meadow Lake and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority to ensure that there is a health response to a health problem. Clearly, we need coordination with the provinces to ensure that we have a seamless approach +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question referred to La Loche, but this is a broader issue. There are many work camps, including here in our north, that first nations are extremely concerned about. Will your government step in to support their calls for temporary shutdowns at this time? +Hon. Marc Miller: One of the things we see as we see the evolving dynamic and the potential spreads, particularly the fear of clusters as communities, provinces, territories may choose to relax certain measures, is the need to have a more targeted approach as to how the economy reacts and deals with it, particularly in northern and vulnerable communities. This is something for which we will need to have a serious approach, with both the Minister of Natural Resources and also our provincial counterparts, to make sure that we aren't taking hasty measures to reopen the economy while we're trying to protectand this is our most important goalindigenous communities from getting exposed and spreading COVID-19. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Madam Chair, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries. Hundreds of fishers and their families here in Manitoba who work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation are desperately calling for emergency support. Many are calling on the federal government to also work with them and the FFMC to redirect their product to domestic markets and communities here at home to address the growing food insecurity people are facing. When will your government announce support for inland fishers, including here in Manitoba, and will you work to ensure that their product, healthy fish, can be provided here at home for people who need it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Madam Chair, we know that COVID-19 is having extreme impacts on northern first nations communities, especially with regard to fisheries in areas that rely on it for not only their livelihoods but also for the cultural importance. Indigenous harvesters are able to access through the aboriginal financial institutions the $306 million we've put in for support for indigenous small and medium-sized businesses. The funding allows for short-term interest-free loans as well as for non-repayable contributions. We also announced earlier that the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency has made available $15 million in non-repayable support for businesses. We know that there's more that needs to be done to support our first nations communities as well as our harvesters. We're doing everything we can and we will continue to make sure that we address those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I need to interrupt you. We'll now hear from ClaudeDeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Thank you, MadamChair. I don't want to talk about tax cheats. I don't want to talk about the $1billion that the government used to track down tax cheats. I want to ask the minister why she isn't taking this opportunity to learn from countries that are putting an end to tax avoidance in tax havens, a legal but immoral practice in this day and age. Can she explain why she isn't showing leadership by convincing cabinet to change course and eliminate the legal measure known as tax avoidance, which enables companies to avoid paying taxes and put money in tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, as soon as our government took office in 2015, we made it a priority to crack down on tax cheats. Our government's historic investments of almost $1 billion have ensured that the agency can access the necessary resources for its work. We're already starting to see the results. As I was saying, I established an expert advisory committee to advise us. We've also been working on tightening the rules of the voluntary disclosures program. We've entered into country-by-country agreements that make it possible to share information. We're auditing four countries a year. We're working with the OECD. Currently, over 50 criminal investigations are related to international tax evasion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms.DeBellefeuille has the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, does the minister realize that she's being filmed and recorded and that she isn't answering my question? I don't want to talk about cheats. I want to talk about companies that use a legal mechanism to avoid paying taxes and to put their money in tax havens. I can see that she doesn't want to answer my question. I'll ask her another question. Can she tell me how many companies legally take advantage of tax avoidance in tax havens? How much money escapes taxation through this legal mechanism? The government could invest this money in its economic recovery post-COVID-19. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, I completely understand my colleague's impatience. However, she must understand that this type of issue is very complex. Under the former Conservative government, the issue wasn't a priority at all. Regarding tax evasion abroad, our leadership made it possible for the agency to conduct twice as many audits in three years as it conducted in 10 years under the Conservatives. Over 50criminal investigations related to international tax evasion are ongoing. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Go ahead, Madame DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, I'm not impatient. However, I don't understand the government's lack of willingness to eliminate this mechanism, which is legal but completely immoral. Our questions remain unanswered. My next question is for the Minister of Finance. The Fdration de la relve agricole du Qubec and the UPA approached the Minister of Finance two weeks ago and still haven't received a response regarding the following issue. We know that many farms don't pay wages. As a result, these farms are being penalized because they aren't eligible for the $40,000 in loans available through the Canada emergency business account. To qualify for these loans, the farms needed a payroll of $20,000 to $1.5million in 2019. Does the Minister of Finance plan to respond to the farmers who want to access the $40,000 in loans? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Ms.DeBellefeuille. We know that the Canada emergency response benefit must be made available to the people who need it. +Mr. Damien Kurek: On a point of order +Hon. Bill Morneau: That's why we're considering our approach. Of course +Mr. Damien Kurek: I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): MinisterMorneau, please wait a moment. A member is raising a point of order. Mr. Kurek, do you have a point of order? You have to unmute yourself. +Mr. Damien Kurek: Yes. It's that the translation is at the same volume as the minister. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You'll have to put yourself on English. Rather, the minister has to put himself on French. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Sorry. I was on the English channel. We know that the people who need the Canada emergency response benefit must have access to it. That's why we're considering the challenges each time. If I receive a letter, I'll look at it. Once we have a response, we'll pass it directly on to the member. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): This question is for the tourism minister. The tourism ministry was one of the first and hardest-hit industries during this crisis, yet despite the Prime Minister's announcement over three weeks ago now of a plan to bring forward a tourism-specific aid package to help the businesses who employ millions of unemployed Canadians who work in tourism, there's still been nothing from this government. When will the government finally act to provide help to this nearly crippled industry? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, obviously we know that the tourism sector has been deeply impacted. I had the chance to talk to many of the leaders in the sector, and clearly there's a lot of anxiety. We also had the chance to work with all the G20 ministers of tourism all together, and we know we have to act +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards: I didn't really get much of an answer there. I hear a lot about talking and not much on action. Tourism-based communities like the ones in Banff and Canmore, which I represent, are tourism-based economies and have unemployment rates of 85% or higher. They also don't qualify for a lot of the programs because they're seasonal businesses and make most or all of their revenues for the year from May to October, so they're at risk of losing their entire season. I have a couple of very specific questions. Will the government consider making changes to the programs to make sure that seasonal businesses can get help? What does the government plan to do to help the tourism industry recover after the pandemic? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you. Obviously, the tourism sector has access to many measures, including the CEBA account, the $40,000 account. They also have access to the wage subsidy. They have access to rent relief. They will be having access also to funding through the regional development agencies, and we'll be coming up with the details soon. Of course, in my colleague's riding of Banff, which is a fantastic place and a tourism gem, they will have access to the support through WD, western economic diversification. If there are particular cases you would like to raise with me, I would be more than happy to talk to you to see how, on the ground, we can help the tourism operators. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, clearly the tourism minister hasn't been listening. She says she's talking to the industry. She's not hearing their concerns. What she just said does not address many of the concerns they have about being seasonal industries. It doesn't address anything about their concerns about the hard economic recovery they'll have after the pandemic. Let's try another minister and see if we can get some answers. Another industry that's very hard hit in my province and my riding is the oil and gas industry. It's another industry the Prime Minister has promised to help, but there hasn't been anything. Clearly there's a pattern here. The only so-called assistance there's been to help hurting Albertans in the oil patch has been measures to speed up the death of the industry that they work in. Will the Liberal government ever show any concern for Albertans? Will they bring forward a plan to preserve Canadian jobs? Will they put forward a plan to ensure the use of Canadian oil before oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): In fact, Mr. Chair, the federal government has taken several steps in recent weeks that will meaningfully support workers and communities that depend on this industry. We have the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which covers 75% of an employee's wages for the employer. We have more liquidity for oil and gas companies through new loans of $15 million to $60 million from the Business Development Bank of Canada. We continue to step forward in our response to the impacts of COVID-19 on my province here in Newfoundland and Labrador and on Alberta and Saskatchewan. These three provinces are being hit by two crises at the same time, a crisis of demand for oil and gas on the world markets and of course a crisis of public health with COVID-19. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, a lot of these things we're hearing about aren't going to actually help the industry to recover. What we need to see is the government give the industry and the private sector the opportunity to succeed. Maybe what they could do is consider expediting the approval of billions of dollars of private sector projects that would put thousands and thousands of Canadians back to work. Will the government consider looking at ways that we can expedite projects? Will they look at ways that we can encourage the use of Canadian oil before the use of oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have been working with our provincial partners. We have been working with businesses of all sizes in the oil and gas industry. We have been working with labour, concentrating on workers and concentrating on the companies that support those jobs to make sure that they remain whole and those jobs will be there for those workers. We're particularly proud of our orphan wells program, which was launched by the Alberta government in conjunction with us. It was launched last week. I am pleased to inform this House that the uptake on applications for that program is significantly higher than even we expected. +The Chair: That's all the time we have for questions today. I want to thank all the members for taking part. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. Thank you. +","The House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic held its third meeting to discuss ministerial announcements, present petitions, and question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 crisis. There was a moment of silence for six Canadian Armed Forces members lost in a helicopter crash in Greece. The meeting also marked the 75th anniversary of the Netherlands' liberation by Canadian Forces. Members used video conferencing, and the proceedings were made available online, with a reminder about the rules for participating in the digital format. + +Petitions were presented, including concerns about Bill C-7 and its removal of safeguards in the euthanasia regime, organ harvesting and trafficking (Bill S-204), recognizing Indigenous languages as official languages, a national opt-out program for organ donation, addressing the opioid overdose and fentanyl crisis, opposing the government's approach to firearms legislation and regulation, and the need for a made-in-Canada green new deal. + +Members questioned the Prime Minister about topics such as the government's response to the pandemic, the release of prisoners due to COVID-19, Canada's relationship with China, transparency from the Chinese government about the virus, gun control measures, support for the agriculture sector, compensation for CERB beneficiaries refusing unsafe work, assistance for businesses, and addressing the closure of meat-packing plants due to COVID-19 outbreaks. + +Additionally, questions were raised about financial supports for sectors such as tourism, fisheries, and oil and gas, the government's commitment to projects that would keep industries like oil and gas afloat, and the legality of tax avoidance through tax havens. + +There were technical issues with audio and translation during the meeting, as well as discussions around the rules for length of questions and answers. The committee will reconvene the following day." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right , so start of the first meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . Right , so agenda of the first meeting . Where we uh {disfmarker} We have twenty five minutes for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We uh are to get acquainted . So does everyone want to say who they are ? {gap} that seem sensible ? +Marketing: Yeah . I'm Robin . I'm the Marketing Manager . +User Interface: I'm Louisa . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nick . I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: And I'm Alastair and I'm the project leader . {vocalsound} Alright okay , so tool training . Um . {vocalsound} Project plan . So does anyone have any uh thoughts as to the tool training that uh is required ? +Industrial Designer: Tool training +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by tool training . +Project Manager: Neither am I {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see , so we shouldn't really be {disfmarker} Oh right okay , so . So we have the project team , which is to um {vocalsound} basically to come up with a new r remote control device . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh we have uh {disfmarker} the starting base was the original {vocalsound} which has been in existence now for a period of time . And uh our idea is to uh to make the new remote control device uh more user friendly than the previous one , and to {vocalsound} to be trendier , to be with it , and therefore to uh to get a bigger market share and bigger audience . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} method of doing this is uh split up as you can see into uh {vocalsound} the functional design , the conceptional design , and the detailed design . So um {vocalsound} in each of these uh phases we'll uh basically be handing over to yourselves , the designers of this uh this device . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And uh having uh meetings so that we can uh during the course of the day um come up with a better better inst implement than we had before . And therefore um have a successful uh conclusion to the day . Um and you'll be doing uh various designs uh throughout the day to meet this end . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: So we've got tool training . Try out whiteboard . Uh . {vocalsound} So we will um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so everyone's to uh supposedly uh draw their favourite animal over on the white board over there . I guess this is uh make sure the whiteboard works . So uh I don't know who wishes to go first . +Industrial Designer: Okay {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wish to go f Have a first bash at uh whatever . +User Interface: I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Ah uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's see . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Good job I got pockets today . +Project Manager: But now you you uh you'll move out from the microphone and the camera . +Marketing: Your microphone's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I take it that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are we supposed to do this right now , do you think , or ? +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} I would guess so . Or {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You've lost uh your microphone there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical problems . +User Interface: Oh . Right here we go . +Project Manager: I mean you designers are meant to come up with these sort of things . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think that I would have to say that my favourite animal is the cat . Little smiley cat there . Um and this would be because they're very independent , uh they're very intelligent , compared to dogs maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} and they can be very very affectionate . Some people don't think so but I know very affectionate cats . Um . Um and they can look after themselves . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . I'll I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Shall I rub that out , actually ? +Project Manager: I don't see as there's any need to . There's plenty of space . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I mean whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can have have a whole menagerie . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Shall I see if I can get across without just tangling everything . Okay . +Project Manager: We've had more time to prepare over this side , +Industrial Designer: There's one . +Project Manager: so we've all stuck our bits and pieces in our pockets . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Didn't think of that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay uh +Project Manager: The three pens are underneath . +Industrial Designer: pens are over here . I'll try the red pen . Okay . Um . {vocalsound} I'm gonna go for the bear which I'm {gap} be able to draw very well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You get marks for artistic impression . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'll have a bash at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh ooh {gap} I lost it there . I think I've just knocked the microphone . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you're just doing the face . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll g then we'll go for a a s small small bear {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and I like my animal that looks nothing like a bear because um I dunno maybe because there's so many cartoon characters made up after the bear like the jungle book characters and stuff like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Hello . Um I'm gonna go for the dog , and I'm gonna draw one badly as well . Uh . {gap} looks like it's going to be a dachshund or something . +User Interface: That's quite good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . There's my dog . Um {vocalsound} I like dogs because they're very loyal . And they're always happy , so whenever whenever you're feeling sort of a bit a bit down or tired , they're always coming up and they're always um quite excited . So um you can always have a lot of fun with a dog . And they're also good for exercise as well . You can sorta get out and they they sorta never get tired . And and when they're tired they're quite cute as well , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , that's why I like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , um . {vocalsound} Well I've not actually had too many pets uh over my uh time 'cause to be honest with you uh {gap} I'm not too keen on them anyway . Not to worry . So what my daughters have got at the moment is they've got uh a few fish and so hopefully um won't prove too difficult to draw . Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: As you can see that my artist artistic work is useless as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway um . {vocalsound} And uh one of the best uh things about fish is that they don't really take uh too much looking after because uh with most of the animals if you're going away on holiday or whatever , you've gotta spend money or get a friend or whatever to look after them for you . Whereas if you got fish , you just gotta put the food in a a a dripper feed which feeds them over the uh couple of weeks that you're away and uh change the water every couple of months , and buy in a few plants , so . Other than the fact that they keep dying , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh fish are uh {vocalsound} are not are are are reasonable pets in that uh they're low maintenance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Okay , uh if we're still all with us . Right okay , so . Work has been done on uh this uh project where by um twenty five Euros is uh the uh expected uh selling price . That information has come from our marketing manager here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're looking to sell internationally , not just in Europe . We're looking at um having our production costs limited to uh twelve and an half Euro per unit . And therefore making a profit margin of uh {disfmarker} well not actually a profit margin it's uh {disfmarker} because obviously you're gonna have overheads and various other costs to uh take uh from uh from that to give you your profit margin per unit . And so depending what the uh the overhead uh costs are will determine uh how many units we're uh looking to sell or projecting to sell at this point in time . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Experience with remote control , first ideas . New remote . So I guess we're looking at um having a discussion at this point in time to help uh you um folks design our our new model as it were . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: So uh any any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Um I {gap} with some remote controls the buttons were a little small so they're quite hard to press so maybe we make something with uh easy to press buttons . As that is the main function . +Project Manager: Okay , so so basically we're looking for some um {disfmarker} we're looking for a device that is um robust and and therefore uh won't get damaged too easily . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um we're looking for a device that is uh {disfmarker} What was the other things you said there ? +Industrial Designer: Um sort of easy to use so the buttons are accessible . +Project Manager: Easy to use . Use . +Industrial Designer: {gap} is easy to use and see . +Project Manager: And see . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh . +User Interface: Can I just check ? {vocalsound} Is this just a television remote ? Because a lot of um systems are kind of T_V_ video combined now , or T_V_ D_V_D_ combined . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And one of the most annoying things is having like five remotes in the house . So if you've got a combined system , it could be a combined remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Or is it just a television that we're supposed to be doing ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oh I w um basically I'll get back to you on that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: But it seems to me sensible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause {disfmarker} as you rightly said , there's nothing more annoying than having three or four devices littered about the uh about the room . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So a device for for all remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Sorry , you go . You go . +Marketing: I've Okay . Yeah . Um one of the things um we found from the market research is that people often get confused by the number of buttons on them as well . 'Cause there's quite often lots and lots . And um sometimes uh they sort of {disfmarker} remote controls defeat their own purpose because you're sat in the chair and the remote is somewhere else in the room . So {disfmarker} whereas in the past you'd have to get up to change the channel , now you have to get up to sort of pick up the remote . So so I don't we need to sort of maybe think about how um we could maybe uh develop a remote control which moves around the room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Comes to your whistle . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's that's maybe something for the future when you can talk to your television , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But is it {disfmarker} in a sense it's r um mutually exclusive . You can't have both the th the one device and then have few buttons on it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you want you want simplicity as well , you want any idiot to be able to use it . Whilst at the same time you want , as you rightly said , one remote for all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so these are probably mutually exclusive options +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm you could argue that experience of using devices and similar devices as people get more and more used to using remotes , therefore they're more {gap} with handling them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: therefore you can make them more complicated as time goes on . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could um have better instructions with the remote . Or are we just doing the design of the remote control itself , or sort of the instructions that would come with it ? +Project Manager: {gap} Better instructions . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean we've done some research um about sort of you know what the cutting edge sort of hand held devices are , and a lot of them sort of use you know they're like they're like mini laptops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's possible that we could devise a system where where you're you're basically sort of holding a a miniature computer which is controlling all your your sort of your television , your stereo , and where {disfmarker} you know if you buy a new thing then it sort of {disfmarker} you can link it to that as well , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well we've got five minutes before the end of the meeting . So uh we have to uh start winding up . Um is there {disfmarker} Next meeting in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Right , so we've got I_D_ the {disfmarker} Come on , where's my {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you just click return it should be okay . It'll get rid of the message . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or not . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you hit just hit return and it should get rid of the message . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh there we go . +Marketing: Oh you've got {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what I was looking for . Right . So we've got function {disfmarker} Oh what happened to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that might be back to the start . Um if you grab the kind of uh slide to the left and pull it down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} slide four {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Right . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we've got um the working design for I_D_ . For U_I_D_ the technical functions design . Marketing , the user requirement specification . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your person by your personal coach . So . Are we all clear what objectives we're looking to meet in the next thirty minutes ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I guess I'll try and write up some minutes of uh this meeting to uh to give it to you for the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , yes . +User Interface: I'm not exactly clear on what we're designing the rem remote for . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is this a mun multi-functional one or do we decide that ourselves as we go away and work on it ? +Industrial Designer: I think you just said at the start it was a television remote control , +Project Manager: Television remote control . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we should just stick to that unless we get told otherwise . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: That's true , 'cause during during the course of our day we might make decisions based on information or meetings that would change {vocalsound} where we're going . +Marketing: Okay cool . +Project Manager: But at this point in time I think you're right that uh {disfmarker} shall we make it just a T_V_ . Okay ? So we will depart . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We will stay here and uh and break off . And I'll do minutes and and we'll see you in half and hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay cheers . +Project Manager: Okay . Right s +","In a remote control device development meeting, team members introduce themselves, including Alastair the project leader, Robin the Marketing Manager, Louisa the User Interface Designer, and Nick the Industrial Designer. They have a short timeframe for the meeting and begin discussing tool training, unclear what it involves. The project aims to create a user-friendly and trendy remote control to capture a larger market share. + +The meeting progresses with light-hearted interaction, including drawing favorite animals on a whiteboard. Eventually, they address the project details: targeting a €25 selling price, keeping production costs to €12.50 per unit, and addressing challenges like simplifying controls while potentially combining functions for multiple devices into one remote. They consider the need for robust and easy-to-use devices, possibly with simplified or better instructions. As the meeting concludes, they discuss meeting their respective objectives for the next session, with unresolved questions about whether the remote should be multifunctional or TV-only. They agree to reconvene in 30 minutes after taking a short break." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Now what . +Project Manager: 'Kay , hello everybody . Uh , I guess you all know what is it about , you all received the email , I guess . Uh , we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control . So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project . And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself . I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself . So I dunno , you can starts . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so my name is Petre {gap} . You can call me Petre {gap} , or Peter if you like . I don't care {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor . +Project Manager: And you are ? In the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in the project I'm supposed to be the technic . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: 'Kay . So my name's Bob Morris . I'm the Marketing Expert for this project . +Industrial Designer: Bob , +Marketing: Bob yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar , and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh , so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project , so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project . We are talking about the project plan , and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on , and , yeah . So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting . Um . So what is the goal of this project ? Is to design a new remote control . So it should be , of course , new and original , and um it should be trendy , and user friendly . That mean it's a very challenging project , and uh uh . So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best , and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy . So , um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project ? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way . Um . Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this . Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project . So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here . So {gap} uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it . Mm . Uh {vocalsound} . So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal . Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , you can draw the picture , of course {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should . +Marketing: Yeah go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so . Um {vocalsound} . Okay , American , um . Um . I would use the bird . So I tried to sketch it out . I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it , but ah . Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: That's its head . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it is enough line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit . C could we put it here , to make it as straight as possible ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it {disfmarker} it works like this . +Marketing: Uh , that's better . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , pity {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Should I clean ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful , so if I want to write it here , I think I can . {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah , it's maybe better if you leave it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Maybe we should just continue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , don't worry about it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} , no worry . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You won't draw them , or ? +Project Manager: You can draw it , if you want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno if I can . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just try . I would like to see how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno , whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing . Okay , so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird , I think . I dunno what is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , I think it's clear . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Four . Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I'm shameful {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good , it's good . +Industrial Designer: It's okay . It's in it's indeed beautiful . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Yeah , and strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bob . Have to remember it . Bob . +Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So , let's talk about money . Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro . And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro . And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world . So {gap} n not only for Switzerland , but for the world . Uh . So , um . The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro . +Industrial Designer: Per unit , I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Y oh okay . +Project Manager: Um , so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control , and any idea ? So , if you have some experience , good or bad , with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea . Anything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Well , from experience , um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small , and it's been very hard to to to use , because there's so many buttons , and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what , and the buttons are very small and very hard to press . Um and and normally you only every use , you know , on a T_V_ remote you only ever use , mostly , you know , f four or f six buttons . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past , th that . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I have also some points uh . Maybe two points . Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound} , so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room , so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery , so . So something like this . And the second thing , f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like . +Marketing: Ah , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know , some slider or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , n {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels , or is that +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down , or or make a high volume . +Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah , n . +Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , also if y when you take the the remote control , for example on the table , you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f It depends what what you feel about that . +Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards , but if {gap} you have some more notes on that . +Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Do you have something ? +User Interface: just a simple experience . I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves , because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah without obstacles and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's continue . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes , so maybe we should hurry . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . So we will close uh this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just a second . {gap} +Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Uh . The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work . Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control , start to to have new idea and +Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed , {gap} ? +Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer ? No , you're the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno which one , uh v . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: I think that's the first . I_D_ . Industrial Designer . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay . +Marketing: And then last one's marketing , which is me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'm the first one . +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer , which is Hamed um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh , you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: I see . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager , I dunno , okay , which is Bob , uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control . Um , you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign . +Project Manager: Yep finished . So I see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Great , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Thanks guys . Bye . +User Interface: Bye . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh . {gap} +","In an initial project meeting led by Project Manager Fabien Cardinaux, a new project kick-off takes place, aiming to design an innovative and user-friendly remote control. The interdisciplinary team consists of professionals from various departments, each introduced by their individual names and roles. The meeting includes an Industrial Designer named Petre (or Peter), whose surname is undiscussed, a Marketing Expert called Bob Morris, and a User Interface Designer who goes by the name of Hamed Getabdar. + +The project, helmed by Cardinaux, is looking to revolutionize the traditional remote control by creating a product that is not only original and trendy but also aligns with current user requirements of being user-friendly. With a sharp focus on innovative design and functionality, the team is motivated to create a remote control that resonates well with potential buyers worldwide. + +In the brief meeting of about 25 minutes, Cardinaux presents the objectives, the challenges that lie ahead, and the approach for collaborative and individual work that the project will undertake. The team members get accustomed to using practical project tools – in this case, a whiteboard – by engaging in an ice-breaking activity where they draw and describe their favorite animals. This is a demonstration of getting comfortable with tools they will frequently use to share ideas and concepts throughout the project. + +As the discussion shifts to the project specifics, the financial aspects come under consideration. The aspiration is to sell the new remote control for 25 euros while eyeing an aggressive profit goal of roughly 50 million euros. The project also aims to achieve a maximum production cost of 12.50 euros per unit to make this feasible. The fact that the product is intended to have a global market signifies the ambition and scale of the project. + +As the meeting progresses, team members start sharing their personal experiences and preferences on current remote control designs, highlighting strengths and pain points. The Industrial Designer emphasizes the need for back-lighting on remote controls and suggests an adjustable slider for the volume control instead of discrete buttons. The Marketing Expert shares frustrations with overly complicated remotes with small, numerous buttons, most of which remain unused. Meanwhile, the User Interface Designer expresses a preference for radio wave technology over infrared due to convenience and fewer directional constraints. + +The meeting culminates with a reminder that they are on a strict schedule, as Cardinaux has another appointment shortly. Before closing, he assigns specific tasks to each team member tailored to their expertise. Hamed, as the User Interface Designer, is tasked with starting to design the new remote control interface, focusing on technical functions. Bob, the Marketing Expert, needs to gather user requirements for the remote control. Lastly, the Industrial Designer's assignment is not explicitly mentioned, but they are likely tasked with incorporating technical aspects into the design. + +The next meeting is scheduled to take place in thirty minutes, and team members are expected to receive further details via email. There is a hint that each member will be assisted by a personal coach, suggesting an individualized support system to help guide their contributions to the project. As the brief meeting adjourns, the team expresses mutual acknowledgment and prepares for the rapid-paced development process ahead." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Alright . Is everyone here ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . This is our conceptual design meeting . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll just take a few minutes and uh go through the previous minutes . Um then each of you will have your presentation , um and then we will need to make a decision on the concept for the remote control . And then we'll have uh forty minutes for finishing up . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll go through the mee through the minutes first . Um , we just refreshed our our uh goal of making the finest remote control available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided that , or we know that we need to use company colours , company logo . Um {vocalsound} and our Marketing Expert uh gave us some i uh information from interviews with a hundred different remote users . Um with some statistics that backed basically what we were thinking before . People thought their remotes were ugly , um um that remotes zap a lot . Um they only use uh a finite amount of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and that they often lose the {disfmarker} it's easy to lose a remote . Um which were all things we were thinking we would {disfmarker} wanna make it simple . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And uh some sort of locator . Either a button or tracking device . Um {disfmarker} And that it should look different than what's out there . Um {disfmarker} Kind of mixed mixed response on the speech recognition . The younger people said they wanted it , older people did not . Um uh I think we decided that um the expense was not necessarily worth it , and that it was probably a gimmick , that um would increasingly wear on the consumers' nerves . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the User Interface Designer um explored some of the technical functions of the remote . Um the simple versus the um the complex . The simple one being better for a user , the complex better for an engineer . Um {disfmarker} Um and some personal preferences that were found in that would be that it should be a user-oriented remote , something simple . Um and that we didn't wanna go with a universal remote , because uh increasing cost and increasing complexity . Um we would just have a T_V_ remote . Um and that we should also focus on the appearance of the remote . Have it s be something that looks different . And finally our um Industrial Designer uh gave us a rundown of how the remote will work . Um from energy source , um uh what we would use . Batteries because we don't wanna have a a cable . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How that would power the remote and the lamp . If we were to to have one . Uh um the user interface then would connect to a chip , {vocalsound} which would work with the infrared controls uh to send the signal to the T_V_ . Um {disfmarker} I believe then we came up with a couple of ideas for what we think the design of the remote will be . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um something that will fit into uh easily into someone's hand . {vocalsound} And with a , just a few buttons . Just the basics . And with a scrolling um function also . Okay and I will leave that , leave it at that . So {disfmarker} Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We're watching trends . +Marketing: Yep . Can I have your cable please ? +Project Manager: I suppose that you can have this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . Okay so I was looking at trend-watching . Um unfortunately I wasn't given too much information . I was given a brief executive summary , and then an update on some recent fashion trends that we might like to look at . And then I'll just tell you some personal preferences that I got from that . Um okay the most important finding was that the fancy look-and-feel seems to be twice as important to the users as the current functional look-and-feel design , which I think we've kind of already discussed before . Um the second most important finding was that the remote should be technologically innovative . And again these are all things we've kind of already come up with on our own , but this just backs it up . And thirdly the remote would be easy to use . As far as fashion update , we've learned that fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that might be a bit of a challenge to incorporate this into our remote , but we can try . Um and also , as opposed to last year , this year the material is expected to be spongy in feel . {vocalsound} Okay so from that um , as we've already said , we need to focus on a fancy look-and-feel . Um I think we've already discovered that it's kind of hard to go away from the traditional rectangular design . But I think that , even if it's very subtle , we need to kind of trick our consumers , so they at least get the idea that they're getting something that's new and modern and sleek and {disfmarker} Whether it's through the shape or the colours or all of that . Um for technologically innovative , we've talked about the tracking device . We brought up the idea of having two pieces , which we could discuss further . And Manuel had suggested um the energy source and the user interface , discussing some of those , um that we could change a little bit . We need to keep it simple , have limited buttons , which I think the two piece idea might be really beneficial for . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we need to incorporate this fashion trend of fruits and vegetables . I don't know , I mean I guess the two options are if we had our remote in the shape of a fruit or vegetable . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A banana shape ? +User Interface: Oh it was sort of banana shaped . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Right . Or with exterior designs . But my question is , I mean the stereotypically speaking , you kind of picture males with their remote controls , and I'm not sure how they'd feel about having fruity logos on the outside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe we could have something that's somewhat removable , or I don't know , different options for female , male target groups . And then the spongy feel . I guess we could look at mobile phones and other technology that's out there . C and look at different types of material that {vocalsound} might please our users who want spongy-feeling remote controls . So that's that . +Project Manager: So possibly like a uh , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , just to butt in for a second . Possibly uh like a cover like they have for mobile phones ? +Marketing: That's what I was thinking yeah . +User Interface: Those like , yeah , sort of spongy ones . +Project Manager: You have one with a flag , and one with a banana and one that's a spongy +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So when you buy your remote you can buy +Project Manager: feel to it . {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: various coverings . +Project Manager: Mm various covers . +User Interface: What's it called ? Cust you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personalised , yeah . +Marketing: Personalise your remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We could leave that to the cover department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We all know they've got nothing to do all day . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Why can't I see the {disfmarker} crazy . Um yeah I {disfmarker} talking about the interface concept and how the customer relates to , will use the , consumer will use the actual device . Um so I've looked at some of the stuff I was sent , um , try and get some inspiration . But keep in mind that our own ideas that we had . Um I was sent some information from the company saying that they , the technology department have devised a new speech recognition technology , where you can program questions into such devices . They gave an example of a coffee machine where you program a question , you program the answer , and the machine responds accordingly . Um okay . There's different ways of a user can use products l like a remote . Um there's a graphical use , where you you look at pictures and well on a screen . A command line where you obviously type things in , and you get a response . Um and then it ju that's just to point out the sort of inconsistent u sort of use of interface in remotes . You can't really see that picture well , but there's various different remotes , once again with lots of different buttons on , making it more complicated . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , then I had a look at new products that are on the market . Not necessarily remote controls but ones that you'll recognise . Um this is the voice , there is a voice recognition remote control , which can control mus multiple devices . I have a {disfmarker} there is a picture {gap} . You surf your favourite channels uh with your voice . Store up to eighty speech samples , controls four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ and audio . And you can record your own v verbal labels , that are connected to remote control functions . So the technology is there . Um the one on the left is very similar to what we drew up on the board in the previous meeting , where there {disfmarker} has scroll down functions on the side . You can sort of just make those out . And then on the right is obviously an iPod , which is you know possibly one of the simplest things to use out there , and really is , and all that is is just a a nice big scroll menu that y you sort of go through . That is a {vocalsound} possibility . And nothing's simpler really . Um then there's things like this , which is a a a kid's remote , where the the parents have the facility to control and program what children can watch before . So the remote control it o only allows them to access the channels that their parents want them to watch . And um it means that th children have a novelty of having their own remote control . So I don't know {gap} if there's a possibility of having one remote contr you know like we just had two components , maybe it can have more components you know , different remotes . Um the point made at the end there here is that you have to be sort of be {disfmarker} need to be clear on your um devices , as to what , you know , things you use . Sometimes an arrow pointing down , which may suggest volume down , could become confused just as a V_ for volume . Just little things like that , which would need to be made clear in the design . Um I think , d carrying on from what I've already said , a user friendly remote with minimum buttons . Maybe we've so suggested this two-part thing , where if it was to have a speech recognition thing , you could maybe control that on the {disfmarker} do it {disfmarker} or program all that on the control bit . And then just have the simple sort of hand-held thing that we sort of devised earlier , as the actual remote . Um I don't {disfmarker} it could be a graphical display , the actual remote contr the actual control port maybe could have like an iPod where you just sort of control through the menus . Stuff like {gap} gets more and more compli complicated . And then the the hand-held bit should be ergonomically designed . And that is it . Why am I {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Just {gap} . {gap} Where are we ? Uh . Just to sort of show you . M {gap} they've even got things like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huge things . Which is just {gap} for your gr ninety year old grandma yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's industrial design for cranes , stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Notice the giant dog bone shape ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Makes sense , makes sense . +User Interface: And that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Also good for animals . +User Interface: Yeah . See . {gap} things {gap} . {gap} . Why's my screen crazy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Well let's see . I'm going to bore you with a couple of descriptions of the interior . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just to to make it more obvious what we have to fit in there , and that we do have to fit the stuff in there . I've more information on possible materials um as well . What we can and cannot do . Um but let's just wait for this to load up and I'll show you what we're talking about here . Okay . The details of the components' design , as you can see there , what we have is the board , main board of the remote control . {vocalsound} The underside , that's pretty cheap piece of of technology really {gap} top left side you can see the chip , which is the , what we were talking about , this was is the device to recognise the signals the input , and it passes it on to a row of um further transistors and stuff like that on the right side that actually amplify the signal , which later on is being , is being transferred to a infrared lamp which then um of course shines infrared light onto the television which then will recognise what signal um it's getting and will do what you tell it . Um {disfmarker} So much for the the workings of the of the uh remote control itself . {vocalsound} Its job is to wait for you to press a key , then to translate that key press into infrared light signals , um that are received by the television . When you press a key um you complete a specific connection . The chip senses the connection and knows what button you pressed . It produces a morse code line signal specific to that button . Right . Pretty clear . Transistor amplifies the signal and then sends the m sends the signal to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . The sensor in the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal reacts appropriately . This is the circuit board from the other side . Um the lower part of it , I don't know if you can see that properly , with the green greenish board is is what we what we saw in the first the first slide just flipped over . Um you can see the circuit board itself . That's the cheapest uh way to make electronic connections basically on the market . Um what you do is you have , don't have cables , but you have the connections actually in these in these lines on the on the board . These are the actual keys that are being pressed . They close the electric circuit . That then sends the signal to the chip on the other side . That would be behind here . Um which uh sends it over to the transistors and all that stuff that +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: amplify the signal and all that is being sent to the infrared lamp up there . Now as you can see this is the the rubber button version of it . {vocalsound} Um the way it works is that you have the keys here . The rubber button has a little metal uh plate on the other side , which closes the circuit here . And thus gives on the signal . Now this is the simple version . {vocalsound} Um we are talking um this this the simple and cheapest version at the same time . We are talking something more complicated of course , it's going to be more expensive as well . And not only that . Um we are also restricted in the use of our outer shell , or in the material that we could use for our outer shell . Um {vocalsound} I've gotten some information that we could use for the case material plastic , rubber , as well . Um rubber that is used in these anti-stress balls . So it's pretty squishy . That would that would serve that purpose . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spongy ? +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} we could also use wood , or titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What's the approximate per hundred thousand for the titanium ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh fya +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't have an information on that . However our company {vocalsound} obviously can provide us with uh with the titanium , so I assume , I'm , I was given an okay to use it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It certainly is an expensive material , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm aware of that , but I was given an okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there are certain restrictions to certain materials . Now let's first go through the list with the materials . So we what we can use is plastic , rubber , wood and titanium . Can also mix these . Um as for the energy source , um we were talking about that shortly in the other meeting . Um what we could use is , or what I was offered , or what we could use , is a basic bateer battery . Right ? Uh a dynamo . Interestingly enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we could use solar cells . Or a device that was not n not further specified that provides kinetic energy . Such as like watches you know . Where you just move them m move the the actual device and this pr uh provides it with with uh some energy . So um obviously I personally have to say that dynamo is out of the question really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna wind up your remote control before you can use it right ? Um solar cell is interesting . {vocalsound} May fail though , every here and there . +User Interface: Would you have to leave it by the window ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah +User Interface: {gap} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . Or you know you lose it , it lies behind the couch for a week +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah mm . +Project Manager: Works well in Arizona but in Edinburgh not so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Always the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y probably not yeah . +Industrial Designer: exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the kinetic energy thing um might work , um but the same problem . You leave it lying around and you first have to shake it before it it starts to work . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'd say what we're stuck with really is um the basic battery . Which also makes a base station basically obsolete . We don't need that then . Um {disfmarker} However our interface options are push-buttons . In which uh in the production of which or in manufacture of which um our company is expert . Um {disfmarker} However we've discussed that scroll wheels are a better option . And they are possible . We have an okay for scroll wheels . Okay . Um however {vocalsound} when it comes to the scroll wheel of the iPod I've one big objection and that is that we have to fit an L_C_D_ into the remote control as well . This however may exclude certain um materials . If you have a squishy uh kind of remote control , then an L_C_D_ screen may be affected by the movement . Hence we might not be able to put it in there . So um {disfmarker} There's also restrictions {vocalsound} to , when it comes to the chip . If we have a more sophistic uh sophisticated scroll wheel rather than this very basic uh set-up that we that I've just presented , um the chip has to be more s more sophisticated and thus more expensive as well . I don't have any details to , when it comes to the cost but um it will be a significant difference . I'd rather say drop the titanium and therefore let's have a more sophisticated chip , but that's not up to me to decide really . {vocalsound} So that's for the for the scroll wheel . Um it limits our choice and squishy is hip , so I'd say rather not go for for that . Let's see now . Um um solar cells cannot be used on a curved or latex um surface or um remote control . But obviously that's not our problem um since we have decided or against solar cells , I assume right ? Or is anybody still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I think I think batteries are probably the way to go . +Industrial Designer: alright . +Marketing: No . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh which makes it very conventional but therefore traditional I assume . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} With the titanium um we cannot make it a curved design . We would just be able to make it flat and and um yeah a straight design pretty much . Which I assume would exclude uh some of the more sophisticated versions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Would the sort of {vocalsound} spongy and the the plasticky thing {disfmarker} y you can get those mobile phones that initially have a {disfmarker} it is plastic but then they have sort of a a s a cover on it which is just sort of soft and stuff . +Marketing: Mm . Like a covering . Yeah . +User Interface: So I don't know if that would still be possible to have you know {gap} in plastic . But then where do people hold it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all be sort of spongy . +Marketing: The we can have the fruits and vegetables on the spongy parts , so they can remove it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} as the the possibility of having a a graphical display on it , like a screen ? Like the iPod ? +Industrial Designer: You can have an L_C_D_ screen . Um but therefore no rubber will be used . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? So plastic yes , titanium yes , but this will of course influence the form . With plastic , as I understand it , you can use any form . Um latex is tricky . Or rubber and um and titanium also seems to be tricky when it comes to the form . So the way to go is if you want a scroll wheel you either make it flat and angular , uh add an L_C_D_ screen , and um then you can basically choose either plastic or titanium . Or wood even . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um if you wanna make it a particular shape , use plastic . Add an L_C_D_ screen , add a scroll wheel , that'll be fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or make it just push-buttons . Basically plastic gives you the b biggest variety of of options . Maybe not the nicest feel . Or not much originality really . +Project Manager: So the ru wait the rubbery {disfmarker} we can shape it however we want ? Or the rubbery we cannot ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} With rubber we could uh sh pretty much shape it the way we wanted it , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but we cannot add scroll wheels , and we cannot add an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the tricky thing . +User Interface: Could we not you know have a shape with a scroll and the screen , and then j just sort of that initial shape we had , just which is uh sort of banana-esque . So that's {gap} thing if we did it yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And um you know you just p stick on just sort of rubber things that that sort of grip the thumb bit . They wouldn't have any {disfmarker} they're just on the exterior . They wouldn't be necessary to the actual shape of the thing . +Project Manager: Is that an option , a plastic shell with a rubbery coating on at certain spots ? +Industrial Designer: S Certainly can be done yes . Um yeah . if that doesn't affect the functional side of it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like say just the underside or so then it can be done . I assume . Yeah . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The fruit design um {disfmarker} How about um affecting the surface of the actual um remote control ? Say we don't make it p a particular fruit shape obviously , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh give it like the surface of an orange , banana , whatever . You name it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: What about a smell ? +Industrial Designer: Just design-wise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T {vocalsound} to the remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Nice one . +User Interface: You could just sell it in different colours as well I suppose . In different ye yellows . +Marketing: Bright citrus colours yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't suppose we have to stick to co +Industrial Designer: Well we we're supposed to stick to the company colours though , +User Interface: Stick to the colours yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's yellow and grey . +Marketing: Yellow and grey . +Project Manager: Yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: So what have we , lemon , banana , is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm grapefruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Grapefruit . +Industrial Designer: Grapefruit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is what we'd go for , when it comes to the outer appearance perhaps . But {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I would say , if I were to make a decision , I would probably put the fruit aspect at the lower lower end of the spectrum of of importance . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think having a shape could be a little ridiculous , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have it banana-shaped already , kind of . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well we kinda do yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well perhaps the implied shape will be enough to lure that fruit-minded remote buyer . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} and if it if it was done yellow , which is a company colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if it's yellow ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It's it's yellow . It's curved . +Industrial Designer: I it's yellow . +Marketing: Grey buttons yeah . +Project Manager: It's sort of {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well so why not add a couple of grey stripes and make it look like a banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: couple of couple of grey stripes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We could put the grey stripes on the bottom so that that person could turn it over . +User Interface: On the the gr the rubbery grips could be grey . +Project Manager: It would look like a banana just sitting on their table . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Rather than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} rather th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} and then you could actually h put the banana-shaped thing on the fruit bowl , on the coffee table , +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: and then people would always know where it was . +Project Manager: Maybe the holder , if we were to have a holder , it could be shaped like a fruit . +Marketing: Nice . Could look like a fruit bowl . +Industrial Designer: It could be an ape . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could be , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be an ape or a fruit bowl . we could have a variety of options here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you have more to your presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's pretty much it . I informed you about the materials , what the interior has to look like , and what the limitations to certain materials are on +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} there you go . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm gonna plug in here real quick . If I could . +Industrial Designer: Sure . Hang on . There you go . +Project Manager: Like I said we have to make a decision on a couple of these items here . Um {disfmarker} ow . Ow . +Marketing: So is the two piece idea out ? Or have we not decided ? +User Interface: Well we sort of {disfmarker} {gap} rid of that because {gap} gonna use a battery . And the base station might not be necessary . +Marketing: Oh right okay . +Industrial Designer: Well we can still design a two-piece uh remote um without having a base , having one of them be a base station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but just have it be an optional either big remote with lots of functions , or you take out the smaller piece . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We can still do that . However {vocalsound} of course this would be like designing two remotes pretty much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um which then , as I understand it , would probably limit the , limit again the the the use of certain materials , because they would be too expensive . Say like have a scroll wheel and uh on both of them , or have an L_C_D_ screen and so on so on . You'd probably have to stick rather with a just traditional rubber button +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: design which we saw there . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But could be done , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so these are the decisions that we do need to make by the end of this meeting . Um for our components concept we need to come up with the energy source , um the chip-on-print , and the case . Probably case um material . And probably a shape also . Um and then for the user interface concept we need to decide what the tape , what , what the type is . And what kind of supplements we'll have . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Energy source I think we've , I think we've decided batteries , although not exciting , are probably our best bet . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And we have five minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay when it comes to the chip-on-print , as I said , the the more advanced features you want , um the fancier the chip has to be and the more expensive . Uh if you want just a normal button version , the chip-on-print is gonna be +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: a cheap one . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Um I guess we should pick the case then . If we go with the plasticky case , or the the plastic case , um then the chip-on-print is still kind of , we could have either or . We could have a complex one or a a non-complex . But did we decide that the rubbery feel was important enough to us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well what about what you said , like putting the +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: finger grips just on top of the plastic ? +User Interface: yeah . Just a little bit of {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So we would , we would have the L_C_D_ screen ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} as long as the pla uh the rubber is nowhere near the controls , yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So I guess the case would be plastic , with {disfmarker} Perhaps that's not even enough rubber to qualify as being part of it . It's more of a su it's more of a supplement maybe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: M more of a l lamination perhaps . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So then for the scroll , are we going for the iPod type ? +User Interface: Yeah I think so . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which will require a more expensive chip-on-print right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . It does . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So {disfmarker} I guess that , is that , is that about it ? So we have a good idea of what we're gonna need to to do on this ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um okay so we will have another meeting in thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Here's what's gonna be going on . Um {disfmarker} Um Ryan you'll be working on the user interface design . Um {disfmarker} Manuel you'll be working on the look-and-feel design . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Corrine we'll want a product evaluation . And the two of you get to play with the uh modelling components and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe and and get us a prototype . Which should go along well with your look-and-feel design and your interface . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that {vocalsound} basically {gap} just be working on the prototype , {vocalsound} uh we'll accomplish your other two actions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Let's do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In a detailed and comprehensive transcript of a conceptual design meeting, attendees discuss the development of a new remote control. The Project Manager opens the session by reiterating the goal of creating the finest remote control on the market. Marketing provides insights gained through interviews with remote users, highlighting users’ desire for aesthetically pleasing remotes, simple functionality, and a locator feature due to the common issue of lost remotes. They also note consumer preference for remotes that look different from existing ones and mixed opinions on speech recognition technology. + +Discussion ensues on the remote's technical features, with a focus on balancing user-friendliness and engineering complexity. The decision is made to avoid universal remotes to reduce costs and increase simplicity, and to pay special attention to the remote's appearance. + +Marketing then discusses trend analysis, emphasizing the importance of a fancy look-and-feel and technological innovation. A fashion trend of fruits and vegetables, as well as spongy materials, is noted, posing a challenge for remote design integration. Suggestions for incorporating these trends touch upon color and shape subtleties, detachable design features to cater to different consumer segments, and material textures that are pleasant to the touch. + +The User Interface designer weighs in with interface options, presenting the idea of a graphical display, speech recognition, command-line input methods, and child-friendly design concepts. These considerations are framed around simplicity, with an inclination toward minimal buttons and an ergonomic design. + +The Industrial Designer delves into technical aspects, presenting circuit board designs and component functions. Material choices for the remote's casing are debated, with plastic, rubber, wood, and titanium as potential options. Battery-powered energy sources are favored over alternatives like solar or kinetic energy due to practicality. + +The group discusses shape options, considering form-friendly materials. Several design concepts are evaluated, such as a two-piece remote, integration of an LCD screen, and scroll wheel functionality. The inclusion of a spongy material in the form of grips or overlays, while maintaining functional integrity, is also explored. + +The fruit-shaped design is critically evaluated, with opinions suggesting it might be overly whimsical. A consensus begins to materialize around a banana shape with company colors (yellow and grey), possibly accented by grey stripes to subtly suggest the fruit theme. The team entertains the idea of different colors, scents, and shapes, with a note to maintain lower priority on more frivolous features. + +As the meeting concludes, the Project Manager summarizes decisions made and delegates upcoming tasks. The selected energy source is batteries; a decision on the chip-on-print depends on the chosen features. The case will be plastic, possibly with rubber grips. An iPod-like scroll function necessitates a costlier chip-on-print. The team is scheduled to reconvene after a break to further refine the prototype and touch on other assigned tasks, including user interface design, look-and-feel, product evaluation, and modeling components. The shared objective is to progress towards a cohesive prototype that will embody the discussed design elements and feature preferences." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} How do you wear this thing ? +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm mm mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not too many cables and stuff . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Original . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is recorded ? Okay ? Okay so welcome everyone . So we are here for the kickoff meeting of uh the process of designing a new remote control . So I will first start with a warm welcome opening {vocalsound} stuff , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then uh we will uh see what will be uh our product and what will be the different step we will have to design it . And uh then we will uh discuss if we have few ideas and we will uh end uh by uh dispatching the different task you will be {disfmarker} you will have to fulfil to complete this process . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . Just one thing . Uh , you said twenty-five minutes , but I have something else to do uh , so gotta have another meeting uh soon , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so maybe you could hurry up a bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} sorry ? +User Interface: It's true . I have another meeting so if you could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have another meeting soon ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have to be quick . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , for the lawnmower project . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the the goal is to have a remote control so to have an advantage over our competitors we have to be original , we have to be trendy and we have to also try to be user-friendly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh the design step will be divided in three uh main points . First it will be the functional design . Third is the conceptual design and then is the desired design . So the functional design is to identify the main user needs , the technical function the remote control should fulfil . And then we will move to f conceptual design where we'll specify the different component involved , what kind of user interf interface we want and what are the different uh trend in user interface and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the desired devi design will consist in uh specifically implementing {vocalsound} and detailing the choice we've uh made in the second point . So I will now ask you which is very important for the design of a new remote control for to uh each of us to to draw uh your favourite animal on the white board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What an original idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you have any idea of which animal you want to show us ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} that's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no n +Project Manager: {vocalsound} n n {gap} +User Interface: Can I give you the +Project Manager: You should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} no ? But I don't have to say anything . When I'm drawing the orangutan . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} If you want to react uh about this wonderful drawing uh {vocalsound} I'll let you uh comment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's an abstract drawing of an orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay it's an abstract drawing . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think it's nice and original . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You should write y the name I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have a red colour . Usually orangutans have red hair so this is a very important but I don't have red pen , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: You want to draw something Christine ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh sorry . You have to imagine a little bit {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course your animal is recorded so it's not lost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry too {vocalsound} uh . +User Interface: Yes . I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wha what is this strange beast ? +Marketing: Is it beautiful ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is it a monster ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you know ? It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a cat ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Isn't it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought these things did not exist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Industrial Designer: Me {vocalsound} +Marketing: is it {disfmarker} like that . +User Interface: Ah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Is it better ? +Project Manager: Ah okay it's pretty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay it's your cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my cat . +User Interface: Does have a name ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The name is Caramel . +User Interface: Caramel . Ah-ha . +Industrial Designer: Caramel . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Olivier , do you want to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think I'm too short for the cables . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay I go , but next time you'll do something I'm sure . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm a bit short on cable . +User Interface: Next time I concentrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So what could I draw ? {vocalsound} Maybe I can draw like a very simplified cow . {vocalsound} I don't know if it looks like a cow {vocalsound} +User Interface: He looks like a bong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a what ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . No . +Industrial Designer: Quite squarey . +User Interface: Scary ? +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He also . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno it it looks more like a donkey in fact {vocalsound} I would say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I think we will be finished this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so I hope that it helps you uh in the process of designing a remote control . +User Interface: Is it for uh for putting a {disfmarker} for logos , no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's move on . So {disfmarker} Here the uh financial objective of our project . That is to say to to have a production cost lower than twelve point five Euros and have a selling price of twice that price t in order to target a profe profit of uh fifty uh million Euros . +User Interface: I is there a matter for a new remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah if it's trendy , original I d fulfil the user needs . +User Interface: Is it uh a single device remote control or is it a multi-device remote control ? +Project Manager: We have to discuss that point . +User Interface: Ah +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is not defined at all ? +Project Manager: yeah you you can suggest points like this . So what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: so we have to decide for example if it can control one device or multiple . So what's {disfmarker} what are your ideas about that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe I can have the {disfmarker} your opinion from the marketing side ? +User Interface: Well uh do we sell other stuff ? Uh if if we bundle the remote control with something uh to sell then it could be a single device , otherwise it could be programmable one otherwise who would buy a remote control from us . +Project Manager: Okay , so if it selled uh by its own i it it would rather be for multiple device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe it should be for multiple devices . And uh do you have any ideas um of uh design ideas or any uh uh technical requirement we we should uh fulfil ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think we shouldn't have too many b for my part . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , I couldn I cannot fi think of any requirements right now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If we don't have so many buttons could be nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Few buttons . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And do you have it also to be {disfmarker} to be lighted in order to be used in the dark ? Might be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And do you have any um any uh idea of the trend {disfmarker} the trend in domain , what it shouldn't {disfmarker} it should look like , or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Something which is not squarey maybe uh , not a box . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: With rou okay . Like for {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Something like that , least fits in your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The basic requirement . +Project Manager: So . Fit in your hand , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only a buck . +Project Manager: And also it have , i it may be {vocalsound} it may be important for the remote control to be uh {disfmarker} To , to resist to various shocks that can happen if it fall . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Waterproof . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Water-proof as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I think we should have a device {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it is original because you can uh use it in your uh {disfmarker} in your bath whereas the others can't . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe water-proof would be very original . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Havin having a water-proof remote control so that the people can uh use it in their bath . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: That could be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: B it seems uh so , but uh if you don't have an waterproof remote control it means you can just cover it with some plastic and you can sort of f +Project Manager: Yeah but , it is still something uh you have to buy and that is um not maybe very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And , and that's one of the {disfmarker} that's one of the shock {disfmarker} I mean there are people that have a remote control and they are worried that it's going to break and they put some extra plastic around it . +Project Manager: Yeah , mayb B +User Interface: That's people {gap} they actually do it themselves . +Project Manager: But maybe we can bulk it with uh already this plastic thing and uh the waterproof uh stuff as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} directly . +User Interface: I it will look a bulky in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can sell uh all that together , so so plastic protection and uh and a waterproof box as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That might be good uh track to follow . +User Interface: Like as an optional thing . +Project Manager: Optional or selled with it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I I think we should have something , most of the time I I lose my remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should have s uh special bu button on the T_V_ to make the remote control beeping . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh {disfmarker} But we don't design the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh something you whistle and uh the remote control uh beep . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Barks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , barks , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Barks . +Project Manager: So we can uh have a whistle uh remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah whistle . +Project Manager: I don't know , whistle-able ? {vocalsound} Th +Industrial Designer: Whistle tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whistle tracking yeah . Whistle tracking remote control . That's a good idea , that's very original and that's can uh improve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's that's quite cool , but uh of course we {disfmarker} you don't normally need uh any audio uh recording stuff on your remote control right ? +Project Manager: Yeah d d uh . +User Interface: So i it's just going to add t to the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah but s still we have to mm we have to {vocalsound} have an advantage over our competitors . I think this is a good advantage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's cool . I think I like the idea , but I'm not sure about the what you , +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask {disfmarker} +User Interface: who is giving {disfmarker} who's giving who's giving our budget . Who's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask the quest of that's uh design to the uh Industrial um Designer . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is you . +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so try to find that for next meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So next meeting is in thirty minutes or so uh . {vocalsound} Don't pani . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't panic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So so I will ask the Industrial Designer to find out more about this industrial design so any working {disfmarker} any working function we have discussed . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So then I will ask the User Interf Interface Designer to to think about the point we discussed like the number of buttons , the the fact that is lighted or not , things like that , and what would be convenient for the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And also um {vocalsound} I will ask the Market Expert to uh try to find out what are the absolute requirements , what is absolutely needed in a remote control uh for the user . So . And then uh I will uh just ask you to think about that and uh look at your mail because you will receive uh some good advice soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So . Thank you I think that's all for this point . +User Interface: Good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , so we come back in five minutes ? Half an hour . +Project Manager: Anyway you will receive some messages . {vocalsound} Be careful . You eat it ? Does it move uh ? Okay , but I don't know if it uh is still correctly uh {disfmarker} We'll see . +Industrial Designer: Ah . {gap} +","A project meeting involving a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing representative discusses the design of a new remote control. They consider functionality, user-friendliness, and originality to gain a competitive edge. Key points include the remote's durability, potentially being waterproof, and a unique feature that allows it to beep when whistled at for easy locating. Constraints include time, costs (with a target production cost below €12.5 and a selling price double that), and whether the remote will control single or multiple devices. The meeting concludes with tasks assigned to each member, including further exploration of the remote's design, user interface, and market requirements." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Hey guys . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No one drawing it . +Project Manager: It's too beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Too wicked . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A minute please , my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh , there it is , thank you . So welcome back . {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you , so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour . I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now , so you can read that uh now or afterwards . Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , I don't know if you a al also uh received it , but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important . First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus . {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh , because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session . Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television , so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control , so uh that's one thing to keep in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh second , and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert , uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older , but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty . Uh and uh I think to keep in mind , but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have uh forty minutes , so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each , and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards , the the Word files , what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want . So uh Tim , can you start ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , welcome . I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I will show you . {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire . Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results . Um , these were a couple of findings , first page of three . Um , we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences , {vocalsound} I'm sorry . Uh the first one , this scale , from sixteen to forty five {gap} age . Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five . Um , as you can see here , the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five . Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent . Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups , uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff , like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control , um speech recognition . I don't think that's uh really appropriate . Um , {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience , the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah , they don't really want it anymore , at least the new technologies . Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls . First point is , seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly , uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer . Okay , third findings . According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation , um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important . Um , I will tell something about the way this uh this test was , yeah , done . Um , {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most , how much an hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons . Um , when you multiply them , you get the {disfmarker} these three points . Switching channels , um yeah , that's pretty uh pretty normal , that's what you do with a remote control . Um the second , teletext , uh and the third , uh volume controls . Um , I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants , uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear . +Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet . So that that's strange . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay , but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah , th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_ , like getting information . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Marketing: So uh , when you ask people , what do they use , {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: That's ridiculous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now . Okay , my personal preferences . Um , I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five . {vocalsound} Mm , first of all um it's the biggest share , the biggest audience , sixty five percent . Uh second , I think you will get the most revenue from i from it . Um , yeah , people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_ , more than uh people who are el uh elder . Um {vocalsound} second point , {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions , as I said here , switching channels , teletext and volume controls . Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire , uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller , so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the , yeah , of the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a cool idea . +Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in . {vocalsound} Um , that's about it , I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions , what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about ? +Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , the funtionability . +Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control . So you can have a remote control full of buttons , a hundreds hundreds of buttons , but if you don't use them , yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , so focusing more on the used buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , they have to be on it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions , like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example . +Marketing: Yeah , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ma perhaps , just just an idea . +Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control , to make it easier and quicker to learn . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? 'Kay , that's it . +Project Manager: Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} Janus , can you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah , I'll go , sure . Right uh , I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project . Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked , how they worked , uh what kind of components are involved , and how they are connected together . And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds . And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off . Um right . Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared , not like all probably know . And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something , and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared , so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate , so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us . So that's probably why most controls are still infrared . Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure , so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh 'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote . Well uh as I mentioned ready , we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible , but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget , but that's not for me to decide , but that's maybe something for marketing to look into . F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves , {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_ , connected to the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually I have t +Marketing: So it's in the wrong product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice , but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function . So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder , is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote . If somebody says , where is the remote , then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , maybe uh maybe something to look into , I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be . But it may be uh may be something to explore . Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components . Uh first you have the energy source . The energy source would be a battery , simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere . I figured that would be best , 'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one . So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that . Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button , but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these . When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button , when a button is prush pushed in , uh a electric current goes through here , and in uh {disfmarker} immediately , a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened . That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking , well uh did the button be pressed , w what happened uh . Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_ , so is is something wrong or something . So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user . Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end . And those uh interpreted by the device , well in this case the television . Uh well my personal preferences here , well we have to keep it simple . Not too many uh gadgets and functions , just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them , so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those . Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving . So uh no input from the television . So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that , because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too , and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such . So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , yeah , maybe another problem uh , I think current T_V_s can even send infrared . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you , but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control ? +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components , extra designs , um larger g uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all . Um , well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability . Like I said , uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions , or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something , the usual uh {gap} stuff . And uh don't overbuild , we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions , but we we should stick to the basics . So that was my uh my personal opinion . And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Janus . +User Interface: Okay . Yes , +Project Manager: You do ? +User Interface: I can go ahead . +Project Manager: The last presentation . You have plenty of time , +User Interface: Last presentation . Okay . +Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh take your time . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: warn you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design , technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one , so if you um going to design a remote that looks good , that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make , of course , but also the user friendliness , so tha that's that's some of the main points . And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult , so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote . If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: 'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see , but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen , but s I don't know in how far that is possible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything , but uh we might uh consider that . Um well , of course I I hope this is all clear to you . If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions , {gap} many functions , but {disfmarker} Well , your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this . You have to be very careful what you push , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well , where is it ? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and , yeah , when you have to uh use something else . So just keep it simple , make clear buttons , easy to use . For example if you want to use a play and back and stop , that's very important . Um well this was because of our last discussion , if multiple machines are used , create easy switch between the machines , but um it's no longer uh applying . {vocalsound} Well yeah , I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible , uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action , not first select {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one , so uh +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple , +User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that , then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one . +User Interface: Yeah , this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original , or uh multi-purpose as we thought , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So um weighing those factors . +Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um , that in the middle are the the main keys , like displayed on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . Yeah , this ? No ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Something like that . Okay , just uh in the middle the general functions , like play , uh channel switching , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom , some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down . +User Interface: Yeah , but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_ ? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes ? 'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_ , you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation , if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button , um display the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Nah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is too complicated for most users . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think so too , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus , and when you have a particular menu uh at your device , uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure , or they have a very simple menu structure , so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem . +User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah , the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today , um you should keep it s at this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Use big clear buttons . Not too many . So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options , but I think i this is more important . Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons , um if you want to switch channel , change your volume , uh use teletext , it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote , behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen . +Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah , but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something . +User Interface: And yeah , if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel , that should always be possible to do . Not first change menu options or switch something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well yeah , as you already told , give some feedback . If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And um , well , my conclusion is uh is uh less is more , keep it simple . So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know , if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television , some you you'll never know uh and never use , and therefore it's uh important +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good . Um , because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people . Um , they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up , um and that's a big ad advantage I think , because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh very visual intended . {vocalsound} What was I to say more ? +User Interface: Maybe that's an option . Um keep the primary buttons visible . Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and for some design issues uh well , put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen , or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but if you pick the the idea , the left idea +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen ? +Industrial Designer: The extra functions . +User Interface: The extra functions , you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions , and you just choose one , +Marketing: Yeah , but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then all all the options will become available +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen , uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it , and uh we have three of those , uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus , with {disfmarker} or sub-items , sub-functions . +User Interface: Well um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you make one big touch screen , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: use the same concept as here , keep the buttons always available +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus , and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jirun ? +User Interface: Okay , I agree , but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible , so use just for special options a part of the touch screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions , you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I had another uh idea about maybe parental control . Um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels , uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code , they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no ? +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television , +Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , yeah well , +Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: does it have to depend on the television ? +Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote , you you set the uh channels , the the channels are different on each te television , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote , uh let's say channel fifteen , well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match , and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_ , like colour and then volume +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th that kind of stuff , but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um , you address the the channels +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: and like uh oh , that's channel fifteen , that's uh vi violent channel , +User Interface: Oh , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would b +Marketing: for example . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that . +User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here , +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but {disfmarker} yeah , that's just +User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's an a an added feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things , that's that why we're here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} th th those things are nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea , but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage . I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p +Marketing: Partial . +Project Manager: yeah , a partial , uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen , so they want the the the normal functions like teletext , volume changing , um uh to be uh , yeah , kinda traditionals +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions , the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible , to keep it accessible . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers +User Interface: Yeah , you can de display it on the on the old style . +Marketing: that's just as e just as easy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I I do {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because well , it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button , but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience . +Marketing: Yeah , it's different . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , age b below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , that's a good point . Yep . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And th those young people , yeah . Y you saw it in my marketing report , they like the new fancy stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . They like the fancy stuff , yeah . That's true . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen , like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I th I think we can do that too . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay , as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting , this one , are uh {vocalsound} are done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Done . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think . Uh so that can be uh can be read out . Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment . Ooh . Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple , but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something , so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television , so you must uh the the the the functions , know , like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television . I think that's the point what uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we discussed . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , some of them . The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s , so you have to display it on one uh T_V_ . +User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it , s um synchronized , the um remote and the T_V_ , +Marketing: Yeah , but that's not possible . +User Interface: then there's always , there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm yeah . +User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is , from {disfmarker} ah , it's a Philips , this and this and that , and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah , but you have an international market range , so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s , uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome , but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes , because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_ , like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive , +User Interface: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh um mo +Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +User Interface: no , you can just say uh the c +Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing . +Project Manager: Just build it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , with the current remote controls , the universal ones , um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah , you have to press a code for T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yes . +User Interface: In codes , y you you get a b a book with codes . You look up , I have a Philips H_ fifty five +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it says press code four five five +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , yeah , sure , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah yeah , sure , that would be possible , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options , in {disfmarker} just just in the memory , +User Interface: Memory in the in the remote . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Profiles . +Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah , like profile , so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , that would be possible . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables . +Industrial Designer: No , that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a few variables . +User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes , there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum . If you have all of them , all the old and new T_V_s summed up , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah it is . It is definitely po +Marketing: But , on the other hand on the other hand , uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have five minutes to go . +User Interface: Yeah . Well then you have to buy a new one , it's very good for marketing +Marketing: New remote ? +User Interface: Maybe , or an update , software update . +Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something , +User Interface: Firmware update , you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , firmware upgrade . +Marketing: but from where ? Ah . Maybe w +Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder . +Marketing: No m may no , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection , so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet . +Industrial Designer: Well , not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home . Well the most most people have , +User Interface: Well , at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but not not everybody +User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like a s kind of service centre . +User Interface: Yeah , ser o +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe something like service cen +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and they can download it for you . +Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection . +User Interface: Yeah . Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards , T_V_ uh connections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels , so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in , +User Interface: Receiving . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno , it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it +User Interface: Difficult . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be probably best , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work , just one uh docking station where you put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: press start , bling bling , updated . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be best , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week , new teev so . +User Interface: Okay , let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No no . Exactly , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um m for which one are we going ? {gap} My mistake . +Marketing: Let's vote . +User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my vote goes out to the right {gap} . +User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} +Marketing: My vote too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And your vote ? +User Interface: Well , I was uh doubting about which one to take , but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open . +User Interface: Opens up is too difficult +Industrial Designer: Flips open . +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh too difficult , um maybe uh it's easier to break it . +Project Manager: N yeah . +User Interface: Break it , I don't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's very sensitive . +User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like my telephone , it's uh it's sensitive too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end . So we have now a lunch break , finally , +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work , once again uh thirty minutes . Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too . +Marketing: Thirty minutes ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes , the {disfmarker} +Marketing: How minutes ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure . Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email . I don't think I can uh say much about it , so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes , and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes . +Marketing: One question , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here ? +Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes . +User Interface: A quarter to one maybe ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break , yeah . Oh . Forty five ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I thought forty five . +Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you , uh that was a very uh good session I think , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Save as . +Project Manager: Yeah , because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ +Marketing: Yeah , v +Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop . +User Interface: 'Kay , save it as an image on the res +Marketing: Yeah , maybe . Save as . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Export . Maybe not export function . +Marketing: No . Export . +Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_ . +User Interface: No , and use an image if possible . +Marketing: Huh , image ? +User Interface: J_ PEG . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah , J_ PEG . +User Interface: J_ PEG . Yeah , it's better +Marketing: Paper size A_ four . Uh screen size . In this directory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: N oh . +User Interface: Oh yeah , it's not connected to the +Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work . +User Interface: to our P_C_s . +Marketing: No ? Yeah , it is connected . +User Interface: It's connected ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: Deskt Huh . No . +Industrial Designer: To room . I'll just uh saved in my documents . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It gives the na Oh . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , nice . +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: The questionnaire , fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well , it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no , it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no , I'd do it after lunch I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye , cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry , so do it after lunch . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: You're welcome . +User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think , yeah and return to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I bring it to my uh personal room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Aye . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","In a comprehensive project meeting involving a Project Manager, members of the Marketing team, a User Interface Designer, and an Industrial Designer, the group convened to discuss the design and marketing strategies for a new remote control. The meeting started with casual greetings, followed by a brief remark about a bunny drawing made by the Industrial Designer, which received several compliments from the group for its beauty. + +After the initial pleasantries, the Project Manager began the formal meeting by outlining the agenda. He informed the team that they would present the work they had completed in the last half-hour, instructed everyone to read the minutes from the previous session, and shared important points from an email received from the management board which would impact their project. These points included the consideration that teletext is becoming outdated, the decision that the new remote control should be designed exclusively for television use, the need to target a younger demographic under forty years old, and the desire for the logo and slogan to be more recognizable on the remote. + +The Marketing representative then presented findings from a recent report produced by their department, revealing that the first audience, aged 16 to 45, makes up 65% of their market share, while the second audience, aged 46 to 65, covers 35%. He also noted that younger users prefer modern features like LCD screens and speech recognition on remote controls, stressing the importance of improving core functions such as channel switching, teletext, and volume controls. The possibility of designing a placeholder for the remote near the TV was suggested, addressing the common issue of users misplacing their remotes. + +The Industrial Designer talked about dissecting current remote controls to understand their composition and functions. He discussed the prevalent use of infrared technology due to its low cost and compatibility with most televisions. He dismissed the idea of Bluetooth connectivity due to potential budget constraints and suggested keeping the remote design simple with minimal buttons and avoiding unnecessary features while retaining infrared transmission. + +The User Interface Designer highlighted the importance of balancing aesthetics, technical feasibility, and user-friendliness. They suggested limiting the number of functions on the remote or hiding them under a hierarchy-like structure, possibly considering a touchscreen but weighing that against the difficulty of implementing it with existing technologies. They advocated that essential functions like channel changing and volume control should always be easily accessible while other features could be hidden or revealed through additional menus or a touchscreen. + +Following the presentations, the team debated the merits of using touchscreen technology and how it could cater to both younger demographics and older users by displaying large, visible buttons. The Project Manager suggested keeping traditional functions for familiar user interaction and exploring the idea of a partial touchscreen for more advanced features. The conversation further delved into the potential for parental controls, service center firmware updates, and the logistical challenges of universality and compatibility with various television models. + +As the meeting drew to a close, the Project Manager instructed the team to reconvene after a lunch break for individual work, promising email instructions for their next tasks. The minutes of the meeting were to be stored in a shared folder, and there was brief technical discussion on saving the session's information correctly. + +In conclusion, the session was productive, focusing on the cleanliness of the remote's design, preserving ease of use, and exploring new functionalities such as touchscreens while considering feasibility and market preferences. As the team members prepared for lunch and subsequent work, they expressed a sense of collaboration and progress towards their goal of developing the new remote control." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Professor F: We can say the word "" zero "" all we want , +PhD G: I 'm doing some +Professor F: but just {disfmarker} +PhD G: square brackets , coffee sipping , square brackets . +PhD B: That 's not allowed , I think . +Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets . +Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced ? +Grad A: Curly brackets . +PhD B: Curly brackets . +Professor F: Curly brackets . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Well , correction for transcribers . +PhD G: Mmm ! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn ! +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Channel two . +Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: These poor transcribers . +Professor F: u +Postdoc C: Not ri not right now . I mean {disfmarker} No . +PhD D: There 's gonna be some zeros from this morning 's meeting because I noticed that +Professor F: u +PhD D: Barry , I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh , was it during digits ? Oh , so it doesn't matter . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: It 's still not a good idea . +PhD B: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that bad if it 's at the end , but it 's {disfmarker} in the beginning , it 's {pause} bad . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors , through the whole meeting . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Uh , I probably just should have left it on . Yeah I did have to run , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software ? +Grad A: Change what in the software ? +Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros , like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card , or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel , you just add some {vocalsound} random , @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor . +Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that , but I don't think that 's a good idea . We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Manual post - processing . +Professor F: Well , I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we 're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end , +Grad A: As an argument . +Professor F: but um , there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA , which , um , {vocalsound} in when I first put it in , uh , back in the days when I actually wrote things , uh , {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it , +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum . So then I just started doing that +Grad E: Mmm . OK . +Professor F: instead of calling "" rand "" {comment} or something , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: so . So it d it does that . Gee ! Here we all are ! +Grad A: Uh , so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process . +Professor F: There 's an agenda ? +Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that . And then just {disfmarker} I only have like , this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days . So if there 's anything that n absolutely , desperately needs to be done , you should let me know now . +Professor F: Uh , and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper , so . +PhD G: Right . I hope they accept it . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: I mean , I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , as a paper . Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well yeah , you sent it in {pause} late . +Professor F: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day , so . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something ? +PhD G: Well yeah . Liz had sent them a note saying "" could we please {pause} have another "" {comment} {pause} I don't know , "" three days "" or something , and they said yes . +PhD D: And then she said "" Did I say three ? +Grad A: Oh , +PhD D: I meant four . "" +Grad A: that was the other thing uh , +PhD G: But u +Grad A: uh , Dave Gelbart sent me email , I think he sent it to you too , {comment} that um , there 's a special topic , section in si in Eurospeech on new , corp corpors corpora . And it 's not due until like May fifteenth . +Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one ? +Grad A: No . +Professor F: It 's another one ? +Grad A: It 's a different one . +PhD B: No it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh ! +Grad A: And uh , +Professor F: Oh ! +PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} +Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person . Um {disfmarker} So , I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . I think so too . Um , I haven't gotten over to there yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday , I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one . +PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message ? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this , +Postdoc C: Yeah . And , you offered to {disfmarker} to join me , if you want me to . +Grad A: I 'll help , +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: but obviously I can't , really do , most of it , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this , +Grad A: so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide . +Professor F: Well , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper , though . For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh , accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what ? In term +PhD G: Number of words . +Postdoc C: One ? Wow ! OK . +Grad A: That 's just cuz he talks really fast . +Postdoc C: Do you mean , +Professor F: n No . +Grad A: I know +PhD B: Oh . Short words . +Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly , eh , c correctly identified words ? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume ? +PhD G: No . Well , according to the transcripts . +Grad A: But re well regardless . I think it 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's in all of them , +Postdoc C: Oh . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , we didn't mention Morgan by name +Grad A: and he talks a lot . +PhD G: we just {disfmarker} +Grad A: One participant . +Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member ? +PhD G: No , we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation . +Professor F: Well . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things , but I 'm not se really senior yet , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right +Professor F: Um , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: but uh , other than that delightful result , what was the rest of the paper about ? +PhD G: Um , well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections +Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results , if you will . Uh , the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap +Grad A: The good , the bad , and the ugly . +PhD G: um , s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a "" spurt "" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh , no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds . Um , and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were . {vocalsound} Um , for four different {pause} corpora , the Meeting Recorder meetings , the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome , and , found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers . Um , and found that the , uh , you know , as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh , but next were Switchboard and CallHome , which both had roughly the same , almost identical in fact , and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least , so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap , +Grad A: I 'm surprised . +PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as , uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} +Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides ! +PhD G: Yeah . Also , I {disfmarker} in the Levinson , the pragmatics book , {comment} in you know , uh , textbook , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know , how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they 're so good that {vocalsound} generally , u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent . +Postdoc C: Oh , that 's interesting . Yeah . +PhD G: So , this is way more than five percent . +Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Well , in real conversations , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: everyday conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , of course , no , it doesn't necessarily go against what he said , cuz he said "" generally speaking "" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you 'd have to big canvassing . +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD B: And in f +PhD G: Well , he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here . +PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what ? +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna ask that too . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD G: Well it 's time . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It 's {disfmarker} i it 's not against his conclusion , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u +Postdoc C: it just says that it 's a bi bell curve , and that , {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range , in your sampling . +PhD G: Yeah . So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it , but still it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings , which is more like , {vocalsound} you know , close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these , uh {disfmarker} you know , close to twenty percent . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But what was it like , say , in the Robustness meeting , for instance ? +PhD G: That {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Robustness meeting ? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So , {vocalsound} in terms of number of words , it 's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for , {vocalsound} uh , the Robustness . +Professor F: Maybe ten percent ? +Grad A: But I don't know if that 's really a fair way of comparing between , multi - party , conversations and two - party conversations . Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's just something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah , then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's a good point . +PhD G: Well , we didn't get to look at that , +PhD B: yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there 's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants . +Postdoc C: Good idea . +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there 's a weak dependence . I 'm sure it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a real strong one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad A: Right ? Because you +PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party , subsets within the meeting . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it 's an interesting result regardless . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right . +Postdoc C: Yes , that 's right . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they 're essentially just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh - huh . So , did {disfmarker} we all said "" uh - huh "" and nodded at the same time , +PhD G: R right . +Grad A: so . +PhD G: But , even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech , as pauses , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: you still have significant overlap . You know , it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know , eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a dramatic change , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so it 's {disfmarker} Anyway , so it 's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results , and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance . +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: Nope . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And we rescored things um , a little bit more carefully . We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways . Uh , but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number , which was what if you {pause} uh , basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech . So , we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results , {vocalsound} uh , in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh by the way , who 's on channel four ? You 're getting a lot of breath . +PhD B: Yeah . I j was just wondering . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's me . +PhD G: uh , well Don 's been working hard . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD G: OK , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here , and then there 's some background speech , may be overlapping it somehow , um , and this is the time bin that we used , then of course you 're gonna get insertion errors here and here . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right ? So we scored everything , and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this , where you just basically ignore everything outside of the , {vocalsound} uh , region that was deemed to be foreground speech . And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment , uh , results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That 's somewhat {disfmarker} that 's somewhat subject to error , but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that , we think that the results are you know , valid , although of course , some error is gonna be in there . But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech , {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh , the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech . So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech , if you can somehow separate out or find where it is , {vocalsound} uh , the recognizer does a good job , +Grad A: That 's great . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: even though there is this back +Grad A: Yeah , I guess that doesn't surprise me , because , with the close - talking mikes , the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Um , +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do ? +PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh , well , we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know , vit +Grad A: I mean in you recognizer , in the SRI recognizer . +PhD G: Well , we do uh , VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization , w and we uh {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we uh , {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance . +Grad A: Over an entire utterance ? +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or windowed ? +PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel . +PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} +PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD G: but you know . Um , now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this . We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: right ? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently . So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start +Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this ? +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Um , it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions ? +PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean , not completely , but yes , +Professor F: Less so . +PhD G: dramatically . So we have to um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , you still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results . Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday . +Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yes . It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . +Professor F: Cuz again , looking forward to the non - close miked case , I think that we s still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I 'm not looking forward to it . +Professor F: i it 's the high signal - to - noise ratio +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you . +PhD G: u s Right . So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh , the second section . And then , {vocalsound} the third thing was , we looked at , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , what we call "" interrupts "" , although that 's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer , but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh , so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences . So , you know {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also , or not ? +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no ? +PhD G: Hmm ? +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: No , we only used , you know , uh periods , uh , question marks and {pause} exclamation . And we know that there 's th that 's not a very g I mean , we miss a lot of them , +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 's OK but {disfmarker} +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it 's f i i +Postdoc C: Comma also or not ? +PhD G: No commas . No . And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where , uh , if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence , you know , where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really , but you know , sentences , +PhD B: Ah . +PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later . +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end ? +PhD G: OK ? And so what {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: Sorry ? +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground ? +PhD G: Yes . Uh , so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: So , the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually , several second speakers , {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause} "" interrupts "" , as we call them . +PhD D: Three words from the end . +Grad A: At pause boundaries . +PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} +Grad A: On T - closures , only . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis , we tagged the word sequences , and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them . Um , and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word , we basically {disfmarker} you know , considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word . So that , {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped , it was considered an interrupted {pause} word . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the , {vocalsound} um , you know , the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings , {comment} {vocalsound} um , that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh , interrupt locations . +PhD B: Tag by uh +PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag , which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry . End of spurt . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here , because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know , five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses , and then we had things like discourse markers , uh , backchannels , uh , disfluencies . um , uh , filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D 's are for , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency , so , where you hesitate , or where you start the repair there . Uh , what else do we had . Uh , repeated {disfmarker} you know , repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth . So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so , the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker . And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things . We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words , and so every {vocalsound} "" so yeah "" , and "" OK "" , uh , and "" uh - huh "" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound} "" wow "" and "" so "" and {vocalsound} uh "" right "" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not "" right "" . "" Right "" is a backchannel . But so , we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , identity of the words , we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things . And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts . So , and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags , overall uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points . And uh , we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause , you 're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before . OK ? And also of course after spurt ends , which means basically in p inside pauses . So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and , {vocalsound} um , +PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} +PhD G: you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} No big surprises , but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's nice to actually measure it though . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there . In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you 're g being interrupted . +PhD G: Well we 're ne +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . There 's no statement about cause and effect . +PhD D: Yeah , right . No , no , no . +PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation , +PhD D: Right , I {disfmarker} I see . Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he 's right , y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds , +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: but then Chuck came in +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second +PhD G: Right . Anyway . {comment} So , +Professor F: or more . +PhD G: uh , and that was basically it . And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then , {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages , and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously +PhD B: Oops . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again , and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer . +PhD G: uh , and {disfmarker} until it fi +PhD B: Font smaller , yeah . +PhD G: No , no . W well , d you couldn't really make everything smaller +PhD B: Put the abstract end . +PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Took out white space . +PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some . And stuff like that . +PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result , Andreas {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh , backchannels +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops . You know you get a falling pitch . And so that 's when people tend to backchannel . +PhD G: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem +PhD G: y We didn't talk about , uh , prosodic , uh , properties at all , +PhD D: Right . Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD G: although that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that 's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at +Grad E: Yeah , we 're gonna be looking at that . +PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment , so . This is purely based on you know the words +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though . Uh - huh . +PhD D: Oh you do . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: So am I recalling correctly ? +PhD G: Anyway , so . +Postdoc C: Well , I didn't know about Liz 's finding on that , +PhD D: About {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: I 'd like to see that reference too . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk . And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel . And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off +Grad A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do , +PhD G: Oh yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy . +PhD G: There 's actually {disfmarker} uh there 's this a former student of here from Berkeley , Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Sure . +PhD G: Do you know him ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: He did a system uh , in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now , and he did this backchanneling , automatic backchanneling system . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's a very {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh ! +PhD G: So , exactly what you describe , +PhD D: Huh . +PhD G: but for Japanese . And it 's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it 's really important that you backchannel . It 's really impolite if you don't , and {disfmarker} So . +Professor F: Huh . Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine . +PhD D: It wouldn't matter ? Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . That 's w That 's what I do . +PhD D: Random intervals . +Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that . Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds , and saying "" uh - huh "" , "" yeah "" , "" how about them sports teams ? "" +PhD G: Anyway . So the paper 's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC ' ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Printed it out , haven't read it yet . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , uh one more thing . So I {disfmarker} I 'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment , so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up , like I can't type anything . Uh b so if there 's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested ? +PhD G: I made a directory . I called it um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here , you know . +PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: He does ? +Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder , I guess , +PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD G: and also , um , the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um , you know , the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far , +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach . So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing . Uh , so it 's "" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub +Grad A: Pub real . +PhD G: real "" {disfmarker} Exactly . MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again ? CR {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis . +Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR , yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . Right ? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list , +Professor F: Yeah , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels . +PhD G: Yeah . Um , +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory , {vocalsound} is not readable . It 's only uh , accessible . So , {vocalsound} in other words , to access anything under there , you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: So that 's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , and the directory for this I call it I "" ASR zero point one "" because it 's sort of meant for recognition . +Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Beta ? +PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files , so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them . If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there ? +PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} +Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say . +PhD G: Dash . Anyway . So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring , because that 's what he cares about , and {disfmarker} um , and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented . I mean , just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there . +Grad A: I uh , put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory , +PhD G: And so . +Grad A: but I 'll probably move them there as well . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request ? +PhD G: OK . Yeah . March O - one . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh ! +PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh she wanted that also ? +PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah . She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set , so that when they did experiments they could compare . +PhD G: Right , but they don't have a recognizer even . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I +PhD G: But yeah , we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So , for the thing that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's good . +PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can put it in the same place . Just put in another directory . +PhD D: Yeah , it I 'll make another directory . +PhD G: Well , make ano make another directory . +PhD D: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD G: You don't n m +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: And , Andreas , um , sampled ? +PhD G: Yeah . They are ? +Grad E: I think so . Yeah . Um , so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions , {comment} {pause} or um , we should just make a note of it . +PhD G: OK . Oh . Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK , because in one directory there 's two versions . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's the first meeting I cut both versions . Just to check which w if there is a significant difference . +PhD G: OK . And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it 's the downsampled version that you have . +Grad E: They 're all downsampled , yeah . +PhD G: Oh , OK . Oh that 's th important to know , OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions . +Grad E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . Alright , then I 'll hold off on that and I 'll wait for you um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably by tomorrow +PhD G: gen +Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I 'll send you an email . +PhD G: OK . Alright . OK . Yeah , definitely they should have the full bandwidth version , +Grad E: Yeah , because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like , r significant difference . +PhD G: yeah . OK . Well , it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space , for one thing . +Grad E: It does take up less disk space , and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions , +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: which you know , is just , probably random . +PhD G: Right . Yeah , it was a small difference +Grad E: But , um {pause} they probably w want the originals . +PhD G: but yeah . Yeah . OK . OK , good . Good that {disfmarker} Well , it 's a good thing that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , I think we 're losing , Don and Andreas at three - thirty , right ? OK . +Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , that 's why it was good to have Andreas , say these things but {disfmarker} So , we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . So , um you know that Adam created um , a b a script to generate the beep file ? +Professor F: Hmm . +Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM . And , um , you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that . But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that 's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this . And uh , my understanding was that , um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today , before this meeting . +Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it . Um , just so that while I 'm gone , you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way . So uh , Chuck and Thilo should , now more or less know how to generate the file +Postdoc C: Excellent . OK . +Grad A: and , {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that , um , {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked , {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries . Right ? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking , there 's breaks . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Whereas Thilo 's won't have that . So what {disfmarker} what we 're probably gonna do is just write a script , that if two , chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we 'll just merge them . +Postdoc C: Oh ! OK . Ah , interesting . Yeah . Yeah . Oh , sure . Yeah , sure . Makes sense . +Grad A: So , uh , and that will get around the problem of , the , {vocalsound} you know "" one word beep , one word beep , one word beep , one word beep "" . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Ah ! Clever . Yes . Clever . Yeah . Excellent . +PhD D: Yeah , in fact after our meeting uh , this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um , there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process . +Postdoc C: And that 's the purpose . Yeah . +PhD D: So tomorrow , {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh , chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM , we 're going to actually compare the two . So he 's gonna run his process on that same meeting , +Postdoc C: Great idea ! +PhD D: and then we 're gonna do the beep - ify on both , and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences . +PhD G: Beep - ify ! +Postdoc C: OK , now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly . The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting . OK . +PhD D: Yeah , w and we know that . Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there 're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . Oh , interesting . Ah ! +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc C: OK . Interesting idea . Great . +PhD G: So this training meeting , uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um , {vocalsound} you know , accurate {pause} time marks ? for {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins , I ment I mentioned that last week . +PhD G: OK , yeah . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there 's {disfmarker} yeah , but there is this one issue with them in that there 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech . +PhD G: Because {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had , it 's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence . +Grad A: That 's on the other channel . That 's because of channel overlap . +PhD D: Well , and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} i +PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker . That 'll only be if it 's the background speaker . +PhD D: Right . So you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll have a chunk of , you know , channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten , and then the same channel starting at eleven , ending at fifteen , and then again , starting at sixteen , ending at twenty . Right , so that 's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A , zero , twenty . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's what I just said , +Postdoc C: Sure . Sure . +Grad A: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear . +Postdoc C: Yeah , I thought that was {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these , you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh ! I mean it {disfmarker} Right , I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker . +Grad A: Well , that 's definitely a problem . +PhD G: Uh , because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process +Grad A: Battery . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: to make it more accurate . +PhD B: Battery ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know , there 's actually abutting segments that we have to join together . That 's fine . +PhD D: OK . +PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that +PhD D: Yeah , I think Jane tightened these up by hand . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK , so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they ? +Professor F: Uh , it looks much better . +PhD B: Yeah . Looks good . +Postdoc C: They were , um , reasonably tight , but not excruciatingly tight . +PhD G: Oh . +Postdoc C: That would 've taken more time . I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like "" yeah "" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin , then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: No , no ! I don +Grad A: Let me make a note on yours . +PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} it 's f That 's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that 's perfectly fine . In fact it 's good . You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech , say for recognition purposes . Uh , but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation . +Postdoc C: I can't answer that , +PhD G: So . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um , in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves "" yeah "" , {vocalsound} and it 's swimming in this huge bin , {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Right . But are we talking about , I don't know , {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second ? a {disfmarker} ? You know ? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary , {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal . It 's as if the person could 've stopped there . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know , it 's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time . And so , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: I mean some cases , there 're some people {pause} um , who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where , {vocalsound} you know , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll breath {pause} and then I put a break . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But other than that , it 's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next , one sentence into the next , um , w without really stopping . I mean {disfmarker} i they , i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: you know . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and , you know , I mean , a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we 're going to say next . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: But uh , in which case , the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units , {vocalsound} um , which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin . I mean , because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know , from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit , it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either , cuz of the memory . +PhD G: Well , yeah . That 's fine . +Postdoc C: So , that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context , but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space , room , pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as . You know , Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} in producing narratives , the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be , {vocalsound} uh , that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds . +PhD G: Mmm . +Postdoc C: And um , that would be , you know one speaker . The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh , {vocalsound} you know um , {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that 's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics . Yeah . +PhD G: Well we chose um , you know , half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger , you have a {disfmarker} y you know , your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less , {vocalsound} um , precise , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech . Um , so , it 's sort of a compromise , +PhD B: Yeah . {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} +PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD B: for the minimum silence length . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . I see . +PhD B: So . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: In any case , this {disfmarker} this uh , meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email , +PhD G: OK , +Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment +Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path . +PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know , what you would do is you would play with different parameters . And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech . And that 's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have . So , I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh , for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation , {vocalsound} uh , n having these {pause} joined together , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense . And in terms of transcription , it would be easy to do it that way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time . +PhD B: Yeah . Whi - which could have one drawback . If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three . +Postdoc C: Yes . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now , {vocalsound} there , the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere , so . +Postdoc C: I see . +PhD B: That would be more natural +Postdoc C: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: that 's {disfmarker} that 's right , but you know , thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um , w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data . I discussed this with you too . Um , the tr so the idea initially was , we would get {vocalsound} uh , for the new meetings , so the e EDU meetings , that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us , on a channel by channel basis . And um , so , I 've assigned {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've assigned them to our transcribers and um , so far I 've discussed it with one , with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday , we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one , at some extent . And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file , we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um , {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio , or a mixed channel audio . And um , {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way , by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it , it 's like a stagal staggered mixed channel . And um , {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um , um , the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain , it 's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people , may be in long stretches of connected speech . So it 's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do , because of the continuity within that person 's turn . So , what I 'm thinking , and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this , {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I 'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings , they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers . And , if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} then , when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM , we can add the backchannels . It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um , you know , the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard , but then there 's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , marking , and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I 'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels . And , so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words , {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred , {vocalsound} that would be hard . So , m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I 'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting , and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker , endpoi end time for each dominant speaker , and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels . +Grad A: Yeah the only , um , disadvantage of that is , then it 's hard to use an automatic method to do that . The advantage is that it 's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it . So . +Postdoc C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 'll just have to see . +Postdoc C: OK . I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um , you know , the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries , and all that for all the channels but , {vocalsound} you know , that is so time - consuming , and since we have a bottleneck here , we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible , then this seemed to me it 'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data , which would be useful when it comes back to us . And um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh also , at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this , she 'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there 's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause , but really has something transcribable in it , {vocalsound} then she 's going to {vocalsound} uh , make a mark {disfmarker} w uh , so you know , so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she 'll just add an S . And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case , if it 's marked as speech , {vocalsound} and really there 's nothing transcribable in it , then she 's going to put a s dash , and I 'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um , you know , with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command , get it so that it 's clear that those are the other category . I 'll just , you know , recode them . But um , {vocalsound} um , the transcribable events {pause} that um , I 'm considering in this , {vocalsound} uh , continue to be {vocalsound} laugh , as well as speech , and cough and things like that , so I 'm not stripping out anything , just {disfmarker} just you know , being very lenient in what 's considered speech . Yeah ? +PhD D: Jane ? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you 're suggesting , {vocalsound} um , u what is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not that different . +PhD D: So I 'm a little confused , because how do we know where to put beeps ? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Transcriber will do it . +Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh , {vocalsound} uh , the original pr procedure , but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh , a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data . +Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically , +Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand . +Postdoc C: You got it . +Grad A: And because {disfmarker} +PhD D: But after we 've done Thilo 's thing . +Grad A: No . +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: Oh , after . Oh , OK , +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah ! +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: So , I 'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I 'm confused . +Postdoc C: OK . We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK , and I 'm leaving . +Grad E: Yeah , I have to go as well . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , leave the mikes on , and just put them on the table . +Grad E: OK . Thanks . +Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits . +PhD B: You start with the presegmentation , r {vocalsound} yeah ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . And then um , {vocalsound} the transcriber , {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around , and deciding if it 's speech or not , but not transcribing anything . OK ? Instead of doing that , which was our original plan , {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So what they do is they identify who 's the di dominant speaker , and when the speaker starts . +PhD D: OK . +PhD B: Yeah ? OK . +Postdoc C: So I mean , you 're still gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So we 're {disfmarker} It 's based on your se presegmentation , that 's the basic {pause} thing . +PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then ? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD D: So , now Jane , my question is {vocalsound} when they 're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker , {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Uh No . No , no . Huh - uh . S +PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's why she 's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers . So , on a {disfmarker} you know , so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one , i as far as I listened to it , you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry . So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so , and goes until minute so - and - so . And then Mark Paskin comes in . And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such , and goes on till minute so - and - so . OK . And then {vocalsound} meanwhile , she 's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys ' channels , determining if there 're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing , and nothing as speech , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens . +PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys ? +Postdoc C: But you know , I wanted to say , his segmentation is so good , that {vocalsound} um , the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins . +PhD B: On that meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So far we haven't . So this is not gonna be a major part of the process , at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} +PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins , why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM ? +Postdoc C: Well there 's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well , OK . She i It 's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she 's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So if it 's only inserting "" mm - hmm ""s here and there , then , wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end , instead of having it go through I B M , then be patched together , then be double checked here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector , and do the beeping on it , and send it to I B +PhD D: Without having her check anything . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . +Postdoc C: Well , I guess {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are . +PhD B: For some meetings , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure it {disfmarker} i n +Postdoc C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to that , it was {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , if it 's working well , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it 's good . +Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well yea OK , good . I mean the detector , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Now , you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well , +Postdoc C: But EDU is great . +PhD B: and just use , {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and , do the other ones . +Grad A: Release to begin with . +Postdoc C: How interesting . You know {disfmarker} +Professor F: What 's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget . Is the problem the lapel , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , it really depends . Um , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it 's better for meetings with fewer speakers , and it 's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing . +Professor F: Oh , +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor F: the dead meetings . +PhD B: get {disfmarker} That 's it . +PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things . +Grad A: No , the undead meeting , yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah ? +PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo 's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah ? +PhD D: and we send it to IBM . The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: There 's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his , and we generate the beeps file , then we have somebody listen beeps file . +PhD B: Yeah . And erase {disfmarker} +PhD D: And they listen to each section and say "" yes , no "" whether that section is +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Is intelligible . +PhD D: i i intelligible or not . And it just {disfmarker} You know , there 's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the "" yes "" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Blech . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting ! Cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's directly related to the e end task . +Grad A: Stress test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: Yeah . I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there , hear it , beep , yes or no . +PhD B: Nope . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: But it would be quick . +Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they 're still listening to everything . +PhD D: But there 's no adjusting . And that 's what 's slow . There 's no adjusting of time boundaries . +Postdoc C: Well , {vocalsound} eh , listening does take time too . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . I don't know , I {disfmarker} I think I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really tending towards {disfmarker} +Grad A: One and a half times real time . +Professor F: I mean , {vocalsound} what 's the worst that happens ? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there 's {disfmarker} there 's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say "" huh ? "" +PhD D: Yeah . Right . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Professor F: and then we can flag those later . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i +PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Well maybe that 's the best way to go , +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: just {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: Sorry , go ahead . +PhD B: u u u +Postdoc C: So I was gonna say , EDU - one is good enough , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh , this stuff we send . +PhD B: Yeah there 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It 's possible like this . +Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think , we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically , listen to them and see how bad they are . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing , +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm . Oh , OK . +PhD D: because there 's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients . +Postdoc C: Oh , I see . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a +Grad A: That 's not hard to do . Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know , it just takes five minutes rather than , taking a second . +PhD D: OK +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So . I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it . +PhD D: Right , except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory , right ? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener +Grad A: No , but it 's easy enough to do . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} +Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Doing the gain ? It 's no problem . Adjusting the gain ? +PhD D: n Doing th No , getting the coefficients , for each channel . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's no problem . +Postdoc C: Know what numbers . +PhD D: OK . So we just run that one {disfmarker} +Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it . +PhD B: We can do that . +Grad A: I have one program that 'll do it . You can find other programs . +PhD B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I used it , so . +PhD D: We just run that +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: J - sound - stat ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Minus D , capital D . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that , which is , {vocalsound} since , really what this is , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large , send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step , um , why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right ? In other words , rather than , um , uh , saying we 're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} +Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything , I meant , just see if they 're any good . +Professor F: Yeah . So y you do a bunch of meetings , you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: if it sounds like it 's almost always right and there 's not any big problem you send it to them . +PhD D: Send it to them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Professor F: And , you know , then they 'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us , +Postdoc C: Oh , that 'd be great . +Professor F: and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others . +Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD D: OK . When they {disfmarker} when there 's either no speech in there , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: things like that . +Grad A: Yeah , cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they 'll have to mark , when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent . But if we send them without editing , then we 're also gonna hafta have m uh , notations for words that are cut off , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and other sorts of , uh , acoustic problems . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: They do already . +PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are , +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: but w I mean we 're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} +Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they 're sure . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check . +PhD B: Mark it . Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And actually they have one also , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} +Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it 's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Certainty . +Professor F: Uh , an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting , how often uh , do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth , and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often ? +PhD B: Uh . +Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t +Professor F: Well he 's saying , you know , that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting , +Postdoc C: In a good meeting , what ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Postdoc C: Oh I see , +Professor F: Uh , and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing . +Postdoc C: the characteristics . +Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant . And then , uh in a bad meeting , {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he 's had some problems , what does that mean ? +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent ? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word , +Postdoc C: Just +PhD B: Yeah th +Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute , or {disfmarker} You know . +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the problem is that , nnn , the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh , some frame error rate . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers , is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah , in in they have to insure that that 's a real s spurt or something . And {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm ! +PhD B: Let me think . So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector , for a good meeting , I th is around {pause} or under one percent , I would say . But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah . For {disfmarker} yeah , but there can be more {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} There 's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh , more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well , the detector says there is speech , but there is none . So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it 's really a breathy channel . +Professor F: But I think that 's less of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: They 'll just listen . It 's just wasted time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: And th and that 's for a good meeting . Now what about in a meeting that you said we 've {disfmarker} you 've had some more trouble with ? +PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} {pause} Tsk . {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers , I think . That 's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so , {vocalsound} it 's not {disfmarker} not that representative , but , it 's perhaps , Fff . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's perhaps then {disfmarker} it 's perhaps five percent of something , which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed , but um , I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell . +Professor F: Right . So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime , we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , interrupted ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Something like that ? +Postdoc C: The other problem is , that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones , where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing , uh , inti indicated as speech . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file . +Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you 're {disfmarker} if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split , then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it . +Postdoc C: OK . OK . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there 's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they 'd probably just listen to it once . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: So there 'd {disfmarker} you 'd think there 'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in , uh , cost function , +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: you know , between them or something . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I think that 's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not normal . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you 're saying is that nearly always what happens when there 's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh , there 's {vocalsound} some uh , uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech . +PhD B: That is marked as speech . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Well then , we really should just send the stuff . +Postdoc C: That would be great . +Professor F: Right ? Because that doesn't do any harm . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: You know , if they {disfmarker} they hear you know , a dog bark and they say what was the word , they {comment} you know , they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I als I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Ruff ruff ! +PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um , only bre breathing in it . And to {disfmarker} to re - run 's +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD B: Eh , um . Yeah . I 've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike , and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So , I could run this on those breathy channels , and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc C: Wow , that 's a great idea . +Professor F: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} I th Again , I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and what that 'll do is just cut the time a little further . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh , uh , explicit markings . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Excellent . Oh , I 'd be delighted with that , I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting , and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , interesting . +Professor F: you know , how are you gonna handle it . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah . +Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , I pr I much prefer this , +Professor F: is {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps . +Professor F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well good . That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: And we can just , you know , get the meeting , process it , put the beeps file , send it off to IBM . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side . +PhD B: Process it , hear into it . I would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Do what ? +PhD B: Um , {pause} listen to it , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or at least sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Sample it . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of "" bzzz "" {comment} or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: No . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: That won't be good . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah that would be very good . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going . +Postdoc C: Oh , I 'd be delighted . Yeah . +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} there 's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings , +Professor F: Great . +PhD B: and that 's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop . +Grad A: Uh - huh +PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels , so . Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before , +Grad A: What can you do ? +PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this ? +Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting . +Grad A: Yep . Mmm . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking , and , {vocalsound} that 's really a little bit confusing , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's a little bit confusing . +Professor F: That 's life . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean , {comment} what 're we gonna do ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that . +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: So . +PhD B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a second question , "" what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound ? "" +Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} +Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound ? +Postdoc C: Yeah , go ahead . +Professor F: I mean was it speech , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's speech . +Professor F: Great . +Postdoc C: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it 's not someone close - miked , then , they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels . They end up on a different channel . And we have any number of channels available , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean it 's an infinite number of channels . +PhD B: But , +Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel . +PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh , I B M transcribers , I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that 's really {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , they have a convention , in their own procedures , {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound . +Grad A: Right , but , uh , in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background , cuz that would be too much work . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections , then they 'll +PhD D: Well I don't think Jane 's saying they 're gonna transcribe it , but they 'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there 's some background stuff there , +Grad A: But that 's gonna be all over the place . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? +Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I think {disfmarker} I think it 'd be easy to to say "" background laptop "" . +Grad A: How would they know that ? +PhD D: But wait a minute , why would they treat them differently ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because otherwise it 's gonna be too much work for them to mark it . They 'll be marking it all over the place . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I s background laptop or , background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time . +Grad A: Sure , but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time ? +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , you can tell . Acoustically , can't you tell ? +PhD B: It 's really good sound , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh is it ? Oh ! +Professor F: Well , I mean , isn't there a category something like uh , "" sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike "" ? +PhD B: Yeah that would be very important , +Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: How can they tell that ? +PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here . +Grad A: Yes , that 's my opinion as well . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +Grad A: And they 'll just mark it however they mark it , +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and we 'll correct it when it comes back . +PhD B: So th +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , the default . +Postdoc C: Yeah , s a +Grad A: No , not default . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Well , as it comes back , we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it , then it 'll be easy for us to handle . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context , they can't tell if it 's a channeled speak uh , you know , a close - miked speaker or not , {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them . +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: I don't know , I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me , I don't really care . +Professor F: Yeah . So . Shall we uh , do digits and get out of here ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc C: I have o I have one question . Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it ? +Professor F: Yes ma ' +Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh , what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh , beep file that we send to IBM for that one , or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send . +Professor F: Which part ? +PhD B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So , the part where they 're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops . +PhD B: with the laptop sound , or {disfmarker} ? just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh , excise that from what we send to IBM , or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can ? +PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think . +Postdoc C: OK , that 'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure . +PhD D: Yeah , I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them . you know . +Grad A: Worry about it when we get back . +Postdoc C: Good . And see how well they do . +PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah , worry about it when we get back in . +Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it 's just not workable . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK , +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: excellent . +Professor F: Cuz , I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed , if they did it . +Grad A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , e +Grad A: As I say , we 'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is . +Postdoc C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Sample it , rather . +Postdoc C: OK . Alright . +PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's great . +PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels , I think . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , and {disfmarker} and they 're very {disfmarker} it 's very audible ? on the close - talking channels ? +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: Oh well . I mean , it 's the same problem as the lapel mike . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , interesting . +PhD B: Comparable , yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: OK , alright . Digits . +Professor F: Let 's do digits . +Postdoc C: OK , so we read the transcript number first , right ? +Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately ? +PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it ? +Professor F: Uh , {vocalsound} why don't we do it together , +Postdoc C: Uh , quarter to four . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a nice fast way to do it . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: One , two , three , go ! +Postdoc C: It 's kind of interesting if there 're any more errors in these , {vocalsound} than we had the first set . +Grad A: Nnn , yeah , I think there probably will be . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it ? +Grad A: I do . +PhD B: No . +Postdoc C: I usually do . +PhD D: I do . +PhD B: I don't . +Postdoc C: I didn't this time . +PhD D: You don't ? +PhD B: No . +Professor F: I haven't been , +PhD D: How can you do that ? +Professor F: no . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , concentration . +PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it +PhD D: Gah ! +Grad A: Total concentration . Are you guys ready ? +PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Really ? +","The conversation involves a group of academic colleagues discussing various technical issues related to recording and transcription processes for linguistic research. They talk about generating beep files for anonymizing speaker identities and resolving transcription issues associated with audio overlaps and time boundaries. They consider using pre-segmented data and discuss the challenges transcribers would encounter, such as laptop noise in the background and breathy channels. They ultimately discuss the idea of sending unedited audio files to IBM for transcription and then post-processing upon return, to avoid extensive pre-processing work. The group weighs options like sampling audio to check for problems before sending it out and adding conventions for IBM transcribers for instances when speech is not clear or intelligible. They also briefly mention a specific meeting with laptop sounds that may cause transcription problems. Finally, they organize to perform a ""digits"" task, likely for calibration or testing purposes, and show varying preferences for plugging their ears to concentrate while doing this task." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 14thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using their earpiece at their desk. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We'll now proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are none. Now we'll proceed to the tabling of documents. Mr.LeBlanc has a document he wants to table. Go ahead, Mr.LeBlanc. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr. Chair, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a report entitled ""Democracy Matters, Debates Count: A report on the 2019 Leaders' Debates Commission and the future of debates in Canada. Mr. Chair, on behalf of all of us, I want to thank the Right Honourable David Johnston for his continued service. +The Chair: Good. We'll now proceed to the presenting of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that you please come to the front and drop off your certificate at the table once the petition has been presented. In presenting petitions, the first presenter today is Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting a petition in support of Bill S-204. This is a bill in the Senate, put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan. It would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent by the donor. It also creates a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill is designed to confront and address the horrific practice by which, in certain casesfor instance, inside Chinaminority communities or dissidents may be targeted and have their organs removed as they're killed and used for transplantation. Petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204, and they want to see it passed as soon as possible. +The Chair: Our next petition will go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am presenting a petition today signed by Canadians who are concerned that Bill C-7 removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime, including the mandatory 10-day waiting period. Mr. Chair, these people who are signing this petition would like to see an improvement in assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to present an e-petition signed by over 40 people. It asks that the Government of Canada recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an autonomous state that may result in foreign investments, direct access of development aid, foreign aid for disaster relief and infrastructure development investment loans. +The Chair: Now we'll proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. Each statement will be for a maximum of one minute. I remind members that if they exceed that time limit, they will be interrupted. Our first statement goes to Monsieur El-Khoury. +Mr. Fayal El-Khoury (LavalLes les, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I thank the government for the way it has managed this global crisis and its impact on Canadians. It has acted in a robust, rapid and very effective way. Our Prime Minister has been awarded the medal of honour, courage and humanity worldwide. Canada is one of the few countries that has acted in the best interests of its citizens and maintained their dignity in these uncertain times. While addressing Canadians, our right honourable Prime Minister showed us leadership, the importance of transparency, and integrity. He kept us united. His top priority was saving lives, along with finding realistic solutions regarding the economic impact on our daily life. Because of his outstanding leadership, we're admired across the world, which is another distinguished privilege of being Canadian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-KentLeamington, CPC): COVID-19 has emptied food banks across Canada, even in an agricultural community like Chatham-Kent, so Wes Thompson and James Rasmussen, along with Alysson Storey, Randi Bokor, Maureen Geddes, Chris and Terry Johnston, Jason King, Fannie Vavoulis and Brent Wilken, grew an idea into the community's largest-ever food drive. Project manager Morna McDonald estimates that over 3,000 volunteers ended up helping in the May 16 Miracle. Residents put non-perishable foodstuffs on their doorsteps, with drop-off centres organized for rural areas. Volunteer groups travelled predetermined routes while maintaining physical distancing. The community collected an amazing 678,000 pounds of food. They accidentally exceeded by over 20% the record in the Guinness World Records book for collected food in a single day. Chatham-Kent has restocked their food banks and reaffirmed their community pride. It's an honour to represent such a community. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Sarai. We have a point of order from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): As much as I like seeing my friends on the big screens, there are no big screens yet, so we don't know who's on and who's not on. I was wondering if there was going to be a TV coming up soon here, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: There is a technical issue, and it is being worked on. We're working on it as we go through. The other alternative is that we suspend until we fix it. If it's okay, we'll just continue. I think we can all hear the members who are speaking. This is one of the realities of a virtual or hybrid system. Our next statement will go to Mr. Sarai. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and mabuhay to all the Filipino Canadians across this country. In June across Canada we recognize Filipino Heritage Month to raise awareness and celebrate the Filipino community. Here in Surrey Centre, and across Canada, the Filipino community makes important contributions to our cities and has helped shape Canada into the vibrant multicultural society that we all know and love today. Now more than ever, during these challenging times we must come together as Canadians to celebrate the rich heritage and history of our Filipino neighbours. Throughout June, please join me in celebrating our fellow citizens of Filipino descent by recognizing all the incredible ways in which they have contributed to making Canada a better place for all of us. Happy Filipino Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Perron. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. Today is World Milk Day, and I would like to recognize the exceptional work and dedication shown by everyone in the industry. They ensure we have a nutritious, high quality product every day. Let's take part in the local consumption movement and rediscover the exceptional products of our dairy producers and processors. Enjoy the yogurts, cheeses and other products because it's true that milk is good. I would also like to thank BrunoLetendre, outgoing chair of the Producteurs de lait du Qubec, and I congratulate the new chair, DanielGobeil. The dairy industry has been sacrificed several times in trade agreements. The government's broken promises are piling up. The payment of compensation is still uncertain. Action must be taken. The first step must be the direct allocation of import quotas to processors, and the second must be the full payment of the promised compensation. We demand a formal commitment from the government. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Iacono. +Mr. Angelo Iacono (Alfred-Pellan, Lib.): Mr.Chair, June is Italian Heritage Month. The situation is special this year, since Italy has been hard hit by COVID-19, with more than 30,000deaths. Like me, many Italian Canadians still have family and friends in Italy, and the news has sometimes been very difficult to take, yet that has not detracted from the great co-operation that exists between Canada and Italy. Today I would like to highlight the solidariet italiana in our community. During the pandemic, Canadians of Italian descent have been united to support anziani, our famiglie and our amici in Italy by participating in the fundraising campaign COVID-19 AiutiAMO lItalia to support the Italian Red Cross response activities. I send a special salute to to my cugino Giuseppe, who is still on the road to recovery from COVID-19. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I would like to acknowledge all of the organizations in Saskatchewan and across Canada that are working hard to help small businesses adapt to the challenges of the current pandemic. In particular, I would like to thank the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District, or RDBID. As soon as the pandemic hit, RDBID launched a daily electronic newsletter to keep their members informed of support programs, local initiatives and local success stories. They have used their social media channels on a daily basis to promote takeout and delivery services, online and curbside services offered by restaurants and retailers. They have also launched a number of their own initiatives to help businesses access e-commerce. Through persistent communication and a lot of long hours, RDBID has helped businesses in downtown Regina to weather the storm. Because of their hard work, downtown Regina will come through this pandemic better than ever. +The Chair: Mr.Lauzon now has the floor. +Mr. Stphane Lauzon (ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation, Lib.): Mr.Chair, high-speed Internet will be to the 21stcentury what electricity was to the 20th: an essential service. We are currently experiencing a drastic change in our morals, our consumption patterns and our socialization habits. We are turning to the Internet to read the news, contact our friends and complete our purchases. Isolation associated with COVID-19 has only accelerated this trend. Unfortunately, not all regions of Canada have reliable, affordable, high-speed access. I would like to reassure the citizens of my riding about the efforts that we are making as a government, but also about the work I've been doing as a member of Parliament since2015 to connect the 41municipalities of ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation. Aside from this essential service, our students, seniors, entrepreneurs and telework are very important to the regions. We have heard you, and I will continue to fight for you, so that you can have access to affordable high-speed Internet. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, a few days ago, we all watched with horror and outrage the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. For many of us, these images may seem shocking, but it's an all too familiar tale to millions of black people not only in the United States but also here in Canada, in my city of Gatineau and around the world, who must at times live with the scourge of anti-black racism. Mr.Chair, I can't know what it's like to be black in our society. What I do know, however, is that you and I, and everyone in this House, have the power and the responsibility to make our country more just. Let us all recommit ourselves to that endeavour. Black Canadians and all those who have to endure racism and discrimination are watching us, and they expect more from us. +The Chair: Mr. Duncan is next. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Without a doubt, these past few months have been challenging, to say the least, from both a health and economic perspective, but, Mr. Chair, I have to say how proud I am of my community of StormontDundasSouth Glengarry. We continue to successfully flatten the curve in our region and, just as importantly, we are making sure that we are here for each other, whether it is the Cornwall Optimists' GoFeedMe campaign, the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club delivering groceries to those who are quarantined in their households or the local United Way, the Social Development Council or the Carefor seniors support centre co-leading an effort to deliver 1,500 baskets to seniors in need. There have been many examples of kindness and generosity from our community. I rise today in the House of Commons to say thank you to my constituents and to all Canadians; to our essential front-line workers, our service clubs and our businesses that have stepped up to help out; and to everybody playing their part to get us through this challenge. I couldn't be more proud of my community and my residents, and it is an honour to serve as their member of Parliament. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Yip. +Ms. Jean Yip (ScarboroughAgincourt, Lib.): Mr. Chair, although Asian Heritage Month has just passed, we recognize the tremendous effort of all Asian Canadians on the front lines of this pandemic, as health care providers or as essential workers. I want to thank the many Asian organizations for donating to ScarboroughAgincourt's hospital, long-term care homes and food banks. As a Canadian born and raised in Scarborough, I'm offended by the reports of violence and vandalism targeting Asian-Canadian communities across this country. In budget 2019 we invested $45 million to launch a new anti-racism strategy, which included the establishment of the anti-racism secretariat, because these efforts are unfortunately clearly still needed. As events continue to unfold in the United States, it is important to recognize that we have work to do here as well. Whether it is anti-black or anti-Asian, racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in Canadafull stop. Now more than ever, we must stand united in diversity. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the last few months, Canadians throughout New Brunswick and across the country have stepped up to support their community. Health care workers, truckers, farmers, business owners, pharmacists, grocery store staff, faith-based and non-profit organizations and so many others have all answered the call to do their part. Today, Mr. Chair, I would like to specifically highlight the work of those who support and take care of our seniors, who are among some of our most at-risk citizens. It has been said that the character of a nation and its people is revealed most in how they treat their most vulnerable. Our seniors have made immense contributions to our society. Many have put their lives on the line to protect Canada and the democratic freedoms we enjoy as Canadians. They have worked hard and made many sacrifices throughout their lives to make Canada the greatest nation on earth. Taking care of our seniors is the right thing to do. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who are supporting and caring for our seniors. Whether they be long-term care staff, personal care workers, health care professionals, family members or volunteers, thank you for all you are doing in support of our seniors. Together we shall overcome. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin (Port MoodyCoquitlam, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Although we've come to the end of Asian Heritage Month, I'd like to acknowledge some unsung Chinese Canadian heroes who shed their blood as patriots for our nation. I commemorate the 6,500 Chinese Canadians of the 9,000 railway workers who helped build and unite Canada. I pay respect to the many Chinese Canadians who died while building the CP Railway on the most dangerous terrains in the B.C. segment. I honour the Chinese Canadians who served and died in World War II. Sadly, Asian communities in Canada face racist incidents today. No one should be afraid of walking in their own neighbourhood. Adult children should not have to call their elderly parents to tell them to stay home because they might be attacked by racists. There's no justification for racial slurs, physical violence or vandalism against any individual or community. I will continue to work together with other elected officials, the police and the RCMP to mitigate these issues toward justice and restoration. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Angus. Mr. Angus, please proceed. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Ten years ago today, Cree youth leader Shannen Koostachin was killed in a horrific car accident. She was only 15 years old, yet in her short life she became the voice of a generation of first nation youth who were no longer willing to put up with systemic discrimination. Shannen had never seen a real school. Children in Attawapiskat were being educated in squalid conditions. Her fight for their dignity and rights launched the largest youth-driven civil rights movement in Canadian history. At 14 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. Shannen never lived to see the school that was built in her community, but her work carries on through the Shannen's Dream movement. She is a role model for youth activists across this country. A movie, two books and a statue are dedicated to her. She's been recognized as one of the 150 most influential women in Canadian history. I had the honour to know Shannen. In fact, I think of her every single day. She truly did come from the angels, and one day she returned. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you now have the floor. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Mr.Chair, for months now, thousands of consumers who need money to pay their bills have been fighting against airlines and the government to have their rights respected: three class action suits, a unanimous motion by the National Assembly and over 30,000signatures on a petition calling for reimbursement for cancelled flights. It isn't a whim to enforce the law. Air Canada, which confiscated $2.6billion from its customers, received more than $800million from Ottawa without any conditions. Yet, the company has a year's worth of cash in reserve, $6billion in its coffers, and is in the process of raising more than $1.4billion in the financial markets. Air Canada has the means to reimburse citizens. It has the money it needs. We're tired of the Minister of Transport's crocodile tears. I consulted the bankruptcy directory this morning and didn't see any airlines listed. Now is the time to work for the people. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes now has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, I want to pay tribute to a great man who represented the public here, in the House, for close to 15years: MichelGauthier. Michel, in life, we meet a lot of people, but some of them leave their mark on us forever. From the first time I spoke with you two years ago, I immediately understood that I was talking with a man with heart, a passionate man, a man who had Quebec imprinted on his heart. Because of your decision to join the Conservative Party of Canada, I got to know you personally, and I am most grateful. I will remember our discussions on the best ways to communicate our Conservative vision to Quebeckers. I will remember our heated discussions on Quebec-Canada relations. I will remember all the passion and energy you had in the lead-up to a speech to our supporters. Michel, Canadians, Quebeckers and I will remember you forever, the great man you were, the outstanding speaker, a formidable parliamentarian, with integrity, passion, commitment and love for Quebec. I offer my sincere condolences to Anne, and to your family and friends. Rest in peace. +The Chair: Mr.Dubourg, you now have the floor. +Mr. Emmanuel Dubourg (Bourassa, Lib.): Mr.Chair, the murder of GeorgeFloyd in Minneapolis resonated strongly within black communities in Canada and also in the heart of Montreal North. At a time of pandemic uncertainty when members of our community find themselves on the front lines as essential workers, an event like this rekindles feelings of fear, powerlessness and injustice. It has happened once again in the UnitedStates, but we are not immune to such behaviour here, in Canada. Dear constituents of Bourassa, I know our stories, I feel with you the pain as a parent and as a black person. I know this constant fear for our children. As elected officials, we have the duty to protect your rights and to ensure harmony. We must be vigilant and work to deconstruct prejudice and discrimination. +The Chair: Before continuing, I'd like to give a reminder. To avoid sound problems, members participating in person shouldn't connect to the video conference. There seems to be some interference when you watch the video conference in the chamber and it's being transmitted, so let us make things run more smoothly. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. When the government first starting rolling out programs to help Canadians get through this pandemic, we raised points about some flaws and gaps in the program. The government assured Canadians that it would fix these programs as time went on. Well, Canadians are suffering through both the health and the economic consequences of the lockdown related to the coronavirus. Here we are the first day of June and the government still has yet to address the flaws in its programs; it is still letting so many Canadians down. I have a series of very straightforward and specific questions. On April 20 we raised with the Minister of Finance the issue of companies that had purchased another company not being able to demonstrate revenue loss, and therefore not being eligible for the wage subsidy, even though both companies separately would have been able to do just that. We have raised it several times now. I would like to ask the government when it will be fixing this unnecessarily rigid aspect of the wage subsidy program. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, I believe that a company with a fantastic Canadian history in the member's riding, Brandt Tractor, which pioneered the manufacturing of augers in Canada, is particularly affected by this. It is very important for us that the wage subsidy be available to as many Canadian companies as possible. It helps to keep employees connected to their businesses. Now, there are always some specific issues that can make it challenging for particular companies. I know that in the case of Brandt Tractor, for example, officials from the Ministry of Finance are directly in touch with the company to work on its issues. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, that's the same answer we got last week. It's the same answer we got two weeks before that, and it's the same answer we have been getting from day one. This is a very simple question. The government has indicated that it will change this program to allow for amalgamations. The solution is very simple. It is to also allow for those companies that have undergone acquisitions. This is a very specific question: Will the government fix this program and allow for companies that have acquired another company to still access the wage subsidy program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just point out that the wage subsidy program is working extremely well for many, many Canadian companies and for many, many Canadians who are able to keep their jobs thanks to the program. More than two million Canadian workers are today benefiting from the wage subsidy program. By any measure that is a successful program. Now, for sure there are always going to be companies which, because of specifics in their history, need specific attention, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, reports indicate that up to half of the money allocated for the wage subsidy is going unspent, precisely because this government has left in unnecessarily rigid barriers for companies to be able to access it. It's a yes-or-no question, and the minister still can't answer it. Along the same lines, we asked on April 8 to allow businesses applying for the wage subsidy to demonstrate their 30% revenue loss using other metrics, such as loss of earnings, subscriptions and orders, in order to qualify. They still can't do that today, the first day of June. Why hasn't the government addressed this part of the program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are very proud of the wage subsidy program and proud of the role it is playing to keep Canadian businesses going and, crucially, to keep Canadian workers connected to their jobs, but I have a question for the member opposite. Half of the questions we hear from the Conservatives in question period are concerns that we're spending too much money, that the deficit is too high. The other half of the time they complain about specific companies not getting access to our programs. We know which side we're on as a government. I'd like the Conservatives to let Canadians know what they believe in. +The Chair: Mr. Scheer, you may have a short question. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's quite clear what Conservatives believe in. We believe that when times were good, this government should have paid down debt instead of wasting money like $50 million to Mastercard and $12 million to Loblaws. The fact of the matter is that the government left Canadians in a vulnerable position as we were entering this pandemic precisely because of its fiscal irresponsibility, and now they have designed programs that have unnecessary barriers in them that prevent more and more Canadians from getting the help they need. Again, on April 26, Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account can qualify. Why hasn't the Prime Minister made that change either? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm really grateful for that question because it allows me to set the record straight for Canadians. Canadians need to know that our country has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We had that before the crisis began, and we still do. Canada has the fiscal firepower to support Canadians during this unprecedented crisis, and that is what we are going to continue to do. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, the wage subsidy was put in place to support businesses and SMEs, to avoid closures and bankruptcy. Have I missed something? Is the Liberal Party on the verge of bankruptcy? Is it about to shut down? Does the Prime Minister consider that the Liberal Party is getting ready to close its doors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for the question. I want to point out that, as the hon. member said, the wage subsidy was really put in place to protect workers across Canada. We are proud of that. More than 2million Canadians have benefited from this +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, the Liberal Party made $3million between January and March of this year. That's $3million in political donations. We're told that the emergency subsidy is being used to protect the jobs of Liberal Party employees. I'm not an accountant, but I can count. I'm wondering why the Liberal Party doesn't use its own money to pay its own employees instead of using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I would like to point out again that the purpose of the Canada emergency wage subsidy is to support workers across Canada and Quebec, to help them keep their jobs and allow them to stay connected to their workplace. That is what we've done. More than 2million Canadians are benefiting from this important and truly essential program for our country. We are proud of it. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is moral, fair and honest that employees who have lost their jobs are subsidizing an emergency wage subsidy for the Liberal Party of Canada out of their taxes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers. The hon. member talked about businesses and sectors that need more help. We agree. There is still a lot to do, but we want to work with all the +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, many struggling businesses in Quebec don't have access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy because they don't meet the eligibility criteria. Many tourism and municipal organizations, among others, don't have access to this wage subsidy. However, it's very clear that the Liberal Party qualifies according to the program criteria. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really think it's moral for her party to benefit from the emergency wage subsidy when it has the financial means to pay its own employees? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I agree that there is still a lot to do. We are ready, and we are taking action. However, it's important to point out that our government has already done a lot to support Canadians. We've spent $152billion in direct support measures to Canadians. More than eightmillion people are benefiting from the CERB, and more than twomillion +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, what I understand is not really complicated to understand. I understand that the Liberal Party has money, that it has money to pay its employees, but that it doesn't want to cut the booty it has amassed for the next election. It's as if it were telling us that it's indirectly financing itself for the next election. Will the Deputy Prime Minister show some leadership and convince her own party to give up the emergency wage subsidy and even commit to paying back the money it has already received? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out that our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers across the country, and I want to point out to what extent our programs do that. Eight million people are currently benefiting from the CERB, and two million are supported by the emergency wage subsidy. Our programs are also helping 380,000students and 639,000businesses +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Canadians and people across the world are reeling after seeing the images of George Floyd being brutally killed in a callous and casual manner. We're struggling with the impacts of anti-black racism. Anti-black racism hasn't just appeared or increased. It's now simply being captured by video. Canada is also no different. Anti-black racism also impacts Canada, and people here are feeling the frustration of black lives being neglected and ignored. Will the government commit to tracking race-based data in terms of COVID-19's impact on communities, particularly black Canadians, and track race-based data so that we can have a better response based on the evidence? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to start by thanking the member opposite for his very important question and the very important work he has done throughout his career in drawing attention to racism in Canada and in fighting against it. Thank you. I agree strongly with the member opposite that we, as Canadians, must be the opposite of complacent. We have to acknowledge that anti-black racism is real in our country, that unconscious bias is real in our country and that systemic discrimination is real. It happens here. We have to commit today to working hard to fight it. I have more to say about disaggregated data and the coronavirus, and I hope I'll have a chance to do that in my next answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you for that openness on the part of the government. I want more and clear commitments. We also know that race-based or discriminatory police practices still exist across Canada. Will the government commit to working with provinces to ensure there are no such practices allowed to exist in Canada, particularly related to discriminatory police practices like carding? Will the federal government work and use its powers to end those discriminatory practices where federal regulation applies, and work with the provinces to ensure this happens across the country? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Thank you again for that very important question. First of all, on coronavirus, our government believes that disaggregated data, including when it comes to race, is extremely important. We're working with our provincial partners on that. On policing, racial profiling is unacceptable and unlawful. We will always work to uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to ensure the human rights of everyone in Canada are protected. At the federal level, RCMP members are guided by bias-free policing based on equality and non-discrimination. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I want to change tracks, Mr. Chair, and talk about long-term care. How many times did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government meet with lobbyists from for-profit long-term care homes from March 25 to April 22, during the worst impacts of COVID-19 in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, at this moment I can only speak for myself, and I have not met with any such lobbyists during that period or at other times. I share the member opposite's concerns about long-term care facilities in Canada. We have to do better, and we will. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: It was 12 times during the worst impacts of COVID-19. While seniors were dying in long-term care homes, the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government met with private, for-profit long-term care home lobbyists 12 times. Why did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government choose to meet with these for-profit long-term care home lobbyists instead of meeting with those to solve the problem? Instead of making excuses about the federal government not playing a role, why didn't the Prime Minister and the Liberal government show leadership in calling for an end to profit in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me very clear about one thing, speaking on behalf of our government and on behalf of the Prime Minister. Our government sees as a matter of utmost concern and utmost urgency what has been happening in long-term care homes in our country, and the reports we have received from the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces about facilities in Ontario and Quebec need to be treated as historic documents that +The Chair: Now it's Mr.Rayes's turn. Mr.Rayes, you have the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, why is it that employers from industry, businesses and community organizations that have been approved in the Canada summer jobs program still haven't received the money they're entitled to? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): We are ensuring that the Canada summer jobs program is strengthened and enforced. We are making it more available to more students. We have lengthened the time period that the program +The Chair: Mr.Rayes has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Every day, the Prime Minister makes announcements in front of his residence. I'll repeat my question. Given the importance of the program for our youth who are looking to work, how is it that the organizations haven't yet received the money they need to hire students? As we know, there have been some problems with the CESB. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Our government is working hard to help employers adapt to the realities of COVID-19. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in communities across the country every year. That is why we have introduced flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth while providing more supports to employers. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The minister can say whatever he wants. Last year, there was no crisis and, as of April, all employers who had been admitted to the program had received the money. We are currently in a crisis. The government is trying to respond quickly to the needs. Right now, community organizations are not receiving the money to which they are entitled to hire students, to put them to work and to give them an employment opportunity. Why? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have managed to introduce flexibilities to take into consideration the difficult environment of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the flexibilities we've introduced into the Canada summer jobs program will help with more hiring of youth and more supports to employers, including non-profits and businesses that deliver essential services to Canadians. These changes will help small businesses hire and keep the workers that they need in the Canada summer jobs program. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The young people and employers listening to us must be very surprised by what the minister is saying. He mentioned that the rules are now more flexible. However, it is taking a month and a half longer than last year. The money has not yet been given out. I have done my homework. I went to see what was happening in my riding and in about 10other ridings. Last year, in my riding, all the money had been deposited before April. Right now, there is a $240,000shortfall for about 60student jobs, and the minister has the nerve to tell us that the government has provided more flexibility. Why is the money not available if the government wants to act quickly, to help the economy recover and to help young people? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, indeed we are acting quickly. We are listening to the needs of the employers to make sure that this program works not only for them but also for youth, and that it gives them the experiences they need. It is adapted better for the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that youth have the experience they need to gain life and work skills from the program. It's a great program, and we're making it work not just for businesses but also for non-profits. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Here is the reality. Last week, the owner of a hardware store in a village in my riding had to close his business because he was unable to hire students and had no one to work. This morning, an employer called me to tell me that his request to hire a student had been accepted, but that the delay meant that he could not proceed with the hiring. This means that one more young person will not have a job. That young person will therefore have to receive the CESB. There is the reality. When is the government going to release the money required for young people to be able to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I join the honourable member in recognizing that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic there are some difficulties in terms of structuring the program and making sure that employers are able to access it. That is why we've introduced flexibilities to ensure that employers are able to access the program and that youth are also able to take advantage of the program to gain important work skills, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and especially in providing essential services that serve their fellow Canadians. It's a great program. We're doing everything that we can to work through some of those obstacles. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. By its own numbers, PSPC has had to cut the number of N95 masks the government has on order after cancelling contracts with companies that were not able to meet Canadian standards. We know that companies right here in Canada were willing to step up and fill in the gap. Will the minister commit to making domestic production of PPE, including N95 masks, a priority? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, our priority is to make sure that we get safe and effective equipment and supplies into the hands of front-line health care workers. We've been running multiple complementary supply chains at the same time. Building up domestic capacity is indeed a priority. We have a contract with Medicom in Montreal for the production of N95 masks and we will continue to work hard to ensure +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, Novo Textiles, a company in my riding, has retooled its factory to produce surgical masks in response to the shortage of PPE in Canada. Additionally, it will soon be producing quality made-in-Canada N95 masks using Canadian designs and Canadian-made machinery. My constituent has invested his own capital and is in active production supplying front-line workers right now, not just talking about it. However, the company's application to NGen was recently rejected. Canada needs masks now, masks that meet Canadian standards. Is the government serious about growing domestic production capacity, or is it all talk and no action? +Hon. Anita Anand: In reality, we have received 101.3 million surgical masks that are being distributed out to provinces and territories. We have signed 24 contracts with domestic companies for the production of PPE right here at home. We are working very hard, Mr. Chair, to make sure Canadian front-line health care workers have exactly what they need to fight this pandemic. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, how many of these have received financial support from the government? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'm not quite sure what the member is referring to by how many of these, but as I said, we have signed 24 contracts with domestic +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Where are these manufacturers located? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have surgical masks being produced right here at home, as well as abroad, being brought into Canada +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: What provinces are they in? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as I said, we have a contract with General Motors for the production of surgical masks +The Chair: Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Are there any in any provinces besides Ontario and Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have contracts with multiple provinces throughout this country for the production of personal protective equipment. We are committed +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: How many of these domestic manufacturers rely on supply chains in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a situation of very high global demand for the same product. As a result, we +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Will the Minister commit to providing my office with answers to these questions? Thank you. +Hon. Anita Anand: I will commit, Mr. Chair, to continuing to work hard for Canadians to supply the personal protective equipment that they need. We have been giving updated numbers on our website +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: I'm going to assume that answer is no. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister introduced the Canada student service grant on April 22. Students were told details would arrive in a matter of weeks. It's been over a month, the I Want To Help platform has no details yet about eligibility, levels of funding, or how to apply. Post-secondary students are already one-quarter into their summer break. When can students expect to start applying for the CSSG so they can receive their grants? Thank you. +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to share that students can anticipate more programs coming out as soon as possible. The I Want to Help website will be launched. Students can already apply for Canada summer jobs if they go to jobbank.gc.ca. By visiting Canada.ca/coronavirus, you'll see a suite of programs to ensure that students and young people are able to succeed. The coronavirus will not win, and our government will continue investing in our leaders of today and tomorrow. +The Chair: The next set of questions goes to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard (BarrieInnisfil, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week the President of the Treasury Board wrote a letter to his cabinet colleagues in which he said that, as the federal minister responsible for public access to government information, he has advised his cabinet colleagues of the need for transparency and accountability, even in times of crisis. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Does she agree with the President of the Treasury Board's directive? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Mr. Chair, the government remains committed to maintaining the openness and transparency of our government during this challenging time. The Government of Canada, along with provincial and territorial governments, have implemented exceptional workplace measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, and to protect the health and safety of federal employees. These measures have had an impact on institutions' abilities to respond to access to information and personal information requests, since most employees are now working from their homes. +Mr. John Brassard: Frankly, I'm surprised that the answer is coming from that minister when the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities is in the House, but I will ask this question. Can the minister tell Canadians who Pierre Lavalle is? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Treasury Board Secretariat has provided guidance to institutions to continue to make the best efforts to respond to Access to Information Act and Privacy Act requests and to provide published content +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities tell us who Pierre Lavalle is? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, of course. Pierre Lavalle was the former CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are very proud that we now have Michael Sabia as the new chair of the Infrastructure Bank. He did a fabulous job in Montreal at +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the minister tell me how long Mr. Lavalle was the CEO of the Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can't give you the exact months. He was the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank since the beginning, but let's be clear: Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government and must have +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can I ask the minister how well she knows her file: 50%, 75% or 100%? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, that's quite a condescending little comment. I'd like to say that I know my file very well. What I know is that Canadians want infrastructure built, they want it built across the country, in the member opposite's riding and in ridings across the country. They want cleaner, healthier, more connected Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: How much of the $35 billion of infrastructure money that was allocated to that bank has been spent so far? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, the Infrastructure Bank is a new, more flexible financing model for infrastructure investments. It was set up; it is now in its new phase. We're very excited that it's going to be moving forwardand stay tuned. +Mr. John Brassard: In the context of Mr. Duclos' advice to his cabinet colleagues about openness and transparency, I'd like to ask the minister how much Mr. Lavalle was paid annually. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, as I said, Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation, but remuneration ranges are publicly available. I'd note that this information for the bank's CEOs has been in the public domain +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, I'm asking the minister how much Mr. Lavalle made. There was no answer to that. If it is in the public realm, she should know that. She said she knows her file very well. How much of a bonus was Mr. Lavalle paid recently when he left on April 2? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am not involved in HR discussions when it comes to the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Mr. Lavalle. Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. They need to have flexibility to meet their commercial mandates. As I say, the information about salary ranges is publicly available, but personal HR +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, could you stop my...? I'm hearing.... +The Chair: I would ask those of us virtually to mute. Mr. Brassard, there is about 15 seconds left. I'll cue you for a very short question. +Mr. John Brassard: Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to a table, Mr. Lavalle could have received a bonus after year one of zero to 75% of his base salary, which was $510,000 to $600,000 per year; or in year two, which he was in, zero to 120% of his base salary. How much of a bonus did he receive? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The rate of any remuneration paid to the chief executive officer is based on the recommendations of the board. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation. Let me say this: We're very excited about the new phase of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have Michael Sabia there as the new board chair. We need to move forward on +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Parliament's now been suspended for three months, since Friday, March 13. Will the government commit to reopening the House of Commons with its full powers, with social distancing, on Monday, September 21? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, as my colleague knows, we're meeting here four days a week, with questions on any topic for an hour and 35 minutes instead of 45 minutes a day. Democracy is as important for us as it is for the opposition. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, this committee is neutered. It has no powers to introduce supply day motions, no powers to test government confidence, no powers to do the usual things that Parliament does. At times of crisis, the bedrock principles of rule of law and democracy are tested, and our democratic principles are buckling under the pressure from this government. They came to office promising greater transparency, but they broke almost every one of their promises. They broke their promise on electoral reform. They appointed an anti-Conservative organization, Unifor, to the media bailout fund. In the last parliament, they tried to give the PMO control over this legislature in Motion No. 6, and in the last election, they rigged the leaders' debates in their favour, and now they have suspended Parliament. Instead of this neutered committee that meets for only a few days with a few members, will the government commit to the full re-opening of this House with all its powers with social distancing on Monday, September 21? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, the government's objective is always to try to resume Parliament as it was before. Today, we have to live with this pandemic, but we will do everything we can to return to a normal situation as quickly as possible. That is clear and precise. The opposition asked for more time, especially to ask questions, and that is what it got. I would like my colleague to tell me one thing. Over the past few weeks, we have sent suggestions to opposition members about the operation of Parliament and they have never responded. I would like to know why. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, the full parliament with its full powers sat through two world wars, previous pandemics and the October crisis in 1970. The governments of those days did not seek the suspension of the House. The government is not only failing to defend democracy here but also abroad. It can't utter the word Taiwan. It is failing to be strong and clear on Hong Kong and, while the situation today is not that of decades past, it is clear that Canada in the past stood for the rights of people in Hong Kong. Canada needs to take much stronger diplomatic action on Hong Kong. There are some 300,000 Canadians living there, and they are looking for the government's support. When will this government act? When will it threaten economic sanctions like the U.S. administration has? When will it provide asylum and a clear path to citizenship like the U.K. government has? When will it speak up against the Communist Party of China's United Front workers operating here in this country? When will it do like Australia did in calling for an international investigation of COVID-19, and organize an international coalition of like-minded democracies to defend Hong Kongers and the violation of the Sino-British treaty? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'll remind the member to look at our statement of May 28. It's already done. Canada has spoken to the world; Canada has spoken up. We've made a first declaration with our colleagues in Australia and the U.K. to say that we have deep concerns. We all know that the one country, two systemsthe high degree of liberty and freedom enjoyed by the people in Hong Konghas made Hong Kong what it is today, a beacon when it comes to trade and financing. We know that and have expressed deep concern. Again, on May 28, with the United States, with the United Kingdom and with Australia, Canada was front and centre in saying that we have deep concerns that the imposition of a national security law by Beijing would undermine the very foundation, the very principles that have made Hong Kong so successful. We said that we and our international partners would look at the implications and the ramifications that this might have on our arrangement. I've called for a meeting of our Five Eyes partners tonight. I'll be chairing a meeting of our Five Eyes partners with the foreign ministers. We will be discussing it and will continue to raise our voices to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, and we will do it with our allies. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, farmers have contacted my office about the massive delays with processing the advance payment program loans. Some put their applications in almost two months ago, and not a dollar has flowed. What's the point of having an advance payment program if there's no payment? Can the Minister of Agriculture tell us when these delays will end? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I can assure you that we are working with all the independent operators. This program is not administered by their officials, but by partners. I can assure you that, under the circumstances, they are doing their best to make the advance payments +Mr. Larry Maguire: Farmers understand that some of the delays were caused by staff having to work remotely. However, did the minister approve a policy change on April 1 that made the eligibility for these loans more difficult during the middle of a pandemic, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, a number of changes and improvements have been made to the program. To make things easier for our administrators, we have postponed some of the changes that could have been problematic. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Yes, so some of the changes made it more problematic for the producers. The minister must take responsibility for these delays. Farmers deserve an answer on why she changed the program. Who advised her that it would be a good idea to make it more difficult for the farmers to access the advance payment program in the middle of a pandemic? Or did she just go ahead and do this on her own? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we are constantly working with the administrators of the program. We are fully prepared to respond to their requests so that the advance payments program can best serve our producers across the country. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers are telling me that the premiums for the western livestock insurance program are too high. I told the Minister of Agriculture over two weeks ago that this was a problem, and yet she went out and said that farmers needed to make better use of existing support. When will the Minister of Agriculture listen to what the farmers are saying so they can actually use the existing programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would like to remind everyone that we have put in place certain measures to improve access to AgriStability. We have also significantly improved the AgriRecovery program. Over the past few years, this program amounted to about $15million. It is now $100million for pork and beef producers alone, not counting the $77.5million for food processors. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers in my riding and several across Canada are still waiting for the Minister of Agriculture's promise for an AgriRecovery program. When will the Minister of Agriculture stop rubbing salt in the farmers' wounds and provide the rest of the story she has been saying is on its way for over a month now in her AgriRecovery promise? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have committed $50million to beef producers and $50million to pork producers through the AgriRecovery program. Here is how the program works: the federal government contributes up to60% and then the provinces implement it how they see fit. +Mr. Larry Maguire: The funding announced by the Minister of Agriculture for the livestock industry was insufficient, and what was promised has not been delivered. This has caused hogs to be euthanized and over 100,000 feeder cattle to become overweight. The industry is in a crisis. How many livestock producers need to go bankrupt before they get the help they deserve? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have significantly increased the amounts available through AgriRecovery. It is $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. These programs are administered by the provinces. There is also $77.5million for processors. +The Chair: Ms.Chabot, you have the floor. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr.Chair, we know that not everyone experiences economic recovery in the same way. In some sectors, such as tourism, fishery, hotels and restaurants, we do not know when activity will resume or whether it will resume slowly. This is a major concern for workers, because they do not know what will happen tomorrow. They do not know how much they will be able to earn this summer. Given that the CERB lasts 16weeks, they are all afraid that they will be left with nothing. Without a job, they have no income. Will the Minister of Finance announce now that he is extending the CERB? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly at the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to support workersthose who have lost their jobs, who were laid off, or those whose jobs simply disappearedthrough the Canada emergency response benefit. It has provided immense support to the over eight million Canadian workers who have applied to the CERB. We will continue to support those workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, my question was clear. We know why the CERB was put in place. It does not need to be explained to us again. For some workers, the CERB will end tomorrow morning. There will be no recovery in their sector. Examples include bars, sports training, arts and culture. They don't know when they will start up again. Is the government prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit now? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, the workers that the honourable member identified, including those who were not eligible for the EI, were also covered by the Canada emergency response benefit. We moved quickly. We recognized the urgency of the situation, which is why we took action to support workers and their families through the Canada emergency response benefit. We have processed over eight million applications through that benefit. We will continue to support Canadian workers at this very difficult time. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, are we going to continue to help workers in these difficult times? The answer is simple. Some don't know what they are going to do tomorrow morning. They do not know whether they will have an income to pay their bills. They have families, they have other needs. The CERB is going to end. This is the last period for some people. Can you do anything about it? Can I walk out of the House today and tell all those people that the CERB is going to be extended? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the honourable member for her question. We will clearly maintain our approach. We will look at how we can improve and change our programs, such as the wage subsidy. Of course, we are looking at how we can gradually reopen our economy by continuing to help people to be in a good position. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, we are making progress. Yes, the decision is to extend the wage subsidy. I think we must do the same with the CERB, which is about to end. Another important commitment is the employment incentives. I don't know about you, but we see it in our ridings. People are scared because the economy is reopening in certain sectors. People are afraid to go back to work. People are afraid to go back to full-time jobs because they are afraid of losing all their emergency benefits. This affects workers and students alike. Are you prepared to take action on this issue? You have also promised to implement employment incentives. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that, with a responsible reopening of the economy, we have to look at our programs to make sure that we are keeping and protecting people. That continues to be our approach. We will look at changes and improvements. In that way, we will continue our responsible reopening of the economy. +The Chair: We are going to take a break so that our employees can change shifts without jeopardizing their health. While we have a few seconds, I would also like to remind members to address their questions to the chair, not directly to the ministers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We'll now carry on. We'll go to Mr. Easter in Malpeque. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Brampton North. Today, June 1, under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization, we celebrate World Milk Day. World Milk Day allows us to emphasize the importance of milk as a global food, its benefits for our health as well as our nutrition; and to celebrate the dairy sector, from the primary producers to the processors who ensure that our many high-quality dairy products get to the marketplace. Canadians are fortunate to have a thriving dairy sector that, under supply management, provides high-quality products at reasonable prices to consumers. Even under supply management though, dairy farmers have found themselves facing difficult challenges as a result of recent trade agreements and sudden market shocks as a result of the pandemic. Mr. Chair, to acknowledge World Milk Day, I'd love to be able to raise a glass of wholesome white or chocolate milk, but we can't do that. On the other hand, I must ask the Minister of Agriculture what the government is doing to support the dairy sector in these times so we can celebrate World Milk Day next year with more vim and vigour. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank Mr. Easter, from the great riding of Malpeque in Prince Edward Island. Today it is particularly important to thank families working on the 11,000 dairy farms across the country, caring for 1.4 million cows to produce each year more than 9.3 billion litres of milk of the highest quality. The dairy sector in Canada is made up of more than 220,000 Canadians and foreign workers who dedicate their lives to feed us. While our society lives through unprecedented changes, the dairy sector demonstrates its resilience and proves more than ever the value of the supply management system. It is why we increased by $200 million the borrowing capacity of the Canadian Dairy Commission to improve its butter and cheese storage programs, giving the flexibility to manage the surplus of milk and support its mandate. Over the past few years, we have invested in dairy farms and given direct compensation to dairy farmers through trade agreements with Europe and Asia. We will do the same for the new NAFTA. Raise a glass for World Milk Day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sahota in Brampton North. +Ms. Ruby Sahota (Brampton North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, last week a horrific video surfaced showing the killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of the Minneapolis police. George Floyd's death was the latest in a series of unwarranted deaths of black men and women at the hands of police. Since his death, solidarity protests have erupted across cities in the United States and all over the world asking for justice and a stop to systemic dehumanization of black people. I wish I could say we are, but sadly we are not immune to the reality of what is happening south of the border. The same protests taking place in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris and London are also taking place in our own backyard. In cities like Montreal and Toronto, thousands of people have already taken to the streets, not only to decry anti-black racism but also to ask for tangible solutions to effectively combat anti-black racism. We don't have to wait for pain, suffering and outrage to boil to the surface to act. There's nothing we know today that we didn't already know. As Canadians are demonstrating and calling on their society and governments to do better, can the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth tell us what this government is doing to address anti-black racism in Canada and to ensure we are evening the playing field for black Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the MP for Brampton North is correct. Anti-black racism, racism and discrimination are present in Canada. With COVID-19, we have even seen a rise in anti-Asian racism. We all must speak out against racism and discrimination. Keeping silent is to condone these horrific acts. These acts don't have to be violent or result in the loss of life to be wrong. In fact, the actions of Amy Cooper shone a light on the stealth racism that exists. We must acknowledge inequities in our institutions and in people's lived experiences. If we as Canadians truly desire an inclusive Canada, every single one of us must step up, be an ally and do what we can to make workplaces, communities and public spaces safer. Our government has started this work. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in decision-making tables better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN International Decade for People of African Descent; the applications for capacity building in black Canadian communities are being assessed; the anti-racism secretariat is set up for Canadians but also for government departments to improve their systems, including advancement opportunities; and the recently announced immunity task force will provide disaggregated data to decision-makers because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. This work is by no means finished. Although our government is moving in the right decision, there is clearly a lot more work to do and we are committed to doing that work with communities as allies, as partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Duvall from Hamilton Mountain. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for ElmwoodTranscona. Mr. Chair, workers' unions, business leaders and analysts across the country are raising a huge alarm over potential bankruptcies due to COVID-19. Thousands of Canadian workers are exposed and vulnerable. For years the government has promised to change the laws to protect workers from corporate bankruptcy, but has failed to deliver. Will this government fix the law before more Canadian workers lose their hard-earned pensions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi (Minister of Labour): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for that question and for his advocacy on this file. I remind the member that since 2015 one of our first initiatives was the repealing of Bills C-525 and C-377, which were anti-union legislation. Since then, we've implemented a number of measures to protect workers. We've increased the wage earner protection program by extending it from four weeks to seven weeks. The member is well aware that in 2019 +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go back to Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, the changes the government made last year to bankruptcy insolvency laws were largely cosmetic and won't protect workers' and pensioners' livelihoods once bankruptcy hits. The government can protect severance, termination pay, pensions and benefits from corporate theft, but will they do it, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we made a number of significant changes in budget 2019, including that the process for the CCAA be more open and transparent. We mandated that those who are coming to the process have to be honest and truthful. One thing we heard in the consultations was the ability for courts to set aside executive bonuses, and we implemented all those changes because we want to continue to protect pensioners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for a short question, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thanks, Mr. Chair. The minister isn't answering the question. Canadian workers are worried. This is about their livelihoods. Will the government fix the lawsyes or noto protect workers' and pensioners' rights? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we have made amendments, and we are going to continue to make amendments. We want to absolutely ensure that pensions are protected. I look forward to working collaboratively with the member. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie, ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Twice, following negotiations with the NDP, the government has committed to provide direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities. I'm wondering when those people can expect the government to announce the details of that assistance. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we are committed to advancing on the issues that have been identified by Canadians with disabilities. We are continuing that engagement, and we will have more to say on that very soon. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: I think that answer is entirely inadequate. I have a lot of sympathy for people across the country who are living with disabilities and are getting impatient with the fact that alongside its initial commitment to seniors, for instance, the government made a commitment to helping people living with disabilities with the same kind of direct financial assistance, and it hasn't come. Why has it taken so long for the government to get around to helping people who are in a crisis right now? I want to know the reason why this hasn't been announced yet. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have established the COVID-19 disability advisory group, comprising experts in disability inclusion. We're moving forward with the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide $2,000 per month for eligible students with permanent disabilities. We are doubling the Canada student grants for students with disabilities in the coming academic year. We have done a lot, but we will continue to do more, and we will have more to share on our continuing efforts to support persons with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie. You have time for one short question. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Their commitment was not around an advisory commitment. Their commitment was for direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities who are facing additional costs because of the pandemic. They have committed twice and they have done nothing. When are they going to get around to it? Why should people living with disabilities have to wait any longer than they already have? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, that is precisely why we are listening closely to the COVID-19 disability advisory group to get expert advice. We will have more to share. There is more work to come, and there will be results to be announced very soon. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. McLean, Calgary Centre. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to La Presse, federal cabinet ministers Steven Guilbeault , Catherine McKenna and Jonathan Wilkinson have been handed responsibility for crafting an economic recovery plan that aims to accelerate the green shift. True to form, this cabal around the Prime Minister has declared let's not let a good crisis go to waste. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his ministers have been working with environmental lobby groups for further financial support to engineer Canada's economy post COVID? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, our most urgent priority is COVID-19 and the health and safety of Canadians. As we support Canadians through this time, we will also ensure our long-term economic, environmental and physical well-being. Our government remains committed to building a stronger and more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable, prosperous future for our kids and grandkids. Just like science is guiding us in our response to COVID-19, science will continue to guide us toward reduced pollution and in fighting climate change. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force for a resilient recovery was quoted as saying last week that they would have recommendations for government action available within eight weeks, notably eight weeks when Parliament is, by this government's design, absent. Can the Prime Minister disclose to this committee how many meetings his 61 environmental activist advisers have had with the task force or its members? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, our most urgent priority with respect to COVID-19 is the health and safety of Canadians. While supporting Canadians during this period, we must also ensure our economic, environmental and physical well-being in the long term. Our government remains committed to building a stronger, more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable future for our grandchildren and children. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force is a who's who of academics and bureaucrats, but surprisingly, includes no one from the productive part of the Canadian economy. So much for pan-Canadian input. The task force is reviewing work produced by Smart Prosperity, a government-funded institute whose membership overlaps with both the task force and the government's own Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. This is a bureaucratic environmental Ponzi scheme, with overlapping personnel and mandates. The only thing not overlapping is their funding. How many organizations does this government need to fund to recycle work produced by other redundant government-funded entities? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, our priority right now is the health and safety of Canadians. Just as science guides us in our response to COVID-19, it will continue to guide us in reducing pollution and fighting climate change. Our priority is to support Canadians during this period and we must also ensure our environmental, economic and physical well-being in the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: A notable member of the task force in question is one Gerald Butts. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but can the Prime Minister confirm if this is the same Gerald Butts who was forced to resign as his principal secretary for his role in attempting to force Canada's then justice minister into breaking the law? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of this crisis, our priority has been to support Canadians and their health and safety. We will continue to do so, because it is important that we get through this crisis by supporting Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who was paid $360,000 U.S. by an American-funded organization after he started working with the Prime Minister? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, Mr.Chair, it is important to talk to Canadians right now to tell them that we are putting their health and safety first. We will continue to do so. We are going through a crisis right now and we will support Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who, in his role as the principal secretary in the office of Ontario's then premier, advanced policies that now saddle Ontarians with the highest energy costs in North America? Is this is the same Gerald Butts who weighed down Ontario with the world's highest subnational debt burden, all for the benefit of new green jobs that, notably, have never arrived? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, for the past two and a half months, we have been supporting Canadians. We have put forward an economic program to help businesses, workers and Canadians across the country. We will continue to make the health and safety of Canadians a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the MP for West Nova, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Yesterday, the Minister responsible for tourism, ACOA and official languages was happy to close our national Tourism Week by announcing investments of $70 million to offset financial losses in the tourism industry across Canada. Where's the big clap? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! Mr. Chris d'Entremont: There you go, give her a clap. More than $70 million will be invested to support this sector and promote Canadian destinations. Southern Ontario received $30 million, northern Ontario received $7 million and western Canada received $3.5 million. There's nothing for Atlantic Canada yet. Knowing that we just had an announcement from the Minister of Transport that there will be no cruise ships in Atlantic Canada or anywhere in Canada this year, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, where is the program for Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I commend my colleague for his important question. I know he's a very strong advocate for the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada, so I want to reassure him. Obviously, we want to support the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada. ACOA has a clear direction to do just that. If he has any good ideas, please let him come forward and let's have a conversation. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada will also be supported through Destination Canada. Rather than doing marketing internationally, we will be supporting destination marketing organizations across the country, including in Atlantic Canada, to make sure that we launch this new movement to visit local. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: That would be all great if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic and you can't even cross the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border without having to self-isolate for two weeks. It's going to make travelling, through the Maritimes at least, very difficult. In Saint John, New Brunswick, 79 cruise ships and more than 270,000 passengers will not be giving back to that local community. At home in Nova Scotia, it's about 118 or 130 vessels. In terms of a minimum financial loss, $165 million will not be generated. There will be job losses and permanent closures of restaurants and boardwalk shops. Prince Edward Island, which was expected to have a record attendance year, will lose visits of 97 ships and 154,000 passengers, and $60 million to the province's economy will be lost. Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is this: Who is ACOA going to be working with, and what kinds of programs are going to be available to help them through this very difficult year? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I agree with my colleague. The sector is really impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. It is a bit like the canary in the coal mine; it was the first impacted, and definitely it is still impacted. That's why we are in close contact with tourism leaders and operators across the country. Again, recently I had good conversations with the chambers of commerce all across Atlantic Canada, including Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador for the tourism sector. There is money for the tourism sector and tourism operators. They can have access to the wage subsidy. They wanted to have access to it until later in the summer, and it has been extended to the end of August. They have access to the rent relief program, the CEBA and ACOA funding. As mentioned many times in this chamber, Mr. Chair, if my colleague has clear examples to provide me, let's work together. Let's make sure the money flows to these people, because they need it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have only about a minute left, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, like the minister, last week, I spoke with Simon-Pierre Poulin, the director of Le Franco newspaper in Alberta, about the Sauvons Saint-Jean movement. He asked me why we could not continue to work on official languages and on modernizing the act even though Parliament is sitting in a different configuration. Unfortunately, I had to explain to him that many restrictions were associated with the current format of this fake Parliament. The pandemic is also threatening the protection of French in minority communities. The Liberal government made a commitment to modernize the Official Languages Act in the first six months of its mandate. How will it proceed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that our two official languages are important and that, when it comes to language rights, we must always be on guard and protect what we have achieved. As for Campus Saint-Jean, I am very aware of the issue. I had the opportunity to speak with my two counterparts in Alberta late Friday afternoon to tell them about our concerns and the need to protect the institution from drastic cuts. That was the first point. The second point is the modernization of the Official Languages Act. I have the same concerns as my colleague. Clearly, we must continue the conversations and find the right solutions. Finally, we must be there to protect our language rights. If the member has good ideas, he can come to me to discuss them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for ChicoutimiLe Fjord has the floor. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): Mr.Chair, some people for whom the 15weeks of sickness benefits were not enough before the COVID-19crisis now have to exhaust their regular employment insurance benefits before they are entitled to the CERB. Today, I would like to know whether they will be able to exhaust their weeks of eligibility for the CERB after October3. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we ensured that those who switched over to the Canada emergency response benefit would be covered by it, whether they were EI eligible or not. We are committed to supporting all of the workers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. +Mr. Richard Martel: According to a survey conducted by the Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires' research institute on small and medium size businesses, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region would be the most affected by the economic effects of COVID-19. This is not surprising. In fact, in our region, the tourism industry generates more than $300million in economic activity, including $58million for the cruise industry alone. The $70million that you announced yesterday is a very modest start. What does the government intend to do for the tourism industry in the regions? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that the tourism industry is indeed very much affected. That is why we are responding to their concerns and worries. We have therefore extended the emergency wage subsidy until the end of August. We are also providing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, as well as the $40,000loans from the Canada emergency business account. We have also just announced $70million in support for Canada's tourism sector. I am having good talks with various stakeholders in Quebec, including Martin Soucy from the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Qubec. In addition, we are going to do our part to support the tourism sector through Economic Development Canada. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, the tourism industry in the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is the sum of all its stakeholders. Many of these businesses are too small to receive the assistance announced by the federal government. Overly restrictive standards will prevent some tourist accommodation from welcoming guests this year, even though they will have to pay their bills every month. What does the government plan to do to help the regions most affected economically? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for his important question. What he is describing is the reason we are currently working on a game plan. We really want to be able to reach these small businesses, of which there are many in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean, in Quebec and across the country. That is why the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have committed an additional $1billion to help those businesses that fall through the cracks. We need to respond now, and I will have more to say about it in the next few days. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, I was very disappointed to see that we had lost asparagus crops due to a labour shortage. When I spoke with the blueberry growers in my area, they told me they were concerned that the same thing could happen to them. Some employers to whom we granted summer positions are not finding students to fill them. When will there be incentives to encourage people to work rather than disincentives? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we believe that the flexibilities we have introduced to the Canada summer jobs program will enable more employers to use it, including more businesses, as well as help young people to acquire the necessary skills and benefits from this really important program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Martel, you have about a minute left. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, on May19, the government said that it was studying several solutions to help business owners and entrepreneurs who operate their business using a personal bank account. When will the Canada emergency business account be available to them? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, small businesses are the heart of all of our communities, and we've been working really hard to help them. Almost 650,000 small businesses have received the loan, which is really helping with those costs. We have more work to do to make sure that those other businesses also get access to this support. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Epp, the member for Chatham-KentLeamington. +Mr. Dave Epp: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish to congratulate my colleague, Cathy McLeod. On Tuesday, May 26, she gained a new resident when Brinnley Lisette Huby was born to parents Adam and Carina Huby. Carina is my daughter, and that makes Brinnley my first grandchild and presently my favourite newest Canadian. All are healthy, and I thank God for Brinnley's healthy arrival. Some honourable members: Hear, hear! Mr. Dave Epp: Minister Jordan, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation is allowed access to the seafood stabilization fund, while you deny its competitor, our Ontario fisheries that fish on the Great Lakes, the similar right to apply. Minister, why? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague for the very good question. The Ontario inland fishers and the people in Ontario are eligible for other programs that are offered through the regional development agencies. We are going to make sure that no industry is left behind when it comes to our fisheries. We're making sure that we're addressing the concerns of inland fisheries as well as coastal fisheries. Those programs will be available to anyone who needs to apply through the RDAs. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, will you then direct these regional agencies to provide equitable funding equivalent to the seafood stabilization fund? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we're making sure that they have the same access to programs through the regional development agencies as there is through the seafood stabilization fund. We're making sure that everyone who is in need of support through the programs will be able to access it. +Mr. Dave Epp: According to Stats Canada, before my granddaughter turns one year old, her share of the federal debt will be over $39,000. What is Minister Morneau's fiscal plan for Canada so that the interest on this debt doesn't cripple Canada with higher taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we realize that it's always important to be responsible from a fiscal standpoint. We believe that the responsible approach today is to make investments to support Canadians and to support businesses. In that way we can have jobs and we can get through this pandemic and have a strong economy and be able to continue with our approach to managing our economy in a responsible +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, when can Parliament, or this semblance of it, see that plan for economic prosperity? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been quite clear that we need to be transparent on a daily basis by giving Canadians an understanding of the investments that we're making through this pandemic. Once the situation is more stable economically, we will certainly be coming forward with a broader plan. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said three months before the pandemic that this current government's level of spending and incurring of debt is untenable and that future generations, like my granddaughter, will have to pay for it. How much more debt is the minister planning to incur? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, coming into this pandemic in a strong fiscal position with the lowest amount of debt among the G7 countries is a function of our economy that's afforded us the opportunity to invest on behalf of Canadians. We will continue to take that approach. We believe that's the responsible thing to do through the course of this challenge. +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for stopping illegal American guns from getting through our borders? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question. I can tell you that we have invested considerable amounts of money and have earmarked ongoing monies to ensure that we address the issue of illegal guns passing across the border. We realize +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: What's the budget, then, to fight government-trained and licensed Canadians in the court challenge that's now been triggered? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go to the honourable minister. We're not getting any audio. +Mr. Dave Epp: I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Could I have some more time, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Yes. We're just going to hold time here momentarily, Mr. Epp. +Hon. Marc Garneau: I apologize, Mr. Chair. Could I ask for the question to be repeated, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Epp, what is your question again? +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for fighting the government-trained and licensed people who are now triggering a lawsuit against your order in council? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I don't have the answer to that question, but obviously the government will defend its position. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem of this government's policy of spending the cupboards bare in good times instead of planning for a rainy dayand folks, we're in a storm. Unlike this government, municipalities cannot by law say put it on the tab for the next generation. The balanced budget requirements force them to choose between slashed services and drastic tax hikes. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says they need $10 billion in targeted emergency operating funding, so do municipalities slash services, do they raise taxes, or will we be there for the municipalities? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our government absolutely understands the crucial role municipalities play as the engine of our economy at all times, and particularly today, as in many parts of the country we are looking to restart the economy. That is why the Prime Minister announced just this morning that we will be accelerating payments under the gas tax fund. Municipalities will receive the full amount of their 2020-21 payment on June 10. This will help them with some of their near-term liquidity issues. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Mr. Manly, the member for NanaimoLadysmith. Mr. Manly, go ahead. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is not helping enough small businesses. Many landlords do not want to take part in the program. Small businesses are requesting that they be able to apply without the landlord's participation. Many small businesses do not meet the 70% income-loss threshold. Many did their best to keep employees engaged and tried hard to not lose clients, as the government urged them to do. They are, in fact, being penalized for that effort. Thousands of business owners across the country will not be able to pay their rent today and risk closing permanently. Will the government push the provinces to include an eviction moratorium during the pandemic and make this commercial rent assistance program more flexible to ensure small businesses can survive? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for the question, which recognizes the very serious challenge that many small businesses are facing during the course of this pandemic. We know that the programs we've put forward, programs like the emergency business account, are supporting businesses, but the emergency rent approach, on which we've worked together with provinces, can also help significantly. We are seeing a significant number of landlords and tenants coming forward with this and taking this up. I would encourage landlords to use this program, which is supporting them. Of course, the suggestion from the member that provinces take action in restricting evictions is one that I've been speaking about to ministers of finance from the provinces over the course of the last couple of months. This is an area of provincial jurisdiction. We are supportive and working hard to make sure this program works. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, this week marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and we are currently seeing repression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. We know that Communist China oppresses minority groups and does not respect human rights. In spite of this knowledge, the Harper Conservative government signed a lopsided and anti-democratic investment treaty with China in 2012, the Canada-China FIPA. This Conservative deal gave Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers to challenge our democratic decisions through a secretive private tribunal system. In the years since the FIPA was signed, with no vote in Parliament, Chinese state-owned corporations have been purchasing Canadian assets and resources. These corporations can seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers for the loss of potential profit when our laws and policies get in the way of their profit-taking. Can the government tell us whether any of these Chinese corporations has threatened to use the anti-democratic investor-state provisions of the FIPA to seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: As I'm sure the member will know, Canada is setting up with its allies around the world to protect the freedom and democracy that has been enjoyed by the people in Hong Kong. As he knows, we have issued a declaration with a number of allies we have called upon to make sure that measures remain in place to protect the freedom and liberty of the people of Hong Kong. We know that the one country, two systems treaty system has provided the framework under which the people of Hong Kong have been able to create an economy that is resilient and has made Hong Kong a place where people want to do business, commerce and trade. Mr. Chair, we have expressed our deep concern. I would refer the member to the joint statement we have issued with the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. We have spoken with one voice and we have said we have deep concerns that the actions by Beijing, if they were to proceed with this national security law unilaterally, would undermine the bedrock of what has made Hong Kong, and that we will review the impact that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Manly, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead; there's time for a short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: That was a trick question, because this anti-democratic agreement states that we wouldn't be able to have permission to disclose that information if there was, in fact, an investor-state dispute. Unlike NAFTA, which had a six-month period for renegotiation, the Harper Conservatives locked us into a 15-year agreement with the FIPA and this anti-democratic agreement. Will the government re-engage the special committee on Canada-China relations so we can do a thorough investigation of this Conservative sellout of Canadian democracy +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We are out of time, Mr. Manly. We'll go to the minister for a response. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada will always pursue trade in the interest of Canadians, and we are in the process of reviewing our FIPA agreements so those agreements can provide the right framework for Canadians to trade, with the interests of Canadians always top of mind. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Ashton in ChurchillKeewatinook Aski. Ms. Ashton, go ahead with your question. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. My question is to the Minister of Fisheries. This pandemic has hit Canadians hard. Import markets for our fish have dried up. This is devastating for inland fisheries. The season opened last week, and fishers are desperate for support. For indigenous fishers, fishing sustains their communities. It is their way of life. Will the government work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and inland fishers to develop and facilitate the delivery of an emergency package that works for them and find ways to redirect product to domestic markets, including communities facing food insecurity now? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we've recognized how hard the pandemic has hit our fishers and our fishing sector. We've made available a number of different measures. One of the things we're doing primarily is the harvesters' benefit, which allows all harvesters to take advantage of a benefit as well as a grant contribution to help them get through. We're also changing EI so they can now qualify for their EI benefits based on previous seasons, not this one, recognizing they're going to face challenges this year. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Board is a Crown corporation. We know it's been a very difficult time for them. We are continuing to look at ways we can address the challenges within the industry and we'll continue to work with them to make sure we are addressing those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Ashton, we have about one minute left. There's time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question is to the Minister of Transport. Canadians are being ripped off by airlines that are refusing to give passengers their money back. Airlines are profiting off Canadians during a very desperate time. This government has sat by while the Canadian Transportation Agency issued a statement to back up the airlines' appalling actions. What is this government doing to fix this? Why aren't they ensuring that public funds involve reimbursing passengers and an equity stake for Canadians? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I certainly recognize the very difficult situation and the frustration of Canadians who would have preferred a refund. At the same time, at this point if airlines were required to immediately reimburse all the cancelled tickets, it would have a devastating effect on the airlines. That is why the Canadian Transportation Agency, which is an independent body, recommended that vouchers be issued and that they have a reasonable time to be usedtwo years. It is also very important to bear in mind that as we begin to exit this pandemic, we must still have an airline industry in this country. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we're going to the honourable member for Victoria, Ms. Collins. Please go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, in Victoria housing and homelessness were at a crisis point long before the pandemic hit, but now people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. If you don't have a place to live, you don't have the luxury of following public health advice and staying home. As part of the recovery, will this government be increasing funding to build or buy the housing needed to address homelessness? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, very early in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our government provided $157.5 million directly to 51 community entities to respond directly to the needs of homeless Canadians. We also provided $50 million in additional money to women's shelters. We are continuing with the national housing strategy. We are providing supports to communities and NGOs, as well as municipalities that are moving projects forward. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the federal government allocated just $1.3 million in Reaching Home funds to my region. While the province has stepped up, it cost them $18.5 million to purchase just one hotel in Victoria. The federal funding is clearly inadequate. Is the government going to show some leadership and at least match the provincial funds? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly. The $157.5 million, I must note, was additional money on top of the base funding that we provide every year to address the needs of Canada's most vulnerable. In addition to that, our projects under the national housing strategy are continuing. We are providing leadership. We are trusting the community entities to make the decisions on where the funding goes and to respond in a way that meets the +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Collins, you have about 40 seconds left, which is time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins: The minister mentioned the national housing strategy. This government's national housing strategy reduces the level of targeted funding for lower-income households, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. My question is simple: Coming out of the pandemic in the coming months, is the government going to increase housing funding to address the immediate need, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I disagree with the honourable member. Our money is targeted to communities. They have community advisory boards that decide how to spend the money. If the NDP does not trust local communities to make decisions, they should say so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for Joliette, Mr.Ste-Marie, to take the floor. Go ahead, Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last time I checked, we still had a democratic system and the government had to remain accountable. The government needs to present a picture of the economic situation and a picture of its overall emergency measures. Does the government intend to extend the measures over the summer? If so, how will it do so? The government must also present its working scenarios for the economic recovery. The government needs to be transparent. When will the government provide its economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his questions. I agree, it is very important to be transparent and to provide the necessary information to Canadians. Every day, we announce measures, of course, but also the cost of the measures and the amount of the investments. It is very important. The challenge at the moment is the economic situation, which is very fluid. When the situation is more stable, we will have the opportunity to give an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: In my opinion, Mr.Chair, it will really be too late to do the economic update when things are more stable. We have been asking for an economic update for the past month. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been urging the government to table an economic update in a timely manner. With only three weeks left in the House before the summer, the clock is ticking. The Quebec government will table its economic update later this month. Will the federal government follow suit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, let me confirm that we will continue to be transparent about the investments; it is very important. Of course, each day we work to make sure we have a solid grasp of the economic situation. As I said, when the situation is a little more stable, we will have the opportunity to explain our situation with an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Once again, Mr.Chair, when the situation is more stable, it will be too late to do an economic update; instead we will have to table a budget with the recovery in mind. Speaking of the recovery, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is surprised that the government is calling on the private sector for ideas for its recovery plan. Mr.Giroux points out that this government has thousands of public servants with very good ideas, and he adds that the government can also ask for the opposition parties' views. That would be a very good idea. Why is the government contracting out the development of its recovery plan to the private sector? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to tell the hon. member that it is important to listen to what we are trying to do, and to listen to people's ideas and opinions, not only in Parliament, but also from our society. So we keep listening. Of course, with our approach, we will address the economic recovery in a way that will ensure we can maintain our very strong position. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we are still surprised that the government has contracted out its recovery plan to the private sector. The sooner the government tables its recovery plan, the better. Businesses and individuals would start gaining confidence in the economy again. It would help them to loosen the purse strings and be assured that there will be economic life after the pandemic. Again, that is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer says. Can the government tell us when it will table its recovery plan? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we feel it is very important to consider what we need to do in each phase of our recovery. At this time, it is necessary to consider the public health situation and the gradual reopening of our economy. That is why we feel our approach aims for a safe recovery. Obviously, by gathering more information in Phase3, we will be able to consider more than one approach to recovery. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you. I understand that the exact date for tabling the recovery plan may be difficult to determine at this time. Can the minister tell us whether he currently intends to table the recovery plan in a month ending in ber? If not, will it be before or after that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work with the provinces on an approach to determine the timing of the recovery, and we are also listening to our colleagues in Parliament, of course. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to the honourable member for Abbotsford, Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister continues to pander to the Communist regime in China. We were shocked to hear that his own Minister of Digital Government used WeChat, a Chinese social media site, to raise funds to sue a Global News reporterfor what? It was for daring to expose China's attempt to hoard PPE during the COVID crisis. Is it the practice of the government to support lawsuits against Canadian reporters who challenge the hostile actions of the regime in China, and will the Prime Minister now condemn the actions of the digital government minister? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media across the country and the world. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is not acceptable. As many members on all sides of the House know, WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with the Chinese-Canadian community. Participation in this group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted guidelines and a disclaimer. In this case, the individual who violated the guidelines of the group is no longer a part of that group. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, Canadians have no reason to trust the Prime Minister on anything to do with China, especially when it comes to trade policy. Two and a half years ago, the Prime Minister travelled to China to commence free trade negotiations, and the talks ended up in complete failure and embarrassment. Still the Prime Minister continues to cozy up to the Chinese regime, refusing to ban Huawei from our 5G network or to speak out convincingly against China's oppression in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the two Michaels are continuing to languish in Chinese jails. This is the kind of partner the Prime Minister wants to negotiate a trade agreement with. Can the minister tell us whether at any time during the last six months the Prime Minister or anyone else in his government has had discussions with China about a free trade agreement? A simple yes or no will do. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as you know, Canada has a complex and multi-dimensional relationship with China. Canada will continue to engage with China with eyes wide open. Any work that we do on trade and on all matters will always be in the interests of Canadians first. +Hon. Ed Fast: I think Canadians will see that the minister didn't even answer a simple yes-or-no question, so I'll ask her a simpler yes-or-no question. Is she or anyone else in her government presently discussing or negotiating a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we will always do our work, including any discussions on trade and indeed all of our work, with the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses as our absolute top priority. +Hon. Ed Fast: Again, there was no answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister now assure Canadians that she and the Prime Minister's government will not negotiate a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Any work that we do will always be guided by the best interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I am just flabbergasted. This minister has been asked three times if the government is negotiating a trade agreement. She refuses to answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister tell us why she thinks negotiating a trade agreement with a hostile country like China is in Canada's best interests? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for the question. The answer is no. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure. Free trade is a good thing when it takes place between like-minded countries that embrace free market principles and apply the rule of law. China is not such a country. In fact, China repeatedly flouts international trade rules, illegally dumps underpriced goods into Canada, and prevents Canadian canola, beef and pork from entering China. Is has also jailed Canadians without due process. Will the minister now assure us that our government will not negotiate any free trade agreements with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: We are not in discussions with China on a free trade agreement, and as my colleagues, including the Prime Minister and the foreign minister, have said many times in this House and outside of this House, our priority continues to be the immediate release of Canadians detained in China. We will always work in the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. That is what we will always do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This will conclude today's sitting of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore this committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota) opened the 14th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, noting the hybrid nature of the meeting with members participating both in person and via video conference. The Chair emphasized procedural logistics for speaking and language interpretation for members participating remotely. Ministerial announcements were said to be non-existent, and the tabling of documents proceeded with Hon. Dominic LeBlanc tabling a report on the 2019 Leaders' Debates Commission. The presenting of petitions followed, with members such as Mr. Garnett Genuis and Mrs. Salma Zahid raising issues like organ harvesting and recognition of Somaliland, respectively. + +During Statements by Members, various MPs highlighted different subjects including government responses to the pandemic, community initiatives, and heritage acknowledgments. Issues such as the future of debates in Canada, Bill S-204 concerning organ harvesting, the impact of Bill C-7 on euthanasia safeguards, and recognition of the Republic of Somaliland were brought up. In the members' statements, themes of community resiliency amidst the pandemic, recognition of heritage months, acknowledgment of specific individual contributions, and calls to address ongoing injustices both domestically and internationally were present. Mr. Charlie Angus gave a touching statement in memory of Cree youth leader Shannen Koostachin, who became a leading figure for indigenous young peoples' rights. + +As for the questioning of ministers, there was emphasis placed on the economic impact of the pandemic on citizens and the business sector, including the wage subsidy program limitations and the need for improvement in various aids such as the Canada Emergency Business Account. Hon. Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition, grilled the government on specific issues related to aid programs and economic measures. Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille of the BQ criticized the Liberal Party for using the emergency wage subsidy while the party itself is financially stable, and Mr. Jagmeet Singh of the NDP raised concerns about race-based data on COVID-19 and systemic discrimination, including discriminatory policing practices. Overall, various MPs asked about the government's support plans for citizens and small businesses, the economic recovery strategy, and protections for workers, seniors, students, and specific industries such as dairy farming and tourism. + +The sitting emphasized the need for transparent governance during a time of crisis, with calls from officials for the government to be more accountable to Canadians on its response and planning for the post-pandemic recovery." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wouldn't wanna be Project Manager . {vocalsound} Uh , what we going to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , once again I'm uh gonna take minutes . So , um no presentation for me . 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This uh isn't nothing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Idea maybe uh is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , during the meeting I showed you the concept of uh placing the buttons on top , usable with your thumb , and uh the menu structure , uh if necessary , with your other hand , so it's just gonna hold it easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it has to be acce accessible with your uh other hand too , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we began uh working out a concept . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh well , and as you saw , we would just have the basic remote with the panel L_C_D_ uh screen . Well , these would be the main buttons , h you could uh change them later on in your own profile if you want to . But , well it's standard they will be delivered with this kind of uh set-up . We have the {gap} more advanced menu uh setting right here . We have the sub-menus and stu stuff . We made a top {disfmarker} oh , or a front view . Just so like you wanna uh back view . As you can see , this uh {disfmarker} there , there are uh two uh weird bumps in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This is for uh the added uh effect of uh well uh y youth and dynamic . And uh this is for the artistic effect . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , what we figured is uh we'll show you a picture {gap} later on {gap} you have more b a better idea after that . But , idea is for to stay in balance with these two uh {disfmarker} with these two . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so when you put it on the table , it will just {gap} lay down . It won't {vocalsound} uh roll around or stuff . But it will lie more in your hand like an old telephone maybe , or like these old uh phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Y you you may get the idea . So thi this is about uh how we figured it should be . The s panel we g you would hide with some more uh rubber layers , like we discussed early on . Uh , you would s you wouldn't see the uh straight panel , but more fluidly and round . +User Interface: Yeah , the panel just uh of course goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the overlaying layer is uh a little bit uh curved and stuff . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh , in these bumps you could actually uh {gap} put some electronics uh that would {disfmarker} you can make a more thinner uh design , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that would actually look very nice , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh , about the colour , what have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , we added that this um can be held with your hands for this {disfmarker} maximum is om yeah , one and a half centimetres . So , you have room here for your battery and maybe even other um electronic chips . S and you can just be the the layer of the touchscreen and some {disfmarker} have some wires underneath it to make it as uh thin as possible in the middle for good grip . +Marketing: Okay . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f uh , as colours , do you do you have the picture in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Now , well this is the idea about uh the bumps . Uh , you can see there's a v a very uh youthful uh dynamic uh exterior . It uh {disfmarker} you just want to hold it you uh you are young and uh dynamic like us . +Marketing: 'S l {disfmarker} it's like an uh Easter egg . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like an e but this is for children . We we want a more adult version . But , this is like a remote control for children . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's called a weemote {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . A weemote . +Marketing: Weemote . +Project Manager: Weemote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Hey , that's actually a brilliant uh marketing stand . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait what I w got in mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this actually basic the idea . We we just want to build a more uh adult vers adult version of of this . +Project Manager: Yeah , I can imagine that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and for colours , we we figured starting with basic colours like uh white or metallic grey . Those are the technological colours actually , +User Interface: Yeah . It would be best to to appeal to a broad public and make the covers exchangeable , +Industrial Designer: so it d +User Interface: so the young people will buy an orange and a red and blue and a purple , +Industrial Designer: Or blue or whatever . +User Interface: but when the o older people uh go in the shop and they see uh an orange um remote control , it would be less appealing than a white one . And young people , we think , are a little bit more flexible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: they think , ah I'll buy for a couple of Euros some noi nice hip uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Maybe it's an idea to sell it without a cover , so that you can pick a cover in the in the shop . +User Interface: Well , um I think a cover is necessary , 'cause als otherwise you'll just have the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So , there must be some cheap standard cover , um maybe white or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . +User Interface: that's could comes with it and you can buy , so we can make extra money . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh you d you mustn't forget that uh our target aim is younger people . +Marketing: Oui okay . +Project Manager: Uh , we had decided to uh put uh some flashy fruity colours in it , uh and uh in the survey from uh Milan and Paris uh it uh it came out that uh uh the d the older people are uh more willing to uh to spend money on extra features . So I think uh it will be a better idea to have some uh flashy fruity colours as as a standard , +User Interface: Okay . The other way around , you mean . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and for the people who uh really want uh a more sophisticated , more traditional look , they're willing to pay uh that . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: They want uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want more luxury stuff , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but they have the money to do it and they want to b to buy that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe it's an idea to put that as an extra and not as a standard . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} yeah , perhaps you're right . Uh , I I would I would actually agree with this sounds logical . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: An another idea . Uh , maybe we could uh develop a cover uh with wood style . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They'll please the elder users as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well yeah , a colour of {disfmarker} a wood style , a white c and uh a couple of h hip uh fruity colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And lea uh l delivered standard with a fruity colour , but not too not too much . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Not not too uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: This is banana and mango , not not purple or p orange and yellow . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , the mai I think th uh the standard must be some kind of uh uh attractive flashy colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Or blue or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not too , but w a little , +User Interface: Ah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because that's our aim . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: li like like this like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This isn't this isn't too much , is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I f +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well , the buttons don't have to be uh all uh all of {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} The buttons , +Marketing: Well I I I think so . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , except for the buttons it's {disfmarker} it could be a standard model . +Project Manager: yeah . It {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh something like this would be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's that's it from us . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: 'Kay , it's my time now . +User Interface: It's my turn . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: Uh-oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: During the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} During the design uh design life-cycle we uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we made lot of requirements and trend analysis and stuff . Um , now is the time to uh evaluate our prototype concept to uh to the past requirements . {vocalsound} So we are going to evaluate the design according to the past user requirements and trends analysis . Um , we're going to do that with a seven point scale . Opening a Word document now . Okay . One {disfmarker} oh , okay , uh I have to expla explain something . We have to uh be consensive about about things . So , it has to be a group uh group decision . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: so we gon we gonna evaluate the +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} We're going to vote . We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the the thing we {gap} saw . +Marketing: yeah ? The prototype . +Project Manager: Okay , just saw . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , one . The remote control is designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Seven is false . +Project Manager: Uh , true . {vocalsound} Sorry . +Marketing: Yeah , b one or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , one I think . +Industrial Designer: Why ? +Marketing: Most true ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not just uh designed for people under the age of forty . It's also designed for people above forty . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so a o one is appropriate ? +User Interface: No no , a little more in the middle . +Marketing: Or , more like a four . +User Interface: No , uh three or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two or three , because it's not just {disfmarker} uh the qu question is aimed at is it designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also designed for people of age above forty . So , +Marketing: Ah , exactly . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: I'll say it's about three . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: it will be primary appealing to to m minus forty , but also appealing to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But also for {disfmarker} yeah , okay . Uh , second . The remote control is beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , acco according to us , it's one ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's the marketing uh angle on television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: We have a wonderful {disfmarker} +Marketing: p s Of c of course you have to be uh very positive and uh enthusiastic about your own product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , it's also fancy then . +Marketing: Three . Uh , the remote control looks fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Of course . We have a perfect remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Good . Four . The remote control has big , clear channel switching buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah yeah , oh they have to agree but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Leads to user face , yeah . +User Interface: I'm the User Interface uh Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Daniel . Uh , teletext buttons and volume buttons ? +User Interface: Um , uh no . +Project Manager: No teletext buttons . Teletext is in the menu . +User Interface: You you've different menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , false . +Marketing: False ? +User Interface: And volume is impo +Marketing: And volume ? +Project Manager: Volume is true . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh , hmm . +Marketing: Big and clear ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the they are big and clear . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , big and clear . +Project Manager: Yeah , big and clear . +User Interface: But you could make a teletext button uh six . +Marketing: Hey . +User Interface: Otherwise , the people who read this uh are gonna think we have no teletext button . +Marketing: Hey . Hide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but the teletext button . Yeah , you can ch That's in a menu . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , it's w yeah , it {disfmarker} it it +Marketing: yeah , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't entirely unclear , +Marketing: J +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} So , I wouldn't give it a seven . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a more a five or a six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don I don't know . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: What do you think , uh Mister Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , I agree . I was thinking very black and white . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Black and red . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you J_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , don't forget to save it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . Okay . Volume . The remote control is easy to be found . +User Interface: Uh well , when we put in fancy colours , yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it has these {disfmarker} all these fruity colours and it has a strange shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , if you so if you have {vocalsound} trouble finding it {disfmarker} +User Interface: But , um it it's not making any sound uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: have we deciding ? +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If you put uh your normal uh remote control under your bed , or you throw this remote control under your bed , is it better findable ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll make a difference . We have the better re {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , I think so . My remote control's black . +Marketing: A li little bit maybe ? +User Interface: A little bit , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we p we can do it glow in the dark . +Marketing: Four ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fi +Project Manager: So , if it's in the dark place , you still see it glowing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} K yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fo fo yeah fo five is {gap} . +Marketing: Ah , I I I think five . It's it's {disfmarker} it doesn't really make a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , then uh then I'll go for four . +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because uh four is between three and uh uh also between between true and false . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , but five is between four and six . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so I'll I'll go for four . +Project Manager: Ah , you must see it as uh , w uh according to uh the the other uh remote controls , there may uh uh be there in your uh T_V_ room , this one will stand out , I think . +Industrial Designer: Wha +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B_ . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that's a better question actually . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Exa I think that that's what it's about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: If your uh fifteen remotes in a drawer , uh you find it , yeah ? +Project Manager: If it {disfmarker} if this lying on your couch , you're you're {disfmarker} you think what's that for kinda orange uh thing . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but the survey under users was that they uh really lost it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like , no not uh not seeing it , but lost it in the house or something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Uh , but when you lost it you're just not {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , if i if you see a strange shape lying somewhere , uh then you'd uh recognise it as , whoa , that is strange . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's our remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , mostly when you lose your remote control , it it's under your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . Yeah , I I agree , I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , what is that . Uh , +User Interface: Most of times when you lose it you're sitting on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Eight , the remote control has fresh , fruity colours . +Project Manager: True . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um I would call uh {disfmarker} choose two , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause we decided not to make two f uh fresh colours , as it would not {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , not too flashy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control is made of soft material . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , rubber , is kind of soft . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not too soft we have decided . +User Interface: kinda soft , but but not this {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Three , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah yeah , easy to use , +Project Manager: Easy to use . One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} very afford . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , can it be zero ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} I don yeah , it is kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Top easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not the most easy to use {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , you can do two , because um +Industrial Designer: No . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It can be easier . +User Interface: it can be easier . But then you're l +Industrial Designer: It could {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Jus just with ten buttons , that's the easiest . +User Interface: yeah , but then you'll lose {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: function f yeah , functionality and our fancy uh look , so . +Industrial Designer: Functional ability . +Marketing: Yeah , but the most uh easy to use is just with one button +User Interface: But {disfmarker} It is r it is rather easy to use , because you have the primary buttons always visible . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: on t {vocalsound} Yeah , okay , but easy n not not the most easy to use , I think . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it {disfmarker} I I'll go for two . My vote's on two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . Yeah , two . +User Interface: Yeah , m mine too . +Marketing: We also have to compare it to the uh to the remote controls on the market nowadays . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but waits just a minutes . Inspiration . +Project Manager: What's the time ? We also have uh to do the evaluation , uh the production costs and uh stuff . +User Interface: These are the m regular remotes . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , I'm uh hurrying . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , eleven . The remote control is innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , true , one . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You're agree , Tim ? +Marketing: A very {disfmarker} of course . +Project Manager: You haven't seen a more innovative uh thing in uh Paris ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: The remote control has m remova {vocalsound} removable {gap} from Multilux . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , one . Very multifunctional . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: The remote control , i it has speech recognition . +Project Manager: False . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Marketing: False . +Industrial Designer: it {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is used with speech recognition , this . +Marketing: The remote control has built-in games ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . But uh , maybe make it two , because the games are in a sub-menu and not uh {disfmarker} it's not an entire game . +Project Manager: Yeah , but they are built in , so it's one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are built in . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not down . +Marketing: And the last , paren {vocalsound} parental advisory function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You really like the parental advisory . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Freak . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , {vocalsound} I do . +User Interface: Th did you make this or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: Save as . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , he made it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} It changes it maybe . +Marketing: Okay , I will uh +User Interface: Oh yay . +Marketing: do the the math . +User Interface: Oh dear . +Marketing: Now it's your turn . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , we have now to c uh to calculate the production cost . If it's under uh twelve and half Euro , then it's uh ok uh okay . But i is it {disfmarker} if it is b Huh ? No , this isn't right . Okay so , {gap} . Redesign . +User Interface: If they're under twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , if they under {disfmarker} Yeah . No . Oh yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? Cau 'cause {disfmarker} so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . Yeah , if the costs are under twelve and a half Euro , uh then we uh can uh ra uh move on to the project evaluation , as we have uh experienced it . Otherwise , we have uh do uh have to do a little uh redesign uh thingy . So {disfmarker} Uh , we have to fill in the numbers of the component uh components . We have to uh fil uh , want to uh do it in and uh see uh if we stay under the twelve and a half Euro . So , do we have uh a hand dynamo ? No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: That's zero . +Industrial Designer: Me , too . +User Interface: Battery , yes . One . +Project Manager: Battery , one ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Kinetic , one ? +User Interface: Kinetic , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , solar cells , zero . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh simple chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , n no . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No ? No , advanced chip . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Sample sensor sample speaker ? +User Interface: No , the advanced chip is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip is three . +Project Manager: Three ? +Marketing: Three Euros , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah uh , but it it's one one thing , it's three Euro . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have one . We have one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , one piece , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh , what's the sample sensor ? +Industrial Designer: No , sev zero . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speech recognition , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , you give it a sample , uh one . +Industrial Designer: yeah , speech recognition +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and s +Project Manager: Zero . Uh , uncurved flat . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: A zero . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But is it s it's not made from a single uncurved thingy and then uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Marketing: Thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? Okay . {vocalsound} So it's only uh once double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: 'cause um the layer around it fits around the bubbles on the o on the uh the back of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: three . Eight . +Project Manager: Okay . We're now in a problem , 'cause uh we have uh reached eleven Euro yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , we don't have anything else . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , go on . Just go on . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just go on . Then we'll see uh {disfmarker} we'll we'll see uh wha how much we are over budget . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little to the right ma +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Uh , rubber . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You . +Industrial Designer: Zero . +Project Manager: Titanium , no ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: And zero . Special uh {disfmarker} is the special colour ? +Project Manager: Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . No , this is a standard colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we want to make uh the wood colours , uh that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , this is a special colour . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , if if you're honest , we'll uh type one , special colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but but D but Daniel , tha that's that's another brand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's an add-on . +Project Manager: Yeah , one . +Marketing: That's another article to sell . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we we going to {disfmarker} yeah yeah , that's true . But yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , j maybe we'll finish uh the the list first and then look back , aye ? +Marketing: That doesn't account for this . Producing this . +Project Manager: Okay , the push-button , no . +User Interface: No . Scroll wheel , no . +Project Manager: Scroll-wheel , no . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} No . +Project Manager: No . Oh , no . Yes , one . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , button , no . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Project Manager: No , the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Mm , is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't have a s +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: These three . +Project Manager: no . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , we're only four Euro over budget . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . So , um what's the thing we can change ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Well , other case , we can make it single-curved or uncurved . +Project Manager: Uh , can I uh I say something ? +User Interface: Mm , single-curves . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , can I say something uh as Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The kinetic thing , can we just skip it , +User Interface: Just cut off the kine yeah . +Project Manager: because uh you have to shake it , but that's not really innovative . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , sure . +User Interface: yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we just put a good battery it it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mobile phones nowadays . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Daniel . Daniel , +Project Manager: Yo . Sorry , +Marketing: what do you think about {disfmarker} Here . +Project Manager: yeah , yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think about uh putting a battery in it , but also selling like uh the covers , a docking station +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: just apart from the from the thing , so that you can uh put uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} rechargeable batteries in it and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But you can use rechargeable batteries anyway , just you s you have to recharge them manual . +Project Manager: Yeah , and not really {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} if you forget about the kinetic , +Marketing: Just an idea . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a cost reduc +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: well if we do that , we shall {gap} . +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well you you can go from double-curved to single-curved . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And that would solve the budget problem . +Project Manager: Uh , b but i but the single-curved is just {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , so we have to bake the ba back flat , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's it's just one curve and not a back uh curved I think . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just {disfmarker} yeah well , the single-curve that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: So that's wh tha that's one option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or are these two curves ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then w yeah , and then we could have it , but uh {disfmarker} it's its' well it's it's r it is the main point of the the the the look . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what else uh do we have to cut out ? No advanced chip , uh that's a little bit of problem . +Industrial Designer: We going to cut {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , tho uh that that can be done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh , +User Interface: Although , can we make it with a regular chip ? +Project Manager: okay , a little less uh conversation . +User Interface: Curvy . +Marketing: Hey , those ar arcs , why are there for ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The blue blue uh +Project Manager: Fill in {gap} {disfmarker} Just a +User Interface: Explanation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: explanation . +User Interface: Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I can delete it for you if you want . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no no . +Project Manager: So , if we do this , uh we're on uh twelve and a half Euro . And we're done . +User Interface: Yeah , but does it fit with our design ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh well , the only uh thing that don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do we have to u adapt it ? It's single-curves . +Project Manager: Yeah , single-curved , but there's a curve in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: W Could we just make the bubbles uh cut off the back , and then we're uh has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we just make it flat . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But , you do l +Marketing: But , wha 'Kay , look , what is the uh {disfmarker} If you make it double-curved , it costs one Euro more . +User Interface: More . Yeah . You make it optional . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} No , but does it have a lot of extra uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: Function . +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: fun function more like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Worth , does it have added worth ? +User Interface: Uh , there's an a a athe aesthetic value , but not functionality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's really a static value . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh aesthetic . I mean , uh you make like eleven and a half Euros profit instead of twelve and a half . But {disfmarker} I don't know if twelve and a half is uh a fixed uh fixed price . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well let's assume it is . +Marketing: No , we can't go above that . +Industrial Designer: We we should assume it i that it is . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I figured that the kinetic would be a marketing promotion . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: R if you uh promote a kinetic um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} kinetic remote control , I mean , that would b sell better than an {disfmarker} a normal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? Well , now you can shake your remote {gap} control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: No , well , y I mean uh , y you can go into your neighbour and tell him , ha , my k uh remote control is kinetic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Kinetic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You have standard old battery control uh remote con +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: What a what about all the m the environment freaks ? +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't fit in our co cost profile . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not freaks , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the envi No . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: I I think it's it's {disfmarker} It look like this one . +User Interface: You ma can make an an especialised extra gold version . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Who {disfmarker} because if you want to go to kinetic , you're uh you're on thirteen and a half and you must go to flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think now it's it's more of uh a compromise +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if you make the single curve ha just a big curve , {vocalsound} then it's uh then it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , just one big curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , one big good curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I was going to uh say nasty words , but I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is strange by the way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wood is m is is is cheaper than rubber . We thought that wood would be more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh , this uh American figures . You just cut down some trees . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . But uh that {disfmarker} this is this is it ? Yeah . Okay , this is it . +Marketing: This is it . +User Interface: Whoever makes uh a remote control out of titanium . +Project Manager: I'm gonna save it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but you can't use double uh curves for titanium . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: That's one of the functionability uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well , considering we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah no , we have to do all those hours again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go back . One back ? Costs on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No redesign . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we were above , so we did a little redesign {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We sue . {vocalsound} We {vocalsound} Yeah , we'll start her all o all over again . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um now uh it's about time to uh talk about uh this project . Uh , some uh things . Were there uh room for uh {disfmarker} was there room for creativity in our meetings or in your individual meetings ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . I I didn't think so . That {disfmarker} there was a lot of room for it . But , that's mainly because uh of the information that was delivered to us . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It was just fixed information and get your stuff from there , and I couldn't go on on i on the internet and search my own stuff . Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . That's true . I agree with that . +Industrial Designer: Well , I th I think you two , {vocalsound} uh especially you and uh and uh Daniel , you d you you both had uh the less creative uh roles in the project . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For us , there was a lot of creativity . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I think m +User Interface: We could just sign up an uh remote if we liked . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: I think Jeroen and I , we had a more design {disfmarker} we could have more {disfmarker} we had more room for creativity than than you two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh how about the leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ha . +Marketing: Leadership was uh crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Crappy . {vocalsound} Cra +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah , the leadership wasn't crappy , it was the leader that was crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . No , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} leadership was okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're done . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , example of crappy leadershi +Marketing: No , leadership was uh +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I thought uh the first meeting was a little bit of unstructured meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , you could have {disfmarker} but uh , it was your first , no uh no disrespect or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could have uh structure it a l little bit more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So like , I I was talking most of the time the first meeting meeting , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could of said , shut up you fool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I notice it too . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was a I was also very uh unhappy , uh very unsatisfied uh about the +Marketing: About me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} about the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh I hope uh uh the the the other meetings uh +Industrial Designer: Try to learn from your mistake . {vocalsound} And we will never do it again . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you made up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: get better and uh I think the the last two meetings uh also we we reached uh some good decisions about uh talk {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it {disfmarker} you did better . +User Interface: Yeah , more more consensus . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Ev everybody w was agreeing every {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Much more constructive . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , teamwork ? Well , maybe that's uh only {disfmarker} Yeah well , it's for us , because uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we work together on a project , but everybody has his own task . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah and it's wo more like presentation and some points were discussed . +User Interface: So , it is a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But , really teamwork were you two uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No {disfmarker} Well , it went okay . +Marketing: Two guys . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that went w it went well . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It's it's just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid stupid pen , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No hard feelings . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah , we we had some trouble with the pen , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Now you you must push a little while . +User Interface: Yeah , but but draw something uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but us {disfmarker} +User Interface: D uh just write your name right now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Try to write your name , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: in in writing letters , of course , yeah ? Yeah , normally , uh this uh {disfmarker} the w Block letter sign it , yeah ? +Project Manager: O Just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just write your name in in one line . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: If it's a little bit too small {disfmarker} {gap} bit quicker now . +Project Manager: You can be {disfmarker} you can go quicker , 'cause then it it won't notice it . +User Interface: It didn't {disfmarker} Uh he he knows how it works , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: I follow the Master class for the SMARTboard , so I think that's the that's the main issue . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , so uh about this one you were uh you're dealing with , +Marketing: Means . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um the the the the digital pen . +User Interface: Y well , yeah . Th the i The idea is great , but it doesn't work properly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Digital pen , I thought uh th the first time I did individual work , I used it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But , a and the first two meetings I brought it with me , but I didn't use it at all after the first the first meeting . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I have it working . But , uh yeah , well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not real real use for me . +Industrial Designer: No , it doesn't have that much added value to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nee . As uh as I said a m a c few moments ago , it {disfmarker} I would like , myself , to write with a normal pen , because must um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's almost the same concept , but you can just sim more simply put it on our scanner . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I it's the same concept as the pen , where you f have to download the software or s uh very uh slow . +Project Manager: M yeah . Yeah . And it is still your own handwriting uh popping up in uh Word . +User Interface: Yes . No , and it doesn't give any added value . +Project Manager: No , uh that's true . No . +Marketing: Not really , no . +Project Manager: And uh the SMARTboard is uh useful , but the the pen is I uh {gap} {disfmarker} not user-friendly , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , not user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be it it takes a lot of time to draw things and to write things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and it's it's not very precise . +Project Manager: and that's the {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're trying to m to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like when you do this . +User Interface: Yeah , it may um {disfmarker} Yeah , and tr try to wri write your name uh in a in a normal uh size , yeah . Smaller . +Marketing: Smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , smaller . Just like when you're writing on a letter . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not th the the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} when you {gap} at a foreign audience , you b don't gonna wr uh write uh small . +User Interface: No , a as you saw on on this drawing , just open open this one or that one . It's uh th it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh we had more problems even here when we trying to draw these buttons , it's almost impossible to get clear uh {gap} when you're uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh . Sorry . +Project Manager: But maybe there's some function with {disfmarker} no , it isn't . With uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the eraser was another problem . It w t is is this large . {vocalsound} And when you try to erase this line , y {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I'm gonna erase my uh name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm gonna erase my name there . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a big uh big eraser . +Marketing: Okay . New ideas ? +User Interface: M Abo What kind of new ideas ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Well , the the idea of the touch-screen is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Do you ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New ideas about uh the working of this software , about about the project , about the remote controls or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm , yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: I don't know what what I mean . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Did you heard what he said ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Know what I mean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't {vocalsound} I don't know what I mean . {vocalsound} Oh , I have some figure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: The eva the evaluation , +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: the mm the mean uh number is uh one point eight one point eight six . +Project Manager: That's interesting . +Marketing: So that's fairly uh fairly good , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because what does it mean ? +User Interface: So true . +Marketing: Uh , that uh +Project Manager: All the mo yeah , are between one and two . +Marketing: all the requirements uh are true or very true , right . Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Thank you , expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the new ideas found for uh wi with working with this uh software ? +User Interface: Not really , just they have to improve it . +Project Manager: Not really , yeah ? +User Interface: Uh , the concept is okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it has to be quicker . Uh , it is still opening my programme , n almo almost uh my entire computer is locked up during the process +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it , yeah , just takes too many time . People will still feel the need to to write it quickly on uh a page and not download it and save it , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You had expected it to to be uh more more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: More user-friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause when you use a pen , you can just draw like you d draw normally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and you do +Marketing: May maybe the idea you proposed is uh a screen here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And draw it , and it's it's placed over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that l +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Would be easier . Or at least when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't have to adapt to the technology , just you can write in the way you normally write . And now you have to um keep constantly in mind that you're drawing on this screen . +Marketing: Hmm ? No . +User Interface: And that's a very bad concept . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Ah , very bad . +User Interface: Nah , okay , I I {disfmarker} it's my opinion that I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} I think this is better than regular flip-overs , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's can be saved easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But if you're in normal flip-over {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} a lot of people write text . There's no text option . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And writing text {disfmarker} uh , yeah , you've gotta really do your best to write some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and and maybe some uh functions for uh {vocalsound} uh uh circle or uh a square . You have to draw it yourself now . +User Interface: Yeah . Or maybe even insert picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh some presentation , and you have some f +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or text function . Just t t type text , and that that would be uh excellent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but insert image isn't available ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause then you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Here . Picture from scanner , clip-art . +Project Manager: Yeah , that that can be done already . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: But not the the the the predefined uh squares I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hyperlink ? Hey , what if you do like hyperlink ? +User Interface: With uh W_W_ dot Google dot com . +Marketing: Type type it ? +User Interface: Oh yeah . Maybe {gap} . +Marketing: Re Real Reaction dot N_L_ . +Project Manager: Hmm ? Sorry ? +Marketing: Yes , is {disfmarker} now is okay . Okay ? +User Interface: You'll just make a link in {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Well , that's nice . +User Interface: There's one way to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay , double-click it . +User Interface: Maybe if if you're not using the eraser {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here . oh . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: You're erasing . +User Interface: Something else th Yeah , arrow . +Project Manager: Yeah . Here , that . +Marketing: Double-click it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as you saw , you have a little uh {disfmarker} Oh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , thank you . You can go uh +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: there . So there the the the functionality is there , but it's not it's not ideal , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's it's very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: it costs a lot of time to uh +User Interface: To use , yeah . +Project Manager: to use . And that's a pity , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh if you have uh thirty , forty minutes uh for this kind of things , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we are now with four people , +User Interface: And that's m +Project Manager: but it {disfmarker} well , imagine you are here {disfmarker} you're with the ten people and everyone uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mostly the case , from the {disfmarker} over here with the managements you get two minutes to make your case , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and if you have to do all this kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two minutes of drawing , yeah . +User Interface: You'll rather use PowerPoint and work it out in advance . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And th the one or two things you have to draw when you're there , just use a flip-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: What I really miss also is uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} is a d is a turtle {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: is a decision uh decision system like um {disfmarker} With the evaluation , you have to Polls like , what do you want , a one , a two , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe a a l a little application like uh uh {vocalsound} give your own number and click one two three four five six seven . +Project Manager: Yeah , just like he said with the with the {disfmarker} a screen which you can write , also uh a kind of voting uh mechanism . +Marketing: Yeah , j ju ju yeah , v voting application . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Just a little group group decision application . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh , {gap} problem is , well you can't discuss anything {disfmarker} well you you ca uh you can , but you will discuss a lot less than l like we did now . We {disfmarker} I mean uh w w w one one person s maybe said three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well uh I {disfmarker} we said {disfmarker} uh , no I w th think two , because this and this , and then you can react uh on it . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you you put a three on it , uh just {vocalsound} figure well , everybody knows what I'm knowing , so they'll all just put a two on . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . But , uh you can still discuss about it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it would {disfmarker} {gap} yeah . +Marketing: but but click it in an application , that's a lot easier to process . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , the {disfmarker} for processing part . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The digit . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then uh , I think the idea of one person entering it and the rest uh discussing it , that uh isn't that bad idea , actually . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not that your opinion isn't valued , but but still . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yo , manager . +Marketing: That's it ? +Project Manager: Uh well , just about , +User Interface: When are w +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When are we going to produce it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , tomorrow ? Uh , the costs are within the budget . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: Uh , the project is evaluated . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , before we going to celebrate , uh I have uh a little question which you can't answer , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh there must be some kind of end report . I am busy with the end report right now . You might thinking what the hell was he doing uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What is an end report ? +Project Manager: Uh about all the meetings , what we have decided , a r r a report of this day . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , that must be made , but I don't know , {vocalsound} here is uh standing uh whoa , we can celebrate now , but the end report is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , you ha you have ten minutes left , I uh read . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: You have now ten minutes left to finish up the end report . +Project Manager: Okay well , that uh that can be done . Maybe we can do it uh together . You can see what I've uh {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I I s I will uh put it on a story-board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: You can see it . Because I think it will uh it must be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} You you already made a beta version , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a three uh {gap} with seventy five uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pages . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , just about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yikes . {vocalsound} Seventy five pages . +Project Manager: Well , just a moment . End report . +Marketing: Okay , Daniel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want a chair maybe ? +User Interface: A chairman . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no no , +Marketing: Hey ? +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: you can s you can read it and uh {disfmarker} here here it is . End report . +Industrial Designer: So you you finished it actually , and so we just have to read it and say yes or no ? +Project Manager: Well , this not nit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: read-only . But it's not uh fully finished yet . +Marketing: Five minutes for finishing . +Project Manager: Um , this is about the functional design , the things {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +Marketing: Management Expert , you have to change that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I'm uh {disfmarker} when I said it , I remember I had it here . +Marketing: Marketing . +User Interface: It's a read-only version . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can save it u the {disfmarker} under another name . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Expert , okay . Um about the three functions where {disfmarker} uh which are most used and uh which must uh immediately be visible on our uh remote control . Um , it must be uh simple to use , very clear what to do , and at the younger people . So , this is really about wh uh what kind things uh must be in it and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe um the {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I understand you , I can talk a little bit Dutch . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , you have to put {disfmarker} uh , switch channels uh at the top , because that's the most used function and teletext at the second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oka okay , okay , I {disfmarker} I really {vocalsound} didn't knew that . +Marketing: Oh nay , a volume changing , second . +Project Manager: So , this one's first . +Marketing: S switch , yes . +Project Manager: You go there and you go there . So , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , go on . +Project Manager: Well , maybe I can then do it one two three . +Marketing: Yes , very good . +User Interface: One two three . +Project Manager: If the order is in uh {disfmarker} is is uh important , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the word for {gap} . +Marketing: The order . +Project Manager: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then the conceptual design . Uh , well all the things we have uh discussed , uh the energy , which uh turn out to be uh batteries , so that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , okay , maybe you can add it later that we decided in the end because of the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah , because {disfmarker} yeah . Uh , he here it is still double-curve , the rubber , the flashy , the fruity , the removable . +Marketing: Single-curves . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , the buttons +Industrial Designer: It's not double . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Hmm ? +User Interface: A single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's not double anymore , eh ? +Project Manager: Not double anymore . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Nay but that {disfmarker} this is what um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Was initial , the plan . The initial plan . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the added functions like Tetris snake , it's under the parental control , the touch-screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's uh just a summary of what uh we had discussed uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On thing uh {disfmarker} One small thing uh , the added functions . Uh , was it included in the cost ? I don't think so , eh ? +User Interface: Ah , it's very cheap . +Project Manager: Uh , it's very cheap , +Industrial Designer: It's very cheap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you you maybe you you you you come at uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it's it's not very cheap , but that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's very necessary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: no , but it's a development inside corporation . Like , uh w we don't have to buy parental control . Our own people can make that , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it still has some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it it has some cost , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay , but so we can discuss that uh +User Interface: He'll do it in his free time . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can discuss that kind of things I think with the with the the board of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Of directur or directors . +Project Manager: What's it what's the company called ? I just keep forgetting it . +Marketing: Real Reaction . +Project Manager: Real Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Real Reaction , yeah . +User Interface: You can ask your personal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh anybody uh misses something here about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the end conclusion . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's that's what I'm gonna write b between now . +Marketing: Okay . Still the end conclusion . That's all , I think . +Project Manager: But , i in here nothing uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , the decision to make um the buttons on the top , and the menu on the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: on the bottom . And clearly {disfmarker} Yeah , touch-screen you've mentioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , touch-screen I've mentioned . +Marketing: Yeah , but but the the decisions are put in the uh conclusion , I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Why we decided to use a flat uh L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Okay , this n yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , well I gonna redesign uh something now . No . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Party party {gap} . +Project Manager: Because I think it will {disfmarker} Oh , five minutes from {disfmarker} to finish meeting . +User Interface: Oh , before you change anything maybe you um save it first . +Marketing: Save it . +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: you can select file and export and then those J_ PEG files . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you had the same thing . +User Interface: Well , eight . And we have uh , {gap} another blank one . +Marketing: Example of children remote . +User Interface: Did we change anything ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh wait . Wait . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a new uh {vocalsound} commercial logo . +Marketing: Hmm . That's a pity . +User Interface: Don't save it , aye ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that's cool , Tim . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Uh , +Project Manager: Well , I'm I'm +User Interface: why are only the first five SMARTboard files +Project Manager: I'm going to finish my end report . +User Interface: saved ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , um hereby is {disfmarker} the meeting is finished . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You declare . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I am the one who can say that . Yeah ? Hereby the meeting is finished . Yeah . +","The segment represents the transcript of an interdisciplinary team meeting, including a Project Manager (PM), an Industrial Designer (ID), a Marketing Expert (M), and a User Interface (UI) expert, as they work through the conceptual phase of developing a tech product, likely a remote control, with a focus on design and marketing considerations. The PM indicates they will forego a formal presentation to take minutes during the meeting. The group begins by discussing prototype presentations by team members identified as G_ and G_, following with an evaluation session. The dynamics of the team interactions suggest a somewhat informal or unstructured meeting style. + +The PM, while attempting to facilitate the discussion, appears burdened by the role, proposing to work on the meeting minutes and mentioning the need to evaluate prototype presentations. They also refer to an Excel file that the team must fill in later, which seems related to cost calculations to maintain product development under €12.5. As they engage in product discussion, clear hesitations and confusion over specific terminology are apparent, with vocal sounds and markers of disfluency distributed throughout the transcript. + +The UI expert introduces the product concept, focusing on ergonomic design and button placements optimized for ease of use. As they delve into specific design elements, it becomes apparent that the team is moving towards an innovative remote control with a touchscreen interface. The ID chimes in to discuss the physical design, including the shape, main buttons, advanced menus, and artistic elements intended to appeal to both a youthful and dynamic demographic as well as older users. This discussion includes a significant amount of technical jargon specific to their design work. + +The conversation then shifts to color options for the remote, a topic that leads to brainstorming about the product's appeal to various consumers. The team debates standard colors versus ""flashy fruity colors"" and the potential to offer customizable covers to target different age demographics. + +As the PM tries to steer the conversation towards cost and production elements, the UI expert and ID continue to detail the product's features. They pivot between creativity and the practicality of costs, materials, and design features. In the background, there are frequent vocal sounds that convey agreement, consideration, or pause. + +As the group transitions to evaluating their process using the SMARTboard and laptops, they collectively navigate through decision-making and collaborative critique of the design—a process involving debate over nuances like the arrangement of buttons and the product's aesthetic value. The ID proposes a feature that appears to name the product as ""weemote,"" possibly suggesting a playful, relatable quality for marketing. + +As the session progresses, the PM tries to keep the meeting on track, mentioning the importance of evaluating the design against pre-established criteria and considering environmental impacts and various user requirements. Marketing suggests selling covers separately to allow personalization and generate additional revenue. + +The team discusses the inclusion of additional features such as built-in games and parental control functions, with the UI expert emphasizing the need for a design that's not only functional but also appeals to younger users and is environmentally friendly. + +Throughout their conversation, the team looks into the potential production costs and necessary budget adjustments. They consider redesigning the product to meet cost constraints without significantly compromising the design's integrity, showing an awareness of the financial implications. + +The discussion about their technology usage (the SMARTboard and digital pen) presents a mix of praise and constructive criticism, indicating these tools facilitate some parts of the project while posing challenges in others, such as precision and intuitiveness. For example, the digital pen doesn't accurately capture their handwriting, and the SMARTboard's functionality could be improved with pre-defined shapes or text functions. + +In conclusion, the team contemplates their final decisions, adjustments, and the way forward, realizing the potential of their design yet recognizing the constraints and compromises involved. They discuss the end report as a way to sum up their decisions and rationale. + +The transcript ends with a seemingly abrupt conclusion, as the PM officially declares the meeting finished, encapsulating a session characterized by a mix of structured decision-making and free-form creative exploration within a tech development environment." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . So , uh You can fill those out , uh {pause} after , actually , so So , I got , uh {pause} these results from , uh , Stephane . Also , um , I think that , uh {pause} um {pause} we might hear later today , about other results . I think s that , uh , there were some other very good results that we 're gonna wanna compare to . But , {vocalsound} r our results from other {disfmarker} other places , yeah . +PhD A: I I 'm sorry ? I didn't +Professor D: Um , I got this from you +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and then I sent a note to Sunil about the {disfmarker} cuz he has been running some other systems +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: other than the {disfmarker} the ICSI OGI one . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} um , I wan wanna {disfmarker} wanna see what that is . But , uh , you know , so we 'll see what it is comparatively later . But {pause} it looks like , um +PhD A: M yeah . +Professor D: You know most of the time , even {disfmarker} I mean even though it 's true that the overall number for Danish {disfmarker} we didn't improve it If you look at it individually , what it really says is that there 's , um , uh Looks like out of the six cases , between the different kinds of , uh , matching conditions {pause} out of the six cases , there 's basically , um , a couple where it stays about the same , uh , three where it gets better , and one where it gets worse . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , go ahead . +PhD A: Y Actually , uh , um , for the Danish , there 's still some kind of mystery because , um , um , when we use the straight features , we are not able to get these nice number with the ICSI OGI one , I mean . We don't have this ninety - three seventy - eight , we have eight +PhD E: Eighty - nine forty - four . +PhD A: yeah . Uh , so , uh , that 's probably something wrong with the features that we get from OGI . Uh , and Sunil is working on {disfmarker} on trying to {disfmarker} to check everything . +Professor D: Oh , and {disfmarker} and we have a little time on that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} actually so +PhD A: Hmm ? +Professor D: We have a little bit of time on that , actually . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: We have a day or so , so When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you folks leave ? +PhD A: Uh , Sunday . +Professor D: Sunday ? So So , uh Yeah , until Saturday midnight , or something , we have W we {disfmarker} we have time , yeah . Well , that would be good . That 'd be good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Uh , and , you know , i u when whenever anybody figures it out they should also , for sure , email Hynek because Hynek will be over there {vocalsound} telling people {vocalsound} what we did , so he should know . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Good , OK . So , um So , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll hold off on that a little bit . I mean , even with these results as they are , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not that bad . But {disfmarker} but , uh , um And it looks like the overall result as they are now , even without , you know , any {disfmarker} any bugs being fixed is that , uh , on the {disfmarker} the other tasks , we had this average of , uh , forty uh {disfmarker} nine percent , or so , improvement . And here we have somewhat better than that than the Danish , and somewhat worse than that on the German , but I mean , it sounds like , uh , one way or another , the methods that we 're doing can reduce the error rate from {disfmarker} from mel ceptrum {pause} down by , you know {pause} a fourth of them to , uh , a half of them . Somewhere in there , depending on the {pause} exact case . So So that 's good . I mean , I think that , uh , one of the things that Hynek was talking about was understanding what was in the other really good proposals and {disfmarker} and trying to see if what should ultimately be proposed is some , uh , combination of things . Um , if , uh {disfmarker} Cuz there 's things that they are doing {pause} there that we certainly are not doing . And there 's things that we 're doing that {pause} they 're not doing . And {disfmarker} and they all seem like good things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: How much {disfmarker} how much better was the best system than ours ? +Professor D: So Well , we don't know yet . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , first place , there 's still this thing to {disfmarker} to work out , and second place {disfmarker} second thing is that the only results that we have so far from before were really development set results . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: So , I think in this community that 's of interest . It 's not like everything is being pinned on the evaluation set . But , um , for the development set , our best result was a little bit short of fifty percent . And the best result of any system was about fifty - four , where these numbers are the , uh , relative , uh , reduction in , uh , word error rate . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: And , um , the other systems were , uh , somewhat lower than that . There was actually {disfmarker} there was much less of a huge range than there was in Aurora one . In Aurora one there were {disfmarker} there were systems that ba basically didn't improve things . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And here the {disfmarker} the worst system {pause} still reduced the error rate by thirty - three percent , or something , in development set . +PhD C: Oh , wow . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so , you know , sort of everybody is doing things between , well , roughly a third of the errors , and half the errors being eliminated , {vocalsound} uh , and varying on different test sets and so forth . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So I think Um {pause} It 's probably a good time to look at what 's really going on and seeing if there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a way to combine the best ideas while at the same time not blowing up the amount of , uh , resources used , cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's critical for this {disfmarker} this test . +PhD C: Do we know anything about {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who 's was it that had the lowest on the dev set ? +Professor D: Um , uh , the , uh , the there were two systems that were put forth by a combination of {disfmarker} of , uh , French Telecom and Alcatel . And , um they {disfmarker} they differed in some respects , but they e em one was called the French Telecom Alcatel System the other was called the Alcatel French Telecom System , {vocalsound} uh , which is the biggest difference , I think . But {disfmarker} but there 're {disfmarker} there 're {disfmarker} there 're some other differences , too . Uh , and {disfmarker} and , uh , they both did very well , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: you know ? So , {vocalsound} um , my impression is they also did very well on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the , uh , evaluation set , but , um , I {disfmarker} I we haven't seen {disfmarker} you 've - you haven't seen any final results for that +PhD C: And they used {disfmarker} the main thing that {disfmarker} that they used was spectral subtraction ? +Professor D: yeah . +PhD C: Or +Professor D: There is a couple pieces to it . There 's a spectral subtraction style piece {disfmarker} it was basically , you know , Wiener filtering . And then {disfmarker} then there was some p some modification of the cepstral parameters , where they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , actually , something that 's close to cepstral mean subtraction . But , uh , the way the mean is adapted {disfmarker} um , it 's signal dependent . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , uh So , basically , the mean is adapted during speech and not during silence . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's very close to {disfmarker} to cepstral mean subtraction . +Professor D: But some people have done {vocalsound} {pause} exactly that sort of thing , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's not {disfmarker} To {disfmarker} to look in {pause} speech only , to try to m to measure these things during speech , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: that 's p that 's not that uncommon . But i it it {disfmarker} so it looks like they did some {disfmarker} some , uh , reasonable things , uh , and they 're not things that we did , precisely . We did unreasonable things , {vocalsound} which {disfmarker} because we like to try strange things , and {disfmarker} and , uh , and our things worked too . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And so , um , uh , it 's possible that some combination of these different things that were done would be the best thing to do . But the only caveat to that is that everybody 's being real conscious of how much memory and how much CPU they 're using +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: because these , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , standards are supposed to go on cell phones with m moderate resources in both respects . +PhD C: Did anybody , uh , do anything with the models as a {disfmarker} an experiment ? Or +Professor D: Uh , they didn't report it , if they did . +PhD C: N nobody reported it ? +Professor D: Yeah . I think everybody was focused elsewhere . Um , now , one of the things that 's nice about what we did is , we do have a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a filtering , which leads to a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a reduction in the bandwidth in the modulation spectrum , which allows us to downsample . So , uh , as a result of that we have a reduced , um , transmission rate for the bits . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was misreported the first time out . It {disfmarker} it said the same amount because for convenience sake in the particular way that this is being tested , uh , they were repeating the packets . So it was {disfmarker} they were s they {disfmarker} they had twenty - four hundred bits per second , but they were literally creating forty - eight hundred bits per second , {vocalsound} um , even though y it was just repeated . +PhD C: Oh . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: So , uh , in practice +PhD C: So you could 've had a repeat count in there or something . +Professor D: Well , n I mean , this was just a ph phoney thing just to {disfmarker} to fit into the {disfmarker} the software that was testing the errors {disfmarker} channel errors and so on . +PhD C: Oh . Oh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so in reality , if you put this {disfmarker} this system in into , uh , the field , it would be twenty - four hundred bits per second , not forty - eight hundred . So , um , so that 's a nice feature of what {disfmarker} what we did . Um , but , um , well , we still have to see how it all comes out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Um , and then there 's the whole standards process , which is another thing altogether . +PhD C: When is the development set {disfmarker} I mean , the , uh , uh , test set results due ? Like the day before you leave or something ? +Professor D: Uh , probably the day after they leave , but we 'll have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll have to stop it the day before {comment} we leave . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . So +PhD C: Huh . +Professor D: I think tha I think the {disfmarker} the meeting is on the thirteenth or something . +PhD A: Yeah , this Tuesday , yeah . +Professor D: And , uh , they , uh Right . And the {disfmarker} the , uh , results are due like the day before the meeting or something . So +PhD A: Yeah , probably , well +Professor D: I th I think {disfmarker} I I think they are , +PhD A: Yeah , well +Professor D: yeah . So {pause} {vocalsound} um , since we have a bit farther to travel than {vocalsound} some of the others , {vocalsound} uh , we 'll have to get done a little quicker . But , um , I mean , it 's just tracing down these bugs . I mean , just exactly this sort of thing of , you know , why {disfmarker} why these features seem to be behaving differently , uh , in California than in Oregon . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Might have something to do with electricity shortage . Uh , we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't have enough electrons here and Uh , but , um Uh , I think , you know , the main reason for having {disfmarker} I mean , it only takes w to run the {disfmarker} the two test sets in {disfmarker} just in computer time is just a day or so , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: So +PhD A: it 's very short interval . +Professor D: yeah . So , I think the who the whole reason for having as long as we have , which was {pause} like a week and a half , is {disfmarker} is because of bugs like that . So Huh So , we 're gonna end up with these same kind of sheets that have the {pause} the percentages and so on just for the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so there are two more columns in the sheets , +Professor D: Oh , I guess it 's the same sheets , +PhD A: two . Yeah , it 's the same sheets , +Professor D: yeah , yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: just with the missing columns filled in . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 'll be good . So , I 'll dis I 'll disregard these numbers . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD A: So , Hynek will try to push for trying to combine , uh , different things ? Or Hmm ? +Professor D: Uh , well that 's {pause} um yeah I mean , I think the question is "" Is there {disfmarker} is there some advantage ? "" I mean , you could just take the best system and say that 's the standard . But the thing is that if different systems are getting at good things , um , a again within the constraint of the resources , if there 's something simple that you can do Now for instance , uh , it 's , I think , very reasonable to have a standard for the terminal 's side and then for the server 's side say , "" Here 's a number of things that could be done . "" So , um , everything that we did could probably just be added on to what Alcatel did , and i it 'd probably work pretty well with them , too . So , um , uh , that 's one {disfmarker} one aspect of it . And then on the terminal 's side , I don't know how much , um , memory and {disfmarker} and CPU it takes , but it seems like the filtering {pause} Uh , I mean , the VAD stuff they both had , right ? And , um , so {disfmarker} and they both had some kind of on - line normalization , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +Professor D: Of sorts , yeah ? So {disfmarker} so , it seems like the main different there is the {disfmarker} is the , uh , filtering . And the filtering {disfmarker} I think if you can {disfmarker} shouldn't take a lot of memory to do that Uh , and I also wouldn't think the CPU , uh , would be much either for that part . So , if you can {disfmarker} if you can add those in {pause} um {pause} then , uh , you can cut the data rate in half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So it seems like the right thing to do is to {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the terminal 's side , take what they did , if it {disfmarker} if it does seem to generalize well to German and Danish , uh , take what they did add in a filter , and add in some stuff on the server 's side and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and that 's probably a reasonable standard . Um {pause} Uh +PhD A: They are working on this already ? Because {disfmarker} yeah , Su - Sunil told me that he was trying already to put some kind of , uh , filtering in the {vocalsound} {pause} France Telecom . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what That would be ideal {disfmarker} would be is that they could , you know , they could actually show that , in fact , a combination of some sort , {vocalsound} uh , would work even better than what {disfmarker} what any of the systems had . And , um , then it would {disfmarker} it would , uh {pause} be something to {disfmarker} to discuss in the meeting . But , uh , not clear what will go on . Um , I mean , on the one hand , um , sometimes people are just anxious to get a standard out there . I mean , you can always have another standard after that , but {vocalsound} this process has gone on for a while on {disfmarker} already and {disfmarker} and people might just wanna pick something and say , "" OK , this is it . "" And then , that 's a standard . Uh , standards are always optional . It 's just that , uh , if you disobey them , then you risk not being able to sell your product , or {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} um And people often work on new standards while an old standard is in place and so on . So it 's not final even if they declared a standard . The other hand , they might just say they just don't know enough yet to {disfmarker} to declare a standard . So you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you will be {disfmarker} you will become experts on this and know more {disfmarker} far more than me about the tha this particular standards process once you {disfmarker} you go to this meeting . So , be interested in hearing . So , uh , I 'd be , uh , interested in hearing , uh , your thoughts now I mean you 're almost done . I mean , you 're done in the sense that , um , you may be able to get some new features from Sunil , and we 'll re - run it . Uh , but other than that , you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically done , right ? So , uh , I 'm interested in hearing {disfmarker} hearing your thoughts about {pause} where you think we should go from this . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , we tried a lot of things in a hurry , and , uh , if we can back off from this now and sort of take our time with something , and not have doing things quickly be quite so much the constraint , what {disfmarker} what you think would be the best thing to do . +PhD A: Uh , well Hmm Well , first , uh , to really have a look at {disfmarker} at the speech {pause} {vocalsound} from these databases because , well , we tried several thing , but we did not really look {vocalsound} at what what 's happening , and {vocalsound} where is the noise , and +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Eh +Professor D: It 's a novel idea . Look at the data . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Or more generally , I guess , what {disfmarker} what is causing the degradation . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Actually , there is one thing that {disfmarker} well {pause} Um , generally we {disfmarker} we think that {vocalsound} most of the errors are within phoneme classes , and so I think it could be interesting to {disfmarker} to see if it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's still true when we add noise , and {vocalsound} so we have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess the confusion ma the confusion matrices are very different when {disfmarker} when we have noise , and when it 's clean speech . And probably , there is much more {pause} between classes errors for noisy speech . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} so , um Yeah , so perhaps we could have a {disfmarker} a large gain , eh , just by looking at improving the , uh , recognition , not of phonemes , but of phoneme classes , simply . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} which is a s a s a simpler problem , perhaps , but {disfmarker} which is perhaps important for noisy speech . +Professor D: The other thing that strikes me , just looking at these numbers is , just taking the best cases , I mean , some of these , of course , even with all of our {disfmarker} our wonderful processing , still are horrible kinds of numbers . But just take the best case , the well - matched {pause} uh , German case after {disfmarker} er well - matched Danish after we {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: the kind of numbers we 're getting are about eight or nine {pause} uh {pause} p percent {pause} error {pause} per digit . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: This is obviously not usable , +PhD A: No . +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Sure . +Professor D: I mean , if you have ten digits for a phone number {comment} I mean , every now and then you 'll get it right . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , {vocalsound} um So , I mean , the other thing is that , uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a and {disfmarker} and also , um {pause} part of what 's nice about this is that this is , uh , {vocalsound} um {pause} a realistic {disfmarker} almost realistic database . I mean , it 's still not people who are really trying to accomplish something , but {disfmarker} but , uh , within the artificial setup , it isn't noise artificially added , you know , simulated , uh , additive noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's real noise condition . And , um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training {disfmarker} the training , I guess , is always done on the close talking +PhD A: No , actually {disfmarker} actually the well - matched condition {pause} is {pause} still quite di still quite difficult . +Professor D: No ? +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} they have all these data from the close mike and from the distant mike , {vocalsound} from different driving condition , open window , closed window , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and they take all of this and they take seventy percent , I think , for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , training is done {vocalsound} on different conditions and different microphones , and testing also is done {pause} on different microphone and conditions . So , probably if we only take the close microphones , {vocalsound} I guess the results should be much much better than this . +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Oh , OK , +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: that explains it partially . Wha - what about i in {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} there is this , the mismatched is , um {pause} the same kind of thing , +Professor D: go ahead . +PhD A: but {pause} the driving conditions , I mean the speed and the kind of road , is different for training and testing , is that right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: And the last condition is close microphone for training and distant for testing . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , OK , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s so {disfmarker} +Professor D: so I see . So , yeah , so the high {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} so the highly mismatched {vocalsound} case {pause} is in some sense a good model for what we 've been , you know , typically talking about when we talk about additive noise in {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} and i i k it does correspond to a realistic situation in the sense that , {vocalsound} um , people might really be trying to , uh , call out telephone numbers or some or something like that , in {disfmarker} in their cars +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and they 're trying to connect to something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um +PhD A: Actually , yeah , it 's very close to clean speech training because , well , because the close microphone {vocalsound} and noisy speech testing , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah . And the well - matched condition {pause} is what you might imagine that you might be able to approach , if you know that this is the application . You 're gonna record a bunch on people in cars and so forth , and do these training . And then , uh , when y you sell it to somebody , they will be a different person with a different car , and so on . So it 's {disfmarker} this is a an optim somewhat optimistic view on it , uh , so , you know , the real thing is somewhere in between the two . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , uh , but +PhD A: But the {disfmarker} I mean , the {pause} th th +Professor D: Even the optimistic one is +PhD A: it doesn't work . +Professor D: Yeah , +PhD A: It {disfmarker} +Professor D: right . Right , it doesn't work . So , in a way , that 's , you know , that 's sort of the dominant thing is that even , say on the development set stuff that we saw , the , uh , the numbers that , uh , that Alcatel was getting when choosing out the best single numbers , {vocalsound} it was just {disfmarker} you know , it wasn't good enough for {disfmarker} for {pause} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} for a real system . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , {vocalsound} um So , uh , we still have stuff to do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , and , uh I don't know So , looking at the data , where , you know {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's th what 's characteristic i e yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing . Does a any you have any thoughts about what else {vocalsound} y you 're thinking that you didn't get to that you would like to do if you had more time ? Uh +PhD E: Oh , f a lot of thing . Because we trying a lot of s {pause} thing , and we doesn't work , {vocalsound} we remove these . Maybe {vocalsound} we trying again with the articulatory feature . I don't know exactly because we tried {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} one experiment that doesn't work . Um , forgot it , something {pause} I don't know exactly +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , tsk {comment} {vocalsound} maybe do better some step the general , {vocalsound} eh , diagram . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I don't know exactly s to think what we can improve . +Professor D: Yeah , cuz a lot of time it 's true , there were a lot of times when we 've tried something and it didn't work right away , even though we had an intuition that there should be something there . And so then we would just stop it . Um And , uh , one of the things {disfmarker} I don't remember the details on , but I remember at some point , when you were working with a second stream , and you tried a low - pass filtering to cepstrum , in some case you got {disfmarker} +PhD E: MSG Yeah . +Professor D: Well , but it was {comment} an MSG - like thing , but it wasn't MSG , right ? Uh , you {disfmarker} y I think in some case you got some little improvement , but it was , you know , sort of a small improvement , and it was a {disfmarker} a big added complication , so you dropped it . But , um , that was just sort of one try , right ? You just took one filter , threw it there , +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: right ? And it seems to me that , um , if that is an important idea , which , you know , might be , that one could work at it for a while , as you 're saying . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor D: And , uh Uh , and you had , you know , you had the multi - band things also , and , you know , there was issue of that . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: Um , Barry 's going to be , uh , continuing working on multi - band things as well . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We were just talking about , um , {vocalsound} some , uh , some work that we 're interested in . Kind of inspired by the stuff by Larry Saul with the , uh {pause} uh , learning articulatory feature in {disfmarker} I think , in the case of his paper {disfmarker} with sonorance based on , uh , multi - band information where you have a {disfmarker} a combination of gradient learning an and , uh , EM . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um , and {pause} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um , so , I think that , you know , this is a , uh {disfmarker} this is a neat data set . Um , and then , uh , as we mentioned before , we also have the {disfmarker} the new , uh , digit set coming up from recordings in this room . So , there 's a lot of things to work with . Um and , uh what I like about it , in a way , is that , uh , the results are still so terrible . Uh {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} I mean , they 're much better than they were , you know . We 're talking about thirty to sixty percent , uh , error rate reduction . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really great stuff to {disfmarker} to do that in relatively short time . But even after that it 's still , you know , so poor that {disfmarker} that , uh , no one could really use it . So , um I think that 's great that {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} and y also because again , it 's not something {disfmarker} sometimes we 've gotten terrible results by taking some data , and artificially , you know , convolving it with some room response , or something {disfmarker} we take a very {disfmarker} Uh , at one point , uh , Brian and I went downstairs into the {disfmarker} the basement where it was {disfmarker} it was in a hallway where it was very reverberant and we {disfmarker} we made some recordings there . And then we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , made a simulation of the {disfmarker} of the room acoustics there and {disfmarker} and applied it to other things , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and uh But it was all pretty artificial , and {disfmarker} and , you know , how often would you really try to have your most crucial conversations in this very reverberant hallway ? Um {pause} So , uh {pause} This is what 's nice about the Aurora data and the data here , is that {disfmarker} is that it 's sort of a realistic room situation {pause} uh , acoustics {disfmarker} acoustic situation , both terms in noise and reflections , and so on and n n And , uh , uh , with something that 's still relatively realistic , it 's still very very hard to do very well . So Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so d well Actually , this is {disfmarker} tha that 's why we {disfmarker} well , it 's a different kind of data . We 're not {disfmarker} we 're not used to work with this kind of data . That 's why we should have a loo more closer look at what 's going on . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Yeah . So this would be the first thing , and then , of course , try to {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} kind of debug what was wrong , eh , when we do Aurora test on the MSG {pause} particularly , and on the multi - band . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . No , I {disfmarker} I think there 's lots of {disfmarker} lots of good things to do with this . So Um So let 's {disfmarker} I guess {pause} You were gonna say something else ? Oh , OK . What do you think ? +PhD C: About +Professor D: Anything +PhD C: About other experiments ? Uh , now , I 'm interested in , um , uh {pause} looking at the experiments where you use , um {pause} uh , data from multiple languages to train the neural net . And I don't know how far , or if you guys even had a chance to try that , but {pause} that would be some it 'd be interesting to me . +PhD A: Yeah , but +Professor D: S b +PhD A: Again , it 's the kind of {disfmarker} of thing that , uh , we were thin thinking {disfmarker} thinking that it would work , but it didn't work . And , eh , so there is kind of {disfmarker} of {pause} not a bug , but something wrong in what we are doing , perhaps . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +PhD A: Uh , something wrong , perhaps in the {disfmarker} just in the {disfmarker} the fact that the labels are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: well +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What worked best is the hand - labeled data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Uh , so , yeah . I don't know if we can get some hand - labeled data from other languages . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It 's not so easy to find . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: But {pause} that would be something interesting t to {disfmarker} to see . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Also , uh , {vocalsound} I mean , there was just the whole notion of having multiple nets that were trained on different data . So one form of different data was {disfmarker} is from different languages , but the other Well , i in fact , uh , m in those experiments it wasn't so much combining multiple nets , it was a single net that had different +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So , first thing is would it be better if they were multiple nets , for some reason ? Second thing is , never mind the different languages , just having acoustic conditions rather than training them all up in one , would it be helpful to have different ones ? So , um That was a question that was kind of raised by Mike Shire 's thesis , and on {disfmarker} in that case in terms of reverberation . Right ? That {disfmarker} that sometimes it might be better to do that . But , um , {vocalsound} I don't think we know for sure . So , um Right . So , next week , we , uh , won't meet because you 'll be in Europe . Whe - when are you two getting back ? +PhD E: Um , I 'm +PhD A: You on Friday or S on Saturday or {pause} ? +PhD E: Sunday +PhD A: S oh yeah , Sunday , yeah . +PhD E: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's less expensive , the price {disfmarker} the price the ticket . +PhD C: +Professor D: Yeah , that 's right . You 've gotta S have a Saturday overnight , right ? +PhD A: I 'll be back on Tuesday . +Professor D: Tuesday . +PhD C: Where {disfmarker} where 's the meeting ? +Professor D: Uh , Amsterdam , I think , yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah , Amsterdam . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yep . Um {pause} So , we 'll skip next week , and we 'll meet two weeks from now . And , uh , I guess the main topic will be , uh , you telling us what happened . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , so Yeah , well , if we don't have an anything else to discuss , we should , uh , turn off the machine and then say the real nasty things . +PhD C: Should we do digits first ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , yeah , digits . +Professor D: Oh yeah , digits ! Yeah . Good point . Yeah , good thinking . Why don't you go ahead . +PhD C: OK . OK . +","Professor D received results from Stephane and is waiting for more results to compare. Professor D and PhD A discussed issues with Danish during a research meeting. They discussed the varying success with different methods and the necessity to debug and review the data closely. They considered combining the best ideas from different approaches and maintaining resource efficiency for standard implementation on devices like cell phones. Professor D was interested in thoughts about next steps, given the project's results were not yet viable for practical use. The meeting also referenced an upcoming meeting in Amsterdam and the possibility of not having enough time to debug issues before it. They concluded by planning to record digits." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right w welcome to the the first meeting of uh Real Reaction's uh um development meetings for our our new television remote control . Uh this follows our very successful entry into the the consumer market over the last year or so um which we want to to build on , taking advantage of the uh the the latest developments in in technology and the uh the latest uh {vocalsound} uh feelings in in consumer design and and demand and uh we want to make this the the very best product th that's possible for everybody , uh one that everybody wants , uh at a good price for the consumer and at a good price for the company . Uh and to that end we need all to work together uh to do that . Um and uh b in no particular order because ev everybody is uh {vocalsound} just as vital to this project +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I'll just go round th the table , Andrew , marketing , um m Kendra with the uh um {disfmarker} designing the the the User Interface uh uh and Kate with the the industrial design . Um . {vocalsound} What's uh {disfmarker} the the th th project is is here to do , is is to to get this this project up and moving , ev everybody is is free to uh say wh whatever they want , uh everybody has a contribution to make and uh {vocalsound} everybody feel free to interrupt me at any time to to say what you want to say . Um in in terms of the immediate meeting the uh um {gap} everybody knows everybody else , everybody's worked for the the company for a while , if if an anybody feels that they need to say more about themselves please do , if if if anybody wants to b briefly give their their background so that everybody's quite clear what everybody uh {disfmarker} uh everybody's experience is please do so . Uh in fact I'd I'd I'd welcome anybody to uh say something briefly about themselves , in fact we will do that by by going round the table quickly and and saying what what contribution you {disfmarker} you're looking to make . So we'll start with Andrew . +Marketing: Oh my name's Andrew I'm a {disfmarker} I'm the Market Research person for this uh for this meeting and this uh project for creating this new remote control and uh yeah I'll be uh presenting information statistics on what people want to want to uh get from this new design , what people want to {gap} like {disfmarker} and from a fashion point of view and the practicality point of view . +Project Manager: Right {vocalsound} Kendra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Kendra and I'm the Us User Interface Designer and um {vocalsound} I haven't had a whole lot of experience in this kind of thing before but I'm m so I'll be {vocalsound} working on the design . +Project Manager: Right at least means you haven't got any preconceived ideas so . +User Interface: Right . Yep , I'm just open to being creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I'm Katie , +Project Manager: Yep , good . +Industrial Designer: I'm the Industrial Designer and I'll just be I guess presenting about the the inter workings of our little remote control and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , very very quickly , um {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} I don't want to make this meeting too structured because the the whole idea is that it's a um you know a think tank . Everybody says what they {gap} what they want to say , uh and we don't want to be constrained by uh kind of convention or uh uh slides on screens or or anything else um but um briefly um th th this is what we want to do . The the remote control needs to be original , there has to be something about it that uh other remote controls don't have so that as soon as people see it they think um yes that's different , uh I want one , um and that goes along with being trendy , uh uh you know the I want it uh scenario . User-friendly as as we all know , remote controls can be uh uh very user-unfriendly so we want to make ours one that people can pick up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and think oh yes that's {disfmarker} it's obvious how that works , uh and they also want to look at the price and think oh yeah that's something that {disfmarker} I may not need another remote control but uh it's such a nice one I'm gonna have one . And last but not least , or indeed first of all , it it must make the company money , and we make the company money by producing what the consumer wants . The uh the further work to be done is i the um the functional design , uh what it uh what it must actually do , the uh conceptual design , uh how we actually present that to the consumer and th the the detailed design i is uh how we get that into production . Uh now th the main design tool that we have available to us at the moment is is the white board and uh uh {vocalsound} let us very quickly do what i what it says in the in the in the prompt slide here , um {disfmarker} In fact I suggest to avoid everybody untangling themselves from the uh the the wires , that we don't do that , um So I I {disfmarker} everybody knows what whiteboard is so we'll um uh we'll do a virtual drawing on the on on the whiteboard of of your your own uh uh favourite animal , but le let's go round the table , your favourite animal . +Marketing: Um , badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm and why ? +Marketing: Uh it's it's got nice contrast with black {vocalsound} and white and uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I feel they're {gap} underdog kind of status +Project Manager: Oh right +Marketing: and they're , the +Project Manager: uh my my wife says my beard looks like a badger's arse 'cause of the the white streaks in it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um probably a duck +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kendra . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} I li I like the way they look and they're just nice animals and I like how they can fly or swim or walk around or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh 's horses , no particular reason why {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , {gap} fair enough yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure that I've got any favourite animal to be quite honest , I think homo sapien +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of their {disfmarker} their uh overall ability to uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make mobile phones and T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: to make T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Indeed absolutely yes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: tha that's um {disfmarker} Okay and uh w we need to keep in mind here that the uh {disfmarker} we want to sell this for for twenty five Euro um , we want to m make an overall profit for the the company of fifty million Euros so we're we're looking at selling a lot of these um ag across the the entire planet and and we're looking at a gross profit of fifty percent . {vocalsound} It needs to cost twelve Euros fifty to make . Um so we're not only looking at a a very trendy original product , we're looking at making it at a very good price . Um , okay , um {vocalsound} would anybody like t like to to start by giving their o um sort of quick views of of current remote controls . +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} I find a lot of them really complicated to use with all the different buttons and uh it's handiest when you have one that works both the D_V_D_ player or whatever and the T_V_ as well . Um , but that {disfmarker} it's easy to {gap} if you can switch back and forth instead of having to {vocalsound} press a bunch of different buttons +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} so I think it's is best when they're clearly labelled and you can see which buttons you're supposed to use , you know . +Project Manager: Any any thoughts about buttons or any oth other way of approaching the p the uh the problem ? Or anybody else , strong feelings about remote controls ? Are there you know , bad ones they've used or good ones they've used or ones that they've lost and never found again ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's important that you should be able to {disfmarker} when you when you press the buttons it'll actually pick up the signals from kind of anywhere and you shouldn't have to like contort yourself and twist your remote control to get it {disfmarker} the T_V_ to actually pick up the signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Think a lot of the time , remotes that come with T_V_ players and {gap} T_V_s and D_V_ players , like they aren't +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: like an area that's put a lot of effort into , they're very boring , very plain . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Like it's very {disfmarker} a very {disfmarker} like um making a a stylish remote control would be a very like {disfmarker} Easily put us one step ahead of the current competition . +Project Manager: Um what so wh what's in in {disfmarker} what particular style features are you thinking about ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . Something that looks looks {disfmarker} doesn't look like remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if you want , {vocalsound} something that looks like uh {disfmarker} something that makes you think oh what's this ? Like this pen doesn't really look like a pen , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: but it makes you think oh . +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , sorry that's a bit vague {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: d no I mean do you think there's a risk if it doesn't look like remote control , {vocalsound} people won't see it as a remote control um and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I suppose suppose that's up to the marketing to to make make people aware of the product . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Any other thoughts about um th the physical appearance of a {disfmarker} of remote controls ? +User Interface: I think something that's comfortable to hold because sometimes you get the remote controls that are just those big , rectangular things +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh they're kind of awkward to hold onto , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so something that's more comfortable that fits in a person's hand better . +Project Manager: I mean th the thing that i immediately comes to mind is computer mouses which um I mean y you get all sorts of shapes in the shops +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and s you know some quite fancy ones um than the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: some from personal experience which look nice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} aren't particularly comfortable . Um {vocalsound} any thoughts about buttons or flat screens or uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well from the mouse idea you could , {gap} remote is a piece of plastic with the big rubber buttons sticking out of it which you press , whereas if you want {gap} {disfmarker} could all be flat and the buttons are very kind of almost subtle that instead of being raised out of the device uh you push into device you see , like a mouse button . +Project Manager: Yes , I mean {vocalsound} the only thing is if if you're watching television in a in a a darkened room um you need to be able to uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I suppose . +Project Manager: fi find the button buttons easily . +Marketing: Easily , yeah yeah . +User Interface: But maybe they could be concave instead of sticking up to have them {disfmarker} be kind of down so you could feel them +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: better . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} must admit I don't think I've ever seen one with concave buttons , that's uh {disfmarker} certainly be different . Um do we need it to uh {disfmarker} I can't think of any re remote controls that I know of that actually light up at all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Do we do we want uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm that would be good . +User Interface: Like a like a mobile phone ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , yeah that would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . So , Andrew have you had any thoughts yet about how we might market something which there are already millions out there and that we want to uh uh uh t take over the entire um {disfmarker} the planet with ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , um {vocalsound} especially if we try to sell , what two million of them . Oh sorry , four million of 'em , but uh {disfmarker} I think if w if we market it as as not as not {disfmarker} well this {disfmarker} you c you could either market it as the point of view {disfmarker} we could have the two {disfmarker} we could have parallel marketing s schemes where you've got one where it appeals to people that want to have the new device that looks cool , is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and like you just {disfmarker} it's it's like uh it's one that rather than ra I wan I want rather than a kind of a need relationship with the device , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but that might {disfmarker} considering the act what the device is for and the nature of some people might not like respond to having a device that they just looks nice , therefore they want it so {disfmarker} make it practical at the same time . I think it's {disfmarker} this is gonna have to appeal to people that want device that can enhance their living room +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh but also a device that uh is practically sound . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , yeah , yeah , well +Marketing: So um , I dunno we'll have to decide which which angle we're gonna go to or both . If you {gap} . +Project Manager: I d I think an any uh any facets that we identify w we aim {disfmarker} need to aim for for all of . Um okay well +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: first thoughts on um the the industrial design side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh I think it's it's {disfmarker} remote controls are kind of a unique object 'cause it's {disfmarker} you depend on them so much , but you don't {disfmarker} i i it's {disfmarker} you sort of just assume they're always gonna work , you don't think of them as a comp like a computer can break down and you're kinda like oh well fair enough there's all these complex things going on , it's gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna get messed up eventually . They they just need to be very very dependable because people sort of take them for granted and then if your remote control breaks it's {gap} {disfmarker} God forbid you actually get up and manually change the channel {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it just {disfmarker} it needs to be very effective , very {disfmarker} always dependable . Uh I don't think we should make it too small I {disfmarker} 'cause I think it needs to {gap} it can't be too big like you were saying big an and huge and um awkward , but also if you make it too small kinda like you know how mobile phones are getting smaller and smaller um , it's just gonna end up under a couch cushion somewhere and um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} so yes dependable , and have a {gap} good medium range size . +Project Manager: Okay , and um colours , materials ? Kendra , anyone ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , most {disfmarker} I think most of the remote controls now are either just black or grey , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: so maybe we should go with something different or be able to {disfmarker} I was just thinking of um {vocalsound} what they're doing with mobile phones now how you can get the different um {disfmarker} what are they called ? Like the face-plates +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: that you change so we could have maybe {disfmarker} I don't know if it would be feasible to do something with that , where you can change the face-plates or have kind of a variety +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so people can get different different things . Have it kind of look how they want to , different colours , things like that , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: probably just plastic because that's always the lightest . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay that's uh {disfmarker} Again I don't think that's ever been done before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh the sort of {gap} the sort of thing that would get people uh thinking yes that's something that I haven't got and uh might need so . Uh Andrew , any thoughts about uh how we might market interchangeable fronts on on the remote control ? +Marketing: Um , well we could either market it together by getting control in a set colour or with {disfmarker} like you buy it with several uh like you ge you get the f uh the face-plates with it when you buy or as a separate thing , but uh {vocalsound} maybe thinking of that , it's {disfmarker} considering the nature of the device , maybe a second thing {disfmarker} like a second campaign to market new facials for your {disfmarker} to your {disfmarker} might go a bit astray +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: since it is the kind of thing where y you generally get one and then forget about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Unless you were trying to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well you could come up with like novelty ones , like they've done with the the mobile phones , you can get like different you know scenes from different movies and stuff on the remote control +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: and sorta stagger the release of them +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} that's a that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and get people like oh I want that cover on it now and that'll keep them spending money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , okay +Marketing: Yeah true . +Project Manager: I think we've got um a good idea now . We uh {disfmarker} meeting is uh {disfmarker} Needs to be k uh wrapped up fairly quickly . So uh um we've got thirty minutes to start looking at the um at the design in more detail . Um then we'll we will reconvene in in thirty minutes and try to get some of these ideas uh uh more formalised . Uh thank you very much indeed . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +","The summary of the recorded dialogue is a detailed account of the inaugural development meeting for the new television remote control project, hosted by a company named Real Reaction which has recently entered the consumer market. The meeting is convened by the Project Manager, who greets the team and emphasizes the importance of collaboration and creativity in capitalizing on the latest technological advancements and evolving consumer preferences to develop a product that is highly desired, cost-effective for both the consumer and the company, and ultimately profitable. + +As introductions are made around the table, we meet Andrew from marketing, Kendra, the User Interface designer, and Katie, the Industrial Designer. Each briefly discusses their role and the contribution they hope to make to the project. The Project Manager stresses the need for open communication and the freedom to share ideas openly throughout the meeting. + +The remote control's design must have an original and trendy appeal to stand out from competitors. It also needs to be user-friendly and priced compellingly enough to persuade consumers away from existing solutions. Furthermore, the goal is to ensure it is profitable for the company, targeting a gross profit margin of fifty percent with a cost of €12.50 to produce, and an eventual sales price of €25. The project aims to generate €50 million in profit from global sales. + +The team discusses how current remote controls are too complicated and should work seamlessly with multiple devices like TVs and DVD players. Ideas such as better labeling, an easy-to-use interface, and unique button designs are exchanged. Some marketing strategies were also considered, emphasizing the need to market the remote control as both a stylish, fashionable choice and a practical, dependable necessity for consumers. + +The group considers the aesthetics of the remote control. They agree that most remote controls are plain, and there's an opportunity to innovate with colors and interchangeable face-plates, similar to mobile phones. The consensus is that while the remote needs to be distinctive, it also must feel comfortable in hand, have buttons that are simple to use even in the dark—potentially with backlighting—and be easy to locate if misplaced. + +Various marketing strategies are proposed, such as bundling the remote with additional face-plates or selling them separately. Novelty and themed designs are suggested to encourage ongoing consumer interest and revenue. + +The Project Manager brings the meeting towards a close, stating the need to wrap up the initial brainstorming session and reconvene in thirty minutes to begin formalizing the ideas discussed. The key points to take forward involve ensuring the remote is easy to use, trendy, and adaptable in design so that it stands out in the market while also delivering on functionality and dependability, ensuring satisfactory profit margins for the company." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi everybody and welcome to our kick-off meeting um for our new product that we're gonna be designing . Um I'm Mandy and I'm the Project Manager . And I know all your names again , Courtney , Fenella and Amber . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so first let's go through this PowerPoint . I wonder what button I press ? +User Interface: Just do it on the {gap} arrow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , or how about I just click ? Okay , here is our agenda for this meeting . Um we're gonna start with our opening which was our introductions . {vocalsound} We're gonna get to know each other a little bit better . Um tool training , we're going to , I guess , figure out what to do on this project with our individual roles . Um we're gonna make a project plan and then have some time for discussion and close up the meeting . Okay , here is our project . We're gonna make a new remote control that's um original , trendy and also user-friendly . And how we are going to do it is each of us is going to um {disfmarker} We're gonna have {disfmarker} discuss the functional design first , {vocalsound} how is it gonna be used , what's the actual goal here , it has to operate T_V_ , blah blah blah . And we're going to do individual work on that and then meet . Same thing with conceptual design . Just the basic overview of the project and then we're going to do individual work , meet . That's pretty much the the whole process for today . And then the detailed design , just more in-depth , get the actual schematics of the remote . Okay . Alright . First we're gonna start off by using our tools . And the whiteboard thing , do you guys wanna give that a try even though the ink wasn't working or do you wanna do it on here . +Industrial Designer: I think we should forgo the whiteboard since we can't actually see what we're writing . +Marketing: We could {disfmarker} Yeah , we could on here . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go forward then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right now so we're all gonna draw our favourite animal and then sum up our favourite characteristics of that animal . Even if you are not a good drawer like me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Artistic skills , nil . +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bless you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I draw like I'm in grade five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh do I . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay , about one more minute . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And who would like to start us off ? +Marketing: I'll go . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um this is my picture . I drew fish {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like fish , because uh , you know , their whole water-vascular system thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's pretty cool , and um they've got a pretty good habitat and they are pretty sometimes , sometimes vicious but that's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Only if they're piranhas . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , they they're easy , you know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants to go next ? +Industrial Designer: I'll go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I drew a kitty . It's pretty much impossible to tell that's a cat , but I love cats . +Marketing: No I I see it . +Project Manager: No , it looks like a cat . +User Interface: No , I kne I knew . +Marketing: Yeah , it does look like a cat . +Industrial Designer: I love cats because they're independent , uh they pretty much know what they want , they get it , they move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love cats , too . I'm a cat person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm allergic to cats . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I'm allergic to cats , too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you're around one {disfmarker} +User Interface: In my next life . +Project Manager: I had a roommate who was um allergic , but if she was around my cat forever she became used to it , you know , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , if you're around them for a long period of time {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's weird . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I still can't sleep with them in my room . +Marketing: Oh , yeah , this summer I , oh I had to live with cats . It was crazy . +Project Manager: Okay , Fenella ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I drew a badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Badger . Good choice . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Marketing: Cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . +Project Manager: Why a badger ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I dunno , they're grumpy and nocturnal and {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you trying to suggest something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , a little bit like the {disfmarker} Yes . Um . {vocalsound} And then , if you know Wind in the Willows {gap} badger . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah and then uh I don't know if you know Brian {gap} . He's Liverpudlian writer . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Um {gap} , that kind of books . Badgers are cool in that one too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And I'm last . 'Kay . Look at my sad sad giraffe . +Marketing: No , that's good . +Project Manager: No , no , no , it ends up looking like some kind of a dinosaur , but whatever . I don't know even much about giraffes , but I just love the way they look . They're just such odd creatures , you know . I I like that they're so unique and individual , I guess . I don't know much about their behaviour or anything , though . Only seen a couple in zoos . +Marketing: You don't really have to , I mean , if you like 'em {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can appreciate the way they look . Okay . Alright . Guess we're getting straight back into business here . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um the selling price for our remote is going to be twenty-five Euro , and our profit aim is fifty million Euro . We're going to make this an international product marketed in the States , in Europe , in Asia . And um our production cost to make that profit is gonna be a max of twelve fifty Euro per remote . Okay . So we're gonna talk for a little while . Um here are some topics that we might be able to discuss . Expe our experiences with remote controls um , our first ideas about this new remote , anything that you can bring to the table for this project . So . +User Interface: Now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You wanna start us off ? Anybody have anything to offer ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we wanna make a multifunctional remote , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One remote for everything . +User Interface: And everything being {disfmarker} Wait , we have what , sound system , T_V_ , D_V_D_ , V_H_S_ , uh TiVo ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um . I think they'll be phasing V_H_S_ out shortly . +Marketing: Yeah , TiVo . +Project Manager: TiVo . +User Interface: But it's still there , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: if po if we're gonna do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It needs to be compatible 'cause universal remote controls are never universal . +Project Manager: They're never universal . That's right . Esp e especially if you buy a a not big product , D_V_D_ player , say , usually it doesn't work if it's not one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if it's not like a Sony , if it's like a {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Something from Sam's club . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to figure it how to cover all the different variances in signals . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what we need an insanely good instruction booklet , because you always have to reconfigure all your contraptions to go with the remote anyways . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay , and um another thing that I think is important is the d the design of the product , how it feels in your hand . If it's just flat and kind of boring th those don't {disfmarker} Nobody wants to buy those any more . They want the ergonomic ones . +Marketing: They want like the flashy lights . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh like this came from Las Vegas . +Project Manager: Ones that ones that look high-tech , too . +User Interface: But at the same time are simple . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: So that people like my mother can use it . +Industrial Designer: What about something with the curvature like that matches the curvature of a hand ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Anybody have any experiences with remote controls that they can remember that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just bad ones . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} That's true . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: What kinda battery would we want to use ? Because battery changing is usually {disfmarker} +User Interface: D Double A_ . +Marketing: Double A_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do some of them use triple A_s though ? +Marketing: Yeah some use triple A_s . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Some but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So double or triple ? +User Interface: Yeah , I guess then it's {disfmarker} If we need to do triple A_ we can , but most people usually have double A_s around . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . But that has to do with the size of it too . Well , w as long as we know that issue is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Here we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if we want it to be more thin , then we'd probably wanna go with a triple A_ . +Project Manager: Triple A . But +Industrial Designer: Can you {gap} with a small lithium battery ? +Project Manager: it's okay , we don't have to decide about it now , just as long as we remember battery type and size is important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hey . Anything else ? Alright . Moving along . Oh , we're closing the meeting . Next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes . Here's what we're going to do . Um the I_D_ , which is who ? Okay , you're going to think about the working design . What do you think that means ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And U_I_D_ , the technical fun functions design , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: making sure it does everything that we need the remote to do , the functionality of it , operating all those different things . Okay . And the marketing person , that's Courtney , is going to do the user requirements specification . I guess that means specifying um what exactly the user is going to be looking for . Right ? I would think so . Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And you're gonna get more specific instructions emailed to you in just a little while . Okay , so does anybody have anything they wanna say before we close the meeting ? Okay . This meeting is officially over . +","Mandy, acting as the Project Manager, welcomed attendees to the kick-off meeting for a new product design project at an unknown company. The team members present for the meeting included Courtney from Marketing, Fenella, the User Interface specialist, and Amber, the Industrial Designer. The meeting began with Mandy attempting to navigate the PowerPoint presentation, eventually starting off with the introduction of the agenda. + +The agenda included getting to know each other through an icebreaker activity, tool training, individual role clarification, project planning, and a discussion session. Mandy presented the project's goal: to design an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. She outlined a three-phased approach starting with the functional design, where the team would contemplate the basics of the remote's operation and target goals. The process was to be iterative, with periods of individual work followed by team meetings. + +The tool training segment was meant to include whiteboard usage, but due to an issue with the ink, it was decided to forgo the physical whiteboard. Mandy then led the team through an icebreaker exercise, asking members to draw their favorite animals and share characteristics they admired – a task met with self-deprecating humor over artistic abilities. + +As the team shared their drawings and reasons for their choices – Marketing chose a fish, the Industrial Designer a cat, Fenella a badger, and Mandy a giraffe – it became apparent that the intention was to highlight personal attributes or affinities that could influence their work. For example, the Industrial Designer and Fenella noted their independent nature and specific preferences related to their choice of animals, potentially hinting at their work styles. + +Mandy shifted the focus back to the project, discussing financials and marketing strategy, setting a selling price for the remote at twenty-five Euros, and aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros. She emphasized the importance of the design, ergonomics, and the universality of the remote control, suggesting it be marketed internationally in the States, Europe, and Asia. Mandy also mentioned the necessity of a user-friendly and comprehensive instruction booklet. + +Team members then shared experiences and initial thoughts on remote controls. The discussion branched into various topics such as inclusivity of functions to cover different electronic devices, considerations for battery type, and the importance of ergonomics. The conversation hints at the team's collective desire to create a remote that is universal, easy to understand, and fits comfortably in the user's hand. + +As the meeting approached the end, Mandy wrapped up by assigning tasks to each team member: the Industrial Designer would think about the working design, the User Interface specialist on technical functions, and the Marketing team member on user requirements. She announced that the next meeting would be held in thirty minutes and would include more specific instructions. + +In summary, the meeting was a foundation-laying session where the project manager introduced the project and her team to the task ahead. The team engaged in getting acquainted with one another through a drawing activity, laid out the broad strokes of their project, shared their experiences with previous products, and set the stage for developing a comprehensive, marketable remote control. The meeting ended with the project manager allocating tasks to the team members and closing with the assertion that specific instructions would follow soon via email." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: Time . +Grad C: Thanks . +Grad G: Are you Fey ? +Undergrad D: I am Fey , yeah . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: What day is today ? +Undergrad D: Hi . +Grad G: Hi . I think we 've met before , like , I remember talking to you about Aspect or something like that at some point or other . +Undergrad D: A couple times yeah . +Grad F: It 's the uh twenty {disfmarker} nineteenth . +Grad B: Nineteenth ? +Undergrad D: That 's right , yeah . +Grad G: So . +Undergrad D: And you were my GSI briefly , until I dropped the class . +Grad F: +Grad B: Right , right . +Grad G: Oh that 's right . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad G: Well . +Grad C: OK , wh wh +Grad G: No offense . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Like . +Grad C: OK . Some in some introductions are in order . +Grad G: Oh , OK sorry . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: Getting ahead of myself . +Grad C: So . Um . For those who don't know {disfmarker} Everyone knows me , this is great . Um , apart from that , sort of the old gang , Johno and Bhaskara have been with us from {disfmarker} from day one +Grad G: Yay ! +Grad E: Hi . +Grad C: and um they 're engaged in {disfmarker} in various activities , some of which you will hear about today . Ami is um our counselor and spiritual guidance and um also interested in problems concerning reference of the more complex type , +PhD A: Well . +Grad E: Oh wow . +Grad C: and um he sits in as a interested participant and helper . Is that a good characterization ? +PhD A: u That 's pretty good , I think . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . Thanks . +Grad C: OK . Keith is not technically one of us yet , +Grad E: Not yet . +Grad C: ha - ha . but um it 's too late for him now . +Grad G: "" One of us . "" +Grad C: So . +Grad E: Yeah right . I 've got the headset on after all . +Grad C: Um . Officially I guess he will be joining us in the summer . +Grad E: yes . +Grad C: And um hopefully it is by {disfmarker} by means of Keith that we will be able to get a b a better formal and a better semantic um idea of what a construction is and um how we can make it work for us . Additionally his interest um surpasses um English because it also entails German , an extra capability of speaking and writing and understanding and reading that language . And um , is there anyone who doesn't know Nancy ? Do you {disfmarker} do you know Nancy ? +Grad G: Me ? +Grad E: I know Nancy . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I made that joke already , Nancy , sadly . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: What ? +Grad B: The "" I don't know myself "" joke . +Grad G: You did ? When ? +Grad B: Uh before you came in . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: Man ! +Grad G: About me or you ? +Grad B: About me . +Grad G: OK . {vocalsound} OK . +PhD A: You could do it about you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Well I didn't know . I didn't mean to be humor copying , but OK , sorry . Yes , I know myself . It 's OK . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um Fey is with us as of six days ago officially ? +Undergrad D: Officially , +Grad C: Officially , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad C: but in reality already um much much longer and um um next to some {disfmarker} some more or less bureaucratic uh stuff with the {disfmarker} the data collection she 's also the wizard in the data collection Um , +Grad G: Of Oz . +Undergrad D: It 's very exciting . +Grad C: we 're sticking with the term "" wizard "" , +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: and um +Grad G: Not witch - like . +Grad B: Wizardette . +Grad E: Wizard . +Grad F: Wizardess . +Grad C: Sorceress , I think . +Grad G: OK . +Undergrad D: Wizard . +Grad C: wizard uh by by popular vote +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: um +Grad G: Didn't take a vote ? OK . +Grad C: OK , um , why don't we get started on that subject anyways . Um , so we 're about to collect data and um the uh s the following things have happened since we last met . When will we three meet again ? And um +Grad G: More than three of us . +Grad C: what happened is that um , "" A "" , {comment} there was some confusion between you and Jerry with the {disfmarker} that leading to your talking to Catherine Snow , and he was uh he {disfmarker} he agreed completely that some something confusing happened . Um his idea was to get sort of the l the lists of mayors of the department , the students . It {disfmarker} it 's exactly how you interpreted it , sort of s +Grad E: The list of majors in the department ? +Undergrad D: M m Majors ? +Grad C: Ma - majors , majors . +Undergrad D: Majors ? +Grad C: "" Mayors "" . +Undergrad D: OK , mayor {disfmarker} +Grad C: Majors . +Undergrad D: Something I don't know about these +Grad G: The department has many mayors . +Grad C: Majors and um just sending the {disfmarker} the little write - up that we did on to those email lists +Undergrad D: OK . OK . Yeah , yeah , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: So it was really Carol Snow who was confused , not me and not Jerry . +Grad C: Yep , yep , yep . OK . So . So , that is uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's good . So I should still do that . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And using the thing that you wrote up . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: Wonderful . And um we have a little description of asking peop subjects to contact Fey for you know recruiting them for our thing and um there was some confusion as to the consent form , which is basically that {disfmarker} that what what you just signed +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: and since we have one already um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Did Jerry talk to you about maybe using our class ? the students in the undergrad class that he 's teaching ? +Grad C: Um well he said um we {disfmarker} definitely "" yes "" , +Grad G: e +Grad C: however there is always more people in a {disfmarker} in a facul uh in a department than are just taking his class or anybody else 's class at the moment +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: and one should sort of reach out and try and get them all . +Grad G: OK , but th I guess it 's that um people in his class cover a different set so {disfmarker} than the c is the CogSci department that you were talking about ? +Undergrad D: I guess . See +Grad G: uh reaching out to ? +Undergrad D: that 's what I suggested to him , that people like {disfmarker} like Jerry and George and et cetera just {disfmarker} +Grad G: Cuz we have you know people from other areas +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: advertise in their classes as well . +Undergrad D: Yeah or even I could {disfmarker} you know I could do the actual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Cuz I mean I {disfmarker} I know how to contact our students , +Undergrad D: That 's generally the way it 's done . +Grad G: so if there 's something that you 're sending out you can also s um send me a copy , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: me or Bhaskara could {disfmarker} either of us could post it to uh is it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: A mailing list . +Grad G: if it 's a general solicitation that you know is just contact you then we can totally pro post it to the news group +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad G: so . +Grad C: Do it . Yeah . +Undergrad D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , so you 'll send it or something so . +Grad C: As a matter of fact , if you {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I can send it . +Grad C: if {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I 'll send it , +Grad G: You can send it to me . +Grad C: Now , i +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad G: OK . Don't worry , we {disfmarker} this doesn't concern you anymore , Robert . +Grad C: How {disfmarker} however I suggest that if you {disfmarker} if you look at your email carefully you may think {disfmarker} you may find that you already have it . +Grad G: It 's fine . Oops . Already ? Really ? +Grad C: Maybe . +Undergrad D: Probab +Grad G: Oops . +Grad C: OK . W we 'll see . +Grad G: I don't remember getting anything . +Grad C: Anyhow , um the uh Yeah , not only Also we will talk about Linguistics and of course Computer Science . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um and then , secondly , we had , you may remember , um the problem with the re - phrasing , that subject always re - phrase sort of the task that uh we gave them , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: and so we had a meeting on Friday talking about how to avoid that , and it proved finally fruitful in the sense that we came up with a new scenario for how to get the {disfmarker} the subject m to really have intentions and sort of to act upon those , and um there the idea is now that next actually we {disfmarker} we need to hire one more person to actually do that job because it {disfmarker} it 's getting more complicated . So if you know anyone interested in {disfmarker} in what i 'm about to describe , tell that person to {disfmarker} to write a mail to me or Jerry soon , fast . Um {vocalsound} the idea now is to sort of come up with a high level of sort of abstract tasks "" go shopping "" um "" take in uh a batch of art "" um "" visit {disfmarker} do some sightseeing "" blah - blah - blah - blah - blah , sort of analogous to what Fey has started in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in compiling {disfmarker} compiling here and already {disfmarker} she has already gone to the trouble of {disfmarker} of anchoring it with specific um o {comment} um entities and real world places you will find in Heidelberg . And um . So out of these f s these high level categories the subject can pick a couple , such as if {disfmarker} if there is a cop uh a category in emptying your roll of film , the person can then decide "" OK , I wanna do that at this place "" , sort of make up their own itinerary a and {disfmarker} and tasks and the person is not allowed to take sort of this h high level category list with them , but uh the person is able to take notes on a map that we will give him and the map will be a tourist 's sort of schematic representation with {disfmarker} with symbols for the objects . And so , the person can maybe make a mental note that "" ah yeah I wanted to go shopping here "" and "" I wanted to maybe take a picture of that "" and "" maybe um eat here "" and then goes in and solves the task with the system , IE {comment} Fey , and um and we 're gonna try out that {disfmarker} Any questions ? +Grad G: so um y you 'll have those say somewhere what their intention was {disfmarker} so you still have the {disfmarker} the nice thing about having data where you know what the actual intention was ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: But they will um {disfmarker} There 's nothing that says you know "" these are the things you want to do "" so they 'll say "" well these are the things I want to do "" and {disfmarker} Right , so they 'll have a little bit more natural interaction ? +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So they 'll be given this map , which means that they won't have to like ask the system for in for like high level information about where things are ? +Grad C: Yeah it 's a schematic tourist map . So it 'll be uh i it 'll still require the {disfmarker} that information and An +Grad G: It w it doesn't have like streets on it that would allow them to figure out their way {disfmarker} +Grad C: N not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not really the street network . Nuh . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: So you 're just saying like what part of town the things are in or whatever ? +Grad C: Yeah a and um the map is more a means for them to have the buildings and their names and maybe some ma ma major streets and their names +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we want to maybe ask them , if you have {disfmarker} get it sort of isolated street the {disfmarker} the , whatever , "" River Street "" , and they know that {disfmarker} they have decided that , yes , that 's where they want to do this kind of action um that they have it with them and they can actually read them or sort of have the label for the object because it 's too hard to memorize all these st strange German names . And then we 're going to have another {disfmarker} we 're gonna have w another trial run IE the first with that new setup tomorrow at two and we have a real interesting subject which is Ron Kay for who {disfmarker} those who know him , he 's the founder of ICI . So he 'll {disfmarker} he 's around seven seventy years old , or something . +Grad G: I didn't know he was the founder . That 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And he also approached me and he offered to help {vocalsound} um our project and he was more thinking about some high level thinking tasks and {vocalsound} I said "" sure we need help you can come in as a subject "" and he said "" OK "" . So that 's what 's gonna happen , tomorrow , data . +Grad G: Using this new {disfmarker} new um plan , +Grad C: New {disfmarker} new set up . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Which I 'll hopefully sort of scrape together t But , thanks to Fey , we already have sort of a nice blueprint and I can work with that . Questions ? Comments on that ? If not , we can move on . No ? No more questions ? +Grad E: I 'm not sure I totally understand this +Grad G: So what 's the s this is what you made , Fey ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I totally understand everything that 's being talked about +Grad G: Like so {disfmarker} So it 's just based on like the materials you had about Heidelberg . +Grad C: Um are you familiar with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the very rough setup of the data ? +Grad E: but I {disfmarker} I imagine I 'll c just catch on . +Undergrad D: Based on the web site , yeah , at the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh OK there 's a web site +Grad C: experiment ? +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad G: and then you could like um figure out what the cate +Undergrad D: It 's a tourist information web site , +Grad E: Uh , this is where they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: so . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Talk to a machine and it breaks down and then the human comes on . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: The question is just sort of how do we get the tasks in their head that they have an intention of doing something and have a need to ask the system for something without giving them sort of a clear wording or phrasing of the task . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: Because what will happen then is that people repeat {disfmarker} repeat , {comment} or as much as they can , of that phrasing . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Hmm . Um , are you worried about being able to identify {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Um . The {disfmarker} The goals that we 've d you guys have been talking about are this {disfmarker} these you know identifying which of three modes um their question uh concerns . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So it 's like the Enter versus View {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will sort of get a protocol of the prior interaction , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: right ? That 's where the instructor , the person we are going to hire , um and the subjects sit down together with these high level things +Grad G: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so th the q first question for the subject is , "" so these are things , you know , we thought a tourist can do . Is there anything that interests you ? "" +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the person can say "" yeah , sure sh this is something I would do . I would go shopping "" . Yeah ? and then we can sort of {disfmarker} this s instructor can say "" well , uh then you {disfmarker} you may want to find out how to get over here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: because this is where the shopping district is "" . +Grad G: So the interaction beforehand will give them hints about how specific or how whatever though the kinds of questions that are going to ask during the actual session ? +Grad C: No . Just sort of {disfmarker} OK , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what would you like to buy and then um OK there you wanna buy a whatever cuckoos clocks +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK and the there is a store there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the task then for that person is t finding out how to get there , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's sort of what 's left . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we know that the intention is to enter because we know that the person wants to buy a cuckoos clock . +Grad G: OK , that 's what I mean so like those tasks are all gonna be um unambiguous about which of the three modes . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: Right . OK . So . +PhD A: Well , so the idea is to try to get the actual phrasing that they might use and try to interfere as little as possible with their choice of words . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: t {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That they 'll be here ? +Grad C: Yes . In a sense that 's exactly the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea , +PhD A: uh uh +Grad C: which is never possible in a {disfmarker} in a s in a lab situation , +PhD A: Well , u u the one experiment th that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that I 've read somewhere , it was {disfmarker} they u used pictures . +Grad C: nuh ? +PhD A: So to {disfmarker} to uh actually um uh specify the {disfmarker} the tasks . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , but you know i i +Grad C: Yeah . We had exactly that on our list of possible way things so we {disfmarker} uh I even made a sort of a silly thing how that could work , how you control you are here you {disfmarker} you want to know how to get someplace , and this is the place and it 's a museum and you want to do some and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a person looking at pictures . So , you know , this is exactly getting someplace with the intention of entering and looking at pictures . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: However , not only was {disfmarker} the common census were {disfmarker} among all participants of Friday 's meeting was it 's gonna be very laborious to {disfmarker} to make these drawings for each different things , +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: all the different actions , if at all possible , and also people will get caught up in the pictures . So all of a sudden we 'll get descriptions of pictures in there . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And people talking about pictures and pictorial representations +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} um +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I would s I would still be willing to try it . +PhD A: I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not saying it 's necessary but {disfmarker} but uh i uh uh i {vocalsound} you might be able to combine you know text uh and {disfmarker} and some sort of picture and also uh I think it {disfmarker} it will be a good idea to show them the text and kind of chew the task and then take the test away {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the text away +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: so that they are not uh guided by {disfmarker} by by what you wrote , +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can come up with their {disfmarker} with their own {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they will have no more linguistic matter in front of them when they enter this room . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: OK . Then I suggest we move on to the {disfmarker} to we have um uh the EDU Project , let me make one more general remark , has sort of two {disfmarker} two side uh um actions , its um action items that we 're do dealing with , one is modifying the SmartKom parser and the other one is modifying the SmartKom natural language generation module . And um this is not too complicated but I 'm just mentioning it {disfmarker} put it in the framework because this is something we will talk about now . Um , I have some news from the generation , do you have news from the parser ? +Grad F: Um , not {disfmarker} +Grad C: By that look I {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , uh , I would really p It would be better if I talked about it on Friday . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: If that 's OK . +Grad C: Yeah , wonderful . Um , did you run into problems or did you run into not h having time ? +Grad F: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not any time part . +Grad C: OK , so that 's good . That 's better than running into problems . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: And um I {disfmarker} I do have some good news for the natural language generation however . And the good news is I guess it 's done . Uh , meaning that Tilman Becker , who does the German one , actually took out some time and already did it in English for us . And so the version he 's sending us is already producing the English that 's needed to get by in version one point one . +Grad F: So I take it that was similar to the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what we did for the parsing ? +Grad C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} even though the generator is a little bit more complex and it would have been , not changing one hundred words but maybe four hundred words , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but it would have been +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but this {disfmarker} this is I guess good news , and the uh {disfmarker} the time and especially Bhaskara and uh {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} Oh do I have it here ? No . The time is now pretty much fixed . It 's the last week of April until the fourth of May so it 's twenty - sixth through fourth . That they 'll be here . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's extremely important that the two of you are also present in this town during that time . +Grad B: Wait , what {disfmarker} what are the days ? April twenty - sixth to the {disfmarker} May fourth ? +Grad C: Yeah , something like that . +Grad B: I 'll probably be here . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: You will be here . +Grad C: There is a d Isn't finals coming up then pretty much after that ? +Grad F: Finals was that . +Grad G: Yeah w it doesn't really have much meaning to grad students but final projects might . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Yeah actually , that 's true . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} +Grad C: Anyway , so this is {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well I 'll be here working on something . Guaranteed , it 's just uh will I be here , you know , in uh {disfmarker} I 'll be here too actually but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: No it 's just um you know they 're coming for us so that we can bug them +Grad G: Ye +Grad C: and ask them more questions and sit down together and write sensible code and they can give some nice talks and stuff . But uh +Grad B: But it 's not like we need to be with them twenty - four hours a day s for the seven days that they 're here . +Grad C: just make a {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} not unless you really really want to . +Grad E: They 're very dependent +Grad C: Not unless you really want to . And they 're both nice guys so you may {disfmarker} may want to . OK , that much from the parser and generator side , unless there are more questions on that . +Grad G: So , no sample generator output yet ? +Grad C: No . It {disfmarker} Just a mail that , you know , he 's sending me the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the stuff soon +Grad G: OK . This is being sent , mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: and I was completely flabbergasted here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I {disfmarker} and that 's also it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to produce the concept - to - speech uh blah - blah - blah information for {disfmarker} necessary for one point one in English {disfmarker} based on the English , you know , in English . So . I was like "" OK , +Grad E: We 're done . +Grad C: we 're done ! "" +Grad G: So that was like one of the first l You know , the first task was getting it working for English . So that 's basically over now . Is that right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: So the basic requirement fulfilled . +Grad C: Um , the basic requirement is fulfilled almost . When Andreas Stolcke and {disfmarker} and his gang , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: when they have um changed the language model of the recognizer and the dictionary , then we can actually a put it all together +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So the speech recognizer also works . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can speak into it and ask for TV and movie information +Grad E: Toll . +Grad C: and then when if {disfmarker} if something actually happens and some answers come out , then we 're done . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . If {disfmarker} and they 're kind of correct . +Grad E: So it 's not done basically . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: And they kind of are {disfmarker} are correct . +Grad E: Right . Perhaps if the answers have something to do with the questions for example . +Grad G: It 's not just like anything . And they 're mostly in English . So . +Grad C: Then um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Are they {disfmarker} is it using the database ? the German TV movie . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . So {vocalsound} all the actual data might be German names ? +Grad C: Um well actually th um +Grad G: Or are they all like American TV programs ? +Grad C: um well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I want to see "" Die Dukes Von Hazard "" +Grad C: The {disfmarker} OK , so you don't know how the German dialogue {disfmarker} uh the German {disfmarker} the demo dialogue actually works . It works {disfmarker} the first thing is what 's , you know , showing on TV , and then the person is presented with what 's running on TV in Germany on that day , on that evening +Grad G: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so you take one look at it and then you say "" well that 's really nothing {disfmarker} there 's nothing for me there "" "" what 's running in the cinemas ? "" So maybe there 's something better happening there . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then you get {disfmarker} you 're shown what movies play which films , and it 's gonna be of course all the Heidelberg movies and what films they are actually showing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And most of them are going to be Hollywood movies . So , "" American Beauty "" is "" American Beauty "" , +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad G: But they 're shown like on a screen . +Grad C: N +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} I mean so would the generator , like the English language sentence of it is {disfmarker} "" these are the follow you know the following films are being shown "" or something like that ? +Grad C: Yeah , but it in that sense it doesn't make {disfmarker} In that case uh it doesn't really make sense to read them out loud . +Grad G: S Right . +Grad C: if you 're displaying them . +Grad G: So it 'll just display {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: But uh it 'll tell you that this is what 's showing in Heidelberg and there you go . +Grad G: So we don't have to worry about um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: And the presentation agent will go "" Hhh ! "" {comment} Nuh ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Like that {disfmarker} the avatar . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And um . And then you pick {disfmarker} pick a movie and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it show shows you the times and you pick a time and you pick seats and all of this . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Pretty straightforward . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} so this time we {disfmarker} we are at an advantage because it was a problem for the German system to incorporate all these English movie titles . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: Nuh ? But in English , that 's not really a problem , +Grad G: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: unless we get some {disfmarker} some topical German movies that have just come out and that are in their database . So the person may select "" Huehner Rennen "" or whatever . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: "" Chicken Run "" . +Grad C: OK . Then uh on to the modeling . Right ? +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , I guess . +Grad C: Um then modeling , there it is . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad E: OK . What 's the next thing ? +Grad B: e +Grad C: This is very rough but this is sort of what um Johno and I managed to come up with . The idea here is that {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is the uh s the schema of the XML here , not an example or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah this is not an XML this is sort of towards an {disfmarker} a schema , +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: nuh ? definition . The idea is , so , imagine we have a library of schema such as the Source - Path - Goal and then we have forced uh motion , we have cost action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: we have a whole library of schemas . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And they 're gonna be , you know , fleshed out in {disfmarker} in their real ugly detail , Source - Path - Goal , and there 's gonna be s a lot of stuff on the Goal and blah - blah - blah , that a goal can be and so forth . What we think is {disfmarker} And all the names could {disfmarker} should be taken "" cum grano salis "" . So . This is a {disfmarker} the fact that we 're calling this "" action schema "" right now should not entail that we are going to continue calling this "" action schema "" . But what that means {vocalsound} is we have here first of all on the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the first iteration a stupid list of Source - Path - Goal actions +Grad B: Actions that can be categorized with {disfmarker} or that are related to Source - Path - Goal . +Grad C: wi to that schema +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we will have you know forced motion and cost action actions . +Grad B: And then those actions can be in multiple categories at the same time if necessary . +Grad C: So a push may be in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in both you know push uh in this or this uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Forced motion and caused action for instance , +Grad C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Also , these things may or may not get their own structure in the future . So this is something that , you know , may also be a res As a result of your work in the future , we may find out that , you know , there 're really s these subtle differences between um even within the domain of entering in the light of a Source - Path - Goal schema , that we need to put in {disfmarker} fill in additional structure up there . But it gives us a nice handle . So with this we can basically um you know s slaughter the cow any anyway we want . Uh . It {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} It was sort of a {disfmarker} it gave us some headache , how do we avoid writing down that we have sort of the Enter Source - Path - Goal that this {disfmarker} But this sort of gets the job done in that respect and maybe it is even conceptually somewhat adequate in a sense that um we 're talking about two different things . We 're talking more on the sort of intention level , up there , and more on the {disfmarker} this is the {disfmarker} your basic bone um schema , down there . +Grad B: Uh one question , Robert . When you point at the screen is it your shadow that I 'm supposed to look at ? +Grad G: Yeah . It 's the shadow . +Grad B: OK . Whereas I keep looking where your hand is , and it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that wouldn't have helped you at all . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +Grad B: Basically , what this is {disfmarker} is that there 's an interface between what we are doing and the action planner +Grad E: Spit right here . +Grad B: and right now the way the interface is "" action go "" and then they have the {disfmarker} what the person claimed was the source and the person claimed as the goal passed on . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And the problem is , is that the current system does not distinguish between goes of type "" going into "" , goes of type "" want to go to a place where I can take a picture of "" , et cetera . +Grad C: So this is sort of what it looks like now , some simple "" Go "" action from it {disfmarker} from an object named "" Peter 's Kirche "" of the type "" Church "" to an object named "" Powder - Tower "" of the type "" Tower "" . Right ? +Grad G: This is the uh {disfmarker} what the action planner uses ? +Grad B: Right . Currently . +Grad G: This is {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Currently . +Grad G: And is that {disfmarker} and tha that 's changeable ? or not ? +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like are we adapting to it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} This is the output , sort of , of the natural language understanding , +Grad G: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: the input into the action planning , as it is now . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what we are going to do , we going to {disfmarker} and you can see here , and again for Johno please {disfmarker} please focus the shadow , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: um we 're gon uh uh here you have the action and the domain object and w and on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +Grad G: What did you think he was doing ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad E: A laser pointer would be most appropriate here I think . +Grad C: Yeah I {disfmarker} I um have {disfmarker} I have no {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Eee . +Grad B: Robert likes to be abstract and that 's what I just thought he was doing . +Grad G: You look up here . +Grad C: Sort of between here and here , +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: so as you can see this is on one level and we are going to add another um "" Struct "" , if you want , IE a rich action description on that level . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So in the future {disfmarker} +Grad G: So it 's just an additional information {disfmarker} +Grad C: Exactly . In the future though , the content of a hypothesis will not only be an object and an {disfmarker} an action and a domain object but an action , a domain object , and a rich action description , +Grad G: Right ? that doesn't hurt the current way . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Which {disfmarker} which we 're abbreviating as "" RAD "" . +Grad C: which is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Good . +Grad E: Rad ! +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad F: So um you had like an action schema and a Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Hmm . Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: right ? So how does this Source - Path - Goal schema fit into the uh action schema ? Like is it one of the tags there ? +Grad G: Yeah can you go back to that one ? +Grad B: So the Source - Path - Goal schema in this case , I 've {disfmarker} if I understand how we described {disfmarker} we set this up , um cuz we 've been arguing about it all week , but uh we 'll hold the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Well in this case it will hold the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} the features I guess . I 'm not {disfmarker} it 's hard for me to exactly s So basically that will store the {disfmarker} the object that is w the Source will store the object that we 're going from , the Goal will store the {disfmarker} the f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So the fillers of the role source . +Grad B: we 'll fill those in fill those roles in , right ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: The S Action - schemas basically have extra {disfmarker} See we {disfmarker} so those are {disfmarker} schemas exist because in case we need extra information instead of just making it an attribute and which {disfmarker} which is just one thing we {disfmarker} we decided to make it 's own entity so that we could explode it out later on in case there is some structure that {disfmarker} that we need to exploit . +Grad G: OK , so th sorry I just don't kn um um um {disfmarker} This is just uh XML mo notational but um the fact that it 's action schema and then sort of slash action schema that 's a whole entit +Grad B: That 's a block , yeah . +Grad G: That 's a block , whereas source is just an attribute ? +Grad C: No , no , no . +Grad G: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Source is just not spelled out here . Source meaning {disfmarker} Source will be uh will have a name , a type , maybe a dimensionality , +Grad G: Oh , OK , OK . +Grad C: maybe canonical uh orientation {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh - huh , uh - huh . OK could it {disfmarker} it could also be blocked out then as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: s Source it will be , you know we 'll f we know a lot about sources so we 'll put all of that in Source . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: But it 's independent whether we are using the SPG schema in an Enter , View , or Approach mode , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: This is just properties of the SPG {comment} schema . We can talk about Paths being the fastest , the quickest , the nicest and so forth , uh or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and the Trajector should be coming in there as well . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And then G the same about Goals . +Grad G: OK . So I guess the question is when you actually fill one of these out , it 'll be under action schema ? Those are {disfmarker} It 's gonna be one {disfmarker} y you 'll pick one of those for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad G: OK these are {disfmarker} this is just a layout of the possible that could go {disfmarker} play that role . +Grad B: Right , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the roles will be filled in with the schema +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: OK , go it . Uh - huh . +Grad B: and then what actual a action is chosen is {disfmarker} will be in the {disfmarker} in the action schema section . +Grad G: OK . OK . S S OK , so one question . This was {disfmarker} in this case it 's all um clear , sort of obvious , but you can think of the Enter , View and Approach as each having their roles , right ? the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's implicit that the person that 's moving is doing entering viewing and approaching , but you know the usual thing is we have bindings between sort of {disfmarker} they 're sort of like action specific roles and the more general Source - Path - Goal specific roles . So are we worrying about that or not for now ? +Grad C: Yes , yes . Since you bring it up now , we will worry about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Tell us more about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: What do you {disfmarker} what do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? Oh I guess it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I may be just um reading this and interpreting it into my head in the way that I 've always viewed things +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad G: and {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you guys intended . But if it is , then the top block is sort of like um , you know , you have to list exactly what X - schema or in this action schema , there 'll be a certain one , that has its own s structure and maybe it has stuff about that specific to entering or viewing or approaching , but those could include roles like the thing that you 're viewing , the thing that you 're entering , the thing that you 're +Grad E: So very specific role names are "" viewed thing "" , "" entered thing "" {disfmarker} +Grad G: whatever , you know , that {disfmarker} which are {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} think of enter , view and approach as frames +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: and they have frame - specific parameters and {disfmarker} and roles +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and you can also describe them in a general way as Source - Path - Goal schema and maybe there 's other image schemas that you could you know add after this that you know , how do they work in terms of you know a force dynamics +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm . +Grad G: or how do they work in f terms of other things . So all of those have um basically f either specific {disfmarker} frame specific roles or more general frame specific roles that might have binding . So the question is are um {disfmarker} how to represent when things are linked in a certain way . So we know for Enter that there 's Container potentially involved +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and it 's not {disfmarker} uh I don't know if you wanna have in the same level as the action schema SPG schema it {disfmarker} it 's somewhere in there that you need to represent that there is some container and the interior of it corresponds to some part of the Source - Path - Goal um you know goal {disfmarker} uh goal I guess in this case . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So uh is there an easy way in this notation to show when there 's identity basically between things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and I di don't know if that 's something we need to invent or you know just {disfmarker} +Grad B: The {disfmarker} wa wasn't there supposed to be a link in the +Grad F: Right . +Grad B: I don't know if this answers your question , I was just staring at this while you were talking , sorry . +Grad G: It 's OK . +Grad B: Uh a link between the action schema , a field in the s in the schema for the image schemas that would link us to which action schema we were supposed to use so we could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Um , well that 's {disfmarker} that 's one {disfmarker} one thing is that we can link up , think also that um we can have one or m as many as we want links from {disfmarker} from the schema up to the s action um description of it . +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: But the notion I got from Nancy 's idea was that we may f find sort of concepts floating around i in the a action description of the action f "" Enter "" frame up there that are , e when you talk about the real world , actually identical to the goal of the {disfmarker} the S Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Exactly . Right , right . +Grad C: and do we have means of {disfmarker} of telling it within that a and the answer is absolutely . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: The way {disfmarker} we absolutely have those means that are even part of the M - three - L A API , +Grad G: Yeah . Oh great . s Uh - huh . +Grad C: meaning we can reference . So meaning {disfmarker} +Grad G: Great . That 's exactly what is necessary . +Grad B: Yeah . St +Grad C: And um . This referencing thing however is of temporary nature because sooner or later the W - three - C will be finished with their X - path , uh , um , specification and then it 's going to be even much nicer . Then we have real means of pointing at an individual instantiation of one of our elements here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and link it to another one , and this not only within a document but also via documents , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and all in a v very easy e homogenous framework . +Grad G: So you know {disfmarker} happen to know how {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what "" sooner or later "" means like in practice ? +Grad C: That 's but it 's soon . +Grad G: Or estimated . OK , OK . +Grad C: So it 's g it 's {disfmarker} the spec is there and it 's gonna part of the M - three - L AP {disfmarker} API filed by the end of this year so that this means we can start using it basically now . But this is a technical detail . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So a pointer {disfmarker} a way to really say pointers . +Grad B: Basically references from the roles in the schema {disfmarker} the bottom schemas to the action schemas is wha uh I 'm assuming . +Grad G: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean personally , I 'm looking even more forward to the day when we 're going to have X forms , which l is a form of notation where it allows you to say that if the SPG action up there is Enter , then the goal type can never be a statue . +Grad G: OK . Uh - huh . Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So you have constraints that are dependent on the c actual s specific filler , uh , of some attribute . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . W Yeah e exactly . Um , you know this , of course , does not make sense in light of the Statue of Liberty , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: however {vocalsound} it is uh you know sort of {disfmarker} these sort of things are imaginable . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Tsk . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah ? +Grad F: S So um , like are you gonna have similar schemas for FM +Grad G: Or the Gateway Arch in St . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Louis . So . +Grad F: like forced motion and caused action and stuff like you have for SPG ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad F: And if so like can {disfmarker} are you able to enforce that you know if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's SPG action then you have that schema , if it 's a forced motion then you have the other schema present in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um we have absolute {disfmarker} No . We have absolutely no means of enforcing that , so it would be considered valid if we have an SPG action "" Enter "" and no SPG schema , but a forced action schema . Could happen . +Grad G: Whi - which is not bad , because I mean , that there 's multiple sens I mean that particular case , there 's mult there {disfmarker} there 's a forced side of {disfmarker} of that verb as well . +Grad C: Hmm . It {disfmarker} maybe it means we had nothing to say about the Source - Path - Goal . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: What 's also nice , and for a i for me in my mind it 's {disfmarker} it 's crucially necessary , is that we can have multiple schemas and multiple action schemas in parallel . +Grad F: Right . +Grad C: And um we started thinking about going through our bakery questions , so when I say "" is there a bakery here ? "" you know I do ultimately want our module to be able to first of all f tell the rest of the system "" hey this person actually wants to go there "" and "" B "" , {comment} that person actually wants to buy something to eat there . Nuh ? And if these are two different schemas , IE the Source - Path - Goal schema of getting there and then the buying snacks schema , nuh ? {disfmarker} +Grad G: Would they both be listed here in {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +Grad G: OK . Under so o under action schema there 's a list that can include both {disfmarker} both things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: ye Yeah , they they would {disfmarker} both schemas would appear , so what is the uh is {disfmarker} is there a "" buying s snacks "" schema ? +Grad E: Snack action . +Grad G: That 's interesting . +Grad C: What is the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have +Grad G: What ? +Grad C: the buying snack schema ? +Grad E: See . +Undergrad D: Buying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} buying his food {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm sure there 's a commercial event schema in there somewhere . +Grad G: Oop . I {vocalsound} d f +Grad C: Yeah , a "" commercial event "" or something . +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah ? So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we would {disfmarker} we would instantiate the SPG schema with a Source - Path - Goal blah - blah - blah +Grad G: I see . +Grad C: and the buying event you know at which {disfmarker} however that looks like , the place f thing to buy . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . Interesting . Would you say that the {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} I mean you could have a flat structure and just say these are two independent things , but there 's also this sort of like causal , well , so one is really facilitating the other and it 's part of a compound action of some kind , which has structure . +Grad C: Yeah . Now it 's technically possible that you can fit schema within schema , and schema within schemata {disfmarker} +Grad G: uh I {disfmarker} I think that 's nicer for a lot of reasons but might be a pain so uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: um Well , for me it seems that uh {disfmarker} r Yes . +Grad G: I mean there are truly times when you have two totally independent goals that they might express at once , but in this case it 's really like there 's a purpo means that you know f for achieving some other purpose . +Grad C: Well , if I 'm {disfmarker} if I 'm recipient of such a message and I get a Source - Path - Goal where the goal is a bakery and then I get a commercial action which takes place in a bakery , right ? and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and they {disfmarker} they are obviously , via identifiers , identified to be the same thing here . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . See that {disfmarker} that bothers me that they 're the same thing . +Grad C: No , no , just the {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad G: Yeah because they 're two different things one of which is l you could think of one a sub you know pru whatever pre - condition for the second . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah ! +Grad G: Right . Yeah , yeah . So . So . OK . So there 's like levels of granularity . So uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's um a single event of which they are both a part . And they 're {disfmarker} independently they {disfmarker} they are events which have very different characters as far as Source - Path - Goal whatever . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: So when you identify Source - Path - Goal and whatever , there 's gonna to be a desire , whatever , eating , hunger , whatever other frames you have involved , they have to match up in {disfmarker} in nice ways . So it seems like each of them has its own internal structure and mapping to these schemas +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know from the other {disfmarker} But you know that 's just {disfmarker} That 's just me . +Grad C: Well , I think we 're gonna hit a lot of interesting problems +Grad G: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: and as I prefaced it this is the result of one week of arguing {vocalsound} about it +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Between you guys +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: uh +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah I mean I {disfmarker} I still am not entirely sure that I really fully grasp the syntax of this . +Grad B: Well it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually a very {disfmarker} actually , it doesn't actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um it occur {disfmarker} it occurs to me that I mean ne +Grad E: You know , like what {disfmarker} Right . Or the intended interpretation of this . +Grad C: um well I should have {disfmarker} we should have added an ano an XML example , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: or some XML examples +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: yeah that would be {disfmarker} that would be nice . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and this is on {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on my list of things until next {disfmarker} next week . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: It 's also a question of the recursiveness and {disfmarker} and a hier hierarchy um in there . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Do we want the schemas just blump blump blump blump ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} if we can actually you know get it so that we can , out of one utterance , activate more than one schema , I mean , then we 're already pretty good , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well you have to be careful with that uh uh thing because uh {vocalsound} I mean many actions presuppose some {disfmarker} um almost {vocalsound} infinitely many other actions . So if you go to a bakery {pause} you have a general intention of uh not being hungry . +Grad G: Yeah . Mayb - yeah . +PhD A: You have a specific intentions to cross the traffic light to get there . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You have a further specific intentions to left {disfmarker} to lift your right foot +Grad C: Hmm ? +PhD A: and so uh uh I mean y you really have to focus on on {disfmarker} on +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and decide the level of {disfmarker} of abstraction that {disfmarker} that you aim at it kind of zero in on that , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and more or less ignore the rest , unless there is some implications that {disfmarker} that you want to constant draw from {disfmarker} from sub - tasks um that are relevant uh I mean but very difficult . +Grad G: M Th The other thing that I just thought of is that you could want to go to the bakery because you 're supposed to meet your friend there or som +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know so you {disfmarker} like being able to infer the second thing is very useful and probably often right . +Grad B: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the utterance was "" is there a bakery around here ? "" , +Grad G: But having them separate {disfmarker} +Grad B: not "" I want to go to a bakery . "" +Grad G: Well maybe their friend said they were going to meet them in a bakery around the area . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: And I 'm , yeah {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm inventing contexts which are maybe unlikely , +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Sure it {disfmarker} OK . Yeah . +Grad G: but yeah I mean like {disfmarker} but it 's still the case that um you could {disfmarker} you could override that default by giving extra information +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: which is to me a reason why you would keep the inference of that separate from the knowledge of "" OK they really want to know if there 's a bakery around here "" , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: which is direct . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there should never be a hard coded uh {vocalsound} shortcut from {pause} the bakery question to the uh double schema thing , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: how uh {disfmarker} And , as a matter of fact , when I have traveled with my friends we make these {disfmarker} exactly these kinds of appointments . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: We o o +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Exactly . It 's {disfmarker} I met someone at the bakery you know in the Victoria Station t you know {vocalsound} train station London before , +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD A: Well . I have a question about the slot of the SPG action . +Grad G: yeah . It 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {vocalsound} the Enter - View - Approach the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the EVA um , those are fixed slots in this particular action . Every action of this kind will have a choice . Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or will it just um uh {disfmarker} is it change {disfmarker} +Grad E: Every SPG {disfmarker} every SPG action either is an Enter or a View or an Approach , +PhD A: Right , right . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: right ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I mean for {disfmarker} for each particular action that you may want to characterize you would have some number of slots that define uh uh uh you know in some way what this action is all about . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It can be either A , B or C . Um . So is it a fixed number or {disfmarker} or do you leave it open {disfmarker} it could be between one and fifteen uh {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's flexible . +Grad C: Um , the uh {disfmarker} Well , it sort of depends on {disfmarker} on if you actually write down the {disfmarker} the schema then you have to say it 's either one of them or it can be none , or it can be any of them . However the uh {disfmarker} it seems to be sensible to me to r to view them as mutually exclusive um maybe even not . +Grad G: J Do you mean within the Source - Path - Goal actions ? +PhD A: uh {vocalsound} ye uh uh b I uh I {disfmarker} u I understand +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Those three ? +PhD A: uh but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um how {disfmarker} how where is the end ? So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , no . There {disfmarker} a a actually by I think my question is simpler than that , um {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} OK , so you have an SPG action and {disfmarker} and it has three different um uh aspects um because you can either enter a building or view it or {disfmarker} or approach it and touch it or something . Um now you define uh another action , it 's {disfmarker} it 's called um uh s S P G - one +Grad C: Forced action or forced motion . Yeah . +PhD A: action a different action . Um and this {disfmarker} uh action - two would have various variable possibilities of interpreting what you would like to do . And {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} in a way similar to either Enter - View - Approach you may want to send a letter , read a letter , or dictate a letter , let 's say . So , h +Grad B: Oh the {disfmarker} OK uh maybe I 'd {disfmarker} The uh {disfmarker} These actions {disfmarker} I don't know if I 'm gonna answer your question or not with this , but the categories inside of action schemas , so , SPG action is a category . Real although I think what we 're specifying here is this is a category where the actions "" enter , view and approach "" would fall into because they have a related Source - Path - Goal schema in our tourist domain . Cuz viewing in a tourist domain is going up to it and {disfmarker} or actually going from one place to another to take a picture , in this {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Oh , s so it 's sort of automatic derived fr from the structure that {disfmarker} that is built elsewhere . +Grad B: derived I don't know if I u +Grad E: This is a cate this a category structure here , +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: right ? Action schema . What are some types of action schemas ? Well one of the types of action schemas is Source - Path - Goal action . And what are some types of that ? And an Enter , a View , an Approach . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Those are all Source - Path - Goal actions . +Grad B: Inside of Enter there will be roles that can be filled basically . So if I want to go from outside to inside {vocalsound} then you 'd have the roles that need to filled , where you 'd have a Source - Path - Goal set of roles . So you 'd the Source would be outside and Path is to the door or whatever , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So if you wanted to have a new type of action you 'd create a new type of category . Then this category would {disfmarker} we would put it {disfmarker} or not necessarily {disfmarker} We would put a new action in the m uh in the categories that {disfmarker} in which it has the um {disfmarker} Well , every action has a set of related schemas like Source - Path - Goal or force , whatever , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So we would put "" write a letter "" in the categories uh that {disfmarker} in which it had {disfmarker} it w had uh schemas u +Grad E: There could be a communication event action or something like that +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Schemas uh that of that type . +Grad E: and you could write it . +Grad B: And then later , you know , there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we have a communication event action where we 'd define it down there as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . So there 's a bit a redundancy , right ? in {disfmarker} in which the things that go into a particular {disfmarker} You have categories at the top under action schema and the things that go under a particular category are um supposed to have a corresponding schema definition for that type . So I guess what 's the function of having it up there too ? I mean I guess I 'm wondering whether {disfmarker} You could just have under action schema you could just sort of say whatever you know it 's gonna be Enter , View or Approach or whatever number of things +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and pos partly because you need to know somewhere that those things fall into some categories . And it may be multiple categories as you say which is um the reason why it gets a little messy +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: um but if it has {disfmarker} if it 's supposed to be categorized in category X then the corresponding schema X will be among the structures that {disfmarker} that follow . +Grad B: Right . Well , this is one of things we were arguing about . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: That 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: th this is {disfmarker} this r +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad C: this is {disfmarker} this is more {disfmarker} this is probably the way that th that 's the way that seemed more intuitive to Johno I guess +Grad G: You didn't tell me to {disfmarker} +Grad C: also for a while {disfmarker} for +Grad G: Uh - huh . But now you guys have seen the light . +Grad C: No , no , no . Uh we have not {disfmarker} we have not seen the light . +Grad B: No . +Grad G: So . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} One reason we 're doing it this way is in case there 's extra structure that 's in the Enter action that 's not captured by the schemas , +Grad G: I it 's easy to go back and forth isn't it ? Uh - huh . I agree . Right . Right . +Grad B: right ? +Grad G: Which is why I would think you would say Enter and then just say all the things that are relevant specifically to Enter . And then the things that are abstract will be in the abstract things as well . And that 's why the bindings become useful . +Grad B: Right , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Ri - You 'd like {disfmarker} so you 're saying you could practically turn this structure inside out ? or something , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: Um Ye - I see what you mean by that , +Grad C: No basically w +Grad G: but I {disfmarker} I don't if I would {disfmarker} I would need to have t have that . +Grad C: Get {disfmarker} get rid of the sort of SPG slash something uh or the sub - actions category , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: because what does that tell us ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad C: Um and I agree that you know this is something we need to discuss , +Grad G: I in fact what you could say is for Enter , +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: you could say "" here , list all the kinds of schemas that {disfmarker} on the category that {disfmarker} +Grad E: List all the parent categories . +Grad G: you know i list all the parent categories "" . It 's just like a frame hierarchy , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: like you have these blended frames . So you would say enter and you 'd say my parent frames are such - and - such , h and then those are the ones that actually you then actually define and say how the roles bind to your specific roles which will probably be f richer and fuller and have other stuff in there . +Grad E: Yeah . This sounds like a paper I 've read around here recently in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah it could {vocalsound} be not a coincidence . Like I said , I 'm sure I 'm just hitting everything with a hammer that I developed , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: but I mean you know uh it 's {disfmarker} I 'm just telling you what I think , you just hit the button and it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , I guess fr uh +Grad E: Yeah I mean but there 's a good question here . Like , I mean uh do you {disfmarker} When do you need {disfmarker} Damn this headset ! When you this uh , eh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Metacomment . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} That 's all recorded . Um . Why do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: "" Damn this project . "" No just kidding . +Grad E: I don't know . Like {disfmarker} How do I {disfmarker} how do I come at this question ? Um . I just don't see why you would {disfmarker} I mean does th Who uses this uh {disfmarker} this data structure ? You know ? Like , do you say "" alright I 'm going to uh {disfmarker} {pause} do an SPG action "" . And then you know somebody ne either the computer or the user says "" alright , well , I know I want to do a Source - Path - Goal action so what are my choices among that ? "" And "" oh , OK , so I can do an Enter - View - Approach "" . It 's not like that , right ? It 's more like you say "" I want to , uh {disfmarker} {pause} I want to do an Enter . "" +Grad B: Well only one of {disfmarker} +Grad E: And then you 're more interested in knowing what the parent categories are of that . Right ? So that the um {disfmarker} the uh sort of representation that you were just talking about seems more relevant to the kinds of things you would have to do ? +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if I understand your question . Only one of those things are gonna be lit up when we pass this on . So only Enter will be {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: if we {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our module decided that Enter is the case , View and Approach will not be there . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad C: Well {vocalsound} uh it 's {disfmarker} it sort of came into my mind that sometimes even two could be on , and would be interesting . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: um nevertheless um +Grad E: Mayb - Well maybe I 'm not understanding where this comes from and where this goes to . +Grad B: Well in that case , we can't {disfmarker} we can't w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad C: l let 's {disfmarker} let 's not {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: well the thing is if that 's the case we {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} I don't think our system can handle that currently . +Grad E: What are we doing with this ? +Grad C: No , not at all . But {disfmarker} U s {vocalsound} t So {disfmarker} +Grad E: In principle . +Grad G: "" Approach and then enter . "" +Grad C: the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} in some sense we {disfmarker} we ex get the task done extremely well +Grad G: Run like this uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: because this is exactly the discussion we need {disfmarker} need . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Period . No more qualifiers than that . So . +Grad G: No , this is the useful , +Grad C: and um and {disfmarker} and I th I hope +Grad G: you know , don don't worry . +Grad C: um uh let 's make a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sharper claim . We will not end this discussion anytime soon . +Grad G: Yeah , I can guarantee that . +Grad C: And it 's gonna get more and more complex the {disfmarker} the l complexer and larger our domains get . +Grad E: Sigh . +Grad C: And I think um we will have all of our points in writing pretty soon . So this is nice about being being recorded also . The um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Undergrad D: That 's true . +Grad B: The r uh the {disfmarker} in terms of why is {disfmarker} it 's laid out like this versus some other {disfmarker} +Grad C: the people {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: um that 's kind of a contentious point between the two of us but {vocalsound} this is one wa so this is a way to link uh the way these roles are filled out to the action . +Grad E: In my view . +Grad B: Because if we know that Enter is a t is an SPG action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: we know to look for an SPG schema and put the appropriate {disfmarker} fill in the appropriate roles later on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: And you could have also indicated that by saying "" Enter , what are the kinds of action I am ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right ? So there 's just like sort of reverse organization , right ? So like unless @ @ {disfmarker} Are there reasons why one is better than the other I mean that come from other sources ? +Grad E: Again {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes because nobod no the modules don't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . uh +Grad C: This is {disfmarker} this is a schema that defines XML messages that are passed from one module to another , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: mainly meaning from the natural language understanding , or from the deep language understanding to the action planner . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Now the {disfmarker} the reason for {disfmarker} for not using this approach is because you always will have to go back , each module will try {disfmarker} have to go back to look up which uh you know entity can have which uh , you know , entity can have which parents , and then {disfmarker} So you always need the whole body of {disfmarker} of y your model um to figure out what belongs to what . Or you always send it along with it , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: nuh ? So you always send up "" here I am {disfmarker} I am this person , and I can have these parents "" in every message . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: which e +Grad G: OK , so it 's just like a pain to have to send it . +Grad C: It may or may not be a just a pain it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I 'm completely willing to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to throw all of this away +Grad G: OK , I understand . +Grad C: and completely redo it , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: you know and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it after some iterations we may just do that . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I would just like to ask um like , if it could happen for next time , I mean , just beca cuz I 'm new +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and I don't really just {disfmarker} I just don't know what to make of this and what this is for , and stuff like that , you know , so if someone could make an example of what would actually be in it , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad E: like first of all what modules are talking to each other using this , +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} I will promise for the next time to have fleshed out N {comment} XML examples for a {disfmarker} a run through and {disfmarker} and see how this {disfmarker} this then translates , +Grad E: right ? And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: and how this can come about , +Grad G: Be great . +Grad C: nuh ? including the sort of "" miracle occurs here "" um part . +Grad E: Right . +Grad C: And um is there more to be said ? I think um {disfmarker} In principle what I {disfmarker} I think that this approach does , and e e whether or not we take the Enter - View and we all throw up {disfmarker} up the ladder um wha how do how does Professor Peter call that ? +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: The uh hhh , {comment} silence su sublimination ? Throwing somebody up the stairs ? Have you never read the Peter 's Principle anyone here ? +Grad E: Nope . +PhD A: Oh , uh +Grad F: People reach their level of uh max their level of {disfmarker} at which they 're incompetent or whatever . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Maximum incompetence +PhD A: Yeah . Right , right . +Grad C: and then you can throw them up the stairs +Grad E: Alright . +Grad G: Oh ! +Grad C: um . Yeah . +PhD A: Promote them , yeah . +Grad C: OK , so we can promote Enter - View all {disfmarker} all up a bit and and get rid of the uh blah - blah - X - blah uh asterisk sub - action item altogether . No {disfmarker} no problem with that +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: and we {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} we will play around with all of them but the principal distinction between having the {disfmarker} the pure schema and their instantiations on the one hand , and adding some whatever , more intention oriented specification um on parallel to that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} this approach seems to be uh workable to me . I don't know . If you all share that opinion then that made my day much happier . +Grad B: This is a simple way to basically link uh roles to actions . +Grad G: Uh yeah wait {disfmarker} R Yeah , yeah . That 's fine . +Grad B: That 's the {disfmarker} that was the intent of {disfmarker} of it , basically . +Grad E: Sure . Sure . +Grad G: Uh that 's true . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Although um roles {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I {disfmarker} I do I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm never happy when he uses the word "" roles "" , +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . I was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I b I mean ROLLS so +Grad G: Bread rolls ? +Grad E: Oh you meant pastries , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , pastries is what I 'm talking about . +Grad G: Pastry oh ba oh the bak bakery example . +Undergrad D: Bakery . Bakery . +Grad E: This is the bakery example . Got it . Alright . +Grad G: I see . Right . OK . +Grad E: Help ! +Grad G: I guess I 'll agree to that , then . +Grad C: OK . That 's all I have for today . Oh no , there 's one more issue . Bhaskara brought that one up . Meeting time rescheduling . +Grad G: I n Didn't you say something about Friday , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} ? Hmm . +Grad C: So it looks like you have not been partaking , the Monday at three o ' clock time has turned out to be not good anymore . So people have been thinking about an alternative time and the one we came up with is Friday two - thirty ? three ? What was it ? +Grad B: You have class until two , right ? so if we don't want him {disfmarker} if we don't want him to run over here +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Two - th Two - thirty - ish or three or Friday at three or something around that time . +Grad G: So do I . Yeah . +Grad B: two thirty - ish or three is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . e +Grad C: Um how {disfmarker} how are your {disfmarker} +Grad G: That would be good . +PhD A: uh Friday uh Yeah , that 's fine . +Grad C: And I know that you have until three {disfmarker} You 're busy ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: So three is {disfmarker} sounds good ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: I 'll be free by then . +Grad E: I could do that . Yeah I mean earlier on Friday is better but three {disfmarker} you know I mean {disfmarker} if it were a three or a three thirty time then I would take the three or whatever , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but yeah sure three is fine . +Grad C: Yeah , and you can always make it shortly after three probably . +Grad E: I mean . +Undergrad D: Yeah , and I don't need to be here particularly deeply . +Grad C: Often , no , but uh , +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad C: whenever . +Undergrad D: But yeah . +Grad C: You are more than welcome if you think that this kind of discussion gets you anywhere in {disfmarker} in your life then uh you 're free to c +Undergrad D: It 's fascinating . +Grad G: "" That 's the right answer . "" +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that I don't have to work it out +Grad C: +Undergrad D: because . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that don't have to work it out myself , that I 'm not involved at all in the working out of it because . +Grad C: Uh but you 're a linguist . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: You should {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh yeah . That 's why I 'm glad that I 'm not involved in working it out . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So it 's at Friday at three ? there that 's +Grad C: And um +Grad E: So already again this week , +Grad C: How diligent do we feel ? +Grad E: huh ? +Grad C: Yeah . Do feel that we have done our chores for this week or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . So I mean clearly there 's {disfmarker} I can talk about the um the parser changes on Friday at least , +Grad C: OK , Bhaskara will do the big show on Friday . +Grad F: so . +Grad G: And you guys will argue some more ? +Grad B: And between now and then yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Between now and then . +Grad G: and have some ? +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} r +Grad E: Promise ? +Grad G: probably . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: We will . Don't worry . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: And we 'll get the summary like , this {disfmarker} the c you know , short version , like {disfmarker} +PhD A: An - and I would like to second Keith 's request . +Grad G: S +PhD A: An example wo would be nice t to have kind of a detailed example . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yes . I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I guess I 'm on record for promising that now . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like have it {disfmarker} we 'll have it in writing . So . or , better , speech . So . +Grad C: This is it and um +Grad B: The other good thing about it is Jerry can be on here on Friday and he can weigh in as well . +Grad C: Yeah . and um if you can get that binding point also maybe with a nice example that would be helpful for Johno and me . +Grad G: Oh yeah uh OK . let 's uh yeah they 're {disfmarker} +Grad C: Give us {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No problem , +Grad E: I think you 've got one on hand , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad E: huh ? +Grad G: I have several in my head , yeah . Always thinking about binding . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the binding is technically no problem but it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it seems to be conceptually important that we find out if we can s if {disfmarker} if there {disfmarker} if there are things in there that are sort of a general nature , we should distill them out and put them where the schemas are . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If there are things that you know are intention - specific , then we should put them up somewhere , a +Grad G: So , in general they 'll be bindings across both intentions and the actions . +Grad C: Yep . That 's wonderful . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's gen it 's general across all of these things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: it 's like {disfmarker} I mean Shastri would say you know binding is like {vocalsound} an essential cognitive uh process . So . {vocalsound} Um . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: So I don't think it will be isolated to one or the two , but you can definitely figure out where {disfmarker} Yeah , sometimes things belong and {disfmarker} So actually I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I would be curious to see how separate the intention part and the action part are in the system . Like I know the whole thing is like intention lattice , or something like that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: right ? So is the ri right now are the ideas the rich {disfmarker} rich the RAD or whatever is one you know potential block inside intention . It 's still {disfmarker} it 's still mainly intention hypothesis +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: and then that 's just one way to describe the {disfmarker} the action part of it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: It 's an a attempt to refine it basically . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} And yeah , +Grad G: OK , great uh - huh . +Grad C: it 's an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Not just that you want to go from here to here , it 's that the action is what you intend +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and this action consists of all com complicated modules and image schemas and whatever . +Grad C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and there will be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a relatively high level of redundancy +Grad G: So . +Grad C: in the sense that um ultimately one {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . which is , yeah , It 's fine +Grad C: so th so that if we want to get really cocky we we will say "" well if you really look at it , you just need our RAD . "" You can throw the rest away , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because you 're not gonna get anymore information out of the action a as you find it there in the domain object . +Grad G: Right . Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But then again um in this case , the domain object may contain information that we don't really care about either . So . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: H But w we 'll see that then , and how {disfmarker} how it sort of evolves . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I mean if {disfmarker} if people really like our {disfmarker} our RAD , I mean w what might happen is that they will get rid of that action thing completely , you know , and leave it up for us to get the parser input um +Grad G: Mmm . We know the things that make use of this thing so that we can just change them so that they make use of RAD . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You don't have to use the acronym . +Grad G: I can't believe we 're using this term . So I 'm like RAD ! Like every time I say it , it 's horrible . OK . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I see what you mean . +Grad B: RAD 's a great term . +Grad G: Is the {disfmarker} But what is the "" why "" ? +Grad E: It 's rad , even ! +Grad B: Why ? +Grad G: Why ? +Grad E: It happened to c be what it stands for . +Grad B: It just happened to be the acronym . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} doesn't make it a great term . It 's just like those jokes where you have to work on both levels . +Grad C: ye no but i +Undergrad D: Just think of it as {disfmarker} as "" wheel "" in German . +Grad C: but if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you work in th in that XML community it is a great acronym +Grad G: Do you see what I mean ? Like +Grad C: because it e evokes whatever RDF {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: RDF is the biggest thing right ? That 's the rich {disfmarker} sort of "" Resource Description Framework "" +Grad E: Oh "" rich de "" +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} So , description , having the word d term "" description "" in there is wonderful , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh "" rich "" is also great , rwww . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: Who doesn't like to be a +Grad E: Everybody likes action . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Plus it 's hip . The kids 'll like it . +Grad G: But what if it 's not an action ? +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's rad , +Undergrad D: Yeah all the kids 'll love it . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: And intentions will be "" RID "" ? Like , "" OK "" . Um are the {disfmarker} are the sample data that you guys showed sometime ago {disfmarker} like the things {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe you 're gonna run a trial tomorrow . I mean , I 'm just wondering whether the ac some the actual sentences from this domain will be available . Cuz it 'd be nice for me to like look if I 'm thinking about examples I 'm mostly looking at child language which you know will have some overlap but not total with the kinds of things that you guys are getting . So you showed some in this {disfmarker} here before +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and maybe you 've posted it before but where would I look if I want to see ? +Grad C: Oh I {disfmarker} You want audio ? +Grad G: You know . +Grad C: or do you want transcript ? +Grad G: No just {disfmarker} just transcript . +Grad C: Yeah , well just transcript is just not available because nobody has transcribed it yet . +Grad G: Sorry . +Grad C: Um I can e I can uh I 'll transcribe it though . +Grad G: Oh , OK . I take that back then . +Grad C: It 's no problem . +Grad G: OK , well don't {disfmarker} don't make it a high priority {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} In fact if you just tell me like you know like two examples +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I mean , y The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the representational problems are {disfmarker} I 'm sure , will be there , +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: like enough for me to think about . So . +Grad C: OK , so Friday , whoever wants and comes , and can . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: This Friday . +Grad G: Here . OK . +Grad C: The big parser show . Now you can all turn off your {disfmarker} +","The conversation involves a group of participants (Grad G, Grad C, Grad B, Undergrad D, Grad F, Grad E, and PhD A) discussing a range of topics related to their project, which seems to entail data collection, parsing, action planning, and schema generation as it relates to linguistic and cognitive frameworks. The group tackles issues such as organizing XML message structures, finding means to represent complex actions, and the potential need for a new hire to handle increasingly complex tasks. They debate the structure and categorization of actions within their system, with a particular focus on 'Enter', 'View', and 'Approach' actions within a 'Source-Path-Goal' schema. There is concern about ensuring that intentions and actions are accurately represented and linked in the system. + +The group also discusses logistical matters, such as scheduling meetings and the process of recording and transcribing their discussions for future reference. They agree to meet again on Friday for further discussion and potentially to hear more about the parser from Grad F. There's an acknowledgement that the conversation about the project's technical nuances is ongoing and complex, with no immediate resolution in sight. + +The conversation is quite technical and filled with jargon, indicating that the participants are deeply involved in the details of their project. There is also a sense of collaboration and willingness to consider different perspectives to improve the project's outcomes." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , yeah . {gap} crack on {gap} . Okay so we'll start off with a quick overview of the minutes . I think to sum up the last meeting , would be to say um the requirements that we've um set out . Those are we were going to go for what seemed to be a fairly minimal design based on uh a small joystick , {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and a couple of other buttons for navigation um with power being I suppose one of the main single purpose buttons . Um we were also going to use {gap} novelty of being able to locate the remote control again via a small transmitter with any luck , the idea to try and separate us and also because of the minimal design um looks like we'll be able to be fairly adventurous in the actual physical shape of our remote control with any luck . Um that pretty much sums up the last one . So we'll just crack on , um like to maybe start with the Industrial Designer if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh uh okay . +Project Manager: Um uh the con today is the concep today . +Industrial Designer: I'll just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This uh meeting is the conceptual design phase and is um {disfmarker} Sorry about this . {gap} . And is to cover things like um what the parts might be made of , um , can we uh outsource these from elsewhere , um will we have to construct any items ourselves ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I have a presentation {gap} I just saved it in the uh the folder . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay well I'll just uh I'll load it up then . Um {vocalsound} . Which one do y +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Oh , interface concept ? +User Interface: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: That's you . We've got trend watching , that's you . +Industrial Designer: It's uh {disfmarker} Components design . +Project Manager: Components design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . The case uh le that's what I wrote first of all , could be plastic our plastic . Uh but later on {gap} we found out that um it can be rubber as well , or titanium or even wood . So uh we decide what it's gonna be . Probably plastic . Uh we need the infra-red transmitter . Get that off the shelf . Uh joystick we'll probably if we're gonna use it , um could be plastic w or rubber even as well . Um {vocalsound} if you go on to the next slide . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you go on to f uh findings , it's like two or three slides down . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , this is what I found we can use . Uh three different types of batteries . Um can either use a hand dynamo , or the kinetic type ones , you know that they use in watches , or else uh a solar powered one . +Project Manager: Okay . Now , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: the kinetic one , we've {disfmarker} 'cause that's the ones where like you {disfmarker} the movement causes it . +Marketing: Cost is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the bat uh the battery for a a watch wouldn't require a lot of power , would be my one query . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is a kinetic one going to be able to supply enough power ? +User Interface: There's also a watch moves around a great deal more . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think it would . Um . And solar cells , I dunno about that . +Marketing: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . We should probably just use conventional batteries . Um , just like in usual remote controls . +Project Manager: Which I suppose as well would allow us to go off the shelf again , you'd say ? +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . Um . {vocalsound} And these are three different types of {disfmarker} or two different types {disfmarker} three different types of shapes you can have . Uh one is a flat one , and then more original ones are single curved one or one with a double curved . Um {vocalsound} the materials are tha there as you can see , but uh you can't have a titanium one for a double curved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Titanium , the really strong metal , titanium ? +Industrial Designer: uh which would be {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: Is it not also it's expensive ? +Industrial Designer: and light . Uh , i think so as well , yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Um . +Industrial Designer: They make mountain bikes out of that , don't they . So it's really light as well . +Project Manager: Curious . Um , I don't know if you'd be able to off the top of your head or not , the single curved and double curved , would you be able to give an example ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} T yeah . +Project Manager: Um could you maybe draw something ? I you don't doesn't have to be perfect , it's just 'cause I'm not quite sure if I understand the difference between the two . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Well for a curved , well I was thinking to {disfmarker} f for to sit in your {disfmarker} the palm of your hand . Uh maybe like this , with the uh joy pad here . Joystick here . And maybe um an okay button around here , so that the thumb can uh use it quite easily . Um I don't exactly {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Double curved . It probably means {disfmarker} this is probably double curved . Uh whereas a single curved would be like that . I guess . Or not necessarily . +Project Manager: So it might literally just be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two curves {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like that . Whereas this is two curves . Um {vocalsound} so I guess that's what they mean by uh double curve . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Um which obviously {disfmarker} it looks better than the single curve , but uh you can't have it in titanium , which is uh a nice material . {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and for the buttons , um it can have the scroll wheel which they use in mouses for com P_C_s . Uh but um it requires a more expensive chip to use , and if you wanna use L_C_D_ it's even more expensive . So you have to decide , there's trade-offs there . Um {vocalsound} if you want the buttons to be {disfmarker} oh yeah , if you have a double curve uh control and it's rubber , then you have these rubber buttons as well . But {vocalsound} you're gonna ha I reckon you're gonna have to have uh key a number keypad anyway for the amount of channels these days . You wouldn't want to just have to scroll through all the channels to get to the one you want . You wanna enter just the number of it , if you know it . So um I reckon we're gonna have to have a number keypad anyway . Do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay , that was definitely something we can talk about . Um so you've got a little bit about the the chip that we might require as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , depends where gonna spend the money if you want the f fancy L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Um , do you have any idea so far , like when we're saying that we'd need an advanced chip for an L_C_D_ , does that in shoot the cost up by a drastic amount ? Or ? +Marketing: Need an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ . Is that {disfmarker} did I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think compared to say just pressing {gap} buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Advanced , like three eight six advance . +Project Manager: {gap} if you press a button that sends a certain transmission through the infra-red , whereas I think if we're controlling the L_C_D_ we definitely require a much more powerful chip . Just compared to the chip you would use for pushing buttons I think is the the point being made . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , sure . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If I've not over-stepped . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah i +Project Manager: Okay , um should I go on , or go back ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , if we only have twelve Pounds fifty , twelve Euros , not even twelve Pounds . Twelve Euros , what's that , like eight pounds or something like that , nine Pounds ? +Project Manager: Well we'd also be relying on the um the bulk buying in producement and such . I assume . +Marketing: Okay , that's good point . +Project Manager: We have to look into the costs of those . So , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh the previous slides just explain what's in the internal components of the uh remote control . If you go to the one before that uh so it just says what it does , translate the key press into an infra-red signal and this is received by the T_V_ . Uh the chip just needs to detect the signal or detect the key press and then uh it'll send it to the tr the amplifier . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh then the next slide just shows how the uh copper wires uh interact with the buttons , the rubber buttons , uh to uh get sent to the chip . So that's just how the control works inside . Um we have to decide on what buttons we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . {gap} . So in the information that you've been supplied , how feasible would you say that the idea of using an L_C_D_ looks ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} I think we can do it if {vocalsound} uh we use conventional batteries and not have solar cells or kinetic . Um and then maybe use single curved uh case . Because we might need it to be curved for the uh thumb to use the joyst joystick easily . Um and then you'll need the advanced chip obviously for the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Um I mean that sounds like quite a good requirement to me . Um conventional battery would seem to make sense . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure if there's any cost differences between single and double curved and I'm {disfmarker} I don't know about anybody else , but plastic or rubber as a traditional form of casing would seem to be a good way forward ? {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . Um I'm actually gonna be bold and go oo go straight for rubber um for reasons I'll go into uh in more detail . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I also have a preference for rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Based on my research . +Project Manager: Yeah , well will we move on to user interface , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um sorry , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: as long as {disfmarker} were you ? Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm finished . +Project Manager: Um {gap} and d d d interface concept . +User Interface: Yep . Now I'm gonna have to work between the uh the slides and the uh {vocalsound} and the white board +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause I actually I have some fairly concrete things this time . Uh um I was given a an H_T_M_L_ file giving um various ideas from uh from other previous remote control designs , and pretty much decided to just dump them all . I wasn't very impressed by them and they didn't seem to re uh nothing I saw seemed to meet the sorts of design specifications that we're going for today . Um so what I ra rather than looking at other remotes , uh ra oomp be better to simply look at the human hand . Um and try and f um and try and figure out a way of laying out the elements we've already decided on , um so that if r a if {vocalsound} so that the finger is e each finger or thumb is wherever it needs to be already . Um so uh next slide , if you please . Um and what we've basically decided on was the the um the joy uh the joystick , two function buttons and the L_C_D_ , just keep it paired down to the absolute minimum . I don't actually think we need the um the numeric keypad because if you m because one of the menus that we could have available um {vocalsound} v via via the L_C_D_ is one where you scroll through channels , so if there's something f {vocalsound} and be bear in mind since this isn't meant to work for um +Marketing: {gap} digital . +User Interface: f f f {vocalsound} for di for digital or um or for {vocalsound} or for cable , whatever , +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: you're basically looking at four or five terrestrial channels , and then um your V_C_ uh and then the channel through your V_C_R_ and or D_V_D_ player . And or um {gap} box . So it's not {vocalsound} I'm not really excessively concerned about that . You must have two two modes , basic mode , where um the joystick's uh left right {vocalsound} left right for channels , up down for volume , um and the uh uh and the menu mode for uh further functions . Um now the reason I was particularly interested in using rubber for this is that if we're going to have a highly ergonomic design , um it needs to be ergonomic for left or right handed people . Um , so you +Project Manager: Can I just jump in slightly there ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That would suggest the double curved design's probably going to be most appropriate , then . +User Interface: Yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: {gap} okay . +User Interface: Um , basi {vocalsound} basically what I {vocalsound} basically what the {vocalsound} what {gap} be having um , I would say , the the whole thing articulated at two points , so that if you if you're handing it from a lef uh left or right handed user you can adjust it so that the um the L_C_ {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ and the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The joystick would be in the right place . And {vocalsound} also this is {gap} a rather nicer de uh design gimmick that the {vocalsound} the um you know the whole thing you know {vocalsound} it should have sort of organic feel to it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that it should be , you know , soft to touch and can be moved around all nice . Um okay +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: on to {vocalsound} on to the next uh to the next slide . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Just to let you know we'll probably be quite tight for time as well , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: because I think you've probably got a lot you'd like to say , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , 'kay basically um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can add pretty pictures to this . The um {disfmarker} Assuming the hand {vocalsound} the hand to be in about sort of this position , um {gap} hol uh holding the remote , the um the joystick unit should rest over the uh the joint of the f of the uh four finger so that it's directly accessible for the thumb . Um and it would need t there would need to be a {disfmarker} it would need to be articulated just below that so that it could be switched around for uh left or right handed users . So . You then have a grip section that can be more or less the same irrespective of handedness . You just have big {vocalsound} two big buttons that cover most of the area so it can {vocalsound} in the upper part , one for the four finger , one for the middle finger . Um , and that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this the joystick ? +User Interface: Th {vocalsound} this part here is the joystick . This would be the actual grip . Probably where you'd want to have the battery as well . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: That would be probably the bulkiest part . And you then have , at the uh at the bottom , the L_C_D_ , and this would need to be articulated as well . And basically I'd want this to rest here , right at the base of the wrist . So it would fit just nicely in the hand . And again , this part could be rotated , so it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} so so that it can be adjusted to either left or right handed user . Um {disfmarker} So the t uh the top function button in basic mode would be the on off switch and menu mode would be the enter button . And then the bottom function buttons switches between between modes . Um now programming it {vocalsound} actually thi this is one thing I've found with um the replacement remote control . Programming them can be a right pain . So I thought th the simplest way around that would be to have um a cable to connect it to the computer some {vocalsound} some fair iv {gap} fairly fairly simple software on the computer just so that you {disfmarker} on your {gap} computer just so that you could um pr {vocalsound} program it at a rather {vocalsound} in a rather more comfortable interface . And you could download programs for it from uh for uh T_V_s from all sort of main manufacturers . Um though you {disfmarker} i it would be necessary to have uh have a m uh have a {vocalsound} ha have a mode for programming it without the computer , uh just in case there are there are still people left out there who don't have them yet . Um . But uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That's that's my idea . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Excellent , right . Um {vocalsound} uh . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: File open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We go . +Project Manager: Trend watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So uh to gather my research , two basic methods . We compared uh whether people want the remote control to do a lot of stuff or they want it to look cool . And then we we research uh fashion trends in Europe , what's what's the new black , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: you know , as it goes . {vocalsound} Next slide please . Uh we found , in order of importance , people want the remote control to look cool more than they want it to to be cool . As in they want it to do a lot of good s they want it to look like it does a lot , and if it does do a lot that's a bonus , but they don't care so much , you know . {vocalsound} They want it to be {disfmarker} that's sounds a bit like a contradiction . Technology technical {disfmarker} technologically innovative . People want it to be that , but s still they care more about the way it looks than what it does . So like the interface is really important . {vocalsound} And easy to use , it it just so happens that uh from the second point to the third point is twice as important {disfmarker} I mean the second point is twice as important as the third point . People want it {disfmarker} I is it has to be cooler than easy to use , you know , if it has the newest features , even if it's difficult to use , {gap} prefer it to have the newest features . And if it's easy to use that's a bonus . {vocalsound} The fashion , now this is seems a bit odd to me , but fruit and veg is the new is the new black for furniture , for clothes , for shoes . How that relates to a remote control I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I I see {vocalsound} I come on to that in the next in the next slide . Spongy . I've als I've been saying everything's the new black . Well spongy's the new black as well . So we have the choice between rubber and plastic . If it's the type of rubber that you can squeeze , you know , it's spongy , then {disfmarker} can I skip the rest ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I forgot to mention that . The uh rubber material is the type of stress ball material , not just normal rubber . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Forgot to say that . +Marketing: kinda spongy material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So um so my personal opinion ? {vocalsound} Um we want something fancy and techni technologically innovative , obviously . But what we what we need is something that looks like it's from the future that looks cool , that's that's different , you know , that's {disfmarker} everyone has a white remote control , black remote control , you need something cool . Like , titanium is cool but it's expensive . And maybe it's a bit of overkill for a remote control . Um now the fruit and veg options , either we we go in that direction or we stay totally away from it . Um {vocalsound} I mean the research did come up with fruit and veg , so maybe it is important for {disfmarker} it's the up to the interface guy . So if we stay away from it , s you know stay away from it , but if we're gonna go along with it then it doesn't necessarily have to be like an apple or something like that , or a kiwi fruit . It could be something like , I say potato peeler but I'm sure you guys have a have a much cooler idea than I do . So I think cool is the key . {vocalsound} Few questions about a spongy remote control . I've never seen one before . I've seen plastic remote controls . I think maybe they were {disfmarker} I don't know , back in the day when they first came up with remote controls , they had a reason for it being +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: sturdy , you know . For being strong and sturdy . So um if we want something strong and sturdy , I say stay with plastic or titanium , but if we go with spongy , we can stress that you can drop this as many times as you want , it doesn't matter , it's spongy material , it's not gonna break , you know . I just don't know how the L_E_D_ and the lights are gonna fit into a spongy material because it's not gonna be completely squeezable . So how do things fit it ? And if we are gonna use spongy , we can say it's long lasting , you know it's damage resistant and stuff like that , so . So just to summarise , people want stuff that's cool , that's that looks like it's cool , and if it is cool then that's a bonus {gap} doesn't have to be um people like fruit and veg . We can either go down that alley or stay totally away from it . People like spongy material . If we're gonna use spongy material we have to think of how practical it is , and how we can further promote that idea . And also , this was this year . So , things change all the time , every year you know they they always talk about this year , this is the new black . Well next year something else is gonna be the new black +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we're stuck with last year's fruit and veg type stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's me . +Project Manager: Well , um I would say that the most you could probably hope for is gaining a year's lead on most people anyway . You always have to bring out new designs , so if we can get next year then that's possibly a good place to start anyway . Um . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems like a a lot of the components could be off the shelf , so {disfmarker} I don't exactly what cost would be incurred . Um I can see your point about the number keypad , but I've {disfmarker} I would say that we can probably incorporate it into the menu system if you need to do traversal of a large number of channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My feeling would be that even if at a later date this was to be taking control of um {gap} boxes as well um having the use of the L_C_D_ and the joystick would probably allow you to manipulate enough channel numbers for you to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , actually {gap} if you've got a lot of channels , the number keypad can be quite annoying as well , becau {vocalsound} {gap} it's you know if you're trying to remember what uh , you know , what number's the discovery channel or whatever . It's just irritating . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a good point . +User Interface: But if you h {vocalsound} but but but if you have a me but if you have a menu structure , then you can sub-group them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You can incorporate names into the menu . Okay . +User Interface: So you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even news , music . Like they do on uh sky digital kinda . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what it looks like to me is we'll use a large number of standard components , um , say something like um lithium ion battery , the kind that you find in most um small hand held devices now . Um {disfmarker} Looks like we {gap} going for a double curved design . Um I don't know what cost implications there are in that . Um , looks like we're pretty much decided on some kind of flexible rubber . Though I'd have to say {vocalsound} depending on how flexible it is , we might need to have some kind of inner frame . +User Interface: Yeah , I I would say definitely , I mean {vocalsound} I mean I mean the the idea of having it sort of articulated i th there would be basically two points of articulation . W um one below and one above the m the uh the main sort of grip . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think there's any way we could maybe remove the articulation ? I can see why it looks appealing , but it could be a weak point in um the structure , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm {gap} . +Project Manager: That would be a worry of mine . +Industrial Designer: If you're going with the fruit and veg thing , {vocalsound} looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I d I don't thi I don't think that it would be a {vocalsound} a structural weakness , +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F if you wanna design it that way . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean if you have a firm s sub-structure , you can then incorporate articulation into that . If you then have a sort of outer skin of mm flexible , spongy rubber then you have something that is you know very much you know organic , and I think would look rather co I mean {vocalsound} mi {vocalsound} rather cool . I mean my drawing there doesn't doesn't do it justice , it makes it {vocalsound} makes it look more a little bit more like a vibrator than a than a uh than a remote control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , we won't add that functionality . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Course not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , one interesting point is , I don't know how serious you were there , but we {disfmarker} if we take some of the ideas {gap} why don't we make the damn thing yellow to incorporate the des the colour of the logo ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's an {disfmarker} certainly a different colour from your average um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it harder to lose , as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Was there anything in your research {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The noise for when you lose the banana , um f yeah , for when you lose the remote control , {vocalsound} it could be like a a monkey noise or something like that , rather than a standard beep beep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y you know , you lose the monkey {disfmarker} the banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} monkey {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: y {vocalsound} you lose the banana , you press a button , and you hear like monkey screams or something like that to direct you towards the banana . +User Interface: I th uh I mean if it {disfmarker} I think that's something that could perhaps be programmable , though maybe have monkey as default . Um . +Marketing: S oh , I was gonna talk about the programmable remote control . Now I think it'd be cool if you had one remote control that could work with all T_V_s , you know you s you click a button and it finds the frequency that works with your particular television . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But why you'd need to program it like as as a standard feature , I I don't know . +User Interface: Well basi {vocalsound} basically the um for {vocalsound} f for uh {disfmarker} I mean e each manufacturer will have a partic {vocalsound} will have a particular command set that uh the T_V_ responds to . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's not simply a matter of frequency . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So um {vocalsound} usually what's done is you have this big booklet full of different possi {vocalsound} you'll have all of them sort of programmed in to the uh remote , and you'll have this little booklet of codes you then find your um ma uh find your manufacturer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and try the different codes that +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: come under that manufacturer's name 'til you find the right one . +Marketing: That's because televisions , they don't give the remote control any type of feedback when you send it {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So that's that's quite annoying and we probably would still have to do that . But if we had um some sort of hook-up to your computer as an option , then if you've got a computer you can avoid that rather irritating thing . +Project Manager: An interesting point is that if the person doesn't have the computer , we can still make the process easier because instead of having to look up codes , maybe we can have it that one of the options they have is that they look up the name of the company on the L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then they maybe look up different names of um {vocalsound} different actual units that have been produced . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we have the remote control just go through them until it's like does this do the correct function , and such . +Marketing: Is it is it actually a book of names to digits , or is it like a few pages ? +User Interface: Um booklet . {vocalsound} Some pages . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was just thinking , if we were to store this information , some type of mapping . This person probably need to use this feature like once , you know , when you first buy the remote control , or whenever they buy a new television , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Doesn't have to be used very often +Marketing: once every s +Project Manager: that's right , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . But it's a but it's a nuisance . +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's a nuisance very close to the to um to actually purchasing it , so it's something that you're likely to be thinking about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you {disfmarker} if there's w i if there's one in the shop that's {vocalsound} that says it can avoid much of that nuisance , you might be favourably inclined towards it . Um mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , this {disfmarker} {gap} just to give us a rough idea of what we're meant to be doing for the next stage . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that you got that anyway . This is the conceptual one . Um . I think we've come up {disfmarker} I think we've covered everything we need to here . Um I think we've decided on what , you know , decided on standard items for most of um rubber and such , so we're now looking at the detailed design and what we need to be doing for the next meeting . Um {disfmarker} So for example , um I'll just start at the top , you've got yourself and the Industrial Designer gonna be working quite closely at this stage 'cause it'll be hard not to , obviously . Um looking from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} prototyping of some des description using clay . Um I suppose you'll be told a lot more about that as uh {vocalsound} progress . Um {disfmarker} The user interface design , They're kind of {disfmarker} it looks they're {disfmarker} the idea I've pushed forward so far is maybe more of a physical one there , whereas {vocalsound} possibly be more interested in maybe how the L_C_D_'s going to incorporate , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or do you s perceive that most the design design decisions still need to be based on the physical layout ? +User Interface: Um well I I think other than ge getting a sort of more aesthetically pleasing form for it , um mo most of the sort of layout design decisions are {vocalsound} are made , I would say . Um but then again , the um the menu structure to to a considerable extent that's gonna vary according to the model of television , and also any customisations that the user might wish to incorporate . So um and one of the nice things about having an L_C_D_ and a menu structure is that there is that flexibility to it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's very true . {vocalsound} Um . Okay . Um got product evaluation as well . Um . +Marketing: Yeah , you see I don't {disfmarker} some of these things kinda logically follow the others . How can {disfmarker} t product evaluation , doesn't that come after actually seen a product prototype . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I think we'd be {disfmarker} yeah , no , it'd be more a case of how do we envisage us performing the product evaluation once we have a model to test with . +Marketing: Oh , that's the {disfmarker} okay , sure sure sure . +Project Manager: Um so it'd be a case of do you think that just bringing users in to have them test it out , uh maybe putting a certain number of products into the field in certain places which I suppose is quite similar . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or just kind of hitting the streets and you know saying this is a new remote control , what do you think of the look of it ? Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , sure . At this stage we still have no no target audience or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the target audience is pretty much anybody under the age of say maybe sixty or something ludicrous . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the reason I'm saying that is we're just looking at a a replacement remote control , something that's stylish , so maybe you're even just maybe you're narrowing down your target audience simply by saying +Marketing: And it's stylish . +Project Manager: if they're buying it that often or they're maybe looking to replace something then , they've got a bit of free cash , so that puts them potentially in the younger age bracket . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even single , just for the reasons of um uh excess cash flow . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Although of course I mean at twenty five Euros , I don't think we're looking at charging the earth for the uh device . +Marketing: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Think that's well within the normal bracket . Um your idea of the U_S_B_ would I think would largely depend on the cost . U_S_B_'s definitely one of the cheapest interfaces out there , but it might push the cost of the overall unit up 'cause it would require not just the connection but the chip for communicating with the rest of the system . That one might have to be based on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Programmable memory as well . +Industrial Designer: The U_S_B_ for which ? +Marketing: For the remote control . +Project Manager: The the idea was that maybe it could connect up for um allowing a software interface on the P_C_ for a larger programming +Industrial Designer: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: due to the fact that we've gone for such a nice , easy minimal design , normally . Um . +Marketing: We've w definitely talking some type of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But didn't they just say it's just for T_V_ , or are we gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for T_V_ , but for +Marketing: Different . +Project Manager: programming it to use your T_V_ , you might hook it up to the P_C_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , but I'm thinking maybe that the additional cost of the U_S_B_ might be prohibitive . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: We don't know unless {disfmarker} it would make sense to . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: But you're gonna need some type of flash memory or something . +User Interface: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well something that doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you wouldn't have to redo the whole thing once the batteries are changed , you know , once you turn off the power . +User Interface: Yeah . The other thing I mean it I mean it would need to ha {vocalsound} it would need to have um some sort of on board memory anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um f {vocalsound} for one {vocalsound} for one thing because I do think that the menu system should be um uh I mean although you know , it's not going to be terribly complicated if it's just controlling one device , the menu system ought to be um o ought to be customisable and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Different languages , uh different skins and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . W +User Interface: Mm-hmm . How uh how uh how you want say the um the the menu structure for flicking through channels if you've got lots of channels . That sort of thing . +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} I if it was customisable as in different languages and stuff , that does open {disfmarker} it is supposed to be international , right ? So . +Project Manager: It would make sense to . I would say to . +Marketing: It would make sense if you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and we'd better be careful about the time as well . We've already had the five minute warning , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so . Um . I would say yeah . International would make sense . Um you're gonna look at product evaluation . I'm I'd better start writing up a hell of a lot of crap . Um you're gonna look a bit more at the kind of the physical make up you say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um looks like we're gonna need a maybe a kind of prototype in clay . {vocalsound} Uh we'll see how that goes . Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we going to be supplied with the clay is what I want to know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um +User Interface: Where is the clay ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do {disfmarker} I think we've got an idea of where we need to go for the next meeting , would you say ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} they're going with the fashion thing , like the design , spongy rubber . +Marketing: The fruit and veg . This one . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th I think I would largely want to actually steer clear of the whole sort of fruit and veg thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I would s that would be my my feeling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bu {vocalsound} but um but the spongy idea I like . I like it a lot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We seem to have quite a general consensus that the idea of the the r rubber could be quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I {gap} having it i having it sort of br bright yellow I think that's quite a good idea , though maybe we could have options for colours as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} and again this has the advantage of being harder to lose . +Marketing: Sure . I mean we are trying to promote a remote control , but we wanna keep the company brand as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So we always need to remember that somewhere we're meant to be getting the slogan on . Possibly I'm think I'm not sure but I'm seeing a little bit of space around maybe the joystick area which could be used . Um . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . I was {vocalsound} like like I said before I I think we should have the R_R_ on the uh on the top function button . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think that says it all really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so too . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Sa +Project Manager: See everybody in a half hour . +","Summary: + +The project team is developing a minimalistic, stylish replacement remote control. The design is based on a small joystick, an LCD screen, and a few navigation buttons, including a main power button. There will be a transmitter to help locate the remote. The team discussed using a flexible, possibly spongy rubber material for the case and standard batteries for power. + +The industrial designer covered material options and internal components like batteries and the infrared transmitter. The team considered different shapes and materials including a double-curved design and possibly yellow coloring for the remote to tie into the brand and make it distinctive and less likely to be misplaced. + +The user interface focused on making the remote ergonomic for both left and right-handed users, with minimal buttons and an LCD-based menu system eliminating the need for a numeric keypad. Customization and ease of setup were also discussed, with a suggestion for a USB connection to PCs for easy programming. + +Marketing emphasized the importance of a cool appearance and the current trend of ""spongy"" textures and fruit and veg-inspired designs. There's a notion that a unique, futuristic look may be more valuable to customers than a multitude of technological features. + +The next steps include prototyping, evaluating detailed designs, considering the cost of incorporating a USB connection, ensuring international usability, and keeping the product in line with the company's brand identity." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK . We seem to be recording . +Professor G: Alright ! +Grad A: So , sorry about not {disfmarker} +Professor G: We 're not crashing . +PhD D: Number four . +Grad A: not pre - doing everything . The lunch went a little later than I was expecting , Chuck . +PhD E: Hmm ? +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Chuck was telling too many jokes , or something ? +Grad A: Yep . Pretty much . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . {vocalsound} Does anybody have an agenda ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I sent a couple of items . They 're {disfmarker} they 're sort of practical . +Professor G: I thought {pause} somebody had . +Postdoc F: I don't know if you 're {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , that 's right . +Postdoc F: if {disfmarker} if that 's too practical for what we 're {pause} focused on . +Grad A: I mean , we don't want anything too practical . +Professor G: Yeah , we only want th useless things . +Grad A: Yeah , that would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . No , why don't we talk about practical things ? +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Sure . +Postdoc F: Well , um , I can {pause} give you an update on the {pause} transcription effort . +Professor G: Great . +Postdoc F: Uh , maybe {nonvocalsound} raise the issue of microphone , uh , um procedures with reference to the {pause} cleanliness of the recordings . +Professor G: OK , transcription , uh , microphone issues {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And then maybe {nonvocalsound} ask , th uh , these guys . The {disfmarker} we have great {disfmarker} great , uh , p steps forward in terms of the nonspeech - speech pre - segmenting of the signal . +Professor G: OK . +Grad A: Well , we have steps forward . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a big improvement . +PhD C: I would prefer this . +Professor G: Yes . Yeah , well . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: We talk about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the results of +Professor G: You have some {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: I have a little bit of IRAM stuff +Professor G: OK . +PhD D: use {disfmarker} +Grad A: but {pause} I 'm not sure if that 's of general interest or not . +Professor G: Uh , bigram ? +Grad A: IRAM . +PhD D: IRAM . +Professor G: IRAM . +Grad A: IRAM , bigram , +Professor G: Well , m maybe . +PhD D: Bi - Bigram . +Grad A: you know . +Professor G: Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} let 's see where we are at three - thirty . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Since , uh {disfmarker} since I have to leave as usual at three - thirty , can we do the interesting stuff first ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +Professor G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which is {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: What 's the interesting stuff ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . Th - now you get to tell us what 's the interesting part . +PhD E: Please specify . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , uh , I guess the work that 's been {pause} done on segmentation would be most {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I think that would be a good thing to start with . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . Um , and , um , {vocalsound} the other thing , uh , which I 'll just say very briefly that maybe relates to that a little bit , which is that , um , uh , one of the suggestions that came up in a brief meeting I had the other day when I was in Spain with , uh , Manolo Pardo and {vocalsound} Javier , uh , Ferreiros , who was {pause} here before , was , um , why not start with what they had before but add in the non - silence boundaries . So , in what Javier did before when they were doing , um {disfmarker} h he was looking for , uh , speaker change {pause} points . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Um . As a simplification , he originally did this only using {pause} silence as , uh , a {pause} putative , uh , speaker change point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , he did not , say , look at points where you were changing broad sp uh , phonetic class , for instance . And for Broadcast News , that was fine . Here obviously it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , um , so one of the things that they were pushing in d in discussing with me is , um , w why are you spending so much time , uh , on the , uh , feature issue , uh , when perhaps if you sort of deal with what you were using before +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: and then just broadened it a bit , instead of just ta using silence as putative change point also {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Professor G: So then you 've got {disfmarker} you already have the super - structure with Gaussians and H - you know , simple H M Ms and so forth . And you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} So there was a {disfmarker} there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a difference of opinion because I {disfmarker} I thought that it was {disfmarker} it 's interesting to look at what features are useful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But , uh , on the other hand I saw that the {disfmarker} they had a good point that , uh , if we had something that worked for many cases before , maybe starting from there a little bit {disfmarker} Because ultimately we 're gonna end up {vocalsound} with some s su kind of structure like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: where you have some kind of simple HMM and you 're testing the hypothesis that , {vocalsound} uh , there is a change . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so anyway , I just {disfmarker} reporting that . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: But , uh , uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah , why don't we do the speech - nonspeech discussion ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . Do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hear {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you didn't {disfmarker} +PhD C: Speech - nonspeech ? OK . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , so , uh , what we basically did so far was using the mixed file to {disfmarker} to detect s speech or nonspeech {pause} portions in that . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And what I did so far is I just used our old Munich system , which is an HMM - ba based system with Gaussian mixtures for s speech and nonspeech . And it was a system which used only one Gaussian for silence and one Gaussian for speech . And now I added , uh , multi - mixture possibility for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for speech and nonspeech . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I did some training on {disfmarker} on one dialogue , which was transcribed by {disfmarker} Yeah . We {disfmarker} we did a nons s speech - nonspeech transcription . +PhD D: Jose . +PhD C: Adam , Dave , and I , we did , for that dialogue and I trained it on that . And I did some pre - segmentations for {disfmarker} for Jane . And I 'm not sure how good they are or what {disfmarker} what the transcribers say . They {disfmarker} they can use it or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Uh , they {disfmarker} they think it 's a terrific improvement . And , um , it real it just makes a {disfmarker} a world of difference . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And , um , y you also did some something in addition which was , um , for those in which there {nonvocalsound} was , uh , quiet speakers in the mix . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . That {disfmarker} that was one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one thing , uh , why I added more mixtures for {disfmarker} for the speech . So I saw that there were loud {disfmarker} loudly speaking speakers and quietly speaking speakers . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so I did two mixtures , one for the loud speakers and one for the quiet speakers . +Grad A: And did you hand - label who was loud and who was quiet , or did you just {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I did that for {disfmarker} for five minutes of one dialogue +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and that was enough to {disfmarker} to train the system . +PhD B: W What {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: And so it {disfmarker} it adapts , uh , on {disfmarker} while running . So . +PhD B: What kind of , uh , front - end processing did you do ? +PhD C: Hopefully . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: It 's just our {disfmarker} our old Munich , uh , loudness - based spectrum on mel scale twenty {disfmarker} twenty critical bands and then loudness . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And four additional features , which is energy , loudness , modified loudness , and zero crossing rate . So it 's twenty - four {disfmarker} twenty - four features . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And you also provided me with several different versions , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: which I compared . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And so you change {nonvocalsound} parameters . What {disfmarker} do you wanna say something about the parameters {nonvocalsound} that you change ? +PhD C: Yeah . You can specify {vocalsound} the minimum length of speech or {disfmarker} and silence portions which you want . And so I did some {disfmarker} some modifications in those parameters , basically changing the minimum {disfmarker} minimum {pause} length for s for silence to have , er to have , um {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} to have more or less , uh , silence portions in inserted . So . +Grad A: Right . So this would work well for , uh , pauses and utterance boundaries and things like that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: But for overlap I imagine that doesn't work at all , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that you 'll have plenty of s sections that are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's it . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . But {nonvocalsound} it {disfmarker} it saves so much time {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcribers +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: just enormous , enormous savings . Fantastic . +Professor G: That 's great . Um , just qu one quickly , uh , still on the features . So {vocalsound} you have these twenty - four features . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh , a lot of them are spectral features . Is there a {disfmarker} a transformation , uh , like principal components transformation or something ? +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . It was IS two . +PhD C: No . W w we {disfmarker} originally we did that +Professor G: Just {disfmarker} +PhD C: but we saw , uh , when we used it , uh , f for our close - talking microphone , which {disfmarker} yeah , for our {disfmarker} for our recognizer in Munich {disfmarker} we saw that w it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not so necessary . It {disfmarker} it works as well f with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} without , uh , a LDA or something . +Professor G: OK . OK . No , I was j {pause} curious . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I don't think it 's a big deal for this application , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . But then there 's another thing that also Thilo 's involved with , which is , um {disfmarker} OK , and {disfmarker} and also Da - Dave Gelbart . So there 's this {disfmarker} this problem of {disfmarker} and w and {disfmarker} so we had this meeting . Th - the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} also Adam , before the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} before you went away . Uh we , um {disfmarker} regarding the representation {nonvocalsound} of overlaps , because at present , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} um , because {nonvocalsound} of the limitations of {vocalsound} th the interface we 're using , overlaps are , uh , not being {nonvocalsound} encoded by {nonvocalsound} the transcribers in as complete {nonvocalsound} and , uh , detailed a way as it might be , and as might be desired {disfmarker} I think would be desired in the corpus ultimately . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So we don't have start and end points {nonvocalsound} at each point where there 's an overlap . We just have the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} overlaps {nonvocalsound} encoded in a simple bin . Well , OK . So {nonvocalsound} @ @ the limits of the {nonvocalsound} over of {disfmarker} of the interface are {vocalsound} such that we were {disfmarker} at this meeting we were entertaining how we might either expand {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} interface or find other tools which already {pause} do what would be useful . Because what would ultimately be , um , ideal in my {disfmarker} my view and I think {disfmarker} I mean , I had the sense that it was consensus , is that , um , a thorough - going musical score notation would be {nonvocalsound} the best way to go . Because {nonvocalsound} you can have multiple channels , there 's a single time - line , it 's very clear , flexible , and all those nice things . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . So , um , um , I spoke {disfmarker} I had a meeting with Dave Gelbart on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} and he had , uh , excellent ideas on how {pause} the interface could be {pause} modified to {disfmarker} to do this kind of representation . But , um , he {disfmarker} in the meantime you were checking into the existence of already , um , existing interfaces which might already have these properties . So , do you wanna say something about that ? +PhD C: Yes . Um , I {vocalsound} talked with , uh , Munich guys from {disfmarker} from Ludwi - Ludwig Maximilians University , who do a lot of transcribing and transliterations . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And they basically said they have {disfmarker} they have , uh , a tool they developed {pause} themselves and they can't give away , uh , f it 's too error - prone , and had {disfmarker} it 's not supported , a a a and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD C: But , um , Susanne Bur - Burger , who is at se CMU , he wa who was formally at {disfmarker} in Munich and w and is now at {disfmarker} with CMU , she said she has something which she uses to do eight channels , uh , trans transliterations , eight channels simultaneously , +Professor G: Excuse me . +PhD C: but it 's running under Windows . +Postdoc F: Under Windows . +PhD C: So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we can use it . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: She said she would give it to us . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: It wouldn't be a problem . And I 've got some {disfmarker} some kind of manual {pause} down in my office . +Grad A: Well , maybe we should get it and if it 's good enough we 'll arrange Windows machines to be available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . We could {disfmarker} uh , potentially {nonvocalsound} so . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: I also wanted to be sure {disfmarker} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is called Praat , PRAAT , {nonvocalsound} which I guess means spee speech in Dutch or something . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah , but then I 'm not sure {pause} that 's the right thing for us . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} In terms {nonvocalsound} of it being {nonvocalsound} Windows {nonvocalsound} versus {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: No , no . Praat isn't {disfmarker} Praat 's multi - platform . +Postdoc F: But I 'm just wondering , is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No . No , Praat {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh ! I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , I see . So Praat may not be {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's not Praat . It 's called "" trans transedit "" {pause} I think . +Postdoc F: It 's a different one . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the tool from {disfmarker} from Susanne . +Postdoc F: I see . Oh , I see . OK . OK . Alright . +Professor G: The other thing , uh , to keep in mind , uh {disfmarker} I mean , we 've been very concerned to get all this rolling so that we would actually have data , +Postdoc F: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: but , um , I think our outside sponsor is actually gonna kick in +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and ultimately that path will be smoothed out . So I don't know if we have a long - term need to do lots and lots of transcribing . I think we had a very quick need to get something out and we 'd like to be able to do some later because just it 's inter it 's interesting . But as far a you know , uh , with {disfmarker} with any luck we 'll be able to wind down the larger project . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD B: But you s +Grad A: What our decision was is that {pause} we 'll go ahead with what we have with a not very fine time scale on the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and do what we can later {pause} to clean that up if we need to . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I was just thinking that , um , {vocalsound} if it were possible to bring that in , like , {vocalsound} you know , this week , then {nonvocalsound} when they 're encoding the overlaps {nonvocalsound} it would be nice for them to be able to specify when {disfmarker} you know , the start points and end points of overlaps . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: uh Th - they 're {nonvocalsound} making really quick progress . +Professor G: Yeah . That 's great . +Postdoc F: And , um , so my {disfmarker} my goal was {disfmarker} w m my charge was to get eleven hours by the end of the month . And it 'll be {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm clear that we 'll be able to do that . +Professor G: That 's great . +Grad A: And did you , uh , forward Morgan Brian 's {pause} thing ? +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I sent {nonvocalsound} it to , um {disfmarker} who did I send that to ? I sent it to a list and I thought {nonvocalsound} I sent it to {nonvocalsound} the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} e to the local list . +PhD E: Meeting Recorder . +Grad A: Oh , you did ? OK . So you probably did get that . +Postdoc F: You saw that ? So Brian did tell {nonvocalsound} me that {nonvocalsound} in fact what you said , that , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} our {disfmarker} that they are {pause} making progress and that he 's going {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} they 're {nonvocalsound} going {disfmarker} he 's gonna check the f the output of the first transcription and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor G: I mean , basically it 's {disfmarker} it 's all the difference in the world . I mean , basically he 's {disfmarker} he 's on it now . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} this is a new development . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so i it 'll happen . +Postdoc F: OK . Super . Super . OK . Great . +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , basically it 's just saying that one of our {disfmarker} one of our best people is on it , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: you know , who just doesn't happen to be here anymore . Someone else pays him . So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But about the need for transcription , +Postdoc F: Isn't that great ? +PhD B: I mean , don't we {disfmarker} didn't we previously {vocalsound} decide that the {pause} IBM {pause} transcripts would have to be {pause} checked anyway and possibly augmented ? +Professor G: So . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . That 's true . +PhD B: So , I think having a good tool is worth something no matter what . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . S OK . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point . +Grad A: Yeah , and Dave Gelbart did volunteer , +Postdoc F: Good . +Grad A: and since he 's not here , I 'll repeat it {disfmarker} to at least modify Transcriber , which , if we don't have something else that works , I think that 's a pretty good way of going . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we discussed on some methods to do it . My approach originally , and I 've already hacked on it a little bit {disfmarker} it was too slow because I was trying to display all the waveforms . But he pointed out that you don't really have to . I think that 's a good point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: That if you just display the mix waveform and then have a user interface for editing the different channels , that 's perfectly sufficient . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly . And just keep those {nonvocalsound} things separate . And {disfmarker} and , um , Dan Ellis 's hack already allows them to be {nonvocalsound} able to display {vocalsound} different {nonvocalsound} waveforms to clarify overlaps and things , +Grad A: No . They can only display one , +Postdoc F: so that 's already {disfmarker} +Grad A: but they can listen to different ones . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes , but {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} uh , yes , but {nonvocalsound} what I mean is {pause} that , uh , from the transcriber 's {nonvocalsound} perspective , uh , those {nonvocalsound} two functions are separate . And Dan Ellis 's hack handles the , {vocalsound} um , choice {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the ability to choose different waveforms {vocalsound} from moment to moment . +Grad A: But only to listen to , not to look at . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: The waveform you 're looking at doesn't change . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , but {nonvocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's OK , cuz they 're {disfmarker} they 're , you know , they 're focused on the ear anyway . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: And then {disfmarker} and then +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: the hack to {vocalsound} preserve the overlaps {nonvocalsound} better would be one which creates different output files for each channel , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: which then {nonvocalsound} would also serve Liz 's request {pause} of having , you know , a single channel , separable , uh , cleanly , easily separable , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: uh , transcript tied to a single channel , uh , audio . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Have , uh , folks from NIST been in contact with you ? +Postdoc F: Not directly . I 'm trying to think if {disfmarker} if I could have gotten it over a list . +Professor G: OK . +Postdoc F: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think so . +Professor G: OK . Well , holidays may have interrupted things , cuz in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} They {vocalsound} seem to want to {pause} get absolutely clear on standards for {disfmarker} transcription standards and so forth with {disfmarker} with us . +Postdoc F: Oh ! This was from before December . Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Because they 're {disfmarker} they 're presumably going to start recording next month . +Postdoc F: OK . OK . +Grad A: Oh , we should definitely get with them then , +Professor G: So . +Grad A: and agree upon a format . Though I don't remember email on that . So was I not in the loop on that ? +Professor G: Um . Yeah , I don't think I mailed anybody . I just think I told them to contact Jane {disfmarker} that , uh , if they had a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: That 's right . +Professor G: if , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , as the point person on it . +Grad A: Yeah , I think that 's right . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: So , yeah . Maybe I 'll , uh , ping them a little bit about it to {vocalsound} get that straight . +Postdoc F: OK . I 'm keeping the conventions {pause} absolutely {pause} as simple {nonvocalsound} as possible . +Professor G: Yeah . So is it {disfmarker} cuz with any luck there 'll actually be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} there 'll be collections at Columbia , collections at {disfmarker} at UW {disfmarker} I mean Dan {disfmarker} Dan is very interested in doing some other things , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I think it 's important both for the notation and the machine representation to be the same . +Professor G: and collections at NIST . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: N there was also this , {nonvocalsound} uh , email from Dan regarding the {pause} speech - non nonspeech segmentation thing . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know if , uh , uh , we wanna , uh {disfmarker} and Dan Gel - and Dave Gelbart is interested in pursuing the aspect {nonvocalsound} of using amplitude {nonvocalsound} as a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} as a basis for the separation . +Grad A: Cross - correlation . +Professor G: Oh , yeah . He was talking {disfmarker} he was talking {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} he had {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Cross +Professor G: Yeah , cross - correlation . +PhD C: Cross +Professor G: I had mentioned this a couple times before , the c the commercial devices that do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , voice , uh {disfmarker} you know , active miking , +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor G: basically look at the amp at the energy at each of the mikes . And {disfmarker} and you basically compare the energy here to {vocalsound} some function of all of the mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So , by doing that , you know , rather than setting any , uh , absolute threshold , you actually can do pretty good , uh , selection of who {disfmarker} who 's talking . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} And those {disfmarker} those systems work very well , by the way , I mean , so people use them in {vocalsound} panel discussions and so forth with sound reinforcement differing in {disfmarker} in sort of , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: uh {disfmarker} and , uh , those {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Boy , the guy I knew who built them , built them like twenty {disfmarker} twenty years ago , +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor G: so they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the techniques work pretty well . +Postdoc F: Fantastic . Cuz there is one thing that we don't have right now and that is the automatic , um , channel identifier . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: That {disfmarker} that , you know , that would g help in terms of encoding of overlaps . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the transcribers would have less , uh , disentangling to do {pause} if that were available . +Professor G: Yeah . So I think , you know , basically you can look at some {disfmarker} p you have to play around a little bit , uh , to figure out what the right statistic is , +Postdoc F: But . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: but you compare each microphone to some statistic based on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh , and we also have these {disfmarker} we have the advantage of having {pause} distant mikes too . So that , you cou yo +Grad A: Yeah , although the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} using the close - talking I think would be much better . Wouldn't it ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: I just {disfmarker} it 'd be {disfmarker} If I was actually working on it , I 'd sit there and {disfmarker} and play around with it , and {disfmarker} and get a feeling for it . I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} But , uh , you certainly wanna use the close - talking , as a {disfmarker} at least . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: I don't know if the other would {disfmarker} would add some other helpful dimension or not . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . What {disfmarker} what are the different , uh , classes to {disfmarker} to code , uh , the {disfmarker} the overlap , you will use ? +Postdoc F: Um , to code d +PhD D: What you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: so types of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um , so {nonvocalsound} at a meeting that wasn't transcribed , we worked up a {disfmarker} a typology . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Look like , uh , you t you explaining in the blackboard ? The {disfmarker} ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly . That hasn't changed . So it {nonvocalsound} i the {disfmarker} it 's basically a two - tiered structure where the first one is whether {nonvocalsound} the person who 's interrupted continues or not . And then below that there 're {nonvocalsound} subcategories , uh , that have more to do with , {nonvocalsound} you know , is it , {vocalsound} uh , simply {nonvocalsound} backchannel +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: or is {nonvocalsound} it , um , someone completing someone else 's thought , or is it someone in introducing a new thought . +Grad A: Right . And I hope that if we do a forced alignment with the close - talking mike , that will be enough to recover at least some of the time the time information of when the overlap occurred . +PhD D: Huh . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Well , {vocalsound} one would {disfmarker} +PhD D: We hope . +Grad A: Yeah . Who knows ? +Postdoc F: That 'd be {disfmarker} that 'd be nice . I mean , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: So who 's gonna do that ? Who 's gonna do forced alignment ? +Grad A: Well , u uh , IBM was going to . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: and I imagine they still plan to but {disfmarker} but , you know , I haven't spoken with them about that recently . +PhD B: OK . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Well , uh , my suggestion now is {disfmarker} is on all of these things to , uh , contact Brian . +Grad A: OK . I 'll do that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: This is wonderful {nonvocalsound} to have a direct contact like that . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: uh Well , th lemme ask {nonvocalsound} you this . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It occurs to me {disfmarker} {vocalsound} one of my transcribers t {nonvocalsound} told {nonvocalsound} me today that she 'll {nonvocalsound} be finished with one meeting , {vocalsound} um , by {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: well , she said tomorrow but then she said {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , but {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the , you know {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's just , uh , say +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: maybe the day after just to be s on the safe side . I could send Brian the , {nonvocalsound} um {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcript . I know these {nonvocalsound} are {disfmarker} er , uh , I could send him that {nonvocalsound} if {nonvocalsound} it would be possible , {nonvocalsound} or a good idea or not , to {nonvocalsound} try {nonvocalsound} to do a s forced alignment on what we 're {disfmarker} on the way we 're encoding overlaps now . +Professor G: Well , just talk to him about it . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: I mean , you know , basically he 's {disfmarker} he just studies , he 's a colleague , a friend , and , +Postdoc F: Yeah ! +Professor G: uh , they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , the {disfmarker} the organization always did wanna help us . +Postdoc F: Super . Super . +Professor G: It was just a question of getting , you know , the right people connected in , who had the time . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: So , um , eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is he on the mailing list ? The Meeting Recorder mailing li ? +Postdoc F: Oh ! +Grad A: We should add him . +Postdoc F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know for sure . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Did something happen , Morgan , that he got put on this , or was he already on it , +Grad A: Add him . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: No , I , eh , eh , p It {disfmarker} it oc I {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , something happened . I don't know what . +PhD B: He asked for more work . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor G: But he 's on it now . +Postdoc F: That would be {nonvocalsound} like {disfmarker} that 'd be like him . He 's great . +Professor G: Right . So , uh , where are we ? Maybe , uh , uh , brief {disfmarker} Well , let 's {disfmarker} why don't we talk about microphone issues ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That 'd be great . +Professor G: That was {disfmarker} that was a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , so one thing is that I did look on Sony 's for a replacement for the mikes {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the head m head - worn ones cuz they 're so uncomfortable . But I think I need someone who knows more about mikes than I do , because I couldn't find a single other model that seemed like it would fit the connector , which seems really unlikely to me . Does anyone , like , know stores or {vocalsound} know about mikes who {disfmarker} who would know the right questions to ask ? +Professor G: Oh , I probably would . I mean , my knowledge is twenty years out of date but some of it 's still the same . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} Uh , so maybe we c we can take a look at that . +PhD E: You couldn't {disfmarker} you couldn't find the right connector to go into these things ? +Grad A: Yep . When I looked , i they listed one microphone and that 's it +PhD E: Huh ! +Grad A: as having that type of connector . But my guess is that Sony maybe uses a different number for their connector than everyone else does . And {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Well , let 's look at it together +Grad A: it seems {disfmarker} it seems really unlikely to me that there 's only one . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And there 's no adaptor for it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Seems like there 'd be a {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: As I said , who knows ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Who {disfmarker} who are we buying these from ? +Grad A: Um , +Professor G: That 'd be +Grad A: I have it downstairs . I don't remember off the top of my head . +Professor G: Yeah . OK . Yeah . We {disfmarker} we can try and look at that together . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} just in terms of how you wear them {disfmarker} I mean , I had thought about this before . I mean , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you use a product like DragonDictate , they have a very extensive description about how to wear the microphone and so on . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Grad A: But I felt that in a real situation we were very seldom gonna get people to really do it and maybe it wasn't worth concentrating on . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , I think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good back - off position . That 's what I was saying {vocalsound} earlier , th that , you know , we are gonna get some {vocalsound} recordings that are imperfect and , hey , that 's life . But I {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt , uh , the naturalness of the situation to try to have people {pause} wear the microphones properly , if possible , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: because , {vocalsound} um , the natural situation is really what we have with the microphones on the table . +Grad A: Oh . That 's true . +Professor G: I mean , I think , {vocalsound} you know , in the target applications that we 're talking about , people aren't gonna be wearing head - mounted mikes anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So this is just for u these head - mounted mikes are just for use with research . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , it 's gonna make {disfmarker} You know , if {disfmarker} if An - Andreas plays around with language modeling , he 's not gonna be m wanna be messed up by people breathing into the microphone . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , I 'll dig through the documentation to DragonDictate and ste s see if they still have the little {pause} form . +Professor G: But it does happen . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , and any {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting , uh , I talked to some IBM guys , uh , last January , I think , I was there . And {disfmarker} so people who were working on the {disfmarker} on their ViaVoice dictation product . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: And they said , uh , the breathing is really a {disfmarker} a terrible problem {pause} for them , to {disfmarker} to not recognize breathing as speech . +Postdoc F: Wow . +PhD B: So , anything to reduce breathing is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good thing . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Well , that 's the {disfmarker} It seemed to me when I was using Dragon that it was really microphone placement helped an {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} an enormous amount . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you want it enough to the side so that when you exhale through your nose , it doesn't {disfmarker} the wind doesn't hit the mike . +PhD B: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} Everyone 's adjusting their microphones , of course . And then just close enough so that you get good volume . So you know , wearing it right about here seems to be about the right way to do it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Is {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Professor G: I remember when I was {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used , uh , um , {vocalsound} a prominent laboratory 's , uh , uh , speech recognizer about , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} This was , boy , this was a while ago , this was about twelve {disfmarker} twelve years ago or something . And , um , they were {disfmarker} they were perturbed with me because I was breathing in instead of breathing out . And they had models for {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had Markov models for br breathing out but they didn't have them for breathing in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . Well , what I wondered is whether it 's possible to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to maybe use the display at the beginning +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: to be able to {disfmarker} to judge how {disfmarker} how correctly {disfmarker} I mean , have someone do some routine whatever , and {disfmarker} and then see if when they 're breathing it 's showing . +Grad A: I mean , when {disfmarker} when it 's on , you can see it . +Postdoc F: I don't know if the {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Grad A: You can definitely see it . +Postdoc F: Can you see the breathing ? +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Cuz I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , you know , I 've {disfmarker} I 've sat here and watched sometimes the breathing , +Professor G: I +Grad A: and the bar going up and down , and I 'm thinking , I could say something , but +Professor G: I mean , I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: I don't want to make people self - conscious . Stop breathing ! +Professor G: It {disfmarker} it 's going to be imperfect . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor G: You 're not gonna get it perfect . And you can do some , uh , you know , first - order thing about it , which is to have people move it , uh , uh , a away from being just directly in front of the middle +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: but not too far away . +Postdoc F: Yeah , i +Professor G: And then , you know , I think there 's not much {disfmarker} Because you can't al you know , interfere w you can't fine tune the meeting that much , I think . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It 's sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . It just seems like i if something l simple like that can be tweaked {vocalsound} and the quality goes , you know , uh , dramatically up , then it might be worth {pause} doing . +Grad A: Yep . And then also {disfmarker} the position of the mike also . If it 's more directly , you 'll get better volume . So {disfmarker} so , like , yours is pretty far down {pause} below your mouth . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . My {disfmarker} my feedback from the transcribers is he is always close to crystal clear and {disfmarker} and just fan fantastic to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I don't know why that is . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you {disfmarker} Yeah , of course . You 're {disfmarker} you 're also {disfmarker} uh , your volume is {disfmarker} is greater . But {disfmarker} but still , I mean , they {disfmarker} they say {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 've been eating a lot . +Postdoc F: I it makes their {disfmarker} their job extremely easy . +Professor G: Uh . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's mass . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Anyway . +Postdoc F: I could say something about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} Well , I don't know what you wanna do . Yeah . +Professor G: About what ? +Postdoc F: About the transcribers or anything or {disfmarker} ? I don't know . +Professor G: Well , the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , uh , just to {disfmarker} to , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: why don't we do that ? +PhD B: One more remark , uh , concerning the SRI recognizer . Um . It is useful to transcribe and then ultimately train models for things like breath , and also laughter is very , very frequent and important to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to model . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Grad A: So , +PhD B: if you can in your transcripts mark {disfmarker} +Grad A: mark them ? +PhD B: mark very audible breaths and laughter especially , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: They are . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: They 're putting {disfmarker} Eh , so in curly brackets they put "" inhale "" or "" breath "" . +Grad A: Oh , great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: It {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} and then in curly brackets they say "" laughter "" . Now they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they 're not being {pause} awfully precise , uh , m So they 're two types of laughter that are not being distinguished . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: One is {vocalsound} when sometimes s someone will start laughing when they 're in the middle of a sentence . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and then the other one is when they finish the sentence and then they laugh . So , um , I {disfmarker} I did s I did some double checking to look through {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you 'd need to have extra e extra complications , like time tags indicating the beginning and ending of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the laughing through the utterance . +PhD B: It 's not so {disfmarker} I don't think it 's , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And that {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is in both cases just saying "" curly brackets laughing "" a after the unit . +PhD B: As {disfmarker} as long as there is an indication that there was laughter somewhere between {pause} two words {vocalsound} I think that 's sufficient , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . Oh ! +Grad A: Against {disfmarker} they could do forced alignment . +Postdoc F: OK . +PhD B: because actually the recognition of laughter once you kn um {disfmarker} you know , is pretty good . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: So as long as you can stick a {disfmarker} you know , a t a tag in there that {disfmarker} that indicates that there was laughter , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know that . +PhD B: that would probably be , uh , sufficient to train models . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: That would be a really interesting {pause} prosodic feature , +Postdoc F: Then {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And let me ask y and I gotta ask you one thing about that . +Grad A: when {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: So , um , if they laugh between two words , you {disfmarker} you 'd get it in between the two words . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc F: But if they laugh across three or four words you {disfmarker} you get it after those four words . Does that matter ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , the thing that you {disfmarker} is hard to deal with is whe {vocalsound} when they speak while laughing . Um , and that 's , uh {disfmarker} I don't think that we can do very well with that . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But , um , that 's not as frequent as just laughing between speaking , +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: So are {disfmarker} do you treat breath and laughter as phonetically , or as word models , or what ? +PhD B: so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh is it ? +PhD D: Huh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's frequent in {disfmarker} in the meeting . +Postdoc F: I think he 's right . Yeah . +PhD B: We tried both . Uh , currently , um , we use special words . There was a {disfmarker} there 's actually a word for {disfmarker} uh , it 's not just breathing but all kinds of mouth {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mouth stuff ? +PhD B: uh , mouth {disfmarker} mouth stuff . And then laughter is a {disfmarker} is a special word . +Grad A: How would we do that with the hybrid system ? +Professor G: Same thing . +Grad A: So train a phone {pause} in the neural net ? +PhD B: Same thing ? Yeah . Yeah . You ha Oh . And each of these words has a dedicated phone . +Professor G: No {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it does ? +PhD B: So the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the mouth noise , uh , word has just a single phone , um , that is for that . +Grad A: Right . So in the hybrid system we could train the net with a laughter phone and a breath sound phone . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always the same thing . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could say well , let {disfmarker} we now think that laughter should have three sub sub {vocalsound} sub - units in the {disfmarker} the three states , uh {disfmarker} different states . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then you would have three {disfmarker} I mean , you know , eh , eh , it 's u +Grad A: Do whatever you want . +PhD B: And the {disfmarker} the pronun the pronunciations {disfmarker} the pronunciations are l are somewhat non - standard . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: No . +PhD B: They actually are {disfmarker} uh , it 's just a single , s uh , you know , a single phone in the pronunciation , but it has a self - loop on it , so it can {disfmarker} +Grad A: To {pause} go on forever ? +PhD B: r can go on forever . +Grad A: And how do you handle it in the language model ? +PhD B: It 's just a {disfmarker} it 's just a word . +Grad A: It 's just a word in the language model . +PhD B: We train it like any other word . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD B: Yeah . We also tried , {vocalsound} um , absorbing these {disfmarker} uh , both laughter and {disfmarker} and actually also noise , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yes . OK . Anyway . We also tried absorbing that into the pause model {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the model that {disfmarker} that matches the stuff between words . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , um , it didn't work as well . So . +Grad A: Huh . OK . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Can you hand me your digit form ? +PhD B: Sorry . +Grad A: I just wanna mark that you did not read digits . +Professor G: OK . Say hi for me . +Postdoc F: Good . You {disfmarker} you did get me to thinking about {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure which is more frequent , whether f f laughing {disfmarker} I think it may be an individual thing . Some people are more prone to laughing when they 're speaking . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: I was noticing that with Dan in the one that we , uh {disfmarker} we hand tran hand - segmented , +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that {disfmarker} th he has these little chuckles as he talks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . OK . +Professor G: I 'm sure it 's very individual . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} one thing that c that we 're not doing , of course , is we 're not claiming to , uh , get {disfmarker} be getting a representation of mankind in these recordings . We have {vocalsound} this very , very tiny sample of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Speech researchers ? +Professor G: Uh , yeah . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , r right . +PhD D: Speech research . +Professor G: So , uh , who knows . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Why don why don't we just {disfmarker} since we 're on this vein , why don't we just continue with , uh , what you were gonna say about the transcriptions +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Um , um , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm really very for I 'm extremely fortunate with the people who , uh , applied and who are transcribing for us . They {vocalsound} are , um , um , uh really perceptive and very , um {disfmarker} and I 'm not just saying that cuz they might be hearing this . +Grad A: Cuz they 're gonna be transcribing it in a few days . +Postdoc F: No , they 're super . They 're {disfmarker} the they {disfmarker} very quick . +PhD E: OK . Turn the mikes off and let 's talk . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I know . I am {disfmarker} I 'm serious . They 're just super . So I , um , e you know , I {disfmarker} I brought them in and , um , trained them in pairs because I think people can raise questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc F: you know , i i the they think about different things and they think of different {disfmarker} and um , I trained them to , uh , f on about a minute or two of the one that was already transcribed . This also gives me a sense of {disfmarker} You know , I can {disfmarker} I can use that later , with reference to inter - coder reliability kind of issues . But the main thing was to get them used to the conventions and , {vocalsound} you know , the idea of the {disfmarker} th th the size of the unit versus how long it takes to play it back so these {disfmarker} th sort of calibration issues . And then , um , I just set them loose and they 're {disfmarker} they all have e a already background in using computers . They 're , um {disfmarker} they 're trained in linguistics . +Grad A: Good . Oh , no . Is that good or bad ? +Postdoc F: They got {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: Well , they they 're very perce they 'll {disfmarker} So one of them said "" well , you know , he really said "" n "" , not really "" and "" , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: so what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what should I do with that ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And I said , "" well for our purposes , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I do have a convention . If it 's an {disfmarker} a noncanonical p "" That one , I think we {disfmarker} you know , with Eric 's work , I sort of figure we {disfmarker} we can just treat that as a variant . But I told them if {disfmarker} if there 's an obvious speech error , uh , like I said in one thing , +Professor G: OK . Yes . +Postdoc F: and I gave my {disfmarker} my example , like I said , "" microfon "" {pause} in instead of "" microphone "" . Didn't bother {disfmarker} I knew it when I said it . I remember s thinking "" oh , that 's not correctly pronounced "" . But it {disfmarker} but I thought {vocalsound} it 's not worth fixing cuz often when you 're speaking everybody knows what {disfmarker} what you mean . +Grad A: You 'll self - repair . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But I have a convention that if it 's obviously a noncanonical pronunciation {disfmarker} a speech error with {disfmarker} you know , wi within the realm of resolution that you can tell in this native English {disfmarker} American English speaker , you know that I didn't mean to say "" microfon . "" Then you 'd put a little tick at the beginning of the word , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and that just signals that , um , this is not standard , and then in curly brackets "" pron {nonvocalsound} error "" . And , um , and other than that , it 's w word level . But , you know , the fact that they noticed , you know , the "" nnn "" . "" He said "" nnn "" , not "" and "" . What shall I do with that ? "" I mean , they 're very perceptive . And {disfmarker} and s several of them are trained in IPA . C they really could do phonetic transcription if {disfmarker} if we wanted them to . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , you know , it might be something we 'd wanna do with some , uh , s small subset {pause} of the whole thing . +Grad A: Hmm . Where were they when {pause} we needed them ? +Postdoc F: I think {disfmarker} +Professor G: We certainly wouldn't wanna do it with everything . +Postdoc F: And I 'm also thinking these people are a terrific pool . I mean , if , uh {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I told them that , um , we don't know if this will continue past the end of the month +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: and I also {disfmarker} m I think they know that the data p source is limited and I may not be able to keep them employed till the end of the month even , although I hope to . +Professor G: The other thing we could do , actually , uh , is , uh , use them for a more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} Oh , that 'd be so super . They would be so {disfmarker} s so terrific . +Grad A: I mean , this was something that we were talking about . +Professor G: Right ? +Grad A: We could get a very detailed overlap if they were willing to transcribe each meeting four or five times . Right ? One for each participant . So they could by hand {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , that 's one way to do it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: But I 've been saying the other thing is just go through it for the overlaps . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Professor G: Right ? +Postdoc F: And with the right in interface {disfmarker} +Professor G: Given that y and {disfmarker} and do {disfmarker} so instead of doing phonetic , uh , uh , transcription for the whole thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which {vocalsound} we know from the {disfmarker} Steve 's experience with the Switchboard transcription is , you know , very , very time - consuming . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you know , it took them I don't know how many months to do {disfmarker} to get four hours . And so {vocalsound} that hasn't been really our focus . Uh , we can consider it . But , I mean , the other thing is since we 've been spending so much time thinking about overlaps is {disfmarker} is maybe get a much more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But anyway , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to c our consideration . +Postdoc F: That 'd be great . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I don't wanna say that by fiat . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: I 'm open to every consideration of {vocalsound} what are some other kinds of detailed analysis that would be most useful . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , uh , uh , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} this year we {disfmarker} we actually , uh , can do it . +Postdoc F: Oh , wonderful . +Professor G: It 's a {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} due to @ @ {comment} variations in funding we have {disfmarker} we seem to be doing , uh , very well on m money for this {disfmarker} this year , and {vocalsound} next year we may have {disfmarker} have much less . +Grad A: Is {disfmarker} you mean two thousand one ? +Professor G: So I don't wanna hire a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Calendar year or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Uh , I mean , calendar year two thousand one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} we don't wanna hire a bunch of people , a long - term staff , +Grad A: Full - time . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor G: because {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the funding that we 've gotten is sort of a big chunk for this year . But {vocalsound} having {pause} temporary people doing some specific thing that we need is actually a perfect match to that kind of , uh , funding . +Postdoc F: Wonderful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And then school will start in {disfmarker} in the sixt on the sixteenth . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: Some of them will have to cut back their hours at that point . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Are they working full - time now , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} Some of them are . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Well , why do I wouldn't say forty - hour weeks . No . But what I mean is {disfmarker} Oh , I shouldn't say it that way because {nonvocalsound} that does sound like forty - hour weeks . No . I th I {disfmarker} I would say they 're probably {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} they don't have o they don't have other things that are taking away their time . +Grad A: I don't see how someone could do forty hours a week on transcription . +PhD E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But {nonvocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} you can't . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: No . You 're right . It 's {disfmarker} i it would be too taxing . But , um , they 're putting {nonvocalsound} in a lot of {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I checked them over . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't checked them all , but {pause} just spot - checking . They 're fantastic . +Grad A: I think it would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: I remember when we were transcribing BeRP , uh , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Ron Kay , uh , volunteered to {disfmarker} to do some of that . And , he was {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} first stuff he did was transcribing Chuck . And he 's saying "" You {disfmarker} you know , I always thought Chuck spoke really well . "" +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you know , and I also thought , y Liz has this , eh , you know , and I do also , this {disfmarker} this interest in the types of overlaps that are involved . These people would be {nonvocalsound} great choices for doing coding of that type if we wanted , +Grad A: We 'd have to mark them . +Postdoc F: or whatever . So , um . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think it would also be interesting to have , uh , a couple of the meetings have more than one transcriber do , +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: cuz I 'm curious about inter - annotator agreement . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . Yeah . Th - that 'd be {disfmarker} I think that 's a {disfmarker} a good idea . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You know , there 's also , the e In my mind , I think A An - Andreas was {pause} leading to this topic , the idea that , um , {vocalsound} we haven't yet seen the {disfmarker} the type of transcript that we get from IBM , and it may just be , you know , pristine . But on the other hand , given the lesser interface {disfmarker} Cuz this is , you know {disfmarker} we 've got a good interface , we 've got great headphones , m um {disfmarker} +Professor G: It could be that they will uh {disfmarker} theirs will end up being a kind of fir first pass or something . +Postdoc F: Something like that . +Professor G: Maybe an elaborate one , cuz again they probably are gonna do these alignments , which will also clear things up . +Postdoc F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's true . Al - although you have to s Don't you have to start with a close enough approximation {nonvocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the verbal part {nonvocalsound} to be able to {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Well , tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's debatable . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , so the {disfmarker} so the argument is that if your statistical system is good {vocalsound} it will in fact , uh , clean things up . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? So it it 's got its own objective criterion . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , so in principle you could start up with something that was kind of rough {disfmarker} I mean , to give an example of , um , something we used to do , uh , at one point , uh , back {disfmarker} back when Chuck was here in early times , is we would take , um , {vocalsound} da take a word and , uh , have a canonical pronunciation and , uh , if there was five phones in a word , {vocalsound} you 'd break up the word , {vocalsound} uh , into five equal - length pieces which is completely gross . +Grad A: Wrong . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , th the timing is off {pause} all over the place in just about any word . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor G: But it 's O K . You start off with that and the statistical system then aligns things , and eventually you get something that doesn't really look too bad . +Postdoc F: Oh , excellent . OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I think using a {disfmarker} a good {pause} aligner , um , actually can {disfmarker} can help a lot . Um . {vocalsound} But , uh , you know , they both help each other . If you have a {disfmarker} if you have a better starting point , then it helps the aligner . If you have a good alignment , it helps the , uh , th the human in {disfmarker} in taking less time to correct things . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Excellent . I guess there 's another aspect , too , and I don't know {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} very possibly a different , uh , topic . But , {nonvocalsound} uh , just let me say {pause} with reference to this idea of , um , {vocalsound} higher - order organization within meetings . So like in a {disfmarker} you know , the topics that are covered during a meeting with reference to the other , uh , uses of the data , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so being able to {pause} find where so - and - so talked about such - and - such , then , um , um {disfmarker} e I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did sort of a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a rough {pause} pass {nonvocalsound} on encoding , like , episode - like level things on the , uh , transcribed meeting {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: already transcribed meeting . And I don't know if , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: where {nonvocalsound} that {disfmarker} i if that 's something that we wanna do with each meeting , sort of like a , um {disfmarker} it 's like a manifest , when you get a box full of stuff , or {disfmarker} or if that 's , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , i I {disfmarker} I don't know what uh , level of detail would be most useful . I don't know i if that 's something that {pause} I should do when I look over it , or if we want someone else to do , or whatever . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: But this issue of the contents of the meeting in an outline form . OK . +Professor G: Yeah . Meaning really isn't my thing . Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think it just {disfmarker} whoever is interested can do that . I mean , so if someone wants to use that data {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: We 're running a little short here . +Postdoc F: That 's fine . +Professor G: We , uh , uh , cou trying to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I 'm finished . +Professor G: eh , was {disfmarker} p Well , you know , the thing I 'm concerned about is we wanted to do these digits +Postdoc F: Oh , yeah . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and I haven't heard , uh , from Jose yet . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . +PhD D: OK . What do you want ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: We could skip the digits . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We don't have to read digits each time . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} you know , another {disfmarker} another bunch of digits . More data is good . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I 'd like to do that . But I think , do you , maybe , eh {disfmarker} ? Did you prepare some whole thing you wanted us just to see ? +PhD D: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's prepared . +Professor G: Or what was that ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , k Sorry . +Professor G: Uh , how long a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's fast , because , uh , I have the results , eh , of the study of different energy without the law length . Eh , um , eh , in the {disfmarker} in the measurement , uh , the average , uh , dividing by the {disfmarker} by the , um , variance . Um , I {disfmarker} th i +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: the other , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last w uh , meeting {disfmarker} eh , I don't know if you remain we have problem to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with the parameter {disfmarker} with the representations of parameter , because the {disfmarker} the valleys and the peaks in the signal , eh , look like , eh , it doesn't follow to the {disfmarker} to the energy in the signal . +Professor G: Yes . Right . +PhD D: And it was a problem , uh , with the scale . +Grad A: With what ? +PhD D: Eh , the scale . +Postdoc F: Scale . +Grad A: Scale . +PhD D: Eh , and I {disfmarker} I change the scale and we can see the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor G: OK . But the bottom line is it 's still not , uh , separating out very well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? +PhD D: The distribution {disfmarker} the distribution is {disfmarker} is similar . +Professor G: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's enough then . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: No , I mean , that there 's no point in going through all of that if that 's the bottom line , really . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So , I {disfmarker} I think we have to start {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , there there 's two suggestions , really , which is , uh {disfmarker} what we said before is that , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: um , it looks like , at least that you haven't found an obvious way to normalize so that the energy is anything like a reliable , uh , indicator of the overlap . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Um , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still {pause} a little f think that 's a little funny . These things l @ @ seems like there should be , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you don't want to keep , uh {disfmarker} keep knocking at it if it 's {disfmarker} if you 're not getting any {disfmarker} any result with that . But , I mean , the other things that we talked about is , uh , {vocalsound} pitch - related things and harmonicity - related things , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} which we thought also should be some kind of a reasonable indicator . Um {disfmarker} But , uh , a completely different tack on it wou is the one that was suggested , uh , by your colleagues in Spain , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which is to say , don't worry so much about the , uh , features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: That is to say , use , you know , as {disfmarker} as you 're doing with the speech , uh , nonspeech , use some very general features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , then , uh , look at it more from the aspect of modeling . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: You know , have a {disfmarker} have a couple Markov models and {disfmarker} and , uh , try to indi try to determine , you know , w when is th when are you in an overlap , when are you not in an overlap . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: And let the , uh , uh , statistical system {pause} determine what 's the right way to look at the data . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I , um , I think it would be interesting to find individual features and put them together . I think that you 'd end up with a better system overall . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But given the limitation in time {vocalsound} and given the fact that Javier 's system already exists {pause} doing this sort of thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , but , uh , its main limitation is that , again , it 's only looking at silences which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: maybe that 's a better place to go . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , eh , the possibility , eh , can be that , eh , Thilo , eh , working , eh , with a new class , not only , eh , nonspeech and speech , but , eh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the speech class , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: dividing , eh , speech , eh , of {disfmarker} from a speaker and overlapping , to try {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do , eh , eh , a fast {disfmarker} a fast , eh , {vocalsound} experiment to {disfmarker} to prove that , nnn , this fea eh , general feature , {vocalsound} eh , can solve the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem , +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: and wh what {disfmarker} nnn , how far is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD D: And , I {disfmarker} I have prepared the {disfmarker} the pitch tracker now . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And I hope the {disfmarker} the next week I will have , eh , some results and we {disfmarker} we will show {disfmarker} we will see , eh , the {disfmarker} the parameter {disfmarker} the pitch , {vocalsound} eh , tracking in {disfmarker} with the program . +Professor G: I see . +PhD D: And , nnn , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ha - h have you ever looked at the , uh , uh {disfmarker} Javier 's , uh , speech segmenter ? +PhD C: No . No . +PhD D: No . +Professor G: Oh . Maybe m you could , you kn uh show Thilo that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Cuz again the idea is there {disfmarker} the limitation there again was that he was {disfmarker} he was only using it to look at silence as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a p putative split point between speakers . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you included , uh , broadened classes then {pause} in principle maybe you can {pause} cover the overlap cases . +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , but I 'm not too sure if {disfmarker} if we can {pause} really represent {vocalsound} overlap with {disfmarker} with the s {pause} detector I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used up to now , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think with {disfmarker} +PhD C: the {disfmarker} to speech - nonspeech as {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . But I think Javier 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: it 's only speech or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's nonspeech . +PhD D: Ah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think Javier 's might be able to . +PhD C: So . +Professor G: N n +Grad A: It doesn't have the same Gaus - uh , H M M modeling , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: which is I think a drawback . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , it 's {disfmarker} sort of has a simple one . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Grad A: Does it ? +Professor G: Right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} isn't it just a Gaussian +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: for each {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . And then {pause} he ch you choose optimal splitting . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . Oh , it doesn't have {disfmarker} it doesn't have any temporal , uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Maybe I 'm misremembering , but I did not think it had a Markov {disfmarker} +Professor G: I thought it {disfmarker} Yeah . I gues I guess I don't remember either . Uh . It 's been a while . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , I could have a look at it . +PhD D: Javier {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: You mean Ja - eh , eh , Javier program ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , Javier di doesn't worked with , uh , a Markov {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I didn't think so . +PhD D: He on only train {disfmarker} +Professor G: Oh , OK . So he 's just {disfmarker} he just computes a Gaussian over potential {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . It was only Gaussian . +Professor G: Oh , I see . I see . +Grad A: And so I {disfmarker} I think it would work fine for detecting overlap . +PhD D: This is the idea . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just , uh , that i it {disfmarker} he has the two - pass issue that {disfmarker} What he does is , as a first pass he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} p he does , um , a guess at where the divisions might be and he overestimates . And that 's just a data reduction step , so that you 're not trying at every time interval . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: And so those are the putative {pause} places where he tries . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . OK . +Grad A: And right now he 's doing that with silence and that doesn't work with the Meeting Recorder . So if we used another method to get the first pass , I think it would probably work . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Sure . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: It 's a good method . As long as the len as long the segments are long enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's the other problem . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor G: O - k OK . So let me go back to what you had , though . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: The other thing one could do is {disfmarker} Couldn't {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} So you have two categories +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and you have Markov models for each . Couldn't you have a third category ? So you have , uh {disfmarker} you have , {vocalsound} uh , nonspeech , single - person speech , and multiple - person speech ? +Postdoc F: He has this on his board actually . Don't you have , like those {disfmarker} those several different {vocalsound} categories on the board ? +Professor G: Right ? And then you have a Markov model for each ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . I {disfmarker} I thought about , uh , adding , uh , uh , another class too . But it 's not too easy , I think , the {disfmarker} the transition between the different class , to model them in {disfmarker} in the system I have now . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it could be possible , I think , +Professor G: I see . I see . +PhD C: in principle . +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} This is all pretty gross . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , the {disfmarker} th the reason why , uh , I was suggesting originally that we look at features is because I thought , well , we 're doing something we haven't done before , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: we should at least look at the space and understand {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It seems like if two people {disfmarker} two or more people talk at once , it should get louder , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , and , uh , uh , there should be some discontinuity in pitch contours , +PhD C: I had the impression . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and , uh , there should overall be a , um , smaller proportion of the total energy that is explained by any particular harmonic {pause} sequence in the spectrum . +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: So those are all things that should be there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So far , um , uh , Jose has {disfmarker} has been {disfmarker} By the way , I was told I should be calling you Pepe , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: by your friends , but Anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: um , uh , the {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has , uh , been exploring , uh , e largely the energy issue and , um , as with a lot of things , it is not {disfmarker} uh , like this , it 's not as simple as it sounds . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's , you know {disfmarker} Is it energy ? Is it log energy ? Is it LPC residual energy ? Is it {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is it , uh , delta of those things ? Uh , what is it no Obviously , just a simple number {disfmarker} {vocalsound} absolute number isn't gonna work . So {vocalsound} it should be with {disfmarker} compared to what ? Should there be a long window for the {vocalsound} normalizing factor and a short window for what you 're looking at ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Or , you know , how b short should they be ? So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: th he 's been playing around with a lot of these different things and {disfmarker} and so far at least has not come up with {vocalsound} any combination that really gave you an indicator . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So I {disfmarker} I still have a hunch that there 's {disfmarker} it 's in there some place , but it may be {disfmarker} given that you have a limited time here , it {disfmarker} it just may not be the best thing to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to focus on for the remaining of it . +PhD D: Yeah . To overrule , yeah . +Professor G: So pitch - related and harmonic - related , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {pause} somewhat more hopeful for it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: But it seems like if we just wanna get something to work , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: that , uh , their suggestion of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Th - they were suggesting going to Markov models , uh , but in addition there 's an expansion of what Javier did . And one of those things , looking at the statistical component , +PhD D: One . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: even if the features that you give it are maybe not ideal for it , it 's just sort of this general filter bank +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or cepstrum or something , um {disfmarker} Eee {vocalsound} it 's in there somewhere probably . +PhD D: But , eh , what did you think about the possibility of using the Javier software ? Eh , I mean , the , uh {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the BIC criterion , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to train the {disfmarker} the Gaussian , eh , using the {disfmarker} the mark , eh , by hand , eh , eh , to distinguish be mmm , to train overlapping zone and speech zone . I mean , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that an interesting , eh , experiment , eh , could be , th eh , to prove that , mmm , if s we suppose that , eh , the {disfmarker} the first step {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , the {disfmarker} the classifier what were the classifier from Javier or classifier from Thilo ? W What happen with the second step ? I {disfmarker} I mean , what {disfmarker} what happen with the , eh {disfmarker} the , uh , clu the , uh {disfmarker} the clu the clustering process ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Using the {disfmarker} the Gaussian . +Grad A: You mean Javier 's ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: What do you mean ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I mean , that is {disfmarker} is enough {disfmarker} is enough , eh , to work well , eh , to , eh , separate or to distinguish , eh , between overlapping zone and , eh , speaker zone ? Because th {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if we , eh , nnn , develop an classifier {disfmarker} and the second step doesn't work {pause} well , eh , we have {pause} another problem . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I had tried doing it by hand at one point with a very short sample , +PhD D: N +Grad A: and it worked pretty well , but I haven't worked with it a lot . So what I d I d I took a hand - segmented sample +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Grad A: and I added ten times the amount of numbers at random , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and it did pick out pretty good boundaries . +PhD D: Oh . Yeah . But is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad A: But this was just very anecdotal sort of thing . +PhD D: But it 's possible with my segmentation by hand {pause} that we have information about the {disfmarker} the overlapping , +Grad A: Right . So if we {disfmarker} if we fed the hand - segmentation to Javier 's and it doesn't work , then we know something 's wrong . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} N n Yeah . No . The demonstration by hand . Segmentation by hand I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the fast experiment . +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's probably worthwhile doing . +PhD D: Uh , we can prove that the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Whether it 'll work or not . +PhD D: this kind o emph emphasises parameter and Gaussian {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Y do you know where his software is ? Have you used it at all ? +PhD D: I yeah have . I have . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I have as well , so if you need {disfmarker} need help let me know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: Let 's read some digits . +Grad A: OK . uuh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we are {disfmarker} +","The transcript reflects a conversation that took place during a meeting involving multiple participants, including a professor named Professor G, several PhD students from various disciplines, a postdoctoral researcher named Postdoc F, and Grad A. The meeting appears to be a discussion primarily centered around the progress, challenges, and strategies related to the transcription and analysis of speech data, with a particular focus on the Meeting Recorder project. + +The start of the conversation indicates that Grad A, who may be in charge of the recording process, acknowledges not having preemptively executed all tasks before the meeting. The delay was attributed to an extended lunch involving Chuck, who is presumed to be another member of the team not present at the meeting. The participants chuckle about Chuck telling too many jokes. They then address whether they have an agenda for the meeting. Postdoc F mentions sending a couple of items related to practical matters, which Professor G remembers. + +The group continues to deliberate on whether to include practical issues in the meeting, to which they agree. Postdoc F updates on a transcription effort, which involves microphone procedures and the cleanliness of recordings. They discuss improvements made in the pre-segmentation of non-speech and speech signals and the steps forward they have made. PhD D and Grad A also touch upon a topic related to IRAM (it's not clear what IRAM is from the transcript), which seems to be of specialized interest. + +Attention then shifts to the order and focus of the meeting's discussions. There's a consensus to start with a segment related to advancements in segmentation work. Professor G briefly mentions a meeting he had with researchers from Spain, contributing suggestions on improving the existing segmentation methods by incorporating non-silence boundaries, which could improve speaker change detections. + +A detailed discussion ensues on enhanced transcription methods with Grad A, PhD C, and Postdoc F. They delve into Gaussian mixtures, the use of close-talking and quiet speaker microphones, and the necessary technical front-end processing such as critical bands and various energy and loudness features. The efforts made in pre-segmentation and the innovations to differentiate between loud and quiet speakers are highlighted. + +The conversation then addresses the transcription of overlap and non-speech events, suggesting that improvements in transcription interfaces could yield a more detailed encoding of complex speech events, such as overlaps. Postdoc F acknowledges the work of the transcribers and their attention to detail, from the minute pronunciations to the representation of laughter and breath. They further discuss having clear transcription standards. + +As the meeting progresses, they consider exploring other feature issues, like pitch and harmonicity, instead of focusing narrowly on energy as indicators for speech separation in overlap situations. PhD D and Postdoc F suggest it may be beneficial to adapt existing tools like Javier's software to improve segmentation by training on hand-segmented samples. + +Throughout the conversation, the participants show a strong interest in improving the tools and methods for speech analysis, particularly concerning transcriptions and the detection of overlaps in speech. They propose using statistical models and other technical approaches while emphasizing the importance of proper microphone positioning to avoid issues like breath noise. + +The meeting also includes lighter moments of internal jokes and laughter, which serve to illustrate the group's camaraderie. There is a strong sense of collaboration with an aim to enhance the Meeting Recorder project's outcomes. + +In the latter part of the meeting, they consider the possibility of future exploration of high-order organization in meetings for additional annotations, which could be helpful for other uses of the data. They deliberate on the nature of such annotations, whether they should encompass higher levels of discourse structure, and how they might be most effectively executed. + +Finally, as the meeting comes to a close, they decide to perform the routine task of reading digits, which appears to be part of their protocol for data collection. However, there is an acknowledgment that one of their colleagues, Jose (possibly referred to as Pepe), has not yet arrived for this task. Despite the various topics discussed, the meeting ends without completing all the intended agenda items, indicating a need for further deliberation and action in future meetings." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 13th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Chairs chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces at their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): I have a point of order. +The Chair: Can the member wait for the point of order until we finish the introduction? +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There is so much noise in the background over there, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: That is a very good point of order. I want to remind everyone that when we speak, it is picked up. We have amazing speakersand an amazing Speaker, but that's a whole other storyand amazing microphones in the chamber, and they do pick up everything. I know there was some chatter going on in the background. I want to make sure everyone is aware of that. Mr. Aboultaif, that was a very good point of order. I appreciate that. For those joining us via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mikes on mute when you're not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel, and if you want to speak in French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference wish to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements for today, so we'll continue to the presentation of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition goes to Mr. Manly, who is joining us via video conference. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a petition that calls on the government to deal with helping our honey bees. They are crucial to our food system. They provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of services to commercial agricultural crops and other ecological services every year, and the European Union has put heavy restrictions on the chemicals that are affecting them, the neonicotinoids. This petition calls on the Government of Canada, for the sake of bees and our food security, to follow Europe's lead and adhere to the precautionary principle by banning the use of neonicotinoids in Canada. +The Chair: The next presenter of petitions will be Mr. Genuis, who is very parliamentary and dressed from the waist up, I understand. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and that is all you need to see for the moment. Canadians are horrified by the military report on the conditions of long-term care in Ontario. It raises big questions about the choices facing seniors in certain situations, which is what makes this first petition particularly timely. I am tabling a petition related to Bill C-7, the government's euthanasia bill, which seeks to dramatically remove safeguards that the government said were vital only a short time ago. When some people are living in deplorable conditions, we cannot truly speak of them as having a choice of when they ought to die. Especially in light of that new information, I commend this petition for the consideration of members of the House. The second petition is in support of Bill S-204 on organ harvesting and trafficking, put forward in the Senate. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ without the donor's consent. This bill seeks to combat the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. +The Chair: The next petition presenter will be Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and greetings from SaanichGulf Islands. The petition I'm presenting today is petition e-2509, which has been duly certified. It relates to what I think many of us will regard as the real heroes of the last few months. In this pandemic, there have often been very underpaid and overworked front-line workers who receive minimum wage and nothing more, and who are of course deemed essential services. The petitioners have asked the government to implement a wage supplement as a temporary measure to bring the wages for those who are in contact with the general public and working in what has been deemed an essential service to no less than $20 an hour, in light of their service and the risks they're taking for all of us. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the honourable member who just spoke brought up a great point yesterday. She said that when we present petitions, we are simply supposed to give one or two sentences before putting them on the table. I believe that was more than one or two sentences. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that when they are presenting petitions, they should be very concise with the prcis that they give up front, as opposed to going on for a long time. Now we will proceed to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes, and each statement will be for one minute. We will start with Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I am honoured to recognize the youth in my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville who are part of the 52nd Mississauga Scouts. For over a decade, I've had the great opportunity to join the Scouts every year during the month of May for the door-to-door food drives. This year has been a lot different, owing to the COVID situation, but our Scouts are not used to saying the word impossible. David Chant, head leader for their cub pack, reached out to share that the youth have found innovative ways to engage our community through a virtual food bank. I say a big thank you to Scout leaders like David, who are strong role models for our youth, teaching them the importance of leadership, kindness and giving back. I've always been amazed with the support within our community for the Scouts' food drive. David and his group of Scouts raised over $46,000 worth of food last year for the Mississauga Food Bank and The Compass. Again, I give a huge virtual high-five to all of our young Scouts, who have taken the lead with lots of compassion and care. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): May 24 to May 31 is Tourism Week in Canada. This annual celebration is a time for us to recognize the contributions and experiences of Canada's tourism industry. This is a very important industry, and this year's Tourism Week is a little different from what it normally is. The ongoing coronavirus crisis has closed provincial and international borders to recreational travel, and tourism operators from coast to coast have been among the first and hardest hit due to the government-mandated lockdowns. Clear criteria regarding border reopenings and health and safety requirements will allow hospitality and tourism businesses to sufficiently prepare to reopen. This includes rehiring employees, ordering supplies and putting together tour packages and marketing plans. Operators do not need to be set back any further because of a lack of clarity around reopening. While this Tourism Week is not a celebration like the one we had expected, I anticipate next year's celebration to be a celebration of an even stronger and more successful tourism industry in Canada. The 1.8 million Canadians whose jobs depend on a thriving tourism sector are counting on it. Bonne semaine to tourism. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Monday was a sad day in my riding of BonavistaBurinTrinity, and indeed our entire province. Please join me as I offer sincere condolences to the families of the men who lost their lives at sea in a tragic accident off the coast of St. Lawrence in Placentia Bay. Ed Norman, his son Scott Norman and his nephew Jody Norman all tragically lost their lives while fishing for crab this past Monday. A fourth man, family friend Isaac Kettle, was also with them. After a courageous search mission by Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary members and the Department of National Defence and Provincial Airlines, he is unfortunately still missing. We grieve with the entire town of St. Lawrence as they mourn this tragic loss of life. Mr. Chair, I am sure the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador, this parliamentary family and Canadians from coast to coast to coast join me in thinking of these men, along with their friends and families, during this difficult time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to speak to you today about a solid man who unfortunately passed away on May25. We were greatly saddened to learn about the death of FrancisDufour. This builder of Quebec's political history drew his last breath at the age of91, late Sunday night. Mr.Dufour was the archetypal proud representative of my region who spent his entire life in Jonquire. He first became involved in the Alcan employee's union in Arvida, then continued his civic involvement at the municipal level as mayor, then in the Quebec National Assembly as the member for Jonquire. He will be remembered as a man with deep ties to his community, a man of integrity, a people person, who dedicated himself to serving citizens and advancing the independence movement in Quebec. On behalf of the people of the riding of Jonquire and all the people of Quebec, I offer my most sincere condolences to FrancisDufour's family and loved ones. Thank you. +The Chair: We are continuing with MartinezFerrada. +Ms. Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Hochelaga, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The pandemic has greatly affected Montreal East, particularly the riding of Hochelaga, which I represent. Today, I'd like to recognize the exceptional work of all the volunteers and organizations in Hochelaga that are helping the more vulnerable populations, including Anonyme, CAP St-Barnab, CARE Montral, the Cuisine collective Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Bouffe Action, the Centre Communautaire Hochelaga, Chic Resto Pop, Jojo Dpannage, Groupe d'Entraide de Mercier-Ouest and many others. I'd like to acknowledge the commitment of the merchants who have rolled up their sleeves, including the Coop Couturires Pop, to make masks. I'd especially like to recognize essential workers, especially attendants. Allow me to offer our condolences to the loved ones of the attendants who have lost their lives to protect ours. The citizens of Hochelaga are resilient and unified. I am proud to rise in the House to salute them. +The Chair: The next presentation will be by Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Albertan and former parliamentarian, Louise Feltham, who passed away this Monday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Louise was an entrepreneur, a public servant and a force of nature. She inspired the family motto How hard can it be? by creating communities and building several homes in her lifetime. In all that she did, Louise broke glass ceilings. Her many firsts included being the first woman to serve as a councillor in rural Alberta, the first female reeve in rural Alberta and the first woman born in Newfoundland to serve in this chamber. She was the MP for Wild Rose from 1988 to 1993. Her son Glenn served as the president of NAIT when I chaired the board. My thoughts and sympathies are with him, his wife Tammi and the rest of their family for this great loss. Her parliamentary family mourns with you today. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Bagnell. +Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is a great honour to speak to the House of Commons today from Whitehorse, Yukon, here on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dn First Nation and the Ta'an Kwch'n Council. As a great historic Canadian event last week, Yukon became home to Canada's first university north of 60. Yukon University will provide Yukoners with educational opportunities closer to home, expand our research capabilities and expertise on the Arctic and climate change and allow those who want to study northern and first nations governance to do so in the north. I encourage all students living in the northern half of Canada to look at the many programs and degrees at Yukon University to continue their studiesin some cases this year, virtuallyby remaining in the north. I want to congratulate the staff of Yukon College, who spent the last decade working towards this transition, and especially the outgoing president, Karen Barnes. I wish her all the best in her retirement. Thank you, merci, mahsi cho and sga senl. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Hutchings. +Ms. Gudie Hutchings (Long Range Mountains, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, from the Long Range Mountains, I too want to send my condolences to my colleague, Mr. Rogers from BonavistaBurinTrinity, on the tragic loss in St. Lawrence. We're all communities that rely on the sea, and we understand the importance and the tragedy, and the hard work it is being fishers. However, today, colleagues, I want to mention, as my colleague from across the way said, that it's national tourism week, so please take the time to get out and thank the tourism and hospitality businesses in your ridings. Most businesses around the world were hit hard by COVID-19. The tourism economy was hit very hard, especially seasonal and rural operations and the 1.8 million people the industry employs. However, this industry knows how to work hard. They know how to partner. They know how to look after their employees and their guests. They will find new and innovative opportunities and experiences. They will build new business and they will continue to attract visitors. We know that the domestic and local markets will recover first. I know that the operators in my riding are getting ready just for that. It's exciting to speak with them about how they're working on their new normal and how it's going to be developed and implemented here in the Long Range Mountains. Remember too that many of our national parks are opening on June 1, so get out and explore the park in your backyard. I look forward to working with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Destination Canada and my colleagues so that when we turn the corner of this pandemic, we are ready to rebuild a stronger tourism economy. Friends, go out and discover the tourism treasures in your province. They need your support. Tourism matters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Gourde, you have the floor. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some people were already too few in number and already burdened with heavy responsibilities even before the COVID-19 crisis occurred. I would like to take this opportunity to express my admiration for the dedication of all the essential workers who stepped up in the riding of LvisLotbinire. This crisis has created pressing needs and unprecedented emergencies. Fine men and women committed to human dignity, volunteers, retirees, and you, who have wisely agreed to stay home, you have been part, to varying degrees, of this great equation to minimize the impact of the spread and avoid the worst. The snow has melted, the flowers have arrived. Many children are happy to be able to expend their energy again; our seniors are being cuddled, with great care, and our essential workers in the riding are still dedicated to the job. I say bravo, thank you and don't give up, even though you have already earned your place in heaven. +The Chair: Ms.Bendayan. +Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Outremont, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My father, who is now retired, was a researcher for over 40years. He was involved in many medical discoveries. From his laboratories at the Univerist de Montral, he worked with CHUM and the Centre hospitalier universitaire SainteJustine, renowned institutions in Outremont. In Fact, Outremont is full of professors, scientists and researchers. They are Quebeckers, Canadians, who are at the forefront of discoveries that save and will save lives. Since coming into office, our government has reversed the funding cuts to medical research and has invested billions in science. Recently, we announced new funding for COVID-19 research for fundamental science and supports for academic researchers. We are working very hard to find a vaccine for COVID-19, and our fundamental research is helping us to understand viruses that we don't even know the names of yet. It is this work that will help us stay ahead of the curve rather than flatten it. To all our Canadian scientists and to my dad, thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Alleslev. +Ms. Leona Alleslev (AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill, CPC): Mr. Chair, citizens in my riding of AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill are showing incredible compassion as they help their families, their friends and even strangers during this difficult period. They are our community champions. The Aurora Chamber of Commerce and the Richmond Hill Board of Trade are helping businesses navigate in these difficult times. Organizations like The STEAM Project and Ganesha Temple are making and donating face masks for those in need. The Aurora Museum & Archives is collecting artifacts to document the pandemic for future generations. The Aurora Farmers' Market is bringing local farmers and businesses to us, but this year with one key person missing. Our community has lost one of the farmers' market's founders, our jam lady, Jan Freedman. We were deeply saddened by her passing, and she will be sorely missed. My sincere thanks to everyone who's working to ease the burdens on one another during this crisis. It's not easy, but this too will pass, and we will be stronger for it. In the meantime, stay safe, and let us all do our part to be community champions. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, we all understand that a crisis like the one the world is currently experiencing generates deficits. We also know that a deficit is a bill we send to our children and grandchildren, which is why it is important to be prudent, to make wise choices and, above all, to know where we are going. It's a shame that every time we ask the government a question, no minister can tell us how big the Canadian deficit is. We aren't the only ones concerned about the deficit and the government's lack of transparency. In fact, last Tuesday, at a parliamentary committee meeting in the Senate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer made some very scathing remarks about the government. He said he was concerned. He said that there had to be a deadline or we'd be heading toward taxation levels that haven't been seen in generations in this country because there is not a lot of ammunition left before we go into a large structural deficit. I'm not the one saying it; it's the Parliamentary Budget Officer. For weeks, almost every day, the Prime Minister has been announcing cash injections for Canadians. We agree with that. However, hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent without any idea of the deficit. That's why we're sounding the alarm and calling on the government to be careful. The Prime Minister needs to know that we can't play Santa Claus every day, because the bills in January come in fast, and they are high. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Mr. Chair, making sure science informs our health policies is critical during a pandemic. That's why I'm so disappointed that the Liberals have maintained the ban on blood donations from gay men and trans women. There is no science behind this ban. Not only does it reinforce homophobia and transphobia, it also reduces our blood supply at this critical time. Now we've learned that the ban will also result in rejecting plasma donors, when plasma is so critical in emerging COVID-19 research and treatment. More than 17 countries, including Argentina, Italy and Spain, have no deferral period for men who have sex with men. They know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than discriminatory identity-based rules. I have asked the minister many times to lift the gay blood ban and I do so again today, but today I also call on the family and friends of gay men and trans women to step up now and donate blood in place of those of us who cannot. When it comes to blood donations, we really should all be in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Desilets, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivire-des-Mille-les, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. I've missed you, by the way. On another note, the emergency wage subsidy was created for people who fear for their jobs or their businesses. It's for people who need it, not for millionaire political parties like the Liberals and Conservatives. In Rivire-des-Mille-les, as in many other ridings, we respond daily to businesses that don't have access to it. Unfortunately, there are people in our ridings who won't have the opportunity to hire staff this summer. There are businesses that are losing less than 30%of their revenues; they are losing29%. These businesses won't have access to it. Everywhere we look, there are businesses that are falling through the cracks. Meanwhile, the Liberals and the Conservatives are getting the wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. I repeat: it is to fund partisan activities. The Liberals and Conservatives don't even do it on the sly; they do it openly. These two parties have raised millions of dollars since January. Every dollar that's taken comes out of the taxpayers' pockets. It's the workers' money, not the political parties'. It's so embarrassing that it's shameful, disrespectful and ridiculous. The Liberals and the Conservatives have to pay that money back. I think that's obvious. For the Bloc Qubcois, its immeasurably clear. It's a question of ethics, morality and respect for citizens. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. This week is Paramedic Services Week, and I would like to take a moment to thank these men and women who work tirelessly at the best of times to protect and save lives. Their efforts during COVID-19, like the services provided by many front-line workers in health care, such as personal support workers, doctors, nurses, janitorial and clerical staff, lab technicians and many others, have been extraordinary and truly beyond the call of duty. I hope this week all Canadians will take a moment to thank a paramedic or any front-line health care worker in their community for the amazing services they have been called upon to perform and will continue to provide in the challenging days ahead. Chair, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention another unfortunate consequence of the current pandemic, the cancellation of the Kinmount Fair, a renowned event that has been running since 1870. This year the fair was to mark its 150th anniversary, but in true Kinmount spirit, this heartbreaking decision will not deter organizers from planning an even bigger and better event in 2021. +The Chair: Now we will go to Ms. Dhillon. +Ms. Anju Dhillon (DorvalLachineLaSalle, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the members of the Canadian Armed Forces from the bottom of my heart for their invaluable assistance in the long-term care facilities. Their deployment came at a critical time, when many seniors desperately needed them. Through the observations and testimonies of these members, we saw the extent of the nightmare that many seniors had endured for a long time. These are human beings who could not fend for themselves. They were treated with profound cruelty and carelessness. Among many other loathsome details, they were left to starve, were abused and lived in filth, their cries of anguish ignored. They were tormented and left in their agony. There is no excuse for this. No one ever deserves to be treated the way they were. I am talking about humanity, about compassion and mercy. It is up to each and every one of us to make sure no elderly person is ever hurt in this vile manner again. I take this moment to honour these victims. +The Chair: Before moving on, I want to remind the hon. members that, as the rules state, statements by members should be 60 seconds. That's one minute. Usually there are a few extra seconds, which doesn't matter, but some of them have gone quite a bit over time, so starting Monday we'll be cutting them off at 60 seconds. I encourage everyone to practise them or take a look at them, and try to keep them within the 60 seconds so that we don't go over our allotted time. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind members to speak fairly slowly so that the interpreters can understand what they're saying. I know sometimes we get excited in the House and we speak a little quickly. Just be conscious of it. I'm sure it will be appreciated by the interpreters and those at home who are listening in, as then they can make out the important questions and answers that are being given in this chamber. We will go to our first question. We will begin with Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Thanks, Mr. Chair. The government has consistently worked to shut down Parliament and undermine personal sittings and has argued that the business of this country can be done by Zoom. However, for work of the G7 the Prime Minister said, theres no question that in-person meetings...are much more effective than even virtual meetings. By pushing to go virtual, is it the Prime Minister's goal to make Canada's Parliament less effective? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, it is absolutely not. In fact, I am pleased to be here in person meeting with members from across the country and pleased that our colleagues who live further away from Ottawa than I do have the opportunity to join us. Parliament plays an essential role in our democracy, and it's +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, that is exactly the point. This isn't Parliament; this is a committee meeting. We do not have Parliament. This is a virtual committee. A Saskatchewan producer called me and said that he tried to use the online AgriStability calculator. He said that most farmers can't use it, that in fact they can't put in their inventory changes. This means it will give them erroneous information. Why is the agriculture minister touting this lifeline for farmers when it doesn't actually work? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the agricultural sector is critical to our country, and the questions some of us have been asking around food security have reminded us how lucky we are, as Canadians, to be living in an agricultural superpower. When it comes to the specific technical questions that farmers have, they should turn to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who will be delighted to help. +Mr. John Barlow: Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell me how much it cost to develop this online AgriStability calculator? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What I can say is that we are very mindful of and very grateful for the extremely +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, farmers have even hired accountants to try to navigate this shiny online calculator, but they've been told they would go broke before they received any money. Will the government admit that this is just a fig leaf before any actual assistance will come to Canadian farmers? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, very many farmers, and certainly many of the farmers of my acquaintance, have worked with accountants for a very long time. Farmers are sophisticated business people who deal in the futures markets every day. They run hugely important businesses +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it's that kind of condescension that is so frustrating to Canadian farmers. They shouldn't have to hire an accountant to figure out an assistance program. The last time I questioned the Prime Minister and the minister about the secret carbon tax data, they said that only part of it was secret and that the rest of it would be given to the House. I have yet to receive it. Will that be tabled today, in both official languages, to justify to Canadian farmers why the government has increased the carbon tax in the midst of a pandemic? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, what is condescending is to behave as if farmers are not highly sophisticated businessmen. They hire economists. They hire agronomists. They are at the cutting edge. I am proud of the sophistication of Canadian farmers, and I'm proud of the support we offer them. Some honourable members: Oh, oh! +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that the background noise and the heckling really make it difficult for the members who are tuning in via Zoom. I just want to make sure they're aware of what they're doing to our colleagues who are online. We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, for 64 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on his promise to assist Canada's energy sector. Small oil and gas companies still can't qualify for BDC loans, and last week's announcement for large employers, in my opinion, was nothing of exploitive. If the government doesn't fulfill its promise to provide support for the energy sector, it is in turn supporting unethically sourced foreign oil and costing good reliable Canadian jobs. After 64 days, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium-sized energy companies? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite about one thing: The energy sector and energy workers are absolutely essential to our economy, and we support them. One of the things I am most proud of is the $1.7 billion our government has committed to cleaning up orphan wells. That money today has created jobs in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. People are working because of it, and they are cleaning up their communities thanks to that support. +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'll try not to spend too much time. Will the Liberal Party of Canada pay back the money it took from the wage subsidy program, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the purpose of the wage subsidy is to support workers, help them keep their jobs and keep them connected to their workplace +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a no. In my riding, Trillium Media owns several weeklies. The company doesn't qualify for the wage subsidy because it has suffered losses of28% instead of30%. The historic village of Val-Jalbert is in the same situation. Does the Liberal Party of Canada consider itself to be in greater financial difficulty than the historic village of Val-Jalbert and Trillium Media? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, allow me to remind the hon. member opposite what we're doing to support Canadians: more than 8million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit. In addition, 635,000businesses have received loans through the Canada emergency business account. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. Does my hon. colleague take into account the fact that the billions of dollars that are currently being handed out come from taxpayers' pockets? It even comes from the pockets of people who have lost their jobs and who pay taxes when they go to the corner store. On the other side of the House, is it considered justified for multi-million dollar parties to finance themselves with public funds, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to continue by reminding my colleague opposite what our government is doing today to support Canadians and Quebeckers: 293applications for the Canada emergency wage subsidy have been approved. Over 2million Canadians today have +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. It's fantastic! The money that the Liberals are going to get from the wage subsidy is going to go directly into their election kitty. When they go to get their election expenses reimbursed, they're going to get 60%of that money back. So they'll have made the wage subsidy work for them. The businesses that'll have access to it won't, but the political parties will. Doesn't that contravene the Canada Elections Act, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, our programs don't discriminate. They're there to help all workers, to help all Canadians, to help all Quebeckers. The hon. member talked about companies and sectors that need more help. We agree with that. We think we all need to work together to continue to help Canadians and Quebeckers +The Chair: Order. We are returning to Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I don't know how to take it this time. I didn't get it all. I think it's necessary to stop, eject and throw the tape out, and provide an honest answer to the questions we ask. Can my colleague across the way answer a very simple question? Are their employees going to be used for political fundraising and so, once again, make the generous wage subsidy they receive work for them, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out something important when we talk about our work and our economy. The important thing is that we have put in place unprecedented economic measures that are absolutely urgent and necessary. That's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, we've already seen a Duceppe who denounces the use of federal programs by the Liberal Party for the Liberal Party. Can my hon. colleague tell me if she's able to look the entrepreneurs in her riding in the eye and tell them that they don't deserve the wage subsidy, because their loss of income is only28% or29%, while her party is dipping into the cookie jar, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I am absolutely willing to look into the eyes of the entrepreneurs and workers in my riding because they know that our government is doing a lot to help Canadians in this historic crisis. Our economic support program is the largest program in Canada's history +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Armed Forces report showed the relationship between equipment costs and the lack of care for our seniors. Will the government admit today that there is no room for profit in the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, that's a very important question, and I would like to thank the member for asking it. I think this is a historic week. All Canadians have seen what is happening in Ontario and Quebec. We +The Chair: Order. We'll go back to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, experts and advocates have all pointed out that in the for-profit model of care for seniors, there is more emphasis on the bottom line than on care for seniors. Will the Liberal government admit that there is no place for profit when it comes to the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to start by saying one thing, and that is to publicly thank, in this House, Brigadier-General Conrad Mialkowski and his team for compiling the assessment that they did of long-term care homes in Ontario. They acted with courage. They acted with compassion. What they did is historic, and we all need to +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Canadian Forces, of course, always deserve our thanks. However, they don't need our thanks right now; they need to see some action on what they have pointed out. The government owns Revera, the second-largest long-term care provider in Canada. It's for profit, and it's facing a $50-million lawsuit for negligence. What is the government doing to protect seniors in the long-term care homes that they own? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite that after what we have learned this week, all options must be on the table when it comes to how care for our elders will be provided in Canada in the future. I think it is clear to us all that root-and-branch reform is necessary. We need to act with speed but not haste, and work with our provincial partners. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: If all the options are on the table, will the Liberal government commit to removing profit from long-term care, particularly in the Revera long-term care homes, the second-largest number in Canada, which the government owns? Will it commit to removing profit from long-term care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we will commit to doand I hope with the support of all members of this Houseis work very carefully and also very urgently in close co-operation with our provincial partners, under whose jurisdiction this falls, to ensure that these heart-wrenching reports mean that as a country we turn the page +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Revera is a Crown corporation owned by the government, so let's not hear excuses. Is the government doing anything to ensure that seniors are cared for? Is it providing for robust inspections, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to clarify one point in the member's question. Canadian Crown corporations are not Liberal, not Conservative and not partisan. One of the strengths of Canada is that we have non-partisan government institutions, and they serve us extremely well. Our +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, right now the current government is responsible for Revera. It is a Crown corporation. Will the government commit to ensuring there is no profit anymore in Revera? As we've seen, it is facing a $50-million lawsuit, and there's been horrible negligence. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I said at the outset, the ownership structure of long-term care facilities needs to be on the table. Everything does. I also want to emphasize how important it is for us to do what we have been doing, which is to work very closely with the provinces, under whose jurisdiction this falls. In just the past 24 hours, I have spoken with Premier Ford, Premier Horgan and Premier Moe, and our conversation included long-term care facilities. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio (ElginMiddlesexLondon, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I join critics from the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party who deal with women's issues and gender equality to ask where the $75 million toward sexual exploitation and human trafficking has gone. Last week organizations had to close their doors and the programs that help vulnerable women and girls, so the simple question is this: Where is the money? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, let me begin by thanking the member for that very important question. I agree that human trafficking, which is a crime of coercion and exploitation, is unacceptable, and we have to ensure that we provide the supports necessary to the victims of this crime. As the member knows, we have launched a new, comprehensive national strategy to combat human trafficking, and we've incorporated a new pillar in that strategy of empowerment to ensure that the focus +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: With all due respect, it's great that we have a strategy, but when money is not going to the doors of these organizations that provide these services, a strategy is nothing. It's all talk and no action. Where's the money? +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Mr. Chair, let me pick up where my honourable colleague left off by acknowledging that trafficking is a heinous crime and that hundreds of organizations across the country are working to solve the challenges that come with human trafficking. I remind my honourable colleague that hundreds of organizations have received supports, and we will have more to announce to further support +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: It's so very simple. What should we tell the young women and girls looking for these supports right now? What is the answer from the government? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, no one should have to live a life with violence, whether it's sexual, physical, financial or emotional, and that the government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Thank you very much. Yesterday I happened to be part of the health committee, and the Battered Women's Support Services representative was there as a witness. She shared with me that the organizations that she is associated with, over 500 organizations that deal with sexual assault and shelters, did not receive funding. Can you explain why? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, I want to thank Angela and the team at the Battered Women's Support Services. They are receiving funds through Feminists Deliver, but there are hundreds of organizations that will receive additional funds to provide the critical care that they need to support front lines and the most vulnerable in their communities, and we will have more to say soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, we know that calls to centres like Battered Women's Support Services have gone up by 300 times, so this is a huge concern I have. What made this group of assault services and shelters ineligible? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, my colleague is putting words in my mouth. As I said, hundreds of organizations like the Battered Women's Support Services are going to be receiving funds from the federal government in the coming days. We thank them for their work and we will have more to say very soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, the need is now. For instance, at London Abused Women's Centre, calls are up by 45%. I've heard from communities where they've gone up 200%. As I said, yesterday I heard 300%. The money is needed now. Where is the money for this program? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, some organizations are seeing demands up as high as 400% with their capacity limited by 400%. We've centres and women's shelters, and 700 have received funds, with more to come soon. I appreciate that this Parliament includes consensus among all colleagues that feminism and supporting women +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: If we're talking about being a feminist government, I have one single question. Yesterday the minister was not willing to answer the question, so I will ask the Minister for Women and Gender Equality. How can a feminist government support the Wet'suwet'en First Nation women whose titles were stripped from them? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, it sounds like my honourable colleague wants to compare their record on advancing equality with ours. We are happy to do that, and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has been working very hard to move this historic agreement forward. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: These women have lost their titles, and the decisions were made with the hereditary chiefs and not the elected chiefs. Why is this government not standing up for these women hereditary chiefs who were stripped of their titles? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member knows that the route to self-determination is to have first nations, Inuit, and Mtis determine their own governance and abide by their own laws. Right now the Wet'suwet'en nation is in that process of determining what kind of governance they would like. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet (FlamboroughGlanbrook, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act has passed both houses of Congress in the United States and is now on the way to the Oval Office for signature. What is Canada's position on this Muslim minority being jailed and re-educated by the Communist Party of China? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, we are deeply concerned by the human rights situation faced by the Uighurs and other minorities in China. This is an issue our government has raised directly with the Chinese. Canada has also repeatedly voiced its concerns at the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet: The Burmese government is another being exploited by the CPC. Their Muslim minority was driven out and now languishes in Bangladesh, which is a commonwealth partner in the midst of this global pandemic. What will Canada do to answer the injustice done to the Rohingya? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will always stand with human rights. Canada has repeatedly voiced its concerns with the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on the Chinese government to ensure that human rights of all of its people, including the freedom of religion, are fully respected. +Mr. David Sweet: Yesterday the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening a grip of the Communist Party of China. Will the Prime Minister condemn this law? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada, with our international partners in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., made a joint statement in which we are expressing our deep concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +Mr. David Sweet: Canada has an admirable history of doing the right thing and helping when the situation is bleak. The Suez Canal, Cyprus, the fall of apartheid, child and maternal health in Africa, and Afghanistan are examples in my lifetime of how Canada has weighed in significantly. Why is the government letting down Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, with hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in Hong Kong's stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedoms of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: I think the 300,000 Canadians who are in Hong Kong want a little bit more than interest from the government. They'd like some action. What exactly is the government going to do to help those 300,000 Canadians who are in the breach between democracy and tyranny now? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has expressed deep concern regarding China's imposition of the new security law for Hong Kong. The proposed law would undermine the one country, two systems framework. We are going to continue to support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I have deep concern. After being fired at with pepper bullets and tear gas yesterday, 300 students were arrested in Hong Kong while peacefully protesting. Where is the outrage from this government with regard to what the CPC is doing in Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as we have said, we are deeply concerned about the arrests of political figures and about the law that has been imposed on Hong Kong. As we have said, Canada will always stand up and support freedom of speech and freedom of expression. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I'm going to give the minister another opportunity to answer the third question that I asked. Yesterday, the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill, undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening the iron grip of the Chinese Communist Party. Will this government condemn that law today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will continue to support Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and freedoms under the Basic Law and the one country, two systems framework. Canada and our international partners, with the U.S., Australia and the U.K., have made a joint statement deeply expressing our concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Lvis. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some hon. members: Ha, ha! Hon. Steven Blaney: I am pleased to represent the city of Lvis, because it is a privilege, Mr.Chair. It is the city where Alphonse Desjardins, who spearheaded the largest financial cooperative movement, was born. I hope you will not take that away from my time. My question is for the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. On April8, the minister announced measures for the Canada summer jobs program. We thought it was to improve the program, but can the minister confirm that the budget remained the same between April7 and9? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that we have increased the wage subsidies for Canada student jobs. We have added flexibilities, including the ability to have part-time work and the ability to have the jobs extended until February of next year. That said, the budget was not changed. It remains at 70,000 job placements for 70,000 students, with 100% of them being subsidized at 100%. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that the budget remains the same, but that by subsidizing each job more, they are reducing the number of jobs in the midst of the pandemic. Why reduce the number of jobs offered by our businesses in the midst of the pandemic, when our young people want to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member, all members and all Canadians that despite the fact that he's singling out the Canada summer jobs program, we also created an additional 76,000 jobs through our youth employment and skills strategy, with an additional 40,000 placements for students. I can assure the member that we are +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blaney once again. +Hon. Steven Blaney: How many jobs are vacant right now? The program is lagging behind compared to other years. Why, and how is it that there is still money to be invested in our businesses to create summer jobs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are not lagging behind whatsoever. We created flexibilities in Canada summer jobs so that we can assuredly fill all of these 70,000 positions. We are rolling them out in waves. There are 45,000 jobs up on our job bank. I can assure young Canadians that there is work for them there, and I encourage them to check out the job bank. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that there are delays in the midst of the pandemic, when the university year is over and businesses are waiting to hire young people. Why refuse to create additional jobs this year under the Canada summer jobs program, when businesses need them to adjust to the pandemic? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that we are not refusing to create any additional jobs. We've increased the number of jobs funded through our government's youth programs by over 100%. There are a number of jobs. We've added flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to maximize that program in ways that it never would have been maximized had we not done this. I can assure the member opposite that we are doing our utmost to make sure that young people have good-quality job experiences this summer. +Hon. Steven Blaney: When the minister says maximize, she is actually saying that there are fewer jobs this year for young people because the budget has remained the same, but that each position is funded more. My question is very simple: why not fund more jobs through the Canada summer jobs program instead of having open-ended programs like the Canada emergency student benefit, which does not allow young people to get work experience? We need young people and they want to work. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I agree, absolutely, that we need young people to work this summer. That's why we're creating a number of opportunities through a number of programs, Mr. Chair. Canada summer jobs is being maxed out, and that's a good thing, because we've increased the number of jobs and added an additional 76,000 jobs. I can assure the member that we're creating so many jobs, and it's so exciting for our young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The Canada emergency student benefit does not encourage young people to go to work, and employers have difficulty hiring them. Yet they had applied for the Canada summer jobs program. Why not enhance the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I'm sure the member opposite is not implying that offering young people income support that they take out of necessity will make them not want to work. Young people want to work. They want to serve in their communities. That's why we're creating these additional jobs beyond the Canada summer jobs program. That's why we've increased the flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program. It's so we can maximize these programs. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yesterday my colleague asked the Minister of Public Safety a question, and he did not get a good answer. Why are asylum seekers being allowed to cross the closed border and reunify with their families when Canadians are not being allowed to reunify with their counterparts in the U.S.? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to correct an error that was just repeated, we have put in rules that have excluded people from non-essential travel. We currently have an agreement with the United States that people crossing our border irregularly are being directed back to the United States. We've put in protection for those individuals to uphold our international obligations. We're continuing to deal with the +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, I have in my riding a pregnant woman who is having her first child. The father of the baby is not being allowed to come over. I have another citizen who's married to an American woman who needs medical services every three weeks who is not being allowed to go over and come back. I also have parents who have not seen their children in months because they're not allowing custody arrangements between Canadians and Americans to continue. Will the minister create exemptions to allow the reunification of these Canadians with their family? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member for an important question. It is never our intention to keep families apart. At the same time, we are exercising all due diligence to ensure that we prevent non-essential travel to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We've been working very hard to ensure that we have a solution for those individuals who need and want to reunite with their families. We will have further information on that as soon as we're able to resolve that difficulty. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, the Minister of Agriculture has known there's been a capacity issue on cattle processing for more than a year and has done nothing. We don't have a BSE exemption that would allow us to use American processors, and there's been no incentive to create additional capacity to process. How bad does it have to get for the minister to act? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): We have done a great deal for the meat sector lately. We have invested $100million in the beef and pork sectors through the AgriRecovery program. That's a significant increase, because in the last few years the program has provided between $7million and $15million only. That is significant. We have also invested $77.5million to improve the capacity of processors +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It still hasn't solved the problem. That's not a beef burger; that's a nothing burger. What is the minister going to do to help the cattle farmers who are struggling, especially in this pandemic? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have helped the meat sector through the AgriRecovery program and we have put in place a $77.5million program to help meat processors deal with the situation and reorganize their work environment in a way that is safe for workers +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It's not enough for the farmers in my area. To the Minister of National Revenue, I've had complaints from seniors in my riding that paper tax filings are not being processed. They're sitting on desks because people are not going in to the office. When will we begin to process those paper tax filings so seniors can get the refunds they need? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, we consider this to be a difficult situation for Canadians, and our government will do everything it can to support them. I can confirm that the CRA is still processing paper returns, but because of the reduced staff on site and the physical distancing, Canadians can expect delays. We regret the inconvenience this causes for those who file their returns on paper +The Chair: We will go back to Ms.Gladu. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The sound is not very good. This happens when ministers respond in the House. +The Chair: We will talk to the technicians about that. I'm not sure whether there's anything we can do now, but we'll see if we can sort it out for the next meeting. It will certainly be fixed by next Monday. In the meantime, we will do our best. Thank you very much for your comment. We go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, obviously with COVID, many people are struggling with the loss of loved ones and their grief. The Canadian Grief Alliance has submitted a proposal looking for a very modest sum of funding from the government to extend their virtual grief counselling. Can the Minister of Health let us know if that funding has been approved? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): I'm not aware of that specific proposal, but I commit to asking my officials to bring it forward to me and I will take a look. +The Chair: Ms. Gladu, you have time for a 15-second question. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Many are struggling with mental health in this pandemic. Can the Minister of Health tell us what she is doing to increase the capacity to help people who are suffering? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I know I don't have much time, but let me repeat our infomercial to Canadians. They should visit Wellness Together Canada, the portal that will provide access for Canadians to a variety of mental health supports, including connection to professionals. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. I'm sorry, Mr.Champoux; you are next. Mr.Waugh now has the floor. Oh, it's Mr. Waugh. My apologies. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Major events and mass gatherings being really out of the conversation for the foreseeable future, many event venues right now, such as concert halls and fairgrounds, are looking at the possibility of going more than a year without any revenue. Many are owned or managed by non-profit organizations. I can think of many in my riding, such as the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, the jazz festival, the folk festival, along with WDM and the Aviation Museum. Can the Minister of Canadian Heritage tell us what support has been made available to date to these organizations that are left up in the air? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (LaurierSainte-Marie, Lib.): As the member knows, we have done a number of things in the past weeks to help the arts and culture sector. We could talk about the Canadian emergency response benefit, or the wage subsidy. We have provided advance help to a number of organizations from Canadian Heritage programs or the Canada Council for the Arts on top of the $500-million program, which has started to be deployed and will continue to be deployed in the coming weeks specifically for these types of organizations. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Many media organizations are struggling. The reality only makes the allegations of predatory behaviour being levied against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation even more disturbing. I asked the minister on May 7 about these allegations, and he said he had not been informed of the allegations but would look into them. We can't afford to have a Crown corporation using its status to try to wipe out its competitors in this country. Has the minister begun the investigation into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and does he have any information that he can share with us here today? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member said, these are allegations, and as you well know, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent body. It's not controlled by the Minister of Canadian Heritage or the government. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, these allegations were in the National Post on April 22. I brought this up to you on May 7 when I talked virtually. Even more interesting, Mr. Chair, is that these allegations against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation came from an organization in the minister's own province of Quebec, so can the minister take action to address any predatory behaviour on behalf of the CBC, or can the government's friends at the CBC simply get away with anything? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Allegations are allegations, whether they are made in Quebec, Ontario or Alberta. As I said, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent organization. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: When I last rose, on May 7, the committee responsible for the government's massive $595-million media bailout package had not met. It is now three weeks later. Has the committee met? If yes, when can the media organizationsand I hear there are only 29 publishersexpect the support promised? If it hasn't met, when is it going to meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member is well aware, this program is a tax-break program. In order for organizations to qualify, they had to file their income tax forms, which they have done over the last few weeks. The program is in place, and we are confidant that media organizations will receive the money by the end of the summer. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh, go ahead with a 20-second question, hopefully. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: There was $30 million rolled out to media organizations, some 1,400 organizations. Yesterday Postmedia announced another 40 layoffs. Has the $30 million been distributed so far in this country to all 1,400 media organizations? +The Chair: Honourable minister, go ahead for 20 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would be happy to provide the list of those 1,400 media organizations that have received funding through that ad campaign. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Champoux. You have the floor, Mr.Champoux. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'm feeling generous today, and I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Pierre-BoucherLesPatriotesVerchres. At the beginning of the crisis, the government called on entrepreneurs in Quebec and Canada, inviting them to set an example in the situation we are experiencing. Many of them turned to the supplemental unemployment benefit plan to maintain the employment relationship and to preserve some security, enabling their employees to get through this difficult period with more peace of mind. However, on May22, despite the fact that these entrepreneurs had made sure that the SUB program would still be in place when the CERB was introduced, they were surprised. Employees were told at that time that they would have to repay the CERB because of the alleged gains they had made under the SUB program. At SOPREMA, one of the large employers in the Drummondville region, 150employees are affected. At Bridgestone, in Joliette, 1,100employees are affected by this decision. At Goodyear, in Valleyfield, 150employees are affected, and there are dozens more. Does the minister intend to correct this mistake so that employers who are able and willing to do so can treat their employees better during this difficult period? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: When we put in place the Canada emergency response benefit, the underlying goal was to make sure that every worker who needed it had access to income support as they were losing their employment for COVID reasons. We understood that meant some workers would not have access moving forward, although let me clarify that SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are definitely in place. We consider the fact that workers have access to $1,000 a month in addition to CERBand we've spoken with employers about thisto permit employers to assist their employees in an equitable way. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have 15seconds for your question. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, employers received absolutely no news from the government before this measure was implemented, despite the fact that they were assured that this measure would be transferred to the CERB. That's not an answer when those folks acted honestly and in good faith. They feel cheated, and rightly so. Does the government intend to fix this mistake, which would simply be the right thing to do? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member opposite that the SUB plans that were in place prior to March 15 are indeed in place now. In addition, employees who are now on the CERB as an alternative have access to $1,000 of income in addition to their CERB. We are working with employers to perhaps provide the $1,000 in lieu of the SUB plans. +The Chair: We will continue with you, Mr.Barsalou-Duval. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. On April27, Option consommateurs sent a letter to the Minister of Transport to warn him that the airlines' refusal to reimburse their customers for cancelled flights was contrary to Quebec's laws. What is the minister going to do to put an end to this situation? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr.Chair, I sympathize with the people who would have preferred to get a refund, and I understand their frustration. It is not an ideal situation. The airlines are going through a very difficult time right now. If they were forced to refund their customers immediately, many of them would go bankrupt. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, the minister sounds like a broken record. A few hours ago, the following motion was passed unanimously: THAT the National Assembly ask the Government of Canada to order airlines and other carriers under federal jurisdiction to allow customers whose trips have been cancelled because of the current pandemic to obtain a refund. What will the Minister of Transport tell the National Assembly of Quebec? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon.colleague knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled on this issue and has ruled that, in the present circumstances and in a non-binding way, it is acceptable for airlines to offer credits for up to two years. In the case of Air Canada, the credit has no expiry date. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you have about 15seconds for a question. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, I find it rather odd that the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency are telling the airlines that Quebec's regulations and laws are not important and that they can override them. It seems to me that this is a strange way to operate. Theoretically, under the famous Canadian Constitution, which they imposed on us, that is not how it should work. Can they uphold their own constitution? +The Chair: The hon. minister can answer in 15seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon. colleague probably knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency is a quasi-judicial body that operates at arm's length from Transport Canada and the Government of Canada. +The Chair: We will now take a short break. We're going to take a short break to allow employees supporting the meeting to switch in safety, including myself. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now carry on with Mr. Baker for Etobicoke Centre. Mr. Baker, go ahead. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, in Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 42 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville Care Centre. This week, we received a disturbing report from the Canadian Armed Forces documenting appalling and completely unacceptable conditions in the Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes Grace Manor in Brampton. It is beyond reprehensible that our seniors are being treated this way. As I said in the House of Commons on May 7, we need immediate action and comprehensive reform of long-term care. The four other MPs who represent the residents of these homes and I wrote to Premier Ford yesterday to urge him to appoint a third party manager to oversee all operations, to call a full public inquirybecause a government commission is not enoughand to work in partnership with the Government of Canada to establish enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across our country. Minister, will you call on the Government of Ontario to establish a full public inquiry, and will you work with provincial governments to establish and implement enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across Canada so that our seniors from coast to coast to coast can receive the quality of care they deserve? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the member for his very important question. I think all Canadians were horrified, shocked and saddened to hear about the conditions that elders were living in in those particular homes and that many seniors struggle with across the country. There is no question that we have to do better for our seniors. I know the Prime Minister has been very vocal about the need to do more to support provinces and territories to provide better care for seniors, no matter where they live. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Baker, you have another 20 seconds or so if you can manage that. +Mr. Yvan Baker: Thank you. I'll pass on my time to the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Drouin, member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): Mr.Chair, we know that farmers across Canada have been going through some difficult times in recent months. In my riding, farmers are looking for labour and young people are looking for jobs. The Canada summer jobs program plays a vital role in meeting this demand. I was very pleased to hear that the government has enhanced the youth employment and skills strategy program to help create 700new jobs for young people in the agriculture sector. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food tell us when and how our farmers will be able to apply for this new program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, in these unprecedented times, our producers are working that much harder to feed Canadians while facing challenges that are not always easy, particularly in terms of access to labour. To help them, this week, the Prime Minister announced an increase in the youth employment and skills strategy program to help young people be hired in the agricultural sector. This is a $9.2-million investment that will help to attract young Canadians between the ages of15 and30 and to provide them with an exceptional experience in the agricultural sector. I encourage all producers to apply through the Agriculture Canada website. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: I think you finished, Mr.Drouin. We'll move on now to Mr. Johns, CourtenayAlberni. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre. In early April, the NDP asked for a commercial rent abatement program so that tenants could apply for help instead of depending on their landlords, but the government chose to leave commercial tenants helpless if their landlord can't or does not want to apply. On Monday we wrote to ministers again, asking them to negotiate a nationwide moratorium on commercial rent evictions with the provinces and territories so that tenants can't be kicked out. Will the minister take action to ensure that no small business owner is evicted during COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau (Toronto Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We recognize the challenges that small business owners in particular, as well as landlords, are facing during the course of COVID-19. We have worked together with the provinces to come up with an approach that would provide an incentive for landlords to give a rent reduction to commercial tenants. We opened that as of Monday. Of course, we recognize that this is a jurisdiction of the provinces, so it will be up to the provinces to consider the next steps, if any, in this regard. We are looking toward seeing many landlords sign up for this. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage landlords to sign up for this, which not only gives them a sense of security but also their tenants. +Mr. Gord Johns: That's a no, so the government is still failing small businesses. If small business owners can't make June rent, thousands will have to close permanently. If the government won't negotiate a moratorium, will it at least let tenants apply for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program so they can get help with 50% of their rent? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, I think it's important that we have clarity of understanding of jurisdictions. We have worked with the provinces in this regard. The federal government is working through the CMHC to provide support to landlords, which is conditional on their working with their tenants, but of course, it is a provincial area of jurisdiction, so any further actions and any decisions on restricting evictions are in the provincial jurisdiction and not ones that the federal government is able to move forward on. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Gazan, Winnipeg Centre. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, they talk about wanting to support small businesses, but their failure to make rent support work is putting businesses out of business. When it comes to the rent for people's homes, the government didn't even try. Many people in my riding could not make rent on April 1 and May 1, and June 1 is coming up. When will the government act to ensure that families and individuals make their rent payments? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, for individuals, of course we've worked hard to provide support. Over eight million individuals are taking the Canada emergency response benefit. For businesses, of course, we've put in place not only the business account for small businesses but additional support through the wage subsidy program. We know that the rent approach is one that can have an important impact. I would encourage landlords to +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, just a moment. Go ahead on your point of order. +Ms. Leah Gazan: I just want to remind my honourable colleague that his response is supposed to be within the same time period as the question I asked. It's just a friendly reminder. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That is accurate. In fact, the minister was just coming up to the same amount of time it took for your question. I am monitoring that, and we will interrupt if one of the ministers responding goes more than just a short time over. In fact, we try to cut it off at the appropriate time, allowing a word or two perhaps to finish a phrase, and that's the extent of it. I'll watch that closely, the member can be assured. Let's go ahead then and finish up. You have another minute and 20 seconds to finish up, Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, Winnipeg Centre is the third-poorest riding in the country, and COVID-19 has put many of the residents in my riding on the verge of homelessness. Instead of bailing out its corporate buddies, when will this government provide proper rental assistance so that families and individuals do not end up on the streets? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, we have provided support for families and individuals to maintain their ability to pay the rent. In addition to that, we have provided over $157.5 million directly to community entities for homelessness all across Canada . +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, you have about 40 seconds remaining. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, adequate housing is a fundamental human right, especially in this time of crisis. How can the government not show leadership and provide the support that people need to afford their homes? Will this government provide support, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, once again, we have provided support to families and individuals so that they have the ability to pay their rent and pay for essential supplies and expenses. In addition to that, we have moved additional dollars, in the amount of $157.5 million, to the most vulnerable, including the homeless population in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to Ms. Harder from Lethbridge. +Ms. Rachael Harder: As this pandemic began to spread, the government propagated China's talking points about how human-to-human transmission was impossible. Now, I'm sure that the minister regrets those comments. Does she acknowledge that they were misleading? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite's continued lack of awareness of how science works is somewhat disconcerting. I'm sure she understands that this is a novel coronavirus that appeared on the scene in late December, and as the research community worldwide struggled to keep pace with understanding how the virus was adapting, the information changed. As such +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm simply wondering if the minister would like to do the honourable thing and acknowledge that that information was misleading. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, since the very beginning, we have been advising Canadians that they need to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. We have taken strong measures, as a country, to do so. We respect the professionals +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The minister also said that face masks weren't necessary, that they wouldn't help Canadians. Would she acknowledge that that was misleading? An hon. member: Good question. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the party opposite, obviously, does not understand the way that research and science evolve. The member opposite is propagating information that's misleading. She is the one who is confusing Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the health minister misleading the Canadian public? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the evidence changed about the novel coronavirus, as our amazing researchers gave us new evidence, we adapted to adjust our advice to Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the minister not able to acknowledge that she fed the Canadian public misinformation? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, why is the member not able to understand that science evolves with new information? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Back in January when we started noticing other countries closing their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19, Conservatives asked the government if it would do the same. In response, the Prime Minister called us racist. Does the Prime Minister still consider those who called for the closure of borders racist? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, providing misleading information to Canadians is not appropriate. As the member opposite knows, we took strong measures at the border, as recommended by the international health regulations, and we were able to contain the virus for quite some time. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I cannot agree with the minister more that providing misinformation is, in fact, incredibly wrong, which is why the government should simply apologize to the Canadian public for telling them that there was no emergency at our doorstep, that they didn't need to wear face masks, that we didn't need to close our borders, that human contact or contraction was impossible. Those are incredibly misleading statements. Why will the minister not just do the honourable thing and retract them and apologize to the Canadian public? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I maintain that the member opposite does not understand that as new evidence comes forward, that as new advice comes forward.... Canadians understand that. I am unsure why she doesn't. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I understand that knowledge evolves. I'm just wondering if the minister will retract the statements that she made previously, now that she understands that they are misleading. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am so proud of Canadians for being able to adapt to new evidence and public health advice as it becomes clearer and clearer what kinds of actions can protect our health. I want to thank all Canadians for having trust in the public health officials across this country. +Ms. Rachael Harder: On February 3, Conservatives called on the government to treat this virus as a public health emergency and to take immediate action. Unfortunately, Minister Hajdu scolded Conservative MPs, stating that we were spreading misinformation and trying to sensationalize the risk of the virus. Would the minister like to apologize to the members opposite for that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, very early on it was quite clear there were members of our community who were stigmatized by misinformation that was floating around in various circles in the Canadian community. We took strong action to assure those Canadians that we would be with them as we also fought the coronavirus in Canada. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Would the minister like to retract her statement that this side of the House somehow blew this up into something bigger than it is? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as early as January 2, Dr. Tam was convening members of the Canadian medical community to ensure that we would have a robust Canadian response to an issue of potential concern. We have taken this virus seriously every step of the way. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In truth, Mr. Chair, while the government has told the Canadian public that the virus was not something to be concerned about, that we didn't need to close the borders and that face masks weren't necessary, they were misleading the Canadian public. Now they are crowning themselves as the arbiters of truth, spending millions of dollars to censor what information is and is not available online. Would the minister like to respond to why she is misleading the Canadian public and then crowning her head with the ability to monitor +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're out of time. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I want to thank our public health officials and medical community for their incredible work in ensuring that Canadians have accurate information about how best to protect themselves. We continue to work with the community and Canadians. Together we have managed to flatten the curve to date. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I invite the honourable member for MganticL'rable to take the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. One million dollars is the cost of installing air conditioning for a number of rooms in a CHSLD; it is a new fire station; it is 200more student jobs for day camps in Quebec. With $1million, the Liberal government plans to give an annual bonus to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Does the Minister of Infrastructure agree with the bank's board, which is being so generous to its president with Canadians' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr.Chair, I am very proud of what our government has done to invest in communities across the country. We are investing in infrastructure. We are building by investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure and public transit, including in the member's riding. That is what we will continue to do. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has decided to join the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are going to continue our work. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, could the infrastructure minister explain to Canadians how it is better to give $1 million in bonuses to the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank than to invest in roads, schools, hospitals and long-term care homes? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am very happy to explain to the member opposite that we are doing just that. Perhaps he isn't aware of our $33 billion infrastructure program in which we are working directly with the Government of Quebec to build infrastructure that's making a huge difference, including projects in the member's riding. We are going to continue doing that. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, she is not answering the question at all. On April3, the previous president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank left his position for reasons that remain unclear. How much did he receive in bonuses for his years at the helm of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, the change of management at the Canada Infrastructure Bank marks a new phase in the development of the bank. We are working to build a modern, public infrastructure, to create jobs, and to make Canada more competitive internationally. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We are talking about the bonuses given to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have received no answer on that. What were the evaluation criteria that led to the decision that the former CEO had delivered a performance worthy of a bonus, when few, if any, projects were financed by the bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the former CEO, Pierre Lavalle, for his contribution to the establishment of this new institution. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has joined the bank. We will continue to work to build Canada and create good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: How much did he receive in bonuses? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The range of compensation for the CEO is set by the bank and is publicly available. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Did the minister approve the bonuses paid to the former president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: As I have already said, the compensation range for the CEO is determined by the bank and is public knowledge because of the legislation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Thank you, Mr.Chair. If the new president stays in the position for five years, he could be entitled to a bonus totalling $4million, in addition to his salary of $3million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities consider that this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: We have to build our country, create good short-term jobs, ensure that we have a cleaner future, invest in renewable energy and green infrastructure in order to build bridges, public transportation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, if the new CEO stays in office for five years, he will be entitled to a total potential bonus of $4 million, in addition to his salary of $3 million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure think this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money, yes or no? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm very proud that we have Michael Sabia, who is now head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank as the board chair. We need to move forward in building infrastructure that's going to create jobs, including in the member's riding; that's going to help move us to a cleaner future; that's going to grow our economy and increase Canada's competitiveness. The bank is a key part of the investing in Canada plan +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move to Mrs. Gray, KelownaLake Country. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important it is to be able to move our goods interprovincially. Christian Buhagiar of Supply Chain Canada called for the government to revisit interprovincial trade regulations to ensure we can quickly move production and distribution from one region to another during times of emergency. Will the government commit to immediately examine all our trade barriers that can affect interprovincial trade of essential goods due to COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'd like to thank the member opposite for her excellent point. Our government is very committed to removing barriers to interprovincial trade. It's something that we have been working on with the premiers. Obviously the coronavirus has taken precedence in recent weeks, but it's a priority. It's the right thing to do. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, the federal government has a regulatory reconciliation table as part of the Canada free trade agreement, focusing on breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. Due to COVID-19, it has been announced that deadlines for all of these items may be delayed. What is the government doing to ensure there won't be delays on these items? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, it is absolutely right and appropriate for first ministers, who have been meeting every week for more than two months, to be focusing on the urgent threat posed by the coronavirus. However, I agree with the member opposite that we need to lift barriers to interprovincial trade. That's something we're committed to doing and to working on with the premiers. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, while many of these items were past due prior to the pandemic, two important items from the list that should be worked on now are meat inspection and food inspection. Considering serious issues from these industries during the pandemic, would the minister commit to restarting the work on at least these two items? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I can assure you, as far as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is concerned, that we are very open to that issue. Moreover, the authorities are front and centre in cases where there may be a food shortage in one region of the country or another. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is adding huge pressures to our national supply chain. Those I speak with in the industry tell me they are beginning to see a backlog of goods. Does the government have a comprehensive plan to ensure the movement and resiliency of our national supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, since we are discussing the food supply chain, let me remind you that we are committed to spending $50million, specifically to buy surplus food and redistribute it, through the food bank network, to regions where the need is greatest. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, reports state that activists' rail blockades earlier this year cost the Canadian economy $275 million, and it took three to five days to catch up for every day that our transportation network was down. The supply chain industry just caught up, and then the pandemic hit, creating new issues and backlogs. We are hearing from those in the industry who are concerned about future blockades affecting essential goods getting across the country. Our railways are critical infrastructure. Will the government commit to immediately dismantling any potential future blockades? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I couldn't agree more with my colleague that it is important for our railways to be transporting all the goods that we produce in this country. I am in contact on a weekly basis with our major railways. Certain products are moving very well at the moment, including grain, potash and coal, but other goods haven't moved as quickly, because they have been affected by the pandemic. We are very vigilant with respect to moving our goods as efficiently as possible, whether it's by our railways, by trucks or by ships. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, at the standing committee for industry this week, David Montpetit of the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition stated that they believe shippers are going to face a container shortage over the next six months. He also stated that we could be facing labour and capacity shortages in our trucking industry. This could backlog essential goods interprovincially, including food and medicine, if the capacity isn't there. What steps is the government taking to address this problem? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, of course it's always important to have the capacity to move goods across this country. At the moment, our trains have the capacity to move goods across the country. With respect to trucking, we do have issues with respect to a lack of truckers for moving some of our goods across the country. This is a problem that has existed for some time, and we're working on it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now move on to Mrs. Wagantall of YorktonMelville. Mrs. Wagantall, go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Young and new farmers are struggling, as they don't have enough equity built up to borrow money to survive these difficult times. Price insurance is key, but the premiums are so expensive due to COVID that they can't participate. Has a price insurance program been implemented in Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, we are encouraging the use of private programs, as well as the risk management programs. The initiative must come from the private sector. I cannot answer my colleague's question directly. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Has the minister worked with her provincial counterparts to secure a short-term cost-sharing agreement to reduce premiums where price insurance already exists? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure my colleague that I am working very regularly with all my provincial colleagues. In addition to our individual meetings, we have a regular telephone meeting each week. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is cost-sharing of premiums already available for crop insurance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, for insurance protection, our proposal to the provinces is to include the possibility of recognizing a labour shortage as an insurable risk. It is up to each of the provinces to sign on to that or not. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Without price insurance, how many ranchers have had to address cash flow by selling cattle at the bottom of the market? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have established a number of programs in order to help our beef producers. For example, we are providing $50million through the AgriRecovery program and $77.5million for food processors. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On May 1, the Young Cattlemen's Council asked the minister to extend the deadline for attaining calf price insurance. Today is that deadline. Did the minister meet it? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we discuss different options with representatives of various organizations almost every day. We are trying to work with them to improve the various programs and to meet their needs, in addition to the risk management programs, of course. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: She didn't respond to the request of the Young Cattlemen's Council. The minister is telling farmers to access the BRM program, but just now I got a text from a young cattleman in my riding who's losing $250 to $300 per head and just told me that those programs in no way increase their capacity to deal with this crisis. The Farm Credit Canada lending capacity was increased by $5 billion, but only to service and manage loans of current customers. How many farmers have applied for that assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: However, Mr.Chair, there is a whole range of programs for our producers, whether they be specific programs for the agriculture sector, or the Canada emergency business account, the CEBA, the criteria of which have been broadened. This allows us to provide more loans, also with a forgivable portion of 25%, which could amount to $670million for the agricultural sector. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: What percentage of Canada's farmers are customers of Farm Credit Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, Farm Credit Canada is well-established from one end of the country to the other and it is ready to meet the needs of our agricultural producers. In addition +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Of the 25% of farmers who use FCC and have applied, how many have received assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I stand to be corrected but, according to the most recent information I have received, $4billion in flexible loans to producers have been made available since the crisis began. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 45 seconds left, Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is the minister concerned that cow-calf numbers will sharply decrease if producers aren't able to protect the value of their herds, which they cannot do, jeopardizing the future of the Canadian beef supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that I am extremely concerned about the future of the agri-food sector. That is why we are working extremely hard with the sector every day to improve existing programs and create new ones, especially in support of the meat industry. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: They made it clear that the BRM programs don't work and there's not funding in place to assist them. Three weeks ago, the processing backlog was more than 100,000 head. How many beef operations are facing the real danger of going out of business because of this pandemic and the lack of support by the agriculture minister and this Liberal government? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Once again, Mr.Chair, we know that the risk-management programs are not perfect. That is why we are working with the provinces to find solutions. These are shared-cost programs with the provinces and we want to improve them. This is why we are trying to incorporate some flexibility. In addition, we are supplementing the funding, especially for the meat industry. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Wilson-Raybould in Vancouver Granville. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister of Employment has stated that measures would be forthcoming for individuals with disabilities, similar to the one-time payment increase given to seniors on OAS and GIS. Could the minister please provide some more details with respect to the statement she made? When can individuals with disabilities expect meaningful financial assistance? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that Canadians with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by COVID in terms of both their own personal health and the access to supports that they have, or don't have, more specifically. We are three days away from National AccessAbility Week, the first week after we legislated it in the Accessible Canada Act. I would expect something from our government during that week. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you for that. My office has heard from many constituents who are frustrated over the lack of information on eligibility requirements from the government regarding the business credit availability program. Furthermore, banks are giving small and medium-sized businesses mixed messaging. How will the government ensure that the messaging for BCAP and similar programs is articulated properly? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for her question. Nothing is more important to us right now than making sure our small and medium-sized businesses are supported. The lending program through BCAP is available through financial institutions; that's banks and credit unions across the country. The money is flowing to those businesses. I would encourage Canadian businesses to get in touch with their financial institutions. Thank you so much. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Mr. Chair, members may not be aware, but there are ongoing restrictions on when some civil servants can access government servers and their files due to the pandemic, to ensure that those dealing directly with the pandemic have priority. For example, this is affecting negotiations with indigenous peoples. Can the government please tell us when the system will have sufficient capacity so that all civil servants can do their work remotely and without limitation? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to my colleague for her important question, which indeed speaks to the importance of public servants continuing their important jobs for Canadians, being mindful, of course, of the difficult circumstances in which many of those workers find themselves, both personally and professionally. We know that, in particular, indigenous communities need that support, and particularly so in the context of the crisis. We look forward to continuing to support them. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: As current and former parliamentarians call for a national inquiry into long-term care homes, something I would strongly support, can the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations please give the members an idea as to when the action plan on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls will be released? In asking this question, I certainly understand the need for consultation and the reality of some delays due to the pandemic. There are of course many actions that we all know need to take place now that do not need more consultation. The need for consultation cannot be an excuse for the lack of action. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I thank the member for her ongoing advocacy. As we approach the first anniversary of the release of the final report, we are grateful for the work of all of our partners as they really try to do what they can to end this national tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and those who are two-spirited, plus. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, they have put in good initiatives, and we look forward to releasing a national action plan that will include all provinces and territories as well as all of our indigenous governments and partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Wilson-Raybould, you're down to about the last 30 seconds, so please ask a short question. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I have a short question for the Minister of Transport. Does the government have any plans to step in and encourage airlines to return money to customers rather than vouchers? I've heard from many constituents and businesses in this regard. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned before, we're very sympathetic to the situation that those who would have preferred a refund are in at the moment. However, the airlines are going through an extremely difficult time, and if they had to reimburse at this time, some of them could fail. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to begin by indicating that I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. Across the country, a lot of Canadians are preparing to go back to work right now and some employers are doing a good job of ensuring that there is a safe workplace, with the right procedures and the right equipment. Unfortunately, some employers are not. For Canadians who are employed by them, that means making a really tough decision between going back to a workplace where they don't feel safe and which may present a threat to their families or communities, and staying home and worrying about not being paid because they're not at work or because they will lose access to the CERB. I am wondering what guidance the federal government has for people who feel that their workplace is not safe at this time and that their employer hasn't done its due diligence, and are concerned about losing access to the CERB. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are very concerned about the safety of our workplaces and we don't want workers to feel unsafe as they go back to work. However, we do want people to go back to work. We are working very closely with the provinces. The Minister of Health is working on occupational health and safety guidelines. The Minister of Labour is working with her colleagues. We are taking an all-of-government approach to ensure that workers are safe, that they don't have to put their lives or the health of their families in jeopardy and that we can support them in these efforts. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Mr. Chair, I think the issue here is that Canadian workers really need some certainty about what the federal government would consider an adequate employment offer, or an offer to come back to work, so that they wouldn't be on the CERB. Can Canadians be confident that they can stay on the CERB whether they go back to work or not, whether their employer makes them an offer or not? I think a lot of people have anxiety about this and it's a difficult time. When is the government going to release some formal guidance on how people go about refusing unsafe work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that the provinces have their own workers' compensation programs and refusal-to-work mechanisms, but the point for us, here in government, is to work with employers and with the provinces so that we make our workplaces safe. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: But this is about CERB eligibility. I respect +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Order. Mr. Blaikie, we have run out of time since we are splitting the time between two speakers. We're now going to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians depend on municipalities across Canada for vital services, especially during this pandemicservices like transit, drinking water, parks and sanitationyet the government has left municipalities in an unprecedented financial crisis. Local government leaders across the country have called on the government for help, yet mostly what we've heard are excuses. Does the minister acknowledge that the federal government has a leadership role to play in getting financial help to municipalities at this difficult time? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we do acknowledge is the essential role municipalities play in our country at all times, and the particularly essential role they play today as our country gets ready to restart our economy. We are working closely with the municipalities to talk about ways we can support them and are working closely with the provinces, in whose jurisdiction the municipalities fall. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Through you to the minister, we've seen deep cuts and more cuts are on the way. We've seen thousands of municipal workers laid off, and it's been over a month since municipal leaders called on this government for emergency financial relief. My question is very simple. When can the municipalities expect the help they need from the federal government? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say again, Mr. Chair, that we are extremely alive to the importance of municipalities in our economy. We are very aware of the difficult financial situation they find themselves in, and we are very aware of how important it is to keep our municipalities functioning, particularly as we move into the restart. We're working with municipalities and are urging them to work with their provinces, as we are doing too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We have about 30 seconds left. Go ahead, Mr. Bachrach, for 30 seconds. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: I have a very simple question, through you to the minister. Are there emergency federal dollars on the table for Canada's cities, yes, or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the federal government very much understands and appreciates the importance of municipalities. We are prepared to support them. Provinces need to do their share too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the honourable member for Manicouagan to take the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. At a time when we are asking our fellow citizens and Quebeckers to make sacrifices and even greater efforts, the Liberal Party, the government, is directly pilfering from a subsidy program that should be going to those who need it, not to rich political parties and their millionaire supporters. At a time when the work in the House is even more essentialwe should be working even harder, just as we are asking the people to dothe government, with the complicity of the NDP, decides to suspend the work of the House. This is the result of an absurd agreement that is absolutely impossible for it to implement. Can the government confirm to the House, and simultaneously to the NDP, that the measure involving 10days of leave is absolutely not something it can do? It is not in its jurisdiction, so it is a measure that it cannot implement. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, in order to be part of any agreement, you have to negotiate and be sitting at the table. The Bloc Qubcois says it wants to make gains for Quebec, but in order to do that, it must be sitting at the table, not outside the room. It's like a hockey game; if you want to score goals, you have to be on the ice. The other day, I asked this question: how many of Guy Lafleur's 560goals were scored when he was sitting on the bench? +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me shoot the puck back to the Leader of the Government in the House. He himself decided to close the rink, to shut down Parliament. That is where the teams are, and that is where the goals are scored. But when you play a sport, when you are on a team, and when you are in Parliament, you still have to play by the rules. But the government does not keep its word. It made a promise to us as well, just like it made one to the NDP. It was about the Canada emergency student benefit. The Deputy Prime Minister herself said that it was certainly a good idea. What did the government do? It backed away. I play on a team and I play by the rules. I take it at its word because this is the right place. Here, in this chamber. So I would like the government to tell people that this measure is absolutely not in their jurisdiction. That was my previous question. It was not about which parties were negotiating or not and when they kept their word or not. The NDP has to realize that their agreement is absolutely worthless. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, my colleague is alluding to previous current and future agreements. We have had discussions and we have reached a number of agreements with our friends in the Bloc Qubcois. It was going very well, but there was one agreement they did not like and they went off and sulked. When you are not happy, you do not go off and sulk; you stay at the table and negotiate. That is how things work. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I urge the honourable Leader of the Government to recall the House. I am ready to be here, on the ice, all the time. I must remind him that we are not sulking. The Bloc Qubcois has self-respect and respect for the public. An agreement is not a promise, it is an agreement. A word is given in dignity and sincerity; a bond of trust is created. When a player decides not to play by the rules, I do not let myself be taken in twice. I prefer to negotiate here, as we should be doing all the time in Parliament, not trying to play with someone who never keeps his word. I would just like the Leader of the Government in the House to tell us that the measure about the 10days is not up to him and so he will not be able to make it happen. I could also ask him whether he found out from the Government of Quebec whether it agreed with the measure. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, of course, it is not in my jurisdiction personally. We agree on that. It depends on a number of players, including the provinces and the private sector. We at federal level are holding discussions with the provinces and people in different areas. Of course, we are holding discussions with everyone involved. I want to know what my colleague has against having six hours of questions instead of four. What does she have against the fact that, from now on, people will be able to ask questions about anything, not just about COVID-19? What does she have against the fact that we are going to meet again this summer? What is it that she does not like? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms.Gill, you have about 30seconds left for your comment. Go ahead. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me teach the Leader of the Government in the House some arithmetic. First, 37.5hours per week, as well as the time we spend sitting on our normal committees, is quite a bit more than the eight short hours each week he is giving us. Second, once again, the leader said that it is absolutely not in his jurisdiction. So he reaches agreements with parties though his word is worth nothing. I hope that the NDP has not reached an agreement with him. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, it all depends on government decisions, and clearly, we are having discussions with the provinces. Actually, we have already started doing that. However, I still do not understand what she has against having more time than I do to ask questions. I would really like an answer from her. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now take a brief pause so that the technicians can spell each other off. Order. I see Mr. Bezan on a point of order. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier, during the question time here, Mr. Sweet, the member for Flamborough-Glanbrook, got up and was raising a number of issues about the Hong Kong protests, where 360 people have been arrested. The People's Republic of China, the regime in Beijing, and their rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, are circumventing Hong Kong legislation and the Hong Kong government in putting their own will upon the people of Hong Kong. I believe this demands an emergency debate here in the House of Commons. Mr. Chair, I'm asking if you would rule on this and schedule an emergency debate so that Parliament can actually discuss this crisis, this human rights crisis, as political protestors are being imprisoned because of their standing up against the communist regime in Beijing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable member, Mr. Bezan, for his point of order. It was really more of a request. He may know, and for the benefit of other honourable members, that we're operating in this Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic under the auspices of an order made earlier this week. There is no provision in that order for emergency debates. However, I would certainly encourage him to speak with his House leader, whips and others. Of course, he'll know that discussions of this sort are being shared, so he might want to pursue that opportunity. I see Mr. Bezan rising. Mr. Bezan, is it a different point of order? +Mr. James Bezan: No. I'd just like to respond to that if I could. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Well, there's +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, this is the problem with this special committee. Our rights and privileges as members have been completely degraded. It makes it impossible for us to address the issues of this day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Bezan, we're all operating under an order that was agreed to by the House. We'll stick to those provisions. Again, understand the situation we're in. Certainly circumstances do change, but I leave that to the party leaders to decide. For our last round of questions, we're going to CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Revenue. Minister, I've been informed by some of my colleagues that CRA officials have been directing constituents to phone their member of Parliament to resolve CRA-related issues. Why on earth would CRA direct individuals away from the agency during this stressful time when they're just trying to get their tax information and file their taxes? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. I can tell you that CRA employees have to deal with questions put to them. It is not up to MPs' offices to deal with specific questions about individual files. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Minister, you didn't answer the question. These are your CRA officials directing constituents away from the CRA. You really should be answering that question and not just talking about how inappropriate it is, although I appreciate that. Also, on your website, it says that the telephone service for the individual-inquiries line will be available to Canadians until June 5, and there is no further information about further live service. When will you get your agency under control and make sure it provides an actual person on the other end of the line to provide the information that taxpayers need? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we go to the minister, I would remind hon. members to address their questions through the chair. It's a little bit different from when we're questioning witnesses in a committee. We're using the rules more related to what we use in committee of the whole. The honourable minister has the floor. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, as far as I'm aware, this is not Parliament; this is a committee. I've been sitting on committees since October. I've talked to my colleagues, and no chair, including the chair of the finance committee, has ever asked me to address a question through the chair. So with the greatest of respect, unless this is in fact Parliament, which I'm told it's not and the Parliament voted that it's not, we really should be able to address the witnesses directly, should we not? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Thank you, Mr. Morantz. This really is a question around the way in which this special committee on COVID-19 has been structured. We're operating under the rules that were agreed to by the House in an order that was passed and adopted on Tuesday of this week, so we're bound to manage the affairs of this committee in that way, and one of those includes asking members to address their comments and questions through the chair to other hon. members. So I ask you to abide by the rules of the committee, and we'll pursue that. Now we'll go to the response to your second question. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I must thank the officials who have done excellent work during this historic COVID-19 period. I must tell you that CRA call centres are an essential service and the agency is able to answer calls quickly. The employees are answering calls from their homes. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Some of my colleagues have spoken to the CRA about drop-off boxes for paper returns actually being removed at some locations, citing COVID-19 as a reason. Has the CRA removed these boxes at all locations? Given this, will you commit today to make paper filing postage-free, since paper filers can no longer drop off their returns at all of the locations? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. At the CRA, we continue to process paper returns and to do the work that we usually do. I repeat, I must highlight the exceptional work that the agency employees are doing. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On the subject of paper returns, there have been numerous reportsin fact I asked you on May 10 for a written response at the government operations committee, OGGO, which I have not yet receivedon the delays in processing paper returns. Apparently this is still ongoing. When will Canadians who filed paper forms have their returns processed so they can get the refunds they need during this difficult time? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I can confirm that the Canada Revenue Agency continues to process paper returns. Because of COVID-19, we have had to implement distancing measures to protect the employees. We must ensure that employees are safe, but we continue to process paper returns. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Morantz, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead with your question. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Sure, Mr. Chair. During this crisis, the problem of illegal tax evasion and avoidance has been highlighted. The minister has been the minister since 2015 and should be able to answer this question off the top of her head. How many successful prosecutions have there been in Canada for the illegal use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, as we have said, one of our government's priorities was to invest almost $1billion to establish a system intended to fight tax evasion. That was not at all a priority under the Conservatives. We continue to do that important work for taxpayers; everyone must pay their fair share. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That concludes the 13thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Speaker Rota asked me to remind all honourable members that during the next meeting, which will be next Monday, we'll be watching more carefully the time for members' statements. We're allowed one minute. We ask members who are providing those by virtual conference to time their statements to within one minute, as he will start to cut off members who go beyond the one minute. With that, this committee stands adjourned until Monday at noon. Enjoy the weekend. +","The summary of the meeting includes discussions and questions raised regarding various issues impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, conducted the hybrid meeting where some members participated in person and others via video conference. The Chair reminded participants about the rules governing speaking and technical arrangements due to the hybrid format. + +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif brought up a point of order regarding background noise, which the Chair acknowledged and reminded everyone to be aware of. Details were provided on how members should select language channels for interpretation and how to signal a point of order. + +Presentations were made on petitions concerning the protection of honey bees, the conditions in long-term care homes, Bill C-7 on euthanasia, Bill S-204 on organ harvesting, wage supplements for essential workers, and recognition of front-line workers. + +Members made statements on various issues, such as honoring scouts, recognizing Tourism Week, expressing condolences for tragic deaths at sea, acknowledging historical figures, recognizing community efforts during the pandemic, and addressing the importance of tourism and youth contributions in communities. + +Questions to the ministers touched on topics including support for Canada's agriculture sector, the commercial rent assistance program, health and safety measures, assistance for individuals with disabilities, support for municipalities, tax filing concerns, and criminal prosecutions for tax evasion. + +Throughout the meeting, there were calls for clarity on certain programs, acknowledgment of systemic issues in long-term care, and discussions on the need for additional support to various sectors affected by the pandemic. The ongoing response to COVID-19 and the collaboration between different levels of government and organizations were recurring themes. + +The meeting concluded with the Chair reminding members to adhere to the allotted time for future meetings and announcing the adjournment until the next scheduled session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here , 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: And we can start meeting . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um as you can see here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you . I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also . +Project Manager: Yes . Indeed . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um . W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them . Um , we will see in which order we will handle them of . Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager , I try to work them out , they were quite abstract , and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it . Uh Um about the functions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target ? +Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh the customers , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: the customers , indeed yes . Think that's that's important matter . +Marketing: That's the big question yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch . Good . Um . Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations ? +Marketing: No , I don't . +Project Manager: You don't have presentation ? +Marketing: I wasn't . No . +Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh +Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything . +Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so , a hundred people , just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control . Um . It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you , I've just got a web page with some data on it . Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls . Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Um . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot , so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television . Uh . Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons , so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said ? +Marketing: I have an a web page yes . +Project Manager: Yes , mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh . Uh about this . +Marketing: Yep . Yep , sure . Mm-hmm . So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control . Um , power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour . Um , channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings , audio settings , which are only used very infrequently . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour , so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room , so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users . Um . +Project Manager: Yes yes , I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control , they want something that's easier to use straight away , more intuitive perhaps . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn . Okay . +Marketing: Um . And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap} +Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that . +User Interface: {gap} . What do you mean there ? +Marketing: For R_S_I_ ? Respet Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . They think that or do their doctor the doctor says ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . That's what the report says yeah . +Project Manager: So mm . +Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually , if I email it to you now . +User Interface: You can disconnect it there +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker} +User Interface: no ? +Marketing: Oh no , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: Um , s hang on . +Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah . You can connect this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: All to your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well . +Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this . It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you . It's just a web link . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about , which is interesting , is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute . +Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker} +Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful . +Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yes , I'll just get this up . +Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well potentially yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech . +Marketing: I think even for interesti +Industrial Designer: Okay . Interesting idea . +Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well . You wanna have both options . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is , my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound , so say where it is . But the these are all quite fancy features +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well it would be f +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No you can't . +Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is , maybe you know ? +User Interface: Oh . Well , {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on , off , one , two , twenty three , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: It's it's going to be li +Project Manager: that that that that's mm . +User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case +Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control , who would pay more for it , um . Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more , it goes down from there , seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five , thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five , um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Okay it's uh decline . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: But we sh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Decline with age , mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product , um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . We will talk about it later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you get the email ? +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep , that one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just follow that link . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us +Marketing: It'll be in a different window , yep . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay perfect . .. . +Marketing: Mm . So that's the figure that I was just talking about there , with the different demographics . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm I okay +Project Manager: Oh , +Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , y y you can move , uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair ? +Project Manager: Yes . You can you can sa take my chair . +Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a channel selection , a module {gap} , this and this function , +Marketing: Sorry ? Oh . +User Interface: go to the {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer . And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control . Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction , how does it work , so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit , the chip , that can compose messages , usually uh through a um infrared bit +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages , alright . So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product . I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design . So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound} . Uh we want an on off button , it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important , and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right . So the components I quickly draw here , is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver . This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design , uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me +Marketing: You drew it a long time ago ? +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: Is huh +Marketing: Ninety one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that +Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component ? +Industrial Designer: So . So +Project Manager: I mean , are they cheap , or are they uh reliable ? What were your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design , uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components +Project Manager: Yes . It it it's more clear now I think . +Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma +Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver , I mean can you can you get back to it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh , the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it . So we we must adapt to the to the receiver . +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah . +Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . Yes . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Thank you . +User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies . +Industrial Designer: The frequencies ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Of course yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful , +Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah . +User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem , like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound} , so basically {gap} through all the things . +Industrial Designer: That can control o other things . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account +Marketing: That's handy . +Project Manager: Yeah yes +Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud , you can just turn it off . +Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . I like that idea . +Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay so voila . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay , voila , mm so mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . I {disfmarker} Uh , sorry ? I know where it is . +User Interface: It's on the desktop . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Technical function . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well . So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do , I think my last presented what is going inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it . So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set , as Mael has pointed , and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver . So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys , people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone , and it sends a message to the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household , actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on , off button and play , uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option . And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine , but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows , but uh uh . Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option , it can without any , it's a very simple thing , um which which you can vouch {vocalsound} . And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and , but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market . And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people . And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . How would that work ? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_ , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use ? +User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster , browse slow , you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities . +User Interface: It's the next generation thing , +Project Manager: Mm yes , +User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there , +User Interface: It's goi +Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop . +User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . That's fair enough . Mm . But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here . That's , +User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario , I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me . +Marketing: Mm . Because y +Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mean , you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . So {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation . +Project Manager: Mm . Very well . +User Interface: Well . So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand , video over-demand or what we call it as , it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies , you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies , and then you select those list . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: basically you go off , it downloads the movie , it gives for you +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: And thi this is going to come . +Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it , it's streamed uh online uh yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Um , so u um +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we should think about it um . Do we include it , and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used , well very much , but it's it is still used . Um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: further yes we must think , uh do we stay uh to to television only , the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh , or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s ? +Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders . Um , furthermore , uh , w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh which well +Industrial Designer: Fourteen +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty . +Industrial Designer: or for O okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um therefore , {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs , so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image , so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys , you know right now if you take it you have like zero , one , two , three like a keys separately , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you press on the top , it takes one number , you press on the bottom it takes another number , and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually +Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting , especially if we're going after a younger market , +User Interface: Yeah so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Yes yes +Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things , +Project Manager: mo +Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that , you know , product . +Marketing: that's , +Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones , not too many pretty remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . .. . +User Interface: Okay , it works . Fine . So , for example you have uh presently uh keys like one , two , three like this , actually , and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that +Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: Uh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way ? +Project Manager: Mm well +Marketing: 'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all +Project Manager: I think fi five min +User Interface: Forty minutes ? +Marketing: and it's a very important issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so . {vocalsound} too sorry , so we basically don't change the uh original order of them +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing , so if you press on the top it takes the one , it takes the three , uh four , sorry four here uh five and six , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for you don't have too many keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Which I think is quite tricky . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course they have already one . So our our our remote control has to be better . +Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause it's only a low market , it's a cheap-end remote control , we can't beat modern functionality , we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it , th the design of it but that's not a big seller , if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just 'cause it looks pretty , they have to actually need it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing . +Project Manager: Mm . I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . But why are they buying one in the first place ? +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed . So that will be about functionality {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote . I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote , otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product , because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality . +Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , we can't , with the price range . We We're not building a universal remote , we're not building a high end product . +Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_ +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} But yeah +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . If we're getting into universal remote territory , we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot . +Project Manager: I don't know . I don't know whether that's necessary . +Industrial Designer: Ye +Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker} +Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well , th for long term . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive . +Marketing: And quite complicated to use , +Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between , +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Not as flexible maybe , yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on . +Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group . +Marketing: Okay . So they're {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes . Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yep . I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is . Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range , or are we kind of middle to bottom ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So d Do you agree ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin +Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control . +User Interface: Uh yeah , that's that's what we needed basically . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: Uh that's needed right now . And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market , we really need that . +Marketing: Yeah . So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices , being able to switch between them , there may be stereo , V_C_R_ and T_V_ . +User Interface: Actu +Industrial Designer: Yes . Exactly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote , but not at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know , where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them . +Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm yep . +User Interface: Voila {vocalsound} . Hmm . +Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in +User Interface: So . Well . +Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now . We can we'll we'll go +Industrial Designer: Oh +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then . +User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W yes , +User Interface: for the {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh +User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting . But you will be informed via the computer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Cool . So see you later . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect . +","In a corporate meeting involving key personnel from various departments such as User Interface, Project Management, Marketing, and Industrial Design, the team gathers to discuss the development and design aspects of a remote control. The Project Manager begins the meeting, indicating that they will be taking notes to document proceedings and decisions made. + +Marketing, driven by recent research, shares insights into consumer habits and preferences regarding remote controls, outlining that the majority find current remote controls unappealing and would pay more for aesthetically pleasing designs. Furthermore, data suggests that users often lose their remote controls, wish for easier-to-use devices right out of the box, and find many buttons unnecessary as they frequently only use a handful of them. + +The Project Manager then brings new abstract requirements from an account manager to the table, sparking a discussion about the functionality and target group for the remote control, emphasizing the necessity to decide on these aspects during the session. + +The Industrial Designer has prepared some component and design ideas to share with the group, aiming to create a remote control with robust functionality over fancier, but potentially less utilized, features. With a focus on the user's requirements and an understanding of the technical functions, the Industrial Designer presents an initial diagram and rationale for choosing specific components, seeking to find a balance between reliability and cost. + +When the User Interface designer takes the floor, there's a shift towards how users interact with the remote control, looking at standard current designs and considering innovations that might align with future technological trends. This includes integrating functions of various devices like TV, VCR, and future set-top boxes, implying a need for a versatile yet user-friendly interface. + +As the meeting progresses, the project's direction becomes somewhat clearer—aiming towards creating a 'universal' style remote control within a competitive cost frame of twelve euros and fifty cents. This target setting sparks discussions about the feasibility of including advanced features within the budget and whether it would fulfill market needs, especially attracting younger consumers. + +Delving into market positioning, the team acknowledges that their remote control wouldn't be the most feature-rich or high-end on the market but believes there could be an opportunity to offer something more functional than standard remotes and cheaper than the high-end universal ones. + +The team grapples with targeting and demographics, debating whether to focus on a younger user group, typically under forty, that values both design and functionality. This brings to light concerns about the pricing strategy, consumer behavior regarding buying a remote control (given that one usually comes with the TV), and how to make theirs stand out enough to drive purchases. + +As the discussion draws to a close, the Project Manager summarizes that the next steps involve investigating the specific components needed for this universal remote approach, refining the user interface according to user preferences, and further analyzing market trends. The team agrees to reconvene after lunch to continue discussions, armed with their tasks for the second half of the day." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Did you get my email with the slides ? Ah . Tricky . +Industrial Designer: I guess I have to change the pen otherwise . Will be completely different . +Marketing: Dunno . Maybe they're supposed {disfmarker} the pen's supposed to go over the seats . Might be seat floor rather than person . Yeah , put it back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And do you think {vocalsound} it's {gap} . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Jo's making faces at me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . Matthew is uh late again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably an important man . Um . So well it is important for him to be here uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: He he he {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what can you {disfmarker} {gap} ? +Project Manager: You did work together didn't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah we will {disfmarker} yeah , so I will be able to to summarize uh our meeting , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: but still I think uh it would be in very important if the uh as um main designer . I think we can put on the {gap} here . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh basically w yeah we we designed the two uh items . +Project Manager: Mm . Um yes +Industrial Designer: Um , can we have a phone , +Project Manager: but w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: can someone {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , maybe we should phone him . Um well {disfmarker} Um , +Industrial Designer: it's really w well designed {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , object tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: when he is not here we will just we just have to continue . Um so just for record I I will take uh notes again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And um well {vocalsound} first thing uh I was uh uh I got an email from uh from my superior again that we really should stay within the budget of the uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: when you stay in it's good , when you don't stay in you have to redesign . There is no {vocalsound} uh no negotiation uh {vocalsound} possible in this matter . So we have to consider that . {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um so maybe Anna , you can have your presentation . +Marketing: Well we can't {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} we can't do evaluation 'til we have a design . +Project Manager: Okay Matthew . Nice uh you are here . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: Great . Great . Oh ma maybe then you can start now with mm presenting your uh your designs . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So I will start by the the basic one that uh fits into uh eight Euros actually , right , seven eight Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh well first for both they have um a special shape , maybe the designer can uh explain better than me , but uh it's like a surf board . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you you are supposed to surf to browse to surf T_V_ , maybe the web , and uh it's kind of interesting shape because um unconsciously people want to s to surf {vocalsound} when they see this stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or browse . +Industrial Designer: And also it's not too far from um a mobile . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So people are used to that kind of shape , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . Don't take care too much about the colour because w yeah we don't take {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now we are supposed to give some oper offers right now . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So here would be basically the the the infrared uh uh led +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Eye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah L_A_ L_A_ L_E_D_ , +User Interface: L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: the on-off button , in red . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Here would be the volume . On the on the left , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: okay , so {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: easy to turn on t and off . And um so this is a very cheap version so there are {disfmarker} maybe you can carry on uh Matthew . +User Interface: Also {vocalsound} so you have uh uh browsing the channels , actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can go up and down the channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , if you have a video or something you can forward , back . +Industrial Designer: How can you change from V_C_R_ to uh T_V_ , by the way ? +User Interface: Oh {gap} no no no , this is a single {disfmarker} this this is a model with just the T_V_ one . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +User Interface: No no just sorry , this is a standard T_V_ one , we are not talking about that . So and then we have usually there twelve keys but we know that we rel that we have only ten digits . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The extra two are for uh having or giving an option for uh having more than one channel . And the other one is for the teletext or something you want to browse through from that . Actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay so +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's it's t a very basic remote then , it's only {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a very basic minimal thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: which you can {disfmarker} which is which is also available in the market , actually that's what it {gap} {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and would cost us to build it about eight Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Seven , eight , ei eight Euros . +Project Manager: Exce except for the for the special shape , the surfing board , it has a quite a a conventional layout of buttons uh . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So this one model +Marketing: Can I see ? +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . +Marketing: Thanks . Okay I like the volume control , that's good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th {vocalsound} this is a magic one but I know we don't want to talk about that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know like {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh i i i it is a very futuristic , it's like uh it's like a brain machine interface and all this stuff we are thinking about in the future , it can come . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it doesn't actually have buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} then what we look t +Marketing: Did you wanna see ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah no you can carry on , +User Interface: This is a model , +Project Manager: I just look how it feels all . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yes it really feels like like like a mobile phone . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Just I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually , yeah . +Project Manager: I really want to talk to it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It won't talk back . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So but but continue with your uh +User Interface: Uh so well +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the this is the {vocalsound} a more a little uh smooth +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and it gives a lot of functionality , uh in this way , so all we have uh th you see there are only six keys , but don't worry they are ma they are doing the job of twelve keys actually here . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so they have more space actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh it's easy to uh use this and uh you have um so this is a standard uh {gap} uh infrared eye , and then you have a power button , which l volume , what you have , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then other than that you have uh channel up and down and uh f slow pause or s slow lo +Industrial Designer: Play , pause . +User Interface: yeah s pause or stop , and uh then uh you can uh you have a L_C_D_ display , here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh y this is a functional thing which can change like it's a toggle switch which could change the function say , y you press it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From D_V_D_ player to television or something . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah . To audio and to video on demand . +User Interface: Yeah . I really can change it , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Instead of having many switches , y {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes and and and then you get feedback via the L_C_D_ yeah . +User Interface: The L_C_D_ can display what is that on that , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh well you can have a integrated microphone over here , +Industrial Designer: This is the orange button , the {vocalsound} microphone . +User Interface: or in the button th here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so which can uh basically you want to do a speech recognition and uh that channel a lot of information can be di displayed here directly on the um on your on your display . +Industrial Designer: An yeah . +User Interface: And here is a small L_E_D_ which is like blinking one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which tells you like uh are you running out of the battery , and which is can be useful for the locating as I was talking earlier +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . And uh well then we have a cover basically , basically you don't need much of the time this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} when you need you can use it , and this gives additional functionality that tomorrow you want you can add a tactile thing to this cover +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Crazy dis designer , +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Design enter {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but but but but uh i in there uh when this is closed , will it also uh cover up the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . It's basically to do that . +Project Manager: But but the L_C_D_ screen I mean is a very uh well an eye-attracting feature +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which shouldn't be shouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually when you are watching the T_V_ , {vocalsound} when you are watching anything or listening to them , you hardly care about what is getting displayed here , +Industrial Designer: Oh actually {disfmarker} well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That th that's true . +User Interface: you know , uh you want to uh {disfmarker} and this gives a protection to the L_C_D_ actually , giving a cover to that actually . Gives a protection +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because when it falls down or something it it is it is is is it gives a protec +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yes . Yes , more robust . +User Interface: it's more robust that way . Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: And you have very good chances {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's low weight . You have to see yeah yeah the the components we put inside is very low weight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So the the cost is actually a bit more , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's sixteen Francs . +User Interface: It {disfmarker} Sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen Euros sorry . +Marketing: So it's well outside the budget then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then it's out of budget . +Project Manager: But w +Industrial Designer: But the the main point we we talk about that with our uh manufacturer . And they say basically that the S_R_ system would be uh something like three Francs per item {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so +User Interface: Three Euros . +Industrial Designer: three Euros sorry . And um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on top of the sixteen , or is it part of that ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , part of that , yeah . +User Interface: Part of that {gap} . +Marketing: So that takes it down to thirteen Euros without the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . Hmm . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well uh if you {disfmarker} we can have {disfmarker} if you have new more ideas we can add new more uh some more keys if you want to you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think th th yeah we should {vocalsound} stick with uh a number of keys +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because if we add too much then +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: it's too {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it should not be cluttering up everything . +Marketing: What's this one on the side ? +User Interface: Ah that's for the {disfmarker} it's kind of a L_E_D_ for indicating your battery +Industrial Designer: Locati . Location . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and as well as it's like a blinking one +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +User Interface: you know +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can keep it aside . +Marketing: I like the shape of them , I do like the the size and the the shape . +Project Manager: Well well {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be before ta talking about the money and what's possible and what is not possible , maybe Anna you can uh give our uh give us your um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . And maybe we run the evaluation on both of the products , both of these two . +Project Manager: Yes . Evalua evaluation and also the evaluation criteria , so what what is important to look at . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Basically this is what we've talked about already , um , from the marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just wanna make sure that we've taken into account {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: just do it quickly if if we al already {gap} . +Marketing: So it's just a shortlist of criteria on um the things that we've identified as being important to selling the product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um we just go through these and rate them as a group and then at the end we'll make an evaluation based on that , so just average the score of those items , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} These are the things we identified as being important . Um {gap} the three things were look and feel , innovation and ease of use , were the three important components +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um appealing to the correct demographic so using those things in the right way to appeal to our demographic . And then goin following the company motto , following the fashion trends and putting that into the product as well . So well do you wanna go through and put through those on the the two products now or do we wanna discuss them further and then evaluate them ? +Project Manager: Um , n no why not why not discuss uh discuss it now , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So f just go through onto the whiteboard I guess . Not sure how this is gonna come out . So the first one was really {vocalsound} very far below budget , would you want to take the price down of the end product according to that or just have the high profit on it ? 'Cause if we're only going to make it for eight Euros then we have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , well my my personal view is uh w when when this one is eight Euros we must think how can we improve it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {disfmarker} I mean w w w you must just see it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we can still spend this four and a half Euro +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: and to r because th th th the the selling price is already prite fik uh uh quite fixed on twenty five Euros +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we just have to offer as much as as {disfmarker} well value for the for the customer uh he can have for twenty five Euro . +Industrial Designer: Functionality . +Marketing: Okay so look and feel , innovation {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And now it {gap} easy to use . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And trends . Oh , you following the idea of using the um removable covers on these ? Is that part of both of them or ? +Project Manager: Um well w w we can still discuss that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um , and together with evaluating this uh we we might come with new ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean adding things or uh removing uh of options because they are too expensive , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um I've received uh a framework which we can do this . I mean did you have this this Excel sheet ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No okay , this is these are the the the latest prices of our production uh uh production unit for several components , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we can uh see whether the the price is is within the twelve Euro uh fifty cents uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can start with this , uh , calling this one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Yep . So it's the pink . +Project Manager: Th th this is the first design . +Marketing: And the other one's green . Okay , so +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: look and feel ? Where um one is {vocalsound} I've broken the pen again . S +Project Manager: Uh there is another pen . +Marketing: yeah . Get that one . Um w {vocalsound} one's bad and seven's the best . Sorry , one's true and seven's false . One's the best . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Okay . So . Look and feel . Well you already feel that uh pretty much I think {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: In i in my opinion purely feel is is is very good , is very good in your hand , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I I I would consider two or or may maybe even one for feel . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But that's just half , we should also consider look , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then i it looks quite conventional . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Don't you agree ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: On the scale u it's between functional and fancy basically we're looking at , +Project Manager: So maybe two . Hmm . Hmm . Ma ma ma ma maybe say say five +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} It's my opinion , but I don't know what what +User Interface: Well I will give it maybe {disfmarker} we have anyways {disfmarker} the way we have designed it's like the surf as you say {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you know . It {disfmarker} though the look is fine but uh still I will give four in that case +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four maybe . +User Interface: you know . +Marketing: Four ? Okay . +Project Manager: Four , four . +User Interface: Four yeah +Project Manager: Now we th th +User Interface: that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then we settle on four . +User Interface: Yeah . I will gi yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Can you maybe fix the other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you press like this not like this {gap} then you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No that's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: ink's dried . +User Interface: C can you get the batteries ? No no the battery has fallen down , +Marketing: Battery's low , isn't it the ink ? +User Interface: that's i +Marketing: The b that's the that that one ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} battery there . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no it's not that , it's how to close a battery . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay ? Now it should be {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . No I think it's lost a battery . +Project Manager: Mm , try it , just try it . +Marketing: No it's {disfmarker} It would still write +Project Manager: Oh it will not +Marketing: but it wouldn't pick it up with the sensors . +Project Manager: ri mm , mm . +User Interface: Is there another battery there ? Oh yeah . +Marketing: You got a second ? +Industrial Designer: Try a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well we won't be able to tell . +Project Manager: Yes , it it has a {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Marketing: Is that working ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did it come out ? Good . Okay . +Project Manager: Good . Good . +Marketing: Because we'll be able to see it still even if it wasn't working , it's just a normal whiteboard marker +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but it wouldn't be picked up on the the actual whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So then then {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the other one ? +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's slightly better , um , +Project Manager: Ah . Mm . +Marketing: it's hard to tell from just the plasticine , +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When we want to include {disfmarker} I I I'm doubting about this this component . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It it it it breaks in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: No actually this is this is not going to protrude actually , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: it it's n i it is jus +Industrial Designer: It's not a button it's a led , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a led actually which which 'll be covering in a curve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ac actually yeah it should be embedded . +Project Manager: Mm , yes I see , mm okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} will be embedded there +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh +User Interface: so it won't be really you know protruding or something . +Industrial Designer: you can push push it again , you can push it . +Marketing: Yeah . The other thing is , is the left hand one protruding ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if people are left handed they want to use the other hand , +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: maybe it won't work so well . +User Interface: No you {disfmarker} it it not protruding actually , it will go in better into that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well r r +Marketing: I'd say two or three for that one , personally . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Probably more towards three than two . +Project Manager: I think the look is better +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the feel is is is worse . So so {vocalsound} I would also say this is four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But w w do you {disfmarker} what do you think ? +User Interface: Uh it's fine I think . My {disfmarker} just that um the feel is that um you {disfmarker} right now you you don't see the feel because right uh for example if you press it quite inside now like this , now it's embedded one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yes . +User Interface: This is how embedded one will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , it basically is the same shape . +User Interface: Yeah . It's a bas basically the same thing actually . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: You will be {disfmarker} Except that in this c +Industrial Designer: And the L_C_D_ makes it better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} you might have a slight thing for to forward and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , okay . Yeah +Industrial Designer: So I will say two . +Marketing: it's d it's definitely more fancier than that one . +Project Manager: Yes , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would say two , three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , consensus ? Two or three ? +Project Manager: Two ? +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Mm . Two's good +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: {gap} looking like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , 'kay . Innovation . The first one , not really muc +Industrial Designer: Basically there is no innovation in the first one compared to what exists in the market , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but except for the design of the surf {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . The surf uh design {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} What features are we actually including ? +User Interface: You should be rea {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are we including like a location kind of thing like trying to find it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no +Marketing: There's nothing like that ? +User Interface: I think it's more of the feel . +Marketing: But th is there any there's no actual innovation in that at all , it's just a straight-out remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The only innova innovation is the shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Say about that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: S so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} this uh look and feel thing , though that's not a technological innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You're right {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So I'd be up for seven for innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} And the second one is really uh state of the art , uh in terms of innovation . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And um with many more functionalities , and can open and close the the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , it gives it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . A and the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's that's well it's quite innovative . +Industrial Designer: And all the scrolling uh buttons and menu and pro programmable device behind this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh could put it at one or two I would say . Personally . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: So what is it , what are the innovations with this ? Got the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah automatic speech recognition . +Marketing: Is that in this one though ? Is this {disfmarker} 'cause this is the {disfmarker} Th th there were different options we discussed then , +User Interface: No , we ha +Marketing: we discussed the one that was in budget and the one that was out of budget . +Project Manager: We just diske discuss it as you designed it +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we will will try to get it in the budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the cost for these were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: what was the cost for the first one ? Eight Euros ? +Project Manager: Eight . +Industrial Designer: Eight . Well actually we have yeah to check again yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , eight Euros yeah . +Marketing: And this one was sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +User Interface: Sixteen Euros . +Marketing: Okay . So . Innovation for this one is two ? One ? +User Interface: It's a two , I would say two {gap} . +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: W W un to be one what would do we nee actually , yeah , I don't see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why it is one . +Industrial Designer: okay , one would would be without buttons , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A man {disfmarker} w w +Marketing: Mm . Well +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: the speech recognition is a very good innovation I believe it , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: so {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So maybe we can put one . +Project Manager: This this is it w with the speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: It's using speech recognition , yeah . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Okay yeah . +Project Manager: Gi given that {vocalsound} that it works , +Marketing: Give it a one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then it's I think one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Ease of use ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So the first one is really standard , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so everybody i including our grandmothers can use it , +User Interface: He is used to it act +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: They are used to it actually . +Marketing: Yep . So that's maybe a a two for ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Here there may {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , the other one is quite easy , tho though . +User Interface: Uh , though it has more functionality I think it shouldn't be for the user to learn it actually . It shouldn't be diffi +Marketing: Okay . So maybe a three or a four . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh yeah , actually in fact I think it will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One me um we hope {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe sometimes people get uh scared with the number of buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} y +Industrial Designer: And there is a {disfmarker} like I would say three . Or maybe four {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . Consensus ? Three or four ? +User Interface: Well we have reduced the keys actually you see . +Project Manager: Three , I would . Three . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah +User Interface: Three is fine with me . +Industrial Designer: because it's n uh it's not like a big one with uh one hundred buttons or so , {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: actually the user has to put some effort to do {disfmarker} use that actually , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: it's not so easy , like this one the normal . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes but then when when he is used to it , i i it is quite easy . +User Interface: Is quite easy yeah . +Project Manager: So so I think th three is good . Yeah . +User Interface: Initially there there is a lot of effort , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: So three's +Project Manager: What's the next ? +Marketing: uh how well it goes to the target demographic . So we're d we're still thinking twenty to forty year olds ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Twe twenty to forty , yes that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This one would be uh for grandmothers {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , this would I +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I would I would give this model to the old people actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , grandmothers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So sh completely changed our demographic there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not part of the the funky young thing . +Project Manager: Well exce except for the surfing shape . I mean that's that's something which which has an appeal on this group I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's true . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . If it was the very bottom price range or it was like between this and another one we did the same thing then I can imagine it being {disfmarker} applying to the the demographic +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . That's {disfmarker} it's still {disfmarker} Ye +Project Manager: Mm w w w we {disfmarker} after this we can can consider uh for instance , making this more attractive to to the demographic +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause we have got room , we've got some budget there to add a few things to it , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's right . +Project Manager: But as it is now , I w would say mm , six , something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Oh yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it's so important {disfmarker} it's i it was written that it really so important , the um the the look and uh taking care of its {disfmarker} it targets , the right range of people , +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah but but if you sell it in the market it's going to be cheap , actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's going to be cheap whatever though , +Industrial Designer: But w +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: it was set with i we've got a set price . +User Interface: And people can still decide to use the cheaper one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: instead of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for us it's {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} we have a constraint that we need to sell at twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , indeed . +Marketing: Yeah . There's nothing that would make me spend an extra k few Euros on that one rather than another one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ju just think , twenty five Euros , I mean it's not going to be cheaper . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . So in that case well it's fine then . +Marketing: Okay . Um +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: We can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and the demokraphi demographic of the second one ? +User Interface: And the demographics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's got the got the the toys in it , it's got the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Yeah tha tha tha tha tha that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's better , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because of the L_C_D_ screen which is really an appeal on the on the on the +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: on the {gap} and on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And if you want to target {disfmarker} yeah if we we wish to to sell four millions of this , I think for this audience we need absolutely the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . So , the L_C_D_ screen uh attracts , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: I think especially if we're gonna n have an L_C_D_ screen on a low range product then that's good . +Project Manager: Because it {disfmarker} Mm , ma maybe that's something to consider , yes {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: so . Wh what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'd probably go with three again for that one . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's uh {disfmarker} it has more market actually . +Industrial Designer: Or even {disfmarker} Even one and two . Or two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No s say t two . +User Interface: Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , two , yeah ? +User Interface: two . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Two yeah . +User Interface: Yeah two yeah . Because tomorrow this will be more appealing because you can add {vocalsound} lot of sophistication on that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because then you you have it uh d you have lot of things which you can include +Marketing: Yeah . Yep . And especially I guess 'cause this has the speech recognition as well , +User Interface: for the people to {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that makes it more appealing , it's more of a a new fun toy . +User Interface: We have to practically test it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The field test will tell you how good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the final point , trends . +Marketing: And following the trends . +User Interface: The trends . +Marketing: So the trends were the fruit and vegetables and the spongy feel . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So as it is , not really doing either of them . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy , uh , that means that it goes in in the water . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the spongy could be part of the the feel of the buttons as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know some {disfmarker} have you tried the mobile phones that have got the kinda spongy buttons and {disfmarker} not not exactly spongy but I'm thinking one of the Nokias that's got like you ca it hasn't got individual buttons +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: it's got just a one bit on it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I know . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} that feels kinda spongy . +Industrial Designer: But this one includes this feature , right ? Spongy buttons . +Marketing: So it's sort of , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . We we we we we yeah , it's the way they are going to be , actually . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the maybe in the colour we can make it uh fruit and and veggie . +Marketing: But that's if you're using the covers . +Project Manager: And the then we can al +Marketing: Or is it just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . We can {disfmarker} we can consider uh uh is it possible do you think , to to make a cover for s such a phone ? I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well they make it for mobiles , it can't be that much more complicated . +User Interface: But why do you want to cover that actually ? In that uh w in the mod +Project Manager: Well just with the with the flexible plastic uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you got the option of having different colours or different textures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . This is possible . +Project Manager: I th I th I think {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh uh y are you sure ? Yeah I think yeah it should be possible like what we do with the mobile phone , yeah . +Project Manager: O o or just two things which can be put on each other . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly like Nokia phones {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , exactly like it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh , so Maybe we can {vocalsound} but we have to decide it , we can put the the {vocalsound} the fancy f look of vegetables for instance , to to these covers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and s now try to invest in the in in the features . +Marketing: I think the {disfmarker} if we do the cover that's really going with the company's philosophy of having the fashion in in electronics , it lets people have the latest fashion +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: even next year when fruit and vegetables might be out , you'll still be able to put a new cover on it and then it'll still be in fashion . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause sometimes look at this computer , th this laptop , it's all black , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and uh it's quite conventional , and sometimes people don't like too much flashy colours like this one presented here . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could do like in the range the set of what we propose a black one , very standard one , that meets the the requirements of th such people that want really standard uh things . +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And then you have the option of having the different colours , different covers . +Project Manager: Yes . So so so that that would make the trends equal , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we we we really have {disfmarker} don't have , +Marketing: Mm . There's n yeah . 'Cause that's the that's the feature that could be included in either of them . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Although it is more with the spongy buttons on the um on the other one . +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so a a point better for the for the number two {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . So . Two and three , or one and two ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it's one . +Project Manager: Say , say one and two . One and two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So le le let's see . So d +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: this one has spongy but buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the blue one uh spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , it says a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , I see , yes okay . Good . +Marketing: Okay so the average of that is three six nine divided by five , so five {disfmarker} mm nine by five , one point s eight ? +Project Manager: Just add it . +Industrial Designer: Nine . +Project Manager: You know . Three , six , seven . +User Interface: One point six , one point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: One point eight yeah . +Marketing: This one , eleven thirteen nineteen twenty one , divided by five is four point two +User Interface: Four point {disfmarker} Uh four point two . +Marketing: yep . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Okay . But we still got a very different price for those two so they're not really comparable yet anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . We {disfmarker} we must try to get them closer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's right , yeah that's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Both in i i +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: or we just have to choose . And adapt . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Because , when we choose for this one we have to {vocalsound} we have to make it more attractive +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and w when we {gap} to d for this one we have to make it more cheap . +Marketing: Well it's easier to just make that one cheaper by just taking the speech recognition out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: That'll basically take us down to the budget . +Project Manager: But I'm {vocalsound} now {disfmarker} did y did you work with the same prices that I have here ? +Industrial Designer: So I I give yeah I just give a call with the manufacturer uh and uh I explained them and they told me this could be possible for sixteen Fr Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh unfortunately we didn't see this chip , uh Matthew , +User Interface: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm , tha +Industrial Designer: so maybe we have to recap with this one . +User Interface: Maybe we ought to reconsider everything with this , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yes , well uh re reconsider it . So {vocalsound} let's let's try to to model this this phone in this sheet , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh what kind of energy source uh I I {disfmarker} we didn't speak about that . It's a {disfmarker} it's a normal battery , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it migh It {disfmarker} it'll need uh more than a conventional one , it won't be uh just {disfmarker} maybe you might use a A_A_ battery actually . What do you say , Mael ? +Industrial Designer: For this one it's a normal battery {gap} . +Project Manager: Yes . Just so one battery . 'Kay . Electronics . {gap} given speech recognition I think w you should go for the less fancy chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sample speaker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes , or sample sensor , yes . +Industrial Designer: Sample , yeah , this one . +Project Manager: Yes , this one . Okay . Case ? Um , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Curved . Double curved yeah right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Double curve . +Marketing: Yeah , it's gonna be more than just the biggest case , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: So which one are we talking to ? +User Interface: Are you talking about this or that ? +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Either of them . +Project Manager: Oh yes , we are talking about , but they have the same shape , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . They're both going to be not basic cases . +Project Manager: but , actually bu +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So th th this would be double curves ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Uh , plastic would be the material . +Marketing: Yeah . The basic one , yep . +Industrial Designer: Is it zero Franc ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A special colour ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh special colour , now we leave it to the covers . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So now we're either going button or L_C_D_s , L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Push . Mm , yes , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ is {gap} . It's okay . Just say L_C_D_ {gap} . +Marketing: Is that price per unit , or for the whole thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah th now this is per per unit , this number of components . +User Interface: Ah good . +Marketing: So it would need twelve buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , we might need a scroll wheel , right , for that ? +Industrial Designer: No but for this one it's twelve Euro . +User Interface: No , for that one also . +Industrial Designer: There are twelve ? +Project Manager: So , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , +User Interface: Yeah that's a scroll . +Project Manager: t Yes . Twelve I believe . So this comes to eighteen . +Marketing: Mm . And that's without any special button supplements . +User Interface: Yeah , one scroll wheel you might need . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we'd have a special colour , special form and special material on all of them . They're not just standard buttons . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} but th do you agree th that thi +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute , it's not it's not double curved , it's single curved , right ? Because it's {disfmarker} there is no like {vocalsound} . +Marketing: But I thought it would be curved on two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I +Marketing: it's like it's curved on the sides and curved on the top and bottom as well , that's what I thought . +Project Manager: Yes I'm I'm no I'm no I'm not sh sure . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: Yes I kno undes I understand what you mean , yes . +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} you know this curve like this so , it's w there is only is is is there is nothing like y you know in the other stuff there are {disfmarker} +Marketing: You talking about concave curves ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: yeah concave . +Project Manager: Both . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can put um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You think a single curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the single curved in the sixteen . That makes uh seventeen . And what are just {disfmarker} The bt buttons , we have twelve buttons , are you sure ? Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have more , we've got those {disfmarker} the scroll wheel on the side +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: and yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had a bad uh bad estimation . +User Interface: Bad estimate , +Marketing: The sc +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: we have {disfmarker} we haven't talk about a {gap} , but that's no a {gap} is very exp inexpensive I believe +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but it is not in the list . +Marketing: We've got a scroll wheel for the volume don't we , or is it some other thing that's not on there . +Project Manager: W ho h is this a scroll wheel or is this a a a sort of button which can be pressed on two sides uh so for higher and lower ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: 'Kay we've only got five minutes left guys so we need to wrap it up pretty fast . +Industrial Designer: Yes , a kind of scroll wheel . +Marketing: So this is even more than the um than the cost you gave , the sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so based on that , yeah , um where is the es okay sample speaker {disfmarker} +User Interface: That is the sample sensor and sample speaker . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But still , yeah it {gap} +User Interface: We just need that actually . We need one . +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We could go for the for the for the for the for a simple chip , but then we can't have the the speech recognition , yes ? Yes ? +Industrial Designer: No we cannot , yeah . +Project Manager: So so w when we w a +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: this would this would be cutting the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But the um {disfmarker} Yeah but if you have the {disfmarker} near the L_C_D_ you can um {vocalsound} choose {disfmarker} select between um you know like uni universal between audio , T_V_ and V_C_R_ , and this needs a needs a advanced chip . +Project Manager: Transti +Industrial Designer: Right , Matthew ? +User Interface: Oh I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or regular chip ? +User Interface: I think it's going to be {disfmarker} y y +Industrial Designer: I think yeah regular , today we you can do that with regular chip . +User Interface: yeah it's th with the regular chip , yeah . +Project Manager: Say {gap} say it's regular , regular chip , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we still on fifteen , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So . And what about the number of buttons buttons uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my Matthew ? +Project Manager: Yes but that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} Well we can just say +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: one . +Industrial Designer: When you look at this w , this u uh item , {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ca l we are just {disfmarker} when we just want to uh to cut the number of buttons we have to make seven to to fit in in twelve twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is it possible ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} But that's seven basic buttons right , seven buttons without any adds-on , without special colours or form or material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That'll be {disfmarker} then we have uh have to ask the user to press it several times . +Industrial Designer: You cannot make a phone to your boss saying twelve fifty is really {vocalsound} really low , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: he he he I I +Industrial Designer: no ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} the L_C_D_ display is is three Francs , sorry three Euros , by itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't want to to change that right ? We we really want a L_C_D_ +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: other otherwise we w wouldn not get the market . +Project Manager: Otherwise y you ha you have a s ve very normal uh thing like this . +Industrial Designer: It's evident . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So twelve Euro fifty , we got two off of the battery , +Industrial Designer: And I dunno {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can't do anything about that , so ten fifty , if we want an L_C_D_ dispra display , that's seven fifty um , so we've got seven fifty to use for the case and for the buttons . And the chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sorry the chip's up there already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we're gonna have to scale this down to get within budget , there's no doubt about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A +Industrial Designer: So wha what what each of us think about the {disfmarker} because it's measure point the L_C_D_ , um {disfmarker} Do you think it's important ? +User Interface: Or we could even replace them by buttons actually . +Industrial Designer: Because sometimes whe when you watch the T_V_ in fact , you have a big display and maybe you don't need one more in your hands ? I dunno , I'm just asking . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: A actually it depends , it depends what kind of functionalities you want to add into it , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: for example if you add two more functionalities then better you add two more buttons , or {disfmarker} and you'll have L_C_D_ display which is {disfmarker} that is going to bring the cost by two two Euros at least . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . I think , unless we can really drive these prices down we need to get rid of the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Okay so we can get rid of it +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true yeah . +User Interface: and then add a couple of buttons . +Industrial Designer: But uh , do we want that ? On the market point of view , yeah . What do you think uh , L_C_D_ is a major feature , or ? +Project Manager: Mm . I +Marketing: For the price , it's gonna be what we can afford , and it's looking like we can't afford the L_C_D_ display , there's no way we can get it in there . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: I {gap} think we have to come to a decision now , just I I think we we what we just do i is vote about the uh the L_C_D_ uh display +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You assume , you want a democratic voyt vote , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . {vocalsound} One man one vote . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S so who thinks the the L_C_D_ disply display should be i should be in it ? +Marketing: I th I'd like t it to be in but I can't see it happening . I can't see it fitting in . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to be . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu y you're a power voter {disfmarker} uh veto anyway as Project Manager . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , I know , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah but the only thing is that what is the multiple functionalities you want to include with that . +Marketing: {gap} well we have to make a decision now , that's it . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh uh having an L_C_D_ s display is just uh uh have very very limited amount of buttons . Is that acceptable ? Ca can I have {disfmarker} can the functions be implement in an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} you you agree . +User Interface: W I I I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So hav hav having seven buttons , instead of twelve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that wou would be cutting cutting suh say about these buttons {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Because one yeah th show me that uh actually we could in fact we move these three buttons and have three uh possibilities for each of the three here . Here one , at the middle , and at the bottom . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . I think then we we're really losing ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Okay , {gap} . +User Interface: That will create another problem . For the people to use it . It's not going to be easy . Doing that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . So um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I I think we should we should cut the L_C_D_ screen . That that's that's my opinion . +User Interface: No , it's okay , you uh cut the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: and introduce two more buttons . +Marketing: Okay . So L_C_D_'s out , is speech rec out now ? We've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The speech recognition is out . Because of the budget , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh where , L_C_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay w we now we can just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we basically back to the original one now , back to the first version ? Which turns out to be on budget exactly , pretty much . With these new costings . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: So {gap} just look at {disfmarker} forget that one and look at that one now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . I th I th I think w we just go for this one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and that that now twelve Euros is the is is the price , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My m my supervisor will be glad that it's fifty cents cheaper than he expected . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Actually yeah , +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: we we we will not need the really uh expert designers um because the amount , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . So w we can go back and l talk to the suppliers maybe +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and see if we can drive the prices down to add a few more things in but that's all we can do with the restrictions we have at the moment . +Project Manager: Okay , good . Then we {gap} the same . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That was it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +User Interface: That's it . Cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","In this conversation, the team members from Marketing, Industrial Design, Project Management, and User Interface are discussing the design and budget constraints for a remote control project. The primary goal is to stay within a budget of 12 Euros and 50 cents. + +Initially, the team evaluated two designs with different features and costs. One was a more basic remote slated to cost around eight Euros with a surfboard shape for a distinct look. The other had more advanced features, including an LCD display and speech recognition, priced at sixteen Euros. Despite liking the second design for its innovation, the team struggled to reconcile its features with the set budget. + +As the team worked through the costs, they realized that the pricier option exceeded the budget, even with a potential reduction to thirteen Euros by removing the speech recognition feature. They debated the necessity of the LCD display and eventually decided to drop it to meet the budget constraints. + +The primary challenge was to balance design and innovation with cost while satisfying the target demographic of 20-40-year-olds. Despite initial aspirations for a high-end design with an LCD screen and speech recognition, budget restrictions forced the team to scale back and consider a more basic version without the added functionalities. + +In the end, they had to focus on a design similar to the cheaper eight-Euro version, which fit the budget and was straightforward to use. They concluded the session on the note that further discussions with suppliers could potentially help reduce costs and possibly add back some desired features within budgetary limits." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: So , we are asked to to make uh uh a new remote control for television . And the characteristics of this new remote control should be original and trendy and of course user user friendly . So people can {gap} can use it without any any problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we should set the the points to to drive the project and uh +User Interface: Mm . B did you send us an email about this ? +Project Manager: Uh , not yet , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , we we received an email about this uh d designs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want do you want me to send you a mail ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ah it's Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or you can put it in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yeah , you see the email ? You {gap} email . The v very {disfmarker} no , no the first one . +Marketing: No , I didn't get it . +User Interface: It's inside . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: The third one . Oh , you didn't get anything . +Marketing: No , {gap} . +User Interface: It's strange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: I got an email about the dis about the discussion . Yeah . +Project Manager: You get email , {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno from who . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the account manager . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} From the account manager . You have received the same email , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's for your guys to {vocalsound} how to design it all the aspects so you need that information . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Yeah , so each of us has a role to do . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think {gap} assign your uh roles . +User Interface: In each {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For each for each one . +User Interface: We already have our role . +Marketing: For each person , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Kay , we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So there are {disfmarker} so we have three {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there are three kinds of designs , that's all . +Project Manager: f yeah . We have functional design , conceptual design , and detail design . +User Interface: Okay , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , who will be the the responsible for the functional design ? Any any volunteer ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think our uh responsibilities will be assigned when we {disfmarker} in our mail we received from the account manager . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh +User Interface: I'm doing the interface . +Project Manager: You are doing th +Industrial Designer: No , I'm doing the interface . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Are you using the {disfmarker} you are doing the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I'm I'm {disfmarker} Well , maybe we have {disfmarker} okay so I {gap} industrial design . It was a little confusion about my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's alright . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll for industrial design . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And and you {disfmarker} Norman ? +User Interface: Mm ? Um working on i . {vocalsound} User interface . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'm into marketing . +Project Manager: {gap} doing the marketing . +Marketing: {gap} yeah nothing much in the project . +Project Manager: Nothing related here to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Marketing in this design . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: A design is basically for industrial design and the user interface . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You see the second mail ? Yeah , it's inside . Go down . Appendix . +Marketing: Yeah , this is {gap} . +User Interface: See there's a role for everybody . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right , +User Interface: Even for the marketing . +Marketing: first {gap} . {gap} us user define . +Project Manager: Next {gap} . +User Interface: But look at your role , your marketing role . +Marketing: There's a trend watching . +Project Manager: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah , that's your role . +Project Manager: I {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we can have a little discussion about what has to be done +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and what are your ideas about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About the design or {disfmarker} Maybe we'll discuss this later , no ? +Industrial Designer: Well , w we want to have a new re remote control for for T_V_ distribution I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} plan how how it would be developed and uh +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: how we can make it work {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I mean working remotes we already have . This will be something different from the other remotes {disfmarker} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we we have to keep in mind the {disfmarker} these characteristics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And of course it should not be very costly . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I I think that Norman and I would think about um the technical points and um we should discuss it in the next meeting , or +User Interface: Need to collect information . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: About the {disfmarker} about what ? +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} I I'm part of design , perhaps . Uh , what is most important in a {disfmarker} in a remote control ? What is the most important function aspect ? Uh . +Project Manager: You mean the external {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , you have to make it work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of g of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {vocalsound} that's the big thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it should be easy to work with . +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can think about an interface with uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . We {disfmarker} maybe you can have a speech uh recognition interface . You just tell the television I want {disfmarker} which channel . +Project Manager: You won't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or or you can say for example , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I want uh to list all the programme tonight . Y you know {gap} , instead of {gap} uh remote control it's doing the {disfmarker} some searching for you , so you don't have to look for the channel you want . Just say maybe I just want to press {disfmarker} I wanna have a button for all the movies tonight . Or a button for all the magazines , all the information {disfmarker} documentary tonight . And then you list a few , and I will choose from the list . So instead of pressing the channel number , I am choosing the programmes directly . Yeah , that's one way of uh making it useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I I think if we include a lot of technology on the remote control it will be very costly . +User Interface: No , because {disfmarker} no , +Project Manager: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not very {disfmarker} a lot . Th this information exists . For example you can get um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like s uh you you you say we can use speech . +User Interface: You can use uh {disfmarker} well for example {disfmarker} anything . {vocalsound} The {vocalsound} the idea of using speech to reduce the button , but uh and it's more natural . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think if you want t to choose uh from a list of programme or or something like that you you may have to to use uh w uh I dunno +Marketing: I'm a {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the main uh function of remote control is to have something in the hand +Project Manager: In the hand . +Marketing: and we should be very careful about the size of the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: If we are going to add a speech interface , I'm not sure with {gap} trendy slim size of the remote control it would be able to put a speech recog +User Interface: Yeah . Yes , possible . +Marketing: if you want to put a speech recognition system f interface for that I think the T_V_ itself could have it . +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And I could talk to the T_V_ {disfmarker} television itself . +Project Manager: Except if if you are far from the T_V_ . +Marketing: I need not have an {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean we have some {gap} or something , different technology but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . But th the main idea I wanted to s I wanted to say is that um {vocalsound} there should be a function , instead of choosing the ch T_V_ channel , there's a option you can choose , either T_V_ channels or or pr or the or the contain or the contents of the programme . +Industrial Designer: On the content . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah it's it's a good idea it's a good idea +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So it's more powerful . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I I think that technically it would be um a little bit uh uh more tricky to to achieve this than just to {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No , because you see now all the T_V_ programmes are available on the webs . They they are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are available in X_M_L_ format or whatever the format . We don't care . We just say that this are some content . We just want to retrieve the content and then classi sort them by the types of programmes . Some of the websites they already provide this service , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: so we can just use the service available . Download it uh to the {disfmarker} to this remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And then there's {disfmarker} there are only six buttons for six categories , or sev seven . The most there are only seven buttons . So I just choose the category one and you reuse the same button , for example to to choose among the the sorted list the programme you want , so {vocalsound} you don't have to choose among hundred channels , if you have hundred channels , you just have six buttons , seven buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah we should also optimise the the number of buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I I I I think that j just by using navigation buttons and the user interface on the screen we are able to uh navigate uh through the {disfmarker} Well channel programme or contents or {disfmarker} in an easy way , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {gap} good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah , yes . So {gap} . Yeah . Yeah , so you don't have to display here , just display on the T_V_ screen , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah in the dis display on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Good idea {vocalsound} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and just uh with the with your remote control would just navigate through the f +User Interface: I think I think that will be revol revolutionary {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Because all the T_V_ uh the the remote control have all numbers , lots of buttons and then you dunno what to choose in the end . Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think for for the technical points we have to to to check how to gather the data from programme or contents and all this stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have five minutes to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah w w we have sometimes to use the white-board . +Project Manager: Ah you can y you can you can use it if you {disfmarker} so , can we +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five minutes . +Marketing: And another interesting idea for this would be to have an light adaptation system depending upon the picture of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So , I mean , if you're watching a movie and suddenly there is a dark uh {vocalsound} some dark scene , the lights adapt themself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The lighting in the room changes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but we are designing just remote control . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean , we have a option in the remote control . If we want to have that option , you press that button in the remote . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , do you want to have a conceptual remote control there , or you just want to put the function in ? +Project Manager: Yeah . If if you you you can if you want you can use th the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Please , Norman , draw uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Go on , draw something {gap} . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Oh , I'm afraid you forgot to put your lapel . +User Interface: Where is it ? +Marketing: The lapel . +Project Manager: Or before the before the the design that says {gap} . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where where is it ? Here . +Marketing: Yeah , that one . +Project Manager: Norman . +Marketing: Just plug it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Be before before writing you can uh sit and that says {gap} what we what we said +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: then after that you can you can use the {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , alright . So so the most functional des mm the most important function is to ch choo buttons to choose the content . Right ? We agree on that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , uh first one is to uh {vocalsound} buttons i or it could be anything with {gap} buttons . Uh to choose uh content s or channels . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have both . The user can choose w which one they want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , by content or by channel , +User Interface: By content or by channel . +Industrial Designer: it's a good idea . +User Interface: Choose by contents or by channels . And then what did we say just now ? Other than this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we we have to find a way how to gather information about the contents . +User Interface: Okay , so technically how {disfmarker} the problems that {disfmarker} how to do it is to {disfmarker} how to get the content . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Challenge . +Industrial Designer: I think i it's not very difficult to to browse by channel but it's a little bit tricky to browse by contents so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Content . Okay , so these we have to work it out . So this one of the problem . And uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's the {gap} the things to do +User Interface: The main thing . +Industrial Designer: and uh to uh reflect about it +User Interface: Okay . Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh discuss it in the next meeting . +User Interface: So we are {disfmarker} we'll discuss it {disfmarker} we will get some information in the next meeting , so for now we get uh the funct this is the functional designer {gap} ? That's the first aspect . Right . We will {gap} get information and then we'll come back in . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you everybody . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we'll come . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll meet in maybe five minutes ? And we'll discuss the other other aspects . +User Interface: Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you all {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you , mis {vocalsound} +","A project team is discussing the design of a new TV remote control that must be original, trendy, and user-friendly. The team is considering different aspects of the remote such as functional design, conceptual design, and detail design. They debate over potential features like a speech recognition interface and how to navigate channels or content. Technological challenges and cost implications are also discussed. The team is planning to collect more information and continue the conversation in the next meeting to further outline the project details." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is everyone ready to start ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Great . Well , welcome to the third meeting of conceptual design . I'll just get the PowerPoint presentation up and running . Okay . Um , on the agenda for this , um , for this particular meeting , we'll have your three presentations on what you've done since our last meeting , after we came up with um some general ideas of our design . And , um , then we have to make some key decisions on , on our remote control concept , and how we're gonna make it , what uh materials we're gonna use , and that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The meeting will be forty minutes long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um we will once again have Poppy as our first presenter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and I will switch up PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Should be just loading . {vocalsound} Okay . Oh , although I can't see it on my screen . That says go here . Okay . I've been doing some research into the different components that we could use , um what's available to us f to actually make the remote control . Um , first of all we have to look at how the remote control is actually made , and what is it happens inside the casing , which is more your field . Um , thes main internal feature is a circuit board , which contains all the elec electronics and also the contacts with the power source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is not necessarily a battery , as we're about to see . Um , there are several components of , um , the circuit board that we need to consider , where we'll be getting them from , what they'll be made of . Um , including the integrated circuit , which is also known as the chip . Which is where all the main information is uh contained . Um , diodes , transistors , resonators , resistors , and capacit capacitors all need to be considered as well . Um , and all their positioning in the circuit . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Are they all included , like mandatorily , or r are these different options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , these , they're all different options , they're all separate , apart from the chip , which we will probable decide whether we buy a simple , a regular , advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can go into that later . Um , all the other things are individual components that we'd have to get in separately , and work out the most , like , effective um circuit , including all the wires and everything like that . And the L_E_D_ of course , that's a light emitting diode . So , we could , so we've got flex flexibility with colours and things , with that as well . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , there are lots of different possibilities for the energy source . We could use a basic battery , but that brings with it , like they need to be recharged and the bulk , the size of it as well . And they're not so great to dispose of , environmentally . {vocalsound} There's a hand-powered dynamo which is a sort of thing that was used for torches fifty years ago . A bit out of date . Kinetic energy is something that's been recently developed . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} What is a hand-powered dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: Um , where you manually charge up the power . +Project Manager: Just every , every once in a while ? +Industrial Designer: Like you wind up something . +Project Manager: Just every once in a while or constantly ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? Yeah . Every once in a while I think +Project Manager: Alright . It'd be kind of strange to always be cranking it I think . +Industrial Designer: . But it's {disfmarker} Yeah . It would be like going a step back in time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it would really be with kind of cutting edge technology . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Whereas kinetic energy is a new idea that's being used by some watches and other devices , where you just shake the device and it gives it power . I mean , the kinetic energy is transformed into power to make the circuit work . Um , or there's solar power , which we've been considering inside a building , which is where it's gonna be used , might not be quite so useful . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: But , good to look into , renewable energy , always the way . Um , lots of considerations for the case , like what sort of shape it would be , curved or flat . That's got a lot to do with the ergonomics . Like how it's comfortable and s sits in the hand . We don't want something that's huge and you can't pick up . Or too small . Or too slidy . I know I've had a remote control before which you couldn't tell which was the front and the back , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it had so many buttons on , and the shape was so symmetrical that I'd be pressing like a volume button instead of the on button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't really see which way round it is . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um , we also can choose what materials {disfmarker} um , the {disfmarker} we could use metal , we could use rubber which might be more um ideal for the anti-R_S_I_ . It's like the same sort of rubber that's used in stress balls and things like that , so it's very like soft , not so stressful on your hands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , again , stepping back in time again there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that's quite up to date with what we're looking for here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , titanium is not gonna be possible , even though it just it beyond our budget really . But , would've been maybe for future projects . Um right our choice for buttons as well . We've developed some {disfmarker} we've got some good advances in technology , with our research team have found some uh new multiple um option scroll buttons . I think that was brought up for , um , {disfmarker} they're basically quite a flexible design , modern , you don't have to use individual buttons . You can just slide up and down . I'm sure we're all quite familiar with those on mobiles or computer laptop pads . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um one thing with the scroll buttons though . It , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we would have to have an L_C_D_ um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Project Manager: display , and the glow in the dark thing might be difficult . +Industrial Designer: And that would lead to an advanced {disfmarker} yeah . If we have {disfmarker} yeah . We're going on to that later with the advanc with the L_C_D_ that means we'd need a really advanced chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's unlikely that that's gonna be in our budget . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , also we've got the integrated pushbutton , which is what we're most familiar with . It's the most straightforward . But you can in like incorporate that with a scroll button as well . {gap} . Got decisions to make there . And this is what I was just saying before . Linked in the different {disfmarker} depends on what type of buttons we have and the inputs . Um simple would go with the pushbutton . Um , regular you could link with the scroll button . And the advanced we'd have to go with a L_C_D_ s display . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My personal preferences ? I think we could go for the kinetic energy source . I don't , I think that's quite um an advanced kind of technology . It's not been seen before , so it could be quite a , a novelty factor , attractive as well . And also energy saving 'cause you're producing the energy , you don't need an external sort of battery supply or solar panels . You just give it a shake . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds brilliant to me . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Rubber casing I thing would probably the best , if we're going for the anti-R_S_I_ and like more choice with um aesthetics . Like it could be pretty much any colour we want . Um , and gives you , yeah , more flexibility there . And probably the regular chip as opposed to the simple , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then we could possibly have the scroll and the push , but no L_C_D_ , 'cause we probably can't afford that one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um , one concern with the rubber casing is that it would be rubber encapsulating all of these {vocalsound} chips and diodes and delicate technology as +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like as the exterior . This is the one thing that's protecting its innards . +Industrial Designer: I think that would , uh there would be an in sort of more internal casing . And the rubber would just be the , what's in contact with the human . +Project Manager: Yeah . Another thing is it might be more difficult {disfmarker} if it's a rubber exterior {gap} talking about putting on interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't see how a like a rubber plate going on top it would stay there . Like if it was sort of like a clip-on plastic plate . It would work that way . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if the , um , if it was just kind of a , more of a rubber coating which was on to a case . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: So , it was kind of , the whole thing would be removable . +User Interface: Like plastic with rubber , kind of on top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} I can't think of what . +User Interface: Well , there's , there is a certain phone that has like a rubber casing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or like an {disfmarker} +User Interface: b like a Nokia it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you can get sort of outer casing for iPods and something , that's just {disfmarker} it's protective as well . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like the skin ? +Industrial Designer: It , it stops it , I mean , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it would reduce the impact if it was dropped or something , as well , 'cause it wouldn't damage itself so easily . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . So maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think i maybe a mixture of both there , maybe . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the actual remote would be hard plastic and the casings rubber . +Industrial Designer: And then {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the buttons obviously are rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That sounds good . I , um , is it possible to put designs onto this type of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: As far as I know . It should be . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll just say yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , just why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . I like the kinetic energy source idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know when people will , um , be moving a remote around a lot . +Industrial Designer: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think that it's worth it , kinetety , kinetic um +User Interface: Yeah , tha +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: energy source . It could make an we could have any kind of style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It wouldn't be as heavy or bulky , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just for environmental reasons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess it's a bit scary 'cause it hasn't been done before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it seems {disfmarker} we'd have to do more research on it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or I dunno if you could have a battery pack . +Industrial Designer: Like as a backup for something . +User Interface: Backup . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah so there's there is a one battery , because most remotes use two batteries I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , if it was running off of one battery as a {disfmarker} +User Interface: That would be good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Some alternative just in case something went wrong . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Maybe we could {disfmarker} you were saying about um solar power ma maybe not working indoors , but a lot of calculators , yeah , have solar power . +Industrial Designer: That's true . I just thought of that {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So maybe that could be incorporated as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May maybe that could be the backup . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Instead of a battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like solar backup . +Marketing: Although it needs some light , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose +Project Manager: Yeah , you can watch a T_V_ in the dark then . +User Interface: Do , do those calculators {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: s but some {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if we're doing {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . If we're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But thing is , it's not {disfmarker} you don't need the solar all the time . +User Interface: I don't know how it works . +Industrial Designer: It can be stored . It can be like {disfmarker} you can have the solar energy and then it can store that energy and use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just needs to be in light for a certain amount of time per day . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a few hours a day . {gap} . +Project Manager: I think that might be a little impractical though . +Marketing: Yeah . I think sometimes it's just shoved under , under a cushion , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . It could easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like people don't wanna have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I suppose it would be really annoying if you get to think , oh no , I forgot to charge my remote today . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if the kinetic thing , I think what's best about that is that it's instant energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to , you know , you can shake it a few times , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it works . +Project Manager: Or just like pick it up when you're gonna use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Instead of you don't have to like make sure it's in the right place to charge and {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Cool . +Industrial Designer: K okay . +Project Manager: 'S that the end of your presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: There we go . +User Interface: Thanks . Oh . {vocalsound} It's not on my screen . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it wasn't on mine either . +User Interface: Why ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know why . I think , I just , I just used the mouse on there . +User Interface: You don't know why ? Oh okay . Is it that one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I'm just gonna go through the interface concept with yous now . Uh , first of all I'll explain what a user interface is . It's the aspects of a computer system which can be seen or otherwise perceived , for example , heard or felt maybe , or {vocalsound} by the human user . And it's also the commands that the user uses to control its operation and to input data . Um , there are two types of user interfaces . There's the graphical user interface , which emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device , for example a mouse for input control . So that's sort of like the scroll thing we were talking about . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm not really sure about the pictures that {disfmarker} maybe that's on an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Or maybe it's the the buttons or pictures or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Do you think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I suppose sometime {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm sorry ? +Industrial Designer: after you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , because command interface requires you to type textual commands and input at a keyboard , so the numbers are sort of like a keyboard . You're pressing the numbers for , um , for what you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So you must , for the graphical user you must need some kind of presentation for the graphics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I s I suppose where um mm on some buttons you would have {disfmarker} like the power would be s some kind of symbol . +User Interface: Like an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And if you wanted to go onto teletext or , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not having that , but I mean a similar thing , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you , they have {disfmarker} there's a like little picture with a screen with lines across it , which {disfmarker} I suppose it's that sort of thing like the , the symbol on the button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if we're having a simplified display anyway , w that , we probably won't have to focus so much on that . +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll be doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'll be more the on the numbers and the volume . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It'd be more a command interface , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we need to think of symbols for like the volume , display , and stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just draf graphical for the pointing aspect ? +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: The infrared is like , that's considered a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm ? +User Interface: No I think it's to do with the actual symbols that are on the , that's on the buttons of the remote control , and per +Marketing: Okay . So when it says pointing device that doesn't include {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For inp +User Interface: Well it could be a wee scroller thing , and something could come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think they're talking about L_C_D_ type things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um I think we're gonna go with the command interface anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to make it more simplistic . But the , we could incorporate some of the graphical user um points , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: as in {disfmarker} just to make it m um nicer to look at maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you mean ? +User Interface: Like {vocalsound} I can't think of an example , but {disfmarker} Sort of like little pictures rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , like how the buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a little sound . Instead of saying volume , like a little speaker or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a button though . +User Interface: Yeah , something y +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So , it's a keyboard in the shape of it , right ? +User Interface: Yeah m perha yeah . Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . I like that idea . +User Interface: Um , the co uh {disfmarker} we've decided that the command interface would be the most useful for a remote control . As it would be less complicated , and the controls would be more user-friendly . Um , the remote control would be cheaper to design , so that we'd have more money in the budget to , um , target the design area of the interface . You know , make it more trendy and original . We'll have more money if we keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm sure i like kinetic energy would probably dip into the budget . A bit more too , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Seeing as it's quite a new technology . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We , we also have to keep in mind when we're designing our , um , more user-friendly remote control , that a lot of interfaces consist of a clutter of buttons , that , um , that their functions , colours and forms aren't always helpful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . That's in like the buttons with all the different like colours for different choices and things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It can be a bit , yeah , overwhelming . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . And that all interfaces are different . So , um , that doesn't improve the use of the produ product , so we need to come up with something that's easy to understand . And maybe learn from the mistakes of other interfaces that can be too complicated for people to use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Does anyone have any questions ? +Project Manager: Do you think that we should keep all the buttons to one same colour , just to keep it , give it a simplistic look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think if we go with the um design plate thing , we'll have to . Just because of colour clashing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if we wanted to , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so and , and we might , I mean , depending on what comes out of the design , we might have to stick to just black buttons . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But what about the lighting up effect ? +Marketing: You mean different colours for the lighting or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , well , um , I thought we had um decided that we would {disfmarker} if you touched one of the buttons they'd all light up . And so if they were black , it wouldn't be possible for them to light up . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Oh I see what you're saying . +Project Manager: If they were white they would glow , probably . +Marketing: Well y +Project Manager: If they were made out of rubber . +Marketing: Oh so you're picturing the light is coming from the back . I kinda pictured it as kind of coming from the sides and lighting it up frontwards . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: But , but I guess , you mean from the back . +Project Manager: Where would the light come from ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd assume , like , an internal light , that comes through . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there would have to , have to be some parts maybe transparent around the buttons , or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and well rubber is a more translucent product too , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: so we have that taken care of . +Industrial Designer: It should be able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm . +User Interface: In the phone that I was thinking of as well , when you change the um covers of it , the , the little buttons that actually , you know , that contro control stuff , are behind the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Li yeah . +User Interface: So you can change the buttons when you're changing the faces . Do you know what I mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: 'Cause it's just the wee control , +Marketing: Yeah . They , they insert over . +User Interface: yeah , thing that's behind it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , we don't have to decide on one colour . Each face could have its own colour of buttons maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , if they're raised up buttons . So that you can feel them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We were talking about it being more um , a lot more tangible . +Marketing: T +Project Manager: Um , it might be more difficult to do . If they're , if they're sticking up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's flat then , like o like on a cellphone or a mobile phone , it's like all very flat , and you just have to sort of press down on these tiny little buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would be possible . I don't think it would make that much difference . I mean , the uh the dimensions of it . 'Cause if it's just like constructed in the same way as like the front cover of a mobile phone . You can like take off the hard cover and then there's the like say the buttons . And then you get to the circuit . I don't think it would matter that the buttons were bigger through the , the top casing . I'm sure you could f work it out to fit in the casing , without causing too much difficulty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure that'd be fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . If it's do-able we can do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , sounds good to me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's everything , then ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you . +Marketing: Okay is that my turn then ? +Project Manager: That means you're up . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} I have a shorter report for you today . Um , it took a while to get this , uh {disfmarker} Uh . +Industrial Designer: You're not plugged in yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a very good point . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so um , this report is about uh trend-watching . Um , basically so we can live up to our , our uh purpose of having a very fashionable remote control . Sorry . There we go . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , just so you know , my method was mainly web web-based research this time around . I also spoke with fashion experts in Milan , New York and Paris . And I looked at the design reports from previous years , here at Real Remote . Um , just so c we can work off of them , see how fashions have changed . Um , {vocalsound} so I'll list the three most important aspects that I've come across . Um , and they , they're each more important than the one that comes after it . Uh , the first one is that there should be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look-and-feel . Um , this should be our priority , as we've been saying . The second most important aspect is that a remote sh that the remote control should be technologically innovative . So , I think we've done a lot of talking about that , just with lighting and the buttons and the {disfmarker} face-plates . Um , so it looks like we'll be able to keep on track with that . And the third most important aspect is that the remote control should be easy to use . {vocalsound} So , pretty basic there . And the recent fashion update , uh , according to fashion-watchers in Paris and Milan , is that fruit and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} Um , also , in contra uh in contrast to last year , the feel of the material is expected to be spongy . Again , we've already discussed that with rubber versus hard plastic buttons . Um {disfmarker} So , my personal preferences here , um of course , as {disfmarker} we , we've already talked about the personal face-plates in this meeting , and I'd like to stick to that . The fruits and vegetable themes , I don't know if that's going to work for us . It sounds something that you'd use on kitchenware . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know if we wanna do it on remotes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It could be one of the options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Maybe for the television that people have in their kitchen . Um , the temporary light-up idea , sounds like we're gonna stick to that . And then , uh , tying in a trendy look with user-friendliness . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's the fruits and vegetables is the only area that I find rather jarring . Everything else we can really , we can really +Industrial Designer: It is strange . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , do , according to our plans already , given the market . But fruits and vegetables seems a very strange idea for a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's , it's a little {gap} but it , it's everywhere . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we {disfmarker} I've seen a lot of purses with olives on them , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I I think , I think if we stick to T_V_ based , you know , maybe T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they still need to um fit into people's decor though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or colour schemes . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} I think we possibly could take a more abstract design . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Like look at the basic shapes of different fruits and vegetables . And then just really like strip it down to like really basic shapes . I mean we don't have to make something in the shape of a strawberry , but it could have the curves of a strawberry , or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or a strawberry seed or a leaf . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} The essence of strawberry . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or just like you know really make it a quite abstract , if that's fits in more with what we're doing . Instead of fruits and vegetables , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just {disfmarker} if you look at it straightforward , it's a bit {disfmarker} yeah . It doesn't s quite fit in with the trendy {disfmarker} well , obviously it does , if that's the current theme . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} may maybe we could go more directly , I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But initially , I dunno . I think if we just sort of tone it down a bit . +Project Manager: Tone it down . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and like not , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: like more like photos of fruit , on , on our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Or banana-shaped . {vocalsound} +Marketing: One thing I was thinking though is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if you all remember from our kickoff meeting , we talked about our favourite animals . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe there could be animal-based , you know . Because a lot of people have a house cat . Or , or a dog . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , that might be getting , you know , too specific , and we should see what the success of the first face-plates are . But it's something to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , did you have any questions ? Pretty straightforward ? +Project Manager: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , given that information , we need to start making some more specific decisions . So I'll need to um hook up the PowerPoint again . +Marketing: There you go . {vocalsound} Have you guys been saving your PowerPoint presentations to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't for the first one . But I have now . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: But it's still around right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , hopefully +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Where do you have to save it to ? +Industrial Designer: . Project documents I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm just trying to make this pop up now . Alright . Here we go . Okay so we have to uh decide now exactly what we are going to do . So energy , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: oh . Oh no I can't write it in when it's in this setting . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Does anyone know how to take it out of {disfmarker} Um , +User Interface: Just escape I think . +Marketing: The PowerPoint ? +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah . Okay . Um , so back to decisions . Energy , we've decided on kinetic , right ? +Industrial Designer: Kinetic yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's good . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to have a backup ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or do we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But would a backup really be necessary ? I mean will people just use the battery if there's no , if there's , +Industrial Designer: I think maybe we could just go for the kinetic energy , +Project Manager: if there is backup . +Industrial Designer: and be bold and innovative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and hope this works , and well hope that it works . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's like no reason why it wouldn't work , right ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} no . I , I think we should just like take uh advantage of like using this to its full potential . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It could even be one of our selling points . +Industrial Designer: Go for it . It could be {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fully kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Environmentally conscious or something . +Industrial Designer: Is everyone happy with that ? +Marketing: So if it's not working they just have to shake it a bit and that revitalises it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Hope so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , the next um decision is chip on print . I don't exactly know what that means . +Industrial Designer: Um , it was whether we went for the simple , the regular , or the advanced chip . And that linked in with what buttons we would gonna have , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , and we were going for more simplistic style , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that was without the L_C_D_ . So that means we're not doing the advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it depends on whether we wanted the scroll buttons or just the push buttons . +Project Manager: I think we decided on the pushbuttons , right ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , so that's the simple . +User Interface: Yeah . I don +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Would we need a more advanced one for uh the lighting , the interior lighting system ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah possibly . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So , it's probably gonna be the regular chip that we're going to need . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a medium . +Project Manager: That's called medium , or regular ? +Industrial Designer: So regular chip . Regular sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Marketing: Oh , is regular not simple ? +Industrial Designer: Lighting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's for the lighting , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the lighting that we've decided to put in as well . +Marketing: Right right right . +Project Manager: Okay , and cases . Um , does this , is this dependent on shape , or what it's made of , or what ? +Industrial Designer: So th I think this is just like gonna be the {disfmarker} a very outer case , which we will decide on rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I guess plastic and coated in rubber . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic with rubber +Industrial Designer: Plastic rubber coat . +User Interface: plastic coat . +Project Manager: coating and interchangeable um +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable , yeah . Still going for that . +Project Manager: yeah , interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . User interface concept . This is your time to shine . +User Interface: We decided on the component . I , I I'm sorry , I've lost my um {vocalsound} PowerPoint thing , so I can't remember what it's ca it's the component {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your screen ? +Marketing: Think it was called command interface . +Industrial Designer: Was it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Command interface , {gap} . +User Interface: The command inter +Project Manager: Command interface . +Industrial Designer: Ouch . +User Interface: The command line interface yeah . +Project Manager: Did you say command line ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Line interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , and supplements . What's that all about ? +User Interface: Um , I think that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well we haven't really made any decisions about what we're gonna do about the cluster of button functions , colours and forms , in the {disfmarker} in consistent use . Like what what are ideas to combat these problems ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know how um different interfaces are very different , and can be confusing because because of their difference , and because of the different clusters of buttons that they have . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We haven't really decided what to do about that . +Project Manager: Um , what are our choices here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it's just um w where where shall we locate the buttons . What kind of functions wi shall we have ? +Project Manager: You mean like we'll have the numbers of the channels , and we'll have the channel-changer , and volume , and power ? +Industrial Designer: The power . Volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So pretty {disfmarker} just just the basic button functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Like I don't know if we should go into like adjusting light levels , things like that , because different televisions will have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May yeah . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tone , contrast , and things . That's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That was on , um one of my presentations . About how often it was used . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was minima +Marketing: Do you remember that ? +Industrial Designer: well , it wasn't the l +Project Manager: Yeah , it was hardly ever used really . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I w {vocalsound} Should I bring it up ? +Project Manager: Yeah . And most televisions will come with a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That would be good . Yeah , and surely that would be like quite specific to the individual television , +User Interface: Yeah , each television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay , well we know we want numbers . +Marketing: The ch t Screen settings was used um zero point five times an hour . So tw twice every {disfmarker} once every two hours . Um , and it was considered a one point five relevance , on a scale of ten . That's brightness , colour , tone , all that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think most of that comes like on the i individual television set itself , +User Interface: You don't change that often , yeah . +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? I'm sure it has its own buttons , so you don't necessarily need to have it on remote . +Project Manager: Yeah , it does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , and different televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like we , I don't know if we can make a remote that would be universal to all the different kinds of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: changes like that . +Industrial Designer: So we're just going for power , channels , volume , +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: The other one was audio settings . Mono , stereo , pitch . I mean I sometimes use that . Some T_V_s will have the option of like living room style , movie style , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that , they say that's used zero point eight times an hour , which is actually somewhat high . Like almost once an hour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , relevance of two . +Project Manager: Oh . We have five minutes to finish our meeting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Crap . Okay , um , let's do this fast . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well that didn't some up on mine . +Project Manager: Should we have audio ? It only comes up on mine usually . +User Interface: It w {vocalsound} it would seem silly if we'd {gap} having anything else , just have an audio button though . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Do you know ? +Project Manager: I don't , I {disfmarker} it's , it's a problem with the international uh appeal , I think . Um , if we have audio because we don't know how other televisions work . But we know that everyone has this and it's the same . +User Interface: But we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess that it affects the marketing , 'cause it , {vocalsound} mm it is a good sales ploy to say , aren't you annoyed with remote controls that have all these buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: This one has channel , volume and your channe and your power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . We can just go for , make it a selling point that it is just the basic . +User Interface: That could be a sales pitch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Simple and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: brilliant . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . And , okay , in closing , 'cause we only have five minutes . We'll be meeting again in thirty minutes . Um , you'll be working , Poppy will be working on the look-and-feel design . Wait a minute . Is that right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep , and um the user interface design , so this is where the trendy stuff comes in . And you'll be evaluating the product . Um , Poppy and Tara will have to work together , using modelling clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , um , your personal coach will give you the rest of the information of what needs to happen . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . So , anyone else have something to say ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just have one question about the whole fruit and vegetable aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Are we {disfmarker} seeing as that was the most popular thing that came up out of your market research , I thi I think we should keep to that rather than moving to animals or something , because even if that may not seem obvious to us , if that's what the surveys brought out , I think that we should probably go along with that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I suppose that'll come out in our dev design development . But you're happy to go ahead with the fruit and veg ? +Marketing: Now do you guys need {disfmarker} want an idea of how many uh {disfmarker} are you gonna come up with casing ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah . +Marketing: Like f five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} five . {gap} . +User Interface: What I {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} what do yous think of this ? Um , having the numbers kind of like , not a bunch of grapes , but you know like purple and kind of in a triangle . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like grapes . Like that's kind of fruity or something . +Marketing: Yeah you can have some fun with the buttons , it's true . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can have a look at those ideas , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess what you i ideally you'd kind of think of age markets as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's a something that will , you know , appeal to the fifteen to twenty five year olds . Something that your granny would want on her remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , and international tastes as well , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tricky . {vocalsound} A lot of things to consider . Hm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not easy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Lots of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay we'll stick to the fruit and veggie theme then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And , um , we'll reconvene in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Bye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll see you later . {vocalsound} Oh , what did I just do . Okay . +","At the third conceptual design meeting for an innovative remote control project, the team came together to review progress and discuss important decisions regarding the remote's design. The meeting kicked off with the Project Manager confirming the readiness of the team members, including the Industrial Designer, User Interface specialist, and Marketing executive. + +After some technical hiccups with the PowerPoint presentation, the team dove into their agenda, which included presentations from all three departments and crucial decisions regarding the remote control concept. Matters such as the choice of materials, the design and functionality of the remote, and technological considerations were up for discussion. + +The Industrial Designer presented first, discussing research on the various components of the remote control such as the circuit board, the integrated circuit (chip), and other elements like diodes, transistors, and capacitors. The team pondered the mandatory inclusion of components and the different options available, particularly the type of chip to use, considering the cost implications of going advanced versus simplistic. + +Energy sources were a focal point, with options like a traditional battery, hand-powered dynamo, kinetic energy, and solar power being discussed. The innovative idea of kinetic energy aroused interest due to its novelty and potential for energy saving but also raised concerns about practicality and untested waters. + +The discussion also touched on the design of the remote control's casing, considering ergonomic factors and material choices like rubber, wood, metal, and titanium. The Industrial Designer advocated for a rubber casing aimed at reducing repetitive strain injury (RSI) and providing aesthetic flexibility. + +User Interface followed, emphasizing the importance of a user-friendly design. Types of user interfaces were outlined, including graphical and command interface, with the team leaning towards the latter for simplicity and cost-effectiveness. The team also considered the challenge of making a remote with a button layout that would not be overly complex or cluttered. + +The Marketing executive shared insights into current fashion trends, which indicated a movement toward a fancy look-and-feel with technological innovation and ease of use. An unusual trend of fruit and vegetable themes emerged, alongside preferences for spongy materials, aligning with the team's thoughts on a rubber casing. The team debated incorporating such themes into the remote's design without compromising aesthetic appeal or functionality. + +Throughout the meeting, the Project Manager facilitated the discussions, steering the focus back to the meeting’s core goals and ensuring the team adhered to the time constraints. The group navigated technical challenges, engaged in critical analysis of each other's ideas, and ultimately reached consensus on various aspects of the remote's design. + +They resolved to pursue a kinetic energy source without a backup, a regular chip to accommodate the lighting needs, and a rubber-coated plastic casing with interchangeable plates. They also decided to go forward with a command-line interface for the user interface concept, prioritizing the simplicity of the remote. + +As the meeting drew to a close, the Project Manager summarized the action steps and transitions into a thirty-minute break before the next session. The team left with clear tasks defined, such as working on the look-and-feel design, user interface design, and evaluating the product using modeling clay, guided by their personal coaches. + +With decisions on the fundamental aspects of the remote, including its kinetic energy source, design material, and UI concept, the team looked forward to reconvening and advancing their innovative project to the next stage." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Yep . Soon as I get this . Okay . This is our last meeting . Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting . Uh and then we'll have a , the prototype presentation . {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation . Uh or we'll see what , what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation . Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget . Um then we'll do the evaluation , and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make , or hopefully everything will fall right in line . Um let's see , minutes from the last meeting . Um we looked at uh the the trends . We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel . It was twice as important as anything else . Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles . Um and a spongy feel . So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype . Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity . Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote . Um looking at other other devices . Um the iPod , we really liked the look of that . Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea . Um a two part remote , which was what were were originally looking at . Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use . But I think we've still decided not to go with that . {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case , the different energy sources , the different types of chips , um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote . Um and basically how , what were making for the prototype . So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over . +User Interface: The prototype discussion . +Project Manager: The prototype yeah . Do you need a {disfmarker} this ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there +User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow . Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned , it's basically designed around a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: where it is , obviously it wouldn't be that floppy 'cause this would be hard plastic . These would be like the rubber , the rubber grips . So that's so that would hopefully help with grip , or like the ergonomics of it . Um but all the controlling would be done with this scroll wheel . You have to use your imagination a little bit . And this here represents the screen , where you , where you'd go through . +Project Manager: Very nice . +User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um almost identical to an iPod , where that one way ch through channels , that way th other way through channels . Volume up and down . And then to access the more complicated functions you'd you sorta go , you press that and go through the menus . It's that that simple . That just represents the infrared uh beam . That's a simple on and off switch . Um I don't know , we could use the voice . T that blue bits should be yellow , that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose . And um {vocalsound} that's about it . It's as simple as you , we could make it really . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Is there anything you want to add ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we have there . That's plastic . Plastic covered with rubber . We might uh add some more underneath here . Maybe give it , give it a form . I mean you're supposed to hold it like that , but um just if you grab it , take it from somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference . +Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah . +User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , {gap} use both . Might as well think about {disfmarker} +User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well . Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: What but what's that button ? +Industrial Designer: not do it at all . It's a quick on-off button . +User Interface: Just the on and off . +Project Manager: Uh , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: That's um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important . So you don't have to fiddle with that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Um that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice . You wanna play with that over there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy 'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pretty impressive . +Project Manager: Well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana . +User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose . With the scroll and the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out . Or not luckily . Um do you have a marketing presentation for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I do . Okay . You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria . Um . Okay . So first I'll just discuss some of the criteria that I found . Just based on the past trend reports that I was looking at earlier . And then we'll do a group evaluation of the prototype . And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did . Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier . So we're gonna be doing it based on a seven point scale . And one is going to mean true , that we did actually achieve that . With seven being false , we did not achieve that . {gap} . Okay . So for the first one , we need to decide , did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly , then yes I would say , I would say most definitely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would {gap} . +Project Manager: It's bright . +User Interface: It's bright . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still has your traditional black . +User Interface: It's curved . It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: angles to it . +Project Manager: Yep , not angular . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'd say , when it comes to the ergonomics , the form and stuff , yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: However the colour , we don't have a say in that . +Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some people might say it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That has been , that has been dictated pretty much by the company . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh , we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly , definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'S nothing you can say about that . I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form . +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . It's different . You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that . +Marketing: Um okay so , do you think , since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria , do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Does that sound good ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think ? Three ? Four ? +Project Manager: I would say +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: four . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair . Okay . +Project Manager: Very non-committal , four . +Marketing: Okay , the second one . Did we make it simple for new users ? +Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive , I think yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I think that was the main aim , one of the main aims that we had . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one . +Marketing: One , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'kay . Okay . Um , do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users ? +User Interface: Uh yeah . 'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common , which are channel and volume . +Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And then the other ones are just a matter of just going , just scrolling further . +Project Manager: S scrolling through and selecting a few . +Industrial Designer: Right . So that's a one . +Marketing: So one ? +Project Manager: I think that's a one . +Marketing: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Okay um the fourth one . How about the problem of a remote being easily lost ? One of the number one complaints . +Industrial Designer: Something that big and that yellow you just don't lose anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not , you're not gonna lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's bright yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose . But um if we were to , if we were , that , the speech recognition . That , we could maybe just use that solely for the the finding thing . That was what we'd we'd mentioned . +Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just to use , to find it when it was lost . But like I said , like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily . +Industrial Designer: Oops . Hmm . +User Interface: And it's not gonna fall , like a rectangle would slip down behind things . That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe in the middle again , three or four or something ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose , I mean a million ways . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: But if we do go with the , with the speech recognition , then it , then our scale goes up quite a bit I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . You probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably two . You know . If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd say two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: With the speech recognition , which of course may be changed depending on budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y you could add an extra feature actually . Which makes this thing raise hell when you remove it too far from the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far . +Project Manager: Which , which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah true . But I mean d just those whistling , clapping key rings you have . They're cheap . +Marketing: Annoying alarm or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it can't be that +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff , +User Interface: expensive . +Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage , another piece that starts beeping . That can't cost much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that can also easily be integrated because these things are small enough to to hide , so you have one piece , you have to glue somewhere behind your {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then . {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television , yeah . Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . Are we adding one of these two features ? +Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Or a two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two , 'kay . Okay . Are we technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with +Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker} +User Interface: screens on . +Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology . +Marketing: From iPod yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we have {gap} . +Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow , there's not a lotta yellow . +Industrial Designer: right +Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: right +User Interface: Fa +Industrial Designer: right right . +Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour . +Marketing: Two ? Three ? +User Interface: {gap} 'cause it's stolen . +Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative , to tell you the truth . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No maybe not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah not really . +Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not so many . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um spongy material ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that , kind of , sort of . +Project Manager: We have some spongy , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed , I think . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: It's not a one though . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing +Project Manager: Yeah . Because it's only got what , these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back . +Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a four at most . +Project Manager: Probably a four at most . Possibly even a five . +Marketing: And lastly , did we put the fashion in electronics ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'd say we did . +Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda , you betcha . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour , +User Interface: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Be what we were told , and they'd say yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: 'Kay . Alright . Now we just gotta calculate . Six eight twelve sixteen . Seventeen divided by s +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eight . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} two point four ? +User Interface: Is that some long division ? No . +Project Manager: Something . +Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What two {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: Just , I'm sure there's a {gap} . +Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two . Right ? How does that look ? +Industrial Designer: I'm impressed . I can't do that without a calculator . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I can't do long {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while . +User Interface: very impressive . +Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria ? Is there like a scale that we have to hit ? +Marketing: Oh no . They just told me to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then . +Marketing: So that's that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , let's see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers . You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget . But we do . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah so . You'd been going a long time dividing that . It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on . +Marketing: Oh my god . +User Interface: Two point four two basically . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah we'll go with that . +Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent , you're kidding . +Marketing: Not too shabby . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P +Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this . Oh you can't really see that very well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us . Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's too much . +Project Manager: Well let's see . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that . Okay . Alright so at top , I don't know if you guys can read that or not . I can't 'cause I don't have my glasses on , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source . There's uh four , five , six categories . +Industrial Designer: Battery . +Project Manager: We have energy source , electronics , case . Then we have case material supplements , interface type , and then button supplements . Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source , we picked battery . Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two ? {vocalsound} Like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy , so that that's not our problem . People can change it every month . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is consumerism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print , regular chip-on-print , advanced chip-on-print , sample sensor , sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: We're advanced chip are we ? +Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print , yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , {gap} we have one of those . 'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curved , yes . +Project Manager: Case materials are +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: plastic . Um I guess it's two , since one for the top , one for the bottom . +Industrial Designer: N no . +Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one ? +Industrial Designer: No that's just one . +Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould , we can do that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter 'cause the price on that one is zero , which is nice . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , right . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Special colour ? +Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour . It's a specially ugly colour , but it's not special . +Marketing: Bright yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type . We have pushbutton , scroll-wheel interface , integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton , and an L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say the integrated . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Button supplement ? Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um special form ? Special material . +Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so +Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely . +Project Manager: Or titanium . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium . +Project Manager: They cost us all the same . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap} . +Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged , +Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements . +User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd ignore that . +Marketing: Leave it blank . +Project Manager: Okay . We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll . So our total is fifteen point five . Which I believe is +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much . +Project Manager: by three Euros over . +Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe . So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake . +User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface . And the L_C_D_ display . I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well 'cause we have to have both right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it , it also depends on the software on the on the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . We may not need it . There you go . +Project Manager: Well there we go . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +User Interface: There we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . So we just remove our {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: screen here . +User Interface: Make it a bigger dial . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Easier to use . Even easier to use then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Back to the design room boys . +Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: there you go . {gap} central ? +Marketing: What's the blue part ? +User Interface: That was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we ran out of yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's the batteries . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: . Oops . +User Interface: Even simpler . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there . +Industrial Designer: One more criteria . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro . Was no . We redesigned it . Now it's yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next slide . Project evaluation . Uh project process , satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , new ideas found . Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here . I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me . But I'd like to hear your thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Good teamwork {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just half a day , you have a remote . There you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Right from the start of the day . +Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought . +Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak . Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing . Um room for creativity ? There was that . Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things . Um you guys worked together well as a team . And um the means ? Which was the whiteboard and the pens . +User Interface: Yeah . We've used the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Super super . +Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think , but {vocalsound} minus your p +Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault . That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me , +Marketing: No I know . I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . Incom {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll , believe me . +Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay . N new ideas found ? Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Kinda . +Project Manager: Yes for the remote . Maybe no not f for +User Interface: Technology used . +Project Manager: technology . Alright . Closing . Costs are within the budget . Project is evaluated . Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary . That's it . +User Interface: Excellent . +Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Actually . Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up . And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can , what goes on after that . +Marketing: We might have a while though . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting . +","This is the transcript of the final meeting for a project team focused on the development of a new prototype for a remote control, capturing the multifaceted and iterative nature of the product design process. The project manager heads the discussion, guiding the group through an agenda that includes reviewing minutes from the last meeting, presenting the prototype, evaluating it against criteria, discussing the finance/budget, and considering any necessary changes. + +During the review of the previous meeting's minutes, the project manager recounts the identified consumer trends towards a fancier look-and-feel for products, the popularity of fruit and vegetable themes in designs, and a preference for a spongy texture. The team had established an intent to integrate these elements into their prototype. Less complexity and limited buttons were also highlights, along with a reference to speech recognition's growing ease of use, which was however ultimately excluded from the design. + +Turning to the prototype discussion led by the User Interface designer, they introduced a remote control that is banana-shaped, bright yellow for visibility, and includes rubber grips for better ergonomics. Its functionality is driven predominantly by a simple scroll wheel and is compared to the operation of an iPod, suggesting an intuitive interface. Marketing and Industrial Design contributions focused on the remote's aesthetics and potential features, including a suggestion of a proximity-based locator to mitigate against the device being misplaced. + +Marketing then steps in to evaluate the prototype against certain criteria such as aesthetic appeal, simplicity for new users, matching user behavior, and innovativeness. The discussions emphasize the balance between meeting user complaints, like remotes being easily lost, and the forced choice of a bright yellow color which has its detractors in terms of fashion. There is an implicit acknowledgment of a need for compromise between design ideals and corporate mandates or budgetary constraints. + +Following the evaluation, a shift toward budget discussions reveals the challenge of maintaining a cost-effective design. The project manager, User Interface designer, and Marketing representative engage in a practical discussion of material and technological specifications, eventually deciding to eliminate an LCD display to meet budget requirements. This alteration prompts another design iteration, with the team entertaining the notion of additional features to make the remote easier to find. + +The project manager then seeks the team's input on the project process, inviting reflections on creativity, leadership, teamwork, and the tools provided (like the whiteboard). This introspective commentary reveals an underlying contentment with the process and outcomes, despite initial leadership uncertainties. + +The meeting concludes with the project manager noting that costs are within budget and that final questionnaires and summaries will follow, hinting at subsequent administrative wrap-up activities and potential future discussions with higher-level executives to determine the next steps for the project. + +Overall, this summary draws a picture of a dynamic project team navigating design innovation, user preferences, practical constraints, and internal team dynamics to create a new prototype remote control. The interactive and often informal nature of their conversation showcases the real-world challenges of designing consumer electronics within a corporate structure." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc B: Alright . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , so I wanted to discuss digits briefly , but that won't take too long . +Professor C: Oh good . Right . OK , agenda items , Uh , we have digits , What else we got ? +PhD A: New version of the presegmentation . +Professor C: New version of presegmentation . +Postdoc B: Um , do we wanna say something about the , an update of the , uh , transcript ? +PhD G: Yeah , why don't you summarize the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Update on transcripts . +PhD G: And I guess that includes some {disfmarker} the filtering for the , the ASI refs , too . +Postdoc B: Mmm . +Professor C: Filtering for what ? +PhD G: For the references that we need to go from the {disfmarker} the {pause} fancy transcripts to the sort of {nonvocalsound} brain - dead . +Postdoc B: It 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be {disfmarker} basically it 'll be a re - cap of a meeting that we had jointly this morning . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: With Don , as well . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Got it . Anything else more pressing than those things ? So {disfmarker} So , why don't we just do those . You said yours was brief , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . OK well , the , w uh as you can see from the numbers on the digits we 're almost done . The digits goes up to {pause} about four thousand . Um , and so , uh , we probably will be done with the TI - digits in , um , another couple weeks . um , depending on how many we read each time . So there were a bunch that we skipped . You know , someone fills out the form and then they 're not at the meeting and so it 's blank . Um , but those are almost all filled in as well . And so , once we 're {disfmarker} it 's done it would be very nice to train up a recognizer and actually start working with this data . +PhD D: So we 'll have a corpus that 's the size of TI - digits ? +Grad F: And so {disfmarker} One particular test set of TI - digits . +PhD D: Test set , OK . +Grad F: So , I {disfmarker} I extracted , Ther - there was a file sitting around which people have used here as a test set . It had been randomized and so on +PhD D: +Grad F: and that 's just what I used to generate the order . of these particular ones . +PhD D: Oh ! Great . Great . +Professor C: So , I 'm impressed by what we could do , Is take the standard training set for TI - digits , train up with whatever , you know , great features we think we have , uh for instance , and then test on uh this test set . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: And presumably uh it should do reasonably well on that , and then , presumably , we should go to the distant mike , and it should do poorly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we should get really smart over the next year or two , and it {disfmarker} that should get better . +Grad F: Right . And inc increase it by one or two percent , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: Um , but , in order to do that we need to extract out the actual digits . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um , so that {disfmarker} the reason it 's not just a transcript is that there 're false starts , and misreads , and miscues and things like that . And so I have a set of scripts and X Waves where you just select the portion , hit R , um , it tells you what the next one should be , and you just look for that . You know , so it {disfmarker} it 'll put on the screen , "" The next set is six nine , nine two two "" . And you find that , and , hit the key and it records it in a file in a particular format . +Professor C: So is this {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so the {disfmarker} the question is , should we have the transcribers do that or should we just do it ? Well , some of us . I 've been do I 've done , eight meetings , something like that , just by hand . Just myself , rather . So it will not take long . Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , what {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Postdoc B: My feeling is that we discussed this right before coffee and I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a fine idea partly because , um , it 's not un unrelated to their present skill set , but it will add , for them , an extra dimension , it might be an interesting break for them . And also it is contributing to the , uh , c composition of the transcript cuz we can incorporate those numbers directly and it 'll be a more complete transcript . So I 'm {disfmarker} I think it 's fine , that part . +Grad F: There is {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So you think it 's fine to have the transcribers do it ? +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +Grad F: There 's one other small bit , which is just entering the information which at s which is at the top of this form , onto the computer , to go along with the {disfmarker} where the digits are recorded automatically . +PhD D: Good . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And so it 's just , you know , typing in name , times {disfmarker} time , date , and so on . Um , which again either they can do , but it is , you know , firing up an editor , or , again , I can do . Or someone else can do . +Postdoc B: And , that , you know , I 'm not , that {disfmarker} that one I 'm not so sure if it 's into the {disfmarker} the , things that , I , wanted to use the hours for , because the , the time that they 'd be spending doing that they wouldn't be able to be putting more words on . +Professor C: Mmm . +Postdoc B: But that 's really your choice , it 's your {disfmarker} +PhD D: So are these two separate tasks that can happen ? Or do they have to happen at the same time before {disfmarker} +Grad F: No they don't have {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} you have to enter the data before , you do the second task , but they don't have to happen at the same time . +PhD D: OK . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's just I have a file whi which has this information on it , and then when you start using my scripts , for extracting the times , it adds the times at the bottom of the file . And so , um , I mean , it 's easy to create the files and leave them blank , and so actually we could do it in either order . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of nice to have the same person do it just as a double - check , to make sure you 're entering for the right person . But , either way . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah just by way of uh , uh , a uh , order of magnitude , uh , um , we 've been working with this Aurora , uh data set . And , uh , the best score , on the , nicest part of the data , that is , where you 've got training and test set that are basically the same kinds of noise and so forth , uh , is about , uh {disfmarker} I think the best score was something like five percent , uh , error , per digit . +PhD A: Per digit . +Professor C: So , that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Per digit . +Professor C: You 're right . So if you were doing {pause} ten digit , uh , recognition , {vocalsound} you would really be in trouble . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} The point there , and this is uh car noise uh , uh things , but {disfmarker} but real {disfmarker} real situation , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: well , "" real "" , Um , the {disfmarker} uh there 's one microphone that 's close , that they have as {disfmarker} as this sort of thing , close versus distant . Uh but in a car , instead of {disfmarker} instead of having a projector noise it 's {disfmarker} it 's car noise . Uh but it wasn't artificially added to get some {disfmarker} some artificial signal - to - noise ratio . It was just people driving around in a car . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's an indication , uh that was with , many sites competing , and this was the very best score and so forth , so . More typical numbers like +PhD D: Although the models weren't , that good , right ? I mean , the models are pretty crappy ? +Professor C: You 're right . I think that we could have done better on the models , but the thing is that we got {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is the kind of typical number , for all of the , uh , uh , things in this task , all of the , um , languages . And so I {disfmarker} I think we 'd probably {disfmarker} the models would be better in some than in others . Um , so , uh . Anyway , just an indication once you get into this kind of realm even if you 're looking at connected digits it can be pretty hard . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Hmm . It 's gonna be fun to see how we , compare at this . Very exciting . s @ @ . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: How did we do on the TI - digits ? +Grad F: Well the prosodics are so much different s it 's gonna be , strange . I mean the prosodics are not the same as TI - digits , for example . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much of effect that will have . +PhD D: H how do {disfmarker} +PhD G: What do you mean , the prosodics ? +Grad F: Um , just what we were talking about with grouping . That with these , the grouping , there 's no grouping at all , and so it 's just {disfmarker} the only sort of discontinuity you have is at the beginning and the end . +PhD G: So what are they doing in Aurora , are they reading actual phone numbers , +Grad F: Aurora I don't know . I don't know what they do in Aurora . +PhD G: or , a {disfmarker} a digit at a time , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: no , no I mean it 's connected {disfmarker} it 's connected , uh , digits , +PhD G: Connected . +Professor C: yeah . But . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: So there 's also the {disfmarker} not just the prosody but the cross {disfmarker} the cross - word modeling is probably quite different . +PhD D: H How +Grad F: But in TI - digits , they 're reading things like zip codes and phone numbers and things like that , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: do we do on TI - digits ? +Grad F: so it 's gonna be different . I don't remember . I mean , very good , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , I mean we were in the . +Grad F: One and a half percent , two percent , something like that ? +Professor C: Uh , I th no I think we got under a percent , but it was {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but I mean . The very best system that I saw in the literature was a point two five percent or something that somebody had at {disfmarker} at Bell Labs , or . Uh , but . But , uh , sort of pulling out all the stops . +Grad F: Oh really ? +Postdoc B: s @ @ . It s strikes me that there are more {disfmarker} each of them is more informative because it 's so , random , +Grad F: OK . Alright . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: But I think a lot of systems sort of get half a percent , or three - quarters a percent , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: and we 're {disfmarker} we 're in there somewhere . +Grad F: But that {disfmarker} I mean it 's really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's close - talking mikes , no noise , clean signal , just digits , I mean , every everything is good . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's the beginning of time in speech recognition . +Grad F: Yes , exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And we 've only recently got it to anywhere near human . +PhD G: It 's like the , single cell , you know , it 's the beginning of life , +PhD D: Pre - prehistory . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad F: And it 's still like an order of magnitude worse than what humans do . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: When {disfmarker} When they 're wide awake , yeah . Um , +Grad F: Yeah . After coffee . +Professor C: after coffee , you 're right . Not after lunch . +Grad F: OK , so , um , what I 'll do then is I 'll go ahead and enter , this data . And then , hand off to Jane , and the transcribers to do the actual extraction of the digits . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . One question I have that {disfmarker} that I mean , we wouldn't know the answer to now but might , do some guessing , but I was talking before about doing some model modeling of arti uh , uh , marking of articulatory , features , with overlap and so on . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: And , and , um , On some subset . One thought might be to do this uh , on {disfmarker} on the digits , or some piece of the digits . Uh , it 'd be easier , uh , and so forth . The only thing is I 'm a little concerned that maybe the kind of phenomena , in w i i The reason for doing it is because the {disfmarker} the argument is that certainly with conversational speech , the stuff that we 've looked at here before , um , just doing the simple mapping , from , um , the phone , to the corresponding features that you could look up in a book , uh , isn't right . It isn't actually right . In fact there 's these overlapping processes where some voicing some up and then some , you know , some nasality is {disfmarker} comes in here , and so forth . And you do this gross thing saying "" Well I guess it 's this phone starting there "" . So , uh , that 's the reasoning . But , It could be that when we 're reading digits , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's for such a limited set , that maybe {disfmarker} maybe that phenomenon doesn't occur as much . I don't know . Di - an anybody {disfmarker} ? {pause} Do you have any {disfmarker} ? {pause} Anybody have any opinion about that , +Postdoc B: and that people might articulate more , and you that might end up with more {disfmarker} a closer correspondence . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD D: Sort of less predictability , +Grad F: That {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} You hafta {disfmarker} +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Would , this corpus really be the right one to even try that on ? +PhD G: Well it 's definitely true that , when people are , reading , even if they 're re - reading what , they had said spontaneously , that they have very different patterns . Mitch showed that , and some , dissertations have shown that . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: So the fact that they 're reading , first of all , whether they 're reading in a room of , people , or rea you know , just the fact that they 're reading will make a difference . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: And , depends what you 're interested in . +Professor C: See , I don't know . So , may maybe the thing will be do {disfmarker} to take some very small subset , I mean not have a big , program , but take a small set , uh , subset of the conversational speech and a small subset of the digits , and {pause} look and {disfmarker} and just get a feeling for it . Um , just take a look . Really . +Postdoc B: H That could {disfmarker} could be an interesting design , too , cuz then you 'd have the com the comparison of the , uh , predictable speech versus the less predictable speech +Professor C: Cuz I don't think anybody is , I at least , I don't know , of anybody , uh , well , I don't know , {vocalsound} the answers . +PhD D: Hey . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and maybe you 'd find that it worked in , in the , case of the pr of the , uh , non - predictable . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hafta think about , the particular acoustic features to mark , too , because , I mean , some things , they wouldn't be able to mark , like , uh , you know , uh , tense lax . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Some things are really difficult . You know , +Postdoc B: Well . +PhD D: just listening . +Grad F: M I think we can get Ohala in to , give us some advice on that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Also I thought you were thinking of a much more restricted set of features , that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was , like he said , {vocalsound} I was gonna bring John in and ask John what he thought . +Postdoc B: Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . But I mean you want {disfmarker} you want it be restrictive but you also want it to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have coverage . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah +Professor C: You know i you should . It should be such that if you , if you , uh , if you had o um , all of the features , determined that you {disfmarker} that you were uh ch have chosen , that that would tell you , uh , in the steady - state case , uh , the phone . So , um . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad F: Even , I guess with vowels that would be pretty hard , wouldn't it ? To identify actually , you know , which one it is ? +Postdoc B: It would seem to me that the points of articulation would be m more , g uh , I mean that 's {disfmarker} I think about articulatory features , I think about , points of articulation , which means , uh , rather than vowels . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: Points of articulation ? What do you mean ? +Postdoc B: So , is it , uh , bilabial or dental or is it , you know , palatal . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Which {disfmarker} which are all like where {disfmarker} where your tongue comes to rest . +Professor C: Place , place . +PhD D: Place of ar place of articulation . +Grad F: Uvular . +PhD A: Place . +Postdoc B: Place . Thank you , what {disfmarker} whatev whatever I s said , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I really meant place . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK , I see . +Professor C: Yeah . OK we got our jargon then , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD G: Well it 's also , there 's , really a difference between , the pronunciation models in the dictionary , and , the pronunciations that people produce . And , so , You get , some of that information from Steve 's work on the {disfmarker} on the labeling +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and it really , I actually think that data should be used more . That maybe , although I think the meeting context is great , that he has transcriptions that give you the actual phone sequence . And you can go from {disfmarker} not from that to the articulatory features , but that would be a better starting point for marking , the gestural features , then , data where you don't have that , because , we {disfmarker} you wanna know , both about the way that they 're producing a certain sound , and what kinds of , you know what kinds of , phonemic , differences you get between these , transcribed , sequences and the dictionary ones . +Professor C: Well you might be right that mi might be the way at getting at , what I was talking about , but the particular reason why I was interested in doing that was because I remember , when that happened , and , John Ohala was over here and he was looking at the spectrograms of the more difficult ones . Uh , he didn't know what to say , about , what is the sequence of phones there . They came up with some compromise . Because that really wasn't what it look like . It didn't look like a sequence of phones +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: it look like this blending thing happening here and here and here . +Grad F: Yeah , so you have this feature here , and , overlap , yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: There was no name for that . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: But it still is {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} there are two steps . One {disfmarker} you know , one is going from a dictionary pronunciation of something , like , "" gonna see you tomorrow "" , +Grad F: And {disfmarker} Or "" gonta "" . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +PhD G: it could be "" going to "" or "" gonna "" or "" gonta s "" you know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: And , yeah . "" Gonna see you tomorrow "" , uh , "" guh see you tomorrow "" . And , that it would be nice to have these , intermediate , or these {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} these reduced pronunciations that those transcribers had marked or to have people mark those as well . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Because , it 's not , um , that easy to go from the , dictionary , word pronuncia the dictionary phone pronunciation , to the gestural one without this intermediate or a syllable level kind of , representation . +Grad F: Well I don't think Morgan 's suggesting that we do that , though . +Professor C: Do you mean , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , I I I 'm jus at the moment of course we 're just talking about what , to provide as a tool for people to do research who have different ideas about how to do it . So for instance , you might have someone who just has a wor has words with states , and has uh {disfmarker} uh , comes from articulatory gestures to that . And someone else , might actually want some phonetic uh intermediate thing . So I think it would be {disfmarker} be best to have all of it if we could . But {pause} um , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} What I 'm imagining is a score - like notation , where each line is a particular feature . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: so you would say , you know , it 's voiced through here , and so you have label here , and you have nas nasal here , and , they {disfmarker} they could be overlapping in all sorts of bizarre ways that don't correspond to the timing on phones . +Professor C: I mean this is the kind of reason why {disfmarker} I remember when at one of the Switchboard , workshops , that uh when we talked about doing the transcription project , Dave Talkin said , "" can't be done "" . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: He was {disfmarker} he was , what {disfmarker} what he meant was that this isn't , you know , a sequence of phones , and when you actually look at Switchboard that 's , not what you see , and , you know . And . It , +Grad F: And in {disfmarker} in fact the inter - annotator agreement was not that good , right ? On the harder ones ? +Professor C: yeah I mean it was +PhD G: It depends how you look at it , and I {disfmarker} I understand what you 're saying about this , kind of transcription exactly , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: because I 've seen {disfmarker} you know , where does the voicing bar start and so forth . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: All I 'm saying is that , it is useful to have that {disfmarker} the transcription of what was really said , and which syllables were reduced . Uh , if you 're gonna add the features it 's also useful to have some level of representation which is , is a reduced {disfmarker} it 's a pronunciation variant , that currently the dictionaries don't give you +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because if you add them to the dictionary and you run recognition , you , you add confusion . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD G: So people purposely don't add them . So it 's useful to know which variant was {disfmarker} was produced , at least at the phone level . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} it would be great if we had , either these kind of , labelings on , the same portion of Switchboard that Steve marked , or , Steve 's type markings on this data , with these . +PhD G: Right . That 's all , I mean . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , no I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that . +PhD G: And Steve 's type is fairly {disfmarker} it 's not that slow , uh , uh , I dunno exactly what the , timing was , but . +Professor C: Yeah u I don't disagree with it the on the only thing is that , What you actually will end {disfmarker} en end up with is something , i it 's all compromised , right , so , the string that you end up with isn't , actually , what happened . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's the best compromise that a group of people scratching their heads could come up with to describe what happened . +PhD D: And it 's more accurate than , phone labels . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But . And it 's more accurate than the {disfmarker} than the dictionary or , if you 've got a pronunciation uh lexicon that has three or four , +Grad F: The word . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: this might be have been the fifth one that you tr that you pruned or whatever , +PhD D: So it 's like a continuum . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: so sure . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} you 're going all the way down , +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD G: That 's what I meant is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: an and in some places it would fill in , So {disfmarker} the kinds of gestural features are not everywhere . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: So there are some things that you don't have access to either from your ear or the spectrogram , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but you know what phone it was and that 's about all you can {disfmarker} all you can say . +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: And then there are other cases where , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's basically just having , multiple levels of {disfmarker} of , information and marking , on the signal . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Well the other difference is that the {disfmarker} the features , are not synchronous , +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: right . They overlap each other in weird ways . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's not a strictly one - dimensional signal . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So I think that 's sorta qualitatively different . +PhD G: Right . You can add the features in , uh , but it 'll be underspecified . +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD G: Th - there 'll be no way for you to actually mark what was said completely by features . +Grad F: Well not with our current system but you could imagine designing a system , that the states were features , rather than phones . +PhD G: And i if you 're {disfmarker} Well , we {disfmarker} we 've probably have a {vocalsound} separate , um , discussion of , uh {disfmarker} of whether you can do that . +Postdoc B: That 's {disfmarker} Well , {pause} isn't that {disfmarker} I thought that was , well but that {disfmarker} wasn't that kinda the direction ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I thought +Professor C: Yeah , so I mean , what , what {disfmarker} where this is , I mean , I I want would like to have something that 's useful to people other than those who are doing the specific kind of research I have in mind , so it should be something broader . But , The {disfmarker} but uh where I 'm coming from is , uh , we 're coming off of stuff that Larry Saul did with {disfmarker} with , um , uh , John Dalan and Muzim Rahim in which , uh , they , uh , have , um , a m a multi - band system that is , uh , trained through a combination of gradient learning an and EM , to {pause} um , estimate , uh , {vocalsound} the , uh , value for m for {disfmarker} for a particular feature . OK . And this is part of a larger , image that John Dalan has about how the human brain does it in which he 's sort of imagining that , individual frequency channels are coming up with their own estimate , of {disfmarker} of these , these kinds of {disfmarker} something like this . Might not be , you know , exact features that , Jakobson thought of or something . But I mean you know some , something like that . Some kind of low - level features , which are not , fully , you know , phone classification . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th this particular image , of how thi how it 's done , is that , then given all of these estimates at that level , there 's a level above it , then which is {disfmarker} is making , some kind of sound unit classification such as , you know , phone and {disfmarker} and , you know . You could argue what , what a sound unit should be , and {disfmarker} and so forth . But that {disfmarker} that 's sort of what I was imagining doing , um , and {disfmarker} but it 's still open within that whether you would have an intermediate level in which it was actually phones , or not . You wouldn't necessarily have to . Um , but , Again , I wouldn't wanna , wouldn't want what we {disfmarker} we produced to be so , know , local in perspective that it {disfmarker} it was matched , what we were thinking of doing one week , And {disfmarker} and , and , you know , what you 're saying is absolutely right . That , that if we , can we should put in , uh , another level of , of description there if we 're gonna get into some of this low - level stuff . +PhD D: Well , you know , um {disfmarker} I mean if we 're talking about , having the , annotators annotate these kinds of features , it seems like , You know , you {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the question is , do they do that on , meeting data ? Or do they do that on , Switchboard ? +Grad F: That 's what I was saying , +Postdoc B: W Well it seems like you could do both . +Grad F: maybe meeting data isn't the right corpus . +Postdoc B: I mean , I was thinking that it would be interesting , to do it with respect to , parts of Switchboard anyway , in terms of , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} partly to see , if you could , generate first guesses at what the articulatory feature would be , based on the phone representation at that lower level . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: It might be a time gain . But also in terms of comparability of , um , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well cuz the yeah , and then also , if you did it on Switchboard , you would have , the full continuum of transcriptions . +Postdoc B: what you gain Yep . +PhD D: You 'd have it , from the lowest level , the ac acoustic features , then you 'd have the , you know , the phonetic level that Steve did , +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah that {disfmarker} that 's all I was thinking about . +Postdoc B: And you could tell that {disfmarker} +PhD D: and , yeah . +PhD G: it is telephone band , so , the bandwidth might be {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 'd be a complete , set then . +Postdoc B: And you get the relative gain up ahead . +Professor C: It 's so it 's a little different . So I mean i we 'll see wha how much we can , uh , get the people to do , and how much money we 'll have and all this sort of thing , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But it {disfmarker} it might be good to do what Jane was saying uh , you know , seed it , with , guesses about what we think the features are , based on , you know , the phone or Steve 's transcriptions or something . to make it quicker . +Professor C: but , Might be do both . +Grad F: Alright , so based on the phone transcripts they would all be synchronous , but then you could imagine , nudging them here and there . +PhD D: Adjusting ? Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Scoot the voicing over a little , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Well I think what {disfmarker} I mean I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm a l little behind in what they 're doing , now , and , uh , the stuff they 're doing on Switchboard now . But I think that , Steve and the gang are doing , something with an automatic system first and then doing some adjustment . As I re as I recall . So I mean that 's probably the right way to go anyway , is to {disfmarker} is to start off with an automatic system with a pretty rich pronunciation dictionary that , that , um , you know , tries , to label it all . And then , people go through and fix it . +Postdoc B: So in {disfmarker} in our case you 'd think about us s starting with maybe the regular dictionary entry , and then ? Or {pause} would we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , regular dictionary , I mean , this is a pretty rich dictionary . It 's got , got a fair number of pronunciations in it +Postdoc B: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or you could start from the {disfmarker} if we were gonna , do the same set , of sentences that Steve had , done , we could start with those transcriptions . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . So I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: That 's actually what I was thinking , is tha {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: the problem is when you run , uh , if you run a regular dictionary , um , even if you have variants , in there , which most people don't , you don't always get , out , the actual pronunciations , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: so that 's why the human transcriber 's giving you the {disfmarker} that pronunciation , +Postdoc B: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: Actually maybe they 're using phone recognizers . +PhD G: and so y they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} I thought that they were {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is that what they 're doing ? +Grad F: They are . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: we should catch up on what Steve is , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} I think that would be a good i good idea . +Professor C: Yeah , so I think that i i we also don't have , I mean , we 've got a good start on it , but we don't have a really good , meeting , recorder or recognizer or transcriber or anything yet , so . So , I mean another way to look at this is to , is to , uh , do some stuff on Switchboard which has all this other , stuff to it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , um , As we get , further down the road and we can do more things ahead of time , we can , do some of the same things to the meeting data . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And I 'm {disfmarker} and these people might {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they are , s most of them are trained with IPA . +Professor C: Yeah +Postdoc B: They 'd be able to do phonetic - level coding , or articulatory . +PhD D: Are they busy for the next couple years , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I mean they , they {disfmarker} they 're interested in continuing working with us , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I , and this would be up their alley , so , we could {disfmarker} when the {disfmarker} when you d meet with , with John Ohala and find , you know what taxonomy you want to apply , then , they 'd be , good to train onto it . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Anyway , this is , not an urgent thing at all , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: just it came up . +PhD D: It 'd be very interesting though , to have {pause} that data . +Postdoc B: I think so , too . +Grad F: I wonder , how would you do a forced alignment ? +PhD G: Yeah . Might {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Interesting idea . +Grad F: To {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I mean , you 'd wanna iterate , somehow . Yeah . It 's interesting thing to think about . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: It might be {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean you 'd {disfmarker} you 'd want models for spreading . +PhD G: I was thinking it might be n +PhD D: Of the f acoustic features ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well it might be neat to do some , phonetic , features on these , nonword words . Are {disfmarker} are these kinds of words that people never {disfmarker} the "" huh ""s and the "" hmm ""s and the "" huh "" {vocalsound} and the uh {disfmarker} These k No , I 'm serious . There are all these kinds of {pause} functional , uh , elements . I don't know what you call {pause} them . But not just fill pauses but all kinds of ways of {pause} interrupting {comment} and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And some of them are , {vocalsound} yeah , "" uh - huh ""s , and "" hmm ""s , and , "" hmm ! "" "" hmm "" {comment} "" OK "" , "" uh "" {comment} Grunts , uh , that might be interesting . +Postdoc B: He 's got lip {disfmarker} {pause} lipsmacks . +PhD G: In the meetings . +Professor C: We should move on . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , new version of , uh , presegmentation ? +PhD A: Uh , oh yeah , um , {vocalsound} I worked a little bit on the {disfmarker} on the presegmentation to {disfmarker} to get another version which does channel - specific , uh , speech - nonspeech detection . And , what I did is I used some normalized features which , uh , look in into the {disfmarker} which is normalized energy , uh , energy normalized by the mean over the channels and by the , minimum over the , other . within each channel . And to {disfmarker} to , mm , to , yeah , to normalize also loudness and {disfmarker} and modified loudness and things and that those special features actually are in my feature vector . +Grad F: Oh . +PhD A: And , and , therefore to be able to , uh , somewhat distinguish between foreground and background speech in {disfmarker} in the different {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} each channel . And , eh , I tested it on {disfmarker} on three or four meetings and it seems to work , well yeah , fairly well , I {disfmarker} I would say . There are some problems with the lapel mike . +Grad F: Of course . +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Wow that 's great . +PhD A: And . +Grad F: So I {disfmarker} I understand that 's what you were saying about your problem with , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . And . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I had {disfmarker} I had , uh , specific problems with . +Grad F: I get it . So new use ninetieth quartile , rather than , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow . +PhD A: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah , then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD A: as there {disfmarker} there are some {disfmarker} some problems in , when , in the channel , there {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the the speaker doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't talk much or doesn't talk at all . Then , the , yeah , there are {disfmarker} there are some problems with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with n with normalization , and , then , uh , there the system doesn't work at all . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm glad that there is the {disfmarker} the digit part , where everybody is forced to say something , +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: so , that 's {disfmarker} that 's great for {disfmarker} for my purpose . And , the thing is I {disfmarker} I , then the evaluation of {disfmarker} of the system is a little bit hard , as I don't have any references . +Grad F: Well we did the hand {disfmarker} the one by hand . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the one {disfmarker} one wh where I do the training on so I can't do the evaluation on So the thing is , can the transcribers perhaps do some , some {disfmarker} some meetings in {disfmarker} in terms of speech - nonspeech in {disfmarker} in the specific channels ? +Grad F: Uh . +Postdoc B: Well , I have {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well won't you have that from their transcriptions ? +Postdoc B: Well , OK , so , now we need {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , cuz we need is really tight . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: so , um , I think I might have done what you 're requesting , though I did it in the service of a different thing . +PhD A: Oh , great . +Postdoc B: I have thirty minutes that I 've more tightly transcribed with reference to individual channels . +PhD A: OK . OK , that 's great . That 's great for me . Yeah , so . +Postdoc B: And I could {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hopefully that 's not the same meeting that we did . +Postdoc B: No , actually it 's a different meeting . +Grad F: Good . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: So , um , e so the , you know , we have the , th they transcribe as if it 's one channel with these {disfmarker} with the slashes to separate the overlapping parts . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then we run it through {disfmarker} then it {disfmarker} then I 'm gonna edit it and I 'm gonna run it through channelize which takes it into Dave Gelbart 's form format . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then you have , all these things split across according to channel , and then that means that , if a person contributed more than once in a given , overlap during that time bend that {disfmarker} that two parts of the utterance end up together , it 's the same channel , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and then I took his tool , and last night for the first thirty minutes of one of these transcripts , I , tightened up the , um , boundaries on individual speakers ' channels , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: cuz his {disfmarker} his interface allows me to have total flexibility in the time tags across the channels . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {pause} um , so . +PhD A: so , yeah {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's great , but what would be nice to have some more meetings , not just one meeting to {disfmarker} to be sure that {disfmarker} that , there is a system , +PhD D: So , current {disfmarker} This week . +Postdoc B: Yes . Might not be what you need . +Grad F: Yeah , so if we could get a couple meetings done with that level of precision I think that would be a good idea . +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Uh , how {disfmarker} how m much time {disfmarker} so the meetings vary in length , what are we talking about in terms of the number of minutes you 'd like to have as your {disfmarker} as your training set ? +PhD A: It seems to me that it would be good to have , a few minutes from {disfmarker} from different meetings , so . But I 'm not sure about how much . +Postdoc B: OK , now you 're saying different meetings because of different speakers or because of different audio quality or both or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Both {disfmarker} both . Different {disfmarker} different number of speakers , different speakers , different {pause} conditions . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , we don't have that much variety in meetings yet , uh , I mean we have this meeting and the feature meeting and we have a couple others that we have uh , couple examples of . But {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Even probably with the gains {pause} differently will affect it , you mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , not really as {disfmarker} +Professor C: Poten - potentially . +PhD A: uh , because of the normalization , yeah . +Grad E: Oh , cuz you use the normalization ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: We can try running {disfmarker} we haven't done this yet because , um , uh , Andreas an is {disfmarker} is gonna move over the SRI recognizer . i basically I ran out of machines at SRI , +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: cuz we 're running the evals and I just don't have machine time there . But , once that 's moved over , uh , hopefully in a {disfmarker} a couple days , then , we can take , um , what Jane just told us about as , the presegmented , {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the segmentations that you did , at level eight or som {comment} at some , threshold that Jane , tha {pause} right , and try doing , forced alignment . um , on the word strings . +Grad F: Oh , shoot ! +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: The pre presegment +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD A: With the recognizer ? Yeah . +PhD G: And if it 's good , then that will {disfmarker} that may give you a good boundary . Of course if it 's good , we don't {disfmarker} then we 're {disfmarker} we 're fine , +PhD A: Yeah . M +PhD G: but , I don't know yet whether these , segments that contain a lot of pauses around the words , will work or not . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I would quite like to have some manually transcribed references for {disfmarker} for the system , as I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if it 's really good to compare with {disfmarker} with some other automatic , found boundaries . +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Postdoc B: Well , no , if we were to start with this and then tweak it h manually , would that {disfmarker} that would be OK ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah {pause} sure . +PhD G: They might be OK . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} you know it really depends on a lot of things , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: but , I would have maybe a transciber , uh , look at the result of a forced alignment and then adjust those . +PhD A: Yeah . To a adjust them , or , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD G: That might save some time . +PhD A: Yeah , great . +PhD G: If they 're horrible it won't help at all , but they might not be horrible . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} but I 'll let you know when we , uh , have that . +PhD A: OK , great . +Postdoc B: How many minutes would you want from {disfmarker} I mean , we could {pause} easily , get a section , you know , like say a minute or so , from every meeting that we have so f from the newer ones that we 're working on , everyone that we have . And then , should provide this . +PhD A: If it 's not the first minute of {disfmarker} of the meeting , that {disfmarker} that 's OK with me , but , in {disfmarker} in the first minute , uh , Often there are some {disfmarker} some strange things going on which {disfmarker} which aren't really , well , for , which {disfmarker} which aren't re re really good . So . What {disfmarker} what I 'd quite like , perhaps , is , to have , some five minutes of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of different meetings , so . +Postdoc B: Somewhere not in the very beginning , five minutes , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And , then I wanted to ask you just for my inter information , then , would you , be trai cuz I don't quite unders so , would you be training then , um , the segmenter so that , it could , on the basis of that , segment the rest of the meeting ? So , if I give you like {pause} five minutes is the idea that this would then be applied to , uh , to , providing tighter time {pause} bands ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I could do a {disfmarker} a retraining with that , yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow , interesting . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I hope that I {disfmarker} I don't need to do it . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD A: So , uh it c can be do in an unsupervised way . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Excellent . Excellent , OK . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , but , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for those three meetings whi which I {disfmarker} which I did , it seems to be , quite well , but , there are some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} as I said some problems with the lapel mike , but , perhaps we can do something with {disfmarker} with cross - correlations to , to get rid of the {disfmarker} of those . And . Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I {disfmarker} that 's my {pause} future work . Well {disfmarker} well what I want to do is to {disfmarker} to look into cross - correlations for {disfmarker} for removing those , false overlaps . +Postdoc B: Wonderful . +PhD G: Are the , um , wireless , different than the wired , mikes , at all ? I mean , have you noticed any difference ? +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , um , if {disfmarker} if there are any wired mikes in those meetings , or , uh , I have {disfmarker} have to loo have a look at them but , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I think there 's no difference between , +PhD G: So it 's just the lapel versus everything else ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so then , if that 's five minutes per meeting we 've got like twelve minutes , twelve meetings , roughly , that I 'm {disfmarker} that I 've been working with , then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the meetings that you 're working with , how many of them are different , tha +PhD A: No . +Professor C: are there any of them that are different than , these two meetings ? +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} oh wa in terms of the speakers or the conditions or the ? +Professor C: Yeah , speakers . Sorry . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Um , we have different combinations of speakers . +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I mean , just from what I 've seen , uh , there are some where , um , you 're present or not present , and , then {disfmarker} then you have the difference between the networks group and this group +PhD A: Yeah , I know , some of the NSA meetings , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So I didn't know in the group you had if you had {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: so you have the networks meeting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yep , we do . +Professor C: Do you have any of Jerry 's meetings in your , pack , er , +Postdoc B: Um , no . +Professor C: No ? +Postdoc B: We could , I mean you {disfmarker} you recorded one last week or so . I could get that new one in this week {disfmarker} I get that new one in . +Grad F: Yep . u +PhD G: We 're gonna be recording them every {pause} Monday , +Professor C: Yeah . Cuz I think he really needs variety , +PhD G: so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Great . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and having as much variety for speaker certainly would be a big part of that I think . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so if I , OK , included {disfmarker} include , OK , then , uh , if I were to include all together samples from twelve meetings that would only take an hour and I could get the transcribers to do that right {disfmarker} I mean , what I mean is , that would be an hour sampled , and then they 'd transcribe those {disfmarker} that hour , right ? That 's what I should do ? +Professor C: Yeah . And . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's . +Postdoc B: I don't mean transcribe +Professor C: Right . Ye - But you 're {disfmarker} y +Postdoc B: I mean {disfmarker} I mean adjust . So they get it into the multi - channel format and then adjust the timebands so it 's precise . +Professor C: So that should be faster than the ten times kind of thing , +Postdoc B: Absolutely . I did {disfmarker} I did , um , uh , so , last night I did , uh , +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh gosh , well , last night , I did about half an hour in , three hours , which is not , terrific , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , um , anyway , it 's an hour and a half per {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Well , that 's probably . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Well , I can't calculate on my , {vocalsound} on my feet . +PhD A: Do the transcribers actually start wi with , uh , transcribing new meetings , or {pause} are they ? +Postdoc B: Well , um they 're still working {disfmarker} they still have enough to finish that I haven't assigned a new meeting , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: but the next , m m I was about to need to assign a new meeting and I was going to take it from one of the new ones , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and I could easily give them Jerry Feldman 's meeting , no problem . And , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: So they 're really running out of , data , prett I mean that 's good . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Uh , that first set . +PhD G: Um , OK . +Professor C: They 're running out of data unless we s make the decision that we should go over and start , uh , transcribing the other set . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: There {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} the first half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And so I was in the process of like editing them but this is wonderful news . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Postdoc B: We funded the experiment with , uh {disfmarker} also we were thinking maybe applying that that to getting the , Yeah , that 'll be , very useful to getting the overlaps to be more precise all the way through . +Professor C: So this , blends nicely into the update on transcripts . +Postdoc B: Yes , it does . So , um , {comment} um , Liz , and {disfmarker} and Don , and I met this morning , in the BARCO room , with the lecture hall , +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , please . Go ahead . And this afternoon . +Postdoc B: and this afternoon , it drifted into the afternoon , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , concerning this issue of , um , the , well there 's basically the issue of the interplay between the transcript format and the processing that , they need to do for , the SRI recognizer . And , um , well , so , I mentioned the process that I 'm going through with the data , so , you know , I get the data back from the transcri Well , s uh , metaphorically , get the data back from the transcriber , and then I , check for simple things like spelling errors and things like that . And , um , I 'm going to be doing a more thorough editing , with respect to consistency of the conventions . But they 're {disfmarker} they 're generally very good . And , then , I run it through , uh , the channelize program to get it into the multi - channel format , OK . And {pause} the , what we discussed this morning , I would summarize as saying that , um , these units that result , in a {disfmarker} a particular channel and a particular timeband , at {disfmarker} at that level , um , vary in length . And , um , {nonvocalsound} their recognizer would prefer that the units not be overly long . But it 's really an empirical question , whether the units we get at this point through , just that process I described might be sufficient for them . So , as a first pass through , a first chance without having to do a lot of hand - editing , what we 're gonna do , is , I 'll run it through channelize , give them those data after I 've done the editing process and be sure it 's clean . And I can do that , pretty quickly , with just , that minimal editing , without having to hand - break things . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And then we 'll see if the units that we 're getting , uh , with the {disfmarker} at that level , are sufficient . And maybe they don't need to be further broken down . And if they do need to be further broken down then maybe it just be piece - wise , maybe it won't be the whole thing . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we were discussing , this morning as far as I {disfmarker} Among {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: also we discussed some adaptational things , +PhD G: Then lots of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so it 's like , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} You know I hadn't , uh , incorporated , a convention explicitly to handle acronyms , for example , but if someone says , PZM it would be nice to have that be directly interpretable from , the transcript what they said , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: or Pi - uh Tcl {disfmarker} TCL I mean . It 's like y it 's {disfmarker} and so , um , I 've {disfmarker} I 've incorporated also convention , with that but that 's easy to handle at the post editing phase , and I 'll mention it to , transcribers for the next phase but that 's OK . And then , a similar conv uh , convention for numbers . So if they say one - eighty - three versus one eight three . Um , and also I 'll be , um , encoding , as I do my post - editing , the , things that are in curly brackets , which are clarificational material . And eh to incorporate , uh , keyword , at the beginning . So , it 's gonna be either a gloss or it 's gonna be a vocal sound like a , laugh or a cough , or , so forth . Or a non - vocal sound like a doors door - slam , and that can be easily done with a , you know , just a {disfmarker} one little additional thing in the , in the general format . +PhD G: Yeah we j we just needed a way to , strip , you know , all the comments , all the things th the {disfmarker} that linguist wants but the recognizer can't do anything with . Um , but to keep things that we mapped to like reject models , or , you know , uh , mouth noise , or , cough . And then there 's this interesting issue Jane brought up which I hadn't thought about before but I was , realizing as I went through the transcripts , that there are some noises like , um , well the {disfmarker} good example was an inbreath , where a transcriber working from , the mixed , signal , doesn't know whose breath it is , +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and they 've been assigning it to someone that may or may not be correct . And what we do is , if it 's a breath sound , you know , a sound from the speaker , we map it , to , a noise model , like a mouth - noise model in the recognizer , and , yeah , it probably doesn't hurt that much once in a while to have these , but , if they 're in the wrong channel , that 's , not a good idea . And then there 's also , things like door - slams that 's really in no one 's channel , they 're like {disfmarker} it 's in the room . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: And {pause} uh , Jane had this nice , uh , idea of having , like an extra , uh couple tiers , +Grad F: An extra channel . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been adding that to the ones I 've been editing . +PhD G: yeah . And we were thinking , that is useful also when there 's uncertainties . So if they hear a breath and they don't know who breath it is it 's better to put it in that channel than to put it in the speaker 's channel because maybe it was someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} Uh , so I think that 's a good {disfmarker} you can always clean that up , post - processing . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So a lot of little details , but I think we 're , coming to some kinda closure , on that . So the idea is then , uh , Don can take , uh , Jane 's post - processed channelized version , and , with some scripts , you know , convert that to {disfmarker} to a reference for the recognizer and we can , can run these . So {pause} when that 's , ready {disfmarker} you know , as soon as that 's ready , and as soon as the recognizer is here we can get , twelve hours of force - aligned and recognized data . And , you know , start , working on it , +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: so we 're , I dunno a coup a week or two away I would say from , uh , if {disfmarker} if that process is automatic once we get your post - process , transcript . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . And that doesn't {disfmarker} the amount of editing that it would require is not very much either . I 'm just hoping that the units that are provided in that way , {nonvocalsound} will be sufficient cuz I would save a lot of , uh , time , dividing things . +PhD G: Yeah , some of them are quite long . Just from {disfmarker} I dunno how long were {disfmarker} you did one ? +Grad E: I saw a couple , {vocalsound} around twenty seconds , and that was just without looking too hard for it , so , I would imagine that there might be some that are longer . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Well n One question , e w would that be a single speaker or is that multiple speakers overlapping ? +Grad E: No . No , but if we 're gonna segment it , like if there 's one speaker in there , that says "" OK "" or something , right in the middle , it 's gonna have a lot of dead time around it , +PhD G: Right . It 's not the {disfmarker} it 's not the fact that we can't process a twenty second segment , it 's the fact that , there 's twenty seconds in which to place one word in the wrong place +Grad E: so it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , if {disfmarker} if someone has a very short utterance there , and that 's where , we , might wanna have this individual , you know , ha have your pre pre - process input . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . Sure . +Postdoc B: That 's very important . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought that perhaps the transcribers could start then from the {disfmarker} those mult multi - channel , uh , speech - nonspeech detections , if they would like to . +PhD G: And I just don't know , I have to run it . +Postdoc B: In {disfmarker} in doing the hand - marking ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's what I was thinking , too . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So that 's probably what will happen , but we 'll try it this way and see . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's probably good enough for force - alignment . If it 's not then we 're really {disfmarker} then we def definitely +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: uh , but for free recognition I 'm {disfmarker} it 'll probably not be good enough . We 'll probably get lots of errors because of the cross - talk , and , noises and things . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Good s I think that 's probably our agenda , or starting up there . +Postdoc B: Oh I wanted to ask one thing , the microphones {disfmarker} the new microphones , +Professor C: Yeah ? K . +Postdoc B: when do we get , uh ? +Grad F: Uh , they said it would take about a week . +Postdoc B: Oh , exciting . K . K . +Professor C: K . +PhD D: You ordered them already ? +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Great . +PhD G: So what happens to our old microphones ? +Professor C: They go where old microphones go . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Do we give them to someone , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well the only thing we 're gonna have extra , for now , +PhD G: We don't have more receivers , we just have {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right , we don so the only thing we 'll have extra now is just the lapel . +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: Not {disfmarker} not the , bodypack , just the lapel . +PhD G: Just the lapel itself . +Grad F: Um , and then one of the {disfmarker} one of those . Since , what I decided to do , on Morgan 's suggestion , was just get two , new microphones , um , and try them out . And then , if we like them we 'll get more . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: Since they 're {disfmarker} they 're like two hundred bucks a piece , we won't , uh , at least try them out . +PhD D: So it 's a replacement for this headset mike ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And they 're gonna do the wiring for us . +PhD D: What 's the , um , style of the headset ? +Grad F: It 's , um , it 's by Crown , and it 's one of these sort of mount around the ear thingies , and , uh , when I s when I mentioned that we thought it was uncomfortable he said it was a common problem with the Sony . And this is how apparently a lot of people are getting around it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad F: And I checked on the web , and every site I went to , raved about this particular mike . It 's apparently comfortable and stays on the head well , so we 'll see if it 's any good . But , uh , I think it 's promising . +Postdoc B: You said it was used by aerobics instructors ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep , so it was {disfmarker} it was advertised for performers +Postdoc B: That says a lot . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: For the recor for the record Adam is not a paid employee or a consultant of Crown . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} Excuse me ? +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor C: I said "" For the record Adam is {disfmarker} is not a paid consultant or employee of Crown "" . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: That 's right . +PhD G: However , he may be solicited after these meetings are distributed . +Grad F: Well we 're using the Crown P Z +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Don't worry about finishing your dissertation . +Grad F: These are Crown aren't they ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: The P Z Ms are Crown , aren't they ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I thought they were . +Professor C: You bet . You bet . +Grad F: And they work very well . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor C: So if we go to a workshop about all this {disfmarker} this it 's gonna be a meeting about meetings about meetings . OK . So . +Grad F: And then it {disfmarker} we have to go to the planning session for that workshop . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , what {disfmarker} Which 'll be the meeting about the meeting about the meeting . +PhD D: Oh , god . +Grad F: Cuz then it would be a meeting about the meeting about the meeting about meetings . +Postdoc B: +Professor C: Yeah ? Just start saying "" M four "" . Yeah , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . M to the fourth . +Professor C: Should we do the digits ? +Grad F: Yep , go for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: S {pause} s +Grad F: Pause between the lines , remember ? +Grad E: Excuse me . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Huh . +","In a recent discussion involving academics and researchers from various academic levels – from graduate students to a professor – a meeting was convened to discuss progress on a range of technical agenda items pertaining to a speech recognition project. Participants included Professor C, PhD A, PhD D, PhD G, Grad F, Grad E, Postdoc B, and others who are part of a team working on aspects of speech recognition technology. The ongoing project appears to involve the development and training of a system capable of accurately recognizing and transcribing spoken digits and other speech elements within a dataset. + +The conversation began with a check on the agenda, with items including discussions about digits, updates on the presegmentation process, transcription updates, and filtering references for Alternative Speaker Identification (ASI) refs. The dialogue was sporadic and interrupted by disfluencies common in spontaneous speech, which adds to the challenge of developing a robust recognition system. + +Grad F provided an update on the digits project, indicating that progress was being made toward completion, predicting that the transcription of digits would be done in a couple of weeks. There was discussion on the potential to train a recognizer with the transcribed data and start working with it. The group considered the possibility of training with the standard set for TI-digits and testing on a specialized test set, which would likely yield insights into the recognizer’s performance under controlled versus more challenging conditions like distant microphone recordings. + +The meeting delved into the intricacies of speech presegmentation. PhD A introduced a new version of presegmentation that was channel-specific, which aimed to distinguish between foreground and background speech using normalized features. They had encountered challenges with lapel microphones, but were optimistic about the possibility of enhancing the system with cross-correlation methods to remove false overlaps. + +The group next discussed updating the transcripts and the associated issues, such as the filtering for ASI refs. There were technical considerations about how transcriptions are handled for the purpose of recognizer training and the need to ensure they are formatted in a way that could be effectively utilized by the recognizer. Don was mentioned as part of the team, likely contributing to the transcription or recognizer integration process. + +On the transcription front, the conversation included how to manage phonetic transcriptions, particularly those of non-word utterances like ""uh-huh"" and ""hmm,"" as well as breath sounds and door slams, which are not attributable to any specific speaker. Jane (Postdoc B) suggested implementing a multi-tiered system that could assign such phenomena to an 'extra' channel. This approach would aid later recognizer processing by better classifying noises and improving the accuracy of speech/non-speech detection. Jane further mentioned work on improving representations for acronyms and numerical sequences in the transcripts to aid clarity and processing. + +The group discussed logistical considerations about the current state of work and how the transcribers were nearing the point of running out of data, hinting at the rapid progress of the transcribing efforts thus far. In anticipation of the arrival of new microphones, Grad F highlighted that tests would be conducted to ascertain the efficiency and comfort of the new equipment which could improve the recording quality and, consequently, the quality of the training data. + +In conclusion, the meeting unfolded as a multifaceted discussion that touched on several key components crucial for the progress of a complex speech recognition project. The group was deeply engaged with the technical challenges faced at various steps of the project from data collection and preprocessing to system training and transcription refinement. The nature of the conversation, with interruptions and overlapping dialogue, itself exemplifies the real-world complexities of speech that the project aims to navigate and resolve through its research and development activities." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um nice to see you again . Uh . So , uh . Tod uh for this meeting I will take the notes and do the minutes . Uh so we will see our three presentations . Um we will start with the uh Manager Expert wi who will talk about uh user re requirements , whats user needs and what it desire for this devi device . +Marketing: Okay , can I have the laptop over here , or ? +Project Manager: Yep . Oh , I don't think so . I think you have to come here . +Marketing: Okay . Have to get up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . I think it should stay . +Marketing: Excuse me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Should stay in the square here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh , maybe . +Marketing: Okay , so basically I'm gonna present some findings of a study we conducted uh into uh what users want in this remote control . +Project Manager: Oh , you can put it here . Oh that's okay , it's jus +Marketing: Um so first of all we {disfmarker} what we did is we um conducted a an experiment with a hundred test subjects . Um we put them in a in our um usability laboratory and got them to , you know , um play with remote controls , and also to complete , after they'd done that , to complete a questionnaire uh to tell us what they like and what they don't like in remote controls . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So basically um the major things we found out was that um basically users don't like the look and feel of of most remote controls that are currently on the market . Um they , you know , seventy five percent of the people we we uh did the experiments on , found that rem remote the remote controls that they'd used in the past were ugly . Completely ugly . Um they they didn't match the operating behaviour of the user , that is , you know , the the way users use remote controls when they're watching T_V_ . Um , that the layout of the remote controls didn't match they way that they used it . Um and thirdly they say that w half of the users that we um tested said that they only used ten percent of the buttons that uh are on remote controls . Um so we collect we also some collected some usage statistics uh based on how these test subjects were using their remote control . And from this we basically came up with the figure that the channel buttons , the channel selection buttons are the most {disfmarker} by far the most used buttons on the remote control . Um and you can see they're used a hundred and sixty eight times per hour on average , um , while the user's watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um the closest button that was used , well the cl the button that was used that was closest to the channel button was the teletext button , um which was used fourteen times per hour , followed by the volume button , which was four times per hour , um , all the other , all the other um buttons , such as ch um audio and picture selection um configuration buttons and things were used , you know , l approx well less than or equal to one times per hour . Um we also asked users um which buttons had the most importance to them , you know , which which buttons they felt were the most important buttons on on the remote control . And basically they came {disfmarker} they said the channel , volume , and power buttons had the highest relevance to users , um note that only power was very infrequently used , it only had a b a a fr usage frequency of about one times per hour , but users ranked it as having a very very high relevance . Um and the audio and picture settings had a very {disfmarker} that well the users thought that um w the audio and picture settings were very uh weren't very important to them um , and they used them very infrequently a as well . {vocalsound} So we asked users what what um frustrates them the most about um current remote controls . And fifty percent of the users said that uh what frustrates them is losing the remote control um somewhere in the room and not being able to find it . Um {vocalsound} they also said that it um it takes a lot of time to learn a new remote control , especially when there's many buttons and it's a , you know , a c a a unintuitive interface . Um and then thirdly , they {disfmarker} some users commented on the fact that the the you know the way that you have to hold and press buttons on a remote control ar are bad and um cause u repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} We also asked some users about some specific features that they'd like to see in the {disfmarker} on the remote control . In particular , do they want an L_C_D_ d display , and secondly , do they think speech recognition uh is a useful feature to have on a remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um basically our findings are that um amongst a younger age groups uh the answer is umv overwhelmingly yes . They want these features , they want these high technology features . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um for instance , ninety one percent of pe of people aged between fifteen and twenty five said yes , they want these features . Whereas um {vocalsound} the the trend was as users as users um became older and older uh they were less likely to want these sort of features in a um in a remote control . So I guess it depends on where we're focusing our our market . Um and as our company motto is putting fashion in electronics , um I think we're focusing on the younger younger um target demographic , and so maybe we should think about adding these sort of high technology features into our remote control . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's my dic that's my presentation . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , um maybe now we can talk about a user interface and uh about the technical function of this device . So uh Pet Peter , can you talk say something about that ? +Industrial Designer: Well , okay , yeah . Yeah , but the user user interface is responsible . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: B you think uh I I'm User Interface Manager . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , I'm {disfmarker} Sorry . Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: If I could go there with this cable . +Industrial Designer: You're scaring me with L_C_D_ man . And speech recognition in remote unit , it will be very e expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's true , but , you know , they're features that users want , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And our production cost of twelve fifty Euros per per unit is fairly high I think , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so I think we can afford to to add these sort of features into our remote . +Industrial Designer: At least we have couple of months t to work on it so so it will be cheaper finally . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sh okay . {gap} +Marketing: It is true . +User Interface: Where's delete button ? Okay . Oh I'm sorry . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: That's the wrong one , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still Bob Morris . +User Interface: Oh . Presentation three ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah you should have put yes . +Industrial Designer: Because you cancelled it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Click on yes . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Okay , so here is my presentation about technical function design . I will talk about different components and s of system and how they react together . Okay , uh , first what is a remote control ? Simply it's a device , as you know , for uh , for sending some commands by some waves to uh another device to to tell different commands uh with this device . And the main idea we don't use any cable and we can rec react simpler with the device . Uh i it has different blocks , different blocks . Uh first is remote control have sh ha should have some electric circuits uh making interface with uh keyboard and uh r reading uh keyboard and reading the keyboard uh commands . And then inter then make uh these keyboard commands , uh in interpret these int uh keyboard commands . And then there should be uh an electronic circuit making uh electronic signals according to these commands and uh finally there is a transmitter which is a cord or a a diode making uh making uh waves to transmit through the air and uh uh this air this uh wave uh will be received by the by the other device like a television or whatever , to uh r to realise the command . Okay , {vocalsound} uh about {disfmarker} what I found about uh different uh these different blocks are uh , usually there are two different methods uh to {disfmarker} for designing a remote control . They are based on infra-red uh waves or uh uh radio waves . +Industrial Designer: You still want me the presentation . +User Interface: There are two different uh uh solutions I mean . This is uh this can be uh uh the the differences the th between different kind of waves , infra-red or radio waves . And uh also as uh I understood , and uh I think it was a part of uh Bob , uh uh presentation , people prefer to have uh to have uh the remote control with less button . So for the electronic part , working and interfacing , with button , we should we should try to t try to design a remote control having uh some some simpler buttons or some rolling buttons to just to just to search between different options , and showing o something on T_V_ and putting less lesser stuff on the uh on the remote control . And uh personal preferences , uh uh uh uh certainly a remote control with {disfmarker} uh working with radio waves is uh preferred because uh you can pr you can take it in any direction and you don't need to tune it any way . And uh uh again , using bigger buttons and less number of buttons are also preferred , as I see . Okay . That was my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . I have a question . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Do you think radio waves um will interfere with other appliances in the home ? +User Interface: Uh , I don't think so , because uh we can make uh we ca we can make this wave in a specific frequency . So they can be in a range which is not inter interfering with the {vocalsound} with other devices inside the home . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So can we use any any frequency ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be okay {gap} . +Project Manager: We have the right to use any frequency ? +User Interface: Uh no but as I know , there is a range for uh for this uh f for for uh for this stuff , for designing this circuit . We can we can we can tune our uh transmitter to work in this range , and for this range we don't need to ask any permission . +Project Manager: Okay . And what happen with uh radio waves when two neighbours have the same {disfmarker} have our remote control , for example ? And so do they have the same frequency , or ? +User Interface: Uh for this I'm not uh I I don't know the solution , but one solution can be something like putting uh p password or something inside the wave , so the only your T_V_ can understand it +Project Manager: Okay . A kind of identification {gap} , +User Interface: Yeah , identification code inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah f {vocalsound} uh I know about this , since it's my {disfmarker} it's exactly my field , so . +Project Manager: okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's uh kind of handshaking , uh , when starting to {disfmarker} uh when you start to communicate with the your T_V_ then then it's like an handshaking protocol with your your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if two two devices are trying to go to communicate with the T_V_ set then the the the one which has the more energy in the wave is chosen . Well it can be a problem sometimes , but most of the time it works okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The password may simply {disfmarker} uh or uh i identification code may simply solve this problem . A specific uh remote control has a specific f +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but we we don't have to think uh about this because I think as a function designer that we will use the already made uh circuits which we probably bu buy . It's worth to buy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And they have these problems solved so . So we don't have to think about these . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe you can talk about the function , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I have only a couple of things because I had {disfmarker} I struggled a bit with the software that I'm supposed to use in this uh uh in this company . I was used to use Linux before , so . But I tried to tried to break through this {gap} too , I guess . +Project Manager: Open . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} How to make it big ? +Project Manager: Slide show . +User Interface: Five . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Slide show . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should work , so you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh so I will speak about working design . That's the first slide . Uh what uh I have to do ? A look at what the other company {disfmarker} Okay so uh presently I am looking what is possible to use , what circuits to use and stuff like that because uh I didn't work uh with these uh circuits so far so I have to look what what is a v a v available on the market for for the communication {disfmarker} for the I_R_ circuits and so on , so I'm currently looking what is available on the web . And uh I wanted to ask you m maybe afterwards , after after our discussion , if we have some contacts in some companies , so , which can report on what is going on there , so , I would be glad if you can tell me about them . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , you know . Uh , okay findings , that's {gap} the point that I'm working on currently but uh so far I I was uh looking what what are the blue circuit , I mean radio wave {disfmarker} radio frequency circuits are available now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the prices I read are high . So , I know that uh the user interface people and these speak about radio frequency waves because you can you can uh you can make the T_V_ do what you want even if you are in the bathroom or so on , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know , when you are not close to the T_V_ you probably won't need to to change the program and so on and so I am I am voting for s to stick to the um infra-red control instead of R_W_ but we will discuss it later maybe . Uh . Components to use , I'm not exactly sure what I will use for the design of the circuit . It depends uh on whether we will use the L_C_D_ and mainly the speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because the speech rec Yeah ? +Marketing: Are we um are we planning to take an off the shelf an O_E_M_ component for the radio wave circuit , or are we planning to construct our own circuit board ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no no . This we this we buy I think , because it's rather cheap nowadays and it's not worth to construct ourselves . +Marketing: Okay s So we just buy a circuit board and {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not sure about the circuit which is responsible for speech recognition . This I prefer that we should make ourselves . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it depends whether we take a decision to use it . Same thing . It's fairly expensive to use these circuits . So , speech recognition {disfmarker} well , L_C_D_ it's okay because it's common nowadays to use L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I agree on using any kind of L_C_D_ , less buttons good for me as a as a designer of the circuit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the speech recognition we have to compare whether the price and the {disfmarker} what does it offer , you know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So what do you think would be the price , it would be out of range ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be maybe feasible ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . I was not thinking too much about the price . But if we use the L_C_D_ uh even the radio frequency communication with the T_V_ set and the backlight and uh related things like the photo diodes and stuff , it should be okay . If we decide to use the speech recognition , then we probably could struggle but we'll see afterwards . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It depends of you if if the M_E_ or U_I_D_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry about the names , I don't really know , uh want to have it like in metal or in plastic , these things , it it depends on you not {disfmarker} Because the the the electronic device's price is not not so big in comparison to to the overall shape and stuff like that , so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We will discuss it afterwards . Oh , this is nothing . This is just my notes on what to use . And uh my personal preference is yes , I would like also preferably to use R_W_ circuit , but from the point of view uh of the design and price , I would stick to I_R_s . That's my opinion . Uh I mean if infra-red uh circuit not not the radio frequency . +Project Manager: Why ? Because it's simpler ? +Industrial Designer: Because because the the range where you can use it is fair . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's okay I think . And the price is fairly cheap for this . +Project Manager: Okay . It's a a price matter . +Industrial Designer: Well , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Jus just the price . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise I don't care what I put there because it's the chip which I buy or which we buy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it's o y o {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What how much more expensive ? Are we talking three times more expensive ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well , three to three to five . +Marketing: Or ten times more expensive ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N not ten times , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it depends what what we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . That's still a lot . I think it's it's probably not worth spending the extra money , +Project Manager: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: because I mean all the other remote controls on the market have infra-red , so people don't expect anything other than infra-red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's not worth spending the extra money . +Project Manager: Well I {gap} , oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th they are used to use it when they can see the T_V_ so , I don't know . +Project Manager: On the other side , we want to have something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , where +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want to to have something new and So we I think we should still thinking about it . But maybe {gap} . +Marketing: But I think , based on my usability studies I th I feel that users are {disfmarker} prioritise the look and the feel and the trendiness above , you know , the difference between infra-red or radio waves . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I think we're better off spending money in the usability phase . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You the user interface , and management man , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Peter . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I have to inform you I receive an email from the management bon board today and they have new requirements for the for the remote control . Um +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: first um , they say that's uh about something about t teletext . Uh apparently it becomes from {disfmarker} according to them it becomes out of date . Out-dated . And uh {disfmarker} Because of the internet popularity and everybody has internet at home , and actually it's not useful to have teletext . Um . So I think we can avoid the teletext . Um the second thing is uh they suggest that that we should uh use the remote control only for T_V_ , not for D_V_D_ and other devices , because it make it {disfmarker} it makes it's too complex and uh because we have not much time for this project we should stay on T_V_ on the {disfmarker} only specific T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: I agree . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third {vocalsound} the third one is uh about the the the image of the company . So um uh we should we should keep uh {disfmarker} The the product should be recognisable . Uh , uh It's {disfmarker} That mean we should use the colour of our company and maybe put somewhere the s the slogan of the company , which is uh , we put fashion of {disfmarker} in electronics . So , when people see the the remote control , they should say oh it's from Real Reaction and he s they should recognise the company . So , um {disfmarker} So now we we should take the decision what we are going to {disfmarker} what function we will have on this uh on this remote control . So , mm , are we going to use L_C_D_ , speech recognition ? Uh . +Marketing: Well , should we start with just the core , the basic functions that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we can move on to the more advanced features . +User Interface: Mm . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the available things are L_C_D_ , the buttons and everything . Uh radio frequency depends . And , well the recognition it depends on you guys . +Project Manager: Yeah but first maybe what is {disfmarker} what are the usual function of a standard remote control ? +Industrial Designer: You should probably speak . +Project Manager: I mean +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: what do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , well , I mean the obvious one is changing channels . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we should stick on very useful functions , because we want less button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So , turning channel , of course . Volume setting . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh just one note to the chan channel changing . Do we {disfmarker} will we use only two buttons , or or like numbered buttons ? I mean those nine plus one or two ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it would be a b {gap} +Industrial Designer: Because it's many buttons and we were speaking about lowering the number . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: On the other side we have more and more channels , and if you want to pass through all the channels to get the channel you want , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay so so we keep all these all these buttons . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe we could think of something more betweens , like +User Interface: Yeah yeah , at least nine , ten button . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like ten plus , five plus , one plus , one minus or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe something like that . +Industrial Designer: Or using the names and the keyboard {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} Ah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or something {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know . Oh . Maybe we could have key buttons , like uh discovery channe like documentary channel , and movies channel and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You mean like hierarchical structure . +Project Manager: And inside this this thing you can move , maybe switch . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Okay . Like categorising channels . +Project Manager: If you want to see a movie you click on the movie button so you have all the movie channels and after you've you plus plus plus . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so s +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry . +Project Manager: I It just an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know what you think about that but . +Industrial Designer: So it requires the use of L_C_D_ probably , to to tell you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: To have some feedback . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I'll make a note on L_C_D_ . +Marketing: We could maybe also c um incorporate Petre's idea of the um slider for the volume , with the channel . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we c you could quickly just {vocalsound} {vocalsound} through many channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like roller for the {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For the channels , perhaps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else ? +Marketing: So we've got channel and volume . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we are still s speaking about the common devices +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: or we are inviting the new one ? +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think basically the core functions we want , and then more advanced ones . +Project Manager: What about the settings of the T_V_ ? Because it's button we don't use very often , but it's {disfmarker} we need it anyway . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh we don't have any uh we don't have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we should just design the remote control and we sh we don't have any access to the to the T_V_ design or we can change some design . Because one solution for this um uh uh ch changing channels is to see a summary of all channels , some some preview of all channels and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the screen , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah b {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not on the control , but on the screen . +User Interface: Not on the control , on the screen , on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well , this would avoid L_C_D_ , then . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't Oh , I don't but I don't think we're we're the ones . I mean this remote control we're developing is a generic control for all T_V_s , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . I don't know if it's possible to to watch something on T_V_ {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . W I I think it it would be better to to stick to the remote control and not to bother the T_V_ to to to print these things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well it wi it will be still more expensive , but for the L_C_D_ and this stuff is no problem in the price . +User Interface: {gap} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , what are we doing with the settings ? Because settings {disfmarker} if we want to do settings we need buttons for that and we want less buttons , so . Maybe with the L_C_D_ we can do something with less buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But then you don't want to make the L_C_D_ display too complicated at the same time . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two T_V_s . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean there's always {disfmarker} we can always have these l less often used functions hidden somewhere , under a cover or at the back of {disfmarker} under a slide or some +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like ma +Project Manager: Oh , the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We we could have for example two buttons like simple mode and advanced mode . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or like children and grandfather's mode , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the , well the the user +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not the user , the man mana T_V_ manager mode {vocalsound} . Ah , I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So we have five minutes left . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: So I think s the settings we th we are agreeing {disfmarker} are agreed that they're required . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's just how to a +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should hide them somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hide them , okay . +Project Manager: In the menus of the L_C_D_ or in the back of the remote control , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . Uh , okay , what else ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {gap} Yes . +Marketing: I mean a power button's obviously +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This I was thinking . Do we need a power button at all ? +Marketing: uh required . +Industrial Designer: Should should shouldn't we do it like sleep mode after five minutes of not using it ? Because generally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's it's a kind of setting , I think . It should fit in those settings functions . +User Interface: Mm . Settings . +Project Manager: Because it's not a very current useful function . +Marketing: Uh , well I think when they say power button they mean to turn the T_V_ on and off . +Project Manager: No , I think it's after after five minutes or something {gap} a timer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well I I uh +Project Manager: I I think , no ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if you're watching T_V_ for two hours , you don't want your T_V_ to turn off after five five minute {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't need to {disfmarker} every five minutes to keep it alive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh probably . Okay , so we should keep this button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean based on our usability studies again , um {vocalsound} pe um people said that the power button was v a very relevant button . +Project Manager: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , it was nine out of ten +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we we could p what we could probably do is to keep also to keep uh keep the L_C_D_ and all the buttons and stuff , +Marketing: re relevance . +Industrial Designer: we could make it like a opening opening style that if you open it you are {disfmarker} you just turn on the T_V_ and if you close it , it will +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: turn off the T_V_ . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: If if you like this , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . B Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because , well {gap} {disfmarker} it's maybe question for you t +Marketing: I think we need to concentrate on the , you know , the major usage of the th of the control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which is you sit down , you turn on your T_V_ , you change channels , you change the volume , you turn the T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Yeah . So s yeah . +Marketing: Um and all the other f functionality is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , they can yeah they can be hide somewhere by a cover or something like this . +Marketing: not used very often . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Like covering cu . +Project Manager: On the back , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I mean like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like mobile phone covering . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we have the L_C_D_ , we didn't need too much button too many buttons . Um , okay , just um the decision of the power button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we make it a button , or some some something which would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For what ? +Industrial Designer: Uh power button . +Marketing: I think a button . +User Interface: A button is better . +Project Manager: Ah oh yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I think it should be a bu +Industrial Designer: If it if it's a button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah a button , yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Its own button on the front . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , one nice big button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Old fashioned button , to satisfy the grandmothers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , any other suggestions or functions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: S What about things like the clock and um timers ? +Industrial Designer: Do we still have the time ? I I just wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have still one or two minutes to talk , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh . Well what w what was the question ? +User Interface: Clock or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh um , you know , some func some features on the control to display a time , or t to display {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually it's already on T_V_ or something like that . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we want to control all the televisions , and and it would probably be worth to to set the timing on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: no ? Because if if the T_V_ turns on itself , it well you know , if the time The timer should be there . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . If we if we add the time , we have to have maybe a bigger display or something like that , and is it very useful ? I mean , are users wants to have the time on the on the remote ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is the question . +Marketing: Probably not . +Project Manager: Is it useful ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: It's a questi yeah , it's a trade-off . +Project Manager: W In my opinion we should have only useful thing and Because apparently they want {disfmarker} The simpler it's is better . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay simple . +Industrial Designer: Did you did you ever use the like the timing of turning on the T_V_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} And based on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very , yeah okay , very occasionally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I do use the I do use the display of the time quite often , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it can be on the display in in a corner all the time on the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's okay , that's true . Okay , so no time button {gap} . Okay . +Project Manager: No time on {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: And uh do we need to include anything about the speech recognition and the speech commands , or ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I thin I think it will not take lots of place , we just need a microphone and the software , so , and it sh and it will be a little bit new and interesting , so people may be attracted to buy this stuff and it's not very difficult to uh put a software inside the the electronic device and put a microphone . It doesn't take that much place and also that much {disfmarker} It doesn't cost that much . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we should be careful about the battery life , then . If we use the speech recognition . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe we think {disfmarker} we can think more about that , and discuss that maybe last time {disfmarker} next time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh yeah , now the meeting room is busy . Somebody booked the meeting room just for {disfmarker} at one P_M_ , and so we should leave . Uh . So , um . So now we are going for for a small lunch . It's uh funded by the company . And uh after we have uh thirteen minutes to to do indevel individual works . And uh I will do the minutes . And uh you are going to work on your individual works . And uh you will receive as usual your specific instruction and so on . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Thank you everybody . +Marketing: cool . Okay +User Interface: Thanks . +Marketing: Thank you . +","Summary: + +In a project meeting focused on developing a remote control, the Project Manager outlines the agenda and mentions that the Manager Expert will discuss user requirements. Marketing presents findings from a study indicating that users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls, prefer fewer buttons, and use channel selection buttons most frequently. Additional user preferences include LCD displays and speech recognition features for younger demographics. User Interface and Industrial Designer discuss technical functions and design considerations, highlighting a preference for infrared (IR) waves over radio waves due to cost-effectiveness. There is also an emphasis on simplicity, with potential use of LCD screens and a minimal button approach. The team agrees to include basic functions like channel changing and volume control, and debates including advanced features like speech recognition. Management also sends new requirements emphasizing the remote control's use strictly for TVs, dismissal of teletext due to its obsolescence, and incorporating company branding into the design. The meeting concludes with the Project Manager stating that minutes will be prepared and team members will receive individual tasks post-meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: OK we 're on and we seem to be working . +PhD C: Yes . +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: We didn't crash {disfmarker} we 're not crashing anymore +PhD C: One , two , three , four , f +Grad B: and it really bothers me . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: No crashing . +PhD G: I do . I crashed when I started this morning . +Grad B: You crashed {disfmarker} crashed this morning ? I did not crash this morning . +PhD C: Yeah ? +Professor A: Oh ! Well maybe it 's just , you know , how many t u u u u how many times you crash in a day . +PhD G: Really ? Yeah . Maybe , yeah . +Professor A: First time {disfmarker} first time in the day , you know . +PhD G: Or maybe it 's once you 've {pause} done enough meetings {comment} it won't crash on you anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: No ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's a matter of experience . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Self - learning , yeah . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's great . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Do we have an agenda ? Liz {disfmarker} Liz and Andreas can't sh can't {disfmarker} uh , can't come . +Grad B: I do . +Professor A: So , they won't be here . +Grad B: I have agenda and it 's all me . +PhD G: Did {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz no one sent me anything else . +PhD G: Did they send , uh , the messages to you about the meeting today ? +Grad B: I have no idea but I just got it a few minutes ago . +PhD G: Oh . +Grad B: Right when you were in my office it arrived . +PhD G: Oh . OK , cuz I checked my mail . I didn't have anything . +Grad B: So , does anyone have any a agenda items other than me ? I actually have one more also which is to talk about the digits . +Professor A: Uh , right , so {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I was just gonna talk briefly about the NSF ITR . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , great . +Professor A: Uh , and then , you have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Can w +Professor A: I mean , I won't say much , but {disfmarker} {comment} uh , but then , uh , you said {disfmarker} wanna talk about digits ? +Grad B: I have a short thing about digits and then uh I wanna talk a little bit about naming conventions , although it 's unclear whether this is the right place to talk about it . So maybe just talk about it very briefly and take the details to the people who {disfmarker} for whom it 's relevant . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I could always say something about transcription . I 've been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well if we {disfmarker} Yeah , we shouldn't add things in just to add things in . I 'm actually pretty busy today , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: so if we can {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor A: a short meeting would be fine . +Postdoc F: This does sound like we 're doing fine , yeah . That won't do . +Grad B: So the only thing I wanna say about digits is , we are pretty much done with the first test set . There are probably forms here and there that are marked as having been read that weren't really read . So I won't really know until I go through all the transcriber forms and extract out pieces that are in error . So I wa Uh . Two things . The first is what should we do about digits that were misread ? My opinion is , um , we should just throw them out completely , and have them read again by someone else . You know , the grouping is completely random , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: so it {disfmarker} it 's perfectly fine to put a {disfmarker} a group together again of errors and have them re - read , just to finish out the test set . +Postdoc F: Oh ! By {disfmarker} throw them out completely ? +Grad B: Um , the other thing you could do is change the transcript to match what they really said . So those are {disfmarker} those are the two options . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But there 's often things where people do false starts . I know I 've done it , where I say {disfmarker} say a {disfmarker} +Grad B: What the transcribers did with that is if they did a correction , and they eventually did read the right string , {comment} you extract the right string . +PhD G: Oh , you 're talking about where they completely read the wrong string and didn't correct it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . And didn't notice . Which happens in a few places . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , and s and you 're talking string - wise , you 're not talking about the entire page ? +Grad B: Correct . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I get it . +Grad B: And so the {disfmarker} the two options are change the transcript to match what they really said , but then {disfmarker} but then the transcript isn't the Aurora test set anymore . I don't think that really matters because the conditions are so different . And that would be a little easier . +PhD G: Well how many are {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how often does that happen ? +Grad B: Mmm , five or six times . +PhD G: Oh , so it 's not very much . +Grad B: No , it 's not much at all . +PhD G: Seems like we should just change the transcripts +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD G: to match . +Professor A: Yeah , it 's five or six times out of {pause} thousands ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Four thousand . +Professor A: Four thousand ? +PhD C: Four thous Ah ! Four thousand . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , I would , uh , {vocalsound} tak do the easy way , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's kinda nice {disfmarker} I mean , wh who knows what studies people will be doing on {disfmarker} on speaker - dependent things +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: and so I think having {disfmarker} having it all {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: the speakers who we had is {disfmarker} is at least interesting . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} um , how many digits have been transcribed now ? +Grad B: Four thousand lines . And each line is between one and about ten digits . +PhD G: Four thousand lines ? +Grad B: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't compute the average . I think the average was around four or five . +Professor A: So that 's a couple hours of {disfmarker} of , uh , speech , probably . +PhD G: Wow . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Professor A: Which is a yeah reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable test set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And , Jane , I do have a set of forms which I think you have copies of somewhere . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , true . +Grad B: Oh you do ? Oh OK , good , good . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , I was just wond I thought I had {disfmarker} had all of them back from you . And then the other thing is that , uh , the forms in front of us here that we 're gonna read later , were suggested by Liz +Postdoc F: No , not yet . +Grad B: because she wanted to elicit some different prosodics from digits . And so , uh , I just wanted people to , take a quick look at the instructions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Eight eight two two two nine . +Grad B: and the way it wa worked and see if it makes sense and if anyone has any comments on it . +Professor A: I see . And the decision here , uh , was to continue with uh the words rather than the {disfmarker} the numerics . +Grad B: Uh , yes , although we could switch it back . The problem was O and zero . Although we could switch it back and tell them always to say "" zero "" or always to say "" O "" . +Postdoc F: Oh {disfmarker} +Professor A: Or neither . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But it 's just two thing {disfmarker} ways that you can say it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right ? +Grad B: Sure . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} um , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: that 's the only thought I have because if you t start talking about these , you know u tr She 's trying to get at natural groupings , but it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing natural about reading numbers this way . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I mean if you saw a telephone number you would never see it this way . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the problem also is she did want to stick with digits . I mean I 'm speaking for her since she 's not here . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , um , the other problem we were thinking about is if you just put the numerals , {comment} they might say forty - three instead of four three . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , if there 's space , though , between them . I mean , you can {disfmarker} With {disfmarker} when you space them out they don't look like , uh , forty - three anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Well , she and I were talking about it , +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: and she felt that it 's very , very natural to do that sort of chunking . +Professor A: She 's right . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a different problem . I mean it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an interesting problem {disfmarker} I mean , we 've done stuff with numbers before , and yeah sometimes people {disfmarker} If you say s "" three nine eight one "" sometimes people will say "" thirty - nine eighty - one "" or "" three hundred {disfmarker} three hundred eighty - nine one "" , or {disfmarker} I don't think they 'd say that , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but th +Grad B: Not very frequently +Professor A: no {disfmarker} +Grad B: but , {vocalsound} they certainly could . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , th thirty - eight ninety - one is probably how they 'd do it . +Grad B: So . I mean , this is something that Liz and I spoke about +Professor A: But {disfmarker} I see . +Grad B: and , since this was something that Liz asked for specifically , I think we need to defer to her . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . Well , we 're probably gonna be collecting meetings for a while and if we decide we still wanna do some digits later we might be able to do some different ver different versions , +Grad B: Do something different , +Professor A: but this is the next suggestion , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor A: so . OK . OK , so uh e l I guess , let me , uh , get my {disfmarker} my short thing out about the NSF . I sent this {disfmarker} actually this is maybe a little side thing . Um , I {disfmarker} I sent to what I thought we had , uh , in some previous mail , as the right joint thing to send to , which was "" M {disfmarker} MTG RCDR hyphen joint "" . +Grad B: It was . Joint . Yep . +Professor A: But then I got some sort of funny mail saying that the moderator was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's {disfmarker} That 's because they set the one up at UW {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: +Grad B: that 's not on our side , that 's on the U - dub {comment} side . +Professor A: Oh . +Grad B: And so U - UW set it up as a moderated list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: And , I have no idea whether it actually ever goes to anyone so you might just wanna mail to Mari +Professor A: No {disfmarker} no , th I got {disfmarker} I got , uh , little excited notes from Mari and Jeff and so on , +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , good . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: So the moderator actually did repost it . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Cuz I had sent one earlier {disfmarker} Actually the same thing happened to me {disfmarker} I had sent one earlier . The message says , "" You 'll be informed "" and then I was never informed but I got replies from people indicating that they had gotten it , so . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: It 's just to prevent spam . +Professor A: I see . Yeah so O {disfmarker} OK . Well , anyway , I guess {disfmarker} everybody here {disfmarker} Are y are {disfmarker} you are on that list , right ? So you got the note ? +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah ? OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , so this was , uh , a , uh , proposal that we put in before on {disfmarker} on more {disfmarker} more higher level , uh , issues in meetings , from {disfmarker} I guess higher level from my point of view . Uh , {vocalsound} and , uh , meeting mappings , and , uh {disfmarker} so is i for {disfmarker} it was a {vocalsound} proposal for the ITR program , uh , Information Technology Research program 's part of National Science Foundation . It 's the {pause} second year of their doing , uh , these grants . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} a lot of them are {disfmarker} some of them anyway , are larger {disfmarker} larger grants than the usual , small NSF grants , and . So , they 're very competitive , and they have a first phase where you put in pre - proposals , and we {disfmarker} we , uh , got through that . And so th the {disfmarker} the next phase will be {disfmarker} we 'll actually be doing a larger proposal . And I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope to be doing very little of it . And {disfmarker} uh , {vocalsound} which was also true for the pre - proposal , so . Uh , there 'll be bunch of people working on it . So . +Grad B: When 's {disfmarker} when 's the full proposal due ? +Professor A: Uh , I think April ninth , or something . So it 's about a month . +PhD E: p s +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . And they said end of business day you could check on the reviewer forms , +PhD G: u +Grad B: is that {disfmarker} +PhD G: Tomorrow . +Professor A: Tomorrow . March second , I said . +PhD E: Tomorrow ? +Grad B: I 've been a day off all week . +PhD C: Tomorrow . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: I guess that 's a good thing cuz that way I got my papers done early . +PhD G: It would be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that 's amazing you showed up at this meeting ! +Grad B: It is . It is actually quite amazing . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: It 'll be interesting to see the reviewer 's comments . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . My favorite is was when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when one reviewer says , uh , "" you know , this should be far more detailed "" , and the nex the next reviewer says , "" you know , there 's way too much detail "" . +Grad B: Yep . Or "" this is way too general "" , and the other reviewer says , "" this is way too specific "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: "" This is way too hard "" , "" way too easy "" . +Professor A: We 'll see . Maybe there 'll be something useful . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well it sounded like they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the first gate was pretty easy . Is that right ? That they didn't reject a lot of the pre - proposals ? +Professor A: Do you know anything about the numbers ? +Grad B: No . Just {disfmarker} just th +PhD G: It 's just from his message it sounded like that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I said something , yeah . +PhD G: Gary Strong 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: I +PhD G: there was a sentence at the end of one of his paragraphs +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: I should go back and look . I didn't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's true . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Mmm . He said the next phase 'll be very , competitive +PhD E: Very {disfmarker} very , +PhD G: because we didn't want to weed out much in the first phase . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Well we 'll have to see what the numbers are . +Grad B: Or something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . But they {disfmarker} they have to weed out enough so that they have enough reviewers . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: So , uh , you know , maybe they didn't r weed out as much as usual , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's usually a pretty {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly not {disfmarker} I 'm sure that it 's not down to one in two or something of what 's left . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I 'm sure it 's , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: How {disfmarker} how many awards are there , do you know ? +Professor A: Well there 's different numbers of w awards for different size {disfmarker} They have three size grants . This one there 's , um {disfmarker} See the small ones are less than five hundred thousand total over three years and that they have a fair number of them . Um , and the large ones are , uh , boy , I forget , I think , more than , uh , more than a million and a half , more than two million or something like that . And {disfmarker} and we 're in the middle {disfmarker} middle category . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think we 're , uh , uh , I forget what it was . But , um {disfmarker} Uh , I don't remember , but it 's {pause} pr probably along the li I {disfmarker} I could be wrong on this yeah , but probably along the lines of fifteen or {disfmarker} that they 'll fund , or twenty . I mean when they {disfmarker} Do you {disfmarker} do you know how many they funded when they f in {disfmarker} in Chuck 's , that he got last year ? +PhD G: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: I thought it was smaller , that it was like four or five , wasn't it ? +Professor A: Well they fund {disfmarker} +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't remember . +Professor A: yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh it doesn't matter , we 'll find out one way or another . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean last time I think they just had two categories , small and big , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and this time they came up with a middle one , so it 'll {disfmarker} there 'll be more of them that they fund than {disfmarker} of the big . +PhD G: If we end up getting this , um , what will it mean to ICSI in terms of , w wh where will the money go to , what would we be doing with it ? +Professor A: Uh . +Grad B: Exactly what we say in the proposal . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I mean uh which part is ICSI though . +Professor A: You know , it {disfmarker} i None of it will go for those yachts that we 've talking about . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} Dang ! +Professor A: Um , well , no , I mean it 's {disfmarker} u It {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's just for the research {disfmarker} to continue the research on the Meeting Recorder stuff ? +Professor A: It 's extending the research , right ? Because the other {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah it 's go higher level stuff than we 've been talking about for Meeting Recorder . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah the other things that we have , uh , been working on with , uh , the c with Communicator {disfmarker} uh , especially with the newer things {disfmarker} with the more acoustically - oriented things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are lower level . And , this is dealing with , uh , mapping on the level of {disfmarker} of , um , the conversation {disfmarker} of mapping the conversations +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Professor A: to different kind of planes . So . Um . But , um . So it 's all it 's all stuff that none none of us are doing right now , or none of us are funded for , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it would be new . +PhD G: So assuming everybody 's completely busy now , it means we 're gonna hafta , hire more students , or , something ? +Professor A: Well there 's evenings , and there 's weekends , and {disfmarker} Uh . Yeah , there {disfmarker} there would be {disfmarker} there would be new hires , and {disfmarker} and there {disfmarker} there would be expansion , but , also , there 's always {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for everybody there 's {disfmarker} there 's always things that are dropping off , grants that are ending , or other things that are ending , so , +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {vocalsound} continual need to {disfmarker} to bring in new things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but there definitely would be new {disfmarker} new {disfmarker} new , uh , students , +PhD G: I see . +Professor A: and so forth , both at {disfmarker} at UW and here . +Grad B: Are there any students in your class who are {vocalsound} expressing interest ? +Professor A: Um , not {pause} clear yet . Not clear yet . +Grad B: Other than the one who 's already here . +Professor A: I mean we got {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} yeah , two of them are {disfmarker} two in the c There 're {pause} two in the class already here , and then {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , then there 's a third who 's doing a project here , who , uh {disfmarker} But he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't be in the country that long , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and , maybe another will end up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor A: Actually there is one other guy who 's looking {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's that guy , uh , Jeremy ? {comment} I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Anyway , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's all I was gonna say is that {disfmarker} that that 's {disfmarker} you know , that 's nice and we 're sorta preceding to the next step , and , {vocalsound} it 'll mean some more work , uh , you know , in {disfmarker} in March in getting the proposal out , and then , it 's , uh , you know {disfmarker} We 'll see what happens . Uh , the last one was {disfmarker} that you had there , {comment} was about naming ? +Grad B: Yep . It just , uh {disfmarker} we 've been cutting up sound files , in {disfmarker} for ba both digits and for , uh , doing recognition . And Liz had some suggestions on naming and it just brought up the whole issue that hasn't really been resolved about naming . So , uh , one thing she would like to have is for all the names to be the same length so that sorting is easier . Um , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: same number of characters so that when you 're sorting filenames you can easily extract out bits and pieces that you want . And that 's easy enough to do . And I don't think we have so many meetings that that 's a big deal just to change the names . So that means , uh , instead of calling it "" MR one "" , "" MR two "" , you 'd call it "" MRM zero zero one "" , "" MRM zero zero two "" , things like that . Just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're all the same length . +Postdoc F: But , you know , when you , do things like that you can always {disfmarker} as long as you have {disfmarker} uh , you can always search from the beginning or the end of the string . +Grad B: The problem is that they 're a lot of fields . +Postdoc F: You know , so "" zero zero two "" {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad B: so we {disfmarker} we have th we 're gonna have the speaker ID , the session , uh {disfmarker} uh , information on the microphones , +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , your example was really {disfmarker} +Grad B: information on the speak on the channels and all that . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: i +Grad B: And so if each one of those is a fixed length , the sorting becomes a lot easier . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad D: She wanted to keep them {vocalsound} the same lengths across different meetings also . So like , the NSA meeting lengths , {comment} all filenames are gonna be the same length as the Meeting Recorder meeting names ? +Grad B: Yep . And as I said , the it 's {disfmarker} we just don't have that many that that 's a big deal . +PhD G: Cuz of digits . +Grad B: And so , uh , um , at some point we have to sort of take a few days off , let the transcribers have a few days off , make sure no one 's touching the data and reorganize the file structures . And when we do that we can also rationalize some of the naming . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I would think though that the transcribe {disfmarker} the transcripts themselves wouldn't need to have such lengthy names . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc F: So , I mean , you 're dealing with a different domain there , and with start and end times and all that , and channels and stuff , +Grad B: Right . So the only thing that would change with that is just the directory names , +Postdoc F: so , it 's a different {pause} set . +Grad B: I would change them to match . So instead of being MR one it would be MRM zero zero one . But I don't think that 's a big deal . +Postdoc F: Fine . Fine . +Grad B: So for {disfmarker} for m the meetings we were thinking about three letters and three numbers for meeting I Ds . Uh , for speakers , M or F and then three numbers , For , uh {disfmarker} and , uh , that also brings up the point that we have to start assembling a speaker database so that we get those links back and forth and keep it consistent . Um , and then , uh , the microphone issues . We want some way of specifying , more than looking in the "" key "" file , what channel and what mike . What channel , what mike , and what broadcaster . Or {disfmarker} I don't know how to s say it . So I mean with this one it 's this particular headset with this particular transmitter w {pause} as a wireless . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad B: And you know that one is a different headset and different channel . And so we just need some naming conventions on that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , uh , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: that 's gonna become especially important once we start changing the microphone set - up . We have some new microphones that I 'd like to start trying out , um , once I test them . And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll need to specify that somewhere . So I was just gonna do a fixed list of , uh , microphones and types . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So , as I said {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: That sounds good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , {pause} {vocalsound} since we have such a short agenda list I guess I wi I will ask how {disfmarker} how are the transcriptions going ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the news is that I 've {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} s So {disfmarker} in s um {disfmarker} So I 've switched to {disfmarker} Start my new sentence . I {disfmarker} I switched to doing the channel - by - channel transcriptions to provide , uh , the {disfmarker} uh , tighter time bins for {disfmarker} partly for use in Thilo 's work and also it 's of relevance to other people in the project . And , um , I discovered in the process a couple of {disfmarker} of interesting things , which , um , one of them is that , um , it seems that there are time lags involved in doing this , uh , uh , using an interface that has so much more complexity to it . And I {disfmarker} and I wanted to maybe ask , uh , Chuck to help me with some of the questions of efficiency . Maybe {disfmarker} I was thinking maybe the best way to do this in the long run may be to give them single channel parts and then piece them together later . And I {disfmarker} I have a script , I can piece them together . I mean , so it 's like , I {disfmarker} I know that I can take them apart and put them together and I 'll end up with the representation which is where the real power of that interface is . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And it may be that it 's faster to transcribe a channel at a time with only one , uh , sound file and one , uh , set of {disfmarker} of , uh , utterances to check through . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: I 'm a little confused . I thought that {disfmarker} that one of the reason we thought we were so much faster than {disfmarker} than , uh , the {disfmarker} the other transcription , uh , thing was that {disfmarker} that we were using the mixed {pause} file . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . OK . But , um , with the mixed , when you have an overlap , you only have a {disfmarker} a choice of one start and end time for that entire overlap , which means that you 're not tightly , uh , tuning the individual parts th of that overlap by different speakers . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Postdoc F: So someone may have only said two words in that entire big chunk of overlap . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And for purposes of {disfmarker} of , uh , things like {disfmarker} well , so things like training the speech - nonspeech segmentation thing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Th - it 's necessary to have it more tightly tuned than that . +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc F: And w and w and , you know , is a It would be wonderful if , uh , it 's possible then to use that algorithm to more tightly tie in all the channels after that but , um , you know , I 've {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} So , I I don't know exactly where that 's going at this point . But m I was experimenting with doing this by hand and I really do think that it 's wise that we 've had them start the way we have with , uh , m y working off the mixed signal , um , having the interface that doesn't require them to do the ti uh , the time bins for every single channel at a t uh , through the entire interaction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Um , I did discover a couple other things by doing this though , and one of them is that , um , um , once in a while a backchannel will be overlooked by the transcriber . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: As you might expect , +Professor A: Sure . +Postdoc F: because when it 's a b backchannel could well happen in a very densely populated overlap . And if we 're gonna study types of overlaps , which is what I wanna do , an analysis of that , then that really does require listening {comment} to every single channel all the way through the entire {comment} length for all the different speakers . Now , for only four speakers , that 's not gonna be too much time , but if it 's nine speakers , then that i that is more time . So it 's li you know , kind of wondering {disfmarker} And I think again it 's like this {disfmarker} it 's really valuable that Thilo 's working on the speech - nonspeech segmentation because maybe , um , we can close in on that wi without having to actually go to the time that it would take to listen to every single channel from start to finish through every single meeting . +PhD E: Yeah , but those backchannels will always be a problem I think . Uh especially if they 're really short and they 're not very loud and so it {disfmarker} it can {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it will always happen that also the automatic s detection system will miss some of them , so . +Postdoc F: OK . Well so then {disfmarker} then , maybe the answer is to , uh , listen especially densely in places of overlap , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're not being overlooked because of that , and count on accuracy during the sparser phases . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Cuz there are large s spaces of the {disfmarker} That 's a good point . There are large spaces where there 's no overlap at all . Someone 's giving a presentation , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: or whatever . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} that 's a good thought . And , um , let 's see , there was one other thing I was gonna say . I {disfmarker} I think it 's really interesting data to work with , I have to say , it 's very enjoyable . I really , not {disfmarker} not a problem spending time with these data . Really interesting . And not just because I 'm in there . No , it 's real interesting . +Professor A: Uh , well I think it 's a short meeting . Uh , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're still in the midst of what you 're doing from what you described last time , I assume , +PhD C: Is true . +Postdoc F: +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: I haven't results , eh , yet +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: but , eh , I {disfmarker} I 'm continue working with the mixed signal now , {comment} after the {disfmarker} the last experience . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and I 'm tried to {disfmarker} to , uh , adjust the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to improve , eh , an harmonicity , eh , detector that , eh , I {disfmarker} I implement . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: But I have problem because , eh , I get , eh , eh , very much harmonics now . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , harmonic {disfmarker} possi possible harmonics , uh , eh , and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} to find , eh , some kind of a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of h of help , eh , using the energy to {disfmarker} to distinguish between possible harmonics , and {disfmarker} and other fre frequency peaks , that , eh , corres not harmonics . And , eh , I have to {disfmarker} to talk with y with you , with the group , eh , about the instantaneous frequency , because I have , eh , an algorithm , and , I get , mmm , eh , t t results {disfmarker} similar results , like , eh , the paper , eh , that I {disfmarker} I am following . But , eh , the {disfmarker} the rules , eh , that , eh , people used in the paper to {disfmarker} to distinguish the harmonics , is {disfmarker} doesn't work well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure that i {vocalsound} eh , the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} o to {disfmarker} ob the way to obtain the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency is {pause} right , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's not right . Eh , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I haven't enough file feeling to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to distinguish what happened . +Professor A: Yeah , I 'd like to talk with you about it . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} If I don't have enough time and y you wanna discuss with someone else {disfmarker} some someone else besides us that you might want to talk to , uh , might be Stephane . +PhD C: Yeah . I talked with Stephane and {disfmarker} and Thilo +Professor A: Yeah and {disfmarker} and Thilo , yeah . +PhD C: and , +Professor A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD C: they {disfmarker} nnn they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {comment} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {vocalsound} didn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 'm not too experienced with {vocalsound} harmonics +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: they think that {comment} the experience is not enough to {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Is {disfmarker} is this the algorithm where you hypothesize a fundamental , and then get the energy for all the harmonics of that fundamental ? +PhD C: No , no it 's {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD G: And then hypothesize a new fundamental and get the energy {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , that 's wh +PhD C: No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't proth process the {disfmarker} the fundamental . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I , ehm {disfmarker} I calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate using the FFT . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} The algorithm said that , eh , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} if you change the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , eh , nnn {disfmarker} the X - the frequency "" X "" , eh , using the in the instantaneous frequency , you can find , eh , how , eh , in several frequencies that proba probably the {disfmarker} the harmonics , eh , +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: the errors of peaks {disfmarker} the frequency peaks , eh , eh , move around {pause} these , eh {disfmarker} eh frequency harmonic {disfmarker} the frequency of the harmonic . And , {vocalsound} eh , if you {disfmarker} if you compare the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , {vocalsound} eh , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the , eh , continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh , filters , that , eh {disfmarker} that , eh , they used eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it probably too , you can find , {vocalsound} eh , that the instantaneous frequency {vocalsound} for the continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} the output of the continuous filters are very near . And in {pause} my case {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} equal with our signal , {vocalsound} it doesn't happened . +Professor A: Yeah . I 'd hafta look at that and think about it . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I haven't worked with that either so I 'm not sure {disfmarker} The way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the simple - minded way I suggested was what Chuck was just saying , is that you could make a {disfmarker} a sieve . You know , y you actually say that here is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's hypothesize that it 's this frequency or that frequency , and {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe you {disfmarker} maybe you could use some other cute methods to , uh , short cut it by {disfmarker} by uh , making some guesses , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , I would , uh {disfmarker} I mean you could make some guesses from , uh {disfmarker} from the auto - correlation or something but {disfmarker} but then , given those guesses , try , um , uh , only looking at the energy at multiples of the {disfmarker} of that frequency , and {disfmarker} and see how much of the {disfmarker} take the one that 's maximum . Call that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Using the energy of the {disfmarker} of the multiple of the frequency . +Professor A: Of all the harmonics of that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Do you hafta do some kind of , uh , low - pass filter before you do that ? +PhD C: I don't use . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: But , I {disfmarker} I know many people use , eh , low - pass filter to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the pitch . +Professor A: No . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD C: I don't use . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD E: To get the pitch , yeah . +PhD C: But the harmonic , no . +PhD G: But i But the harmonics are gonna be , uh , uh , I don't know what the right word is . Um , they 're gonna be dampened by the uh , vocal tract , right ? The response of the vocal tract . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Yeah ? +PhD G: And so {disfmarker} just looking at the energy on those {disfmarker} at the harmonics , is that gonna {disfmarker} ? +Professor A: Well so the thing is that the {disfmarker} This is for , uh , a , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: I m what you 'd like to do is get rid of the effect of the vocal tract . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And just look at the {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the signal coming out of the glottis . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh , well , yeah that 'd be good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But , uh {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I don't know that you need to {disfmarker} +Grad B: Open wide ! +Professor A: but I don't need you {disfmarker} know if you need to get rid of it . I mean that 'd {disfmarker} that 'd be nice but I don't know if it 's ess if it 's essential . Um , I mean {disfmarker} cuz I think the main thing is that , uh , you 're trying {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - huh . +Professor A: wha what are you doing this for ? You 're trying distinguish between the case where there is , uh {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there are more than {disfmarker} uh , where there 's more than one speaker and the case where there 's only one speaker . +Grad B: Sorry . +Professor A: So if there 's more than one speaker , um {disfmarker} yeah I guess you could {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} yeah you 're {disfmarker} so you 're not distinguished between voiced and unvoiced , so {disfmarker} so , i if you don't {disfmarker} if you don't care about that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: See , if you also wanna {vocalsound} just determine {disfmarker} if you also wanna determine whether it 's unvoiced , {vocalsound} then I think you want to {pause} look {disfmarker} look at high frequencies also , because the f the fact that there 's more energy in the high frequencies is gonna be an ob sort of obvious cue that it 's unvoiced . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: But , i i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean i i but , um , other than that I guess as far as the one person versus two persons , it would be {pause} primarily a low frequency phenomenon . And if you looked at the low frequencies , yes the higher frequencies are gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a spectral slope . The higher frequencies will be lower energy . But so what . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's w +PhD C: I will prepare for the next week eh , all my results about the harmonicity and {pause} will {disfmarker} will try to come in and to discuss here , because , eh , I haven't enough feeling to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to u {vocalsound} many time to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to understand what happened with the {disfmarker} with , eh , so many peaks , eh , eh , and {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I see the harmonics there many time but , eh , {vocalsound} there are a lot of peaks , eh , that , eh , they are not harmonics . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , I have to discover what {disfmarker} what is the {disfmarker} the w the best way to {disfmarker} to {comment} {disfmarker} to {comment} c to use them +Professor A: Well , but {disfmarker} yeah I don't think you can {disfmarker} I mean you 're not gonna be able to look at every frame , so I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I really {disfmarker} I I really thought that the best way to do it , and I 'm speaking with no experience on this particular point , but , {vocalsound} my impression was that the best way to do it was however you {disfmarker} You 've used instantaneous frequency , whatever . {comment} However you 've come up {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} with your candidates , you wanna see how much of the energy is in that +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: as coppo as opposed to all of the {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} the total energy . And , um , if it 's voiced , I guess {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so y I think maybe you do need a voiced - unvoiced determination too . But if it 's voiced , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: um , and the , uh {disfmarker} e the fraction of the energy that 's in the harmonic sequence that you 're looking at is relatively low , then it should be {disfmarker} then it 's more likely to be an overlap . +PhD C: Is height . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is the idea {disfmarker} the idea I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had to {disfmarker} to compare the {disfmarker} the ratio of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the energy of the harmonics with the {disfmarker} eh , with the , eh , total energy in the spectrum and try to get a ratio to {disfmarker} to distinguish between overlapping and speech . Mmm . +Professor A: But you 're looking a y you 're looking at {disfmarker} Let 's take a second with this . Uh , uh , you 're looking at f at the phase derivative , um , in {disfmarker} in , uh , what domain ? I mean this is {disfmarker} this is in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in bands ? Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , no , no . +Professor A: Just {disfmarker} just overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} o i w the band {disfmarker} the band is , eh , from zero to {disfmarker} to four kilohertz . And I {disfmarker} I ot I {disfmarker} +Professor A: And you just take the instantaneous frequency ? +PhD C: Yeah . I u m t I {disfmarker} I used two m two method {disfmarker} two methods . Eh , one , eh , based on the F {disfmarker} eh , FTT . to FFT to {disfmarker} to obtain the {disfmarker} or to study the harmonics from {disfmarker} from the spectrum directly , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and to study the energy and the multiples of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: frequency . And another {disfmarker} another algorithm I have is the {disfmarker} in the {pause} instantaneous frequency , based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the FFT to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate in the time . Eh , uh n the d I mean I {disfmarker} I have two {disfmarker} two algorithms . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: But , eh , in m {pause} i in my opinion the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the behavior , eh , was {disfmarker} th it was very interesting . Because I {disfmarker} I saw {vocalsound} eh , how the spectrum {pause} concentrate , eh , +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD C: around the {disfmarker} the harmonic . But then when I apply the {disfmarker} the rule , eh , of the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {pause} the instantaneous frequency of the ne of the continuous filter in the {disfmarker} the near filter , the {disfmarker} the rule that , eh , people propose in the paper doesn't work . And I don't know why . +Professor A: But the instantaneous frequency , wouldn't that give you something more like the central frequency of the {disfmarker} you know , of the {disfmarker} where most of the energy is ? I mean , I think if you {disfmarker} Does i does it {disfmarker} Why would it correspond to pitch ? +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: When {vocalsound} first I {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} I calculate , eh , using the FFT , +Postdoc F: Di - digital camera . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Keep forgetting . +PhD C: I get the {disfmarker} {pause} the spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and I represent all the frequency . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} when ou I obtained the instantaneous frequency . And I change {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the @ @ , using the instantaneous frequency , here . +Professor A: Oh , so you scale {disfmarker} you s you do a {disfmarker} a scaling along that axis according to instantaneous {disfmarker} +PhD C: I use {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: It 's a kinda normalization . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Because when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: eh , when i I {disfmarker} I use these {disfmarker} these frequency , eh , the range is different , and the resolution is different . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And I observe more {disfmarker} more or less , thing like this . And the paper said that , eh , these frequencies are probably , eh , harmonics . +Professor A: I see . Huh . +PhD C: But , eh , they used , eh , a rule , eh , based in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} because to {disfmarker} to calculate the instantaneous frequency , they use a Hanning window . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And , they said that , eh , if {pause} these {pause} peak are , eh , harmonics , the f instantaneous frequency , of the contiguous , eh {disfmarker} w eh eh , filters are very near , or have to be very near . But , eh , phh ! I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don I I {disfmarker} and I don't know what is the {disfmarker} what is the distance . And I tried to {disfmarker} to put different distance , eh , to put difference , eh {disfmarker} eh , length of the window , eh , different front sieve , Pfff ! and I {disfmarker} I not sure what happened . +Professor A: OK , yeah well I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm not following it enough . I 'll {comment} probably gonna hafta look at the paper , but {disfmarker} which I 'm not gonna have time to do in the next few days , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm curious about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , uh , OK . +Postdoc F: I I did i it did occur to me that this is {disfmarker} uh , the return to the transcription , that there 's one third thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to ex raise as a to as an issue which is , um , how to handle breaths . So , I wanted to raise the question of whether people in speech recognition want to know where the breaths are . And the reason I ask the question is , um , aside from the fact that they 're obviously very time - consuming to encode , uh , the fact that there was some {disfmarker} I had the indication from Dan Ellis in the email that I sent to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and you know about , that in principle we might be able to , um , handle breaths by accessi by using cross - talk from the other things , be able that {disfmarker} in principle , maybe we could get rid of them , so maybe {disfmarker} And I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , I mean we had this an and I didn't {disfmarker} couldn't get back to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but the question of whether it 'd be possible to eliminate them from the audio signal , which would be the ideal situation , +Professor A: I don't know {disfmarker} think it 'd be ideal . +Postdoc F: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - uh . +Professor A: We - See , we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with real speech and we 're trying to have it be as real as possible +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: and breaths are part of real speech . +Postdoc F: Well , except that these are really truly {disfmarker} I mean , ther there 's a segment in o the one I did {disfmarker} n the first one that I did for {disfmarker} i for this , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: where truly w we 're hearing you breathing like {disfmarker} as if we 're {disfmarker} you 're in our ear , you know , and it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I y i I mean , breath is natural , but not +Professor A: It is {disfmarker} but it is if you record it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Except that we 're {disfmarker} we 're trying to mimic {disfmarker} Oh , I see what you 're saying . You 're saying that the PDA application would have {disfmarker} uh , have to cope with breath . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Well +PhD E: No . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: An - any application may have to . +Grad B: The P D A might not have to , +PhD E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad B: but more people than just PDA users are interested in this corpus . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so mean you 're right +Postdoc F: OK , then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} I have two questions . +Grad B: we could remove it , +Postdoc F: Yeah ? +Grad B: but I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} we don't wanna w remove it from the corpus , {pause} in terms of delivering it because the {disfmarker} people will want it in there . +Professor A: Yeah . If it gets {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , so maybe the question is notating it . Yeah ? +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} i Right . If {disfmarker} if it gets in the way of what somebody is doing with it then you might wanna have some method which will allow you to block it , but you {disfmarker} it 's real data . You don't wanna b but you don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: If s you know , if there 's a little bit of noise out there , and somebody is {disfmarker} is talking about something they 're doing , that 's part of what we accept as part of a real meeting , even {disfmarker} And we have the f uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fan and the {disfmarker} in the projector up there , and , uh , this is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is actual stuff that we {disfmarker} we wanna work with . +Postdoc F: Well this is in very interesting +Professor A: So . +Postdoc F: because i it basically has a i it shows very clearly the contrast between , uh , speech recognition research and discourse research because in {disfmarker} in discourse and linguistic research , what counts is what 's communit communicative . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} breath , you know , everyone breathes , they breathe all the time . And once in a while breath is communicative , but r very rarely . OK , so now , I had a discussion with Chuck about the data structure +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and the idea is that the transcripts will {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} get stored as a master there 'll be a master transcript which has in it everything that 's needed for both of these uses . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And the one that 's used for speech recognition will be processed via scripts . You know , like , Don 's been writing scripts +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} and , uh , to process it for the speech recognition side . Discourse side will {vocalsound} have this {disfmarker} this side over he the {disfmarker} we we 'll have a s ch Sorry , not being very fluent here . But , um , this {disfmarker} the discourse side will have a script which will stri strip away the things which are non - communicative . OK . So then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's think about the practicalities of how we get to that master copy with reference to breaths . So what I would {disfmarker} r r what I would wonder is would it be possible to encode those automatically ? Could we get a breath detector ? +Grad B: Oh , just to save the transcribers time . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you just have no idea . I mean , if you 're getting a breath several times every minute , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and just simply the keystrokes it takes to negotiate , to put the boundaries in , to {disfmarker} to type it in , i it 's just a huge amount of time . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oops . +Professor A: Wh - what {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And you wanna be sure it 's used , and you wanna be sure it 's done as efficiently as possible , and if it can be done automatically , that would be ideal . +Professor A: what if you put it in but didn't put the boundaries ? +Postdoc F: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor A: So you just know it 's between these other things , +Postdoc F: Well , OK . So now there 's {disfmarker} there 's another {disfmarker} another possibility +Professor A: right ? +Postdoc F: which is , um , the time boundaries could mark off words {comment} from nonwords . And that would be extremely time - effective , if that 's sufficient . +Professor A: Yeah I mean I 'm think if it 's too {disfmarker} if it 's too hard for us to annotate the breaths per se , {vocalsound} we are gonna be building up models for these things and these things are somewhat self - aligning , so if {disfmarker} so , {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} i i if we say there is some kind of a thing which we call a "" breath "" or a "" breath - in "" or "" breath - out "" , {vocalsound} the models will learn that sort of thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} but you do want them to point them at some region where {disfmarker} where the breaths really are . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . But that would maybe include a pause as well , +PhD G: Well , there 's a there 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and that wouldn't be a problem to have it , uh , pause plus breath plus laugh plus sneeze ? +Professor A: Yeah , i You know there is {disfmarker} there 's this dynamic tension between {disfmarker} between marking absolutely everything , as you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and marking just a little bit and counting on the statistical methods . Basically the more we can mark the better . But if there seems to be a lot of effort for a small amount of reward in some area , and this might be one like this {disfmarker} Although I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd be interested to h get {disfmarker} get input from Liz and Andreas on this to see if they {disfmarker} Cuz they 've - they 've got lots of experience with the breaths in {disfmarker} in , uh , uh , their transcripts . +Grad B: They have lots of experience with breathing ? +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: Actually {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} yes they do , but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can handle that without them here . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , you were gonna say something about {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think , um , one possible way that we could handle it is that , um , you know , as the transcribers are going through , and if they get a hunk of speech that they 're gonna transcribe , u th they 're gonna transcribe it because there 's words in there or whatnot . If there 's a breath in there , they could transcribe that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's what they 've been doing . So , within an overlap segment , they {disfmarker} they do this . +PhD G: Right . But {disfmarker} Right . But if there 's a big hunk of speech , let 's say on Morgan 's mike where he 's not talking at all , um , don't {disfmarker} don't worry about that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So what we 're saying is , there 's no guarantee that , um {disfmarker} So for the chunks that are transcribed , everything 's transcribed . But outside of those boundaries , there could have been stuff that wasn't transcribed . So you just {disfmarker} somebody can't rely on that data and say "" that 's perfectly clean data "" . Uh {disfmarker} do you see what I 'm saying ? +Postdoc F: Yeah , you 're saying it 's {disfmarker} uncharted territory . +PhD G: So I would say don't tell them to transcribe anything that 's outside of a grouping of words . +Professor A: That sounds like a reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable compromise . +PhD E: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that quite co corresponds to the way I {disfmarker} I try to train the speech - nonspeech detector , as I really try to {disfmarker} not to detect those breaths which are not within a speech chunk but with {disfmarker} which are just in {disfmarker} in a silence region . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And they {disfmarker} so they hopefully won't be marked in {disfmarker} in those channel - specific files . +Professor A: u I {disfmarker} I wanted to comment a little more just for clarification about this business about the different purposes . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: See , in a {disfmarker} in a way this is a really key point , that for speech recognition , uh , research , uh , um , e a {disfmarker} it 's not just a minor part . In fact , the {disfmarker} I think I would say the core thing that we 're trying to do is to recognize the actual , meaningful components in the midst of other things that are not meaningful . So it 's critical {disfmarker} it 's not just incidental it 's critical for us to get these other components that are not meaningful . Because that 's what we 're trying to pull the other out of . That 's our problem . If we had nothing {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: if we had only linguistically - relevant things {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we only had changes in the spectrum that were associated with words , with different spectral components , and , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't have noise , we didn't have convolutional errors , we didn't have extraneous , uh , behaviors , and so forth , and {vocalsound} moving your head and all these sorts of things , then , actually speech recognition i i isn't that bad right now . I mean you can you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the technology 's come along pretty well . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason we still complain about it is because is {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have more realistic conditions then {disfmarker} then things fall apart . +Postdoc F: OK , fair enough . I guess , um , I {disfmarker} uh , what I was wondering is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} at what level does the breathing aspect enter into the problem ? Because if it were likely that a PDA would be able to be built which would get rid of the breathing , so it wouldn't even have to be processed at thi at this computational le well , let me see , it 'd have to be computationally processed to get rid of it , but if there were , uh , like likely on the frontier , a good breath extractor then , um , and then you 'd have to {disfmarker} +Professor A: But that 's a research question , you know ? And so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , see and that 's what I wouldn't know . +Professor A: that {disfmarker} And we don't either . I mean so {disfmarker} so the thing is it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} right now it 's just raw d it 's just data that we 're collecting , and so {vocalsound} we don't wanna presuppose that people will be able to get rid of particular degradations because that 's actually the research that we 're trying to feed . So , you know , an and maybe {disfmarker} maybe in five years it 'll work really well , +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and it 'll only mess - up ten percent of the time , but then we would still want to account for that ten percent , so . +Postdoc F: I guess there 's another aspect which is that as we 've improved our microphone technique , we have a lot less breath in the {disfmarker} in the more recent , uh , recordings , so it 's {disfmarker} in a way it 's an artifact that there 's so much on the {disfmarker} on the earlier ones . +Professor A: Uh - huh . I see . +PhD G: One of the {disfmarker} um , just to add to this {disfmarker} one of the ways that we will be able to get rid of breath is by having models for them . I mean , that 's what a lot of people do nowadays . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And so in order to build the model you need to have some amount of it marked , so that you know where the boundaries are . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} I mean , I don't think we need to worry a lot about breaths that are happening outside of a , you know , conversation . We don't have to go and search for them to {disfmarker} to mark them at all , but , I mean , if they 're there while they 're transcribing some hunk of words , I 'd say put them in if possible . +Postdoc F: OK , and it 's also the fact that they differ a lot from one channel to the other because of the way the microphone 's adjusted . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: Should we do the digits ? +Grad B: Yep . OK . +PhD C: OK . +Grad D: Mmm . Alright . +","In the conversation, there was a discussion primarily focused on technical issues related to ongoing transcription and speech recognition projects. Participants discussed the problems of crashing software, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Information Technology Research (ITR) grant application process, and transcription conventions for a digits test set. They also debated whether or not to include breaths in the transcriptions, with the understanding that natural breathing is a part of realistic speech and must be dealt with in speech recognition research. The decision was to mark breaths if they occurred within spoken segments, but not to search for breaths outside of the conversation. + +Grad B brought up the agenda, mentioning a need for discussing naming conventions and potentially reorganizing file structures to make names uniform for sorting purposes. Postdoc F suggested discussing efficient transcription methods, particularly the treatment of overlapping speech and breath sounds. They proposed automated breath detection to save transcribers' time as breaths occur frequently. PhD G and Professor A thought it was important to model breaths in the data, as it would help build better speech recognition systems. + +The NSF grant topic came up several times, with the submission of a pre-proposal, receiving feedback from reviewers, and preparing for a full proposal submission. In particular, Professor A wanted to minimize his involvement in the next steps of the grant-writing process. + +Throughout the conversation, there were multiple technical interruptions and discussion of minor details related to the audio recording, transcription, and speech recognition issues they were tasked with. Professor A also mentioned the importance of capturing all aspects of speech, including extraneous sounds and behaviors, as it represents the complexity of real-life speech recognition tasks." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Wait for the marketing director actually , so . Anyways . Uh . See , shall we wait ? I'm not sure if he's late or delayed or whatever , so I'm gonna start soon , we have now {disfmarker} don't have much time anyway . +User Interface: Oh , there he is . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: There you are , +Industrial Designer: we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: a little bit of pl little problem with computer . +Project Manager: Uh no problem . We're about to start , so have a seat . Okay , welcome again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Today , functional design phase . I'll take you over the minutes of last last meeting . Okay , that was just to get to know each other , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: have a little thoughts on what your vision is and {disfmarker} on this project , so {disfmarker} I put the minutes on the {disfmarker} I made on the on the p the the project share , so if you wanna review them , they're there . I will do so after every meeting , so if you have some information you wanna take back you can find it there . Anyways , um today three presentations , from every one of you . Um after that I got some new project requirements from project board , so we're gonna go af go after {disfmarker} over this later . But I wanna start with uh stuff you did first , so we can see what everybody came up with . And after that we can have the new requirements and share some thoughts , so . Who would like {disfmarker} wanna go first ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure , no problem . +Project Manager: Take it . +User Interface: Go ahead . +Marketing: Um there was a little problem with my computer so not uh the whole uh presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , let's see what you have . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Uh it's still a bit open . +Marketing: I want to open the my s oh no . +Project Manager: You should close it on your own notebook , I guess . Yeah . So there ? +Marketing: Oh no , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: that's okay . Uh slide show . Yes . The functional requirements , it's uh {vocalsound} uh very important for uh the user , he he wants to {disfmarker} yeah . The the method we used uh it it's not m not a slide , because it went wrong , but the method we use uh , um {vocalsound} we tested it w uh with uh a hundred uh men , and we asked them to w uh what the remote uh f feel uh like and uh what what's uh important . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If I can cut in , is it people or men ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: People , +Project Manager: Is it people , okay . +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: 'Cause I thought it was only men , +Marketing: Both women and men , +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . Uh the findings um uh {vocalsound} seventy five percent of the users find most remote controls ugly . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's pretty shocking uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to s we have to do something about that . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} yeah , most th th they want to spend money for a better system , for better remote control , so we can do uh a l a little uh nice things with it , and um they use {disfmarker} yeah , they use zap a lot , um uh fifty percent say they only {disfmarker} So that's the most important things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , not all of it is it on mine on my PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: Okay , just talk ahead . +Marketing: but um uh the relevant buttons are the power , the channel selection and the volume selection . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh the most basic buttons that a user wants uh {vocalsound} to use . Uh less important is tel teletext , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh um they use it , but it's not uh very uh important uh on the scale of zero to ten they six and a half uh +Project Manager: Okay , that's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} but not important is the channel selection , the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} hmm ? +Project Manager: That's a little weird . +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which channel selection ? +Marketing: the the {disfmarker} no no no no no , that's very important , but uh w and not important in the audio settings , display settings +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can we can hide those under a menu or something , +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um new preferences preferences . Uh um um beep to find your control , was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's like a button on your T_V_ ? +Marketing: that was {gap} in the test , the the most people uh f find it uh irritating uh when they cannot find a rem their remote control , +Project Manager: Remote , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so uh I think it's a bee beep to sound it and uh you can find it . And another thing uh they want was uh speech recognition um so they can say uh what they want to {disfmarker} let's go to channel one and uh that's uh kind of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And they want maybe an uh L_C_D_ screen um to to look it um wh what's on every channel uh and uh what do I want with it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We wanna have a little preview on the remote control . Preview what's on the channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is that manageable ? 'Cause it sounds pretty expensive too . +Project Manager: That sounds too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's possible , but uh I think it's expensive , but do continue . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Uh my personal preferences is uh a button for my favourite channel , so I can uh I dunno , so I can zap to my uh f uh quick uh to my favourite channel wh what I uh {disfmarker} so , the remote mu must see or um must um {vocalsound} see wha what mine preferences are for which channel , +Project Manager: Okay , you don't set it yourself , +Marketing: so I can zap t to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it just remembers the channel that you are on most , for example . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: You want the {disfmarker} you want it to be programmed , for example y programmed f +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you want it to recognise your favourite channel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see , you you spend twenty minutes each day on that channel , +Marketing: Recognise {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it recognises your favourite channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's uh what my personal preference like . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's it it does {disfmarker} it recognise itself , you don't have to set it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: itself . Maybe it's easier to {vocalsound} to sell it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I don't know it's manageable , but we will uh we will see . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a little bit uh it's the end of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's a little bit uh I lost it , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the computer uh crashed , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem , it's it's okay , +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} Yeah , go ahead . +User Interface: Shall I go ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So , some technical functions . +Marketing: Darn computer . +User Interface: Basically I have some issues which you discussed earlier . Uh let's just start with the method . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It sounds really easy , what does the user do , what does the th remote control do , but there are quite some issues . So the things I'm going to concentrate on are the user aspect , because the technical aspect , that's pretty much covered . We can do that . What goes wrong {vocalsound} at the user . Gets the remote control . Where is the remote control ? We've all had it once , I want to watch some television , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: where's the remote control ? That was one of your ideas which you posted in the network folder , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That seems very good . +User Interface: a really good idea . Uh these are just the issues . I come to some uh personal experience , findings , possible solutions later . Searches for the button . There are many buttons on a remote control which are not clear . Uh so either we lose those or we try to make it a little bit more clear . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh also symbols tend to fade after a while . +Marketing: Mm uh . +User Interface: There's nothing more annoying than faded symbols , because you don't know which channel is this button , so possibly we could find uh something for that , +Project Manager: Okay , so have it more {disfmarker} make it more durable actually . Okay . +User Interface: yes . Uh covered that . Oh yes , user presses the button . Um usually when you have a lot of buttons , buttons are small . So you press more once remote control goes kablouey or something like that , +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: so we have to pay attention not to put too mun too many buttons on uh the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And possibly also the size , so more important buttons , bigger +Project Manager: Wow . The s Yeah . Make it {disfmarker} make them bigger . +User Interface: si +Project Manager: Even more durable uh . +User Interface: So this is basically what I h had in mind in the {disfmarker} fade-proof symbols , locator , a sound , uh so clear we should stick to existing symbols , but maybe we could do a little uh investigation to see whether some symbols are uh {disfmarker} need to be replaced by others . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: This I pretty much covered . {vocalsound} So what we want to go to is not this one , +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +User Interface: but more {disfmarker} less buttons , easy , some bigger buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that's basically uh what I had in mind . So +Project Manager: Yeah , that's clear . +User Interface: This is not the final design , +Project Manager: No , of course uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is just a general idea of how I'd like to see uh basically the general idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . I must say that it {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that was it . +Project Manager: That was it . Okay , that was good . So we agree on the the part that we need to get something on the on the remote to find it somewhere and increase it {disfmarker} the durability of of the thing , +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's a really good idea . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The other aspects , we'll just see how {disfmarker} what you came up with and what's possible for that budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's fine . Um . Okay , now work a little with me . Okay . Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: let's start it as it is . Okay , uh the method . There are a few questions that need to be answered , uh you already uh talked about it a little bit . Which buttons are wanted , uh is our remote control universal or should it be programmable . Uh if it should be programmeab grammeale then we need um something like a mode that you can switch it . Because then the buttons have to send out a different signal then they would normally do . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh how big is the remote control uh going to be ? I'll tell you why that's important to me . Um there are a lot of technical parts in the remote control , so uh uh that's {vocalsound} why I also would like to say uh go a little bit easy on the designs , uh I heard ab uh you talking about beeps and about uh video screens , but uh the material inside and the technical aspects are quite complex already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So keep in mind that everything that you keep uh {disfmarker} think of , it has to b to be built . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Of course , hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} that's not as easy as it s might look like . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh material study , I'm working on that um for the the costs . I have to check out how far I can go with that . Normally , a circuit board is made of fibreglass uh and the wires are made of copper . Uh that is how it is done and all the remote controls work that way , I think we can just go on with that . Um then I've read more integration of materials means less cost for the production . The more we can make uh at once uh in one piece , uh that is cheaper . +Project Manager: You mean integrate them all into the circuit board . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , so if we make a circuit board with the the connections already on it , then that's cheaper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} make something that's not too difficult in design again . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is what look like uh looks like if you press one button , so this is not the entire thing . You have the the power coming in , then you have like a switch . The switch uh uh {vocalsound} uh if you p press it then some electrical charge goes into the processor , that thinks over a Morse code , that's how you should see it . The Morse code goes to the amplifier , then uh the signal is sent to two uh light bulbs . You have infrared and an interv um {vocalsound} uh how to say it ? Uh a light in indication , light that you know that it's functioning . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh here again , that's my story about the different modes , if you do want to make remote uh universal , then the processor has to uh make up a different Morse code when some button is pressed . That makes it much more complex , so we really need to have a look , do we want that or not . Uh I don't have any personal p uh preferences uh so far , except for uh the materials to be used uh light , that they are light . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . That was it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was it . +Project Manager: I'll get back to my thing then . Uh {disfmarker} Okay , back this up {disfmarker} to the screen . So I got some new information on the project specifications are changing a little . Like you said uh teletext is not not very popular anymore because the uh the internet , nowadays people don't use the teletext anymore or hardly , so it can either {disfmarker} Well , I don't think we should remove the button , because there are always people who are using it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think it should be {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} it should be one of the big buttons for example . Just put it somewhere or under second option or whatever . It's not important anymore . Um we're targeting young people now , because our um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This is a new product and with this new product we want to appeal to younger people , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which are {disfmarker} um the younger people were defined under forty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I so I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's also good with the fashion and everything , +Marketing: B +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and they want to pay for it +Project Manager: They want to pay for it , people are willing to spend money actually to buy a um remote that they like . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If they like the way it looks , the way it functions , so they're actually gonna spend uh spend money on it . +Marketing: With more {disfmarker} Where {disfmarker} with more technical specifications +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} see how far we can go with it anyway , so +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} And one thing that should be important is that the corporate l colour and slogan are recognisable , which is apparently {vocalsound} black and yellow , but {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we {disfmarker} I think we should keep the the logo in mind , because with colours you can uh have a lot of uh fashionable colours and everything on it , which suits everybody's taste . So {disfmarker} With that concept I started thinking , so why not just steal Nokia's idea and just make changeable covers for your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean those cost hardly anything I think , and people could even spend extra money on buying a cover +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and so have an entire new remote control that they like to see . Or we can sh for example we can make a different {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a basic design . And sell the covers separately , for example . That's just a little marketing idea that could be applied , so you can p it appeals to really everyone . So you don't have to {disfmarker} I think you don't have to make entire remote controls . We make a basic one and manufacture this cover separately . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So that was that was my idea on what we could do to appeal this product to everyone . So +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} I'm not sure if you came up with anything in the meantime , after making a presentation . Would you like to share ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I think this is a good idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} oh ? +User Interface: Is it manageable ? Is it easy ? +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah , with with an L_C_D_ screen you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I think we should lose the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Y Yes , I think so too . +Project Manager: like you said . I think for example it's it's huge {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ is huge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Why ? Nokia w +Project Manager: it consumes batteries like hell . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I think it takes up a lot of a lot of power . +User Interface: And it costs too much to fabricate , +Project Manager: It costs a lot , I think . +User Interface: so we're on a tight budget here . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What we could do , what could be possible , is maybe not an L_C_D_ screen but with a preview , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y I'm not sure if it's even possible {vocalsound} . For example , a little T_V_ guide . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Like you have a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just just a text only , not colour , just a little text thing +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you can use your remote as a T_V_ guide . I'm not sure it's even possible , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I have to check that out , +Project Manager: but maybe okay , make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: Yeah , find a little compromise in that , but {disfmarker} What did I write down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the p yeah , the beep is a very simple thing to imple implement , just make a button on your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: That must be possible . +Project Manager: and just hit the button , it beeps somewhere . I think it's easy to implement , +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: we should go for that . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: whe where do you wanna hit the T_ {disfmarker} you wanna {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we want a button on the television . {gap} +Project Manager: I thin {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean where else should you put it ? +Industrial Designer: In th okay , but that rules out a universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Because that's not possible uh . +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} how are you gonna use that if your {disfmarker} I mean if your remote control is lost , how are you gonna press {disfmarker} where are you gonna press the button ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: Maybe just a slap-on sticker with a button which sends out a small signal . +Project Manager: A slap-on sticker . Oh , you mean as like a separate thing you can attach to your T_V_ . +Marketing: Mm uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , that could be possible . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: A little little box you can attach to your T_V_ is fine then , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then uh I'd I'd like to know now if we want the uh universal remote control or not , because that's uh determines everything I'm gonna do . +Project Manager: I think it's universal . I think we should go for universal , +Industrial Designer: If not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because apparently we're a separate company making separate c remote controls to sell to a lot of diverse people . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think universal remote control should be possible . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , then I go for that . +Marketing: Everyone uh wants to buy it , so we w +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we're targeting everyone , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so remote {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . No , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's fine with me , but then I know what to look for . +Project Manager: Okay , universal is good . Speech recognition , I think it's very hard , because we're selling across multiple countries . So I think implementing speech recognition is such a small um apparatus , it's very hard to do . +Marketing: Yeah . Or one . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or when you say one two uh i it uh it's enough , +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't see Arabian people speaking one , two uh whatever . +Marketing: right ? But {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +User Interface: Besides that , the technology isn't really super yet , so that {vocalsound} is a problem in implementing this . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's not a mature technology , I think it takes a lot of memory and everything in in a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a good idea , but it's just not {disfmarker} I don't think the market's ripe for that yet . +Project Manager: I don't think it should be implemented in a remote control yet uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: What else do we have ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um well you should you should look into the in into the materials that are real durable . So the the the symbols won't fade , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe a little harder plastic +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: or especially li we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I already noted that . +Project Manager: maybe we don't have have to do all the buttons , but especially the ones that are um the popular buttons , so those always fade first . +Industrial Designer: Mm , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm the thing is the most important things that we have now . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . +Industrial Designer: If we uh make a remote control with changeable covers , then we can also make uh a cover for every language area . +Project Manager: For example ? +Industrial Designer: That's fo {vocalsound} is uh especially for older people , that they can read it read it in their own language . +Project Manager: Well , we're not we're not targeting older people , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we should remember that . Everything we target is under forty , +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: okay , okay . +Project Manager: You assume that that they read correctly and I think they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: The most important thing about young people is that they're really sensitive to to trends that are passing through the world , +Marketing: But b +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +User Interface: But should the exchangeable covers include the buttons themselves or just the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , of course . No , I think it's just something you you put over them , because {disfmarker} Yeah we c Yeah , you ca Well , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: tha that's not a that's not a bad {disfmarker} that's not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: C +Marketing: But every {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's a problem with the with the text then . +Project Manager: it's not even a bad idea . I mean , for example , if you're if you're into the durability issue you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: For example , if your buttons are faded , after {disfmarker} I mean if you make a durable remote , they are faded , you can just buy a new cover . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure it's it's hard to make . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So it's a good and a bad idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh but I know that the buttons are like a Nokia telephone on uh one sleeve , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you don't have to change your whole cover . Uh we can make something that you can only remove the sleeve . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I know what you mean . +Industrial Designer: Know what I mean ? +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It works the same as a Nokia telephone , it's it's in my uh {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , it's just just a one one piece of rubber for example , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: that's what I {disfmarker} something I have to look into . Either either change both the buttons and and the cover or just the cover , I'm not sure which which is easier , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um anyway , yeah , this is what we're gonna do afterwards , just lunch break and have more individual work after that , so let's see what we {disfmarker} let's see we {disfmarker} So you have to come up with a components concept , yeah . I want some {disfmarker} you should do some trend-watching , because even if we're if we're gonna do those covers and everything , what people really want , that's what we need to know in this phase , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's gonna be the essential final design that we're gonna come up with . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I think user interface is fairly obvious . I mean it should be very intuitive , +User Interface: Pretty straightforward . +Project Manager: s Yeah , it should speak for itself . Uh for example I bought a remote control last week with a new T_V_ , it was it l it's like all buttons and you have no idea what it does at first , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {gap} total T_V_ new , anyway . So I think it should be {disfmarker} have less or l very little buttons and maybe a second {vocalsound} second level menu for the advanced things . Or maybe just stick 'em under a menu , like you said the um {vocalsound} the sound options and the surround and whatever , they're more complicated , just stick 'em under one menu and uh give it a {disfmarker} just put it in in s in a software piece , you can menu and you can uh select everything you want to to set on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Is it techni technically possible to uh {vocalsound} send a signal to a television and then pops up a menu , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because we're working with different types of television , so we're going to work with that ? +Project Manager: That is true . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Project Manager: No , that's true . +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . Because the television needs to respond to the signal , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: It's an in-built menu , +Industrial Designer: and if it doesn't know how , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: isn't it ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , that's not possible . +User Interface: So basically +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it's impossible , +User Interface: we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but uh there's a chance it's not , so . +User Interface: Or we could use a double-sided {disfmarker} for {vocalsound} less used functions +Project Manager: A double-sided remote control ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's useful . +User Interface: Yeah , with the cover . {vocalsound} I it's basically an idea to overcome these issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you're gonna have a lot of wasted buttons . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For example you have a Sony T_V_ and the half of the buttons won't function if you have a {disfmarker} for a Sony that won't {disfmarker} for a Philips T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: No , but basic functions {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but functions which are not frequently used . +Project Manager: I don't think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because if we use a universal remote control , we're going to have to have most buttons on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , for exam +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not s +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , for ex you have to make it a little decision between the part if you want a universal remote control that {disfmarker} it should do what people usually do with their T_V_s , not not the very complicated settings +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that you can usually do that with uh either a old old remote control if they really hate that thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you can't you cannot take into consideration all the different brands of T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: But that might be broken . +Project Manager: I think there's I think there is a standard for example between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Hmm . +Project Manager: because usually the the menu is {disfmarker} the menu button is is usable between different brands . Especially the big ones , the big brands , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: so . 'Cause everybody {disfmarker} I have a universal remote control and it can use the menu button , so I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , if you can put some research into that , if it's possible . Uh I think just a b +Industrial Designer: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and the navigation is very basic , it's usually the same thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But I think there must be a way uh to invoke the more complicated functions of a television . For instance , if your old remote control is broken and you buy ours , then uh you should be able to get everything out of the television that's in it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . I think so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because otherwise you'll lose functions by buying our {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we need to put some research into that if if we can open the menu , I think it's possible , just the way how to . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I thi I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , then then you could do everything I suppose , because usually the T_V_s have tha that inside in this other little piece of software , so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that our r remote control should not look like uh any other . For instance uh Sony makes all their remote controls exactly the same for all their devices , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you always grab the wrong one because formatting of the buttons is exactly the same , only the labels are different . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I think it should be a little distinct from everything else , +Industrial Designer: We should not do that . +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} either it's both {gap} mayb +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: maybe the shape can be a little different . +User Interface: I have some ideas . I have some ideas . +Project Manager: Maybe it's a little more curves or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Mm that's your uh division . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} yeah . And uh with different colours uh . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll put some on paper and present them next time uh the ideas that I have . +Project Manager: Yeah , this {gap} . Not sure what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because we have forty minutes , I'm not sure how much time we have left for the meeting anyway , so . +User Interface: I heard a beep go . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it wasn't me , it was him closing something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So anyway , yeah , we could do some i do some work now on on the design for example . I mean what do you want , do you want {gap} , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but we like some some curves or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , may maybe something like this . But though smooth inside . So you have the transmitter here for example . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see that you {disfmarker} what would be handy . I think that the {vocalsound} the buttons should be {disfmarker} the channel buttons should be {vocalsound} uh on their own . +Marketing: Uh . And a light uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see one , two {disfmarker} God damn it . +User Interface: Oh , we get the general ideas , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Another one here . Let's see what {disfmarker} I think this should {disfmarker} these are always on top of the of the control , so they should be here . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and since you're holding it like this , I suggest you put the channel up channel down and volume {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Think it's like this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Volume . +Project Manager: Withi within the {disfmarker} Yeah , just take it . +User Interface: yeah yeah . So you have the up channel {vocalsound} the down channel {disfmarker} the volume , do we want that horizontal or vertical ? +Project Manager: Do you take triangles or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's it's fine , I think . +Project Manager: Um I think it should be I think it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is basically what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Maybe we should make 'em bigger or whatever . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but this is just a g general idea . +Marketing: Oh d {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh maybe the menu button can go i in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah , in the middle . It's it's usually uh there , but {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Whoa . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should also make uh something like a flash on it , if you {disfmarker} if it's lost , for people that are deaf . They they won't hear the the beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for example if it's lost in your armchair , we'll not see the flash . +User Interface: You won't be able to find it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And flash takes up a lot of batteries again . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah , it's true , but it's it's only has to do so when you press the button that it's lost . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We could make a combination that it goes beep and that you {disfmarker} that some light lights up . +Industrial Designer: So . {gap} deaf people ? +Marketing: And L_E_D_ uh on it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought about for deaf people for example , so . We could do that . Uh let's see . +Marketing: Just a light on it or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have the basic channels we've got here , uh the power button somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , it's true . Um that thing should be central . +Marketing: Very important . +Project Manager: You shouldn't be {disfmarker} you uh shouldn't press it by accident , but it shouldn't be stacked away somewhere . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: I usually press it on top . +Marketing: that's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: At least that's what I'm accustomed to . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I have another idea , +Project Manager: Yeah , like that's gonna work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure if it's possible . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: What would you like to {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought maybe we should move the buttons down +Marketing: But you r +Project Manager: and put it here for example +Marketing: And you are reading from the t +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: you always read from the top to the the bottom of it . +Project Manager: From top to bottom . Yeah , that's true , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: you should {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the bu the power button should be on top , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the first thing you do {vocalsound} , turn it on . So power button on top . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , mute button . Is that somewhere here ? +Project Manager: Mute . Do we hardly {disfmarker} I think it should be at the bottom somewhere . +User Interface: Is that used often ? +Marketing: So i it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: The mute button ? Do people use that often ? +Marketing: sorry ? +Project Manager: Mute . Turn the sound off . +Marketing: No , it's {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause uh I'm pretty much accustomed to it {vocalsound} right over here , at least in general , +Marketing: Uh . Hmm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think it's important , {gap} but I think it I think it should be {disfmarker} you c +User Interface: It's not that important , no . +Project Manager: you could put it somewhere here . +Marketing: Or or with the volume selection . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , because it {disfmarker} Yeah , people are accustomed to that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Around uh not uh not at top at the {disfmarker} around the volume selection . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Can I have that ? That's j +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: I don't know where exactly , +Project Manager: Take this out and here see {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh are we gonna take triangles anyway ? I'm drawing triangles , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's pretty much what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: aren't they ? +Project Manager: it's maybe a bigger lesser than thing . So anyway , I think this is {disfmarker} should be the channels and {disfmarker} or sh +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I'm accustomed to the channels being on top . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: should we chan +Marketing: On the right . +Project Manager: okay , {vocalsound} this two , channel up and down . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh also look if it's possible to make a rechargeable remote ? That you don't have to buy new batteries if every {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: for {disfmarker} that is it's on one part it's um it's a good thing to recharge it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe it's more ex expensive . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we should {disfmarker} what what could be possible is one with rechargeable batteries for example . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} just put Penlite batteries that are rechargeable , because it's an it's it's it's very annoying . +User Interface: But isn't that expensive in the entire package ? +Industrial Designer: But that's already possible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure y {vocalsound} I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} if it's expensive , but just take a look at it , because it might be a very good idea . Because if {disfmarker} it's it's uh useful to have it rechargeable , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: but at the same time , if you don't want recha if you forgot to recharge it and you wanna watch T_V_ now , you wanna be able to put different batteries in it , use it now and not in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . Okay . Uh you could make a device , but I'm not sure how that uh is possible with the costs , that you can put in normal batteries , rechargeable , +Project Manager: I think I have a nice idea . +Industrial Designer: but it {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} the remote also can act as a recharger . So then you can choose , you have every decision . Know what I mean ? +Project Manager: Not exactly uh . +Industrial Designer: You can uh put in normal Penlites , rechargeable Penlites , but they can also be recharged with the remote , with a wire . +Marketing: Hmm . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's uh it's a pretty good idea to have uh like sort of a {disfmarker} maybe a base station that you put on the T_V_ . Could be flat , you could insert your uh remote into it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's g +Industrial Designer: But I think that will cost a lot . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Uh a normal wire would be better . +Project Manager: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Like a like a P_D_A_ , a hand-held . You can uh just put it in the electricity and it charges itself , +Project Manager: Well , we were talking about the fact that we wanted to insert either a beep or a flash into the thing with a little separate signal +Industrial Designer: you don't need basic station . Yes . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} So you could put that on a T_V_ for example . +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that's true . +Project Manager: It could be very flat , could be very small . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a very small {disfmarker} Yeah , I'm drawing it big now , but {disfmarker} So you can put your remote on flat for example . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And at the backside of remote just just just a little hole +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: for example um you just {vocalsound} put it down , it recharges for example . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive . +User Interface: But again , isn't that too expensive ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that means that we have to implement rechargeable batteries , a docking station {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it costs a lot , that that's what he r +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's that you {disfmarker} that's what you buy yourself . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I'm going to try to find that out . I'm not sure if there's information available on this , +Project Manager: It's just an idea , we have to find out if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: And do people actually want that ? To pay extra {disfmarker} they want to pay for rechargeable ? +Marketing: Yeah , they want to pay for it . +Project Manager: Do they want {disfmarker} but they want a rechargeable one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , you should find out if it's {disfmarker} if rechargeable is important . +Marketing: Th uh there was not a el ask esque {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . These are uh comfort issues . So I think people will pay {disfmarker} they wanted to pay for comfort . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They want to pay for comfort , +Industrial Designer: Well , this is comfort . +Project Manager: we just assu we we could either make a separate station which just sends a signal to the remote control to either beep or flash to find it , +Marketing: But f hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: um and {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} either that or make it integrated with a with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . Exactly . I think this is a brilliant product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it would be good actually . +Industrial Designer: I would buy it myself . +Project Manager: I like the beep part {vocalsound} anyway . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's go through the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I like the covers . That's a brilliant idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can can we save this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Covers is covers is good . +Industrial Designer: I never thought {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Oh we can save this . Up and saved . We even saved the ant . {gap} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what we have is {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} I think you have {vocalsound} to do a lot of work on if it's possible for the cost . +Industrial Designer: I hope if I have information about that , +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {vocalsound} maybe you can find out i what people are willing to pay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We are going for twenty five Euros sales price , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but just try to find out what they're willing to pay for it , because if they're willing to pay more , we could lose a little profit and maybe attract more customers , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we just have to see what it looks like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would like to make a decision {gap} . What it costs and what kind of materials that we can uh choose what we want in it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you have some financial information that that'd be nice , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} exactly , I need it . +Project Manager: so . Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could you post some {vocalsound} other essentials of what people want , so that I can work with some buttons , where to put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You seem to have information on that , I'd like to uh see some of it . +Industrial Designer: Was it not possible to uh send emails around the office ? +Project Manager: No , it wasn't wasn't allo +User Interface: No , it's not . No . +Project Manager: it was possible , +Industrial Designer: Not {gap} . +Project Manager: not allowed , so . So that's um why I'm not sure that {vocalsound} you're allowed to share documents on the on the draft . +Marketing: Yeah . My computer crashed , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: so uh +Project Manager: I don't care . I haven't heard any complaints yet , +User Interface: Oh , your computer . Okay . +Marketing: I lost my uh presentation , +Project Manager: so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I have the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I have your PowerPoint presentation , I can get some inf information out of that . +Marketing: Yeah , but I Here I have the the s the homepage of uh our internet , +User Interface: Let's see . +Project Manager: Yeah , the oh , they inc uh +Marketing: and here is my +Project Manager: they include the new one . {vocalsound} Or just for you . +User Interface: Oh , where would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: here is my marketing report , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Marketing: maybe you ca you can look at uh {vocalsound} that +Project Manager: no , I didn't have that . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where would we want the uh teletext button ? +Marketing: Ah yeah . +User Interface: Because we decided that it's n not that important . +Project Manager: All it tells {gap} just {disfmarker} let's make make a new {disfmarker} +Marketing: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we put it somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: tick the new one . {vocalsound} Um other side . Yeah , let's increase it a little because {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh wha what people want , I've uh +User Interface: Or maybe this is something for the next meeting , I can draw out some ideas . +Project Manager: Yeah , draw us up some some designs of of possible {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have another thing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just keep in mind that the important buttons should be on top and either big , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so the more {disfmarker} less important {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we have decided {vocalsound} more or less the basic structure . +Project Manager: More or less . +User Interface: I can put the other buttons in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just play a little with this , put l shift a little up or down and we'll see what looks best . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what did you wanna say ? +Project Manager: Or just po post your designs from time to time on the product share . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh what I al already said is the the uh the remote controls are always lost , +User Interface: Maybe another idea uh . +Marketing: but it it's also for people , {vocalsound} they want to learn it fast , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: not uh {disfmarker} they want to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so we don't want {gap} we want very little buttons , just the buttons you use a lot . +Marketing: No +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} yeah , it's easy to learn +User Interface: Yes , but it should cover all the functions , +Marketing: wi and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +User Interface: so possibly , just an idea that popped in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: what {disfmarker} we had function that what people do , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . People change channels , people {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they change the volume and they they change channel , they turn T_V_ off and on , for example . That's the basic fu that's what you do {disfmarker} I'm not sure who present that again , but those are the basic function that people use it for , so those should be very well represented . +User Interface: Yeah , but we could go a step further , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +User Interface: because some T_V_s have the uh possibility to adjust brightness , that kind of menus . +Project Manager: That's true , but that's what we stick under the menu button . Everything is {disfmarker} you say in every T_V_ that's configured under the menu . +User Interface: Yes , but it {disfmarker} Because we're making {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's the question , is it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it needs to be configured in the television under the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it isn't , then we cannot reach it . +User Interface: We need to adjust to the {vocalsound} technology . +Project Manager: But I think most modern T_V_s have it in their menu . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . I think so too . +User Interface: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh isn't there a possibility to do research on that , so we know that for sure ? If you rule out functions , then uh {disfmarker} and that gets known , then people are not gonna buy it . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , I thi +Industrial Designer: Then the consumer bond or something says uh you cannot do this and that with it . That's a bad bad com {vocalsound} commercial +Marketing: If um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh we'll we'll see what we can come up with . +Industrial Designer: for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Another thing I want to say is that uh we are looking at the market for the age uh {vocalsound} younger than forty . +Project Manager: Under forty . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Um on my report , {vocalsound} I didn't uh {vocalsound} ish I didn't show it in my uh presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because my computer crashed . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Um they want to pay for an L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: The want to pay for {disfmarker} +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did they really said it like that ? Those two things . +Marketing: i yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh shall we ? +Industrial Designer: Do they realise how much that costs ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's almost undoable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Younger , age sixteen and forty five . +User Interface: Oh , we're not going to be able to sell it for twenty-five then , with an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's all here , here it says {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's that's {gap} . Even if i if we have this lost unit , then we cannot do it for that price . +Project Manager: Yeah , age sixteen forty fi interest in main features more critical . +Marketing: If if they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we're not focusing on this . Um {disfmarker} All the interest in features , not really the L_C_ {disfmarker} oh here . Would you pay for uh speech recognition in a remote control . Hmm , okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: So uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can +Project Manager: Speech recognition is quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can look at the possibilities for an uh L_C_D_ and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just look at the possibilities then , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: because if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: apparently it's what people want , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's supposed to be a luxurious remote , +Marketing: How much it will cost +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe it's not even that expensive . Or find a compromise , maybe just a black and white or {disfmarker} for some extra information on it , on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I doubt it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I really need finance information . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} I mean we all do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It will come uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We all do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . I think it's something we should put into consideration . Apparently it's what people want , so . We should see if {disfmarker} what it costs , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we should do a little thing about design , because it looks boring really to me . Even if you put it {disfmarker} even if you put a different cover on it , it looks {disfmarker} still looks boring , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Different colours maybe . +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . And the design , it should differ . +Marketing: But all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is Philips , huh ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . +Industrial Designer: Philips has this . +Project Manager: I just drew something what {disfmarker} which would fit into your hand easily . +User Interface: Well , I had basically {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Hmm . Uh . +User Interface: Something like this . To make it kind of futuristic . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh , I realise if we make it small , then it needs to be a little thicker , +Project Manager: I think it's a very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I need to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: If we make it s uh smaller , uh less wide , then we need to m make it a little thicker , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: because I have to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah , but you have to j just keep in mind it shouldn't be too heavy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean we can stick it in in there , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Huh even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: So +Project Manager: in the worst case we can even {disfmarker} +User Interface: what kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Could you give me the pen back ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: So let's say that people would want an L_C_D_ thing . Let's take take the basic design again , what we {disfmarker} oh , crap {disfmarker} uh came up with . I'll just make it a little bigger now . So a transmitter here . Anyway . We could {disfmarker} let's say we have an L_C_D_ screen , people want an L_C_D_ screen . So then we should probably put it here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be really big , but just just have to be {disfmarker} has to be there . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Think it's a good place , people don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you're reading from top to bottom , I think it's better to put it uh at the top . +Project Manager: No ? It's not that uh {disfmarker} it's not the most important function , +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Marketing: It's j {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just an extra thing , +Industrial Designer: Ah +Project Manager: it just {disfmarker} you press the buttons on top , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . But i if you if you are going to uh put the L_C_D_ on it , {vocalsound} I think it's very important to use it , +Industrial Designer: but {gap} . +Project Manager: because your finger is on top . +Marketing: uh because it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} use it uh +Project Manager: How can you use an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: But nee the function of it . {vocalsound} So you can use it maximum , because uh it's a lot {disfmarker} it costs a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah , but why +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Now it's pretty much tucked away in your hand . +Project Manager: Uh if you t if you press a button , you can see it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . No . +Project Manager: ri I'm not sure wha I'm trying to imagine myself what it would look like . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M I personally would prefer it on the top . +Project Manager: You would prefer it n Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have three people saying it should be on top . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , but then you would would s have to stack away your buttons somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Hmm . +Project Manager: Anyways . +Marketing: It's expensive to build it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so +Project Manager: Uh this looks a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm still not convinced of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: you must use the maximum of it . +Project Manager: About the L_C_D_s thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if it if it's +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: if it's possible wi if it's not too expensive , we should include it , +Industrial Designer: They want it uh . +Project Manager: because it's it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We should just try to make that if it's possible . If it is possible we should really do it , but we need that information . +Marketing: Huh . Uh . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Also keep in mind again , the L_C_D_ screen is very flat , but it needs transistors , resistors , I don't know what more and that needs space . So I have to look if that's possible . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh . +User Interface: So basically +Industrial Designer: But if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} can I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we have green now uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: what we have to decide now is uh what goes on top . Do we put the volume control and the channel control here , or do we put it on he Would we like to press it in the middle ? +Project Manager: Or maybe we should m we could uh draw draw something a bit {disfmarker} that has it on on on the bottom . +Marketing: In middle of it . In the middle . +Project Manager: Maybe in a circle for example , like we {disfmarker} like in this example . I think this is not good , but for {disfmarker} we could make circular buttons for example . For up and down , ma make it a circle on it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes , but we do agree that we {vocalsound} keep this at the centre , +Project Manager: because it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: because it's basically the most important function . +Project Manager: I think the channel button should be in the centre . +Marketing: It's the most import yeah . +Project Manager: Channel button should be st stick together , for example here in this section . Because it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that would make them quite small . +Project Manager: We're not sure about the size anyway , +User Interface: So maybe you'd put them here . +Project Manager: just a general design . You can make it as big as you want . For example if you take uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but a big remote control probably not something which people would like . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: let's see . For example just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we have a a space issue , we can also lose one battery . It is rechargeable , so we can stick with one instead of two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't think if we if we even use an L_C_D_ screen , we need to , definitely . +Industrial Designer: That might be an option . Yeah , but if we need two batteries and an L_C_D_ screen , that means a lot of space that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have to see what the si what the size is . +Industrial Designer: But it has to be a little bit heavier . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ doesn't have to nee doesn't need to be very big . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but the things behind it . {gap} space . +Project Manager: Mm let's see . +Industrial Designer: Like a process uh . +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . +Marketing: It's on your computer . +Project Manager: Okay , we will . So either {disfmarker} +User Interface: So would we like this or would we like the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We either we have to decide what what people want . +Industrial Designer: I like this one more . +Project Manager: Either this one , this this could be the luxurious one . So we have channel buttons here . I'm just drawing something uh . Uh {disfmarker} I think this would this would look cool . You could have it for example {disfmarker} small buttons here for some extra functions , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: so if your basic function's here , we should {disfmarker} like we decided before , programmes up and down , and volume here . +User Interface: Let's see what we have here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} And uh what about speech recognition uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well you can just {disfmarker} no , I'm not sure if we can do that , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: but we could put a microphone in here for example . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} or or an L_C_D_ or an uh speech . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} L_C_D_ is better now . +Project Manager: Just to do research into both , w what it costs and what it takes for space . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll try to . +Project Manager: But let's cut the meeting for now yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more uh thing I'd like to say , uh let's give this uh a name , and not like some vague serial number that no one understands , like with cars . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Shall we all try uh to think about a name ? +User Interface: So I think of a name . +Marketing: that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's think of a name , okay . +Marketing: yeah , that's okay . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Oh , good . +Project Manager: Okay , at anyways , the the minutes will be on the on the web shortly , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so there we go uh . +User Interface: Yes , go and finish up and I'll see you at lunch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , to all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Same . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've {disfmarker} Do we uh save the {gap} ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} . +","Summary: + +During a project meeting, the team discusses the functional design phase for a new remote control. The marketing director arrives late due to computer issues and presents market research findings: most users find remote controls unattractive, are willing to spend money on a better design, and find certain functions (like channel and volume selection) essential, while others (like teletext) less important. The team explores implementing features like a find-me beep or light, rechargeable batteries, and potentially an LCD screen or speech recognition based on market interest, especially from younger users under forty. However, there are concerns about the technical feasibility and cost implications of these features. The possibility of interchangeable covers to appeal to fashion-conscious consumers is also discussed. The industrial designer needs to consider the internal space for electronics, particularly if an LCD is included. The user interface specialist emphasizes the importance of an intuitive layout with minimal buttons. As the meeting concludes, they agree to consider different design elements, cost out features, and think of a catchy name for the product." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad G: How about channel +Professor C: Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: We 're recording . +Grad G: Alright . +Professor C: Alright , and no crash . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Grad E: I pre - crashed it . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Pre - crashed ! +PhD D: It never crashes on me . +Grad E: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is {disfmarker} what is that ? +Grad E: it depends on if the temp files are there or not , that {disfmarker} at least that 's my current working hypothesis , +PhD D: Ah . +Grad E: that I think what happens is it tries to clear the temp files and if they 're too big , it crashes . +PhD D: Ah . +PhD B: When the power went out the other day and I restarted it , it crashed the first time . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +PhD B: After the power out +PhD D: So then there would be no temp files . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . {comment} Hmm . +Grad E: Uh , no , it doesn't {disfmarker} it doesn't clear those necessarily , +PhD D: Oh wait {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it doesn't clear them , OK . +Grad E: so . +Professor C: Hmm , no connection . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} i they 're called temp files , but they 're not actually in the temp directory they 're in the scratch , so . They 're not backed up , but they 're not erased either on power failure . +PhD D: But that 's usually the meeting that I recorded , and it neve it doesn't crash on me . +PhD B: Well this wasn't {disfmarker} Actually , this wasn't a before your meeting , this was , um , Tuesday afternoon when , um , uh , Robert just wanted to do a little recording , +Grad E: Oh well . +PhD D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh , right . +PhD B: and the power had gone out earlier in the day . +PhD D: OK . Huh , OK . +Professor C: I don't know when would be a good excuse for it , but I just can't wait to be giving a talk t and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and use the example from last week with everybody t doing the digits at once . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +Professor C: I 'd love to play somebody that . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +PhD D: It was quick . +Professor C: It was . It was really efficient . +PhD B: Talk about a good noise shield . You know ? You wanted to pe keep people from listening in , you could like have that playing outside the room . Nobody could listen in . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , I had this idea we could make our whole meeting faster that way . +Professor C: Yeah . Everybody give the reports about what they were doing at exactly the same time , +PhD D: And we 'll just all leave , +PhD B: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back later and review the individual channels , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep , and then everyone can listen to it later . +PhD B: right ? +Grad E: Yes . Absolutely . +PhD B: If you wanna know what {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually isn't that what we have been doing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's what it sounds like . +PhD B: Practically , huh . With all the overlaps . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: What are we doing ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Since I 've been gone all week , I didn't send out a reminder for an agenda , so . +Professor C: Yeah , and I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do we have anything to talk about or should we just read digits and go ? +PhD B: I wouldn't mind hearing how the conference was . +Professor C: What conference ? +PhD D: Uh , I had one question about {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , really . It 's all a blur . +PhD D: Aren't the UW folks coming this weekend ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: No . The next , +PhD D: Next weekend ? +Grad E: Next weekend , week from {disfmarker} +PhD F: right ? +Professor C: That is right . The next weekend . +PhD D: Sorry , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not the days coming up , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's like the {disfmarker} +Grad E: A week from Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: That 's when they 're coming . +PhD D: within ten days . +Professor C: That 's correct . +PhD D: So , are we {disfmarker} do we have like an agenda or anything that we should be {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but that would be a good idea . +PhD D: OK . +Professor C: Why don't we w +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so the deal is that I can , um , {vocalsound} uh , I can be available after , uh , like ten thirty or something . I don't know how s how early you wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor C: They 're not even gonna be here until eleven or so . +Grad E: That 's good . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Cuz they 're flying up that day . +PhD D: Wait , this is on {disfmarker} on Sunday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD D: Or Saturday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD F: Saturday . +Professor C: S Saturday . +PhD D: OK . +Grad E: Well , y +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Eurospeech is due on Friday and then I 'm going down to San {disfmarker} uh , San Jose Friday night , so , if {disfmarker} you know , if we start nice and late Saturday that 's a good thing . +Professor C: No , I mean , they 're flying up from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +Grad E: Seattle . +Professor C: down from Seattle . +Grad E: They 're flying from somewhere to somewhere , +Professor C: Yeah , and they 'll end up here . So b and also Brian Kingsbury is actually flying from , uh , the east coast on that {disfmarker} that morning . +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Professor C: So , i I {disfmarker} I will be {disfmarker} I mean , he 's taking a very early flight +PhD F: Oh . +Professor C: and we do have the time work difference running the right way , but I still think that there 's no way we could start before eleven . It might end up really being twelve . So when we get closer we 'll find people 's plane schedules , and let everybody know . Uh , So . That 's good . +Grad E: But , uh , yeah maybe an agenda , or at least some things to talk about would be a good idea . +Professor C: Well we can start gathering those {disfmarker} those ideas , but then we {disfmarker} we should firm it up by next {disfmarker} next Thursday 's meeting . +Postdoc A: Will we have time to , um , to prepare something that we {disfmarker} in the format we were planning for the IBM transcribers by then , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Oh yeah . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad E: So have you heard back from Brian about that , Chuck ? +PhD B: Yes , um , he 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I should have forwarded that along . Uh , {vocalsound} oh I {disfmarker} I think I mentioned at the last meeting , he said that , um , he talked to them and it was fine {disfmarker} with the beeps they would be {disfmarker} That 's easy for them to do . +Grad E: Great . OK . So , uh , oh , though Thi - Thilo isn't here , um , but , uh , I {disfmarker} I have the program to insert the beeps . What I don't have is something to parse the output of the channelized transcripts to find out where to put the beeps , but that should be really easy to do . So do we have a meeting that that 's been done with , +Postdoc A: He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: that we 've tightened it up to the point where we can actually give it to IBM and have them try it out ? +Postdoc A: He generated , um , a channel - wise presegmented version of a meeting , but it was Robustness rather than EDU so I guess depends on whether we 're willing to use Robustness ? +PhD B: Well for this experiment I think we can use pre pretty much anything . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: This experiment of just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we had {disfmarker} we had talked about doing maybe EDU as a good choice , though . Well , {vocalsound} whatever we have . +PhD B: Well we 've talked about that as being the next ones we wanted to transcribe . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: But for the purpose of sending him a sample one to {disfmarker} f +Grad E: Yeah , maybe it doesn't matter . +Postdoc A: Great . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't think it matte +Postdoc A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , um , get {disfmarker} make that available . +Grad E: OK , and has it been corrected ? +Postdoc A: Oh , well , wait . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hand - checked ? Cuz that was one of the {vocalsound} processes we were talking about as well . +PhD B: Right , so we need to run Thilo 's thing on it , +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD B: and then we go in and adjust the boundaries . +Postdoc A: Yeah that 's right . Yeah , we haven't done that . I {disfmarker} I could set someone on that tomorrow . +PhD B: Right . +Grad E: And time how long it takes . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc A: I think they 're coming {disfmarker} +PhD B: And we probably don't have to do necessarily a whole meeting for that if we just wanna send them a sample to try . +Postdoc A: OK . What would be a good number of minutes ? +PhD B: I don't know , maybe we can figure out how long it 'll take @ @ to {disfmarker} to do . +Grad E: Um , I don't know , it seems to me w we probably should go ahead and do a whole meeting because we 'll have to transcribe the whole meeting anyway sometime . +Professor C: Yes except that if they had {disfmarker} if there was a choice between having fifteen minutes that was fully the way you wanted it , and having a whole meeting that didn't get at what you wanted for them {disfmarker} It 's just dependent of how much {disfmarker} +Grad E: Like I {disfmarker} I mean I guess if we have to do it again anyway , but , uh +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I guess , the only thing I 'm not sure about is , um , how quickly can the transcribers scan over and fix the boundaries , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean , is it pretty easy ? +Grad E: I think it 's gonna be one or two times real time at {disfmarker} Wow , excuse me , two or more times real time , right ? Cuz they have to at least listen to it . +Professor C: Can we pipeline it so that say there 's , uh , the transcriber gets done with a quarter of the meeting and then we {disfmarker} you run it through this other {disfmarker} other stuff ? Uh , +Grad E: Well the other stuff is I B I 'm just thinking that from a data {disfmarker} keeping - track - of - the - data point of view , it may be best to send them whole meetings at a time and not try to send them bits and pieces . +Professor C: OK , so . Oh , that 's right . So the first thing is the automatic thing , and then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's the transcribers tightening stuff up , +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then it 's IBM . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: OK , so you might as well ha run the automatic thing over the entire meeting , and then {disfmarker} and then , uh , you would give IBM whatever was fixed . +Postdoc A: And have them fix it over the entire meeting too ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but start from the beginning and go to the end , right ? So if they were only half way through then that 's what you 'd give IBM . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD B: As of what point ? I mean . The {disfmarker} I guess the question on my mind is do we wait for the transcribers to adjust the marks for the whole meeting before we give anything to IBM , or do we go ahead and send them a sample ? Let their {disfmarker} +Professor C: Why wouldn't we s @ @ w i if they were going sequentially through it , why wouldn't we give them {disfmarker} I mean i are we trying to get something done by the time Brian comes ? +PhD B: Well I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . +Grad E: That was the question . Though . +Professor C: So if we {disfmarker} if we were , then it seems like giving them something , whatever they had gotten up to , would be better than nothing . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh . That {disfmarker} I agree . I agree . +Grad E: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , h they {disfmarker} they typically work for what , four hours , something like that ? +Postdoc A: Hmm , I gue hmm . +Grad E: I think the they should be able to get through a whole meeting in one sitting . I would think , unless it 's a lot harder than we think it is , which it could be , certainly . +Postdoc A: If it 's got like for speakers then I guess {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 're just doing the individual channels , +Grad E: Or seven or eight . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc A: Individual channels . Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's gonna be , depending on the number of people in the meeting , um , +Postdoc A: I guess there is this issue of , you know , if {disfmarker} if the segmenter thought there was no speech on {disfmarker} on a particular stretch , on a particular channel , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and there really was , then , if it didn't show up in a mixed signal to verify , then it might be overlooked , so , I mean , the question is "" should {disfmarker} should a transcriber listen to the entire thing or can it g can it be based on the mixed signal ? "" And I th eh so far as I 'm concerned it 's fine to base it on the mixed signal at this point , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's what it seems to me too , in that if they need to , just like in the other cases , they can listen to the individual , if they need to . +Postdoc A: And that cuts down the time . Yeah . +Grad E: But they don't have to for most of it . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . So . Yeah . Good , good , good . +PhD B: I don't see how that will work , though . +Postdoc A: What {disfmarker} what aspect ? +Professor C: So you 're talking about tightening up time boundaries ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So how do you {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , they have the normal channeltrans interface where they have each individual speaker has their own line , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: but you 're listening to the mixed signal and you 're tightening the boundaries , correcting the boundaries . You shouldn't have to tighten them too much because Thilo 's program does that . +Postdoc A: Should be pretty good , yeah . +PhD D: Except for {vocalsound} it doesn't do well on short things , remember . +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so you 'll have to I {disfmarker} +PhD D: It will miss them . It will miss most of the really short things . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Like that . +Postdoc A: But those would be {disfmarker} those would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . It will {disfmarker} it will miss {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh ! +PhD D: Yeah , you have to say "" uh - huh "" more slowly to {disfmarker} to get c +Grad E: Sorry . +PhD D: No , I 'm s I 'm actually serious . +Grad E: I 'll work on that . +PhD D: So it will miss stuff like that which {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , so {disfmarker} so that 's something that the transcribers will have to {disfmarker} have to do . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but presumably , most of those they should be able to hear from the mixed signal unless they 're embedded in the heavil heavy overlap section when {disfmarker} in which case they 'd be listening to the channels anyway . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm concerned about the part . +PhD D: Right , and that 's what I 'm not sure about . +Postdoc A: Yeah , I am too . And I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD B: Can't we {disfmarker} uh couldn't we just have , um , I don't know , maybe this just doesn't fit with the software , but I guess if I didn't know anything about Transcriber and I was gonna make something to let them adjust boundaries , I would just show them one channel at a time , with the marks , and let them adju +Postdoc A: Oh they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , but then they have to do {disfmarker} but then they {disfmarker} for this meeting they would have to do seven times real time , and it would probably be more than that . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . Yeah . +Grad E: Right ? Because they 'd have to at least listen to each channel all the way through . +Postdoc A: And if {disfmarker} +PhD B: But i but it 's very quick , +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: right ? I mean , you scan {disfmarker} I mean , if you have a display of the waveform . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , you 're talking about visually . +Postdoc A: w Well , the other problem is the breaths +Grad E: I just don't think {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: cuz you also see the breaths on the waveform . I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at the int uh , s I 've tried to do that with a single channel , and {disfmarker} and you do see all sorts of other stuff besides just the voice . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I think that they 're going much more on acoustics than they are on visuals . +Postdoc A: Well that {disfmarker} that I 'm not sure . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: What you {disfmarker} the digital {disfmarker} what the digital task that you had your interface ? Um , I know for a fact that one of those {disfmarker} sh she could really well {disfmarker} she could judge what th what the number was based on the {disfmarker} on the waveform . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's actually true . Yeah , you 're right . You 're absolutely right . Yeah , I found the same thing that when I was scanning through the wave form {vocalsound} I could see when someone started to read digits just by the shapes . +Postdoc A: Yeah , she could tell which one was seven . +Grad E: Um , maybe . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I don't {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm now entirely confused about what they do . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're looking at a mixed signal , or they 're looking {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at visually ? +Postdoc A: Well , they have a choice . They could choose any signal to look at . I 've tried lookin but usually they look at the mixed . But I 've {disfmarker} I 've tried looking at the single signal and {disfmarker} and in order to judge when it {disfmarker} when it was speech and when it wasn't , +Grad E: Oh . +Postdoc A: but the problem is then you have breaths which {disfmarker} which show up on the signal . +Professor C: But the procedure that you 're imagining , I mean , people vary from this , is that they have the mixed signal wave form in front of them , +Postdoc A: Yes . +PhD F: +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: and they have multiple , uh , well , let 's see , there isn't {disfmarker} we don't have transcription yet . So {disfmarker} but there 's markers of some sort that have been happening automatically , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: and those show up on the mixed signal ? +Postdoc A: Oh , +Professor C: There 's a @ @ clicks ? +Grad E: N the t +Postdoc A: they show up on the separate ribbons . So you have a separate ribbon for each channel , +Professor C: There 're separate ribbons . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: and {disfmarker} and i i it 'll be {disfmarker} because it 's being segmented as channel at a time with his {disfmarker} with Thilo 's new procedure , then you don't have the correspondence of the times across the bins {disfmarker} uh across the ribbons uh you could have {disfmarker} +Professor C: And is there a line moving across the waveform as it goes ? +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: OK , so The way you 're imaging is they kind of play it , and they see oh this happened , then this happened , then {disfmarker} and if it 's about right , they just sort of let it slide , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Professor C: and if it {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} there 's a question on something , they stop and maybe look at the individual wave form . +Postdoc A: Oh , well not {disfmarker} not "" look "" . +Grad E: Right . Well , they wouldn't look at it {pause} at this point . They would just listen . +Professor C: They {disfmarker} they might look at it , right ? +Grad E: Well , the problem is that the {disfmarker} the interface doesn't really allow you to switch visuals . +Postdoc A: Not very quickly . +Grad E: The problem is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the Tcl - TK interface with the visuals , it 's very slow to load waveforms . +Postdoc A: You can but it takes time . That 's it . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so when I tried {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that was the first thing I tried when I first started it , +Postdoc A: Oh , oh . Visually . You can {disfmarker} you can switch quickly between the audio , +Grad E: right ? +Postdoc A: but you just can't get the visual display to show quickly . So you have to {disfmarker} It takes , I don't know , three , four minutes to {disfmarker} Well , I mean , it takes {disfmarker} it takes long enough {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , it 's very slow to do that . +Postdoc A: It takes long enough cuz it has to reload the I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly what it 's doing frankly cuz {disfmarker} but it t it takes long enough that it 's just not a practical alternative . +PhD D: That w +Grad E: Well it {disfmarker} it does some sort of shape pre - computation so that it can then scroll it quickly , +Grad G: But you can cancel that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . But then you can't change the resolution or scroll quickly . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Postdoc A: Now you could set up multiple windows , each one with a different signal showing , and then look between the windows . +Grad E: So . +Grad G: Huh ! +Postdoc A: Maybe that 's the solution . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could do different interfaces , +Grad G: What if you preload them all ? +Grad E: right ? I mean , so {disfmarker} so we could use like X Waves instead of Transcriber , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and it loads faster , certainly . +Grad G: What if you were to preload all the channels or {disfmarker} or initially {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well that 's what I tried originally . +Grad G: like doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I actually before , uh , Dave Gelbart did this , I did an interface which showed each waveform and ea a ribbon for each waveform , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but the problem with it is even with just three waveforms it was just painfully slow to scroll . So you just scroll a screen and it would , you know go "" kur - chunk ! "" +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so it just was not doable with the current interface . +Postdoc A: You know , I am thinking if we have a meeting with only four speakers and , you know , you could fire up a Transcriber interface for , y you know , in different windows , multiple ones , one for each channel . And it 's sort of a {disfmarker} a hack but I mean it would be one way of seeing the visual form . +Grad E: I think that if we decide that we need {disfmarker} that they need to see the visuals , we need to change the interface so that they can do that . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: That 's actually what I thought of , loading the chopped up waveforms , I mean , you know , that {disfmarker} that would make it faster {disfmarker} +Grad E: An But isn't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad E: The chopped up waveforms . +PhD B: The problem is if {disfmarker} if anything 's cut off , you can't expand it from the chopped up {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Grad E: Isn't that {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Right , but if you a at some point {disfmarker} +Grad E: And wouldn't that be the same {comment} as the mixed signal ? +PhD D: No , I mean the individual channels that were chopped up that {disfmarker} it 'd be nice to be able to go back and forth between those short segments . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Cuz you don't really nee like nine tenths of the time you 're throwing most of them out , but what you need are tho that particular channel , or that particular location , +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: um , might be nice , cuz we save those out already , {comment} um , to be able to do that . But it won't work for IBM of course , it only works here cuz they 're not saving out the individual channels . +Postdoc A: Well , I {disfmarker} I do think that this {disfmarker} this will be a doable procedure , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and have them starting with mixed +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc A: and , um , then when they get into overlaps , just have them systematically check all the channels to be sure that there isn't something hidden from {disfmarker} from audio view . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , hopefully , I mean {disfmarker} The mixed signal , the overlaps are pretty audible because it is volume equalized . So I think they should be able to hear . The only problem is {disfmarker} is , you know , counting how many and if they 're really correct or not . So , I don't know . +PhD D: I don't know that you can locate them very well from the mixed signal , +Grad E: Right but {disfmarker} but once {disfmarker} once you know that they happen , you can at least listen to the close talking , +PhD D: but you would know that they were there , and then you would switch . Right . And then you would switch into the other {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +Professor C: But right now , to do this limitation , the switching is going to be switching of the audio ? Is what she 's saying . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so +Professor C: so they 're using their ears to do these markings anyway . +Grad E: did Dave {disfmarker} Did Dave do that change where you can actually just click rather than having to go up to the menu to listen to the individual channels ? +Postdoc A: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Click {disfmarker} Um , +Grad E: I had suggested it before . I just don't know whether he did it or not . +Postdoc A: I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} click what {disfmarker} click on the ribbon ? Yeah , you can get that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: oh , oh , get {disfmarker} you can get the , uh {disfmarker} you can get it to switch audio ? Uh , not last I tried , +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but , um , maybe he 's changed it again . +Grad E: We should get him to do that because , uh , I think that would be much , much faster than going to the menu . +Postdoc A: I disagree . There 's a reason I disagree , and that is that , uh , you {disfmarker} it 's very good to have a dissociation between the visual and the audio . There 're times when I wanna hear the mixed signal , bu but I want to transcribe on the single channel . So right now {disfmarker} +Grad E: Then maybe just buttons down at the bottom next to it . +Postdoc A: Maybe , I just don't {disfmarker} I don't see that it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Just something so that it 's not in the menu option so that you can do it much faster . +Postdoc A: Well , I mean , that 's the i I {disfmarker} I think that might be a personal style thing . I find it really convenient the way {disfmarker} the way it 's set up right now . +Grad E: Well it just seems to me that if you wanna quickly {disfmarker} "" well was that Jane , no , was that Chuck , no , was that Morgan "" , right now , you have to go up to the menu , and each time , go up to the menu , select it , listen to that channel then click below , and then go back to the menu , select the next one , and then click below . +Postdoc A: That 's fine . Yeah , it 's true . +Grad E: So you can definitely streamline that with the i with the interface . +Postdoc A: Yeah , it could be faster , but , you know , I mean , th in the ideal world {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: What ? +Postdoc A: No I {disfmarker} I agree that 'd be nice . Yeah . OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , um , Done with that ? Does any {disfmarker} I forget , does anybody , uh , working on any {disfmarker} any Eurospeech submission related to this ? +Grad E: I would like to try to do something on digits but I just don't know if we have time . I mean , it 's due next Friday so we have to do the experiments and write the paper . So , I 'm gonna try , but , uh , we 'll just have to see . So actually I wanna get together with both Andreas and , uh , uh , Stephane with their respective systems . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah there was that {disfmarker} we that 's right , we had that one conversation about , uh , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what did it mean for , uh , one of those speakers to be pathological , was it a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , and I haven't had s chance to sit down and listen . +PhD F: Oh , I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't listened to them either , +Grad E: I was going to do that this afternoon . +PhD F: but there must be something wrong , I mean , +Grad E: Well , Morgan and I were {disfmarker} were having a debate {comment} about that . +PhD F: unless our {disfmarker} +Grad E: Whereas I think it it 's probably something pathologic and actually Stephane 's results , I think confirm that . He s he did the Aurora system also got very lousy average error , like fifteen or {disfmarker} or , uh , fifteen to twenty percent average ? But then he ran it just on the lapel , and got about five or six percent word error ? So that {disfmarker} that means to me that somewhere in the other recordings there are some pathological cases . But , you know , we {disfmarker} th that may not be true . It may be just some of the segments they 're just doing a lousy job on . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll listen to it and find out since you 'd actually split it up by segment . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So I can actually listen to it . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Did you run the {disfmarker} Andreas {disfmarker} the r SRI recognizer on the digits ? +Grad E: Oh , I thought he had sent that around to everyone , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: did you just sent that to me ? +PhD F: No , I d I didn't . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD F: Since I considered those preliminary , I didn't . +PhD B: I it wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , yeah , if you take {disfmarker} +Grad E: It was bimodal . +PhD F: So if you {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's actually , um , it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it was trimodal , actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , was it trimodal , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: trimodal , so +Professor C: There 's zero , a little bit , and a lot . +PhD F: there were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} t there was {disfmarker} there was one h one bump at ze around zero , which were the native speakers , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Zero percent error ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: the non - pathological native speakers . +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD F: Then there was another bump at , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} oh , like fifteen or something . +PhD B: This is error you 're talking about ? +Professor C: Oh was it fifteen ? +PhD F: whe +PhD B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Those were the non - natives . And then there was another distinct bump at , like , a hundred , {vocalsound} which must have been some problem . +Postdoc A: Oh , wow ! Oh , OK . +PhD F: I can't imagine that {disfmarker} +Grad G: What is patho what do you mean by pathological ? +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} just something really wrong with {disfmarker} +Grad G: I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: A bug is what I mean , +PhD F: In the recording +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: so that it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , OK . +PhD F: And there was this one meeting , I forget which one it was , where like , uh , six out of the eight channels were all , like {disfmarker} had a hundred percent error . +Grad G: I see . +Grad E: Which probably means like there was a {disfmarker} th the recording interface crashed , +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: or there was a short {disfmarker} you know , someone was jiggling with a cord +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: or , uh , I extracted it incorrectly , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: it was labeled {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it was transcribed incorrectly , something really bad happened , and I just haven't listened to it yet to find out what it was . +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: So , if I excluded the pathological ones , {vocalsound} by definition , those that had like over ninety - five percent error rate , {vocalsound} and the non - natives , then the average error rate was like one point four or something , +Professor C: What we 're calling . +Postdoc A: Oh . Oh . +PhD F: which {disfmarker} which seemed reasonable given that , you know , the models weren't tuned for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for it . +Grad G: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: And the grammar wasn't tuned either . +PhD B: And it didn't matter whether it was the lapel or whether it was the {disfmarker} +PhD F: It was just a @ @ . I haven't split it up that way , +PhD D: But there 's no overlap during the digit readings , so it shouldn't really matter . +PhD F: but it would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: No , but there 's a little difference , +PhD F: So it should {disfmarker} +Grad E: There 's a lot . +Professor C: and we haven't looked at it for digits , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah , so I was curious about that . +Professor C: And so , cuz {disfmarker} because what he was {disfmarker} what I was saying when I looked at those things is it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I was almost gonna call it quadrimodal because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} because there was a whole lot of cases where it was zero percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: They just plain got it all right . And then there {disfmarker} and then there was another bunch that were couple percent or something . +PhD F: Yeah . But if you p if you actually histogrammed it , and {disfmarker} it was a nice {disfmarker} uh , you know , it {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} zero was the most of them , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: A normal . Yeah . +PhD F: but then there were {disfmarker} the others were sort of decaying from there . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD F: And then there was the bump for the non - natives and then the pathological ones , +Professor C: I see . I see . +PhD F: so . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz some of our non - natives are pretty non - native . So . +Postdoc A: You {disfmarker} did you have , uh , something in the report about , uh , {disfmarker} about , uh , for f uh , forced alignment ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Have you {disfmarker} have you started on that ? +PhD F: Oh , well , yeah , so I 've been struggling with the forced alignments . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the scheme that I drew on the board last time where we tried to , um {vocalsound} allow reject models for the s speech from other speakers , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} most of the time it doesn't work very well . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} I haven't done {disfmarker} I mean , the only way to check this right now was for me to actually {vocalsound} load these into X Waves and , you know , plus the alignments , and s play them and see where the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: And it looks {disfmarker} And so I looked at all of the utterances from you , Chuck , in that one conversation , I don't know which {disfmarker} You probably know which one I mean , it 's where you were on the lapel {vocalsound} and Morgan was sitting next to you and we can hear everything Morgan says . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some of what you {disfmarker} I mean , you also appear quite a bit in that cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} I actually went through all of those , there were I think fifty - five segments , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in X Waves , and {disfmarker} and sort of did a crude check , and {vocalsound} more often than not , it {disfmarker} it gets it wrong . So there 's either the beginning , mostly the beginning word , {vocalsound} where th you , um , you know , Chuck talks somewhere into the segment , but the first , um , word of what he says , often "" I "" but it 's very reduced "" I , "" that 's just aligned {vocalsound} to the beginning of someone else 's speech , uh in that segment , which is cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} I 'm still tinkering with it , but it might well be that we can't get clean alignments out of this {disfmarker} out of those , uh , {vocalsound} channels , so . +Professor C: Unless maybe we do this , uh , um , cancellation business . +PhD D: Right , but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that was our plan , +PhD F: Yeah , right . +PhD D: but it 's clear from Dan that this is not something you can do in a short amount of time . +Professor C: Oh , the short amount of time thing , right . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so we {disfmarker} you know , we had spent a lot of time , um , writing up the HLT paper and we wanted to use that , uh , kind of analysis , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but the HLT paper has , you know , it 's a very crude measure of overlap . It 's not really something you could scientifically say is overlap , it 's just whether or not the , um , the segments that were all synchronized , whether there was some overlap somewhere . +Grad E: c High correlation . +PhD D: And , you know , that pointed out some differences , so he thought well if we can do something quick and dirty because Dan said the cross - cancellation , it 's not straight - forward . If it were straight - forward then we would try it , but {disfmarker} so , it 's sort of good to hear that it was not straight - forward , thinking if we can get decent forced alignments , then at least we can do sort of a overall report of what happens with actual overlap in time , but , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: I didn't think that his message said it wasn't straight - forward . +Grad E: Well if we 'd just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well +PhD B: I thought he 's just saying you have to look over a longer time window when you do it . +Grad E: Um - hmm . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} but there are some issues of this timing , um , in the recordings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you just have to look over longer time when you 're trying to align the things , you can't {disfmarker} you can't just look {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well . are you talking about the fact that the recording software doesn't do time - synchronous ? Is that what you 're referring to ? +Professor C: +Grad E: That seems to me you can do that over the entire file and get a very accurate {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't thi I d I don't think that was the issue . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} yeah , that was sort of a side issue . +Grad E: I didn't think so either . +PhD F: The issue was that you have {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} you have have {disfmarker} you first have to have a pretty good speech detection on the individual channels . +PhD D: And it 's dynamic , so I guess it was more dynamic than some simple models would be able t to {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so there are some things available , and I don't know too much about this area where if people aren't moving around much than you could apply them , and it should work pretty well if you took care of this recording time difference . +Grad E: Right , which should be pretty straight forward . +PhD D: Which a at least is well defined , and +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: um , but then if you add the dynamic aspect of adapting distances , then it wasn't {disfmarker} I guess it just wasn't something that he could do quickly {pause} and not {disfmarker} in time for us to be able to do something by two weeks from now , so . Well less than a week . So {disfmarker} um , so I don't know what we can do if anything , that 's sort of worth , you know , a Eurospeech paper at this point . +PhD B: Well , Andreas , how well did it work on the non - lapel stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's what I was gonna say . +PhD F: I haven't checked those yet . +Grad E: C +PhD F: It 's very tedious to check these . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD F: Um , we would really need , ideally , a transcriber {vocalsound} to time mark the {disfmarker} you know , the be at least the beginning and s ends {comment} of contiguous speech . Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and , you know , then with the time marks , you can do an automatic comparison of your {disfmarker} of your forced alignments . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} really the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at least in terms of how we were gonna use this in our system was to get an ideal {disfmarker} an idea , uh , for each channel about the start and end boundaries . +Grad E: Oh , MNCM . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We don't really care about like intermediate word boundaries , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , that 's how I 've been looking at it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: I mean , I don't care that the individual words are aligned correctly , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {vocalsound} you don't wanna , uh , infer from the alignment that someone spoke who didn't . +PhD B: Right , exactly . So that 's why I was wondering if it {disfmarker} +PhD F: so , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , maybe if it doesn't work for lapel stuff , we can just not use that +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I haven't {disfmarker} I ha just haven't had the time to , um , do the same procedure on one of the {disfmarker} so I would need a k I would need a channel that has {vocalsound} a speaker whose {disfmarker} who has a lot of overlap but s you know , is a non - lapel mike . And , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} where preferably , also there 's someone sitting next to them who talks a lot . +Grad E: Hmm ! +PhD F: So , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So a meeting with me in it . +PhD F: maybe someone can help me find a good candidate and then I would be willing to +PhD B: We c you know what ? Maybe the best way to find that would be to look through these . +PhD F: you know , hand +PhD B: Cuz you can see the seat numbers , and then you can see what type of mike they were using . And so we just look for , you know , somebody sitting next to Adam at one of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually y we can tell from the data that we have , +PhD F: From the insertions , maybe ? +PhD D: um , yeah , there 's a way to tell . +PhD F: fr fr from the {disfmarker} +PhD D: It might not be a single person who 's always overlapping that person but any number of people , +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: and , um , if you align the two hypothesis files across the channels , you know , just word alignment , you 'd be able to find that . So {disfmarker} so I guess that 's sort of a last {disfmarker} ther there 're sort of a few things we could do . One is just do like non - lapels if we can get good enough alignments . Another one was to try to get {disfmarker} somehow align Thilo 's energy segmentations with what we have . But then you have the problem of not knowing where the words are because these meetings were done before that segmentation . But maybe there 's something that could be done . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} why do you need the , um , the forced alignment for the HLT {disfmarker} I mean for the Eurospeech paper ? +PhD D: Well , I guess I {disfmarker} I wanted to just do something not on recognition experiments because that 's ju way too early , but to be able to report , you know , actual numbers . Like if we {disfmarker} if we had hand - transcribed pe good alignments or hand - checked alignments , then we could do this paper . It 's not that we need it to be automatic . But without knowing where the real words are , in time {disfmarker} +PhD B: So it was to get {disfmarker} it was to get more data and better {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to squeeze the boundaries in . +PhD D: To {disfmarker} to know what an overlap really {disfmarker} if it 's really an overlap , or if it 's just a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a segment correlated with an overlap , +PhD B: Ah , OK . Yeah . +PhD D: and I guess that 's the difference to me between like a real paper and a sort of , promissory paper . So , um , if we d it might be possible to take Thilo 's output and like if you have , um , like right now these meetings are all , +Grad E: Ugh ! I forgot the digital camera again . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: Every meeting ! +PhD D: you know , they 're time - aligned , so if these are two different channels and somebody 's talking here and somebody else is talking here , just that word , if Thilo can tell us that there 're boundaries here , we should be able to figure that out +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because the only thing transcribed in this channel is this word . But , um , you know , if there are things {disfmarker} +Grad E: Two words . +PhD D: Yeah , if you have two and they 're at the edges , it 's like here and here , and there 's speech here , then it doesn't really help you , so , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Thilo 's won't put down two separate marks in that case {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it w it would , but , um , we don't know exactly where the words are because the transcriber gave us two words in this time bin +Grad E: Thilo 's will . But . +PhD D: and we don't really know , I mean , +Postdoc A: Well it 's a merging problem . If you had a {disfmarker} if you had a s if you had a script which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I 've thought about this , um , and I 've discussed {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo , +PhD D: I mean , if you have any ideas . I would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , the , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} in principle I could imagine writing a script which would approximate it to some degree , but there is this problem of slippage , +Grad E: Well maybe {disfmarker} Maybe that will get enough of the cases to be useful . +Postdoc A: yeah . +PhD D: Right . I mean , that {disfmarker} that would be really helpful . That was sort of another possibility . +Grad E: You know s cuz it seemed like most of the cases are in fact the single word sorts , or at least a single phrase +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} they can be stretched . +Grad E: in most of the bins . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc A: I wouldn't make that generalization cuz sometimes people will say , "" And then I "" and there 's a long pause +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and finish the sentence and {disfmarker} and sometimes it looks coherent and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a simple problem . But it 's really {disfmarker} And then it 's coupled with the problem that sometimes , you know , with {disfmarker} with a fricative you might get the beginning of the word cut off and so it 's coupled with the problem that Thilo 's isn't perfect either . I mean , we 've i th it 's like you have a merging problem plus {disfmarker} so merging plus this problem of , uh , not {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . Hmm ! +Postdoc A: y i i if the speech - nonspeech were perfect to begin with , the detector , that would already be an improvement , but that 's impossible , you know , i that 's too much to ask . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: And so i and may you know , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I think that there always {disfmarker} th there would have to be some hand - tweaking , but it 's possible that a script could be written to merge those two types of things . I 've {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo and I mean {disfmarker} in terms of not him doing it , but we {disfmarker} we discussed some of the parameters of that and how hard it would be to {disfmarker} in principle {disfmarker} to write something that would do that . +PhD D: I mean , I guess in the future it won't be as much as an issue if transcribers are using the tightened boundaries to start with , then we have a good idea of where the forced alignment is constrained to . +Postdoc A: Well , it 's just , you know , a matter of we had the revolution {disfmarker} we had the revolution of improved , uh , interface , um , one month too late , +PhD D: So I 'm no I don't know if this +Grad E: Oh . Tools . +Postdoc A: but it 's like , you know , it 's wonderful to have the revolution , +PhD D: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: so it 's just a matter of {disfmarker} of , you know , from now on we 'll be able to have things channelized to begin with . +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Right . And we 'll just have to see how hard that is . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so whether the corrections take too much time . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Grad E: I was just thinking about the fact that if Thilo 's missed these short segments , that might be quite time - consuming for them to insert them . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Good point . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} he also can adjust this minimum time duration constraint and then what you get is noises mostly , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Spurious . +PhD D: but that might be OK , an +Grad E: It might be easier to delete something that 's wrong than to insert something that 's missing . +PhD D: Right . And you can also see in the waveform {disfmarker} exac +Grad E: What do you think , Jane ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: If you can feel confident that what the {disfmarker} yeah , that there 's actually something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: that you 're not gonna miss something , +Grad E: Yeah . Cuz then {disfmarker} then you just delete it , and you don't have to pick a time . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well the problem is I {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a really good question , and I really find it a pain in the neck to delete things because you have to get the mouse up there on the t on the text line and i and otherwise you just use an arrow to get down {disfmarker} I mean , i it depends on how lar th there 's so many extra things that would make it one of them harder than the other , or {disfmarker} or vice versa . It 's not a simple question . But , you know , I mean , in principle , like , you know , if one of them is easier then to bias it towards whichever one 's easier . +Grad E: Yeah , I guess the semantics aren't clear when you delete a segment , right ? Because you would say {disfmarker} You would have to determine what the surroundings were . +PhD D: You could just say it 's a noise , though , and write , you know , a post - processor will just {disfmarker} all you have to do is just {disfmarker} +Grad E: If it 's really a noise . +PhD D: or just say it 's {disfmarker} just put "" X , "" you know , like "" not speech "" or something , +Postdoc A: I think it 's easier to add than delete , frankly , +PhD D: and then you can get {disfmarker} Yeah , or +Postdoc A: because you have to , uh , maneuver around on the {disfmarker} on both windows then . +Grad E: To add or to delete ? +Postdoc A: To delete . +PhD D: Anyways , so I {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . That {disfmarker} Maybe that 's an interface issue that might be addressable . +Postdoc A: It 's possible . +Grad E: But I think it 's the semantics that are {disfmarker} that are questionable to me , that you delete something {disfmarker} So let 's say someone is talking to here , and then you have a little segment here . Well , is that part of the speech ? Is it part of the nonspeech ? I mean , w what do you embed it in ? +PhD D: There 's something nice , though , about keeping , and this is probably another discussion , keeping the stuff that Thilo 's detector detected as possible speech and just marking it as not speech than deleting it . Because then when you align it , then the alignment can {disfmarker} you can put a reject model or whatever , +Grad E: Oh , I see . So then they could just like put {disfmarker} Oh that 's what you meant by just put an "" X "" there . +PhD D: and you 're consistent with th the automatic system , +Grad E: Uh , that 's an interesting idea . +PhD D: whereas if you delete it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so all they {disfmarker} So that all they would have to do is put like an "" X "" there . +PhD D: Yeah , or some , you know , dummy reject mod +Grad E: So blank for {disfmarker} blank for silence , "" S "" "" S "" for speech , "" X "" "" X "" for something else . +PhD D: whatever , yeah . That 's actually a better way to do it cuz the a the forced alignment will probably be more consistent than {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , like , I think there 's a complication which is that {disfmarker} that you can have speech and noise in s +PhD D: I mean if it 's just as easy , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: uh , you know , on the same channel , the same speaker , so now sometimes you get a ni microphone pop and , uh , I mean , there 're these fuzzy hybrid cases , and then the problem with the boundaries that have to be shifted around . It 's not a simple {disfmarker} not a simple problem . +PhD D: Anyway , quick question , though , at a high level do people think , let 's just say that we 're moving to this new era of like using the , um , pre - segmented t you know , non - synchronous conversations , does it make sense to try to take what we have now , which are the ones that , you know , we have recognition on which are synchronous and not time - tightened , and try to get something out of those for sort of purposes of illustrating the structure and the nature of the meetings , or is it better to just , you know , forget that and tr I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I think we 'll have to , eventually . And my hope was that we would be able to use the forced alignment to get it . +PhD D: Right . That was everybody 's hope . +Grad E: But if we can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: And maybe we can for the non - lapel , but +Grad E: But if we can't , then maybe we just have to {disfmarker} +PhD D: is it worth {disfmarker} if we can't then we can fake it even if we 're {disfmarker} we report , you know , we 're wrong twenty percent of the time or ten percent of the time . +Grad E: Well , I 'm thinking {disfmarker} are you talking about for a paper , or are talking about for the corpus . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's a good question actually . +Grad E: I mean cuz for the corpus it would be nice if everything were {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually that 's a good question because we 'd have to completely redo those meetings , and we have like ten of them now . +Grad E: We wouldn't have to re - do them , we would just have to edit them . +Postdoc A: Well , and also , I mean , I still haven't {disfmarker} I still haven't given up on forced alignment . +PhD D: No , you 're right , actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think that when Brian comes , this 'll be uh an interesting aspect to ask him as well b +Grad E: When {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: when Brian Kingsbury comes . +Grad E: Oh , Brian . You s I thought you said Ryan . And it 's like , "" Who 's Ryan ? "" +Postdoc A: Yeah , good question . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc A: Well , Ryan could come . +PhD D: Uh , no , that 's a good point , though , because for feature extraction like for prosody or something , I mean , the meetings we have now , it 's a good chunk of data {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: we need to get a decent f OK . +Postdoc A: That 's what my hope has been , +PhD D: So we should at least try it even if we can't , +Postdoc A: and that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} you know , ever since the {disfmarker} the February meeting that I transcribed from last year , forced alignment has been on the {disfmarker} on the table as a way of cleaning them up later . +PhD D: right ? +Grad E: On the table , right ? +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and so I 'm hopeful that that 's possible . I know that there 's complication in the overlap sections and with the lapel mikes , +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , we might be able , at the very worst , we can get transcribers to correct the cases where {disfmarker} I mean , you sort of have a good estimate where these places are because the recognition 's so poor . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , we were never just gonna go with these as the final alignments . +PhD D: And so you 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I agree . I agree . +PhD B: We were always gonna run them past somebody . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Absolutely . +PhD D: So we need some way to push these first chunk of meetings into a state where we get good alignments . +PhD F: I 'm probably going to spend another day or so trying to improve things by , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} by using , um , acoustic adaptation . Um , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Right now I 'm using the unadapted models for the forced alignments , and it 's possible that you get considerably better results if you , uh , manage to adapt the , {vocalsound} uh , phone models to the speaker and the reject model to the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to all the other speech . Um , so +PhD B: Could you {disfmarker} could you at the same time adapt the reject model to the speech from all the other channels ? +Professor C: That 's what he just said . +Grad E: That 's what he was saying . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's what I just said . +PhD B: Oh , not just the speech from that {disfmarker} of the other people from that channel , +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: but the speech from the a actual other channels . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Oh , oh , I see . Um , +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I don't think so . I don't think that would work , +PhD F: No , it {disfmarker} +Grad E: right ? Because you 'd {disfmarker} A lot of it 's dominated by channel properties . +PhD F: th Exactly . +PhD D: But what you do wanna do is take the , even if it 's klugey , take the segments {disfmarker} the synchronous segments , the ones from the HLT paper , where only that speaker was talking . +PhD F: So you want to u +PhD D: Use those for adaptation , cuz if you {disfmarker} if you use everything , then you get all the cross - talk in the adaptation , and it 's just sort of blurred . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +PhD B: If you {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yep . +PhD D: And that we know , I mean , we have that . And it 's about roughly two - thirds , I mean , very roughly averaged . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's not completely negligible . Like a third of it is bad for adaptation or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cool . I thought it was higher than that , that 's pr +PhD D: It really {disfmarker} it depends a lot . This is just sort of an overall {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +Professor C: Well I know what we 're not turning in to Eurospeech , a redo of the HLT paper . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: That {disfmarker} I don't wanna do that , +Grad E: Yeah , I 'm doing that for AVIOS . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: Yeah . But I think we 're {disfmarker} oh , Morgan 's talk went very well , I think . +Professor C: Bleep . +Grad E: Uh , "" bleep "" . Yeah , really . +PhD D: I think Morgan 's talk went very well it woke {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD D: you know , it was really a well presented {disfmarker} and got people laughing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD F: Some good jokes in it ? +Grad E: Especially the batteried meter popping up , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was hilarious . Right when you were talking about that . +Professor C: You know , that wa that was the battery meter saying that it was fully charged , +Grad E: It 's full . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc A: You said , "" Speaking about energy "" , or {vocalsound} something . +Grad E: But that was funny . +Postdoc A: That was very nice . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was onto the bullet points about talking about the {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} the little hand - held , and trying to get lower power and so on , +PhD F: Po - low power +Grad E: and Microsoft pops up a little window saying "" Your batteries are now fully charged . "" +Postdoc A: That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: I 'm thinking about scripting that for my talk , you know , put {disfmarker} put a little script in there to say "" Your batteries are low "" right when I 'm saying that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . No I mean , i in {disfmarker} in your case , I mean , you were joking about it , but , I mean , your case the fact that your talking about similar things at a couple of conferences , it 's not {disfmarker} these are conferences that have d really different emphases . Whereas HLT and {disfmarker} and Eurospeech , pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} pretty similar , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't see really just putting in the same thing , +Grad E: Are too close , yeah . +PhD D: No , I d I don't think that paper is really {disfmarker} +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: the HLT paper is really more of a introduction - to - the - project paper , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for Eurospeech we want some results if we can get them . +PhD D: Well , yeah , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} probably wouldn't make sense , +Professor C: Or some {disfmarker} or some {disfmarker} I mean , I would see Eurospeech {disfmarker} if we have some Eurospeech papers , these will be paper p p uh , submissions . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: These will be things that are particular things , aspects of it that we 're looking at , rather than , you know , attempt at a global paper about it . +PhD D: Right , right . +Grad E: Detail , yeah . Overall . +Postdoc A: I did go through one of these meetings . I had , uh , one of the transcribers go through and tighten up the bins on one of the , uh , NSA meetings , and then I went through afterwards and double - checked it so that one is really very {disfmarker} very accurate . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc A: I men I mentioned the link . I sent {disfmarker} You know that one ? +PhD D: Oh , so {disfmarker} +Grad G: The {disfmarker} which one ? I 'm sorry . +Postdoc A: Um , I 'm trying to remember {disfmarker} I don't remember the number off hand . +Grad E: Those are all {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's one of the NSA 's . I sent email before the conference , before last week . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Bef - What I mean is Wednesday , Thursday . +PhD D: That might {disfmarker} might have been the one {disfmarker} one of the ones that we did . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that that one 's accurate , I 've been through it {vocalsound} myself . +PhD D: So that might actually be useful but they 're all non - native speakers . +PhD F: So we could compare before and after +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: and see {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that 's what I was gonna say . The problem with those , they 're all German . +PhD F: oh , Darn ! +Grad G: Yeah , that 's the problem with the NSA speakers . +PhD D: And e and e and extremely hard to follow , like word - wise , +Grad E: So . +PhD D: I bet the transcri I mean , I have no idea what they 're talking about , +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I corrected it for a number of the words . +PhD D: so , +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're accurate now . +PhD D: um , +PhD F: Uh , actually I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to go . +PhD D: I mean , this is tough for a language model probably {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but that might be useful just for speech . +Professor C: Well . +Grad E: OK , Andreas is leaving {disfmarker} leaving the building . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: See ya . +Professor C: See ya . I don't think we 'll go much longer . +Grad E: Um , oh , before you l go {disfmarker} I guess it 's alright for you to talk a little without the mike {disfmarker} I noticed you adjusting the mike a lot , did it not fit you well ? Oh . +Postdoc A: Well I won I noticed when you turned your head , it would {disfmarker} it would tilt . +Grad E: Maybe it wasn't just tightened enough , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe the {disfmarker} yeah , the s thing that you have tightened @ @ , +PhD B: Actually if {disfmarker} if you have a larger head , that mike 's gotta go farther away which means the {disfmarker} the balance is gonna make it wanna tip down . +PhD D: oh . +Grad E: OK . Anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . OK , see ya . +Grad E: Cuz , I 'm just thinking , you know , we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 've been talking about changing the mikes , uh , for a while , +Grad G: +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and if these aren't {disfmarker} acoustically they seem really good , but if they 're not comfortable , we have the same problems we have with these stupid things . +Postdoc A: I think it 's com This is the first time I 've worn this , I find it very comfortable . +Grad E: I find it very comfortable too , but , uh , it looked like Andreas was having problems , and I think Morgan was saying it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , but I had it on {disfmarker} I had it on this morning and it was fine . +PhD B: Can I see that ? +Grad E: Oh , oh you did wear it this morning ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , it 's off , so you can put it on . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't want it on , I just {disfmarker} I just want to , um , say what I think is a problem with this . If you are wearing this over your ears and you 've got it all the way out here , then the balance is gonna want to pull it this way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Where as if somebody with a smaller head has it back here , +Grad E: It 's more balanced . +PhD B: right ? Yeah . +Postdoc A: Oh ! +PhD B: Then it {disfmarker} then it falls back this way so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So we have to +Grad E: Well wh what it 's supposed to do is the backstrap is supposed to be under your crown , and so that should be {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Ah . +Grad E: if it 's right against your head there , which is what it 's supposed to be , that balances it so it doesn't slide up . +PhD B: So this is supposed to be under that little protuberance . +Grad E: Yep , right {disfmarker} right below {disfmarker} if you feel the back of your head , you feel a little lump , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: um , and so it 's supposed to be right under that . +PhD B: So it 's really supposed to go more like this than like this . +Grad E: Yes , exactly . +PhD B: But then isn't that going to {disfmarker} Well , I guess you can control that . +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that tilts , right ? In lots and lots of different ways . +PhD D: So I 'm not saying anything about bias towards small headsize , +Grad E: About heads ? +PhD D: but does seem , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: It would be an advantage . +Postdoc A: Well , wonder if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if he was wearing it over his hair instead of under his hair . +Professor C: Well , we should {disfmarker} We shou we should work on compressing the heads , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think probably it was {disfmarker} Yeah . It probably just wasn't tight enough to the back of his head . I mean , so the directions do talk about bending it to your size , which is not really what we want . +PhD B: The other thing that would do it would be to hang a five pound weight off the back . +Professor C: Yeah +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: that 's good ! +Postdoc A: What did you say ? +PhD D: A little , +Grad E: wh +Professor C: Hang a five pound weight off the {disfmarker} off the back . +PhD B: Hang a five pound weight off the back . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: We did that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Weight . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} at Boeing I used {disfmarker} I was doing augmented reality so they had head - mounts on , and we {disfmarker} we had a little jury - rigged one with a welder 's helmet , +PhD B: Counter - balance . +Grad E: and we had just a bag with a bunch of marbles in it {vocalsound} as a counter - balance . +Professor C: Or maybe this could be helpful just for evening the conversation between people . If people {disfmarker} those who talk a lot have to wear heavier weights or something , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah ! +Professor C: and {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: um , so , uh , what was I gonna say ? Oh , yeah , I was gonna say , uh , I had these , uh , conversations with NIST folks also while I was there and {disfmarker} and , uh , um , so they {disfmarker} they have their {disfmarker} their plan for a room , uh , with , um , mikes in the middle of the table , and , uh , close - mounted mikes , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and they 're talking about close - mounted and lapels , just cuz +PhD D: And arrays , +Professor C: sort of {disfmarker} and the array . +Grad E: And arrays , +Professor C: Yeah , so they were {disfmarker} +PhD D: which is the i interesting {disfmarker} +Grad E: yep . And cameras . +Professor C: And yeah , like multiple {disfmarker} multiple video cameras coverin covering every {disfmarker} everybody {disfmarker} every place in the room , +PhD D: and video , right . +Professor C: uh , the {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mikes in the middle , the head - mounted mikes , the lapel mikes , the array , uh , with {disfmarker} well , there 's some discussion of fifty - nine , +Grad E: Fifty - nine elements . +Professor C: they might go down to fifty - seven Because , uh , there is , uh , some pressure from a couple people at the meeting for them to use a KEMAR head . I forget what KEMAR , uh , stands for , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but what it is is it 's dummy head that is very specially designed , +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , so what they 're actually doing is they 're really {disfmarker} there 's really two recording systems . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: That 's a great idea . +Professor C: So they may not be precisely synchronous , but the but there 's two {disfmarker} two recording systems , one with , I think , twenty - four channels , and one with sixty - four channels . And the sixty - four channel one is for the array , but they 've got some empty channels there , and anyway they {disfmarker} like they 're saying they may give up a couple or something if {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the KEMAR head if they go {disfmarker} go with that . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , it is a good idea . +Professor C: So . +Grad E: Yeah , h uh , J Jonathan Fiscus did say that , uh , they have lots of software for doing calibration for skew and offset between channels +PhD D: Mm - hmm +Grad E: and that they 've found that 's just not a big deal . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I 'm not {pause} too worried about that . I was thinking {disfmarker} +PhD D: But they 're still planning to do like fake {disfmarker} +Grad E: Scenario - based . +PhD D: they have to do something like that , +Grad E: Y right . +PhD D: right . +Grad E: Their {disfmarker} their legal issues won't allow them to do otherwise . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But it sounded like they were {pause} pretty well thought out +PhD D: Yeah , th that 's true . +Grad E: and they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna be real meetings , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's just that they 're with str with people who would not be meeting otherwise . +PhD B: Did {disfmarker} did they give a talk on this or was this informal ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So . +PhD D: No . +Grad E: No . +Professor C: No , we just had some discussions , various discussions with them . +Grad E: It 's just informal . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , I also sat and chatted with several of the NIST folks . They seemed like a good group . +PhD B: What was the , um {disfmarker} the paper by , um , Lori Lamel that you mentioned ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , we sh we should just have you {disfmarker} have you read it , but , I mea ba i i uh , we 've all got these little proceedings , +Postdoc A: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: but , um , basically , it was about , um , uh , going to a new task where you have insufficient data and using {disfmarker} using data from something else , and adapting , and how well that works . Uh , so in {disfmarker} in fact it was pretty related to what Liz and Andreas did , uh , except that this was not with meeting stuff , it was with +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: uh , like I think they s didn't they start off with Broadcast News system ? And then they went to {disfmarker} +Grad E: The - their Broadcast News was their acoustic models and then all the other tasks were much simpler . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So they were command and control and that sort of thing . +Professor C: TI - digits was one of them , and , uh , Wall Street Journal . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD B: What was their rough {disfmarker} what was their conclusion ? +Grad E: Yeah , read Wall Street Journal . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good paper , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that was one of the ones that I liked . +PhD D: Bring the {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} It not only works , in some cases it was better , which I thought was pretty interesting , but that 's cuz they didn't control for parameters . So . +Professor C: Probably . +Grad E: You know , the Broadcast News nets were {disfmarker} not nets , +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Did they ever try going {disfmarker} going the other direction from simpler task to more complicated tasks , +Grad E: acoustic models {comment} were a lot more complex . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: n Not in that paper . +Professor C: That might be hard . +Grad E: Yeah , well , one of the big problems with that is {disfmarker} is often the simpler task isn't fully {disfmarker} doesn't have all the phones in it , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: and that {disfmarker} that makes it very hard . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But I 've done the same thing . I 've been using Broadcast News nets for digits , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: like for the spr speech proxy thing that I did ? That 's what I did . +Professor C: Yeah , sure . +Grad E: So . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , and they have {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} they have better adaptation than we had than that {disfmarker} that system , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: so they {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You mean they have some . +Professor C: yeah , we should probably what would {disfmarker} actually what we should do , uh , I haven't said anything about this , but probably the five of us should pick out a paper or two that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , got our interest , and we should go around the room at one of the Tuesday lunch meetings and say , you know , what {disfmarker} what was good about the conference , +Grad E: Present . Yep . Do a trip report . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Well , the summarization stuff was interesting , I mean , I don't know anything about that field , but for this proposal on meeting summarization , um , I mean , it 's sort of a far cry because they weren't working with meeting type data , but he got sort of an overview on some of the different approaches , +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Do you remember who the groups were that we 're doing ? +PhD D: so . Well there 're {disfmarker} this was the last day , +Grad E: A lot of different ones . +Postdoc A: R I think {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} that 's a huge field and probably the groups there may not be representative of the field , I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly that everyone submits to this particular conference , +PhD B: Was {disfmarker} were there folks from BBN presenting ? +PhD D: but yet there was , let 's see , this was on the last day , Mitre , BBN , and , um , Prager {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mitre , BBN , IBM . Uh , +Postdoc A: Maryland . +PhD D: um , I wo it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Columbia have anything ? No . +PhD D: no it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wasn't {disfmarker} Who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who did the order one ? +PhD D: this was Wednesday morning . The sentence ordering one , was that Barselou , and these guys ? +Grad E: Ugh ! {comment} I 'm just so bad at that . +Postdoc A: Oh . +PhD D: Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's in the program , I should have read it to remind myself , but that 's sort of useful and I think like when Mari and Katrin and Jeff are here it 'd be good to figure out some kinds of things that we can start doing maybe just on the transcripts cuz we already have {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah , we do have word transcripts . +PhD D: you know , yeah . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: Well , I like the idea that Adam had of {disfmarker} of , um , z maybe generating minutes based on some of these things that we have because it would be easy to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do that just , you know , and {disfmarker} and +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc A: it has to be , though , someone from this group because of the technical nature of the thing . +Grad E: Someone who actually does take notes , um , {vocalsound} I 'm very bad at note - taking . +PhD D: But I think what 's interesting is there 's all these different evaluations , like {disfmarker} just , you know , how do you evaluate whether the summary is good or not , +Grad E: I always write down the wrong things . +Postdoc A: I do take notes . +PhD D: and that 's what 's {disfmarker} was sort of interesting to me is that there 's different ways to do it , +Grad E: A judge . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Was SRA one of the groups talking about summarization , no ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: Hm - umm . No . +Postdoc A: It was an interesting session . One of those w +Grad E: And as I said , I like the Microsoft talk on {pause} scaling issues in , uh , word sense disambiguation , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , that was an interesting discussion , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: uh , I +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was the only one {disfmarker} It was the only one that had any sort of real disagreement about . +PhD D: The data issue comes up all the ti +Professor C: Well , I didn't have as much disagreement as I would have liked , +Grad E: So . +Professor C: but I didn't wanna {disfmarker} I wouldn I didn't wanna get into it because , uh , you know , it was the application was one I didn't know anything about , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: uh , it just would have been , you know , me getting up to be argumentative , but {disfmarker} but , uh , I mean , the missing thi so {disfmarker} so what they were saying {disfmarker} it 's one of these things {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} you know , all you need is more data , sort of {disfmarker} But I mea i wh it {disfmarker} @ @ that 's {disfmarker} that 's dissing it , uh , improperly , I mean , it was a nice study . Uh , they were doing this {disfmarker} it wasn't word - sense disambiguation , it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , it sort of was . +Professor C: was it w was it word - sense ? Yes . +Grad E: But it was {disfmarker} it was a very simple case of "" to "" versus "" too "" versus "" two "" and "" there "" , "" their "" , "" they 're "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: And there and their and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . OK . +PhD D: and that you could do better with more data , I mean , that 's clearly statistically {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And so , what they did was they had these different kinds of learning machines , and they had different amounts of data , and so they did like , you know , eight different methods that everybody , you know , uh , argues about {disfmarker} about , "" Oh my {disfmarker} my kind of learning machine is better than your kind of learning machine . "" And , uh , they were {disfmarker} started off with a million words that they used , which was evidently a number that a lot of people doing that particular kind of task had been using . So they went up , being Microsoft , they went up to a billion . And then they had this log scale showing a {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and naturally everything gets {disfmarker} +Grad E: Them being beep , {comment} they went off to a billion . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} well , it 's a big company , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't mean it as a ne anything negative , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but i i i +PhD D: You mean the bigger the company the more words they use for training ? +Grad E: Well , I think the reason they can do that , is that they assumed that text that they get off the web , like from Wall Street Journal , is correct , and edit it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's what they used as training data . It 's just saying if it 's in this corpus it 's correct . +Professor C: OK . But , I mean , yes . Of course there was the kind of effect that , you know , one would expect that {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} that you got better and better performance with more and more data . Um , but the {disfmarker} the real point was that the {disfmarker} the different learning machines are sort of all over the place , and {disfmarker} and by {disfmarker} by going up significantly in data you can have much bigger effect then by switching learning machines and furthermore which learning machine was on top kind of depended on where you were in this picture , so , +PhD B: This was my concern about the recognizer in Aurora . +Professor C: uh , That {disfmarker} +PhD B: That the differences we 're seeing in the front - end is b +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Are irrelevant . +PhD B: are irrelevant once you get a real recognizer at the back - end . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: If you add more data ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: You know ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Professor C: Yeah , could well be . So {disfmarker} so , I mean , that was {disfmarker} that was kind of , you know , it 's a good point , but the problem I had with it was that the implications out of this was that , uh , the kind of choices you make about learning machines were therefore irrelevant which is not at {disfmarker} n t as for as I know in {disfmarker} in tasks I 'm more familiar with @ @ is not at all true . What i what is {disfmarker} is true is that different learning machines have different properties , and you wanna know what those properties are . And someone else sort of implied that well we s you know , a all the study of learning machine we still don't know what those properties are . We don't know them perfectly , but we know that some kinds use more memory and {disfmarker} and some other kinds use more computation and some are {disfmarker} are hav have limited kind of discrimination , but are just easy to use , and others are {disfmarker} +PhD B: But doesn't their conclusion just sort of {disfmarker} you could have guessed that before they even started ? Because if you assume that these learning things get better and better and better , +Professor C: You would guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: then as you approach {disfmarker} there 's a point where you can't get any better , right ? You get everything right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just no {disfmarker} +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: So they 're all approaching . +Grad E: No , but there was still a spread . They weren't all up They weren't converging . +PhD B: But what I 'm saying is that th they have to , as they all get better , they have to get closer together . +Professor C: It w +Grad E: They were all still spread . But they {disfmarker} Right , right . Sure . But they hadn't even come close to that point . All the tasks were still improving when they hit a billion . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But they 're all going the same way , right ? So you have to get closer . +Professor C: Eventually . O one would +Grad E: But they didn't get closer . +PhD B: Oh they didn't ? +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: They just switched position . +Professor C: well that 's getting cl I mean , yeah , the spread was still pretty wide that 's th that 's true , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but , uh , I think it would be irntu intu intuition that this would be the case , but , uh , to really see it and to have the intuition is quite different , I mean , I think somebody w w let 's see who was talking about earlier that the effect of having a lot more data is quite different in Switchboard than it is in {disfmarker} in Broadcast News , +PhD D: Well it 's different for different tasks . +Grad E: Yeah . It was Liz . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: So it depends a lot on whether , you know , it {disfmarker} disambiguation is exactly the case where more data is better , right ? You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you can assume similar distributions , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but if you wanted to do disambiguation on a different type of , uh , test data then your training data , then that extra data wouldn't generalize , +Grad E: Right . +PhD D: so . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , I think one of their p They {disfmarker} they had a couple points . w {comment} Uh , I think one of them was that "" Well , maybe simpler algorithms and more data are {disfmarker} is better "" . Less memory , faster operation , simpler . Right ? Because their simplest , most brain - dead algorithm did pretty darn well +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: when you got {disfmarker} gave it a lot more data . And then also they were saying , "" Well , m You have access to a lot more data . Why are you sticking with a million words ? "" I mean , their point was that this million - word corpus that everyone uses is apparently ten or fifteen years old . And everyone is still using it , so . +Professor C: Yeah . But anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the {disfmarker} the i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really the conclusion they came to so much , as the conclusion that some of the , uh , uh , commenters in the crowd {vocalsound} came up with +Grad E: But we could talk about this stuff , I think this would be fun to do . Right . +Professor C: that , uh , you know , this therefore is further evidence that , you know , more data is really all you should care about , and that I thought was just kind of going too far the other way , +Grad E: Machine - learning . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the , uh , one {disfmarker} one person ga g g got up and made a {disfmarker} a brief defense , uh , but it was a different kind of grounds , it was that {disfmarker} that , uh , i w the reason people were not using so much data before was not because they were stupid or didn't realize data was important , but in fact th they didn't have it available . Um , but the other point to make a again is that , uh , machine learning still does matter , but it {disfmarker} it matters more in some situations than in others , and it {disfmarker} and also there 's {disfmarker} there 's not just mattering or not mattering , but there 's mattering in different ways . I mean , you might be in some situation where you care how much memory you 're using , or you care , you know , what recall time is , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: or you care , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Or you only have a million words {pause} for your {disfmarker} some new task . +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or done another language , or {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} so there 's papers on portability and rapid prototyping and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and then there 's people saying , "" Oh , just add more data . "" +Professor C: And there 's cost ! +PhD D: So , these are like two different religions , basically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Cost . +Professor C: There 's just plain cost , +Grad E: Yeah . That 's a big one . +Professor C: you know , so {disfmarker} so these , I mean th the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the speech side , the thing that @ @ always occurs to me is that if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} one person has a system that requires ten thousand hours to train on , and the other only requires a hundred , and they both do about the same because the hundred hour one was smarter , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be better . because people , I mean , there isn't gonna be just one system that people train on +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and then that 's it for the r for all of time . I mean , people are gonna be doing other different things , and so it {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things matters {disfmarker} matter . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's one of the slides they put up . +Postdoc A: So , I mean , this was a very provocative slide . She put this up , and it was like this is {disfmarker} this p people kept saying , "" Can I see that slide again ? "" +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , +Postdoc A: and then they 'd make a comment , and one person said , well - known person said , um , you know , "" Before you dismiss forty - five years including my work {disfmarker} "" +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Forty - five years of research . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD D: But th you know , the same thing has happened in computational linguistics , right ? You look at the ACL papers coming out , and now there 's sort of a turn back towards , OK we 've learned statistic {disfmarker} you know , we 're basically getting what we expect out of some statistical methods , and , you know , the there 's arguments on both sides , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think the matters is the thing that {disfmarker} that was misleading . +Postdoc A: That was very offending , very offending . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Is that {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of them are based on all the others , right ? Just , you {disfmarker} you can't say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe they should have said "" focus "" or something . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , so . {disfmarker} And I 'm saying the same thing happened with speech recognition , right ? For a long time people were hand - c coding linguistic rules and then they discovered machine - learning worked better . And now they 're throwing more and more data and worrying {disfmarker} perhaps worrying less and less about , uh , the exact details of the algorithms . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and then you hit this {disfmarker} +Grad E: Except when they have a Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: Anyway , tea is {disfmarker} tea is , uh , starting . +Grad E: Shall we read some digits ? Are we gonna do one at a time ? Or should we read them all agai at once again . +Professor C: Let 's do it all at once . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} let 's try that again . +PhD D: Yes ! So , and maybe we won't laugh this time also . +Grad E: OK . So remember to read the transcript number so that , uh , everyone knows that {disfmarker} what it is . And ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Three , two , one . +Professor C: Boy , is that ever efficient . +Grad E: Yep . That 's really fast . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +","This transcript consists of an informal and technical conversation among a group of individuals who appear to be working in an academic or research setting. The transcript reflects a casual meeting atmosphere, with multiple people contributing to the discussion, which traverses a number of topics related to their work. + +The main participants are identified by their labels such as Postdoc A, Grad E, Professor C, PhD F, and PhD D. They discuss various items including technical problems with recording equipment, the potential crash issues of a program or software, and hypotheses about temp files causing crashes. They express some technical challenges they face, such as with recording setups and the temporary nature of certain files that do not clear after power failure. + +The discussion moves to more strategic matters, such as planning for future meetings, preparing an agenda, and discussions about a conference. The problem of synchronizing recordings between different channels, data parsing, and transcripts are mentioned, with specific regard to the task of inserting beeps or other signals for transcript notation. The importance of having a structured agenda for meetings is brought up, highlighting issues related to the organization and focus of their collaborative efforts. + +The conversation touches upon the visit of a group from the University of Washington, clarifying logistics such as the arrival time and preparation for the visit. PhD F brings up scheduling issues and the attempt to coordinate around various arrivals and potential presentations. They broach the idea of gathering ideas and solidifying them before the next meeting. + +The group discusses a variety of technical topics including the effectiveness of using channelized transcripts and the concept of running multiple reports simultaneously to expedite meetings. The idea of creating a noise shield for privacy during meetings and using recordings to prevent eavesdropping is mentioned humorously. They consider the practicality and efficiency of brief reports and how they could review channel-specific information at a later time. + +Lastly, there is an extensive technical discussion about problems with speech alignment and the accuracy of automatic speech recognition, particularly in the face of overlap and other challenging audio conditions. The group debates the best methods for achieving clean and accurate alignments for their research, potentially aided by professional transcription services. They discuss the advantages and drawbacks of different technical approaches, including advanced algorithms and manual checking or correction processes. + +Throughout the discussion, there seems to be a mix of technical jargon, shorthand, and unconfirmed hypotheses about the causes of various system behaviors. They also delve into an exchange about a recent conference, highlighting presentations on machine learning, data availability, summarization tasks, and the importance of large datasets in improving learning algorithm performance. The implication is on how these aspects might apply to their work and how their field seems to be evolving in light of new data and methods. + +Overall, the transcript suggests an engaged and dynamic group, deeply involved in complex research and facing typical real-world problems such as software crashes, meeting coordination, and the exploration of new technical frontiers in their field." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: Channel one . +PhD G: Test . +PhD E: Hello . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD G: Test . +PhD A: Uh - oh . +Professor F: So you think we 're going now , yes ? OK , good . Alright Going again Uh {disfmarker} So we 're gonna go around as before , and uh do {disfmarker} do our digits . Uh transcript one three one one dash one three three zero . {comment} three two three {comment} four seven six five {comment} five three one six two four one {comment} six seven {comment} seven {comment} eight {comment} nine zero nine four zero zero three {comment} zero one five eight {comment} one seven three five three {comment} two six eight zero {comment} three six two four three zero seven {comment} four {comment} five zero six nine four {comment} seven four {comment} eight five seven {comment} nine six one five {comment} O seven eight O two {comment} zero nine six zero four zero zero {comment} one {comment} two {comment} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you don't actually n need to say the name . +Grad C: OK , {vocalsound} this is Barry Chen and I am reading transcript +Professor F: That 'll probably be bleeped out . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: So . That 's if these are anonymized , but {vocalsound} Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . {comment} OK . +Professor F: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} not that there 's anything defamatory about uh {disfmarker} eight five seven or {vocalsound} or anything , but +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , anyway . Uh {disfmarker} so here 's what I have for {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was just jotting down things I think th w that we should do today . Uh {disfmarker} This is what I have for an agenda so far Um , We should talk a little bit about the plans for the uh {disfmarker} the field trip next week . Uh {disfmarker} a number of us are doing a field trip to uh Uh {disfmarker} OGI And uh {disfmarker} mostly uh First though about the logistics for it . Then maybe later on in the meeting we should talk about what we actually you know , might accomplish . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , in and {pause} kind of go around {disfmarker} see what people have been doing {disfmarker} talk about that , {pause} a r progress report . Um , Essentially . Um {disfmarker} And then uh {disfmarker} Another topic I had was that uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Dave here had uh said uh "" Give me something to do . "" And I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I have uh {disfmarker} failed so far in doing that . And so maybe we can discuss that a little bit . If we find some holes in some things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} someone could use some help with , he 's {disfmarker} he 's volunteering to help . +PhD A: I 've got to move a bunch of furniture . +Professor F: OK , always count on a {vocalsound} serious comment from that corner . So , um , uh , and uh , then uh , talk a little bit about {disfmarker} about disks and resource {disfmarker} resource issues that {disfmarker} that 's starting to get worked out . And then , anything else anybody has that isn't in that list ? Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just wondering , does this mean the battery 's dying and I should change it ? +Professor F: Uh I think that means the battery 's O K . {disfmarker} +PhD A: Let me see . +Professor F: d {disfmarker} do you +Grad D: Oh OK , so th +PhD A: Yeah , that 's good . You 're alright ? +Grad D: Cuz it 's full . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Alright . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . It looks full of electrons . OK . Plenty of electrons left there . OK , so , um , uh . OK , so , uh , I wanted to start this with this mundane thing . Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was kind of my bright idea to have us take a plane that leaves at seven twenty in the morning . +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Um . Uh {vocalsound} this is uh {disfmarker} The reason I did it uh was because otherwise for those of us who have to come back the same day it is really not much of a {disfmarker} of a visit . Uh {disfmarker} So um the issue is how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how would we ever accomplish that ? Uh {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what part of town do you live in ? +Grad C: Um , I live in , um , the corner of campus . The , um , southeast corner . +Professor F: OK . OK , so would it be easier {disfmarker} those of you who are not , you know , used to this area , it can be very tricky to get to the airport at {disfmarker} at uh , you know , six thirty . Um . So . Would it be easier for you if you came here and I drove you ? Yeah ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , so if {disfmarker} if everybody can get here at six . +PhD E: At six . +Professor F: Yeah , I 'm afraid we need to do that to get there on time . +Grad C: Six , OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so . Oh boy . Anyway , so . +PhD A: Will that {pause} be enough time ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so I 'll just pull up in front at six and just be out front . And , uh , and yeah , that 'll be plenty of time . It 'll take {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it won't be bad traffic that time of day and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD A: I guess once you get past the bridge {pause} that that would be the worst . +PhD B: Yeah , Oakland . +Professor F: Going to Oakland . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Oakland . +PhD A: Once you get past the turnoff to the {pause} Bay Bridge . +Professor F: Bridge oh , the turnoff to the bridge +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Won't even do that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: I mean , just go down Martin Luther King . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then Martin Luther King to nine - eighty to eight - eighty , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: and it 's {disfmarker} it 'd take us , tops uh thirty minutes to get there . +PhD A: Oh , I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that leaves us fifty minutes before the plane {disfmarker} it 'll just {disfmarker} yeah . So Great , OK so that 'll It 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's still not going to be really easy but {disfmarker} well Particularly for {disfmarker} for uh {disfmarker} for Barry and me , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not staying overnight so we don't need to bring anything particularly except for {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} a pad of paper and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , and , uh you , two have to bring a little bit +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but uh {disfmarker} you know , don't {disfmarker} don't bring a footlocker and we 'll be OK So . +Grad C: s So just {disfmarker} +Professor F: W you 're staying overnight . I figured you wouldn't need a great big suitcase , yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: That 's sort of {pause} {vocalsound} one night . So . Anyway . OK . +Grad C: So , s six AM , in front . +Professor F: Six AM in front . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , I 'll be here . Uh {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll give you my phone number , If I 'm not here for a few m after a few minutes then +Grad C: Wake you up . +Professor F: Nah , I 'll be fine . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it just means getting up a half an hour earlier than I usually do . Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not a lot , +Grad C: OK . Wednesday . +Professor F: so OK , that was the real real important stuff . Um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I figured maybe wait on the potential goals for the meeting uh {disfmarker} until we talk about wh what 's been going on . So , uh , what 's been going on ? Why don't we start {disfmarker} start over here . +PhD G: Um . {vocalsound} Well , preparation of the French test data actually . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , {vocalsound} it means that um , well , it is , uh , a digit French database of microphone speech , downsampled to eight kilohertz and I 've added noise to one part , with the {disfmarker} actually the Aurora - two noises . And , @ @ so this is a training part . And then {pause} the remaining part , I use for testing and {disfmarker} with other kind of noises . So we can {disfmarker} So this is almost ready . I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the HTK baseline for this task . And , yeah . +Professor F: OK Uh , So the HTK base lines {disfmarker} so this is using mel cepstra and so on , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: And again , I guess the p the plan is , uh , to uh {disfmarker} then given this {disfmarker} What 's the plan again ? +PhD G: The plan with {pause} these data ? +Professor F: With {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Does i Just remind me of what {disfmarker} what you were going to do with the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} y You just described what you 've been doing . So if you could remind me of what you 're going to be doing . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh , this is {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Grad C: Tell him about the cube . +PhD G: Well . The cube ? I should tell him about the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh ! Cube . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Fill in the cube . +PhD G: Uh we {disfmarker} actually we want to , mmm , Uh , {vocalsound} uh , analyze three dimensions , the feature dimension , the {pause} training data dimension , and the test data dimension . Um . Well , what we want to do is first we have number for each {pause} uh task . So we have the um , TI - digit task , the Italian task , the French task {pause} and the Finnish task . +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD G: So we have numbers with {pause} uh {disfmarker} systems {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I mean neural networks trained on the task data . And then to have systems with neural networks trained on , {vocalsound} uh , data from the same language , if possible , with , well , using a more generic database , which is phonetically {disfmarker} phonetically balanced , and . Um . +Professor F: So - so we had talked {disfmarker} I guess we had talked at one point about maybe , the language ID corpus ? +PhD G: Yeah . So . +Professor F: Is that a possibility for that ? +PhD G: Ye - uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , but , uh these corpus , w w there is a CallHome and a CallFriend also , The CallFriend is for language ind identification . Well , anyway , these corpus are all telephone speech . So , um . {vocalsound} This could be a {disfmarker} {pause} a problem for {disfmarker} Why ? Because uh , uh , the {disfmarker} the SpeechDat databases are not telephone speech . They are downsampled to eight kilohertz but {disfmarker} but they are not {vocalsound} uh with telephone bandwidth . +Professor F: Yeah . That 's really funny isn't it ? I mean cuz th this whole thing is for {pause} developing new standards for the telephone . +Grad C: Telephone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the idea is to compute the feature before {pause} the {disfmarker} before sending them to the {disfmarker} Well , {pause} you don't {disfmarker} do not send speech , you send features , computed on th the {disfmarker} {pause} the device , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know , but the reason {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: Oh I see , so your point is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} the features are computed locally , and so they aren't necessarily telephone bandwidth , uh or telephone distortions . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you {pause} happen to find out anything about the OGI multilingual database ? +Professor F: Yeah , that 's wh that 's wh that 's what I meant . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I said {disfmarker} @ @ , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's an OGI language ID , not the {disfmarker} not the , uh {disfmarker} the CallFriend is a {disfmarker} is a , uh , LDC w thing , right ? +PhD G: Yea - Yeah , there are also two other databases . One they call the multi - language database , and another one is a twenty - two language , something like that . But it 's also telephone speech . +PhD A: Oh , they are ? OK . +PhD G: Uh . Well , nnn . +Professor F: But I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , we ' r e e The bandwidth shouldn't be such an issue right ? Because e e this is downsampled and {disfmarker} and filtered , right ? So it 's just the fact that it 's not telephone . And there are so many other differences between these different databases . I mean some of this stuff 's recorded in the car , and some of it 's {disfmarker} I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's many different acoustic differences . So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} . I mean , unless we 're going to include a bunch of car recordings in the {disfmarker} in the training database , I 'm not sure if it 's {disfmarker} completely rules it out +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: if our {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if our major goal is to have phonetic context and you figure that there 's gonna be a mismatch in acoustic conditions does it make it much worse f to sort of add another mismatch , if you will . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , i i I {disfmarker} I guess the question is how important is it to {disfmarker} for us to get multiple languages uh , in there . +PhD G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah . Well , actually , for the moment if we w do not want to use these phone databases , we {disfmarker} we already have uh {disfmarker} English , Spanish and French uh , with microphone speech . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: So that 's what you 're thinking of using is sort of the multi the equivalent of the multiple ? +PhD G: Well . Yeah , for the multilingual part we were thinking of using these three databases . +Professor F: And for the difference in phonetic context {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? Provide that . +PhD G: Well , this {disfmarker} Uh , actually , these three databases are um generic databases . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So w f for {disfmarker} for uh Italian , which is close to Spanish , French and , i i uh , TI - digits we have both uh , digits {pause} training data and also {pause} more general training data . So . Mmm . +Professor F: Well , we also have this Broadcast News that we were talking about taking off the disk , which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is microphone data for {disfmarker} for English . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , perhaps {disfmarker} yeah , there is also TIMIT . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: We could use TIMIT . +Professor F: Right . Yeah , so there 's plenty of stuff around . OK , so anyway , th the basic plan is to , uh , test this cube . Yes . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: To fill in the cube . +Professor F: To fill i fill it in , yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah , and perhaps , um {disfmarker} {pause} We were thinking that perhaps the cross - language issue is not , uh , so big of a issue . Well , w w we {disfmarker} perhaps we should not focus too much on that cross - language stuff . I mean , uh , training {disfmarker} training a net on a language and testing a for another language . +Professor F: Uh - huh . But that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mmm . Perhaps the most important is to have neural networks trained on the target languages . But , uh , with a general database {disfmarker} general databases . u So that th Well , the {disfmarker} the guy who has to develop an application with one language can use the net trained o on that language , or a generic net , +Professor F: Uh , depen it depen it depends how you mean "" using the net "" . +PhD G: but not trained on a {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , if you 're talking about for producing these discriminative features {pause} that we 're talking about {pause} you can't do that . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Because {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} what they 're asking for is {disfmarker} is a feature set . Right ? And so , uh , we 're the ones who have been weird by {disfmarker} by doing this training . But if we say , "" No , you have to have a different feature set for each language , "" I think this is ver gonna be very bad . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +PhD G: You think so . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . I mean , in principle , I mean conceptually , it 's sort of like they want a re @ @ {comment} well , they want a replacement for mel cepstra . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So , we say "" OK , this is the year two thousand , we 've got something much better than mel cepstra . It 's , you know , gobbledy - gook . "" OK ? And so {vocalsound} we give them these gobbledy - gook features but these gobbledy - gook features are supposed to be good for any language . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Cuz you don't know who 's gonna call , and you know , I mean so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} how do you know what language it is ? Somebody picks up the phone . So thi this is their image . Someone picks up the phone , right ? +PhD G: Well , I {comment} chh {disfmarker} +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and he {disfmarker} he picks up the ph +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the application is {disfmarker} there is a target language for the application . +Professor F: Yeah . y y y +PhD G: So , if a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well . But , no but , y you {disfmarker} you pick up the phone , +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: you talk on the phone , +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: and it sends features out . OK , so the phone doesn't know what a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what your language is . +PhD G: Yeah , if {disfmarker} Yeah . If it 's th in the phone , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: But that 's the image that they have . +PhD G: well , it {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that could be th at the server 's side , +Professor F: It could be , +PhD G: and , well . Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: but that 's the image they have , right ? So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one could argue all over the place about how things really will be in ten years . But the particular image that the cellular industry has right now is that it 's distributed speech recognition , where the , uh , uh , probabilistic part , and {disfmarker} and s semantics and so forth are all on the servers , and you compute features of the {disfmarker} uh , on the phone . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're involved in . We might {disfmarker} might or might not agree that that 's the way it will be in ten years , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what they 're asking for . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} th th it is an important issue whether it works cross - language . Now , it 's the OGI , uh , folks ' perspective right now that probably that 's not the biggest deal . And that the biggest deal is the , um envir acoustic - environment mismatch . And they may very well be right , but I {disfmarker} I was hoping we could just do a test and determine if that was true . If that 's true , we don't need to worry so much . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe we have a couple languages in the training set and that gives us enough breadth uh , uh , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the rest doesn't matter . Um , the other thing is , uh , this notion of training to uh {disfmarker} which I {disfmarker} I guess they 're starting to look at up there , {comment} training to something more like articulatory features . Uh , and if you have something that 's just good for distinguishing different articulatory features that should just be good across , you know , a wide range of languages . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so I don't th I know {disfmarker} unfortunately I don't {disfmarker} I see what you 're comi where you 're coming from , I think , but I don't think we can ignore it . +PhD G: So we {disfmarker} we really have to do test with a real cross - language . I mean , tr for instance training on English and testing on Italian , or {disfmarker} Or we can train {disfmarker} or else , uh , can we train a net on , uh , a range of languages and {disfmarker} which can include the test {disfmarker} the test @ @ the target language , +Grad C: Test on an unseen . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , so , um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} This is complex . So , ultimately , uh , as I was saying , I think it doesn't fit within their image that you switch nets based on language . Now , can you include , uh , the {disfmarker} the target language ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , from a purist 's standpoint it 'd be nice not to because then you can say when {disfmarker} because surely someone is going to say at some point , "" OK , so you put in the German and the Finnish . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , now , what do you do , uh , when somebody has Portuguese ? "" you know ? Um , and {disfmarker} Uh , however , you aren't {disfmarker} it isn't actually a constraint in this evaluation . So I would say if it looks like there 's a big difference to put it in , then we 'd make note of it , and then we probably put in the other , because we have so many other problems in trying to get things to work well here that {disfmarker} that , you know , it 's not so bad as long as we {disfmarker} we note it and say , "" Look , we did do this "" . +PhD G: Mmm ? +PhD A: And so , ideally , what you 'd wanna do is you 'd wanna run it with and without the target language and the training set for a wide range of languages . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps . Yeah . +PhD A: And that way you can say , "" Well , "" you know , "" we 're gonna build it for what we think are {pause} the most common ones "" , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: but if that {disfmarker} somebody uses it with a different language , you know , "" here 's what 's you 're l here 's what 's likely to happen . "" +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the truth is , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like there are {disfmarker} I mean , al although there are thousands of languages , uh , from uh , uh , the point of view of cellular companies , there aren't . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: There 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , there 's fifty or something , you know ? So , uh , an and they aren't {disfmarker} you know , with the exception of Finnish , which I guess it 's pretty different from most {disfmarker} most things . uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} most of them are like at least some of the others . And so , our guess that Spanish is like Italian , and {disfmarker} and so on . I guess Finnish is a {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a little bit like Hungarian , supposedly , right ? +PhD A: I don't know anything about Finnish . +Professor F: Or is {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} well , I kn oh , well I know that H uh , H I mean , I 'm not a linguist , but I guess Hungarian and Finnish and one of the {disfmarker} one of the languages from the former Soviet Union are in this sort of same family . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: But they 're just these , you know , uh {disfmarker} countries that are pretty far apart from one another , have {disfmarker} I guess , people rode in on horses and brought their {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Oh , my turn . +Professor F: Your turn . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Um , Let 's see , I {disfmarker} I spent the last week , uh , looking over Stephane 's shoulder . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and understanding some of the data . I re - installed , um , um , HTK , the free version , so , um , everybody 's now using three point O , which is the same version that , uh , OGI is using . +Professor F: Oh , good . +Grad C: Yeah . So , without {disfmarker} without any licensing big deals , or anything like that . And , um , so we 've been talking about this {disfmarker} this , uh , cube thing , and it 's beginning more and more looking like the , uh , the Borge cube thing . It 's really gargantuan . Um , but I I 'm {disfmarker} Am I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So are {disfmarker} are you going to be assimilated ? +PhD A: Resistance is futile . +Grad C: Exactly . Um , yeah , so I I 've been looking at , uh , uh , TIMIT stuff . Um , the {disfmarker} the stuff that we 've been working on with TIMIT , trying to get a , um {disfmarker} a labels file so we can , uh , train up a {disfmarker} train up a net on TIMIT and test , um , the difference between this net trained on TIMIT and a net trained on digits alone . Um , and seeing if {disfmarker} if it hurts or helps . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Anyway . +Professor F: And again , when y just to clarify , when you 're talking about training up a net , you 're talking about training up a net for a tandem approach ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Um . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and the inputs are PLP and delta and that sort of thing , +Grad C: Well , the inputs are one dimension of the cube , +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: which , um , we 've talked about it being , uh , PLP , um , M F C Cs , um , J - JRASTA , JRASTA - LDA {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah , but your initial things you 're making one choice there , +Grad C: Yeah , +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: right . +Professor F: Which is PLP , or something ? +Grad C: Um , I {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't decided on {disfmarker} on the initial thing . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Probably {disfmarker} probably something like PLP . Yeah . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Um , so {disfmarker} so you take PLP and you {disfmarker} you , uh , do it {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you , uh , use HTK with it with the transformed features using a neural net that 's trained . And the training could either be from Digits itself or from TIMIT . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: And that 's the {disfmarker} and , and th and then the testing would be these other things which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which might be foreign language . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor F: I see . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I get in the picture about the cube . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: OK . Uh - huh . +Professor F: OK . Um , I mean , those listening to this will not have a picture either , so , um , I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not any worse off . But but at some point {disfmarker} somebody should just show me the cube . It sounds s I {disfmarker} I get {disfmarker} I think I get the general idea of it , +Grad C: Yeah , yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: So , when you said that you were getting the labels for TIMIT , {comment} um , are y what do you mean by that ? +Grad C: b May Mm - hmm . Oh , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just , uh , transforming them from the , um , the standard TIMIT transcriptions into {disfmarker} into a nice long huge P - file to do training . +PhD A: Mmm . Were the digits , um , hand - labeled for phones ? +Grad C: Um , the {disfmarker} the digits {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or were they {disfmarker} those labels automatically derived ? +Grad C: Oh yeah , those were {disfmarker} those were automatically derived by {disfmarker} by Dan using , um , embedded {disfmarker} embedded training and alignment . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor F: Ah , but which Dan ? +Grad C: Uh , Ellis . Right ? +Professor F: OK . OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So . +PhD A: I was just wondering because that test you 're t +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think you 're doing this test because you want to determine whether or not , uh , having s general speech performs as well as having specific {pause} speech . +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor F: Well , especially when you go over the different languages again , because you 'd {disfmarker} the different languages have different words for the different digits , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . And I was {disfmarker} +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah , so I was just wondering if the fact that TIMIT {disfmarker} you 're using the hand - labeled stuff from TIMIT might be {disfmarker} confuse the results that you get . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I think it would , but {disfmarker} but on the other hand it might be better . +PhD A: Right , but if it 's better , it may be better because {pause} it was hand - labeled . +Professor F: Oh yeah , but still @ @ probably use it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor F: I mean , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm sounding cavalier , but I mean , I think the point is you have , uh , a bunch of labels and {disfmarker} and they 're han hand uh {disfmarker} hand - marked . Uh , I guess , actually , TIMIT was not entirely hand - marked . It was automatically first , and then hand {disfmarker} hand - corrected . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , um , uh , it {disfmarker} it , um , it might be a better source . So , i it 's {disfmarker} you 're right . It would be another interesting scientific question to ask , "" Is it because it 's a broad source or because it was , you know , carefully ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh . And that 's something you could ask , but given limited time , I think the main thing is if it 's a better thing for going across languages on this training tandem system , +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: then it 's probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: What about the differences in the phone sets ? +Grad C: Uh , between languages ? +PhD A: No , between TIMIT and the {disfmarker} the digits . +Grad C: Oh , um , right . Well , there 's a mapping from the sixty - one phonemes in TIMIT to {disfmarker} to fifty - six , the ICSI fifty - six . +PhD E: Sixty - one . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +Grad C: And then the digits phonemes , um , there 's about twenty twenty - two or twenty - four of them ? Is that right ? +PhD A: Out of that fifty - six ? +PhD G: Yep . +Grad C: Out of that fifty - six . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely broader , yeah . +PhD G: But , actually , the issue of phoneti phon uh phone phoneme mappings will arise when we will do severa use several languages +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: because you {disfmarker} Well , some phonemes are not , uh , in every languages , and {disfmarker} So we plan to develop a subset of the phonemes , uh , that includes , uh , all the phonemes of our training languages , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and use a network with kind of one hundred outputs or something like that . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . You mean a superset , sort of . +PhD G: Uh , yeah , +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: superset , +PhD E: Yeah . I th I looks the SAMPA SAMPA phone . +PhD G: yeah . +PhD E: SAMPA phone ? For English {disfmarker} uh American English , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the language who have more phone are the English . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD E: Of the {disfmarker} these language . But n for example , in Spain , the Spanish have several phone that d doesn't appear in the E English and we thought to complete . But for that , it needs {disfmarker} we must r h do a lot of work {vocalsound} because we need to generate new tran transcription for the database that we have . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Other than the language , is there a reason not to use the TIMIT phone set ? Cuz it 's larger ? As opposed to the ICSI {pause} phone set ? +Grad C: Oh , you mean why map the sixty - one to the fifty - six ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . I have {disfmarker} +Professor F: Um , I forget if that happened starting with you , or was it {disfmarker} o or if it was Eric , afterwards who did that . But I think , basically , there were several of the phones that were just hardly ever there . +PhD A: Yeah , and I think some of them , they were making distinctions between silence at the end and silence at the beginning , when really they 're {pause} both silence . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: I th I think it was things like that that got it mapped down to fifty - six . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Yeah , especially in a system like ours , which is a discriminative system . You know , you 're really asking this net to learn . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of hard . +PhD A: There 's not much difference , really . And {pause} the ones that are gone , I think are {disfmarker} I think there was {disfmarker} they also in TIMIT had like a glottal stop , which was basically a short period of silence , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so . +PhD B: Well , we have that now , too , right ? +PhD A: I don't know . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor F: i It 's actually pretty common that a lot of the recognition systems people use have things like {disfmarker} like , say thirty - nine , phone symbols , right ? Uh , and then they get the variety by {disfmarker} by bringing in the context , the phonetic context . Uh . So we actually have an unusually large number in {disfmarker} in what we tend to use here . Um . So , a a actually {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} now you 've got me sort of intrigued . What {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Can you describe what {disfmarker} what 's on the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah , w I th I think that 's a good idea +Professor F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: to {disfmarker} to talk about the whole cube +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: and maybe we could sections in the cube for people to work on . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Um , OK . Uh , do you wanna do it ? +Professor F: OK , so even {disfmarker} even though the meeting recorder doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't , uh {disfmarker} and since you 're not running a video camera we won't get this , but if you use a board it 'll help us anyway . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , point out one of the limitations of this {vocalsound} medium , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but you 've got the wireless on , +Grad C: Yeah , I have the wireless . +Professor F: right ? Yeah , so you can walk around . +Grad C: OK . Can y can you walk around too ? No . OK , well , um , +Professor F: Uh , he can't , actually , but {disfmarker} +Grad C: s basically , the {disfmarker} the cube will have three dimensions . +Professor F: He 's tethered . +Grad C: The first dimension is the {disfmarker} the features that we 're going to use . And the second dimension , um , is the training corpus . And that 's the training on the discriminant neural net . Um and the last dimension happens to be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah and again {disfmarker} Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the training for HTK is always {disfmarker} that 's always set up for the individual test , right ? That there 's some training data and some test data . So that 's different than this . +Grad C: Right , right . This is {disfmarker} this is for {disfmarker} for ANN only . And , yeah , the training for the HTK models is always , uh , fixed for whatever language you 're testing on . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: And then , there 's the testing corpus . So , then I think it 's probably instructive to go and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and show you the features that we were talking about . Um , so , let 's see . Help me out with {disfmarker} +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: With what ? +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: PLP ? OK . +PhD G: MSG . +Grad C: MSG . +PhD G: Uh , JRASTA . +Grad C: JRASTA . +PhD G: And JRASTA - LDA . +Grad C: JRASTA - LDA . +PhD G: Um , multi - band . +Grad C: Multi - band . +PhD G: So there would be multi - band before , um {disfmarker} before our network , I mean . +Grad C: Yeah , just the multi - band features , right ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh - huh . Ah . Ah . +PhD G: So , something like , uh , s TCT within bands and {disfmarker} Well . And then multi - band after networks . Meaning that we would have , uh , neural networks , uh , discriminant neural networks for each band . Uh , yeah . And using the {disfmarker} the outputs of these networks or the linear outputs or something like that . Uh , yeah . +PhD A: What about mel cepstrum ? Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: you don't include that because it 's part of the base or something ? +PhD E: Yeah databases . +Professor F: Well , y you do have a baseline system that 's m that 's mel cepstra , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: But , uh , well , not for the {disfmarker} the ANN . I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , yeah , we could {disfmarker} we could add {pause} MFCC also . +Grad C: We could add {disfmarker} +Professor F: Probably should . I mean at least {disfmarker} at least conceptually , you know , it doesn't meant you actually have to do it , +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: but conceptually it makes sense as a {disfmarker} as a base line . +PhD A: It 'd be an interesting test just to have {disfmarker} just to do MFCC with the neural net +PhD E: Without the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and everything else the same . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Compare that with just M - MFCC without the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think Dan did some of that . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Um , in his previous Aurora experiments . And with the net it 's {disfmarker} it 's wonderful . Without the net it 's just baseline . +Professor F: Um , I think OGI folks have been doing that , too . D Because I think that for a bunch of their experiments they used , uh , mel cepstra , actually . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Um , of course that 's there and this is here and so on . OK ? +Grad C: OK . Um , for the training corpus {disfmarker} corpus , um , we have , um , the {disfmarker} the d {pause} digits {nonvocalsound} from the various languages . Um , English Spanish um , French What else do we have ? +PhD G: And the {pause} Finnish . +Grad C: Finnish . +PhD A: Where did th where did that come from ? +PhD E: And Italian . +PhD A: Digits ? +PhD E: Uh , no , Italian no . Italian no . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Oh . Italian . +PhD E: I Italian yes . Italian ? +Professor F: Italian . +PhD A: Is that {disfmarker} Was that distributed with Aurora , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: One L or two L 's ? +PhD A: Where did that {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: The newer one . +PhD G: So English , uh , Finnish and Italian are Aurora . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And Spanish and French is something that we can use in addition to Aurora . Uh , well . +Professor F: Yeah , so Carmen brought the Spanish , and Stephane brought the French . +Grad C: OK . And , um , oh yeah , and {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is it French French or Belgian French ? There 's a {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's , uh , French French . +Grad C: French French . +PhD E: Like Mexican Spain and Spain . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Or Swiss . +PhD E: I think that is more important , +PhD B: Swiss - German . +PhD E: Mexican Spain . Because more people {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , probably so . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , Herve always insists that Belgian is {disfmarker} i is absolutely pure French , has nothing to do with {disfmarker} but he says those {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those Parisians talk funny . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . They have an accent . +Professor F: Yeah they {disfmarker} they do , yeah . Yeah . {pause} But then he likes Belgian fries too , so . OK . +Grad C: And then we have , uh , um , broader {disfmarker} broader corpus , um , like TIMIT . TIMIT so far , +PhD E: And Spanish too . +Grad C: right ? Spanish {disfmarker} Oh , Spanish stories ? +PhD E: Albayzin is the name . +PhD A: What about TI - digits ? +Grad C: Um , TI - digits {disfmarker} uh all these Aurora f d data p data is from {disfmarker} is derived from TI - digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh . Oh OK . +Grad C: Um , basically , they {disfmarker} they corrupted it with , uh , different kinds of noises at different SNR levels . +PhD A: Ah . I see . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: y And I think Stephane was saying there 's {disfmarker} there 's some broader s material in the French also ? +PhD G: Yeah , we cou we could use {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . The French data . +PhD E: Spanish stories ? +Grad C: No . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Sp - Not Spanish stories ? +PhD E: No . No . Albayz +Professor F: Spanish {disfmarker} +Grad C: Spanish something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: Did the Aurora people actually corrupt it themselves , or just specify the signal and the signal - t +Grad C: They {disfmarker} they corrupted it , um , themselves , +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: but they also included the {disfmarker} the noise files for us , right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: so we can go ahead and corrupt other things . +Professor F: I 'm just curious , Carmen {disfmarker} I mean , I couldn't tell if you were joking or {disfmarker} i Is it {disfmarker} is it Mexican Spanish , +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: or is it {disfmarker} +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: Oh , no , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's Spanish from Spain , Spanish . +PhD E: Spanish from Spain . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: From Spain . +Professor F: Alright . Spanish from Spain . Yeah , we 're really covered there now . OK . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: And the French from France . +PhD G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} No , the French is f yeah , from , uh , Paris , +Grad C: Oh , from Paris , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: And TIMIT 's from {pause} lots of different places . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: From TI . From {disfmarker} i It 's from Texas . So may maybe it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: From the deep South . +Professor F: So - s so it 's not really from the US either . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . And , um , with within the training corporas um , we 're , uh , thinking about , um , training with noise . So , incorporating the same kinds of noises that , um , Aurora is in incorporating in their , um {disfmarker} in their training corpus . Um , I don't think we we 're given the , uh {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions , though , right ? +Professor F: I think what they were saying was that , um , for this next test there 's gonna be some of the cases where they have the same type of noise as you were given before hand and some cases where you 're not . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , presumably , that 'll be part of the topic of analysis of the {disfmarker} the test results , is how well you do when it 's matching noise and how well you do where it 's not . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: I think that 's right . +Grad C: So , I guess we can't train on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions . +Professor F: Well , not if it 's not seen , +Grad C: Right . If {disfmarker} Not if it 's unseen . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . I mean , i i i i it does seem to me that a lot of times when you train with something that 's at least a little bit noisy it can {disfmarker} it can help you out in other kinds of noise even if it 's not matching just because there 's some more variance that you 've built into things . But , but , uh , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , exactly how well it will work will depend on how near it is to what you had ahead of time . So . OK , so that 's your training corpus , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and then your testing corpus {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Um , the testing corporas are , um , just , um , the same ones as Aurora testing . And , that includes , um , the English Spa - um , Italian . Finnish . +PhD E: Finnish . +Grad C: Uh , we ' r we 're gonna get German , right ? Ge - {comment} At the final test will have German . +Professor F: Well , so , yeah , the final test , on a guess , is supposed to be German and Danish , +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: The s yeah , the Spanish , perhaps , +Grad C: Spanish . Oh yeah , we can {disfmarker} we can test on s Spanish . +PhD G: we will have . Yeah . But the {disfmarker} the Aurora Spanish , I mean . +Grad C: Oh yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Oh , there 's a {disfmarker} there 's Spanish testing in the Aurora ? +PhD G: Uh , not yet , but , uh , yeah , uh , e +PhD E: Yeah , it 's preparing . +PhD G: pre they are preparing it , +PhD E: They are preparing . +PhD G: and , well , according to Hynek it will be {disfmarker} we will have this at the end of November , or {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: OK , so , uh , something like seven things in each , uh {disfmarker} each column . +PhD G: Yeah {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that 's , uh , three hundred and forty - three , uh , {vocalsound} different systems that are going to be developed . There 's three of you . +Grad C: Yeah . One hundred each , about . +Professor F: Uh , so that 's hundred and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hundred and fourteen each . +Grad D: What a what about noise conditions ? +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: w Don't we need to put in the column for noise conditions ? +Professor F: Are you just trying to be difficult ? +Grad D: No , I just don't understand . +Grad C: Well , th uh , when {disfmarker} when I put these testings on there , I 'm assumi +Professor F: I 'm just kidding . Yeah . +Grad C: There - there 's three {disfmarker} three tests . Um , type - A , type - B , and type - C . And they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all gonna be test tested , um , with one training of the HTK system . Um , there 's a script that tests all three different types of noise conditions . Test - A is like a matched noise . Test - B is a {disfmarker} is a slightly mismatched . And test - C is a , um , mismatched channel . +Grad D: And do we do all our {pause} training on clean data ? +Grad C: Um , no , no , +PhD E: Also , we can clean that . +Grad C: we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be , um , training on the noise files that we do have . +PhD G: No . +Professor F: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I guess the question is how long does it take to do a {disfmarker} a training ? I mean , it 's not totally crazy t I mean , these are {disfmarker} a lot of these are built - in things and we know {disfmarker} we have programs that compute PLP , we have MSG , we have JRA you know , a lot of these things will just kind of happen , won't take uh a huge amount of development , it 's just trying it out . So , we actually can do quite a few experiments . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But how {disfmarker} how long does it take , do we think , for one of these {pause} {comment} trainings ? +Grad C: That 's a good question . +PhD A: What about combinations of things ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , that 's right . I mean , cuz , so , for instance , I think the major advantage of MSG {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh ! +Professor F: Yeah , +Grad C: Och ! +Professor F: good point . A major advantage of MSG , I see , th that we 've seen in the past is combined with PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Um . +Grad C: Now , this is turning into a four - dimensional cube ? +PhD A: Well , you just select multiple things on the one dimension . +PhD B: Or you just add it to the features . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Here . +Grad C: Oh , yeah . OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I mean , you don't wanna , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see , seven choose two would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} be , uh , twenty - one different combinations . Um . +PhD B: It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: Probably {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: What ? +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , I hope not . Yeah , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: That would be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , yeah , so PLP and MSG I think we definitely wanna try cuz we 've had a lot of good experience with putting those together . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . Yeah . +PhD A: When you do that , you 're increasing the size of the inputs to the net . Do you have to reduce the hidden layer , or something ? +Professor F: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean , so i it doesn't increase the number of trainings . +PhD A: No , no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering about number of parameters in the net . Do you have to worry about keeping that the same , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , I don't think so . +PhD B: There 's a computation limit , though , isn't there ? +Professor F: Yeah , I mean , it 's just more compu Excuse me ? +PhD B: Isn't there like a limit {pause} on the computation load , or d latency , or something like that for Aurora task ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , we haven't talked about any of that at all , have we ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , so , there 's not really a limit . What it is is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's just penalty , you know ? That {disfmarker} that if you 're using , uh , a megabyte , then they 'll say that 's very nice , but , of course , it will never go on a cheap cell phone . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Um . And , u uh , I think the computation isn't so much of a problem . I think it 's more the memory . Uh , and , expensive cell phones , exa expensive hand - helds , and so forth , are gonna have lots of memory . So it 's just that , uh , these people see the {disfmarker} the cheap cell phones as being still the biggest market , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . But , yeah , I was just realizing that , actually , it doesn't explode out , um {disfmarker} It 's not really two to the seventh . But it 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} i i it doesn't really explode out the number of trainings cuz these were all trained individually . Right ? So , uh , if you have all of these nets trained some place , then , uh , you can combine their outputs and do the KL transformation and so forth +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So , what it {disfmarker} it blows out is the number of uh testings . And , you know {disfmarker} and the number of times you do that last part . But that last part , I think , is so {disfmarker} has gotta be pretty quick , so . Uh . Right ? I mean , it 's just running the data through {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . +PhD A: But wh what about a net that 's trained on multiple languages , though ? +Professor F: Well , you gotta do the KL transformation , +PhD G: Eight {disfmarker} y +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that just separate nets for each language then combined , or is that actually one net trained on ? +PhD E: Necessary to put in . +Professor F: Good question . +PhD G: Uh , probably one net . Well . Uh . +Professor F: One would think one net , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: but we 've {disfmarker} I don't think we 've tested that . Right ? +PhD G: So , in the broader training corpus we can {disfmarker} we can use , uh , the three , or , a combination of {disfmarker} of two {disfmarker} two languages . +PhD E: Database three . +PhD A: In one net . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I guess the first thing is if w if we know how much a {disfmarker} how long a {disfmarker} a training takes , if we can train up all these {disfmarker} these combinations , uh , then we can start working on testing of them individually , and in combination . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Because the putting them in combination , I think , is not as much computationally as the r training of the nets in the first place . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So y you do have to compute the KL transformation . Uh , which is a little bit , but it 's not too much . +PhD G: It 's not too much , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: no . +Professor F: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But there is the testing also , which implies training , uh , the HTK models +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the HTK model . +PhD G: and , well , +Professor F: Uh , right . +PhD G: it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . So if you do have lots of combinations , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not so long . It @ @ {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: How long does it take for an , uh , HTK training ? +PhD G: It 's around six hours , I think . +PhD E: It depends on the {disfmarker} +PhD G: For training and testing , yeah . +PhD E: More than six hours . +PhD G: More . +PhD E: For the Italian , yes . Maybe one day . +PhD G: One day ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: For HTK ? +PhD E: Well . +Professor F: Really ? Running on what ? +PhD E: Uh , M {disfmarker} MFCC . +Professor F: No , I 'm sorry , ru running on what machine ? +PhD E: Uh , Ravioli . +Professor F: Uh , I don't know what Ravioli is . Is it {disfmarker} is it an Ultra - five , or is it a {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: mmm Um . Who is that ? +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD B: I don't know what a Ravioli is . +PhD E: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD B: We can check really quickly , I guess . +PhD G: Yeah , I I think it 's - it 's - it 's not so long because , well , the TI - digits test data is about , uh how many hours ? Uh , th uh , thirty hours of speech , I think , +Professor F: It 's a few hours . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Right , +PhD G: something like that . And it p Well . +Professor F: so , I mean , clearly , there {disfmarker} there 's no way we can even begin to do an any significant amount here unless we use multiple machines . +PhD G: It 's six hours . +Professor F: Right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} I mean there 's plenty of machines here and they 're n they 're often not in {disfmarker} in a great {disfmarker} great deal of use . So , I mean , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's key that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} that you look at , uh , you know , what machines are fast , what machines are used a lot {disfmarker} Uh , are we still using P - make ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , I don't know how w how we would P - make this , though . Um . +Professor F: Well , you have a {disfmarker} I mean , once you get the basic thing set up , you have just all the {disfmarker} uh , a all these combinations , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} let 's say it 's six hours or eight hours , or something for the training of HTK . How long is it for training of {disfmarker} of , uh , the neural net ? +Grad C: The neural net ? Um . +PhD G: I would say two days . +PhD A: Depends on the corpuses , right ? +PhD E: It depends . +PhD B: It s also depends on the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: Depends on the corpus . +PhD B: How big is the net ? +PhD E: For Albayzin I trained on neural network , uh , was , um , one day also . +Professor F: Uh , but on what machine ? +Grad C: On a SPERT board . +PhD E: Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the neural net SPERT . +Grad C: Y you did a {disfmarker} you did it on a SPERT board . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: OK , again , we do have a bunch of SPERT boards . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: And I think there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} I think you folks are probably go the ones using them right now . +PhD A: Is it faster to do it on the SPERT , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , don't know . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's still a little faster on the +Professor F: Used to be . +PhD A: Is it ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Ad - Adam {disfmarker} Adam did some testing . Or either Adam or {disfmarker} or Dan did some testing and they found that the SPERT board 's still {disfmarker} still faster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the benefits is that , you know , you run out of SPERT and then you can do other things on your {disfmarker} your computer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you don't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . So you could be {disfmarker} we have quite a few SPERT boards . You could set up , uh , you know , ten different jobs , or something , to run on SPERT {disfmarker} different SPERT boards and {disfmarker} and have ten other jobs running on different computers . So , it 's got to take that sort of thing , or {disfmarker} or we 're not going to get through any significant number of these . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , I kind of like this because what it {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: uh , no , what I like about it is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we do have a problem that we have very limited time . You know , so , with very limited time , we actually have really quite a {disfmarker} quite a bit of computational resource available if you , you know , get a look across the institute and how little things are being used . And uh , on the other hand , almost anything that really i you know , is {disfmarker} is new , where we 're saying , "" Well , let 's look at , like we were talking before about , uh , uh , voiced - unvoiced - silence detection features and all those sort {disfmarker} "" that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: I think it 's a great thing to go to . But if it 's new , then we have this development and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and learning process t to {disfmarker} to go through on top of {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the work . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how we 'd do it . So what I like about this is you basically have listed all the things that we already know how to do . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and all the kinds of data that we , at this point , already have . And , uh , you 're just saying let 's look at the outer product of all of these things and see if we can calculate them . a a Am I {disfmarker} am I interpreting this correctly ? Is this sort of what {disfmarker} what you 're thinking of doing in the short term ? +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so then I think it 's just the {disfmarker} the missing piece is that you need to , uh , you know {disfmarker} you know , talk to {disfmarker} talk to , uh , Chuck , talk to , uh , Adam , uh , sort out about , uh , what 's the best way to really , you know , attack this as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a mass problem in terms of using many machines . Uh , and uh , then , you know , set it up in terms of scripts and so forth , and {disfmarker} uh , in {disfmarker} in kind o some kind of structured way . Uh . Um , and , you know , when we go to , uh , OGI next week , uh , we can then present to them , you know , what it is that we 're doing . And , uh , we can pull things out of this list that we think they are doing sufficiently , +Grad C: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: that , you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we won't be contributing that much . Um . And , uh {disfmarker} Then , uh , like , we 're there . +PhD B: How big are the nets you 're using ? +Grad C: Um , for the {disfmarker} for nets trained on digits , {comment} um , we have been using , uh , four hundred order hidden units . And , um , for the broader class nets we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to increase that because the , um , the digits nets only correspond to about twenty phonemes . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So . +Professor F: Broader class ? +Grad C: Um , the broader {disfmarker} broader training corpus nets like TIMIT . Um , w we 're gonna {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , it 's not actually broader class , it 's actually finer class , but you mean {disfmarker} y You mean {vocalsound} more classes . +Grad C: Right . Right . Yeah . More classes . Right , right . More classes . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's what I mean . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . And . Yeah . +Professor F: Carmen , did you {disfmarker} do you have something else to add ? We {disfmarker} you haven't talked too much , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: D I begin to work with the Italian database to {disfmarker} nnn , to {disfmarker} with the f front - end and with the HTK program and the @ @ . And I trained eh , with the Spanish two neural network with PLP and with LogRASTA PLP . I don't know exactly what is better if {disfmarker} if LogRASTA or JRASTA . +Professor F: Well , um , JRASTA has the potential to do better , but it doesn't always . It 's {disfmarker} i i JRASTA is more complicated . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} instead of doing RASTA with a log , you 're doing RASTA with a log - like function that varies depending on a J parameter , uh , which is supposed to be sensitive to the amount of noise there is . So , it 's sort of like the right transformation to do the filtering in , is dependent on how much noise there is . +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: And so in JRASTA you attempt to do that . It 's a little complicated because once you do that , you end up in some funny domain and you end up having to do a transformation afterwards , which requires some tables . And , uh , +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little messier , uh , there 's more ways that it can go wrong , uh , but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you 're careful with it , it can do better . +PhD E: It 's a bit {disfmarker} I 'll do better . +Professor F: So , it 's {disfmarker} So . +PhD E: Um , and I think to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to recognize the Italian digits with the neural netw Spanish neural network , and also to train another neural network with the Spanish digits , the database of Spanish digits . And I working that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: But prepa to prepare the {disfmarker} the database are difficult . Was for me , n it was a difficult work last week with the labels because the {disfmarker} the program with the label obtained that I have , the Albayzin , is different w to the label to train the neural network . And {pause} {vocalsound} that is another work that we must to do , to {disfmarker} to change . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I didn't understand . +PhD E: Uh , for example Albayzin database was labeled automatically with HTK . It 's not hand {disfmarker} it 's not labels by hand . +Professor F: Oh , "" l labeled "" . +PhD E: Labels . +Professor F: I 'm sorry , +PhD E: I 'm sorry , +Professor F: I have a p I had a problem with {vocalsound} the pronunciation . +PhD E: I 'm sorry . The labels . I 'm sorry . The labels . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Oh , also that {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , OK , so let 's start over . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: So , TI TIMI TIMIT 's hand - labeled , and {disfmarker} and you 're saying about the Spanish ? +PhD E: The Spanish labels ? That was in different format , that the format for the em {disfmarker} the program to train the neural network . +Professor F: Oh , I see . +PhD E: I necessary to convert . And someti well {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're just having a problem converting the labels . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but n yes , because they have one program , Feacalc , but no , l LabeCut , l LabeCut , but don't {disfmarker} doesn't , eh , include the HTK format to convert . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD E: And , I don't know what . I ask {disfmarker} e even I ask to Dan Ellis what I can do that , and h they {disfmarker} he say me that h he does doesn't any {disfmarker} any s any form to {disfmarker} to do that . And at the end , I think that with LabeCut I can transfer to ASCII format , and HTK is an ASCII format . And I m do another , uh , one program to put ASCII format of HTK to ase ay ac ASCII format to Exceed +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and they used LabCut to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to pass . +Professor F: OK , yeah . +PhD E: Actually that was complicated , +Professor F: So you +PhD E: but well , I know how we can did that {disfmarker} do that . +Professor F: Sure . So it 's just usual kind of uh {disfmarker} sometimes say housekeeping , right ? To get these {disfmarker} get these things sorted out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So it seems like there 's {disfmarker} there 's some peculiarities of the , uh {disfmarker} of each of these dimensions that are getting sorted out . And then , um , if {disfmarker} if you work on getting the , uh , assembly lines together , and then the {disfmarker} the pieces sort of get ready to go into the assembly line and gradually can start , you know , start turning the crank , more or less . And , uh , uh , we have a lot more computational capability here than they do at OGI , so I think that i if {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's great about this is it sets it up in a very systematic way , so that , uh , once these {disfmarker} all of these , you know , mundane but real problems get sorted out , we can just start turning the crank +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and push all of us through , and then finally figure out what 's best . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I was thinking two things . Uh , the first thing was , um {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we actually had thought of this as sort of like , um {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not in stages , {comment} but more along the {disfmarker} the time axis . Just kind of like one stream at a time , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: je - je - je - je - je {comment} check out the results and {disfmarker} and go that way . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah , sure . No , I 'm just saying , I 'm just thinking of it like loops , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor F: right ? And so , y y y if you had three nested loops , that you have a choice for this , a choice for this , and a choice for that , +Grad C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: right ? And you 're going through them all . That {disfmarker} that 's what I meant . +Grad C: Right , right . +Professor F: And , uh , the thing is that once you get a better handle on how much you can realistically do , uh , um , {vocalsound} concurrently on different machines , different SPERTs , and so forth , uh , and you see how long it takes on what machine and so forth , you can stand back from it and say , "" OK , if we look at all these combinations we 're talking about , and combinations of combinations , and so forth , "" you 'll probably find you can't do it all . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor F: OK , so then at that point , uh , we should sort out which ones do we throw away . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Which of the combinations across {disfmarker} you know , what are the most likely ones , and {disfmarker} And , uh , I still think we could do a lot of them . I mean , it wouldn't surprise me if we could do a hundred of them or something . But , probably when you include all the combinations , you 're actually talking about a thousand of them or something , and that 's probably more than we can do . Uh , but a hundred is a lot . And {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , and the {disfmarker} the second thing was about scratch space . And I think you sent an email about , um , e scratch space for {disfmarker} for people to work on . And I know that , uh , Stephane 's working from an NT machine , so his {disfmarker} his home directory exists somewhere else . +Professor F: His {disfmarker} his stuff is somewhere else , yeah . Yeah , I mean , my point I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} Yeah , thanks for bring it back to that . My {disfmarker} th I want to clarify my point about that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Chuck repeated in his note . Um . We 're {disfmarker} over the next year or two , we 're gonna be upgrading the networks in this place , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: but right now they 're still all te pretty much all ten megabit lines . And we have reached the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the machines are getting faster and faster . So , it actually has reached the point where it 's a significant drag on the time for something to move the data from one place to another . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , you {disfmarker} you don't w especially in something with repetitive computation where you 're going over it multiple times , you do {disfmarker} don't want to have the {disfmarker} the data that you 're working on distant from where it 's being {disfmarker} where the computation 's being done if you can help it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh . Now , we are getting more disk for the central file server , which , since it 's not a computational server , would seem to be a contradiction to what I just said . But the idea is that , uh , suppose you 're working with , uh , this big bunch of multi multilingual databases . Um , you put them all in the central ser at the cen central file server . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Then , when you 're working with something and accessing it many times , you copy the piece of it that you 're working with over to some place that 's close to where the computation is and then do all the work there . And then that way you {disfmarker} you won't have the {disfmarker} the network {disfmarker} you won't be clogging the network for yourself and others . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's the idea . So , uh , it 's gonna take us {disfmarker} It may be too late for this , uh , p precise crunch we 're in now , but , uh , we 're , uh {disfmarker} It 's gonna take us a couple weeks at least to get the , uh , uh , the amount of disk we 're gonna be getting . We 're actually gonna get , uh , I think four more , uh , thirty - six gigabyte drives and , uh , put them on another {disfmarker} another disk rack . We ran out of space on the disk rack that we had , so we 're getting another disk rack and {vocalsound} four more drives to share between , uh {disfmarker} primarily between this project and the Meetings {disfmarker} Meetings Project . Um . But , uh , we 've put another {disfmarker} I guess there 's another eighteen gigabytes that 's {disfmarker} that 's in there now to help us with the immediate crunch . But , uh , are you saying {disfmarker} So I don't know where {pause} you 're {disfmarker} Stephane , where you 're doing your computations . If {disfmarker} i so , you 're on an NT machine , so you 're using some external machine +PhD G: Yeah , it , uh {disfmarker} Well , to {disfmarker} It 's Nutmeg and Mustard , I think , +Professor F: Do you know these yet ? +PhD G: I don't know what kind . +PhD A: Nuh - uh . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . Uh , are these {disfmarker} are these , uh , computational servers , or something ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 've been kind of out of it . +PhD G: Yeah , I think , yeah . I think so . +Professor F: Unfortunately , these days my idea of running comput of computa doing computation is running a spread sheet . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , haven't been {disfmarker} haven't been doing much computing personally , so . Um . Yeah , so those are computational servers . So I guess the other question is what disk there i space there is there on the computational servers . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , I 'm not sure what 's available on {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} you said Nutmeg and what was the other one ? +PhD G: Mustard . +PhD A: Mustard . OK . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor F: Yeah , Well , you 're the {disfmarker} you 're the disk czar now . +PhD A: Right , right . +Professor F: So +PhD A: Well , I 'll check on that . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so basically , uh , Chuck will be the one who will be sorting out what disk needs to be where , and so on , and I 'll be the one who says , "" OK , spend the money . "" So . {vocalsound} Which , I mean , n these days , uh , if you 're talking about scratch space , it doesn't increase the , uh , need for backup , and , uh , I think it 's not that big a d and the {disfmarker} the disks themselves are not that expensive . Right now it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: What you can do , when you 're on that machine , is , uh , just go to the slash - scratch directory , and do a DF minus K , and it 'll tell you if there 's space available . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , and if there is then , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: But wasn't it , uh {disfmarker} I think Dave was saying that he preferred that people didn't put stuff in slash - scratch . It 's more putting in d s XA or XB or , +PhD A: Well , there 's different {disfmarker} there , um , there 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: right ? +PhD A: Right . So there 's the slash - X - whatever disks , and then there 's slash - scratch . And both of those two kinds are not backed up . And if it 's called "" slash - scratch "" , it means it 's probably an internal disk to the machine . Um . And so that 's the kind of thing where , like if {disfmarker} um , OK , if you don't have an NT , but you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Unix workstation , and they attach an external disk , {comment} it 'll be called "" slash - X - something "" uh , if it 's not backed up and it 'll be "" slash - D - something "" if it is backed up . And if it 's inside the machine on the desk , it 's called "" slash - scratch "" . But the problem is , if you ever get a new machine , they take your machine away . It 's easy to unhook the external disks , put them back on the new machine , but then your slash - scratch is gone . So , you don't wanna put anything in slash - scratch that you wanna keep around for a long period of time . But if it 's a copy of , say , some data that 's on a server , you can put it on slash - scratch because , um , first of all it 's not backed up , and second it doesn't matter if that machine disappears and you get a new machine because you just recopy it to slash - scratch . So tha that 's why I was saying you could check slash - scratch on those {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , um , Mustard and {disfmarker} and Nutmeg to see if {disfmarker} if there 's space that you could use there . +Professor F: I see . +PhD A: You could also use slash - X - whatever disks on Mustard and Nutmeg . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , and we do have {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , so {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's better to have things local if you 're gonna run over them lots of times so you don't have to go to the network . +Professor F: Right , so es so especially if you 're {disfmarker} right , if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're taking some piece of the training corpus , which usually resides in where Chuck is putting it all on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , file server , uh , then , yeah , it 's fine if it 's not backed up because if it g g gets wiped out or something , y I mean it is backed up on the other disk . So , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so , {vocalsound} one of the things that I need to {disfmarker} I 've started looking at {disfmarker} Uh , is this the appropriate time to talk about the disk space stuff ? +Professor F: Sure . +PhD A: I 've started looking at , um , disk space . Dan {disfmarker} David , um , put a new , um , drive onto Abbott , that 's an X disk , which means it 's not backed up . So , um , I 've been going through and copying data that is , you know , some kind of corpus stuff usually , that {disfmarker} that we 've got on a CD - ROM or something , onto that new disk to free up space {pause} on other disks . And , um , so far , um , I 've copied a couple of Carmen 's , um , databases over there . We haven't deleted them off of the slash - DC disk that they 're on right now in Abbott , um , uh , but we {disfmarker} I would like to go through {disfmarker} sit down with you about some of these other ones and see if we can move them onto , um , this new disk also . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot more space there , +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: and it 'll free up more space for doing the experiments and things . So , anything that {disfmarker} that you don't need backed up , we can put on this new disk . Um , but if it 's experiments and you 're creating files and things that you 're gonna need , you probably wanna have those on a disk that 's backed up , just in case something {comment} goes wrong . So . Um So far I 've {disfmarker} I 've copied a couple of things , but I haven't deleted anything off of the old disk to make room yet . Um , and I haven't looked at the {disfmarker} any of the Aurora stuff , except for the Spanish . So I {disfmarker} I guess I 'll need to get together with you and see what data we can move onto the new disk . +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Um , yeah , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} an another question occurred to me is {disfmarker} is what were you folks planning to do about normalization ? +PhD G: Um . Well , we were thinking about using this systematically for all the experiments . Um . +Professor F: This being {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: So , but {disfmarker} Uh . So that this could be another dimension , but we think perhaps we can use the {disfmarker} the best , uh , um , uh , normalization scheme as OGI is using , so , with parameters that they use there , +Professor F: Yeah , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD G: u {vocalsound} u +Professor F: I mean it 's i i we {disfmarker} we seem to have enough dimensions as it is . So probably if we {vocalsound} sort of take their {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor F: probably the on - line {disfmarker} line normalization because then it {disfmarker} {comment} it 's {disfmarker} if we do anything else , we 're gonna end up having to do on - line normalization too , so we may as well just do on - line normalization . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . Um . So that it 's plausible for the final thing . Good . Um . So , I guess , yeah , th the other topic {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} maybe we 're already there , or almost there , is goals for the {disfmarker} for next week 's meeting . Uh . i i i it seems to me that we wanna do is flush out what you put on the board here . Uh . You know , maybe , have it be somewhat visual , a little bit . +Grad C: OK . Like a s like a slide ? +Professor F: Uh , so w we can say what we 're doing , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: yeah . And , um , also , if you have {pause} sorted out , um , this information about how long i roughly how long it takes to do on what and , you know , what we can {disfmarker} how many of these trainings , uh , uh , and testings and so forth that we can realistically do , uh , then one of the big goals of going there next week would be to {disfmarker} to actually settle on which of them we 're gonna do . And , uh , when we come back we can charge in and do it . Um . Anything else that {disfmarker} I a a Actually {disfmarker} started out this {disfmarker} this field trip started off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Stephane talking to Hynek , so you may have {disfmarker} you may have had other goals , uh , for going up , and any anything else you can think of would be {disfmarker} we should think about {pause} accomplishing ? I mean , I 'm just saying this because {pause} maybe there 's things we need to do in preparation . +PhD G: Oh , I think basically , this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh . Alright . And uh {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last topic I had here was , um , uh d Dave 's fine offer to {disfmarker} to , uh , do something {pause} {vocalsound} on this . I mean he 's doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} he 's working on other things , but to {disfmarker} to do something on this project . So the question is , "" Where {disfmarker} where could we , uh , uh , most use Dave 's help ? "" +PhD G: Um , yeah , I was thinking perhaps if , um , additionally to all these experiments , which is not really research , well I mean it 's , uh , running programs +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um , {vocalsound} trying to have a closer look at the {disfmarker} perhaps the , um , {vocalsound} speech , uh , noise detection or , uh , voiced - sound - unvoiced - sound detection and {disfmarker} Which could be important in {disfmarker} i for noise {disfmarker} noise {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think that would be a {disfmarker} I think that 's a big {disfmarker} big deal . Because the {disfmarker} you know , the thing that Sunil was talking about , uh , with the labels , uh , labeling the database when it got to the noisy stuff ? The {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} that really throws things off . You know , having the noise all of a sudden , your {disfmarker} your , um , speech detector , I mean the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} What was it ? What was happening with his thing ? +Professor F: +PhD A: He was running through these models very quickly . He was getting lots of , uh , uh insertions , is what it was , in his recognitions . +Professor F: The only problem {disfmarker} I mean , maybe that 's the right thing {disfmarker} the only problem I have with it is exactly the same reason why you thought it 'd be a good thing to do . Um , I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} Let 's fall back to that . But I think the first responsibility is sort of to figure out if there 's something {pause} that , uh , an {disfmarker} an additional {disfmarker} Uh , that 's a good thing you {disfmarker} remove the mike . Go ahead , good . Uh , uh . What an additional clever person could help with when we 're really in a crunch for time . Right ? Cuz Dave 's gonna be around for a long time , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? He 's {disfmarker} he 's gonna be here for years . And so , um , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: over years , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's interested in , you know , voiced - unvoiced - silence , he could do a lot . But if there {disfmarker} if in fact there 's something else {pause} that he could be doing , that would help us when we 're {disfmarker} we 're sort of uh strapped for time {disfmarker} We have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 've , you know , only , {pause} uh , another {disfmarker} another month or two {pause} to {disfmarker} you know , with the holidays in the middle of it , um , to {disfmarker} to get a lot done . If we can think of something {disfmarker} some piece of this that 's going to be {disfmarker} The very fact that it is sort of just work , and i and it 's running programs and so forth , is exactly why {pause} it 's possible that it {disfmarker} some piece of could be handed to someone to do , because it 's not {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , so that {disfmarker} that 's the question . And we don't have to solve it right this s second , but if we could think of some {disfmarker} some piece that 's {disfmarker} that 's well defined , that he could help with , he 's expressing a will willingness to do that . +PhD A: What about training up a , um , a multilingual net ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yes , maybe to , mmm , put together the {disfmarker} the label {disfmarker} the labels between TIMIT and Spanish or something like that . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , so defining the superset , +PhD E: Yes . +PhD G: and , uh , joining the data and {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah , that 's something that needs to be done in any event . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So what we were just saying is that {disfmarker} that , um {disfmarker} I was arguing for , {pause} if possible , coming up with something that {disfmarker} that really was development and wasn't research because we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we have a time crunch . And so , uh , if there 's something that would {disfmarker} would save some time that someone else could do on some other piece , then we should think of that first . See the thing with voiced - unvoiced - silence is I really think that {disfmarker} that it 's {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} to do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a poor job is {disfmarker} is pretty quick , uh , or , you know , a so - so job . You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can throw in a couple fea we know what {disfmarker} what kinds of features help with it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor F: You can throw something in . You can do pretty well . But I remember , in fact , when you were working on that , and you worked on for few months , as I recall , and you got to , say ninety - three percent , and getting to ninety - four {pause} {vocalsound} really really hard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Another year . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . So , um {disfmarker} And th th the other tricky thing is , since we are , uh , even though we 're not {disfmarker} we don't have a strict prohibition on memory size , and {disfmarker} and computational complexity , uh , clearly there 's some limitation to it . So if we have to {disfmarker} if we say we have to have a pitch detector , say , if we {disfmarker} if we 're trying to incorporate pitch information , or at least some kind of harmonic {disfmarker} harmonicity , or something , this is another whole thing , take a while to develop . Anyway , it 's a very very interesting topic . I mean , one {disfmarker} I think one of the {disfmarker} a lot of people would say , and I think Dan would also , uh , that one of the things wrong with current speech recognition is that we {disfmarker} we really do throw away all the harmonicity information . Uh , we try to get spectral envelopes . Reason for doing that is that most of the information about the phonetic identity is in the spectral envelopes are not in the harmonic detail . But the harmonic detail does tell you something . Like the fact that there is harmonic detail is {disfmarker} is real important . So . Um . So , uh . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} wh that {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the other suggestion that just came up was , well what about having him {pause} work on the , uh , {pause} multilingual super f superset {pause} kind of thing . Uh , coming up with that and then , you know , training it {disfmarker} training a net on that , say , um , from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from TIMIT or something . Is that {disfmarker} or uh , for multiple databases . What {disfmarker} what would you {disfmarker} what would you think it would {disfmarker} wh what would this task consist of ? +PhD G: Yeah , it would consist in , uh , well , um , creating the {disfmarker} the superset , and , uh , modifying the lab labels for matching the superset . Uh . +Professor F: Uh , creating a superset from looking at the multiple languages , +PhD G: Well , creating the mappings , actually . +Professor F: and then creating i m changing labels on TIMIT ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Or on {disfmarker} or on multiple language {disfmarker} {vocalsound} multiple languages ? +PhD E: No . The multiple language . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , with the @ @ three languages , +PhD E: Maybe for the other language because TIMIT have more phone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: So you 'd have to create a mapping from each language to the superset . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: From each language to the superset , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad C: There 's , um {disfmarker} Carmen was talking about this SAMPA thing , and it 's , um , {vocalsound} it 's an effort by linguists to come up with , um , a machine readable IPA , um , sort of thing , right ? And , um , they {disfmarker} they have a web site that Stephane was showing us that has , um {disfmarker} has all the English phonemes and their SAMPA correspondent , um , phoneme , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: and then , um , they have Spanish , they have German , they have all {disfmarker} all sorts of languages , um , mapping {disfmarker} mapping to the SAMPA phonemes , which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , the tr the transcription , though , for Albayzin is n the transcription are of SAMPA the same , uh , how you say , symbol that SAMPA appear . +PhD B: SAMPA ? What does "" SAMPA "" mean ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD E: But I don't know if TIMIT o how is TIMIT . +PhD B: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Professor F: Go ahead . +PhD B: I was gonna say , does that mean IPA is not really international ? +Grad C: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's saying {disfmarker} +PhD A: It uses special diacritics and stuff , which you can't do with ASCII characters . +Grad C: y can't print on ASCII . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: So the SAMPA 's just mapping those . +PhD B: Oh , I see . Got it . +Professor F: What , uh {disfmarker} Has OGI done anything about this issue ? Do they have {disfmarker} Do they have any kind of superset that they already have ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 're going actually the {disfmarker} the other way , defining uh , phoneme clusters , apparently . Well . +Professor F: Aha . That 's right . Uh , and that 's an interesting {pause} way to go too . +PhD A: So they just throw the speech from all different languages together , then cluster it into sixty or fifty or whatever clusters ? +PhD G: I think they 've not done it , uh , doing , uh , multiple language yet , but what they did is to training , uh , English nets with all the phonemes , and then training it in English nets with , uh , kind of seventeen , I think it was {disfmarker} seventeen , uh , broad classes . +PhD A: Automatically derived {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Automatically derived broad classes , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD G: Uh , and , yeah . And the result was that apparently , when testing on cross - language it was better . I think so . But Hynek didn't add {disfmarker} didn't have all the results when he showed me that , so , well . +Professor F: So that does make an interesting question , though . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is there 's some way that we should tie into that with this . Um . Right ? I mean , if {disfmarker} if in fact that is a better thing to do , {pause} should we leverage that , rather than doing , {pause} um , our own . Right ? So , if i if {disfmarker} if they s I mean , we have {disfmarker} {pause} i we have the {disfmarker} the trainings with our own categories . And now we 're saying , "" Well , how do we handle cross - language ? "" And one way is to come up with a superset , but they are als they 're trying coming up with clustered , and do we think there 's something wrong with that ? +PhD G: I think that there 's something wrong +Professor F: OK . What w +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well , because {disfmarker} Well , for the moment we are testing on digits , and e i perhaps u using broad phoneme classes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK for um , uh classifying the digits , but as soon as you will have more words , well , words can differ with only a single phoneme , and {disfmarker} which could be the same , uh , class . +Professor F: I see . +PhD G: Well . So . +Professor F: Right . Although , you are not using this for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So , I 'm +Professor F: You 're using this for the feature generation , though , not the {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , but you will ask the net to put one for th th the phoneme class +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So you 're saying that there may not be enough information coming out of the net to help you discriminate the words ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well . Yeah , yeah . Mmm . +PhD B: Fact , most confusions are within the phone {disfmarker} phone classes , right ? I think , uh , Larry was saying like obstruents are only confused with other obstruents , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , this is another p yeah , another point . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so , maybe we could look at articulatory type stuff , +Professor F: But that 's what I thought they were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? +Professor F: Did they not do that , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , +Professor F: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: they were talking about , perhaps , but they d +Professor F: They 're talking about it , +PhD G: I d +Professor F: but that 's sort of a question whether they did +PhD G: w Yeah . +Professor F: because that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other route to go . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Instead of this , you know {disfmarker} +Grad C: Superclass . +Professor F: Instead of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the superclass thing , which is to take {disfmarker} So suppose y you don't really mark arti To really mark articulatory features , you really wanna look at the acoustics and {disfmarker} and see where everything is , and we 're not gonna do that . So , uh , the second class way of doing it is {pause} to look at the , uh , phones that are labeled and translate them into acoustic {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} articulatory , uh , uh , features . So it won't really be right . You won't really have these overlapping {pause} things and so forth , +PhD A: So the targets of the net {disfmarker} are these {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Articulatory features . +Professor F: Articulatory feature . +PhD A: But that implies that you can have more than one on at a time ? +Professor F: Right . That 's right . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor F: You either do that or you have multiple nets . +PhD A: I see . +Professor F: Um . And , um I don't know if our software {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} if the qu versions of the Quicknet that we 're using allows for that . Do you know ? +Grad C: Allows for {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Multiple targets being one ? +Grad C: Oh , um , we have gotten soft targets to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} that 'll work , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . So , um , that 's another thing that could be done {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor F: is that we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , just translate {disfmarker} instead of translating to a superset , {pause} just translate to articulatory features , some set of articulatory features and train with that . Now the fact {disfmarker} even though it 's a smaller number , {pause} it 's still fine because you have the {disfmarker} the , uh , combinations . So , in fact , it has every , you know {disfmarker} it had {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has every distinction in it that you would have the other way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: But it should go across languages better . +PhD A: We could do an interesting cheating experiment with that too . We could {disfmarker} I don't know , if you had uh the phone labels , you could replace them by their articulatory features and then feed in a vector with those uh , things turned on based on what they 're supposed to be for each phone to see if it {disfmarker} if you get a big win . Do you know what I 'm saying ? +Professor F: No . +PhD A: So , um , I mean , if your net is gonna be outputting , uh , a vector of {disfmarker} basically of {disfmarker} well , it 's gonna have probabilities , but let 's say that they were ones and zeros , then y and you know for each , um , I don't know if you know this for your testing data , but if you know for your test data , you know , what the string of phones is and {disfmarker} and you have them aligned , then you can just {disfmarker} instead of going through the net , just create the vector for each phone and feed that in to see if that data helps . Eh , eh , what made me think about this is , I was talking with Hynek and he said that there was a guy at A T - andT who spent eighteen months working on a single feature . And because they had done some cheating experiments {disfmarker} +Professor F: This was the guy that we were just talking a that we saw on campus . So , this was Larry Saul who did this {disfmarker} did this . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: He used sonorants . +PhD A: Right , OK , +Professor F: Was what he was doing . +PhD A: right . And they {disfmarker} they had done a cheating experiment or something , right ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: and determined that {disfmarker} +Professor F: He {disfmarker} he di he didn't mention that part . +PhD A: Well , Hynek said that {disfmarker} that , I guess before they had him work on this , they had done some experiment where if they could get that one feature right , it dramatically improved the result . +Professor F: But . I see . OK . +PhD A: So I was thinking , you know {disfmarker} it made me think about this , that if {disfmarker} it 'd be an interesting experiment just to see , you know , if you did get all of those right . +Professor F: Should be . Because if you get all of them in there , that defines all of the phones . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's equivalent to saying that you 've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} got all the phones right . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: So , if that doesn't help , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Although , yeah , it would be {disfmarker} make an interesting cheating experiment because we are using it in this funny way , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: where we 're converting it into features . +PhD A: And then you also don't know what error they 've got on the HTK side . You know ? It sort of gives you your {disfmarker} the best you could hope for , kind of . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm , I see . +PhD B: The soft training of the nets still requires the vector to sum to one , though , right ? +Grad C: To sum up to one . +PhD B: So you can't really feed it , like , two articulatory features that are on at the same time with ones cuz it 'll kind of normalize them down to one half or something like that , for instance . +PhD G: But perhaps you have the choice of the {pause} final nonl +Grad C: Right . Nonlinearity ? +PhD G: uh , nonlinearity , +Grad C: Um , +PhD G: yeah . Is it always softmax +Grad C: it 's sig No , it 's actually sigmoid - X +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad C: for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So if you choose sigmoid it 's o it 's OK ? +Grad C: You , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did we just run out of disk , +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think apparently , the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Why don't you just choose linear ? Right ? +Grad C: What 's that ? +PhD B: Linear outputs ? +Grad C: Linear outputs ? +PhD B: Isn't that what you 'll want ? +Grad C: Um . +PhD B: If you 're gonna do a KL Transform on it . +Grad C: Right , right . Right , but during the training , we would train on sigmoid - X +PhD B: Oh , you {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad C: and then at the end just chop off the final nonlinearity . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're off the air , or {disfmarker} ? About to be off the air . +","In a meeting discussing various aspects of linguistic research, the participants engage in a technical discussion about experiments, testing, and methodologies. Grad D, PhD G, PhD E, and Professor F are involved, alongside others. They discuss: + +1. Communication channel testing and battery status. +2. Plans for a field trip to OGI, logistics, and agenda, such as discussing the field trip's logistics and later achievements, resource issues, and progress reports. +3. The use of different speech databases (such as TIMIT and Aurora) for research, considering aspects like noise conditions and training corpus. +4. The potential for using articulatory features in their models and whether they should run experiments on multiple databases for better phonetic context. +5. Assistantship offered by Dave in joining the project. +6. The use of computational resources for data processing and the hierarchy of tasks. +7. The issue of disk space for storing and processing data. +8. Consideration of the use of normalization and voice detection features. +9. Concerns with regards to language sets, the need for a multilingual approach, and articulatory feature-based modeling for more accurate speech recognition across languages. + +The summary also includes suggestions for future meetings at OGI, ideas for additional experiments, and possible contributions from Dave in the context of the team's goals." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK So uh today we 're looking at a number of uh things we 're trying and uh fortunately for listeners to this uh we lost some of it 's visual but um got tables in front of us . Um what is {disfmarker} what does combo mean ? +PhD C: So combo is um a system where we have these features that go through a network and then this same string of features but low - pass filtered with the low - pass filter used in the MSG features . And so these low - pass filtered goes through M eh {disfmarker} another MLP and then the linear output of these two MLP 's are combined just by adding the values and then there is this KLT . Um the output is used as uh features as well . +Professor B: Um so let me try to restate this and see if I have it right . There is uh {disfmarker} there is the features uh there 's the OGI features and then um those features um go through a contextual {disfmarker} uh l l let 's take this bottom arr one pointed to by the bottom arrow . Um those features go through a contextualized KLT . Then these features also uh get um low - pass filtered +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah so yeah I could perhaps draw this on the blackboard +Professor B: Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The graph , yeah another one . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's good . +PhD C: +Professor B: So +PhD C: So we have these features from OGI that goes through the three paths . +Professor B: Yeah . Three , OK . +PhD C: The first is a KLT using several frames of the features . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: The second path is uh MLP also using nine frames {disfmarker} several frames of features +Professor B: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD C: The third path is this low - pass filter . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh , MLP +Professor B: Aha ! aha ! +PhD C: Adding the outputs just like in the second propose the {disfmarker} the proposal from {disfmarker} for the first evaluation . +Professor B: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And then the KLT and then the two together again . +Professor B: No , the KLT . And those two together . That 's it . +PhD D: Two HTK . +Professor B: OK so that 's {disfmarker} that 's this bottom one . +PhD C: Um . So this is {disfmarker} yeah +Professor B: And so uh and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the one at the top {disfmarker} and I presume these things that uh are in yellow are in yellow because overall they 're the best ? +PhD C: Yeah that 's the reason , yeah . +Professor B: Oh let 's focus on them then so what 's the block diagram for the one above it ? +PhD C: For the f the f first yellow line you mean ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah so it 's uh basically s the same except that we don't have this uh low - pass filtering so we have only two streams . +PhD D: Step . +PhD C: Well . There 's {disfmarker} there 's no low {disfmarker} low - pass processing used as additional feature stream . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Do you e um they mentioned {disfmarker} made some {disfmarker} uh when I was on the phone with Sunil they {disfmarker} they mentioned some weighting scheme that was used to evaluate all of these numbers . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh actually the way things seems to um well it 's uh forty percent for TI - digit , sixty for all the SpeechDat - Cars , well all these languages . Ehm the well match is forty , medium thirty five and high mismatch twenty - five . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and we don't have the TI - digits part yet ? +PhD C: Uh , no . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: But yeah . Generally what you observe with TI - digits is that the result are very close whatever the {disfmarker} the system . +Professor B: OK . And so have you put all these numbers together into a single number representing that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh not yet . +Professor B: OK so that should be pretty easy to do and that would be good {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . Mmm yeah , yeah . +Professor B: then we could compare the two and say what was better . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and how does this compare to the numbers {disfmarker} oh so OGI two is just the top {disfmarker} top row ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So yeah to {disfmarker} actually OGI two is the {disfmarker} the baseline with the OGI features but this is not exactly the result that they have because they 've {disfmarker} they 're still made some changes in the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} well but uh actually our results are better than their results . Um I don't know by how much because they did not send us the new results +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Uh OK so the one {disfmarker} one place where it looks like we 're messing things up a bit is in the highly mismatched Italian . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: An +PhD C: Yeah there is something funny happening here because {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But there are thirty - six and then sometimes we are {disfmarker} we are {disfmarker} we are around forty - two and +Professor B: Now up +PhD C: but +Professor B: Uh so one of the ideas that you had mentioned last time was having a {disfmarker} a second um silence detection . +PhD C: Yeah . So there are some results here +PhD D: For the Italian . +PhD C: uh so the third and the fifth line of the table +PhD D: For this one . +Professor B: So filt is what that is ? +PhD C: Filt , yeah +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Um yeah so it seems f for the {disfmarker} the well match and mismatched condition it 's uh it brings something . Uh but uh actually apparently there are {disfmarker} there 's no room left for any silence detector at the server side because of the delay . Uh well +Professor B: Oh we can't do it . Oh OK . +PhD C: No . +PhD D: For that {disfmarker} for that we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Too bad . Good idea , but can't do it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Except I don't know because they {disfmarker} I think they are still working well . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh t two days ago they were still working on this trying to reduce the delay of the silence detector so but yeah if we had time perhaps we could try to find uh some kind of compromise between the delay that 's on the handset and on the server side . Perhaps try to reduce the delay on the handset and {disfmarker} but well hmm For the moment they have this large delay on the {disfmarker} the feature computation and so we don't +Professor B: OK . So Alright so for now at least that 's not there you have some results with low - pass filter cepstrum doesn't have a huge effect but it {disfmarker} but it looks like it you know maybe could help in a couple places . +PhD C: I th +Professor B: Uh little bit . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um and um um Yeah and uh let 's see What else did we have in there ? Uh I guess it makes a l um at this point this is I {disfmarker} I guess I should probably look at these others a little bit uh And you {disfmarker} you yellowed these out uh but uh uh Oh I see yeah that {disfmarker} that one you can't use because of the delay . Those look pretty good . Um let 's see that one Well even the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the second row doesn't look that bad right ? That 's just uh yeah ? +PhD C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and that looks like an interesting one too . +PhD D: Mmm yeah . +Professor B: Uh +PhD C: Actually the {disfmarker} yeah the second line is uh pretty much like the first line in yellow except that we don't have this KLT on the first {disfmarker} on the left part of the diagram . We just have the features as they are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so when we do this weighted measure we should compare the two cuz it might even come out better . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little {disfmarker} slightly simpler . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would put that one also as a {disfmarker} as a maybe . Uh and it {disfmarker} yeah and it 's actually {vocalsound} does {disfmarker} does significantly better on the uh uh highly mismatched Italian , so s and little worse on the mis on the MM case , but uh Well yeah it 's worse than a few things +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so uh let 's see how that c that c c see how that comes out on their {disfmarker} their measure and {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are we running this uh for TI - digits or uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Now is TI di {disfmarker} is is that part of the result that they get for the uh development {disfmarker} th the results that they 're supposed to get at the end of {disfmarker} end of the month , the TI - digits are there also ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . It 's included , yeah . +Professor B: Oh OK . OK . And see what else there is here . Um Oh I see {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} I was looking down here at the {disfmarker} the o the row below the lower yellowed one . Uh that 's uh that 's with the reduced uh KLT size {disfmarker} reduced dimensionality . +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: What happens there is it 's around the same and so you could reduce the dimension as you were saying before a bit perhaps . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's significantly worse well but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's significantly worse {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh it 's {disfmarker} it 's mostly worse . +PhD C: Exc - except for the HM +PhD D: For many a mismatch it 's worse . +PhD C: but +Professor B: Yeah . But it is little . I mean not {disfmarker} not by a huge amount , I don't know . What are {disfmarker} what are the sizes of any of these sets , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you told me before , but I 've forgotten . So {disfmarker} you know how many words are in uh one of these test sets ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor B: About ? +PhD C: Um it 's {disfmarker} it depends {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} the well matched is generally larger than the other sets and I think it 's around two thousand or three thousand words perhaps , at least . +PhD D: Ye But words {disfmarker} well word {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: Hmm ? The words , yeah . S sentences . +PhD D: Sentences . +PhD C: Some sets have five hundred sentences , so . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So the {disfmarker} so the sets {disfmarker} so the test sets are between five hundred and two thousand sentences , let 's say +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and each sentence on the average has four or five digits or is it {disfmarker} most of them longer or +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah for the Italian even seven digits y more or less +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it d Seven digits . +PhD D: but sometime the sentence have only one digit and sometime uh like uh the number of uh credit cards , something like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so between one and sixteen . See the {disfmarker} I mean the reason I 'm asking is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is we have all these small differences and I don't know how seriously to take them , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? +Professor B: So uh i if {disfmarker} if you had uh just you know {disfmarker} to give an example , if you had uh um if you had a thousand words then uh a {disfmarker} a tenth of a percent would just be one word , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so it wouldn't mean anything . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: um so um yeah it be kind of {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to know what the sizes of these test sets were actually . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The size that we have ? +PhD C: We could {disfmarker} we could run {disfmarker} run some kind of significance tests +Professor B: Yeah since these {disfmarker} well also just to know the numbers , +PhD C: or +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right . So these {disfmarker} these are word error rates +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so this is on how many words . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah we have the result that the output of the HTK +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: The number of {disfmarker} of sentences , no it 's the number isn't . +PhD C: Yeah sure {disfmarker} sure . Yeah sure . +Professor B: Yeah so anyway if you could just mail out what those numbers are and then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that be great . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um {vocalsound} what else is there here ? Um see the second {disfmarker} second from the bottom it says SIL , but this is some different kind of silence or thing or {disfmarker} what was that ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: It the {disfmarker} the output silence of the MLP . +PhD C: Oh yeah I see . +PhD D: It 's only one small experiment to know what happened . To apply also to in include also the {disfmarker} the silence of the MLP we have the fifty - six form and the silence to pick up the silence and we include those . +Professor B: Yes . Uh - huh , uh - huh . The silence plus the KLT output ? Oh so you 're only using the silence . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , because when we apply the KLT +PhD C: No they 're {disfmarker} I think there is this silence in addition to the um KLT outputs +Professor B: No . +PhD D: in addition , yes . +PhD C: it is because we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we just keep uh we don't keep all the dimensions after the KLT +PhD D: In addition t +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: and we not s we are not sure if we pick {disfmarker} we have the silence . +PhD C: So we try to add the silence also in addition to the {disfmarker} these twenty - eight dimensions . +Professor B: I see . OK . And what {disfmarker} and what 's OGI forty - five ? The bottom one there ? +PhD C: Uh it 's o it 's OGI two , it 's {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th it 's the features from the first line +PhD D: It 's in fact OGI two . +Professor B: S +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Right , but I mean what 's the {disfmarker} what does the last row mean ? +PhD C: So it 's uh basically this but without the KLT on the {disfmarker} from the left path . +Professor B: I thought that was the one {disfmarker} I thought that was the second row . So what 's the difference between the second +PhD C: Uh the second line you don't have this combo stuff so you just +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: uh +Professor B: So this is like the second line but with {disfmarker} with the combo stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And with the {disfmarker} all the output of the combo . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh +Professor B: OK , so {disfmarker} alright so it looks to me {disfmarker} I guess the same {disfmarker} given that we have to take the filt ones out of the {disfmarker} the running because of this delay problem {disfmarker} so it looks to me like the ones you said I agree are {disfmarker} are the ones to look at +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I just would add the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the second row one +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and then um if we can um +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: oh yeah also when {disfmarker} when they 're using this weighting scheme of forty , thirty - five , twenty - five is that on the percentages or on the raw errors ? I guess it 's probably on the percentages right ? +PhD C: Uh {vocalsound} I guess , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah OK . +PhD C: I guess , yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD C: It 's not clear here . +Professor B: OK . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they 'll argue about it . Um OK so if we can know what {disfmarker} how many words are in each and then um Dave uh Dave promised to get us something tomorrow which will be there as far as they 've gotten {vocalsound} Friday +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll operate with that +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and uh how long did it I guess if we 're not doing all these things {disfmarker} if we 're only doing um um I guess since this is development data it 's legitimate to do more than one , right ? I mean ordinarily if {disfmarker} in final test data you don't want to do several and {disfmarker} and take the best +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's not proper but if this is development data we could still look at a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . We can {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . But we have to decide {disfmarker} I mean we have to fix the system on this d on this data , to choose the best +Professor B: Yeah . I Right . +PhD C: and these +Professor B: But the question is when {disfmarker} when do we fix the system , +PhD C: But we could +Professor B: do we fix the system uh tomorrow or do we fix the system on Tuesday ? +PhD C: it d +Professor B: I {disfmarker} Yeah , OK except that we do have to write it up . +PhD C: I think we fixed on Tuesday , yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Also , so +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um +PhD C: Uh yeah well . Well basically it 's this with perhaps some kind of printing and some {disfmarker} some other @ @ . +Professor B: Right so maybe what we do is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we uh as soon as we get the data from them we start the training and so forth +PhD C: Yeah but Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but we start the write - up right away because as you say there {disfmarker} there 's only minor differences between these . +PhD C: I think you {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} we could start soon , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Write up something . +Professor B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} you know , I would {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to see it +PhD C: Um yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe I can {disfmarker} I can edit it a bit uh sure . The {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} what in this si i in this situation is my forte which is English . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh so +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: uh H yeah . Have y have you seen alt d do they have a format for how they want the system descriptions or anything ? +PhD C: Uh not really . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Um There is the format of the table which is {vocalsound} quite impressive . +Professor B: Yeah ? Uh I see . Yes , for those who are listening to this and not looking at it uh it 's not really that impressive , it 's just tiny . It 's all these little categories set a , set b , set c , multi - condition , clean . Uh No mitigation . Wow . Do you know what no {disfmarker} what no mitigation means here ? +PhD C: Um it should be the the problem with the error {disfmarker} channel error +Professor B: Oh that 's probably the {disfmarker} +PhD C: or +Professor B: this is probably channel error stuff +PhD C: well , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: huh ? Oh this is i right , it says right above here channel {disfmarker} channel error resilience , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . So recognition performance is just the top part , actually . Uh and they have {disfmarker} yes , split between seen databases and non - seen so basically between development and {disfmarker} and evaluation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} right , it 's presumed there 's all sorts of tuning that 's gone on on the see what they call seen databases and there won't be tuning for the uh unseen . Multi - condition {disfmarker} multi - condition . So they have {disfmarker} looks like they have uh uh +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so they splitting up between the TI - digits and everything else , I see . So the everything else is the SpeechDat - Car , that 's the multi multilingual +PhD C: Yeah , so it 's not divided between languages you mean or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , it is . +PhD C: it just +Professor B: It is , but there 's also {disfmarker} there 's these tables over here for the {disfmarker} for the TI - digits and these tables over here for the car data which is {disfmarker} which is I guess all the multilingual stuff +PhD C: Oh yeah . +Professor B: and then uh there 's {disfmarker} they also split up between multi - condition and clean only . +PhD C: Yeah . For TI - digits . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah , actually yeah . For the TI - digits they want to train on clean and on noisy +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: So we 're doing that also , I guess . +PhD C: Uh yeah . But uh we actually {disfmarker} do we have the features ? Yeah . For the clean TI - digits but we did not test it yet . Uh the clean training stuff . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Well anyway , sounds like there 'll be a lot to do just to {vocalsound} work with our partners to fill out the tables {vocalsound} over the next uh next few days +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yes . +Professor B: I guess they have to send it out {disfmarker} let 's see the thirty - first is uh uh Wednesday and I think the {disfmarker} it has to be there by some hour uh European time on Wednesday +PhD C: Hmm - hmm . +Professor B: so {vocalsound} I think basically +PhD D: We lost time uh Wednesday maybe because {vocalsound} that the difference in the time may be {disfmarker} is a long different of the time . +Professor B: E excuse me ? +PhD D: Maybe the Thursday the twelfth of the night of the Thurs - thirty - one is {disfmarker} is not valid in Europe . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: We don't know is happening . +Professor B: Yes , so I mean {disfmarker} I think we have to actually get it done Tuesday +PhD D: Tuesday . +Professor B: right because I {disfmarker} I think +PhD C: Yeah , well . +Professor B: uh Uh +PhD C: Except if {disfmarker} if it 's the thirty - one at midnight or I don't know {disfmarker} we can {vocalsound} still do some work on Wednesday morning . +Professor B: yeah well . W i is but is {disfmarker} is it midni I thought it was actually something like five PM on {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , well . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: was like {disfmarker} I thought it was five PM or something , I didn't think it was midnight . I thought they said they wanted everything by +PhD D: Yeah , five PM . +Professor B: well , so five PM their time is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if +PhD D: Not five PM , three PM . +Professor B: three PM . +PhD D: Three PM . +Professor B: Alright , that 's six in the morning here . +PhD C: It 's d no . +PhD D: Uh no three {disfmarker} three A - three PM ? +PhD C: No , we are wondering about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hour that we have to eh I don't know if it 's three PM {disfmarker} it 's +PhD D: Oh yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Three PM here is in Europe midnight . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's midnight but +Professor B: Yes , yes , but I didn't think it was midnight that it was due , I thought it was due at some hour during the day like five PM or something . +PhD D: Oh OK . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Professor B: In which case +PhD D: maybe . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh well we should look but my assumption is that we basically have to be done Tuesday . Um so then next Thursday we can sort of have a little aftermath +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but then {disfmarker} then we 'll actually have the new data which is the German and the Danish +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but that really will be much less work because uh the system will be fixed +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so all we 'll do is take whatever {vocalsound} they have and {disfmarker} and uh and run it through the process . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh we won't be changing the training on anything +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there 'll be no new training , there 'll just be new HTK runs , so that 's means in some sense we can kind of relax from this after {disfmarker} after Tuesday and {disfmarker} and uh maybe next meeting we can start talking a little bit about where we want to go from here uh in terms of uh the research . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um you know what things uh did you think of when you were uh doing this process that uh you just didn't really have time to adequately work on uh uh so +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: What ? +Grad A: Oh , Stephane always has these great ideas and {disfmarker} oh , but uh we don't have time . +PhD C: Sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I 'm not sure these are great ideas . +Professor B: But they 're ideas . Yeah ? Oh , that was good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh also it 's still true that uh I think it 's true that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we at least got fairly consistent i improved results by running uh the uh neural net transformation in parallel with the features +PhD C: But +Professor B: rather than uh in sequence which was {disfmarker} was your suggestion and that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems to have been borne out . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The fact that none of these are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} you know , enormous is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not too surprising {disfmarker} most improvements aren't enormous and {vocalsound} uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: some of them are but uh I mean you have something really really wrong {vocalsound} and you fix it {vocalsound} you can get big and really enormous improvements +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} um Cuz our best improvements over the years that we 've gotten from finding bugs , but Anyway OK well I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I see where we are and everybody knows what they 're doing and is there {disfmarker} is there anything else we should talk about or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} are we done ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I think it 's OK um . We so basically we will {disfmarker} I think we 'll try to {disfmarker} to focus on these three architectures and {disfmarker} and perhaps I was thinking also a fourth one with just {disfmarker} just a single KLT because we did not really test that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: removing all these KLT 's and putting one single KLT at the end . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean that would be pretty low maintenance to try it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh if you can fit it in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh I have {disfmarker} yeah I do have one other piece of information which uh I should tell people outside of this group too uh I don't know if we 're gonna need it uh but uh Jeff up at the uh University of Washington has uh gotten a hold of a uh uh some kind of server farm of uh of ten uh uh multiprocessor uh IBM machines RS six thousands +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh so I think each one is four processors or something or {disfmarker} I don't know , eight hundred megahertz or something and there 's four processors in a box and there 's ten boxes and there 's some kind of ti so if {disfmarker} you know he 's got a lot of processing power and um we 'd have to schedule it but if we have some big jobs and we wanna {disfmarker} wanna {disfmarker} wanna run them he 's {disfmarker} he 's offering it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . It 's uh when he was here eh uh he {disfmarker} he used i not only every machine here but every machine on campus as far as I could tell , so {disfmarker} so in some ways he just got his payback , but uh again I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll end up with {disfmarker} if we 're gonna be CPU limited on anything that we 're doing in this group +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but if {disfmarker} if we are that 's an offer . OK well uh you guys doing great stuff so that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's really neat and uh we 'll uh uh g don't think we need to uh um Oh well the other thing I guess that I will say is that uh the digits that we 're gonna record momentarily is starting to get {disfmarker} are starting to get into a pretty good size collection and um in addition to the SpeechDat stuff we will have those to work with really pretty soon now so that 's {disfmarker} that 's another source of data . Um which is s under somewhat better control and that we can {disfmarker} we can make measurements of the room the {disfmarker} uh that {disfmarker} you know if we feel there 's other measurements we don't have that we 'd like to have we can make them and uh Dave and I were just talking about that a little while ago so uh that 's another {disfmarker} another possibility for this {disfmarker} this kind of work . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: K , uh if nobody has anything else maybe we should go around do {disfmarker} do our digits {disfmarker} do our digits duty . OK . OK I 'll start . Uh , let me say that again . OK . I guess we 're done . +","In this conversation, Professor B, PhD C, PhD D, and Grad A discussed a range of technical topics related to signal processing and machine learning for speech recognition. The key points include: + +1. Combo system: PhD C explained a system they call a ""combo"" which involves low-pass filtering features through a network and an MLP (multi-layer perceptron). The linear outputs of the MLPs are combined, and the KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform) output is used as features. + +2. Three paths: PhD C mentioned that there are three paths for features from OGI (Oregon Graduate Institute): one through a KLT using several frames, one through an MLP also using several frames, and the third being a low-pass filter followed by an MLP. These paths are part of their speech recognition evaluation. + +3. Highlighting the 'yellow' paths: Professor B noted that certain paths highlighted in yellow presumably performed the best and inquired more about them. It was clarified that the first yellow line was similar to others but did not include low-pass filtering, resulting in only two streams instead of three. + +4. Weighting scheme: A discussion on a weighting scheme used to evaluate performance with different percentages assigned to TI-digit and SpeechDat-Cars datasets. PhD C mentioned the numbers but noted the lacking TI-digits data. + +5. Comparison of systems: They discussed comparing different architectures and the impact of certain features, like the KLT size and the use of silence detection. There were considerations about implementation delays and whether some ideas were feasible. + +6. Test set sizes: Professor B inquired about the sizes of the test sets to understand the significance of word error rates and how seriously to take small differences between system performances. + +7. Deadline and process: The conversation also touched on the looming deadline for submitting their work, with Professor B emphasizing the need to complete tasks by Tuesday due to time zone differences with Europe. + +8. Next steps: They discussed what they would do after the deadline, including looking at new data, possibly relaxing their workload, and contemplating future research directions. + +9. Usage of computing resources: Professor B mentioned an offer of the computing power from Jeff at the University of Washington if they needed to run large jobs. + +10. Recording digits: The group planned to record digits, adding to a growing data collection which can be used in their speech recognition work. + +Overall, the group is engaged in detailed technical dialogue regarding a speech recognition system evaluation. They are fine-tuning their methods, considering issues such as feature transformations and filtering, comparing architectures, and managing deadlines to submit their evaluations." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Starts {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD D: No . That 's a different thing . +Professor C: There 's another {disfmarker} I don't know . It starts with a P or something . I forget the word for it , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's um +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: Typically when you {disfmarker} you 're ab r starting around forty for most people , it starts to harden and then it 's just harder for the lens to shift things +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: and th the {disfmarker} the symptom is typically that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to hold stuff uh uh further away to {disfmarker} to see it . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor C: In fact , uh m my brother 's a {pause} gerontological psychologist and he {disfmarker} he uh {vocalsound} came up with an {disfmarker} an uh {disfmarker} a uh body age test which uh gets down to sort of only three measurements that are good enough st statistical predictors of all the rest of it . And one of them is {disfmarker} is the distance {vocalsound} that you have to hold it at . +PhD D: Give someone a piece of paper and then they {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: We 're {disfmarker} we 're live by the way , so we 've got a good intro here +Professor C: Oh . Yeah . About how old I am . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: We can edit that out if you want . +PhD D: Oh , that 's optional . +Professor C: No , that 's OK . +Grad A: OK . So . This time the form discussion should be very short , +PhD D: You know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: right ? +Professor C: It also should be {pause} later . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Because Jane uh is not here yet . +Grad A: Good point . +Professor C: And uh she 'll be most interested in that . Uh , she 's probably least involved in the signal - processing stuff so maybe we can just {disfmarker} just uh , I don't think we should go though an elaborate thing , but um uh Jose and I were just talking about {vocalsound} the uh {nonvocalsound} uh , speech e energy thing , +PhD E: The @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor C: and I uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: We didn't talk about the derivatives . But I think , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i if I can {disfmarker} if you don't mind my {disfmarker} my speaking for you for a bit , um {vocalsound} Uh . Right now , that he 's not really showing any kind of uh distinction , but uh {disfmarker} but we discussed a couple of the possible things that uh he can look at . Um . And uh one is that uh this is all in log energy and log energy is basically compressing the distances {vocalsound} uh {pause} between things . Um {pause} Another is that he needs to play with the {disfmarker} the different uh {pause} uh temporal sizes . He was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was taking everything over two hundred milliseconds uh , and uh he 's going to vary that number and also look at moving windows , as we discussed before . Um And uh {disfmarker} and the other thing is that the {disfmarker} yeah doing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} subtracting off the mean and the variance in the {disfmarker} {pause} uh and dividing it by the {pause} standard deviation in the log domain , {vocalsound} may not be {pause} the right thing to do . +Grad A: Hi Jane ! +PhD E: Hi . +Grad A: We just started . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Could you take that mike there ? +PhD D: Are these the long term means ? Like , over the whole {disfmarker} I mean , the means of {pause} what ? +Grad A: Thanks . +Professor C: Uh B Between {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD D: All the frames in the conversation ? +Professor C: No . +PhD D: Or of things that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Between {disfmarker} Neither . It 's uh between the pauses {pause} uh for some segment . +PhD E: No . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so i i his {disfmarker} his {disfmarker} He 's making the constraint it has to be at least two hundred milliseconds . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so you take that . And then he 's {disfmarker} he 's uh measuring at the frame level {disfmarker} still at the frame level , of what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} and then just uh normalizing with that larger amount . um and {disfmarker} But one thing he was pointing out is when he {disfmarker} he looked at a bunch of examples in log domain , it is actually pretty hard to see {vocalsound} the change . And you can sort of {pause} see that , because of j of just putting it on the board that {vocalsound} if you sort of have log - X plus log - X , that 's the log of X plus the log of two +PhD E: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah , maybe it 's not log distributed . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and it 's just , {pause} you know , it {disfmarker} it diminishes the {pause} effect of having two of them . +PhD E: +Professor C: Um . +PhD D: But you could do like a C D F there instead ? I mean , we don't know that the distribution here is normally . +Professor C: Yes , right . So {disfmarker} So what I was suggesting to him is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So just some kind of a simple {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , a PDF . But , you know , uh But , either way . +PhD D: PDF +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , eith eith uh {vocalsound} B +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Something like that where it 's sort of data driven . +Professor C: Yeah , but I think {pause} also u I think a good first indicator is when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the researcher looks at {vocalsound} examples of the data and can not see a change {pause} in how big the {disfmarker} the signal is , {vocalsound} when the two speaker {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Then , that 's a problem right there . So . I think you should at least be able , +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Professor C: doing casual looking and can get the sense , "" Hey , there 's something there . "" and then you can play around with the measures . And when he 's looking in the log domain he 's not really seeing it . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . And when he 's looking in straight energy he is , so that 's a good place to start . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . So that was {disfmarker} that was the discussion we just had . Um . {vocalsound} The other thing Actually we ca had a question for Adam in this . Uh , when you did the {vocalsound} sampling ? uh {pause} over the {pause} speech segments or s or sampling over the {disfmarker} the individual channels in order to do the e uh the {pause} amplitude equalization , {vocalsound} did you do it over just the entire {disfmarker} everything in the mike channels ? +PhD E: How {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't try to find speech ? +Grad A: No , I just took over the entire s uh entire channel um {pause} sampled ten minutes randomly . +Professor C: Right , OK . So then that means that someone who didn't speak {pause} very much {vocalsound} would be largely represented by silence . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: And someone who would {disfmarker} who would be {disfmarker} So the normalization factor probably is {pause} i i i {pause} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , this was quite quick and dirty , and it was just for {pause} listening . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And for listening it seems to work really well . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , it 's not {disfmarker} Not a good measure . +Professor C: Right . So th +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . So yeah there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} There 's a good chance then given that different people do talk different amounts {pause} that there is {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there is still a lot more to be gained from gain norm normalization with some sort +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad A: Yes , absolutely . +Professor C: if {disfmarker} if we can figure out a way to do it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . But we were agreed that in addition to that {comment} uh there should be {pause} s stuff related to pitch and harmonics and so forth . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we didn't talk at all about uh the other derivatives , but uh again just {disfmarker} just looking at {disfmarker} Uh , I think uh Liz has a very good point , that in fact it would be much more graphic just to show {disfmarker} Well , actually , you do have some distributions here , uh for these cases . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: You have some histograms , um {pause} and {pause} uh , they don't look very separate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh {vocalsound} {pause} separated . +PhD E: This is the {disfmarker} the first derivate of log of frame energy uh without any kind of normalization . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Log energy . Sorry . +PhD E: These the These are the {disfmarker} the first experiments uh with comment uh +PhD D: Frame energy . +Grad A: Except that {pause} it 's hard to judge this because the {disfmarker} they 're not normalized . It 's just number of frames . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But yeah , even so . +PhD D: W {vocalsound} I mean , what I meant is , even if you use linear , {pause} you know , raw {pause} measures , like {pause} raw energy or whatever , +Professor C: "" Number "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: maybe we shouldn't make any assumptions about the distribution 's shape , and just use {disfmarker} you know , use the distribution to model the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} the mean , or what y you know , rather than the mean take some {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} And so in {disfmarker} in these he 's got that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: He 's got some pictures . But he doesn't {disfmarker} he doesn't in the {disfmarker} he i +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: just in derivatives , but not in the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: but he d but he doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . So , we don't {pause} know what they look like {pause} on the , {pause} tsk {disfmarker} {comment} For the raw . +Professor C: But he didn't h have it for the energy . He had it for the derivatives . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So . I mean , there might be something there . I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Grad A: Interesting +PhD E: Here I {disfmarker} I +Professor C: Oh that {disfmarker} yeah that 's a good q +PhD E: in {disfmarker} No I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the result +Professor C: did {disfmarker} did you have this sort of thing , for just the {disfmarker} just the l r uh the {disfmarker} the unnormalized log energy ? OK . Yeah . So she {disfmarker} she 's right . +PhD E: but it 's the {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the following . +Professor C: That 's a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it might be just good to know what it looks like . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} That 's uh {pause} cuz I 'd mentioned scatter plots before but she 's right , +PhD D: Cuz {disfmarker} +PhD E: Huh ? +Professor C: I mean , even before you get the scatter plots , just looking at a single feature {vocalsound} uh , looking at the distribution , is a good thing to do . +PhD E: Yeah . Catal - uh {disfmarker} Combining the different possibilities of uh the parameters . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the scatter plot {pause} combining eh different {pause} n two combination . +Professor C: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but what she 's saying {pause} is , which is right , is {pause} le +PhD E: combination of two , {pause} of energy and derivate {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , let 's start with the {disfmarker} Before we get complicated , let 's start with the most basic wh thing , which is {pause} we 're arguing that if you take energy {disfmarker} uh if you look at the energy , that , when two people are speaking at the same time , usually {vocalsound} {pause} there 'll be more energy than when one is right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that sort of hypothesis . +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor C: And the first way you 'd look at that , uh s she 's , you know , absolutely right , is that you would just take a look at the distribution of those two things , much as you 've plotted them here , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , but just {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} {pause} just uh do it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well in this case you have three . You have the silence , and that {disfmarker} that 's fine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh with three colors or three shades or whatever , just {disfmarker} just look at those distributions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , given that as a base , you can see if that gets improved , you know , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} {pause} or worsened {pause} by the {disfmarker} looking at regular energy , looking at log energy , we were just proposing that maybe it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's harder to {pause} see with the log energy , um and uh also these different normalizations , does a particular choice of normalization make it better ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I had maybe made it too complicated by suggesting early on , that you look at scatter plots because that 's looking at a distribution in two dimensions . Let 's start off just in one , uh , with this feature . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: I think that 's probably the most basic thing , before anything very complicated . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um And then we w I think we 're agreed that pitch - related things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are going to be a {disfmarker} a really likely candidate to help . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . I agree , yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um {pause} But {pause} since {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh your intuition from looking at some of the data , is that when you looked at the regular energy , that it did in fact usually go up , {vocalsound} when two people were talking , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} eh you know , you should be able to come up with a measure which will {pause} match your intuition . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And she 's right , that a {disfmarker} that having a {disfmarker} having {disfmarker} {comment} having this table , with a whole bunch of things , {pause} with the standard deviation , the variance and so forth , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's harder to interpret than just looking at the {disfmarker} the same kind of picture you have here . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Uh - huh . Yeah . But {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's curious but uh I f I found it in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file , in one channel {vocalsound} that eh in several {disfmarker} oh e eh several times eh you have an speaker talking alone with a high level of energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh in the middle eh a zone of overlapping with mmm less energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and eh come with another speaker with high energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and the overlapping zone has eh less energy . +Professor C: Yeah . So there 'll be some cases for which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Because there reach very many +Professor C: But , the qu So {disfmarker} So they 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I w want to point {pause} to visual things , But I mean they {disfmarker} there 'll be time {disfmarker} There 'll be overlap between the distributions , but the question is , "" If it 's a reasonable feature at all , there 's some separation . "" +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Especially locally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Locally . +PhD E: just locally , yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I was just going to say that {disfmarker} that {pause} right now we 're just exploring . +PhD D: And the other thing is I Sorry . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: What you would imagine eventually , is that you 'll feed all of these features into some {pause} discriminative system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And so even if {disfmarker} if one of the features does a good job at one type of overlap , another feature might do a good job at another type of overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . I mean the {disfmarker} the reason I had suggested the scatter f p features is I used to do this a lot , when we had thirteen or fifteen or twenty features {pause} to look at . +PhD E: Yeah , this is the {disfmarker} +Professor C: um Because something is a good feature uh by itself , you don't really know how it 'll behave in combination and so it 's nice to have as many {disfmarker} as many together at the same time as possible in uh in some reasonable visual form . There 's cool graphic things people have had sometimes to put together three or four in some funny {disfmarker} funny way . But it 's true that you shouldn't do any of that unless you know that the individual ones , at least , have {disfmarker} have some uh {disfmarker} some hope +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , especially for normalizing . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , it 's really important to {pause} pick a normalization that matches the distribution for that feature . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And it may not be the same for all the types of overlaps or the windows may not be the same . e Actually , I was wondering , {vocalsound} right now you 're taking a {disfmarker} all of the {pause} speech , from the whole meeting , and you 're trying to find points of overlap , but we don't really know which speaker is overlapping with which speaker , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: right ? So I mean another way would just be to take the speech from just , say , Morgan , And just Jane and then just their overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} but by hand , by cheating , and looking at you know , if you can detect something that way , because if we can't do it that way , there 's no good way that we 're going to be able to do it . +Grad A: No prayer . +PhD D: That {disfmarker} You know , there might be something helpful and cleaner about looking at just {pause} individuals and then that combination alone . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Plus , I think it has more elegant {disfmarker} e +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: The m the right model will be {pause} easier to see that way . So if {disfmarker} I don't know , if you go through and you find Adam , cuz he has a lot of overlaps and some other speaker who also has e enough speech +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and just sort of look at those three cases of Adam and the other person and the overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: maybe {disfmarker} and just look at the distributions , maybe there is a clear pattern +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: but we just can't see it because there 's too many combinations of {disfmarker} of people that can overlap . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: I had the same intuition last {disfmarker} last {disfmarker} last week . +PhD D: So . Just seems sort of complex . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think it 's {disfmarker} to start with it 's s your {disfmarker} your idea of simplifying , starting with something that {pause} you can see {pause} eh you know without the {pause} extra {pause} layers of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Cuz if energy doesn't matter there , like {disfmarker} I don't think this is true , but what if +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Sorry , what ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Well , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you don't have to study everybody individually +PhD D: Well , to study the simplest case to get rid of extra {disfmarker} +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Consider {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but {pause} just simple case and the one that has the lot of data associated with it . +PhD D: Right . Cuz what if it 's the case and I don't think this is true {disfmarker} +Grad A: That was a great overlap by the way . +PhD D: What if it 's the case that when two people overlap they equate their {disfmarker} you know , there 's a {pause} conservation of energy and everybody {disfmarker} both people talk more softly ? I don't think this happens at all . +Postdoc B: Or {disfmarker} or what if what if the equipment {disfmarker} what if the equipment adjusts somehow , +PhD D: Or they get louder . +Postdoc B: there 's some equalizing in there ? +PhD D: Yeah or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no we don't have that . +PhD D: I mean . +Grad A: Well , but {disfmarker} But I think that 's what I was saying about different types of overlap . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: But . +Postdoc B: Saturation . +PhD D: There are {disfmarker} there are different types , and within those types , like as Jose was saying , that {pause} sounded like a backchannel overlap , meaning the kind that 's {pause} a friendly encouragement , like "" Mm - hmm . "" , "" Great ! "" , "" Yeah ! "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And it doesn't take {disfmarker} you don't take the floor . Um , but , some of those , as you showed , I think can be discriminated by the duration of the overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . It {disfmarker} Actually the s new student , Don , who um Adam has met , and he was at one of our meetings {disfmarker} He 's {pause} getting his feet wet and then he 'll be starting again {pause} in mid - January . He 's interested in trying to distinguish the types of overlap . I don't know if he 's talked with you yet . But in sort of honing in on these different types +PhD E: Yeah . I don't consi Now I don't consider that possibility . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So maybe {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is a s a general studio of the overlapping we 're studying the {disfmarker} i +Professor C: Yeah . Well {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would s actually still recommend that he do the overall thing +PhD D: So it might be something that we can {pause} help by categorizing some of them and then , you know , look at that . +Professor C: because {pause} it would be the quickest thing for him to do . He could {disfmarker} You see , he already has all his stuff in place , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: he has the histogram mechanism , he has the stuff that subtracts out {disfmarker} and all he has to do is change it uh uh from {disfmarker} from log to plain energy and plot the histogram and look at it . And then he should go on and do the other stuff bec but {disfmarker} But this will {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , no . I didn't mean that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} for you to do that , but I was thinking if {disfmarker} if Don and I are trying to get {pause} categories +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and we label some data for you , and we say this is what we think is going {disfmarker} So you don't have to worry about it . And here 's the three types of overlaps . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll do the labelling for you . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Hm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . +PhD E: Consider different class of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah , that we would be working on anyway . +PhD E: If there 's time . +PhD D: Then maybe {pause} you can try some different things for those three cases , and see if that helps , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . This is the thing I {disfmarker} I comment with you before , that uh we have a great variation of th situation of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And the behavior for energy is , uh log energy , {vocalsound} is not uh the same all the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: But I guess I was just saying that {disfmarker} that right now uh from the means that you gave , I don't have any sense of whether even , you know , there are any significant number of cases for which there is distinct {disfmarker} and I would imagine there should be some {disfmarker} you know , there should be {disfmarker} The distributions should be somewhat separated . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh and I {disfmarker} I would still guess that if they are not separated at all , that there 's some {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's most likely something wrong in the way that we 're measuring it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Um , but {pause} um For instance , I mean I wouldn't expect that it was very common overall , that when two people were talking at the same time , that it would {disfmarker} that it really was lower , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: although sometimes , as you say , it would . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . So . +PhD D: Yeah , no , that was {disfmarker} That was a jok +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: or a sort of , a case where {disfmarker} where you would never know that unless you actually go and look at two individuals . +Professor C: I mean . No . It could {disfmarker} it probably does happen sometimes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mind if I turned that light off ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Grad A: The flickering is annoying me . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: It might the case , though , that the significant energy , just as Jose was saying , comes in the non - backchannel cases . Because in back Most people when they 're talking don't change their own {pause} energy when they get a backchannel , cuz they 're not really predicting the backchannel . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And sometimes it 's a nod and sometimes it 's an "" mm - hmm "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And the "" mm - hmm "" is really usually very low energy . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So maybe those don't actually have much difference in energy . But {pause} all the other cases might . +Professor C: e {vocalsound} e and {disfmarker} and again what they {disfmarker} what difference there was would kind of be lost in taking the log , +PhD D: and the backchannels are sort of easy to spot s in terms of their words or {disfmarker} I mean , just listen to it . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so , as well . +PhD D: Well , it would be lost {pause} no matter what you do . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mmm , no , if it 's {disfmarker} if i if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Tone +Professor C: Well , it won't be as big . +PhD D: I mean , even if you take the log , you can {disfmarker} your model just has a more sensitive {pause} measures . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sure , but tone might be very +PhD D: So . +Grad A: Yeah , you 're "" mm - hmm "" tone is going to be very different . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . Right . +Grad A: You could imagine doing specialized ones for different types of backchannels , if you could {disfmarker} if you had a good model for it . Your "" mm - hmm "" detector . +Professor C: If {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} a I guess my point is , if you 're doing essentially a linear separation , taking the log first does in fact make it harder to separate . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} So , uh if you i i So i if there {disfmarker} if there close to things it does +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: it 's a nonlinear operation that does in fact change the distinction . If you 're doing a non if you 're doing some fancy thing then {disfmarker} then yeah . And right now we 're essentially doing this linear thing by looking across here and {disfmarker} and saying we 're going to cut it here . Um and that {disfmarker} that 's the indicator that we 're getting . But anyway , yeah , we 're not {pause} disagreeing on any of this , we should look at it more uh {disfmarker} more finely , but uh uh I think that {disfmarker} This often happens , you do fairly complicated things , and then you stand back from them and you realize that you haven't done something simple . So uh , if you generated something like that just for the energy and see , and then , a a a as {disfmarker} as Liz says , when they g have uh uh smaller um , more coherent groups to look at , that would be another interesting thing later . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then that should give us some indication {disfmarker} between those , should give us some indication of whether there 's anything to be achieved f from energy at all . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then you can move on to the uh {pause} uh more {nonvocalsound} pitch related stuff . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think this is a good idea . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Not consider the log energy . +Professor C: Yeah . But then the {disfmarker} Have you started looking at the pitch related {pause} stuff at all , or {disfmarker} ? Pitch {pause} related ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Harmonicity and so on ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the program but I don't {disfmarker} I don't begin because eh {vocalsound} I saw your email +Professor C: Preparing to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: and {pause} I agree with you it 's better to {disfmarker} I suppose it 's better to {disfmarker} to consider the {disfmarker} the energy this kind of parameter {vocalsound} bef +Professor C: Yeah . Oh , that 's not what I meant . No , no . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Well , we certainly should see this but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the harm I certainly wasn't saying this was better than the harmonicity and pitch related things I was just saying +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I go on with the {disfmarker} with the pitch , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: aha ! {pause} OK . +Professor C: Yeah , I was just saying {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understood uh that eh {pause} I {disfmarker} I had to finish {pause} by the moment with the {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and concentrate my {disfmarker} my energy in that problem . +Professor C: OK . OK . {vocalsound} OK . But I think , like , all these derivatives and second derivatives and all these other very fancy things , I think I would just sort of look at the energy {pause} and then get into the harmonicity as {disfmarker} as a suggestion . +PhD E: OK . I go on with the pitch . +Professor C: Uh OK . So maybe uh since w we 're trying to uh compress the meeting , um , I know Adam had some form stuff he wanted to talk about and did you have some ? +Postdoc B: I wanted to ask just s something on the end of this top topic . So , when I presented my results about the uh distribution of overlaps and the speakers and the profiles of the speakers , at the bottom of that I did have a proposal , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: and I had plan to go through with it , of {disfmarker} of co coding the types of overlaps that people were involved in s just with reference to speaker style so , you know , with reference {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: and you know I said that on my {disfmarker} in my summary , +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Postdoc B: that {pause} you know so it 's like people may have different amounts of being overlapped with or overlapping +PhD D: Yeah , I remem Right . +Postdoc B: but that in itself is not informative without knowing what types of overlaps they 're involved in so I was planning to do a taxonomy of types overlaps with reference to that . +PhD D: That would be great . +Postdoc B: So , but it you know it 's like it sounds like you also have uh something in that direction . +PhD D: That would be really great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Is {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD D: We have nothing {disfmarker} You know , basically , we got {pause} his environment set up . He 's {disfmarker} he 's a double - E {comment} you know . So . It 's mostly that , {pause} if we had to {pause} label it ourselves , we {disfmarker} we would or we 'd have to , to get started , but if {disfmarker} {pause} It {disfmarker} it would be much better if you can do it . You 'd be much better {comment} at doing it also because {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't have a good feel for how they should be sorted out , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD D: and I really didn't wanna go into that if I didn't have to . So if {disfmarker} If you 're w willing to do that or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be interesting , though , to talk , maybe not at the meeting , but at some other time about what are the classes . +Postdoc B: Well maybe we can OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I think that 's a research {pause} effort in and of itself , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , it would be interesting . +PhD D: because you can read the literature , but I don't know how it 'll {pause} turn out +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , You know , it 's always an interesting question . +Postdoc B: It seems like we also s with reference to a purpose , too , that we we 'd want to have them coded . +PhD E: I would think it 's interesting , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: That 'd be really great . +Postdoc B: I can do that . +PhD D: And we 'd still have some {pause} funding for this project , +PhD E: uh uh +PhD D: like probably , if we had to hire some {disfmarker} like an undergrad , because uh Don is being covered half time on something else {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , he {disfmarker} we 're not paying him {pause} the full RA - ship for {disfmarker} all the time . So . {vocalsound} um If we got it to where we wanted {disfmarker} we needed someone to do that {disfmarker} I don't think there 's really enough data where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see this as a prototype , to use the only the {disfmarker} the already transcribed meeting as just a prototype . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think a a another parameter we c we {disfmarker} we can consider is eh the {pause} duration . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Another e e m besides eh the {disfmarker} the class of overlap , the duration . Because is possible {vocalsound} eh some s s um eh some classes eh has eh {pause} a type of a duration , eh , {pause} a duration very short uh when we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have overlapping with speech . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , definitely . +Postdoc B: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} It may be correlated . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Is possible to have . And it 's interesting , {pause} I think , {pause} to consider the {disfmarker} the window of normalization , normalization window . Eh {pause} because eh if we have a type of , {pause} a kind of eh overlap , eh backchannel overlap , with a short duration , is possible {pause} eh to normali i i that if we normalize eh with eh {pause} eh consider only the {disfmarker} the eh window eh by the left eh ri eh {pause} side on the right side overlapping with a {disfmarker} a very {pause} eh oh a small window eh the {disfmarker} if the fit of normalization is eh mmm bigger eh in that overlapping zone eh very short +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's true . The window shouldn't be larger than the backchannel . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I me I {disfmarker} I understand . I mean that you have eh you have a backchannel , eh , eh {disfmarker} you have a overlapping zone very short +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: and you consider eh n eh all the channel to normalize this very short eh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: for example "" mmm mm - hmm hmm "" eh And the energy is not eh height eh I think if you consider all the channel to normalize and the channel is {pause} mmm bigger {pause} eh eh eh compared with the {disfmarker} with the overlapping eh duration , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh the effect is mmm stronger eh {pause} that I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the e effect of the normalization eh with the mean and the {disfmarker} and the variance eh is different that if you consider {pause} only a {pause} window compared eh with the n the duration of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . You {disfmarker} you want it around the overlapping part . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: You want it to include something that 's not in overlapping +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} s If {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it 's a sliding window , right ? So if you take the {disfmarker} the measure in the center of the overlapped {pause} piece , you know , there 'd better be some something . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: But if your window is really huge then yeah you 're right you won't even {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , This is the {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} the idea , {vocalsound} to consider only the {disfmarker} the small window near {disfmarker} near {disfmarker} near the {disfmarker} the overlapping zone . +PhD D: The portion of the {disfmarker} {comment} of the backchannel won't {disfmarker} won't effect anything . But you {disfmarker} Yeah . So . You know , you shouldn't be more than like {disfmarker} {pause} You should definitely not be three times as big as your {disfmarker} as your {pause} backchannel . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Then you 're gonna w have a wash . And hopefully it 's more like on the order of {disfmarker} +Professor C: I 'm not sure that 's {pause} necessarily true . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc B: It is an empirical question , it seems like . +Professor C: Because {disfmarker} because it {disfmarker} because um again if you 're just compensating for the gain , +PhD D: Yea +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: you know , the fact that this {disfmarker} this gain thing was crude , and the gain wh if someone is speaking relatively at consistent level , just to {disfmarker} to give a {disfmarker} an extreme example , all you 're doing is compensating for that . And then you still s And then if you look at the frame with respect to that , it still should {disfmarker} should uh change +PhD D: Yeah , it depends how different your normalization is , as you slide your window across . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean . That 's something we don't know . +Postdoc B: It 's possible to try it both ways , +Grad A: Well , I mean we 're also talking about a couple of different things . +Postdoc B: isn't it ? in this small +Grad A: I mean , one is your analysis window and then the other is any sort of normalization that you 're doing . +PhD D: Yeah I was talking about the n normalization window . +Grad A: And the {disfmarker} And they could be quite different . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: This was sort of where {disfmarker} where we were last week . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . Yeah . +Professor C: But , anyway We {disfmarker} we 'll have to look at some core things . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Um . But that 'd be great if {disfmarker} if you 're marking those +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc B: Great . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} um . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: But it is definitely true that we need to have the time marks , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was assuming that will be inherited because , if you have the words and they 're roughly aligned in time via forced alignment or whatever we end up using , then you know , this {pause} student and I would be looking at the time marks +Postdoc B: Yep , I agree . Mm - hmm . Coming off of the other {disfmarker} +PhD D: and classifying all the frames inside those as whatever labels Jane gave +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Good . So , it wouldn't be {pause} I wasn't planning to label the time marks . +PhD D: +PhD E: I can give you my transcription file , +Postdoc B: I was thinking that that would come from the engineering side , +PhD D: I don't think you need to . +PhD E: no ? +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . That should be linked to the words which are linked to time somehow , +Postdoc B: There you go . +Grad A: Well we 're not any time soon going to get a forced alignment . +PhD D: right ? Not now . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um If it 's not hand - marked then we 're not going to get the times . +PhD D: Well , it 's something that w Well , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't be able to do any work without a forced alignment anyway , +PhD E: Yes +PhD D: so somehow if {disfmarker} once he gets going we 're gonna hafta come up with one +Professor C: Yes . +PhD D: and Yeah . +Grad A: I mean w I guess we could do a very bad one with Broadcast News . +Postdoc B: Good . Good . +PhD D: So whatever you would label would be attached to the words , I think . +Postdoc B: Great ! Good , good . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well again for the close {pause} mike stuff , we could come up {disfmarker} take a s take the Switchboard system or something , +Grad A: That might be good enough . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} Um +Grad A: It 'd be worth a try . It would be interesting to see what we get . +Professor C: Just , you know , low - pass filter the speech and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Cuz there 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot of work you can't do without that , I mean , how {disfmarker} how would you {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: You 'd have to go in and measure every start and stop point next to a word +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: It would be very inefficient . +PhD D: is y if you 're interested in anything to do with words . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Anyway {pause} So that 'd be great . +Postdoc B: Good . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: There 's something we should talk about later but maybe not just now . But , uh , should talk about our options as far as the uh uh {pause} transcription +Grad A: Yep , if IBM doesn't {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Well , w But we 'll do that later . +Postdoc B: OK . Good . +PhD D: Do we hafta {pause} turn {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . Let 's do that later . +PhD D: Are we supposed to keep recording here ? +Grad A: Yeah {vocalsound} Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 'll talk about it later . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: So {vocalsound} uh Uh "" forms "" . +Grad A: Forms Next iteration of forms . +Professor C: You had something on forms . +Grad A: Oops . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Oh good , OK . +Professor C: Um . Oh . +Postdoc B: How {disfmarker} So it 's two pages per person ? +Grad A: Nope . One 's a digit form , one 's a speaker form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! +Grad A: So one is a one time only {pause} speaker form and the other is the digits . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Oh it 's the same . Oh no no . Is {disfmarker} is new Is OK . +Grad A: So don't fill these out . +Postdoc B: Alright . +Grad A: This is just the suggestion for uh what the new forms would look like . So , they incorporate the changes {pause} that we talked about . +Postdoc B: Date and time . Uh why did you switch the order of the Date and Time fields ? This is rather a low - level , but +Grad A: On which one ? +Postdoc B: On {disfmarker} on the new one , Time comes first and then Date , but I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh you mean on the digit form ? +Postdoc B: This is {disfmarker} this is rather a low level question , but {disfmarker} but it used {disfmarker} used to be Date came first . +Grad A: Uh , because the user fills out the first three fields and I fill out the rest . +Postdoc B: Oh I see . +Grad A: So it was intentional . +Postdoc B: Well , how would the {disfmarker} How would the user know the time if they didn't know the date ? +Grad A: It 's an interesting observation , but it was intentional . Because the date is when you actually read the digits and the time and , excuse me , the time is when you actually read the digits , but I 'm filling out the date beforehand . If you look at the form in front of you ? that you 're going to fill out when you read the digits ? you 'll see I 've already filled in the date but not the time . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I always assumed {disfmarker} So the time is supposed to be pretty exact , because I 've just been taking beginning time {disfmarker} time of the meeting . +PhD D: Yeah , me too . +Grad A: Yeah , I 've noticed that in the forms . +PhD E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the reason I put the time in , is so that the person who 's extracting the digits , meaning me , will know where to look in the meeting , to try to find the digits . +PhD D: +PhD E: Me too . Oh ! +Postdoc B: Oh dear . We 've been {disfmarker} we 've been messing up your forms . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} I am put {disfmarker} I am putting the beginning of the meeting . +Grad A: I know . +PhD D: So you should call it , like , "" digits start time "" . Or . +Grad A: And I haven't said anything . Yep . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} on there . +Professor C: Why {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what were you putting in ? +Postdoc B: Oh , well , I was saying if we started the meeting at two thirty , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I 'd put two thirty , and I guess d e everyone was putting two thirty , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , it 's about fifty fifty . +Postdoc B: and I didn't realize there was "" uh oh I 'm about to read this and I should "" {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually it 's about one third each . About one third of them are blank , about one third of them are when the digits are read , and about one third of them are when the {pause} meeting starts . So . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: This would be a radical suggestion but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I could put instructions ? Nah . +Postdoc B: Ei - either that or maybe you could maybe write down when people {vocalsound} start reading digits on that particular session . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But if I 'm not at the meeting , I can't do that . +Postdoc B: I know , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's been setting stuff up and going away . So . +Postdoc B: I see . Good point good point . +Professor C: For some reason he doesn't want to sit through every meeting that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , but that is the reason Name , Email and Time are where they are . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I rest my {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then the others are later on . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: OK . w +PhD E: And the Seat is this number ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Seat and Session . +PhD D: "" For official use only "" That 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , he 's very professional . +PhD E: "" use only "" +Postdoc B: Actually you could {disfmarker} Well that does raise another question , which is why is the "" Professional use only "" line not higher ? Why doesn't it come in at the point of Date and Seat ? Oh . Because we 're filling in other things . +Grad A: What ? +Professor C: What ? +Postdoc B: Well , because {disfmarker} If y your {disfmarker} your professional use , you 're gonna already have the date , and the s +Grad A: What {disfmarker} which form are you talking about ? +Postdoc B: Well I 'm comparing the new one with the old one . This is the digit form . +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: Oh you 're talking about the digit form . +Professor C: Digit . Digit form . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't {disfmarker} The digit {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh ! I wasn't supposed to {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , that 's alright . +Postdoc B: Sorry . Sorry . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't have a "" for official use only "" line . It just has a line , {pause} which is what you 're supposed to read . +Postdoc B: That {disfmarker} uh OK . +Grad A: So on the digits form , everything above the line is a fill - in form +Postdoc B: Sorry about that . Yeah . +Grad A: and everything below the line is digits that the user reads . +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . Alright s but I didn't mean to derail our discussion here , so you really wanted to start with this other form . +Grad A: No , either way is fine I just {disfmarker} You just started talking about something , and I didn't know which form you were referring to . +Postdoc B: Alright yeah , I was comparing {disfmarker} so th this is {disfmarker} So I was looking at the change first . So it 's like we started with this and now we 've got a new version of it wi {pause} with reference to this . So the digit form , we had one already . Now the f the fields are slightly different . +Professor C: So the main thing that the person fills out um {pause} is the name and email and time ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: You do the rest ? +PhD E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . Just as uh {disfmarker} as I have for all the others . +Postdoc B: What {disfmarker} And there 's an addition of the native language , which is a bit redundant . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: This one has Native Language and this one does too . +Grad A: That 's because the one , the digit form that has native language is the old form not the new form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Thank you . {pause} Thank you , thank you . There we go . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , yeah . I 'll catch up here . OK , I see . +Professor C: "" South Midland , North Midland "" +Postdoc B: That 's the old and that 's the new . +Grad A: Yeah this was the problem with these categories , I {disfmarker} I picked those categories from TIMIT . I don't know what those are . +PhD D: Actually , the only way I know is from working with the database and having to figure it out . +PhD E: What {disfmarker} +Grad A: With TIMIT , yeah ? +PhD E: uh - huh . +Grad A: So , I was gonna ask +PhD E: What i +Professor C: So is South Midland like Kansas ? +Grad A: wh w I mean . +Professor C: and North Midland like {disfmarker} like uh Illinois , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Well yeah . Nor - um {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so what accent are we speaking ? Western ? +Professor C: By definition ? +PhD E: And for simple for {disfmarker} for me ? +Professor C: Well , +PhD D: Probably Western , yeah . +PhD E: Is mean my native language Spanish {disfmarker} Spanish ? eh The original is the center of Spain and the {vocalsound} beca +Grad A: Yeah , I mean you could call it whatever you want . For the foreign language we couldn't classify every single one . So I just left it blank and you can put whatever you want . +PhD E: Because is different , the Span - uh {pause} the Spanish language from the {disfmarker} the north of Spain , of the south , of the west and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD E: But . +Grad A: So I 'm not sure what to do about the Region field for English variety . You know , when I wrote {disfmarker} I was writing those down , I was thinking , "" You know , these are great {pause} if you 're a linguist "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to categorize them . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Actually even if you {vocalsound} {pause} t +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} if e {vocalsound} if y +PhD D: This wasn't developed by {disfmarker} th these regions weren't {disfmarker} +Professor C: if you 're a TI or MIT {vocalsound} from {vocalsound} nineteen eighty - five . +Grad A: Yeah So I guess my only question was if {disfmarker} if you were a South Midland speaking region , person ? Would you know it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Is that what you would call yourself ? +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , I think if you 're talking {disfmarker} if you 're thinking in terms of places , {pause} as opposed to {pause} names different peop names people have given to {pause} different ways of talking , {pause} I would think North Midwest , and South Midwest would be more common than saying Midland , right , I mean , I {disfmarker} I went to s +PhD D: Yeah . Now {pause} the usage {disfmarker} Maybe we can give them a li {pause} like a little map ? with the regions and they just {disfmarker} No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc B: No , that 's not bad . Yeah . +PhD D: Because it takes less time , and it 's sort of cute +PhD E: i at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in that side {disfmarker} in that side of the {disfmarker} the paper . +PhD D: there 's no figure . +Professor C: Well . +PhD D: Well just a little {disfmarker} You know , it doesn't have all the detail , but you sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: But what if you moved five times and {disfmarker} and uh +Postdoc B: Well , I was thinking you could have ma multiple ones and then the amount of time {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , but you 're categorized . That 's the same {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so , roughly . So . You could say , {pause} you know "" ten years {pause} on the east coast , five years on the west coast "" or something or other . +Grad A: Well , We {disfmarker} I think we don't want to get that level of detail at this form . I think that 's alright if we want to follow up . But . +Professor C: I guess we don't really know . +PhD D: I mean I {disfmarker} As I said , I don't think there 's a huge {pause} benefit to this region thing . It {disfmarker} it gets {disfmarker} The problem is that for some things it 's really clear and usually listening to {comment} it you can tell right away if it 's a New York or Boston accent , but New York and Boston are two {disfmarker} well , I guess they have the NYC , but New England has a bunch of very different dialects and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {pause} so does um S So do other places . +Grad A: Yeah , so I picked these regions cuz we had talked about TIMIT , and those are right from TIMIT . +PhD D: Right . And so these would be {pause} satisfying like a speech {pause} research {pause} community if we released the database , +Grad A: So . +PhD D: but as to whether subjects know where they 're from , I 'm not sure because um I know that they had to fill this out for Switchboard . This is i almost exactly the same as Switchboard regions +Postdoc B: Oh . OK . +PhD D: or very close . Yeah . Um And I don't know how they filled that out . But th if Midland {disfmarker} Yeah , Midland is the one that 's difficult I guess . +Postdoc B: I think a lot of people {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Also Northwest you 've got Oreg - Washington and Oregon now which uh y people don't know if it 's western or northern . +Grad A: Yeah , I certainly don't . I mean , I was saying I don't even know what I speak . +PhD D: It 's like Northwest +Grad A: Am I speaking {disfmarker} Am I speaking Western ? +Professor C: Oh , what is Northern ? Well and what {disfmarker} and what 's Northern ? +PhD D: I think originally it was North {disfmarker} Northwest +Grad A: Northwest ? +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , so this is a real problem . I don't know what to do about it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I wouldn't know how to characterize mine either . And {disfmarker} and so I would think {disfmarker} I would say , I 've {disfmarker} I 've got a mix of California and Ohio . +Grad A: I c I think at the first level , for example , we speak the same . +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: our {disfmarker} our dialects Or {pause} whatever you {disfmarker} region are the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Grad A: But I don't know what it is . So . +PhD D: Well , you have a like techno - speak accent I think . +Grad A: a techno - speak accent ? +PhD D: Yeah , you know ? +PhD E: A techno +Grad A: A {disfmarker} a geek region ? +PhD D: Well it 's {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} you can sort of identify +Postdoc B: Geek region . +PhD D: it f It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not that that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is different . Is different . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but maybe that {disfmarker} maybe we could leave this and see what people {disfmarker} See what people choose and then um let them just fill in if they don't {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what else we can do , cuz {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's North Midland . +Postdoc B: I 'm wondering about a question like , "" Where are you from mostly ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I 'm s I 'm {disfmarker} now that you mentioned it though , I am {disfmarker} really am confused by "" Northern "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . I agree . +Professor C: I really am . +Postdoc B: I agree . +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you 're {pause} in New England , that 's North . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} i if you 're +Postdoc B: Scandinavian , the Minnesota area 's north . +Professor C: Uh yeah . That 's {disfmarker} But that 's also North Midland , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , @ @ . {disfmarker} OK . +Professor C: right ? +Postdoc B: +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Oregon and {disfmarker} and Oregon and Washington are {disfmarker} are Western , but they 're also Northern . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course , that 's very different from , like , Michigan , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , Idaho ? +PhD D: Well there are hardly any subjects from Idaho . +Professor C: Montana ? +Grad A: No problem . +Postdoc B: Just rule them out . +PhD D: There 's only a few people in Idaho . +Grad A: There are hardly any subjects from "" beep "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Sorry . +Professor C: Maybe {disfmarker} Maybe we {disfmarker} Maybe we should put a little map and say "" put an X on where you 're from "" , +PhD D: No , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: And {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} in those {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah really . +PhD D: We could ask where they 're from . +PhD E: And if you put {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: It 'd be pretty simple , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But - We went back to that . +PhD E: Yeah . If you put eh the state ? +Grad A: Well well we sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Where are you from mostly ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we went {disfmarker} we went around this and then {pause} a lot of people ended up saying that it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Well , I like the idea of asking "" what variety of English do you speak "" as opposed to where you 're from Because th if we start asking where we 're from , again you have to start saying , "" well , is that the language you speak or is that just where you 're from ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +PhD D: Right . Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Let 's {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean it gives us good information on where they 're from , but that doesn't {comment} tell us anything {disfmarker} +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: We could always ask them if they 're from {disfmarker} +PhD D: well , enough about their {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . So {disfmarker} so I would say Germany +PhD D: like {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know am I speaking with German accent +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad A: I don't think so . +Postdoc B: Well , see , I 'm thinking "" Where are you from mostly "" +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Oh , OK yeah . +Postdoc B: because , you know , then you have some {disfmarker} some kind of subjective amount of time factored into it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Yeah , I guess I could try to put {disfmarker} squeeze in a little map . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean there 's not a lot of r of room +Professor C: I 'd say , uh , "" Boston , New York City , the South and Regular "" . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , I don't know . +Grad A: I think of those , Northern is the only one that I don't even know what they 're meaning . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {pause} And usually here {disfmarker} people here know what is their kind of mmm lang English language ? +Professor C: That 's a joke . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So let 's make it up . S I mean , who cares . Right ? We can make up our own {disfmarker} So we can say "" Northwest "" , "" Rest of West "" or something . You know . "" West "" and I mean . +Grad A: Ye I don't think the Northwest people speak any differently than I do . +PhD D: It doesn't even {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . That 's not really a region . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: "" Do you come from the Louisiana Purchase ? "" +PhD D: So we could take out "" North "" {disfmarker} "" Northern "" . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} that 's exactly what we 're arguing about . +PhD E: eh here Is easy for people to know ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah , w It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's harder in America anywhere else , basically . +Grad A: We don't know . +PhD E: because you have {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean some of them are very obvious . If you {disfmarker} if you talk to someone speaking with Southern drawl , you know . +PhD E: N m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , or Boston . +Grad A: Or Boston , yeah . +Postdoc B: I can't do it , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or Boston ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And those people , if you ask them to self - identify their accent they know . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , they do . +PhD D: They know very well . +Postdoc B: Yeah I agree I agree . I agree . +PhD D: They know they don't speak the same as the +Grad A: But is Boston New England ? +Postdoc B: And they 're proud of it . +PhD D: day o +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: It 's identity thing . +PhD D: And they 're glad to tell you . +PhD E: style . +PhD D: Well . Depends who you ask , I suppose . +Grad A: W {vocalsound} I guess that 's the problem with these categories . +PhD E: +PhD D: But that 's why they have New York City but {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Well , we ca Well , why can't we just say characterize {disfmarker} something like char characterize your accent +Professor C: Well , Boston 's @ @ , too . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} "" Characterize your accent {pause} if you can . "" +Postdoc B: and {disfmarker} and so I would say , "" I don't know "" . +PhD D: Yeah . Right , which probably means you have a very {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But someone from Boston with a really strong coloration would know . And so would an R - less Maine {disfmarker} or something , +PhD D: And that 's actually good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking of something along that line +Professor C: How +Postdoc B: Good . +PhD D: because {pause} if you don't know , then , you know , ruling out the fact that you 're totally {pause} inept or something , +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD D: if somebody doesn't know , it probably means their accent isn't very strong compared to the sort of midwest standard . +Professor C: Well , {vocalsound} I mean , it wasn't that long ago that we had somebody here who was from Texas who was absolutely sure that he didn't have any accent left . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and had {disfmarker} he had a pretty {vocalsound} noticeable drawl . +Grad A: OK , so . I propose , {pause} take out Northern add , don't know . +Postdoc B: Oh . {pause} Yeah . I {disfmarker} I would say more {disfmarker} more sweepingly , "" how would you characterize your accent ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So you want to change the instructions also not just say region ? +PhD D: W +Postdoc B: Well , I think this discussion has made me think that 's s something to consider . +Grad A: I don't know if I {disfmarker} if I read this form , I think they 're going to ask {comment} it {disfmarker} they 're going to answer the same way if you say , "" What 's variety of English do you speak ? Region . "" as if you say "" what variety of region {disfmarker} region {comment} do you speak ? Please characterize your accent ? "" They 're going to answer the same way . +Postdoc B: I guess {disfmarker} Well , I was not sure that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: So . I was suggesting not having the options , just having them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Huh . +Grad A: Well what we talked about with that is {pause} is so that they would understand the granularity . +Postdoc B: Yes , but if , as Liz is suggesting , people who have strong accents know that they do {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's what I had before , and you told me to list the regions to list them . +Postdoc B: and are {disfmarker} Well , I know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Each {disfmarker} each one has pros and cons +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: That 's true . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: I mean we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah last week {disfmarker} last week I was sort of r arguing for having it wide open , but then everybody said "" Oh , no , but then it will be hard to interpret because some people will say Cincinnati and some will say Ohio "" . +Grad A: I mean I had it wide open last week and {disfmarker} and you said TIMIT . +Professor C: And . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: What if we put in both ? +Grad A: That 's what the "" Other "" is for . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Would people {disfmarker} No , I mean what if we put in both ways of asking them ? So . One is {pause} Region and the another one is "" if you had to characterize yourself {disfmarker} your accent , what would you say ? "" +Grad A: Won't they answer the same thing ? +PhD D: Well they might only answer only one of the questions but if +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's fine . +PhD D: You know . +Postdoc B: They might say "" Other "" for Region because they don't know what category to use +PhD D: Actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but they might have something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc B: because it is easier to have it open ended . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} And we {disfmarker} we might learn from what they say , as to which one 's a better {comment} way to ask it . +Professor C: W This is just a small thing +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Cuz I really don't know . +Professor C: but um It says "" Variety "" and then it gives things that e have American as one of the choices . But then it says "" Region "" , but Region actually just applies to uh , US , +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: right ? +Grad A: I mean that 's why I put the "" Other "" in . +Postdoc B: Well , we thought about it . +Professor C: Ah , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah , OK . We just {disfmarker} We sort of thought , "" yes , {disfmarker} "" y y I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: S +Postdoc B: At the last meeting , my recollection was that {pause} we felt people would have uh less {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that there are so many types and varieties of {pause} these other languages and we are not going to have that many subjects from these different language groups +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: and that it 's a huge waste of {disfmarker} of space . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: So I mean , I {disfmarker} I mean the way I had it last time {pause} was Region was blank , +Postdoc B: That 's what I thought . +Grad A: it just said Region colon . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and I think that that 's the best way to do it , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: because {disfmarker} because of the problems we 're talking about but what we said last week , was no , put in a list , so I put in a list . So should we go back to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe we can make the list a little smaller . +Grad A: Well , certainly dropping "" Northern "" I think is right , because none of us know what that is . +PhD D: Cuz , I mean {disfmarker} And keeping "" Other "" , and then {pause} maybe this North Midland , we call it "" North Midwest "" . South {pause} Midwest , or just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . +PhD D: South Midwest . Does that make sense ? +PhD E: South Midwest ? +PhD D: That would help me {disfmarker} +Professor C: U unless you 're from Midland , Kansas . +PhD D: Yeah . Cuz {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Yeah . +PhD D: I don't know where Midland is +Professor C: There 's a {disfmarker} Or Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is "" Midwest "" one word ? +Professor C: Is it Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} Midland , Texas or Midland , Kansas ? I forget . +PhD D: Y yeah , one w +Professor C: But there 's a town . in {disfmarker} in there . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: I forget what it is @ @ . +Postdoc B: I don't think that 's what they mean . +PhD D: But , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So . Kansas would be {pause} South Midland . Right ? +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and wouldn't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: And Colorado , right across the border , would be {vocalsound} North Midland . +PhD D: So , th I 'm from Kansas , actually . +PhD E: Southern Midland . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Colora Oh , right . And then , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} dropping North , so it would be Western . It 's just one big shebang , where , of course , you have huge variation in dialects , +Grad A: But that 's true of New England too . +Professor C: But you do in the others , too . So . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} {comment} but so do you {disfmarker} +Grad A: So . I mean only one {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I shouldn't say that . I have no clue . I was going to say the only one that doesn't have a huge variety is New York City . But I have no idea whether it does or not . +Postdoc B: It does seem {disfmarker} I mean . I {disfmarker} I would think that these categories would be more {disfmarker} w would be easier for an an analyst to put in rather than the subject himself . +Professor C: U +Grad A: I think that {disfmarker} that was what happened with TIMIT , was that it was an analyst . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Wait a minute . Where does {disfmarker} Where does {disfmarker} {pause} d w Where {disfmarker} Where 's {disfmarker} where does uh {vocalsound} New {disfmarker} New York west of {disfmarker} west of uh New York City and {pause} Pennsylvania {pause} uh and uh +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know how it came from . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: New England +PhD D: So . That 's New England I think . +Professor C: N No , it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Oh , no . +Postdoc B: I sort of thought they were part of the {disfmarker} one of the Midlands . +Professor C: Oh no . No , no . {pause} No . Pennsylvania is not {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Other "" , it goes under "" Other "" , definitely under "" Other "" . +PhD D: Well , you know , Pennsylvania has a pretty strong dialect and it 's totally different than {disfmarker} +Professor C: Pennsylvania {disfmarker} Yeah . Pennsylvania is not New England . and uh New Jersey is not New England and Maryland is not New England and none of those are the South . +Grad A: OK . So . Another suggestion . Rather than have circle fill in forms , say "" Region , open paren , E G Southern comma Western comma close paren colon . "" +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: OK ! +Postdoc B: Fine by me , fine by me . +Professor C: That 's good . I like that . +PhD D: Sure ! +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 're all {pause} sufficiently {pause} tired of this that we 're agreeing with you . +PhD D: Let 's just {disfmarker} And we 'll see what we get . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Be easier on the subjects . I think that 's fine . No . I think {disfmarker} +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I like that . I like that . +Professor C: You like it ? +Postdoc B: Yeah , I do . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Actually , maybe we do one non - English one as well . +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Southern , Cockney ? +PhD D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that a {pause} real accent ? +Postdoc B: Sure , yeah ! +Grad A: How do you spell it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think that 's fine . +Professor C: Cockney ? +Grad A: N E +Professor C: CO {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: You could say Liverpool . +Professor C: Liverpuddlian . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Alright . +PhD D: Actually , Liverpool doesn't l Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm s I ha +Postdoc B: Well . Well . I mean , pure {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , we 'll do it that way . Actually , I like that a lot . Because that get 's at both of the things we were trying to do , +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: the granularity , and the person can just self - assess and we don't have to argue about what these regions are . +Postdoc B: That 's right . And it 's easy on the subjects . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Now I have one suggestion on the next section . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: So you have native language , you have region , and then you have time spent in English speaking country . Now , I wonder if it might be useful to have another open field saying "" which one parenthesis S {comment} paren closed parenthesis "" . Cuz if they spent {pause} time in {disfmarker} in Britain and America {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes . +Postdoc B: It doesn't have to be ex all {disfmarker} at all exact , just in the same open field format that you have . +Grad A: Yep , just which one . I think that 's fine . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . with a {disfmarker} with an S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: "" which one sss , {comment} optional S . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We uh {disfmarker} We done ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: OK . um s e Any {disfmarker} any other uh open mike topics or should we go {pause} right to the digits ? +Grad A: Um , did you guys get my email on the multitrans ? That {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc B: Isn't that wonderful ! Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . So . So . I {disfmarker} I have a version also which actually displays all the channels . +Postdoc B: Excellent ! Thank you ! +PhD D: It 's really great . +Grad A: But it 's hideously slow . +Postdoc B: So you {disfmarker} this is n Dan 's patches , Dan Ellis 's patches . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} the ones I applied , that you can actually do are Dan 's , because it doesn't slow it down . +PhD D: M +Postdoc B: Fantastic ! +Grad A: Just uses a lot of memory . +PhD D: So when you say "" slow "" , does that mean to {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the one that 's installed is fine . It 's not slow at all . I wrote another version . Which , instead of having the one pane with the one view , It has multiple panes {pause} with the views . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But the problem with it is the drawing of those waveforms is so slow that every time you do anything it just crawls . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's really bad . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} it 's the redrawing of the w +Postdoc B: That 's a consideration . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: oh uh - huh , w as you move . +Grad A: As you play , as you move , as you scroll . Just about anything , and it {disfmarker} it was so slow it was not usable . So that 's why I didn't install it and didn't pursue it . +Postdoc B: And this 'll be a {disfmarker} hav having the multiwave will be a big help cuz {disfmarker} in terms of like disentangling overlaps and things , that 'll be a big help . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Grad A: So . I think that the one Dan has is usable enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: It doesn't display the others . It displays just the mixed signal . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But you can listen to any of them . +Postdoc B: That 's excellent . He also has version control which is another nice +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: e so you {disfmarker} e the patches that you {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , he suggested that , but he didn't {disfmarker} {pause} It 's not installed . +Postdoc B: Oh , I thought it was in one of those patches . +Grad A: No . No . +Postdoc B: Oh OK . Well . Alright . +PhD D: So is there any hope for actually displaying the wave form ? +Grad A: Um , not if we 're going to use Tcl - TK At least not if we 're going to use Snack . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: I mean you would have to do something ourselves . +Postdoc B: Well , or use the one that crawls . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I probably would be trying to use the {disfmarker} {comment} whatever 's there . And it 's useful to have the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} we see how Dan 's works and if it {disfmarker} If we really need the display {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . I mean . I wonder {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if we can display things other than the wave form . So . Suppose we have a feature {disfmarker} a feature stream . And it 's just , you know , a {disfmarker} a uni - dimensional feature , varying in time . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we want to plot that , instead of the whole wave form . +Grad A: I mean . +PhD D: That might be faster . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Right ? +Grad A: We {disfmarker} we could do that but that would mean changing the code . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean this isn't a program we wrote . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: This is a program that we got from someone else , and we 've done patches on . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'll talk to you about it and we can see +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Cou - i e I mean , y +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: but it 's definitely {pause} great to have the other one . +Professor C: If there was some {disfmarker} Is there some way to {pause} have someone write patches in something faster and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} link it in , or something ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Not easily . +Professor C: Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean y yes we could do that . You could {disfmarker} you can write widgets in C . And try to do it that way but I just don't think {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Let 's try it with Dan 's and if that isn't enough , we can do it otherwise . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: I think it is , cuz when I was playing with it , the mixed signal has it all in there . And so it 's really {disfmarker} It 's not too bad to find places in the {disfmarker} in the stream where things are happening . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be bad . +Postdoc B: And it 's also {disfmarker} also the case that {disfmarker} that uh this multi - wave thing {pause} is proposed to the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm ? +Postdoc B: So . Dan proposed it to the Transcriber central people , and it 's likely that uh {disfmarker} So . And {disfmarker} and they responded favorably looks as though it will be incorporated in the future version . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: They said that the only reason they hadn't had the multi the parallel uh stream one before was simply that {pause} they hadn't had time to do it . And uh {pause} so it 's likely that this {disfmarker} this may be entered into the ch this central @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: And if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Professor C: They may well have not had much demand for it . +Postdoc B: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's true , too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: This is a {disfmarker} {pause} a useful thing for us . +PhD D: So . You mean they could {disfmarker} they could do it and it would be {pause} fast enough if they do it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Depends on how much work they did . +Postdoc B: Oh . No . I just mean {disfmarker} I just mean that it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that his {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: So . {pause} This one that we now have does have the status of {pause} potentially being incorporated l likely being incorporated into the central code . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc B: Now , tha Now , if we develop further then , y uh , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if one of us sat down and coded it , so that it could be displayed fast enough I 'm sure they would be quite willing to incorporate it . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's a nice feature to have it {disfmarker} set that way . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But it 's not a trivial task . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I just like the idea of it being something that 's , you know , tied back into the original , so that other people can benefit from it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . However . I also understand that you can have {pause} widgets that are very useful for their purpose and that you don't need to always go that w route . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Grad A: anyway , shall we do digits ? +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Let 's do digits , uh , and then we 'll turn off the mikes , and then I have one other thing to discuss . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: I actually have to leave . So . Um . I mean {pause} I had to leave at three thirty , +Postdoc B: Uh - oh . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Oh . +PhD D: so I can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , I can wait {pause} for the digits but I can't stay for the discussion +Grad A: Well , you want to go first ? Or . +PhD D: I c {pause} I have to make a call . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: So . +Postdoc B: Well , should we {disfmarker} e should we switch off the g +Professor C: Well , we 'll talk to you about it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh +Grad A: Do you wanna go do digits or do you wanna just skip digits ? +PhD D: Um . No , I can do digits if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} But I don't wanna butt in , or something . +Grad A: Then {disfmarker} Alright . You go ahead . +PhD D: But if there 's something on the rest of the {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'll be around just have to make call before quarter of . So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So I {disfmarker} Or we can talk about it . +Postdoc B: Ke +Grad A: Why don't you read the digits ? +Professor C: Yeah , why don't you read the digits and then you can {pause} go . +PhD D: OK . {vocalsound} Alright . Oh , this is the new one . +Grad A: Yeah , don't {disfmarker} Don't read the old one . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Alright . The {disfmarker} And the time is . OK . +Grad A: OK +Postdoc B: Turn it off . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: But wait till he {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: And +","The discussion primarily revolves around efforts to update and refine data collection forms and tools related to language and dialect research within a group of academics. Participants include Professor C, PhD D, PhD E, Grad A, and Postdoc B. The initial focus is on a form used to document speaker characteristics, specifically accent and dialect variations within the English language. The conversation reveals a struggle to classify regional varieties of English in a manner both meaningful to linguistic analysts and relatable for study participants. + +Grad A has drafted a revised speaker data collection form, aiming to capture self-identified dialects or accent regions. The team grapples with the list of regions provided, having derived them from TIMIT, a standardized corpus used in speech recognition. Disagreement arises with certain ambiguous terms, such as ""Northern"" and ""Midland,"" leading to the proposal to let subjects freely describe their accent without strict categorization. Professor C humorously suggests overly broad categories like ""Boston, New York City, the South, and Regular."" + +The team further discusses how to address the issue of time spent in an English-speaking country, proposing an open-ended question about which countries. The conversation also touches on multitrans, a tool for displaying and analyzing speech waveforms, with patches from Dan Ellis mentioned. The utility and potential improvements of this system are debated, with the need for a multiple waveform view (multiwave) for analyzing speech overlaps. Grad A reports that while Dan Ellis's updates significantly enhance Transcriber's capabilities, attempts to display multiple channels simultaneously lead to prohibitively slow performance, thus deciding to utilize Dan Ellis's version temporarily. + +PhD D raises a potential modification to display single-feature streams instead of complete waveforms, which could potentially be faster but would require altering the program's code. The group considers whether there might be a way to integrate speedier display options into the existing framework. + +Eventually, the discussion shifts towards the practicality of reading digit strings for data collection purposes before concluding to take a break from the meeting recording. PhD D needs to leave for an urgent matter and offers to read the digits quickly. + +The assembly reflects an interdisciplinary team navigating the inherent complexities of linguistic variety, technical tool refinement, and data collection methodologies. It highlights challenges in balancing detailed linguistic analysis with the subjects' knowledge and experience while trying to maintain the functionality and utility of tools used in linguistic research." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right well . Welcome to the {disfmarker} what should be the last of these meetings and uh it looks like we've uh done a good job here and uh we'll just go through the the final uh the final details . Um okay , oh the um th the the minutes of the last meeting uh I think we'll take those as read , um {disfmarker} Okay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the um th the the next uh thing we we we'll have a look at the uh th have a look at the prototypes and uh look at the uh evaluation criteria and finance and then uh uh just tidy up with production and um and then we can close . Um So f if if you'd like to uh present your your proposals . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay we basically have the same kinda lay-out here it's just um you hold it like this and it gets kinda moulded to the to the shape of your hand , basically . Um on the left we've got the scroll for the volume , on the right we have buttons for the channels up and down and that kinda {disfmarker} so you can hold it and scroll , or you can hold it and and push . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is the power key , um it's kinda like the biggest so you know how to turn on . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's the little menu key . This is the infra-red section so you g it'll be sending rays and if you're you know pointing it like that it can send it , +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: or if you hold it up like that it'll send it . +Project Manager: yeah , good , good . +Industrial Designer: Uh we got a microphone there which for all the voice commands +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so you can you know talk to it like that +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: and it'll still understand . +Project Manager: right . +Industrial Designer: Um the logo is down down there um +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {gap} has the cover on it +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: and you can see like it just kinda goes {disfmarker} the red bit's the cover and it kinda goes over everything +Project Manager: Yep , yep , +Industrial Designer: and then there's holes for the buttons to come through . Um . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And so we figured it would be kind of you know a light weight plastic , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: just kind of a light {vocalsound} non-descript grey +Project Manager: Yep yep . +User Interface: so that people'll wanna buy the covers +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: and then the covers will be that sort of rubbery material like they make iPod covers , +Project Manager: {gap} showing me age , +User Interface: so they kinda just stretch over . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know what i c iPod covers are like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah . +User Interface: I I didn't know that but yeah they're kind of {disfmarker} it's just kind of a rubbery {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and that way {disfmarker} you know +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: spongy like is something that people wanted +Project Manager: yep , right . +User Interface: and it just sort of stretches over +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and that way I think probably helps protect it a little bit too as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also e e easier to put on versus like mobile covers +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you actually have to screw them on and stuff and you kinda sometimes have to get someone to do that for you . This is very much you should be able to stretch it over yourself +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: just kinda stretch it over +Industrial Designer: and it'll be fine . +Project Manager: Okay , good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it'll just stay on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then the buttons come through and so {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} each one of 'em on the very end will have the logo with the yellow circle and the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Yep , right . +Industrial Designer: Li that'll be {gap} the covers as well , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean tha it's it's a detailed point , I just wondered {disfmarker} I mean h how will people put these down I wonder ? +User Interface: Like that . +Project Manager: Right . Okay {gap} for some strange re reason I had it in my mind that they'd put them down vertically +Industrial Designer: Yeah it could stand , yeah . +Project Manager: but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well we could broaden the {disfmarker} broaden it out a bit +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh no +Industrial Designer: so it would stand like that . +Project Manager: because {gap} particularly if they've dif if they're gonna have it as a you know as a fashion item +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} standing . +Project Manager: uh I mean it it's uh it it's just I mean it's just a minor detailed point , but um as you say you can just make the base a little bit bigger and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could just widen it out uh +Project Manager: Yeah and uh it just needs another uh another logo somewhere is is is is all it gives gives people the option and if if say if they've got them um {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because {gap} actually have several {gap} upon the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Could have one for your stereo , one for your {gap} D_V_ player . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Have to {disfmarker} if we just lengthen it I guess +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Industrial Designer: so it comes down to the base of the hand +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: but that that's uh {disfmarker} but uh +User Interface: just kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then flatten it out +Project Manager: no +Industrial Designer: and could sit there . +Project Manager: the the the overall uh the overall concept is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} mm . +User Interface: Or just make it little . +Project Manager: yeah yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Somewhere like that +Project Manager: no no , I mean that's {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it just sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We might {gap} have to lengthen it +Marketing: Yeah I kinda had a a kinda {disfmarker} a natural kind of a idea +Industrial Designer: so it kinda {disfmarker} your hand still holds it and have it there , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , yeah like that , like that {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: where it's like more of a kind of {disfmarker} like a kinda maybe slightly like thinner , +User Interface: Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , kinda like that kinda {gap} like a flower or a plant +Project Manager: But uh yeah {disfmarker} but no th but the {disfmarker} yeah the the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: for the more natural kinda {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The final product would actually stand up , yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I mean it it's uh {disfmarker} wouldn't +User Interface: {gap} fall over . +Project Manager: wouldn't do that , indeed yeah . But th th but th yeah th b the +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these were all minor minor uh minor details , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the uh the basic concept i i is is absolutely bang on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . 'S a little longer . +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} i +Industrial Designer: Wee {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it certainly meets our criteria of being uh {disfmarker} of you know looking different . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: good that's that that's excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right let us um What's on the next one ? Oh right yes , let's have a look at the um f finance . Um , now we're given a a clear design brief , uh if I {gap} get the uh spreadsheet up . Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {vocalsound} just click there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh the the maximise button . +Project Manager: Oh right . Ah . Good , this is why we need to make these things simple so that the uh the the the boss can understand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I've um {vocalsound} this is the company's uh uh costing for for various uh uh aspects of design and I I I've treated some of these slightly uh liberally given the constraints placed on us , um I wouldn't know for in for instance if if they require us to have it in the corporate colours , then that is not a special colour , that's a that's a standard colour . Uh , so we're just simply on batteries , the the one th the one decision I've had to make is that um we're {vocalsound} we will have to find a s a regular standard chip to to do this with and I I um I'm I'm I'm certain that they they are around so , um that I don't think is a a serious problem . The uh the the voice sensor is is expensive but we we made a a basic decision that that was absolutely fundamental to the to the design so that that has to stay . Um then again the the the the shape of the case means that it's it's expensive to uh um l to make 'cause of the the th the double curves but on the other hand because of our overall fashion concept um we we should exceed the the sales targets . Um it's simply made of plastic so th that's uh that's no problem and uh um just because the whole {gap} the colour of the the whole thing that's uh uh there's some cost there . Um and uh we haven't actually got a scroll wheel we we we got push buttons and and a simple uh um {vocalsound} slider so um and the and the the buttons are uh uh well I do don't know that they're special colour . Anyway the the costings uh come in at {disfmarker} exactly on target at twelve point five uh but I thi I think we have a a very strong case to argue that uh what what we've got is is so in innovative and uh and different that um {vocalsound} any any slight compromise we have to make on on cost is is offset by the uh you know the uh you know the the the the concept of it being a a fashion accessory and and having the the interchangeable covers +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh um you know the {disfmarker} if if if the management expect us to be techno {gap} again {gap} fail again {disfmarker} technologically innovative um that they they have to accept that we we can't operate absolutely within uh the constraints that they give , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh we we we present this as the uh the company's uh the the company's way forward and uh uh I I think we can argue that we we have uh come in on on budget . Um . Okay , uh . So um . Does anybody want to uh {disfmarker} uh Andrew do you want {disfmarker} what do you want to say about um the uh yeah the evaluation +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: where where you know well where where we're where where we're at ? +Marketing: The {vocalsound} the product or the project ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the well the {disfmarker} I meant the product . +Marketing: Um , well well my presentation just now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , uh can I get the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh sorry yeah um , mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . More loud clicks in the microphone . +Marketing: Cheers . {vocalsound} There we go , oh . Method of evaluation {vocalsound} testing the product was to just {gap} if it met all the criteria {disfmarker} all the conditions that we set out to set out to solve , from the point of view of the the consumer and the management . So what I've been asked to do is , on the whiteboard +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um gauge our team response to these questions . So , on a scale of one to seven , one being true and seven being being false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Seven being a nice round number to work to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And then at the end just take an average +Project Manager: Tr On for true and seven for flase . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh . {vocalsound} So , look at these questions . Is the device f flashy and fashionable ? +Project Manager: Well I think most definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'd say definitely a one yeah . +User Interface: I think it is yeah . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} and also uh technologically innovative ? +Project Manager: Yes the voice technology indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , defi yeah , yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: I don't see we could've made it any easier . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh suitable for the consumer ? That was um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah I think it made {disfmarker} we met all of the consumer +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: wants . +Marketing: Uh is it complicated ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Doing pretty well so far aren't we ? {vocalsound} Uh functional ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} Where are we ? +Project Manager: {gap} found easily . {gap} yeah +Marketing: We've b built in the the speech , where are you , function . +Project Manager: I mean that's that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Does it take long to learn to use ? Shouldn't . +Industrial Designer: No , not at all . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And uh , what else ? {vocalsound} The R_S_I_ compares to the current standards , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less buttons so it must be . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: well . We we +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: uh yeah it was our {disfmarker} it was a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} it is sorta the the handle more ergonomically correct as well . +Marketing: we made an actual effort to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yeah , um um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um will device appeal to all age groups ? +Project Manager: I think it will because I mean uh old older people who can't manage the buttons anyway will actually probably like the like like the voice bit so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: uh that's a good call , yeah . Well we had the we had the data {gap} saying that old people will be less likely to pay extra money but the funct the increased functionality , {vocalsound} the e ease of use of the device might make up for that . +Project Manager: And it's it's it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: well I don't think we're actually charging a particular premium anyway , in the end , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I I think it will tend to appeal more to younger aged groups +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just 'cause we have gone with the fashion focus +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the younger people tend to {disfmarker} would be more conscious of that aspect of it , but um I think it should still appeal on a certain level to everybody , yeah . +Project Manager: It will appeal f for dif for different reasons but it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think just the simplicity of it +Project Manager: yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and +Project Manager: so I I {disfmarker} yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: not having to learn to programme +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: and not having you know a million buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , so I think we can reasonably say it's another another one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh can you just click the my mouse to move onto next page ? Uh , yeah and what h did we make the management's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} in in in in my interpretation of management's instructions uh is that yes it it meets the requirement +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is t it's television only , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: it's it's simple to use , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um it's it's it's within budget , +User Interface: Under the cost . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: um I {disfmarker} it's uh {disfmarker} yes an an any minor points we we we argue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: So uh I I think we've done an amazing job +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: in uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well done us {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} coming up with what {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So uh one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven . Eleven divided by {vocalsound} eleven's one so {vocalsound} equals average of one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Need a need a calculator for that . +Marketing: And that roughly concludes my evaluation of the of the product . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excellent . +Project Manager: {gap} nick the cable back then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh no +User Interface: I mixed up the colours a little bit . +Industrial Designer: that's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think I {gap} all wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ooh . Right do um either of you want to uh say anything ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Before I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ps I don't think so , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I think we worked well together +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and looked really at what the consumers wanted and what we were trying to make +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you know , seemed to discuss things pretty well +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and come to group consensus and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's right , I mean th this this slide here I mean the satisfaction with uh room for creativity , I mean +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: I think we've allowed ourselves uh as much creativity as the uh the the the product uh allows . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I won't comment on leadership , uh teamwork I think we've uh {disfmarker} I think everybody's uh worked pretty well together . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we've just about coped with the whiteboard and digital pens , uh I think the results speak for itself +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and new ideas found , um , again gi no given relatively everyday product , I think we've v very uh very effectively come up with a a new uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: uh a new approach . Um are the costs within budget ? Yes . Is the project evaluated ? We're we're all happy that it it meets all the criteria , um +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Thank you very much indeed , I think that {disfmarker} I think that's uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool , thank you {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I think we can go f for an early bath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I call the meeting closed . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Not sure how far ahead of schedule we were there . +","In what appears to be a team meeting discussing the final stages of a project involving the design of a consumer electronic product, the team members review the finalized product design, considering its usability, technological features, and pricing. The industrial designer presents the ergonomic and user-friendly design of a device with voice command capabilities, customizable covers, and easy-to-identify control buttons. The Project Manager confirms the design's alignment with the objectives, and the team evaluates the product as fashionable, innovative, and within budget. The meeting ends with satisfaction regarding team collaboration and creativity, with the product meeting all set criteria. The Project Manager closes the meeting, pleased with the team's success in achieving their goals." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So is {disfmarker} Why not save that . +Marketing: No , you'll ha have to open it up from elsewhere . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} Do you want to replace existing file , no . {vocalsound} I actually tried to transfer it to My Documents , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you have to you have to close that window . 'Cause that's the save one isn't it , so {disfmarker} And then find it . +Project Manager: {gap} spreadsheet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but I've ta uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right , I'll just re-do it . That's the easiest way . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Well we've made our prototype anyway . We can have a good look at that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You pass it round to have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Y no , it's a slightly curved around the sides . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm very nice . +User Interface: Um , it's almost curved like up to the main display as well . And the little line at the bottom indicates the bit {disfmarker} the panel that you pull down . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the extra function buttons are below that panel on the little line . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we've got the stick on the button with the company logo on . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We also have a apple slash cherry design at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So it is , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cherry would be alright actually . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's a bit more fun , isn't it ? And it's kinda not really at a kind of {disfmarker} you think apple , you think computers , like Apple Mac . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we might get a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Copyright , yeah . What's this this one ? +User Interface: Yeah , and cherries are fun , summery . +Marketing: What's that one there ? +User Interface: Ah , that's the mute . +Industrial Designer: For the M_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} it'd probably have to be labelled mute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're thinking {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , we didn't have anything small enough to write . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: For the first time , well it was hard to get the h um the actual labelling on the individual buttons . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , we just chose simple shapes for all them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , the important ones are the volume ones . So we made them a bit bigger . The mute could possibly be a bit smaller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hum , you separate off in colour the volume related buttons from the channel related buttons , so you've got the volume in orange on design there , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the the channel is in blue . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: R right . Um , +User Interface: Yeah , and we chose a V_ plus and V_ minus . +Project Manager: all these things have cost implications . And so when I done my thing on cost {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I had assumed that the only uh button that would be a different colour would be the uh the red apple button . So {disfmarker} However , I've now {gap} . {vocalsound} But um , {vocalsound} yeah so uh but there would be a cost implication on that , +Marketing: I'll see if I can find them . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} as I suppose that {vocalsound} so whether {vocalsound} wanted to put in all these colours , would be uh open to debate , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sis +User Interface: Well the colours wouldn't {disfmarker} like that's {disfmarker} they wouldn't be too important , +Marketing: Have {disfmarker} +User Interface: but we didn't have any white Play-Doh . {vocalsound} So that's where the colour buttons came from . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} An important consideration . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , okay so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the second one underneath would be the idea for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , we'll have the slide-away . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So we've got um detail design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} So , we've got {vocalsound} prototype presentation , which we've just done , evaluation criteria , um and finance , so I guess w we have to evaluate if that meets the various uh aspects that we're looking for uh from um our previous meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So other than the fact that it doesn't have the second layer , but um obviously obviously it would . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But other than that , we got the red apple . We got the buttons and the only thing that has really changed is the is the colouration of the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: and {vocalsound} the bit after the evaluation criteria is uh is the finance . {vocalsound} And the {vocalsound} and the cost implication . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The only snag about this is that uh {vocalsound} the cost is probably kind of important . So um , and then the production evaluation , as to how easy that would be to uh to manufacture . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and whether it would uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So if you had to do a presentation or {disfmarker} will you just work it on the prototype ? +Industrial Designer: This this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yes , this is our presentation of the prototype . +Marketing: That's the pr +Project Manager: Right , so uh as far as the the finance of it would be concern would be to make sure that the cost {disfmarker} aye the production cost 'cause you may remember that was one of the first uh considerations was to be in d under um uh twelve fifty or two and a half {disfmarker} uh twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , there's no redesign . So that should uh {disfmarker} Right , so , seems to me that the thing that I have to do is is quickly find that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could we get this on the board just so we can see {disfmarker} or do you mean do you have the figures there ? +Marketing: {gap} we should {gap} plug it in . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Do you wanna plu do you wanna plug it in into the the back of that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , Alice . So , sh +Marketing: We could do it as we d go along , the production costs , looking at the prototype . +Project Manager: Right . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay this should be then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , by the fact that we've got uh the simple chip and the uh kinetic energy source , we've got a single curved case . We've got a rubber uh case materials supplements . So , we had decided that we're having rubber buttons and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Have a push button interface . +Project Manager: Okay . W the button supplements . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , originally , I thought there would just be uh one in there because it was the one red apple . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the so the real w the real question then would come in . Do you make all the buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well do we'll do it on the prototype , +Project Manager: O +Marketing: so do two , see how much it is . +Project Manager: Well , so we've got one special button form , which was the apple . Everything else is gonna be a standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We've got special material , rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera and that , +Industrial Designer: And then we'd have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} originally , I was thinking {gap} rubber wasn't special , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but according to this , maybe it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And the r I mean effectively we've got sixteen buttons that we're gonna have on there . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you just do one , don't you , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} I don't know {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is the sort of answer , is that meant to be all sixteen buttons , and therefore {disfmarker} I mean , what's the op The option was maybe not to have rubber buttons , but just to have the one that was soft and spongy , and therefore {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think it's just it's just a one . Else {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whereas it would be {disfmarker} the special colour would be for the {disfmarker} So you would only have the one special button that was rubber , whereas the rest would be hard plastic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I think I think the button supplement i is just a supplement for all the buttons {gap} made in a different material , rather than per button . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know though . +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Every design change is uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound] I dunno , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , um , if we just had all the buttons as standard , except for the one red apple , then that would take care of that , I guess . We'd have one special colour and one special button form . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And when I plugged that in last time {disfmarker} {gap} remember it has to be under twelve and a half . As far as I know , that um {vocalsound} that took care of the uh of the various supplements . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if {disfmarker} What happened ? +Marketing: You've just gone off the window into another one . It's on the bottom row . +User Interface: Maybe if you just minimise that one in the top right-hand corner of the little box . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , but the point would be that if we uh if we just did special {disfmarker} Sorry , you were saying that it would be that one , that you would put in one there . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's nine point one there so we've got some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it {disfmarker} Well , is it s is {disfmarker} no , it's nine point seven I've got . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Just give us a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , that would {vocalsound} that would work out fine if uh uh as assuming your correction are are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} assuming that that one change covers all the buttons , then that would be fine . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And there's nothing else as far as I can see that we we had uh planned to put on {gap} . +User Interface: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {gap} switching around those th um on the electronics we got the sample sensor . At the moment we've just got the simple chip , which costs one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um , I guess the sample sens sample speaker would be the voice recognition thing , which puts up to four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should be slightly over our budget but if we gather something else down to slightly lower standard , and maybe go with the one the special form buttons , then we could have the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , hold on . Um , if we Okay , that gives us twelve point seven +Industrial Designer: So uh maybe if we got rid of like the maybe one of the special colours , kept them all the same colour , then we could have the voice recognition +Project Manager: But remember that the idea was to keep it the colour of the {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , I see , so just take out the special colour for the apple and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Um , {gap} . D wouldn't you have to keep the simple chip there as well ? You know how you turn that one to a zero , wouldn't the chip and the sample speaker be separate things , +Marketing: Yeah , we have to have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh possibly , yeah , yeah maybe . +User Interface: so you need both of them ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe um we'd be giving up on the kinetic . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And go for battery instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would give you one less . +Industrial Designer: We should {disfmarker} Yeah , that would save us one , though we'd still be slightly ov +Project Manager: But you reckon that i I mean the thing is that you wanted to a appeal to people and not have to replace batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Well , since it's the {disfmarker} through the whole technology type thing , um , you were saying in the market research that people like kind of interesting gadgets in them . Um , whether they would figure the {vocalsound} the s uh sample senor and the sample speaker , voice recognition be sort of a worthwhile thing to have . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then still have the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or whatever they would prefer not uh {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? The the problem was the battery's running out and losing the um losing the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you gotta decide which of those is more important to them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But which do you think {disfmarker} or which do we think is the more important of the options ? In a sense , at the moment , we've got a total which we need to reduce down by one point two . +User Interface: I think the voice recognition . +Project Manager: At least . Remember that was a minimum requirement . The other option if we're planning on just going for something cheap and cheerful , would be to um make it {gap} originally , we're gonna make it a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shall we shall we evaluate the prototype as we've got it now first , and then sort of make decisions about what needs to be changed after ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Marketing: Okay . Right um , I have a little thing . So , we've all got a note of {disfmarker} it's thirteen point seven , isn't it , with everything we want on . +Project Manager: {gap} . Sorry , do you want that back up ? +Marketing: Yeah , I just had a presentation to do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But I do think uh the v uh voice recognition thing would be more impressive than the fact that it's got no battery . +Project Manager: Okay , but remember the main {disfmarker} the only reason we were planning on having the voice recognition was so that they could find the remote if it got lost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Right okay um , This is about the evaluation criteria that we use for the the prototype we've got here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so the method is that the design team makes a prototype , and we evaluate the prototype against some criteria that we've formulated . And those ones are gonna be in response to sort of market research , and also finance , I guess . {vocalsound} And do that on a scale from say true being one and false being seven , so if it's neither true nor false , then that's four . So , I got a set of criteria just based on the marketing that we need to add in a financial one as well , at the end . Um so , We have to say whether it's true or false that the product looks and feels fancy . Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} whether the product demonstrates technical innovation . Whether it's easy to use . Whether it's incorporating sort of the fashion element to attract the buyer . And whether it's a sort of recognisable Real Reaction product . And I have to go up onto the whiteboard and do this apparently , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} I'll go over here . {vocalsound} Right . So the first one is um , does the product look and feel fancy . So if we do a sort of a one {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we have a single curve , which was {gap} maybe like the feel of the product's quite good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , then we have the rubber kinda spongy feel , which was in at the time . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} sorry that'd be considered fancy . +User Interface: Yeah , I'd maybe give it a a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of {disfmarker} but I think {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Is one false , or is t one true ? +User Interface: One's true . +Marketing: I forgot . One's true , and okay . Seven's fal +User Interface: And a four is neutral . +Marketing: Four is neutral , okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So maybe {gap} maybe a two . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we haven't got the double curve , so we can't like say it's completely true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go for one . {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it's pretty close . We've got almost everything we can . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I gonna put underneath so I've got some more space . So , false is seven , true is one , and {disfmarker} So uh say about a two for fancy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not not , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: m m maybe nearer three . +Marketing: Okay , well d you do an average at the end , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two three . Well , it's just that uh saying something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remember that when you look down , we've got solar power , we've got uh various other things you could have , and we're not going for these options . +Marketing: Uh-huh . This this is just this is just for like the look . Does it sort of look fancy rather than functional . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose that might be in the technical innovation bit . +Marketing: Yeah , so that {disfmarker} so sh should we go for a a two on that ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . And I mean , how much does the product demonstrate technical innovation do you reckon ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {gap} deciding between the kinetic power or um the speech recognition , and if we had either of those for our budget , they both show a reasonable amount of speech recognition . +Marketing: D yeah . Okay . So , what about the pr The prototype as it is , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: we've got we've got the speech recognition on it , haven't we . +Industrial Designer: But not the kinetic . +Marketing: But not the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Like the power . +Project Manager: No . 'Cause you can't afford that {disfmarker} w we took that out too . +Industrial Designer: No , we c ca yeah , we can't afford both . +Marketing: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Didn't you ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it doesn't {disfmarker} It's pretty {disfmarker} The prototype as it is isn't sort of um fulfilling the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No may is {disfmarker} maybe about neutral +User Interface: Maybe a three . +Industrial Designer: plus it it it's got something , but it hasn't got {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , wait a minute . In thirteen point seven we do have kinetic . +User Interface: I would give it more than a four . +Project Manager: The problem is we have to reduce down from there to get it down to twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And one way of doing that would be to take out the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , it's very much dependant on what you do with your options . And if you're definitely going for the sample sensor and sample speaker , then {disfmarker} because that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: the other functions we've got in are are more at the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} The special material , the rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera , if you go for that , th that's at the high end 'cause that's point six , whereas down at uh just special colours uh is point two . Now you're trying to lose one point two , so it seems to me that if you're going for the sample sensors {disfmarker} speaker , you're basically then having to go for the cheaper options on everything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And and the simple way to do it would be to have a battery , to have your uh sample sensor speaker , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you're looking to uh take out uh point two , +Marketing: S I'm just gonna check my email . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which would be {disfmarker} come from the button supplements category . +Marketing: I'm just gonna check exactly what it said in the email for um the product . +User Interface: How much of a difference would it make if we made the case in plastic ? Because we did say that we don't wanna follow the fashion too much . If the buttons are rubber that might be spongy enough . +Project Manager: Um , interface type um , +User Interface: And then it stand the test of time better . +Project Manager: well plastic rather than rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . But I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That that that would make the significant difference . You could either {vocalsound} you could have it {disfmarker} If you have a in plastic rather than rubber , then that would uh enable you to get {disfmarker} you could keep kinetic then , you could keep your sample sensor , and you'd be looking to take out point two . So you could uh fiddle that down your special form at the bottom , or your special colour at the bottom . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And that would enable you to to do it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it says if we make a slightly more fancy , then we lose points innovation , and if we make it more innovative innovative , then we lose points on it being fancy , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} , I just read the email again and it sort of says it's evaluate the design sort of as it is , I think , so I think we need to think about finance after we've sort of evaluated that design . I don't know whether we're doing it in the wrong order or something or . +Project Manager: Well , okay , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I suppose it's rubber as it is , isn't it . +Project Manager: It's rubber as it is , yes . +Marketing: So , I mean does this need to go up a bit or something , 'cause we've got both the both the um the speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We got {disfmarker} we've we've got thirteen point seven +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've got it in at the moment and if {disfmarker} and basically , we're going to reduce down from that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the current one , you'd say would be fancy , would be too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , for for innovation , so we've got the speech the speech thing , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I would've said about a two as well . +Marketing: Do you reckon a two ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . I'd be happy with a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Two . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: And the next one is {disfmarker} I'll have to get it back up now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next on Well , I can just sing about . Easy to use . I would've said yes . I would go for a one on that at this point in time . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I would say so as well . +Project Manager: Um , incorporates elements of fashion to attract buyer . Well , yeah it certainly has some . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , it's got the cherry and the sponginess . +Industrial Designer: It does , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Say about a three maybe ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just doing it quite well . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think we're gonna have to lose some of these , but the moment , as it stands , it's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I woulda said two would seem reasonable . +Marketing: It's a two . +Project Manager: The product is a recognisable real {disfmarker} r uh {disfmarker} reaction product ? +Marketing: Yeah , this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} the sensor using all of its all of its products , all of its buttons , +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's got a fairly big label on the bottom saying where it comes from . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit rough at the minute . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} So this is about sort of the corporate image of like new sort of sleek technology and all that sort of thing , as well as having the logo on and all that . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {gap} sort of {disfmarker} Is it sort of a recognisable product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does it fit in with our other other products , which uh are sort of coffee makers and spacecraft . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well it's got the same um speech feature as the coffee machine . +Marketing: What do y +Industrial Designer: Also it's kind of {gap} spongy rubberiness is maybe bit more kinda comfortable than {disfmarker} kinda sleek and new age . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , it depends which way you look at it . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're going for a two , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a kind of three ? Uh d +Project Manager: {gap} three ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Well , the logo would be more um recognisable on the actual thing . It's just that the pen wouldn't really write on that paper . +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I think the logo would definitely be recognisable . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it does have attributes that other products do . Two ? Aye . Go for it . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Two or three . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , come on . That's that decided . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So we're now on to changing it to get it to fit in with the budget requirements , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: What does {disfmarker} what do all them numbers mean then ? Do we add them up and rate {gap} or anything ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah we s yeah , I think we sort of add them up so sort of at an average is gonna be {disfmarker} I'm just gonna do this in my head . +Project Manager: About a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: One point eight isn't it or something . {vocalsound} I think , anyway . So yeah , pretty close to a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I mean it's pretty good at the moment , but it's gonna get worse , isn't it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But we've gotta try and make sure it doesn't get too bad . +Project Manager: Two b two b two {gap} , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should we get {disfmarker} So are {gap} definite {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} thirteen point seven was the definite price rule if {gap} has . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , you can lose one point two and still meet the requirements . +Marketing: Do you wanna plug it into yours so we can get up the the finances {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well I put it back on . +Industrial Designer: So I guess this {disfmarker} Is this the last stage once we sort out the finances part of it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} we'll probably have to re-rate it . +Project Manager: Yes , I would've thought so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah we'll make the adjustments +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then see how are rates are going . +Project Manager: Okay , so what was it , control uh F_ eight , wasn't it ? +User Interface: Ah it's on . +Marketing: {gap} it's come on already . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh . How kind . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . So , you can see there that the {disfmarker} If you want to keep kinetic , right , you've got a choice there of going down to battery , which would save you one . You've got the sample sensor and and sample speaker , which is your big item . +Industrial Designer: Oh actually we just have a plastic case , then we lose two points , +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: which gets us um {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} right within the budget range . +Project Manager: Which gets you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that'd be fine . Because that was just a trend , and we do have rubber buttons anyway . +Industrial Designer: So that's eleven point seven , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we could make sure we definitely had all the button supplements . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Different different colours , yeah . Yeah , I was I was thinking that because maybe maybe the sort of rubber case is a bit less in sort of the corporate identity than the sort of you know sleeker plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Possibly , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that would allow us to have all the technical innovations . So we'd lose a little bit on the {disfmarker} maybe kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're going for plastic , yes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lose a little bit on the fashion , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , and that would now be {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's within the budget . Um {disfmarker} Do we actually have {disfmarker} Do we just have one special {disfmarker} uh {gap} special forms down here ? +Project Manager: Well , uh w uh there was debate as to how you would count them . You got special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well originally I was assuming we had the red apple , and therefore , that was the special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we we've we've got {disfmarker} we've got enough for another +User Interface: Yeah , I think we should just imagine white buttons . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we've got nought point eight left , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we've got enough for another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we've got special form . Now that would be one button , and the question was was that all buttons or is that just one button . 'Cause our plan really was to have one button only with a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So so no matter how you look at that , that would be the same . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other thing would then be special material , rubber , wood , titanium . +Industrial Designer: I think maybe the special colour , we've got three now just because {gap} the volume buttons are different , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we'd have the ones which are blue at the moment would would just be the standard colour . +Project Manager: Alright . So , special colour , you want three in there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which I think we should {disfmarker} Yeah , they'll still be fine for the for the price . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well I thin I think you you you just need two for the special colour 'cause it's just two supplements , you know . One original colour and then sort of two supplements , I think maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh that's probably it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we only ne we only need two for that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I mean these these are moulded . The one colour's gonna be moulded out of a piece of plas uh of rubber , isn't it . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , I would agree with that , I think . And we've got special form {vocalsound} is the one apple . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The rest are all standard , although you could argue that should maybe be {disfmarker} You were making these buttons down the bottom , I was presuming , bigger than the other ones , or were you ? Was that the idea ? +Industrial Designer: Ne uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the volume ones should stand out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that'll be a second supplement . Then there's a spe a second special form . +Marketing: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . I would have thought that's probably about r {vocalsound} well . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Well you got you got twelve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so tha +Industrial Designer: So I think that should still be okay . Yeah , that's twelve point three , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so we're still within budget on that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} decide we've lost a little bit on the fashion and lost a bit on the fancy kinda side of it , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: but generally speaking , we've kept the other attributes to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I woulda said so . Yeah . So you'd maybe put fash fan uh fashion at three rather than two . +Industrial Designer: That's without {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So shall we do a {disfmarker} Well , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And specially it definitely could fits the the real product {disfmarker} What was the {disfmarker} what's the company name ? +Project Manager: Real Reaction produ +User Interface: Real Reactions ? +Industrial Designer: R yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure , what does that mean ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean it still seems definitely fit that p so that's like if that's the new age kind of um inno innovative c type company , then um having the kinetic feature and the voice recognition is p quite high up on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep {vocalsound} I would s +Marketing: So it's w if we've if we've put in for another special form on a button , then maybe they could be {vocalsound} a different shape . Like we got a cherry one . Maybe other ones could be something else shaped . {vocalsound} I don't know . That would be poss seeing as seeing as it's cheaper to make them a different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} seeing as we've got , you know , we've made it a a special form , so +Project Manager: You mean of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {disfmarker} And that would sort of maybe keep us close on the sort of the fashion type one . And it would sort of , you know , keep it quite fancy as well , +Project Manager: Well you could argue you might do it once a year , you would change , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: because at the moment you're making a red apple . So next year you could make {disfmarker} next year's model the same , but have it as a a yeah whate whatever , a lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it's a {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well you could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever fruit was in fashion next year . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , l a lemon lemon or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean the volume buttons could be lemons or something , maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: amount {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , we've {disfmarker} what have we what have we rid of . We got rid of the plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah , we've {disfmarker} the main thing we've changed really is the casing isn't it ? +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} yeah , that was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The rubber . +Industrial Designer: that was just about all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we've saved quite a bit because we've just got the push-button interface , which is by far the cheapest . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} So maybe in a sense not having that , maybe we've lost some {disfmarker} maybe lost something on the innovation side ? +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . And {gap} that is like the most standard type of button . +Marketing: So I mean , we've got {disfmarker} we got rid of the rubber case , but we've now s we now sort of got an extra form , and an extra colour for the buttons . So maybe in terms of sort of fanciness and fashionability , we're pretty much the same , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I mean we could maybe put two again on them . +Industrial Designer: And everything else has stayed pretty much the same , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , ease has certainly stayed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , plus if anything that is special forms makes it slightly easier to to use . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And what about the sort of innovation ? +Industrial Designer: Um , well we've still got the kinetic energy . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And the speech feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then , the corporate identity . +Industrial Designer: I think we've cut just about the same . We've maybe lost {disfmarker} Hasn't it {disfmarker} It's hard to tell how the rubber the rubber casing would really affect {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How it would play out , yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . Whether whether that's considered to be sort of part of the corporate identity , I don't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , it's maybe not . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think more the the features of the actual control will be more important than maybe than the the actual aesthetics , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But either way , I think we've made it fairly close to what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , well I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't see how we could make it any more . Um , apart from maybe doing the whole thing in the kinda light shade of blue , like the casing . +Marketing: We cou Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then what colour would you make the R_s ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} just the the company logo . So maybe there's like a set design which we get printed off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but you've got the company logo on there , which would effectively be a stick-on badge . So you're {disfmarker} in a sense , you're comparing the product without the company logo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then y but you've got the space for it to stick it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Hey , what what what's the company colour ? Did you get told what the company colour is or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm still not quite sure we've established that . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Don't think so . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but i but in the sense that , as you saw with um the Windows logo badge , it doesn't really matter . +User Interface: We got the logo off the web browser . +Marketing: Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's virtually n The way that you frame , you know , the Windows badge on there , it really doesn't matter what colour it is , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} so long as our company's logo is framed w in the same way as that with a like a black outline . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Fact , they've got black and white or black and silver . So basically , even if you had a silver {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the same colour of silver on your display , because you've got effectively a double edging on the uh on the logo , it means that it splits off what your logo is from the from the product . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's actually quite a sneaky way of doing it . +Marketing: Okay . Uh-huh . 'Cause you've got sort of {disfmarker} we've got point two to play with if you really wanted to . +Project Manager: You could put in another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Another colour . +Project Manager: Well , in this one , you've actually got three colours of buttons . +Marketing: Or would that be t +Project Manager: Well , we decided that the blue ones were the um the standard colour . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you were talking about uh um {disfmarker} We're assuming that all the buttons on the second panel , the hidden away panel , would all be standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which m may or may not be the case . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall we save the point two for profitability then ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . Bu but but uh was the was there not a button that you were thinking of on the um on the other opt you know , on the second page , as it were , that uh you were thinking of maybe having as a different colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't think they would really need to be . I think if they were just all small round blue buttons , it'd be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we've m {vocalsound} +User Interface: Needs to be an enter button , but could just be the same as well . +Industrial Designer: Maybe for the the one they're gonna see all the time , we make it look good , and um , fit the kind of idea of what they want . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then for the more functional buttons , we don't worry too much about that and just have that as like a {disfmarker} plus it's hidden away anyway , you're not gonna see it at the start . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean it's the sort of thing that , I mean , you wanna pick up the controller and just hit a button quickly to change the channel or volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if it's dead obvious , then that's fine . But if you're opening the panel and you're looking and you're tuning , then you're paying a bit more attention . So it may be sort of different colour buttons isn't so important . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we just add that to profitability in effect . {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean so we've dropped the cost , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , so we're meant to finish up in five minutes . +Marketing: Same sort of function ? The criteria ? It's alright . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just made a load of money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shouldn't we maybe lose a point on fashion , go to a three ? 'Cause we've lost the overall spongy feel . 'Cause it doesn't seem right that it just hasn't changed at all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , but I think we said that w Because you got rid of the rubber , we put an extra an extra sort of fruit um shape on one of the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} le lemon sh +User Interface: Did we decide what that was , which button it was ? On the volume ones ? +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well , we could have lemon shaped ones with the volume ones or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , {gap} . That's good . +Marketing: Or something like that . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Definitely lemon shaped . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did {disfmarker} did you have to have a rubber case , though , for rubber buttons ? Or was it the other way around ? +Industrial Designer: You had to have rubber buttons if you had the rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can {disfmarker} we're okay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: So we're okay this way around . +Marketing: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Until the design team comes in and says , get off . +Marketing: so we've saved {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But you are the design team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then we say it's fine , so it's all good . +Marketing: Saved two Euros on that . +Project Manager: So what bit are we on to ? +User Interface: Um , can I just check if that's a cherry or an apple ? Did we decide against the apple because of Apple Mac ? And did we make it a cherry officially ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I th I th {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Just in case we need that point two for lawsuits and such like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh drats , I've botched that , haven't I . +User Interface: So were we aiming for a certain target on that scale ? +Marketing: Well , we're aiming for um one for all of them . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: M but it really has to fit into the budget , so {disfmarker} I guess we just have to adjust things to get it i in the {disfmarker} Which is fair enough . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we seem to have {gap} least something in each criteria . We haven't completely left anything out , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I think +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} As an overall product which has to be quite cheap , we've just about achieved everything . +Marketing: most {disfmarker} Yeah . Yep . +User Interface: So do we have anything else to discuss ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . What's on the agenda ? +Project Manager: Right , okay um {disfmarker} What's happened here ? Right , okay um {disfmarker} Mm {vocalsound} . Right , okay um , {gap} {disfmarker} Right . So we got {disfmarker} So we've done the the finance bit and the Excel project and the {disfmarker} We've done the redesign . +Industrial Designer: We've got the closing . +Project Manager: So we're now on to project process . Now satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , et cetera , whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . So , we're actually now uh , in a sense , on to the evaluation of the course rather than the evaluation of the project is m my understanding of it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So what did you {disfmarker} and remembering that nobody's just over the curtain . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Finish your meeting now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We should just go through this quickly and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I suppose the easiest way of doing it is to put some notes down , which I will do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh I think I have to finish that page . Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project evaluation . So , um {disfmarker} Creativity . Did you feel you got a chance to express yourselves {vocalsound} well enough ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I thought some of the divisions though between sort of the individual meetings were a bit arbitrary . +Project Manager: Individual meetings . How do you mean ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well , we were finding out various things in {vocalsound} in be in-between the meetings , +Project Manager: In you on your own . +Marketing: and they didn't {disfmarker} the one meeting didn't always follow on for the other one , you know , sort of {disfmarker} we had things thrown in at the second meeting where , you know , you'd looked at the remote controls and seen the curviness , but in the first one you'd also looked at some remote controls and looked at the buttons , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I don't understand why it would be in separate meetings that you'd do that . You know , you'd sort of {disfmarker} you'd probably present it at one or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} The only thing you find is in a manufacturing process , you would {disfmarker} normally , you go to a meeting , you decide , right , you do this , you do that , you do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you go away . You find out information . You then come back . You then discuss it . You then go and change things around , +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and then go back . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I suppose and then {gap} be going out and finding more information each time +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whereas , this time , you're really getting it from a database source , +Industrial Designer: and then diff things will be relevant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not uh well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anyway , so , what do you want to put down ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I've put , seemed okay . Creativity , seemed okay . Um um flow of information on on any given subject {disfmarker} given subject um sometimes disjointed . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it maybe could have been a slightly more creative project . I mean a remote control isn't the most um kind of fancy thing that you could imagine designing . +Marketing: Yeah , the thing itself . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can't think of a better example at the minute . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Have {disfmarker} could have used a different example {disfmarker} pel to increase {disfmarker} create {disfmarker} Creativity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is this go {disfmarker} It kinda kis fits the purpose that it was something everyone knows about and then something we can at least look at and think how we can improve on . +Project Manager: You have to do it within a set time frame is the other thing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . But {gap} think like it was a bit restrictive just to say that you have to design a television remote control , in a way . I mean it depends what sort of business you're in , I guess . I mean this one seems {gap} . From the website it looks {gap} it's quite innovative , but we're coming up with some bucket shop product aren't we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's , you know , fifteen quid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} one of those things . Like uh , companies can have like a range of products and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I uh d +Industrial Designer: {gap} I don't know how it works but I guess that something got sent out and {gap} have like a brief to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the other thing is that uh they're {disfmarker} I'm guessing that they're trying to use this um software to to demonstrate how you could uh do a project . I mean , m my wife at the moment , for instance , is uh acting as a computer +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} for um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} normally , you got a problem , so you go to your tutor and find out information to see how to get it fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So what she's doing is she's {vocalsound} having to spend a day at the computer terminal at one end so that any student that comes along can uh ask whatever question . And then you {disfmarker} or the idea is that the {disfmarker} whichever uh person's at the other end can point them in the right direction , show them where to {disfmarker} either give them directly {disfmarker} give them help , or secondly , point them in the right direction , either at the library , or uh or or come back , or go and see Joe Bloggs , or whatever . So uh , and that was a project I suspect similar to this , because they they were actually trying to debug the uh computer software to enable um {disfmarker} to enable it to work . And of course , you had the machine crashing +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and various things going wrong . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , sh {gap} we look at the last slide , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: see if it's got anything else . +Project Manager: Alright , +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think there's one one more to go . +Project Manager: so we've got uh +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} I mean if you look at their products on their website here , Real Reaction , I mean it's all pretty high-tech and cutting edge . +Project Manager: New ideas found , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: did we find any , no . +Industrial Designer: It was quite good with this um {disfmarker} the white board , having that and the digital pens . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Like , that's something that made it a little easier . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership , teamwork . +Marketing: {gap} we did find a new idea , I mean sort of a kinetic remote control . I've never seen one of them before . {gap} batteries , I think . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} voice recognition , especially not {gap} could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've got voice recognition computers , +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: that's not remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well it's a different application of it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's just like the same products , but just put together in a different way . +Project Manager: so how do you reckon teamwork went ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That went okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we all had separate ideas and then discussed them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To uh go uh reasonably well . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think sort of the budget um allowed us to do anything {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bit {disfmarker} bit arbitrary . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , I mean I don't think it {disfmarker} I just don't think it fitted in with the rest of their products . I mean , they've got all these sort of , you know , high definition D_V_D_ and portable seven inch d um lightweight computer screens , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh I'm thinking , do you know , one cheap remote control doesn't really fit in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we're m we're meant to comment on leadership and the means , E_ G_ whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Surely they they should produ +Project Manager: And and new i new ideas found was the the other thing . +User Interface: Well leadership's a bit of a funny one , isn't it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But we can't really all fairly comment on leadership because you are the Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You were the leader . {vocalsound} So our experience of leadership wasn't really as much as yours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , I'd much rather be in marketing {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I certainly didn't get this uh computer to work as well as I would have liked . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , um {disfmarker} Alright uh means , so whiteboard um {disfmarker} so really , it's uh equipment . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . It worked . +User Interface: Yeah , very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Comput computers could be a bit difficult at times but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I mean , I d I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure I see the value in these . I mean , they record what you're writing , and then what do you do with it ? Where do you get the recording ? Do you plug {gap} the computer or something ? +Marketing: I think there's a little there's a little um chi +Industrial Designer: So it's not just for us , it's for the experiment as a whole , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a little there's a little chip , I think you must plug it into something +Industrial Designer: Should we quickly look at the last slide ? +Marketing: and it produces a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I think you watch a video of it kind of . +Marketing: I don't know . Whether it just produces a big image of sort of everything you've written or something , and {disfmarker} Page after page . +Project Manager: Right . New ideas found , so one or two . +Marketing: Yeah . Kinetic powered remote control . Um , what was the other one ? +User Interface: Voice um recognition thing . +Marketing: Vo yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} um and uh voice +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , was it voice activated um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Voice recognition , yeah . S +Project Manager: recognition . +Marketing: Almost . +User Interface: Pretty much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To fill in these fill in these questionnaires +Project Manager: Right , so , uh are the costs within budget , +Marketing: Oh no . +Project Manager: yes . Is the project evaluated , yes . Uh , don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . Then celebration . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Is that everything ? +Marketing: Hmm ? I think that we've got two questionnaires and a report on the last meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , so we don't re So really {disfmarker} I tried to save this the last time at twelve point three , and it didn't seem to have saved anywhere . Mind you , the the figure last was was different , but it should be poss +","This transcript reveals a complex and sometimes fractured dialogue among a project team consisting of a Project Manager, Marketing representative, User Interface designer, and an Industrial Designer, who are working on the conceptualization and evaluation of a new product, specifically a television remote control for a company named Real Reaction. The conversation reflects the iterative nature of product design and the challenges of integrating various departmental perspectives and budget constraints. + +The team members are engaging in a reflective and evaluative process, discussing the prototype of a remote control that has innovative features like voice recognition, kinetic energy power, and differentiated button design including a cherry/apple-shaped button reflecting the company logo. The prototype also includes a user interface with a slight curvature, distinctive paneling, and color-coded button zones for volume and channel functions, catering to ease of use and aesthetically appealing design elements. + +Throughout the dialogue, there are mentions of transferring files, saving work, and the technical difficulties faced with computer software, indicating a reliance on digital tools for project management and design. It is implied that the discussions are taking place in a setting equipped with tech tools like digital pens and a whiteboard, which aids in their collaborative process but sometimes poses practical challenges. + +One critical aspect of the project is cost management, which prompts the team to make design compromises to meet financial targets without significantly compromising the prototype's innovative and fashionable aspects. The Project Manager meticulously checks for cost implications of various design features, highlighting the tension between creativity, functionality, and affordability. + +The conversation also touches upon copyright concerns (avoiding an apple design due to potential infringement with Apple Mac), market research (ensuring the product matches consumer expectations for innovation), and the company's corporate identity (ensuring consistency with other high-tech products by Real Reaction). + +In an ongoing evaluation of their performance and process, they discuss creativity opportunities, leadership dynamics, teamwork efficiency, usefulness of the provided digital tools, and the scope for new ideas within the constraints. The team seems to be aware that their work is being observed or recorded for the purposes of research or process improvement. + +By the end of the transcript, it is clear that the team is wrapping up their project while trying to draw conclusions on how effective their collaboration was, to what extent they met their goals, and how the tools provided facilitated their workflow. They also prepare to complete the necessary documentation, such as questionnaires and a meeting summary, with a final mention of ending the project with a celebration." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , that's not gonna work . {vocalsound} Oh , alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Um alright . +Marketing: Uh , uh , um . +Project Manager: I'll just put that there . Uh as you all know we're here to create a brand new fantastic remote . Uh I'm Nick Debusk , I'm the Project Manager . Uh we'll just get started with everyone kind of letting each other know who they are and what you're doing , what your what your role is um . Go ahead . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I am Corinne Whiting and I will be the Marketing Expert and in each of the three phases I will have a different role . In the function design phase I will be talking about user requirement specification , and this means what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , and I'll be doing research to figure this out . In the conceptual design phase I will be dealing with trend watching and I'll be doing marketing research on the web . And then finally in the um detailed design phase I will be doing product evaluation and so I will be collecting the requirements and ranking all the requirements to see how we did . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Hiya , I'm Ryan . Um I'm the User Interface Designer . Um likewise I've three different roles for each stage of design . Um the functional design is looking at the tex technical functions of a remote control . Um in the concept design , the user interface , how the user reacts with the the product . And the detailed design um {vocalsound} sort of like the user interface design , what they might be looking for , uh things like fashions , what makes wha how we're gonna make it special . That's about it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} I'm Manuel and I'm the Industrial Designer in in this project um . In the functional design phase I'm {disfmarker} I'll be dealing mostly with the requirements , um we'll discuss what the prog what functions the the product has to fulfil and so and so on . Um I suppose we'll work pretty much together on that one . Um um in the conceptual design um I'll be pro mostly dealing with properties and materials um of our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the detailed design {disfmarker} in the detailed design I'll be concerned with the look and feel of the product itself , um so we're pretty much working together obviously on the design front here . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um so we've got our opening , our our agenda is the opening , uh acquaintance which we've kinda done . Uh tool training , project plan discussion and then closing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh grand total of twenty five minutes we have here . Um so we are putting together a new remote control . Um we want it to be something original . Um of course we're a {disfmarker} not only a electronics company but a fashion um conscious electronics company , so we want it to be trendy um and we want it to be easy to use . {vocalsound} Um we've got the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design um which basically is is the three of you um . And w uh {vocalsound} well um functional design um . Um do we have {disfmarker} um any ideas of of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe d let's just throw out some ideas of what kind of remote control we want to have , and then we can go into how we're gonna design it and and how we're gonna do the detailing on it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well uh s function of remote control is just just {disfmarker} you know , change channels is its main function . +Project Manager: So we want it to be um a T_V_ remote or {disfmarker} I I mean do we want it to to do other things besides just be a a television remote ? +User Interface: Oh right . I suppose you c try make it a universal remote +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: for {disfmarker} could work on all sort of electrical products in in one person's house . But , you know , they all sorta have the same role changing channels , volumes and then programming . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think they all work on the same prin principle as well sorta like {disfmarker} I don't actually know . {gap} But is it just infra-red ? Is that standard ? +Project Manager: I I think {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , r universal remote . +User Interface: Ye yeah . +Project Manager: Um this is my first uh go-round with creating a remote control , +Marketing: Huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ours too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we're all in the same boat here . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um one thing I thought of with the remote control is you always lose 'em . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So if there's a g a way of finding it quite easily , I thought that'd be quite good quite a good feature . +Marketing: Mm . Ch +Project Manager: So we should we should set our remote control up to where it has a uh +Marketing: Like a tracking device ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: like a tracking device or or like a a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh you can get those key {disfmarker} well you could whistle or make a noise +Project Manager: It makes a noise , +User Interface: and it'd beep . +Project Manager: there's a button on the T_V_ that you press +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Be good . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Generally , all remotes are sort of quite similar in their appearance . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do we want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just long . +Project Manager: so they're kinda like long and rectangular . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we want something crazy ? +User Interface: Black usually . +Project Manager: You know , we want something new that's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lot more modern . +Project Manager: A m a modern {disfmarker} so our remote should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think so . Maybe sorta spherical or something . A ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe like user-friendly , like a little +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , where you can use both hands , like a little keyboard type thing . +User Interface: People {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I thought maybe , because people always tend to throw a remote control about the place to one another {disfmarker} if it was in a ball , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: and maybe the actual controls are inside or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well there are of course certain restrictions , you can't have it be any form and fulfil all functions at the same time , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so there are always the {disfmarker} some restrictions we have to apply here . Um however um one question is how stable is that thing supposed to be , that refers to the material , pretty much um . What are we gonna build that thing out of ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: How sturdy is it gonna be ? Do we want it to last longer or rather have people whatever , have to buy one every half a year ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} yeah , so we want it to be sturdy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want it to to hold up to somebody's child , you know , throwing it across the room or , as you said , people kinda throw it , so ball-shaped , uh you know , if it were ball-shaped maybe , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be cased on the outside and t everything could be inside . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um so we want it to be modern , fun , sturdy , um {disfmarker} So our form and our function . Um we want it to be um easy to find . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What else {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} what else do we want it to to do ? So we want it to be universal . It's something that we're supposed to sell for about twenty five Euros um and you know , goals for profits are I think somewhere around uh fifty million Euros , what they wanna make on it , so . +Marketing: Mm . Also since we're partners of the International Remote Control Association , maybe we wanna make it something that would globally appeal . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: That's more on the research end , but {disfmarker} the marketing . +Project Manager: So marketing , you know , how {disfmarker} maybe uh marketing , you could s find out what is the most universally um appealing {vocalsound} remote control out there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And maybe as far as design goes , maybe we could have different ones for different target audiences , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: 'cause maybe one won't apply to all of the countries we're targeting . +User Interface: Ye Small . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you guys have any ideas for what it should look like ? Maybe we could draw it up on the on the board over there . Some ideas ? We want it to be a b a ball , +User Interface: {gap} I'd {disfmarker} I could draw sorta the ball idea . +Project Manager: you know , we'll draw up we'll draw up the ball and maybe th um where the buttons are located . +User Interface: My original idea was just simply sort of a sphere , where maybe you {disfmarker} this is where it's connected together , and then when you open it out , it could fol it could be maybe flip , like a flip phone , and then when you fold it out the middle {disfmarker} Maybe a hinge that'll have to be the strongest part of it . If that {disfmarker} if we did use a hinge , or if it was just two parts , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you'd have just sorta you you you know , your buttons . Thing is inside I think , sometimes remotes have too many buttons , so maybe as simple as possible , um as few buttons inside as possible . Um , I dunno , what's the idea for . Just something {disfmarker} maybe if you ha if it had like if some kind of like light or something or lights around it . It's looking a bit like something out of Star Wars at the moment though , to be fair . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But yeah . +Marketing: Futuristic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was a sorta simple idea I had +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then you know you could {gap} about {disfmarker} Right , it would almost be like a ball . So that was just just an idea I had . I don't know whether anybody else has other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Right . One problem you'd get with this design is um {disfmarker} the ball is a nice idea because of it's stability really , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but of course , since it's a ball , it'll roll , so we'd have to have it flat on one side at least , down here somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe f yeah . +Industrial Designer: take away that part . That's one of the big issues . Also also you risk the hinges here . That's that's um a problem . +User Interface: Yeah , that's g that's a good idea . Yeah . The idea {disfmarker} it didn't have to necessarily be f a hinge , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's that's {vocalsound} interesting of course , +User Interface: that was just one idea though . +Industrial Designer: but that's of course a weak point , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How would we go about um making you know {disfmarker} getting rid of our weak points ? What {disfmarker} I mean would we just have a flat spot on the bottom of the ball ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not to put you on the spot , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} E No no , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: What did you say your title was again ? +Industrial Designer: N n +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You're the the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm your Industrial Designer , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so i b well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the point is that {vocalsound} well maybe {disfmarker} I dunno . The shape is perhaps not the most ideal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: As as stable as it is , there must be a compromise between um stability and design here , so . +User Interface: Well I I suppose that things become {gap} design . But I mean i +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was trying to think of like the design of others . I can't think of anything other than a long rectangle for remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: maybe small , sort of fatter ones , but there's nothing being done sort of out of left field , yeah . +Project Manager: It's not new , it's not innovative , it's {disfmarker} you know , everybody does long remote because it's easy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's stable um . +Marketing: 'Kay , I'll draw something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , go ahead . +Marketing: My idea was just to have it be kind of like a keyboard type shape , you know , like video games +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: l so . But maybe {disfmarker} I mean that would be kinda big and bulky . We could also try to do the hinge thing , so it could like flip out that way . I don't know . {vocalsound} That's my idea . +User Interface: I think definitely doing something different +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I mean maybe design something , that's sort of like {vocalsound} suppose not everybody's everybody's hand's the same , but something that would maybe fit in the hand easier . +Project Manager: Something with a grip . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , with a grip . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Because even {disfmarker} I suppose even with the ball +User Interface: It still might be hard to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it still not the ho easiest thing to hold , yeah . +Project Manager: it might not be the easiest to hold onto um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So perhaps the the joystick {disfmarker} the the keyboard idea might work better . +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But then again , people like to use one hand to flip and one hand to hold their soda , so maybe maybe we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +User Interface: It's d yeah . I think it's definitely got to be a a one-handed a one-handed job . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I feel like I'm just shooting everything down here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You're the boss , you're {vocalsound} allowed to . +Industrial Designer: Well with the one-handed design you also have the the problem of the size w 'cause you know from cell phones , they can be too small . So if the remote is too small it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: if it's small it probably looks better , but may not be th as functional . So for that there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: unfortunately we've got about five minutes here {vocalsound} to come up with our um remote control idea and start rolling with it . Um we've talked about our experiences with remote control and um we've got a couple ideas um . Let's see here . What if we had what if we had not only um {disfmarker} say we went with the ball the ball function um , but maybe we give it sort of grips along the side s um to make it easier to hold on to . So you know um s so it's easier to hold onto that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course that'll then remove some of our our ball . Unless this unless this part were raised , so say the cover flips over and covers that part . So the grip is {disfmarker} No , that wouldn't work either um . But if we're gonna make it flat on the bottom , then that eliminates our ball anyways . So if it were flat on the bottom and then had the sorta grips on the side here I guess , um and then {vocalsound} flat uh {disfmarker} And then we have the problem with the hinge . So if we're flat on the bottom , it's not gonna roll away , it'll stay where we want . +Industrial Designer: The question is also , I dunno , d do you really always want to open that thing when you have to use it ? +Project Manager: Mm , that's true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's probably going to lie around opened all the time anyway , so I don't know if a lid is a good idea . From stabil stability point of view uh it certainly is , but also you have to face it and take into account the more of these things break by accident , uh the more we sell . So it's {disfmarker} don't make it too stable {vocalsound} uh . +Project Manager: So we don't have it flip open . We just have a ball {disfmarker} +User Interface: But then maybe to go back to the to th s something along those things then . +Industrial Designer: To the other design . +Project Manager: Okay , so then we forget the ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks cool though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks cool , but it's really not {disfmarker} it's not functional um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} functional . +Project Manager: So we've got our sort of keyboard kind . What if we flipped it around here , so that it were um {disfmarker} Sorry , that doesn't look anything like what you {vocalsound} had there . Um so it's up and down , you hold it this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course then it's it's like the rectangular {vocalsound} again , only with a couple of jutting out points . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . +Project Manager: But it's one-handed um . +Industrial Designer: Question is what makes those game pads functional ? W I think that's pretty much the form for full hand . So it's a round shape underneath that makes it comfy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: makes it nice , so that's the essential part . Except for that I think we'll not {disfmarker} probably not get a get away from some longer design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you also have to know which way around to point this thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: You know , all +Project Manager: because it doesn't have a cord , like joysticks do . +Industrial Designer: that dif batteries {disfmarker} right , and {disfmarker} Batteries go weak as well , so um after a while you have to point it towards the uh towards the equipment you wanna control with it , right ? So , have to m show which is the front , which is the back . +Project Manager: Is it possible to have it to where it would work with a like a sensor on either side ? So that either way you're pointing it it would work . +Industrial Designer: I suppose you could do that . O of course the more technology you stick in that , the more it'll cost , so . +Project Manager: More expensive and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Course you can do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean of course it'll be evident after a while or {disfmarker} if you look at it , it'll it'll be evident which way around to point it , since you have the the numbers and the and the {vocalsound} the buttons and stuff , +Project Manager: True . +Industrial Designer: but um it's rather about an instinctual thing , +User Interface: Put it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like you just grab it , you don't have to s look at it , you know , which way around to point it . Otherwise the design of {disfmarker} or the the point of putting two sensors on both sides um would probably work . +User Interface: Even if you designed it {disfmarker} in some {disfmarker} in a way that you know , isn't a rectangle , but still pointed in a direction that had definite points . So if that's your thing and you got something like that instead , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and there's your s you kn you know which way you're gonna pointing it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry to interrupt , but we have a warning to finish . +Project Manager: Are we out of time ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well , just to finish up , should we s go with this plan , start making some {disfmarker} Are good ideas , what are not . +Industrial Designer: Let's . +User Interface: Does it say {disfmarker} what does it say for n +Industrial Designer: Obviously {disfmarker} +User Interface: it says on there what we need to do for the next meeting , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . Must finish now , so . +User Interface: T +Project Manager: And then marketing will look and see what uh what people want . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Okay . And Project Manager will design a better meeting for next {vocalsound} time around , be a little bit more prepared . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh alright , good meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","In a recent project meeting, a diverse team, including a Project Manager, Marketing Expert, User Interface Designer, and Industrial Designer, convened to brainstorm and conceptualize the design of a new, innovative remote control. The meeting was led by Project Manager Nick Debusk, who initiated proceedings by asking team members to introduce themselves and specify their roles and contributions for the various phases of the product's development process. + +Corinne Whiting, the Marketing Expert, outlined her responsibilities across three distinct phases. For the function design phase, she would focus on understanding user requirements, deciphering the needs and desires that the product must fulfill through research. In the conceptual design phase, she was tasked with trend watching and marketing research on the web, moving to product evaluation and requirements ranking in the detailed design phase to assess how well the product met its set goals. + +Ryan, the User Interface Designer, also had three distinct roles. During the functional design phase, he was to scrutinize the technical functions of the remote control. For the conceptual phase, his remit was how the user interacts with the product, and in the detailed design phase, his attention would extend to the particulars of user interface design, including contemporary trends and unique features which made the product stand out. + +Manuel, the Industrial Designer, had a key role in shaping the product's physical form. In the functional phase, he would work closely with the team to determine the product's essential functions. His involvement in the conceptual design phase would revolve around material properties selection, while in the detailed design phase, he was responsible for crafting the product's look and feel. + +The group engaged in an amiable discussion to delineate the desired features of the new remote control, aiming for something original that combined fashion-conscious aesthetics with easy functionality. An idea for a universal remote control suitable for various household devices was proposed, with considerations about employing infrared technology or another universal standard. + +The discussion also highlighted the need for the remote to be user-friendly and easily locatable, leading to the suggestion that it could have a tracking feature to find it when misplaced, possibly by emitting a beeping sound when prompted by a button on the TV. + +The team pondered over the universal design challenges remote controls face, acknowledging the ubiquitous long rectangular form factor which doesn't stand out in the market. They deliberated on making the remote more distinctive and modern, with ideas ranging from ball-shaped designs which could roll—therefore minimizing chances of loss—to designs integrating a flat base to prevent rolling, possibly with grips to improve handling. + +As the discussion became more dynamic, concerns about size and stability were raised, given market expectations for robustness versus the frequency of replacement purchases which could impact the product's life span and, consequently, sales. A variety of shapes were weighed, from grip-like forms for single-handed usage to a fold-out design similar to a flip phone, aiming to balance between comfort in hand, stability, and trend-setting design. + +Time constriction became an issue, pressing the team to quickly converge ideas toward a practical and visual-forward design solution while considering cost implications and user experience. The idea of embedding sensors on both sides of the remote for easier functionality, irrespective of which way it was pointed, was also discussed. + +The meeting concluded there had to be a balance between durability, cost-effectiveness, and a design that could appeal to an international audience, acknowledging the partnership with the International Remote Control Association. Corinne from Marketing was tasked to research the most universally appealing remote design to cater to the global market, considering different designs for various demographics. + +Despite the ticking clock and the rapid exchange of ideas, the meeting ended on an optimistic note, with the team agreeing to refine and revisit their initial concepts in the next session. Nick also self-reflected on the need for enhanced preparation to steer future meetings more effectively." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: And we already got the crash out of the way . It did crash , so I feel much better , earlier . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Will you get the door , and {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: OK , so um . +Professor F: OK . You collected an agenda , huh ? +Grad D: I did collect an agenda . So I 'm gonna go first . Mwa - ha - ha ! It shouldn't take too long . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , so we 're pretty much out of digits . We 've gone once through the set . Um , so the only thing I have to do +Professor F: No there 's only ten . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's right . so I {disfmarker} I just have to go through them +Professor F: Well , OK . +Grad D: and uh pick out the ones that have problems , and either correct them or have them re - read . So we probably have like four or five more forms to be read , to be once through the set . I 've also extracted out about an hour 's worth . We have about two hours worth . I extracted out about an hour 's worth which are the f digits with {disfmarker} for which whose speaker have speaker forms , have filled out speaker forms . Not everyone 's filled out a speaker form . So I extracted one for speakers who have speaker forms and for meetings in which the "" key "" file and the transcript files are parsable . Some of the early key files , it looks like , were done by hand , and so they 're not automatically parsable and I have to go back and fix those . So what that means is we have about an hour of transcribed digits that we can play with . Um , Liz {disfmarker} +Professor F: So you think two {disfmarker} you think two hours is the {disfmarker} is the total that we have ? +Grad D: Yep , yeah . +Professor F: And you think we th uh , I {disfmarker} I didn't quite catch all these different things that are not quite right , but you think we 'll be able to retrieve the other hour , reasonably ? +Grad D: Yes , absolutely . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: So it 's just a question of a little hand - editing of some files and then waiting for more people to turn in their speaker forms . I have this web - based speaker form , and I sent mail to everyone who hadn't filled out a speaker form , and they 're slowly s trickling in . +Professor F: So the relevance of the speaker form here , s +Grad D: It 's for labeling the extracted audio files . +Professor F: Oh , OK . +Grad D: By speaker ID and microphone type . +Professor F: Wasn't like whether they were giving us permission to use their digits or something . +Grad D: No , I spoke with Jane about that and we sort of decided that it 's probably not an issue that {disfmarker} We edit out any of the errors anyway . Right ? So the there are no errors in the digits , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: you 'll always read the string correctly . So I can't imagine why anyone would care . So the other topic with digits is uh , Liz would like to elicit different prosodics , and so we tried last week with them written out in English . And it just didn't work at all because no one grouped them together . So it just sounded like many many more lines instead of anything else . So in conversations with Liz and uh Jane we decided that if you wrote them out as numbers instead of words it would elicit more phone number , social security number - like readings . The problem with that is it becomes numbers instead of digits . When I look at this , that first line is "" sixty one , sixty two , eighteen , eighty six , ten . "" Um , and so the question is does anyone care ? Um , I 've already spoken with Liz and she feels that , correct me if I 'm wrong , that for her , connected numbers is fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: as opposed to connected digits . Um , I think two hours is probably fine for a test set , but it may be a little short if we actually wanna do training and adaptation and all that other stuff . +Professor F: Yeah Um , do um you want different prosodics , so if you always had the same groupings you wouldn't like that ? Is that correct ? +PhD G: Well , we actually figured out a way to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD G: the {disfmarker} the groupings are randomly generated . +Professor F: No but , I was asking if that was something you really cared about because if it wasn't , it seems to me if you made it really specifically telephone groupings that maybe people wouldn't , uh , go and do numbers so much . You know if it if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I think they may still do it , um , +Professor F: Maybe some , but I probably not so much . +PhD B: What about putting a hyphen between the numbers in the group ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right ? So if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have uh +Grad D: Six dash one , you mean ? +Professor F: if you go six six six uh dash uh two nine three one . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} well OK {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it might help , I would like to g get away from having only one specific grouping . +Professor F: That 's what I was asking , yeah . +PhD G: Um , so if that 's your question , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but I mean it seems to me that , at least for us , we can learn to read them as digits +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: if that 's what people want . I {disfmarker} I 'm +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: don't think that 'd be that hard to read them as single digits . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Um , and it seems like that might be better for you guys since then you 'll have just more digit data , +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: and that 's always a good thing . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: It 's a little bit better for me too because the digits are easier to recognize . They 're better trained than the numbers . +Grad D: So we could just , uh , put in the instructions "" read them as digits "" . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Right . Right , read them as single digits , so sixty - one w is read as six one , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and if people make a mistake we {disfmarker} +Grad D: How about "" O "" versus "" zero "" ? +Professor F: I mean , the other thing is we could just bag it because it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's - I 'm not worrying about it I mean , because we do have digits training data that we have from uh from OGI . I 'm sorry , digits {disfmarker} numbers training that we have from OGI , we 've done lots and lots of studies with that . And um . +PhD G: But it 's nice to get it in this room with the acous +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , no , I guess what I 'm saying is that +Grad D: Just let them read it how they read it . +Professor F: to some extent maybe we could just read them {disfmarker} have them read how {disfmarker} how they read it and it just means that we have to expand our {disfmarker} our vocabulary out to stuff that we already have . +PhD G: Right . Well that 's fine with me as long as {disfmarker} It 's just that I didn't want to cause the people who would have been collecting digits the other way to not have the digits . +Professor F: Yeah . We can go back to the other thing later . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean we s we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} We can do this for awhile +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: and then go back to digits for awhile , or um . Do yo I mean , do you want {disfmarker} do you want this {disfmarker} Do you need training data or adaptation data out of this ? +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: How much of this do you need ? with uh the {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's actually unclear right now . I just thought well we 're {disfmarker} if we 're collec collecting digits , and Adam had said we were running out of the TI forms , I thought it 'd be nice to have them in groups , and probably , all else being equal , it 'd be better for me to just have single digits +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: since it 's , you know , a recognizer 's gonna do better on those anyway , um , and it 's more predictable . So we can know from the transcript what the person said and the transcriber , in general . +Professor F: OK , well if you pre +PhD G: But if they make mistakes , it 's no big deal if the people say a hundred instead of "" one OO "" . and also w maybe we can just let them choose "" zero "" versus "" O "" as they {disfmarker} as they like because even the same person c sometimes says "" O "" and sometimes says "" zero "" in different context , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and that 's sort of interesting . So I don't have a Specific need cuz if I did I 'd probably try to collect it , you know , without bothering this group , but If we can try it {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK so {disfmarker} so I can just add to the instructions to read it as digits not as connected numbers . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right , and you can give an example like , you know , "" six {disfmarker} sixty - one would be read as six one "" . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . And i actually it 's no more artificial than what we 've been doing with words . +PhD G: And I think people will get it . +Postdoc E: I 'm sure people can adapt to this , read it single . +PhD G: Right , right . +Postdoc E: The spaces already bias it toward being separated . +PhD G: It 's just easier to read . +Postdoc E: And I know I 'm gonna find this easier than words . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: Oh yeah , absolutely , cognitively it 's much easier . +PhD G: OK I also had a hard {disfmarker} hard time with the words , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but then we went back and forth on that . OK , so let 's give that a try +Grad D: OK . And is the spacing alright or do you think there should be more space between digits and groups ? +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or is that alright ? +PhD G: I mean what do other people think cuz you guys are reading {comment} them . +Postdoc E: I think that i it 's fine . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: I it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to me it looks like you 've got the func the idea of grouping and you have the grou the idea of separation +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: and , you know , it 's just a matter of u i the instructions , that 's all . +PhD G: Great . OK . +Grad D: And I think there are about ten different gouping patterns +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: Well let 's give it a try . +Grad D: isn't that right , Liz ? That we did . +PhD G: Righ - right , and you just {disfmarker} they 're randomly {nonvocalsound} generated and randomly assigned to digits . +Postdoc E: I did {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So we have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Go ahead . +Professor F: Sorry , I {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , so we have in the vicinity of forty hours of {disfmarker} of recordings now . And you 're saying two hours , uh , is digits , so that 's roughly the ratio then , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: something like twenty {disfmarker} twenty to one . Which I guess makes {disfmarker} makes sense . So if we did another forty hours of recordings then we could get another couple hours of this . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Um , yeah like you say , I think a couple hours for a {disfmarker} for a {disfmarker} for a test {disfmarker} test set 's OK . It 'd be nice to get , you know , more later because we 'll {disfmarker} we might use {disfmarker} use this up , uh , in some sense , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , I also would like to argue for that cuz it {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , there 's a real strength in having the same test replicated in {disfmarker} a whole bunch of times and adding to that basic test bank . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Hmm ? Cuz then you have , you know , more and more , u chances to get away from random errors . And I think , um , the other thing too is that right now we have sort of a stratified sample with reference to dialect groups , and it might be {disfmarker} there might be an argument to be made for having uh f for replicating all of the digits that we 've done , which were done by non - native speakers so that we have a core that totally replicates the original data set , which is totally American speakers , and then we have these stratified additional language groups overlapping certain aspects of the database . +Grad D: Right . I think that uh trying to duplicate , spending too much effort trying to duplicate the existing TI - digits probably isn't too worthwhile because the recording situation is so different . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's gonna be very hard to be comparable . +Postdoc E: Except that if you have the stimuli {pause} comparable , then it says something about the {disfmarker} the contribution of setting +Professor F: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the same . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: A little bit , but the other differences are so major . +Grad D: Yeah I mean read versus not . +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: They 're such major sources of variance that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: What 's an example of a {disfmarker} of m some of the other differences ? Any other a difference ? +Professor F: Well i i individual human glottis {vocalsound} is going to be different for each one , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: you know , it 's just {disfmarker} There 's so many things . +Grad D: Well , and not just that , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and enunciation . +Grad D: I mean the uh the corpus itself . I mean , we 're collecting it in a read digit in a particular list , and I 'm sure that they 're doing more specific stuff . I mean if I remember correctly it was like postman reading zipcodes and things like that . +Professor F: TI - digits was ? +Grad D: I thought so . +Professor F: I thought {disfmarker} I thought it was read . +Grad D: Was it read ? +Professor F: Yeah , I think the reading zipcode stuff you 're thinking of would be OGI . +Grad D: Oh , I may well be . +Professor F: Yeah , no TI - digits was read in th in read in the studio I believe . +Grad D: I haven't ever listened to TI - digits . So I don't really know how it compares . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} but regardless it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's hard to compare cross - corpus . +Professor F: But it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} It - it 's different people {pause} is the {disfmarker} is the core thing . +Grad D: So . +Postdoc E: OK , fine . +Professor F: And they 're different circumstances with different recording environment and so forth , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really pretty different . But I think the idea of using a set thing was just to give you some sort of framework , so that even though you couldn't do exact comparisons , it wouldn't be s valid scientifically at least it 'd give you some kind of uh frame of reference . Uh , you know it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Liz , What {disfmarker} what do the groupings represent ? +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: You said there 's like ten different groupings ? +PhD G: Right , just groupings in terms of number of groups in a line , and number of digits in a group , and the pattern of groupings . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Are the patterns {disfmarker} like are they based on anything or +PhD G: Um , I {disfmarker} I just roughly looked at what kinds of digit strings are out there , and they 're usually grouped into either two , three , or four , four digits at a time . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD G: And they can have , I mean , actually , things are getting longer and longer . In the old days you probably only had three sequences , and telephone numbers were less , and so forth . So , there 's between , um {disfmarker} Well if you look at it , there are between like three and five groups , and each one has between two and four groupings and {disfmarker} I purposely didn't want them to look like they were in any kind of pattern . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD G: So +Grad D: And which group appears is picked randomly , and what the numbers are are picked randomly . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So unlike the previous one , which I d simply replicated TI - digits , this is generated randomly . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Oh OK . +PhD B: Mmm , oh , OK . +PhD G: But I think it 'd be great i to be able to compare digits , whether it 's these digits or TI - digits , to speakers , um , and compare that to their spontaneous speech , and then we do need you know a fair amount of {disfmarker} of digit data because you might be wearing a different microphone +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and , I mean {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the digits you know , replicated many times . Especially for speakers that don't talk a lot . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: So {vocalsound} um , for adaptation . No , I 'm serious , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah all we have for some people is digits . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: so we have a problem with acoustic adaptation , and we 're not using the digit data now , but you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , you 're not . +PhD G: Not for adaptation , nope . v W we 're not {disfmarker} we were running adaptation only on the data that we ran recognition on and I 'd {disfmarker} As soon as someone started to read transcript number , that 's read speech and I thought "" well , we 're gonna do better on that , +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: that 's not fair to use "" . +Grad D: Oh yeah that 's true , absolutely . +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: But , it might be fair to use the data for adaptation , so . So those speakers who are very quiet , {comment} shy {disfmarker} +Grad D: That would be interesting to see whether that helps . +PhD G: r Right {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like Adam ? +Grad D: Do you think that would help adapting on {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , I have a real problem with that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , it sh I mean it 's the same micropho see the nice thing is we have that in the {disfmarker} in the same meeting , +Grad D: Right . Same {disfmarker} same acoustics , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and so you don't get {disfmarker} +Grad D: same microphone , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: same channel . +PhD G: Right , and so I still like the idea of having some kind of {pause} digit data . +Grad D: OK . Good . +Professor F: Yeah I mean , for the {disfmarker} for the um acoustic research , for the signal - processing , farfield stuff , I see it as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as the place that we start . But , th I mean , it 'd be nice to have twenty hours of digits data , but {disfmarker} but uh the truth is I 'm hoping that we {disfmarker} we through the {disfmarker} the stuff that {disfmarker} that you guys have been doing as you continue that , we get , uh , the best we can do on the spontaneous stuff uh , uh nearfield , and then um , we do a lot of the testing of the algorithms on the digits for the farfield , and at some point when we feel it 's mature and we understand what 's going on with it then we {disfmarker} we have to move on to the spontaneous data with the farfield . So . +Postdoc E: Great . +PhD G: The only thing that we don't have , I know this sounds weird , and maybe it 's completely stupid , but we don't have any overlapping digits . +Grad D: Yeah , we talked about that a couple times . +PhD G: An - yea I know it 's weird , but um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Overlapping digits ! +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the problem I see with trying to do overlapping digits is the cognitive load . +PhD G: Alright everybody 's laughing . OK . +Grad C: Dueling digits . +Grad D: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not stupid , it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , try to do it . +PhD G: I 'm just talkin for the stuff that like Dan Ellis is gonna try , +Grad D: I mean , here , let 's try it . +PhD G: you know , cross - talk cancellation . +Grad D: You read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD G: Wait {disfmarker} oh it {disfmarker} these are all the same forms . +Professor F: Sixty - one . +PhD G: OK {comment} So but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so you read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: No , I 'll p +PhD G: So you plu you plug your ears . +Grad D: Oh I guess if you plug you 're ears you could do it , but then you don't get the {disfmarker} the same effects . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , what I mean is actually no not the overlaps that are well - governed linguistically , but the actual fact that there is speech coming from two people +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: and the beam - forming stuf all the acoustic stuff that like Dan Ellis and {disfmarker} and company want to do . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: Digits are nice and well behaved , I mean +Grad D: I guess we could try . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Grad D: We could try doing some . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it would go faster . +PhD B: Parallel . +PhD G: It would take one around {comment} amount of ti +PhD B: It 's the P - make of digit reading . +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} Well OK . Well let 's try it . +PhD G: That 's right . I {disfmarker} I mea I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of serious , but I really , I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't feel strongly enough that it 's a good idea , +Professor F: See , y +Grad D: You do the last line , I 'll do the first line . +PhD G: so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: O . {comment} That 's not bad . +Professor F: No , I can do it . +PhD B: I couldn't understand a single thing you guys were saying . +PhD G: A and that prosody was great , by the way . +Postdoc E: I think it was numbers , but I 'm not sure . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it sort of sounded like a duet , or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Performance art . +Professor F: Alright , let 's try three at once you {disfmarker} you pick one in the middle . +PhD A: The Aurora theater . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Go . +PhD G: I 'm sorry . I 'm mean I think it 's doable , +Grad D: The poor transcribers +PhD G: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: they 're gonna hate us . +PhD G: So , we {disfmarker} we could have a round like where you do two at a time , and then the next person picks up when the first guy 's done , or something . +PhD A: So pairwise . +Professor F: Oh like a round , yeah , like in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD G: Like a , +PhD A: Yeah , just pairwise , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: what do you call it ? +PhD A: or yeah . +Grad C: Round . +Grad D: A round . +Professor F: Row , row , row your boat . +PhD G: Li - a r like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah , like that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD B: It 's gonna require some coordination . +PhD G: Then it would go like h twice as fast , or {pause} a third as fast . +Postdoc E: You have to have a similar pace . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm actually sort of serious if it would help people do that kind o but the people who wanna work on it we should talk to them . +Professor F: I don't think we 're gonna collect vast amounts of data that way , +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: but I think having a little bit might at least be fun for somebody like Dan to play around with , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I think maybe if we wanted to do that we would do it as a separate session , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: something like that rather than doing it during a real meeting and you know , do two people at a time then three people at a time and things like that . So . +PhD G: Can try it out . +Grad D: See {disfmarker} see what Dan thinks . +PhD G: If we have nothing {disfmarker} if we have no agenda we could do it some week . +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . Spend the whole time reading digits with different qu quantities . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I thought this was gonna be fast . +Postdoc E: c c Can I can I have an another {disfmarker} another question w about this ? +Grad D: Oh well . +Postdoc E: So , um , there are these digits , which are detached digits , but there are other words that contain the same general phon phoneme sequences . Like "" wonderful "" has "" one "" in it and {disfmarker} and Victor Borge had a {disfmarker} had a piece on this where he inflated the digits . Well , I wonder if there 's , um , an if there would be a value in having digits that are in essence embedded in real words to compare in terms of like the articulation of "" one "" in "" wonderful "" versus "" one "" as a digit being read . +Professor F: That 's "" two "" bad . Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm all "" four "" it . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad D: Not after I "" eight "" though . +Professor F: Uh , they don't all work as well , do they ? Hmm . What does nine work in ? +Grad C: Nein ! +Grad D: Uh . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad C: You scream it . +Grad D: Nein ! You have to be German , +Professor F: Oh . In German , +PhD A: That 's German , yeah . +PhD B: It 's great for the Germans . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: Oh , oh ! +Postdoc E: Nein . +Professor F: That 's right ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh ! +Grad C: It only sounds w good when you scream it , though . So . +Professor F: I think everybody 's a little punchy here {vocalsound} today . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , I just wanted to offer that as a possible task +Professor F: Yes . +Postdoc E: because , you know , if we were to each read his embedded numbers words in sent in sentences cuz it 's like an entire sketch he does and I wouldn't take the inflated version . So he talks about the woman being "" two - derful "" , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a But , you know , if it were to be deflated , just the normal word , it would be like a little story that we could read . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I don't know if it would be useful for comparison , but it 's embedded numbers . +Grad D: I think for something like that we 'd be better off doing like uh TIMIT . +Professor F: Well I don't know . Well I think the question is what the research is , so I mean , I presume that the reason that you wanted to have these digits this way is because you wanted to actually do some research looking at the prosodic form here . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah OK . +PhD G: Right , yeah . +Professor F: So if somebody wanted to do that , if they wanted to look at the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the difference of the uh phones in the digits in the context of a word versus uh the digits {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non - digit word versus in digit word , uh that would be a good thing to do , but I think someone would have to express interest in that . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Professor F: I think , to {disfmarker} I mean if you were interested in it then we could do it , for instance . +Postdoc E: OK , thank you . +Grad D: OK , are we done with digits ? +Postdoc E: Huh . +Grad D: Um , We have ASR results from Liz , transcript status from Jane , and disk space and storage formats from Don . Does {disfmarker} do we have any prefer preference on which way we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna go ? +PhD G: Well I was actually gonna skip the ASR results part , in favor of getting the transcription stuff talked about +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: since I think that 's more important to moving forward , but I mean Morgan has this paper copy and if people have questions , um , it 's pretty preliminary in terms of ASR results because we didn't do anything fancy , but I think e just having the results there , and pointing out some main conclusions like it 's not the speaking style that differs , it 's the fact that there 's overlap that causes recognition errors . And then , the fact that it 's almost all insertion errors , which you would expect but you might also think that in the overlapped regions you would get substitutions and so forth , um , leads us to believe that doing a better segmentation , like your channel - based segmentation , or some kind of uh , echo cancellation to get basically back down to the individual speaker utterances would be probably all that we would need to be able to do good recognition on the {disfmarker} on the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: So these {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , why don't you , if you have a hard copy , why don't you email it to the list . +PhD G: So , that 's about the summary {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} Morgan has this paper . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: Oh it 's in the paper . +Professor F: Yeah , so it 's the same thing ? +PhD G: I mean he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} +Professor F: It 's the same thing I mailed to every everybody that w where it was , +PhD G: it {disfmarker} it 's that paper . +Grad D: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: OK then , it 's already been mailed . +PhD G: So , we basically , um , did a lot of work on that +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} Let 's see , th I guess the other neat thing is it shows for sure w that the lapel , you know within speaker is bad . +Grad D: Horrible ? +PhD G: And it 's bad because it picks up the overlapping speech . +PhD A: So , your {disfmarker} your ASR results were run on the channels synchronized , +PhD G: Yes , cuz that 's all that w had been transcribed at the time , +PhD A: OK . OK . OK . +PhD G: um but as we {disfmarker} I mean I wanted to here more about the transcription . If we can get the channel asynchronous or the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: the closer t that would be very interesting for us +PhD B: So if {disfmarker} +PhD G: because we {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's why I only used the part from use +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: which we had uh about uh about the alt over all the channels +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah sure . Yeah . +Professor F: or mixed channel +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: rather mixed signal . +PhD B: So if there was a segment of speech this long +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: and oh and someone said "" oh , "" the whole thing was passed to the recognizer ? +Grad D: And someone said "" oh "" in the front {disfmarker} in the middle . +PhD A: There were several speakers in it , yeah . +PhD G: That 's right . In fact I {disfmarker} I pulled out a couple classic examples in case you wanna u use them in your talk of +PhD B: That 's why there 's so many insertion errors ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Chuck on the lapel , so Chuck wore the lapel three out of four times . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: I noticed that Chuck was wearing the lapel a lot . +PhD B: Early on , yeah . +PhD G: Um , yeah , and I wore the lapel once , and for me the lapel was OK . I mean I still {disfmarker} and I don't know why . I 'm {disfmarker} But um , +Grad D: Probably how you wear it {disfmarker} wore it I would guess . +PhD G: for you it was {disfmarker} Or who was next to me or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah , where you were sitting probably affected it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right , but when Chuck wore the lapel and Morgan was talking there 're a couple really long utterances where Chuck is saying a few things inside , and it 's picking up all of Morgan 's words pretty well and so the rec you know , there 're error rates because of insertion {disfmarker} Insertions aren't bounded , so with a one - word utterance and ten insertions you know you got huge error rate . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the problems come in . So I this is sort of what we expected , but it 's nice to be able to {disfmarker} to show it . +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: And also I just wanted to mention briefly that , um , uh Andreas and I called up Dan Ellis who 's still stuck in Switzerland , and we were gonna ask him if {disfmarker} if there 're {disfmarker} you know , what 's out there in terms of echo cancellation and things like that . Not that we were gonna do it , but we wanted to know what would need to be done . +Grad D: And he said , "" Lots lots lots lots . "" +PhD G: And he {disfmarker} We 've given him the data we have so far , so these sychronous cases where there are overlap . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD G: And he 's gonna look into trying to run some things that are out there and see how well it can do +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: because right now we 're not able to actually report on recognition in a real paper , like a Eurospeech paper , because it would look sort of premature . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So the idea is that you would take this big hunk where somebody 's only speaking a small amount in it , and then try to figure out where they 're speaking {comment} based on the other peopl +PhD G: Right . Or who 's {disfmarker} At any point in time who 's the foreground speaker , who 's the background speaker . +PhD A: So yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I thought we were just gonna move the boundaries in . +PhD A: Yeah , should it {disfmarker} +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Well that 's with the hand stuff . +PhD G: So there 's like {disfmarker} +Grad D: But how would you do that automatically ? +PhD G: Well ther there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , I 've actually done some experiments with cross - correlation +PhD B: Right . +PhD A: and it seems to work pretty well to {disfmarker} to get rid of those {disfmarker} those overlaps , +Grad D: I mean that that 's the sort of thing that you would do . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad D: So . +PhD G: Yeah . Exactly , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So why do you want to do echo cancellation ? +PhD G: Um , it would be techniques used from adaptive {disfmarker} adaptive echo cancellation which I don't know enough about to talk about . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Professor F: It {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} it just to r to remove cross - talk . +PhD G: Um . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: But , right , um , and that would be similar to what you 're also trying to do , but using um , you know , more than energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I don't know what exactly would go into it . +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +PhD B: So it would be {disfmarker} +PhD G: So the idea is to basically run this on the whole meeting . and get the locations , which gives you also the time boundaries of the individual speak +PhD B: OK . So do sort of what he 's already {disfmarker} what he 's trying to do . +PhD G: Right . Except that there are many techniques for the kinds of cues , um , that you can use to do that . +PhD A: Yeah , in another way , +PhD B: OK , I s I see . +PhD A: yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Professor F: Yeah , Dave {disfmarker} Dave uh is , um , also gonna be doin usin playing around with echo cancellation for the nearfield farfield stuff , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: so we 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I guess Espen ? This {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} is he here too ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: May also be working {disfmarker} So it would just be ver that 's really the next step because we can't do too much , you know , on term in terms of recognition results knowing that this is a big problem +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , until we can do that kind of processing . And so , once we have some {disfmarker} some of yours , +PhD A: OK . Yeah I 'm working on it . +PhD G: and @ @ we 'll move on . +PhD B: I think this also ties into one of the things that Jane is gonna talk about too . +Grad D: Um , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I also wanted to say I have done all this chopping up of digits , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I have some naming conventions that we should try to agree on . So let 's do that off - line , +PhD G: Oh right . +Grad D: we don't need to do it during the meeting . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Right . Definitely {disfmarker} +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and I have scripts that will extract it out from "" key "" files +PhD G: Uh , and Don should {disfmarker} +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and do all the naming automatically , +PhD G: OK . +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: so you don't have to do it by hand . +PhD G: Great . +Grad C: You 've compiled the list of , uh , speaker names ? +PhD G: So that that 's it for the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Speakers and {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Not names , but I Ds . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah , names {disfmarker} names in the {disfmarker} names to I Ds , +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: so you +PhD G: Great . +Grad D: and it does all sorts of matches because the way people filled out names is different on every single file so it does a very fuzzy sort of match . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD G: So at this point we can sort of finalize the naming , and so forth , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: and we 're gonna basically re rewrite out these waveforms that we did because as you notice in the paper your "" M O in one meeting and "" M O - two "" in another meeting and it 's {disfmarker} we just need to standardize the +Grad C: Yeah . That was my fault . +PhD G: um , no it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , I didn't notice that actually . +PhD G: um , that 's why those comments are s {vocalsound} are in there . +Grad C: Yeah . Then disregard it then . +Grad D: Yep . So th I now have a script that you can just say basically look up Morgan , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . OK . +Grad D: and it will give you his ID . +PhD G: Great , great . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Um , +PhD G: Terrific . +Grad D: alright . Do we {disfmarker} Don , you had disk space and storage formats . Is that something we need to talk about at the meeting , or should you just talk with Chuck at some other time ? +Grad C: Um , I had some general questions just about the compression algorithms of shortening waveforms and I don't know exactly who to ask . I thought that maybe you would be the {disfmarker} the person to talk to . So , is it a lossless compression {comment} when you compress , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Entropy coding . +Grad C: It just uses entropy coding ? +Grad D: So . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess my question would be is I just got this new eighteen gig drive installed . Um , yeah , which is {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I assume half of it is scratch and half of it is {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I 'm not exactly sure how they partitioned it . +Grad D: Probably , yeah . +Grad C: But um , +Professor F: That 's typical , huh . +Grad C: yeah , I don't know what 's typical here , but um , it 's local though , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: That doesn't matter . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can access it from anywhere in ICSI . N {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Alright . How do you do that ? +Professor F: In fact , this is an eighteen gig drive , {comment} or is it a thirty six gig drive with eighteen {disfmarker} +Grad D: N {disfmarker} +Grad C: Eighteen . +PhD G: Eigh - eighteen . It was a spare that Dave had around {disfmarker} +Grad D: Slash N slash machine name , slash X A in all likelihood . +Professor F: Oh OK . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . Alright , I did know that . +Grad D: Um , so the {disfmarker} the only question is how much of it {disfmarker} The distinction between scratch and non - scratch is whether it 's backed up or not . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad D: So what you wanna do is use the scratch for stuff that you can regenerate . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So , the stuff that isn't backed up is not a big deal because disks don't crash very frequently , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: as long as you can regenerate it . +Grad C: Right . I mean all of this stuff can be regenerated , +PhD G: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: it 's just a question {disfmarker} +Grad D: Then put it all on scratch +PhD G: Well the {disfmarker} +Grad D: because we 're {disfmarker} ICSI is {disfmarker} is bottlenecked by backup . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , very good point . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So we wanna put {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I 'd leave all the {disfmarker} All the transcript stuff shouldn't {disfmarker} should be backed up , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but all the waveform {disfmarker} {comment} Sound files should not be backed up , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: the ones that you write out . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess th the other question was then , should we shorten them , downsample them , or keep them in their original form ? Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: It just depends on your tools . I mean , because it 's not backed up and it 's just on scratch , if your sc tools can't take shortened format , I would leave them expanded , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so you don't have to unshorten them every single time you wanna do anything . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: We can downsample them , +Grad C: Do you think that 'd be OK ? +PhD G: so . +Grad C: To downsample them ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , we get the same performance . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: I mean the r the front - end on the SRI recognizer just downsamples them on the fly , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess the only argument against downsampling is to preserve just the original files in case we want to experiment with different filtering techniques . +PhD G: so {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , if +Professor F: Yeah , l I mean over all our data , we {disfmarker} we want to not downsample . +PhD G: fe You 'd {disfmarker} you wanna not . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So we 're {disfmarker} what we 're doing is we 're writing out {disfmarker} I mean , this is just a question . We 're writing out these individual segments , that wherever there 's a time boundary from Thilo , or {disfmarker} or Jane 's transcribers , you know , we {disfmarker} we chop it {pause} there . +Professor F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And the reason is so that we can feed it to the recognizer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and throw out ones that we 're not using and so forth . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And those are the ones that we 're storing . +Grad D: Yeah , as I said , since that 's {disfmarker} it 's regeneratable , what I would do is take {disfmarker} downsample it , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: and compress it however you 're e the SRI recognizer wants to take it in . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: ye +PhD G: So we can't shorten them , +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: but we can downsample them . +Professor F: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I 'm sorry . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: As {disfmarker} yeah , as long as there is a {disfmarker} a form that we can come from again , that is not downsampled , {comment} then , +Grad C: r Yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah th +Grad C: Yeah those are gonna be kept . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's why we need more disk space +Professor F: uuu +PhD G: cuz we 're basically duplicating the originals , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Then it 's fine . But for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} fu future research we 'll be doing it with different microphone positions and so on +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: No . We always have the original long ones . +Professor F: we would like to {disfmarker} +PhD B: So the SRI front - end won't take a uh {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a large audio file name and then a {disfmarker} a list of segments to chop out {comment} from that large audio file ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: They actually have to be chopped out already ? +PhD G: Um , it 's better if they 're chopped out , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it will be {disfmarker} yeah , y we could probably write something to do that , but it 's actually convenient to have them chopped out cuz you can run them , you know , in different orders . You c you can actually move them around . +Grad D: And that 's the whole point about the naming conventions +PhD G: Uh , you can get rid of +Grad D: is that you could run all the English speaking , +PhD G: Yeah , it it 's a lot faster . +Grad D: all the native speakers , and all the non - native speakers , +PhD G: Right . You can grab everything with the word "" the "" in it , +Grad D: and all the men , and all the women . Yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} That 's a lot quicker than actually trying to access the wavefile each time , find the time boundaries and {disfmarker} So in principle , yeah , you could do that , +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's really right . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} but it 's um {disfmarker} +Grad D: "" That 's just not right , man . "" The {disfmarker} the point {disfmarker} +PhD G: These are long {disfmarker} These are long {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so s For example , what if you wanted to run {disfmarker} run all the native speakers . +PhD G: You know . This is an hour of speech . +Grad D: Right , so if {disfmarker} if you did it that way you would have to generate a program that looks in the database somewhere , extracts out the language , finds the time - marks for that particular one , do it that way . The way they 're doing it , you have that already extracted and it 's embedded in the file name . And so , you know , you just say {disfmarker} +PhD G: We - yeah that 's {disfmarker} so that 's part of it +Grad D: y so you just say you know "" asterisk E asterisk dot wave "" , and you get what you want . +PhD G: is {disfmarker} Right . And the other part is just that once they 're written out it {disfmarker} it is a lot faster to {disfmarker} to process them . +Grad D: Rather than doing seeks through the file . +PhD G: So . Otherwise , you 're just accessing {disfmarker} +Grad D: This is all just temporary access , so I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} it 's all just {disfmarker} It 's fine . You know . Fine to do it however is convenient . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: I mean it just depends how big the file is . If the file sits in memory you can do extremely fast seeks +PhD G: Right . The other thing is that , believe it or not {disfmarker} I mean , we have some {disfmarker} +Professor F: but . +Grad D: Yeah and they don't . Two gig ? +PhD G: So we 're also looking at these in Waves like for the alignments and so forth . You can't load an hour of speech into X Waves . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: You need to s have these small files , and in fact , even for the Transcriber program Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yes you can . +PhD B: Yeah , you {disfmarker} you can give Waves a start and an end time . And middle . +PhD G: Yeah , if you try to load s really long waveform into X Waves , you 'll be waiting there for {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I {disfmarker} I 'm not suggesting you load a long wave file , +PhD G: Oh +PhD B: I 'm just saying you give it a start and an end time . And it 'll just go and pull out that section . +Grad D: I th w The transcribers didn't have any problem with that did they Jane ? +Postdoc E: What 's th u w in what respect ? +PhD G: Loading the long {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , with the Transcriber tool , it 's no problem . +Grad D: They loaded {disfmarker} they loaded the long long files into X Waves . +PhD G: It takes a very long ti +PhD A: Yeah just to load a transcription +Postdoc E: In the {disfmarker} in Mm - hmm . +PhD A: +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: takes a long time , +PhD G: It takes a l very long time . +PhD A: but not for the wavefile . The wavefile is there immediately . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: Are you talking about Transcriber or X Waves ? +PhD G: Huh . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , I 'm tr talking about Transcriber . +PhD G: Actually , you 're talking about Transcriber , right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} because i we used X Waves to do the digits . +Postdoc E: It was also true of the digits task which was X Waves . +Grad D: And they were loading the full mixed files then , +Postdoc E: Yeah . Very quickly . +Grad D: and it didn't seem to be any problem . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Huh . Well we {disfmarker} we have a problem with that , you know , time - wise on a {disfmarker} It - it 's a lot slower to load in a long file , +Grad D: Hmm . Seemed really fast . +PhD G: and also to check the file , so if you have a transcript , um , +Grad D: Well regardless , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think overall you could get everything to work by accessing the same waveform and trying to find two {disfmarker} you know , the begin and end times . Um , but I think it 's more efficient , if we have the storage space , to have the small ones . +Grad D: and , it 's no problem , right ? +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Because it 's not backed up . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: So we just {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad D: If we don't have a spare disk sitting around we go out and we buy ourselves an eighty gigabyte drive and make it all scratch space . You know , it 's not a big deal . +Postdoc E: You 're right about the backup being {pause} a bottleneck . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's good to think towards scratch . +PhD G: Yeah , so these wouldn't be backed up , the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: So remind me afterward +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad D: and I 'll {disfmarker} and we 'll look at your disk and see where to put stuff . +Grad C: OK . Alright . I mean , I could just u do a DU on it right ? And just see which {disfmarker} how much is on each {disfmarker} So . +Grad D: Yep . Each partition . And you wanna use , either XA or scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Well X question mark , anything starting with X is scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: With two {disfmarker} two digits . +Grad D: Two digits , right , XA , XB , XC . OK ? +Professor F: So , @ @ . +Grad D: Jane ? +Postdoc E: OK . So I got a little print - out here . So three on this side , three on this side . And I stapled them . OK . Alright so , first of all , um , there was a {disfmarker} an interest in the transcribe transcription , uh , checking procedures and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I can {vocalsound} tell you first , uh , to go through the steps although you 've probably seen them . Um , as you might imagine , when you 're dealing with , um , r really c a fair number of words , and uh , @ @ {comment} natural speech which means s self - repairs and all these other factors , that there 're lots of things to be , um , s standardized and streamlined and checked on . And , um , so , I did a bunch of checks , and the first thing I did was obviously a spell - check . And at that point I discovered certain things like , um , "" accommodate "" with one "" M "" , that kind of thing . And then , in addition to that , I did an exhaustive listing of the forms in the data file , which included n detecting things like f faulty punctuation and things {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry to interrupt +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD B: you could {disfmarker} could I just back up a little bit +Postdoc E: Sure , please , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: yeah , please , please . +PhD B: So you 're doing these {disfmarker} So {pause} the whole process is that the transcribers get the conversation +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD B: and they do their pass over it . +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD B: And then when they 're finished with it , it comes to you , +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD B: and you begin these sanit these quality checks . +Postdoc E: Exactly . I do these checks . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Exactly . Yeah . Thank you . And so , uh , I do a {disfmarker} an exhaustive listing of the forms {disfmarker} Actually , I will go through this in {disfmarker} in order , so if {disfmarker} if we could maybe wait and stick keep that for a second cuz we 're not ready for that . +Grad D: So on the fifth page , seven down {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Exactly ! Exactly ! Alright so , {vocalsound} a spelling check first then an exhaustive listing of the , uh {disfmarker} all the forms in the data with the punctuation attached and at that point I pick up things like , oh , you know , word followed by two commas . And th and then another check involves , uh , being sure that every utterance has an identifiable speaker . And if not , then that gets checked . Then there 's this issue of glossing s w so - called "" spoken - forms "" . So there {disfmarker} mo for the most part , we 're keeping it standard wo word level transcription . But there 's {disfmarker} w And that that 's done with the assumption that {pause} pronunciation variants can be handled . So for things like "" and "" , the fact that someone doesn't say the "" D "" , uh that 's not important enough to capture in the transcription because a {disfmarker} a good pronunciation , uh , you know , model would be able to handle that . However , things like "" cuz "" where you 're lacking an entire very prominent first syllable , and furthermore , it 's a form that 's specific to spoken language , those are r reasons {disfmarker} f for those reasons I {disfmarker} I kept that separate , and used the convention of using "" CUZ "" for that form , however , glossing it so that it 's possible with the script to plug in the full orthographic form for that one , and a couple of others , not many . So "" wanna "" is another one , "" going {disfmarker} "" uh , "" gonna "" is another one , with just the assumption , again , that this {disfmarker} th these are things which it 's not really fair to a c consider {disfmarker} expect that {disfmarker} a pronunciation model , to handle . And Chuck , you in you indicated that "" cuz "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that 's handled in a different way also , didn't you ? Did I {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't remember . +Postdoc E: OK . So {disfmarker} so it might not have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It might not have been you , +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: but someone told me that in fact "" cuz "" is treated differently in , um , i u in this context because of that r reason that , um , it 's a little bit farther than a pronunciation variant . OK , so after that , let 's see , +PhD B: So that was part of the spell - check , {comment} or was that {disfmarker} that was after the spell - check ? +Postdoc E: um . Well so when I get the exhau So the spell - check picks up those words because they 're not in the dictionary . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So it gets "" cuz "" and "" wanna "" and that {disfmarker} +Grad D: And then you gloss them ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , mm - hmm . Run it through {disfmarker} I have a sed {disfmarker} You know , so I do sed script saying whenever you see "" gonna "" you know , "" convert it to gonna "" , you know , "" gloss equals quote going - to quote "" , you know . And with all these things being in curly brackets +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: so they 're always distinctive . OK , I also wrote a script which will , um , retrieve anything in curly brackets , {vocalsound} or anything which I 've classified as an acronym , and {disfmarker} a pronounced acronym . And the way I tag ac pronounced acronyms is that I have underscores between the components . So if it 's "" ACL "" then it 's "" A "" underscore "" C "" underscore "" L "" . +Grad D: And so {disfmarker} so your list here , are these ones that actually occurred in the meetings ? +Postdoc E: And the th Yes . Uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Whew ! +Postdoc E: OK , so now . Uh and {disfmarker} a +Grad D: We are acronym - loaded . +PhD G: Um , can I ask a question about the glossing , uh before we go on ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: So , for a word like "" because "" is it that it 's always predictably "" because "" ? I mean , is "" CUZ "" always meaning "" because "" ? +Postdoc E: Yes , but not the reverse . So sometimes people will say "" because "" in the meeting , and if {disfmarker} if they actually said "" because "" , then it 's written as "" because "" with no {disfmarker} w "" cuz "" doesn't even figure into the equation . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but in our meetings people don't say "" hey cuz how you doing ? "" +PhD G: Beca - because {disfmarker} Right . {comment} {vocalsound} Right . +Grad D: Except right there . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , so , I guess {disfmarker} So , from the point of view of {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's a good point . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} the only problem is that with {disfmarker} for the recognition we {disfmarker} we map it to "" because "" , +Grad D: Well , +PhD G: and so if we know that "" CUZ "" {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's fine . +Grad D: but they have the gloss . +Postdoc E: Well Don has a script . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: but , we don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: You have the gloss form so you always replace it . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Grad D: If that 's how {disfmarker} what you wanna do . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . And Don knows this , +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and he 's bee he has a glo he has a script that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I replace the "" cuz "" with "" because "" if it 's glossed . +PhD G: S Right . But , if it 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: But then there are other glosses that we don't replace , right ? Because {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . And that 's why there 're different tags on the glosses , +PhD G: OK . So , then it 's fine . +Postdoc E: on the different {disfmarker} on the different types of comments , which we 'll {disfmarker} which we 'll see in just a second . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: So the pronounceable acronyms get underscores , the things in curly brackets are viewed as comments . There 're comments of four types . So this is a good time to introduce that . The four types . w And maybe we 'll expand that +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: but the {disfmarker} but the comments are , um , of four types mainly right now . One of them is , um , the gloss type we just mentioned . +Grad D: Can {disfmarker} ca +Postdoc E: Another type is , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So a are we done with acronyms ? Cuz I had a question on what {disfmarker} what this meant . +Postdoc E: I 'm still doing the overview . I haven't actually gotten here yet . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sorry . +Postdoc E: OK so , gloss is things like replacing the full form u with the , um , more abbreviated one to the left . Uh , then you have if it 's {disfmarker} uh , there 're a couple different types of elements that can happen that aren't really properly words , and wo some of them are laughs and breathes , so we have {disfmarker} uh that 's prepended with a v a tag of "" VOC "" . +PhD A: Whew ! +Postdoc E: And the non - vocal ones are like door - slams and tappings , and that 's prepended with a no non - vocalization . +PhD B: So then it {disfmarker} just an ending curly brace there , or is there something else in there . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah , so i e this would {disfmarker} +Grad D: A comment , basically . +Postdoc E: Let 's just take one example . +PhD B: Oh , oh , oh . +Postdoc E: And then the no non - vocalization would be something like a door - slam . They always end . So it 's like they 're paired curly brackets . And then the third type right now , {vocalsound} uh , is {pause} m things that fall in the category of comments about what 's happening . So it could be something like , you know , "" referring to so - and - so "" , "" talking about such - and - such "" , uh , you know , "" looking at so - and - so "" . +PhD B: So on the m +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: on the middle t So , in the first case that gloss applies to the word to the left . But in the middle two {disfmarker} Th - it 's not applying to anything , right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and this gets substituted here . +Grad D: They 're impulsive . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Huh - uh . No , they 're events . +PhD B: OK . +Grad D: Well the "" QUAL "" can be {disfmarker} The "" QUAL "" is applying to the left . +Postdoc E: They 're actually {disfmarker} They have the status of events . +PhD B: Right , I just meant the middle two ones , yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Well , and actually , um , it is true that , with respect to "" laugh "" , there 's another one which is "" while laughing "" , +Grad D: "" While laughing "" . +Postdoc E: and that is , uh , i i An argument could be made for this {disfmarker} tur turning that into a qualitative statement because it 's talking about the thing that preceded it , but at present we haven't been , um , uh , coding the exact scope of laughing , you know , and so to have "" while laughing "" , you know that it happened somewhere in there which could well mean that it occurred separately and following , or , you know , including some of the utterances to the left . Haven't been awfully precise about that , but I have here , now we 're about to get to the {disfmarker} to this now , I have frequencies . So you 'll see how often these different things occur . But , um , uh , the very front page deals with this , uh , final c pa uh , uh , aspect of the standardization which has to do with the spoken forms like "" mm - hmm "" and "" mm - hmm "" and "" ha "" and "" uh - uh "" and all these different types . And , um , uh , someone pointed out to me , this might have been Chuck , {comment} about , um {disfmarker} about how a recognizer , if it 's looking for "" mm - hmmm "" with three M 's , {vocalsound} and it 's transcribed with two M 's , {vocalsound} that it might {disfmarker} uh , that it might increase the error rate which is {disfmarker} which would really be a shame because um , I p I personally w would not be able to make a claim that those are dr dramatically different items . So , right now I 've standardized across all the existing data with these spoken forms . +Grad D: Oh good . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I should say +Grad D: So it 's a small list . +Postdoc E: all existing data except thirty minutes which got found today . So , I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna check {disfmarker} +Grad D: That {disfmarker} that 's known as "" found data "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah . Acsu - actually yeah . I got {disfmarker} It was stored in a place I didn't expect , +Grad C: It 's like the z Zapruder Film . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and um , w we , uh , sh yea reconstructed how that happened . +Professor F: I wanna work with lost data . +Grad D: Yeah . It 's much easier . +Postdoc E: And this is {disfmarker} this 'll be great . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll be able to get through that tonight , and then everyth i well , actually later today probably . +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And so then we 'll have everything following these conventions . But you notice it 's really rather a small set of these kinds of things . +Grad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And I made it so that these are , um , with a couple exceptions but , things that you wouldn't find in the spell - checker so that they 'll show up really easily . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Jane , can I ask you a question ? What 's that very last one correspond to ? +Postdoc E: Sure . +Grad C: I don't even know how to pronounce that . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . Now that {disfmarker} that s only occurs once , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and I 'm thinking of changing that . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Uh , is that like someone 's like burning or some such thing ? +Postdoc E: So - c I haven't listened to it so I don't know . +Grad C: Like their hair 's on fire ? +Postdoc E: I haven't heard it actually . I n I need to listen to that one . +Grad D: Ah ! +PhD A: It 's the Castle of Ah ! +PhD G: Actually we {disfmarker} we gave this to our pronunciation person , +Grad C: Uh , it looks like that . +PhD G: she 's like , "" I don't know what that is either "" . So . +Postdoc E: Did she hear the th did she actually hear it ? Cuz I haven't heard it . +PhD G: No , we just gave her a list of words that , you know , weren't in our dictionary and so of course it picked up stuff like this , and she just didn't listen so she didn't know . We just {disfmarker} we 're waiting on that {pause} just to do the alignments . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah I 'm curious to se hear what it is , but I didn't know {disfmarker} wanna change it to something else until I knew . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: Maybe it 's "" argh "" ? +Postdoc E: Well , sss , {comment} you know {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Grad C: But that 's not really like {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Hhh . +Grad C: No one really says "" argh , "" you know , +Postdoc E: +PhD G: Yeah . Right , no one say +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , you just did . +PhD B: Except for now ! +Grad C: Well , there 's another {disfmarker} there 's another word error . +Grad D: +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's right . +Grad D: Yes , that 's right . We 're gonna have a big problem when we talk about that . +Grad C: Cha - ching . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD B: We 're gonna never recognize this meeting . +Grad D: In Monty Python you say "" argh "" a lot . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad D: So . Well , or if you 're a C programmer . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: You say arg - C and arg - V all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad C: That 's true . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: But it has a different prosody . +Professor F: Arg . +Grad D: It does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Arg {disfmarker} arg - max , arg - min , yeah . +Grad D: Ah ! +Postdoc E: Uh , +PhD G: So , Jane , what 's the {disfmarker} d +Grad D: Maybe he died while dictating . +Postdoc E: so . +PhD G: I have one question about the the "" EH "" versus like the "" AH "" and the "" UH "" . +Postdoc E: That 's partly a nonnative - native thing , +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: but I have found "" EH "" in native speakers too . +PhD G: +Postdoc E: But it 's mostly non - native {disfmarker} +PhD A: H +PhD B: That 's "" eh "" versus "" ah "" ? +PhD G: S OK . +Postdoc E: Eh . +Grad D: Eh ? +PhD G: "" Eh , "" yeah right , cuz there were {disfmarker} were some speakers that did definite "" eh 's "" +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but right now we {disfmarker} +PhD B: They were the Canadians , right ? +Professor F: Canadians , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD G: So , it {disfmarker} it 's actually probably good for us to know the difference between the real "" eh "" and the one that 's just like "" uh "" or transcribed "" aaa "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . +PhD G: cuz in {disfmarker} like in Switchboard , you would see e all of these forms , but they all were like "" uh "" . +Grad D: You mean just the single letter "" a "" {comment} as in the particle ? +PhD A: The transcription or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Article . +PhD G: No , no , I mean like the {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , +Postdoc E: "" UH "" . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , "" EH "" , "" AH "" were all the same . And then , we have this additional non - native version of {disfmarker} uh , like "" eeh "" . +Grad C: All the "" EH "" 's I 've seen have been like that . They 've been like "" eh "" like that have bee has been transcribed to "" EH "" . And sometimes it 's stronger , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Grad C: like "" eeh "" {comment} which is like closer to "" EH "" . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: But . +Grad D: I 'm just {disfmarker} these poor transcribers , they 're gonna hate this meeting . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: I know . We should go off - line . +Postdoc E: Well , {vocalsound} we 're not doing {disfmarker} We 're not doing length . +Professor F: Quick Thilo , do a {disfmarker} do a filled pause for us . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Ooo {comment} no . +PhD G: But you 're a native German speaker so it 's not a {disfmarker} not a issue for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's only {disfmarker} +Grad D: Them Canadians . +PhD G: Onl yeah . No , only if you don't have lax vowels , I guess . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: This makes sense . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} like Japanese and Spanish +Postdoc E: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think you 've {disfmarker} uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: I didn't get that , +Postdoc E: That makes sense . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and so , you know , I mean , th th I have {disfmarker} there are some , um , Americans who {disfmarker} who are using this "" eh "" too , and I haven't listened to it systematically , maybe with some of them , uh , they 'd end up being "" uh 's "" but , uh , I my spot - checking has made me think that we do have "" eh "" in also , um , American e e data represented here . But any case , that 's the {disfmarker} this is reduced down from really quite a long a much longer list , +PhD G: Yeah this is great . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's good , +Postdoc E: and this is +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: This is really really helpful . +Postdoc E: functionally pretty , you know , also {disfmarker} It was fascinating , I was listening to some of these , uh , I guess two nights ago , and it 's just hilarious to liste to {disfmarker} to do a search for the "" mm - hmm 's "" . And you get "" mm - hmm "" and diff everybody 's doing it . +Grad D: And just listen to them ? Yeah . +Postdoc E: Just {disfmarker} I wanted to say {disfmarker} I w think it would be fun to make a montage of it because there 's a "" Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Performance art , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . "" +Grad D: just extract them all . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's really {disfmarker} it 's really fun to listen to . +PhD B: Morgan can make a song out of it . +Postdoc E: All these different vocal tracts , you know , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same item . It 's very interesting . OK . Uh , then the acronyms y and the ones in parentheses are ones which the transcriber wasn't sure of , +Grad D: Oh I see . +Postdoc E: and I haven't been able to listen to to {disfmarker} to clarify , but you can see that the parenthesis convention makes it very easy to find them +Grad D: o How about question mark ? +Postdoc E: cuz it 's the only place where {disfmarker} where they 're used . +PhD A: The question marks , yeah . What are those ? +Postdoc E: Question mark is punctuation . So it {disfmarker} they said that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Oh . +Postdoc E: um , "" DC ? "" +PhD A: Ah . +Grad D: So they {disfmarker} so it 's "" PLP ? "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . Exactly . Yeah , so the only {disfmarker} Well , and I do have a stress marker here . Sometimes the contrastive stress is showing up , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I 'm sorry , I {disfmarker} I got lost here . What - w what 's the difference between the parenthesized acronym and the non - parenthesized ? +Postdoc E: The parenthesized is something that the transcriber thought was ANN , but wasn't entirely sure . So I 'd need to go back or someone needs to go back , and say , you know , yes or no , +Professor F: Ah . +Postdoc E: and then get rid of the parentheses . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: But the parentheses are used only in that context in the transcripts , of of noti noticing that there 's something uncertain . +Grad D: Yeah , P - make is {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I mean cuz they {disfmarker} they have no idea , +Grad D: That 's a good one . That 's correct . +PhD G: right . If you hear CTPD , I mean , they do pretty well +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I don't recognize a lot of these . +PhD G: you know how are {disfmarker} how are they gonna know ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I know ! I {disfmarker} I was saying that I think a lot of them are the Networks meeting . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I think that 's true . +Professor F: Maybe . +Postdoc E: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad D: I see a few . +Postdoc E: NSA , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: a lot of these are {disfmarker} are coming from them . I listened to some of that . +Grad C: Yeah , we don't have that many acronyms comparatively in this meeting . +Grad D: Although I see {disfmarker} I see plenty of uh +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Grad C: It 's not so bad . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And Robustness has a fair amount , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: but the NSA group is just very very many . +PhD G: The recognizer , it is funny . Kept getting PTA for PDA . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's pretty close . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: This is close , right , +Grad C: That 's not bad . +PhD G: and the PTA was in these , uh , topics about children , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: so , anyway . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD G: Is the P - PTA working ? +Postdoc E: Right and sometimes , I mean , you see a couple of these that are actually "" OK 's "" so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} may be that they got to the point where {disfmarker} I mean it was low enough understandable {disfmarker} understandability that they weren't entirely sure the person said "" OK . "" You know , so it isn't really necessarily a an undecipherable acronym , +Grad C: There 's a lot of "" OK 's "" . +Postdoc E: but just n needs to be double checked . Now we get to the comments . This {disfmarker} +Professor F: The number to the left is the number of incidences ? +Grad D: Count . Yep . +Postdoc E: Number of times out of the entire database , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: w except for that last thirty minutes I haven't checked yet . +Professor F: So CTS is really big here , +Grad D: Yeah , I wonder what it is . +Professor F: yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: So what is the difference between "" papers rustling "" and "" rustling papers "" ? +Professor F: IP , I know what IP is . +Postdoc E: I 'd have to listen . I {disfmarker} I I agree . I w I 'd like to standardize these down farther but , um , uh , uh , to me that sounds equivalent . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But , I {disfmarker} I 'm a little hesitant to {disfmarker} to collapse across categories unless I actually listen to them . +PhD A: Seems so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sure we 've said XML more than five times . +Postdoc E: Well , then , at least now . +PhD A: Now it 's at least six times , yeah . +Professor F: S s six now , yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Six . OK well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Wh - the self - referential aspect of these {disfmarker} these p +PhD G: I 'm wai +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yes , it 's very bad . +PhD G: Well this is exactly how people will prove that these meetings do differ because we 're recording , right ? +Grad D: Yes . +PhD G: Y no normally you don't go around saying , "" Now you 've said it six times . +Grad D: Yeah {comment} that 's right . +PhD G: Now you 've said "" +Postdoc E: But did you notice that there were seven hundred and eighty five instances of "" OK "" ? +PhD A: Seven hundred eighty - five instances . +Postdoc E: And that 's just without the {disfmarker} without punc punctuation . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: No , I didn't . Yeah . +Grad D: And that 's an underestimate +Postdoc E: Extra forty one if it 's questioned . +PhD B: Where 's that ? +Grad D: cuz they 're Yep . +Professor F: So th +Postdoc E: On the page two of acronyms . +Grad C: Is this after {disfmarker} like did you do some uh replacements for all the different form of "" OK "" to this ? +Professor F: Yeah . Seven hundred eighty . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Of "" OK "" , yes . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . So that 's the single existing convention for "" OK "" . +PhD B: Wait a minute , w s +Professor F: So now we 're up to seven hundred and eighty eight . +Postdoc E: Yeah that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Although , what 's {disfmarker} there 's one with a slash after it . That 's kind of disturbing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , we 'll have to look at it you know . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I looked for that one . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Anyway . +Postdoc E: I actually explicitly looked for that one , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think that , um , I {disfmarker} I 'm not exactly sure about that . +PhD B: Was that somewhere where they were gonna say "" new speaker "" or something ? +Postdoc E: No , I looked for that , but that doesn't actually exist . And it may be , I don't {disfmarker} I can't explain that . +Grad C: That 's alright . I 'm just pointing that out . +Postdoc E: I i it 's the only {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: it 's the only pattern that has a slash after it , and I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's an epiphenomenon . +PhD G: Well there 's not @ @ . +Grad D: So I 'll just {disfmarker} I was just looking at the bottom of page three there , is that "" to be "" or "" not to be "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: There 's no tilde in front of it , +Postdoc E: Oh that 's cute . +PhD B: so . +Postdoc E: That 's funny . Yeah . +Grad D: OK anyways , sorry . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad D: "" Try to stay on topic , Adam . "" +Postdoc E: There is th one {disfmarker} Y well , no , that 's r that 's legitimate . So now , uh , comments , you can see they 're listed again , same deal , with exhaustive listing of everything found in everything except for these final th thirty minutes . +Grad D: OK so , um , on some of these QUALs , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: are they really QUALs , or are they glosses ? So like there 's a "" QUAL TCL "" . +Postdoc E: "" TCL "" . Where do you see that ? +Grad D: Uh +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . The reason is because w it was said "" tickle "" . +Professor F: What 's a QUAL ? +Grad D: Oh I see , I see . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: So it 's not gloss . OK , I see . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad C: Sh - shouldn't it be "" QUAL TICKLE "" or something ? +Grad D: It wasn't said "" TCL "" . Of course . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: On the {disfmarker} in the actual script {disfmarker} in the actual transcript , I s I {disfmarker} So this {disfmarker} this happens in the very first one . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I actually wrote it as "" tickle "" . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Because we {disfmarker} they didn't say "" TCL "" , they said "" tickle "" . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And then , following that is "" QUAL TCL "" . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . +Professor F: I f I forget , what 's QUAL ? +Postdoc E: Qual - qualifier . +PhD B: It 's just comment about what they said . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Comment . +Grad C: It 's not something you wanna replace {pause} with +Postdoc E: Comment or contextual comment . +PhD B: So they didn't mean "" tickle "" as in Elmo , +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Tickle ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: they meant "" tickle "" as in {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: Huh . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: But at some point {disfmarker} I mean , we probably shoul +Grad D: We 'll probably add it to the language model . +PhD G: But we should add it to the dictionar +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: No , to the pronunciation model . +Grad D: What did I say ? +PhD A: To the language model {disfmarker} model . +PhD G: Language , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well both . +PhD B: Add what , Liz ? +Grad D: We can go on lan lan add it to both dictionary and language model . +PhD G: Oh lan Oh OK - we OK +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's in the language model , w yeah , but it so it 's the pronunciation model that has to have a pronunciation of "" tickle "" . +Grad D: Well "" tickle "" was pronounced "" tickle "" . Right ? +PhD A: "" tickle "" is pronounced "" tickle "" ? +PhD B: What are you saying ? +Grad D: It 's pronounced the same {disfmarker} it 's pronounced the same as the verb . +PhD G: I 'm sorry ! +Grad D: So I think it 's the language model that makes it different . +PhD G: Oh , sorry . What I meant is that there should be a pronunciation "" tickle "" for TCL as a word . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: And that word in the {disfmarker} in , you know , it stays in the language model wherever it was . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Yeah you never would put "" tickle "" in the language model in that form , +Postdoc E: +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: yeah . Right . There 's actually a bunch of cases like this with people 's names and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how w there 'd be a problem for doing the language modeling then with our transcripts the way they are . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . Yeah so th th there there 's a few cases like that where the um , the word needs to be spelled out in {disfmarker} in a consistent way as it would appear in the language , but there 's not very many of these . Tcl 's one of them . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and you 'll ha you 'll have to do it sychronously . +PhD G: Um , y yeah . +Grad D: Right , so y so , whoever 's creating the new models , will have to also go through the transcripts and change them synchronously . +Grad C: It 's just disturbing . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD G: Right . We have this {disfmarker} there is this thing I was gonna talk to you about at some point about , you know , what do we do with the dictionary as we 're up updating the dictionary , these changes have to be consistent with what 's in the {disfmarker} Like spelling people 's names and so forth . If we make a spelling correction to their name , like someone had Deborah Tannen 's name mispelled , and since we know who that is , you know , we could correct it , +Grad D: You can correct it . Yeah . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but we need to make sure we have the mispel If it doesn't get corrected we have to have a pronunciation as a mispelled word in the dictionary . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Things like that . +Grad D: These are so funny to read . +Postdoc E: Well , of course now the {disfmarker} the Tannen corre the spelling c change . +PhD G: So . +Postdoc E: Uh , that 's what gets {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I picked those up in the frequency check . +PhD G: Right . Right . So if there 's things that get corrected before we get them , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not an issue , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but if there 's things that um , we change later , then we always have to keep our {disfmarker} the dictionary up to date . And then , yeah , in the case of "" tickle "" I guess we would just have a , you know , word "" TCL "" which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You add it to the dictionary . +PhD G: which normally would be an acronym , you know , "" TCL "" +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: but just has another pronunciation . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: "" ICSI "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that sometimes people pronounce and sometimes they say "" ICSI . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: So , those that are l are listed in the acronyms , I actually know +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: they were said as letters . The others , um , e those really do need to be listened to cuz I haven't been able to go to all the IC ICSI things , +PhD G: Right , exactly . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} {comment} and until they 've been listened to they stay as "" ICSI "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Don and I were just noticing , love this one over on page three , "" vocal {disfmarker} vocal gesture mimicking sound of screwing something into head to hold mike in place . "" +Grad C: That 's great . +Grad D: It 's this , "" rrre - rrre - rrre "" . It was me . +Postdoc E: It was ! In fact , it was ! Yeah ! +Grad D: A lot of these are me the {disfmarker} the "" beep is said with a high pit high pitch and lengthening . "" +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} he s he said {disfmarker} he said get {disfmarker} +PhD A: To head . +Grad D: That was the {disfmarker} I was imitating uh , beeping out {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor F: Beep . +Postdoc E: Perfect . Yeah that 's it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh there is something spelled out "" BEEEEEEP "" +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been changed . +PhD G: in the old {disfmarker} Thank you . Because he was saying , "" How many E 's do I have to allow for ? "" +Grad C: You need a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: What I meant was "" beep "" . +Grad C: You need a lot of qualification Adam . +Grad D: I guess so . +Postdoc E: That 's been changed . So , exactly , that 's where the lengthening comment c came in . +Grad C: Subtext . +Grad D: Anyway . +Postdoc E: s chan brought it down . +PhD G: Right , thanks , yeah . +Grad D: So they 're vocalization , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And those of course get {disfmarker} get picked up in the frequency check +Grad D: glosses . +Postdoc E: because you see "" beep "" +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: and you know {disfmarker} I mean it gets kicked out in the spelling , and it also gets kicked out in the , uh , freq frequency listing . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Postdoc E: I have the {disfmarker} there 're various things like "" breathe "" versus "" breath "" versus "" inhale "" and , hhh , you know , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think they don't have any implications for anything else so it 's like I 'm tempted to leave them for now an and {disfmarker} It 's easy enough to find them when they 're in curly brackets . We can always get an exhaustive listing of these things and find them and change them . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: "" Sings finale - type song "" +Grad C: Yeah , that was in the first meeting . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , +Postdoc E: Yeah , but I don't actually remember what it was . But that was {disfmarker} Eric did that . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: So on {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Tah - dah ! I don't know . +Postdoc E: I think maybe something like that . +Professor F: Something like that maybe , yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , that 'd qualify . +Grad D: On the glosses for numbers , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: it seems like there are lots of different ways it 's being done . +Postdoc E: OK . Interesting question . +Grad D: There 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . OK , now first of all {disfmarker} Ooo - ooo ! Very important . +Grad D: "" Ooo - ooo . "" +Postdoc E: Uh Chuck {disfmarker} Chuck led to a refinement here which is to add "" NUMS "" if these are parts of the read numbers . Now you already know i that I had , uh , in places where they hadn't transcribed numbers , I put "" numbers "" in place of any kind of numbers , but there are places where they , um , it {disfmarker} th this convention came later an and at the very first digits task in some transcripts they actually transcribed numbers . And , um , d Chuck pointed out that this is read speech , and it 's nice to have the option of ignoring it for certain other prob uh p uh , things . And that 's why there 's this other tag here which occurs a hundred and five {disfmarker} or three hundred and five times right now which is just {disfmarker} well n n "" NUMS "" by itself +Grad D: "" NUMS "" , yeah . +Postdoc E: which means this is part of the numbers task . I may change it to "" digits "" . I mean , i with the sed command you can really just change it however you want because it 's systematically encoded , you know ? +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Have to think about what 's the best for {disfmarker} for the overall purposes , but in any case , um , "" numbers "" and "" NUMS "" are a part of this digits task thing . Um , now th Then I have these numbers that have quotation marks around them . Um , I didn't want to put them in as gloss comments because then you get the substitution . And actually , th um , {vocalsound} the reason I b did it this way was because I initially started out with the other version , you have the numbers and you have the full form and the parentheses , however sometimes people stumble over these numbers they 're saying . So you say , "" Seve - seventy eight point two "" , or whatever . And there 's no way of capturing that if you 're putting the numbers off to the side . You can't have the seven and {disfmarker} +Grad D: So what 's to the left of these ? +Postdoc E: The left is i so example the very first one , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: it would be , spelled out in words , "" point five "" . +Grad D: OK , that 's what I was asking . Right . +Postdoc E: Only it 's spelled out in words . +Grad D: Point FIVE , yeah . +Postdoc E: So i this is also spelled out in {disfmarker} in words . "" Point five . "" +Grad D: Good . +Postdoc E: And then , in here , "" NUMS "" , so it 's not going to be mistaken as a gloss . It comes out as "" NUMS quote dot five "" . +Grad D: OK now , the other example is , in the glosses right there , +Postdoc E: Thank you . +Grad D: "" gloss one one one dash one three zero "" . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: What {disfmarker} what 's to the left of that ? +Postdoc E: Well now {disfmarker} In that case it 's people saying things like "" one one one dash so - and - so "" or they 're saying uh "" two {disfmarker} I mean zero "" whatever . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: And in that case , it 's part of the numbers task , and it 's not gonna be included in the read digits anyway , +PhD B: So there will be a "" NUMS "" tag on those lines ? +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} I m in the uh {disfmarker} There is . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . I 've added that all now too . +Grad C: There 's a "" numbers "" tag {disfmarker} +Grad D: Good . +Grad C: I 'm sorry I 'm {disfmarker} I didn't follow that last thing . +PhD G: Wait . +Postdoc E: So , so gloss {disfmarker} in the same line that would have "" gloss quote one one one dash one thirty "" , you 'd have a gloss at the end of the line saying , uh , "" curly bracket NUMS curly bracket "" . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So if you {disfmarker} if you did a , uh , a "" grep minus V nums "" +PhD G: Oh , so you could do "" grep minus V nums "" . +Postdoc E: and you get rid of anything that was read . +PhD G: So that 's the {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: So there wouldn't be something like i if somebody said something like , "" Boy , I 'm really tired , OK . "" and then started reading that would be on a separate line ? +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD G: OK great . Cuz I was doing the "" grep minus V "" quick and dirty and looked like that was working OK , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Good . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD G: Great . Now why do we {disfmarker} what 's the reason for having like the point five have the "" NUMS "" on it ? Is that just like when they 're talking about their data or something ? +Postdoc E: This is more because {disfmarker} +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Oh these are all these , the "" NUMS point "" , this all where they 're saying "" point "" something or other . +PhD G: These are all like inside the spontaneous {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is for readability of the transcript . I mean if you 're trying to follow this while you 're reading it it 's really hard to read , you know {disfmarker} eh , "" so in the data column five has "" , you know , "" one point five compared to seventy nine point six "" , it 's like when you see the words it 's really hard to follow the argument . And this is just really a {disfmarker} a way of someone who would handle th the data in a more discourse - y way to be able to follow what 's being said . +Grad D: Label it . +PhD G: Oh OK . +Postdoc E: So this is where Chuck 's , um , overall h architecture comes in , +PhD G: I see . +Postdoc E: where we 're gonna have a master file of the channelized data . Um , there will be scripts that are written to convert it into these t these main two uses and th some scripts will take it down th e into a f a for ta take it to a format that 's usable for the recognizer an uh , other scripts will take it to a form that 's usable for the {disfmarker} for linguistics an and discourse analysis . And , um , the implication that {disfmarker} that I have is that th the master copy will stay unchanged . These will just be things that are generated , +Grad D: Right +Postdoc E: and e by using scripts . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: Master copies of superset . +Postdoc E: When things change then the {disfmarker} the script will cham change but the {disfmarker} but there won't be stored copies of {disfmarker} in different versions of things . +Grad D: Good . +PhD G: So , I guess I 'd have one request here which is just , um , maybe to make it more robust , th that the tag , whatever you would choose for this type of "" NUMS "" {comment} where it 's inside the spontaneous speech , is different than the tag that you use for the read speech . +PhD B: Right . Right . That would argue for changing the other ones to be "" digits "" or something . +PhD G: Um , that way w if we make a mistake parsing , or something , we don't see the "" point five "" , or {disfmarker} or it 's not there , then we +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: a Just {disfmarker} an And actually for things like "" seven eighths "" , or people do fractions too I guess , you {disfmarker} maybe you want one overall tag for sort of that would be similar to that , +Postdoc E: Except {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} As long as they 're sep as they 're different strings that we {disfmarker} that 'll make our p sort of processing more robust . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz we really will get rid of everything that has the "" NUMS "" string in it . +PhD B: I suppose what you could do is just make sure that you get rid of everything that has "" curly brace NUMS curly brace "" . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} Ex - exactly . +PhD B: I mean that would be the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Exactly . That was {disfmarker} that was my motivation . And i these can be changed , like I said . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know , I mean , as I said I was considering changing it to "" digits "" . And , it just {disfmarker} i you know , it 's just a matter of deciding on whatever it is , and being sure the scripts know . +PhD B: Right . +PhD G: It would probably be safer , if you 're willing , to have a separate tag just because um , then we know for sure . And we can also do counts on them without having to do the processing . But you 're right , we could do it this way , it {disfmarker} it should work . Um , +PhD B: Yeah , and it makes it {disfmarker} I guess the thing about {disfmarker} +PhD G: but it it 's probably not hard for a person to tell the difference +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: because one 's in the context of a {disfmarker} you know , a transcribed word string , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: The other thing is you can get really so minute with these things +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: and increase the size of the files and the re and decrease the readability to such an extent by simply something like "" percent "" . Now I {disfmarker} I could have adopted a similar convention for "" percent "" , but somehow percent is not so hard , you know ? +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: i It 's just when you have these points and you 're trying to figure out where the decimal places are {disfmarker} And we could always add it later . Percent 's easy to detect . Point however is {disfmarker} is uh a word that has a couple different meanings . And you 'll find both of those in one of these meetings , where he 's saying "" well the first point I wanna make is so - and - so "" and he goes through four points , and also has all these decimals . +PhD B: So Liz , what does the recognizer do , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD B: uh , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD B: what does the SRI recognizer output for things like that ? "" seven point five "" . Does it output the word {disfmarker} +PhD G: "" Seven point five "" . +PhD B: Right , the word "" seven "" ? +Grad D: Well , the numbers ? +PhD B: The number "" seven "" ? +PhD G: The word . +PhD B: The word "" seven "" , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So I 'd {disfmarker} so "" I 'd like {disfmarker} I 'd like to talk about point five "" . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and actually , you know the language {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's the same point , actually , the {disfmarker} the p you know , the word "" to "" and the word y th "" going to "" and "" to go to "" those are two different "" to 's "" and so there 's no distinction there . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's just {disfmarker} just the word "" point "" has {disfmarker} Yeah , every word has only one , yeah e one version even if {disfmarker} even if it 's {disfmarker} A actually even like the word "" read "" {comment} and "" read "" Those are two different words . They 're spelled the same way , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And they 're still gonna be transcribed as READ . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: So , yeah , I {disfmarker} I like the idea of having this in there , I just {disfmarker} I was a little bit worried that , um , the tag for removing the read speech {disfmarker} because i What if we have like "" read letters "" or , I don't know , +Grad D: We might wanna {disfmarker} just a separate tag that says it 's read . +PhD G: like "" read something "" like "" read "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: yeah , basically . But other than that I it sounds great . +Grad D: Yeah . OK ? Are we done ? +Postdoc E: Well I wanted to say also regarding the channelized data , +Grad D: Oh , I guess we 're not done . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: that , um , Thilo requested , um , that we ge get some segments done by hand to e e s reduce the size of the time bins wh like was Chuc - Chuck was mentioning earlier that , um , that , um , if you {disfmarker} if you said , "" Oh "" and it was in part of a really long , s complex , overlapping segment , that the same start and end times would be held for that one +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: as for the longer utterances , +Grad D: We did that for one meeting , right , +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: so you have that data don't you ? +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the training data . +Postdoc E: And he requested that there be , uh , similar , uh , samples done for five minute stretches c involving a variety of speakers and overlapping secti sections . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: He gave me {disfmarker} he did the {disfmarker} very nice , he {disfmarker} he did some shopping through the data and found segments that would be useful . And at this point , all four of the ones that he specified have been done . In addition the I 've {disfmarker} I have the transcribers expanding the amount that they 're doing actually . +PhD A: Oh great . +Postdoc E: So right now , um , I know that as of today we got an extra fifteen minutes of that type , and I 'm having them expand the realm on either side of these places where they 've already started . +PhD A: Oh great . OK . +Postdoc E: But if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , and I {disfmarker} and he 's gonna give me some more sections that {disfmarker} that he thinks would be useful for this purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Because it 's true , I mean , if we could do the {disfmarker} the more fine grained tuning of this , uh , using an algorithm , that would be so much more efficient . And , um . So this is gonna be {pause} useful to expand this . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I thought we {disfmarker} we sh we sh perhaps we should try to {disfmarker} to start with those channelized versions just to {disfmarker} just to try it . Give it {disfmarker} Give one tr transcriber the {disfmarker} the channelized version of {disfmarker} of my speech - nonspeech detection and look if {disfmarker} if that 's helpful for them , or just let them try if {disfmarker} if that 's better or If they {disfmarker} if they can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: You mean to start from scratch f in a brand new transcript ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 'd be excellent . Yeah , that 'd be really great . As it stands we 're still in the phase of sort of , um , cleaning up the existing data getting things , uh , in i m more tight tightly time {disfmarker} uh , aligned . I also wanna tell {disfmarker} um , I also wanted to r raise the issue that {disfmarker} OK so , there 's this idea we 're gonna have this master copy of the transcript , it 's gonna be modified by scripts t into these two different functions . And actually the master {disfmarker} +PhD B: Two or more . Two or more different functions . +Postdoc E: Two {disfmarker} two or more . And that the master is gonna be the channelized version . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: So right now we 've taken this i initial one , it was a single channel basically the way it was input . And now , uh , thanks to the advances made in the interface , we can from now on use the channelized part , and , um , any changes that are made get made in the channelized version kind of thing . But I wanted to get all the finished {disfmarker} all the checks {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , so that has implications for your script . +Grad C: Yeah . So , uh , have those {disfmarker} e e the vis the ten hours that have been transcribed already , have those been channelized ? And I know {disfmarker} I 've seen @ @ {disfmarker} I 've seen they 've been channelized , +Postdoc E: Yes , they have . +Grad D: All ten hours ? +Grad C: but +Postdoc E: Except for the missing thirty minutes . +Grad C: have they uh {disfmarker} have they been {disfmarker} has the time {disfmarker} have the time markings been adjusted , uh , p on a per channel {disfmarker} +Grad D: Great . +Postdoc E: Uh , for {disfmarker} for a total of like twenty m f for a total of {disfmarker} Let 's see , four times {disfmarker} total of about an {disfmarker} {pause} thirty minutes . That 's {disfmarker} that 's been the case . +Grad C: So , +Postdoc E: And plus the training , whatever you have . +Grad C: I guess , I mean , I don't know if we should talk about this now , or not , but I +Grad D: Well it 's just we 're {pause} missing tea . +Grad C: Yeah , I know . +Grad D: So . +Grad C: No , but I mean my question is like should I wait until all of those are processed , and channelized , like the time markings are adjusted before I do all the processing , and we start like branching off into the {disfmarker} into the {disfmarker} our layer of uh transcripts . +Postdoc E: Well , you know the problem {disfmarker} the problem is that some {disfmarker} some of the adjustments that they 're making are to bring {disfmarker} are to combine bins that were {disfmarker} time bins which were previously separate . And the reason they do that is sometimes there 's a word that 's cut off . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: And so , i i i it 's true that it 's likely to be adjusted in the way that the words are more complete . And , +Grad C: OK . No I know {disfmarker} I know that adjusting those things are gonna {disfmarker} is gonna make it better . +Postdoc E: so I {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a more reliable thing and I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean I 'm sure about that , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: but do you have like a time frame when you can expect like all of it to be done , or when you expect them to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well partly it depends on how {disfmarker} um , how e effective it will be to apply an algorithm because i this takes time , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: you know , it takes a couple hours t to do , uh , ten minutes . +Grad C: Yeah , I don't doubt it . Um , so . +PhD B: So right now the {disfmarker} what you 're doing is you 're taking the {disfmarker} uh , the o original version and you 're sort of channelizing yourself , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . I 'm doing it myself . I mean i if the time markings aren't different across channels , like the channelized version really doesn't have any more information . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , I was just {disfmarker} I mean , originally I had done before like the channelized versions were coming out . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I th I think probably the way it 'll go is that , you know , when we make this first general version and then start working on the script , that script @ @ that will be ma you know primarily come from what you 've done , um , we 'll need to work on a channelized version of those originals . +Grad C: and so it 's a question of like what {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so it should be pretty much identical to what you have t except for the one that they 've already tightened the boundaries on . +Postdoc E: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: Um , So +Postdoc E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD B: uh , and then probably what will happen is as the transcribers finish tightening more and more , you know , that original version will get updated +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD B: and then we 'll rerun the script and produce better uh versions . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: But the {disfmarker} I guess the ef the effect for you guys , because you 're pulling out the little wave forms into separate ones , that would mean these boundaries are constantly changing you 'd have to constantly re rerun that , +Grad C: I know . +PhD B: so , maybe {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: But that {disfmarker} +PhD G: But that {disfmarker} that 's not hard . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No . +PhD G: I I think the harder part is making sure that the transc the transcription {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: So if you b merge two things , then you know that it 's the sum of the transcripts , but if you split inside something , you don't where the word {disfmarker} which words moved . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And that 's wh that 's where it becomes a little bit {disfmarker} uh , having to rerun the processing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: The cutting of the waveforms is pretty trivial . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean as long as it can all be done automatically , I mean , then that 's not a concern . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: You know , if I just have to run three scripts to extract it all and let it run on my computer for an hour and a half , or however long it takes to parse and create all the reference file , that 's not a problem . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , so yeah . As long as we 're at that point . And I know exactly like what the steps will work {disfmarker} what 's going on , in the editing process , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: so . OK . +Postdoc E: So that 's {disfmarker} I I mean I could {disfmarker} there were other checks that I did , but it 's {disfmarker} I think that we 've {disfmarker} unless you think there 's anything else , I think that I 've covered it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: I can't think of any of the {disfmarker} other ones . +Postdoc E: OK . Great . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oop ! Man ! +","The discussion revolves around the process and standards for transcribing recorded meeting conversations into textual formats suitable for various research purposes, such as linguistic analysis, discourse analysis, and usage in speech recognition systems. The participants include a mix of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and professors, each contributing from their areas of expertise. + +Graduate student D (Grad D) initiates the meeting by mentioning the completion of an agenda. Conversations then shift onto a technical dialogue about the shortage of digits within the dataset and discussing the necessity for more forms to be read to complete their set. Professor F (Prof F) and Postdoc E (PD E) interject occasionally to clarify details or offer brief remarks. + +Grad D reports an extraction of roughly an hour's worth of data regarding digit transcriptions where participants have filled out speaker forms. This data will be useful for subsequent experiments. The team digs deeper into nuances such as the labeling of audio files, issues with parsing key files, and the specific dilemma surrounding the extraction and categorization of 'digits' versus 'numbers'. This dilemma is analyzed in connection with the desired prosodic data for research. + +Discussion then transitions to the topic of speaker forms, which are essential for labeling audio files. The importance of such forms is underscored to obtain clean and usable audio data associated with specific speakers and microphone types. Prof F queries about the necessity of obtaining consent for using digit recordings, and Grad D addresses the concern, citing a previous decision. + +The conversion of numeric data into various readable forms for both the speech recognition system and other research analyses becomes a critical point of attention. The distinction between single digits and connected numbers (e.g., phone numbers) is thoroughly discussed, considering the effect on speech recognition training and adaptation. Strategies for eliciting different prosodic readings of numbers are explored. + +Further into the transcription, issues of speaker overlap, echo cancellation, and other signal processing topics are discussed. The focus then shifts to metadata pertaining to the transcription, including comments on vocalized actions and sound reflections within the meeting rooms which need to be transcribed effectively to create a clear, usable dataset for research purposes. + +PhD Student G (PhD G) raises concerns about how specific spoken words, like acronyms or mimicked sounds, should be transcribed and considered within the language model for recognition purposes. Space for storing and managing digit data becomes another logistical issue to address. + +The meeting conversation continued with Jane presenting an overview and updates on transcription standards, including the handling of spoken forms, acronyms, glossing conventions, and contextual comments. The complexity of capturing nuances of spoken language, such as the difference between ""okay"" and laughter or breath sounds, is highlighted, with an emphasis on establishing consistency across all transcripts. + +The participants delve into the practicalities of the transcription process, including the usage of a master transcription file, quality checks, and potential modifications to the transcription scripts. Moreover, the accurate alignment of time stamps for transcript segments is discussed to ensure clarity in the transcription process and its applications in speech recognition systems. + +The meeting concludes with an agreement to streamline the transcription process further and incorporate the described standards and practices into routine transcription work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the detailed design meeting . Again , I'm gonna take minutes . Oh , we're gonna have a prototype presentation first . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , who's gonna give the prototype presentation ? You two guys ? Okay . Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} coffee . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we've made a prototype . Um , we've got uh {vocalsound} uh our aspects from the last meeting . Uh , especially we looked at the form , material and the colour . Um , we've uh drawn here the p prototype . The logo is uh is uh {vocalsound} is pretty uh {vocalsound} obvious to see on the on the remote control , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it is necessary when you want to build your uh company f to a level higher . Um , {vocalsound} our interface elements , there are shown in the in the drawing . Maybe you can uh point them uh {disfmarker} The functions . +User Interface: Uh , well the uh {disfmarker} all the functions are discussed uh {disfmarker} I think the most of the functions are uh uh obvious . Uh , it's a little bit . Uh , power button . Uh then the the the nine uh channels . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the volume uh uh at the side , and the other side is the programmes . And then we had uh just uh two buttons , we place them in the middle , uh the menu , and for the teletext +Project Manager: Oh no , the the the mute button misses now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I thought that was th +Marketing: Alright , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do y do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , the mute button . +Project Manager: did we want to have a m mute button ? +Industrial Designer: But uh that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's uh here then , in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Alright , and uh you gotta point out which is the volume um uh button and which is the programme button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah mo uh mo +Industrial Designer: we've disc +User Interface: Yeah , well most of them are right-handed . +Industrial Designer: Most of the users +Marketing: Yeah , but you you gotta make it clear on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well , I don't have time in uh anymore on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , y there there will be a p a little a little P_ on that and a little uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and a and a triangle on that . +User Interface: Oh yeah , just progr programme above , I think . +Marketing: Yes . Next to that I kinda miss a zero actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait , there's {disfmarker} was one thing I wanted to ask . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , there are different ways for remote controls to uh {vocalsound} do uh like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh d I call it teens and twenties . Uh , y th th th the two numbers . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: All n no , that's um {vocalsound} kinda dependent on the television . +User Interface: Yeah , true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a television . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do we have {disfmarker} do we need extra buttons , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} for example some uh some have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think so . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , you have you have a lot of standard buttons that has to be uh on it , uh th with the one and a double uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think you should add {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Zero ? +Marketing: A cross , or whatever . Yeah , line . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't you don't actually need them , +User Interface: May maybe here ? +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: becau b l a lot of remote controls work that y when y that you when you fir you push the one first , then you have a couple of seconds {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And then a second . +Marketing: No , that's dependent on the television . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you have televisions , then you have to , you know , you have to uh press {disfmarker} +Marketing: I do know so . +User Interface: Is it depending on television ? +Project Manager: Nah , I don't think so really , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you have a {disfmarker} I know some remote controls that don't have these buttons , but you still can , know , obviously you can still select the twenty {disfmarker} uh a number in the twenty or in the ten . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but a lot {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh uh no uh remote control nowadays are um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they come with the television . Or actually , the other way around . +Project Manager: No , I think {disfmarker} uh I really think it's n +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because you can {disfmarker} when when you put a button on it with like one and uh then a dash , it's the same thing as when you just push the one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it i it first gives you the functionality of that that uh separate button you also had to uh apply . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but +Marketing: Yeah , well {disfmarker} but su {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: some televisions don't accept uh that that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because that's i it's for television . It's exact the same thing . +Industrial Designer: No , no , but s +Marketing: No no no . So some television respond differently . Look , if uh i i +Project Manager: No , listen listen . When you push the button , the remote control gives a signal . I in th in the first place it gives a signal which it would also send when you put a separate button on it . +Marketing: Yes . Yes , that's true . +Project Manager: The one with dash , that signal gi and when y whe when you don't push another button on the remote control within five seconds , then the remote control gives a signal for channel one . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it works that way , really . +Marketing: No , it it it works uh if you haven't got uh a special button for it , uh if you push a one , then on your television there will appear a one and a a line , which is an empty space . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's exact the same {gap} that w would appear when you put a separate button {disfmarker} push a separate button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but some some old televisions uh you have to uh click on uh a special button , uh then you go to a a next level , you can push two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't underst uh you don't understand my point . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} True . +Project Manager: I think it's exact the same thing when y +Industrial Designer: You want {disfmarker} Yes , but some television don't support it . +Project Manager: No , but then they would a would also support that button , because it's the same thing . +User Interface: But the ex +Project Manager: Listen , with {disfmarker} that that's that special but button {gap} you're talking about , eh ? That's just a signal to recei ju they send a t signal to the v tv T_V_ that they have to put a one in {disfmarker} on your screen and a dash , which you can pu so you can uh still put another number on it . When you don't have that separate button , and you push y one , it's exactly the same thing . Do y you {disfmarker} the remote control gives that same signal as it would give when you only had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: No , s some some televisions need the input first uh and and you c +Industrial Designer: a remote can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: But you give the input . +Industrial Designer: so they need {disfmarker} no , they need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You push the one . That's the same thing as the button with the one and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's not true . +Project Manager: yes it it is . +Marketing: It's simply not true . It's simply not true . +Project Manager: Think about it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: You uh you can wai when you push the one you can show on the telly a one and just a dash , and then wait uh two uh seconds or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's the same thing what happens and a g remote control gives another signal after five seconds that is just one . +Marketing: No , remote control doesn't give signal after five seconds . Remote control is a stupid thing . If you push a button , it sends it immediately to to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah , but I m uh but it's {disfmarker} I I know for sure that some televisions that w th th the remote control supplied , only ha has the c these buttons with a one and a dash and a two and a dash , but when you use a bu a n remote control that doesn't sport these buttons , it still works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But okay , we we'll impl +Marketing: No , definitely not . Definitely not . +User Interface: We'll discuss them in the usability lab . +Project Manager: No , we'll apply them then for now . +User Interface: Uh eva evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know uh I don't know if if it's it's necessary . +Project Manager: Yeah , app just apply them next to the zero , the one and the two . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah , for now , if we don't know for sure whether {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the button for the SCART uh audio video uh external input . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Ach . +Project Manager: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , you can access that uh via zero , and then minus , I guess . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} What I said about uh the remote control sending another signal , that that might not be true , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I still think i it it {disfmarker} all T_V_s in some ways support it , I don't know . I think it's more c is m maybe we don't {disfmarker} uh we both don't really understand how it i how it really works , +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: but I think there's more to in than wha than what you just said . +Industrial Designer: Uh , remote control sends one signal at one button uh press . +Project Manager: I do think that uh m T_V_s support mur multiple kind of remote controls . M +Industrial Designer: Uh , some {disfmarker} N some televisions when when you want to go further than uh ten {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th won't work wi with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you have to you have to uh give the television uh two or more signals . +Project Manager: to have that special button . +Industrial Designer: When you uh press one button , you give one signal . And the older televisions need more signals to go a level higher . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well we'll see . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: When you make the technology that that it will uh give more signals , it could work , but {disfmarker} Just a basic idea of of of the most uh {disfmarker} most y most common uh and simple uh operations on the remote . +Marketing: Okay . I kinda miss the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's here on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , uh there's nothing {disfmarker} I think it's pretty basic , +Industrial Designer: We came uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the {disfmarker} there's no fu +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: there's one there's one button , +Marketing: No nothing really trendy about it . +User Interface: that's wha there's there's there's one function and that's n the one button when you want to find it . +Industrial Designer: But maybe we can maybe we can make the docking station uh uh a bit standard for for uh the other products we sell , +Marketing: The button . +Industrial Designer: because Real {vocalsound} Real Reaction sells more products than only remote controls . So maybe we can uh use the docking station , for example , uh M_P_ three players or or uh +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: uh hearing devices . +Marketing: I think that's very difficult , because of different shapes of uh uh devices . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you put that same volt voltages on it , you can put uh {disfmarker} when the when the when uh o the the the lowest part of it , when it's o the same as the other products , you can put it all on the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . Mm-hmm . Well it it got it {disfmarker} it has got to fit into the shape , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: The technology and the voltage can be the same . That's uh that's true . But uh i if you all make the m having a bottom like this , then they all fit . +Industrial Designer: No , we can make uh make the most lowest part all the same . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When when the the recharger has a has a bit what points out , we can place all on top of it . Just have to be big enough for the biggest {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh I I g Shouldn't it fall then ? It {disfmarker} isn't going to fall down ? {vocalsound} That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , when you make it large enough no it it will not . +Marketing: yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then it's a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but if if {disfmarker} like this , I'll I'll point it out , if you got uh a a a base a base like this , +Industrial Designer: But it's just an idea . +Marketing: I won't draw it really . If you got a base which is uh as big as this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's flat it's flat as as this , so we can p make all the products as flat as this . +User Interface: You can . But i i i it's backwards . +Marketing: Yeah sure , but if you got if you got a tiny player , it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you make uh uh a bit of big {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it's it's backwards . It's leaning . It's leaning backwards , I think , in the in the docking station . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , wha what you could do if you uh {disfmarker} from the bottom {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's text . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh , right , help . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , you could make like a hole in it , you know , of uh {disfmarker} in in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , little holer {disfmarker} littler {disfmarker} Uh , little products go deeper in it . +Marketing: Yeah . That i that is possible , yep . +Project Manager: Well let's ha let's talk about the docking station later , because uh maybe we have we have to uh consider the docking station anyway , because we have some uh cost issues {vocalsound} still to come . +Marketing: Yeah , sure , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . And uh uh +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But we have to look n I don't know . +Industrial Designer: the f the look and feel would be great on this uh remote control , because uh you always uh will uh pick up the remote control in the in the smallest uh area . +Marketing: I don't like the colours . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then your uh left thumb of uh {disfmarker} your right thumb is uh near the programme uh button , which is the most common used uh function , and all the other buttons are available for your uh thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's it's really good design . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . That's it ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh on the side uh there will be a strip of rubber , and in the middle uh there is uh a hard uh a hard material , a bit hard plastic with a light uh behind it . +Marketing: The light . Okay . And other lights ? +Project Manager: I think added lights are gonna be a problem too . +Industrial Designer: Yes , we can make also n neon lights on it , or or the buttons that can make uh light on it . +Marketing: No , o on the on the front . Yeah , okay . Maybe the uh the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} lights ? +Industrial Designer: But , it will also uh uh use batteries , +Marketing: Yeah , why not ? +Industrial Designer: and do we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course . +Project Manager: Okay . For now , uh this is uh is good enough . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , what was uh on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} all the aspects of the interface buttons were uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but in the {disfmarker} oh yeah , the colour , because we're gonna use uh one colour for the the plastic enclosure and one colour for the rubber , isn't it ? Then we're gonna do the buttons in the i are we're gonna have rubber buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And they're be a {disfmarker} {gap} they'll be in the same colour as the rubber on the side . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Uh , in the same colour as the side . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think that'll be good . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think we should use a a darker colour for the um plastic , and maybe some more m brighter and flashy stuff {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can use on the on the lights on the side we can use uh uh multiple uh lights , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: so it will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll talk about the lights later . 'Cause I also don yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: it's depends on the costs and such . But uh , and we have to agree uh upon the exact colours , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but may I dunno if that's important , but we'll talk about that later . Okay , for now this is this is okay . +Marketing: We will . +Project Manager: Um , the next p y you gonna give a presentation too ? Uh , I have to see the agenda . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Well , uh yeah , I I'm gonna do something right there , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Detail design . +Marketing: We gotta do that on the right {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} right-most screen , because the leftmost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Yep , that's me . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . I will be needing that image , so leave it please . Um {disfmarker} Go away . Right , we're gonna evaluate that design according to a few points . {vocalsound} Um , we g the four of us are going to do that um together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I wanna have a colour over here , come on . Right , the remote {vocalsound} is not ugly , a bit weird sentence , but the positive things has to be on the left , so I {vocalsound} said not ugly instead of ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , what would you say , we we gotta give points to uh to all of these to evaluate uh that design , and please forget the drawing skills of these guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is not ugly . How do you feel ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think four maybe would be appropriate , because it's {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe it really depends on taste . Uh , I mean it's kind of {gap} , our design . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: so if maybe a lot of people find it really ugly , you know , o other people find it really cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Background colour . +Project Manager: I don't know or uh I don't know how you {disfmarker} Casting . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I think the the fronts will give it a more uh uh uh less uglier uh side , because you can uh make it in your own {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you guys feel ? The different designs . +Industrial Designer: yes , you can make it in your own uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: more to your own personality or or house style . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we d we didn't {disfmarker} we're we're not planning to use fronts , I believe . +Marketing: No , not not fronts , but different designs . +Project Manager: With a colour a co a colours . Oh , okay . +User Interface: No , not fronts . Different designs . Different colours maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And that's still uh uh , yeah , is is uh is a little personal touch , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay , but {disfmarker} Oh , maybe we should do three or something that w you know , our {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? Yeah , wha wha what would you uh guys uh think ? Personally . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or forty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can make it a one . +Marketing: Personally . Yes , but what is it ? +Industrial Designer: I think two or three . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Guido ? +User Interface: I agree . +Marketing: Two or three . +User Interface: Um , I uh I go for the positive . So I go for two . +Marketing: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking about three , so I guess +Project Manager: Uh , I was thinking about four , so I think three is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , three . +Marketing: three is uh a bit uh {disfmarker} oh , what am I doing ? I'll mark it . The remote control's uh uh that n makes uh zapping easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , let that {disfmarker} let's make that a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Two . One . One . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Antek , you agree ? +User Interface: Okay yeah , I'll I'll agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: That's one thing for sure . +Marketing: Yeah . You're not Antek . +User Interface: I'm the I'm the usability , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I totally agree . The remote control the remote control's relevant buttons are prominently visible . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , two or a one , I guess . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's something we really put work into . +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's all about the buttons . +Marketing: I would say a one because uh every button is uh uh relevant . {vocalsound} And our {disfmarker} oh yeah , it's a b yeah . Yeah ? Alright . That's a one ? You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . I think we totally succeeded there . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe a two , because of the menu button or something . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well menu {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . That's true . +Project Manager: And telete +Industrial Designer: Also , the the the buttons of the one , the two , the the digits , +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know if the {disfmarker} uh they're necessary . +Industrial Designer: o they're used uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the {disfmarker} yeah , m well , you d you've got a point . +Project Manager: I think a two . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Can {disfmarker} yes , three , two . +Project Manager: Came a long way , but not {disfmarker} we didn't not uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Mm two . +Industrial Designer: But you can't make a remote control without them , +Marketing: Two ? Antek . +User Interface: Because we got {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nay that that that's true , that's true . They're definitely needed . +Project Manager: No , w w it can also always be more simplistic , but two is {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} we put it on a two ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: The remote control has got a really trendy look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . A one . +Project Manager: Yeah , uh a t I think a two . +Marketing: Maarten . +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , y i it's hard to say from this picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} we've tried to make it uh the the best trendy look uh ever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Ever , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guido . +Project Manager: But I do think it's more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I will I will make it a three , because uh {disfmarker} yeah . I I th +Project Manager: But I do think that it's more trendy than beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I agree . I agree . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so I think maybe it has to score higher uh on this than on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . True , yeah . +Marketing: I was planning to give it a two , uh where I give the not ugly uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A th a three . +Marketing: oh , yeah , that's true . You agree on the two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I i uh when you compare to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Great . Remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . +Project Manager: Uh uh what's the difference with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I copied that one . Well , uh forget that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Go away . Remote control has got innovative technology implanted . +User Interface: No . We're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: well , maybe the the the {disfmarker} on the side . +Industrial Designer: No , not L_C_D_ , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we uh {disfmarker} {gap} you mean the rubber stuff ? +Marketing: Yeah , and the light . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have t we have to talk about the lights uh . +User Interface: And the light maybe . +Industrial Designer: But that that's not innovative . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I don't u also it's also really not innovative , +Industrial Designer: Lights lights are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I g +Project Manager: it's more {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} seven ? +Project Manager: No , six . Or seven maybe , {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Well , six . No , six . +Project Manager: Or six . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Why uh why not a seven ? +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah , mine is seven . +Industrial Designer: Because we've tried to make it a little bit innovative , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it but it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh it's uh depends on the on the maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: How ? +Industrial Designer: With the lights it {disfmarker} it's it's kind of future {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think I think actually it's a seven maybe , but there's nothing innovative about it . +Marketing: Yeah , you think the lights are innovative ? Well , it's n true . Uh , I agree , +Industrial Designer: But still you can retrieve it when it's when it's gone , with the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +Marketing: m but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Innovative in generally or just f original for {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll {disfmarker} Yeah , you you didn't draw the docking station . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} The docking station is a is a little bit innovative . +Project Manager: N no no , +Marketing: Yeah , it it's {disfmarker} I think I think with its {disfmarker} +Project Manager: t {gap} . +User Interface: A docking station is innova +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean the dock station , but but uh , I think the the docking station , {vocalsound} it's gonna be a {gap} kind of a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a part of the remote . +Marketing: I think more m +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And with the speaker on the {disfmarker} there's also a speaker . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh that {disfmarker} that's n +Project Manager: Well , let's leave it open for uh for us later to see what , because we have to reevaluate anyway . Well I i {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: No uh , well , the agenda says evaluate now , so I think we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , for now it's a six or a seven uh , sev +Marketing: It's it's a six . +Project Manager: six maybe , +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the retrieval or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That m f +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't I don't know if it's very {vocalsound} inno yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , for the retrieval function . Yeah . I think that's very innovative for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , v +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} how would you innovate a remote control more ? +Project Manager: Yeah , more through uh like function T_V_ functionalities and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To put it on your head . +Project Manager: no no , you know what I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} {gap} must be innovative technology for remote controls , but more in how you control stuff , not in how you find your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah sure , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I d I definitely don't think it's a five , +Project Manager: that's that's {disfmarker} think about it la later on +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control is easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a a one or a two ma uh at least . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think a two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's good . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: More two . +Marketing: Come on . The remote control hasn't got uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Project Manager: No , I would have seen {vocalsound} that one before . Oh , you skipped one uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've just filled {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: Uh , here . +Marketing: Go away . +Industrial Designer: You like the buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found twelve questions so much , but it still is ten . +Project Manager: Remote control will be bought by {disfmarker} +Marketing: It will be bought by people under the age of forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In in {disfmarker} and comparing with uh people of th of the age above ? +Marketing: No no no . No , just if they if they buy it . +Project Manager: Uh , just in general . Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think I think two . +Marketing: Yeah , what do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think two , yeah . I agree . Two . +Marketing: Antek ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , two , but only in c when you compare it with with elderly . +Project Manager: Uh , that is not the question . It's just w it will be bought by people under forty . +Marketing: No , that's no comparison . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} yeah , you can be very picky about it . +Marketing: And I don't mean two people . +Industrial Designer: This is just guessing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah , just make it {disfmarker} we'll make it a two . +Industrial Designer: Make it a two . +Marketing: W w +Industrial Designer: When it succeeds , uh it can get a two , mu +Marketing: Right , the rem The remote control has recognisable corporate image , colour , logo or slogan . +Project Manager: Oh no . Yeah . Yeah , you have make an +User Interface: We don't have the slogan though . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} slogan is quite obvious {gap} . +Marketing: Oh , the slogan . +Project Manager: Oh the {disfmarker} oh sorry , no , not not the slogan . +Marketing: Can we see the slogan ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put that on the side if {vocalsound} if we would like to . +User Interface: The logo . +Industrial Designer: A logo . +User Interface: Underneath it or something . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh encrypted uh with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and I will I th still think it's gonna be a two or a three . +Marketing: Are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} A three . Three . +Project Manager: Maybe a three this time . +User Interface: Yeah , a three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Three ? I agree . Because of the slogan {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control's got a basic design intended uh for novice users . +Project Manager: Uh , it's a one or a two . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , make it a two . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Two . Alright . We gotta add up the scores now to see our total average . Four , five , seven , nine . Forget that . Fifteen , seventeen , twenty one , twenty four , twenty six . Twenty six . It's a two point six . +Project Manager: It's not that bad . +Marketing: Alright , we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's mostly the inno +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: when we uh score higher on innovative technology , we would score two , +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: which is uh quite a great score . Okay . Uh , this is {disfmarker} was uh the evaluation ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} This was my evaluation . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because I I still think that the most important part of this meeting still has {disfmarker} +Marketing: We did a pretty nice job until now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , is this your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is there something after this uh meeting ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . Well , I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: No . Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Still opened or uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , finance . Because um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shoot . +Project Manager: I received uh a spreadsheet . +Marketing: A five . A five . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I uh actually don't need this presentation , I guess . Oh . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +Project Manager: I'm gonna open the spreadsheet and we're gonna work this out together , because I didn't really fin uh I have a {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Didn't really finish it . Well , we uh {disfmarker} We'll see . We'll stumble upon some problems . +Marketing: We probably will . +Project Manager: {gap} I probably have already opened it here . {gap} try it again . First of all , the mm all the docking station and costs and such are not included in this list . But let's let's st start with beginning . We include one battery . I i uh I'll explain its {disfmarker} Uh , the the components are listed over here . Uh , price is given . We um {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: The amount , yeah . +Project Manager: we we uh indicate the amount of components of the specif specific component , how much we need of them . And then uh , we'll uh calcula Don't watch the number yet . I don't know if it's filled in properly . Okay , we need one battery . One battery . I think one battery is enough . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: We don't need kinetic , solar cells , hand dynamo . A s okay , this this is a p first problem . Uh , I think we should know how many simple chips , regular chips {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's one one chip , but but you have to choose one from it . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The simple chip is e enough I I think , but with the lights with the lights and the retrieval , it can be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Where did we find this information ? Was it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I haven't got an idea on on which we need to use , really . +Project Manager: I think it was uh your job in the first uh meet Uh , f your first presentation to make this clear , but then you had some t time problems . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , uh I {disfmarker} Yes , my my my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the email I got said uh simple chip , but when we put in the speaker and the retriever uh device , it will uh cost a a bit more , like I think the advanced chip {disfmarker} maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . And how do you know ? I mean , you got that email . Did it point out what to use them for ? +Industrial Designer: Bec No , the {disfmarker} they didn't know about a retriever or a speaker uh in it . +Project Manager: Maybe you can uh look it up right now . Okay , but {disfmarker} okay . When we don't {disfmarker} when we leave the uh retriever and such aside , what {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Then it's a simple chip . +Project Manager: then it would be a simple chip . And with the retriever , it would be an advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I I I s I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright , well , point out the advanced chip for now , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That will be enough for future uh recommendations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it will it will it will be {disfmarker} cause a lot of problems . {vocalsound} The sample sensor {disfmarker} sample speaker . What is it m is that the speaker we were t I don't know what it is . +Industrial Designer: I don't know it uh either . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay , we went for the double-curved case +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: made out of plastic and rubber . And with a special colour . I guess that's what we were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , special colour . {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't know about the special colour , but I think w uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , you get uh a standard uh plastic colour . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if it's very special . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we uh we have special colours . +User Interface: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: Standard rubber . +Marketing: Alright , that's okay . +Project Manager: Okay , then the push-button , I was just counting them . +Industrial Designer: St {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think you have to indicate the amount of push-buttons we want to use , isn't it ? +User Interface: Whoa , it's a little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's bit of a problem , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: because I re but I really don't understand that , because I can imagine a remote control with far more push-buttons , and it wouldn't be possible according to this uh sheet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's huge . No . We have {vocalsound} the simplest buttons . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's only uh when you use push-buttons , it will cost that much . +Marketing: I don't think so , because it says amount . +Industrial Designer: If you use a scroll-wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . Yeah , it wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the the yellow row is the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fill in the number of components you plan to use in the {gap} and the total cost {disfmarker} I don't know . I +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's the kind of push-buttons . You can have f four kind of push-buttons . +User Interface: Uh , one til nine . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Is that one or is that nine buttons ? +Industrial Designer: You can have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I count them like this . One two three uh four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and thirteen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} Oh , this is {disfmarker} oh , this is one , okay . Twelve , okay , then it would be eighteen , because uh , I uh rated them as uh um as uh uh uh separate buttons . +Marketing: To n +Industrial Designer: Different , +Marketing: that's total of four buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: And plus these two , f uh plus the mute button , and it's will be uh eighteen . +Marketing: I think that {disfmarker} Eighteen . One two three four five , si +Industrial Designer: Why is that so uh expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't understand . Y I do I don't get the point , because it's would be s relatively so expensive , just these m small buttons . +User Interface: Is it cents , the the the fifty cents a button ? +Marketing: Fifty cents for one single stupid button . +User Interface: No way . +Industrial Designer: So , whe when you {disfmarker} so then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , okay , well well let's make it just one . +Industrial Designer: It's eighty percent of the price of the of the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , now it's now it's already s +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Project Manager: shall we just give our own interpretation to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because else we would really have a problem . It would be impossible to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's way {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I I couldn't understand it if it was fifty cents per uh uh per button . Really . +Industrial Designer: When you have the same amount of button , you have to put in wi in your carton . Board . +Project Manager: And and less buttons than this isn't possible . +Industrial Designer: And then throw it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the most simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , no no . +Project Manager: yeah , it is possible , but I've never seen one before . +Industrial Designer: But whe +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've seen one uh one remote control with only the pu yeah , only with uh page up , page down and volume , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , really . +Project Manager: Yeah , without the numbers . That's possible . Yeah , we could skip the numbers . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I d I wouldn't want to own that . Really . +User Interface: That's still four . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's it's still for little children . They can handle that remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then uh , teletext would also be im impossible . +Industrial Designer: but but it isn't fo Yes , it's for {disfmarker} it's li uh it's just for a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's no option , that's no option . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll we'll just {disfmarker} okay . But then still , {vocalsound} when we {disfmarker} there's no room for a docking station or something . Tha w Le let's see th we have uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , button supplements . We'll give the buttons special colour . We'll give them a special form . Uh , I think we should mark the special form thing , because it {disfmarker} this will be some special forms incorporated in these big buttons , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A special colour , why a special colour ? +Project Manager: Because the buttons will be uh d will be matching colour between the buttons and the rubber surroundings . +User Interface: But wha what s what special ? +Project Manager: I think that's the {disfmarker} what they mean by a special colour . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think the special form is really true . +Project Manager: I think all the special colour things have to be marked over here , because that's what we were planning to do , making it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special form also , it says . +Project Manager: Yeah , special material r also , +Marketing: Is it ? +Project Manager: because i has rubber . And the buttons have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: What is the normal material ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh yeah . +User Interface: Plastic , I think . +Industrial Designer: Classic ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Oh , plastic . +Marketing: Plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay , but the problem now is that {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} There's no such thing as a docking station in this list , but we can all imagine that it would be impossible to make a docking station for thirty cents . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can uh sell the remote control and uh sell the docking station {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Separately . +User Interface: Se no no no . +Industrial Designer: yes . And and {disfmarker} but we don't have to tell it , but what we can say of {disfmarker} can um almost make it impossible to buy a remote control without the docking station . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . Yeah , but I do like the idea , but we {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It uh {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} then the docking station isn't relevant for this project anymore , but we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No , but you {disfmarker} otherwise you can't retrieve it . +Project Manager: but then you still have to use {disfmarker} we have to find out what chip we u need . +Marketing: Yeah , I really don't get it . I mean if it's a simple chip , then we suddenly got two Euros and thirty cents . +Project Manager: I think we can agree on this . I I think the special colour thing has to be uh marked . 'Cause I think we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's what what what they uh mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for two Euros and thirty cents , we uh we don't get a docking station . +Marketing: I think so , too . Oh , I don't know . +Project Manager: But can we find out uh about uh this chips ? Because when we don't need a d a docking station , then probably we also have only {disfmarker} we also need a simple chip . +User Interface: And then we can get a docking station . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And maybe then we can do something extra . Oh , n uh oh , still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh , it's gonna get more expensive with {gap} . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have some money left . We can put then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For two Euros . +Project Manager: We can put a scroll-wheel on it or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh why ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well who knows . Or a little bit of tin titanium . +Marketing: I mean i i if you {disfmarker} if it would cost two Euros , that had a total a total thing , it would be nice too , I mean uh we're not gonna add uh a trip to Hawaii to it . +User Interface: But what what can we do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , or we can ki do the kinetic cells . That's also maybe an idea . +User Interface: But uh what can we do with the simple chip and what's difference with a regular chip and a advanced chip ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's what then what he has to find out . Maybe you can uh find it in your email right now , then we know {disfmarker} then we exactly know what it will cost us . +User Interface: If if i +Project Manager: Maybe is that {disfmarker} that's nice to know . +User Interface: Regular chip and {disfmarker} because we don't have uh special functions to use uh in advanced chip , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , bu bu but when we {disfmarker} yeah , but when we skip when we um {disfmarker} when we don't use the do we're not gonna make the docking station , then we still {disfmarker} yeah , we need something else maybe to make it kind of special , +Marketing: I like the hand dynamo part . +Project Manager: because that was our our special feature . +Marketing: We can make a plain docking station for two Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . We'll go back uh tomorrow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , you can also do that , but maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wi wi without recharge {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still is a special remote control cons uh you know , wi its form is special and material . +Marketing: Yeah , but but we can make a docking station for two Euros uh if you don't put the recharge function in it . I mean , it has a shape . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for two Euros , then we have still {disfmarker} maybe we have to use the advanced chip , +Marketing: Of course it has a shape , but i i +Project Manager: then two Euros isn't even possible . +Marketing: Why should that not be possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah , then {disfmarker} because then we'd {disfmarker} thirty cents left . +Marketing: No , for for the uh for the docking station if you do if you choose the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know , because maybe d uh yeah , we have to find out with the simple chip . +User Interface: That's the question . If we do i do we need an advanced chip , or is it okay f +Project Manager: Yeah , and w and and we uh need f +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , so I don't know it uh either . +Project Manager: and what is this ? Sample sensor sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , I uh I {disfmarker} I've got a schematic view of the remote control , but nothing about uh advanced chips or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} You can look at it for s presentation . S technical functions ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh I've got here in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , they were uh mine , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I will put a I will put a page on it . When my mouse works again . +Project Manager: Oh , oh oh . Hey . Oh . +Industrial Designer: My mouse is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Reanimate it . +User Interface: Died . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Ah , I've got it . I will put uh my email on the the network . +Marketing: What the hell are these ? +Industrial Designer: It's on it . +Marketing: Oh , whatever . +User Interface: Yeah , it's open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't think here {disfmarker} it's in here already . +User Interface: It's circuit board . It's only just basics for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's nothing about s yeah . +User Interface: At the end circuit there is an infrared LED . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: This isn't helpful . +Project Manager: No . But i in the presentation of yours , there was also something about different components . Which one was it ? +User Interface: Components design . +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that was my presentation . +User Interface: Components design maybe . N on top . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that was mine . +Project Manager: Ah . Ah yes , it was the second one . +Industrial Designer: But that was my second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it was your second {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's already open . +Project Manager: your first presentation . +Marketing: It's at the bottom . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: Working design . +Marketing: It's uh at your task bar . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's the the other one . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , this is n this is not this n +User Interface: Was it working design or components design ? +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: that's not the right one . I don't {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: No , this is the other one . Or maybe something is uh {disfmarker} maybe there's something abo in in these {disfmarker} +User Interface: Chip set . +Industrial Designer: But this is the same uh {disfmarker} This is o only the possibilities . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We can use a simple , a regular , or advanced chip . +Marketing: Yeah , nice . I it doesn't say anything . +User Interface: The display requires an advanced chip . +Project Manager: You know that a push-button requires a simple chip , but a scroll-wheel , it it me requires {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only need a simple chip . +User Interface: Requires . +Industrial Designer: With the light . +User Interface: Little lights . Yeah , but that that's just the same as the the LED . +Project Manager: No no , that's just a simple chip . A scroll-wheel {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's not needed . +Project Manager: it s uh only states that a scroll-wheel requires a regular chip , and that a display requires an advanced chip . So , we don't need any of them . +Marketing: A display uh is , of course , uh for showing letters . For showing text . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think that uh just a l a little light {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . I think uh the uh normal uh simple chip will be okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And what's the sample sensor slash sample speaker ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can say against the remote uh page uh f uh page up , page down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess so too . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Well , that's not too {disfmarker} what we want . +Marketing: Next channel . No . Well , we might want it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All in twelve Euros . +Project Manager: Back to the costs . +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euros and fifty cents . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're gonna use the simple chip . +User Interface: So , simple chip is okay . +Marketing: Great . Delete . +Industrial Designer: And the lights . Where uh are the lights ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , lights , yeah , there's no +Marketing: Well , there're three , I guess . +User Interface: category . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , there is some money left to be spent . +User Interface: Can we do it wi within two two Euro ? +Marketing: I think we can make a docking station . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but what we have to think about now is that is is it still a special remote control ? But I mean it isn't {disfmarker} it hasn't got any innovative technology , we aren't gonna apply any uh innovated {disfmarker} innovative te technology anyway , I think . I don't I don't see any possibility to do so , because it would {disfmarker} wouldn't fit our defi design philosophy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . But it's original . +Project Manager: But what w is there some extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: maybe I think maybe the kinetic thing is something . Instead of the rechargeable {disfmarker} the rechargeable thing was something to um {disfmarker} know , so y so people wouldn't have to worry about their batteries anymore . +Marketing: M bu +Project Manager: Maybe we {disfmarker} if we put the kinetic thing in it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but sometimes you put a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you leave the p yeah , I know , but still I {disfmarker} they will think about that . I mean if you u +Industrial Designer: Kinetics aren't uh nowadays only used in watches and that's because you're always walking . +Project Manager: The uh {disfmarker} it's made for s people {disfmarker} well , the they don't {disfmarker} if it was uh uh r useless technology , they wouldn't put it uh as a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells are useless . +Project Manager: And i it it {disfmarker} th th the the target +Marketing: Or the hand dynamo dynamo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the target uh group are people who zap regularly and throw with their remote control as a matter of speaking {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because I think it {disfmarker} when when there w was a remote control where it was useful to have a kinetic uh uh power source , then it would be this one . Because it's one {disfmarker} it gets thrown around {gap} thrown around a lot and it gets used a lot {disfmarker} Hey that {disfmarker} maybe that's cool {disfmarker} that's a cool thing about it , you know . You don't use batteries . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if we ca +Project Manager: I've never seen it before in a remote control . +User Interface: But then we could make a docking station . +Marketing: I don't know if {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Project Manager: No , we we we can't make a docking station anyway . +Marketing: That's not true . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can als or uh also m we we can make one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow , w why no li +Marketing: We can make a docking station for two thirty . +Project Manager: we can still make {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look at now , we got two +Industrial Designer: Fo {vocalsound} for a docking station . +Marketing: Two thirty . +User Interface: two thirty left . Ca can't we make a docking station of that ? +Marketing: We can make a docking station . Sure . +Industrial Designer: With a cable , with uh buttons on it , with retrieval uh device in it . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: The power device is is i i is very cheap . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's just a regular uh power cable and whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , but be serious , then uh the docking station will be a fifth of the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wi with a button to +User Interface: Well , we we uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: wi with a button to retrieve it , so it will beep . +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Uh , so it's uh wireless technology . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we uh we don't inc we haven't looked at the {disfmarker} these costs of the speaker and other stuff . I don't think it's realistic for you to do so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well then it's a useless project . +Industrial Designer: Look at the case , +Project Manager: Oh , because we {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the case the case of of uh of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then we don't have any innovation things . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} well look at all the special stuff we have . Colour a the colours are special , the form is special . It {disfmarker} th this is whole concept . Uh maybe it {disfmarker} with the kinetic thing , I think we could do uh do a compromise uh with the kim kinetic thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Can't we uh {disfmarker} Can't we say fifteen Euros ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , sta yeah {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , then we have to sell it for thirty Euros . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: No , we only make less profit of it . +Industrial Designer: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can sell for twenty seven and a half . Then you make as much profit as you would with twelve and a half production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don my suggestion is to just forget about the whole docking station thing and make it uh like a {disfmarker} Uh uh I I I I still fee I also feel this concept of making it kinetic , because of the {disfmarker} you know , it g it gives something dynamic to the remote control . +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can uh can do it both . Maybe we can do it both uh in the in the in the remote . Battery and kinetic . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that wouldn't n no . +Marketing: Thirteen twenty . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it is also not a good {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} you have to really do it only kinetic , you don't want it to think about batteries anymore . +Marketing: And I think only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when it's {disfmarker} then when it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but only kinetic , then you gotta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No no . +Industrial Designer: then you have to shake it uh and all when it's when it's empty . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's great . +Marketing: You you gotta throw uh throw it through the room like twenty times an hour , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . No no , this is very sophisticated technology technology . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When you use it {disfmarker} your remote like once a day , or maybe even less i i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You asked for three d No , that's n that's not true . Uh , a watch is uh kinetic because you walk all the time . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We can make it {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} no . Becau be but a remote control gets {disfmarker} why do they state that this technology can be used if it +Industrial Designer: Yes , solar cells are also stated . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but a w uh uh n uh a calculator also works on r on solar cells . +Industrial Designer: Why don't we use solar cells then ? +Project Manager: Because I think the d whole dynamic part , do you know , appeals to me qui uh thinking of our design philosophy , you know , with the rubber parts and uh sturdiness of the thing , and y when you move it around a lot , then people find the idea funny that when I move my remote control around and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , it's funny for a week . I guess something like that , where you have to move it around very frequently , is demotivating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but you don't have to . Trust me . The idea of this technology is that you don't think about it , it just happens . +Marketing: No , I I don't move my uh my remote control very much , seriously . +Project Manager: Okay , then we d Okay , well y we don't have to do it , but what {disfmarker} that would just have a lack of key features , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oui . +Project Manager: You m have to put something on your box . You have to make people buy it and uh {disfmarker} We can really can do the docking thing , uh it's not {disfmarker} yeah , uh we can do it , but it's would be a easy way out . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can do it for fifty cents . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , we've got more than fifty Cents . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to grou to agree upon something , +Industrial Designer: The c {vocalsound} The case the case alone is is is uh +Project Manager: because uh we only have a minute left or so . +Industrial Designer: the case alone for uh remote control is at least one Euro . Then we have one Euro thirty for the whole docking station . +Project Manager: No no , it's not possible . Okay , w b we can s we can leave it on be well then then th it's {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} then then our concept is ready . +User Interface: Cheap remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make some extra profit of it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , we won't , but that's um something else . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It w it won't tell , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , this not gonna sell . No . +Project Manager: Huh , any ideas ? +Marketing: Of course not . +User Interface: No , uh , n no +Industrial Designer: Great {gap} . It's great . +User Interface: Yeah , we just have to go all what we did today again . You have to do it over . +Industrial Designer: Our remote control . +Marketing: We come back tomorrow , okay ? +Project Manager: No no uh there's still there's still someth concept and something special left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seventy Euros . +Project Manager: I mean we're gonna {disfmarker} it's gonna excel in in on in the the range in the field of design and and uh looks and feel . +User Interface: No , but {disfmarker} no . +Project Manager: That's what it's {disfmarker} makes it special . Yeah , and I would li I would have liked a kinetic part as well , to give it some just to give it some extra special feature , and uh I know it will work , but uh it's it's an {disfmarker} They're they're not putting technologies on this {gap} , but if it if it was impossible to to make it happen . +Industrial Designer: Why not a hand dynamo then ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well we leave it like this . Then it's c then we're {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can't do anything else . Warning , finish meeting now . +Industrial Designer: We're done . +Project Manager: Okay , project e uh +Industrial Designer: Is this it ? +Project Manager: well , we were gonna what look {disfmarker} take a look at the last sheet . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , we can't . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . Celebration . I don't see why , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire , to be honest . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I don't uh hear a bell . +Marketing: No , not yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We can do it here then . +Marketing: Alright , I'll see you guys in a minute . +Industrial Designer: Bye . +User Interface: Can we {disfmarker} can't we do it here ? +Marketing: I don't think so . I don't know . I don't I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Just fill that one in . +User Interface: Yeah , we're doing now . But it's {gap} . Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't know . +User Interface: Nice . +","In the detailed design meeting led by the Project Manager, the team is discussing their prototype for a remote control. The Industrial Designer and User Interface team member present the prototype, focusing on form, material, color, and the placement of interface elements and functions such as buttons for power, channels, volume, and teletext. There is some confusion over missing buttons, like the mute button, which they decide to include. + +Marketing and the rest of the team also discuss the layout and design, aiming for right-handed users, and consider adding pictograms like a little ‘P’ for ‘program’ and a triangle to distinguish buttons. There's debate over whether the remote control needs buttons for teens and twenties channels, or if these could be accessed by pressing ‘1’ followed by a pause, which some TVs may allow. + +The team then shifts focus to cost considerations. They have a target cost of €12.50, but struggle to include features like a docking station within this budget. They consider omitting the docking station and adding alternative power sources, such as kinetic energy. After much discussion about the feasibility and cost of various features, they decide to forgo the innovative docking station. Instead, they opt for a basic design, with the possibility of including kinetic energy functionality to make it stand out, while staying within the cost constraints. + +The conversation ends without a firm decision on the final features of the remote control, and they acknowledge the need for further discussion and evaluations." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh , making a profit of fifty million Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright so twenty five . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: So , it's go gonna have to be be pretty damn trendy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I've {disfmarker} The only the only remote controls I've used usually come with the television , and they're fairly basic . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I was thinking that as well , I think the the only ones that I've seen that you buy are the sort of one for all type things where they're , +User Interface: Yeah the universal ones . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: yeah . So presumably that might be an idea to put into . +Industrial Designer: But but to sell it for twenty five you need a lot of neat features . For sure . +Marketing: Slim . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh 'cause I mean , what {disfmarker} uh twenty five Euros , that's about I dunno , fifteen Pounds or so ? And that's quite a lot for a remote control . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , it's about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well my first thoughts would be most remote controls are grey or black . As you said they come with the T_V_ so it's normally just your basic grey black remote control {gap} functions , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so maybe we could think about colour ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Make {disfmarker} that might make it a bit different from the rest at least . Um , and as you say , we need to have some kind of gimmick , so um I thought maybe something like if you lose it and you can whistle , +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} The the keyrings , yeah yeah . +User Interface: you know those things ? Because we always lose our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah uh , +Project Manager: Okay , that's cool . +Marketing: being as a Marketing Exper Expert I will like to say like before deciding the cost of this remote control or any other things we must see the market potential for this product like what is the competition in the market ? What are the available prices of the other remote controls in the prices ? +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: What speciality other remote controls are having and how complicated it is to use these remote controls as compared to other remote controls available in the market . So before deciding or before finalising this project , we must discuss all these things , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and apart from this , it should be having a good look also , because people really li uh like to play with it when they are watching movies or playing with {gap} or playing with their C_D_ player , M_P_ three player like any electronic devices . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They really want to have something good , having a good design in their hands , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so , yes , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: all this . +Industrial Designer: Uh , what do we think a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , we're looking for {disfmarker} {gap} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: What do we think a good size would be for this ? {gap} +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I I know as you add more buttons to the remote it sometimes gets so big and clunky +Project Manager: Sorry , carry on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and there's just like a hundred buttons on it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you could have a really small slim one but then you could lose it easily . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Then you lose it , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Kind of um , maybe more like a P_D_A_ kind of , just hand held , like , +Project Manager: For for uh +User Interface: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: remember we're trying to make it for twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No , I wasn't , no sorry I wasn't thinking of the screen of like a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay well right we'll have to um {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Project Manager: we're k having another meeting in half an hour so um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: we should all look into a bit uh , oh actually , no , we'll allocate . So you do the looking around at other remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , if you could maybe come up with sort of shapes and suggested shades or whatever , and you could look into um {vocalsound} basically how how it's made I_E_ like how you make it all in one , how {disfmarker} what sort of materials are available to you whatever . And obviously , other instructions will come from the personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Which will probably just usurp what I said so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you want me to look at shapes and everything you said ? +Project Manager: Shapes and colours and {disfmarker} um basically how to make it attractive . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: And you look at competition and design . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wait for emails ? +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , groovy . And no doubt we'll get um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh no , {gap} . +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: We'll get um warnings for next meetings as well . +User Interface: it's okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I shall {disfmarker} I can't imagine these {gap} are worth much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Fashion into electronic . Okay . +","The conversation appears to take place among a group of professionals comprising a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface specialist, and a Marketing expert, who are collaborating on the development of a new remote control product. The dialogue reveals a brainstorming session where various aspects of the remote's design, features, profitability, and market competitiveness are discussed. + +The Project Manager initially emphasizes the ambitious profit goal of fifty million Euros for the project. A specific retail price point of twenty-five Euros (approximately fifteen Pounds) for the remote control is mentioned, which the team agrees is a high price for a commodity like a remote control, suggesting that the product must be quite distinctive and offer significant value to justify the cost. + +The conversation then moves to making the product stand out in a market likely saturated with standard, basic designs that come included with television sets. A universal design, color variation, and gimmicks such as a find-by-whistling feature — similar to keyring finders — are floated as potential features to differentiate the new remote. + +The Marketing professional emphasizes the need to carefully analyze the competitive landscape, considering what other remote controls are available, their prices, features, and how user-friendly they are. Visually appealing design and ergonomic considerations are highlighted as critical factors, reflecting consumer desire for aesthetically pleasing and comfortable-to-use devices. + +The Industrial Designer raises a valid point regarding the size of the remote control: adding more buttons could lead to a bulky device, whereas a smaller device could get lost easily, alluding to a need for striking a balance between functionality and form factor. + +An underlying concern from the Project Manager is the cost of producing the remote control, with a reference to a target production cost of around twelve Euros fifty to meet profitability goals. This indicates that the design and feature set must be carefully balanced against the production costs to ensure the ambitious profit target is attainable. + +As the group concludes their meeting, they agree to further explore the competition, conceptual designs, colors, materials, and how to make the remote control attractive to consumers. They split tasks among themselves — researching competitors, considering shapes, shades, and materials, and devising methods to make the product eye-catching. The expectation of guidance from a personal coach, likely an advisor or higher management figure, is also mentioned, indicating that the team's direction may be influenced or adjusted by external input. + +Finally, the Project Manager suggests they will align through emails and expects notifications about upcoming meetings. There's a sense of casual professionalism as the Project Manager signs off with the word ""groovy,"" and some uncertainty about the true worth of their ideas, but the commitment to meshing fashion with electronic functionality underscores the innovative intent behind the project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Here we go . Alright , the agenda for thi oh . Alright . Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers . And then we will evaluate it , given the criteria that um that we gave gave it . And um talk about our finances , whether we were under or over our budget . I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made , given our options . And um evaluate the product , as a group . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation . Do you need the um PowerPoint for this ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . I just got a few slides , so show them . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Do you want to present it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , here we are . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with . It's a pretty simple design . It's um based on a mango ? Yeah . And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ . +User Interface: and this'll be the power point , the on off button kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_ ? +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: And then the other one is the power . And uh we just have a simple design . We wanted it all to be +Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held . +User Interface: accessible from your thumb +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb . +Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button . +User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just need the nought . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right no , that's a zero . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off . {vocalsound} Sorry . I was in charge of the numbers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus . +Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one , three or something . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . You press a plus button ? +User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I've never heard of that kind before . +User Interface: Well we just thought , we have all the numbers here , so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote , if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve , you press one , and then you go to channel one , and then two then you'd just go to channel two , instead of twelve . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , there's no e +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve , or two plus two is channel twenty two . +User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two ? +User Interface: No no , th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers . These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press , it'll go to that channel right away . 'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh no . Uh , the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine . +Project Manager: Yeah I know , but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five , channel sixty five , if I press the six it'll go to channel six , and then I'll press the plus , and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five ? +Marketing: Sixty . +User Interface: You p Oh . No you press the plus first . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind , we can further define that . +User Interface: what do you think is simpler ? +Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first , in like on the way to channel sixty five . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem . But I was just wondering +Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do . +Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think . +User Interface: Oops . Yeah . +Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's like a five second input time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you don't put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And channel , +User Interface: A channel . +Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Channel up volume up . Okay cool . +Project Manager: C_ and V_ . +User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , where um where's the power button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_ . +Marketing: It's the R_ . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's all accessible . Without m taking your hand off the remote . +Industrial Designer: We deci +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Ergonomic , definitely ergonomic . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , no I mean it's a different movement +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it , I mean , we've made this out of Play Doh , which is representing the , you know , the rubber , and the spongy rubberness . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The spon yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um 'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . I would . +Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My goodness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go . +Industrial Designer: And you ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: . Oh it's nice . Oh I think I killed the five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I did . +Project Manager: And something hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I killed the four . Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: O Okay , as for the colours , we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype . +User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah . +Marketing: Oh it smells good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that , seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway , that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use . Or the combination . Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme , the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit , like banana could be black and yellow , watermelon red and green , +Project Manager: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in +User Interface: 'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish . +Project Manager: Yeah . It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would . +Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme , like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon , you know , m probably appealing to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kinda Christmas , you know . +Industrial Designer: yeah , seasonal . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Apple green , brown , more kinda trendy , you know , khaki {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of , +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device , I mean you don't need to use both hands , one hand to hold this and type in with the other , you can just use your thumb . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good work everyone . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And so now that we've we have a prototype , uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute . +Marketing: You want the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm gonna check that out for a second . +Marketing: I have one . +Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What time is it anyw +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right . Evaluation criteria is next in line . +Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay . That's me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Hello . Oh there we go . Okay . Come on my computer . Come on . {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties . +Project Manager: Just press um function eight again . +Marketing: Should I press it again ? Last time I did that it sh Okay . You're right . +Project Manager: And then again I think . One more time . +Marketing: Oh . Still not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it . Um , we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen . Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings , um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were , um , back to our kick-off meeting this morning . Um , and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do . Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false . So basically the lower p the lower the points the better . {vocalsound} Okay so question number one . Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops . Sorry . Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um , I'll do it on the whiteboard . I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Okay so number one . Do we have a fancy look-and-feel ? +Industrial Designer: Feel I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy , but it's definitely different . +Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah . +Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it . I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek +Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red , black and yellow , and orange . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way , anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . A metallic-y finish we were thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Polished . Okay {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look . +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well , potato , mango , fruit and veg . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very different . It's what ? +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine . Potato's fine . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is , fruit or vegetable depends on your mood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Totally . It's really adaptable . +Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would say two . Personally . +User Interface: I w I'd say two I think . +Marketing: It's a two ? +Industrial Designer: For the +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: Fanciness . +Marketing: and p +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker} +Marketing: One being true . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two , three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing , like that . Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative ? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber , the use of the L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons , it's all pushbuttons , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control , so if we're thinking about the rest of the market , it's sort of probably halfway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is , like we said . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say maybe three . +User Interface: I'll go for three as well . +Marketing: Yeah . And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this , because then that would've defeated the purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Though it was our specification . +User Interface: No . Wouldn't be simple , yeah . +Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three , but I think we actually reached our goal . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that . Okay question number three . Uh , will it be easy to use ? +Project Manager: I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah very . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think one for that . +Marketing: Yeah . S Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . One . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you can't really get confused with that . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Th +Marketing: I mean , there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system . +Project Manager: The plus number thing . +User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah . +Marketing: But once that's figured out , it should be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Number four . Is this a good-looking remote ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this . +Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom , kind of . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent . +Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess . +Marketing: Whoops . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should just not touch it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Don't worry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands . +Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now . What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room ? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa ? +Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat , and then the rest is like +Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: round . +User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh . That's true . +Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think . We c we could handle it I think . +Industrial Designer: Thing is like that , it's not going anywhere particularly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom , so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here , so it sits up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like that . +User Interface: Oh that would be nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though . It'd be annoying . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's less um , what's th ha . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay we're done designing . +Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Details , details . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on . +Marketing: Okay . So , is this a good-looking remote ? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . You would though , 'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay . I think maybe a two . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that , +Marketing: I mean I gue yeah , it's personal taste , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour , I'm not happy with those colours . +Marketing: Okay , so should we say two for that ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Uh , question number five . What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product ? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy . +User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way , that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So people don't just see it and think , uh , this is so simplistic , I don't want to spend twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We have to market it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it . +Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy , shaker-style-y , whoo , +User Interface: And the kinetic energy part . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Durable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: ooh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know , those'll be firmly on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus . {vocalsound} You're +Marketing: No , I guess , I don't know much about the remote control industry , how much your average sells for , +User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one . +Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am , aren't I ? +User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound , aren't they ? About ten pounds . Fifteen ? +Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries . So in the long term this can actually save you money . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: So we'll market it that way too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good point . +Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options , it'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a two still though . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay number six . Can someone read it out ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um yeah . So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it does very well . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: we said {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah , because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing . +User Interface: The zap {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're clearly there , easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average , 'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But they're not you and I really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So . Okay so one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Number seven . C Heather could you push it down ? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost ? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly . +Project Manager: We have the alarm system . +Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented ? +User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system , the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: l lights on and , or flash as well . But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen 'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm . +User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing . +Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up . +User Interface: Yeah . The light {disfmarker} it will . +Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But when the alarm's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Awesome . Awesome . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , that would be brilliant . +Marketing: Here I am . +User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean , when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went . But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something , there wouldn't be any point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm , but it would light up . +User Interface: It would have to be in the market +Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alarm , +User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it . +Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself . +User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . It w yeah . +Marketing: But yeah , it'll be there . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whoo . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can give it a one , because compared to every other remote ever m ever made , this one will be easier to find . +Project Manager: Yeah , totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No problem , mm . +Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear . +Marketing: Question number eight . Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new ? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult . +Project Manager: Totally . +Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah , it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do . +User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple , +Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: won't it ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons , I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button ? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's just like channel six , six , enter . +User Interface: That kind of annoys me though , when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros . +User Interface: I don't know why . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You could just press six enter , +User Interface: Oh okay . Right . +Project Manager: And then like twelve , enter . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter , y +Marketing: or one two enter . +User Interface: Alright , aye . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward . Yeah . Good {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say w yeah one . +Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Mm . +Marketing: Question number nine . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Uh , will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_ , which was repeated strain injury ? +Industrial Designer: Injury . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , which affected over a quarter of users . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I think so . It's like right in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +User Interface: yeah . I don't think it will f +Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: the biology . +Project Manager: But it is soft . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's soft , +Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_ , +Marketing: And people could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what other options there are . +Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's true . +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean , you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , one or two do you think ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I'd say t +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think too . +User Interface: two . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two okay . Okay number ten . Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo ? +Project Manager: Yes we did . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that +Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It won't stand out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour . +Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , yeah the colours are yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Gray , yeah . +Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one . +User Interface: Yeah , could be grey . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though , +User Interface: Yeah that's right , +Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: we didn't even rea +Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers , and see if we can get away with just the R_R_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . I think this is the +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Perhaps a metallic +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey , and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal . No ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That isn't rubber . +Marketing: And the buttons in the middle . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay So , do you think that's more of a three then ? Three , four ? +Industrial Designer: Four I think . Well I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hum . +Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it , so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and final question . {vocalsound} Um , did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies , desire for sponginess . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Following that briefing we did . +Project Manager: But maybe more like two 'cause there's no like pictures of fruit , it's just sort of naming it by a fruit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the with the colours . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No , uh , are the plates interchangeable ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they are ? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . Okay , so that's something that's kind of in the making too , like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: I think w yeah , I think one . Well that was our brief and we followed the brief . +Industrial Designer: The thing is , I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from , I don't know if you'd instantly say mango . +User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . There we go . That would be great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation , do we average them out sorta thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes we do . So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that ? +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: A two for fashion ? +Project Manager: I would say two . +User Interface: Yeah . Two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so our average there , five , six , eight , ten , eleven , twelve , thirteen , fifteen , nineteen , twenty one , divided by eleven +Project Manager: One point nine or something ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things . Um , between one and two . +Industrial Designer: Between one and two . +Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic . +User Interface: Close to two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's very good 'cause the highest we coulda got is one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does that seem right then ? +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we've a four to bring down . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , aye . +Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , should've added five . +Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator ? +Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Oh wow . Well done . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls . +Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright , now with that over and done with , our next step is to see if we are under budget . And um my computer's frozen . And now it's not . Okay . So um in our shared folder , if everyone could go there right now , um I'm going to um steal a cable . +Marketing: Sorry . Are you gonna do that ? Okay . +Project Manager: Um it's it's um +User Interface: Is that the project document ? +Project Manager: it's an Excel file . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Production costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay there we go . Um , production costs . And um I have to access that as well . One moment . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on ? Great . It's blinking at me . It's locked for editing . Read only . I'm gonna open up a second one then 'cause it's locked for editing . I have the original in my um my email account . +Marketing: Oh is it locked 'cause I'm in it ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it ? +Project Manager: No . No , I was hoping that you guys could . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , there we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay here we go . So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing . So um if you can look up at the screen , um the large screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think . Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , it's cur it's double curved , so its curved all around . +Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah . +Project Manager: That's another three . We're already at five . Um , we're using plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free , we're at eight . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: What about a special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we using that ? +Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind . So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Well one colour for the case , one colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , we have push button interface , so that's inexpensive . And um we have a special colour for the button , and we also have a special form . And a special material . +User Interface: And a special material . Yeah . +Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget . +Industrial Designer: Oof . +Project Manager: Hurray . +Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good work guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . 'S good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros . +User Interface: That's good . +Project Manager: Awesome . And back to our PowerPoint . So we've {disfmarker} 'Kay . Yes we are . So we need to do a product evaluation , again , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno . A different extension of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: A project ? Is is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause we're talking about leadership , teamwork . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Pushed for creativity ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time , or materials , yeah , to go about our design task . +User Interface: The ma Or materials . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials . But you were allowed m creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional . Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess , but m +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen , and like solar power backup and everything , then we wouldn't have been able to afford that . +Marketing: When we can down to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity . +User Interface: Creativity . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: But yeah . The fruit and veg idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Leadership ? Is this me being like , guys do you like me ? Um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership , I think we stayed on task . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we did . We've , uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended . A pro um a product within the budget . I think that's a sign of good leadership +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine . +Marketing: And the timing was good . We never were pushed for time , or sat around doing nothing , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good timing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: And project manager of course . +Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork . I think we are well-suited to our roles . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright how were our means ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause that was all the red we had . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype , we wouldn't have been able to . +User Interface: Yeah , it c it might've been bigger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The computer programmes are good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It could be really straightforward for the computer . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think there was anything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh me too . +Marketing: They'll probably still be there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: New ideas found . I don't really know what that means . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Through discussion . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Just about each different {gap} . Got new ideas from each other . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure , new ideas found . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other , which was cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , worked well . +User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Each other's {gap} +Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? +Marketing: Does it have smart materials ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well mm , did it come into the into {disfmarker} +User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it can be afforded . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Well with that achieved , our last slide is our closing slide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget . It's evaluated generally positively . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then we celebrate +Industrial Designer: Uh . Fantastic . +User Interface: Yay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_ ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , brilliant . +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Conclusion ? Dadada . +","In a collaborative and iterative project development meeting, a team comprising a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface specialist, and a Marketing expert set forth to evaluate a newly designed prototype, discuss finances, and ensure the project remains within the designated budget. At the outset, it was made clear by the Project Manager that they had a structured process for the meeting, where the designers would first present the prototype, followed by a thorough assessment against predefined criteria and a financial viability check using a detailed spreadsheet to account for the costs incurred across different aspects of the product. + +The Industrial Designer and User Interface specialist unveiled a prototype remote control inspired by the shape of a mango, with subtle integration of the company logo and an infrared LED feature. All buttons on the device were designed to be easily accessible with one hand, specifically with thumb movements in mind, promoting ease of use and embodying an ergonomic design. A minor oversight in the numbering led to a discussion about the functionality of the input system, particularly how users would select channels above the number nine, which resulted in the idea of using a plus button system for double-digit channel selections. + +During the evaluation phase, the Marketing expert played an instrumental role in the clarification of the product's features, such as location and functionality of the LED and power button, which were integrated into the design with subtlety and innovation. To cater to a wide consumer base with varied preferences, the prototype's casing was planned to have interchangeable color themes named after different fruits, matching the aesthetics to users' preferences and tying in with the product's design inspiration. + +The team encountered a humorous mishap when the pliable prototype material — a representation of stress-relief materials to be used for the final product — was inadvertently distorted, briefly disturbing the orderliness of the buttons. This incident led to a light-hearted exchange about the prototype's resilience to actual usage. + +In order to assure product-market fit, the marketing strategy was analyzed in detail, considering the attractiveness of the remote's non-traditional appearance, perceptions of technologically innovative features such as kinetic energy utilization for power, the practicalities of finding a lost remote with an alarm system, and the potential buyer's willingness to spend on the new design based on perceived value and novelty. The evaluation concluded that if well-marketed, the remote could appeal to a broad demographic interested in fashion, technology, and ergonomic utility. + +Finally, the team went through a financial assessment, accessing a shared spreadsheet to tally production costs against the allocated budget. To their relief and satisfaction, the team found the costs to be marginally under budget, allowing them to proceed with the prototype as planned. + +The meeting concluded with an emphasis on filling out a final questionnaire and summarizing discussions, followed by a well-earned celebration of their accomplishments to be determined later. The meeting not only solidified the remote control prototype's conceptual and aesthetic positioning but also highlighted the importance of teamwork, creativity, and effective management in driving the project towards eventual success." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning , again . +Industrial Designer: One question . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Send . +User Interface: Choose a number ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Submit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: All set ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Good . Okay . Let's see what we can find here . Okay . A very warm welcome again to everyone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um here we are already at our uh functional design meeting . Um and this is what we are going to do . The opening , which we are doing now , um and the special note , I'm project manager but on the meetings I'm also the secretary , which means I will make uh minutes as I did of the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh I also put these as fast as possible in the uh project folder , so you can see them and review what we have discussed . Um if I'm right , there are three presentations , I guess each one of you has prepared one ? Good . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um we will also take a look at new project requirements , um if you haven't heard about them yet . And then of course we have to take a decision on the remote control functions and we have some more time , forty minutes . But I think we will need it . Um well I don't know who wants to go first with his presentation . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . Okay . I'll go first yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can go first , okay . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: Well , shall I go first with the users ? +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well okay no problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is there an order ? I haven't {disfmarker} +User Interface: everybody already has his presentation , +Marketing: Ja precies , ja precies , ja precies +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you can adjust it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So . Huh ? Okay , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And one question , uh your name Denni , is it with a +Marketing: E_I_E_ . +Project Manager: I_E_ {disfmarker} E_I_E_ , okay . Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um I wanted to explain the working design of the remote control . It's possibly very handy if you want to uh design one of those . Um {vocalsound} well so it basically works uh as I uh uh r wrote down uh in this uh little uh summary . Uh when you press a button , {vocalsound} uh that's when you do pr for example when you uh want to turn up the volume , um a little connection is made uh the the rubber uh {vocalsound} button just presses on a +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on a little print plate uh which uh makes uh uh {vocalsound} a connection that uh gives the chips , uh which is uh mounted beneath those uh that plastic of a rubber button . Uh senses that a connection has been made , and know and knows what button you pressed , becau uh for example the the volume up or volume down button . Um uh the the chip uh makes a Morse code uh like uh signal which uh then is si uh signalled {vocalsound} to uh several transistors which makes uh which sends the signal to a little let . You know what a let is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} And that makes uh the the infra-red lights signal which is sent to the television set . Uh which has a sensor in it to uh sense uh the signal of the infra-red . That's basically uh how it works . Um the findings uh uh that I found uh searching up some uh detailed information about the remote controls , are that uh they are very easy to produce , uh it is pis uh it's possible to uh make them in mass production because it is as eas it is as easy as uh printing a page , uh just uh fibreglass plate um is b uh is uh covered with uh some uh coatings and uh uh {vocalsound} and chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh and the technology's already available , we don't have to find out how remote controls uh have to work or uh how that how uh to make some chips that are possible to uh to to transmit those uh signals . Uh I made a little uh uh animation of {vocalsound} about how a tran our uh remote controller works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Animation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we tel +User Interface: There is something turning . +Industrial Designer: There . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a little bug it's in the in the smart board . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the sub-component , I suppose that you understand what a sub-component is , is f in this example it's the button . Uh when it is pressed down , um , the switch is ter is uh is switched on , so with uh the wire is sent to the to the chip in uh co-operation with the battery of course , because to make uh a a signal possible you have to have some sort of uh li uh a d ad uh electronic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Infrared light . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh , okay . Um w after it's being composed by the chip uh the signal uh is transported uh to the infra-red bulb , and from there it signals a Morse code-like signal to the to the b to the bulb in uh in the television set . Okay . S Uh I wrote down some personal preferences about uh the remote control . Of course it is very handy if the remote control is hand held , so you don't have to uh uh wind it up or something , or just is it's it's very light to uh to make uh to use it . Uh I personally uh pref prefer that uh it would be p uh come available in the various colours , and uh easy to use buttons . But I suppose that the one of the other team members uh uh thought of that uh too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've got it there too . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it is possible for several designs and um easy to use b uh sorry , easy to use buttons . Perhaps soft touch , uh touch screen uh buttons because uh the rubber buttons are always uh uh they uh slightly uh they can be slightly damaged , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh so the numbers on the buttons are not possible uh to read anymore . And uh well as I said uh before th uh we can uh make several designs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well , that's my contribution to this meeting , and uh +Marketing: To this meeting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: two of these this meeting . So . +User Interface: Shall I go uh next ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Please . +User Interface: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Smoking . +User Interface: Well uh , my name's {gap} , and I looked at uh technical functions design of the remote . Uh I did this by uh looking at examples of other remote controls , of how they uh they look , and information from the web that I found . Um well what I found was that uh th the actual use of the remote control is to send messages to television set , how you uh d what you described uh just early . And this can be all sorts of medsa messages , turn it on , turn it off , uh change the channel , adjust volume , that kind of thing . Uh play video , teletext , but also t uh play C_D_ if you use it your C_D_ player the remote control will that one . There are some uh examples of remote controls . You can see they are very different . The one has got all the functions that you could possibly need and an lot of uh buttons etcetera . And the other is uh more user friendly , little with big buttons . And uh not n all the the the the stuff you can do with it , but uh the the essential stuff is there . Um {vocalsound} I guess you could better y you should look at a a user centred uh approach , because the customers have to use them and and if they don't think it's usable they won't uh buy it . A lot of buttons they may think from I don't need s as much as that . Uh , well perf personal preferences is is uh a simple remote , with uh the basic functions that you can need that you could use . But uh keep in mind the new functions of T_V_ what we discussed earlier , split screen and uh is that a function that you should have ? Because all the T_V_s will have them . Or because of only a few and isn't really necessary . And then uh make it {disfmarker} I would make so that you can could uh use it on more than one appliance . If you have one that uh uh does with the vi the the video , it could also work with uh with the stereo , because play is play and stop stop and that sort of thing . The shu c you could reuse the buttons so that you don't have to have a lot of buttons for uh anything . And it should be a user friendly , clear buttons , and not too much . And that is my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . Check . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You must still have it open . +Marketing: Kijke {gap} 'Kay , so . {vocalsound} We're going to j discuss the functional requirements of the remote , that m that means that functions user n want to have on the remote control , or just {disfmarker} Yeah , and the users , actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods I I prefer is we're going to look which section of the users we are going to focus a l on more . Are the younger people going to buy the remote control or the elderly people ? And then {disfmarker} tho that section we're going to focus and adjust the remote more to that section than the whole user section . Okay . Some data . Younger people , from sixteen to thir forty five um years are more interested in fj features like L_C_D_ screens , speech recognition e etcetera . And we possess about two third of the market from in that range of age . The elderly people , from forty five years to sixty five years are not that much interested in features , and we possess less than two third , that's two fifth , of the market share in that area . {gap} Goed so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: 'Kay . Findings . Fifty percent of the users lose their remote often . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we don't have to make it very small , like uh like a mobile phone or something , but some somewhat bi bigger than small , so you don't lose it that much anymore . {vocalsound} Seventy five percent of the users also find it ugly , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and fif seventy five of the users zap a lot , so the buttons sh should be that small , or shouldn't be that complex because we have to search for the buttons , which one are you going to use . Next . Important issues about the remote . I think it would be better with a personal reference , but okay . Remote control has to have to have a low power usage , because s w seventy five percent of the users only zap one time an hour , so the power usage is also one one time an hour , or so , with a high power usage we would use a lot of but batteries . The volume button and the channel buttons are the two most important buttons on the remote control , so those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} those have to h be find very easily . And have to be somewhat like bigger etcetera . It has also be {disfmarker} have to find easily when the label is gone . My colleague also announced it that labels should be scratched off +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: or would be s uh {gap} senden {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . {vocalsound} So uh if that's k uh if that's the problem , you also have to find it easily on the remote . Buttons . Like what all colleagues said , have to have to be minimalized . or should be covered , or in L_C_D_ screen . L_C_D_ screen is easy because we have the L_C_D_ screen , we have the various options . Put one option and then you have the all the buttons of that options , so the other options would be gone . And you don't see the buttons . So L_C_D_ screens should be easy , but an L_C_D_ screen , the problem with the L_ sc L_C_D_ screen is that elderly people fr from forty five to for sixty five years don't use the L_C_D_ screen a lot . So we have to that keep that in mind that if you're going to implement L_C_D_ screen , you don't have to make it that hard to learn or to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh L_C_D_ screen as in uh touch screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , touch screen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The last but not least , younger people are more critical about the features . Because they use the remote control often more often , and are more technical than the ol older people . And the older people spend more money , and easily on a remote control . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: So we have to keep in mind to to focus not a lot {disfmarker} not that much on the younger pep younger people , but also somewhat on the elderly people . And on my personal preferences , I don't have any mo more time to come with that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like I said , L_C_D_ screen is easily to use +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because you have {disfmarker} you can implement a lot of buttons in one remote with not that much buttons . And it should be easy to use . Especially the volume buttons , the channel buttes buttons and the number buttons to zap through the channels . And that is it . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well thank you all , huh . {vocalsound} I dunno uh did everyone receive an email with uh the new project requirements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . Res I did not . +Project Manager: No ? Well , +User Interface: Perhaps the rest ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: then I think it's a good thing that I made a separate slide of them +Marketing: Ja , {gap} +Project Manager: so you can all read them . Oh , well not in this presentation . Hmm +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be in there . Well , I can tell you them uh from my laptop . Um teletext does {disfmarker} has become outdated since the popularity of the internet . +User Interface: Oh . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's uh the first thing we I think we should pay less attention to uh teletext . Uh the remote control should only be used for the television , otherwise the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time to market , and of course would make it more costly , I think . Um our current customers are within the age group of forty plus , and new product should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty , and you talked about that before . And uh a last point , but also very important , our corporate image should stay recognisable in our products , which means that our uh corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . So we have to keep that in mind . Um well uh according to our agenda it's then time to take a decision on the remote control functions . So , who has any idea about what should be on it , and what shouldn't ? +User Interface: Well you said it should only uh work with one appliance ? +Marketing: Be television . +User Interface: Or with one uh d che only the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Only be used for television . +User Interface: And the video also , or not uh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it says only for television here , huh . +Marketing: Only the television . +User Interface: Oh . Alright . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Makes it a lot easier , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So yeah , then you can yeah . Requirements , no ? Functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then it should have uh on , off , +Industrial Designer: Yeah for {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Standby options , +Marketing: Yeah , the basics then by a volume , channel , one till two zero numbers on it , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Uh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And per perhaps uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: oh teletext doesn't have to be ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Um other functions . +User Interface: Well uh uh yes yes s sh A button where you can uh change from one number to two numbers . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two s two two digits , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Can you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh okay . +User Interface: Don't know if that's got a name , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's I think it's easy to implement a button with a s s what which especially do that , because some T_V_s , if you press the t one and then the two , it be between five secs it make twelve , +Industrial Designer: It makes it twelve , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . S +Industrial Designer: Indeed . Okay . +Marketing: and that's that's not relaxed +Industrial Designer: Well , not really {vocalsound} +Marketing: to user . +Industrial Designer: And and there are some models that don't uh accommodate that function . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: d uh wh the Philip's television makes it possible in that indeed to uh press one and then two to make uh the uh tj to reach channel twelve . +Marketing: So that it {vocalsound} easy and fast . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh all the television makes uh use of those button where you first press that button and then press two digits to uh to get +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so you should have that one on . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , think so . +Marketing: Our main targets' age are ? were ? Forty five plus , or ? +User Interface: Mute misschien also . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: new product should reach a market with customers that are younger than forty , and now we have current customers uh of forty plus . +Marketing: Forties , okay because {vocalsound} because younger people as Uh younger people have now , sixteen till to twenty five age , are f eighty one percent interested in L_C_D_ screen . From twenty six to thirty five have sixty six percent , and thirty six to forty five , fifty five percent , so I think to um {disfmarker} Because on most recog remote controls um the print plate will be broken how much , two years . You have to press h very hard to go to the next channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: With the L_C_D_ screen it's easier because you only have to wipe the screen to uh {disfmarker} for fingerprint , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we could yeah . But I think that uh that collides with our mission to make it very cheap . +Marketing: and then you can use it again . +Industrial Designer: Because L_C_D_ screens are very expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: A touch screen uh probably uh even more . +Marketing: Yeah but a {disfmarker} you don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: true , true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh {disfmarker} Well um is it possible to make an L_C_D_ screen uh , how was the information ? +Marketing: Yeah , it only says that this perce percentage like L_C_D_ screen . Because , yeah and it says that younger age between sixteen and forty five highly interesting features more critical . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should we should focus on that L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if the only f Yeah , because our target is sixteen to forty five . +User Interface: But , do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh will we not uh exceed our uh our uh production uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah you don't know how much it costs . Yeah , you don't know how much it costs , the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to find out , anyway ? +Marketing: No , I don't have any costs here , +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Marketing: I only have percentages . +User Interface: But if you would do an L_C_D_ screen do we have don don't you have any buttons ? Or because if it only directs at the T_V_ , then you only have uh I don't know what you want to do with the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , an L_C_D_ screen's just like uh like a drawn here . Um just uh displays several buttons , +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: for example um if you wanted the minimal uh use b uh buttons , such as channel and volume , you just h uh displays four buttons on the screen +User Interface: Oh right , so you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's possible to p uh press them down , just like a touch screen . +User Interface: Oh , yeah alright . So you can adjust which buttons you want on that s screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can make it possible to do that , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if you want to adjust , like for example , adjust the audio settings , you press audio on the touchscreen +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you get the buttons for audio settings , +User Interface: Yeah alright , oh right . +Marketing: so the other buttons are gone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So we're going for an L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . Would be yeah . +Marketing: I think it's the most easier thing , +Industrial Designer: That's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And hoping that when we produce a lot it won't be too expensive . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well we had twelve fifty , I guess , for uh production ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Any guesses ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I suppose wi if the mar if our um {vocalsound} if the i if the young people are interested in L_C_D_ screens , we should make 'em . +Marketing: Highly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if that is our d uh market share to uh and our goal to uh deliver those uh remote controls {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But he also said that we should not only focus on the younger people , but also on the older , and will they use it if it only has an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Um , s forty six to forty five , thirty three percent , and sixty fifty six to sixty five twelve percent . +User Interface: Oh , so still a little bit people {disfmarker} +Marketing: But our our our what's it , project requirements are the new products should be reached for new markets , to customers that are younger than forty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's right . But you don't want to alienate the other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that not now , but , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if they also buy it then it's alright . I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , but market share fro for for forty years and younger is higher than that of sixty five and younger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , so L_C_D_ it is ? +User Interface: An Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . It's treasure . +Project Manager: And what else ? +Industrial Designer: I hope we uh h and let's hope to reach those uh those sales . +Marketing: Yeah , i i if it {disfmarker} Yeah , if it costs {disfmarker} gets too much , too expensive , then yeah , we should be sticking to rubber buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can you um uh s I think that that they will send you some information about uh the cost of L_C_D_ uh screens . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N nothing , no costs at all . +User Interface: But perhaps later , +Industrial Designer: Uh so if you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if you uh you receive an email about that , uh can you post it in the {disfmarker} or shouldn't we post that in uh our projects mail uh folder . +Marketing: Yeah , in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think that should yeah {disfmarker} I think we all get the costs of everything . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because you are the the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I'll I'll post it . +Industrial Designer: I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well perhaps we should have a backup plan that we would use buttons if it's uh {vocalsound} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . But for now it's L_C_D_ . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , L_C_D_ , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have the seventy five percent of users find it r ugly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ ? Oh that's a bit of a problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and eighty percent of the users would spend more money with a when a remote would look fancy . +User Interface: Oh , that's a bit of a problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Tha i l i it'll look fancy with L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's looks fancy one yeah , of L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , but they don't they don't like it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: They think it's ugly . When it has an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , just a {disfmarker} the plain remotes , not not specific L_C_D_ remotes . +User Interface: Oh , alright , I thought that you said that . +Project Manager: Yeah , and maybe you can make something fancy out of an L_C_D_ remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's new , as far as I know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And then not {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: And then you have the other thing , that seventy five percent zap a lot , but that's not a f question with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . +Marketing: Only thing you have to do is wipe the screen off once each time , to get all the fingerprints off it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay , what else does our remote need ? +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mute button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think . And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The most important things on a f on an on an uh remote control are channel selection , volume con selection , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and power s power usage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And a teletext , but that is not of the question . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But shouldn't you put a button of {disfmarker} for teletext on the {disfmarker} for the people who want to use it ? +Marketing: Other things are {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: Remembering we have got a big remote that you have to fill . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , and we could make an a a separate menu on the L_C_D_ uh screen for teletext . +Marketing: Yeah , teletext . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And there's also a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And other other less important things are screen settings , audio settings , and channel settings , +User Interface: Yeah , they are less important , but I think they should be there , +Marketing: Less important . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah , should be there , +Industrial Designer: A sh +Marketing: but not press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but in a sub sub-menu or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah , sub-menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think it's also important to uh make it possible to um how do you call it in English , uh , to not use batteries , and use ac uh bat uh {gap} batteries to uh to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like with a with a mouse , you have not , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah sure . Indeed . So uh you can mount uh the the the uh +Marketing: Yeah , in a breath it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh the remote control to um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Charted . +User Interface: We should think of the twelve fifty we have +Industrial Designer: to refill the {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: I don't know how much that's going to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we don't we don't have any costs now , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because i uh when you get an L_C_D_ screen , you run it on batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the batteries will be uh empty very soon , very fast . +Marketing: Yeah e e power supply is one of the most important things . +User Interface: You should {disfmarker} Perhaps you should be able to to switch the control off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have an L_C_D_ screen that's burns all the time I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You shouldn't on and off because that's ver extra , that you have t first you have to turn the remote on , and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's it's not that easy because I don't think people will like it who who uh that you have to turn it on first and then use it , +User Interface: Nee that's that's uh yeah . +Marketing: so I think it's better when th the T_V_ shuts down , the remote shuts down . +User Interface: But then you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And go to standby mode when you don't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah au automac matically , that it {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , automatically . After two minutes or three minutes , something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . After two minutes , yeah two three minutes , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And maybe a low battery indicator ? On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then b that uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: before an hour when its get again gets empty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have plenty of time to recharge it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: of put it in a recharger . Charger . +Project Manager: So we are going for the for the recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's {gap} . Uh . +User Interface: If it's sensible . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , because when you're watching T_V_ , you're zapping and you have to put it in a recharger , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , b when the batteries are low {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: and I don't think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: when you when you're done with s uh w uh watching your television , you have to put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but then we have to be sure that the the the the batteries go {vocalsound} hours , six hours , five , six hours , then . +User Interface: But you'll also forget to put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course . +User Interface: because you throw it on the couch +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you have a problem . +User Interface: and you don't remember . +Industrial Designer: But you also forget to buy batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . That's right . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or we have to be sure that the batteries last couple of days when they're recharged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I think the batteries should should w should work a lot longer than a couple of days , +Marketing: So . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah because you have b +User Interface: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you have L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: High power usage . +Industrial Designer: High power user cell , i uh it should be uh a standard move to to put your remote control in the charger when you're done watching television , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: that's also a a a great advantage because you can't lose it anymore . Because you are obliged to uh put it in the charger and not to uh leave it in a couch uh between some cushions . +Marketing: True . Yeah . Yeah . True . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , you made a point there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then you also have to s have somewhere where you can put a remo recharger near your couch +Project Manager: Yeah , also . +User Interface: because otherwise you have to walk a long way when you twoft want to turn on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , otherwise all your {disfmarker} yeah . Just a small device {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think everything has it for and {disfmarker} I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it hasn't {disfmarker} It doesn't have to be big . +Marketing: Plug it in , that's it . Yeah , like a {disfmarker} like telephone charger or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah just just a cable , or a even a a a a a charger where you can mount it on . Something like that , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just u +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , well I've +Marketing: It has to be easy to use also , or things . Uh market share , speaker re speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have some more +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: points . +Industrial Designer: Functional designs uh for the elderly uh you could make it possible to enlarge the screen , +Marketing: I think . +Industrial Designer: so make it possible to not uh display uh a button at ten points +Marketing: Also . +Industrial Designer: uh , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think that this should be standard . Large button {disfmarker} large buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it is uh one of the functions you have to uh specify . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because we can look at uh uh perhaps uh forty buttons at a screen , but the elderly only look at two buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: And you said something about speech recognition ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition ? +Marketing: it says also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euro +User Interface: twelve fifty , twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: twelve Euro fifty . +Marketing: Twelve . That's an {disfmarker} also ninety one percent sixteen to twenty five , twenty six to thirty five years , seventy six percent , and thirty six to forty five , thirty five percent . +User Interface: So it's pretty big . +Industrial Designer: Well , spread it by a big market . +Marketing: But then I I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Even bigger than for L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} W I know let's do a speech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: let's leave out all the remote controls and just put a {vocalsound} microphone on top of the television to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Ninety . Twenty five . +User Interface: You can clap or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} channel . +Industrial Designer: Turn volume up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey , that that's an idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now you shouldn't say the wrong thing , I dunno {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that should {disfmarker} it has to be remote control , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} twelve . +User Interface: But they want to talk into the remo remote control , or something , +Industrial Designer: Sure why not why not {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is this only would you would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . It's the only thing it says . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Oh , but do we want to implement that , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think an L_C_D_ screen {vocalsound} should be suf sufficient . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But when you look at the percentages {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it says a lot , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Speech recognition scores even higher , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Perhaps the options should be uh {disfmarker} Why not ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well , +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: maybe because of the cost , but uh nobody knows uh how much uh it will cost uh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's hope uh to have some uh d +User Interface: I know {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think I think it's better to have L_ L_C_D_ screen , because in the area of tw thirty six to forty five , we have about thirty percent of the market share in in our hands , and fifty five of those people want L_C_D_ screen and thirty five want speech recognition . So I think it's better to keep it with L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: But would it be useful to imple implement both ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: On one remote ? +Marketing: Yeah , if the costs al allow it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: I don't know if that can be done with the cost of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Nee . +User Interface: With that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it should be done , if it could be done , I won't matter . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: We should do it . Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: but how would you like to implement that , that you say volume up , and then it goes up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Certain systems already exist , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you also have to have different languages if we go international . Then uh it's y {vocalsound} it's yours to do a French and Dutch and English +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that should also be with f should be also with L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This should be uh accommodated with some software , uh , uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Because then I think in Chinese is different written , volume is different written than um Swahili or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Swahili . Swahili . +User Interface: Yeah you can use icons for the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: a speaker and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ja , well possible . +Industrial Designer: Indeed . +User Interface: But if that's better than language for the for the remote . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we want to uh yeah it's international uh okay . +User Interface: Then it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay , what else ? +Project Manager: So , no speech recognition ? Or {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , if it could be done , we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Y it should be done . If it could be done , should be done . +Marketing: we have to keep {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and then we have different languages . +User Interface: Yeah , that should be uh anything matters . +Industrial Designer: That's not so difficult at all , +Project Manager: Okay , just make a separate remote for each uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I already use on several voice operated systems , and they are all possible to uh not all , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , you sh you should to adjust the thing . +Marketing: I think it's difficult . Every language of dialects {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's very differen difficult . +User Interface: And you have to speak the {disfmarker} so that it can understand . +Marketing: Yeah . I think it can't be implemented , but maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You could use that n as an option , if you have money left , or something . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , 's an option , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure , indeed . +Marketing: Fifty Euro cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's do speech . +Industrial Designer: For speech recognition . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only do this when we have enough money left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I've written down an an on or off button , volume selection , channel selection , uh the digits from one to zero , huh . Um {disfmarker} or from zero to nine . Uh a digits button to switch uh between one and two digits , mute button , a separate menu for teletext , a battery indicator . Um we're going to use a docking station and uh probably L_C_D_ and if there's enough money , speech recognition . And uh the possibility to uh enlarge buttons or to have large buttons +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: in general . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} With uh teletext if {disfmarker} it wasn't ver very important , it was but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: You also now have colours . I don't know if we should implement that . Yeah , +Marketing: Curved ? +User Interface: when you press the red button , you go to page one hundred two , and when you press the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +User Interface: I don't know if we should implement that , +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: because it says that teletext not really important , +Industrial Designer: S Shortcuts . Uh . +User Interface: but yeah , the shortcut , and you can't go to sport . +Marketing: I think we should {disfmarker} we could that {disfmarker} we could also implement a audio settings , screen settings and channel settings , but as sub-menus . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: D Mainly if you turn the uh remote control on , you have to u you have to see from one till zero , channel and volume . And if you want to use teletext screen or audio , then you can press it . +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah , just just sub-menu . Yeah . +Marketing: It should be available but not +User Interface: 'Cause it should be there . +Industrial Designer: Not directly uh available . +Marketing: not {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so not too much teletext support , but in a separate menu , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So actually it is there but it's just not r ready there . +Marketing: Yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Directly available . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So does it confuse uh the user ? +User Interface: You'll have to search for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They'd have to be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I'll search um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If you want to use teletext , you can push the teletext button and then the options uh become available . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sign of it . +Project Manager: Okay , but no more buttons or functions , or ? +User Interface: I guess not . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh , no . What else can you do with a television ? +User Interface: We've got anon +Project Manager: Aren't we forgetting something very important ? +User Interface: Have got got two examples here , but I don't think there's anything we're missing . +Marketing: Uh play , pause , doesn't n need to be there . +User Interface: Well , we don't have the video orders {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , so this is your presentation . We could check the other remote controls with technical functions . +User Interface: Yeah , you could look here all the the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which ones were yours ? +User Interface: Uh th th th th I don't know , technical functions . +Marketing: Techni +User Interface: {vocalsound} They're a bit small , you can {disfmarker} we should stretch them , because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ping . +Marketing: Ja ja ja ja ja . Technical functions . Yeah okay . +User Interface: I guess we've got them all . +Marketing: Uh I think I go to have volume , mute but I {disfmarker} Yeah {gap} . Very slow . Yeah , the zoom buttons . +User Interface: And for a T_V_ ? Can you zoom in a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah , b wide screen , high screen , different things you have , +User Interface: Or that you can put 'em on uh on on wide and {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah different uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that should also be a sub then , a sub uh menu thing . +Industrial Designer: Menu . +Marketing: Yeah it should be available , but then in separate screen settings or something . +User Interface: Yeah , so we should also implement se screen settings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , screen settings , audio settings , teletext settings you have . +User Interface: Oh right . Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can program the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So those four , and of course the main . +User Interface: Yeah , so the first you see the main , and the other ones you can uh go to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Like tap screens or something +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or , I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope we can do this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There are a lot of options depending uh on what kind of television you got . +Marketing: Yeah , if uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you don't got a wide screen television you don't need the uh the screen settings +Marketing: No , you don't yu a no you then you don't no ni don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you don't use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if the television does not support such uh operations +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We don't have to use that top . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you leave it alone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or it could be possible to have a a standard version of the remote , an expanded version . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And do we want them in different colours , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And and the buttons , should they have colours ? +Marketing: Colours . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Colours I think the main colour of the remote control is uh the colour of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Oh but we don't have any buttons . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I Because we don't want a lot a devi yeah a device self s g +Marketing: Yeah , then defines itself . Because uh how many percent ? Eighty percent ? +User Interface: They think it's ugly , right ? +Marketing: Would spend more money if it looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so use uh very uh lot of peo {vocalsound} +User Interface: Perhaps you can uh make adjustable fronts , like with the telephones {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Adjust with phones , yes {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Twelve Euro fifty . Well , make it available in different colours , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Red , white , blue , black . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And a see-through uh +Marketing: Rasta colours . +Industrial Designer: Grey . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sea view , yes , Simpson's versions and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , see through version . Yeah . If you press a button , it turns green . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: Leave . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's the +User Interface: A disco version . +Project Manager: signal for las final five minutes . +User Interface: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Um so I have uh the things I just read . Um then we have uh separate menus for teletext , screen settings , audio settings , and what else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings ? +User Interface: Oh yeah , right . +Project Manager: Channel settings . +User Interface: So you can program the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Perhaps you should you'd throw them on on in one pile . So , options , and then you sub them . +Marketing: Yeah . Could be possible . +User Interface: Otherwise you have all those teletext , perhaps teletext not , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or like uh you have a menu button , you press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we said teletext also a separate menu . +User Interface: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , or otherwise you have a menu button , press menu then you have uh main uh menu search uh all the all the settings . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we can work that out later , I guess . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , no problem . Yep . +Project Manager: So we're having a a general menu with the most used functions , uh teletext , screen settings , audio settings , channel settings , and maybe there are options for the remote itself ? Like uh large icons or small icons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: and I don't know what else , +Marketing: Um , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I think b because we don't have a lot of buttons on the one screen , +User Interface: Or do we have any buttons ? On the remote . +Marketing: I think the buttons {disfmarker} Yeah , but but or like you have +User Interface: Which one ? +Marketing: you only have channel button or volume button . Those buttons you can you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but on the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: But that's also in the L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we don't have any normal buttons +Marketing: Yeah , th +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , no normal buttons , yeah . +User Interface: No , alright . +Marketing: Maybe only the on and o on and off button . +User Interface: Yet on and off is p is perhaps you kno +Project Manager: But we don't need a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh not button {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't need a special options menu for the remote itself . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: Mm , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh well , you should be able to set which T_V_ you have . If you have {disfmarker} if you have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course you need uh a settings button , uh or a settings option for the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . But isn't idea to use uh uh what you said , uh normal on and off button for the T_V_ , that you don't have to use a {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no , because we we discussed that you could charge it , otherwise is {disfmarker} it it jumps to stand-by mode automatically . +User Interface: Yeah but but not for the remote but for the T_V_ , that you use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but a T_V_ of course , th that's the {disfmarker} I think that's a best thing is that to implement that one in the menu with the volume and channel . +User Interface: But a not as normal button , in the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Well maybe there should be a separate button apart from the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: because you can't turn it on when the L_C_D_ is off . So how do you turn the thing on ? There has to be a on button on the remote , +User Interface: No you just tap I think . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Just tap it . +Marketing: Yeah , you tap . +Project Manager: Tap the thing . Okay . +Marketing: Touch screen , yeah then it's turn {disfmarker} turn off , turn on . +Project Manager: And then the television is on also , or just the remote ? +Marketing: No , just the remote . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: A television don't have to be on , that one you can {vocalsound} press on , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be in standby mode , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah stand-by , then press on remote , press on and then T_V_ should be available . Or not . +User Interface: Yeah a yeah . I don't know whether it's handy to have a n a normal on button , a r just uh rubber uh for for T_V_ , +Marketing: Separate . +User Interface: so you can turn it on and then you can choose the channel . Otherwise you {disfmarker} I don't know whether or not that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A A A normal button on the remote control , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . To turn it on . +Industrial Designer: or norm ? +User Interface: Of or you should put it in the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because uh when you touch the L_C_D_ screen when it is in standby mode , it should pop on . +User Interface: Yeah , I have , +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Wh uh why would it be a a need to have a normal button ? +User Interface: Well I I guess if you use the L_C_D_ screen , you first have to search where is the on button , then you uh you you then turn it , and then the T_V_ goes on . But if you have a normal on button on the on the remote , then you do the on , and then you search the channel which you want . +Marketing: Yeah , but I think the re the remote control , if you press tap the screen , it always should jump to the screen which has the volume button , channel button , and of course of also the on and off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: I think it looks a lot more fancy if you use uh if you don't have any buttons on the s on on remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . Otherwise y wet e k Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So actually we're going to create a a button-less uh remote . No buttons at all . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well that's might be a unique selling point , huh for a remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If we can afford it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , well I guess we have to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , if we can afford it . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: postpone further discussion to uh our next meeting , because we're running out of time . Um for now , we're having a lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and then there will be uh half an hour for the uh next share of individual work . I will uh write uh minutes , if I can create them out of this . And uh put them in the the project documents uh folder . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And here are the individual actions for the for the other roles . And of course specific instructions will be sent to you again by your uh personal coach . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Luckily as we are . Okay , well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you very much , for now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh have a nice lunch , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Lunch . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Food . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Should we put this back in our rooms , or uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +User Interface: Yeah . +","In the meeting, the team discussed various aspects of designing a new remote control. The project manager opened by outlining the agenda: presentations, review of new project requirements, and decision-making on remote control functions. The industrial designer explained the working design of the remote and suggested making it user-friendly, in various colors, possibly with soft-touch or touchscreen buttons due to the issues with rubber buttons wearing out. The user interface designer's presentation revolved around the technical functions of the remote control, suggesting a user-centered design and compatibility with multiple devices. Marketing's input highlighted market data and user preferences, such as aesthetic appeal, button size, zap frequency, and power usage. + +The team agreed that the remote should be simple, with buttons for basic functions and an LCD screen if cost permits, focusing on users under forty while not alienating older users. Other discussed features included a docking station for charging, possibly speech recognition if affordable, and enlarging buttons as a software option. + +The project manager confirmed that they are aiming for a button-less LCD screen remote control. This would be a unique feature if they could afford it. They had to wrap up the meeting for a lunch break, with follow-up individual tasks, and the project manager would try to write minutes from what was discussed and put them in the project documents folder." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: So I guess this is more or less now just to get you up to date , Johno . This is what , uh , +Grad C: This is a meeting for me . +Grad B: um , Eva , Bhaskara , and I did . +Grad D: Did you add more stuff to it ? {pause} later ? +Grad B: Um . Why ? +Grad D: Um . I don't know . There were , like , the {disfmarker} you know , @ @ and all that stuff . But . I thought you {disfmarker} you said you were adding stuff +Grad B: Uh , no . +Grad D: but {pause} I don't know . +Grad B: This is {disfmarker} Um , Ha ! Very nice . Um , so we thought that , {vocalsound} We can write up uh , an element , and {disfmarker} for each of the situation nodes that we observed in the Bayes - net ? So . What 's the situation like at the entity that is mentioned ? if we know anything about it ? Is it under construction ? Or is it on fire or something {pause} happening to it ? Or is it stable ? and so forth , going all the way um , f through Parking , Location , Hotel , Car , Restroom , @ @ {comment} Riots , Fairs , Strikes , or Disasters . +Grad C: So is {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} A situation are {disfmarker} is all the things which can be happening right now ? Or , what is the situation type ? +Grad B: That 's basically {pause} just specifying the {disfmarker} the input for the {disfmarker} w what 's +Grad C: Oh , I see y Why are you specifying it in XML ? +Grad B: Um . Just because it forces us to be specific about the values {pause} here ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: And , also , I mean , this is a {disfmarker} what the input is going to be . Right ? So , we will , uh {disfmarker} This is a schema . This is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , yeah . I just don't know if this is th l what the {disfmarker} Does {disfmarker} This is what Java Bayes takes ? as a Bayes - net spec ? +Grad B: No , because I mean if we {disfmarker} I mean we 're sure gonna interface to {disfmarker} We 're gonna get an XML document from somewhere . Right ? And that XML document will say "" We are able to {disfmarker} We were able to observe that w the element , um , @ @ {comment} of the Location that the car is near . "" So that 's gonna be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} Um . +Grad C: So this is the situational context , everything in it . Is that what Situation is short for , shi situational context ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So this is just , again , a an XML schemata which defines a set of possible , uh , permissible XML structures , which we view as input into the Bayes - net . Right ? +Grad C: And then we can r {pause} uh possibly run one of them uh transformations ? That put it into the format that the Bayes n or Java Bayes or whatever wants ? +Grad B: Yea - Are you talking {disfmarker} are you talking about the {disfmarker} the structure ? +Grad C: Well it {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean when you observe a node . +Grad C: When you {disfmarker} when you say {pause} the input to the {pause} v Java Bayes , {comment} it takes a certain format , +Grad B: Um - hmm . +Grad C: right ? Which I don't think is this . Although I don't know . +Grad B: No , it 's certainly not this . Nuh . +Grad C: So you could just {disfmarker} Couldn't you just run a {disfmarker} +Grad B: XSL . {comment} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . To convert it into the Java Bayes for format ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's no problem , but I even think that , um {disfmarker} I mean , once {disfmarker} Once you have this sort of as {disfmarker} running as a module {disfmarker} Right ? What you want is {disfmarker} You wanna say , "" OK , give me the posterior probabilities of the Go - there {pause} node , when this is happening . "" Right ? When the person said this , the car is there , it 's raining , and this is happening . And with this you can specify the {disfmarker} what 's happening in the situation , and what 's happening with the user . So we get {disfmarker} After we are done , through the Situation we get the User Vector . So , this is a {disfmarker} +Grad C: So this is just a specification of all the possible inputs ? +Grad B: Yep . And , all the possible outputs , too . So , we have , um , for example , the , uh , Go - there decision node +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: which has two elements , going - there and its posterior probability , and not - going - there and its posterior probability , because the output is always gonna be all the decision nodes and all the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} a all the posterior probabilities for all the values . +Grad C: And then we would just look at the , eh , Struct that we wanna look at in terms of if {disfmarker} if we 're only asking about one of the {disfmarker} So like , if I 'm just interested in the going - there node , I would just pull that information out of the Struct that gets return that would {disfmarker} that Java Bayes would output ? +Grad B: Um , pretty much , yes , but I think it 's a little bit more complex . As , if I understand it correctly , it always gives you all the posterior probabilities for all the values of all decision nodes . So , when we input something , we always get the , uh , posterior probabilities for all of these . Right ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So there is no way of telling it t not to tell us about the EVA {pause} values . +Grad C: Yeah , wait I agree , that 's {disfmarker} yeah , use {disfmarker} oh , uh {pause} Yeah , OK . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so we get this whole list of {disfmarker} of , um , things , and the question is what to do with it , what to hand on , how to interpret it , in a sense . So y you said if you {disfmarker} "" I 'm only interested in whether he wants to go there or not "" , then I just look at that node , look which one {disfmarker} +Grad C: Look at that Struct in the output , +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Look at that Struct in the {disfmarker} the output , even though I wouldn't call it a "" Struct "" . But . +Grad C: Well i well , it 's an XML Structure that 's being res returned , +Grad B: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: So every part of a structure is a "" Struct "" . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , I just uh {disfmarker} I just was {disfmarker} abbreviated it to Struct in my head , and started going with that . +Grad B: That element or object , I would say . +Grad C: Not a C Struct . That 's not what I was trying to k +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: though yeah . +Grad B: OK . And , um , the reason is {disfmarker} why I think it 's a little bit more complex or why {disfmarker} why we can even think about it as an interesting problem in and of itself is {disfmarker} Um . So . The , uh {disfmarker} Let 's look at an example . +Grad C: Well , w wouldn't we just take the structure that 's outputted and then run another transformation on it , that would just dump the one that we wanted out ? +Grad B: Yeah . w We 'd need to prune . Right ? Throw things away . +Grad C: Well , actually , you don't even need to do that with XML . +Grad B: No +Grad C: D Can't you just look at one specific {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , exactly . The {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Xerxes allows you to say , u "" Just give me the value of that , and that , and that . "" But , we don't really know what we 're interested in {pause} before we look at the complete {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the overall result . So the person said , um , "" Where is X ? "" and so , we want to know , um , is {disfmarker} Does he want info ? o on this ? or know the location ? Or does he want to go there ? Let 's assume this is our {disfmarker} our question . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad B: Nuh ? So . Um . Do this in Perl . So we get {disfmarker} OK . Let 's assume this is the output . So . We should con be able to conclude from that that {disfmarker} I mean . It 's always gonna give us a value of how likely we think i it is that he wants to go there and doesn't want to go there , or how likely it is that he wants to get information . But , maybe w we should just reverse this to make it a little bit more delicate . So , does he wanna know where it is ? or does he wanna go there ? +Grad C: He wants to know where it is . +Grad B: Right . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I tend to agree . And if it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well now , y I mean , you could {disfmarker} +Grad B: And i if there 's sort of a clear winner here , and , um {disfmarker} and this is pretty , uh {disfmarker} indifferent , then we {disfmarker} then we might conclude that he actually wants to just know where , uh t uh , he does want to go there . +Grad C: Uh , out of curiosity , is there a reason why we wouldn't combine these three nodes ? into one smaller subnet ? that would just basically be {pause} the question for {disfmarker} We have "" where is X ? "" is the question , right ? That would just be Info - on or Location ? Based upon {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or Go - there . A lot of people ask that , if they actually just wanna go there . People come up to you on campus and say , "" Where 's the library ? "" You 're gonna say {disfmarker} y you 're gonna say , g "" Go down that way . "" You 're not gonna say "" It 's {disfmarker} It 's five hundred yards away from you "" or "" It 's north of you "" , or {disfmarker} "" it 's located {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Well , I mean {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} So you just have three decisions for the final node , that would link thes these three nodes in the net together . +Grad B: Um . I don't know whether I understand what you mean . But . Again , in this {disfmarker} Given this input , we , also in some situations , may wanna postulate an opinion whether that person wants to go there now the nicest way , use a cab , or so s wants to know it {disfmarker} wants to know where it is because he wants something fixed there , because he wants to visit t it or whatever . So , it {disfmarker} n I mean {disfmarker} a All I 'm saying is , whatever our input is , we 're always gonna get the full output . And some {disfmarker} some things will always be sort of too {disfmarker} not significant enough . +Grad C: Wha Or i or i it 'll be tight . You won't {disfmarker} it 'll be hard to decide . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: But I mean , I guess {disfmarker} I guess the thing is , uh , this is another , smaller , case of reasoning in the case of an uncertainty , which makes me think Bayes - net should be the way to solve these things . So if you had {disfmarker} If for every construction , +Grad B: Oh ! +Grad C: right ? you could say , "" Well , there {disfmarker} Here 's the Where - Is construction . "" And for the Where - Is construction , we know we need to l look at this node , that merges these three things together +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: as for th to decide the response . And since we have a finite number of constructions that we can deal with , we could have a finite number of nodes . +Grad B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Say , if we had to y deal with arbitrary language , it wouldn't make any sense to do that , because there 'd be no way to generate the nodes for every possible sentence . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But since we can only deal with a finite amount of stuff {disfmarker} +Grad B: So , basically , the idea is to f to feed the output of that belief - net into another belief - net . +Grad C: Yeah , so basically take these three things and then put them into another belief - net . +Grad B: But , why {disfmarker} why {disfmarker} why only those three ? Why not the whol +Grad C: Well , I mean , d For the Where - Is question . So we 'd have a node for the Where - Is question . +Grad B: Yeah . But we believe that all the decision nodes are {disfmarker} can be relevant for the Where - Is , and the Where {disfmarker} How - do - I - get - to or the Tell - me - something - about . +Grad C: You can come in if you want . +Grad B: Yes , it is allowed . +Grad C: As long as y you 're not wearing your h your h headphones . Well , I do I {disfmarker} See , I don't know if this is a {pause} good idea or not . I 'm just throwing it out . But uh , it seems like we could have {disfmarker} I mea or uh we could put all of the all of the r information that could also be relevant {pause} into the Where - Is node answer +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad C: node thing stuff . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} Let 's not forget we 're gonna get some very strong {pause} input from {pause} these sub dis from these discourse things , right ? So . "" Tell me the location of X . "" Nuh ? Or "" Where is X located at ? "" +Grad C: We u +Grad B: Nuh ? +Grad C: Yeah , I know , but the Bayes - net would be able to {disfmarker} The weights on the {disfmarker} on the nodes in the Bayes - net would be able to do all that , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: wouldn't it ? Here 's a k Oh ! Oh , I 'll wait until you 're {pause} plugged in . Oh , don't sit there . Sit here . You know how you don't like that one . It 's OK . That 's the weird one . That 's the one that 's painful . That hurts . It hurts so bad . I 'm h I 'm happy that they 're recording that . That headphone . The headphone {pause} that you have to put on backwards , with the little {disfmarker} little thing {disfmarker} and the little {disfmarker} little foam block on it ? It 's a painful , painful microphone . +Grad B: I think it 's th called "" the Crown "" . +Grad C: The crown ? +Grad D: What ? +Grad B: Yeah , versus "" the Sony "" . +Grad A: The Crown ? Is that the actual name ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . The manufacturer . +Grad C: I don't see a manufacturer on it . +Grad B: You w +Grad C: Oh , wait , here it is . h This thingy . Yeah , it 's "" The Crown "" . The crown of pain ! +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: You 're on - line ? +Grad C: Are you {disfmarker} are your mike o Is your mike on ? +Grad A: Indeed . +Grad C: OK . So you 've been working with these guys ? You know what 's going on ? +Grad A: Yes , I have . And , I do . Yeah , alright . s So where are we ? +Grad C: Excellent ! +Grad B: We 're discussing this . +Grad A: I don't think it can handle French , but anyway . +Grad B: So . Assume we have something coming in . A person says , "" Where is X ? "" , and we get a certain {disfmarker} We have a Situation vector and a User vector and everything is fine ? An - an and {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did you just sti Did you just stick the m the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the microphone actually in the tea ? +Grad A: No . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: I 'm not drinking tea . What are you talking about ? +Grad C: Oh , yeah . Sorry . +Grad B: let 's just assume our Bayes - net just has three decision nodes for the time being . These three , he wants to know something about it , he wants to know where it is , he wants to go there . +Grad C: In terms of , these would be wha how we would answer the question Where - Is , right ? We u This is {disfmarker} i That 's what you s it seemed like , explained it to me earlier +Grad B: Yeah , but , mmm . +Grad C: w We {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we wanna know how to answer the question "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: Yeah . No , I can {disfmarker} I can do the Timing node in here , too , and say "" OK . "" +Grad C: Well , yeah , but in the s uh , let 's just deal with the s the simple case of we 're not worrying about timing or anything . We just want to know how we should answer "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: OK . And , um , OK , and , Go - there has two values , right ? , Go - there and not - Go - there . Let 's assume those are the posterior probabilities of that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Info - on has True or False and Location . So , he wants to know something about it , and he wants to know something {disfmarker} he wants to know Where - it - is , +Grad A: Excuse me . +Grad B: has these values . And , um , +Grad C: Oh , I see why we can't do that . +Grad B: And , um , in this case we would probably all agree that he wants to go there . Our belief - net thinks he wants to go there , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: right ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: In the , uh , whatever , if we have something like this here , and this like that and maybe here also some {disfmarker} +Grad A: You should probably {comment} make them out of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: something like that , +Grad C: Well , it +Grad B: then we would guess , "" Aha ! He , our belief - net , {comment} has s stronger beliefs that he wants to know where it is , than actually wants to go {pause} there . "" Right ? +Grad C: That it {disfmarker} Doesn't this assume , though , that they 're evenly weighted ? +Grad D: True . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} I guess they are evenly weighted . +Grad A: The different decision nodes , you mean ? +Grad C: Yeah , the Go - there , the Info - on , and the Location ? +Grad A: Well , d yeah , this is making the assumption . Yes . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} +Grad B: What do you mean by "" differently weighted "" ? They don't feed into anything really anymore . +Grad A: But I mean , why do we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or I jus +Grad A: If we trusted the Go - there node more th much more than we trusted the other ones , then we would conclude , even in this situation , that he wanted to go there . +Grad C: Le +Grad A: So , in that sense , we weight them equally right now . +Grad B: OK . Makes sense . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Grad C: So the But I guess the k the question {disfmarker} that I was as er wondering or maybe Robert was proposing to me is {disfmarker} How do we d make the decision on {disfmarker} as to {disfmarker} which one to listen to ? +Grad A: Yeah , so , the final d decision is the combination of these three . So again , it 's {disfmarker} it 's some kind of , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Bayes - net . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . +Grad C: OK so , then , the question i So then my question is t to you then , would be {disfmarker} So is the only r reason we can make all these smaller Bayes - nets , because we know we can only deal with a finite set of constructions ? Cuz oth If we 're just taking arbitrary language in , we couldn't have a node for every possible question , you know ? +Grad A: A decision node for every possible question , you mean ? +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} like , in the case of {disfmarker} Yeah . In the ca Any piece of language , we wouldn't be able to answer it with this system , b if we just h Cuz we wouldn't have the correct node . Basically , w what you 're s proposing is a n Where - Is node , right ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and if we {disfmarker} And if someone {disfmarker} says , you know , uh , something in Mandarin to the system , we 'd - wouldn't know which node to look at to answer that question , +Grad A: So is {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Mmm ? +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} but if we have a finite {disfmarker} What ? +Grad B: I don't see your point . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what I am thinking , or what we 're about to propose here is we 're always gonna get the whole list of values and their posterior probabilities . And now we need an expert system or belief - net or something that interprets that , that looks at all the values and says , "" The winner is Timing . Now , go there . "" "" Uh , go there , Timing , now . "" Or , "" The winner is Info - on , Function - Off . "" So , he wants to know {pause} something about it , and what it does . Nuh ? Uh , regardless of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the input . Wh - Regardle +Grad C: Yeah , but But how does the expert {disfmarker} but how does the expert system know {disfmarker} how who which one to declare the winner , if it doesn't know the question it is , and how that question should be answered ? +Grad B: Based on the k what the question was , so what the discourse , the ontology , the situation and the user model gave us , we came up with these values for these decisions . +Grad C: Yeah I know . But how do we weight what we get out ? As , which one i Which ones are important ? So my i So , if we were to it with a Bayes - net , we 'd have to have a node {disfmarker} for every question that we knew how to deal with , that would take all of the inputs and weight them appropriately for that question . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Does that make sense ? Yay , nay ? +Grad A: Um , I mean , are you saying that , what happens if you try to scale this up to the situation , or are we just dealing with arbitrary language ? +Grad C: We {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that your point ? +Grad C: Well , no . I {disfmarker} I guess my question is , Is the reason that we can make a node f or {disfmarker} OK . So , lemme see if I 'm confused . Are we going to make a node for every question ? Does that make sense ? {disfmarker} +Grad A: For every question ? +Grad C: Or not . +Grad A: Like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Every construction . +Grad A: Hmm . I don't {disfmarker} Not necessarily , I would think . I mean , it 's not based on constructions , it 's based on things like , uh , there 's gonna be a node for Go - there or not , and there 's gonna be a node for Enter , View , Approach . +Grad C: Wel W OK . So , someone asked a question . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: How do we decide how to answer it ? +Grad B: Well , look at {disfmarker} look {disfmarker} Face yourself with this pr question . You get this {disfmarker} You 'll have {disfmarker} y This is what you get . And now you have to make a decision . What do we think ? What does this tell us ? And not knowing what was asked , and what happened , and whether the person was a tourist or a local , because all of these factors have presumably already gone into making these posterior probabilities . What {disfmarker} what we need is a {disfmarker} just a mechanism that says , "" Aha ! There is {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Yeah . I just don't think a "" winner - take - all "" type of thing is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , in general , like , we won't just have those three , right ? We 'll have , uh , like , many , many nodes . So we have to , like {disfmarker} So that it 's no longer possible to just look at the nodes themselves and figure out what the person is trying to say . +Grad B: Yep . Because there are interdependencies , right ? The uh {disfmarker} Uh , no . So if {disfmarker} if for example , the Go - there posterior possibility is so high , um , uh , w if it 's {disfmarker} if it has reached {disfmarker} reached a certain height , then all of this becomes irrelevant . So . If {disfmarker} even if {disfmarker} if the function or the history or something is scoring pretty good on the true node , true value {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wel I don't know about that , cuz that would suggest that {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: He wants to go there and know something about it ? +Grad C: Do they have to be mutual Yeah . Do they have to be mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: I think to some extent they are . Or maybe they 're not . +Grad C: Cuz I , uh {disfmarker} The way you describe what they meant , they weren't mutu uh , they didn't seem mutually exclusive to me . +Grad B: Well , if he doesn't want to go there , even if the Enter posterior proba So . +Grad C: Wel +Grad B: Go - there is No . Enter is High , and Info - on is High . +Grad C: Well , yeah , just out of the other three , though , that you had in the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: those three nodes . The - d They didn't seem like they were mutually exclusive . +Grad B: No , there 's {disfmarker} No . But {disfmarker} It 's through the {disfmarker} +Grad C: So th s so , yeah , but some {disfmarker} So , some things would drop out , and some things would still be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But I guess what 's confusing me is , if we have a Bayes - net to deal w another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you know , uh , is the only reason {disfmarker} OK , so , I guess , if we have a Ba - another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , the only r reason {pause} we can design it is cuz we know what each question is asking ? +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's true . +Grad C: And then , so , the only reason {disfmarker} way we would know what question he 's asking is based upon {disfmarker} Oh , so if {disfmarker} Let 's say I had a construction parser , and I plug this in , I would know what each construction {disfmarker} the communicative intent of the construction was +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so then I would know how to weight the nodes appropriately , in response . So no matter what they said , if I could map it onto a Where - Is construction , I could say , "" ah ! +Grad A: Ge Mm - hmm . +Grad C: well the the intent , here , was Where - Is "" , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: and I could look at those . +Grad A: Yeah . Yes , I mean . Sure . You do need to know {disfmarker} I mean , to have that kind of information . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah , I 'm also agreeing that {pause} a simple pru {comment} Take the ones where we have a clear winner . Forget about the ones where it 's all sort of middle ground . Prune those out and just hand over the ones where we have a winner . Yeah , because that would be the easiest way . We just compose as an output an XML mes {vocalsound} message that says . "" Go there {pause} now . "" "" Enter historical information . "" And not care whether that 's consistent with anything . Right ? But in this case if we say , "" definitely he doesn't want to go there . He just wants to know where it is . "" or let 's call this {disfmarker} this "" Look - At - H "" He wants to know something about the history of . So he said , "" Tell me something about the history of that . "" Now , the e But for some reason the Endpoint - Approach gets a really high score , {pause} too . We can't expect this to be sort of at O point {comment} three , three , three , O point , three , three , three , O point , three , three , three . Right ? Somebody needs to zap that . You know ? Or know {disfmarker} There needs to be some knowledge that {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} Yeah , but , the Bayes - net that would merge {disfmarker} I just realized that I had my hand in between my mouth and my micr er , my and my microphone . So then , the Bayes - net that would merge there , that would make the decision between Go - there , Info - on , and Location , would have a node to tell you which one of those three you wanted , and based upon that node , then you would look at the other stuff . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Grad C: I mean , it i Does that make sense ? +Grad B: Yep . It 's sort of one of those , that 's {disfmarker} It 's more like a decision tree , if {disfmarker} if you want . You first look o at the lowball ones , +Grad C: Yeah , i +Grad B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I didn't intend to say that every possible {disfmarker} OK . There was a confusion there , k I didn't intend to say every possible thing should go into the Bayes - net , because some of the things aren't relevant in the Bayes - net for a specific question . Like the Endpoint is not necessarily relevant in the Bayes - net for Where - Is until after you 've decided whether you wanna go there or not . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: Show us the way , Bhaskara . +Grad A: I guess the other thing is that um , yeah . I mean , when you 're asked a specific question and you don't even {disfmarker} Like , if you 're asked a Where - Is question , you may not even look {disfmarker} like , ask for the posterior probability of the , uh , EVA node , right ? Cuz , that 's what {disfmarker} I mean , in the Bayes - net you always ask for the posterior probability of a specific node . So , I mean , you may not even bother to compute things you don't need . +Grad B: Um . Aren't we always computing all ? +Grad A: No . You can compute , uh , the posterior probability of one subset of the nodes , given some other nodes , but totally ignore some other nodes , also . Basically , things you ignore get marginalized over . +Grad B: Yeah , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's just shifting the problem . Then you would have to make a decision , +Grad A: Yeah . So you have to make {disfmarker} +Grad B: "" OK , if it 's a Where - Is question , which decision nodes do I query ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . Yes . But I would think that 's what you want to do . +Grad B: That 's un +Grad A: Right ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Well , eventually , you still have to pick out which ones you look at . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: So it 's pretty much the same problem , +Grad B: Yeah {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's apples and oranges . +Grad D: isn't it ? +Grad B: Nuh ? I mean , maybe it does make a difference in terms of performance , computational time . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So either you always have it compute all the posterior possibilities for all the values for all nodes , and then prune the ones you think that are irrelevant , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: or you just make a p @ @ {comment} a priori estimate of what you think might be relevant and query those . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So basically , you 'd have a decision tree {pause} query , {pause} Go - there . If k if that 's false , query this one . If that 's true , query that one . And just basically do a binary search through the {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: I don't know if it would necessarily be that , uh , complicated . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean , it w +Grad C: Well , in the case of Go - there , it would be . In the case {disfmarker} Cuz if you needed an If y If Go - there was true , you 'd wanna know what endpoint was . And if it was false , you 'd wanna d look at either Lo - Income Info - on or History . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's true , I guess . Yeah , {vocalsound} so , in a way you would have that . +Grad C: Also , I 'm somewhat boggled by that Hugin software . +Grad A: OK , why 's that ? +Grad C: I can't figure out how to get the probabilities into it . Like , I 'd look at {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: It 's somewha It 's boggling me . +Grad A: OK . Alright . Well , hopefully it 's {pause} fixable . +Grad C: Ju +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh yeah , yeah . I d I just think I haven't figured out what {disfmarker} the terms in Hugin mean , versus what Java Bayes terms are . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Um , by the way , are {disfmarker} Do we know whether Jerry and Nancy are coming ? +Grad A: So we can figure this out . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: They should come when they 're done their stuff , basically , whenever that is . So . +Grad C: What d what do they need to do left ? +Grad A: Um , I guess , Jerry needs to enter marks , but I don't know if he 's gonna do that now or later . But , uh , if he 's gonna enter marks , it 's gonna take him awhile , I guess , and he won't be here . +Grad C: And what 's Nancy doing ? +Grad A: Nancy ? Um , she was sorta finishing up the , uh , calculation of marks and assigning of grades , but I don't know if she should be here . Well {disfmarker} or , she should be free after that , so {disfmarker} assuming she 's coming to this meeting . I don't know if she knows about it . +Grad C: She 's on the email list , right ? +Grad A: Is she ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . OK . Because basically , what {disfmarker} where we also have decided , prior to this meeting is that we would have a rerun of the three of us sitting together +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: sometime {pause} this week {pause} again +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and finish up the , uh , values of this . So we have , uh {disfmarker} Believe it or not , we have all the bottom ones here . +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} +Grad D: You added a bunch of {pause} nodes , for {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Yep . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} Actually what we have is this line . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Right ? +Grad C: Uh , what do the , uh , structures do ? +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} For instance , this Location node 's got two inputs , +Grad A: Four inputs . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: that one you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Four . +Grad A: Those are {disfmarker} The bottom things are inputs , also . +Grad C: Oh , I see . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: OK , that was OK . That makes a lot more sense to me now . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Cuz I thought it was like , that one in Stuart 's book about , you know , the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alarm in the dog ? +Grad C: U Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Or the earthquake and the alarm . +Grad A: Sorry . Yeah , I 'm confusing two . +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a dog one , too , but that 's in Java Bayes , +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: isn't it ? +Grad A: Maybe . +Grad C: But there 's something about bowel problems or something with the dog . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: And we have all the top ones , all the ones to which no arrows are pointing . What we 're missing are the {disfmarker} these , where arrows are pointing , where we 're combining top ones . So , we have to come up with values for this , and this , this , this , and so forth . And maybe just fiddle around with it a little bit more . And , um . And then it 's just , uh , edges , many of edges . And , um , we won't {comment} meet next Monday . So . +Grad C: Cuz of Memorial Day ? +Grad A: We 'll meet next Tuesday , I guess . +Grad B: Yep . Yeah . +Grad C: When 's Jerry leaving for {disfmarker} Italia ? +Grad B: On {disfmarker} on Friday . +Grad A: Which Friday ? +Grad B: This {disfmarker} this Friday . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Oh . This Friday ? +Grad C: Ugh . +Grad B: This Friday . +Grad C: As in , four days ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Or , three days ? +Grad A: Is he {disfmarker} How long is he gone for ? +Grad B: Two weeks . +Grad A: Italy , huh ? What 's , uh {disfmarker} what 's there ? +Grad B: Well , it 's a country . Buildings . People . +Grad A: Pasta . +Grad C: But it 's not a conference or anything . +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: He 's just visiting . +Grad A: Right . Just visiting . +Grad B: Vacation . +Grad A: It 's a pretty nice place , in my brief , uh , encounter with it . +Grad B: Do you guys {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . So . Part of what we actually want to do is sort of schedule out what we want to surprise him with when {disfmarker} when he comes back . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , I think we should disappoint him . +Grad B: Yeah ? You {disfmarker} or have a finished construction parser and a working belief - net , and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That wouldn't be disappointing . I think w we should do absolutely no work for the two weeks that he 's gone . +Grad B: Well , that 's actually what I had planned , personally . I had {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had sort of scheduled out in my mind that you guys do a lot of work , and I do nothing . And then , I sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that sounds good , too . +Grad B: sort of bask in {disfmarker} in your glory . But , uh , i do you guys have any vacation plans , because I myself am going to be , um , gone , but this is actually not really important . Just this weekend we 're going camping . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm wanna be this {disfmarker} gone this weekend , too . +Grad B: Ah . But we 're all going to be here on Tuesday again ? Looks like it ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , then . Let 's meet {disfmarker} meet again next Tuesday . And , um , finish up this Bayes - net . And once we have finished it , I guess we can , um {disfmarker} and that 's going to be more just you and me , because Bhaskara is doing probabilistic , recursive , structured , object - oriented , uh , +Grad C: Killing machines ! +Grad B: reasoning machines . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Killing , reasoning . What 's the difference ? +Grad D: Wait . So you 're saying , next Tuesday , is it the whole group meeting , or just us three working on it , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Uh . The whole group . And we present our results , our final , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: definite {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , when you were saying we {pause} need to do a re - run of , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: h What ? +Grad D: What {disfmarker} Like , just working out the rest of the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . We should do this th the upcoming days . +Grad D: This week ? +Grad B: So , this week , yeah . +Grad C: When you say , "" the whole group "" , you mean {pause} the four of us , and Keith ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And , Ami might . +Grad C: Ami might be here , and it 's possible that Nancy 'll be here ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: So , yeah . +Grad B: Because , th you know , once we have the belief - net done {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 're just gonna have to explain it to me , then , on Tuesday , how it 's all gonna work out . You know . +Grad B: We will . OK . Because then , once we have it sort of up and running , then we can start you know , defining the interfaces and then feed stuff into it and get stuff out of it , and then hook it up to some fake construction parser and {disfmarker} +Grad C: That you will have in about nine months or so . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: The first bad version 'll be done in nine months . +Grad B: Yeah , I can worry about the ontology interface and you can {disfmarker} Keith can worry about the discourse . I mean , this is pretty {disfmarker} Um , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope everybody uh knows that these are just going to be uh dummy values , right ? +Grad A: Which {disfmarker} +Grad B: where the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which ones ? +Grad B: S so {disfmarker} so if the endpoint {disfmarker} if the Go - there is Yes and No , then Go - there - discourse will just be fifty - fifty . Right ? +Grad A: Um , what do you mean ? If the Go - there says No , then the Go - there is {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't get it . +Grad A: I don't u understand . +Grad B: Um . +Grad A: Like , the Go - there depends on all those four things . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , what are the values of the Go - there - discourse ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on the situation . If the discourse is strongly indicating that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , but , uh , we have no discourse input . +Grad A: Oh , I see . The d See , uh , specifically in our situation , D and O are gonna be , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Sure . So , whatever . +Grad D: So , so far we have {disfmarker} Is that what the Keith node is ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: OK . And you 're taking it out ? {pause} for now ? +Grad B: Well , this is D {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK , this , I can {disfmarker} I can get it in here . +Grad D: All the D 's are {disfmarker} +Grad B: I can get it in here , so th We have the , uh , um , sk let 's {disfmarker} let 's call it "" Keith - Johno +Grad A: Johno ? +Grad B: node "" . There is an H {comment} somewhere printed . +Grad C: There you go . +Grad A: Yeah . People have the same problem with my name . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Oops . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: Does th th does the H go b before the A or after the A ? +Grad A: Oh , in my name ? Before the A . +Grad C: Yeah . OK , good . Cuz you kn When you said people have the same problem , I thought {disfmarker} Cuz my H goes after the uh e e e the v +Grad A: People have the inverse problem with my name . +Grad C: OK . I always have to check , every time y I send you an email , {comment} a past email of yours , {comment} to make sure I 'm spelling your name correctly . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad C: I worry about you . +Grad A: I appreciate that . +Grad B: But , when you abbreviate yourself as the "" Basman "" , you don't use any H 's . +Grad A: "" Basman "" ? Yeah , it 's because of the chessplayer named Michael Basman , who is my hero . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: You 're a geek . It 's O K . I +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: How do you pronou How do you pronounce your name ? +Grad D: Eva . +Grad C: Eva ? +Grad A: Not Eva ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: What if I were {disfmarker} What if I were to call you Eva ? +Grad D: I 'd probably still respond to it . I 've had people call me Eva , but I don't know . +Grad C: No , not just Eva , Eva . Like if I u take the V and s pronounce it like it was a German V ? +Grad B: Which is F . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , no idea then . +Grad B: Voiced . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: It sounds like an F . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's also an F in German , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Well , it 's just the difference between voiced and unvoiced . +Grad C: which is why I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: As long as that 's O K . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: I mean , I might slip out and say it accidentally . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad D: That 's fine . +Grad A: Yeah . It doesn't matter what those nodes are , anyway , because we 'll just make the weights "" zero "" for now . +Grad B: Yep . We 'll make them zero for now , because it {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who knows what they come up with , what 's gonna come in there . OK . And , um , then should we start on Thursday ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: And not meet tomorrow ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: OK . I 'll send an email , make a time suggestion . +Grad C: Wait , maybe it 's OK , so that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we can {disfmarker} that we have one node per construction . Cuz even in people , like , they don't know what you 're talking about if you 're using some sort of strange construction . +Grad B: Yeah , they would still c sort of get the closest , best fit . +Grad C: Well , yeah , but I mean , the {disfmarker} uh , I mean , that 's what the construction parser would do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I mean , if you said something completely arbitrary , it would f find the closest construction , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: right ? But if you said something that was completel er {disfmarker} h theoretically the construction parser would do that {disfmarker} But if you said something for which there was no construction whatsoever , n people wouldn't have any idea what you were talking about . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Like "" Bus dog fried egg . "" I mean . You know . +Grad B: Or , if even something Chinese , for example . +Grad C: Or , something in Mandarin , yeah . Or Cantonese , as the case may be . What do you think about that , Bhaskara ? +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} But how many constructions do {disfmarker} could we possibly have {pause} nodes for ? +Grad C: In this system , or in r +Grad A: No , we . Like , when people do this kind of thing . +Grad C: Oh , when p How many constructions do people have ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: I have not {comment} the slightest idea . +Grad A: Is it considered to be like in {disfmarker} are they considered to be like very , uh , sort of s abstract things ? +Grad C: Every noun is a construction . +Grad A: OK , so it 's like in the {pause} thousands . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Any {disfmarker} any form - meaning pair , to my understanding , is a construction . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . +Grad C: And form u starts at the level of noun {disfmarker} Or actually , maybe even sounds . +Grad B: Phoneme . Yep . +Grad C: Yeah . And goes upwards until you get the ditransitive construction . +Grad A: S +Grad C: And then , of course , the c I guess , maybe there can be the {disfmarker} Can there be combinations of the dit +Grad A: Discourse - level {pause} constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . The "" giving a speech "" construction , +Grad B: Rhetorical constructions . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Yeah . But , I mean , you know , you can probably count {disfmarker} count the ways . I mean . +Grad C: It 's probab Yeah , I would s definitely say it 's finite . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And at least in compilers , that 's all that really matters , as long as your analysis is finite . +Grad A: How 's that ? {nonvocalsound} How it can be finite , again ? +Grad C: Nah , I can't think of a way it would be infinite . +Grad B: Well , you can come up with new constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} If the {disfmarker} if your {disfmarker} if your brain was totally non - deterministic , then perhaps there 's a way to get , uh , infin an infinite number of constructions that you 'd have to worry about . +Grad A: But , I mean , in the {nonvocalsound} practical sense , it 's impossible . +Grad C: Right . Cuz if we have a fixed number of neurons {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So the best - case scenario would be the number of constructions {disfmarker} or , the worst - case scenario is the number of constructions equals the number of neurons . +Grad A: Well , two to the power of the number of neurons . +Grad C: Right . But still finite . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: No , wait . Not necessarily , is it ? We can end the {pause} meeting . I just {disfmarker} Can't you use different var different levels of activation ? across , uh {disfmarker} lots of different neurons , to specify different values ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um , yeah , but there 's , like , a certain level of {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's a bandwidth issue , +Grad A: Bandw - Yeah , so you can't do better than something . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad B: Turn off the mikes . Otherwise it gets really tough for the tr +","Grad B, C, and D are discussing updates to a Bayes net model, dealing with situational nodes and XML schema. They are focused on how to interpret and input various situations and conditions into the network and mention using XSL transformations for Java Bayes compatibility. They contemplate the complexity of determining the relevance of decision nodes and consider how to derive outputs and appropriate responses from the model. The discussion also touches on vacation plans and scheduling their next group meeting to present their finalized network." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: It's Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Play-Doh's edible . Did you know that ? It's definitely {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because kids {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I used to eat it . +User Interface: I've , I've definitely eaten it before . I didn't know was edible . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's it's chew proof . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um , it's it's made edible 'cause , yeah . It's made edible 'cause kids eat it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if it's wasn't edible then {disfmarker} Well , normal babies . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually that makes sense , because I remember like , peopl I dunno if my Mom ever did it but I remember other people's Moms making like home-made Play-Doh where you just like make the {gap} colouring and make some sort of sort of dough . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah it is , yeah . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Everybody everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's have your um {disfmarker} let's get {gap} have the uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We've got some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We've got a cool prototype . +User Interface: Yeah , it's pretty exciting . So , everything uh that we wanted we wanted it to be ergonomic and to be made out of rubber , very simple and easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Double curved . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: yeah , double curved , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um but also something that was gonna jump out at people , something that would be different uh , separate it from the other remotes out on the market . So uh I think if you put this in the palm of your hand , you'll see what a nice thing we have going here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is cool . +User Interface: So , basically , if you hold it like that , the one on your thumb , yeah , {vocalsound} the thumb button is the power button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your index finger is channel up , middle finger is channel down , ring finger is volume up , your pinkie is volume down . +Marketing: What's the big blue thing ? +User Interface: That's the lock button , has a L_ L_ on it +Marketing: Oh cool . +User Interface: and then the M_ is a mute button . And then it also has digit +Project Manager: {gap} what button ? Um . Oh mute . +User Interface: For muting the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And mute . +User Interface: Um and then then you can also {disfmarker} there's a numeric keypad on the top so you can key directly to the to the channel if you want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's really basic functionalities as far as what keys are available , but we think it's very comfortable and very innovative and it looks different . +Project Manager: That certainly does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So all the , I mean the important keys are right at your f f you know right at uh at a convenient place for you to to access them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Which is ant anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: So you don't you {disfmarker} Yeah . It should be . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And it's also conformable to the size of your hand . I mean if that's too big , it's a rubber remote , so you can , you know +Project Manager: Yeah . 'S great . +User Interface: change that . So d does that uh what {disfmarker} mesh with what you guys were hoping and for and expecting or does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it's so cute . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have one thing about it , but it's a small thing , but it'd mean we'd have to make a right-handed one and a left-handed one . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . +User Interface: Ah , that's good thinking , yeah . +Project Manager: But , that's I don't see why that's not possible . +User Interface: Yeah , if we build rocket ships why can't we build left-handed and right-handed uh remotes . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} They make left-handed scissors , you know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I didn't I didn't think about that , but I'd {disfmarker} yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , but then but then you can learn to use your right h like I was just thinking if there's left-handers and right-handers in the family , what , they have two remotes ? +Project Manager: Yes s +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know I know people who have left-handed and right-handed people in the family and they all use the computer {vocalsound} for the whole {disfmarker} the same computer the fes family and they have a mouse , and everybody is using right-handed mouse . +Project Manager: Mm . Sure . Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm sure they'll be able to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I mean it's only pressing buttons , you don't have to do anything , you know , extraordinary . I think everybody can press a button with their left and right hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine d are you right handed ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine you're doing it with your left hand , I don't think it's too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we can have both uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Have them in stock . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Make 'em more appealing as well . +Project Manager: But um other than that , I mean uh and that's um , you know , that's just something , I think I think it's great , yeah , great idea . +User Interface: Do you think it says {vocalsound} R_R_ ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think it does . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's , well , if the R_R_ motto is , we bring fashion to to electronics , I'd say that could be quite fashionable . +User Interface: Fashion to electronics . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's got the b the black and yellow and blue . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Plus red , which is sort of a a fruit and vegetable uh uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There you go . +User Interface: So that's that's {vocalsound} our end of things wha uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , very good , yeah . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's come up with what we've you know , the things that's what we've {disfmarker} what we were looking at doing , hasn't it , {gap} all seems to be there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: And all the playing around is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um before we move on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just {disfmarker} do you wanna plug in ? +Project Manager: I need that cable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . Yeah . Um . One thing I do need to do {disfmarker} we need to look at , is the costs . +User Interface: The costs , was that what you said ? +Industrial Designer: Play-Doh is very cheap . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Play-Doh won't last very long everybody'll go like , oops , it's gone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's edible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Chew proof . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , they'll buy more of them if you eat them , {gap} . +User Interface: That was the main criteria from the last meeting , it had to be chew proof . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh right . {vocalsound} Okay , now I think we'll do this {disfmarker} I could do {disfmarker} you know , I can do this o on my own or I could do it with you , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh ho-ho . +Project Manager: but it's just easy enough to go through it with you , so we're going for the kinetic power . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the electronics , we decided on it being just a simple , the easiest thing that's inside it . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} the case , we've gone for the double curved . Um and it's made out of rubber . {vocalsound} The interface is push-buttons . And button supplements well they're in diff special colours , aren't they ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} special colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's better for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Special form , yeah , they're a special form there in shapes and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean , {vocalsound} these these ones on the side are curved kind of , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And special material . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . Um . Are they made out of any special material ? +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +Project Manager: No they're not . They're not made out of wood or titanium or rubber or anything , they're just simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons are rubber . +Marketing: Well they're rubber , aren't they ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So let's see if that comes within budget . And it does . That is gonna cost uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: We're under budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's gonna cost ten ten Euro seventy cents a unit to make . And our target was it had to come in at under twelve fifty . +User Interface: That's cool . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: And we're actua actually making a better profit than we expected . +Project Manager: this is all very very good . The bosses will be very pleased . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , let's just save this so I can e-mail it to you . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Save it in {gap} save it in the uh {vocalsound} my documents . +Marketing: It's already saved , I think . +Project Manager: Splendid . Okay . So uh , that's {gap} done with this with this um doodah , so you're {gap} . Gonna do {disfmarker} what you were gonna do , +Marketing: Thank you . Mm . +Project Manager: your evaluation . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . This is where we all get to {vocalsound} I get to write on the , oops , on the board . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . 'S function {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} I love the smell of that Play-Doh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I cou {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: have some have some . +Marketing: Okay . So , {vocalsound} evaluation . We're gonna do it all together so we evaluate each criteria . I've got the criterias . And we have to do it on a scale of one to seven , one being true , so it's it's more like it's {disfmarker} fits the criteria , and seven being as in it doesn't fit the criteria . And the criterias are , and I'll draw this up on the board {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we have a box {disfmarker} {gap} . And this is false , this is just like to keep you informed . So seven's here and one's here and then you've got in the middle . {vocalsound} So the first criteria . Do you all get what we're doing ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , cool . Okay , first criteria , look and feel . So the does remote look and feel fashionable to what we talked about ? As it {disfmarker} is it colour-wise and is it spongy ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So what mark should we give for that ? +Project Manager: I would give it a seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: As in it's not . +Project Manager: Oh sorry , one , d yeah . +User Interface: Oh , sorry , one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A one . +Marketing: A one a one . So I'll just write criteria criteria one we get one . Second criteria , new technology . Have we implemented new technology ? As in the new high-tech {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the kinetic thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . That was our main technological innovation w every everything else was fairly simple , but the fact that we used the kinetic energy was new . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: So it's {gap} . So we'll give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's ergonomic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's not {disfmarker} that's that's a design that's a des that's a design thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not a technological thing , that's another thing , i that's another marketing thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . True . +Project Manager: So on the technical side of it it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I'd say it's about a a twoish ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's about in the mid in the middle somewhere , +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: maybe , yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe three , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} three . So criteria three is is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: Easy to use . +Marketing: I think it's a one , I think . +Project Manager: I'd say it's I wouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: not if you're left-handed it's not . I would give it a I would give it a two , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Two , +Project Manager: 'cause i i it i it i it is more geared for right-handed people than left-handed people , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But if we make a right-handed and a left-handed then ? +User Interface: If we're gonna have one left-handed and one right-handed then I would give it a one , but otherwise otherwise a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Give it a t give it a two . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , criteria four is costs . {gap} +Project Manager: Cost . It's come in under budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 's great . +Project Manager: So that's a definite one . +User Interface: Yeah . That was great . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Amount of buttons . +Marketing: Like the amount of buttons , +Project Manager: Contains only the necessary buttons . +Marketing: 'cause people like a lot le like {disfmarker} So it's a one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um criteria six . R_S_I_ is it good against ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes s yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Very good . +Project Manager: So it's anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: It's one . And criteria seven , which is the last one , does it get lost ? +Industrial Designer: It's yellow . +Marketing: Is it easy to get lost ? +Project Manager: I don't think it's gonna get lost easily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is very bright , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? But it is smallish . +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's not the kinda thing that's gonna slip like between a couch cushion or something , you know . Maybe it will . Uh . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Mm . I think i it would , could be , could get lost . +User Interface: You think it could lost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} two . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it's not fully it's not fully {disfmarker} like you can't say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I mean +Marketing: I mean , it's not a one , definitely . +Project Manager: I mean , you could still flush it down the toilet theoretically , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , anything , I mean . Okay . It's bigger than the average mobile , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But , yeah , it can get lost . +Marketing: The mobiles get lost all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay , yeah , two is fine . +Marketing: But then you ring 'em and you find them . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So , that's that . So that's the evaluation , so I'd say {disfmarker} Yay . +Project Manager: Alright it's all all systems go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We've , we've done well . +Marketing: It's like {vocalsound} {gap} like a number one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Number one product . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We can't fail . +Marketing: All done , thanks . We fitted all the criterias . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well done , Reissa . +Marketing: So that's that one . +Project Manager: Okay , I I think um I just wanna put in as Project Manager the you know , little bit of praise for everybody here for how they've worked on it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , both individually and as a team . You know you've w everyone's come up with their own individual ideas in their own different departments , um and then come together and worked in , you know , integrally , you know , at the right times , psp , you know , especially you two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all , you know , gone very very well +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and and be you know , has been good communication going on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , during our design I mean there was some s some heated heated discussion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we we kept {disfmarker} we tried to keep it cool and and +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did you have to go down to the the corporate squash court and bash a few balls about ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We just had to we just had to squeeze our product a little bit and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fantastic . +Industrial Designer: It is {gap} . +User Interface: Now you guys have been a a great team . Think we're the we're the envy of all the of all the other R_R_ teams , {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} been cool . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I , you know , and I think we've co we have come we've come up with something new , something that hasn't been done before , we haven't {disfmarker} we're not just rehashing an old design . +Marketing: In four diff in in four meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Funny , all designer meetings could be this quick . +Project Manager: You know , maybe this isn't a simulation , maybe this is actually {disfmarker} so it's like Sony or someone like that they're they're just , yeah , {gap} they get {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're actually trying to find ideas for a ideal remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're using our ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , {gap} two years' time this will be on the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ex exactly that product +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um thum {disfmarker} we'll go , yeah , we designed that and no-one will believe us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So at this stage , I mean , is this the last meeting of the project ? We don't uh have another one after it's gone gone to marke market or something ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I think when this meeting's finished like officially , there b we'll get a uh questionnaire to fill in . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y Oh really ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or six , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just start summarising now . {vocalsound} You can reply to the same message . +Project Manager: I haven't got message . +Marketing: See summary , there . If you just reply to that one . +User Interface: So there's no way to like predict what our {disfmarker} 'Cause we had a {disfmarker} we originally had a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} As far as our financial uh um goals , we had a specific number for profits that we wanted . It was fifty mil fifty million {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was it was it fifty or five ? +User Interface: I don't remember . But there's not a way to compute that , I mean , since we saved on the on the production cost , do we know how much we're making on profit ? +Project Manager: It gets handed over to another department . +Marketing: Depends how much we sell . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: What our what our project was was to come up with the product , basically . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the for the {disfmarker} and just basically is it it come {disfmarker} can {disfmarker} is it within budget . When it c when it comes to all the other things of how to sell it and , you know , the b the profits and all that that's other departments {disfmarker} it's another team that actually work out the mai the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we have a vested interest {gap} +Project Manager: oh yeah , the {disfmarker} all the guys in the profit sharing , yeah . +User Interface: prof profit sharing {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Yeah , that's it . You know , we've we've we've made i we've made +Marketing: We finished an hour earlier . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've designed the product , we've ma we've got the prototype , it's within budget , it's {disfmarker} does everything that we wanted it to do . It's new , it's it's um something that uh {vocalsound} that isn't out there already . +User Interface: I think actually {disfmarker} and one advantage of of this is that after the uh , you know , after this fad of fruit and vegetables passes this will still be c a cool remote , you know . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We're not we're not you know , tying tying our cart to that one horse {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Well , this is very marketable in that it is it's it's something that's kind of new and looks a bit quirky for people who want that , +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} that it's um , hang on , I wrote it down here somewhere {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no I thi I put it in one of my e-mails that I sent off . Um that , you know , it's marketable in the sense that it's {disfmarker} whilst all these other remotes uh actually do give you repetitive strain injury , our one does the complete opposite , you know , +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: so that's something that's new , which is one of the criteria they asked us to come up with something with something new . +User Interface: Mm . It make watching T_V_ healthy . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if you're not having a good time with the T_V_ , you can f throw it about , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's fine , it's kid proof . +Marketing: Just don't sh don't throw it at any of the ornaments and break them . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you can break the ornaments , but you won't break that . +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . So all in all , I think we've done very well . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Project Manager: Well done everybody . +User Interface: Right , you too . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: Um . Drinks are on the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the corporate bar that's next to the corporate swimming pool on the top floor that we're that've all just gained access to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Glad to hear that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's it . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Well , as far as I t as far as I know . Um . +Marketing: Yep . We haven't got the five minute left thing yet . +Project Manager: No . Anyone wanna play I spy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess it's probably better that we wrap it up than have five minutes of silence . Should we call the day then ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess . I mean we're gonna get asked to fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: Uh , right . +Project Manager: Um . It's probably gonna be the same as one we've done before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I'm not the authority to say that it is . +Marketing: In {gap} project . +Project Manager: Um how does everyone feel about the technology that's been used in this ? The sort of using of the the pens and writing on these special pads and all that ? +Marketing: I love it . {vocalsound} I love it . {vocalsound} I think it's cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Being all wired up and a vibrating pen and {disfmarker} it's cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Being watched . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Your moment to shine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: I thi you know , I'd I'd n yeah , as we said earlier , I've not {disfmarker} never seen that before . {gap} something that t the whiteboard +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: thingy , {vocalsound} that's great . Um , but a p a pen with a camera on it , I don't think it's such a new thing . I mean it's i or in such a new idea . It would be different if it was sort of hand writing recognition stuff , but as it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's literally that'll come up on a computer screen as a picture file rather than actual text . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right , I think they do want to do hand writing recognition on that , it's just the first step . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Logitech . +User Interface: I guess we should end this , since we're off off topic . So . Shall we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Meeting adjourned . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +","A team consisting of Marketing, User Interface (UI), Project Manager, and Industrial Designer are engaged in a lively discussion that begins with a seemingly off-topic banter about Play-Doh, which leads to an insight into the team's dynamic and creative process. They touch upon Play-Doh’s non-toxic properties that make it safe for children who tend to put things in their mouths. This aligns interestingly with the team's primary focus on developing a product that is ergonomically designed, easily identifiable, and most importantly, safe for users, which seems to be a recurring theme throughout their dialogues. + +The team discusses a prototype for a new remote control design, which is notably rubber-made with double curvature—aiming both for ergonomic fit and visual distinction in the saturated market of remote controls. The UI designer outlines the functionality of the remote, emphasizing the convenient button locations that correspond to different fingers, including a lock button, mute button, and numeral keypad for channel direct input. They delve into the design details, such as the button layout, which is intended to mitigate issues like repetitive strain injury. + +A significant portion of the conversation revolves around making the remote inclusive by designing both right-handed and left-handed versions. The pros and cons of maintaining two separate models are weighed, and they also touch on the potential challenges for families with members having different hand preferences. + +The team's eagerness to innovate is evident as they revel in the product's potential and its alignment with their mission to merge fashion with electronics. The vibrant color scheme—black, yellow, blue, and red—reflects their desire to bring a fashionable element to technology. + +Concerning the project's financial aspects, the Project Manager takes the lead in evaluating the costs involved, finding that the unit production cost is well within their target budget, much to everyone's contentment. They delve into the kinetic power feature, the simplicity of the electronics involved, and button customization options—all of which have been aligned successfully with their cost and functionality criteria. + +The final evaluation consists of rating their achievement against specified criteria on a scale of one to seven, including look and feel, new technology, ease of use, costs, the number of buttons, and resistance to repetitive strain injury. Understandably, they hover between highest affirmations and slight adjustments, aiming to perfect each element, with a focus on how the product will stand out in terms of anti-RSI design and low probability of being lost due to its distinctive features. + +The Project Manager expresses gratitude to the team for their individual contributions and integration of ideas throughout the project, highlighting the strong communication present. The team reflects on the project's success, discussing its innovative approach and the excitement that the company would have regarding its potential market success. + +As the meeting draws to a close, the team jests about the company-sponsored celebration and the luxury amenities they now have access to. They briefly touch on the technology they utilized in their project, such as the writing pads and the experience of being monitored during their sessions, with Marketing expressing a particular fondness for the new tools. + +The meeting concludes with the Project Manager anticipating a post-meeting questionnaire likely focused on the project's process and efficiency. While the discussion began with a casual topic, it bookended into a comprehensive demonstration of their collaborative efforts, managerial skills, design thinking, and the enthusiasm with which they drove the project towards successful completion. +" +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Conceptual design meeting . Right . Okay , so {disfmarker} Right well um from the last meeting {vocalsound} I was trying to send you the minutes , but uh it didn't work out too well , so maybe in sort of um quick summary of the last uh meeting , I can quickly give you what we what we had . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh right , so {disfmarker} Wishing I hadn't closed the damn {disfmarker} Right so we had the fact that we're gonna have the the logo uh the company logo in its uh colour scheme incorporated onto the the device the remote device . We had uh made our decisions about uh made our decisions about uh the device itself , that it was gonna be simple to make it uh enable us to complete the project in time . We're gonna have uh effectively two pages , a front page which had the uh features that the uh the customers most wanted , and then the uh the backup features on the second page so that it could uh meet the technical requirements . And the customers wouldn't have to look at them too often , only as and when required . So . So basically what decisions uh have we uh made ? Uh have there been any uh changes ? +Industrial Designer: I think we all have a presentation again , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so if we go through those and then um +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three presentation , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Shall I go first again ? {gap} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , fine . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I see {gap} this a little more smoothly than the last one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay right , let's get started . Um basically the uh for the {disfmarker} Um I'll {gap} back actually . For the components design , um next step is basically the the way the remote's gonna work is still the same idea as before . We still have the user interface which is all the buttons we're gonna incorporate . Then there is a chip and still the sender . So um yes {gap} including the power s supply as well . Um I'll go on to my findings in each of these areas . Uh first in the power supply , we have the option of just the standard battery , um . {vocalsound} There's a dynamo . Any of you think of kind of like the the old torches which you wind up {gap} um . There's a kinetic option , which if any of you've seen those new watches which you kind of you power up by waving around , um it just requires a small amount of movement which would mean the batteries wouldn't have to be replaced . Um that's one option , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I think that was gonna cost a little more . And then there's solar cells . Um as a final option . For the buttons , we have um an integrated push button , which is {disfmarker} Oh just to say all all these are um supplied by Real Reaction . So I guess for the ease of for quickness and ease we should take them from at least like one of these options . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so for the buttons there's an integrated push button , which I guess is just the same as the standard ones . This says it's uh similar to uh the button on the mouse for a normal {disfmarker} for like uh like modern computer . Um there's a scroll wheel which is {disfmarker} you know the new mouse has just got like the centre section which you can scroll up and down , which may be for the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You could do do that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one issue for the buttons is , depending on which material we use , if we use rubber buttons then it requires a rubber case , so we have to take that into consideration . Um moving on to the printed s +Project Manager: What would be the cost do do we know ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's on the next {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I th I think the there wasn't too much difference in the cost , that that related to the actual buttons , but it does affect the printed circuit board . Um which is the next section . Basically for the circuit board which is the middle , it's just {disfmarker} see it down there the chips like the like the workings of the actual um of the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The firm supplies a simple , a regular and an advanced um circuit board . And there's different prices according to each . So if we've got the scroll wheel for one of the buttons , that would require a slightly more advanced circuit board than if we just had a standard um push button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one final thing we came up with was some information on the speech recognition . There's a small unit available through the company um which obviously would be an extra cost , but it wouldn't affect the size of the remote too much . Um and I guess that would require a more advanced circuit board , so there is an extra price in that sense . There is th sorry an extra cost in that sense . Um going to my personal preferences , um I thought possibly for power we could use kinetic um which is the idea of the watches um that you move you move the remote around to power it up . And this would avoid batteries running out , having to replace batteries and such like . Um for the buttons , I thought we'd probably get away with just having the standard um push buttons rather than the scroll wheel . Um and for the circuit board , again depends on which features we want in the actual in the remote . So if we wanted the scroll wheel and wanted the voice recognition , um then we'd have to get a a more costly circuit board . And that's it . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} with the printed circuit boards you were going for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um i it kind of depends um if we're gonna have the speech recognition , we'd have to probably get an advanced one . I'm guessing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I don't know , so that is something I'll have to look into . +Project Manager: But are we going f R right . +Industrial Designer: Um that's a that's a decision for all of us . Um . +Project Manager: So are we able to make that decision now in a sense that this is the point at which we're discussing that issue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . We decide . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so would it not be best to {disfmarker} rather than {disfmarker} I mean one way is to do each of the presentations and then make decisions going back to the various presentations as they were . The other way would be to do the presentation +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then make the decision at that point in time . +Industrial Designer: Um . Maybe w +User Interface: Yeah , that's probably a better one , to discuss it straight away . +Project Manager: 'Cause at that point then you've got the details up there , so if we wanted to know for instance that the scroll wheel required the regular {gap} and what required advance . Then if we were able to see that down then we could make the decision at that point in time +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and then that would be the end of that issue . Does that make sense ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I have a lot of the information there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might not be very clear . +Industrial Designer: Is there {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unless you want to plug it back in to yours . +Industrial Designer: Um . We could do , yeah . Um yeah we should {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As I say it only specified that we need a more advanced circuit board for the scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it didn't {disfmarker} The voice recognition came as a separate piece of information . Um . +Project Manager: No the scroll wheel required the regular , so the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah if if you {gap} down um . It's just this bit at the bottom which I've highlighted , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the scroll wheel requires a mini m minimally a regular chip , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is in the higher price range . +Project Manager: Okay . The display requires an advanced chip +User Interface: I think the scroll wheel um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the display requires an advanced chip which in turn is more expense . +Industrial Designer: Also the display's for something else which we decided against . Um but that bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And note that the push button just requires a simple chip , so that would keep the price down . +Project Manager: Down . +User Interface: Yeah , and if we're going for sleek and sexy , I think a scroll wheel is maybe a bit kinda bulky ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I I've got um pictures well I've seen pictures with it kind of sticking off the side of it , +Project Manager: Right . Okay . +User Interface: and they don't really look great . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . So maybe just a simple push button , and that would cut costs on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So . So we're going for p Okay . So {gap} is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we going for the w are we going for the simple one , are we ? +User Interface: Yeah , a simple pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Simple push button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Did everyone get this on the speech recognition ? The um it was basically what we said before , the idea that you record in a set message , and then it picks up that message um and replies to you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it is basically the concept we discussed before . Um but then we don't know for sure whether it would require a more complicated circuit board . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing it would , but {gap} got like the definite information . Maybe we should go on what we're certain of rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if we go for the simple push button , so effectively we're going for the simple printed circuit board are we ? Or are we going for the regular ? +Industrial Designer: Um if it's just the push button then it just needs the simple circuit board . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . But is there any other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean okay , that's true for the {disfmarker} for for that element , but we have to take all {gap} el elements into consideration . And so if there is one element that requires the more expensive one , or say the regular one , or the more advanced , then that would have to be the same for all of them . S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: I suppose we need we need to find out what circuit board that requires , maybe before we {gap} m make a decision . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But the way that I interpret that um it doesn't seem to send out a signal to the telly , it just {disfmarker} it's like a parrot just rep reply replying to your message . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , I suppose so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that would be something separate , yeah . +User Interface: So I don't think it would effect our circuit board . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'd have a simple circuit board +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and that would be an extra that would be in addition to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that makes sense . +User Interface: And I don't think you could really perform any of the remote functions with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause the example that they've given there is good morning coffee machine , good morning Jo . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: It might be useful to say like where are you remote . Here I am , Jo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think that's maybe as far as that one could go ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that makes sense , so we'd stick with the simple circuit board and then think of the speech recognition as an extra an extra possibility . +User Interface: Yeah , just as a fun way to find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Simple circuit board . Simple push button . Okay . W w kinetic . +User Interface: And it says that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You were you were wanting to go for the kinetic power supply . +User Interface: I think it said the cost of that isn't too much . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah I I thought so just for {disfmarker} just for ease of not having to replace the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: And how does it get uh charged up ? +Industrial Designer: It's um I think it works on the basis they have some kind of ball bearings inside . It's um it's some on watches which you you kind of you shake to power it up . Somehow the mechanism inside powers up through movement . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd you'd move the remote around a little bit and then that powers it up to use it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the speech recognition was {disfmarker} Are we going for speech recognition ? No ? 'Cause that required the advanced {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I think it would be helpful to find it , but I don't think it'd um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I think {disfmarker} did we decide it didn't affect the circuit board , it just affected {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Just just for the call and find thing . +Industrial Designer: It was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I had speech recognition requires advanced req require +Industrial Designer: Oh no th that's what that's what I thought , but maybe maybe it doesn't {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Um I think I might have got that wrong . +Project Manager: So okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it's s it's separate isn't it , +Project Manager: Speech recognition you reckon then is s simple . +Marketing: it's not part of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's it's just an addition thing it's um yeah . +Project Manager: And so we would want it in as an extra because it doesn't appear to cost too much . Would that be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay shall I pass on to you now ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In fact , it wouldn't really cost anymore , would it ? +User Interface: I'll just just check what it said . Actually I don't think it really says anything about the cost , but it says that it's already in the coffee machines , so like it's already kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I assume it would cost extra , but {disfmarker} Maybe we maybe we'll find out how much that does cost and have to decide slightly later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then have to change all {vocalsound} change {gap} everything at the last minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} Oh , that was quick . Um okay , so very brief presentation , um . From looking at the remotes that are out there at the minute , none of them are particularly um sleek and sexy . Um I haven't actually got the examples of the scroll button there , um but there's some curved cases that you can see , uh a range of sizes uh . All of them have a lot of buttons there um they seem to just have the rubber buttons . Does that move it ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: It just seems to be skipping on without us doing anything . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've found that {gap} try and get it back . +Industrial Designer: If you right click and then go onto a previous slide . +User Interface: Ah it's alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , right . +User Interface: Um . There wasn't much more to say about that , just rambling . {vocalsound} Um some of the uh remotes that I looked at , one of the models da did actually have voice recognition where you could um where it was connected to the remote control functions . And uh it was quite uh a swish model , where it can control uh four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , video , D_V_D_ , audio . Um so that's a bit of competition there . So I mean maybe it's better not to try and compete with that sort of thing and just to market it as a completely different um like different viewpoint as a kind of finding your lost control +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: rather than trying to compete with the functions . Um the scroll buttons , as you've already mentioned , um there's examples of those , but they don't look as sleek as other models . And there's no real advantage and {disfmarker} because it impacts on other {disfmarker} on the materials and the price it's not great . +Industrial Designer: On the price , yeah . +Project Manager: So you were saying the scroll buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th there was a specialist type of remote that we could think about , um . There was children's remote , where um they just had a very limited range of buttons and they were b uh bright and colourful and um you you could program them so that they could only look at certain channels . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um but I don't know if that's really in our field ? +Industrial Designer: I guess I guess we're going for the biggest market , {gap} maybe not , +User Interface: But that's something that's out there . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Was it was it specified that we went for the biggest ? +Project Manager: Well we're to go for the international market rather than a local market but that that wouldn't necessarily preclude {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: The one thing that you can often do with products is you can uh make small modifications . So you have your basic model which you would sell at whatever , and then you could have additional features in you know like a {disfmarker} You'd have model one , model two and model three , and therefore you can sub-divide your market up . But that's really where your field is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So maybe the children's remote should be like a a next step , but maybe I dunno for ours , maybe we should {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyway you could add on for an extra package , but on this basic one I'm reckoning that we're going for the basic model to be discussed here and that uh you would have for future reference the possibility of adding in extra features at extra cost to take care of specialist market segments . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that +User Interface: Right well that's something that we can be aware of . +Project Manager: So so what are we deciding to do here ? +User Interface: Um . I think because there's already um very good voice recognition technology out there , and because ours might not cover the same functions that the leading brands do , it might be a good idea to market it as a um finder function . +Project Manager: Right . Mm-hmm . Uh the fi Yeah , the finder function rather than as a speech function to find your remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you also said for going for the international market um that some some maybe older people might not like the speech recognition . S s so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Different languages might not be compatible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It w it would make it quite complicated , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: where um ours at least keeps it fairly simple and then the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause I think you program um this one yourself , like to say like whatever you want to your question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and ours is quite a cheap device , so I don't know how much we'll be able to put into it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you'd have a finder feature rather than a voice recognition feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And you were talking +User Interface: Maybe unless something else comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . And you were talking about scroll buttons ? +User Interface: Um yeah I think um I think we've decided that it's gonna increase the cost +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and give no real kinda extra benefit +Project Manager: {gap} b +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's gonna decrease from the sleekness of it . +Project Manager: Alright , so we're just gonna have the the rubber buttons , was that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: Hmm um and just to be aware that there are kind of specialist functions and specialist remotes but we probably don't want to focus on those like such as the children's remote . +Project Manager: Okay . So not to be focused on . +User Interface: Yeah . Um there was a mention just as kind of a warning about button design . Um just to avoid ambiguity . So it gave the example of say your volume buttons for up and down , they might both have a V_ on for volume , {disfmarker} Um let's think how they did this . +Project Manager: Good in in {disfmarker} Flip it round in ninety degree a hundred and eighty degrees and have it up and down . +User Interface: I'm just gonna check so I do this right . +Project Manager: An upside-down V_ . So that would show that volume was going up , whereas the one underneath would see the volume going down . +User Interface: Um . What did they say ? Um I think the thing was that if you decide to do this , to have triangular buttons , um somebody might look at this one and say oh well this triangular button is pointing up , and that's the first thing that they see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Actually that can't be right , can it ? Oh well , no , they might see yeah , they might see this pointing down and think right that's gonna turn the volume down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: whereas the actual button's pointing up , so the function is to turn the button up . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , be careful what you put on the buttons +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could have like {disfmarker} +User Interface: and be careful of the shape that you make them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because they might be kind of two um contradicting kind of shapes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean . So maybe we could have volume written on the side and then up and down on the on the buttons themselves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You could have volume up and volume {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possible . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Volume up , down and {disfmarker} Like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And 'cause the idea was to have limited um {disfmarker} it was to have sizable amount of information on it . Limited number of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: 'Cause it was sixteen buttons , wasn't it that were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah we got it down to not too many . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and I think that's all I had to say for that . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Um so what was the decision on the um design of the volume button ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Are we are we gonna go through the design of all the buttons at the moment , or are we gonna t +Marketing: I've I've got some things to say about possible design things from trend watching . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we should see yours first . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: Cool . Right , um I've been looking at some trends in in sort of basically fashion on top of doing the um research into the remote control market the the one {disfmarker} that's the one I talked about last time , that we'd sort of asked people about remote controls and what what was good about them , what was bad , what they used . And we've also been looking at sort of fa sort of fashions and what people are wanting out of consumer goods at the moment . So we've had people in Paris and Milan watching the uh fashion trends . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You know {gap} yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So just to summarise the most important things which came out of the remote control market investigation . The most important thing was that the thing sort of look and felt fancy rather than just functional . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: And second , there should be some technological innovation . And then third and l less important than the other two , there should be an ease of use as well . And apparently , the fashion trends {vocalsound} are that people want sort of clothes and shoes and things with a fruit and vegetables theme . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um but um the feel of the material should be spongy , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is contrary to last year , apparently . I presume it must have been not not spongy last year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we need to emphasise the fancy design with on on our remote control above all else . And then also try and add in technological informat innovation which could be our sort of find the thing with a hand clap . And then we need to ma sort of make it easy to use that's as a third priority , so perhaps um fewer fewer buttons and functions as we've as we've discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then maybe find a way to incorporate these trends so that we sort of capture people's imaginations . So maybe we could make the buttons shaped like fruit and veg , or the the buttons could be spongy , uh somehow . Maybe we could make them out of rubber rather than sort of hard plastic . And then sort of even wackier than that , we could maybe have a fruit or vegetable shaped remote , say in the shape of a banana or something like that . {vocalsound} Right , so that'll be it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe a banana or courgette or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: How how far we actually want to go along and sort of follow the trends , do we think the trends are particularly important for this type of gadget , or or you know , do they not matter that much ? +User Interface: I think if you start making the buttons fruit shaped , it might make it more complicated to use . +Project Manager: Well you were just talking about you've got to be careful how you shape your buttons , 'cause you're can mis-direct people . And I would've thought the functionality {disfmarker} 'cause the people get cheesed off by things {disfmarker} by having to read instructions et cetera , so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: .. . +User Interface: Maybe just one button , say the standby button is quite kinda separate from all the other functions . Maybe that could be a little apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Now ? Yeah . +User Interface: And then that wouldn't get in the way of like kinda one to nine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it wouldn't confuse the numbers . +Project Manager: Stand-by button . No th that that incorporates the trend whilst at the same time not confusing people , if you're looking for functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno I I guess maybe fruit and vegetables may be popular at the moment , but as we know how fickle the fashion markets are , +Project Manager: But what are they gonna be next {disfmarker} Yeah . What are they gonna be next year . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . S +Project Manager: But but th but okay but you you can incorporate the tr If y if you change all the buttons then you've got the problem that this year's fruit and veg , next year's uh {vocalsound} I was gonna say animals or elephants or w whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Project Manager: That means you're constantly changing your production schedule , +Marketing: I'm not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you've gotta make different moulds and everything else , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so that's not a good idea I would I would suggest . +Marketing: I'm not I'm not sure what what what the sort of timescale we're thinking of selling the product over is . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I mean it just seems realistic that the remote control market isn't the kind of thing which takes in those kinds of fashion trends . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to something which is maybe more universal . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I suppose as long as it's quite a subtle design , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um even if the design kind of changes , {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c maybe can imply a fruit shape possibly . +Project Manager: Ah d d But if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the spongy feel is something we could think about , um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Maybe still with a rubber design we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Was that in the sort of fashion sense that this {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} the spongy feel was that uh sort of fashion ? It was , wasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It seems like you're gonna have rubber cases , as well as buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that you can make them curved or double-curved and that would be the kind of sleek and sexy look . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah one of the things were if you had rubber buttons then you had to have a rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um oh no no no +User Interface: Oh right , that fits , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: sorry it's if you use the uh rubber double curved case then you must use rubber buttons . That's the way round . If you have the rubber case then you have to have the rubber buttons to go with it . Which makes sense . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Rubber buttons require rubber case . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that would fit in with what we want , wouldn't it , for the spongy feel , to have everything rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh so , yeah . The m the main problem is how f how frequently do the fashions change ? 'Cause in essence in the production you want things to stay {disfmarker} you want to basically mint them out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause if you've got fashion changes and that you're incorporating , then it means that your stock is um is last year's stock +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and therefore you're selling it or having to sell it at a discounted rate which you wouldn't want to do . Whereas if you kept the product the same but you could have a difference from year to year , uh it seems to me that you could incorporate a fashion statement if you like , rather than changing the whole kit and caboodle . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: You're just changing one aspect like like the standby button or something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and especially 'cause then you could make it something that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we maybe are limited in the fact that we still have to put the logo on the actual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , you might be limited in space , that {vocalsound} yes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} would or not . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you two are obviously gonna find that out fairly quickly when you move over to your kit modelling stage as to uh how much pl how much how much how pliable is Plasticine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could think of the the cases like changing with the fashions +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like the Nokia phones where you could take the casing off the outside . But whether that would be too much to incorporate in production , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether that would just increase the costs , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: make it more complicated . +Project Manager: So you're talking there about uh changing changing the casing . +Marketing: That's possibly it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the a the actual the sort of the look from the outside , so where the buttons would stay the same , and the general function of the remote would stay the same , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could change the the way it looked . +User Interface: Yeah and then you could have {disfmarker} Oh but you still would have to have the logo on every new case , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: but you could have like pink cases for girls and red ones and things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah you you could do a colour change , so therefore you would yeah yeah {disfmarker} I mean that's effectively what they did with the with the mobile phones , was to have some in blue , some in red , some in {disfmarker} rather than all in black +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or , you know , which four do you want , as long as it's black ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But uh so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it is a possibility , um . +User Interface: But we are supposed to use the um company colour scheme , aren't we ? +Project Manager: Yes oh that's true +User Interface: We haven't really seen that yet +Industrial Designer: Oh okay yes +Project Manager: uh that might no +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that is {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might {disfmarker} and we might be able to do both but it might clash with certain things . +Project Manager: Well not necessarily , because you could have your company uh {disfmarker} We're we're meant to be finishing up . You could have your company badge and logo . I mean a lot of um computers for instance like like on the one you've got there , it actually has a sort of um stick on badge +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so what you would al all you would really need , whether it , you know , whether the casing be w any colour , could be any colour , but that badge would then have to stick out on top of it so that uh in a sense , with a with a logo like that , because it's on a white background , the only colour that it might not stick out so well on would be a white casing . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause you you know you're sort of you're badging it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact a lot of companies get somebody else to make them and literally just badge them themselves with their own uh badge over the top . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact the way they've got that there even if you had that on a white , which is the predominant colour of the uh the Windows badge , you'd still be able to see it clearly from you know a white casing uh product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: And whether we'd have a big enough market to have this kind of like secondary market of selling the cases might be something to consider . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well if it's for young people , um like the phone generation , that sort of thing'd probably go down well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and the market research has been on that side of things , hasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's people say that it's the look , they want the fancy looking thing but I'm {disfmarker} Yeah . I'm not convinced on whether having changeable covers would be something that people would buy into . I think with the mobiles , it's the , you know it's a communication device , people see you with it all about and +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: where you you keep the remote hidden under the sofa most of the time . +Marketing: i if it +Project Manager: It's uh in in the house , isn't it , I suppose . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so if we just went for one colour of a rubber case {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So don't change case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Change case colour . And we're sort of saying no to that . +User Interface: Did we decide on the rubber case ? The spongy feel , or did we think that that might go as a trend ? +Marketing: Well , it was different last year . The trend was different last year apparently . It was not not spongy feel . But {disfmarker} I don't know whether the trend will change . I don't know whether it's one of those things that like sort of having all fruit shaped keys , that that probably would go out of fashion very quickly , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: whereas just the fact that it was a rubber case is probably less less of something that y you're gonna end up hating in a year , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , less likely to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . {vocalsound} {gap} If you're going for fashion trends like that they'll need t you'd have to have interchangeable cases +Industrial Designer: So then th th that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so that you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or 'cause otherwise someone's gonna have to buy a complete new remote rather than just a case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it seems to make sense that we we'd just maybe stick with the standard rubber case , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then have the standard rubber buttons as well . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Uh we haven't really talked about uh the curvature of the case . There's flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: there's single-curved and there's double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Um . Mayb +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what these things look like . +Industrial Designer: Maybe curves give it like the slightly more aesthetic feel ? But the double curve wouldn't require us to perform miracles with the Plasticine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it says that {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you say d when you say double-curved , what what exactly does that mean ? +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure . {vocalsound} Um I'll show you the remotes that I've got . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: See how uh {disfmarker} Let's just get that bigger . See how uh the one {disfmarker} Oh I'm not plugged in , am I ? +Marketing: No you're not connected to me anymore . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That doesn't help . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One one thing to cons +User Interface: Shall I just turn it round for time ? +Project Manager: one thing to consider is that in some ways you want um {disfmarker} by having a fairly standard case it means they can all fit together on top of each other +Marketing: {gap} That should come up . +Project Manager: therefore for storage purposes in shops and the like and it makes it easier that you can {disfmarker} if you can store them up on top of each other . +Marketing: Mm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Whereas if you do um fancy things with it , you then gotta put it in a ca a a packaging box that that does that . And the cost of packaging could be quite important vis-a-vis the total cost of the product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So shall we go through quickly and just work out what we've decide on , if we have to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's not very clear up there , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but you can see some of them have got kind of bulges , like the second one and the end one uh where there's a curve there . +Project Manager: Mm yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm not exactl I don't know if a double curve is maybe it comes up slightly , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what I was trying to work out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um it is a kinda sleeker look if you've got curves in there . +Project Manager: Oh right . S so do you wanna go for curves , more curves ? +Marketing: Shall we +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: We're meant to be f we're meant to be finishing this meeting in about a minute or so . +User Interface: Definitely a single , maybe a double . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , so shall we quickly {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we go for single curve , just to compromise ? +Industrial Designer: We'll go for single curve , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Single curve . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: curved or double curved ? So it's single curved . +Industrial Designer: So did we did we decide on the kinetic power supply ? The one you move around ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I think that think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And the rubber push buttons , rubber case . +Marketing: Rubber {disfmarker} Rubber buttons and case . +User Interface: Um and we don't really know much about the colour scheme or logo yet do we , +Industrial Designer: Oh we ca +User Interface: but possibly a sticker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , we'll still have the {disfmarker} Are we gonna go for the simple circuit board just to keep the cost down ? I th I think we can by by not having anything too complicated {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and and the voice recognition , we can use that can't we , just to find it . Without affecting the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And see we could always decide against it if something comes up that's just something to {disfmarker} that we seemed to leave out . +Marketing: Okay . And then are we going for sort of one button shaped like a fruit . {vocalsound} Or veg . +User Interface: Yeah that sounds like it wouldn't do too much harm in a couple of years . Uh what sort of shape do we want ? +Project Manager: So we've got spongy feel buttons as well , have we ? +Marketing: Don't know , maybe just +Project Manager: As well as {disfmarker} or w or was that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . That's ru rubber buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: So it's rubber buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it's not really spongy feel buttons , it's just rubber buttons . With a rubber case right ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , so it's not too wacky . +Marketing: Reasonably spongy I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: And the standby button is gonna be different . +Marketing: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Um I think an apple would be a good recognisable shape . If you start getting into kinda aubergines and things , it gets a bit weird . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so what what shape are we making the standby button ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . Apple ? +Project Manager: A apple . +User Interface: Vote ? +Project Manager: Oh oh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we vote on it ? +Industrial Designer: We will go for the a a a apples apples . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Anyone got any suggestions ? +Marketing: Apple apple a a qu Quite a big one , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A big apple . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it could be red . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Could be a red apple , yeah . Either , don't mind . +Project Manager: A red apple ? Is it ? +User Interface: Yeah 'cause we wanna incorporate a bit of colour if we can , once we find out um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . And then we're gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna work on keeping the button design quite simple ? Just like the {disfmarker} Just working out what we're gonna do for the next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that seems pretty straight forward . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause most of them will just be kind of mainly circular or like very plain . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry what was that last thing again there ? +User Interface: Uh just to keep the shape of the buttons simple . +Project Manager: Right {gap} much option on that . I thought you were going for a single curve and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah just the uh shape of the buttons . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And j yeah , just keeping the sort of the labelling them labelling of them fairly simple as well . Fairly sort of self explanatory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , so shape of buttons simple . Okay . So that's that , I guess . We should now go away and get these things sorted out . {gap} I guess you two are on plasticine duty or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so um . +Industrial Designer: Is that the end ? Okay . +Marketing: Looks like it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +","Summary: + +The project team discussed the design elements for a remote control device. The main points were incorporating the company logo and color scheme on the device, prioritizing customer's most-wanted features on the front page and backup features on the second page, and ensuring simplicity for timely project completion. + +Power supply options included standard batteries, a dynamo, kinetic movement-based power, or solar cells, with the kinetic option preferred to avoid battery replacements. For the buttons, options were standard pushbuttons, a scroll wheel, or rubber buttons, with considerations of cost, materials, and printed circuit board requirements. Push buttons were favored for cost efficiency and simplicity. + +The team explored design considerations such as curvature, texture, and market trends (e.g., spongy feel, fruit shapes), with a focus on a single-curved, rubber case and buttons for a sleek and fancy design. One button could be fruit-shaped to align with fashion trends, like an apple. The team also considered voice recognition for a finder feature and simple circuit board architecture to keep costs low. Other considerations included packaging, market segmentation (e.g., children's remote), company branding, and whether to offer interchangeable cases. The meeting concluded with assignments to further flesh out these design elements." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: It 's not very significant . +Professor B: Uh , channel one . Yes . +Grad D: Channel three . +Professor B: OK . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD A: Ta +Grad D: Channel three . Alright . +Professor B: OK , did you solve speech recognition last week ? +Grad E: Almost . +Professor B: Alright ! Let 's do image processing . +PhD C: Yes , again . +PhD A: Great . +PhD C: We did it again , Morgan . +Professor B: Alright ! +Grad E: Doo - doop , doo - doo . +PhD A: What 's wrong with {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: OK . It 's April fifth . Actually , Hynek should be getting back in town shortly if he isn't already . +PhD C: Is he gonna come here ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , we 'll drag him here . I know where he is . +PhD C: So when you said "" in town "" , you mean {pause} Oregon . +Professor B: U u u u uh , I meant , you know , this end of the world , yeah , {vocalsound} is really what I meant , +PhD C: Oh . +Grad E: Doo , doo - doo . +Professor B: uh , cuz he 's been in Europe . +Grad E: Doo - doo . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: I have something just fairly brief to report on . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Um , I did some {pause} experim uh , uh , just a few more experiments before I had to , {vocalsound} uh , go away for the w well , that week . +Professor B: Great ! +PhD C: Was it last week or whenever ? Um , so what I was started playing with was the {disfmarker} th again , this is the HTK back - end . And , um , I was curious because the way that they train up the models , {vocalsound} they go through about four sort of rounds of {disfmarker} of training . And in the first round they do {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's three iterations , and for the last three rounds e e they do seven iterations of re - estimation in each of those three . And so , you know , that 's part of what takes so long to train the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the back - end for this . +Professor B: I 'm sorry , I didn't quite get that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's four and there 's seven and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , maybe I should write it on the board . So , {vocalsound} there 's four rounds of training . Um , I g I g I guess you could say iterations . The first one is three , then seven , seven , and seven . And what these numbers refer to is the number of times that the , uh , HMM re - estimation is run . It 's this program called H E +Professor B: But in HTK , what 's the difference between , uh , a {disfmarker} an inner loop and an outer loop in these iterations ? +PhD C: OK . So what happens is , um , at each one of these points , you increase the number of Gaussians in the model . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , right ! This was the mix up stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . The mix up . +Professor B: That 's right . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: I remember now . +PhD C: And so , in the final one here , you end up with , uh {disfmarker} for all of the {disfmarker} the digit words , you end up with , uh , three {pause} mixtures per state , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh , in the final {pause} thing . So I had done some experiments where I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to play with the number of mixtures . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But , um , uh , I wanted to first test to see if we actually need to do {pause} this many iterations early on . +Grad E: Uh , one , two , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so , um , I {disfmarker} I ran a couple of experiments where I {vocalsound} reduced that to l to be three , two , two , {vocalsound} uh , five , I think , and I got almost the exact same results . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} but it runs much much faster . So , um , I {disfmarker} I think m {pause} it only took something like , uh , three or four hours to do the full training , +Professor B: As opposed to {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Good . +PhD C: as opposed to wh what , sixteen hours or something like that ? I mean , it takes {disfmarker} you have to do an overnight basically , the way it is set up now . +PhD F: Yeah . It depends . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , uh , even we don't do anything else , doing something like this could allow us to turn experiments around a lot faster . +Professor B: And then when you have your final thing , do a full one , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: And when you have your final thing , we go back to this . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: So , um , and it 's a real simple change to make . I mean , it 's like one little text file you edit and change those numbers , and you don't do anything else . +PhD F: Oh , this is a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then you just run . +PhD F: OK . +PhD C: So it 's a very simple change to make and it doesn't seem to hurt all that much . +PhD A: So you {disfmarker} you run with three , two , two , five ? That 's a +PhD C: So I {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I have to look to see what the exact numbers were . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I thought was , like , three , two , two , five , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll double check . It was {vocalsound} over a week ago that I did it , +PhD A: OK . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I can't remember exactly . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um , but it 's so much faster . I it makes a big difference . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So we could do a lot more experiments and throw a lot more stuff in there . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um . Oh , the other thing that I did was , um , {vocalsound} I compiled {pause} the HTK stuff for the Linux boxes . So we have this big thing that we got from IBM , which is a five - processor machine . Really fast , but it 's running Linux . So , you can now run your experiments on that machine and you can run five at a time and it runs , {vocalsound} uh , as fast as , you know , uh , five different machines . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , um , I 've forgotten now what the name of that machine is but I can {disfmarker} I can send email around about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And so we 've got it {disfmarker} now HTK 's compiled for both the Linux and for , um , the Sparcs . Um , you have to make {disfmarker} you have to make sure that in your dot CSHRC , {vocalsound} um , it detects whether you 're running on the Linux or a {disfmarker} a Sparc and points to the right executables . Uh , and you may not have had that in your dot CSHRC before , if you were always just running the Sparc . So , um , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: uh , I can {disfmarker} I can tell you exactly what you need to do to get all of that to work . But it 'll {disfmarker} it really increases what we can run on . +Grad E: Hmm . Cool . +PhD C: So , {vocalsound} together with the fact that we 've got these {pause} faster Linux boxes and that it takes less time to do {pause} these , um , we should be able to crank through a lot more experiments . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So after I did that , then what I wanted to do {comment} was try {pause} increasing the number of mixtures , just to see , um {disfmarker} see how {disfmarker} how that affects performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . In fact , you could do something like {pause} keep exactly the same procedure and then add a fifth thing onto it +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that had more . +PhD C: Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad E: So at {disfmarker} at the middle o where the arrows are showing , that 's {disfmarker} you 're adding one more mixture per state , +PhD C: Uh - huh . Uh , +Grad E: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: let 's see , uh . It goes from this {disfmarker} uh , try to go it backwards {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} at this point it 's two mixtures {pause} per state . So this just adds one . Except that , uh , actually for the silence model , it 's six mixtures per state . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , so it goes to two . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Um . And I think what happens here is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Might be between , uh , shared , uh {disfmarker} shared variances or something , +PhD C: Yeah . I think that 's what it is . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . It 's , uh {disfmarker} Shoot . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't remember now what happens at that first one . Uh , I have to look it up and see . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Um , there {disfmarker} because they start off with , uh , an initial model which is just this global model , and then they split it to the individuals . And so , {vocalsound} it may be that that 's what 's happening here . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to look it up and see . I {disfmarker} I don't exactly remember . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: So . That 's it . +Professor B: Alright . So what else ? +PhD A: Um . Yeah . There was a conference call this Tuesday . Um . I don't know yet the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what happened {vocalsound} Tuesday , but {vocalsound} the points that they were supposed to discuss is still , {vocalsound} uh , things like {vocalsound} the weights , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , this is a conference call for , uh , uh , Aurora participant sort of thing . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Do you know who was {disfmarker} who was {disfmarker} since we weren't in on it , uh , do you know who was in from OGI ? Was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} was {disfmarker} was Hynek involved or was it Sunil +PhD A: I have no idea . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm , I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , you don't know . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD A: Um , yeah . So the points were the {disfmarker} the weights {disfmarker} how to weight the different error rates {vocalsound} that are obtained from different language and {disfmarker} and conditions . Um , it 's not clear that they will keep the same kind of weighting . Right now it 's a weighting on {disfmarker} on improvement . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some people are arguing that it would be better to have weights on uh {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to combine error rates {pause} before computing improvement . Uh , and the fact is that for {disfmarker} right now for {pause} the English , they have weights {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they combine error rates , but for the other languages they combine improvement . So it 's not very consistent . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . The , um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} this is a point . And right now actually there is a thing also , {vocalsound} uh , that happens with the current weight is that a very non - significant improvement {pause} on the well - matched case result in {pause} huge differences in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the final number . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so , perhaps they will change the weights to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: How should that be done ? I mean , it {disfmarker} it seems like there 's a simple way {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , this seems like an obvious mistake or something . +Professor B: Well , I mean , the fact that it 's inconsistent is an obvious mistake . +PhD C: Th - they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: But the {disfmarker} but , um , the other thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: In +Professor B: I don't know I haven't thought it through , but one {disfmarker} one would think that {vocalsound} each {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's like if you say what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the best way to do an average , an arithmetic average or a geometric average ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It depends what you wanna show . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} each one is gonna have a different characteristic . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it seems like they should do , like , the percentage improvement or something , rather than the {pause} absolute improvement . +PhD A: Tha - that 's what they do . +Professor B: Well , they are doing that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , that is relative . But the question is , do you average the relative improvements {pause} or do you average the error rates and take the relative improvement maybe of that ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And the thing is it 's not just a pure average because there are these weightings . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: It 's a weighted average . Um . +PhD A: Yeah . And so when you average the {disfmarker} the relative improvement it tends to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to give a lot of {disfmarker} of , um , {vocalsound} importance to the well - matched case because {pause} the baseline is already very good and , um , i it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Why don't they not look at improvements but just look at your av your scores ? You know , figure out how to combine the scores +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: with a weight or whatever , and then give you a score {disfmarker} here 's your score . And then they can do the same thing for the baseline system {disfmarker} and here 's its score . And then you can look at {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's what he 's seeing as one of the things they could do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's just when you {disfmarker} when you get all done , I think that they pro I m I {disfmarker} I wasn't there but I think they started off this process with the notion that {vocalsound} you should be {pause} significantly better than the previous standard . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so they said "" how much is significantly better ? what do you {disfmarker} ? "" And {disfmarker} and so they said "" well , {vocalsound} you know , you should have half the errors , "" or something , "" that you had before "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's , uh , But it does seem like +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: i i it does seem like it 's more logical to combine them first and then do the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Combine error rates and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} is this still this problem of weights . When {disfmarker} when you combine error rate it tends to {pause} give more importance to the difficult cases , and some people think that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +PhD A: well , they have different , {vocalsound} um , opinions about this . Some people think that {vocalsound} it 's more important to look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to have ten percent imp relative improvement on {pause} well - matched case than to have fifty percent on the m mismatched , and other people think that it 's more important to improve a lot on the mismatch and {disfmarker} So , bu +PhD C: It sounds like they don't really have a good idea about what the final application is gonna be . +PhD A: l de fff ! Mmm . +Professor B: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing is {vocalsound} that if you look at the numbers on the {disfmarker} on the more difficult cases , {vocalsound} um , if you really believe that was gonna be the predominant use , {vocalsound} none of this would be good enough . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Nothing anybody 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: whereas {vocalsound} you sort of with some reasonable error recovery could imagine in the better cases that these {disfmarker} these systems working . So , um , I think the hope would be that it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it would work well {pause} for the good cases and , uh , it would have reasonable {disfmarker} reas {vocalsound} soft degradation as you got to worse and worse conditions . Um . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about it in terms of , if I were building the final product and I was gonna test to see which front - end I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I wanted to use , I would {vocalsound} try to {pause} weight things depending on the exact environment that I was gonna be using the system in . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} No . +PhD C: If I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , no {disfmarker} well , no . I mean , {vocalsound} it isn't the operating theater . I mean , they don they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} they don't really {pause} know , I think . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , I th +PhD C: So if {disfmarker} if they don't know , doesn't that suggest the way for them to go ? Uh , you assume everything 's equal . I mean , y y I mean , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think one thing to do is to just not rely on a single number {disfmarker} to maybe have two or three numbers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: you know , +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and say {vocalsound} here 's how much you , uh {disfmarker} you improve {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relatively clean case and here 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or well - matched case , and here 's how {disfmarker} here 's how much you , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So not {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: So not try to combine them . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , actually it 's true . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I had forgotten this , uh , but , uh , well - matched is not actually clean . What it is is just that , u uh , the training and testing are similar . +PhD C: The training and testing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I guess what you would do in practice is you 'd try to get as many , {vocalsound} uh , examples of similar sort of stuff as you could , and then , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} So the argument for that being the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more important thing , {vocalsound} is that you 're gonna try and do that , {vocalsound} but you wanna see how badly it deviates from that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when the , uh {disfmarker} it 's a little different . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , +PhD C: so you should weight those other conditions v very {disfmarker} you know , really small . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} No . That 's a {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's an arg +PhD C: I mean , that 's more of an information kind of thing . +Professor B: that 's an ar Well , that 's an argument for it , but let me give you the opposite argument . The opposite argument is you 're never really gonna have a good sample of all these different things . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I mean , are you gonna have w uh , uh , examples with the windows open , half open , full open ? Going seventy , sixty , fifty , forty miles an hour ? On what kind of roads ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: With what passing you ? With {disfmarker} uh , I mean , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that you could make the opposite argument that the well - matched case is a fantasy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I think the thing is is that if you look at the well - matched case versus the po you know , the {disfmarker} the medium and the {disfmarker} and the fo and then the mismatched case , {vocalsound} um , we 're seeing really , really big differences in performance . Right ? And {disfmarker} and y you wouldn't like that to be the case . You wouldn't like that as soon as you step outside {disfmarker} You know , a lot of the {disfmarker} the cases it 's {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , that 'll teach them to roll their window up . +Professor B: I mean , in these cases , if you go from the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} I mean , I don't remember the numbers right off , but if you {disfmarker} if you go from the well - matched case to the medium , {vocalsound} it 's not an enormous difference in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the training - testing situation , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's a really big {vocalsound} performance drop . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , um {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the reference one , for instance {disfmarker} this is back old on , uh {disfmarker} on Italian {disfmarker} uh , was like {pause} six percent error for the well - matched and eighteen for the medium - matched and sixty for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for highly - mismatched . Uh , and , you know , with these other systems we {disfmarker} we {vocalsound} helped it out quite a bit , but still there 's {disfmarker} there 's something like a factor of two or something between well - matched and medium - matched . And {vocalsound} so I think that {vocalsound} if what you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the goal of this is to come up with robust features , it does mean {disfmarker} So you could argue , in fact , that the well - matched is something you shouldn't be looking at at all , that {disfmarker} that the goal is to come up with features {vocalsound} that will still give you reasonable performance , you know , with again gentle degregra degradation , um , even though the {disfmarker} the testing condition is not the same as the training . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So , you know , I {disfmarker} I could argue strongly that something like the medium mismatch , which is you know not compl pathological but {disfmarker} I mean , what was the {disfmarker} the medium - mismatch condition again ? +PhD A: Um , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Medium mismatch is everything with the far {pause} microphone , but trained on , like , low noisy condition , like low speed and {disfmarker} or {pause} stopped car and tested on {pause} high - speed conditions , I think , like on a highway and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's still the same {disfmarker} same microphone in both cases , +PhD A: Same microphone but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a mismatch between the car conditions . And that 's {disfmarker} uh , you could argue that 's a pretty realistic situation +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I 'd almost argue for weighting that highest . But the way they have it now , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} they compute the relative improvement first and then average that with a weighting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And so then the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that makes the highly - matched the really big thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so , u i since they have these three categories , it seems like the reasonable thing to do {vocalsound} is to go across the languages {pause} and to come up with an improvement for each of those . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just say "" OK , in the {disfmarker} in the highly - matched case this is what happens , in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} m the , uh {disfmarker} this other m medium if this happens , in the highly - mismatched {pause} that happens "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you should see , uh , a gentle degradation {pause} through that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I gather that in these meetings it 's {disfmarker} it 's really tricky to make anything {vocalsound} ac {vocalsound} make any {comment} policy change because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everybody has {disfmarker} has , uh , their own opinion +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but there is probably a {disfmarker} a big change that will {vocalsound} be made is that the {disfmarker} the baseline {disfmarker} th they want to have a new baseline , perhaps , which is , um , MFCC but with {vocalsound} a voice activity detector . And apparently , {vocalsound} uh , some people are pushing to still keep this fifty percent number . So they want {vocalsound} to have at least fifty percent improvement on the baseline , but w which would be a much better baseline . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And if we look at the result that Sunil sent , {vocalsound} just putting the VAD in the baseline improved , like , more than twenty percent , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: which would mean then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} mean that fifty percent on this new baseline is like , well , more than sixty percent improvement on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} o e e uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So nobody would {pause} be there , probably . Right ? +PhD A: Right now , nobody would be there , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Good . Work to do . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So whose VAD is {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this a {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Uh , they didn't decide yet . I guess i this was one point of the conference call also , but {disfmarker} mmm , so I don't know . Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , I {disfmarker} I think th that would be {vocalsound} good . I mean , it 's not that the design of the VAD isn't important , but it 's just that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does seem to be i uh , a lot of {pause} work to do a good job on {disfmarker} on that and as well as being a lot of work to do a good job on the feature {vocalsound} design , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: if we can {pause} cut down on that maybe we can make some progress . +PhD A: M Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: But I guess perhaps {disfmarker} I don't know w {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , yeah . Per - e s s someone told that perhaps it 's not fair to do that because the , um {disfmarker} to make a good VAD {pause} you don't have enough to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the features that are {disfmarker} the baseline features . So {disfmarker} mmm , you need more features . So you really need to put more {disfmarker} more in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the front - end . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So i +Professor B: Um , +PhD A: S +Professor B: sure . But i bu +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Wha - what do you mean ? +PhD A: Yeah , if i +Professor B: So y so you m s Yeah , but {disfmarker} Well , let 's say for ins see , MFCC for instance doesn't have anything in it , uh , related to the pitch . So just {disfmarker} just for example . So suppose you 've {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} what you really wanna do is put a good pitch detector on there and if it gets an unambiguous {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if it gets an unambiguous result then you 're definitely in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a voice in a , uh , s region with speech . Uh . +PhD C: So there 's this assumption that the v the voice activity detector can only use the MFCC ? +PhD A: That 's not clear , but this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} e +Professor B: Well , for the baseline . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if you use other features then y But it 's just a question of what is your baseline . Right ? What is it that you 're supposed to do better than ? +PhD C: I g Yeah . +Professor B: And so having the baseline be the MFCC 's {pause} means that people could {pause} choose to pour their ener their effort into trying to do a really good VAD +PhD C: I don't s But they seem like two {pause} separate issues . +Professor B: or tryi They 're sort of separate . +PhD C: Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Unfortunately there 's coupling between them , which is part of what I think Stephane is getting to , is that {vocalsound} you can choose your features in such a way as to improve the VAD . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And you also can choose your features in such a way as to prove {disfmarker} improve recognition . They may not be the same thing . +PhD C: But it seems like you should do both . +Professor B: You should do both +PhD C: Right ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I think that this still makes {disfmarker} I still think this makes sense as a baseline . It 's just saying , as a baseline , we know {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: you know , we had the MFCC 's before , lots of people have done voice activity detectors , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you might as well pick some voice activity detector and make that the baseline , just like you picked some version of HTK and made that the baseline . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: And then {pause} let 's try and make everything better . Um , and if one of the ways you make it better is by having your features {pause} be better features for the VAD then that 's {disfmarker} so be it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , uh , uh , at least you have a starting point that 's {disfmarker} um , cuz i i some of {disfmarker} the some of the people didn't have a VAD at all , I guess . Right ? And {disfmarker} and +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: then they {disfmarker} they looked pretty bad and {disfmarker} and in fact what they were doing wasn't so bad at all . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . +PhD C: Yeah . It seems like you should try to make your baseline as good as possible . And if it turns out that {pause} you can't improve on that , well , I mean , then , you know , nobody wins and you just use MFCC . Right ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it seems like , uh , it should include sort of the current state of the art {vocalsound} that you want {disfmarker} are trying to improve , and MFCC 's , you know , or PLP or something {disfmarker} it seems like {vocalsound} reasonable baseline for the features , and anybody doing this task , {vocalsound} uh , is gonna have some sort of voice activity detection at some level , in some way . They might use the whole recognizer to do it {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} rather than {vocalsound} a separate thing , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they 'll have it on some level . So , um . +PhD C: It seems like whatever they choose they shouldn't , {vocalsound} you know , purposefully brain - damage a part of the system to {pause} make a worse baseline , or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think people just had +PhD C: You know ? +Professor B: it wasn't that they purposely brain - damaged it . I think people hadn't really thought through {vocalsound} about the , uh {disfmarker} the VAD issue . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and then when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the proposals actually came in and half of them had V A Ds and half of them didn't , and the half that did did well and the {vocalsound} half that didn't did poorly . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Yeah . So we 'll see what happen with this . And {disfmarker} Yeah . So what happened since , um , {vocalsound} last week is {disfmarker} well , from OGI , these experiments on {pause} putting VAD on the baseline . And these experiments also are using , uh , some kind of noise compensation , so spectral subtraction , and putting on - line normalization , um , just after this . So I think spectral subtraction , LDA filtering , and on - line normalization , so which is similar to {vocalsound} the pro proposal - one , but with {pause} spectral subtraction in addition , and it seems that on - line normalization doesn't help further when you have spectral subtraction . +PhD C: Is this related to the issue that you brought up a couple of meetings ago with the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} musical tones +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I have no idea , because the issue I brought up was with a very simple spectral subtraction approach , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: and the one that {vocalsound} they use at OGI is one from {disfmarker} from {vocalsound} the proposed {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora prop uh , proposals , which might be much better . So , yeah . I asked {vocalsound} Sunil for more information about that , but , uh , I don't know yet . Um . And what 's happened here is that we {disfmarker} so we have this kind of new , um , reference system which {vocalsound} use a nice {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a clean downsampling - upsampling , which use a new filter {vocalsound} that 's much shorter and which also cuts the frequency below sixty - four hertz , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: which was not done on our first proposal . +Professor B: When you say "" we have that "" , does Sunil have it now , too , +PhD A: I No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Because we 're still testing . So we have the result for , {vocalsound} uh , just the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and we are currently testing with putting the neural network in the KLT . Um , it seems to improve on the well - matched case , um , {vocalsound} but it 's a little bit worse on the mismatch and highly - mismatched {disfmarker} I mean when we put the neural network . And with the current weighting I think it 's sh it will be better because the well - matched case is better . Mmm . +Professor B: But how much worse {disfmarker} since the weighting might change {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how much worse is it on the other conditions , when you say it 's a little worse ? +PhD A: It 's like , uh , fff , fff {comment} {vocalsound} {pause} um , {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {pause} ten percent relative . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Um . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But it has the , uh {disfmarker} the latencies are much shorter . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - y w when I say it 's worse , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , compare proposal - two to proposal - one , so , r uh , y putting neural network {vocalsound} compared to n not having any neural network . I mean , this new system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: because it has {vocalsound} um , this sixty - four hertz cut - off , uh , clean {vocalsound} downsampling , and , um {disfmarker} what else ? Uh , yeah , a good VAD . We put the good VAD . So . Yeah , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} j uh , uh {disfmarker} pr +Professor B: But the latencies {disfmarker} but you 've got the latency shorter now . +PhD A: Latency is short {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Isn't it +PhD A: And so +Professor B: So it 's better than the system that we had before . +PhD A: Yeah . Mainly because {pause} {vocalsound} of {pause} the sixty - four hertz and the good VAD . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: And then I took this system and , {vocalsound} mmm , w uh , I p we put the old filters also . So we have this good system , with good VAD , with the short filter and with the long filter , and , um , with the short filter it 's not worse . So {disfmarker} well , is it {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: it 's in {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's all fine . +PhD A: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: But what you 're saying is that when you do these {disfmarker} So let me try to understand . When {disfmarker} when you do these same improvements {vocalsound} to proposal - one , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh , on the {disfmarker} i things are somewhat better , uh , in proposal - two for the well - matched case and somewhat worse for the other two cases . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So does , uh {disfmarker} when you say , uh {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} The th now that these other things are in there , is it the case maybe that the additions of proposal - two over proposal - one are {pause} less im important ? +PhD A: Yeah . Probably , yeah . +Professor B: I get it . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} So , yeah . Uh . Yeah , but it 's a good thing anyway to have {vocalsound} shorter delay . Then we tried , um , {vocalsound} to do something like proposal - two but having , um , e using also MSG features . So there is this KLT part , which use just the standard features , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: and then two neura two neural networks . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm , and it doesn't seem to help . Um , however , we just have {vocalsound} one result , which is the Italian mismatch , so . Uh . We have to wait for that to fill the whole table , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . There was a {vocalsound} start of some effort on something related to voicing or something . Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} yeah . So basically we try to , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , find {vocalsound} good features that could be used for voicing detection , uh , but it 's still , uh {disfmarker} on the , um {disfmarker} t +PhD F: Oh , well , I have the picture . +PhD A: we {disfmarker} w basically we are still playing with Matlab to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at {disfmarker} at what happened , +PhD C: What sorts of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: what sorts of features are you looking at ? +PhD F: We have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we would be looking at , um , the {pause} variance of the spectrum of the excitation , +PhD F: uh , um , this , this , and this . +PhD A: something like this , which is {disfmarker} should be high for voiced sounds . Uh , we {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} what does that mean ? The variance of the spectrum of excitation . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} So basically the spectrum of the excitation {vocalsound} for a purely periodic sig signal shou sh +Professor B: OK . Yeah , w what yo what you 're calling the excitation , as I recall , is you 're subtracting the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} the mel {disfmarker} mel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} mel filter , uh , spectrum from the FFT spectrum . +PhD A: e That 's right . Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have the mel f filter bank , we have the FFT , so we {pause} just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really an excitation , +PhD A: No . +Professor B: but it 's something that hopefully tells you something about the excitation . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: We have here some histogram , +PhD A: E yeah , +PhD F: but they have a lot of overlap . +PhD A: but it 's {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} Yeah . So , well , for unvoiced portion we have something tha {vocalsound} that has a mean around O point three , and for voiced portion the mean is O point fifty - nine . But the variance seem quite {vocalsound} high . +PhD C: How do you know {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD C: How did you get your {pause} voiced and unvoiced truth data ? +PhD A: We used , uh , TIMIT and we used canonical mappings between the phones +PhD F: Yeah . We , uh , use {pause} TIMIT on this , +PhD A: and +PhD F: for {disfmarker} +PhD A: th Yeah . +PhD F: But if we look at it in one sentence , it {disfmarker} apparently it 's good , I think . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , so it 's noisy TIMIT . That 's right . Yeah . +Grad E: It 's noisy TIMIT . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: It seems quite robust to noise , so when we take {disfmarker} we draw its parameters across time for a clean sentence and then nois the same noisy sentence , it 's very close . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} there is this . There could be also the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the maximum of the auto - correlation function or {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is this a {disfmarker} a s a trained system ? Or is it a system where you just pick some thresholds ? Ho - how does it work ? +PhD A: Right now we just are trying to find some features . And , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Hopefully , I think what we want to have is to put these features in s some kind of , um {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to obtain a statistical model on these features and to {disfmarker} or just to use a neural network and hopefully these features w would help {disfmarker} +PhD C: Because it seems like what you said about the mean of the {disfmarker} the voiced and the unvoiced {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} that seemed pretty encouraging . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , yeah , except the variance was big . +PhD C: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . Except the variance is quite high . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Well , y +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , y I {disfmarker} I don't know that I would trust that so much because you 're doing these canonical mappings from TIMIT labellings . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Right ? So , really that 's sort of a cartoon picture about what 's voiced and unvoiced . So that could be giving you a lot of variance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , i it {disfmarker} it may be that {disfmarker} that you 're finding something good and that the variance is sort of artificial because of how you 're getting your truth . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . But another way of looking at it {vocalsound} might be that {disfmarker} I mean , what w we we are coming up with feature sets after all . So another way of looking at it is that {vocalsound} um , the mel cepstru mel {pause} spectrum , mel cepstrum , {vocalsound} any of these variants , um , give you the smooth spectrum . It 's the spectral envelope . By going back to the FFT , {vocalsound} you 're getting something that is {pause} more like the raw data . So the question is , what characterization {disfmarker} and you 're playing around with this {disfmarker} another way of looking at it is what characterization {vocalsound} of the difference between {pause} the raw data {pause} and this smooth version {pause} is something that you 're missing that could help ? So , I mean , looking at different statistical measures of that difference , coming up with some things and just trying them out and seeing if you add them onto the feature vector does that make things better or worse in noise , where you 're really just i i the way I 'm looking at it is not so much you 're trying to f find the best {disfmarker} the world 's best voiced - unvoiced , uh , uh , classifier , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: but it 's more that , {vocalsound} you know , uh , uh , try some different statistical characterizations of that difference back to the raw data +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and m maybe there 's something there that {pause} the system can use . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , but ther more obvious is that {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} the more obvious is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} well , using the {disfmarker} th the FFT , um , {vocalsound} you just {disfmarker} it gives you just information about if it 's voiced or not voiced , ma mainly , I mean . But {disfmarker} So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: this is why we {disfmarker} we started to look {pause} by having sort of voiced phonemes +Professor B: Well , that 's the rea w w what I 'm arguing is that 's Yeah . I mean , uh , what I 'm arguing is that that {disfmarker} that 's givi you {disfmarker} gives you your intuition . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But in {disfmarker} in reality , it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's all of this {disfmarker} this overlap and so forth , +Grad E: Oh , sorry . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} But what I 'm saying is that may be OK , because what you 're really getting is not actually voiced versus unvoiced , both for the fac the reason of the overlap and {disfmarker} and then , uh , th you know , structural reasons , uh , uh , like the one that Chuck said , that {disfmarker} that in fact , well , the data itself is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you 're working with is not perfect . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , what I 'm saying is maybe that 's not a killer because you 're just getting some characterization , one that 's driven by your intuition about voiced - unvoiced certainly , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it 's just some characterization {vocalsound} of something back in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the almost raw data , rather than the smooth version . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And your intuition is driving you towards particular kinds of , {vocalsound} uh , statistical characterizations of , um , what 's missing from the spectral envelope . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , obviously you have something about the excitation , um , and what is it about the excitation , and , you know {disfmarker} and you 're not getting the excitation anyway , you know . So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would almost take a {disfmarker} uh , especially if {disfmarker} if these trainings and so forth are faster , I would almost just take a {vocalsound} uh , a scattershot at a few different {vocalsound} ways of look of characterizing that difference and , uh , you could have one of them but {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and see , you know , which of them helps . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD C: So i is the idea that you 're going to take {pause} whatever features you develop and {disfmarker} and just add them onto the future vector ? Or , what 's the use of the {disfmarker} the voiced - unvoiced detector ? +PhD A: Uh , I guess we don't know exactly yet . But , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th +PhD C: It 's not part of a VAD system that you 're doing ? +PhD F: No . +PhD A: Uh , no . No . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: No , the idea was , I guess , to {disfmarker} to use them as {disfmarker} as features . +PhD C: Features . I see . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it could be , uh {disfmarker} it could be {vocalsound} a neural network that does voiced and unvoiced detection , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but it could be in the {disfmarker} also the big neural network that does phoneme classification . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But each one of the mixture components {disfmarker} I mean , you have , uh , uh , variance only , so it 's kind of like you 're just multiplying together these , um , probabilities from the individual features {pause} within each mixture . So it 's {disfmarker} so , uh , it seems l you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think it 's a neat thing . Uh , it seems like a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} I know that , um , people doing some robustness things a ways back were {disfmarker} were just doing {disfmarker} just being gross and just throwing in the FFT and actually it wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't so bad . Uh , so it would s and {disfmarker} and you know that i it 's gotta hurt you a little bit to not have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spectral , uh {disfmarker} a s a smooth spectral envelope , so there must be something else that you get {pause} in return for that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} So . +PhD C: So how does {disfmarker} uh , maybe I 'm going in too much detail , but {vocalsound} how exactly do you make the difference between the FFT and the smoothed {pause} spectral envelope ? Wha - wh i i uh , how is that , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , we just {disfmarker} How did we do it up again ? +PhD F: Uh , we distend the {disfmarker} we have the twenty - three coefficient af after the mel f {vocalsound} filter , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and we extend these coefficient between the {disfmarker} all the frequency range . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And i the interpolation i between the point {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} give for the triang triangular filter , the value of the triangular filter and of this way we obtained this mode this model speech . +PhD A: S +Professor B: So you essentially take the values that {disfmarker} th that you get from the triangular filter and extend them to sor sort of like a rectangle , that 's at that m value . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . I think we have linear interpolation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have {disfmarker} we have one point for {disfmarker} one energy for each filter bank , +PhD F: mmm Yeah , it 's linear . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD A: which is {pause} the energy {pause} that 's centered on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the triangle {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . At the n at the center of the filter {disfmarker} +PhD C: So you {disfmarker} you end up with a vector that 's the same length as the FFT {pause} vector ? +PhD A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: And then you just , uh , compute differences +PhD F: Yeah . I have here one example if you {disfmarker} if you want see something like that . +PhD A: Then we compute the difference . +PhD C: and , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: uh , sum the differences ? +PhD A: So . And I think the variance is computed only from , like , two hundred hertz to {pause} one {disfmarker} to fifteen hundred . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Two thou two {disfmarker} {comment} fifteen hundred ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because {disfmarker} +PhD F: No . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Two hundred and fifty thousand . +PhD A: Fifteen hundred . Because {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Two thousand and fifteen hundred . +PhD A: Above , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it seems that {disfmarker} Well , some voiced sound can have also , {vocalsound} like , a noisy {pause} part on high frequencies , and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , it 's just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} makes sense to look at {pause} low frequencies . +PhD C: So this is {disfmarker} uh , basically this is comparing {vocalsound} an original version of the signal to a smoothed version of the same signal ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So i so i i this is {disfmarker} I mean , i you could argue about whether it should be linear interpolation or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or zeroeth order , but {disfmarker} but +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: at any rate something like this {pause} is what you 're feeding your recognizer , typically . +PhD C: Like which of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No . Uh , so the mel cepstrum is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the cepstrum of this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this , uh , spectrum or log spectrum , +PhD A: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right , right . +Professor B: whatever it {disfmarker} You - you 're subtracting in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {vocalsound} power domain or log domain ? +PhD A: In log domain . Yeah . +PhD F: Log domain . +Professor B: OK . So it 's sort of like division , when you do the {disfmarker} yeah , the spectra . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: It 's the ratio . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . But , anyway , um {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: So what 's th uh , what 's the intuition behind this kind of a thing ? I {disfmarker} I don't know really know the signal - processing well enough to understand what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what is that doing . +PhD A: So . Yeah . What happen if {disfmarker} what we have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} what we would like to have is {pause} some spectrum of the excitation signal , +Professor B: Yeah . I guess that makes sense . Yeah . +PhD A: which is for voiced sound ideally a {disfmarker} a pulse train +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and for unvoiced it 's something that 's more flat . +PhD C: Uh - huh . Right . +PhD A: And the way to do this {vocalsound} is that {disfmarker} well , we have the {disfmarker} we have the FFT because it 's computed in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the system , and we have {vocalsound} the mel {vocalsound} filter banks , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so if we {disfmarker} if we , like , remove the mel filter bank from the FFT , {vocalsound} we have something that 's {pause} close to the {pause} excitation signal . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: It 's something that 's like {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a a train of p a pulse train for voiced sound +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . Yeah . +PhD A: and that 's {disfmarker} that should be flat for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I see . So do you have a picture that sh ? +PhD A: So - It 's {disfmarker} Y +PhD C: Is this for a voiced segment , +PhD A: yeah . +PhD C: this picture ? What does it look like for unvoiced ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: You have several {disfmarker} some unvoiced ? +PhD F: The dif No . Unvoiced , I don't have +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: for unvoiced . +Professor B: Yeah . So , you know , all {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is another voiced example . Yeah . +PhD F: No . But it 's this , +PhD A: Oh , yeah . This is {disfmarker} +PhD F: but between the frequency that we are considered for the excitation {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: for the difference and this is the difference . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: This is the difference . OK . +PhD A: So , of course , it 's around zero , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Sure looks {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: Well , no . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: It is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Because we begin , {vocalsound} uh , in fifteen {vocalsound} point {disfmarker} the fifteen point . +PhD C: So , does {disfmarker} does the periodicity of this signal say something about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Fifteen p +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Pitch . +PhD A: It 's the pitch . +PhD C: the pitch ? +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: That 's like fundamental frequency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , i t t +PhD C: OK . I see . +Professor B: I mean , to first order {vocalsound} what you 'd {disfmarker} what you 're doing {disfmarker} I mean , ignore all the details and all the ways which is {disfmarker} that these are complete lies . Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you know , what you 're doing in feature extraction for speech recognition is you have , {vocalsound} uh , in your head a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a simplified production model for speech , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in which you have a periodic or aperiodic source that 's driving some filters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} the auto - correlation {disfmarker} the R - zero energy . +PhD A: Do you have the mean {disfmarker} do you have the mean for the auto - correlation {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , first order for speech recognition , you say "" I don't care about the source "" . +PhD F: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Well , I mean for the {disfmarker} the energy . +PhD F: I have the mean . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: And so you just want to find out what the filters are . +PhD C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: The filters {vocalsound} roughly act like a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a an overall resonant {disfmarker} you know , f some resonances and so forth that th that 's processing excitation . +PhD F: Here . +PhD A: They should be more close . +PhD F: Ah , no . This is this ? More close . Is this ? And this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So they are {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} there is less difference . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you look at the spectral envelope , just the very smooth properties of it , {vocalsound} you get something closer to that . +PhD A: This is less {disfmarker} it 's less robust . +PhD F: Less robust . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: And the notion is if you have the full spectrum , with all the little nitty - gritty details , {vocalsound} that that has the effect of both , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and it would be a multiplication in {disfmarker} in frequency domain +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that would be like an addition in log {disfmarker} {vocalsound} power spectrum domain . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so this is saying , well , if you really do have that {vocalsound} sort of vocal tract envelope , and you subtract that off , what you get is the excitation . And I call that lies because you don't really have that , you just have some kind of {vocalsound} signal - processing trickery to get something that 's kind of smooth . It 's not really what 's happening in the vocal tract +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so you 're not really getting the vocal excitation . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: That 's why I was going to the {disfmarker} why I was referring to it in a more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a more , uh , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} conservative way , when I was saying "" well , it 's {disfmarker} yeah , it 's the excitation "" . But it 's not really the excitation . It 's whatever it is that 's different between {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . This moved in the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , stand standing back from that , you sort of say there 's this very detailed representation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation cuz this typically generalizes better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , but whenever you smooth you lose something , so the question is have you lost something you can you use ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: Um , probably you wouldn't want to go to the extreme of just ta saying "" OK , our feature set will be the FFT "" , cuz we really think we do gain something in robustness from going to something smoother , but maybe there 's something that we missed . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what is it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And then you go back to the intuition that , well , you don't really get the excitation , but you get something related to it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} and as you can see from those pictures , you do get something {vocalsound} that shows some periodicity , uh , in frequency , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and also in time . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's really neat . +Professor B: so , +PhD C: So you don't have one for unvoiced {pause} picture ? +PhD F: Uh , not here . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: No , I have s +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But not here . +Professor B: But presumably you 'll see something that won't have this kind of , uh , uh , uh , regularity in frequency , uh , in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . +PhD F: Not here . +PhD C: I would li I would like to see those {pause} pictures . +PhD F: Well , so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I can't see you {comment} now . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I don't have . +PhD C: And so you said this is pretty {disfmarker} doing this kind of thing is pretty robust to noise ? +PhD A: It seems , yeah . Um , +PhD C: Huh . +PhD F: Pfft . Oops . The mean is different {vocalsound} with it , because the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the histogram for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the classifica +PhD A: No , no , no . But th the kind of robustness to noise {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if you take this frame , {vocalsound} uh , from the noisy utterance and the same frame from the clean utterance {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: You end up with a similar difference +PhD A: Y y y yeah . We end up with {disfmarker} +PhD C: over here ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Cool ! +PhD F: I have here the same frame for the {pause} clean speech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that 's clean . +PhD F: the same cle +PhD C: Oh , OK +PhD F: But they are a difference . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because here the FFT is only with {vocalsound} two hundred fifty - six point +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: and this is with five hundred {pause} twelve . +PhD A: Yeah . This is kind of inter interesting also +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: because if we use the standard , {vocalsound} uh , frame length of {disfmarker} of , like , twenty - five milliseconds , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} what happens is that for low - pitched voiced , because of the frame length , y you don't really have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't clearly see this periodic structure , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because of the first lobe of {disfmarker} of each {disfmarker} each of the harmonics . +PhD C: So this one inclu is a longer {disfmarker} Ah . +PhD A: So , this is like {disfmarker} yeah , fifty milliseconds or something like that . +PhD F: Fifty millis Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's the same frame and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , it 's that time - frequency trade - off thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Right ? I see . Yeah . +PhD A: So , yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh . Oh , so this i is this the difference here , for that ? +PhD F: No . This is the signal . This is the signal . +PhD A: I see that . Oh , yeah . +PhD F: The frame . +PhD C: Oh , that 's the f the original . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: This is the fra the original frame . +PhD A: So with a short frame basically you have only two periods +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: and it 's not {disfmarker} not enough to {disfmarker} to have this kind of neat things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: And here {disfmarker} No , well . +PhD A: Yeah . So probably we 'll have to use , {vocalsound} like , long f long frames . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: That 's interesting . +Professor B: Yeah , maybe . Well , I mean it looks better , but , I mean , the thing is if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if you 're actually asking {disfmarker} you know , if you actually j uh , need to do {disfmarker} place along an FFT , it may be {disfmarker} it may be pushing things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Would you {disfmarker} would you wanna do this kind of , uh , difference thing {vocalsound} after you do spectral subtraction ? +PhD A: Uh , {vocalsound} maybe . +PhD F: No . Maybe we can do that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . The spectral subtraction is being done at what level ? Is it being done at the level of FFT bins or at the level of , uh , mel spectrum or something ? +PhD A: Um , I guess it depends . +Professor B: I mean , how are they doing it ? +PhD A: How they 're doing it ? Yeah . Um , I guess Ericsson is on the , um , filter bank , +PhD F: FFT . Filter bank , +PhD A: no ? It 's on the filter bank , +PhD F: yeah . +PhD A: so . So , yeah , probably {disfmarker} I i it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: So in that case , it might not make much difference at all . +PhD C: Seems like you 'd wanna do it on the FFT bins . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , certainly it 'd be better . +PhD C: I I mean , if you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , for {disfmarker} for this purpose , that is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: What else ? +PhD A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah , that 's all . So we 'll perhaps {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} try to convince OGI people to use the new {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the new filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Uh , has {disfmarker} has anything happened yet on this business of having some sort of standard , uh , source , +PhD A: Uh , not yet +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: but I wi I will {vocalsound} call them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: now they are {disfmarker} I think they have more time because they have this {disfmarker} well , Eurospeech deadline is {vocalsound} over +PhD C: When is the next , um , Aurora {pause} deadline ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's , um , in June . Yeah . +PhD C: June . +Professor B: Early June , late June , middle June ? +PhD A: I don't know w +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . Um , and {pause} he 's been doing all the talking but {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he 's {disfmarker} he 's , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this by the way a bad thing . We 're trying to get , um , m more female voices in this record as well . So . Make sur make sure Carmen {vocalsound} talks as well . Uh , but has he pretty much been talking about what you 're doing also , and {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Oh , I {disfmarker} I am doing this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . I don't know . I 'm sorry , but I think that for the recognizer for the meeting recorder that it 's better that I don't speak . +Professor B: Yeah , well . +PhD F: Because {disfmarker} +Professor B: You know , uh , we 'll get {disfmarker} we 'll get to , uh , Spanish voices sometime , and {vocalsound} we do {disfmarker} we want to recognize , {vocalsound} uh , you too . +PhD F: After the {disfmarker} after , uh , the result for the TI - digits {vocalsound} on the meeting record there will be foreigns people . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , no . +PhD C: Y +Professor B: We like {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} w we are {disfmarker} we 're in the , uh , Bourlard - Hermansky - Morgan , uh , frame of mind . Yeah , we like high error rates . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: That way there 's lots of work to do . So it 's {disfmarker} Uh , anything to talk about ? +Grad D: N um , not not not much is new . So when I talked about what I 'm planning to do last time , {vocalsound} I said I was , um , going to use Avendano 's method of , um , {vocalsound} using a transformation , um , {vocalsound} to map from long analysis frames which are used for removing reverberation to short analysis frames for feature calculation . He has a trick for doing that {pause} involving viewing the DFT as a matrix . Um , but , uh , um , I decided {vocalsound} not to do that after all because I {disfmarker} I realized to use it I 'd need to have these short analysis frames get plugged directly into the feature computation somehow +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and right now I think our feature computation is set to up to , um , {vocalsound} take , um , audio as input , in general . So I decided that I {disfmarker} I 'll do the reverberation removal on the long analysis windows and then just re - synthesize audio and then send that . +Professor B: This is in order to use the SRI system or something . Right ? +Grad D: Um , or {disfmarker} or even if I 'm using our system , I was thinking it might be easier to just re - synthesize the audio , +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad D: because then I could just feacalc as is and I wouldn't have to change the code . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Yeah . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} um , certainly in a short {disfmarker} short - term this just sounds easier . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , longer - term if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if it turns out to be useful , one {disfmarker} one might want to do something else , +Grad D: Right . That 's true . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} Uh , uh , I mean , in {disfmarker} in other words , you {disfmarker} you may be putting other kinds of errors in {pause} from the re - synthesis process . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} e u From the re - synthesis ? Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: O - OK . I don't know anything about re - synthesis . Uh , how likely do you think that is ? +Professor B: Uh , it depends what you {disfmarker} what you do . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , um {disfmarker} Don't know . But anyway it sounds like a reasonable way to go for a {disfmarker} for an initial thing , and we can look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at exactly what you end up doing and {disfmarker} and then figure out if there 's some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something that could be {disfmarker} be hurt by the end part of the process . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} That was it , huh ? +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Yeah , e That 's it , that 's it . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , anything to {pause} add ? +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've been continuing reading . I went off on a little tangent this past week , um , looking at , uh , {vocalsound} uh , modulation s spectrum stuff , um , and {disfmarker} and learning a bit about what {disfmarker} what , um {disfmarker} what it is , and , uh , the importance of it in speech recognition . And I found some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some , uh , neat papers , {vocalsound} um , historical papers from , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} Kanedera , Hermansky , and Arai . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they {disfmarker} they did a lot of experiments where th where , {vocalsound} um , they take speech {vocalsound} and , um , e they modify {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they measure the relative importance of having different , um , portions of the modulation spectrum intact . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they find that the {disfmarker} the spectrum between one and sixteen hertz in the modulation {vocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} is im important for speech recognition . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , this sort of goes back to earlier stuff by Drullman . +Grad E: Um . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh , the {disfmarker} the MSG features were sort of built up {vocalsound} with this notion {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: But , I guess , I thought you had brought this up in the context of , um , targets somehow . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But i m +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: i it 's not {disfmarker} I mean , they 're sort of not in the same kind of category as , say , a phonetic target or a syllabic target +Grad E: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , I was thinking more like using them as {disfmarker} as the inputs to {disfmarker} to the detectors . +Professor B: or a feature or something . Oh , I see . Well , that 's sort of what MSG does . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , we 'll talk more about it later . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: We can talk more about it later . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So maybe , {vocalsound} le +PhD C: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . Let you {disfmarker} you start . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad E: L fifty . +PhD A: Right . +","In this meeting, the participants discussed various aspects of their research into improving speech recognition and processing. PhD A and Grad D discussed the insignificance of certain results and channels, while Professor B inquired about the progress on speech recognition, which led to a conversation about moving on to image processing. Grad E contributed with light communicative sounds. + +PhD C talked about conducting experiments with HTK back-end training, questioning the necessity of the number of iterations and experimenting with reducing them to speed up the process, without significantly affecting the results. He mentioned compiling HTK for Linux boxes on a multi-processor machine to run experiments more efficiently. + +Professor B struggled to grasp the details of the training rounds and the number of iterations PhD C explained, and a discussion ensued about the details of increasing Gaussians in each round of training. They pondered on providing the final system with full iterations. + +Grad E mentioned the April 5th date and the expectation of Hynek's return, leading to a discussion on his possible involvement in future meetings. PhD C reported on his experiments with HTK's training rounds, looking to improve efficiency without compromising accuracy. + +Another topic was the Aurora project conference call discussing weights and error rates across different languages and conditions. PhD A explained the inconsistencies in the current approach and the potential changes to how improvements are calculated. A debate followed on the most appropriate method to calculate and weight error rates, with participants expressing various viewpoints. + +Professor B questioned the rationale behind the chosen weights and proposed considering alternatives, such as percentage improvement or score-based evaluations. + +PhD A also touched upon using features for voicing detection, exploring the variance in the spectrum of excitation and looking at how this could be incorporated into feature sets for recognition. + +Grad E contributed some musical interjections, and PhD F listened and responded affirmatively throughout but did not contribute substantively to the technical discussion. + +Grad D and E briefly mentioned their current work progress without going into details. + +Overall, the group engaged in a technical and theoretical discussion, exploring methods for efficient training, ways to improve recognition accuracy, the potential of incorporating new features, and the implications of certain weighting approaches in the context of improving speech and image recognition systems." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad H: st +Grad F: So we 're on . +Grad H: Yeah . That 's better . +Grad F: And , {comment} somewhere is my agenda . I think the most important thing is Morgan wanted to talk about , uh , the ARPA {pause} demo . +Professor D: Well , so , here 's the thing . Um , why don't we s again start off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Yeah , I 'll get it . I 'll get the door . Um , I think we want to start off with the agenda . And then , given that , uh , Liz and Andreas are gonna be {pause} ten , fifteen minutes late , we can try to figure out what we can do most effectively without them here . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} so , one thing is , yeah , talk about demo , +Grad F: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , IBM transcription status , +Professor D: IBM transcription . Uh , what else ? +Grad F: +Professor D: What 's SmartKom ? SmartKom ? +Grad F: Uh , we wanna talk about if w if we wanna add the data to the mar Meeting Recorder corpus . +PhD E: The data . The data which we are collecting here . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are we collecting here ? +PhD E: Data ? +Grad F: So why don't we have that on the agenda and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get to it and talk about it ? +PhD E: The SmartKom data ? +Professor D: Yeah , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , right . Uh . +Grad F: Uh , reorganization status . +Professor D: Reorganization status . +Postdoc A: Oh . Files and directories ? +Professor D: Files and directories . +Grad F: Yep . Uh - huh . Absinthe , which is the multiprocessor UNIX {disfmarker} Linux . I think it was {pause} Andreas wanted to talk about segmentation and recognition , and update on SRI recognition experiments . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: And then if ti if there 's time I wanted to talk about digits , but it looked like we were pretty full , so I can wait till next week . +Professor D: Right . OK . Well , let 's see . I think the a certainly the segmentation and recognition we wanna maybe focus on when An - Andreas is here since that was particularly his thing . +PhD E: And also the SmartKom thing should b +Professor D: SmartKom also , Andreas . Absinthe , I think also he has sort of been involved in a lot of those things . +Grad F: At least , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: yeah , he 'll t he 'll probably be interested . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: But . +Professor D: Um So , I mean , I think they 'll be inter I 'll be interested in all this , but {disfmarker} but , uh , probably , if we had to pick something {pause} that we would talk on for ten minutes or so while they 're coming here . Or I guess it would be , you think , reorganization status , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , I think , Chuck was the one who added out the agenda item . I don't really have anything to say other than that we still haven't done it . +PhD B: Well , I mean , I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just basically that {disfmarker} +Grad F: So . +PhD B: maybe I said {disfmarker} maybe we said this before {disfmarker} just that we met and we talked about it and we sort of have a plan for getting things organized and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} and I think a crucial part of that is the idea of {disfmarker} of not wanting to do it until right before the next level zero back - up so that there won't be huge number of {disfmarker} of added , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: That {disfmarker} that was basically it . Not {disfmarker} not much @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although Dave basically said that if we wanna do it , just tell him and he 'll do a d level zero then . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . Oh , excellent . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: Oh , good . +PhD B: Oh , so maybe we should just go ahead and get everything ready , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . So , I think we do need to talk a little bit about {disfmarker} Well , we don't need to do it during this meeting . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: We have a little more to discuss . But , uh , we 're {disfmarker} we 're basically ready to do it . And , uh , I have some web pages on ts {comment} more of the background . So , naming conventions and things like that , that I 've been trying to keep actually up to date . So . And I 've been sharing them with U - d UW folks also . +Postdoc A: I 'm sorry , you 've been what ? Showing them ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc A: Sharing them . +Grad F: Sharing them with the UW folks . +Postdoc A: OK . OK . +Professor D: OK . Well , maybe uh , since that {disfmarker} that was a pretty short one , maybe we should talk about the IBM transcription status . Someone can {vocalsound} fill in Liz and Andreas later . Uh +Grad F: OK . So , we , uh {disfmarker} we did another version of the beeps , where we separated each beeps with a spoken digit . Chuck came up here and recorded some di himself speaking some digits , and so it just goes "" beep one beep "" and then the phrase , and then "" beep two beep "" and then the phrase . And that seems pretty good . Um , I think they 'll have a b easier time keeping track of where they are in the file . +PhD E: And we have done that on the {pause} automatic segmentations . +Grad F: And we did it with the automatic segmentation , and I don't think {disfmarker} We ne we didn't look at it in detail . We just sent it to IBM . We {disfmarker} we sorta spot - checked it . +PhD B: I listened to {pause} probably , uh , five or ten minutes of it from the beginning . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: I sorta spot - checked here and there and it sounded pretty good . So . I think it 'll work . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: And , uh , we 'll just hafta see what we get back from them . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: And the main thing will be if we can align what they give us with what we sent them . I mean , that 's the crucial part . +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: And I think we 'll be able to do that at {disfmarker} with this new beep format . +Grad F: Yep . Well , I think it 's also they are much less likely to d have errors . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I mean , so the problem wi last time is that there were errors in the transcripts where they put beeps where there weren't any , or {disfmarker} and they put in extraneous beeps . +PhD B: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: And with the numbers there , it 's much less likely . +PhD B: Yeah , one interesting note is {disfmarker} uh , or problem {disfmarker} I dunno if this was just because of how I play it back , I say , uh , SND - play and then the file , every once in a while , @ @ {comment} uh , like a beep sounds like it 's cut into two beeps . +PhD E: Yeah . Into two pieces . +PhD B: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I dunno if that 's an , uh , artifact of playback {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD B: bu uh , I don't think it 's probably in the original file . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I recognize that , too . Yeah . +Grad F: Ha . That 's interesting . I didn't hear that . +PhD B: Yeah . But with this new format , um , that hopefully they 're not hearing that , and if they are , it shouldn't throw them . +PhD E: Yep . +PhD B: So . +Grad F: Well , maybe we better listen to it again , make sure , but , I mean , certainly the software shouldn't do that , +PhD B: Yeah . That 's what I thought . +Grad F: so . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I it 's probably just , you know , mmm , somehow the audio {pause} device gets hung for a second , +PhD E: Yeah . Some latency or something . +Grad F: Hiccups . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc A: As long as they have one number , and they know that there 's only one beep maximum {vocalsound} that goes with that number . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Yeah . The only {disfmarker} the only part that might be confusing is when Chuck is reading digits . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Well , you know , actually , are we having them {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {vocalsound} th +Grad F: "" Seven four eight beep seven beep {vocalsound} eight three two "" . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but are we having them do digits ? +Grad F: Yes . Because , uh , we don't {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} In order to cut them out we 'd have to listen to it . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we didn't cut those out . +PhD E: Yeah . They are not transcribed yet . So . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: And we wanted to avoid doing that , +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: so we {disfmarker} they are transcribing the digits . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} we can ignore it when we get it back , +Grad F: Although we could tell them {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we could tell them , if you hear someone reading a digits string just say "" bracket digit bracket "" +PhD B: huh . +Grad F: and don't bother actually computing the di writing down the digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 'd be great . That 'd be what I 'm having the transcribers here do , cuz it can be extracted later . +Grad F: Yep . And then I wanted to talk about {disfmarker} but as I said I {disfmarker} we may not have time {disfmarker} what we should do about digits . We have a whole pile of digits that haven't been transcribed . +Professor D: Le - let 's talk about it , because that 's {disfmarker} that 's something that I {disfmarker} I know Andreas is less interested in than Liz is , +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: so , you know . It 's good {disfmarker} +Grad F: Do we have anything else to say about transcription ? About IBM stuff ? +PhD B: Uh , Brian {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} sent bresset {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} sent Brian a message about {pause} {vocalsound} the meeting and I haven't heard back yet . So . I g hope he got it and hopefully he 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD B: maybe he 's gone , I dunno . He didn't even reply to my message . So . I should probably ping him just to make sure that he got it . +Grad F: Alright . So , we have a whole bunch of digits , if we wanna move on to digits . +Professor D: Actually , maybe I {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} one relate more related thing in transcription . So that 's the IBM stuff . We 've got that sorted out . Um , how 're we doing on the {disfmarker} on the rest of it ? +Postdoc A: We 're doing well . I {disfmarker} I hire {disfmarker} I 've hired two extra people already , expect to hire two more . +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um , {vocalsound} I 've prepared , um , uh , a set of five which I 'm {disfmarker} which I 'm calling set two , which are now being edited by my head transcriber , {vocalsound} in terms of spelling errors and all that . She 's also checking through and mar and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and monitoring , um , the transcription of another transcriber . You know , I mean , she 's going through and doing these kinds of checks . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And , I 've moved on now to what I 'm calling set three . I sort of thought if I do it in sets {disfmarker} groups of five , then I can have , like , sort of a {disfmarker} a parallel processing through {disfmarker} through the {disfmarker} the current . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and you indicated to me that we have a g a goal now , {vocalsound} for the {disfmarker} for the , um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} the , uh , DARPA demo , of twenty hours . So , I 'm gonna go up to twenty hours , be sure that everything gets processed , and released , and {disfmarker} {pause} {comment} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's what my goal is . Package of twenty hours right now , {vocalsound} and then once that 's done , move on to the next . +Professor D: Yeah , uh , so twenty hours . But I guess the other thing is that , um , that {disfmarker} that 's kinda twenty hours ASAP because the longer before the demo we actually have the twenty hours , the more time it 'll be for people to actually do cool things with it . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hiring people who , {vocalsound} uh , really are {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . OK . +Postdoc A: They would like to do it full - time , several of these people . And {disfmarker} and I don't think it 's {vocalsound} possible , really , to do this full - time , but , that {disfmarker} what it shows is motivation to do as many hours as possible . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: It 'll keep your accuracy up . Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: And they 're really excellent . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 's good . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Got a good core group now . +Professor D: Yeah , I mean , I guess the {disfmarker} So the difference if {disfmarker} if , um , if the IBM stuff works out , the difference in the job would be that they p primarily would be checking through things that were already done by someone else ? +Postdoc A: Again . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Is that most of what it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: And correcting . +Professor D: I mean {disfmarker} Correcting . +Grad F: Correcting . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll expect that they 'll have to move some time bins and do some corrections . +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} you know , I 've also d uh , discovered {disfmarker} So with the new transcriber I 'm {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Uh , lemme say that my , uh {disfmarker} So , um {disfmarker} At present , um , the people have been doing these transcriptions a channel at a time . And , that sort of , um , {vocalsound} is useful , and t you know , and then once in a while they 'll have to refer to the other channels to clear something up . OK . Well , {vocalsound} I realize that , um , w i we we 're using the pre - segmented version , and , um , the pre - segmented version is extremely useful , and wouldn't it be , useful also to have the visual representation of those segments ? And so I 've {disfmarker} {pause} uh , {pause} I , uh , uh , I 've {comment} trained the new one {disfmarker} uh , the new the newest one , {vocalsound} to , um , {vocalsound} use the visual from the channel that is gonna be transcribed at any given time . And that 's just amazingly helpful . Because what happens then , is you scan across the signal and once in a while you 'll find a blip that didn't show up in the pre - segmentation . +Grad F: Oh , right . +Postdoc A: And that 'll be something like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I it 's ver {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Grad F: I see what you mean . A backchannel , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Once in a while it 's a backchannel . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Sometimes it seems to be , um , similar to the ones that are being picked up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And they 're rare events , but you can really go through a meeting very quickly . You just {disfmarker} you just , you know , yo you s you scroll from screen to screen , looking for blips . And , I think that we 're gonna end up with , uh {pause} better coverage of the backchannels , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but at the same time we 're benefitting tremendously from the pre - segmentation because {vocalsound} there are huge places where there is just absolutely no activity at all . And , uh , the audio quality is so good {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they can {disfmarker} they can , um , scroll through that pretty quick ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Yeah . So I think that that 's gonna , also {pause} eh , {comment} you know , speed the efficiency of this part of the process . +Professor D: Hmm . OK . Uh , yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So let 's talk about the digits , since they 're not here yet . +Grad F: Uh , so , we have a whole bunch of digits that we 've read and we have the forms and so on , um , but only a small number of that ha well , not a small number {disfmarker} only a subset of that has been transcribed . And so we need to decide what we wanna do . And , uh , Liz and Andreas {disfmarker} actually they 're not here , but , they did say at one point that they thought they could do a pretty good job of just doing a forced alignment . And , again , I don't think we 'll be able to do with that alone , because , um , sometimes people correct themselves and things like that . But {disfmarker} so , I was just wondering what people thought about how automated can we make the process of finding where the people read the digits , doing a forced alignment , and doing the timing . +Professor D: Well , forced alignment would be one thing . What about just actually doing recognition ? +Grad F: Well , we {disfmarker} we know what they read , because we have the forms . +Professor D: No , they make mistakes . +Grad F: Right . But , the point is that we wanna get a set of clean digits . +PhD B: You 're talking about as a pre - processing step . +Professor D: Right . +PhD B: Right , Morgan ? +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure what I 'm talking about . I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we 're talking about digits now . And {disfmarker} and so , um , there 's a bunch of stuff that hasn't been marked yet . Uh . And , um , {vocalsound} there 's the issue that {disfmarker} that they {disfmarker} we know what {disfmarker} what was said , but do we ? +Grad F: I mean , so one option i +Professor D: Because people make mistakes and stuff . I was just asking , just out of curiosity , if {disfmarker} if with , uh {disfmarker} uh , the SRI recognizer getting one percent word error , uh , would we {disfmarker} would we do {pause} better {disfmarker} ? So , if you do a forced alignment but the force but the {disfmarker} but the transcription you have is wrong because they actually made mistakes , uh , or {vocalsound} false starts , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much less c {vocalsound} it 's {pause} much less common than one percent ? +Grad F: But that 's pretty uncommon . Um , if we could really get one percent on {disfmarker} +Professor D: We should be able to . +Grad F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} yeah , I guess if we segmented it , we could get one percent on digits . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So that 's just my question . I 'm not saying it should be one way or the other , but it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad F: But , Well , there {disfmarker} there 're a couple different of doing it . We could use the tools I 've already developed and transcribe it . Hire some people , or use the transcribers to do it . We could let IBM transcribe it . You know , they 're doing it anyway , and unless we tell them different , they 're gonna transcribe it . Um , or we could try some automated methods . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: And my {disfmarker} my tendency right now is , well , if IBM comes back with this meeting and the transcript is good , just let them do it . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Y you raised a point , kind of , uh , euphemistically {disfmarker} but , I mean , m maybe it is a serious problem . Ho - what will they do when they go {disfmarker} hear "" beep {pause} seven {pause} beep {pause} seven three five two "" {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you think they 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: It 's pretty distinct . +Professor D: Yeah ? +Grad F: The beeps are {pause} pre - recorded . +PhD B: It 'll {comment} only be a problem for m for mine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , it 'd be preceded by "" I 'm reading transcript so - and - so "" ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Postdoc A: So , I think if they 're processing it at {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , it 'll be {disfmarker} it will be in the midst of a digit string . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} I mean it {disfmarker} sure , there {disfmarker} there might be a place where it 's "" beep seven {pause} beep eight {pause} beep {pause} eight {pause} beep "" . But , you know , they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna macros for inserting the beep marks . And so , I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be a problem . We 'll have to see , but I don't think it 's gonna be a problem . +Professor D: OK . Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I dunno , I {disfmarker} I think that that 's {disfmarker} if they are in fact going to transcribe these things , uh , certainly any process that we 'd have to correct them , or whatever is {disfmarker} needs to be much less elaborate for digits than for other stuff . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: So , why not ? Sure . That was it ? +Grad F: That was it . Just , what do we do with digits ? +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: We have so many of them , {vocalsound} and it 'd be nice to {pause} actually do something with them . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna have them . Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD I: You mean there 're more than ten ? +Grad F: Anything else ? Your mike is a little low there . +Professor D: I in Berkeley , yeah . So , {vocalsound} uh {pause} You {disfmarker} you have to go a little early , right ? At twenty {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I can stay till about , uh , three forty . +Professor D: Alright . So le let 's make sure we do the ones that {disfmarker} that , uh , saved you . +PhD I: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So there was some {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} In {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} Adam 's agenda list , he had something from you about segmentation this last recognition ? +PhD I: Well , yeah . So this is just partly to inform everybody , um , and {disfmarker} and of course to get , um , input . +Grad F: Oops . +PhD I: Um , so , {nonvocalsound} uh , we had a discussion {disfmarker} Don and Liz and I had discussion last week about how to proceed with , uh , you know , with Don 's work , +PhD E: Ch +PhD I: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and , uh , one of the obvious things that occur to us was that we 're {disfmarker} since we now have Thilo 's segmenter and it works , you know , amazingly well , {vocalsound} um , we should actually basically re - evaluate the recognition , um , results using {disfmarker} you know , without cheating on the segmentations . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , that should be fairly {disfmarker} +PhD E: And how do we find the transcripts for those so that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . The references for {disfmarker} for {pause} those segments ? +PhD I: Oh , OK . So , there 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's not that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Why do you ask ? +Grad F: I could {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , actually , um , NIST has , um m a fairly sophisticated scoring program {vocalsound} that you can give a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time , +Grad F: Hand ones . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} You know , you basically just give two {pause} time - marked sequences of words , and it computes the um {disfmarker} the , {comment} uh {disfmarker} {comment} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD B: It does all the work for you . +PhD I: it does all the work for you . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So , it {disfmarker} we just {disfmarker} and we use that actually in Hub - five to do the scoring . Um . So what we 've been using so far was sort of a {pause} simplified version of the scoring . And we can {disfmarker} we can handle the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the type of problem we have here . +PhD E: So , basically you give some time constraints for {disfmarker} for the references and for {disfmarker} for the hypothesis , +PhD I: So , we ha Yeah . Right . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Maybe the {pause} start of your speech and the end of it , +PhD I: So do +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: or stuff like that . +PhD I: Right . It does time - constrained word - alignment . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So . So that should be possible . I mean that shouldn't be a problem . Uh , so that was the one thing , and the other was that , um {disfmarker} What was the other problem ? Oh ! That Thilo wanted to use {pause} the recognizer alignments to train up his , um , speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Um , so that we could use , uh {disfmarker} you know there wouldn't be so much hand {vocalsound} labelling needed to , uh {disfmarker} to generate training data for {disfmarker} for the speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . I 'm just in progress of {disfmarker} of doing that . So . +PhD I: And I think you 're in the process of doing that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: So , you can {disfmarker} {comment} you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 'll give you a lot more data , too . Won't it ? +PhD E: Yeah . So , it 's basically {disfmarker} s I think , eight meetings or something which {disfmarker} which I 'm using , and , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} before it was twenty minutes of one meeting . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} should {comment} be a little bit better . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: Great . +PhD I: That won't be perfect {disfmarker} the alignments aren't perfect , +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD I: but , um , it 's probably still better to have all this extra data , than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: We 'll see that . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD G: Actually , I had a question about that . If you find that you can {vocalsound} lower the false alarms that you get where there 's no speech , that would be useful {pause} for us to know . So , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: There were the false alarms . +PhD G: Yeah . So , {vocalsound} r right now you get f fal you know , false {disfmarker} false , uh , speech regions when it 's just like , um , {vocalsound} breath or something like that , +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yep . +PhD G: and I 'd be interested to know the {disfmarker} wha if you retrain um , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: do those actually go down or not ? Because {pause} of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . I 'll {disfmarker} can make {disfmarker} an can , like , make a c comparison of {disfmarker} of the old system to the {disfmarker} to the new one , and {pause} then {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , just to see if by doing nothing in the modeling of {disfmarker} just having that training data wh what happens . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Um another one that we had on Adam 's agenda {pause} that definitely involved you was s something about SmartKom ? +Grad F: Right . So , Rob Porzel {disfmarker} eh , Porzel ? and the , uh {disfmarker} Porzel {disfmarker} and the , uh , SmartKom group are collecting some dialogues . +PhD I: Porzel . Porzel . +Grad F: Basically they have one person sitting in here , looking at a picture , and a wizard sitting in another room somewhere . And , uh , they 're doing a travel task . And , uh , it involves starting {disfmarker} I believe starting with a {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's always the wizard , but it starts where the wizard is pretending to be a computer and it goes through a , uh , {vocalsound} speech generation system . +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , it 's changed to a synthesis for {disfmarker} for the first part now . +Grad F: Synthesis system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , and then , it goes to a real wizard and they 're evaluating that . And they wanted to use this equipment , and so the w question came up , is {disfmarker} well , here 's some more data . Should this be part of the corpus or not ? And my attitude was yes , because there might be people who are using this corpus for {pause} acoustics , as opposed to just for language . Um , or also for dialogue of various sorts . Um , so it 's not a meeting . Right ? Because it 's two people and they 're not face to face . +Professor D: Wait a minute . So , I just wanted to understand it , cuz I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} uh , hadn't quite followed this process . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . So , it 's wizard in the sen usual sense that the person who is asking the questions doesn't know that it 's , uh , a machi not a machine ? +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: At the beginning . +PhD I: Actually {disfmarker} actually , w w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We do this {disfmarker} I dunno who came up with it , but I think it 's a really clever idea . We simulate a computer breakdown halfway through the session , and so then after that , the person 's told that they 're now talking to a , uh {disfmarker} to a human . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's a human operator . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: But of course they don't know that it 's the same person both times . +PhD I: So , we {disfmarker} we collect {disfmarker} we collect both human - computer and human - human data , essentially , in the same session . +Professor D: You might wanna try collecting it the other way around sometime , saying that th the computer isn't up yet +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: and then {disfmarker} so then you can separate it out whether it 's the beginning or end kind of effects . +PhD I: That 's an idea . +Professor D: But , yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 's a good idea . +Grad F: "" I have to go now . You can talk to the computer . "" +PhD B: It 's a lot more believable , too , +Grad F: "" No ! "" +PhD B: if you tell them that they 're {disfmarker} the computer part is running on a Windows machine . And the whole breakdown thing kinda makes sense . +PhD I: O Just {disfmarker} just reboot it . +Grad F: Abort {disfmarker} abort , retry , fail ? +PhD G: So did they actually save the far - field {pause} data ? +PhD E: Yes . +Grad F: Well , this was {disfmarker} this was the question . +PhD G: Cuz at first they weren't {disfmarker} they weren't sa +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so they were saying they were not going to , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: and I said , "" well that 's silly , if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna try to do it for a corpus , there might be people who are interested in acoustics . "" +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Wow . +PhD E: No . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD E: projector {comment} We were not saying we are not {pause} doing it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor D: S +PhD E: We wer we just wanted to do {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , the {disfmarker} the question is do we save one or two far - field channels or all of them ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I see no reason not to do all of them . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: That {disfmarker} that if we have someone who is doing acoustic studies , uh , it 's nice to have the same for every recording . +PhD G: Nnn . Yeah . +PhD I: Hmm . +Professor D: So , what is the purpose of this recording ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: This is to get acoustic and language model training data for SmartKom. OK . +PhD I: It 's to be traini to b training data and development data for the SmartKom {pause} system . +PhD E: The English system ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Right . Right . +PhD B: Where does this {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: +PhD G: Maybe we can have him vary the microphones , too , +Professor D: Well , +PhD E: B +PhD G: or they 're different s speakers . +Grad F: Right . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so for their usage , they don't need anything . +Professor D: so why not {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD E: But {disfmarker} but I 'm not sure about the legal aspect of {disfmarker} of that . Is {disfmarker} is there some contract with SmartKom or something about the data ? +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: What they {disfmarker} or , is {disfmarker} is that our data which we are collecting here , +Professor D: We 've never signed anything that said that we couldn't use anything that we did . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +PhD I: We weren't supposed to collect any data . +PhD E: So . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Yeah , th th that was the question . +PhD I: This was all {disfmarker} +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: No that 's not a problem . +PhD E: Basically . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} L look , it seems to me that if we 're doing it anyway and we 're doing it for these {disfmarker} these purposes that we have , {vocalsound} and we have these distant mikes , we definitely should re should save it all as long as we 've got disk space , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and disk is pretty cheap . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: So should we save it ? +Grad F: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now th Yeah . So we save it because it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's potentially useful . And now , what do we do with it is {disfmarker} is a s separate question . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: I mean , anybody who 's training something up could {vocalsound} choose to put it {disfmarker} eh , to u include this or not . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I would not say it was part of the meetings corpus . It isn't . But it 's some other data we have , and if somebody doing experiment wants to train up including that then they can . Right ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I guess it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} begs the question of what is the meeting corpus . So if , at UW they start recording two - person hallway conversations is that part of the meeting corpus ? +Professor D: I think it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I th think the idea of two or more people conversing with one another is key . +Grad F: Well , this has two or more people conversing with each other . +Professor D: Nnn , well +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Grad F: They 're just not face to face . +PhD G: What if we just give it a {disfmarker} a name like we give these meetings a name ? +Professor D: No , it doesn't . Right ? It has {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , that was my intention . +PhD G: And then later on some people will consider it a meeting and some people won't , +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: That was my intention . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} s {vocalsound} so part of the reason that I wanted to bring this up is , {vocalsound} do we wanna handle it as a special case or do we wanna fold it in , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} Just give it a {vocalsound} title . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor D: I think it is a s +Grad F: we give everyone who 's involved as their own user ID , give it session I Ds , {vocalsound} let all the tools that handle Meeting Recorder handle it , or do we wanna special case it ? And if we were gonna special case it , who 's gonna do that ? +PhD E: So . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} it makes sense to handle it with the same infrastructure , since we don't want to duplicate things unnecessarily . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD I: But as far as distributing it , we shouldn't label it as part of this meeting corpus . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: We should let it be its own corp +Postdoc A: Well it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't see why not . It 's just a different topic . +Postdoc A: I ha I have an extra point , which is the naturalness issue . Because we have , like , meetings that have a reason . That 's one of the reasons that we were talking about this . And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} and this sounds like it 's more of an experimental setup . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 's got a different purpose . +Professor D: It 's scenario - based , it 's {disfmarker} it 's human - computer interface {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's really pretty different . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor D: But I I {disfmarker} I have no problem with somebody folding it in for some experiment they 're gonna do , but I don't think i it {disfmarker} it doesn't match anything that we 've described about meetings . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Whereas everything that we talked about them doing at {disfmarker} at UW and so forth really does . They 're actually talking {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . So w so what does that mean for how we are gonna organize things ? +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} Again , as {disfmarker} as I think Andreas was saying , {vocalsound} if you wanna use the same tools and the same conventions , there 's no problem with that . It 's just that it 's , you know , different directory , it 's called something different , it 's {disfmarker} you know . It is different . You can't just fold it in as if it 's {disfmarker} I mean , digits are different , too . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah , but those are folded in , +PhD I: It might also be potentially confusing . +Grad F: and it 's just {disfmarker} you just mark the transcripts differently . So {disfmarker} so one option is you fold it in , +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: and just simply in the file you mark somewhere that this is this type of interaction , rather than another type of interaction . +PhD I: Yeah , I th +Professor D: Well , I don I wouldn't call reading digits "" meetings "" . Right ? I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we were doing {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , but {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} I put it under the same directory tree . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , it 's in "" user doctor speech data MR "" . +PhD G: Can we just have a directory called , like , "" other stuff "" ? +Grad F: Other . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} or , I dunno . +Professor D: I mean , I don't care what directory tree you have it under . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and just , um , store it there . +Professor D: Right ? I mean that 's just a {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . My preference is to have a single procedure so that I don't have to think too much about things . +PhD I: Yes . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And , just have a marking . +Professor D: O - You {disfmarker} you can use whatever procedure you want that 's p convenient for you . +Grad F: If we do it any other way that means that we need a separate procedure , and someone has to do that . +Professor D: All I 'm saying is that there 's no way that we 're gonna tell people that reading digits is meetings . And similarly we 're not gonna tell them that someone talking to a computer to get travel information is meetings . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: Those aren't meetings . But if it makes it easier for you to pu fold them in the same procedures and have them under the same directory tree , knock yourself out . +PhD B: There 's a couple other questions that I have too , +Professor D: You know ? +PhD B: and {disfmarker} and {pause} one of them is , what about , uh , consent issues ? And the other one is , what about transcription ? Are {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Transcription is done in Munich . +PhD B: OK . So we don't have to worry about transcribing it ? +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So , w we will hafta worry about format . +PhD I: That 's a {disfmarker} that 's another argument to keep it separate , because it 's gonna follow the SmartKom transcription conventions and not the ICSI meeting transcription conventions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Ah . Good point . +Grad F: OK . Well , I didn't realize that . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Good point . But I 'm sure no one would have a problem with our folding it in for some acoustic modeling or {disfmarker} or some things . Um . Do we h do we have , uh , um , American - born folk , uh , reading German {disfmarker} German , uh , pla uh , place names and so forth ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Exactly . +Professor D: Yeah , great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: They {disfmarker} they even have a reading list . +PhD B: I bet that sounds good , huh ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's pretty funny . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: You can do that if you want . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I dunno if you want that . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: Heidelberg +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: Exactly +Grad F: Disk might eventually be an issue so we might {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we might need to , uh , {vocalsound} get some more disk pretty soon . +PhD I: Do you wanna be a subject ? +Professor D: Yeah , I be pretty good . +PhD I: We {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: We 're about {disfmarker} we 're about half {disfmarker} halfway through our disk right now . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD I: That was one of our concerns . +PhD B: Are we only half ? I thought we were more than that . +Grad F: We 're probably a little more than that because we 're using up some space that we shouldn't be on . So , once everything gets converted over to the disks we 're supposed to be using we 'll be probably , uh , seventy - five percent . +PhD B: Well , when I was looking for space for Thilo , I found one disk that had , uh , I think it was nine gigs and another one had seventeen . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD B: And everything else was sorta committed . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Were those backed - up or non - backed - up ? +PhD B: Those were non - backed - up . +PhD E: Non - back - up . +Grad F: Right . So that 's different . +PhD B: S oh , you 're talking about backed - up . +Grad F: I 'm much more concerned about the backed - up . The non - backed - up , +PhD B: I haven't looked to see how much of that we have . +Grad F: yeah , i is cheap . I mean , if we need to we can buy a disk , hang it off a s uh , workstation . If it 's not backed - up the sysadmins don't care too much . +Professor D: Yeah . So , I mean , pretty much anytime we need a disk , we can get it at the rate that we 're {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can {disfmarker} I shouldn't be saying this , but , you can just {disfmarker} you know , since the back - ups are every night , you can recycle the backed - up diskspace . +Grad F: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's risky . +Professor D: Yeah . You really shouldn't be saying {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Beep that out . +Professor D: Da - we had allowed Dave to listen to these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} these , {vocalsound} uh , recordings . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I me and there 's been this conversation going on about getting another file server , and {disfmarker} and {vocalsound} we can do that . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We 'll take the opportunity and get another big raft of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of disk , I guess . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's really the back - up issue rather than the file server issue . +PhD I: Well , I think {disfmarker} {comment} I think there 's an argument for having {disfmarker} you know , you could use our old file server for {disfmarker} for disks that have data that {pause} is very rarely accessed , and then have a fast new file server for data that is , um , heavily accessed . +Grad F: Yeah . My understanding is , the issue isn't really the file server . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: We could always put more disks on . +PhD I: Yeah . It 's the back it 's the back - up capaci +Grad F: It 's the back - up system . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} which is near saturation , apparently . So . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I think the file server could become an issue as we get a whole bunch more new compute machines . +Professor D: Soon . +PhD B: And we 've got , you know , fifty machines trying to access data off of Abbott at once . +Grad F: Well , we 're alright for now because the network 's so slow . +PhD I: I mean , I think {disfmarker} I think we 've raised this before and someone said this is not a reliable way to do it , but the {disfmarker} What about putting the stuff on , like , C - CD - ROM or DVD or something ? +Grad F: Yeah . That was me . I was the one who said it was not reliable . The - they {disfmarker} they wear out . +PhD I: OK . Oh , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD I: But they wear out just from sitting on the shelf ? +Grad F: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD I: Or from being {pause} read and read ? +Grad F: No . Read and write don't hurt them too much unless you scratch them . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Grad F: But the r the write once , and the read - writes , don't last . So you don't wa you don't wanna put ir un reproduceable data {pause} on them . +PhD I: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Wear out after what amount of time ? +Grad F: Year or two . +Postdoc A: Would it be {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Year or two ? +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Wow . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD I: But if that {disfmarker} then you would think you 'd {pause} hear much more clamoring about data loss +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , yeah , all the L +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I don't know many people who do it on CD . I mean , they 're {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} fo +Professor D: LDC - all the LDC distributions are on CD - ROM . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad F: They 're on CD , but they 're not {disfmarker} tha that 's not the only source . +PhD G: Like {disfmarker} +Grad F: They have them on disk . And they burn new ones every once in a while . But if you go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you go k +PhD I: But , you know , we have {disfmarker} +PhD G: But we have like thirty {pause} you know , from {pause} ten years ago ? +Professor D: We have all sorts of CD - ROMs from a long time ago . +PhD G: No . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah ! +Grad F: Well , th th OK . +PhD G: Ten years ago . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Ninety - one , and they 're still all fine . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Were they burned or were they pressed ? +PhD G: Uh , both . I 've burned them and they 're still OK . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the pressed ones last for +PhD G: I mean , usually they 're {disfmarker} +Grad F: well , not forever , they 've been finding even those degrade . +Professor D: Oh , I see . +Grad F: But , uh , the burned ones {disfmarker} I mean , when I say two or three years what I 'm saying is that I have had disks which are gone in a year . +PhD G: That 's what I {disfmarker} +Grad F: On the average , it 'll probably be three or four years . But , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you don't want to per p have your only copy on a media that fails . +PhD I: Mmm . +Grad F: And they do . Um , if you have them professionally pressed , y you know , they 're good for decades . +PhD I: So how about {disfmarker} ? So {disfmarker} so how about putting them on that plus , like on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on DAT or some other medium that isn't risky ? +Grad F: I think th um , we can already put them on tape . And the tape is hi is very reliable . +PhD I: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the {disfmarker} the only issue is then {pause} if we need access to them . So that 's fine f if we don't need access to them . +PhD I: Right . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if they last {disfmarker} Say , they actually last , like , five years , huh , in {disfmarker} in the typical case , and {disfmarker} and occasionally you might need to recreate one , and then you get your tape out , but otherwise you don't . Can't you just {disfmarker} you just put them on {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So you just archive it on the tape , and then put it on CD as well ? +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Oh . So you 're just saying put them on C Ds for normal access . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: What you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , you can do that but that 's pretty annoying , because the C Ds are so slow . +PhD G: See {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Mmm . +PhD B: What 'd be nice is a system that re - burned the C Ds every {vocalsound} year . +PhD G: H everytime it was a "" gonna "" {disfmarker} "" gonna die "" . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I mean , the C Ds are {disfmarker} are an op +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: It 's like {disfmarker} like dynamic ra DRAM . +PhD E: Just before . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Just before they be before it goes bad , it burns them in . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the CD is an alternative to tape . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: ICSI already has a perfectly good tape system and it 's more reliable . +Professor D: You know {disfmarker} I would think {disfmarker} +Grad F: So for archiving , we 'll just use tape . +PhD I: One {disfmarker} one thing I don't understand is , if you have the data {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you if the meeting data is put on disk exactly once , then it 's backed - up once and the back - up system should never have to bother with it , uh , more than once . +Grad F: Well , regardless {disfmarker} Well , first of all there was , um , a problem with the archive in that I was every once in a while doing a chmod on all the directories an or recursive chmod and chown , because {vocalsound} they weren't getting set correctly every once in a while , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I was just , {vocalsound} doing a minus R star , {vocalsound} not realizing that that caused {pause} it to be re - backed - up . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Ah . +Grad F: But normally you 're correct . But even without that , the back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but this back - up system is smart enough to figure out that something hasn't changed and doesn't need to be {pause} backed - up again . +Professor D: The b I think th the {disfmarker} at least the once tha that you put it on , it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it would {comment} {vocalsound} kill that . +Grad F: Sure , but we still have enough changed that the nightly back - ups are starting to take too long . +PhD I: OK . So {disfmarker} so then , if {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so then , let 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . +Grad F: It has nothing to do with the meeting . It 's just the general ICSI back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: Right . OK . Right . So , what if we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh , what {disfmarker} what do they call these , um {pause} high density {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well , why don't you have this {disfmarker} have a {disfmarker} this conversation with Dave Johnson tha rather than with me ? +PhD I: No , no . Because this is {pause} maybe something that we can do without involving Dave , and {disfmarker} and , putting more burden on him . How about we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , one of these high density tape drives ? And we put the data actually on non - backed - up disks . And we do our own back - up once and for all {disfmarker} all , and then {disfmarker} and we don't have to bother this @ @ up ? +Grad F: Actually , you know , we could do that just with the tape {disfmarker} with the current tape . +PhD I: I dunno what the these tapes {disfmarker} uh , at some point these {disfmarker} I dunno . What kind of tape drive is it ? +Grad F: I dunno but it 's an automatic robot so it 's very convenient . +PhD I: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Wh The o the one that we have ? +Grad F: You just run a program to restore them . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD I: But it might interfere with their back - up schedule , +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , we have s we {disfmarker} Don't we have our own ? +PhD I: eh . +Professor D: Something wi th that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't used by the back - up gang ? Don't we have something downstairs ? +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} +PhD B: What kinda tape drive ? +Professor D: Just in {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} no , but Andreas 's point is a good one . And we don't have to do anything ourselves to do that . They 're already right now on tape . +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: Right . So your {disfmarker} your point is , and I think it 's a good one , that we could just get more disk and put it there . +PhD I: Mmm . On an XH {disfmarker} uh , X {disfmarker} X whatever partition . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's not a bad idea . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's basically what I was gonna say , is that a disk is {disfmarker} is so cheap it 's es essentially , you know , close to free . And the only thing that costs is the back - up {pause} issue , {vocalsound} eh , to first order . +Grad F: So once it 's on tape {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Professor D: And we can take care of that by putting it on non - back {pause} up drives and just backing it up once onto this tape . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Good . It 's good . +PhD G: So , who 's gonna do these back - ups ? The people that collect it ? +Grad F: Uh Well , I 'll talk to Dave , and {disfmarker} and see what th how {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} what the best way of doing that is . +PhD B: It 's probably gonna n +Grad F: There 's a little utility that will manually burn a tape for you , and that 's probably the right way to do it . +PhD B: Yeah , and we should probably make that part of the procedure for recording the meetings . +PhD G: Well , s +Grad F: Yep . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's what I 'm wondering , if {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {pause} we 're g we 're gonna automate that . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: My intention is to {pause} do a script that 'll do everything . +PhD G: I mean , you don't have to physically put a tape in the drive ? +Grad F: No . It 's all tape robot , +PhD G: Or s ? s ? {comment} Oh , OK . +Grad F: so you just sit down at your computer and you type a command . +PhD G: So it 's just {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD I: Yeah , but then you 're effectively using the resources of the back - up system . Or is that a different tape robot ? +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: But not at the same time . +Grad F: But y but you would be anyway . +PhD B: No , no , no . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD B: He 's saying get a whole different drive . +Grad F: Because {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . See {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there 's no reason to do that . +PhD I: Yeah , just give a dedi +Grad F: It {disfmarker} we already have it there and it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I 'm saying is @ @ i if you go to Dave , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and ask him "" can I use your tape robot ? "" , he will say , "" well {pause} that 's gonna screw up our back - up operation . "" +Grad F: No , we won't . He 'll say "" if {disfmarker} if that means {pause} that it 's not gonna be backed - up standardly , great . "" +Professor D: He - I {disfmarker} Dave has {disfmarker} has promoted this in the past . So I don't think he 's actually against it . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely no problem . +PhD I: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: Alright . +Professor D: OK . +PhD I: Good . +PhD G: What about if the times overlap with the normal back - up time ? +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a utility which queues up . It just queues it up and {disfmarker} and when it 's available , it will copy it . +PhD G: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And then you can tell it to then remove it from the disk or you can , you know , do it a a few days later or whatever you wanna do , after you confirm that it 's really backed - up . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: NW {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: You saying NW archive ? +Grad F: NW archive . +Postdoc A: Yep {comment} {vocalsound} And if you did that during the day it would never make it to the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: That 's what it is . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: And then there wouldn't be this extra load . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} if he {disfmarker} you have to put the data on a {disfmarker} on a non - backed - up disk to begin with . +Postdoc A: Well , but you can have it NW archive to {disfmarker} you can have , {vocalsound} uh , a non - backed - up disk NW archived , +Grad F: Right . +PhD I: So that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} otherwise you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and it 'll never show up on the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: Right . And then it never {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Grad F: Right . Which I 'm sure would make ever the sysadmins very happy . +PhD I: Right . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: That 's what we should do . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: So , that means we 'll probably wanna convert all {disfmarker} all those files {disfmarker} filesystems to non - backed - up media . +PhD B: That sounds good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Um , another , thing on the agenda said SRI recognition experiments ? What 's that ? +PhD I: SRI recognition ? Oh . +Grad F: That wasn't me . +Professor D: Uh . +PhD I: Um . well , +Professor D: Who 's that ? +PhD I: we have lots of them . Uh , I dunno . Chuck , do you have any {disfmarker} any updates ? +PhD B: N I 'm successfully , uh , increasing the error rate . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's good . +Grad H: Mmm . +PhD I: Oh . +PhD G: Lift the Herve approach . +PhD B: Yeah . So , I mean I 'm just playing with , um , the number of Gaussians that we use in the {disfmarker} the recognizer , and {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , you have to sa you have to {pause} tell people that you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing {disfmarker} you 're trying the tandem features . +PhD B: Yes , I 'm using tandem features . +Grad F: Oh you are ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Cool . +PhD I: A and I 'm still tinkering with the PLP features . +Grad F: +Professor D: Yeah , I got confused by the results . It sai because {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} meeting before , {vocalsound} you said "" OK , we got it down to where they 're {disfmarker} they 're within a tenth of a percent "" . +PhD B: That was on males . +PhD I: Right . That was {disfmarker} that was before I tried it on the females . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD I: See , women are nothi are , trouble . +Professor D: It 's the women are the problem . OK . +PhD I: Right ? As we all know . So . +PhD G: Well , let 's just say that men are simple . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} {comment} so , when {disfmarker} So I {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I ha +Grad F: That was a quick response . +PhD I: So , we had reached the point where {disfmarker} +PhD G: I 'm well rehearsed . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: we had reached the point where , {comment} um , on the male portion of the {pause} development set , the , um {disfmarker} or one of the development sets , I should say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} the male error rate with , uh , ICSI PLP features was pretty much identical with , uh , SRI features . which are {pause} MFCC . So , um , then I thought , "" Oh , great . I 'll j I 'll {disfmarker} just let 's make sure everything works on the females . "" And the error rate {disfmarker} you know , there was a three percent difference . +Professor D: Oh . Uh - huh . +PhD I: So , +PhD G: Is there less training data ? +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , we don +PhD I: No , actually there 's more training data . +PhD G: This is on just digits ? +Professor D: No . +PhD I: No , no . +Grad F: No . +PhD B: Hub - five . +Grad F: It 's , uh , Swi +PhD G: Oh , sorry . OK . This is on {disfmarker} +PhD I: This is Hub - five . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Hub - five . Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Um , and the test data is CallHome and Switchboard . So , uh {disfmarker} so then {pause} um {disfmarker} Oh , and plus the {disfmarker} the vocal tract {pause} length normalization didn't {disfmarker} actually made things worse . So something 's really seriously wrong . So {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha ! OK . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So {disfmarker} but you see , now , between {disfmarker} between the males and the females , there 's certainly a much bigger difference in the scaling range , than there is , say , just within the males . And what you were using before was scaling factors that were just from the {disfmarker} the m the {pause} SRI front - end . And that worked {disfmarker} that worked fine . +PhD I: That 's true . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but now you 're looking over a larger range and it may not be so fine . +PhD I: Well , um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} d so the one thing that I then tried was to put in the low - pass filter , which we have in the {disfmarker} So , most {disfmarker} most Hub - five systems actually band - limit the {disfmarker} uh , at about , uh , thirty - seven hundred , um , hertz . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Although , you know , normally , I mean , the channel goes to four {disfmarker} four thousand . Right ? So , um {disfmarker} And that actually helped , uh {disfmarker} uh , a little bit . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Um {pause} and it didn't hurt on the males either . So , um {disfmarker} And I 'm now , uh , trying the {disfmarker} Oh , and suddenly , also the v the vocal tract length normalization only in the test se on the test data . So , you can do vocal tract length normalization on the test data only or on both the training and the test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And you expect it to help a little bit if you do it only on the test , and s more if you do it on both training and test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so the {disfmarker} It now helps , if you do it only on the test , and I 'm currently retraining another set of models where it 's both in the training and the test , and then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have , hopefully , even better results . So {disfmarker} But there 's {disfmarker} It looks like there will still be some difference , maybe between one and two percent , um , for the females . +Professor D: Huh . +PhD I: And so , um , you know , I 'm open to suggestions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And it is true that the , uh {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , we are using the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} it can't be just the VTL , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: because if you don't do VTL in both systems , uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the females are considerably worse in the {disfmarker} with the PLP features . +Professor D: No {disfmarker} no . I {disfmarker} I remember that . +Grad F: It 's much worse . Yeah . +PhD I: So there must be some {disfmarker} something else going on . +PhD G: Well , what 's the standard {disfmarker} ? Yeah , so I thought the performance was actually a little better on females than males . +Grad F: That 's what I thought , too . +PhD I: Um , {pause} that {pause} ye {comment} overall , yes , but on this particular development test set , they 're actually a little worse . But that 's beside the point . We 're looking at the discrepancy between the SRI system and the SRI system when trained with ICSI features . +PhD G: Right . I 'm just wondering if that {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have any indication of your standard features , +Grad F: What 's {disfmarker} Are the freq ? +PhD G: you know , if that 's also different {pause} or in the same direction or not . +Professor D: You 're {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} lemme ask a q more basic que +PhD G: Cuz {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , is this , uh {disfmarker} uh , iterative , Baum - Welch training ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Or is it Viterbi training ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: It 's Baum - Welch training . +Professor D: Baum - Welch training . And how do you determine when to {disfmarker} to stop iterating ? +PhD I: Um {disfmarker} Well , actually , we {disfmarker} we just basically do a s a fixed number of iterations . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD I: Uh , in this case four . Um , which {disfmarker} Eh , we used to do only three , and then we found out we can squeeze {disfmarker} And it was basically , we 're s we 're keeping it on the safe side . But you 're d Right . It might be that one more iteration {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} would help , but it 's sort of +Professor D: Or maybe {disfmarker} or maybe you 're doing one too many . +PhD I: you know . +Professor D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , but with Baum - Welch , there shouldn't be an over - fitting issue , really . +Professor D: Uh . {comment} Well , there can be . Sure . +Grad F: Well , you can try each one on a cross - validation set , +PhD I: Um . +Professor D: It d if you {disfmarker} if you remember some years ago Bill Byrne did a thing where he was {disfmarker} he was looking at that , +Grad F: can't you ? +Professor D: and he showed that you could get it . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: So . But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , um {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , yeah . We can {disfmarker} Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the easy one to check , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: because we save all the intermediate models +Grad F: Do you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: and we can {disfmarker} +Professor D: And in each case , ho +Grad F: What {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: um , I 'm sorry {disfmarker} in each case how do you determine , you know , the {disfmarker} the usual {pause} fudge factors ? The , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , language , uh , scaling , acoustic scaling , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: Um {pause} I uh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm actually re - optimizing them . Although that hasn't shown to make {pause} a big difference . +Professor D: OK . And the pru the question he was asking at one point about pruning , uh {disfmarker} Remember that one ? +PhD I: Pruning {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Well , he was {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} it looked like the probabil at one point he was looking at the probabilities he was getting out {disfmarker} at the likelihoods he was getting out of PLP versus mel cepstrum , and they looked pretty different , +PhD I: Pruning in the {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , the likelihoods were {pause} lower for the PLP . +Professor D: as I recall . +PhD G: Oh . +Professor D: And so , uh , there 's the question {disfmarker} +PhD I: I you mean {disfmarker} did you see this in the SRI system ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Was just looking through the log files , +PhD I: Um . Well , the likelihoods are {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can't directly compare them , because , for every set of models you compute a new normalization . And so these log probabilities , they aren't directly comparable +PhD B: Oh . +PhD I: because you have a different normalization constants for each model you train . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: But , still it 's a question {disfmarker} +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: if you have some threshold somewhere in terms of beam search or something , +PhD B: Well , yeah . That 's what I was wondering . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: W yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , if you have one threshold that works well because the range of your likelihoods is in this area {disfmarker} +PhD I: We prune very conservatively . I mean , as we saw with the meeting data , um {pause} we could probably tighten the pruning without really {disfmarker} So we we basically we have a very open beam . +Professor D: But , you 're only talking about a percent or two . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Here we 're - we 're saying that we there {disfmarker} gee , there 's this b eh , there 's this difference here . And {pause} it {disfmarker} See cuz , i i {comment} there could be lots of things . Right ? But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , um , let 's suppose just for a second that , uh , we 've sort of taken out a lot of the {disfmarker} the major differences , uh , between the two . +PhD I: Right . Course . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: I mean , we 're already sort of using the mel scale and we 're using the same style filter integration , and {vocalsound} and , well , we 're making sure that low and high {disfmarker} +PhD I: Actually , there is {disfmarker} the difference in that . So , for the PLP features we use the triangular filter shapes . And for the {disfmarker} in the SRI front - end we use the trapezoidal one . +Grad F: And what 's the top frequency of each ? +PhD I: Well , now it 's the same . It 's thirty {disfmarker} thirty to seven hundred and sixty hertz . +Grad F: Yeah . Exp - one 's triangular , one 's trapezoidal . So {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Before we {disfmarker} i i th with straight PLP , it 's trapezoidal also . +PhD I: Well {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But then we had a slight difference in the {disfmarker} in the scale . Uh , so . +PhD I: Since currently the Feacalc program doesn't allow me to change {pause} the filter shape independently of the scale . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD I: And , I did the experiment on the SRI front - end where I tried the {disfmarker} y where the standard used to be to use trapezoidal filters . You can actually continuously vary it between the two . And so I wen I swi I tried the trap eh , triangular ones . And it did slightly worse , but it 's really a small difference . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor D: Coup - Couple tenths of a percent or something . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad F: So it 's not just losing some {vocalsound} frequency range . +PhD I: Yeah , exactly . So , it 's not {disfmarker} I don't think the filter shape by itself will make a huge {comment} difference . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . So the oth {vocalsound} the other thing that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor D: So , f i We 've always viewed it , anyway , as the major difference between the two , is actually in the smoothing , that the {disfmarker} that the , um , {vocalsound} PLP , and {disfmarker} and the reason PLP has been advantageous in , uh , slightly noisy situations is because , {vocalsound} PLP does the smoothing at the end by an auto - regressive model , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and mel cepstrum does it by just computing the lower cepstral coefficients . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . So , um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD I: OK . So {pause} one thing I haven't done yet is to actually do all of this with a much larger {disfmarker} with our full training set . So right now , we 're using a {disfmarker} I don't know , forty ? I i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} eh {comment} it 's a f training set that 's about , um , you know , by a factor of four smaller than what we use when we train the full system . So , some of these smoothing issues are over - fitting for that matter . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And the Baum - Welch should be much less of a factor , if you go full {disfmarker} whole hog . +Professor D: Could be . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , w so , just um {disfmarker} so the strategy is to first sort of treat things {pause} with fast turn - around on a smaller training set and then , {vocalsound} when you 've sort of , narrowed it down , you try it on a larger training set . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so , we haven't done that yet . +Professor D: Now the other que related question , though , is {disfmarker} is , {vocalsound} uh , what 's the boot models for these things ? +PhD I: Th - th the boot models are trained from scratch . So we compute , um {disfmarker} So , we start with a , um , alil alignment that we computed with the b sort of the best system we have . And {disfmarker} and then we train from scratch . So we com we do a , you know , w um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We collect the {disfmarker} uh , the observations from those alignments under each of the feature sets that {disfmarker} that we {pause} train . And then , from there we do , um {disfmarker} There 's a lot of , actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The way it works , you first train a phonetically - tied mixture model . Um . You do a total of {disfmarker} First you do a context - independent PTM model . Then you switch to a context {disfmarker} You do two iterations of that . Then you do two iterations of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of context - dependent phonetically - tied mixtures . And then from that you {disfmarker} you do the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you go to a state - clustered model , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: and you do four iterations of that . So there 's a lot of iterations overall between your original boot models and the final models . I don't think that {disfmarker} Hmm . We have never seen big differences . Once I thought "" oh , I can {disfmarker} Now I have these much better models . I 'll re - generate my initial alignments . Then I 'll get much better models at the end . "" Made no difference whatsoever . It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} eh , i +Professor D: Right . Well , mis for making things better . +PhD I: the boot models are recur +Professor D: Yeah . But , this for making things worse . This it migh Th - the thought is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is possible {disfmarker} another possible {pause} partial cause is if the boot models {vocalsound} used a comple used a different feature set , that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But there are no boot models , in fact . You {disfmarker} you 're not booting from initial models . You 're booting from initial alignments . +Professor D: Which you got from a different feature set . +PhD I: That 's correct . +Professor D: So , those features look at the data differently , actually . +PhD I: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , you know , they {disfmarker} they will find boundaries a little differently , though {disfmarker} You know , all th all that sort of thing is actually slightly different . I 'd expect it to be a minor effect , +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm saying is {disfmarker} +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +PhD I: So , we e w f w For a long time we had used boot alignments that had been trained with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the same front - end but with acoustic models that were , like , fifteen percent worse than what we use now . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And with a dict different dictionary {disfmarker} with a considerably different dictionary , which was much less detailed and much less well - suited . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , {vocalsound} then we switched to new boot alignments , which {disfmarker} which now had the benefit of all these improvements that we 've made over two years in the system . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: And , the result in the end was no different . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: So , what I 'm saying is , the exact nature of these boot alignments is probably not {pause} a big factor in the quality of the final models . +Professor D: Yeah , maybe not . But {pause} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I st still see it as {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a history to this , too , +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: but I {disfmarker} uh , I don't wanna go into , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th I think it could be the things {pause} that it {disfmarker} the data is being viewed in a certain way , uh , that a beginning is here rather than there and so forth , +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: because the actual signal - processing you 're doing is slightly different . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: But , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} that 's probably not it . +PhD I: Yeah . Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I should really reserve , uh , any conclusions until we 've done it on the large training set , um , and until we 've seen the results with the {disfmarker} with the VTL in training . +Professor D: Yeah . At some point you also might wanna take the same thing and try it on , uh , some Broadcast News data or something else that actually has {disfmarker} has some noisy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} noisy components , so we can see if any conclusions we come to holds {vocalsound} across {pause} different data . +PhD I: So . Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , uh , with this , I have to leave . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: Hmm ! +Professor D: So , is there something quick about Absinthe {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: With this said . +Grad F: Uh . Just what we were talking about before , which is that I ported a Blass library to Absinthe , and then got {disfmarker} got it working with fast - forward , and got {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a speedup roughly proportional to the number of processors times the clock cycle . +PhD I: Oh . +Grad F: So , that 's pretty good . +PhD I: Oh ! Cool . +Grad F: Um , I 'm in the process of doing it for Quicknet , but there 's something going wrong and it 's about half the speed that I was estimating it should be , and I 'm not sure why . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But I 'll keep working on it . But the {disfmarker} what it means is that it 's likely that for net training and forward passes , we 'll {disfmarker} Absinthe will be a good machine . Especially if we get a few more processors and upgrade the processors . +PhD I: A few more processors ? How many are you shooting for ? +Grad F: There 're five now . It can hold eight . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Yeah , we 'll just go buy them , I guess . +Grad F: And it 's also five - fifty megahertz and you can get a gigahertz . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +PhD I: Can you mix {pause} t uh , processors of different speed ? +Grad F: I don't think so . I think we 'd have to do all {disfmarker} +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Probably just throw away the old ones , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Thank you {pause} for the box , +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'll just go buy their process . +Grad H: Hmm ! +PhD I: Maybe we can stick them in another system . I dunno . +Grad F: We 'd have to get a {disfmarker} almost certainly have to get a , uh , Netfinity server . +PhD I: I see . +Grad F: They 're pretty {disfmarker} pretty specialized . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Is {disfmarker} is Liz coming back , do you know , or {disfmarker} ? I dunno . Yeah . Oh , you don't . OK . Alright . Alright . See you . Um . Alright . So {disfmarker} Uh , they 're having tea out there . So I guess the other thing that we were gonna talk about is {disfmarker} is , uh , demo . And , um , so , these are the demos for the {pause} uh , July , uh , meeting {pause} and , um {disfmarker} DARPA mee +Grad F: July what ? Early July ? Late July ? +Professor D: Oh , I think it 's July fifteenth . +Postdoc A: Sixteen to eighteen , I think . +Professor D: Is that it ? +Postdoc A: Roughly . +Professor D: Yeah , sixteenth , eighteenth . Yeah . So , we talked about getting something together for that , but maybe , uh {disfmarker} maybe we 'll just put that off for now , given that {disfmarker} But I think maybe we should have a {disfmarker} a sub - meeting , I think , uh , probably , uh , Adam and {disfmarker} and , uh , Chuck and me should talk about {disfmarker} should get together and talk about that sometime soon . +Grad F: Over a cappuccino tomorrow ? +Professor D: Yeah {comment} something like that . Um , uh , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll involve Dan Ellis at some {disfmarker} some level as well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . OK . The {disfmarker} the tea is {disfmarker} is going , so , uh , I suggest we do , uh {disfmarker} uh , a unison . +Grad F: A unison digits ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Gets our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Which is gonna be a little hard for a couple people because we have different digits forms . +PhD E: Oops . +Grad F: We have a {disfmarker} I found a couple of old ones . +Professor D: Oh . +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor D: Well , that 'll be interesting . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have you done digits before ? +Professor D: No . +Grad C: I haven't done it . +Grad F: OK . So , uh , the idea is just to read each line {pause} with a short pause between lines , +Grad C: Alright . +Grad F: not between {disfmarker} And , uh , since we 're in a hurry , we were just gonna read everyone all at once . So , if you sorta plug your ears and read {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: So first read the transcript number , and then start reading the {pause} digits . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad F: OK ? One , two , three . +Professor D: OK we 're done . +Grad F: And {disfmarker} +","Summary: + +The conversation appears to be a meeting involving university research staff discussing various topics related to their work. They talk about their agenda and multiple projects: + +1. The ARPA demo - Morgan wanted to discuss this. +2. IBM transcription status - Updates are being made to improve the tracking of transcriptions. +3. SmartKom data - Discussion about whether to add data to the Meeting Recorder corpus. PhD E mentions the data they are collecting, and the group contemplates whether it should be on the agenda. +4. Reorganization status - Chuck had added this item to the agenda, but Grad F had nothing new to report other than plans for getting organized and timing with a back-up. +5. Absinthe - A discussion about the multiprocessor UNIX/Linux, updates on segmentation, recognition, and SRI recognition experiments. It was suggested to focus on these when Andreas is present. +6. Digits - Grad F wanted to discuss digits that haven't been transcribed yet and potential automated methods to handle them. It was suggested to wait for the results from IBM's transcriptions. +7. Transcription - Postdoc A reports progress on transcriptions and plans for handling twenty hours of data for the DARPA demo. +8. Data archiving - They discuss the need for more disk space and strategies for archiving data efficiently, considering using tape backups and manually backing up data while avoiding daily back-up system saturation. + +Overall, the conversation centers around logistical planning, data management, and technical updates concerning ongoing research projects in the field of computer and information sciences." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Did you get my email with the slides ? Ah . Tricky . +Industrial Designer: I guess I have to change the pen otherwise . Will be completely different . +Marketing: Dunno . Maybe they're supposed {disfmarker} the pen's supposed to go over the seats . Might be seat floor rather than person . Yeah , put it back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And do you think {vocalsound} it's {gap} . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Jo's making faces at me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . Matthew is uh late again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably an important man . Um . So well it is important for him to be here uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: He he he {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what can you {disfmarker} {gap} ? +Project Manager: You did work together didn't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah we will {disfmarker} yeah , so I will be able to to summarize uh our meeting , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: but still I think uh it would be in very important if the uh as um main designer . I think we can put on the {gap} here . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh basically w yeah we we designed the two uh items . +Project Manager: Mm . Um yes +Industrial Designer: Um , can we have a phone , +Project Manager: but w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: can someone {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , maybe we should phone him . Um well {disfmarker} Um , +Industrial Designer: it's really w well designed {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , object tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: when he is not here we will just we just have to continue . Um so just for record I I will take uh notes again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And um well {vocalsound} first thing uh I was uh uh I got an email from uh from my superior again that we really should stay within the budget of the uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: when you stay in it's good , when you don't stay in you have to redesign . There is no {vocalsound} uh no negotiation uh {vocalsound} possible in this matter . So we have to consider that . {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um so maybe Anna , you can have your presentation . +Marketing: Well we can't {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} we can't do evaluation 'til we have a design . +Project Manager: Okay Matthew . Nice uh you are here . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: Great . Great . Oh ma maybe then you can start now with mm presenting your uh your designs . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So I will start by the the basic one that uh fits into uh eight Euros actually , right , seven eight Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh well first for both they have um a special shape , maybe the designer can uh explain better than me , but uh it's like a surf board . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you you are supposed to surf to browse to surf T_V_ , maybe the web , and uh it's kind of interesting shape because um unconsciously people want to s to surf {vocalsound} when they see this stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or browse . +Industrial Designer: And also it's not too far from um a mobile . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So people are used to that kind of shape , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . Don't take care too much about the colour because w yeah we don't take {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now we are supposed to give some oper offers right now . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So here would be basically the the the infrared uh uh led +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Eye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah L_A_ L_A_ L_E_D_ , +User Interface: L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: the on-off button , in red . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Here would be the volume . On the on the left , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: okay , so {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: easy to turn on t and off . And um so this is a very cheap version so there are {disfmarker} maybe you can carry on uh Matthew . +User Interface: Also {vocalsound} so you have uh uh browsing the channels , actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can go up and down the channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , if you have a video or something you can forward , back . +Industrial Designer: How can you change from V_C_R_ to uh T_V_ , by the way ? +User Interface: Oh {gap} no no no , this is a single {disfmarker} this this is a model with just the T_V_ one . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +User Interface: No no just sorry , this is a standard T_V_ one , we are not talking about that . So and then we have usually there twelve keys but we know that we rel that we have only ten digits . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The extra two are for uh having or giving an option for uh having more than one channel . And the other one is for the teletext or something you want to browse through from that . Actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay so +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's it's t a very basic remote then , it's only {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a very basic minimal thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: which you can {disfmarker} which is which is also available in the market , actually that's what it {gap} {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and would cost us to build it about eight Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Seven , eight , ei eight Euros . +Project Manager: Exce except for the for the special shape , the surfing board , it has a quite a a conventional layout of buttons uh . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So this one model +Marketing: Can I see ? +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . +Marketing: Thanks . Okay I like the volume control , that's good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th {vocalsound} this is a magic one but I know we don't want to talk about that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know like {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh i i i it is a very futuristic , it's like uh it's like a brain machine interface and all this stuff we are thinking about in the future , it can come . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it doesn't actually have buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} then what we look t +Marketing: Did you wanna see ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah no you can carry on , +User Interface: This is a model , +Project Manager: I just look how it feels all . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yes it really feels like like like a mobile phone . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Just I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually , yeah . +Project Manager: I really want to talk to it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It won't talk back . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So but but continue with your uh +User Interface: Uh so well +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the this is the {vocalsound} a more a little uh smooth +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and it gives a lot of functionality , uh in this way , so all we have uh th you see there are only six keys , but don't worry they are ma they are doing the job of twelve keys actually here . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so they have more space actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh it's easy to uh use this and uh you have um so this is a standard uh {gap} uh infrared eye , and then you have a power button , which l volume , what you have , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then other than that you have uh channel up and down and uh f slow pause or s slow lo +Industrial Designer: Play , pause . +User Interface: yeah s pause or stop , and uh then uh you can uh you have a L_C_D_ display , here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh y this is a functional thing which can change like it's a toggle switch which could change the function say , y you press it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From D_V_D_ player to television or something . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah . To audio and to video on demand . +User Interface: Yeah . I really can change it , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Instead of having many switches , y {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes and and and then you get feedback via the L_C_D_ yeah . +User Interface: The L_C_D_ can display what is that on that , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh well you can have a integrated microphone over here , +Industrial Designer: This is the orange button , the {vocalsound} microphone . +User Interface: or in the button th here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so which can uh basically you want to do a speech recognition and uh that channel a lot of information can be di displayed here directly on the um on your on your display . +Industrial Designer: An yeah . +User Interface: And here is a small L_E_D_ which is like blinking one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which tells you like uh are you running out of the battery , and which is can be useful for the locating as I was talking earlier +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . And uh well then we have a cover basically , basically you don't need much of the time this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} when you need you can use it , and this gives additional functionality that tomorrow you want you can add a tactile thing to this cover +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Crazy dis designer , +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Design enter {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but but but but uh i in there uh when this is closed , will it also uh cover up the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . It's basically to do that . +Project Manager: But but the L_C_D_ screen I mean is a very uh well an eye-attracting feature +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which shouldn't be shouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually when you are watching the T_V_ , {vocalsound} when you are watching anything or listening to them , you hardly care about what is getting displayed here , +Industrial Designer: Oh actually {disfmarker} well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That th that's true . +User Interface: you know , uh you want to uh {disfmarker} and this gives a protection to the L_C_D_ actually , giving a cover to that actually . Gives a protection +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because when it falls down or something it it is it is is is it gives a protec +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yes . Yes , more robust . +User Interface: it's more robust that way . Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: And you have very good chances {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's low weight . You have to see yeah yeah the the components we put inside is very low weight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So the the cost is actually a bit more , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's sixteen Francs . +User Interface: It {disfmarker} Sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen Euros sorry . +Marketing: So it's well outside the budget then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then it's out of budget . +Project Manager: But w +Industrial Designer: But the the main point we we talk about that with our uh manufacturer . And they say basically that the S_R_ system would be uh something like three Francs per item {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so +User Interface: Three Euros . +Industrial Designer: three Euros sorry . And um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on top of the sixteen , or is it part of that ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , part of that , yeah . +User Interface: Part of that {gap} . +Marketing: So that takes it down to thirteen Euros without the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . Hmm . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well uh if you {disfmarker} we can have {disfmarker} if you have new more ideas we can add new more uh some more keys if you want to you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think th th yeah we should {vocalsound} stick with uh a number of keys +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because if we add too much then +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: it's too {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it should not be cluttering up everything . +Marketing: What's this one on the side ? +User Interface: Ah that's for the {disfmarker} it's kind of a L_E_D_ for indicating your battery +Industrial Designer: Locati . Location . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and as well as it's like a blinking one +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +User Interface: you know +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can keep it aside . +Marketing: I like the shape of them , I do like the the size and the the shape . +Project Manager: Well well {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be before ta talking about the money and what's possible and what is not possible , maybe Anna you can uh give our uh give us your um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . And maybe we run the evaluation on both of the products , both of these two . +Project Manager: Yes . Evalua evaluation and also the evaluation criteria , so what what is important to look at . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Basically this is what we've talked about already , um , from the marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just wanna make sure that we've taken into account {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: just do it quickly if if we al already {gap} . +Marketing: So it's just a shortlist of criteria on um the things that we've identified as being important to selling the product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um we just go through these and rate them as a group and then at the end we'll make an evaluation based on that , so just average the score of those items , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} These are the things we identified as being important . Um {gap} the three things were look and feel , innovation and ease of use , were the three important components +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um appealing to the correct demographic so using those things in the right way to appeal to our demographic . And then goin following the company motto , following the fashion trends and putting that into the product as well . So well do you wanna go through and put through those on the the two products now or do we wanna discuss them further and then evaluate them ? +Project Manager: Um , n no why not why not discuss uh discuss it now , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So f just go through onto the whiteboard I guess . Not sure how this is gonna come out . So the first one was really {vocalsound} very far below budget , would you want to take the price down of the end product according to that or just have the high profit on it ? 'Cause if we're only going to make it for eight Euros then we have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , well my my personal view is uh w when when this one is eight Euros we must think how can we improve it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {disfmarker} I mean w w w you must just see it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we can still spend this four and a half Euro +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: and to r because th th th the the selling price is already prite fik uh uh quite fixed on twenty five Euros +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we just have to offer as much as as {disfmarker} well value for the for the customer uh he can have for twenty five Euro . +Industrial Designer: Functionality . +Marketing: Okay so look and feel , innovation {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And now it {gap} easy to use . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And trends . Oh , you following the idea of using the um removable covers on these ? Is that part of both of them or ? +Project Manager: Um well w w we can still discuss that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um , and together with evaluating this uh we we might come with new ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean adding things or uh removing uh of options because they are too expensive , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um I've received uh a framework which we can do this . I mean did you have this this Excel sheet ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No okay , this is these are the the the latest prices of our production uh uh production unit for several components , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we can uh see whether the the price is is within the twelve Euro uh fifty cents uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can start with this , uh , calling this one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Yep . So it's the pink . +Project Manager: Th th this is the first design . +Marketing: And the other one's green . Okay , so +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: look and feel ? Where um one is {vocalsound} I've broken the pen again . S +Project Manager: Uh there is another pen . +Marketing: yeah . Get that one . Um w {vocalsound} one's bad and seven's the best . Sorry , one's true and seven's false . One's the best . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Okay . So . Look and feel . Well you already feel that uh pretty much I think {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: In i in my opinion purely feel is is is very good , is very good in your hand , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I I I would consider two or or may maybe even one for feel . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But that's just half , we should also consider look , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then i it looks quite conventional . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Don't you agree ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: On the scale u it's between functional and fancy basically we're looking at , +Project Manager: So maybe two . Hmm . Hmm . Ma ma ma ma maybe say say five +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} It's my opinion , but I don't know what what +User Interface: Well I will give it maybe {disfmarker} we have anyways {disfmarker} the way we have designed it's like the surf as you say {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you know . It {disfmarker} though the look is fine but uh still I will give four in that case +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four maybe . +User Interface: you know . +Marketing: Four ? Okay . +Project Manager: Four , four . +User Interface: Four yeah +Project Manager: Now we th th +User Interface: that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then we settle on four . +User Interface: Yeah . I will gi yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Can you maybe fix the other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you press like this not like this {gap} then you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No that's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: ink's dried . +User Interface: C can you get the batteries ? No no the battery has fallen down , +Marketing: Battery's low , isn't it the ink ? +User Interface: that's i +Marketing: The b that's the that that one ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} battery there . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no it's not that , it's how to close a battery . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay ? Now it should be {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . No I think it's lost a battery . +Project Manager: Mm , try it , just try it . +Marketing: No it's {disfmarker} It would still write +Project Manager: Oh it will not +Marketing: but it wouldn't pick it up with the sensors . +Project Manager: ri mm , mm . +User Interface: Is there another battery there ? Oh yeah . +Marketing: You got a second ? +Industrial Designer: Try a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well we won't be able to tell . +Project Manager: Yes , it it has a {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Marketing: Is that working ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did it come out ? Good . Okay . +Project Manager: Good . Good . +Marketing: Because we'll be able to see it still even if it wasn't working , it's just a normal whiteboard marker +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but it wouldn't be picked up on the the actual whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So then then {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the other one ? +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's slightly better , um , +Project Manager: Ah . Mm . +Marketing: it's hard to tell from just the plasticine , +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When we want to include {disfmarker} I I I'm doubting about this this component . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It it it it breaks in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: No actually this is this is not going to protrude actually , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: it it's n i it is jus +Industrial Designer: It's not a button it's a led , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a led actually which which 'll be covering in a curve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ac actually yeah it should be embedded . +Project Manager: Mm , yes I see , mm okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} will be embedded there +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh +User Interface: so it won't be really you know protruding or something . +Industrial Designer: you can push push it again , you can push it . +Marketing: Yeah . The other thing is , is the left hand one protruding ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if people are left handed they want to use the other hand , +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: maybe it won't work so well . +User Interface: No you {disfmarker} it it not protruding actually , it will go in better into that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well r r +Marketing: I'd say two or three for that one , personally . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Probably more towards three than two . +Project Manager: I think the look is better +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the feel is is is worse . So so {vocalsound} I would also say this is four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But w w do you {disfmarker} what do you think ? +User Interface: Uh it's fine I think . My {disfmarker} just that um the feel is that um you {disfmarker} right now you you don't see the feel because right uh for example if you press it quite inside now like this , now it's embedded one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yes . +User Interface: This is how embedded one will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , it basically is the same shape . +User Interface: Yeah . It's a bas basically the same thing actually . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: You will be {disfmarker} Except that in this c +Industrial Designer: And the L_C_D_ makes it better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} you might have a slight thing for to forward and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , okay . Yeah +Industrial Designer: So I will say two . +Marketing: it's d it's definitely more fancier than that one . +Project Manager: Yes , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would say two , three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , consensus ? Two or three ? +Project Manager: Two ? +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Mm . Two's good +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: {gap} looking like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , 'kay . Innovation . The first one , not really muc +Industrial Designer: Basically there is no innovation in the first one compared to what exists in the market , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but except for the design of the surf {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . The surf uh design {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} What features are we actually including ? +User Interface: You should be rea {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are we including like a location kind of thing like trying to find it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no +Marketing: There's nothing like that ? +User Interface: I think it's more of the feel . +Marketing: But th is there any there's no actual innovation in that at all , it's just a straight-out remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The only innova innovation is the shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Say about that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: S so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} this uh look and feel thing , though that's not a technological innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You're right {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So I'd be up for seven for innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} And the second one is really uh state of the art , uh in terms of innovation . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And um with many more functionalities , and can open and close the the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , it gives it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . A and the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's that's well it's quite innovative . +Industrial Designer: And all the scrolling uh buttons and menu and pro programmable device behind this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh could put it at one or two I would say . Personally . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: So what is it , what are the innovations with this ? Got the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah automatic speech recognition . +Marketing: Is that in this one though ? Is this {disfmarker} 'cause this is the {disfmarker} Th th there were different options we discussed then , +User Interface: No , we ha +Marketing: we discussed the one that was in budget and the one that was out of budget . +Project Manager: We just diske discuss it as you designed it +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we will will try to get it in the budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the cost for these were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: what was the cost for the first one ? Eight Euros ? +Project Manager: Eight . +Industrial Designer: Eight . Well actually we have yeah to check again yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , eight Euros yeah . +Marketing: And this one was sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +User Interface: Sixteen Euros . +Marketing: Okay . So . Innovation for this one is two ? One ? +User Interface: It's a two , I would say two {gap} . +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: W W un to be one what would do we nee actually , yeah , I don't see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why it is one . +Industrial Designer: okay , one would would be without buttons , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A man {disfmarker} w w +Marketing: Mm . Well +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: the speech recognition is a very good innovation I believe it , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: so {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So maybe we can put one . +Project Manager: This this is it w with the speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: It's using speech recognition , yeah . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Okay yeah . +Project Manager: Gi given that {vocalsound} that it works , +Marketing: Give it a one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then it's I think one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Ease of use ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So the first one is really standard , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so everybody i including our grandmothers can use it , +User Interface: He is used to it act +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: They are used to it actually . +Marketing: Yep . So that's maybe a a two for ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Here there may {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , the other one is quite easy , tho though . +User Interface: Uh , though it has more functionality I think it shouldn't be for the user to learn it actually . It shouldn't be diffi +Marketing: Okay . So maybe a three or a four . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh yeah , actually in fact I think it will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One me um we hope {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe sometimes people get uh scared with the number of buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} y +Industrial Designer: And there is a {disfmarker} like I would say three . Or maybe four {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . Consensus ? Three or four ? +User Interface: Well we have reduced the keys actually you see . +Project Manager: Three , I would . Three . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah +User Interface: Three is fine with me . +Industrial Designer: because it's n uh it's not like a big one with uh one hundred buttons or so , {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: actually the user has to put some effort to do {disfmarker} use that actually , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: it's not so easy , like this one the normal . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes but then when when he is used to it , i i it is quite easy . +User Interface: Is quite easy yeah . +Project Manager: So so I think th three is good . Yeah . +User Interface: Initially there there is a lot of effort , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: So three's +Project Manager: What's the next ? +Marketing: uh how well it goes to the target demographic . So we're d we're still thinking twenty to forty year olds ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Twe twenty to forty , yes that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This one would be uh for grandmothers {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , this would I +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I would I would give this model to the old people actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , grandmothers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So sh completely changed our demographic there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not part of the the funky young thing . +Project Manager: Well exce except for the surfing shape . I mean that's that's something which which has an appeal on this group I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's true . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . If it was the very bottom price range or it was like between this and another one we did the same thing then I can imagine it being {disfmarker} applying to the the demographic +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . That's {disfmarker} it's still {disfmarker} Ye +Project Manager: Mm w w w we {disfmarker} after this we can can consider uh for instance , making this more attractive to to the demographic +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause we have got room , we've got some budget there to add a few things to it , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's right . +Project Manager: But as it is now , I w would say mm , six , something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Oh yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it's so important {disfmarker} it's i it was written that it really so important , the um the the look and uh taking care of its {disfmarker} it targets , the right range of people , +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah but but if you sell it in the market it's going to be cheap , actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's going to be cheap whatever though , +Industrial Designer: But w +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: it was set with i we've got a set price . +User Interface: And people can still decide to use the cheaper one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: instead of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for us it's {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} we have a constraint that we need to sell at twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , indeed . +Marketing: Yeah . There's nothing that would make me spend an extra k few Euros on that one rather than another one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ju just think , twenty five Euros , I mean it's not going to be cheaper . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . So in that case well it's fine then . +Marketing: Okay . Um +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: We can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and the demokraphi demographic of the second one ? +User Interface: And the demographics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's got the got the the toys in it , it's got the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Yeah tha tha tha tha tha that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's better , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because of the L_C_D_ screen which is really an appeal on the on the on the +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: on the {gap} and on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And if you want to target {disfmarker} yeah if we we wish to to sell four millions of this , I think for this audience we need absolutely the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . So , the L_C_D_ screen uh attracts , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: I think especially if we're gonna n have an L_C_D_ screen on a low range product then that's good . +Project Manager: Because it {disfmarker} Mm , ma maybe that's something to consider , yes {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: so . Wh what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'd probably go with three again for that one . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's uh {disfmarker} it has more market actually . +Industrial Designer: Or even {disfmarker} Even one and two . Or two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No s say t two . +User Interface: Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , two , yeah ? +User Interface: two . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Two yeah . +User Interface: Yeah two yeah . Because tomorrow this will be more appealing because you can add {vocalsound} lot of sophistication on that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because then you you have it uh d you have lot of things which you can include +Marketing: Yeah . Yep . And especially I guess 'cause this has the speech recognition as well , +User Interface: for the people to {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that makes it more appealing , it's more of a a new fun toy . +User Interface: We have to practically test it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The field test will tell you how good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the final point , trends . +Marketing: And following the trends . +User Interface: The trends . +Marketing: So the trends were the fruit and vegetables and the spongy feel . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So as it is , not really doing either of them . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy , uh , that means that it goes in in the water . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the spongy could be part of the the feel of the buttons as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know some {disfmarker} have you tried the mobile phones that have got the kinda spongy buttons and {disfmarker} not not exactly spongy but I'm thinking one of the Nokias that's got like you ca it hasn't got individual buttons +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: it's got just a one bit on it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I know . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} that feels kinda spongy . +Industrial Designer: But this one includes this feature , right ? Spongy buttons . +Marketing: So it's sort of , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . We we we we we yeah , it's the way they are going to be , actually . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the maybe in the colour we can make it uh fruit and and veggie . +Marketing: But that's if you're using the covers . +Project Manager: And the then we can al +Marketing: Or is it just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . We can {disfmarker} we can consider uh uh is it possible do you think , to to make a cover for s such a phone ? I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well they make it for mobiles , it can't be that much more complicated . +User Interface: But why do you want to cover that actually ? In that uh w in the mod +Project Manager: Well just with the with the flexible plastic uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you got the option of having different colours or different textures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . This is possible . +Project Manager: I th I th I think {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh uh y are you sure ? Yeah I think yeah it should be possible like what we do with the mobile phone , yeah . +Project Manager: O o or just two things which can be put on each other . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly like Nokia phones {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , exactly like it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh , so Maybe we can {vocalsound} but we have to decide it , we can put the the {vocalsound} the fancy f look of vegetables for instance , to to these covers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and s now try to invest in the in in the features . +Marketing: I think the {disfmarker} if we do the cover that's really going with the company's philosophy of having the fashion in in electronics , it lets people have the latest fashion +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: even next year when fruit and vegetables might be out , you'll still be able to put a new cover on it and then it'll still be in fashion . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause sometimes look at this computer , th this laptop , it's all black , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and uh it's quite conventional , and sometimes people don't like too much flashy colours like this one presented here . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could do like in the range the set of what we propose a black one , very standard one , that meets the the requirements of th such people that want really standard uh things . +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And then you have the option of having the different colours , different covers . +Project Manager: Yes . So so so that that would make the trends equal , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we we we really have {disfmarker} don't have , +Marketing: Mm . There's n yeah . 'Cause that's the that's the feature that could be included in either of them . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Although it is more with the spongy buttons on the um on the other one . +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so a a point better for the for the number two {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . So . Two and three , or one and two ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it's one . +Project Manager: Say , say one and two . One and two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So le le let's see . So d +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: this one has spongy but buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the blue one uh spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , it says a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , I see , yes okay . Good . +Marketing: Okay so the average of that is three six nine divided by five , so five {disfmarker} mm nine by five , one point s eight ? +Project Manager: Just add it . +Industrial Designer: Nine . +Project Manager: You know . Three , six , seven . +User Interface: One point six , one point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: One point eight yeah . +Marketing: This one , eleven thirteen nineteen twenty one , divided by five is four point two +User Interface: Four point {disfmarker} Uh four point two . +Marketing: yep . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Okay . But we still got a very different price for those two so they're not really comparable yet anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . We {disfmarker} we must try to get them closer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's right , yeah that's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Both in i i +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: or we just have to choose . And adapt . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Because , when we choose for this one we have to {vocalsound} we have to make it more attractive +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and w when we {gap} to d for this one we have to make it more cheap . +Marketing: Well it's easier to just make that one cheaper by just taking the speech recognition out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: That'll basically take us down to the budget . +Project Manager: But I'm {vocalsound} now {disfmarker} did y did you work with the same prices that I have here ? +Industrial Designer: So I I give yeah I just give a call with the manufacturer uh and uh I explained them and they told me this could be possible for sixteen Fr Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh unfortunately we didn't see this chip , uh Matthew , +User Interface: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm , tha +Industrial Designer: so maybe we have to recap with this one . +User Interface: Maybe we ought to reconsider everything with this , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yes , well uh re reconsider it . So {vocalsound} let's let's try to to model this this phone in this sheet , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh what kind of energy source uh I I {disfmarker} we didn't speak about that . It's a {disfmarker} it's a normal battery , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it migh It {disfmarker} it'll need uh more than a conventional one , it won't be uh just {disfmarker} maybe you might use a A_A_ battery actually . What do you say , Mael ? +Industrial Designer: For this one it's a normal battery {gap} . +Project Manager: Yes . Just so one battery . 'Kay . Electronics . {gap} given speech recognition I think w you should go for the less fancy chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sample speaker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes , or sample sensor , yes . +Industrial Designer: Sample , yeah , this one . +Project Manager: Yes , this one . Okay . Case ? Um , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Curved . Double curved yeah right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Double curve . +Marketing: Yeah , it's gonna be more than just the biggest case , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: So which one are we talking to ? +User Interface: Are you talking about this or that ? +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Either of them . +Project Manager: Oh yes , we are talking about , but they have the same shape , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . They're both going to be not basic cases . +Project Manager: but , actually bu +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So th th this would be double curves ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Uh , plastic would be the material . +Marketing: Yeah . The basic one , yep . +Industrial Designer: Is it zero Franc ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A special colour ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh special colour , now we leave it to the covers . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So now we're either going button or L_C_D_s , L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Push . Mm , yes , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ is {gap} . It's okay . Just say L_C_D_ {gap} . +Marketing: Is that price per unit , or for the whole thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah th now this is per per unit , this number of components . +User Interface: Ah good . +Marketing: So it would need twelve buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , we might need a scroll wheel , right , for that ? +Industrial Designer: No but for this one it's twelve Euro . +User Interface: No , for that one also . +Industrial Designer: There are twelve ? +Project Manager: So , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , +User Interface: Yeah that's a scroll . +Project Manager: t Yes . Twelve I believe . So this comes to eighteen . +Marketing: Mm . And that's without any special button supplements . +User Interface: Yeah , one scroll wheel you might need . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we'd have a special colour , special form and special material on all of them . They're not just standard buttons . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} but th do you agree th that thi +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute , it's not it's not double curved , it's single curved , right ? Because it's {disfmarker} there is no like {vocalsound} . +Marketing: But I thought it would be curved on two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I +Marketing: it's like it's curved on the sides and curved on the top and bottom as well , that's what I thought . +Project Manager: Yes I'm I'm no I'm no I'm not sh sure . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: Yes I kno undes I understand what you mean , yes . +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} you know this curve like this so , it's w there is only is is is there is nothing like y you know in the other stuff there are {disfmarker} +Marketing: You talking about concave curves ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: yeah concave . +Project Manager: Both . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can put um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You think a single curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the single curved in the sixteen . That makes uh seventeen . And what are just {disfmarker} The bt buttons , we have twelve buttons , are you sure ? Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have more , we've got those {disfmarker} the scroll wheel on the side +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: and yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had a bad uh bad estimation . +User Interface: Bad estimate , +Marketing: The sc +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: we have {disfmarker} we haven't talk about a {gap} , but that's no a {gap} is very exp inexpensive I believe +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but it is not in the list . +Marketing: We've got a scroll wheel for the volume don't we , or is it some other thing that's not on there . +Project Manager: W ho h is this a scroll wheel or is this a a a sort of button which can be pressed on two sides uh so for higher and lower ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: 'Kay we've only got five minutes left guys so we need to wrap it up pretty fast . +Industrial Designer: Yes , a kind of scroll wheel . +Marketing: So this is even more than the um than the cost you gave , the sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so based on that , yeah , um where is the es okay sample speaker {disfmarker} +User Interface: That is the sample sensor and sample speaker . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But still , yeah it {gap} +User Interface: We just need that actually . We need one . +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We could go for the for the for the for the for a simple chip , but then we can't have the the speech recognition , yes ? Yes ? +Industrial Designer: No we cannot , yeah . +Project Manager: So so w when we w a +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: this would this would be cutting the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But the um {disfmarker} Yeah but if you have the {disfmarker} near the L_C_D_ you can um {vocalsound} choose {disfmarker} select between um you know like uni universal between audio , T_V_ and V_C_R_ , and this needs a needs a advanced chip . +Project Manager: Transti +Industrial Designer: Right , Matthew ? +User Interface: Oh I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or regular chip ? +User Interface: I think it's going to be {disfmarker} y y +Industrial Designer: I think yeah regular , today we you can do that with regular chip . +User Interface: yeah it's th with the regular chip , yeah . +Project Manager: Say {gap} say it's regular , regular chip , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we still on fifteen , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So . And what about the number of buttons buttons uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my Matthew ? +Project Manager: Yes but that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} Well we can just say +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: one . +Industrial Designer: When you look at this w , this u uh item , {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ca l we are just {disfmarker} when we just want to uh to cut the number of buttons we have to make seven to to fit in in twelve twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is it possible ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} But that's seven basic buttons right , seven buttons without any adds-on , without special colours or form or material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That'll be {disfmarker} then we have uh have to ask the user to press it several times . +Industrial Designer: You cannot make a phone to your boss saying twelve fifty is really {vocalsound} really low , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: he he he I I +Industrial Designer: no ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} the L_C_D_ display is is three Francs , sorry three Euros , by itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't want to to change that right ? We we really want a L_C_D_ +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: other otherwise we w wouldn not get the market . +Project Manager: Otherwise y you ha you have a s ve very normal uh thing like this . +Industrial Designer: It's evident . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So twelve Euro fifty , we got two off of the battery , +Industrial Designer: And I dunno {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can't do anything about that , so ten fifty , if we want an L_C_D_ dispra display , that's seven fifty um , so we've got seven fifty to use for the case and for the buttons . And the chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sorry the chip's up there already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we're gonna have to scale this down to get within budget , there's no doubt about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A +Industrial Designer: So wha what what each of us think about the {disfmarker} because it's measure point the L_C_D_ , um {disfmarker} Do you think it's important ? +User Interface: Or we could even replace them by buttons actually . +Industrial Designer: Because sometimes whe when you watch the T_V_ in fact , you have a big display and maybe you don't need one more in your hands ? I dunno , I'm just asking . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: A actually it depends , it depends what kind of functionalities you want to add into it , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: for example if you add two more functionalities then better you add two more buttons , or {disfmarker} and you'll have L_C_D_ display which is {disfmarker} that is going to bring the cost by two two Euros at least . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . I think , unless we can really drive these prices down we need to get rid of the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Okay so we can get rid of it +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true yeah . +User Interface: and then add a couple of buttons . +Industrial Designer: But uh , do we want that ? On the market point of view , yeah . What do you think uh , L_C_D_ is a major feature , or ? +Project Manager: Mm . I +Marketing: For the price , it's gonna be what we can afford , and it's looking like we can't afford the L_C_D_ display , there's no way we can get it in there . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: I {gap} think we have to come to a decision now , just I I think we we what we just do i is vote about the uh the L_C_D_ uh display +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You assume , you want a democratic voyt vote , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . {vocalsound} One man one vote . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S so who thinks the the L_C_D_ disply display should be i should be in it ? +Marketing: I th I'd like t it to be in but I can't see it happening . I can't see it fitting in . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to be . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu y you're a power voter {disfmarker} uh veto anyway as Project Manager . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , I know , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah but the only thing is that what is the multiple functionalities you want to include with that . +Marketing: {gap} well we have to make a decision now , that's it . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh uh having an L_C_D_ s display is just uh uh have very very limited amount of buttons . Is that acceptable ? Ca can I have {disfmarker} can the functions be implement in an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} you you agree . +User Interface: W I I I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So hav hav having seven buttons , instead of twelve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that wou would be cutting cutting suh say about these buttons {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Because one yeah th show me that uh actually we could in fact we move these three buttons and have three uh possibilities for each of the three here . Here one , at the middle , and at the bottom . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . I think then we we're really losing ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Okay , {gap} . +User Interface: That will create another problem . For the people to use it . It's not going to be easy . Doing that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . So um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I I think we should we should cut the L_C_D_ screen . That that's that's my opinion . +User Interface: No , it's okay , you uh cut the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: and introduce two more buttons . +Marketing: Okay . So L_C_D_'s out , is speech rec out now ? We've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The speech recognition is out . Because of the budget , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh where , L_C_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay w we now we can just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we basically back to the original one now , back to the first version ? Which turns out to be on budget exactly , pretty much . With these new costings . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: So {gap} just look at {disfmarker} forget that one and look at that one now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . I th I th I think w we just go for this one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and that that now twelve Euros is the is is the price , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My m my supervisor will be glad that it's fifty cents cheaper than he expected . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Actually yeah , +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: we we we will not need the really uh expert designers um because the amount , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . So w we can go back and l talk to the suppliers maybe +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and see if we can drive the prices down to add a few more things in but that's all we can do with the restrictions we have at the moment . +Project Manager: Okay , good . Then we {gap} the same . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That was it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +User Interface: That's it . Cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","During a project meeting involving team members from marketing, industrial design, user interface, and project management, the group convened to discuss the design and costing of a new remote control product. The conversation covered a multitude of subjects, ranging from design elements and functionality to market demographics and budget constraints. + +At the meeting’s outset, the marketing representative queried whether an email containing slides was received, suggesting there might have been difficulties, while the industrial designer considered the need to alter the design of the 'pen,' implying significant changes to the product's form factor. As the team discussed potential design features, such as the placement of the remote and its functionality with regard to seat floors versus user interaction, the marketing member pointed out that Jo, likely a colleague, was making faces, suggesting a lighthearted or stressful atmosphere. + +An important point of discussion was the late arrival of Matthew, a team member whose presence was deemed critical due to his role as the main designer. The industrial designer mentioned the possibility of summarizing the meeting for him, stressing the importance of his input on the designs which they had worked on together. + +The teams delved into the costing and design aspects of their product, with a special focus on staying within a budget of twelve Euros and fifty cents. The project manager emphasized that exceeding the budget would necessitate a redesign as there was no room for negotiation on the cost. The discussion then turned to presentations of designs created by the industrial designer—low-cost basic models priced at seven to eight Euros featuring a unique surfboard shape intended to unconsciously encourage users to ’surf’ through TV channels or browse the web. + +The conversation became technical as it ventured into the product's design specifics, including the number of buttons, the inclusion of LEDs for infrared functionality, volume control placement, and possible texturing of keypads. A central theme was the need to align the design with both user preferences and market trends, while addressing budget constraints. + +The team discussed the remote control's interface and the potential integration of sophisticated features like an LCD display, speech recognition, and streamlined button layouts, further complicating the budget situation as these features implied higher production costs. An extensive debate ensued about the possibility of downscaling or eliminating the LCD in order to meet the strict budget limit without compromising essential features like the distinctive surfboard design. Suggestions to contact the supplier for price negotiations or to potentially increase funding for design elements were also tossed around. + +The meeting's deliberation showcased the intricate balance of function, design, costs, consumer appeal, and market trends, and how that balance impacts product development. By the end of the meeting, after much discussion about the specification and redesigning to fit a cost frame, the team seemed to lean towards a more basic model without the LCD display to comply with the budget while considering reach out to suppliers for possibly lower component prices. + +Overall, the meeting reflected a typical scenario of balancing innovation and practicality within financial constraints, with a collective focus on crafting a product that successfully addresses the market's needs while also staying economically viable for the company." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , almost there . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint , I guess . How was that , was that fun ? +User Interface: Mm . Very fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes , but I will do . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker} +Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: copy . {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there's good news ? +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have budget problems . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Cutbacks . +Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked . Oops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't even have this on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , have you got a presentation to make ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , not mine yet . +Project Manager: No . Okay +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so it's just your your show . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We made three for you . +Project Manager: Three ? Oh . +User Interface: Um one's based on the banana , one's based on the tomato +Project Manager: Tomato ? What tomato ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the other one is st +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Look . Oh yeah , well yeah , we had v some red left over . +Project Manager: Ah I see , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Okay , so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one , or as mm few buttons as possible , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mainly speak recognition . The yellow there is the um +Project Manager: Logo . +User Interface: the slogan , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +User Interface: that we need to incorporate , it's very simple . If you do need buttons , you can flip it over , and there's some there , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons would be like , you know individual users , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that . Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you guys can have a look at that if you want . +Project Manager: That's groovy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it , I like the feel of it . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . Um that one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , it's delicate . +Project Manager: At Oh dear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one . That's it stand . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: It does also lie flat , but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant mm . +User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan . +Project Manager: Okay , nice and obvious there {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Uh yeah , that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we did think of that . +Project Manager: if it's standing up , I guess , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if it's standing up it's it's on there , but also we're gonna have the company name on the front , which is the little black kind of line in the middle . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , brilliant . Like that from its centre . +User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing . These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down . We n were weren't sure about putting them there , because um i it's it kind of could get bashed . +Project Manager: Where you're , yeah , uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , if you hold it , you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it , is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: if you've got small hands . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger . +Project Manager: Yeah , scale model , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um that's a speaker at the top , so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons . Yeah kind of self-explanatory , just buttons whenever you need them . Tried to keep it simple . Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap} . And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's not in the traditional place , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place . +Project Manager: It's out of the way as well , I suppose , so . Excellent . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one is uh , I suppose for the younger audiences . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah excellent , just what we need . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah . Well , nice to have uh options at least . +Industrial Designer: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It won't stand . +Project Manager: Oh there are issues , oh there are issues . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down , it wont stand . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Uh , let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons , uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So we have to +Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left ? {gap} +Project Manager: rea Sorry , I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} There we go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh god , why is it doing that ? +User Interface: Ooh . +Project Manager: There we go . {vocalsound} So basically , um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape , but just have it flattened . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: More like a traditional remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape , so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no , hold on . Doesn't save us quite as much . I don't know what's going on with this again . +Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them ? +Project Manager: Oh , good point . +Marketing: And double curve on both sides ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Curve {vocalsound} . Yeah , this is double-curve , +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out . +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: Is i +Marketing: This is double-curve . It {disfmarker} This one is single curve . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause this is single curve , this is curved on both sides . So double-curve . +Project Manager: No , I think it means double curved as in um +User Interface: Like an S_ shape . +Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half , and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , I might be wrong though . +Marketing: Like this , one curve on this side , one curve on that side . +Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve , I think that's just a shape . +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there , right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and why why I've got it two , I don't know , I can't seem to select any more however . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out . But you think it should be one . +Project Manager: It's meant to be one , yeah , I don't know why I put two in there , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it , I think this shift button might be stuck again . No maybe the shift button's stuck in . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay , so that would take away three , which would give us {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty . +User Interface: Cool . Cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we could even add something . +Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite , have the scroll-wheel , unfortunately . +Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants . +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah , we could add things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell , where you're starting from , and then use the arrow keys . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Does that work ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , that just extends it as well . +Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah , this box . Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking , I don't know {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay , just a minute . Okay . No input , like this . {vocalsound} Shift . No it's not . +Project Manager: No , it's 'cause the uh the shift button's stuck , or something . +Marketing: Yeah , it's not working . +Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe ? +Marketing: Should we ask Meli +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine . Um we've worked out what it would be anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons ? It could be the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cancel . Piss off . +Industrial Designer: That's too bad . +Project Manager: Oh well , never mind . Um {vocalsound} . Right , so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add ? Um +User Interface: Well maybe we could add something , but maybe if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money , so . Yeah , if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money , if we don't have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there , then , you know , feel free to add it . Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now . +Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay , so project evaluation . We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty . Project process , how do we think that went ? Are we happy ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Evaluation . Oh we've been writing this up for m months . +User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly . +Project Manager: Uh room for creativity , were we happy with that ? +User Interface: W I think we were very creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I mea I think it means sort of individually . +User Interface: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , no , maybe ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Groovy . So uh we're just gonna . Uh yeah , okay . Teamwork ? Leadership , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Great leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Excellent leadership . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you very much . You're all get you're all getting a raise . Uh teamwork . I thought went well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , everyone got enough input , I think . +Project Manager: Uh and well means , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , we {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though . +Project Manager: I don't know what , new ideas found , means , to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , these are new ideas , like glow-in-the-dark or something like that . We discussed all the new ideas , but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals , we couldn't use these {gap} , but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this . These are new ideas we And new shapes , everything +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: . At le {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Groovy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Well um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} . I suppose yeah . Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this , right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it , um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay . +Project Manager: Whoops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it go back in , does it ? Reusable . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian , have you have you finished ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Uh mine needs also this . +Project Manager: Um I have , yes . +Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation . +Project Manager: Huh ? Oh right , okay , you've got more , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , you got a presentation , +Project Manager: Sorry uh . +User Interface: sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh ok +Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this +Marketing: S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thing . Is it ? Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated , that is mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me . {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves , we thought we were great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Mm , love to eat that now . +Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of a green banana now . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well , sorry , we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex , new material that we've got . +Project Manager: O okay , hold on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got . +Industrial Designer: {gap} blue . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want . {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I didn't realise you had that bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . Thank you . +Marketing: So now is the final evaluation , final evaluation of the uh uh of our product . How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not . How mu What rating we will give to these products . So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work , w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything . So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements , whether it meets the user requirements or not , this product . Then trends , whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not ? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also . Then marketing strategy of the company . As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market , not only in terms of providing quality products , not only in pro providing latest technologies , but also in terms of providing environmental s +User Interface: Sorry {gap} . Sorry , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: carry on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products , uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues . So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale . I'm having this scale this scale , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so we have to do it on a board . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The board working again , is it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: There it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product . First of all uh comes user requirement . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not . I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views , what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , it did . +Marketing: S +User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so . +Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_ , +User Interface: Does it work ? +Project Manager: so yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give . +Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet . +User Interface: I would say seven . +Marketing: Seven . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good , yeah , isn't it ? I can't {disfmarker} True or false ? No sorry tr one is true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One , yeah . +Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven , or one ? +Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end , and false is the oth +Industrial Designer: No that's false . +Marketing: Okay , right right . So it's one for from your point of view . +User Interface: Okay , so one . +Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . It's hard to know . I I give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design , because she was our i Interface Expert . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology , whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I think i it might even exceed it um . But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: And what about uh you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Oh , I'll go for a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You will go for one . +Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh for me personally it is everything fine , it may be having good design , it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise , price-wise , but there is one thing which limits the customers , like we are having only two , three designs , like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah , lower end . And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana , or orange , you are limiting him . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't buy our product , because we are l we like this only . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: two or three kinds rather , and {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Is that no is that not trends ? +Marketing: Uh no , uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits , they give a range of products , a range of shapes , like if we see , look at the smallest thing , toffee chocolates , they give a variety of different things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape , some apple shape , some even pineapple shape , some orange shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers . And by limiting them , we are limiting our sales , limiting our profit also . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But in electronics , I think , it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think , you know , if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from , a company'll have two or three choices , but they're different designs . We were coming up with one product . +Marketing: Uh maybe . Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , on an average we can think three , four sevenths , maybe . Three or four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , no sorry , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it should be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Six . Five or six . +User Interface: What are we doing ? +Industrial Designer: What are we doing ? +Marketing: No sorry , sorry , sorry , sorry , we are doing a very wrong thing . +User Interface: Adding them up ? +Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , we are taking everything , +Industrial Designer: Okay . So seven fourths . +Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah uh +Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight . +Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly . So we can say one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two , so we will do two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So trends . +Marketing: So where were the trends . +Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends ? +Marketing: Yeah , again the the fashion trends , this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had , that fruit and vegetables are quite popular , and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons , I would give it um , well , because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at , that that looks cool , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I would actually give it a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Tha three or four , I'm not sure . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Three . Go for three . That's fine . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . As far as the uh technology it its' got the latest trends in speech technology , but it's missing the screen , as we said , um but it does have the push-buttons , or the scroll-buttons , um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism . So I give it a a four . I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: for technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in , I mean uh it might +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it might be trendy to some , but I'm just not swallowing the fruit , so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it . Um so yeah I'd say about four as well . +Marketing: Okay . Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends , these products are quite good , like , these products are in fruit shape , because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised , like clothes , shoes , and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables , or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So and in this way our product is good . And the second thing , now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market . And yes . It is cus spongy also . So they can play with it , it's quite good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So then I think , maybe I can give it two . So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap} . So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine ? So what about company strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the company strategy , okay . Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing , that was good . Um I feel I got my say . Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Is that the question ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Is it ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Okay , so {vocalsound} one or two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: One . Okay , just leave it , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: I'll go with two . +Marketing: So what about you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , a three . Pretty much kept to the company strategy , so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one , as we not only kept it , but we were limited by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , and me also , like , this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers' requirement , as per latest technology , and it should be environmental safe . So since our product meets all these requirements , so I would also prefer to give it rank one . So four six six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half . +Marketing: half . +User Interface: Yeah , one . +Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . So th seven seven . Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something , but we can round it as two . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good . +Project Manager: Cool , groovy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So we can launch it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . Brilliant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Woo-hoo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done . 'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +","Summary: + +The team discusses the design and financial aspects of a product prototype, which includes variants based on fruits like bananas and tomatoes. They aim for simple design with speech recognition functionality and minimal buttons. Budget issues arise, leading to considerations of cost-cutting measures while maintaining product functionality. Despite some concerns over adherence to trends and user preferences, the team ultimately rates their product's design, trend alignment, and company strategy fit positively. The project manager concludes by affirming that they are within budget and suggests a celebration for the successful evaluation of the product." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: It's Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Play-Doh's edible . Did you know that ? It's definitely {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because kids {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I used to eat it . +User Interface: I've , I've definitely eaten it before . I didn't know was edible . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's it's chew proof . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um , it's it's made edible 'cause , yeah . It's made edible 'cause kids eat it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if it's wasn't edible then {disfmarker} Well , normal babies . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually that makes sense , because I remember like , peopl I dunno if my Mom ever did it but I remember other people's Moms making like home-made Play-Doh where you just like make the {gap} colouring and make some sort of sort of dough . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah it is , yeah . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Everybody everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's have your um {disfmarker} let's get {gap} have the uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We've got some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We've got a cool prototype . +User Interface: Yeah , it's pretty exciting . So , everything uh that we wanted we wanted it to be ergonomic and to be made out of rubber , very simple and easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Double curved . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: yeah , double curved , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um but also something that was gonna jump out at people , something that would be different uh , separate it from the other remotes out on the market . So uh I think if you put this in the palm of your hand , you'll see what a nice thing we have going here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is cool . +User Interface: So , basically , if you hold it like that , the one on your thumb , yeah , {vocalsound} the thumb button is the power button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your index finger is channel up , middle finger is channel down , ring finger is volume up , your pinkie is volume down . +Marketing: What's the big blue thing ? +User Interface: That's the lock button , has a L_ L_ on it +Marketing: Oh cool . +User Interface: and then the M_ is a mute button . And then it also has digit +Project Manager: {gap} what button ? Um . Oh mute . +User Interface: For muting the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And mute . +User Interface: Um and then then you can also {disfmarker} there's a numeric keypad on the top so you can key directly to the to the channel if you want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's really basic functionalities as far as what keys are available , but we think it's very comfortable and very innovative and it looks different . +Project Manager: That certainly does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So all the , I mean the important keys are right at your f f you know right at uh at a convenient place for you to to access them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Which is ant anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: So you don't you {disfmarker} Yeah . It should be . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And it's also conformable to the size of your hand . I mean if that's too big , it's a rubber remote , so you can , you know +Project Manager: Yeah . 'S great . +User Interface: change that . So d does that uh what {disfmarker} mesh with what you guys were hoping and for and expecting or does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it's so cute . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have one thing about it , but it's a small thing , but it'd mean we'd have to make a right-handed one and a left-handed one . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . +User Interface: Ah , that's good thinking , yeah . +Project Manager: But , that's I don't see why that's not possible . +User Interface: Yeah , if we build rocket ships why can't we build left-handed and right-handed uh remotes . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} They make left-handed scissors , you know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I didn't I didn't think about that , but I'd {disfmarker} yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , but then but then you can learn to use your right h like I was just thinking if there's left-handers and right-handers in the family , what , they have two remotes ? +Project Manager: Yes s +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know I know people who have left-handed and right-handed people in the family and they all use the computer {vocalsound} for the whole {disfmarker} the same computer the fes family and they have a mouse , and everybody is using right-handed mouse . +Project Manager: Mm . Sure . Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm sure they'll be able to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I mean it's only pressing buttons , you don't have to do anything , you know , extraordinary . I think everybody can press a button with their left and right hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine d are you right handed ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine you're doing it with your left hand , I don't think it's too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we can have both uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Have them in stock . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Make 'em more appealing as well . +Project Manager: But um other than that , I mean uh and that's um , you know , that's just something , I think I think it's great , yeah , great idea . +User Interface: Do you think it says {vocalsound} R_R_ ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think it does . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's , well , if the R_R_ motto is , we bring fashion to to electronics , I'd say that could be quite fashionable . +User Interface: Fashion to electronics . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's got the b the black and yellow and blue . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Plus red , which is sort of a a fruit and vegetable uh uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There you go . +User Interface: So that's that's {vocalsound} our end of things wha uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , very good , yeah . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's come up with what we've you know , the things that's what we've {disfmarker} what we were looking at doing , hasn't it , {gap} all seems to be there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: And all the playing around is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um before we move on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just {disfmarker} do you wanna plug in ? +Project Manager: I need that cable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . Yeah . Um . One thing I do need to do {disfmarker} we need to look at , is the costs . +User Interface: The costs , was that what you said ? +Industrial Designer: Play-Doh is very cheap . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Play-Doh won't last very long everybody'll go like , oops , it's gone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's edible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Chew proof . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , they'll buy more of them if you eat them , {gap} . +User Interface: That was the main criteria from the last meeting , it had to be chew proof . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh right . {vocalsound} Okay , now I think we'll do this {disfmarker} I could do {disfmarker} you know , I can do this o on my own or I could do it with you , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh ho-ho . +Project Manager: but it's just easy enough to go through it with you , so we're going for the kinetic power . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the electronics , we decided on it being just a simple , the easiest thing that's inside it . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} the case , we've gone for the double curved . Um and it's made out of rubber . {vocalsound} The interface is push-buttons . And button supplements well they're in diff special colours , aren't they ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} special colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's better for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Special form , yeah , they're a special form there in shapes and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean , {vocalsound} these these ones on the side are curved kind of , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And special material . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . Um . Are they made out of any special material ? +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +Project Manager: No they're not . They're not made out of wood or titanium or rubber or anything , they're just simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons are rubber . +Marketing: Well they're rubber , aren't they ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So let's see if that comes within budget . And it does . That is gonna cost uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: We're under budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's gonna cost ten ten Euro seventy cents a unit to make . And our target was it had to come in at under twelve fifty . +User Interface: That's cool . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: And we're actua actually making a better profit than we expected . +Project Manager: this is all very very good . The bosses will be very pleased . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , let's just save this so I can e-mail it to you . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Save it in {gap} save it in the uh {vocalsound} my documents . +Marketing: It's already saved , I think . +Project Manager: Splendid . Okay . So uh , that's {gap} done with this with this um doodah , so you're {gap} . Gonna do {disfmarker} what you were gonna do , +Marketing: Thank you . Mm . +Project Manager: your evaluation . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . This is where we all get to {vocalsound} I get to write on the , oops , on the board . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . 'S function {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} I love the smell of that Play-Doh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I cou {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: have some have some . +Marketing: Okay . So , {vocalsound} evaluation . We're gonna do it all together so we evaluate each criteria . I've got the criterias . And we have to do it on a scale of one to seven , one being true , so it's it's more like it's {disfmarker} fits the criteria , and seven being as in it doesn't fit the criteria . And the criterias are , and I'll draw this up on the board {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we have a box {disfmarker} {gap} . And this is false , this is just like to keep you informed . So seven's here and one's here and then you've got in the middle . {vocalsound} So the first criteria . Do you all get what we're doing ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , cool . Okay , first criteria , look and feel . So the does remote look and feel fashionable to what we talked about ? As it {disfmarker} is it colour-wise and is it spongy ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So what mark should we give for that ? +Project Manager: I would give it a seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: As in it's not . +Project Manager: Oh sorry , one , d yeah . +User Interface: Oh , sorry , one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A one . +Marketing: A one a one . So I'll just write criteria criteria one we get one . Second criteria , new technology . Have we implemented new technology ? As in the new high-tech {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the kinetic thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . That was our main technological innovation w every everything else was fairly simple , but the fact that we used the kinetic energy was new . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: So it's {gap} . So we'll give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's ergonomic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's not {disfmarker} that's that's a design that's a des that's a design thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not a technological thing , that's another thing , i that's another marketing thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . True . +Project Manager: So on the technical side of it it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I'd say it's about a a twoish ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's about in the mid in the middle somewhere , +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: maybe , yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe three , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} three . So criteria three is is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: Easy to use . +Marketing: I think it's a one , I think . +Project Manager: I'd say it's I wouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: not if you're left-handed it's not . I would give it a I would give it a two , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Two , +Project Manager: 'cause i i it i it i it is more geared for right-handed people than left-handed people , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But if we make a right-handed and a left-handed then ? +User Interface: If we're gonna have one left-handed and one right-handed then I would give it a one , but otherwise otherwise a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Give it a t give it a two . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , criteria four is costs . {gap} +Project Manager: Cost . It's come in under budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 's great . +Project Manager: So that's a definite one . +User Interface: Yeah . That was great . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Amount of buttons . +Marketing: Like the amount of buttons , +Project Manager: Contains only the necessary buttons . +Marketing: 'cause people like a lot le like {disfmarker} So it's a one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um criteria six . R_S_I_ is it good against ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes s yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Very good . +Project Manager: So it's anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: It's one . And criteria seven , which is the last one , does it get lost ? +Industrial Designer: It's yellow . +Marketing: Is it easy to get lost ? +Project Manager: I don't think it's gonna get lost easily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is very bright , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? But it is smallish . +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's not the kinda thing that's gonna slip like between a couch cushion or something , you know . Maybe it will . Uh . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Mm . I think i it would , could be , could get lost . +User Interface: You think it could lost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} two . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it's not fully it's not fully {disfmarker} like you can't say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I mean +Marketing: I mean , it's not a one , definitely . +Project Manager: I mean , you could still flush it down the toilet theoretically , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , anything , I mean . Okay . It's bigger than the average mobile , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But , yeah , it can get lost . +Marketing: The mobiles get lost all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay , yeah , two is fine . +Marketing: But then you ring 'em and you find them . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So , that's that . So that's the evaluation , so I'd say {disfmarker} Yay . +Project Manager: Alright it's all all systems go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We've , we've done well . +Marketing: It's like {vocalsound} {gap} like a number one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Number one product . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We can't fail . +Marketing: All done , thanks . We fitted all the criterias . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well done , Reissa . +Marketing: So that's that one . +Project Manager: Okay , I I think um I just wanna put in as Project Manager the you know , little bit of praise for everybody here for how they've worked on it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , both individually and as a team . You know you've w everyone's come up with their own individual ideas in their own different departments , um and then come together and worked in , you know , integrally , you know , at the right times , psp , you know , especially you two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all , you know , gone very very well +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and and be you know , has been good communication going on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , during our design I mean there was some s some heated heated discussion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we we kept {disfmarker} we tried to keep it cool and and +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did you have to go down to the the corporate squash court and bash a few balls about ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We just had to we just had to squeeze our product a little bit and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fantastic . +Industrial Designer: It is {gap} . +User Interface: Now you guys have been a a great team . Think we're the we're the envy of all the of all the other R_R_ teams , {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} been cool . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I , you know , and I think we've co we have come we've come up with something new , something that hasn't been done before , we haven't {disfmarker} we're not just rehashing an old design . +Marketing: In four diff in in four meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Funny , all designer meetings could be this quick . +Project Manager: You know , maybe this isn't a simulation , maybe this is actually {disfmarker} so it's like Sony or someone like that they're they're just , yeah , {gap} they get {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're actually trying to find ideas for a ideal remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're using our ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , {gap} two years' time this will be on the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ex exactly that product +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um thum {disfmarker} we'll go , yeah , we designed that and no-one will believe us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So at this stage , I mean , is this the last meeting of the project ? We don't uh have another one after it's gone gone to marke market or something ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I think when this meeting's finished like officially , there b we'll get a uh questionnaire to fill in . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y Oh really ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or six , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just start summarising now . {vocalsound} You can reply to the same message . +Project Manager: I haven't got message . +Marketing: See summary , there . If you just reply to that one . +User Interface: So there's no way to like predict what our {disfmarker} 'Cause we had a {disfmarker} we originally had a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} As far as our financial uh um goals , we had a specific number for profits that we wanted . It was fifty mil fifty million {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was it was it fifty or five ? +User Interface: I don't remember . But there's not a way to compute that , I mean , since we saved on the on the production cost , do we know how much we're making on profit ? +Project Manager: It gets handed over to another department . +Marketing: Depends how much we sell . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: What our what our project was was to come up with the product , basically . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the for the {disfmarker} and just basically is it it come {disfmarker} can {disfmarker} is it within budget . When it c when it comes to all the other things of how to sell it and , you know , the b the profits and all that that's other departments {disfmarker} it's another team that actually work out the mai the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we have a vested interest {gap} +Project Manager: oh yeah , the {disfmarker} all the guys in the profit sharing , yeah . +User Interface: prof profit sharing {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Yeah , that's it . You know , we've we've we've made i we've made +Marketing: We finished an hour earlier . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've designed the product , we've ma we've got the prototype , it's within budget , it's {disfmarker} does everything that we wanted it to do . It's new , it's it's um something that uh {vocalsound} that isn't out there already . +User Interface: I think actually {disfmarker} and one advantage of of this is that after the uh , you know , after this fad of fruit and vegetables passes this will still be c a cool remote , you know . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We're not we're not you know , tying tying our cart to that one horse {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Well , this is very marketable in that it is it's it's something that's kind of new and looks a bit quirky for people who want that , +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} that it's um , hang on , I wrote it down here somewhere {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no I thi I put it in one of my e-mails that I sent off . Um that , you know , it's marketable in the sense that it's {disfmarker} whilst all these other remotes uh actually do give you repetitive strain injury , our one does the complete opposite , you know , +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: so that's something that's new , which is one of the criteria they asked us to come up with something with something new . +User Interface: Mm . It make watching T_V_ healthy . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if you're not having a good time with the T_V_ , you can f throw it about , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's fine , it's kid proof . +Marketing: Just don't sh don't throw it at any of the ornaments and break them . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you can break the ornaments , but you won't break that . +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . So all in all , I think we've done very well . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Project Manager: Well done everybody . +User Interface: Right , you too . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: Um . Drinks are on the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the corporate bar that's next to the corporate swimming pool on the top floor that we're that've all just gained access to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Glad to hear that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's it . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Well , as far as I t as far as I know . Um . +Marketing: Yep . We haven't got the five minute left thing yet . +Project Manager: No . Anyone wanna play I spy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess it's probably better that we wrap it up than have five minutes of silence . Should we call the day then ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess . I mean we're gonna get asked to fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: Uh , right . +Project Manager: Um . It's probably gonna be the same as one we've done before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I'm not the authority to say that it is . +Marketing: In {gap} project . +Project Manager: Um how does everyone feel about the technology that's been used in this ? The sort of using of the the pens and writing on these special pads and all that ? +Marketing: I love it . {vocalsound} I love it . {vocalsound} I think it's cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Being all wired up and a vibrating pen and {disfmarker} it's cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Being watched . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Your moment to shine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: I thi you know , I'd I'd n yeah , as we said earlier , I've not {disfmarker} never seen that before . {gap} something that t the whiteboard +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: thingy , {vocalsound} that's great . Um , but a p a pen with a camera on it , I don't think it's such a new thing . I mean it's i or in such a new idea . It would be different if it was sort of hand writing recognition stuff , but as it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's literally that'll come up on a computer screen as a picture file rather than actual text . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right , I think they do want to do hand writing recognition on that , it's just the first step . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Logitech . +User Interface: I guess we should end this , since we're off off topic . So . Shall we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Meeting adjourned . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +","The team discussed the design and functionality of a new remote. Marketing described Play-Doh as edible to highlight the remote's safety for kids. The designers stated it's ergonomic, made of rubber, and easy to use. They aimed for innovation and user convenience. The Project Manager suggested making versions for right and left-handed users. A concern about the remote getting lost was raised, so color choices were important. The unit cost was €10.70, below the €12.50 target, which was favorably received. They conducted an evaluation across different criteria, assigning ratings based on how well the product met intended goals. They concluded the meeting by discussing the technology used in their project and the potential efficiency of tools like digital pens for writing recognition. The team seemed satisfied with their collaboration and the project outcomes." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I have a declaration of interest, Chair. I understand that my daughter features in one of the videos that is going to be used to contribute evidence to this inquiry. And, in addition, I'm a governor of one of the schools that features in the video. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Darren. So, item 2, then, today is our first session on the provision of textbooks and learning resources for pupils, which is a video of interviews with young people and teachers. The committee team has been out to take video evidence around Wales, and we're now going to watch the results of that on the screen. Okay. Well, I'm sure that the committee would want me to place on record our thanks to the young people and the teachers who took part in that very helpful and informative video. We'll move on now then to our evidence session, and I'm very pleased to welcome Gareth Pierce, chief executive of the WJEC, Mike Ebbsworth, assistant director educational support, WJEC, Philip Blaker, chief executive of Qualifications Wales, and Emyr George, associate director general qualifications at Qualifications Wales. So, thank you all of you for attending and thank you for the papers that you provided in advance as well. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions now, and if I can just start by asking you to outline what you see as your role in ensuring that students and teachers in Wales have the resources that they need to pass general qualifications and what you think the role of commercial publishers and Welsh Government is. +Philip Blaker: Shall I start? So, Qualifications Wales is the regulator of the awarding bodies, so we regulate awarding bodies. Our powers are structured around the regulating of awarding bodies. We don't regulate commercial publishers nor the provision of textbooks within that. In regulating the awarding body, our primary focus is also on the design of the qualifications and then the delivery of the assessment. So, it's much more around the assessment side than teaching resources. That said, when we are going through the design of the qualifications, we go through an approval process, so we develop approval criteria and we ask WJEC to submit their specifications against those approval criteria and sample assessment materials as well. So, our focus is very much on making sure that teachers are able, through the sample assessment materials and the specifications, to have a good understanding of what is going to be expected of them in the examinations and of their pupils in the examinations. So, that's setting out the knowledge, skills and understandings that will be assessed by WJEC when those exams are sat. We have in the past pulled together groups of people to look at issues like resources. So, during the last round of approvals, we pulled together interested parties in Welsh Government, regional consortia and WJEC to look at resources that would be available with a view to facilitating the discussion about who would be best placed to fill the gaps where there may be perceived to be gaps in resources. Our other primary role is in maintaining standards. So, as the regulator of qualifications, what we want to do is we want to make that the awards of qualifications—so, the grades that people get—are fair. One of the things we do is set out the way in which the awarding bodies will set grades—so, the awarding process, the methods that will be used—and then we monitor WJEC's award of grades against those processes. During a period of change, we prescribe the use of comparable outcomes as the primary approach, largely because comparable outcomes are designed for circumstances like this, where there's a change in a specification particularly, because there are any number of reasons, including resources, why performance may be different from one year to the next, but comparable outcomes is there to ensure that, all things being equal, if the cohorts have the same ability, the same grade should be awarded from one year to the next. We do recognise that there have been delays in textbooks. Much of that has been related to the timelines that we've all had to deliver new specifications against, which have been far from ideal for everybody involved. We think that particularly our role moving forward will be looking at the timelines for reforms that will be necessary for the new curriculum to make sure that this situation isn't repeated and that there is sufficient time in future reforms to allow for greater system readiness. In terms of the roles of others, Welsh Government have a role at the moment in terms of grant funding of translation of materials into Welsh medium. And there is, through the common model at the moment—and this is a model that is common between England and Wales—a reliance on commercial publishers to provide textbooks. Now, that's something that probably needs to be looked at in the future in terms of potential different models for how that might be achieved and also, potentially, around a paradigm shift in what's expected of those materials. So, I think that sets out Qualification Wales's position in particular. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. The WJEC does provide what's required in a regulatory sense, and there are two things there—the specification, which tends to be very comprehensive in providing guidance in terms of drawing up a programme of teaching, and also exemplar assessments, which include marking, and those go to the regulator before they are published. So, those samples go to the regulator. The WJEC also do invest a great deal in resources that we produce digitally in both languages simultaneously. Each new course has substantial teaching guidance, which includes a great deal of useful information for teachers and pupils. And we run a professional development programme for teachers that is free of charge when courses are new, and then annually there is some charge for those events. They are face-to-face events, or, increasingly, they are webinars. The WJEC also encourages publishers to take an interest in providing textbooks. We don't have a commercial agreement with publishers. Indeed, the regulations as they stand in Wales, Northern Ireland and England preclude examination bodies from having commercial links with providers of textbooks, but that is something that emerges from the three-nation regime that existed in terms of qualifications. So, that is one point that we noted as something that needs to be considered for Wales as we move forward, whether it would be possible—. As we are not talking about examination boards competing with each other in Wales for GCSE and A-levels, in passing, that is something that I would want to suggest may deserve review. We encourage publishers to take an interest. At the moment, these tend to be England-based—Hodder Education and Illuminate Education, for example—and then the Welsh Government does provide funding to the WJEC to support the process of providing Welsh-language versions for those textbooks. So, we use that funding to provide editorial support to the process, and also to pay for translation costs, and we give significant guidance in terms of terminology. We have a language services team including excellent editors and translators within the WJEC, and we work closely with external translators too, and we use translation technology increasingly, which facilitates a great many things. Beyond that, I think the WJEC does see the need for flexibility, particularly when difficulties arise, and you heard there of some of the methods used by Mike and others to get digital resources available earlier than the print versions. And I should also note perhaps that, as the WJEC is very much involved with stakeholders, we feel that we do have a contribution to make in terms of ideas for the future. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We heard in the video that teachers are spending a lot of their time actually translating materials. What is your view on that as a good use of teachers' time in Wales? +Gareth Pierce: I think the question of translation is an interesting one. There was talk about pupils translating and teachers translating. I think perhaps we need to understand what causes the need for that because, as I mentioned earlier, there are so many resources available digitally in both languages at the same time. Perhaps an interesting question is: is that source useful for teachers, being able to draw resources from two sources? Another interesting question, I think, is—. The Welsh language, of course, is a language that is used in an educational context, but we are in a big world that's an English language world. I'm very aware that many of the websites we refer to in our resources and many of the case studies, as was mentioned in that video—they are available in English only. Therefore, I think another interesting question is: can we discover what those additional resources are that are worth translating? And, certainly, it would be very unfortunate if there were a dozen Welsh-medium schools, for example, translating material from the same website independently of each other. If there are a few websites, or a few case studies, in this big external digital world that are worth translating, shouldn't we able to source those early? Because I don't think it's a good use of teachers' time. But I also think that the use of both languages is an interesting one. What is the vision in terms of teaching in a Welsh-medium class, in particular, perhaps, in the A-level classes? I'm sure that some teachers feel that there is a way of enriching the teaching by referring to terms in both languages, as well as explaining those terms in their own language. But the impression I got from the video was that there was quite a lot of mechanical translating happening, and perhaps there is a need to understand more of the context. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just to pick up on your point on the additional materials, whose role would it be to asses this or to take that overview, and then to respond to the demand? +Gareth Pierce: Mike, in the WJEC, has conversations about resources in the team he's part of. +Mike Ebbsworth: Yes. That is extremely important—to identify, as Gareth has just said, those materials that need to be translated, and not everything needs to. We've made a lot of use recently of speaking with teachers and the consortia, and ensuring then that we are focusing on those things that need that attention. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But would you—? The question I'm asking is: would you still see that as a core part of your work, although it's not necessarily essential in terms of the provision that you're required to provide? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, we invest substantially from the WJEC budget into digital resources. So, through the types of conversations that Mike mentioned, in terms of identifying needs, deciding on priorities with teachers in individual subject areas, that can provide very useful information for us in terms of prioritisation. Of course, the digital packages that we create are already based on conversations with teachers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, it's already happening to a certain extent. +Gareth Pierce: Well, yes, but we could always go a step further. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do we need further resources for that? +Gareth Pierce: Well, it's an interesting question. The WJEC is doing as much as we can— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Why isn't it happening to the extent that it needs to happen, then? +Gareth Pierce: One can always do more, of course. The WJEC is trying to use its budget prudently, and most of our funding comes from payments made by schools and colleges in terms of taking assessments. So, we do have a budget, but it's not a bottomless pit. So, we do need to make choices within the substantial budget we have in terms of the work that Mike is undertaking. +Mike Ebbsworth: There is a need to be careful as well in identifying resources and needs, and that those are suited towards the requirements. Quite often a teacher—and I've been a teacher myself—has this idea that there is a need to have everything. But, certainly, that's not always the case. Quite often, the focus is on different things. There has been a move towards different means of assessment over recent years, and we've moved our resources towards that to meet the needs of teachers on how to undertake that sort of assessment. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in on any of this? +Philip Blaker: I'm just going to say one thing. Teachers will want to be creative in the use of resources, and, in doing that, they'll potentially want to adapt resources from either language. I think one of the things that we would be quite keen to try and establish moving forward is what is the common core that should by default be available bilingually, and then what sits around that that would be for schools to use creatively and adapt. And what I wouldn't want to see is a default position where all materials were bilingual—a wide range of resources that might be created from all sorts of diverse, different channels—because that may inhibit the creation of some of those materials that may be more creative, which could then be used by teachers as they see appropriate. But I think it is reasonable to expect for that core, common body of knowledge to be available bilingually by default, and for teachers not to have to spend time translating that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. A final question from me, then. The £500,000 funding for Welsh-medium educational resource that's in the budget for 2018-19—are you able to share any information with the committee as to how that's going to be spent? +Gareth Pierce: Tthe WJEC has some information in terms of that budget. It is a Welsh Government budget, and they have annual discussions with us as to what resources we are likely to be working on along with publishers, and where we would like to make a claim against that grant to pay for the editorial and translation costs that we will have incurred. Now, there have been conversations recently about possible support from that grant for some research work into the use of various materials and resources, and also, although this would be a very small part, a contribution towards seminars for publishers. But that isn't a full picture of the £500,000; I think you would have to ask the Welsh Government about the exact allocation of that total fund. But there may be some flexibility. We've just started this financial year; I'm sure there is some flexibility in their thinking in terms of the use of some of this resource. Do you want to add anything, Mike? +Mike Ebbsworth: Certainly. We have contributed a list of publications, for example, that are ongoing, and they're aware of that, and a percentage of that funding then will go towards ensuring that those are there through the medium of Welsh. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Darren Millar. +Darren Millar AM: This is a huge mess, isn't it? It's a huge mess, which is causing lots of pressure and extra work for teachers, lots of pressure and extra work for learners, and is affecting the well-being of students, at a time when they need to be mentally fit, in order to go through the general stress that learners face when they have exams coming up. We know that the problems are not confined to Welsh-medium resources; they're also being experienced in English language resources as well, particularly in terms of the availability of textbooks. You've both mentioned—both of your organisations have mentioned that there needs to be some sort of common core of resources available for learners and teachers, and I would agree with you on that front. But isn't a textbook a pretty basic element of anybody's toolkit for supporting a child getting through the information that they need to learn, and swot up on, in advance of exams? +Gareth Pierce: I think that the evidence is that different learners see their requirements differently. And I agree that a textbook is part of the picture that should be available. But I think the evidence also shows that not every young person will use them; perhaps the teacher uses them. There is an emphasis, for example, from one pupil there, on that traditional model of revision, namely class notes and his own revision notes, but that he personally also wanted a textbook. So, certainly, the content of a textbook is going to be important, and that that's available in some form or other. It was very interesting to know, for example, that when he was describing the traditional model of revision, he felt that he'd had quite a lot of the content of the textbook through the classroom notes. Much of that digital content, of course, corresponds to the content areas of a textbook, but it's just in a different form. But, in general, there should be a textbook. And some of our frustration as well is that the timetables of some individual publishers don't always get us to the point where there is a textbook available in time. That doesn't happen so often in English medium, but we know about that gap in time in the Welsh provision. +Darren Millar AM: Well, it's happened fairly regularly in the English-medium textbook world, hasn't it? My daughter—she featured in that video—has got her RS qualifications coming up, and she only had a textbook over the Easter period. I mean, it's completely unacceptable. And many others in that video are also being affected. You mentioned digital resources; not everybody's got access to digital resources in their own homes, even, in Wales. So, aren't we giving a significant disadvantage to those learners who might need the traditional 'swotting up from a textbook' method of revision and benefit from that? +Mike Ebbsworth: We do ensure that those digital resources include things that the teachers can also print. Most of these are resources for teachers so that the teachers can adapt them for their own use, to suit the learners who are in front of them at any given time. But certainly there are materials there. If there are activities, then those activities can be printed off and handed to pupils so that they can take them home. So, I would be sceptical about that comment. We are thinking of the totality, ultimately. +Gareth Pierce: I think you're right that the availability of technology is an important part of this big picture. The young people talk about websites and blogs, and we're talking about digital resources, so being able to reach those resources, I think, is vital in Wales. It's interesting to note two contradictory remarks from the teaching associations in the letters. One praises what's available digitally, whereas another teaching organisation sees this as more work for teachers. As Mike said, we've created those resources that can be adapted. One teaching organisation says that it just creates more work, while another organisation says that the digital resource is something that's very valuable. Of course, the headteacher at the end was praising the fact that, in a situation of crisis or unacceptable timetables, we have succeeded in creating some resources that will be in the textbook later, but available digitally at an early stage. But I agree with your core comment that technology is vital, and access to that, and also the content of a textbook in some form is vital as well. +Darren Millar AM: Mr Blaker, you would agree that a textbook should be an essential core piece of the resource pack available for each qualification. +Philip Blaker: I think we wouldn't want to underplay the desirability of textbooks, recognising that different learners have different learning styles and may look to different resources. I think what I'd like to raise is a wider concern about textbooks in their current model, which is very much around the fact that every time there's a change in a specification, there's a new textbook, which is designed around that specification and is endorsed by an awarding body, which is a nice model for a publisher, because every time there's a change, there's an opportunity for a new textbook. There are two concerns that I'd like to raise on that. First, the focus on teaching and learning. Ofsted and also Estyn have raised concerns about the focus in teaching on teaching to the test as a common concern in both nations. I have a concern that having a textbook that is endorsed by the awarding body and is designed specifically around that specification may lead to some of that tendency. And also, there's the sustainability of the model. We know that we're about to go into another round of reforms associated with the curriculum change. That's going to lead to another round of textbooks that may need to be focused on qualifications. I think I'd much rather see that textbooks are seen as a curriculum resource that are broader than, perhaps, the model of endorsement and the current model of publication suggest. +Darren Millar AM: So, you don't think that a textbook for each subject should be a core resource for pupils who are learning in advance of examinations. +Emyr George: I'd just like to pick you up on that. I think a textbook for each subject is absolutely an essential part of the broad range of resources that you'd want to see available for people to choose what they prefer, but on a subject, perhaps, rather than a specific specification, because I think there's a tendency to conflate the two, and much of the underlying content that is assessed in one specification, or a new updated specification, will remain unchanged. It is true that there may be a different focus or emphasis, or a different style of questioning, but that can be picked up more nimbly through supplementary digital resources, for example, which can highlight that change, particularly to a teacher, so that they can shape their lesson planning around that. What we are looking at here are reformed GCSEs and reformed A-levels in subjects that are well-established, traditional subjects, and so whilst it is not necessarily the ideal, I think it's important to remember that there is already a good deal of pre-existing resources, including textbooks, out there in schools already. We're not for a moment saying that that is the situation that we would want everybody to be in. I think it might be preferable if the textbook was perfectly bespoke to the course and didn't contain any extraneous material, but that perhaps is an ideal picture and I think we do need to remember that there are already many resources out there that are available to teachers and to students. +Darren Millar AM: But of course, unlike their peers in perhaps other parts of the UK, we have teachers who are having to go meticulously through some of these other resources that might be available to determine whether they're appropriate for use in the classroom, given that the specification is different in terms of the new qualifications. Can I just ask you about the disadvantage that some learners might face as a result of the lack of textbooks? Mr Blaker, I note that you sought to reassure the committee in some of your opening remarks about the fact that equivalent outcomes are what you aim to achieve in discussion with the WJEC in terms of the outcome of assessments, and I think that that's a very positive thing. But, how do you differentiate between the different learning styles of individual students who are in that cohort to ensure that the disadvantage that one faces because they're somebody who relies particularly heavily on textbook-type learning, traditional sort of swotting up for examinations, versus someone who is much more digitally aware and able to use digital resources—? How do you make sure that it's fair to the cohort as a whole, while still enabling some of these individuals for whom textbooks are important not to face disadvantage within that cohort? +Philip Blaker: The systems that are in place are very much around making sure that awarding is fair across the whole cohort. It's very difficult—in fact, it would be impossible—to unpick all of the different factors that might affect performance, because you could well have a textbook that's been available for some time, it may be somebody's preferred leaning style to use a textbook, but did they use that textbook effectively? You know, did they open it in revision or did they not open it in revision? So, there are so many different factors that can affect individual performance. I think it's impossible to unpick a particular aspect like the availability of resources. Motivation would be one thing, an individual learner's motivation in the subject. The biggest input would be the quality of teaching. I think evidence has been provided to you by the regional consortia, which we saw yesterday. They particularly wanted to stress this point I think; that the quality of teaching is probably the most dominant and the most important factor in relation to a learner's ultimate performance in the examination. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but you also understand that someone who doesn't have the resources that they feel are best suited to them face some element of a greater disadvantage than others for whom, perhaps, textbooks are less important. +Gareth Pierce: I think also, perhaps, related to that, it is important to mention digital literacy here. Every young person in Wales, I would hope, taking GCSE or A-level, should have that digital literacy in order to source the valuable materials available—that they should have those skills. Then, they have the choice whether they go down the digital route, or do they do as Mike suggested—much of the digital material can be printed—or do they then turn to textbooks, in the hope that those would be available? That would then allow for a pupil's personal learning choice to be reflected. It's also important for teachers to confirm that their ways of teaching do support these alternative approaches taken by pupils. Not every pupil will choose to learn or revise in exactly the same way. So, the flexibility for the pupil is very important, I think. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but I've got people in my constituency who haven't even got a broadband link at home, so there's a digital disadvantage as well. Can I just ask you about the reason why this has taking so long to sort out? It was back in 2015 that concerns were first raised about the availability of textbooks in both English and Welsh for the new qualifications. We're three years on, what on earth has been happening in the interim and why is it taking so long? If you've got these resources digitally, why can't they just be compounded into textbooks pretty straightforwardly? +Gareth Pierce: I think the main reason for that is that there are three series of reforms of qualifications that have happened. There were some in 2015, other subjects in 2016, and other subjects in 2017. Those three cycles of reform have all suffered from the short timetable that was between approving a qualification and publishers being able to start the work. Perhaps an interesting comparison would be a subject being taught for the first time in 2015—where that subject has reached now in terms of resources. I would hope that each one of those subjects have more available now in terms of resources, and therefore we are adding each year—not textbooks but digital resources. There are more past papers available, of course. We are working on sample work at the request of teachers. So, every subject is moving on over a period of time of five to six years while that specification is being studied. But those same difficulties have, unfortunately, affected 2015 subjects and 2017 subjects, and that's why we're discussing the same thing in 2018. +Darren Millar AM: So, it's the scale of the challenge and the volume of the work? +Gareth Pierce: Yes. +Philip Blaker: I think Gareth, in the evidence that he has provided to the committee previously, has said about the timeline, the schedule, for reforms. Now, that's a schedule that we inherited and was largely dominated by the schedule for reforms in England. Now that we've reached a point of divergence in GCSEs and A-levels, between England and Wales, it gives us much more agency in the future to establish a timeline that doesn't place the pressures on the system. So, Gareth has quite rightly pointed out that there are three waves of reforms, but the pressures that build up in the first wave are consequential onto the next wave and the wave after that. So, the whole system has been pressured both from a regulatory perspective of the approval process, the awarding body preparing its submissions to use, and then system readiness thereafter. +Darren Millar AM: That timeline was obviously set by the Welsh Government. I assume that advice was given by WJEC and Qualifications Wales and your predecessor organisation to the Welsh Government at that time protesting about the timescale that you were being expected to abide by. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and similarly in England, the examination boards working in England would have provided the same advice to the Government there. And, of course, the Welsh Government programme was associated with the reform programme in England, in particularly for those A-level subjects, where there was a strong influence from the universities across the UK in terms of what they wanted to see differently in the A-level subjects. So, England and Wales have run on a very short timetable common to both countries, and I would say that every exam board and every publisher has seen this very challenging in Wales and England. But our advice is that there is a real need for between 18 months and two years from completing a specification that has been approved, then being able to work with teachers on what their needs and requirements will be, thinking about what the teaching programme will be, and then starting to work with publishers and get resources available—ideally, with a year of preparation then for the teacher before they start teaching. So, as they will know what resources will be available, we'll be able to discuss the use of those resources in our professional development programmes, and then that timeline is convenient for everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Darren, I've got to bring Llyr in now. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Estyn, NAHT, UCAC, NASUWT, WJEC and Qualifications Wales have pointed to the way in which the Government has managed the reforms that have been happening over the past few years as one of the things that has led to some of these difficulties. You mentioned the fact that they come wave upon wave. Well, what about the tsunami of curriculum reform that we're currently facing? That is, how confident can we be that the situation won't deteriorate as the new curriculum is introduced—rather than improve? +Gareth Pierce: That is a very key question, isn't it? We have started to discuss this, specifically in particular in a forum that includes publishers in Wales, with the Welsh Government around the table and Qualifications Wales around the table. I think one of the very interesting questions and important questions is: what will the nature of the information available in April 2019 be in terms of the new curriculum? At what level of detail will it be? To what extent will it be adapted again after April 2019? Is it detailed enough, really, for teachers to start discussing their programmes of teaching, and that we then still have a role with publishers, even though this is for this curriculum and not for qualifications? WJEC has a tradition of publishing resources over the key stages and other key stages as well. I think there is a need to discuss the implications of the timetable as it starts to appear, because there is a need to start teaching the new curriculum in September 2022. If we're talking about a year of preparation, that brings us back to September 2021. If we're talking about working on resources available for that preparation year, we're talking about September 2020. So, the timetable does appear already tight, particularly if there's something that's not quite certain about that curriculum statement in 2019, and that there is a lot of work to turn that into teaching programmes. So, I think it is a key question, and I can't be confident at the moment that this is going to work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in, Philip? +Philip Blaker: I think one of the big differences is it's a tsunami we can see coming. So, young people will be assessed for the first time, assuming linear exams, in the summer 2027, which is some way away, and, actually, given the reform process historically, this is probably the most foresight we've seen of a big change like this. There is a big dependency on the curriculum and the curriculum being described in such a way that we can relate qualifications to that curriculum, because qualifications should relate to the curriculum rather than drive the curriculum, so we do need to see something coming out of that. I think, for us, once we've seen the curriculum, and we've got better sight of it, we'll be able to plan things out. We've already started engagement with awarding bodies over the possible supply chain for these new qualifications, and, ultimately, there'll be a go/no-go decision that would need to be made, probably in 2023, which would be that if the conditions don't appear right for safe implementation, then we would make a recommendation to Welsh Government that these reforms are delayed in terms of the qualification, not in terms of the curriculum, for a year to allow the system to be able to catch up. So, we're starting to plan out not only the whole of the process, but also thinking about where we might have to make key decisions. +Gareth Pierce: Just one very brief comment in that context: I think that the comment of the consortia jointly is important there. They emphasise, in the context of the curriculum, the importance of the autonomy of teachers in interpreting and providing, therefore I think we truly need to discuss that. Does that suggest that there won't be so much need for national resources, or are those resources required to support that autonomy in any case? We need to discuss that at an early stage and in detail, I think. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, certainly, and one is concerned that that conversation isn't already happening, but, yes, okay, you've made that point clearly. If I could return, therefore, to the commercial issue—clearly, there is a shortage of providers in Wales, and we are reliant on others. You suggested that the WJEC may be interested in stepping up and taking some sort of role if regulations were changed. I assume that that would be something that you would be eager to see happening in terms of the change to regulation in that context. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we've been part of starting that discussion amongst publishers in Wales. Certainly, there is interest. I think that I haven't described correctly the purpose of a seminar to encourage interest: the interest is there, but there needs to be an understanding of what the implications are of working towards that kind of timetable, what the implications are of working in two languages, what kind of business model, perhaps, would be suitable for the publishers in Wales, how much certainty could be given to them that there is a period of work, because they would want to build their teams, and develop skills within those teams, and to have enough certainty that this is worth doing. And therefore, those are the sort of issues that we're starting a discussion on, in the hope of having a discussion in June to move that forward. Of course, Welsh Government, Qualifications Wales and other stakeholders are part of this discussion, not only WJEC, but we've been part of initiating that discussion. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is this developing at the pace that you would like to see it developing? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I think, and there is some enthusiasm. For example, a number of publishers in Wales are within an association describing itself as Cwlwm Cyhoeddwyr Cymru. Myrddin ap Dafydd is chair of Cwlwm at the moment, and there is enthusiasm and vision, certainly. So, there's a wonderful opportunity, I think, for Wales to interpret these possibilities swiftly and then hopefully take action on them. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we're talking here not just about translating but developing resources, and the point, I think, is an important one around some of the evidence that we've received about the importance of developing resources naturally bilingually from the very beginning, rather than having to translate something. Because there have been comments that translations are clunky, difficult to follow and not—I'm not saying that they're not fit for purpose, but certainly don't facilitate teaching, perhaps, as easily as one would wish. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I would agee, and that begins with the authors, doesn't it? We must have the authors— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, the expertise, and the same capacty with the publishers as well. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we do want to nurture authors within Wales, particularly given that the new curriculum has to do justice to a Welsh dimension within the curriculum in so many different subjects. So, we need authors who can be developed, and authors who would be willing to work with the publishers. That's a very specific theme within one of the ideas of the seminars with publishers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would that market be viable without any sort of subsidy, if it were to develop bilingually? Or do we have to accept that they have to have an element of public subsidy? +Gareth Pierce: Our view in the WJEC is that subsidy will be necessary. But we could rethink the model for the subsidy, perhaps. At the moment, the subsidy is described as a subsidy for the Welsh-medium version. Why not rethink that and think of a subsidy for producing resources in two languages for the Welsh curriculum? And perhaps we would need a little more funding for that. But there will be organisations such as the WJEC who will still be interested in contributing, because we are a charity, and within our mission is investment in various things that supports education in Wales. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But in terms of where we are now, resources have to be translated. I struggle at times to understand why it takes so much time to translate a resource. I would like to know better, perhaps, what the main barriers are in that sense. But also, how long is acceptable to wait for a translation, in your view? +Mike Ebbsworth: We've done a great deal of work recently, over recent years, to ensure that that delay between having an English version and a Welsh version is reduced. We are highly aware of the fact that the best-case scenario is that the Welsh and the English are available simultaneously. In those terms, we've taken huge steps forward with the publishers that we've named this morning, so that we have discussed translation as the textbook is being produced. There is a risk there, of course. The nature of books is that the author may change his or her mind, or edit as he or she is writing. Well, with that model, we would have to ensure that we approved as we moved forward, chapter by chapter perhaps, so that there would be no changes to be made from then on. At the end of the process, then, the publishers in England have agreed to hold the English version back for a period of time until the Welsh version is available, and then to publish both simultaneously. Unless that timetable is followed throughout the process, there are inherent risks in that process, of course, as I've mentioned in terms of translation as we author materials, and in ensuring that that timetable is stuck to. +Gareth Pierce: And perhaps there is a need to emphasise that the process is translation and editing as a package, and that sometimes the same amount of time goes on the editing, how the Welsh works in terms of diagrams and things that aren't text necessarily—pictures and so forth. So, eight weeks, I think, is the time that we've succeeded in agreeing with the publishers so that we can turn around the Welsh version in that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: I just want to ask about this eight-week delay. So, you’re telling us, Mr Ebbsworth, that the WJEC has agreed with Hodder and Illuminate that, in future, even if an English textbook is available for publication, and it’s already late, you will further delay the availability of that textbook so that it can be published on the same day as the Welsh-medium textbook? +Mike Ebbsworth: We can only work on those books that are in the process of being developed. Naturally, if something is late in English, then that timetable would be affected in terms of a decision that will ultimately have to be taken. But that's the hope: that when new textbooks are produced in English and authored in English, we would look at that eight-week period as a turnaround. +Darren Millar AM: I understand the point that you made earlier about the chapter-by-chapter approach, which seems much more equitable. But to suggest that you will delay books that could be available for students and could be available for teachers to be able to access by two months because you haven't got the systems in place to be able to produce them on the same day, seems to be wholly inappropriate. Can I ask, also, why on earth it isn't possible to produce Welsh-medium textbooks first and then translate them to English on occasions? +Mike Ebbsworth: We're entirely open to that and to that sort of model. +Darren Millar AM: So, why has that never ever been done? +Gareth Pierce: Well, of course, it would happen with subjects that stem from Wales, but I think the problem is that we work with publishers and those publishers and their authors, therefore, tend to work through the medium of English. But, just to be clear, this idea of delaying an English version is something that the Welsh Government is eager for us to experiment with, but not with textbooks that are already late. They are within the new programme of textbooks that are contained within the grant that you mentioned of £500,000. So, in a way, this is an experiment and the Welsh Government wants to look at this as one way of responding to the complaint that there are different timetables available. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're being forced to do this by the Welsh Government, rather than— +Gareth Pierce: Well, we've agreed to do it in discussion with them. +Darren Millar AM: So, are you happy with that approach? +Gareth Pierce: Well, as long as the textbook isn't late in the first place, then yes; it's worth trying. There is a challenge on the eight weeks, there is a challenge in the publisher sticking to the timetable in terms of the English version first of all, but we are willing to use this as a test bed, and we're working on two specific textbooks on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the committee is struggling with this idea, so what do you understand to be the rationale behind that, then? Is it that both sets of pupils should be equally disadvantaged? +Gareth Pierce: Well, no, in a way, it uses the same principle as we have regarding our use of digital resources. With the digital materials, the intention is that things are available in time and that they're available in both languages at the same time. So, trying to imitate that with printed text is what we're trying to do, but not with texts that are already late. So, if these books keep to the timetable, then they will be available in time in both languages, but that the English version has stayed before going out on the shelves. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that's to say that the English version will be completed eight weeks beforehand so that you have eight weeks for translation. +Mike Ebbsworth: Well, ultimately, I may have used the wrong words in saying that we're holding the English back. The English version would still be in the process, just as the Welsh version would be, and then they would catch up as they approach the date for publication and printing. There is an element of editing the English as well as the Welsh and that would happen in that eight-week period. So, a draft form might be available, and we do ensure that our draft versions are available on our secure website as soon as possible, but then that has to be held up before publication. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. John. +John Griffiths AM: Just on that, Chair, it's nonetheless the case, as we've heard, I think, and as the letter to the committee from Kirsty Williams has made clear, that there might be a situation where the English-language version of a textbook could be made available, but it isn't made available because there isn't a Welsh-language version. And, as the Chair said, is that about putting those students in Wales on the same footing, and if so, how does that relate to the fact that these students, including those who could have had earlier access to the English-language version, are competing with students over the border, as we heard on the video earlier, for those precious university places? Doesn't it place the English-language student using the English-language version at a potential disadvantage, compared to students over the border? +Gareth Pierce: I think this is a point for Qualifications Wales to a certain extent, but applicants for qualifications in Wales are assessed as a national cohort, if truth be told, so, each piece of information we have on the standards is evaluated for that national cohort. The standards stem from the three-nation system. So, in discussion with Qualifications Wales, we ensure that there is no disadvantage to any cohort in Wales in any subject, be that because of a textbook being unavailable or for any other reason. +Philip Blaker: Certainly, from a comparable outcomes perspective, the fewer differences that there are that are differential—. So, the idea of textbooks being available in English and Welsh at different times could potentially create another dimension in terms of disparity. So, if we're looking at it strictly speaking from a comparable outcomes perspective, it makes the awarding easier if everybody's on a common playing field. It's worth remembering—we provided some evidence in our original letter particularly looking at religious studies on the basis that religious studies was a subject that had been mentioned. This subject has already been awarded at AS-level last year, so it has gone through an award and will go through the full A-level award this year. The comparable outcomes approach did protect those learners last year, in the absence of a textbook, and we saw stability in the results that came out of the cohort level. Similarly, with other subjects that have gone through reforms, we've seen it with the GCSEs that were awarded last year, ASs that were awarded last year and A-levels that were awarded last year: we saw good comparability year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then, Darren. Is that okay, John? +Darren Millar AM: Just a very brief follow-up on that, at the cohort level, yes, you suggest that there is some evidence that students were protected, but what you don't know and can't tell, because you're not able to drill down to the individual student level, is whether children, young people, were disadvantaged as a result of their learning style being more textbook orientated than that of their peers. +Philip Blaker: I guess we're in a situation where there's no evidence either way that that— +Darren Millar AM: The absence of evidence doesn't mean that it didn't happen. +Philip Blaker: No, but there is no evidence to suggest that. We have no positive evidence to suggest that. +Darren Millar AM: Well, I think you've seen plenty of evidence about the stress that it's causing, and the concern that learners have about their outcomes. I think it would be very interesting, actually, to take some teacher assessments and expected grades and compare those to the actual grade outcomes. Is that something that Qualifications Wales could do on a sample basis? +Philip Blaker: Historically, that sort of evidence has been very unreliable. Gareth would probably have a stronger view on that than me. Predicted grades used to be provided. Certainly, back in my day at an awarding body they were provided, and there tended to be a very low correlation between the predicted grade and the actual achieved grade. I don't know if you've got anything on that, Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: No, we agree with you that the comparisons are not that reliable, because there are so many factors. But I think, at the end of the day, what we see is, yes, I agree there is evidence of stress, but I think there's also evidence of young people and their teachers really using the available resources and the available skills in approaching revision and preparation, and tending to do that very well. That's the evidence that we've got, for example, in the AS religious studies last year, that the cohort did extremely well in fact. We can't disagree that there's evidence of stress, but I think we can also point towards resilience and excellent approaches to drawing together the various sources that they've got: classroom notes, revision notes, as they mentioned, and the various other materials that they referred to. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. John. +John Griffiths AM: Coming back to the effect of the lack of resources, we heard on the video, as you've just mentioned, Gareth, that pupils were experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, and it affected their well-being in terms of their perception that they might be disadvantaged by the lack of resources, as we discussed. We know exam time is very, very stressful—I'm sure all of us would agree with that—in general, without any additional problems or perceptions of problems. So, with that sort of background, would you accept then that some students have been negatively affected by the lack of suitable support materials for general qualifications? I know we've discussed this in terms of it being difficult, perhaps, to show cause and effect, but I think most people watching that video would clearly come to the view that some students have been negatively impacted. Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: I'd have to agree. There is evidence of their concern, isn't there? But as Philip said, what we don't have is evidence that that anxiety then has an impact on their attainment, because there are so many factors, there are so many different kinds of resources that they've referred to—even those who want to see textbooks, they're also talking about so many other materials that are available to them. Of course, it's also clear that they are conscientious young people who have worked hard, so you have a picture there of young people who are concerned, yes, and as you've said, examinations are a stressful time in general, but they are also young people who are doing their level best, and usually do get the results that they have worked for. That's the evidence that we have: the results tend to be achieved. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Coming back again to matters that we've already discussed, but just to put to you in a fairly focused way, would you accept that it isn't fair that some pupils are not having the support material that others are having, depending on whether their particular subject is involved and the language that they're studying through? Would you accept that that is a basic unfairness in the system as it currently exists? +Gareth Pierce: Ideally, resources, digital accessibility and digital literacy should be available for every pupil on an equal basis. But I think perhaps if we analysed this in much detail, different individuals would be able to say, 'There are different types of unfairness.' You referred earlier to the digital inequalities. Is there an economic inequality? There is some evidence from the teaching unions that suggests that not every school is in the same situation as each other in terms of buying the resources that are available. So, I think your question drives at a very important point: what sort of inequality could be having an impact on young people in terms of their achievement during their school time? Ideally, each one of those elements of potential inequality should be levelled. So, I don't think I can go any further than acknowledging that any inequality is unfair, but there are so many different kinds and the textbook is not the only one, and therefore we're not going to be able to analyse the impact of that on its own. +John Griffiths AM: Could I put to you, finally then, what Estyn have said about reported delays in the production and distribution of educational resources such as textbooks, marking criteria and specimen papers, that that delay has impeded the ability of teachers to plan adequately, and that this effect on their ability to plan adequately is very likely to have had an impact on pupils' achievement? Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: It's interesting—they link three quite different things there, don't they? We've discussed the textbooks in some detail. When they refer to sample assessments, we have to provide those within the regulatory time frame, and they have to be approved. So, in every subject there are sample assessments and marking schemes, and they are statutorily available, in a way. When they talk about exemplars, there are different interpretations of that. One request that we receive often from schools is for exemplars in terms of the work of pupils that has been assessed and marked by us. Of course, they're not available until the young people have taken those exams for the very first time. We can make them available digitally, and through various other methods. But in some subjects the demand has been so strong that we have worked with schools in order to ensure that work is produced by pupils before that first examination, is marked by us, and is then made available. So, we can respond to that demand when it arises. I would like to have a conversation with Estyn, indeed, to interpret on a more detailed level some of the things that they refer to. +Emyr George: May I offer a comment on that quote from Estyn? They talk about a reduction in attainment and that, to some extent, brings us back to the point in terms of the comparable outcomes method that we're talking about. That method is based on research and evidence that says that in a period of change to an exam or qualification, we know that performance in an exam can fall, and that is due to a number of different factors. Teachers aren't as familiar with the specification and the requirements of the exam. There are fewer past assessment resources available; there aren't any past papers, for example. Certainly, knowing that you're the first to sit that exam perhaps raises your concerns about that examination, and examinations are a matter of concern already. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between those factors, but what we know on the whole is that they come together to have an impact on pupils' performance in an exam, and that's why, when it comes to awarding qualifications for the first time and looking at the grades, we look very carefully at what that the mark means in terms of the grade in order to try as best as we can, on the level of the whole national cohort, to eliminate as much unfairness as possible because they are the first cohort to sit the exam. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just make a brief comment on the sample assessments? Now, interestingly, when the English, Welsh, maths, and maths and numeracy GCSEs were new, the Welsh Government were very eager that we invest in more sample assessment materials. We had to produce one for the regulator, but they wanted to see us produce far more, and we did that. But there are risks inherent in that, too. If we create more and more sample assessments, then does that create more risk of teaching to the test? And every time we produce one of these, of course, we are using robust assessment ideas, and they're out there to be used for test purposes. So, we need to be careful that we don't weaken the real assessment by providing too many of the examiners' good ideas in the sample material. So, it's an interesting theme, but it would be interesting to have a further conversation with Estyn on that. +Philip Blaker: I just wanted to say, looking towards—. Reforms always throw up issues like this. It's almost an inevitability of any change that there will be impact. I think what we need to do is we need to think about the future reforms, particularly knowing that we've got some on the radar already, and to think about what this paradigm is and how we can isolate some of these factors in the future. So, if we look at resources and if we look particularly at textbooks as being a curriculum resource, rather than a qualification resource, I think we can change the timeline to which some of those materials are produced. So, going back to when I studied my A-levels in the 1980s, there was this common body of knowledge that was an A-level textbook in biology that wasn't focused around an individual awarding body. When we talked to unions about this on Monday, they said, 'Yes, when we used to teach many years ago, there were curriculum resources like that, and then when a particular topic or a particular area of content dropped out of the qualification, we either did or didn't teach it according to whether it was in the curriculum'. That's a little bit worrying by virtue of the fact there might have been a component of that subject that didn't get taught because it was no longer in the text, despite the fact that it was in the common body of knowledge. But I think if we can shift this paradigm—and I would really like to a shift in the paradigm for resources particularly, away from the focus on the qualification and into more of a focus on the curriculum—then that provides an opportunity for, I would suggest, a much healthier model in the future. There are various ways of doing that. In the United States, for example, there are some states within the United States that produce a state textbook. Now, that can have issues, particularly if it's politically orientated—so, if politicians are seen to have a strong influence in the content that's taught. But if there is independence in that state model, then I think that can be quite strong model. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, they've actually tried to de-emphasise textbooks. So, Hong Kong, which is a very high-performing jurisdiction, is trying to move away from that model in the future. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just add very, very briefly— +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, because I want to bring Hefin in. +Gareth Pierce: I know that, in our letter to you, we emphasised that this is not just to do with the body of knowledge. The assessment objectives have shifted in many subjects towards analysis and evaluation. So, therefore, we really do need resources that support that way of working, and I'm sure that lots of the young people we've heard from—what they're really doing in their revision is actually not just studying the content, but thinking about how they respond analytically and evaluatively. In fact, an interesting question for us as an awarding body to debate with the qualifications regulator, maybe, is whether some of the content should actually be able to be taken into the assessment hall. Do young people need to remember all these terms and their precise definitions, sometimes in both languages if they've learnt it in that way? Shouldn't some of the reference material be more and more available in the assessment arena? And then you are really getting towards analysis and interpretation and evaluation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I want to welcome these particular comments, because having come from a higher education background, what I've tried to deliver in my courses are textbook-free modules, where you're relying on academic journal articles and you're piecing together the story yourself, based on the curriculum you develop yourself. So, curriculum-focused resources are very welcome. I fear that students who are nurtured on a textbook diet, when they go to university, they are not expected to repeat what's in the textbook; they're expected to do exactly as Gareth says and analyse and combine information into a discursive argument. So, therefore, I'm interested to know how you've worked with higher education to develop that approach. I also welcome what you've just said too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I ask for brief answers, please? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, well some of the people who provide ideas into our digital resources certainly are either teachers who are very well aware of that progression to HE and therefore what their learners want or, in some cases, they are HE people themselves. We do draw on a body of expertise, and we are more than willing to emphasise the importance of that approach to the support resources we provide. +Hefin David AM: I think the difficulty and the difference is that, at HE level, the kind of journal articles that are available are probably not consumable at GCSE level. That's part of the problem you have with that approach. +Gareth Pierce: Yes. And I think, interestingly—I know we've pointed towards some of our religious studies resources as examples—I think some of the websites we point to are quite ambitious. They would be described as scholarly, and I think some of the young people on the video made that point, didn't they—that they need to engage with that material to understand some themes? But we need to assist them in doing so. We need to almost make those scholarly items that are worth including in their curriculum accessible and user friendly for them at their point of learning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Philip. +Philip Blaker: It was just one point. We recently published a report on the Welsh baccalaureate and skills challenge certificate, and I think it's relevant to pull in at this point that the independent study that pupils would be expected to do through the skills challenge certificate in doing their project work is really designed to try and draw out some of those skills that would be relevant in higher education. Through the reforms that we are starting to think about for the skills challenge certificate, there's a real opportunity to start honing some of those skills, particularly at the advanced level bacc, to make people really HE-ready so that they're better able to engage with that different style of learning. So, I think there's a huge opportunity that shouldn't be diminished within the advanced Welsh bacc. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Last questions from Mark then. +Mark Reckless AM: Gareth, can I just put to you—? On the Estyn criticism, I think you've answered one aspect of their criticism that WJEC did not make as many sample assessment materials available as schools would have liked early on in the reform process, and I understand your position there, but they went on and said, 'At times the sample assessment materials were provided with incorrect mark schemes' and also, 'It would be helpful if the WJEC ensure that all necessary resources were made available before the start date of each qualification.' Do you have a response to those points? +Gareth Pierce: Again, probably, I'd like a conversation with them about any problems with the specimen assessments and their mark schemes, because if they are the statutory regulatory ones they would have gone through Philip's team as well or his Welsh Government predecessors as regulators, depending on which qualifications they were. Obviously, we need to be spot-on with those. Very occasionally, somebody will identify an error, and obviously we then correct them, because these are available digitally online. So, if there is a problem, we want to hear about it and then we can correct it. But, yes, I agree with their fundamental premise, that ideally the whole package of resources should be available before teaching starts, including, as we mentioned earlier, so we can draw on that set of resources in the events we run as WJEC free of charge for teachers leading up to the first teaching. We need that information ourselves as well so we can talk about the use of these valuable resources in an appropriate pedagogical context in that preparatory year. So, the ideal is that everything is there 12 months ahead. +Mark Reckless AM: So, what mechanism do you have for picking up on this type of criticisms from Estyn and having that conversation with them? Has that not happened? +Gareth Pierce: We have met with Estyn a couple of times recently, actually—once when they were beginning their review of the key stage 4 qualifications that had been in place for two years and a bit, and also when they were planning a review of some of the A-level work. Because we do have regular meetings with them, we will have an opportunity to explore their comments here I'm sure. +Mark Reckless AM: Looking at the structure and the relationship between Qualifications Wales and the WJEC—. I understand in the model in England—you've got Ofqual, the regulator, and you have various competing exam boards, some I think with for-profit motivation. We don't have that in Wales; there is a sole regulator and a single, dominant examination board. Does that mean that there's significant overlap and potentially cost duplication between the work of the two bodies, particularly given WJEC is a charity and seems to have many of the same objectives as you in Qualifications Wales have? +Philip Blaker: The roles are very distinct, so I'd tell you there's no overlap. What we try and do is try and make sure that there's a good connection between the work that we do. WJEC has very clear responsibilities around the delivery of qualifications. We have a role in monitoring to ensure that those qualifications are delivered securely and fairly. I would say a strength of the Welsh model is that there is an independent regulator and a single awarding body largely, because much of the work that Ofqual would need to do in terms of its maintenance of standards is about ensuring that the competition between awarding bodies doesn't lead to what's been termed in the past as a race to the bottom in terms of standards. Now, the opportunity that we have in Wales is, where we have a single awarding body, we can have a close and good working relationship with WJEC, but guarding very strongly to make sure that we keep that regulatory distance to make sure that we preserve our role as the regulator and look at WJEC as one of our regulated bodies. +Gareth Pierce: Can I make a general point? Perhaps the important opportunity in Wales is to look anew at how national and regional organisations, such as the consortia, can collaborate to make a success of the broad range of resources and CPD that will be required to support the new curriculum, and also the next set of qualifications that will be reformed. We've referred to many organisations today, but there are others. The Welsh Books Council, for example, is part of this discussion. The Learned Society of Wales is a player that wants to introduce ideas into the Welsh dimension of the curriculum. There was mention of the HE sector earlier. Teachers' associations have very specific comments to make on some of these areas. There is a great opportunity for us to come together and to have a national approach. There will be a need for some financial resource from the Welsh Government—yes, certainly—and the WJEC can provide some resources, but I think we all want to collaborate in order to ensure the success of the next round of resources. +Mark Reckless AM: But doesn't that national approach and collaboration preclude the model that Philip was talking about earlier, where we had textbooks based on the curriculum, and there's that core, but that was separate from what the exam body decided to do and the textbook wasn't there for the particular exam approach? If you have a single, dominant exam board, and you have a Welsh curriculum that's developed with that board, how do you then have this separation between textbook and exam? +Philip Blaker: So, if we look at qualification, a qualification should be based on the curriculum that's being offered, because learning should be based around the curriculum, and the role of the qualification is to measure attainment against knowledge of that curriculum—knowledge, skills and understanding, the dispositions that that curriculum is trying to develop. So, I think there are two very distinct things. Now, of course, what will inevitably happen is once the curriculum is known and developed, there will be a level of detail that comes across from what the qualification is looking for. I think what we're trying to say is, from an educational perspective, what we'd like to see is a broader focus on the curriculum and less of a narrow focus on the qualification and some of the problems that that can drive, so that, if a learner is well-versed in the curriculum and has been taught well and has acquired the knowledge, skills and dispositions that the curriculum is trying to create, they should succeed in the qualification. +Mark Reckless AM: And you suggested earlier that, if need be, the qualification could be pushed back a year, but not the curriculum. Does that mean that it would be possible to teach the new curriculum while keeping the old qualification? +Philip Blaker: It would be possible. +Mark Reckless AM: But satisfactory? +Philip Blaker: Because, if we're looking at qualifications predominantly being 14 to 16, what Professor Donaldson said at the very beginning, with 'Successful Futures', was, actually, if the curriculum is preparing people better for that qualification stage, so that they're better versed as learners and better able to perform in those qualifications and we see a rise of attainment—. Ideally, you'd be in a position where you've got GCSEs that have been reformed to marry up to any change, but I don't see there being a huge problem in itself of a delay if we think that is the right thing to do. Clearly, we consider that to be a sub-optimal thing. We would much rather be in a position of having reforms, but, equally, I'd want to see any reforms delivered safely, and I wouldn't want to compromise fairness and safety of delivery of those qualifications on the basis of a timeline. But I think all too often the case is that a timeline dominates over doing what is the right thing and I think as we get further into this we'll have to really assess and keep a grip of what's the right thing to do. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just on this issue of shaping the curriculum and making sure that we've got textbooks that can be used to support the delivery of the curriculum—. So, obviously, the WJEC's interested in the examinations and the qualifications. That's your role as well in terms of Qualifications Wales. So, who should be responsible for developing these curriculum resources? +Philip Blaker: I think, for a new model, that needs to be determined. Welsh Government has a role in curriculum at the moment. They have responsibility for curriclum and they've already started work with the seminar last year, and then drawing people together now to look at a new model for the future. I think we need to evolve that approach, and I think Welsh Government taking a lead on some of this thinking about how things might be prepared for the future is probably a good position to be in at the moment. +Darren Millar AM: Are there any other models that you can point us to in terms of how these things are done elsewhere? +Philip Blaker: Yes, there are models where you can have—. For example, in Northern Ireland, you have the regulator, the awarding body and the curriculum body all under one roof. So, you can have a position where everything is tied together as it is in Northern Ireland with the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, you have very distinct bodies that are looking after each individual component. So, there are lots of different models that can be developed. But, of course, in Wales, and also previously in England, the qualifications regulator has also had a responsibility for curriculum. So, there has been that model in the past in Wales. +Gareth Pierce: Just very briefly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really quickly, please. +Gareth Pierce: Just one thing very briefly, in terms of the WJEC. I mentioned earlier that, in the past, the WJEC has produced a fair few resources in collaboration with publishers in key stage 3 and even at primary stages. Certainly, key stage 3 is closely linked to GCSE, and, therefore, if the WJEC continues to be a player—as I hope it will—in the area of resources for GCSE and A-level, then the WJEC is also well positioned in terms of our investment in editing, translating and the use of technology to contribute to key stage 3 most certainly and perhaps even the primary stages. So, I'm sure that the WJEC would want to offer itself as a national organisation that wants to contribute as best we can in this area. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. Well, we're out of time, so can I thank you very much for attending this morning and for answering all our questions? I think it's been a very useful and informative session. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, following the meeting. But thank you very much, again, for your attendance. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4 is papers to note. In view of the time, can I ask whether Members are happy to note all those papers in a block? Can I just flag that I would like to return to paper to note 3, which is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on minority ethnic, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller learners, when we go into private, if that's okay with Members? Item 5, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The summary of the meeting of the Children, Young People, and Education Committee is as follows: + +The committee discussed the provision of textbooks and learning resources for pupils in Wales. Members expressed concerns regarding the availability and timing of resources, including delays in the production and distribution of Welsh-medium materials, which may have led to stress and anxiety for pupils and challenges for teachers. Qualifications Wales and WJEC outlined their respective roles in regulating awarding bodies and providing resources and qualifications, emphasizing the importance of resources that support analytical and evaluative skills. The conversation also addressed the potential impact of curriculum reform on resource availability and the need for greater readiness to avoid repeating issues experienced in the past. There was an acknowledgment of the desire for a broader focus on curriculum resources rather than qualification-focused textbooks, with the aim of better preparing students for higher education and lifelong learning. Discussions highlighted the importance of collaboration among national and regional organizations in Wales to ensure the success of future resource and qualification reforms. It was mentioned that potential models and approaches from other jurisdictions could be considered for Wales. The committee agreed to continue the discussion in a private session, with particular attention to a letter concerning minority ethnic, Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller learners." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come again for the the second meeting . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh for the aim of this meeting now is to to make presentation about uh the work for each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {gap} take the the decision about the the design and the functionality of the the remote control . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we have {disfmarker} think I got a new project requirement . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So I think uh teletext becomes outdated . So the popularity of the {disfmarker} since the popularity of the internet , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I think we don't need lighting adaptive , so the remote control should be only used for the the television . And of course we should have our image {gap} in the in the design . So , let's start with the the industrial designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Or y you can use the whiteboard if you want . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} Well I have a PowerPoint pr presentation stored in my in my personal folder +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: so I I I think you can reach it from here . +Marketing: Just go to explorer . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Or open . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Project Manager: This one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Open uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want to open {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because it's open you mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so um I will talk about the the w working design and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Marketing: Slide show , view slide show , {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: And um well I I will present my my first idea on how to build the {disfmarker} our new remote control for television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can you go one page down , please . So I think the first things to do is to define the hardware components neededs to achieve uh what we want to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh mm I'm thin uh {vocalsound} I think uh I I'll do a survey about what is uh what is available on the market and what what is the the cheapest possible {vocalsound} things we hav we can use . Then uh I will try with the technical team to to build a prototype and to see uh with uh h how this little box {vocalsound} would uh look look like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And how an and we can uh start troubleshooting first uh com communication problems or things like that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And when we are ready with this first prototype I I think we can add some software functionalities on a programmable chip like browsing by content or um things like that . Okay so can you go down uh {disfmarker} So , wha what I think {vocalsound} for now {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} we don't want to have a remote control w which is wired +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh I think we u we can use a battery for the {gap} . Then two programmable chips for both software functionalities and communication . And the communication with the T_V_ set is uh made through uh infrared communication So uh this is the {vocalsound} the schema of the {vocalsound} o of the future uh remote controls +User Interface: Did you draw it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh you can you can see the components , uh battery and uh the two chips goes to the infrared uh connection to the T_V_ set . +User Interface: This {gap} . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: What is the other chip for ? The one on top . +Industrial Designer: The one on top is for the um {disfmarker} well the functionali the functionalities +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: One is a communication . +Industrial Designer: and the the th red um {disfmarker} sorry the green one is is to {disfmarker} well , putting things together , um f transform the data into uh qu into the format to to {gap} uh to communicate with the T_V_ set . +User Interface: For men . To the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And , that's it . I think we should use a F_P_G_A_ for {vocalsound} for the functionalities which is easy to to t +User Interface: Mm . What is F_P_G_A_ ? +Industrial Designer: It's field programmable uh something array . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Gateway arrays . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: It's a field programmable gateway arrays . +User Interface: So why's it {disfmarker} how is it different from the Bluetooth ? +Industrial Designer: Well , uh a F_P_G_A_ is just a chip you can uh you can {gap} pr programme it uh wi with wh whatever you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Programme it . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh well the Bluetooth chip is just responsible to uh make the communication uh between uh the two devices . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} So this are the {disfmarker} they have to work together ? Or ? Do they have to work together or two separate choice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . Well , th the F_P_G_A_ will produce the the data to send . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or it's something like {disfmarker} isn't hardware the first one ? And the second one is for the software . +User Interface: Is the is the software par alri okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah to run th to make it run . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: That's it . +User Interface: So you can control {gap} if you want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright and that's it for the working design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So if you have any questions ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , and how about the battery power ? Uh you mean that battery would be somewhere there and the remote contro the power to the battery comes through infrared ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no no no no , I think uh we have uh to to uh have uh embedded uh b batteries in in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Into the {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah into the t . +Marketing: more compact and uh {disfmarker} okay , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh I I don't think it will need um {vocalsound} very uh much power to make it run , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . You can put it on the charger when uh you when you don't need to use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Having a charger rather than putting the battery cells always . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: People don't like it to have to buy the batteries when they run out . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . Uh {disfmarker} mm . +Marketing: We just make a small charger +User Interface: Y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can i yeah . +User Interface: Because you are using because you are using Bluetooth , if some people have P_D_A_ they can use their P_D_A_ to control the T_V_ if they want to , right ? +Industrial Designer: That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ma +Industrial Designer: Also , but but {vocalsound} I I I think uh the the goal is to sell our remote {vocalsound} control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we can change the b {gap} . +Marketing: Our remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: we do not want to make it P_D_A_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} okay , so charger for {gap} is the {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So is mine . +Project Manager: It's mine . Participant one , no ? +User Interface: Oh . Yeah , this your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Oh we have {gap} so let's move to to user interface design {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can open uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant {disfmarker} +User Interface: three . Yeah . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So I'm working on the technical functions design . {gap} can you show the next slide . So the the purpose is to to find uh the important questions to ask is what effect should the apparatus have . So {vocalsound} so I found on a webs on the internet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} During the weekend . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} I spent a lot of time searching {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh and I found that uh the function of remote control is to send messages to television set . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} For example switch on , switch off , switch the next channel and so on and so on . +Marketing: G +User Interface: So I found two very good prototypes for {vocalsound} for this interface from our competitors +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so can you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This are usual functionality {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Ours is a bit uh different . So these are two example . One is from {vocalsound} {gap} the other one is from , yeah , uh engineering centr yeah . +Project Manager: Tasks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the most competing prototypes I've found {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But then uh loo but then I found if you look at {disfmarker} you see on the left one there are too many buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they are small {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . O on the right I tried to play with {vocalsound} the problem is that uh if I have hundred channels I have uh I have to choo press the other button to choose the hundred channels and I have to compose the number +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so it's very lousy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} so you move to the next the next one . +Industrial Designer: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , so I talk about the problem . And then I I look at the user manual they are a hundred pages thick , so we don't want that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I propose the easy to use uh prototype . You can navigate on T_V_ screen and we can {gap} the user's preference and we need to have the T_V_ connected to internet so we end {disfmarker} in order to access the T_V_ programmes by X_M_L_ and we need some {disfmarker} to do some preprocessing . From the technical aspect , the processing should be done on the T_V_ set than on the {vocalsound} on the remote controller , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And then we {disfmarker} the speech recognition as uh Harry says we may just put in {disfmarker} we may K_I_V_ . +Project Manager: What do you mean by the pa pa processing will be done on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah , all the processing is done {disfmarker} the T_V_ is a compu has some processing power the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: than the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So we have to t +Project Manager: So we should have specific T_V_ ? Or ? We can use this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have to sell a T_V_ with the remote control too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are you just wondering what controller {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . J j just the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , not the T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: I think there there is there is al there there is a a technology like show view who is already available on most of the T_V_ set on recorders or thing like that +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we can try t to get this information on to the remote control to to do the processing on the remote control because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So i the processing on on the remote controller {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: so it can u be used in any T_V_ , any conventional T_V_ sets ? +Project Manager: we {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speech recognition . +User Interface: N yeah , that's all . The next one ? So I come up with a simple design , just keep the v navigation buttons . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's a good idea , I think . +Project Manager: Keep the navigation +Industrial Designer: We d we don't we we don't need really much buttons to {disfmarker} i if we have a screen to navigate on on the T_V_ so uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , f four five buttons , it's sufficient . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to build , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it does not consume much power . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's all . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but you have a catch there , um assume that um if you want to go to {disfmarker} if you are watching channel two and if you want to go to channel ninety nine , then {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , then y you you go to the main menu and uh you have uh go to channel +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then uh you {gap} can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . No , because you choose by channel , so {disfmarker} you choose by T_V_ program +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you {disfmarker} +User Interface: so you don't have hundred channels to choose from . If you go by channel , you don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} but uh I I think i i {gap} if you if you want to to make uh {disfmarker} well a a big jump {vocalsound} {gap} but uh well you you have to to have a a a device when you could you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah . Ah , a big jump . +Marketing: Yeah then yeah that's right . +User Interface: A mouse or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , not a mouse but uh something that that says more clearly that uh right , left , up , down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , the to have the ability to to to write something to the navigator , maybe directly , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can think of buttons like in the telephone to send messages or things like that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: How the {gap} this remote ? +Industrial Designer: But we'll see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's gonna be small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} small . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So it'll beep if you wanna find it +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} too small that it goes under the sofa and we can't find it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you just uh shout {disfmarker} y h just {disfmarker} it just has to re respond to you when you look for the device . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno how bu {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} just {gap} give it a name and we call him . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {gap} responds to you , and {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh next presentation {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant four . So Harry . +Marketing: Okay , after having the inputs from {vocalsound} industrial design and user interface , I think most of the points which I want to are already covered here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And to find the most interesting features what the users would be interested , then what we have done is we have put a feedback forms in all the magazines , and the users send the feedbacks , and based on that {disfmarker} These are the findings which we got and {disfmarker} yeah adding of a speech interface is always good for a T_V_ remote but the technology {disfmarker} We already know that {disfmarker} as discussed earlier {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I I think it will be a , yes , a bit complicated to um make a speech recognisers runs on the small uh ts +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An {vocalsound} it does {gap} how feasible it is . +User Interface: I- {vocalsound} mm . But I think if you {gap} to recognise numbers it's a well-studied problem . I if you just recognise uh numbers is a limited {disfmarker} you have limited vocabulary {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh we can put an limited vocabulary as in the mobile phones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We just have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And this can allow to choose the the program , for instance without uh adding uh buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a good idea . +Marketing: {gap} it's not going to take much space also . It's going to be very slim . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And next one was the size of the remote control . It has to be of course a very slim and small one . And of course most of the people are interested in if it's less expensive , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so this is an important criteria here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But do you think what they sug suggested s possibility {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: I mean we have to look for a trade-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The features and the cost . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I no {disfmarker} I I think that uh i if we go for quality people may tolerate for high quality and of course comes with uh reasonable cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe not less , but they may be willing to pay little bit more for comfort , +Marketing: Little bit more if it's with extra features . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah , extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s s speech is a important extra feature I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: But is it useful or not u I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is {gap} in the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for a lazy guys they could say nine and the nine channel comes . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or they say movie name {disfmarker} or I don't go for movie names but only for the numbers on the channel , or volume up , volume down , brightness , contrast . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So , I think this should be a good idea , to put this features . And the fourth one was the teletext in various languages . +Industrial Designer: we we just have to find a mean how to to add a m a a a microphone or uh well {disfmarker} yes a microphone into the the remote control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it will be alright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it's necessary can {disfmarker} you can do that . +User Interface: What is the teletext ? Mm . +Project Manager: We can integrate small microphone in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not really a problem . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What about lighting adaptive options ? +Marketing: Yeah as discussed in the earlier meeting , but {vocalsound} I think uh not much people are really interested in this point if it's not really required . +Project Manager: According to the re to the new requirements I think we don't need that . Yeah . +User Interface: It is interesting but we are only concerned with the remote controller . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you need s special T_V_ sets to do that ? Or it's it's done via this remote controller ? It's very complex . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's a bit complex too {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} yeah , it's for the um industrial design and users interface designers to decide if it's going to be working or not . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: For our next product , our new T_V_ set with uh automatical uh sound adjustment {vocalsound} light {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , then we can conclude that . Yeah . Yeah , but it's quite possible but maybe not in this project . +Project Manager: So we have {disfmarker} I think we have s still we have couple of minutes . Mm-mm . {vocalsound} So any things to to discuss ? Or any suggestions ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think as I discussed th that four points would be good for um marketing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The speech interface and uh less uh reasonable uh cost . +Project Manager: Expensive . Price . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And the lighting adaptation +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and the teletext . And regarding the teletext uh these are the subtitl these are the text information which you got on the televisions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: If you are watching an foreign movie , you get {gap} subtitles sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: And uh if you are a French guy watching an English movie you would like to have it in French . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And if I am a German then I would like to have the {disfmarker} my options in German . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , the remote {disfmarker} it should have some {disfmarker} it should give me some flexibility of choosing the ch languages . +Industrial Designer: Function . +Marketing: That should be a good uh point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but well what about the the new project's requirement ? I I I think we should give up with teletext , no ? +Project Manager: I think we we can we {disfmarker} {gap} is the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , so maybe we we can j we can already think uh {vocalsound} about a way to to access the internet via the television . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Using the T_V_ to access the internet ? Or what ? I didn't quite understand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we can think that in a few years there will be T_V_ set that can access the internet . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a good idea if i i if we i if if we uh think about how to to to build up our remote uh control w with this functionality in a {disfmarker} w which will c which will come in a few years . +Marketing: We already have some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So if we already have it in our remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have to anticipate the the future ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} The future demand , market demand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to desi +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: well , not not to implement it , but to {disfmarker} well , to find a way to to add to add this functionality in a {disfmarker} yeah , in an in an easy manner , if is possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: The functionality in the future . +Project Manager: In future . +User Interface: Alright . Yeah . Because all the T_V_ sets will be digital , right . All the programmes , everything will be in digital than analog . Th the system will change and we have to anticipate for those change . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's go for the the lunch break , and we will meet after . +Industrial Designer: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . +","The project team met for their second meeting, primarily to discuss and present their respective work on the design and functionality of a new television remote control. The Project Manager addressed new project requirements, suggesting that teletext is obsolete and the remote should focus solely on television functionality, incorporating the company's image. The Industrial Designer suggested a survey for affordable components, prototyping, and troubleshooting, eventually adding software functionalities like content browsing on a programmable chip. Discussion of the remote's design included buttons and navigation, a simple, user-friendly interface, and possibly incorporating speech recognition for commands. Marketing insights prioritized user interest in speech interfaces, reasonable cost, and the ability to change language settings on teletext. The group contemplated the necessity and feasibility of a microphone for voice commands and dismissed the need for a lighting adaptive feature. It was proposed to consider future internet connectivity via television sets. The meeting concluded with plans for a lunch break and a follow-up session afterwards." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um here's the agenda for our last meeting . +Marketing: Whoohoo . +Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation , then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote . Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process , and then we're gonna close it up , and we have forty minutes , so let's get started . Oh , no , let's have the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you ready ? +User Interface: Um sure . You or me ? +Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff , since you wrote it . +User Interface: Okay . Well , since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for , I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you . +Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray , which is what we had decided , and it's gonna be plastic . Um then there's the latex cover , which is what you see as red . Um because it can be replaceable , we just kinda went with the colour . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top . Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue , almost see-through . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button , rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo . Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons . {vocalsound} They're one button , but they kind of push up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling . +Industrial Designer: No . They're just buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right , yeah . And then {disfmarker} yeah , the buttons . +Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of , by concave sort of thing , except for , you know , {gap} can't see underneath . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that , because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know , stick your finger in . Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used , menu , mute , +User Interface: Thumb-shaped . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers , so our channel and our volume will be on either side . +User Interface: Yeah . And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top , just which we didn't do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand , is it gonna be a single or a double ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a single . +Project Manager: Single . Single sounds good , +User Interface: Single . +Project Manager: 'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's only actually the size of my hand . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Great . Great . I think you did an awesome job . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is beautiful , and it's everything that we discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Good job , you guys . +Project Manager: Good job . +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . +User Interface: Oh thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Those are really good . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: what's next in our agenda ? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria , and that's with Courtney . +Marketing: Okay , it's a PowerPoint presentation . I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about . It's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Alright . Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask , is it easy to use , is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we should write these down so we can reference them . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Feel good meaning what ? +Marketing: Like does it feel good , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Physically , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: yeah , physically . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It doesn't really count , you guys . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , well then that's covered . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that ? +Project Manager: I'll wait . +Marketing: Yeah , she's got it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's good . Yeah . Okay so , we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale , and so we need to discuss how we feel . It falls within this range , so for easy to use , do we feel it's very easy to use ? +Project Manager: Are we going to indi +User Interface: True or false , easy to use . +Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say ? +Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just orally . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Why not ? We have {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um easy to use . I vote six . +Marketing: Oh wait , that's false . +Project Manager: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: two . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Marketing: Two . That's what I say . +Project Manager: Uh hello , we're great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one . +Industrial Designer: At the moment , no . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No . I mean like no , I think it's very fashionable . +Project Manager: Me too , very chic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I would give it a one . +Project Manager: One , I give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two , because at the moment it's not looking that way . +Project Manager: Oh , and ma it's a prototype , +Marketing: Well , that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay , it's a prototype . +Project Manager: right . +User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable . +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: I'd give it like three or four . +Project Manager: Well , now I'm {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , the average is about a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable , so +Marketing: Yeah , it's a two . +Project Manager: Two or three . Two point five . +User Interface: don't use my opinion . +Marketing: That's okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have , either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: does it feel good ? +Project Manager: Imagine , since we obviously don't have that . +User Interface: Does it feel good ? +Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh . +Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed . It's gonna be curved . +User Interface: Yeah , it's gonna be thicker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Depth . +Marketing: I think it feels good . +Project Manager: I think so too . +Marketing: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Marketing: What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: I'd say a two . +Project Manager: Alright , average is two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative ? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh no , it's fine , +Project Manager: Go right ahead . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um yeah , I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it ? +Project Manager: Yes . Right ? We were able to do it with that kind of chip . +User Interface: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip , yes . It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype , +Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here . Y +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions , really . +Project Manager: That was {disfmarker} 'kay . And we discussed that being included . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Then yes , then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we don' have the {disfmarker} you know , we can't say channel , and it changes the channel , channel eight . +Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_ , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced . But it is just a T_V_ remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd go for a three or four on that one , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I go four . +Project Manager: okay , let's go for a three point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three and an half . +Project Manager: Alright , and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Squishy and fruity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah , so I'd give it a two . +Project Manager: Well , we've covered that with the +User Interface: It's just trendy , basically . +Project Manager: trendy . Sure . Capable . Very capable . +Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity . +Marketing: Oh , it's very capable of being squishy and fruity . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important . 'Kay , there we go . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Okay , next . +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions . Good job , team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What ? +Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good . +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , that's it . Hmm . Oops . Okay , so now uh we're moving on to finance , okay . I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro . If so , we can proceed , if not , we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit . 'Kay ? So let me bring that up . Here we go . Alright . Um it's not hand dynamo , it's powered by battery , so we give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use . Do I just put quantity being one battery , or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s , 'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery . Oh , let's just go for a lithium . What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , let's let's do a lithium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} . +Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced , +Project Manager: {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , down to the electronics um section . We're gonna need this kind , correct , if we do the voice sensor , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so one of those . It is a single-curved , so one of those . +Marketing: Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . What's that ? Yeah , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , down here , case material . +User Interface: It's plastic . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Plastic . +Marketing: plastic . +User Interface: And special colour . +Marketing: And special colour . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Down here , interface type . We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel . +User Interface: No , we don't have the scroll . +Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's the push-button too , right there . +User Interface: Buttons . +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: This ? +Marketing: but i so i +Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface . +Project Manager: Okay , so we can just go {disfmarker} um . +Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two , won't we ? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having . Because we're not doing a scroll on the side , it's still push-button . +User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we just have push +User Interface: push-buttons . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls . +Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here ? +Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side ? +Project Manager: I don't know , they might put us {disfmarker} well , let's just . +User Interface: Two interfaces , is that what w should we s say ? +Project Manager: Two or would it be three ? +Industrial Designer: Let's call it th +Marketing: Or three , because of one on each side and one on top . +User Interface: Okay , fine . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean it's fine 'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine . Well less than twenty nine even . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay . +Marketing: They're a special colour . Um they're uh they're a special form , 'cause they're indented . +Project Manager: Are they ? Oh , right . +User Interface: And then s +Marketing: And , they're a special material . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Well , we're under cost then . Alright . +User Interface: We're over ? +Project Manager: No , we're under . +Industrial Designer: Grand . +Marketing: We're under . +Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got eleven point two . +User Interface: Oh , I see . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So we can go to production . +Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did . {vocalsound} Okay . Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result . Um did we have a lot of room for creativity ? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership , um teamwork , and the means , meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there , and if we found any new ideas . Now , question is , how do we do this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Go back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it . +Project Manager: Discuss , sure . +Industrial Designer: Previous . +Project Manager: Alright . Who want who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself , in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote , initially . +User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard . +Project Manager: Hmm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh that's true . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , yeah , that's a good point . 'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though ? +Marketing: Oh , overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it . +Project Manager: Right , and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable , which I kind of like {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company . +Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep . You know it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right . +Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect ? How did you guys enjoy making the model , the prototype ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: I think we did well . +Project Manager: I think ya' did . Did you work well together in there , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , no , there was there was scratching and fighting , but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Minus that one fight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges . +Project Manager: Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I mean minus you guys being wha what is it , the survey , annoying or what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating . +Industrial Designer: Irritating . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Irritating . +Marketing: Irritating , yeah . Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The means , the whiteboard didn't work . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and no internet . +User Interface: Misses . I do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There's so much available . +Marketing: And the digital the digital pens +User Interface: Like it's information +Project Manager: Yeah , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those , yeah . +Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool . +Project Manager: They were fine . +Marketing: Yeah they were fun , even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them , but they are awesome . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything . +Project Manager: Right , laptops are extremely handy , +Industrial Designer: It was wireless too , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: wireless . And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And these things whoa . +Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And Big Brother . +Project Manager: Big brother . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , have we found any new ideas through this process ? +Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da . +Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over , w wanting the artistic , the fashionable , the hip , you know . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology . +User Interface: Well , that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples , just 'cause I look at it , and I know it's probably a very good computer , but I look at it , and I'm taken back to elementary school , 'cause they look the same . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids . +User Interface: Exactly , so I associate them with like really low-tech , really cheap , bad {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just the Mac font bothers me even . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: But I do like iPods , go figure . +Marketing: Yeah , no , iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation , even the plugs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , i iPods are now quite trendy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours . +Project Manager: Colours . Exactly . I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone , back when we were like in high school , just so they could get the changeable face plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , so that is definitely at work . +Industrial Designer: Not me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone 'til university . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will . +User Interface: You're kidding . +Marketing: That is a piece of work . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . Marketing Director says yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , marketing has to actually create the desire for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it . Oh , I will create desire . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's okay . We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met . This will help them find the one . +User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial , and that's the fig-leaf . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That'll sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says , use our remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There you go , marketing {gap} . +User Interface: Let you loose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , no . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , we're gonna wrap this up now . Um the costs are within the budget , we evaluated the project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary , and then we're going to have a big giant party , apparently , according to this , so . Alright , thank you team , +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . Margaritas for everyone . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you did a great job , it was lovely working with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good . +Marketing: You too . +Industrial Designer: Yay . Thanks to the Project Leader . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now we know w +","The team, consisting of members from Marketing, Project Management, Industrial Design, and User Interface, is discussing the final details of their TV remote project. The prototype presentation includes: + +- Gunmetal gray plastic base +- Replaceable red latex cover +- Light blue, semi-transparent buttons +- Bright yellow logo design +- Side buttons as a single button that can press up and down +- Concave design for better grip + +They evaluate the prototype based on criteria like ease of use, fashionability, feel, and technological innovation, discussing individual ratings for each aspect. They also review a budget to ensure the remote's production costs are within the €12.50 limit. + +The discussion shifts to the project process regarding creativity, individual leadership, teamwork, and the use of technology. They conclude that the project went well, despite some constraints and lack of internet access. There's a plan for a closing party to celebrate their work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . That's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Am I starting now ? Anytime ? Oh sorry . 'Kay , um . Alright , welcome back fro to the second meeting . And um I hope you had a productive last thirty minutes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and um , I'll be taking minutes on this one , and um {disfmarker} Being hooked up to the PowerPoint for this meeting isn't very necessary for uh myself , because it'll be more about uh , what you guys are bringing to the meeting today . Um , so , the first presentation we'll be looking at is Poppy's presentation . And , um {disfmarker} So , sorry ? So , um , take it away Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , do I need to {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: It's , it's plugged in . So , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: plugged in . +User Interface: F_ eight , w . Function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ okay . Function F_ eight . Sorry about this guys . +Project Manager: No problem . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {gap} is on . Right . {gap} Okay . I will take this time just to apologise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I , I only , uh , received my emails later on . 'Cause I was too busy carried away doing my own thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is not obviously not a very good part of a team-working thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there we go . +Project Manager: I'm sure it's fine . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was looking at how we're going to go about the working design , and what we actually need to do , and what the remote control needs to do . And it needs to um allow a person to have a portable desi device , so they can control the television from wherever they are . They don't need to actually manually touch the television set . So , it gives them much more flexibility , and allows them to be where they want to be . Um , from {disfmarker} Uh , on a functional side of things , we found out that wh from our previous meeting , we decided that there're certain points that will make our product unique . Um , one is the visibility in the dark , which was um Genevieve's idea . So we need to think about how we could bring this in um technically . And we could use illuminated buttons , which we are all familiar with when we're using a mobile phone , or um something fam familiar . A automatically , um lights up at first touch . Or we could use fluorescent materials which would just um take in the light during the day , and then as soon as they go off they would glow in the dark . Um , also we could use um an alarm . So if we lost the um remote control , perhaps there could be a button on the television set itself , which you could press , and then an alarm from the handset would sound where it was , hopefully in the room . Maybe behind a cushion or somewhere . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so that would work . Um , oop . Go back there . Um , another thing I think we d missed out on on the last meeting was the fact that we should consider the environmental impact of our design . Um , from previous researches I've carried out on other projects , um we've learnt about smart materials where um um specific alloys of metals have a shape memory . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So they can be heated and um and cooled , and they change the shape of um the metal . So , for example , a screw that's holding something together could expand and it would force all the components apart . So um , the benefits of this for our product would be that when it came to the end of its product life , if it was heated , um everything would spring apart . So , all the um individual components could be easily separated , and then some could be reused , some could be recycled , and I think that would be very important for products now . Especially 'cause there's much uh responsibility for all the um companies who are coming up with like new designs . 'Cause all , we all know that our resources are being limited , and we have to be very environmentally conscious . +Project Manager: Right , um , one question . This , um , self-destructible uh metal , it allows for recycling materials ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that , um , someone could have this product for as long as they felt that they wanted it , and then once they contribute it , then that company can break down the part , the parts better ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} And then {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah they would , um you would make the , the product as you normally would , apart from the , the bits that hold it all together would be made out of this shape-memory alloy . And that's the part that would um allow all the other parts to be separated at the end . I mean , the user would return the p product to the company , 'cause it's the product's responsibility to get rid of what they've made . Um , and then the company could then just use , make use of this shape-memory alloys to split up the components , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then either reuse some bits , and other bits which are obviously gonna wear out with time , or not usable , they might be like be able to put into scrap metal . Something like the case , if it's scratched or something , you would want to reuse it , but you might be able to melt it down and reuse it again somewhere else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Would we be the company that would break down these , or uh metals ? Or would we contribute to another group ? +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could probably empl em employ a , a side company or something to do that for us . But it would be our responsibility to get that done and to dispose of the products that we made . For a certain percentage at least . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Not every , not a hundred percent of everything we produce , +Project Manager: Okay . This sounds like a really great idea . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One thing we have to consider is our uh one hundred percent um turnover goal that we have for our financial sector . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so we'll have to investigate how much that will cost us , cost the company , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um 'cause it sounds very labour-intensive . You would have to hire a number of people , and it might be more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Well I {disfmarker} the fact of the shape-memory alloys is that they , they don't need to be manually de um deconstructed . Like , you don't have to individually um unscrew all the screws . Because of this , their properties are smart material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: All you need is just the heat , so they self-destruct themselves . +Project Manager: Alright . We'll still have to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: So I suppose it does need like high contact , yeah , you know high uh quality machinery , and very specific machinery , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . I like the environmental approach . Um , we'll have to see if that can meet our financial goals as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um also there is um components . This'll be how it uh will actually work . But I haven't put this plan together yet . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There we go +Project Manager: Those were um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: . Sorry , should I go back . This would actually show the circuit diagram . Although I haven't come up with the final circuit yet . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I just {gap} put all those components in . +Project Manager: So those are what , um , we'll c construct the remote . Those are all the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I it just shows what sort of energy source . It could be a battery , like rechargeable probably . Um , an' yeah , well how the infrared will actually be sent through the chip to be received by the chip on the television set itself . +Project Manager: Alright . Great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? So , now is it F_ eight again to escape ? Or escape ? There we go . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . Thank you very much . And , um , the next presenter will be Tara . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go Tara . +User Interface: Thanks . Can you see ? +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do you think {disfmarker} Is it uh , function eight yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: The one at the top . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Marketing: That looks right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . I'm the User {vocalsound} um User Interface Designer . Uh , the technical functions design of the apparatus is the effect the apparatus should have . Um , in this case it's the function of the remote control , which is to send messages to the television , television set . By taking inspiration from other similar designs , we'll try and come up with an original trendy remote control , which is sellable international . There're two functional design options . A multifunctional remote control , which can be used for several entertainment devices . And a single function remote control , used specifically for the television . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm sorry , what was that last one . Multifunctional and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . Um , a single function just for the television itself . +Marketing: Ch Oh , I see . +User Interface: Yeah . Um , multifunctional controls can be difficult to use , as the multitude of buttons can be confusing . A single function remote control is simpler to use , but it means you have to have other remote controls for your other entertainment devices . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um , I think that a single function remote control would be preferable , because it's easier to use . It'd be more compatible with a range of television sets , making it more internationally sellable . Um , it will make an original design more obtainable , as we have less functional necessities to include in the design . And it would be more profitable as it would be more simplistic . And less functions would have to be included . So it would be cheaper to make . And probably more sellable just because it's more compatible with a r a wider range of devices . Does anyone have any questions ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So as far as we know , um , a single function television remote control is us usable internationally ? +User Interface: Well , it's just that , when we're creating it , we're , we have to make it um compatible with different brands of devices . +Marketing: {gap} Right . +User Interface: And it would be easier to make it compatible with just different brands of television devices rather than other ent , +Marketing: D_V_D_s and V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: yeah , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: other entertainment devices . +Project Manager: Does everyone agree with this ? Does anyone object and , and find the multifunctional might be a better way to go ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} I was just wondering about the , what , what Genevieve said before , about having like some hidden controls like having the outer casing . And that would probably , um , I d , well well what you said before about it being a more profitable simplistic design . I suppose having that would complicate it a lot more . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And limit the design {gap} . Do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I agree with the single design thing for now , because we're trying to do so much , that if we're trying to make a unique , user-friendly , dadada , and it's also multi also multifunctional , um , we're gonna go over budget for one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And with this we'll have more room in the budget probably to make a more original design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We'll have more money to go into the design side of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Sounds great . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Alright , well , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: are you ready for your presentation Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes I am . +Project Manager: Fabulous . Except you're not hooked up to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not hooked up , but other than that , completely ready . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Oh . I just lost my microphone . +Project Manager: {gap} No problem , +Marketing: Just a moment . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So I'll be discussing the functional requirements of this remote control . Um , and I'll give you a little briefing on what that means exactly . Um , if you all remember from the email we got before our very first uh kick-off meeting , with the coffee machine ? The functional requirements of that was to produce hot coffee quickly . Um , so what I'll be talking about now is the equivalent for a remote control . Um , so basically what needs and desires are to be fulfilled . Um , I've done some marketing research , a lot of interviews with remote control users , um , and some internet research . And I'll show you my findings . Oh , and firstly I wanted to remind you about our company motto and purpose . So we believe in providing international market with fashionable products . Um , hence our motto , we put the fashion in electronics . So I think that should be our priority here . Um , and we should also be looking to trends in clothing and interior design . Not just in electronic fashion . So that it's something that fits in the household . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , what was that last thing that you just said ? +Marketing: Um , we should be looking towards trends in both clothing and interior design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Any trends that are going on in , in the public , even media , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you know who's famous , what T_V_ shows are being watched , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: um , to influence our remote control . Okay , so the findings . Um , seventy five percent of users of remote controls find them ugly . Which is a , quite a significant number . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , the other twenty five percent didn't specify if they love them or found them , you know , neutral . Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , that eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . You mean that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah , they're willing , they're willing to spend money on a remote control with personality . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: As opposed to your basic , you know , oval black , all same size button remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so it is something that people care about . It's not , it's not ignored in the household . Um , seventy five percent of remote control users said that they zap a lot . Zapping meaning they go through channels a lot . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're you know thumb-masters . Um , and fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . That A very small amount . Thought that was interesting . +Project Manager: Alright , so it might be very appealing if , um , we have very concise buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} the single function . +Project Manager: And another thing with um lots of surfing , we'd probably have to work on something that could be um a lot more durable , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because I find with um channel-changers that , um , a lot of the numbers get rubbed down if they're printed on the button . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And actually to go with that , I'm gonna give you some statistics on the uh relevancy of the buttons , how much they're used . And uh how important the uh users find them . So the power button , obviously , in an hour is only used once . Hopefully the person's not turning on and off the T_V_ . Um , but the relevance of that button is nine out of ten . So people wanna be able to turn on the T_V_ with the remote control . Um , as opposed to standing up and turning on the television set . Channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times on average per hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a huge amount . This is the most important button . Um , so obviously when commercials come on they're changing it , so as you said we want a durable button that's not gonna run down . Relevance of that button , our users found was uh ten , ten out of ten . Uh , ditto for volume selection , so ten out of ten . And it's used on average four times an hour . Not as much as channel selection , but still significant . Um , audio settings is used on average zero point eight times an hour . Relevance is two . Screen settings , which means brightness , colour etcetera , zero point five times an hour . Um , and relevance of one point five . We're getting to specific statistics here . Teletext , um , now I'm not too clear on what that is . I don't know if you can help me . Flipping pages . +User Interface: It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's like the news . Or like information . +User Interface: It has {disfmarker} T_V_ has like information , it has information on holidays , the news , entertainment . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and what's on . +Marketing: So like a running banner , underneath {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's a button that you press , and then you , uh , like a menu pops up . +User Interface: No , li Yeah . +Project Manager: I haven't used it before +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's like {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you have page numbers like for the menu , and you press the page numbers with your remote , and it , it'll come up . +Industrial Designer: It's like very basic internet . Sort of , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Very basic internet , yeah . +Industrial Designer: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Like tells you the weather , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But you have no interaction back with it , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Like the internet you can send emails and {disfmarker} You've no interaction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's just information that um , like television timetables , what's on , what's on now , what's on next , on every channel , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . Well I guess I'm not with it , because I wasn't {disfmarker} But it's , it's being used fourteen times an hour . Um , and has a r a high relevance of six point five . So it looks like something that we're gonna want to do some research on and include on our remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , channel settings . Zero point zero one times an hour . Relevance of three . Channel settings . +User Interface: Uh , probably just tuning in the channels , would it be ? +Marketing: P Sorry . Changing the channels ? +User Interface: Tuning them in at the very start . You know if you get a new T_V_ set , you tune in all the channels , +Industrial Designer: To get the right reception and picture , I suppose . +User Interface: do you th do you think ? +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , so it's not used very often , but people still find it relevant . Okay . Um , biggest frustrations of uh the people that we interviewed . Remote controls are often lost somewhere . So that was already discussed by Poppy . How we could have a , an alarm system so that people can find it . Um , takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So it should be very user-friendly , you know . People know what to do very quickly . Um , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Repeti Uh . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: Is that what it is ? People with arthritis and such ? +Project Manager: That's rather sad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , maybe our +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm guessing that's what it is . I'm not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think it is . +Marketing: designers can look into that . Um , buttons that don't require , you know , very firm pushing , if they respond . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: But we'll have to also avoid , you know , buttons responding to the slightest touch as well . That's a problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It is . +Marketing: Okay . Did you guys uh get that one down ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} okay , here's some ideas for you . A large percentage of the public would pay for voice recognition on the remote controls . So I'll show you some numbers here . Um , so the youngest age group , fifteen to twenty five . Ninety one point two percent said that they would pay extra money to have voice recogni voice recognition included on their remote control . Um , and you can see that number decreases a bit with ol s Interestingly enough , twenty five to thirty five is the lowest amount . Um , that would , are willing to pay extra . So I guess we're gonna have to figure out what age group we're , we're targeting , and if and if voice recognition is something we wanna look into . And if we have the budget for it . Um , if we are targeting young adults , it looks like something that would pay off . Seeing as ninety percent , over ninety percent would pay for it . +Project Manager: I agree with um {disfmarker} if we're targeting young adults then it would be something we should look into . Um , financially and and functionally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and especially if we are um trying to be trendy , go with fashions , things like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , ages like from thirty five to sixty five which show lower numbers probably won't be as concerned . +Marketing: So that , that's a whole other field of research . I don't know if it'd be , if we'd still have a remote , or if you're talking to your television and saying change channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um and depending on how many members you have in households . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it m it may be too complicated for us , but it's something to keep in mind anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . And something that might further complicate it is that the T_V_ makes noise itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Wonder if it would have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if there was conversation in the room at the same time , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: although in theory it doesn't tend to be when you're watching television , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} {gap} could be very difficult to get the specific uh design . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . If we're looking for a simplistic design , if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We need to decide if that is our um intention is , is a simplistic design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um , because if , if it is then I think voice , um voice-activated {disfmarker} +Marketing: It looks like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that would sort of negate the whole remote control thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because if people can activate the television with their voice then they won't be using a , they won't be talking into a remote , I'm sure . +Marketing: It'd be like the ultimate remote . {gap} Um {vocalsound} okay . And th the last thing here was a , an L_C_D_ screen . So , I mean voice recognition might be a little too extreme for us . Not practical . Um an L_C_D_ screen though might be something that , you know , you can shift through pages kind of li the way this PowerPoint is working . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that you don't have so many buttons to deal with . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know what an L_C_D_ screen is . +Marketing: Oh sorry , just , just a screen , like a computer screen . S Or like um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} Like an alarm clock . You'd have an L_C_D_ versus just a , a normal clock . +Industrial Designer: What , what would appear on the screen ? +Project Manager: I have no idea still . {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh just like an electronic screen . As opposed to just buttons . There would be like a little , like on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , on the remote . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Like on the top of a cellphone , the the little L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , now that's , I , I dunno exactly what exactly we'd put on there . I guess the channel that you're on , the v the volume setting . +User Interface: Yeah . Could it it {disfmarker} It would be good if it had the actual programme that was on , and what was next . But that would probably be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like linked in with the teletext , +User Interface: Yeah . That would be good , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or sort of like an teletext at your fingers , without having to access that through the television . +User Interface: Yeah . Might be quite expensive to do that though . +Industrial Designer: Mm , Yeah . Could be . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I guess that's something we can all take back to our respective research . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , and finally , whoops , my personal preferences and thoughts . Um , I think our priority really should be unique design . Um , we want something that people want in their home . Every remote control looks the same , so uh in my opinion it should be , um , user-friendly and unique . So the other stuff might be a little too , a little too gadgety for some people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , I th myself , voice recognition kind of scares me off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we're , if we're aiming to make this an international university , universally accepted product {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and for all , the other thing is like age market . I mean if we wanted to concentrate on fifteen to twenty five years olds , we could go for the fancy stuff . But if we wanna make fifty million , and and have everyone want this remote control , we should maybe stick to the basics . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we should keep in mind that fifteen to twenty five year olds might not have twenty five Euros to spend on a remote control . Like their priorities might not be a fancy remote control , when they're just starting out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and , yeah . +Marketing: Right . And we have to keep in mind the , the reliability of our research . I mean , you know , a sixteen year old boy would say , yeah I'd pay extra for voice recognition , until they realise that's three months allowance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , so I I think , I think the older generations we should be catering to a bit more . +User Interface: Early twenties , that's the kind of age group . +Project Manager: Yeah . And if one of the largest , uh , or most complained about thing is that it takes so long to get to know how to use a remote control , +User Interface: Twenties . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm sure that something like an L_C_D_ screen or remote control would be just furthering that problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Complicated jus complicating things even fo Mm . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's it for the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . Before we go into uh more discussion on {gap} we want this design to look like , I've received some information from the management that will affect some of our decisions . Um , for one thing , because {disfmarker} Having controls with D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , that sort of thing , would really complicate the design of the remote control . Um , we've decided not to include them and make it a specific , just a specific television um function . Which is good as , as we've sort of decided that we would like to go with that anyway . Um , for many reasons . So um we have that decision sort of made for us . Another thing that might um affect other decisions is that um the management feels that teletext is outdated , because more people are using the internet now . And so uh we won't concern ourselves with um navigating the teletext option . +Industrial Designer: Can I just interrupt ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to plug in your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Maybe we can do the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: Have you got a PowerPoint or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah I do . I'm looking at {disfmarker} looking at it right now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thanks . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you . +Marketing: Oh , come back screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Were they , was the management suggesting use of the internet rather than teletext , or just avoiding both altogether ? +Project Manager: Um , well , I mean we don't have the resources or or possibility of using the internet with the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but um they were just pretty much saying that the teletext would not be used . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and another thing . This is for the design , the design of the product is that um we wanna create , um more of a sense that people know that this is from our company . So , um , all the remote controls must have our um {disfmarker} We'll incorporate our logo and colour in in some way . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , um , perhaps um our logo on the bottom , or wherever you feel like it would look good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , it doesn't have to be the colour of our um of our company +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but , another thing is that , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we need to , we probably would have to have that colour and , and logo decided upon . Um , I'm assuming that we already have one , but for the purposes of this meeting I , I wasn't offered a , like a type of logo or colour , so if that could be um somewhere on the design so that we can be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Work on that . +Marketing: It's probably R_ R_R_ in yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: The little R_ R_ yellow thing ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Project Manager: Real Reaction ? Okay . Um , yes , those are the changes . Um , so , now we need to discuss , um and come to a decision on our remote control functions , of , of how this is going to be . I'm just going to look at my notes for a second . Um , we have to decide on a target group and the functions of the remote control . So , um , we already know that it'll just be for the television . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It'll {disfmarker} It won't have teletext . But um , you know , we could discuss um those other options that you brought up , Genevieve . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay , so I {disfmarker} Are we going to write off the L_C_D_ option ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that how most people feel about that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , no teletext , and no voice recognition . +User Interface: I think it would be annoying though if {disfmarker} I don't use teletext that much , but if it was on your T_V_ , you'd want to be able to use it , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but another thing is that if we're reaching an international crowd , um , I know for one that in North America there is no such thing as teletext , so it'd be really superfluous . +User Interface: You'd {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So is it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Never heard of it . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . I don't know about other countries besides the U_K_ . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Do you know if anywhere else has it ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: More research required , I think . +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if {disfmarker} Was it a management decision that we're having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was a management decision , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so it's , it's pretty much out of our hands at this point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So , I guess we're looking at something rather simple . +Marketing: Um , well I guess , just from my findings it looks like we wanna minimise buttons . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: Minimal {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} What was the word they used ? F findability is important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we should definitely go ahead with the alarm system idea that you had . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I'm sure that could be inex inexpensive because we could use the same kind of infrared +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The same signalling . +Project Manager: the same signal through that and it could just like make a little beeping noise . +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not that expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Or vibrate just the same as a mobile phone . Like you just a , a buzz or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . I like that idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Would you be able to , um , put the little device anywhere ? {vocalsound} 'Cause uh isn't our remote control for all T_V_s , so +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: you'd ha +Industrial Designer: Do you mean the the link between the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , with the button that you pressed . +Project Manager: Yeah . The button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , if the button was actually on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Minor detail there . +User Interface: C 'cause then it would only be a applicable to one T_V_ set , so it would need to be something that you could stick somewhere , or something . +Industrial Designer: Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it would have t +Industrial Designer: Maybe something adhesive that you could like stick onto the back of any set that would be um yeah not very obtrusive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Obviously something small that's {disfmarker} Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Then it wouldn't , it probably wouldn't be able to use {disfmarker} It would be able to use the same reception on the remote c control I guess , but the actual device would have to have its own infrared signaller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Would it need a battery then ? +Project Manager: Maybe , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Pr probably . +Project Manager: Probably , I mean . +Industrial Designer: Unless it could be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's your department you'll have to sort that out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , unless some way , it could have some universal connection to like the socket , the same socket that the T_V_'s supplied from . I mean the power for the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , mm , more research into that one . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to investi Do some research on that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: alright ? Great . Um , alright , and I'm sure that , um um , the glow-in-the-dark , fluorescent , whatever , system , um is a go ahead . Is everyone interested in that ? +Industrial Designer: Y +Marketing: On the buttons ? +User Interface: I I like the light up suggestion . I think that would be better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause you know the way fluorescent lights lose their brightness after certain time , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} it doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would go for {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could it could be a tactile thing as well . Um right , if w if we're minimising buttons , we might be able to make them actually larger . And there's something on it . S you know like up arrow down arrow for , for volume . +Industrial Designer: Like a raised {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , and I don't know what we could do for , for channels . S +User Interface: Well just the numbers could be embossed , couldn't it ? Like raised . +Marketing: The numbers themselves . +User Interface: Yeah . Could be raised . +Marketing: But then the like up button and down button for the channel , channel changing . +User Interface: Just little arrows , that you could feel , maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I just thought that {gap} it , it might be sucking more battery power , if there , if it is a light up . I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: But I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also y , uh Heather you mentioned before , um like how it should be accessible to everybody . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so like big b um buttons , {gap} for people you are visually impaired . The glow-in-the-dark or light up won't make any difference anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So like you say tactile might be better , because it'd be more available to everybody . +User Interface: That , I think that's good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Could we somehow {disfmarker} We could , may , possibly , sorry , incorporate them both so that the buttons could maybe be in the shape of the numbers themselves and be made out of some glow-in-the-dark material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I d I don't think that glow-in-the-dark material , um , like the actual soft plastic , um , costs that much more than other colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No , it's not these days . +User Interface: No , I wouldn't say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean , it's quite easily accessible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess the other option , referring to the battery thing is , you know how cellphones will t light up for fifteen seconds or something , when you're s and then it goes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's good {disfmarker} Yeah that a good idea . +Marketing: so if , if you're like changing the volume during a movie . I know , I'm thinking of mostly when you're watching a movie you turn all the lights off right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And you don't want to turn on the lights , {vocalsound} to turn it down , because there's suddenly an explosion , and it's gonna wake up the baby . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so if you touch the button , it kind of reactivates it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It lights up for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That , yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: On self timer . +Industrial Designer: So self-timed lighting . +Project Manager: Alright we have five minutes left +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um , for the meeting , but I think we should discuss this light subject a little bit more before we close . Um , what was {disfmarker} I missed the last moment , reading that . What were you talking about with the lighting up buttons ? +Marketing: Oh , just if it was kinda the same way that a cell You know how a cellphone will light up for about ten , fifteen seconds when you touch a button , after having not touched it for a while . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , if instead of a constant light up on the , on the remote control , if it lights up for ten seconds when it's touched again . +Project Manager: Mm . So it could be any button that would be pressed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and you , you touch it and it just kind of lights up a bit , and it gives a faint glow . +Industrial Designer: So , self-timed {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have all the lights off in your living room , you'll , you'll temporarily see it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Because usually you're not fooling around for it for more than what ten seconds . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's probably feasible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , do you think that we should do the lighting up thing , and the glow-in-the-dark thing , and the shape of the numbers ? Do we have to kind of decide what we're gonna do with this . +Industrial Designer: I think the shape of the numbers is a really good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that's un unique as well . +User Interface: Yeah . For visually impaired , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean , I haven't seen that . And as you're saying like numbers can wear off if they're just sort of like painted on , you know printed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . And it could {gap} , if it's that softer rubber material it'll be , maybe , um , uh , better for people with um els no +Industrial Designer: {gap} durable . +Project Manager: what's it called , R_S_I_ , what was it that we were talking about ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah instead of like hard buttons . +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did we want to go for the glow-in-the-dark look ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or did we want to go for the lighting up instantly ? +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like should we do both ? Or we can have one or the other ? Because it might , for , for our design purposes , I mean , the lighting up thing might be better because glow-in-the-dark material has a funny kinda colour . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And it might not go with different like face plates that we might come up with . +Marketing: I was gonna say , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . It the {disfmarker} it might be perceived as tacky , glow-in-the-dark . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's kind of like Eighties neon-style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , whereas we're trying to be trendy and fashionable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there are now like loads , or a huge range of different colours that it could light up in as well , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: which could like link in with the company colours . Like it could be blue or green or yellow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or like we've just limited t with the , just ordinary phosphorescent so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . Alright . So we've decided on lighting up things . +User Interface: I was thinking though , if it was glow-in-the-dark , you could put the um Real Reaction symbol as glow-in-the-dark , and then it would be constantly advertised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Every time the , that it lit up , you c that could light up as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or , or the , whate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: But with the same thing , I mean . If you touch the button and then it could be , it could be lit up as well . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Is {disfmarker} Are you okay with that ? Okay . Cool . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Alright . So I think that um that completes most of our um our more uh practical decisions . +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And now it's up to designing . And um making sure that this can be feasible . And do you have anything {disfmarker} +Marketing: What um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have anything to say ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . Yeah well , I was just gonna throw out there the thought about um personalising the remote control . Um , it , you , 'cause you mentioned face plates . So I I dunno if there's something that diff , you know like five different face plates . I dunno if this will start making it more complicated , but it could increase the popularity of the , of the remote . Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . Like you can have changeable um mobile covers or something . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Interchangeable thing ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like an iPod or something ? +User Interface: That would be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Exactly , like an iPod . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or , or like mobile ph . +Project Manager: Like a cellphone ? Yeah . +Marketing: And I dunno if we'd want to go with like T_V_ show themes or something . Like a Bart Simpson faceplate . +User Interface: Yeah , and then that would be uh more profitable like as a sideline to the remote as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Y Could buy extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Accessories . +Marketing: Exactly . You could start out with three , and if , if we hit it big then we can add some on . +Industrial Designer: Person {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well , that's great . +User Interface: That's a good idea . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that we should incorporate that . +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable . +Project Manager: 'Cause that wouldn't be very expensive at all . +Industrial Designer: Um , als +Project Manager: You'd just get one mould , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: throw some plastic in it , you know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Interchan And also possible {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we could gain out of that by advertising certain T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , that might be com problematic with um copyright issues . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So , if it takes off then we'll , we'll , we'll try that out . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But if we , there is {disfmarker} +User Interface: If w +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We could {disfmarker} Um , the environmental factor , we didn't bring that up again . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We'll have to do more research . Like as of yet , that has nothing to do with , um , the way it'll look . Um , does it need to be reached a de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need to reach a decision on that right now ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because we need to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it need to be uh decided on now ? Or should we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably leave that 'til later on , then . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . Alright then . Anyone else have anything more to say before we close ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Alright , well . Let's have lunch and we'll discuss this later . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +","Summary: + +During a meeting with an industrial designer, marketing representative, project manager, and user interface designer, various aspects of designing a new remote control were discussed. The conversation included technical issues and ideas such as making the remote control with unique design features, environmental considerations, and user-friendliness. + +Key ideas raised included: + +- The remote control should allow portability and flexibility for the user, possibly using illuminated or fluorescent buttons for visibility in the dark and an alarm for locating a misplaced remote. +- Environmental considerations involved the potential use of smart materials that could separate components for easy recycling at the end of the product's life. +- Market research revealed a preference for a simple design with fewer buttons to reduce confusion. A multifunctional remote was compared to a single function remote, with better international compatibility for the latter. +- An important point was to maintain a balance between functionality, user-friendliness, and fashion, given that remotes are a visible part of home decor. +- Various features were suggested, like minimizing buttons for simplicity, using tactile buttons with lighting features for easy use in the dark, and the possibility of adding customizable faceplates for personalization. +- It was determined that the remote should only function with TVs and not include teletext due to its declining use and the decision was made to not go with a multifunctional remote to keep the design simple. +- Financial and environmental impacts of the new materials and features needed further investigation. + +Overall, the discussion leaned towards creating a user-friendly, environmentally friendly, and visually appealing remote control design that could potentially have customizable aspects to appeal to a broad market." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Uh . Somebody else should run this . I 'm sick of being the one to sort of go through and say , "" Well , what do you think about this ? "" You wanna {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Should we take turns ? You want me to run it today ? +Professor B: Yeah . Why don't you run it today ? OK . +PhD F: OK . OK . Um . Let 's see , maybe we should just get a list of items {disfmarker} things that we should talk about . Um , I guess there 's the usual {pause} updates , everybody going around and saying , uh , you know , what they 're working on , the things that happened the last week . But aside from that is there anything in particular that anybody wants to bring up +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: for today ? No ? OK . So why don't we just around and people can give updates . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD F: Uh , do you want to start , Stephane ? +PhD C: Alright . Um . Well , the first thing maybe is that the p Eurospeech paper is , uh , accepted . Um . Yeah . +PhD F: This is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what 's in the paper there ? +PhD C: So it 's the paper that describe basically the , um , system that were proposed for the {pause} Aurora . +PhD F: The one that we s we submitted the last round ? +PhD C: Right , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So and the , fff {comment} comments seems {disfmarker} from the reviewer are good . So . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Where {disfmarker} where 's it gonna be this year ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , Aalborg in Denmark . And it 's , +PhD F: Oh , OK . +PhD C: yeah , September . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . Then , uh , whhh well , I 've been working on {disfmarker} on t mainly on on - line normalization this week . Uh , I 've been trying different {disfmarker} slightly {disfmarker} slightly different approaches . Um , the first thing is trying to play a little bit again with the , um , time constant . Uh , second thing is , uh , the training of , uh , on - line normalization with two different means , one mean for the silence and one for the speech . Um , and so I have two recursions which are controlled by the , um , probability of the voice activity detector . Mmm . This actually don't s doesn't seem to help , although it doesn't hurt . So . But {disfmarker} well , both {pause} on - line normalization approach seems equivalent . Well , they {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are the means pretty different {pause} for the two ? +PhD C: Yeah . They can be very different . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: So do you maybe make errors in different places ? Different kinds of errors ? +PhD C: I didn't look , uh , more closely . Um . It might be , yeah . Mm - hmm . Um . Well , eh , there is one thing that we can observe , is that the mean are more different for {disfmarker} for C - zero and C - one than for the other coefficients . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And {disfmarker} Yeah , it {disfmarker} the C - one is {disfmarker} There are strange {disfmarker} strange thing happening with C - one , is that when you have different kind of noises , the mean for the {disfmarker} the silence portion is {disfmarker} can be different . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: So when you look at the trajectory of C - one , it 's {disfmarker} has a strange shape and I was expecting th the s that these two mean helps , especially because of the {disfmarker} the strange C - ze C - one shape , uh , which can {disfmarker} like , yo you can have , um , a trajectory for the speech and then when you are in the silence it goes somewhere , but if the noise is different it goes somewhere else . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: So which would mean that if we estimate the mean based on all the signal , even though we have frame dropping , but we don't frame ev uh , drop everything , but {disfmarker} uh , this can {disfmarker} hurts the estimation of the mean for speech , and {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} But I still have to investigate further , I think . Um , a third thing is , um , {vocalsound} that instead of t having a fixed time constant , I try to have a time constant that 's smaller at the beginning of the utterances to adapt more quickly to the r something that 's closer to the right mean . T t um {disfmarker} Yeah . And then this time constant increases and I have a threshold that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: well , if it 's higher than a certain threshold , I keep it to this threshold to still , uh , adapt , um , the mean when {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the utterance is , uh , long enough to {disfmarker} to continue to adapt after , like , one second +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Uh , well , this doesn't help neither , but this doesn't hurt . So , well . It seems pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't there some experiment you were gonna try where you did something differently for each , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was each mel band or each , uh , um , FFT bin or someth There was something you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , {comment} some parameter you were gonna vary depending on the frequency . I don't know if that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: I guess it was {disfmarker} I don't know . No . u Maybe it 's this {disfmarker} this idea of having different {pause} on - line normalization , um , tunings for the different MFCC 's . +PhD F: For each , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I thought , Morgan , you brought it up a couple meetings ago . And then it was something about , uh , some and then somebody said "" yeah , it does seem like , you know , C - zero is the one that 's , you know , the major one "" or , uh , s I can't remember exactly what it was now . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . There {disfmarker} uh , actually , yeah . S um , it 's very important to normalize C - zero and {pause} much less to normalize the other coefficients . And , um , actu uh , well , at least with the current on - line normalization scheme . And we {disfmarker} I think , we {vocalsound} kind of know that normalizing C - one doesn't help with the current scheme . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . In my idea , I {disfmarker} I was thinking that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason is maybe because of these funny things that happen between speech and silence which have different means . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . But maybe it 's not so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so easy to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , I I really would like to suggest looking , um , a little bit at the kinds of errors . I know you can get lost in that and go forever and not see too much , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sometimes , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , um , just seeing that each of these things didn't make things better may not be enough . It may be that they 're making them better in some ways and worse in others , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or increasing insertions and decreasing deletions , or {disfmarker} or , um , um , you know , helping with noisy case but hurting in quiet case . And if you saw that then maybe you {disfmarker} it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something would occur to you of how to deal with that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Alright . Mmm . Yeah . W um , So that 's it , I think , for the on - line normalization . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I 've been playing a little bit with some kind of thresholding , and , mmm , as a first experiment , I think I Yeah . Well , what I did is t is to take , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to measure the average {disfmarker} no , the maximum energy of s each utterance and then put a threshold {disfmarker} Well , this for each mel band . Then put a threshold that 's fifteen DB below {disfmarker} well , uh , a couple of DB below this maximum , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Actually it was not a threshold , it was just adding noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So I was adding a white noise energy , uh , that 's fifteen DB below the maximum energy of the utterance . And {disfmarker} Yeah . When we look at {disfmarker} at the , um , MFCC that result from this , they are {pause} a lot more smoother . Um , when we compare , like , a channel zero and channel one utterance {disfmarker} um , so a clean and , uh , the same noisy utterance {disfmarker} well , there is almost no difference between the cepstral coefficients of the two . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Um . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And the result that we have in term of speech recognition , actually it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not worse , it 's not better neither , but it 's , um , kind of surprising that it 's not worse +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: because basically you add noise that 's fifteen DB {disfmarker} just fifteen DB below {pause} the maximum energy . +Grad A: Sorry . +PhD C: And at least {disfmarker} +PhD F: So why does that m {pause} smooth things out ? I don't {disfmarker} I don't understand that . +Professor B: Well , there 's less difference . Right ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} I think , it 's whitening {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the portion that are more silent , +Professor B: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: as you add a white noise that are {disfmarker} has a very high energy , it whitens everything +PhD F: Huh . Oh , OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and the high - energy portion of the speech don't get much affected anyway by the other noise . And as the noise you add is the same is {disfmarker} {pause} the shape , it 's also the same . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So they have {disfmarker} the trajectory are very , very similar . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , I mean , again , if you trained in one kind of noise and tested in the same kind of noise , you 'd {disfmarker} you know , given enough training data you don't do b do badly . The reason that we d that we have the problems we have is because {pause} it 's different in training and test . Even if {vocalsound} the general kind is the same , the exact instances are different . And {disfmarker} and +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so when you whiten it , then it 's like you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only noise {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to first order , the only th noise that you have is white noise and you 've added the same thing to training and test . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So would that {pause} be similar to , like , doing the smoothing , then , over time or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's a kind of smoothing , +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's different . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's something that {disfmarker} yeah , that affects more or less the silence portions because {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , anyway , the sp the portion of speech that ha have high energy are not ch a lot affected by the noises in the Aurora database . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} if you compare th the two shut channels of SpeechDat - Car during speech portion , it 's n n n the MFCC are not very different . They are very different when energy 's lower , like during fricatives or during speech pauses . And , +Professor B: Yeah , but you 're still getting more recognition errors , +PhD C: uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: which means {vocalsound} that the differences , even though they look like they 're not so big , {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are hurting your recognition . +PhD C: Ye +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So it distort {vocalsound} the speech . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . +PhD F: So performance went down ? +PhD C: No . It didn't . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , but in this case I {disfmarker} I really expect that maybe the {disfmarker} the two {disfmarker} these two stream of features , they are very different . I mean , and maybe we could gain something by combining them +Professor B: Well , the other thing is that you just picked one particular way of doing it . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean , first place it 's fifteen DB , uh , {vocalsound} down across the utterance . And {vocalsound} maybe you 'd want to have something that was a little more adaptive . Secondly , you happened to pick fifteen DB +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and maybe twenty 'd be better , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or twelve . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD F: So what was the {disfmarker} what was the threshold part of it ? Was the threshold , uh , how far down {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , he {disfmarker} yeah , he had to figure out how much to add . So he was looking {disfmarker} he was looking at the peak value . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? And then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and so what 's {disfmarker} ho I don't understand . How does it go ? If it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the peak value 's above some threshold , then you add the noise ? Or if it 's below s +PhD C: I systematically {comment} add the noise , but the , um , noise level is just {pause} some kind of threshold below the peak . +PhD F: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Which is not really noise , actually . It 's just adding a constant to each of the mel , uh , energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: To each of the {pause} mel filter bank . Yeah . +PhD F: I see . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's really , uh , white noise . I th +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So then afterwards a log is taken , and that 's so sort of why the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the little variation tends to go away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So may Well , the {disfmarker} this threshold is still a factor that we have to look at . And I don't know , maybe a constant noise addition would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would be fine also , or {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} or not constant but {disfmarker} but , uh , varying over time {pause} in fact is another way {pause} to go . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Were you using the {disfmarker} the normalization in addition to this ? I mean , what was the rest of the system ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was , uh , the same system . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: It was the same system . Mmm . Oh , yeah . A third thing is that , um , {vocalsound} I play a little bit with the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} finding what was different between , um , And there were a couple of differences , like the LDA filters were not the same . Um , he had the France Telecom blind equalization in the system . Um , the number o of MFCC that was {disfmarker} were used was different . You used thirteen and we used fifteen . Well , a bunch of differences . And , um , actually the result that he {disfmarker} he got were much better on TI - digits especially . So I 'm kind of investigated to see what was the main factor for this difference . And it seems that the LDA filter is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was hurting . Um , {vocalsound} so when we put s some noise compensation the , um , LDA filter that {disfmarker} that 's derived from noisy speech is not more {disfmarker} anymore optimal . And it makes a big difference , um , {vocalsound} on TI - digits trained on clean . Uh , if we use the {disfmarker} the old LDA filter , I mean the LDA filter that was in the proposal , we have , like , eighty - two point seven percent recognition rate , um , on noisy speech when the system is trained on clean speech . But {disfmarker} and when we use the filter that 's derived from clean speech we jumped {disfmarker} so from eighty - two point seven to eighty - five point one , which is a huge leap . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . So now the results are more similar , and I don't {disfmarker} I will not , I think , investigate on the other differences , which is like the number of MFCC that we keep and other small things that we can I think optimize later on anyway . +Professor B: Sure . But on the other hand if everybody is trying different kinds of noise suppression things and so forth , it might be good to standardize on the piece {vocalsound} that we 're not changing . Right ? So if there 's any particular reason to ha pick one or the other , I mean {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} which one is closer to what the proposal was that was submitted to Aurora ? Are they {disfmarker} they both {disfmarker} ? Well , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think th th uh , the new system that I tested is , I guess , closer because it doesn't have {disfmarker} it have less of {disfmarker} of France Telecom stuff , +PhD D: You mean the {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} whatever you , uh , tested with recently . Right ? +PhD C: Mmm ? Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor B: Well , no , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah , you 're trying to add in France Telecom . +PhD C: But , we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Tell them about the rest of it . Like you said the number of filters might be {vocalsound} different or something . Right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD D: The number of cepstral coefficients is what ? +Professor B: Cep +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , I think we 'd wanna standardize there , wouldn't we ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So , sh you guys should pick something +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Well , all th all three of you . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I think we were gonna work with {disfmarker} with this or this new system , or with {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} right now , the {disfmarker} the system that is there in the {disfmarker} what we have in the repositories , with {disfmarker} uses fifteen . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD C: But we will use the {disfmarker} the LDA filters f derived from clean speech . Well , yeah , actually it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the {disfmarker} the LDA filter . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's something that 's also short enough in {disfmarker} in latency . +PhD D: Yeah . Well . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So , we haven't {disfmarker} w we have been always using , uh , fifteen coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: not thirteen ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , uh , that 's {disfmarker} something 's {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . Then {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think as long as you guys agree on it , it doesn't matter . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think we have a maximum of sixty , {vocalsound} uh , features that we 're allowed . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Ma - maybe we can {disfmarker} I mean , at least , um , I 'll t s run some experiments to see whether {disfmarker} once I have this {vocalsound} {comment} noise compensation to see whether thirteen and fifteen really matters or not . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Never tested it with the compensation , but without , {vocalsound} uh , compensation it was like fifteen was s slightly better than thirteen , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: so that 's why we stuck to thirteen . +PhD C: Yeah . And there is {disfmarker} there is also this log energy versus C - zero . +PhD D: Sorry , fifteen . Yeah , the log energy versus C - zero . +PhD C: Well . W w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other thing . I mean , without noise compensation certainly C - zero is better than log energy . Be - I mean , because the {disfmarker} there are more , uh , mismatched conditions than the matching conditions for testing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know , always for the matched condition , you always get a {pause} slightly better performance for log energy than C - zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not for {disfmarker} I mean , for matched and the clean condition both , you get log energy {disfmarker} I mean you get a better performance with log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , um , maybe once we have this noise compensation , I don't know , we have to try that also , whether we want to go for C - zero or log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We can see that . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: So do you have {pause} more , Stephane , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Uh , that 's it , I think . Mmm . +PhD F: Do you have anything , Morgan , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , no . I 'm just , you know , being a manager this week . So . +PhD F: How about you , Barry ? +Grad A: Um , {vocalsound} still working on my {disfmarker} my quals preparation stuff . Um , {vocalsound} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about , um , starting some , {vocalsound} uh , cheating experiments to , uh , determine the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the relative effectiveness of , um , some intermediate categories that I want to classify . So , for example , um , {vocalsound} if I know where voicing occurs and everything , um , {vocalsound} I would do a phone {disfmarker} um , phone recognition experiment , um , somehow putting in the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the perfect knowledge that I have about voicing . So , um , in particular I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in the hybrid framework , just taking those LNA files , {vocalsound} and , um , {vocalsound} setting to zero those probabilities that , um {disfmarker} that these phones are not voicing . So say , like , I know this particular segment is voicing , um , {vocalsound} I would say , uh , go into the corresponding LNA file and zonk out the {disfmarker} the posteriors for , um , those phonemes that , um , are not voiced , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then see what kinds of improvements I get . And so this would be a useful thing , um , to know {vocalsound} in terms of , like , which {disfmarker} which , um {disfmarker} which of these categories are {disfmarker} are good for , um , speech recognition . +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , that 's {disfmarker} I hope to get those , uh {disfmarker} those experiments done by {disfmarker} by the time quals come {disfmarker} come around in July . +PhD F: So do you just take the probabilities of the other ones and spread them out evenly among the {disfmarker} the remaining ones ? +Grad A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} OK , so just set to {disfmarker} set to some really low number , the {disfmarker} the non - voiced , um , phones . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? And then renormalize . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Cool . That will be really interesting to see , you know . So then you 're gonna feed the {disfmarker} those into {pause} some standard recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Uh , wh are you gonna do digits +Grad A: Yeah , m Um , well , I 'm gonna f work with TIMIT {disfmarker} +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? With TIMIT . OK . +Grad A: TIMIT {disfmarker} uh , phone recognition with TIMIT . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so then you 'll feed those {disfmarker} Sorry . So where do the outputs of the net go into if you 're doing phone recognition ? +Grad A: Oh . Um , the outputs of the net go into the standard , h um , ICSI hybrid , um , recognizer . So maybe , um , Chronos +PhD F: An - and you 're gonna {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you 're gonna do phone recognition with that ? +Grad A: or {disfmarker} Phone recognition . Right , right . +PhD F: OK , OK . I see . +Grad A: So . And , uh , another thing would be to extend this to , uh , digits or something where I can look at whole words . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And I would be able to see , uh , not just , like , phoneme events , but , um , {vocalsound} inter - phoneme events . So , like , this is from a stop to {disfmarker} to a vo a vocalic +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: segment . You know , so something that is transitional in nature . +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Cool . Great . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I haven't done a whole lot on anything related to this this week . I 've been focusing mainly on Meeting Recorder stuff . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: So , um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll just pass it on to Dave . +Grad G: Uh , OK . Well , in my lunch talk last week I {disfmarker} I said I 'd tried phase normalization and gotten garbage results using that l um , long - term mean subtraction approach . It turned out there was a bug in my Matlab code . So I tried it again , um , and , um , the results {vocalsound} were {disfmarker} were better . I got intelligible speech back . But they still weren't as good as just subtracting the magnitude {disfmarker} the log magnitude means . And also I 've been talking to , um , Andreas and Thilo about the , um , SmartKom language model and about coming up with a good model for , um , far mike use of the SmartKom system . So I 'm gonna be working on , um , implementing this mean subtraction approach in the {vocalsound} far - mike system {disfmarker} for the SmartKom system , I mean . And , um , one of the experiments we 're gonna do is , um , we 're gonna , um , train the {disfmarker} a Broadcast News net , which is because that 's what we 've been using so far , and , um , adapt it on some other data . Um , An - Andreas wants to use , um , data that resembles read speech , like {pause} these digit readings , because he feels that the SmartKom system interaction is not gonna be exactly conversational . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: S so actually I was wondering , how long does it take to train that Broadcast News net ? +Professor B: The big one takes a while . Yeah . That takes two , three weeks . +Grad G: Two , three weeks . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} but , you know , uh , you can get {disfmarker} I don't know if you even want to run the big one , uh , um , in the {disfmarker} in the final system , cuz , you know , it takes a little while to run it . So , {vocalsound} um , you can scale it down by {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , it was two , three weeks for training up for the large Broadcast News test set {disfmarker} training set . I don't know how much you 'd be training on . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: The full ? +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , i so if you trained on half as much {vocalsound} and made the net , uh , uh , half as big , then it would be one fourth {pause} the amount of time +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and it 'd be nearly as good . So . +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Also , I guess we had {disfmarker} we 've had these , uh , little di discussions {disfmarker} I guess you ha haven't had a chance to work with it too much {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} about , uh {disfmarker} uh , uh m other ways of taking care of the phase . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess that was something I could say would be that we 've talked a little bit about +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you just doing it all with complex arithmetic and , uh {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not , uh , doing the polar representation with magnitude and phase . But {vocalsound} it looks like there 's ways that one could potentially just work with the complex numbers and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in principle get rid of the {vocalsound} effects of the average complex spectrum . But {disfmarker} +Grad G: And , um , actually , regarding the phase normalization {disfmarker} So I did two experiments , and one is {disfmarker} So , phases get added , modulo two pi , and {disfmarker} because you only know the phase of the complex number t t to a value modulo two pi . And so I thought at first , um , that , uh , what I should do is unwrap the phase because that will undo that . Um , but I actually got worse results doing that unwrapping using the simple phase unwrapper that 's in Matlab than I did not unwrapping at all . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . P So . +Grad G: And that 's all I have to say . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still hopeful that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we don't even know if the phase {vocalsound} is something {disfmarker} the average phase is something that we do want to remove . I mean , maybe there 's some deeper reason why it isn't the right thing to do . But , um , at least in principle it looks like there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , a couple potential ways to do it . One {disfmarker} one being to just work with the complex numbers , um , and , uh {disfmarker} in rectangular kind of coordinates . And the other is {vocalsound} to , uh , do a Taylor series {disfmarker} Well . So you work with the complex numbers and then when you get the spectrum {disfmarker} the average complex spectrum {disfmarker} um , actually divide it out , um , as opposed to taking the log and subtracting . So then , um , um , you know , there might be some numerical issues . We don't really know that . The other thing we talked a little bit about was Taylor series expansion . And , um , uh , actually I was talking to Dick Karp about it a little bit , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , since I got thinking about it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , so one thing is that y you 'd have to do , I think , uh {disfmarker} we may have to do this on a whiteboard , but I think you have to be a little careful about scaling the numbers that you 're {vocalsound} taking {disfmarker} the complex numbers that you 're taking the log of because {vocalsound} the Taylor expansion for it has , you know , a square and a cube , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And {disfmarker} and so if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have a {disfmarker} a number that is modulus , you know , uh , very different from one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It should be right around one , if it 's {disfmarker} cuz it 's a expansion of log one {disfmarker} one minus epsilon or o is {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} one plus epsilon , or is it one plus {disfmarker} ? Well , there 's an epsilon squared over two and an epsilon cubed over three , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and so forth . So if epsilon is bigger than one , then it diverges . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: So you have to do some scaling . But that 's not a big deal cuz it 's the log of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of K times a complex number , then you can just {disfmarker} that 's the same as log of K plus {vocalsound} log of the complex number . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , so there 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: converges . But . +PhD F: Hmm . OK . How about you , Sunil ? +PhD D: So , um , I 've been , uh , implementing this , uh , Wiener filtering for this Aurora task . And , uh , I {disfmarker} I actually thought it was {disfmarker} it was doing fine when I tested it once . I it 's , like , using a small section of the code . And then I ran the whole recognition experiment with Italian and I got , {vocalsound} like , worse results than not using it . Then I {disfmarker} So , I 've been trying to find where the problem came from . And then it looks like I have some problem in the way {disfmarker} there is some {disfmarker} some very silly bug somewhere . And , ugh ! I {disfmarker} I mean , i uh , it actually {disfmarker} i it actually made the whole thing worse . I was looking at the spectrograms that I got and it 's , like {disfmarker} w it 's {disfmarker} it 's very horrible . Like , when I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I missed the v I 'm sorry , I was {disfmarker} I was distracted . I missed the very first sentence . So then , I 'm a little lost on the rest . +PhD D: Oh , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . I actually implemented the Wiener f f fil filtering as a module and then tested it out separately . +Professor B: Yeah , I see . Oh , OK . +PhD D: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it gave , like {disfmarker} I just got the signal out and it {disfmarker} it was OK . So , I plugged it in somewhere and then {disfmarker} I mean , it 's like I had to remove some part and then plugging it in somewhere . And then I {disfmarker} in that process I messed it up somewhere . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So . So , it was real I mean , I thought it was all fine and then I ran it , and I got something worse than not using it . So , I was like {disfmarker} I 'm trying to find where the m m problem came , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and it seems to be , like , somewhere {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: some silly stuff . And , um , the other thing , uh , was , uh , uh {disfmarker} Well , Hynek showed up one {disfmarker} suddenly on one day and then I was t talking wi +Professor B: Right . Yeah . As {disfmarker} as he is wont to do . Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So I was actually {disfmarker} that day I was thinking about d doing something about the Wiener filtering , and then Carlos matter of stuff . And then he showed up and then I told him . And then he gave me a whole bunch of filters {disfmarker} what Carlos used for his , uh , uh , thesis and then {vocalsound} that was something which came up . And then , um {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm actually , {vocalsound} uh , thinking of using that also in this , uh , W Wiener filtering because that is a m modified Wiener filtering approach , where instead of using the current frame , it uses {vocalsound} adjacent frames also in designing the Wiener filter . So instead of designing our own new Wiener filters , I may just use one of those Carlos filters in {disfmarker} in this implementation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and see whether it {disfmarker} it actually gives me something better than using just the current f current frame , which is in a way , uh , something like the smoothing {disfmarker} the Wiener filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but @ @ {disfmarker} S so , I don't know , I was h I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , like {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} so that is the next thing . Once this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} once I sort this pro uh , problem out maybe I 'll just go into that also . And the {disfmarker} the other thing was about the subspace approach . So , um , I , like , plugged some groupings for computing this eigen uh , uh , uh , s values and eigenvectors . So just {disfmarker} I just @ @ some small block of things which I needed to put together for the subspace approach . And I 'm in the process of , like , building up that stuff . And , um , uh {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} Yep . I guess that 's it . And , uh , th th that 's where I am right now . So . +PhD F: Oh . How about you , Carmen ? +PhD E: Mmm . I 'm working with VTS . Um , I do several experiment with the Spanish database first , only with VTS and nothing more . Not VAD , no LDA , nothing more . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what is VTS again ? +PhD D: New {disfmarker} +PhD E: Eh , Vectorial Taylor Series . +PhD F: Oh , yes . +PhD E: To remove the noise too . +PhD F: Right , right . I think I ask you that every single meeting , don't I ? +PhD E: What ? +PhD F: I ask you that question every meeting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 'd be good from {disfmarker} for analysis . +PhD E: If {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's good to have some , uh , cases of the same utterance at different {disfmarker} different times . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: "" What is VTS ? "" +PhD E: VTS . I 'm sor Well , um , the question is that {disfmarker} Well . Remove some noise but not too much . And when we put the {disfmarker} m m the , em , VAD , the result is better . And we put everything , the result is better , but it 's not better than the result that we have without VTS . No , no . +Professor B: I see . So that @ @ {comment} given that you 're using the VAD also , the effect of the VTS is not {pause} so far {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is not . +Professor B: Do you {disfmarker} How much of that do you think is due to just the particular implementation and how much you 're adjusting it ? Or how much do you think is intrinsic to {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Pfft . I don't know because {disfmarker} +PhD C: Are you still using only the ten first frame for noise estimation +PhD E: Hhh , +PhD C: or {disfmarker} ? Or i ? +PhD E: Uh , I do the experiment using only the f onl eh , to use on only one fair estimation of the noise . +PhD C: Yeah . Hmm . +PhD E: And also I did some experiment , {vocalsound} uh , doing , um , a lying estimation of the noise . And , well , it 's a little bit better but not {disfmarker} n +PhD C: Maybe you have to standardize this thing also , noise estimation , because all the thing that you are testing use a different {disfmarker} They all need some {disfmarker} some noise {disfmarker} noise spectra +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . No , I do that two {disfmarker} t did two time . +PhD C: but they use {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all use a different one . +Professor B: I have an idea . If {disfmarker} if , uh , uh , y you 're right . I mean , each of these require this . Um , given that we 're going to have for this test at least of {disfmarker} uh , boundaries , what if initially we start off by using {pause} known sections of nonspeech {pause} for the estimation ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? S so , e um , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first place , I mean even if ultimately we wouldn't be given the boundaries , {vocalsound} uh , this would be a good initial experiment to separate out the effects of things . I mean , how much is the poor {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , relatively , uh , unhelpful result that you 're getting in this or this or this is due to some inherent limitation to the method for these tasks and how much of it is just due to the fact that you 're not accurately {vocalsound} finding enough regions that {disfmarker} that are really {vocalsound} n noise ? +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . So maybe if you tested it using that , {vocalsound} you 'd have more reliable {pause} stretches of nonspeech to do the estimation from and see if that helps . +PhD E: Yeah . Another thing is the , em {disfmarker} the codebook , the initial codebook . That maybe , well , it 's too clean and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Cuz it 's a {disfmarker} I don't know . The methods {disfmarker} If you want , you c I can say something about the method . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} Because it 's {vocalsound} a little bit different of the other method . Well , we have {disfmarker} If this {disfmarker} if this is the noise signal , {nonvocalsound} uh , in the log domain , we have something like this . Now , we have something like this . And the idea of these methods is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} n given a , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD E: How do you say ? I will read because it 's better for my English . I i given is the estimate of the PDF of the noise signal when we have a , um , a statistic of the clean speech and an statistic of the noisy speech . And the clean speech {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech is {pause} from a {pause} codebook . Mmm ? This is the idea . Well , like , this relation is not linear . The methods propose to develop this in a vectorial Taylor series {pause} approximation . +Professor B: I I 'm actually just confused about {pause} the equations you have up there . So , uh , the top equation is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD E: No , this in the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is the log domain . I {disfmarker} I must to say that . +Professor B: Which is {disfmarker} which is the log domain ? +PhD E: Is the T {disfmarker} is egual {disfmarker} {comment} is equal to , uh , log of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And {disfmarker} but Y is what ? Y of {disfmarker} the spectrum +PhD E: Uh , this {disfmarker} this is this +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: and this is this . +Professor B: No , no . The top Y is what ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is that power spectrum ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the noisy speech . +PhD C: p s this {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , is that power spectrum ? Is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's the power spectrum of noisy speech . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's the power spectrum . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is the noisy {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: of the value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , OK . So this {disfmarker} it 's the magnitude squared or something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , so you have power spectrum added there and down here you have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you put the {disfmarker} depends on T , but {disfmarker} b all of this is just {disfmarker} you just mean {disfmarker} +PhD E: w o Yeah . It 's the same . +Professor B: you just mean the log of the {disfmarker} of the one up above . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so that is X times , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , +PhD D: One {disfmarker} one plus N by X . +PhD E: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: o +PhD E: But , n Well , y we can expre we can put this expression {disfmarker} +Professor B: X times one plus , uh , N {disfmarker} uh , N {disfmarker} N {disfmarker} N minus X ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: And then , uh {disfmarker} So that 's log of X plus log of one plus , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: And the noise signal . +Professor B: Well . Is that right ? Log of {disfmarker} +PhD D: One plus N by X . +PhD E: Well , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I actually don't see how you get that . Uh . +PhD E: Well , if we apply the log , we have E is n +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: Uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , log {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} E is equal , oh , to log of X plus N . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And , well , +PhD D: And , log of {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , we can say that E {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} is equal to log of , {nonvocalsound} {nonvocalsound} um , exponential of X plus exponential of N . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Well , if E restricts {disfmarker} It is y +PhD E: Well , this is {disfmarker} this is in the ti the time domain . Well , we have that , um {disfmarker} We have first that , for example , X is equal , uh {disfmarker} Well . This is the frequency domain +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and we can put {vocalsound} u that n the log domain {disfmarker} log of X omega , but , well , in the time domain we have an exponential . No ? No ? Oh , maybe it 's I am {disfmarker} I 'm problem . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , just never mind what they are . Uh , it 's just if X and N are variables {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD D: What is , uh {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log of X plus N is not the same as the log of E to the X plus E to the N . +PhD E: Yeah . But this i Well , I don't {disfmarker} Well , uh , +Professor B: Maybe we can take it off - line , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: but I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I can do this incorrectly . Well , the expression that appear in the {disfmarker} in the paper , {nonvocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: The log {disfmarker} the Taylor series expansion for log one plus N by X is {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Is it the first - order expansion ? +PhD E: is X {disfmarker} +Professor B: I i +PhD D: Yeah , the first one . +PhD C: Yeah , I guess . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . Cuz it doesn't just follow what 's there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: It has to be some , uh , Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD D: Y yeah . If {disfmarker} if you take log X into log one plus N by X , and then expand the log one plus N by X into Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Now , this is the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the second {pause} expression that you put is the first - order expansion of the nonlinear relation between {disfmarker} +PhD E: Not exactly . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: No , no , no . It 's not the first space . Well , we have {disfmarker} pfft , uh , em {disfmarker} Well , we can put that X is equal {disfmarker} I is equal to log of , uh , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Well , we can put , uh , this ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} the f top one does not {pause} imply the second one . Because {disfmarker} cuz the log of a sum is not the same as {pause} th +PhD E: The top ? +Professor B: I mean , as {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: But we can {disfmarker} uh , we {disfmarker} we know that , for example , the log of {vocalsound} E plus B is equal to log of E plus log to B . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And we can say here , it i +Professor B: Right . So you could s +PhD C: What is that ? +PhD E: And we can , uh , put this inside . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And then we can , uh , +Professor B: N no , +PhD E: you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't see how you get the second expression from the top one . +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , just more generally here , {vocalsound} if you say "" log of , um , A plus B "" , the log of {disfmarker} log of A plus B is not {disfmarker} or A plus B is not the , um , log of E to the A plus E to the B . +PhD E: No , no , no , no , no , no , no . This not . +Professor B: Right ? And that 's what you seem to be saying . +PhD E: No . No . It 's not . But this is the same {disfmarker} oh . +Professor B: Right ? Cuz you {disfmarker} cuz you {disfmarker} up here you have the A plus B {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . I say if I apply log , I have , uh , log of E is equal to log of , uh {disfmarker} in this side , is equal to log of X +Professor B: Plus N . +PhD E: plus N . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And then how do you go from there to the {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: This is right . And then if I apply exponential , to have here E {disfmarker} +Professor B: Look . OK , so let 's {disfmarker} I mean , C equals A plus B , +PhD C: It 's log o of capital Y . Yeah , right . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Capital {pause} Y . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: X . X . This is X , inside . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: We have this , no ? +Professor B: Yeah . That one 's right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: One and {disfmarker} +PhD E: S uh , i th we can put here the set transformation . +Professor B: Oh . I see . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: I see . OK , I understand now . Alright , thanks . +PhD E: Yeah . In this case , well , we can put here a {nonvocalsound} Y . +Professor B: OK . So , yeah . It 's just by definition {pause} that the individual {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that the , uh {disfmarker} So , capital X is by definition the same as E to the little X because she 's saying that the little X is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is the log . Alright . +PhD E: Now we can put this . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Alright . +PhD E: And here we can multiply by X . +Professor B: I think these things are a lot clearer when you can use fonts {disfmarker} different fonts there +PhD E: Oh , yes . +Professor B: so you know which is which . But I {disfmarker} I under I understand what you mean now . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . That 's true . That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: But this {disfmarker} this is correct ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: And now I can do it , uh {disfmarker} pfff ! I can put log {nonvocalsound} of EX {vocalsound} plus log {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . Yes . I understand now . And that 's where it comes from . +PhD E: And this is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Now it 's correct . +Professor B: Right . OK . Thanks . +PhD E: Well . The idea {disfmarker} Well , we have fixed this equa +Professor B: OK . So now once you get that {disfmarker} that one , then you {disfmarker} then you do a first or second - order , or something , Taylor {vocalsound} series expansion of this . +PhD E: Yeah . This is another linear relation that this {disfmarker} to develop this in {vocalsound} vector s Taylor series . +PhD C: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And for that , well , the goal is to obtain , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} est estimate a PDF for the noisy speech when we have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a statistic for clean speech and for the noisy speech . Mmm ? And when w the way to obtain the PDF for the noisy speech is {disfmarker} well , we know this statistic and we know the noisy st well , we can apply first order of the vector st Taylor series of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} well , the order that we want , increase the complexity of the problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And then when we have a expression , uh , for the {vocalsound} mean and variance of the noisy speech , we apply a technique of minimum mean - square estimation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: to obtain the expected value of the clean speech given the {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} statistic for the noisy speech {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: the statistic for clean speech and the statistic of the noisy speech . This only that . But the idea is that {disfmarker} +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the model of clean speech is a codebook . Right ? +PhD E: u Yeah . We have our codebook with different density {vocalsound} Gaussian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: We can expre we can put that the {vocalsound} PDF {comment} for the clean test , probability of the clean speech is equal to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , how {disfmarker} h how much {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the work they reported , how much noisy speech did you need to get , uh , good enough statistics for the {disfmarker} to get this mapping ? +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I need to s +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Cuz I think what 's certainly characteristic of a lot of the {pause} data in this test is that , um , you don't have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training set may not be a {disfmarker} a great estimator for the noise in the test set . Sometimes it is and sometimes it 's not . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} the clean speech {disfmarker} the codebook for clean speech , I am using TIMIT . And I have now , uh , sixty - four {nonvocalsound} Gaus - Gaussian . +Professor B: Uh - huh . And what are you using for the noisy {disfmarker} ? Y y doing that strictly {disfmarker} +PhD E: Of the noise {disfmarker} I estimate the noises wi +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Well , for the noises I only use one Gaussian . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} and you train it up entirely from , uh , nonspeech sections in the test ? +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , yes . The first experiment that I do it is solely to calculate the , mmm {disfmarker} well , this value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: uh , the compensation of the dictionary o one time using the {disfmarker} the noise at the f beginning of the sentence . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the first experiment . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And I fix this for all the {disfmarker} all the sentences . Uh , because {disfmarker} well , the VTS methods {disfmarker} In fact the first thing that I do is to {disfmarker} to obtain , uh , an expression for E {disfmarker} probability e expression of {disfmarker} of E . That mean that the VTS {disfmarker} mmm , with the VTS we obtain , uh {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we obtain the means for each Gaussian {comment} and the variance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is one . Eh , this is the composition of the dictionary . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This one thing . And the other thing that this {disfmarker} with these methods is to , uh , obtain {disfmarker} to calculate this value . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Because we can write {disfmarker} uh , we can write that {vocalsound} the estimation of the clean speech is equal at an expected value of the clean speech conditional to , uh , the noise signal {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the probability f of the {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech and the statistic of the noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the methods that say that we 're going obtain this . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And we can put that this is equal to the estimated value of E minus a function that conditional to E to the T {disfmarker} to the noise signal . Well , this is {disfmarker} this function is the {vocalsound} the term {disfmarker} after develop this , the term that we {disfmarker} we take . Give PX and , uh , P the noise . +PhD D: X K C noise . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD E: And I can {vocalsound} put that this is equal to {pause} the {pause} noise signal minus {disfmarker} Well , I put before {pause} this name , uh {disfmarker} And I can calculate this . +Professor B: What is the first variable in that probability ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the Gaussian . +Professor B: No , no . I 'm sorry . In {disfmarker} in the one you pointed at . What 's that variable ? +PhD E: v Uh , this is the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Weak . So probably it {disfmarker} it would do that . +PhD E: like this , +PhD C: It 's one mixture of the model . Right ? +PhD E: but conditional . No , it 's condition it 's not exactly this . It 's modify . Uh , if we have clean speech {disfmarker} we have the dictionary for the clean speech , we have a probability f of {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our weight for each Gaussian . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: No . And now , this weight is different now +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: because it 's conditional . And this I need to {disfmarker} to calcu I know this +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and I know this because this is from the dictionary that you have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: I need to calculate this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And for calculate this , {vocalsound} I have an {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can develop an expression that is +PhD D: It 's overlapping . +PhD E: that . I can calculate {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I calculated this value , {vocalsound} uh , with the statistic of the noisy speech that I calculated before with the VTS approximation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} well , normalizing . And I know everything . Uh , with the , nnn {disfmarker} when I develop this in s Taylor {disfmarker} Taylor series , I can't , um , {vocalsound} calculate the mean and the variance {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} for each of the Gaussian of the dictionary for the noisy speech . Now . And this is fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: If I never do an estimat a newer estimation of the noise , this mean as {disfmarker} mean and the variance are fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And for each s uh , frame of the speech the only thing that I need to do is to calculate this in order to calculate the estimation of the clean speech given our noisy speech . +Professor B: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not following this perfectly but , um , I {disfmarker} Are you saying that all of these estimates are done {pause} using , um , estimates of the probability density for the noise that are calculated only from the first ten frames ? And never change throughout anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Never cha This is one of the approximations that I am doing . +Professor B: Per {disfmarker} per {disfmarker} per utterance , or per {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: Per utterance . OK . +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: So it 's done {disfmarker} it 's done new for each new utterance . +PhD E: And th +Professor B: So this changes the whole mapping for every utterance . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , the dictionary . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: And the other estimation is when I do the uh on - line estimation , I change the means and variance of th for the noisy speech +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: each time that I detect noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I do it uh again this develop . Estimate the new mean and the variance of the noisy speech . And with th with this new s new mean and variance I estimate again this . +Professor B: So you estimated , uh , f completely forgetting what you had before ? Uh , or is there some adaptation ? +PhD E: Um , no , no , no . It 's not completely {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} I am doing something like an adaptation of the noise . +Professor B: OK . Now do we know , either from their experience or from yours , that , uh , just having , uh , two parameters , the {disfmarker} the mean and variance , is enough ? Yeah . I mean , I know you don't have a lot of data to estimate with , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: I estimate mean and variance for each one of the Gaussian of the codebook . +Professor B: No , I 'm talking about the noise . +PhD E: Oh , +Professor B: There 's only one Gaussian . +PhD E: um . Well , only one {disfmarker} I am only {disfmarker} using only one . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: I don't know i +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} right , it 's only {disfmarker} it 's only one {disfmarker} Wait a minute . This is {disfmarker} what 's the dimensionality of the Gaussian ? This is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , it 's in {disfmarker} after the mel filter bank . +Professor B: So this is twenty or something ? +PhD E: Twenty - three . +Professor B: Twenty ? So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's actually forty numbers {pause} that you 're getting . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you don't have a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , the original paper say that only one Gaussian for the noise . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But , I mean , {vocalsound} no {disfmarker} no paper is {disfmarker} is a Bible , +PhD E: Yeah , maybe isn't the right thing . +Professor B: you know . This is {disfmarker} this is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: The question is , um , {vocalsound} whether it would be helpful , i particularly if you used {disfmarker} if you had more {disfmarker} So , suppose you did {disfmarker} This is almost cheating . It certainly isn't real - time . But if y suppose you use the real boundaries that {disfmarker} that you were {disfmarker} in fact were given {vocalsound} by the VAD and so forth or I {disfmarker} I guess we 're gonna be given even better boundaries than that . And you look {disfmarker} you take all o all of the nonspeech components in an utterance , so you have a fair amount . Do you benefit from having a better model for the noise ? That would be another question . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: So first question would be {vocalsound} to what extent i are the errors that you 're still seeing {vocalsound} based on the fact that you have poor boundaries for the , uh , uh , nonspeech ? And the second question might be , given that you have good boundaries , could you do better if you used more parameters to characterize the noise ? Um . Also another question might be {disfmarker} Um , they are doing {disfmarker} they 're using first term only of the vector Taylor series ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you do a second term does it get too complicated cuz of the nonlinearity ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's quite complicated . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . No , I won't ask the next question then . +PhD E: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} for me it 's the first time that I am working with VTS . +Professor B: Yeah . No , it 's interesting . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , w we haven't had anybody work with it before , so it 's interesting to get your {disfmarker} get your feedback about it . +PhD E: It 's another type of approximation because i because it 's a statistic {disfmarker} statistic approximation to remove the noise . I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Great . OK . Well , I guess we 're about done . Um , so some of the digit forms don't have digits . Uh , {vocalsound} we ran out there were some blanks in there , so not everybody will be reading digits . But , um , I guess you 've got some . Right , Morgan ? +Professor B: I have some . +PhD F: So , why don't you go ahead and start . And I think it 's {pause} just us down here at this end that have them . +PhD D: S +PhD E: um +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: S so , we switch off with this +PhD F: Whenever you 're ready . +PhD D: or n ? +PhD F: Uh , leave it on , +PhD D: No . OK . +PhD F: uh , +Professor B: They prefer to have them on +PhD F: and the {disfmarker} +Professor B: just so that they 're continuing to get the distant , uh , information . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK . S +","In a meeting discussion, Professor B expresses his desire to not always be the one directing the meeting and suggests that PhD F take over for the day. PhD F agrees and proposes that they compile a list of topics to discuss. PhD C announces that their Eurospeech paper on an Aurora system proposal has been accepted and will be presented in Aalborg, Denmark. PhD F and PhD C discuss various technical aspects and experiments related to on-line normalization, noise estimation, and the behavior of specific coefficients in speech processing. Professor B recommends looking into the types of errors made by their system to possibly improve it. Grad A discusses his qualification exam preparations and plans for experiments involving phone recognition with controlled variables. PhD F updates on his work with Meeting Recorder while PhD D and PhD E share progress on their respective projects involving Wiener filtering and Vectorial Taylor Series (VTS). Finally, they conclude by discussing the reading of digit forms as a part of the meeting's agenda." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: We 're , I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor D: We 're on again ? OK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . That is really great . +Grad H: Yeah , so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form , please do so . +PhD A: That 's terrific . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Professor D: OK +Grad H: The new consent form . The new and improved consent form . +PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike , huh ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Uh . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: And uh , shall I go ahead and do some digits ? +Professor D: Uh , we were gonna do that at the end , remember ? +Grad H: OK , whatever you want . +Professor D: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent , from here on in at least , that {disfmarker} {pause} that we 'll do it at the end . +PhD B: The new consent form . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , it doesn't matter . OK . +Professor D: OK Um Well , it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go , +Postdoc F: Testing , one , two , three . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right ? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point . So , uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did . So , +Grad H: So we all forgot . +Professor D: Uh , +Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time . +Professor D: Right , s OK , so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about , research issues . Um {pause} and {pause} Uh , Adam has some short research issues . +Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues . +Professor D: Um , I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off , uh {pause} and , um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I 'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it 's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient . +PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who ? +Professor D: Uh , to uh uh , IBM . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: OK . They 're , you know {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor D: So . Um , So , uh {pause} so , I 'll go through that . Um , {pause} And , Anything else ? {pause} anyone wants to talk about ? +PhD A: What about the , um {disfmarker} your trip , yesterday ? +Professor D: No . OK . Um . Sort of off - topic I guess . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Cuz that 's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line . That 's another thing . Um , And , Anything else ? Nothing else ? Uh , there 's a {disfmarker} I mean , there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a , um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow , {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal . Um , we 'll talk {disfmarker} we 'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} +Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that ? I noticed you C C ' ed me , but I wasn't actually a recipient . I didn't quite know what to make of that . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting . OK . +Grad H: OK . +Professor D: Uh , OK . So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are , uh this list , uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items , and , other than that , anything , {pause} as usual , {pause} anything goes beyond that . OK , uh , Jane , since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours , make sure we get to it . +Postdoc F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it 's {pause} very brief , I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out . Oops . +Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different ? +PhD C: Thanks . +Postdoc F: It 's slightly different . I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same . +Grad H: OK . +PhD A: Same idea ? +Postdoc F: But , same idea . So , if you 've looked at this you 've seen it before , so {pause} Basically , {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know , uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap . It 's not indicated {pause} with , um {pause} uh , tight precision , it 's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK , so , It 's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear , versus being overlapped by others . So , I {pause} used this mark and , um {pause} and , uh {pause} uh , {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes , {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five , and a little bit . And , uh {pause} you know , minute zero , of course , is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc F: And , um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right , {pause} whether they involve two speakers , three speakers , or more than three speakers . And , {pause} um {pause} and , what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they 're distributed evenly throughout or whether they 're {pause} bursts of them . Um . And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh , you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh , this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified , {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout , rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region . The part down there , where there 's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of , um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress , {pause} uh , sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of , uh {pause} information retrieval . So it 's like , {pause} you know , rather , {pause} lively discussion there . +Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says , like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight ? +Postdoc F: Oh , th {vocalsound} {pause} That 's the per cent . +Professor D: Mmm . +Postdoc F: So , six is , uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: At the very end , this is when people were , {pause} you know , packing up to go basically , there 's {pause} this final stuff , I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell . I 'd have to look at that . But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all . And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So , i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but , um {pause} that 's kind of it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Now , {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you 're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others . And , again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting , and also there 's been no statistical testing of it all , but {pause} I , um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I , you know , my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out , um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker , who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap , I didn't look at the ones involving three or more . And , um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else , and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals , which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom , you get {pause} the totals for an individual . So , {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom , those are the , um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , but you 're o alphabetical , that 's why I 'm choosing you And then if you look across the right , {pause} then {pause} that 's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And , {pause} then if you look down in the summary table , {pause} then you see that , um {pause} th they 're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by . +Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Raw counts . +Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah +Postdoc F: Yes , very true {disfmarker} very true +Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that . Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward , uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting , {pause} uh {pause} percentages . So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke , {pause} what percentage {pause} eh , w so . Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee ? And there , it looks like you see some differences , um , {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they 're overlapped , but , of course , uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting , {pause} uh {pause} there 's no statistical testing involved , and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability . +Professor D: S so , i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something . +Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually , that would be actually statistically correct , +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: No , no , no . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: but +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . Excuse me . +Postdoc F: That 's right . And I 'm {pause} you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out , +Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it , but {disfmarker} but this +Postdoc F: now , this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} +PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves . +PhD E: He 's {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , {vocalsound} you know , it 's like {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse +Grad H: Yes , that 's right , so you don't nee OK . +Professor D: Sure . +Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it 's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know , and {disfmarker} and th here 's a case where of course , human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results , {pause} and {disfmarker} and , so , might as well do this . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first , is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data . +Postdoc F: Well , fair enough . Fair enough . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And actually , {pause} you know , the point is not about an individual , it 's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know , different styles , different speaker styles . +Professor D: Oh sure . +Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be , you know {pause} of course , {pause} there 's also the question of what type of overlap was this , and w what were they , and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and , probably more , I mean , the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh , the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking , and {pause} and you know , I mean , {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they 've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time , that {pause} that that 's {disfmarker} that 's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing , I mean , {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying . And +Grad H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Exactly ! +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly ! +PhD E: Yeah +Postdoc F: Well , there you go . Fine , that 's alright , that 's OK . And {disfmarker} and , {pause} you know , in contrast , so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen 's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types , {pause} that they 're just different styles , and it 's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps , and {pause} you know , conversational analysts also agree with that , so it 's {pause} now , universally {pause} a ag agreed with . And {disfmarker} and , als I mean , I can't say universally , but anyway , the people who used to say it was strict , {pause} um {pause} now , uh {pause} don't . I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know , uh {pause} uh , ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things . So , um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved , I have at the bottom several that I noticed . So , {pause} {vocalsound} uh , there are backchannels , like what Adam just did now and , um {pause} {vocalsound} um , anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier , and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: because we 're {pause} people who 've talked to each other , um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is , what the possibilities are and w and we 've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person 's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early . No problem . And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting , where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know , the {disfmarker} basically , {pause} you know everyone 's saying "" yes "" or {disfmarker} you know , or ev even more sp specific than that . So , uh , the point is that , um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap 's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved . And that 's all I wanted to say on that , {pause} unless people have questions . +Professor D: Well , of course th the biggest , {pause} um {pause} result here , which is one we 've {disfmarker} {pause} we 've talked about many times and isn't new to us , but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right ? {pause} that {disfmarker} that , um +PhD E: Yes , yes ! +Postdoc F: Oh , OK {disfmarker} interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: here 's a relatively short meeting , it 's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting , and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but , {pause} uh I think there 's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap ? +Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven . +Professor D: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing ? +PhD A: It 'd be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , at the bottom , you have the bottom three . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none . +PhD A: But it w +Professor D: Oh , so the bottom three did have s stuff going on ? There was speech ? +Postdoc F: Yes , uh - huh . Yeah . But just no overlaps . +Professor D: OK , so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps , versus {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly and that 's {disfmarker} that 's where Jose 's pro project comes in . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , I h I have this that infor I have th that information now . +PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: Oh , about how much is it ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps . +Professor D: O oh , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the average {pause} length ? +PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will , uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh , the different , uh {pause} the , nnn , {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps . +Professor D: You don't know ? OK , you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is ? Yeah . +PhD E: mmm , {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh , @ @ is @ @ . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: The duration is , uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh , very big on the dat +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ , {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved . +PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief +PhD E: Because , on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh , overlapped and another very very short . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i probably it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is , uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final "" S "" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the , um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , I considered {pause} that 's an overlap but it 's very short , it 's an "" X "" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably , eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh , we studied th th that zone , eh {pause} {pause} eh , we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds , but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u +PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} +Professor D: go ahead . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: You split this by minute , um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes , that counts towards both of those minutes . +Postdoc F: Yes . Mm - hmm . Actually , um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not . Uh , so {pause} le let 's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A , {pause} and then the minute boundary happens . And let 's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary , {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking , {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B , that would be a new overlap . But otherwise {pause} um , let 's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her , in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute . +PhD G: No , but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two . +Postdoc F: OK . In that case , um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't , {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam 's , uh {pause} coding of overlap yets , the coding of Yeah , "" yets "" is not a word . Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam 's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks . It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because , um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far . +Professor D: I I +Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know , {pause} second to second coding of when they occur . +Professor D: I I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused now . So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Let 's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute , {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds . +Postdoc F: Yep . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another , {pause} and it 's just {disfmarker} in each case , it 's just sort of one {pause} interval . Right ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: So , um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary . Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes , the way you have done this . +Postdoc F: No , it wouldn't . It would be considered as an overlap in the first one . +Professor D: OK , so that 's {pause} good , i I think , in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's good , yeah , cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} +PhD C: +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Statistical . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . They 're not double counted . +PhD G: Other - otherwise you 'd get double counts , here and there . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD B: Ah but , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying , uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again , I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap , I counted that as a two - person overlap , {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions , didn't happen very often , there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing . +Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps , it was because everyone was talking at once , {vocalsound} but uh apparently not . +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . That 's interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad H: That 's really neat . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , there 's a lot of backchannel , a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data . +Postdoc F: Yeah , it is . +PhD B: I think what 's really interesting though , it is {pause} before d {pause} saying "" yes , meetings have a lot of overlaps "" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party . +Postdoc F: I think so too , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations , like Switchboard , there 's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels , if you consider those overlaps ? it 's also ver it 's huge . It 's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they 've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So , the question is , you know , how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of , say the two - person type , by adding more people . to a meeting , and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be . +Professor D: Well , but see , I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more , +PhD B: So . +Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice , +PhD B: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not really {pause} "" nice "" . It depends what you 're doing . So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having , uh {disfmarker} depends what you 're doing , if {disfmarker} Right now we 're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting . So the question is , you know {disfmarker} "" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I 'm saying cuz I don't think I 'm getting it across . What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like "" nice "" because maybe that 's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise . But what I mean is {vocalsound} that , um in Switchboard , {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have , one problem that we 're not considering is overlap . And what we 're doing now is , {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task , we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we 're considering it , {pause} you know , one of them not all of them , one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least , {pause} you know I 'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which , uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible , {vocalsound} and from a single microphone . And so , {pause} in that case , it does get mixed in , {vocalsound} and it 's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it , to just do processing on one and not on the other . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it 's an issue here {pause} but it 's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone , which I think , you know , this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call . And , just the question is , {pause} y you know , in Switchboard {pause} you would think that 's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I 'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present . So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be . +Professor D: That 's an important question to ask . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: I think what I 'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I 'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard . +PhD B: Not you , me . But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but +Professor D: Were you ? +Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design . +Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it ? I mean , w w were {disfmarker} +PhD B: There {disfmarker} there 's actually to tell you the truth , the reason why it 's hard to measure is because of so , from the point of view of studying dialogue , I mean , which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on , you want to know the sequence of turns . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So what happens is if you 're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn , and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: So , for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} We know that that 's wrong in real time . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: But , because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing , people couldn't study it , but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way . So , it 's {disfmarker} um +Professor D: Yeah , I wasn't saying that . Right ? I was just saying that w now we 're looking at it . +PhD B: Well , we 've als +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but , for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't . +PhD B: Right . We 're looking at it here . +Professor D: So that 's why it 's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know , if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: Right ? {disfmarker} if it 's the null poth {comment} hypothesis , and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person , {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that . The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , all I meant is that if you 're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what 's different about a meeting , studying meetings of , say , more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: It 's important to distinguish {pause} that , you know , this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too , but we just couldn't study them . And and so uh +Professor D: May have been . May have been . Right ? +PhD B: Well , there is a high rate , +Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers . +PhD B: So . It 's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high , in fact +PhD A: Well , here I have a question . +PhD B: that would be interesting to know . +Professor D: See , I mean , i i le let me t I mean , my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody , "" what have we learned about overlaps here ? "" just never mind comparison with something else , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: what we 've learned about is overlaps in this situation , is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there 's a lot of them . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that . +Professor D: In a way , I guess what I 'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap . Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when , uh , Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before , that didn't have any overlaps , and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go , "" well , I can see why he was having such a hard time "" . +PhD B: Right . That 's also true of Switchboard . +Professor D: It 's happening a lot . +PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} +Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't . +PhD B: Right . So it 's just , um +Professor D: Right ? I was commenting about this . +PhD B: OK . All I 'm saying is that from the +Professor D: I 'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I 'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me , {vocalsound} and we sh which , {pause} you know we 're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data , But {disfmarker} Then , if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here , about , you know , the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I 'd say , "" Well , the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps "" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it 's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it 's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point , {vocalsound} but that there 's overlaps , uh throughout the thing . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Right . No , I {disfmarker} I agree with that . +Professor D: And that 's interesting . That 's all . +PhD B: I 'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +PhD B: And that 's all . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I wasn't making any statement about that . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard , which isn't exactly the same kind of context , I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth , But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person , or something like that . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , that would be good to know , +PhD A: What {disfmarker} +Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , now . +Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way . +Postdoc F: Wh - yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam . +PhD B: But yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there 's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there 's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have , simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility . When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause} "" can {disfmarker} "" you know , as adults . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , children don't adjust so well , I mean , if a truck goes rolling past , {vocalsound} adults will well , depending , but mostly , adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that , {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: And partly it 's related to rhythmic structure in conversation , so , {vocalsound} you know , you {disfmarker} you t Yeah , this is d also um , people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their , um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic , {pause} uh uh , ambient thing . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting . And {disfmarker} and , just to finish this , that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have , simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray . But I {disfmarker} you know , of certain types . Now if it 's just backchannels , {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard , {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels , in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels , which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard , {pause} uh , don't play as big a role here , because it 's very unnatural I think , to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know , in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience . +PhD B: If you can see them , actually . It 's interesting , so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right , like this here , +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them . +Professor D: u +PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but , it 's sort of odd if one person 's speaking and everybody 's listening , and it 's unusual to have everybody going "" uh - huh , uh - huh "" +Professor D: Actually , I think I 've done it {pause} a fair number of times today . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: But . +PhD B: There 's a lot of head - nodding , in this +Grad H: Um . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep , we need to put trackers on it . +PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: He could , he could . +PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} so actually , um That 's in part because the nodding , if you have visual contact , {pause} the nodding has the same function , but on the phone , in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work . So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel . +Grad H: Yeah , you don't have it . Your mike is {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , in the two - person conversations , {pause} when there 's backchannel , is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech ? +Grad H: That is an earphone , so if you just put it {pause} so it 's on your ear . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there 's a pause , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad H: There you go . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: E for example . +Grad H: Thank you . +PhD A: you know , like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel , when somebody 's pausing +PhD B: Yes . Right . +Postdoc F: She 's doing that . +PhD B: Sorry , what were you saying ? +PhD A: It 's hard to do both , huh ? Um {pause} no , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there 's backchannel , I mean , just {disfmarker} I was just listening , and {disfmarker} and when there 's two people talking and there 's backchannel it seems like , {pause} um the backchannel happens when , you know , the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: and a lot of times , the first person actually stops talking and then there 's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again , and so I 'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is . Is there a lot ? +PhD B: I think there 's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about , where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , this is called "" precision timing "" in {pause} conversation analysis , where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping , {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete . So all you 're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So technically , it 's an overlap . +PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap ? +PhD B: But {pause} you know , from information flow point of view it 's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information . +PhD E: More , yeah . +Grad H: It 'd be interesting if we could do prediction . +PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment , alignment overlap . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap , that would be really interesting . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , that 's exactly , exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: say , because there 's a lot of that . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a first interesting {pause} labeling task . Uh , to distinguish between , say , backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know , benevolent overlaps , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of , um {pause} I don't know , hostile overlaps , where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Let 's pick a different word . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Uh , that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting , um {pause} problem to look at . +PhD A: Hostile takeovers . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean you could do that . I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening , that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type . These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types , as people {pause} finishing each other 's sentences , and {pause} stuff . +PhD G: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um , I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there 's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where , and this is sort of , not {pause} really hostile , but sort of competitive , where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have , like , two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to , uh grab the next turn . +Grad H: Trying to get the floor . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: And so it 's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we 're all waiting for that person to finish . But they all want to {pause} be next . +Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are , uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor ? +Professor D: But . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , there are various things , you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida . +Grad H: It 's been studied a lot . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody 's laughing and you get a chance to g break in . +PhD G: Seniority . +Professor D: But . But . Um . You know , the other thing I was thinking was that , {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are , of course , pretty hard to answer with , uh u {pause} you know , a small amount of data . +Grad H: Ach . +Professor D: So , um {pause} I wonder if what you 're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have , um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with , uh a smaller number of people . Right ? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh , meetings currently with say five , six , seven , eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings , {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that ? +Postdoc F: That 's a control . Well , {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there , I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it 's not {pause} really , y like a meeting , w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample . It depends on what you 're after , of course , but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition , compared to , uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition , with more than two . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it 's the number {disfmarker} there 's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you 'd still have the visuals . You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say , in Switchboard data . Uh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I 'm just thinking that 'd be more like a c control condition . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , but from the acoustic point of view , it 's all good . +PhD E: Is the same . +Professor D: Yeah , acoustic is fine , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words . +PhD B: Well , I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics , on the close - talking mikes , +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report , +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc F: You 've been working on that . +PhD B: Right , I mean Adam was {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we 're done with this stuff discussing , +PhD B: right . I mean , not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean , you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology , obviously , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but you 'd get some rough statistics . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that ? Do you think that would be useful ? I 'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something . +PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was , um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings , but maybe that 's obvious , maybe everybody knew that , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there 's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap , and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned , that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn , but pretty quickly there 're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , I don't know . To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's crucial to have controls but I think it 's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can . +Grad H: Can . +PhD B: So , um {pause} you know . +Professor D: Well , {vocalsound} OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea . +PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we , um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to , um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition , {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap , when you don't have visual contact . +Grad H: Yeah , we talked about this repeatedly . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Can we actually record ? +Grad H: It just seems like that 's a very different {pause} thing than what we 're doing . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll have to set up for it . +PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Well , we 're not really set up for it {pause} to do that . But . +PhD G: Or , this is getting a little extravagant , we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove , uh {pause} visual contact . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Barriers ! +PhD B: That 's what they did on Map Task , you know , this Map Task corpus ? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it 's quite interesting . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange . +Grad H: OK , we can record , but no one can look at each other . +PhD B: Well , we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f +Grad H: Close your eyes . +Postdoc F: Blindf +PhD G: Yeah , Yeah . +Grad H: Turn off the lights . +PhD B: and we 'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds . That would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , th that was the other thing , weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings ? +Grad H: Um , what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards . rather than take pictures of the meeting . +Postdoc F: Well , linguistic {disfmarker} +Grad H: And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting . +Professor D: There 's a head nodding here vigorously , yeah . +PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting ? +PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean , transc {pause} no {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers . +PhD E: Yeah Yeah . +Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be +PhD G: Well , you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Seat number , that 's a good idea . I 'll do that . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: I 'll do that on the next set of forms . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So you 'd number them somehow . +PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge , eh {pause} uh , files . +Grad H: I finally remembered to put , uh put native language on the newer forms . +PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number ? +Grad H: No . +PhD A: OK . +Grad H: The wireless ones . And even the jacks , I mean , I 'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: But probably from these you could 've {comment} infer it . +PhD G: Yeah , but It 's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} +Grad H: It would be another task . +PhD B: It would be a research task . +Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice , so {pause} seat number would be good . +PhD A: You know where you could get it ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I 'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: That 's a good idea . +PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here . +PhD G: Not the chairs . The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable . +Grad H: But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like , {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} +PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: But you know , they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway , +PhD A: Just remembered a joke . +Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture . Posture , and we could like , {pause} you know , {pause} block out the person 's face or whatever +PhD G: What people were wearing . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD B: The fashion statement . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , you know , these are important cues , +PhD G: Oh , Andreas was {disfmarker} +PhD A: How big their heads are . +Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} +Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture , I don't know that you really get that . +PhD G: Yeah . Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again . +Professor D: Right ? You 'd want a video for that , I think . +Postdoc F: It 'd be better than nothing , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects . +PhD E: A video , yeah . +Professor D: Think so ? +Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean , if I if I 'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again . +Postdoc F: Yeah . {comment} Well , I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But it 's just , you know , the {disfmarker} the body +PhD A: He agreed . +Postdoc F: you know ? +Grad H: Of course , the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table , I find is very interesting , that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: and it 's somewhat coincidental . I 'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts , you know , catching fire or something . +PhD G: Oh , no , you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge , that 's why you 're sitting {disfmarker} +Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Take control . +Professor D: Speaking of taking control , you said you had some research to talk about . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , I 've been playing with , um uh , using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who 's speaking . So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering , that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago , and so I played with that a little bit , and {vocalsound} it works O K , {pause} except that {pause} it 's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold . So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone 's talking and when they 're not . But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker , it doesn't work anymore , even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness . +PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting ? +Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting . Um Pretty well . +PhD A: How did you do it Adam ? +Grad H: Pretty well . How did I do it ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad H: What do you mean ? +PhD A: I mean , wh what was the {disfmarker} +Grad H: The algorithm was , uh take o every frame that 's over the threshold , and then median - filter it , {vocalsound} and then look for runs . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So there was a minimum run length , +PhD A: Every frame that 's over what threshold ? +Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick . +PhD A: In terms of energy ? Ah ! +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc F: Say that again ? Frame over fres threshold . +Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame , and you compute the energy and if it 's over the threshold you set it to one , and if it 's under the threshold you set it to zero , {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones . +Postdoc F: Hmm . OK . +Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using , um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length . Uh {pause} well , actually I guess depends on what you mean by long , you know , tenth of a second sorts of numbers . Um and that 's to average out you know , pitch , you know , the pitch contours , and things like that . And then , uh looked for long runs . +Postdoc F: OK +Grad H: And that works O K , if you fil if you tune the filter parameters , if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you 're looking for your thresholds . +PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold ? +Grad H: No . I certainly could though . But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do . OK and then the other thing I did , was I took {vocalsound} Javier 's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector , and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes , and {pause} unfortunately that 's not working real well , and it looks like it 's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes , the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break . And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the , uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence . And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends . And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model . Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places . And what looks like it 's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier 's doing a really bad job . +PhD A: Who was it trained on ? +Grad H: Uh , I have no idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad H: I don't remember . Does an do you remember , Morgan , was it Broadcast News ? +Professor D: I think so , yeah . +Grad H: Um {pause} So , at any rate , my next attempt , {pause} which I 'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh , thresholding as the way of generating the candidates . Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks . All of which are definitely acoustic events . They 're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking . But , like , it could be someone who isn't the person here , but the person over there or it can be the person breathing . And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector . And so I think that might work . But , I haven't gotten very far on that . But all of this is close - talking mike , so it 's , uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth . +PhD E: Only with eh uh , but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh when {disfmarker} when , y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and , eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker . I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal . +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . +PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find , uh {pause} zone with , eh {pause} great different , eh {pause} level of energy . +Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth . not {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for , eh {pause} algorithm based on energy , {pause} eh , that um h mmm , {disfmarker} more or less , eh , like eh {pause} eh , mmm , first sound energy detector . +Grad H: Say it again ? +PhD E: eh nnn . When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of , ehm princ um . What is the {disfmarker} the name in English ? the {disfmarker} the , mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of , ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That , uh +Grad H: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you 're saying , can you try {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use , eh {pause} eh {pause} any +PhD A: I think he 's saying the onset detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Onset detector , OK . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably to work well eh , because , eh {pause} you have eh , in the mixed files a great level of energy . eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker . And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA , eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is , eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that , eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is , eh {pause} more similar . between the different eh , speaker , {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh , it will {pause} i is my opinion . +Grad H: Right . But different speakers . +PhD E: It will be , eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy . the {disfmarker} the change . I think that , um +Grad H: Ah , in the clo in the P D A , you mean ? +PhD E: In the PDA . +Grad H: Absolutely . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , no question . It 'll be much harder . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Much harder . +PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question , that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier . I think the , nnn , the , nnn , {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic , eh {pause} from , eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal . If you have , eh {vocalsound} uh , I 'm considering , only because Javier , eh {pause} only consider , eh {pause} like candidate , the , nnn , eh {pause} the silence , because it is the {disfmarker} the only model , eh {disfmarker} eh , he used that , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn , to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker , +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing , different groups , eh {pause} working , eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to , eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Yeah , when a {pause} phone changes . +PhD E: Because , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's more realistic that , uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker . Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between , eh {pause} a speaker . is {disfmarker} is , eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic , eh {pause} event , important to {disfmarker} to consider . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the , eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but , eh {pause} when you have , eh {pause} eh , two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them , eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or , mmm , BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the {disfmarker} you know , the reason that he , uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better , it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: So , he was trying to get something going , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: and , uh e e you know , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case , if you 're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal , +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Do something . +Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But , eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the , eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change , {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker , without , uh {pause} with , uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping , uh , I think like {disfmarker} like , eh {pause} eh a general , eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In a first step , I mean . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: An - and then , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector , eh . +Grad H: Right . Absolutely . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea . And if , if you do that , eh {pause} eh , with a BIC uh criterion for example , or with another kind of , eh {pause} of distance in a first step , {vocalsound} and then you , eh {pause} you get the , eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic , {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Because , eh {pause} eh , probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than , {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm , another approach like , eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene , eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that , eh {vocalsound} that , eh {pause} zone . of s a small silence between speaker , or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process , {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I think is , eh {pause} nnn , it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use , eh {pause} a neural net or another , eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class , because , in my opinion eh {pause} it 's in my opinion , {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech , I mean , if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to , eh {vocalsound} to , eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net , eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: uh With a m mixed file , +Grad H: With the what file ? +PhD A: "" Mixed "" . +PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix , mix . +Postdoc F: "" Mixed . "" +Grad H: "" Mixed ? "" +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Sorry . And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you , eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that , eh , eh , eh , speech recognizer to that signal , to the PDA , eh {pause} speech file , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do . +Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look , I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} I used to work , like , on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection , you know , and this is this {pause} kind of thing . +PhD E: Really ? Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing , and they work on it for a couple months , {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily . Then you say , "" OK , I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate . "" Then it gets really hard no matter what you do . So , the p the problem is is that if you say , "" Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here , {vocalsound} that I learn things from , either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things . You say you have looked for acoustic change . Well , what does that mean ? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: From something that you looked at . So {vocalsound} you always have this problem , you 're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data ? {vocalsound} Uh , if it 's gonna be different from old data that you have ? And I think that 's a problem {pause} with this . +Grad H: Well , also what I 'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes . What I 'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works . +PhD E: Yeah ! +PhD A: You have candidates . +PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the candidate . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: to make marking easier . Yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I 'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it . +PhD G: OK . I {disfmarker} um , I , unfortunately , have to run , +Grad H: So . +PhD G: but , um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually , not just the close - talking mike for that speaker , but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers . +Grad H: Yep . Everyone else . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else 's microphone , as well as on that , {vocalsound} and you build , um {disfmarker} basically I think you 'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations +Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} +Grad H: It 's a little big . +PhD G: It 's not that big actually , um +Grad H: Two to the N . Two to the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually , Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you 're saying , +Grad H: Anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I was just realizing , I used to know this guy who used to build , uh {vocalsound} um , mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where , you know , t in order to able to turn up the gain , you know , uh {vocalsound} as much as you can , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking , +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh , what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones . +Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who 's the loudest , and that person is certainly talking . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh , excuse me , mol overlap . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: So , not just {disfmarker} just the loudest . +PhD E: But , eh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry . I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the , {pause} eh {pause} mike , eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone , eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy . +PhD G: Sorry , I have to go . +Grad H: OK . Could you fill that out anyway ? Just , {pause} put your name in . Are y you want me to do it ? I 'll do it . +PhD A: But he 's not gonna even read that . Oh . +Grad H: I know . +PhD E: including overlap zone . including . because , eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to , eh , to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal . and then , {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in , uh , and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals . The mixed signals , eh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult , um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh , eh , overlapping zone Eh , if you process only the the energy of the , of each frame . +Professor D: Well , it 's probably harder , but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that , was that there 's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: because if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know , this doesn't cover , say , three , but if most of the overlaps , say , are two , {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there 's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And everyone else is low , yeah . +Professor D: you know , what I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: there 's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , by the way , I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things , is that we can all wear little bells on our heads , {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you 'd know that {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Ding , ding , ding , ding . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: "" Ding "" . That 's cute ! +PhD B: I think that 'd be really interesting too , with blindfolds . Then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds , +PhD B: Yeah . The question is , {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} +Grad H: "" what are you nodding about ? "" +PhD B: Well , trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without , yeah . +Grad H: "" Sorry , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just going to sleep . "" +PhD B: But then there 's just one @ @ , like . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Actually , I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who , um , was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese , and was bowing . you know , profusely . +PhD B: Oh , yeah , that 's really common . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD A: Just , kept {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Ah . +Professor D: Wow . +PhD B: It 's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you 're trying , say , to convince somebody on the phone it 's difficult not to move your hands . Not {disfmarker} You know , if you watch people they 'll actually do these things . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So . I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds , at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , maybe for part of the meeting , we don't have to do it the whole meeting . +Professor D: Yeah , I think th I think it 's a great idea . +PhD B: That could be fun . It 'll be too hard to make barriers , I was thinking because they have to go all the way +Professor D: W Yeah . +PhD B: you know , I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here . +Grad H: Well , we could just turn out the lights . +Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used , um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board . +PhD B: Y Yeah ? +Postdoc F: R really inexpensive . You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together , these are {pause} you know , pretty l large partitions . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But then we also have these mikes , is the other thing I was thinking , so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound , +Postdoc F: It 's true , it would disturb the , um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} +Grad H: The acoustics . +PhD B: um +Professor D: Blindfolds would be good . +Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} +Grad H: I think , blindfolds . +PhD B: I mean , it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's cheap and , uh Be interesting to have the camera going . +Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam 's set up the mikes , But . +Postdoc F: OK . I think we 're going to have to work on the , uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form . +PhD A: I 'll be peeking . +Grad H: Yeah , that 's right , we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: "" Do you mind being blindfolded while you 're interviewed ? "" +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's the one that we videotape . So . Um , I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along . Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is , uh @ @ {disfmarker} it 's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks , but um I wanted to get broader input on it , So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person , you know , what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on . Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh , one , uh , ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded , something like that , you know from {disfmarker} from , uh {pause} three months ago . Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM . Um , pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription , uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM , +Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet , but {disfmarker} It 's getting ready . +Professor D: But yeah , that 's why I phrased it that way , yeah OK . Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus , uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech . Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested . Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed , and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence , that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did . +Postdoc F: What was that called ? +Professor D: I {disfmarker} well , I I 'm probably saying this wrong , but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence . +Postdoc F: The , uh {pause} say again ? +Professor D: Something like that . Um {pause} so , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from , you know , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you , and you know , please mail me , you know , the corrections or suggestions for changing +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it 's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know , just im improve it . Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits . +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff for s "" OK , maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that 's a little thought through about that . +Grad H: So , {pause} OK , I 'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say "" a bunch of "" ? +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff "" , yeah , "" stuff "" is probably bad too , +Grad H: Yep . "" Stuff "" {pause} is not very technical . +Professor D: Yeah , well . +Grad H: I 'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +PhD A: Technical stuff . +Professor D: "" range of things "" , yeah . Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know , I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the , uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps . Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo , can you tell us about all the work you 've done on this project in the last , uh {pause} last three months ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um . Not really . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's too complicated . +PhD C: Um , {pause} I didn't get it . Wh - what is "" audio pixelization "" ? +Professor D: Uh , audio pix wh he did it , so why don't you explain it quickly ? +Grad H: It 's just , uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so , you know you can say things like , "" Well , this should probably not be on the record , but beep "" +PhD C: OK , OK . I got that . +Professor D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized , "" well , people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later "" , and , how do you get around that +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: so in the consent form it says , well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there 's something that you 're {pause} unhappy with , yeah . +PhD C: OK , and you can say {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh , well you have to be careful about excising it , how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we 're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it . +PhD C: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , you can either beep or it can be silence . I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide . which was the right way to do it . +PhD E: Ah , yeah . +Grad H: Beep is good auditorily , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: if someone is listening to it , there 's no mistake that it 's been beeped out , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: but for software it 's probably better for it to be silence . +PhD A: No , no . You can {disfmarker} you know , you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep , people could make a model of that beep , +Postdoc F: Hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I like that idea . +Grad H: Yep . And I use {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {pause} it 's an A below middle C beep , +PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 's very clear . Then you don't think it 's a long pause . +PhD B: Also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , it 's more obvious that there was something there than if there 's just silence . +Grad H: so +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's removing the old {pause} thing +PhD E: Yeah +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: Yea - right . Right . But I mean if you just replaced it with silence , {pause} it 's not clear whether that 's really silence or {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question . Do you do it on all channels ? +Grad H: Of course . +Postdoc F: Interesting . I like that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I like that . +Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it 's , uh {pause} audible . +Postdoc F: Very clear . Very clear . +Grad H: Uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's potentially audible , you could potentially recover it . +Professor D: Ke - keep a back door . +Postdoc F: Well , the other thing that {disfmarker} you know , I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s +Grad H: Yeah . Well , I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped . Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then , uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting . +PhD B: Notice how quiet I am . +Grad H: Sorry , and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so it 's in a private directory . +PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's great . Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: They 're easy to find , then . +Professor D: Alright , so , uh {pause} I think we should , uh {pause} uh , go on to the digits ? +Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say , which is that I think it 's nice that you 're preserving the time relations , +Grad H: OK . +Postdoc F: s so you 're {disfmarker} you 're not just cutting {disfmarker} you 're not doing scissor snips . You 're {disfmarker} you 're keeping the , uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK , good , digits . +Grad H: Yeah , since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well . Oh , I should have done that . +Postdoc F: It 's great . +Grad H: Shoot . Oh well . +PhD B: So I guess if there 's an overlap , {pause} like , if I 'm saying something that 's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped , too ? +Professor D: Yeah . Oh +Grad H: You 'll lose it . There 's no way around that . +Professor D: Yeah . Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits , I did also wanna remind people , uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me , you know , uh thoughts for an agenda , +Grad H: Agenda ? +Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that 'd be good . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor D: Eh So that , uh , people 's ideas don't get +Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week . +Professor D: yeah , well it does creep up , doesn't it ? +PhD B: And , I wanted to say , I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: It 's cool stuff , definitely . +PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: I was gonna say "" can you do that for the other meetings , +PhD B: It 's neat . +Grad H: can you do it for them ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: And , no actually , you can't . +PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that 's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like , "" Oh , OK ! "" +PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Thank you . Yeah . +Grad H: "" Ooo , cool ! "" +Postdoc F: Aw , thanks . +PhD B: How long does it {pause} take , just briefly , like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK . {pause} to label the , +Postdoc F: No . I have the script now , so , I mean , it can work off the , uh {pause} other thing , +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels , yep . +PhD B: OK . +PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first ? +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh , well , yeah . Because , uh {pause} well , I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way . +Grad H: If it works well enough . Right now it 's not . Not quite to the point where it works . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my +PhD B: It 's really neat . +Professor D: OK , go ahead +Postdoc F: Thanks . Appreciate that . I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has , uh , caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further . I 'm gonna take a look at the , uh {pause} backchannels , how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time . +PhD A: That 'd be interesting . +Grad H: Yeah , my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these , but when you wear it like that or with the uh , lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face , that 's when it starts {pause} failing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD B: Well , I can wear it , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Grad H: It doesn't matter . +PhD B: OK . +Grad H: I mean , we want it to work , +PhD A: It 's too late now . +Grad H: right ? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting . +PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so , it was just a comment on the software , not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's do digits . +Grad H: Get the bolts , "" whh whh "" +Postdoc F: Let 's do it . OK . +Grad H: OK . +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Grad H: OK , thank you . +Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they 've actually been read , or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known , so we don't do it . OK . +","The described scenario is a gathering of academic professionals, including PhD students, a postdoctoral fellow, and a professor, engaged in a meeting where various administrative and research-related topics are discussed. + +The meeting begins with a reminder about signing consent forms, indicating ongoing research that likely involves human participants. The consent forms mentioned are described as ""new and improved,"" which suggests recent updates beneficial to the study participants. + +A significant part of the dialog revolves around the acknowledgment of recent accomplishments, notably the recording of new hours of meeting data meant for speech and language processing research. The participants address the necessary administrative work, such as sending batches of data for transcription and arranging to ship CD-ROMs of the data. Human subjects approval, which ensures ethical considerations in research, is mentioned, highlighting the team's commitment to compliance and participant privacy. A mention of ""audio pixelization"" reveals the team's efforts to anonymize sensitive parts of the recorded speech, such as beeping out certain words or sections to protect the speakers' privacy. + +There is a brief technical discussion about processing the speech data, particularly focusing on overlap detection within the recorded meetings. Various methodologies for detecting when speakers are talking over each other are considered, such as energy thresholding, median filtering, and neural network classifiers. + +One particular point of interest discussed is the preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data, an essential aspect of understanding natural conversation dynamics. The exploratory analysis of long-distance inferences for topic coherence is mentioned, which alludes to the study's methodological depth and complexity. + +Moreover, the participants mention the need for upcoming agenda items, suggesting a continuous and iterative process in their research and meetings. There is a call for suggestions to add to the agenda, which would help structure future meetings and ensure that participants' ideas are discussed. + +Toward the end of the meeting, there is talk about conducting an experiment by blindfolding participants or removing visual cues during the discussion to see the impact on communication and perhaps overlapping speech. The idea is received with a mixture of curiosity and amusement, as the team considers the logistical and ethical aspects of such a study design. + +Overall, the summary reflects a multidisciplinary research team diligently working on recording, analyzing, and processing conversational speech data with a strong ethics foundation. The team discusses ongoing technical challenges, innovations in preserving participant anonymity, and practical considerations in their research setup." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Sian Thomas: Bore da. Unfortunately, the Chair, Lynne Neagle, is unable to attend today's meeting. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 17.22, I call for nominations for a temporary Chair, for the duration of the meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Sian Thomas: Any further nominations? I therefore declare that John Griffiths has been appointed temporary Chair, and I invite him to chair for the duration of today's meeting. +John Griffiths AM: Thank you very much. I thank the Members for that. Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The first item on our agenda today is apologies, substitutions, declarations of interest. Obviously, Lynne Neagle isn't able to be with us today. We haven't received any other apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2 on our agenda, the continuation of our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes, and evidence session 8. And I'm very pleased to welcome Estyn here this morning to give evidence to the committee. Would you like to introduce yourselves for the record, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Meilyr Rowlands, chief inspector. +Claire Morgan: Claire Morgan, strategic director. +Simon Brown: Simon Brown, strategic director. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you. And welcome again. If it's okay, we'll move straight into questions—we have quite a number of questions to get through this morning. Firstly, Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning. I just want to start by asking about your perception of how schools are using the pupil development grant funding, and to what extent they are genuinely targeting that funding exclusively towards children eligible for free school meals. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question. This grant has been targeted far better by now than it was originally. Estyn has made several reports regarding the effectiveness of the grant, and, really, going back to before this specific grant, to a similar grant, called RAISE. At the start of this grant, the funding was often spent on tackling underachievement, rather than dealing with the underachievement of children who are eligible for free school meals specifically. But, over a period of time, we have seen that it is targeted much better by now. That's not to say that the targeting is working perfectly still, and I think that we are seeing examples where the targeting isn't going just to children who receive free school meals. Schools sometimes interpret poverty in a slightly wider way than that. In terms of what schools are doing with the grant, we have given evidence to you of the kinds of things that they are doing. They are tracking progress of pupils, they are trying to improve attendance, they are trying to work with families and the community in general, they're doing work specifically to improve how children are doing in exams, in key stage 4, specifically—a lot of funding is being spent on that—improving the confidence of students, taking students on extra-curricular activities, improving literacy and numeracy. Those are the kinds of activities they're being used for. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because the research by Ipsos MORI and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods has shown that there is some kind of blurring—I think that's the term that they use—in terms of who is eligible. But you are relatively comfortable with the fact that there is sufficient targeting happening. You referred to the fact that it is used, perhaps, to reach a slightly wider cohort than just those who are eligible for free school meals, but you do feel that that balance, from your experience, is acceptable. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, it has improved a great deal. When I was looking at this initially, the targeting wasn’t happening at all. It was being spent on children who were underachieving, and one of the things that we did notice in the first report was that much more funding was being spent on boys than girls. And, of course, that raised the question immediately that it wasn't being spent then on children who are eligible for free school meals, because those numbers are equal. So, it wasn’t, but it has improved. There is a discussion about who exactly should have it and whether free school meals is the best definition. So, I think that schools are perhaps not following that exactly, but within the spirit of the grant, I think I’m fairly comfortable. There is a specific question—I don’t know if you are going to ask this—regarding more able and talented pupils. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's where I was going next. +Meilyr Rowlands: So, if there is a cohort of pupils who are missing out on this, they are the more able and talented pupils who receive free school meals. There are a number of reasons for this, I think. One of them is that there’s still some feeling that less able children should be receiving this grant, children who are underachieving. Schools don’t always identify underachievement of those more able children. It seems that they are doing okay, but if they were given more support, they would do even better. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, is it a lack of awareness of the nature of the grant, and that the individual has to be targeted rather than just those who are underachieving? Is that the problem? Or is it the regime that focuses on exam results and the need to draw those pupils who are underachieving up, rather than incentivising those who are achieving to achieve better? +Meilyr Rowlands: A bit of both, I'd say. And the third factor is identifying children who are more able. I think that we have a bit of work to do in that regard. I was in a conference for headteachers last week, where there was new data being discussed, and that data showed the progress of children from a certain point, year 6 tests. I think that kind of data will be very useful, because what that data can do is help secondary schools to identify more able children and that they are underachieving. Even though they're doing quite well, that kind of value-added data is very useful. So, I think that that will help as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Mark, did you want to pursue these matters further? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. I just wanted to ask about the more able and talented stream. It was good to read in your report an increased emphasis on this and to see your awareness of its importance in the PDG as well. Can I just ask—? Would you look at one area regarding schools' engagement with the Seren network, particularly for the more able and talented, and what more Estyn can do through its inspection criteria and otherwise to encourage this from schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think Estyn has always been very strongly focused on improving the performance of more able pupils. For example, in last year's annual report I raised it, and a lot of the debate around this now, I think, was generated by some of the things I've said in previous annual reports. We gave a lot of evidence to the—. Paul Flynn, I think, did the—no, who did the report? Paul Murphy did the report. So, we gave evidence to that. And on Seren, I'm particularly proud that my alma mater, Jesus College, is a very strong supporter of the Seren work. So, I'm personally quite interested in the work of Seren. And we look at the performance of more able pupils in all our inspections. It's a particular part of our inspection framework—looking at the relative performance of different groups. So, we look at the different performance of boys and girls, free school meals and non-free school meals, ethnic minorities, but we also look at the performance of more able pupils in particular, and we question schools about how they provide for the more able pupils, and we've referred to Seren in several of our inspection reports. +Mark Reckless AM: And where schools work particularly hard to engage with Seren and take up opportunities from that and push as many pupils as appropriate to work with that, is that something that you would recognise within your inspection reports? And, on the other side, where schools don't do that, is that something you would pull them up on? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we've done that. We've done it in several reports. +Claire Morgan: Throughout our inspections, we are looking for best practice, because part of our strategy is always to identify where there are weaknesses, but actually to point schools in the direction of where they can find a solution. So, capturing different approaches to more able and talented is part of the role of inspection. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just briefly, you touched earlier on using the measure of those who are eligible for free school meals as a way to identify children from disadvantaged backgrounds so that you can target this funding. Varied evidence has been given to us on this. Do you have an opinion on whether that's the best way? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly is a good way of doing it. There is a strong correlation between children who underachieve and that measure, so it is a strong measure. But, there is scope to discuss how exactly it does work. For example, some people say that if you have received free school meals for a period of time and now you're not receiving them, then perhaps you should still be receiving the funding for a period of time, for example. So, there are ways of fine-tuning that measure, I think. It's worth considering those approaches. +John Griffiths AM: Thanks for that. We move on now to Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. You've reported that the proportion of schools making effective use of the PDG remains around two thirds of secondary and primary schools, meaning that a third are still not using that PDG effectively. Why do you think this is? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that sort of proportion broadly corresponds to the schools that don't have particularly good leadership. I think, ultimately, all of these sorts of initiatives come down to strong leadership and effective leadership—that they know how to organise and use those grants effectively. One of the shortcomings that we often identify is evaluation—that money has been spent on a particular way of using the grant, but it has not been evaluated well. So, I think quite a lot of it is to do with generic leadership skills. But those are some of the specific shortcomings to do with evaluation. +Michelle Brown AM: Are there any patterns by region or type of school in that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think there's any patterns that we've identified in terms of region. +Claire Morgan: As Meilyr said, it's very strongly linked to leadership capacity. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. Thank you. What are the most effective uses of PDG, from your point of view? Is there something in particular that you think that schools should be focusing on? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a lot of evidence on what constitutes good practice in this area. There's the Welsh Government guidance, there's our guidance, there's a lot of research—the Sutton Trust toolkit—and they're the sorts of things I mentioned earlier. I think that more attention does need to be given to the community-focused element of this work. So, schools do a lot of things that they are in control of—the things I mentioned earlier: things like improving attendance, offering extra-curricular activities, literacy and numeracy support, tracking pupils—all those sorts of things. But an important element of this, I think, is engaging with the learners, but also with parents and the community. I think what we've found is that the most effective schools—the ones that really do make a big difference to this cohort of students—are the ones that do that most effectively. +Claire Morgan: I think that there are different situations in different schools, but in the best schools, they evaluate the barriers to learning for their particular children. Often we see that engagement with communities is part of that engagement with families. In Brackla Primary School, in Bridgend, they've got Families at Brackla, and it's a range of activities to engage with families. Families often have had a negative experience of education themselves, and the schools are trying to address some of those concerns. Cefn Hengoed in Swansea, which I'm sure many of you know about, have had an extensive strategy for engaging with the community, with the families, and equipping their children to participate in decisions around the curriculum, making them more confident learners. So, it is about removing the barriers for disadvantaged learners. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. You've made the comment that secondary schools are focusing too much on key stage 4 and not enough on developing pupils' skills in a sustainable way. Can you expand on that and give us a bit more detail on that, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think this is sort of generally accepted now. The latest guidance on the grant now says that 60 per cent of it should be spent on key stage 3. I think that acknowledges this general point. But what a lot of schools did with this money was precisely that, to target key stage 4—to have catch-up homework clubs, revision clubs, specifically to get children better GCSE results, and getting C grades, in particular. Of course, that is an important part of your armoury of tools to use, but I think there was too much use of that. Part of the problem with that is that it doesn't either develop the long-term transferable skills that those pupils have, or should have, nor does it produce the kinds of skills that the teachers need as well. So, it's kind of a quick win, a quick-fix solution, while what we feel would be more effective in the long term, and more sustainable in the long term—because if this money goes, then those quick fixes won't be possible—what would be more effective in the long term is to improve the curriculum and the pedagogy, the quality of the teaching, the quality of the curriculum, so that children are naturally enthused by what is on offer, that they attend better because they want to be in school, that they want to learn. So, we feel that getting the curriculum right, tailoring the curriculum to the needs of the pupils in that area, and improving teaching, is a more sustainable long-term solution. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you think there's anything in particular driving the focus on the key stage 4? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, again, I think most people would say it is the performance indicators. I think there's a general acknowledgement of that. Again, I said last week—. There was a conference of all the secondary heads in Wales, and that was one of the major discussion points in the conference: how do we get the performance indicators right so that there are no perverse incentives in it? +Michelle Brown AM: To what extent are decisions being made in schools concerning the application of the PDG actually evidence-based? To what extent are they using research to back up how they're using the PDG or is it effectively just guesswork? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that, of all the areas of school policy, this is the one that's most evidence-based. I think that, generally, schools can do much more about using evidence and research findings, but this particular area is probably the one that schools are strongest at using research in. That's partly because the guidance strongly suggests that you should do that, but also because there is a lot of easily accessible research evidence available. So, there's a lot of research on this. As I mentioned earlier, the Sutton Trust toolkit is a good example where researchers have really tried very hard to simplify all the evidence that exists in a way that schools can use. So, there are little pound signs to show how costly an intervention is and little stars or something to show how many months of gain pupils get out of this particular intervention. So, it makes it much easier for schools to make a decision. But I think what's missing is that you can't just take that evidence as it is, because you have to implement it in your own school, and that then will affect how effective that particular intervention is. Just because it is evaluated by researchers as being generally very effective doesn't mean that you will necessarily implement it effectively. So, it is therefore important that each school does evaluate. So, there are kind of two sides to using research. There's looking at research, but there's also doing your own research and evaluating how effectively you have implemented something. I think that's been a weakness. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Do you think there's an attendance crisis at key stage 4 for those students eligible for free school meals? +Meilyr Rowlands: 'Crisis' is maybe too strong a word, but I think there's been a lot of attention given to attendance, quite rightly. Over a long period of time, I was a member of the national behaviour and attendance review board under Ken Reid about 10 years ago. So, there's been a lot of attention on attendance, and that's very important because attendance has a very strong correlation with outcomes. +Hefin David AM: Of those students at key stage 4, 35 per cent of those eligible for free school meals are attending for 95 per cent of the time, whereas it's 60 per cent for their peers. Is the PDG making an impact on that? You've mentioned engagement with the curriculum. What more can be done? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what's happening now is that people are targeting their attention on attendance. Attendance has improved in primary and in secondary generally. It has also improved for these cohorts as well, and at a faster rate than the rest of the cohort. So, there have been improvements. Nevertheless, I agree with you totally that it is a major, major problem, and that is why schools do use the PDG specifically to improve attendance. +Hefin David AM: But you said they've not used it well enough. +Meilyr Rowlands: Did I say that? They are using it, and attendance has improved, and the attendance of this cohort has improved more, but there's still a major, major problem. So, I think there needs to be even more attention— +Hefin David AM: So, what—? I'm looking for specifics. What can be done with the PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, as I said earlier, that these are major social issues. So, I think what can be done that hasn't been done currently is to give more attention to the community-focused side of schooling. I think the schools that have done well, that have really improved attendance of this particular group of pupils, are the ones that have taken community relationships very, very seriously and worked with parents. +Hefin David AM: Yes, you mentioned working with families when you were answering Llyr. How does that happen, though? What does it look like? If I'm a parent, what does it look like? +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. I'll ask Claire to give you an example. Cefn Hengoed is a good example of a school that has not cracked it but made a lot of progress. +Claire Morgan: Often, in the best schools, the headteachers consider themselves to be community leaders as well as headteachers, and they often set up arrangements where they engage directly with the families of disadvantaged children or children who are underachieving generally. They try to build very strong relationships with the families so that the school is in a position to either liaise with different agencies or to bring agencies into the school to address some of the issues that are outside school control. +Hefin David AM: And where does the PDG come into this, and the use of it? +Claire Morgan: This sometimes is used for appointing staff whose role it is to facilitate these arrangements to give one-to-one support to children, to monitor attendance, to visit homes where children are not coming into schools, to try and address what the barriers are in getting them into classrooms. +Hefin David AM: And those lessons you've learned from Cefn Hengoed: how are you going to spread that? How does that get spread? +Claire Morgan: Well, we've done it in a number of ways. Obviously, the first thing we do is the inspection report, and we highlight the practice there. We also have things—. This is an example of our best-practice case studies. We also have conferences as well, where we invite the headteachers from those schools to come and present to other headteachers. We also tweet, use social media, to try and get the message out there. But there's also— +Hefin David AM: This all seems like stuff that's done to teachers. It doesn't seem very engaging. +Claire Morgan: Well, it is—. Headteachers tell us that learning about best practice from other headteachers is very, very useful. When we had a conference, and when we looked at leadership and improving schools, Cefn Hengoed, along with a number of other schools, presented, and we had very positive feedback from that. So, it is actually schools learning from other schools, and I think the work that the consortia have been doing on school-to-school support as well can contribute to it. +Hefin David AM: We're spreading the PDG very thinly now, if we're talking about attendance, and then we talk about exclusion as well. Is it possible that it can have an impact on reducing the higher exclusion rates for EFSM students? +Claire Morgan: I think it has the potential to. I think all these strategies have a potential to remove those barriers. But this is— +Hefin David AM: It doesn't sound very convincing. +Claire Morgan: But it is a difficult challenge for schools. These are often complex issues that schools are grappling with, and they are trying a variety of approaches. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm not being overly critical, but it does seem very hit and miss, to me. Some of the answers that you're giving—they seem to be giving certain examples, but there doesn't seem to be a coherence to it. +Claire Morgan: I think it comes back to leadership. Where we have very strong strategic leadership in schools, they are more direct in their approach, and they have a very strong strategy. Where there's weaker leadership, sometimes they are trying different things, perhaps in more of a scattergun approach, rather than trying strategies, evaluating and finding out what works. There is an element of the impact of leadership there. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Hefin? Okay. +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it is true to say that it's difficult to distinguish what some of these better schools do with PDG, as opposed to their general money. If that's what you're getting at, I would totally agree. Schools like Cefn Hengoed will be using more than just the PDG to do this work. +Hefin David AM: And it appears to be a lot about the way things are done, as much as how the money is spent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. +Claire Morgan: It is to do with the ethos and the culture of the school. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thanks for that. We have further questions from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. You've observed that the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those who aren't on free school meals hasn't closed significantly at any stage of learning. Is the PDG actually working? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I'm in danger of repeating myself now. It's quite difficult to identify the cause and the effect in terms of the PDG. So, where there have been improvements, it's quite difficult to say, 'Well, that's definitely down to the PDG', and similarly vice versa: if it's not working, it's difficult to say that it's because of PDG not being used properly. To come back to something else I said previously, there have been small improvements. Whether you say that that is due to PDG or not is quite difficult, but there have been some improvements. But there hasn't been a major step change in closing that gap, that is true, and I think the conclusion that I draw is that these are major societal challenges and barriers that these young people face. Schools can do a certain amount, and of course they must do a certain amount, but to have a step change you do need to engage with the learners, with the parents and with the community and that's why the more successful schools do actually succeed—it's because they do that. So, I think more of a push on that area at a national level would be welcome. +Michelle Brown AM: In most successful schools, how much is the attainment gap being narrowed, in the schools that make the most effective use of PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would vary from school to school. We can look up specific examples for you of specific schools if you like. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, perhaps you could provide a note to the committee on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I could have a list of schools and how much they've closed, perhaps. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, I'll move on. +John Griffiths AM: Perhaps you could include in that what you would consider to be a significant increase. +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. Fine. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. In 2017, we saw a re-widening of the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those not on free school meals. What effect do you think the Welsh Government's changes to performance measures have had in terms of impact? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they definitely had a direct impact on it, and probably there might well be an indirect, longer-term impact as well. But, clearly, changing the performance indicators had a direct, immediate effect, because some of those examinations, qualifications, courses that were typically followed by this cohort of students weren't any longer part of the headline performance indicators. So, you've all heard about BTEC Science and the key skills qualifications. Those sorts of things that many of these pupils used to succeed at, and therefore get the performance indicator for the school, no longer count. So, it's had a direct impact, and it's one of the reasons why it's quite difficult to compare the results of one year and another, because of these changes in performance indicators. +Michelle Brown AM: Yes, that makes sense. Do you think there hasn't been any—? Can we take it from what you've said that there's been a positive improvement, or has it been negative? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a growing realisation that secondary schools, key stage 4, is driven overly by performance indicators, and, whatever performance indicator you come up with, there will be unintended consequences. So, it's not, I think, useful to keep changing the performance indicators and think that you will get to a point where you solve the problem. That's not likely to happen. What needs to be done is to have a different approach to accountability that doesn't put so much attention on these performance indicators, because what you're doing is you're just moving the problem around by changing the performance indicators. Some of these vocational courses that I mentioned are a good example of this. So, I think the previous performance indicators encouraged schools to enter, for example, whole cohorts to do BTEC science, and that's not a good idea because the GCSE sciences are better preparation to go on to A-level science, for example. So, you're cutting out the possibility of progression for those pupils. On the other hand, by discouraging—the new performance indicators discourage BTEC and now people are saying, 'We're not offering BTEC at all', and it is suitable for a certain cohort of pupils. So, it's very difficult to get the performance indicators absolutely right if you put so much pressure on schools to actually achieve those performance indicators. +John Griffiths AM: Michelle, I'd just like to bring in Darren at this point. +Darren Millar AM: I share some of your concern around the unavailability now of BTEC in some schools. It strikes me that the decision to discourage the availability of BTEC, which is what the performance measures do, really is sending a message about vocational qualifications that is not helpful, actually, to many young people for whom vocational qualifications may be perfectly suitable. Is that something with which you concur? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's one of the unintended consequences, and what I'm trying to say is that, almost inevitably, there will be unintended consequences. So, you can sympathise with the original decision to change the performance indicators in such a way that it encouraged more pupils to do GCSEs, for example, but it does have that unintended consequence. In theory, there's nothing stopping a school entering pupils now for those qualifications. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle, we need to move on at this stage, so we'll move on Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you very much. I wanted to ask you about looked-after children and adopted children, and how effective the PDG has been for those groups of children. So, to begin with, how well do the schools know that the PDG does exist for looked-after children and adopted children? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what we found—we did a review of looked-after children fairly recently, and we found there was some confusion about where the grant was, who had the grant and how it was spent, and what the priorities of regional consortia were, because I think the grant goes to regional consortia now. I think previously it went to local authorities. So, I think schools aren't quite sure about how it's spent and what the priorities are. +Claire Morgan: I think we've seen a bit of improvement there. Meilyr was right; there was a lack of clarity. Schools weren't always aware of the grant and the possibility of using it to support those learners. But the consortia are now using the grant, and there's some training being offered to schools around emotional behaviour and attachment training. There's some school-to-school work that is now being funded by the grant to share best practice, and there are some individual bursaries to support the work. So, from quite a concern, some action now is appearing to be done. +Simon Brown: And on other developments, regional consortia, they've have appointed regional LAC co-ordinators, which has been helpful— +Julie Morgan AM: For these particular groups? +Simon Brown: Yes. It has happened since July 2016 and they're now in post and beginning to work. And, as Claire said—she gave some of the spend that the regional consortia are using, targeted spending. It's an improving area of regional consortia's work. They are improving their tracking of looked-after children. There's an issue about adopted children, I think, because, currently, the pupil-level annual school census data doesn't differentiate whether children are adopted or not. So, they're more difficult to track. But looked-after children are being tracked by the consortia. So, it's an improving area, as Claire mentioned. +Julie Morgan AM: Could you give some examples of some work that's been done with looked-after children that you feel has been effective? +Claire Morgan: I think we'd probably need to go away and get that from our evidence base. That would be helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: That would be great if you could do that and send something in to us. I've mentioned before in this context that this previous committee, in the previous Assembly, did an inquiry into adopted children, where we met with a lot of adoptive parents. And one of the big issues that did come out was the fact that there was a great deal of concern about some of the insensitivities in the schools in dealing with adopted children, asking for pictures of when the children were born and things like that that didn't show a degree of sensitivity. Do you feel that those sorts of issues are being addressed on a wider basis now, and are they being addressed through this grant, through the PDG grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: We probably do need to come back to you with some more evidence on this. This is certainly on our radar. We've got two pieces of work currently that we're doing, which will give a little bit more evidence on this. We're doing a piece of work on managed moves and I think that will be helpful because a lot of these pupils are subject to managed moves, and that's the sort of thing we'll be looking at in that report: what information is transferred from one organisation and from one school to another. I think that generally hasn't been very helpful, and there isn't necessarily a good system for exchanging particularly their educational needs—some of the basic things about their date of birth and whatever are transferred, but their educational needs, when children move from one school to another. So, we've got a report coming out on that. The other piece of work we've been doing is on children who have had adverse experiences in their childhood and how schools deal with those traumatic backgrounds. +Julie Morgan AM: That would, of course, be much wider than looked-after and adopted children. +Meilyr Rowlands: It is wider. It is wider. That is wider. But, if you don't mind, we'll try and get you something specifically on— +Julie Morgan AM: If you could, because there does generally seem to be a lack of knowledge about how effective this work is with looked-after and adopted children. You don't have any information about exclusion rates, for example, with looked-after children, and the way this grant has been used to address those sorts of issues? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is some data available. I don't think exclusions have gone down particularly for that group more than any other group. But there has to be quite a bit of caution used with data on exclusions. The Welsh Government's statistics on that come with a big cautionary note, because that data is subject to a lot of variation—exactly what you're talking about, I think: different counties and different authorities do things differently. And I think the work we're doing on managed moves is very pertinent to that because managed moves don't count as part of the exclusion. So, the exclusion rates will differ from area to area, depending on the policy on managed moves. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about attendance? Anything about attendance with looked-after children? Any evidence of— +Meilyr Rowlands: I'll have to look that up as well I think. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, Chair, if we can have some more information on all of this, it would be great. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, yes, we'll look forward to receiving that further information from you. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I just ask a follow-up to a response that we had last week when we had the EAS consortium in, amongst others? They told us that the specific grant—the pupil deprivation grant—principally for looked-after children, they were responsible for, and that certainly the vast bulk of that was spent on a specific programme, aimed not at LACs specifically, but at all children considered vulnerable at times of transition, particularly into year 7. Does that strike you as an appropriate use of that grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think transition is appropriate—that's quite sensible, but clearly if the grant is for looked-after children, it should be spent on looked-after children. +Mark Reckless AM: Are there any other comments on that approach? I think, to take up what EAS has said, there were difficulties about having particular programmes aimed specifically at individual looked-after children, and it was felt that they would benefit vulnerable children, who had more transitions between schools perhaps than others. Is that a sufficient link to justify how that grant is spent? I think this is really in the wider context of how much schools need to make sure this grant goes towards the group it's specified for, and to what extent it is acceptable to blur the boundaries of that and perhaps this is just an example of a higher degree of blurring than some others. +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't know enough about this particular initiative to comment, but I would have thought that looked-after children is a very small group and if you were to blur it that much, then it wouldn't be very targeted. I would have thought that if the grant is specifically for looked-after children, it should be more targeted, but I don't know the details. +Mark Reckless AM: Just following up on another point, I think you said that the 'PLASS' data—. I apologise that I'm not familiar with the abbreviation, but could you explain if anything was being done to address previously looked-after children who are now adopted and seeking to ensure that they are measured to that data to allow proper tracking. Is that work that's in hand, do you know? Could you just clarify for me the 'PLASS' description and what information system that that refers to? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's the information that schools give formally to Welsh Government and every so often, the data that is collected formally by Welsh Government is improved and expanded. Exclusions is a good example. Previously, exclusions weren't collected through PLASC—the pupil level annual school census—and so we had no proper data at all on exclusions. Now that's been improved, but I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, I think what you were referring to—. I think you were saying that previously looked-after children who are now adopted, unlike looked-after children, that wasn't tracked by the PLASC data. +Simon Brown: That's our understanding. Looked-after children are differentiated, but whether they're adopted or not—whether any children are adopted—isn't picked up in the data at the moment. +Mark Reckless AM: But I think for the grant, it's previously looked-after children who have since been adopted rather than all adopted children, isn't it? +John Griffiths AM: Again, perhaps you could clarify that for us in the further information that you will provide. +Meilyr Rowlands: Although, you'd probably be better off asking the Welsh Government directly. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes, I agree—I think that would be better, but just to clarify finally from me, Chair: is your point that, if that group isn't measured, then it is difficult to target them with this grant, and if we want them to be targeted with this grant, we should ensure that they're tracked through that data system? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, that sounds sensible. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark, I think you have some further questions on Schools Challenge Cymru. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Did you consider that the Schools Challenge Cymru programme was a success? +Meilyr Rowlands: It was certainly variable. It lasted for a relatively short period of time, so it's quite difficult to be definitive about the evaluation of it, but it was certainly variable. It varied from school to school. Some were very successful, some didn't make as much improvement. If it had lasted longer, maybe it would have made a difference. Overall, the data made—. There were improvements overall for the 40 schools over and above the general improvement that there was for all schools in Wales. So, you could say that it was successful in that respect. So, it's quite difficult to say whether it was successful, because that was a fairly limited improvement for quite a lot of money. It is, you know, quite a difficult judgment to say whether it was successful or not overall. What strikes one, I think, was the variability in the success of it, and I think that was clear also at an operational level. It was clearly more successful in certain areas where all the various people involved in the work worked together effectively. So, the challenge adviser and the local authority and the regional consortia were all working effectively together. And, in other cases, they weren't, and there had to be changes in personnel and that sort of thing. So, it was quite variable. +Mark Reckless AM: Of the five schools within the programme that Estyn actually inspected in the last year of the programme, I think that three of those were in special measures and two required significant improvement. Doesn't that suggest that, as far as Estyn engaged with the programme, your evidence was not to suggest that it was being successful? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not wildly successful, certainly, but many of these schools would have been in those sorts of categories in the past as well. So, it's not very surprising that many of them still remained. So, it wasn't a huge success, clearly. As you say, many of these schools are still struggling schools, so it hasn't been a panacea. +Mark Reckless AM: Bearing in mind your remarks earlier over the focus on key stage 4, in particular the C to D grade boundary, what sort of minimum length of time should a programme like this run for if we are to expect success? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's a hugely difficult question to answer, and it is at the core of whether this initiative was successful. There has been research, and people have looked at things like the City Challenge and have suggested that two or three years is too short a period to make a proper evaluation of how successful those particular initiatives were. I don't know of similar evaluations to that particular point in Wales for the Schools Challenge Cymru, but with similar initiatives in England, the suggestion has been that you need at least three years to be able to evaluate it properly. +Mark Reckless AM: The Schools Challenge Cymru advisers, I understand that Estyn met with those termly through the programme. Can you explain how useful that engagement was, and also perhaps compare or contrast it to the ongoing engagement you have with the advisers from the regional consortia? +Meilyr Rowlands: You know, the engagement we had with local authorities, and regional consortia, and with Schools Challenge Cymru advisers was not really a problem for us. That was fine. I think the engagement with each other was more of the issue, really. I think the challenge for Schools Challenge Cymru was that it was introduced at a time when regional consortia were just beginning. So, you had a period of time when it wasn't entirely clear what the responsibilities of regional consortia were, compared with local authorities. That has developed and clarified over time, but at that time it wasn't entirely clear. Plus, you were bringing in another player to the school improvement landscape. When all of those different agencies worked well together, then that was a positive thing for schools. When they were all saying the same thing, having that extra resource, extra money, extra attention, was a positive thing; but, clearly, in some cases, that relationship didn't always work, and some schools felt that they were being told different things by different agencies. Clearly, that was one of the reasons why that wasn't as successful. +Mark Reckless AM: So, is Welsh Government now trying to do, through the regional consortia, what it was then trying to do through Schools Challenge Cymru? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what you had then was you had all three: you had local authorities and regional consortia and Schools Challenge Cymru. So, what you have now is a clearer demarcation of who does what. I don't think what Welsh Government are doing now is the same as what they were trying to do in Schools Challenge Cymru, because I think what Schools Challenge Cymru did, and did well, I think, was identify that there are a small number of secondary schools that have particular challenges and they need over and above the normal local authority/regional consortia support, they need over and above that a certain quantum of support and resource. I think that's specifically what Schools Challenge Cymru was trying to do, and that's not quite the same as what the more universal provision of regional consortia is. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, that's all we have time for in this session, I'm afraid. There are some questions that we haven't reached that we'll write to you on to obtain further responses, and there are some matters that you've identified where you need to provide us with further information also. May I thank you very much for coming along this morning to give evidence? You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Thank you very much. The committee will now break for just over six minutes until 11:30. Welcome back, for item 3 on our agenda today, scrutiny of Estyn's annual report for 2016-17. We've got a number of areas to cover, but please, Members, feel free to raise whatever issues you think appropriate, because the areas that we've identified are a general guide only. Okay, welcome back to Estyn, our witnesses for this session also. I don't know if we need further introductions. I don't think we do, really; we've already had that on the record. So, we'll move straight into questions then, and Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you very much. Just to start with, what's your opinion about the way the Government has been introducing reforms in this area over this past inspection cycle? In general, what is your opinion about how effective that has been and how much of an impression has it had? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well the seven year cycle encompasses three Governments if truth be told, but there has been a sense of continuity and progress made in the nature of policy work in general, starting with the fundamental things such as literacy and numeracy in the first instance and also behaviour and attendance, as I said earlier this morning. And then they've developed a far more comprehensive scheme that is at the heart of the development of the curriculum and pedagogy specifically. And I think that that general shift from the foundations—of literacy and numeracy—moving towards the curriculum and pedagogy does make sense. And the other trend that we've seen is to promote collaboration and the self-improvement system, as it's called. I also think that there are a number of progressive countries doing the same kind of thing. So, I think that the general direction is right. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you think—and I'd agree—that the focus on pedagogy is correct and that this culture that appears to be putting more emphasis on self-improvement, and so on, is a positive one. Are there aspects that haven't worked as well in your opinion? +Meilyr Rowlands: Of course, one accepts that one would like to see development and progress happening far more quickly, but, even in that instance, we need to balance the need that we all have to see progress with the pressures that are on teachers—there are so many things changing. I think that the most striking aspect in looking back over the past seven years is that all aspects of work in the education system—I'm trying to avoid saying 'schools', because it's more than just schools; it's colleges and the system as a whole—have changed. All aspects of that have changed, and I think that we need that—all of those aspects need to be changed and improved—but we need to balance that against the fact that we need to not go so fast, because workload on teachers—. This responsibility of self-improvement means that there is more pressure on teachers and headteachers, ultimately. That's why Estyn was very pleased to collaborate with 15 other bodies to give guidance on workload for teachers, because we have to be very careful to get that right as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is it disappointing, then, in the latest annual report, that you are to all intents and purposes coming to the conclusion that the performance is consistent with how it has been over the past inspection cycle? Would you not expect some kind of progress or something more significant in terms of outcomes? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's one way of looking at it. Another way, as I said earlier, is that all of these things are changing and, under those particular circumstances, that it's a good thing that teachers and the education system have been able to maintain standards and the quality of education. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The sector, of course, is continually evolving. We know that a number of these reforms are still playing out and are still being developed and introduced. Of course, there is a risk that we are in this situation continuously, and therefore settling for managing to maintain, for me, perhaps wouldn't show enough ambition. Is there a risk that we will find ourselves continually—? As you say, the inspection cycle has seen three Governments. There are changes and different policies and priorities being implemented. From what you say, that does prevent the development of the sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: We are in the middle of a period of major change, and you're right that there is more change to come. The new curriculum will reach key stage 4 in around seven years again, so we're genuinely in the middle of this period of change. Perhaps 'revolutionary' is too strong a word, but it is the biggest change that I've seen in my career. You have to go back to the 1980s and 1990s to see similar changes. Of course, we all wish to see swifter progress being made, but what that means in practice is that you push more changes through, or that you push through the changes that we currently have more quickly. There was discussion, for example, about when the new curriculum should be introduced. Those are the kinds of practical questions that arise, and you have to remember that, in the classroom, what you will have are individual teachers having to prepare for a new GCSE, a new A-level, and there are new specifications in that regard, and it's a great deal of work. So, we have to be very careful when we say that we need to accelerate that process. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you understand the point I was making about the risk of finding ourselves like this continually and therefore to say, if we were to interpret your conclusion in the recent report, that outcomes have been consistent over the inspection cycle doesn't mean that we are pushing enough or that the reforms happen in a way that allows progress in performance terms. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would wish to see that we wouldn't be in this position continuously. I think that— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you've just suggested that there are seven years ahead of us yet in terms of introducing these reforms. +Meilyr Rowlands: But I do think that the reforms, in looking at them holistically, are fundamental, as I was saying. You have to go back 30, 40 years to see something similar. So, I do think that we need to look at—. One of the problems—. You ask what hasn't worked in the past. Well, I think one of the things, and it's difficult to answer that question, but one of the things that hasn't worked in the past is just doing one aspect of the system. We need to look at transforming the entire education system at the same time, because if you just tinker with one part then it might have an unintended effect in another place. So, I think we need to look at the system as a whole, and I think that what's happening at the moment is a structural change to the system. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, I think that's a fair enough point. What's your assessment, therefore, of how able or how ready schools are to deal with, in moving forward now, all of these changes and reforms? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, as I said, I think that they have coped with a whole host of changes, and that's something to be praised. We are disappointed the standards haven't improved as much as we would have liked to have seen, but we also need to be congratulating the workforce for getting to grips with so many changes in a relatively short period. So, that does give one confidence that they will be able to cope with other changes in future. So, I am confident in that sense, but we do have to be careful in looking out for the workload, because the culture of promoting is one of giving more responsibilities to teachers, to schools, to colleges and to headteachers. So, we have to be very careful that that workload doesn't become excessive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would you also share the concern that the reduction in school budgets will worsen those risks that you referred to? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. As you'll know, international research evidence shows that it is not the amount of funding that goes into education systems that dictates how effective they are. But it is true to say that, if you have financial cuts, that does cause practical problems for headteachers in having to lay off staff, and so on. So, it does take a lot of time and energy to deal with cuts. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Llyr. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I ask the reasons for Professor Donaldson being asked to undertake a review of Estyn's role? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think any good organisation would welcome external scrutiny. I would say that, wouldn't I, because I'm an inspector, but I think it's important that we practise what we preach. There have been in the past systems of quinquennial reviews. I think it is healthy for anybody to have that sort of external view, and I think in particular we're proud in Estyn that we are a body that is developing and trying new things and evolving continuously. So, I think it's that. But if you were to ask, 'Why now?', it's because of the extent of the education reform that we're particularly facing. So, I think it's a good thing to do at any given time, but considering the range and speed of change that we're facing in education now, I thought it was particularly important that we ask Graham Donaldson to look at the implications for our work of all this education reform. +Mark Reckless AM: What have been the biggest benefits to Wales of having Estyn as an independent body inspecting schools and other institutions in Wales compared to the work that Ofsted has done in England? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we have very good relationships with Ofsted and with Education Scotland and the Education Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland. I wouldn't like to compare—I don't think it would be fair to compare ourselves. We do things slightly differently, but we benefit a lot from each other. We have inspectors from Ofsted or from Scotland, from Northern Ireland, on our inspections. We shadow them, and our inspectors go to their countries. So, we're working quite closely with the home countries, but also further afield with Holland and with the Republic of Ireland, for example. So, we're always, all of us, learning from one another about what we think they do well and what they think we do well. We're constantly learning from each other. I wouldn't think it's fair for me to say what I think—you know, where we're better than another country. +Mark Reckless AM: Of course. I'm not asking you to criticise Ofsted. I agree that wouldn't be appropriate. But I think what is fair for me to ask is: perhaps could you highlight one or two areas where you believe that Estyn has a particular difference of emphasis and approach from Ofsted? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think one of the things we've done and we've developed over many years is the use of the nominee and peer inspectors in particular. So, we've got, I think, a really good tradition of doing that in Wales, and when we do meet other inspectorates, they're always very interested in that part of our work. We're a very small organisation; we're only about 50 HMIs. We inspect a wide range of sectors, as you know, but the bulk of that inspection work is actually done now by peer inspectors. So, I think that, and the idea of a nominee, is also of interest to other inspectorates across the world. So, there's always someone from the body that we are inspecting on the inspection team. They're part of all the discussions so they actually understand how we've come to our report, and they can then help the organisation move forward after we've left. +Mark Reckless AM: I've clashed with Welsh Ministers on the absence of league tables for schools in Wales, with less accountability for their results than is the case in England. I note it as a parent myself. But, from, I think, at some point in 2014, you started in your inspection reports of primary schools putting the comparison of how they were doing compared to other schools and local authorities and nationally, as well as what you've described as their family of schools, and being more transparent over their key stage 2 results. So, what led you to do that? What difference has that made? And was that decision taken by Estyn on its own account, or was that something that was agreed with Welsh Ministers? +Meilyr Rowlands: I did listen to Plenary, so I've heard you raise this issue. I'm sure it's inadvertent on your part, but you've confused absolutely everyone with this. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm pleased to let you set the record straight, then. +Meilyr Rowlands: It's not actually true. The data that you refer to is published by the Welsh Government on My Local School. So, if you want to know about your own school or any other school, you should go onto that website. That's hugely—. It's very clear. There's a huge amount of data on it, but it's very, very clear. You can look at it in terms of tables and data and graphs and it shows all that data that you refer to, and that's the right place to have it. We do refer to some of that data in our reports, because our reports are based on evidence. Most of it is first-hand evidence that we see in the classroom and see in pupils' work, but we triangulate that with data and with what parents and pupils say and interviews with staff. So, we refer to that data and we always have referred to the data. Pre 2014, it was in the body of the text, and then after 2014 we put it in an appendix. We had a mid-cycle review and people felt it would be better in an appendix than in the body of the text, but it was always there. There's pros and cons on whether it should be in the body of the text or in an appendix. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, certainly, the data became clear to me in reports after 2014 in a way it wasn't before. So, I will leave that there. Can I just highlight a few of what I felt were either particularly striking statistics or comparisons or points that were made in your annual report of potential concern? You state that headteachers do not understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice in about three quarters of schools—this relates to the foundation phase. I find that quite a shocking statistic. Do you share that view? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. That's why I highlighted it in my foreword. I think there is a general consensus about the benefits of the foundation phase. There's a lot of research, and our own evidence shows that, where it is implemented well, pupils benefit a lot from it and they're well prepared to be independent thinkers. So, it's a development that we should be proud of in Wales, I think, the foundation phase. It's a great thing. But, we are disappointed that only about a quarter of primary schools are implementing it fully. There's a whole range of reasons, as I discuss in the annual report, why that might be the case. It is quite an innovative idea, and I think it's misunderstood by saying it's learning through play, because that's a bit too simplistic a definition of it. We have written a report recently on good practice in the foundation phase, so that we can try and explain clearly to people what the benefits of it are and how best to implement it. But I think it is true that too many headteachers—. Many of them might not have taught in foundation phase, they might not have that infant background, they might have a junior-school background. There might not have been enough—well, we say there wasn't enough training—or there might be people who missed any training that there was then. So, overall, there is a large number of leaders who don't fully appreciate what the foundation phase could deliver. +John Griffiths AM: Darren—is it on this? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, it is on this. I was just wondering—. I mean, one of the problems that I know you've identified in the past is this lack of good practice being able to travel into all parts of Wales, and, of course, we've got local authorities, we've got regional consortia, we've got the Welsh Government—all of which want to see good practice replicated where possible. What opportunities are there, perhaps, to develop some other further opportunities for good practice to be shared and promoted? I know that the Wales Audit Office, for example, has its good practice exchange. Is there something similar that schools can engage with to make things happen? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's a good question. I mean, specifically to do with foundation phase, there is a foundation phase—I can't remember what it's called now—excellence network I think, which is being relaunched. I think it was supposed to be relaunched during the snow period. So, there are networks being established. There's one for mathematics—a national network for excellence in mathematics—there's one for science and there's one for foundation phase in particular. So, I think it is a challenge that we haven't cracked yet in Wales: how do we make sure that good practice does travel? I think one specifically for foundation phase is a good idea, because we've got a specific issue with the foundation phase. +Mark Reckless AM: When you say that— +John Griffiths AM: Mark, just before you go on, I think Julie wanted to come in on this point as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I just wondered if you could give us some examples about how the foundation phase is not being implemented in the true spirit of the foundation phase in the three quarters of schools that you think fall—. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what we mean by that is schools not necessarily teaching badly, but in a more traditional way. And where we've seen that most obviously is in year 1 and year 2. Some schools actually reverted, after the introduction of the new tests, from what was pedagogy that was in line with the foundation phase. And basically, if I understand it correctly, it's more to do with the children making their own choices about what they do. And that is pretty common in nursery and reception classes, but it's less common in year 1 and year 2. +Claire Morgan: I think it is very much, as Meilyr said, the difference between a pupil-led learning experience or a teacher-led learning experience. Because of the lack of training and maybe the confidence to pursue that active and experiential learning approach, teachers have tended to resort to what they feel more comfortable with, which is more of an adult-led learning—often still high quality, but it doesn't ensure that the learners become far more independent, far more engaged in their learning. So, it's almost holding children back to an extent. They're making good progress, but they could be making even more progress. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: So, when you say that some teachers are sort of holding children back, and in the report that three quarters of schools don't understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice, what you mean is that teachers are using traditional methods, including whole-class teaching, rather than moving towards a pupil-led learning experience and one that you said was oversimplified as learning through play. May not the issue here therefore be that Estyn is seeking to impose this different approach on teachers who think that they are better able to teach children in the traditional way, which, at least in my experience, would be supported by quite a number of parents? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think it's Estyn that's imposing it. That's the national policy. +Mark Reckless AM: Do you support that policy? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we do, actually. We do. Our evidence, as I said, is that, when it is implemented properly, pupils do actually gain from it. But we're not imposing it, and what we're saying is that headteachers are not necessarily understanding it. I think there is quite a lot of jargon around it. I was just looking in the annual report. Quite unusually, in this section, we have had to actually explain some of the technical terms, like 'continuous provision'. So that's, I think, one of the reasons why people don't understand it fully. That's why we did produce this quite substantial bit of work, trying to unpack what this actually means in practice and giving a lot of good examples of the practice. +Mark Reckless AM: You referred to evidence of this approach working. Given the timing of when it was brought in and where we are now, has that really had time to distil through the system and give compelling evidence that this approach works better than more traditional approaches? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it has, to be fair. I think this has, because we're talking about a lot of developmental work related to the foundation phase prior to 2010, but it became compulsory for all schools to deliver it from 2010 onwards. So, that gives enough time for children to have been through the whole of the foundation phase onto key stage 2, and we can see the effect of it. In the schools where there is good practice in the foundation phase, we can see the effect when we inspect on key stage 2 children. +Mark Reckless AM: So, would you be confident about this, in the next few years, feeding through into an improvement in Programme for International Student Assessments, rather than a further deterioration? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think that if we did what Darren was talking about, getting more schools to share good practice, I think it will expand and more schools will take it on, yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Okay. On the sharing of good practice, you put emphasis in the report on this being an improving area and trend for the future as well, but I think you did raise concerns that it wasn't monitored or evaluated sufficiently well, particularly where one school was supporting another. How should that be done better? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think this has been a theme of many of the issues we've raised: that, whatever the initiative, you can't tell whether it's been successful or not unless you evaluate it properly. So, those evaluation skills, I think, are very important. I think that, with the development of the national academy for educational leadership, I would hope that research skills and evaluative skills would be part of the kind of training that headteachers get that maybe in the past they didn't. So, that becomes more of the day-to-day work of schools—that naturally, whenever you do something, you evaluate it afterwards. We've evaluated a lot of the school-to-school work. We've published two or three reports on it, and we've identified what we think is good practice and not-so-good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? If we move on at this stage—I wonder, before other Members come in, if I could ask about community-focused schools. Quite a lot of what we discussed earlier was around the importance of getting families and the community more involved in education, and one way of doing that, I think, is through community-focused schools that are very much accessible to the community, linked well with outside organisations, having an extended school-day offer. We have the twenty-first century schools programme, but we have a lot of schools existing that haven't been part of that. I just wondered to what extent Estyn might encourage or highlight the need to encourage greater consistency in community-focused schools across Wales, because I think there is a feeling that it is very inconsistent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we would very much be happy to support anything like that. We discussed it earlier. We were talking about targeting vulnerable learners earlier this morning. We see that as, particularly, a solution for that long-standing issue we have in Wales in particular. So, yes, we do have good examples of good practice. We mentioned some of them earlier this morning. I've puzzled about this. I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the term 'community-focused school'. I think it became thought of as meaning the community just uses the facilities in the evening and, of course, it's a much, much broader concept than that. I think some schools particularly didn't like the community using their facilities in the evening, and that became, I think, possibly part of the reason why community-focused schools didn't become more popular. The way I look at it is, as Claire was explaining earlier about the school offering all kinds of services to people—you know, family learning, those sorts of nurture groups, all those sorts of educationally focused services available from the school, and generally building relationships. They're more to do with the culture than the actual building and the facilities. But, yes, we certainly have seen and identified where that good practice exists. +John Griffiths AM: So, if there might be a mechanism that could have community-focused schools working in the way that you've described right across Wales, would Estyn be in favour of such a mechanism? +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I just ask one further question, then, before, as I said, I bring other Members in? There is a particular concern at the moment—and has been for some time—about white working-class children, and perhaps particularly boys, not attaining as they should through our education system. Is that something that Estyn recognises? Has Estyn done much work on that, and if so, what is that work? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've done work on boys and girls, and we've done work on deprived children—you know, identified, as we were discussing this morning, by eligibility for free school meals. We haven't specifically looked at white working-class boys, but a lot of the solutions, and a lot of the good practice that we have identified generally, through the PDG and whatever I think is the way forward for that particular cohort as well. +John Griffiths AM: So, you wouldn't see the need for a particular focus or a particular piece of work to identify whether there are aspects of education that might particularly benefit that group. +Meilyr Rowlands: I wouldn't object to doing a piece of work on that, in case we have missed something, but I suspect it would be the same schools that do well with that cohort that we've identified already for the same reasons, I suspect. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. To what extent has the rate of improvement differed between the primary and secondary sectors? +Meilyr Rowlands: I'm not sure if there's been a difference in the rate of improvement, but certainly I've raised in this annual report, and indeed in previous annual reports, the difference between primary and secondary. We've got 7 in 10—nearly three quarters—of primary schools doing well and about half of secondary schools. So, I did open debate on why that is the case in last year's annual report. There are several reasons, I think. Generally, there is a widening of gaps when you go from primary to secondary, but also it's from foundation phase to key stage 2 to key stage 3 to key stage 4. There's a general widening of the gender gap, for example. There's a widening of the free-school-meals gap and so forth. So, there are particular challenges facing secondary schools that don't exist in primary. I should say that what you get in secondary schools is greater variability. So, there's actually more excellence in secondary schools according to our inspections than in primary, although the overall proportion of good or better schools is higher in primary than in secondary. So, I think it is a challenge to think why this is the case. It's partly because of the challenges of adolescent, young people. That is part of it. I think also, although I've got no evidence for this, it's probably more difficult for that community focus to work in a larger secondary school than a smaller primary school. You go to primary schools, you often see the parents much more engaged than in secondary school. So, I think that's a bit more of a challenge as well. So, there is a whole range of issues. The other one, of course, is the one we were talking about earlier this morning, the pressure on secondary schools to address performance indicators and examinations in particular. Another possible reason is the structure of secondary schools is subject-based, departmental-based, so children will get 10 to 12 different teachers. In primary school, for a whole year, they will have the same teacher. It's easier, therefore, in a primary school for the school to see the child as an individual and recognise their problems and their needs as a whole. So, I think there is a whole range of issues that explains or goes part way to explaining what you've identified. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. You touched on this quite a bit in your earlier evidence, but you said in the annual report that there's a danger that accountability measures might be having an effect on the advice being given to pupils about subjects they study. Do you have any evidence of that or is that a perception? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think everyone agrees that there's very strong evidence about that. We discussed examples this morning. When you change a performance indicator, the examination pattern changes. We talked about examples like BTEC science this morning. There's a very, very direct and immediate impact on them. There's plenty of evidence of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Michelle? Perhaps we'll move on at this stage—we haven't got a great deal of time left—if that's okay. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: I wanted to ask about special schools in terms of your views about the standards in special schools—whether you've got any views on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we highlighted special schools as a successful sector in the annual report, as we have over many years. Over 90 per cent of them are good or better. It's a very successful sector. The small number of schools that don't do quite as well tend to be the schools that deal with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. But the sector as a whole is a good example of sharing good practice. They work very, very well together. They're constantly—. It's difficult to say why that is in this particular sector, as opposed to other sectors. Possibly they don't have an overlap in catchment areas, they're quite geographically separate, so they don't feel as if they're in competition with one another. But they certainly work very well together, sharing good practice, doing peer reviews of each other. So, it is a successful sector. +Julie Morgan AM: And that includes the independent sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry, I should have said that was mainly to do with the maintained sector. The independent sector tends to focus maybe on those children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, so they have the more difficult task to begin with. But because they're independent, they are, to some extent, in competition with one another. So, we have seen improvement in that independent special sector over the cycle. That's partly down to the work we do in Estyn. We visit them on an annual basis to make sure that they're addressing all our recommendations, and continue to meet the needs of those pupils. And also, I think there's been a trend where more of those independent schools now have—. Several of them have the same owner, so they share good practice amongst that little chain of schools. So, that has been a trend we've seen over time as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about pupil referral units? How are the standards there? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they're more variable. I think they have a lot of challenges. We've contributed a lot of evidence to the various working groups that have been looking at EOTAS—that's education other than at school. Half the children in EOTAS—educated other than at school—are in PRUs. So, we've done a lot of work about that. ADEW, which is the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, have now set up a national body to share good practice amongst PRUs, so I think that is a very positive step forward, because that sharing, I think, wasn't happening with PRUs. I think what we need to do with PRUs is to get them to be more of a part of the education system as a whole. They tend to be sort of semi-detached a little bit from the system. So, the more we can do to involve them in national events, and also, I think, make their governance more like that of a school so that they become more similar to schools—that makes it easier for them to share practice with schools. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thank you very much. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I'd just like to spend a minute or two looking more specifically at post-16 education. The percentage of further education colleges who have reached a  good or better standard has increased, of course, over the past inspection cycle. I'd just like to ask what you think is responsible for that, and are there any lessons we can take out of that and transfer to other sectors within education? +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question, but I'm going to ask Simon to answer. +Simon Brown: As you're aware, the number of colleges from 22 to 12, and I think those mergers resulted in establishments that were stronger in terms of their leadership in particular. That leadership, I think the characteristics we have seen in the 'good' or 'better'—as you say, 80 per cent leadership good or better—has been a culture of openness, a culture of clarity of purpose about where the college is going. High staff morale has been maintained, because a number of those colleges—. Obviously, if you're merging large colleges as they did in north Wales, keeping staff morale high is quite a skill, and I think the leadership have done that very well. They've also supported managers at all levels, and they've encouraged managers to support staff at all levels. So, it's become a very collaborative, very supportive organisation. I think another characteristic of the FE sector is that it's got very strong governance arrangements. I did a training session for college governors about a month ago, and what struck me was the breadth of experience of the college governors, from industry, from academia. They are a very challenging set of governors, I think, who hold the senior leadership to account in the colleges, and that helps to push standards forward. Teaching is 'good' or 'better' in 70 per cent of colleges because the senior leadership team are encouraging teachers in colleges to innovate, encouraging them to engage actively in performance management systems, and to become reflective practitioners in the colleges. And this is impacting, obviously, on the standards at the end of the day. So, I think those are the key features. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And how many of those do you think could effectively be transferred or encouraged in other sectors? +Simon Brown: But I think one sector that—. I think the other post-16 sector, which is work-based learning— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, yes, I was going to ask you. Conversely, of course, there's a different experience there. +Simon Brown: Yes, there is a contrast. And we do have concerns about work-based learning. And, again, those concerns tend to sit mainly with the leadership. As we said in the annual report, standards are 'good' or 'better' in only 50 per cent of work-based learning companies, mainly because the completion rates of learners are not what we'd expect, the progression that learners make isn't what we'd expect. And that is mainly due to the way in which the leadership teams monitor progress—monitor progress in themselves as a provider, but, more importantly, the way they manage sub-contractors, because, as you will already know, there's 19 lead providers; there's about 100 training providers. And the companies that are doing better, or the training providers doing better, are those that have got a firm grip on their sub-contractors, and, most importantly, they put quality as the top part of any agenda at any meeting. And, of course, if you're challenging your sub-contractors about quality, that will impact on standards of teaching, and, hopefully, ultimately, on standards of performance on the learners. And I think, to go back to your original question, Llyr, the sort of leadership models that FE colleges have, I think some of the work-based learning providers would be wise to start to emulate those. It's beginning to happen, because FE is getting more engaged in the work-based learning world, so I think some of those behaviours will start to rub off on the companies. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, who would you look to drive some of those changes through then? Is it the sector themselves,  or to what extent can Government and others do things? +Simon Brown: Well, as you know, Meilyr alluded to the changes across all sectors. We've got PCET—we've got the post-compulsory education and training reforms under way. The Welsh Government is looking at the implementation of Hazelkorn's recommendations. So, ultimately, that will start to drive the sectors closer together in post-16. But I think, in the shorter term, some of the work that groups like Colegau Cymru and the National Training Federation Wales are doing, sharing best practice, bringing the colleges and the training companies together, is beginning to help. I'm going to the national training federation conference tomorrow in Cardiff, and I notice the attendance there—there's a lot of FE colleges attending, senior staff of FE colleges, as well as from the work-based training companies. So, that sort of osmosis of good practice is beginning to happen quite naturally. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Llyr? We haven't got very long left, but we've got five minutes or so for some further questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: With regard to local authorities, you found shortcomings in your 2010-14 inspection in 15 of the 22. And one of the things that struck me in the report was where you said that you found ineffective processes for self-evaluating improvement within those authorities, but you've also said that there's been a high turnover of directors and new directors in place in many of them. Has that had a positive effect on that self-evaluation process? +Simon Brown: As you're aware, over the past three years, out of the 22 authorities, there have been 40 new directors, over the past three years. Those directors have got a range of experience. Some of those directors are very experienced. Other ones have come from headteachership fairly recently. So, that's one factor. I think the other factor is that the status of education directors has changed quite significantly. Some local authorities are a member of the corporate team and they are directors of education and children's services, so they've got very broad portfolios. In other ones, they're being treated more like heads of service, so heads of department level. +Hefin David AM: I know that Caerphilly went in the opposite direction—from having a chief education officer to then appointing a director, I think. +Simon Brown: I'm sorry? +Hefin David AM: In Caerphilly county borough, they went from having a chief education officer and now have got a director again. But, in many cases, they're the same people, aren't they? It's just that their roles are changed. +Simon Brown: Yes, it's the changes as the corporate structure of councils shift and change. I think the other thing that's happened, of course, with the role of the director of education, is, because of the regional consortia now doing the school improvement function, a large chunk of that role has now moved to the consortia. So, I think it's early days to say what the impact of that new cohort of directors will be, but, of course, we're starting a new inspection cycle in September. We don't do pilots. We looked at Neath Port Talbot in December; we looked at Denbighshire in February. Those reports are not yet published, but what I can say is that neither of those authorities are in follow-up. +Hefin David AM: But you said, even though it's not in follow-up, it was still showing signs of not being able to reflect effectively on improvement—in the report. +Simon Brown: Not in those two authorities. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay, but some of those not in follow-up were not reflecting effectively on their improvement—is the statement that was made in the report. +Simon Brown: What we're seeing, and we've seen this before in the previous cycle, is that the performance of some authorities is patchy. There are authorities that we have concerns about. Those are the authorities—. I think I said to committee last year those authorities are ones that we held improvement conferences in last year. That was to get the senior leadership—both political and officer-led leadership—and the consortia and Welsh Government and the Wales Audit Office and, as it was, the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales, around the table to get those senior leadership teams to actually identify what the longer-term issues are, to surface those issues and to put together an action plan. We're revisiting those three authorities very, very shortly. The first of the revisits is in April to see what progress they've made over the past 12 months or so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with things like the curriculum reforms, you've identified the new directors in place, but you've said that, although they're new directors, they're actually very experienced in education, so therefore you're confident that they're going to manage the reforms well as they are developed in the next few years. +Simon Brown: I think one development, and I've raised this in committee before, was—. One of our concerns, apart from the fact that there was a large turnover of directors, was what sort of level of training senior leaders and middle managers were getting in those authorities. One of the things that I'm quite pleased to report is that the Association of Directors of Education in Wales and Welsh Government have stepped up to address that issue. Last year, all serving directors attended residential courses run by the Staff College Wales, facilitated by ADEW, and ADEW have just finished the first round of director—. The name of the course is the 'Welsh future leaders in education' course and 26 people have just finished that—aspiring directors. They're preparing for another cohort in September. That course, again, is developed by the Staff College Wales, but it has a lot of external input. They're putting in directors and chief executives from Scotland, they're putting in headteachers of very successful schools in England, who've got current grass-roots experience to share with these aspiring directors. So, I think the concerns that we had previously about the professional learning for middle managers and leaders in local authorities are being addressed. The proof will be in the pudding when we start to do the inspection cycle, but at least the issue now is being tackled. +Hefin David AM: Can I just look at, then, consortia? One of the criticisms in the report was that national policy wasn't being put in context—I think that was the statement in the report—in certain consortia. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that? +Simon Brown: Yes, when we talked, we said that—. Well, two things are at play. One is that the national model for regional working is being revised at the moment, and that work is ongoing by Welsh Government. That is to bring greater consistency to the four consortia, because one of our concerns, which we expressed in this report and we expressed in previous years, is that, although the national model had a particular approach back in 2012, when Robert Hill did the first review, it had a particular approach to the consortia being fairly similar, over the years, they've gone in four different directions. To be fair, over the past couple of years, the consortia are now collaborating much closer together. They are working together—for example, I mentioned earlier about the regional co-ordinators for LAC. Those four people are meeting regularly. So, they've all got different co-ordination roles in their regions. Whereas before they were working more in silos, they are now working much closer together. So, I think what we were referring to, and what we were talking about in the report, is the fact that the consortia need to have a more consistent approach across all four regions. But that will certainly be driven by the new national model. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And the relationships with local authorities, you said that the sharing of information with the local authorities is not always acted upon by local authorities—from the consortia. Is that a failure of communication, or is that something that sits with the local authority to acknowledge? +Simon Brown: I don't think it's a failure of communication. In the cases where some authorities haven't acted sufficiently in intervening in schools or in issuing warning letters, the consortia have been quite clear. The challenge advisers have highlighted these issues. It's the authority that hasn't acted as swiftly as we would expect it to. But, again, I think that is beginning to improve, because the local authorities are quite sensitive to the fact we are now going to be re-inspecting them and looking at them, and that is one of the issues we'll be picking up on. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, in order to do their jobs, the consortia need to be suitably resourced. Are they, and are they fit for the challenges ahead? +Simon Brown: It's not for us to comment on whether each consortium is sufficiently funded or not, but what we would say is that, generally, in the past, they've spent perhaps too large a proportion of their funds on challenge work and not enough funding on support work, but that, again, is moving. We've picked up that GwE, for example, is in the process of renaming their challenge advisers 'support advisers', because they're moving their culture more over to supporting schools to deal with all the raft of reforms that Meilyr mentioned, and that is, it seems to me, an entirely sensible way to go. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, that brings this session to an end. So, thank you all very much once again for giving evidence to committee today. Once again, you will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay, the next item on our agenda today, item 4, is papers to note. We have one paper to note, which is a letter from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee to the Welsh Government regarding the Hwb programme. Is committee content to note that paper? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 5, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Is committee content so to do? Okay. Thank you very much. We will move into private session. +","In the transcript provided, a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee is taking place, with evidence being taken in relation to targeted funding aimed at improving educational outcomes in Wales, particularly through mechanisms such as the Pupil Development Grant (PDG). The Chair, Lynne Neagle, was absent, and John Griffiths served as the temporary chair. + +The session began with discussions around the absence of certain members and declarations of interest. Estyn representatives, including Chief Inspector Meilyr Rowlands, Strategic Director Claire Morgan, and Strategic Director Simon Brown, were present to provide evidence to the committee regarding the utilization of the PDG, especially in relation to children eligible for free school meals. + +Throughout the discussion, there is detailed examination of how schools are using the PDG funding, with a focus on whether it targets the intended cohort of children effectively. The evidence highlights that while targeting has improved over time, there are still challenges, particularly regarding support for more able and talented pupils receiving free school meals. + +The conversation also touched on the fuzziness regarding eligible children, the change in educational initiatives, and the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of the funding in practice. Additionally, there was debate on whether schools are sufficiently considering the broader concept of poverty beyond the eligibility for free school meals. + +The role of the PDG in engaging with families and communities was underscored as a significant factor in effectively supporting disadvantaged learners. It was noted that successful programs involve direct engagement with families, interventions tailored to address barriers to learning, and efforts to improve student attendance and reduce exclusions. + +The committee questions and responses explore how improvements in these areas could impact larger educational outcomes, including exam results and measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores. + +The narrative then shifts to the broader efficiency of the PDG in narrowing the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and their peers, which has seen some improvements but not a substantial step change. The dialogue suggests that for impactful and sustainable progress, schools must move beyond short-term solutions to areas like attendance and focus on long-term curriculum and teaching quality improvements. + +The transcript provides a comprehensive overview of the committee's inquiries into educational funding aimed at addressing underachievement, emphasizing the nuanced challenges and the thoughtful strategies proposed by educational inspectors to drive progress within Welsh schools." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian, and I'm very pleased to welcome Helen Mary Jones, who is substituting for Siân today. Can I ask whether Members want to declare any interests, please? Can I just, then, place on record that I have got a son who was about to do A-levels, so is affected by the exam decision? We'll move on, then, to our substantive item today, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government around the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, who is director of the education directorate; Huw Morris, who is the group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning; and Rob Orford, who is the chief scientific adviser for health. Thank you all for coming. We know that this is a really difficult and pressurised time for everyone, and we appreciate your attendance. Minister, I understand you wanted to make an opening statement today. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, if that's okay, Chair. As you know, it's not usually my practice to do that, but I think it is important today. COVID-19 coronavirus is one of the most significant issues that the Welsh Government and the people of Wales have dealt with in recent times. Dealing with the impacts of this pandemic is extremely challenging. Things are changing on an hourly basis, and we have to make decisions quickly to ensure public safety. But I would like to assure you that our aim, and my aim, and my main concern as the education Minister is to protect all staff and pupils in our schools and other educational settings. But we also have a duty to ensure continuing and continuity of education. Public health is clearly the priority here, but that does not change our belief that no child should miss out on any education, unless absolutely necessary. So, the decision to close all schools from tomorrow for statutory education provision was not taken lightly, but I believe it was necessary, given the advice and recommendations that we had received from a public health perspective and the situation that was developing on the ground. From next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak, and I'm working with my colleagues in the Cabinet, with Government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans. The key areas that we're looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. This includes all of those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I can confirm that all maintained schools in Wales already have access to a range of digital tools that can support distance learning through the world-class Hwb digital learning platform, including virtual classrooms and video-conferencing facilities. A guide on what tools are available and how schools can use them has been developed and is being promoted widely. Yesterday, I announced that, whilst there are no easy choices, we have agreed that the best way forward is not to proceed with the summer exam series. Learners due to sit these exams will be awarded a fair grade to recognise their work, drawing on a range of information that is available, and I will announce further details shortly, but I felt it necessary to give early certainty to students and to staff. I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone working in education settings for the hard work that they have put in over the last few months in dealing with the virus and ensuring that pupils have been able to continue to learn. We need to continue to do this work together, as we face the continuing challenges posed by the coronavirus. Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister, for that statement. We'll go to questions from Members now, and I've got some questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I thank you, Kirsty, for your statement and the really difficult decisions that you've been having to make? You've already indicated in your statement this morning that these decisions are not taken lightly, and we understand that that is the case across Government. So, thank you for what you've been doing. You've outlined a little bit further there in your statement to us this morning about the new purpose. I take from what you're saying that you haven't really developed that yet in terms of exactly what that is going to look like. You've talked about the children of key workers, free school meals, additional learning needs. Is there anything else you can tell us about that at the moment and how you might staff the schools in those particular areas? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. So, you're absolutely right, our priority now is to operationalise, with colleagues in local government and schools, a practical response. And I have to say, we're working to timescales that I would have hoped to have avoided, but given the fact that we're having to make these decisions quite quickly, I hope that you will understand that perhaps where we start on Monday might change when we have more time and more opportunities to develop programmes going forward. Steve will be able to give you more details of the practical work that has already been going on, but our expectation will be that schools will be playing an important part in providing safe and secure places for children of those on the front-line response to dealing with the coronavirus to attend, and work is already under way with local authorities and individual schools on what that will look like for the emergency situation on Monday. Our other priority is indeed free school meals, and, again, where we eventually end up might be a different place to where we are on Monday. Again, we're responding to the emergency situation that there will be families that were expecting a free school meal on Monday, and, again, individual schools and local authorities are developing those plans at pace to be able to provide an emergency response as we work out a longer term plan to deal with the situation. The same thing also goes for additional learning needs, and attending to the needs of that particular group of learners. So, those conversations began a few days ago. I had the opportunity to meet with the First Minister and Andrew Morgan, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, yesterday to talk about what local government could do, and what they were already doing. Those plans in some places are already quite developed, and are now working at pace, but I hope you will understand that where we start on Monday is the emergency response, and that work will develop as we go forward. But, Steve, perhaps you could—? Because Steve was the one making all those phone calls and doing the practical operational stuff, rather than me. Steve. +Steve Davies: In short, the new purpose is to meet the needs of particular groups of children and young people. In some cases, some of the response to supporting free school meals, in the short term in particular, we may use the schools as part of that, and I'm certain that will happen in some cases. The second area is looking at how we support the children of key workers. Now, there is still work to be done on identifying exactly the categories of key workers, but I think it's really encouraging that in my discussions yesterday—I spoke with all 22 directors of education, and the examples we're picking up in their work with schools is they're already ahead of the curve in working with schools. So, schools have identified the number of children with health workers. It will grow, and we will need to look at that range. Then, the third area is vulnerable children. They're vulnerable sometimes in terms of education other than at school, vulnerable in terms of mental health, and for those children, as well as having an experience that we want to be planned, some have compared it to a snow day, particularly on Monday, when you're putting something together in the short term, but it will not be a formal curriculum that those children would normally go through. So, the range of activities—some will be focused on educational activities, some will be cultural, some will be sporting, and that plan will be developed on the basis of the age range of children, which in some cases may go from extremely young children up to those at the age of 16 in our all-through schools, but there will be a planned set of activities to cater for those children. What we are doing currently—I have staff back at Cathays Park who are in touch and working with directors of education to ensure that schools over the next two days will have been able to identify, at least at the earlier stage, in terms of health workers, the type and numbers of people. There are already schools who have informed us, and local authorities, of their plans for these activities to be starting next week, which is quite amazing, actually, given where we are. But we are expecting, and we're writing to schools today, that during the course of next week, headteachers to be in schools, and with their staff, taking into consideration the health guidance as to which staff should or should not be in, and in that period from next Monday through the two-week period, to Easter, we expect staff to be both planning for delivery post Easter, but also, as I said, building on and reflecting the good practice that's already in place for schools that have engaged in activities, and I'm sure a number of them will be inviting and enabling those children to come in on Monday. So, Monday will be a challenge for some, and not all will be delivering it, but we will be working so that we can get as much as possible delivered for those groups over the next two weeks, and particularly to have resilient programmes post Easter for the groups of children in those three categories that I said. +Dawn Bowden AM: Those that have been identified. Can I just clarify one thing? One of the identified vulnerable groups would clearly be children on the at-risk register. They would be included. +Steve Davies: Yes, definitely. Vulnerable children, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: In our discussions, we have asked local government to be working with the social services departments and individual schools to identify those children who may be in that situation. We know that, for some children, being at school is part of their safeguarding arrangements, and obviously we will need to be able to respond to those needs. +Steve Davies: I wrote specifically yesterday to all directors of education to be assured that, for those children, the register is up to date and the plans are in place. I'm working with Albert Heaney my colleague, the director for social services, who is meeting with the 22 directors of social services today to look to ensure that we are joined up in ensuring none of these children fall through the gap. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Hefin, and then Suzy. +Hefin David AM: A very quick and simple question: how are you going to communicate this to parents? There's a bigger picture and it's changing all the time, as you said. The Welsh Government have a route to communication. The most helpful thing I've seen is that Public Health Wales have a single website with information regarding the wider issue of the virus. How will this then be cascaded to schools, because there's obviously a time lag? So, have you considered how this is going to be communicated directly to parents? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using all of our platforms of communication to get these messages across. So, we're using the more informal methods of communication, but are relying on a systematic approach via individual directors and through to individual schools. Welsh Government already has a dedicated website page with all of the relevant information about coronavirus. We're looking, as quickly as we can, to have a frequently asked education questions page that we can update. Understandably, people are communicating to us on Twitter asking questions. It is impossible for the communications team here to be able to respond individually to every single person that is sending Facebook messages and sending tweets, so the best way we can do that is to collate the types of questions people are asking and then to be able to have a frequently updated question and answer page to try to respond to that. With regard to parents, for instance, we're aware of schools that have already sent a questionnaire out last night to parents saying, 'Do you consider yourself to be a key worker? Do you work in the NHS? Please let us know by tomorrow so we can put arrangements in place for your children.' So, schools are already taking the initiative and having those conversations with parents about what their needs will be. And, as I said, Hefin, will it be perfect on Monday? No. It won't be perfect by Monday, because we're working to such constrained timescales. But we will continue to build that resilience. We also have to think about systems that look at what might the epidemic do and have systems of resilience that may work next week, given the situation we find ourselves in with public health advice at the moment. But that public health advice may change. Therefore, have we got a system that will be resilient in those circumstances? These are some of the challenges that we're having to grapple with. So, as I said, what happens on Monday might look very different to where we are if schools are still off in May. So, I hope people will understand that we are working in those kinds of scenarios. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just on this question of vulnerable children, I'm just wondering how much discretion teachers are going to have in including individual children who may not be obviously under social services' care or on a risk register or whatever. Teachers know their pupils and, very sensitively, they could include people who may not be obviously in need. +Kirsty Williams AM: We would absolutely respect the professional judgment of individual headteachers to be able to have those conversations with their directors. As you said, quite rightly, they are the individuals who know their children best and know which children, perhaps, will need this extra support. We will put no constraints on those teachers trying to do that work. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The second part of my question is: there were going to be Easter holidays anyway, weren't there? What was going to happen about free-school-meal children during that period? Has that gone out of the window now, the normal holiday provision for children? Because that's not there normally, is it, except in separate— +Kirsty Williams AM: We do find ourselves in a strange situation. My understanding is what we're trying to work to is that we would have ongoing provision and not to make some strange, 'You get this for two weeks, then you don't get it for two weeks, and then you're back in.' My understanding is, in England, that is what they're going to do. We're trying to create a system where it will be seamless and it will not necessarily matter that two of those weeks were formally holidays. It won't matter to those nurses and doctors who will need to be in work during those weeks. We're trying to create a system that will run uniformly. That's our policy goal at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just briefly, building on Suzy's question, one particular group of children and young people that I hope will be eligible to be included in the potentially vulnerable category is young carers. For some of them, they may not be able to come into school because the people they're caring for may have to be excluded because of their conditions. But I think that, for other young carers, coming to school is an absolute lifeline, because they're working at home. So, I don't know if it's appropriate for you to specifically mention those in discussions with local authorities, but it's a group of young people who, again, may not be vulnerable in other ways, but because of their caring responsibilities they may need school. And the other group—and this, I suppose, goes back to Suzy's point about teachers knowing their young people—is the children who may be living in situations where they're at risk of witnessing domestic abuse. Again, these may very well not be children who are in any formal contact with social services, but being at home may be really not a good place for them to be. So, again, I'd put in an appeal for that to be something that perhaps can be raised with schools. If a teacher is worried about what a child's circumstances are like at home, whether they can be, as you said, Kirsty, included as one of the—. They may not be formally identified, but if the teacher knows that they're at risk, or there is an instinct that they're at risk, they might be able to be included in children who are allowed to take advantage of this special provision you're making at this difficult time. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will certainly raise those issues. We have to do that in the context of what is deliverable, and we also have to do that in the context of the public health advice that we are receiving as well. One of the reasons why schools are closing is to help manage this disease. We know that the ability for school closures to make a contribution to that diminishes if we have significant children in school still. So, we will take these issues into consideration, but remembering this is part of an epidemic mitigation plan. Rob is the expert on that, not me. +Rob Orford: Yes, absolutely. This is a rapidly-evolving problem and the scale is something that we haven't seen in 100 years, and so we're having to evolve and iterate things as we go. Next week, I think, will look different to this week. So, it kind of is what it is. We've all got a role to play, and schools certainly have a significant role to play in breaking those chains of transmission. Areas that we're worried about are displacement activities. If we close the schools, then people collect at others' houses. We need to send a really clear message that you're all part of the solution, and the things that you do by distancing yourselves from your friends and your family are really important for us to get on top of this outbreak. The more that we can do that, the easier it will be when we go forward. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I'm sure that that's true, but I'm sure that we wouldn't be wanting a child who's in a very pressured environment with perhaps a very difficult relationship between mum and dad—. It may be very important for those children to be out of that for some of the time. Hopefully, we're talking about relatively small numbers, but I just—. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will look at vulnerability in a holistic way. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, you had a supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Minister, and your team. Can I just put on record my thanks for all that you're having to endure at this moment? I think it's fair to say you have the support of Assembly Members and, indeed, our communities. Now, the question I have: if Cylch Meithrin have to close, where will they get money from to pay their staff? Because, currently, thankfully, there's support for businesses. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, we're not doing Cylch Meithrin at the moment; we are sticking with schools, as we discussed in advance. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just get some clarity, Steve, around what you were saying in terms of next week? Because I think the practical applications of this—and I understand that you don't know all of this yet, I understand that—the practical applications are what is coming to us, obviously, with constituents saying, 'Well, what's going to happen to that?' Just so that I can be clear, are you saying that, at this stage, every headteacher will be in school on Monday, as will all their staff? +Steve Davies: Within the scope of the guidance in terms of their health, the expectation—and this will be conveyed in letters by the Minister today, to be made clear—is that they are closing for the majority of pupils, but our expectation within the guidance is that the headteacher with their staff will be coming in; for some to start the delivery of what we just described, but that will probably be small numbers, but more importantly to plan to ensure that, after the formal Easter period, which is school holidays, the schools are geared to cater for the range of pupils that we've been discussing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, would you anticipate—again, I know this is all a bit 'if and when', and it depends on the changing nature of the advice, but from what you're saying, I think we can probably anticipate that, as we go forward, there will probably be fewer schools opening and operable—that we may be moving those children on to fewer sites. Would that possibly—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is a potential. So, we already know that one of our local authorities already has identified a strategic pattern of schools that they will want to operate in this way. That local authority has already chosen those locations, and is already having communications with how they will then staff those centres. So, that could well—. That, I expect, in the longer term, will be the nature of the provision that we will get to. But that's not for us to dictate. The local authorities are best placed to understand what is the best, pragmatic use of the resources that they have available; and of course those resources, primarily, are human beings. So, we've talked a lot this morning in the context of teaching staff, teaching assistants, but we're also having discussions with local authorities, and I met with the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services this week, to look at deploying youth workers, to look to be deploying other staff that the local authority may employ, like sports development officers. There may be cultural officers that can have something to offer. Welsh Government will be talking with a range of our partners who perhaps their normal activities can't continue at the moment, but actually have personnel who want to add to this effort, who want to be able to be part of a provision going forward in the longer term, to be able to provide a great place for children to be. We want to give parents, who we are asking—. Let's think about it, in these worst of times, we're asking parents to leave their children so that they can go and do essential work, and some of that essential work is putting themselves at risk, potentially. And we want to give those parents confidence that, when they leave their child with us, that child will receive something really worthwhile, and they can direct all of their attention to doing their job. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you—. Janet, have you got a supplementary on schools now, not on early years settings? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I lost the signal before, so it's a little bit confusing at this end, so bear with me. Just in terms of the closure of schools, I have been asked by teachers what does new purpose—you may have covered it, but bear in mind [Inaudible.]—mean in practice. And also, they're already asking what will next—? I know you said earlier that next week could look and probably will look significantly different than this week, but what can they expect to be happening next week in terms of this new purpose work? +Lynne Neagle AM: We've covered that, Janet. +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, Janet, I just want to say thank you very much for your kind comments. That's really, really kind of you. We will be sending a letter today to clarify those positions. So, each school will receive letters today about the expectations of schools next week. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think you're having trouble hearing us, aren't you, so I think—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, I heard that loud and clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: But I think you missed the earlier comments, when we went into some detail on the new purpose of schools. So, I'm sorry about that; we are having some problems with the connection. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, we couldn't get a signal. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just in relation to special schools and how they will fit into this new purpose arrangement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, they're absolutely central to that planning. We know, again, that some of these children are our most vulnerable and they are some of our most pressurised families. Therefore, the same situation that we've just described for maintained schools also applies to special schools. We'll be having discussions about what arrangements can be made for those children within their own usual settings. In some cases, that may not be possible. So, again, already local authorities are making different provision. Can I give a shout out to the work of Rhondda Cynon Taf in this regard, who are already doing some excellent work with regard to how they can keep in touch with their children who usually would attend their special schools. But, again, Steve can give more detail. +Steve Davies: I think special schools have already been hit by this challenge, because a significant proportion of their children, because of their conditions, have not been coming to school, they've been isolated. But the principle we've used there is, actually, even if it's a minority of children who go to those schools and are vulnerable, they deserve and need that support through the school. So, we would expect that to function with the focus on vulnerable children. But similarly, even in special schools, there will be children whose parents will be key workers, so we would expect them to apply that same principle. Just quickly in response to the earlier question, while we may bring some groups of children into separate schools, we’ll have to continue with the principle of keeping social distance and any provision for a child in a special school in a different setting would be unlikely, given the nature of the special school, so we would look to cater for that within the original school. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just a couple more questions from me. It’s likely, because I know it has already happened, that some schools might actually close before Monday. Some schools have already partially closed. Are you quite happy that headteachers still have the discretion to do that, if they feel that’s the right thing to do? +Kirsty Williams AM: In this situation, the discretion of the head still remains. As I said, we will be communicating with all schools today about our expectations, if at all possible, to have schools open for staff to do some of this planning and to be able to respond to these priority needs that we've just talked about. +Steve Davies: The rationale of headteachers for closing schools up to now has been that they can't cope with the safety of the children. I think, moving forward, it's unlikely that that would be a rationale that headteachers would want to use for not engaging and planning for the future. +Dawn Bowden AM: We're only talking about one more day, now, anyway, aren't we? So, just in terms of confirmed cases in schools, is your view at this stage that, if there is a confirmed case in a school, once that school has been deep-cleaned, it can reopen again? +Kirsty Williams AM: If we had a confirmed case in a school, then all the usual mechanisms arranged by Public Health Wales would kick in at that point. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And my final question is in relation to the position of early years and childcare settings. I know that kind of crosses over into somebody else's portfolio as well, but I think we know that. Certainly what I've seen, and I'm sure this is true elsewhere as well, we've seen nurseries closing down because the parents are actually taking the children out of those nurseries. I've got one in particular, there are kids from the ages of 6 to 12 years in there, and the parents are taking them out. They've got 30 staff there, catering for 200 children and no children to care for and the organisation, at this stage, is unable to claim on their insurance for the ongoing payment of those staff wages. Is there any advice that we can give to people in that situation at this stage? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. As you say, many of these settings are businesses—people's businesses and they play a hugely important role and it's a very worrying time for them. We have said that we will continue to pay for childcare, delivered under the childcare offer even when a child is unable, or a parent is unwilling, to take up that place. So, if that setting is receiving a childcare payment from the Welsh Government as part of our childcare offer, that will be paid, regardless of whether that child attends or not. And I know that we're also working with local authorities to ensure a similar position on Flying Start childcare and early education. So, that payment will be made, regardless of whether a child is attending. It's also important that childcare settings will be able to apply for the various packages of support that are being made available by my colleague, Ken Skates. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, then Janet. +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'd just like to turn that around from the parents' point of view. With schools closing, there are a lot of parents then losing 10 hours of free childcare, but from a settings point of view, they'll continue to be able to receive, for the time being, the nursery care. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, so the decision that has been taken by my colleague, Julie Morgan, is that settings should stay open at the moment unless public health changes. That's being kept under constant review on public health. Again, the issue is that we know that that childcare is vital to many families, especially—and we're particularly concerned about those individuals who are trying to help us overcome and solve these problems. If you have any specific questions about that, we'll be happy to take them back to Julie Morgan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is this the Cylch question? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Sorry, thank you. Yes, just basically, Cylch Meithrin, there are concerns—[Interruption.] +Lynne Neagle AM: We've lost Janet. We'll come back to her. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if the issue is about funding for Cylch Meithrin, these are not normal circumstances. As a Welsh Government, we will take every step to provide continuity of funding, if at all possible. We will overcome this, and when we overcome this situation we find ourselves in, we will need those childcare settings, we will need those private businesses and we will need our Cylch Meithrin to be there to respond and to be able to go on doing the job that they usually do for us. And if there is any way that we can, as a Government, ensure that that happens by carrying on funding things, even if they are not able to run, all usual—[Inaudible.]— around service-level agreements are off. I'm not setting the precedent—let me make that absolutely clear. [Laughter.] But, you know, we will not undermine businesses and voluntary provision like Cylch by withdrawing Welsh Government funding. I hope I've been clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: If we can move on to talk about exams, obviously you made the announcement yesterday. I completely understand that everything is a very fast-moving situation, but, as you know, there are a lot of questions that people have about young people who've put a lot of work in. Are you able to tell us any more today? In particular, have you got any idea about timescales now for setting out what the approach will be to handling the lack of summer exams? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, it is a devastating decision to have to have been taken, but I have done so on the very, very clear and unambiguous advice from Qualifications Wales. I met with Qualifications Wales and the WJEC yesterday. What was most important to them was that I made an early decision and I did not equivocate on what would happen for the exams. I was able to make an informal decision at that meeting, and then, of course, there is a formal process that we have to go through. That, now, allows Qualifications Wales and the exam board to operationalise that decision, and they will be communicating with schools as quickly as possible about what schools will need to do to ensure that the systems that they will now put in place can work. We are trying, as far as we can, as I understand it, to be able to mirror as closely as possible the usual results day, for instance. It might not be possible, because, of course, we're dealing with a situation that requires human beings to be involved in it, and those human beings could find themselves unwell. So, our best attempts will be to maintain the normal rhythm of an exams day in August, but that has to be caveated by the fact that we're dealing with difficult circumstances. But, the WJEC and Qualifications Wales will be making urgent communications to exam centres to explain what will need to happen next. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, you had a question on this. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think I raised it yesterday, Kirsty, but you were receiving loads of questions. I'd just ask for some further clarification about coursework, because only 30 per cent of that is done. Years 11 and 13, typically, in my case they're what's been raised with me—do you have any advice for them? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, all exams are cancelled, but year 11 and year 13 will be given a grade—I think that's a distinction that people need to be aware of. That is because those years and those grades are gateway qualifications, and they are points of movement in the education system. So, it's really important for those students that they are not disadvantaged in any way by not being able to receive a grade that helps them to make a decision as a qualifying step into what they will do next, whether that be university, whether that be a degree apprenticeship or whether that be going into sixth form, into a college, into an apprenticeship or into some work-based learning opportunities. That's why we have to focus on those children, because for them, it is absolutely critical that we do. We are at an advantage in Wales, can I say? Because of the nature of our examination system, those students already have a lot of externally assessed work that we can use as a basis to move forward on. Because we've kept our AS-levels, we have got that data. Because we have a GCSE system—. Our year 11s, if they're doing triple science, they've already done 40 per cent of their paper, so we're very fortunate. Because of the structures that we have got in our qualification system, there is already lots and lots of externally-verified work that we can use, alongside, potentially, teacher evaluation of students as well. And I think that's really important. We’re starting from a better base than simply having none of that externally-verified data. What will also be important is that these children have confidence in those qualifications, and so we will be looking at a modulated arrangement within Wales, and I know that Qualifications Wales are discussing with their counterparts across the UK a modulated system across the UK. So, actually, we can make sure that our standards are maintained by actually having that modulation across the UK. So, we know that those children never have to worry about the rigour that has gone into determining that grade. So, they can have real confidence. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. A supplementary question that might feed into that moderation. You'll know that the National Union of Students has suggested that black and minority ethnic children and children from the working class, on the whole, don't do as well, in terms of their assessment by their own teachers. I don't know what their evidence is for that. We also know, of course, that boys tend to do better in exams, and girls tend to do better at coursework, for whatever reason that is. So, just to ask you at this early stage to build in those considerations around potential unconscious bias into that overall system that you're talking about. And, of course, you are right to say that, because we have got some elements of external moderation here, those factors may be less for us in Wales than they might for colleagues in England. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are starting at a different base, thank goodness. So, you're quite right. As I said, students will have done unit 1 papers last year if they're GCSE students. Dare I say it, some might even have done early entry. So, we still have elements of coursework that are externally verified. So, children might well have done lots of oral exams in their English and in their Welsh language. So, we have lots of pieces of work that will have been externally verified. I certainly will ensure that these concerns are passed on. I'm sure that Qualifications Wales are thinking about it. I have every confidence that they and the WJEC will come up with a very comprehensive way of establishing those grades, but I have to say, in some ways, I have to step back now, because you would not expect me, in normal circumstances, to dictate to the WJEC how much percentage goes for that, and how much percentage is allocated for that; that would not be appropriate for a Minister. My job is to make the decision on the examinations on the basis of having confidence that what can be put in place is fair and is equitable, and I have confidence that that will be the case. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: A few things from me. One is, obviously, pupils are being asked to work at home as well now, some of whom will be doing GCSE and A-level courses. So, there's just a question, generally, from me— because we're encouraging these kids to carry on working—how that will be accommodated by Qualifications Wales, I guess, in this modulation process. It may be that your at-home work will be of a higher standard or a lower standard than a teacher would be expecting. Secondly, you mentioned the AS-levels, of course, as being of value at the moment, but we've got people in Year 12 who now won't be doing their ASs. Is there any steer at this stage about what they will be expected to do? Will they be doing two sets of exams next year, for example? Or is AS just off the table? In which case, how are the A2s going to be calculated in due course? And then, finally from me, we do have some vocational qualifications that are up for examination as well—your BTECs, and I think it's the Association of Accounting Technicians, which is a lot of computer-based learning—which is due to be examined within three weeks. Those aren’t A-levels or GCSEs. I appreciate that you may not have the answer just at the moment, but are they off as well is the question, I guess? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to AS-levels—no final decision has been made for exactly how those students will be treated. There are a range of options that could be used, but again, we will want to be thinking about student well-being, fairness and equity in that regard, and I will update Members as soon as I have received definitive advice from Qualifications Wales around that, and that hasn't happened yet. With regard to other types of qualifications, as you will be aware, the vast majority of BTECs is a modular, continually-assessed piece of work, and we would have every expectation that BTECs will be able to be awarded, but clearly, those conversations are with awarding bodies—they tend to be UK awarding bodies, rather then necessarily our WJEC exam board—and those conversations are ongoing. But I have every expectation that those qualifications will be awarded and, of course, because of their nature there's even more evidence of continued assessment. Huw, I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add about those types of qualifications. +Huw Morris: No. I think you've covered most of it. I don't have a definitive answer for the ATT qualification, but we can look into that and come back to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've just had a constituent ask, so that would be very helpful. And homeworking— +Kirsty Williams AM: Homeworking, right. +Suzy Davies AM: —is that going to count towards the assessments, overall assessments? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, potentially, as I said. I don't know the exact elements. What will be absolutely necessary is that Qualifications Wales and the WJEC will be able to give absolute clarity and simplicity around how those grades will be arrived at, because parents, teachers and students will want to know that, and my expectation is on them to be able to clearly communicate what elements will and will not be taken into consideration when awarding those grades. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. At least we covered it. Thank you, Minister—thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: And, just before we move on, have the universities across the UK indicated that they are content with this approach going forward—content to accept students on this basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly. There have been discussions with universities and UCAS, of course, that this also has a bearing on. One of the—. And the views of university and how university terms might be impacted is one of the ways and one of the reasons that we've factored in to making these decisions. Those discussions with universities are ongoing, aren't they, Huw? +Huw Morris: Yes. So, we've been in regular conversation with Universities Wales and through them with Universities UK and we've received every indication that the approach that's been adopted here has been welcomed by the institutions. Those conversations will continue as we work through the practicalities of how the gradings that are awarded are going to feed through into university admissions decisions and enrolment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Well, we've got some questions now from Suzy on the potential closures of colleges and universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's a very general question, really. I appreciate you've already indicated there are lots of ongoing conversations, but my understanding is whether colleges or universities close is pretty much still at their own discretion. We're going to be asking some questions on emergency legislation shortly, which may impact on the answer you can give today, but what sort of conversations are you having with FE and HE at the moment about how they decide? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're absolutely right. As we often say in this committee, universities are autonomous institutions—a status that they guard jealously and we would never want to question. Universities have been making the decision to move as much of their learning online as they possibly can and we continue to have conversations with them. Colleges are in a similar position, looking to do as much as they can to be able to provide continuity of learning via distance learning methods, and the Bill, potentially, does give us more powers of intervention in both the FE and the HE sector. +Suzy Davies AM: I might ask you about that in a minute, because I don't even know what the Bill says yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Huw, I don't know if there's anything you want to add. +Huw Morris: No—just to confirm what's been said and also to add in that independent training providers, similarly autonomous, like colleges and universities, have been moving in the same direction. We've been very impressed with the maturity and forward-planning that's been adopted by all of those institutions and their representative bodies. We've got consistency in the approach and a common desire, and investment in moving towards online support for students. +Suzy Davies AM: And there's still this safety net idea. Certainly, colleges have indicated, as with schools, that, for the most vulnerable learners, they'll have something in place that might permit attendance on an individual basis. +Huw Morris: That's my understanding, yes, and, again, we've been in regular conversation with them about that. My understanding is that they're going to spend the next week working through the detail of how that will work for the institutions. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fair enough. And, presumably, education maintenance allowance will still be paid. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Arrangements have been made to ensure that EMA continues to be paid to all students who are entitled. +Suzy Davies AM: That's right. You indicated that any Welsh Government support's going to stay, whatever the circumstances are—in your portfolio. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I'm doing my best, but it's an absolute yes on the EMA. There will be no disruption to EMA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. You might get some further questions on HE and FE. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got some further questions, indeed, from Helen Mary and then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Now or in a bit? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just further to EMA, of course, at the moment, that has an attendance qualification, doesn't it? And you don't get your EMA if you don't turn up. Should we take from your last answer that that attendance qualification doesn't apply anymore? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. They can't turn up if the institution is not open, and that's not their fault. +Helen Mary Jones AM: No, but that is something that's been a worry, so that's really encouraging to hear. Thinking about students in higher education, can you give an assurance that student maintenance payments will continue as normal? Is that the intention? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really good to hear. And have you given any special ministerial instruction to Student Finance Wales on processing applications for support or changes of circumstances, or is that something that's kind of ongoing at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Those conversations are ongoing with the Student Loans Company. As I said, we anticipate no disruption to—. We don't anticipate any change in the approach to students as a result of this. Individual student circumstances could well change and our expectation would be that the Student Loans Company would respond to that. All I would say is, just to remind people: people who work for the Student Loans Company are no more able to resist this disease than anybody else. There will undoubtedly in some cases be really practical challenges to service delivery, simply because organisations could be losing staff because of illness or the need to self-isolate or because they are reacting to social-distancing messages from the Government. So, I think we just need to bear that in mind: that these organisations are doing their best, but, if they are badly affected by staff numbers being off because of the virus, then I hope people will give them due consideration. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Yes, that makes sense, of course, because we've been told that universities won't be able to entirely close, because there will be students who can't go home— +Kirsty Williams AM: It is their home. +Helen Mary Jones AM: —overseas students, for example. What discussions have you been having with the sector to make sure that those students' basic needs are met, that there's still food, shelter, whatever they need? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, obviously, universities have a duty of care to those students that find themselves in those circumstances, and every conversation that Huw's been having would suggest that universities are well aware of their need to do that. +Huw Morris: We instituted a monitoring process very early on in the onset of the disease, not least because a number of institutions have campuses and activities in China and other parts of south-east Asia. And so, as the disease has progressed, we've seen lessons being learned from the support for students who are in isolation coming from there to the UK, and I am assured that the universities here in Wales have got processes in place that support those learners. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really helpful. And on this specifically—last question from me— have you considered whether students might need to be refunded some of their tuition fees, should the academic year not be completed? +Huw Morris: So, as the institutions move more and more of their material and some of their assessment online, clearly, there are lessons that will need to be taken on board. There are established quality assurance and enhancement procedures in institutions to enable the tutors and other supporters to make sure that that material meets their needs. The intention in all of these institutions is that they will complete their course of study. There are appeals mechanisms and feedback mechanisms through the students union and through course committees and other things within institutions to make sure that any concerns or incomplete work are addressed. Failing those institutional mechanisms, there is a UK-wide system through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for students to take forward any concerns that they have. So, we're confident that that system will be robust and will make sure that the students are getting a course of learning that meets their needs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: No, Mr Morris has answered my question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got a couple more questions now on vulnerable learners. I've got Helen Mary, then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I think, Chair, the Minister has already answered what the—. But thinking just a little bit more broadly about the mental health and well-being of staff and learners across a range of educational settings, or, indeed, young people who can't access educational settings, what considerations are you giving to how that mental health and well-being might be supported through what is an incredibly difficult time for everyone? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that is correct. So, our expectation would be that during a prolonged period of closure—which I think, if we're honest, we have to acknowledge is what we're looking at—we would expect school staff—well-being staff, for instance in school—to be doing check-ins—phone check-ins, potentially, or FaceTime check-ins, with students, just to keep in touch with them as we go forward. We'll be looking to promote amongst young people a range of online facilities that are available—so, for instance, Meic website—so, looking to use a variety of platforms. We do, of course, have the formal NHS counselling services. I'm concerned, of course, that for some children their access to their counsellor is via their school. We know that, and we're just double checking the capacity of online counselling that already exists—online counselling tools that children already use because they don't want to go to the counsellor in the school and be seen in the school corridor going to the counsellor. They're already using those online methods and we expect to be able to continue, as far as possible, those kinds of mechanisms where children can have their mental health needs and their questions answered, and their worries. I think we have to remember that this is a really worrying time for children and young people. One of the reasons, again, that we wanted to keep schools going as long as possible—and teachers have been working so hard to do that—is because that routine of going into school and that normality is one that we've needed and wanted to maintain. Children will have worries about their own health; they'll have worries about the health of their parents and their grandparents; they will be consuming potentially media and news stories that have empty supermarket shelves. So, we need to understand, and I think we will also have to recognise, that this support will have to be ongoing once we're back to normal, and we will have to continue to look to support children in the longer term who will have lived through this experience. They are incredibly resilient, and they have been the champions of some of our public health messages. They are so much better and so much more compliant on the whole 'washing your hands' and things like that than even adults have been. So, they are incredibly resilient, but we also have to recognise that it can be a really worrying time for them. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Can I just—? Just a supplementary to that—you've mentioned already, Kirsty, the importance of youth services, and, particularly thinking voluntarily youth services, you've given the commitment, when were talking about Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin earlier, that services that are part-funded by grants through the Welsh Government, for example, thinking of the national youth voluntary service—will those be able to be maintained even if settings have had to be shut as well? Obviously, local authorities will have to make their own decisions about whether youth settings are kept open, but, in terms of the direct support from Welsh Government, can organisations that receive it rely on that through this time? +Kirsty Williams AM: No formal decision has been made, but if people are in receipt of a Government grant from my department to run a service and that service can no longer run because of the public— +Helen Mary Jones AM: Because it's not safe. +Kirsty Williams AM: —because it's not safe to do so, I do not foresee that we will be turning around and saying, 'We'll have our money back, thank you very much.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That will make a lot of people happy, thank you. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, we are facing unprecedented circumstances. The normal rules of engagement have to change and, those organisations, we'll need them to be providing youth services for children when we are back to normal, and we wouldn't want to do anything that would undermine their ability to do that. Our call to the youth service is a call to arms, though. When we're trying to maintain services for vulnerable children and for front-line staff children, they have a valuable role to play and I know that local government and the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services are already in discussion about how youth services—. Many of our youth services work on an outreach basis. Those traditional youth clubs, because of austerity, are not necessarily there anymore, so they are well used to being out and about and doing outreach work, and they will have an important part to play in the services that we talked about earlier. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, briefly, and then we're going to take one final question from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Hefin David AM: All right. I'll declare an interest as a parent of a child with additional learning needs, although the question I'm about to ask doesn't reflect her interests. Additional learning needs pupils who are waiting outcomes of referrals—if they're currently waiting an outcome of a referral, will that process will be suspended or will it continue as normal? And, if it is suspended, will it pick up where it left off from this point? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the ability to deliver business as usual has been massively compromised. I'm sure people will try and continue to do their normal activities and their normal jobs, but that might not be possible. I will have to check that, Hefin, to be honest. I don't want to give you any false assurance if, actually, the intelligence on the ground is that that simply will not be able to happen. But we don't— +Hefin David AM: Can we have a clear line on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't want to jeopardise anybody, but as I said, some of the normal services are simply not available as everybody turns their attention to trying to respond to the pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Final question—because I know that the Minister's got a lot of things that she needs to get on with—from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not going to ask you if you'll use any powers you get under the emergency legislation, but are you able to give us some indication of what they might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. For instance, the Bill will provide Welsh Ministers with powers to temporarily close schools or other educational institutions, childcare premises; powers to give temporary continuity direction—so, actually, the other way around, force things to be open—and to be able to direct resources. So, that includes, as I said, I could direct something to stay open if that institution was trying to close down. The powers also give flexibility to maybe be able to direct staff to other institutions that they would not normally work in, if that was part of our resilience needs. We'd also be looking at, for instance, relaxing requirements around ratios in childcare settings, or we might be wanting to do things around food. So, obviously, we have rules around the level of nutrition that schools should be giving their children. If there is a continuing role for schools in providing food, we might have to be a bit more flexible about what that might look like. So, those kinds of flexibilities—to be able to suspend things, direct things—that we would not normally have in normal circumstances. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish this one off—you may not be able to answer this one, in all fairness—in those situations where it's the Government who says 'no' to various things, does that then help people in the situation of Dawn's nursery, and insurance claims suddenly become more likely? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not an expert on insurance, and I don't know if anybody here can help me. But what my understanding is, is that even where Government has given a direction that does not necessarily mean that you will be covered by your insurance. What we're finding in the private sector is that insurance companies are not paying out, because even when a Government has directed it, they do not regard this as a disruption to business. So, the insurance industry is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I accept that. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not my area of expertise, but from what I understand from discussions around the Cabinet table, this is particularly problematic. Let me give you an example about how we've been trying to overcome some of this—it feels like an awfully long time ago now— you'll be aware that we gave directions earlier around cancellation of school trips abroad. Trying to make sure that that direction came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, rather than the Department for Education was a real battle, because again there were fears that, unless that advice came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, insurance would not kick in, and that was a two-day discussion. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. This is helpful to know, actually. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, these are the kinds of things that we're grappling with. But, as I said, thinking about it, that was only last week, but it feels like an aeon ago. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not holding you to that, but it helps us manage the questions we get asked. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but as I said, insurance is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but thank you for answering. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending this morning, and your officials? We do recognise what an incredibly challenging time this is, and we'd like to place on record our thanks to all of you for the work that you're doing to try and see us through this crisis. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you again, all of you, for your attendance. Item 3, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting was convened with Lynne Neagle AM as chair. The session focused on the significant impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. Present were Kirsty Williams AM, the Minister for Education in Wales; Steve Davies, Director of the Education Directorate; Huw Morris, Group Director of Skills, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning; and Rob Orford, the Chief Scientific Advisor for Health. The committee expressed gratitude to the Welsh Government representatives for attending during a challenging period. + +Kirsty Williams opened with a statement highlighting COVID-19's profound challenges and the swift government response essential to ensure public safety. Her emphasis remained on safeguarding staff and pupils and the uninterrupted delivery of education. Williams announced the unavoidable closure of schools for statutory education provision, a decision made with public health considerations and educational continuity in mind. Instead, schools would adopt new roles in supporting vulnerable populations and children of key workers responding to the pandemic. Discussions with Cabinet colleagues and local governments were underway to finalize the support plans, especially free school meals and digital learning tools, through the Hwb digital platform. + +The Minister also addressed the summer exam series cancellation, an arduous choice made in consultation with public health recommendations. Assurances were given that students scheduled for exams would receive a fair grade based on available information, with further details pending. Williams expressed profound thanks to education professionals for managing through the crisis and urged ongoing collective efforts to face the pandemic's challenges. + +Questions from committee members ensued, led by Dawn Bowden AM, delving into the practical considerations of managing school staffing for the emergency response, supporting children of key workers, and ensuring provisions for free school meals and students with additional learning needs. Steve Davies detailed the expected participation of schools in providing secure places for children and outlined preliminary plans for educational activities post-Easter. + +Discussions covered the communication strategy to efficiently relay information to parents, the role of special schools, the status of early years and childcare settings, and the ongoing financial support for institutions relying on government funding. The conversation also veered towards the broader implications for examinations and assessments, with Kirsty Williams reaffirming the commitment to providing fair and equitable grades for students affected by the cancellations, and ongoing dialogues with the higher education sector regarding their response to the pandemic. + +The meeting continued with questions around emergency legislation, contingency plans for continuous learning in further and higher education institutions, and the security of student maintenance payments. The mental health and well-being of learners and staff, support for vulnerable groups, and implications for young carers and children exposed to domestic abuse were also key concerns. + +Overall, the committee session underscored the government's determination to prioritize public health while minimizing disruption to education, and recognized the significant, coordinated efforts required across different educational settings and government levels to combat the effects of the pandemic." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um here's the agenda for our last meeting . +Marketing: Whoohoo . +Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation , then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote . Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process , and then we're gonna close it up , and we have forty minutes , so let's get started . Oh , no , let's have the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you ready ? +User Interface: Um sure . You or me ? +Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff , since you wrote it . +User Interface: Okay . Well , since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for , I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you . +Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray , which is what we had decided , and it's gonna be plastic . Um then there's the latex cover , which is what you see as red . Um because it can be replaceable , we just kinda went with the colour . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top . Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue , almost see-through . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button , rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo . Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons . {vocalsound} They're one button , but they kind of push up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling . +Industrial Designer: No . They're just buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right , yeah . And then {disfmarker} yeah , the buttons . +Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of , by concave sort of thing , except for , you know , {gap} can't see underneath . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that , because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know , stick your finger in . Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used , menu , mute , +User Interface: Thumb-shaped . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers , so our channel and our volume will be on either side . +User Interface: Yeah . And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top , just which we didn't do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand , is it gonna be a single or a double ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a single . +Project Manager: Single . Single sounds good , +User Interface: Single . +Project Manager: 'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's only actually the size of my hand . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Great . Great . I think you did an awesome job . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is beautiful , and it's everything that we discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Good job , you guys . +Project Manager: Good job . +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . +User Interface: Oh thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Those are really good . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: what's next in our agenda ? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria , and that's with Courtney . +Marketing: Okay , it's a PowerPoint presentation . I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about . It's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Alright . Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask , is it easy to use , is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we should write these down so we can reference them . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Feel good meaning what ? +Marketing: Like does it feel good , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Physically , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: yeah , physically . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It doesn't really count , you guys . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , well then that's covered . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that ? +Project Manager: I'll wait . +Marketing: Yeah , she's got it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's good . Yeah . Okay so , we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale , and so we need to discuss how we feel . It falls within this range , so for easy to use , do we feel it's very easy to use ? +Project Manager: Are we going to indi +User Interface: True or false , easy to use . +Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say ? +Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just orally . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Why not ? We have {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um easy to use . I vote six . +Marketing: Oh wait , that's false . +Project Manager: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: two . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Marketing: Two . That's what I say . +Project Manager: Uh hello , we're great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one . +Industrial Designer: At the moment , no . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No . I mean like no , I think it's very fashionable . +Project Manager: Me too , very chic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I would give it a one . +Project Manager: One , I give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two , because at the moment it's not looking that way . +Project Manager: Oh , and ma it's a prototype , +Marketing: Well , that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay , it's a prototype . +Project Manager: right . +User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable . +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: I'd give it like three or four . +Project Manager: Well , now I'm {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , the average is about a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable , so +Marketing: Yeah , it's a two . +Project Manager: Two or three . Two point five . +User Interface: don't use my opinion . +Marketing: That's okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have , either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: does it feel good ? +Project Manager: Imagine , since we obviously don't have that . +User Interface: Does it feel good ? +Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh . +Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed . It's gonna be curved . +User Interface: Yeah , it's gonna be thicker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Depth . +Marketing: I think it feels good . +Project Manager: I think so too . +Marketing: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Marketing: What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: I'd say a two . +Project Manager: Alright , average is two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative ? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh no , it's fine , +Project Manager: Go right ahead . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um yeah , I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it ? +Project Manager: Yes . Right ? We were able to do it with that kind of chip . +User Interface: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip , yes . It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype , +Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here . Y +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions , really . +Project Manager: That was {disfmarker} 'kay . And we discussed that being included . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Then yes , then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we don' have the {disfmarker} you know , we can't say channel , and it changes the channel , channel eight . +Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_ , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced . But it is just a T_V_ remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd go for a three or four on that one , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I go four . +Project Manager: okay , let's go for a three point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three and an half . +Project Manager: Alright , and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Squishy and fruity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah , so I'd give it a two . +Project Manager: Well , we've covered that with the +User Interface: It's just trendy , basically . +Project Manager: trendy . Sure . Capable . Very capable . +Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity . +Marketing: Oh , it's very capable of being squishy and fruity . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important . 'Kay , there we go . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Okay , next . +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions . Good job , team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What ? +Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good . +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , that's it . Hmm . Oops . Okay , so now uh we're moving on to finance , okay . I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro . If so , we can proceed , if not , we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit . 'Kay ? So let me bring that up . Here we go . Alright . Um it's not hand dynamo , it's powered by battery , so we give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use . Do I just put quantity being one battery , or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s , 'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery . Oh , let's just go for a lithium . What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , let's let's do a lithium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} . +Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced , +Project Manager: {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , down to the electronics um section . We're gonna need this kind , correct , if we do the voice sensor , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so one of those . It is a single-curved , so one of those . +Marketing: Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . What's that ? Yeah , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , down here , case material . +User Interface: It's plastic . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Plastic . +Marketing: plastic . +User Interface: And special colour . +Marketing: And special colour . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Down here , interface type . We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel . +User Interface: No , we don't have the scroll . +Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's the push-button too , right there . +User Interface: Buttons . +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: This ? +Marketing: but i so i +Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface . +Project Manager: Okay , so we can just go {disfmarker} um . +Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two , won't we ? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having . Because we're not doing a scroll on the side , it's still push-button . +User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we just have push +User Interface: push-buttons . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls . +Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here ? +Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side ? +Project Manager: I don't know , they might put us {disfmarker} well , let's just . +User Interface: Two interfaces , is that what w should we s say ? +Project Manager: Two or would it be three ? +Industrial Designer: Let's call it th +Marketing: Or three , because of one on each side and one on top . +User Interface: Okay , fine . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean it's fine 'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine . Well less than twenty nine even . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay . +Marketing: They're a special colour . Um they're uh they're a special form , 'cause they're indented . +Project Manager: Are they ? Oh , right . +User Interface: And then s +Marketing: And , they're a special material . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Well , we're under cost then . Alright . +User Interface: We're over ? +Project Manager: No , we're under . +Industrial Designer: Grand . +Marketing: We're under . +Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got eleven point two . +User Interface: Oh , I see . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So we can go to production . +Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did . {vocalsound} Okay . Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result . Um did we have a lot of room for creativity ? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership , um teamwork , and the means , meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there , and if we found any new ideas . Now , question is , how do we do this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Go back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it . +Project Manager: Discuss , sure . +Industrial Designer: Previous . +Project Manager: Alright . Who want who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself , in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote , initially . +User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard . +Project Manager: Hmm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh that's true . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , yeah , that's a good point . 'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though ? +Marketing: Oh , overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it . +Project Manager: Right , and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable , which I kind of like {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company . +Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep . You know it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right . +Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect ? How did you guys enjoy making the model , the prototype ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: I think we did well . +Project Manager: I think ya' did . Did you work well together in there , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , no , there was there was scratching and fighting , but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Minus that one fight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges . +Project Manager: Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I mean minus you guys being wha what is it , the survey , annoying or what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating . +Industrial Designer: Irritating . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Irritating . +Marketing: Irritating , yeah . Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The means , the whiteboard didn't work . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and no internet . +User Interface: Misses . I do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There's so much available . +Marketing: And the digital the digital pens +User Interface: Like it's information +Project Manager: Yeah , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those , yeah . +Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool . +Project Manager: They were fine . +Marketing: Yeah they were fun , even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them , but they are awesome . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything . +Project Manager: Right , laptops are extremely handy , +Industrial Designer: It was wireless too , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: wireless . And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And these things whoa . +Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And Big Brother . +Project Manager: Big brother . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , have we found any new ideas through this process ? +Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da . +Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over , w wanting the artistic , the fashionable , the hip , you know . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology . +User Interface: Well , that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples , just 'cause I look at it , and I know it's probably a very good computer , but I look at it , and I'm taken back to elementary school , 'cause they look the same . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids . +User Interface: Exactly , so I associate them with like really low-tech , really cheap , bad {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just the Mac font bothers me even . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: But I do like iPods , go figure . +Marketing: Yeah , no , iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation , even the plugs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , i iPods are now quite trendy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours . +Project Manager: Colours . Exactly . I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone , back when we were like in high school , just so they could get the changeable face plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , so that is definitely at work . +Industrial Designer: Not me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone 'til university . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will . +User Interface: You're kidding . +Marketing: That is a piece of work . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . Marketing Director says yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , marketing has to actually create the desire for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it . Oh , I will create desire . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's okay . We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met . This will help them find the one . +User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial , and that's the fig-leaf . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That'll sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says , use our remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There you go , marketing {gap} . +User Interface: Let you loose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , no . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , we're gonna wrap this up now . Um the costs are within the budget , we evaluated the project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary , and then we're going to have a big giant party , apparently , according to this , so . Alright , thank you team , +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . Margaritas for everyone . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you did a great job , it was lovely working with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good . +Marketing: You too . +Industrial Designer: Yay . Thanks to the Project Leader . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now we know w +","The meeting documented in the provided transcript primarily revolves around the evaluation and finalization of a prototype remote control by a multidisciplinary team. The team, comprised of members from marketing, project management, industrial design, and user interface departments, gather to assess the prototype's design, usability, aesthetics, and technological features in line with their company's vision and project goals. + +The conversation begins with the Marketing representative expressing an interest in testing the functionality of the remote, which aligns with the curiosity of the Project Manager. As the meeting progresses, the attendees review the agenda, which includes a prototype presentation, discussion of evaluation criteria, financing aspects, and a comprehensive evaluation of the product including the production process. + +The dialogue reveals details about the remote's design elements, such as its base color being gunmetal gray, the use of plastic and latex materials, and a distinctive button design that integrates into the remote's surface, creating a modern appearance. They also discuss the remote's interactive features, including a capability where pressing any button results in the entire device lighting up. Moreover, they deliberate over the ergonomic design, such as the curvature appealing to the grip of a hand and the presence of the company logo on the device. + +Throughout the discussion, the members frequently make vocal sounds, which appear to be placeholders for actual descriptive sounds or expressions in the workplace, perhaps indicating agreement, acknowledgment, or reflection. These sounds convey emotions and reactions that supplement the verbal communication within the team. + +The team proceeds to evaluate criteria such as ease of use, fashionability, the ""feel good"" factor, technological innovation, and trendiness. They employ a seven-point scale to measure where the remote stands in each category. This segment reveals the remote's envisioned features such as voice recognition, though it becomes apparent that the prototype's physical representation has limitations in showcasing this and other advanced technological aspects. Sustainability of the design is implied by considerations such as replaceable covers, advocating for product longevity and customization. + +Financial discussions follow the evaluation, where an Excel spreadsheet is used to calculate costs and ensure they align with budget constraints set below 1250 Euros. The team deliberates over specific components, including battery type and materials, to ascertain the remote's final production cost, which they find to fit within the prescribed budget. + +Finally, the team reflects on the project's process and outcomes. They discuss the constraints they faced, like focusing solely on a TV remote, the lack of a whiteboard and internet, as well as the positives such as the creative freedom they experienced and the teamwork dynamic. While assessing various technological means utilized during the project, they mention wireless laptops, shared networks, and dual microphones, pointing to a high-tech work environment. + +The project is concluded with an optimistic outlook, with Marketing envisioning the remote as an appealing product for fashionable consumers. The informal close to their meeting includes plans for a celebratory gathering, acknowledging the collective effort and success of their project. Overall, the team exhibits satisfaction with the project's results and looks forward to the potential market impact of their carefully designed remote control." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: {gap} . {gap} . +Marketing: Yes , I made it . English from now on {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just testing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm ? English . +Industrial Designer: Just kidding . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So annoying . +Project Manager: Break is over . +Marketing: Ooh it works . +Project Manager: Whoo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Marketing: Where are are all the other presentations ? +Industrial Designer: I just put it in the in the shared folder so it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: The conceptual or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think so . Yeah , conceptual design . What or whatever does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . Because I see only my own presentation {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no , can you go back one ? +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh 'cause it has to be PowerPoint pre yeah components design , that's it . +Marketing: This ? {gap} I'll just put it in there . +Project Manager: So , he's coming . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} I did get a bit more done than the last time , +Marketing: Or not . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I knew that I didn't have time so I just copy and paste everything into the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , +Project Manager: Ah . She {gap} . +Marketing: I can't cut and paste it into the other folder but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can look at the final report , 'cause I have to record everything we are deciding and such , so I'm trying to write it down between everything else . +Marketing: Move to meeting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sometimes I have these pop-ups or these sounds and there's nothing there , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: and also with {disfmarker} I don't know how to use PowerPoint , so it takes me forever to get something done with it . +Marketing: Yeah me too , {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I've got the same problem as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Here we go again . Welcome . Uh we have again three presentations and then we have to decide on what concepts the mobile phone has to uh {disfmarker} f the remote control has to support . +Industrial Designer: Thi +Project Manager: So who wants go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Who wants to start ? +Marketing: Me first again or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah sure . Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Oh . No . Yeah . No problem +Marketing: yeah . Alright . Did you open it already or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: no . Ah . Ah . Yes . So welcome to the marketing presentation once again . Um this time about trendwatching . {vocalsound} Uh well there has been inv investigation again , in the in the remote control market . Uh it shows a number of developments . Uh I will address them uh in a moment . Um fashion watch watchers uh have detected the trends for young public , because that's our public . Um well fruit and vegetables will be will be the most important theme for clothing , uh shoes and furniture . And the feel of the material is expected to be spongey . So um the developments I will address them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh yeah well this is the fruit and vegetables looks of fresh bright colours . So to give you an idea . Um well the developments ? Uh development one . {vocalsound} Uh well most important aspect for remote control happens to be a fancy look-and-feel . Instead of the current uh functional look-and-feel . Um well fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and the interface . And the second most important aspect is that a remote control should be technological uh innovative . Um well it stands for the use of technical features that do not exist in current remote controls . I think we pretty much covered that with our screen and um and speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Sound . Yeah yeah uh uh . +Marketing: so I don't expect that to be a problem . And the third development um is that the remote control should be easy to use . Um {disfmarker} Well the first aspect uh was twice as important as the second aspect,w which was twice as important as the third aspect . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So um that kind of gets you this ratios . So fancy look-and-feel uh is the most important uh point of attention . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh so the fruits and vegetables in combination with the spongey material . Um well technolog technological innovation , we've covered that pretty much I guess . Um and easy to use , I don't think that will be problem . So my point of attention is especially this part . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That this will be a crux . So that was the marketing uh presentation . I had only one document left . +Industrial Designer: And shall I go first ? +User Interface: Yeah . No . I I don't mi I don't mind . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah sure . No . +Marketing: So kind of this {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you want to go first ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} So a k a small example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Kind of this this look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh nothing about the buttons but just sponge kind of thing , and and some fruit and colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Just made a quick design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} Yeah you're just the user interface hmm ? +User Interface: It's better than than my uh drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay but I have to design the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh components . +Project Manager: Yeah layout . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh no . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . +Project Manager: You probably opened it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Alright . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm dealing with the components design . Um let's see . I uh used some design examples we had uh from similar products . And I used uh possibilities from our manufacturing department about current components which will have to be implemented in the design . That's why I had to , wanted to go first . Well they gave me um an idea about what people want . We're f mainly focusing on this group , but I want to make the distinction clear . Uh I could not drag the pictures into the the slides so s so I don't have examples of how it looks like . But it comes down to what you uh what you think we should do with the spongey and the fruity looking uh type . If you , the young dynamic people want soft primary colours uh , which looks like fruits you know , you can {disfmarker} and shapes that are curved and not uh solid straight lines anymore . So this basically um yeah goes on to what you were mentioning earlier . There is a lot of um {vocalsound} factors involved in choosing the components . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's a lot of options that we have to discuss . Uh for example the energy source . we have four types . The basic battery . Uh we have a hand dynamo , which we yeah we Dutch refer to it as the kneipgatt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh the kinetic provision of energy which means if you move the thing , if you shake it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which will be fun for toddlers right , if they wanna use the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh of course solar cells . But I dunno how we would use that into the design of the actual product . +Marketing: Wi an indoors . +Industrial Designer: So uh my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Calculator's can do it . +Industrial Designer: yeah also also in you know countries where there's n isn't much light like in Scandinavia , they wouldn't be y able to use it half of the year you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that's not cool either . So um {vocalsound} for the uh a case , there's uh the traditional uncurved flat hard case . Single curved , which means that it has uh curves in one dimension . Or the double curved . Um {vocalsound} I wasn't able to finish my uh personal preferences sheet , but well you know that we will have to go for the double curved 'cause it's daring and different from what we have now . Uh the case materials . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have all kinds of hard uh materials like the the hard plastic , the wood and the titanium . I would definitely go for rubber 'cause it fits most in what people wanna see nowadays . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um poo , this is a lot of text . I wasn't able to organise this yet . We have yeah several uh interface designs . Uh we can use a scroll buttons for the menus , but we already kind of decided to go for the f for the pushbuttons , for the the arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Pushbuttons . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's not really interesting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Electronics ? Yeah , {vocalsound} maybe we wanna decide on what electronics to use {gap} the advanced chip I think is easiest to implement uh for the production , 'cause they they can print it better . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think this is about it . Yeah I was working on some per personal preferences . I first uh chose for the battery , 'cause yeah I'm traditional and that's the most obvious , easiest choice to go to . But I really think that we should maybe uh think about the kinetic energy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have to move the thing to be able to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: As an optional uh feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or combine uh both with a with one uh +Project Manager: Uh I think you can only fit one uh source of energy on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess we can only choose one . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I can imagine that the kinetic uh type energy source would be more expensive to make . But it is more longlasting , that the people don't have to ever buy batteries again . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . And it's more fun . +Project Manager: I didn't receive any info uh . +Industrial Designer: And it's also more fun yeah . I always chuck my uh remote control around , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , just playing with it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} especially when the material's rubber . It can be done , I mean , you can't harm it , +Project Manager: S yeah it's safe . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And throw it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y exactly . +Marketing: so it's a perfect combination I guess . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to be scared about bouncing it off the g floor and breaking it or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's the end of it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay next . +Industrial Designer: Uh go ahead . +Marketing: So double curved is like this , this , this , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No it means curved in two dimensions . So uh w single curved ? Uh let's say would be a b square box , but then with curves on one dimension . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And double curved would means that it would have curves curves in every direction . Like three D_ . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Also in in height ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Can we uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . One one uh very important thing I was uh yeah thinking about is the speech uh option . We were going to use that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah um yeah that's one thing uh which I'm not sure uh of how to implement it uh into the remote control . +Project Manager: Well the visual representation is not there with speech +Industrial Designer: Design ? +User Interface: No okay but it has to be combined with with the menu uh for functions and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you can {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So okay . +Project Manager: I think you can just uh match the speech commands with the functions that are already present . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I don't think you have to design anything else for that . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah with the programme . +User Interface: But do uh j do we uh do the speech just for the basic options , for the simple buttons ? +Project Manager: Both . +User Interface: For for everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: also for the advanced options ? Okay . Uh we have this {gap} very uh basic uh trendy design . Everybody says it so that's what's uh {disfmarker} yeah um {disfmarker} Yeah in the in the last uh meeting we uh we were yeah putting the the simple and the advanced options separated . That's yeah obvious . Um yeah . Pressing the the menu option uh will disable uh all other options on your uh remote control . And only the the L_C_D_ panel will uh light up and then you can only uh change the yeah the options . +Marketing: And and the and the buttons that you need to control it , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um yeah design has to be very attractive but that's your your op your {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} you have to uh delete this but this is the the the simple uh layout . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh display on the upper side with the the menu button and maybe a some sort of cancel button or save button . +Project Manager: That would be the back . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} The back . +Project Manager: Back and okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Back and okay yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Back and okay . +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: What ? A little bit I think but not not everything w +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay 'cause I pretty much summed up all the buttons there were . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Oh {vocalsound} I uh didn't read that . +Project Manager: I hate doing work for nothing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But this is the the basic uh design uh for the for the m yeah for the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I wanted to to categorise everything . Uh with a speech display uh yeah , sound , everything you you noted in your uh minutes . Um every pushbutton has uh has its own uh LED light . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you can uh yeah change uh m make it more trendy for for younger people . And uh if there are older people they wanted more uh yeah more uh luxurous {disfmarker} so that's an a also an option . Um that was it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} again . Ugh . {vocalsound} Okay so what we have to decide is what kind of components do we use ? Uh energy source , chip type , case type . And user interface . But I didn't see a clear distinction between these so I think what we have is okay . So we only , we already decided that kinetic would be the choice for energy . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Uh the case would be doubly curved . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And rubber . Rubber material . +Marketing: Rubber material . +Project Manager: Rubber material . And that's the only thing we have left . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need the the chip on print to be able to support the the screen and uh and f audio function . +Project Manager: Oh okay . No it's easy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's uh {disfmarker} is that is that the advanced chip ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise you would have a simple chip , just for pressing buttons . But we need more . +Marketing: Wow . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking , this is not my department , but I I'm not sure what this is gonna cost , +Marketing: Kinetic . Double curved . +Project Manager: Too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: to be able to m +Project Manager: Uh I didn't get any info on this . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So 'cause we need to sell it for twenty five Euro a piece . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's gonna be difficult huh ? +Marketing: The cost of making it should be twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: I have total here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't get any information about that so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . We're going to produce it in uh China so it's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Child labour man , we love it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's cheap . +Project Manager: Who doesn't . Uh let's see . Is there a new thing ? +Marketing: Um well the interface type supplements . +Project Manager: Yeah the interface , maybe can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's it's quite difficult because we we haven't got all the options uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . No . Uh do you have a picture of doubly curved case ? And could you put that in the group folder ? Of the project folder . +Industrial Designer: Um let me see . Wait a sec . +Marketing: If you go to your homepage or something , you should +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm going there now . +Marketing: get your own information . +Industrial Designer: Inspiration . +Marketing: I got my fresh and fyoo fruity uh picture uh also uh over there , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah you didn't draw it yourself . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too less time . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} yeah maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that that w +User Interface: This is the the menu I was uh looking uh at . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I was thinking of that also , with with a with a uh arrow . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Arrow . +User Interface: Arrow yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that indicates that there's an menu under that menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah perfect . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . 'S the target group . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier if you guys come over here . +User Interface: S yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: S see this is the the the standard traditional type , where the form uh yeah serves the function , you know . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like really basic . But this m is more appealing to old people and we don't want that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is what we're looking for . And th that means curved in both dire dire uh dimensions . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: Not only like this but it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah also like this . So you can hold it . +Industrial Designer: exactly . It has to be kind of instead of the PlayStation , the module . It has to be like the the Game Cube , you know , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where your thumbs would be laying in the instrument and it has to be nice to hold . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it has also to {disfmarker} it it has also to be uh luxurous uh for for yeah rich people . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Th this looks a little bit like like for only for children . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It ha +Project Manager: The children's story . Yeah I've got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that's that's the the problem uh yeah the dilemma actually , +Project Manager: Distinction . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause we wanna appeal to the to the young public with fancy with flashy colours , and with a lot of shape . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and the and the rubber , it it will look cheap always , +User Interface: The colour {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay but the the colours , you you can make it uh make the colours with {gap} LEDs uh beneath the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: you know , with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you press a button and you can disable the the colour LEDs for for people that don't like it . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: There is mobile phones , in which you can change the colour also of the lights . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should consider this function . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To customise it and so {disfmarker} I mean kids can make it look more flashy with different kinds of colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and people who want something , you know , different , or more uh design , they can go for one colour +Project Manager: Different . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like uh for example this uh photo th camera . +Project Manager: Camera . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Cool . S underwater uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah submarine . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Personally I think it's really ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just give me the thing that it's inside there {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah but this this the {gap} is for the {gap} . +User Interface: Very cheap uh cheap look . +Industrial Designer: maybe I'm too old for this stuff . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So those I think are all my {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: oh . +Project Manager: Ah yeah bright colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Also a kind of rubber uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And this is , this is with the curved that I mean . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's singly curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That should be nice . +Project Manager: Well we could make a compromise between that . But I don't know if it's worth the effort . +Industrial Designer: A compromise between what ? +Project Manager: Uh instead of doubly curved we take a single curved . So to appeal a little more to the all the public . +Marketing: So s +Industrial Designer: This , this would be uh single curved uh ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah there's only in in this dimension . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like this . So curvy or not {gap} . +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah so we keep it singly c single curved then ? +Project Manager: Yeah that would be an option . I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean our aim is to make something different right ? To make something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I would go for the double curved . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah I'd agree . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm I'm thinking uh you know uh a drawing palette , where you have the shape for your thumb . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it kind of holds nicely , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah but if you if you make it more curved we we can make more and more options for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well this is really your decision but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh it have it in your hand , you you you are not only um yeah you don't need one dimension but you can use other dimensions for pressing the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As well . You can make a trigger button or something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Something to shoot at your television {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or that that is the confirmation button or something , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that you scroll with your thumb , with the arrows , and then confirm . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That would be a nice way to use it but {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I'm thinking big already , and we need something that well that {gap} that you can able to use in one hand I think . +Project Manager: Different . Stands out . Or {disfmarker} Oh yeah a one hand uh solution . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So from top view it looks kinda like this . But from the side you you can have it also in a kind of shape . +Project Manager: {gap} can turn it maybe . +Marketing: Maybe because the the screen is on top you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To switch from buttons to interface hmm . If you turn it a little . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Maybe you can c have this kind of shape . A little upwards . So that the screen is more +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Least you can easily see it . +Marketing: towards yourself , so you can easily see your screen . +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well well you have it in your hand so it's a kind of an angle from your eyes to the screen . So then you have double double curved in some way . So this this is so the screen is positioned over here . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . Something like that . And the buttons are more , well it's very thick now but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . +Marketing: That's uh that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about we do a uh a pop-up screen , like the laptop . +Project Manager: If you can uh flip . +Industrial Designer: So that the only the simple functions will be visible at first . +Marketing: Yeah ? That that you can press it and then it comes up ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh so you have a the the side view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Something like that . +Marketing: But then the side view can be straight . If you have a pop-up screen . But I dunno if that's too expensive . +Project Manager: So and you want to be able to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's too much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: make this +Industrial Designer: No uh like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I would draw it like this . Let's say this is the side view . That you have a a screen that will come up here , and can go down that way . If you know what I mean . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that it would come up like that . +Project Manager: Okay so the buttons are on top here , and you flip it over that way . +Industrial Designer: Yeah or {vocalsound} preferably even keep the simple buttons here , and then under the screen even you could put more more advanced buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . Yeah yeah yeah yeah . Right . Yeah that's good idea . +Marketing: Oh the advanced buttons . Right . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} the the more advanced options were uh for the for the menu . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But you you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: F for the L_C_D_ menu right ? +User Interface: okay . You just want to hide them all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So w w +Project Manager: No not all because you need most of them , the arrow buttons . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you can hide the okay and the back uh button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: And the menu button also because when you flip it open {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can maybe even drop the menu button because maybe if you flip it open it will auto activate amauto uh uh automatically . +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Activate and th the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} okay b but you have t you need some button to flip this open . +Project Manager: Why ? You could just make it mechanical . +Industrial Designer: True . True . But you can make a , yeah , you can make a trigger here . You know a simple uh {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah and it says menu and it flips open and then you have the buttons to control it , in combination with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but it's it's not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: it's not very uh very strong uh {disfmarker} yeah if you drop it one time {gap} . +Marketing: True . It uh c it can go open . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah the the idea of it was , is that because you close it , you cover the L_C_D_ screen and it won't be vulnerable to scratches or whatever . +Project Manager: If you cover it with rubber . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: An adv an adv and it will be covered in some kind of uh thin rubber layer or something like that . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So it can bounce . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . Exactly . We just have to make sure that the closing mechanism won't break . +Marketing: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} It's very no it's very strong . +Industrial Designer: Th it's very solid yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay so that that may work . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That actually will offer some extra protection for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay but then we still have the the the thing of the the the shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking , if if you have your hand , it this is your th +Project Manager: Harder . +Marketing: Yeah the lower part doesn't work I guess , so maybe you should try it over there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . If this is your thumb , and this is your hand like that . With your uh wrist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That you , that it would be kind of shape like this , you know . So it's easier to hold in your hand , to y f +User Interface: But when you are left-handed , that's that's a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah of course . +Project Manager: Maybe can design two versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah then w then you would have to to make it like this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that's that's very expensive uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like you drew here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe th then make this thicker also than the centre . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Give it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And ergonomical shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a female shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh yeah . Anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The female shape yeah . With two uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Obviously . {vocalsound} Make it more appealing to guys . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We we could make some some rubber uh some rubber uh yeah mouse , with which you can change uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Some uh k esk uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and so if you {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but but that's optional for later I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I mean , we have to make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we have hardware inside , which is {disfmarker} so it has to have some sort of basic shape . +User Interface: Some {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we we better so choose one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the screen , you cannot mould it . +User Interface: No no no no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah so okay we should better choose one sh one shape . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that's the kind of the idea , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it lays good in the hand , and then on on the side with with your thumb , +Industrial Designer: You can place the screen here , which can come {gap} . +Marketing: you you can you can use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , you can use the button option {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the keywords are primary co colours , spongey ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} but then I w I would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongey . +Industrial Designer: I would do the arrows here , kind of thing . +Marketing: Spongey can be reached by means of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Those buttons ? And the simple buttons here , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And and the and the control thngs in the middle ? The the the arrows ? +Industrial Designer: I Uh y eah that's what I mean . +User Interface: No the arrow's over here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The arrows over here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here the s simple uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and then numbers . +Project Manager: Buttons . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: I think that uh it's a nice design . +Marketing: Uh pretty nice design . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it looks uh pretty fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} or do we wanna make its shape look like a banana or something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh bananas {gap} wierd shape and other fruits also , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so it's better to have um some sort of basic print and then a fruit print in some primary uh colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we could make {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what what colours should the basic print be like ? Like some soft {vocalsound} green or something ? +Project Manager: Orange or something . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or blue ? Dark blue or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah yeah , dark blue +Industrial Designer: We should use {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then and then very bright , uh a yellow banana , {vocalsound} an orange , uh a green apple , stuff like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: with very uh bright tones I guess . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w we need very primary colours , like bright red , bright yellow . +Marketing: So you have something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but the primary colours w we can uh create with the with the LEDs on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah okay yeah . +User Interface: If you we uh {disfmarker} yeah . If you make it uh just a yeah bl give it a blue colour , then it's just a neutral colour , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: also for the for the more uh yeah for the {gap} people . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Huh cool . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That doesn't really work . To draw , I guess . +Project Manager: No it's {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . What's this ? +Project Manager: Yeah it's text . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: N no you have to exit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You could also make line with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Two hours further . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} thickness . Oh . +User Interface: So that's blue . +Marketing: Oh . Wh why not go for the twenty ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That's what I call painting . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's that's a dark blue basic colour I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah and then on top of that . +Marketing: It's pretty nice . And then uh {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some yellow . +Marketing: Yeah with some some yellow banana {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Banana colour . +Industrial Designer: And how about some uh some flashing standby lights ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like you have on the Samsung , well I don't like to call brands phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the you know that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'cause I remember from one of our first meetings that uh people lose their uh remote controls often . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So it {disfmarker} not not only in in the colours {vocalsound} of the LEDs , that we want something to keep it visible at all times , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah if you if flashing colour so you can't lose it , basically . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Some some {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a bit too much but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah an orange . Well alright well this is more like purple I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} it's should be more real dark blue , so the contrast with the with the fruit objects is uh pretty high . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So uh yeah . That would be a nice uh nice device I guess . +User Interface: And which which colour should uh should I give the the display ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who ? +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , the the colour of the background of the display ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah well I don't guess it s has to be a sixty uh sixty six {vocalsound} five thousand uh colour , so yeah too expensive . +Project Manager: And then you can use yellow or semething . Why not ? {vocalsound} Aye . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So just just a {vocalsound} a blue blue backlight or something like that . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Green is too old-fashioned . But blue , blue's okay . J +Industrial Designer: As long as you loo {vocalsound} use uh high contrast between the the background and the foreground colour . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Like this . +User Interface: maybe a maybe a white a white backlight ? +Industrial Designer: So that people with uh with +Marketing: White backlight , and dark . +User Interface: Dark uh letters , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Whatever which is visible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know you sh you should test it under uh under a light conditions . I mean it's hard to tell uh I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And also for people who are a bit colourblind . +Project Manager: Colourblind yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: No so that's mostly red and green I believe . +Marketing: Which which uh colour should the buttons be ? +User Interface: That's adjustable . +Project Manager: Woah . All all buttons ? +Marketing: Why adjustable ? +User Interface: Yeah ? Or not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's how we are going to make it uh more trendy . Or is it uh too expensive ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {vocalsound} maybe I mean they have to they have to have some colour right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's difficult . +Marketing: And if the background is very dark blue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . Maybe green . +Industrial Designer: But don't we wanna make the background the the bright colo colours ? So th the total of the thing is very bright ? +Project Manager: Yeah you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like the pictures I showed you guys . Those things were all like like bright red , bright red , flashy . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm flashy . +Marketing: So more like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm bzz . +Marketing: Doesn't work very well . Uh . More like this colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that , something that stands out more . +Marketing: And then then yellow and orange and red objects on it or something . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then then again , which colour should the buttons be ? The the press buttons . Should they be white or black or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red maybe . +User Interface: And it it looks quite cheap , that colour I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Black . +User Interface: It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The green ? +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah but it's pretty fresh , on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's actually a pretty trendy colour at the moment . +User Interface: It's it's trendy okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: My couch is in that colour . +Project Manager: Ooh . {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well it works pretty well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then time was up . +Project Manager: Uh not yet . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you get a pop-up if we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah within five minutes yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That you have five minutes left or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Y left yeah left and then uh I have to kick you out . +Marketing: So something like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That should be pretty nice colour . But maybe the buttons , all buttons in red is maybe a bad contrast for colourblind people . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: No that's actu +Marketing: Because the {gap} of the green . +User Interface: But the but the buttons have their own LEDs or not ? +Project Manager: They have LEDs but they have a colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Red and green are actually the b the easiest to discriminate . Even for colourblind . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: They will see one of each as grey . But if you use uh green on blue , those kind of colours will look the same . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: So red buttons are okay ? +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: You can make them red . +User Interface: Okay . That that's a default uh setting . The the red buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . But I think you need to keep in mind that the LEDs are just extra light . {vocalsound} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh they they don't determine the colour that much , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah I I was think about a red uh red LEDs and blue LEDs and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause you have to print on them {disfmarker} you have a background +Marketing: No that's that's too busy I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Each number is transparent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh partly but you have to print on the number . Or the the sign . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you can't {gap} change the colour so {disfmarker} +Marketing: You better bet better better keep the LED and the button itself in the same colour I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So just an extra +Project Manager: Bit of light . +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: bit of light and attention . +Project Manager: Bit of feedback . +Industrial Designer: what we should do I think is is make kind of a see-through plastic button , with uh one coloured LED behind it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that the whole button will shine +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: as the colour the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And if you think about easy to use buttons , we have to , well we have to make it the shape so that it's easy to hold f for both hands , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but also that you can reach the buttons with your thumb , if you hold the machine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay with {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Don't mean to discourage you but {disfmarker} uh basically you two are going to work on the smartboard . Next thirty minutes to design something so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , right . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} You will do the evaluation . +Marketing: Of the product ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which we don't have yet . +Project Manager: Yeah uh about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So wh how should I do that ? +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} You probably get a mail . +Marketing: Oh okay . Or you you or you send it to me . Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Once they are finished . Yeah . +Marketing: because you are going to design it on this board right ? +Project Manager: Yeah but maybe you can do the evaluation {disfmarker} you don't have to evaluate yet but you can make a procedure which to follow . I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . I I probably get instruction on that , how to do that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so I make another presentation I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I kn I know what's gonna happen in in yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About . Yeah . You have the basic idea . +Marketing: I've a basic idea . +Project Manager: And you two uh are going to do this . Look-and-feel and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we're gonna work here ? On this sketchboard ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good luck . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Thanks . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright so that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I {gap} uh make new page and uh be creative . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But we have to do it at this moment , after th this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah you have uh +Industrial Designer: Thirty minutes . +Project Manager: thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we have to uh see something which we can uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: show to the management . +User Interface: Ah so this is basically the what what we are thinking about ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would yeah . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh make a new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah l let's just uh delete all these uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I just {vocalsound} make a new one . +User Interface: Oh , next {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and save this uh board . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Just save it . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah I'll just I'll just keep it there . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but just press save and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It'll be fine . +Marketing: On the left . S so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can also include clip-art . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you'll rather draw in paint or something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Current colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shall we make some outline sketches of the basic shape first ? +User Interface: Yeah . And then after that we can make the user uh inter interface . +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} then look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause I have to uh focus on the on the basic look-and-feel design . +Marketing: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So how it's gonna look . And you have to think uh how we're gonna put the screen in it and those kind of things . +Marketing: Uh pretty accurate . +Industrial Designer: So if I'm drawing and you think okay I'm not gonna be able to put a screen in there , you have to correct . +Marketing: Oh we skip this I guess . Sound {gap} button press . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh do you mind if I draw in black then ? For normal sketches . +Project Manager: You can also include it . It's not much work . +User Interface: Oh no it's it's okay . +Marketing: Light only button user ca user interaction . +Industrial Designer: {gap} so we kind of want the girlish +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's included . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: figure . +Marketing: So the pl the plastic plastic buttons also help uh because of um they are only lit during interaction . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not so good at drawing . Excuse me ? +Marketing: Well it's a good thing that the buttons aren't um , well that they are plastic , because then you can light up the light on {gap} when when they are usable . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No uh uh . +Marketing: Maybe you should draw it very large {vocalsound} like this . +User Interface: Yeah but this part isn't uh functioning properly . +Project Manager: Yeah . Sensitive . +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: How do we uh uh +Marketing: Erase ? +Industrial Designer: or insert text ? +Project Manager: I dunno . Maybe just start typing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a bit uh large . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh that's a bit big . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You also do the other sides . Not only on the front si uh the top side but also the the side view . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ex exactly . +User Interface: L let's make first the the the all the views . The the front view , side view and the back view . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I thought for the side view , that the w the basic section would be rather uh a bit thicker than the middle , where you're holding it with your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jesus . What do I write down ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I work here ? This is much easier . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Much easier , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause your fingers have to fit underneath and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The middle has to be very small so you can have it in your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't see a sign that the meeting is over yet but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly but the uh but the upper side has to be a bit more like that I think . +Project Manager: No so I just work here a few minutes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah the display , +Industrial Designer: Uh don't you think ? +User Interface: we yeah we can put a display . +Industrial Designer: So the display we will put in here , the basic uh functions in here , where it's most reachable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: The the arrow functions . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The th Exactly . Oh . This is hard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do {disfmarker} {gap} don't have to draw it exactly do we ? +User Interface: No it's it's uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait . Let me try it one more time . Maybe I've uh {disfmarker} it's easier if I draw it in once . Okay , of course it will become way more ugly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can make it m larger . Maybe it's easier to to draw uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . This'll take forever . It's fun to work with this pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so , larger . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's the basic idea . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrong one . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So side . +Project Manager: Five minutes left before the meeting ends . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Um other views ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah only if you are going to put buttons on the side of the unit . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's fill i fill in the buttons later . +Marketing: But we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this is gonna be from the +Marketing: I is it {disfmarker} if if this is from the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh from {vocalsound} +User Interface: From the {disfmarker} +Marketing: woah . Steady . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . Sorry . +Marketing: Because there the screen goes up like that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So then it's like this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: or {disfmarker} that's not convenient because then you have the screen like this and look like the {disfmarker} it's better to have it somewhat like this . Or does it flip all the way ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the idea is that it has to flip up to here . +User Interface: May maybe it's it's easier to to integrate the the the L_C_D_ screen just into this this bubble . Because it do doesn't have to flip then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Because we have en enough space for for making a an L_C_D . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Because here {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's better to to have this like this I guess , and then flip it like this . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: But why why do we need uh the flipping uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you can adjust the angle to which it flips . So it can also from this angle , it can flip all the way up to there . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can flip it up to there if you want . +Marketing: Yeah . So w yeah . But we still keep the flipping mechanism . +Project Manager: Yeah we keep the flip ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Think so . +Project Manager: Keep the flip live . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because I think it will feel weird if you would make this smaller and this bigger or something that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the the shape is okay but {disfmarker} yeah ? I don't see the the yeah why why we should use the the flipping uh mechanism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought it would be cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Because we {disfmarker} Okay yeah . It's it's for for for more trendy uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but maybe {disfmarker} Yeah but maybe we we should then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because we have enough space . H here we got uh the basic functions , the the arrow uh yeah button . +Marketing: Yeah there the middle {disfmarker} Sh sh shouldn't we integrate it ? +User Interface: Yeah and then h we sh mm . +Marketing: And then like i oh th {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: doh . Come on . So this is the shape . Oh . It hasn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . It doesn't aim so well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay but the screen is a bit lower because if it falls on the other side , it doesn't fall on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah , then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's a layer of rubber on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So no flipping but just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No flipping or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No flipping ? +Marketing: no . +User Interface: {gap} you wanted the flipping so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess but uh I mean most votes count right ? +User Interface: But if you if you {disfmarker} If you drop it it it just breaks . And it has to be very strong because of the {gap} . Yeah kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's shaking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Throwing and the kinetics . Oh . We better make we better make it like this . Eventually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true true . +Project Manager: Yeah just light on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And it's also for the for the children , it's yeah for people not sixteen years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you if you're going for the kinetics {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Safer . Mm . Yeah okay that {gap} the target group . +User Interface: But there are more {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh they are responsible enough to have a mobile phone , so also to to deal with their uh remote uh control . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's true . Okay . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Well . I just uh ended the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm just thinking totally different designs also . +Project Manager: You two go design . +User Interface: Okay wi +Industrial Designer: Remember that the weird pocketphone thingy which looked like kind of a Gameboy . +Project Manager: Oh . By the way . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should try something like that . But yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh thought up a name for our product . Yeah . It's called uh the Real Remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With a copyright sign after Real . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The Real Remote . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like it . +Project Manager: So maybe you can include that somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Okay . This can go . +Marketing: Good . Yeah . We should work in our own room right ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah we have to f uh include that in our design as well . +Project Manager: I don't see any power cables here so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes . +Industrial Designer: What the hell's that ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think uh it's the sensors . +Marketing: See you two in half an hour uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Okay that's the side . Ah it's it's okay . But do we want uh options on the on the side with the with the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think we do . +User Interface: Or just leave it ? Uh could make an uh a volume button uh scroll , volume button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or j or also scrolling for the m yeah . +User Interface: For menu . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? I dunno . We w kind of wanted to stick with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm just thinking , {vocalsound} if we i we wanna make something different +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? So the with the scroll is is more futuristic than the standard arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah you are going to design it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +","The conversation involves a team discussing the design and features of a new remote control. They consider innovative ideas such as incorporating fresh, bright colors and a spongey feel to appeal to a younger demographic. The marketing presentation emphasizes the importance of a fancy look and feel, technological innovation, and ease of use. They debate the energy source, with kinetic energy emerging as a potential fun feature for toddlers and a more long-lasting option. The team also weighs the practicality of a solar cell. + +They consider case materials such as rubber for durability and modern appeal. Regarding interface design, the consensus is to use pushbuttons for straightforward navigation. The advanced chip is chosen for supporting the screen and audio function. The team grapples with cost implications, suggesting producing the product in China to maintain a retail price of twenty-five euros. + +The team struggles with the software for design sketches but eventually comes up with the overall concept involving primary colors, a spongey feel, and a protective rubber layer. They discuss the possibility of a flip-up LCD screen but later decide on integration without flipping for stronger build quality and avoiding breakage risk. + +The meeting's end goal is to prepare a concept design that includes all discussed features for presentation to management, with the creative name ""Real Remote."" The design is meant to appeal to modern aesthetics, functionality, and the younger generation's preferences, while also being cost-effective and durable. + +In summary, the conversation is a creative brainstorming session for designing an innovative, user-friendly, and visually appealing remote control that caters to the younger audience's preferences while addressing practical production and cost concerns." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we are here to talk about functional design . Now hopefully we've all got a better idea from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} than we did f leaving the last meeting as to what it is we are up to now . So here's an agenda . Uh I'll open . Um you should know that I'll be taking minutes during all the meetings , as I was struggling to our last time uh and that'll be easier for me now because I'm not actually giving the whole presentation . Uh the additional points are just the stuff that we sent and that I forwarded on from upper management having a few bright ideas to make our lives painful . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now {vocalsound} you can all give your presentations . We can talk about the requirements and hopefully come to some decisions . {vocalsound} Right , forty minutes for this meeting , so a bit more time than the last one . Here's the additional points I just wanted to put those in there to see if you guys had any comments on them . Uh did you all receive that email ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anyone have any overall {gap} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} uh what comes up for me is that if we're gonna if we're gonna be marketing a product that is going to be uh having {vocalsound} no teletext , people are very comfortable {vocalsound} with {vocalsound} the idea of having teletext and using teletext , and so we're not {disfmarker} we're gonna be a new product without something that people are very comfortable having right now . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yep . +Marketing: So that's , from a marketing perspective I I see I see a lack . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And so we have to go , I think , in the other direction . What are we gonna have that makes this thing better than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well tha that first point could uh also be an op opportunity because in seeing that teletext is becoming outdated , some sort remote control that can work with the Internet {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there is the opportunity that's presented , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Yeah . No , I I agree with you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So what I'm talking about is I see that one side we're eliminating something so we have to come up with another side which is , what are we gonna be targeting our market uh that {vocalsound} identifies our product as better than {disfmarker} because it doesn't have teletext it has ta-ta-ta-ta-ta . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that's that's that was my reactions . +Project Manager: Yeah . but but we are sort of being dictated that this should only be for the television . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So we're quite fixed . So we're really probably , in terms of marketing , are looking for that's uh that's a cost winner rather than a fantastic new feature product . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but we we're designing only the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: we not design the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh we're gonna be removing the teletext out of any T_V_ that we {disfmarker} people use our remote with . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So it's kind of a stupid decision . +Marketing: I think we take with you . +Project Manager: But there's also the potential for mark there's a market here for our lost teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: For example someone that just goes to the shop that wants a replacement {disfmarker} wants it as {vocalsound} cheap as possible . Twenty-five Euros is the selling price , we really have to innovate here I guess . +Marketing: That's what I'm that's what I'm talking about is is that we have to find something that is gonna be very attractive about this product 'cause somebody , some people are gonna be hap unhappy 'cause it took {disfmarker} they can't ac access their teletext . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause we're talking about {vocalsound} eighty percent or ninety percent or ninety-five percent of the televisions out there are are teletext . +Project Manager: K yeah . +Marketing: So so it's it's not that I'm criticizing the product at all . It's just when we eliminate that then what do we bring ? What are we bringing in to take the place of this , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: and we have to d {disfmarker} in my opinion we have to double up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we lose one we need to bring two or three . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay I think that the {vocalsound} last point is probably quite uh straightforward . Obviously the the {disfmarker} w it has to be branded . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: So then the double R_ will be our our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the product yeah . Can you handle that black and yellow ? +User Interface: I think one of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I tho I tho I thou I think Rol Ro Rolls-Royce might mind , but don't worry . +User Interface: I think w , yeah , one of the things that we should also keep in mind um when we're doing this {disfmarker} I mean our company's slogan is we put the fashion in electronics , right . So I think our kind of {disfmarker} our target here is to {vocalsound} have some kind of very like sleek {vocalsound} nice look remote and we want it to be functional as well , but I think one of the main selling points is that we don't want it to be clunky like like this thing here . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You know we don't wanna a big clunker . We want something that looks nice and it's fashionable and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you have this ? +Project Manager: Nah . So we have three presentations , and I think we'll go in order of participant number here . So we can have a look at the working design first from participant two . That's {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: That's fine . Okay so +Project Manager: Mm it's enough . But uh click it on off ? +User Interface: so you all know me , I'm the Industrial Designer . And we've some basic components that um our remote is gonna need , just basically every remote'll need 'em . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need some kinda of power d power source . Um we have to decide on our our user interface , which is his department , but the in user interface is also a major component . Um we need a programmable digital signal processor to um to take the input from the user and translate that into uh into electronic signal , which we pass to the infra-red L_E_D_ , which you aim at the television uh which {disfmarker} and it receives that signal . You need a on-off switch um I don't know how that got in there . And uh we also need to um have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if we want a universal remote we need to have encryption codes for the different makes of T_V_s . So we need to know all the different you know all the different signals and so that'll require some memory as well . Um so here's just a basic layout of how how the remote would work . You ha the v the power source is in the upper right-hand corner there , and you can see that uh we have the user interface here which is connected to the chip which does all our signal processing , and then passes that signal on to the infra-red L_E_D_ and that signal is then emitted and received by the television at the photo-transistor . So {vocalsound} those are the basic components that need to go into this and everything else is pretty much uh open to move around . +Marketing: Now is {disfmarker} would this be {vocalsound} considered just a standard uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think any des +Marketing: This is not this is not cutting edge technology we're talking here . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We're talking about existing technology . +User Interface: Right I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing is being modified or upgraded or new discoveries . +User Interface: Yeah this is just {disfmarker} this is just a basic layout of ev {vocalsound} of all the components that w w are gonna be absolutely necessary f to have a working remote . We can add things in like if we wanted some voice recognition , I mean that {vocalsound} I mean {vocalsound} that you can kinda say would {vocalsound} would fall under the user interface and the digital signal processing chip . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Do we have an idea of costs of different components ? +User Interface: Um well the most the most costly components are gonna be the chip and the uh th it could als basically the user interface and the casing are gonna be expensive as well . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um the L_E_D_ and the the transistors and everything else are you know they're they're pretty cheap . So depending on what we want our functionality to be , um the chip could be expensive or it could be cheap . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um depending on the n amount of memory we need in there and stuff like that and h and h {vocalsound} you know how much power . +Project Manager: Do we have any ballpark figures for that yet ? No . +User Interface: Uh I don't have any figures right now . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: We uh we have to wait until we get to a more specific design phase for that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but {disfmarker} and I think a significant part of the cost could be the actual the actual casing itself and and you know the the b the buttons and things like that , I think . +Marketing: N okay . Mm . Mm the shell ? +User Interface: Yeah . Basically yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . That's all I have really . +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks . And we have participant three , which I believe is Pedro . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can give you that to click on . +Industrial Designer: Hey mouse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you wanna get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When we're fighting over it's also more {disfmarker} lot more fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: View a slide show , that's what you wanna do , yeah ? Just go up to view . +User Interface: Click , don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: This doesn't work . {vocalsound} So yeah function design . Um you guys know me , Pedro , and um what I found is we want to do fashion and I think , honestly , we should keep technology low and just simple basically and try to aim for design . If basically a case will will cost the same if it looks good or bad so we ma we have to make it look good . Um something cute and small . The big chunky remotes are died in the eighties . So we should just go for something that people will like to actually look at . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um although mo most people will buy s televisions and everything for uh {disfmarker} that have loads of loads of little functions and everything and they mostly end up using simple functions and little things and most the people won't won't get too mad of actually having to go the {disfmarker} to the s to the television to , for instance , tune in their {disfmarker} the stations . There's no need to have that in the remote . So um um as for what I would recommend for uh the the interface design , and uh I will change the colours on the on the logo , but {vocalsound} um we should go for the user-oriented device , so simple controls and good ergonomics . Um and uh although I th I th I'm still here recommending the teletext so I'll remove that , I guess , but um we should go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I t I think what the {vocalsound} the management recommendation was less that there's a worry that teletext will become outdated rather than we shouldn't have it . So I I still think if it's cheap enough functionality-wise to include , it really should be in there . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise we're just going to {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} even if it's necessary or not , if you {disfmarker} if you're given the choice between a t a remote with teletext or without uh when it really {disfmarker} if it i {vocalsound} if it isn't more expensive for us to k make {disfmarker} because as far as I understand it , {vocalsound} it can be operated with the same set of buttons , yeah ? So it should be in there . +User Interface: Right as far as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: i it's just uh {vocalsound} the cost of an extra button . I mean software-wise there's really no difference . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have maybe a silly question . I {disfmarker} in the very beginning it said with the with the advent of computers there's gonna be the {disfmarker} it's gonna be out-moded teletext . I I don't understand how those two things are connected . How does how does computers and teletext {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} why is one eliminating the need of the other ? I don't understand that . +Project Manager: Well maybe what we're getting into here is the the idea of uh Internet through the T_V_ for example . So that might play on what we can do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the they're basically aiming at saying that {vocalsound} you would use {disfmarker} you know a couple of years ago teletext to be the easiest way to check like for uh uh the scheduling and the next programme and stuff like that +User Interface: Scheduling . Um to find out what what you're watching even if there's commercials you know . +Industrial Designer: and now {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and now you can c look it over Internet . But I still think teletext is way more convenient until until we have the same commodities . +User Interface: I think I ha I agree . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause , yeah , I just {disfmarker} I don't see the cross-over between computers and television . I mean I do see the cross-over in some sense , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's not happen yet . Yeah . +Marketing: but but but but with the {disfmarker} the remote is is used for television , okay . +User Interface: Well for me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you have digital T_V_ still already . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So so if we make the cross-over and we're gonna view television on computers then we're then we're losing the the necessity of the remote . S +User Interface: Unless you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there there is a {disfmarker} for example on digital T_V_ systems you have {disfmarker} you can press a button and you can buy things in adverts , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can uh you can view through a catalogue for example . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: A a family member of mine has got a system where you just um you can {disfmarker} Yeah , and there's other features for example on other systems where you can pause live T_V_ and things like that . They're just features from the Internet uh from computers are are coming into the T_V_ sort of under the covers , but you still use it through a teletext . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So now the things to think here are that that there's gonna be more functionality , potentially that we can handle . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we don't we're not aiming a command for that . That's the thing . And all of those require the other commands with more complexity and more software and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I think a lot of that's proprietary anyways . You're not gonna be able to , you , like command a TiVo with our remote . I don't think . +Project Manager: Mm . But still there there's an opportunity . If if it's {vocalsound} , for example , a trainable one then we're {vocalsound} just simply having like an up , down , left , right , an okay button or something like that might might do as well in future proofing it . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we would increase the price to try to make it a trainable one , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . One way the other teletext was there but I guess we can remove it or , you know , make two separate interface designs . +User Interface: I think if it's possible you should try to you know have a talk with management about that . Just you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I don't I don't see the logic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I I don't see the logic in elimination of teletext , I just I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and neither do I in fact . +Marketing: but I'm not a tech-mind either . I just don't see the cross-over between computers and and and +Project Manager: Bu uh . +Marketing: {disfmarker} 'Cause we are designing something for a television , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll communicate that back to those guys there a a and th the message really we wanna be sending to them is that , although teletext may become outdated w there's no l logic in not having it in there anyway i if it doesn't affect the price . +User Interface: Right it's just not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but I I think what they're pushing us towards here is in terms of thinking of ways to future-proof our system for future systems that have something else other than teletext maybe . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We are selling it to an existing market . +Project Manager: I dunno I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we're not putting some {disfmarker} there's no no putting anything in in the place of teletext . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: That's the problem . +Marketing: and and , yeah , and and we're also {vocalsound} marketing a product . It's {disfmarker} what I'm seeing is a is a mid-range cost product . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So so w we can't go and pump a whole bunch of technology into this thing +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because all of a sudden we are gonna have cost overruns . So if we drop {disfmarker} if we are gonna choose to drop teletext , again what are we adding to the product that makes it marketable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . So if we're keeping it basic we're loo loo what we're looking to sell it basically is it's uh just being very easy to use , looking exceptionally good , that sort of thing . 'Cause we really don't have anything else there , do we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't I don't see it , and to me if I'm gonna market a product for b for beauty for for design I'm gonna I'm gonna try to market it at a much higher price . I need to make it special with a high price tag . I don't want to make it economically uh g uh competitive . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I want I want to market it as exclusive . So I would market this product it {disfmarker} at eighty-nine Euros and come up with some really {vocalsound} beautiful exterior design or something th but but I don't think we have that flexibility . +Project Manager: But i if design if design is cheap and functionality is basic , then twenty-five Euros is probably a high price for a commoner garden {disfmarker} stan standard T_V_ so the place {disfmarker} uh remote the then the place we're going to justify that cost is through through design through making it a a sleek elegant {vocalsound} high-priced basic remote . Does that make sense , huh ? +Marketing: No I no I I understand what you say , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but what I'm what I'm , okay {disfmarker} we probably need to move along , +Project Manager: Yeah we probably should . +Marketing: but my my concern is trying to find a marketing niche for this product , +Project Manager: We we're doing alright for time . +Marketing: and if I'm coming in with a with with twenty-five Euros , which is mid-market price , um then what am I going to give these people for this ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's just my question , but we can keep talking . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorry that kinda cut into you there . +Industrial Designer: No just I I would I would advocate for continuing teletext and those would be the basic commands . Um as for , you know , the the case design uh maybe I'll come up with more concrete ideas . Right now it's just the idea of simplicity and slickness , cute and small um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I'm just thinking you know with all these universal remotes that are out there , how many people {vocalsound} how many people actually use every feature that ar you know i like these trainable remotes and things like that , where , you know , it's just so confusing to do {vocalsound} to use all these functions . Where I think the largest portion of the market is just gonna {disfmarker} you know they lost their T_V_ remote , they need another one that'll work with their T_V_ . They want something that looks nice , that that that isn't gonna break when they drop it , that you know that maybe it's it's ergonomic , it feels good in your hand , something like that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I think that's gonna be where you're gonna find the biggest , you know , market share . +Project Manager: So we are looking for something that looks good and just works , rather than looking for any special features . Is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the more bells and whistles we add , it's just gonna cut into our into our profits . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Because I think as we as we add costs for things like uh {disfmarker} for like if we add the voice recognition and things like that , I think {vocalsound} you know what percentage of the of the um of the market is actually gonna use that ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Maybe five percent , you know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: But we can talk a little bit more potentially in the marketing marketing presentation about this . +User Interface: and how much {disfmarker} Right . Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +User Interface: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Uh sorry , I didn't mean to cut in {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Sorry boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I'm not the boss {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Oh P Pedro , I just want to say quickly I I would really like it when you can come up with some more bells and whistles , eh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know sell uh {disfmarker} things come to my mind is uh uh something that's uh {vocalsound} um voice-activated . I know we're getting into some , I hope , some big money on this thing , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's probably a question more for for this guy here , yeah . +Marketing: Is that for over here ? +User Interface: Yeah . Well it's kinda both of us . +Marketing: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: Is it ? +User Interface: Us us user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause uh and I think of voice-activated I think of of {vocalsound} how many times I've I've lost my my remote and I can't find it . So some way that I can I can find my remote by clapping my hands or something +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I was thinking about that . Then your lights would go off , though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: uh and and so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this 's just something . I'm trying to find some bells and whistles 'cause when they talk about tel taking out teletext , it's like , what are we gonna put in ? What makes this thing attractive ? And it's only for televisions . So we {disfmarker} everyth our our competition out there has got these these multiple adaptors where they can use 'em for their V_C_R_s , their D_V_D_s , their {vocalsound} their televisions and we're coming out with one remote for television only . And so to me we have to make this a really special product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I I I don't s I really have to say I don't see the market niche for this product . At this price I don't see it yet . I'm {disfmarker} I I go along with this , because this is what we're given to try to market , but I I don't see the market niche for this product without without some really sort of something really special to identify it as as unique in the market . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we th that should be design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That should be the design basically . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: I think technology we'd we {disfmarker} we're not in the price range to do it . We don't have the money to do it towards t f technology so we should we should aim at design . +Marketing: Okay . Have to do {disfmarker} you have to do it in the box ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay well , so so that's up to you then to {vocalsound} to make this box in something that's absolutely extraordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe make it in the form of a gun . We can sell it in United States . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have a question uh for you . Does any of the um the features that Pedro's spoken about here have any implications we might not have thought about on in terms of just pure functionality ? In terms of making it work or the cost of that or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think all these things are pretty standard . I think we'll be okay . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . Cheers . Onto participant {vocalsound} four . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} you know for marketing f {vocalsound} marketing for me is uh {disfmarker} and uh how do I go here ? Okay . +User Interface: Mm you can just click . +Marketing: Go go . +User Interface: No no no +Marketing: Is that right ? +User Interface: you just get off that . You just click anywhere . +Marketing: Ah-ha . Yeah , what for me is it um {disfmarker} I d I don't know what I'm marketing right now , okay , 'til you spoke and when I wrote this , I don't know what I'm marketing . I just know that I I was identified as a a {disfmarker} we identified ourselves as a as a developer , as a manufacturer , and as a as a um distributor t to other wholesalers . And so the th the twenty-five Euros that we've identified as the sale price is a wholesale price rather than a retail price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: That's what we decided here . Um so what I did is I I decided that {vocalsound} that this this needs to be a product in a in a sense can market itself . So what we've identified here as our main marketing stratagem is is in design . We're making the most beautiful attractive uh whatever we decide it is . So that means we have about seven more minutes or ten minutes left . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} so I would like to have a product that that we can sell easily . So I say inspiration , so having something beauty , something attractive , uh something that in a sense will sell itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh innovation I think fits into what we're talking about here with design . Uh cutting edge technology , I don't think we're gonna have that , these were ideas I was putting together , um unless we come up with some New Age product a as far as the casing is concerned . I I wanna make this thing something that I can identify as special in some way , so maybe we can have some {disfmarker} I I talked about environmentally sensitive , uh maybe we have a product that can be identified in some way as advantageous in a home . I don't know . These are just thoughts . Uh I wanted to talk about uh who we are as a as a corporation , that we're new , we're aggressive , we're competitive , we're we're trying to provide a product from a new perspective rather than from an old corporate line . So to me it's about selling d uh our identity {disfmarker} our corporate identity along with the product . {vocalsound} Um what I found is that the projected costs are competitive . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh we're kind of in the middle of the market , but what I'm seeing is that the market is ready for {disfmarker} I I identified new technology , but again , because what I see is budget restrictions and limitations , I don't know that we can bring any new technology into this thing . If if we could have a technological something {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have an idea . +Marketing: Mm p please . +User Interface: And it's kind of {vocalsound} along the s lines of environmentally sensitive , and it may even fit into ergonomics , and even kind of address the issue of losing losing the remote , what we were saying it's a common issue . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what we can do is , well you know that batteries {disfmarker} throwing a aw remotes run through batteries like crazy . Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Solar . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} s for some people {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Well maybe not a solar remote but instead what about if we had like a power cradle ? +Marketing: But solar {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a a cradle that is is there to hold the remote when you're not using it , so you'll always know where the remote is 'cause you have to put it back there to charge the remote , and we can , instead of having instead of having , you know , replaceable batteries we'll just have a power cell that stays there for the life of the remote . You never have to get {disfmarker} go through the {disfmarker} go through {vocalsound} uh all these different batteries . And also you can {disfmarker} I I think it's a good opportunity for the user design {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} not just for the user design , but also for the {disfmarker} just for the look and feel of the remote as as a whole . You know you could have some kind of neat little , you know , {vocalsound} a sexy design for d a cradle and the remote itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Blah , I like it . I like the idea , but we're talking about {disfmarker} in cost is gonna probably double . +User Interface: It w it would increase the cost . +Marketing: But boy , we can sell this thing , because there's no batteries , it's environmentally sensitive , i we can identify it as a safer product in some form . +User Interface: And you could page the remote if you lose it . Maybe there's a button on the cradle . +Marketing: Yep , that's right . I really see +Project Manager: Now the the question is can we make this for less than twelve-fifty per ? +Marketing: But the cost i No no . No no , we have t we have to change the end cost . +Project Manager: We we well do we necessarily have to change the end cost because uh {vocalsound} Can we dl can we do that without {vocalsound} uh changing it twelve-fifty per product , if we basically can sell more based on this ? +Marketing: There's uh {disfmarker} I mean I don't see it anyway . Yeah , that's gonna be up to these guys . +User Interface: Well +Marketing: I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} my reaction is no , but +User Interface: {vocalsound} what I can do is I can d look into ho well Pedro and I can look into how much this might increase our our costs +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you can look into what kind of effect an increased cost is gonna have on our on our final numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah we we can certainly push for a more expensive product if that's gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , see I I {disfmarker} see I I'm an advocate to make this an exclusive product . You know , let's let's sell this wholesale for for fifty Euros , sixty Euros . Let's make this thing really exclusive , environmentally sensitive , uh high-tech design , uh ergonomics , all of this . Just make this thing uh , yeah , the the the Rolls Royce of of remote controls . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Every home's got to have it . If you don't have one , hey what kind of remote do you have ? Oh you've got one of those , oh fantastic , I want one of those too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just don't have enough money right now . +User Interface: I just don't know about that , because in order to do that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} in order to price it at that kind of level I think we'd need to have every functionality that all the other competitors are offering like being able to operate , you know , the D_V_D_ player and , you know , the stereo system and all that . Which is a pretty basic function that w we've opted out of . And additionally we're m maybe not supporting teletext um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , I think we can say with certainty now that we are supporting teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I do think there are some basic features that we don't have that a lot of other remotes are going to have . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep , one one thing I don't understand is h they've they've given us this package , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Now uh in my opinion we need to give them a package back , okay . They say they say okay here you go . They gave us a fundament a foundation of of what they want , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and and w it's our place to kinda analyse and evaluate . I don't think it's our place to create their product for them , maybe it is . I don't know what kind of role we have in this {disfmarker} in the corporate ladder uh , but to me it's like , okay , you have got your {disfmarker} here's our ideas , okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then let them look at those ideas and they say , yeah well , we can we can raise the price twenty percent , you know we like this idea , this idea no , but {vocalsound} to me it's it's about a choice , do we follow their directives or do we make uh presentations back and and then and then discuss ? beca I I do not {disfmarker} I do not see the market niche for the product that they're handing f handing us right now . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I don I I d +Marketing: I don't see it . +User Interface: I have to disagree though . I think our market niche is basically people who need {vocalsound} {disfmarker} who have lost their remote or uh who've broken their remote and don't wanna send back to the manufacturer , they just wanna run out to the store and get a remote , and then they're gonna look on the shelf and they're gonna see ours is the nicest looking remote . It does what they need . These aren't {disfmarker} I I think that it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and th to get to back to another point , sorry uh uh {vocalsound} for cutting in but , I th I think it's important to remember that that this remote has to work with multiple T_V_s , yeah , 'cause it's selling on its own . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: It's not going to be specifically for Hitachi T_V_s or or whatever . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: No I understand that . +Project Manager: So technologically , if I understand it , uh T_V_s {vocalsound} T_V_ remote's working exactly the same way as video remotes and D_V_D_ remotes . All you need to do is train them to the individual one , all you need to do is is know the the f like some four-digit code . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So saying that it works with all T_V_s is equivalent to saying that it'll work with D_V_D_s and other things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nope , they've identified the product as not working for anything but televisions . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y y you you wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: They've identified this product limita +Project Manager: We have done this . +Marketing: That's why I say I don't I don't see the market niche for this . +Industrial Designer: The interface will be different . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: If we if w if we were going to have a product that worked for D_V_D_s , V_C_R_s and everything , then I can see the market niche , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but we we're only identified as going for televisions without teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: And it's like whoa we ha in my opinion we have to go with something that's extremely exclusive to make this thing marketable , +User Interface: Well here's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I I'd {disfmarker} +Marketing: because who wants just a television remote ? +Project Manager: Mm sorry . +User Interface: Right . We he well here's my thing about that . +Marketing: I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you're in the market for this ultimate remote , you're not gonna go for just a television remote . If it can't control {disfmarker} if it can't control your your D_V_D_ player and a al if y if you can't get that all-in-one ultimate remote , that just {disfmarker} you can throw all your other remotes away . I'm not gonna buy a d seventy-five Euro remote . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} I I I have a tendency to agree with you . I really do . +Project Manager: So we really can't chase that . +Marketing: That's why I say I quest I q I question the marketability of the product . I really question where we create the demand . +User Interface: So I think what we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're really looking for something basic . +User Interface: So that's what I'm saying {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the one thing that that that you said really struck a chord with me here in that we're we're carrying the corporate identity with the product , but we're actually looking for a large profit at the same time where I'd be inclined to go back to upper-level management and say like let's just cut down our profit expected on this product because we are actually branding our company here . We're selling more than just the product . We're trying to get mind-share about uh Real Reaction to to the people who are gonna buy consumer electronics . We want people to eventually say , oh that's that's Real Reaction that's a good m make . It's reliable . And and we're gonna make it {disfmarker} we're gonna win mind-share by uh either being a fantastic product +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or for it working , it just being good , reasonable-priced , {vocalsound} and solid . So if we can make {disfmarker} if we can put an emphasis here on it not breaking I think that's in itself an extremely {vocalsound} big thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I think that's big . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} okay if you if you drop the cost , now if you make if you make {disfmarker} go to the other side of the cost scale , and you make it less expensive , then all of a sudden now we're going into an a a new market area . So we can say low-cost uh uh um uh good design , beautiful , wa-da-da-da-da-da . +Industrial Designer: Good design . +Project Manager: We only have a few minutes left . +Marketing: But what I'm saying is right now we're middle market . +Project Manager: Is twenty-five Euros a mid-market price for a remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: for for multi for a multi-function remote , that's a mid-market price . In a discount right now you can buy 'em on sale sometimes for about about uh eighteen , nineteen Euro , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and that's for the multi-functions , uh D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , uh catch-alls . And and they have 'em in a little box in the middle , and and this is the consciousness that most people have about replacement remote controls . So to me {vocalsound} , to market this a t only a television remote control we have to change consciousness . We have to have something that will change people's thinking to identify this as advantageous , and I don't know what that is . It's gotta be low-cost or high-cost with with special design features . +Project Manager: Well I'd be inclined to say , if we can make the design better than any comparable remote while reducing the cost , then that's the way we really should play it . If we can take it down to you know fifteen rather than twenty-five and make a low profit-margin on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we're really doing that to sell the brand . Yep we have five minutes left . Uh rather th uh to to to sell for Real Reactions . +Marketing: Or my d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I can communicate this to to the more senior {vocalsound} uh mm people within the company here to to get a reaction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about um the idea that I had with the cradle ? How do you feel about that ? +Project Manager: Well how does everybody feel ? +User Interface: Or how does everybody feel ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean I I {vocalsound} well we g we're talking about the other end now . +Project Manager: {gap} I I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like it . +User Interface: No , but I {disfmarker} that's the thing I I don't think it's necessarily the other end . +Marketing: I like the idea , but we have t we have to find out {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other the o the problem with that in my mind I just think off-hand as a as a consumer , would I wanna buy that ? And I think maybe not because I've got a remote and I'll take it to different chairs , I'll take it to different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I w I don't wanna go over somewhere and put it down . It {disfmarker} i if it is gonna be somewhere that you put it down then it needs to be at the side of your armchair , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and that implies that there's only one T_V_ user . So it's very good for some people but it's not a like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it lasts {disfmarker} it would last for several hours on its own power , but when you're done with it you put it back in the cradle . +Project Manager: But it it takes away the ease of use of the remote to a certain extent . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: You have to l sort of remember . +User Interface: well it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You have to d shift down the side of the couch to find it and put it back and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d I d I d I think it it {disfmarker} in my mind it doesn't seem like something that oh I'd really want uh because of that fact . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But I I don't know , that's just my opinion . +Marketing: Well , I think again it's it {disfmarker} we have a cost issue here . You know if we're gonna go in this direction , to me we're going to the other side of the cost range . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Are we gonna make this {disfmarker} selling selling the cost as a high high-tech uh um environmentally sensitive whatever , or are we gonna go to the lower side of the range ? {vocalsound} Again I don't see our market niche in the middle for our product yet . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: I don't see it yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what do we think maybe we should {disfmarker} Pedro , do you have any opinion on it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we should keep it simple , mm medium-low cost mar um cost area and uh make it look good . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} a question I have in in a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} 'cause I I I think I agree with you on , we gotta make it a box . The box is gonna sell it I think , the outside , the casing . +Project Manager: Really need to wrap up now . +Marketing: Can can can we have multiple designs ? Have a modern , have a traditional , have a {disfmarker} you know , and so so instead of them all looking the same , people can have maybe four or five different designs they can choose from . I don't know what that creates cost , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well the the problem with that is we may end up with a whole bunch of inventory of a of a poor design you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep one over another . Yeah , okay , I hear that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , complicated but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um but what we could do is some kind of {vocalsound} well I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we need to , I mean , have a few designs to look at and then come up with something that I think we all agree is , you know , the best fit . I think w what's really important is it has to look good , it has to feel {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has to feel good in your hand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it has to be durable , it has to a and I think it's really important that it doesn't look cheap . I think I think we have to make sure people look at it an and feel like it its like a quality remote . Even though the cost may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What ab what ab {disfmarker} what about a a remote that's {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} doesn't maybe look like a remote ? Just an idea . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just just okay 'cause I mean we all know what a remote looks like on the outside . They're selling these things everywhere . Maybe that could be part of our design exclusivity , is we make a remote that doesn't even look like a remote it it opens like a telephone . +User Interface: Or what if it looks like a pen ? +Marketing: Doesn't matter , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm just jus I talking about some {disfmarker} something to make this thing unique . +User Interface: A pointer ? +Marketing: It {disfmarker} That's the thing , I'm gonna keep thumping on . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'll sell whatever you guys design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a problem selling a product , that's not the issue . I give you ideas , you guys create the product . Once you have the finished product I'll find a way to sell it . Don't worry about it . I just give you these things now , because these are my thoughts and feelings . +User Interface: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: just {vocalsound} to touch on m my point one last time that I had brought up . Um I really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} un unless you guys are die-hard against the fact that um it's possible like it reduces the usability of the remote b and the fact that you can't lose it on your own , I think it still might be a good idea to investigate having like a power cradle . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Because I really think i in a certain sense it almost like {disfmarker} for me I would want to have that just , because I know at the end of when I'm done watching T_V_ that when I'm done , oh I better go find the remote and put it back where it belongs . Maybe th th th that's just some people that like that . +Project Manager: I mean there's al there's also remote controls I remember that that worked uh , this hasn't been done in a while I think , but th as a as a watch . +User Interface: A lot of people {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no . +User Interface: As a watch ? +Project Manager: Yeah , there is remote control watches um , +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: but I think they're a sorta eighties thing , so it might not be easy to market in it {disfmarker} uh but the the technologies came along and it might be cheaper to make now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are not simple . +Project Manager: Those things may have been inexpensive for all I know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: One thing I just thought about when you were saying that , is that the p our target market is gonna be someone who has lost or broken {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I was saying . +Marketing: We gotta stop ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Gotta cut up . +Marketing: Who's lost or broken their their remote . So {vocalsound} how many remotes do they wanna buy ? Can we p can we sell them a remote that can maybe guarantee they will not need to buy another one ? +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And so with with with this kind of system or locator or something , to to think about , how have people been been losing or breaking their remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: How does this happen ? +Project Manager: The last remote you'll ever buy . +User Interface: And also presumably they've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and then and then design the product , maybe some component of the product that can identify this as the last one you'll ever need to buy . +Project Manager: Well if if we're going down that then we can {disfmarker} we don't need to go the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: it it strikes me that the locator feature might actually be uh quite expensive to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Whereas actually just putting it in a power cradle might not be too expensive at all because that's just done with mobile phones +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: you can just n we we have said we have actually similar products that we can take from and potentially cut costs there . +User Interface: Right . Yeah . The locator'll definitely be more expensive . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um need to look into whether we can do that but uh I think we we have some m mobile phone-based products uh checking quickly our Internet . We really need to finish up here . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} uh {disfmarker} we can make it in the shape of a coffee pot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we have the {gap} the power-adaptor products . We sell power-adaptor products . So for example there's nothing stopping us using that technology . +Marketing: It's uh just it's that I think it's telling us to stop our meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we have the c we probably have have on-line in our in our system , we have the ability to create this , we're talking about . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so , +Marketing: A charging system . +Project Manager: without it being too {disfmarker} In fact we can cut costs through using the manufacturing that's already gonna be in place here . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: If if we can create this we have probably five or six or seven really strong marketing characteristics . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think one of the things that we can put right on the box is , never buy another battery . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: You know , something like that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: No that's not what I want , I want {disfmarker} Oh look it here . +","Summary of the conversation: + +The project team discussed the development of a new functional remote control design and its marketability. The Project Manager started the meeting with an agenda and established that they would take minutes. They then reviewed an email from upper management and addressed additional points for consideration. + +Marketing raised concerns about the potential lack of teletext in the new product, considering it a staple feature that customers expect. However, the Project Manager pointed out that teletext is becoming outdated and there could be an opportunity to innovate with internet functionality. + +The Industrial Designer emphasized designing a remote that focuses on aesthetics and simplicity. They suggested that while consumers may buy advanced products with multiple functions, they often gravitate towards using basic functions. + +The User Interface designer shared the basic components and functionalities a remote should have, sparking a discussion about the cost of components and the importance of keeping the design sleek and not clunky in line with the company's image. + +Marketing stressed the need for the product to stand out if teletext is to be removed, suggesting the need for attractive features to target the market effectively. + +The team discussed various aspects of the remote including its branding, the appearance, and possible features like voice recognition and paging systems to locate a misplaced remote. They also considered environmental sensitivity and ergonomics, as well as the strategy to make the remote part of the company's brand identity. + +A possible power cradle as a charge station for the remote was suggested to reduce the need for batteries, making the product environmentally friendly and easier to locate. + +There were discussions on ensuring the remote had a high-quality feel, whether it should target solely premium customers or be affordable for a larger market, and it was suggested that perhaps a remote shouldn't even look like a traditional remote. + +The meeting concluded with a general consensus to investigate if a power cradle was feasible, focusing on creating a well-designed, durable product that potentially didn't need battery replacements. They discussed finding a strong marketing angle for the remote, either as a low-cost, attractive option or as a higher-cost, exclusive product." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Hmm . Testing channel two . +Grad E: Two , two . +Grad C: Two . +Grad E: Two . Oh . +Grad D: Hello ? +Grad B: Hmm ? Yeah Thank You . OK Well , so Ralf and Tilman are here . +Professor F: OK . Great . Great . +Grad B: Made it safely . +Professor F: So the {disfmarker} what w we h have been doing i they would like us all to read these digits . But we don't all read them but a couple people read them . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Uh , wanna give them all with German accents today or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Sure . +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: OK and the way you do it is you just read the numbers not as uh each single , so just like I do it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . First you read the transcript number . Turn . +Grad D: OK , uh {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Let 's be done with this . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: OK . this is Ami , who {disfmarker} And this is Tilman and Ralf . +PhD A: Hi . Uh - huh . Nice to meet you . +Grad D: Hi . +Professor F: Hi . OK . So we 're gonna try to finish by five so people who want to can go hear Nancy Chang 's talk , uh downstairs . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: And you guys are g giving talks on tomorrow and Wednesday lunch times , +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: right ? That 's great . OK so , do y do you know what we 're gonna do ? +Grad B: I thought two things uh we 'll introduce ourselves and what we do . And um we already talked with Andreas , Thilo and David and some lines of code were already written today and almost tested and just gonna say we have um again the recognizer to parser thing where we 're working on and that should be no problem and then that can be sort of developed uh as needed when we get {disfmarker} enter the tourism domain . em we have talked this morning with the {disfmarker} with Tilman about the generator . +PhD A: S +Grad B: and um There one of our diligent workers has to sort of volunteer to look over Tilman 's shoulder while he is changing the grammars to English +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because w we have {disfmarker} we face two ways . Either we do a syllable concatenating um grammar for the English generation which is sort of starting from scratch and doing it the easy way , or we simply adopt the ah um more in - depth um style that is implemented in the German system and um are then able not only to produce strings but also the syntactic parse uh not parse not the syntactic tree that is underneath in the syntactic structure which is the way we decided we were gonna go because A , it 's easier in the beginning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and um it does require some {disfmarker} some knowledge of {disfmarker} of those grammars and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some ling linguistic background . But um it shouldn't be a problem for anyone . +Professor F: OK So That sounds good . Johno , are you gonna have some time t to do that uh w with these guys ? +Grad E: Sure . +Professor F: cuz y you 're the grammar maven . +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: I mean it makes sense , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor F: doesn't it ? Yeah Good . OK . So , I think that 's probably the {disfmarker} the right way to do that . And an Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I actually wanna f to find out about it too , but I may not have time to get in . +Grad B: the {disfmarker} the ultimate goal is that before they leave we {disfmarker} we can run through the entire system input through output on at least one or two sample things . And um and by virtue of doing that then in this case Johno will have acquired the knowledge of how to extend it . Ad infinitum . When needed , if needed , when wanted and so forth . +Professor F: OK that sounds great . +Grad B: And um also um Ralf has hooked up with David and you 're gonna continue either all through tonight or tomorrow on whatever to get the er parser interface working . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: They are thinning out and thickening out lattices and doing this kind of stuff to see what works best . +Grad D: Mmm , yep . +Professor F: Great . So , you guys enjoy your weekend ? +PhD A: Yes , very much so . +Grad D: Yeah , very much +Professor F: OK , before {disfmarker} before you got put to work ? +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Great . OK , so that 's {disfmarker} Sort of one branch is to get us caught up on what 's going on . Also of course it would be really nice to know what the plans are , in addition to what 's sort of already in code . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: and we can d I dunno w w was there uh a time when we were set up to do that ? It probably will work better if we do it later in the week , after {pause} we actually understand uh better what 's going on . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So when do you guys leave ? +PhD A: Um we 're here through Sunday , +Grad D: Oh +PhD A: so All through Friday would be fine . +Professor F: Oh , OK , so {disfmarker} OK , So {disfmarker} so anyt we 'll find a time later in the week to uh get together and talk about {pause} your understanding of what SmartKom plans are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and how we can change them . +PhD A: Yes . Sure . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: Should we already set a date for that ? Might be beneficial while we 're all here . +Professor F: OK ? um What {disfmarker} what does not work for me is Thursday afternoon . I can do earlier in the day on Thursday , or {pause} um {pause} most of the time on Friday , not all . +Grad B: Thursday morning sounds fine ? +Professor F: Wha - but , Johno , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: what are your constraints ? +Grad E: um Thursday afternoon doesn't work for me , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Neither does Thursday morning , no ? +Grad E: Uh Thursday morning should be fine . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Eleven ? Eleven on Thursday ? +Grad E: I was just thinking I w I will {pause} have {pause} leavened by eleven . +Professor F: Right . Right . This is then out of deference to our non - morning people . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . So at eleven ? +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Thursday around eleven ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . And actually we can invite um Andreas as well . +Grad B: Uh he will be in Washington , though . +Professor F: Oh that 's true . He 's off {disfmarker} off on his trip already . +Grad B: but um David is here and he 's actually knows everything about the SmartKom recognizer . +Professor F: Thilo . OK well yeah maybe we 'll see if David could make it . That would be good . +Grad B: OK so facing to {disfmarker} to what we 've sort of been doing here um well for one thing we 're also using this room to collect data . +PhD A: Yeah obviously . +Grad B: um um Not this type of data , +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: no not meeting data but sort of {disfmarker} sort ah our version of a wizard experiment such not like the ones in Munich but pretty close to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: The major difference to the Munich ones is that we do it via the telephone +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: even though all the recording is done here and so it 's a {disfmarker} sort of a computer call system that gives you tourist information +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: tells you how to get places . And it breaks halfway through the experiment and a human operator comes on . and part of that is sort of trying to find out whether people change their linguistic verbal behavior when first thinking they speak to a machine and then to a human . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and we 're setting it up so that we can {disfmarker} we hope to implant certain intentions in people . For example um we have first looked at a simple sentence that "" How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? "" OK so you have the {disfmarker} castle of Heidelberg +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: and there is a tower and it 's called Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Oh , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: and um so What will you parse out of that sentence ? Probably something that we specified in M - three - L , that is @ @ {comment} "" action go to whatever domain , object whatever Powder - Tower "" . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: And maybe some model will tell us , some GPS module , in the mobile scenario where the person is at the moment . And um we 've sort of gone through that once before in the Deep Mail project and we noticed that first of all what are {disfmarker} I should 've brought some slides , but what our {disfmarker} So here 's the tower . Think of this as a two - dimensional representation of the tower . And our system led people here , to a point where they were facing a wall in front of the tower . There is no entrance there , but it just happens to be the closest point of the road network to the geometric center Because that 's how the algorithm works . So we took out that part of the road network as a hack and then it found actually the way to the entrance . which was now the closest point of the road network to +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , geometric center . But what we actually observed in Heidelberg is that most people when they want to go there they actually don't want to enter , because it 's not really interesting . They wanna go to a completely different point where they can look at it and take a picture . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And so what uh uh a s you s let 's say a simple parse from a s from an utterance won't really give us is what the person actually wants . Does he wanna go there to see it ? Does he wanna go there now ? Later ? How does the person wanna go there ? Is that person more likely to want to walk there ? Walk a scenic route ? and so forth . There are all kinds of decisions that we have identified in terms of getting to places and in terms of finding information about things . And we are constructing {disfmarker} and then we 've identified more or less the extra - linguistic parameters that may f play a role . Information related to the user and information related to the situation . And we also want to look closely on the linguistic information that what we can get from the utterance . That 's part of why we implant these intentions in the data collection to see whether people actually phrase things differently whether they want to enter in order to buy something or whether they just wanna go there to look at it . And um so the idea is to construct uh um suitable interfaces and a belief - net for a module that actually tries to guess what the underlying intention {pause} was . And then enrich or augment the M - three - L structures with what it thought what more it sort of got out of that utterance . So if it can make a good suggestion , "" Hey ! "" you know , "" that person doesn't wanna enter . That person just wants to take a picture , "" cuz he just bought film , or "" that person wants to enter because he discussed the admission fee before "" . Or "" that person wants to enter because he wants to buy something and that you usually do inside of buildings "" and so forth . These ah these types of uh these bits of additional information are going to be embedded into the M - three - L structure in an {disfmarker} sort of subfield that we have reserved . And if the action planner does something with it , great . If not you know , then that 's also something um that we can't really {disfmarker} at least we {comment} want to offer the extra information . We don't really {disfmarker} um we 're not too worried . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} t s Ultimately if you have {disfmarker} if you can offer that information , somebody 's gonna s do something with it sooner or later . That 's sort of part of our belief . +Grad E: What was he saying ? +Grad B: Um , for example , right now I know the GIS from email is not able to calculate these viewpoints . So that 's a functionality that doesn't exist yet to do that dynamically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but if we can offer it that distinction , maybe somebody will go ahead and implement it . Surely nobody 's gonna go ahead and implement it if it 's never gonna be used , so . What have I forgotten about ? Oh yeah , how we do it , +Professor F: Well th uh +Grad B: yeah that 's the +Professor F: No no . It 's a good time to pause . I s I see {pause} questions on peoples ' faces , so why don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Let 's hear {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well the obvious one would be if {disfmarker} if you envision this as a module within SmartKom , where exactly would that Sit ? That 's the d +Grad B: um {disfmarker} so far I 've thought of it as sort of adding it onto the modeler knowledge module . +PhD A: OK , yeah . +Grad B: So this is one that already adds additional information to the +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Makes perfect sense . Yes . +Grad D: Hmm , ah . +Grad B: but it could sit anywhere in the attention - recognition I mean basically this is what attention - recognition literally sort of can {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it 's supposed to do . Yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's what it should do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Right , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: Huh . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well f from my understanding of what the people at Phillips were originally trying to do doesn't seem to quite fit into SmartKom currently so what they 're really doing right now is only selecting among the alternatives , the hypotheses that they 're given enriched by the domain knowledge and the um discourse modeler and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if this is additional information that could be merged in by them . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then it would be available to action planning and {disfmarker} and others . +Grad B: Yeah . the {disfmarker} +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's That w OK that was one question . Is there other {disfmarker} other things that cuz {pause} we wanna not Pa - pass over any {pause} you know , questions or concerns that you have . +PhD A: Well there 're {disfmarker} there 're two levels of {disfmarker} of giving an answer and I guess on both levels I don't have any um further questions . +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: uh the {disfmarker} the two levels will be as far as I 'm concerned as {pause} uh standing here for the generation module +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and the other is {disfmarker} is my understanding of what SmartKom uh is supposed to be +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I think that fits in perfectly +Professor F: So {disfmarker} well , let me {disfmarker} Let me s {pause} expand on that a little bit from the point of view of the generation . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So the idea is that we 've actually got this all laid out an and we could show it to you ig um Robert didn't bring it today but there 's a {disfmarker} a belief - net which is {disfmarker} There 's a first cut at a belief - net that {disfmarker} that doesn't {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} isn't fully uh instantiated , and in particular some of the {disfmarker} the combination rules and ways of getting the {disfmarker} the conditional probabilities aren't there . But we believe that we have laid out the fundamental decisions in this little space +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the things that influence them . So one of the decisions is what we call this AVE thing . Do you want to um access , view or enter a thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: So that 's a a discrete decision . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There are only three possibilities and the uh {disfmarker} what one would like is for this uh , knowledge modeling module to add which of those it is and give it to the planner . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , uh th the current design suggests that if it seems to be an important decision and if the belief - net is equivocal so that it doesn't say that one of these is much more probable than the other , then an option is to go back and ask for the information you want . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Alright ? Now there are two ways one can go {disfmarker} a imagine doing that . For the debugging we 'll probably just have a {disfmarker} a drop - down menu and the {disfmarker} while you 're debugging you will just {disfmarker} OK . But for a full system , then one might very well formulate a query , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: give it to the dialogue planner and say this , you know ar are you know you {disfmarker} are you planning to enter ? Or whatever it {disfmarker} whatever that might be . So that 's {disfmarker} under that model then , There would be a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} um a loop in which this thing would formulate a query , +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: presumably give it to you . That would get expressed and then hopefully you know , you 'd get an answer {pause} back . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: And that would of course {disfmarker} the answer would have to be parsed . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor F: right and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: OK so , {pause} th {pause} that uh , We probably won't do this early on , because the current focus is more on the decision making and stuff like that . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: But While we 're on the subject I just wanted to give you a sort of head 's up that it could be that some months from now we said "" OK we 're now ready to try to close that loop "" in terms of querying about some of these decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yep . So {disfmarker} my suggestion then is that you um look into the currently ongoing discussion about how the action plans are supposed to look like . And they 're currently um Agreeing or {disfmarker} or in the process of agreeing on an X M L - ification of um something like a state - transition network of how dialogues would proceed . and {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} these um transition networks uh will be what the action planner interprets in a sense . +Professor F: Hmm . D did you know this Robert ? +Grad B: uh Michael is doing that , right ? +PhD A: Well uh Marcus Lerkult is actually implementing that stuff and Marcus and Michael together are um leading the discussion there , yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor F: So we ha we have to get in on that . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: because um partly those are like X - schemas . +PhD A: Definitely . +Professor F: the transition diagrams . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor F: And it may be that {disfmarker} that um we should early on make sure that they have the flexibility that we need . +Grad B: Hmm . But they uh Have I understood this right ? They {disfmarker} they govern more or less the {disfmarker} the dialogue behavior or the action {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It 's not really what you do with the content of the dialogue but it 's So , I mean there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this nice interf +Grad D: uh , No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's also a quantrant uh uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: i Is it {disfmarker} +Professor F: So there 's ac so there {disfmarker} th the word "" action "" , OK , is {disfmarker} is what 's ambiguous here . +Grad D: I think . Hmm . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: So , um one thing is there 's an actual planner that tells the person in the tourist domain now , +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: per tells the person how to go , "" First go here , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: first go there uh , you know , take a bus "" , whatever it is . So that 's that form of planning , and action , and a route planner and GIS , all sort of stuff . uh But I think that isn't what you mean . +PhD A: No . No , in SmartKom terminology that 's um called a function that 's modeled by a function modeler . And it 's th that 's completely um encapsulated from th the dialogue system . That 's simply a functionality that you give data as in a query and then you get back from that mmm , a functioning model um which might be a planner or a VCR or whatever . um some result and that 's then {disfmarker} then used . +Professor F: Well , OK , so that 's what I thought . So action he action here means dia uh speech ac uh you know dialogue act . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , in that {disfmarker} in that sense +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD A: yes , dialogue act , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor F: Um , I think tha I think it 's not going to {disfmarker} I think that 's not going to be good enough . I I don what uh {disfmarker} what I meant by that . So I think the idea of having a , you know , transition diagram for the grammar of conversations is a good idea . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK ? And I think that we do hav definitely have to get in on it and find out {disfmarker} OK . But I think that um when {disfmarker} so , when you get to the tourist domain it 's not just an information retrieval system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Clearly . Yes . +Professor F: Right ? So this i this is where I think this {disfmarker} people are gonna have to think this through a bit more carefully . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , if it 's only like in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the film and T V thing , OK , you can do this . And you just get information and give it to people . But what happens when you actually get them moving and so forth and so on +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Uh , y y your {disfmarker} I d I think the notion of this as a self contained uh module you know th the functional module that {disfmarker} that interacts with {disfmarker} with where the tourism g stuff is going {comment} probably is too restrictive . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Now I dunno how much people have thought ahead to the tourist domain in this +PhD A: Probably not enough , I mean an {disfmarker} another uh more basic point there is that the current um tasks and therefore th the concepts in this ac what 's called the action plan and what 's really the dialogue manager . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD A: um is based on slots that have to be filled and the um kind of values in these slots would be fixed things like the a time or a movie title or something like this +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: whereas in the a um tourist domain it might be an entire route . Set - based , or even very complex structured information in these slots +Professor F: Indeed . Right . +PhD A: and I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if complex slots of that type are really um being taken into consideration . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really something we +Professor F: Could you {disfmarker} could you put a message into the right place to see if we can at least ask that question ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: I mean nothing 's being completely settled there +Grad B: rea yep +PhD A: so this is really an ongoing discussion +Grad B: Mm - hmm +PhD A: and that 's +Grad B: yeah and um it might actually OK ah also {disfmarker} because um again in in Deep Map we have faced and implemented those problems once already +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: maybe we can even shuffle some know how from there to to Markus and Michael . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: And um mmm You don't know {disfmarker} OK th I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to Michael it 's what I do anyway . Who {disfmarker} How far is the uh the {disfmarker} the M - three - L specification for {disfmarker} for the la natural language input gone on the {disfmarker} the uh I haven't seen anything for the uh tourist path domain . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not defined yet . +Grad B: And um you are probably also involved in that , +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: right ? uh together with the usual gang , um Petra and Jan +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah , there 's a meeting next next week I think +Grad B: OK because That 's {disfmarker} Those are the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the true key issues is how does the whatever comes out of the language input pipeline look like and then what the action planner does with it {disfmarker} and how that is uh specified . I didn't think of the internal working of the uh the action planner and the language {disfmarker} uh the function model as sort of relevant . Because what {disfmarker} what they take is sort of this {disfmarker} this fixed representation of a {disfmarker} of an intention . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And that can be as detailed or as crude as you want it to be . But um the internal workings of of the {disfmarker} whether you know there 're dialogue {disfmarker} action planners that work with belief - nets that are action planners that work with you know state automata . So that shouldn't really matter too much . I mean it does matter because it does have to keep track of you {disfmarker} we are on part six of r a route that consists of eight steps and so forth +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: Yeah , th there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are a lot of reasons why it matters . OK , so that uh , for example , the i it 's the action planner is going to take some spec and s make some suggestions about what the user should do . What the user says after that is going to be very much caught up with what the action planner told it . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: If the {disfmarker} If the parser and the language end doesn't know what the person 's been told OK th it 's you 're making your life much more difficult than it has to be . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right ? So if someone says the best t to uh go there is by taxi , let 's say . Now the planner comes out and says you wanna get there fast , take a taxi . OK . And the language end doesn't know that . OK , there 's all sorts of dialogues that won't make any sense which would be just fine . +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: uh +PhD A: That would b but that {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that uh point has been realized and it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really um been defined yet but there 's gonna be some kind of feedback and input from uh the action planner into all the analysis modules , telling them what to expect and what the current state of the discourse is . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Beyond what 's currently being implemented which is just word lists . +Professor F: Yeah , but this is not the st this is not just the state of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of special interest . +Professor F: This is actually the state of the plan . That 's why +PhD A: Yes , Yes , Mm - hmm yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK so it {disfmarker} z and s uh , It 's great if people are already taking that into account . But One would have t have to see {disfmarker} see the details . +PhD A: The specifics aren't really there yet . Yes . So , there 's work to do there . +Professor F: Yeah . So anyway , Robert , that 's why I was thinking that +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: um I think you 're gonna need {disfmarker} We talked about this several times that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the input end is gonna need a fair amount of feedback from the planning end . +PhD A: hmm +Professor F: In {disfmarker} in one of these things which are {disfmarker} are much more continuous than the {disfmarker} just the dialogue over movies and stuff . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: And even on {disfmarker} on a more basic level the {disfmarker} the action planner actually needs to be able to have um an expressive power that can deal with these structures . And not just um say um {disfmarker} um the dialogue um will consist of ten possible states and th these states really are fixed in {disfmarker} in a certain sense . +Professor F: Hmm ? +PhD A: You have to {disfmarker} +Professor F: Would there be any chance of getting the terminology changed so that the dialogue planner was called a "" dialogue planner "" ? Because there 's this other thing The o There 's this other thing in {disfmarker} in the tourist domain which is gonna be a route planner +PhD A: That 'd be nice . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} It 's really gonna be an action planner . And {comment} i it {disfmarker} +PhD A: It oughta be called a {disfmarker} a dialogue manager . cuz that 's what everybody else calls it . +Professor F: I would think , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Huh ? So , s So what would happen if we sent a note saying "" Gee we 've talked about this and couldn't we change this uh th the whole word ? "" I have no idea how complicated these things are . +Grad B: Probably close to impossible . +PhD A: Depends on who you talk to how . We 'll see . I 'll go check , cause I completely agree . Yeah , +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and I think this is just for historical reasons within uh , the preparation phase of the project and not because somebody actually believes it ought to be action planner . So if there is resistance against changing it , that 's just because "" Oh , We don't want to change things . "" That {disfmarker} that not deep reason +Professor F: OK , anyway . I if {disfmarker} if that c in persists then we 're gonna need another term . for the thing that actually does the planning of the uh routes and whatever we are doing for the tourist . +Grad B: That 's external services . +Professor F: Yeah , but that 's not g eh tha That ha has all the wrong connotations . it 's {disfmarker} it sounds like it 's you know stand alone . It doesn't interact , it doesn't That 's why I 'm saying . I think you can't {disfmarker} it 's fine for looking up when T you know when the show 's on TV . You go to th but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's really {disfmarker} really wrong headed for something that you {disfmarker} that has a lot of state , it 's gonna interact co in a complicated way with the uh understanding parts . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah I think just the {disfmarker} the spatial planner and the route planner I showed you once the interac action between them among them in the deep map system +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: so {disfmarker} a printout of the communication between those two fills up I don't know how many pages +PhD A: Hmm +Grad B: and that 's just part of how do I get to one place . It 's really insane . and uh but um so this is um definitely a good point to get uh Michael into the discussion . Or to enter his discussion , actually . +PhD A: Yeah , Marcus . +Grad B: That 's the way around . Markus +PhD A: Wh - where 's ? +Grad B: Is he new in the {disfmarker} in the ? +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he started um I think January . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD A: And he 's gonna be responsible for the implementation of this action planner . Dialogue manager . +Grad B: Is he gonna continue with the old {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} thing ? +PhD A: No , no he 's completely gonna rewrite everything . In Java . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: OK so that 's interesting . +Grad B: Yes I was just {disfmarker} that 's my next question +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: whether we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna stick to Prolog or not . +PhD A: No . No , that 's gonna be phased out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK But I do think the {disfmarker} the function modeling concept has a certain {disfmarker} makes sense in a {disfmarker} in a certain light +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: because the action planner should not be {disfmarker} or the dialogue manager in that case should not um w have to worry about whether it 's interfacing with um something that does route planning in this way or that way +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: I I totally agree . +Grad B: huh , +Professor F: Sure . +Grad B: it j +Professor F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I agree . There is {disfmarker} there 's a logic to dialogue which {disfmarker} which is {disfmarker} is separable . I Yeah . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} cant {disfmarker} sort of formulate its what it wants in a {disfmarker} in a rather a abstract uh way , you know f "" Find me a good route for this . "" +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It doesn't really have to worry ab how route planner A or how route planner B actually wants it . So this is {disfmarker} seemed like a good idea . In the beginning . +Professor F: It 's tricky . It 's tricky because one could well imagine {disfmarker} I think it will turn out to be the case that uh , this thing we 're talking about , th the extended n uh knowledge modeler will fill in some parameters about what the person wants . One could well imagine that the next thing that 's trying to fill out the detailed uh , route planning , let 's say , will also have questions that it would like to ask the user . You could well imagine you get to a point where it 's got a {disfmarker} a choice to make and it just doesn't know something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so y you would like it t also be able to uh formulate a query . And to run that back through uh . the dialogue manager and to the output module and back around . +Grad B: hmm +Professor F: And a I a a good design would {disfmarker} would allow that to happen . +Grad B: a lot of , yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: If {disfmarker} if you know if {disfmarker} if you can't make it happen then you {disfmarker} you do your best . +PhD A: Yeah but that doesn't necessarily contradict um an architecture where there really is a pers a def well - defined interface . and {disfmarker} and +Professor F: I totally agree . But {disfmarker} but what it nee but th what the point is the in that case the dialogue manager is sort of event driven . So the dialogue manager may think it 's in a dialogue state of one sort , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and this {disfmarker} one of these planning modules comes along and says "" hey , right now we need to ask a question "" . So that forces the dialogue manager to change state . +PhD A: Yes +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: Sure , +Professor F: It could be y +PhD A: ye yeah I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the um concept that people have , +Professor F: Yeah , yeah it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD A: yep . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the underlying idea of course is that there is something like kernel modules with kernel functionality that you can plug uh certain applications like tourist information or um the home scenario with uh controlling a VCR and so on . And then extend it to an arbitrary number of applications eventually . So {disfmarker} wouldn't That 's an additional reason to have this well - defined interface and keep these things like uh tourist information external . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And then call it external services . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: But of course the {disfmarker} the more complex {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , there is another philosophical issue that I think you know you can {disfmarker} evade +PhD A: yep . +Grad B: but , at at least it makes sense to me that sooner or later uh {disfmarker} a service is gonna come and describe itself to you . and that 's sort of what Srini is working on in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the DAML uh project where um you {disfmarker} you find a GIS about {disfmarker} that gives you information on Berkeley , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be there and tell you what it can do and how it wants to do things . and so you can actually interface to such a system without ever having met it before and the function modeler and a self - description of the um external service haggle it out +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: and you can use the same language core , understanding core to interface with planner - A , planner - B , planner - C and so forth . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Which is , you know , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} utopian {disfmarker} completely utopian at the moment , but slowly , you know , getting into the realm of the uh contingent . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: But we are facing of course much more um realistic problems . And language input for example , is of course uh crucial you know also when you do the sort of deep understanding analysis that we envision . um Then of course , the uh um , you know what is it {disfmarker} poverty of the stimulus , yet the m uh the less we get of that the better . and um so we {disfmarker} we 're thinking , for example how much syntactic analysis actually happens already in the parser . and whether one could interface to that potentially +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , are there currently is uh no syntactic analysis but in the next release there will be some . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: unless +Professor F: How 's it {disfmarker} +Grad D: and it 's um uh you can access this +Professor F: S so uh y we {disfmarker} we looked at the e current pattern matching thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: And as you say it 's just a surface pattern matcher . Uh , So what are {disfmarker} what are the plans roughly ? +Grad D: um it 's to {disfmarker} to integrate and syntactic analysis . and um add some more features like segmentation . So then an utter more than one utterance is {disfmarker} There um there 's often uh pause between it and a segmentation occurs . um +Professor F: So , the um {disfmarker} So the idea is to uh {disfmarker} have a pa y y a particular {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah +Professor F: Do you have a particular parser in mind ? Is it uh {disfmarker} partic d I mean have you thought through {disfmarker} ? Is it an HPSG parser ? Is it a whatever ? +Grad D: No {disfmarker} no it 's {disfmarker} uh I think it 's it 's totally complicated for it 's just one {disfmarker} one person +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: and so I have to keep the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , you have to do it . You have to do it , +Grad D: Yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: ah and so {vocalsound} things must be simpler +Professor F: I see , +Grad D: but uh , Miel syntactic analysis with um finite state transducers . +Professor F: so But the people at D F Yeah . People at DFKI have written a fair number of parsers . Other {disfmarker} you know , people over the years . uh have written various parsers at DFKI . None of them are suitable ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I 'm asking . I don't know . +Grad D: Yeah , uh the problem is th that it has to be very fast because um if you want to for more than one path anywhere +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: what 's in the latches from the speech recognizer +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it 's speed is crucial . uh And they are not fast enough . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And they also have to be very robust . cuz of um speech recognition errors and +Professor F: OK . So , um {disfmarker} So there was a chunk parser in Verbmobil , that was one of the uh branchers . You know they {disfmarker} d th I c There were these various uh , competing uh syntax modules . And I know one of them was a chunk parser and I don't remember {pause} who did that . +Grad B: A Alan ? +Grad D: I think it 's that might , at Tuebingen I thought . +Professor F: Yeah I d I don't remember . +Grad D: was {disfmarker} Do you know something about that ? +PhD A: Tubingen was at least involved in putting the chunks together +Grad D: In Tub - at {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} can't quite recall whether they actually produced the chunks in the first place . +Grad D: oh +Professor F: Uh . I see . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Or wh +Grad D: Oh from {disfmarker} from Stuttgart , +Professor F: There w That 's right . They w They had {disfmarker} There were {disfmarker} This was done with a two phase thing , where {comment} the chunk parser itself was pretty stupid +Grad D: yeah , also +Professor F: and then there was a kind of trying to fit them together that h used more context . +PhD A: Right . Yeah +Professor F: Right ? +PhD A: Well you s and {disfmarker} and especially you did some {disfmarker} some um , l um was a learning - based approach which learned from a big corpus of {disfmarker} of trees . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: And yes the {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the chunk parser was a finite - state machine that um Mark Light originally w worked on in {disfmarker} while he was in Tuebingen +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and then somebody else in Tuebingen picked that up . So it was done in Tuebingen , yeah . Definitely . +Professor F: But is that the kind of thing y It sounds like the kind of thing that you were thinking of . +PhD A: Yeah I guess it 's similar . +Grad D: yeah . yeah that 's In this direction , yes +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's in {disfmarker} in this direction . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} +Professor F: Hmm . +Grad B: From Michael Strube , I 've heard very good stuff about the chunk parser that is done by FORWISS , uh , which is in embassy doing the parsing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So this is sort of {disfmarker} came as a surprise to me that you know , embassy s {comment} is featuring a nice parser but it 's {pause} what I hear . One could also look at that and see whether there is some synergy possible . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , yeah , it would be very interesting , Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad B: And they 're doing chunk parsing and it 's uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can give you the names of the people who do it there . But um . Then there is of course more ways of parsing things . +Professor F: Of course . But {disfmarker} But uh given th the constraints , that you want it to be small and fast and so forth , my guess is you 're probably into some kind of chunk parsing . And uh I 'm not a big believer in this um statistical you know , cleaning up uh It {disfmarker} That seems to me kind of a last resort if uh you can't do it any other way . uh but I dunno . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: It may {disfmarker} i i may be that 's what you guys finally decide do . Uh . And have you looked {disfmarker} uh just {disfmarker} again for context {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There is this {disfmarker} this one that they did at SRI some years ago {disfmarker} Fastus ? +Grad D: um +Professor F: a {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at it but {disfmarker} but it 's no {disfmarker} not much uh information available . I found , +Professor F: ah ! +Grad D: but it 's also finite - state transducers , I thought . +Professor F: It is . Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was pretty ambitious . +Grad D: and +Professor F: And of course it was English oriented , +Grad D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and Purely finite - state transducers are not so good for German since there 's um +Professor F: um w Right . +Grad D: The word order is {disfmarker} is uh not fixed +Professor F: Yeah , I guess that 's the point is {disfmarker} is all the morphology and stuff . And English is all th all word order . And it makes a lot more sense . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} e Yeah , OK . Good point . So in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in German you 've got uh most of this done with +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Also it 's uh {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} Yes , uh the um choice between uh this processing and that processing and my template matcher . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad D: +Professor F: So what about Um Did y like Morfix ? a a e y you 've got stemmers ? Or is that something that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , yeah but it 's all in the {disfmarker} in the lexicon . So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: But did you have that ? +Grad D: Yeah th the information is available . +Professor F: OK . I see . So , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: So y you just connect to the lexicon +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: and uh at least for German you have all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} uh the stemming information . +Grad D: Yeah , we can , oh yeah . We have knowledge bases from {disfmarker} from Verbmobil system we can use +Professor F: Yep . +Grad D: and so . +Professor F: Right . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't look like i you 're using it . I didn't n see it being used in the current template uh parser . I {disfmarker} I didn't see any Uh {disfmarker} of course we l actually only looked at the English . +Grad D: It {disfmarker} um +Professor F: Did we look at the German ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but it 's used for {disfmarker} for stem forms . +Professor F: So w wha +PhD A: n Well I think {disfmarker} I think there 's some misunderstanding here +Professor F: i +PhD A: it 's {disfmarker} Morphix is not used on - line . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: s so the lexicon might be derived by Morphix +Grad D: What ? +PhD A: but What {disfmarker} what 's happening on - line is just um um a {disfmarker} a retrieval from the lexicon which would give all the stemming information +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: so it would be a full foreign lexicon . +Professor F: And that 's what you have . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: We threw out all the forms . +Professor F: What {disfmarker} uh I didn't reme +Grad B: We threw out all the forms +Professor F: Huh ? +Grad B: because , you know , English , well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh OK , so it {disfmarker} yeah , s s I thought I 'd {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So in German then you actually do case matching and things like in the {disfmarker} in the pattern matcher or not ? +Grad D: um Not yet but it 's planned to do that . +Professor F: OK . Cuz I r I didn't reme I didn't think I saw it . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Have we looked at the German ? Oh , I haven yeah that 's {disfmarker} getting it from the lexicon is just fine . +PhD A: Sure , right . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . No problem with that . um Yeah and here 's the case where the English and the German might really be significantly different . In terms of if you 're trying to build some fast parser and so forth and {disfmarker} You really might wanna do it in a significantly different way . I don't know . So you 've {disfmarker} you guys have looked at this ? also ? in terms of You know , w if you 're doing this for English as well as German Um Do you think now that it would be this {disfmarker} doing it similarly ? +Grad D: um Yeah , it 's um I think it 's um yes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um possible to {disfmarker} to do list processing . and Maybe this is um more adequate for English and in German um set processing is used . +Professor F: Set . +Grad D: Maybe yeah . Some extensions uh have to be made . For {disfmarker} for a English version +Professor F: Mmm . OK . Interesting . Not easy . +Grad B: Well there 's m I 'm sure there 's gonna be more discussion on that after your talk . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , +Grad B: We 're just gonna foreshadow what we saw that +Grad D: yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad B: and um +Professor F: Now actually , um Are you guys free at five ? Or {disfmarker} Do you have to go somewhere at five o ' clock tonight ? W in ten minutes ? +Grad D: Ah {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think we 're expect {disfmarker} +Grad D: mmm . No . Oder there was an {disfmarker} talk ? +PhD A: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there 's the um practice talk . +Grad D: uh Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: Great . So you 're going to that . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what we were planning to do . +Professor F: That 's good , because that will uh tell you a fair amount about The form of semantic construction grammar that we 're using . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so {disfmarker} So I th I think that probably as good an introduction as you 'll get . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor F: Uh to the form of {disfmarker} of uh {disfmarker} conceptual grammar that {disfmarker} that w we have in mind for this . +Grad D: Mmm , ah . +Professor F: It won't talk particularly about how that relates to what uh Robert was saying at the beginning . But let me give you a very short version of this . So we talked about the fact that There 're going to be a certain number of decisions That you want the knowledge modeler to make , that will be then fed to the function module , that does uh , route planning . It 's called the "" route planner "" or something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So there are these decisions . And then one half of this we talked about at little bit is how if you had the right information , if you knew something about what was said and about th the something about was the agent a tourist or a native or a business person or uh young or old , whatever . That information , and also about the Uh , what we 're calling "" the entity "" , Is it a castle , is it a bank ? Is it a s town square , is it a statue ? Whatever . So all that kind of information could be combined into decision networks and give you decisions . But the other half of the problem is How would you get that kind of information from the parsed input ? So , um So what you might try to do is just build more templates , saying uh we 're trying to build a templ you know build a template that w uh somehow would capture the fact that he wants to take a picture . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK ? And {disfmarker} and we could {disfmarker} you could do this . And it 's a small enough domain that probably you , you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . You could do this . But uh from our point of view this is also a research project and there are a couple of people not here for various reasons who are doing doctoral dissertations on this , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the idea that we 're really after is a very deep semantics based on cognitive linguistics and the notion that there are a relatively small number of primitive conceptual schemas that characterize a lot of activity . So a typical one in this formulation is a container . So this is a static thing . And the notion is that all sorts of physical situations are characterized in terms of containers . Going in and out the portals and con +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . But also , importantly for Lakoff and these guys is all sorts of metaphorical things are also characterized this way . You get in trouble and you know et cetera +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: and so {disfmarker} s So , what we 're really trying to do is to map from the discourse to the conceptual semantics level . And from there to the appropriate decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So another one of these primitive , what are called "" image schemas "" , is uh goal seeking . So this a notion of a source , path , goal , trajector , possibly obstacles . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea is this is another conceptual primitive . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And that all sorts of things , particularly in the tourist domain , can be represented in terms of uh source , path and goal . So the idea would be could we build an analyser that would take an utterance and say "" Aha ! th this utterance is talking about an attempt to reach a goal . The goal is this , the pers the , uh traveller is that , uh the sor w where we are at now is is this , they 've mentioned possible obstacles , et cetera . "" So th the {disfmarker} and this is an {disfmarker} again attempt to get very wide coverage . So if you can do this , then the notion would be that across a very large range of domains , you could use this deep conceptual basis as the interface . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then , uh The processing of that , both on the input end , recognizing that certain words in a language talk about containers or goals , et cetera , and on the output end , given this kind of information , you can then uh make decisions about what actions to take . Provides , they claim , a very powerful , general notion of deep semantics . So that 's what we 're really doing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And Nancy is going to {disfmarker} Her talk is going to be not about using this in applications , but about modeling how children might learn this kind of uh deep semantic grammar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yep , yep . And how do you envision um the {disfmarker} the um this deep semantic to be worked with . Would it be highly ambiguous if and then there would be another module that takes that um highly underspecified deep semantic construction and map it onto the current context to find out what the person really was talking about in that context . or {disfmarker} or a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the belief - net comes in . So th the idea is , let 's take this business about going to the Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So part of what you 'll get out of this will be the fact tha w if it works right , OK , that this is an agent that wants to go to this place and that 's their goal +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and there will be additional situational information . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Uh , OK , +PhD A: th +Professor F: part of it comes from the ontology . The tower is this kind of object . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Part of it comes from the user model . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea of the belief - net is it combines the information from the dialogue which comes across in this general way , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: you know this is a {disfmarker} this is a goal seeking behavior , along with specific information from the ontology about the kinds of objects involved +PhD A: Yeah OK , Yeah , yep yep yep yep +Professor F: and about the situation about "" Is it raining ? "" I don't know . Whatever it is . And so that 's the belief - net that we 've laid out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so th the coupling to the situation comes in this model from , at th at th at the belief - net , combining evidence from the dialogue with the ontology with the situation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: But Nancy isn't gonna talk about that , +PhD A: Yeah , oh yeah , I see , +Professor F: just about the um +PhD A: yeah yeah , really . +Grad B: First steps . +Professor F: Right . The {disfmarker} the construction grammar . +Grad B: And she 's gonna start in a minute . +Professor F: In a minute . +Grad D: Ah , OK . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Is it i in , then , your place , in five {disfmarker} five - A ? +PhD A: Alright . +","A group of graduates and a professor discuss various project-related topics, including testing communication channels, welcoming guests Ralf and Tilman, reading digits with German accents, dialogue about upcoming talks, introduction of individuals and their work on recognizers to parsers, discussions on project developments, setting up meetings, data collection methods, understanding user's intentions behind requests, and plans involving a semantic grammar approach to dialogue comprehension, mapping, and generation for a tourist information system. They also discuss software architectures, planning interfaces, and language input parsing for English and German. Challenges regarding implementing a fast, robust parser for German due to language complexities are highlighted, and existing tools like FORWISS and Fastus are referenced. The conversation ends with plans to attend Nancy's talk on the construction grammar model and the intention to apply deep semantics in the project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Uh . Somebody else should run this . I 'm sick of being the one to sort of go through and say , "" Well , what do you think about this ? "" You wanna {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Should we take turns ? You want me to run it today ? +Professor B: Yeah . Why don't you run it today ? OK . +PhD F: OK . OK . Um . Let 's see , maybe we should just get a list of items {disfmarker} things that we should talk about . Um , I guess there 's the usual {pause} updates , everybody going around and saying , uh , you know , what they 're working on , the things that happened the last week . But aside from that is there anything in particular that anybody wants to bring up +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: for today ? No ? OK . So why don't we just around and people can give updates . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD F: Uh , do you want to start , Stephane ? +PhD C: Alright . Um . Well , the first thing maybe is that the p Eurospeech paper is , uh , accepted . Um . Yeah . +PhD F: This is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what 's in the paper there ? +PhD C: So it 's the paper that describe basically the , um , system that were proposed for the {pause} Aurora . +PhD F: The one that we s we submitted the last round ? +PhD C: Right , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So and the , fff {comment} comments seems {disfmarker} from the reviewer are good . So . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Where {disfmarker} where 's it gonna be this year ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , Aalborg in Denmark . And it 's , +PhD F: Oh , OK . +PhD C: yeah , September . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . Then , uh , whhh well , I 've been working on {disfmarker} on t mainly on on - line normalization this week . Uh , I 've been trying different {disfmarker} slightly {disfmarker} slightly different approaches . Um , the first thing is trying to play a little bit again with the , um , time constant . Uh , second thing is , uh , the training of , uh , on - line normalization with two different means , one mean for the silence and one for the speech . Um , and so I have two recursions which are controlled by the , um , probability of the voice activity detector . Mmm . This actually don't s doesn't seem to help , although it doesn't hurt . So . But {disfmarker} well , both {pause} on - line normalization approach seems equivalent . Well , they {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are the means pretty different {pause} for the two ? +PhD C: Yeah . They can be very different . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: So do you maybe make errors in different places ? Different kinds of errors ? +PhD C: I didn't look , uh , more closely . Um . It might be , yeah . Mm - hmm . Um . Well , eh , there is one thing that we can observe , is that the mean are more different for {disfmarker} for C - zero and C - one than for the other coefficients . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And {disfmarker} Yeah , it {disfmarker} the C - one is {disfmarker} There are strange {disfmarker} strange thing happening with C - one , is that when you have different kind of noises , the mean for the {disfmarker} the silence portion is {disfmarker} can be different . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: So when you look at the trajectory of C - one , it 's {disfmarker} has a strange shape and I was expecting th the s that these two mean helps , especially because of the {disfmarker} the strange C - ze C - one shape , uh , which can {disfmarker} like , yo you can have , um , a trajectory for the speech and then when you are in the silence it goes somewhere , but if the noise is different it goes somewhere else . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: So which would mean that if we estimate the mean based on all the signal , even though we have frame dropping , but we don't frame ev uh , drop everything , but {disfmarker} uh , this can {disfmarker} hurts the estimation of the mean for speech , and {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} But I still have to investigate further , I think . Um , a third thing is , um , {vocalsound} that instead of t having a fixed time constant , I try to have a time constant that 's smaller at the beginning of the utterances to adapt more quickly to the r something that 's closer to the right mean . T t um {disfmarker} Yeah . And then this time constant increases and I have a threshold that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: well , if it 's higher than a certain threshold , I keep it to this threshold to still , uh , adapt , um , the mean when {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the utterance is , uh , long enough to {disfmarker} to continue to adapt after , like , one second +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Uh , well , this doesn't help neither , but this doesn't hurt . So , well . It seems pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't there some experiment you were gonna try where you did something differently for each , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was each mel band or each , uh , um , FFT bin or someth There was something you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , {comment} some parameter you were gonna vary depending on the frequency . I don't know if that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: I guess it was {disfmarker} I don't know . No . u Maybe it 's this {disfmarker} this idea of having different {pause} on - line normalization , um , tunings for the different MFCC 's . +PhD F: For each , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I thought , Morgan , you brought it up a couple meetings ago . And then it was something about , uh , some and then somebody said "" yeah , it does seem like , you know , C - zero is the one that 's , you know , the major one "" or , uh , s I can't remember exactly what it was now . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . There {disfmarker} uh , actually , yeah . S um , it 's very important to normalize C - zero and {pause} much less to normalize the other coefficients . And , um , actu uh , well , at least with the current on - line normalization scheme . And we {disfmarker} I think , we {vocalsound} kind of know that normalizing C - one doesn't help with the current scheme . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . In my idea , I {disfmarker} I was thinking that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason is maybe because of these funny things that happen between speech and silence which have different means . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . But maybe it 's not so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so easy to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , I I really would like to suggest looking , um , a little bit at the kinds of errors . I know you can get lost in that and go forever and not see too much , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sometimes , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , um , just seeing that each of these things didn't make things better may not be enough . It may be that they 're making them better in some ways and worse in others , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or increasing insertions and decreasing deletions , or {disfmarker} or , um , um , you know , helping with noisy case but hurting in quiet case . And if you saw that then maybe you {disfmarker} it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something would occur to you of how to deal with that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Alright . Mmm . Yeah . W um , So that 's it , I think , for the on - line normalization . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I 've been playing a little bit with some kind of thresholding , and , mmm , as a first experiment , I think I Yeah . Well , what I did is t is to take , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to measure the average {disfmarker} no , the maximum energy of s each utterance and then put a threshold {disfmarker} Well , this for each mel band . Then put a threshold that 's fifteen DB below {disfmarker} well , uh , a couple of DB below this maximum , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Actually it was not a threshold , it was just adding noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So I was adding a white noise energy , uh , that 's fifteen DB below the maximum energy of the utterance . And {disfmarker} Yeah . When we look at {disfmarker} at the , um , MFCC that result from this , they are {pause} a lot more smoother . Um , when we compare , like , a channel zero and channel one utterance {disfmarker} um , so a clean and , uh , the same noisy utterance {disfmarker} well , there is almost no difference between the cepstral coefficients of the two . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Um . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And the result that we have in term of speech recognition , actually it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not worse , it 's not better neither , but it 's , um , kind of surprising that it 's not worse +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: because basically you add noise that 's fifteen DB {disfmarker} just fifteen DB below {pause} the maximum energy . +Grad A: Sorry . +PhD C: And at least {disfmarker} +PhD F: So why does that m {pause} smooth things out ? I don't {disfmarker} I don't understand that . +Professor B: Well , there 's less difference . Right ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} I think , it 's whitening {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the portion that are more silent , +Professor B: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: as you add a white noise that are {disfmarker} has a very high energy , it whitens everything +PhD F: Huh . Oh , OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and the high - energy portion of the speech don't get much affected anyway by the other noise . And as the noise you add is the same is {disfmarker} {pause} the shape , it 's also the same . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So they have {disfmarker} the trajectory are very , very similar . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , I mean , again , if you trained in one kind of noise and tested in the same kind of noise , you 'd {disfmarker} you know , given enough training data you don't do b do badly . The reason that we d that we have the problems we have is because {pause} it 's different in training and test . Even if {vocalsound} the general kind is the same , the exact instances are different . And {disfmarker} and +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so when you whiten it , then it 's like you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only noise {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to first order , the only th noise that you have is white noise and you 've added the same thing to training and test . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So would that {pause} be similar to , like , doing the smoothing , then , over time or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's a kind of smoothing , +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's different . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's something that {disfmarker} yeah , that affects more or less the silence portions because {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , anyway , the sp the portion of speech that ha have high energy are not ch a lot affected by the noises in the Aurora database . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} if you compare th the two shut channels of SpeechDat - Car during speech portion , it 's n n n the MFCC are not very different . They are very different when energy 's lower , like during fricatives or during speech pauses . And , +Professor B: Yeah , but you 're still getting more recognition errors , +PhD C: uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: which means {vocalsound} that the differences , even though they look like they 're not so big , {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are hurting your recognition . +PhD C: Ye +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So it distort {vocalsound} the speech . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . +PhD F: So performance went down ? +PhD C: No . It didn't . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , but in this case I {disfmarker} I really expect that maybe the {disfmarker} the two {disfmarker} these two stream of features , they are very different . I mean , and maybe we could gain something by combining them +Professor B: Well , the other thing is that you just picked one particular way of doing it . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean , first place it 's fifteen DB , uh , {vocalsound} down across the utterance . And {vocalsound} maybe you 'd want to have something that was a little more adaptive . Secondly , you happened to pick fifteen DB +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and maybe twenty 'd be better , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or twelve . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD F: So what was the {disfmarker} what was the threshold part of it ? Was the threshold , uh , how far down {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , he {disfmarker} yeah , he had to figure out how much to add . So he was looking {disfmarker} he was looking at the peak value . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? And then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and so what 's {disfmarker} ho I don't understand . How does it go ? If it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the peak value 's above some threshold , then you add the noise ? Or if it 's below s +PhD C: I systematically {comment} add the noise , but the , um , noise level is just {pause} some kind of threshold below the peak . +PhD F: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Which is not really noise , actually . It 's just adding a constant to each of the mel , uh , energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: To each of the {pause} mel filter bank . Yeah . +PhD F: I see . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's really , uh , white noise . I th +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So then afterwards a log is taken , and that 's so sort of why the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the little variation tends to go away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So may Well , the {disfmarker} this threshold is still a factor that we have to look at . And I don't know , maybe a constant noise addition would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would be fine also , or {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} or not constant but {disfmarker} but , uh , varying over time {pause} in fact is another way {pause} to go . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Were you using the {disfmarker} the normalization in addition to this ? I mean , what was the rest of the system ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was , uh , the same system . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: It was the same system . Mmm . Oh , yeah . A third thing is that , um , {vocalsound} I play a little bit with the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} finding what was different between , um , And there were a couple of differences , like the LDA filters were not the same . Um , he had the France Telecom blind equalization in the system . Um , the number o of MFCC that was {disfmarker} were used was different . You used thirteen and we used fifteen . Well , a bunch of differences . And , um , actually the result that he {disfmarker} he got were much better on TI - digits especially . So I 'm kind of investigated to see what was the main factor for this difference . And it seems that the LDA filter is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was hurting . Um , {vocalsound} so when we put s some noise compensation the , um , LDA filter that {disfmarker} that 's derived from noisy speech is not more {disfmarker} anymore optimal . And it makes a big difference , um , {vocalsound} on TI - digits trained on clean . Uh , if we use the {disfmarker} the old LDA filter , I mean the LDA filter that was in the proposal , we have , like , eighty - two point seven percent recognition rate , um , on noisy speech when the system is trained on clean speech . But {disfmarker} and when we use the filter that 's derived from clean speech we jumped {disfmarker} so from eighty - two point seven to eighty - five point one , which is a huge leap . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . So now the results are more similar , and I don't {disfmarker} I will not , I think , investigate on the other differences , which is like the number of MFCC that we keep and other small things that we can I think optimize later on anyway . +Professor B: Sure . But on the other hand if everybody is trying different kinds of noise suppression things and so forth , it might be good to standardize on the piece {vocalsound} that we 're not changing . Right ? So if there 's any particular reason to ha pick one or the other , I mean {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} which one is closer to what the proposal was that was submitted to Aurora ? Are they {disfmarker} they both {disfmarker} ? Well , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think th th uh , the new system that I tested is , I guess , closer because it doesn't have {disfmarker} it have less of {disfmarker} of France Telecom stuff , +PhD D: You mean the {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} whatever you , uh , tested with recently . Right ? +PhD C: Mmm ? Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor B: Well , no , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah , you 're trying to add in France Telecom . +PhD C: But , we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Tell them about the rest of it . Like you said the number of filters might be {vocalsound} different or something . Right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD D: The number of cepstral coefficients is what ? +Professor B: Cep +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , I think we 'd wanna standardize there , wouldn't we ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So , sh you guys should pick something +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Well , all th all three of you . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I think we were gonna work with {disfmarker} with this or this new system , or with {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} right now , the {disfmarker} the system that is there in the {disfmarker} what we have in the repositories , with {disfmarker} uses fifteen . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD C: But we will use the {disfmarker} the LDA filters f derived from clean speech . Well , yeah , actually it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the {disfmarker} the LDA filter . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's something that 's also short enough in {disfmarker} in latency . +PhD D: Yeah . Well . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So , we haven't {disfmarker} w we have been always using , uh , fifteen coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: not thirteen ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , uh , that 's {disfmarker} something 's {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . Then {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think as long as you guys agree on it , it doesn't matter . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think we have a maximum of sixty , {vocalsound} uh , features that we 're allowed . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Ma - maybe we can {disfmarker} I mean , at least , um , I 'll t s run some experiments to see whether {disfmarker} once I have this {vocalsound} {comment} noise compensation to see whether thirteen and fifteen really matters or not . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Never tested it with the compensation , but without , {vocalsound} uh , compensation it was like fifteen was s slightly better than thirteen , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: so that 's why we stuck to thirteen . +PhD C: Yeah . And there is {disfmarker} there is also this log energy versus C - zero . +PhD D: Sorry , fifteen . Yeah , the log energy versus C - zero . +PhD C: Well . W w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other thing . I mean , without noise compensation certainly C - zero is better than log energy . Be - I mean , because the {disfmarker} there are more , uh , mismatched conditions than the matching conditions for testing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know , always for the matched condition , you always get a {pause} slightly better performance for log energy than C - zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not for {disfmarker} I mean , for matched and the clean condition both , you get log energy {disfmarker} I mean you get a better performance with log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , um , maybe once we have this noise compensation , I don't know , we have to try that also , whether we want to go for C - zero or log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We can see that . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: So do you have {pause} more , Stephane , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Uh , that 's it , I think . Mmm . +PhD F: Do you have anything , Morgan , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , no . I 'm just , you know , being a manager this week . So . +PhD F: How about you , Barry ? +Grad A: Um , {vocalsound} still working on my {disfmarker} my quals preparation stuff . Um , {vocalsound} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about , um , starting some , {vocalsound} uh , cheating experiments to , uh , determine the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the relative effectiveness of , um , some intermediate categories that I want to classify . So , for example , um , {vocalsound} if I know where voicing occurs and everything , um , {vocalsound} I would do a phone {disfmarker} um , phone recognition experiment , um , somehow putting in the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the perfect knowledge that I have about voicing . So , um , in particular I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in the hybrid framework , just taking those LNA files , {vocalsound} and , um , {vocalsound} setting to zero those probabilities that , um {disfmarker} that these phones are not voicing . So say , like , I know this particular segment is voicing , um , {vocalsound} I would say , uh , go into the corresponding LNA file and zonk out the {disfmarker} the posteriors for , um , those phonemes that , um , are not voiced , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then see what kinds of improvements I get . And so this would be a useful thing , um , to know {vocalsound} in terms of , like , which {disfmarker} which , um {disfmarker} which of these categories are {disfmarker} are good for , um , speech recognition . +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , that 's {disfmarker} I hope to get those , uh {disfmarker} those experiments done by {disfmarker} by the time quals come {disfmarker} come around in July . +PhD F: So do you just take the probabilities of the other ones and spread them out evenly among the {disfmarker} the remaining ones ? +Grad A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} OK , so just set to {disfmarker} set to some really low number , the {disfmarker} the non - voiced , um , phones . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? And then renormalize . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Cool . That will be really interesting to see , you know . So then you 're gonna feed the {disfmarker} those into {pause} some standard recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Uh , wh are you gonna do digits +Grad A: Yeah , m Um , well , I 'm gonna f work with TIMIT {disfmarker} +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? With TIMIT . OK . +Grad A: TIMIT {disfmarker} uh , phone recognition with TIMIT . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so then you 'll feed those {disfmarker} Sorry . So where do the outputs of the net go into if you 're doing phone recognition ? +Grad A: Oh . Um , the outputs of the net go into the standard , h um , ICSI hybrid , um , recognizer . So maybe , um , Chronos +PhD F: An - and you 're gonna {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you 're gonna do phone recognition with that ? +Grad A: or {disfmarker} Phone recognition . Right , right . +PhD F: OK , OK . I see . +Grad A: So . And , uh , another thing would be to extend this to , uh , digits or something where I can look at whole words . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And I would be able to see , uh , not just , like , phoneme events , but , um , {vocalsound} inter - phoneme events . So , like , this is from a stop to {disfmarker} to a vo a vocalic +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: segment . You know , so something that is transitional in nature . +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Cool . Great . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I haven't done a whole lot on anything related to this this week . I 've been focusing mainly on Meeting Recorder stuff . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: So , um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll just pass it on to Dave . +Grad G: Uh , OK . Well , in my lunch talk last week I {disfmarker} I said I 'd tried phase normalization and gotten garbage results using that l um , long - term mean subtraction approach . It turned out there was a bug in my Matlab code . So I tried it again , um , and , um , the results {vocalsound} were {disfmarker} were better . I got intelligible speech back . But they still weren't as good as just subtracting the magnitude {disfmarker} the log magnitude means . And also I 've been talking to , um , Andreas and Thilo about the , um , SmartKom language model and about coming up with a good model for , um , far mike use of the SmartKom system . So I 'm gonna be working on , um , implementing this mean subtraction approach in the {vocalsound} far - mike system {disfmarker} for the SmartKom system , I mean . And , um , one of the experiments we 're gonna do is , um , we 're gonna , um , train the {disfmarker} a Broadcast News net , which is because that 's what we 've been using so far , and , um , adapt it on some other data . Um , An - Andreas wants to use , um , data that resembles read speech , like {pause} these digit readings , because he feels that the SmartKom system interaction is not gonna be exactly conversational . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: S so actually I was wondering , how long does it take to train that Broadcast News net ? +Professor B: The big one takes a while . Yeah . That takes two , three weeks . +Grad G: Two , three weeks . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} but , you know , uh , you can get {disfmarker} I don't know if you even want to run the big one , uh , um , in the {disfmarker} in the final system , cuz , you know , it takes a little while to run it . So , {vocalsound} um , you can scale it down by {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , it was two , three weeks for training up for the large Broadcast News test set {disfmarker} training set . I don't know how much you 'd be training on . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: The full ? +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , i so if you trained on half as much {vocalsound} and made the net , uh , uh , half as big , then it would be one fourth {pause} the amount of time +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and it 'd be nearly as good . So . +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Also , I guess we had {disfmarker} we 've had these , uh , little di discussions {disfmarker} I guess you ha haven't had a chance to work with it too much {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} about , uh {disfmarker} uh , uh m other ways of taking care of the phase . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess that was something I could say would be that we 've talked a little bit about +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you just doing it all with complex arithmetic and , uh {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not , uh , doing the polar representation with magnitude and phase . But {vocalsound} it looks like there 's ways that one could potentially just work with the complex numbers and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in principle get rid of the {vocalsound} effects of the average complex spectrum . But {disfmarker} +Grad G: And , um , actually , regarding the phase normalization {disfmarker} So I did two experiments , and one is {disfmarker} So , phases get added , modulo two pi , and {disfmarker} because you only know the phase of the complex number t t to a value modulo two pi . And so I thought at first , um , that , uh , what I should do is unwrap the phase because that will undo that . Um , but I actually got worse results doing that unwrapping using the simple phase unwrapper that 's in Matlab than I did not unwrapping at all . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . P So . +Grad G: And that 's all I have to say . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still hopeful that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we don't even know if the phase {vocalsound} is something {disfmarker} the average phase is something that we do want to remove . I mean , maybe there 's some deeper reason why it isn't the right thing to do . But , um , at least in principle it looks like there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , a couple potential ways to do it . One {disfmarker} one being to just work with the complex numbers , um , and , uh {disfmarker} in rectangular kind of coordinates . And the other is {vocalsound} to , uh , do a Taylor series {disfmarker} Well . So you work with the complex numbers and then when you get the spectrum {disfmarker} the average complex spectrum {disfmarker} um , actually divide it out , um , as opposed to taking the log and subtracting . So then , um , um , you know , there might be some numerical issues . We don't really know that . The other thing we talked a little bit about was Taylor series expansion . And , um , uh , actually I was talking to Dick Karp about it a little bit , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , since I got thinking about it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , so one thing is that y you 'd have to do , I think , uh {disfmarker} we may have to do this on a whiteboard , but I think you have to be a little careful about scaling the numbers that you 're {vocalsound} taking {disfmarker} the complex numbers that you 're taking the log of because {vocalsound} the Taylor expansion for it has , you know , a square and a cube , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And {disfmarker} and so if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have a {disfmarker} a number that is modulus , you know , uh , very different from one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It should be right around one , if it 's {disfmarker} cuz it 's a expansion of log one {disfmarker} one minus epsilon or o is {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} one plus epsilon , or is it one plus {disfmarker} ? Well , there 's an epsilon squared over two and an epsilon cubed over three , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and so forth . So if epsilon is bigger than one , then it diverges . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: So you have to do some scaling . But that 's not a big deal cuz it 's the log of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of K times a complex number , then you can just {disfmarker} that 's the same as log of K plus {vocalsound} log of the complex number . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , so there 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: converges . But . +PhD F: Hmm . OK . How about you , Sunil ? +PhD D: So , um , I 've been , uh , implementing this , uh , Wiener filtering for this Aurora task . And , uh , I {disfmarker} I actually thought it was {disfmarker} it was doing fine when I tested it once . I it 's , like , using a small section of the code . And then I ran the whole recognition experiment with Italian and I got , {vocalsound} like , worse results than not using it . Then I {disfmarker} So , I 've been trying to find where the problem came from . And then it looks like I have some problem in the way {disfmarker} there is some {disfmarker} some very silly bug somewhere . And , ugh ! I {disfmarker} I mean , i uh , it actually {disfmarker} i it actually made the whole thing worse . I was looking at the spectrograms that I got and it 's , like {disfmarker} w it 's {disfmarker} it 's very horrible . Like , when I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I missed the v I 'm sorry , I was {disfmarker} I was distracted . I missed the very first sentence . So then , I 'm a little lost on the rest . +PhD D: Oh , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . I actually implemented the Wiener f f fil filtering as a module and then tested it out separately . +Professor B: Yeah , I see . Oh , OK . +PhD D: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it gave , like {disfmarker} I just got the signal out and it {disfmarker} it was OK . So , I plugged it in somewhere and then {disfmarker} I mean , it 's like I had to remove some part and then plugging it in somewhere . And then I {disfmarker} in that process I messed it up somewhere . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So . So , it was real I mean , I thought it was all fine and then I ran it , and I got something worse than not using it . So , I was like {disfmarker} I 'm trying to find where the m m problem came , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and it seems to be , like , somewhere {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: some silly stuff . And , um , the other thing , uh , was , uh , uh {disfmarker} Well , Hynek showed up one {disfmarker} suddenly on one day and then I was t talking wi +Professor B: Right . Yeah . As {disfmarker} as he is wont to do . Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So I was actually {disfmarker} that day I was thinking about d doing something about the Wiener filtering , and then Carlos matter of stuff . And then he showed up and then I told him . And then he gave me a whole bunch of filters {disfmarker} what Carlos used for his , uh , uh , thesis and then {vocalsound} that was something which came up . And then , um {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm actually , {vocalsound} uh , thinking of using that also in this , uh , W Wiener filtering because that is a m modified Wiener filtering approach , where instead of using the current frame , it uses {vocalsound} adjacent frames also in designing the Wiener filter . So instead of designing our own new Wiener filters , I may just use one of those Carlos filters in {disfmarker} in this implementation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and see whether it {disfmarker} it actually gives me something better than using just the current f current frame , which is in a way , uh , something like the smoothing {disfmarker} the Wiener filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but @ @ {disfmarker} S so , I don't know , I was h I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , like {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} so that is the next thing . Once this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} once I sort this pro uh , problem out maybe I 'll just go into that also . And the {disfmarker} the other thing was about the subspace approach . So , um , I , like , plugged some groupings for computing this eigen uh , uh , uh , s values and eigenvectors . So just {disfmarker} I just @ @ some small block of things which I needed to put together for the subspace approach . And I 'm in the process of , like , building up that stuff . And , um , uh {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} Yep . I guess that 's it . And , uh , th th that 's where I am right now . So . +PhD F: Oh . How about you , Carmen ? +PhD E: Mmm . I 'm working with VTS . Um , I do several experiment with the Spanish database first , only with VTS and nothing more . Not VAD , no LDA , nothing more . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what is VTS again ? +PhD D: New {disfmarker} +PhD E: Eh , Vectorial Taylor Series . +PhD F: Oh , yes . +PhD E: To remove the noise too . +PhD F: Right , right . I think I ask you that every single meeting , don't I ? +PhD E: What ? +PhD F: I ask you that question every meeting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 'd be good from {disfmarker} for analysis . +PhD E: If {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's good to have some , uh , cases of the same utterance at different {disfmarker} different times . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: "" What is VTS ? "" +PhD E: VTS . I 'm sor Well , um , the question is that {disfmarker} Well . Remove some noise but not too much . And when we put the {disfmarker} m m the , em , VAD , the result is better . And we put everything , the result is better , but it 's not better than the result that we have without VTS . No , no . +Professor B: I see . So that @ @ {comment} given that you 're using the VAD also , the effect of the VTS is not {pause} so far {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is not . +Professor B: Do you {disfmarker} How much of that do you think is due to just the particular implementation and how much you 're adjusting it ? Or how much do you think is intrinsic to {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Pfft . I don't know because {disfmarker} +PhD C: Are you still using only the ten first frame for noise estimation +PhD E: Hhh , +PhD C: or {disfmarker} ? Or i ? +PhD E: Uh , I do the experiment using only the f onl eh , to use on only one fair estimation of the noise . +PhD C: Yeah . Hmm . +PhD E: And also I did some experiment , {vocalsound} uh , doing , um , a lying estimation of the noise . And , well , it 's a little bit better but not {disfmarker} n +PhD C: Maybe you have to standardize this thing also , noise estimation , because all the thing that you are testing use a different {disfmarker} They all need some {disfmarker} some noise {disfmarker} noise spectra +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . No , I do that two {disfmarker} t did two time . +PhD C: but they use {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all use a different one . +Professor B: I have an idea . If {disfmarker} if , uh , uh , y you 're right . I mean , each of these require this . Um , given that we 're going to have for this test at least of {disfmarker} uh , boundaries , what if initially we start off by using {pause} known sections of nonspeech {pause} for the estimation ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? S so , e um , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first place , I mean even if ultimately we wouldn't be given the boundaries , {vocalsound} uh , this would be a good initial experiment to separate out the effects of things . I mean , how much is the poor {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , relatively , uh , unhelpful result that you 're getting in this or this or this is due to some inherent limitation to the method for these tasks and how much of it is just due to the fact that you 're not accurately {vocalsound} finding enough regions that {disfmarker} that are really {vocalsound} n noise ? +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . So maybe if you tested it using that , {vocalsound} you 'd have more reliable {pause} stretches of nonspeech to do the estimation from and see if that helps . +PhD E: Yeah . Another thing is the , em {disfmarker} the codebook , the initial codebook . That maybe , well , it 's too clean and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Cuz it 's a {disfmarker} I don't know . The methods {disfmarker} If you want , you c I can say something about the method . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} Because it 's {vocalsound} a little bit different of the other method . Well , we have {disfmarker} If this {disfmarker} if this is the noise signal , {nonvocalsound} uh , in the log domain , we have something like this . Now , we have something like this . And the idea of these methods is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} n given a , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD E: How do you say ? I will read because it 's better for my English . I i given is the estimate of the PDF of the noise signal when we have a , um , a statistic of the clean speech and an statistic of the noisy speech . And the clean speech {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech is {pause} from a {pause} codebook . Mmm ? This is the idea . Well , like , this relation is not linear . The methods propose to develop this in a vectorial Taylor series {pause} approximation . +Professor B: I I 'm actually just confused about {pause} the equations you have up there . So , uh , the top equation is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD E: No , this in the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is the log domain . I {disfmarker} I must to say that . +Professor B: Which is {disfmarker} which is the log domain ? +PhD E: Is the T {disfmarker} is egual {disfmarker} {comment} is equal to , uh , log of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And {disfmarker} but Y is what ? Y of {disfmarker} the spectrum +PhD E: Uh , this {disfmarker} this is this +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: and this is this . +Professor B: No , no . The top Y is what ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is that power spectrum ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the noisy speech . +PhD C: p s this {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , is that power spectrum ? Is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's the power spectrum of noisy speech . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's the power spectrum . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is the noisy {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: of the value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , OK . So this {disfmarker} it 's the magnitude squared or something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , so you have power spectrum added there and down here you have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you put the {disfmarker} depends on T , but {disfmarker} b all of this is just {disfmarker} you just mean {disfmarker} +PhD E: w o Yeah . It 's the same . +Professor B: you just mean the log of the {disfmarker} of the one up above . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so that is X times , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , +PhD D: One {disfmarker} one plus N by X . +PhD E: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: o +PhD E: But , n Well , y we can expre we can put this expression {disfmarker} +Professor B: X times one plus , uh , N {disfmarker} uh , N {disfmarker} N {disfmarker} N minus X ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: And then , uh {disfmarker} So that 's log of X plus log of one plus , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: And the noise signal . +Professor B: Well . Is that right ? Log of {disfmarker} +PhD D: One plus N by X . +PhD E: Well , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I actually don't see how you get that . Uh . +PhD E: Well , if we apply the log , we have E is n +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: Uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , log {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} E is equal , oh , to log of X plus N . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And , well , +PhD D: And , log of {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , we can say that E {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} is equal to log of , {nonvocalsound} {nonvocalsound} um , exponential of X plus exponential of N . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Well , if E restricts {disfmarker} It is y +PhD E: Well , this is {disfmarker} this is in the ti the time domain . Well , we have that , um {disfmarker} We have first that , for example , X is equal , uh {disfmarker} Well . This is the frequency domain +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and we can put {vocalsound} u that n the log domain {disfmarker} log of X omega , but , well , in the time domain we have an exponential . No ? No ? Oh , maybe it 's I am {disfmarker} I 'm problem . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , just never mind what they are . Uh , it 's just if X and N are variables {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD D: What is , uh {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log of X plus N is not the same as the log of E to the X plus E to the N . +PhD E: Yeah . But this i Well , I don't {disfmarker} Well , uh , +Professor B: Maybe we can take it off - line , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: but I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I can do this incorrectly . Well , the expression that appear in the {disfmarker} in the paper , {nonvocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: The log {disfmarker} the Taylor series expansion for log one plus N by X is {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Is it the first - order expansion ? +PhD E: is X {disfmarker} +Professor B: I i +PhD D: Yeah , the first one . +PhD C: Yeah , I guess . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . Cuz it doesn't just follow what 's there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: It has to be some , uh , Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD D: Y yeah . If {disfmarker} if you take log X into log one plus N by X , and then expand the log one plus N by X into Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Now , this is the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the second {pause} expression that you put is the first - order expansion of the nonlinear relation between {disfmarker} +PhD E: Not exactly . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: No , no , no . It 's not the first space . Well , we have {disfmarker} pfft , uh , em {disfmarker} Well , we can put that X is equal {disfmarker} I is equal to log of , uh , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Well , we can put , uh , this ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} the f top one does not {pause} imply the second one . Because {disfmarker} cuz the log of a sum is not the same as {pause} th +PhD E: The top ? +Professor B: I mean , as {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: But we can {disfmarker} uh , we {disfmarker} we know that , for example , the log of {vocalsound} E plus B is equal to log of E plus log to B . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And we can say here , it i +Professor B: Right . So you could s +PhD C: What is that ? +PhD E: And we can , uh , put this inside . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And then we can , uh , +Professor B: N no , +PhD E: you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't see how you get the second expression from the top one . +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , just more generally here , {vocalsound} if you say "" log of , um , A plus B "" , the log of {disfmarker} log of A plus B is not {disfmarker} or A plus B is not the , um , log of E to the A plus E to the B . +PhD E: No , no , no , no , no , no , no . This not . +Professor B: Right ? And that 's what you seem to be saying . +PhD E: No . No . It 's not . But this is the same {disfmarker} oh . +Professor B: Right ? Cuz you {disfmarker} cuz you {disfmarker} up here you have the A plus B {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . I say if I apply log , I have , uh , log of E is equal to log of , uh {disfmarker} in this side , is equal to log of X +Professor B: Plus N . +PhD E: plus N . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And then how do you go from there to the {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: This is right . And then if I apply exponential , to have here E {disfmarker} +Professor B: Look . OK , so let 's {disfmarker} I mean , C equals A plus B , +PhD C: It 's log o of capital Y . Yeah , right . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Capital {pause} Y . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: X . X . This is X , inside . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: We have this , no ? +Professor B: Yeah . That one 's right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: One and {disfmarker} +PhD E: S uh , i th we can put here the set transformation . +Professor B: Oh . I see . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: I see . OK , I understand now . Alright , thanks . +PhD E: Yeah . In this case , well , we can put here a {nonvocalsound} Y . +Professor B: OK . So , yeah . It 's just by definition {pause} that the individual {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that the , uh {disfmarker} So , capital X is by definition the same as E to the little X because she 's saying that the little X is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is the log . Alright . +PhD E: Now we can put this . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Alright . +PhD E: And here we can multiply by X . +Professor B: I think these things are a lot clearer when you can use fonts {disfmarker} different fonts there +PhD E: Oh , yes . +Professor B: so you know which is which . But I {disfmarker} I under I understand what you mean now . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . That 's true . That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: But this {disfmarker} this is correct ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: And now I can do it , uh {disfmarker} pfff ! I can put log {nonvocalsound} of EX {vocalsound} plus log {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . Yes . I understand now . And that 's where it comes from . +PhD E: And this is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Now it 's correct . +Professor B: Right . OK . Thanks . +PhD E: Well . The idea {disfmarker} Well , we have fixed this equa +Professor B: OK . So now once you get that {disfmarker} that one , then you {disfmarker} then you do a first or second - order , or something , Taylor {vocalsound} series expansion of this . +PhD E: Yeah . This is another linear relation that this {disfmarker} to develop this in {vocalsound} vector s Taylor series . +PhD C: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And for that , well , the goal is to obtain , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} est estimate a PDF for the noisy speech when we have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a statistic for clean speech and for the noisy speech . Mmm ? And when w the way to obtain the PDF for the noisy speech is {disfmarker} well , we know this statistic and we know the noisy st well , we can apply first order of the vector st Taylor series of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} well , the order that we want , increase the complexity of the problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And then when we have a expression , uh , for the {vocalsound} mean and variance of the noisy speech , we apply a technique of minimum mean - square estimation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: to obtain the expected value of the clean speech given the {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} statistic for the noisy speech {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: the statistic for clean speech and the statistic of the noisy speech . This only that . But the idea is that {disfmarker} +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the model of clean speech is a codebook . Right ? +PhD E: u Yeah . We have our codebook with different density {vocalsound} Gaussian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: We can expre we can put that the {vocalsound} PDF {comment} for the clean test , probability of the clean speech is equal to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , how {disfmarker} h how much {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the work they reported , how much noisy speech did you need to get , uh , good enough statistics for the {disfmarker} to get this mapping ? +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I need to s +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Cuz I think what 's certainly characteristic of a lot of the {pause} data in this test is that , um , you don't have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training set may not be a {disfmarker} a great estimator for the noise in the test set . Sometimes it is and sometimes it 's not . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} the clean speech {disfmarker} the codebook for clean speech , I am using TIMIT . And I have now , uh , sixty - four {nonvocalsound} Gaus - Gaussian . +Professor B: Uh - huh . And what are you using for the noisy {disfmarker} ? Y y doing that strictly {disfmarker} +PhD E: Of the noise {disfmarker} I estimate the noises wi +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Well , for the noises I only use one Gaussian . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} and you train it up entirely from , uh , nonspeech sections in the test ? +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , yes . The first experiment that I do it is solely to calculate the , mmm {disfmarker} well , this value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: uh , the compensation of the dictionary o one time using the {disfmarker} the noise at the f beginning of the sentence . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the first experiment . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And I fix this for all the {disfmarker} all the sentences . Uh , because {disfmarker} well , the VTS methods {disfmarker} In fact the first thing that I do is to {disfmarker} to obtain , uh , an expression for E {disfmarker} probability e expression of {disfmarker} of E . That mean that the VTS {disfmarker} mmm , with the VTS we obtain , uh {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we obtain the means for each Gaussian {comment} and the variance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is one . Eh , this is the composition of the dictionary . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This one thing . And the other thing that this {disfmarker} with these methods is to , uh , obtain {disfmarker} to calculate this value . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Because we can write {disfmarker} uh , we can write that {vocalsound} the estimation of the clean speech is equal at an expected value of the clean speech conditional to , uh , the noise signal {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the probability f of the {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech and the statistic of the noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the methods that say that we 're going obtain this . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And we can put that this is equal to the estimated value of E minus a function that conditional to E to the T {disfmarker} to the noise signal . Well , this is {disfmarker} this function is the {vocalsound} the term {disfmarker} after develop this , the term that we {disfmarker} we take . Give PX and , uh , P the noise . +PhD D: X K C noise . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD E: And I can {vocalsound} put that this is equal to {pause} the {pause} noise signal minus {disfmarker} Well , I put before {pause} this name , uh {disfmarker} And I can calculate this . +Professor B: What is the first variable in that probability ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the Gaussian . +Professor B: No , no . I 'm sorry . In {disfmarker} in the one you pointed at . What 's that variable ? +PhD E: v Uh , this is the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Weak . So probably it {disfmarker} it would do that . +PhD E: like this , +PhD C: It 's one mixture of the model . Right ? +PhD E: but conditional . No , it 's condition it 's not exactly this . It 's modify . Uh , if we have clean speech {disfmarker} we have the dictionary for the clean speech , we have a probability f of {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our weight for each Gaussian . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: No . And now , this weight is different now +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: because it 's conditional . And this I need to {disfmarker} to calcu I know this +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and I know this because this is from the dictionary that you have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: I need to calculate this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And for calculate this , {vocalsound} I have an {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can develop an expression that is +PhD D: It 's overlapping . +PhD E: that . I can calculate {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I calculated this value , {vocalsound} uh , with the statistic of the noisy speech that I calculated before with the VTS approximation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} well , normalizing . And I know everything . Uh , with the , nnn {disfmarker} when I develop this in s Taylor {disfmarker} Taylor series , I can't , um , {vocalsound} calculate the mean and the variance {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} for each of the Gaussian of the dictionary for the noisy speech . Now . And this is fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: If I never do an estimat a newer estimation of the noise , this mean as {disfmarker} mean and the variance are fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And for each s uh , frame of the speech the only thing that I need to do is to calculate this in order to calculate the estimation of the clean speech given our noisy speech . +Professor B: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not following this perfectly but , um , I {disfmarker} Are you saying that all of these estimates are done {pause} using , um , estimates of the probability density for the noise that are calculated only from the first ten frames ? And never change throughout anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Never cha This is one of the approximations that I am doing . +Professor B: Per {disfmarker} per {disfmarker} per utterance , or per {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: Per utterance . OK . +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: So it 's done {disfmarker} it 's done new for each new utterance . +PhD E: And th +Professor B: So this changes the whole mapping for every utterance . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , the dictionary . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: And the other estimation is when I do the uh on - line estimation , I change the means and variance of th for the noisy speech +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: each time that I detect noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I do it uh again this develop . Estimate the new mean and the variance of the noisy speech . And with th with this new s new mean and variance I estimate again this . +Professor B: So you estimated , uh , f completely forgetting what you had before ? Uh , or is there some adaptation ? +PhD E: Um , no , no , no . It 's not completely {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} I am doing something like an adaptation of the noise . +Professor B: OK . Now do we know , either from their experience or from yours , that , uh , just having , uh , two parameters , the {disfmarker} the mean and variance , is enough ? Yeah . I mean , I know you don't have a lot of data to estimate with , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: I estimate mean and variance for each one of the Gaussian of the codebook . +Professor B: No , I 'm talking about the noise . +PhD E: Oh , +Professor B: There 's only one Gaussian . +PhD E: um . Well , only one {disfmarker} I am only {disfmarker} using only one . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: I don't know i +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} right , it 's only {disfmarker} it 's only one {disfmarker} Wait a minute . This is {disfmarker} what 's the dimensionality of the Gaussian ? This is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , it 's in {disfmarker} after the mel filter bank . +Professor B: So this is twenty or something ? +PhD E: Twenty - three . +Professor B: Twenty ? So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's actually forty numbers {pause} that you 're getting . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you don't have a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , the original paper say that only one Gaussian for the noise . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But , I mean , {vocalsound} no {disfmarker} no paper is {disfmarker} is a Bible , +PhD E: Yeah , maybe isn't the right thing . +Professor B: you know . This is {disfmarker} this is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: The question is , um , {vocalsound} whether it would be helpful , i particularly if you used {disfmarker} if you had more {disfmarker} So , suppose you did {disfmarker} This is almost cheating . It certainly isn't real - time . But if y suppose you use the real boundaries that {disfmarker} that you were {disfmarker} in fact were given {vocalsound} by the VAD and so forth or I {disfmarker} I guess we 're gonna be given even better boundaries than that . And you look {disfmarker} you take all o all of the nonspeech components in an utterance , so you have a fair amount . Do you benefit from having a better model for the noise ? That would be another question . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: So first question would be {vocalsound} to what extent i are the errors that you 're still seeing {vocalsound} based on the fact that you have poor boundaries for the , uh , uh , nonspeech ? And the second question might be , given that you have good boundaries , could you do better if you used more parameters to characterize the noise ? Um . Also another question might be {disfmarker} Um , they are doing {disfmarker} they 're using first term only of the vector Taylor series ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you do a second term does it get too complicated cuz of the nonlinearity ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's quite complicated . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . No , I won't ask the next question then . +PhD E: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} for me it 's the first time that I am working with VTS . +Professor B: Yeah . No , it 's interesting . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , w we haven't had anybody work with it before , so it 's interesting to get your {disfmarker} get your feedback about it . +PhD E: It 's another type of approximation because i because it 's a statistic {disfmarker} statistic approximation to remove the noise . I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Great . OK . Well , I guess we 're about done . Um , so some of the digit forms don't have digits . Uh , {vocalsound} we ran out there were some blanks in there , so not everybody will be reading digits . But , um , I guess you 've got some . Right , Morgan ? +Professor B: I have some . +PhD F: So , why don't you go ahead and start . And I think it 's {pause} just us down here at this end that have them . +PhD D: S +PhD E: um +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: S so , we switch off with this +PhD F: Whenever you 're ready . +PhD D: or n ? +PhD F: Uh , leave it on , +PhD D: No . OK . +PhD F: uh , +Professor B: They prefer to have them on +PhD F: and the {disfmarker} +Professor B: just so that they 're continuing to get the distant , uh , information . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK . S +","In the given dialogue, the participants, all academically affiliated (Professors, PhD candidates, and a graduate student) and involved in research, were involved in a meeting to discuss progress and concerns related to their respective projects, which appear to be centered around speech processing, normalization, and recognition. The meeting began with PhD F assuming the role of the facilitator, at the request of Professor B, who expressed a desire for others to engage in leading the meeting's discussions. + +The group agreed to do updates on their work, starting with PhD C sharing the news of their paper being accepted at the Eurospeech conference, which describes a system proposed for the Aurora project. The conversation then shifted to discussing the details of his research, which involved online normalization techniques and experimenting with time constants and training normalization for different signals, such as silence and speech. + +A noteworthy aspect of this research involved odd occurrences with coefficient C-1 in varying noise conditions, which PhD C described as a possible influence on the mean estimates for speech signals. They deliberated on whether different means for silence and speech portions could be causing different kinds of errors, or if the method might be affecting the noise in quiet versus noisy cases differently. Professor B suggested looking into the types of errors that were occurring to gain insight into the effectiveness of the techniques being used. + +PhD F brought up an experiment that involved varying parameters based on frequency bands, which led to a broader discussion about how normalizing certain coefficients may or may not be beneficial depending on the noise compensation scheme applied. + +The dialogue continued with Grad A explaining his preparation for qualification exams, planning 'cheating' experiments to gauge the effectiveness of intermediate classifications in speech recognition by feeding known information into the system. PhD F then mentioned having worked primarily on a different project related to a Meeting Recorder, while Grad G discussed his work on phase normalization using mean subtraction and setting up experiments for models to be used in the SmartKom system. + +PhD D shared the setbacks he faced with implementing Wiener filtering, due to what seemed like a bug in his process, leading to worse results than anticipated. He also intended to incorporate filters from another researcher, Carlos, into his work. Additionally, he was piecing together elements for a subspace approach to his project. + +The dialogue came to PhD E, working with Vectorial Taylor Series (VTS), conducting experiments to remove noise in speech signals in Spanish using a variety of techniques, including Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). She outlined the complexities of this method and its statistical approach to noise removal. She noted the modification of Gaussian mixtures based on noise-speech statistics and the challenges of accurate noise estimation. + +Lastly, the participants discussed plans to read digits as part of their research protocol, although there was an issue with some forms not containing digits. Professor B proceeded to read some digits to contribute different sound environments for the ongoing experiments. + +Throughout the dialogue, it was evident that the participants were deeply engaged in advanced research around speech processing and were grappling with technical challenges related to their individual studies. There was a strong focus on experimental approaches, error analysis, and the search for more effective methods to enhance speech signal processing techniques within the context of noisy environments and recognition systems. +" +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we are here to talk about functional design . Now hopefully we've all got a better idea from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} than we did f leaving the last meeting as to what it is we are up to now . So here's an agenda . Uh I'll open . Um you should know that I'll be taking minutes during all the meetings , as I was struggling to our last time uh and that'll be easier for me now because I'm not actually giving the whole presentation . Uh the additional points are just the stuff that we sent and that I forwarded on from upper management having a few bright ideas to make our lives painful . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now {vocalsound} you can all give your presentations . We can talk about the requirements and hopefully come to some decisions . {vocalsound} Right , forty minutes for this meeting , so a bit more time than the last one . Here's the additional points I just wanted to put those in there to see if you guys had any comments on them . Uh did you all receive that email ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anyone have any overall {gap} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} uh what comes up for me is that if we're gonna if we're gonna be marketing a product that is going to be uh having {vocalsound} no teletext , people are very comfortable {vocalsound} with {vocalsound} the idea of having teletext and using teletext , and so we're not {disfmarker} we're gonna be a new product without something that people are very comfortable having right now . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yep . +Marketing: So that's , from a marketing perspective I I see I see a lack . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And so we have to go , I think , in the other direction . What are we gonna have that makes this thing better than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well tha that first point could uh also be an op opportunity because in seeing that teletext is becoming outdated , some sort remote control that can work with the Internet {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there is the opportunity that's presented , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Yeah . No , I I agree with you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So what I'm talking about is I see that one side we're eliminating something so we have to come up with another side which is , what are we gonna be targeting our market uh that {vocalsound} identifies our product as better than {disfmarker} because it doesn't have teletext it has ta-ta-ta-ta-ta . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that's that's that was my reactions . +Project Manager: Yeah . but but we are sort of being dictated that this should only be for the television . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So we're quite fixed . So we're really probably , in terms of marketing , are looking for that's uh that's a cost winner rather than a fantastic new feature product . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but we we're designing only the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: we not design the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh we're gonna be removing the teletext out of any T_V_ that we {disfmarker} people use our remote with . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So it's kind of a stupid decision . +Marketing: I think we take with you . +Project Manager: But there's also the potential for mark there's a market here for our lost teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: For example someone that just goes to the shop that wants a replacement {disfmarker} wants it as {vocalsound} cheap as possible . Twenty-five Euros is the selling price , we really have to innovate here I guess . +Marketing: That's what I'm that's what I'm talking about is is that we have to find something that is gonna be very attractive about this product 'cause somebody , some people are gonna be hap unhappy 'cause it took {disfmarker} they can't ac access their teletext . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause we're talking about {vocalsound} eighty percent or ninety percent or ninety-five percent of the televisions out there are are teletext . +Project Manager: K yeah . +Marketing: So so it's it's not that I'm criticizing the product at all . It's just when we eliminate that then what do we bring ? What are we bringing in to take the place of this , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: and we have to d {disfmarker} in my opinion we have to double up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we lose one we need to bring two or three . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay I think that the {vocalsound} last point is probably quite uh straightforward . Obviously the the {disfmarker} w it has to be branded . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: So then the double R_ will be our our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the product yeah . Can you handle that black and yellow ? +User Interface: I think one of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I tho I tho I thou I think Rol Ro Rolls-Royce might mind , but don't worry . +User Interface: I think w , yeah , one of the things that we should also keep in mind um when we're doing this {disfmarker} I mean our company's slogan is we put the fashion in electronics , right . So I think our kind of {disfmarker} our target here is to {vocalsound} have some kind of very like sleek {vocalsound} nice look remote and we want it to be functional as well , but I think one of the main selling points is that we don't want it to be clunky like like this thing here . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You know we don't wanna a big clunker . We want something that looks nice and it's fashionable and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you have this ? +Project Manager: Nah . So we have three presentations , and I think we'll go in order of participant number here . So we can have a look at the working design first from participant two . That's {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: That's fine . Okay so +Project Manager: Mm it's enough . But uh click it on off ? +User Interface: so you all know me , I'm the Industrial Designer . And we've some basic components that um our remote is gonna need , just basically every remote'll need 'em . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need some kinda of power d power source . Um we have to decide on our our user interface , which is his department , but the in user interface is also a major component . Um we need a programmable digital signal processor to um to take the input from the user and translate that into uh into electronic signal , which we pass to the infra-red L_E_D_ , which you aim at the television uh which {disfmarker} and it receives that signal . You need a on-off switch um I don't know how that got in there . And uh we also need to um have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if we want a universal remote we need to have encryption codes for the different makes of T_V_s . So we need to know all the different you know all the different signals and so that'll require some memory as well . Um so here's just a basic layout of how how the remote would work . You ha the v the power source is in the upper right-hand corner there , and you can see that uh we have the user interface here which is connected to the chip which does all our signal processing , and then passes that signal on to the infra-red L_E_D_ and that signal is then emitted and received by the television at the photo-transistor . So {vocalsound} those are the basic components that need to go into this and everything else is pretty much uh open to move around . +Marketing: Now is {disfmarker} would this be {vocalsound} considered just a standard uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think any des +Marketing: This is not this is not cutting edge technology we're talking here . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We're talking about existing technology . +User Interface: Right I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing is being modified or upgraded or new discoveries . +User Interface: Yeah this is just {disfmarker} this is just a basic layout of ev {vocalsound} of all the components that w w are gonna be absolutely necessary f to have a working remote . We can add things in like if we wanted some voice recognition , I mean that {vocalsound} I mean {vocalsound} that you can kinda say would {vocalsound} would fall under the user interface and the digital signal processing chip . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Do we have an idea of costs of different components ? +User Interface: Um well the most the most costly components are gonna be the chip and the uh th it could als basically the user interface and the casing are gonna be expensive as well . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um the L_E_D_ and the the transistors and everything else are you know they're they're pretty cheap . So depending on what we want our functionality to be , um the chip could be expensive or it could be cheap . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um depending on the n amount of memory we need in there and stuff like that and h and h {vocalsound} you know how much power . +Project Manager: Do we have any ballpark figures for that yet ? No . +User Interface: Uh I don't have any figures right now . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: We uh we have to wait until we get to a more specific design phase for that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but {disfmarker} and I think a significant part of the cost could be the actual the actual casing itself and and you know the the b the buttons and things like that , I think . +Marketing: N okay . Mm . Mm the shell ? +User Interface: Yeah . Basically yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . That's all I have really . +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks . And we have participant three , which I believe is Pedro . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can give you that to click on . +Industrial Designer: Hey mouse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you wanna get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When we're fighting over it's also more {disfmarker} lot more fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: View a slide show , that's what you wanna do , yeah ? Just go up to view . +User Interface: Click , don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: This doesn't work . {vocalsound} So yeah function design . Um you guys know me , Pedro , and um what I found is we want to do fashion and I think , honestly , we should keep technology low and just simple basically and try to aim for design . If basically a case will will cost the same if it looks good or bad so we ma we have to make it look good . Um something cute and small . The big chunky remotes are died in the eighties . So we should just go for something that people will like to actually look at . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um although mo most people will buy s televisions and everything for uh {disfmarker} that have loads of loads of little functions and everything and they mostly end up using simple functions and little things and most the people won't won't get too mad of actually having to go the {disfmarker} to the s to the television to , for instance , tune in their {disfmarker} the stations . There's no need to have that in the remote . So um um as for what I would recommend for uh the the interface design , and uh I will change the colours on the on the logo , but {vocalsound} um we should go for the user-oriented device , so simple controls and good ergonomics . Um and uh although I th I th I'm still here recommending the teletext so I'll remove that , I guess , but um we should go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I t I think what the {vocalsound} the management recommendation was less that there's a worry that teletext will become outdated rather than we shouldn't have it . So I I still think if it's cheap enough functionality-wise to include , it really should be in there . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise we're just going to {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} even if it's necessary or not , if you {disfmarker} if you're given the choice between a t a remote with teletext or without uh when it really {disfmarker} if it i {vocalsound} if it isn't more expensive for us to k make {disfmarker} because as far as I understand it , {vocalsound} it can be operated with the same set of buttons , yeah ? So it should be in there . +User Interface: Right as far as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: i it's just uh {vocalsound} the cost of an extra button . I mean software-wise there's really no difference . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have maybe a silly question . I {disfmarker} in the very beginning it said with the with the advent of computers there's gonna be the {disfmarker} it's gonna be out-moded teletext . I I don't understand how those two things are connected . How does how does computers and teletext {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} why is one eliminating the need of the other ? I don't understand that . +Project Manager: Well maybe what we're getting into here is the the idea of uh Internet through the T_V_ for example . So that might play on what we can do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the they're basically aiming at saying that {vocalsound} you would use {disfmarker} you know a couple of years ago teletext to be the easiest way to check like for uh uh the scheduling and the next programme and stuff like that +User Interface: Scheduling . Um to find out what what you're watching even if there's commercials you know . +Industrial Designer: and now {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and now you can c look it over Internet . But I still think teletext is way more convenient until until we have the same commodities . +User Interface: I think I ha I agree . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause , yeah , I just {disfmarker} I don't see the cross-over between computers and television . I mean I do see the cross-over in some sense , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's not happen yet . Yeah . +Marketing: but but but but with the {disfmarker} the remote is is used for television , okay . +User Interface: Well for me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you have digital T_V_ still already . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So so if we make the cross-over and we're gonna view television on computers then we're then we're losing the the necessity of the remote . S +User Interface: Unless you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there there is a {disfmarker} for example on digital T_V_ systems you have {disfmarker} you can press a button and you can buy things in adverts , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can uh you can view through a catalogue for example . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: A a family member of mine has got a system where you just um you can {disfmarker} Yeah , and there's other features for example on other systems where you can pause live T_V_ and things like that . They're just features from the Internet uh from computers are are coming into the T_V_ sort of under the covers , but you still use it through a teletext . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So now the things to think here are that that there's gonna be more functionality , potentially that we can handle . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we don't we're not aiming a command for that . That's the thing . And all of those require the other commands with more complexity and more software and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I think a lot of that's proprietary anyways . You're not gonna be able to , you , like command a TiVo with our remote . I don't think . +Project Manager: Mm . But still there there's an opportunity . If if it's {vocalsound} , for example , a trainable one then we're {vocalsound} just simply having like an up , down , left , right , an okay button or something like that might might do as well in future proofing it . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we would increase the price to try to make it a trainable one , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . One way the other teletext was there but I guess we can remove it or , you know , make two separate interface designs . +User Interface: I think if it's possible you should try to you know have a talk with management about that . Just you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I don't I don't see the logic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I I don't see the logic in elimination of teletext , I just I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and neither do I in fact . +Marketing: but I'm not a tech-mind either . I just don't see the cross-over between computers and and and +Project Manager: Bu uh . +Marketing: {disfmarker} 'Cause we are designing something for a television , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll communicate that back to those guys there a a and th the message really we wanna be sending to them is that , although teletext may become outdated w there's no l logic in not having it in there anyway i if it doesn't affect the price . +User Interface: Right it's just not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but I I think what they're pushing us towards here is in terms of thinking of ways to future-proof our system for future systems that have something else other than teletext maybe . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We are selling it to an existing market . +Project Manager: I dunno I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we're not putting some {disfmarker} there's no no putting anything in in the place of teletext . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: That's the problem . +Marketing: and and , yeah , and and we're also {vocalsound} marketing a product . It's {disfmarker} what I'm seeing is a is a mid-range cost product . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So so w we can't go and pump a whole bunch of technology into this thing +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because all of a sudden we are gonna have cost overruns . So if we drop {disfmarker} if we are gonna choose to drop teletext , again what are we adding to the product that makes it marketable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . So if we're keeping it basic we're loo loo what we're looking to sell it basically is it's uh just being very easy to use , looking exceptionally good , that sort of thing . 'Cause we really don't have anything else there , do we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't I don't see it , and to me if I'm gonna market a product for b for beauty for for design I'm gonna I'm gonna try to market it at a much higher price . I need to make it special with a high price tag . I don't want to make it economically uh g uh competitive . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I want I want to market it as exclusive . So I would market this product it {disfmarker} at eighty-nine Euros and come up with some really {vocalsound} beautiful exterior design or something th but but I don't think we have that flexibility . +Project Manager: But i if design if design is cheap and functionality is basic , then twenty-five Euros is probably a high price for a commoner garden {disfmarker} stan standard T_V_ so the place {disfmarker} uh remote the then the place we're going to justify that cost is through through design through making it a a sleek elegant {vocalsound} high-priced basic remote . Does that make sense , huh ? +Marketing: No I no I I understand what you say , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but what I'm what I'm , okay {disfmarker} we probably need to move along , +Project Manager: Yeah we probably should . +Marketing: but my my concern is trying to find a marketing niche for this product , +Project Manager: We we're doing alright for time . +Marketing: and if I'm coming in with a with with twenty-five Euros , which is mid-market price , um then what am I going to give these people for this ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's just my question , but we can keep talking . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorry that kinda cut into you there . +Industrial Designer: No just I I would I would advocate for continuing teletext and those would be the basic commands . Um as for , you know , the the case design uh maybe I'll come up with more concrete ideas . Right now it's just the idea of simplicity and slickness , cute and small um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I'm just thinking you know with all these universal remotes that are out there , how many people {vocalsound} how many people actually use every feature that ar you know i like these trainable remotes and things like that , where , you know , it's just so confusing to do {vocalsound} to use all these functions . Where I think the largest portion of the market is just gonna {disfmarker} you know they lost their T_V_ remote , they need another one that'll work with their T_V_ . They want something that looks nice , that that that isn't gonna break when they drop it , that you know that maybe it's it's ergonomic , it feels good in your hand , something like that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I think that's gonna be where you're gonna find the biggest , you know , market share . +Project Manager: So we are looking for something that looks good and just works , rather than looking for any special features . Is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the more bells and whistles we add , it's just gonna cut into our into our profits . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Because I think as we as we add costs for things like uh {disfmarker} for like if we add the voice recognition and things like that , I think {vocalsound} you know what percentage of the of the um of the market is actually gonna use that ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Maybe five percent , you know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: But we can talk a little bit more potentially in the marketing marketing presentation about this . +User Interface: and how much {disfmarker} Right . Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +User Interface: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Uh sorry , I didn't mean to cut in {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Sorry boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I'm not the boss {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Oh P Pedro , I just want to say quickly I I would really like it when you can come up with some more bells and whistles , eh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know sell uh {disfmarker} things come to my mind is uh uh something that's uh {vocalsound} um voice-activated . I know we're getting into some , I hope , some big money on this thing , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's probably a question more for for this guy here , yeah . +Marketing: Is that for over here ? +User Interface: Yeah . Well it's kinda both of us . +Marketing: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: Is it ? +User Interface: Us us user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause uh and I think of voice-activated I think of of {vocalsound} how many times I've I've lost my my remote and I can't find it . So some way that I can I can find my remote by clapping my hands or something +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I was thinking about that . Then your lights would go off , though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: uh and and so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this 's just something . I'm trying to find some bells and whistles 'cause when they talk about tel taking out teletext , it's like , what are we gonna put in ? What makes this thing attractive ? And it's only for televisions . So we {disfmarker} everyth our our competition out there has got these these multiple adaptors where they can use 'em for their V_C_R_s , their D_V_D_s , their {vocalsound} their televisions and we're coming out with one remote for television only . And so to me we have to make this a really special product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I I I don't s I really have to say I don't see the market niche for this product . At this price I don't see it yet . I'm {disfmarker} I I go along with this , because this is what we're given to try to market , but I I don't see the market niche for this product without without some really sort of something really special to identify it as as unique in the market . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we th that should be design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That should be the design basically . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: I think technology we'd we {disfmarker} we're not in the price range to do it . We don't have the money to do it towards t f technology so we should we should aim at design . +Marketing: Okay . Have to do {disfmarker} you have to do it in the box ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay well , so so that's up to you then to {vocalsound} to make this box in something that's absolutely extraordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe make it in the form of a gun . We can sell it in United States . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have a question uh for you . Does any of the um the features that Pedro's spoken about here have any implications we might not have thought about on in terms of just pure functionality ? In terms of making it work or the cost of that or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think all these things are pretty standard . I think we'll be okay . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . Cheers . Onto participant {vocalsound} four . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} you know for marketing f {vocalsound} marketing for me is uh {disfmarker} and uh how do I go here ? Okay . +User Interface: Mm you can just click . +Marketing: Go go . +User Interface: No no no +Marketing: Is that right ? +User Interface: you just get off that . You just click anywhere . +Marketing: Ah-ha . Yeah , what for me is it um {disfmarker} I d I don't know what I'm marketing right now , okay , 'til you spoke and when I wrote this , I don't know what I'm marketing . I just know that I I was identified as a a {disfmarker} we identified ourselves as a as a developer , as a manufacturer , and as a as a um distributor t to other wholesalers . And so the th the twenty-five Euros that we've identified as the sale price is a wholesale price rather than a retail price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: That's what we decided here . Um so what I did is I I decided that {vocalsound} that this this needs to be a product in a in a sense can market itself . So what we've identified here as our main marketing stratagem is is in design . We're making the most beautiful attractive uh whatever we decide it is . So that means we have about seven more minutes or ten minutes left . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} so I would like to have a product that that we can sell easily . So I say inspiration , so having something beauty , something attractive , uh something that in a sense will sell itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh innovation I think fits into what we're talking about here with design . Uh cutting edge technology , I don't think we're gonna have that , these were ideas I was putting together , um unless we come up with some New Age product a as far as the casing is concerned . I I wanna make this thing something that I can identify as special in some way , so maybe we can have some {disfmarker} I I talked about environmentally sensitive , uh maybe we have a product that can be identified in some way as advantageous in a home . I don't know . These are just thoughts . Uh I wanted to talk about uh who we are as a as a corporation , that we're new , we're aggressive , we're competitive , we're we're trying to provide a product from a new perspective rather than from an old corporate line . So to me it's about selling d uh our identity {disfmarker} our corporate identity along with the product . {vocalsound} Um what I found is that the projected costs are competitive . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh we're kind of in the middle of the market , but what I'm seeing is that the market is ready for {disfmarker} I I identified new technology , but again , because what I see is budget restrictions and limitations , I don't know that we can bring any new technology into this thing . If if we could have a technological something {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have an idea . +Marketing: Mm p please . +User Interface: And it's kind of {vocalsound} along the s lines of environmentally sensitive , and it may even fit into ergonomics , and even kind of address the issue of losing losing the remote , what we were saying it's a common issue . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what we can do is , well you know that batteries {disfmarker} throwing a aw remotes run through batteries like crazy . Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Solar . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} s for some people {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Well maybe not a solar remote but instead what about if we had like a power cradle ? +Marketing: But solar {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a a cradle that is is there to hold the remote when you're not using it , so you'll always know where the remote is 'cause you have to put it back there to charge the remote , and we can , instead of having instead of having , you know , replaceable batteries we'll just have a power cell that stays there for the life of the remote . You never have to get {disfmarker} go through the {disfmarker} go through {vocalsound} uh all these different batteries . And also you can {disfmarker} I I think it's a good opportunity for the user design {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} not just for the user design , but also for the {disfmarker} just for the look and feel of the remote as as a whole . You know you could have some kind of neat little , you know , {vocalsound} a sexy design for d a cradle and the remote itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Blah , I like it . I like the idea , but we're talking about {disfmarker} in cost is gonna probably double . +User Interface: It w it would increase the cost . +Marketing: But boy , we can sell this thing , because there's no batteries , it's environmentally sensitive , i we can identify it as a safer product in some form . +User Interface: And you could page the remote if you lose it . Maybe there's a button on the cradle . +Marketing: Yep , that's right . I really see +Project Manager: Now the the question is can we make this for less than twelve-fifty per ? +Marketing: But the cost i No no . No no , we have t we have to change the end cost . +Project Manager: We we well do we necessarily have to change the end cost because uh {vocalsound} Can we dl can we do that without {vocalsound} uh changing it twelve-fifty per product , if we basically can sell more based on this ? +Marketing: There's uh {disfmarker} I mean I don't see it anyway . Yeah , that's gonna be up to these guys . +User Interface: Well +Marketing: I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} my reaction is no , but +User Interface: {vocalsound} what I can do is I can d look into ho well Pedro and I can look into how much this might increase our our costs +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you can look into what kind of effect an increased cost is gonna have on our on our final numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah we we can certainly push for a more expensive product if that's gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , see I I {disfmarker} see I I'm an advocate to make this an exclusive product . You know , let's let's sell this wholesale for for fifty Euros , sixty Euros . Let's make this thing really exclusive , environmentally sensitive , uh high-tech design , uh ergonomics , all of this . Just make this thing uh , yeah , the the the Rolls Royce of of remote controls . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Every home's got to have it . If you don't have one , hey what kind of remote do you have ? Oh you've got one of those , oh fantastic , I want one of those too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just don't have enough money right now . +User Interface: I just don't know about that , because in order to do that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} in order to price it at that kind of level I think we'd need to have every functionality that all the other competitors are offering like being able to operate , you know , the D_V_D_ player and , you know , the stereo system and all that . Which is a pretty basic function that w we've opted out of . And additionally we're m maybe not supporting teletext um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , I think we can say with certainty now that we are supporting teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I do think there are some basic features that we don't have that a lot of other remotes are going to have . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep , one one thing I don't understand is h they've they've given us this package , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Now uh in my opinion we need to give them a package back , okay . They say they say okay here you go . They gave us a fundament a foundation of of what they want , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and and w it's our place to kinda analyse and evaluate . I don't think it's our place to create their product for them , maybe it is . I don't know what kind of role we have in this {disfmarker} in the corporate ladder uh , but to me it's like , okay , you have got your {disfmarker} here's our ideas , okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then let them look at those ideas and they say , yeah well , we can we can raise the price twenty percent , you know we like this idea , this idea no , but {vocalsound} to me it's it's about a choice , do we follow their directives or do we make uh presentations back and and then and then discuss ? beca I I do not {disfmarker} I do not see the market niche for the product that they're handing f handing us right now . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I don I I d +Marketing: I don't see it . +User Interface: I have to disagree though . I think our market niche is basically people who need {vocalsound} {disfmarker} who have lost their remote or uh who've broken their remote and don't wanna send back to the manufacturer , they just wanna run out to the store and get a remote , and then they're gonna look on the shelf and they're gonna see ours is the nicest looking remote . It does what they need . These aren't {disfmarker} I I think that it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and th to get to back to another point , sorry uh uh {vocalsound} for cutting in but , I th I think it's important to remember that that this remote has to work with multiple T_V_s , yeah , 'cause it's selling on its own . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: It's not going to be specifically for Hitachi T_V_s or or whatever . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: No I understand that . +Project Manager: So technologically , if I understand it , uh T_V_s {vocalsound} T_V_ remote's working exactly the same way as video remotes and D_V_D_ remotes . All you need to do is train them to the individual one , all you need to do is is know the the f like some four-digit code . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So saying that it works with all T_V_s is equivalent to saying that it'll work with D_V_D_s and other things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nope , they've identified the product as not working for anything but televisions . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y y you you wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: They've identified this product limita +Project Manager: We have done this . +Marketing: That's why I say I don't I don't see the market niche for this . +Industrial Designer: The interface will be different . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: If we if w if we were going to have a product that worked for D_V_D_s , V_C_R_s and everything , then I can see the market niche , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but we we're only identified as going for televisions without teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: And it's like whoa we ha in my opinion we have to go with something that's extremely exclusive to make this thing marketable , +User Interface: Well here's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I I'd {disfmarker} +Marketing: because who wants just a television remote ? +Project Manager: Mm sorry . +User Interface: Right . We he well here's my thing about that . +Marketing: I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you're in the market for this ultimate remote , you're not gonna go for just a television remote . If it can't control {disfmarker} if it can't control your your D_V_D_ player and a al if y if you can't get that all-in-one ultimate remote , that just {disfmarker} you can throw all your other remotes away . I'm not gonna buy a d seventy-five Euro remote . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} I I I have a tendency to agree with you . I really do . +Project Manager: So we really can't chase that . +Marketing: That's why I say I quest I q I question the marketability of the product . I really question where we create the demand . +User Interface: So I think what we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're really looking for something basic . +User Interface: So that's what I'm saying {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the one thing that that that you said really struck a chord with me here in that we're we're carrying the corporate identity with the product , but we're actually looking for a large profit at the same time where I'd be inclined to go back to upper-level management and say like let's just cut down our profit expected on this product because we are actually branding our company here . We're selling more than just the product . We're trying to get mind-share about uh Real Reaction to to the people who are gonna buy consumer electronics . We want people to eventually say , oh that's that's Real Reaction that's a good m make . It's reliable . And and we're gonna make it {disfmarker} we're gonna win mind-share by uh either being a fantastic product +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or for it working , it just being good , reasonable-priced , {vocalsound} and solid . So if we can make {disfmarker} if we can put an emphasis here on it not breaking I think that's in itself an extremely {vocalsound} big thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I think that's big . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} okay if you if you drop the cost , now if you make if you make {disfmarker} go to the other side of the cost scale , and you make it less expensive , then all of a sudden now we're going into an a a new market area . So we can say low-cost uh uh um uh good design , beautiful , wa-da-da-da-da-da . +Industrial Designer: Good design . +Project Manager: We only have a few minutes left . +Marketing: But what I'm saying is right now we're middle market . +Project Manager: Is twenty-five Euros a mid-market price for a remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: for for multi for a multi-function remote , that's a mid-market price . In a discount right now you can buy 'em on sale sometimes for about about uh eighteen , nineteen Euro , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and that's for the multi-functions , uh D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , uh catch-alls . And and they have 'em in a little box in the middle , and and this is the consciousness that most people have about replacement remote controls . So to me {vocalsound} , to market this a t only a television remote control we have to change consciousness . We have to have something that will change people's thinking to identify this as advantageous , and I don't know what that is . It's gotta be low-cost or high-cost with with special design features . +Project Manager: Well I'd be inclined to say , if we can make the design better than any comparable remote while reducing the cost , then that's the way we really should play it . If we can take it down to you know fifteen rather than twenty-five and make a low profit-margin on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we're really doing that to sell the brand . Yep we have five minutes left . Uh rather th uh to to to sell for Real Reactions . +Marketing: Or my d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I can communicate this to to the more senior {vocalsound} uh mm people within the company here to to get a reaction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about um the idea that I had with the cradle ? How do you feel about that ? +Project Manager: Well how does everybody feel ? +User Interface: Or how does everybody feel ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean I I {vocalsound} well we g we're talking about the other end now . +Project Manager: {gap} I I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like it . +User Interface: No , but I {disfmarker} that's the thing I I don't think it's necessarily the other end . +Marketing: I like the idea , but we have t we have to find out {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other the o the problem with that in my mind I just think off-hand as a as a consumer , would I wanna buy that ? And I think maybe not because I've got a remote and I'll take it to different chairs , I'll take it to different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I w I don't wanna go over somewhere and put it down . It {disfmarker} i if it is gonna be somewhere that you put it down then it needs to be at the side of your armchair , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and that implies that there's only one T_V_ user . So it's very good for some people but it's not a like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it lasts {disfmarker} it would last for several hours on its own power , but when you're done with it you put it back in the cradle . +Project Manager: But it it takes away the ease of use of the remote to a certain extent . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: You have to l sort of remember . +User Interface: well it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You have to d shift down the side of the couch to find it and put it back and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d I d I d I think it it {disfmarker} in my mind it doesn't seem like something that oh I'd really want uh because of that fact . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But I I don't know , that's just my opinion . +Marketing: Well , I think again it's it {disfmarker} we have a cost issue here . You know if we're gonna go in this direction , to me we're going to the other side of the cost range . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Are we gonna make this {disfmarker} selling selling the cost as a high high-tech uh um environmentally sensitive whatever , or are we gonna go to the lower side of the range ? {vocalsound} Again I don't see our market niche in the middle for our product yet . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: I don't see it yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what do we think maybe we should {disfmarker} Pedro , do you have any opinion on it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we should keep it simple , mm medium-low cost mar um cost area and uh make it look good . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} a question I have in in a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} 'cause I I I think I agree with you on , we gotta make it a box . The box is gonna sell it I think , the outside , the casing . +Project Manager: Really need to wrap up now . +Marketing: Can can can we have multiple designs ? Have a modern , have a traditional , have a {disfmarker} you know , and so so instead of them all looking the same , people can have maybe four or five different designs they can choose from . I don't know what that creates cost , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well the the problem with that is we may end up with a whole bunch of inventory of a of a poor design you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep one over another . Yeah , okay , I hear that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , complicated but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um but what we could do is some kind of {vocalsound} well I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we need to , I mean , have a few designs to look at and then come up with something that I think we all agree is , you know , the best fit . I think w what's really important is it has to look good , it has to feel {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has to feel good in your hand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it has to be durable , it has to a and I think it's really important that it doesn't look cheap . I think I think we have to make sure people look at it an and feel like it its like a quality remote . Even though the cost may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What ab what ab {disfmarker} what about a a remote that's {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} doesn't maybe look like a remote ? Just an idea . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just just okay 'cause I mean we all know what a remote looks like on the outside . They're selling these things everywhere . Maybe that could be part of our design exclusivity , is we make a remote that doesn't even look like a remote it it opens like a telephone . +User Interface: Or what if it looks like a pen ? +Marketing: Doesn't matter , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm just jus I talking about some {disfmarker} something to make this thing unique . +User Interface: A pointer ? +Marketing: It {disfmarker} That's the thing , I'm gonna keep thumping on . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'll sell whatever you guys design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a problem selling a product , that's not the issue . I give you ideas , you guys create the product . Once you have the finished product I'll find a way to sell it . Don't worry about it . I just give you these things now , because these are my thoughts and feelings . +User Interface: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: just {vocalsound} to touch on m my point one last time that I had brought up . Um I really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} un unless you guys are die-hard against the fact that um it's possible like it reduces the usability of the remote b and the fact that you can't lose it on your own , I think it still might be a good idea to investigate having like a power cradle . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Because I really think i in a certain sense it almost like {disfmarker} for me I would want to have that just , because I know at the end of when I'm done watching T_V_ that when I'm done , oh I better go find the remote and put it back where it belongs . Maybe th th th that's just some people that like that . +Project Manager: I mean there's al there's also remote controls I remember that that worked uh , this hasn't been done in a while I think , but th as a as a watch . +User Interface: A lot of people {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no . +User Interface: As a watch ? +Project Manager: Yeah , there is remote control watches um , +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: but I think they're a sorta eighties thing , so it might not be easy to market in it {disfmarker} uh but the the technologies came along and it might be cheaper to make now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are not simple . +Project Manager: Those things may have been inexpensive for all I know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: One thing I just thought about when you were saying that , is that the p our target market is gonna be someone who has lost or broken {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I was saying . +Marketing: We gotta stop ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Gotta cut up . +Marketing: Who's lost or broken their their remote . So {vocalsound} how many remotes do they wanna buy ? Can we p can we sell them a remote that can maybe guarantee they will not need to buy another one ? +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And so with with with this kind of system or locator or something , to to think about , how have people been been losing or breaking their remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: How does this happen ? +Project Manager: The last remote you'll ever buy . +User Interface: And also presumably they've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and then and then design the product , maybe some component of the product that can identify this as the last one you'll ever need to buy . +Project Manager: Well if if we're going down that then we can {disfmarker} we don't need to go the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: it it strikes me that the locator feature might actually be uh quite expensive to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Whereas actually just putting it in a power cradle might not be too expensive at all because that's just done with mobile phones +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: you can just n we we have said we have actually similar products that we can take from and potentially cut costs there . +User Interface: Right . Yeah . The locator'll definitely be more expensive . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um need to look into whether we can do that but uh I think we we have some m mobile phone-based products uh checking quickly our Internet . We really need to finish up here . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} uh {disfmarker} we can make it in the shape of a coffee pot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we have the {gap} the power-adaptor products . We sell power-adaptor products . So for example there's nothing stopping us using that technology . +Marketing: It's uh just it's that I think it's telling us to stop our meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we have the c we probably have have on-line in our in our system , we have the ability to create this , we're talking about . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so , +Marketing: A charging system . +Project Manager: without it being too {disfmarker} In fact we can cut costs through using the manufacturing that's already gonna be in place here . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: If if we can create this we have probably five or six or seven really strong marketing characteristics . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think one of the things that we can put right on the box is , never buy another battery . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: You know , something like that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: No that's not what I want , I want {disfmarker} Oh look it here . +","The project team convened for a discussion regarding the functional design of a product, with particular focus on a new remote control. The project manager initiated the meeting by presenting the agenda and clarifying that minutes would be taken to ensure an accurate record of the proceedings. Additionally, the manager highlighted that they had received supplementary ideas from upper management, possibly complicating the project's execution. + +As discussions unfolded, the marketing team raised concerns about removing teletext from the product, arguing that eliminating a familiar feature could deter potential customers. Conversely, the project manager suggested that the declining relevance of teletext and the rise of internet connectivity presented an opportunity for innovation. There was consensus that while teletext was perceived as becoming outdated, removing it without offering a superior alternative could be detrimental from a marketing standpoint. + +The industrial designer emphasized the need to focus on the remote design while considering the intended device—the television. It was noted that the new remote should not attempt to alter the functionalities of televisions themselves. Several ideas were exchanged regarding the design and aesthetic appeal of the remote, which seemed to be a focal point for differentiation. + +The user interface specialist outlined the essential components for a universal remote, including a power source, a user interface, and a programmable digital signal processor. A basic layout of the remote's internal workings was also shared. The marketing representative questioned the inclusion of cutting-edge technologies, to which the user interface specialist responded that the proposed design employed existing technology and suggested that additional functionalities like voice recognition could be considered. + +The project manager inquired about cost estimates for the various components, but concrete figures were not available at the time of the meeting. The industrial designer and the user interface specialist were asked to collaborate on potential designs for cost evaluation. + +Pedro, the industrial designer, proposed a user-oriented device that prioritized simple controls and good ergonomics over complex technology. A sleek and small design was advocated, underlining the trend that large, chunky remotes were passé. + +Despite concurrence that teletext may not be necessary in the future, the project manager asserted that if including it would not significantly increase production costs, it should remain part of the design. There was considerable discussion around integrating traditional TV functionalities with new capabilities derived from the internet. + +The marketing presentation accentuated the challenges of defining a clear market position for the product. It was recognized that the remote should embody the company's values of inspiration, innovation, and competitiveness. Nonetheless, it was acknowledged that with a wholesale price of twenty-five Euros, the product occupied a mid-market position and needed a distinct selling proposition. Suggestions ranged from emphasizing environmental friendliness to leveraging corporate identity. One suggestion that emerged was a rechargeable power cradle for the remote, which would help locate and charge the device, thereby enhancing its usability and environmental aspect. However, cost implications of such an add-on were a concern. + +In conclusion, there was a need to establish a clear identity for the product, whether by designing an aesthetically impressive remote that commanded a higher price point or by focusing on practicality and durability for a more budget-conscious market segment. The team also discussed using existing company technologies to potentially develop a unique selling proposition while containing costs. + +The meeting acknowledged a range of insights and options for the product's functionality, design, and market positioning. The consensus appeared to lean towards designing a visually appealing, practical, and possibly feature-limited remote that upheld the brand's reputation. Further, the product's design should reflect its role as not just a TV remote but as a representation of the company's innovative spirit within the consumer electronics landscape. The session wrapped up with the task of refining the product’s unique features, specifically exploring the feasibility and market implications of a rechargeable cradle system, and communicating the team's collective insights to upper management for guidance on the next steps." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: 'S to do now is to decide how to fulfil what your stuff is , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so in that sense {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: so it does kind of make sense , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It kinda does make sense , doesn't it , because when we get into the end of meeting we're kind of {vocalsound} talking about action and design as opposed to background . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Everything I have is kinda background . +Project Manager: Okay we all ready to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Well how um on the {disfmarker} in this meeting then if we um {disfmarker} I'll just just recap on the minutes from the last meeting . And we uh decided on +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: decided on our our target group being fifteen to thirty five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we decided that it was gonna be non-rechargeable battery-powered , that we're gonna group our audio-visual and other functions into into those categories , um {vocalsound} . And I told you guys about the three new requirements about ignoring teletext , ignoring everything except the T_V_ , and trying to incorporate the the uh corporate colour and slogan . Um so that was the last meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Is there anything {disfmarker} have I forgotten anything ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Is that everything ? +Marketing: Uh that sounds {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so if we have the three presentations , and then if you have anything to kind of {disfmarker} that you know you're gonna want to discuss , maybe just make a note of it , and we'll have all the discussion at the end . That might be a better idea this time . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: And so if we start off uh with Andrew and then Craig and then David , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: if that's alright . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um and then after that we'll have to make some decisions about stuff , right {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah , cool . +Project Manager: So if you wanna take this . +Marketing: Why don't I get that {vocalsound} ? Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Screwed in quite tightly . Uh what did {disfmarker} uh how did we leave it with speech recognition now ? We {disfmarker} did we say we were gonna try {disfmarker} maybe incorporate it but we hadn't made a definite decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . Oh I should also point out that um the you know the kind of final objective of this meeting is to reach a decision on the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that's kind of the end result hopefully . +Marketing: Okay . Um alright so c is it function F_ eight ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Hopefully appear in a wee second . +Marketing: Hmm . Come on . I think it's working . +Project Manager: Up there we go . +Marketing: Okay great s so let me just start this . {vocalsound} Okay great . So um {vocalsound} uh s move on . Uh-huh {disfmarker} oh where'd it all go ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: It's not good . Okay lemme just see where I can find it . This looks more like it . I think I just opened up the template . +Project Manager: Oh right . +Marketing: Sorry about that . Okay alright so let's have a look here . +Project Manager: Here we go . +Marketing: Okay so this was the method that um I've taken . Uh basically what I wanna do here , before we get into it uh too far , is I want to show you all the background information I have that I think we need to acknowledge if we want this to be successful . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh and then sorta g go through some of the way that I've dealt with that information , and then sort of bring us all together into it to see {disfmarker} sorta see how this fits in with the overall vision . Um so I've tried to take a whole lot of market research and summarise it for us , and then ide identify uh trends that are are sort of in sync and are important to our our uh p project plan that we have so far , and then uh initiate a kind of discussion on design options so that it sorta helps us to to narrow in on on aspects that will inform other uh other elements of the of the project . Does that make sense , tha that sort of strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought that that will impact on the rest of what we do , so that's why I suggested we get in this . +Project Manager: Aye a fair point definitely . +Marketing: Okay so out of um different uh figures and ratings ob uh of people in general , um consumers in general , the number one thing that was found was that uh the br t television remote control , a fancy look and feel , okay , and not , it specified , not a functional look or or feel , uh b f f fancy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um however , this is where we kinda have to be very , I think , creative about it . Number two was that it be innovative . Okay so that tells me that we have to find a way to be innovative without a adding just unnecessary um sort of functional bits to it . Uh and third priority uh for ease of use , so again that kind of gives us a general picture of how it has to be , um {vocalsound} quite user friendly while still having technology . So it {disfmarker} I'll just say right away as a bit of a foreshadowing into how we proceed with this in terms of m marketing , is that I think um {vocalsound} what we should think about is how the um {vocalsound} about how the innovation uh contributes to the look and feel , and not so much to the functionality of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aye right . +Marketing: For example like when you pick it up and push it like it all lights up or something , you know what I mean , like , or it's got something else to it that just seems innovative +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: because obviously the thing that {disfmarker} the message here is ease of use . So how do you make innovation make something more {vocalsound} more easy to use ? Well that's I guess where we're gonna go with this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay then there's the other aspect of the back the the market um research I have here is on fashion style , okay , which as we've agreed is a priority . Uh top European fashion trend um {vocalsound} that I read about says there's this emerging theme of fruit and vegetables , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: especially in clothes and furniture . And when I first saw that I thought hmm , well do we want to actually try and think about this trend and how we add something to it , or we get right into it , or we completely steer away from it , +Project Manager: Okay okay . +Marketing: do you know what I mean ? So my my feeling is that we w do want to observe this trend , but we want to think also about the fact that it sort of has to fit in with something which is not specifically electronics . Um 'cause I think what we're in what we're in is partly sort of home decor , partly something like a computer , um {vocalsound} so I think we might wanna be careful about how you know how quickly we create like a remote control in the shape of an apple or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that would be pushing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then in terms of m material trends are for things to be soft and spongy and sort of , you might say ergonomic or or friendly to handle , which is {disfmarker} which also in indicated that last year this was this was not the case . So um probably a lot of the competition on the market will be still in last year's mode , so if we try and really capitalise on that , I think that'll be in our favour . Um {disfmarker} So these this is the summary of everything . Um style is number one uh thing in the in the market of who we're selling to . Uh innovative design technology's also a must in that it's seen {disfmarker} it'd be seen to be uh cutting edge , uh but ease of use t has to be insured throughout . That was like the number three thing . And then at the end there are vibrant natural colours um that's the way I interpreted it anyway , softness in materials , shape , and function , and so I've written at written at the bottom to give us sort of a context of discussion , Mac iPods , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: something which is , I'd have to say very high-tech , ten gigabytes , whatever , but when you hold it in your hand there's like no buttons . +Project Manager: Mm that's true , yeah . +Marketing: You know what a Mac iPod is ? I'm thinking however Mac iPod is sort of last year's because it's very hard and sort of glassy and glossy , so I'm thinking if we imagine that we're taking some of the features of a Mac iPod and we're then making it s more of like a more of like a comfortable type of {disfmarker} or more of like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe more vibrant to friendly thing to have . Um and then so this is w with all that information what I'm what I'm suggesting in this slide here is that we we take these ideas , and as we get into more the more um {vocalsound} techni like sort of production side of things , that we think about shape , materials , and themes or series that go throughout . Sort of like a {disfmarker} I dunno like um we think of some kind of a thin theme that unifies it all , that we agree on , uh sorta like a marketing identity . Um {disfmarker} Does that make sense ? Yeah . So {vocalsound} so like I threw out a few ideas there just to kinda get us thinking along those lines like lemon , lime , I dunno , green colours , pe whatever , it's just an idea , 'cause I'm thinking that some of these ideas will seem quite coherent if we use them in terms of their {disfmarker} what people associate this {disfmarker} them with in terms of texture , shape , colours , things like that . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Great . +Marketing: Like um the ones the ones which I'm most fond of in terms of giving like a theme to it would be like um like lemon or something like that , you know something which is , like you see a lot in in other areas . Like I see lots of websites and things that seem to associate with like lemon and lime and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So anyway it's just just an idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm thinking maybe we could incorporate some of these features into a fairly um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} into something which is {disfmarker} which seems to have something to it which is almost gimmicky because like um like something to do with like lighting within it . Like you know just within the simple sense , when you pick up a phone and touch a button it uh lights up , q usually the buttons light up . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: How can we build on that ? Maybe like it could light up in different colours or something or or people could buy the buy the control and then it comes with different like covers or something so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anyway those are {disfmarker} that's all I have , +Project Manager: That's great . +Marketing: but uh hopefully we can we can revisit those ideas when we get into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay great . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Um thank you for that . Uh Craig do you wanna +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: uh plug yours in then ? +User Interface: Is it working ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . Not quite . +Marketing: Did you press F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: It's probably not sending . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh something coming now , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep , there it is . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: And so think of this concept . Um to research it I've um had a look on the the homepage again . It's provided me with more examples of um previously existing c remote controls . Um there's a wee bit of discussion about the other existing ones there , um so I've taken the um suggestions from them and tried to incorporate them into this um {disfmarker} So then this {disfmarker} we're looking for um suggestions on size th um size of control and the buttons , um the shape of the control , and whereabout the buttons should be located on the control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what I found from the research is that most the current controls are just basically big bricks with loads of buttons all over them . Um they're not very attractive to look at , {vocalsound} and they're not very comfortable to hold , they're {disfmarker} I just hold 'em like big bricks , and they're very easily lost . Um they tend to be very dark colours , so if there are shadowy places down the side of couches you can't really see them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} the the controls themselves tend to use a very inconsistent colour scheme . Um for instance , the stand-by button isn't always red , uh it really should be . It's uh something the user then uh identify with . This is a red switch off , that's how it should be . Um I'm not sure if there's any other examples of that , but something to look out for . Um there's a problem that I've I've got couple of preferences for the the end control {vocalsound} um I get 'em with the the red colour button for stand-by and s the other examples of that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The buttons should be large . They shouldn't be tiny little things like you get on some mobile phones . They should be easy to press , very comfortable . {vocalsound} Um one of the examples given on the homepage was um {vocalsound} there's an up and down volume button but both of them have a V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so the up volume button looks like it should be a down volume button , that's kinda confusing . Um should avoid s things like that . Um {vocalsound} if the the corporate colour scheme allows it we should have a very bright colour so that it can be easily identified anywhere . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um obviously trying trying to avoid being tacky there , but it could um tie-in very easily with your your lime and lemon idea . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , do we have a corporate colour scheme ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's yellow +Marketing: I didn't know . +Project Manager: because like the website is yellow and there's a band at the bottom is yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the Play-Doh 's yellow {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so yellow , lemon , you know definitely food for thought there , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but keep going +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and we'll discuss it after . +User Interface: Um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: any extra features we add beyond the basic ones should be m hidden , they shouldn't be on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} um shouldn't be visible without something be opened or some sort of special extra effort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um if we did decide to go for voice activation {vocalsound} there sh should always be a button as alternative , possibly hidden in the the opened up section um making that something is wrong with it or with somebody's voice , maybe they got a cold or {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} we should definitely avoid the big square block look . That's just wrong . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um we got an email uh from I think it's the the research department , {vocalsound} and they've said th the voice control um can now talk back if you ask it a question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So it sh it could be good to have them um confirm any action you take +Project Manager: Aye that's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: and {gap} possibility . Right and these are problems I've had with it . Um I don't know where the slogan should go , or really what the slogan is . I think it's um , fashion into electronics . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we don't know how flexible the colour scheme is . I mean you say you wanted the the corporate colours , but they don't say you know if we can use any other colours at all or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Great . {vocalsound} Lots of good information there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that that was very good , +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay um . +Project Manager: and uh now with David . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think I'm cool . +Marketing: It's a shame the cable wasn't just in the middle {gap} {vocalsound} of the table , +Project Manager: I know it'd be handy , wouldn't it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: huh ? Just um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: Do y do you wanna sit in the the line of sight of this um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Let me just get this going first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah there it is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It takes a second , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , that should be it . Okay um I guess the same thing again , I started with something very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So just so you guys have some idea of what's involved in my process , um and then you can just work through it +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and we 'll either modify it or start from scratch um depending on what your needs are . Um the components are exactly the same . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I think , like what you guys said , um the most input that's needed is basically in the user interface . The rest of the components um they do have an impact in terms of cost and complexity . Um like you said time to market was a problem , um and how many components are physically in there in cost . And the power is basically a factor of that . Um and the lower components , the power , the logic , the transmitter , and the infrared , um they affect you in terms of the size of your device , um and that would have some inte impact on how y I think more how you hold rather than um the actual use using the the remote control because um like we've said {disfmarker} we've defined , like we only want the basic things that {disfmarker} to be visible , and the rest of them we try to hide . So um you know it's just a matter of working out space . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I guess three things , um cost , um complexity , and the size . These are the three things that um will have an impact on you . So just go through it in the components . Um these are the options that are available to you , um I'm not very sure about the voice thing 'cause I got another email and it was in fact quite sketchy on what n the voice options are . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um it said it could talk to you , but it never said anything about being able to listen . I it said something about a sensor but never clarified that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: well I could see the other email that they sent you , um 'cause they got back to me with like different requirements {vocalsound} , or different offerings of what components availa Okay so your basic components are buttons , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: okay and you have a wheel available , like a mouse scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: okay there's an L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} um I think these are quite standard things . +Marketing: They're standard , aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No um they're {disfmarker} well in the sense that these are all the options available for you . I'll explain to you the complexity and the cost thing again a bit later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um then there's um how the case actually looks . It can actually be flat or it can be curved , um and then the different types of materials that you can use , um I don't think you can use them in a combination , um but um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I could check back for you , but I don't think you can actually use them in a combination . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} you couldn't have like plastic and rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think plastic and rubber would be fine , but plastic , rubber , and wood , I wasn't {disfmarker} I'm not very sure about the titanium . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They had some restrictions on using the rubber and the titanium . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the rubber was a restriction on the kind of power source you could use , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but the titanium had a different kind of things on the shape of the thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so I think that there is some restriction on um {disfmarker} I think you could probably group plastic and rubber together , wood and titanium , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know it might be easier from a cost perspective and a complexity just to use one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know as opposed to two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other components are logic chips , um again I'll I'll go back to the component chips . The com how complex or how easy the logic is , it depends on how many functions you have on the on the unit um and that impacts cost . Um I don't think the logic chip has a issue about size 'cause they should be about the same size . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Power consumption should be about the same . Um I think the main impact is complexity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and the other thing is um the power options . Um the first one is a standard battery . Okay the second one I think is more of a gimmick then actually a useable thing , it's a wind-up {vocalsound} you know , a crank {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll clear one of these things for you . Just by moving it yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that that might be something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think that's more of a look and feel decision because I don't think you can have one power source if you're using the alternative power sources . I think whatever it is you still need a battery 'cause I don't think anybody wants to keep doing one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay the other ones are a solar powered cell , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which may not be a great idea in Europe or {vocalsound} any country that has seasons 'cause half the year you'd be dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So like what I said , you probably need like a battery and something else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the kinetic one I guess for me is the most interesting one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because it's movement and people like to fiddle with their {disfmarker} and it's a nice sales gimmick I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: From a marketing gimmick it it's a technology thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's a shake it {vocalsound} it doesn't work , shake it , knock it or something . You know +Project Manager: W yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: you have {disfmarker} you had those balls , you know those stress balls where you bounce the ball and it and it lights up and it goes , +Project Manager: Uh yeah yeah , I see . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know that might be a gimmick combined with rubber . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know just to {disfmarker} if you get frustrated wi remote control you can throw it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: kind of {vocalsound} you know just uh you know um {disfmarker} so . Um okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know what you mean yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: my {disfmarker} from my role , I don't think that personal preferences but role preferences , I think um something comfortable to hold , um small and slim +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess that's more in the sense of {disfmarker} small and slim in terms of comfortable not so small you can't , you know like a phone or something , too small phone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other thing is from a production point of view um the less components we use and the simpler the components means you reduce your cost and you increase your profit . Um and also the time to market and the complexity of developing designing and debugging it {disfmarker} um so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um okay let me just go back and talk about some of the restrictions . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} The user interface restrictions basically means that if you use more complicated features , like the buttons are standard okay , the L_C_D_ panel and the scroll wheel you need more complicated logic . {vocalsound} Um the case {disfmarker} okay with a rubber case you can't have the solar panels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay with the titanium case , let me just check that um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium case can't be curved , it has to be square . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um there's no restriction on the plastic , and +Marketing: It can't be curved . +Industrial Designer: it can't be curved on the wood . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's again , I don't think you can use them in a combination , um especially the titanium +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I suspect they're very fixed to a particular need . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} mixing them may not be a good idea um yep . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Right can I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh question on {disfmarker} can I ask a question ? +Project Manager: Yeah well yeah it's just I'm quite keen to get the discussion going with the time we've left so {disfmarker} but yeah you c ask away . +Marketing: Okay . Can we uh power a light in this ? Can we get a strong enough battery to power a light ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think we could because the L_C_D_ panel requires power , and the L_C_D_ is a form of a light +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So maybe one of the things we can just try and include is a really good battery . +Project Manager: Why what kind of light do you want {disfmarker} are you thinking of ? +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I mean I'm thinking it might be {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} for uh this to be a high-tech thing it's gonna have to have something high-tech about it +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Yeah . +Marketing: and that's gonna take battery power , and to make that to make that a realistic goal I think one of the issues that will come up later is , can the battery power it ? +Industrial Designer: Are you thinking are you thinking of of a light in the sense of um a light light , or a light in the sense of it glows kind of you know Frankenstein , it's alive . +Marketing: Illuminate the buttons . Yeah it glows . Well m I'm thinking along the lines of you're you're in the dark watching a D_V_D_ and you um you find the thing in the dark and you go like this , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: and that's what everybody does . Oh where's the volume button in the dark , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: and uh y you just touch it , or you just pick it up , and it lights up or something . +Project Manager: Like a phone yeah , like the backlight in a phone . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Like a phone , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Marketing: Whereas with phones , people charge them once a week . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna need to put in a really good battery so people don't have to charge their r remote control every few days . +Industrial Designer: Um that's why I think the option of the the kinetic thing which basically means as long as you shake it like a watch , like an automatic watch +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But are people gonna wanna shake their movie controller ? +Industrial Designer: um it's probably sensitive enough when you fiddle it . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So you could trigger that to a light , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: like I said the bouncing ball thing , or you could trigger that to use that to power the light +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so when they pick it up , right , and then that that sorta triggers the +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: glowingness . +Project Manager: okay um well {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , great . +Project Manager: let's just go right back to the marketing ideas for a start , and just giving an id idea on the time , we've got about fifteen minutes to play with at most . So um yeah so just t to bear in mind that the ultimate goal of this meeting is to reach an {gap} decision on the the the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So back to your idea about um incorporating the idea of like fruit and veg , and the corporate colour , and things like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I mean what does everybody think about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Does anybody have any ideas of {disfmarker} about how we can fit all that in together ? I mean that's kind of the user interface type of thing , what are your thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think we could go for like um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe not a p a fruit shape but a very sort of curvy type shape . Um you could have the same sort of texture and colour as a fruit . +Project Manager: So maybe {disfmarker} do y are we thinking something that like s could sit in your hand comfortably , or do you th you'd hold onto comfortably or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um probably something that s sits in your hand comfortably , sort of feels right in your hand . +Project Manager: So something quite curvy ? Okay um right okay . Colour-wise I mean you made a re uh was it you or uh I can't remember who made the point about how if you've a nice bright colour you'll not lose it , was that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think he made that . +Project Manager: Whose {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Project Manager: about how if you have a bright colour you'll not lose it so much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and when the corporate colour is yellow , I mean maybe we could think about about the colour of the whole product being yellow I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then obviously the uh the materials {disfmarker} when it {disfmarker} has anybody got like an overall picture in their mind about what what might work ? That's all . +Marketing: Well I mean I'm thinking that what we need to do is have something that kind of unifies a lot of the different concepts , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if we think that what we are w our number one marketing motive is um {vocalsound} the look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So for the look and feel to seem coherent and not just sorta bits and bits and pieces of of concept and technology or or whatever or fashion , then we should have it kind of come back to one thing that we kind of all sorta can visualize . Um maybe what we could do is t th think about a concept which touches b back to the {disfmarker} on the um {vocalsound} the colour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you said company colour yellow . I mean if we think of something , like I was saying also lime and lemon you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: what {disfmarker} can we come up with something where we we try and associate it with with like the series . We just come up with something like that we kind of use it as a theme to inspire the +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: shapes and things . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Is there a particular shape that you're interested in ? Like does marketing have any research on {disfmarker} does it need to be long ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Does it need {disfmarker} with a square thing wha +Project Manager: Oh you know like in circular in shape or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause that will n help narrow down the choice of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Choice of material yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like fruit . {vocalsound} I'm thinking fruits in my head , but that's tacky . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I was kinda thinking about as well {disfmarker} you know how you get these shock resistant mobile phones , +User Interface: See I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're plastic but then also have like rubber on the outside , and it kinda feels {disfmarker} it feels kind of warmer to the touch . It feels a bit more comfortable , and maybe we could incorporate plastic and rubber into it . And then then we could have curved shapes , 'cause wood or titanium , yeah , it's gonna have to be boxy and rectangular and I think we might be moving away from that you know so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well I'm {disfmarker} do we really want it in like the shape of a lemon or {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no not at all . +Project Manager: no I don't think we do either {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's more more just that we we think about like what it is we're trying to achieve , so and then we have one one sorta theme that we stick with . +Project Manager: Okay right well um +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so thoughts about the actual shape of the thing . +User Interface: I'd quite like a sort of uh snowman type shape . +Project Manager: A snowman shape ? +User Interface: Um so a p sort of larger bit sits in your hand , and then you got maybe another bubble at the top for just any other function you need . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . That's quite a distinctive shape , +Marketing: Right , +Project Manager: that would be good +Marketing: sure . +Project Manager: wouldn't it . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so yeah should we go with that ? +Marketing: Um can we yeah like to and wha like do you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna draw it on the board ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} yeah just t we can visualize it . +User Interface: Um something like that um you got two groups there um maybe it could fold up and you get a third group inside +Project Manager: Ooh that'd be good . +User Interface: or uh you have volume controls about there . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So call it the snowman-shape trademark {vocalsound} . Yeah that's cool . Um and I mean colour-wise what does everybody think ? I think it is quite important to get yellow in there somewhere . I mean do you want the whole thing yellow , maybe like yellow and white {disfmarker} do you want something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So I reckon it'd look quite nice if we just had um this {gap} here , had a sorta background yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then have sort of a nice bold colour for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay cool . Um and also I mean how are we going to incorporate the slogan in ? The fact that it talks to you , I mean it might be quite cool if when you first start using it it says , what is it , putting fashion into electronics or something , I dunno . Or when you like {disfmarker} or if you turn it off or something {disfmarker} if it can speak if it could actually say the slogan it might be a bit more powerful than just having it written on it somewhere . +User Interface: I think that might scare me . +Project Manager: I d I d any thoughts on that at all ? +User Interface: I think that'd probably scare me . You turn it on your control possessed s {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know . Um unless an a I mean if you {disfmarker} also would that work if we wanted to incorporate um an L_C_D_ display , where would we put that ? Would we put that on the inside or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we need an L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What what's the functionality of that ? +Project Manager: It's bound to increase the cost of it a lot , I would've thought . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the question is what are we using it {disfmarker} +Marketing: What would it achieve ? +Industrial Designer: what would we what would we achieve from it ? Putting in lights is cheap but putting in an L_C_D_ panel just to make it glow is a bit of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} L_C_ well I'd {disfmarker} when you used to mention the L_C_D_ I'd think I wonder what that would be about . And the th the thing I could see it helping with would be if it was somehow connected with um listings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So as you scroll through , 'cause we said we might have a jog dial , so as you scroll through your stations you can y it actually tells you what it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think that will be a problem because we don't have an input device to get the listings into it , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: so um it's a bit nuts to get the {gap} Monday Tuesday Wednesday you know . +Project Manager: Mm oh yeah that's true . Yeah . So so no need for an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I I'm not saying there's no need for an L_C_D_ display , but um it's {disfmarker} what's what what would it tell the user , +Project Manager: I think that would make it very complex . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the L_C_D_ tends to be an output as uh as opposed to an input so um does the remote control need to talk back to the user ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm not real +Industrial Designer: We have the option of the speaker as well {disfmarker} the sa the same thing goes for the speaker , is there a need for the remote control to to talk back ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if there is really , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Nah . +Project Manager: no um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say no need for a talk-back . Uh does anybody disagree with that ? +Industrial Designer: You could put a game on it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Easy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: When the T_V_ dies you can play with the remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay um right +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: so you're gonna have the three different sets of of functionalities , um I mean do you wanna group them into s head of the snowman , body of the snowman , inside of the snowman , is that what you're thinking ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well I think the advanced ones the the ones you don't usually use could be hid inside . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: B um I think the {gap} we had were fairly basic ones , they'd have to go on the the front somewhere . +Project Manager: Okay right um what else do you need to talk about ? +Marketing: Well i I was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where would you physically position the buttons ? Um I think that that has some impact on on on many things . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe you wanna draw onto the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'm just gonna um pop this in here 'cause I have a slide about decision making which I'd forgotten about . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh sh God we've got five minutes um okay uh back we go . Um energy what {disfmarker} do you think that's suggesting we're {disfmarker} how we're powering the thing ? I really like the idea of this kinetic thing where you'd have the back-up of the battery , but have have kinetic power , +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean what does anybody think about that ? +Marketing: Um I've had kinetic things before , and the the the one issue we need to keep in mind with them is that you're committing the user to moving it , +Industrial Designer: No , like I said we have a h hybrid kind of thing , so it's not gonna charge the battery , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: and watches yeah {disfmarker} Sure , okay , right , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Support for it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean just {disfmarker} it's just worth pointing out because like I've I've known I've known people to have kinetic watches that they wear all the time , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's just like magic because it's always powered and there's no battery . I've also known people to have {vocalsound} things like like a jewellery watch they wear from time to time , and they eventually just say it's just too much of a nuisance because I don't wear it all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Like remote control is similar , you're away on vacation , I dunno whatever , you something , and it just starts to get worn down . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I suppose that if you're if you're away and you're not using it , then you're not using any power either . +Marketing: So we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you'd have the battery as the kind of {disfmarker} to keep it ticking over idea {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm really sorry we're gonna have to wrap up quite quickly , we don't have as much time as I thought . Um so I think that's what energy is referring to here . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Chip on print , is that {disfmarker} that's an industrial design thing , is it David ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay um as for the case , kind of discussed that {disfmarker} +Marketing: And this size here , I'd suggest this be small , like quite small . +Project Manager: Yeah I know we're gonna have like rubber buttons that feel kind of {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah I think so yeah . +Marketing: Um just a a lot of the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean one of the things running through my mind right now , I realise we're being efficient to wrap up the meeting and have lots of decisions made , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um but we are leaning quite a bit to the side of being low-tech , rubber buttons plastic frame , it's almost like we're reproducing the same old remote control that's out there . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Should we think about how we are actually getting this high-tech user friendly uh um theme {disfmarker} like what is it that we're u we're using to to achieve those goals ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could have things like backlighting the buttons and stuff like that . +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} Okay so so backlighting , that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Or even a clear case . Um you know a a glowing a a glowing yellow type case where the yellow is showable , +Marketing: Yeah clear , +Project Manager: Aye that would be a good idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but in the dark it sort of , it's alive {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Um in in a slight subtle way . +Project Manager: S so like cur slightly transparent case , so it's yellow , like tinted yellow , but you can maybe see through it . +Marketing: Yeah that'd be really good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or there might be a light running through it like a mouse . +Project Manager: Is that what you mean ? +Industrial Designer: You know you have cordless mice and they don't eat that much power right . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: So the power {disfmarker} the battery in that sense , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you have one or two stratig strategically placed lights +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . Yeah they they emanate a light through it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: but because the case is transparent so it gives it a little bit of a glow , doesn't make it freaky . +Project Manager: Lights . +Marketing: 'Kay . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Um and then the other thing that we we're s we've committed ourselves to achieving is simplicity , and so I'm thinking maybe should we try and think about having something like um some kind of an innovative concept about how the um the volume and the channels are controlled , 'cause that's the main thing people will f wanna do . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Could we use like a jog dial , like a nice just sort of round , somewhere on it where you just roll it ? +Industrial Designer: The question is when you're rolling it , how do you wanna roll it ? +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? 'Cause in a mouse your hand's in a position to roll it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas the other thing about having it jog dial this way , it tends to get moved accidentally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah if you are holding it in your hand you could you could do that , couldn't you ? +Marketing: Well why don't we do it like a mouse then ? +Project Manager: If you're holding it in your hand you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's a very unnatural motion to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Can you imagine you have to scroll a lot . Um it might work for volume , and maybe some of the brightness controls and stuff like that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not for channels right . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you have a Telewest box you've got like , you don't have to buy all the channels , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you've about fifty channels , can you imagine trying to {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay okay +Industrial Designer: Um and I don't think having that you know too quick too slow kin it's confusing to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , but then for um for skipping a large amount of channels you do have to uh to skip the channel button , the number part . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . But users tend to tend to want to use that +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and once they lose out on the user experience they're like {disfmarker} Because that's becomes the most accessible thing in front of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But that's not a bad thing is it ? +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because when you think about it , the alternative is to go push the button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Jog dials are much easier than that . +Project Manager: Okay um right well wouldn't it {disfmarker} +Marketing: You just roll . +Project Manager: we do need to make a decision on whether we want to incorporate a jog dial in nice and quickly . Um I'm all for them actually , I think they're quite {disfmarker} you know th very quick to m to use . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anybody oppose the idea of of incorporating one into the design at all ? No . And the other thing was um can we think of any way of getting the slogan into this thing ? +Marketing: Yeah like I mean if we if if we keep coming back to this board here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I wouldn't be surprised if we could take this idea , imagine that , I dunno , that it's within the shape of the hand , it's quite small {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh ooh okay , we really gotta wrap up +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's small , and that we've got like the the l slogan somewhere like on the casing at the side , +Project Manager: Okay well if we can do that , great . +Marketing: and that yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: well I mean isn't that what we just h said said we s just have to decide now ? +Project Manager: Yeah let's let's try and get the slogan on there um , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you wanna expand the shape of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then like a jo And then like a jog dial somewhere that fits in with the shape of it like I dunno like here , in with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that might have one problem in terms of um in terms of whether you're left handed or you're right handed you might be locking yourself in . +Marketing: It would get bumped , it's {disfmarker} doesn't really fit with your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or maybe just fit it in like down the middle here . +Industrial Designer: Could I just could I just jump in and suggest something quickly ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A jog di +Project Manager: I'm really gonna have to hurry you on here 'cause we're we're actually over time . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Um is there anything anybody's unsure about ? +Marketing: . It's kind of yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just for {disfmarker} in closing just {disfmarker} the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes , and so you can see in the screen here what each of you are gonna hopefully be doing , uh I know that the designers are gonna be working with Play-doh on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that'll be that'll be good . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Um and I'll get the the minutes up as soon as possible . Anything at all you think we haven't discussed that we need to ? Is everybody kind of happy about what they're gonna be doing ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um I think one thing would be the jog dial 'cause that's gonna have quite a big impact on the thing um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think the jog dial , you know it just after you drew that , what if it was flat and you just spun it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's what I was thinking the {disfmarker} +Marketing: that'd be great . +Industrial Designer: a slide , because then you you don't have to put the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think incorporating a logo is quite straight forward . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's lots of space for it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's kind of a design thing that you guys can can discuss , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's also a a marketing and a function {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah and materials we sorta said we'd do plastic and rubber , didn't we , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think maybe we should try and stay away from just the big protruding rubber buttons , 'cause that'd just be so standard . +Project Manager: To make something flush with the case ? +Marketing: Something a bit more flush , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay right . +Marketing: or maybe have rubber incorporated into the case as well , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so that it has {disfmarker} and also t plastic I've seen can get really textured , so you can get plastics that actually feel soft in your hand . +Project Manager: Sp kinda grippy ? +Industrial Designer: Feel like fruit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Fruits kids {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They feel kind of like um , you get pens now and then that you'd think that they were rubber but they're not , +Industrial Designer: No like {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: they're actually just plastic that's textured , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah kinda like that yeah . +Marketing: kind of a little bit like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to call this to a close 'cause we're way over time . So um that's really good , like we've s had much to talk about that um pretty much run out of time to do so . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So off you go and design stuff +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: wooh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Play-doh time . +Project Manager: Yeah quite jealous actually . +Industrial Designer: You got to choose first . {vocalsound} No , we're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , can I just swipe your power cable , I don't think it matters . {vocalsound} Okay lemme {disfmarker} okay , I'm gonna pull everybody out first and then put in whoever needs to be left . It's you . Argh . This is a real hassle and a {disfmarker} oops . I'm gonna take the microphones , 'cause it's {disfmarker} too lazy t take them off again . Cool . +","During a meeting involving an Industrial Designer, a Marketing representative, and a Project Manager, the team discussed the design and marketing of a new remote control targeted at consumers aged 15 to 35. They agreed on a non-rechargeable, battery-powered device with audio-visual functions. They considered ignoring irrelevant features and incorporating the corporate color and slogan. + +The marketing research pointed to the importance of a fancy look, innovation, ease of use, fashion style, and vibrant natural colors. Marketing suggested considering current trends like fruit and vegetables in design but advised caution to avoid gimmicks. One idea was to have a product line with names like lemon or lime to reflect trendy colors and associate with vibrancy and texture. + +The project manager emphasized the need to make final decisions on the product concept by the meeting's end. Suggestions were made for a curvy, comfortable design, incorporating the corporate yellow color, and possibly a transparent glow. The team also discussed the practicality of including features like backlighting buttons, a kinetic energy power source as a backup, and a jog dial for easy control. The slogan's integration and the avoidance of a standard remote control look were important discussion points. + +The meeting concluded with the team ready to embark on the design process, considering the discussed ideas and decisions, with plans to revisit certain concepts, like the jog dial, in subsequent conversations." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Afternoon guys . It's gonna be {gap} . +Marketing: Rock and roll . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: So do we need to re-train Mike on how to put his mic on ? +Project Manager: We may do . +Industrial Designer: Think s +Marketing: Okay , can he get it all by himself this time ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm feeling like a big boy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Pro +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Probably not , 'cause he's 'S been listening to {gap} too much . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He's getting retarded . Yay . +Marketing: I believe I can fly . +User Interface: Alright well we got some exciting stuff for you guys . +Industrial Designer: Or not . +User Interface: Or not . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Just what I needed was something exciting . Remember , I'm an old man . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , ready to go ? +User Interface: All ready . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we've got our conceptual design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Apparently I'm old as well . +Project Manager: Hopefully we've all got exciting ideas now . +Marketing: Thirty's really young , eh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We do . +Project Manager: Uh k exciting ideas . 'Kay so here's our agenda our agenda . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm gonna open . I'm gonna talk for a bit about what we're gonna do . I'm gonna take some notes . We're gonna all do a presentation , and then hopefully we're gonna make some decisions now . {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} Well when I say hopefully , we have to . So +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I'm gonna let you guys talk before we make decisions . And does anyone really want to go first ? +User Interface: I guess I'll go first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You p two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Component , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Components design . +User Interface: Yep that's it . +Industrial Designer: Presented by name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: My name is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your name is name ? +Marketing: Jose he man is . +User Interface: My name is name . +Project Manager: Huh hi name . +Industrial Designer: My name is Inigo Montoya . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You killed my father . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry I did this in a bit of a rush . +Industrial Designer: Prepare to die . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N name . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so here's a look inside your really old-looking remote control . Um you've got {vocalsound} a printed {vocalsound} a printed uh circuit board here , and you've got all these buttons which kinda press down little rubber {vocalsound} nubbies into these little holes that activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've all broke a remote control ri um s yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah we've all broken a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you've also got um {disfmarker} you've got your chip here , your batteries here , and some sorta electronics . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I just love you tech guys , huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there's a thingy and a dingy and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You press this and it does th +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah y do jabber {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you've got {disfmarker} here's here's a transistor , and this amplifies your signal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um you've got the L_E_D_ here on the end of the uh uh on the end of the printed circuit board . Um you've got a couple diodes here for I don't know who and whatnot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno who and whatnot . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +User Interface: So um we've got a {disfmarker} i in this in this uh drawing he uh in this example here , this is a eighteen pin um uh chip {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: P Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it's two double A_ batteries . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is pretty standard remote . So here are options for our power sources . You can use a basic battery , which we've already discussed , um {vocalsound} th our tech department also said we have the option of doing some kind of hand dynamo where maybe you crank it or something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wanna change that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I don't know if that's really {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I gotta I gotta flashlight , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know we got some qu crazy guys down there in that department so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You shake it . +Marketing: yeah but it's interesting 'cause you shake it like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: So that's the next bullet is the um the kinetic provision of energy , +Marketing: And that's on the camera {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's like that flashlight where you have to shake it {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh we've got solar cells , which I don't think is a very good idea because um you could not use your remote at night {vocalsound} which doesn't make a lot of sense . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: And finally we've got our cradle o our power cradle idea . +Project Manager: Okay so we basically have battery versus cradle here ? +User Interface: M battery versus cradle I think is {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I like the kinetic . +Project Manager: So we have battery versus cradle {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I g I I figured you would . Yes . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It could be fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's actually a novel thing because you could sell it a as a novelty , just to be actually serious for a minute here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it is it is more uh {disfmarker} I mean it is more eco-friendly than the than the cradle 'cause you're still using power off the grid with the cradle . So um +Project Manager: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: our case design . We have uh choices in materials and choices in the general shapes that we can do . Our material choices are a plastic latex um ty or plastic , a rubber latex type thing , uh wood , or titanium . If we go with titanium we're gonna be uh limited in the amount of shapes we can do because it's tough to shape the titanium , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah pers +Project Manager: Wood wood would ge would give us a little bit of a marketing niche , wouldn't it . +User Interface: I think wood i {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It it it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah . +User Interface: I I can't see anybody wanting to use a wooden remote , it's just anti-technology really , you know . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Hmm . +Marketing: Uh uh to me in a marketing sense it's not it's not relative . We can we can o we can uh accentuate whatever {disfmarker} whatever product you put in there we can find a way to accentuate it . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And what we may be able to do , and I think this might be the best option is to combine some {disfmarker} a couple of these . Um my recommendation personally would be to do some kind of a plastic inner shell with a like a rubber outer shell , to make it um to mak uh like a thick plastic inner shell and a t um kind of a {disfmarker} to have that rubber outer shell to make it more durable , and also maybe i I think it feels a little better than the plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Do you get a good grip on the rubber ? Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if you make it from that super rubber , when you drop it on the floor it can bounce right back up in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You don't even need to lean down to get it . +User Interface: The advantages of working with plastic and rubber is {disfmarker} w we we'll have a lot more um options just in terms of shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you can extrude plastic in basically any shape you want . So um {disfmarker} and then we can cover you know the breakable bits with rubber yeah so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But basically these are {vocalsound} curved and double-curved I I believe that the tech department , in their um {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} message to me , that they were referring to the number of th curves in the bottom . I have no idea exactly what they're talking about , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but that's what they told me , {vocalsound} uncurved , flat , curved , or double-curved . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would guess this like this pen would be kinda like a double-curved , where it's curved on m m multiple axes , right ? I think curved means just curved in one axis and double-curved is curved in two axes +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or surfaces . I have no idea . +Project Manager: I think it might mean something like that sorta shape because a double curve rather than a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm yeah that's {disfmarker} yeah that's what I see . +Project Manager: yeah that's what {gap} . +User Interface: Oh okay oh like a wave , okay . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I see also . +User Interface: Alright that makes sense okay . Um okay , with the interface we have the following options , we can u we can use push buttons , we can use a scroll wheel with an integrated push button , and L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: or multiple scrolling wheels . Um so these are all options that the user interface guy can uh {disfmarker} has at his disposal to put together a user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: For electronics , we have these very technical um {vocalsound} descriptions here . A simple chip , which is the least expensive , but I have no numbers to give you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: a regular chip , which is {vocalsound} like the medium porridge {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} medium expense uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} D do we have actually any concept of what the difference is between a simple chip and an advanced chip ? +User Interface: Yes the difference is , with a simple chip {disfmarker} a simple chip will operate {disfmarker} oh why doesn't this scroll up ? Previous previous , okay . A simple chip is required to operate push buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} an advanced chip is required to to operate um the L_C_D_ display , and it didn't say specifically , but I I have a hunch that a regular chip is gonna be the scroll wheel and the multiple scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that makes sense . So presentation from {disfmarker} I guess design would go best . Next . +User Interface: That's the end of my presentation . +Project Manager: Technical functions or interface concept ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh interface concept . +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very long presentation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , but it has your name on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that doesn't bo bode well for it for it tats as well . Um so , somehow that thing's too big , but um {disfmarker} okay um our uh manufacturing division wanted the speech recognition . They say they could put it to work but um we don't think so . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . It it it {disfmarker} you'll be you know be affected by the by the other speech and {disfmarker} +User Interface: If the T_V_ is working , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} I mean it'll {disfmarker} if somebody says up in the middle of a television show , it's gonna change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and and fighting for the remote would not be fun anymore , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I think that's one of the things we wanna keep . +Project Manager: But what if you actually had to press a button to make it recognize ? So if you pressed it and went , up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That kinda would r d +User Interface: Well then why don't you just press the up button ? +Project Manager: Man yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . That would kind of lose it . +Project Manager: But if it's just one thing with a button that you can just go {disfmarker} Up . +User Interface: Even still there's gonna be interf th there's there still will be interference from the T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It might not be it might not be completely confusing , but I think you'll still y it's still {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think it's practical at all . I think it's a bad idea frankly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so um taking that away , our uh {disfmarker} the the the rubber but rubber buttons are the more reliable {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You guys know your stuff . +Industrial Designer: it's the the ones that would al would allow us to to market our product as being you know less prone to damage and more resistant to things like spillage of liquids over it or you know mistreat misuses as it happens to remote controls . Um as for the point that we making about losing it . Well , we wanna small r remote control one side because uh we want it to be cool and uh designed , but um apparently um market shows that bigger s bigger um remotes get less lost , +User Interface: That I would believe . +Industrial Designer: about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But um yeah I think we we need to compromise between those two and somehow we'll do that . Somehow . Um so {vocalsound} the the {disfmarker} what I would propose is something more or less in the uh direction of what is to yo the right of that slide uh but without {disfmarker} with a l a less complicated um design , so the numbers , the volume control , and channel control , and teletext access . Uh the volume and channel control can just become those the the four button array as in if it was a round dial . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um if you just think about it as the one to the right but with the numbers and the four buttons plus maybe a centre one with teletext . +Project Manager: So we're suggesting doing a sorta scroll wheel thing for the volume ? +Industrial Designer: Ye no it's not +User Interface: That's not a scroll wheel . +Industrial Designer: i i it's just four buttons that are on a cross , +Project Manager: Nah . Oh okay okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: so that you ba basically can control all of the important tasks from that {gap} alone . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . +User Interface: Instead of play , stop , rewind , and fast forward there , that's up , down , louder , and quieter . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um yeah so I think we w we go for something mid-sized , so something looks good +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh is not too prone to get lost . That be it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So on to {disfmarker} Y functional requirements or trend watching ? +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Trend watching has a later date there . +Marketing: Trend watching I guess . Trend watching I believe . +Project Manager: {gap} forty six nineteen fifty seven . Yep . +Marketing: See what it looks like . It's been so long . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} I don't know what to say . When I s when I see the {disfmarker} when I see the product I I I I don't wanna buy it . I see so many of 'em out there . There's nothing about that product that makes me wanna choose that product over other products that are out there . +User Interface: Are you talking about the picture ? That's not our that's not our b design , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: that's just a {disfmarker} that's just something he a a graphic he used to show you the layout of what the layout of the buttons might be like . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Okay 'cause 'cause right now I don't have too much to say about how to market this product because we don't have a product to market yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh from from talking to Mike is that we have we have uh we can market a more expensive product now . That's what I understand so , +Project Manager: Upper management said yes . +Marketing: hello . +Project Manager: Uh e excuse that , that's a bit of spam . +Marketing: And and so {disfmarker} yeah I'm a I'm a little bit stuck right now in that what uh w what is it that I'm gonna market ? Uh without special or increased marketable features I don't believe the product has a consumer demand . Uh I like the idea of of the scroll makin {vocalsound} there are so many people making these products at this price right now . What are we gonna do to make this one special and unique ? +User Interface: What's special and unique about a scroll ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} well I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . +Marketing: yeah it's {disfmarker} I I just see it as different . I don't say it's specially mm {disfmarker} I don't say it's special . Uh I say that it's different I {disfmarker} what I'm looking for as marketing is m give me something different . I give me a lower price , give me a higher price , give me some new technology , don't give me the same thing that everybody else is putting out there on the shelf it's f at the same price . I need something to market about this thing . We're we're a new firm . +Project Manager: I'd I'd say though that we {disfmarker} if we did make the decision to go with the cradle though , the then we have that as well , +Marketing: What i {vocalsound} if when when we have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but wi with a similar {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah when we when we have something like the cradle or or something give that's {disfmarker} as as a marketing standard {disfmarker} I need something to market , to make this product unique . +User Interface: Well right I think the two big th points that we have so far are the {disfmarker} having the cradle and also having uh the um the actual design of the uh case itself having like this like rubber shell maybe with a plastic interior , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: having it look really nice um and also be really durable . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Just remember when I made up this report I didn't have the information that we're discussing here . +Project Manager: Mm . Course . +User Interface: Right yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And and so so uh yeah when we have a cradle , when we have some kind of design , so what I'm saying is , from my perspective , I don't have a product to market right now . Um uh my personal preference is that we make some adjustment in the cost , either lower or develop an integrated new technol technology . That's that is the next step , there's technology and then there is technology , which we're moving into the next phase . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause that's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so uh we're gonna have some new technology to enhance the marketability . Yeah uh again I'm not sold on the product because we don't have a product in my opinion yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I need a product . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Well let's get a product then . +Marketing: I need a product to market . And I just {disfmarker} whatever product you guys put together , we'll find a way to market it . Tha that I'm not concerned with . +Project Manager: So now {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you give me {disfmarker} if you give me a cut-out of what everybody else has then I need to I need to find a lower cost . +Project Manager: So our big {vocalsound} questions here really are cradle or not cradle ? Do we go basic or do we go for features ? Uh d does anyone really wanna do anything with the scroll wheel or should we ditch that off-hand first ? +User Interface: Well my question is what would the scroll wheel do ? Function-wise , what does that do that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh but that was in your presentation {vocalsound} so wh what would you imagine it doing ? +Marketing: Yeah wh wh what's the {vocalsound} wh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well it's it's just another way to do the exact same thing that the buttons do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: But would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay now what I see with the scroll wheel is everybody has buttons . So from a marketing standpoint I have I have another door to walk through when we have something that's unique . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If it creates something more complex or more expensive , then I don't know if that makes it uh a marketing necessity . But again , from a marketing perspective I want as much new and different about this thing as possible because we're we're co {vocalsound} it's a very competitive market . +Project Manager: What I understand about scroll wheels is they're they're quite expensive to to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I d +User Interface: Th they are gonna be more expensive , but on the other hand , I mean , it {disfmarker} I mean it is an alternative if if you think that's gonna sell some some uh you know {disfmarker} if if we're gonna make up the extra cost by extra sales I think maybe it's worth it to do it , but I mean I would just use {disfmarker} if I was gonna do this I would just use the scroll wheel for s channels up and channels down . I don't think volume {disfmarker} or do you think volume would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I'll bet first in volume maybe . I dunno . +User Interface: No we can {disfmarker} we can do multiple scroll wheels but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I d I like the idea of basically focusing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my personal preference is focusing the p the product on the idea of the uh the case the the {vocalsound} uh dock to put it in {disfmarker} to to charge it . We can target like environmentally friendly ideas , that sorta things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It s i m makes it easy to market , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: it's easy to differentiate the product , yeah so . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} that's right . I think so . +Project Manager: And if we we keep the rest in a format that is durable because th th the whole product's gonna need to be more durable th thus because you're not going to be ditching it as often . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's gonna need to be more expensive because of the cradle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we can market it in terms of that and yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . I think we got some exclusivity in that , you know , we got something that nobody else has right now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and and that means we can we can make some adjustments in the retail or wholesale price if we need to and it also can create it's own demand from it's uniqueness . +Project Manager: So our big decision then is like how do we do um like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have to decide on the details and we have to decide on well n not exactly the details , but d do we have uh {disfmarker} What type of casing ? I personally like what you were saying about the plastic with the rubber . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm thinking {disfmarker} yeah something like kinda almost like these pens , you know , where there's {disfmarker} you have plastic bits and then it's not really rubber but just kinda like a fused {disfmarker} the plastic with rubber on the outside . +Project Manager: Okay . Just a very thin sorta sheet for a a grip , sorta thing or for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well no ma yeah maybe a bit more then th is on here but ju just as a kind of an inspiration , these pens I think are are kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So then if we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} d d do we want to do anything more basic with the {disfmarker} uh more advanced with the user interface in terms of do we want to go for {vocalsound} um buttons , or do we want {disfmarker} if we're ditching the scroll wheels do we want to go L_C_D_ ? Do we want to give {disfmarker} do we want to have anything else on it ? +Industrial Designer: It's only a T_V_ . +User Interface: Or from from my perspective I think L_C_D_ is a mistake because this is a universal remote and all you're doing {disfmarker} I mean it's {disfmarker} you're not gonna get any information back from the television , so the only information you can display on this remote is what channel you {vocalsound} just sent it at last and there's just not a lot of information , you know , there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It receives no information . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I I don't see any reason for having an L_C_D_ 'cause it's an increased cost . Unless you can think of something interesting to do with it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right now there's {disfmarker} right now there's nothing coming out of the T_V_ to receive , so you know unless technology changes and information starts coming out of the {disfmarker} a cable box or something there's no s I don't see the , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I don't see the necessity of an L_C_D_ either . Don't see it . +Project Manager: Okay so the question is now I guess we need t to decide on {disfmarker} well y you guys basically have to now go and figure out the details of this thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , what we need to know in terms of marketing and uh project management are are there any other questions that we need to answer now before you guys can go and build this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what overall things have we not decided on ? +User Interface: Well we have to {disfmarker} I think for me it's still not exactly clear exactly what the inter user interface is gonna be . There's the scroll wheel , in or out ? What do you guys like in the user interface ? +Project Manager: I think maybe in terms of marketing , is that gonna make enough of a difference to justify the cost ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Again . Well I think it's it's {disfmarker} the more uniqueness you can bring to the product , the easier it is , I believe , for me to market . Uh again the push-buttons I I see are are everywhere . And so we can go with the same thing , but we're gonna be com competing in a in a broader market than if we go with something unique . You know the other thing I thought about was you know , do we go to something like this ? Make a remote that doesn't look like a remote . It's just another {disfmarker} it's just a an idea , and I don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I dunno about like the flip-phone idea , because {vocalsound} I think , as far as durability th it's not a big {disfmarker} well maybe when it's closed . +Marketing: I mean what I see {disfmarker} one of the things one of the things you brought up in an earlier presentation is , when you got children , {vocalsound} their their stuff gets inside the circuitry , they get dirty , they get messy with drinks and stuff . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And what I keep throwing out there {disfmarker} I just keep throwing out ideas to try to make this thing look or act or in some way identify itself as unique or different . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But you guys are the ones that have to c ultimately create the product within cost . +Project Manager: Yeah and I guess th th the question th {vocalsound} th that you're being asked right now is whether {disfmarker} is the dock enough of a unique feature to be able to go out and sell that a a as a a very different product , or do we really need the scroll wheel as well ? +Marketing: Oh okay +Project Manager: Because the scroll wheel comes at quite a cost . +Marketing: phew . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you gotta g get into cost effectiveness . I think if you can have the base station with a with a locator , I think those are two very strong features , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: if that's something that can be integrated without a bunch of extra cost . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The locator's gonna require a radio transmitter , which will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's gonna n is that gonna need a better chip as well ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} we're probably gonna have to go with a like a medium chip , s I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: No it's just different . +User Interface: But we I we will need a receiver , an antenna . +Marketing: Integrated , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just uh I I think that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It should be a really simple signal though so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know personally that would be a very attractive feature , is to have a uh have a button I can push to find my remote control . +Project Manager: And it's presumably gonna need a little speaker in it or something like that as well to beep . +User Interface: That's true yeah . +Project Manager: But I guess a little tiny speaker is gonna be quite cheap , it's not gonna need q quality , is it ? It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah . It'll be really cheap . +Marketing: Or maybe you can like have a a smell-o-rama , you know you push a button and it s puts out a stink . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe not {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Makes your living room more fresh as you watch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we're doing well for time here . +Industrial Designer: S +Project Manager: Um we've got about another ten minutes . I think that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the scroll wheel , in or out ? +Project Manager: Mm pr my personal preference is out . I don't think the cost is justified {vocalsound} for a little bit more uniqueness when we already have that , and I don't s think it's obvious and natural how it would be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think we have {disfmarker} like and it's not very usable and it will bring down the robustness of the whole thing , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's it it breaks down easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For me I think the scroll wheel actually might not be so bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know exactly what the increased cost is gonna be , but I think he does have a point , i it might push somebody over the edge when they're looking at our at our remote versus something else , when they see this one has a scroll wheel to go up and down on the channels . I think it might be kinda neat to be able to do it like that . +Project Manager: But then that that surely d depends a little on the T_V_ +Marketing: W +Project Manager: because some T_V_s are quite slow at changing channels from like so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: if you've got a scroll wheel and you s you have to scroll scroll it really really slowly just so that you're actually keeping in pace with the T_V_'s ability to to change channels . Or do you have to go through and you wait for it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You scroll it a bunch of times and you wait for it to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think wh what it would be is like like the m like this , where it's maybe you know a digital wheel , right , where it's where it's quantized into you know certain {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I see I see . That's where you {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was that was my my intuition of what the scroll wheel would be . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah I see I see what you're talking about now . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} it's basically {disfmarker} it it's just a f look and feel thing . It has the same exact functionality as two buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I think there's {disfmarker} you know that uh there are so many people today that are that are surfing {disfmarker} are television surfers , and I see the scroll as a as a great mechanism for surfing . +Project Manager: Yeah if you're just sitting there going {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Instead of going button-to-bu you just {vocalsound} j you'd j j j j j j . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's kinda cool actually . +Marketing: I really I really think that's a really cool thing for surfing . +Project Manager: I like that . +User Interface: Now just just so you know though uh you did bring up a point which is very valid , is a lot of T_V_s won't re the T_V_s won't respond exactly the same . Some of them are gonna be kinda slow switching , so you may like queue up like fifteen channel changes , and it'll be like flip , flip , flip . +Marketing: Well there's ano +Project Manager: Well not n necessarily . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could basically make it so that it'll {disfmarker} I mean it's just gonna be sending a signal to the T_V_ yeah the T_V_'s ge so if you send about five flip channels , if you did that it's gonna flip once . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: If you do that . +User Interface: Yeah it just might be frustrating where you can't make it go as fast as you want , +Project Manager: Other than click click click . Yeah . +User Interface: but I think once people get used to it {disfmarker} I I do like the idea of the scroll wheel though . +Project Manager: And if we're marketing it as a high niche product , then we're gonna be selling it to people who are buying good T_V_s as well , yeah , presumably . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Primarily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think so . I I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Now the the only thing I I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} on the interface side of it , is that {vocalsound} I I I see the dilemma . {vocalsound} But if we have the option of of scrolling {vocalsound} at any particular speed , or the option of jumping direct , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I can go uh {vocalsound} presuming I have , on my television , something that tells me what channel I'm on , I can scroll direct from channel five to channel thirty two . {vocalsound} I know what {disfmarker} because it's on the television . The television tells me what channel it's on when I change it . So {vocalsound} I don't know that really that's that's gonna be a a d problem , 'cause the television can go automatically from channel five to channel thirty two with the push of a button . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ca can we can we create that kind of interface within a scroll system ? You understand what I'm saying ? +User Interface: I think I know what you might be getting at , or or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I see so if {disfmarker} maybe if we had an L_C_D_ up the top that just did a number on it , right ? And then it {disfmarker} that basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no we could read it from the television . +User Interface: Well , what about this {disfmarker} what about if you can programme in your favourite channels into this scroll wheel and you can just like roll through your favourite channels , +Project Manager: Mm . Well that's quite cool . +User Interface: and it c it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You'd need a display on the th the thing . +User Interface: Why ? It'll tell you when you flip the channel on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah the the television can tell you . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can . +Project Manager: Oh yeah yeah no I see what you're talking about . Yeah that's kinda cool . How would you program it though ? +User Interface: Well you just {disfmarker} it's one extra button . You say programme start , and then type in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause you still have the typing you know you'll still have the keypad where you can type 'em in manually . +Project Manager: Okay okay . +User Interface: So programme start , zero , one , enter , zero , five , enter , {vocalsound} thirty eight , enter , programme end . +Project Manager: Okay and yeah +Marketing: And then . +Project Manager: and that just basically flips between it and it'll go {disfmarker} it sends out zero , five , and then thirty six , and then zero , one again . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that's kinda cool . I like that . +Marketing: And again we have another another great marketing tool . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: We have about three {disfmarker} we have three or four things here . +Project Manager: That's not gonna be too expensive because that's gonna be {disfmarker} you're gonna be able to nab that off of computer mouse manufacturers really . You could basically {vocalsound} come up with a partnership to be able to produce that quite cheaply . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno and an maybe we maybe even have this as in-house technology . This may be something that's available through our own uh through our own services . +Project Manager: Might be , but tha that's not gonna be such a costly feature . The problem we're gonna have is making it robust . Making it last . +User Interface: Oh well we also have to determine in some manner how to switch between modes , between going through your favourites list and just hitting up one , up two . +Marketing: Or we go directional up {vocalsound} we go we go this we go this we go this way for one , we go this way for the other . +Project Manager: So if there's a button {vocalsound} for each type . +User Interface: No because you wanna be able to go up and down through the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah people are gonna have their favourite sorta , whether they do that or whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah-ha okay . Okay , okay , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: well then you just have , you have a diff you have a mode switch . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah the mode switch . +User Interface: I think we'll need a {vocalsound} we'll need a mode switch , but then if we have a mode switch we're gonna need some kinda indicator +Project Manager: Just the lights behind the buttons . +User Interface: to which , an L_E_ an L_E_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could have back-lit buttons maybe . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: Would that work ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay we have five minutes . So right details th {vocalsound} that we've talked about here are that we want a scroll wheel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We want {vocalsound} a mode indicator . We want {vocalsound} back-lit buttons . And if we're making back-lit buttons period , do we want that just for the mode indicator or maybe to indicate what button you're pressing at the time , so that you know if it's actually pressed or not . I've seen some remotes do that . +User Interface: Okay . Just so you know I think {disfmarker} I mean it was my understanding that before we were gonna stay in the mid-market range . It seems we're kind of approaching a higher-end range . +Project Manager: I think we are yeah . +User Interface: I wanna make sure everybody's okay with that . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Well you had acknowledged that we have more money for this . +Project Manager: Yeah well we don't have {vocalsound} it's not that we have more money , +Marketing: Didn't you say so ? +Project Manager: we can push up the the price . +Marketing: That's what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can increase the cost . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: So I don't know I don't know whether having {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just wanna make sure everybody's on board with it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So we really need to be sure as to what we can push the cost up to , though we haven't got to a stage where we're ready to pin down the price of components . But I'd say what sorta price are we looking to be able to sell something like that , and what sorta price can we make it for ? +Marketing: Well I think th I think the design and technology has to come back and say , okay to create this product we see it's gonna cost us this much for this volume , because we do have a volume target of of fifty million profit . +Project Manager: Yeah no I I think that's where we really should be more flexible than anything else because as we said in the last meeting , our management is really looking for us to push our brand . We're entering a new market here , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: so I think the the profit expectation for this one product is maybe not as important as being able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay I'm I'm okay with that . I guess what I just want {disfmarker} to me the next step is for these guys to come come in with the design proposal w with the cost estimate attached , and then we have to take this to the next level . +Project Manager: But th what's our ballpark as to what we'd be able to sell something like this for ? +User Interface: Well y yeah . Let's let's try and think now , how much would you pay for +Marketing: We have to find cost . +User Interface: {disfmarker} with all these features {disfmarker} how much would you pay if you went to the store , and you were in the market f to replace your T_V_ remote , how much would you pay for that ? +Project Manager: But you've gotta think who our target market is because I I'm not our target market . +User Interface: I'm just asking you . +Project Manager: I'm a student , but on the other hand I would think , mm with my Project Manager salary , I would think {disfmarker} yeah I could probably afford this {disfmarker} +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you could probably afford this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: uh would I buy it ? Maybe . If I had a cool new T_V_ and this was r looking really slick and it had the dock and it had the scroll wheel , which I think's a really cool idea , that would sell me on it a little . Then maybe you know . I do I don't think I'd go over a hundred Euro certainly , that would be way too much , +User Interface: Oh no no . +Project Manager: but the {disfmarker} I would be happy paying over forty for it , I guess , but not much {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say thirty five to forty . +Marketing: Yeah , I was gonna say thirty five to fifty . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thirty five to fifty Euros is our sales bracket okay . So the question is what we ca we make it for . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because one of th one of the things we're marketing about this product is that this is the last one you will ever need to buy for your television . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: It's one of the marketing features in this . +Project Manager: That's why the scroll needs to be really robust . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we'll come up with something between thirty five and fifty that is rug rubber , robust , with scroll wheel , with the new facilities of the scroll wheel like favourite stuff , favourite channels , and and with a cradle , and yeah and the locator . +User Interface: With a cradle , radio transmitters , and back-lit buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it's gonna look sexy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Or not {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Or not . It might look like clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay so you can market pe depending on that ? +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Bas th that's that's easy . That's that's not a , it's a {gap} . 'Cause we have about six , six , seven features in that alone . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: Under the title of uniquenesses . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . The next meeting starts in thirty {vocalsound} minutes , although does it ? It starts at three twenty one , the next meeting . So we've got more than a thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} we've got more like fifty . +Marketing: Well I have {disfmarker} Is my {disfmarker} three twenty one is the next meeting ? +Project Manager: The the ne next meeting is three twenty one yeah . +Marketing: That's that's almost uh fifty minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah that is . Uh they've they've changed the times from the presentations . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You guys can {disfmarker} You guys you guys can uh create a {disfmarker} All kinds of things . +User Interface: Probably . We'll let you know when we're done , if we can go earlier . +Marketing: {gap} Thanks , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you guys will be getting your modelling done now and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay are there any other questions with regards to what this thing's gonna do , look like , how it's gonna work that need to be addressed before we really look at this in a lot of detail ? +User Interface: I don't think so . If we have any questions we'll just email you I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it {disfmarker} pretty much everything's covered . +Project Manager: Okay . This one was quite easy . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Always the optimist . +Marketing: Still . +Industrial Designer: Yes I am . +Project Manager: 'Kay thanks guys . +Marketing: Thank you . I don't have any emails . This means I can go home . Oh , we all leave . {gap} +","In the team meeting, the project manager, marketing representative, user interface designer, and industrial designer discuss various aspects of developing a new remote control. They deliberate on features such as a scroll wheel, cradle docking station, mode indicator, backlighting for buttons, and the remote's durability. The scroll wheel idea is particularly debated, with considerations of its uniqueness as a selling point versus the costs of production. Security features like a location button to find the remote are mentioned. + +There is a discussion about whether to target a mid-market range or aim for a higher-end market, with the remote's robustness being a concern for a higher price point. The marketing member emphasizes the need for unique features to distinguish their product in a competitive market. The team agrees that the remote should have a stylish and durable design, possibly using a combination of plastic and rubber materials. They also talk about programming favorite channels into the scroll wheel. + +The project manager and the team consider potential retail prices, settling on a bracket of thirty-five to fifty Euros. They stress the importance of delivering a high-quality product that customers would not need to replace, aligning with marketing strategies. The team decides to forgo the LCD display, considering it an unnecessary cost, and they conclude that further details will be refined in future meetings, with any immediate questions being addressed via email. The meeting is considered successful, covering many crucial points for the remote's development, and ends with a note that they have some time before their next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order—that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation—this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill—that's the approach taken in amendment 1E—as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children’s rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children’s rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill’s strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone’s business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group—that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands— +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know—could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here— +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond— +Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now— +Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: —to my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members—the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following: 'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.' If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption.] Should our amendment be agreed— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now—that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that—about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying—and perhaps I will get some clarity on this—there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country—you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding— +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? +Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. +Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. +Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. +Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. +Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that—I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may—I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign—how have you concluded that— +Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. +Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. +Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. +Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it—again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C—the information about how to raise concerns—I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D—Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children—now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to 'understanding'—now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the 'understanding'; 'awareness' is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members' contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D—very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about 'laying' rather than 'publishing' at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be—I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Siân; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents' actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting—you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up—I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3—so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect—that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time—I know you've talked about New Zealand—but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone—you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin—that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow— +Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention— +Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. +Lynne Neagle AM: —he'll make a contribution. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies— +Hefin David AM: Just to say— +Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. +Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention—. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that—I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion—which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee—I'll leave it to you—on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but 'as soon as practicable' is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say 'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. +Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing—. +Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. +Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments—I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it—so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? +Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? +Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2— +Suzy Davies AM: Objection. +Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues—these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers' decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers' proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill—this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this—and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now—it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the—what is it—transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple—or at least simple in terms of drafting—initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that—. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers—what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? +Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? +Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? +Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? +Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11.05 a.m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated: 'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.' But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that: 'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.' And: 'We have to measure it as we go along.' Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of £60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act—they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that 'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.' Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee: 'In terms of thresholds for children’s services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that’s likely to happen.' That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said: 'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.' I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are—UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? +Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group—there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small—I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden—primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? +Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is, 'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of—we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to—this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability—not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group—the strategic implementation group, is it—was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children—no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53.2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said 'up to two years'—well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments—Suzy's amendments in particular—wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign, and I think—. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13, 14 and 15. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of—or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill—and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police—obviously I don't—there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say—or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different—sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order—. Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The summary of the Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting led by Lynne Neagle AM discusses several key items. The committee addresses the Stage 2 proceedings of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Deputy Minister Julie Morgan AM, along with Karen Cornish and Emma Gammon from the Welsh Government, attend to contribute to discussions on the Bill's amendments. + +Lynne Neagle addresses two core aspects: + +1. The duty to promote public awareness upon the Bill's enactment, where amendments are proposed for discussion. Key points include the need for a public awareness campaign about the change in the law which removes the defense of reasonable punishment. Various amendments (1A to 1E) suggest additions and specificities to the campaign. However, Deputy Minister Julie Morgan argues that while awareness is paramount, the suggested amendments are unnecessary and could constrain the government's approach to implementation. + +2. The duty to report on the effect of the legislation, involving a post-implementation review. The Deputy Minister moves amendments 2 and 5, asserting that the review process is ongoing, reflecting on public attitudes and service impacts. Alternative amendments by Janet Finch-Saunders AM (2C to 2K) seek detailed reporting requirements and call for scrutiny before section 1 is enacted. Despite agreement on the need for a review, the Deputy Minister finds these amendments superfluous. + +Discussions also cover technical regulation-making powers in the Bill (amendments 3 and 3A), where provisional procedures for Bill enactment are debated. Suzy Davies AM and the Deputy Minister pledge to review the necessity of additional powers by Stage 3. + +In group 4, Janet Finch-Saunders introduces amendments 11 and 12, emphasizing the necessity for guaranteed funding to support the Bill's implications. The Deputy Minister responds confidently, noting that evidence from consultees and impact assessments do not forecast significant costs. She also mentions ongoing reviews and adjustments to the regulatory impact assessment. + +Lastly, group 5 concerns commencement dates. Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders propose amendments 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, and 16, linking the Bill's activation to the establishment of parental support services and revised Crown Prosecution Service guidelines. The Deputy Minister argues against these conditions, casting them as impeding Welsh legislation's independence and emphasizing the two-year window post Royal Assent as crucial for preparatory actions. + +All opposing amendments are rejected in votes, ultimately leading to the acceptance of amendments proposed by the Deputy Minister. The revised explanatory memorandum will be laid before Stage 3 proceedings, and the committee wraps up with the agreement to meet privately." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Why ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: I 'm known . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , cuz she already told me it , before she told you . +Grad E: No , she told me a long time ago . She told me {disfmarker} she told me like two weeks ago . +Grad A: Oh , well , it doesn't matter what time . +Grad B: OK . You know how to toggle the display width {pause} function {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well maybe she hadn't just started transcribing me yet . +Grad D: Wow . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad D: What is it ? +Grad E: Let me explain something to you . +Grad D: Um , +Grad E: My laugh is better than yours . +Grad D: there . +Grad A: I beg to differ . +Grad B: Yo . +Grad D: Um , OK . +Grad A: But you have to say something genuinely funny before you 'll get an example . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: The thing is I don't know how to get to the next page . Here . +Grad E: No . You should be {disfmarker} at least be self - satisfied enough to laugh at your own jokes . +Grad D: Actually I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , it 's a different laugh . +Grad D: There . +Grad A: Ooh , wow ! +Grad D: How weird . +Grad E: Oh ! Holy mackerel . +Grad A: Wow . Whoa ! +Grad D: What ? ! Oh . OK . I wasn't even doing anything . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad E: Eva 's got a laptop , she 's trying to show it off . +Grad D: That was r actually Robert 's idea . But anyhow . Um +Professor F: O K . So , here we are . +Grad E: Once again . +Professor F: Once again , right , together . Um , so we haven't had a meeting for a while , and {disfmarker} and probably won't have one next week , I think a number of people are gone . Um , so Robert , why don't you bring us up to date on where we are with EDU ? +Grad B: Um , uh in a {disfmarker} in a smaller group we had uh , talked and decided about continuation of the data collection . So Fey 's time with us is almost officially over , and she brought us some thirty subjects and , t collected the data , and ten dialogues have been transcribed and can be looked at . If you 're interested in that , talk to me . Um , and we found another uh , cogsci student who 's interested in playing wizard for us . Here we 're gonna make it a little bit more complicated for the subjects , uh this round . She 's actually suggested to look um , at the psychology department students , because they have to partake in two experiments in order to fulfill some requirements . So they have to be subjected , {vocalsound} {comment} before they can actually graduate . And um , we want to design it so that they really have to think about having some time , two days , for example , to plan certain things and figure out which can be done at what time , and , um , sort of package the whole thing in a {disfmarker} in a re in a few more complicated um , structure . That 's for the data collection . As for SmartKom , I 'm {disfmarker} the last SmartKom meeting I mentioned that we have some problems with the synthesis , which as of this morning should be resolved . And , so , +Professor F: Good . +Grad B: "" should be "" means they aren't yet , but {disfmarker} but I think I have the info now that I need . Plus , Johno and I are meeting tomorrow , so maybe uh uh , when tomorrow is over , we 're done . And ha n hav we 'll never have to look at it again Maybe it 'll take some more time , to be realistic , but at least we 're {disfmarker} we 're seeing the end of the tunnel there . That was that . Um , the uh , uh I don't think we need to discuss the formalism that 'll be done officially s once we 're done . Um , something happened , in {disfmarker} on Eva 's side with the PRM that we 're gonna look at today , and um , we have a visitor from Bruchsal from the International University . Andreas , I think you 've met everyone except Nancy . +Grad A: Sorry . Hi . Hi . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Hi . Hi . +Grad A: So when you said "" Andreas "" I thought you were talking about Stolcke . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: Now I know that we aren't , OK . +Grad B: Andy , you actually go by Andy , right ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz there is another Andreas around , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: so , to avoid some confusion . +Grad B: That will be {pause} Reuter ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So my scientific director of the EML is also the dean of the International University , one of his many occupations that just contributes to the fact that he is very occupied . And , um , the {disfmarker} um , he @ @ might tell us a little bit about what he 's actually doing , and why it is s somewhat related , and {disfmarker} by uh using maybe some of the same technologies that we are using . And um . Was that enough of an update ? +Professor F: I think so . +Grad B: In what order shall we proceed ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Maybe you have your on - line {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh , yeah , sure . Um , so , I 've be just been looking at , um , Ack ! What are you doing ? Yeah . OK . Um , I 've been looking at the PRM stuff . Um , so , this is , sort of like the latest thing I have on it , and I sorta constructed a couple of classes . Like , a user class , a site class , and {disfmarker} and you know , a time , a route , and then {disfmarker} and a query class . And I tried to simplify it down a little bit , so that I can actually um , look at it more . It 's the same paper that I gave to Jerry last time . Um , so basically I took out a lot of stuff , a lot of the decision nodes , and then tried to {disfmarker} The red lines on the , um , graph are the um , relations between the different um , classes . Like , a user has like , a query , and then , also has , you know um , reference slots to its preferences , um , the special needs and , you know , money , and the user interest . And so this is more or less similar to the flat Bayes - net that I have , you know , with the input nodes and all that . And {disfmarker} So I tried to construct the dependency models , and a lot of these stuff I got from the flat Bayes - net , and what they depend on , and it turns out , you know , the CPT 's are really big , if I do that , so I tried to see how I can do , um {disfmarker} put in the computational nodes in between . And what that would look like in a PRM . And so I ended up making several classes {disfmarker} Actually , you know , a class of {disfmarker} with different attributes that are the intermediate nodes , and one of them is like , time affordability money affordability , site availability , and the travel compatibility . And so some of these classes are {disfmarker} s some of these attributes only depend on stuff from , say , the user , or s f just from , I don't know , like the site . S like , um , these here , it 's only like , user , but , if you look at travel compatibility for each of these factors , you need to look at a pair of , you know , what the um , preference of the user is versus , you know , what type of an event it is , or you know , which form of transportation the user has and whether , you know , the onsite parking matters to the user , in that case . And that makes the scenario a little different in a PRM , because , um , then you have one - user objects and potentially you can have many different sites in {disfmarker} in mind . And so for each of the site you 'll come up with this rating , of travel compatibility . And , they all depend on the same users , but different sites , and that makes a {disfmarker} I 'm tr I w I wa have been trying to see whether the PRM would make it more efficient if we do inferencing like that . And so , I guess you end up having fewer number of nodes than in a flat Bayes - net , cuz otherwise you would {disfmarker} c well , it 's probably the same . But um , No , you would definitely have {disfmarker} be able to re - use , like , {vocalsound} um , all the user stuff , and not {disfmarker} not having to recompute a lot of the stuff , because it 's all from the user side . So if you changed sites , you {disfmarker} you can , you know , save some work on that . But , you know , in the case where , it depends on both the user and the site , then I 'm still having a hard time trying to see how um , using the PRM will help . Um , so anyhow , using those intermediate nodes then , this {disfmarker} this would be the class that represent the intermediate nodes . And that would {disfmarker} basically it 's just another class in the model , with , you know , references to the user and the site and the time . And then , after you group them together this {disfmarker} no the dependencies would {disfmarker} of the queries would be reduced to this . And so , you know , it 's easier to specify the CPT and all . Um , so I think that 's about as far as I 've gone on the PRM stuff . +Professor F: Well +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: No . So y you didn't yet tell us what the output is . +Grad D: The output . +Professor F: So what decisions does this make ? +Grad D: OK . So it only makes two decisions , in this model . And one is basically how desirable a site is meaning , um , how good it matches the needs of a user . And the other is the mode of the visit , whether th It 's the EVA decision . Um , so , instead of um , {vocalsound} doing a lot of , you know , computation about , you know , which one site it wants of {disfmarker} the user wants to visit , I 'll come {disfmarker} well , try to come up with like , sort of a list of sites . And for each site , you know , where {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} how well it fits , and basically a rating of how well it fits and what to do with it . So . Anything else I missed ? +Professor F: So that was pretty quick . She 's ac uh uh Eva 's got a little write - up on it that uh , probably gives the {disfmarker} the details to anybody who needs them . Um , so the {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you didn't look at all yet to see if there 's anybody has a implementation . +Grad D: No , not yet , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So one {disfmarker} so one of the questions , you know , about these P R Ms is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , we aren't gonna build our own interpreter , so if {disfmarker} if we can't find one , then we uh , go off and do something else and wait until s one appears . Uh , so one of the things that Eva 's gonna do over the next few weeks is see if we can track that down . Uh , the people at Stanford write papers as if they had one , but , um , we 'll see . So w Anyway . So that 's a {disfmarker} a major open issue . If there is an interpreter , it looks like you know , what Eva 's got should run and we should be able to actually um , try to solve , you know , the problems , to actually take the data , and do it . Uh , and we 'll see . Uh , I actually think it is cleaner , and the ability to instantiate , you know , instance of people and sites and stuff , um , will help in the expression . Whether the inference gets any faster or not I don't know . Uh , it wouldn't surprise me if it {disfmarker} if it doesn't . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , it 's the same kind of information . I think there are things that you can express this way which you can't express in a normal belief - net , uh , without going to some incredible hacking of {disfmarker} sort of rebuilding it on the fly . I mean , the notion of instantiating your el elements from the ontology and stuff fits this very nicely and doesn't fit very well into the extended belief - net . So that was one of the main reasons for doing it . Um . I don't know . So , uh , people who have thought about the problem , like Robert i it looked to me like if {comment} Eva were able to come up with a {vocalsound} you know , value for each of a number of uh , sites plus its EVA thing , that a travel planner should be able to take it from there . And {disfmarker} you know , with some other information about how much time the person has and whatever , and then plan a route . +Grad B: Um - hmm , um , {vocalsound} well , first of all uh , uh , great looks , mu much cleaner , nnn , nnn , Certain {disfmarker} certain beauty in it , so , um , if beauty is truth , then , uh we 're in good shape . But , the um , as , uh , mentioned before we probably should look at t the details . So if you have a write - up then uh , I 'd love to read it +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} because , um , i Can you go all the way back to the {disfmarker} the very top ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , {vocalsound} uh these {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} these {disfmarker} w w when these are instantiated they take on the same values ? that we had before ? +Grad D: I can't really see the whole thing . +Grad B: or are they {disfmarker} have they changed , in a sense ? +Grad D: Well I think I basically leave them to similar things . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Some of the things might {disfmarker} that might be different , maybe like {disfmarker} are that the hours for the site . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: And , eventually I meant that to mean whether they 're open at this hour or not . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: And status would be , you know , more or less like , whether they 're under construction , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} or stuff like that . +Grad B: And the , uh , other question I would have is that presumably , from the way the Stanford people talk about it , you can put the probabilities also on the relations . If {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which is the structural uncertainty ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That I think was actually in the previous {disfmarker} the Ubenth stuff . I don't remember whether they carried that over to this or not , +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: uh , structural uncertainty . +Grad B: It 's sort of in the definition or {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in Daphne 's definition of a PRM is that classes and relations , +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: and you 're gonna have CPT 's over the classes and their relations . +Professor F: Alright . +Grad B: More uncertainty , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: I should say . +Grad D: I remember them learning when , you know , you don't know the structure for sure , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: but I don't remember reading how you specify +Grad B: Yeah , that would be exactly my question . +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: wh to start with . Yeah . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . So , uh , the {disfmarker} the plan is {disfmarker} is when Daphne gets back , we 'll get in touch and supposedly , um , we 'll actually get s deep {disfmarker} seriously connected to {disfmarker} to their work and +Grad B: Yep . +Professor F: somebody 'll {disfmarker} Uh , you know {disfmarker} If it 's a group meeting once a week probably someone 'll go down and , whatever . So , we 'll actually figure all this out . +Grad B: OK . OK . Then I think the w {vocalsound} long term perspective is {disfmarker} is pretty clear . We get rocking and rolling on this again , once we get a package , if , when , and how , then this becomes foregrounded +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: profiled , focused , again . +Grad E: Designated ? +Grad A: Of course . +Grad B: And um , until then we 'll come up with a something that 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that 's way more complicated for you . Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because this was laughingly easy , right ? +Grad D: Actually I had to take out a lot of the complicated stuff , cuz I {disfmarker} I made it really complicated in the beginning , and Jerry was like , {vocalsound} "" this is just too much "" . +Professor F: Yeah . So , um , you could , from this , go on and say suppose there 's a group of people traveling together and you wanted to plan something that somehow , with some Pareto optimal uh , {vocalsound} uh , thing for {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's good . That 's definitely a job for artificial intelligence . +Professor F: uh , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except for humans can't really solve it either , so . +Grad B: Well that 's not {disfmarker} not even something humans {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . Well that 's the {disfmarker} that would {disfmarker} that would be a {disfmarker} uh , you could sell it , as a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , eh you don't have to fight about this , just give your preferences to the {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then you can blame the computer . +Professor F: w Exactly . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: Hmm . But what does it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Would a pote potential result be to {disfmarker} to split up and never talk to each other again ? You know . +Grad A: That should be one of them . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: That 'd be nice . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Anyway . So . So there i there are some {disfmarker} some u uh , you know , uh , elaborations of this that you could try to put in to this structure , but I don't think it 's worth it now . Because we 're gonna see what {disfmarker} what else uh {disfmarker} what else we 're gonna do . Anyway . But uh , it 's good , yeah and {disfmarker} and there were a couple other ideas of {disfmarker} of uh , things for Eva to look at in {disfmarker} in the interim . +Grad B: Good . Then , we can move on and see what Andreas has got out his sleeve . Or Andy , for that matter ? +Grad C: OK . So uh , uh , well , thanks for having me here , first of all . Um , so maybe just a {disfmarker} a little background on {disfmarker} on my visit . So , uh , I 'm not really involved in any project , that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's relevant to you uh , a at the moment , uh , the {disfmarker} the reason is really for me uh , to have an opportunity to talk to some other researchers in the field . And {disfmarker} and so I 'll just n sort of give you a real quick introduction to what I 'm working on , and um , I just hope that you have some comments or , maybe you 're interested in it to find out more , and {disfmarker} and so I 'll be uh , happy to talk to you and {disfmarker} and uh , I 'd also like to find out some more and {disfmarker} and maybe I 'll just walk around the office and and then {disfmarker} and ask some {disfmarker} some questions , uh , in a couple days . So I 'll be here for uh , tomorrow and then uh , the remainder of uh , next week . OK , so , um , what I started looking at , uh , to begin with is just uh , content management systems uh , i i in general . So um , uh what 's uh {disfmarker} Sort of the state of the art there is to um {disfmarker} uh you have a bunch of {disfmarker} of uh documents or learning units or learning objects , um , and you store meta - data uh , associate to them . So there 's some international standards like the I - triple - E , uh {disfmarker} There 's an I - triple - E , LON standard , and um , these fields are pretty straightforward , you have uh author information , you have uh , size information , format information and so on . Uh , but they 're two uh fields that are um , more interesting . One is uh you store keywords associated with the uh {disfmarker} with the document , and one is uh , you have sort of a , um , well , what is the document about ? So it 's some sort of taxonomic uh , ordering of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the units . Now , if you sort of put on your semantic glasses , uh you say , well that 's not all that easy , because there 's an implicit um , uh , assumption behind that is that uh , all the users of this system share the same interpretation of the keyword and the same interpretation of uh , whichever taxonomy is used , and uh , I think that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very {disfmarker} that 's a key point of these systems and they sort of always brush over this real quickly without really elaborating much of that and uh {disfmarker} As a matter of fact , the only thing that m apparently really works out so far are library ordering codes , which are very , very coarse grain , so you have some like , science , biology , and then {disfmarker} But that 's really all that we have at the moment . So I think there 's a huge , um , uh need for improvement there . Now , what this uh {disfmarker} a standard like this would give us is we could um , sort of uh with a search engine just query uh , different repositories all over the world . But we can't really {disfmarker} Um , so what I 'm {disfmarker} what I try to do is um , to have um , uh {disfmarker} So . So the scenario is the following , you you 're working on some sort of project and you encounter a certain problem . Now , what {disfmarker} what we have at our university quite a bit is that uh , students um , try to u program a certain assignment , for example , they always run into the same problems , uh , and they always come running to us , and they 'll say why 's it not {disfmarker} it 's not working , and we always give out the same answer , so we thought , well , it 'd be nice to have a system that could sort of take care of this , and so , what I want to build is basically a {disfmarker} a smart F A Q system . Now , what you uh need to do here is you need to provide some context information which is more elaborate than "" I 'm looking for this and this and this keyword . "" So . And I think that I don't need to tell you this . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you have the same {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody utters a sentence in a certain , uh , context it , and {disfmarker} and the same sentence in another context makes a huge difference . So , I want to be able to model information like , um , so in the {disfmarker} in the context of {disfmarker} in the context of developing distributed systems , of a at a computer science school , um , what kind of software is the person using , which homework assignment is he or she working on at the moment , um , maybe what 's the background of that student 's um , which um , which error message was encountered . So this sort of information I think should be transmitted , uh , when a certain document is retrieved . Now , um , basically giving this um {disfmarker} Uh so we somehow need to have a formalized um , way of writing this down basically , and that 's where the shared interpretation of {disfmarker} of certain terms and keywords comes in again . And , using this and some {disfmarker} some uh , knowledge about the domain I think you can do some {disfmarker} some simple inferences . Like you know that when somebody 's working about {disfmarker} uh , working on {disfmarker} on servlets for example , he 's using Java , cuz servlets are used {disfmarker} are written in Java . So some {disfmarker} some inferences like that , now , um , u using this you can infer more information , and you could then match this to the meta - data of um {disfmarker} off the documents you 're {disfmarker} you 're searching against . So , uh what I wanna do is basically have some sort of um {disfmarker} given these inputs , and then I can compute how many documents match , and use this as a metric in the search . Now , what I plan to do is I want to uh sort of do a uh {disfmarker} uh {pause} try to improve the quality of the search results , and I want to do this by having a depth uh , um , um {disfmarker} steepest descent approach . So if I knew which operating system the person was working on , would this improve my search result ? And {disfmarker} and having uh , uh a symbolic formalized model of this I could simply compute that , and find out which um {disfmarker} which questions are worth um , asking . And that 's what I then propagate back to the user , and {disfmarker} and sort of try to optimize the search in this way . Now , the big problem that I 'm facing right now is um , it 's fairly easy to hack up a system uh quickly , that {disfmarker} that works in the small domain , but the problem is obviously the scalability . And uh uh , so Robert was mentioning uh , earlier today is that uh , Microsoft for example with their printer set up program has a Bayesian network , which does exactly this , but there you face a problem that these are very hard to extend . And so , uh what I 'm {disfmarker} What I try to do is basically try to model this uh , in a way that you could really combine uh , knowledge from very different sources , and {disfmarker} and um , sort of looking into some of the ideas that the semantic web community uh , came up with . Trying to {disfmarker} to have uh , an approach how to integrate s uh certain uh {disfmarker} representation of certain concepts and also some computational rules , um , what you can do with those . Um . What I 'm also looking into is a probabilistic approach into this because document retrievals is a very fuzzy procedure , so it 's probably not that easy to simply have a symbolic uh , computational model . That {disfmarker} that probably isn't expressive enough . So . So that 's another thing , um , which I think you 're also uh , uh looking into right now . And then um , uh sort of as an add - on to this whole idea , um , uh that would be now , depending on what the search engine or the content repository {disfmarker} depending on which {disfmarker} um , uh , which uh , rules and which ontologies it {disfmarker} it uses , or basically its view of the world , uh you can get very different results . So it might ma make a lot of sense to actually query a lot of different search engines . And there you could have an idea where you actually have sort of a {disfmarker} a peer to peer approach , where we 're all sort of carrying around our individual bookshelves , and um , if you have a question about a homework , it 's {disfmarker} probably makes sense to ask somebody who 's in your class with you , sort of the guru in the certain area , rather than going to some Yahoo - like uh , search engine . So these are some of the {disfmarker} just in a nutshell , some of the ideas . And I think a lot of the {disfmarker} even though it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a very different domain , but I think a lot of the , um , issues are {disfmarker} are fairly similar . So . OK . +Grad A: And so some of the {disfmarker} I don't know how much you know about the larger Heidelberg project , I {disfmarker} Are you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh I know , yeah I know abou about it . +Grad A: So it seems like a lot of {disfmarker} some of the issues are the same . It 's like , um , you know , the c context - based factors that influence how you interpret , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , s how to interpret . In {disfmarker} in this case , infer in in knowing {disfmarker} wanting to know what kinds of things to ask . We - we 've kind of talked about that , but we haven't worried too much about that end of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But maybe you guys had that in the previous models . +Grad B: Well , in a {disfmarker} in one {disfmarker} t one s mmm , small difference in a {disfmarker} in a way , is that he doesn't have to come up with an answer , but he wants to point to the places w w +Grad A: Documents that have the answers . +Grad C: Yeah , so . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not building an expert {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I want to build a smart librarian , basically +Grad A: Right . Right . +Grad C: that can point you to the right reference . I don't wanna compute the answer , so it 's a little bit easier for me . +Grad B: Well . Uh , you have to s still m understand what the content says about itself , and then match it to what you think the informational needs {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you also don't have to figure out what the content is . You 're just taking the keywords as a topic text , as {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I assume that {disfmarker} that the there will be learning systems that {disfmarker} that tag their {disfmarker} their content . +Grad A: OK . Right . +Grad C: And um , um , m @ @ and basically what I {disfmarker} what I envision is that you {disfmarker} rather than just supplying a bunch of keywords you could basically {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for an FAQ for example you could state sort of like a logic condition , when this document applies . So "" this document explains how to set up your uh , mail account on Linux "" or something like this . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . So something {disfmarker} something very specific that you can then {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} I think that the key point with these uh , learning systems is that uh , a learning system is only as good as uh the amount of content it {disfmarker} it carries . +Grad A: Mmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: You can have the best learning system with the best search interface , if there 's no content inside of it , it 's not very useful . So I think ultimately because um , uh developing these {disfmarker} these rules and these inference uh {disfmarker} inferences I think is very costly , so um , uh I think you must be able to reuse some {disfmarker} some existing um , domain {disfmarker} domain information , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or ontologies that {disfmarker} that uh other people wrote and then try to integrate them , and then also search the entire web basically , rather than just the small uh , content management system . +Grad A: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's crucial for {disfmarker} for the success of {disfmarker} or @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: So , you 're not {disfmarker} I guess I 'm trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how it maps to the kinds of things that we 've talked about in this group , and , actually associated groups , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: cuz some of us do pretty detailed linguistic analyses , and I 'm guessing that you {disfmarker} you won't be doing that ? OK . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: Just checking . So , {vocalsound} OK . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: So , you take the query , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor F: On the other hand , uh , FrameNet could well be useful . So do you know the FrameNet story ? +Grad C: Um , yeah . Uh , not {disfmarker} not too much , +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: but uh , +Professor F: Oh . Th - that 's another thing you might wanna look into while you 're here . +Grad C: I have a rough overview . +Professor F: Because , um , you know , the standard story is that keyworks {disfmarker} keywords evoke frames , and the frames may well give you additional keywords or uh , if you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a {disfmarker} a bunch of keywords uh , indicate a frame , then you can find documents that actually have the whole frame , rather th than just uh , individual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor F: So there 's a lot of stuff , and people are looking at that . Most of the work here is just trying to get the frames right . There 's linguists and stuff and there 's a lot of it and they 're {disfmarker} they 're busily working away . But there are some application efforts trying to exploit it . And this looks t it seems to be that this is a place where you might be able to do that . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I 'm sure I could learn a lot about um , yeah , just how to {disfmarker} how to come up with these structures , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's very easy to whip up something quickly , but it maybe then makes sense to {disfmarker} to me , but not to anybody else , and {disfmarker} and if we want to share and integrate things , they must {disfmarker} well , they must be well designed really . +Grad B: Remember the uh , Prashant story ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: The absolutely no {disfmarker} no linguistic background person that the IU sent over here . +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: And Andreas and I tried to come up wi or we had come up actually with a eh {disfmarker} with him working on an interface for FrameNet , as it was back then , that would p do some of the work for this machine , +Professor F: Right . Yeah . +Grad B: which uh , never got done because Prashant found a happy occupation +Professor F: W yeah , I know , I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} w he did w what {disfmarker} what he did was much more s sensible for him . +Grad B: which in the {disfmarker} Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: I think uh , +Grad B: But so {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , the uh , we had that idea +Professor F: you know {disfmarker} Yeah . The idea was there . Yeah , OK . +Grad B: uh to {disfmarker} to exploit FrameNet there as well . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: And um . +Professor F: Yeah , actually you guys never {disfmarker} +Grad B: And Srini 's doing information extraction also , right ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: with that FrameNet base . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So you {disfmarker} you guys never sent anybody else from I U . +Grad C: Except {disfmarker} except Prashant ? +Professor F: You were y no {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Um , +Professor F: Uh , this was supposedly an exchange program , and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , it 's fine . We don't care , but it just {disfmarker} I 'm a little surprised that uh , Andreas didn't come up with anyone else he wanted to send . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Uh I don't know , I mean the uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Alright . I mean I had forgotten a I {disfmarker} To be honest with you , I 'd totally forgotten we had a program . +Grad B: Uh it 's in the program ? +Grad C: Uh I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's really the lack of students uh , at IU at the moment . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . No , no . There was a whole co There was a little contract signed . It was {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I think it 's ju it 's more the lack of {disfmarker} of students , really , and w we have all these sponsors that are always sort of eager to get some teams . +Professor F: Yeah , I know . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: Well I mean if {disfmarker} if I were a student , I 'd love to come here , rather than work for some German {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} company , or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: You are being recorded right now , so beware . +Professor F: Oh , right ! +Grad C: Well , I didn't say anybody to {disfmarker} anything to offend {disfmarker} well , except for the sponsors maybe , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . Anyway . Right . So I thi tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the things that might be worth looking into while you 're here . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unfortunately , Srini , who is heavily involved in DAML and all this sort of stuff is himself out of town . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Well I 'll go to the uh , Semantic Web Workshop , uh , in two weeks . +Professor F: Right , and {disfmarker} Yeah , for {disfmarker} for some reason he 's not doing that . +Grad A: Yeah . Well , he had other things to do . +Professor F: I don't know why he @ @ {disfmarker} oh , I , who knows ? +Grad A: The uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Anyway , s yeah , you 'll see {disfmarker} you 'll certainly see a lot of the people there . +Grad A: The other person I thought of is Dan Gildea ? because he did some work on topic spotting +Professor F: Yeah . St - statistical stuff . That would be a very good idea . +Grad A: w um , which is , I mean , you {disfmarker} I mean . I don't {disfmarker} Depending on how well you wanna integrate with that end , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , like , taking the data and fig you said the learning systems that figure out {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} There 's someone in ICSI who actually has been working on {disfmarker} has worked on that kinda stuff , and he 's worked with frame net , so you could talk to him about , you know , both of those things at once . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . And he just finished writing a draft of his thesis . So . I u {vocalsound} Dan Gildea , GILDEA . +Grad C: So , uh , who is that again ? +Grad A: And , he 's in one of the rooms on the fifth floor and stuff , +Grad B: Who ? I can take you to his office . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's just around the corner . +Grad C: OK , great . +Grad A: Hmm . Well , if you fal solve the problem , {vocalsound} hope you can do one for us too . +Professor F: Alright , was there anything else for this ? One of these times soon we 're gonna hear about construal . +Grad B: Yeah . I 'm sure . I have um {disfmarker} I think it was November two thousand three or some {disfmarker} No . Wh - I had something in my calendar . +Professor F: Oh , OK . Right . +Grad B: Um , +Grad E: Wait a second . That 's a long way away . +Professor F: Good thinking ! +Grad B: Uh well , maybe I can {disfmarker} I can bribe my way out of this . So . So I did some double checking and it seems like spring break in two thousand {vocalsound} one . +Grad A: Talk about changing the topic . +Grad B: No . +Professor F: Well , no , but he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} as you said , he 's , like the state legislature , he 's trying to offer us bribes . +Grad A: At least this is a private meeting . Right , exactly , OK , that 's the link . +Grad B: This uh {disfmarker} Oh , they refused the budget again ? Is it {disfmarker} so about CITRIS ? Yeah , still nothing . +Professor F: Uh , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} t the s we 're , uh , involved in a literally three hundred million dollar uh , program . Uh , with the State of California . And , the State of California is now a month and a half behind its legis its legally required date to approve a budget . So the budget has not been approved . And two days ago {disfmarker} There 's two l you know , so , two branches of legislature . One branch approved it , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and , um , yesterdayday {comment} there was this uh {disfmarker} uh I thought that the other branch would just approve it , but now there 's actually a little back sliding to people who {disfmarker} who approved it got flak from there , eh anyway . So , um {disfmarker} Oh ! I have to tell you a wonderful story about this , OK ? And then we 'll go . So , I {disfmarker} it turns out I wound up having lunch today with a guy named Tom Kalil . KILL {disfmarker} KALIL . And , uh , he now works at Berkeley . In fact he 's hired to run a lot of CITRIS , even though we don't have the money they {disfmarker} So they 've been hiring people right and left , so , uh , they think the money 's coming . So {disfmarker} and he was , I think , the chief staffer to Clinton on technology matters . He was in the White House , I don't remember what he was saying . A anyway , like that . And , is now doing all the politics for CITRIS , but also , has a uh , a lot of interest in uh , actually doing things for society , so digital divide and stuff like that . So that 's s interesting to me but maybe not to you . But the really interesting thing was , he st he s he s said something about , you know I 'm interested in things that have high social multiplier , something that is of great social value . He said , "" for example "" , this was his only example , "" if you had a adult literacy program that was as good as an individual tutor , and as compelling as a video game , then that would have a huge social impact "" . I said , "" Oh great ! That 's a good problem to work on . "" Anyway . So it was nice that uh , he 's got this view , of A , that 's what you should try to do , and B , uh , language would be a good way to do it . +Grad A: Mmm . Definitely . +Professor F: So that 's {disfmarker} So anyway , that 's the end of the story . +Grad A: But for adults and not for the children . +Professor F: This was {disfmarker} Yeah . I didn't push him on the ch on the child thing , +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Professor F: but , uh , you know , a again , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you +Grad A: Oh . +Professor F: um , and this was {disfmarker} this was literacy , which actually is somewhat different problem . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Maybe easier . I don't know . So this is reading , rather than teaching {disfmarker} Another project we started on , and {disfmarker} and didn't get funded for was , uh , to try to build an automatic tutoring program , for kids whose first language wasn't English . Which is like half the school population in California . Something like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: isn't it ? Yeah . So , enormous problem in California , and the idea was if we 're so smart about language understanding and speech understanding , couldn't we build {vocalsound} uh , programs that would be tutors for the kids . We think we could . Anyway . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} But this is a slightly different problem , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and um , I know none of us have the spare time to look at it right now , but it i it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting and I may um , talk to him some more about is em somebody already doing this , and stuff like that . So anyway , that was {disfmarker} that was today 's little story . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: OK . So I {disfmarker} I did manage to get {disfmarker} pull my head out of the sling by sidetracking into CITRIS , +Professor F: No , no . +Grad B: but uh or {disfmarker} a temporarily putting it out of the sling +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: but , I {disfmarker} I 'll volunteer to put it right back in by stating that I am n uh among some other things in the process of writing up stuff that we have been discussing at our daily meetings , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: and also revising , thanks for all the comments , the c the original construal proposal . And , if I put one and one together , I may end up with a number that 's greater than one and that I {disfmarker} I can potentially present once you get back . +Grad A: Greater than two ? +Professor F: You 're good . +Grad B: Nnn . {comment} s sometimes , you know the sum is not uh less than the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , right , right . +Professor F: Right . Right . Anyway . Yeah , so {disfmarker} OK , so that 'd be great , but I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's time again , right ? +Grad B: Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: But um , and hopefully all sidetracking um , other things will have disappeared , soon . +Professor F: Good . Yep . Done ? +","Summary: During a meeting, participants discuss various topics including the timing of information sharing, laughter, technical challenges, and planning duties. Grad B updates the group on data collection and software synthesis for a project named EDU. A visiting professor, Professor F, raises the issue of finding an interpreter for PRMs (probabilistic relational models). A guest from the International University, Grad C, shares his work on smart content management systems for FAQ systems, aiming to improve search functionality with context information and a formalized approach. The discussion touches on the potential use of FrameNet for this purpose and other related research at the meeting's location. They also briefly discuss logistics and administrative matters, such as a state budget affecting a program called CITRIS. The group plans to discuss a topic called construal at a future meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Let 's see . Test ? Test ? Yeah . OK . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD B: Channel one . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD C: Test . +Professor E: I was saying Hynek 'll be here next week , uh , Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh , through Saturday , and , um , I won't be here Thursday and Friday . But my suggestion is that , uh , at least for this meeting , people should go ahead , uh , cuz Hynek will be here , and , you know , we don't have any Czech accent yet , uh , {vocalsound} as far as I know , so {disfmarker} There we go . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . So other than reading digits , what 's our agenda ? +PhD F: I don't really have , uh , anything new . Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff . So . +Professor E: OK . Um . Do you think that would be the case for next week also ? Or is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} ? What 's your projection on {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Um . +Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try , if you hadn't tried it before , because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is , um , adjusting the , uh , sca the scaling and , uh , insertion penalty sorta stuff . +PhD F: I did play with that , actually , a little bit . Um . What happens is , uh , {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff , you start getting lots of insertions . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: And , um , so I 've tried playing around a little bit with , um , the insertion penalties and things like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . I mean , it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference . Like for the well - matched case , it seemed like it was pretty good . Um . {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that , though . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum . +PhD F: and see . Yes . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: Oh , you 're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features . +Professor E: Right . So , I mean , i it it 's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what 's the {disfmarker} uh , what 's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum . But , they raised a very valid point , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor E: which , I guess {disfmarker} So , to first order {disfmarker} I mean , you have other things you were gonna do , but to first order , I would say that the conclusion is that if you , um , do , uh , some monkeying around with , uh , the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with , uh , you know , how many states and so forth , that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance . In other words , that even though it sounds pretty dumb , just applying the same number of states to everything , more or less , no matter what language , isn't so bad . Right ? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: but , um , let 's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far , we 'd say something like that . Right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , so the next question to ask , which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting , is , um , we 're not supposed to adjust the back - end , but anybody using the system would . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: So , if you were just adjusting the back - end , how much better would you do , uh , in noise ? Uh , because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , um , they 're probably not at all set right for these things , particularly these things that look over , uh , larger time windows , in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things . In the fa past we 've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things . So , I think that 's , uh , @ @ {comment} that 's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try . +PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to , um , run our front - end like normal , with the default , uh , insertion penalties and so forth , and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes +Professor E: So by "" our front - end "" I mean take , you know , the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is , you know , our current best version of something . +PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . I mean , y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they 've tried but , you know , for some version that you say is a good one . You know ? Um . How {disfmarker} how much , uh , does it improve if you actually adjust that ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: But it is interesting . You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions ? Have you {disfmarker} ? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum , did it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head . Um . Yeah . I didn't even write them down . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember . I would need to {disfmarker} Well , I did write down , um {disfmarker} So , when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions , substitutions , and insertions were , uh , for different numbers of states per phone . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , but , uh , that {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Professor E: OK . +PhD F: So . I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah . I would need to do that . +Professor E: OK . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I can do that for next week . +Professor E: Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} Yeah . Also , eh , eh , sometimes if you run behind on some of these things , maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something . But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it 'd be good to know that . +PhD F: OK . I just need to get , um , {vocalsound} front - end , uh , stuff from you +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you 've already calculated . +PhD B: Yeah . Alright . +Professor E: OK . Uh . +PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Cuz , I mean , the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That , in fact , might have been part of what , uh , the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing . Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized , +PhD F: Is there {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I wonder if there 's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yes . I think you can . +PhD F: What could you do ? +Professor E: Well , um {disfmarker} uh , part of what 's going on , um , is the , uh , the range of values . So , if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range , and taking the appropriate root . +PhD F: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together , you can take a root of some sort . If it 's like seven probabilities together , you can take the seventh root of it or something , or if it 's in the log domain , divide it by seven . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but , um , that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model +PhD F: Oh , right . +Professor E: as opposed to what 's coming from the language model . +PhD F: So that w Right . So , in effect , that 's changing the value of your insertion penalty . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , it 's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the , uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling , +PhD F: That 's interesting . +Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: anyway . They 're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is , then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in , +Professor E: I think so . +PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . So that 's why I think that 's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we 're way off . I mean , the other thing is , are aren't we seeing {disfmarker} ? Y y +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I 'm sure you 've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases , are {disfmarker} ? We are seeing lots of insertions . Right ? The insertion number is quite high ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 've seen that with the mel cepstrum . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end , but {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think it 's much more balanced with , uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust . Yeah . I could look at it {disfmarker} at this . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Wha - what 's a typical number ? +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor E: Do we {disfmarker} ? Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you don't know . +PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} +Professor E: OK . I 'm sure it 's more balanced , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there 's still {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions , as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to , uh , substitutions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think , um , we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying , well we should have a , uh , uh , voice activity detector {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: that , because all that stuff {comment} that we 're getting thr the silence that 's getting through is causing insertions . So . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: I 'll bet you there 's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . And it may be less of a critical thing . I mean , the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you , uh , get things in the right range . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I mean , the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom . It 's a symptom that there 's something , uh , wrong with the range . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: But there 's {disfmarker} uh , your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: uh , the most obvious thing is just the insertions , @ @ . But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um . If you 're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean , that 's why just in general , if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are , you reach some point that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a minimum . So . Um . Um . We do have to do well over a range of different conditions , some of which are noisier than others . Um . But , um , I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um , I mean we ca it 's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features , it , um , uh , could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end , and it 's ar artificial here that we 're not adjusting those , you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time . And if you have a nice front - end that 's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built , that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level , and we would rarely adjust them again , even though you could get a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit . But , once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was , it was pretty stable , and {disfmarker} Uh , we might just not even be in the right operating range . +PhD F: So , would the {disfmarker} ? Uh , would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case ? So , if we computed what the range was in well - matched , and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . You don't wanna change it for different conditions . No . No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I 'm saying {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions . I was just saying that when we pick a range , we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case . Otherwise , I mean , what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into ? +Professor E: Well . It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean , i if he it {disfmarker} to me , actually , even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side , it can be kinda tricky . So , I mean , what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors , uh , so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and so on . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: Um . So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space . Just take a look at it a little bit . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we 're way off . +PhD F: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe we 're not . You know ? As for these other things , it may turn out that , uh , {vocalsound} it 's kind of reasonable . But then {disfmarker} I mean , Andreas gave a very reasonable response , and he 's probably not gonna be the only one who 's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of , you know , people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting , uh , more or less , that these are the rules . But , people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say "" Well , wait a minute . You 're doing all this standing on your head , uh , on the front - end , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob . "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And so we have to at least , I think , determine that that 's not true , which would be OK , or determine that it is true , in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we 're doing . And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So . OK . So , uh {disfmarker} What 's new with you ? +PhD B: Uh . So there 's nothing {pause} new . Um . +Professor E: Uh , what 's old with you that 's developed ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK . What 's old with you that has developed over the last week or two ? +PhD B: Mmm . Well , so we 've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mainly working on what ? +PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: Um . Mm - hmm . That 's all . +PhD F: How about that {disfmarker} ? Any - anything new on the thing that , uh , you were working on with the , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I don't have results yet . +PhD F: No results ? Yeah . +Professor E: What was that ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} the , uh , +Grad A: Voicing thing . +PhD F: voicing detector . +Professor E: I mean , what what 's {disfmarker} what 's going on now ? What are you {pause} doing ? +PhD C: Uh , to try to found , nnn , robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice . And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . So , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what you were describing , I guess , a week or two ago . +PhD C: Yeah . But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: We need to train the neural network +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: So you 're training neural networks now ? +PhD C: No , not yet . +Professor E: So , what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what 's going on ? +PhD C: Well , we work in the report , too , because we have a lot of result , +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: they are very dispersed , and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure . +PhD B: Yea +Professor E: So . B So {disfmarker} Yeah . I if I can summarize , basically what 's going on is that you 're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion , f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens . +PhD C: Hm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , y yeah . Basically we we 've stopped , uh , experimenting , +Professor E: Yes ? +PhD B: I mean . We 're just writing some kind of technical report . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Is this a report that 's for Aurora ? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI , +PhD C: No . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: For ICSI . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? Ah . I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . So , my suggestion , though , is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that . But that you put it all together so that it 's {disfmarker} you 've got {disfmarker} you 've got a clearer structure to it . You know what things are , you have things documented , you 've looked things up that you needed to look up . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So that , you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written . And , um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again ? +PhD C: Uh , in July . First of July . +Professor E: First of July ? OK . And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June . Because , you know , you 're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And right now it 's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments . +PhD C: It 's not . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so , I {disfmarker} I think it 's good to pause , and to gather everything together and make sure it 's in good shape , so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June . But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing , I {disfmarker} I {pause} think . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well , we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report , not {disfmarker} no more , anyway . Um . +Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because you {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's more to go ? +PhD B: Yeah . Well , so I don't know . There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are you discovering anything , uh , that makes you scratch your head as you write this report , like why did we do that , or why didn't we do this , +PhD B: Uh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} Actually , there were some tables that were also with partial results . We just noticed that , wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: But anyway . Um . Yeah , yeah . We have , yeah , extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car . And so , we can train neural network with speech and these noises . Um . It 's difficult to say what it will give , because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments , um , they have these three conditions that have different noises , and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises . But , I think this is something we have to try anyway . So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car . Um . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} that 's permitted ? +PhD B: Uh . Well , OGI does {disfmarker} did that . Um . At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector . +PhD C: Uh , for a v VAD . +PhD B: Right ? Um . +PhD F: Could you say it again ? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do ? +PhD B: They used some parts of the , um , Italian database to train the voice activity detector , I think . It {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah . I guess that 's a matter of interpretation . The rules as I understand it , is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no , Italian and the Finnish and the English ? {disfmarker} were development data +PhD B: Yeah . And Spanish , yeah . +Professor E: on which you could adjust things . And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's right . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh , and it is true that the performance , uh , on the German was {disfmarker} I mean , even though the improvement wasn't so good , the pre the raw performance was really pretty good . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} And , uh , it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there 's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages , that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you . And the noises were not exactly the same . Right ? Because it was taken from a different , uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives . +PhD B: Different cars . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: So . Um , it 's somewhat tuned . It 's tuned more than , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You 'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all , maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But that 's not really what this contest is . So . Um , I guess it 's OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That 's something I 'd like to understand before we actually use something from it , +PhD F: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} +PhD F: it 's probably something that , mmm , the {disfmarker} you know , the , uh , experiment designers didn't really think about , because I think most people aren't doing trained systems , or , you know , uh , systems that are like ours , where you actually use the data to build models . I mean , they just {pause} doing signal - processing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 's true , +PhD F: So . +Professor E: except that , uh , that 's what we used in Aurora one , and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: Um . +PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right ? {disfmarker} to build models on the data ? +Professor E: No . But , I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if , say , we trained on Italian , uh , data and then , uh , we tested on Danish data and it did terribly , uh , that {disfmarker} that it would look bad . And I think someone would notice and would say "" Well , look . This is not generalizing . "" I would hope tha I would hope they would . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . But , uh , it 's true . You know , maybe there 's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know , th that they have tuned in some way for other things . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that 's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I 'm not here , that 's a topic you should discuss with Hynek +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to , you know , double check it 's OK . +PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the , uh , training utterances ? +PhD B: What do you mean ? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Do you have speaker information ? +Professor E: Social security number +PhD F: That would be good . +PhD B: Like , we have {pause} male , female , +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD F: Bank PIN . +PhD B: at least . +PhD F: Just male f female ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: What kind of information do you mean ? +PhD F: Well , I was thinking about things like , you know , gender , uh {disfmarker} you know , gender - specific nets and , uh , vocal tract length normalization . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Things like that . I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Uh . Right . I mean , again , i if you had the whole system you were optimizing , that would be easy to see . But if you 're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you 're just coming up with a feature vector , w w I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean , having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male , it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , you could put them both in as separate streams or something . Uh . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe . +PhD F: I don't know . I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Yeah , it 's an interesting thought . Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean , you can't really do vocal tract normalization . But something that had some of that effect +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: being applied to the data in some way . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . +PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean , vocal tract length normalization ? +PhD F: Uh no . I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it , really . It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization . You know , you have some sort of a , uh , general speech model , you know , maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against , and then you see where each , you know , utterance {disfmarker} like , the likelihood of each utterance . You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin 's got some knob {disfmarker} uh , setting . +Professor E: Yeah . But just listen to yourself . I mean , that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds , uh , latency that {disfmarker} and where you 're not adjusting the statistical engine at all . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: You know , that just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Could be expensive . +Professor E: No . Well not just expensive . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it . You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything . You know , you can only {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD F: Oh , +Professor E: Each frame comes in and it 's gotta go out the other end . +PhD F: right . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . So whatever it was , it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , you can do , um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: But as far as , I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization a ways back . Maybe other people did too . With {disfmarker} with , uh , uh , l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor E: So . You know , third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with , uh , changing vocal tract is that , uh , the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before , if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter , then it would be out at seven fifty hertz , and so on . So , that 's a move of two hundred fifty hertz . Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz , you know , might be out to thirty - seven fifty , you know so it 's at {disfmarker} So , although , you frequently get less distinct higher formants , it 's still {disfmarker} third formant 's kind of a reasonable compromise , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I think , eh , if I recall correctly , they did something like that . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um , that doesn't work for just having one frame or something . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? That 's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: Um . So . But on the other hand , male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to , uh , squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , um . Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean , just like we 're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh , male female is good to know also . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , you 'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to , uh , incorporate it on the fly . Uh , I mean , I guess , as you say , one thing you could do is simply , uh , have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know , tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or , uh , you know . But {disfmarker} Um . I don't know if that would really help , because you already have males and females and it 's mm - hmm putting into one net . So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Is it balanced , um , in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Do you know ? +PhD B: Almost , yeah . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . OK . Y you 're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Uh . Yeah . So , this noise , um {disfmarker} Yeah . The MSG {disfmarker} Um . Mmm . There is something {disfmarker} perhaps , I could spend some days to look at this thing , cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let 's say , on TIMIT with MSG features , they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP . But , um , when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data , it 's not the case {disfmarker} oh , well . The MSG features are much worse , and so maybe they 're , um , less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions , or {disfmarker} Shou +Professor E: Shouldn't be . They should be less so . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: R right ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Wh - ? But let me ask you this . What {disfmarker} what 's the , um {disfmarker} ? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG ? +PhD B: I don't know . I cannot tell . But {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher . So , I don +Professor E: Yeah . But you should always look at insertions , deletions , and substitutions . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so , uh {disfmarker} MSG is very , very dif Eh , PLP is very much like mel cepstrum . MSG is very different from both of them . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if it 's very different , then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I 'm really glad Andreas brought this point up . I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it . Um . You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh , these adjustments , uh , affect things . And even though we 're not allowed to do that , again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact , uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And you might wanna change that . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , it 's d it 's after {disfmarker} Well , it 's tandem features , so {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: so I don Well . I don't know . +Professor E: That means they 're between zero and one . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know , they could be , um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right ? Cuz if you 're taking the log of these things , it could be , uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are , doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should look at the likelihood , or {disfmarker} or what ? Or {disfmarker} well , at the log , perhaps , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know , what you 're uh {disfmarker} the thing you 're actually looking at . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: What do they look like ? +PhD F: No And so th the , uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system , the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid . Right ? They 're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values ? +PhD B: Yes . +Professor E: Right . So they 're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying . +PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK . And tho that 's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK ? +Professor E: Uh , almost . But then you actually do a KLT on them . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . They aren't normalized after that , are they ? +PhD B: Mmm . No , they are not {disfmarker} no . +Professor E: No . OK . So , um . Right . So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah . Whatever they are at that point , um , are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing ? So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , and that 's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh , things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh , you know , subtract things from it , scale it from it , but nothing will have that same effect . Um . So . Um . Anyway , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big , the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect +Professor E: Well , the {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: compared to , you know , a smaller set of log probs . +Professor E: Yeah . No . Again you don't really {pause} look at that . It 's something {disfmarker} that , and then it 's going through this transformation that 's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It 's , eh , whatever the KLT is doing . But it 's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: But still it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things . I would think . And , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP . So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I 'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the , uh , substitutions , insertions , and deletions . And if the {disfmarker} if the , uh {disfmarker} i if there 's a fairly large effect of the difference , say , uh , uh , the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be , uh , an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , +Professor E: Anything else ? +PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor E: Well . +PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well . +Professor E: But , you know , some problems are harder than others , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} And , uh , sometimes , you know , there 's enough evidence for something to work and then it 's harder , it breaks . You know , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but , um , i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better , even in TI - digits . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , sure . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Uh . +Professor E: Hmm ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Well , there is also the spectral subtraction , which , um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should , uh , try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: But , +Professor E: O +PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson . Because he has spectral subtraction , then it 's followed by , {vocalsound} um , other kind of processing that 's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh , if it 's speech or noi or silence . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it 's silence , and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it 's important , um , {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions . So . Well . This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network . Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Well , this 'll be , I think , something for discussion with Hynek next week . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . OK . Right . So . How are , uh , uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you 're doing ? +Grad D: Oh . Well , um , I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet . Um , i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek , I think , when he 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like ? +Professor E: Uh , he 'll be around for three days . +Grad D: OK . So , y +Professor E: Uh , we 'll have a lot of time . +Grad D: OK . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} Um . I 'll , uh {disfmarker} You know , he 's {disfmarker} he 'll {disfmarker} he 'll be talking with everybody in this room So . +PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday ? +Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday . Yeah . Cuz I will be at faculty retreat . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: So . I 'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday . But {disfmarker} Um . Oh , how 'd taxes go ? Taxes go OK ? +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , good . Yeah . Yeah . That 's just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier . Yeah . +PhD F: Unless you 're getting money in two countries . +Professor E: I think you are . Aren't you ? +PhD F: They both want their cut . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD F: Right ? +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Huh . Canada w Canada wants a cut ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns ? +Grad D: Mmm . W uh , for two thousand I did . Yeah . +Professor E: Oh , oh . Yeah . For tw That 's right , ju +PhD F: But not for this next year ? +Professor E: Two thousand . Yeah . Probably not this next year , I guess . +Grad D: Ye +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it 'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore , so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return . +Professor E: OK . Alright . Uh . Barry , do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here ? +Grad A: Oh , um . Right . I {pause} just , um , continuing looking at , uh , ph uh , phonetic events , and , uh , this Tuesday gonna be , uh , meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these , uh , ph um , phonetic events . Um , came up with , uh , a plan of attack , uh , gonna execute , and um {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much it . +Professor E: Oh , well . No Um , why don't you say something about what it is ? +Grad A: Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you want {disfmarker} you want details . Hmm . OK . +Professor E: Well , we 're all gathered here together . I thought we 'd , you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands . Um . So , um . So , once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um , to be able to distinguish between , uh , phones and words and stuff . And {vocalsound} um , once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be , you know , um , hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived , uh , from h the hand - labeled phone targets . Um , we could take these events and , um , {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments , um , where we feed , um , these events into {pause} an SRI system , um , eh , and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task . Uh , yeah . +Grad D: Hey , Barry ? Can you give an example of an event ? +Grad A: Yeah . Sure . Um , I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events . Um {disfmarker} So , he In this paper , um , it 's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events . So , things like frication or , uh , nasality . +Professor E: Whose paper is it ? +Grad A: Um , this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen . +Professor E: Yeah . Huh . From , uh , University of Hamburg and Bielefeld . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: Um . +PhD F: Yeah . I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: There 's , um {disfmarker} in my mind , anyways , there 's a difference between , um , acoustic features and acoustic events . And I think of acoustic features as being , um , things that linguists talk about , like , um {disfmarker} +Professor E: So , stuff that 's not based on data . +PhD F: Stuff that 's not based on data , necessarily . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +PhD F: Right . That 's not based on , you know , acoustic data . So they talk about features for phones , like , uh , its height , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: its tenseness , laxness , things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal . Versus an acoustic event , which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure . Um . So it 's , um {disfmarker} it 's a little different , in {disfmarker} at least in my mind . +Professor E: I mean , when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean , there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an , uh , auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event . +Grad A: Good . That 's great . +Professor E: And , uh , um , called them "" avents "" , uh , uh , uh , with an A at the front . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere . So . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this . I mean , there 's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened . That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there . But there 's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know , phonetic features as being top - down . You know , you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know , have this feature , this feature , and this feature . Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant . Whereas , an acoustic event goes the other way . Here 's the signal . Here 's some event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} ? And then that {disfmarker} you know , that may map to this phone sometimes , and sometimes it may not . It just depen maybe depends on the context , things like that . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so it 's sort of a different way of looking . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events , um , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these , uh , cheating experiments . See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are , um , in , um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition . And , um {disfmarker} and then from that point on , I would , uh , s design robust event detectors , um , in a similar , um , wa spirit that Saul has done w uh , with his graphical models , and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses . Um , eh , try to extend it to , um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like , um , CMR co - modulation release . And , um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models , um , in a data - driven way , uh , similar to the way that , uh , Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff , uh , Bilmes did his work . Um , and while I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm doing these , um , event detectors , you know , I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing , um , the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like , uh , neural nets . Um , and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , once we have these {disfmarker} these , uh , event detectors , um , we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI , um , HMM {disfmarker} HMM system , and , um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or , um , maybe even Aurora stuff . And , that 's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um , the plan . +Professor E: By the way , um , there 's , uh , a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this , but , a couple people who are gonna be here for six months . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh , there 's a Professor Kollmeier , uh , from Germany who 's , uh , uh , quite big in the , uh , hearing - aid signal - processing area and , um , Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's worked with him , who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various , uh , brain function things . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: So , um , um , I think they 'll be interesting to talk to , in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are , uh , developing . +Grad A: Hmm . OK . +Professor E: So , he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out . So . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK . Well , short meeting , but that 's OK . And , uh , we might as well do our digits . And like I say , I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet , uh , next week with , uh , uh , Hynek . Alright , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start . It 's , uh , one thirty - five . seventeen OK +","A group, including Professor E, Grad A, PhD B, PhD C, PhD F, and Grad D, discusses various research topics in a meeting. + +Professor E informs the group that Hynek will be visiting next week from Wednesday to Saturday, and that he (Professor E) won't be present on Thursday and Friday. He suggests that they should still hold their meeting during the visit, without him. + +PhD F shares that he has been working on Meeting Recorder tasks and has nothing new to report. Professor E brings up the subject of adjusting scaling and insertion penalties in noisy conditions. PhD F mentions he tried adjusting them and observed increased insertions in noisy situations. Professor E points out that they were looking at mel cepstrum, not considering other features. + +Professor E comments on how changing training in HTK doesn't seem to improve performance, implying that operating with a universal number of states across languages isn't too problematic. PhD F agrees on the conclusions based on their information so far. + +The conversation shifts towards adjusting the back-end processing for better performance in noise and how this might be necessary for improving various systems that look at larger time windows. + +Professor E suggests potentially adjusting the front end to compensate for any additional processing that might be done on the backend, like insertion penalties. PhD F and PhD B discuss handling front-end processing and possible experiments for next week. + +PhD B is working on a report summarizing previous experiments and results. Professor E recommends not to spend too much time on the report right now but to focus on new experiments, suggesting they can finish the report closer to PhD C's departure in July. + +Grad A mentions working on phonetic events and an upcoming discussion with a phonetics expert. PhD F clarifies the distinction between acoustic features (more abstract and not directly related to observable acoustic data) versus acoustic events (observable occurrences in the acoustic signal). Grad A elaborates on a plan to use these events in a ""cheating"" experiment to evaluate phoneme recognition performance. + +Professor E mentions that two researchers on hearing aids and auditory signals, Professor Kollmeier and Michael Kleinschmidt, will be visiting for six months and could provide valuable insights for the event detectors. + +After discussing the progress and plans for their research, Professor E wraps up the meeting, suggesting they meet again the following week when Hynek is present, even in his absence. The meeting concludes with participants reading out numbers as part of their digit recognition work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Can I close this ? +User Interface: Uh we don't have any changes , do we ? +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: So no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we go . Okay , here we are again . Detailed design {disfmarker} oh , come on . Well {disfmarker} Ah {gap} s Forgot to insert the minutes , but it's about the same thing we discussed before . Uh {disfmarker} Could open that anyway , think . Other design {disfmarker} anyway , we took as {disfmarker} we took w we took rubber as as the material last time . We also {gap} that you're just busy with it . Took the advanced chip to t uh implement the advanced features . Well , we discussed the design , no sharp corners , we rounded it off , like you see on the {gap} other screen , which is fine . Um {gap} we agreed that the colour should be b uh yellow and black . Yellow in the back because it's m trendy , more trendy than black anyway . So {vocalsound} then we ca yeah . We agreed that we would implement both the L_C_D_ and speech recognition , but I'll get to that in a moment . 'Cause some changes in the finances have left us implications anyway . So so , like I said , we had no insight in finances , no prices , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but we have 'em now , and it's bad . Anyway . We are Oh . Prototype presentation , well first you guys built the prototype . So {vocalsound} you could {gap} {disfmarker} could present that . But um let's see what be handy to do . Nee {disfmarker} no , you just go ahead and present the {disfmarker} w we'll scrap it later because {disfmarker} {gap} What ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's more or less the same as we had . +User Interface: It's basically what we agreed upon , +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Oh that's +User Interface: but just a little bit more specified . +Industrial Designer: No much s +Project Manager: hasn't changed that much , huh ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , not at all . +Project Manager: I didn't expect anyway {gap} . You just coloured it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh s Final design . {vocalsound} Basically in {gap} {disfmarker} what we discussed , cover and buttons will be made of rubber , yellow colour , black components , as you can see right over here . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like the menu . +User Interface: We chose a different type of colour for the menu . A bit darker yellow so that it com really shows in this keypad . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you put them all black , it's not really that good a contrast . +Project Manager: And I suppose the the the yellow is not printed on the on the rubber . It's it's part of the rubber , I suppose . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Probab +Project Manager: I think that's more I think that's more durable anyway than printed on to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . That's the be +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} I guess it's more easier to just paint it on the rubber +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: than to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's uh the integration story again . +Marketing: Mm yeah . Okay . +User Interface: So we have it's a bit round shaped , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +User Interface: that's what we had uh {disfmarker} We chose the buttons to be uh teletext , okay button , favourite channel and the mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that's basically what we chose there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you have anything to add , please interrupt me . +Industrial Designer: No , uh this is just a description of what we see there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Speaks for itself . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That's pretty much it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Now it's my time to ruin everything . Well , not ruin everything , but {disfmarker} no , nah . +User Interface: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finances , that's what we have here , what you drew . We have battery power , we have advanced chips and the sam the sensor . The sample sensor and uh {disfmarker} for speak recognition anyway . So which {disfmarker} you see the {disfmarker} which is de o one of the most expensive parts . So {disfmarker} well , we have sin one curve , {vocalsound} a design . Rubber design . And we had a special colour . Suppose yellow is a special colour . So just half a Euro for {gap} {disfmarker} You have pushbuttons and an L_C_D_ display . You have the total of seventeen Euros in production cost , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which is higher than the twelve and a half that we are permitted to use . So , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: easy . What do we scrap . Well think I had the best solution that I came up with is just to s take out the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: I d +User Interface: I'd say that too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because the L_C_D_ has more support on customer side . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: There are ninety one percent of uh the people , or something like that . But ninety percent who favour an L_C_D_ display , and only sixty percent that favour speech recognition . I think it's also harder to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh we don't really have a extra function with the speech sample , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: which you can't do with a normal remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So I ju +User Interface: which people already do . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I took that out . So {disfmarker} and so it's still stuck with thirteen , so I had to take out the special colour I suppose . And , yeah , I didn't see anything else I could take out . Yeah , I could take out the push-buttons , +Marketing: Pushbut +Project Manager: but we need those . So , generally what I came up with , in order to be cou to to have production cost of twelve and a half Euros , spe scrap speech recognition +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour , yeah . +Project Manager: and the separate covers can account for the {disfmarker} if people want it , we'll just {disfmarker} then we'll do it in black . We'll just deliver it in black , have the {disfmarker} it has all the function that it's supposed to have , and if you want it {disfmarker} if you want the custom design , then you can buy the separate covers . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: You make it d orange or whatever you want . +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} I tend to disagree with you on that , because the trend issue was a big issue when we started designing this . +Project Manager: It was a big issue , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So can't we just basically extend it to thirteen ? +Project Manager: I'll just go back . Uh let's just {disfmarker} let's see what {disfmarker} okay , let's just see what we {disfmarker} no , we we have to be under twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: The p +Project Manager: uh the project is a no-go if we go over twelve and a half , +Industrial Designer: Okay , but there's another problem . +Marketing: And the p +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But there's another problem . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we take another cover , for instance black , then we also need another button frame , 'cause black and black doesn't work obviously . +Project Manager: I think you {disfmarker} that's what you were ass assigned to do really , to to see how b th both those work together . +Industrial Designer: Huh . Huh . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's y one of the {disfmarker} it's a good way to um to help people uh to make {disfmarker} to keep the product trendy too . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Just keep {disfmarker} you just make new covers for the {disfmarker} for it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: like we agreed before . +Industrial Designer: Right . I agree . +Project Manager: And everything that's left is is the basic function that uh that we want our product to have . Because the expensive parts are in either the advanced chip . But we need that for the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then again , we have the L_C_D_ display , which is also expensive . B yeah , but those go together . And yeah , we could take out the curve . +Industrial Designer: Or say let's lose rubber , take plastic . +User Interface: We could take out a curve indeed . +Project Manager: Could {disfmarker} we could take out the curve . Is that an option ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: For you ? +Industrial Designer: Although we are demolishing a little bit the style . +Marketing: But uh the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the colour is more important than the really the curve , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because if you just end up with an entirely black remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} it it does ruin it , +Marketing: Yeah . The people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the fact that I t took that decision or t +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Took this example actually , not really decision , but the example is because we do offer the um {vocalsound} the possibility of adding your own custom covers . So you can change {gap} any colour you want . So it's just you deliver a basic remote control with a possibility to change you into whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: Can we then not also uh change the material ? We take plastic for the basic cover +Project Manager: You can take plastic , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I d it's something that's stuck into my mind is that {disfmarker} something that really came forward from the marketing research is that people like the the the the squishy feeling of {disfmarker} the spongy feeling of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those to the to the other covers . +Project Manager: and it really makes it {disfmarker} also makes it different from the existing remote controls , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because they're all plastic . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So which in in turn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Rubber would increase durability +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it doesn't break . +Industrial Designer: okay . But what do you then suggest we'd lose ? Because we have to lose two things and {disfmarker} I guess . +Project Manager: I al like I said , I lost the speech recognition and I lost the special colour , +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: which would make this black a black and grey . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and that's enough ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that that that's enough , because +User Interface: So black and grey is okay . +Project Manager: I guess those are the basic colours . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which we can fabricate , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think those are basic col They want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: The people want to pay for for it , so why why uh {vocalsound} do we have to keep us uh uh um on the twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: To ensure the profit . That {disfmarker} that's th that's the order . We're just uh {disfmarker} we're the project team and we got our our orders from the pro from the boss of our company +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which say we don't wanna spend more than twelve fifty for this . +Marketing: But we can take a risk . +Project Manager: But that's not for our {disfmarker} that's not our decision to take . We have a budget of twelve fifty per product . +User Interface: No , we basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We need to stick to that . +Project Manager: Stick that . I don't think it's really bad either . I mean if we we have the the backup of {disfmarker} or the backup design thing +Marketing: I hope the people will like it , +Project Manager: to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think they would do . Th I think they do like because yo we {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we agree upon that the that the the the cover thing was a nice idea , +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because p you could have all sort of designs while at the same time just manufacturing one product , one basic product which you could turn into any any taste you want . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it's the best solution to make those cu custom covers for the design aspect +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make m +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and keep the functionality between {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} within the th the boundaries of the your f uh your budget . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: The first sheet . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make clear to our customer that we had to do this to stay under the cost . And that's {disfmarker} uh they know that this is an option and that we had to drop the option to stay under the cost , that they know that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah . Is it worth {disfmarker} is it is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps they decide tha +User Interface: But they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it mean anything to the customer ? Like , it {disfmarker} like , we don't care {disfmarker} we don't care that you had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of course . Perhaps {gap} they uh {disfmarker} no , but perhaps they think uh okay , the cover is such a nice idea , uh let's {disfmarker} that that then they uh that allow us to make some more costs . +Project Manager: True , +Industrial Designer: We ca we uh we can at least tell them that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but we did we didn't get that . So I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't know that . +Project Manager: it should either be a pack , maybe we sh that should be sold in in the s in stores with with a standard cover or something . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I'm not uh talking about that cost {gap} but the one that g has given us the order to design this . We could at least m uh make it like this , like you said , +Project Manager: They could , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then tell them okay , we had to drop this and that , just that you know . It is an {disfmarker} still an option , but {vocalsound} not for this price . +Project Manager: It's an option , but {disfmarker} yeah , it's true . So actually uh it's not that much of an increase , but yeah . We cannot contact them . +User Interface: And if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just the order that we got . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , +Project Manager: So that's what we gotta go with . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's either one fi just just to get it f just to get it through final , it's either {vocalsound} turned into plastic , drop the squishy feel , make it make it more breakable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: um or turn it yellow . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's uh something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: I'd say lose the curve and the colour +Project Manager: I say lose the curve . Oh that's true , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we could lose the c I forgot that , yeah , sorry . Uh the curve . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which curve is that ba +Project Manager: That's just this one just d this is the banana curve . +User Interface: that's basically that curve . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So this would this would be straight . +User Interface: So we could u still have the comfort . +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: No , uh {disfmarker} no , that would be a curve inside the thing , I guess . No , would ju then it would just be a straight remote . Just like {vocalsound} like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Which would , yeah , turn it into something far more ordinary . {gap} we could make it yellow then , +User Interface: I second that . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} You second that , you second that we lose the curve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , that it would turn out to be a pretty straight-forward remote control . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: So that's not really that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it would be a good idea to keep the curve {vocalsound} to separate it from the rest of the remote control world , so to speak . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we keep the curve . So the only only solution is either to use the l y lose the yellow or lose the rubber . +User Interface: I would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'm in favour of keeping the rubber , because it has more more advantages than the colour yellow has . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . I agree . +User Interface: Yeah . I would say {disfmarker} I would agree with you on the colour , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: because that's an extra option , an extra service we can deliver for a little bit of more money . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , um +User Interface: So we can always do that . +Project Manager: I guess people are willing to pay for that . So I think we can take that option and just {disfmarker} with uh with the idea in the back of our head that you can customise your remote control . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think that would still make it a nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , we're final on that . So {vocalsound} it's too bad we can't make the whole super thing . But anyways we're here . Um yeah . +User Interface: Which is basically what we discussed . +Project Manager: This we discussed just now . That's just now {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} we could just discuss how the project went . I mean , was kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I want to do that . +Project Manager: I sort of expected that everything would turn out this way , but because you {disfmarker} yeah , everything cannot be for free . We didn't {disfmarker} I think it was too bad we didn't have the financial info the last time . Because that was {disfmarker} I th +User Interface: Yes , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: it was really essential really +User Interface: we could have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: to ma because we spent uh uh entire stage designing a product of which we had no idea what it would cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we just put something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's really nor not in stroke with reality actually . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too , I felt a bit blind throughout the project , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because in the beginning I had no list of available materials , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {gap} {disfmarker} would have been . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Materials would be ok +Industrial Designer: and then I d had not list of available c finances . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: at least the last meeting I would have expected had to have that . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I suppose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's um {vocalsound} see {gap} um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's see if it sells . I mean I suppose this sells , because it's very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very extended . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I hope it sells . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I suppose it sells , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because it's good . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean it's got everything for the for the reasonable price , because we didn't know what it's gonna cost anyway . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , let's eval evaluate uh the product of us , our design . Um I have some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh a method , a requirements and scale of . I uh will pre present uh some statements and we will decided together wha what {disfmarker} if it's true or false +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh then we see uh if the requirements of the user are fulfilled or not . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have been met , okay . +Marketing: And I will uh make a new blank sheet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So so the buttons , the look and feel . I thought it was okay , but the advanced uh settings , um screen , audio and channel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're stuck under menu . +User Interface: Which are basically accessible through the menu button . +Marketing: We are not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For the menu . I think those are totally met , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because we we really took them for the {disfmarker} they have the feel they want , +Marketing: Oh the menu button is it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hi Oh , okay . +Project Manager: they have the simplicity they want . +Marketing: Then it's all uh {disfmarker} S +Project Manager: I think it's very uh very well met . Either two or one maybe . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: it's true . +Project Manager: I think we took that {disfmarker} everything they wanted into consideration . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it could either be a two or a one . +Marketing: So d Oh wait . Uh pen . +Project Manager: One and a half . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which is not an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The p Oh yeah , +Project Manager: Just create our own option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's red , okay , but {disfmarker} Look and feel is everybo it's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Anyone ? And the next one {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} yeah , when it's lost uh you can find it . +Project Manager: It's perfect . Even for deaf people , yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} I don't think it's perfect , but we did everything possible to to get it back . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: To make it that way , yeah . +Project Manager: Because if it's stuck in you couch , you can see the light . Maybe you can hear it . But I mean we tried , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I think it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that deserves a one . Definitely . +Marketing: And it's and it's {disfmarker} yeah . To {gap} . That's okay then . And the next one . How is that ? Uh w we had {disfmarker} we don't have an uh manual , +Industrial Designer: Manual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the L_C_D_ display could be a little bit more difficult then a normal remote control , +Marketing: But I think that's a part of it . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd use an {gap} remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: but then again , it's for young people . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , an L_C_D_ , it tells a lot about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's pretty straight-forward , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I th +Project Manager: It's pretty straight-forward , uh-huh . +User Interface: you have a navigation {disfmarker} no keys to navigate through the L_C_D_ menus . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . No , that's true . I think it won't be a big problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's a one +User Interface: One I d no , +Marketing: or a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know . +User Interface: actu +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} but we didn't even {disfmarker} +Marketing: For the advanced uh settings . +Project Manager: there was no issue on making a manual actually . We didn't {disfmarker} {gap} really discuss it , +Marketing: No okay , that {disfmarker} uh that's true . +Project Manager: but I don't think it takes {disfmarker} no , it really does doesn't take time to learn , I think . We took it s it's so easy , +User Interface: No , it it is pretty straight-forward . +Marketing: Oh , so it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have so little button , everything speaks for itself really . So I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , we didn't {disfmarker} it's either two or one , I guess . +Marketing: Takes no ti +Project Manager: Maybe it's a two , because d uh the L_C_D_ is a little is a little new and there is {disfmarker} there are some option hidden under the menu button . +Industrial Designer: With the more important functions on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I might make this a two instead of a one , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ , you have to see it . +Project Manager: So just make that a two . +Marketing: Um mm {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit learning . Okay . Uh yeah {vocalsound} it's uh a little bit same . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But it tells you or not ? +Project Manager: You can use the L_C_D_ in a good way . I think so . I think it's perfect , the w where it is , what it can do , if it useful . I think so . +Marketing: But wha w +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh , yeah . What are we uh displaying on the L_C_D_ screen ? Just uh only the channels and {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the menus uh {disfmarker} Things like brightness and uh those kind of things we've put in the menu , +Marketing: What uh ? +Industrial Designer: because we have no buttons for those . +User Interface: Well , basically the menu options indeed . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , in the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: No , y I mean in the L_C_D_ screen , the small screen . What does it display ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And for a channel selection , uh {gap} {disfmarker} or that's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I thought it was I thought it was {disfmarker} I thought that people wanted previews on their {disfmarker} I'm not sure if that even possible , +Marketing: Yeah , I thought I thought too +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} this requires a quite quite a bit of band-width . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's possible really . But the {disfmarker} they didn't really define in what should be used for . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Maybe a T_V_ guide or something in your L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think in for example like T_V_ guides , I think that's {disfmarker} that th that you can transmit through it and everything . Just for extra information on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it must be clear then what {disfmarker} what what for we use it . +Project Manager: But also things like like like menus or p how about preferences of your {disfmarker} uh with configuring your remote control for favourite {disfmarker} your favourite channel for example , how do you configure that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that could be done by L_C_D_ display . I think it's good . No , maybe it's not a one because it's {disfmarker} we're not using it perfectly . We didn't give it {disfmarker} I don't thing over-discussing . Now we gave it enough thought though . I think we d should just lower this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's a three though . We could've used it more effectively probably . +Marketing: Yeah , indeed . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So everybody's agree with an uh three on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , we are using it , +User Interface: Yeah . Two or three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's not +Marketing: W +Project Manager: it's not poorly used , but it's not efficiently used , I think . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could have ev even lost {vocalsound} the selection button and uh done everything via L_C_D_ selection . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} now it's just extra to illustrate im uh extra features , +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but okay . +Marketing: A three . +Industrial Designer: Nah , it's not really {disfmarker} only an extra . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} seven . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No menus . +Marketing: Ah , nothing , that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A seven . Uh that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you talk to remote control ? +User Interface: Or we could say it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it can't talk anymore . So we scrap that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or we could say neutral , +Project Manager: Oh yeah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: we {disfmarker} 'cause we scratched the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just to be a prick , +User Interface: C +Project Manager: but of course you can talk to your remote control , it doesn't do anything . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: But you c {vocalsound} you can talk to it . +Marketing: Not with the speech recognition . Uh yeah , all the trends and no colours uh anymore . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we did take everything into consideration of course . Uh the shape i shape is i +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} uh um only in the curves . +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah , I think that's okay . +Marketing: But the colours , we don't have special colours on it . +User Interface: No , we don't have the colour . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} special co but we took into consideration the fact that it's customisable +User Interface: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: to the fashi +Marketing: but we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but the end product {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: yeah , we don't have it , so d +Project Manager: We don't have it {disfmarker} we do have it , +Marketing: In the end product . +Project Manager: it's just sold as a package . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} M +Project Manager: It does {disfmarker} it's not part of the basic product . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers is also trend that we followed . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} that that's what I call trendy . I mean the shape is trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the sh the the functions are trendy . It's just the colours that are not supporting the basic model . Because you ha +Marketing: Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's just not affordable at the moment . +User Interface: Maybe we should go with a two then , +Marketing: But it's not a one . +User Interface: because it's not perfect , because we can't do it initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's possible , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but you have to pay extra for the for the possibility of having it in a f a different colour . +Marketing: Oh well {disfmarker} Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh it's a two , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: On the last one . Uh that n that's all . +Project Manager: Overall score . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Overall score . +Marketing: Overall . {vocalsound} It's um +Project Manager: One two three . {gap} sixteen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} ten , sixteen three {disfmarker} uh two +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two two point some two point something . +Marketing: two point seven or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't know why . +User Interface: Ten , sixteen , divided by {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: Is two two third . +Project Manager: Two and two thirds . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can say it's it's {disfmarker} the product is {disfmarker} it's okay . +Project Manager: It's okay , but {vocalsound} that's yo m +Marketing: Y not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mostly it's it's influenced by the fact that we didn't have enough resources to implement speech recognition . +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause yeah , that gives you a seven , which ruins your your average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without that it would be like under {disfmarker} it wouldn't {disfmarker} yeah , it would be under two . So I think we have {disfmarker} even with this it's reasonable . +Marketing: Woah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , if we make it into a four , as in neutral , because we didn't implement it , so we can't say that we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that it's really not well implemented . We come out on a average of two one eighth . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's {disfmarker} two is okay . +User Interface: So which is pretty w good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , two is pretty good . +User Interface: It's at least on the positive side . +Project Manager: Definitely . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We could definitely have done better if we've had more resources , +Industrial Designer: Hmm , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's probably {disfmarker} {gap} I +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I do admit that we d {vocalsound} did miss a little {disfmarker} or didn't sp didn't talk {gap} {disfmarker} talk enough about the possibility of the L_C_D_ display . We could have used it more efficiently , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we just didn't think of it that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , with {gap} . ..# +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: So {gap} {disfmarker} like I said , {vocalsound} changing channels , everything hidden in your L_C_D_ display , so you just need the navigation buttons to do everything . +Marketing: The scale . +Industrial Designer: But I think for this price , this is {disfmarker} it's really a reasonable product . +Project Manager: I think we div I think we did very well , +Industrial Designer: It's a good product . +Project Manager: uh ev even if you look at this score , we did quite well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: With an L_C_D_ screen {gap} . +Project Manager: It just looking for improvements what what you could have improved . So . {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if pep people really want speech recognition , then they must be prepared to pu to pay more , because it's cannot be done for this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They sh they should get kids , and just stick 'em in T_V_ and say change the channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you can make 'em another one . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah but for this price uh you cannot ask that . +Project Manager: I don' think so . Uh it's just not {disfmarker} it it's not affordable . +Industrial Designer: You cannot th think of that {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or your sh you should lose the L_C_D_ screen probably , +Industrial Designer: No , it's not . +Project Manager: but I think that's {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ screen is more worth than speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh It's also more attractive . +Project Manager: Definitely . Okay , that was that . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's the final product without the speakers , I guess . +User Interface: So did you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see , what was left in the the {disfmarker} Another one . {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we evaluate the product . {gap} {disfmarker} General project , what's i in {disfmarker} For example , I thou I thought we were pretty creative in what we created . We took the whole new approach of making exchangeable cover for example , which I thought was pretty creative , because it was never never ever listed somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Favourite channel . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} Anyways . Yeah , leadership is up to you . I mean perhaps I screwed up because I d {vocalsound} put a put a speech recognition into it . But that's not for me to decide . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well as team-work though . Because , yeah was very hard to work with one another if you cannot communicate in the meantime , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hmm . +Project Manager: because when I got the when I got the input for the financial results , initially of course I wanted to contact you . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , you're working separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Say , look , this is {disfmarker} you're doing the wrong thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: you're s you're wasting your time now , because we're implementing stuff that we cannot afford . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So it would be better if y if there was more communication between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Direct uh communication with {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: because that's that's what would w you {disfmarker} what you would normally do , either call or email someone . +User Interface: And we could share information which we received . +Project Manager: So that was too bad +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: con was impossible here anyways . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That's the same thing that I had in the beginning . Everybody was using materials that s I didn't have . +Project Manager: It didn't have +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or didn't knew what they costs or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: There was just too little information about what things actually cost and if you could use them . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So that was a little unclear I suppose . I think a SMARTboard SMARTboard is pretty cool . I think uh s especially for design issues , it's very easy just to give your give your thoughts a little {disfmarker} it's easier to share them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My handwriting is little bit {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Although for actual design I'd say the response time should be a little bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's a little less {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the response time is le it's very bad . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's good to visualise everything , but I think the response time should {disfmarker} could be a lot better . +User Interface: The digital pen was definitely better to draw my ideas and to further elaborate on that . +Marketing: But th that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But there's uh also one problem with this I noticed . Uh you have to finish a page before going to a n +Project Manager: No , you don't have to . No , you don't . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: I jin I didn't check the finish button . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: You can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just {disfmarker} you just ditch it and you can copy it or whatever . +Marketing: Done and then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I saw that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh only if you uh check the notes or {vocalsound} press done . Then it um {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} then it exports to Word automatically . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: But it's not necessary to check either one of those two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: You can just preview your p you can just preview your page in the in the programme . +Industrial Designer: but I made {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I made three pages +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they were not finished . And when the third one was finished , I wanted to download it and then it was not possible anymore , because you have to close all the pinnits uh the pages before going further . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , before starting a ne a new page . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , that could be b . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . So we cannot work on more than one page at same time . That's not possible . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to finish it completely , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Oh can you ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: then download it , it's {disfmarker} then start a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's not very uh handy , +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but if you know that , then it's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's understandable , okay . {vocalsound} Any new ideas ? Yeah , more communication between {vocalsound} between uh {disfmarker} that's the thing I noticed , that communication is very um very important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Important to mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because if you get new information , it's essential f for the other team-mates to know that as soon as possible , because you would avoid making {disfmarker} doing extra work , because you were doing extra work now uh m working on the on the speech recognition , you have limitation both on the technical {gap} {disfmarker} on the d on the design side . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think that could have been better . But that's {disfmarker} I think it's more of a a setting here that you cannot communicate than uh {gap} than somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it could also possibly be {disfmarker} well , is it a more real-time information base , so we can all see {vocalsound} which information is available to one another . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . And l less p less spam probably . I'm not sure i I'm not sure you got spammed as well , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but I get spammed like every t every two minutes there was a {disfmarker} there was another email about master classes or something . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which were totally useless actually . I thought I should probably look into them , {vocalsound} but they were all useless . So I just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I personally did not have that , +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} That's probably your l description . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I also didn't {disfmarker} not really . But still , you had that as well . Is that we finished up the design +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: and then we checked the website , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then there was just extra information . +Marketing: Yeah , after {disfmarker} After five minutes , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: There was a little delay in the {disfmarker} {gap} bit of a c crucial delay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't have any uh more information , it's just always the same here . So that's that's kind of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Email uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would change , but not for me . So I'd {disfmarker} I had no extra information to go on that one than what you give me actually . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I couldn't do any research myself +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} I see , that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: yeah , w I could have done a little extra work probably , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But I was busy enough anyway . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Any new ideas found ? Or is that a {gap} 'cause {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh yeah , it's {disfmarker} well , +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: probably is . +User Interface: How much time do we have for this anyway ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . That's like {disfmarker} oh,but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Should i +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: if the project is evaluated and it was it was in b within budget , we should celebrate . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: bring out the beer . +User Interface: Champagne . +Project Manager: Uh okay , think that's about it . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I want one for my own . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure what we should still do though uh t let's see what {disfmarker} all your tasks were finished , right ? What you ha from your assistant . So let's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have no more email . My coach is uh being very silent now . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I should {disfmarker} I think I sh +Marketing: my personal coach i +Project Manager: I still have the the total report to finish up . I think we took very little time now , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , we're in agreement , everything {disfmarker} the design is okay . The one thing we missed though , we don't have a product name . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: How about you cook a {disfmarker} how about you cook up a product name ? +User Interface: Product name . +Industrial Designer: we haven't think above {disfmarker} about that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , name . +Industrial Designer: Huh . It's better than thi I think than a serial number . Sony uh T_R_ something uh f means nothing to me . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or fruit name . +Project Manager: oh , think of a catchy name . I'll be working on this until the beep {disfmarker} until it beeps . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like fruit names . +Marketing: Fruit name or something like that . +Project Manager: What ? Fruit ? +Marketing: The banana remote or something . +Project Manager: You don't want it to resemble a banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , it's the form of it . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anyway . +User Interface: The bana 'cause it's not yellow anymore . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anymore . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} oh , yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is curved , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh I was going for the R_C_ deluxe , but it's not really a catchy name or anything , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: it's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh at least it's not something with numbers . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Numbers are so meaningless to the people . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Something with our {gap} company name , +Marketing: That's true . +User Interface: can we do anything with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Maybe there's something on the website which will help us out . +Marketing: Reaction , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Real Reaction . +User Interface: The reaction deluxe . +Project Manager: Real Reaction future R_C_ . {vocalsound} Step into the future of of remote controlling your T_V_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that a name or a c campaign ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's a that's a catchy slogan . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Control your remote control . +User Interface: Or the {disfmarker} The real reactor . +Industrial Designer: Real react . +Project Manager: I go for future R_C_ probably . Something like {disfmarker} It's short f +Industrial Designer: The Real Reactor , I don't find that uh that bad at all . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Real reactor ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh that that's +User Interface: You should write it down as a {disfmarker} an option . +Industrial Designer: Because our name is Real Reaction . +Project Manager: That makes me think of different {vocalsound} products than a remote control really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Real reaction in a real {disfmarker} +Marketing: Zapping . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's one option . +Project Manager: Real reactor . Didn't notice . +Industrial Designer: I'm looking for things in the name . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So that the first three letters are s the same . R_E_A_ R_E_A_ . +User Interface: Should I write the banana down or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take f +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: yeah , take a banana . +User Interface: Sure ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Remote . Banana recei R_C_ . +Industrial Designer: The triple R_ . Real Reaction remotes control . Triple R_ . +Marketing: Remote . +User Interface: Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +User Interface: Uh do you mean it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} ? +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: You mean it like this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Real Reaction Remote Control . R_ three C_ . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {gap} . +Project Manager: No , not like that . It should be it should be longer , because it's not a product name that you f print on a box . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} triple R_ . +Project Manager: Just write out triple , like a word triple R_C_ , triple stripe {disfmarker} Oh . Triple dash R_ dash s s C_ . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't sound {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ah . +Marketing: Triple R_C_ . The triple R_C_ , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: R_ s R_ three C_ . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} R_ dash C_ . +User Interface: Dash C_ ? +Industrial Designer: I think I like it like this more . +Project Manager: Dash . Triple R_ or triple R_C_ ? +User Interface: Like a C_ right now or a dash in a C_ ? +Marketing: Triple R_ dash . +Project Manager: How about do both ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure if it looks stupid . Uh I think that the the R_C_ together takes away the the the image of {disfmarker} it's a triple {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh the first the first one looks like it's a triple remote control , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's only a single remote control . And it's especially on the triple R_ that's important . The Real Reaction Remote . +Industrial Designer: I would {disfmarker} huh . I would lose the C_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: and just name it triple R_ . +User Interface: Is it triple R_C_s ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It sounds like uh thinking about two different things and combining it . +Marketing: Triple remote . +Industrial Designer: I would just say triple R_s triple R_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , triple R_ {gap} yeah , you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that's another option . +Industrial Designer: That's also short , catchy . +Marketing: It's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , triple R_ . +User Interface: Okay , so which ones are we going to scratch definitely ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Banana remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I say this one as well . +Marketing: Yeah , the deluxe . +Project Manager: I think we're all in agreement about the triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: I think triple R_ is cool . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Triple R_ ? +Marketing: The r triple R_ . +Project Manager: And it looks cool when you print it in font , looks pretty cool . +User Interface: Triple R_ it is . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} did you do now ? +Project Manager: Just like this {gap} just {disfmarker} and you just print triple R_ , it looks {disfmarker} doesn't look bad , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's short , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have to write my report now , I guess . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so we have everything . We have the product , we have the costs , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: we have the possibility of everything . +Marketing: It can't work . That will not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I think it's adjourned . Retire to my lair and finish the report . That was a short meeting . But efficient though . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . The boss is always the last one to go home . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Probably . See . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: goodbye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See you in a minute . +Marketing: Damn . I will write that one in a Word uh document . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Could you guys draw me a picture of the final design to put on the cover of the report ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't we take this one ? +Marketing: Oh sh +Industrial Designer: Otherwise we have to do it all over again . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know whether we can save it as a picture or no . +Industrial Designer: Is it okay if I try ? Is that okay with you ? +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I will ask you when uh I need the information . +Industrial Designer: I'll put it back in a minute . +Marketing: So it's {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it has been saving something , but where to I don't know . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Oh . Merge . +Industrial Designer: Oh , can I say exp yes , I can . +Marketing: Sucks . +Industrial Designer: Export as J_ PEG . {gap} . Okay , can I not put this wherever I wants . My document is the wrong one , huh . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Network places . +Marketing: I don't know . Smart {disfmarker} no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Ma it's maybe it's not on the network of uh the rest . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Marketing: That one is . {gap} . +User Interface: I wouldn't pick that one , no . +Industrial Designer: Document and settings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a pity . That means that we have to gonna draw it again . Are you gonna do that ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} Yes . Okay . Okay . Okay . Yes , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . Oh , it's export . +Marketing: Oh yeah , {gap} . {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Can I see scores ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , of course . +Marketing: Uh , {gap} one one , two threes , two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , then we'll {disfmarker} overall , two points . Yes . +User Interface: I see you later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +","The conversation seems to be among team members discussing the closure of a project related to a user interface or remote control design. The Project Manager is checking if there are any changes or new input needed before finalizing the project. The User Interface team member confirms there are no changes. + +They go on to discuss various features of the product they designed, including material choice (rubber), chip technology, color (yellow and black), and features like LCD and speech recognition. They initially wanted both features, but due to financial constraints, they consider dropping speech recognition, given its cost and the fact that most customers prefer the LCD. + +Then they dive into the financials, realizing that they need to cut costs to stay within a €12.50 production budget. The Project Manager suggests they drop the special color and speech recognition to save costs. + +However, there's disagreement about this because the trendiness of the product design was seen as important initially. The possibility of setting the product at a €13 price point is raised but quickly dismissed due to firm budget constraints. An issue arises with the black color scheme, which may require a change in the button's frame for visibility. + +They discuss how to reduce costs without sacrificing the product's unique qualities. Suggestions include removing the curve from the design or using plastic instead of rubber. The team agrees to prioritize keeping the rubber material for its feel and durability, even if it means losing the color option and the curve. + +Finally, they brainstorm product names like ""Real Reactor,"" ""Triple R,"" and ""Banana Remote,"" and seem to settle on ""Triple R."" The conversation drifts to project management discussions on process and communication improvements and technical difficulties with the tools they used. + +The summary is this: The team, including the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing, and User Interface representative, discusses finalizing the design of a remote control, focusing on material choices, technical features, colors, and needing to trim costs to meet a budget constraint. The conversation also covers potential product names and the importance of trendiness in design. They highlight the need for better communication and information sharing during the project and encounter some technical challenges while working on their presentation." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc B: Alright . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , so I wanted to discuss digits briefly , but that won't take too long . +Professor C: Oh good . Right . OK , agenda items , Uh , we have digits , What else we got ? +PhD A: New version of the presegmentation . +Professor C: New version of presegmentation . +Postdoc B: Um , do we wanna say something about the , an update of the , uh , transcript ? +PhD G: Yeah , why don't you summarize the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Update on transcripts . +PhD G: And I guess that includes some {disfmarker} the filtering for the , the ASI refs , too . +Postdoc B: Mmm . +Professor C: Filtering for what ? +PhD G: For the references that we need to go from the {disfmarker} the {pause} fancy transcripts to the sort of {nonvocalsound} brain - dead . +Postdoc B: It 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be {disfmarker} basically it 'll be a re - cap of a meeting that we had jointly this morning . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: With Don , as well . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Got it . Anything else more pressing than those things ? So {disfmarker} So , why don't we just do those . You said yours was brief , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . OK well , the , w uh as you can see from the numbers on the digits we 're almost done . The digits goes up to {pause} about four thousand . Um , and so , uh , we probably will be done with the TI - digits in , um , another couple weeks . um , depending on how many we read each time . So there were a bunch that we skipped . You know , someone fills out the form and then they 're not at the meeting and so it 's blank . Um , but those are almost all filled in as well . And so , once we 're {disfmarker} it 's done it would be very nice to train up a recognizer and actually start working with this data . +PhD D: So we 'll have a corpus that 's the size of TI - digits ? +Grad F: And so {disfmarker} One particular test set of TI - digits . +PhD D: Test set , OK . +Grad F: So , I {disfmarker} I extracted , Ther - there was a file sitting around which people have used here as a test set . It had been randomized and so on +PhD D: +Grad F: and that 's just what I used to generate the order . of these particular ones . +PhD D: Oh ! Great . Great . +Professor C: So , I 'm impressed by what we could do , Is take the standard training set for TI - digits , train up with whatever , you know , great features we think we have , uh for instance , and then test on uh this test set . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: And presumably uh it should do reasonably well on that , and then , presumably , we should go to the distant mike , and it should do poorly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we should get really smart over the next year or two , and it {disfmarker} that should get better . +Grad F: Right . And inc increase it by one or two percent , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: Um , but , in order to do that we need to extract out the actual digits . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um , so that {disfmarker} the reason it 's not just a transcript is that there 're false starts , and misreads , and miscues and things like that . And so I have a set of scripts and X Waves where you just select the portion , hit R , um , it tells you what the next one should be , and you just look for that . You know , so it {disfmarker} it 'll put on the screen , "" The next set is six nine , nine two two "" . And you find that , and , hit the key and it records it in a file in a particular format . +Professor C: So is this {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so the {disfmarker} the question is , should we have the transcribers do that or should we just do it ? Well , some of us . I 've been do I 've done , eight meetings , something like that , just by hand . Just myself , rather . So it will not take long . Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , what {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Postdoc B: My feeling is that we discussed this right before coffee and I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a fine idea partly because , um , it 's not un unrelated to their present skill set , but it will add , for them , an extra dimension , it might be an interesting break for them . And also it is contributing to the , uh , c composition of the transcript cuz we can incorporate those numbers directly and it 'll be a more complete transcript . So I 'm {disfmarker} I think it 's fine , that part . +Grad F: There is {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So you think it 's fine to have the transcribers do it ? +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +Grad F: There 's one other small bit , which is just entering the information which at s which is at the top of this form , onto the computer , to go along with the {disfmarker} where the digits are recorded automatically . +PhD D: Good . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And so it 's just , you know , typing in name , times {disfmarker} time , date , and so on . Um , which again either they can do , but it is , you know , firing up an editor , or , again , I can do . Or someone else can do . +Postdoc B: And , that , you know , I 'm not , that {disfmarker} that one I 'm not so sure if it 's into the {disfmarker} the , things that , I , wanted to use the hours for , because the , the time that they 'd be spending doing that they wouldn't be able to be putting more words on . +Professor C: Mmm . +Postdoc B: But that 's really your choice , it 's your {disfmarker} +PhD D: So are these two separate tasks that can happen ? Or do they have to happen at the same time before {disfmarker} +Grad F: No they don't have {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} you have to enter the data before , you do the second task , but they don't have to happen at the same time . +PhD D: OK . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's just I have a file whi which has this information on it , and then when you start using my scripts , for extracting the times , it adds the times at the bottom of the file . And so , um , I mean , it 's easy to create the files and leave them blank , and so actually we could do it in either order . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of nice to have the same person do it just as a double - check , to make sure you 're entering for the right person . But , either way . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah just by way of uh , uh , a uh , order of magnitude , uh , um , we 've been working with this Aurora , uh data set . And , uh , the best score , on the , nicest part of the data , that is , where you 've got training and test set that are basically the same kinds of noise and so forth , uh , is about , uh {disfmarker} I think the best score was something like five percent , uh , error , per digit . +PhD A: Per digit . +Professor C: So , that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Per digit . +Professor C: You 're right . So if you were doing {pause} ten digit , uh , recognition , {vocalsound} you would really be in trouble . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} The point there , and this is uh car noise uh , uh things , but {disfmarker} but real {disfmarker} real situation , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: well , "" real "" , Um , the {disfmarker} uh there 's one microphone that 's close , that they have as {disfmarker} as this sort of thing , close versus distant . Uh but in a car , instead of {disfmarker} instead of having a projector noise it 's {disfmarker} it 's car noise . Uh but it wasn't artificially added to get some {disfmarker} some artificial signal - to - noise ratio . It was just people driving around in a car . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's an indication , uh that was with , many sites competing , and this was the very best score and so forth , so . More typical numbers like +PhD D: Although the models weren't , that good , right ? I mean , the models are pretty crappy ? +Professor C: You 're right . I think that we could have done better on the models , but the thing is that we got {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is the kind of typical number , for all of the , uh , uh , things in this task , all of the , um , languages . And so I {disfmarker} I think we 'd probably {disfmarker} the models would be better in some than in others . Um , so , uh . Anyway , just an indication once you get into this kind of realm even if you 're looking at connected digits it can be pretty hard . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Hmm . It 's gonna be fun to see how we , compare at this . Very exciting . s @ @ . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: How did we do on the TI - digits ? +Grad F: Well the prosodics are so much different s it 's gonna be , strange . I mean the prosodics are not the same as TI - digits , for example . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much of effect that will have . +PhD D: H how do {disfmarker} +PhD G: What do you mean , the prosodics ? +Grad F: Um , just what we were talking about with grouping . That with these , the grouping , there 's no grouping at all , and so it 's just {disfmarker} the only sort of discontinuity you have is at the beginning and the end . +PhD G: So what are they doing in Aurora , are they reading actual phone numbers , +Grad F: Aurora I don't know . I don't know what they do in Aurora . +PhD G: or , a {disfmarker} a digit at a time , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: no , no I mean it 's connected {disfmarker} it 's connected , uh , digits , +PhD G: Connected . +Professor C: yeah . But . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: So there 's also the {disfmarker} not just the prosody but the cross {disfmarker} the cross - word modeling is probably quite different . +PhD D: H How +Grad F: But in TI - digits , they 're reading things like zip codes and phone numbers and things like that , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: do we do on TI - digits ? +Grad F: so it 's gonna be different . I don't remember . I mean , very good , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , I mean we were in the . +Grad F: One and a half percent , two percent , something like that ? +Professor C: Uh , I th no I think we got under a percent , but it was {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but I mean . The very best system that I saw in the literature was a point two five percent or something that somebody had at {disfmarker} at Bell Labs , or . Uh , but . But , uh , sort of pulling out all the stops . +Grad F: Oh really ? +Postdoc B: s @ @ . It s strikes me that there are more {disfmarker} each of them is more informative because it 's so , random , +Grad F: OK . Alright . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: But I think a lot of systems sort of get half a percent , or three - quarters a percent , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: and we 're {disfmarker} we 're in there somewhere . +Grad F: But that {disfmarker} I mean it 's really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's close - talking mikes , no noise , clean signal , just digits , I mean , every everything is good . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's the beginning of time in speech recognition . +Grad F: Yes , exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And we 've only recently got it to anywhere near human . +PhD G: It 's like the , single cell , you know , it 's the beginning of life , +PhD D: Pre - prehistory . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad F: And it 's still like an order of magnitude worse than what humans do . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: When {disfmarker} When they 're wide awake , yeah . Um , +Grad F: Yeah . After coffee . +Professor C: after coffee , you 're right . Not after lunch . +Grad F: OK , so , um , what I 'll do then is I 'll go ahead and enter , this data . And then , hand off to Jane , and the transcribers to do the actual extraction of the digits . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . One question I have that {disfmarker} that I mean , we wouldn't know the answer to now but might , do some guessing , but I was talking before about doing some model modeling of arti uh , uh , marking of articulatory , features , with overlap and so on . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: And , and , um , On some subset . One thought might be to do this uh , on {disfmarker} on the digits , or some piece of the digits . Uh , it 'd be easier , uh , and so forth . The only thing is I 'm a little concerned that maybe the kind of phenomena , in w i i The reason for doing it is because the {disfmarker} the argument is that certainly with conversational speech , the stuff that we 've looked at here before , um , just doing the simple mapping , from , um , the phone , to the corresponding features that you could look up in a book , uh , isn't right . It isn't actually right . In fact there 's these overlapping processes where some voicing some up and then some , you know , some nasality is {disfmarker} comes in here , and so forth . And you do this gross thing saying "" Well I guess it 's this phone starting there "" . So , uh , that 's the reasoning . But , It could be that when we 're reading digits , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's for such a limited set , that maybe {disfmarker} maybe that phenomenon doesn't occur as much . I don't know . Di - an anybody {disfmarker} ? {pause} Do you have any {disfmarker} ? {pause} Anybody have any opinion about that , +Postdoc B: and that people might articulate more , and you that might end up with more {disfmarker} a closer correspondence . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD D: Sort of less predictability , +Grad F: That {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} You hafta {disfmarker} +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Would , this corpus really be the right one to even try that on ? +PhD G: Well it 's definitely true that , when people are , reading , even if they 're re - reading what , they had said spontaneously , that they have very different patterns . Mitch showed that , and some , dissertations have shown that . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: So the fact that they 're reading , first of all , whether they 're reading in a room of , people , or rea you know , just the fact that they 're reading will make a difference . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: And , depends what you 're interested in . +Professor C: See , I don't know . So , may maybe the thing will be do {disfmarker} to take some very small subset , I mean not have a big , program , but take a small set , uh , subset of the conversational speech and a small subset of the digits , and {pause} look and {disfmarker} and just get a feeling for it . Um , just take a look . Really . +Postdoc B: H That could {disfmarker} could be an interesting design , too , cuz then you 'd have the com the comparison of the , uh , predictable speech versus the less predictable speech +Professor C: Cuz I don't think anybody is , I at least , I don't know , of anybody , uh , well , I don't know , {vocalsound} the answers . +PhD D: Hey . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and maybe you 'd find that it worked in , in the , case of the pr of the , uh , non - predictable . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hafta think about , the particular acoustic features to mark , too , because , I mean , some things , they wouldn't be able to mark , like , uh , you know , uh , tense lax . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Some things are really difficult . You know , +Postdoc B: Well . +PhD D: just listening . +Grad F: M I think we can get Ohala in to , give us some advice on that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Also I thought you were thinking of a much more restricted set of features , that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was , like he said , {vocalsound} I was gonna bring John in and ask John what he thought . +Postdoc B: Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . But I mean you want {disfmarker} you want it be restrictive but you also want it to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have coverage . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah +Professor C: You know i you should . It should be such that if you , if you , uh , if you had o um , all of the features , determined that you {disfmarker} that you were uh ch have chosen , that that would tell you , uh , in the steady - state case , uh , the phone . So , um . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad F: Even , I guess with vowels that would be pretty hard , wouldn't it ? To identify actually , you know , which one it is ? +Postdoc B: It would seem to me that the points of articulation would be m more , g uh , I mean that 's {disfmarker} I think about articulatory features , I think about , points of articulation , which means , uh , rather than vowels . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: Points of articulation ? What do you mean ? +Postdoc B: So , is it , uh , bilabial or dental or is it , you know , palatal . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Which {disfmarker} which are all like where {disfmarker} where your tongue comes to rest . +Professor C: Place , place . +PhD D: Place of ar place of articulation . +Grad F: Uvular . +PhD A: Place . +Postdoc B: Place . Thank you , what {disfmarker} whatev whatever I s said , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I really meant place . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK , I see . +Professor C: Yeah . OK we got our jargon then , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD G: Well it 's also , there 's , really a difference between , the pronunciation models in the dictionary , and , the pronunciations that people produce . And , so , You get , some of that information from Steve 's work on the {disfmarker} on the labeling +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and it really , I actually think that data should be used more . That maybe , although I think the meeting context is great , that he has transcriptions that give you the actual phone sequence . And you can go from {disfmarker} not from that to the articulatory features , but that would be a better starting point for marking , the gestural features , then , data where you don't have that , because , we {disfmarker} you wanna know , both about the way that they 're producing a certain sound , and what kinds of , you know what kinds of , phonemic , differences you get between these , transcribed , sequences and the dictionary ones . +Professor C: Well you might be right that mi might be the way at getting at , what I was talking about , but the particular reason why I was interested in doing that was because I remember , when that happened , and , John Ohala was over here and he was looking at the spectrograms of the more difficult ones . Uh , he didn't know what to say , about , what is the sequence of phones there . They came up with some compromise . Because that really wasn't what it look like . It didn't look like a sequence of phones +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: it look like this blending thing happening here and here and here . +Grad F: Yeah , so you have this feature here , and , overlap , yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: There was no name for that . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: But it still is {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} there are two steps . One {disfmarker} you know , one is going from a dictionary pronunciation of something , like , "" gonna see you tomorrow "" , +Grad F: And {disfmarker} Or "" gonta "" . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +PhD G: it could be "" going to "" or "" gonna "" or "" gonta s "" you know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: And , yeah . "" Gonna see you tomorrow "" , uh , "" guh see you tomorrow "" . And , that it would be nice to have these , intermediate , or these {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} these reduced pronunciations that those transcribers had marked or to have people mark those as well . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Because , it 's not , um , that easy to go from the , dictionary , word pronuncia the dictionary phone pronunciation , to the gestural one without this intermediate or a syllable level kind of , representation . +Grad F: Well I don't think Morgan 's suggesting that we do that , though . +Professor C: Do you mean , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , I I I 'm jus at the moment of course we 're just talking about what , to provide as a tool for people to do research who have different ideas about how to do it . So for instance , you might have someone who just has a wor has words with states , and has uh {disfmarker} uh , comes from articulatory gestures to that . And someone else , might actually want some phonetic uh intermediate thing . So I think it would be {disfmarker} be best to have all of it if we could . But {pause} um , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} What I 'm imagining is a score - like notation , where each line is a particular feature . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: so you would say , you know , it 's voiced through here , and so you have label here , and you have nas nasal here , and , they {disfmarker} they could be overlapping in all sorts of bizarre ways that don't correspond to the timing on phones . +Professor C: I mean this is the kind of reason why {disfmarker} I remember when at one of the Switchboard , workshops , that uh when we talked about doing the transcription project , Dave Talkin said , "" can't be done "" . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: He was {disfmarker} he was , what {disfmarker} what he meant was that this isn't , you know , a sequence of phones , and when you actually look at Switchboard that 's , not what you see , and , you know . And . It , +Grad F: And in {disfmarker} in fact the inter - annotator agreement was not that good , right ? On the harder ones ? +Professor C: yeah I mean it was +PhD G: It depends how you look at it , and I {disfmarker} I understand what you 're saying about this , kind of transcription exactly , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: because I 've seen {disfmarker} you know , where does the voicing bar start and so forth . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: All I 'm saying is that , it is useful to have that {disfmarker} the transcription of what was really said , and which syllables were reduced . Uh , if you 're gonna add the features it 's also useful to have some level of representation which is , is a reduced {disfmarker} it 's a pronunciation variant , that currently the dictionaries don't give you +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because if you add them to the dictionary and you run recognition , you , you add confusion . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD G: So people purposely don't add them . So it 's useful to know which variant was {disfmarker} was produced , at least at the phone level . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} it would be great if we had , either these kind of , labelings on , the same portion of Switchboard that Steve marked , or , Steve 's type markings on this data , with these . +PhD G: Right . That 's all , I mean . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , no I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that . +PhD G: And Steve 's type is fairly {disfmarker} it 's not that slow , uh , uh , I dunno exactly what the , timing was , but . +Professor C: Yeah u I don't disagree with it the on the only thing is that , What you actually will end {disfmarker} en end up with is something , i it 's all compromised , right , so , the string that you end up with isn't , actually , what happened . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's the best compromise that a group of people scratching their heads could come up with to describe what happened . +PhD D: And it 's more accurate than , phone labels . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But . And it 's more accurate than the {disfmarker} than the dictionary or , if you 've got a pronunciation uh lexicon that has three or four , +Grad F: The word . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: this might be have been the fifth one that you tr that you pruned or whatever , +PhD D: So it 's like a continuum . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: so sure . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} you 're going all the way down , +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD G: That 's what I meant is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: an and in some places it would fill in , So {disfmarker} the kinds of gestural features are not everywhere . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: So there are some things that you don't have access to either from your ear or the spectrogram , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but you know what phone it was and that 's about all you can {disfmarker} all you can say . +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: And then there are other cases where , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's basically just having , multiple levels of {disfmarker} of , information and marking , on the signal . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Well the other difference is that the {disfmarker} the features , are not synchronous , +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: right . They overlap each other in weird ways . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's not a strictly one - dimensional signal . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So I think that 's sorta qualitatively different . +PhD G: Right . You can add the features in , uh , but it 'll be underspecified . +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD G: Th - there 'll be no way for you to actually mark what was said completely by features . +Grad F: Well not with our current system but you could imagine designing a system , that the states were features , rather than phones . +PhD G: And i if you 're {disfmarker} Well , we {disfmarker} we 've probably have a {vocalsound} separate , um , discussion of , uh {disfmarker} of whether you can do that . +Postdoc B: That 's {disfmarker} Well , {pause} isn't that {disfmarker} I thought that was , well but that {disfmarker} wasn't that kinda the direction ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I thought +Professor C: Yeah , so I mean , what , what {disfmarker} where this is , I mean , I I want would like to have something that 's useful to people other than those who are doing the specific kind of research I have in mind , so it should be something broader . But , The {disfmarker} but uh where I 'm coming from is , uh , we 're coming off of stuff that Larry Saul did with {disfmarker} with , um , uh , John Dalan and Muzim Rahim in which , uh , they , uh , have , um , a m a multi - band system that is , uh , trained through a combination of gradient learning an and EM , to {pause} um , estimate , uh , {vocalsound} the , uh , value for m for {disfmarker} for a particular feature . OK . And this is part of a larger , image that John Dalan has about how the human brain does it in which he 's sort of imagining that , individual frequency channels are coming up with their own estimate , of {disfmarker} of these , these kinds of {disfmarker} something like this . Might not be , you know , exact features that , Jakobson thought of or something . But I mean you know some , something like that . Some kind of low - level features , which are not , fully , you know , phone classification . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th this particular image , of how thi how it 's done , is that , then given all of these estimates at that level , there 's a level above it , then which is {disfmarker} is making , some kind of sound unit classification such as , you know , phone and {disfmarker} and , you know . You could argue what , what a sound unit should be , and {disfmarker} and so forth . But that {disfmarker} that 's sort of what I was imagining doing , um , and {disfmarker} but it 's still open within that whether you would have an intermediate level in which it was actually phones , or not . You wouldn't necessarily have to . Um , but , Again , I wouldn't wanna , wouldn't want what we {disfmarker} we produced to be so , know , local in perspective that it {disfmarker} it was matched , what we were thinking of doing one week , And {disfmarker} and , and , you know , what you 're saying is absolutely right . That , that if we , can we should put in , uh , another level of , of description there if we 're gonna get into some of this low - level stuff . +PhD D: Well , you know , um {disfmarker} I mean if we 're talking about , having the , annotators annotate these kinds of features , it seems like , You know , you {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the question is , do they do that on , meeting data ? Or do they do that on , Switchboard ? +Grad F: That 's what I was saying , +Postdoc B: W Well it seems like you could do both . +Grad F: maybe meeting data isn't the right corpus . +Postdoc B: I mean , I was thinking that it would be interesting , to do it with respect to , parts of Switchboard anyway , in terms of , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} partly to see , if you could , generate first guesses at what the articulatory feature would be , based on the phone representation at that lower level . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: It might be a time gain . But also in terms of comparability of , um , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well cuz the yeah , and then also , if you did it on Switchboard , you would have , the full continuum of transcriptions . +Postdoc B: what you gain Yep . +PhD D: You 'd have it , from the lowest level , the ac acoustic features , then you 'd have the , you know , the phonetic level that Steve did , +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah that {disfmarker} that 's all I was thinking about . +Postdoc B: And you could tell that {disfmarker} +PhD D: and , yeah . +PhD G: it is telephone band , so , the bandwidth might be {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 'd be a complete , set then . +Postdoc B: And you get the relative gain up ahead . +Professor C: It 's so it 's a little different . So I mean i we 'll see wha how much we can , uh , get the people to do , and how much money we 'll have and all this sort of thing , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But it {disfmarker} it might be good to do what Jane was saying uh , you know , seed it , with , guesses about what we think the features are , based on , you know , the phone or Steve 's transcriptions or something . to make it quicker . +Professor C: but , Might be do both . +Grad F: Alright , so based on the phone transcripts they would all be synchronous , but then you could imagine , nudging them here and there . +PhD D: Adjusting ? Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Scoot the voicing over a little , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Well I think what {disfmarker} I mean I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm a l little behind in what they 're doing , now , and , uh , the stuff they 're doing on Switchboard now . But I think that , Steve and the gang are doing , something with an automatic system first and then doing some adjustment . As I re as I recall . So I mean that 's probably the right way to go anyway , is to {disfmarker} is to start off with an automatic system with a pretty rich pronunciation dictionary that , that , um , you know , tries , to label it all . And then , people go through and fix it . +Postdoc B: So in {disfmarker} in our case you 'd think about us s starting with maybe the regular dictionary entry , and then ? Or {pause} would we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , regular dictionary , I mean , this is a pretty rich dictionary . It 's got , got a fair number of pronunciations in it +Postdoc B: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or you could start from the {disfmarker} if we were gonna , do the same set , of sentences that Steve had , done , we could start with those transcriptions . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . So I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: That 's actually what I was thinking , is tha {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: the problem is when you run , uh , if you run a regular dictionary , um , even if you have variants , in there , which most people don't , you don't always get , out , the actual pronunciations , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: so that 's why the human transcriber 's giving you the {disfmarker} that pronunciation , +Postdoc B: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: Actually maybe they 're using phone recognizers . +PhD G: and so y they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} I thought that they were {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is that what they 're doing ? +Grad F: They are . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: we should catch up on what Steve is , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} I think that would be a good i good idea . +Professor C: Yeah , so I think that i i we also don't have , I mean , we 've got a good start on it , but we don't have a really good , meeting , recorder or recognizer or transcriber or anything yet , so . So , I mean another way to look at this is to , is to , uh , do some stuff on Switchboard which has all this other , stuff to it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , um , As we get , further down the road and we can do more things ahead of time , we can , do some of the same things to the meeting data . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And I 'm {disfmarker} and these people might {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they are , s most of them are trained with IPA . +Professor C: Yeah +Postdoc B: They 'd be able to do phonetic - level coding , or articulatory . +PhD D: Are they busy for the next couple years , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I mean they , they {disfmarker} they 're interested in continuing working with us , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I , and this would be up their alley , so , we could {disfmarker} when the {disfmarker} when you d meet with , with John Ohala and find , you know what taxonomy you want to apply , then , they 'd be , good to train onto it . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Anyway , this is , not an urgent thing at all , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: just it came up . +PhD D: It 'd be very interesting though , to have {pause} that data . +Postdoc B: I think so , too . +Grad F: I wonder , how would you do a forced alignment ? +PhD G: Yeah . Might {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Interesting idea . +Grad F: To {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I mean , you 'd wanna iterate , somehow . Yeah . It 's interesting thing to think about . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: It might be {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean you 'd {disfmarker} you 'd want models for spreading . +PhD G: I was thinking it might be n +PhD D: Of the f acoustic features ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well it might be neat to do some , phonetic , features on these , nonword words . Are {disfmarker} are these kinds of words that people never {disfmarker} the "" huh ""s and the "" hmm ""s and the "" huh "" {vocalsound} and the uh {disfmarker} These k No , I 'm serious . There are all these kinds of {pause} functional , uh , elements . I don't know what you call {pause} them . But not just fill pauses but all kinds of ways of {pause} interrupting {comment} and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And some of them are , {vocalsound} yeah , "" uh - huh ""s , and "" hmm ""s , and , "" hmm ! "" "" hmm "" {comment} "" OK "" , "" uh "" {comment} Grunts , uh , that might be interesting . +Postdoc B: He 's got lip {disfmarker} {pause} lipsmacks . +PhD G: In the meetings . +Professor C: We should move on . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , new version of , uh , presegmentation ? +PhD A: Uh , oh yeah , um , {vocalsound} I worked a little bit on the {disfmarker} on the presegmentation to {disfmarker} to get another version which does channel - specific , uh , speech - nonspeech detection . And , what I did is I used some normalized features which , uh , look in into the {disfmarker} which is normalized energy , uh , energy normalized by the mean over the channels and by the , minimum over the , other . within each channel . And to {disfmarker} to , mm , to , yeah , to normalize also loudness and {disfmarker} and modified loudness and things and that those special features actually are in my feature vector . +Grad F: Oh . +PhD A: And , and , therefore to be able to , uh , somewhat distinguish between foreground and background speech in {disfmarker} in the different {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} each channel . And , eh , I tested it on {disfmarker} on three or four meetings and it seems to work , well yeah , fairly well , I {disfmarker} I would say . There are some problems with the lapel mike . +Grad F: Of course . +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Wow that 's great . +PhD A: And . +Grad F: So I {disfmarker} I understand that 's what you were saying about your problem with , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . And . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I had {disfmarker} I had , uh , specific problems with . +Grad F: I get it . So new use ninetieth quartile , rather than , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow . +PhD A: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah , then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD A: as there {disfmarker} there are some {disfmarker} some problems in , when , in the channel , there {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the the speaker doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't talk much or doesn't talk at all . Then , the , yeah , there are {disfmarker} there are some problems with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with n with normalization , and , then , uh , there the system doesn't work at all . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm glad that there is the {disfmarker} the digit part , where everybody is forced to say something , +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: so , that 's {disfmarker} that 's great for {disfmarker} for my purpose . And , the thing is I {disfmarker} I , then the evaluation of {disfmarker} of the system is a little bit hard , as I don't have any references . +Grad F: Well we did the hand {disfmarker} the one by hand . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the one {disfmarker} one wh where I do the training on so I can't do the evaluation on So the thing is , can the transcribers perhaps do some , some {disfmarker} some meetings in {disfmarker} in terms of speech - nonspeech in {disfmarker} in the specific channels ? +Grad F: Uh . +Postdoc B: Well , I have {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well won't you have that from their transcriptions ? +Postdoc B: Well , OK , so , now we need {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , cuz we need is really tight . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: so , um , I think I might have done what you 're requesting , though I did it in the service of a different thing . +PhD A: Oh , great . +Postdoc B: I have thirty minutes that I 've more tightly transcribed with reference to individual channels . +PhD A: OK . OK , that 's great . That 's great for me . Yeah , so . +Postdoc B: And I could {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hopefully that 's not the same meeting that we did . +Postdoc B: No , actually it 's a different meeting . +Grad F: Good . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: So , um , e so the , you know , we have the , th they transcribe as if it 's one channel with these {disfmarker} with the slashes to separate the overlapping parts . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then we run it through {disfmarker} then it {disfmarker} then I 'm gonna edit it and I 'm gonna run it through channelize which takes it into Dave Gelbart 's form format . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then you have , all these things split across according to channel , and then that means that , if a person contributed more than once in a given , overlap during that time bend that {disfmarker} that two parts of the utterance end up together , it 's the same channel , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and then I took his tool , and last night for the first thirty minutes of one of these transcripts , I , tightened up the , um , boundaries on individual speakers ' channels , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: cuz his {disfmarker} his interface allows me to have total flexibility in the time tags across the channels . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {pause} um , so . +PhD A: so , yeah {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's great , but what would be nice to have some more meetings , not just one meeting to {disfmarker} to be sure that {disfmarker} that , there is a system , +PhD D: So , current {disfmarker} This week . +Postdoc B: Yes . Might not be what you need . +Grad F: Yeah , so if we could get a couple meetings done with that level of precision I think that would be a good idea . +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Uh , how {disfmarker} how m much time {disfmarker} so the meetings vary in length , what are we talking about in terms of the number of minutes you 'd like to have as your {disfmarker} as your training set ? +PhD A: It seems to me that it would be good to have , a few minutes from {disfmarker} from different meetings , so . But I 'm not sure about how much . +Postdoc B: OK , now you 're saying different meetings because of different speakers or because of different audio quality or both or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Both {disfmarker} both . Different {disfmarker} different number of speakers , different speakers , different {pause} conditions . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , we don't have that much variety in meetings yet , uh , I mean we have this meeting and the feature meeting and we have a couple others that we have uh , couple examples of . But {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Even probably with the gains {pause} differently will affect it , you mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , not really as {disfmarker} +Professor C: Poten - potentially . +PhD A: uh , because of the normalization , yeah . +Grad E: Oh , cuz you use the normalization ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: We can try running {disfmarker} we haven't done this yet because , um , uh , Andreas an is {disfmarker} is gonna move over the SRI recognizer . i basically I ran out of machines at SRI , +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: cuz we 're running the evals and I just don't have machine time there . But , once that 's moved over , uh , hopefully in a {disfmarker} a couple days , then , we can take , um , what Jane just told us about as , the presegmented , {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the segmentations that you did , at level eight or som {comment} at some , threshold that Jane , tha {pause} right , and try doing , forced alignment . um , on the word strings . +Grad F: Oh , shoot ! +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: The pre presegment +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD A: With the recognizer ? Yeah . +PhD G: And if it 's good , then that will {disfmarker} that may give you a good boundary . Of course if it 's good , we don't {disfmarker} then we 're {disfmarker} we 're fine , +PhD A: Yeah . M +PhD G: but , I don't know yet whether these , segments that contain a lot of pauses around the words , will work or not . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I would quite like to have some manually transcribed references for {disfmarker} for the system , as I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if it 's really good to compare with {disfmarker} with some other automatic , found boundaries . +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Postdoc B: Well , no , if we were to start with this and then tweak it h manually , would that {disfmarker} that would be OK ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah {pause} sure . +PhD G: They might be OK . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} you know it really depends on a lot of things , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: but , I would have maybe a transciber , uh , look at the result of a forced alignment and then adjust those . +PhD A: Yeah . To a adjust them , or , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD G: That might save some time . +PhD A: Yeah , great . +PhD G: If they 're horrible it won't help at all , but they might not be horrible . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} but I 'll let you know when we , uh , have that . +PhD A: OK , great . +Postdoc B: How many minutes would you want from {disfmarker} I mean , we could {pause} easily , get a section , you know , like say a minute or so , from every meeting that we have so f from the newer ones that we 're working on , everyone that we have . And then , should provide this . +PhD A: If it 's not the first minute of {disfmarker} of the meeting , that {disfmarker} that 's OK with me , but , in {disfmarker} in the first minute , uh , Often there are some {disfmarker} some strange things going on which {disfmarker} which aren't really , well , for , which {disfmarker} which aren't re re really good . So . What {disfmarker} what I 'd quite like , perhaps , is , to have , some five minutes of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of different meetings , so . +Postdoc B: Somewhere not in the very beginning , five minutes , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And , then I wanted to ask you just for my inter information , then , would you , be trai cuz I don't quite unders so , would you be training then , um , the segmenter so that , it could , on the basis of that , segment the rest of the meeting ? So , if I give you like {pause} five minutes is the idea that this would then be applied to , uh , to , providing tighter time {pause} bands ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I could do a {disfmarker} a retraining with that , yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow , interesting . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I hope that I {disfmarker} I don't need to do it . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD A: So , uh it c can be do in an unsupervised way . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Excellent . Excellent , OK . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , but , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for those three meetings whi which I {disfmarker} which I did , it seems to be , quite well , but , there are some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} as I said some problems with the lapel mike , but , perhaps we can do something with {disfmarker} with cross - correlations to , to get rid of the {disfmarker} of those . And . Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I {disfmarker} that 's my {pause} future work . Well {disfmarker} well what I want to do is to {disfmarker} to look into cross - correlations for {disfmarker} for removing those , false overlaps . +Postdoc B: Wonderful . +PhD G: Are the , um , wireless , different than the wired , mikes , at all ? I mean , have you noticed any difference ? +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , um , if {disfmarker} if there are any wired mikes in those meetings , or , uh , I have {disfmarker} have to loo have a look at them but , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I think there 's no difference between , +PhD G: So it 's just the lapel versus everything else ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so then , if that 's five minutes per meeting we 've got like twelve minutes , twelve meetings , roughly , that I 'm {disfmarker} that I 've been working with , then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the meetings that you 're working with , how many of them are different , tha +PhD A: No . +Professor C: are there any of them that are different than , these two meetings ? +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} oh wa in terms of the speakers or the conditions or the ? +Professor C: Yeah , speakers . Sorry . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Um , we have different combinations of speakers . +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I mean , just from what I 've seen , uh , there are some where , um , you 're present or not present , and , then {disfmarker} then you have the difference between the networks group and this group +PhD A: Yeah , I know , some of the NSA meetings , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So I didn't know in the group you had if you had {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: so you have the networks meeting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yep , we do . +Professor C: Do you have any of Jerry 's meetings in your , pack , er , +Postdoc B: Um , no . +Professor C: No ? +Postdoc B: We could , I mean you {disfmarker} you recorded one last week or so . I could get that new one in this week {disfmarker} I get that new one in . +Grad F: Yep . u +PhD G: We 're gonna be recording them every {pause} Monday , +Professor C: Yeah . Cuz I think he really needs variety , +PhD G: so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Great . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and having as much variety for speaker certainly would be a big part of that I think . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so if I , OK , included {disfmarker} include , OK , then , uh , if I were to include all together samples from twelve meetings that would only take an hour and I could get the transcribers to do that right {disfmarker} I mean , what I mean is , that would be an hour sampled , and then they 'd transcribe those {disfmarker} that hour , right ? That 's what I should do ? +Professor C: Yeah . And . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's . +Postdoc B: I don't mean transcribe +Professor C: Right . Ye - But you 're {disfmarker} y +Postdoc B: I mean {disfmarker} I mean adjust . So they get it into the multi - channel format and then adjust the timebands so it 's precise . +Professor C: So that should be faster than the ten times kind of thing , +Postdoc B: Absolutely . I did {disfmarker} I did , um , uh , so , last night I did , uh , +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh gosh , well , last night , I did about half an hour in , three hours , which is not , terrific , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , um , anyway , it 's an hour and a half per {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Well , that 's probably . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Well , I can't calculate on my , {vocalsound} on my feet . +PhD A: Do the transcribers actually start wi with , uh , transcribing new meetings , or {pause} are they ? +Postdoc B: Well , um they 're still working {disfmarker} they still have enough to finish that I haven't assigned a new meeting , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: but the next , m m I was about to need to assign a new meeting and I was going to take it from one of the new ones , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and I could easily give them Jerry Feldman 's meeting , no problem . And , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: So they 're really running out of , data , prett I mean that 's good . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Uh , that first set . +PhD G: Um , OK . +Professor C: They 're running out of data unless we s make the decision that we should go over and start , uh , transcribing the other set . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: There {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} the first half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And so I was in the process of like editing them but this is wonderful news . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Postdoc B: We funded the experiment with , uh {disfmarker} also we were thinking maybe applying that that to getting the , Yeah , that 'll be , very useful to getting the overlaps to be more precise all the way through . +Professor C: So this , blends nicely into the update on transcripts . +Postdoc B: Yes , it does . So , um , {comment} um , Liz , and {disfmarker} and Don , and I met this morning , in the BARCO room , with the lecture hall , +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , please . Go ahead . And this afternoon . +Postdoc B: and this afternoon , it drifted into the afternoon , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , concerning this issue of , um , the , well there 's basically the issue of the interplay between the transcript format and the processing that , they need to do for , the SRI recognizer . And , um , well , so , I mentioned the process that I 'm going through with the data , so , you know , I get the data back from the transcri Well , s uh , metaphorically , get the data back from the transcriber , and then I , check for simple things like spelling errors and things like that . And , um , I 'm going to be doing a more thorough editing , with respect to consistency of the conventions . But they 're {disfmarker} they 're generally very good . And , then , I run it through , uh , the channelize program to get it into the multi - channel format , OK . And {pause} the , what we discussed this morning , I would summarize as saying that , um , these units that result , in a {disfmarker} a particular channel and a particular timeband , at {disfmarker} at that level , um , vary in length . And , um , {nonvocalsound} their recognizer would prefer that the units not be overly long . But it 's really an empirical question , whether the units we get at this point through , just that process I described might be sufficient for them . So , as a first pass through , a first chance without having to do a lot of hand - editing , what we 're gonna do , is , I 'll run it through channelize , give them those data after I 've done the editing process and be sure it 's clean . And I can do that , pretty quickly , with just , that minimal editing , without having to hand - break things . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And then we 'll see if the units that we 're getting , uh , with the {disfmarker} at that level , are sufficient . And maybe they don't need to be further broken down . And if they do need to be further broken down then maybe it just be piece - wise , maybe it won't be the whole thing . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we were discussing , this morning as far as I {disfmarker} Among {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: also we discussed some adaptational things , +PhD G: Then lots of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so it 's like , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} You know I hadn't , uh , incorporated , a convention explicitly to handle acronyms , for example , but if someone says , PZM it would be nice to have that be directly interpretable from , the transcript what they said , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: or Pi - uh Tcl {disfmarker} TCL I mean . It 's like y it 's {disfmarker} and so , um , I 've {disfmarker} I 've incorporated also convention , with that but that 's easy to handle at the post editing phase , and I 'll mention it to , transcribers for the next phase but that 's OK . And then , a similar conv uh , convention for numbers . So if they say one - eighty - three versus one eight three . Um , and also I 'll be , um , encoding , as I do my post - editing , the , things that are in curly brackets , which are clarificational material . And eh to incorporate , uh , keyword , at the beginning . So , it 's gonna be either a gloss or it 's gonna be a vocal sound like a , laugh or a cough , or , so forth . Or a non - vocal sound like a doors door - slam , and that can be easily done with a , you know , just a {disfmarker} one little additional thing in the , in the general format . +PhD G: Yeah we j we just needed a way to , strip , you know , all the comments , all the things th the {disfmarker} that linguist wants but the recognizer can't do anything with . Um , but to keep things that we mapped to like reject models , or , you know , uh , mouth noise , or , cough . And then there 's this interesting issue Jane brought up which I hadn't thought about before but I was , realizing as I went through the transcripts , that there are some noises like , um , well the {disfmarker} good example was an inbreath , where a transcriber working from , the mixed , signal , doesn't know whose breath it is , +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and they 've been assigning it to someone that may or may not be correct . And what we do is , if it 's a breath sound , you know , a sound from the speaker , we map it , to , a noise model , like a mouth - noise model in the recognizer , and , yeah , it probably doesn't hurt that much once in a while to have these , but , if they 're in the wrong channel , that 's , not a good idea . And then there 's also , things like door - slams that 's really in no one 's channel , they 're like {disfmarker} it 's in the room . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: And {pause} uh , Jane had this nice , uh , idea of having , like an extra , uh couple tiers , +Grad F: An extra channel . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been adding that to the ones I 've been editing . +PhD G: yeah . And we were thinking , that is useful also when there 's uncertainties . So if they hear a breath and they don't know who breath it is it 's better to put it in that channel than to put it in the speaker 's channel because maybe it was someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} Uh , so I think that 's a good {disfmarker} you can always clean that up , post - processing . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So a lot of little details , but I think we 're , coming to some kinda closure , on that . So the idea is then , uh , Don can take , uh , Jane 's post - processed channelized version , and , with some scripts , you know , convert that to {disfmarker} to a reference for the recognizer and we can , can run these . So {pause} when that 's , ready {disfmarker} you know , as soon as that 's ready , and as soon as the recognizer is here we can get , twelve hours of force - aligned and recognized data . And , you know , start , working on it , +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: so we 're , I dunno a coup a week or two away I would say from , uh , if {disfmarker} if that process is automatic once we get your post - process , transcript . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . And that doesn't {disfmarker} the amount of editing that it would require is not very much either . I 'm just hoping that the units that are provided in that way , {nonvocalsound} will be sufficient cuz I would save a lot of , uh , time , dividing things . +PhD G: Yeah , some of them are quite long . Just from {disfmarker} I dunno how long were {disfmarker} you did one ? +Grad E: I saw a couple , {vocalsound} around twenty seconds , and that was just without looking too hard for it , so , I would imagine that there might be some that are longer . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Well n One question , e w would that be a single speaker or is that multiple speakers overlapping ? +Grad E: No . No , but if we 're gonna segment it , like if there 's one speaker in there , that says "" OK "" or something , right in the middle , it 's gonna have a lot of dead time around it , +PhD G: Right . It 's not the {disfmarker} it 's not the fact that we can't process a twenty second segment , it 's the fact that , there 's twenty seconds in which to place one word in the wrong place +Grad E: so it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , if {disfmarker} if someone has a very short utterance there , and that 's where , we , might wanna have this individual , you know , ha have your pre pre - process input . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . Sure . +Postdoc B: That 's very important . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought that perhaps the transcribers could start then from the {disfmarker} those mult multi - channel , uh , speech - nonspeech detections , if they would like to . +PhD G: And I just don't know , I have to run it . +Postdoc B: In {disfmarker} in doing the hand - marking ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's what I was thinking , too . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So that 's probably what will happen , but we 'll try it this way and see . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's probably good enough for force - alignment . If it 's not then we 're really {disfmarker} then we def definitely +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: uh , but for free recognition I 'm {disfmarker} it 'll probably not be good enough . We 'll probably get lots of errors because of the cross - talk , and , noises and things . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Good s I think that 's probably our agenda , or starting up there . +Postdoc B: Oh I wanted to ask one thing , the microphones {disfmarker} the new microphones , +Professor C: Yeah ? K . +Postdoc B: when do we get , uh ? +Grad F: Uh , they said it would take about a week . +Postdoc B: Oh , exciting . K . K . +Professor C: K . +PhD D: You ordered them already ? +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Great . +PhD G: So what happens to our old microphones ? +Professor C: They go where old microphones go . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Do we give them to someone , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well the only thing we 're gonna have extra , for now , +PhD G: We don't have more receivers , we just have {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right , we don so the only thing we 'll have extra now is just the lapel . +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: Not {disfmarker} not the , bodypack , just the lapel . +PhD G: Just the lapel itself . +Grad F: Um , and then one of the {disfmarker} one of those . Since , what I decided to do , on Morgan 's suggestion , was just get two , new microphones , um , and try them out . And then , if we like them we 'll get more . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: Since they 're {disfmarker} they 're like two hundred bucks a piece , we won't , uh , at least try them out . +PhD D: So it 's a replacement for this headset mike ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And they 're gonna do the wiring for us . +PhD D: What 's the , um , style of the headset ? +Grad F: It 's , um , it 's by Crown , and it 's one of these sort of mount around the ear thingies , and , uh , when I s when I mentioned that we thought it was uncomfortable he said it was a common problem with the Sony . And this is how apparently a lot of people are getting around it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad F: And I checked on the web , and every site I went to , raved about this particular mike . It 's apparently comfortable and stays on the head well , so we 'll see if it 's any good . But , uh , I think it 's promising . +Postdoc B: You said it was used by aerobics instructors ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep , so it was {disfmarker} it was advertised for performers +Postdoc B: That says a lot . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: For the recor for the record Adam is not a paid employee or a consultant of Crown . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} Excuse me ? +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor C: I said "" For the record Adam is {disfmarker} is not a paid consultant or employee of Crown "" . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: That 's right . +PhD G: However , he may be solicited after these meetings are distributed . +Grad F: Well we 're using the Crown P Z +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Don't worry about finishing your dissertation . +Grad F: These are Crown aren't they ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: The P Z Ms are Crown , aren't they ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I thought they were . +Professor C: You bet . You bet . +Grad F: And they work very well . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor C: So if we go to a workshop about all this {disfmarker} this it 's gonna be a meeting about meetings about meetings . OK . So . +Grad F: And then it {disfmarker} we have to go to the planning session for that workshop . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , what {disfmarker} Which 'll be the meeting about the meeting about the meeting . +PhD D: Oh , god . +Grad F: Cuz then it would be a meeting about the meeting about the meeting about meetings . +Postdoc B: +Professor C: Yeah ? Just start saying "" M four "" . Yeah , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . M to the fourth . +Professor C: Should we do the digits ? +Grad F: Yep , go for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: S {pause} s +Grad F: Pause between the lines , remember ? +Grad E: Excuse me . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Huh . +","A meeting was held to discuss various topics including a review of digits, a new version of presegmentation, and updates on transcripts. Grad F is close to completing digit work and suggested using the data for training. Professor C and the team discussed improving future recognition performance. PhD A introduced a new version of presegmentation that might help distinguish between foreground and background speech. The team debated the handling of transcript formats, considering the recognizer's needs, and proposed solutions for dealing with non-verbal sounds and acronyms. They also planned to force-align current transcripts to improve recognition processes and briefly discussed the procurement of new, more comfortable microphones for recording." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Eh , we should be going . +Professor B: So ne next week we 'll have , uh , both Birger {pause} and , uh , Mike {disfmarker} Michael {disfmarker} Michael Kleinschmidt and Birger Kollmeier will join us . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , and you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you 're probably gonna go up in a couple {disfmarker} three weeks or so ? When d when are you thinking of going up to , uh , OGI ? +PhD D: Yeah , like , uh , not next week but maybe the week after . +Professor B: OK . Good . So at least we 'll have one meeting with {vocalsound} yo with you still around , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That 's good . +PhD D: Um , Yeah . Well , {vocalsound} maybe we can start with this . Mmm . +Professor B: All today , huh ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . So there was this conference call this morning , um , and the only topic on the agenda was just to discuss a and to come at {disfmarker} uh , to get a decision about this latency problem . +Professor B: No , this {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , this is a conference call between different Aurora people or just {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . It 's the conference call between the Aurora , {vocalsound} uh , group . +Professor B: It 's the main conference call . OK . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . There were like two hours of {pause} discussions , and then suddenly , {vocalsound} uh , people were tired , I guess , and they decided on {nonvocalsound} a number , two hundred and twenty , um , included e including everything . Uh , it means that it 's like eighty milliseconds {pause} less than before . +Professor B: And what are we sitting at currently ? +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So , currently d uh , we have system that has two hundred and thirty . So , that 's fine . +Professor B: Two thirty . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's the system that 's described on the second point of {pause} this {vocalsound} document . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} we have to reduce it by ten milliseconds somehow . +PhD D: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's not a problem , I {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor B: OK . W It 's {disfmarker} it 's p d primary {disfmarker} primarily determined by the VAD at this point , +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: S so we can make the VAD a little shorter . +PhD D: Yeah . At this point , yeah . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . We probably should do that pretty soon so that we don't get used to it being a certain way . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Was Hari on the {disfmarker} on the phone ? +PhD D: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Well , it was mainly a discussion {vocalsound} between Hari and {vocalsound} David , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: who was like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . So , the second thing is the system that we have currently . Oh , yes . We have , like , a system that gives sixty - two percent improvement , but {vocalsound} if you want to stick to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this latency {disfmarker} Well , it has a latency of two thirty , but {vocalsound} if you want also to stick to the number {vocalsound} of features that {disfmarker} limit it to sixty , {vocalsound} then we go a little bit down but it 's still sixty - one percent . Uh , and if we drop the tandem network , then we have fifty - seven percent . +Professor B: Uh , but th the two th two thirty includes the tandem network ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . And i is the tandem network , uh , small enough that it will fit on the terminal size in terms of {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , no , I don't think so . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's still {disfmarker} in terms of computation , if we use , like , their way of computing the {disfmarker} the maps {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the MIPs , {vocalsound} I think it fits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but it 's , uh , m mainly a problem of memory . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Um , and I don't know how much {pause} this can be discussed or not , because it 's {disfmarker} it could be in ROM , so it 's maybe not that expensive . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ho - how much memory d ? H how many {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I d uh , I {disfmarker} I don't kn remember exactly , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah , I c I {disfmarker} I have to check that . +Professor B: Yeah . I 'd like to {pause} see that , cuz maybe I could think a little bit about it , cuz we {vocalsound} maybe we could make it a little smaller or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be neat if we could fit it all . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh , I 'd like to see how far off we are . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I guess it 's still within their rules to have {disfmarker} have it on the , uh , t uh , server side . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: And this is still {disfmarker} ? Uh , well , y you 're saying here . I c I should just let you go on . +PhD D: Yeah , there were small tricks to make this tandem network work . Uh , {vocalsound} mmm , and one of the trick was to , {vocalsound} um , use {vocalsound} some kind of hierarchical structure where {pause} the silence probability is not computed by {pause} the final tandem network but by the VAD network . Um , so apparently it looks better when , {vocalsound} uh , we use the silence probability from the VAD network +Professor B: Huh . +PhD D: and we re - scale the other probabilities by one minus the silence probability . Um . So it 's some kind of hierarchical thing , {vocalsound} uh , that Sunil also tried , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} on SPINE and apparently it helps a little bit also . Mmm . And . Yeah , the reason w why {disfmarker} why we did that with the silence probability was that , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could {disfmarker} ? Uh , uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really sorry . Can you repeat what you were saying about the silence probability ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I only {disfmarker} My mind was some {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So there is the tandem network that e e e estimates the phone probabilities +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and the silence probabilities also . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {vocalsound} things get better when , instead of using the silence probability computed by the tandem network , we use the silence probability , uh , given by the VAD network , +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: um , +Professor B: The VAD network is {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Which is smaller , but maybe , um {disfmarker} So we have a network for the VAD which has one hundred hidden units , and the tandem network has five hundred . Um . So it 's smaller but th the silence probability {pause} from this network seems , uh , better . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , it looks strange , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: but it +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Maybe it 's {disfmarker} has something to do to {vocalsound} the fact that {vocalsound} we don't have infinite training data and {disfmarker} +Professor B: We don't ? +PhD D: Well ! And so {disfmarker} Well , things are not optimal +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are you {disfmarker} you were going to say why {disfmarker} what made you {disfmarker} wh what led you to do that . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , there was a p {comment} problem that we observed , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that there was {disfmarker} there were , like , many insertions in the {disfmarker} in the system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: Actually plugging in the tandem network was increasing , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , the number of insertions . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So it looked strange and then just using the {disfmarker} the other silence probability helps . Mmm . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . The next thing we will do is train this tandem on more data . +Professor B: So , you know , in a way what it might {disfmarker} i it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit like {vocalsound} combining knowledge sources . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? Because {vocalsound} the fact that you have these two nets that are different sizes {pause} means they behave a little differently , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: they find different {pause} things . And , um , if you have , um {disfmarker} f the distribution that you have from , uh , f speech sounds is w {comment} sort of one source of knowledge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this is {disfmarker} and rather than just taking one minus that to get the other , which is essentially what 's happening , you have this other source of knowledge that you 're putting in there . So you make use of both of them {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in {pause} what you 're ending up with . Maybe it 's better . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , you can probably justify anything if what 's use +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and the features are different also . I mean , the VAD doesn't use the same features there are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: That might be the key , actually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz you were really thinking about speech versus nonspeech for that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's a good point . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , there are other things that {vocalsound} we should do but , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} it requires time and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have ideas , like {disfmarker} so , these things are like hav having a better VAD . Uh , we have some ideas about that . It would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} probably implies working a little bit on features that are more {vocalsound} suited to a voice activity detection . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Working on the second stream . Of course we have ideas on this also , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w we need to try different things and {disfmarker} Uh , but their noise estimation , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , back on the second stream , I mean , that 's something we 've talked about for a while . I mean , I think {nonvocalsound} that 's certainly a high hope . +PhD D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Professor B: Um , so we have this {disfmarker} this default idea about just using some sort of purely spectral thing ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: for a second stream ? +PhD D: But , um , we {disfmarker} we did a first try with this , and it {disfmarker} it {vocalsound} clearly hurts . +Professor B: But , uh , how was the stream combined ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} It was c it was just combined , um , by the acoustic model . So there was , no neural network for the moment . +Professor B: Right . So , I mean , if you just had a second stream that was just spectral and had another neural net and combined there , that {disfmarker} that , uh , {vocalsound} might be good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the other thing , that noise estimation and th um , maybe try to train {disfmarker} uh , the training data for the t tandem network , right now , is like {disfmarker} i is using the noises from the Aurora task and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that people might , {vocalsound} um , try to argue about that because {vocalsound} then in some cases we have the same noises in {disfmarker} for training the network {pause} than the noises that are used for testing , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So we have t n uh , to try to get rid of these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this problem . +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe you just put in some other noise , something that 's different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's probably helpful to have {disfmarker} have a little noise there . But it may be something else +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: th at least you could say it was . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} if it doesn't hurt too much , though . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's a good idea . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . The last thing is that I think we are getting close to human performance . Well , that 's something I would like to investigate further , but , um , I did , like , um {disfmarker} I did , uh , listen to the m most noisy utterances of the SpeechDat - Car Italian and tried to transcribe them . And , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So this is a particular human . This is {disfmarker} this i this is Stephane . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: St - Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: that 's the {disfmarker} the flaw of the experiment . This is just {disfmarker} i j {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's just one subject , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Getting close . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but still , uh , {vocalsound} what happens is {disfmarker} is that , {vocalsound} uh , the digit error rate on this is around one percent , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: while our system is currently at seven percent . Um , but what happens also is that if I listen to the , um {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} a re - synthesized version of the speech and {pause} I re - synthesized this using a white noise that 's filtered by a LPC , uh , filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , well , you can argue , that , uh {disfmarker} that this is not speech , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: so the ear is not trained to recognize this . But s actually it sound like {pause} whispering , so we are {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's two problems there . I mean {disfmarker} I mean , so {disfmarker} so the first is {vocalsound} that by doing LPC - twelve with synthesized speech w like you 're saying , uh , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i you 're {disfmarker} you 're adding other degradation . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's not just the noise but you 're adding in fact some degradation because it 's only an approximation . Um , and the second thing is {disfmarker} which is m maybe more interesting {disfmarker} is that , um , {comment} {vocalsound} if you do it with whispered speech , you get this number . What if you had {pause} done analysis {comment} re - synthesis and taken the pitch as well ? Alright ? So now you put the pitch in . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: What would the percentage be then ? +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: See , that 's the question . So , you see , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} Let 's say it 's {pause} back down to one percent again . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That would say at least for people , having the pitch is really , really important , which would be interesting in itself . Um , +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: if i on the other hand , if it stayed up {pause} near five percent , {vocalsound} then I 'd say "" boy , LPC n twelve is pretty crummy "" . You know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So I I I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how we can conclude from this anything about {disfmarker} that our system is close to {vocalsound} the human performance . +PhD D: Ye Yeah . Well , the point is that eh l ey {disfmarker} the point is that , um , {vocalsound} what I {disfmarker} what I listened to when I re - synthesized the LP - the LPC - twelve {pause} spectrum {vocalsound} is in a way what the system , uh , is hearing , cuz @ @ {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the , um , excitation {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} well , the excitation is {disfmarker} is not taken into account . That 's what we do with our system . And +Professor B: Well , you 're not doing the LPC {disfmarker} +PhD D: in this case {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , so {disfmarker} so what if you did a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it 's not LPC , sure , +Professor B: What if you did LPC - twenty ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} LPC {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Twenty . Right ? I mean , th the thing is LPC is not a {disfmarker} a really great representation of speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , all I 'm saying is that you have in addition to the w the , uh , removal of pitch , {vocalsound} you also are doing , uh , a particular parameterization , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which , um , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so , let 's see , how would you do {disfmarker} ? So , fo +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we do with our systems . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . Actually , we d we {disfmarker} we don't , because we do {disfmarker} we do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , mel filter bank , for instance . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but is it that {disfmarker} is it that different , I mean ? +Professor B: Um , {vocalsound} I don't know what mel , {pause} uh , based synthesis would sound like , +PhD D: I +Professor B: but certainly the spectra are quite different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Couldn't you t couldn't you , um , test the human performance on just the original {pause} audio ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . This is the one percent number . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's one percent . He 's trying to remove the pitch information +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: and make it closer to what {disfmarker} to what we 're seeing as the feature vectors . +PhD A: OK . So , y uh , your performance was one percent , and then when you re - synthesize with LPC - twelve it went to five . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} We were {disfmarker} we were j It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit still apples and oranges because we are choosing these features in order to be the best for recognition . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , um , i if you listen to them they still might not be very {disfmarker} Even if you made something closer to what we 're gonna {disfmarker} i it might not sound very good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , and i the degradation from that might {disfmarker} might actually make it even harder , {vocalsound} uh , to understand than the LPC - twelve . So all I 'm saying is that the LPC - twelve {vocalsound} puts in {disfmarker} synthesis puts in some degradation that 's not what we 're used to hearing , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and is , um {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} it 's not just a question of how much information is there , as if you will always take maximum {vocalsound} advantage of any information that 's presented to you . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In fact , you {vocalsound} hear some things better than others . And so it {disfmarker} it isn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} I agree that it says that , uh , the kind of information that we 're feeding it is probably , {vocalsound} um , um , a little bit , um , minimal . There 's definitely some things that we 've thrown away . And that 's why I was saying it might be interesting if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an interesting test of this would be if you {disfmarker} if you actually put the pitch back in . So , you just extract it from the actual speech and put it back in , and see does that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make the difference ? If that {disfmarker} if that takes it down to one percent again , {vocalsound} then you 'd say "" OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's in fact having , um , {vocalsound} not just the spectral envelope but also the {disfmarker} also the {disfmarker} the pitch {vocalsound} that , uh , {comment} @ @ {comment} has the information that people can use , anyway . "" +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mmm . +PhD A: But from this it 's pretty safe to say that the system is with either {vocalsound} two to seven percent away from {pause} the performance of a human . Right ? So it 's somewhere in that range . +Professor B: Well , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Two {disfmarker} two to six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's one point four times , uh , to , uh , seven times the error , +PhD D: To f seven times , yeah . +Professor B: for Stephane . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} uh , but i I don't know . I do don't wanna take you away from other things . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} +Professor B: But that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's the first thing that I would be curious about , is , you know , i i {vocalsound} when you we +PhD D: But the signal itself is like a mix of {disfmarker} um , of a {disfmarker} a periodic sound and , {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , unvoiced sound , and the noise +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is mostly , {vocalsound} uh , noise . I mean not {pause} periodic . So , {pause} what {disfmarker} what do you mean exactly by putting back the pitch in ? Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the LPC synthesis ? I think {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . You did LPC re - synthesis {disfmarker} +PhD D: I +Professor B: L PC re - synthesis . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} and you did it with a noise source , rather than with {disfmarker} with a s periodic source . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So if you actually did real re - synthesis like you do in an LPC synthesizer , where it 's unvoiced you use noise , where it 's voiced you use , {vocalsound} uh , periodic pulses . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but it 's neither {pause} purely voiced or purely unvoiced . Esp - especially because there is noise . +Professor B: Well , it might be hard to do it +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it but {disfmarker} but the thing is that if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , if you detect that there 's periodic {disfmarker} s strong periodic components , then you can use a voiced {disfmarker} voice thing . +PhD D: Oh . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it 's probably not worth your time . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a side thing and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a lot to do . +PhD D: Uh - huh , yeah . +Professor B: But I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , at least as a thought experiment , {vocalsound} that 's what I would wanna test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , I wan would wanna drive it with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a two - source system rather than a {disfmarker} than a one - source system . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then that would tell you whether in fact it 's {disfmarker} Cuz we 've talked about , like , this harmonic tunneling or {vocalsound} other things that people have done based on pitch , maybe that 's really a key element . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe , uh , {vocalsound} uh , without that , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible to do a whole lot better than we 're doing . That {disfmarker} that could be . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's what I was thinking by doing this es experiment , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} Mmm . {vocalsound} Evi +Professor B: But , I mean , other than that , I don't think it 's {disfmarker} I mean , other than the pitch de information , {vocalsound} it 's hard to imagine that there 's a whole lot more {vocalsound} in the signal that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} that we 're throwing away that 's important . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . Yeah , right . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , we 're using {vocalsound} a fair number of filters in the filter bank and {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . That look +PhD D: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one {disfmarker} one percent is sort of what I would {disfmarker} I would figure . If somebody was paying really close attention , you might get {disfmarker} I would actually think that if , {vocalsound} you looked at people on various times of the day and different amounts of attention , you might actually get up to three or four percent error on digits . Uh , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not incredibly far off . On the other hand , with any of these numbers except maybe the one percent , it 's st it 's not actually usable in a commercial system with a full telephone number or something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . At these noise levels . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Well , yeah . These numbers , I mean . Mmm . +Professor B: Good . Um , while we 're still on Aurora stuff {pause} maybe you can talk a little about the status with the , uh , {vocalsound} Wall Street Journal {vocalsound} things for it . +PhD A: So I 've , um , downloaded , uh , a couple of things from Mississippi State . Um , one is their {vocalsound} software {disfmarker} their , uh , LVCSR system . Downloaded the latest version of that . Got it compiled and everything . Um , downloaded the scripts . They wrote some scripts that sort of make it easy to run {vocalsound} the system on the Wall Street Journal , uh , data . Um , so I haven't run the scripts yet . Uh , I 'm waiting {disfmarker} there was one problem with part of it and I wrote a note to Joe asking him about it . So I 'm waiting to hear from him . But , um , I did print something out just to give you an idea about where the system is . Uh , {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} on their web site they , uh , did this little table of where their system performs relative to other systems that have done this {disfmarker} this task . And , um , the Mississippi State system {vocalsound} using a bigram grammar , uh , is at about eight point two percent . Other comparable systems from , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} were getting from , uh , like six point nine , six point eight percent . So they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is on clean test set ? +PhD A: This is on clean {disfmarker} on clean stuff . Yeah . They {disfmarker} they 've started a table {vocalsound} where they 're showing their results on various different noise conditions but they {disfmarker} they don't have a whole lot of it filled in and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I didn't notice until after I 'd printed it out that , um , {vocalsound} they don't say here {pause} what these different testing conditions are . +Professor B: +PhD A: You actually have to click on it on the web site to see them . So I {disfmarker} I don't know what those {pause} numbers really mean . +Professor B: What kind of numbers are they getting on these {disfmarker} on the test conditions ? +PhD A: Well , see , I was a little confused because on this table , I 'm {disfmarker} the they 're showing word error rate . But on this one , I {disfmarker} I don't know if these are word error rates because they 're really big . So , {vocalsound} under condition one here it 's ten percent . Then under three it goes to sixty - four point six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's probably Aurora . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: So m I guess maybe they 're error rates but they 're , uh {disfmarker} they 're really high . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't find that surpri +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , we {disfmarker} W what 's {disfmarker} what 's some of the lower error rates on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} uh , some of the higher error rates on , uh , {vocalsound} some of these w uh , uh , highly mismatched difficult conditions ? What 's a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh . Yeah , it 's around fifteen to twenty percent . +PhD A: Correct ? +PhD D: And the baseline , eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Accuracy ? +PhD D: Uh , error rate . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Twenty percent error rate , +Professor B: Yeah . So twenty percent error rate on digits . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , oh , on digits . +Professor B: So if you 're doing {disfmarker} so if you 're doing , +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: On digits . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: you know , +PhD D: And this is so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} still the baseline . +Professor B: sixty - thousand {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and if you 're saying sixty - thousand word recognition , getting sixty percent error on some of these noise condition not at all surprising . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is sixty percent also on digits , +PhD A: Oh , is it ? +PhD D: on the m more {pause} mismatched conditions . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So , yeah , that 's probably what it is then . Yeah . So they have a lot of different conditions that they 're gonna be filling out . +Professor B: It 's a bad sign when you {disfmarker} looking at the numbers , you can't tell whether it 's accuracy or error rate . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be hard . Um , they 're {disfmarker} I I 'm still waiting for them to {pause} release the , um , {vocalsound} multi - CPU version of their scripts , cuz right now their script only handles processing on a single CPU , which will take a really long time to run . So . But their s +Professor B: This is for the training ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} I beli Yes , for the training {pause} also . And , um , they 're supposed to be coming out with it any time , +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: the multi - CPU one . So , as soon as they get that , then I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll grab those too +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and so w +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz we have to get started , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz it 's {disfmarker} cuz , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'll go ahead and try to run it though with just the single CPU one , +Professor B: if the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they , {vocalsound} um , released like a smaller data set that you can use that only takes like sixteen hours to train and stuff . So I can {disfmarker} I can run it on that just to make sure that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing works and everything . +Professor B: Oh ! Good . Yeah . Cuz we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the actual evaluation will be in six weeks or something . So . Is that about right {pause} you think ? +PhD D: Uh , we don't know yet , I {disfmarker} I think . +Professor B: Really , we don't know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . Um . +PhD A: It wasn't on the conference call this morning ? +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Hmm . Did they say anything on the conference call {pause} about , um , how the {pause} Wall Street Journal part of the test was going to be {pause} run ? Because I {disfmarker} I thought I remembered hearing that some sites {vocalsound} were saying that they didn't have the compute to be able to run the Wall Street Journal stuff at their place , +PhD D: No . Mmm . +PhD A: so there was some talk about having Mississippi State run {pause} the systems for them . And I {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did that come up at all ? +PhD D: Uh , no . Well , this {disfmarker} first , this was not the point at all of this {disfmarker} the meeting today +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: and , +Professor B: Some +PhD D: uh , frankly , I don't know because I d {comment} didn't read also the {pause} most recent mails about {vocalsound} the large - vocabulary task . But , {vocalsound} uh , did you {disfmarker} do you still , uh , get the mails ? You 're not on the mailing list or what ? +PhD A: Hmm - mm . The only , um , mail I get is from Mississippi State {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we should have a look at this . +PhD A: about their system . I {disfmarker} I don't get any {pause} mail about {disfmarker} +Professor B: I have to say , there 's uh something funny - sounding about saying that one of these big companies doesn't have enough cup compute power do that , so they 're having to have it done by Mississippi State . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just sounds funny . +PhD A: Yeah . It does . +Professor B: But , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering about that +Professor B: anyway . +PhD A: because there 's this whole issue about , you know , simple tuning parameters , like word insertion penalties . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {pause} whether or not those are going to be tuned or not , and {disfmarker} {comment} So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , it makes a big difference . If you change your front - end , you know , the scale is completely {disfmarker} can be completely different , so . It seems reasonable that that at least should be tweaked to match the front - end . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: You didn't get any answer from {pause} Joe ? +PhD A: I did , but Joe {pause} said , you know , "" what you 're saying makes sense +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and {pause} I don't know "" . So he doesn't know what the answer is . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , that 's th We had this back and forth a little bit about , {vocalsound} you know , are sites gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna run this data for different sites ? And , well , if {disfmarker} if Mississippi State runs it , then maybe they 'll do a little optimization on that {pause} parameter , and , uh {disfmarker} But then he wasn't asked to run it for anybody . So i it 's {disfmarker} it 's just not clear yet what 's gonna happen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , he 's been putting this stuff out on their web site and {disfmarker} for people to grab but I haven't heard too much about what 's happening . +Professor B: So it could be {disfmarker} I mean , Chuck and I had actually talked about this a couple times , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} over some lunches , I think , {vocalsound} that , um , {vocalsound} one thing that we might wanna do {disfmarker} The - there 's this question about , you know , what do you wanna scale ? Suppose y you can't adjust {vocalsound} these word insertion penalties and so forth , so you have to do everything at the level of the features . What could you do ? And , uh , one thing I had suggested at an earlier time was maybe some sort of scaling , some sort of root or {disfmarker} or something of the , um , {vocalsound} uh , features . But the problem with that is that isn't quite the same , it occurred to me later , because what you really want to do is scale the , uh , @ @ {comment} the range of the likelihoods rather than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Nnn , the dist Yeah . +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} what might get at something similar , it just occurred to me , is kind of an intermediate thing {disfmarker} is because we do this strange thing that we do with the tandem system , at least in that system what you could do {vocalsound} is take the , um , {vocalsound} uh , values that come out of the net , which are something like log probabilities , and scale those . And then , uh , um {disfmarker} {pause} then at least those things would have the right values or the right {disfmarker} the right range . And then that goes into the rest of it and then that 's used as observations . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , {vocalsound} um , another way to do it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But , these values are not directly used as probabilities anyway . +Professor B: I know they 're not . +PhD D: So there are {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know they 're not . But {disfmarker} but , you know {disfmarker} So because what we 're doing is pretty strange and complicated , we don't really know what the effect is {pause} at the other end . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} my thought was maybe {disfmarker} I mean , they 're not used as probabilities , but the log probabilities {disfmarker} we 're taking advantage of the fact that something like log probabilities has more of a Gaussian shape than Gaus - than {vocalsound} probabilities , and so we can model them better . So , {pause} in a way we 're taking advantage of the fact that they 're probabilities , because they 're this quantity that looks kind of Gaussian when you take it 's log . So , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it would have a {disfmarker} a reasonable effect to do that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I d I don't know . But , {pause} I mean , I guess we still haven't had a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a ruling back on this . And we may end up being in a situation where we just you know really can't change the {vocalsound} word insertion penalty . But the other thing we could do {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} also we could {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this may not help us , {vocalsound} uh , in the evaluation but it might help us in our understanding at least . We might , {vocalsound} just run it with different insper insertion penalties , and show that , uh , "" well , OK , not changing it , {vocalsound} playing the rules the way you wanted , we did this . But in fact if we did that , it made a {disfmarker} {pause} a big difference . "" +PhD A: I wonder if it {disfmarker} it might be possible to , uh , simulate the back - end with some other system . So we {disfmarker} we get our f front - end features , and then , uh , as part of the process of figuring out the scaling of these features , {comment} you know , if we 're gonna take it to a root or to a power or something , {comment} {vocalsound} we have some back - end that we attach onto our features that sort of simulates what would be happening . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: And just adjust it until it 's the best number ? +PhD A: and just adjust it until that {disfmarker} our l version of the back - end , uh , decides that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we can probably use the real thing , can't we ? And then jus just , uh , {vocalsound} use it on a reduced test set or something . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then we just use that to determine some scaling factor that we use . +Professor B: Yeah . So I mean , I I think that that 's a reasonable thing to do and the only question is what 's the actual knob that we use ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the knob that we use should {disfmarker} uh , uh , unfortunately , like I say , I don't know the analytic solution to this cuz what we really want to do is change the scale of the likelihoods , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: not the cha not the scale of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {pause} observations . But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Out of curiosity , what {disfmarker} what kind of recognizer {pause} is the one from Mississippi State ? +PhD A: Uh , w what do you mean when you say "" what kind "" ? +Grad E: Is it {disfmarker} ? Um , is it like a {pause} Gaussian mixture model ? +PhD A: Yeah . Gaussian mixture model . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It 's the same system that they use {pause} when they participate in the Hub - five evals . It 's a , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} sort of {pause} came out of , uh {disfmarker} uh , looking a lot like HTK . I mean , they started off with {disfmarker} um , when they were building their system they were always comparing to HTK to make sure they were getting similar results . And so , {vocalsound} it 's a Gaussian mixture system , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Do they have the same sort of mix - down sort of procedure , where they {vocalsound} start off with a small number of some things +PhD A: I don't know . Yeah . And then {pause} divide the mixtures in half . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD A: I don't know if they do that . I 'm not really sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: D Do you know what kind of tying they use ? Are they {disfmarker} they sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} a bunch of Gaussians that they share across everything ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or if it 's {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah , th I have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have it up here but I have a {disfmarker} {pause} the whole system description , that describes exactly what their {pause} system is +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . But , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: It 's some kind of a mixture of Gaussians and , {vocalsound} uh , clustering and , uh {disfmarker} They 're {disfmarker} they 're trying to put in sort of all of the standard features that people use nowadays . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So the other , uh , Aurora thing maybe is {disfmarker} I I dunno if any of this is gonna {vocalsound} {pause} come in in time to be relevant , but , uh , we had talked about , uh , {comment} Guenter {vocalsound} playing around , uh , uh , over in Germany +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , @ @ {comment} uh , {pause} possibly coming up with something {vocalsound} that would , uh , {pause} uh , fit in later . Uh , I saw that other mail where he said that he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it wasn't going to work for him to do CVS . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So now he has a version of the software . +Professor B: So he just has it all sitting there . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if he 'll {disfmarker} he might work on improving the noise estimate or on {vocalsound} some histogram things , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I just saw the Eurospeech {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it at our meeting but I just saw the {disfmarker} just read the paper . Someone , I forget the name , {comment} and {disfmarker} and Ney , uh , about histogram equalization ? Did you see that one ? +PhD D: Um , it was a poster . Or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I just read the paper . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I didn't see the poster . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was something {pause} similar to n {vocalsound} on - line normalization finally {disfmarker} I mean , in {vocalsound} the idea of {disfmarker} of normalizing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But it 's a little more {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little finer , right ? So they had like ten quantiles +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and they adjust the distribution . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So you {disfmarker} you have the distributions from the training set , +PhD D: N +Professor B: and then , uh {disfmarker} So this is just a {disfmarker} a histogram of {disfmarker} of {vocalsound} the amplitudes , I guess . Right ? And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , people do this in image processing some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You have this kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of histogram of {disfmarker} of levels of brightness or whatever . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then , {vocalsound} when you get a new {disfmarker} new thing that you {disfmarker} you want to adjust to be {pause} better in some way , {vocalsound} you adjust it so that the histogram of the new data looks like the old data . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: You do this kind of {vocalsound} piece - wise linear or , {vocalsound} uh , some kind of piece - wise approximation . They did a {disfmarker} uh one version that was piece - wise linear and another that had a power law thing between them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} between the {pause} points . And , uh , they said they s they sort of see it in a way as s for the speech case {comment} {disfmarker} as being kind of a generalization of spectral subtraction in a way , because , you know , in spectral subtraction you 're trying to {vocalsound} get rid of this excess energy . Uh , you know , it 's not supposed to be there . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , this is sort of {pause} {vocalsound} adjusting it for {disfmarker} for a lot of different levels . And then they have s they have some kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} a floor or something , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: so if it gets too low you don't {disfmarker} don't do it . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: And they {disfmarker} they claimed very nice results , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So is this a histogram across different frequency bins ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Um , I think this i You know , I don't remember that . Do you remember {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think they have , yeah , different histograms . I uh {disfmarker} Something like one per {pause} frequency band , +Professor B: One {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , one histogram per frequency bin . +Professor B: One per critical {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} But I did {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess . +PhD A: And that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But I should read the paper . I just went {pause} through the poster quickly , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So th +Professor B: And I don't remember whether it was {pause} filter bank things +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: and I didn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: or whether it was FFT bins +PhD A: Huh . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} histogram represents {pause} the {pause} different energy levels that have been seen at that {pause} frequency ? +Professor B: I don't remember that . And how often they {disfmarker} you 've seen them . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And they do {disfmarker} they said that they could do it for the test {disfmarker} So you don't have to change the training . You just do a measurement over the training . And then , uh , for testing , uh , you can do it for one per utterance . Even relatively short utterances . And they claim it {disfmarker} it works pretty well . +PhD A: So they , uh {disfmarker} Is the idea that you {disfmarker} you run a test utterance through some histogram generation thing and then you compare the histograms and that tells you {vocalsound} what to do to the utterance to make it more like {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I guess in pri Yeah . In principle . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: I didn't read carefully how they actually implemented it , +PhD A: Hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: whether it was some , {vocalsound} uh , on - line thing , or whether it was a second pass , or what . But {disfmarker} but they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} that was sort of the idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that seemed , you know , different . We 're sort of curious about , uh , what are some things that are , u u um , {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} {pause} conceptually quite different from what we 've done . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz we {disfmarker} you know , one thing that w that , uh , Stephane and Sunil seemed to find , {vocalsound} uh , was , you know , they could actually make a unified piece of software that handled a range of different things that people were talking about , and it was really just sort of setting of different {pause} constants . And it would turn , you know , one thing into another . It 'd turn Wiener filtering into spectral subtraction , or whatever . But there 's other things that we 're not doing . So , we 're not making any use of pitch , uh , uh , which again , might {disfmarker} might be important , uh , because the stuff between the harmonics is probably a schmutz . And {disfmarker} and the , {vocalsound} uh , transcribers will have fun with that . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And , um , the , uh , stuff at the harmonics isn't so much . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} And we there 's this overall idea of really sort of matching the {disfmarker} the hi distributions somehow . Uh , not just , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} not just subtracting off your estimate of the noise . So . So I guess , uh , {vocalsound} Guenter 's gonna play around with some of these things now over this next {pause} period , +PhD D: Uh , I dunno . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I don't have feedback from him , but +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I guess he 's gonna , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , he 's got it anyway , so he can . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So potentially if he came up with something that was useful , like a diff a better noise estimation module or something , he could ship it to you guys u up there +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: we could put it in . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , that 's good . So , why don't we just , uh , um {disfmarker} I think starting {disfmarker} {pause} starting a w couple weeks from now , especially if you 're not gonna be around for a while , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be shifting more over to some other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} other territory . But , uh , uh , {comment} uh , n not {disfmarker} not so much in this meeting about Aurora , but {disfmarker} but , uh , uh , maybe just , uh , quickly today about {disfmarker} maybe you could just say a little bit about what you 've been talking about with Michael . And {disfmarker} and then Barry can say something about {pause} what {comment} {disfmarker} what we 're talking about . +Grad C: OK . So Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's a PHD student from Germany , {vocalsound} showed up this week . He 'll be here for about six months . And he 's done some work using {vocalsound} an auditory model {pause} of , um , {vocalsound} human hearing , and {pause} using that f uh , to generate speech recognition features . And {pause} he did {vocalsound} work back in Germany {vocalsound} with , um , a toy recognition system {vocalsound} using , um , isolated {vocalsound} digit recognition {vocalsound} as the task . It was actually just a single - layer neural network {vocalsound} that classified words {disfmarker} classified digits , {vocalsound} in fact . Um , and {pause} he tried that on {disfmarker} I think on some Aurora data and got results that he thought {pause} seemed respectable . And he w he 's coming here to u u use it on a {vocalsound} uh , a real speech recognition system . So I 'll be working with him on that . And , um , maybe I should say a little more about these features , although I don't understand them that well . The {disfmarker} I think it 's a two - stage idea . And , um , {vocalsound} the first stage of these features correspond to what 's called the peripheral {vocalsound} auditory system . And {vocalsound} I guess that is like {vocalsound} a filter bank with a compressive nonlinearity . And {vocalsound} I 'm - I 'm not sure what we have @ @ in there that isn't already modeled in something like , {vocalsound} um , {pause} PLP . I should learn more about that . And then {vocalsound} the second stage {pause} is , um , {vocalsound} the most different thing , I think , from what we usually do . It 's , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it computes features which are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} based on {disfmarker} sort of like based on diffe different w um , wavelet basis functions {vocalsound} used to analyze {vocalsound} the input . So th he uses analysis functions called {vocalsound} Gabor functions , um , {vocalsound} which have a certain {vocalsound} extent , um , {vocalsound} in time and in frequency . And {vocalsound} the idea is these are used to sample , {vocalsound} um , the signal in a represented as a time - frequency representation . So you 're {pause} sampling some piece of this time - frequency plane . And , um , {vocalsound} that , {vocalsound} um , is {disfmarker} is interesting , cuz , {vocalsound} @ @ for {disfmarker} for one thing , you could use it , {vocalsound} um , in a {disfmarker} a multi - scale way . You could have these {disfmarker} instead of having everything {disfmarker} like we use a twenty - five millisecond or so analysis window , {vocalsound} typically , um , and that 's our time scale for features , but you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using this , um , basis function idea , you could have some basis functions which have a lot longer time scale and , um , some which have a lot shorter , and {vocalsound} so it would be like {pause} a set of multi - scale features . So he 's interested in , um {disfmarker} Th - this is {disfmarker} because it 's , um {disfmarker} there are these different parameters for the shape of these {vocalsound} basis functions , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are a lot of different possible basis functions . And so he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he actually does {vocalsound} an optimization procedure to choose an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an optimal set of basis functions out of all the possible ones . +PhD A: Hmm . H What does he do to choose those ? +Grad C: The method he uses is kind of funny {disfmarker} is , {comment} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} he starts with {disfmarker} he has a set of M of them . Um , he {disfmarker} and then {pause} he uses that to classify {disfmarker} I mean , he t he tries , um , {vocalsound} using {pause} just M minus one of them . So there are M possible subsets of this {vocalsound} length - M vector . He tries classifying , using each of the M {vocalsound} possible sub - vectors . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: Whichever sub - vector , {vocalsound} um , works the {disfmarker} the best , I guess , he says {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the fe feature that didn't use was the most useless feature , +Professor B: Y yeah . Gets thrown out . Yeah . +Grad C: so we 'll throw it out and we 're gonna randomly select another feature {pause} from the set of possible basis functions . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: So i so it 's actuall +PhD A: it 's a little bit like a genetic algorithm or something in a way . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much simpler . +Grad E: It 's like a greedy {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it 's {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot {disfmarker} number of things I like about it , let me just say . +PhD A: Greedy . +Professor B: So , first thing , well , you 're absolutely right . I mean , {vocalsound} i i {nonvocalsound} in truth , {pause} both pieces of this are {disfmarker} have their analogies in stuff we already do . But it 's a different take {vocalsound} at how to approach it and potentially one that 's m maybe a bit more systematic than what we 've done , uh , and a b a bit more inspiration from {disfmarker} from auditory things . So it 's {disfmarker} so I think it 's a neat thing to try . The primary features , {vocalsound} um , are in fact {disfmarker} Yeah , essentially , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , you know , PLP or {disfmarker} or mel cepstrum , or something like that . You 've {disfmarker} you 've got some , {vocalsound} uh , compression . We always have some compression . We always have some {disfmarker} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the kind of filter bank with a kind of {vocalsound} {vocalsound} quasi - log scaling . Um , {vocalsound} if you put in {disfmarker} if you also include the RASTA in it {disfmarker} i RASTA {disfmarker} the filtering being done in the log domain {vocalsound} has an AGC - like , uh , characteristic , which , you know , people typi typically put in these kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} uh , auditory front - ends . So it 's very , very similar , uh , but it 's not exactly the same . Um , I would agree that the second one is {disfmarker} is somewhat more different but , {vocalsound} um , it 's mainly different in that the things that we have been doing like that have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , had a different kind of motivation and have ended up with different kinds of constraints . So , for instance , if you look at the LDA RASTA stuff , {vocalsound} you know , basically what they do is they {disfmarker} they look at the different eigenvectors out of the LDA and they form filters out of it . Right ? And those {pause} filters have different , uh , kinds of temporal extents and temporal characteristics . And so in fact they 're multi - scale . But , they 're not sort of systematically multi - scale , like "" let 's start here and go to there , and go to there , and go to there "" , and so forth . It 's more like , {vocalsound} you run it on this , you do discriminant analysis , and you find out what 's helpful . +Grad C: I it 's multi - scale because you use several of these in parallel , +Professor B: Yeah . They use several of them . +Grad C: is that right ? Of {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you don't have to but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , Hynek has . Um , but it 's also , uh {disfmarker} Hyn - when Hynek 's had people do this kind of LDA analysis , they 've done it on frequency direction and they 've done it on the time direction . I think he may have had people sometimes doing it on both simultaneously {disfmarker} some two - D {disfmarker} and that would be the closest to these Gabor function kind of things . Uh , but I don't think they 've done that much of that . And , uh , the other thing that 's interesting {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the feature selection thing , it 's a simple method , but I kinda like it . Um , {vocalsound} there 's a {disfmarker} {pause} a old , old method for feature selection . I mean , {pause} eh , uh , I remember people referring to it as old when I was playing with it twenty years ago , so I know it 's pretty old , uh , called Stepwise Linear Discriminant Analysis in which you {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I think it 's used in social sciences a lot . So , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you pick the best feature . And then {vocalsound} you take {disfmarker} y you find the next feature that 's the best in combination with it . And then so on and so on . And what {disfmarker} what Michael 's describing seems to me much , much better , because the problem with the stepwise discriminant analysis is that you don't know that {disfmarker} you know , if you 've {vocalsound} picked the right set of features . Just because something 's a good feature doesn't mean that you should be adding it . So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} uh , here at least you 're starting off with all of them , and you 're {vocalsound} throwing out useless features . I think that 's {disfmarker} that seems , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that seems like a lot better idea . Uh , you 're always looking at things in combination with other features . Um , so the only thing is , of course , there 's this {disfmarker} this artificial question of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} exactly how you {disfmarker} how you a how you assess it and if {disfmarker} if your order had been different in throwing them out . I mean , it still isn't necessarily really optimal , but it seems like a pretty good heuristic . So I th I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's kinda neat stuff . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the thing that I wanted to {disfmarker} to add to it also was to have us use this in a multi - stream way . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , so {disfmarker} so that , um , {vocalsound} when you come up with these different things , {vocalsound} and these different functions , {vocalsound} you don't necessarily just put them all into one huge vector , but perhaps {vocalsound} you {vocalsound} have some of them in one stream and some of them in another stream , and so forth . And , um , um , {comment} um {disfmarker} And we 've also talked a little bit about , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Shihab Shamma 's stuff , in which {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} the way you look at it is that there 's these different mappings and some of them emphasize , uh , upward moving , {vocalsound} uh , energy and fre and frequency . And some are emphasizing downward and {vocalsound} fast things and slow things and {disfmarker} and {pause} so forth . So . So there 's a bunch of stuff to look at . But , uh , I think we 're sorta gonna start off with what {vocalsound} he , uh , came here with and branch out {disfmarker} {vocalsound} branch out from there . And his advisor is here , too , {vocalsound} at the same time . So , he 'll be another {pause} interesting source of {pause} wisdom . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +Grad E: As {disfmarker} as we were talking about this I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} whether there 's a relationship between {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} between Michael 's approach to , uh , some {disfmarker} some sort of optimal brain damage or optimal brain surgeon on the neural nets . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: So , like , if we have , um {disfmarker} we have our {disfmarker} we have our RASTA features and {disfmarker} and presumably the neural nets are {disfmarker} are learning some sort of a nonlinear mapping , {vocalsound} uh , from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} this probability posterior space . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and each of the hidden units is learning some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of pattern . Right ? And it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like these , um {disfmarker} these auditory patterns that Michael {pause} is looking at . And then when you 're looking at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} the best features , {vocalsound} you know , you can take out {disfmarker} you can do the {disfmarker} do this , uh , brain surgery by taking out , {vocalsound} um , hidden units that don't really help at all . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Or the {disfmarker} or features . +Grad E: And this is k sorta like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , y actually , you make me think a {disfmarker} a very important point here is that , um , {vocalsound} if we a again try to look at how is this different from what we 're already doing , {vocalsound} uh , there 's a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a nasty argument that could be made th that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not different at {disfmarker} at all , because , uh {disfmarker} if you ignore the {disfmarker} the selection part because we are going into a {disfmarker} a very powerful , {vocalsound} uh , nonlinearity that , uh , in fact is combining over time and frequency , and is coming up with its own {disfmarker} you know , better than Gabor functions its , you know , neural net functions , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: its {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} whatever it finds to be best . +Grad C: +Professor B: Um , so you could argue that in fact it {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I don't actually believe that argument because I know that , um , {vocalsound} you can , uh {disfmarker} computing features is useful , even though {pause} in principle you haven't {pause} {vocalsound} added anything {disfmarker} in fact , you subtracted something , from the original waveform {disfmarker} You know , uh , if you 've {disfmarker} you 've processed it in some way you 've typically lost something {disfmarker} some information . And so , {vocalsound} you 've lost information and yet it does better with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with features than it does with the waveform . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I know that i sometimes it 's useful to {disfmarker} {pause} to constrain things . So that 's {vocalsound} why it really seems like the constraint {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in all this stuff it 's the constraints that are actually what matters . Because if it wasn't {pause} the constraints that mattered , then we would 've completely solved this problem long ago , because long ago we already knew how to put waveforms into powerful statistical mechanisms . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , if we had infinite processing power and {pause} data , {comment} I guess , using the waveform could {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah Uh , then it would work . Yeah , I agree . Yeah . There 's the problem . +PhD D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Then it would work . But {disfmarker} but , I mean , i it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} With finite {pause} of those things {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} we have done experiments where we literally have put waveforms in and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we kept the number of parameters the same and so forth , and it used a lot of training data . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} not infinite but a lot , and then compared to the number parameters {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} it just doesn't do nearly as well . So , anyway the point is that you want to suppress {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it 's not just having the maximum information , you want to suppress , {vocalsound} uh , the aspects of the input signal that are not helpful for {disfmarker} for the discrimination you 're trying to make . So . So maybe just briefly , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , that sort of segues into {pause} what {disfmarker} what I 'm doing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , {vocalsound} so , uh , the big picture is k um , {vocalsound} come up with a set of , {vocalsound} uh , intermediate categories , then build intermediate category classifiers , then do recognition , and , um , improve speech recognition in that way . Um , so right now I 'm in {disfmarker} in the phase where {vocalsound} I 'm looking at {disfmarker} at , um , deciding on a initial set of intermediate categories . And {vocalsound} I 'm looking {vocalsound} for data data - driven {pause} methods that can help me find , {vocalsound} um , a set of intermediate categories {vocalsound} of speech that , uh , will help me to discriminate {pause} later down the line . And one of the ideas , {vocalsound} um , that was to take a {disfmarker} take a neural net {disfmarker} train {disfmarker} train an ordinary neural net {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , to learn the posterior probabilities of phones . And so , um , at the end of the day you have this neural net and it has hidden {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hidden units . And each of these hidden units is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , is learning some sort of pattern . And so , um , what {disfmarker} what are these patterns ? +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: I don't know . Um , and I 'm gonna to try to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at those patterns {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to see , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} from those patterns {disfmarker} uh , presumably those are important patterns for discriminating between phone classes . And maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe some , uh , intermediate categories can come from {vocalsound} just looking at the patterns of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , that the neural net learns . +Professor B: Be - before you get on the next part l let me just point out that s there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a pretty nice {comment} {vocalsound} relationship between what you 're talking about doing and what you 're talking about doing there . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} it seems to me that , you know , if you take away the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {pause} the difference of this {pause} primary features , {vocalsound} and , say , you use {disfmarker} as we had talked about maybe doing {disfmarker} you use P - RASTA - PLP or something for the {disfmarker} the primary features , {vocalsound} um , then this feature discovery , {pause} uh , uh , thing {vocalsound} is just what he 's talking about doing , too , except that he 's talking about doing them in order to discover {pause} intermediate categories that correspond {vocalsound} to these {disfmarker} uh , uh , what these sub - features are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are showing you . And , um , {vocalsound} the other difference is that , um , {vocalsound} he 's doing this in a {disfmarker} in a multi - band setting , which means that he 's constraining himself {vocalsound} to look across time in some f relatively limited , uh , uh , spectral extent . Right ? And whereas in {disfmarker} in this case you 're saying "" let 's just do it unconstrained "" . So they 're {disfmarker} they 're really pretty related and maybe they 'll be {disfmarker} at some point where we 'll see the {disfmarker} the connections a little better and {vocalsound} connect them . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the first part {disfmarker} uh , one {disfmarker} one of the ideas to get at some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some patterns of intermediate categories . Um , {vocalsound} the other one {pause} was , {vocalsound} um , to , {vocalsound} uh , come up with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a model {disfmarker} {comment} um , a graphical model , {vocalsound} that treats {pause} the intermediate categories {vocalsound} as hidden {disfmarker} hidden variables , latent variables , that we don't know anything about , but that through , {vocalsound} um , s statistical training and the EM algorithm , {vocalsound} um , at the end of the day , {vocalsound} we have , um {disfmarker} we have learned something about these {disfmarker} these latent , um {disfmarker} latent variables which happen to correspond to {vocalsound} intermediate categories . Um . {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} Yeah , and so those are the {disfmarker} the two directions that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm looking into right now . And , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +Professor B: OK . Should we do our digits and get ou get our treats ? +Grad E: Oh , tea time ? +Professor B: Yeah . It 's kind of like , you know , the little rats with the little thing dropping down to them . +PhD A: That 's ri +Professor B: We do the digits and then we get our treats . +Grad E: Oops . +PhD A: OK . +","In a recent academic exchange, PhD candidate A suggested that it was time to leave, but the conversation transitioned into a planning discussion led by Professor B. The conversation delved into the upcoming schedule, indicating that Birger Kollmeier and Michael Kleinschmidt would soon join the group. An overarching theme involved the logistics of meetings and presentations, with PhD candidate D remarking on an imminent trip to OGI and the imminent departure of other members. + +Additionally, they discussed a conference call that took place earlier that morning. The sole agenda item was addressing a latency issue. The group conversed about the technical terms and specifics of the current system setup, discussing numeric values such as ""two hundred and twenty,"" possibly milliseconds, in relation to system latency. PhD D mentioned that they were currently at ""two hundred and thirty."" Professor B and PhD D debated on the feasibility of reducing this by ten milliseconds potentially through adjustments to the VAD (Voice Activity Detection). + +Further discussions revolved around a system that improved performance by sixty-two percent. PhD D mentioned that trying to limit the number of features to sixty would still result in a highly effective sixty-one percent improvement, although dropping the tandem network would lead to a decrease to fifty-seven percent. Professor B inquired about the inclusion of the tandem network in the current system figures and raised concerns about its size relative to the terminal and whether it would fit computationally and memory-wise. + +The dialogue switched to methods for optimization, improvements, and other technical features. An idea was floated about utilizing a hierarchical structure, in which the silence probability was computed by the VAD network rather than the final tandem network, a strategy that apparently enhanced performance. This led to a detailed explanation of the tandem network's inner workings and how it affected the system's performance, particularly regarding different noises and how they could influence outcomes when used both during training and testing phases. + +Moreover, Professor B and PhD D exchanged thoughts about the limitations of working with finite data and computing resources, which led to a discussion about human performance versus system performance. A particular study by Stephane on the most noisy utterances of the SpeechDat-Car Italian was mentioned, with efforts to further investigate this area. + +Grad student E mentioned a potential experiment involving LPC synthesis, which would help assess the importance of pitch in human transcription performance. Professor B highlighted the need to consider other noise types during training to avoid overfitting to noises present in both training and testing data, which could affect system generalizability. + +Transitioning to a different area of work, PhD A discussed downloading a system from Mississippi State and preparing it to run on the Wall Street Journal data. There was some confusion about the performance of this system under different noise conditions, as well as unclear communication about compute resources and when the evaluation would take place. The conversation took a turn to discuss the logistics and technical aspects of running such a system, especially the need for multi-CPU support for time-efficient training. + +Following that, Grad student C elaborated on the work of Michael Kleinschmidt, a visiting PhD student from Germany, on intermediate auditory models for speech recognition feature generation. Kleinschmidt's work involved using a two-stage auditory model in a toy recognition system and exploring it in the context of a real speech recognition system. The features generated by this model were described as having the potential for multiscale analysis across time-frequency, which could improve recognition performance. + +Overall, the discussion was highly technical and featured academics hashing out fine details of speech recognition systems, upcoming plans, and potential improvements that could be gleaned from auditory models and intermediate categorization techniques. The discourse also highlighted various experiments and data-driven approaches aimed at bridging the gap between human performance and automated systems, as well as the practicalities of implementing and optimizing large-scale speech recognition systems." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Alright . Is everyone here ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . This is our conceptual design meeting . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll just take a few minutes and uh go through the previous minutes . Um then each of you will have your presentation , um and then we will need to make a decision on the concept for the remote control . And then we'll have uh forty minutes for finishing up . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll go through the mee through the minutes first . Um , we just refreshed our our uh goal of making the finest remote control available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided that , or we know that we need to use company colours , company logo . Um {vocalsound} and our Marketing Expert uh gave us some i uh information from interviews with a hundred different remote users . Um with some statistics that backed basically what we were thinking before . People thought their remotes were ugly , um um that remotes zap a lot . Um they only use uh a finite amount of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and that they often lose the {disfmarker} it's easy to lose a remote . Um which were all things we were thinking we would {disfmarker} wanna make it simple . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And uh some sort of locator . Either a button or tracking device . Um {disfmarker} And that it should look different than what's out there . Um {disfmarker} Kind of mixed mixed response on the speech recognition . The younger people said they wanted it , older people did not . Um uh I think we decided that um the expense was not necessarily worth it , and that it was probably a gimmick , that um would increasingly wear on the consumers' nerves . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the User Interface Designer um explored some of the technical functions of the remote . Um the simple versus the um the complex . The simple one being better for a user , the complex better for an engineer . Um {disfmarker} Um and some personal preferences that were found in that would be that it should be a user-oriented remote , something simple . Um and that we didn't wanna go with a universal remote , because uh increasing cost and increasing complexity . Um we would just have a T_V_ remote . Um and that we should also focus on the appearance of the remote . Have it s be something that looks different . And finally our um Industrial Designer uh gave us a rundown of how the remote will work . Um from energy source , um uh what we would use . Batteries because we don't wanna have a a cable . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How that would power the remote and the lamp . If we were to to have one . Uh um the user interface then would connect to a chip , {vocalsound} which would work with the infrared controls uh to send the signal to the T_V_ . Um {disfmarker} I believe then we came up with a couple of ideas for what we think the design of the remote will be . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um something that will fit into uh easily into someone's hand . {vocalsound} And with a , just a few buttons . Just the basics . And with a scrolling um function also . Okay and I will leave that , leave it at that . So {disfmarker} Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We're watching trends . +Marketing: Yep . Can I have your cable please ? +Project Manager: I suppose that you can have this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . Okay so I was looking at trend-watching . Um unfortunately I wasn't given too much information . I was given a brief executive summary , and then an update on some recent fashion trends that we might like to look at . And then I'll just tell you some personal preferences that I got from that . Um okay the most important finding was that the fancy look-and-feel seems to be twice as important to the users as the current functional look-and-feel design , which I think we've kind of already discussed before . Um the second most important finding was that the remote should be technologically innovative . And again these are all things we've kind of already come up with on our own , but this just backs it up . And thirdly the remote would be easy to use . As far as fashion update , we've learned that fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that might be a bit of a challenge to incorporate this into our remote , but we can try . Um and also , as opposed to last year , this year the material is expected to be spongy in feel . {vocalsound} Okay so from that um , as we've already said , we need to focus on a fancy look-and-feel . Um I think we've already discovered that it's kind of hard to go away from the traditional rectangular design . But I think that , even if it's very subtle , we need to kind of trick our consumers , so they at least get the idea that they're getting something that's new and modern and sleek and {disfmarker} Whether it's through the shape or the colours or all of that . Um for technologically innovative , we've talked about the tracking device . We brought up the idea of having two pieces , which we could discuss further . And Manuel had suggested um the energy source and the user interface , discussing some of those , um that we could change a little bit . We need to keep it simple , have limited buttons , which I think the two piece idea might be really beneficial for . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we need to incorporate this fashion trend of fruits and vegetables . I don't know , I mean I guess the two options are if we had our remote in the shape of a fruit or vegetable . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A banana shape ? +User Interface: Oh it was sort of banana shaped . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Right . Or with exterior designs . But my question is , I mean the stereotypically speaking , you kind of picture males with their remote controls , and I'm not sure how they'd feel about having fruity logos on the outside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe we could have something that's somewhat removable , or I don't know , different options for female , male target groups . And then the spongy feel . I guess we could look at mobile phones and other technology that's out there . C and look at different types of material that {vocalsound} might please our users who want spongy-feeling remote controls . So that's that . +Project Manager: So possibly like a uh , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , just to butt in for a second . Possibly uh like a cover like they have for mobile phones ? +Marketing: That's what I was thinking yeah . +User Interface: Those like , yeah , sort of spongy ones . +Project Manager: You have one with a flag , and one with a banana and one that's a spongy +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So when you buy your remote you can buy +Project Manager: feel to it . {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: various coverings . +Project Manager: Mm various covers . +User Interface: What's it called ? Cust you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personalised , yeah . +Marketing: Personalise your remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We could leave that to the cover department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We all know they've got nothing to do all day . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Why can't I see the {disfmarker} crazy . Um yeah I {disfmarker} talking about the interface concept and how the customer relates to , will use the , consumer will use the actual device . Um so I've looked at some of the stuff I was sent , um , try and get some inspiration . But keep in mind that our own ideas that we had . Um I was sent some information from the company saying that they , the technology department have devised a new speech recognition technology , where you can program questions into such devices . They gave an example of a coffee machine where you program a question , you program the answer , and the machine responds accordingly . Um okay . There's different ways of a user can use products l like a remote . Um there's a graphical use , where you you look at pictures and well on a screen . A command line where you obviously type things in , and you get a response . Um and then it ju that's just to point out the sort of inconsistent u sort of use of interface in remotes . You can't really see that picture well , but there's various different remotes , once again with lots of different buttons on , making it more complicated . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , then I had a look at new products that are on the market . Not necessarily remote controls but ones that you'll recognise . Um this is the voice , there is a voice recognition remote control , which can control mus multiple devices . I have a {disfmarker} there is a picture {gap} . You surf your favourite channels uh with your voice . Store up to eighty speech samples , controls four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ and audio . And you can record your own v verbal labels , that are connected to remote control functions . So the technology is there . Um the one on the left is very similar to what we drew up on the board in the previous meeting , where there {disfmarker} has scroll down functions on the side . You can sort of just make those out . And then on the right is obviously an iPod , which is you know possibly one of the simplest things to use out there , and really is , and all that is is just a a nice big scroll menu that y you sort of go through . That is a {vocalsound} possibility . And nothing's simpler really . Um then there's things like this , which is a a a kid's remote , where the the parents have the facility to control and program what children can watch before . So the remote control it o only allows them to access the channels that their parents want them to watch . And um it means that th children have a novelty of having their own remote control . So I don't know {gap} if there's a possibility of having one remote contr you know like we just had two components , maybe it can have more components you know , different remotes . Um the point made at the end there here is that you have to be sort of be {disfmarker} need to be clear on your um devices , as to what , you know , things you use . Sometimes an arrow pointing down , which may suggest volume down , could become confused just as a V_ for volume . Just little things like that , which would need to be made clear in the design . Um I think , d carrying on from what I've already said , a user friendly remote with minimum buttons . Maybe we've so suggested this two-part thing , where if it was to have a speech recognition thing , you could maybe control that on the {disfmarker} do it {disfmarker} or program all that on the control bit . And then just have the simple sort of hand-held thing that we sort of devised earlier , as the actual remote . Um I don't {disfmarker} it could be a graphical display , the actual remote contr the actual control port maybe could have like an iPod where you just sort of control through the menus . Stuff like {gap} gets more and more compli complicated . And then the the hand-held bit should be ergonomically designed . And that is it . Why am I {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Just {gap} . {gap} Where are we ? Uh . Just to sort of show you . M {gap} they've even got things like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huge things . Which is just {gap} for your gr ninety year old grandma yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's industrial design for cranes , stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Notice the giant dog bone shape ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Makes sense , makes sense . +User Interface: And that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Also good for animals . +User Interface: Yeah . See . {gap} things {gap} . {gap} . Why's my screen crazy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Well let's see . I'm going to bore you with a couple of descriptions of the interior . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just to to make it more obvious what we have to fit in there , and that we do have to fit the stuff in there . I've more information on possible materials um as well . What we can and cannot do . Um but let's just wait for this to load up and I'll show you what we're talking about here . Okay . The details of the components' design , as you can see there , what we have is the board , main board of the remote control . {vocalsound} The underside , that's pretty cheap piece of of technology really {gap} top left side you can see the chip , which is the , what we were talking about , this was is the device to recognise the signals the input , and it passes it on to a row of um further transistors and stuff like that on the right side that actually amplify the signal , which later on is being , is being transferred to a infrared lamp which then um of course shines infrared light onto the television which then will recognise what signal um it's getting and will do what you tell it . Um {disfmarker} So much for the the workings of the of the uh remote control itself . {vocalsound} Its job is to wait for you to press a key , then to translate that key press into infrared light signals , um that are received by the television . When you press a key um you complete a specific connection . The chip senses the connection and knows what button you pressed . It produces a morse code line signal specific to that button . Right . Pretty clear . Transistor amplifies the signal and then sends the m sends the signal to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . The sensor in the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal reacts appropriately . This is the circuit board from the other side . Um the lower part of it , I don't know if you can see that properly , with the green greenish board is is what we what we saw in the first the first slide just flipped over . Um you can see the circuit board itself . That's the cheapest uh way to make electronic connections basically on the market . Um what you do is you have , don't have cables , but you have the connections actually in these in these lines on the on the board . These are the actual keys that are being pressed . They close the electric circuit . That then sends the signal to the chip on the other side . That would be behind here . Um which uh sends it over to the transistors and all that stuff that +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: amplify the signal and all that is being sent to the infrared lamp up there . Now as you can see this is the the rubber button version of it . {vocalsound} Um the way it works is that you have the keys here . The rubber button has a little metal uh plate on the other side , which closes the circuit here . And thus gives on the signal . Now this is the simple version . {vocalsound} Um we are talking um this this the simple and cheapest version at the same time . We are talking something more complicated of course , it's going to be more expensive as well . And not only that . Um we are also restricted in the use of our outer shell , or in the material that we could use for our outer shell . Um {vocalsound} I've gotten some information that we could use for the case material plastic , rubber , as well . Um rubber that is used in these anti-stress balls . So it's pretty squishy . That would that would serve that purpose . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spongy ? +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} we could also use wood , or titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What's the approximate per hundred thousand for the titanium ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh fya +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't have an information on that . However our company {vocalsound} obviously can provide us with uh with the titanium , so I assume , I'm , I was given an okay to use it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It certainly is an expensive material , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm aware of that , but I was given an okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there are certain restrictions to certain materials . Now let's first go through the list with the materials . So we what we can use is plastic , rubber , wood and titanium . Can also mix these . Um as for the energy source , um we were talking about that shortly in the other meeting . Um what we could use is , or what I was offered , or what we could use , is a basic bateer battery . Right ? Uh a dynamo . Interestingly enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we could use solar cells . Or a device that was not n not further specified that provides kinetic energy . Such as like watches you know . Where you just move them m move the the actual device and this pr uh provides it with with uh some energy . So um obviously I personally have to say that dynamo is out of the question really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna wind up your remote control before you can use it right ? Um solar cell is interesting . {vocalsound} May fail though , every here and there . +User Interface: Would you have to leave it by the window ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah +User Interface: {gap} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . Or you know you lose it , it lies behind the couch for a week +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah mm . +Project Manager: Works well in Arizona but in Edinburgh not so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Always the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y probably not yeah . +Industrial Designer: exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the kinetic energy thing um might work , um but the same problem . You leave it lying around and you first have to shake it before it it starts to work . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'd say what we're stuck with really is um the basic battery . Which also makes a base station basically obsolete . We don't need that then . Um {disfmarker} However our interface options are push-buttons . In which uh in the production of which or in manufacture of which um our company is expert . Um {disfmarker} However we've discussed that scroll wheels are a better option . And they are possible . We have an okay for scroll wheels . Okay . Um however {vocalsound} when it comes to the scroll wheel of the iPod I've one big objection and that is that we have to fit an L_C_D_ into the remote control as well . This however may exclude certain um materials . If you have a squishy uh kind of remote control , then an L_C_D_ screen may be affected by the movement . Hence we might not be able to put it in there . So um {disfmarker} There's also restrictions {vocalsound} to , when it comes to the chip . If we have a more sophistic uh sophisticated scroll wheel rather than this very basic uh set-up that we that I've just presented , um the chip has to be more s more sophisticated and thus more expensive as well . I don't have any details to , when it comes to the cost but um it will be a significant difference . I'd rather say drop the titanium and therefore let's have a more sophisticated chip , but that's not up to me to decide really . {vocalsound} So that's for the for the scroll wheel . Um it limits our choice and squishy is hip , so I'd say rather not go for for that . Let's see now . Um um solar cells cannot be used on a curved or latex um surface or um remote control . But obviously that's not our problem um since we have decided or against solar cells , I assume right ? Or is anybody still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I think I think batteries are probably the way to go . +Industrial Designer: alright . +Marketing: No . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh which makes it very conventional but therefore traditional I assume . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} With the titanium um we cannot make it a curved design . We would just be able to make it flat and and um yeah a straight design pretty much . Which I assume would exclude uh some of the more sophisticated versions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Would the sort of {vocalsound} spongy and the the plasticky thing {disfmarker} y you can get those mobile phones that initially have a {disfmarker} it is plastic but then they have sort of a a s a cover on it which is just sort of soft and stuff . +Marketing: Mm . Like a covering . Yeah . +User Interface: So I don't know if that would still be possible to have you know {gap} in plastic . But then where do people hold it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all be sort of spongy . +Marketing: The we can have the fruits and vegetables on the spongy parts , so they can remove it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} as the the possibility of having a a graphical display on it , like a screen ? Like the iPod ? +Industrial Designer: You can have an L_C_D_ screen . Um but therefore no rubber will be used . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? So plastic yes , titanium yes , but this will of course influence the form . With plastic , as I understand it , you can use any form . Um latex is tricky . Or rubber and um and titanium also seems to be tricky when it comes to the form . So the way to go is if you want a scroll wheel you either make it flat and angular , uh add an L_C_D_ screen , and um then you can basically choose either plastic or titanium . Or wood even . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um if you wanna make it a particular shape , use plastic . Add an L_C_D_ screen , add a scroll wheel , that'll be fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or make it just push-buttons . Basically plastic gives you the b biggest variety of of options . Maybe not the nicest feel . Or not much originality really . +Project Manager: So the ru wait the rubbery {disfmarker} we can shape it however we want ? Or the rubbery we cannot ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} With rubber we could uh sh pretty much shape it the way we wanted it , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but we cannot add scroll wheels , and we cannot add an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the tricky thing . +User Interface: Could we not you know have a shape with a scroll and the screen , and then j just sort of that initial shape we had , just which is uh sort of banana-esque . So that's {gap} thing if we did it yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And um you know you just p stick on just sort of rubber things that that sort of grip the thumb bit . They wouldn't have any {disfmarker} they're just on the exterior . They wouldn't be necessary to the actual shape of the thing . +Project Manager: Is that an option , a plastic shell with a rubbery coating on at certain spots ? +Industrial Designer: S Certainly can be done yes . Um yeah . if that doesn't affect the functional side of it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like say just the underside or so then it can be done . I assume . Yeah . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The fruit design um {disfmarker} How about um affecting the surface of the actual um remote control ? Say we don't make it p a particular fruit shape obviously , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh give it like the surface of an orange , banana , whatever . You name it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: What about a smell ? +Industrial Designer: Just design-wise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T {vocalsound} to the remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Nice one . +User Interface: You could just sell it in different colours as well I suppose . In different ye yellows . +Marketing: Bright citrus colours yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't suppose we have to stick to co +Industrial Designer: Well we we're supposed to stick to the company colours though , +User Interface: Stick to the colours yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's yellow and grey . +Marketing: Yellow and grey . +Project Manager: Yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: So what have we , lemon , banana , is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm grapefruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Grapefruit . +Industrial Designer: Grapefruit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is what we'd go for , when it comes to the outer appearance perhaps . But {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I would say , if I were to make a decision , I would probably put the fruit aspect at the lower lower end of the spectrum of of importance . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think having a shape could be a little ridiculous , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have it banana-shaped already , kind of . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well we kinda do yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well perhaps the implied shape will be enough to lure that fruit-minded remote buyer . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} and if it if it was done yellow , which is a company colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if it's yellow ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It's it's yellow . It's curved . +Industrial Designer: I it's yellow . +Marketing: Grey buttons yeah . +Project Manager: It's sort of {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well so why not add a couple of grey stripes and make it look like a banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: couple of couple of grey stripes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We could put the grey stripes on the bottom so that that person could turn it over . +User Interface: On the the gr the rubbery grips could be grey . +Project Manager: It would look like a banana just sitting on their table . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Rather than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} rather th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} and then you could actually h put the banana-shaped thing on the fruit bowl , on the coffee table , +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: and then people would always know where it was . +Project Manager: Maybe the holder , if we were to have a holder , it could be shaped like a fruit . +Marketing: Nice . Could look like a fruit bowl . +Industrial Designer: It could be an ape . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could be , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be an ape or a fruit bowl . we could have a variety of options here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you have more to your presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's pretty much it . I informed you about the materials , what the interior has to look like , and what the limitations to certain materials are on +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} there you go . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm gonna plug in here real quick . If I could . +Industrial Designer: Sure . Hang on . There you go . +Project Manager: Like I said we have to make a decision on a couple of these items here . Um {disfmarker} ow . Ow . +Marketing: So is the two piece idea out ? Or have we not decided ? +User Interface: Well we sort of {disfmarker} {gap} rid of that because {gap} gonna use a battery . And the base station might not be necessary . +Marketing: Oh right okay . +Industrial Designer: Well we can still design a two-piece uh remote um without having a base , having one of them be a base station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but just have it be an optional either big remote with lots of functions , or you take out the smaller piece . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We can still do that . However {vocalsound} of course this would be like designing two remotes pretty much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um which then , as I understand it , would probably limit the , limit again the the the use of certain materials , because they would be too expensive . Say like have a scroll wheel and uh on both of them , or have an L_C_D_ screen and so on so on . You'd probably have to stick rather with a just traditional rubber button +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: design which we saw there . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But could be done , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so these are the decisions that we do need to make by the end of this meeting . Um for our components concept we need to come up with the energy source , um the chip-on-print , and the case . Probably case um material . And probably a shape also . Um and then for the user interface concept we need to decide what the tape , what , what the type is . And what kind of supplements we'll have . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Energy source I think we've , I think we've decided batteries , although not exciting , are probably our best bet . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And we have five minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay when it comes to the chip-on-print , as I said , the the more advanced features you want , um the fancier the chip has to be and the more expensive . Uh if you want just a normal button version , the chip-on-print is gonna be +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: a cheap one . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Um I guess we should pick the case then . If we go with the plasticky case , or the the plastic case , um then the chip-on-print is still kind of , we could have either or . We could have a complex one or a a non-complex . But did we decide that the rubbery feel was important enough to us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well what about what you said , like putting the +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: finger grips just on top of the plastic ? +User Interface: yeah . Just a little bit of {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So we would , we would have the L_C_D_ screen ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} as long as the pla uh the rubber is nowhere near the controls , yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So I guess the case would be plastic , with {disfmarker} Perhaps that's not even enough rubber to qualify as being part of it . It's more of a su it's more of a supplement maybe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: M more of a l lamination perhaps . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So then for the scroll , are we going for the iPod type ? +User Interface: Yeah I think so . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which will require a more expensive chip-on-print right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . It does . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So {disfmarker} I guess that , is that , is that about it ? So we have a good idea of what we're gonna need to to do on this ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um okay so we will have another meeting in thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Here's what's gonna be going on . Um {disfmarker} Um Ryan you'll be working on the user interface design . Um {disfmarker} Manuel you'll be working on the look-and-feel design . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Corrine we'll want a product evaluation . And the two of you get to play with the uh modelling components and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe and and get us a prototype . Which should go along well with your look-and-feel design and your interface . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that {vocalsound} basically {gap} just be working on the prototype , {vocalsound} uh we'll accomplish your other two actions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Let's do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","The team, including Marketing, Industrial Designer, User Interface, and the Project Manager, met to make key decisions regarding the design of a remote control. The Project Manager began by summarizing the previous meeting's conclusions: the remote should be simple, use company colors, have a locator feature, and refrain from including speech recognition as it was seen as an unnecessary expense and likely to annoy consumers. + +The Marketing specialist reported that trend research indicated a preference for a fancy look-and-feel in technology and that the remote should be innovative yet easy to use. They discussed current fashion trends, like fruits and vegetables, and a 'spongy' texture for materials, which could be challenging to incorporate. + +The User Interface designer discussed various possibilities for the remote, such as graphical interfaces, scrolling functions like on an iPod, and limited buttons for simplicity. They considered whether or not to have an LCD screen and the potential of voice recognition features but focused on user-friendliness. + +The Industrial Designer covered the technical aspects of the remote, including power sources (with a preference for batteries), the setup of circuitry and chips, and material choices. They suggested avoiding dynamo, solar, or kinetic energy due to practicality issues. A push-button interface remained an option, but scroll wheels were preferred. + +In terms of materials, they could choose plastic, rubber, wood, or titanium, with plastic offering the most design flexibility. It was suggested to have a plastic case that could be tailored to current trends, such as adding fruit-like textures or smells and a spongy grip. + +The group weighed the importance of staying true to company colors and how to subtly incorporate current trends like a banana shape or fruit bowl holder for the remote without being too overt. They settled on a more expensive chip-on-print to support the preferred scroll wheel function and discussed the necessity of a simple design with some rubber elements for the grip. They decided on a battery as the energy source and agreed to prototype a plastic case with some possible rubber coating for grip, planning to further refine the concept at the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Here we go again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My mouse is not working anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: when I put it in , is is going to beep beep beep . +Marketing: Oh , I got a nice little screen here over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got like this big black border uh on every side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: Everybody ready ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll I'll fix it . +User Interface: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: Welcome at the functional design meeting , again presented by Maarten . +Marketing: Yeah , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh this is the agenda , the opening . Uh , we've got three presentations . And I'm gonna show you some of the new projects requirements that were sent to me . And we're gonna make a decision on the remote control functions . We have uh forty minutes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , well this is the {vocalsound} the closing already . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} well we start off with the th the first presentation then . Uh , I think um in uh {disfmarker} we have to do it in uh in right order . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what the right order is . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Oh that . It won't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe we should start with the the technical functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: how can I get this on the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: Well it's you dumped the file in the uh in the sh in the project document folder . +User Interface: In project . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I've done that . +Project Manager: You've already done that ? +User Interface: No can that open . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well let's close this one . We'll just uh open a new one . +User Interface: Open it there . +Project Manager: Uh , well . Yes . Uh-oh . New thing . Oh yeah , uh I have to say something . Uh , due to some uh technical problems I haven't uh digitized the last uh the meeting minutes . But I'll uh make sure that uh happens next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} About the get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'll get this one uh in digital uh form too . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we're going to um uh talk about working design . Um , the method of the remote control is uh electrical energy , it activates a chip uh in the remote . It's an electrical circuit which compose uh messages in the form of uh uh infrared signals to control the television . Mm , it's a nowadays very uh known , a known uh uh technology . Um , the known technology can make a cost very low . Uh , it's a wild uh {disfmarker} a wide sale uh of uh remote controls in the world . And and the components are very uh very cheap . Um , Uh , diodes , uh bat batteries and uh uh LED lights , they're needed and they're uh everywhere available . Uh , again , it's a fair price . It's a common uh technology uh , like I told um {disfmarker} Uh , the circuit board , it's the most um important uh um part of the remote control . Uh , we can use for that uh fibreglass with copper wires , it's {disfmarker} it is uh {disfmarker} can be made as fast as printing paper . It's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's all very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're making it uh all the time . Uh , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and it's not uh very specialised uh technology . {vocalsound} I haven't come to here , but um I've got uh some uh images of uh remote controls . They were not uh very uh trendy or just uh just a remote control like everyone knows . So I don't know uh why I should put it here . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . But it's the technical side of the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but uh I uh haven't made it because uh of the time . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Well , we'll we'll have to skip that part then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you don't think it's a problem um to design uh the technical part of the remote control ? It's gonna be easy ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But nothing restricted for user interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah . M +User Interface: With technical {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , no , it's uh it's just a part of uh a known technology , yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Remote control is nothing special nowadays . +Project Manager: R regardless of what type of functions we want to implement . Doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , {gap} okay . +Industrial Designer: because of the {disfmarker} all the televisions uh {disfmarker} there are a few {disfmarker} maybe a couple of televisions with the new functions , +User Interface: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but is it useful to put them on a on a standard uh remote ? +Project Manager: Well , we'll see . We'll see later on . +User Interface: Well , the technical functions . Um , well I don't know if you got the same uh pictures as I got , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but uh I got these two , +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: and I think they're {disfmarker} we have to focus uh on uh the uh one hand the expert view or the novice user . {vocalsound} th I think it's it's very much uh depending on the user requirements , I don't s uh know who's doing t +Project Manager: Well , uh will there be some uh user requirements later on ? {vocalsound} The ones I {disfmarker} I've uh received from the account manager . +User Interface: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} I think that's very important to watch uh what kind of functions there we want to uh put in a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we'll keep this in mind , and then discuss it later on . +User Interface: Yeah , well y we can put functions in it when uh {disfmarker} yeah , when we uh get the user requirements uh and we can update it . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay , but this real this uh big d uh distinction between this type of remote . {gap} we should we should choose one uh {disfmarker} we should not compromise but uh really choose for uh expert viewer or novice v +Marketing: Yes , I agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Well , what {disfmarker} that's what you want {disfmarker} trying to say . +User Interface: Well , yeah w if you want try a a a huge market , if you want to reach a huge market , uh like elderly people and {disfmarker} we have to choose for novice user . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: But I don't know . It's it's really um depending on how how how far the the the remote controls are already in n um in use . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {vocalsound} some of these {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . Well , some of that will {disfmarker} Yeah , but i but it will be more clear when we come to the uh u uh some of the new requirements . +User Interface: Yeah , probably , yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , there are l at least uh basic functions , uh like just th the channels uh one till nine , uh on and off switch , which must be clear with a red button or something like that . Um , most standard uh have volume , of course , and a mute function , and , of course , the next and previous channel . I think that's just basic what we need . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And from that on we can {gap} user requirements what we need more . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I just um um I thought Joost was looking at the trendy {disfmarker} the trends in the markets , and I don't know if there uh are any um {disfmarker} uh if you put more functions , more buttons , maybe it's com becoming less trendy or something like that . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: M you can just {vocalsound} you can k {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I haven't really found a conclusion like that . +User Interface: you can keep it in mind that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . Uh , I th I thought the the {disfmarker} with less buttons you can make a more trendier uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: yeah , more trendier design , I think . I think . +Marketing: Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well , that's all I have to say , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that was it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Well , then the Marketing expert can uh tell us something about the current market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . It's alright . Um {disfmarker} Alright , I've done some research for functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} yes . The working method um {vocalsound} there were hundred uh uh w h one hundred people , uh how do you say uh , f watched using remote controls in the usability lab and they also uh filled out a questionnaire uh with a few questions . Uh , I've lined them up here . Uh , ask whether um common remote control looks good or not , about willingness to spend money on remote control , about zapping behaviour , and uh and stuff like that . I uh have found some interesting things . We do we do got a market . Um , {vocalsound} three out of four people claim m uh to find remote controls ugly . So if we make a trendy design , we sure have seventy fi seventy five percent of the market , which you can reach . Um , three out of four users uh zaps a lot , as I uh quoted here from the uh results . {vocalsound} Zap buttons are used one hundred and sixty eight times per hour . That's quite a lot . Um , {vocalsound} relevant options are , of course , power buttons . Although , only used once per hour . Uh , channel selection , volume and buttons for text , and the more um , yeah , other functions , like audio settings , video settings , sound settings are not said to be very important and uh very much used . Furthermore , fifty percent says uh they only use ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . That doesn't say we got {disfmarker} we can leave ninety percent off . But it sure um says we shouldn't make it too uh complicated . Fifty percent also claims uh to have lost a remote control very often in the room . And um {vocalsound} an important thing here , the most important customers uh , which is over seventy percent of our market , is in the age range of thirty six to sixty five years old . And uh elderly people , our market , are less interested in uh nice features , but more willingly to spend more money on remote controls . So , {vocalsound} what I was thinking {disfmarker} oh , wrong side . We shouldn't implement too much features on uh on our remote control , because elderly people will get th lost . Group features for a higher usability , uh what I was claiming in the previous meeting . Um , all the settings , about audio settings , video settings and channel settings , which are not very often used , we could group them uh on one button and make them accessible uh in one menu button or whatever , because they are used very rarely and well , it uh {disfmarker} there are a lot of options there , so we can really make uh {disfmarker} yeah , how do you say , we can spare at buttons over there . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , if you want to implement V_C_R_ and D_V_D_ options , group them in the button , not too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . Small buttons , so they won't be very um , how do you say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Visually presents . +Marketing: Yes , won't be very present , thank you . And a trendy look , well uh , although seventy percent of the market is uh {disfmarker} consists of elderly people uh who don't really care for trendy looks or whatever , I guess it can do no harm to make it trendy for the other thirty percent . That was kind of what I found . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well , then we {disfmarker} I'm gonna show you some of the new project requirements and then we gonna discuss on uh what features we find important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , well some of the uh new requirements {vocalsound} make some of your findings quite uh irrelevant , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because um uh s decided to put {disfmarker} They have decide to put two additional requirements forward . Well , now I see four . +Marketing: Two ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's kinda strange . Well , they say tele teletext becomes outdated since the popularity of the internet . Well , I think that may be so , but well , we can't just leave the teletext button off . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's impossible , I think . +User Interface: No way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No uh , I agree , I agree . +Project Manager: So the compromise we could make is just to make one teletext button , you know , like on and off , and don't make a lot of special {disfmarker} put a lot of special features on it to make it transparent or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much , no . +Project Manager: You know , it's just you want you want to be able to make use of teletext , but not to play with it that much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to think of that . The remote control should only be used for television . Otherwise , the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time t t ma uh the time to market . So maybe we should leave all D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ related features off completely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I think that uh that's what they're trying to say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , our current customers are within the age group of forty plus . New products should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty . So you uh talked about the elderly who were willing to spend more on a remote control and who were interested . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But , well , they're not relevant because we are aiming at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't really agree actually , to be honest . It's a very small market which we will approach then if we uh want to reach customers younger than forty . It's only like thirty percent of the total market . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it is {disfmarker} it's is a dif it's a fact that the th th that bigger market you're talking about , we already cover that . +Marketing: Mayb yeah ? +Project Manager: Our company already sells remote control to the older people , but we we also want , {vocalsound} you know , a new customer group . That's the one we haven't covered yet . So I think that's what the problem is . We haven't got remote controls for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well I think , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe we can compromise a little bit . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Maybe if it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much then , bu alright . +Project Manager: no no , but I think we have to just keep in mind what the older age group wants . So maybe we can make a remote control that's primarily interesting for the younger group , but isn't that bad for an older person either . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , our corporate image sh should stay recognisable in our products . Our product's corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . Okay , {vocalsound} something else nice to know . +User Interface: But what's our slogan ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? Yeah , {vocalsound} you will have to look that up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The slogan uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll have a look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's something about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Puts fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} I thought it w might be , let's make things better or something , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sense simplicity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sense and simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well , {vocalsound} let's go back to the the agenda . So we've now had to {disfmarker} the three presentations . We know about the new project requirements . That means we can uh well d yeah , discuss on the remote control functions . Well , if I can uh make a start , I think it's becoming more clear what kind of remote control it's gonna be , and I already talked about the {disfmarker} maybe you have a f familiar with the rem remote control that has the the can opener underneath it . I think we're we're looking for some {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we're looking for a really simple remote control with only basic T_V_ functions . Y well , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , to be honest , if um our uh aim group is uh till forty , not older than forty , maybe that's not very uh {disfmarker} yeah , we don't really need to have a simple remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can implement more functions then , because um {vocalsound} basically uh the younger people are more able to adapt to new technology +User Interface: Yeah , but wha +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and therefore will be a more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: M yeah , that's why um well a lot of um the use the requirements the the account manager sent me , I think they are are c are contradicting each other , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because they want a simpler design , and no uh other uh s functions than just T_V_ , but they s do aim at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , ma +User Interface: Yeah , but you sai you said that that a lot of functions aren't used . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So why should j we put this function in ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think more {disfmarker} I think uh people {disfmarker} younger people are more looking for just a trendy look than uh more functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think uh you {disfmarker} we can make some discuss uh distinctions in uh what kin in the , know , th th in functions you have {disfmarker} Y Well you have different kind of uh equipment in your room , like a t T_V_ and a D_V_D_ player . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: You can uh , know , you {gap} you can {vocalsound} make very d you can put very detailed functions regarding the T_V_ set on your remote control uh with the with uh the , you know , audio settings and uh v uh screen settings . We don't want that . I think that was {disfmarker} that became clear . We don't want . But w maybe we should put some func uh , I know that the younger people will most likely have a D_V_D_ player they want to , you know , they want to uh +Marketing: Yeah , control . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh you said {disfmarker} +Project Manager: control , remotely . +User Interface: Yeah , d yeah , but th the functions are not in the remote control we're making . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , yeah , th th the user requirements of the the {disfmarker} The new project requirements told us not to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's n Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe w Yeah . I think we maybe should {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well we should uh put some functions for other {disfmarker} maybe for other equipment on it . But just the basic functions . Maybe like rewind and wind , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: or n what d what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: But you can put them under the same button . +Marketing: Not much more than that . +Project Manager: Yeah , if {disfmarker} as far as possible . +Marketing: Yep . Or we can u u we could put 'em behind the flip-flap or whatever . +Project Manager: But what do you think ? +Marketing: So t +Project Manager: Do th should we implement features that uh uh or functions that {disfmarker} to control other devices ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No , you don't think so ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , new requirements say no . +Project Manager: Yeah , the new requirements say so . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you can put a play and stop and and rewind . +Project Manager: Well , maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe there there there is something th m most of the time these functions don't support the particular device as well as their their own remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , a lot of D_V_D_ players have some tricky settings with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i if it's too simple uh th they won't use the remote control , they use their own th th {vocalsound} with lot more functions . +Marketing: Y yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep , exactly . That's that's wha +Marketing: But but for for example , V_C_R_ , that's better example in this case . I think on a remote control for television you don't need to be able to programme uh the V_C_R_ to start recording at three P_M_ or whatever , +Project Manager: No no , you don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} No no , you don't need it . No , no . +User Interface: No , no . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: just play , stop , rewind and uh fast forward . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to think uh {disfmarker} w we have to think D_V_D_ I th uh , I guess , +Marketing: Yeah , I know , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so um but uh from my experience it's kinda {vocalsound} a lot of D_V_D_ players , you know , like forwarding , goes differently . Uh , you get two speed or eight speed or sixteen speed . It's c sometimes a bit difficult . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe if we just leave the D_V_D_ functional m uh {disfmarker} Well , I was thinking about putting it in , but concerning the project requirements and what you just said , I think we m should focus on the T_V_ then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} keep it simple and look more at th +Project Manager: And uh and it's just an uh a complimentary remote and not a universal one . If you want to keep it simple , you can make a universal remote . +User Interface: No . It's only for television . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . It's just a s it it should be something that is like a gadget on your coffee table , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there are there are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's just for when you you you jump on the couch , you pick up the the the nice remote , the simple one , just to put on the television , nothing more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , nothing more . Exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um , but what televis +Industrial Designer: But how wi how will you be able to handle a whole market ? There are uh a dozen of uh {disfmarker} dozens of of remote controls that have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we'll make w this one trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And simple . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user interface is easy . +Project Manager: Well , we we will come to that , but ju first on the on the functions . So we should put uh zap buttons on it . Um , also numbers , to uh to go to the specific channels . +User Interface: And the basic {disfmarker} yeah , basic functions , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , +User Interface: It's too much integrated in the other . +Project Manager: Okay , a t a teletext button should be there . But just one big teletext button , on and off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably . +Marketing: Yeah , and maybe two or three other options , but not {disfmarker} nothing more than that . I think stop function is very useful . If you have a uh a page which consists of more pages , and you are not a very quick reader , +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: then I think it's very irritating if the next page shows up , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I think that becomes too difficult , it's not a very common function and people will have to read up on their remote then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I use it very regularly , the action . I re I use it {vocalsound} quite often . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , but maybe you s yeah yeah , maybe y you do , but I've never heard of it in the first place . And +User Interface: Will you look {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have to {disfmarker} well t yeah , and t and teletext is becoming outdated . +User Interface: Look at the market . +Project Manager: We just want to see what programmes are on and what time it is probably . Yeah . I don't know . I think that that's kin getting too complex for our remote . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what you th guys think . +Marketing: Might be . Might be . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} uh , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} Sunday I always use it for the uh yeah , for the soccer uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you like to have a {disfmarker} such a s stop button ? Or do you think it uh {disfmarker} I think it's a kind of uh uh very rare and special function . +User Interface: Well , uh when you uh uh {disfmarker} when you look uh {disfmarker} for example um , a couple of weeks ago I looked at the {disfmarker} for the flights , and there are a lot of flights in one page , so if if th +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , it goes {disfmarker} Yeah , but that's kind of stuff we should do on the internet right now . That's why {vocalsound} it was uh said in the in the use in the r new requirements . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you could put +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on the z on the zap buttons you can put it to uh to uh access all the same pages . +Project Manager: Well yeah uh , +Industrial Designer: If you have seven pages , you can go up and down . +Project Manager: lots of new televisions can store pages , you know , and then you can just skip manually through them using {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: I think we should just put one teletext button on it . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: Then we meet uh the new requirements . we also meet the other thin y you sh you just re we have to choose for the the simple design , I guess . +User Interface: A simple {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , well , what functions do we have to decide on ? Or do we {disfmarker} uh I dunno if we have t stif specifically name all the functions we n we want . We have the zap and uh the volume . Should we do m make them very big ? The the the zap button . D d +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think the plus and the minus button should be uh quite present , +Project Manager: Th that's that's that's considered to be trendy also . +User Interface: But trendy , yeah . +Marketing: yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe you should place them on a {disfmarker} uh , in a special way ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can make uh a kind of a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , something or uh {vocalsound} somethin special way to to zap through the {disfmarker} it has to {vocalsound} s it has to be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , and quick . You have to use it very quickly . +User Interface: Original . It was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you grab the remote , your hands should be on top of the plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it {disfmarker} the buttons should make it um possible to to zap through your channels in a rapid {disfmarker} at a rapid pace . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , what should we decide on then ? I think in a in a case of this simple remote control , the technical aspects which uh weren't worked out already , but it w shouldn't be a problem then . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's o just signals uh {disfmarker} and the television d uh does the rest . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , okay , but we don't have to {disfmarker} uh , when we don't want to uh control other devices , I think it makes it even more simple . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Uh maybe we {disfmarker} uh uh the batteries maybe . If you use large batteries or small batter batteries . +Project Manager: I think +Industrial Designer: The most standard batteries . +Project Manager: I think that we should use uh d +User Interface: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think double A_ . +Project Manager: yeah , not not uh the b the watch kind +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} th the most uh {disfmarker} Well , it has to be simple , and I wi +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The most ordinary uh batteries . +Project Manager: Which are most likely to be found somewhere in the house , you know . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh . How much time do we ha we have left uh ? M m m more than thirty minutes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think about twenty minutes . +Project Manager: Uh ten twenty minutes . {vocalsound} Well , uh these these shouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Early break . +Industrial Designer: But i in a way we have to be uh uh special . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But that's that's {disfmarker} Do you uh have you have you think about tha thought about that ? How we can {disfmarker} what the extra touch can be . Do you suggest design or the shape or some gadget f f kind of feature or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe th m +Project Manager: Well , it was something about how we lose them . Maybe it should be a remote control when you you clap you hands it makes some noise or some gadget kind of thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that's n that's more for a for an age range or uh {vocalsound} ten to twelve or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: To find him . That's maybe {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , um a lot of people like to have such kind kind of kind of gay kind of things . It w it w should be like a birthday present or something that you give someone , and it is i {gap} has something nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , that's good one , yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe it w should have a big uh light that can flash or something on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or maybe it should {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or an {disfmarker} or the like the the can opener . Maybe it contains some feature that you don't normally link to a remote control . I think it's very impor because we're gonna make such a basic remote control , we have to do something to make it special . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's gonna cost twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye I think the can opener i is a brilliant idea actually , because television and beer is not a rare combination . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} well , it's already been done . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Nah . {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} and I think it's gonna be uh very uh {disfmarker} it has to be sturdy or something , so maybe with with bouncing pads so that you can just throw it on the floor or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {gap} it has to be used something special , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it has to , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: you know y not s people , when they buy it , they have to think , well this one lasts for a long time . We're really gonna use them . Not some thing you you throw away next week , you know . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: So maybe uh that's i I think that's {vocalsound} when uh when we decide on these type of functions , know , basic functions , uh it's very important to find something like this . So there's a very important task for you . And maybe we can all think about it . +User Interface: Be original , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , also for you maybe , when t you {disfmarker} it's very nice when you can be entra when you can be trendy , and and uh and al as in a friend {disfmarker} use friendly as well , you know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . And use friendly , yeah . +Project Manager: So big buttons , flashy design , and maybe some kind of gadget kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Must brain-storm . +Marketing: Yeah , a swapable front or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , or just different colours would be uh {disfmarker} I don't know if people also wanna spend more money on fronts for their uh remote control . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It could be be {disfmarker} Yeah , you never know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why not ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: More money for us . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and I think we have to make it quite big . +User Interface: Yeah . Quite big . Yeah , you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , definitely , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's to be uh a formed for your hand . +Project Manager: So , and and also because uh it is expensive . If you want it to be something , you know , it's ha doesn't have much functions {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: want to be {disfmarker} you don't want to get it l make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , it {disfmarker} it it should be f {vocalsound} be visible nearly anywhere in the room . As I uh as I said during my presentation , fifty percent uh o +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And shou and should ni look nice when you put it on a table . I I think you m might wanna put it uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: A standard or something . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , that it it it it stands up . Yeah , you have to put it on its {disfmarker} So it's like a vase or uh something you put on a table . +Marketing: Yeah . A face ? +Project Manager: {gap} no no , {gap} put stuff inside it . But , it's like like a statue or something {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or uh yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More like a joystick then . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I see what you mean , yep . +User Interface: It's like you have uh four phones . Something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , but you also can put it somewhere near the window in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you do that , but I don't know if that's possible within the production cost of twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: That it's it's fashionable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} I {gap} I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I in in the base we could like make uh a button , and if you push it , the remote control itself s makes noise . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: That's probably stupid , but uh as I found here uh , fifty percent , was it fifty ? +Industrial Designer: But that's that's fun for the first time , and then the second {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh fifty percent fifty percent often loses remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when it gets lost , how can you press the button to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No uh , of the base the the the the the the the thing you put it in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +User Interface: On the television . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , that's kind of nice . +User Interface: Oh , like this . +Marketing: If an {disfmarker} a button in in that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then also you don't even need batteries , because you can make it uh chargeable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: A char {vocalsound} chargeable . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you can ma make rechargeable one , yeah . Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that w yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , the pro No , well I think that it might be t p Well , nee but we don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Why not . +Project Manager: Maybe you , but {vocalsound} we don't know much about production cost , but when you {disfmarker} you can imagine that when you spend twenty five Euros on a remote control and it's a basic remote control , then the then the money {disfmarker} there must be money to spend on that kind of st you know , {gap} rechargeable units . +Industrial Designer: With recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should only cost twelve and a half Euros , of course . Aye ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but we would d ma we'd do it in Taiwan and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , it's not gonna be that expen +User Interface: Production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I I think it's a great idea . +User Interface: It should be possible . I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: S some kind of be I've never seen that before , and you make it uh um be uh , you see it with uh the mo the mouses nowadays . +User Interface: To make a base or something ? +Marketing: Yes . Yes , definitely . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but is that handy ? +Project Manager: Well , I {disfmarker} well it's really ch you can recharge it , so you ha never have the battery problem . That's one {gap} . +User Interface: It's it's it's it's +Project Manager: And uh you can always find your remote control up {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not the purpose to be handy , it's +Industrial Designer: But but remote controls remote controls nowadays can can last uh two years , three years , with with t two batteries . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . Well , maybe yeah , you could {disfmarker} when that's {disfmarker} when it's too costly , you could probably skip the recharger , +Industrial Designer: And then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you will {disfmarker} you do need uh also an {disfmarker} uh , also you would need a battery in the the base unit as well , you know . Does it makes it kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well y you you could connect that to two hundred to twenty volts , of course . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , but that's not {disfmarker} it's ugly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but then it's very easy to make it also a rechargeab I don't think that is gonna cost much to make it also a recharge function in it . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: On the other hand , if you don't do it , we can also make a nice bay . I mean , it looks trendy and still {vocalsound} still put a bleep function in it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: but um I think the bay is definitely uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . And make it , you know , we we um {disfmarker} Well , we uh {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it isn't a t a most uh costly uh remote control . We can save on the on the functions . We just {vocalsound} put some simple button in , make it big and sturdy , nothing more , and just make s sure there's some noise that it can make , or probably some kind of cheap light thing around it or that it uh that it lights up , +Marketing: Sure , why not . Yep . +Project Manager: it's also nice . And if you put it away , I think it's uh w we have to {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not a easy market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to something special . And for twenty five Euros people want something remote c special from your mote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: and we can't deliver that in r with uh regards to the functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: because we aren't gonna put {disfmarker} +Marketing: With eye candy , ear candy , whatever . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . And then uh when make it , you know , nice looking shape and this {gap} {disfmarker} and then you also you got the stand-up thing . Yeah . I think I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it must be must be a gadget to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , if it {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} well , we will see what's possible concerning the the costs , and if it's possible we'll do that . And we even try to save up on other stuff to make sure we can do such a thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the first thing we {disfmarker} the most likeable thing to to n to skip is then probably the recharge function or something . If that's too expensive , we won't do that . +User Interface: Yeah , we c +Project Manager: But it would be nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It would be nice , yes . +Project Manager: It's the idea . I know that batteries last long nowadays . And and what people just think about , well , I'll never have to buy any r batteries again , so y b because it's very annoying when your battery is empty . And you know then when you haven't batteries around , and probably for two weeks , your remo {gap} {disfmarker} I've experienced that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Most televisions break down before the battery pack is empty , so {vocalsound} yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . So , easy functions . Well , we will we will {disfmarker} I think we'll work that out , zapping , numbers on it , bi +User Interface: Or just give a beep when the battery's out or uh down . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's also annoying . +Marketing: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} 'cause as long as it stays {disfmarker} as it ke keeps working , you're not very motivated to do something about it . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} true . +Project Manager: Then it beeps all the time and {gap} . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: You don't want to have {disfmarker} ever have those problems , and you won't have if if you have the rechargeable {gap} . And you don't have to use the unit , you can also put it on the side if people don't like it . Uh , i i in the in the ma +Marketing: Why not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you pay for it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it w I mean , if if they pay for it because they think , oh , that's a great idea , I'm gonna use it . And when it , you know , when time goes by and they think , well , I'll never put him in the recharger , I think last long enough , then they put it on side and they can use it now and then . Then when they look {disfmarker} get m I I I know for sure that everybody who buys this remote control , within a couple of months of {disfmarker} they will be in the situation that they they're seeking for the remote control , they wanna see something quick and uh just push the button and th uh , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's brilliant . +Marketing: Bleep bleep bleep , oh there it is , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've never {disfmarker} it's so simple , but I've never seen it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: M maybe we should really {vocalsound} do this . +User Interface: And you can leave it just there . +Marketing: No . Nearly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay now , well , how much time have we got left ? These clocks aren't uh synched . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , now I've put uh {disfmarker} well , {gap} it is twenty p +User Interface: Yeah , I'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have ten minutes or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're uh we're done . I think . +User Interface: Uh fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: We've decided on the functions . Well , there is some {disfmarker} oh . There is a closing sheet . We have lunch break , and then we have thirty minutes of individual work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh {vocalsound} okay , I'll make sure {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} I had some problems with uh the digitising the the first minutes , the the s the next minutes won't be a problem , but I'll try to make sure the first one will be in the folder too , but maybe it won't work , but you'll see . I think these are more important than the first ones , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Can you make an uh uh a part of f folder for the minutes maybe ? +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: That not not everything in one one uh folder . +Marketing: Maarten , five minutes . +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes . Yeah , because uh I I d I did uh {disfmarker} the first minutes I did were were were a bit scratchy , you know . Then I did a s second one with a nicer layout , which I could uh , know , use for the other ones {gap} well , but uh I d think uh I forgot to do {disfmarker} put done under the first one , and when you go write a second uh it's get {disfmarker} it's not working {vocalsound} when you try to write second uh paper or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe . +Marketing: No , that's true uh , yeah . +Project Manager: And then you {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you had to overwrite it or someth I don't know . Becau I d uh , it was not my uh pen . +Marketing: Should we by the way draw um +Project Manager: {gap} this kind of looks you like . +Marketing: on our nice whiteboard , um a little uh idea of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of the shape . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , it would be nice . +User Interface: Or the sh +Marketing: I dunno . Has anyone got um {vocalsound} a little bit detailed ideas about the shape ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you get an idea of the shape ? +Marketing: I don't , for one . +Industrial Designer: Maybe like this pen . +Marketing: A bit bigger I guess , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , bigger . +User Interface: A little bit bigger , yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape is nice , it's um something different , and we want we want that . +Industrial Designer: It has to feel nice in your hand . +Project Manager: Well , I I {vocalsound} I have to say , I have this uh can opening remote control in my head most of all , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or I think some {disfmarker} maybe we should {disfmarker} no , that will be too costly . +User Interface: Oh , uh look {disfmarker} uh look at the pictures . +Project Manager: We shou we could also , that was a {disfmarker} would also be an idea , but I don't think it {disfmarker} I don't know if it exists already , you should like make Alessi or something design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: That would also be nice . But that's gonna {disfmarker} then you c then you don't +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} twelve and a half Euros ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you don't have t yeah it {disfmarker} that's not something i that's in the production cost {disfmarker} {gap} a one {disfmarker} it's a one time , you know {disfmarker} s was {disfmarker} it's a single cost . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but but then you can {disfmarker} nah , I don't thin I think that it would be more expensive , because I've bought the Alessi stuff more often and even small pencil holders or something are more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Would be a nice idea though . I don't know . I think it uh has to be a r {gap} it has to have round forms or something . Like something like that or so or so +Marketing: Something like that is very ergonomic . +Project Manager: And on th and then uh s a base unit underneath it . It's also round . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it in there uh {gap} wire on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh , I don't know , some some lights , a big but well . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , flash lights at the side . At the side , or something like that . +Project Manager: Volume and programme , yeah . +Marketing: Yes , volume and programme should be there I guess , because you hands wi uh y your hands will be in the smaller part . +Project Manager: And some of the extra funct Some of the extra functions over here . Numbers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and the numbers on top , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and lights ? How we're g well , maybe uh s a ring of {disfmarker} no , no , you have to {gap} {disfmarker} Maybe on the side of it . +Marketing: Maybe ro roun rounds +User Interface: Yeah , side of it . +Marketing: uh uh l sorry . +Project Manager: Along the side uh strip of {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Just two LEDs or something on the side . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe lights also around the volume and the p the plus minus programme buttons . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I also meant the the blinking li w you know , the ones that also blink when you try to uh uh locate your remote . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , theys have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh probably at the side . You know look at the front , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Exactly . When you you see it from the side , then it would look just {gap} like that . And then you have a strip of uh lights or something +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , and then there is {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , something like that , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , uh I think it's nice , for one thing . {gap} maybe put something on top of it {vocalsound} or , you know , like that's {disfmarker} looks funny . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . Or some bump . +Marketing: I think I think that'll be too big tha too big then . +Project Manager: Maybe some {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Bumper or something . +Project Manager: We'll have to think about it . I think we're we're done . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , we are . +Project Manager: We can save this one . +User Interface: Lunch break . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yes , I guess it's lunch time . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: Mm mm . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Half and hour ? +User Interface: Okay , five {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought our next uh next individual round was half an hour . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was what uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know about the lunch break . +Project Manager: Mm , we'll hear about it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . {gap} . {vocalsound} +","The functional design meeting includes representatives from various departments—User Interface, Industrial Designer, Marketing, and Project Manager. The main discussion topics include technical issues with devices, the agenda for the meeting, the development of a new remote control, specific user requirements, and potential design features. There seems to be a consensus that the new remote control should have a simple, user-friendly interface with basic functions like channel switching and volume control, tailored to cater to a younger demographic. Particular attention is given to creating a trendy, practical design that doesn't necessarily include DVD or VCR functions due to new requirements that intend to streamline the project and reduce complexity. Marketing insights suggest a significant portion of the market finds current remote controls unappealing, suggesting opportunities for a remote with a more attractive design. The possibility of rechargeable units and a find-me feature are discussed alongside considerations for ergonomics, affordability, and market trends. The meeting is also set to address project requirements, corporate image alignment, and decision-making regarding additional features for the remote control such as teletext or a play/stop function." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , almost there . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint , I guess . How was that , was that fun ? +User Interface: Mm . Very fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes , but I will do . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker} +Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: copy . {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there's good news ? +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have budget problems . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Cutbacks . +Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked . Oops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't even have this on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , have you got a presentation to make ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , not mine yet . +Project Manager: No . Okay +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so it's just your your show . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We made three for you . +Project Manager: Three ? Oh . +User Interface: Um one's based on the banana , one's based on the tomato +Project Manager: Tomato ? What tomato ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the other one is st +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Look . Oh yeah , well yeah , we had v some red left over . +Project Manager: Ah I see , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Okay , so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one , or as mm few buttons as possible , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mainly speak recognition . The yellow there is the um +Project Manager: Logo . +User Interface: the slogan , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +User Interface: that we need to incorporate , it's very simple . If you do need buttons , you can flip it over , and there's some there , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons would be like , you know individual users , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that . Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you guys can have a look at that if you want . +Project Manager: That's groovy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it , I like the feel of it . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . Um that one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , it's delicate . +Project Manager: At Oh dear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one . That's it stand . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: It does also lie flat , but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant mm . +User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan . +Project Manager: Okay , nice and obvious there {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Uh yeah , that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we did think of that . +Project Manager: if it's standing up , I guess , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if it's standing up it's it's on there , but also we're gonna have the company name on the front , which is the little black kind of line in the middle . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , brilliant . Like that from its centre . +User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing . These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down . We n were weren't sure about putting them there , because um i it's it kind of could get bashed . +Project Manager: Where you're , yeah , uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , if you hold it , you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it , is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: if you've got small hands . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger . +Project Manager: Yeah , scale model , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um that's a speaker at the top , so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons . Yeah kind of self-explanatory , just buttons whenever you need them . Tried to keep it simple . Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap} . And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's not in the traditional place , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place . +Project Manager: It's out of the way as well , I suppose , so . Excellent . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one is uh , I suppose for the younger audiences . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah excellent , just what we need . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah . Well , nice to have uh options at least . +Industrial Designer: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It won't stand . +Project Manager: Oh there are issues , oh there are issues . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down , it wont stand . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Uh , let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons , uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So we have to +Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left ? {gap} +Project Manager: rea Sorry , I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} There we go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh god , why is it doing that ? +User Interface: Ooh . +Project Manager: There we go . {vocalsound} So basically , um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape , but just have it flattened . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: More like a traditional remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape , so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no , hold on . Doesn't save us quite as much . I don't know what's going on with this again . +Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them ? +Project Manager: Oh , good point . +Marketing: And double curve on both sides ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Curve {vocalsound} . Yeah , this is double-curve , +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out . +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: Is i +Marketing: This is double-curve . It {disfmarker} This one is single curve . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause this is single curve , this is curved on both sides . So double-curve . +Project Manager: No , I think it means double curved as in um +User Interface: Like an S_ shape . +Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half , and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , I might be wrong though . +Marketing: Like this , one curve on this side , one curve on that side . +Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve , I think that's just a shape . +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there , right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and why why I've got it two , I don't know , I can't seem to select any more however . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out . But you think it should be one . +Project Manager: It's meant to be one , yeah , I don't know why I put two in there , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it , I think this shift button might be stuck again . No maybe the shift button's stuck in . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay , so that would take away three , which would give us {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty . +User Interface: Cool . Cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we could even add something . +Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite , have the scroll-wheel , unfortunately . +Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants . +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah , we could add things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell , where you're starting from , and then use the arrow keys . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Does that work ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , that just extends it as well . +Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah , this box . Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking , I don't know {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay , just a minute . Okay . No input , like this . {vocalsound} Shift . No it's not . +Project Manager: No , it's 'cause the uh the shift button's stuck , or something . +Marketing: Yeah , it's not working . +Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe ? +Marketing: Should we ask Meli +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine . Um we've worked out what it would be anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons ? It could be the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cancel . Piss off . +Industrial Designer: That's too bad . +Project Manager: Oh well , never mind . Um {vocalsound} . Right , so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add ? Um +User Interface: Well maybe we could add something , but maybe if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money , so . Yeah , if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money , if we don't have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there , then , you know , feel free to add it . Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now . +Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay , so project evaluation . We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty . Project process , how do we think that went ? Are we happy ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Evaluation . Oh we've been writing this up for m months . +User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly . +Project Manager: Uh room for creativity , were we happy with that ? +User Interface: W I think we were very creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I mea I think it means sort of individually . +User Interface: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , no , maybe ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Groovy . So uh we're just gonna . Uh yeah , okay . Teamwork ? Leadership , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Great leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Excellent leadership . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you very much . You're all get you're all getting a raise . Uh teamwork . I thought went well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , everyone got enough input , I think . +Project Manager: Uh and well means , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , we {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though . +Project Manager: I don't know what , new ideas found , means , to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , these are new ideas , like glow-in-the-dark or something like that . We discussed all the new ideas , but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals , we couldn't use these {gap} , but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this . These are new ideas we And new shapes , everything +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: . At le {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Groovy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Well um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} . I suppose yeah . Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this , right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it , um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay . +Project Manager: Whoops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it go back in , does it ? Reusable . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian , have you have you finished ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Uh mine needs also this . +Project Manager: Um I have , yes . +Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation . +Project Manager: Huh ? Oh right , okay , you've got more , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , you got a presentation , +Project Manager: Sorry uh . +User Interface: sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh ok +Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this +Marketing: S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thing . Is it ? Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated , that is mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me . {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves , we thought we were great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Mm , love to eat that now . +Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of a green banana now . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well , sorry , we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex , new material that we've got . +Project Manager: O okay , hold on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got . +Industrial Designer: {gap} blue . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want . {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I didn't realise you had that bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . Thank you . +Marketing: So now is the final evaluation , final evaluation of the uh uh of our product . How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not . How mu What rating we will give to these products . So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work , w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything . So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements , whether it meets the user requirements or not , this product . Then trends , whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not ? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also . Then marketing strategy of the company . As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market , not only in terms of providing quality products , not only in pro providing latest technologies , but also in terms of providing environmental s +User Interface: Sorry {gap} . Sorry , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: carry on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products , uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues . So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale . I'm having this scale this scale , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so we have to do it on a board . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The board working again , is it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: There it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product . First of all uh comes user requirement . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not . I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views , what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , it did . +Marketing: S +User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so . +Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_ , +User Interface: Does it work ? +Project Manager: so yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give . +Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet . +User Interface: I would say seven . +Marketing: Seven . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good , yeah , isn't it ? I can't {disfmarker} True or false ? No sorry tr one is true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One , yeah . +Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven , or one ? +Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end , and false is the oth +Industrial Designer: No that's false . +Marketing: Okay , right right . So it's one for from your point of view . +User Interface: Okay , so one . +Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . It's hard to know . I I give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design , because she was our i Interface Expert . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology , whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I think i it might even exceed it um . But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: And what about uh you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Oh , I'll go for a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You will go for one . +Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh for me personally it is everything fine , it may be having good design , it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise , price-wise , but there is one thing which limits the customers , like we are having only two , three designs , like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah , lower end . And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana , or orange , you are limiting him . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't buy our product , because we are l we like this only . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: two or three kinds rather , and {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Is that no is that not trends ? +Marketing: Uh no , uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits , they give a range of products , a range of shapes , like if we see , look at the smallest thing , toffee chocolates , they give a variety of different things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape , some apple shape , some even pineapple shape , some orange shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers . And by limiting them , we are limiting our sales , limiting our profit also . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But in electronics , I think , it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think , you know , if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from , a company'll have two or three choices , but they're different designs . We were coming up with one product . +Marketing: Uh maybe . Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , on an average we can think three , four sevenths , maybe . Three or four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , no sorry , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it should be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Six . Five or six . +User Interface: What are we doing ? +Industrial Designer: What are we doing ? +Marketing: No sorry , sorry , sorry , sorry , we are doing a very wrong thing . +User Interface: Adding them up ? +Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , we are taking everything , +Industrial Designer: Okay . So seven fourths . +Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah uh +Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight . +Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly . So we can say one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two , so we will do two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So trends . +Marketing: So where were the trends . +Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends ? +Marketing: Yeah , again the the fashion trends , this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had , that fruit and vegetables are quite popular , and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons , I would give it um , well , because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at , that that looks cool , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I would actually give it a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Tha three or four , I'm not sure . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Three . Go for three . That's fine . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . As far as the uh technology it its' got the latest trends in speech technology , but it's missing the screen , as we said , um but it does have the push-buttons , or the scroll-buttons , um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism . So I give it a a four . I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: for technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in , I mean uh it might +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it might be trendy to some , but I'm just not swallowing the fruit , so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it . Um so yeah I'd say about four as well . +Marketing: Okay . Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends , these products are quite good , like , these products are in fruit shape , because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised , like clothes , shoes , and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables , or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So and in this way our product is good . And the second thing , now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market . And yes . It is cus spongy also . So they can play with it , it's quite good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So then I think , maybe I can give it two . So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap} . So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine ? So what about company strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the company strategy , okay . Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing , that was good . Um I feel I got my say . Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Is that the question ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Is it ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Okay , so {vocalsound} one or two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: One . Okay , just leave it , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: I'll go with two . +Marketing: So what about you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , a three . Pretty much kept to the company strategy , so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one , as we not only kept it , but we were limited by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , and me also , like , this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers' requirement , as per latest technology , and it should be environmental safe . So since our product meets all these requirements , so I would also prefer to give it rank one . So four six six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half . +Marketing: half . +User Interface: Yeah , one . +Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . So th seven seven . Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something , but we can round it as two . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good . +Project Manager: Cool , groovy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So we can launch it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . Brilliant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Woo-hoo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done . 'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +","In a meeting mainly involving an interactive brainstorming session, a team of professionals comprising a User Interface (UI) Expert, an Industrial Designer, a Project Manager, and a Marketing Executive come together to review and evaluate a prototype for a new remote control product. The conversation is informal, and it appears to be a common work environment with casual banter and occasional technical hiccups. The employees present and discuss ideas, addressing challenges related to design concepts, budget constraints, and alignment with user requirements. + +The interaction opens with casual affirmations from each team member, followed by the Project Manager realizing they have forgotten to circulate the minutes from a previous meeting. The conversation progresses to discuss the practical aspects of their project, such as the design of the prototype and the budget issues faced. The Project Manager humorously announces budget cuts, joking that they're all 'sacked', which suggests a relaxed team dynamic. + +The UI Expert presents three prototype designs, each based on fruit (banana and tomato) and featuring innovative elements such as speech recognition and buttons for individuals preferring a more traditional interface. The discussion becomes more technical, with input from the Industrial Designer and Marketing Executive, facing difficulties with a PowerPoint presentation, which the Project Manager attempts to resolve. There are moments of confusion, technical malfunction, and accidental deletions during the PowerPoint editing process, which causes some mild frustration. + +The team continues to discuss the prototype's design features, emphasizing user-friendliness, ergonomic design, and innovative features, such as the charging base prongs and the inclusion of the company's slogan. A fruit-inspired remote intended for younger audiences—“Barney the banana”—is mentioned as a way to make television more engaging. The team is seen joking about the whimsical aspects of their designs and marketing strategies. + +As they switch to financials, the team reviews the production costs of the unit with the Project Manager noting that certain functional and aesthetic features need to be altered or omitted to save costs. They consider simplifying the design to save two Euros per unit. There is continued difficulty with the PowerPoint, specifically with an uncooperative shift button, leading to further tinkering with the budget spreadsheet. + +Towards the latter part of the meeting, they proceed with a project evaluation, assessing the design based on criteria such as budget, creativity, teamwork, leadership, and technical achievements. They discuss how well the prototype aligns with company strategy and user requirements, as well as how it fits within current market trends. Everyone on the team provides their personal ratings based on a seven-point scale for three categories: satisfying user requirements, aligning with trends, and aligning with company strategy. There's debate on rating the relevance of the fruit shapes to modern design trends, with some team members expressing skepticism, while others see it as a positive, trendy aspect. + +After averaging out the scores, the overall evaluation is favorable enough for the team to consider launching the product. They conclude that despite some difficulties and challenges, they have a solid product ready for market introduction. The meeting ends on a positive note with the Project Manager inviting the team for a Champagne lunch to celebrate their successful evaluation and staying within budget. This indicates a friendly and collaborative corporate culture with a focus on teamwork and collective achievements." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I have received apologies for absence from Jack Sargeant, and I'm very pleased to welcome Vikki Howells, who is substituting for Jack this morning. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our last evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, and I'm really pleased to welcome back Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, who is deputy director of the children and families division; and Emma Gammon, who is the lawyer working on the Bill. So, thank you all for coming. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions because we've got lots of ground that we want to cover, and the first questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Deputy Minister. Of those individuals who responded to our written consultation in a personal capacity, nearly 70 per cent do not support this Bill. We also heard a clear message from the parents we met last week who oppose this Bill that, as parents, they understand clearly the difference between child abuse and a light smack from a loving parent. How would you like to respond to that? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Janet, for that question. I think I'd like to start by saying that child abuse is not the issue that the Bill is trying to address. What the Bill is trying to do is prohibit all forms of physical punishment, and that is in order to protect children's rights and to ensure that children have the same protection from physical punishment as adults. But I do understand that people have different views, and that's why this process has been so important—for us to hear what your views are and what parents' views are. I know that, often, people use different euphemisms really to make light of physical punishment. I've heard expressions used such as a 'light smack' or a 'loving smack' or a 'tap', and really there can be different interpretations of what is a 'light smack', what is a 'loving smack', and that doesn't really cover the issue of the frequency of such actions being taken. But I would say that, however mild it seems to be, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognises that any physical punishment of children, however minor, is incompatible with their human rights, and why should a big person hit a little person? That's been the sort of mantra, really, that has taken me through supporting this legislation—that it just seems wrong to me that there is something in the law that could mean that there could be an excuse for that happening. I believe we shouldn't have anything in the law that defends the physical punishment of children, and I don't think we should be defining acceptable ways of hitting or punishing children, because I think it does send a confused message to children. It says, 'It's okay for me to hit you, but don't you hit anybody else.' I think it causes confusion. So, I'm confident that updating the law will make it much clearer for parents and people working with children—and, of course, I'm sure, as you'll have heard from the evidence you've taken, that people who work with children are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation, and the representative surveys that we've carried out show support for the Bill's principles. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Last week, during the workshop, a few parents—predominantly all of them, actually—said that they use a gentle tap or smacking as part of a toolkit of ways to deal with challenging behaviour or, sometimes, for the safety of the child or, indeed, to carry out the parenting of a child. How do you intend to work with parents going forward, given the finite resources that social care and social services have? I know from the responses we've received to the consultation that parents themselves who have to parent 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they are really, on the scale of things, very upset about this. How do you intend to try and get your message across to those parents on removing what they consider to be part of their toolkit when raising children? How do you intend to deal with that aspect? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, I want to say, as I've said in most evidence sessions, that I completely accept that bringing up children is hard. It's very difficult; many of us have done it and we know how tough it can be. But we don't think that there is any place for physical punishment in bringing up children. There's a whole range of other ways that you can help parents bring up children, and advice you can give them of different methods to use. But, the clear message of this Bill is that we don't want any physical punishment; we don't think it's the right thing to do, and we believe that we are supported by many people in that view. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got other questions, Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Oh, yes. Several consultation responses refer to statistics from Sweden, which they say show that child-on-child violence actually increased by 1,791 per cent between 1984 and 2010, following the ban on physical punishment in 1979. What is your view on these figures and how can we be certain that this Bill won't lead to other long-term negative outcomes in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I'm aware of the debate surrounding the interpretation of the different statistics from Sweden. What's happened, really, in the academic research is that different academics are focused on different figures to support their views, and the methodological ways of doing it makes it quite difficult to have causation. I was very encouraged that a recent study of 88 countries concluded that if a country prohibits corporal punishment, the result is association with less youth violence, and this is one of the largest cross-national analyses of youth violence, with more than 400,000 participants. So, there is other evidence, very widespread evidence, which looks at a whole range of people, that is in contrast to the Swedish evidence. But, evidence in this field is mixed and we have considered a wide range of research and reviews, but ultimately the decision is one that is based on our commitment to children's rights. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you want question 3? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I can do it, yes. The Bill's explanatory memorandum says that 'there is no definitive evidence that ""reasonable"" physical punishment causes negative outcomes for children'. However, we have heard from Equal Protection Network Cymru that international evidence could not be clearer and that they found the Wales Centre for Public Policy's report, on which the explanatory memorandum is based, very confusing and very frustrating, and that it didn't tie in with what they knew. How would you respond to those viewpoints? +Julie Morgan AM: We were very keen to get as balanced research as we possibly could, and we didn't want to just put forward views that we thought agreed with our point of view. So, we were trying to give a balanced point of view, but we did commission the Wales Centre for Public Policy to do an independent literature review and we're honestly reporting to you what they said. But they did make it clear, again, which I think I've said in previous evidence sessions, that all physical punishment, under all conditions, is potentially harmful to children. And certainly, there is no peer-reviewed research that says that physically punishing a child is going to improve things, has favourable outcomes. So, I understand what Equal Protection Network Cymru are saying, because there is a lot of very strong evidence, but we're giving you the evidence that we had from the research that we commissioned. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Suzy on implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I've just got a couple of questions on this balance between the steps that will be needed to implement this Bill and the impact that it'll actually have. You've probably heard in evidence that we've received that there are still some concerns out there about how agencies might address malicious reporting; some detail about how the public interest test might be applied further along the line; what's going to happen with out-of-hours provision from social services, and so on. There are still, from our perspective, quite a few things that are unknown about the effect on our public services in particular of the implementation of this Bill. Would you agree that perhaps we should know a little bit more about that before we proceed with supporting the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's very difficult, bringing in this legislation that hasn't been done before. It's very difficult to gauge the impact, and we've covered that, I know, in previous discussions. But I think it's very important to say that we are not creating a new offence. The Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault. And I think it's an interesting point to make that, in Ireland, they introduced similar legislation through an amendment to a Bill, and had no detailed preparation for bringing in the Bill, and in fact there's no evidence that this has caused any difficulties, and no significant negative impacts or increase in workload. But in any case, we have our implementation group, which is going to address many of these issues. This met on 14 May. That was the first meeting. You see, I think we do have to take a balance between assuming this Bill is going to go through and what we can actually do. We can't presume that the Assembly will accept this Bill, so we have to be staged in what we do. But we had the first strategic implementation group on 14 May, and we had representatives from the police, the police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, the legal profession and the third sector. They're all there, and they're all very keen to make this legislation work and to look at the implications of it. I'd just like to say how grateful I am for all those organisations giving their time and commitment. They've set up four work streams, looking at parenting advice and support; data collection, evaluation and monitoring; operations, procedures and processes; and out-of-court disposals and diversions. These groups will be taking forward this work and will be looking at many of those issues that you've mentioned, and will also be updated on the progress of the awareness strategy that we will be bringing in. I'm really confident that the legislation will be implemented in a very practical and workable way, because we do have the commitment of all these agencies, and there's been a huge amount of preparation done in the Welsh Government to prepare for this in a way that, I have to say, hasn't been done in some of the other countries—as I mentioned, in Ireland. So, as much preparation as could be done is being done and has been done, but we really now see that the implementation group is taking forward all these issues, and obviously those agencies that are taking part in the implementation group are, on the whole, in support of the principles of this Bill. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, thank you for that, Minister, but the way I look at this is that you've already said that, if this Bill passes—and it will pass; it's in enough manifestos to pass, so the question is what type of Bill is going to pass—and if there is a gap of, let's say, two years before anything is implemented, and the implementation group is doing the work that you've described—and we're very relieved to hear that—why is this Bill being introduced now when that implementation group hasn't really come up with a strategy that could help persuade people about what implementing this Bill would look like in real life? You're asking the Welsh public to take a bit of a chance on this. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have, as far as possible, looked at international evidence where this legislation has been introduced. It's different for different countries, so I know it's difficult to get anything that's absolutely linked. But I don't agree that it's a bit of a chance, really. I think we are preparing very well and very carefully. As the team who have been working on this have worked through the preparation for the Bill, lots of issues have arisen as they've done that, and so you have to do that, I think, alongside the actual practical implications with the groups that are coming together, and I think the point at which we've done that is probably just about right, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I hope this isn't going on to somebody else's questions, but accepting what you say, would you then be open to accepting amendments to the face of the Bill that would clarify the position for the Welsh public on certain things that may be of concern to them, which have been fed through to us? I'm not suggesting anything specific, but—. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. I mean, the position is that it is a very simple, one-clause Bill. We want to keep it as simple as possible, but I'm certainly prepared to consider any issues that come up, and I think that's been the case all along. Although our preference is to keep it simple. +Suzy Davies AM: I understand that. It's just what's going to work as a bit of law here, isn't it? And then just finally from me, and you've made the point to a degree, that, of course, not all countries are like Wales. If we look at Ireland, and New Zealand's the one we've been looking at an awful lot, which are the most similar, their work hasn't really been in place for that long, and one of the things that, I think, you're going to need to be able persuade us of is that if the culture change to which we've already referred is going in one way anyway, and if it continues to go in that direction, that this Bill will have had a causal effect. I'm trying to establish whether the culture change is going to happen anyway, whether or not we pass this legislation. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it does look as if a culture change is happening in any case, but the culture change will never really move, I think, as most of us want it, if there is legislation that does appear to condone the use of physical punishment, and having this reasonable punishment in law means that happens. So, I think, passing the legislation by itself will certainly not do everything— +Suzy Davies AM: No. And you'll be aware that this is to go with it. I get that, but— +Julie Morgan AM: You've got to have—. And I think the research has all shown you've got to have an awareness campaign running along with it. That is shown. And in the other countries we've looked at, I don't think an awareness campaign was actually carried out because we are planning a really big awareness campaign because we think it's absolutely fair to the Welsh public, as you said, that they absolutely know what we're doing and everybody's aware of it. So, I think it is—. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, can I just finish—? +Julie Morgan AM: I know the point you're making. You're saying that this would happen in any case, maybe. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm suggesting it. +Julie Morgan AM: But if you've got a bit of legislation there on the Bill, it will always mean that for a very minority group of parents, they will feel that they have got the right to use physical punishment against their child, and I just think it's something we should get rid of. I think it's an anachronism and it's something we should—. And I think Wales has been very strong on children's rights. We've got rid of physical punishment in schools, child minders, regulated care settings. And, of course, the other point that I don't think we say enough about is that it's not just parents; it's people in loco parentis who are working in leisure centres or religious establishments or any of those unregulated settings who also have this defence. So, it's last bit in the jigsaw, really, to have it quite clear that we want to treat our children with respect and dignity and I think this will move us towards that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's the argument you've made before. I think what I was trying to get to is: how are we going to prove that this piece of legislation has worked effectively? It's about the data capture, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What are you going to do to make sure that you acquire evidence in the future to show that this has worked, or potentially not worked? I'd be surprised if that was the case, but—. Because, of course, that has an implication then on the resources for the various people you'll be asking to collect the data. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think that's very important because we need to know what is the effect of the legislation we'll be bringing in. So, we will be having ongoing evaluation, we will be bringing in an independent body to evaluate. We have got ongoing monitoring and we've got ongoing monitoring surveys looking at what are the views of the public. So, yes— +Suzy Davies AM: It'll be directly linked to the Bill, then, rather than that broad culture change. +Julie Morgan AM: The monitoring, asking the views of the public, is generally about issues related to the Bill. The views of parents about whether this legislation— +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, I don't want to labour this point. +Julie Morgan AM: And awareness. How aware they are. +Suzy Davies AM: Basically, we need a question, 'Has this Bill stopped you smacking your child?' That's the core question. So, phrase it differently, yes? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Well, we are in the surveys asking how many people feel that they do smack their child, but this is any physical punishment, actually, not just smacking— +Suzy Davies AM: And it's for the future, not for now. +Julie Morgan AM: —and how many, actually, are doing that. And it is consistently going down, as you said. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I don't want to take it any further. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to explore some of the issues around social services now with questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, Minister. When the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru came in, they were saying to us that they would encourage people to report any instances, anything that they see around somebody smacking a child. That leads on to the question about whether in fact social services, then, would change their thresholds for intervention if there were more cases being referred to them. Are you fairly confident, are you certain, that that wouldn't happen, or do you think there is a danger that social services might actually say, 'Well, actually, if we're getting all these referrals, we need to think again about when and if we intervene', and the thresholds could become a bit lower? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, as you know, social services already receive and investigate reports of children being physically punished—any sort of range of physical punishment—and they use standard procedures to determine how to proceed, but that's done on a case-by-case basis; it's made on the individual case element. And, of course, there is a distinction between reasonable punishment and child neglect or abuse. And if this legislation is enacted, a significant proportion of the incidents of physical punishment will not require any response under the child protection procedures, and we do not expect the threshold of significant harm to change. And I know you took evidence from the ADSS, and I know Sally Jenkins gave evidence, who is one of the lead practitioners, and I understood she said: 'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.' So, I think— +Dawn Bowden AM: So, it's the threshold for intervention that's the key, really, isn't it, rather than—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, they don't see that changing. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. And we don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. The police, when they came in to give evidence, talked about the need for the multi-agency safeguarding hubs. And what we also heard is that it's a bit inconsistent across the country. And I think you acknowledged that as well. Do you think the implementation of the Bill, and its effectiveness, is going to be dependent on us having consistently effective multi-agency safeguarding hubs right the way across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: No. The effective implementation of the Bill does not depend on MASHs, as we call them for short, because bodies, social services, already work closely with the police on a day-to-day basis, really, and they have indicated their willingness to do so, and there are already well-established mechanisms in place that enable this joint working to take place. I know that the MASHs are only in certain areas, and I know that it's—. I think they're probably very good to have, actually, and very good to help the work, but it's certainly not dependent on them. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, but it would be something that you would be wanting to see developed, that eventually we would have these MASHs right across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, there are three MASHs in the south Wales police force, and one pilot MASH in the Gwent police force, but they don't operate in exactly the same way. And I know that other areas have considered having MASHs, but haven't actually brought any in. And a multi-agency strategic group, which is led by South Wales Police, has been set up, and it will consider the effectiveness of MASH arrangements in Wales, so it's very possible there will be more MASHs, but I want to reiterate that we're not dependent on MASHs in order to have the close working. But they're welcome—very welcome. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because the key point from the police's point of view, I think, was that they provide a single point of contact, so it's very simple, isn't it? It's a single point of contact, and I think they were quite concerned that having that single point of contact might actually reduce the level of unnecessary police prosecutions—well, the police don't prosecute, but charges and so on. So, it was just a point that they were raising. +Julie Morgan AM: I think they are very effective and very much to be welcomed, but it's certainly not essential. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Karen. +Karen Cornish: I was just going to say that it's probably worth saying that looking at how agencies work together will be one of the things, again, that will be looked at very carefully on the task and finish group, looking at processes and procedures. We're very alert to the fact that there are different organisations, different services, and that bringing them together, working in as consistent a way as possible, is really, really important. As the Minister has said, social services, the police and others are already committed to working together, and, actually, we just want to make sure that we develop those working practices in the best way possible, recognising that not every area will have a MASH, and reiterating, again, what the Deputy Minister has said—that the effectiveness of the Bill is not predicated on a MASH in every area, but it is important that all those organisations do work together in a consistent and appropriate way. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much. The other response that we've received is from social workers. And they've talked about the fact that the social worker's workload is already very stretched, and you'll be aware of that, Minister. And I think they were getting a little bit concerned about whether a whole raft of new cases are going to land on what is an already extremely heavy workload, and how effectively they could deal with that. Would you say that those concerns, in terms of the impact of this Bill, are unfounded, or are we just saying that this is an unknown quantity at this stage, and we're going to have to wait and see? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, if I can just pay tribute to the work that social workers do. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, absolutely. +Julie Morgan AM: Because, obviously, they’re going to be essential to the successful implementation of this Bill. I was a social worker myself, so I’m very happy to pay tribute to them. [Laughter.] But they do do a hard job, which isn’t always recognised, I think, by the public. So, I do take this point very seriously, but, obviously, the professionals who have given evidence—many of them have said they don’t see there being a big rise of referrals. Jane Randall, National Independent Safeguarding Board—I think she came to you—said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals…I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' I mean, there may be an increase in reporting of incidents, initially, maybe from individuals in the community and organisations such as schools. And I think it could have an impact on the initial stages of social services activity, which I think others—I think Sally Jenkins said that maybe there’d be an increase, a small increase, at the beginning. But as we expect the awareness raising and the ongoing support that we’ll be giving to parents—we do feel that the incidents of physical punishment will be falling over time. And we don’t really see that there will be an increase. But I know that social workers are stretched, and are hard-pressed—and I think that was some of the evidence given to you by the British Association of Social Workers. But I think it’s important to remember that they are also very strongly in support of us carrying out this legislation. But it is important to look at the realities and the practicalities. So, we’re going to work very closely with social services—obviously, key members of our implementation group—and we will collect relevant data for a period before the actual implementation, in order to get a baseline. We want a baseline, and we are working with a small number of social services to try to get the baseline of where it is, and to see what happens when the Bill is implemented. The evidence from other countries is that they certainly have not been overwhelmed. There have been reports in New Zealand that they have not been overwhelmed, and I mentioned Ireland earlier. So, I don’t think, really, we have to fear that social services would be overwhelmed, but we must be prepared, and we must get this data and monitor it closely. +Dawn Bowden AM: Keep it monitored. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I guess things will level out in due course. And social services clearly having to make judgments every day—they will be making those judgments quite quickly and turning them around. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, when they spoke to us, also had—there was a similar kind of concern raised. They did say that they felt that they probably did have adequate resources to support the Bill. But do you think there is any danger at all that it could divert CAFCASS staff, if we have a high volume of reporting, particularly given that we’ve got a 26-week limit in which to deal with those cases? Is that something that causes you any concern at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, CAFCASS are confident that they can deal with the cases that they have. As you know, there's been a big increase in the numbers that CAFCASS is dealing with already, and they have managed to very successfully cope with the demand. So, I've got every confidence that they will be able to cope with it. +Dawn Bowden AM: Because they were basically just saying that it's unpredictable at this stage, weren't they, so—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. It is unpredictable. Our best views are that it will not—. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because they were talking about the fact that no assessment had been made about the risk of malicious reporting. We talked about that in a number of sessions with the police and so on. So, I think their biggest concern was more about the rise in looked-after children and the impact on that in terms of their workload, and it was just a question of whether this would potentially divert any resources, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, in terms of the malicious reporting, obviously that is something that happens a lot now and it is is likely that, perhaps—. I think they felt that, in existing cases, this might be another element that should be brought in, but they seemed, in my discussions, fairly confident. I know they appeared before the committee, and they are coping very well. But, obviously, another area we are very concerned about is the rise in the number of looked-after children, and that's somewhere we want to try to do what we can to bring that down. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before Suzy comes in with a supplementary—CAFCASS didn't come to the committee, they've submitted— +Julie Morgan AM: They sent a letter—that's right. Yes, sorry about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Just very quickly, because I don't want to spend a lot of time on this: isn't it going to be true that any increase in workload for social services or schools or whoever is going to depend on reporting rising? Where do you see the likely rise in reporting taking place? Will it be members of the public or is it going to be professionals who feel that this is something that they can't ignore from now on? +Julie Morgan AM: well, I think it would be mixed. I don't have any view or where it particularly would come from, because if there are any reports that go into agencies now about children being physically punished in any way—I think they investigate those already now. But I suppose members of the public might report if they see any physical punishment going on. They would be made much more aware, we hope, by the legislation—so, that may happen. But I think, in schools, if there is physical punishment reported by a child, the schools would report it in any case. But I think it's likely that there will be a small rise. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just curious about where you thought the main source would be— +Julie Morgan AM: I can't really be definitive about that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The Bill, in essence, is a simple one, of course, is it not? But what it does is  provide a useful discussion on what good parenting is and what discipline methods are the most effective—that is, discipline methods that parents can use rather than physical punishment. Do you think, therefore, that there's a need to invest much more in programmes to do with parenting and in support services for families in terms of parenting, and that as part of an early intervention strategy that's more co-ordinated and robust than what we have at present? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we are developing the Bill as part of a much wider package of support for children and their parents, which, of course, is already in place. This obviously includes the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, which aims to help parents do the best job that they can by providing positive tips on parenting and information. And we're already preparing now to update that, because, of course, that only goes up to age 7 and deals with issues about how you cope with your kids if they're difficult at meal times and if they have tantrums. It is very well used by parents. But, of course, this legislation will go up to 18 years old, and so the issues may be very different. So, we're already starting to prepare to update that 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign. And then, obviously, there's the universal services that give access to help and to promote positive parenting, delivered by local government, health, education, social services, social justice and the third sector. We will be encouraging all those agencies that provide that universal service to help support parents and to pass on this information. Then, there will be the more targeted supports, such as Flying Start and Families First, which offer help and advice. But what I've done is I've asked the officials to carry out a mapping exercise to see where the support is and where the gaps are or opportunities to do more, particularly around information and advice on positive alternatives to physical punishment, but also more widely. So, we are looking to see where the gaps are. I think parents do tend to use information and try to get help in many different ways. A very large number, actually, do use the internet. I was surprised, actually, that so many used the internet to get information. Others ask their mothers, their families, their friends, and go to agencies. It's such a wide range that we need that mapping exercise and we need to see where we need to put in more support. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm pleased that you're going to conduct that exercise, because the evidence that we've received from a number of different directions is that there isn't enough investment in reality in the support services in the early years, and that there is a real need for the focus within Government go back to early intervention and to have a much more co-ordinated strategy. You've mentioned a number of agencies working on different elements, perhaps, but perhaps there's a need to bring them all together. You talk about the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, but I think it's an online campaign effectively, and Flying Start—yes, people who attend those courses find them useful, but, of course, it's not available across Wales and it's not available to every parent. There is a scheme that is available through schools in Gwynedd—perhaps you are aware of it—Incredible Years, with Professor Judy Hutchings, who has been working on this for a number of years now, very successfully, where schools, parents and the children work together on parenting methods that are positive. I wonder if it's time to think about expanding that as part of an early intervention strategy across Wales. Perhaps you can't give a specific answer today, but may I ask you to take a look at that? What concerns me is that the Bill is going through but there's not enough work relating to education and having people's support for different methods, more positive methods, in my opinion, of parenting. There's a real need to move and to invest in that area and perhaps move money towards that work. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, certainly, I think that is the purpose of the mapping exercise, to see what is successful, where things need to be expanded, and that's what we're going to consider. Incredible Years—I know it's very successful; I am aware of that programme. I think there are patches all over Wales of really good progress, but, certainly, I'm sure we need to give more support to parents in the early years, and I think they're only too glad to have it as well. Children are very receptive at that age and early intervention is the key to many of the issues that we have to deal with later on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to return to some of the parenting issues later, but in the meantime we've got questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Just to take it on the next step from what Siân Gwenllian was asking about—in schools, are teachers ready for this legislation? +Julie Morgan AM: On our implementation group, the education sector is represented. They've come to the first meeting of the implementation group. So, they're going to be fully involved in the preparation. Obviously, corporal punishment was banned in schools a long time ago, and I think the education sector is very supportive of this move. But in terms of the awareness for teachers to be ready for it—obviously, the awareness campaign has got to be aimed at professionals in every field and certainly aimed at teachers. +Hefin David AM: So, if I was a teacher in an individual school, what kind of preparation do you think I should expect? +Julie Morgan AM: You know this better than me, having been more in the education field than me, but I think teachers are updated on different parts of childcare legislation now, and have in-service training days and training courses. And, certainly, perhaps this would be part of that—part of the training that teachers get. This would have to be incorporated into that. +Hefin David AM: One of the things that the National Association of Head Teachers told us was that they wouldn't want the cost of that kind of training to come from core budgets. Would you agree with that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would have thought this sort of measure would be incorporated into the training they were using already, actually. I wouldn't have seen it would need something completely separate. +Hefin David AM: So, you think it should come from the core budget that they use for training? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it could be incorporated in what they're already doing. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And do you think that would be a significant additional cost or do you think that that would be minimal? +Julie Morgan AM: I would have thought it would be minimal. They already have training courses about childcare issues, and this would be something that would be absorbed into that. +Hefin David AM: You mentioned the implementation group and the fact that educators are represented on it. Can you just be a bit clearer about how they are represented again? I'm not sure I caught that. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to, Karen, because you were at the group? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, education are represented on it through the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, and they have a representative on the strategic implementation group, and we are working with them to understand who else will be on the task and finish groups that we're setting up that the Minister's already talked about. And we've also had conversations with all of the trade unions. I personally went and spoke to them earlier in the year when the Bill was being introduced, received their feedback and have said that I will go back and speak with them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The things that are being raised so far—would you say they're reflective of the concerns that the NAHT rose about, for example, funding of training? Are those kinds of issues raised? The practical implications of introducing this Bill—are they raised? If not, what other issues might be raised? +Karen Cornish: So, I think that the main concerns that you've already heard as a committee are similar concerns to those that have been raised previously. So, there's not anything in addition to the things that we have discussed, either with the trade unions or through the implementation group, or during the consultation period. And, as the Minister said, for the majority of these sort of things, teachers, education and other workforces already have procedures in place, because this comes under a safeguarding issue at one level. There are procedures and processes that are already there that they all follow. The ask will be based around those safeguarding procedures and, therefore, education and other services update their processes and procedures on a regular basis as a matter of course when any issues like this are addressed. There's a wider context here. Minister, I don't know whether you wanted to say anything about the well-being and the— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. One of the things that I think this committee has been involved in is we want to have a whole-school approach. We want mental health and well-being to be part of the way that the whole school operates, and the culture and how schools engage with pupils and parents. And we want to create that atmosphere where there's no wrong door, where children can bring up any of the concerns that they have with any member of the school staff that they trust. And, obviously, the school staff is wider than the teachers. And so, I think the creation of that sort of atmosphere is very important in taking forward this issue. +Hefin David AM: I appreciate that. I think the Bill, though, introduces a very specific set of changes that— +Julie Morgan AM: It removes the defence; that's all the Bill does. +Hefin David AM: But should a parent witness, now, smacking, then it will require a different kind of approach—sorry, if a teacher were to witness smacking, it would require a different kind of approach, perhaps, to existing approaches. There shouldn't, therefore, be any surprise amongst teachers in how to deal with these things when the Bill comes in. I suppose the question I'm asking is: can we be assured that nothing you've said today in this meeting, in this committee, should be a surprise to teachers and trade unions, because that would already have been communicated through the Bill implementation group? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, well, Karen has already said about the meetings that she's had with the unions and they are present on the implementation group, but a lot of these things happen already. They already have to make decisions about physical punishment they may be told about by children, for example—probably more likely than actually witnessing anything. And they already have to make decisions on those sorts of issues, so I see this as being incorporated in with that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. With regard to health and the communication of this to parents, we've heard about the Healthy Child Wales programme, and the fact that it has the opportunity to play a role in raising parents' awareness. Do you think that's the case? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the Healthy Child Wales programme and the role of the health visitor is absolutely crucial, because, obviously, the health visitor is there right at the beginning. It's a universal service, and so there will be great opportunity for them to promote positive parenting in a much stronger way than they're able to do at the moment, because the fact that you have this defence does mean that the professionals aren't able to make it as clear as they want to make it that positive parenting is the way that they'd like families to go. So, I think this will be a great advantage to health visitors, and, obviously, they support it strongly, because they're trying to encourage parents not to use physical punishment now, but with their hands slightly tied behind their back, because the defence does exist. +Hefin David AM: That's great, that's a good thing, but the concern we've got is that half the parents across Wales are not accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme, and in my community, within the Aneurin Bevan health board area, 80 per cent of parents aren't accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme. So, are there concerns that, if you rely too much on that process for communication, then parents, particularly in the early years, will be left out? +Julie Morgan AM: We've got to rely on a range of ways of reaching parents, and I think that there are other times when there is a much higher ratio of children and families seen. But I think we've had that discussion with the mapping exercise that we've already mentioned, that we're going to identify where there are gaps or where we can do more, and that's where we will identify this. +Karen Cornish: I think as well that that figure relates to one contact point across the whole of the Healthy Child Wales programme, not the Healthy Child Wales programme as a whole. Maybe we could come back with some further information about the contacts, because I'm—. That figure— +Lynne Neagle AM: The percentage relates to the contact at age three and a half, but that is exactly the kind of age when you'd expect more children to—. If they were going to be smacked, it would be at that sort of age, wouldn't it, really? So, that is a concern for the committee, really, in terms of coverage. +Karen Cornish: I can appreciate that, although I would—. Midwives, health visitors and others working with families would actually be giving those messages, core messages, about setting boundaries, managing behaviour, discipline, positive parenting, right from the very beginning. So, reliance on that single point of contact at that one age point is not necessarily the most appropriate, because I think there's a period from birth through to, actually, later as well, when those key health messages, those key messages around positive parenting, are and can be given. As the Minister said, we will be mapping a lot of this, but we can give you some more advice on that, if that would be helpful, about the types of messages that are given during that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I think that would be helpful. I've got some supplementaries on this, because I think the committee is concerned that at a key opportunity at age three and a half, a big chunk of families aren't having that contact that they should expect with their health visitor, really. Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. It's also a time in their child's life when they're likely to be spending time not with their parents, in school or early years. And I just wanted a bit of clarification from you, Minister, on what you were saying to Hefin David about training here. I got the sense you thought this could just be slipped in as a paragraph in existing guidance, but I'm not clear about what happens to a teacher who is told by a child that they've been smacked, and they decide that they're not going to report that—will they get into trouble over that? If it's part of a bigger picture that a teacher should have picked up, that's different, but, if a child tells a teacher, 'Oh, Mammy smacked me because I did such and such', is that teacher going to get into trouble if they don't report that to the police? +Julie Morgan AM: If that happens now, the teacher is expected to report that now. I think they usually call in social services. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, it goes to social services. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: But that clarity is needed as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. That is what happens now, so would you expect a teacher to do it, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I'm just interested to hear a bit more about the mapping exercise that you've referred to, which I think is really important, but it is going to show up a lot of gaps geographically, but also in service provision for different groups of families. It's all very well doing a mapping exercise, but what is the purpose of that, and how are you going to ensure that those gaps don't exist in future? Maybe we could have a note about what the timetable is for this exercise, and more in-depth understanding perhaps about what your intentions are, and how you intend to take it forward once you've done the mapping exercise. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We absolutely acknowledge that there is a lot more work to be done, and we know that we have to work hard at this to reach every family. Obviously, the information that we've had about the Healthy Child Wales, the health boards will be monitoring that information and will be—. I think they're going to establish a project board to consider the themes that are coming out from the Healthy Child Wales, and so that will be certainly addressed there. And we will absolutely acknowledge that we expect that there will be work to be done. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And there will be investment needed, obviously, to fill in those gaps, which means a significant shift in the way Government now looks at its budget, and a shift towards that early prevention. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we all agree that early prevention is the key for happy, healthy children, and so we'll certainly consider everything that arises. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. You've said repeatedly that the intention of this Bill isn't to criminalise parents, and I believe that that's not your intention. So, what I'm interested in hearing about is how you—or the work that you've done to satisfy yourself that the huge majority of parents that are going to be caught up in the change of this Act won't result in parents getting anywhere near the CPS, for example. Obviously, there are going to be occasions where there are recidivists who keep smacking despite perhaps earlier warnings, or families get identified as doing something far more serious with their children than this, and I'm not talking about those—I'm talking about the people who are currently protected, if I can put it like that. I'm very interested in hearing what you've got to say about out-of-court disposals and pre being charged activity. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the assessment and work that you've done in that area. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, there are a number of out-of-court disposals that the police can use, because the police want to respond in a positive and proportionate way. The use of out-of-court disposals is actually a non-devolved responsibility, but we'll be working— +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I wanted to ask you about. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they are non-devolved, but we will be working with the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the CPS, the police and the police and crime commissioners to consider suitable interventions. And one of the main areas of focus of the National Police Chiefs' Council's national strategy is to reduce the current six disposal options to just two. And that's going to be conditional caution and community resolution, and the four Welsh police forces are going to be moving towards this two-tier approach, which they believe will make for greater consistency. So, what we're doing is we are exploring, with the police liaison unit, how we can develop a suitable diversion scheme, with a focus on advice and support on positive alternatives to physical punishment, and how we can tie that into the wider activity. And, obviously, it all depends on the individual circumstances of the case, because the other thing we're going to look at is the individual. But it's possible then we could get a diversion scheme provided through a community resolution order; it could be potentially be given instead of a caution. And so that would be—you know, parents could be referred to a scheme. So, that's what we're discussing with the police liaison unit at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for confirming that, but even that is quite far down the process from the day that a smack is reported, and, as you know, particularly as soon as the police get involved, and even social services, if a record is made of even a complaint—even if that complaint goes no further, even if you don't get anywhere near an arrest, shall we say, that is logged in certain parts of the system and will need to be revealed in certain circumstances. I'm thinking of the enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check in particular, but there are other instances as well. Have you done any impact assessment on that, because that is a—we're talking about a situation where there's a massive impact, potentially, on an adult, when there have been no grounds at all to worry that a child's rights have been infringed, for example? It will happen in malicious reporting, but it could happen in reporting where an apparent battery has taken place, but it turns out to have been something completely different—you know, pushing a child's hand away, that sort of thing. The police are not going to want to take that any further at all, but it's on their records. How are you going to protect parents in those circumstances, within our legislative competence? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the issue of non-conviction data obviously doesn't just apply to this Bill we're bringing in; it applies to everything. So, it's something that you can look at in a general sense—that the police can visit and there's no further action, but that could be for anything— +Suzy Davies AM: But this is very sensitive, this area. +Julie Morgan AM: —and it's still logged. But, obviously, this does have an issue in terms of, particularly, the DBS checks and if you needed an enhanced certificate, if you wanted to be a teacher, a childcare worker, or those sorts of occupations. But, when disclosing information held locally, the police follow the quality assurance framework, and information must pass certain tests, which are related to considerations of relevance, substantiality and proportionality, and considerations of the safety aspects as well of disclosing information. And the police must record their thought process, their rationale, explaining how and why they reached all of their conclusions and their decisions. And this information is then assessed by the chief officer to determine whether it's reasonable to believe that it's relevant, and whether, in their opinion, it ought to be disclosed. Information should only be disclosed if it meets both of those requirements. So— +Suzy Davies AM: Is that in all jobs, though, because my understanding is that there are certain professions where that exemption doesn’t apply, and they’re likely to be the ones that are really relevant to the removal of the defence? So, I’m not talking about, I don't know, people who might work as volunteers; I’m literally talking about teachers and doctors, maybe dentists. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we have done some work on this, haven’t we? Do you want to say about that, Karen? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, it does apply across all professions, and we have been in discussion with the DBS about when and how and why information would be released, and also how often. And our understanding at this moment in time is that this type of information is released only in a very, very small number of cases. I think we’re talking less than 1 per cent of cases— +Suzy Davies AM: One per cent of what figure though? +Karen Cornish: —in the last year. It’s about 1 per cent of 2,500, something like that. I haven’t got the exact figures with me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but it helps us to understand the general amount— +Karen Cornish: So, it’s about two, three, four cases in a year where this type of information is disclosed. It’s information that, obviously, we have got, but I think it’s really important to understand that this is a really rigorous process that the police and the DBS have in place. They consider everything in the round before they would even consider actually releasing any information that's non-conviction information in relation to employment. +Suzy Davies AM: But this is a new consideration for them. They haven't tested their ability to get their judgment right on this one yet. Are you concerned that, in order to be on the safe side, if I can put it like that, there's an increased likelihood of disclosure—which actually might disappear over time, because there's an opportunity to exercise judgment more frequently and get the balance right? +Karen Cornish: I think they do have to consider non-conviction information now and some of that non-conviction information may be in relation to physical punishment of a child. I think you've received evidence from the police saying that there are 18,000 or so incidents in one police force area alone, where information is potentially on their records, and yet we understand that a very, very small proportion of non-conviction information is released to an employer during a recruitment process. So, our expectation, based on that information, would be that it would remain at a very low level. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish off on this one: we don't have legislative competence in this particular area, so we are relying on goodwill and the conversations that you have, which I'm sure are very productive. What will happen if we start getting instances where perhaps that judgment hasn't been exercised correctly? There's nothing, as a Government, you can do to challenge that particularly. +Julie Morgan AM: I can only emphasise the very close working relationships we've got and I think will continue to build as we introduce this legislation. We've got it all set up and it's been very productive so far. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Suzy. Just before we move on, could I ask, then—? Maybe the committee would be grateful for a note providing an update on the latest work that the Government has done on out-of-court disposals, including estimated costs. We'd also appreciate a note on the Welsh Government's discussions with the DBS and the figures that Karen just referred to, if that's okay, please. Thank you. The next questions are from Hefin on resources. +Hefin David AM: When you first appeared before the committee at the beginning of Stage 1, I wasn't hugely reassured by the evidence you gave on the resource implications of the Bill. It seems to be relying, to a great extent, on the limited number of reporting of cases that's likely to happen, as we've seen in the evidence we've received. That's largely been recognised by the stakeholders who've given evidence, but isn't there still the potential for a degree of unknown costs to come into this, and what planning have you done for those unknown costs—those unforeseen costs—that might occur? +Julie Morgan AM: I feel that—. You're right that there always could be unknown costs, but we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate. For example, I've committed to fund the high-intensity awareness-raising campaign, and committed to carry out a mapping exercise to establish whether there are any gaps in the parenting support. We know that evidence from other countries does show that, if we bring in this legislation and raise awareness, it does change people's attitudes, so there may, in the long term, be a saving if we do that. But we are committed to working with organisations to put in place arrangements so that we're able to collect the data so that we know what the impact is. But I just have to repeat that all our evidence, looking at other countries, is that there isn't a huge increase in the workload. +Hefin David AM: No. I think you can make the argument for precedent elsewhere, but you can also say that every country has a different culture and approach to how it raises children, and therefore there'll be a number of differences as well. The explanatory memorandum raises some specific cases. It talks about unknown costs in relation to social services as a result of a potential increasing referrals; family courts and CAFCASS Cymru as a result of a potential increase in allegations, which we talked about; the CPS and a higher volume of requests for charging advice from the police; and the review of training and guidance offered by organisations involved in the safeguarding of children. All those things we've talked around, but what would be reassuring for the committee is, perhaps, if you could give us a broad figure, which the Government would say, 'We'll need to set this number aside in order to be prepared for the implementation of this Bill.' Would you be willing to present that at some point during the passage of the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us. Certainly, the CPS say that they can cope. CAFCASS say that they can cope. And it is very difficult to anticipate what impact there would be on social services. The people who are managing social services say they don't anticipate a big impact. I think the other important thing to recognise is that this area of work is already dealt with by all these people. So, the CPS is already involved in changing its guidance all the time, so it's not going to be much of an impact for them to actually have to do that over this issue. Social services are already dealing with calls and referrals about the physical punishment of children already, including reasonable punishment. And so it's not a new category of work. I accept that we're working in a situation where there's a general pressure on public services, but I think this area that we're legislating on here is part of what everybody's doing already. And so I don't see it as such a big thing in terms of impact. +Hefin David AM: That's a perfectly reasonable answer, but then what about providing a ballpark figure for a kind unforeseen fund that you might set aside? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't think it's possible to do that. We have to measure it as we go along. We've got to get the data. The data will show—. We've got to have baseline data to begin with, and that's what's so difficult to get, because we can't get that from other countries. Only New Zealand recorded any incidents before they actually brought in the legislation, and they did that for three months beforehand. That's why we've been looking at New Zealand a lot of the time, just to make predictions. But we've got to rely on the data. One of these sub-groups is looking at data, so that sub-group should be very productive, I think. And then we will be actually able to see what happens. But I don't think we can respond to that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. And the last question, with regard to resourcing, just to understand the process of how this ties into the wider budgeting—did you and your officials sit down with the Finance Minister and the First Minister's officials to discuss the costing of this? I imagine so. What was the nature of that kind of discussion? +Julie Morgan AM: Some of the costings are decided. For example, the advertising, the awareness-raising campaign—that's £2.2 million over six years. So the decision has been made about that. I don't know if there were further discussions right at the beginning of this process. +Karen Cornish: There have been discussions. The discussions tend to be positive. We can't really say any more beyond that at this moment in time. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And who were the discussions with? +Karen Cornish: There has been an in-the-round discussion before the Bill was introduced, at which the First Minister and the finance Minister and others were present. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And I imagine it's gone to Cabinet for discussion. +Karen Cornish: The consultation and then the Bill going forward has been discussed by Cabinet, and gone through Cabinet processes, as you would expect. +Hefin David AM: So, are we able to say that the Government as a whole is satisfied that there isn't going to be a huge impact on resource as a result of the introduction of this Bill? +Karen Cornish: I think what you can say is that the Government are satisfied that they are supportive of the Bill and have put the Bill forward. I think you can say that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Did you want to come in? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Are you satisfied that that amount of money—£2.5 million over five years [correction: £2.2 million over six years]—is going to be enough? From memory, with the organ donation Bill, the amount was something in the region of around £7 million that was set aside, I think. Or maybe I'm misremembering that, but— +Karen Cornish: I think it was about £4 million— +Lynne Neagle AM: £4 million— +Karen Cornish: Something like that. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, there's a disparity, then. That was a few years ago. You've got to reach a lot of people, haven't you, with this, including some pretty hard-to-reach groups as well. Are you confident that amount of money is going to be enough? +Karen Cornish: We are as confident as we can be at this moment in time. We are obviously going to be working with focus groups and others to look at what sorts of messaging there will need to be. But in terms of the initial stages of the awareness campaign, we are, as I say, as confident as we can be, based on what we know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Hefin, on human rights. +Hefin David AM: I just wanted to ask a very specific question on human rights, because, you know, when it comes to appeals, there are a variety of articles under the European Convention on Human Rights that might be used with regard to a challenge to the law as enacted. So, I'll ask you the question very directly. For the purpose of the record, can you outline to us the assessment you've made in preparation for this Bill in relation to the balancing of relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including but not limited to article 8 on the respect for private life; article 9, freedom of conscience and religion; article 3, the right to protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment; and article 14, protection from discrimination? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. We have given a great deal of thought, as you can imagine, to the human rights considerations as set out in our impact assessments, and it's ultimately a question how we find a balance between the rights of children as well as parents, who both enjoy rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. So, article 3 is the prohibition of torture: 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.' In ensuring that children are protected from physical punishment in the same way as adults, the Bill is following that requirement of article 3, and the positive obligations on states to protect individuals from ill treatment or punishment that is contrary to article 3. And then, in terms of article 8, right to respect for private and family life, 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.' Some of those who are opposed to the prohibition of physical punishment have cited article 8, private and family life, and also cited article 9, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as potentially protecting the right for parents to decide how best to punish their children, including the use of physical punishment. That is used as an argument by those who are opposed to stopping physical punishment. But these rights are not absolute, and action can therefore be taken that interferes with them, provided the interference is justified. It's the Government's view that the Bill's provisions are necessary in order to protect the rights and freedom of children. We are looking here from the point of view of children. The Bill's provisions are regarded as proportionate measures, and given the fundamental importance of protecting children from inhumane or degrading punishment or other ill treatment, we do consider that we have balanced the rights in a proportionate way. And then, article 10, freedom of expression, and article 14, prohibition of discrimination—these rights are not absolute and action can be taken, therefore, that interferes with them, providing the interference is justified. We don't think it's clear that article 10 and 14 rights are being interfered with, but even if they are, we consider we can justify the interference in order to protect the rights and freedoms of children. I don't know, Emma, whether you wanted to add anything to any of that. +Emma Gammon: Only that we set out—. I think it's the equality impact assessment that sets out the positive and negative impacts of the proposal and the balancing of the rights enjoyed by both parents and children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. There are some questions from Vikki on awareness raising. Can I ask for concise questions please? +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. So, last week, the Welsh Government published its baseline survey of public attitudes to physical punishment of children, and that showed us that 58 per cent of the public already thought the law did not allow parents to smack their children. You could look at this two ways. You could think glass half full, which suggests that we don't have many people to try and convince of that. But on the flipside of that, would you suggest, perhaps, that that data shows there is a challenge faced by the Welsh Government to make sure the public understand the proposed legislation, given that more than half of the population, according to those statistics, have a complete misunderstanding of the current law? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, I think that finding is reflected in people I speak to who do think that the law does not allow parents to hit their children. I mean, I'm personally very reassured that 58 per cent of the public think the law doesn't allow that to happen because I think, well, they're not hitting their children, so we're over 50 per cent of where we want to get. So, I think that is a good thing, but it does highlight the fact that the legislation, as it is, is confused. I think it makes a very good case for saying that we do need to simplify this legislation. We need much greater clarity in the law for professionals who are working and trying to help parents, and for parents themselves. So, I think that this is a case for saying that it's very important that we carry out this legislation to make it all much clearer. But I am pleased that 58 per cent of the public think the law has already changed. +Vikki Howells AM: One of the most consistent messages that this committee has heard is that the proposed law won't work unless there's a significant campaign to raise awareness with members of the public. We know that Sweden went to considerable lengths to publicise the change in the law there, and I can remember attending a cross-party group, chaired by yourself, Deputy Minister, where we heard evidence from Ireland to the same effect, as well—the necessity of the public awareness campaign. You already said that a duty on the face of the Bill to raise awareness is not necessary, but then, in your answer to Suzy Davies, you said you would consider putting some things on the face of the Bill. So, can you explain to us your key arguments surrounding this issue? +Julie Morgan AM: I absolutely agree that it's essential that we do have a big awareness campaign, because all the research we've had shows, in fact, that if you don't have the awareness campaign, the legislation won't be as effective. So, we need a joint effort; I'm totally committed to doing that. I've said it publicly here, and I'm saying it again. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have it on the face of the Bill, but as I said to Suzy, I'm prepared to consider anything the committee is bringing forward because I'm very keen for this Bill to progress through this process and to learn from it. So, I'm saying that I'm prepared to consider it. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's very useful. And finally, New Zealand is an oft-cited example, mentioned in the explanatory memorandum as well. So, we know New Zealand prohibited physical punishment in 2007, but yet in a non-binding referendum two years later, 87.5 per cent of voters voted 'no' in response to the question, 'Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand?' On what basis, then, are you confident that this sort of polarisation won't happen in Wales, especially considering the current political climate there is out there? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, what we trying to do is we're trying to take this forward in as consensual a way as we possibly can. We're very keen that we listen to the views of everybody. All those people who don't agree with us, who are a minority, it seems, we want to hear what they've got to say, taking very seriously all the points that are raised here by the committee. I haven't seen any sign of any polarisation in any way that I would be concerned about, because, certainly, the people who do oppose the Bill, I've met with them, I know they've given evidence to your committee and the views of parents have been taken into account. We completely accept that we want to listen to the views of people who don't agree. I hope that they then, if the Bill does become law, will then accept and respect the democratic process. So, I don't feel concerned, really, about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, a brief supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I started at the very beginning, Deputy Minister, with the fact that there's an overwhelming majority of parents—those who are naturally charged with raising their children—against this Bill. So, there is a polarisation. We've gone out to survey on it and the overwhelming response from parents is that they do not support this Bill. And I think that needs to be put on the record. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that our representative surveys that we've carried out do show considerable support for the Bill— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But not from parents. +Julie Morgan AM: —particularly from parents with young children under seven. That's where the support does lie. And it's older people who are much less likely to support the legislation, and I think it's all linked to what many of us were used to, what happened in our childhoods, when it was accepted and it was part of the time that this was what you did. But we have moved on now and we're in a different era. So, I think many older people, because they smacked their children or were smacked themselves, have felt a degree of resistance, perhaps, to the Bill. But as I say, I think times have changed. We want to respect children's rights and what happened in the past is in the past now, and we want to have a new era for respecting children's human rights and dignity. And I think I'll go back to what I said: I don't see that children's rights to dignity is going to happen if a big person is able to hit a small person. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just to clarify, Janet's referring to the committee's consultation and the percentage of responses that we've had. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we had a specific section, but because time is moving quite fast, perhaps you could give us a note in response. Some witnesses saw a risk that the Bill could have a disproportionate impact on specific groups—women, because they are the main carers, minority ethnic groups and very young children. So, if it would be possible for us to receive a note as to whether you agree that this will have a disproportionate impact upon them, and if so, what would be the mitigating measures you would take. But, specifically, we have heard from several witnesses and the equality impact assessment of the Bill does acknowledge that a low income is a risk factor in the use of physical punishment and that this could have a negative impact specifically on this group of parents. Now, we know that Flying Start is available to try to mitigate that to some degree, but of course not all low-income families live within a Flying Start area, so what mitigating work will you be undertaking in that regard? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We are aware of the issue of reaching out to certain groups. We are running focus groups where we will be taking the different groups into account, and we will work with different groups, communities and organisations to make sure that they are aware of the change in the law, and we will—I know you want to move on—but we will write to you about anything more specific. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred to the mapping exercise, which is very welcomed by the committee. Should that mapping exercise identify gaps? Will the Welsh Government be making a commitment to provide funding to plug those gaps so that there is a universal offer of parenting support for families in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We will certainly consider it at that point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time. We've covered a great deal of ground. Thank you, all, for attending and for answering such a diverse range of questions. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much to the three of you for your time this morning. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, and thank you for all the questions and the wide range that we covered. Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, providing additional information following the evidence session on 2 May for this Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services in response to the committee's letter, which requested information on CAFCASS Cymru's response on specific points of interest in relation to the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services making the committee aware of research undertaken in relation to public attitudes to physical punishment. Can I ask if Members are happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make one observation? I think it's on the first of the letters, which is the difficulty that there's been in trying to disaggregate the evidence of smacking as isolated incidents as compared to smacking as part of a bigger pattern of behaviour. I think that's worth noting on the record. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","The committee discussed the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, focusing on various aspects including implementation, public and professional awareness, and human rights considerations. They welcomed the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, Julie Morgan AM, alongside her officials, for evidence. Concerns about public opposition and misunderstandings of the current law were addressed, with the Deputy Minister reiterating the importance of updating the law and public awareness campaigns. The committee also looked at the potential impact on services and the necessity of an awareness campaign. They seek further clarification around out-of-court disposals and discussions with the DBS regarding non-conviction information disclosure. Additionally, they acknowledged the need for a more comprehensive support strategy for early parenting and referred to a mapping exercise to identify service gaps. The Deputy Minister signaled openness to considering amendments to the Bill and emphasized the importance of respecting children's rights. The meeting concluded with discussions about the resources needed for the Bill's implementation." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody found his place again ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: That's nice . Okay so this is our second meeting . And uh still failing ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh now we're going um into the functional design . Um important thing of this phase is that we're going to uh try to get an agreement about the user requirements , technical function design , and the working design . So that we can move onto the second uh phase . But first this phase . Um first an announcement . There's a little adaptation in the air conditioning system . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There's our {vocalsound} ghost mouse again . That that means that you can have a little trouble with , little trouble with the air conditioning , that's because of this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's in wing C_ and E_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be over in a in a while , couple of days . But it's going to be cold anyway , so {vocalsound} I don't think you're gonna need it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Then our agenda . Now first the opening . Uh this time I will take the minutes . Uh you're going to have a presentation . All of you . Um and we've got forty minutes for the whole uh prese for the whole uh presentations . So uh I suggest we take about seven minutes per presentation , and then we can have a little discussion about the new project requirements uh which have been sent to me . And then the decision on the control functions uh which we wanna include and those which we don't wanna include . So we've got forty minutes for all of it . So I suggest um let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Um who wants to be first ? +Marketing: Think I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just maybe it's easier if you um {disfmarker} Yeah I think you will tell {gap} your presentation as well . Just which function you have and what you're gonna talk about . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . My name is Freek Van Ponnen . I'm the Market Expert . But you already knew that . Um I've done some research . We have we uh have been doing research in a usability lab where we observed um users operating remote controls . Uh we let them fill out a questionnaire . We had one hundred of these uh test subjects . Uh in addition we did some market research . Uh see what the market consists of . What ages are involved . Well these are three quite astonishing results , I thought . Um remotes are being considered ugly . F uh seventy five percent of the um people questioned uh indicated that they thought their remote were was ugly . Um and an additional eighty percent indicated that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control . So {disfmarker} Um in addition remotes were not very functional . Fifty percent of the people indicated they only loo used about ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . And fifty percent of the people indicated that their remote tended to get lost in their room . So +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: some things . Then we did some research to the most relevant functions . Channel selection and volume selection um both got a ten on a scale of one to ten for relevancy . The power button got a nine . And teletext got a six and a half . So these are the most most uh important functions on a remote control . Then there are some one-time use function . That's what I like to call them . That uh audio settings , video settings , and channel settings buttons . Which are not really used very frequently , but are still considered to be of some importance . Um channel selection was also indicated to be used very frequently . One hundred and sixty eight times per hour . Then these are the {disfmarker} This is the market . Um sixty percent of the market consists of users between the ages sixteen and forty f six . Um {disfmarker} Main characteristic of this group is that they're very critical on the remote control . Um they like to use new f new functions . But they also are very critical . They won't spend their money very easily . So {disfmarker} Um the users of forty six to sixty five years cons The make up forty percent of the market . They are not really very interested in features . But they do tend to spend their money a lot easier . What I think this indicates for our um design . I think we should make a remote for the future . And this means we would um have to focus on the age ages sixteen to forty five . Uh this also makes up most the biggest part of the market , so that will also be where our main profit would be gettable . Um this would mean we would have to make a fancy design . Um {disfmarker} The results also indicated that um about one quarter of the people questioned thought that the remote control caused R_S_ R_S_I_ . Um this is certainly something to take into account . And thirty four percent thought that it was hard to learn a n how to operate a new control , remote control . So these are two factors that I think should be included in the design . Besides of course that the remote must look very nice . And the functionality {disfmarker} As a lot of people indicated , they only use about ten percent of the buttons , I think we should make very few buttons . Uh this will also be uh beneficial to the design of the remote . Uh I think the most frequently used buttons should be emphasised . Especially the channel selection and audio uh selection buttons . 'Cause they're used most and so they should be robust . They shouldn't break down easily . Um {disfmarker} Then as mo as a lot of people indicated that their um remote got lost in the room , it might be and I say might be because it would um certainly boost the uh production costs a lot . But it might be a good idea to make a docking station . And this would , could get a button in it which would send a signal to the remote which would then beep . So you'd know where it is in the room . And in addition to this it could um recharge the batteries in the remote if you put it in . Then um a surprisingly great deal of people w indicated that um an L_C_D_ screen in the remote control would be preferred . This was um mostly people in the age of sixteen to twenty five . But up till forty five it remains feasible . This would also greatly increase the production costs but I think these are just some small factors we could consider . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That would be all . +Project Manager: Thank you . So anybody have um any questions until now ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: About functional requirements ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: that's clear . {gap} Now to the second . +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh okay . Um I've been looking at uh the user interface of it . Um f for the techno f functions uh of of it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah you can take your time . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got uh plenty of time , +User Interface: Mm ? +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: you should go to the top thingy . Slide show . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . There it is . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Um yeah . I think uh we uh must use the general functions uh of the uh remote control . Uh uh I've do I've uh done a little uh research on the internet and {gap} not much information about it , {gap} {disfmarker} Um about uh interface but uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah I I've been thinking about a simple manner uh to put a lot of functions uh uh in one um in one uh remote control . Uh so uh you've got a lot of devi uh devices like uh D_V_D_ uh uh television , uh stereo . So um {disfmarker} But uh it must be uh user-friendly . So um uh you c you can't put a a lot of uh functions uh in one uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . In one um remote control . +Project Manager: One remote . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um yeah . Got uh many functions in one uh remote control , um but um yeah you can see , this is uh quite simple uh remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um few uh buttons but uh {disfmarker} This uh re uh remote control got a a lot of uh buttons . Um uh people uh don't like it , uh so um {disfmarker} Well what uh I was uh thinking about was um uh keep the general functions uh like they are . So uh like uh the on-off uh button . Uh keep it uh yeah l like a red button . Uh everybody everybody knows it so uh uh you don't have to change that . Um {disfmarker} My personal uh preferences um . Use a display for uh specific uh functions of the different uh device . So um {disfmarker} Wh what I was th uh thinking about was um you've got um {disfmarker} Uh this the remote control uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh you got here the general functions , uh like uh the on-off button uh sound uh {vocalsound} I dunno um {disfmarker} And um here you've got a s kind of a display . It's a touchscreen . So um yeah you got a general f uh f the functions of the device uh for a D_V_D_ player or uh so um the pl yeah um f for uh playing uh reverse uh {gap} . And um you got here uh real buttons for uh selecting uh a device . So um this button is for a D_V_D_ or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} So um for every um device you've got a uh a f a b a part uh display of a part buttons . So uh you you never got uh all the buttons uh on w one device . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh that's uh my uh idea about it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh let's see . Uh yeah . So a touchscreen . Uh and um th the buttons uh the real buttons uh we have to use um . We better c um uh use uh quite uh large buttons uh for um yeah . Everybody uh have to use it so {disfmarker} Uh ol even even old people um young people . So uh we must keep uh buttons uh quite s uh simple and quite large . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah . That was uh my uh part of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anybody has questions about the technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I think if we are gonna use a touchscreen uh we're gonna go way above the twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: N I I don't think so . Uh you got uh quite a cheap uh touchscreen . S um it's uh not uh in colour or something . +Project Manager: Touchscreen . +User Interface: Uh it's just uh um one colo Uh yeah . Uh I seen uh w uh something on the internet uh not today but uh a few uh weeks ago . Uh you got uh yeah quite an uh a kind of uh touchscreen um and it's uh {vocalsound} for uh twenty uh Euros or uh less uh . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So it's possible . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . That's nice . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it would certainly make a fancy design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} It wouldn't be very robust . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fragile and you can get scratches on it . +Marketing: That is true . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Uh maybe we can first um listen to your presentation ? +Marketing: We would have to look into that . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} And then we {gap} have a little discussion about the requirements and uh design . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: That's {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's going to {disfmarker} Uh it's not too much . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay I've got a presentation about the working design . Um first about how it works . It's really simple of course . Everybody knows how a remote works . The user presses a button . The remote determines what button it is , uses the infrared to send a signal to the T_V_ . The T_V_ switches to the frequency , or what function it is . So we've got um the the plate . It gots conductive disks for every button . When the user presses a button , a signal got sent , goes to the LED and transmits tranmi transmits its to the T_V_ . It's a very simple device , technically speaking . So this is a schematic overview . You've got the buttons . The power source . And uh when a button gets pressed , its goes to the chip . The chip uh controls the infrared bulb and perf perhaps a normal bulb . When you press a button you can actually see your pressed button . Well um I think we should use default materials , simple plastics . Keep the inner workings simple , so it's robust . Uh I think we should focus on aesthetics , the design and the user interface , because if you're going to use high-tech materials the price is going to go sky-high . And uh you only have to design a remote once , and if you use high-tech materials it come back in every product . So it's , in my idea , it's uh it's gonna be smart to invest in di in design and not in uh in the product itself . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay now I hope everybody has a little bit more insight in the functions we all have and what we are doing right now . Um I'm the Project Manager so I'm here to mess things up and uh tell you some new uh requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um that's , we've uh got to design a um remote which is only suitable for T_V_ . Um that's because {vocalsound} uh it will be too complex +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and the time to market will be too big , if we wanna have it uh for more functions . So it has to be simple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh another point is we have to skip the teletext , because in the world of uh upcoming internet uh we think teletext is going to be uh a thing of the past . And uh it's a function we don't need in our remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um internet is also mentioned {gap} in a function we can use . Uh maybe also on televisions it will be available as well . Another one is uh the customer is uh forty plus . Uh that's the the market we have to to to target , because we are going to develop a new product which is specially designed for the younger customers . Um this is uh a bit pity for the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because he was uh aiming on the the younger persons . So we have to find a market which is above forty plus uh but which will suit our uh remote control , and the other way round . And we have to be very uh attent in uh putting the corporate image uh in our product . So it has to be visible in our design , in the way our device works . And uh we have to be uh very clear on this point as well . So I suggest let's have a discussion on the control functions . Yeah . +Marketing: So is there any discussion possible about the new product requirement ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we can see if we can find a way uh between the functions we wanna use and the market we wanna reach with our product . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause you're you're saying that teletext is gonna be an old feature and it's not gonna be used anymore anyway pretty soon . And new T_V_s will have internet access on them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I think if you're targeting people of forty plus , the chance that they will have a T_V_ with internet access within the next like twenty years is very slim . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: In addition people indicated that teletext simply was an important feature for the remote control . So I think it's pretty dumb to put no teletext feature on it . I'm pretty much against it . +Project Manager: Against the no teletext ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides that , I think the market for forty plus is like pretty small . But I mean if I s if I see this , it's {disfmarker} I think we're just gonna go for another +Project Manager: Yeah it's it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} forty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Standard remote . +Marketing: pretty +Project Manager: No I think we can +Marketing: and not innovative +Project Manager: I think we can do a lot with the design and the simple buttons +Marketing: remote control . +Project Manager: which were also mentioned . Uh if we put a lot of effort in those , we can make a remote control with uh just two or three buttons . Or just a remote which is suitable for the market we wanna reach because it is forty percent of the market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um if you look in Holland at the whole generation of forty plus , fifty plus , it it's the the biggest share of the of the whole population now . +Marketing: Yes but it's not the biggest part of the market . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And besides that , they're not very critical so {disfmarker} I mean they don't really care what the remote control is like . They'll just pretty much take the first thing they see and which looks acceptable . +Project Manager: But don't you think that if we make a remote which is uh typically made for this market , that people think {gap} {disfmarker} the people think that's the the device I've looked for although I didn't realise it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's try it . +Marketing: No . I think that would be the case in the sixteen to forty five age category . because they are critical and they they want to have a fancy remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: People of forty plus , I mean they want it to work , but as soo as soon as it works it's okay with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I think that if we're {disfmarker} If we put our marketing right um we can sell this just like um {disfmarker} I don't know if you've heard about it in the news , the the elderly mobile phone ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a big success . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we if we make a remote control just l with that idea in mind , we could make tons of money , I think . +Project Manager: Very big success . +Marketing: I haven't heard of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh . I think so as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We don't have to focus on on on the on the design then but on functionality . We just change our focus on the project , and I think we can uh we can sell this . +Project Manager: Uh I simply think um +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: uh that the new products we are gonna make , uh spef specifically design , are designed for uh younger people , uh so maybe we can focus ourself on the elderly people . And I think we have to um see what requirements we need for those um remote controls . {vocalsound} 'Cause what you told is the channel selection is important . Volume selection , power and teletext . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . But obviously the board tends to disagree . +Project Manager: No we we haven't voted yet , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think teletext can be uh um can be a function as well . But only if uh if it won't higher the the cost , because I don't know if it will be a lot more money to implement teletext as well , but I don't think it will be a problem . Or is teletext a {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um deaf people need uh teletext for uh for subtitles . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So I suggest uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it'd definitely be a bad idea not to include teletext . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is anybody um really against teletext ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Just that , that we just keep the teletext . I think that's a good idea as well , especially for the subtitles . Maybe we can make that um another point of advantage in our remote control , if we uh make a k a button ex for example for big subtitles , which is instantly on the remote control . For elderly people they can think , oh I wanna have subtitles , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and they push the button and they get the big subtitles . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Um so I think teletext can v can be very useful in our advantage . Um {disfmarker} Functionality should be few buttons , you said . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I think uh that's very important we have a few buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So to keep it simple . +Marketing: But I don't think that's really an issue any more 'cause {disfmarker} Well might be . +User Interface: If it's only for televi +Marketing: But I mean it , if it's only for T_V_ you're not gonna need a lot of buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: You need a one to zero button , next channel , previous channel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: volume up , volume down , and some teletext buttons but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But do you need {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we can s we can skip the display , +Marketing: I think if you if you only l +User Interface: so uh we don't need it . +Project Manager: But do you need the buttons for one to zero . +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: Maybe c we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think if you're gonna include teletext you do . I think many people like to use that . +Project Manager: Maybe we can use uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you should , if you want to switch from channel one to like thirty five , you don't wanna push the next channel button thirty five times . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , maybe we can implement the scroll button ? Or a joystick like ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: There are other ways too . Just look if you look at telephones . The Sony telephone has a scroll button which is very useful in searching names or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: That's true but um I don't think there are many T_V_s that can switch channels that fast . And so you would need like the T_V_ would need an a function where you can actually view all channels and scroll through it . And I dunno if many channels would do have that . If many T_V_s have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And besides that it's um {disfmarker} If we're gonna focus on elderly people they'll have to adapt . They're not used to using scroll buttons . +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should s stick to the basic layout . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the numbers yeah . Yeah they can see how much buttons there are going to be on on the display , and if it's too much we can uh reconsider it . But I think there won't be very much buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or there don't have to be a lot . +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} I think if you're gonna make a remote control only to operate a T_V_ , you there's not much you can gain on um having as few buttons as possible . 'Cause I think there are pretty many remote controls that can only operate a T_V_ , which already only have the minimum number of buttons . I don't think there's much to be gained in that area . +Project Manager: The number of buttons ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's very important in the in the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can make a very fancy design uh with putting the buttons on the right places . And if you have less buttons you can do a lot more with {disfmarker} +Marketing: That is true but I think there's simply not much to gain on the competition when you when you're making a remote control only for to operate only the T_V_ . +Project Manager: To operate only the T_V_ yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you have a a remote control only to operate a T_V_ there's simply not a lot of buttons required . There's not a lot of functions required so most existing remote controls simply don't have a lot of buttons either . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: So I think it would be very hard to actually gain on the competition here . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would that would cost a a big marketing expedition +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: which was one of the arguments to make it only for the T_V_ because we didn't have the time to market a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . So you suggest we could better um focus on for example the docking station . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh like other functions . Instead of f of less buttons . +Marketing: Maybe . Well yeah I think , mean we obviously need a good way to position all the buttons and {disfmarker} But I don't think we should spend very much time in that . +Project Manager: Mm . No . Do you think the docking station will uh is allowed in the budget we have ? +Industrial Designer: It should be possible yes . If it's not too fancy . +Project Manager: 'Cause it can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: And if the remote stays rather small , it should be possible +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Because I think that's uh {disfmarker} That's a good advantage point as well . If we have a fancy-looking docking station +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: or very {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: That's a nice requirement . Docking station . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we're just gonna focus on the extras ? +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah I think maybe we should do some research into what elderly people like to have in a +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like to have extra in a new remote control . +Project Manager: That's a good point . Um {disfmarker} You said they easily get lost as well . +Marketing: Yes well fifty percent of the people indicated that remote control tended to get lost . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe we should implement the audio sign , or something . +Marketing: Yeah that was what I suggested . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like with your key-chain , if you whistle it goes uh it makes a sound . +Marketing: You have it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Hm . +Marketing: you have it's on some phones too , which have a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And you just press a button and the phone goes ringing . +Project Manager: Yeah . So +Marketing: So you know where it is . +Project Manager: audio signal should be possible as well . I think it's not too expensive . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh another point is the L_C_D_ screen . Um I don't know if that will rise the cost too much , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y i um I think we'll have to choose between the docking station or the screen , 'cause +Project Manager: Yeah . It will be too much as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: I think since a lot of people indicated that a new remote control is hard to learn , and we're focusing on elderly people here which tend to have a hard time understanding new devices , it might be a good idea to have just a little screen on it , which would explain a button if you press it . Which would tell you what it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And it wouldn't have to be touchscreen or a very expensive screen , +Project Manager: Based . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just the L_C_D_ . Oh just the normal screen . +Marketing: Just a small screen +Project Manager: That's a good idea . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: with two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some extra info . Feedback . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a good idea as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I dunno if that would +Project Manager: As the small screen . +Marketing: that would fit into the costs . +Project Manager: Extra button info . I think that should be possible as well . Um {vocalsound} let's see what did we say . Mm . More . Should be fancy to , fancy design , easy to learn . Few buttons , we talked about that . Docking station , L_C_D_ . Um general functions {disfmarker} Yeah . 'Kay . And default materials . I think that's a good idea as well , because um elderly people don't mind if it's a titanium cover or just a plastic one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: So I think we nee +Marketing: I think probably elderly people would be a little bit more careful with their remote controls than youngsters . +Project Manager: Uh let's um specify the target group . Because are we talking about elderly elderly people or people from forty to eighty . Because I think what we're going to design now is for people above sixty , maybe . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh what do we want ? If we want um a {gap} with uh for example the the telephone for elderly people , we can +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: target the real elderly people . +Marketing: I think that would be a {disfmarker} If we should do something like that it would be a , I think it would be really good for uh for the image of the company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And I think , I think there would be a good market for it . +Project Manager: So that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we're able to really bring an innovative product . +Project Manager: {gap} Now you're talking about sixty to eighty for example . +Marketing: Yeah the really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Sixty . +Marketing: But I'd have to look into that a little more . +Project Manager: Okay . And different cultures . Are we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't think they have different television sets uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in uh every country . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes left {vocalsound} just now . +User Interface: So 'Kay . +Project Manager: Small warning . +Marketing: 'Kay . And with uh the little screen in it , {gap} which explains the buttons . You could {disfmarker} I think we n it would be a lot easier to +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} +Marketing: adapt it to different cultures . +Project Manager: Yeah . In different languages , you know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you have to put a language button in it , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but that will be a bit unnecessary I think . +User Interface: No . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better to put it on different markets with it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the the target . Uh then a few small things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . I will put the minutes in the project uh project document folder . {vocalsound} Um what we're going to do for the next meeting is the Industrial Designer will do the components concept , User Interface Designer the user interface concept , and the trend-watching . So just keep in mind the things we've said about the target group , {vocalsound} uh requirements , and the trends which are uh going on . And uh specific instructions will be sent to you by uh the personal coach . So um +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I thank you for this meeting . And I think we have a lunch-break now . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: So that's a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","The project team, comprised of the Project Manager, Marketing Expert, User Interface Designer, and Industrial Designer, reconvened for their second meeting to discuss the ongoing development of a new remote control design. The meeting began with the Project Manager ensuring everyone had settled in and moving swiftly onto the agenda. They highlighted the importance of gaining consensus on user requirements, technical function design, and the working design before proceeding to the next phase. + +Before delving into the presentations, the Project Manager informed the group of minor disruptions expected due to changes in the air conditioning system, specifically in wings C and E. The Project Manager anticipated cooler temperatures, making air conditioning less critical in the upcoming days. + +Each team member was scheduled to give a presentation, with forty minutes allocated in total, suggesting roughly seven minutes per presentation with the remaining time allocated for discussion on new project requirements and deciding which control functions to include or exclude. + +Marketing Expert Freek Van Ponnen initiated the series of presentations by addressing the findings from usability research and market studies involving remote controls. Key takeaways were that 75% found their remotes unattractive, 80% were willing to pay more for a stylish remote, 50% of users only utilized about 10% of the buttons, and remotes frequently were lost within people's rooms. He also described the most relevant functions to users and proposed focusing on users between the ages of 16 and 45 to target the largest market segment, offering insights into the differing preferences among age groups. + +The User Interface Designer next presented their perspective, emphasizing the need for a user-friendly interface that accommodated multiple devices but remained simple. They touched on keeping recognizable general functions, like the on-off button, while considering a touchscreen and large buttons to cater to a broader user demographic. + +The Industrial Designer's presentation focused on the internal workings, arguing for simplicity and robustness by using standard materials and investing more in design and user interface than in the product's technical complexities. + +During the discussion that followed, the Project Manager laid out new parameters: the remote should exclusively control TVs, eliminating teletext functionality due to its expected obsolescence in the face of emerging internet technologies. The target market was defined as customers over forty, with specific attention given to integrating the corporate image into the product design and functionality. + +Debate evolved around the inclusion of teletext, with Marketing expressing strong disapproval of its removal, citing market research and user preference for the feature. The group concurred that including teletext could offer advantages, such as subtitles for hearing-impaired individuals. Other considerations included simplicity, with a focus on few but essential buttons; the prospect of incorporating a docking station and audio signals to prevent misplacement; and the adoption of a small information screen to facilitate operation. + +The discussion shifted towards highlighting the product's unique selling points compared to the existing competition, eventually leading to suggestions of targeting genuinely elderly demographics, potentially those aged sixty and above, aligning the product with the success of targeted devices like a mobile phone for the elderly. + +As the meeting drew to a close with a five-minute warning, the group acknowledged the need for tailoring the small information screen to support multiple languages, catering to different cultures without complicating the design with unnecessary buttons. + +Action points were assigned for the next meeting, and the team was to focus on component concepts, user interface concepts, and trend-watching with the new target demographic and product requirements in mind. + +The Project Manager closed the meeting by informing the team that meeting minutes and specific instructions would be filed in the project document folder and distributed by a personal coach. The meeting concluded positively with everyone looking forward to a lunch break." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first . +User Interface: Mm . We're the first ones . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Marketing Expert , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you found your spots . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bling bling . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone ? +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hello , good day . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , we have to talk in English , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . My screen is gone . +Project Manager: It's called black . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Kick-off meeting , wow . It's uh looks uh nice . +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow . {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not a lot . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough . +Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Very nice . +Project Manager: Okay let's get started . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance , tool training , uh how to use the things here . Uh project plan discussion , and yeah then the rest of the meeting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control , that's both original , trendy and user-friendly . So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hope you have good ideas . I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best . +Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom . Uh functional design , +Industrial Designer: Not yet . +Project Manager: then we do some in individual work , then we have a meeting to discuss the results , etcetera etcetera . And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up . Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard . Um uh we should take some practice . I have some instructions now to do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work . So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar . You see it next . Um we have a pen . And we can use this pen to perform . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Operations . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't always work . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you can draw . +Marketing: Draw . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width , etcetera etcetera . Okay ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal . Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , Julian . +User Interface: Um yeah . +Industrial Designer: Different pen widths , how do you do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh with the format menu . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . Yeah . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you serious ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: four legs . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Giraffe's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format . +Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing ? Or +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so y you must save it at the end +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you can press the next button , which is uh {disfmarker} yeah . I'll show you . +User Interface: That's some spots . +Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . In file menu . +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: No . +Marketing: then m make a new one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I can take forever on this . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal . +Project Manager: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe . +Project Manager: A giraffe okay . Yeah I see a long neck +User Interface: Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye . +Project Manager: Okay . That's nice of you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Hey . Come on . +Marketing: Some leaf to eat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah pretty good . Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: The next ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Then uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: Here you go . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Thanks . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other ? +Project Manager: Yeah sorry , introduction and get acquainted +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: That's the idea , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Your line broke . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow , +Marketing: It's not that fast . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see . It misses the spot . +Project Manager: {gap} pressure . +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle . No . {vocalsound} I'm kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why a turtle ? +Industrial Designer: Because of its shell . +Marketing: Because it's slow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow . +User Interface: 'Cause it's so +Project Manager: You were slow too +User Interface: 'cause it's green . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too . +Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Does it have legs ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's more like a tank . Yeah that's fins +Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs . With sharp nails on . +Marketing: but I don't know where . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Some spots . Ah some eye . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is . {vocalsound} Does it have ears ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe . +Marketing: Can you erase ears +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's a a gum , +Marketing: Yeah ? Alright . +Project Manager: gum to {gap} . +Marketing: Eraser . +Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: He said it was slow . +Marketing: I dunno . I it just came into my mind . So there's no particular reason +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I {gap} pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: That's my turtle . +Project Manager: Your turn Niels . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The next +Marketing: here . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Makes new paper . +Marketing: Here you go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? Let's see . +Project Manager: Orange . +Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this ? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh . +User Interface: A rabbit I think . +Project Manager: Kangaroo . +User Interface: Kangaroo . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually . +User Interface: Fox . +Marketing: A fox yeah . +Project Manager: Dog . +Marketing: Firefox . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Cat . +Industrial Designer: Aye . {vocalsound} It's a cat . +Project Manager: It's a cat . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through . +Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Why a cat ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno . They're my favourite pets . +Project Manager: You have some uh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already . Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen , +Industrial Designer: st Oh shit . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse my language . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face . But you get the idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: It's a cat . It's my favourite uh pet animal , 'cause they're cute , they're independent and cuddly , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay . You get idea +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project . {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros . Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros . Uh that's quite a big amount of money . And the production cost should be the half of the selling price . Okay +Industrial Designer: So we have to s +Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We should get started . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes . Um +Marketing: Okay . Great . +Project Manager: we each have a specific task , as I saw in my mail . I didn't know if you received the same mail . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design . Am I correct ? +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions . Right ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself , um what I had to do , 'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I had to uh , {vocalsound} I dunno , make an overview for myself about what I have to do , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase , I think was the functional . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design , which you said . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work ? And well I basically had two points . Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example , I have batteries to supply energy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far . +Project Manager: Yeah I got another point . It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo . +User Interface: Yeah . Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's very common . +User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function . You d you already told that . And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume . That are the the basic options for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I kept it global 'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that . I mean , you wanna ch ch flip the channel +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English . Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Same I believe {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do ? +Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective , um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled ? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean , what functions do they have . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings ? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search . For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support , and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions ? +Project Manager: Yep . Yes . +Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported . Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users . What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control ? Um especially for future users , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters , because they they use new technology first , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add . +Project Manager: Okay . And you can get that information ? +Marketing: I think I can get that information , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . That would be very handy . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are ? +Marketing: No n not specifically . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: More to how to get them +Project Manager: No okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Obviously . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons , not not uh very small buttons , but not the the also the big big buttons , but just normal buttons . It has to be a small unit . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah , you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house . So it has n has not to be l yeah , gigantic uh machine . +Project Manager: Big , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that ? +User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be , uh yeah um yeah , quite a big distance . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . From the other end of the room or something ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment . Um I think the best is to go to work . +Industrial Designer: Whoa . Is that you +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Any more points to discuss ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we can go ahead with what we have . I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder . Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design , etcetera etcetera . And it seems you get more information by email . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: that was it for me . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , in the project folder . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The pro okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm writing very fast . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Hope it's readable . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion ? +Marketing: I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session ? +User Interface: Yeah . Do we only have to to do uh phase one , the functional design uh ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because then we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Y you do some individual work , +Marketing: We're just working the three phases . +Project Manager: we have meeting , individual work , meeting . And at the end of the day we have a final meeting . And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so make it good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . We'll do our best . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I depend on you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already 'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in . +Project Manager: Yeah ? If you can mix it it's okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean , is it gonna be a multimedia control centre ? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} That is my question also +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part . +Marketing: Requirements . Yeah . +Project Manager: As to what they want . Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff , +Marketing: Unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I have to f put the components into the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I would first m +Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in , it's kind of hard . +Marketing: Yeah well +Project Manager: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} +Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there , which I know , there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you can switch to your video +Project Manager: Hmm , +Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video . +Project Manager: the C_D_ player . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre , because that's getting very popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control . So with the switch , one single switch {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean , but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_ . +Marketing: records and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever , I'll just put my ideas in uh in here +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting . +Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video . And um reserve the possibility to add other features . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're di dismissed . +User Interface: Can we leave now +Marketing: Half an hour . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Alright let's move on . +Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah see you later . +User Interface: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Thank you . +Marketing: Well good luck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} +","Summary: A team meets to discuss the development of a new, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. They start by attempting to use a smart board for a creative exercise. The Project Manager outlines the meeting agenda including tool training, project plan discussions, and a review of individual tasks before getting to the core of their project. Each team member briefly describes their progress and understanding of the tasks: the Industrial Designer discusses working on the functional aspect, the User Interface designer suggests technical functions and requirements, and the Marketing Expert considers user requirements and research. They aim to sell the remote control for 25 Euros and reach a revenue goal of 50 million Euros, keeping production costs to half the selling price. The meeting continues with the discussion of product features, such as size, button usability, range, and potential for multimedia control. They agree to start by focusing on basic functions, keeping the design extendible and user-friendly. The group decides to move forward with their individual tasks before regrouping." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so . If we can't , we can't . But uh we 're gonna try to make this an abbreviated meeting cuz the {disfmarker} the next {disfmarker} next occupants were pushing for it , so . Um . So . Agenda is {disfmarker} according to this , is transcription status , DARPA demos XML tools , disks , backups , et cetera and +Grad H: Does anyone have anything to {pause} add to the agenda ? +Professor B: OK . Should we just go in order ? Transcription status ? Who 's {disfmarker} that 's probably you . +Postdoc A: I can do that quickly . Um I hired several more transcribers , They 're making great progress . +Professor B: Seven ? +Postdoc A: Seve - several , several . +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc A: And uh {disfmarker} and uh , uh I 've been uh finishing up the uh double checking . I hoped to have had that done by today but it 's gonna take one more week . +Grad H: Um +PhD D: I g +Grad H: as a somewhat segue into the next topic , um could I get a hold of uh the data even if it 's not really corrected yet just so I can get the data formats and make sure the information retrieval stuff is working ? +Postdoc A: Certainly . Yeah I mean , it 's in the same place it 's been . +Grad H: So can you just {disfmarker} Oh , it is . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . No change . +Grad H: OK . Just {disfmarker} So , "" transcripts "" is the sub - directory ? +Postdoc A: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . Uh - huh . +Grad H: OK . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll probably just make some copies of those rather than use the ones that are there . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then just {disfmarker} we 'll have to remember to delete them once the corrections are made . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK , wh +PhD D: I also got anot a short remark to the transcription . I 've uh just processed the first five EDU meetings and they are chunked up so they would {disfmarker} they probably can be sent to IBM whenever they want them . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD F: Well the second one of those +PhD D: Yep . It 's already at IBM , +PhD F: is already at IBM . +PhD D: but the other ones {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's the one that {pause} we 're waiting to hear from them on . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: These are separate from the ones that {disfmarker} +PhD F: As soon as {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I mean , these are {disfmarker} +PhD F: They 're the IBM set . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad H: It 's this one . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Good . +PhD F: Yeah . And so as soon as we hear from Brian that this one is OK +Grad H: Is my mike on ? Yeah . +PhD F: and we get the transcript back and we find out that hopefully there are no problems matching up the transcript with what we gave them , then uh we 'll be ready to go and we 'll just send them the next four as a big batch , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD F: and let them work on that . +Grad H: And so we 're doing those as disjoint from the ones we 're transcribing here ? +PhD F: Yes , exactly . +Grad H: OK , good . +PhD F: We 're sort of doing things in parallel , that way we can get as much done a at once . +Grad H: Yeah , I think that 's the right way to do it , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: especially for the information retrieval stuff . Anything else on transcription status ? +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: DARPA demos , we had the submeeting the other day . +Grad H: Right , which uh {disfmarker} So I 've been working on using the THISL tools to do information retrieval on meeting data and the THISL tools are {disfmarker} there 're two sets , there 's a back - end and a front - end , so the front - end is the user interface and the back - end is the indexing tool and the querying tool . And so I 've written some tools to convert everything into the right for file formats . And the command line version of the indexing and the querying is now working . So at least on the one meeting that I had the transcript for uh conveniently you can now do information retrieval on it , do {disfmarker} type in a {disfmarker} a string and get back a list of start - end times for the meeting , +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what kind of uh {disfmarker} what does that look like ? The string that you type in . +Grad H: uh of hits . +PhD F: What are you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} are they keywords , or are they {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Keywords . +PhD F: OK . I see . +Grad H: Right ? And so {disfmarker} and then it munges it to pass it to the THISL IR which uses an SGML - like format for everything . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: And then does it play something back or that 's something you 're having to program ? +Grad H: Um , right now , I have a tool that will do that on a command line using our standard tools , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: but my intention is to do a prettier user interface based either {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so that 's the other thing I wanted to discuss , is well what should we do for the user interface ? We have two tools that have already been written . Um the SoftSound guys did a web - based one , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: um , which I haven't used , haven't looked at . Dan says it 's pretty good +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: but it does mean you need to be running a web server . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And so it {disfmarker} it 's pretty big and complex . Uh and it would be difficult to port to Windows because it means porting the web server to Windows . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Uh the other option is Dan did the Tcl - TK THISL GUI front - end for Broadcast News +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: which I think looks great . I think that 's a nice demo . Um and that would be much easier to port to Windows . And so I think that 's the way we should go . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} Can I ask a question ? So um as it stands within the {disfmarker} the Channeltrans interface , it 's possible to do a find and a play . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: You can find a searched string and play . So e Are you {disfmarker} So you 're adding like um , I don't know , uh are they fuzzy matches or are they {pause} uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: It 's a sort of standard , text - retrieval - based {disfmarker} So it 's uh term frequency , inverse document frequency scoring . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then there are all sorts of metrics for spacing how far apart they have to be and things like that . So it {disfmarker} it 's +Postdoc A: It 's a lot more sophisticated than the uh the basically Windows - based {disfmarker} +Grad H: i it 's like doing a Google query or anyth anything else like that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: So i it uses {disfmarker} So it pr produces an index ahead of time so you don't {disfmarker} you 're not doing a linear search through all the documents . Cuz you can imagine if {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} if we have the sixty hours ' worth you do {disfmarker} wouldn't wanna do a search . +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . Good . +Grad H: Um you have to do preindexing and so that {disfmarker} these tools do all that . And so the work to get the front - end to work would be porting it {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} uh to get it to work on the UNIX systems , our side is just rewriting them and modifying them to work for meetings . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So that it understands that they 're different speakers and that it 's one big audio file instead of a bunch of little ones and just sorta things like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So what does the user see as the result of the query ? +Grad H: On which tool ? +PhD F: THISL . +Grad H: The THISL GUI tool which is the one that Dan wrote , Tcl - TK +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: um you type in a query and then you get back a list of hits and you can type on them and listen to them . Click on them rather {comment} with a mouse . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Mmm +PhD F: So if you typed in "" small heads "" or something you could +Grad H: Right , you 'd get {disfmarker} +PhD F: get back a uh uh {comment} something that would let you click and listen to some audio where that phrase had occurred +Grad H: something {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 'd get to listen to "" beep "" . +PhD F: or some +Professor B: That was a really good look . It 's too bad that that couldn't {vocalsound} come into the {disfmarker} +Grad H: You couldn't get a video . +PhD G: Guess who I practice on ? +Postdoc A: At some point we 're gonna have to say what that private joke is , that keeps coming up . +Professor B: Yeah . And then again , maybe not . So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that soun that sounds reasonable . Yeah , it loo it {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my recollection of it is it 's {disfmarker} it 's a pretty reasonable uh demo sort of format . +Grad H: Right . +PhD F: Yeah that sounds good . +Grad H: And so I think there 'd be minimal effort to get it to work , minimally +PhD F: That sounds really neat . +Grad H: and then we 'd wanna add things like query by speaker and by meeting and all that sort of stuff . Um Dave Gelbart expressed some interest in working on that so I 'll work with him on it . And it {disfmarker} it 's looking pretty good , you know , the fact that I got the query system working . So if we wanna just do a video - based one I think that 'll be easy . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: If we wanna get it to Windows it 's gonna be a little more work because the THISL IR , the information retrieval tool 's {disfmarker} um , I had difficulty just compiling them on Solaris . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So getting them to compile on Windows might be challenging . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But you were saying that {disfmarker} that the uh {disfmarker} that there 's that set of tools , uh , Cygnus tools , that {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . It certainly helps . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad H: Um , I mean without those I wouldn't even attempt it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: But what those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} what those do is provide sort of a BSD compatibility layer , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: so that the normal UNIX function calls all work . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And you have to have all the o +Grad H: Um , But the problem is that {disfmarker} that the THISL tools didn't use anything like Autoconf and so you have the normal porting problems of different header files and th some things are defined and some things aren't and uh different compiler work - arounds and so on . So the fact that um it took me a day to get it c to compile under Solaris means it 's probably gonna take me s significantly more than that to get it to compile under Windows . +Professor B: How about having it run under free BSD ? +PhD E: Well what you need {disfmarker} +Grad H: Free BSD would probably be easier . +PhD E: All you need to do is say to Dan "" gee it would be nice if this worked under Autoconf "" and it 'll be done in a day . +Grad H: That 's true . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? +Grad H: Actually you know I should check because he did port it to SPRACHcore +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: so he might have done that already . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wouldn't be surprised . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I 'll check at that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it would {disfmarker} what would serve {disfmarker} would serve both purposes , is if you contact him and ask him if he 's already done it . +PhD E: What I {disfmarker} +PhD F: How does it play ? +Grad H: Yeah , right . +Professor B: If he has then you learn , if he hasn't then he 'll do it . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc A: Wow . +PhD F: I hope he never listens to these meetings . +Grad H: That 's right . So , and I 've been corresponding with Dan and also with uh uh , SoftSound guy , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's amazing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Blanking on his name . +Professor B: Tony Robinson ? +PhD F: Tony Robinson ? +Grad H: Do I mean Tony ? I guess I do . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: James Christie . +Grad H: Or S or Steve Renals . +Professor B: Steve Renal - Steve Renals . +Grad H: Which one do I mean ? +PhD E: Steve Renals is not SoftSound , is he ? +Professor B: No . +Grad H: My brain is not working , +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't remember who I 've been corresponding with . +PhD E: Steve wro i it 's Ste - Steve Renals wrote THISL IR . +Grad H: Then it 's Steve Renals . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD E: OK . +Grad H: So uh just getting documentation and uh and f and formats , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so that 's all going pretty well , +Professor B: Assuming we 're {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: What about issues of playing sound files @ @ between the two platforms ? +Grad H: I think we 'll be OK with that . Um we have {disfmarker} Well , that 's a good point too . +PhD E: Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a crazy idea {pause} actually . +Grad H: I don't know . +PhD E: Why don't you try and merge {pause} Transcriber {pause} and THISL IR ? They 're both Tcl interfaces . +Grad H: Well this is one of the reasons {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} one of the reasons that I 'm gonna have uh Dave Gelbart {disfmarker} Gelbart {disfmarker} Having him volunteer to work on it is a really good thing because he 's worked on the Transcriber stuff +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: and he 's more familiar with Tcl - TK than I am . +PhD E: And then you get {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} then you get the Windows media playing for free . +Grad H: Well that 's Snack , not {disfmarker} not Transcriber . +PhD E: Right . But the point is that the Transcriber uses Snack and then you can {disfmarker} but you can use a {disfmarker} a lot of the same functionality and it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think THISL {disfmarker} THISL GUI probably uses Snack . And so my intention was just to base it on that . +PhD E: Yeah . Well my thought was is that it would be nice {disfmarker} it would be nice to have the running transcripts um eh you know , from speaker to speaker . +Grad H: And if it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? Do you have {disfmarker} you have , you know , a speaker mark here and a speaker mark here ? +Grad H: Right , we 'll have to figure out a user interface for that , so . +PhD E: Right . Well that {disfmarker} eh my thought was if you had like Multitrans or whatever do it . Or whatever . +Grad H: Yeah . It might be fairly difficult to get that to work in {comment} the little short segments we 'd be talking about and having the search tools and so on . We {disfmarker} we can look into it , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: The thing I was asking about with , um , free BSD is that it might be easier to get PowerPoint shows running in free BSD than to get this other package running in {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I mean we have to {disfmarker} I have to sit down and try it before I make too many judgments , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so uh Um My experience with the Gnu compatibility library is really it 's just as hard and just as easy to port to any system . Right ? The Windows system isn't any harder because it {disfmarker} it looks like a BSD system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: It 's just , you know , just like all of them , the "" include "" files are a little different and the function calls are a little different . +Professor B: Right . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} it might be a little easier but it 's not gonna be a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . So there was that demo , which was one of the main ones , then we talked about um some other stuff which would basically be um showing off the {disfmarker} the Transcriber interface itself and as you say , maybe we could even merge those in some sense , but {disfmarker} but um , uh {disfmarker} and part of that was showing off what the speech - non uh nonspeech {comment} stuff that Thilo has done {pause} s {pause} looks like . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can I ask one more thing about THISL ? So with the IR stuff then you end up with a somewhat prioritized um {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Grad H: ranked . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD G: So another idea I w t had just now actually for the demo was whether it might be of interest to sh to show some of the prosody uh {vocalsound} work that Don 's been doing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um actually show some of the features and then show for instance a task like finding sentence boundaries or finding turn boundaries . Um , you know , you can show that graphically , sort of what the features are doing . It , you know , it doesn't work great but it 's definitely giving us something . +Professor B: Well I think at {disfmarker} at the very least we 're gonna want something illustrative with that +PhD G: I don't know if that would be of interest or not . +Professor B: cuz I 'm gonna want to talk about it and so i if there 's something that shows it graphically it 's much better than me just having a bullet point +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: pointing at something I don't know much about , +PhD G: I mean , you 're looking at this now {disfmarker} +Professor B: so . +PhD G: Are you looking at Waves or Matlab ? +Grad C: Um yeah I 'm starting to and um {disfmarker} Yeah we can probably find some examples of different type of prosodic events going on . +PhD G: Yeah def +Professor B: S so when we here were having this demo meeting , what we 're sort of coming up with is that we wanna have all these pieces together , to first order , by the end of the month +PhD G: I +Professor B: and then that 'll give us a week or so . +Grad C: Ooo . The end of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh , the end of this month or next month ? Oh , you mean like today ? +Grad H: This month . +Professor B: Ju +PhD G: Oh . +Professor B: June . June . June . +PhD G: Next month . +Grad H: Oh sorry , next month . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Sorry . +Grad H: Today isn't June first , +PhD F: There 's another one . +Grad H: is it . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll give us {disfmarker} that 'll give us a week or so to uh {disfmarker} to port things over to my laptop and make sure that works , +PhD E: Exactly . +PhD G: Sorry . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD G: I think , I mean eh where {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I mean I 'll be here . +PhD G: Yeah if d if Don can sort of talk to whoever 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: cuz we 're doing this anyway as part of our {disfmarker} you know , the research , visualizing what these features are doing +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: and so either {disfmarker} it might not be integrated but it {disfmarker} it could potentially be in it . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , this is to an audience of researchers +PhD G: Could find some . +Professor B: so I mean , you know , to let s the goal is to let them know what it is we 're doing . +PhD G: I mean it 's different . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't think anyone has done this on meeting data so it might be neat , you know . +Professor B: Yeah . Good . Done with that . XML tools ? +Grad H: Um . So I 've been doing a bunch of XML tools where you {disfmarker} we 're sort of moving to XML as the general format for everything and I think that 's definitely the right way to go because there are a lot of tools that let you do extraction and reformatting of XML tools . Um . So yet again we should probably meet to talk about transcription formats in XML because I 'm not particularly happy with what we have now . I mean it works with Transcriber but it {disfmarker} it 's a pain to use it in other tools uh because it doesn't mark start and end . +PhD F: Start and end of each {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh {disfmarker} Utterance . +PhD F: Utterance . Just marks {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So it 's implicit in {disfmarker} in there +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: but you have to do a lot of processing to get it . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad H: And so {disfmarker} and also I 'd like to do the indirect time line business . Um but regardless , I mean , w that 's something that you , me , and Jane can talk about later . Um , but I 've installed XML tools of various sorts in various languages and so if people are interested in doing {disfmarker} extracting any information from any of these files , either uh information on users because the user database is that way {disfmarker} I 'm converting the Key files to XML so that you can extract m uh various inf uh sorted information on individual meetings +Grad C: Cool . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and then also the transcripts . And so l just let me know there {disfmarker} it 's mostly Java and Perl but we can get other languages too if {disfmarker} if that 's desirable . +PhD G: Oh , quick question on that . Is {disfmarker} do we have the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the seat information ? In {disfmarker} in the Key files now ? +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: The seat information is on the Key files for the ones which +Postdoc A: Ah . +PhD G: Oh in {disfmarker} For the new one +Grad H: it 's been recorded , +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: yeah . +Professor B: Seat ? +PhD G: Great . Sea - yeah . +Grad H: Where {disfmarker} where you 're sitting . +Professor B: Oh ! Not {disfmarker} not the quality or anything . No . +PhD D: n +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: OK . I see . +Grad H: "" It 's pretty soft and squishy . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Oh , but that might just be me . Um . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: That 's more seat information than we wanted . +PhD G: Never mind . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD G: I 'm just trying to figure out , you know , when Morgan 's voice appears on someone 's microphone are they next to him or are they across from him ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Maybe we should bleep that out . +Professor B: Mmm , yeah . +PhD F: Wait a minute , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: how {disfmarker} how w eh where is it in the Key file ? +Grad H: Right . The square bracket . +PhD G: Cuz I mean I haven't been putting it in and {disfmarker} in by {disfmarker} +Grad H: You haven't been putting it in . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc A: Well bu +PhD G: I have not . +Grad H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits ? +Professor B: Some of these are missing . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Aren't they ? +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits forms ? +Professor B: Some fall out of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well it +Grad H: Yeah so we can go back and fill them in for the ones we have . +Grad C: Ooo . +PhD G: I mean they 're on th right , these , but I just hadn't ever been putting it in the Key files . +PhD F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I never {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I don't think Chuck was either +PhD F: I never knew we were supposed to put it in the Key file . +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +Grad H: I had told you guys about it +PhD F: Oh really ? +PhD G: Oh , so we 're both sorry . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean this is why I wanna use a g a tool to do it rather than the plain text +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: because with the plain text it 's very easy to skip those things . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: So . Um if you use the Edit - key , or Key - edit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Edit - key . +Grad H: I think it 's Edit - key , {comment} command {disfmarker} Did I show you guys that ? +PhD D: Yep . +PhD F: You mentioned it , +Grad H: I did show it to you , +PhD F: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: but I think you both said "" no , you 'll just use text file "" . +PhD F: Text . +Grad H: Um it has it in there , a place to fill it in . +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , and so if you don't fill it in , you 're not gonna get it in the meetings . +PhD G: So if {disfmarker} Right . Well I {disfmarker} I just realized I hadn't been doing it +Grad H: So . +PhD G: and probably {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Grad C: u +Grad H: Yeah and then the other thing also that Thilo noticed is , on the microphone , on channel zero it says hand - held mike or Crown mike , +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Grad H: you actually have to say which one . +PhD G: I know {disfmarker} Yeah , I usually delete the {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . I didn't do that either . +PhD G: I don't , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: maybe I forgot to d +PhD F: Takes me no time at all to edit these . +PhD G: But it 's almost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah that 's cuz you kn +PhD F: I 'm not doing anything . +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I know why . +PhD G: And I was {disfmarker} I was looking at Chuck 's , like , "" oh what did Chuck do , OK I 'll do that "" . So . +Grad H: And then uh also in a couple of places instead of filling the participants under "" participants "" they were filled in under "" description "" . +Professor B: Ah , OK . +PhD G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so that 's also a problem . So anyway . +PhD G: We will do better . +Grad H: That 's it . Oh uh also I 'm working on another version of this tool , the {disfmarker} the one that shows up here , {comment} that will flash yellow if the mike isn't connected . And it 's not quite ready to go yet because um it 's hard to tell whether the mike 's connected or not because the best quality ones , the Crown ones , {comment} are about the same level if they 're off and no one 's o off or if they 're on and no one 's talking . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad H: Um these {disfmarker} these ones , they are much easier , there 's a bigger difference . So I 'm working on that and it {disfmarker} it sorta works and so eventually we will change to that and then you 'll be able to see graphically if your mike is dropping in or out . +Grad C: Will that also include like batteries dying ? Just a any time the mike 's putting out zeros basically . +Grad H: Yep . Yep . Yep . +PhD F: But with the screensaver kicking in , it {disfmarker} +PhD D: But +Grad H: Now {disfmarker} +PhD D: y yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'll turn off the screensaver too . +Grad C: Oops . Speaking of which . +Grad H: Um the other thing is as I 've said before , it is actually on the thing . There 's a little level meter but of course no one ever pays attention to it . So I think having it on the screen is more easy to notice . +Postdoc A: It would be nice if {disfmarker} if these had little light indicators , little L E Ds for {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh buzzer . +Postdoc A: Yeah , a buzzer . +Grad H: "" Bamp , bamp ! "" +Professor B: Small shocks +Postdoc A: Yeah . Actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: administered to the {disfmarker} OK . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , disk backup , et cetera ? Um I spoke with Dave Johnson about putting all the Meeting Recorder stuff on non - backed - up disk to save the overhead of backup and he pretty much said "" yeah , you could do that if you want "" but he thought it was a bad idea . In fact what he said is doing the manual one , {comment} doing uh NW archive to copy it {comment} is a good idea and we should do that and have it backed up . He w he 's a firm believer in {disfmarker} in lots of different modalities of backup . I mean , his point was well taken . This data cannot be recovered . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: And so if a mistake is made and we lose the backup we should have the archive and if then a mistake is made and we lose the archive we should have the backup . +Professor B: Well I guess it is true that even with something that 's backed up it 's not gonna {disfmarker} if it 's stationary it 's not going to go through the increment it 's not gonna burden things in the incremental backups . +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} just the monthly full . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , so the monthly full will be a bear but {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . But he said that {disfmarker} that we sh shouldn't worry too much about that , that we 're getting a new backup system and we 're far enough away from saturation on full backups that it 's w probably OK . +Professor B: Really ? +Grad H: And uh , so the only issue here is the timing between getting more disks and uh recording meetings . +Professor B: So I guess the idea is that we would be reserving the non - backed - up space for things that took less than twenty - four hours to recreate or something like that , right ? +Grad H: Things that are recreatable easily and also {disfmarker} Yeah , basically things that are recreatable . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: The expanded files and things like that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: They take up a lot more room anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh but we do need more disk . +Professor B: So we can get more disk . Yeah . So . +Grad H: Yeah . And I {disfmarker} I think I agree with him . I mean his point was well taken that if we lose one of these we cannot get it back . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't think there was any other et cetera there . +Professor B: Well I was allowing someone else to come up with something related that they had uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I thought you guys were gonna burn C Ds ? +Grad H: Um unfortunately {disfmarker} we could burn C Ds but first of all it 's a pain . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Because you have to copy it down to the PC and then burn it and that 's a multi - step procedure . And second of all the {disfmarker} the write - once burners as opposed to a professional press don't last . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I think burning them for distribution is fine but burning them for backup is not a good idea . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Grad H: Cuz th they {disfmarker} they fail after a couple years . +PhD E: Alright . +Postdoc A: I do have uh uh {disfmarker} It 's a different topic . Can I add one top topic ? We have time ? I wanted to ask , I know that uh that Thilo you were , um , bringing the Channeltrans interface onto the Windows machine ? And I wanted to know is th +PhD D: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Basically it 's done , +Postdoc A: It 's all done ? That 's g wonderful . Great . +PhD D: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yes , since Tcl - TK runs on it , basically things 'll just work . +PhD D: Yeah it {disfmarker} Yeah , it was just a problem with the Snack version and the Transcriber version but it 's solved . +Postdoc A: Does {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} does that mean , I {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Postdoc A: maybe I should know this but I don't . Does this mean that the {disfmarker} that this could be por uh ported to a Think - Pad note or some other type of uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , basically uh I did install it on my laptop and yeah +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +PhD D: it worked . +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +Professor B: Hmm ! Good . CrossPads ? CrossPads ? +Grad H: Uh got an email from uh James Landay who basically said "" if you 're not using them , could you return them ? "" So he said he doesn't need them , he just periodically w at the end of each term sends out email to everyone who was recorded as having them and asks them if they 're still using them . +Professor B: So we 've never used them . +Postdoc A: We used them once . +Professor B: Once ? +Grad H: We {disfmarker} we used them a couple times , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Couple times . +PhD F: Them ? There 's more than one ? +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: i +Grad H: Yeah , we have two . Um . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Grad H: My opinion on it is , first , I never take notes anyway so I 'm not gonna use it , um and second , it 's another level of infrastructure that we have to deal with . +Postdoc A: And I have {disfmarker} uh so my {disfmarker} my feeling on it is that I think in principle it 's a really nice idea , and you have the time tags which makes it better tha than just taking ra raw notes . On the other hand , I {disfmarker} the down side for me was that I think the pen is really noisy . So you have ka kaplunk , kaplunk , kaplunk . And I {disfmarker} and I don't know if it 's audible on the {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I sort of thought that was a disadvantage . I do take notes , I mean , I could be taking notes on these things and I guess the plus with the CrossPads would be the time markings but {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: Uh , what is a CrossPad ? +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} it 's a regular pad , just a regular pad of paper but there 's this pen which indicates position . +Grad C: Thank you . +Professor B: And so you have time and position stuff stored +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: so that you can {disfmarker} you have a record of whatever it is you 've written . +PhD D: OK . +Grad H: And then you can download it and they have OCR and searching and all sorts of things . +PhD D: OK . OK . +Grad H: So i if you take notes it 's a great little device . +Postdoc A: Could {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad H: But I don't take notes , +Professor B: And one of the reasons that it was brought up originally was because uh we were interested in {disfmarker} in higher - level things , +Grad H: so . +Professor B: not just the , you know , microphone stuff but also summarization and so forth and the question is if you were going to go to some gold standard of what wa what was it that happened in the meeting you know , where would it come from ? And um I think that was one of the things , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: right ? And so the {disfmarker} it seemed like a neat idea . We 'll have a {disfmarker} you know , have a scribe , have somebody uh take good notes and then that 's part of the record of the meeting . And then we did it once or twice and we sort of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , and then just sort of died out . +Professor B: probably chose the wrong scribe but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah that 's right . +Postdoc A: Well I did it one time +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc A: but um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: u but I guess the {disfmarker} the other thing I 'm thinking is if we wanted that kind of thing I wonder if we 'd lose that much by having someone be a scribe by listening to the tape , to the recording afterwards and taking notes in some other interface . +PhD F: I mean we 're transcribing it anyways , why do we need notes ? +Postdoc A: Oh it 's la it 's useful , +Grad H: Because that 's summary . +Postdoc A: have a summary and high points . +Professor B: Summary . +PhD G: I think {disfmarker} there 's also {disfmarker} there 's this use that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Summarize it from the transcription . +PhD G: the {disfmarker} Well , what if you 're sitting there and you just wanna make an X and you don't wanna take notes and you 're {disfmarker} you just wanna +PhD F: Doodle . +PhD G: get the summary of the transcript from this time location like {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and then while you 're bored you don't do anything and once in a while , maybe there 's a joke and you put a X and {disfmarker} {comment} But {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in other words you can use that just to highlight times in a very simple way . Also with {disfmarker} I was thinking and I know Morgan disagrees with me on this but suppose you have a group in here and you wanna let them note whenever they think there might be something later that they might not wanna distribute in terms of content , they could just sort of make an X near that point or a question mark that sort of alerts them that when they get the transcript back they c could get some red flags in that transcript region and they can then look at it . So . I know we haven't been using it but I w I can imagine it being useful just for sort of marking time periods +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: which you then get back in a transcript +Postdoc A: Well . +Professor B: I guess {disfmarker} so , you know , what {disfmarker} what makes one think i is maybe we should actually schedule some periods where people go over something later +PhD G: so . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and put some kind of summary or something uh you know , some {disfmarker} there 'd be some scribe who would actually listen , w who 'd agreed to actually listen to the whole thing , not transcribe it , but just sort of write down things that struck them as important . But {disfmarker} then you don't {disfmarker} you don't have the time reference uh that you 'd have if you had it live . +PhD G: Right . And you don't have a lot of other cues that might be useful , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: How do you synchronize the time in the CrossPad and the time of the recording ? +PhD G: so . +Grad H: I mean that was one of the issues we talked about originally and that that 's w part of the difficulty is that we need an infrastructure for using the time {disfmarker} the CrossPads and so that means synchronizing the time {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: You know you want it pretty close and there 's a fair amount of skew because it 's a hand - held unit with a battery +Postdoc A: Well when {disfmarker} when I d +Grad H: and so you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: so you have to synchronize at the beginning of each meeting all the pads that are being used , so that it 's synchronized with the time on that and then you have to download to an application , and then you have to figure out what the data formats are and convert it over if you wanna do anything with this information . +Postdoc A: w Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Why {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so there 's a lot of infrastructure which +Postdoc A: There is an alternative . +Grad H: unless someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: There is an alternative , I mean , it 's still , there 's uh {disfmarker} you know , your point stands about there be {disfmarker} needing to be an infrastructure , but it doesn't have to be synchronized with the little clock 's timer on it . You c I mean , I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} when I did it I synchronized it by voice , by whispering "" one , two , three , four "" onto the microphone +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: and uh , you know . +Grad H: Well , but then there 's the infrastructure at the other end +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: which someone has to listen to that and find that point , +Postdoc A: Yeah , it 's transcribed . It 's in the transcript . +Grad H: and then mark it . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc A: Well it 's in the transcript . +PhD G: Well , could we keep one of these things for another year ? Would h I mean is there a big cau +Grad H: We can keep all {disfmarker} both of them for the whole whole year . +PhD G: just {disfmarker} just in case we {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean , it 's just {disfmarker} +PhD G: even maybe some of the transcribers who might be wanting to annotate uh f just there 's a bunch of things that might be neat to do but I {disfmarker} it might not be the case that we can actually synchronize them and then do all the infrastructure but we could at least try it out . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} one thing that we might try um is on some set of meetings , some collection of meetings , maybe EDU is the right one or maybe something else , we {disfmarker} we get somebody to buy into the idea of doing this as part of the task . I mean , +PhD G: Right . +Professor B: uh part of the reason {disfmarker} I think part of the reason that Adam was so interested in uh the SpeechCorder sort of f idea from the beginning is he said from the beginning he hated taking notes and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: and so forth so and {disfmarker} and Jane is more into it but eh uh you know I don't know if you wanna really do {disfmarker} do this all the time so I think the thing is to {disfmarker} to get someone to actually buy into it and have at least some series of meetings where we do it . Um {disfmarker} and if so , it 's probably worth having one . The p the {disfmarker} the problem with the {disfmarker} the more extended view , all these other you know with uh quibbling about particular applications of it is that it looks like it 's hard to get people to um uh routinely use it , I mean it just hasn't happened anyway . But maybe if we can get a person to {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I don't think it has to be part of a what everybody does in a meeting but it might be a useful , neat part of the project that we can , you know , show off as a mechanism for synchronizing events in time that happen that you just wanna make a note of , like what Jane was talking about with some later browsing , just {disfmarker} just as a convenience , even if it 's not a full - blown note taking substitute . +PhD E: Well if you wanted to do that maybe the right architecture for it is to get a PDA with a wireless card . And {disfmarker} and that way you can synchronize very easily with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the meeting because you 'll be synchroni you can synchronize with the {disfmarker} the Linux server and uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: So what kind of input would you be {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: so {disfmarker} so , I mean , if you 're not worried about {disfmarker} +Grad H: Buttons . +PhD G: You 'd just be pressing like a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} well you have a PDA and may and you could have the same sort of X interface or whatever , I mean , you 'd have to do a little eh a little bit of coding to do it . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But you could imagine , +PhD G: Yeah , that be good . +PhD E: I mean , if {disfmarker} if all you really wanted was {disfmarker} you didn't want this secondary note - taking channel but just sort of being able to use m markers of some sort , a PDA with a l a wireless card would be the {disfmarker} probably the right way to go . I mean even buttons you could do , sort of , I mean , as you said . +Grad H: I mean for what {disfmarker} what you 've been describing buttons would be even more convenient than anything else , +PhD G: M right . +PhD E: Right . +PhD G: That would be fine too . +Grad H: right ? You have the {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , I don't have , you know , grandiose ideas in mind but I 'm just sort of thinking well we 've {disfmarker} we 're getting into the next year now and we have a lot of these things worked out at {disfmarker} in terms of the speech maybe somebody will be interested in this and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I like this PDA idea . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I do like the idea of having a couple buttons +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'm sure there would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: where like one {disfmarker} one button was "" uh - oh "" and then another button was "" that 's great "" and another button "" that 's f "" +PhD G: Or like this is my "" I 'm supposed to do this "" kind of button , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: like "" I better remember to {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Action item . +PhD G: Yeah something like that or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean I think the CrossPad idea is a good one . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +Grad H: It 's just a question of getting people to use it and getting the infrastructure set up in such a way that it 's not a lot of extra work . I mean that 's part of the reason why it hasn't happened is that it 's been a lot of extra work for me +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Well , and not just for you . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: But it 's also , it has this problem of having to go from an analog to a d a digital record too , +PhD G: W +Postdoc A: doesn't it ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well it 's digital but it 's in a format that is not particularly standard . +Postdoc A: But I mean , say , if i if {disfmarker} if you 're writing {disfmarker} if you 're writing notes in it does {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it can't do handwriting recognition , right ? +Professor B: No , no , but it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just storing the pixel informa position information , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: it 's all digital . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm thinking is that the PDA solution you h you have it already without needing to go from the pixelization to a {disfmarker} to a {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . You don't have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: The transfer function is less errorful , +Postdoc A: Oh , nicely put . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: yes . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Well it also {disfmarker} it 's maybe realistic cuz people are supposed to be bringing their P D As to the meeting eventually , right ? That 's why we have this little {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} I don't wanna cause more work for anyone but I can imagine some interesting things that you could do with it and so if we don't have to return it and we can keep it for a year {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} w we don't {disfmarker} we certainly don't have to return it , as I said . All {disfmarker} all he said is that if you 're not using it could you return it , if you are using it feel free to keep it . The point is that we haven't used it at all and are we going to ? +Professor B: So we have no but {disfmarker} uh by I {disfmarker} I would suggest you return one . Because we {disfmarker} we you know , we {disfmarker} we haven't used it at all . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: OK . +PhD G: We c +Professor B: We have some aspirations of using them +PhD G: One would probably be fine . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Maybe we could do like a student project , you know , maybe someone who wants to do this as their main like s project for something would be cool . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . I mean if we had them out and sitting on the table people might use them a little more +Professor B: Maybe Jeremy could sit in some meetings and press a button when there {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody laughed . +Grad H: although there is a little {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} yeah , that 's not a bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Jeremy 's gonna be an {disfmarker} he 's a new student starting on modeling brea breath and laughter , actually , which sounds funny but I think it should be cool , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: so . +Grad H: Sounds breathy to me . +PhD G: OK . "" Ha - ha - ha . "" +Grad H: Breath and lau "" ha - ha - ha - ha "" . "" Ha - ha - ha - ha . "" +Professor B: Well dear . +Grad H: Um . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad H: That reminded me of something . Oh well , too late . It slipped out . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: You 're {disfmarker} you 're gonna tease me ? +Grad H: Oh , equipment . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Ordered {disfmarker} Uh , well I 'm always gonna do that . W uh {disfmarker} {comment} We ordered uh more wireless , and so they should be coming in at some point . +PhD G: Great . +Grad H: And then at the same time I 'll probably rewire the room as per Jane 's suggestion so that uh the first N channels are wireless , eh are the m the close - talking and the next N are far - field . +Professor B: You know what he means but isn't that funny sounding ? "" We ordered more wireless . "" It 's like wires are the things so you 're wiring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we ordered more absence of the thing . +PhD G: That 's a very philosophical statement from Morgan . +Grad H: wired less , wired more . +PhD G: I just {disfmarker} it 's sort of a anachronism , I mean it 's like {disfmarker} It 's great . +Professor B: Anyway . +Grad H: Should we do digits ? Do we have anything else ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff going on uh between uh Andreas and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Dave and Chuck and others with various kinds of runs uh um {disfmarker} recognition runs , trying to figure things out about the features but it 's {disfmarker} it 's all sort of in process , so there 's not much to say right now . Uh why don't we start with our {disfmarker} our esteemed guest . +PhD E: OK . Alright . +Grad H: So just the transcript number and then the {disfmarker} then the {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} Yes , this is number two for me today . +Professor B: See all you have to do is go away to move way up in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +PhD G: We could do simultaneous . Initiate him . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we could . +Grad H: Should we do simultaneous ? +PhD G: Well , I 'm just thinking , are you gonna try to save the data before this next group comes in ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , absolutely . +PhD G: Yeah , so we might wanna do it simultaneous . +Grad H: I mean you hav sorta have to . +Professor B: Well OK , so let 's do one of those simultaneous ones . +PhD G: Right , so {disfmarker} so we might n we might need to do that actually . +Professor B: That sounds good . +Grad H: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Everybody ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: A one . +PhD G: You have to plug your ears , by the way uh Eric , +Grad H: Well I have to , +PhD D: You don't have to . +PhD E: OK , alright . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} or you start laughing . +Grad H: I don't know about other people . +Professor B: OK , a one and a two and a three . OK , babble , take five . +","In a hurried meeting due to the next occupants pushing for the room, the group, consisting of different academic participants, discusses a number of agenda items including the status of transcription efforts (more transcribers have been hired and progress is being made), DARPA demos, XML tools, and equipment orders like wireless devices. The transcripts from previous meetings are being processed for IBM, and there's a conversation about data retrieval, software tools, the possibility of using PDAs in meetings, and cross-platform functionality. The high-priority task is to have demonstrable progress by the end of the month in order to prepare for presentations. It's concluded that more disk space will be needed, and backed-up data is important to retain. They are considering returning unused CrossPads (note-taking devices) but discussing the potential of using them or PDAs for time-marking significant moments in meetings. The meeting ends with a group exercise that seems to be a tradition related to tracking participation." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . That's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Am I starting now ? Anytime ? Oh sorry . 'Kay , um . Alright , welcome back fro to the second meeting . And um I hope you had a productive last thirty minutes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and um , I'll be taking minutes on this one , and um {disfmarker} Being hooked up to the PowerPoint for this meeting isn't very necessary for uh myself , because it'll be more about uh , what you guys are bringing to the meeting today . Um , so , the first presentation we'll be looking at is Poppy's presentation . And , um {disfmarker} So , sorry ? So , um , take it away Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , do I need to {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: It's , it's plugged in . So , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: plugged in . +User Interface: F_ eight , w . Function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ okay . Function F_ eight . Sorry about this guys . +Project Manager: No problem . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {gap} is on . Right . {gap} Okay . I will take this time just to apologise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I , I only , uh , received my emails later on . 'Cause I was too busy carried away doing my own thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is not obviously not a very good part of a team-working thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there we go . +Project Manager: I'm sure it's fine . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was looking at how we're going to go about the working design , and what we actually need to do , and what the remote control needs to do . And it needs to um allow a person to have a portable desi device , so they can control the television from wherever they are . They don't need to actually manually touch the television set . So , it gives them much more flexibility , and allows them to be where they want to be . Um , from {disfmarker} Uh , on a functional side of things , we found out that wh from our previous meeting , we decided that there're certain points that will make our product unique . Um , one is the visibility in the dark , which was um Genevieve's idea . So we need to think about how we could bring this in um technically . And we could use illuminated buttons , which we are all familiar with when we're using a mobile phone , or um something fam familiar . A automatically , um lights up at first touch . Or we could use fluorescent materials which would just um take in the light during the day , and then as soon as they go off they would glow in the dark . Um , also we could use um an alarm . So if we lost the um remote control , perhaps there could be a button on the television set itself , which you could press , and then an alarm from the handset would sound where it was , hopefully in the room . Maybe behind a cushion or somewhere . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so that would work . Um , oop . Go back there . Um , another thing I think we d missed out on on the last meeting was the fact that we should consider the environmental impact of our design . Um , from previous researches I've carried out on other projects , um we've learnt about smart materials where um um specific alloys of metals have a shape memory . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So they can be heated and um and cooled , and they change the shape of um the metal . So , for example , a screw that's holding something together could expand and it would force all the components apart . So um , the benefits of this for our product would be that when it came to the end of its product life , if it was heated , um everything would spring apart . So , all the um individual components could be easily separated , and then some could be reused , some could be recycled , and I think that would be very important for products now . Especially 'cause there's much uh responsibility for all the um companies who are coming up with like new designs . 'Cause all , we all know that our resources are being limited , and we have to be very environmentally conscious . +Project Manager: Right , um , one question . This , um , self-destructible uh metal , it allows for recycling materials ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that , um , someone could have this product for as long as they felt that they wanted it , and then once they contribute it , then that company can break down the part , the parts better ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} And then {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah they would , um you would make the , the product as you normally would , apart from the , the bits that hold it all together would be made out of this shape-memory alloy . And that's the part that would um allow all the other parts to be separated at the end . I mean , the user would return the p product to the company , 'cause it's the product's responsibility to get rid of what they've made . Um , and then the company could then just use , make use of this shape-memory alloys to split up the components , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then either reuse some bits , and other bits which are obviously gonna wear out with time , or not usable , they might be like be able to put into scrap metal . Something like the case , if it's scratched or something , you would want to reuse it , but you might be able to melt it down and reuse it again somewhere else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Would we be the company that would break down these , or uh metals ? Or would we contribute to another group ? +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could probably empl em employ a , a side company or something to do that for us . But it would be our responsibility to get that done and to dispose of the products that we made . For a certain percentage at least . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Not every , not a hundred percent of everything we produce , +Project Manager: Okay . This sounds like a really great idea . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One thing we have to consider is our uh one hundred percent um turnover goal that we have for our financial sector . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so we'll have to investigate how much that will cost us , cost the company , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um 'cause it sounds very labour-intensive . You would have to hire a number of people , and it might be more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Well I {disfmarker} the fact of the shape-memory alloys is that they , they don't need to be manually de um deconstructed . Like , you don't have to individually um unscrew all the screws . Because of this , their properties are smart material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: All you need is just the heat , so they self-destruct themselves . +Project Manager: Alright . We'll still have to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: So I suppose it does need like high contact , yeah , you know high uh quality machinery , and very specific machinery , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . I like the environmental approach . Um , we'll have to see if that can meet our financial goals as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um also there is um components . This'll be how it uh will actually work . But I haven't put this plan together yet . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There we go +Project Manager: Those were um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: . Sorry , should I go back . This would actually show the circuit diagram . Although I haven't come up with the final circuit yet . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I just {gap} put all those components in . +Project Manager: So those are what , um , we'll c construct the remote . Those are all the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I it just shows what sort of energy source . It could be a battery , like rechargeable probably . Um , an' yeah , well how the infrared will actually be sent through the chip to be received by the chip on the television set itself . +Project Manager: Alright . Great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? So , now is it F_ eight again to escape ? Or escape ? There we go . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . Thank you very much . And , um , the next presenter will be Tara . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go Tara . +User Interface: Thanks . Can you see ? +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do you think {disfmarker} Is it uh , function eight yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: The one at the top . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Marketing: That looks right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . I'm the User {vocalsound} um User Interface Designer . Uh , the technical functions design of the apparatus is the effect the apparatus should have . Um , in this case it's the function of the remote control , which is to send messages to the television , television set . By taking inspiration from other similar designs , we'll try and come up with an original trendy remote control , which is sellable international . There're two functional design options . A multifunctional remote control , which can be used for several entertainment devices . And a single function remote control , used specifically for the television . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm sorry , what was that last one . Multifunctional and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . Um , a single function just for the television itself . +Marketing: Ch Oh , I see . +User Interface: Yeah . Um , multifunctional controls can be difficult to use , as the multitude of buttons can be confusing . A single function remote control is simpler to use , but it means you have to have other remote controls for your other entertainment devices . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um , I think that a single function remote control would be preferable , because it's easier to use . It'd be more compatible with a range of television sets , making it more internationally sellable . Um , it will make an original design more obtainable , as we have less functional necessities to include in the design . And it would be more profitable as it would be more simplistic . And less functions would have to be included . So it would be cheaper to make . And probably more sellable just because it's more compatible with a r a wider range of devices . Does anyone have any questions ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So as far as we know , um , a single function television remote control is us usable internationally ? +User Interface: Well , it's just that , when we're creating it , we're , we have to make it um compatible with different brands of devices . +Marketing: {gap} Right . +User Interface: And it would be easier to make it compatible with just different brands of television devices rather than other ent , +Marketing: D_V_D_s and V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: yeah , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: other entertainment devices . +Project Manager: Does everyone agree with this ? Does anyone object and , and find the multifunctional might be a better way to go ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} I was just wondering about the , what , what Genevieve said before , about having like some hidden controls like having the outer casing . And that would probably , um , I d , well well what you said before about it being a more profitable simplistic design . I suppose having that would complicate it a lot more . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And limit the design {gap} . Do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I agree with the single design thing for now , because we're trying to do so much , that if we're trying to make a unique , user-friendly , dadada , and it's also multi also multifunctional , um , we're gonna go over budget for one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And with this we'll have more room in the budget probably to make a more original design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We'll have more money to go into the design side of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Sounds great . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Alright , well , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: are you ready for your presentation Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes I am . +Project Manager: Fabulous . Except you're not hooked up to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not hooked up , but other than that , completely ready . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Oh . I just lost my microphone . +Project Manager: {gap} No problem , +Marketing: Just a moment . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So I'll be discussing the functional requirements of this remote control . Um , and I'll give you a little briefing on what that means exactly . Um , if you all remember from the email we got before our very first uh kick-off meeting , with the coffee machine ? The functional requirements of that was to produce hot coffee quickly . Um , so what I'll be talking about now is the equivalent for a remote control . Um , so basically what needs and desires are to be fulfilled . Um , I've done some marketing research , a lot of interviews with remote control users , um , and some internet research . And I'll show you my findings . Oh , and firstly I wanted to remind you about our company motto and purpose . So we believe in providing international market with fashionable products . Um , hence our motto , we put the fashion in electronics . So I think that should be our priority here . Um , and we should also be looking to trends in clothing and interior design . Not just in electronic fashion . So that it's something that fits in the household . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , what was that last thing that you just said ? +Marketing: Um , we should be looking towards trends in both clothing and interior design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Any trends that are going on in , in the public , even media , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you know who's famous , what T_V_ shows are being watched , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: um , to influence our remote control . Okay , so the findings . Um , seventy five percent of users of remote controls find them ugly . Which is a , quite a significant number . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , the other twenty five percent didn't specify if they love them or found them , you know , neutral . Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , that eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . You mean that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah , they're willing , they're willing to spend money on a remote control with personality . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: As opposed to your basic , you know , oval black , all same size button remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so it is something that people care about . It's not , it's not ignored in the household . Um , seventy five percent of remote control users said that they zap a lot . Zapping meaning they go through channels a lot . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're you know thumb-masters . Um , and fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . That A very small amount . Thought that was interesting . +Project Manager: Alright , so it might be very appealing if , um , we have very concise buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} the single function . +Project Manager: And another thing with um lots of surfing , we'd probably have to work on something that could be um a lot more durable , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because I find with um channel-changers that , um , a lot of the numbers get rubbed down if they're printed on the button . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And actually to go with that , I'm gonna give you some statistics on the uh relevancy of the buttons , how much they're used . And uh how important the uh users find them . So the power button , obviously , in an hour is only used once . Hopefully the person's not turning on and off the T_V_ . Um , but the relevance of that button is nine out of ten . So people wanna be able to turn on the T_V_ with the remote control . Um , as opposed to standing up and turning on the television set . Channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times on average per hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a huge amount . This is the most important button . Um , so obviously when commercials come on they're changing it , so as you said we want a durable button that's not gonna run down . Relevance of that button , our users found was uh ten , ten out of ten . Uh , ditto for volume selection , so ten out of ten . And it's used on average four times an hour . Not as much as channel selection , but still significant . Um , audio settings is used on average zero point eight times an hour . Relevance is two . Screen settings , which means brightness , colour etcetera , zero point five times an hour . Um , and relevance of one point five . We're getting to specific statistics here . Teletext , um , now I'm not too clear on what that is . I don't know if you can help me . Flipping pages . +User Interface: It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's like the news . Or like information . +User Interface: It has {disfmarker} T_V_ has like information , it has information on holidays , the news , entertainment . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and what's on . +Marketing: So like a running banner , underneath {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's a button that you press , and then you , uh , like a menu pops up . +User Interface: No , li Yeah . +Project Manager: I haven't used it before +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's like {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you have page numbers like for the menu , and you press the page numbers with your remote , and it , it'll come up . +Industrial Designer: It's like very basic internet . Sort of , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Very basic internet , yeah . +Industrial Designer: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Like tells you the weather , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But you have no interaction back with it , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Like the internet you can send emails and {disfmarker} You've no interaction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's just information that um , like television timetables , what's on , what's on now , what's on next , on every channel , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . Well I guess I'm not with it , because I wasn't {disfmarker} But it's , it's being used fourteen times an hour . Um , and has a r a high relevance of six point five . So it looks like something that we're gonna want to do some research on and include on our remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , channel settings . Zero point zero one times an hour . Relevance of three . Channel settings . +User Interface: Uh , probably just tuning in the channels , would it be ? +Marketing: P Sorry . Changing the channels ? +User Interface: Tuning them in at the very start . You know if you get a new T_V_ set , you tune in all the channels , +Industrial Designer: To get the right reception and picture , I suppose . +User Interface: do you th do you think ? +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , so it's not used very often , but people still find it relevant . Okay . Um , biggest frustrations of uh the people that we interviewed . Remote controls are often lost somewhere . So that was already discussed by Poppy . How we could have a , an alarm system so that people can find it . Um , takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So it should be very user-friendly , you know . People know what to do very quickly . Um , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Repeti Uh . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: Is that what it is ? People with arthritis and such ? +Project Manager: That's rather sad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , maybe our +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm guessing that's what it is . I'm not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think it is . +Marketing: designers can look into that . Um , buttons that don't require , you know , very firm pushing , if they respond . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: But we'll have to also avoid , you know , buttons responding to the slightest touch as well . That's a problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It is . +Marketing: Okay . Did you guys uh get that one down ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} okay , here's some ideas for you . A large percentage of the public would pay for voice recognition on the remote controls . So I'll show you some numbers here . Um , so the youngest age group , fifteen to twenty five . Ninety one point two percent said that they would pay extra money to have voice recogni voice recognition included on their remote control . Um , and you can see that number decreases a bit with ol s Interestingly enough , twenty five to thirty five is the lowest amount . Um , that would , are willing to pay extra . So I guess we're gonna have to figure out what age group we're , we're targeting , and if and if voice recognition is something we wanna look into . And if we have the budget for it . Um , if we are targeting young adults , it looks like something that would pay off . Seeing as ninety percent , over ninety percent would pay for it . +Project Manager: I agree with um {disfmarker} if we're targeting young adults then it would be something we should look into . Um , financially and and functionally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and especially if we are um trying to be trendy , go with fashions , things like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , ages like from thirty five to sixty five which show lower numbers probably won't be as concerned . +Marketing: So that , that's a whole other field of research . I don't know if it'd be , if we'd still have a remote , or if you're talking to your television and saying change channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um and depending on how many members you have in households . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it m it may be too complicated for us , but it's something to keep in mind anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . And something that might further complicate it is that the T_V_ makes noise itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Wonder if it would have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if there was conversation in the room at the same time , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: although in theory it doesn't tend to be when you're watching television , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} {gap} could be very difficult to get the specific uh design . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . If we're looking for a simplistic design , if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We need to decide if that is our um intention is , is a simplistic design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um , because if , if it is then I think voice , um voice-activated {disfmarker} +Marketing: It looks like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that would sort of negate the whole remote control thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because if people can activate the television with their voice then they won't be using a , they won't be talking into a remote , I'm sure . +Marketing: It'd be like the ultimate remote . {gap} Um {vocalsound} okay . And th the last thing here was a , an L_C_D_ screen . So , I mean voice recognition might be a little too extreme for us . Not practical . Um an L_C_D_ screen though might be something that , you know , you can shift through pages kind of li the way this PowerPoint is working . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that you don't have so many buttons to deal with . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know what an L_C_D_ screen is . +Marketing: Oh sorry , just , just a screen , like a computer screen . S Or like um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} Like an alarm clock . You'd have an L_C_D_ versus just a , a normal clock . +Industrial Designer: What , what would appear on the screen ? +Project Manager: I have no idea still . {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh just like an electronic screen . As opposed to just buttons . There would be like a little , like on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , on the remote . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Like on the top of a cellphone , the the little L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , now that's , I , I dunno exactly what exactly we'd put on there . I guess the channel that you're on , the v the volume setting . +User Interface: Yeah . Could it it {disfmarker} It would be good if it had the actual programme that was on , and what was next . But that would probably be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like linked in with the teletext , +User Interface: Yeah . That would be good , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or sort of like an teletext at your fingers , without having to access that through the television . +User Interface: Yeah . Might be quite expensive to do that though . +Industrial Designer: Mm , Yeah . Could be . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I guess that's something we can all take back to our respective research . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , and finally , whoops , my personal preferences and thoughts . Um , I think our priority really should be unique design . Um , we want something that people want in their home . Every remote control looks the same , so uh in my opinion it should be , um , user-friendly and unique . So the other stuff might be a little too , a little too gadgety for some people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , I th myself , voice recognition kind of scares me off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we're , if we're aiming to make this an international university , universally accepted product {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and for all , the other thing is like age market . I mean if we wanted to concentrate on fifteen to twenty five years olds , we could go for the fancy stuff . But if we wanna make fifty million , and and have everyone want this remote control , we should maybe stick to the basics . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we should keep in mind that fifteen to twenty five year olds might not have twenty five Euros to spend on a remote control . Like their priorities might not be a fancy remote control , when they're just starting out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and , yeah . +Marketing: Right . And we have to keep in mind the , the reliability of our research . I mean , you know , a sixteen year old boy would say , yeah I'd pay extra for voice recognition , until they realise that's three months allowance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , so I I think , I think the older generations we should be catering to a bit more . +User Interface: Early twenties , that's the kind of age group . +Project Manager: Yeah . And if one of the largest , uh , or most complained about thing is that it takes so long to get to know how to use a remote control , +User Interface: Twenties . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm sure that something like an L_C_D_ screen or remote control would be just furthering that problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Complicated jus complicating things even fo Mm . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's it for the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . Before we go into uh more discussion on {gap} we want this design to look like , I've received some information from the management that will affect some of our decisions . Um , for one thing , because {disfmarker} Having controls with D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , that sort of thing , would really complicate the design of the remote control . Um , we've decided not to include them and make it a specific , just a specific television um function . Which is good as , as we've sort of decided that we would like to go with that anyway . Um , for many reasons . So um we have that decision sort of made for us . Another thing that might um affect other decisions is that um the management feels that teletext is outdated , because more people are using the internet now . And so uh we won't concern ourselves with um navigating the teletext option . +Industrial Designer: Can I just interrupt ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to plug in your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Maybe we can do the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: Have you got a PowerPoint or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah I do . I'm looking at {disfmarker} looking at it right now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thanks . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you . +Marketing: Oh , come back screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Were they , was the management suggesting use of the internet rather than teletext , or just avoiding both altogether ? +Project Manager: Um , well , I mean we don't have the resources or or possibility of using the internet with the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but um they were just pretty much saying that the teletext would not be used . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and another thing . This is for the design , the design of the product is that um we wanna create , um more of a sense that people know that this is from our company . So , um , all the remote controls must have our um {disfmarker} We'll incorporate our logo and colour in in some way . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , um , perhaps um our logo on the bottom , or wherever you feel like it would look good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , it doesn't have to be the colour of our um of our company +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but , another thing is that , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we need to , we probably would have to have that colour and , and logo decided upon . Um , I'm assuming that we already have one , but for the purposes of this meeting I , I wasn't offered a , like a type of logo or colour , so if that could be um somewhere on the design so that we can be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Work on that . +Marketing: It's probably R_ R_R_ in yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: The little R_ R_ yellow thing ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Project Manager: Real Reaction ? Okay . Um , yes , those are the changes . Um , so , now we need to discuss , um and come to a decision on our remote control functions , of , of how this is going to be . I'm just going to look at my notes for a second . Um , we have to decide on a target group and the functions of the remote control . So , um , we already know that it'll just be for the television . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It'll {disfmarker} It won't have teletext . But um , you know , we could discuss um those other options that you brought up , Genevieve . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay , so I {disfmarker} Are we going to write off the L_C_D_ option ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that how most people feel about that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , no teletext , and no voice recognition . +User Interface: I think it would be annoying though if {disfmarker} I don't use teletext that much , but if it was on your T_V_ , you'd want to be able to use it , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but another thing is that if we're reaching an international crowd , um , I know for one that in North America there is no such thing as teletext , so it'd be really superfluous . +User Interface: You'd {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So is it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Never heard of it . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . I don't know about other countries besides the U_K_ . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Do you know if anywhere else has it ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: More research required , I think . +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if {disfmarker} Was it a management decision that we're having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was a management decision , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so it's , it's pretty much out of our hands at this point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So , I guess we're looking at something rather simple . +Marketing: Um , well I guess , just from my findings it looks like we wanna minimise buttons . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: Minimal {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} What was the word they used ? F findability is important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we should definitely go ahead with the alarm system idea that you had . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I'm sure that could be inex inexpensive because we could use the same kind of infrared +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The same signalling . +Project Manager: the same signal through that and it could just like make a little beeping noise . +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not that expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Or vibrate just the same as a mobile phone . Like you just a , a buzz or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . I like that idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Would you be able to , um , put the little device anywhere ? {vocalsound} 'Cause uh isn't our remote control for all T_V_s , so +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: you'd ha +Industrial Designer: Do you mean the the link between the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , with the button that you pressed . +Project Manager: Yeah . The button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , if the button was actually on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Minor detail there . +User Interface: C 'cause then it would only be a applicable to one T_V_ set , so it would need to be something that you could stick somewhere , or something . +Industrial Designer: Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it would have t +Industrial Designer: Maybe something adhesive that you could like stick onto the back of any set that would be um yeah not very obtrusive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Obviously something small that's {disfmarker} Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Then it wouldn't , it probably wouldn't be able to use {disfmarker} It would be able to use the same reception on the remote c control I guess , but the actual device would have to have its own infrared signaller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Would it need a battery then ? +Project Manager: Maybe , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Pr probably . +Project Manager: Probably , I mean . +Industrial Designer: Unless it could be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's your department you'll have to sort that out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , unless some way , it could have some universal connection to like the socket , the same socket that the T_V_'s supplied from . I mean the power for the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , mm , more research into that one . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to investi Do some research on that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: alright ? Great . Um , alright , and I'm sure that , um um , the glow-in-the-dark , fluorescent , whatever , system , um is a go ahead . Is everyone interested in that ? +Industrial Designer: Y +Marketing: On the buttons ? +User Interface: I I like the light up suggestion . I think that would be better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause you know the way fluorescent lights lose their brightness after certain time , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} it doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would go for {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could it could be a tactile thing as well . Um right , if w if we're minimising buttons , we might be able to make them actually larger . And there's something on it . S you know like up arrow down arrow for , for volume . +Industrial Designer: Like a raised {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , and I don't know what we could do for , for channels . S +User Interface: Well just the numbers could be embossed , couldn't it ? Like raised . +Marketing: The numbers themselves . +User Interface: Yeah . Could be raised . +Marketing: But then the like up button and down button for the channel , channel changing . +User Interface: Just little arrows , that you could feel , maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I just thought that {gap} it , it might be sucking more battery power , if there , if it is a light up . I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: But I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also y , uh Heather you mentioned before , um like how it should be accessible to everybody . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so like big b um buttons , {gap} for people you are visually impaired . The glow-in-the-dark or light up won't make any difference anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So like you say tactile might be better , because it'd be more available to everybody . +User Interface: That , I think that's good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Could we somehow {disfmarker} We could , may , possibly , sorry , incorporate them both so that the buttons could maybe be in the shape of the numbers themselves and be made out of some glow-in-the-dark material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I d I don't think that glow-in-the-dark material , um , like the actual soft plastic , um , costs that much more than other colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No , it's not these days . +User Interface: No , I wouldn't say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean , it's quite easily accessible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess the other option , referring to the battery thing is , you know how cellphones will t light up for fifteen seconds or something , when you're s and then it goes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's good {disfmarker} Yeah that a good idea . +Marketing: so if , if you're like changing the volume during a movie . I know , I'm thinking of mostly when you're watching a movie you turn all the lights off right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And you don't want to turn on the lights , {vocalsound} to turn it down , because there's suddenly an explosion , and it's gonna wake up the baby . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so if you touch the button , it kind of reactivates it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It lights up for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That , yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: On self timer . +Industrial Designer: So self-timed lighting . +Project Manager: Alright we have five minutes left +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um , for the meeting , but I think we should discuss this light subject a little bit more before we close . Um , what was {disfmarker} I missed the last moment , reading that . What were you talking about with the lighting up buttons ? +Marketing: Oh , just if it was kinda the same way that a cell You know how a cellphone will light up for about ten , fifteen seconds when you touch a button , after having not touched it for a while . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , if instead of a constant light up on the , on the remote control , if it lights up for ten seconds when it's touched again . +Project Manager: Mm . So it could be any button that would be pressed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and you , you touch it and it just kind of lights up a bit , and it gives a faint glow . +Industrial Designer: So , self-timed {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have all the lights off in your living room , you'll , you'll temporarily see it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Because usually you're not fooling around for it for more than what ten seconds . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's probably feasible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , do you think that we should do the lighting up thing , and the glow-in-the-dark thing , and the shape of the numbers ? Do we have to kind of decide what we're gonna do with this . +Industrial Designer: I think the shape of the numbers is a really good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that's un unique as well . +User Interface: Yeah . For visually impaired , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean , I haven't seen that . And as you're saying like numbers can wear off if they're just sort of like painted on , you know printed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . And it could {gap} , if it's that softer rubber material it'll be , maybe , um , uh , better for people with um els no +Industrial Designer: {gap} durable . +Project Manager: what's it called , R_S_I_ , what was it that we were talking about ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah instead of like hard buttons . +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did we want to go for the glow-in-the-dark look ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or did we want to go for the lighting up instantly ? +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like should we do both ? Or we can have one or the other ? Because it might , for , for our design purposes , I mean , the lighting up thing might be better because glow-in-the-dark material has a funny kinda colour . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And it might not go with different like face plates that we might come up with . +Marketing: I was gonna say , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . It the {disfmarker} it might be perceived as tacky , glow-in-the-dark . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's kind of like Eighties neon-style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , whereas we're trying to be trendy and fashionable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there are now like loads , or a huge range of different colours that it could light up in as well , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: which could like link in with the company colours . Like it could be blue or green or yellow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or like we've just limited t with the , just ordinary phosphorescent so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . Alright . So we've decided on lighting up things . +User Interface: I was thinking though , if it was glow-in-the-dark , you could put the um Real Reaction symbol as glow-in-the-dark , and then it would be constantly advertised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Every time the , that it lit up , you c that could light up as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or , or the , whate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: But with the same thing , I mean . If you touch the button and then it could be , it could be lit up as well . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Is {disfmarker} Are you okay with that ? Okay . Cool . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Alright . So I think that um that completes most of our um our more uh practical decisions . +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And now it's up to designing . And um making sure that this can be feasible . And do you have anything {disfmarker} +Marketing: What um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have anything to say ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . Yeah well , I was just gonna throw out there the thought about um personalising the remote control . Um , it , you , 'cause you mentioned face plates . So I I dunno if there's something that diff , you know like five different face plates . I dunno if this will start making it more complicated , but it could increase the popularity of the , of the remote . Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . Like you can have changeable um mobile covers or something . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Interchangeable thing ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like an iPod or something ? +User Interface: That would be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Exactly , like an iPod . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or , or like mobile ph . +Project Manager: Like a cellphone ? Yeah . +Marketing: And I dunno if we'd want to go with like T_V_ show themes or something . Like a Bart Simpson faceplate . +User Interface: Yeah , and then that would be uh more profitable like as a sideline to the remote as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Y Could buy extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Accessories . +Marketing: Exactly . You could start out with three , and if , if we hit it big then we can add some on . +Industrial Designer: Person {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well , that's great . +User Interface: That's a good idea . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that we should incorporate that . +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable . +Project Manager: 'Cause that wouldn't be very expensive at all . +Industrial Designer: Um , als +Project Manager: You'd just get one mould , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: throw some plastic in it , you know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Interchan And also possible {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we could gain out of that by advertising certain T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , that might be com problematic with um copyright issues . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So , if it takes off then we'll , we'll , we'll try that out . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But if we , there is {disfmarker} +User Interface: If w +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We could {disfmarker} Um , the environmental factor , we didn't bring that up again . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We'll have to do more research . Like as of yet , that has nothing to do with , um , the way it'll look . Um , does it need to be reached a de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need to reach a decision on that right now ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because we need to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it need to be uh decided on now ? Or should we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably leave that 'til later on , then . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . Alright then . Anyone else have anything more to say before we close ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Alright , well . Let's have lunch and we'll discuss this later . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +","The meeting begins with participants settling in and gearing up for presentations. The initial moments are marked by small technical glitches, specifically with achieving the proper display settings on the projector using the Function F_8 command. The Industrial Designer, who is the first speaker, stumbles due to delayed email receipt, acknowledging that their lack of timely communication was not conducive to good teamwork. + +The Industrial Designer presents their segment by discussing the functionality required in the new design of a remote control. The primary aim is to create a portable device that doesn’t need direct contact with the television, providing users with flexibility to control the TV from any location within the room. Unique selling points such as visibility in the dark, an integrated alarm for locating the lost remote, and the use of smart materials for environmental sustainability were also emphasized. + +The idea of incorporating illuminated buttons or fluorescent materials to provide visibility in darkness was specifically highlighted. This would ensure the buttons glow, aiding users in operating the remote with ease during low light conditions. A potential alarm feature is also discussed, suggesting that a corresponding button on the television set could trigger a sound from the remote, making it easier to find if misplaced. + +Delving into environmental considerations, the speaker introduces the concept of using smart materials, such as shape-memory alloys, which could allow easy disassembly of the remote control at the end of its lifecycle for recycling purposes. This approach aligns the product's design with increasing environmental consciousness and responsibility, emphasizing the need for companies to create products that are not only functional but also sustainable. + +The Project Manager clarifies that any material chosen must align with the company’s financial goals, implying that while innovative features are desirable, they must also be economically viable. This brings profitability and cost considerations into the discussion, which indicates the company’s need to balance innovative designs with market feasibility. + +User Interface takes over and presents the dichotomy of designing a multifunctional remote that could control various devices versus a single-function remote dedicated only to the TV. They argue for the single-function design, stating its compatibility with an array of televisions makes it more user-friendly and internationally appealing. Despite its simplicity, it is deemed more profitable due to lower production costs and wider market appeal. + +Marketing raises the point about the international usability of a single-function remote and highlights the necessity of ensuring compatibility across various brands of televisions. This conversation leads to a consensus, supported by the Industrial Designer, agreeing that a multifunctional remote control might exceed the budget and complicate the design further. Therefore, the decision sways towards simplicity and budget management by choosing a single-function remote control design. + +As the discussion progresses, the team considers user preferences, market trends, and frustrations. Marketing presents research findings, suggesting that a significant portion of users find traditional remotes unattractive and would be willing to pay more for fancier, personalized, and user-friendly alternatives. Important insights into remote control usage patterns reveal that users value certain functions over others, with simplicity and practicality being key desirable features. They show that users primarily use only 10% of the buttons, signaling a desire for simplified control interfaces. The findings underline the relevance and frequency of use of certain buttons, like power, channel selection, and volume, which are essential to user experience. + +An interesting facet uncovered is the potential interest in voice recognition among the younger demographic, though it's highlighted that this feature's inclusion must be justified by financial and functional feasibility. Bringing in an environmentally-conscious angle, the discussion briefly touches on smart materials that could make the remote control more recyclable. + +As the meeting proceeds, various considerations are raised, including ensuring the remote control is trendy and aligned with fashion as per the company’s motto, minimizing button complexity, and enhancing functionality through additional features like an LCD screen, voice recognition, or teletext capabilities. Practical concerns are addressed, such as the impact of these additional features on battery life and user-friendliness. + +However, management directives clarify that the focus should be solely on television control without the addition of DVD or VCR functionalities, steering clear of teletext due to its decreasing relevance in an internet-driven society. The brand identity element is underscored with the need for a distinct company logo and color scheme on the remote designs to increase brand recognition. + +Coming to the closing stages of the meeting, decisions are made. The remote control will aim for simplicity, perhaps including an alarm system for locating misplaced remotes, tactile buttons for the visually impaired, and other unique features like shaped buttons that could help with visibility in the dark. The concept of an interchangeable faceplate, similar to mobile phone covers, is floated as a way to personalize and increase the appeal of the remote control. + +The meeting wraps up with an outline of the next steps, moving from theoretical to practical implementation, addressing environmental aspects, exploring financial implications, and further research. Lunch plans are made, with the topic slated for further discussion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome everyone to our next meeting . I'm busy writing and busy leading the meeting , but um I've prepared a little presentation once again um or at least an agenda I think uh the biggest part of the presentation will be uh on your side . Um we are here at the conceptual design meeting , which is hereby opened . Um once again I will try to uh write some minutes which I just from the previous meeting uh placed inside our project folder , which was quite some typing . Um today we once again have uh three presentations , if I'm right , and after that we will take a decision on the remote control concepts . And just as the last time we have forty minutes to accomplish that . Okay , well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'd say let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um in the same order as last time ? +Industrial Designer: W sure . +User Interface: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , take it away . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay uh welcome you all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Components design , um {vocalsound} uh first of all uh I would like to uh uh accommodate some of those uh things I uh uh {disfmarker} elaborate some of the things I did . I I elaborated on the concept . What should be um uh said about uh the components , uh its properties and what kind of materials should we use to uh to make uh one of those r remote controls . Uh well first of all I've uh d subtracted some of the components that is that are used uh are w w um {vocalsound} you know from what uh the remote control's formed . Uh first of all , the case , the case , the surrounding of the of the the remote control . {vocalsound} I would like to uh give you an idea of uh how I thought about . +Marketing: Don't destroy my giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Giraffe's gone now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay um the case was is made from rubber , I suppose . There's one of the {disfmarker} because when you use a remote control a lot of people uh will uh will uh drop their remote control +Marketing: Drop it . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they break uh becau the uh titanium was also an option . But uh it's a very expensive material . Uh rubber is , I think , uh the best suitable uh material uh to use uh for our uh for our remote control . Um it's poss it's also possible to uh create fancy colours with rubber . Uh rubber l makes it easy to uh to to {disfmarker} it lets lets itself colour . Uh titanium uh you have to paint it and with that uh it's possible to scratch it or uh yeah make it ugly . Uh rubber uh the total uh piece of rubber that's sor uh that's that's used uh to make the case is uh the same colour , so if you scratch it it's still the same colour , perhaps uh it's a little bit damaged . But it's a very strong material . Um {vocalsound} I h I had an idea single covered uh curved , sorry , single curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so it's t two dimensional . I think it's uh it's best to draw oh +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: green . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bright colour . Fancy colour . Forward . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} New . Blank . Okay . +Marketing: You have to go t +Industrial Designer: Let's make it uh black . Okay . I thought of an idea like this . Oh {gap} that . {vocalsound} Um delete . Blank . Okay . So it also looks nice when it's on your table . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you get uh it doesn't lay flat down on the table , but it's c it's stands . +Marketing: Oh it's a side view . +Industrial Designer: Side view yes it's side view so uh I I'm not technically good at th three D_ modelling , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh it's just an idea I had so it's uh it's very uh so its also looks nice when it's on the table . Um the graphical user interface and the buttons , uh we also thought about that already . Uh I thought about uh the L_C_D_ touch screen , which is uh is easy to clean too . One of the great uh advantages of the L_C_D_ screen you just use some {gap} or uh another uh cleaning uh uh cl some cleaning stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um it should be made of strong plastic and it should be bright . Well I already uh s uh explained some properties of that material and I think uh well we also we almost concluded about that uh this should uh be uh our uh button component . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh that's all about uh the buttons . Uh the batteries , uh we also thought about that already , uh will be chargeable with uh uh an option for a mount station so you can uh put the uh {vocalsound} the remote control in a mount station so its charges itself up instead of uh plugging it in or something like that . Questions , {gap} ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no no no no . Just looking . +Industrial Designer: And they should be long lasting , not uh not be empty uh in about uh two minutes or uh thirty minutes or forty minutes of use . And next step is the chip uh th the component that's uh makes or transmits the signal to the television . Uh there was an option to use s a rather simple chip but I think uh because uh of our uh highly uh requiring uh requirements , there should be an advanced chip in it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: with uh also the ability to uh facilitate speaker speech recognition uh which unfortunately is still in a test phase , so uh there should be some more uh investigation on that side . Uh my personal preferences uh I also overheard in the last meeting that there shou we should use uh our own business colours . That was correct , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think they are rather boring for um for use with rubber . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , business colours I thought it was the the slogan and uh the corporate image , so yeah , it needs colour , +Industrial Designer: Okay they should be m sh they should be in mind , +Project Manager: but I don't think you have to make the entire thing in the corporate colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wasn't it ? Okay so it d it doesn't says uh to uh have the slogan ? +Project Manager: It must be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay okay . Well that's possible of course . +User Interface: You can put the R_ and R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could make a little R_ and R_ {gap} on the top of the machine . Uh so they are {vocalsound} pretty boring , I suggest , because just the availability with rubber to make fantastic colours uh and also in a lot of possible colours , so it's possible to make very uh fancy uh remote controls which peopl uh who people in which people will find they're uh interesting . And uh will buy uh {vocalsound} them faster when they look at the same old grey or black uh colours . Uh s as I said uh before rubber is uh is impossible to damage severely imp instead of uh of course you can break it when you you when you break it in s for example with a pair of scissors or something like that , but i if you drop it it's not uh broken uh right away s instead of using uh plastic , hard plastic or uh titanium . And I personally liked uh the single curved uh remote control , because it yeah it makes sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's all about my uh my findings . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: I will go next . +Marketing: Mm mm mm . Next . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Alright so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought a little bit about the interface . Uh how it should look . And uh {vocalsound} uh we uh determined that will not be no buttons , but only an L_C_D_ screen , so I had to uh look on that . And the design is therefore based on what we just uh uh thought of . Uh first there are some new findings and new technology for speech recognition . And this is that uh um uh uh you you ask you give a question through through the device and it answers you . And they already uh put this in an in a coffee maker . And so that it you say uh good morning , uh coffee maker , and it says t says to you back good morning Joe or what's your name . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: This uh and there's an easy way to uh program that uh you say record into the device into the speaker and then you say the question and three seconds later you say the answer and then when you say the question it gives you the answer . Um perhaps it's useful , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: perhaps for because people um lose the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: they can yell uh remote where are you and {gap} calls or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's true . +User Interface: And perhaps we could uh implement that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then I have to go out of the presentation because I tried to make some kind of a a idea of how it should look like +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I can't draw , so uh don't {vocalsound} make too much of it {vocalsound} . I tried to uh the L_C_D_ screen I tried to sort of to draw {gap} . I thought uh at least uh the icon for the volume . I don't know if there is an icon for the program , but +Industrial Designer: Not just a P_ . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: P_ yeah , just a P_ . +User Interface: So uh +Industrial Designer: .. . {gap} +User Interface: and then the buttons above and uh below +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the and the and the mute button also recognisable as an icon . Um . +Marketing: Where's where's the button for two {gap} ? +User Interface: I forgot that one . {vocalsound} I thought I forgot something , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh and uh the numbers , that should be a bit larger I think it's not really on scale and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Um an options button . And I thought the the button for teletext apar uh apart because it's not really options , I think . It's uh options is the settings of the remote and of the T_V_ and that kind of uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So could call it settings or something . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: But this is a bit uh how I thought it . And uh the L_C_D_ uh somewhere on the remote . Perhaps we could be more curvy the remote perhaps should , so that it's better in your hand or something uh . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , +User Interface: But uh and and uh a microph microphone for the speech uh recognition if we want to implement that . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Uh and then uh if you press the op options button , now we have an example of and then you should get the other options with what what you could do and that you could do with something like this this . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {gap} . +User Interface: And uh it's also uh I thought think we discussed uh earlier that uh older people don't really want to use uh these extra settings . And older people a also don't really want to use this uh th this kind of option menus . So they want to u use one button and then something happens , and not choose with uh this kind of uh {disfmarker} And you could put in a an a really s little scrolling device on the side of your uh remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you could scroll scroll uh across these uh things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +User Interface: That's an option . And that was my uh finding dinge . +Project Manager: Thanks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now our third +Industrial Designer: Go Danny , go Danny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: team member with his presentation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I'm going to tell you something about a trend watching . The trends from the past years , what the people like , what the youngsters like , what the elderly people liked about shapes , colours , material and stuff . 'Kay . The method I used was {disfmarker} Like I told I watched the trends from the past years about colours , shapes , material they wanted uh from elderly and young people . So we can keep that in mind for designing f uh the device itself . Findings I made . The most important thing people liked last year was that the remote control should be look look fancy . The second important thing that w should be if inv in innov innovative , okay , like the L_C_D_ screen that's {vocalsound} quite innovative so that should be great meeting for this . And the third thing is it should be easy to use . I think with only one menu , four button , channel , volume , it should also be enough for easy to use . The personal preferences for the young people , they liked fruity colours like uh banana yellow , uh strawberry red and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Fruity ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Grass green . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Like that . The round shapes , and soft material m materials like the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: It should be soft uh i it should feeling spongy or s Sponge Bob like things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's build it into a sponge . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Th Elderly people like au colours which y are being seen in autumn like um woods um dark brown , red , deep reds and stuff . They liked square shapes with round edges . And hard materials like wood , um titanium . They those kind of materials they liked . This is a bit like the young peoples like the fruity colours , innovative , all the colours you see , the blue , the red , the white , the yellow , that stuff . And then I th I I personally thought the front side of the shape should be something for the youngsters like like +Project Manager: Oh y {vocalsound} +Marketing: this or something . It's it's a bit like a banana . And the colour should be yellow , or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And for the elderly people just plain old . Because we decided to have two kind of remotes , two designs , or was it two colours ? +User Interface: It was one remote , I think , +Marketing: Different colours , yeah . +User Interface: different colours . +Marketing: We should decide whether it's going to be with round shapes . I think like my colleague , you said , is that's e better , or for the elderly people something like like the iPod or something , with round squares . Simple but +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So that's it . +Project Manager: So for the older people , a more traditional uh form . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That is my {disfmarker} Yeah , like the older o older colours I can maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could you could uh change the colours , that was also the idea . I don't know which shape you should should take , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Colours th the elderly people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess changing colours will be easier than changing uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Changing just the shape of the uh remote control ? +Project Manager: the shape of it . +User Interface: Perhaps you could find something in the middle . Round but square . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: round corners , but s but square , yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe then both groups won't buy it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh i i if you do it uh uh square , with round corners but a little uh in the middle of it uh i Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you mean , kind of like a {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} wait , like {vocalsound} like this {vocalsound} uh a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's a bit square , but it's also a bit uh round . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like a beer glass . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: So but then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know what you mean . +User Interface: Same sides . {vocalsound} But that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's also easy to to have {vocalsound} to to put in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah but that's also how other remotes are shaped , so that's uh {disfmarker} But perhaps that's a good thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so that's easy to use . People know the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will recognise that's as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Look something like that {gap} . Autumn colours like red , brown . +Industrial Designer: Uh when I saw your d Oh . +Marketing: They liked the wood a lot . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we could give it like wooden loo look look or something in that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , kinda like old cars , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a bit bit old school style renaissance , medieval kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Swords . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let's put it all together . +Marketing: Those kind of {disfmarker} Yeah , those kind of things . So you see the big difference between the young people ? Fresh , exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And the old people , old and boring . +User Interface: But that's easily to do with the colour , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: That's easy to do with the colours , I think . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easier to do in colour than in shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah we think so too . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Because otherwise we have to {gap} get different shapes , and colour {gap} way easier than yeah the shapes . In material yeah rubber , rubber is , like I said , young people like more soft materials and spongy ones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and the old people like {vocalsound} plain wood . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have to decide if we're going to use real hard rubber , or soft rubber . Or something something between that . +User Interface: Yeah think uh {disfmarker} Also in between . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Soft rubber . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} soft rubber +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: which you can you can feel in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you {disfmarker} Um . +User Interface: I don't think you should be able to mould it , +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It should shouldn't be {gap} . +Marketing: No . Or or wh what's something harder . No no no but but you have to like like like a a eraser or something . That's the bit you can press it in , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or something harder . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Bit like this kind of rubber . This uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , something like this , yeah . +User Interface: But it's quite hard , this . +Marketing: Yeah it's quite hard but you can press it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's feels kind s spongy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think it's rubber . +Marketing: No . N n n +Project Manager: So we need a spongy feeling . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh did you have something about uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are you going to invite Sponge Bob , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we should first decide about shape , I think . +Industrial Designer: Ding ding . +User Interface: Which uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I think that's the better thing to do . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Then you can fit the L_C_D_ screen in it , +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: and can decide uh . +Industrial Designer: Um I also s uh can't help but notice {vocalsound} that you uh used an {disfmarker} you had a remote control {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the L_C_D_ screen was uh rather small . Um . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: w I think that L_C_D_ screen should be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it's supposed to be bit s bit s bit +Industrial Designer: .. . This was your size , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think it should be larger . +Marketing: Yeah three quarter of the of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , three quarters . So uh so you don't have to put your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} oh . +Marketing: Yeah the buttons won't get that small when the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh new , blank . So uh when you get {vocalsound} this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh kinda like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or should it be larger ? +Marketing: Larger I think . +Industrial Designer: Larger ? Because you want to put your hands {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you pu +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Now you can put your hand there and then you won't touch the screen . +Industrial Designer: You want +Marketing: becau because you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Perhaps that's best . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , true , true , true true . +Industrial Designer: Your thumb here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But not on the screen because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's uh that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Looks a bit like a Game Boy now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put your f Yeah but if yo if you make the the L_C_D_ screen as large as the remote control itself , uh you'll {vocalsound} you'll always get some {disfmarker} +User Interface: You always touch it , +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Going to be very greasy and stuff . +Marketing: But it won't get that small because you have how much ? Nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen buttons on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One to zero , the two digit , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah you don't want it too small . How yeah how large {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to you have to {disfmarker} Because some fat people with d thick fingers will press three buttons at same time . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah they have thick fingers {gap} . But if you wanna make it in international , Japanese uh people got uh rather small hands +Marketing: Yeah true , +Industrial Designer: and we got these large {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} Yeah , we have we have the zoom option , right ? +Industrial Designer: Zoom opt Ah yeah of course , yeah . You can make it larger to to uh to uh with accompanying uh greater fields to push the button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And we won't include a a pen , or something to point , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: hey , we we want to do it with our fingers , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Your fingers , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Y you could include a pen +Industrial Designer: You don't want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because if you lose the pen uh if you lose the pen uh you can't use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Use a pen You you c you can lose the pen . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think people want to use a remote with with their fingers because th they're used to that +Marketing: Yeah {gap} the fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah o yeah {gap} , if they think it's handy to use a pen . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah I think this uh this is a good size for the screen . I don't know how how large the actual remote should be but a little bit like this , or something . +Project Manager: And maybe we have to add a tissue to remove the grease from all the fingers , huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} You can do {gap} whatever uh any uh cloth . +Marketing: Yeah but that that can be {gap} with plain soft tissue . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay well +Marketing: you can buy those at {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe , if I can interrupt you , maybe I should uh should show some points on which we uh should take a decision . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can discuss these points . {gap} those points um energy question mark . How how should we uh supply the thing with energy and how {disfmarker} are we going to do it with separate docking station and then put {gap} in it . Uh chip on print and case . Those are points my uh coach advised me to discuss here , but I hope you have ideas about them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think energy were batteries and then uh and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So that's the the the first point . +Marketing: Maybe it's better to to include rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: We already decided that on the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: which you can recharge through the docking station . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Just like with the telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if the badg the batteries are dead +Industrial Designer: I kinda like your {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you can re you can uh change them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you got some uh some of those uh uh wireless uh mice ? Mouse . Computer mouse . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah like those . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like those kind of batteries . +User Interface: {vocalsound} but it should be th I think normal batteries , +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: not not like two or two uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , normal plain you {disfmarker} No normal plain batteries you can buy at the supermarket or retail shop . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple rechargeable uh batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um what was with the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: The chip on print ? Um {disfmarker} Uh you gotta f Yeah . I think so . Chip on print with a with a {vocalsound} simple uh a sim not a simple but a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Print plate . +Industrial Designer: We also discussed that . Didn't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but how did this how does that with a L_C_D_ screen ? You still have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . You always have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Beg your pardon ? +Marketing: You always have a print plate , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course , yeah . +Marketing: right ? Always , so {disfmarker} I dunno what w what we have to decide about that . +Project Manager: Yeah well it's a good question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It just was in there +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well uh +Project Manager: and I didn't have any information about it , +Industrial Designer: chip on print , I think what they mean uh with the regular rubber buttons that you got , uh it's always clear for the remote control when you press uh a certain button . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But when you got a L_C_D_ screen , with no uh with not {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the buttons are not always on the same place , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: for example if you enlarge a button , or if you got several options uh appearing on your screen , uh the co-ordinations aren't always the same . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you got a regular button , th the button of stand-by is always on the same place and you got on the and on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but the p print plate of L_ L_C_D_ screen is more advanced than a normal print plate , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so that that's not of any discussion , I think . +Project Manager: Well you need some kind of C_P_U_ , I guess . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I suppose so . +Marketing: Mm , I don't I dunno I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is a simple C_P_U_ but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah okay but I d I I don't know if nor o s it's quite a simple L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it has to uh b +Marketing: Yeah , it's quite a simple L_C_D_ screen . I think they don't need that big of C_P_U_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it the the remote control has to know whether you're in a settings menu or just uh you just want to turn up the volume . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , true true . True . +Industrial Designer: So it has to have some kind of a calculation unit or C_P_U_ +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: to know uh in which state you are and uh which button you are pressing in at the right moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Because we're projecting projecting the buttons on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And a touch screen makes it uh possible to uh to get the co-ordination of your finger on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the case , yeah we already discussed the case , +User Interface: It's rubber . +Industrial Designer: we wanted to make it from rubber +User Interface: Yeah but but a hard rubber like this ? +Industrial Designer: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or softer rubber or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh hard rubber I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's the easy to ha uh to to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It bounces back from the floor where you {vocalsound} throw it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah sure , look {vocalsound} . +Marketing: We have different colours . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah this in different colours ? +Industrial Designer: D +Marketing: So the shapes is something between the square shapes with round colo corners and a round shapes ? No I don't think , I think it's more round than square . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's a bit . But I think it should be a bit longer , perhaps . +Marketing: So it meets I think it meets more the young people than the older people . +Project Manager: Yeah . But that's what we want , {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , that's our target . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's our main target . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lower than forty years , I think +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well and how about my idea uh of making it um with one single curve ? +Marketing: it was . +Industrial Designer: So i +Marketing: Oh yeah that that {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I thought that was a quite good +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because it's a gadget and you want to show it off , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah you have a fancy design , then , right away . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it +Marketing: You can put it on your table with the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you don't have to put it {disfmarker} get it in your hand , you can put it next to you +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then dive it in +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: and {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a lot easier . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So , so +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you got uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Did you write that down ? Uh got a single curved uh rubber f uh fancy coloured {vocalsound} remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can't you You can't oh , you c you can draw it on your paper and then load it on the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but I wrote it down . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's pretty easy but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And load it on the the user the server . +Project Manager: What about the user interface , there are also some some questions uh about the concepts I think you have some ideas on that {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: You you showed your drawing . +User Interface: I had what I just uh I should {gap} again . I miss a few buttons , but . Well . At least uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what we should also have on , I just remembered , um a menu to go back through the first uh {gap} if if you touch options , you can't go back to this uh right away now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , you have to go back . Yeah uh uh . +User Interface: This {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Isn't it better to have the sound and the general buttons horizontal ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: With the minus and the plus . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's easier than {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I I thought it was uh easier to handle this way , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but I don't know what they think . +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Would you like the the buttons horizontal or v vertical ? +Marketing: For sound and channel . +User Interface: Th +Industrial Designer: Depends on the screen . If you make the screen vertical it doesn't matter . If you make it uh in a rectangle {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right well if we make it like this , I think if you +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I so it's it's it's it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: put it like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Square . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's it's easier to have it something like {disfmarker} Oh a button uh minus here , plus over here . A minus here , plus over here . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh , okay . +Marketing: And on here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The other buttons and on here {vocalsound} the top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The options and then you have something like uh the P_ over here , +User Interface: But I think I wou +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: and the sound . +User Interface: I think that's a matter of what you're used to . +Marketing: Something uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think I would put a plus and a min uh here . And then the P_ in the mid in the middle and the sound uh in the middle . +Industrial Designer: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: Something like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Take your time . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Plus minus plus uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: minus . +User Interface: but I think when you are holding it , you could press the minus and the plus and with the other finger the minus and the plus . +Marketing: Yeah I think you're going to s you're going to use it with one thumb . +User Interface: Yeah but I think {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} Perhaps I have some examples . +Industrial Designer: W +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll leave that to the usability engineering then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who's the usability engineering ? +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: She is . {gap} +User Interface: But I'm going to look if I've got some examples +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause perhaps you should choose what's most often used . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} 'Cause they can use that better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Consistency . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {gap} {disfmarker} I have that those s numbers . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} Here is our {disfmarker} here are uh +Marketing: Or a good watch . +User Interface: I don't really know . +Marketing: B +Project Manager: Everybody's searching in his data . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Channel selection . Per hour one hundred and sixty eight . Volume selection four times an hour +User Interface: Yeah but {gap} {disfmarker} But I mean if it's usually plus or min above each other or next to each other on a normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So not how much {disfmarker} n not how often it's used , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: W what's what's usual or normal . +Marketing: Yeah , that depends on on on the remote . +User Interface: Yes I'm looking here . But here's it's below , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: here also , and now here's here's next to each other . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: I think it's {gap} it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {gap} because I have two televisions at home . One is horizontal , one is vertical , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it does it doesn't really matter , +Marketing: so it depends . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Depends . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: I think the the the volume was usually uh above each other , because you go higher and down . +Marketing: Yeah , lower . +User Interface: And the the pay the the the program is next to each other , because you would go further and back . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's how it's is usually {gap} when I look here +Marketing: True . +User Interface: that's what I see . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um . Let's cut to the chase . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got to change . +Project Manager: Yeah well I think we have we don't have to decide about that now how where we will put the buttons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: just the +Marketing: Yeah is it is user interface . +Project Manager: concepts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Component . +User Interface: This concept is in the actual design , but you should know where you would place a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well le Yeah . Interface , yeah . +User Interface: And the speech uh shall we implement that ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we just heard about the new uh technology , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Technologies , uh . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easy for that , where are you , but then it says I'm here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But then you should also find a place {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Makes it possible to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could if you do it like this you could put it in a corner or something . You can talk into the corner . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , a microphone , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Not even necessary , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because a lotta {disfmarker} you can make a very sensitive microphone , so it makes it possible to uh {vocalsound} just put it arou uh underneath it or on the on the bottom of the uh remote . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe at the bottom where you can can hel hold it with you hand that there's also a microphone uh +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , that's also {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: over there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: So , in the middle or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's not import I think that's not im very important +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because yeah , it doesn't matter where the microphone is . +User Interface: {gap} but you should uh decide where you want to put it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , sure , okay , +User Interface: Right ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well tha +Marketing: Um I think where it isn't seen +Industrial Designer: Underneath ? {gap} Indeed . It shouldn't be uh very uh visible . +Marketing: the most . +User Interface: You could p you could put it in a logo of the company . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Inside . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , why no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe just in the the spot you just pointed out +Marketing: I i between the round of the R_ . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think it should be in a in an important position where people can see it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it is the the unique uh idea of our remote , huh , the the speech control . +User Interface: Yeah . So where do you want to put it ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Well maybe where the one hand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it doesn't makes it uh any more fancy because you get to see uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah actually it does {vocalsound} because it you can you can find it better if you use it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: It's a way for you to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: So it makes more sense just 'cause other remotes don't have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But are we talking about the button , or about the microphone ? +User Interface: About a microphone , +Project Manager: Yeah because a microphone is very small thing , +User Interface: there is no button . +Project Manager: but you can make it look like it's big so as its its really an important function of the remote . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think the left s under corner should be the best . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Where isn't {disfmarker} i it isn't most in sight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well put it there . I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't doesn't really matter . +Marketing: No . Actually doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So ? +User Interface: Alright . Any more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So well uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Interface type . +Project Manager: type , supplements , anything . Yeah , well we already s discussed that , huh , the the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ yeah , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh supplements well the supplement is to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} I think {disfmarker} I thought the , like you said , like scroll {vocalsound} next to the remote isn't that handy . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's better to just {gap} up what you'd like to do on the screen . If you want to go back you have to back button go back , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: if you want to choose audio settings you press audio settings and it goes to that s sub-menu . +Industrial Designer: Hey , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: the the young people do like uh scroll uh +Industrial Designer: Use the scroll . Yeah I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah ? You do like it ? +Industrial Designer: So why not , on on side . +User Interface: Or at least {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know if it's really the scroll , but the menu {gap} they like most , and I think you can never get through a menu great with a scroll uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fast , yeah . So if you've got a settings , if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think it is is faster . Becau I think the scroll's easier if you have a lot of options , +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but if you don't have a lot of option then {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} it's f uh +Industrial Designer: You have a lot of options , +User Interface: we have five or four or something . +Industrial Designer: because when you use {disfmarker} Yeah you get w when you use uh the settings menu for example to look up some uh uh some channels on your uh on your television , you should scroll scroll down uh on a menu which probably does not fit on your screen . +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah , okay , true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So then it's uh very handy to to scroll down , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you make just a rubber just like uh on your mouse or . Just put it on the side and it's very easy to use . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , no problem . +Project Manager: And I think I would it would make even more fancy because you have another interesting thing on the side +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: which you can touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's also different . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Well there's our five minutes uh warning . Um any more uh questions about about the design or the user interface or different components , everyone ? +Marketing: Um . No , colours are clear , +Project Manager: Everybody think they can can +Marketing: shape is clear , material is clear . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what's the standard colour ? +Project Manager: work for that ? +Marketing: And a standard , +Project Manager: Is there a standard colour ? +Marketing: yeah we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I +Marketing: no we have different colour . +Industrial Designer: You got you got different colours , +Marketing: How many colours are we going to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should you should have a black one +Industrial Designer: but you should have a standard colour . +User Interface: because uh I think black is standard . +Marketing: Black . Yeah , black I think is is the standard . +Industrial Designer: Black ? With the with the yellow uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if you want to be different , then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dark grey , something like this this colour or something . +Industrial Designer: Just a regular uh remote colour . +Marketing: Yeah like like yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then have uh different covers uh to use . +Marketing: Or or silver . I think it's better to have silver nowadays . +User Interface: Silver . +Industrial Designer: Silver , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you see more silver than black . +Industrial Designer: You see a lot of t uh silver televisions . +Project Manager: But still silver and black are {disfmarker} well +User Interface: Silver rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah the the silver black are our main colours . Yeah . +Project Manager: silver is new but also traditional , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we have silver , black and between those {vocalsound} is like I dunno s five colours between them or something . +Project Manager: Yeah w what about a yellow thing , I mean it +Industrial Designer: Yeah y I think it's better to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah it'll be a banana yellow , we have . +Project Manager: could be ugly , but it's definitely fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But +Marketing: R red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah . That's right . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you use uh silver , uh rubber s silver rubber isn't fancy . +Marketing: Green , wood , brown . Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: When you use titanium , silver is fancy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when you use silver rubber , it isn't fancy . Silver has to shine , and rubber doesn't shine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Especially when it's made of soft rubber like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You understand ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand . +Project Manager: Yeah I would think about colours like uh red , yellow , green , blue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah o of course . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The fruity colours and the autumn colours , like red and brown , {gap} dark red and brown . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all kind of colour . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . Fruity loops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Maroon . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and do we have to have a normal black one , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who's pinging ? +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You are pingin +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I thought we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You ping . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that wraps it up ? Everybody knows uh what to do ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I wrote it down here . I wrote it down here what to do um . +User Interface: Well I don't know what to do , +Industrial Designer: Well not what to do . Not what to do . +User Interface: but . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next meeting is once again in thirty minutes . Um here are the individual actions , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and especially notice that uh the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer are going to work together on a prototype drawing on a smart board , +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: and of course to all four of us uh specific instructions will be emailed by our personal coach . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: tough . We'll be available . +User Interface: But do we have to {disfmarker} We'll work together , but do we have to stay here , or do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I'd say just wait uh for email and uh find out . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thin I think we should work {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay well that was what I had to say , uh , +User Interface: Yeah I think {gap} . +Project Manager: final thoughts from anyone , or ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: We're finished . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Finished . +User Interface: So we have to keep talking English now ? {vocalsound} +","Project Manager convened a conceptual design meeting to discuss and make decisions on the remote control concepts, with a specific focus on presentations from team members. Three presentations about design components were made, which encompassed material choices such as rubber for the casing due to its durability and color retention, the implementation of LCD touchscreen technology, rechargeable batteries with docking station, advanced chips to facilitate potential speech recognition technology, and the consideration for aesthetically pleasing designs that balance the desires of both younger and older demographics. + +Industrial Designer suggested a rubber case and a single-curved design for the remote control, User Interface discussed the layout of the buttons on the LCD touchscreen, including the absence of physical buttons and the integration of speech recognition, while Marketing highlighted trends and preferences for colors and shapes among different age groups, emphasizing the importance of a fancy, innovative, and easy-to-use design. + +The decisions discussed included the choice of materials, color schemes, battery charging methods, chip on print challenges for touchscreens, the user interface design including the button layouts on the LCD screen, the option for audible location signaling for the remote (""remote, where are you?""), and the inclusion of a scroll for navigating menu options. The standard color for the remote was debated, with black or silver as traditional colors versus a range of fancy, bright colors. The meeting concluded with instructions for team members to work together on prototype designs and to wait for further instructions from their coach." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Yep . Soon as I get this . Okay . This is our last meeting . Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting . Uh and then we'll have a , the prototype presentation . {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation . Uh or we'll see what , what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation . Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget . Um then we'll do the evaluation , and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make , or hopefully everything will fall right in line . Um let's see , minutes from the last meeting . Um we looked at uh the the trends . We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel . It was twice as important as anything else . Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles . Um and a spongy feel . So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype . Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity . Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote . Um looking at other other devices . Um the iPod , we really liked the look of that . Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea . Um a two part remote , which was what were were originally looking at . Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use . But I think we've still decided not to go with that . {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case , the different energy sources , the different types of chips , um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote . Um and basically how , what were making for the prototype . So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over . +User Interface: The prototype discussion . +Project Manager: The prototype yeah . Do you need a {disfmarker} this ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there +User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow . Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned , it's basically designed around a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: where it is , obviously it wouldn't be that floppy 'cause this would be hard plastic . These would be like the rubber , the rubber grips . So that's so that would hopefully help with grip , or like the ergonomics of it . Um but all the controlling would be done with this scroll wheel . You have to use your imagination a little bit . And this here represents the screen , where you , where you'd go through . +Project Manager: Very nice . +User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um almost identical to an iPod , where that one way ch through channels , that way th other way through channels . Volume up and down . And then to access the more complicated functions you'd you sorta go , you press that and go through the menus . It's that that simple . That just represents the infrared uh beam . That's a simple on and off switch . Um I don't know , we could use the voice . T that blue bits should be yellow , that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose . And um {vocalsound} that's about it . It's as simple as you , we could make it really . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Is there anything you want to add ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we have there . That's plastic . Plastic covered with rubber . We might uh add some more underneath here . Maybe give it , give it a form . I mean you're supposed to hold it like that , but um just if you grab it , take it from somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference . +Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah . +User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , {gap} use both . Might as well think about {disfmarker} +User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well . Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: What but what's that button ? +Industrial Designer: not do it at all . It's a quick on-off button . +User Interface: Just the on and off . +Project Manager: Uh , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: That's um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important . So you don't have to fiddle with that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Um that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice . You wanna play with that over there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy 'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pretty impressive . +Project Manager: Well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana . +User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose . With the scroll and the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out . Or not luckily . Um do you have a marketing presentation for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I do . Okay . You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria . Um . Okay . So first I'll just discuss some of the criteria that I found . Just based on the past trend reports that I was looking at earlier . And then we'll do a group evaluation of the prototype . And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did . Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier . So we're gonna be doing it based on a seven point scale . And one is going to mean true , that we did actually achieve that . With seven being false , we did not achieve that . {gap} . Okay . So for the first one , we need to decide , did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly , then yes I would say , I would say most definitely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would {gap} . +Project Manager: It's bright . +User Interface: It's bright . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still has your traditional black . +User Interface: It's curved . It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: angles to it . +Project Manager: Yep , not angular . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'd say , when it comes to the ergonomics , the form and stuff , yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: However the colour , we don't have a say in that . +Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some people might say it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That has been , that has been dictated pretty much by the company . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh , we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly , definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'S nothing you can say about that . I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form . +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . It's different . You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that . +Marketing: Um okay so , do you think , since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria , do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Does that sound good ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think ? Three ? Four ? +Project Manager: I would say +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: four . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair . Okay . +Project Manager: Very non-committal , four . +Marketing: Okay , the second one . Did we make it simple for new users ? +Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive , I think yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I think that was the main aim , one of the main aims that we had . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one . +Marketing: One , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'kay . Okay . Um , do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users ? +User Interface: Uh yeah . 'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common , which are channel and volume . +Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And then the other ones are just a matter of just going , just scrolling further . +Project Manager: S scrolling through and selecting a few . +Industrial Designer: Right . So that's a one . +Marketing: So one ? +Project Manager: I think that's a one . +Marketing: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Okay um the fourth one . How about the problem of a remote being easily lost ? One of the number one complaints . +Industrial Designer: Something that big and that yellow you just don't lose anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not , you're not gonna lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's bright yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose . But um if we were to , if we were , that , the speech recognition . That , we could maybe just use that solely for the the finding thing . That was what we'd we'd mentioned . +Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just to use , to find it when it was lost . But like I said , like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily . +Industrial Designer: Oops . Hmm . +User Interface: And it's not gonna fall , like a rectangle would slip down behind things . That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe in the middle again , three or four or something ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose , I mean a million ways . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: But if we do go with the , with the speech recognition , then it , then our scale goes up quite a bit I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . You probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably two . You know . If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd say two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: With the speech recognition , which of course may be changed depending on budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y you could add an extra feature actually . Which makes this thing raise hell when you remove it too far from the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far . +Project Manager: Which , which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah true . But I mean d just those whistling , clapping key rings you have . They're cheap . +Marketing: Annoying alarm or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it can't be that +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff , +User Interface: expensive . +Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage , another piece that starts beeping . That can't cost much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that can also easily be integrated because these things are small enough to to hide , so you have one piece , you have to glue somewhere behind your {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then . {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television , yeah . Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . Are we adding one of these two features ? +Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Or a two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two , 'kay . Okay . Are we technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with +Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker} +User Interface: screens on . +Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology . +Marketing: From iPod yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we have {gap} . +Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow , there's not a lotta yellow . +Industrial Designer: right +Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: right +User Interface: Fa +Industrial Designer: right right . +Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour . +Marketing: Two ? Three ? +User Interface: {gap} 'cause it's stolen . +Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative , to tell you the truth . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No maybe not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah not really . +Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not so many . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um spongy material ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that , kind of , sort of . +Project Manager: We have some spongy , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed , I think . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: It's not a one though . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing +Project Manager: Yeah . Because it's only got what , these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back . +Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a four at most . +Project Manager: Probably a four at most . Possibly even a five . +Marketing: And lastly , did we put the fashion in electronics ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'd say we did . +Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda , you betcha . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour , +User Interface: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Be what we were told , and they'd say yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: 'Kay . Alright . Now we just gotta calculate . Six eight twelve sixteen . Seventeen divided by s +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eight . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} two point four ? +User Interface: Is that some long division ? No . +Project Manager: Something . +Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What two {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: Just , I'm sure there's a {gap} . +Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two . Right ? How does that look ? +Industrial Designer: I'm impressed . I can't do that without a calculator . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I can't do long {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while . +User Interface: very impressive . +Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria ? Is there like a scale that we have to hit ? +Marketing: Oh no . They just told me to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then . +Marketing: So that's that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , let's see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers . You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget . But we do . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah so . You'd been going a long time dividing that . It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on . +Marketing: Oh my god . +User Interface: Two point four two basically . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah we'll go with that . +Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent , you're kidding . +Marketing: Not too shabby . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P +Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this . Oh you can't really see that very well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us . Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's too much . +Project Manager: Well let's see . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that . Okay . Alright so at top , I don't know if you guys can read that or not . I can't 'cause I don't have my glasses on , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source . There's uh four , five , six categories . +Industrial Designer: Battery . +Project Manager: We have energy source , electronics , case . Then we have case material supplements , interface type , and then button supplements . Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source , we picked battery . Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two ? {vocalsound} Like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy , so that that's not our problem . People can change it every month . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is consumerism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print , regular chip-on-print , advanced chip-on-print , sample sensor , sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: We're advanced chip are we ? +Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print , yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , {gap} we have one of those . 'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curved , yes . +Project Manager: Case materials are +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: plastic . Um I guess it's two , since one for the top , one for the bottom . +Industrial Designer: N no . +Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one ? +Industrial Designer: No that's just one . +Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould , we can do that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter 'cause the price on that one is zero , which is nice . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , right . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Special colour ? +Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour . It's a specially ugly colour , but it's not special . +Marketing: Bright yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type . We have pushbutton , scroll-wheel interface , integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton , and an L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say the integrated . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Button supplement ? Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um special form ? Special material . +Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so +Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely . +Project Manager: Or titanium . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium . +Project Manager: They cost us all the same . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap} . +Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged , +Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements . +User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd ignore that . +Marketing: Leave it blank . +Project Manager: Okay . We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll . So our total is fifteen point five . Which I believe is +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much . +Project Manager: by three Euros over . +Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe . So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake . +User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface . And the L_C_D_ display . I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well 'cause we have to have both right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it , it also depends on the software on the on the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . We may not need it . There you go . +Project Manager: Well there we go . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +User Interface: There we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . So we just remove our {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: screen here . +User Interface: Make it a bigger dial . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Easier to use . Even easier to use then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Back to the design room boys . +Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: there you go . {gap} central ? +Marketing: What's the blue part ? +User Interface: That was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we ran out of yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's the batteries . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: . Oops . +User Interface: Even simpler . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there . +Industrial Designer: One more criteria . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro . Was no . We redesigned it . Now it's yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next slide . Project evaluation . Uh project process , satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , new ideas found . Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here . I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me . But I'd like to hear your thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Good teamwork {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just half a day , you have a remote . There you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Right from the start of the day . +Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought . +Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak . Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing . Um room for creativity ? There was that . Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things . Um you guys worked together well as a team . And um the means ? Which was the whiteboard and the pens . +User Interface: Yeah . We've used the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Super super . +Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think , but {vocalsound} minus your p +Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault . That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me , +Marketing: No I know . I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . Incom {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll , believe me . +Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay . N new ideas found ? Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Kinda . +Project Manager: Yes for the remote . Maybe no not f for +User Interface: Technology used . +Project Manager: technology . Alright . Closing . Costs are within the budget . Project is evaluated . Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary . That's it . +User Interface: Excellent . +Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Actually . Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up . And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can , what goes on after that . +Marketing: We might have a while though . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting . +","Summary of Meeting Discussion: + +The project team has conducted their final meeting concerning their prototype remote control. They reviewed minutes from the previous meeting, highlighting users' preferences for a fancy look-and-feel, incorporating fruit and vegetable styles, a spongy feel, limited buttons, and simplicity. They decided against speech recognition technology due to complexity. + +The prototype takes inspiration from the iPod design and has a unique banana shape with a simple user interface and minimal buttons. The remote is bright yellow with rubber grips and a scroll wheel for navigation, including an on/off switch. The materials chosen for the prototype were discussed, including the case and internal components. + +After evaluating the prototype against user feedback criteria, the prototype scored an average of 2.4285 out of 7. The team decided to remove the LCD display to cut costs, matching the budget of 12.5 Euros. + +The project manager asked for team feedback on the project process, which included points on teamwork, creativity, leadership, and available resources. The team expressed satisfaction and highlighted the efficient process and good collaboration. The remote was adjusted for budget compliance, and the next steps include a questionnaire and review by senior management. The meeting concluded with plans for a future questionnaire and final validation by the company's higher-ups." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Um we are {disfmarker} So the meeting will have about the same format as the last time . So {gap} switching over I've just left uh my first two screens {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} mailed you the minutes of the last meeting uh just to save time . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and is there any questions you have that arised from last meeting that are particularly bothering you ? N +User Interface: Mm um . No , I don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Then we shall start with a presentation from Raj . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Hi , me Raj , again . Uh in this meeting I I'm going to discuss about the trend watching , uh how these trends is going to affect our market potential and how important is this . So we have to look on this . First of all methodology . The met methodology to find out the trend was incl uh was done in a way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have done a rec not only a recent remote control market survey , but we also considered the latest fre fashion trends of the market , because we think that this is also a factor which will affect our sales and profit . So what are our findings ? In our {vocalsound} uh in our findings we have seen that {disfmarker} when we did our remote control market survey we found that uh people l uh people do have preference for tho fancy mobi uh f remote controls which look and feel very good , rather than having a functional look and feel uh good . So this sh this clearly indicates their preference for the design their outlook of the remote controls . So we should take into uh we should consider this factor as the most important factor , because this factor is twice as important , the second factor which is further ti twice the as important as the sec as uh the third factor . So this factor becomes the most important factor in our surv uh uh in our mark uh means in take {disfmarker} in designing our rem uh remote controls . +User Interface: The last one is the most important one , is it ? +Marketing: No the first one is the +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: uh the outlook of the mobile , the it should have a fancy outlook , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the fancy design uh rather than just having a functional look and feel good , it should have a fancy look and foo feel good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: The second most important aspect is that remote control should be a technologically uh innovative . We must have some technological advancement in the remote control tha rather than just putting it as it is as the other remo uh remote controls are . So it uh should be technologically innovative like glow-in-the-dark or speech recognition , something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that indicates our technological advancement . And the third most important aspect in the ta to take into consideration is that it should be easy to use , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like it shouldn't be too much co complicated , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: there shouldn't be too many buttons on this mobi uh remote control , it shouldn't be too complicated uh like this way . And it should be uh {disfmarker} and customers should be provided with manuals that is easy to understand in their local language , something . So that they could know how to use these remote controls . When we did uh f fashions uh , recent fashion uh {disfmarker} our recent fashion update shows that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was just reading fruit and vegetables . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hard to know how we are going to incorporate that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y yeah uh yeah , we have to , because uh d you can see how people have related their clothes , shoes , {gap} and everything with fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because the g world is now changing it's trend towards organic , becoming more and more organic , +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should make a big sponge lemon , +Marketing: becoming {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then it'd be it would be yellow . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Th that's very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So something like that we we should do . +User Interface: Glow-in-the-dark . Okay . +Marketing: And people uh the f feel of the material is expected to be spongy rather than just having a plastic look , hard look . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's what we kind of predicted anyway . +Marketing: So so that they could play with it while handi uh while handling it . So that should also be taken into consideration . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So these are my views . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , the spongy , not real spongy , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No it ca {vocalsound} y a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you think like rubber would be good or does it really want to be like gel kind of stuff ? +Marketing: The rubber which is good for health and which is quite disposable that we can take into co +User Interface: Okay . Quite disposable . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we It shouldn't be have any harm to the environment also , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: because our company is very well {gap} for taking all these concerns into consideration , +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: so we don't want to have any harm to the society , +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fashion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So that's all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fruit and veg , well there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just what I think of when I think of a remote control . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: A remote control ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: And were there any factors that weren't important in the survey , that they said we don't want ? +Marketing: S uh we didn't find out any such point . +User Interface: Or was it just {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yes , there could be , but we couldn't find out any , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: F_ , what is it ? Um . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh no , {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No signal . Is that {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's got it's got it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh yeah , uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +User Interface: Okay , and then F_ five , right ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Um okay , so the interface concept um . Yeah . The interface specification , what people {disfmarker} um how they interact with it basically , I think . Um so the method , we looked at existing designs , what are the {disfmarker} what's good about them , what's bad about them , um I looked at their flaws , so we're going to look at their flaws , everything . Um and what {vocalsound} the survey told us and what we think would be good , so a bit of imagination . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the findings , I've got some pictures to show you as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} either . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so most remote controls use graphical interface , where you um have got s buttons and you point it rather than having the output as a a stream of text or something . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Um and we also found that there's inconsistent layout , which makes it confusing . So I think for our remote control {disfmarker} There is some inconsistency already in {disfmarker} ec existing in {disfmarker} between remote controls , but I think standard kind of um shape and uh play and those kind of but buttons like the the top right for on and off or something , +Project Manager: Right , okay . Yeah . +User Interface: I think , people find that important,'cause then it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And we've got some pictures of some uh new remote controls to show you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: Do I press Escape F_ five ? Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no just escape should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Escape , okay . Um , oh I still haven't got my glasses on . Yeah , okay . So these are the {disfmarker} some of the pictures of existing ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: I'll just walk you through them . This one is a voice recognition . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And that's the kind of idea we're going for . +Project Manager: Looks pretty complicated . +User Interface: There's um an L_C_D_ thing , which we thought could {disfmarker} I thought could get a bit confusing and a bit expensive as well for us . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: This one is {disfmarker} got a kind of scroll like a mouse , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , like the middle button . +User Interface: which {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and {disfmarker} But I'm not exactly sure how you'd use that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it's kinda like scrolling {disfmarker} +User Interface: like would the computer come {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh right , well , if I s if I'm thinking of the right one , I've got the same thing in front of my monitor , you scroll it and the when you reach the sort of um {vocalsound} menu item that you require , you press the middle of the scroll . +User Interface: Uh-huh , that's like the L_C_D_ one , +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: is it ? But the one below that has got like {vocalsound} a little scroll function on the side . But I presume that the functions must come up on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , presumably . +User Interface: I think that's what that is . So these are just a few ideas . Again that's just quite boring shape , grey , looks quite space-agey , but too many buttons , I think on that one . +Industrial Designer: Uh it looks threatening . +Project Manager: Yeah , looks like uh looks like something out of a jet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it does look kind of dangerous . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks like yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Um this one I thought was really cool . It's w it's got the programmability function that we talked about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can put it in there , it's for your kids , and it's quite an organic shape and the little circle around there is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really easy to use , bright , so I like this one lot for our design . I think something like that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Yeah , I m I mean the one thing I think about about these ones is um these kl uh secured areas um {vocalsound} , I've seen a lot of them with the the cover missing . +User Interface: Of course yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So like have it hinge rather than sort of clip on or whatever . +User Interface: Right , yeah . Yeah , that's true . Yeah . Um so maybe that could be built into one of the things and it comes up on the T_V_ or something . And this one , the over-sized one , I don't know about you , but I think it's a bit too gimmicky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think that will sell very well . +Project Manager: I mean is that not sort of to assist the blind or something , is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I guess so . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Then d blind don't watch T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: No they do , they do . +Industrial Designer: They do ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They listen to it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And um this one {vocalsound} is just pointing out . I like {vocalsound} some of these things um the the raised symbols and everything , but {gap} pointing out um that this one the volume it is kind of pressing down , but it would actually go up , because of the shape . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: So that could {disfmarker} that's a bit confusing . Um but the buttons on this I think are {disfmarker} it's just showing you how you can have different different um buttons . They don't have to be all the same . So that's quite cool . Um . +Project Manager: 'Kay but people tend to recognise certain shapes to do certain things anyway , don't they ? +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . Um F_ five . Yes . So there are some of the findings . So we need to combine those ones um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I've just got {vocalsound} an e-mail from our technical department saying that they have broken through with some new speech recognition software that you can program in . +Project Manager: Brilliant . That's handy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah it is , just in time , very handy . Um so {vocalsound} I think maybe incorporating that in our design would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} you program it like you say , record , um and then , play , and then , record , play machine , and stuff like that , so that's {disfmarker} And it's much {disfmarker} Yeah . So that's quite cool . Uh personal preferences just some imagination , the raised symbols I thought were good , the L_C_D_ , it does look smart , but I think maybe for our budget , do you think that would be a bit too expensive to have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the other stuff uh , I think . +User Interface: And the speech recognition , 'cause I think we're definitely going for the speech recognition , +Marketing: But in our market survey we have seen that people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: but they want the quality , they want f fancy look , they want some new design , something new . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But our budget , we've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's still it's still got to get within our twelve fifty , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So even if we increase our cost little bit , within uh some limits , and we give something new technological advancement as well as new design with fancy outlook , I think we will meet the requirements and we will be able to have a good sales in the market . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm not sure if the {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} for twenty five Euros uh per uh twelve Euros fifty m manufacturing cost , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ben bana +Project Manager: Yeah . I can't see tha Although , th I mean to be to be sure they have got {disfmarker} I mean they are going crazy with the L_C_D_ technology now , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: so that you've got your L_C_D_ T_V_s and everything so maybe the small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I mean like I I {disfmarker} the black and white , I guess , it just doesn't look funky enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but , I mean , like even mobile phones or whatever have {disfmarker} now have colour L_C_D_ screens , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: w I ju I mean +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: I wouldn't know about the costs of them . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: But uh price price not withstanding um , is it too complicated , is it gonna be too much just overload ? +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: Uh i it will be easy because there will be , on L_C_D_ s screen , there will be different frent icons , they can just click ok okay , whatever they wa +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Possibly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the thing , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but the thing is when you use a remote control , you never look at it , right ? You're looking at the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and and it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just seems kind of like a a needless th +User Interface: And one of the survey findings was that they want it easy to use , so I think I'm not sure about the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: It's a it's great , it's a good idea , but for our budget and for the thing we're trying to go for eas easy to use , it's not the thing we should go for , I think . Child-friendly , I thought this was good , as you pointed out the um {vocalsound} the bit , it often goes missing especially with children , but it's a good shape and the organic is kind of {disfmarker} we could make a vegetabley kind of round shape , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So which vegetable ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I mean we could make a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I know , carrot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , si since we're going for the uh the k the sort of company colours , I think your lemon wasn't that far s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the lemon . Well what are the options ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if it doesn't work you know , we've just made a lemon . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we don't want it to be {disfmarker} Yeah . Um the child-friendly , yeah . Easy to use , it seems quite easy to use . I like the d the different shapes of the buttons and stuff . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like I like the colourful buttons as well . +User Interface: I think that's a good idea to go for . Yeah . And the mouse one , I thought it was a good idea , because people use mo mice mouses now with the scrolling thing . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean we are marketing to sort of twenty five to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so most people will have come in contact with that kind of use . +User Interface: S yeah . So they'd be able to use that um , as I said I think i I'd presume it would come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so there you go . +Project Manager: And that means tha that means you get to bump that bit to the T_V_ maker , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: So that's um the user interface +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So okay , I'll take this out now then . +Industrial Designer: Um so +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: I guess there are a lot of options that we're gonna have to choose from among , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , looks like it . +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll give you the uh , {vocalsound} I guess , technical considerations for those . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And I'm gonna use the whiteboard , just 'cause we haven't used it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just thinking the self same thing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . So , the way I'm gonna do this {vocalsound} is uh we're gonna take a look at some old remote controls , see how they work , uh reuse the the vital kind of um essential pieces of it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we'll throw in our new innovations um {vocalsound} and keep it all within budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Magic man . +Industrial Designer: So uh yeah , looking inside a a very simple remote control . Um this is what they sent me . 'Kay . Here's uh the competition , I suppose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um you open it up , there's a circuit board inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um {vocalsound} and there's a a chip , a processor , the T_A_ one one eight three five , which um receives input from the buttons , and ch +Project Manager: So this is a standard off the shelf kind of a chip , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right , it's very {disfmarker} they're very cheap remote . This remote costs nothing , you know . Um so that takes a signals from the buttons and translates it into a sequence of pulses that it then sends to the to the amplifier , which is made of some transistors and amplifiers , op-amps , and then that gets sent to the uh to the L_E_D_ light , which I can kinda see is that little red light bulb at the end , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that sends out the infrared uh light signal to the television . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh here it is . {vocalsound} Um so this is kind of the the bear essentials that we need to have in our remote control , because it it defines the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So can we make them to pretty much any size we like or is there a minimum or ? +Industrial Designer: R Um no , I mean this is a very old one , so now with the new technology this is a a minimally small and cheap thing to make . +Project Manager: They gotta be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Almost a key-ring . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . So this is what we need to have for certain . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . So you know , as we said , we got the outer casing , which we have to decide , you know , what's it gonna be , um the board we have to use basically uh the same set-up , processor , um we'll probably use the more advanced processor than they had , amplifier and transmitter are all standard . Um so for the casing , uh this an e-mail I got from our manufacturing team uh , you know , we have a bunch of options from wood , titanium , rubber , plastic , whatnot , um latex , double-curved , curved . So lots of choices , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: what do we think ? Uh or sponge , I guess , isn't on there , right . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Mm . I'm not sure about the sponge . +Industrial Designer: Organic sponge . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I mean like la latex has a kinda spongy feeling to it , doesn't it . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's very elasticy for sure . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And that would k also give it kinda durability +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and ther that's also f sorta relatively cheap to cast . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so maybe s uh a sort of uh plastic {disfmarker} initial plastic with a a latex kinda sheath ? +Industrial Designer: Okay so , here are a a plastic , uh latex {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like the rubber , the stress balls , I think , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: you know , that could be a bit of a gimmick like it's good to hold and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Project Manager: I don't know what that stuff is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something with give to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . And +User Interface: And that might be quite durable and easy to chuck around . +Industrial Designer: and the colour is yellow , right ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Or at least incorporating , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: y {vocalsound} yellow incorporated , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yellow {vocalsound} , okay . Um . +Project Manager: I mean I forgot i we're sort of uh {disfmarker} I don't know what other standard silver kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Other parts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , the buttons w like , 'cause there's gonna be the the cover the the rubber or the plastic casing and then the buttons in probably two different colours +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm' kay . +User Interface: or i if we're having buttons actually , +Industrial Designer: So yellow for the body , +User Interface: I don +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: and then what colour for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Um I quite like the multi-coloured buttons myself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So multi-coloured buttons . +User Interface: You do have ones like um play {vocalsound} could be green or on and off is red , and stuff like that , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah or yeah a limit uh maybe even just a limited multi-colour so it it doesn't look too childish , perhaps . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Makes it easy to use . Yeah , that's true , because that blue one did look quite hardish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Although I mean this uh uh also comes to shape as well . I mean if we are gonna make it a novel {disfmarker} I mean double-curved sounds good to me if we're talking about sorta ergonomic and easy use , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: a bit comfier , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay so the shape we wanna go {disfmarker} Um how exactly ? Maybe double {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like uh {vocalsound} an hour glass kind of figure , is that what you're thinking of , +Project Manager: Yeah it's uh , yeah , that that'd be {disfmarker} that's sort of comfortable to hold , easy to hold so you don't drop it . +User Interface: or just like a {disfmarker} It's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What about a banana ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make novelty remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay , like we could have a big banana shaped remote control , +Project Manager: Well , yeah , I mean like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's yellow fruit , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Mm and a lemon might be a little hard to grip . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But then how would you point it ? +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: How would you point it ? +Industrial Designer: Oh i it doesn't matter which end you point , I guess . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could have a little L_E_D_s on each end . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I appreciate this idea , +Project Manager: They only cost pennies . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because then this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this will help us in our advertisement also +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and we can relate with fruits and vegetables , the people's choices . That what our data shows that , so this w this w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} y I'm I'm not sure about the banana idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: So a spongy banana re {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean that that th {vocalsound} +User Interface: Rubber banana . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: does +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: it does seem a bit uh again childish maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +User Interface: I think maybe just draw on the kind of fruit and vegetable shape . And what else did you say about fashions ? What was trendy ? +Marketing: Uh the fashion trend shows that fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: See {disfmarker} +Marketing: like people uh now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And sponginess . +Industrial Designer: So maybe an an unidentifiable fruit or fiable fruit or vegetable +User Interface: And spongy , yeah . +Marketing: Spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like so it would have a stem perhaps +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and a +User Interface: Maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe a {disfmarker} it'd be s axially symmetric . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Like what's what's that {vocalsound} , I don't even know the name of it , some kind of , you know where it's like {disfmarker} looks like a little snowman kind of thing . I don't know the name of that . +Industrial Designer: So it'd look like this kinda . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +Industrial Designer: Like a gourd almost , or a squash of some sort ? +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's what they are . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause that you can hold it in like the bottom bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it has a a clear top and bottom so y so you could say , you know , it transmits from this end . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , why the hell not . {vocalsound} Let's {vocalsound} that'll make us fifty million Euros . +User Interface: I don't know . What do you guy {disfmarker} What do you think ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Well , I guess it's kind of dra uh you don't necessarily have to have it sort of clearly identified as a fruit just to have that kind of fruitish shape , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , then only we can relate it with something . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can relate it by advertising or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so double-curved , single-curved , what do we feel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or we can do something , we can design two three shapes and we can have a public survey , let the public choose what they want . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's a good man . There's a good idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um , I guess , since you're the marketing guy . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . I will be happy to do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll uh {disfmarker} Okay , we could do that . Um . +User Interface: Okay . And buttons would , did we say ? Uh different shapes of buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um I l I su I mean for the specific functions , you know , up and down , uh play , stop . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: They've got , I mean , they've got standard sort of intuitive um +Industrial Designer: so buttons . +Project Manager: things that are always used . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just like that . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll-wheel or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , what about the scroll wheel and speech recognition ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition , I think , so we need a microphone presumably . +Industrial Designer: Okay uh I could put the microphone here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay there's the microphone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Where should I put the microphone ? +Project Manager: I mean ho h h wel are we sure that scroll wheel does give ease of use ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'm not sure . Um I mean those ideas I saw were just for inspiration , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Glad , we're not doing this for real . +User Interface: Um yeah , I can {disfmarker} no I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we can do some user test with scroll-wheels , right ? +User Interface: I couldn Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh I think if this this new software for the sound recognition is {gap} the microphone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should the microphone be just anywhere on it or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would put it sort of sub-centrally , so it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay there's the mic . +Project Manager: So it can be sort of held and w {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} We really need really gonna need to hold it , if it's gonna be voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Um n well we can {disfmarker} Whoops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: So let's not use the whiteboard any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oops , sorry . Okay . +User Interface: And uh so what else was there ? Um the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the glow-in-the-dark thing , the strip around it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I s I still like it . +User Interface: Are we just gonna leave that ? +Project Manager: Um but that's me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You still like it . 'Cause we've got the uh technological innovation with the speech recognition system . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , or maybe it's just going a bit uh too far . I mean we are pushing it probably with funny fruit shapes . +User Interface: 'Cause um it could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um don't wanna sort of overkill . +User Interface: Especially with yellow {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Mm . I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I mean like uh if we {disfmarker} I mean how good is the speech recognition thing ? Do we want to go for buttons at all , do we want to just have a device that maybe sits and pretends it's a fruit ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you put it in the fruit bowl ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} They can work from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you know , and then you just tal +Industrial Designer: You don't have to hold it . +Project Manager: I mean like everybody's got fruit bowl in front of the telly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it could even encourage healthier habits for television watchers , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know they have uh fruits all round them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Make them make them think of fruit , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now just make sure they don't eat the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean uh {vocalsound} some uh I +User Interface: Yeah , do we need buttons ? +Project Manager: l like think of a fruit that could sit sort of independently on its own like uh , I dunno , an apple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Then it's just apple so sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , yellow apples though {disfmarker} Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I quite like the shape . I quite like the design of that , uh 'cause that could sit on its own and it's quite {disfmarker} got a quite steady base . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Groovy . +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and as we say we n we don't wanna be too ridiculous with the fruit things you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , about the speech thing , it doesn't have to be hand held or close . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It can sit at a distance and pick it up still . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {vocalsound} I mean like you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , gives you the options . +Marketing: we can do one thing , we can just have a remote control and casings of different different shapes , different fruit shapes in such a way that a any casing can be could be fit into this mobile general piece . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So whatever people want , like if somebody want it in banana shape , we will put that casing onto that mobile phone , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So a selection of casings . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it will look l {vocalsound} Uh yeah . In that w +Project Manager: It kind of fi it fits with f fits with marketing um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you said about disposable , +Marketing: S s sorry ? +User Interface: didn't you ? You said about disposable earli people want disposable things +Marketing: Uh like if this is a like if this is a mobile phone uh we will design casing in such a way like half of , we need not to have a full cover , we will just have a half of cover , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so we could do that , like have a choice . Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? If somebody wants it i in banana shape , we will fit banana shape casing onto that , so it will give a banana shape look . +Project Manager: Like like mobiles , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wanted in apple shape we will design that , we will put {disfmarker} we will put apple shape casing on that . It will give apple shape look . So in that way you can have any , that means whatever you want , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: without {disfmarker} uh yeah . +User Interface: We still need the buttons in the same places thought , +Marketing: Yeah , button will be on the upper side , buttons will be the on the upper side . +User Interface: don't we ? +Project Manager: You can standardise those , I mean . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons will be on the upper side , lower side we will just put the casing , +User Interface: Oh , that's the other side . Oh , okay . +Marketing: so half of that will be look the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , half a fruit . Oh , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , not not the upper side . So from lower you can , it means while you are holding of {disfmarker} from this side you c you can have banana look or apple look , whatever . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: So in that way we need not to d have different different shape mobiles everything , we will just design casings fruit shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think tho I think if you're gonna have a facia then you'd want to have it so that it does go over the buttons , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause when {disfmarker} if you think about it if they're wanting it , 'cause they want to look at it , if they're using it , and what they want to look at is facing away from them . It doesn't really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm mm . +Project Manager: You know 'cause that'd be in the palm of their hand and they wouldn't be able to see it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: unless you have sort of {disfmarker} you got the buttons options on one side , and you get the facia on the other side with a microphone so that you can place it face down . And you've got the facia , and you can just talk at the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , um so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you've narrowed it down to half a dozen options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: s I guess we decided on material , right ? So that that spongy latex rubber everything feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the colours we got down , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the shape , maybe we'll just make it kinda mix and match type of shape or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , um because {disfmarker} Well , I I'm not sure if we should go so far in the whole fruit thing , because I think we should maybe just take the inspiration from the fruit and uh because {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we stick with what we've got there . +User Interface: Yeah , w I think wh wha would {disfmarker} we're trying to get to twenty five , thirty five year olds who want it quite trendy as well they said . They wanted something that looks fancy and I think maybe fruit could be a bit of a {disfmarker} too much of a gimmick , but something ergonomically shaped and organic , like good to hold , based on fruits and natural things like that , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: because al already we're going a bit gaudy with the yellow , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean we could make it nice pale yellow . +Project Manager: Well , it's kind of gotta be our company's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So again I mean like we could have , uh I mean , we could quite easily have the the main body be a different +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: colour , but have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we could have that pale yellow and then an outside bit bright yellow with , you said , the logan the slogan . +Project Manager: kinda going round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I mean e even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean not necessarily that the um the whole body has to be of the company colour , so you know um blue and yellow tend to go to we well together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have the main body blue with the yellow logo and slogan running up one side of it kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} Um as for the energy source um , you know , almost every remote control uses just batteries , but we don't have to be limited by that . We can use a hand-dynamo . Um I don't know what that means , we crank it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh It's I think it's basically the more you move i it , it's got a wee thing inside that just kinda {vocalsound} powers it . +Industrial Designer: Right , it's like those watches that you c +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , this might be an idea for something that people really wanna grab , you can shake it if it's out of power . +User Interface: Oh , a d a dynamo ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like with those watches that you kind of twist . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's quite cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So if it if it's not working , I guess people's natural reaction anyway is to just shake the thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . You shake it and scream at it . +Marketing: But but do you think that it will be a good idea to use dynamo , tha these type of cells ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is , yeah . +Marketing: Because then people have to , well like if the cell is out of bat +Project Manager: It does leave them with an obligation to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to mo Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they want to use it uh uh sp uh specifically as um voice activated . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because most of the people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then if it's just sitting on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then they have to pick it up and then activate it and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: That's true . +Project Manager: Right um what are the other options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh there's solar power . Um . +Marketing: Uh , solar power will w also not be a good idea , because then they have to keep m their mobiles outside in solar energy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the days when there is no sola sunlight {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm I'm with uh Raj on that , +Industrial Designer: Okay , so probably just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , you know , +Marketing: What we w +Project Manager: I've got I've got no I've got a north facing house , there's not really ever sun coming in my window . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . I think we should {disfmarker} a rechargeable {vocalsound} battery will be a good idea . +User Interface: But w {vocalsound} like just normal light ? +Project Manager: Oh that's true . +Marketing: They can they can recharge it . +Project Manager: I mean I w I w uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that idea that I thought {vocalsound} um just on the basis of like ridding them of batteries and that kind of bother +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: is having a , +User Interface: And we're a very environmentally friendly company , aren't we as well ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: having a rechargeable stand , so that not only it doubles as a stand , but um for using it as {disfmarker} uh recharging it , but also for using it as sound recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Like like a hand {disfmarker} like one of those portable phones kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh a rechargeable battery {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um the user interface , the buttons , I guess we talked about this already . +Project Manager: Rechargeable . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {gap} . What's chip on print ? What's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Sorry , never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh th the uh the electronics um , basically the more features we add um {disfmarker} Oops , this one . So the more features we add the fancier chips we need to buy and put in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which adds to the cost as you can expect . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . But uh I think we can keep it all under budget . So uh yes , so the speech thing you said our our techno our research and development department came up with some break-through . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So just in time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we if we're just having buttons and the speech then we're getting our cheapest option of chipping . +User Interface: Just in time . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: That's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh woah . +Industrial Designer: and keeping the L_C_D_ screen out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , we're we're kind of uh we're kind of um {vocalsound} Excuse m I've just deleted that whole thing . Um we're kind of running out of time , so if you could {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Um that was {disfmarker} your bit's covered , +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that was that was it . +Project Manager: I just dele I just accidentally deleted what I was supposed to say next . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Bri +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So control F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , mine seems to have turned off . +Project Manager: And I just touch the pad . +User Interface: I can't do anything . +Marketing: You just touch the pad , yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's actually shut down . +User Interface: It's on , but there's nothing on the screen . +Project Manager: Okay , um now what we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Try uh flipping the screen down {gap} . +Project Manager: uh our next meeting's in half an hour +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and what I would like you guys to do is work on giving me a model in clay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I get to do it , too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . It's you guys . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh neat . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um , you know I mean , luckily we chose a nice simple shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and further instructions will be sent by your personal coaches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Save everything to the shared documents , is that right ? +Marketing: {gap} That's great . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I hope I can recover this , 'cause I've accidentally deleted it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which doesn't really help me much . +User Interface: I think , I've saved mine already . +Project Manager: Yeah , can you save that {disfmarker} uh send that last one again , please , Raj , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: as I still can't find it on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it was under a different name . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will show you , in shared documents . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh working components {gap} . Oh , you didn't get that . I will send new . +Project Manager: No . Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Uh I'll put it in shared documents , again . +Project Manager: Um yeah , Project , Project Documents . +Marketing: Project documents , sorry , I put it in the shared documents . +Project Manager: Uh right , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: that's that's the that {disfmarker} it goes there automatically if you put it in Project Documents . Project Documents is on the um {vocalsound} desktop . +Marketing: Right , that's great . But I cou can't open that , because it w asks uh for some username or password . +Industrial Designer: Oh {gap} . +Project Manager: Really ? {gap} +Marketing: {gap} I'll show you . +Industrial Designer: Uh these lapel mics are trouble . +Marketing: Ts +Project Manager: Oh right , I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hold on . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know if y it it just ca it just came up on my um on my agenda . S {vocalsound} Um presumably there's clay somewhere . Um . {vocalsound} Four . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Whoops . Light , light , please . Light . {vocalsound} Right , there you go . +Marketing: Yeah , th thank you . +Project Manager: Yeah , quite . And we're using this our basic chip set , so it's all good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Are we done with our meeting ? +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Brian . +Project Manager: Um I think we're almost done , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have to keep your pen separate , because I used your pen . +Project Manager: Oh oops . +Marketing: S {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry man . Uh okay , still didn't manage to get down all the last bits so we had rechargeable and {disfmarker} Uh . Apples . {vocalsound} Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . 'Kay , so we came up with that , that's okay . What's supplements ? Supplements . Uh {vocalsound} uh . {vocalsound} See . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . Fun . +Project Manager: I shoulda {gap} something like that . If I kn see I I knew that . I shoulda sort of engineered it so we k ended up making a diffi difficult shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just for cruelty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Star fruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder if they mean like literally make it , sort of buttons and everything . +Marketing: So sh should Should we leave now , Brian ? +User Interface: No . Oh yeah , we can do buttons . +Marketing: Or we are going to discuss something ? +Project Manager: Um . Uh no , I think that's us our discussion over unless anybody's got questions {vocalsound} or confusions , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I'm good . +Project Manager: 'cause I'm confused . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Excuse me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh we'll probably get questionnaire in a minute , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . Thank you . Yeah . +Project Manager: There we go . Warning , finish meeting now . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: I rounded it up far too fast . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} . Where are we going ? My Documents , that's not what I want . My Project Documents . {vocalsound} There we go . +","In the recorded dialogue, the team is engaged in a design meeting discussing the development of a new remote control. The project manager is leading the meeting and the participants include personnel from user interface, industrial design, and marketing teams. + +The discussion begins with the project manager checking if there were any questions arising from the last meeting, followed by a brief assurance to start with a presentation from Raj, a member of the marketing team. Raj proceeds to discuss trend watching, emphasizing the significance of design in customer preference for remote controls. He presents findings from a market survey and fashion trends which indicate a preference for remote controls with a fancy design over purely functional ones, stating the design aesthetics are of utmost importance, followed by technological innovation and ease of use. + +The marketing presentation covers topics such as technological advancements in remote controls, including ideas for glow-in-the-dark functionality and speech recognition, and customer-friendly design considerations such as fewer buttons and easily understood manuals. The discussion also steers towards organic trends in fashion, inspiring ideas for potential remote control designs with organic, spongy materials resembling fruits or vegetables to align with current trends towards organic products. + +The user interface team member acknowledges the importance of the first factor mentioned by marketing— the aesthetic outlook of the device. This prompts further discussion on additional design aspects like the material feel, where spongy versus hard textures are considered. The incorporation of environmental concerns into the design is mentioned to ensure the product aligns with the company’s value on eco-friendliness. + +Throughout the meeting, there are interjections reflecting the real-time work environment, such as notifying about saved documents, technical difficulties with a screen display, and using specific key functions on a computer. + +The industrial designer discusses the technical components necessary for the remote control, considering options like material choice (wood, titanium, rubber, plastic, latex, etc.), shape, and color. The potential use of a hand-dynamo power source or solar power is brought up, but the team ultimately leans towards rechargeable batteries due to practicality for the users. + +The team explores user interface options like buttons with recognizable shapes and colors and the possibility of using speech recognition. They also consider different shapes for the remote, drawing inspiration from fruits and vegetables but not necessarily making the remote in the direct image of any particular fruit to not appear gimmicky. + +As the meeting progresses, ideas of a multi-functional remote with interchangeable casings, representing different fruit shapes to appeal to various customer preferences, are brainstormed. Employing user testing and surveys to refine the choices and gauge public interest is also suggested. + +Towards the end of the meeting, the project manager requests that the team works on creating a model of the remote control in clay. Instructions are said to be sent by their personal coaches, and there’s a moment of reflection on the agreed-upon shape, which is appreciated for its simplicity. + +The dialogue reveals the complexity of product design, where various aspects such as market trends, material choice, technological innovation, user interface considerations, environmental impact, and customer preferences must be balanced to produce a successful product. The team’s collaborative approach, the fusion of marketing insights with technical feasibility, and creativity are all evident in the meeting's progression, albeit with the usual challenges of communication and technical hiccups encountered in real-life project development scenarios." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is that alright now ? {vocalsound} Okay . Sorry ? Okay , everybody all set to start the meeting ? Okay , we've got half an hour for this one um to uh discuss the um functional design . +Marketing: Could you plug me in ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: All ready to go ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so hopefully you've all been working away , and I've put the minutes of the last meeting in the project folder . Um so I guess just to to recap on uh what we did last time . Um kind of uh got to know each other a little bit and uh got familiar with all the equipment and started to discuss um a bit about the project , you know , cost-wise how much how much money we had to s Um just want to tell you that you have three new requirements , which is the {disfmarker} The first one {vocalsound} is that um uh the company's decided that teletext is outdated uh because of how popular the internet is . Nobody uses teletext very much anymore , so we don't really need to consider that in the functionality of the {disfmarker} of the remote control . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um they've also suggested that we um we only use the remote control to control the television , not the V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ or anything else . I think the worry is that if the project becomes too complex then it'll affect um how long it takes us to get it into into production , the time to market . So um , we're just gonna keep it simple and it'll just control the T_V_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And the other thing was that the company want the corporate colour and slogan to be implemented in the new design . Um I'm not entirely sure what the corporate colour is . It might be yellow , because there seems to be a lot of yellow everywhere . +Marketing: And the slogan , like the actual written slogan , or just to embody the idea of the slogan ? +Project Manager: Well that's the thing , I'm I'm not sure um {vocalsound} uh th because on the the company website , uh what does it say {disfmarker} Uh something {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Bout putting the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean do they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is that something they want actually written on it , 'cause it's quite long . Um or yeah , just the idea , but I'm not sure . So that's something we can discuss as well . So those are the three things , just not to worry about teletext , uh only control the T_V_ , and um and uh incorporate the uh colour and slogan of the company . Um so is everybody okay with any of that , or do you want me to recap at all ? +Industrial Designer: Nope , we're all set . +Project Manager: Right um , time for presentations then . Who would like to go first ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Alright um , can I st steal this from the back of your laptop ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , of course , yeah . G go on ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} so this is the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Right {gap} to do the um {vocalsound} the design I have I've had a look online , I've had a look at the homepage , which has given us um some insp inspiration from previous products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um I've had a look at the previous products to see what they offer and um I would like to ask you guys for um {vocalsound} your ideas about the design at the end of the meeting . Um unfortunately we're not allowed to talk outside the meeting room , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um , having a look at the existing products , I found out that um it tends to come in sort of two extremes , there's either um a very complicated one that's got lots of buttons , lots of colours , very confusing , you don't know what you're doing . {vocalsound} Um in that case the the labelling tends to be very bad . Um there's an example I'll show you at the end , um {gap} sh show you now . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} here um the button there and there . This one's prog . Sorry . That one's perg and that one's prog , and it doesn't really tell you what it does . Um , not sure if you had a a look at the other um control in that example . Um it's a very simple one . It's got only the basic functions mm but um {vocalsound} it's the same size as the the hard to use one . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it looked a bit clunky . They're very big and not very much use for {gap} buttons . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} and it's just very hard to access the advanced functions . There's there's nothing for instance for a slow motion button . Um , my own preferences , I prefer the the clunky one . Um it's very easy to use . Um but unfortunately it does lack the advanced functions which I I quite like having on the controls . {vocalsound} Um so I believe the the advanced functions should maybe be hidden in a drawer , or something like tha {gap} from the bottom of it . So , {vocalsound} now I'd like to ask for your preferences . Um not sure of how long we've got , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . Well we can chat away for uh for five minutes or so I think at at most . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Just a couple of minutes anyway . +Marketing: M yeah , like a lot of a lot of what I've um read and prepared for this meeting fits in really closely with what with what Craig's just gone over . So in part I could I could give you some of my personal preferences but I could also th add some to this which is just about sort of um sort of market research . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But anyway , +Project Manager: Shall we sh well we'll stick to kind of your area for now . +Marketing: um we might come to that later . +Industrial Designer: Which which is the clunky one , the one on left or on the right?. . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , the clunky one is the one on the right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um clunky in what sense , like um h heavier ? Larger ? +User Interface: Um I think it's supposed to be the same size , but um it's got much fewer buttons . It's , you know , it's very spread out +Marketing: I see , so it's more just basic . +Project Manager: Looks kind of {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: and kind of {disfmarker} you know +Marketing: Right , okay . +User Interface: , I get the idea it'd be sort of about this size . {vocalsound} {gap} got very few buttons on it and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a valid point . I mean like the one on the left looks quite um quite complicated , and that P_R_T_ p P_R_O_T_ thing is incredibly confusing . Um so I see I see why yo you know you might prefer the simpler design , but yeah you don't want to lose out on , you know , what it does , so maybe you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know you get a lot of remote controls where you kind of flip the thing open , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} do we have any functions that um we'd want on it ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean so far I've got um on and off , um switch the channel up and down , and put the volume up and down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh . +User Interface: Um they're just the the very basics you could use for a T_V_ . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then actual numbers for channels as well , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um , you say that's a h a required one or a requested one ? Would you like +Marketing: Which was that ? +User Interface: um the channels like the the numbers on thing , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Up {disfmarker} the numbers , or the up down ? +Project Manager: God , I wou I would say that's required , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean there's no way anybody's gonna buy a remote control these days when if you can't actually individually select channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean would anybody disagree with that ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , what else , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So don't need to worry about teletext , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: don't need to worry about V_C_R_ , uh any kind of like display controls at all do you think we need to worry about , +Marketing: We don't ? No ? +Project Manager: you know like brightness and contrast ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well I think I think es essentially what we're doing right now is we're categorising . We're saying well we want this to be a product that offers all the sort of more tricky features but we want them to be in another area ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is that what we're we're doing ? +User Interface: Um , yeah . +Marketing: We're kind of like sorting them an Or are we actually eliminating things we just don't want the product to have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} are you are you maybe kind of thinking what we absolutely have to have and what would be nice ? +User Interface: Uh , to start with um sort of a bit both , um we need to find out exactly what we have to have +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um and after that we can add things if they're possible . +Project Manager: Okay , right . Well , do you wanna maybe just , at this point decide on what we absolutely must have as a p as a function of this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so so far , just to recap you've got volume and channel control and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: There's um on and off , um volume and channel , and skip to certain channels with the numbers . +Project Manager: Right okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one one way I would look at this um would be that we a approach the different controls in terms of um like control types , so that for the user it's very clear what they want to do where they go . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm yeah . +Marketing: Uh and also think maybe a little bit about sorta w w what would just wanna be acc easily accessible . +Project Manager: Oka +Marketing: For example if we had audio controls , those could be something people set up very rarely . Maybe they're un they're they're they're in a little area but covered up um , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: things like channel and volume um are used all the time , so we just have them right out on top , um very just very sort of self-explanatory . Um so maybe we need to think about having three or more groupings of controls , you know like one which are just the the habitual ones that should be right within your natural grip . And others that are uh also available +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then others that are concealed . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Uh well , just to to wrap up quickly on this this little section {disfmarker} Have I just lost {disfmarker} Oh no . Um , uh do you think maybe that's the only kind of uh essential requirements , and then maybe just things that would be nice if it could do would be things like audio set up and display set up and things like that , maybe like a mute button , that sort of thing . Any of {disfmarker} you anything to add to that at all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: I'll add it later , I guess {gap} the presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if we can move on to next presentation then please . Um +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Do you wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you want to switch places ? +Marketing: Can this can this pl reach ? Can this plug come across ? +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Project Manager: Probably not , actually . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So why don't I just pick up and move then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Here , I'll just {vocalsound} Why don't I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just just switch them . +Marketing: Mm er , can you go up behind me ? Kinda {disfmarker} This is so {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} bit complicated . It'd be nice if everything was wireless , wouldn't it ? +Marketing: I'm all in a knot now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . So I can I can say already , I dunno whether this is for good or for bad but there'll be a lot of kind of uh redundancy in the in the the issues and the the uh {vocalsound} the things . +Project Manager: Oh , like overlap between what you said ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh well , for all you know that {disfmarker} that'll happen . +Marketing: Which is ma not necessarily a bad thing , but may what I've already started doing is cr I created a slide in in my presentation here so um so that we kind of think well what's the cumulative effect of what we've taken from your ideas and and mine , because certainly I I have a hard time separating separating things completely . +Project Manager: Mm hard to know what {disfmarker} where your role ends , yeah . +Marketing: Obviously obviously what you've just told me what you've just told me impacts a lot on what um like market research mm that that I've been {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So how do I how do I get this up ? +Industrial Designer: Um function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Uh pr yeah , press function and F_ eight , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Alright . So {disfmarker} F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: Function , the blue button . Next to the control on the left . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , and F_ eight . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to push it together . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , I think that that's doing it now . +Industrial Designer: Nope . Try that again . +Marketing: Uh , again ? +Industrial Designer: Wait . +User Interface: Think maybe the the wire in the back might be loose . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} Oh oh here we go . +Marketing: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yep , there we go . +Project Manager: There you go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} okay great . Okay . Just um {disfmarker} Before I bring this up what I'll just say is um what I've what I've done is tried to collect some information so that I can then relay this to to you guys so that it's {disfmarker} now becomes a collective thing . And then kind of lead us in the direction of deciding , 'kay what what are our options , what should we decide and do you know what I mean , so . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Increase that 'cause we can't see the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's much better . +Project Manager: Right . Can you um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . That would be {disfmarker} Okay . So um does that make sense ? So what I basically got is I just looked into some information and sort of th tried to think about how how we could review it and how we could {disfmarker} and what kind of decisions we could take away from it and then maybe by the end of just looking at some of these things we can think about what are our priorities . 'Cause certainly there's lots of different information to go through . So um I'm thinking here about uh primarily about customer needs , that we start with the customer , and w you know , what they want and what are issues with with um existing products . Uh to think about trends and also about {disfmarker} try and connect that as you see with the company vision which is about fashion in electronics . Um and then , as I say uh w we'd like to prioritise our design features from this and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bouncing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So this is what I've found here , um a lot of this is new to me , so we'll just read through together . Um , users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls . So they find them ugly . Most people find them ugly . Um {vocalsound} the vast majority would spend more money for it to look fancy as well , we'll see later , the vast majority would spend more money for um slightly more intuitive control , such as voice recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay I'm gonna {disfmarker} we'll look at that in a second . Um most people use only a f a very slim portion of all the controls . So I guess what we're looking at here is people want this h technology , they tend to use the most simple controls and overall they find remote controls to be something they don't {disfmarker} doesn't really appeal to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think what we're doing is we're trying to take like {disfmarker} if for me this is sorta like three different different um inspirations , you know , one is that we want uh something that's high-tech but we want it to seem easy . And in spite of the primitive side of it and the very high-tech side , we want it to just be an appealing piece of equipment in people's hands . Um , {vocalsound} frustrations . They get lost a lot , s as it came up in our last meeting . Um , takes time to learn how to use them . This is uh why I mention when Craig was uh showing us some ideas that we actually try and group controls , so d it doesn't just look like a big panel , kinda like when you you look at , you know , a new computer keyboard , or something that is quite explanatory . If you want audio , if you want visual , then you have those . Um and I will admit I don't know what R_S_I_ stands for . +Project Manager: Repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Is installing a new remote control something that people {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , no , that did not come up at all . Um so here here is another um sort of a a review here of the main things . I also found that most people would uh adults at least would pay more for voice recognition . Now apparently we do have access to all the tech cutting edge technology in remote control . So I dunno if that's possible we might consider getting into it . Um . {vocalsound} And and again here as we sort of move m sort of thin start thinking about how we wanna sell and market this , I think a recurring theme here is the company wants it to be {disfmarker} wants us to make something that's fashionable and sleek and trendy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um people {vocalsound} uh additionally aren't aren't liking the appearance of their products , so we wanna think about as we take all the sort of the techie features how we can um put that into a unit which is which people like . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You know , they like the aesthetics and the ergonomics . +Project Manager: So want something that looks good and is easy to use , big priorities . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , so you know just c looking at what what Craig um Craig's i uh ideas are s sorta tell me that maybe what we wanna do is try and um separate the different things that we wanna include in this . So if we do say well we want there to be all the technology will we try and make that almost be like optional technology . You know , it's like like I find a lot of T_V_s these days , something really like about 'em is if you wanna just turn 'em on and off you can , but they have little panels where you click and there's just like tons of features you go through . +Project Manager: Mm . So it {disfmarker} you wanna group all the different kind of types of functions together , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . That's s that's sort of the um {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} my hope here is that I'm putting out this information so that we can then say okay , well how do we collectively move on with it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Um I I haven't brought out one specific marketing idea , although my sense is that what we should try and think about is what are the current trends in materials and shapes and styles , and then use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But not let that confine us technologically . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Marketing: So Alright ? Any um comments on all of that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , um one of the things that we have to decide on by the end of the meeting is who we're gonna be um {disfmarker} who's our our target audience , our target market . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , so if we want something that that looks good and is easy to use , but has y is fairly powerful product , whatever , who do we really want to aim that at ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: I mean {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where's the money , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , who wou who would have the money to spend . Well i if if like twenty five Euro is our is our selling price then you can imagine , +Marketing: Yeah . And who watches T_V_ . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well I don't {disfmarker} I'm not really sure how much that will retail at . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But you want {disfmarker} it's somebody who's not gonna just use the remote that comes with their telly , I suppose , they're gonna actually go out and buy one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , who do you think we're aiming this at ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think it'll be the mid range to the high end market , in terms of people . 'Cause twenty five Euros for a remote , how much is that lo locally in pounds ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's about sixteen , seventeen pounds , I think . +Industrial Designer: Is that too {disfmarker} is that a lot of money to buy an extra remote or a replacement remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so maybe not the high end range , but maybe middle , middle up-ish . Kind of . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know how much ? I dunno I guess you pay , what , ten ten quid for a remote ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like a simple replacement , right . I mean if you lost your remote and the first thing you just wanna go out and get , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: would you {disfmarker} how much would you pay ? +Marketing: This this kinda touches on your comments there , David . These are the age groups which we have information on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and these are {disfmarker} this is a table of h what people would pay more for a certain feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay +Marketing: Just gives us a rough idea of where the w the will to spend money on T_V_ equipment is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mostly focused around the twenty five age group . +Project Manager: Yeah , so do you think we're we're aiming at a fairly young market then ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Sort of young professional , kind of . Mm-hmm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you think then uh voice recognition is something we should really seriously consider ? What what do you think , Craig ? +User Interface: Well , did you not say it was the the adults that were going for the the voice recognition ? Sort of the the older group . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , it's the {disfmarker} Yep . +User Interface: Uh f +Marketing: It does it does fit with the market that we're sort of identifying , +Project Manager: N yeah . +Marketing: in terms of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we are gonna have to narrow it down , to say let's target these people and give them what they want +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and 'cause you know , there needs to be some kind of selling point to it . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: So um anybody {disfmarker} anything there to add {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just kind of young professionals , uh th like {vocalsound} if we are going to include speech recognition , it's kind of between fifteen and thirty five seems to be like a really high response to that . So we could say that was our target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I I think twenty five to thirty five is is is fair to add that in as a group as well +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because that's more than half your group of people who are willing to at least try and use your technology . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so fifteen to thirty five , look fairly young . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , they have bit of expendable income to spend on this sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think perhaps that age group is significant as well because those are people who use the computer , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: who are familiar with their {disfmarker} with computers in in their everyday work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think people who are maybe about {disfmarker} I wouldn't say thirty five , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but people who are about forty-ish and above now would not be so dependent and reliant on a computer or a mobile phone or something like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: So these are people who are gadgety , right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: People who are u growing up used to , you know in schools and in universities , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: when you go on to their working lives , people who would you know regular +Project Manager: Yeah . So they'll not sh not shy away from something quite high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: That that's that's a good point . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so shall we make the decision uh to include speech recognition +Marketing: If we can . +Industrial Designer: I I think one thing we should try not to avoid is not to say we have to use speech recognition right now , +Project Manager: if we can . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because um , based on what you've go y everybody's saying , right , you want something simple . +Project Manager: Okay . Why is that ? +Industrial Designer: You want basic stuff and you want something that's easy to use . Speech recognition might not be the simplest thing for somebody to use . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could it be an on off thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um , +Marketing: Like if you want it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but what I'm saying is that we're we're trying to lock ourselves into a s particular kind of technology , +Project Manager: Where you can activate it and deactivate it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: rather than focusing on on exactly what are the features that we're gonna say , and then , you know , say speech recognition is good for this , speech recognition is not good for this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I suggest that we think about speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: anyway it's a {disfmarker} it's something that can be used to fulfil a function , but at end of the day we don't look at the technology , but we look at the function first . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Sure . Yep . +Project Manager: Uh okay , well do you wanna um give us your presentation +Industrial Designer: Okay , sure . +Project Manager: and then then we can {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: um might have been a good idea to all deliver our presentations and then discuss , but this is this is how we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's good {disfmarker} well it's good to get ideas out while they're fresh in mind . +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh it's something that's just occurred to me as well is if we make it um speech reco if we incorporate speech recognition , that's appealing to people um maybe with a physical disability as well . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . And not losing . And also it helps in terms of people not losing this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know they {disfmarker} they're saying oh it's {disfmarker} I lose it in the couch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} like we're kind of what we're b sort of getting in into here is mating different uh design features together +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that they {disfmarker} +User Interface: I reckon one problem with speech recognition is um I've actually seen one of them used and uh the technology that was in that one wasn't particularly amazing , so you end up yelling at the control for hours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? +User Interface: Channel up . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really , you've seen one before . +Project Manager: Do you think maybe we need like further advances in that kind of area until it's worthwhile incorporating it though ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it'd probably quite expensive to put in . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , do you mind passing me my notepad . +Project Manager: Mm . Course not . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . Cool , +Project Manager: There you go . +Industrial Designer: um . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just the working design um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just what {disfmarker} how I would go about it . Um I guess I try to define like what we're doing now , try to define what we're trying to get done . Um I think in a practical way , we kind of know what it is . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: We've used it , we're familiar with it , but we're {disfmarker} we can't n we haven't narrowed down um exactly what the things we're trying to fulfil , like {disfmarker} Besides the basics , I think back {disfmarker} in the back of our minds we know what the basics are . Has to change channels , has to change volume , but in like specifics , right , which one of the basics are you trying to target . Um are there certain parts of the basics that are more important or less important than the basics ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and I just {disfmarker} the idea is just to get everybody to um {disfmarker} I usually {vocalsound} have a have have a design that's there as a basic , so , you know , things that {disfmarker} to start everything going . But I guess everybody does have some idea , so I don't think um there's a need for that . Um okay this finding things is a little bit confusing , so I'll go into the diagram first . It just explains how the process goes through , from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: from the basic technology point of view , the basic steps that you need um in the diagram and in this slide probably works better . Um okay , you need some power source . 'Kay , a battery or something , to keep it going . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and that power source is important because it ties you down to um how long the device will last . Um it ties you down perhaps a bit later on in terms of the technologies +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um how far you can transmit the signal or the complexity of the functions that you want . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like for example , voice recognition , right . That might be constrained because that {disfmarker} you might need to power a microphone , you might need to power other things , so that's one perhaps constraint there . Um {vocalsound} Th Okay , the basic thing is there's a user interface where people punch a button or talk into it or smile to it or blink their eyes , whatever . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know , and that um picks up an input from a user , um uh a logic {disfmarker} a series of logic has to decide what the user is telling the device , and the device has to r you know , based on you push button A_ , so I will do something with button A_ . So maybe button A_ is the power button , okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and then it needs to be able to send the signal out to the device itself which is the receiver here . Um and I think that's about it in terms of my design um . It's fairly general , um and I guess the purpose of this is also not to restrict you in in the way you're thinking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like um voice recognition , right , um , if it's something which is important then we just add more power rather than having a thing that we don't have enough power . So it's not really a constraint in that sense , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I mean these are functionally , you know , the base , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what the technology has to do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so I guess the rest of it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think we should maybe you you wanna go back to what the functions are ? I think that's more relevant to a discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Well , do you wan do you wanna finish up your your whole presentation then ? +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w I'm done . +Project Manager: Are you are you all done ? +Industrial Designer: More or less . Yeah . Ps Oh , it's just putting the rest of it into words , but it's essentially the same thing . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um you have a transmitter , an input device , logic chip , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you know , stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: And like on the {disfmarker} means {disfmarker} b +Industrial Designer: I guess this would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Since we're on the topic of the technology , uh are there any like {disfmarker} what are our options ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Alright , what's what i in {disfmarker} Is this the only way that we go about it , or are there other thin +Industrial Designer: Um , these these aren't technology options in that sense . This is just um +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: a basic principles and basic components that are needed . +Marketing: The basic principle of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: For example , if you needed um if you needed to add uh a voice recognition , right , then your user interface would be split , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: broken down into more components , right , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which you have a microphone , the V_R_ and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Oh . So this just show how we're kind of modularising the whole thing . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh Yep . Yep . So each component represents one function , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I think the basic functions are the logic , the transmitter , um and the receiver , okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the power are things that you won't have to care about . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and those are things that based on what your user interface requires then we'll add more functionality to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um there might be one other consideration which would be that the the transmission between the remote control and the T_V_ for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um are we gonna restrict ourselves to using the traditional technologies of infra-red thing ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because that's something you need to actually be physically be pointing to . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well well a worry that was was expressed in the new requirements was that if we made this too complex it would e it would effect um how long how long it took us to get this to market , so I th suspect it might be a good idea just to restrict our kind of our creative influence on this on the user interface and not worry so much about uh how we transmit it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: um because I mean it it's tried and tested intra-red , so we could stay with tha +Industrial Designer: There might be one other problem with the transmission , um in particular right now , since we're talking about voice recognition . Um if somebody's gonna h talk to the device , you ideally want them to hold it to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: I it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you may not require that , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but you know , um it's it's +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: it's something very natural , I guess , you know , to hold it , to signal to the user , +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and push a button maybe to start s talking about it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then you need to send the signal out , so because if you're using infra-red , the line of sight um say the T_V_'s at that chair , and I'm standing in front of here and the transmitter is here , it blocks it . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So in that sense , there's not really a restriction +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it's something which you may have to think about later on in the process . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not so much further down . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And um just a clarification before we finish this . Uh does c is our controller is it have the option of being um on a standard uh frequency as all of the other equipment , so that the one controller can control several pieces of equipment ? +Industrial Designer: There's there's not much specific specific information , +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: but I think that um one indication of infra-red mean that you're just targeting traditional devices . Because infra-red is something which everybody has . +Project Manager: Yeah . W Well well we've um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: In the new requirement spec they said just to focus on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just to T_V_ , okay . +Project Manager: so that's what we should do for now I think . Something I was wondering about was the power . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , is it worth considering like having like a charging unit as opposed to just regular batteries ? I mean is that something we really want to go into , do you think , +Industrial Designer: There's a there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or should we just consider running on regular batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , from from a from a component point of view there's added complexity , and you add cost to it , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um and then there's probably the fact that you need another physical component . You need a docking cradle , for example , for you to put it in to charge . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or you need to get the user to plug it in . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um and most users are very f use already used to the idea of buying batteries and putting it into the controller . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But unless the controller's gonna consume a lot of batteries , like he's gonna run through like twenty batteries a month , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then I don't think rechargeable is something we should {disfmarker} you know , we really need to care about . +Project Manager: Okay , so just stick to to regular {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , right . So basically the um {disfmarker} I'm just gonna just recap uh what I said at the start , was that um the the whole point of this meeting was to f absolutely finalise who we're gonna aim this at , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and what exactly the product's gonna do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um just to recap on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we all happy about the idea of um aiming the product at um the fifteen to thirty five bracket ? Um and also the funct the the actual functions of what it's gonna do . +Marketing: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Do you wanna recap on that , Craig ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we just say that it was gonna be the the most basic stuff possible . Um on off , up and down channels , up and down volume and uh skip to a channel . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +User Interface: Ta . +Marketing: And is it going to include any of the uh the more advanced features , or are we gonna eliminate those ? +User Interface: Um I think we include mute , but apart from that um I think we just {disfmarker} we'll go for the simpleness . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I think +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . R is it is it is it s is it not an option still that we include some things just as a sort of under {disfmarker} like sort of under a door or some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's as optional functions . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause what what I'm {disfmarker} I'd be a bit worried about is if someone was h had previously developed habits of expecting to control surround sound or this and that with their controller and then and then they , you know , w they get ours and w it's doesn't have that . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if that'd be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Another thing that you were saying about categorising the controls ? Um maybe I could suggest we we break them down into three simple categories . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One would be audio controls , +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: one would be video controls , and the other one would be a device . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this may not map very well to advanced functionality especially , but I think that um from a manufacturer's point of view , from a person designing the device , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think from a point of view of a person using the device , you know a T_V_ is something they see and something they hear , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um it's something they do other things to like turn it on and turn it off . I mean like so what we could have is like three buckets , right , where we could throw things into , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if we want this feature , let's throw it into there , and then from there decide whether it's basic , or it's non-basic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean it might help with the visualisation . +Marketing: 'Kay , okay . Like that . Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it would actually help with the component build as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm okay , great . +Project Manager: Um , okay well I gotta kind of {disfmarker} got five minutes to wrap up now . Um next thing we're doing is having lunch . Whoohoo . Um and then we're gonna have thirty minutes of working on the next stage . Um so I'll be putting the minutes of this uh this meeting into the project documents folder . Um so uh I guess just to just to confirm that we know what we're doing in the next {disfmarker} well in the thirty minutes after lunch anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um for uh our Industrial Designer , you're gonna be thinking about the components concept . Um User Interface Designer gonna be thinking about our user interface , and marketing you're gonna be thinking about trend watching . Um and you'll all get specific instructions as well . So um I dunno , just just to to ask now if you've got anything else you've thought about while we've been talking . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , do you wanna start with David . Anything else to say at all ? +Industrial Designer: Mm no , not really . +Project Manager: No , okay . {vocalsound} Andrew ? +Marketing: Um yeah , just {disfmarker} I just wanted to ask then before we wrap up , shall we agree for sake of um sort of clarity and when we when we r resume that we'll u use this idea David's proposed , where we think of these three sort of buckets and anything anything we discuss about them is sort of , okay , we're talking about this . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I think that's definitely a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Shall we do that , then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , great . +User Interface: Um just about the three buckets , um what would go in the the device functions one ? +Industrial Designer: Um things like on off . Because they don't have anything to do with what you see . I me mean in terms of picture and the entertainment value , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know , um so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and channel . +Industrial Designer: And channel . Because the on off also goes , you know , like on off like power , not on off sound . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not on off video . Although you don't turn off the video on your T_V_ , but um you might wanna you know turn off the sound , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: say you wanna pick up the phone , there's a mute button , right , so you you have you have a choice of putting it on to um others or a device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Device is basically anything which we can't categorise , right . We put it out . +Project Manager: Okay , so you're gonna have um audio which is gonna be like you know your bass settings and actual volume {disfmarker} hi +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , anything to do with what you hear , right . You you put that into audio . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then video is anything that you can see . +Project Manager: Okay , and then visual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so brightness , contrast , things like that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yep . +Project Manager: and then just actual device things , +Marketing: Colour , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: like what channel you're watching , turning on an off , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: stuff like that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then k I suppose quite likely what would happen is in the d device category there might be some which are just like the habitual standard and then others which are maybe a bit more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like random which we have no other place to put , but we need it somewhere there . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um even even if it doesn't map very clearly what happens is that people at least have some in their mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use , I think that's one thing that um {disfmarker} and I guess from the component point of view it's easy to build as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause things are like fixed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um so yeah , I guess just things to think about are you know like the fact it's gotta look good , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of who we're we're , you know , targeting this at . Um something maybe kind of quirky in design maybe . Make it kind of ergonomic kind of to hold , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know , things like that . Um , {vocalsound} so I guess I guess that's it . That's the meeting over . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Whoohoo . +Marketing: Then we get to go find out what was picked up for lunch for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","The team meeting, led by the Project Manager, focused on discussing the functional design of their project, a remote control. The Project Manager kicked off the meeting by outlining the three new requirements from the company: dismissing the need for teletext functionality due to its obsolescence, restricting the remote to control only the TV (avoiding complexity with additional devices), and incorporating the corporate color and slogan into the design. + +The User Interface Designer presented ideas for the technical functions design, basing inspiration on company's previous products. He emphasized the importance of balancing ease of use with the inclusion of advanced functions, possibly using a hidden compartment for the latter. + +The Marketing representative discussed market research, noting that customers find most remote controls unappealing and would pay more for a control with an intuitive interface, such as voice recognition. They focused on making the product fashionable and straightforward to use, aligning it with the company's vision of meshing fashion with electronics. + +The Industrial Designer talked about the components necessary for the basic functioning of the remote, including power source, user interface, logic circuit, signal transmitter, and receiver. He also raised questions about transmission technology, suggesting that staying with the traditional infrared could simplify development, which aligns with one of the new company requirements for simplicity. + +The Project Manager then brought the conversation back to deciding on the target market and confirmed the product's main functions. The team agreed to focus on the 15-35 year age group and decided that the remote will have basic functions like on/off, channel, and volume control, plus a mute button. There was a discussion on the possibility of additional features and how they could be categorized and possibly concealed. + +Finally, the Project Manager clarified the next steps for each team member and their focus areas moving into the next stage of project development. The team then wrapped up the meeting, looking forward to lunch and their following tasks." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh good afternoon . This is our third meeting already . +Marketing: Good afternoon . +Project Manager: I hope you enjoyed your lunch . {vocalsound} I did anyway . {vocalsound} Um let's see . Presentation three . Okay this is um the second phase uh we're going to discuss today . It's the conceptual design meeting . And a few points of interest in this meeting um are the conceptual specification of components . Uh conceptual specification of design . And also trend-watching . Um these are hopefully the points you addressed in uh your pre uh presentations you're going to show me in a few minutes . Um but first I'll show you the agenda . Uh first the opening . Then we have three presentations . Uh after that we have to come to a decision on remote control concepts . How we're going to make it . And then we're closing . We have about forty minutes . Uh so I suggest let's get started . Uh did someone encounter any problems during the preparation ? No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Everything fine ? +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: That's nice . Then a little uh thing about the last meeting . Uh these are the points um we agreed on . The requirements and the target market . Uh requirements are uh teletext , docking station , audio signal , small screen , with some extras that uh button information . And we are going to use default materials . Um does somebody have any comments on these requirements ? Maybe ? No ? These are just the the things we thought of , so maybe if you figured something else or thought of something else , just let me know . And maybe we can uh work it out . And we're going to target uh sixty to to eighty year old customers . So now everybody knows what we're do we're doing , um I suggest let's get started with the presentations . So shall we keep the same uh line-up as uh last time ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll start off then . +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Doh . 'Kay I'm uh gonna inform you about the trend-watching I've done over the past few days . Um we've done some market research . We distributed some more enquetes , questionnaires . And um besides that um I deployed some trend-watchers to Milan and Paris to well get all of the newest trends . And I've consulted some additional trend-watch trend-watchers , after the original trend-watchers return , about what the the best design would be . Um okay these are some overall findings . Um most important thing is the fancy design . Um the research indicated that that was by far the most important factor . Um innovativeness was about half as important as the fancy design . By innovativeness this means um functions which are not featured in other remote controls . Um about half of , half as important as the innovativeness was the was easy to use . Um for our um group , we're focusing on the people of sixty to eighty y years old , this is um , these factors are slightly more equal . 'Kay these are some more group specific findings . Uh the older people prefer dark colours . Uh they like recognisable shapes , and familiar material . And our surveys have indicated that especially wood is pretty much the material for older people . Um this is , this image will give you a little bit of an impression about um the look-and-feel that um the remote should have . Um this leads us to some personal preferences . Uh the remote control and the docking station should uh blend in in the in the room . Um so this would mean no uh eye-catching designs . Just keep it simple and {disfmarker} Well the docking station and small screen would be our main points of interest , because this would be the {disfmarker} These would uh be the innovativeness in the remote control . So this would be very important that we {vocalsound} at least include these features . Um well the trend-watchers I consulted advised that it b should be , the remote control and the docking station should be telephone-shaped . So you could imagine that uh the remote control will be standing up straight in the docking station . This is not really {disfmarker} This is pretty much a new shape to uh older people . So they would prefer uh a design where the remote control just lies flat in the docking station . So it would be kinda more telephone-shaped . Um besides that we would advise um to bring two editions , one with a wood-like colour and maybe feel , and one with a grey-black colour . The wood-like for the more uh exclusive people . People with more money . Uh the grey-black colour for well people with less means . That would be all . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Any questions about the the trends ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: Mayb +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , we go on to the next one . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} 'kay um yeah . {gap} uh some uh research uh a about um designing of an interface . Um the uh last meeting uh we had a about um uh using a f few buttons . So uh um uh that's w what I what I want to uh uh to do in uh our design . So um finding an attractive uh way to control uh the remote control . Um the uh {disfmarker} I found some uh something about uh speech uh recognition . So maybe uh we can uh use uh that . Um {disfmarker} Uh and uh using a little uh display . So um findings . Um yeah just um we have just to focus on the primary um functions . So uh only uh buttons uh for uh sound , um for uh on-off , um uh shifting u up uh sa uh ca channel or uh down shifting down . Um uh let's see . Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh {gap} we uh need some uh new a attractive functions uh uh which attract uh uh people for using it . So uh it's uh like a speak uh speech uh recognition and um a special button for selecting uh subtitles . Just uh what we uh mentioned uh last uh meeting . Um and yeah overall um user-friendly . So uh using uh large large buttons . Um {disfmarker} It's uh possible to uh uh to make um quite cheap uh system for uh speech uh recognition . Um you can think about um uh when you lost your um remote control , you can uh call it and um it gives an um sig signal . So uh uh yeah . And and uh for uh shifting up a sen uh c ch channel or uh for um uh putting out uh sound or something , you can uh just give a sign uh say um sound off or {disfmarker} A and uh yeah . Television uh put the sound off uh put the sound off uh . Um {disfmarker} Let's see . Uh yeah . I was thinking about the special uh button for uh subtitles , um just one button to keep it uh simple . Uh one push on the button uh you get uh uh small uh subtitles . Um double push push um , if double click , um so uh you get uh big uh subtitles , for uh people uh um uh which c f uh who can't uh read small uh subtitles . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah and w we have to keep uh in general buttons uh so um we've got um the buttons we have to use . The on-off , sound on-off , sound higher or lower , um the numbers , uh zero to uh uh nine . Um the general buttons m more general b one button for shifting up and shifting down uh channel . Um also we want to uh use a little d display uh for um for displaying the uh the functions of the buttons . And um we can uh build in a function f which uh shows the channel or some uh which the t television is on . So um made a little uh picture of uh it . Um {disfmarker} See . Um yeah . Just um we can put uh the on-off button uh over in this uh corner , um almost uh e all uh remote controls uh are using a on-off button on that place . Um so uh people uh will uh recognise uh um the button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} D display uh of it , it's uh just a small display . Uh um you can put it uh on top . Um it's uh most uh uh place where people uh , most of {gap} looks at . So uh um and a special uh button for shifting up uh and uh shifting down uh channel , um it's uh on place where um the thumb of of the {disfmarker} So you you can uh easily uh shift up or shift down . Um it's uh quite uh handy place . So um and uh all the f functions for subtitle uh one button , uh for sound uh {disfmarker} Uh and uh for our design , um uh we have to discuss about it uh I think uh so uh the form of it so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Project Manager: Uh thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . About the components design . Um for the energy source we can use a basic battery or , a as an optional thing , a kinetic energy , like in a watch , which you just shake and it produces energy . But if we choose for that option , the docking station would c become obsolete . So I don't think it's really an option . Uh for the casing , uh the uh manufacturing department can deliver uh a flat casing , single or double curved casing . It's really up the the design that we're gonna use . It's uh doesn't uh imply any technical restrictions . Uh as a case supplement , we could um , I thought of that l later , uh a rubber uh belt , like a anti-slip . Uh for the b buttons , we can use plastic or rubber . And the chip-set , um it says simple here , but it should be advanced , because we're using an L_C_D_ uh screen . And as uh the trend-watcher presentation showed , um people like wood , but it raises the price and it doesn't really fit the image , unless we would start two product lines . Form should follow function overall . Um well the kinetic energy source is rather fancy . But depends on what we want . I think we should disc discuss that . Um for the case , uh the supplement and the buttons , it really depends on the designer . And the chip-set uh really should be advanced because otherwise uh it would really be a simple uh remote control . And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . So that brings us to the discussion about our concepts . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . So these are the points we have to discuss . Um first I think we can talk about the energy source , since that's um has a pretty big influence on production price , uh and image . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so uh f I think first of all we have to see uh it is possible to introduce kinetic energy in our budget , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yes w there there are four options . We could use the basic normal battery . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a hand dynamo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't think that's {vocalsound} really an option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna swing before you can watch television . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells . But not every room is very light +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so it's not a very good option . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Or the kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: And how exactly does the kinetic energy work ? +Industrial Designer: Well y you basically shake your remote , and then it powers up . +Marketing: You just {disfmarker} You use it and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: Okay . Well personally I don't think that older people like to shake their remote control before they use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: And besides that you mentioned it would make the docking station obsolete . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: And I think our docking station could be one of the marketing issues with which we can um get great popularity for our product . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But +Marketing: Um wel +User Interface: what's the function ? Yeah f for loading up uh the batteries {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah you could load up the batteries , +User Interface: B b +Marketing: you could um insert the find the lost remote control function in there . +User Interface: Okay but uh it won't use uh much e energy uh I I believe . Uh it's uh just a small display so I believe uh it will run on one battery for um six months or f or or more . So I believe one battery uh is just enough . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well I think uh elderly people just like to have everything in place . +Marketing: That's true . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I don't think they they like uh remotes just laying everywhere in their rooms . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe a docking station will help them give the remote a place . +User Interface: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: And also what you said . Um you can introduce voice recognition by uh finding back your remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I think it's um more efficient and cheaper to put it in the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have a but button on your docking station which you can push , and then it starts beeping . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we can we can still use the voice recognition , but maybe then for only the the channels . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh . +Project Manager: That's safe . +Marketing: I'm wondering um what will the voice recognition mean for the production price ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good point . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't have any information on pricing . So I'll have to ask the manufacturing department . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause in our earlier um market research , if you'd allow me to go to the flat board , SMARTboard . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . Go ahead . +Marketing: Um so it was open here . Um we also um asked if w they would , if people would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Well you can see here , our target group would not do that . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: So if that would increase the price for which we're selling our remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I would greatly advise not to do it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think that would be better to uh insert in our other product , that is meant for the +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: younger people . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: But that would also go for the L_C_D_ screen then I guess . It's a bit higher percentage , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well this is Yeah but this is here the question was , would you prefer it . So that doesn't really mean they wouldn't pay extra for it . And on top of that the L_C_D_ screen would um help in making the remote control easier to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And I think a voice recognition function would not make the remote control much easier to use . +Project Manager: Easier to use ? No , I think that's a good point . +User Interface: But uh is uh our uh research um about um bi large uh L_C_D_ sh uh display , or uh just a small one uh we want to uh use ? +Marketing: Um well this was for like an L_C_D_ screen like you would have on a on the the most advanced mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So pretty large . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I personally think the L_C_D_ screen we wanna use , with the extra information , I think nobody has anything against it . Because it's just uh some extra information , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: and it's easy to ignore as well . So if you don't wanna use it you just don't use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um yeah I think the um {disfmarker} Maybe we have to uh discard the voice recognition . Because it will increase cost uh signifi uh significantly . And I don't think the {disfmarker} I don't think it will be a lot easier to use , as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that brings us back to the energy . If we don't have the voice recognition , it will it won't use a lot of energy to use . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in that case we could use kinetic uh energy , but I think just a simple battery which you can reload on a docking station is just as good . And much cheaper as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the best choice . +Project Manager: Okay let me just choose for the battery . That brings us to the chip . +Industrial Designer: Well there isn't any choice there because we're using the the the the display . +Project Manager: Just the advanced . +Industrial Designer: So it's gotta be advanced . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , advanced chip . And then we get to the point of the case . Um which brings us a little bit back to marketing as well . Uh if we wanna choose for wood or the black and grey . Or both ? Um as we saw there is not {disfmarker} Yeah wood is a lot more expensive to produce . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um but I think it will attract elderly people who wanna have something exclusive , which they can show off to their grandkids . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Look I've got a new remote control , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I dunno . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I think most important factor there is the wooden colour . So it wouldn't actually have to be wood , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: if it's just +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: wood-coloured . +Project Manager: But with colour was a lot more expensive ? Or ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I dunno . +Project Manager: You don't know ? +Industrial Designer: I'll have to uh research . +Project Manager: I think so because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: It's a lot more difficult to to handle and to to get in the right shape . +User Interface: Mm . Uh is it possible uh to make um changeable uh case . So um uh you 'cause uh {disfmarker} Yeah with uh mobile phones uh uh so uh like the Nokia mobile phones , uh when you can change the case of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Change the cases . Yeah . +User Interface: maybe it's possible uh possibility . So um um you have just to make one um standard um remote control , and um yeah you can sell uh few uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can sell the cases . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a very good option . Because um then you can advertise as well with the {disfmarker} Give your grandfather a new case for his remote control , or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's a {disfmarker} it's something extra , it's something other remotes don't have , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we can get a great advantage point . +Marketing: Yeah that is true . +Project Manager: So and then you can make them with colour . Black and grey , other colours as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We would have to look carefully into the design though . +Project Manager: Costs . +Marketing: 'Cause we would have to make one w uh control which would fit in with a wooden cover and a plastic cover . The more original one , or the more standard one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you suggest we should design two different telephones on which you can apply , yeah {vocalsound} remote controls , on which you can apply different case covers , for example . +Marketing: Well I wouldn't design a telephone +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well no I think w we should just , we should then just design one um +Project Manager: Remote . +Marketing: one remote , but it would have to be fancy with either the wood cover or the plastic one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So , but that shouldn't be too much of a problem . +Project Manager: So everybody's okay with the changing covers ? I think that's a good uh good option . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Changing case covers . +Marketing: Um I heard our Industrial Designer talk about uh flat , single and double curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Could you explain that a little more ? +Industrial Designer: Well the the general like most older remotes are flat , just straight . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh our d manufacturing department can also deliver single curved or double curved ca curved cases . +Marketing: And what would single curved and double curved mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um it would just only affect the form , for as far as I know . So it's j really just up to the design department what we're gonna use . It doesn't really matter for the price or the functionality . +Marketing: Okay . So we can pretty much just do whatever we want . +Industrial Designer: Pick one you like , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's good . +Project Manager: Uh but the form has to be um {disfmarker} It has to {disfmarker} It's has to be possible to stand up ? Or just only to lie down ? +Marketing: No just to lie down . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: And the the cover of the the docking station is also +Marketing: We'll go for that . +Project Manager: on top of the television then ? Or not ? +Marketing: Well or besides it . +Project Manager: And you can just yeah then click it in . That's okay . Um so the interface . What type of interface do we want to use ? Um maybe you can make a little drawing of it on the +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: on the the board . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Does somebody have ideas for a form or +User Interface: Uh we can just use the regular form of it , but it's um not quite uh fancy . So um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Um you uh said you wanted to put the um changing channels button on the right side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you could , so your thumb would be easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well uh I think that was a very good point 'cause I pointed out earlier that a lot of remotes cause R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that would be great for that . Um I thought maybe we could just make one of those buttons on both the left and the right side . +User Interface: For uh {disfmarker} Uh for {disfmarker} +Marketing: For left-handed users also . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah we Is it possible to um program it s so uh you got on the left side uh or on the right side uh buttons for for shifting u up and shifting up ? And on the uh other uh {vocalsound} uh o other side uh buttons for uh shifting , uh for for the sound ? Or {disfmarker} Or isn't it ? +Marketing: For the volume . Um well +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that could {gap} Yeah we could do that but I'm not sure if that would be very good for the easy , ease of use . +Project Manager: Usabili Yeah ease of use will be a lot more difficult , +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: and then it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we would make um a changing channels and changing volume button on both sides , that would certainly yield great options for the design of the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause it could be made all symmetrical and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: But you have extra buttons . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So people can get confused . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: That is true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they have the same writings on it . +User Interface: See um yeah . Or we have to make a left uh {disfmarker} For lefties +Project Manager: Can't we make uh {disfmarker} Can't we make a remote which you can flip over and use on the same +User Interface: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: functions as the normal one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see if I ca A blank one . And then you get {disfmarker} Here's a little L_C_D_ screen . Uh now I have to think . It's a plus and a min . No it's not very handy I think . Because the plus and the min will be opposite +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: and all kinds of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's not gonna work . I guess . Maybe we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it a problem that left-handed persons use a different hand ? I think the functions are that basic that nobody should have any problems with uh choosing a channel +Marketing: Yeah . That is true . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's just uh u using uh your thumb . +Project Manager: Y yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So um it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we could just uh leave it a normal shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh but maybe we have to make it a l a bit more fancy . In one or ano another way . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should start by by choosing a case . Because that's the basis you're building on . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yeah +Industrial Designer: So I could draw them out . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's look at the flat case . Oh . It's from the side so it's rather normal . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the single curved so I'm not really sure what they're gonna look like , but I think it's something like this . So this type should be better for you or better {disfmarker} Should prevent repetitive strain injury a bit . +Project Manager: Easier ? +Industrial Designer: And the double curved s looks something like this I guess . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So th those are the three options we have . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suggest um the single curved , because maybe the curve is pretty good to put the the screen in . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so that elderly people can uh use the remote control and at the same time look easily at the screen , because it's a bit , it has a bit of a angle . +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Do you say this um {disfmarker} S uh {disfmarker} Uh you got like uh sort of a {disfmarker} I believe {disfmarker} {gap} There ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So um you want to put a display over here ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh +Project Manager: But now it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can make it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have it upside down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Do you have it +User Interface: That's the top . +Project Manager: this that's top ? Okay . +User Interface: So uh this top . This down . Um maybe it's possible to uh make this side like um {disfmarker} Let's see . Um {disfmarker} Colour uh okay . Uh to make this side um like mm the right colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um bit like so uh um in the form of your hand . So um {disfmarker} Uh it's an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So so the remote control have to um lay in your hand . So uh it's possib um yeah for s so and +Project Manager: So get your mouse . Yeah . +User Interface: And to put uh the the buttons for um changing uh the channel uh over here uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good one . But I think it's better to put the screen uh on top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh rem +Project Manager: So just flip it a hundred and eighty degrees around then you get {disfmarker} {gap} here . +User Interface: Yeah but this place um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you can have this one , you turn it like this . And then flip it upside down . +User Interface: Uh it's {disfmarker} Yeah I dunno um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because uh maybe your hand is in the way , if you have the display here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's more logical to have it on top as well +Project Manager: I think i +Industrial Designer: because , like on your mobile phone , it's always above . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On top . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh maybe you should just s start on a blank page . +Project Manager: {gap} . So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: then we get {disfmarker} Here's {disfmarker} That's the curve . +User Interface: Five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here the display , and then buttons . Yeah and then we can have a little bit off here and here maybe . Just that's for left hand and right hand users . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then h the rest of the buttons over here . +User Interface: Yeah . But um the on-off button , um still on the top uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah still here +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: jus +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I'd prefer the corners to be round . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Should be more bit more friendly , +Marketing: Think that would be better . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Friendly on the eye . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Supplements . That's okay . Where's my mouse ? Then {disfmarker} We've got a general idea of the concepts and the materials we're going to use . So now for the next meeting uh we'll have to look at the look-and-feel design . It's important that the corporate design image uh is going to be in the remote . So check out the corporate website maybe . The user interface design , it's the same story . And product evaluation . So the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer are going to work together on this one . But you're going to get your instructions I think sended by the coach . So just um I will put these um minutes on the in the folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we're going to uh try to finish our project , and uh make a good design for all the grandfathers and grandmothers , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which are {disfmarker} Uh let's see . I'm not sure if you're going to start right away to work together or {disfmarker} I think you're going to fill in the questionnaires first . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then you'll get a message . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh basically it . Maybe this one ? Then we can save this one in the folders group . Uh yes , it's here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} SMARTboard , there it it . So if you wanna have a look at it , it's over there in the projects folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then I guess we'll start in thirty minutes again . Thank you . +Marketing: Very good . +User Interface: Okay . +","In a conceptual design meeting led by the Project Manager, a team discusses the development of a remote control for 60 to 80-year-olds. Marketing shares trend-watching research, emphasizing the importance of a fancy design, but tailored to the preferences of the older demographic, which includes dark colors, recognizable shapes, and material familiarity, notably wood. User Interface proposes a design with minimal buttons, potentially using voice recognition and a small display. Industrial Designer suggests options for the energy source, case shape, and materials for the remote. + +The team debates the feasibility and desirability of features such as kinetic energy, voice recognition, display type, and replaceable cases in order to balance innovation, user-friendliness, and production costs. They conclude that a standard battery is preferable, voice recognition may not be cost-effective, and suggest using changeable case covers to offer both wood-like and standard appearances. The form of the remote would be designed to prevent repetitive strain injury and be user-friendly. The meeting closes with the Project Manager summarizing next steps for the design and evaluation process." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 23rd meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those of you who are joining via video conference, I will remind you that when speaking you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking, and please use your headsets. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. As I understand, there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. I remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, I ask that they please come and drop their signed certificates off at the table once the petition is presented. I would ask members to be very brief and concise, and to summarize the exact content of the petition. We will continue. The first person presenting a petition today is Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I present two petitions this morning. The residents of SaanichGulf Islands are calling on the government to simplify the process for protection of marine protected areas. It's a multi-layered communication process. The marine protected area first proposed in the 1970s for the southern Strait of Georgia, now called the Salish Sea, has been awaiting designation for so long that it was originally endorsed by Jacques Cousteau. That gives us a sense for why petitioners are calling for a simplified and more rapid process. The second petition is from petitioners who are very concerned about our obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and our commitments under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action. They specifically reference the RCMP violation of UNDRIP in its actions on Wet'suwet'en territory and ask the government to commit to actually living the principles embodied in UNDRIP. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Hardie. +Mr. Ken Hardie (FleetwoodPort Kells, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am presenting a petition on behalf of the one in a million Canadians who suffer severe and adverse effects from vaccinations. GuillainBarre syndrome is very debilitating, and this petition seeks the setting up of a no-fault accident or compensation system to help offset the loss of work, the loss of wages and the loss of quality of life that many of these people suffer. I'm pleased to present this petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. +The Chair: Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): Mr.Chair, culture is the soul of a people. Over the past 20years or so, culture, especially music, has never been as accessible as it is now. Paradoxically, creators' incomes have never been so low. The advent of digital technology has completely overturned the system for distributing the wealth generated by creators for the benefit of various Web stakeholders, many of whom are billionaires. This petition addresses these problems and proposes realistic solutions. The first is to set a minimum royalty model for streaming platforms for artists. The second is to update the existing private copying system. The third is for Internet and cell phone providers who sell their services as direct access to culture to share their profits with artists. The fourth is that the GAFAMs have to pay taxes on their services. Six thousand people have already signed the first version of this petition, launched last month by musician JordanOfficer and supported by singer BarbaraSecours. As an artist, I am proud to present this petition today because the issues it raises are fundamental to the survival of Quebec culture. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have four petitions to present today. I will be as brief as you suggested, although I will observe that if some members are going on longer during petitions than they normally do, it might be because the government has taken away so many of the tools that opposition members normally have for raising important issues in the House. The first petition deals with the issue of euthanasia and long-term care. The petitioners are concerned that instead of focusing on improving medically assisted life, something that we know is a major issue in light of recent revelations, the government has put so much time and legislative energy into efforts to continually further expand euthanasia in Canada and remove vital safeguards. The second petition speaks to the ongoing conversations happening in Canada around systemic discrimination and systemic racism. I think we do need to reflect on systemic discrimination. This petition deals specifically with Bill 21 in Quebec and raises concerns. The reality of the way that bill applies is that people from certain backgrounds who wish to practise their faith are not able to fully participate in Canadian society if they are employed in the public service. This petition asks the government to provide a response on that issue, something it hasn't done in response to past petitions on this. The third petition deals with the issue of firearms. The petitioners want to see the government take a strong response in dealing with illegal guns and gun smuggling. The petition notes that the vast majority of firearms-related crimes in Canada involves illegal guns. At the same time, the petitioners are concerned that the government has the wrong focusthat is, harassing law-abiding firearms ownerswithout putting in place substantial measures to deal with illegal guns. The petitioners want to see the reversal of the order in council from May 1 and strong measures to deal with illegal firearms. The fourth and final petition deals with Bill S-204, a bill that would make it a criminal offence for a Canadian to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who has not consented to giving that organ. It would also create a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and of similar bills in previous parliaments and would like to see us pass that bill as soon as possible. +The Chair: Presenting petitions, Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is with pleasure that I table another petition by the residents of Winnipeg North. These residents have signed a petition asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to put a high priority on assisting our poorest seniors. The increases to the GIS by $200, and $300 to the OAS, have been well received. They just want to highlight how important it is to support our seniors, in particular the poorest of our seniors. +The Chair: For members present in the Chamber, a reminder that they are asked to bring their petitions to the table. We'll now proceed to statements by members. We'll go to Ms. Atwin for the first one. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day of acknowledgement and a day of celebration of the beautiful diversity of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I wish to recognize the leadership of Chief Shelley Sabattis of the Welamukotuk First Nation in Oromocto, New Brunswick. Each year she and her council, volunteers and staff go above and beyond to show appreciation for their members and to demonstrate pride and culture while promoting well-being. We gather in an event where all are welcome to take part, from traditional hand drum-making with elders to moose meat and tacos. This year we will celebrate a bit differently, but we will still stay connected, virtually and in spirit, to the vast network of indigenous peoples and allies. We need each other now more than ever. May we come together in song and stories and in solidarity. We will remember those who are not among us. I hope all of Canada will join us in observing National Indigenous Peoples Day. Mawiyapasuwok: let us come together. Nit liech. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Beech. +Mr. Terry Beech (Burnaby NorthSeymour, Lib.): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge for all communities across Canada, but as we do our part to flatten the curve, I often think about those who suit up every morning to serve on the front lines of our health care system. My mother is a home care worker and my sister is a nurse. Even before the crisis, they would often share the hardships they faced on a day-to-day basis. It's a tough job at the best of times. In a pandemic, these jobs are life-threatening. I think we can all agree that these workers deserve more than our good wishes. They deserve a raise. That is why we have worked with the provinces to implement pandemic pay. In British Columbia more than 250,000 front-line workers are eligible for this program. That works out to a pay increase of about $4 an hour. It's a small show of our appreciation for their difficult and priceless contribution to our country. Share this message and say thanks to our front-line workers, participate in the 7 p.m. cheer, and order a pizza for your local nurses. It's the least we can do. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Shipley. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been living in difficult times. Slowly, we are getting back to some resemblance of normalcy, although unfortunately not soon enough for some of our great summer festivals. It will not be normal in BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte this summer without the iconic Boots and Hearts weekend music festival, Kempenfest, Oro World's Fair, the Elmvale Fall Fair, or the Midhurst Autumnfest. Canada Day celebrations have been cancelled, but we can still celebrate the great nation we call home. Because of the lack of Canada Day celebrations, I've created Happy Canada Day lawn signs that are available through my constituency office, free to all residents of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. I'm also hosting a drive-through party on Canada Day at the Royal Canadian Legion on St. Vincent Street in Barrie. All are welcome to attend. There will be cupcakes for all. Please drop by the legion between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and we can celebrate Canada Day safely together. Thank you and have a great summer. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Ms. Young. +Ms. Kate Young (London West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Among the countless ordinary Canadians who have stepped up to do extraordinary work during COVID-19, I wish to draw attention to our teachers. Teachers have always had a special place in my heart. My father was a teacher, and my daughter-in-law, Kelly Webb, is one now. I'm certain that my colleagues can all easily remember a teacher in their past who played an important role in helping them achieve their potential. I remember my grade 12 English teacher, Vince Weaver, at Westminster Secondary School in London. He made me realize that I could do so much more than I believed. Across the country, as schools closed, teachers did not stop their work. Some took their classes online. Others found innovative ways to continue engaging with their students. This is not the school year anyone imagined, and what the next one will look like is unclear, but our teachers in London West and across Canada have shown that no matter what, they will be there to help our next generation shine. +The Chair: Before proceeding to the next presenter, I just want to remind the honourable members in the chamber that I realize that the six-foot limit makes it harder to whisper to each other, but we're hearing a bit of rumble, so I just want you to try to whisper at your best. Mr.Bergeron, you have the floor. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron (Montarville, BQ): Mr.Chair, on July1st, we will be celebrating one of the most important events for the riding of Montarville: the 175thanniversary of the city of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. The theme Proud of our traditions will be the focus of this celebration for the people of Montarville. This is a good illustration of the rich history of this municipality nestled in the western foothills of Mont-Saint-Bruno. The seigneury of Montarville was granted in1710 to the illustrious former governor of Trois-Rivires, PierreBoucher. The parish of Saint-Bruno, which took root there and in which a village grew, became a municipal corporation in1845. To this day, it is one of the most prosperous localities, with a strong sense of belonging, a very dynamic community life and jealously preserved natural environments. A whole program had been drawn up for the celebration, but the current health crisis has taken over some of the planned activities, which has in no way diminished the pride and festive spirit of the people of Montarville. On July1st, we will have a good reason to be proud, in spite of everything. Happy 175thanniversary to Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Maloney. +Mr. James Maloney (EtobicokeLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me to take a moment to highlight an initiative that I started early on during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Heroes of EtobicokeLakeshore is an opportunity for citizens in my riding to recognize the contributions of those in their community who make life a bit easier. I'm pleased with the number of nominations I received that honour everyone from front-line workers to businesses that are innovating in these difficult times to volunteers who are finding new ways to reach out. I think of Daniel Lauzon who set up Food for Now, a mobile service that helps take care of the homeless. I think of Toni Varone, who helped his business clients by forgiving their rents, or young Lucas, who wanted to thank his teachers. I've been moved and inspired by the countless stories of generosity, strength, resiliency, kindness, incredible character and creativity. I want to thank all the heroes, as well as the people who nominated them. Keep them coming. Stay safe, everyone, and I wish you happy Canada Day early. +The Chair: We'll now move on to Ms. Wong. +Hon. Alice Wong (Richmond Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, it gives me great pleasure to thank a local Richmond-based charity, the Social Diversity for Children Foundation, SDC, for its hard work both in raising funds for the purchase of personal protective equipment and in distributing this PPE to long-term care facilities and individual seniors' homes in the lower mainland of B.C. The COVID-19 relief fund is supported by a dozen other non-profits, businesses and community groups. Over the past two months, SDC has been to 32 seniors homes and senior-related organizations. In total, it has delivered masks to 7,000 care workers, staff and seniors. It is amazing to have witnessed how the younger generation have gotten involved in caring for the elderly at this very challenging time. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Damoff. +Ms. Pam Damoff (Oakville NorthBurlington, Lib.): Mr. Chair, June is ALS Awareness Month, and 79 years after Lou Gehrig died from ALS little has changed. There's still no cure, and those with ALS typically die within five years of diagnosis. On June 21, Canadians will gather virtually to raise funds for ALS Canada in the Walk to End ALS. In Halton, normally we meet each year at Bronte Creek Provincial Park on the May long weekend to raise funds for ALS Canada. This year I will virtually join Tim's Titans, a team formed to honour Tim Robertson, my friend who died in 2016 after living with ALS for 13 years. I have a T-shirt, with a picture of Lou Gehrig, that says, Great Player...Lousy Disease and Tim's Titans...Great Team! ALS...Still a Lousy Disease. Join me on June 21 for the virtual Walk to End ALS to raise funds to support patients and their families and for ALS research. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Khera. +Ms. Kamal Khera (Brampton West, Lib.): Mr. Chair, on Saturday our community stood and marched in solidarity against anti-black racism. The peaceful protests that we're seeing across the country and around the world were not triggered by an isolated incident. They are fuelled by decades of ineffective action against something that is so insidious and deeply entrenched in our history, systems and institutions. For us, that is the racial inequality faced by Canada's indigenous and black communities. Anti-black racism is real. It exists right here in Canada, in our communities, including in Brampton. It exists when racialized students at McCrimmon Middle School are called McCriminals. It exists when a shocking report exposes the Peel District School Board's failure to work fairly with the black community. It exists when D'Andre Campbell, who was fighting mental illness, loses his life at the hands of the police. It is clear that we need reform. We need to dismantle the systems that allow this privilege and oppression to take form, and address the unconscious bias plaguing our institutions. We'll need to be bold, and the time to do that is now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Mr. Chair, a few months ago I rose in the House on the eve of our closure due to COVID-19. I told Canadians we must not give in to fear, that we would carry on and get through this crisis stronger than ever. Today, in this city and across Canada, Canadians are enjoying a beer on their favourite patios. Businesses are reopening, jobs are returning and our lives are starting to feel a bit normal again. Canadians pulled together, and because of that we did not see the devastating death toll that many had predicted. Life may be returning to normal, but unfortunately, here in this chamber of democracy, the people's voices continue to be shut down. There is no good reason for Parliament to be suspended today. In the words of my grandfather, it's time for the Liberals to get with the program and bring back the House. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Ms. Jones. +Ms. Yvonne Jones (Labrador, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from in-person learning to virtual classrooms, COVID-19 has drastically changed the lives of students across the country, especially those in post-secondary education who are worried about covering costs like tuition or rent this coming fall. Our government recognized that students should not have to worry or put their futures on pause during this difficult time. That's why last month the federal government introduced the Canada emergency student benefit. If you're a high school student headed to a post-secondary school, or a current post-secondary student or a recent graduate, you can receive the Canada emergency student benefit every four weeks and have the financial support that you need to save for school. We also doubled Canada student grants and loans, enhanced the student loan program, increased supports for indigenous post-secondary education and introduced the Canada student service grant for those who wish to pursue it. Our government is here to help all students get the support they need to pursue their future goals successfully. I wish them all the very best, and I wish all of you, my colleagues and those across Canada, a very happy National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is coming up on June 21. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to keep to their 60 seconds so that we don't go over the time. I'm sure it would be a lot easier for everyone if we stuck to that limit. We will now go to Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison (Parry SoundMuskoka, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to once again implore the government to do something about the horrible lack of access to and crazy cost of rural Internet service. Right now, too many areas of my riding have no access to rural Internet service at all, and those who can get service are paying through the nose. I've even heard constituents say that during this pandemic, they are having to choose between feeding their kids and educating them. Over the last few weeks, Conservatives have been consulting with rural Canadians, and the results are in. My constituents are tired of fancy political promises. They are frustrated beyond belief by the new challenges created by this pandemic. They are absolutely fed up with having their pleas ignored. All we want is affordable and reliable Internet service. Is that too much to ask of the government? +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Mr. Chair, these last few months have been incredibly challenging for the residents of CowichanMalahatLangford, who have been forced to deal with the economic and social consequences of COVID-19. The pandemic has laid bare the inadequacies of our social safety net, the weakness in our supply chains and the dependence of our society on essential workers, who often work long hours for low wages, putting themselves and their families at risk. We've also been forced to confront the systemic inequality, poverty and racism that continue to hold so many people back from achieving their full potential. I will not dishonour the sacrifice that so many have made during this time by allowing us to go back to the status quo that got us here in the first place. I will not apologize for demanding that the most vulnerable in our society get the supports and opportunities they need to live with dignity, and I will not relent from pushing my political colleagues to summon the courage necessary to implement policies that lead to environmental, economic and social justice. +The Chair: I now give the floor to Mr.Blaney. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Mr.Chair, here is a beautiful story, the story of a woman from Bellechasse, a courageous young mother from Saint-Malachie, Marie-ChristineGoupil. With three children, including the eldest daughter with a disability, and realizing that her daughter with a disability had special clothing needs, she decided to go into business to meet the needs of other parents who, like her, were facing their child's clothing challenges. Last week, she presented her Handy clothing collection on the show Dans l'il du dragon. It was a very emotional moment for the audience and the dragons. They were so touched that they decided to give her the amount she wanted without diluting her shares. The video of her presentation has already been viewed over 1million times on social networks. Marie-ChristineGoupil has discovered a passion for entrepreneurship and has moved and inspired many people with her passionate and courageous attitude. Congratulations, Ms.Goupil, your example makes us proud. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I lend my voice to the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec-Labrador, GhislainPicard, whose message is as follows: There have been no fewer than 14reports and conclusions of commissions of inquiry since1967 highlighting major problems in relations between law enforcement agencies and indigenous people. Each time, the conclusions have been overwhelming and highlight a disturbing reality. The justice system has failed indigenous people. Are you going to respond, as you too often do, by moving on to the next one, or are you going to do what we expect you to do, which is to recognize that the justice system discriminates against indigenous people and that we have no less right to security than the rest of the population? In three months, police interventions have claimed more victims among our members than the pandemic. But it is not enough to simply take a knee and denounce racism. It's about standing up and taking action. Those are the words of GhislainPicard. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Over the last few months, Canada's democracy has been disregarded and an autocracy has been resurrected in its place. By refusing to hold regular parliamentary sittings, Mr. Trudeau is sending a strong message to the Canadian public that he alone is the one who matters. In 2014, he professed that Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. As it stands, however, he has shut down Parliament. Effectively, he has stripped us, the opposition, of our privileges and our powers. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful Prime Minister that he once warned against. A government that does not allow for effective opposition is not functioning in the best interest of Canadians; it is operating in the best interest of itself and, even more so, the interest of the Prime Minister. Canadians deserve to flourish in a democracy, not merely survive under the autocracy that this Prime Minister has created. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the work of Agincourt Community Services Association and its tireless executive director, Lee Soda, who have been serving our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under more pressure than ever, their staff and volunteers continue to serve a community whose need was great even before the crisis. Their food bank helps over 4,000 people weekly. They have opened outdoor washrooms and hand-washing stations for vulnerable communities and are delivering groceries and other essentials to vulnerable seniors. ACSA is a bridge between those who can help and those who need help, and they are just one example of how our community has come together to meet this challenge. There are restaurants and businesses donating meals to front-line workers, residents answering the call to stock the food bank shelves and neighbours looking in on the vulnerable and isolated. I am so proud of our community's spirit. Scarborough is strong. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, for months Conservatives have been pointing out flaws in Liberal government programs that are preventing Canadians from getting the help they need. The Prime Minister has refused to make these very technical changes to get more help to Canadians who need it. For example, on the wage subsidy, more than two-thirds of the money allocated for that program has lapsed because businesses don't qualify. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister change the program to allow companies who have made acquisitions to access the wage subsidy to keep more people working? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning we knew that as we rolled out measures, we would need to improve them and tweak them, and that's exactly what we've been doing over the past three months. We needed to make measures happen quickly for Canadians, and we did that. But we continued to improve them, to make additions and amendments so that more people could get the help they needed, including with the proposed legislation last week that expanded the reach of the wage subsidy to more businesses. Unfortunately, the Conservatives didn't even want us to debate that particular piece of legislation. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Actually, Mr. Chair, it was the Liberals who said no to the motion to allow this Parliament to sit to debate that motion, and even in that legislation they refused to allow businesses who have made acquisitions to access the program. Now, when we look at the rent relief program, it is so difficult to apply for it that many landlords are refusing to bother, leaving even more small businesses to fall through the cracks. In fact, of the $3 billion allocated to the rent relief program, only $39 million has been paid out. That's less than 2%. Now, the Prime Minister is still using talking points from April. It's now June and he has refused to fix these programs and has successfully talked out the calendar on the days that the House of Commons could meet to discuss these programs. When will he make these changes to get more help to Canadians who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this pandemic, we have constantly been updating and expanding our various programs. We recognize, in conversations with the premiers, how important it is to make sure that we're working together, the provinces and the federal government, on issues like rent subsidies where commercial rent is indeed a provincial jurisdiction. Many provinces have moved forward with the eviction bans that are necessary to go along with this, and we'll continue to work with provinces to make sure that we're getting Canadians the help they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Canadians cannot wait. He has run down the clock on parliamentary sittings and he still refuses to make these changes to get more help to Canadians. Today, we learned that Telus has installed Huawei technology in downtown Ottawa. There are over 80 sites across the national capital region with Huawei technology installed. Some of these sites are very near sensitive government institutions, like government departments, the National Research Council, RCMP headquarters and the Bank of Canada. How long has the Prime Minister known that Huawei technology has been installed in the Ottawa area? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, first off, on the issue of Parliament, it has been meeting four times a week over the past many weeks, and members of the opposition have been able to continue to ask questions on COVID-19 and a broad range of subjects. Moreover, every two weeks the finance department puts forward at the finance committee the full transparent measures that we've taken, so that parliamentarians can study them. We are continuing to work in this crisis. At the same time +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Answer the question. The Chair: I'm sorry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: in regard to Huawei technology there are strict rules for companies to follow and we assume they will all follow those. +The Chair: We'll pause for a second and stop the clock. I want to remind the honourable members who are joining us virtually that heckling really does disrupt the whole session. Your face does come up and we do see who it is, so I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Now we'll go back to Mr. Scheer. We have a minute and 10 seconds left. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is bragging about accountability and transparency. Will he table an economic update before the House rises? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this unprecedented pandemic, we have been open and transparent about all of the measures we've put forward. We've updated the finance committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: That's a long way of saying no, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has pursued a policy of appeasement in pursuit of a personal vanity product at the UN. In the process, he's cozied up to dictators and human rights violators. He's abandoned Israel and committed funding to UNRWA, an organization whose schools have been used as storage facilities for Hamas rockets against Israeli civilians, and whose facilities have served as breeding grounds for racism and anti-Semitism. He has apologized for the Iranian regime when it shot down a plane full of Canadian citizens, and he refuses to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. What's the point of having a seat at the table if you have to sell out Canadian principles to get there? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we see that the Conservatives have kept with the Harper approach to international diplomacy. The failed presence of Canada on the world stage was an embarrassment for many Canadians for many years. That's why, when we took office five years ago, we demonstrated the kind of leadership on values that Canadians expected. We will continue to work around the world to defend multilateralism. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This being a committee, we can have a point of order during what would have been question period. I am not sitting that far away from the Prime Minister, and I'm sorry, but Andrew Scheer used to be the Speaker of the House and should show better decorum. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, on the same point of order, it is disgusting for the leader of the Green Party to use decorum as an excuse to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition in the middle of critical lines of questioning. The leader of the Green Party knows the rules of the House and shouldn't be abusing them to advance a partisan agenda. +The Chair: We're getting into debate. I do want to point out that the time had run out. We're now moving on to the next line of questions. On a point of order, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: I appreciate the honourable leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, for that reminder. When I was Speaker I always appreciated her help and advice about how to improve decorum in here. I just want to say to the member, and to all members, that the reason that I cannot control myself is that the Prime Minister used the word embarrassment in answering a foreign affairs question, and it just made me think of the India trip. +The Chair: I believe we're getting into debate and arguments. Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, while the Greens and the Conservatives are saying that they'll be waiting outside after the meeting, I will ask a question. The Prime Minister has extended the Canada emergency response benefit, and that's good news, but it's not enough. Last week in the House, the government said it was urgent to fight fraud. For us, it was also urgent to adjust the CERB to the needs of the tourism, arts and agriculture sectors. Farmers are going to be seriously under-resourced. So what happened to the urgency of reforming the CERB? Why is the government refusing to talk to the opposition parties? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to hear the hon. member finally align himself with the positions of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, the Bloc is a week late. It should have let us debate these concerns in the House last week. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It seems to me that the word alignment here is a fantasy. We have unequivocally proposed to extend the debate to reach an agreement, which brings me to my second question. Last week, the issue of assistance to people with disabilities was also a pressing concern, and it's even more so a week later. The Bloc proposed to extend the discussions and split the government's bill in two to help people with disabilities. Why is the government refusing this assistance to people with disabilities, when it could have been debated with the opposition in a civilized and proper way in a Parliament in which it has a minority? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: That was exactly what we wanted, but unanimous consent of the Chamber was required to debate this matter, and the Conservative Party of Canada voted against it. Unfortunately, we are going to have to find a different way to help people with disabilities. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the idea is so good and wonderful, why not start over and open the dialogue now? What's stopping the Prime Minister from being a rallying point and inviting us to take to each other and resolve the problem, rather than saying that he is going to pack up his toys and go home? The people with disabilities are the ones who will pay the price. Where was the Prime Minister on October21,2019? He received a minority mandate from Quebeckers and Canadians. Why is he behaving like something between a prime minister with a majority and a monarch by divine right? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I've heard the Conservative Party and the Bloc Qubcois throw their accusations around. They don't point out that the House of Commons did indeed give its consent to extend the mandate of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic until the end of June. Three parties agreed, which was the right thing to do in the context of this minority government. We've been working with the other parties. However, as they did not get the results they wanted, they complained. Unfortunately, they too are part of a minority Parliament and must respect the voice of the majority of parliamentarians, just as we do. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I might have been tempted, but that's unlikely to happen because the Prime Minister isn't me, he's him. It's therefore up to him to bring people together, open a dialogue and recall Parliament. All we were asking for was the opportunity to talk for an hour or two. However, suddenly he doesn't want to play anymore. It's not working anymore, and there's something a bit strange about that. In addition, the government wants to buy the right to interfere in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions for $14billion. However, Quebec and a number of provinces are refusing to allow it to interfere in their jurisdictions and are asking that this money be paid to them unconditionally. Is the Prime Minister trying to take advantage of the crisis or is he trying to create a constitutional crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, the safety of Canadians is the responsibility of all levels of government. That's why we have proposed a $14billion agreement to ensure that all Canadians across the country experience a safe re-opening of the economy. This is a proposal that we are working on with the provinces because we know that there are needs across the country, including early childhood centres, screening and support for municipalities. The federal government wants to be there to help the provinces. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Indigenous leaders have expressed a lack of confidence in the RCMP commissioner's ability to tackle full-scale systemic racism, but the Prime Minister has expressed his confidence in the commissioner. What's that based on? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past two years, Commissioner Lucki has made significant strides forward on an issue where there is still much more to do. We know that systemic racism exists in all of our institutions across this country +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: This is the same RCMP commissioner who just recently said that they couldn't explain what systemic racism was. Now the Prime Minister says that he has confidence, when indigenous leaders express their lack of confidence. Why does the Prime Minister believe that the RCMP commissioner can tackle systemic racism in the RCMP? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic racism is something that touches every corner of our country, every corner of our institutions. It requires people to understand and move forward in coordinated ways with partners. The commissioner is committed to doing that, alongside members of our government. We will do that together and work with indigenous communities and black +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, recent events have made it abundantly clear that to tackle the systemic racism at the level of the RCMP, we need a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP. Is the Prime Minister committed to a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP to root out systemic racism? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I've said many times, Mr. Chair, I am committed to addressing systemic racism in this country and taking significant, bold actions to reduce the amount of discrimination that indigenous peoples, that racialized Canadians face on a daily basis. We have much work to do, but we will do it together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Black Lives Matter has been calling for governments to defund the police. What it's saying is that we need to be better at where we spend our money, investing in communities and not policing. Will the Prime Minister commit to a review of the RCMP budget to allocate resources to community services and not to policing? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past years we have been investing more directly and more money in community organizations, in the black community, and working with indigenous partners on the path to reconciliation. We have been investing in the kinds of community-based programs and solutions that are part of the solution. We know there is much more to do, and we will continue to look at all of our expenditures to make sure we're doing the right things. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, over the past few years, while the Prime Minister has been in office, the RCMP budget has increased by 31%. More money is going towards policing. In recent events we've seen people who needed a health care response to a health care crisis been killed by the RCMP. Does the Prime Minister believe that we need to be investing in a health care response instead of a police response for people who are faced with a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite well knows that it's not an either-or. We need to make sure that our systems across the board, from our police systems to our judicial systems, to our health care systems, to our community systems, are actually addressing the systemic discrimination issues that are embedded within them That is exactly what we are going to continue to do in the coming years. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, with regard to the CERB extension, can the Prime Minister guarantee that everyone who is receiving CERB payments now will continue to do so without any gaps throughout the summer? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I am happy to highlight that many Canadians who were on the CERB are now returning to work. Many more who are on the CERB now will be returning to work in the coming weeks. We know that as the economy gets back to work, people will want to +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Can the Prime Minister assure people who need it that they will continue to receive the CERB over the summer, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are very pleased to point out that we are going to extend the Canada emergency response benefit for at least another eight weeks, because a lot of people are going to need it. Even if they want to work, there aren't enough jobs for everyone. So we'll be there for them, as we have been from the beginning. +The Chair: We're going to pause and suspend proceedings just for a few moments to allow our support staff to substitute for one another in a healthy and safe way. We'll now proceed with Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, it was really a surprise in the middle of a pandemic to see the Prime Minister at his first campaign stop last week in Ottawa. Certainly the game plan has become very transparent. He has a daily report show and he wants to sideline Parliament, dominate the news cycle and keep everyone in the dark about the state of the economy. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, there is no reason that he cannot provide the fiscal update during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the PBO has published a number of reports himself. Why won't the Prime Minister provide a fiscal update so we can all understand the state of our economy, or is that just not part of his campaign playbook? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada's economy is in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've been clear about that. We will continue to be open and transparent about the actions that we are taking to support families, businesses, workers, our health care system and our economy. This includes biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic measures. Once it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. We are in this together, and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to support Canadians. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Chair, Canada's economy was in trouble prior to the COVID, with some of the worst numbers since 2009. Government revenues in March dropped by 7.2%, and it's shameful and, quite frankly, it's outrageous that they refuse to provide Parliament and Canadians with an economic update. Households during this challenging time know how much money is coming in and they know how much money is going out. The picture is not pretty, but they know what the picture is. Can the finance minister at least reveal the projected revenue decline in quarters one and two? +Hon. Mona Fortier: The Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've known this for three months. We've continued to be open and transparent about the measures we've put in place for Canadians, workers and businesses. In fact, we have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of our plan's measures. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a comprehensive update to Canadians +The Chair: We go back to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Other governments have managed to provide updates for their citizens and carry out their responsibilities, but of course this government has sidelined Parliament with simply a question-but-no-answer period. Let's try something else. The forestry industry was in crisis even before the pandemic, with mills closing down and thousands of jobs lost. Eight weeks ago, Minister Freeland said, I have had many discussions with leaders in our forestry sector and the provinces about what we can do to support the industry today. Meanwhile, we've had support going to the arts and we've had support going to fisheries, just to name a few, but arguably for the industry that was having some of the most numerous challenges, it has been radio silence. That was eight weeks ago today. Can the government at least commit to releasing an updated softwood lumber transition plan before we rise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, we remain committed, of course, to the forestry industry and seeing it through this pandemic and this very uncertain time. The expanding market opportunities program, for instance, has helped Canada's forestry sector diversify, create jobs and open new markets. We've had new construction projects that are active today, using Canadian wood in key markets like Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Tomorrow this House will vote on our government's investment of $20.97 million for this program. It's part of our budget 2019 commitment to invest $251 million over three years, and I hope the opposition will support us in that. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: It was stated in a major newspaper this morning that this government is like a sexy sports carvroom, vroom, vroombut with a history of breakdowns and major repairs. I think that might describe what has been happening. For forestry, it has been eight weeks and there has been nothing. There is another area that Deputy Prime Minister Freeland did talk about. We were talking about the U.S. softwood lumber duties that are being held in the United States. It's billions of dollars being held with the U.S. treasury. In April, she acknowledged that these duties are a real issue for the softwood lumber industry. What's been done since that time? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, Canada's forestry industry supports good middle-class jobs in communities across our country. The sector is also an essential link in the medical equipment supply chain, and we thank them for all the work they're doing. We're aware of the immense pressures faced by this sector, especially at this time, and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and others are taking that seriously and working through this issue. As our government has said repeatedly, we firmly believe that the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwarranted, and we will pursue all means in order to +The Chair: Before continuing, I want to remind honourable members who are at home to make sure that the boom on their headsets is down. It just makes a better pickup. We heard everything, but it was a little distant. That's for everyone's benefit. We're now going to continue with Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, before I ask my question, I'd like to pay tribute to the Minister of Justice, particularly to his versatility. Today, he talked about forests. Yesterday, the Minister of Justice talked about Davie and indigenous affairs. Really, this minister is very versatile. My question is directly for the Minister of Finance. I like Mr.Lametti very much, but I'd like Mr.Morneau to answer my question. Yesterday, in a Senate parliamentary committee, the Minister of Finance half-opened the door to an economic update. Based on what he said, it seems that, as we speak, a committee of the Department of Finance is working on an economic update. Could Mr.Morneau tell Canadians when he is going to table this economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, the Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a full update to Canadians. Right now, we can say that we have supported workers, businesses and Canadians with the emergency measures we have put in place. We will continue to do so, because we need to be sure that Canadians can get through this crisis. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I thought it was too good to be true. The Minister of Finance is opening the door, and the Minister of Small Business is closing it. We don't know when the economic update will take place, yet all across Canada, provinces are doing economic updates. Could Mr.Morneau explain to Canadians why he is unable to give one? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have implemented the economic action plan to respond to COVID-19, and we've provided immediate assistance to Canadians, businesses and workers. Over 2.5million jobs were protected by the Canada emergency wage subsidy. In addition, 8.4million Canadians +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, next Friday, the Quebec minister of finance, EricGirard, will give an economic update. If EricGirard can give one for Quebec, why can't BillMorneau give one for Canada? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, once again, we have been open and transparent from the outset. We have devoted our energy to support Canadians, workers and businesses. We will continue to do so. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I cannot judge the quality of the work done by the provinces, but what I do know is that Quebec, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland have also made efforts to support their residents economically. Those provinces are able to table economic updates. Yesterday, Saskatchewan even tabled a budget. Why is Bill Morneau unable to table an economic update for all Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Let me repeat for my hon. colleague that we are going through extraordinarily uncertain times. We have continued to be open and transparent. We have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of the measures in our economic response plan. Once again, as soon as clear economic projections can be provided, we will provide an update +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The minister talks about the total cost of the government's economic expenditures. So I ask the question: so far, over the past three months, how much has the pandemic cost Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As I said earlier, it is important to note that we have put forward measures, including the wage subsidy, which have helped more than 2.5million +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I have been trying for four minutes to get anything remotely resembling an answer, and I'm getting absolutely nothing. I am not asking questions for myself; I am asking questions for Canadians. Why are the government and the Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, not able to table an economic update when some provinces are able to? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that we have provided interest-free loans to businesses. More than 669,000loans have been approved. We have continued to support businesses and Canadians during this time +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have time for a very brief question. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The only thing that distinguishes the provinces that table economic updates and the current government is political will. Why does Bill Morneau not have the political will to tell Canadians the truth? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, we have been open and transparent. As soon as it is possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide Canadians with a full update. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. COVID-19 has sparked and spurred anti-Asian racism. These are not just racist comments online; Asian Canadians have been attacked. What is the government doing to combat anti-Asian racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, since our government took office in 2015, we have been making investments and working with communities. The difference between our government and the previous government is that we will actually consult with Canadians, including black Canadians, including Asian Canadians, to respond to the challenges, including with an anti-racism secretariat and an anti-racism strategy. It will take all of us. I appreciate the member's question, so that we can also work together. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, one business owner I know in Markham has operated for 20 years. Now she's looking at over $9,000 in rent due on June 24. COVID-19 has crippled her sales and she's going to go out of business. Her landlord has no interest in the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. How can the government say this program is working? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, this program was made possible by working with the provinces, and we will continue to encourage landlords and tenants to work together to make sure they have relief for this very difficult time in which they're living. We're continuing to monitor the CECRA program and we will make it possible for businesses to have access to the program. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, the government business rent relief program has been a total disaster. Even the government's own numbers show it is a failure. As of June 8, less than 2% of the $3 billion budgeted has been spent. What is it going to take for the government to admit that the program is a disaster and needs changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we know our government has been working closely with the provinces and territories to deliver the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. Although the tenant-landlord relationship is ultimately the responsibility of the provinces and territories, our government has stepped up to provide support through the tools we have and through CMHC so that small businesses can get the rent relief they need. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, according to the government, there are around 1.1 million small businesses in Canada. At committee, we were told only around 5,500 of them are receiving COVID-19 rent relief. That number is shameful. When will the Liberal government wake up and make the changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we welcome the steps some provinces and territories have taken to further protect commercial tenants. We will continue to monitor this program closely and ensure that Canada's small businesses are supported during this challenging time. We will continue to monitor to see +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, there was no answer. When can the government make these changes? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable colleague that we are doing everything and will continue to do everything to help small businesses in our country. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, on May 27 the CBSA seized 65 small handguns at Pearson airport, the largest firearms seizure on record. It is clear that smuggled handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals. Why is the Prime Minister focusing on an ineffective municipal ban? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would point out that gun violence in any of our communities is unacceptable, and it's important that governments and communities take steps to prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals. That's why we do important work at our border to keep guns from being smuggled into our country, but it also necessitates additional work. I don't think you can talk about gun violence without talking about stronger gun control. That's why our government has taken a very strong position and will strengthen gun control to keep Canadians safe. +The Chair: Mr. Saroya, you may have a 10-second question, if that's possible, please. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has not stopped gun violence in the GTA. My constituents are concerned about shootings minutes away from their homes. We know the Liberals' gun ban won't change anything, but a focus on smuggled guns and criminals will. When will they make that change? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, stronger gun control laws are an effective tool, and that's been told to us by police leadership and communities across the country. We're also making investments in borders and law enforcement. Most importantly, we're making investments in communities and in kids to keep communities safe. I look forward to the member's strong support of those measures when we bring them forward. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the U.S. and the U.K. began their second round of free trade negotiations yesterday. Does the government intend to have a trade agreement in place before the U.K. tariffs come into effect on January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the U.K. is a strong partner of Canada, as is the European Union, and we're looking forward to continuing that strong relationship +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the negotiations with the U.K., when will the minister publish her goals and objectives for this agreement? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we're going to continue to work to ensure that any future agreement is going to be based on the best interests of Canadians, and we will +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Can the minister confirm whether they've entered into negotiations with the U.K. at this point? +Hon. Mary Ng: Our government is analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule the U.K. has put out. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, during the CUSMA negotiations, a deal was struck between the Liberal Party and the NDP that the government would notify this House 90 days before it starts any negotiations on any trade agreement. When will the minister notify this House? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we will absolutely be sharing information. Right now, we are analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule put out by the U.K. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, any meaningful attempts to reform the WTO needs buy-in from the United States. I think all countries agree on that. Has the minister discussed a WTO reform with the USTR, the United States trade representative? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group, and any decisions will be taken together. Of course, any meaningful reform must include the U.S. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Has the U.S. been invited to the Ottawa Group meetings? +Hon. Mary Ng: The Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group limited to WTO members who are committed to bringing forward ideas and proposals +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Just as with any other trade agreement, the minister has committed to this House that she will publish the list of goals and responsibilities for the negotiations. When will she publish the list for the Ottawa Group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I'm thrilled that we had an excellent meeting of the Ottawa Group yesterday where, as a group, we agreed to take concrete action. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Will the minister be releasing a list of Canada's objectives we would like to see the new WTO's director-general pursue prior to the upcoming DG election? +Hon. Mary Ng: We published an action statement from the Ottawa Group yesterday. I would encourage the member opposite to have a look. I'm certainly happy to send it to him. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Going back to economic prosperity, we know that the U.S. has been having talks with other countries around the world. Has Canada yet been invited to this group? +Hon. Mary Ng: I'm pleased to continue to pursue the objectives of trade diversification. I would remind the member that we have access to a billion and a half customers through our very robust +Mr. Randy Hoback: A billion and a half customers is fine if you have a functioning WTO, but if you don't have a functioning WTO, then a billion and a half customers may not be fully accessible to our suppliers, manufacturers and agriculture producers. Can the minister confirm that she's in discussions with the U.S. in joining this economic prosperity group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that nothing is more important than standing up and helping create markets for our Canadian businesses and to help our small businesses get more export-ready so that they can grow into the international marketplace. This is work that we've committed to do, and we will keep working on it, particularly +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Yesterday Saskatchewan presented a budget. Not only did they present the budget, but they'll also actually debate the budget and pass the budget in Parliament. There's full accountability. Why won't this government do the same? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, the House is sitting in this hybrid format so that people can participate in the House on the screens. I'm sure my colleague is happy to see that his own colleagues are able to ask questions and participate. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will say that this is no substitute for Parliament, but I appreciate the opportunity. New Brunswick families and businesses are rapidly making adjustments to manage and live with the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses here are opening and services are being offered. Families are preparing for summer and even planning ahead for a new school year in September. We have a lot of work ahead of us. One notable absence is Service Canada. When does the government plan on opening its service counters to assist Canadians again? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to the benefits that they rely on through Service Canada. We have redeployed over 3,000 additional staff to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to their benefits. We've established a 1,500-agent call centre to make sure that people can get access to the phone lines to get the help they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Service Canada is about more than providing COVID-19 information and benefits. Provincial governments are working hard to adjust to Canada's new normal by opening up businesses and front-line government services. When will we see Service Canada play its role and open its service counters in our communities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we're currently working with our world-class public health experts to determine how best to reopen the Service Canada network for the public. Make no mistake: Our Service Canada employees have gone above and beyond to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to the services that they rely on and the benefits that they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Please don't hide behind health experts when the Prime Minister is appearing in the middle of large protests, yet is afraid to bring back the Parliament of Canada to do its business. In fact, the New Brunswick legislature is open for regular business. Bills are being studied, opposition input is being heard and MLAs are voting on legislation, not rubber-stamping government bills. By comparison, our Parliament is stuck in pretending it cannot function like other law-making assemblies. Canadians are in the dark about our country's finances. When will the government table an economic update so taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, nobody's hiding. Nobody's doing anything like that. The only reason my colleague is able to ask a question and I'm able to answer his question is that he's right there on the screen. We have this hybrid format that cares for MPs across the country, not only the ones sitting in the House. +Mr. John Williamson: This is no substitute for Parliament. I will ask my question again. When will the government table an economic update so that taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like in today's environment? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for his question. Canada's economy is still in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We have been open and transparent about the measures we have been providing to support families, businesses and workers. Even our health care +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson: Except you have not. The Auditor General is underfunded. We have no idea about the total of government spending. Again I will ask when the government will table an economic update so that we can have an understanding of what the government's fiscal footing looks like. +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have included biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic response plan measures since the beginning. I have said, and I will continue to say, that when it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. +Mr. John Williamson: What is the full cost to date of the government's COVID-19 relief measures, as the minister just claimed the government has provided to Parliament? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have provided support for workers, and 2.5 million Canadians have been helped through the Canadian wage subsidy. We have provided businesses with some loans, and 669,000 businesses have applied for these loans. Even for the CERB, we have over eight million Canadians who have applied. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr.Bergeron. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: Mr.Chair, as the leader of the Bloc Qubcois mentioned a few moments ago, the government promised $14billion to Quebec and the provinces, but in targeted transfers. That is very little compared to the considerable expenses incurred to deal with the current crisis. But Quebec and the provinces don't just want this money to be transferred unconditionally, they also want a real discussion on a permanent increase in health care transfers. PremierLegault was rightly concerned about the feds' interference into provincial jurisdictions. The federal government, which does not manage any hospitals or long-term care centres, must stop playing armchair quarterback and transfer the money to the only governments with jurisdiction over health, that is, Quebec and the provinces. Will it do so without delay and without nitpicking? +The Honourable Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr.Chair, we know that the Government of Quebec is working hard to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and we are here to support them. As part of this co-operation, we have developed health and safety recommendations for workplaces, we have purchased medical equipment for workers and we have supported the province in developing its reopening program. We are continuing this important partnership to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and all Canadians. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: The co-operation is so effective that the money is staying in the federal government's coffers. In fact, when the federal government wants to impose conditions, it always takes longer. We see it with housing, for which Quebec has not received a dime of the $1.4billion it is owed. We have also seen it with infrastructure funds, particularly for public transit, water systems and water treatment. The health crisis is now. The needs are now. The much needed reopening of our economy is now. Will the government finally transfer the money without messing around or quibbling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I am pleased to confirm to my colleague that there is no messing around, no quibbling, nothing of the kind. There is co-operation between two levels of government. It is natural to have discussions with all the provinces and with Quebec. I myself am taking part in some discussions and several of my colleagues are taking part in others. There is a clear willingness on the part of the federal government to co-operate with Quebec and all the provinces. That is what we are doing and that is perhaps what the Bloc Qubcois does not like. It likes bickering, but for the time being, there is none. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: We don't want to bicker, we want the money to be paid out. It is not complicated, for heaven's sake! We do not want a blank cheque. Right now, the money remains in the federal government's coffers. There is $1.4billion that should be paid to Quebec for social housing and is sitting in the federal government's coffers. We are waiting for money for water treatment and water systems, but it is sitting in the federal government's coffers. It's almost July. We are wasting precious months for construction. What is the government waiting for to pay out the money so that we can get our economy rolling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The federal government is a very active partner. We are discussing and working with Quebec on infrastructure projects. We are continuing our discussions and negotiations on the housing agreement. Nothing is at a standstill. We are discussing and co-operating for the well-being of all Quebeckers. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: MadamChair, things are definitely at a standstill, because the money is owed and has not been paid out. Months are going by while construction is not taking place. We need to reopen the economy. We need more flexibility in the gas tax program and Quebec's contribution to allow municipalities to undertake work on city halls, community centres and fire stations. We need the federal government to contribute to funding public transit operations, which have become a real financial drain because of the drop in ridership. What is the federal government waiting for to provide real help instead of just talking? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: When it comes to just talking, the Bloc Qubcois has a lot of experience, I admit. We, in the government, are working and co-operating. We are not waiting with our arms folded, we are discussing a series of issues with Quebec. We do more than discuss, we work and we co-operate. We are working on projects, not only in infrastructure, but in a number of other areas. Just think of the co-operation of our armed forces in the CHSLDs, for example. We are here for Quebeckers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Your time has run out, Mr.Bergeron. We'll go now to Ms. Khalid, from MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. During a consultation with the business community in Mississauga, the concerns of businesses, big and small, included the need for stable, affordable and safe child care. With the lack of such child care spaces, an economic recovery plan post-COVID cannot be effective until and unless we make sure that people are able to get back to work. I've heard from parents across Mississauga that they're being forced to stay home because of inadequate child care and that they have to choose between putting food on the table and keeping family safe. More and more employers are realizing that good employees are unable to contribute to their business growth because of this challenge. Now more than ever, we need to find long-term sustainable solutions for Canadians who face challenges with regard to child care. I ask our Minister of Families, Children and Social Development this: What is our strategy to tackle this ever-growing need for a national child care plan? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question and for her important advocacy and work on this important issue. We understand that child care is important to our economic recovery and our social infrastructure. We know the pressure that COVID-19 has placed on families, especially parents. That is why we're committed to continuing to work with provinces and territories to renew our agreements on early learning and child care, and to provide, at the earliest opportunity, $400 million in support. In addition to that, the Prime Minister has already indicated that child care will be part of the $14-billion pledge to provinces and territories to assist them with respect to COVID-19 recovery efforts. Over the next decade, we will continue to invest $7.5 billion, and together we have achieved the goal of over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We are also committed to continuing to create over 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces for kids under the age of 10. We will continue to work with our partners in the provinces and territories to ensure that Canadians can continue to have access to safe, quality and affordable child care. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has the floor. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): MadamChair, small businesses play a fundamental role in the Canadian economy. In an article in LaPresse, the Minister of Economic Development warned us that the economic crisis caused by severe lockdown measures could have more serious consequences in small municipalities than in large cities. Based on discussions with the chambers of commerce in my riding, it is clear that federal government assistance will be essential for the reopening of the economy, specifically for the rural economy. In fact, I would like to acknowledge the work of the Prescott-Russell community development corporation , under the leadership of John Candie. After announcing almost $57million to help SMEs adopt e-commerce, how does the minister plan to help SMEs and the business community in our rural areas? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): MadamChair, I also thank my colleague from GlengarryPrescottRussell for his important question. Yes, our regions are important and the entrepreneurs in those regions are creative and daring. They take risks, but they are currently facing huge challenges. So we are here for them. We understand their anxiety and we want to help them. That is why we have decided to invest heavily in rural economic development. It is also why we have doubled the budget of CFDCs and Community Futures organizations across the country. In southern Ontario we have reinvested over $260million in the regional economic development agency FedDev. In the great riding of GlengarryPrescottRussell, which I am particularly fond of and where there is a very good member of Parliament, there is an additional $1million for entrepreneurs in the region. We have been, we are and we will be at your side. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has 36seconds left. No? Then we'll go to the honourable member for ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. Madam Chair, Krystal is a community worker in Winnipeg. She has been working from home since late March, taking care of her child, who is out of school, and caring for her father, who is living with her and vulnerable to COVID-19. Her employer called her up recently and asked her to physically return to work or to take a leave. As a parent and a care provider to a vulnerable person, she's not comfortable with physically returning to work. Service Canada won't give Krystal a straight answer as to whether going on leave and collecting CERB would count as refusing a reasonable job offer. With Bill C-17 looming in the background, Krystal is worried about jail time and fines if she does right by her child and her father by applying for CERB. Can Krystal reasonably refuse to go back to work and collect CERB, or will she be considered a fraudster? That's my question for the minister that is specific to Krystal's case. As well, what is the minister doing to provide clear direction to Canadians and to Service Canada agents so that people can get a clear answer before making their decision about returning to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his important question. We recognize that Canadian workers will face various different situations, including those who are ineligible for the Canada emergency support benefit. We'll continue to work with workers to make sure they're able to be supported throughout this pandemic. The fact of the matter is that every province has workplace health and safety regulations that must be supported. We understand that workers have the right not to work in unsafe situations. We also understand that many Canadians do want to go back to work; and in fact many have. We will make sure that we support Canadians throughout this recovery process. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 47 seconds left, and that includes the answer. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Madam Chair, that answer is really not good enough, because the problem here is that Krystal needs to know whether she can continue receiving CERB or not. That's a federal government decision, and she needs to know whether the federal government is going to accuse her of fraud and put her in jail or assess fines against her if she refuses to go back to work because she wants to take care of her child and her father. What is the minister's answer to that? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has 20 seconds to respond. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that if a Canadian has to take care of a loved one due to circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, they are indeed eligible to receive the CERB and remain receiving that benefit. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): As we deal with the global pandemic, we cannot lose sight of the ongoing climate emergency. Canada has missed every single climate target it set, and we need to break the cycle of empty promises. Canadians want their government to be accountable, and environmental groups such as Ecojustice, CAN-Rac, Environmental Defence and West Coast Environmental Law, as well as the government's own climate institute, are all calling for legally binding climate targets. When will the government put its climate targets into law with legally binding milestones so we never miss another target again? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Madam Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for her question. I totally agree with her when it comes to the environment. It is a priority not only for us as a government, but it should be a priority for all Canadians. That is why we have put measures in place to put a price on pollution through carbon pricing. That is why we have a comprehensive plan that also includes significant investments in clean technology, which will help reduce our carbon footprint. I am confident that these measures will enable us to not only meet but exceed our 2030 target and also allow us to achieve our net-zero 2050 target. +Ms. Laurel Collins: That didn't answer my question. I asked when. Empty promises won't get us any closer to meeting our climate targets. Can the minister tell us when his government will introduce climate accountability laws? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I think the fundamental issue here is having a plan when it comes to the environment. I'm confident that the measures that we have takenputting a price on pollution, investing in clean technology, and other key measures to reduce our carbon footprint, including the investment in infrastructureunderpin a plan +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to the honourable member for Victoria. +Ms. Laurel Collins: This government is not meeting its targets, but it is meeting with oil and gas lobbyists. The pandemic has made us reflect on our priorities. Are we going to choose a just recovery with good, sustainable jobs for Canadian workers, or are we going to keep subsidizing oil and gas companies to the tune of billions, subsidies that we know are ending up in the pockets of CEOs and shareholders? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will have a brief answer from the minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Madam Chair, this is the fundamental difference between us and the NDP. We fundamentally believe that the entire economy needs to work together, including the energy sector, to enable us to achieve those 2030 and 2050 targets. We are going to work together to support our workers, including in the energy sector, to reduce our carbon footprint. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we will go to the honourable member for SaskatoonGrasswood, Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was last here in May, I was on my way back to Saskatoon from Toronto, and there was actually someone on my flight who tested positive for COVID-19. I was never informed of it by the airline. I found out two weeks later. The report was in the news media. Why hasn't the government put rules in place requiring airlines to reach out to individuals like me who may have been exposed to COVID on their flights? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, it's hard to speculate on what happened from such a vague description of his experience, but I will say that we have every confidence in local public health, which is doing the hard and heavy lifting of contact tracing and working very closely with all kinds of different sectors, including airline sectors, to make sure that close contacts of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are found, are traced and are isolated. I assume that the member took appropriate precautions on the flight and I hope that he continues to do so. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it was reported that the individual on my plane who had COVID was actually connecting in Toronto from an international flight. The Prime Minister announced last week that they would begin mandating temperature checks for those bound for Canada in July. Will international travellers be tested when they land in Canada, or will they be relying on the tests that take place in other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, this is a very important question, because the protection and safety of all Canadiansin particular, Canadian travellersis a high priority for our government. We've been working very closely with the airlines. At the current time, we are putting temperature screening in place. That will initially be done primarily by the airlines that are in the best position to do it at this point in time. We are also now going to be including CATSA, the people who do the security screening, so that when people enter the airport, they will also be screened. We believe that is going to be the most effective measure to keep all travellers safe. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week five of the largest professional sports leagues in North America put out a statement of support for my private member's bill, the safe and regulated sports betting act. Given the struggles that clubs and leagues are facing due to COVID-19, including having no fans at all in the stands for the foreseeable future, the legalization of sports betting would be a welcome opportunity not only to engage fans but to generate much-needed revenue. Will the government commit now to supporting the sports and gaming industries by supporting my private member's bill, Bill C-218? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I've had the opportunity on many occasions to speak to members of Parliament and also to mayors and councillors and people living in border communities where there are casinos. They've raised this issue a number of times. We've listened very carefully to the concerns that have been expressed by them. I would like to advise the member that I look forward to the opportunity for a careful examination of his bill. We are at all times concerned about maintaining the integrity of the gaming industry within our community. That's the best way to protect Canadians. At the same time, we will examine his bill with all of the necessary attention to make sure it's given full consideration. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it's the first time in history that we've had the five professional leagues in this country joining together for this bill. Newspapers rely, as we all know, on advertising for a significant portion of their revenue. This includes the usual flyers as well as in-paper ads. I've heard major concerns from a number of newspapers in this country about competition they're receiving today from Canada Post, which is offering massive free postage services. In fact, I have one of their ads here, which says that the first 6,000 pieces of postage are 100% free. If the government is genuine about wanting to ensure that newspapers and journals can succeed in this country, why are you allowing Canada Post to use its monopoly power to actually threaten local newspapers in this country? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair, and I thank the member opposite for his question. As you well know, a healthy news and media sector in Canada is a priority for our government, which is why we have put in place a number of measures before COVID-19 and during COVID-19, and we will continue to be there for them after this crisis has gone by. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before we go on, we will be taking a break to do a bit of a changeover. I also want to remind members to address their questions and comments to the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for BruceGreyOwen Sound, Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Mr. Blair stated yesterday here in the House that the AR-15 has been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions. Mr. Blair, please provide just one specific instance in which an AR-15 was used in a mass killing in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member to address questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may respond. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I think this is an excellent opportunity to point out to the member opposite how important it is to actually listen to what was said. If you go back and review that tape, and I would invite you to do so, you'll see that I said the AR-15 and other weapons like themreferring of course to military-style assault weaponshave been used in mass killings, and I actually cited a number of examples. Madam Chair, I think it would be very useful if the member's questions were based on facts. +Mr. Alex Ruff: I can remind Mr. Blair that I actually have watched the video a couple of times, and he specifically states that the AR-15 was used in mass killings in Canada, yet he has yet to provide one. My additional question is to Mr. Blair. Out of the recently banned firearms on May 1, how many have been or are still currently in use by the Canadian Armed Forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's an excellent question, Madam Chair, because it's very important to provide Canadians with clarity. We have prohibited these firearms for non-law enforcement and non-military use. The military uses weapons that were actually designed for soldiers to use in combat to shoot other soldiers. That's the appropriate use of such weapons, Madam Chair. They're not things to be played with in civilian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As a soldier for 25 years, I'll remind Mr. Blair that none of the currently prohibited firearms would be used in the Canadian Armed Forces. I asked him a question on whether any of them is being or ever has been used in the Canadian Armed Forces. Are any of the recently banned firearms still in use, or have they ever been in use, in any military in the world? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I think it's important to also recognize that the basic origin, the provenance of the weapons that we have prohibited, was in their original design. They were designed for military use for various military forces around the world. As I've said previously, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers. They're very efficient in their design for killing people. They have no purpose in Canadian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As someone who has used many military-style firearms and who is actually involved in helping define what we purchase in the military, I would use none of the ones that are currently prohibited. I have a question, Chair, for Minister MacAulay. Can he please confirm whether Veterans Affairs has a plan to address the claims backlog, yes or no? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Madam Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question, and yes, we've indicated that it's a major priority. That's why I'm so pleased that the supplementary estimates contained just under $90 million to address hiring more staff, improving the process and making sure that we attack the backlog in an appropriate manner. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Madame Chair, does that plan exist in written form? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, Madam Chair, I can assure you that it's in the supplementary estimates, and of course, this money is +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The question is about the plan, not how much money has been allocated. I am asking for the written plan on how to address the backlog. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Chair, I can tell my honourable colleague that the money is in the supplementary estimates, and with the money we're able to attack this problem in an appropriate manner, and that's what is important for our veterans. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The deputy minister committed on March 10 that a written plan would be provided to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs within a month and made public. Did the deputy minister or the department provide the minister that plan within a month? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madame Chair, I'm sure my honourable colleague wants an appropriate plan and he would be fully aware this just under $90 million would make a big difference in the plan to attack the backlog. We +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Thank you, Chair. Therefore, my question is, if the deputy minister in the department provided him with an appropriate plan or a written plan, why is he questioning how appropriate that plan is? I have complete confidence in the deputy minister's ability to produce a written plan. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may give a brief answer, please. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure my honourable colleague that with the appropriate funding, we will address the backlog in Veterans Affairs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Parry SoundMuskoka, Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is about summer camps again. Three weeks ago, I asked this government if the finance minister would meet with the beleaguered summer camp sector. Summer camps, which are a social and economic mainstay in Parry SoundMuskoka and all of northern Ontario, have been crippled by the global pandemic. It's costing millions of jobs, and some camps are actually in danger of folding. Aside from a brief follow-up conversation over the phone with the junior minister, there has still been no action from this government. When will the Minister of Finance meet with summer camps to find a solution? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I recognize the honourable member's important question and his focus on summer camps. We recognize the importance of looking at that and paying attention to the needs of that community. We will continue to engage with them, as we have, to ensure and find ways in which we can get their feedback and find ways in which we can support them. That work is ongoing, and I assure the honourable member that our focus is on the kids and on ensuring that they have access to summer camps for this year. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I don't know why you need to find ways to get feedback. The summer camps association has given lots of feedback and my office has given lots of feedback, so I don't see what's confusing about this. However, I've become accustomed to not really getting answers to questions, so I will go to the next one. The Ontario government's regional reopening plan permits cruise boats to resume on Georgian Bay, yet the federal government is refusing to allow these vessels to operate until July 1. Therefore, small businesses such as the Island Queen cruiser in Parry Sound, which has only a very few precious weeks to operate in the first place, is losing yet another two weeks because of federal inaction. This not only hurts the cruise boat industry but also hurts tourism and small businesses all through our area. Will the Minister of Transport take a regional approach himself by lifting the federal ban on Georgian Bay, just like the Province of Ontario has done? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may reply. Is there a response? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, there is. I apologize for the confusion. Let me respond, if I may, on behalf of the Minister of Transport. There have been a number of very important discussions with the provinces, in particular with the Province of Ontario, around provisions regarding pleasure craft. There are certain restrictions that will come to an end on June 30. We're working very closely with our provincial counterparts to address this issue, but we want to ensure that it will be done safely. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Madam Chair, I actually gave the minister a heads-up that I would be asking that question. He sent me an email today saying he was not going to be able to be in the House, and it's great of him to do that. He said that whoever was going to fill in for him would have an answer, but again, that was not really an answer. The next issue I would like to bring this government's attention to is the deplorable state of rural Internet service in Parry SoundMuskoka. Quite simply, there are too many gaps in service, and what is available is generally way too expensive. We have families trying to work and teach their kids from home on unreliable and outrageously expensive Internet service, and we have too many small businesses that either cannot access or afford reliable Internet services. Today Greg Rickford, the Ontario energy minister, and Laurie Scott, Ontario Minister of Infrastructure, announced $2.3 million for seven northern Ontario broadband projects. Minister, will when your government get serious and become a reliable partner for the Government of Ontario and the private sector to deliver this crucial modern-day infrastructure to rural Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member that he needs to address the questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Madam Chair, in the best of times, life without access to high-speed Internet is hard. During a pandemic, the challenges are that much more pronounced. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting a million more Canadian households to this essential service, but until we achieve universal access our work is not done. We will work with our partners, including provinces across the country, to connect every Canadian household to high-quality Internet access that is affordable and reliable. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 30 seconds. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I think I can squeeze something in here, then. I'm wondering, then, Madam Chair, since the Province of Ontario has used the Northern Ontario Heritage Corporation Fund to make this announcement, what about using FedNor to make the same kind of announcement, and partner with the province? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has a brief answer. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Obviously we believe in the importance of northern Ontario; that's why we nearly doubled the budget of FedNor. We will continue to invest in businesses and people all around Parry Sound, Muskoka and northern Ontario. If my colleague has specific projects in mind, please come and see me and let's have a conversation. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for Montmagny-L'Islet-KamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, Mr.Gnreux, has the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux (MontmagnyL'IsletKamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. I will continue along the same lines as my colleague. During this pandemic, we are realizing the extent to which reliable high-speed Internet service is needed for Canada's economy. There are still places where telework is not possible today because of the lack of adequate coverage. However, since2015, the government has committed to addressing the situation through three new programs. Benot Pilotto, who is the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth, in my riding, wrote to me a few days ago. That is why I am asking you what concrete results the government plans to achieve for our rural areas by the end of the year. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: At the best of times, life without high-speed Internet access is difficult. During a pandemic, the difficulties are even greater. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting an additional one million Canadian households to this essential service. However, until we achieve universal access, our job is not done. We are working +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am simply asking the minister to tell me when the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth will be able to tell his residents when the Internet will be available in his municipality. It is not complicated. What does the government plan to do so that rural municipalities across Canada can have access to the Internet as soon as possible? What is its plan? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: We are working with partners across the country to ensure that every Canadian household is connected to a high-quality, accessible and affordable high-speed Internet service. Madam Chair, I assure my colleagues that we share the same goal, and we will work with all our partners across the country to ensure every Canadian household has access +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am still not getting a specific answer. According to the government's plan, when will rural Canadian businesses and households be connected? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I would ask the honourable minister to provide a brief answer. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, those plans are under way, and we will have more to share in the coming days. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: It seems that the Minister of Rural Economic Development plans to announce a new plan this week. Can she tell us how this program will differ from the Connect to Innovate program, which is already in place? Can the minister tell us whether her program will solve the problem of the 25square kilometre hexagonal zones, which unfortunately make many projects ineligible for the CRTC's broadband fund? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to share with my colleague that the model he's referring to, the hexagon model, is no more. Our maps are much more precise now to ensure that we do not leave Canadians behind. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, this year, the Canada summer jobs program is a real fiasco. I think all my colleagues will agree with me. On May13, 100jobs were announced in my riding; on May20, 16jobs were announced; on May27, 13jobs were announced; on June3, 12jobs were announced; and on June10, only one job was announced. As we speak, an amount of $100,000 is still to be confirmed in my riding. Can we have an announcement, once and for all? Let's stop the piecemeal announcements and finally confirm the remaining jobs today so that our organizations can have young people before the summer starts on the weekend. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: MadamChair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program is playing in supporting employers and young workers in communities right across the country. Our government is working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the same time is supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that more young workers have opportunities to get employed. The honourable member also has to understand that we're in the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such it will take some time for businesses to equip themselves to hire students. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. In the first five months of this year, 554 B.C. residents died from opioid overdoses. They were teachers, construction workers, business owners, family members, neighbours and friends. Addiction is a health and social issue, but criminalization creates stigma, so people hide their drug use and die alone. Access to a safe supply of drugs and safe injection sites saves lives and puts addicts in daily contact with people who can help them. Will this government end the war on drugs by decriminalizing them, providing a safe supply and reallocating resources from policing addicts to providing treatment for them? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I think it's really important we make sure that when we speak about people who use substances, we remove stigmatizing language like the word addict. We can stand together, as this government has, with people who use substances and their families to ensure a range of options for people who are struggling with addiction, who are using substances in a way that is harming their health and their communities. As you know, we have restored harm reduction to the Canadian drugs and substances strategy. We've made it easier for people to access safe supplies of substances. We've increased access to treatment and the variety of treatment through federal transfers to provinces and territories. Madam Chair, we're working with communities to make sure there are more community-based approaches to treating +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the Geneva Convention considers both tear gas and pepper spray to be chemical weapons and prohibits their use in war, yet our police forces use these weapons on Canadian civilians. These weapons are indiscriminate and can affect peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders. Will the government prohibit the use of these weapons and require police to use de-escalation techniques to keep legal protests peaceful? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the right to peaceful protest in this country is a constitutionally protected right. We want to ensure it's always respected. At the same time, Madam Chair, we recognize that the use of even less than lethal force can have significant impacts on people's safety. This is a highly regulated substance in Canada. It's prohibited for non-police use, and for the police it is and should be highly regulated. The RCMP have advised me they have not used tear gas in nine years. We'll continue to monitor it to ensure that peaceful protest is always respected. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, in 2012 the RCMP spent $14 million on 18 armoured personnel carriers. One's parked at the Nanaimo detachment. I can't imagine why we have weapons of war like this for policing civilians. Will the government rein in the RCMP budget and end wasteful spending on militarizing our civilian police forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, it's a very important tradition that our Canadian police are not militarized. At the same time, we've seen a number of tragedies when police have responded to situations in which people were armed with weapons designed for soldiers to kill soldiers, and they've been used to kill police officers. The militarization of our society, so strongly promoted by some, is the direct consequence of the militarization of the police. As we remove these weapons from our society and prohibit them, we'll make it safer for everyone and we can then move away from such a model of policing. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the government spent $4.5 billion to buy an old, leaky pipeline. Since 1961, there have been 82 reported spills from the Trans Mountain pipeline. Over 1.5 million litres of crude oil has spilled into the surrounding environment. This weekend, the Trans Mountain pipeline leaked again, dumping 190,000 litres of oil. How much is this spill going to cost Canadian taxpayers to clean up? How much contingency funding has been budgeted to repair the environmental destruction from spills? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable colleague for his question. He full well knows that the acquisition that we made with regard to the TMX initiative is a reflection of the fact that we want this initiative to move forward in a sustainable manner and in a manner that protects the environment. I'll continue to work with my colleagues to endeavour to make sure that we have the appropriate processes in place to protect the environment and at the same time create good-quality, middle-class jobs for Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for RosemontLa PetitePatrie, Mr.Boulerice, has the floor. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (RosemontLa Petite-Patrie, NDP): Thank you, MadamChair. The Black Lives Matter movement is right to discuss systemic racism in our societies. In Montreal, the city and the police department have recognized this, and measures will be put in place. The Liberal government, once again, is all talk and no walk. Although it spends $10million a day, we see no attempt to reform or change the RCMP. If the Prime Minister really wants to act, why is he delaying the action plan in response to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? +Hon. Bill Blair: Let me assure this House and the member opposite that we're not dragging our feet. This is an important issue. Indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes through the criminal justice system. It's incumbent upon all of us who work within the criminal justice system to take the steps and actions necessary to produce more equitable outcomes. All police services, including the RCMP, must be committed to ensuring that the people they're sworn to serve and protect are always treated with dignity and respect. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: MadamChair, why are the Liberals taking indigenous children to court to challenge the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling in their favour? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Madam Chair, as the honourable member knows full well, a number of cases are pending, and we are currently negotiating with the parties. We are making progress, and I would be delighted to tell the member and the House about it in response to a later question. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: We've been asking questions about it for months, and as I see it, we should keep doing so. The Prime Minister's new pipeline, which taxpayers were forced to buy with their hard-earned money, has leaked. Some 190,000litres of oil spilled, and we can't even make the company pay for it because the Liberals bought the pipeline. Trans-Mountain, KeystoneXL and the resumption of gas exploration and development off the coast of Newfoundland and Labradorare these the projects the Liberals had in mind for their green recovery? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. Our priority was to protect the health and safety of Canadians throughout the pandemic, especially when it comes to the environment. That's why environmental and climate change laws aimed at protecting the environment, human health and conservation will remain in force. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Across Quebec, the cultural community is going through a harrowing time. Unions, associations, artists and creators have all taken part in public demonstrations recently to condemn the lack of a specific plan for the living arts, performing arts and festival sector. What is the government waiting for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'd like to thank the member for his question. However, I strongly disagree with him. We haven't waited to develop a plan for the arts and culture sector. We listened to the community and we tailored our supports, as they were announced. We have an emergency plan for the arts and culture sector. We were asked to adapt the CERB to take royalties into account, and we did. We were asked to extend the CERB, and we did. We are fully aware that the recovery will take longer in the arts and culture sector. We have been there, we are there and we will be there for the arts and culture sector. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Well, that wasn't at all what the artists and creators who were out demonstrating in the streets a few days ago thought. They were protesting on the weekend. The CERB extension announced by the government only brings us to September, but the cultural community is expecting the worst in the fall. What is the government's long-term plan to support creators and their entire teams? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'm not so sure those who were protesting last week had issues with our government, but we'd certainly be happy to speak with them. As for a long-term plan, we are currently consulting arts and culture stakeholders to contemplate together how the government can help the sector in response to the ongoing crisis. We are working on finding solutions, but until we have long-term solutions, we have seen to it that our artists and organizations have access to funding until September. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Montcalm. According to the latest news, Seaspan Shipyards will be spending an additional $1.5billion to build two ships. Why? Because the ships were ordered in 2011 and still haven't been delivered. Davie built the Asterix without going over budget because it delivered the ship on time. Davie is currently the top shipyard, representing 50% of Canada's shipbuilding capacity. Why isn't Davie being awarded its fair share of contracts? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): I'd like to thank the member for her question. Davie is certainly a strong and trusted partner that works very hard to help our government get results for Canadians. Building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for cost estimates to change throughout the procurement project. It's important to make sure additional funding is available for the joint support ships project to ensure the navy's vessels are delivered. +Mrs. Julie Vignola: We are talking about $1.5billion, here. In the beginning, eight years ago, the project was supposed to cost $2.6billion. There can't be much missing when the cost overrun is double the initial estimate. Why haven't the ships been delivered yet? Why is Davie still not seen as a trusted partner? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Minister, please keep your answer brief. +Hon. Anita Anand: Once again, I would point out that building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for the cost estimate to change for a procurement project as large as this one. I know that Davie works very hard, and we also believe it is an outstanding partner. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): It is now over to the honourable member for Montcalm, Mr.Thriault. +Mr. Luc Thriault (Montcalm, BQ): Madam Chair, in Quebec, 12,000people have begun their training to work in residential and long-term care centres. They will be ready for duty in mid-September. In the meantime, we need the support of the army, which is helping us save lives. The dedication of the members of the armed forces is paramount, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks. The government extended their mission until June26, which is only 10days away. What does the army have to do right now that is more important than helping our caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, I'm glad my fellow member recognizes the fundamental role the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have played and continue to play in residential and long-term care centres and many other areas in support of our seniors. We are in talks with the Quebec government. The discussions around providing continued assistance to Quebec are quite positive and productive. That assistance can take many forms, including the Red Cross. We will be there for our seniors, Madam Chair. +Mr. Luc Thriault: We are short 12,000people, so if the Red Cross wants to help us, all the better. We'll take all the help we can get. Barely 800members of the military are still in Quebec. I repeat my question: What does the army have to do 10days from now that is more important if it's not to help caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, all the members of the military are still in Quebec. They have done absolutely incredible work and are continuing to do so. The people at the Canadian Red Cross are well-trained paid workers who can perform the same work in partnership with the members of the armed forces, who can stay in Quebec as well. Right now, we are working with the Quebec government and discussing how we can keep the measure in place until September15. +Mr. Luc Thriault: Madam Chair, our nurses and orderlies are exhausted. They're at the end of their ropes. Now is the time to thank them, not the time to turn our backs on them. It's not the time for dilly-dallying or discussions. It's the time to tell them that we will be there to help them until the end. I will repeat my question. What does the army have to do that is more important than helping caregivers save the lives of those who built Quebec? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is asked to keep his answer brief. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, the Government of Canada is there and will continue to be there to help the people who built Quebec. The Government of Canada will work with the Quebec government to make that happen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Red DeerMountain View, Mr. Dreeshen. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen (Red DeerMountain View, CPC): Thank you so much. Madam Chair, on May 14 I asked the Minister of Agriculture when the Liberal government would put aside its usual campaign rhetoric and recognize the very detrimental impact the carbon tax is having on farmers across this country. Minister Bibeau proudly noted that according to their data, the average cost of the carbon tax per farm across Canada is $210 to $819. We know that these numbers are completely unfounded and are not based on any factual evidence. The fact is that the Liberal government's own Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that at $25 per tonne, the cost for an 855-acre crop farm in Alberta is well over $6,000. The office came up with that using the government's statistics from the 2016 agricultural census. Madam Chair, the evidence is right in front of the minister. When will this Liberal government come clean with Canadians and recognize the disastrous impact the carbon tax is having on Canada's critical agriculture and agri-food sector? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Madam Chair, our pollution pricing policy is designed to grow a clean economy. To support this sector, we have put in place the following measures. Emissions from livestock and crop production are not priced. Farm fuels and fuels from cardlock facilities are exempt, and there is a partial rebate for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. We will do a review of our pollution pricing system in 2020, focused on competitiveness issues in trade-exposed industries such as agriculture. It is also important to remember that this is about tackling climate change and that 100% of the revenues stay in the province. We will continue to support our farmers and food processors as they provide an essential service across Canada. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau keeps talking about wanting to protect Canadians' environment. Well, the truth is that Canada's farmers, ranchers and processors have for years demonstrated their ability to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and to safeguard the environment through the adoption of new technologies, education and innovative management practices, but the government ignores these efforts. Will the minister at the very least admit to Canadians that Canadian farmers are unable to pass on the cost of the carbon tax to consumers and instead have to absorb those extra costs out of their own pockets? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, allow me to explain again our government's position on pollution pricing. The price and method were developed so we could build an increasingly clean economy. We put a number of measures in place to help the agriculture sector. Emissions from animal and plant production aren't taxed. Farm fuels and fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are also +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have another question. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I am watching the time, Mr. Dreeshan. You have a couple more seconds. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you. Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau has repeatedly asked stakeholders to send her data about the impacts of the carbon tax on farmers, so this is exactly what they have been doing. The Atlantic Grains Council, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, Producteurs de grains du Qubec and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association issued a joint statement at the beginning of this year in which they estimated that the cumulative indirect inflation of carbon tax on farm costs will be $14.50 an acre this year, with that cost escalating by more than double by 2022 to almost $30 an acre. These are huge numbers. Why does the Liberal government continue to ignore the facts presented to it and continue to misrepresent the truth to Canadians? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madame Chair, I can assure you that we have paid close attention to all the information that has been provided to us and that our calculation was also based on this information provided by provinces and different stakeholders. Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. The department used data from stakeholders and provinces Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you very much, Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau:as well as the 2019 agricultural tax data to estimate the average cost of pollution pricing associated with grain drying at up to 0.4% of overall operating costs. It is important to remember that we have put in place many special provisions Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: like exempting farm fuel and providing other financial supports for farmers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Dreeshen, I am watching the time, and the minister is allowed to answer for the same amount of time that you used to ask the question. Therefore, I would hope that we would allow her to finish. She has finished, and unfortunately the time is up. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The conversation involved a meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, opened the discussion by setting out guidelines for speaking in person and via video conference. He stated there were no ministerial announcements for the day and proceeded to petition presentations. Ms. Elizabeth May presented two petitions concerning the protection of marine areas and the reinforcement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Ken Hardie presented a petition on setting up a no-fault compensation system for vaccination side effects. Mr. Denis Trudel discussed the need for fair compensation to artists from web platforms. Mr. Garnett Genuis presented four petitions on various issues, including euthanasia, systemic discrimination, firearms policy, and organ harvesting. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux tabled a petition regarding support for seniors. Mrs. Jenica Atwin made a statement about National Indigenous Peoples Day, acknowledging indigenous leadership. Mr. Terry Beech addressed the contribution of frontline workers during the pandemic. Mr. Doug Shipley discussed the cancellation of summer festivals and announced a Canada Day drive-through party. Ms. Kate Young paid tribute to teachers adapting to the change in schooling caused by COVID-19. Mr. Stphane Bergeron talked about the 175th anniversary of the city of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. Mr. James Maloney highlighted his initiative, 'Heroes of EtobicokeLakeshore,' which recognizes contributions from the community. Hon. Alice Wong appreciated the work of the Social Diversity for Children Foundation in providing PPE. Ms. Pam Damoff discussed ALS Awareness Month and the 'Walk to End ALS'. Ms. Kamal Khera expressed solidarity against anti-black racism. Mr. Dane Lloyd emphasized the importance of a functioning government and opposition in democracy. Ms. Yvonne Jones prioritized supporting students during the pandemic. Mr. Scott Aitchison criticized the lack of rural Internet service improvements. Mr. Alistair MacGregor insisted on enhancing social support systems and addressing systemic inequality. + +Subsequent questioning between MPs and ministers involved concerns about the lack of economic update from the government, the involvement of Huawei in Canada's technology infrastructure, and Canada's bid for a United Nations Security Council seat. MPs asked about plans for support and reforms in various sectors, including agriculture, rural internet service, summer camps, the cultural sector, and actions on environmental issues and systemic racism within the RCMP. The committee proceedings were regularly interspersed with reminders for decorum, clarifications on rules, and short recesses for staff shifts. The discussions demonstrated MPs advocating for various constituency interests and seeking accountability from the government on promises and actions related to the COVID-19 pandemic response and other pressing issues." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad G: How about channel +Professor C: Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: We 're recording . +Grad G: Alright . +Professor C: Alright , and no crash . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Grad E: I pre - crashed it . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Pre - crashed ! +PhD D: It never crashes on me . +Grad E: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is {disfmarker} what is that ? +Grad E: it depends on if the temp files are there or not , that {disfmarker} at least that 's my current working hypothesis , +PhD D: Ah . +Grad E: that I think what happens is it tries to clear the temp files and if they 're too big , it crashes . +PhD D: Ah . +PhD B: When the power went out the other day and I restarted it , it crashed the first time . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +PhD B: After the power out +PhD D: So then there would be no temp files . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . {comment} Hmm . +Grad E: Uh , no , it doesn't {disfmarker} it doesn't clear those necessarily , +PhD D: Oh wait {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it doesn't clear them , OK . +Grad E: so . +Professor C: Hmm , no connection . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} i they 're called temp files , but they 're not actually in the temp directory they 're in the scratch , so . They 're not backed up , but they 're not erased either on power failure . +PhD D: But that 's usually the meeting that I recorded , and it neve it doesn't crash on me . +PhD B: Well this wasn't {disfmarker} Actually , this wasn't a before your meeting , this was , um , Tuesday afternoon when , um , uh , Robert just wanted to do a little recording , +Grad E: Oh well . +PhD D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh , right . +PhD B: and the power had gone out earlier in the day . +PhD D: OK . Huh , OK . +Professor C: I don't know when would be a good excuse for it , but I just can't wait to be giving a talk t and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and use the example from last week with everybody t doing the digits at once . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +Professor C: I 'd love to play somebody that . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +PhD D: It was quick . +Professor C: It was . It was really efficient . +PhD B: Talk about a good noise shield . You know ? You wanted to pe keep people from listening in , you could like have that playing outside the room . Nobody could listen in . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , I had this idea we could make our whole meeting faster that way . +Professor C: Yeah . Everybody give the reports about what they were doing at exactly the same time , +PhD D: And we 'll just all leave , +PhD B: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back later and review the individual channels , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep , and then everyone can listen to it later . +PhD B: right ? +Grad E: Yes . Absolutely . +PhD B: If you wanna know what {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually isn't that what we have been doing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's what it sounds like . +PhD B: Practically , huh . With all the overlaps . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: What are we doing ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Since I 've been gone all week , I didn't send out a reminder for an agenda , so . +Professor C: Yeah , and I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do we have anything to talk about or should we just read digits and go ? +PhD B: I wouldn't mind hearing how the conference was . +Professor C: What conference ? +PhD D: Uh , I had one question about {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , really . It 's all a blur . +PhD D: Aren't the UW folks coming this weekend ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: No . The next , +PhD D: Next weekend ? +Grad E: Next weekend , week from {disfmarker} +PhD F: right ? +Professor C: That is right . The next weekend . +PhD D: Sorry , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not the days coming up , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's like the {disfmarker} +Grad E: A week from Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: That 's when they 're coming . +PhD D: within ten days . +Professor C: That 's correct . +PhD D: So , are we {disfmarker} do we have like an agenda or anything that we should be {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but that would be a good idea . +PhD D: OK . +Professor C: Why don't we w +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so the deal is that I can , um , {vocalsound} uh , I can be available after , uh , like ten thirty or something . I don't know how s how early you wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor C: They 're not even gonna be here until eleven or so . +Grad E: That 's good . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Cuz they 're flying up that day . +PhD D: Wait , this is on {disfmarker} on Sunday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD D: Or Saturday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD F: Saturday . +Professor C: S Saturday . +PhD D: OK . +Grad E: Well , y +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Eurospeech is due on Friday and then I 'm going down to San {disfmarker} uh , San Jose Friday night , so , if {disfmarker} you know , if we start nice and late Saturday that 's a good thing . +Professor C: No , I mean , they 're flying up from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +Grad E: Seattle . +Professor C: down from Seattle . +Grad E: They 're flying from somewhere to somewhere , +Professor C: Yeah , and they 'll end up here . So b and also Brian Kingsbury is actually flying from , uh , the east coast on that {disfmarker} that morning . +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Professor C: So , i I {disfmarker} I will be {disfmarker} I mean , he 's taking a very early flight +PhD F: Oh . +Professor C: and we do have the time work difference running the right way , but I still think that there 's no way we could start before eleven . It might end up really being twelve . So when we get closer we 'll find people 's plane schedules , and let everybody know . Uh , So . That 's good . +Grad E: But , uh , yeah maybe an agenda , or at least some things to talk about would be a good idea . +Professor C: Well we can start gathering those {disfmarker} those ideas , but then we {disfmarker} we should firm it up by next {disfmarker} next Thursday 's meeting . +Postdoc A: Will we have time to , um , to prepare something that we {disfmarker} in the format we were planning for the IBM transcribers by then , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Oh yeah . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad E: So have you heard back from Brian about that , Chuck ? +PhD B: Yes , um , he 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I should have forwarded that along . Uh , {vocalsound} oh I {disfmarker} I think I mentioned at the last meeting , he said that , um , he talked to them and it was fine {disfmarker} with the beeps they would be {disfmarker} That 's easy for them to do . +Grad E: Great . OK . So , uh , oh , though Thi - Thilo isn't here , um , but , uh , I {disfmarker} I have the program to insert the beeps . What I don't have is something to parse the output of the channelized transcripts to find out where to put the beeps , but that should be really easy to do . So do we have a meeting that that 's been done with , +Postdoc A: He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: that we 've tightened it up to the point where we can actually give it to IBM and have them try it out ? +Postdoc A: He generated , um , a channel - wise presegmented version of a meeting , but it was Robustness rather than EDU so I guess depends on whether we 're willing to use Robustness ? +PhD B: Well for this experiment I think we can use pre pretty much anything . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: This experiment of just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we had {disfmarker} we had talked about doing maybe EDU as a good choice , though . Well , {vocalsound} whatever we have . +PhD B: Well we 've talked about that as being the next ones we wanted to transcribe . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: But for the purpose of sending him a sample one to {disfmarker} f +Grad E: Yeah , maybe it doesn't matter . +Postdoc A: Great . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't think it matte +Postdoc A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , um , get {disfmarker} make that available . +Grad E: OK , and has it been corrected ? +Postdoc A: Oh , well , wait . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hand - checked ? Cuz that was one of the {vocalsound} processes we were talking about as well . +PhD B: Right , so we need to run Thilo 's thing on it , +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD B: and then we go in and adjust the boundaries . +Postdoc A: Yeah that 's right . Yeah , we haven't done that . I {disfmarker} I could set someone on that tomorrow . +PhD B: Right . +Grad E: And time how long it takes . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc A: I think they 're coming {disfmarker} +PhD B: And we probably don't have to do necessarily a whole meeting for that if we just wanna send them a sample to try . +Postdoc A: OK . What would be a good number of minutes ? +PhD B: I don't know , maybe we can figure out how long it 'll take @ @ to {disfmarker} to do . +Grad E: Um , I don't know , it seems to me w we probably should go ahead and do a whole meeting because we 'll have to transcribe the whole meeting anyway sometime . +Professor C: Yes except that if they had {disfmarker} if there was a choice between having fifteen minutes that was fully the way you wanted it , and having a whole meeting that didn't get at what you wanted for them {disfmarker} It 's just dependent of how much {disfmarker} +Grad E: Like I {disfmarker} I mean I guess if we have to do it again anyway , but , uh +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I guess , the only thing I 'm not sure about is , um , how quickly can the transcribers scan over and fix the boundaries , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean , is it pretty easy ? +Grad E: I think it 's gonna be one or two times real time at {disfmarker} Wow , excuse me , two or more times real time , right ? Cuz they have to at least listen to it . +Professor C: Can we pipeline it so that say there 's , uh , the transcriber gets done with a quarter of the meeting and then we {disfmarker} you run it through this other {disfmarker} other stuff ? Uh , +Grad E: Well the other stuff is I B I 'm just thinking that from a data {disfmarker} keeping - track - of - the - data point of view , it may be best to send them whole meetings at a time and not try to send them bits and pieces . +Professor C: OK , so . Oh , that 's right . So the first thing is the automatic thing , and then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's the transcribers tightening stuff up , +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then it 's IBM . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: OK , so you might as well ha run the automatic thing over the entire meeting , and then {disfmarker} and then , uh , you would give IBM whatever was fixed . +Postdoc A: And have them fix it over the entire meeting too ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but start from the beginning and go to the end , right ? So if they were only half way through then that 's what you 'd give IBM . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD B: As of what point ? I mean . The {disfmarker} I guess the question on my mind is do we wait for the transcribers to adjust the marks for the whole meeting before we give anything to IBM , or do we go ahead and send them a sample ? Let their {disfmarker} +Professor C: Why wouldn't we s @ @ w i if they were going sequentially through it , why wouldn't we give them {disfmarker} I mean i are we trying to get something done by the time Brian comes ? +PhD B: Well I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . +Grad E: That was the question . Though . +Professor C: So if we {disfmarker} if we were , then it seems like giving them something , whatever they had gotten up to , would be better than nothing . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh . That {disfmarker} I agree . I agree . +Grad E: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , h they {disfmarker} they typically work for what , four hours , something like that ? +Postdoc A: Hmm , I gue hmm . +Grad E: I think the they should be able to get through a whole meeting in one sitting . I would think , unless it 's a lot harder than we think it is , which it could be , certainly . +Postdoc A: If it 's got like for speakers then I guess {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 're just doing the individual channels , +Grad E: Or seven or eight . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc A: Individual channels . Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's gonna be , depending on the number of people in the meeting , um , +Postdoc A: I guess there is this issue of , you know , if {disfmarker} if the segmenter thought there was no speech on {disfmarker} on a particular stretch , on a particular channel , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and there really was , then , if it didn't show up in a mixed signal to verify , then it might be overlooked , so , I mean , the question is "" should {disfmarker} should a transcriber listen to the entire thing or can it g can it be based on the mixed signal ? "" And I th eh so far as I 'm concerned it 's fine to base it on the mixed signal at this point , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's what it seems to me too , in that if they need to , just like in the other cases , they can listen to the individual , if they need to . +Postdoc A: And that cuts down the time . Yeah . +Grad E: But they don't have to for most of it . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . So . Yeah . Good , good , good . +PhD B: I don't see how that will work , though . +Postdoc A: What {disfmarker} what aspect ? +Professor C: So you 're talking about tightening up time boundaries ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So how do you {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , they have the normal channeltrans interface where they have each individual speaker has their own line , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: but you 're listening to the mixed signal and you 're tightening the boundaries , correcting the boundaries . You shouldn't have to tighten them too much because Thilo 's program does that . +Postdoc A: Should be pretty good , yeah . +PhD D: Except for {vocalsound} it doesn't do well on short things , remember . +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so you 'll have to I {disfmarker} +PhD D: It will miss them . It will miss most of the really short things . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Like that . +Postdoc A: But those would be {disfmarker} those would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . It will {disfmarker} it will miss {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh ! +PhD D: Yeah , you have to say "" uh - huh "" more slowly to {disfmarker} to get c +Grad E: Sorry . +PhD D: No , I 'm s I 'm actually serious . +Grad E: I 'll work on that . +PhD D: So it will miss stuff like that which {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , so {disfmarker} so that 's something that the transcribers will have to {disfmarker} have to do . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but presumably , most of those they should be able to hear from the mixed signal unless they 're embedded in the heavil heavy overlap section when {disfmarker} in which case they 'd be listening to the channels anyway . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm concerned about the part . +PhD D: Right , and that 's what I 'm not sure about . +Postdoc A: Yeah , I am too . And I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD B: Can't we {disfmarker} uh couldn't we just have , um , I don't know , maybe this just doesn't fit with the software , but I guess if I didn't know anything about Transcriber and I was gonna make something to let them adjust boundaries , I would just show them one channel at a time , with the marks , and let them adju +Postdoc A: Oh they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , but then they have to do {disfmarker} but then they {disfmarker} for this meeting they would have to do seven times real time , and it would probably be more than that . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . Yeah . +Grad E: Right ? Because they 'd have to at least listen to each channel all the way through . +Postdoc A: And if {disfmarker} +PhD B: But i but it 's very quick , +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: right ? I mean , you scan {disfmarker} I mean , if you have a display of the waveform . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , you 're talking about visually . +Postdoc A: w Well , the other problem is the breaths +Grad E: I just don't think {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: cuz you also see the breaths on the waveform . I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at the int uh , s I 've tried to do that with a single channel , and {disfmarker} and you do see all sorts of other stuff besides just the voice . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I think that they 're going much more on acoustics than they are on visuals . +Postdoc A: Well that {disfmarker} that I 'm not sure . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: What you {disfmarker} the digital {disfmarker} what the digital task that you had your interface ? Um , I know for a fact that one of those {disfmarker} sh she could really well {disfmarker} she could judge what th what the number was based on the {disfmarker} on the waveform . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's actually true . Yeah , you 're right . You 're absolutely right . Yeah , I found the same thing that when I was scanning through the wave form {vocalsound} I could see when someone started to read digits just by the shapes . +Postdoc A: Yeah , she could tell which one was seven . +Grad E: Um , maybe . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I don't {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm now entirely confused about what they do . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're looking at a mixed signal , or they 're looking {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at visually ? +Postdoc A: Well , they have a choice . They could choose any signal to look at . I 've tried lookin but usually they look at the mixed . But I 've {disfmarker} I 've tried looking at the single signal and {disfmarker} and in order to judge when it {disfmarker} when it was speech and when it wasn't , +Grad E: Oh . +Postdoc A: but the problem is then you have breaths which {disfmarker} which show up on the signal . +Professor C: But the procedure that you 're imagining , I mean , people vary from this , is that they have the mixed signal wave form in front of them , +Postdoc A: Yes . +PhD F: +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: and they have multiple , uh , well , let 's see , there isn't {disfmarker} we don't have transcription yet . So {disfmarker} but there 's markers of some sort that have been happening automatically , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: and those show up on the mixed signal ? +Postdoc A: Oh , +Professor C: There 's a @ @ clicks ? +Grad E: N the t +Postdoc A: they show up on the separate ribbons . So you have a separate ribbon for each channel , +Professor C: There 're separate ribbons . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: and {disfmarker} and i i it 'll be {disfmarker} because it 's being segmented as channel at a time with his {disfmarker} with Thilo 's new procedure , then you don't have the correspondence of the times across the bins {disfmarker} uh across the ribbons uh you could have {disfmarker} +Professor C: And is there a line moving across the waveform as it goes ? +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: OK , so The way you 're imaging is they kind of play it , and they see oh this happened , then this happened , then {disfmarker} and if it 's about right , they just sort of let it slide , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Professor C: and if it {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} there 's a question on something , they stop and maybe look at the individual wave form . +Postdoc A: Oh , well not {disfmarker} not "" look "" . +Grad E: Right . Well , they wouldn't look at it {pause} at this point . They would just listen . +Professor C: They {disfmarker} they might look at it , right ? +Grad E: Well , the problem is that the {disfmarker} the interface doesn't really allow you to switch visuals . +Postdoc A: Not very quickly . +Grad E: The problem is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the Tcl - TK interface with the visuals , it 's very slow to load waveforms . +Postdoc A: You can but it takes time . That 's it . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so when I tried {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that was the first thing I tried when I first started it , +Postdoc A: Oh , oh . Visually . You can {disfmarker} you can switch quickly between the audio , +Grad E: right ? +Postdoc A: but you just can't get the visual display to show quickly . So you have to {disfmarker} It takes , I don't know , three , four minutes to {disfmarker} Well , I mean , it takes {disfmarker} it takes long enough {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , it 's very slow to do that . +Postdoc A: It takes long enough cuz it has to reload the I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly what it 's doing frankly cuz {disfmarker} but it t it takes long enough that it 's just not a practical alternative . +PhD D: That w +Grad E: Well it {disfmarker} it does some sort of shape pre - computation so that it can then scroll it quickly , +Grad G: But you can cancel that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . But then you can't change the resolution or scroll quickly . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Postdoc A: Now you could set up multiple windows , each one with a different signal showing , and then look between the windows . +Grad E: So . +Grad G: Huh ! +Postdoc A: Maybe that 's the solution . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could do different interfaces , +Grad G: What if you preload them all ? +Grad E: right ? I mean , so {disfmarker} so we could use like X Waves instead of Transcriber , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and it loads faster , certainly . +Grad G: What if you were to preload all the channels or {disfmarker} or initially {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well that 's what I tried originally . +Grad G: like doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I actually before , uh , Dave Gelbart did this , I did an interface which showed each waveform and ea a ribbon for each waveform , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but the problem with it is even with just three waveforms it was just painfully slow to scroll . So you just scroll a screen and it would , you know go "" kur - chunk ! "" +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so it just was not doable with the current interface . +Postdoc A: You know , I am thinking if we have a meeting with only four speakers and , you know , you could fire up a Transcriber interface for , y you know , in different windows , multiple ones , one for each channel . And it 's sort of a {disfmarker} a hack but I mean it would be one way of seeing the visual form . +Grad E: I think that if we decide that we need {disfmarker} that they need to see the visuals , we need to change the interface so that they can do that . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: That 's actually what I thought of , loading the chopped up waveforms , I mean , you know , that {disfmarker} that would make it faster {disfmarker} +Grad E: An But isn't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad E: The chopped up waveforms . +PhD B: The problem is if {disfmarker} if anything 's cut off , you can't expand it from the chopped up {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Grad E: Isn't that {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Right , but if you a at some point {disfmarker} +Grad E: And wouldn't that be the same {comment} as the mixed signal ? +PhD D: No , I mean the individual channels that were chopped up that {disfmarker} it 'd be nice to be able to go back and forth between those short segments . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Cuz you don't really nee like nine tenths of the time you 're throwing most of them out , but what you need are tho that particular channel , or that particular location , +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: um , might be nice , cuz we save those out already , {comment} um , to be able to do that . But it won't work for IBM of course , it only works here cuz they 're not saving out the individual channels . +Postdoc A: Well , I {disfmarker} I do think that this {disfmarker} this will be a doable procedure , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and have them starting with mixed +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc A: and , um , then when they get into overlaps , just have them systematically check all the channels to be sure that there isn't something hidden from {disfmarker} from audio view . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , hopefully , I mean {disfmarker} The mixed signal , the overlaps are pretty audible because it is volume equalized . So I think they should be able to hear . The only problem is {disfmarker} is , you know , counting how many and if they 're really correct or not . So , I don't know . +PhD D: I don't know that you can locate them very well from the mixed signal , +Grad E: Right but {disfmarker} but once {disfmarker} once you know that they happen , you can at least listen to the close talking , +PhD D: but you would know that they were there , and then you would switch . Right . And then you would switch into the other {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +Professor C: But right now , to do this limitation , the switching is going to be switching of the audio ? Is what she 's saying . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so +Professor C: so they 're using their ears to do these markings anyway . +Grad E: did Dave {disfmarker} Did Dave do that change where you can actually just click rather than having to go up to the menu to listen to the individual channels ? +Postdoc A: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Click {disfmarker} Um , +Grad E: I had suggested it before . I just don't know whether he did it or not . +Postdoc A: I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} click what {disfmarker} click on the ribbon ? Yeah , you can get that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: oh , oh , get {disfmarker} you can get the , uh {disfmarker} you can get it to switch audio ? Uh , not last I tried , +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but , um , maybe he 's changed it again . +Grad E: We should get him to do that because , uh , I think that would be much , much faster than going to the menu . +Postdoc A: I disagree . There 's a reason I disagree , and that is that , uh , you {disfmarker} it 's very good to have a dissociation between the visual and the audio . There 're times when I wanna hear the mixed signal , bu but I want to transcribe on the single channel . So right now {disfmarker} +Grad E: Then maybe just buttons down at the bottom next to it . +Postdoc A: Maybe , I just don't {disfmarker} I don't see that it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Just something so that it 's not in the menu option so that you can do it much faster . +Postdoc A: Well , I mean , that 's the i I {disfmarker} I think that might be a personal style thing . I find it really convenient the way {disfmarker} the way it 's set up right now . +Grad E: Well it just seems to me that if you wanna quickly {disfmarker} "" well was that Jane , no , was that Chuck , no , was that Morgan "" , right now , you have to go up to the menu , and each time , go up to the menu , select it , listen to that channel then click below , and then go back to the menu , select the next one , and then click below . +Postdoc A: That 's fine . Yeah , it 's true . +Grad E: So you can definitely streamline that with the i with the interface . +Postdoc A: Yeah , it could be faster , but , you know , I mean , th in the ideal world {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: What ? +Postdoc A: No I {disfmarker} I agree that 'd be nice . Yeah . OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , um , Done with that ? Does any {disfmarker} I forget , does anybody , uh , working on any {disfmarker} any Eurospeech submission related to this ? +Grad E: I would like to try to do something on digits but I just don't know if we have time . I mean , it 's due next Friday so we have to do the experiments and write the paper . So , I 'm gonna try , but , uh , we 'll just have to see . So actually I wanna get together with both Andreas and , uh , uh , Stephane with their respective systems . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah there was that {disfmarker} we that 's right , we had that one conversation about , uh , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what did it mean for , uh , one of those speakers to be pathological , was it a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , and I haven't had s chance to sit down and listen . +PhD F: Oh , I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't listened to them either , +Grad E: I was going to do that this afternoon . +PhD F: but there must be something wrong , I mean , +Grad E: Well , Morgan and I were {disfmarker} were having a debate {comment} about that . +PhD F: unless our {disfmarker} +Grad E: Whereas I think it it 's probably something pathologic and actually Stephane 's results , I think confirm that . He s he did the Aurora system also got very lousy average error , like fifteen or {disfmarker} or , uh , fifteen to twenty percent average ? But then he ran it just on the lapel , and got about five or six percent word error ? So that {disfmarker} that means to me that somewhere in the other recordings there are some pathological cases . But , you know , we {disfmarker} th that may not be true . It may be just some of the segments they 're just doing a lousy job on . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll listen to it and find out since you 'd actually split it up by segment . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So I can actually listen to it . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Did you run the {disfmarker} Andreas {disfmarker} the r SRI recognizer on the digits ? +Grad E: Oh , I thought he had sent that around to everyone , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: did you just sent that to me ? +PhD F: No , I d I didn't . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD F: Since I considered those preliminary , I didn't . +PhD B: I it wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , yeah , if you take {disfmarker} +Grad E: It was bimodal . +PhD F: So if you {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's actually , um , it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it was trimodal , actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , was it trimodal , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: trimodal , so +Professor C: There 's zero , a little bit , and a lot . +PhD F: there were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} t there was {disfmarker} there was one h one bump at ze around zero , which were the native speakers , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Zero percent error ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: the non - pathological native speakers . +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD F: Then there was another bump at , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} oh , like fifteen or something . +PhD B: This is error you 're talking about ? +Professor C: Oh was it fifteen ? +PhD F: whe +PhD B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Those were the non - natives . And then there was another distinct bump at , like , a hundred , {vocalsound} which must have been some problem . +Postdoc A: Oh , wow ! Oh , OK . +PhD F: I can't imagine that {disfmarker} +Grad G: What is patho what do you mean by pathological ? +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} just something really wrong with {disfmarker} +Grad G: I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: A bug is what I mean , +PhD F: In the recording +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: so that it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , OK . +PhD F: And there was this one meeting , I forget which one it was , where like , uh , six out of the eight channels were all , like {disfmarker} had a hundred percent error . +Grad G: I see . +Grad E: Which probably means like there was a {disfmarker} th the recording interface crashed , +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: or there was a short {disfmarker} you know , someone was jiggling with a cord +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: or , uh , I extracted it incorrectly , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: it was labeled {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it was transcribed incorrectly , something really bad happened , and I just haven't listened to it yet to find out what it was . +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: So , if I excluded the pathological ones , {vocalsound} by definition , those that had like over ninety - five percent error rate , {vocalsound} and the non - natives , then the average error rate was like one point four or something , +Professor C: What we 're calling . +Postdoc A: Oh . Oh . +PhD F: which {disfmarker} which seemed reasonable given that , you know , the models weren't tuned for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for it . +Grad G: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: And the grammar wasn't tuned either . +PhD B: And it didn't matter whether it was the lapel or whether it was the {disfmarker} +PhD F: It was just a @ @ . I haven't split it up that way , +PhD D: But there 's no overlap during the digit readings , so it shouldn't really matter . +PhD F: but it would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: No , but there 's a little difference , +PhD F: So it should {disfmarker} +Grad E: There 's a lot . +Professor C: and we haven't looked at it for digits , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah , so I was curious about that . +Professor C: And so , cuz {disfmarker} because what he was {disfmarker} what I was saying when I looked at those things is it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I was almost gonna call it quadrimodal because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} because there was a whole lot of cases where it was zero percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: They just plain got it all right . And then there {disfmarker} and then there was another bunch that were couple percent or something . +PhD F: Yeah . But if you p if you actually histogrammed it , and {disfmarker} it was a nice {disfmarker} uh , you know , it {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} zero was the most of them , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: A normal . Yeah . +PhD F: but then there were {disfmarker} the others were sort of decaying from there . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD F: And then there was the bump for the non - natives and then the pathological ones , +Professor C: I see . I see . +PhD F: so . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz some of our non - natives are pretty non - native . So . +Postdoc A: You {disfmarker} did you have , uh , something in the report about , uh , {disfmarker} about , uh , for f uh , forced alignment ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Have you {disfmarker} have you started on that ? +PhD F: Oh , well , yeah , so I 've been struggling with the forced alignments . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the scheme that I drew on the board last time where we tried to , um {vocalsound} allow reject models for the s speech from other speakers , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} most of the time it doesn't work very well . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} I haven't done {disfmarker} I mean , the only way to check this right now was for me to actually {vocalsound} load these into X Waves and , you know , plus the alignments , and s play them and see where the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: And it looks {disfmarker} And so I looked at all of the utterances from you , Chuck , in that one conversation , I don't know which {disfmarker} You probably know which one I mean , it 's where you were on the lapel {vocalsound} and Morgan was sitting next to you and we can hear everything Morgan says . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some of what you {disfmarker} I mean , you also appear quite a bit in that cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} I actually went through all of those , there were I think fifty - five segments , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in X Waves , and {disfmarker} and sort of did a crude check , and {vocalsound} more often than not , it {disfmarker} it gets it wrong . So there 's either the beginning , mostly the beginning word , {vocalsound} where th you , um , you know , Chuck talks somewhere into the segment , but the first , um , word of what he says , often "" I "" but it 's very reduced "" I , "" that 's just aligned {vocalsound} to the beginning of someone else 's speech , uh in that segment , which is cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} I 'm still tinkering with it , but it might well be that we can't get clean alignments out of this {disfmarker} out of those , uh , {vocalsound} channels , so . +Professor C: Unless maybe we do this , uh , um , cancellation business . +PhD D: Right , but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that was our plan , +PhD F: Yeah , right . +PhD D: but it 's clear from Dan that this is not something you can do in a short amount of time . +Professor C: Oh , the short amount of time thing , right . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so we {disfmarker} you know , we had spent a lot of time , um , writing up the HLT paper and we wanted to use that , uh , kind of analysis , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but the HLT paper has , you know , it 's a very crude measure of overlap . It 's not really something you could scientifically say is overlap , it 's just whether or not the , um , the segments that were all synchronized , whether there was some overlap somewhere . +Grad E: c High correlation . +PhD D: And , you know , that pointed out some differences , so he thought well if we can do something quick and dirty because Dan said the cross - cancellation , it 's not straight - forward . If it were straight - forward then we would try it , but {disfmarker} so , it 's sort of good to hear that it was not straight - forward , thinking if we can get decent forced alignments , then at least we can do sort of a overall report of what happens with actual overlap in time , but , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: I didn't think that his message said it wasn't straight - forward . +Grad E: Well if we 'd just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well +PhD B: I thought he 's just saying you have to look over a longer time window when you do it . +Grad E: Um - hmm . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} but there are some issues of this timing , um , in the recordings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you just have to look over longer time when you 're trying to align the things , you can't {disfmarker} you can't just look {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well . are you talking about the fact that the recording software doesn't do time - synchronous ? Is that what you 're referring to ? +Professor C: +Grad E: That seems to me you can do that over the entire file and get a very accurate {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't thi I d I don't think that was the issue . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} yeah , that was sort of a side issue . +Grad E: I didn't think so either . +PhD F: The issue was that you have {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} you have have {disfmarker} you first have to have a pretty good speech detection on the individual channels . +PhD D: And it 's dynamic , so I guess it was more dynamic than some simple models would be able t to {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so there are some things available , and I don't know too much about this area where if people aren't moving around much than you could apply them , and it should work pretty well if you took care of this recording time difference . +Grad E: Right , which should be pretty straight forward . +PhD D: Which a at least is well defined , and +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: um , but then if you add the dynamic aspect of adapting distances , then it wasn't {disfmarker} I guess it just wasn't something that he could do quickly {pause} and not {disfmarker} in time for us to be able to do something by two weeks from now , so . Well less than a week . So {disfmarker} um , so I don't know what we can do if anything , that 's sort of worth , you know , a Eurospeech paper at this point . +PhD B: Well , Andreas , how well did it work on the non - lapel stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's what I was gonna say . +PhD F: I haven't checked those yet . +Grad E: C +PhD F: It 's very tedious to check these . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD F: Um , we would really need , ideally , a transcriber {vocalsound} to time mark the {disfmarker} you know , the be at least the beginning and s ends {comment} of contiguous speech . Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and , you know , then with the time marks , you can do an automatic comparison of your {disfmarker} of your forced alignments . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} really the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at least in terms of how we were gonna use this in our system was to get an ideal {disfmarker} an idea , uh , for each channel about the start and end boundaries . +Grad E: Oh , MNCM . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We don't really care about like intermediate word boundaries , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , that 's how I 've been looking at it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: I mean , I don't care that the individual words are aligned correctly , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {vocalsound} you don't wanna , uh , infer from the alignment that someone spoke who didn't . +PhD B: Right , exactly . So that 's why I was wondering if it {disfmarker} +PhD F: so , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , maybe if it doesn't work for lapel stuff , we can just not use that +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I haven't {disfmarker} I ha just haven't had the time to , um , do the same procedure on one of the {disfmarker} so I would need a k I would need a channel that has {vocalsound} a speaker whose {disfmarker} who has a lot of overlap but s you know , is a non - lapel mike . And , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} where preferably , also there 's someone sitting next to them who talks a lot . +Grad E: Hmm ! +PhD F: So , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So a meeting with me in it . +PhD F: maybe someone can help me find a good candidate and then I would be willing to +PhD B: We c you know what ? Maybe the best way to find that would be to look through these . +PhD F: you know , hand +PhD B: Cuz you can see the seat numbers , and then you can see what type of mike they were using . And so we just look for , you know , somebody sitting next to Adam at one of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually y we can tell from the data that we have , +PhD F: From the insertions , maybe ? +PhD D: um , yeah , there 's a way to tell . +PhD F: fr fr from the {disfmarker} +PhD D: It might not be a single person who 's always overlapping that person but any number of people , +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: and , um , if you align the two hypothesis files across the channels , you know , just word alignment , you 'd be able to find that . So {disfmarker} so I guess that 's sort of a last {disfmarker} ther there 're sort of a few things we could do . One is just do like non - lapels if we can get good enough alignments . Another one was to try to get {disfmarker} somehow align Thilo 's energy segmentations with what we have . But then you have the problem of not knowing where the words are because these meetings were done before that segmentation . But maybe there 's something that could be done . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} why do you need the , um , the forced alignment for the HLT {disfmarker} I mean for the Eurospeech paper ? +PhD D: Well , I guess I {disfmarker} I wanted to just do something not on recognition experiments because that 's ju way too early , but to be able to report , you know , actual numbers . Like if we {disfmarker} if we had hand - transcribed pe good alignments or hand - checked alignments , then we could do this paper . It 's not that we need it to be automatic . But without knowing where the real words are , in time {disfmarker} +PhD B: So it was to get {disfmarker} it was to get more data and better {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to squeeze the boundaries in . +PhD D: To {disfmarker} to know what an overlap really {disfmarker} if it 's really an overlap , or if it 's just a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a segment correlated with an overlap , +PhD B: Ah , OK . Yeah . +PhD D: and I guess that 's the difference to me between like a real paper and a sort of , promissory paper . So , um , if we d it might be possible to take Thilo 's output and like if you have , um , like right now these meetings are all , +Grad E: Ugh ! I forgot the digital camera again . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: Every meeting ! +PhD D: you know , they 're time - aligned , so if these are two different channels and somebody 's talking here and somebody else is talking here , just that word , if Thilo can tell us that there 're boundaries here , we should be able to figure that out +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because the only thing transcribed in this channel is this word . But , um , you know , if there are things {disfmarker} +Grad E: Two words . +PhD D: Yeah , if you have two and they 're at the edges , it 's like here and here , and there 's speech here , then it doesn't really help you , so , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Thilo 's won't put down two separate marks in that case {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it w it would , but , um , we don't know exactly where the words are because the transcriber gave us two words in this time bin +Grad E: Thilo 's will . But . +PhD D: and we don't really know , I mean , +Postdoc A: Well it 's a merging problem . If you had a {disfmarker} if you had a s if you had a script which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I 've thought about this , um , and I 've discussed {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo , +PhD D: I mean , if you have any ideas . I would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , the , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} in principle I could imagine writing a script which would approximate it to some degree , but there is this problem of slippage , +Grad E: Well maybe {disfmarker} Maybe that will get enough of the cases to be useful . +Postdoc A: yeah . +PhD D: Right . I mean , that {disfmarker} that would be really helpful . That was sort of another possibility . +Grad E: You know s cuz it seemed like most of the cases are in fact the single word sorts , or at least a single phrase +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} they can be stretched . +Grad E: in most of the bins . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc A: I wouldn't make that generalization cuz sometimes people will say , "" And then I "" and there 's a long pause +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and finish the sentence and {disfmarker} and sometimes it looks coherent and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a simple problem . But it 's really {disfmarker} And then it 's coupled with the problem that sometimes , you know , with {disfmarker} with a fricative you might get the beginning of the word cut off and so it 's coupled with the problem that Thilo 's isn't perfect either . I mean , we 've i th it 's like you have a merging problem plus {disfmarker} so merging plus this problem of , uh , not {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . Hmm ! +Postdoc A: y i i if the speech - nonspeech were perfect to begin with , the detector , that would already be an improvement , but that 's impossible , you know , i that 's too much to ask . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: And so i and may you know , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I think that there always {disfmarker} th there would have to be some hand - tweaking , but it 's possible that a script could be written to merge those two types of things . I 've {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo and I mean {disfmarker} in terms of not him doing it , but we {disfmarker} we discussed some of the parameters of that and how hard it would be to {disfmarker} in principle {disfmarker} to write something that would do that . +PhD D: I mean , I guess in the future it won't be as much as an issue if transcribers are using the tightened boundaries to start with , then we have a good idea of where the forced alignment is constrained to . +Postdoc A: Well , it 's just , you know , a matter of we had the revolution {disfmarker} we had the revolution of improved , uh , interface , um , one month too late , +PhD D: So I 'm no I don't know if this +Grad E: Oh . Tools . +Postdoc A: but it 's like , you know , it 's wonderful to have the revolution , +PhD D: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: so it 's just a matter of {disfmarker} of , you know , from now on we 'll be able to have things channelized to begin with . +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Right . And we 'll just have to see how hard that is . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so whether the corrections take too much time . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Grad E: I was just thinking about the fact that if Thilo 's missed these short segments , that might be quite time - consuming for them to insert them . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Good point . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} he also can adjust this minimum time duration constraint and then what you get is noises mostly , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Spurious . +PhD D: but that might be OK , an +Grad E: It might be easier to delete something that 's wrong than to insert something that 's missing . +PhD D: Right . And you can also see in the waveform {disfmarker} exac +Grad E: What do you think , Jane ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: If you can feel confident that what the {disfmarker} yeah , that there 's actually something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: that you 're not gonna miss something , +Grad E: Yeah . Cuz then {disfmarker} then you just delete it , and you don't have to pick a time . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well the problem is I {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a really good question , and I really find it a pain in the neck to delete things because you have to get the mouse up there on the t on the text line and i and otherwise you just use an arrow to get down {disfmarker} I mean , i it depends on how lar th there 's so many extra things that would make it one of them harder than the other , or {disfmarker} or vice versa . It 's not a simple question . But , you know , I mean , in principle , like , you know , if one of them is easier then to bias it towards whichever one 's easier . +Grad E: Yeah , I guess the semantics aren't clear when you delete a segment , right ? Because you would say {disfmarker} You would have to determine what the surroundings were . +PhD D: You could just say it 's a noise , though , and write , you know , a post - processor will just {disfmarker} all you have to do is just {disfmarker} +Grad E: If it 's really a noise . +PhD D: or just say it 's {disfmarker} just put "" X , "" you know , like "" not speech "" or something , +Postdoc A: I think it 's easier to add than delete , frankly , +PhD D: and then you can get {disfmarker} Yeah , or +Postdoc A: because you have to , uh , maneuver around on the {disfmarker} on both windows then . +Grad E: To add or to delete ? +Postdoc A: To delete . +PhD D: Anyways , so I {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . That {disfmarker} Maybe that 's an interface issue that might be addressable . +Postdoc A: It 's possible . +Grad E: But I think it 's the semantics that are {disfmarker} that are questionable to me , that you delete something {disfmarker} So let 's say someone is talking to here , and then you have a little segment here . Well , is that part of the speech ? Is it part of the nonspeech ? I mean , w what do you embed it in ? +PhD D: There 's something nice , though , about keeping , and this is probably another discussion , keeping the stuff that Thilo 's detector detected as possible speech and just marking it as not speech than deleting it . Because then when you align it , then the alignment can {disfmarker} you can put a reject model or whatever , +Grad E: Oh , I see . So then they could just like put {disfmarker} Oh that 's what you meant by just put an "" X "" there . +PhD D: and you 're consistent with th the automatic system , +Grad E: Uh , that 's an interesting idea . +PhD D: whereas if you delete it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so all they {disfmarker} So that all they would have to do is put like an "" X "" there . +PhD D: Yeah , or some , you know , dummy reject mod +Grad E: So blank for {disfmarker} blank for silence , "" S "" "" S "" for speech , "" X "" "" X "" for something else . +PhD D: whatever , yeah . That 's actually a better way to do it cuz the a the forced alignment will probably be more consistent than {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , like , I think there 's a complication which is that {disfmarker} that you can have speech and noise in s +PhD D: I mean if it 's just as easy , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: uh , you know , on the same channel , the same speaker , so now sometimes you get a ni microphone pop and , uh , I mean , there 're these fuzzy hybrid cases , and then the problem with the boundaries that have to be shifted around . It 's not a simple {disfmarker} not a simple problem . +PhD D: Anyway , quick question , though , at a high level do people think , let 's just say that we 're moving to this new era of like using the , um , pre - segmented t you know , non - synchronous conversations , does it make sense to try to take what we have now , which are the ones that , you know , we have recognition on which are synchronous and not time - tightened , and try to get something out of those for sort of purposes of illustrating the structure and the nature of the meetings , or is it better to just , you know , forget that and tr I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I think we 'll have to , eventually . And my hope was that we would be able to use the forced alignment to get it . +PhD D: Right . That was everybody 's hope . +Grad E: But if we can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: And maybe we can for the non - lapel , but +Grad E: But if we can't , then maybe we just have to {disfmarker} +PhD D: is it worth {disfmarker} if we can't then we can fake it even if we 're {disfmarker} we report , you know , we 're wrong twenty percent of the time or ten percent of the time . +Grad E: Well , I 'm thinking {disfmarker} are you talking about for a paper , or are talking about for the corpus . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's a good question actually . +Grad E: I mean cuz for the corpus it would be nice if everything were {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually that 's a good question because we 'd have to completely redo those meetings , and we have like ten of them now . +Grad E: We wouldn't have to re - do them , we would just have to edit them . +Postdoc A: Well , and also , I mean , I still haven't {disfmarker} I still haven't given up on forced alignment . +PhD D: No , you 're right , actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think that when Brian comes , this 'll be uh an interesting aspect to ask him as well b +Grad E: When {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: when Brian Kingsbury comes . +Grad E: Oh , Brian . You s I thought you said Ryan . And it 's like , "" Who 's Ryan ? "" +Postdoc A: Yeah , good question . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc A: Well , Ryan could come . +PhD D: Uh , no , that 's a good point , though , because for feature extraction like for prosody or something , I mean , the meetings we have now , it 's a good chunk of data {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: we need to get a decent f OK . +Postdoc A: That 's what my hope has been , +PhD D: So we should at least try it even if we can't , +Postdoc A: and that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} you know , ever since the {disfmarker} the February meeting that I transcribed from last year , forced alignment has been on the {disfmarker} on the table as a way of cleaning them up later . +PhD D: right ? +Grad E: On the table , right ? +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and so I 'm hopeful that that 's possible . I know that there 's complication in the overlap sections and with the lapel mikes , +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , we might be able , at the very worst , we can get transcribers to correct the cases where {disfmarker} I mean , you sort of have a good estimate where these places are because the recognition 's so poor . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , we were never just gonna go with these as the final alignments . +PhD D: And so you 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I agree . I agree . +PhD B: We were always gonna run them past somebody . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Absolutely . +PhD D: So we need some way to push these first chunk of meetings into a state where we get good alignments . +PhD F: I 'm probably going to spend another day or so trying to improve things by , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} by using , um , acoustic adaptation . Um , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Right now I 'm using the unadapted models for the forced alignments , and it 's possible that you get considerably better results if you , uh , manage to adapt the , {vocalsound} uh , phone models to the speaker and the reject model to the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to all the other speech . Um , so +PhD B: Could you {disfmarker} could you at the same time adapt the reject model to the speech from all the other channels ? +Professor C: That 's what he just said . +Grad E: That 's what he was saying . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's what I just said . +PhD B: Oh , not just the speech from that {disfmarker} of the other people from that channel , +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: but the speech from the a actual other channels . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Oh , oh , I see . Um , +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I don't think so . I don't think that would work , +PhD F: No , it {disfmarker} +Grad E: right ? Because you 'd {disfmarker} A lot of it 's dominated by channel properties . +PhD F: th Exactly . +PhD D: But what you do wanna do is take the , even if it 's klugey , take the segments {disfmarker} the synchronous segments , the ones from the HLT paper , where only that speaker was talking . +PhD F: So you want to u +PhD D: Use those for adaptation , cuz if you {disfmarker} if you use everything , then you get all the cross - talk in the adaptation , and it 's just sort of blurred . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +PhD B: If you {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yep . +PhD D: And that we know , I mean , we have that . And it 's about roughly two - thirds , I mean , very roughly averaged . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's not completely negligible . Like a third of it is bad for adaptation or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cool . I thought it was higher than that , that 's pr +PhD D: It really {disfmarker} it depends a lot . This is just sort of an overall {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +Professor C: Well I know what we 're not turning in to Eurospeech , a redo of the HLT paper . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: That {disfmarker} I don't wanna do that , +Grad E: Yeah , I 'm doing that for AVIOS . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: Yeah . But I think we 're {disfmarker} oh , Morgan 's talk went very well , I think . +Professor C: Bleep . +Grad E: Uh , "" bleep "" . Yeah , really . +PhD D: I think Morgan 's talk went very well it woke {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD D: you know , it was really a well presented {disfmarker} and got people laughing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD F: Some good jokes in it ? +Grad E: Especially the batteried meter popping up , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was hilarious . Right when you were talking about that . +Professor C: You know , that wa that was the battery meter saying that it was fully charged , +Grad E: It 's full . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc A: You said , "" Speaking about energy "" , or {vocalsound} something . +Grad E: But that was funny . +Postdoc A: That was very nice . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was onto the bullet points about talking about the {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} the little hand - held , and trying to get lower power and so on , +PhD F: Po - low power +Grad E: and Microsoft pops up a little window saying "" Your batteries are now fully charged . "" +Postdoc A: That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: I 'm thinking about scripting that for my talk , you know , put {disfmarker} put a little script in there to say "" Your batteries are low "" right when I 'm saying that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . No I mean , i in {disfmarker} in your case , I mean , you were joking about it , but , I mean , your case the fact that your talking about similar things at a couple of conferences , it 's not {disfmarker} these are conferences that have d really different emphases . Whereas HLT and {disfmarker} and Eurospeech , pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} pretty similar , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't see really just putting in the same thing , +Grad E: Are too close , yeah . +PhD D: No , I d I don't think that paper is really {disfmarker} +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: the HLT paper is really more of a introduction - to - the - project paper , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for Eurospeech we want some results if we can get them . +PhD D: Well , yeah , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} probably wouldn't make sense , +Professor C: Or some {disfmarker} or some {disfmarker} I mean , I would see Eurospeech {disfmarker} if we have some Eurospeech papers , these will be paper p p uh , submissions . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: These will be things that are particular things , aspects of it that we 're looking at , rather than , you know , attempt at a global paper about it . +PhD D: Right , right . +Grad E: Detail , yeah . Overall . +Postdoc A: I did go through one of these meetings . I had , uh , one of the transcribers go through and tighten up the bins on one of the , uh , NSA meetings , and then I went through afterwards and double - checked it so that one is really very {disfmarker} very accurate . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc A: I men I mentioned the link . I sent {disfmarker} You know that one ? +PhD D: Oh , so {disfmarker} +Grad G: The {disfmarker} which one ? I 'm sorry . +Postdoc A: Um , I 'm trying to remember {disfmarker} I don't remember the number off hand . +Grad E: Those are all {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's one of the NSA 's . I sent email before the conference , before last week . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Bef - What I mean is Wednesday , Thursday . +PhD D: That might {disfmarker} might have been the one {disfmarker} one of the ones that we did . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that that one 's accurate , I 've been through it {vocalsound} myself . +PhD D: So that might actually be useful but they 're all non - native speakers . +PhD F: So we could compare before and after +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: and see {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that 's what I was gonna say . The problem with those , they 're all German . +PhD F: oh , Darn ! +Grad G: Yeah , that 's the problem with the NSA speakers . +PhD D: And e and e and extremely hard to follow , like word - wise , +Grad E: So . +PhD D: I bet the transcri I mean , I have no idea what they 're talking about , +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I corrected it for a number of the words . +PhD D: so , +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're accurate now . +PhD D: um , +PhD F: Uh , actually I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to go . +PhD D: I mean , this is tough for a language model probably {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but that might be useful just for speech . +Professor C: Well . +Grad E: OK , Andreas is leaving {disfmarker} leaving the building . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: See ya . +Professor C: See ya . I don't think we 'll go much longer . +Grad E: Um , oh , before you l go {disfmarker} I guess it 's alright for you to talk a little without the mike {disfmarker} I noticed you adjusting the mike a lot , did it not fit you well ? Oh . +Postdoc A: Well I won I noticed when you turned your head , it would {disfmarker} it would tilt . +Grad E: Maybe it wasn't just tightened enough , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe the {disfmarker} yeah , the s thing that you have tightened @ @ , +PhD B: Actually if {disfmarker} if you have a larger head , that mike 's gotta go farther away which means the {disfmarker} the balance is gonna make it wanna tip down . +PhD D: oh . +Grad E: OK . Anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . OK , see ya . +Grad E: Cuz , I 'm just thinking , you know , we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 've been talking about changing the mikes , uh , for a while , +Grad G: +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and if these aren't {disfmarker} acoustically they seem really good , but if they 're not comfortable , we have the same problems we have with these stupid things . +Postdoc A: I think it 's com This is the first time I 've worn this , I find it very comfortable . +Grad E: I find it very comfortable too , but , uh , it looked like Andreas was having problems , and I think Morgan was saying it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , but I had it on {disfmarker} I had it on this morning and it was fine . +PhD B: Can I see that ? +Grad E: Oh , oh you did wear it this morning ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , it 's off , so you can put it on . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't want it on , I just {disfmarker} I just want to , um , say what I think is a problem with this . If you are wearing this over your ears and you 've got it all the way out here , then the balance is gonna want to pull it this way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Where as if somebody with a smaller head has it back here , +Grad E: It 's more balanced . +PhD B: right ? Yeah . +Postdoc A: Oh ! +PhD B: Then it {disfmarker} then it falls back this way so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So we have to +Grad E: Well wh what it 's supposed to do is the backstrap is supposed to be under your crown , and so that should be {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Ah . +Grad E: if it 's right against your head there , which is what it 's supposed to be , that balances it so it doesn't slide up . +PhD B: So this is supposed to be under that little protuberance . +Grad E: Yep , right {disfmarker} right below {disfmarker} if you feel the back of your head , you feel a little lump , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: um , and so it 's supposed to be right under that . +PhD B: So it 's really supposed to go more like this than like this . +Grad E: Yes , exactly . +PhD B: But then isn't that going to {disfmarker} Well , I guess you can control that . +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that tilts , right ? In lots and lots of different ways . +PhD D: So I 'm not saying anything about bias towards small headsize , +Grad E: About heads ? +PhD D: but does seem , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: It would be an advantage . +Postdoc A: Well , wonder if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if he was wearing it over his hair instead of under his hair . +Professor C: Well , we should {disfmarker} We shou we should work on compressing the heads , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think probably it was {disfmarker} Yeah . It probably just wasn't tight enough to the back of his head . I mean , so the directions do talk about bending it to your size , which is not really what we want . +PhD B: The other thing that would do it would be to hang a five pound weight off the back . +Professor C: Yeah +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: that 's good ! +Postdoc A: What did you say ? +PhD D: A little , +Grad E: wh +Professor C: Hang a five pound weight off the {disfmarker} off the back . +PhD B: Hang a five pound weight off the back . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: We did that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Weight . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} at Boeing I used {disfmarker} I was doing augmented reality so they had head - mounts on , and we {disfmarker} we had a little jury - rigged one with a welder 's helmet , +PhD B: Counter - balance . +Grad E: and we had just a bag with a bunch of marbles in it {vocalsound} as a counter - balance . +Professor C: Or maybe this could be helpful just for evening the conversation between people . If people {disfmarker} those who talk a lot have to wear heavier weights or something , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah ! +Professor C: and {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: um , so , uh , what was I gonna say ? Oh , yeah , I was gonna say , uh , I had these , uh , conversations with NIST folks also while I was there and {disfmarker} and , uh , um , so they {disfmarker} they have their {disfmarker} their plan for a room , uh , with , um , mikes in the middle of the table , and , uh , close - mounted mikes , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and they 're talking about close - mounted and lapels , just cuz +PhD D: And arrays , +Professor C: sort of {disfmarker} and the array . +Grad E: And arrays , +Professor C: Yeah , so they were {disfmarker} +PhD D: which is the i interesting {disfmarker} +Grad E: yep . And cameras . +Professor C: And yeah , like multiple {disfmarker} multiple video cameras coverin covering every {disfmarker} everybody {disfmarker} every place in the room , +PhD D: and video , right . +Professor C: uh , the {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mikes in the middle , the head - mounted mikes , the lapel mikes , the array , uh , with {disfmarker} well , there 's some discussion of fifty - nine , +Grad E: Fifty - nine elements . +Professor C: they might go down to fifty - seven Because , uh , there is , uh , some pressure from a couple people at the meeting for them to use a KEMAR head . I forget what KEMAR , uh , stands for , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but what it is is it 's dummy head that is very specially designed , +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , so what they 're actually doing is they 're really {disfmarker} there 's really two recording systems . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: That 's a great idea . +Professor C: So they may not be precisely synchronous , but the but there 's two {disfmarker} two recording systems , one with , I think , twenty - four channels , and one with sixty - four channels . And the sixty - four channel one is for the array , but they 've got some empty channels there , and anyway they {disfmarker} like they 're saying they may give up a couple or something if {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the KEMAR head if they go {disfmarker} go with that . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , it is a good idea . +Professor C: So . +Grad E: Yeah , h uh , J Jonathan Fiscus did say that , uh , they have lots of software for doing calibration for skew and offset between channels +PhD D: Mm - hmm +Grad E: and that they 've found that 's just not a big deal . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I 'm not {pause} too worried about that . I was thinking {disfmarker} +PhD D: But they 're still planning to do like fake {disfmarker} +Grad E: Scenario - based . +PhD D: they have to do something like that , +Grad E: Y right . +PhD D: right . +Grad E: Their {disfmarker} their legal issues won't allow them to do otherwise . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But it sounded like they were {pause} pretty well thought out +PhD D: Yeah , th that 's true . +Grad E: and they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna be real meetings , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's just that they 're with str with people who would not be meeting otherwise . +PhD B: Did {disfmarker} did they give a talk on this or was this informal ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So . +PhD D: No . +Grad E: No . +Professor C: No , we just had some discussions , various discussions with them . +Grad E: It 's just informal . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , I also sat and chatted with several of the NIST folks . They seemed like a good group . +PhD B: What was the , um {disfmarker} the paper by , um , Lori Lamel that you mentioned ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , we sh we should just have you {disfmarker} have you read it , but , I mea ba i i uh , we 've all got these little proceedings , +Postdoc A: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: but , um , basically , it was about , um , uh , going to a new task where you have insufficient data and using {disfmarker} using data from something else , and adapting , and how well that works . Uh , so in {disfmarker} in fact it was pretty related to what Liz and Andreas did , uh , except that this was not with meeting stuff , it was with +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: uh , like I think they s didn't they start off with Broadcast News system ? And then they went to {disfmarker} +Grad E: The - their Broadcast News was their acoustic models and then all the other tasks were much simpler . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So they were command and control and that sort of thing . +Professor C: TI - digits was one of them , and , uh , Wall Street Journal . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD B: What was their rough {disfmarker} what was their conclusion ? +Grad E: Yeah , read Wall Street Journal . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good paper , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that was one of the ones that I liked . +PhD D: Bring the {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} It not only works , in some cases it was better , which I thought was pretty interesting , but that 's cuz they didn't control for parameters . So . +Professor C: Probably . +Grad E: You know , the Broadcast News nets were {disfmarker} not nets , +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Did they ever try going {disfmarker} going the other direction from simpler task to more complicated tasks , +Grad E: acoustic models {comment} were a lot more complex . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: n Not in that paper . +Professor C: That might be hard . +Grad E: Yeah , well , one of the big problems with that is {disfmarker} is often the simpler task isn't fully {disfmarker} doesn't have all the phones in it , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: and that {disfmarker} that makes it very hard . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But I 've done the same thing . I 've been using Broadcast News nets for digits , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: like for the spr speech proxy thing that I did ? That 's what I did . +Professor C: Yeah , sure . +Grad E: So . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , and they have {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} they have better adaptation than we had than that {disfmarker} that system , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: so they {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You mean they have some . +Professor C: yeah , we should probably what would {disfmarker} actually what we should do , uh , I haven't said anything about this , but probably the five of us should pick out a paper or two that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , got our interest , and we should go around the room at one of the Tuesday lunch meetings and say , you know , what {disfmarker} what was good about the conference , +Grad E: Present . Yep . Do a trip report . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Well , the summarization stuff was interesting , I mean , I don't know anything about that field , but for this proposal on meeting summarization , um , I mean , it 's sort of a far cry because they weren't working with meeting type data , but he got sort of an overview on some of the different approaches , +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Do you remember who the groups were that we 're doing ? +PhD D: so . Well there 're {disfmarker} this was the last day , +Grad E: A lot of different ones . +Postdoc A: R I think {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} that 's a huge field and probably the groups there may not be representative of the field , I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly that everyone submits to this particular conference , +PhD B: Was {disfmarker} were there folks from BBN presenting ? +PhD D: but yet there was , let 's see , this was on the last day , Mitre , BBN , and , um , Prager {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mitre , BBN , IBM . Uh , +Postdoc A: Maryland . +PhD D: um , I wo it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Columbia have anything ? No . +PhD D: no it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wasn't {disfmarker} Who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who did the order one ? +PhD D: this was Wednesday morning . The sentence ordering one , was that Barselou , and these guys ? +Grad E: Ugh ! {comment} I 'm just so bad at that . +Postdoc A: Oh . +PhD D: Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's in the program , I should have read it to remind myself , but that 's sort of useful and I think like when Mari and Katrin and Jeff are here it 'd be good to figure out some kinds of things that we can start doing maybe just on the transcripts cuz we already have {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah , we do have word transcripts . +PhD D: you know , yeah . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: Well , I like the idea that Adam had of {disfmarker} of , um , z maybe generating minutes based on some of these things that we have because it would be easy to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do that just , you know , and {disfmarker} and +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc A: it has to be , though , someone from this group because of the technical nature of the thing . +Grad E: Someone who actually does take notes , um , {vocalsound} I 'm very bad at note - taking . +PhD D: But I think what 's interesting is there 's all these different evaluations , like {disfmarker} just , you know , how do you evaluate whether the summary is good or not , +Grad E: I always write down the wrong things . +Postdoc A: I do take notes . +PhD D: and that 's what 's {disfmarker} was sort of interesting to me is that there 's different ways to do it , +Grad E: A judge . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Was SRA one of the groups talking about summarization , no ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: Hm - umm . No . +Postdoc A: It was an interesting session . One of those w +Grad E: And as I said , I like the Microsoft talk on {pause} scaling issues in , uh , word sense disambiguation , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , that was an interesting discussion , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: uh , I +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was the only one {disfmarker} It was the only one that had any sort of real disagreement about . +PhD D: The data issue comes up all the ti +Professor C: Well , I didn't have as much disagreement as I would have liked , +Grad E: So . +Professor C: but I didn't wanna {disfmarker} I wouldn I didn't wanna get into it because , uh , you know , it was the application was one I didn't know anything about , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: uh , it just would have been , you know , me getting up to be argumentative , but {disfmarker} but , uh , I mean , the missing thi so {disfmarker} so what they were saying {disfmarker} it 's one of these things {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} you know , all you need is more data , sort of {disfmarker} But I mea i wh it {disfmarker} @ @ that 's {disfmarker} that 's dissing it , uh , improperly , I mean , it was a nice study . Uh , they were doing this {disfmarker} it wasn't word - sense disambiguation , it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , it sort of was . +Professor C: was it w was it word - sense ? Yes . +Grad E: But it was {disfmarker} it was a very simple case of "" to "" versus "" too "" versus "" two "" and "" there "" , "" their "" , "" they 're "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: And there and their and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . OK . +PhD D: and that you could do better with more data , I mean , that 's clearly statistically {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And so , what they did was they had these different kinds of learning machines , and they had different amounts of data , and so they did like , you know , eight different methods that everybody , you know , uh , argues about {disfmarker} about , "" Oh my {disfmarker} my kind of learning machine is better than your kind of learning machine . "" And , uh , they were {disfmarker} started off with a million words that they used , which was evidently a number that a lot of people doing that particular kind of task had been using . So they went up , being Microsoft , they went up to a billion . And then they had this log scale showing a {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and naturally everything gets {disfmarker} +Grad E: Them being beep , {comment} they went off to a billion . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} well , it 's a big company , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't mean it as a ne anything negative , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but i i i +PhD D: You mean the bigger the company the more words they use for training ? +Grad E: Well , I think the reason they can do that , is that they assumed that text that they get off the web , like from Wall Street Journal , is correct , and edit it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's what they used as training data . It 's just saying if it 's in this corpus it 's correct . +Professor C: OK . But , I mean , yes . Of course there was the kind of effect that , you know , one would expect that {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} that you got better and better performance with more and more data . Um , but the {disfmarker} the real point was that the {disfmarker} the different learning machines are sort of all over the place , and {disfmarker} and by {disfmarker} by going up significantly in data you can have much bigger effect then by switching learning machines and furthermore which learning machine was on top kind of depended on where you were in this picture , so , +PhD B: This was my concern about the recognizer in Aurora . +Professor C: uh , That {disfmarker} +PhD B: That the differences we 're seeing in the front - end is b +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Are irrelevant . +PhD B: are irrelevant once you get a real recognizer at the back - end . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: If you add more data ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: You know ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Professor C: Yeah , could well be . So {disfmarker} so , I mean , that was {disfmarker} that was kind of , you know , it 's a good point , but the problem I had with it was that the implications out of this was that , uh , the kind of choices you make about learning machines were therefore irrelevant which is not at {disfmarker} n t as for as I know in {disfmarker} in tasks I 'm more familiar with @ @ is not at all true . What i what is {disfmarker} is true is that different learning machines have different properties , and you wanna know what those properties are . And someone else sort of implied that well we s you know , a all the study of learning machine we still don't know what those properties are . We don't know them perfectly , but we know that some kinds use more memory and {disfmarker} and some other kinds use more computation and some are {disfmarker} are hav have limited kind of discrimination , but are just easy to use , and others are {disfmarker} +PhD B: But doesn't their conclusion just sort of {disfmarker} you could have guessed that before they even started ? Because if you assume that these learning things get better and better and better , +Professor C: You would guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: then as you approach {disfmarker} there 's a point where you can't get any better , right ? You get everything right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just no {disfmarker} +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: So they 're all approaching . +Grad E: No , but there was still a spread . They weren't all up They weren't converging . +PhD B: But what I 'm saying is that th they have to , as they all get better , they have to get closer together . +Professor C: It w +Grad E: They were all still spread . But they {disfmarker} Right , right . Sure . But they hadn't even come close to that point . All the tasks were still improving when they hit a billion . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But they 're all going the same way , right ? So you have to get closer . +Professor C: Eventually . O one would +Grad E: But they didn't get closer . +PhD B: Oh they didn't ? +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: They just switched position . +Professor C: well that 's getting cl I mean , yeah , the spread was still pretty wide that 's th that 's true , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but , uh , I think it would be irntu intu intuition that this would be the case , but , uh , to really see it and to have the intuition is quite different , I mean , I think somebody w w let 's see who was talking about earlier that the effect of having a lot more data is quite different in Switchboard than it is in {disfmarker} in Broadcast News , +PhD D: Well it 's different for different tasks . +Grad E: Yeah . It was Liz . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: So it depends a lot on whether , you know , it {disfmarker} disambiguation is exactly the case where more data is better , right ? You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you can assume similar distributions , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but if you wanted to do disambiguation on a different type of , uh , test data then your training data , then that extra data wouldn't generalize , +Grad E: Right . +PhD D: so . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , I think one of their p They {disfmarker} they had a couple points . w {comment} Uh , I think one of them was that "" Well , maybe simpler algorithms and more data are {disfmarker} is better "" . Less memory , faster operation , simpler . Right ? Because their simplest , most brain - dead algorithm did pretty darn well +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: when you got {disfmarker} gave it a lot more data . And then also they were saying , "" Well , m You have access to a lot more data . Why are you sticking with a million words ? "" I mean , their point was that this million - word corpus that everyone uses is apparently ten or fifteen years old . And everyone is still using it , so . +Professor C: Yeah . But anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the {disfmarker} the i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really the conclusion they came to so much , as the conclusion that some of the , uh , uh , commenters in the crowd {vocalsound} came up with +Grad E: But we could talk about this stuff , I think this would be fun to do . Right . +Professor C: that , uh , you know , this therefore is further evidence that , you know , more data is really all you should care about , and that I thought was just kind of going too far the other way , +Grad E: Machine - learning . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the , uh , one {disfmarker} one person ga g g got up and made a {disfmarker} a brief defense , uh , but it was a different kind of grounds , it was that {disfmarker} that , uh , i w the reason people were not using so much data before was not because they were stupid or didn't realize data was important , but in fact th they didn't have it available . Um , but the other point to make a again is that , uh , machine learning still does matter , but it {disfmarker} it matters more in some situations than in others , and it {disfmarker} and also there 's {disfmarker} there 's not just mattering or not mattering , but there 's mattering in different ways . I mean , you might be in some situation where you care how much memory you 're using , or you care , you know , what recall time is , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: or you care , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Or you only have a million words {pause} for your {disfmarker} some new task . +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or done another language , or {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} so there 's papers on portability and rapid prototyping and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and then there 's people saying , "" Oh , just add more data . "" +Professor C: And there 's cost ! +PhD D: So , these are like two different religions , basically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Cost . +Professor C: There 's just plain cost , +Grad E: Yeah . That 's a big one . +Professor C: you know , so {disfmarker} so these , I mean th the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the speech side , the thing that @ @ always occurs to me is that if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} one person has a system that requires ten thousand hours to train on , and the other only requires a hundred , and they both do about the same because the hundred hour one was smarter , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be better . because people , I mean , there isn't gonna be just one system that people train on +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and then that 's it for the r for all of time . I mean , people are gonna be doing other different things , and so it {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things matters {disfmarker} matter . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's one of the slides they put up . +Postdoc A: So , I mean , this was a very provocative slide . She put this up , and it was like this is {disfmarker} this p people kept saying , "" Can I see that slide again ? "" +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , +Postdoc A: and then they 'd make a comment , and one person said , well - known person said , um , you know , "" Before you dismiss forty - five years including my work {disfmarker} "" +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Forty - five years of research . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD D: But th you know , the same thing has happened in computational linguistics , right ? You look at the ACL papers coming out , and now there 's sort of a turn back towards , OK we 've learned statistic {disfmarker} you know , we 're basically getting what we expect out of some statistical methods , and , you know , the there 's arguments on both sides , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think the matters is the thing that {disfmarker} that was misleading . +Postdoc A: That was very offending , very offending . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Is that {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of them are based on all the others , right ? Just , you {disfmarker} you can't say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe they should have said "" focus "" or something . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , so . {disfmarker} And I 'm saying the same thing happened with speech recognition , right ? For a long time people were hand - c coding linguistic rules and then they discovered machine - learning worked better . And now they 're throwing more and more data and worrying {disfmarker} perhaps worrying less and less about , uh , the exact details of the algorithms . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and then you hit this {disfmarker} +Grad E: Except when they have a Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: Anyway , tea is {disfmarker} tea is , uh , starting . +Grad E: Shall we read some digits ? Are we gonna do one at a time ? Or should we read them all agai at once again . +Professor C: Let 's do it all at once . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} let 's try that again . +PhD D: Yes ! So , and maybe we won't laugh this time also . +Grad E: OK . So remember to read the transcript number so that , uh , everyone knows that {disfmarker} what it is . And ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Three , two , one . +Professor C: Boy , is that ever efficient . +Grad E: Yep . That 's really fast . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +","In the conversation, various participants from an academic setting engage in a technical and organizational discussion. They initially discuss issues with a recording system not crashing for a change, mentioning channel problems and observing past instances of system failure associated with temporary files, power outages, and system behavior. + +The conversation transitions to cover broader topics, such as upcoming meetings and the need for meeting agendas. A comment is made about using digit recordings as a noise shield for privacy during meetings, suggesting a quick and efficient method for sharing information by everyone speaking simultaneously, which is humorous and seemingly unproductive. + +The group briefly touches on the specifics of an upcoming visit from individuals at UW (University of Washington) and logistics relating to the visitor’s arrival and meeting times. + +Attention then shifts to processing and transcribing recorded meetings to identify speech and non-speech segments. A discussion ensues about the technical challenges and possible ways to improve the accuracy of this task, as well as the use of beeps in transcriptions but the efforts are met with technical jargon and incomplete solutions. There is mention of adapting channel-wise presegmented meetings for IBM transcribers and trying to prepare something for them, with the acknowledgment that work will need to be hand-checked for accuracy. + +A Eurospeech conference and a summarization task are mentioned, with Professor C expressing a desire to avoid duplicating talks like his HLT presentation at Eurospeech. Grad E mentions possibly working on something related to digits for Eurospeech. Further input concerns aligning segmentations to have better data alignment, and using this information for developing summaries of meetings. There is also contemplation over reporting findings from the HLT paper or discussing speaker overlap and agreement to pursue methods of importing the existing meetings into a more useable state with good alignments for further study. + +The conversation wraps up with a discussion about how more data can lead to better algorithmic performance, referencing a talk from Microsoft at a recent conference highlighting the success of simpler algorithms when provided with large amounts of data. This segues into comments on the overall importance of machine learning and the use of data, acknowledging that different tasks may have varying benefits from increased data quantity. + +Finally, the group playfully decides to simulate a meeting and read out a list of digits simultaneously as an efficient method of information exchange, which is an in-joke referencing the efficiency of their earlier overlapping speech experiment." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning . Sorry ? Yeah , busy job . Good morning . So {disfmarker} Oh , good morning everyone . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I'd uh like to welcome you to our first meeting . I've prepared a little presentation . My name is {gap} and uh I hope you will introduce yourself uh in a few minutes , as will I . Um I'm the Project Manager of this project , and uh , well I will tell you {gap} on what actually is the project . This is uh the agenda for our first meeting . Um this is the opening , then we will get {disfmarker} {gap} I will hope we will get acquainted to each other . We'll do a little tool training with these two things . We'll take a look at the project plan . Uh there will be time for discussion . Actually we have to discuss because we have to create a product . And then we will close this session . Um but first of all we I'd like to uh introduce you to this room . Um as you probably have noticed there are little black uh fields on the table . Um you have to put your laptop exactly in that field so the little cameras can see your face . Um there are cameras +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: everywhere around the room especially here for your face , of course , and this isn't a pie , it's a a set of microphones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and there are microphones here also . But please uh don't be afraid of them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They won't hurt you . Um well uh +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I said I'm the Project Manager and uh I'm hoping uh for a good project and uh I'd like to hear uh who you are and what your functions are uh on this project . Let's start with the ladies {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well uh I'm uh {gap} and my uh function is User Interface Design , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So uh that's me . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh I'm {gap} uh I'm the Industrial Designer and I uh hope to uh {disfmarker} look forward to uh a very uh pleasing uh end of this uh project . +Project Manager: Okay , so I . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: My name's {gap} . I'm uh {vocalsound} Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} My job is in the company to promote company or promote products to the customers . So I also h hope we have a pleasant uh working with uh with each other . +Project Manager: Okay , well we have some expertise from uh different pieces of the of the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . Um well I said uh we're working on a project and the aim for the project is to to create a {disfmarker} to design a new remote control which uh has to be original , trendy and of course , user friendly . {vocalsound} And uh I hope we have the expertise to create such a project {disfmarker} such a product . Um the way we hope to achieve that is uh the following methods . It consists of three phases , namely the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . As you can see , all of these phases consists of two parts , namely individual work part and a meeting where we will discuss uh our work so far . Okay . But first I will uh tell you something about the tools we have here . I already talked about the cameras and microphones , but they are not of uh much use to us . Uh we will have to take advantage of these two things . They are smart boards . As you can see , you can give a presentation on them . And uh this one here is a white board . I will uh instruct you about that soon . Um as you also noticed uh this presentation document is in our uh project folder and every document you put in this folder uh is uh it is possible to show that here in our meeting room . Um and yeah there are available on both smart boards but I think we will uh mainly use this one for the documents in the shared folder . As you can see , this is the same tool bar uh as is located here . Um the most functions uh we will use will be to to add a new page , um uh to go back and forward between pages , and of course uh to save it every now and then . Um and this is the pen with which you can draw on the board , for instance like this if everything's okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I first have to put it on the pen , you see I'm new to it too . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and then you can write things like test or whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: As you can see you have to move it a little bit slow , it's not such a fast board , it's a smart board but also a slow board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but you can write things and of course you can also , when you click here , uh erase things , so we have uh est left . And um you can also delete an entire page , but we ask you not to do that . Just simply create a new one and uh start all over because we want to save all the results . Um does everyone understand this +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we can't erase anything . +Project Manager: nice application ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you can erase it with the eraser , but uh you shouldn't delete an entire page , but just create a new blank one . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I will delete this one now because we don't use it yet . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: But you can of course erase when you make a mistake , but don't uh delete entire pages . And you can also um let's see I think it's here uh change the uh colour of your pen , for instance take a blue one and uh change the line width like to five . Um that's what you will need for our first exercise , because I'm uh going to ask you to draw your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's also to gets to know each other because um I'm asking three things , uh for that uh drawing , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: to do it on a blank sheet , with different colours and I just showed you how to pick a colour , and also with different pen widths which I also showed you . Um and a favourite characteristic can be just uh one word . Well I'm not very good at drawing , but I will uh go first and um try to draw {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or maybe you should guess what I'm drawing , eh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {gap} No . +User Interface: It's a sheep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinos +Industrial Designer: Seal , a seal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinosaur . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Beaver . +User Interface: {gap} A beaver . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A be {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it uh +User Interface: It's weird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: could be everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . With a tail and a mouth . +Project Manager: Maybe when I put on +User Interface: It has wings ? +Marketing: Turtle . +Project Manager: this thing it could be a turtle , or a snail , +Industrial Designer: Snail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well the snail doesn't have legs . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But a turtle has . And those are slow . And I hope our project group will not be slow , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we will uh work to a good result +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and do it uh as fast as we can . Okay , time for another animal . Would you like to go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . No problem . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . It was four months ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice , okay . +User Interface: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The hell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To make it a little bit easier . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . +Industrial Designer: Make that cute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , it's a giraffe . 'Kay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think it's easy to r uh to recognise as a giraffe . +User Interface: Yes . Giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , the favourite charis characteristic is that the long neck , {vocalsound} it can reach everything . And I hope I can also reach a lot with this project . So that's my favourite animal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anything else you need to know ? +Project Manager: Could you write the words , uh underneath it ? Or more words . +Marketing: Oh , uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tall . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tall . So , +User Interface: Should I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'kay . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So I can draw , but uh {disfmarker} Uh . Well . {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: B {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a mouse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Oh wrong one . Uh . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: you can guess what it is , I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . No problem . +Project Manager: Little rabbits . +User Interface: It's a rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh well uh it's uh quick , I guess . That's uh my uh favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And our final drawing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bob Ross . +User Interface: A dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , um . +Marketing: Dolphin . +Industrial Designer: Uh I uh draw I I've drawn a dolphin because of its intelligence . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: One of the most intelligent uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: animals in our world . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah intelligent . +User Interface: With an E_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Eraser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can try out the eraser now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pen . Well not perfect , but okay . +Project Manager: Okay , well +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: thank you very much . I can see we have some uh drawing talent uh in this group , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? Well , nice animals , nice words . Sounds good . Um back to business , back to the money part . Um from the finance department I have learned that we are aiming for a selling price of twenty five Euros . And we're hoping for a aim of fifty million Euros and uh we are hoping to achieve that uh by aiming for an international market . And the production cost will be twelve Euro fifty max . Okay , well it's time uh for some discussion . I've wrote down some examples here of what we can can speak about . Uh what's your experience with remote controls , um what kind of ideas do you have to design a new remote control , maybe for which market segments should we aim , or should we aim for all segments . Uh well actually I'd like to hand the word uh back to you . What's your experience with remote control ? +User Interface: {gap} I always lose them . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons . And you always lose them . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons which you don't use +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or who you don't use +Marketing: Complex . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Complex . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Not user friendly . +User Interface: {gap} search for the buttons , which one is which +Marketing: No . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Boring . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boring , it's not fun to use a remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Black , all black . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Black colours . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should try to make it fun . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} They use batteries and {gap} batteries uh and poor signal . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Perhaps that you have a lot of road remotes r road con remote controls . +Marketing: The the angle you have to use . You had different remote controls for different devices . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , different remote controls , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: perhaps you can integrate them or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the use of different uh devices {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your stereo and your T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and uh . Perhaps that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but then again you you still have a lot of buttons , +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . And which you don't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you could uh I thin uh there's a possibility to g uh to uh to put those buttons uh behind some uh kind of uh protection +Marketing: Flap +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so that if y y you only get to see them when you need 'em . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , okay , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's possible , so that you only get the {disfmarker} +Marketing: but it'll get very big the the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . You should just give it to {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No n n no , just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh for example you got th uh the same size uh remote control you use everyday , but um {vocalsound} the usual buttons such as uh um {vocalsound} zapping uh as you call it in Dutch . Uh and the volume control uh are only the only possible buttons uh to use directly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Changing channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh {vocalsound} the numbers , of course . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {gap} numbers . +Industrial Designer: But uh not uh the buttons used to search on the the channels on your television . +Marketing: On and off . +Industrial Designer: You only use those uh the first time , or . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So . Uh . +Marketing: play , pause , stop . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So maybe a a minimalist design , the least uh possible amount uh of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yes . But you should make sure that you have every button they need on it . Because uh things for uh teletext , I dunno uh , {vocalsound} w +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what's the name ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} think so . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So you don't want to bother people with uh loads of buttons , but on the other hand they need many buttons +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: so they don't have to get out of their seat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Because I think a market will be all kind of people . Elderly p el elderly , young people , so . +User Interface: But if if it's if it's international you should uh look in {disfmarker} think in Britain they have uh different things they can do with the T_V_ , or so uh that you can choose what you want to see . I dunno if you should uh take that in consideration , or that you just should aim for the normal T_V_s +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I understand . +Marketing: Yeah I think that's the better one , +User Interface: And the B_B_C_ {gap} . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I think if you you're going to target a lot of people and the whole world and only Britain then I think the cost will uh rise higher than the twelve fifty , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Yeah , I don't know if the they have that anywhere else , though . +Marketing: I think the aim is better to use uh the whole world and Britain , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , we can leave that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: When I think of it uh +Marketing: Not that much . +Industrial Designer: I think the main idea uh of this remote remote control is uh to make it user friendly . So uh I think uh when p uh when uh the customers will buy this remote control , they already have uh the remote control which uh companies uh uh with uh the the standards uh remote control with which comes uh with the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Standard deliver . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it only has to have uh the most used buttons . You don't have to integrate the buttons to search the channels on your television . +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: In those {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but then you have to to find your other remote control if you want to search . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , th it {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} I think that's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I {disfmarker} but it is impossible to uh to accommodate uh accommodate uh all the buttons on the s on the difference {disfmarker} different televisions sets on one remote control . It's impossible . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Yeah , okay {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh for example Sony television uh has the opportunity to s to make uh uh to make it possible for {disfmarker} to see on one side of the screen uh teletext , and on the other side uh just n uh regular television . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh {gap} . +Marketing: I think n m n most televisions nowadays do this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh they don't use the same signal , uh on remote control . +User Interface: Well not everywhere . +Marketing: So {gap} I think numerals . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't use a Panasonic uh remote control on a on a Philips television . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you have to choose the {disfmarker} always with r universal remotes you have to choose the code . +User Interface: Yeah , you can choose the code {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay , +Marketing: You can use which which type of television you have . That's no problem . But I think like the two pages on the same screen , like teletext and normal television , that's that's nowadays standard , I think . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} uh I think that most people uh th uh will buy the remote control because {vocalsound} because uh the first {disfmarker} they lost the one they lost first one +Marketing: Simplicity . +Industrial Designer: or the first one is broken , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh uh perhaps they have a got a an older television , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that option is not {vocalsound} uh optional for those uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah g available . +User Interface: But the people have a new television , +Marketing: True . +User Interface: and c if you look into the future , then they want {disfmarker} will want the button , if their thing is broke . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we should take that in consideration . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: any more ideas ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh mm , no . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Guess not . +Marketing: Of course . +Industrial Designer: Things'll come up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah well we have some time . Let's see what more I have to tell you . I don't think there is much left . Nope . We're starting to close . Um our next meeting uh will start {disfmarker} well we're a little bit early , but our next meeting will start in in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the meantime uh there's time for some uh individual actions . Um , as you can see , the different roles have uh different tasks . And there's a ping . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it my laptop ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Stop the meeting now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Ah well +User Interface: Yeah meeting will close in five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's good , five minutes and uh the meeting's over , uh right on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um the Marketing Expert will uh will take a look at the user requirement specification . The User Interface Designer will work out the technical functions design . And this was the Interface Designer ? Or the Interaction Designer . +User Interface: Hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or what was it , I_D_ ? +User Interface: No interface . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Interface . +Project Manager: Interface Designer , okay , first guess was right . Uh will take a look at the the working design . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No +Industrial Designer: the Industrial Designer will take a look at the working design , +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the in uh usability interaction {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: sorry . {vocalsound} Let's just use the acronyms . Um and of course specific instructions uh will be sent to you uh through your personal coach . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So I should look at uh what you should be able to do with the remote , or uh , or how {disfmarker} I don't really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well those instructions will be uh in the email you will receive uh shortly , I hope . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Alright . {vocalsound} Me too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And of course you have your own uh expertise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh that was what I had to say . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh are there any more questions ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Okay well I think then we have to head uh back to our offices and uh start working . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I have one question . +Project Manager: Okay , one question ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Where does it says we have to make a remote , because I presumed {disfmarker} {gap} She didn't know who . Okay , no {vocalsound} , no problem . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} No problem . Okay . +Project Manager: we're still going {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well I expect everything will be much clearer with the instructions we will receive uh shortly . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay well uh see you all in about thirty minutes , then . +Industrial Designer: Alrighty . Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +","The Project Manager convenes the first meeting of a team tasked with creating a new remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly. The team comprises a User Interface Designer, an Industrial Designer, and a Marketing Expert. The Project Manager sets the meeting agenda, introduces a smart board tool for presentations and note-taking, and outlines the project's aim and methodology, which include functional, conceptual, and detailed design phases. + +The team partakes in an icebreaker activity where they draw their favorite animals, revealing some personal traits, and then the Project Manager talks about the target sell price and production cost for the remote control. + +Subsequently, the team discusses their experiences and frustrations with current remote controls, including losing them, having too many buttons, and complexity. They consider making the new remote user-friendly, with a minimalist design that caters to the most used functions and a design that accommodates various television sets. They also discuss targeting an international market while considering product needs in different regions. + +At the end of the meeting, the Project Manager assigns tasks to each team member related to their respective roles and informs them that specific instructions will come via email. Some confusion about roles and tasks is clarified, and a question from the Marketing Expert about the project's aim confirms that it is indeed to design a remote control. + +The meeting is scheduled to reconvene in thirty minutes after a short break for individual work, with expectations for more clarity as instructions are received." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Hey guys . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No one drawing it . +Project Manager: It's too beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Too wicked . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A minute please , my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh , there it is , thank you . So welcome back . {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you , so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour . I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now , so you can read that uh now or afterwards . Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , I don't know if you a al also uh received it , but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important . First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus . {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh , because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session . Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television , so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control , so uh that's one thing to keep in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh second , and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert , uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older , but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty . Uh and uh I think to keep in mind , but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have uh forty minutes , so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each , and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards , the the Word files , what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want . So uh Tim , can you start ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , welcome . I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I will show you . {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire . Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results . Um , these were a couple of findings , first page of three . Um , we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences , {vocalsound} I'm sorry . Uh the first one , this scale , from sixteen to forty five {gap} age . Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five . Um , as you can see here , the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five . Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent . Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups , uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff , like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control , um speech recognition . I don't think that's uh really appropriate . Um , {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience , the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah , they don't really want it anymore , at least the new technologies . Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls . First point is , seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly , uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer . Okay , third findings . According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation , um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important . Um , I will tell something about the way this uh this test was , yeah , done . Um , {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most , how much an hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons . Um , when you multiply them , you get the {disfmarker} these three points . Switching channels , um yeah , that's pretty uh pretty normal , that's what you do with a remote control . Um the second , teletext , uh and the third , uh volume controls . Um , I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants , uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear . +Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet . So that that's strange . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay , but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah , th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_ , like getting information . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Marketing: So uh , when you ask people , what do they use , {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: That's ridiculous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now . Okay , my personal preferences . Um , I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five . {vocalsound} Mm , first of all um it's the biggest share , the biggest audience , sixty five percent . Uh second , I think you will get the most revenue from i from it . Um , yeah , people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_ , more than uh people who are el uh elder . Um {vocalsound} second point , {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions , as I said here , switching channels , teletext and volume controls . Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire , uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller , so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the , yeah , of the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a cool idea . +Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in . {vocalsound} Um , that's about it , I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions , what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about ? +Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , the funtionability . +Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control . So you can have a remote control full of buttons , a hundreds hundreds of buttons , but if you don't use them , yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , so focusing more on the used buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , they have to be on it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions , like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example . +Marketing: Yeah , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ma perhaps , just just an idea . +Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control , to make it easier and quicker to learn . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? 'Kay , that's it . +Project Manager: Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} Janus , can you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah , I'll go , sure . Right uh , I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project . Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked , how they worked , uh what kind of components are involved , and how they are connected together . And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds . And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off . Um right . Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared , not like all probably know . And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something , and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared , so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate , so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us . So that's probably why most controls are still infrared . Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure , so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh 'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote . Well uh as I mentioned ready , we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible , but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget , but that's not for me to decide , but that's maybe something for marketing to look into . F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves , {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_ , connected to the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually I have t +Marketing: So it's in the wrong product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice , but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function . So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder , is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote . If somebody says , where is the remote , then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , maybe uh maybe something to look into , I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be . But it may be uh may be something to explore . Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components . Uh first you have the energy source . The energy source would be a battery , simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere . I figured that would be best , 'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one . So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that . Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button , but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these . When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button , when a button is prush pushed in , uh a electric current goes through here , and in uh {disfmarker} immediately , a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened . That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking , well uh did the button be pressed , w what happened uh . Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_ , so is is something wrong or something . So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user . Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end . And those uh interpreted by the device , well in this case the television . Uh well my personal preferences here , well we have to keep it simple . Not too many uh gadgets and functions , just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them , so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those . Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving . So uh no input from the television . So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that , because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too , and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such . So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , yeah , maybe another problem uh , I think current T_V_s can even send infrared . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you , but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control ? +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components , extra designs , um larger g uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all . Um , well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability . Like I said , uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions , or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something , the usual uh {gap} stuff . And uh don't overbuild , we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions , but we we should stick to the basics . So that was my uh my personal opinion . And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Janus . +User Interface: Okay . Yes , +Project Manager: You do ? +User Interface: I can go ahead . +Project Manager: The last presentation . You have plenty of time , +User Interface: Last presentation . Okay . +Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh take your time . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: warn you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design , technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one , so if you um going to design a remote that looks good , that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make , of course , but also the user friendliness , so tha that's that's some of the main points . And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult , so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote . If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: 'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see , but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen , but s I don't know in how far that is possible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything , but uh we might uh consider that . Um well , of course I I hope this is all clear to you . If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions , {gap} many functions , but {disfmarker} Well , your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this . You have to be very careful what you push , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well , where is it ? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and , yeah , when you have to uh use something else . So just keep it simple , make clear buttons , easy to use . For example if you want to use a play and back and stop , that's very important . Um well this was because of our last discussion , if multiple machines are used , create easy switch between the machines , but um it's no longer uh applying . {vocalsound} Well yeah , I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible , uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action , not first select {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one , so uh +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple , +User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that , then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one . +User Interface: Yeah , this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original , or uh multi-purpose as we thought , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So um weighing those factors . +Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um , that in the middle are the the main keys , like displayed on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . Yeah , this ? No ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Something like that . Okay , just uh in the middle the general functions , like play , uh channel switching , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom , some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down . +User Interface: Yeah , but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_ ? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes ? 'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_ , you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation , if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button , um display the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Nah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is too complicated for most users . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think so too , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus , and when you have a particular menu uh at your device , uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure , or they have a very simple menu structure , so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem . +User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah , the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today , um you should keep it s at this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Use big clear buttons . Not too many . So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options , but I think i this is more important . Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons , um if you want to switch channel , change your volume , uh use teletext , it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote , behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen . +Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah , but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something . +User Interface: And yeah , if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel , that should always be possible to do . Not first change menu options or switch something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well yeah , as you already told , give some feedback . If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And um , well , my conclusion is uh is uh less is more , keep it simple . So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know , if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television , some you you'll never know uh and never use , and therefore it's uh important +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good . Um , because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people . Um , they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up , um and that's a big ad advantage I think , because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh very visual intended . {vocalsound} What was I to say more ? +User Interface: Maybe that's an option . Um keep the primary buttons visible . Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and for some design issues uh well , put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen , or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but if you pick the the idea , the left idea +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen ? +Industrial Designer: The extra functions . +User Interface: The extra functions , you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions , and you just choose one , +Marketing: Yeah , but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then all all the options will become available +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen , uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it , and uh we have three of those , uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus , with {disfmarker} or sub-items , sub-functions . +User Interface: Well um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you make one big touch screen , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: use the same concept as here , keep the buttons always available +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus , and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jirun ? +User Interface: Okay , I agree , but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible , so use just for special options a part of the touch screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions , you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I had another uh idea about maybe parental control . Um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels , uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code , they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no ? +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television , +Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , yeah well , +Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: does it have to depend on the television ? +Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote , you you set the uh channels , the the channels are different on each te television , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote , uh let's say channel fifteen , well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match , and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_ , like colour and then volume +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th that kind of stuff , but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um , you address the the channels +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: and like uh oh , that's channel fifteen , that's uh vi violent channel , +User Interface: Oh , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would b +Marketing: for example . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that . +User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here , +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but {disfmarker} yeah , that's just +User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's an a an added feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things , that's that why we're here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} th th those things are nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea , but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage . I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p +Marketing: Partial . +Project Manager: yeah , a partial , uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen , so they want the the the normal functions like teletext , volume changing , um uh to be uh , yeah , kinda traditionals +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions , the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible , to keep it accessible . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers +User Interface: Yeah , you can de display it on the on the old style . +Marketing: that's just as e just as easy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I I do {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because well , it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button , but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience . +Marketing: Yeah , it's different . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , age b below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , that's a good point . Yep . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And th those young people , yeah . Y you saw it in my marketing report , they like the new fancy stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . They like the fancy stuff , yeah . That's true . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen , like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I th I think we can do that too . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay , as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting , this one , are uh {vocalsound} are done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Done . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think . Uh so that can be uh can be read out . Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment . Ooh . Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple , but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something , so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television , so you must uh the the the the functions , know , like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television . I think that's the point what uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we discussed . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , some of them . The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s , so you have to display it on one uh T_V_ . +User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it , s um synchronized , the um remote and the T_V_ , +Marketing: Yeah , but that's not possible . +User Interface: then there's always , there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm yeah . +User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is , from {disfmarker} ah , it's a Philips , this and this and that , and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah , but you have an international market range , so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s , uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome , but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes , because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_ , like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive , +User Interface: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh um mo +Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +User Interface: no , you can just say uh the c +Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing . +Project Manager: Just build it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , with the current remote controls , the universal ones , um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah , you have to press a code for T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yes . +User Interface: In codes , y you you get a b a book with codes . You look up , I have a Philips H_ fifty five +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it says press code four five five +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , yeah , sure , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah yeah , sure , that would be possible , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options , in {disfmarker} just just in the memory , +User Interface: Memory in the in the remote . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Profiles . +Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah , like profile , so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , that would be possible . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables . +Industrial Designer: No , that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a few variables . +User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes , there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum . If you have all of them , all the old and new T_V_s summed up , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah it is . It is definitely po +Marketing: But , on the other hand on the other hand , uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have five minutes to go . +User Interface: Yeah . Well then you have to buy a new one , it's very good for marketing +Marketing: New remote ? +User Interface: Maybe , or an update , software update . +Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something , +User Interface: Firmware update , you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , firmware upgrade . +Marketing: but from where ? Ah . Maybe w +Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder . +Marketing: No m may no , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection , so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet . +Industrial Designer: Well , not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home . Well the most most people have , +User Interface: Well , at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but not not everybody +User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like a s kind of service centre . +User Interface: Yeah , ser o +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe something like service cen +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and they can download it for you . +Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection . +User Interface: Yeah . Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards , T_V_ uh connections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels , so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in , +User Interface: Receiving . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno , it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it +User Interface: Difficult . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be probably best , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work , just one uh docking station where you put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: press start , bling bling , updated . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be best , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week , new teev so . +User Interface: Okay , let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No no . Exactly , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um m for which one are we going ? {gap} My mistake . +Marketing: Let's vote . +User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my vote goes out to the right {gap} . +User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} +Marketing: My vote too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And your vote ? +User Interface: Well , I was uh doubting about which one to take , but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open . +User Interface: Opens up is too difficult +Industrial Designer: Flips open . +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh too difficult , um maybe uh it's easier to break it . +Project Manager: N yeah . +User Interface: Break it , I don't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's very sensitive . +User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like my telephone , it's uh it's sensitive too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end . So we have now a lunch break , finally , +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work , once again uh thirty minutes . Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too . +Marketing: Thirty minutes ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes , the {disfmarker} +Marketing: How minutes ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure . Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email . I don't think I can uh say much about it , so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes , and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes . +Marketing: One question , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here ? +Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes . +User Interface: A quarter to one maybe ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break , yeah . Oh . Forty five ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I thought forty five . +Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you , uh that was a very uh good session I think , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Save as . +Project Manager: Yeah , because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ +Marketing: Yeah , v +Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop . +User Interface: 'Kay , save it as an image on the res +Marketing: Yeah , maybe . Save as . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Export . Maybe not export function . +Marketing: No . Export . +Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_ . +User Interface: No , and use an image if possible . +Marketing: Huh , image ? +User Interface: J_ PEG . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah , J_ PEG . +User Interface: J_ PEG . Yeah , it's better +Marketing: Paper size A_ four . Uh screen size . In this directory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: N oh . +User Interface: Oh yeah , it's not connected to the +Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work . +User Interface: to our P_C_s . +Marketing: No ? Yeah , it is connected . +User Interface: It's connected ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: Deskt Huh . No . +Industrial Designer: To room . I'll just uh saved in my documents . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It gives the na Oh . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , nice . +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: The questionnaire , fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well , it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no , it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no , I'd do it after lunch I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye , cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry , so do it after lunch . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: You're welcome . +User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think , yeah and return to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I bring it to my uh personal room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Aye . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","The meeting starts with informal greetings among the project manager, marketing representative, user interface specialist, and industrial designer. The project manager convenes a functional design meeting, outlining that presentations on individual work will follow. Key points from management are discussed, including the obsolescence of teletext in favor of the internet and changing the remote control target audience to a younger demographic under 40. The marketing representative presents survey results, suggesting a simplified remote control with fewer but more prominent buttons for common functions. The industrial designer concurs, emphasizing simplicity and cost-effective design. Discussion ensues about technical possibilities, a touch screen feature, and maintaining user-friendliness even for the elderly. The group contemplates various ideas, including parental controls and updating remote control firmware at service centers. Final decisions are not explicitly stated, but the meeting concludes with the idea that the new design should be simple and user-friendly with some form of touch screen capability. The participants agree to take a lunch break and reconvene for further individual work based on email instructions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um almost , there's one more thing I have to get out of the {disfmarker} I have to make sure that this attachment will open . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I keep forgetting whether I've done this . {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah-ha . Okay . We'll open that when the time is right . In the meantime {disfmarker} Closing things down , okay . Let's see what this thing does . Does it come up together or disappear one of them or what ? Ah , we came up together , we're good . Okay . Are we ready to start ? Okay . It's now quarter of four . This is a f another forty minute one so it will end at four twenty five . Okay . Right . Our agenda is , as before , for me to open the meeting , for us to go over the previous minutes , then for the two of you to present your prototype and for you to g um Sarah present the evaluation criteria . We then have a finance aspect , which is a spreadsheet , an Excel spreadsheet . And I know what you're all thinking of , oh my , um because we're only given a forty minute time period to get it all in , including the production evaluation . So we're going to make a very fast track . Okay . Um and as you can see that's what we do next on this thing . So the first thing I have to do is close this so that I can get to {disfmarker} Where is it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . +Project Manager: I need to open mine . Not the agenda . +Marketing: Agenda three . +Project Manager: No that th I want the minutes from the previous {disfmarker} minutes . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That should be there , minutes . Yeah . Okay . Uh from meeting three , is it alright with you if I don't switch it to show , just use it as is ? 'Cause this way I can more easily flip it . Okay , um obviously all of us were here for the last meeting , we reviewed the previous minutes before that , um each of you made your presentations . {vocalsound} Um we discussed the various possibilities based on what was presented in those presentations . The market trend of fruit and veg , mm spongy , uh fancy and elegant more than technologically innovative and that more than easy . Um we decided chip on print would be used . Um we would use plastic with a rubber casing , I think was the consensus , powered by kinetic energy . There was no decision made on the curvatures or double curvature or straight . Um perhaps the prototype will give us an inkling of that . Um looking like a scroll , but it's really a push button technology , excuse my spelling um that was actually in use , that is uh behind the scenes is push button which we uh according to Kate have a very good uh grasp on doing that in production . Um we decided that separate fashionable covers covering your fruit and veg might be a separate product that could be suggested to management . Um and as suggested um yellow with black buttons with the company logo , a slogan and image might be a good idea based on the requirements that have been provided to us . Um we did have a few production issues and coordination of the various bits and we had some conflict of ideas and cost constraints and we ran out of time . Um we had to follow that up and prepare for the last one . And uh we closed as it ran out of time . Is that a fair presentation of what happened ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , back to this meeting . Um we're down to the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Ta-da . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Over to you . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Ooh , two . +User Interface: Yeah , well you see , each made one , we didn't have enough yellow dough . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the one that I made . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: It is uh curved , easy to hold , hand-held , nice and small with big easy buttons . This is like a scroll , but they are push buttons and they enter {disfmarker} takes you into the different menus . Of course we need someone who's experienced with the television {gap} . I mean this is the infrared thing that's gonna zap at the television . Uh I'm not quite sure how to make that , but I'm sure it will work . Uh this is on off switch , 'cause I think we do need that , and I think it gives it a nice balance . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And it's gonna have the logo imprinted on it uh in there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um as for what it's actually made of {disfmarker} well the function of these buttons is up , down , left and right {vocalsound} in the different menus . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh position , I presume that just means right right on it , easy to see . The main feature of it is just a simple design , simple , lack of uh buttons all over the place . Right ? {vocalsound} Form curved , kind of smooth , hand-held , makes it feel nice to hold . Uh material , I think Kate's gonna tackle that quite a bit , but I think we have two different options , because we did make a another one , which wa uh is in the shape of banana , it's just {disfmarker} if you can imagine this as yellow with black buttons , like just like this but in the shape of a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which is also nice and easy to hold and feels good and has a similar sort of scroll push button technology , just a slightly different design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Also with on off switch and infrared {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh I had envisioned it in hard smooth plastic . So like uh {disfmarker} well , I dunno , what's it like ? I guess like an existing remote control , but molded and smooth . Whereas otherwise we'd thought , like with this one {disfmarker} or mix and match , just we were gonna see what you thought , the {disfmarker} uh a more spongy rubber cover with spongy buttons . So we have the two options we can follow , either the smooth hard plastic or the spongy rubber , depending on cost restraints . And what we well , what conclusion we reach when we discuss it . {vocalsound} Uh material {disfmarker} yeah , that's what I have to say about material . Can I scroll down on there and see what else {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well colour , I think {disfmarker} I definitely have a preference towards bright yellow with black buttons , because that's the company colours , but if anybody's got any other suggestions , I'm quite willing to consider them as well . {vocalsound} So , it just depends what you think about these ideas and if I'm {disfmarker} yeah , maybe , Kate , you better say what you think about them . +Industrial Designer: Um well I don't have very much to add . Um the the case {disfmarker} oops , that's the uh on off button just come off our prototype . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the case can be either um spongy rubber or hard plastic . We're not absolutely sure about a combination of the two , but it can be either of those . We have the technology to do that . Um and as for the the actual components um , uh Steph just said this is a {disfmarker} quite a cheap device to manufacture . We have simple rubber push buttons um which provide all the functionality we need . Um the um {vocalsound} the diode that actually does the um infrared is at the end , it's the stalk of the banana , or it's just the thing at the end of this version . Um so that's for material . Colour , well uh Steph's the expert on colour . Um we we don't have any particular restrictions on that . Yeah , I think that's all we've got to say really . +User Interface: I thin as for as for the fruit or organic theme , I guess this one is obviously fruit shaped . +Industrial Designer: A banana . +User Interface: This one has n banana , yeah . This one has no obvious connections to fruit , but because it's round and molded , it kinda makes you think sort of organic , touchy-feely , kiddie , it's more like {disfmarker} yeah , you'd expect it to be like a child's sorta toy remote control instead of a real one , which I quite like that sort of image . 'Cause it's very big and chunky and child-friendly and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Would you care to examine the prototypes , see how they feel in the hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hold them , you see , you know . Curvature , is it to your liking ? +Project Manager: Oh I see , the on-off's in the back . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's so that your index finger automatically goes straight to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you don't wanna tire out your thumbs after all . +Project Manager: And then you can use your thumb . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it was partly we thought the design looked better , +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I could see this thing , unless it's reinforced , having a problem with the you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Breaking , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: oh right . {vocalsound} Well you see , that's why hard plastic would be quite a good thing for it , because then it'd just be rigid . +Marketing: I like the fact that on both of them the keys play such a prominent role . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} we really like we really like that design , +Marketing: It's really kind of a {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean it looks just like a logo , that arrangement of the keys . Like a c like a compass point , you know , +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +User Interface: just up , down , left and right , and we think we could make that quite a good feature . And it's like the the iPod scroll wheel , {vocalsound} but better . +Marketing: Yeah . But it's also like texting , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it {disfmarker} that's what it makes me think of , mobile phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was try I was thinking , moving your thumb like this , what does that remind me of ? +Industrial Designer: And it's a very simple design , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's texting . +Industrial Designer: there's not a lot to wrong , the components are cheap to make . +Marketing: It's also in terms of um being lost it's it's quite {disfmarker} it looks quite different . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: You know , I I d I have several {disfmarker} four remotes , and they all look the same until you get up close and you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , this is really identifiable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean the thing is we do need to develop our technology of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean actually how to program the menus and what sort of , you know , text box is gonna appear at the bottom of the screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but we do definitely think that it's a viable option . +Project Manager: Okay . The next item is evaluation . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Uh if that's {disfmarker} if you're finished . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , we're finished . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: shall I take your uh power ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try again . +Marketing: Okay . This is going to be a heavily interactive evaluation , and the method here is to evaluate the new remote control in terms of the user requirements and the hot trends introduced by the marketing department . So , this means we're going to go over the priorities that were raised by uh the consumers a as well as incorporate all of our insight into this uh evaluation exercise . So I'm going to go and use the whiteboard , and I've made a list of criteria to look at , and so I'm gonna I'm gonna leave this up as the last thing , but for the evaluation it's going to be one is true and seven is false , going over these different criteria , so one true seven false and I'm gonna now use the um the board . Okay . So um fancy , technologically innovative , easy to use , trendy , buttons , excess buttons , good buttons , ugly , sellable , and other . And in fact I hope that uh you all introduce some additional terms , because these are things that um have been brought up , some of them seem rather close , +User Interface: Yeah , what about price , is that gonna go on there as well ? Price of materials . +Marketing: like they overlap . Mm , yeah , price . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: We'll put price up at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that we actually know anything about it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we can we can pretend . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we will soon , unfortunately . +Marketing: Um Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . +Marketing: Did you say {gap} ? +Project Manager: No , {gap} . +Marketing: Uh okay , so wha how do we feel in terms of is this fancy ? +User Interface: It depends what what you mean by fancy really , 'cause when I think of fancy , I think of it's got lots of extra sort of fripperies and , you know , like baroque curliness and {disfmarker} which +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'd call these quite uh minimalist , +Industrial Designer: Yes , a plain , simple , clean design . +User Interface: simple and plain , but I mean I do see what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it is heavily reliant on appearance instead of pure functionality , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so in that respect it is quite fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah , so in that respect {disfmarker} I think we'll go with that respect . +User Interface: I think just maybe we need a different word other than fancy , I'd say maybe aesthetic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well we have got s trendy further down , +Project Manager: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Elegant . +Marketing: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: Elegant , I don't know if I'd call them elegant . +Marketing: Yeah , no these aren't the exact terms that the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} like stylish or aesthetic . +Industrial Designer: Stylish , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Elegant . We're gon let's use elegant , although the the the people , the word on the street is is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fancy . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} N that {disfmarker} um +User Interface: Did you just break the pen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} is fancy . So let's let's take it to the next level . +User Interface: Well d we'll just call it fancy then . +Marketing: Well okay , so in terms of elegant , fancy . we'll call it E_F_ um , do we do we think that perhaps {disfmarker} and maybe we should say the yellow ? Should we go with the yellow in terms of {disfmarker} I think that's a really superior {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think we n we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: they're both {disfmarker} +User Interface: they're both yellow with black buttons , it's just that we didn't have any more dough to represent uh that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but if you can just imagine banana shape with these bits as black . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So what we re really need to decide is whether we want the actual banana shape or just a a purely blob or some sort of abstraction in between the two +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that isn't {disfmarker} that is more curved , like a banana , but that isn't actually recognisable as a banana , you know , with the grooves and the stalk and stuff , +Marketing: As a banana . +User Interface: so . +Marketing: I think that many of us are abstract enough to look at the yellow one and say we'll call it the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And of the two I really like I m I like the banana , +Project Manager: The chunk . +Marketing: but I I do like the chunk . +User Interface: So that's maybe not something we have to decide just right now , is it . +Marketing: No , +User Interface: Just somewhere a long the scale of in between these two . +Marketing: but I mean in terms {disfmarker} we have to evaluate one of them . Unless {disfmarker} do you guys wanna evaluate both ? +Project Manager: I think between the two , somewhere between the two is true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'd {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more true than false , about a two . +Marketing: Okay . So we say true . {vocalsound} technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I d I don't think that's what we're aiming at with this concept . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we're using simple components that are gonna be robust but not particularly innovative . +Marketing: So we'll say {disfmarker} we'll say uh false . Easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Very . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is that inappropriate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Oh , pardon me . Um +Project Manager: Trendy . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: trendy , s {vocalsound} and I say specifically spongy fruity . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , maybe only a two or a three then , 'cause it's no we still haven't decided about specific sponginess or specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have the worry about how robust it will be if it's it's curved as a banana but spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't really think that's gonna work , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so two ? Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excess buttons . +Marketing: are there excess buttons ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That is false . +Industrial Designer: So that's false . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} good , well designed buttons , intuitive buttons . +Project Manager: Better , more intuitive buttons , yes . +Marketing: True . Ugly . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: People don't respond well to ugly . Sellable , uh quirky , you know , something people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think they're different , aren't they ? +User Interface: Well it is quite it is quite quirky I think . +Marketing: like oh , +Project Manager: I like it . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , I do too . +User Interface: It could be quite a good brand , like a good little object . +Marketing: Oh yeah . And I was I was thinking of other things um in terms of uh could we say it's cost saving ? With the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , we also need tho think about the energy . Is it the kinetic energy ? +Marketing: Yeah , with the energy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it's {disfmarker} it is gonna be environmentally friendly with the kinetic energy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It is going to be kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we'll c we'll say it's a cost saving enviro . Yeah , Uh so yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but we haven't completely developed that side of it yet , so we're not completely sure about that , +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: but yeah . +Marketing: you're still in the Play-Doh stage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Anything else ? Including price , do you have any idea about price or other features ? +Industrial Designer: Well I think our instinct is that it should be pretty cheap to develop . We haven't got a lot of expensive components in there . +Project Manager: Yes , the instinct says true . +Marketing: Okay . So true one or should I go to two or three ? +Industrial Designer: I'd put it at one I think , but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say maybe a two , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: 'cause we still {disfmarker} we need to uh get somebody in who is good with the programming for the menus and things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true , +User Interface: I mean it's not just like {disfmarker} I mean it's not like ev you know , on a normal chunky remote every button res I mean means something different , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's not a cheap thing to get . +Industrial Designer: it might be the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , true . True . +User Interface: whereas this one has only got the four buttons and they all {disfmarker} they mean everything , depending on what menu you're in . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} uh we need somebody to develop that . +Marketing: Um other ? Anything else you guys can thing of ? And I'm gonna actually change a couple of these so then I'm gonna {disfmarker} instead of ugly I'm gonna say it's attractive and then make that true , so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I have to do an average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: And then um excess buttons . +User Interface: Just putting no excess buttons . +Marketing: Exactly . Wow we're doing really well . Yeah , be you know , +User Interface: As for {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it doesn't ruin the polarity . +User Interface: see if we're technologically innovative , I'd say it is quite innovative , because there aren't really many that have this menu idea instead of all the extra buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean I know we're not doing anything involving internet or speech recognition but but we are at the upper end of the push button market . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or L_C_D_ . Yeah . Well if you g uh let me know if if any of these {disfmarker} um if you if you all can think of any other um thing to change here {disfmarker} if you th if you think I should change the innovative or add other features . If not I'll average those . +Project Manager: I think we're good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . We're a little over halfway through the meeting +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the next big thing is the finance . Okay . +Marketing: Um okay , how about if I uh pass this back to you +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I'll uh figure out the average here . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Thank you for everyone's help with that . +Project Manager: Right . And as you can see it says the same thing , it had not lost itself , thank Goodness . And we're going to raise what's called a sp a spreadsheet that they provided to me . Um and it says fill in the number of components you plan to use in your device . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hand dynamo , battery , kinetic , solar cells . Okay . +User Interface: Well , just kinetic then , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um what's a hand dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: That was the crank , wind-up crank on the side . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the wind-up . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: shoot , forget that . Kinetic is um {disfmarker} and how many of those will we need per {disfmarker} we only need one . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: Okay . Electronic simple chip on print , and we'll need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh yeah , I think we can do it all with simple {disfmarker} Just checking that . Yeah , simple , 'cause we've just got push buttons , so we can do it all with simple which is the ch should be the cheapest . +Project Manager: Okay , and we only need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , the case will be uncurved and flat or a single curve or a double curve . It looks like it {gap} single curve , 'cause of th the chunkiness . It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that one is single curve , +Project Manager: that's uh uh one . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? Um do we have +Project Manager: And that's +User Interface: What does double curved mean , I don't understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think you {disfmarker} it means you reverse the curve . +Project Manager: uh that's the the one that goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I do I don't think we need that for either of them , +User Interface: Oh no , we don't need that . No . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: you can do a banana in single curve , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: Single-curved , I'd say . +Project Manager: single curve . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , case material supplements . Plastic , wood , rubber , titanium , special colour . +User Interface: I +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just wanna say plastic . +Project Manager: We had the special colour . And did we say plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can we do some what ifs , 'cause it may {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I I still quite like the idea of combining plastic and rubber myself , +Marketing: One , two , three , four , five , six . +Industrial Designer: but it depends on the cost , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come back , if we can , to the rubber being added at the moment , that's where we are . Interface button {disfmarker} push button interface . That's what we're using , +User Interface: It's just button . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we need to say how many buttons , or +Project Manager: Whoops , don't want that , not yet . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or d is it just one ? +Project Manager: No , it just says push button interface . Button supplements , they'll be in a special colour of black . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And the buttons {disfmarker} Wha what is the buttons made of , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Uh they'll be rubber , yep . +Project Manager: So we need one of them . And are they any special form ? +User Interface: Well yeah , like the compass point one . +Industrial Designer: Actually , does tha does special material mean that plastic is not a special material ? 'Cause I think they can be plastic . +Project Manager: 'Cause the rate we're going we can put the rubber on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . They could be plastic , we don't have to have rubber buttons , +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: because we haven't got a double curved case . +User Interface: Yeah , they could be plastic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um let's put that rubber in then , of the case material supplement . +Industrial Designer: It's just one , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Uh we only need one of them . Um and the total cost has been calculated as nine Pounds twenty out of the twelve and a half we were allowed . +Industrial Designer: What , we're in . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're in . {vocalsound} That's us . +Industrial Designer: More profit . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Okay , I'm going to save this into our {vocalsound} desktop , project documents . Okay . As our project document bit . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you need to double click on that to open it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . There we are . That's the only Excel document that will be in there , so it's there for all of us . Okay , so , are they under twelve fifty ? Yes , go to the project evaluation , next slide . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Right . Um the project process , satisfaction with , for example , the room for creativity . Yeah , leadership , teamwork , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure . Yes . +Project Manager: means , of having whiteboard , the digital pens and all that kind of good things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , the Play-Doh was best , I thought . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well , 'cause I mean it's so hard to describe what you mean just with words and pointing at photographs and saying , well we quite want this , but imagine it rounder . So much better just to go and , you know , this is it , this is what we want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So , we went over all those things and we're satisfied with all the above . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Um did we find any new ideas ? +Marketing: I think with the marketing element of uh fruit shaped I I mean I {disfmarker} that really opened my eyes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I I only speak for myself though . +User Interface: And I'd never heard of the kinetic energy before , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so . Good work as a design team , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I think we're a good team actually . +User Interface: because we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure all the wires are really great though . +Project Manager: So we actually worked well as a group . +Industrial Designer: I thought so . +Project Manager: Right . Are the costs within the budget ? Yes . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I can give you a number , +Industrial Designer: hang on , Oh we haven't heard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: um it's uh {disfmarker} the average evaluation score is one point eight eight , so it means w you know , I can I can spell it out . There were six true or ones , four um pardon me , two s almost true or close to true , so that was four points , and then uh one false , seven points , so seventeen divided by nine {disfmarker} we're between one and two . I would say that's ex excellent in terms of uh ho how much we adhere to the ideals of the uh market place . +User Interface: Yeah . And the the only false one is because we've chosen to keep a simple old technology , +Marketing: To maintain old technology , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which if it works perfectly well I see no point in improving on if it works , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely , and it's kept us within budget . +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we do count as I think excellent or one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And we've therefore {disfmarker} we have to do the final questionnaire and do the meeting summary , I have a final report to present , um and then we're done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We done good , and we're finished in time . +User Interface: Bring on the ice sculptures . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: And then we get the product launch party . +Marketing: So we might have to wait . +Industrial Designer: Product launch party ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I said , ice sculptures . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I {disfmarker} one thing I want to do is {disfmarker} oh , I think the meeting's done . +Project Manager: I believe that is the end of our meeting . Thank you , Melissa . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um one thing I wa I wanna do is save everything in the right files , because I don't think everything is saved . The right files . Final meeting market +","In a recent project meeting, the teams of Industrial Designers, Project Managers, Marketing, and User Interface are in the final stages of designing a new, innovative remote control. The Industrial Designer and Project Manager commence the meeting by addressing the previous meeting's minutes and agenda, reflecting on decisions made about features and aesthetics of the product—such as using chip on print, plastic with rubber casing powered by kinetic energy, and considering separate fashionable covers as an ancillary product. + +During the meeting, the prototype presentation unveils two designs – one akin to a scroll with simple push-button technology and another emulating the shape of a banana. While the former boasts a minimalist, easy-to-hold design with conspicuous buttons, the latter aligns more directly with the fruit and organic theme discussed. The UI designer iterates that, while the prototypes differ in form, the functionality with only a few simple buttons is similar for both. The material options are simplified to either hard plastic or spongy rubber, with the color scheme suggested to be yellow with black buttons to align with company branding. + +The team debates the pros and cons of each design's features – the hand-feel, durability, appearance, and material costs – aiming for a user-friendly, identifiable, and cost-effective product. Internal discussions about the technology behind the product, especially the kinetic energy aspect, showcase the team's commitment to an environmentally friendly solution. + +As the meeting progresses, the marketing representative guides a heavily interactive evaluation around user requirements and market trends. The criteria discussed include the product's fanciness, innovation, ease of use, and trendiness, and even its potential to be a fanciful fruit-shaped item. Contributions from all team members lead to an averaged evaluation score, indicating a close adherence to market ideals despite sticking to tried-and-true technology for reliability and cost-effectiveness. + +The Project Manager focuses on the financials, meticulously reviewing each component against the allocated budget. The team successfully keeps costs under the £12.50 budget, estimating around £9.20 per unit, thus ensuring profitability. + +In closing, the team reflects on their successful collaboration, celebrating the creativity, leadership, and teamwork that helped to stay within budget and stay true to the project's vision. The final product is deemed excellent, poised for a promising launch with an exceptionally positive evaluation score of 1.88. The meeting concludes with administrative tasks and an enthusiastic outlook toward the product launch party, complete with the humorous prospect of ice sculptures. + +Overall, the meeting showcases a dynamic and collaborative effort of a multi-disciplinary team pushing the envelope on product design, balancing innovation with practicality, and grounding their decisions in market research and financial pragmatism." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , good morning . This is our first team meeting . +User Interface: Good day . +Marketing: Morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: I'll be your Project Manager for today , for this project . My name is Mark {gap} will be giving this presentation for you to kick the project off . {vocalsound} That's my uh that's the agenda for today . Well , of course we're new to each other , so I'd like to get acquainted first . So let's do that first , I mean {disfmarker} Let's start with you , can you introduce yourself ? You're our Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} Um my name is Dirk , Dirk Meinfeld . Um I will be uh {gap} Pr Project {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . And I will see what the user wants and uh what we can do uh with the new produ project {disfmarker} product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . And you are User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nick Broer , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: User Interface Designer . I'm going to uh look at the technical design from the uh user point of view . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay . +Industrial Designer: My name is Xavier Juergens , I'm the Industrial Designer , and there are three main questions that I have to find an answer to today . First one is uh what happens inside the apparatus , second is what is uh the apparatus made of , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the third is what should it look like . +Project Manager: What should it look like ? Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Oh , let's kick it off . Oh , there we go . So , our new project is about {disfmarker} we need design a remote control for television set , so , which has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I took this off our corporate website . {disfmarker} I think well it sums up what we need to do . It's We're inspired by latest fashion , not only electronics , but also the latest trends in clothes and interior design . That's why our product will always fit in your home . So apparently we need to {vocalsound} um be very at um very open to what's currently hot in the market . So that's what you need to do to bring us the latest info and what people want . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So we put the fashion in electronics . So that's what we need to go for . Anyway , we'll take this project in three steps , three pha uh three phase of design . First step will be the functional design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's basically what we're gonna do . Everybody has uh a piece of individual work and a meeting afterwards , so we can share information about {disfmarker} So I'm gonna keep this short , since we had a technical problem . So skip through this . Uh . Okay . Every meeting we {disfmarker} everybody can present their uh their views and everything , so to help with these , you have {disfmarker} we have the SMARTboards here . We can use a regular PowerPoint presentation . I'm supposed to give you an introduction on this doodling board , so it's {disfmarker} actually it's very easy . Like it says , very simple , you just take out the pen . Like you see here , I'll just take the {disfmarker} take {gap} here . That's it , you just put it on the board . You see a pen here . You go here , just like using a pen . You can just draw whatever you want . It's like the eraser , can erase whatever you want . And so it will be easy just to illustrate your views , if you wanna change the format , you just {vocalsound} either take out jus just like the pen , and whatever you want , your current colour , your line width , just to make the line bigger . So it should be really easy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This is to take the {disfmarker} just take a new slide and back again . We're just gonna keep using this board all the time , so I think it will be {disfmarker} it's very clear for everyone , I suppose . So I'll take this out . {vocalsound} Okay . We'll use that later . Anyway . Yeah , just just just stuff that you wanna share , just put it in the in the project folder , like I put my presentation now . I'll put the the minutes of every meeting , I'll put them there too , so everybody can read up if they have to leave early or whatever . So next , been here . {vocalsound} Well , {gap} gonna give the electronic white-board uh a shot . So basic idea is we have a blank sheet . Just try whatever you want , and like it says , draw your favourite animal . I think the creative genius should go first . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The creative genius ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: So , draw us your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , I'm more into the technical aspects of drawing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I'm not really good at drawing animals , +Project Manager: Draw us a technical animal . +User Interface: but uh the animal which I {gap} {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still erasing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh format . Else my animal will be like king-size . I pretty much like {vocalsound} a dolphin , because of its uh its freedom basically . Let's see . A head . {gap} actually worked with this . It's like uh it's a very {disfmarker} Uh high-tech . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bit low-responsive though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's what we don't want . +User Interface: Prefer pen and paper . +Project Manager: We want a high-responsive product . So {disfmarker} It looks more like nuclear bomb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice dolphin . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} {vocalsound} doesn't look like a nuclear bomb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This thing isn't doing what I'm {disfmarker} What I want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's go easy on it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , well it does look like a nuclear bomb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll just finish up real soon , because I'm {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it doesn't really look like a dolphin , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , +User Interface: but then again , this is all new for me . +Project Manager: it should {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} It's supposed to be a dolphin , you like the freedom that it {disfmarker} that it represents . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Like the ocean , like swimming . Do that in my spare time , so that's basically an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you like ? Okay . Well , +User Interface: Now we can forget this ever happened . +Project Manager: our Marketing Expert . Show us an animal . +Marketing: Um an animal . +Project Manager: {gap} Pick a {disfmarker} pick a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like the elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: pick a clean sheet . Oh . Take a clean sheet first . +Marketing: What ? Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just press next . That's it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Oh , a blank . Okay , next . Free , I like the elephant . It's big , it's strong , so uh uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not really that responsive , no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to hold it , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} It's a beautiful animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , you have to p press it pretty hard . With a smile on it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cute elephant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's very important . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh not to forget its tail . Oh . +Project Manager: It's a nice beard . +Marketing: Yeah , it's okay . Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And you was making comments on my dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I will beat the dolphin . {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's just a bee . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I suggest you make us the elephant in the market . The big and strong player in the market . This would be good . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . On to the next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , you should press next . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Press next . Yeah , it's up there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well the animal I'd like to draw is a tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You picked a hard one , didn't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My drawing skills are really bad , so . +Marketing: Experience with the tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? They are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They are really bad , my drawing skills . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh-huh . +Project Manager: Sure looks smooth . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how the legs should go , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh these are stripes . +User Interface: Got it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've picked this animal because it's very fast . It is uh it knows exactly what it wants . Uh it hardly ever wastes any resources . +Project Manager: What does it want ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well , basically uh it hunts for prey , but it does it always in a very well-thought way . Uh it knows exactly what it wants . It never kills an animal uh just for the killing , so it's very efficient . And it tries to do everything as fast as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it always goes for uh security , in seeking uh uh a hide spot and uh and doing everything , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: security , speed and efficiency is important . And I think uh those things we can use . +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: , I'm supposed to draw the animal next . Yay I introduce to the world the amazing ant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh hard worker . +Project Manager: Great team-workers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do everything to Uh really small , but together they're really strong . So I'm gonna give it a smiley face . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Not sure where the p {gap} . Just put 'em here . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it need shoes . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just too lazy to draw it all black , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's the coolest ant ever . +User Interface: You've done this before , haven't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love to draw ants . It's my hobby . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway {disfmarker} Nah . {vocalsound} Just {disfmarker} I think it's very representative what we drew , I guess . Like you take {disfmarker} just take your freedom and use a a trendy interface that you design for us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . You're supposed to make i make it different from uh from what other people have , and just make it a little distinct . Anyway . {gap} another beep to stop the meeting . See . Warning . Finish meeting now . Uh put this down . Examples . Well I guess we have a little little time extra , but {disfmarker} Just a little quick discussion to to open open our work . So what do you guys think about {disfmarker} The first idea is just very short . I'll start with you . What are y What are your first ideas for the new product ? What {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I basically had a question . Do {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Are we going to introduce a multi remote control ? Is it just the T_V_ or do we want to in +Project Manager: The project I got was just for a T_V_ remote control . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well , I was thinking about design remote control , with our uh motto and all . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh thing to keep in mind is that we need to stick to what people are familiar with . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No rational changes or whatever , 'cause it {disfmarker} revolutionary changes , +Project Manager: Okay , so very intuitive design , I guess . +User Interface: yes . {vocalsound} Uh we might have to consider other design aspects of our product . So that was something I wanted to add , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and perhaps some usability aspect . T_V_ is becoming central in most homes . Do we want people who are disabled in any way to uh , yeah , to be able to use it as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we want {disfmarker} I suppose we want almost everyone to be using it . So {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I mean , really disabled people , yeah , {vocalsound} might be a problem , but I think it's a little {gap} take it into consideration . Um yeah . I think we really need to cut the meeting short . You have anything you wanna share quickly ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Only one thing uh that has to be added according to me is uh the the material it is made of , it should be something light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} it speaks for itself , +Project Manager: It should be light , okay . +Industrial Designer: but some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , let's see , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: where did I {disfmarker} Let's skip that . Oh , this is it . Sorry , I skipped this sheet . +Marketing: Selling price . +Project Manager: What do we {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} Quick {gap} {disfmarker} What we're going to {disfmarker} Selling price , twenty five Euros . That's for you . The production price , twelve and a half Euros , approximately . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Just go go for that . We'll reach the uh reach that profit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , well that's not that much to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} international . +Project Manager: No , it's not much to work on . I'm sorry , I skipped it . {vocalsound} Anyways , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , this is it . Do you have anything you you came up with yet ? About uh marketing transfer , whatever ? +Marketing: Um about what ? Marketing ? +Project Manager: Marketing {gap} I'm not sure what you what you came up with yet . You have anything to share ? Or else we'll cut the meeting just cut the meeting short +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um no , not really yet , +Project Manager: since we're supposed to stop . +Marketing: but I've some ideas +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and I will uh say it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyways , the the personal coach will give you the your p your personal assignments and everything . So we'll just meet back in here thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sure we have that . +Industrial Designer: Good luck everyone . +Project Manager: Yeah , thanks for attending . +User Interface: Mm , good luck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll see you back here in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In a morning meeting introducing a new project, Project Manager Mark commenced the first team meeting by inviting team members to introduce themselves. Dirk Meinfeld from Marketing introduced himself and expressed his role in understanding user desires and influencing the new product. User Interface Designer Nick Broer discussed his focus on the technical design from a user's perspective. Industrial Designer Xavier Juergens outlined three key questions he sought to answer: the mechanism within the apparatus, the material composition, and the visual aesthetics of the product. + +The team was briefed on their ambitious task to design an innovative, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control. Aligning with the company's design philosophy that combines electronics with the latest fashion trends, the product was expected to blend seamlessly into consumers' homes. + +The meeting progressed with the Project Manager explaining the three-phase design plan starting with functional design and emphasizing collaboration amongst team members. He introduced a SMARTboard for presentations and to express ideas visually, demonstrating its ease of use by doodling on it. + +To build rapport and stimulate creativity, the team engaged in an interactive exercise drawing their favorite animals with the electronic whiteboard. Nick represented the freedom he admired with a dolphin, despite technical issues making the drawing resemble a nuclear bomb. Dirk portrayed the elephant, correlating its strength and presence with marketing goals. Xavier sketched a tiger, symbolizing speed, efficiency, and clear intention—qualities he believed should be mirrored in design. Mark, finally, drew an ant to symbolize teamwork and collective strength. + +As the team prepared to split for individual work, they had a brief discussion about initial product ideas. Nick emphasized the importance of intuitive design and consideration for users with disabilities, while Xavier recommended a light material for the device. Quickly touching on financial objectives, Mark noted a selling price of twenty-five Euros and a production cost of around twelve and a half Euros to achieve a specific profit margin. + +The session concluded with Mark scheduling a follow-up meeting in thirty minutes, assigning personal coordinators to give further instructions to individual team members. The meeting ended on a collaborative note, with members expressing well wishes and enthusiasm for the new project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Hey , you 're not supposed to be drinking in here dude . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Do we have to read them that slowly ? OK . Sounded like a robot . Um , this is t +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: When you read the numbers it kind of reminded me of beat poetry . +Grad D: I tried to go for the EE Cummings sort of feeling , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Three three six zero zero . Four two zero zero one seven . That 's what I think of when I think of beat poetry . +Grad C: Beat poetry . +Grad A: You ever seen "" So I married an axe murderer "" ? +Grad C: Uh parts of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: There 's a part wh there 's parts when he 's doing beat poetry . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad A: And he talks like that . That 's why I thi That uh probably is why I think of it that way . +Grad D: Hmm . No , I didn't see that movie . Who did {disfmarker} who made that ? +Grad A: Mike Meyers is the guy . +Grad D: Oh . OK . +Grad A: It - it 's his uh {disfmarker} it 's his cute romantic comedy . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That 's his cute romantic comedy , yeah . The other thing that 's real funny , I 'll spoil it for you . is when he 's {disfmarker} he works in a coffee shop , in San Francisco , and uh he 's sitting there on this couch and they bring him this massive cup of espresso , and he 's like "" excuse me I ordered the large espresso ? "" +Grad D: Uh . We 're having , {vocalsound} a tiramisu tasting contest this weekend . +Grad A: Wait {disfmarker} do are y So you 're trying to decide who 's the best taster of tiramisu ? +Grad D: No ? Um . There was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fierce argument that broke out over whose tiramisu might be the best and so we decided to have a contest where those people who claim to make good tiramisu make them , +Grad A: Ah . +Grad D: and then we got a panel of impartial judges that will taste {disfmarker} do a blind taste {vocalsound} and then vote . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Should be fun . +Grad A: Seems like {disfmarker} Seems like you could put a s magic special ingredient in , so that everyone know which one was yours . Then , if you were to bribe them , you could uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , I was thinking if um {disfmarker} y you guys have plans for Sunday ? We 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} it 's probably going to be this Sunday , but um we 're sort of working with the weather here because we also want to combine it with some barbecue activity where we just fire it up and what {disfmarker} whoever brings whatever you know , can throw it on there . So only the tiramisu is free , nothing else . +Grad A: Well , I 'm going back to visit my parents this weekend , so , I 'll be out of town . +Grad D: So you 're going to the west Bay then ? No , +Grad A: No , the South Bay , +Grad D: south Bay ? +Grad A: yeah . +Grad D: South Bay . +Grad C: Well , I should be free , so . +Grad D: OK , I 'll let you know . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: We are . Is Nancy s uh gonna show up ? Mmm . Wonder if these things ever emit a very , like , piercing screech right in your ear ? +Grad D: They are gonna get more comfortable headsets . They already ordered them . OK . +Grad C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Let 's get started . The uh {disfmarker} Should I go first , with the uh , um , data . Can I have the remote {vocalsound} control . Thank you . OK . So . On Friday we had our wizard test data test and um {vocalsound} these are some of the results . This was the introduction . I actually uh , even though Liz was uh kind enough to offer to be the first subject , I sort of felt that she knew too much , so I asked uh Litonya . just on the spur of the moment , and she was uh kind enough to uh serve as the first subject . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , this is what she saw as part of {disfmarker} as uh for instr introduction , this is what she had to read {pause} aloud . Uh , that was really difficult for her and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Because of l all the names , you mean ? +Grad D: The names and um this was the uh first three tasks she had to {disfmarker} to master after she called the system , and um then of course the system broke down , and those were the l uh uh I should say the system was supposed to break down and then um these were the remaining three tasks that she was going to solve , with a human {disfmarker} Um . There are {disfmarker} here are uh the results . Mmm . And I will not {disfmarker} We will skip the reading now . D Um . And um . The reading was five minutes , exactly . And now comes the {disfmarker} This is the phone - in phase of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wait , can I {disfmarker} I have a question . So . So there 's no system , right ? Like , there was a wizard for both uh {disfmarker} both parts , is this right ? +Grad D: Yeah . It was bo it both times the same person . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: One time , pretending to be a system , one time , to {disfmarker} pretending to be a human , which is actually not pretending . +Grad C: OK . And she didn't {disfmarker} +Grad D: I should {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean . Well . Isn't this kind of obvious when it says "" OK now you 're talking to a human "" and then the human has the same voice ? +Grad D: No no no . We u Wait . OK , good question , but uh you {disfmarker} you just wait and see . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} You 're gonna l learn . And um the wizard sometimes will not be audible , Because she was actually {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} there was some uh lapse in the um wireless , we have to move her closer . +Grad A: Is she mispronouncing "" Anlage "" ? Is it "" Anlaga "" or "" Anlunga "" +Grad D: They 're mispronouncing everything , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: but it 's {disfmarker} This is the system breaking down , actually . "" Did I call Europe ? "" So , this is it . Well , if we {disfmarker} we um +Professor B: So , are {disfmarker} are you trying to record this meeting ? +Grad D: There was a strange reflex . I have a headache . I 'm really sort of out of it . OK , the uh lessons learned . The reading needs to be shorter . Five minutes is just too long . Um , that was already anticipated by some people suggested that if we just have bullets here , they 're gonna not {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} subjects are probably not gonna {disfmarker} going to follow the order . And uh she did not . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad D: She {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: Oh , it 's surprising . +Grad D: She {disfmarker} she jumped around quite a bit . +Professor B: S so if you just number them "" one "" , "" two "" , "" three "" it 's +Grad D: Yeah , and make it sort of clear in the uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . Right . +Grad D: Um . We need to {disfmarker} So that 's one thing . And we need a better introduction for the wizard . That is something that Fey actually thought of a {disfmarker} in the last second that sh the system should introduce itself , when it 's called . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: And um , um , another suggestion , by Liz , was that we uh , through subjects , switch the tasks . So when {disfmarker} when they have task - one with the computer , the next person should have task - one with a human , and so forth . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So we get nice um data for that . Um , we have to refine the tasks more and more , which of course we haven't done at all , so far , in order to avoid this rephrasing , so where , even though w we don't tell the person "" ask {pause} blah - blah - blah - blah - blah "" they still try , or at least Litonya tried to um repeat as much of that text as possible . +Grad C: Say exactly what 's on there ? Yeah . +Grad D: And uh my suggestion is of course we {disfmarker} we keep the wizard , because I think she did a wonderful job , +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: in the sense that she responded quite nicely to things that were not asked for , "" How much is a t a bus ticket and a transfer "" so this is gonna happen all the time , we d you can never be sure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . Johno pointed out that uh we have maybe a grammatical gender problem there with wizard . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad D: So um . +Grad A: I wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't sure whether wizard was the correct term for {pause} uh "" not a man "" . +Grad C: There 's no female equivalent of {disfmarker} +Grad D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are you sure ? +Grad C: No , I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Not that I know of . +Grad D: Well , there is witch and warlock , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's so @ @ . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: and uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Uh . +Grad D: OK . And um {disfmarker} So , some {disfmarker} some work needs to be done , but I think we can uh {disfmarker} And this , and {disfmarker} in case no {disfmarker} you hadn't seen it , this is what Litonya looked at during the uh {disfmarker} um while taking the {disfmarker} while partaking in the data collection . +Grad C: Ah . +Professor B: OK , great . So {pause} first of all , I agree that um we should hire Fey , and start paying her . Probably pay for the time she 's put in as well . Um , do you know exactly how to do that , or is uh Lila {disfmarker} I mean , you know what exactly do we do to {disfmarker} to put her on the payroll in some way ? +Grad D: I 'm completely clueless , but I 'm willing to learn . +Professor B: OK . Well , you 'll have to . Right . So anyway , um +Grad D: N +Professor B: So why don't you uh ask Lila and see what she says about you know exactly what we do for someone in th +Grad D: Student - type worker , +Professor B: Well , yeah she 's un she 's not a {disfmarker} a student , +Grad D: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: she just graduated but anyway . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor B: So i if {disfmarker} Yeah , I agree , she sounded fine , she a actually was {pause} uh , more uh , present and stuff than {disfmarker} than she was in conversation , so she did a better job than I would have guessed from just talking to her . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I think that 's great . +Grad D: This is sort of what I gave her , so this is for example h how to get to the student prison , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: and I didn't even spell it out here and in some cases I {disfmarker} I spelled it out a little bit um more thoroughly , +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: this is the information on {disfmarker} on the low sunken castle , and the amphitheater that never came up , and um , so i if we give her even more um , instruments to work with I think the results are gonna be even better . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , and then of course as she does it she 'll {disfmarker} she 'll learn @ @ . So that 's great . Um {pause} And also if she 's willing to take on the job of organizing all those subjects and stuff that would be wonderful . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh she 's {disfmarker} actually she 's going to graduate school in a kind of an experimental paradigm , so I think this is all just fine in terms of h her learning things she 's gonna need to know uh , to do her career . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I {disfmarker} my guess is she 'll be r r quite happy to take on that job . And , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yep . Yeah she {disfmarker} she didn't explicitly state that so . +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: And um I told her that we gonna um figure out a meeting time in the near future to refine the tasks and s look for the potential sources to find people . She also agrees that you know if it 's all just gonna be students the data is gonna be less valuable because of that so . +Professor B: Well , as I say there is this s set of people next door , it 's not hard to +Grad D: We 're already {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: However , we may run into a problem with a reading task there . And um , we 'll see . +Professor B: Yeah . We could talk to the people who run it and um see if they have a way that they could easily uh tell people that there 's a task , pays ten bucks or something , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but um you have to be comfortable reading relatively complicated stuff . And {disfmarker} and there 'll probably be self - selection to some extent . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor B: Uh , so that 's good . Um . Now , {pause} I signed us up for the Wednesday slot , and part of what we should do is this . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So , my idea on that was {pause} uh , partly we 'll talk about system stuff for the computer scientists , but partly I did want it to get the linguists involved in some of this issue about what the task is and all {disfmarker} um you know , what the dialogue is , and what 's going on linguistically , because to the extent that we can get them contributing , that will be good . So this issue about you know re - formulating things , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: maybe we can get some of the linguists sufficiently interested that they 'll help us with it , uh , other linguists , if you 're a linguist , but in any case , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um , the linguistics students and stuff . So my idea on {disfmarker} on Wednesday is partly to uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean , what you did today would {disfmarker} i is just fine . You just uh do "" this is what we did , and here 's the {pause} thing , and here 's s some of the dialogue and {disfmarker} and so forth . "" But then , the other thing of course is we should um give the computer scientists some idea of {disfmarker} of what 's going on with the system design , and where we think the belief - nets fit in and where the pieces are and stuff like that . Is {disfmarker} is this {pause} make sense to everybody ? +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it 's worth a lot of work , particularly on your part , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to make a big presentation . I don't think you should {disfmarker} you don't have to make any new {pause} uh PowerPoint or anything . I think we got plenty of stuff to talk about . And , then um just see how a discussion goes . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Sounds good . The uh other two things is um we 've {disfmarker} can have Johno tell us a little about this +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: and we also have a l little bit on the interface , M - three - L enhancement , and then um that was it , I think . +Grad A: So , what I did for this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} uh , a pedagogical belief - net because I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I took {disfmarker} I tried to conceptually do what you were talking about with the nodes that you could expand out {disfmarker} so what I did was I took {disfmarker} I made these dummy nodes called Trajector - In and Trajector - Out that would isolate the things related to the trajector . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And then there were the things with the source and the path and the goal . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And I separated them out . And then I um did similar things for our {disfmarker} our net to {disfmarker} uh with the context and the discourse and whatnot , um , so we could sort of isolate them or whatever in terms of the {disfmarker} the top layer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then the bottom layer is just the Mode . So . +Professor B: So , let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't understand it . Let 's go {disfmarker} Slide all the way up so we see what the p the p very bottom looks like , or is that it ? +Grad A: Yeah , there 's just one more node and it says "" Mode "" which is the decision between the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , great . Alright . +Grad A: So basically all I did was I took the last {pause} belief - net +Professor B: So {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and I grouped things according to what {disfmarker} how I thought they would fit in to uh image schemas that would be related . And the two that I came up with were Trajector - landmark and then Source - path - goal as initial ones . +Professor B: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then I said well , uh the trajector would be the person in this case probably . +Professor B: Right , yep . +Grad A: Um , you know , we have {disfmarker} we have the concept of what their intention was , whether they were trying to tour or do business or whatever , +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: or they were hurried . That 's kind of related to that . And then um in terms of the source , the things {disfmarker} uh the only things that we had on there I believe were whether {disfmarker} Oh actually , I kind of , {disfmarker} I might have added these cuz I don't think we talked too much about the source in the old one but uh whether the {disfmarker} where I 'm currently at is a landmark might have a bearing on whether {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or the "" landmark - iness "" of where I 'm currently at . And "" usefulness "" is basi basically means is that an institutional facility like a town hall or something like that that 's not {disfmarker} something that you 'd visit for tourist 's {disfmarker} tourism 's sake or whatever . "" Travel constraints "" would be something like you know , maybe they said they can {disfmarker} they only wanna take a bus or something like that , right ? And then those are somewhat related to the path , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: so that would determine whether we 'd {disfmarker} could take {disfmarker} we would be telling them to go to the bus stop or versus walking there directly . Um , "" Goal "" . Similar things as the source except they also added whether the entity was closed and whether they have somehow marked that is was the final destination . Um , and then if you go up , Robert , Yeah , so {disfmarker} um , in terms of Context , what we had currently said was whether they were a businessman or a tourist of some other person . Um , Discourse was related to whether they had asked about open hours or whether they asked about where the entrance was or the admission fee , or something along those lines . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Uh , Prosody I don't really {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure what prosody means , in this context , so I just made up you know whether {disfmarker} whether what they say is {disfmarker} or h how they say it is {disfmarker} is that . +Professor B: Right , OK . +Grad A: Um , the Parse would be what verb they chose , and then maybe how they modified it , in the sense of whether they said "" I need to get there quickly "" or whatever . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um , in terms of World Knowledge , this would just basically be like opening and closing times of things , the time of day it is , and whatnot . +Grad D: What 's "" tourbook "" ? +Grad A: Tourbook ? That would be , I don't know , the "" landmark - iness "" of things , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: whether it 's in the tourbook or not . +Professor B: Ch - ch - ch - ch . Now . Alright , so I understand what 's {disfmarker} what you got . I don't yet understand {pause} how you would use it . So let me see if I can ask +Grad A: Well , this is not a working Bayes - net . +Professor B: a s Right . No , I understand that , but {disfmarker} but um So , what {disfmarker} Let 's slide back up again and see {disfmarker} start at the {disfmarker} at the bottom and Oop - bo - doop - boop - boop . Yeah . So , you could imagine w Uh , go ahead , you were about to go up there and point to something . +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} OK , I just {disfmarker} Say what you were gonna say . +Professor B: Good , do it ! +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: No no , go do it . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} No , I was gonna wait until {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . So , so if you {disfmarker} if we made {disfmarker} if we wanted to make it into a {disfmarker} a real uh Bayes - net , that is , you know , with fill {disfmarker} you know , actually f uh , fill it @ @ in , then uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'd have to get rid of this and connect these things directly to the Mode . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} That 's an issue . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cuz I don't understand how it would work otherwise . +Professor B: Well , here 's the problem . And {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} Bhaskara and I was talking about this a little earlier today {disfmarker} is , if we just do this , we could wind up with a huge uh , combinatoric input to the Mode thing . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} oh yeah , I unders I understand that , I just {disfmarker} uh it 's hard for me to imagine how he could get around that . +Professor B: Well , i But that 's what we have to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: OK , so , so , uh . There {disfmarker} there are a variety of ways of doing it . Uh . Let me just mention something that I don't want to pursue today which is there are technical ways of doing it , uh I I slipped a paper to Bhaskara and {disfmarker} about Noisy - OR 's and Noisy - MAXes and there 're ways to uh sort of back off on the purity of your Bayes - net - edness . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so . If you co you could ima and I now I don't know that any of those actually apply in this case , but there is some technology you could try to apply . +Grad A: So it 's possible that we could do something like a summary node of some sort that {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And , um So . +Grad A: So in that case , the sum we 'd have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} I mean , these wouldn't be the summary nodes . We 'd have the summary nodes like where the things were {disfmarker} I guess maybe if thi if things were related to business or some other {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So what I was gonna say is {disfmarker} is maybe a good at this point is to try to informally {disfmarker} I mean , not necessarily in th in this meeting , but to try to informally think about what the decision variables are . So , if you have some bottom line uh decision about which mode , you know , what are the most relevant things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the other trick , which is not a technical trick , it 's kind of a knowledge engineering trick , is to make the n {pause} each node sufficiently narrow that you don't get this combinatorics . So that if you decided that you could characterize the decision as a trade - off between three factors , whatever they may be , OK ? then you could say "" Aha , let 's have these three factors "" , OK ? and maybe a binary version f for each , or some relatively compact decision node just above the final one . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And then the question would be if {disfmarker} if those are the things that you care about , uh can you make a relatively compact way of getting from the various inputs to the things you care about . So that y so that , you know , you can sort of try to do a knowledge engineering thing +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: given that we 're not gonna screw with the technology and just always use uh sort of orthodox Bayes - nets , then we have a knowledge engineering little problem of how do we do that . Um and +Grad A: So what I kind of need to do is to take this one and the old one and merge them together ? +Professor B: "" Eh - eh - eh . "" Yeah . +Grad A: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , mmm , something . I mean , so uh , Robert has thought about this problem f for a long time , cuz he 's had these examples kicking around , so he may have some good intuition about you know , what are the crucial things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: and , um , I understand where this {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} this is a way of playing with this abs Source - path - goal trajector exp uh uh abstraction and {disfmarker} and sort of sh displaying it in a particular way . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I don't think our friends uh on Wednesday are going to be able to {disfmarker} Well , maybe they will . Well , let me think about whether {disfmarker} whether I think we can present this to them or not . Um , Uh , +Grad D: Well , I think this is still , I mean , ad - hoc . This is sort of th the second {vocalsound} version and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} look at this maybe just as a , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} whatever , UML diagram or , you know , as just a uh screen shot , not really as a Bayes - net as John {disfmarker} Johno said . +Grad A: We could actually , y yeah draw it in a different way , in the sense that it would make it more abstract . +Grad D: Yeah . But the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the nice thing is that you know , it just is a {disfmarker} is a visual aid for thinking about these things which has comple clearly have to be specified m more carefully +Professor B: Alright , well , le let me think about this some more , +Grad D: and uh +Professor B: and uh see if we can find a way to present this to this linguists group that {disfmarker} that is helpful to them . +Grad D: I mean , ultimately we {disfmarker} we may w w we regard this as sort of an exercise in {disfmarker} in thinking about the problem and maybe a first version of uh a module , if you wanna call it that , that you can ask , that you can give input and it it 'll uh throw the dice for you , uh throw the die for you , because um I integrated this into the existing SmartKom system in {disfmarker} in the same way as much the same way we can um sort of have this uh {disfmarker} this thing . Close this down . So if this is what M - three - L um will look like and what it 'll give us , um {disfmarker} And a very simple thing . We have an action that he wants to go from somewhere , which is some type of object , to someplace . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And this {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} this changed now only um , um {disfmarker} It 's doing it twice now because it already did it once . Um , we 'll add some action type , which in this case is "" Approach "" and could be , you know , more refined uh in many ways . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Good . +Grad D: Or we can uh have something where the uh goal is a public place and it will give us then of course an action type of the type "" Enter "" . So this is just based on this one {disfmarker} um , on this one feature , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's about all you can do . And so in the f if this pla if the object type um here is {disfmarker} is a m is a landmark , of course it 'll be um "" Vista "" . And um this is about as much as we can do if we don't w if we want to avoid uh uh a huge combinatorial explosion where we specify "" OK , if it 's this and this but that is not the case "" , and so forth , it just gets really really messy . +Professor B: OK , I 'm sorry . You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: It was much too quick for me . OK , so let me see if I understand what you 're saying . So , I {disfmarker} I do understand that uh you can take the M - three - L and add not {disfmarker} and it w and you need to do this , for sure , we have to add , you know , not too much about um object types and stuff , and what I think you did is add some rules of the style that are already there that say "" If it 's of type "" Landmark "" , then you take {disfmarker} you 're gonna take a picture of it . "" +Grad D: Exactly . +Professor B: F full stop , I mean , that 's what you do . Ev - every landmark you take a picture of , +Grad D: Every public place you enter , and statue you want to go as near as possible . +Professor B: you enter {disfmarker} You approach . OK . Uh , and certainly you can add rules like that to the existing SmartKom system . And you just did , right ? OK . +Grad D: Yeah . And it {disfmarker} it would do us no good . +Professor B: Ah . +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Ultimately . +Professor B: Well . So , s well , and let 's think about this . +Grad D: W +Professor B: Um , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's another kind of baseline case , that 's another sort of thing "" OK , here 's a {disfmarker} another kind of minimal uh way of tackling this "" . Add extra properties , a deterministic rule for every property you have an action , "" pppt ! "" You do that . Um , then the question would be Uh Now , if that 's all you 're doing , then you can get the types from the ontology , OK ? because that 's all {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} all you 're using is this type {disfmarker} the types in the ontology and you 're done . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Right ? So we don't {disfmarker} we don't use the discourse , we don't use the context , we don't do any of those things . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Alright , but that 's {disfmarker} but that 's OK , and I mean it it 's again a kind of one minimal extension of the existing things . And that 's something the uh SmartKom people themselves would {disfmarker} they 'd say "" Sure , that 's no problem {disfmarker} you know , no problem to add types to the ont "" Right ? +Grad D: Yeah . No . And this is {disfmarker} just in order to exemplify what {disfmarker} what we can do very , very easily is , um we have this {disfmarker} this silly uh interface and we have the rules that are as banal as of we just saw , and we have our content . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad D: Now , the content {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} whi which is sort of what {disfmarker} what we see here , which is sort of the Vista , Schema , Source , Path , Goal , whatever . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: This will um be um a job to find ways of writing down Image schema , X - schema , constructions , in some {disfmarker} some form , and have this be in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in the content , loosely called "" Constructicon "" . And the rules we want to throw away completely . And um {disfmarker} and here is exactly where what 's gonna be replaced with our Bayes - net , which is exactly getting the input feeding into here . This decides whether it 's an whether action {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Enter , the Vista , or the whatever +Professor B: Uh , "" approach "" , you called it , I think this time . +Grad D: uh Approach um construction should be activated , IE just pasted in . +Professor B: That 's what you said {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's fine . Yeah , but {disfmarker} Right . But it 's not construction there , it 's action . Construction is a d is a different story . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . This is uh {disfmarker} so what we 'd be generating would be a reference to a semantic uh like parameters for the {disfmarker} for the X - schema ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that uh i if you had the generalized "" Go "" X - schema and you wanted to specialize it to these three ones , then you would have to supply the parameters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: And then uh , although we haven't worried about this yet , you might wanna worry about something that would go to the GIS and use that to actually get you know , detailed route planning . So , you know , where do you do take a picture of it and stuff like that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that 's not {disfmarker} It 's not the immediate problem . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But , presumably that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that functionality 's there when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} +Grad A: So the immediate problem is just deciding w which {disfmarker} +Grad D: Aspects of the X - schema to add . +Professor B: Yeah , so the pro The immediate problem is {disfmarker} is back t t to what you were {disfmarker} what you are doing with the belief - net . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , uh what are we going to use to make this decision {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right and then , once we 've made the decision , how do we put that into the content ? +Professor B: Yeah . Right . Right . Well , that {disfmarker} that actually is relatively easy in this case . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: The harder problem is we decide what we want to use , how are we gonna get it ? And that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the hardest problem . So , the hardest problem is how are you going to get this information from some combination of the {disfmarker} what the person says and the context and the ontology . The h So , I think that 's the hardest problem at the moment is {disfmarker} is +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: where are you gonna {disfmarker} how are you gonna g get this information . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} so , getting back to here , uh , we have a d a technical problem with the belief - nets that we {disfmarker} we don't want all the com +Grad A: There 's just too many factors right now . +Professor B: too many factors if we {disfmarker} if we allow them to just go combinatorially . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: So we wanna think about which ones we really care about and what they really most depend on , and can we c you know , clean this {disfmarker} this up to the point where it {disfmarker} +Grad A: So what we really wanna do i cuz this is really just the three layer net , we wanna b make it {disfmarker} expand it out into more layers basically ? +Professor B: Right . We might . Uh , I mean that {disfmarker} that 's certainly one thing we can do . Uh , it 's true that the way you have this , a lot of the times you have {disfmarker} what you 're having is the values rather than the variable . So uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . So instead of in instead it should really be {disfmarker} just be "" intention "" as a node instead of "" intention business "" or "" intention tour "" . +Professor B: OK ? So you {disfmarker} Yeah , right , and then it would have values , uh , "" Tour "" , "" Business "" , or uh "" Hurried "" . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But then {disfmarker} but i it still some knowledge design to do , about i how do you wanna break this up , what really matters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean , it 's fine . You know , we have to {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's iterative . We 're gonna have to work with it some . +Grad A: I think what was going through my mind when I did it was someone could both have a business intention and a touring intention and the probabilities of both of them happening at the same time {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , you {disfmarker} you could do that . And it 's perfectly OK {pause} to uh insist that {disfmarker} that , you know , th um , they add up to one , but that there 's uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it doesn't have to be one zero zero . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Professor B: OK . So you could have the conditional p So the {disfmarker} each of these things is gonna be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a probability . So whenever there 's a choice , uh {disfmarker} so like landmark - ness and usefulness , +Grad A: Well , see I don't think those would be mutually {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK {disfmarker} +Grad A: it seems like something could both be {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And so that you might want to then have those b Th - Then they may have to be separate . They may not be able to be values of the same variable . +Grad D: Object type , mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} but again , this is {disfmarker} this is the sort of knowledge design you have to go through . Right . It 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's great {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , you know , as one step toward uh {disfmarker} toward where we wanna go . +Grad D: Also it strikes me that we {disfmarker} we m may want to approach the point where we can sort of try to find a {disfmarker} uh , a specification for some interface , here that um takes the normal M - three - L , looks at it . Then we discussed in our pre - edu {disfmarker} EDU meeting um how to ask the ontology , what to ask the ontology um the fact that we can pretend we have one , make a dummy until we get the real one , and so um we {disfmarker} we may wanna decide we can do this from here , but we also could do it um you know if we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a belief - net interface . So the belief - net takes as input , a vector , right ? of stuff . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And um it Output is whatever , as well . But this information is just M - three - L , and then we want to look up some more stuff in the ontology and we want to look up some more stuff in the {disfmarker} maybe we want to ask the real world , maybe you want to look something up in the GRS , but also we definitely want to look up in the dialogue history um some s some stuff . Based on we {disfmarker} we have uh {disfmarker} I was just made some examples from the ontology and so we have for example some information there that the town hall is both a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a building and it has doors and stuff like this , but it is also an institution , so it has a mayor and so forth and so forth and we get relations out of it and once we have them , we can use that information to look in the dialogue history , "" were any of these things that {disfmarker} that are part of the town hall as an institution mentioned ? "" , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: "" were any of these that make the town hall a building mentioned ? "" , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: and so forth , and maybe draw some inferences on that . So this may be a {disfmarker} a sort of a process of two to three steps before we get our vector , that we feed into the belief - net , +Professor B: Yeah . I think that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's exactly right . +Grad D: and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: There will be rules , but they aren't rules that come to final decisions , they 're rules that gather information for a decision process . Yeah , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: no I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's just fine . Uh , yeah . So they 'll {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} presumably there 'll be a thread or process or something that "" Agent "" , yeah , "" Agent "" , whatever you wan wanna say , yeah , that uh is rule - driven , and can {disfmarker} can uh {disfmarker} can do things like that . And um there 's an issue about whether there will be {disfmarker} that 'll be the same agent and the one that then goes off and uh carries out the decision , so it probably will . My guess is it 'll be the same basic agent that um can go off and get information , run it through a {disfmarker} a c this belief - net that {disfmarker} turn a crank in the belief - net , that 'll come out with s uh more {disfmarker} another vector , OK , which can then be uh applied at what we would call the simulation or action end . So you now know what you 're gonna do and that may actually involve getting more information . So on once you pull that out , it could be that that says "" Ah ! Now that we know that we gonna go ask the ontology something else . "" OK ? Now that we know that it 's a bus trip , OK ? we didn't {disfmarker} We didn't need to know beforehand , uh how long the bus trip takes or whatever , but {disfmarker} but now that we know that 's the way it 's coming out then we gotta go find out more . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I think that 's OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . So this is actually , s if {disfmarker} if we were to build something that is um , and , uh , I had one more thing , the {disfmarker} it needs to do {disfmarker} Yeah . I think we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can come up with a {disfmarker} a code for a module that we call the "" cognitive dispatcher "" , which does nothing , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: but it looks of complect object trees and decides how {disfmarker} are there parts missing that need to be filled out , there 's {disfmarker} this is maybe something that this module can do , something that this module can do and then collect uh sub - objects and then recombine them and put them together . So maybe this is actually some {disfmarker} some useful tool that we can use to rewrite it , and uh get this part , +Professor B: Oh , OK . Uh . +Grad D: then . Yeah . +Professor B: I confess , I 'm still not completely comfortable with the overall story . Um . I i This {disfmarker} this is not a complaint , this is a promise to do more work . So I 'm gonna hafta think about it some more . Um . In particular {disfmarker} see what we 'd like to do , and {disfmarker} and this has been implicit in the discussion , is to do this in such a way that you get a lot of re - use . So . What you 're trying to get out of this deep co cognitive linguistics is the fact that w if you know about source {disfmarker} source , paths and goals , and nnn {comment} all this sort of stuff , that a lot of this is the same , for different tasks . And that {disfmarker} uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's some {disfmarker} some important generalities that you 're getting , so that you don't take each and every one of these tasks and hafta re - do it . And I don't yet see how that goes . Alright . +Grad D: There 're no primitives upon which {pause} uh +Professor B: u u What are the primitives , and how do you break this {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah . +Professor B: So I y I 'm just {disfmarker} just there saying eee {comment} well you {disfmarker} I know how to do any individual case , right ? but I don't yet {disfmarker} see what 's the really interesting question is can you use uh deep uh cognitive linguistics to {pause} get powerful generalizations . And +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um +Grad D: Maybe we sho should we a add then the "" what 's this ? "" domain ? N I mean , we have to "" how do I get to X "" . Then we also have the "" what 's this ? "" domain , where we get some slightly different {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could . Uh . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Um Johno , actually , does not allow us to call them "" intentions "" anymore . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So he {disfmarker} he dislikes the term . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't like the term either , so I have n i uh i i y w i i It uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: But um , I 'm sure the "" what 's this ? "" questions also create some interesting X - schema aspects . +Professor B: Could be . I 'm not a {disfmarker} I 'm not op particularly opposed to adding that or any other task , +Grad D: So . +Professor B: I mean , eventually we 're gonna want a whole range of them . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor B: I 'm just saying that I 'm gonna hafta do some sort of first principles thinking about this . I just at the moment don't know . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: H No . Well , no the Bayes {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets {disfmarker} The Bayes - nets will be dec specific for each decision . But what I 'd like to be able to do is to have the way that you extract properties , that will go into different Bayes - nets , be the {disfmarker} uh general . So that if you have sources , you have trajectors and stuff like that , and there 's a language for talking about trajectors , you shouldn't have to do that differently for uh uh going to something , than for circling it , for uh telling someone else how to go there , +Grad D: Getting out of {disfmarker} +Professor B: whatever it is . So that {disfmarker} that , the {disfmarker} the decision processes are gonna be different What you 'd really like of course is the same thing you 'd always like which is that you have um a kind of intermediate representation which looks the same o over a bunch of inputs and a bunch of outputs . So all sorts of different tasks {pause} and all sorts of different ways of expressing them use a lot of the same mechanism for pulling out what are the fundamental things going on . And that 's {disfmarker} that would be the really pretty result . And pushing it one step further , when you get to construction grammar and stuff , what you 'd like to be able to do is say you have this parser which is much fancier than the parser that comes with uh SmartKom , i that {disfmarker} that actually uses constructions and is able to tell from this construction that there 's uh something about the intent {disfmarker} you know , the actual what people wanna do or what they 're referring to and stuff , in independent of whether it {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} what is this or where is it or something , that you could tell from the construction , you could pull out deep semantic information which you 're gonna use in a general way . So that 's the {disfmarker} You might . You might . You might be able to {disfmarker} to uh say that this i this is the kind of construction in which the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Let 's say there 's a uh cont there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the land the construction implies the there 's a con this thing is being viewed as a container . OK . So just from this local construction you know that you 're gonna hafta treat it as a container you might as well go off and get that information . And that may effect the way you process everything else . So if you say "" how do I get into the castle "" OK , then um {disfmarker} Or , you know , "" what is there in the castle "" or {disfmarker} so there 's all sorts of things you might ask that involve the castle as a container and you 'd like to have this orthogonal so that anytime the castle 's referred to as a container , you crank up the appropriate stuff . Independent of what the goal is , and independent of what the surrounding language is . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the thesis level +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's unfortunate also that English has sort of got rid of most of its spatial adverbs because they 're really fancy then , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for these kinds of analysis . But uh . +Professor B: Well , you have prepositional phrases that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , but they 're {disfmarker} they 're easier for parsers . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: Parsers can pick those up but {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} with the spatial adverbs , they have a tough time . Because the {disfmarker} mean the semantics are very complex in that . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: OK , yeah ? I had one more {pause} thing . I don't remember . I just forgot it again . No . Oh yeah , b But an architecture like this would also enable us maybe to {disfmarker} to throw this away and {disfmarker} and replace it with something else , or whatever , so that we have {disfmarker} so that this is sort of the representational formats we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're talking about that are independent of the problem , that generalize over those problems , and are oh , t of a higher quality than an any actual whatever um belief - net , or "" X "" that we may use for the decision making , ultimately . Should be decoupled , yeah . OK . +Professor B: Right . So , are we gonna be meeting here from now on ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm happy to do that . We {disfmarker} we had talked about it , cuz you have th th the display and everything , that seems fine . +Grad D: Yeah , um , Liz also asks whether we 're gonna have presentations every time . I don't think we will need to do that but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so far I think it was nice as a visual aid for some things and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh yeah . No I {disfmarker} I think it 's worth it to ass to meet here to bring this , and assume that something may come up that we wanna look at . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . Why not . +Grad D: And um . Yeah , that was my {disfmarker} +Professor B: She was good . Litonya was good . +Grad D: Yeah ? The uh {disfmarker} um , she w she was definitely good in the sense that she {disfmarker} she showed us some of the weaknesses +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: and um also the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the fact that she was a real subject you know , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah and {disfmarker} and she took it seriously and stuff l No , it was great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So I think that um {disfmarker} I mean , w Looking {disfmarker} just looking at this data , listening to it , what can we get out of it in terms of our problem , for example , is , you know , she actually m said {disfmarker} you know , she never s just spoke about entering , she just wanted to get someplace , and she said for buying stuff . Nuh ? So this is definitely interesting , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: Um , and in the other case , where she wanted to look at the stuff at the graffiti , also , of course , not in the sentence "" How do you get there ? "" was pretty standard . Nuh ? except that there was a nice anaphora , you know , for pointing at what she talked about before , and there she was talking about looking at pictures that are painted inside a wall on walls , so +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Actually , you 'd need a lot of world knowledge . This would have been a classical um uh "" Tango "" , actually . Um , because graffiti is usually found on the outside and not on the inside , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but OK . So the mistake {comment} would have make a mistake {disfmarker} the system would have made a mistake here . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Click ? Alright . +","Grad A warns Grad D about drinking in a place where it is not allowed. They proceed to discuss reading robotic-sounding numbers, which Grad A associates with beat poetry, mentioning Mike Meyers' movie ""So I Married an Axe Murderer."" They also discuss a tiramisu tasting contest Grad D is organizing, where impartial judges will blind-taste various tiramisus to determine the best one. Grad A mentions visiting their parents for the weekend. + +Conversation shifts to the data collection's technical aspects, where Professor B, Grad A, Grad C, and Grad D analyze the wizard test data and how to improve the testing process, discussing the use of image schemas and Bayes-nets. They consider how to pare down too many factors and focus on crucial decision variables. They recognize a need to refine their approach, including making information extraction generalizable across tasks. They explore potential system architecture, considering design principles that allow for flexibility in future replacements or modifications. + +Professor B contemplates the cognitive linguistics aspect of the project, aiming to generalize across tasks for greater efficiency. They discuss hiring Fey for a position and the logistics of paying her for her work. They outline plans for upcoming presentations and meetings, with a goal to get more input from linguists to refine dialogue and decisions in the system. There's a consensus on the value of reusing and repurposing work to benefit various tasks within the system's design. + +The meeting concludes as they agree to have future meetings in the same place and acknowledge Litonya's good work as a test subject, revealing some weaknesses to address." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi everybody and welcome to our kick-off meeting um for our new product that we're gonna be designing . Um I'm Mandy and I'm the Project Manager . And I know all your names again , Courtney , Fenella and Amber . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so first let's go through this PowerPoint . I wonder what button I press ? +User Interface: Just do it on the {gap} arrow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , or how about I just click ? Okay , here is our agenda for this meeting . Um we're gonna start with our opening which was our introductions . {vocalsound} We're gonna get to know each other a little bit better . Um tool training , we're going to , I guess , figure out what to do on this project with our individual roles . Um we're gonna make a project plan and then have some time for discussion and close up the meeting . Okay , here is our project . We're gonna make a new remote control that's um original , trendy and also user-friendly . And how we are going to do it is each of us is going to um {disfmarker} We're gonna have {disfmarker} discuss the functional design first , {vocalsound} how is it gonna be used , what's the actual goal here , it has to operate T_V_ , blah blah blah . And we're going to do individual work on that and then meet . Same thing with conceptual design . Just the basic overview of the project and then we're going to do individual work , meet . That's pretty much the the whole process for today . And then the detailed design , just more in-depth , get the actual schematics of the remote . Okay . Alright . First we're gonna start off by using our tools . And the whiteboard thing , do you guys wanna give that a try even though the ink wasn't working or do you wanna do it on here . +Industrial Designer: I think we should forgo the whiteboard since we can't actually see what we're writing . +Marketing: We could {disfmarker} Yeah , we could on here . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go forward then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right now so we're all gonna draw our favourite animal and then sum up our favourite characteristics of that animal . Even if you are not a good drawer like me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Artistic skills , nil . +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bless you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I draw like I'm in grade five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh do I . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay , about one more minute . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And who would like to start us off ? +Marketing: I'll go . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um this is my picture . I drew fish {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like fish , because uh , you know , their whole water-vascular system thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's pretty cool , and um they've got a pretty good habitat and they are pretty sometimes , sometimes vicious but that's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Only if they're piranhas . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , they they're easy , you know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants to go next ? +Industrial Designer: I'll go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I drew a kitty . It's pretty much impossible to tell that's a cat , but I love cats . +Marketing: No I I see it . +Project Manager: No , it looks like a cat . +User Interface: No , I kne I knew . +Marketing: Yeah , it does look like a cat . +Industrial Designer: I love cats because they're independent , uh they pretty much know what they want , they get it , they move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love cats , too . I'm a cat person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm allergic to cats . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I'm allergic to cats , too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you're around one {disfmarker} +User Interface: In my next life . +Project Manager: I had a roommate who was um allergic , but if she was around my cat forever she became used to it , you know , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , if you're around them for a long period of time {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's weird . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I still can't sleep with them in my room . +Marketing: Oh , yeah , this summer I , oh I had to live with cats . It was crazy . +Project Manager: Okay , Fenella ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I drew a badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Badger . Good choice . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Marketing: Cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . +Project Manager: Why a badger ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I dunno , they're grumpy and nocturnal and {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you trying to suggest something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , a little bit like the {disfmarker} Yes . Um . {vocalsound} And then , if you know Wind in the Willows {gap} badger . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah and then uh I don't know if you know Brian {gap} . He's Liverpudlian writer . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Um {gap} , that kind of books . Badgers are cool in that one too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And I'm last . 'Kay . Look at my sad sad giraffe . +Marketing: No , that's good . +Project Manager: No , no , no , it ends up looking like some kind of a dinosaur , but whatever . I don't know even much about giraffes , but I just love the way they look . They're just such odd creatures , you know . I I like that they're so unique and individual , I guess . I don't know much about their behaviour or anything , though . Only seen a couple in zoos . +Marketing: You don't really have to , I mean , if you like 'em {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can appreciate the way they look . Okay . Alright . Guess we're getting straight back into business here . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um the selling price for our remote is going to be twenty-five Euro , and our profit aim is fifty million Euro . We're going to make this an international product marketed in the States , in Europe , in Asia . And um our production cost to make that profit is gonna be a max of twelve fifty Euro per remote . Okay . So we're gonna talk for a little while . Um here are some topics that we might be able to discuss . Expe our experiences with remote controls um , our first ideas about this new remote , anything that you can bring to the table for this project . So . +User Interface: Now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You wanna start us off ? Anybody have anything to offer ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we wanna make a multifunctional remote , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One remote for everything . +User Interface: And everything being {disfmarker} Wait , we have what , sound system , T_V_ , D_V_D_ , V_H_S_ , uh TiVo ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um . I think they'll be phasing V_H_S_ out shortly . +Marketing: Yeah , TiVo . +Project Manager: TiVo . +User Interface: But it's still there , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: if po if we're gonna do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It needs to be compatible 'cause universal remote controls are never universal . +Project Manager: They're never universal . That's right . Esp e especially if you buy a a not big product , D_V_D_ player , say , usually it doesn't work if it's not one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if it's not like a Sony , if it's like a {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Something from Sam's club . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to figure it how to cover all the different variances in signals . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what we need an insanely good instruction booklet , because you always have to reconfigure all your contraptions to go with the remote anyways . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay , and um another thing that I think is important is the d the design of the product , how it feels in your hand . If it's just flat and kind of boring th those don't {disfmarker} Nobody wants to buy those any more . They want the ergonomic ones . +Marketing: They want like the flashy lights . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh like this came from Las Vegas . +Project Manager: Ones that ones that look high-tech , too . +User Interface: But at the same time are simple . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: So that people like my mother can use it . +Industrial Designer: What about something with the curvature like that matches the curvature of a hand ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Anybody have any experiences with remote controls that they can remember that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just bad ones . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} That's true . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: What kinda battery would we want to use ? Because battery changing is usually {disfmarker} +User Interface: D Double A_ . +Marketing: Double A_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do some of them use triple A_s though ? +Marketing: Yeah some use triple A_s . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Some but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So double or triple ? +User Interface: Yeah , I guess then it's {disfmarker} If we need to do triple A_ we can , but most people usually have double A_s around . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . But that has to do with the size of it too . Well , w as long as we know that issue is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Here we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if we want it to be more thin , then we'd probably wanna go with a triple A_ . +Project Manager: Triple A . But +Industrial Designer: Can you {gap} with a small lithium battery ? +Project Manager: it's okay , we don't have to decide about it now , just as long as we remember battery type and size is important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hey . Anything else ? Alright . Moving along . Oh , we're closing the meeting . Next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes . Here's what we're going to do . Um the I_D_ , which is who ? Okay , you're going to think about the working design . What do you think that means ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And U_I_D_ , the technical fun functions design , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: making sure it does everything that we need the remote to do , the functionality of it , operating all those different things . Okay . And the marketing person , that's Courtney , is going to do the user requirements specification . I guess that means specifying um what exactly the user is going to be looking for . Right ? I would think so . Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And you're gonna get more specific instructions emailed to you in just a little while . Okay , so does anybody have anything they wanna say before we close the meeting ? Okay . This meeting is officially over . +","The conversation is a kick-off meeting for a new product design project, led by the Project Manager, Mandy. The team consists of Courtney from Marketing, Fenella the Industrial Designer, and Amber from User Interface. The agenda includes introductions, tool training, project planning, and a discussion phase. + +The project's goal is to design a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The team will tackle functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design in individual work sessions followed by meetings. During the meeting, they also engage in an icebreaker activity where they draw their favorite animals and discuss their characteristics. + +The Project Manager outlines the sales goal for the remote, aiming for a selling price of 25 Euro and a profit target of 50 million Euro. They discuss making the remote an international product with a maximum production cost of 12.50 Euro per unit to achieve the desired profit. + +The team considers the remote's multifunctionality, signal variances, compatibility issues with existing devices, the need for an intuitive instruction booklet, ergonomic design, and user-friendliness. They also debate the type of batteries to use, considering size and availability. + +For the next steps, the Industrial Designer will work on the operational design, the User Interface will focus on the technical functions, and Marketing will define user requirements. The meeting concludes with instructions to be sent via email and plans to reconvene in thirty minutes for further discussions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um almost , there's one more thing I have to get out of the {disfmarker} I have to make sure that this attachment will open . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I keep forgetting whether I've done this . {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah-ha . Okay . We'll open that when the time is right . In the meantime {disfmarker} Closing things down , okay . Let's see what this thing does . Does it come up together or disappear one of them or what ? Ah , we came up together , we're good . Okay . Are we ready to start ? Okay . It's now quarter of four . This is a f another forty minute one so it will end at four twenty five . Okay . Right . Our agenda is , as before , for me to open the meeting , for us to go over the previous minutes , then for the two of you to present your prototype and for you to g um Sarah present the evaluation criteria . We then have a finance aspect , which is a spreadsheet , an Excel spreadsheet . And I know what you're all thinking of , oh my , um because we're only given a forty minute time period to get it all in , including the production evaluation . So we're going to make a very fast track . Okay . Um and as you can see that's what we do next on this thing . So the first thing I have to do is close this so that I can get to {disfmarker} Where is it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . +Project Manager: I need to open mine . Not the agenda . +Marketing: Agenda three . +Project Manager: No that th I want the minutes from the previous {disfmarker} minutes . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That should be there , minutes . Yeah . Okay . Uh from meeting three , is it alright with you if I don't switch it to show , just use it as is ? 'Cause this way I can more easily flip it . Okay , um obviously all of us were here for the last meeting , we reviewed the previous minutes before that , um each of you made your presentations . {vocalsound} Um we discussed the various possibilities based on what was presented in those presentations . The market trend of fruit and veg , mm spongy , uh fancy and elegant more than technologically innovative and that more than easy . Um we decided chip on print would be used . Um we would use plastic with a rubber casing , I think was the consensus , powered by kinetic energy . There was no decision made on the curvatures or double curvature or straight . Um perhaps the prototype will give us an inkling of that . Um looking like a scroll , but it's really a push button technology , excuse my spelling um that was actually in use , that is uh behind the scenes is push button which we uh according to Kate have a very good uh grasp on doing that in production . Um we decided that separate fashionable covers covering your fruit and veg might be a separate product that could be suggested to management . Um and as suggested um yellow with black buttons with the company logo , a slogan and image might be a good idea based on the requirements that have been provided to us . Um we did have a few production issues and coordination of the various bits and we had some conflict of ideas and cost constraints and we ran out of time . Um we had to follow that up and prepare for the last one . And uh we closed as it ran out of time . Is that a fair presentation of what happened ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , back to this meeting . Um we're down to the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Ta-da . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Over to you . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Ooh , two . +User Interface: Yeah , well you see , each made one , we didn't have enough yellow dough . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the one that I made . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: It is uh curved , easy to hold , hand-held , nice and small with big easy buttons . This is like a scroll , but they are push buttons and they enter {disfmarker} takes you into the different menus . Of course we need someone who's experienced with the television {gap} . I mean this is the infrared thing that's gonna zap at the television . Uh I'm not quite sure how to make that , but I'm sure it will work . Uh this is on off switch , 'cause I think we do need that , and I think it gives it a nice balance . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And it's gonna have the logo imprinted on it uh in there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um as for what it's actually made of {disfmarker} well the function of these buttons is up , down , left and right {vocalsound} in the different menus . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh position , I presume that just means right right on it , easy to see . The main feature of it is just a simple design , simple , lack of uh buttons all over the place . Right ? {vocalsound} Form curved , kind of smooth , hand-held , makes it feel nice to hold . Uh material , I think Kate's gonna tackle that quite a bit , but I think we have two different options , because we did make a another one , which wa uh is in the shape of banana , it's just {disfmarker} if you can imagine this as yellow with black buttons , like just like this but in the shape of a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which is also nice and easy to hold and feels good and has a similar sort of scroll push button technology , just a slightly different design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Also with on off switch and infrared {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh I had envisioned it in hard smooth plastic . So like uh {disfmarker} well , I dunno , what's it like ? I guess like an existing remote control , but molded and smooth . Whereas otherwise we'd thought , like with this one {disfmarker} or mix and match , just we were gonna see what you thought , the {disfmarker} uh a more spongy rubber cover with spongy buttons . So we have the two options we can follow , either the smooth hard plastic or the spongy rubber , depending on cost restraints . And what we well , what conclusion we reach when we discuss it . {vocalsound} Uh material {disfmarker} yeah , that's what I have to say about material . Can I scroll down on there and see what else {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well colour , I think {disfmarker} I definitely have a preference towards bright yellow with black buttons , because that's the company colours , but if anybody's got any other suggestions , I'm quite willing to consider them as well . {vocalsound} So , it just depends what you think about these ideas and if I'm {disfmarker} yeah , maybe , Kate , you better say what you think about them . +Industrial Designer: Um well I don't have very much to add . Um the the case {disfmarker} oops , that's the uh on off button just come off our prototype . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the case can be either um spongy rubber or hard plastic . We're not absolutely sure about a combination of the two , but it can be either of those . We have the technology to do that . Um and as for the the actual components um , uh Steph just said this is a {disfmarker} quite a cheap device to manufacture . We have simple rubber push buttons um which provide all the functionality we need . Um the um {vocalsound} the diode that actually does the um infrared is at the end , it's the stalk of the banana , or it's just the thing at the end of this version . Um so that's for material . Colour , well uh Steph's the expert on colour . Um we we don't have any particular restrictions on that . Yeah , I think that's all we've got to say really . +User Interface: I thin as for as for the fruit or organic theme , I guess this one is obviously fruit shaped . +Industrial Designer: A banana . +User Interface: This one has n banana , yeah . This one has no obvious connections to fruit , but because it's round and molded , it kinda makes you think sort of organic , touchy-feely , kiddie , it's more like {disfmarker} yeah , you'd expect it to be like a child's sorta toy remote control instead of a real one , which I quite like that sort of image . 'Cause it's very big and chunky and child-friendly and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Would you care to examine the prototypes , see how they feel in the hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hold them , you see , you know . Curvature , is it to your liking ? +Project Manager: Oh I see , the on-off's in the back . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's so that your index finger automatically goes straight to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you don't wanna tire out your thumbs after all . +Project Manager: And then you can use your thumb . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it was partly we thought the design looked better , +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I could see this thing , unless it's reinforced , having a problem with the you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Breaking , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: oh right . {vocalsound} Well you see , that's why hard plastic would be quite a good thing for it , because then it'd just be rigid . +Marketing: I like the fact that on both of them the keys play such a prominent role . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} we really like we really like that design , +Marketing: It's really kind of a {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean it looks just like a logo , that arrangement of the keys . Like a c like a compass point , you know , +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +User Interface: just up , down , left and right , and we think we could make that quite a good feature . And it's like the the iPod scroll wheel , {vocalsound} but better . +Marketing: Yeah . But it's also like texting , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it {disfmarker} that's what it makes me think of , mobile phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was try I was thinking , moving your thumb like this , what does that remind me of ? +Industrial Designer: And it's a very simple design , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's texting . +Industrial Designer: there's not a lot to wrong , the components are cheap to make . +Marketing: It's also in terms of um being lost it's it's quite {disfmarker} it looks quite different . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: You know , I I d I have several {disfmarker} four remotes , and they all look the same until you get up close and you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , this is really identifiable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean the thing is we do need to develop our technology of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean actually how to program the menus and what sort of , you know , text box is gonna appear at the bottom of the screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but we do definitely think that it's a viable option . +Project Manager: Okay . The next item is evaluation . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Uh if that's {disfmarker} if you're finished . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , we're finished . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: shall I take your uh power ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try again . +Marketing: Okay . This is going to be a heavily interactive evaluation , and the method here is to evaluate the new remote control in terms of the user requirements and the hot trends introduced by the marketing department . So , this means we're going to go over the priorities that were raised by uh the consumers a as well as incorporate all of our insight into this uh evaluation exercise . So I'm going to go and use the whiteboard , and I've made a list of criteria to look at , and so I'm gonna I'm gonna leave this up as the last thing , but for the evaluation it's going to be one is true and seven is false , going over these different criteria , so one true seven false and I'm gonna now use the um the board . Okay . So um fancy , technologically innovative , easy to use , trendy , buttons , excess buttons , good buttons , ugly , sellable , and other . And in fact I hope that uh you all introduce some additional terms , because these are things that um have been brought up , some of them seem rather close , +User Interface: Yeah , what about price , is that gonna go on there as well ? Price of materials . +Marketing: like they overlap . Mm , yeah , price . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: We'll put price up at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that we actually know anything about it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we can we can pretend . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we will soon , unfortunately . +Marketing: Um Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . +Marketing: Did you say {gap} ? +Project Manager: No , {gap} . +Marketing: Uh okay , so wha how do we feel in terms of is this fancy ? +User Interface: It depends what what you mean by fancy really , 'cause when I think of fancy , I think of it's got lots of extra sort of fripperies and , you know , like baroque curliness and {disfmarker} which +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'd call these quite uh minimalist , +Industrial Designer: Yes , a plain , simple , clean design . +User Interface: simple and plain , but I mean I do see what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it is heavily reliant on appearance instead of pure functionality , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so in that respect it is quite fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah , so in that respect {disfmarker} I think we'll go with that respect . +User Interface: I think just maybe we need a different word other than fancy , I'd say maybe aesthetic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well we have got s trendy further down , +Project Manager: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Elegant . +Marketing: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: Elegant , I don't know if I'd call them elegant . +Marketing: Yeah , no these aren't the exact terms that the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} like stylish or aesthetic . +Industrial Designer: Stylish , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Elegant . We're gon let's use elegant , although the the the people , the word on the street is is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fancy . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} N that {disfmarker} um +User Interface: Did you just break the pen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} is fancy . So let's let's take it to the next level . +User Interface: Well d we'll just call it fancy then . +Marketing: Well okay , so in terms of elegant , fancy . we'll call it E_F_ um , do we do we think that perhaps {disfmarker} and maybe we should say the yellow ? Should we go with the yellow in terms of {disfmarker} I think that's a really superior {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think we n we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: they're both {disfmarker} +User Interface: they're both yellow with black buttons , it's just that we didn't have any more dough to represent uh that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but if you can just imagine banana shape with these bits as black . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So what we re really need to decide is whether we want the actual banana shape or just a a purely blob or some sort of abstraction in between the two +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that isn't {disfmarker} that is more curved , like a banana , but that isn't actually recognisable as a banana , you know , with the grooves and the stalk and stuff , +Marketing: As a banana . +User Interface: so . +Marketing: I think that many of us are abstract enough to look at the yellow one and say we'll call it the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And of the two I really like I m I like the banana , +Project Manager: The chunk . +Marketing: but I I do like the chunk . +User Interface: So that's maybe not something we have to decide just right now , is it . +Marketing: No , +User Interface: Just somewhere a long the scale of in between these two . +Marketing: but I mean in terms {disfmarker} we have to evaluate one of them . Unless {disfmarker} do you guys wanna evaluate both ? +Project Manager: I think between the two , somewhere between the two is true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'd {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more true than false , about a two . +Marketing: Okay . So we say true . {vocalsound} technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I d I don't think that's what we're aiming at with this concept . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we're using simple components that are gonna be robust but not particularly innovative . +Marketing: So we'll say {disfmarker} we'll say uh false . Easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Very . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is that inappropriate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Oh , pardon me . Um +Project Manager: Trendy . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: trendy , s {vocalsound} and I say specifically spongy fruity . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , maybe only a two or a three then , 'cause it's no we still haven't decided about specific sponginess or specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have the worry about how robust it will be if it's it's curved as a banana but spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't really think that's gonna work , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so two ? Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excess buttons . +Marketing: are there excess buttons ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That is false . +Industrial Designer: So that's false . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} good , well designed buttons , intuitive buttons . +Project Manager: Better , more intuitive buttons , yes . +Marketing: True . Ugly . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: People don't respond well to ugly . Sellable , uh quirky , you know , something people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think they're different , aren't they ? +User Interface: Well it is quite it is quite quirky I think . +Marketing: like oh , +Project Manager: I like it . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , I do too . +User Interface: It could be quite a good brand , like a good little object . +Marketing: Oh yeah . And I was I was thinking of other things um in terms of uh could we say it's cost saving ? With the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , we also need tho think about the energy . Is it the kinetic energy ? +Marketing: Yeah , with the energy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it's {disfmarker} it is gonna be environmentally friendly with the kinetic energy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It is going to be kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we'll c we'll say it's a cost saving enviro . Yeah , Uh so yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but we haven't completely developed that side of it yet , so we're not completely sure about that , +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: but yeah . +Marketing: you're still in the Play-Doh stage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Anything else ? Including price , do you have any idea about price or other features ? +Industrial Designer: Well I think our instinct is that it should be pretty cheap to develop . We haven't got a lot of expensive components in there . +Project Manager: Yes , the instinct says true . +Marketing: Okay . So true one or should I go to two or three ? +Industrial Designer: I'd put it at one I think , but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say maybe a two , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: 'cause we still {disfmarker} we need to uh get somebody in who is good with the programming for the menus and things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true , +User Interface: I mean it's not just like {disfmarker} I mean it's not like ev you know , on a normal chunky remote every button res I mean means something different , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's not a cheap thing to get . +Industrial Designer: it might be the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , true . True . +User Interface: whereas this one has only got the four buttons and they all {disfmarker} they mean everything , depending on what menu you're in . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} uh we need somebody to develop that . +Marketing: Um other ? Anything else you guys can thing of ? And I'm gonna actually change a couple of these so then I'm gonna {disfmarker} instead of ugly I'm gonna say it's attractive and then make that true , so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I have to do an average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: And then um excess buttons . +User Interface: Just putting no excess buttons . +Marketing: Exactly . Wow we're doing really well . Yeah , be you know , +User Interface: As for {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it doesn't ruin the polarity . +User Interface: see if we're technologically innovative , I'd say it is quite innovative , because there aren't really many that have this menu idea instead of all the extra buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean I know we're not doing anything involving internet or speech recognition but but we are at the upper end of the push button market . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or L_C_D_ . Yeah . Well if you g uh let me know if if any of these {disfmarker} um if you if you all can think of any other um thing to change here {disfmarker} if you th if you think I should change the innovative or add other features . If not I'll average those . +Project Manager: I think we're good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . We're a little over halfway through the meeting +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the next big thing is the finance . Okay . +Marketing: Um okay , how about if I uh pass this back to you +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I'll uh figure out the average here . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Thank you for everyone's help with that . +Project Manager: Right . And as you can see it says the same thing , it had not lost itself , thank Goodness . And we're going to raise what's called a sp a spreadsheet that they provided to me . Um and it says fill in the number of components you plan to use in your device . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hand dynamo , battery , kinetic , solar cells . Okay . +User Interface: Well , just kinetic then , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um what's a hand dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: That was the crank , wind-up crank on the side . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the wind-up . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: shoot , forget that . Kinetic is um {disfmarker} and how many of those will we need per {disfmarker} we only need one . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: Okay . Electronic simple chip on print , and we'll need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh yeah , I think we can do it all with simple {disfmarker} Just checking that . Yeah , simple , 'cause we've just got push buttons , so we can do it all with simple which is the ch should be the cheapest . +Project Manager: Okay , and we only need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , the case will be uncurved and flat or a single curve or a double curve . It looks like it {gap} single curve , 'cause of th the chunkiness . It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that one is single curve , +Project Manager: that's uh uh one . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? Um do we have +Project Manager: And that's +User Interface: What does double curved mean , I don't understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think you {disfmarker} it means you reverse the curve . +Project Manager: uh that's the the one that goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I do I don't think we need that for either of them , +User Interface: Oh no , we don't need that . No . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: you can do a banana in single curve , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: Single-curved , I'd say . +Project Manager: single curve . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , case material supplements . Plastic , wood , rubber , titanium , special colour . +User Interface: I +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just wanna say plastic . +Project Manager: We had the special colour . And did we say plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can we do some what ifs , 'cause it may {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I I still quite like the idea of combining plastic and rubber myself , +Marketing: One , two , three , four , five , six . +Industrial Designer: but it depends on the cost , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come back , if we can , to the rubber being added at the moment , that's where we are . Interface button {disfmarker} push button interface . That's what we're using , +User Interface: It's just button . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we need to say how many buttons , or +Project Manager: Whoops , don't want that , not yet . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or d is it just one ? +Project Manager: No , it just says push button interface . Button supplements , they'll be in a special colour of black . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And the buttons {disfmarker} Wha what is the buttons made of , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Uh they'll be rubber , yep . +Project Manager: So we need one of them . And are they any special form ? +User Interface: Well yeah , like the compass point one . +Industrial Designer: Actually , does tha does special material mean that plastic is not a special material ? 'Cause I think they can be plastic . +Project Manager: 'Cause the rate we're going we can put the rubber on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . They could be plastic , we don't have to have rubber buttons , +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: because we haven't got a double curved case . +User Interface: Yeah , they could be plastic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um let's put that rubber in then , of the case material supplement . +Industrial Designer: It's just one , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Uh we only need one of them . Um and the total cost has been calculated as nine Pounds twenty out of the twelve and a half we were allowed . +Industrial Designer: What , we're in . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're in . {vocalsound} That's us . +Industrial Designer: More profit . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Okay , I'm going to save this into our {vocalsound} desktop , project documents . Okay . As our project document bit . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you need to double click on that to open it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . There we are . That's the only Excel document that will be in there , so it's there for all of us . Okay , so , are they under twelve fifty ? Yes , go to the project evaluation , next slide . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Right . Um the project process , satisfaction with , for example , the room for creativity . Yeah , leadership , teamwork , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure . Yes . +Project Manager: means , of having whiteboard , the digital pens and all that kind of good things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , the Play-Doh was best , I thought . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well , 'cause I mean it's so hard to describe what you mean just with words and pointing at photographs and saying , well we quite want this , but imagine it rounder . So much better just to go and , you know , this is it , this is what we want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So , we went over all those things and we're satisfied with all the above . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Um did we find any new ideas ? +Marketing: I think with the marketing element of uh fruit shaped I I mean I {disfmarker} that really opened my eyes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I I only speak for myself though . +User Interface: And I'd never heard of the kinetic energy before , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so . Good work as a design team , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I think we're a good team actually . +User Interface: because we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure all the wires are really great though . +Project Manager: So we actually worked well as a group . +Industrial Designer: I thought so . +Project Manager: Right . Are the costs within the budget ? Yes . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I can give you a number , +Industrial Designer: hang on , Oh we haven't heard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: um it's uh {disfmarker} the average evaluation score is one point eight eight , so it means w you know , I can I can spell it out . There were six true or ones , four um pardon me , two s almost true or close to true , so that was four points , and then uh one false , seven points , so seventeen divided by nine {disfmarker} we're between one and two . I would say that's ex excellent in terms of uh ho how much we adhere to the ideals of the uh market place . +User Interface: Yeah . And the the only false one is because we've chosen to keep a simple old technology , +Marketing: To maintain old technology , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which if it works perfectly well I see no point in improving on if it works , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely , and it's kept us within budget . +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we do count as I think excellent or one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And we've therefore {disfmarker} we have to do the final questionnaire and do the meeting summary , I have a final report to present , um and then we're done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We done good , and we're finished in time . +User Interface: Bring on the ice sculptures . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: And then we get the product launch party . +Marketing: So we might have to wait . +Industrial Designer: Product launch party ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I said , ice sculptures . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I {disfmarker} one thing I want to do is {disfmarker} oh , I think the meeting's done . +Project Manager: I believe that is the end of our meeting . Thank you , Melissa . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um one thing I wa I wanna do is save everything in the right files , because I don't think everything is saved . The right files . Final meeting market +","During the meeting, the project team, which included an industrial designer, project manager, marketing representative, and user interface specialist, discussed the progress and considerations for a prototype of a new remote control design. The project manager reiterated the agenda: reviewing previous minutes, presenting prototypes, discussing the evaluation criteria, finance aspects, and the production evaluation within a tight 40-minute timeframe. + +The team reviewed the previous decisions, including using chip-on-print technology, a plastic case with rubber casing, kinetic energy as a power source, and the inclusion of separate fashionable covers for the product. No decision had been made yet regarding the curvature of the design or whether it would be straight. + +Following the review, the industrial designer and UI specialist presented two prototype designs: one curved, handheld, and similar to a scroll with big buttons, and another shaped like a banana, envisioned in hard smooth plastic or spongy rubber depending on cost constraints. Both designs featured simple push-button technology with minimal button layout, potentially in the company’s colors of bright yellow with black buttons. + +The team discussed the prototypes in terms of design, ergonomics, and user experience. Notably, the button arrangement was appreciated for its prominence and intuitiveness, resembling a compass or a smartphone’s texting keypad. They also touched on manufacturing aspects such as material choices, and the potential for the product to be environmentally friendly with kinetic energy, as well as cost-effectiveness. + +The marketing representative conducted an interactive evaluation of the new remote control against criteria such as being fancy, technologically innovative, easy to use, trendy, sellable, and other factors, with the team scoring each feature as true or false. + +During the financial aspect of the meeting, they filled out a spreadsheet calculating the total cost of components for the device, resulting in a total cost of £9.20, well below the allocated budget of £12.50, which was deemed a good outcome. + +Finally, the meeting closed with the project manager commenting on the team’s satisfaction with the process, creativity, teamwork, and adherence to the budget. The project was evaluated successfully with an average score of 1.88, indicating a high adherence to market ideals. The team looked forward to finalizing the project, with passing references to a product launch party and the desire for ice sculptures." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: Time . +Grad C: Thanks . +Grad G: Are you Fey ? +Undergrad D: I am Fey , yeah . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: What day is today ? +Undergrad D: Hi . +Grad G: Hi . I think we 've met before , like , I remember talking to you about Aspect or something like that at some point or other . +Undergrad D: A couple times yeah . +Grad F: It 's the uh twenty {disfmarker} nineteenth . +Grad B: Nineteenth ? +Undergrad D: That 's right , yeah . +Grad G: So . +Undergrad D: And you were my GSI briefly , until I dropped the class . +Grad F: +Grad B: Right , right . +Grad G: Oh that 's right . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad G: Well . +Grad C: OK , wh wh +Grad G: No offense . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Like . +Grad C: OK . Some in some introductions are in order . +Grad G: Oh , OK sorry . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: Getting ahead of myself . +Grad C: So . Um . For those who don't know {disfmarker} Everyone knows me , this is great . Um , apart from that , sort of the old gang , Johno and Bhaskara have been with us from {disfmarker} from day one +Grad G: Yay ! +Grad E: Hi . +Grad C: and um they 're engaged in {disfmarker} in various activities , some of which you will hear about today . Ami is um our counselor and spiritual guidance and um also interested in problems concerning reference of the more complex type , +PhD A: Well . +Grad E: Oh wow . +Grad C: and um he sits in as a interested participant and helper . Is that a good characterization ? +PhD A: u That 's pretty good , I think . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . Thanks . +Grad C: OK . Keith is not technically one of us yet , +Grad E: Not yet . +Grad C: ha - ha . but um it 's too late for him now . +Grad G: "" One of us . "" +Grad C: So . +Grad E: Yeah right . I 've got the headset on after all . +Grad C: Um . Officially I guess he will be joining us in the summer . +Grad E: yes . +Grad C: And um hopefully it is by {disfmarker} by means of Keith that we will be able to get a b a better formal and a better semantic um idea of what a construction is and um how we can make it work for us . Additionally his interest um surpasses um English because it also entails German , an extra capability of speaking and writing and understanding and reading that language . And um , is there anyone who doesn't know Nancy ? Do you {disfmarker} do you know Nancy ? +Grad G: Me ? +Grad E: I know Nancy . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I made that joke already , Nancy , sadly . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: What ? +Grad B: The "" I don't know myself "" joke . +Grad G: You did ? When ? +Grad B: Uh before you came in . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: Man ! +Grad G: About me or you ? +Grad B: About me . +Grad G: OK . {vocalsound} OK . +PhD A: You could do it about you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Well I didn't know . I didn't mean to be humor copying , but OK , sorry . Yes , I know myself . It 's OK . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um Fey is with us as of six days ago officially ? +Undergrad D: Officially , +Grad C: Officially , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad C: but in reality already um much much longer and um um next to some {disfmarker} some more or less bureaucratic uh stuff with the {disfmarker} the data collection she 's also the wizard in the data collection Um , +Grad G: Of Oz . +Undergrad D: It 's very exciting . +Grad C: we 're sticking with the term "" wizard "" , +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: and um +Grad G: Not witch - like . +Grad B: Wizardette . +Grad E: Wizard . +Grad F: Wizardess . +Grad C: Sorceress , I think . +Grad G: OK . +Undergrad D: Wizard . +Grad C: wizard uh by by popular vote +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: um +Grad G: Didn't take a vote ? OK . +Grad C: OK , um , why don't we get started on that subject anyways . Um , so we 're about to collect data and um the uh s the following things have happened since we last met . When will we three meet again ? And um +Grad G: More than three of us . +Grad C: what happened is that um , "" A "" , {comment} there was some confusion between you and Jerry with the {disfmarker} that leading to your talking to Catherine Snow , and he was uh he {disfmarker} he agreed completely that some something confusing happened . Um his idea was to get sort of the l the lists of mayors of the department , the students . It {disfmarker} it 's exactly how you interpreted it , sort of s +Grad E: The list of majors in the department ? +Undergrad D: M m Majors ? +Grad C: Ma - majors , majors . +Undergrad D: Majors ? +Grad C: "" Mayors "" . +Undergrad D: OK , mayor {disfmarker} +Grad C: Majors . +Undergrad D: Something I don't know about these +Grad G: The department has many mayors . +Grad C: Majors and um just sending the {disfmarker} the little write - up that we did on to those email lists +Undergrad D: OK . OK . Yeah , yeah , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: So it was really Carol Snow who was confused , not me and not Jerry . +Grad C: Yep , yep , yep . OK . So . So , that is uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's good . So I should still do that . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And using the thing that you wrote up . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: Wonderful . And um we have a little description of asking peop subjects to contact Fey for you know recruiting them for our thing and um there was some confusion as to the consent form , which is basically that {disfmarker} that what what you just signed +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: and since we have one already um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Did Jerry talk to you about maybe using our class ? the students in the undergrad class that he 's teaching ? +Grad C: Um well he said um we {disfmarker} definitely "" yes "" , +Grad G: e +Grad C: however there is always more people in a {disfmarker} in a facul uh in a department than are just taking his class or anybody else 's class at the moment +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: and one should sort of reach out and try and get them all . +Grad G: OK , but th I guess it 's that um people in his class cover a different set so {disfmarker} than the c is the CogSci department that you were talking about ? +Undergrad D: I guess . See +Grad G: uh reaching out to ? +Undergrad D: that 's what I suggested to him , that people like {disfmarker} like Jerry and George and et cetera just {disfmarker} +Grad G: Cuz we have you know people from other areas +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: advertise in their classes as well . +Undergrad D: Yeah or even I could {disfmarker} you know I could do the actual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Cuz I mean I {disfmarker} I know how to contact our students , +Undergrad D: That 's generally the way it 's done . +Grad G: so if there 's something that you 're sending out you can also s um send me a copy , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: me or Bhaskara could {disfmarker} either of us could post it to uh is it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: A mailing list . +Grad G: if it 's a general solicitation that you know is just contact you then we can totally pro post it to the news group +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad G: so . +Grad C: Do it . Yeah . +Undergrad D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , so you 'll send it or something so . +Grad C: As a matter of fact , if you {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I can send it . +Grad C: if {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I 'll send it , +Grad G: You can send it to me . +Grad C: Now , i +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad G: OK . Don't worry , we {disfmarker} this doesn't concern you anymore , Robert . +Grad C: How {disfmarker} however I suggest that if you {disfmarker} if you look at your email carefully you may think {disfmarker} you may find that you already have it . +Grad G: It 's fine . Oops . Already ? Really ? +Grad C: Maybe . +Undergrad D: Probab +Grad G: Oops . +Grad C: OK . W we 'll see . +Grad G: I don't remember getting anything . +Grad C: Anyhow , um the uh Yeah , not only Also we will talk about Linguistics and of course Computer Science . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um and then , secondly , we had , you may remember , um the problem with the re - phrasing , that subject always re - phrase sort of the task that uh we gave them , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: and so we had a meeting on Friday talking about how to avoid that , and it proved finally fruitful in the sense that we came up with a new scenario for how to get the {disfmarker} the subject m to really have intentions and sort of to act upon those , and um there the idea is now that next actually we {disfmarker} we need to hire one more person to actually do that job because it {disfmarker} it 's getting more complicated . So if you know anyone interested in {disfmarker} in what i 'm about to describe , tell that person to {disfmarker} to write a mail to me or Jerry soon , fast . Um {vocalsound} the idea now is to sort of come up with a high level of sort of abstract tasks "" go shopping "" um "" take in uh a batch of art "" um "" visit {disfmarker} do some sightseeing "" blah - blah - blah - blah - blah , sort of analogous to what Fey has started in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in compiling {disfmarker} compiling here and already {disfmarker} she has already gone to the trouble of {disfmarker} of anchoring it with specific um o {comment} um entities and real world places you will find in Heidelberg . And um . So out of these f s these high level categories the subject can pick a couple , such as if {disfmarker} if there is a cop uh a category in emptying your roll of film , the person can then decide "" OK , I wanna do that at this place "" , sort of make up their own itinerary a and {disfmarker} and tasks and the person is not allowed to take sort of this h high level category list with them , but uh the person is able to take notes on a map that we will give him and the map will be a tourist 's sort of schematic representation with {disfmarker} with symbols for the objects . And so , the person can maybe make a mental note that "" ah yeah I wanted to go shopping here "" and "" I wanted to maybe take a picture of that "" and "" maybe um eat here "" and then goes in and solves the task with the system , IE {comment} Fey , and um and we 're gonna try out that {disfmarker} Any questions ? +Grad G: so um y you 'll have those say somewhere what their intention was {disfmarker} so you still have the {disfmarker} the nice thing about having data where you know what the actual intention was ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: But they will um {disfmarker} There 's nothing that says you know "" these are the things you want to do "" so they 'll say "" well these are the things I want to do "" and {disfmarker} Right , so they 'll have a little bit more natural interaction ? +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So they 'll be given this map , which means that they won't have to like ask the system for in for like high level information about where things are ? +Grad C: Yeah it 's a schematic tourist map . So it 'll be uh i it 'll still require the {disfmarker} that information and An +Grad G: It w it doesn't have like streets on it that would allow them to figure out their way {disfmarker} +Grad C: N not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not really the street network . Nuh . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: So you 're just saying like what part of town the things are in or whatever ? +Grad C: Yeah a and um the map is more a means for them to have the buildings and their names and maybe some ma ma major streets and their names +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we want to maybe ask them , if you have {disfmarker} get it sort of isolated street the {disfmarker} the , whatever , "" River Street "" , and they know that {disfmarker} they have decided that , yes , that 's where they want to do this kind of action um that they have it with them and they can actually read them or sort of have the label for the object because it 's too hard to memorize all these st strange German names . And then we 're going to have another {disfmarker} we 're gonna have w another trial run IE the first with that new setup tomorrow at two and we have a real interesting subject which is Ron Kay for who {disfmarker} those who know him , he 's the founder of ICI . So he 'll {disfmarker} he 's around seven seventy years old , or something . +Grad G: I didn't know he was the founder . That 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And he also approached me and he offered to help {vocalsound} um our project and he was more thinking about some high level thinking tasks and {vocalsound} I said "" sure we need help you can come in as a subject "" and he said "" OK "" . So that 's what 's gonna happen , tomorrow , data . +Grad G: Using this new {disfmarker} new um plan , +Grad C: New {disfmarker} new set up . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Which I 'll hopefully sort of scrape together t But , thanks to Fey , we already have sort of a nice blueprint and I can work with that . Questions ? Comments on that ? If not , we can move on . No ? No more questions ? +Grad E: I 'm not sure I totally understand this +Grad G: So what 's the s this is what you made , Fey ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I totally understand everything that 's being talked about +Grad G: Like so {disfmarker} So it 's just based on like the materials you had about Heidelberg . +Grad C: Um are you familiar with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the very rough setup of the data ? +Grad E: but I {disfmarker} I imagine I 'll c just catch on . +Undergrad D: Based on the web site , yeah , at the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh OK there 's a web site +Grad C: experiment ? +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad G: and then you could like um figure out what the cate +Undergrad D: It 's a tourist information web site , +Grad E: Uh , this is where they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: so . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Talk to a machine and it breaks down and then the human comes on . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: The question is just sort of how do we get the tasks in their head that they have an intention of doing something and have a need to ask the system for something without giving them sort of a clear wording or phrasing of the task . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: Because what will happen then is that people repeat {disfmarker} repeat , {comment} or as much as they can , of that phrasing . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Hmm . Um , are you worried about being able to identify {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Um . The {disfmarker} The goals that we 've d you guys have been talking about are this {disfmarker} these you know identifying which of three modes um their question uh concerns . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So it 's like the Enter versus View {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will sort of get a protocol of the prior interaction , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: right ? That 's where the instructor , the person we are going to hire , um and the subjects sit down together with these high level things +Grad G: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so th the q first question for the subject is , "" so these are things , you know , we thought a tourist can do . Is there anything that interests you ? "" +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the person can say "" yeah , sure sh this is something I would do . I would go shopping "" . Yeah ? and then we can sort of {disfmarker} this s instructor can say "" well , uh then you {disfmarker} you may want to find out how to get over here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: because this is where the shopping district is "" . +Grad G: So the interaction beforehand will give them hints about how specific or how whatever though the kinds of questions that are going to ask during the actual session ? +Grad C: No . Just sort of {disfmarker} OK , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what would you like to buy and then um OK there you wanna buy a whatever cuckoos clocks +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK and the there is a store there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the task then for that person is t finding out how to get there , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's sort of what 's left . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we know that the intention is to enter because we know that the person wants to buy a cuckoos clock . +Grad G: OK , that 's what I mean so like those tasks are all gonna be um unambiguous about which of the three modes . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: Right . OK . So . +PhD A: Well , so the idea is to try to get the actual phrasing that they might use and try to interfere as little as possible with their choice of words . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: t {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That they 'll be here ? +Grad C: Yes . In a sense that 's exactly the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea , +PhD A: uh uh +Grad C: which is never possible in a {disfmarker} in a s in a lab situation , +PhD A: Well , u u the one experiment th that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that I 've read somewhere , it was {disfmarker} they u used pictures . +Grad C: nuh ? +PhD A: So to {disfmarker} to uh actually um uh specify the {disfmarker} the tasks . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , but you know i i +Grad C: Yeah . We had exactly that on our list of possible way things so we {disfmarker} uh I even made a sort of a silly thing how that could work , how you control you are here you {disfmarker} you want to know how to get someplace , and this is the place and it 's a museum and you want to do some and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a person looking at pictures . So , you know , this is exactly getting someplace with the intention of entering and looking at pictures . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: However , not only was {disfmarker} the common census were {disfmarker} among all participants of Friday 's meeting was it 's gonna be very laborious to {disfmarker} to make these drawings for each different things , +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: all the different actions , if at all possible , and also people will get caught up in the pictures . So all of a sudden we 'll get descriptions of pictures in there . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And people talking about pictures and pictorial representations +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} um +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I would s I would still be willing to try it . +PhD A: I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not saying it 's necessary but {disfmarker} but uh i uh uh i {vocalsound} you might be able to combine you know text uh and {disfmarker} and some sort of picture and also uh I think it {disfmarker} it will be a good idea to show them the text and kind of chew the task and then take the test away {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the text away +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: so that they are not uh guided by {disfmarker} by by what you wrote , +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can come up with their {disfmarker} with their own {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they will have no more linguistic matter in front of them when they enter this room . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: OK . Then I suggest we move on to the {disfmarker} to we have um uh the EDU Project , let me make one more general remark , has sort of two {disfmarker} two side uh um actions , its um action items that we 're do dealing with , one is modifying the SmartKom parser and the other one is modifying the SmartKom natural language generation module . And um this is not too complicated but I 'm just mentioning it {disfmarker} put it in the framework because this is something we will talk about now . Um , I have some news from the generation , do you have news from the parser ? +Grad F: Um , not {disfmarker} +Grad C: By that look I {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , uh , I would really p It would be better if I talked about it on Friday . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: If that 's OK . +Grad C: Yeah , wonderful . Um , did you run into problems or did you run into not h having time ? +Grad F: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not any time part . +Grad C: OK , so that 's good . That 's better than running into problems . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: And um I {disfmarker} I do have some good news for the natural language generation however . And the good news is I guess it 's done . Uh , meaning that Tilman Becker , who does the German one , actually took out some time and already did it in English for us . And so the version he 's sending us is already producing the English that 's needed to get by in version one point one . +Grad F: So I take it that was similar to the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what we did for the parsing ? +Grad C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} even though the generator is a little bit more complex and it would have been , not changing one hundred words but maybe four hundred words , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but it would have been +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but this {disfmarker} this is I guess good news , and the uh {disfmarker} the time and especially Bhaskara and uh {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} Oh do I have it here ? No . The time is now pretty much fixed . It 's the last week of April until the fourth of May so it 's twenty - sixth through fourth . That they 'll be here . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's extremely important that the two of you are also present in this town during that time . +Grad B: Wait , what {disfmarker} what are the days ? April twenty - sixth to the {disfmarker} May fourth ? +Grad C: Yeah , something like that . +Grad B: I 'll probably be here . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: You will be here . +Grad C: There is a d Isn't finals coming up then pretty much after that ? +Grad F: Finals was that . +Grad G: Yeah w it doesn't really have much meaning to grad students but final projects might . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Yeah actually , that 's true . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} +Grad C: Anyway , so this is {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well I 'll be here working on something . Guaranteed , it 's just uh will I be here , you know , in uh {disfmarker} I 'll be here too actually but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: No it 's just um you know they 're coming for us so that we can bug them +Grad G: Ye +Grad C: and ask them more questions and sit down together and write sensible code and they can give some nice talks and stuff . But uh +Grad B: But it 's not like we need to be with them twenty - four hours a day s for the seven days that they 're here . +Grad C: just make a {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} not unless you really really want to . +Grad E: They 're very dependent +Grad C: Not unless you really want to . And they 're both nice guys so you may {disfmarker} may want to . OK , that much from the parser and generator side , unless there are more questions on that . +Grad G: So , no sample generator output yet ? +Grad C: No . It {disfmarker} Just a mail that , you know , he 's sending me the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the stuff soon +Grad G: OK . This is being sent , mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: and I was completely flabbergasted here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I {disfmarker} and that 's also it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to produce the concept - to - speech uh blah - blah - blah information for {disfmarker} necessary for one point one in English {disfmarker} based on the English , you know , in English . So . I was like "" OK , +Grad E: We 're done . +Grad C: we 're done ! "" +Grad G: So that was like one of the first l You know , the first task was getting it working for English . So that 's basically over now . Is that right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: So the basic requirement fulfilled . +Grad C: Um , the basic requirement is fulfilled almost . When Andreas Stolcke and {disfmarker} and his gang , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: when they have um changed the language model of the recognizer and the dictionary , then we can actually a put it all together +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So the speech recognizer also works . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can speak into it and ask for TV and movie information +Grad E: Toll . +Grad C: and then when if {disfmarker} if something actually happens and some answers come out , then we 're done . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . If {disfmarker} and they 're kind of correct . +Grad E: So it 's not done basically . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: And they kind of are {disfmarker} are correct . +Grad E: Right . Perhaps if the answers have something to do with the questions for example . +Grad G: It 's not just like anything . And they 're mostly in English . So . +Grad C: Then um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Are they {disfmarker} is it using the database ? the German TV movie . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . So {vocalsound} all the actual data might be German names ? +Grad C: Um well actually th um +Grad G: Or are they all like American TV programs ? +Grad C: um well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I want to see "" Die Dukes Von Hazard "" +Grad C: The {disfmarker} OK , so you don't know how the German dialogue {disfmarker} uh the German {disfmarker} the demo dialogue actually works . It works {disfmarker} the first thing is what 's , you know , showing on TV , and then the person is presented with what 's running on TV in Germany on that day , on that evening +Grad G: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so you take one look at it and then you say "" well that 's really nothing {disfmarker} there 's nothing for me there "" "" what 's running in the cinemas ? "" So maybe there 's something better happening there . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then you get {disfmarker} you 're shown what movies play which films , and it 's gonna be of course all the Heidelberg movies and what films they are actually showing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And most of them are going to be Hollywood movies . So , "" American Beauty "" is "" American Beauty "" , +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad G: But they 're shown like on a screen . +Grad C: N +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} I mean so would the generator , like the English language sentence of it is {disfmarker} "" these are the follow you know the following films are being shown "" or something like that ? +Grad C: Yeah , but it in that sense it doesn't make {disfmarker} In that case uh it doesn't really make sense to read them out loud . +Grad G: S Right . +Grad C: if you 're displaying them . +Grad G: So it 'll just display {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: But uh it 'll tell you that this is what 's showing in Heidelberg and there you go . +Grad G: So we don't have to worry about um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: And the presentation agent will go "" Hhh ! "" {comment} Nuh ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Like that {disfmarker} the avatar . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And um . And then you pick {disfmarker} pick a movie and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it show shows you the times and you pick a time and you pick seats and all of this . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Pretty straightforward . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} so this time we {disfmarker} we are at an advantage because it was a problem for the German system to incorporate all these English movie titles . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: Nuh ? But in English , that 's not really a problem , +Grad G: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: unless we get some {disfmarker} some topical German movies that have just come out and that are in their database . So the person may select "" Huehner Rennen "" or whatever . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: "" Chicken Run "" . +Grad C: OK . Then uh on to the modeling . Right ? +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , I guess . +Grad C: Um then modeling , there it is . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad E: OK . What 's the next thing ? +Grad B: e +Grad C: This is very rough but this is sort of what um Johno and I managed to come up with . The idea here is that {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is the uh s the schema of the XML here , not an example or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah this is not an XML this is sort of towards an {disfmarker} a schema , +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: nuh ? definition . The idea is , so , imagine we have a library of schema such as the Source - Path - Goal and then we have forced uh motion , we have cost action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: we have a whole library of schemas . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And they 're gonna be , you know , fleshed out in {disfmarker} in their real ugly detail , Source - Path - Goal , and there 's gonna be s a lot of stuff on the Goal and blah - blah - blah , that a goal can be and so forth . What we think is {disfmarker} And all the names could {disfmarker} should be taken "" cum grano salis "" . So . This is a {disfmarker} the fact that we 're calling this "" action schema "" right now should not entail that we are going to continue calling this "" action schema "" . But what that means {vocalsound} is we have here first of all on the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the first iteration a stupid list of Source - Path - Goal actions +Grad B: Actions that can be categorized with {disfmarker} or that are related to Source - Path - Goal . +Grad C: wi to that schema +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we will have you know forced motion and cost action actions . +Grad B: And then those actions can be in multiple categories at the same time if necessary . +Grad C: So a push may be in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in both you know push uh in this or this uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Forced motion and caused action for instance , +Grad C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Also , these things may or may not get their own structure in the future . So this is something that , you know , may also be a res As a result of your work in the future , we may find out that , you know , there 're really s these subtle differences between um even within the domain of entering in the light of a Source - Path - Goal schema , that we need to put in {disfmarker} fill in additional structure up there . But it gives us a nice handle . So with this we can basically um you know s slaughter the cow any anyway we want . Uh . It {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} It was sort of a {disfmarker} it gave us some headache , how do we avoid writing down that we have sort of the Enter Source - Path - Goal that this {disfmarker} But this sort of gets the job done in that respect and maybe it is even conceptually somewhat adequate in a sense that um we 're talking about two different things . We 're talking more on the sort of intention level , up there , and more on the {disfmarker} this is the {disfmarker} your basic bone um schema , down there . +Grad B: Uh one question , Robert . When you point at the screen is it your shadow that I 'm supposed to look at ? +Grad G: Yeah . It 's the shadow . +Grad B: OK . Whereas I keep looking where your hand is , and it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that wouldn't have helped you at all . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +Grad B: Basically , what this is {disfmarker} is that there 's an interface between what we are doing and the action planner +Grad E: Spit right here . +Grad B: and right now the way the interface is "" action go "" and then they have the {disfmarker} what the person claimed was the source and the person claimed as the goal passed on . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And the problem is , is that the current system does not distinguish between goes of type "" going into "" , goes of type "" want to go to a place where I can take a picture of "" , et cetera . +Grad C: So this is sort of what it looks like now , some simple "" Go "" action from it {disfmarker} from an object named "" Peter 's Kirche "" of the type "" Church "" to an object named "" Powder - Tower "" of the type "" Tower "" . Right ? +Grad G: This is the uh {disfmarker} what the action planner uses ? +Grad B: Right . Currently . +Grad G: This is {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Currently . +Grad G: And is that {disfmarker} and tha that 's changeable ? or not ? +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like are we adapting to it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} This is the output , sort of , of the natural language understanding , +Grad G: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: the input into the action planning , as it is now . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what we are going to do , we going to {disfmarker} and you can see here , and again for Johno please {disfmarker} please focus the shadow , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: um we 're gon uh uh here you have the action and the domain object and w and on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +Grad G: What did you think he was doing ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad E: A laser pointer would be most appropriate here I think . +Grad C: Yeah I {disfmarker} I um have {disfmarker} I have no {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Eee . +Grad B: Robert likes to be abstract and that 's what I just thought he was doing . +Grad G: You look up here . +Grad C: Sort of between here and here , +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: so as you can see this is on one level and we are going to add another um "" Struct "" , if you want , IE a rich action description on that level . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So in the future {disfmarker} +Grad G: So it 's just an additional information {disfmarker} +Grad C: Exactly . In the future though , the content of a hypothesis will not only be an object and an {disfmarker} an action and a domain object but an action , a domain object , and a rich action description , +Grad G: Right ? that doesn't hurt the current way . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Which {disfmarker} which we 're abbreviating as "" RAD "" . +Grad C: which is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Good . +Grad E: Rad ! +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad F: So um you had like an action schema and a Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Hmm . Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: right ? So how does this Source - Path - Goal schema fit into the uh action schema ? Like is it one of the tags there ? +Grad G: Yeah can you go back to that one ? +Grad B: So the Source - Path - Goal schema in this case , I 've {disfmarker} if I understand how we described {disfmarker} we set this up , um cuz we 've been arguing about it all week , but uh we 'll hold the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Well in this case it will hold the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} the features I guess . I 'm not {disfmarker} it 's hard for me to exactly s So basically that will store the {disfmarker} the object that is w the Source will store the object that we 're going from , the Goal will store the {disfmarker} the f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So the fillers of the role source . +Grad B: we 'll fill those in fill those roles in , right ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: The S Action - schemas basically have extra {disfmarker} See we {disfmarker} so those are {disfmarker} schemas exist because in case we need extra information instead of just making it an attribute and which {disfmarker} which is just one thing we {disfmarker} we decided to make it 's own entity so that we could explode it out later on in case there is some structure that {disfmarker} that we need to exploit . +Grad G: OK , so th sorry I just don't kn um um um {disfmarker} This is just uh XML mo notational but um the fact that it 's action schema and then sort of slash action schema that 's a whole entit +Grad B: That 's a block , yeah . +Grad G: That 's a block , whereas source is just an attribute ? +Grad C: No , no , no . +Grad G: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Source is just not spelled out here . Source meaning {disfmarker} Source will be uh will have a name , a type , maybe a dimensionality , +Grad G: Oh , OK , OK . +Grad C: maybe canonical uh orientation {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh - huh , uh - huh . OK could it {disfmarker} it could also be blocked out then as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: s Source it will be , you know we 'll f we know a lot about sources so we 'll put all of that in Source . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: But it 's independent whether we are using the SPG schema in an Enter , View , or Approach mode , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: This is just properties of the SPG {comment} schema . We can talk about Paths being the fastest , the quickest , the nicest and so forth , uh or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and the Trajector should be coming in there as well . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And then G the same about Goals . +Grad G: OK . So I guess the question is when you actually fill one of these out , it 'll be under action schema ? Those are {disfmarker} It 's gonna be one {disfmarker} y you 'll pick one of those for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad G: OK these are {disfmarker} this is just a layout of the possible that could go {disfmarker} play that role . +Grad B: Right , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the roles will be filled in with the schema +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: OK , go it . Uh - huh . +Grad B: and then what actual a action is chosen is {disfmarker} will be in the {disfmarker} in the action schema section . +Grad G: OK . OK . S S OK , so one question . This was {disfmarker} in this case it 's all um clear , sort of obvious , but you can think of the Enter , View and Approach as each having their roles , right ? the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's implicit that the person that 's moving is doing entering viewing and approaching , but you know the usual thing is we have bindings between sort of {disfmarker} they 're sort of like action specific roles and the more general Source - Path - Goal specific roles . So are we worrying about that or not for now ? +Grad C: Yes , yes . Since you bring it up now , we will worry about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Tell us more about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: What do you {disfmarker} what do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? Oh I guess it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I may be just um reading this and interpreting it into my head in the way that I 've always viewed things +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad G: and {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you guys intended . But if it is , then the top block is sort of like um , you know , you have to list exactly what X - schema or in this action schema , there 'll be a certain one , that has its own s structure and maybe it has stuff about that specific to entering or viewing or approaching , but those could include roles like the thing that you 're viewing , the thing that you 're entering , the thing that you 're +Grad E: So very specific role names are "" viewed thing "" , "" entered thing "" {disfmarker} +Grad G: whatever , you know , that {disfmarker} which are {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} think of enter , view and approach as frames +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: and they have frame - specific parameters and {disfmarker} and roles +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and you can also describe them in a general way as Source - Path - Goal schema and maybe there 's other image schemas that you could you know add after this that you know , how do they work in terms of you know a force dynamics +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm . +Grad G: or how do they work in f terms of other things . So all of those have um basically f either specific {disfmarker} frame specific roles or more general frame specific roles that might have binding . So the question is are um {disfmarker} how to represent when things are linked in a certain way . So we know for Enter that there 's Container potentially involved +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and it 's not {disfmarker} uh I don't know if you wanna have in the same level as the action schema SPG schema it {disfmarker} it 's somewhere in there that you need to represent that there is some container and the interior of it corresponds to some part of the Source - Path - Goal um you know goal {disfmarker} uh goal I guess in this case . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So uh is there an easy way in this notation to show when there 's identity basically between things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and I di don't know if that 's something we need to invent or you know just {disfmarker} +Grad B: The {disfmarker} wa wasn't there supposed to be a link in the +Grad F: Right . +Grad B: I don't know if this answers your question , I was just staring at this while you were talking , sorry . +Grad G: It 's OK . +Grad B: Uh a link between the action schema , a field in the s in the schema for the image schemas that would link us to which action schema we were supposed to use so we could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Um , well that 's {disfmarker} that 's one {disfmarker} one thing is that we can link up , think also that um we can have one or m as many as we want links from {disfmarker} from the schema up to the s action um description of it . +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: But the notion I got from Nancy 's idea was that we may f find sort of concepts floating around i in the a action description of the action f "" Enter "" frame up there that are , e when you talk about the real world , actually identical to the goal of the {disfmarker} the S Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Exactly . Right , right . +Grad C: and do we have means of {disfmarker} of telling it within that a and the answer is absolutely . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: The way {disfmarker} we absolutely have those means that are even part of the M - three - L A API , +Grad G: Yeah . Oh great . s Uh - huh . +Grad C: meaning we can reference . So meaning {disfmarker} +Grad G: Great . That 's exactly what is necessary . +Grad B: Yeah . St +Grad C: And um . This referencing thing however is of temporary nature because sooner or later the W - three - C will be finished with their X - path , uh , um , specification and then it 's going to be even much nicer . Then we have real means of pointing at an individual instantiation of one of our elements here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and link it to another one , and this not only within a document but also via documents , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and all in a v very easy e homogenous framework . +Grad G: So you know {disfmarker} happen to know how {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what "" sooner or later "" means like in practice ? +Grad C: That 's but it 's soon . +Grad G: Or estimated . OK , OK . +Grad C: So it 's g it 's {disfmarker} the spec is there and it 's gonna part of the M - three - L AP {disfmarker} API filed by the end of this year so that this means we can start using it basically now . But this is a technical detail . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So a pointer {disfmarker} a way to really say pointers . +Grad B: Basically references from the roles in the schema {disfmarker} the bottom schemas to the action schemas is wha uh I 'm assuming . +Grad G: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean personally , I 'm looking even more forward to the day when we 're going to have X forms , which l is a form of notation where it allows you to say that if the SPG action up there is Enter , then the goal type can never be a statue . +Grad G: OK . Uh - huh . Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So you have constraints that are dependent on the c actual s specific filler , uh , of some attribute . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . W Yeah e exactly . Um , you know this , of course , does not make sense in light of the Statue of Liberty , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: however {vocalsound} it is uh you know sort of {disfmarker} these sort of things are imaginable . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Tsk . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah ? +Grad F: S So um , like are you gonna have similar schemas for FM +Grad G: Or the Gateway Arch in St . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Louis . So . +Grad F: like forced motion and caused action and stuff like you have for SPG ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad F: And if so like can {disfmarker} are you able to enforce that you know if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's SPG action then you have that schema , if it 's a forced motion then you have the other schema present in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um we have absolute {disfmarker} No . We have absolutely no means of enforcing that , so it would be considered valid if we have an SPG action "" Enter "" and no SPG schema , but a forced action schema . Could happen . +Grad G: Whi - which is not bad , because I mean , that there 's multiple sens I mean that particular case , there 's mult there {disfmarker} there 's a forced side of {disfmarker} of that verb as well . +Grad C: Hmm . It {disfmarker} maybe it means we had nothing to say about the Source - Path - Goal . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: What 's also nice , and for a i for me in my mind it 's {disfmarker} it 's crucially necessary , is that we can have multiple schemas and multiple action schemas in parallel . +Grad F: Right . +Grad C: And um we started thinking about going through our bakery questions , so when I say "" is there a bakery here ? "" you know I do ultimately want our module to be able to first of all f tell the rest of the system "" hey this person actually wants to go there "" and "" B "" , {comment} that person actually wants to buy something to eat there . Nuh ? And if these are two different schemas , IE the Source - Path - Goal schema of getting there and then the buying snacks schema , nuh ? {disfmarker} +Grad G: Would they both be listed here in {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +Grad G: OK . Under so o under action schema there 's a list that can include both {disfmarker} both things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: ye Yeah , they they would {disfmarker} both schemas would appear , so what is the uh is {disfmarker} is there a "" buying s snacks "" schema ? +Grad E: Snack action . +Grad G: That 's interesting . +Grad C: What is the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have +Grad G: What ? +Grad C: the buying snack schema ? +Grad E: See . +Undergrad D: Buying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} buying his food {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm sure there 's a commercial event schema in there somewhere . +Grad G: Oop . I {vocalsound} d f +Grad C: Yeah , a "" commercial event "" or something . +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah ? So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we would {disfmarker} we would instantiate the SPG schema with a Source - Path - Goal blah - blah - blah +Grad G: I see . +Grad C: and the buying event you know at which {disfmarker} however that looks like , the place f thing to buy . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . Interesting . Would you say that the {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} I mean you could have a flat structure and just say these are two independent things , but there 's also this sort of like causal , well , so one is really facilitating the other and it 's part of a compound action of some kind , which has structure . +Grad C: Yeah . Now it 's technically possible that you can fit schema within schema , and schema within schemata {disfmarker} +Grad G: uh I {disfmarker} I think that 's nicer for a lot of reasons but might be a pain so uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: um Well , for me it seems that uh {disfmarker} r Yes . +Grad G: I mean there are truly times when you have two totally independent goals that they might express at once , but in this case it 's really like there 's a purpo means that you know f for achieving some other purpose . +Grad C: Well , if I 'm {disfmarker} if I 'm recipient of such a message and I get a Source - Path - Goal where the goal is a bakery and then I get a commercial action which takes place in a bakery , right ? and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and they {disfmarker} they are obviously , via identifiers , identified to be the same thing here . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . See that {disfmarker} that bothers me that they 're the same thing . +Grad C: No , no , just the {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad G: Yeah because they 're two different things one of which is l you could think of one a sub you know pru whatever pre - condition for the second . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah ! +Grad G: Right . Yeah , yeah . So . So . OK . So there 's like levels of granularity . So uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's um a single event of which they are both a part . And they 're {disfmarker} independently they {disfmarker} they are events which have very different characters as far as Source - Path - Goal whatever . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: So when you identify Source - Path - Goal and whatever , there 's gonna to be a desire , whatever , eating , hunger , whatever other frames you have involved , they have to match up in {disfmarker} in nice ways . So it seems like each of them has its own internal structure and mapping to these schemas +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know from the other {disfmarker} But you know that 's just {disfmarker} That 's just me . +Grad C: Well , I think we 're gonna hit a lot of interesting problems +Grad G: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: and as I prefaced it this is the result of one week of arguing {vocalsound} about it +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Between you guys +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: uh +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah I mean I {disfmarker} I still am not entirely sure that I really fully grasp the syntax of this . +Grad B: Well it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually a very {disfmarker} actually , it doesn't actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um it occur {disfmarker} it occurs to me that I mean ne +Grad E: You know , like what {disfmarker} Right . Or the intended interpretation of this . +Grad C: um well I should have {disfmarker} we should have added an ano an XML example , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: or some XML examples +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: yeah that would be {disfmarker} that would be nice . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and this is on {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on my list of things until next {disfmarker} next week . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: It 's also a question of the recursiveness and {disfmarker} and a hier hierarchy um in there . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Do we want the schemas just blump blump blump blump ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} if we can actually you know get it so that we can , out of one utterance , activate more than one schema , I mean , then we 're already pretty good , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well you have to be careful with that uh uh thing because uh {vocalsound} I mean many actions presuppose some {disfmarker} um almost {vocalsound} infinitely many other actions . So if you go to a bakery {pause} you have a general intention of uh not being hungry . +Grad G: Yeah . Mayb - yeah . +PhD A: You have a specific intentions to cross the traffic light to get there . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You have a further specific intentions to left {disfmarker} to lift your right foot +Grad C: Hmm ? +PhD A: and so uh uh I mean y you really have to focus on on {disfmarker} on +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and decide the level of {disfmarker} of abstraction that {disfmarker} that you aim at it kind of zero in on that , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and more or less ignore the rest , unless there is some implications that {disfmarker} that you want to constant draw from {disfmarker} from sub - tasks um that are relevant uh I mean but very difficult . +Grad G: M Th The other thing that I just thought of is that you could want to go to the bakery because you 're supposed to meet your friend there or som +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know so you {disfmarker} like being able to infer the second thing is very useful and probably often right . +Grad B: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the utterance was "" is there a bakery around here ? "" , +Grad G: But having them separate {disfmarker} +Grad B: not "" I want to go to a bakery . "" +Grad G: Well maybe their friend said they were going to meet them in a bakery around the area . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: And I 'm , yeah {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm inventing contexts which are maybe unlikely , +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Sure it {disfmarker} OK . Yeah . +Grad G: but yeah I mean like {disfmarker} but it 's still the case that um you could {disfmarker} you could override that default by giving extra information +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: which is to me a reason why you would keep the inference of that separate from the knowledge of "" OK they really want to know if there 's a bakery around here "" , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: which is direct . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there should never be a hard coded uh {vocalsound} shortcut from {pause} the bakery question to the uh double schema thing , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: how uh {disfmarker} And , as a matter of fact , when I have traveled with my friends we make these {disfmarker} exactly these kinds of appointments . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: We o o +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Exactly . It 's {disfmarker} I met someone at the bakery you know in the Victoria Station t you know {vocalsound} train station London before , +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD A: Well . I have a question about the slot of the SPG action . +Grad G: yeah . It 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {vocalsound} the Enter - View - Approach the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the EVA um , those are fixed slots in this particular action . Every action of this kind will have a choice . Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or will it just um uh {disfmarker} is it change {disfmarker} +Grad E: Every SPG {disfmarker} every SPG action either is an Enter or a View or an Approach , +PhD A: Right , right . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: right ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I mean for {disfmarker} for each particular action that you may want to characterize you would have some number of slots that define uh uh uh you know in some way what this action is all about . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It can be either A , B or C . Um . So is it a fixed number or {disfmarker} or do you leave it open {disfmarker} it could be between one and fifteen uh {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's flexible . +Grad C: Um , the uh {disfmarker} Well , it sort of depends on {disfmarker} on if you actually write down the {disfmarker} the schema then you have to say it 's either one of them or it can be none , or it can be any of them . However the uh {disfmarker} it seems to be sensible to me to r to view them as mutually exclusive um maybe even not . +Grad G: J Do you mean within the Source - Path - Goal actions ? +PhD A: uh {vocalsound} ye uh uh b I uh I {disfmarker} u I understand +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Those three ? +PhD A: uh but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um how {disfmarker} how where is the end ? So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , no . There {disfmarker} a a actually by I think my question is simpler than that , um {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} OK , so you have an SPG action and {disfmarker} and it has three different um uh aspects um because you can either enter a building or view it or {disfmarker} or approach it and touch it or something . Um now you define uh another action , it 's {disfmarker} it 's called um uh s S P G - one +Grad C: Forced action or forced motion . Yeah . +PhD A: action a different action . Um and this {disfmarker} uh action - two would have various variable possibilities of interpreting what you would like to do . And {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} in a way similar to either Enter - View - Approach you may want to send a letter , read a letter , or dictate a letter , let 's say . So , h +Grad B: Oh the {disfmarker} OK uh maybe I 'd {disfmarker} The uh {disfmarker} These actions {disfmarker} I don't know if I 'm gonna answer your question or not with this , but the categories inside of action schemas , so , SPG action is a category . Real although I think what we 're specifying here is this is a category where the actions "" enter , view and approach "" would fall into because they have a related Source - Path - Goal schema in our tourist domain . Cuz viewing in a tourist domain is going up to it and {disfmarker} or actually going from one place to another to take a picture , in this {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Oh , s so it 's sort of automatic derived fr from the structure that {disfmarker} that is built elsewhere . +Grad B: derived I don't know if I u +Grad E: This is a cate this a category structure here , +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: right ? Action schema . What are some types of action schemas ? Well one of the types of action schemas is Source - Path - Goal action . And what are some types of that ? And an Enter , a View , an Approach . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Those are all Source - Path - Goal actions . +Grad B: Inside of Enter there will be roles that can be filled basically . So if I want to go from outside to inside {vocalsound} then you 'd have the roles that need to filled , where you 'd have a Source - Path - Goal set of roles . So you 'd the Source would be outside and Path is to the door or whatever , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So if you wanted to have a new type of action you 'd create a new type of category . Then this category would {disfmarker} we would put it {disfmarker} or not necessarily {disfmarker} We would put a new action in the m uh in the categories that {disfmarker} in which it has the um {disfmarker} Well , every action has a set of related schemas like Source - Path - Goal or force , whatever , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So we would put "" write a letter "" in the categories uh that {disfmarker} in which it had {disfmarker} it w had uh schemas u +Grad E: There could be a communication event action or something like that +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Schemas uh that of that type . +Grad E: and you could write it . +Grad B: And then later , you know , there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we have a communication event action where we 'd define it down there as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . So there 's a bit a redundancy , right ? in {disfmarker} in which the things that go into a particular {disfmarker} You have categories at the top under action schema and the things that go under a particular category are um supposed to have a corresponding schema definition for that type . So I guess what 's the function of having it up there too ? I mean I guess I 'm wondering whether {disfmarker} You could just have under action schema you could just sort of say whatever you know it 's gonna be Enter , View or Approach or whatever number of things +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and pos partly because you need to know somewhere that those things fall into some categories . And it may be multiple categories as you say which is um the reason why it gets a little messy +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: um but if it has {disfmarker} if it 's supposed to be categorized in category X then the corresponding schema X will be among the structures that {disfmarker} that follow . +Grad B: Right . Well , this is one of things we were arguing about . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: That 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: th this is {disfmarker} this r +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad C: this is {disfmarker} this is more {disfmarker} this is probably the way that th that 's the way that seemed more intuitive to Johno I guess +Grad G: You didn't tell me to {disfmarker} +Grad C: also for a while {disfmarker} for +Grad G: Uh - huh . But now you guys have seen the light . +Grad C: No , no , no . Uh we have not {disfmarker} we have not seen the light . +Grad B: No . +Grad G: So . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} One reason we 're doing it this way is in case there 's extra structure that 's in the Enter action that 's not captured by the schemas , +Grad G: I it 's easy to go back and forth isn't it ? Uh - huh . I agree . Right . Right . +Grad B: right ? +Grad G: Which is why I would think you would say Enter and then just say all the things that are relevant specifically to Enter . And then the things that are abstract will be in the abstract things as well . And that 's why the bindings become useful . +Grad B: Right , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Ri - You 'd like {disfmarker} so you 're saying you could practically turn this structure inside out ? or something , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: Um Ye - I see what you mean by that , +Grad C: No basically w +Grad G: but I {disfmarker} I don't if I would {disfmarker} I would need to have t have that . +Grad C: Get {disfmarker} get rid of the sort of SPG slash something uh or the sub - actions category , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: because what does that tell us ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad C: Um and I agree that you know this is something we need to discuss , +Grad G: I in fact what you could say is for Enter , +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: you could say "" here , list all the kinds of schemas that {disfmarker} on the category that {disfmarker} +Grad E: List all the parent categories . +Grad G: you know i list all the parent categories "" . It 's just like a frame hierarchy , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: like you have these blended frames . So you would say enter and you 'd say my parent frames are such - and - such , h and then those are the ones that actually you then actually define and say how the roles bind to your specific roles which will probably be f richer and fuller and have other stuff in there . +Grad E: Yeah . This sounds like a paper I 've read around here recently in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah it could {vocalsound} be not a coincidence . Like I said , I 'm sure I 'm just hitting everything with a hammer that I developed , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: but I mean you know uh it 's {disfmarker} I 'm just telling you what I think , you just hit the button and it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , I guess fr uh +Grad E: Yeah I mean but there 's a good question here . Like , I mean uh do you {disfmarker} When do you need {disfmarker} Damn this headset ! When you this uh , eh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Metacomment . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} That 's all recorded . Um . Why do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: "" Damn this project . "" No just kidding . +Grad E: I don't know . Like {disfmarker} How do I {disfmarker} how do I come at this question ? Um . I just don't see why you would {disfmarker} I mean does th Who uses this uh {disfmarker} this data structure ? You know ? Like , do you say "" alright I 'm going to uh {disfmarker} {pause} do an SPG action "" . And then you know somebody ne either the computer or the user says "" alright , well , I know I want to do a Source - Path - Goal action so what are my choices among that ? "" And "" oh , OK , so I can do an Enter - View - Approach "" . It 's not like that , right ? It 's more like you say "" I want to , uh {disfmarker} {pause} I want to do an Enter . "" +Grad B: Well only one of {disfmarker} +Grad E: And then you 're more interested in knowing what the parent categories are of that . Right ? So that the um {disfmarker} the uh sort of representation that you were just talking about seems more relevant to the kinds of things you would have to do ? +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if I understand your question . Only one of those things are gonna be lit up when we pass this on . So only Enter will be {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: if we {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our module decided that Enter is the case , View and Approach will not be there . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad C: Well {vocalsound} uh it 's {disfmarker} it sort of came into my mind that sometimes even two could be on , and would be interesting . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: um nevertheless um +Grad E: Mayb - Well maybe I 'm not understanding where this comes from and where this goes to . +Grad B: Well in that case , we can't {disfmarker} we can't w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad C: l let 's {disfmarker} let 's not {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: well the thing is if that 's the case we {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} I don't think our system can handle that currently . +Grad E: What are we doing with this ? +Grad C: No , not at all . But {disfmarker} U s {vocalsound} t So {disfmarker} +Grad E: In principle . +Grad G: "" Approach and then enter . "" +Grad C: the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} in some sense we {disfmarker} we ex get the task done extremely well +Grad G: Run like this uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: because this is exactly the discussion we need {disfmarker} need . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Period . No more qualifiers than that . So . +Grad G: No , this is the useful , +Grad C: and um and {disfmarker} and I th I hope +Grad G: you know , don don't worry . +Grad C: um uh let 's make a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sharper claim . We will not end this discussion anytime soon . +Grad G: Yeah , I can guarantee that . +Grad C: And it 's gonna get more and more complex the {disfmarker} the l complexer and larger our domains get . +Grad E: Sigh . +Grad C: And I think um we will have all of our points in writing pretty soon . So this is nice about being being recorded also . The um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Undergrad D: That 's true . +Grad B: The r uh the {disfmarker} in terms of why is {disfmarker} it 's laid out like this versus some other {disfmarker} +Grad C: the people {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: um that 's kind of a contentious point between the two of us but {vocalsound} this is one wa so this is a way to link uh the way these roles are filled out to the action . +Grad E: In my view . +Grad B: Because if we know that Enter is a t is an SPG action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: we know to look for an SPG schema and put the appropriate {disfmarker} fill in the appropriate roles later on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: And you could have also indicated that by saying "" Enter , what are the kinds of action I am ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right ? So there 's just like sort of reverse organization , right ? So like unless @ @ {disfmarker} Are there reasons why one is better than the other I mean that come from other sources ? +Grad E: Again {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes because nobod no the modules don't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . uh +Grad C: This is {disfmarker} this is a schema that defines XML messages that are passed from one module to another , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: mainly meaning from the natural language understanding , or from the deep language understanding to the action planner . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Now the {disfmarker} the reason for {disfmarker} for not using this approach is because you always will have to go back , each module will try {disfmarker} have to go back to look up which uh you know entity can have which uh , you know , entity can have which parents , and then {disfmarker} So you always need the whole body of {disfmarker} of y your model um to figure out what belongs to what . Or you always send it along with it , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: nuh ? So you always send up "" here I am {disfmarker} I am this person , and I can have these parents "" in every message . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: which e +Grad G: OK , so it 's just like a pain to have to send it . +Grad C: It may or may not be a just a pain it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I 'm completely willing to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to throw all of this away +Grad G: OK , I understand . +Grad C: and completely redo it , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: you know and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it after some iterations we may just do that . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I would just like to ask um like , if it could happen for next time , I mean , just beca cuz I 'm new +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and I don't really just {disfmarker} I just don't know what to make of this and what this is for , and stuff like that , you know , so if someone could make an example of what would actually be in it , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad E: like first of all what modules are talking to each other using this , +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} I will promise for the next time to have fleshed out N {comment} XML examples for a {disfmarker} a run through and {disfmarker} and see how this {disfmarker} this then translates , +Grad E: right ? And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: and how this can come about , +Grad G: Be great . +Grad C: nuh ? including the sort of "" miracle occurs here "" um part . +Grad E: Right . +Grad C: And um is there more to be said ? I think um {disfmarker} In principle what I {disfmarker} I think that this approach does , and e e whether or not we take the Enter - View and we all throw up {disfmarker} up the ladder um wha how do how does Professor Peter call that ? +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: The uh hhh , {comment} silence su sublimination ? Throwing somebody up the stairs ? Have you never read the Peter 's Principle anyone here ? +Grad E: Nope . +PhD A: Oh , uh +Grad F: People reach their level of uh max their level of {disfmarker} at which they 're incompetent or whatever . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Maximum incompetence +PhD A: Yeah . Right , right . +Grad C: and then you can throw them up the stairs +Grad E: Alright . +Grad G: Oh ! +Grad C: um . Yeah . +PhD A: Promote them , yeah . +Grad C: OK , so we can promote Enter - View all {disfmarker} all up a bit and and get rid of the uh blah - blah - X - blah uh asterisk sub - action item altogether . No {disfmarker} no problem with that +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: and we {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} we will play around with all of them but the principal distinction between having the {disfmarker} the pure schema and their instantiations on the one hand , and adding some whatever , more intention oriented specification um on parallel to that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} this approach seems to be uh workable to me . I don't know . If you all share that opinion then that made my day much happier . +Grad B: This is a simple way to basically link uh roles to actions . +Grad G: Uh yeah wait {disfmarker} R Yeah , yeah . That 's fine . +Grad B: That 's the {disfmarker} that was the intent of {disfmarker} of it , basically . +Grad E: Sure . Sure . +Grad G: Uh that 's true . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Although um roles {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I {disfmarker} I do I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm never happy when he uses the word "" roles "" , +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . I was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I b I mean ROLLS so +Grad G: Bread rolls ? +Grad E: Oh you meant pastries , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , pastries is what I 'm talking about . +Grad G: Pastry oh ba oh the bak bakery example . +Undergrad D: Bakery . Bakery . +Grad E: This is the bakery example . Got it . Alright . +Grad G: I see . Right . OK . +Grad E: Help ! +Grad G: I guess I 'll agree to that , then . +Grad C: OK . That 's all I have for today . Oh no , there 's one more issue . Bhaskara brought that one up . Meeting time rescheduling . +Grad G: I n Didn't you say something about Friday , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} ? Hmm . +Grad C: So it looks like you have not been partaking , the Monday at three o ' clock time has turned out to be not good anymore . So people have been thinking about an alternative time and the one we came up with is Friday two - thirty ? three ? What was it ? +Grad B: You have class until two , right ? so if we don't want him {disfmarker} if we don't want him to run over here +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Two - th Two - thirty - ish or three or Friday at three or something around that time . +Grad G: So do I . Yeah . +Grad B: two thirty - ish or three is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . e +Grad C: Um how {disfmarker} how are your {disfmarker} +Grad G: That would be good . +PhD A: uh Friday uh Yeah , that 's fine . +Grad C: And I know that you have until three {disfmarker} You 're busy ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: So three is {disfmarker} sounds good ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: I 'll be free by then . +Grad E: I could do that . Yeah I mean earlier on Friday is better but three {disfmarker} you know I mean {disfmarker} if it were a three or a three thirty time then I would take the three or whatever , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but yeah sure three is fine . +Grad C: Yeah , and you can always make it shortly after three probably . +Grad E: I mean . +Undergrad D: Yeah , and I don't need to be here particularly deeply . +Grad C: Often , no , but uh , +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad C: whenever . +Undergrad D: But yeah . +Grad C: You are more than welcome if you think that this kind of discussion gets you anywhere in {disfmarker} in your life then uh you 're free to c +Undergrad D: It 's fascinating . +Grad G: "" That 's the right answer . "" +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that I don't have to work it out +Grad C: +Undergrad D: because . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that don't have to work it out myself , that I 'm not involved at all in the working out of it because . +Grad C: Uh but you 're a linguist . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: You should {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh yeah . That 's why I 'm glad that I 'm not involved in working it out . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So it 's at Friday at three ? there that 's +Grad C: And um +Grad E: So already again this week , +Grad C: How diligent do we feel ? +Grad E: huh ? +Grad C: Yeah . Do feel that we have done our chores for this week or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . So I mean clearly there 's {disfmarker} I can talk about the um the parser changes on Friday at least , +Grad C: OK , Bhaskara will do the big show on Friday . +Grad F: so . +Grad G: And you guys will argue some more ? +Grad B: And between now and then yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Between now and then . +Grad G: and have some ? +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} r +Grad E: Promise ? +Grad G: probably . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: We will . Don't worry . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: And we 'll get the summary like , this {disfmarker} the c you know , short version , like {disfmarker} +PhD A: An - and I would like to second Keith 's request . +Grad G: S +PhD A: An example wo would be nice t to have kind of a detailed example . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yes . I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I guess I 'm on record for promising that now . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like have it {disfmarker} we 'll have it in writing . So . or , better , speech . So . +Grad C: This is it and um +Grad B: The other good thing about it is Jerry can be on here on Friday and he can weigh in as well . +Grad C: Yeah . and um if you can get that binding point also maybe with a nice example that would be helpful for Johno and me . +Grad G: Oh yeah uh OK . let 's uh yeah they 're {disfmarker} +Grad C: Give us {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No problem , +Grad E: I think you 've got one on hand , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad E: huh ? +Grad G: I have several in my head , yeah . Always thinking about binding . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the binding is technically no problem but it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it seems to be conceptually important that we find out if we can s if {disfmarker} if there {disfmarker} if there are things in there that are sort of a general nature , we should distill them out and put them where the schemas are . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If there are things that you know are intention - specific , then we should put them up somewhere , a +Grad G: So , in general they 'll be bindings across both intentions and the actions . +Grad C: Yep . That 's wonderful . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's gen it 's general across all of these things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: it 's like {disfmarker} I mean Shastri would say you know binding is like {vocalsound} an essential cognitive uh process . So . {vocalsound} Um . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: So I don't think it will be isolated to one or the two , but you can definitely figure out where {disfmarker} Yeah , sometimes things belong and {disfmarker} So actually I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I would be curious to see how separate the intention part and the action part are in the system . Like I know the whole thing is like intention lattice , or something like that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: right ? So is the ri right now are the ideas the rich {disfmarker} rich the RAD or whatever is one you know potential block inside intention . It 's still {disfmarker} it 's still mainly intention hypothesis +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: and then that 's just one way to describe the {disfmarker} the action part of it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: It 's an a attempt to refine it basically . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} And yeah , +Grad G: OK , great uh - huh . +Grad C: it 's an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Not just that you want to go from here to here , it 's that the action is what you intend +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and this action consists of all com complicated modules and image schemas and whatever . +Grad C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and there will be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a relatively high level of redundancy +Grad G: So . +Grad C: in the sense that um ultimately one {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . which is , yeah , It 's fine +Grad C: so th so that if we want to get really cocky we we will say "" well if you really look at it , you just need our RAD . "" You can throw the rest away , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because you 're not gonna get anymore information out of the action a as you find it there in the domain object . +Grad G: Right . Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But then again um in this case , the domain object may contain information that we don't really care about either . So . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: H But w we 'll see that then , and how {disfmarker} how it sort of evolves . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I mean if {disfmarker} if people really like our {disfmarker} our RAD , I mean w what might happen is that they will get rid of that action thing completely , you know , and leave it up for us to get the parser input um +Grad G: Mmm . We know the things that make use of this thing so that we can just change them so that they make use of RAD . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You don't have to use the acronym . +Grad G: I can't believe we 're using this term . So I 'm like RAD ! Like every time I say it , it 's horrible . OK . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I see what you mean . +Grad B: RAD 's a great term . +Grad G: Is the {disfmarker} But what is the "" why "" ? +Grad E: It 's rad , even ! +Grad B: Why ? +Grad G: Why ? +Grad E: It happened to c be what it stands for . +Grad B: It just happened to be the acronym . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} doesn't make it a great term . It 's just like those jokes where you have to work on both levels . +Grad C: ye no but i +Undergrad D: Just think of it as {disfmarker} as "" wheel "" in German . +Grad C: but if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you work in th in that XML community it is a great acronym +Grad G: Do you see what I mean ? Like +Grad C: because it e evokes whatever RDF {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: RDF is the biggest thing right ? That 's the rich {disfmarker} sort of "" Resource Description Framework "" +Grad E: Oh "" rich de "" +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} So , description , having the word d term "" description "" in there is wonderful , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh "" rich "" is also great , rwww . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: Who doesn't like to be a +Grad E: Everybody likes action . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Plus it 's hip . The kids 'll like it . +Grad G: But what if it 's not an action ? +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's rad , +Undergrad D: Yeah all the kids 'll love it . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: And intentions will be "" RID "" ? Like , "" OK "" . Um are the {disfmarker} are the sample data that you guys showed sometime ago {disfmarker} like the things {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe you 're gonna run a trial tomorrow . I mean , I 'm just wondering whether the ac some the actual sentences from this domain will be available . Cuz it 'd be nice for me to like look if I 'm thinking about examples I 'm mostly looking at child language which you know will have some overlap but not total with the kinds of things that you guys are getting . So you showed some in this {disfmarker} here before +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and maybe you 've posted it before but where would I look if I want to see ? +Grad C: Oh I {disfmarker} You want audio ? +Grad G: You know . +Grad C: or do you want transcript ? +Grad G: No just {disfmarker} just transcript . +Grad C: Yeah , well just transcript is just not available because nobody has transcribed it yet . +Grad G: Sorry . +Grad C: Um I can e I can uh I 'll transcribe it though . +Grad G: Oh , OK . I take that back then . +Grad C: It 's no problem . +Grad G: OK , well don't {disfmarker} don't make it a high priority {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} In fact if you just tell me like you know like two examples +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I mean , y The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the representational problems are {disfmarker} I 'm sure , will be there , +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: like enough for me to think about . So . +Grad C: OK , so Friday , whoever wants and comes , and can . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: This Friday . +Grad G: Here . OK . +Grad C: The big parser show . Now you can all turn off your {disfmarker} +","The dialog recorded above is a rich and multifaceted group discussion among graduate students (Grad G, Grad B, Grad C, and others), undergraduates (Undergrad D), and a PhD holder (PhD A) in a research or academic setting. The interaction occurs in a casual and often technical manner, covering a variety of topics related to their joint project, with particular emphasis on the challenges and intricacies of developing and refining a structured data schema. + +The conversation opens with a focus on reference and recognition among the members, touching on past interactions and the shared history of the group. Grad C takes the initiative to steer the discussion toward academic work, highlighting the contributions and roles of various group members. This includes those engaged in specific activities reported in the meeting, newcomers being welcomed into the fold, and a humorous note on self-acknowledgment. + +The dialog introduces a specific academic topic: the development of a detailed schema for organizing actions into categories, often within the context of natural language understanding or a related field in artificial intelligence or computational linguistics. This schema involves segregating actions into different types (e.g., Enter, View, Approach), based on the underlying Source-Path-Goal (SPG) concept as well as possibly additional schemas like Forced Motion (FM) or Caused Action. Discussions become particularly technical when deliberating on how these categories relate to a user's or system's intentions and how they should be represented in the data structure—specifically, in an XML schema. + +Several team members, including Grad G and PhD A, raise questions regarding the necessity, utility, and potential hierarchy of the categories proposed in the schema, such as whether the SPG action should inherently define Enter, View, and Approach actions. The debate delves into the conceptual separation between the schema definitions and the rich action descriptions (RAD), suggesting that the latter offers a refined interpretation related to the user's intentions and how they tie into the action planning mechanisms of the model. + +The discourse is peppered with methodological issues, terminology selection (e.g., RAD), and the occasional need to resolve ambiguities and misunderstandings, demonstrating the group's collaborative approach. Conversational dynamics range from the assertion of ideas to the absorption of feedback and the recognition of areas needing further debate and exploration. + +Toward the end of the discussion, practical matters take precedence, such as scheduling future meetings and the need for tangible examples to illustrate the abstract concepts discussed. The group agrees on shifting their meeting time to accommodate members' schedules, committing to the new proposed time of Friday at three o'clock. + +This summary provides a snapshot of the complex, dynamic process these researchers undergo in their intellectual pursuit to create a functional, precise model for data representation within their project's goals. Their collaborative approach, willingness to question and refine their work, and the technical depth of their conversation reflect the challenging nature of academic research and development in computational linguistics." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , well I think we're ready to begin . Right , my name's Adam Duguid , we're here because of real reaction , um , we have in the group +Marketing: Oh , Ebenezer Ademesoye . Would you like me to spell that ? +Project Manager: Um , yeah , +Marketing: S +Project Manager: go for it mate . +Marketing: Um , N_E_Z_ +Project Manager: N_ E_ Z_ . +Marketing: E_R_ . +Project Manager: Ebenezer . And your role is ? +Marketing: I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: You're the Marketing Expert , okay . Next we have ? +Industrial Designer: Tarik Rahman . T_A_R_I_K_ . +Project Manager: T_ R_ I_ K_ . And your role in this is ? +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . And , lastly we have ? +User Interface: Uh , Dave Cochrane . +Project Manager: And you're going to be the User Interface , +User Interface: User Interface Defin Designer , yes . +Project Manager: is it ? Designer . Okay . Right . This is the agenda for today's meeting . As you can see , w opening , acquaintance , tool training , project plan discussion , and closing . Um , we already got n through opening , and partially through acquaintance . So , the reason we're here , we're gonna design a new remote control , as you probably all know . The very broad overview is original , trendy , and user-friendly . Course , we'll have to go into a bit more um detail than that , but uh {vocalsound} personally I think that the original is gonna be a very key aspect to this design . Um , there's a lot of remote controls out there anyway , so we're gonna need something that's really gonna set it apart . This is how today seems to be going to work . We're gonna have the three kay phases , as you've probably already been told , the functional , architectural , and the detailed design . Um {disfmarker} First one's gonna be covering the user requirement spec , technical functions , working design . Second seems to be conceptual components , properties , materials , and the last one is a detailed analysis of our design so far . Of course , you've all got the similar emails , I believe , right . {vocalsound} What can I say ? Ebenezer , you wanna have a {disfmarker} you wanna draw your favourite animal {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Whiteboard . 'Kay . S okay . I will make this quick , since we don't have much time . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} 'Kay , so it's not the best picture in the world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here we have an elephant . First point , begins with an E_ , same like Ebenezer . Also , elephants have a very good memory , much like myself , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I can't remember back when I used to live back in Nigeria , but I think I used to have a pet elephant . So elephants are big , strong and gentle , and they have great memories , and they begin with the letter E_ , just like Ebenezer . +Project Manager: Brilliantly done . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Tarik , would you like to have a shot at a bit of artistry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh , um , +Marketing: Oh . Oh {vocalsound} oh +Project Manager: you can clip them to your belt . +Industrial Designer: Do we take them off ? +Marketing: I think you ga +Industrial Designer: Oh right , +Project Manager: You should also l um have your {disfmarker} the lapel mic on as well . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: The little {disfmarker} The the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha . +Marketing: Oh that's good , we can clip them on . Okay . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now where do I put the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just um somewhere {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , the {gap} , it's just across there , that's it . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Is this supposed to be clipped as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: It'll follow you if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . There you go . +Project Manager: You can probably just stick it in your pocket for now , I wouldn't worry too much . Should have good range . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , destroying your elephant here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , here we have a tiger . Uh {disfmarker} I've always loved tigers . They're just {disfmarker} they're big , they're biggest cats , uh I did a project on cats in the wild when I was a kid and uh it was my favourite cat , just 'cause it was {disfmarker} looks the best , the stripes , orange . My dad used to talk about {disfmarker} he's from Bangladesh so he used to tell me all about them when he was {disfmarker} when I was a kid . And uh they're just the most feared of of uh animals in the wild . So uh that's why I like them . Didn't say an anything about me really but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent , thank you very much . Dave , if you'd like to uh have a dash . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , the monkey , um . The one f uh {disfmarker} in fact this is a {gap} somewhat oblique reference in fact to uh {disfmarker} well my {disfmarker} I have a three uh three y year old daughter who h who who who is affectionately known as Miss Monkey . Um , monkeys have attitude . Which I think is a good thing . And I mean fr {vocalsound} and from uh from the point of view of sort of the study of human evolution they and other primates are terribly interesting . Um , so I like monkeys . And and th th th th thi thi this one seems to have perhaps more attitude than most . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cheers . Hardly what I'd call the best drawing in the world but it'll do for now . Also not quite as feared as your average tiger , but uh cats are one of my favourite animals , they're very independent , they're snotty as hell at the best of times , and uh , what can you say , you got to love those qualities in an animal . Right . I think we've all managed to master the whiteboard there by looks of it , so , on to it . Project finance . As you can see , twelve point five Euros per unit . That's not a terrible lot as far as I'm aware , and we're hoping to sell them for twenty five . If we're aiming for fifty million Euros we're gonna have to be selling an awful lot of them . +Marketing: Oh , that was profiting , that was an amount , so that's the amount made , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: Well , fifty million , and if you're making twelve point five Euros on each one , then , awful lot need to be sold . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Now we better actually just get on with the uh the meat of the project . So I'm gonna guess that we've all used remote controls . Any ideas of where you think a new remote control could go into this market ? +User Interface: Well , one thing I'm aware of is , th there uh um at the sort of v very high price end of the market there's there's a em emerging market for sort of touch screen L_C_D_ remotes that can be uh programmed in m much more sophisticated ways than sort of conventional models , so you get the sort of you get um you {vocalsound} you can redesign the interface to your own needs , you can programme in macros , and you get a much greater degree um um I mean you get in these sort of {vocalsound} three in one , five in one , whatevers , but you can get integration between the different uh the the the diff the different things that it's designed to control , to a much greater extent , and you can have one uh you know one macro to turn the uh you know turn the T_V_ to the right channel , get the uh re uh rewind the tape in the V_C_R_ and get it to play once it's rewound , for instance . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um b it occurs to me there might be a niche for uh for a remote that aimed towards some of that sort of functionality but using a just conventional push button design . And therefore putting it into a um well much lower price bracket . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , tha that's true , with the price range we're looking at , going for a touch screen would probably be possibly out of our {disfmarker} +User Interface: Absolutely prohibitive , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But you think uh again something to control multiple units in uh a simple fashion . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean I wouldn't like to say you g {vocalsound} I mean you get ones that you can switch between multiple units , but something that could um operate between multiple units in a more integrated fashion . Some {gap} and ideally something into which it would have some at least limited facility for {vocalsound} um running macros . +Project Manager: Would the the idea something along the lines of , one on button would turn on say the video recorder , the T_V_ , maybe the sound system as well , all in one go , is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance , um let's say oh oh um , or um you know you pr uh you press uh say the play button for the D_V_D_ player and it turns the T_V_ on and onto the right channel as well , um +Project Manager: Okay , that sounds like a a good strong idea . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Any takes on this ? +Marketing: Well um I've noticed that uh gaming c is becoming quite popular with television , um when I was younger we used to e play games using our cable , using the cable subscribed the cable providers , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but our remote controls would get worn out really easily , and {vocalsound} the remote control was not a great kind of keyboar , um keypad , for playing games . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So perhaps one that was more um specialised for game playing or interactive television . They they've recently brought out this new remote control , for people to set their favourite channels , or um to record things . Instead of people entering in what time things start , you simply stri slide a bar to say what time it begins , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and slide another bar to say what time it ends , you know that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I've heard {disfmarker} I've seen the bar-code design before , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's taken out the {disfmarker} Y you don't have to be uh really clever to use a remote control . I think for gaming , you know you want you want some big buttons for up , down , left and right , shoot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , you wanna be able to change angles in interactive television , so you need buttons to change the television angle , the camera angles and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: we're beginning to run out of time now , so , we've got a couple of ideas , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} we'll have to work fast , um , alright as you can see we've got thirty minutes until the next meeting , so {vocalsound} we'll have to try and decide on some of the basic functionality , um , how the user interface might work , that'll be a key aspect especially if the idea of um some kind of macros facility because you have to program it , you have to have a lot of response back , or at least some kind . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And we're gonna maybe n try and have to figure out +Marketing: What the user wants uh . +Project Manager: what the user wants , yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , right . Has anybody got anything they'd like to add at this stage , anything they think that might have been missed so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well when you're talking about gaming and stuff , do you think they should have some sort of stick on it , rather than buttons ? +Marketing: Oh . Okay , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Like uh control pads , you know of games , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or is that a bit ridiculous ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I don't see why not , almost everybody is probably used to a console by now , and all of them incorporate small keypads on them , in fact even the mobile phones these days are beginning to use them as well , so it's probably an interface that most people are used to . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that could allow n easy navigation , used as a joystick as well . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . The other key feature that uh that would be a good idea built into it is t is is to make something you know fairly sort of ergonomic , something that just fits {vocalsound} fits as comfortably as possible into the hand . But of course , uh al al also allows for {gap} the possibility of a more sort of slightly unconventional or attractive uh sha shape for it overall , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So , +User Interface: A curve , +Project Manager: small , stylish , and something that's just a little different . +User Interface: mm-hmm . Something sort of sort of sl slightly sort of biomorphic in form , {vocalsound} uh which it would need to be to sort of conform to the shape of the hand more efficiently anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . That's definitely something that we should be able to do quite easily . I would I would have hoped so anyway . Um , right . I'd say we finish this one up , we get started , I'll get in , I'll write up what we've um kind of quickly done , and I'll get that out to everybody . Yeah ? +Marketing: 'Kay . So . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um , as far as I'm aware we leave the microphones here , um unless we get told otherwise , and just take the laptops with us . +","The meeting commenced with Project Manager Adam Duguid initiating introductions within the team congregated to pioneer the design of a new remote control. The innovation initiative, spearheaded by real reaction, was characterized by the need for an original, trendy, and user-friendly product—an imperative to distinguish the future gadget from the existing market saturation of remote controls. + +Ebenezer Ademesoye, the Marketing Expert in attendance, humorously aligned with the mnemonic strength and noble traits of an elephant during his introduction, drawing a playful parallel to his own memory abilities and a nostalgic connection to his past in Nigeria. Tarik Rahman, the Industrial Designer, shared his appreciation for tigers' aesthetics and predators’ reputations, recollecting personal childhood experiences related to cats. Dave Cochrane, focusing on User Interface Design, playfully alluded to his daughter's moniker ""Miss Monkey"" and showcased a fondness for primates' behavioral traits. + +The meeting progressed with the discussion of project logistics, including financial modeling and potential market innovations. A price point of 12.5 Euros per unit was put forward, with a sales target price of 25 Euros, underpinning the ambition to hit a revenue benchmark of fifty million Euros. Considering this financial framework, Adam indicated the necessity to sell a vast quantity of units to meet the revenue goal. + +The team transitioned into a brainstorming session, exploring the need for innovative design features to secure a competitive edge. The User Interface Expert proposed a sophisticated, yet cost-effective, multi-unit control that integrated macro functionality without relying on a touch screen, thereby enabling sophisticated operations like initiation sequences for various devices at the push of a single button. This idea was to cater to a more affordable segment of the market while delivering anticipated high-end features. + +The Marketing Expert shared observations about increasing interaction of gaming with television, advocating for a more durable and game-friendly remote design. He suggested incorporating user-friendly programming features like sliding bars for recording schedules instead of complex time entries. + +Moreover, there was talk of a gaming focus, with embedded joystick controls being discussed as a possible feature to accommodate the growing nexus between gaming consoles and television controls. + +The meeting underscored the importance of ergonomic design, emphasizing a contoured form that molds comfortably to the hand. A user-centric, aesthetically pleasing approach was prioritized as a guiding principle for the product's design, ensuring it would not only function effectively but also be a visually appealing accessory in the modern living room. + +As the meeting wound down, Adam outlined the next steps: documenting the ideas discussed and circulating them among the participants to kickstart the detailed project planning phase. Despite time constraints, the team stayed focused on delivering a remote control that would resonate with users by combining ease of use, multifunctional capabilities, and innovative design elements. The participants were instructed to leave the microphones in the conference room and proceed with their laptops to their next commitments, with anticipation of progressing further in the subsequent sessions." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . Ooh . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So we're 'kay ? On the {gap} or {disfmarker} No . I dunno where to put it 'cause the {disfmarker} Okay . Could you s take it off ? {gap} . +Marketing: Is that alright ? {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Keeps coming off . 'S fiddly . +Project Manager: Hmm . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: How do we sta wa how do we start ? Does anybody know ? +Marketing: Oh , another one . +Project Manager: So that's this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Are we free to take notes uh {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . Hmm . Okay , just hang on a second everybody . I haven't actually looked at this yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Very nice . +Project Manager: I haven't looked at it , but let's just start it off and we'll see what happens . If you're all ready . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} is the agenda ? Opening , acquaintance , tool training and project plan , discussion and then closing . Project aim is a new remote control . It's original , uh trendy and it's user-friendly . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Project method , functional design , individual work , another meeting , conceptual design , individual work , and a meeting of details design , individual work and a meeting . Tool training . Try out the whiteboard , every participant should draw their favourite animal and sum up their favourite characteristics of that animal . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Uh Miss Industrial Designer , would you like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So are we supposed to bring the little things for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why don't you just c , I think just clip on {disfmarker} clip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} do you have a belt ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Clip {gap} . +Project Manager: Or put 'em in your pocket , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} okay . So my favourite animal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what's your favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Is it rude ? +Marketing: It's an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a very good elephant . +User Interface: The back end of an elephant . +Marketing: Oh my gosh , I'm never gonna be able to draw that well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , and you want to write up on there , it says you've gotta sum up your f f your favourite characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , it's big , it's got a great memory . +Marketing: Does it ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: Supposed to have a great memory , we say an elephant never forgets . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh dunno know why but {vocalsound} looks like nice to me . +Project Manager: Okay . Wonderful , well done . +Industrial Designer: Nice animal . +Project Manager: Do you want to use the wipe {disfmarker} the m the wiper and wipe it off ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And Mister aesthetics designer do you wanna go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aesthetic yep , sure . +Marketing: I have no idea what my favourite animal is . +User Interface: 'Kay , my favourite animal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh let's see . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Dunno if any of you have seen Napoleon Dynamite before . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a liger {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: A what ? +User Interface: a combination of a lion and tiger {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Have you not seen Napoleon Dynamite ? +Marketing: How {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh it's a hilarious movie . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: You have to see it . And and it's best characteristic is it's pretty much the awesomest animal . But you have to see the movie to fully appreciate it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well done . +Marketing: Great . Me ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Miss mar Miss Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . Not quite sure how this is gonna work . +User Interface: There {gap} go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} well I'll try my best {vocalsound} to draw . Can I just draw the face ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , I think you can just draw the face , but then you'll have to describe in writing how the rest of it looks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . It's a cat . +Project Manager: That's a very pr pretty cat . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which also has what ? A big fat body and big {disfmarker} and a long tail . +Project Manager: Okay , do y do you wanna do some {disfmarker} write {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: you wanna just write some words about it ? +Marketing: Because um cuddly . And usually cats are very friendly . Usually . And they're healing as well . They heal . And they can feel when a human's got problems so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Wow , so they're kinda spiritual . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , that's why I like cats . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: There we are , that's me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , I don't actually have a favourite animal , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but for the for th for this meeting I'll s draw a little {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh . I honestly can't draw for toffee . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} no +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A prairie dog ? +Project Manager: {gap} no {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh a squirrel ? +Project Manager: That's exactly what it is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh not a very good one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not bad I would say . +User Interface: Yeah , that's pretty good . +Project Manager: Okay , well , you got it's a s It's a squirrel , and I like them , because they're cute and stupid . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Right . Okay , so , I guess that was the test to see if this equipment is all working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Let's move on to the next page . Okay , project finance , selling price twenty five Euros , profit aim fifty million Euros . +Marketing: Market range internationally sold . +Project Manager: Yeah . Production cost , ah right it's gotta be {disfmarker} can't cost any more than twelve fifty to make . +Marketing: Ah right okay . +Project Manager: {gap} experience with with remote control , so talk about who who's used what . Any ideas ? Stuff like that . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . {vocalsound} At quarter to twelve . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So I think before we close uh , we are expected {disfmarker} I mean the last slide wanted us to maybe discuss longer what our what our ideas where . I mean if you wanna go back to the last slide . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: S +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we're {disfmarker} I mean before we close the meeting , we're supposed to come up with some ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh k so we're actually supposed to be doing this discussion like right now are we or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I thought this was just t giving us instructions for the re to do next , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think this is just the preliminary , get some rough ideas for what our experiences with remote controls have been and and what we would {disfmarker} roughly what we would incorporate into a new one maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , who's got experiences with remote controls then ? Pretty much everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we've all got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Is this a T_V_ one we are supposed to make ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it's a T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay um . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: A new remote control for T_V_ . What would I like ? {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: W what {disfmarker} You want it big do you want it small . Are we are we going for like like telephones are going little teeny tiny things or we are going for something that's that's big and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Medium . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah it seems like there's like {disfmarker} there's sort of a tension between two ideas , I mean , you want you want one remote that maybe can work uh all all of the functions of T_V_ and if you have whatever associated with T_V_ the D_V_D_ player , or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Video and ts hi-fi and stuff . +User Interface: but like at the same time you don't wanna really busy remote with a thousand buttons on it or something . +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: now th that's the other thing is it's gotta be cheap . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I mean I was thinking something that's got different like maybe a a an L_C_D_ display on it that's got different pages for different devices , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but that would p that would probably be quite expensive . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But how do we know how much uh , I mean , how much do we have per {disfmarker} how much ? +Marketing: Twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It g can't be more than twelve fifty per unit . +Marketing: Each . +Project Manager: Per unit , yeah . +User Interface: Cost . +Industrial Designer: So do we have to be realistic within the budget or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well at the moment we could , wa I mean we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Close pr I don't know how much it would cost . Yeah . +Marketing: Guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause we this is what we th what we're doing at the moment is just saying what what we'd like , and then after we after we've found out what we can like , some different ideas , we can then go and do the research to find out if these {disfmarker} any of these ideas are feasible or not . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So would be nice to have something that that controls lots of different things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Couldn't we have like one that comes out ? {vocalsound} Like so you have one in like {disfmarker} mm +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it doesn't have to be really thick . I mean remote controls can be thin bits . And then you have one for your D_V_D_ and you sort of slide it out , and then you have another one , you slide it out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} have slides . And then it all comes compact +Project Manager: Okay , that's {gap} . +Marketing: into one . So it's not {disfmarker} you actually just putting three or four different remotes together but making them thinner , and um into one basically . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's an idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you just flip them out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} have uh one very complicated one on one side with {vocalsound} all the D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ access and stuff , and then on the other side o {vocalsound} one uh a remote control that would be very very simple with just the channel , program plus and {vocalsound} minus , and the just the mute button , for example . I can real keep it really really simple on one side and the other side be very complicated . +Project Manager: One side for kids , one side for adults . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if that's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or grandma as well , you know it's like {vocalsound} what is the mute button . +User Interface: I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have a two sided remote though , 'cause it would be very hard to use in the way that you mani manipulate it . +Industrial Designer: No , but you would slide it into uh someth like something on the back would hold {disfmarker} like you wouldn't be able to press the buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Like it {gap} +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: or something like a flip telephone , something like that maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: That would be cool . +Project Manager: F flip it open and you've got all the buttons , or you flip it closed and you've just got the basic buttons on the outside maybe . +Marketing: I was thinking that like a flip . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , oh we've got five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Start breaking up . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Well we've got a k we've got a few ideas there . +User Interface: Yeah , we should uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: I guess by the end of this meeting we should have at least a a rough conception {disfmarker} you know {gap} stage one was technical functions design , what effect the apparatus should have . Okay . Um so I mean we still have time in our next meeting to come up with the actual concept for the user interface , but the the functions that we're sure that we want are that it can control the T_V_ , but also devices connected to the to the T_V_ , I mean , be able to operate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D_V_D_ players , things like that . +Project Manager: I have got {disfmarker} I think we should also have a back-up plan of {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I I I just think that it might be expensive to make something that {disfmarker} I mean we don't , we haven't been told it has to be something that will control everything . We should have a back-up plan of just a really good television remote control , that just {disfmarker} that is just for a T_V_ , but it's just a really good , nice one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: What do you reckon ? See 'cause , {gap} I'm just thinking {disfmarker} bearing in mind th we've gotta {disfmarker} we have to have something that's cheap to make . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean {gap} . Yeah , that's true , maybe we should just concentrate on having a a good T_V_ remote , and have it be um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we'll be able to come up with ideas and stuff a lot quicker . +User Interface: have it be like ergonomic so it's comfortable to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh simple to use , and looks decent and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: May w you know , maybe even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But what'll make it what'll make it interesting for people to buy though ? +Project Manager: Or maybe even so something that's for disabled people +Marketing: I mean if it's if it's just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or so people that uh b don't see very well or {disfmarker} big buttons for {disfmarker} touchy buttons for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorta find a niche for our remote , like market it to a certain kind of p kind of people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just one that looks really fucking cool . +User Interface: certain certain demographic {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Could be really light or , I dunno , something special . +User Interface: Yeah , no I think you're right . Yeah , rathe rather than focus on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Otherwise we'll be we'll be here all day talking about {gap} do this let's do that n I think we sh I think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause at the end of the day if it says just T_V_ remote , doesn't say com combination with all all the r {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean obviously everyone {disfmarker} we're uh you know uh sounds like we're all a bit sort of gadget heads and we like things that do everything at once , but you know , that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remotes spinning out from other remotes and having little nested remotes inside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . I mean I'd like one that makes tea as well , but {vocalsound} that's not gonna happen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think a flip up thing , 'cause you always have this problem of like if it's on this {disfmarker} well I did anyway , like we had five or six remotes and they would be lying on the c on the coach , and you'd come and sit down and {disfmarker} ooh , the telephone's {disfmarker} the television switched on or something . So maybe something that like does have a lid or closes , so you don't accidentally press a button or record button for something . +Project Manager: Okay , like a lock f like a lock functs function on it like you have on your telephones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But make it like really snazzy and cool {gap} people will want it . So make it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's gotta be sellable . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true what you were saying , I mean it doesn't have to have a flip function , it can just have a lock function , so that it's not uh not usable when you don't want it to be usable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And even for kids as well . It's um it's safer for them , I guess . Like they don't flick onto channels and all that sl flick onto . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No porn channel for children . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um alright , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we've got some ideas , we've got um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess that's good good for now . +Project Manager: Let's move on . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oops , let's close that . Next meeting , uh okay . +Marketing: W What does I_D_V_I_D_N_M_E_ stand for ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer um which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah ri okay . {gap} these are requirement specification . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: And I'm marketing . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . {vocalsound} So {gap} {disfmarker} User Interface Designer , that's that's +User Interface: That's me . Okay . +Project Manager: that's you , so you gotta {gap} you go , you're you're gonna be the one that's working out what what buttons we need . Um . +User Interface: Right . Right . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , you are the one {gap} , you know , you're gonna be working out kind of box it goes in , I guess so , um whether it's {gap} what goes into the box , somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Har how it works an +Project Manager: And in marketing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: {vocalsound} These are requirement specification . +Project Manager: User requirements specifications . +Marketing: So what the user requires +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think our two kind of overlap , because {disfmarker} +Marketing: in a remote . +Project Manager: Right , okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it does seem like our our responsibilities have some overlap . +Marketing: I guess that's what it says . +Project Manager: You two {vocalsound} you two are gonna be just , I think , you just double up , you know , you {disfmarker} working together . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You're the one that's gotta go and find out {disfmarker} do th do the research , see what people want in a remote , what buttons are used more often , and s stuff like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , we've been warned to finish the meeting now . Okay . Okay everyone , well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good meeting . +User Interface: Alright , see you in thirty minutes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} , do we take these off ? +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} +","During a project meeting, the team, including the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing, and User Interface personnel, discuss the development of a new, trendy, user-friendly remote control with a selling price of 25 Euros and a profit goal of 50 million Euros. The remote must be cheap to produce, not exceeding 12.50 Euros per unit. The team brainstormed ideas such as a multifunctional remote that could be simple or complex, depending on the side used, possibly catering to both children and adults or even to those with disabilities. Ideas for a flip design and a lock function to prevent accidental button presses were also discussed. The discussion covered ergonomic design, usability, and making the remote appealing to potential buyers. The Project Manager emphasizes the importance of creating something cost-effective while the team plans to further refine the product's design and functions in the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: Time . +Grad C: Thanks . +Grad G: Are you Fey ? +Undergrad D: I am Fey , yeah . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: What day is today ? +Undergrad D: Hi . +Grad G: Hi . I think we 've met before , like , I remember talking to you about Aspect or something like that at some point or other . +Undergrad D: A couple times yeah . +Grad F: It 's the uh twenty {disfmarker} nineteenth . +Grad B: Nineteenth ? +Undergrad D: That 's right , yeah . +Grad G: So . +Undergrad D: And you were my GSI briefly , until I dropped the class . +Grad F: +Grad B: Right , right . +Grad G: Oh that 's right . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad G: Well . +Grad C: OK , wh wh +Grad G: No offense . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Like . +Grad C: OK . Some in some introductions are in order . +Grad G: Oh , OK sorry . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: Getting ahead of myself . +Grad C: So . Um . For those who don't know {disfmarker} Everyone knows me , this is great . Um , apart from that , sort of the old gang , Johno and Bhaskara have been with us from {disfmarker} from day one +Grad G: Yay ! +Grad E: Hi . +Grad C: and um they 're engaged in {disfmarker} in various activities , some of which you will hear about today . Ami is um our counselor and spiritual guidance and um also interested in problems concerning reference of the more complex type , +PhD A: Well . +Grad E: Oh wow . +Grad C: and um he sits in as a interested participant and helper . Is that a good characterization ? +PhD A: u That 's pretty good , I think . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . Thanks . +Grad C: OK . Keith is not technically one of us yet , +Grad E: Not yet . +Grad C: ha - ha . but um it 's too late for him now . +Grad G: "" One of us . "" +Grad C: So . +Grad E: Yeah right . I 've got the headset on after all . +Grad C: Um . Officially I guess he will be joining us in the summer . +Grad E: yes . +Grad C: And um hopefully it is by {disfmarker} by means of Keith that we will be able to get a b a better formal and a better semantic um idea of what a construction is and um how we can make it work for us . Additionally his interest um surpasses um English because it also entails German , an extra capability of speaking and writing and understanding and reading that language . And um , is there anyone who doesn't know Nancy ? Do you {disfmarker} do you know Nancy ? +Grad G: Me ? +Grad E: I know Nancy . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: I made that joke already , Nancy , sadly . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: What ? +Grad B: The "" I don't know myself "" joke . +Grad G: You did ? When ? +Grad B: Uh before you came in . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: Man ! +Grad G: About me or you ? +Grad B: About me . +Grad G: OK . {vocalsound} OK . +PhD A: You could do it about you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Well I didn't know . I didn't mean to be humor copying , but OK , sorry . Yes , I know myself . It 's OK . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um Fey is with us as of six days ago officially ? +Undergrad D: Officially , +Grad C: Officially , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad C: but in reality already um much much longer and um um next to some {disfmarker} some more or less bureaucratic uh stuff with the {disfmarker} the data collection she 's also the wizard in the data collection Um , +Grad G: Of Oz . +Undergrad D: It 's very exciting . +Grad C: we 're sticking with the term "" wizard "" , +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad D: Yes . +Grad C: and um +Grad G: Not witch - like . +Grad B: Wizardette . +Grad E: Wizard . +Grad F: Wizardess . +Grad C: Sorceress , I think . +Grad G: OK . +Undergrad D: Wizard . +Grad C: wizard uh by by popular vote +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: um +Grad G: Didn't take a vote ? OK . +Grad C: OK , um , why don't we get started on that subject anyways . Um , so we 're about to collect data and um the uh s the following things have happened since we last met . When will we three meet again ? And um +Grad G: More than three of us . +Grad C: what happened is that um , "" A "" , {comment} there was some confusion between you and Jerry with the {disfmarker} that leading to your talking to Catherine Snow , and he was uh he {disfmarker} he agreed completely that some something confusing happened . Um his idea was to get sort of the l the lists of mayors of the department , the students . It {disfmarker} it 's exactly how you interpreted it , sort of s +Grad E: The list of majors in the department ? +Undergrad D: M m Majors ? +Grad C: Ma - majors , majors . +Undergrad D: Majors ? +Grad C: "" Mayors "" . +Undergrad D: OK , mayor {disfmarker} +Grad C: Majors . +Undergrad D: Something I don't know about these +Grad G: The department has many mayors . +Grad C: Majors and um just sending the {disfmarker} the little write - up that we did on to those email lists +Undergrad D: OK . OK . Yeah , yeah , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: So it was really Carol Snow who was confused , not me and not Jerry . +Grad C: Yep , yep , yep . OK . So . So , that is uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's good . So I should still do that . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And using the thing that you wrote up . +Grad C: Yep . +Undergrad D: OK . +Grad C: Wonderful . And um we have a little description of asking peop subjects to contact Fey for you know recruiting them for our thing and um there was some confusion as to the consent form , which is basically that {disfmarker} that what what you just signed +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: and since we have one already um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Did Jerry talk to you about maybe using our class ? the students in the undergrad class that he 's teaching ? +Grad C: Um well he said um we {disfmarker} definitely "" yes "" , +Grad G: e +Grad C: however there is always more people in a {disfmarker} in a facul uh in a department than are just taking his class or anybody else 's class at the moment +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: and one should sort of reach out and try and get them all . +Grad G: OK , but th I guess it 's that um people in his class cover a different set so {disfmarker} than the c is the CogSci department that you were talking about ? +Undergrad D: I guess . See +Grad G: uh reaching out to ? +Undergrad D: that 's what I suggested to him , that people like {disfmarker} like Jerry and George and et cetera just {disfmarker} +Grad G: Cuz we have you know people from other areas +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: advertise in their classes as well . +Undergrad D: Yeah or even I could {disfmarker} you know I could do the actual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Cuz I mean I {disfmarker} I know how to contact our students , +Undergrad D: That 's generally the way it 's done . +Grad G: so if there 's something that you 're sending out you can also s um send me a copy , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: me or Bhaskara could {disfmarker} either of us could post it to uh is it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: A mailing list . +Grad G: if it 's a general solicitation that you know is just contact you then we can totally pro post it to the news group +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad G: so . +Grad C: Do it . Yeah . +Undergrad D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , so you 'll send it or something so . +Grad C: As a matter of fact , if you {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I can send it . +Grad C: if {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I 'll send it , +Grad G: You can send it to me . +Grad C: Now , i +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad G: OK . Don't worry , we {disfmarker} this doesn't concern you anymore , Robert . +Grad C: How {disfmarker} however I suggest that if you {disfmarker} if you look at your email carefully you may think {disfmarker} you may find that you already have it . +Grad G: It 's fine . Oops . Already ? Really ? +Grad C: Maybe . +Undergrad D: Probab +Grad G: Oops . +Grad C: OK . W we 'll see . +Grad G: I don't remember getting anything . +Grad C: Anyhow , um the uh Yeah , not only Also we will talk about Linguistics and of course Computer Science . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um and then , secondly , we had , you may remember , um the problem with the re - phrasing , that subject always re - phrase sort of the task that uh we gave them , +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: and so we had a meeting on Friday talking about how to avoid that , and it proved finally fruitful in the sense that we came up with a new scenario for how to get the {disfmarker} the subject m to really have intentions and sort of to act upon those , and um there the idea is now that next actually we {disfmarker} we need to hire one more person to actually do that job because it {disfmarker} it 's getting more complicated . So if you know anyone interested in {disfmarker} in what i 'm about to describe , tell that person to {disfmarker} to write a mail to me or Jerry soon , fast . Um {vocalsound} the idea now is to sort of come up with a high level of sort of abstract tasks "" go shopping "" um "" take in uh a batch of art "" um "" visit {disfmarker} do some sightseeing "" blah - blah - blah - blah - blah , sort of analogous to what Fey has started in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in compiling {disfmarker} compiling here and already {disfmarker} she has already gone to the trouble of {disfmarker} of anchoring it with specific um o {comment} um entities and real world places you will find in Heidelberg . And um . So out of these f s these high level categories the subject can pick a couple , such as if {disfmarker} if there is a cop uh a category in emptying your roll of film , the person can then decide "" OK , I wanna do that at this place "" , sort of make up their own itinerary a and {disfmarker} and tasks and the person is not allowed to take sort of this h high level category list with them , but uh the person is able to take notes on a map that we will give him and the map will be a tourist 's sort of schematic representation with {disfmarker} with symbols for the objects . And so , the person can maybe make a mental note that "" ah yeah I wanted to go shopping here "" and "" I wanted to maybe take a picture of that "" and "" maybe um eat here "" and then goes in and solves the task with the system , IE {comment} Fey , and um and we 're gonna try out that {disfmarker} Any questions ? +Grad G: so um y you 'll have those say somewhere what their intention was {disfmarker} so you still have the {disfmarker} the nice thing about having data where you know what the actual intention was ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: But they will um {disfmarker} There 's nothing that says you know "" these are the things you want to do "" so they 'll say "" well these are the things I want to do "" and {disfmarker} Right , so they 'll have a little bit more natural interaction ? +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So they 'll be given this map , which means that they won't have to like ask the system for in for like high level information about where things are ? +Grad C: Yeah it 's a schematic tourist map . So it 'll be uh i it 'll still require the {disfmarker} that information and An +Grad G: It w it doesn't have like streets on it that would allow them to figure out their way {disfmarker} +Grad C: N not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not really the street network . Nuh . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: So you 're just saying like what part of town the things are in or whatever ? +Grad C: Yeah a and um the map is more a means for them to have the buildings and their names and maybe some ma ma major streets and their names +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we want to maybe ask them , if you have {disfmarker} get it sort of isolated street the {disfmarker} the , whatever , "" River Street "" , and they know that {disfmarker} they have decided that , yes , that 's where they want to do this kind of action um that they have it with them and they can actually read them or sort of have the label for the object because it 's too hard to memorize all these st strange German names . And then we 're going to have another {disfmarker} we 're gonna have w another trial run IE the first with that new setup tomorrow at two and we have a real interesting subject which is Ron Kay for who {disfmarker} those who know him , he 's the founder of ICI . So he 'll {disfmarker} he 's around seven seventy years old , or something . +Grad G: I didn't know he was the founder . That 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And he also approached me and he offered to help {vocalsound} um our project and he was more thinking about some high level thinking tasks and {vocalsound} I said "" sure we need help you can come in as a subject "" and he said "" OK "" . So that 's what 's gonna happen , tomorrow , data . +Grad G: Using this new {disfmarker} new um plan , +Grad C: New {disfmarker} new set up . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Which I 'll hopefully sort of scrape together t But , thanks to Fey , we already have sort of a nice blueprint and I can work with that . Questions ? Comments on that ? If not , we can move on . No ? No more questions ? +Grad E: I 'm not sure I totally understand this +Grad G: So what 's the s this is what you made , Fey ? +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I totally understand everything that 's being talked about +Grad G: Like so {disfmarker} So it 's just based on like the materials you had about Heidelberg . +Grad C: Um are you familiar with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the very rough setup of the data ? +Grad E: but I {disfmarker} I imagine I 'll c just catch on . +Undergrad D: Based on the web site , yeah , at the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh OK there 's a web site +Grad C: experiment ? +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad G: and then you could like um figure out what the cate +Undergrad D: It 's a tourist information web site , +Grad E: Uh , this is where they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: so . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Talk to a machine and it breaks down and then the human comes on . +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: The question is just sort of how do we get the tasks in their head that they have an intention of doing something and have a need to ask the system for something without giving them sort of a clear wording or phrasing of the task . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK . +Grad C: Because what will happen then is that people repeat {disfmarker} repeat , {comment} or as much as they can , of that phrasing . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Hmm . Um , are you worried about being able to identify {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Um . The {disfmarker} The goals that we 've d you guys have been talking about are this {disfmarker} these you know identifying which of three modes um their question uh concerns . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So it 's like the Enter versus View {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will sort of get a protocol of the prior interaction , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: right ? That 's where the instructor , the person we are going to hire , um and the subjects sit down together with these high level things +Grad G: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so th the q first question for the subject is , "" so these are things , you know , we thought a tourist can do . Is there anything that interests you ? "" +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the person can say "" yeah , sure sh this is something I would do . I would go shopping "" . Yeah ? and then we can sort of {disfmarker} this s instructor can say "" well , uh then you {disfmarker} you may want to find out how to get over here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: because this is where the shopping district is "" . +Grad G: So the interaction beforehand will give them hints about how specific or how whatever though the kinds of questions that are going to ask during the actual session ? +Grad C: No . Just sort of {disfmarker} OK , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what would you like to buy and then um OK there you wanna buy a whatever cuckoos clocks +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK and the there is a store there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the task then for that person is t finding out how to get there , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's sort of what 's left . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we know that the intention is to enter because we know that the person wants to buy a cuckoos clock . +Grad G: OK , that 's what I mean so like those tasks are all gonna be um unambiguous about which of the three modes . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: Right . OK . So . +PhD A: Well , so the idea is to try to get the actual phrasing that they might use and try to interfere as little as possible with their choice of words . +Grad C: Hopefully . +Grad G: t {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That they 'll be here ? +Grad C: Yes . In a sense that 's exactly the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea , +PhD A: uh uh +Grad C: which is never possible in a {disfmarker} in a s in a lab situation , +PhD A: Well , u u the one experiment th that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that I 've read somewhere , it was {disfmarker} they u used pictures . +Grad C: nuh ? +PhD A: So to {disfmarker} to uh actually um uh specify the {disfmarker} the tasks . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , but you know i i +Grad C: Yeah . We had exactly that on our list of possible way things so we {disfmarker} uh I even made a sort of a silly thing how that could work , how you control you are here you {disfmarker} you want to know how to get someplace , and this is the place and it 's a museum and you want to do some and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a person looking at pictures . So , you know , this is exactly getting someplace with the intention of entering and looking at pictures . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: However , not only was {disfmarker} the common census were {disfmarker} among all participants of Friday 's meeting was it 's gonna be very laborious to {disfmarker} to make these drawings for each different things , +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: all the different actions , if at all possible , and also people will get caught up in the pictures . So all of a sudden we 'll get descriptions of pictures in there . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And people talking about pictures and pictorial representations +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} um +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I would s I would still be willing to try it . +PhD A: I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not saying it 's necessary but {disfmarker} but uh i uh uh i {vocalsound} you might be able to combine you know text uh and {disfmarker} and some sort of picture and also uh I think it {disfmarker} it will be a good idea to show them the text and kind of chew the task and then take the test away {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the text away +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: so that they are not uh guided by {disfmarker} by by what you wrote , +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can come up with their {disfmarker} with their own {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they will have no more linguistic matter in front of them when they enter this room . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: OK . Then I suggest we move on to the {disfmarker} to we have um uh the EDU Project , let me make one more general remark , has sort of two {disfmarker} two side uh um actions , its um action items that we 're do dealing with , one is modifying the SmartKom parser and the other one is modifying the SmartKom natural language generation module . And um this is not too complicated but I 'm just mentioning it {disfmarker} put it in the framework because this is something we will talk about now . Um , I have some news from the generation , do you have news from the parser ? +Grad F: Um , not {disfmarker} +Grad C: By that look I {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , uh , I would really p It would be better if I talked about it on Friday . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: If that 's OK . +Grad C: Yeah , wonderful . Um , did you run into problems or did you run into not h having time ? +Grad F: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not any time part . +Grad C: OK , so that 's good . That 's better than running into problems . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: And um I {disfmarker} I do have some good news for the natural language generation however . And the good news is I guess it 's done . Uh , meaning that Tilman Becker , who does the German one , actually took out some time and already did it in English for us . And so the version he 's sending us is already producing the English that 's needed to get by in version one point one . +Grad F: So I take it that was similar to the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what we did for the parsing ? +Grad C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} even though the generator is a little bit more complex and it would have been , not changing one hundred words but maybe four hundred words , +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but it would have been +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: but this {disfmarker} this is I guess good news , and the uh {disfmarker} the time and especially Bhaskara and uh {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} Oh do I have it here ? No . The time is now pretty much fixed . It 's the last week of April until the fourth of May so it 's twenty - sixth through fourth . That they 'll be here . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's extremely important that the two of you are also present in this town during that time . +Grad B: Wait , what {disfmarker} what are the days ? April twenty - sixth to the {disfmarker} May fourth ? +Grad C: Yeah , something like that . +Grad B: I 'll probably be here . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: You will be here . +Grad C: There is a d Isn't finals coming up then pretty much after that ? +Grad F: Finals was that . +Grad G: Yeah w it doesn't really have much meaning to grad students but final projects might . +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: Yeah actually , that 's true . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} +Grad C: Anyway , so this is {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well I 'll be here working on something . Guaranteed , it 's just uh will I be here , you know , in uh {disfmarker} I 'll be here too actually but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: No it 's just um you know they 're coming for us so that we can bug them +Grad G: Ye +Grad C: and ask them more questions and sit down together and write sensible code and they can give some nice talks and stuff . But uh +Grad B: But it 's not like we need to be with them twenty - four hours a day s for the seven days that they 're here . +Grad C: just make a {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} not unless you really really want to . +Grad E: They 're very dependent +Grad C: Not unless you really want to . And they 're both nice guys so you may {disfmarker} may want to . OK , that much from the parser and generator side , unless there are more questions on that . +Grad G: So , no sample generator output yet ? +Grad C: No . It {disfmarker} Just a mail that , you know , he 's sending me the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the stuff soon +Grad G: OK . This is being sent , mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: and I was completely flabbergasted here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I {disfmarker} and that 's also it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to produce the concept - to - speech uh blah - blah - blah information for {disfmarker} necessary for one point one in English {disfmarker} based on the English , you know , in English . So . I was like "" OK , +Grad E: We 're done . +Grad C: we 're done ! "" +Grad G: So that was like one of the first l You know , the first task was getting it working for English . So that 's basically over now . Is that right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: So the basic requirement fulfilled . +Grad C: Um , the basic requirement is fulfilled almost . When Andreas Stolcke and {disfmarker} and his gang , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: when they have um changed the language model of the recognizer and the dictionary , then we can actually a put it all together +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So the speech recognizer also works . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can speak into it and ask for TV and movie information +Grad E: Toll . +Grad C: and then when if {disfmarker} if something actually happens and some answers come out , then we 're done . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . If {disfmarker} and they 're kind of correct . +Grad E: So it 's not done basically . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: And they kind of are {disfmarker} are correct . +Grad E: Right . Perhaps if the answers have something to do with the questions for example . +Grad G: It 's not just like anything . And they 're mostly in English . So . +Grad C: Then um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Are they {disfmarker} is it using the database ? the German TV movie . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . So {vocalsound} all the actual data might be German names ? +Grad C: Um well actually th um +Grad G: Or are they all like American TV programs ? +Grad C: um well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I want to see "" Die Dukes Von Hazard "" +Grad C: The {disfmarker} OK , so you don't know how the German dialogue {disfmarker} uh the German {disfmarker} the demo dialogue actually works . It works {disfmarker} the first thing is what 's , you know , showing on TV , and then the person is presented with what 's running on TV in Germany on that day , on that evening +Grad G: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so you take one look at it and then you say "" well that 's really nothing {disfmarker} there 's nothing for me there "" "" what 's running in the cinemas ? "" So maybe there 's something better happening there . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then you get {disfmarker} you 're shown what movies play which films , and it 's gonna be of course all the Heidelberg movies and what films they are actually showing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And most of them are going to be Hollywood movies . So , "" American Beauty "" is "" American Beauty "" , +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad G: But they 're shown like on a screen . +Grad C: N +Grad G: It 's a {disfmarker} I mean so would the generator , like the English language sentence of it is {disfmarker} "" these are the follow you know the following films are being shown "" or something like that ? +Grad C: Yeah , but it in that sense it doesn't make {disfmarker} In that case uh it doesn't really make sense to read them out loud . +Grad G: S Right . +Grad C: if you 're displaying them . +Grad G: So it 'll just display {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: But uh it 'll tell you that this is what 's showing in Heidelberg and there you go . +Grad G: So we don't have to worry about um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: And the presentation agent will go "" Hhh ! "" {comment} Nuh ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Like that {disfmarker} the avatar . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And um . And then you pick {disfmarker} pick a movie and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it show shows you the times and you pick a time and you pick seats and all of this . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Pretty straightforward . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But it 's {disfmarker} so this time we {disfmarker} we are at an advantage because it was a problem for the German system to incorporate all these English movie titles . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: Nuh ? But in English , that 's not really a problem , +Grad G: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: unless we get some {disfmarker} some topical German movies that have just come out and that are in their database . So the person may select "" Huehner Rennen "" or whatever . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: "" Chicken Run "" . +Grad C: OK . Then uh on to the modeling . Right ? +Grad B: Yeah , yeah , I guess . +Grad C: Um then modeling , there it is . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad E: OK . What 's the next thing ? +Grad B: e +Grad C: This is very rough but this is sort of what um Johno and I managed to come up with . The idea here is that {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is the uh s the schema of the XML here , not an example or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah this is not an XML this is sort of towards an {disfmarker} a schema , +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: nuh ? definition . The idea is , so , imagine we have a library of schema such as the Source - Path - Goal and then we have forced uh motion , we have cost action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: we have a whole library of schemas . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And they 're gonna be , you know , fleshed out in {disfmarker} in their real ugly detail , Source - Path - Goal , and there 's gonna be s a lot of stuff on the Goal and blah - blah - blah , that a goal can be and so forth . What we think is {disfmarker} And all the names could {disfmarker} should be taken "" cum grano salis "" . So . This is a {disfmarker} the fact that we 're calling this "" action schema "" right now should not entail that we are going to continue calling this "" action schema "" . But what that means {vocalsound} is we have here first of all on the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the first iteration a stupid list of Source - Path - Goal actions +Grad B: Actions that can be categorized with {disfmarker} or that are related to Source - Path - Goal . +Grad C: wi to that schema +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and we will have you know forced motion and cost action actions . +Grad B: And then those actions can be in multiple categories at the same time if necessary . +Grad C: So a push may be in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in both you know push uh in this or this uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Forced motion and caused action for instance , +Grad C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Also , these things may or may not get their own structure in the future . So this is something that , you know , may also be a res As a result of your work in the future , we may find out that , you know , there 're really s these subtle differences between um even within the domain of entering in the light of a Source - Path - Goal schema , that we need to put in {disfmarker} fill in additional structure up there . But it gives us a nice handle . So with this we can basically um you know s slaughter the cow any anyway we want . Uh . It {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} It was sort of a {disfmarker} it gave us some headache , how do we avoid writing down that we have sort of the Enter Source - Path - Goal that this {disfmarker} But this sort of gets the job done in that respect and maybe it is even conceptually somewhat adequate in a sense that um we 're talking about two different things . We 're talking more on the sort of intention level , up there , and more on the {disfmarker} this is the {disfmarker} your basic bone um schema , down there . +Grad B: Uh one question , Robert . When you point at the screen is it your shadow that I 'm supposed to look at ? +Grad G: Yeah . It 's the shadow . +Grad B: OK . Whereas I keep looking where your hand is , and it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that wouldn't have helped you at all . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +Grad B: Basically , what this is {disfmarker} is that there 's an interface between what we are doing and the action planner +Grad E: Spit right here . +Grad B: and right now the way the interface is "" action go "" and then they have the {disfmarker} what the person claimed was the source and the person claimed as the goal passed on . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And the problem is , is that the current system does not distinguish between goes of type "" going into "" , goes of type "" want to go to a place where I can take a picture of "" , et cetera . +Grad C: So this is sort of what it looks like now , some simple "" Go "" action from it {disfmarker} from an object named "" Peter 's Kirche "" of the type "" Church "" to an object named "" Powder - Tower "" of the type "" Tower "" . Right ? +Grad G: This is the uh {disfmarker} what the action planner uses ? +Grad B: Right . Currently . +Grad G: This is {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Currently . +Grad G: And is that {disfmarker} and tha that 's changeable ? or not ? +Grad C: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like are we adapting to it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} This is the output , sort of , of the natural language understanding , +Grad G: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: the input into the action planning , as it is now . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what we are going to do , we going to {disfmarker} and you can see here , and again for Johno please {disfmarker} please focus the shadow , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: um we 're gon uh uh here you have the action and the domain object and w and on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +Grad G: What did you think he was doing ? +Grad B: I just {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad E: A laser pointer would be most appropriate here I think . +Grad C: Yeah I {disfmarker} I um have {disfmarker} I have no {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Eee . +Grad B: Robert likes to be abstract and that 's what I just thought he was doing . +Grad G: You look up here . +Grad C: Sort of between here and here , +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: so as you can see this is on one level and we are going to add another um "" Struct "" , if you want , IE a rich action description on that level . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So in the future {disfmarker} +Grad G: So it 's just an additional information {disfmarker} +Grad C: Exactly . In the future though , the content of a hypothesis will not only be an object and an {disfmarker} an action and a domain object but an action , a domain object , and a rich action description , +Grad G: Right ? that doesn't hurt the current way . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Which {disfmarker} which we 're abbreviating as "" RAD "" . +Grad C: which is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Good . +Grad E: Rad ! +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad F: So um you had like an action schema and a Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Hmm . Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: right ? So how does this Source - Path - Goal schema fit into the uh action schema ? Like is it one of the tags there ? +Grad G: Yeah can you go back to that one ? +Grad B: So the Source - Path - Goal schema in this case , I 've {disfmarker} if I understand how we described {disfmarker} we set this up , um cuz we 've been arguing about it all week , but uh we 'll hold the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} Well in this case it will hold the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean the {disfmarker} the features I guess . I 'm not {disfmarker} it 's hard for me to exactly s So basically that will store the {disfmarker} the object that is w the Source will store the object that we 're going from , the Goal will store the {disfmarker} the f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So the fillers of the role source . +Grad B: we 'll fill those in fill those roles in , right ? +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: The S Action - schemas basically have extra {disfmarker} See we {disfmarker} so those are {disfmarker} schemas exist because in case we need extra information instead of just making it an attribute and which {disfmarker} which is just one thing we {disfmarker} we decided to make it 's own entity so that we could explode it out later on in case there is some structure that {disfmarker} that we need to exploit . +Grad G: OK , so th sorry I just don't kn um um um {disfmarker} This is just uh XML mo notational but um the fact that it 's action schema and then sort of slash action schema that 's a whole entit +Grad B: That 's a block , yeah . +Grad G: That 's a block , whereas source is just an attribute ? +Grad C: No , no , no . +Grad G: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Source is just not spelled out here . Source meaning {disfmarker} Source will be uh will have a name , a type , maybe a dimensionality , +Grad G: Oh , OK , OK . +Grad C: maybe canonical uh orientation {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh - huh , uh - huh . OK could it {disfmarker} it could also be blocked out then as {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: s Source it will be , you know we 'll f we know a lot about sources so we 'll put all of that in Source . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: But it 's independent whether we are using the SPG schema in an Enter , View , or Approach mode , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: This is just properties of the SPG {comment} schema . We can talk about Paths being the fastest , the quickest , the nicest and so forth , uh or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and the Trajector should be coming in there as well . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: And then G the same about Goals . +Grad G: OK . So I guess the question is when you actually fill one of these out , it 'll be under action schema ? Those are {disfmarker} It 's gonna be one {disfmarker} y you 'll pick one of those for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad G: OK these are {disfmarker} this is just a layout of the possible that could go {disfmarker} play that role . +Grad B: Right , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the roles will be filled in with the schema +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad G: OK , go it . Uh - huh . +Grad B: and then what actual a action is chosen is {disfmarker} will be in the {disfmarker} in the action schema section . +Grad G: OK . OK . S S OK , so one question . This was {disfmarker} in this case it 's all um clear , sort of obvious , but you can think of the Enter , View and Approach as each having their roles , right ? the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's implicit that the person that 's moving is doing entering viewing and approaching , but you know the usual thing is we have bindings between sort of {disfmarker} they 're sort of like action specific roles and the more general Source - Path - Goal specific roles . So are we worrying about that or not for now ? +Grad C: Yes , yes . Since you bring it up now , we will worry about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: Tell us more about it . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: What do you {disfmarker} what do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? Oh I guess it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I may be just um reading this and interpreting it into my head in the way that I 've always viewed things +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad G: and {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that may or may not be what you guys intended . But if it is , then the top block is sort of like um , you know , you have to list exactly what X - schema or in this action schema , there 'll be a certain one , that has its own s structure and maybe it has stuff about that specific to entering or viewing or approaching , but those could include roles like the thing that you 're viewing , the thing that you 're entering , the thing that you 're +Grad E: So very specific role names are "" viewed thing "" , "" entered thing "" {disfmarker} +Grad G: whatever , you know , that {disfmarker} which are {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} think of enter , view and approach as frames +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: and they have frame - specific parameters and {disfmarker} and roles +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and you can also describe them in a general way as Source - Path - Goal schema and maybe there 's other image schemas that you could you know add after this that you know , how do they work in terms of you know a force dynamics +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm , Mm - hmm . +Grad G: or how do they work in f terms of other things . So all of those have um basically f either specific {disfmarker} frame specific roles or more general frame specific roles that might have binding . So the question is are um {disfmarker} how to represent when things are linked in a certain way . So we know for Enter that there 's Container potentially involved +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and it 's not {disfmarker} uh I don't know if you wanna have in the same level as the action schema SPG schema it {disfmarker} it 's somewhere in there that you need to represent that there is some container and the interior of it corresponds to some part of the Source - Path - Goal um you know goal {disfmarker} uh goal I guess in this case . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So uh is there an easy way in this notation to show when there 's identity basically between things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and I di don't know if that 's something we need to invent or you know just {disfmarker} +Grad B: The {disfmarker} wa wasn't there supposed to be a link in the +Grad F: Right . +Grad B: I don't know if this answers your question , I was just staring at this while you were talking , sorry . +Grad G: It 's OK . +Grad B: Uh a link between the action schema , a field in the s in the schema for the image schemas that would link us to which action schema we were supposed to use so we could {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Um , well that 's {disfmarker} that 's one {disfmarker} one thing is that we can link up , think also that um we can have one or m as many as we want links from {disfmarker} from the schema up to the s action um description of it . +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad C: But the notion I got from Nancy 's idea was that we may f find sort of concepts floating around i in the a action description of the action f "" Enter "" frame up there that are , e when you talk about the real world , actually identical to the goal of the {disfmarker} the S Source - Path - Goal schema , +Grad G: Exactly . Right , right . +Grad C: and do we have means of {disfmarker} of telling it within that a and the answer is absolutely . +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: The way {disfmarker} we absolutely have those means that are even part of the M - three - L A API , +Grad G: Yeah . Oh great . s Uh - huh . +Grad C: meaning we can reference . So meaning {disfmarker} +Grad G: Great . That 's exactly what is necessary . +Grad B: Yeah . St +Grad C: And um . This referencing thing however is of temporary nature because sooner or later the W - three - C will be finished with their X - path , uh , um , specification and then it 's going to be even much nicer . Then we have real means of pointing at an individual instantiation of one of our elements here +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and link it to another one , and this not only within a document but also via documents , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and all in a v very easy e homogenous framework . +Grad G: So you know {disfmarker} happen to know how {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what "" sooner or later "" means like in practice ? +Grad C: That 's but it 's soon . +Grad G: Or estimated . OK , OK . +Grad C: So it 's g it 's {disfmarker} the spec is there and it 's gonna part of the M - three - L AP {disfmarker} API filed by the end of this year so that this means we can start using it basically now . But this is a technical detail . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . So a pointer {disfmarker} a way to really say pointers . +Grad B: Basically references from the roles in the schema {disfmarker} the bottom schemas to the action schemas is wha uh I 'm assuming . +Grad G: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean personally , I 'm looking even more forward to the day when we 're going to have X forms , which l is a form of notation where it allows you to say that if the SPG action up there is Enter , then the goal type can never be a statue . +Grad G: OK . Uh - huh . Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So you have constraints that are dependent on the c actual s specific filler , uh , of some attribute . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . W Yeah e exactly . Um , you know this , of course , does not make sense in light of the Statue of Liberty , +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Grad C: however {vocalsound} it is uh you know sort of {disfmarker} these sort of things are imaginable . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Tsk . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah ? +Grad F: S So um , like are you gonna have similar schemas for FM +Grad G: Or the Gateway Arch in St . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Louis . So . +Grad F: like forced motion and caused action and stuff like you have for SPG ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad F: And if so like can {disfmarker} are you able to enforce that you know if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's SPG action then you have that schema , if it 's a forced motion then you have the other schema present in the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um we have absolute {disfmarker} No . We have absolutely no means of enforcing that , so it would be considered valid if we have an SPG action "" Enter "" and no SPG schema , but a forced action schema . Could happen . +Grad G: Whi - which is not bad , because I mean , that there 's multiple sens I mean that particular case , there 's mult there {disfmarker} there 's a forced side of {disfmarker} of that verb as well . +Grad C: Hmm . It {disfmarker} maybe it means we had nothing to say about the Source - Path - Goal . +Grad F: OK . +Grad C: What 's also nice , and for a i for me in my mind it 's {disfmarker} it 's crucially necessary , is that we can have multiple schemas and multiple action schemas in parallel . +Grad F: Right . +Grad C: And um we started thinking about going through our bakery questions , so when I say "" is there a bakery here ? "" you know I do ultimately want our module to be able to first of all f tell the rest of the system "" hey this person actually wants to go there "" and "" B "" , {comment} that person actually wants to buy something to eat there . Nuh ? And if these are two different schemas , IE the Source - Path - Goal schema of getting there and then the buying snacks schema , nuh ? {disfmarker} +Grad G: Would they both be listed here in {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +Grad G: OK . Under so o under action schema there 's a list that can include both {disfmarker} both things . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: ye Yeah , they they would {disfmarker} both schemas would appear , so what is the uh is {disfmarker} is there a "" buying s snacks "" schema ? +Grad E: Snack action . +Grad G: That 's interesting . +Grad C: What is the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have +Grad G: What ? +Grad C: the buying snack schema ? +Grad E: See . +Undergrad D: Buying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} buying his food {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm sure there 's a commercial event schema in there somewhere . +Grad G: Oop . I {vocalsound} d f +Grad C: Yeah , a "" commercial event "" or something . +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah ? So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we would {disfmarker} we would instantiate the SPG schema with a Source - Path - Goal blah - blah - blah +Grad G: I see . +Grad C: and the buying event you know at which {disfmarker} however that looks like , the place f thing to buy . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . Interesting . Would you say that the {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} I mean you could have a flat structure and just say these are two independent things , but there 's also this sort of like causal , well , so one is really facilitating the other and it 's part of a compound action of some kind , which has structure . +Grad C: Yeah . Now it 's technically possible that you can fit schema within schema , and schema within schemata {disfmarker} +Grad G: uh I {disfmarker} I think that 's nicer for a lot of reasons but might be a pain so uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: um Well , for me it seems that uh {disfmarker} r Yes . +Grad G: I mean there are truly times when you have two totally independent goals that they might express at once , but in this case it 's really like there 's a purpo means that you know f for achieving some other purpose . +Grad C: Well , if I 'm {disfmarker} if I 'm recipient of such a message and I get a Source - Path - Goal where the goal is a bakery and then I get a commercial action which takes place in a bakery , right ? and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and they {disfmarker} they are obviously , via identifiers , identified to be the same thing here . +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . See that {disfmarker} that bothers me that they 're the same thing . +Grad C: No , no , just the {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad G: Yeah because they 're two different things one of which is l you could think of one a sub you know pru whatever pre - condition for the second . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah ! +Grad G: Right . Yeah , yeah . So . So . OK . So there 's like levels of granularity . So uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's um a single event of which they are both a part . And they 're {disfmarker} independently they {disfmarker} they are events which have very different characters as far as Source - Path - Goal whatever . +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: So when you identify Source - Path - Goal and whatever , there 's gonna to be a desire , whatever , eating , hunger , whatever other frames you have involved , they have to match up in {disfmarker} in nice ways . So it seems like each of them has its own internal structure and mapping to these schemas +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know from the other {disfmarker} But you know that 's just {disfmarker} That 's just me . +Grad C: Well , I think we 're gonna hit a lot of interesting problems +Grad G: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: and as I prefaced it this is the result of one week of arguing {vocalsound} about it +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Between you guys +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: uh +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad E: Yeah I mean I {disfmarker} I still am not entirely sure that I really fully grasp the syntax of this . +Grad B: Well it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually a very {disfmarker} actually , it doesn't actually {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um it occur {disfmarker} it occurs to me that I mean ne +Grad E: You know , like what {disfmarker} Right . Or the intended interpretation of this . +Grad C: um well I should have {disfmarker} we should have added an ano an XML example , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: or some XML examples +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: yeah that would be {disfmarker} that would be nice . +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and this is on {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on my list of things until next {disfmarker} next week . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: It 's also a question of the recursiveness and {disfmarker} and a hier hierarchy um in there . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Do we want the schemas just blump blump blump blump ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} if we can actually you know get it so that we can , out of one utterance , activate more than one schema , I mean , then we 're already pretty good , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well you have to be careful with that uh uh thing because uh {vocalsound} I mean many actions presuppose some {disfmarker} um almost {vocalsound} infinitely many other actions . So if you go to a bakery {pause} you have a general intention of uh not being hungry . +Grad G: Yeah . Mayb - yeah . +PhD A: You have a specific intentions to cross the traffic light to get there . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You have a further specific intentions to left {disfmarker} to lift your right foot +Grad C: Hmm ? +PhD A: and so uh uh I mean y you really have to focus on on {disfmarker} on +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and decide the level of {disfmarker} of abstraction that {disfmarker} that you aim at it kind of zero in on that , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD A: and more or less ignore the rest , unless there is some implications that {disfmarker} that you want to constant draw from {disfmarker} from sub - tasks um that are relevant uh I mean but very difficult . +Grad G: M Th The other thing that I just thought of is that you could want to go to the bakery because you 're supposed to meet your friend there or som +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: you know so you {disfmarker} like being able to infer the second thing is very useful and probably often right . +Grad B: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the utterance was "" is there a bakery around here ? "" , +Grad G: But having them separate {disfmarker} +Grad B: not "" I want to go to a bakery . "" +Grad G: Well maybe their friend said they were going to meet them in a bakery around the area . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: And I 'm , yeah {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm inventing contexts which are maybe unlikely , +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Sure it {disfmarker} OK . Yeah . +Grad G: but yeah I mean like {disfmarker} but it 's still the case that um you could {disfmarker} you could override that default by giving extra information +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad G: which is to me a reason why you would keep the inference of that separate from the knowledge of "" OK they really want to know if there 's a bakery around here "" , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: which is direct . +Grad C: Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there should never be a hard coded uh {vocalsound} shortcut from {pause} the bakery question to the uh double schema thing , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: how uh {disfmarker} And , as a matter of fact , when I have traveled with my friends we make these {disfmarker} exactly these kinds of appointments . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: We o o +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah . Exactly . It 's {disfmarker} I met someone at the bakery you know in the Victoria Station t you know {vocalsound} train station London before , +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yep . +PhD A: Well . I have a question about the slot of the SPG action . +Grad G: yeah . It 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {vocalsound} the Enter - View - Approach the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the EVA um , those are fixed slots in this particular action . Every action of this kind will have a choice . Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or will it just um uh {disfmarker} is it change {disfmarker} +Grad E: Every SPG {disfmarker} every SPG action either is an Enter or a View or an Approach , +PhD A: Right , right . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: right ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I mean for {disfmarker} for each particular action that you may want to characterize you would have some number of slots that define uh uh uh you know in some way what this action is all about . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It can be either A , B or C . Um . So is it a fixed number or {disfmarker} or do you leave it open {disfmarker} it could be between one and fifteen uh {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's flexible . +Grad C: Um , the uh {disfmarker} Well , it sort of depends on {disfmarker} on if you actually write down the {disfmarker} the schema then you have to say it 's either one of them or it can be none , or it can be any of them . However the uh {disfmarker} it seems to be sensible to me to r to view them as mutually exclusive um maybe even not . +Grad G: J Do you mean within the Source - Path - Goal actions ? +PhD A: uh {vocalsound} ye uh uh b I uh I {disfmarker} u I understand +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Those three ? +PhD A: uh but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um how {disfmarker} how where is the end ? So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , no . There {disfmarker} a a actually by I think my question is simpler than that , um {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} OK , so you have an SPG action and {disfmarker} and it has three different um uh aspects um because you can either enter a building or view it or {disfmarker} or approach it and touch it or something . Um now you define uh another action , it 's {disfmarker} it 's called um uh s S P G - one +Grad C: Forced action or forced motion . Yeah . +PhD A: action a different action . Um and this {disfmarker} uh action - two would have various variable possibilities of interpreting what you would like to do . And {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} in a way similar to either Enter - View - Approach you may want to send a letter , read a letter , or dictate a letter , let 's say . So , h +Grad B: Oh the {disfmarker} OK uh maybe I 'd {disfmarker} The uh {disfmarker} These actions {disfmarker} I don't know if I 'm gonna answer your question or not with this , but the categories inside of action schemas , so , SPG action is a category . Real although I think what we 're specifying here is this is a category where the actions "" enter , view and approach "" would fall into because they have a related Source - Path - Goal schema in our tourist domain . Cuz viewing in a tourist domain is going up to it and {disfmarker} or actually going from one place to another to take a picture , in this {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Oh , s so it 's sort of automatic derived fr from the structure that {disfmarker} that is built elsewhere . +Grad B: derived I don't know if I u +Grad E: This is a cate this a category structure here , +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: right ? Action schema . What are some types of action schemas ? Well one of the types of action schemas is Source - Path - Goal action . And what are some types of that ? And an Enter , a View , an Approach . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Those are all Source - Path - Goal actions . +Grad B: Inside of Enter there will be roles that can be filled basically . So if I want to go from outside to inside {vocalsound} then you 'd have the roles that need to filled , where you 'd have a Source - Path - Goal set of roles . So you 'd the Source would be outside and Path is to the door or whatever , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So if you wanted to have a new type of action you 'd create a new type of category . Then this category would {disfmarker} we would put it {disfmarker} or not necessarily {disfmarker} We would put a new action in the m uh in the categories that {disfmarker} in which it has the um {disfmarker} Well , every action has a set of related schemas like Source - Path - Goal or force , whatever , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: So we would put "" write a letter "" in the categories uh that {disfmarker} in which it had {disfmarker} it w had uh schemas u +Grad E: There could be a communication event action or something like that +Grad B: Exactly . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Schemas uh that of that type . +Grad E: and you could write it . +Grad B: And then later , you know , there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we have a communication event action where we 'd define it down there as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . So there 's a bit a redundancy , right ? in {disfmarker} in which the things that go into a particular {disfmarker} You have categories at the top under action schema and the things that go under a particular category are um supposed to have a corresponding schema definition for that type . So I guess what 's the function of having it up there too ? I mean I guess I 'm wondering whether {disfmarker} You could just have under action schema you could just sort of say whatever you know it 's gonna be Enter , View or Approach or whatever number of things +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and pos partly because you need to know somewhere that those things fall into some categories . And it may be multiple categories as you say which is um the reason why it gets a little messy +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: um but if it has {disfmarker} if it 's supposed to be categorized in category X then the corresponding schema X will be among the structures that {disfmarker} that follow . +Grad B: Right . Well , this is one of things we were arguing about . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: That 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: th this is {disfmarker} this r +Grad G: OK , sorry . +Grad C: this is {disfmarker} this is more {disfmarker} this is probably the way that th that 's the way that seemed more intuitive to Johno I guess +Grad G: You didn't tell me to {disfmarker} +Grad C: also for a while {disfmarker} for +Grad G: Uh - huh . But now you guys have seen the light . +Grad C: No , no , no . Uh we have not {disfmarker} we have not seen the light . +Grad B: No . +Grad G: So . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} One reason we 're doing it this way is in case there 's extra structure that 's in the Enter action that 's not captured by the schemas , +Grad G: I it 's easy to go back and forth isn't it ? Uh - huh . I agree . Right . Right . +Grad B: right ? +Grad G: Which is why I would think you would say Enter and then just say all the things that are relevant specifically to Enter . And then the things that are abstract will be in the abstract things as well . And that 's why the bindings become useful . +Grad B: Right , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Ri - You 'd like {disfmarker} so you 're saying you could practically turn this structure inside out ? or something , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: Um Ye - I see what you mean by that , +Grad C: No basically w +Grad G: but I {disfmarker} I don't if I would {disfmarker} I would need to have t have that . +Grad C: Get {disfmarker} get rid of the sort of SPG slash something uh or the sub - actions category , +Grad G: Right . +Grad C: because what does that tell us ? +Grad G: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad C: Um and I agree that you know this is something we need to discuss , +Grad G: I in fact what you could say is for Enter , +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: you could say "" here , list all the kinds of schemas that {disfmarker} on the category that {disfmarker} +Grad E: List all the parent categories . +Grad G: you know i list all the parent categories "" . It 's just like a frame hierarchy , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: like you have these blended frames . So you would say enter and you 'd say my parent frames are such - and - such , h and then those are the ones that actually you then actually define and say how the roles bind to your specific roles which will probably be f richer and fuller and have other stuff in there . +Grad E: Yeah . This sounds like a paper I 've read around here recently in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah it could {vocalsound} be not a coincidence . Like I said , I 'm sure I 'm just hitting everything with a hammer that I developed , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: but I mean you know uh it 's {disfmarker} I 'm just telling you what I think , you just hit the button and it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , I guess fr uh +Grad E: Yeah I mean but there 's a good question here . Like , I mean uh do you {disfmarker} When do you need {disfmarker} Damn this headset ! When you this uh , eh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Metacomment . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} That 's all recorded . Um . Why do you {disfmarker} +Grad G: "" Damn this project . "" No just kidding . +Grad E: I don't know . Like {disfmarker} How do I {disfmarker} how do I come at this question ? Um . I just don't see why you would {disfmarker} I mean does th Who uses this uh {disfmarker} this data structure ? You know ? Like , do you say "" alright I 'm going to uh {disfmarker} {pause} do an SPG action "" . And then you know somebody ne either the computer or the user says "" alright , well , I know I want to do a Source - Path - Goal action so what are my choices among that ? "" And "" oh , OK , so I can do an Enter - View - Approach "" . It 's not like that , right ? It 's more like you say "" I want to , uh {disfmarker} {pause} I want to do an Enter . "" +Grad B: Well only one of {disfmarker} +Grad E: And then you 're more interested in knowing what the parent categories are of that . Right ? So that the um {disfmarker} the uh sort of representation that you were just talking about seems more relevant to the kinds of things you would have to do ? +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if I understand your question . Only one of those things are gonna be lit up when we pass this on . So only Enter will be {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: if we {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our module decided that Enter is the case , View and Approach will not be there . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad C: Well {vocalsound} uh it 's {disfmarker} it sort of came into my mind that sometimes even two could be on , and would be interesting . +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: um nevertheless um +Grad E: Mayb - Well maybe I 'm not understanding where this comes from and where this goes to . +Grad B: Well in that case , we can't {disfmarker} we can't w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad C: l let 's {disfmarker} let 's not {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: well the thing is if that 's the case we {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} I don't think our system can handle that currently . +Grad E: What are we doing with this ? +Grad C: No , not at all . But {disfmarker} U s {vocalsound} t So {disfmarker} +Grad E: In principle . +Grad G: "" Approach and then enter . "" +Grad C: the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} in some sense we {disfmarker} we ex get the task done extremely well +Grad G: Run like this uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: because this is exactly the discussion we need {disfmarker} need . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Period . No more qualifiers than that . So . +Grad G: No , this is the useful , +Grad C: and um and {disfmarker} and I th I hope +Grad G: you know , don don't worry . +Grad C: um uh let 's make a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sharper claim . We will not end this discussion anytime soon . +Grad G: Yeah , I can guarantee that . +Grad C: And it 's gonna get more and more complex the {disfmarker} the l complexer and larger our domains get . +Grad E: Sigh . +Grad C: And I think um we will have all of our points in writing pretty soon . So this is nice about being being recorded also . The um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Undergrad D: That 's true . +Grad B: The r uh the {disfmarker} in terms of why is {disfmarker} it 's laid out like this versus some other {disfmarker} +Grad C: the people {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: um that 's kind of a contentious point between the two of us but {vocalsound} this is one wa so this is a way to link uh the way these roles are filled out to the action . +Grad E: In my view . +Grad B: Because if we know that Enter is a t is an SPG action , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: we know to look for an SPG schema and put the appropriate {disfmarker} fill in the appropriate roles later on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad G: And you could have also indicated that by saying "" Enter , what are the kinds of action I am ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right ? So there 's just like sort of reverse organization , right ? So like unless @ @ {disfmarker} Are there reasons why one is better than the other I mean that come from other sources ? +Grad E: Again {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes because nobod no the modules don't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . uh +Grad C: This is {disfmarker} this is a schema that defines XML messages that are passed from one module to another , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: mainly meaning from the natural language understanding , or from the deep language understanding to the action planner . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Now the {disfmarker} the reason for {disfmarker} for not using this approach is because you always will have to go back , each module will try {disfmarker} have to go back to look up which uh you know entity can have which uh , you know , entity can have which parents , and then {disfmarker} So you always need the whole body of {disfmarker} of y your model um to figure out what belongs to what . Or you always send it along with it , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: nuh ? So you always send up "" here I am {disfmarker} I am this person , and I can have these parents "" in every message . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: which e +Grad G: OK , so it 's just like a pain to have to send it . +Grad C: It may or may not be a just a pain it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I 'm completely willing to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to throw all of this away +Grad G: OK , I understand . +Grad C: and completely redo it , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad C: you know and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it after some iterations we may just do that . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I would just like to ask um like , if it could happen for next time , I mean , just beca cuz I 'm new +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and I don't really just {disfmarker} I just don't know what to make of this and what this is for , and stuff like that , you know , so if someone could make an example of what would actually be in it , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad E: like first of all what modules are talking to each other using this , +Grad C: Yeah , we {disfmarker} I will promise for the next time to have fleshed out N {comment} XML examples for a {disfmarker} a run through and {disfmarker} and see how this {disfmarker} this then translates , +Grad E: right ? And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: and how this can come about , +Grad G: Be great . +Grad C: nuh ? including the sort of "" miracle occurs here "" um part . +Grad E: Right . +Grad C: And um is there more to be said ? I think um {disfmarker} In principle what I {disfmarker} I think that this approach does , and e e whether or not we take the Enter - View and we all throw up {disfmarker} up the ladder um wha how do how does Professor Peter call that ? +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad C: The uh hhh , {comment} silence su sublimination ? Throwing somebody up the stairs ? Have you never read the Peter 's Principle anyone here ? +Grad E: Nope . +PhD A: Oh , uh +Grad F: People reach their level of uh max their level of {disfmarker} at which they 're incompetent or whatever . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Maximum incompetence +PhD A: Yeah . Right , right . +Grad C: and then you can throw them up the stairs +Grad E: Alright . +Grad G: Oh ! +Grad C: um . Yeah . +PhD A: Promote them , yeah . +Grad C: OK , so we can promote Enter - View all {disfmarker} all up a bit and and get rid of the uh blah - blah - X - blah uh asterisk sub - action item altogether . No {disfmarker} no problem with that +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: and we {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} we will play around with all of them but the principal distinction between having the {disfmarker} the pure schema and their instantiations on the one hand , and adding some whatever , more intention oriented specification um on parallel to that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} this approach seems to be uh workable to me . I don't know . If you all share that opinion then that made my day much happier . +Grad B: This is a simple way to basically link uh roles to actions . +Grad G: Uh yeah wait {disfmarker} R Yeah , yeah . That 's fine . +Grad B: That 's the {disfmarker} that was the intent of {disfmarker} of it , basically . +Grad E: Sure . Sure . +Grad G: Uh that 's true . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: Although um roles {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I {disfmarker} I do I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm never happy when he uses the word "" roles "" , +Grad G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad C: I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . I was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I b I mean ROLLS so +Grad G: Bread rolls ? +Grad E: Oh you meant pastries , then ? +Grad B: Yeah , pastries is what I 'm talking about . +Grad G: Pastry oh ba oh the bak bakery example . +Undergrad D: Bakery . Bakery . +Grad E: This is the bakery example . Got it . Alright . +Grad G: I see . Right . OK . +Grad E: Help ! +Grad G: I guess I 'll agree to that , then . +Grad C: OK . That 's all I have for today . Oh no , there 's one more issue . Bhaskara brought that one up . Meeting time rescheduling . +Grad G: I n Didn't you say something about Friday , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} ? Hmm . +Grad C: So it looks like you have not been partaking , the Monday at three o ' clock time has turned out to be not good anymore . So people have been thinking about an alternative time and the one we came up with is Friday two - thirty ? three ? What was it ? +Grad B: You have class until two , right ? so if we don't want him {disfmarker} if we don't want him to run over here +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Two - th Two - thirty - ish or three or Friday at three or something around that time . +Grad G: So do I . Yeah . +Grad B: two thirty - ish or three is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . e +Grad C: Um how {disfmarker} how are your {disfmarker} +Grad G: That would be good . +PhD A: uh Friday uh Yeah , that 's fine . +Grad C: And I know that you have until three {disfmarker} You 're busy ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: So three is {disfmarker} sounds good ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad G: I 'll be free by then . +Grad E: I could do that . Yeah I mean earlier on Friday is better but three {disfmarker} you know I mean {disfmarker} if it were a three or a three thirty time then I would take the three or whatever , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but yeah sure three is fine . +Grad C: Yeah , and you can always make it shortly after three probably . +Grad E: I mean . +Undergrad D: Yeah , and I don't need to be here particularly deeply . +Grad C: Often , no , but uh , +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad C: whenever . +Undergrad D: But yeah . +Grad C: You are more than welcome if you think that this kind of discussion gets you anywhere in {disfmarker} in your life then uh you 're free to c +Undergrad D: It 's fascinating . +Grad G: "" That 's the right answer . "" +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that I don't have to work it out +Grad C: +Undergrad D: because . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Undergrad D: I 'm just glad that don't have to work it out myself , that I 'm not involved at all in the working out of it because . +Grad C: Uh but you 're a linguist . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: You should {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh yeah . That 's why I 'm glad that I 'm not involved in working it out . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: So it 's at Friday at three ? there that 's +Grad C: And um +Grad E: So already again this week , +Grad C: How diligent do we feel ? +Grad E: huh ? +Grad C: Yeah . Do feel that we have done our chores for this week or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . So I mean clearly there 's {disfmarker} I can talk about the um the parser changes on Friday at least , +Grad C: OK , Bhaskara will do the big show on Friday . +Grad F: so . +Grad G: And you guys will argue some more ? +Grad B: And between now and then yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Between now and then . +Grad G: and have some ? +Grad C: We will {disfmarker} r +Grad E: Promise ? +Grad G: probably . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: We will . Don't worry . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad G: And we 'll get the summary like , this {disfmarker} the c you know , short version , like {disfmarker} +PhD A: An - and I would like to second Keith 's request . +Grad G: S +PhD A: An example wo would be nice t to have kind of a detailed example . +Grad C: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yes . I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I guess I 'm on record for promising that now . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Like have it {disfmarker} we 'll have it in writing . So . or , better , speech . So . +Grad C: This is it and um +Grad B: The other good thing about it is Jerry can be on here on Friday and he can weigh in as well . +Grad C: Yeah . and um if you can get that binding point also maybe with a nice example that would be helpful for Johno and me . +Grad G: Oh yeah uh OK . let 's uh yeah they 're {disfmarker} +Grad C: Give us {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No problem , +Grad E: I think you 've got one on hand , +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad E: huh ? +Grad G: I have several in my head , yeah . Always thinking about binding . +Grad C: Well the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the binding is technically no problem but it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it seems to be conceptually important that we find out if we can s if {disfmarker} if there {disfmarker} if there are things in there that are sort of a general nature , we should distill them out and put them where the schemas are . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If there are things that you know are intention - specific , then we should put them up somewhere , a +Grad G: So , in general they 'll be bindings across both intentions and the actions . +Grad C: Yep . That 's wonderful . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's gen it 's general across all of these things +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: it 's like {disfmarker} I mean Shastri would say you know binding is like {vocalsound} an essential cognitive uh process . So . {vocalsound} Um . +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: So I don't think it will be isolated to one or the two , but you can definitely figure out where {disfmarker} Yeah , sometimes things belong and {disfmarker} So actually I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I would be curious to see how separate the intention part and the action part are in the system . Like I know the whole thing is like intention lattice , or something like that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: right ? So is the ri right now are the ideas the rich {disfmarker} rich the RAD or whatever is one you know potential block inside intention . It 's still {disfmarker} it 's still mainly intention hypothesis +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: and then that 's just one way to describe the {disfmarker} the action part of it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: It 's an a attempt to refine it basically . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} And yeah , +Grad G: OK , great uh - huh . +Grad C: it 's an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad G: Not just that you want to go from here to here , it 's that the action is what you intend +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: and this action consists of all com complicated modules and image schemas and whatever . +Grad C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and there will be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a relatively high level of redundancy +Grad G: So . +Grad C: in the sense that um ultimately one {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . which is , yeah , It 's fine +Grad C: so th so that if we want to get really cocky we we will say "" well if you really look at it , you just need our RAD . "" You can throw the rest away , right ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Because you 're not gonna get anymore information out of the action a as you find it there in the domain object . +Grad G: Right . Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But then again um in this case , the domain object may contain information that we don't really care about either . So . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: H But w we 'll see that then , and how {disfmarker} how it sort of evolves . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I mean if {disfmarker} if people really like our {disfmarker} our RAD , I mean w what might happen is that they will get rid of that action thing completely , you know , and leave it up for us to get the parser input um +Grad G: Mmm . We know the things that make use of this thing so that we can just change them so that they make use of RAD . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You don't have to use the acronym . +Grad G: I can't believe we 're using this term . So I 'm like RAD ! Like every time I say it , it 's horrible . OK . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I see what you mean . +Grad B: RAD 's a great term . +Grad G: Is the {disfmarker} But what is the "" why "" ? +Grad E: It 's rad , even ! +Grad B: Why ? +Grad G: Why ? +Grad E: It happened to c be what it stands for . +Grad B: It just happened to be the acronym . +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} doesn't make it a great term . It 's just like those jokes where you have to work on both levels . +Grad C: ye no but i +Undergrad D: Just think of it as {disfmarker} as "" wheel "" in German . +Grad C: but if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you work in th in that XML community it is a great acronym +Grad G: Do you see what I mean ? Like +Grad C: because it e evokes whatever RDF {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: RDF is the biggest thing right ? That 's the rich {disfmarker} sort of "" Resource Description Framework "" +Grad E: Oh "" rich de "" +Grad G: Oh . +Grad C: and um {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} So , description , having the word d term "" description "" in there is wonderful , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh "" rich "" is also great , rwww . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: Who doesn't like to be a +Grad E: Everybody likes action . +Grad G: Oh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Plus it 's hip . The kids 'll like it . +Grad G: But what if it 's not an action ? +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's rad , +Undergrad D: Yeah all the kids 'll love it . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad C: yeah . +Grad G: And intentions will be "" RID "" ? Like , "" OK "" . Um are the {disfmarker} are the sample data that you guys showed sometime ago {disfmarker} like the things {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe you 're gonna run a trial tomorrow . I mean , I 'm just wondering whether the ac some the actual sentences from this domain will be available . Cuz it 'd be nice for me to like look if I 'm thinking about examples I 'm mostly looking at child language which you know will have some overlap but not total with the kinds of things that you guys are getting . So you showed some in this {disfmarker} here before +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and maybe you 've posted it before but where would I look if I want to see ? +Grad C: Oh I {disfmarker} You want audio ? +Grad G: You know . +Grad C: or do you want transcript ? +Grad G: No just {disfmarker} just transcript . +Grad C: Yeah , well just transcript is just not available because nobody has transcribed it yet . +Grad G: Sorry . +Grad C: Um I can e I can uh I 'll transcribe it though . +Grad G: Oh , OK . I take that back then . +Grad C: It 's no problem . +Grad G: OK , well don't {disfmarker} don't make it a high priority {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} In fact if you just tell me like you know like two examples +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I mean , y The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the representational problems are {disfmarker} I 'm sure , will be there , +Grad C: OK . +Grad G: like enough for me to think about . So . +Grad C: OK , so Friday , whoever wants and comes , and can . +Grad E: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Grad C: This Friday . +Grad G: Here . OK . +Grad C: The big parser show . Now you can all turn off your {disfmarker} +","Graduate and undergraduate students discuss scheduling, past interactions, and a project involving data collection, action planning, and XML messaging schema. They argue about defining action schemas and how to represent actions and intentions within an XML framework, with promises made to provide examples and flesh out ideas for a Friday meeting. They also discuss potential redundancies and how to bind different schemas to actions, considering whether to organize by action or intention. A new meeting time on Friday at 3 PM is proposed due to current scheduling conflicts." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Afternoon guys . It's gonna be {gap} . +Marketing: Rock and roll . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: So do we need to re-train Mike on how to put his mic on ? +Project Manager: We may do . +Industrial Designer: Think s +Marketing: Okay , can he get it all by himself this time ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm feeling like a big boy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Pro +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Probably not , 'cause he's 'S been listening to {gap} too much . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He's getting retarded . Yay . +Marketing: I believe I can fly . +User Interface: Alright well we got some exciting stuff for you guys . +Industrial Designer: Or not . +User Interface: Or not . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Just what I needed was something exciting . Remember , I'm an old man . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , ready to go ? +User Interface: All ready . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we've got our conceptual design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Apparently I'm old as well . +Project Manager: Hopefully we've all got exciting ideas now . +Marketing: Thirty's really young , eh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We do . +Project Manager: Uh k exciting ideas . 'Kay so here's our agenda our agenda . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm gonna open . I'm gonna talk for a bit about what we're gonna do . I'm gonna take some notes . We're gonna all do a presentation , and then hopefully we're gonna make some decisions now . {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} Well when I say hopefully , we have to . So +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I'm gonna let you guys talk before we make decisions . And does anyone really want to go first ? +User Interface: I guess I'll go first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You p two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Component , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Components design . +User Interface: Yep that's it . +Industrial Designer: Presented by name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: My name is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your name is name ? +Marketing: Jose he man is . +User Interface: My name is name . +Project Manager: Huh hi name . +Industrial Designer: My name is Inigo Montoya . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You killed my father . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry I did this in a bit of a rush . +Industrial Designer: Prepare to die . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N name . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so here's a look inside your really old-looking remote control . Um you've got {vocalsound} a printed {vocalsound} a printed uh circuit board here , and you've got all these buttons which kinda press down little rubber {vocalsound} nubbies into these little holes that activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've all broke a remote control ri um s yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah we've all broken a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you've also got um {disfmarker} you've got your chip here , your batteries here , and some sorta electronics . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I just love you tech guys , huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there's a thingy and a dingy and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You press this and it does th +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah y do jabber {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you've got {disfmarker} here's here's a transistor , and this amplifies your signal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um you've got the L_E_D_ here on the end of the uh uh on the end of the printed circuit board . Um you've got a couple diodes here for I don't know who and whatnot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno who and whatnot . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +User Interface: So um we've got a {disfmarker} i in this in this uh drawing he uh in this example here , this is a eighteen pin um uh chip {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: P Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it's two double A_ batteries . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is pretty standard remote . So here are options for our power sources . You can use a basic battery , which we've already discussed , um {vocalsound} th our tech department also said we have the option of doing some kind of hand dynamo where maybe you crank it or something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wanna change that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I don't know if that's really {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I gotta I gotta flashlight , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know we got some qu crazy guys down there in that department so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You shake it . +Marketing: yeah but it's interesting 'cause you shake it like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: So that's the next bullet is the um the kinetic provision of energy , +Marketing: And that's on the camera {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's like that flashlight where you have to shake it {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh we've got solar cells , which I don't think is a very good idea because um you could not use your remote at night {vocalsound} which doesn't make a lot of sense . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: And finally we've got our cradle o our power cradle idea . +Project Manager: Okay so we basically have battery versus cradle here ? +User Interface: M battery versus cradle I think is {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I like the kinetic . +Project Manager: So we have battery versus cradle {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I g I I figured you would . Yes . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It could be fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's actually a novel thing because you could sell it a as a novelty , just to be actually serious for a minute here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it is it is more uh {disfmarker} I mean it is more eco-friendly than the than the cradle 'cause you're still using power off the grid with the cradle . So um +Project Manager: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: our case design . We have uh choices in materials and choices in the general shapes that we can do . Our material choices are a plastic latex um ty or plastic , a rubber latex type thing , uh wood , or titanium . If we go with titanium we're gonna be uh limited in the amount of shapes we can do because it's tough to shape the titanium , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah pers +Project Manager: Wood wood would ge would give us a little bit of a marketing niche , wouldn't it . +User Interface: I think wood i {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It it it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah . +User Interface: I I can't see anybody wanting to use a wooden remote , it's just anti-technology really , you know . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Hmm . +Marketing: Uh uh to me in a marketing sense it's not it's not relative . We can we can o we can uh accentuate whatever {disfmarker} whatever product you put in there we can find a way to accentuate it . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And what we may be able to do , and I think this might be the best option is to combine some {disfmarker} a couple of these . Um my recommendation personally would be to do some kind of a plastic inner shell with a like a rubber outer shell , to make it um to mak uh like a thick plastic inner shell and a t um kind of a {disfmarker} to have that rubber outer shell to make it more durable , and also maybe i I think it feels a little better than the plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Do you get a good grip on the rubber ? Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if you make it from that super rubber , when you drop it on the floor it can bounce right back up in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You don't even need to lean down to get it . +User Interface: The advantages of working with plastic and rubber is {disfmarker} w we we'll have a lot more um options just in terms of shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you can extrude plastic in basically any shape you want . So um {disfmarker} and then we can cover you know the breakable bits with rubber yeah so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But basically these are {vocalsound} curved and double-curved I I believe that the tech department , in their um {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} message to me , that they were referring to the number of th curves in the bottom . I have no idea exactly what they're talking about , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but that's what they told me , {vocalsound} uncurved , flat , curved , or double-curved . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would guess this like this pen would be kinda like a double-curved , where it's curved on m m multiple axes , right ? I think curved means just curved in one axis and double-curved is curved in two axes +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or surfaces . I have no idea . +Project Manager: I think it might mean something like that sorta shape because a double curve rather than a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm yeah that's {disfmarker} yeah that's what I see . +Project Manager: yeah that's what {gap} . +User Interface: Oh okay oh like a wave , okay . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I see also . +User Interface: Alright that makes sense okay . Um okay , with the interface we have the following options , we can u we can use push buttons , we can use a scroll wheel with an integrated push button , and L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: or multiple scrolling wheels . Um so these are all options that the user interface guy can uh {disfmarker} has at his disposal to put together a user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: For electronics , we have these very technical um {vocalsound} descriptions here . A simple chip , which is the least expensive , but I have no numbers to give you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: a regular chip , which is {vocalsound} like the medium porridge {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} medium expense uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} D do we have actually any concept of what the difference is between a simple chip and an advanced chip ? +User Interface: Yes the difference is , with a simple chip {disfmarker} a simple chip will operate {disfmarker} oh why doesn't this scroll up ? Previous previous , okay . A simple chip is required to operate push buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} an advanced chip is required to to operate um the L_C_D_ display , and it didn't say specifically , but I I have a hunch that a regular chip is gonna be the scroll wheel and the multiple scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that makes sense . So presentation from {disfmarker} I guess design would go best . Next . +User Interface: That's the end of my presentation . +Project Manager: Technical functions or interface concept ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh interface concept . +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very long presentation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , but it has your name on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that doesn't bo bode well for it for it tats as well . Um so , somehow that thing's too big , but um {disfmarker} okay um our uh manufacturing division wanted the speech recognition . They say they could put it to work but um we don't think so . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . It it it {disfmarker} you'll be you know be affected by the by the other speech and {disfmarker} +User Interface: If the T_V_ is working , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} I mean it'll {disfmarker} if somebody says up in the middle of a television show , it's gonna change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and and fighting for the remote would not be fun anymore , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I think that's one of the things we wanna keep . +Project Manager: But what if you actually had to press a button to make it recognize ? So if you pressed it and went , up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That kinda would r d +User Interface: Well then why don't you just press the up button ? +Project Manager: Man yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . That would kind of lose it . +Project Manager: But if it's just one thing with a button that you can just go {disfmarker} Up . +User Interface: Even still there's gonna be interf th there's there still will be interference from the T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It might not be it might not be completely confusing , but I think you'll still y it's still {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think it's practical at all . I think it's a bad idea frankly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so um taking that away , our uh {disfmarker} the the the rubber but rubber buttons are the more reliable {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You guys know your stuff . +Industrial Designer: it's the the ones that would al would allow us to to market our product as being you know less prone to damage and more resistant to things like spillage of liquids over it or you know mistreat misuses as it happens to remote controls . Um as for the point that we making about losing it . Well , we wanna small r remote control one side because uh we want it to be cool and uh designed , but um apparently um market shows that bigger s bigger um remotes get less lost , +User Interface: That I would believe . +Industrial Designer: about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But um yeah I think we we need to compromise between those two and somehow we'll do that . Somehow . Um so {vocalsound} the the {disfmarker} what I would propose is something more or less in the uh direction of what is to yo the right of that slide uh but without {disfmarker} with a l a less complicated um design , so the numbers , the volume control , and channel control , and teletext access . Uh the volume and channel control can just become those the the four button array as in if it was a round dial . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um if you just think about it as the one to the right but with the numbers and the four buttons plus maybe a centre one with teletext . +Project Manager: So we're suggesting doing a sorta scroll wheel thing for the volume ? +Industrial Designer: Ye no it's not +User Interface: That's not a scroll wheel . +Industrial Designer: i i it's just four buttons that are on a cross , +Project Manager: Nah . Oh okay okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: so that you ba basically can control all of the important tasks from that {gap} alone . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . +User Interface: Instead of play , stop , rewind , and fast forward there , that's up , down , louder , and quieter . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um yeah so I think we w we go for something mid-sized , so something looks good +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh is not too prone to get lost . That be it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So on to {disfmarker} Y functional requirements or trend watching ? +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Trend watching has a later date there . +Marketing: Trend watching I guess . Trend watching I believe . +Project Manager: {gap} forty six nineteen fifty seven . Yep . +Marketing: See what it looks like . It's been so long . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} I don't know what to say . When I s when I see the {disfmarker} when I see the product I I I I don't wanna buy it . I see so many of 'em out there . There's nothing about that product that makes me wanna choose that product over other products that are out there . +User Interface: Are you talking about the picture ? That's not our that's not our b design , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: that's just a {disfmarker} that's just something he a a graphic he used to show you the layout of what the layout of the buttons might be like . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Okay 'cause 'cause right now I don't have too much to say about how to market this product because we don't have a product to market yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh from from talking to Mike is that we have we have uh we can market a more expensive product now . That's what I understand so , +Project Manager: Upper management said yes . +Marketing: hello . +Project Manager: Uh e excuse that , that's a bit of spam . +Marketing: And and so {disfmarker} yeah I'm a I'm a little bit stuck right now in that what uh w what is it that I'm gonna market ? Uh without special or increased marketable features I don't believe the product has a consumer demand . Uh I like the idea of of the scroll makin {vocalsound} there are so many people making these products at this price right now . What are we gonna do to make this one special and unique ? +User Interface: What's special and unique about a scroll ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} well I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . +Marketing: yeah it's {disfmarker} I I just see it as different . I don't say it's specially mm {disfmarker} I don't say it's special . Uh I say that it's different I {disfmarker} what I'm looking for as marketing is m give me something different . I give me a lower price , give me a higher price , give me some new technology , don't give me the same thing that everybody else is putting out there on the shelf it's f at the same price . I need something to market about this thing . We're we're a new firm . +Project Manager: I'd I'd say though that we {disfmarker} if we did make the decision to go with the cradle though , the then we have that as well , +Marketing: What i {vocalsound} if when when we have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but wi with a similar {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah when we when we have something like the cradle or or something give that's {disfmarker} as as a marketing standard {disfmarker} I need something to market , to make this product unique . +User Interface: Well right I think the two big th points that we have so far are the {disfmarker} having the cradle and also having uh the um the actual design of the uh case itself having like this like rubber shell maybe with a plastic interior , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: having it look really nice um and also be really durable . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Just remember when I made up this report I didn't have the information that we're discussing here . +Project Manager: Mm . Course . +User Interface: Right yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And and so so uh yeah when we have a cradle , when we have some kind of design , so what I'm saying is , from my perspective , I don't have a product to market right now . Um uh my personal preference is that we make some adjustment in the cost , either lower or develop an integrated new technol technology . That's that is the next step , there's technology and then there is technology , which we're moving into the next phase . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause that's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so uh we're gonna have some new technology to enhance the marketability . Yeah uh again I'm not sold on the product because we don't have a product in my opinion yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I need a product . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Well let's get a product then . +Marketing: I need a product to market . And I just {disfmarker} whatever product you guys put together , we'll find a way to market it . Tha that I'm not concerned with . +Project Manager: So now {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you give me {disfmarker} if you give me a cut-out of what everybody else has then I need to I need to find a lower cost . +Project Manager: So our big {vocalsound} questions here really are cradle or not cradle ? Do we go basic or do we go for features ? Uh d does anyone really wanna do anything with the scroll wheel or should we ditch that off-hand first ? +User Interface: Well my question is what would the scroll wheel do ? Function-wise , what does that do that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh but that was in your presentation {vocalsound} so wh what would you imagine it doing ? +Marketing: Yeah wh wh what's the {vocalsound} wh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well it's it's just another way to do the exact same thing that the buttons do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: But would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay now what I see with the scroll wheel is everybody has buttons . So from a marketing standpoint I have I have another door to walk through when we have something that's unique . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If it creates something more complex or more expensive , then I don't know if that makes it uh a marketing necessity . But again , from a marketing perspective I want as much new and different about this thing as possible because we're we're co {vocalsound} it's a very competitive market . +Project Manager: What I understand about scroll wheels is they're they're quite expensive to to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I d +User Interface: Th they are gonna be more expensive , but on the other hand , I mean , it {disfmarker} I mean it is an alternative if if you think that's gonna sell some some uh you know {disfmarker} if if we're gonna make up the extra cost by extra sales I think maybe it's worth it to do it , but I mean I would just use {disfmarker} if I was gonna do this I would just use the scroll wheel for s channels up and channels down . I don't think volume {disfmarker} or do you think volume would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I'll bet first in volume maybe . I dunno . +User Interface: No we can {disfmarker} we can do multiple scroll wheels but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I d I like the idea of basically focusing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my personal preference is focusing the p the product on the idea of the uh the case the the {vocalsound} uh dock to put it in {disfmarker} to to charge it . We can target like environmentally friendly ideas , that sorta things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It s i m makes it easy to market , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: it's easy to differentiate the product , yeah so . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} that's right . I think so . +Project Manager: And if we we keep the rest in a format that is durable because th th the whole product's gonna need to be more durable th thus because you're not going to be ditching it as often . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's gonna need to be more expensive because of the cradle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we can market it in terms of that and yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . I think we got some exclusivity in that , you know , we got something that nobody else has right now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and and that means we can we can make some adjustments in the retail or wholesale price if we need to and it also can create it's own demand from it's uniqueness . +Project Manager: So our big decision then is like how do we do um like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have to decide on the details and we have to decide on well n not exactly the details , but d do we have uh {disfmarker} What type of casing ? I personally like what you were saying about the plastic with the rubber . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm thinking {disfmarker} yeah something like kinda almost like these pens , you know , where there's {disfmarker} you have plastic bits and then it's not really rubber but just kinda like a fused {disfmarker} the plastic with rubber on the outside . +Project Manager: Okay . Just a very thin sorta sheet for a a grip , sorta thing or for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well no ma yeah maybe a bit more then th is on here but ju just as a kind of an inspiration , these pens I think are are kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So then if we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} d d do we want to do anything more basic with the {disfmarker} uh more advanced with the user interface in terms of do we want to go for {vocalsound} um buttons , or do we want {disfmarker} if we're ditching the scroll wheels do we want to go L_C_D_ ? Do we want to give {disfmarker} do we want to have anything else on it ? +Industrial Designer: It's only a T_V_ . +User Interface: Or from from my perspective I think L_C_D_ is a mistake because this is a universal remote and all you're doing {disfmarker} I mean it's {disfmarker} you're not gonna get any information back from the television , so the only information you can display on this remote is what channel you {vocalsound} just sent it at last and there's just not a lot of information , you know , there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It receives no information . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I I don't see any reason for having an L_C_D_ 'cause it's an increased cost . Unless you can think of something interesting to do with it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right now there's {disfmarker} right now there's nothing coming out of the T_V_ to receive , so you know unless technology changes and information starts coming out of the {disfmarker} a cable box or something there's no s I don't see the , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I don't see the necessity of an L_C_D_ either . Don't see it . +Project Manager: Okay so the question is now I guess we need t to decide on {disfmarker} well y you guys basically have to now go and figure out the details of this thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , what we need to know in terms of marketing and uh project management are are there any other questions that we need to answer now before you guys can go and build this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what overall things have we not decided on ? +User Interface: Well we have to {disfmarker} I think for me it's still not exactly clear exactly what the inter user interface is gonna be . There's the scroll wheel , in or out ? What do you guys like in the user interface ? +Project Manager: I think maybe in terms of marketing , is that gonna make enough of a difference to justify the cost ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Again . Well I think it's it's {disfmarker} the more uniqueness you can bring to the product , the easier it is , I believe , for me to market . Uh again the push-buttons I I see are are everywhere . And so we can go with the same thing , but we're gonna be com competing in a in a broader market than if we go with something unique . You know the other thing I thought about was you know , do we go to something like this ? Make a remote that doesn't look like a remote . It's just another {disfmarker} it's just a an idea , and I don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I dunno about like the flip-phone idea , because {vocalsound} I think , as far as durability th it's not a big {disfmarker} well maybe when it's closed . +Marketing: I mean what I see {disfmarker} one of the things one of the things you brought up in an earlier presentation is , when you got children , {vocalsound} their their stuff gets inside the circuitry , they get dirty , they get messy with drinks and stuff . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And what I keep throwing out there {disfmarker} I just keep throwing out ideas to try to make this thing look or act or in some way identify itself as unique or different . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But you guys are the ones that have to c ultimately create the product within cost . +Project Manager: Yeah and I guess th th the question th {vocalsound} th that you're being asked right now is whether {disfmarker} is the dock enough of a unique feature to be able to go out and sell that a a as a a very different product , or do we really need the scroll wheel as well ? +Marketing: Oh okay +Project Manager: Because the scroll wheel comes at quite a cost . +Marketing: phew . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you gotta g get into cost effectiveness . I think if you can have the base station with a with a locator , I think those are two very strong features , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: if that's something that can be integrated without a bunch of extra cost . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The locator's gonna require a radio transmitter , which will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's gonna n is that gonna need a better chip as well ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} we're probably gonna have to go with a like a medium chip , s I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: No it's just different . +User Interface: But we I we will need a receiver , an antenna . +Marketing: Integrated , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just uh I I think that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It should be a really simple signal though so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know personally that would be a very attractive feature , is to have a uh have a button I can push to find my remote control . +Project Manager: And it's presumably gonna need a little speaker in it or something like that as well to beep . +User Interface: That's true yeah . +Project Manager: But I guess a little tiny speaker is gonna be quite cheap , it's not gonna need q quality , is it ? It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah . It'll be really cheap . +Marketing: Or maybe you can like have a a smell-o-rama , you know you push a button and it s puts out a stink . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe not {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Makes your living room more fresh as you watch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we're doing well for time here . +Industrial Designer: S +Project Manager: Um we've got about another ten minutes . I think that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the scroll wheel , in or out ? +Project Manager: Mm pr my personal preference is out . I don't think the cost is justified {vocalsound} for a little bit more uniqueness when we already have that , and I don't s think it's obvious and natural how it would be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think we have {disfmarker} like and it's not very usable and it will bring down the robustness of the whole thing , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's it it breaks down easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For me I think the scroll wheel actually might not be so bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know exactly what the increased cost is gonna be , but I think he does have a point , i it might push somebody over the edge when they're looking at our at our remote versus something else , when they see this one has a scroll wheel to go up and down on the channels . I think it might be kinda neat to be able to do it like that . +Project Manager: But then that that surely d depends a little on the T_V_ +Marketing: W +Project Manager: because some T_V_s are quite slow at changing channels from like so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: if you've got a scroll wheel and you s you have to scroll scroll it really really slowly just so that you're actually keeping in pace with the T_V_'s ability to to change channels . Or do you have to go through and you wait for it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You scroll it a bunch of times and you wait for it to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think wh what it would be is like like the m like this , where it's maybe you know a digital wheel , right , where it's where it's quantized into you know certain {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I see I see . That's where you {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was that was my my intuition of what the scroll wheel would be . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah I see I see what you're talking about now . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} it's basically {disfmarker} it it's just a f look and feel thing . It has the same exact functionality as two buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I think there's {disfmarker} you know that uh there are so many people today that are that are surfing {disfmarker} are television surfers , and I see the scroll as a as a great mechanism for surfing . +Project Manager: Yeah if you're just sitting there going {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Instead of going button-to-bu you just {vocalsound} j you'd j j j j j j . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's kinda cool actually . +Marketing: I really I really think that's a really cool thing for surfing . +Project Manager: I like that . +User Interface: Now just just so you know though uh you did bring up a point which is very valid , is a lot of T_V_s won't re the T_V_s won't respond exactly the same . Some of them are gonna be kinda slow switching , so you may like queue up like fifteen channel changes , and it'll be like flip , flip , flip . +Marketing: Well there's ano +Project Manager: Well not n necessarily . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could basically make it so that it'll {disfmarker} I mean it's just gonna be sending a signal to the T_V_ yeah the T_V_'s ge so if you send about five flip channels , if you did that it's gonna flip once . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: If you do that . +User Interface: Yeah it just might be frustrating where you can't make it go as fast as you want , +Project Manager: Other than click click click . Yeah . +User Interface: but I think once people get used to it {disfmarker} I I do like the idea of the scroll wheel though . +Project Manager: And if we're marketing it as a high niche product , then we're gonna be selling it to people who are buying good T_V_s as well , yeah , presumably . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Primarily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think so . I I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Now the the only thing I I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} on the interface side of it , is that {vocalsound} I I I see the dilemma . {vocalsound} But if we have the option of of scrolling {vocalsound} at any particular speed , or the option of jumping direct , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I can go uh {vocalsound} presuming I have , on my television , something that tells me what channel I'm on , I can scroll direct from channel five to channel thirty two . {vocalsound} I know what {disfmarker} because it's on the television . The television tells me what channel it's on when I change it . So {vocalsound} I don't know that really that's that's gonna be a a d problem , 'cause the television can go automatically from channel five to channel thirty two with the push of a button . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ca can we can we create that kind of interface within a scroll system ? You understand what I'm saying ? +User Interface: I think I know what you might be getting at , or or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I see so if {disfmarker} maybe if we had an L_C_D_ up the top that just did a number on it , right ? And then it {disfmarker} that basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no we could read it from the television . +User Interface: Well , what about this {disfmarker} what about if you can programme in your favourite channels into this scroll wheel and you can just like roll through your favourite channels , +Project Manager: Mm . Well that's quite cool . +User Interface: and it c it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You'd need a display on the th the thing . +User Interface: Why ? It'll tell you when you flip the channel on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah the the television can tell you . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can . +Project Manager: Oh yeah yeah no I see what you're talking about . Yeah that's kinda cool . How would you program it though ? +User Interface: Well you just {disfmarker} it's one extra button . You say programme start , and then type in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause you still have the typing you know you'll still have the keypad where you can type 'em in manually . +Project Manager: Okay okay . +User Interface: So programme start , zero , one , enter , zero , five , enter , {vocalsound} thirty eight , enter , programme end . +Project Manager: Okay and yeah +Marketing: And then . +Project Manager: and that just basically flips between it and it'll go {disfmarker} it sends out zero , five , and then thirty six , and then zero , one again . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that's kinda cool . I like that . +Marketing: And again we have another another great marketing tool . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: We have about three {disfmarker} we have three or four things here . +Project Manager: That's not gonna be too expensive because that's gonna be {disfmarker} you're gonna be able to nab that off of computer mouse manufacturers really . You could basically {vocalsound} come up with a partnership to be able to produce that quite cheaply . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno and an maybe we maybe even have this as in-house technology . This may be something that's available through our own uh through our own services . +Project Manager: Might be , but tha that's not gonna be such a costly feature . The problem we're gonna have is making it robust . Making it last . +User Interface: Oh well we also have to determine in some manner how to switch between modes , between going through your favourites list and just hitting up one , up two . +Marketing: Or we go directional up {vocalsound} we go we go this we go this we go this way for one , we go this way for the other . +Project Manager: So if there's a button {vocalsound} for each type . +User Interface: No because you wanna be able to go up and down through the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah people are gonna have their favourite sorta , whether they do that or whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah-ha okay . Okay , okay , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: well then you just have , you have a diff you have a mode switch . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah the mode switch . +User Interface: I think we'll need a {vocalsound} we'll need a mode switch , but then if we have a mode switch we're gonna need some kinda indicator +Project Manager: Just the lights behind the buttons . +User Interface: to which , an L_E_ an L_E_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could have back-lit buttons maybe . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: Would that work ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay we have five minutes . So right details th {vocalsound} that we've talked about here are that we want a scroll wheel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We want {vocalsound} a mode indicator . We want {vocalsound} back-lit buttons . And if we're making back-lit buttons period , do we want that just for the mode indicator or maybe to indicate what button you're pressing at the time , so that you know if it's actually pressed or not . I've seen some remotes do that . +User Interface: Okay . Just so you know I think {disfmarker} I mean it was my understanding that before we were gonna stay in the mid-market range . It seems we're kind of approaching a higher-end range . +Project Manager: I think we are yeah . +User Interface: I wanna make sure everybody's okay with that . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Well you had acknowledged that we have more money for this . +Project Manager: Yeah well we don't have {vocalsound} it's not that we have more money , +Marketing: Didn't you say so ? +Project Manager: we can push up the the price . +Marketing: That's what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can increase the cost . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: So I don't know I don't know whether having {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just wanna make sure everybody's on board with it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So we really need to be sure as to what we can push the cost up to , though we haven't got to a stage where we're ready to pin down the price of components . But I'd say what sorta price are we looking to be able to sell something like that , and what sorta price can we make it for ? +Marketing: Well I think th I think the design and technology has to come back and say , okay to create this product we see it's gonna cost us this much for this volume , because we do have a volume target of of fifty million profit . +Project Manager: Yeah no I I think that's where we really should be more flexible than anything else because as we said in the last meeting , our management is really looking for us to push our brand . We're entering a new market here , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: so I think the the profit expectation for this one product is maybe not as important as being able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay I'm I'm okay with that . I guess what I just want {disfmarker} to me the next step is for these guys to come come in with the design proposal w with the cost estimate attached , and then we have to take this to the next level . +Project Manager: But th what's our ballpark as to what we'd be able to sell something like this for ? +User Interface: Well y yeah . Let's let's try and think now , how much would you pay for +Marketing: We have to find cost . +User Interface: {disfmarker} with all these features {disfmarker} how much would you pay if you went to the store , and you were in the market f to replace your T_V_ remote , how much would you pay for that ? +Project Manager: But you've gotta think who our target market is because I I'm not our target market . +User Interface: I'm just asking you . +Project Manager: I'm a student , but on the other hand I would think , mm with my Project Manager salary , I would think {disfmarker} yeah I could probably afford this {disfmarker} +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you could probably afford this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: uh would I buy it ? Maybe . If I had a cool new T_V_ and this was r looking really slick and it had the dock and it had the scroll wheel , which I think's a really cool idea , that would sell me on it a little . Then maybe you know . I do I don't think I'd go over a hundred Euro certainly , that would be way too much , +User Interface: Oh no no . +Project Manager: but the {disfmarker} I would be happy paying over forty for it , I guess , but not much {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say thirty five to forty . +Marketing: Yeah , I was gonna say thirty five to fifty . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thirty five to fifty Euros is our sales bracket okay . So the question is what we ca we make it for . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because one of th one of the things we're marketing about this product is that this is the last one you will ever need to buy for your television . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: It's one of the marketing features in this . +Project Manager: That's why the scroll needs to be really robust . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we'll come up with something between thirty five and fifty that is rug rubber , robust , with scroll wheel , with the new facilities of the scroll wheel like favourite stuff , favourite channels , and and with a cradle , and yeah and the locator . +User Interface: With a cradle , radio transmitters , and back-lit buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it's gonna look sexy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Or not {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Or not . It might look like clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay so you can market pe depending on that ? +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Bas th that's that's easy . That's that's not a , it's a {gap} . 'Cause we have about six , six , seven features in that alone . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: Under the title of uniquenesses . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . The next meeting starts in thirty {vocalsound} minutes , although does it ? It starts at three twenty one , the next meeting . So we've got more than a thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} we've got more like fifty . +Marketing: Well I have {disfmarker} Is my {disfmarker} three twenty one is the next meeting ? +Project Manager: The the ne next meeting is three twenty one yeah . +Marketing: That's that's almost uh fifty minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah that is . Uh they've they've changed the times from the presentations . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You guys can {disfmarker} You guys you guys can uh create a {disfmarker} All kinds of things . +User Interface: Probably . We'll let you know when we're done , if we can go earlier . +Marketing: {gap} Thanks , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you guys will be getting your modelling done now and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay are there any other questions with regards to what this thing's gonna do , look like , how it's gonna work that need to be addressed before we really look at this in a lot of detail ? +User Interface: I don't think so . If we have any questions we'll just email you I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it {disfmarker} pretty much everything's covered . +Project Manager: Okay . This one was quite easy . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Always the optimist . +Marketing: Still . +Industrial Designer: Yes I am . +Project Manager: 'Kay thanks guys . +Marketing: Thank you . I don't have any emails . This means I can go home . Oh , we all leave . {gap} +","During a project meeting, various team members discussed the design and marketing aspects of a new type of remote control. It was agreed that while they want to offer a product that stands out, it should also be robust and user-friendly. Features such as a scroll wheel for channel surfing, a potential locator for the remote, a dock for charging (enhancing the eco-friendly aspect of the product), and programming favorite channels into the remote were discussed. The target price range for selling the remote would be between 35 to 50 Euros. The details of the cost and the final features need to be worked out, and the unique selling points will be emphasized in marketing the new remote as a durable, high-quality product." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Um we are {disfmarker} So the meeting will have about the same format as the last time . So {gap} switching over I've just left uh my first two screens {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} mailed you the minutes of the last meeting uh just to save time . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and is there any questions you have that arised from last meeting that are particularly bothering you ? N +User Interface: Mm um . No , I don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Then we shall start with a presentation from Raj . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Hi , me Raj , again . Uh in this meeting I I'm going to discuss about the trend watching , uh how these trends is going to affect our market potential and how important is this . So we have to look on this . First of all methodology . The met methodology to find out the trend was incl uh was done in a way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have done a rec not only a recent remote control market survey , but we also considered the latest fre fashion trends of the market , because we think that this is also a factor which will affect our sales and profit . So what are our findings ? In our {vocalsound} uh in our findings we have seen that {disfmarker} when we did our remote control market survey we found that uh people l uh people do have preference for tho fancy mobi uh f remote controls which look and feel very good , rather than having a functional look and feel uh good . So this sh this clearly indicates their preference for the design their outlook of the remote controls . So we should take into uh we should consider this factor as the most important factor , because this factor is twice as important , the second factor which is further ti twice the as important as the sec as uh the third factor . So this factor becomes the most important factor in our surv uh uh in our mark uh means in take {disfmarker} in designing our rem uh remote controls . +User Interface: The last one is the most important one , is it ? +Marketing: No the first one is the +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: uh the outlook of the mobile , the it should have a fancy outlook , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the fancy design uh rather than just having a functional look and feel good , it should have a fancy look and foo feel good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: The second most important aspect is that remote control should be a technologically uh innovative . We must have some technological advancement in the remote control tha rather than just putting it as it is as the other remo uh remote controls are . So it uh should be technologically innovative like glow-in-the-dark or speech recognition , something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that indicates our technological advancement . And the third most important aspect in the ta to take into consideration is that it should be easy to use , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like it shouldn't be too much co complicated , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: there shouldn't be too many buttons on this mobi uh remote control , it shouldn't be too complicated uh like this way . And it should be uh {disfmarker} and customers should be provided with manuals that is easy to understand in their local language , something . So that they could know how to use these remote controls . When we did uh f fashions uh , recent fashion uh {disfmarker} our recent fashion update shows that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was just reading fruit and vegetables . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hard to know how we are going to incorporate that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y yeah uh yeah , we have to , because uh d you can see how people have related their clothes , shoes , {gap} and everything with fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because the g world is now changing it's trend towards organic , becoming more and more organic , +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should make a big sponge lemon , +Marketing: becoming {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then it'd be it would be yellow . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Th that's very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So something like that we we should do . +User Interface: Glow-in-the-dark . Okay . +Marketing: And people uh the f feel of the material is expected to be spongy rather than just having a plastic look , hard look . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's what we kind of predicted anyway . +Marketing: So so that they could play with it while handi uh while handling it . So that should also be taken into consideration . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So these are my views . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , the spongy , not real spongy , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No it ca {vocalsound} y a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you think like rubber would be good or does it really want to be like gel kind of stuff ? +Marketing: The rubber which is good for health and which is quite disposable that we can take into co +User Interface: Okay . Quite disposable . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we It shouldn't be have any harm to the environment also , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: because our company is very well {gap} for taking all these concerns into consideration , +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: so we don't want to have any harm to the society , +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fashion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So that's all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fruit and veg , well there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just what I think of when I think of a remote control . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: A remote control ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: And were there any factors that weren't important in the survey , that they said we don't want ? +Marketing: S uh we didn't find out any such point . +User Interface: Or was it just {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yes , there could be , but we couldn't find out any , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: F_ , what is it ? Um . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh no , {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No signal . Is that {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's got it's got it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh yeah , uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +User Interface: Okay , and then F_ five , right ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Um okay , so the interface concept um . Yeah . The interface specification , what people {disfmarker} um how they interact with it basically , I think . Um so the method , we looked at existing designs , what are the {disfmarker} what's good about them , what's bad about them , um I looked at their flaws , so we're going to look at their flaws , everything . Um and what {vocalsound} the survey told us and what we think would be good , so a bit of imagination . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the findings , I've got some pictures to show you as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} either . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so most remote controls use graphical interface , where you um have got s buttons and you point it rather than having the output as a a stream of text or something . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Um and we also found that there's inconsistent layout , which makes it confusing . So I think for our remote control {disfmarker} There is some inconsistency already in {disfmarker} ec existing in {disfmarker} between remote controls , but I think standard kind of um shape and uh play and those kind of but buttons like the the top right for on and off or something , +Project Manager: Right , okay . Yeah . +User Interface: I think , people find that important,'cause then it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And we've got some pictures of some uh new remote controls to show you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: Do I press Escape F_ five ? Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no just escape should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Escape , okay . Um , oh I still haven't got my glasses on . Yeah , okay . So these are the {disfmarker} some of the pictures of existing ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: I'll just walk you through them . This one is a voice recognition . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And that's the kind of idea we're going for . +Project Manager: Looks pretty complicated . +User Interface: There's um an L_C_D_ thing , which we thought could {disfmarker} I thought could get a bit confusing and a bit expensive as well for us . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: This one is {disfmarker} got a kind of scroll like a mouse , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , like the middle button . +User Interface: which {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and {disfmarker} But I'm not exactly sure how you'd use that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it's kinda like scrolling {disfmarker} +User Interface: like would the computer come {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh right , well , if I s if I'm thinking of the right one , I've got the same thing in front of my monitor , you scroll it and the when you reach the sort of um {vocalsound} menu item that you require , you press the middle of the scroll . +User Interface: Uh-huh , that's like the L_C_D_ one , +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: is it ? But the one below that has got like {vocalsound} a little scroll function on the side . But I presume that the functions must come up on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , presumably . +User Interface: I think that's what that is . So these are just a few ideas . Again that's just quite boring shape , grey , looks quite space-agey , but too many buttons , I think on that one . +Industrial Designer: Uh it looks threatening . +Project Manager: Yeah , looks like uh looks like something out of a jet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it does look kind of dangerous . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks like yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Um this one I thought was really cool . It's w it's got the programmability function that we talked about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can put it in there , it's for your kids , and it's quite an organic shape and the little circle around there is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really easy to use , bright , so I like this one lot for our design . I think something like that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Yeah , I m I mean the one thing I think about about these ones is um these kl uh secured areas um {vocalsound} , I've seen a lot of them with the the cover missing . +User Interface: Of course yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So like have it hinge rather than sort of clip on or whatever . +User Interface: Right , yeah . Yeah , that's true . Yeah . Um so maybe that could be built into one of the things and it comes up on the T_V_ or something . And this one , the over-sized one , I don't know about you , but I think it's a bit too gimmicky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think that will sell very well . +Project Manager: I mean is that not sort of to assist the blind or something , is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I guess so . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Then d blind don't watch T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: No they do , they do . +Industrial Designer: They do ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They listen to it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And um this one {vocalsound} is just pointing out . I like {vocalsound} some of these things um the the raised symbols and everything , but {gap} pointing out um that this one the volume it is kind of pressing down , but it would actually go up , because of the shape . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: So that could {disfmarker} that's a bit confusing . Um but the buttons on this I think are {disfmarker} it's just showing you how you can have different different um buttons . They don't have to be all the same . So that's quite cool . Um . +Project Manager: 'Kay but people tend to recognise certain shapes to do certain things anyway , don't they ? +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . Um F_ five . Yes . So there are some of the findings . So we need to combine those ones um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I've just got {vocalsound} an e-mail from our technical department saying that they have broken through with some new speech recognition software that you can program in . +Project Manager: Brilliant . That's handy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah it is , just in time , very handy . Um so {vocalsound} I think maybe incorporating that in our design would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} you program it like you say , record , um and then , play , and then , record , play machine , and stuff like that , so that's {disfmarker} And it's much {disfmarker} Yeah . So that's quite cool . Uh personal preferences just some imagination , the raised symbols I thought were good , the L_C_D_ , it does look smart , but I think maybe for our budget , do you think that would be a bit too expensive to have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the other stuff uh , I think . +User Interface: And the speech recognition , 'cause I think we're definitely going for the speech recognition , +Marketing: But in our market survey we have seen that people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: but they want the quality , they want f fancy look , they want some new design , something new . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But our budget , we've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's still it's still got to get within our twelve fifty , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So even if we increase our cost little bit , within uh some limits , and we give something new technological advancement as well as new design with fancy outlook , I think we will meet the requirements and we will be able to have a good sales in the market . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm not sure if the {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} for twenty five Euros uh per uh twelve Euros fifty m manufacturing cost , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ben bana +Project Manager: Yeah . I can't see tha Although , th I mean to be to be sure they have got {disfmarker} I mean they are going crazy with the L_C_D_ technology now , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: so that you've got your L_C_D_ T_V_s and everything so maybe the small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I mean like I I {disfmarker} the black and white , I guess , it just doesn't look funky enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but , I mean , like even mobile phones or whatever have {disfmarker} now have colour L_C_D_ screens , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: w I ju I mean +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: I wouldn't know about the costs of them . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: But uh price price not withstanding um , is it too complicated , is it gonna be too much just overload ? +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: Uh i it will be easy because there will be , on L_C_D_ s screen , there will be different frent icons , they can just click ok okay , whatever they wa +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Possibly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the thing , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but the thing is when you use a remote control , you never look at it , right ? You're looking at the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and and it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just seems kind of like a a needless th +User Interface: And one of the survey findings was that they want it easy to use , so I think I'm not sure about the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: It's a it's great , it's a good idea , but for our budget and for the thing we're trying to go for eas easy to use , it's not the thing we should go for , I think . Child-friendly , I thought this was good , as you pointed out the um {vocalsound} the bit , it often goes missing especially with children , but it's a good shape and the organic is kind of {disfmarker} we could make a vegetabley kind of round shape , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So which vegetable ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I mean we could make a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I know , carrot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , si since we're going for the uh the k the sort of company colours , I think your lemon wasn't that far s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the lemon . Well what are the options ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if it doesn't work you know , we've just made a lemon . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we don't want it to be {disfmarker} Yeah . Um the child-friendly , yeah . Easy to use , it seems quite easy to use . I like the d the different shapes of the buttons and stuff . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like I like the colourful buttons as well . +User Interface: I think that's a good idea to go for . Yeah . And the mouse one , I thought it was a good idea , because people use mo mice mouses now with the scrolling thing . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean we are marketing to sort of twenty five to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so most people will have come in contact with that kind of use . +User Interface: S yeah . So they'd be able to use that um , as I said I think i I'd presume it would come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so there you go . +Project Manager: And that means tha that means you get to bump that bit to the T_V_ maker , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: So that's um the user interface +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So okay , I'll take this out now then . +Industrial Designer: Um so +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: I guess there are a lot of options that we're gonna have to choose from among , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , looks like it . +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll give you the uh , {vocalsound} I guess , technical considerations for those . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And I'm gonna use the whiteboard , just 'cause we haven't used it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just thinking the self same thing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . So , the way I'm gonna do this {vocalsound} is uh we're gonna take a look at some old remote controls , see how they work , uh reuse the the vital kind of um essential pieces of it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we'll throw in our new innovations um {vocalsound} and keep it all within budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Magic man . +Industrial Designer: So uh yeah , looking inside a a very simple remote control . Um this is what they sent me . 'Kay . Here's uh the competition , I suppose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um you open it up , there's a circuit board inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um {vocalsound} and there's a a chip , a processor , the T_A_ one one eight three five , which um receives input from the buttons , and ch +Project Manager: So this is a standard off the shelf kind of a chip , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right , it's very {disfmarker} they're very cheap remote . This remote costs nothing , you know . Um so that takes a signals from the buttons and translates it into a sequence of pulses that it then sends to the to the amplifier , which is made of some transistors and amplifiers , op-amps , and then that gets sent to the uh to the L_E_D_ light , which I can kinda see is that little red light bulb at the end , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that sends out the infrared uh light signal to the television . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh here it is . {vocalsound} Um so this is kind of the the bear essentials that we need to have in our remote control , because it it defines the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So can we make them to pretty much any size we like or is there a minimum or ? +Industrial Designer: R Um no , I mean this is a very old one , so now with the new technology this is a a minimally small and cheap thing to make . +Project Manager: They gotta be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Almost a key-ring . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . So this is what we need to have for certain . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . So you know , as we said , we got the outer casing , which we have to decide , you know , what's it gonna be , um the board we have to use basically uh the same set-up , processor , um we'll probably use the more advanced processor than they had , amplifier and transmitter are all standard . Um so for the casing , uh this an e-mail I got from our manufacturing team uh , you know , we have a bunch of options from wood , titanium , rubber , plastic , whatnot , um latex , double-curved , curved . So lots of choices , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: what do we think ? Uh or sponge , I guess , isn't on there , right . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Mm . I'm not sure about the sponge . +Industrial Designer: Organic sponge . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I mean like la latex has a kinda spongy feeling to it , doesn't it . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's very elasticy for sure . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And that would k also give it kinda durability +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and ther that's also f sorta relatively cheap to cast . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so maybe s uh a sort of uh plastic {disfmarker} initial plastic with a a latex kinda sheath ? +Industrial Designer: Okay so , here are a a plastic , uh latex {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like the rubber , the stress balls , I think , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: you know , that could be a bit of a gimmick like it's good to hold and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Project Manager: I don't know what that stuff is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something with give to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . And +User Interface: And that might be quite durable and easy to chuck around . +Industrial Designer: and the colour is yellow , right ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Or at least incorporating , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: y {vocalsound} yellow incorporated , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yellow {vocalsound} , okay . Um . +Project Manager: I mean I forgot i we're sort of uh {disfmarker} I don't know what other standard silver kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Other parts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , the buttons w like , 'cause there's gonna be the the cover the the rubber or the plastic casing and then the buttons in probably two different colours +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm' kay . +User Interface: or i if we're having buttons actually , +Industrial Designer: So yellow for the body , +User Interface: I don +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: and then what colour for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Um I quite like the multi-coloured buttons myself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So multi-coloured buttons . +User Interface: You do have ones like um play {vocalsound} could be green or on and off is red , and stuff like that , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah or yeah a limit uh maybe even just a limited multi-colour so it it doesn't look too childish , perhaps . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Makes it easy to use . Yeah , that's true , because that blue one did look quite hardish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Although I mean this uh uh also comes to shape as well . I mean if we are gonna make it a novel {disfmarker} I mean double-curved sounds good to me if we're talking about sorta ergonomic and easy use , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: a bit comfier , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay so the shape we wanna go {disfmarker} Um how exactly ? Maybe double {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like uh {vocalsound} an hour glass kind of figure , is that what you're thinking of , +Project Manager: Yeah it's uh , yeah , that that'd be {disfmarker} that's sort of comfortable to hold , easy to hold so you don't drop it . +User Interface: or just like a {disfmarker} It's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What about a banana ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make novelty remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay , like we could have a big banana shaped remote control , +Project Manager: Well , yeah , I mean like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's yellow fruit , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Mm and a lemon might be a little hard to grip . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But then how would you point it ? +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: How would you point it ? +Industrial Designer: Oh i it doesn't matter which end you point , I guess . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could have a little L_E_D_s on each end . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I appreciate this idea , +Project Manager: They only cost pennies . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because then this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this will help us in our advertisement also +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and we can relate with fruits and vegetables , the people's choices . That what our data shows that , so this w this w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} y I'm I'm not sure about the banana idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: So a spongy banana re {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean that that th {vocalsound} +User Interface: Rubber banana . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: does +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: it does seem a bit uh again childish maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +User Interface: I think maybe just draw on the kind of fruit and vegetable shape . And what else did you say about fashions ? What was trendy ? +Marketing: Uh the fashion trend shows that fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: See {disfmarker} +Marketing: like people uh now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And sponginess . +Industrial Designer: So maybe an an unidentifiable fruit or fiable fruit or vegetable +User Interface: And spongy , yeah . +Marketing: Spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like so it would have a stem perhaps +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and a +User Interface: Maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe a {disfmarker} it'd be s axially symmetric . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Like what's what's that {vocalsound} , I don't even know the name of it , some kind of , you know where it's like {disfmarker} looks like a little snowman kind of thing . I don't know the name of that . +Industrial Designer: So it'd look like this kinda . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +Industrial Designer: Like a gourd almost , or a squash of some sort ? +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's what they are . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause that you can hold it in like the bottom bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it has a a clear top and bottom so y so you could say , you know , it transmits from this end . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , why the hell not . {vocalsound} Let's {vocalsound} that'll make us fifty million Euros . +User Interface: I don't know . What do you guy {disfmarker} What do you think ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Well , I guess it's kind of dra uh you don't necessarily have to have it sort of clearly identified as a fruit just to have that kind of fruitish shape , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , then only we can relate it with something . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can relate it by advertising or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so double-curved , single-curved , what do we feel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or we can do something , we can design two three shapes and we can have a public survey , let the public choose what they want . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's a good man . There's a good idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um , I guess , since you're the marketing guy . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . I will be happy to do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll uh {disfmarker} Okay , we could do that . Um . +User Interface: Okay . And buttons would , did we say ? Uh different shapes of buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um I l I su I mean for the specific functions , you know , up and down , uh play , stop . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: They've got , I mean , they've got standard sort of intuitive um +Industrial Designer: so buttons . +Project Manager: things that are always used . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just like that . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll-wheel or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , what about the scroll wheel and speech recognition ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition , I think , so we need a microphone presumably . +Industrial Designer: Okay uh I could put the microphone here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay there's the microphone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Where should I put the microphone ? +Project Manager: I mean ho h h wel are we sure that scroll wheel does give ease of use ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'm not sure . Um I mean those ideas I saw were just for inspiration , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Glad , we're not doing this for real . +User Interface: Um yeah , I can {disfmarker} no I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we can do some user test with scroll-wheels , right ? +User Interface: I couldn Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh I think if this this new software for the sound recognition is {gap} the microphone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should the microphone be just anywhere on it or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would put it sort of sub-centrally , so it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay there's the mic . +Project Manager: So it can be sort of held and w {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} We really need really gonna need to hold it , if it's gonna be voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Um n well we can {disfmarker} Whoops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: So let's not use the whiteboard any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oops , sorry . Okay . +User Interface: And uh so what else was there ? Um the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the glow-in-the-dark thing , the strip around it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I s I still like it . +User Interface: Are we just gonna leave that ? +Project Manager: Um but that's me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You still like it . 'Cause we've got the uh technological innovation with the speech recognition system . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , or maybe it's just going a bit uh too far . I mean we are pushing it probably with funny fruit shapes . +User Interface: 'Cause um it could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um don't wanna sort of overkill . +User Interface: Especially with yellow {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Mm . I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I mean like uh if we {disfmarker} I mean how good is the speech recognition thing ? Do we want to go for buttons at all , do we want to just have a device that maybe sits and pretends it's a fruit ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you put it in the fruit bowl ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} They can work from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you know , and then you just tal +Industrial Designer: You don't have to hold it . +Project Manager: I mean like everybody's got fruit bowl in front of the telly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it could even encourage healthier habits for television watchers , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know they have uh fruits all round them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Make them make them think of fruit , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now just make sure they don't eat the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean uh {vocalsound} some uh I +User Interface: Yeah , do we need buttons ? +Project Manager: l like think of a fruit that could sit sort of independently on its own like uh , I dunno , an apple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Then it's just apple so sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , yellow apples though {disfmarker} Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I quite like the shape . I quite like the design of that , uh 'cause that could sit on its own and it's quite {disfmarker} got a quite steady base . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Groovy . +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and as we say we n we don't wanna be too ridiculous with the fruit things you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , about the speech thing , it doesn't have to be hand held or close . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It can sit at a distance and pick it up still . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {vocalsound} I mean like you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , gives you the options . +Marketing: we can do one thing , we can just have a remote control and casings of different different shapes , different fruit shapes in such a way that a any casing can be could be fit into this mobile general piece . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So whatever people want , like if somebody want it in banana shape , we will put that casing onto that mobile phone , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So a selection of casings . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it will look l {vocalsound} Uh yeah . In that w +Project Manager: It kind of fi it fits with f fits with marketing um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you said about disposable , +Marketing: S s sorry ? +User Interface: didn't you ? You said about disposable earli people want disposable things +Marketing: Uh like if this is a like if this is a mobile phone uh we will design casing in such a way like half of , we need not to have a full cover , we will just have a half of cover , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so we could do that , like have a choice . Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? If somebody wants it i in banana shape , we will fit banana shape casing onto that , so it will give a banana shape look . +Project Manager: Like like mobiles , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wanted in apple shape we will design that , we will put {disfmarker} we will put apple shape casing on that . It will give apple shape look . So in that way you can have any , that means whatever you want , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: without {disfmarker} uh yeah . +User Interface: We still need the buttons in the same places thought , +Marketing: Yeah , button will be on the upper side , buttons will be the on the upper side . +User Interface: don't we ? +Project Manager: You can standardise those , I mean . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons will be on the upper side , lower side we will just put the casing , +User Interface: Oh , that's the other side . Oh , okay . +Marketing: so half of that will be look the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , half a fruit . Oh , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , not not the upper side . So from lower you can , it means while you are holding of {disfmarker} from this side you c you can have banana look or apple look , whatever . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: So in that way we need not to d have different different shape mobiles everything , we will just design casings fruit shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think tho I think if you're gonna have a facia then you'd want to have it so that it does go over the buttons , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause when {disfmarker} if you think about it if they're wanting it , 'cause they want to look at it , if they're using it , and what they want to look at is facing away from them . It doesn't really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm mm . +Project Manager: You know 'cause that'd be in the palm of their hand and they wouldn't be able to see it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: unless you have sort of {disfmarker} you got the buttons options on one side , and you get the facia on the other side with a microphone so that you can place it face down . And you've got the facia , and you can just talk at the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , um so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you've narrowed it down to half a dozen options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: s I guess we decided on material , right ? So that that spongy latex rubber everything feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the colours we got down , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the shape , maybe we'll just make it kinda mix and match type of shape or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , um because {disfmarker} Well , I I'm not sure if we should go so far in the whole fruit thing , because I think we should maybe just take the inspiration from the fruit and uh because {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we stick with what we've got there . +User Interface: Yeah , w I think wh wha would {disfmarker} we're trying to get to twenty five , thirty five year olds who want it quite trendy as well they said . They wanted something that looks fancy and I think maybe fruit could be a bit of a {disfmarker} too much of a gimmick , but something ergonomically shaped and organic , like good to hold , based on fruits and natural things like that , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: because al already we're going a bit gaudy with the yellow , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean we could make it nice pale yellow . +Project Manager: Well , it's kind of gotta be our company's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So again I mean like we could have , uh I mean , we could quite easily have the the main body be a different +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: colour , but have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we could have that pale yellow and then an outside bit bright yellow with , you said , the logan the slogan . +Project Manager: kinda going round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I mean e even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean not necessarily that the um the whole body has to be of the company colour , so you know um blue and yellow tend to go to we well together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have the main body blue with the yellow logo and slogan running up one side of it kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} Um as for the energy source um , you know , almost every remote control uses just batteries , but we don't have to be limited by that . We can use a hand-dynamo . Um I don't know what that means , we crank it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh It's I think it's basically the more you move i it , it's got a wee thing inside that just kinda {vocalsound} powers it . +Industrial Designer: Right , it's like those watches that you c +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , this might be an idea for something that people really wanna grab , you can shake it if it's out of power . +User Interface: Oh , a d a dynamo ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like with those watches that you kind of twist . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's quite cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So if it if it's not working , I guess people's natural reaction anyway is to just shake the thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . You shake it and scream at it . +Marketing: But but do you think that it will be a good idea to use dynamo , tha these type of cells ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is , yeah . +Marketing: Because then people have to , well like if the cell is out of bat +Project Manager: It does leave them with an obligation to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to mo Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they want to use it uh uh sp uh specifically as um voice activated . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because most of the people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then if it's just sitting on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then they have to pick it up and then activate it and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: That's true . +Project Manager: Right um what are the other options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh there's solar power . Um . +Marketing: Uh , solar power will w also not be a good idea , because then they have to keep m their mobiles outside in solar energy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the days when there is no sola sunlight {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm I'm with uh Raj on that , +Industrial Designer: Okay , so probably just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , you know , +Marketing: What we w +Project Manager: I've got I've got no I've got a north facing house , there's not really ever sun coming in my window . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . I think we should {disfmarker} a rechargeable {vocalsound} battery will be a good idea . +User Interface: But w {vocalsound} like just normal light ? +Project Manager: Oh that's true . +Marketing: They can they can recharge it . +Project Manager: I mean I w I w uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that idea that I thought {vocalsound} um just on the basis of like ridding them of batteries and that kind of bother +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: is having a , +User Interface: And we're a very environmentally friendly company , aren't we as well ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: having a rechargeable stand , so that not only it doubles as a stand , but um for using it as {disfmarker} uh recharging it , but also for using it as sound recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Like like a hand {disfmarker} like one of those portable phones kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh a rechargeable battery {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um the user interface , the buttons , I guess we talked about this already . +Project Manager: Rechargeable . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {gap} . What's chip on print ? What's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Sorry , never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh th the uh the electronics um , basically the more features we add um {disfmarker} Oops , this one . So the more features we add the fancier chips we need to buy and put in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which adds to the cost as you can expect . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . But uh I think we can keep it all under budget . So uh yes , so the speech thing you said our our techno our research and development department came up with some break-through . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So just in time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we if we're just having buttons and the speech then we're getting our cheapest option of chipping . +User Interface: Just in time . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: That's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh woah . +Industrial Designer: and keeping the L_C_D_ screen out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , we're we're kind of uh we're kind of um {vocalsound} Excuse m I've just deleted that whole thing . Um we're kind of running out of time , so if you could {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Um that was {disfmarker} your bit's covered , +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that was that was it . +Project Manager: I just dele I just accidentally deleted what I was supposed to say next . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Bri +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So control F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , mine seems to have turned off . +Project Manager: And I just touch the pad . +User Interface: I can't do anything . +Marketing: You just touch the pad , yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's actually shut down . +User Interface: It's on , but there's nothing on the screen . +Project Manager: Okay , um now what we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Try uh flipping the screen down {gap} . +Project Manager: uh our next meeting's in half an hour +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and what I would like you guys to do is work on giving me a model in clay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I get to do it , too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . It's you guys . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh neat . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um , you know I mean , luckily we chose a nice simple shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and further instructions will be sent by your personal coaches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Save everything to the shared documents , is that right ? +Marketing: {gap} That's great . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I hope I can recover this , 'cause I've accidentally deleted it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which doesn't really help me much . +User Interface: I think , I've saved mine already . +Project Manager: Yeah , can you save that {disfmarker} uh send that last one again , please , Raj , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: as I still can't find it on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it was under a different name . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will show you , in shared documents . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh working components {gap} . Oh , you didn't get that . I will send new . +Project Manager: No . Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Uh I'll put it in shared documents , again . +Project Manager: Um yeah , Project , Project Documents . +Marketing: Project documents , sorry , I put it in the shared documents . +Project Manager: Uh right , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: that's that's the that {disfmarker} it goes there automatically if you put it in Project Documents . Project Documents is on the um {vocalsound} desktop . +Marketing: Right , that's great . But I cou can't open that , because it w asks uh for some username or password . +Industrial Designer: Oh {gap} . +Project Manager: Really ? {gap} +Marketing: {gap} I'll show you . +Industrial Designer: Uh these lapel mics are trouble . +Marketing: Ts +Project Manager: Oh right , I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hold on . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know if y it it just ca it just came up on my um on my agenda . S {vocalsound} Um presumably there's clay somewhere . Um . {vocalsound} Four . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Whoops . Light , light , please . Light . {vocalsound} Right , there you go . +Marketing: Yeah , th thank you . +Project Manager: Yeah , quite . And we're using this our basic chip set , so it's all good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Are we done with our meeting ? +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Brian . +Project Manager: Um I think we're almost done , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have to keep your pen separate , because I used your pen . +Project Manager: Oh oops . +Marketing: S {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry man . Uh okay , still didn't manage to get down all the last bits so we had rechargeable and {disfmarker} Uh . Apples . {vocalsound} Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . 'Kay , so we came up with that , that's okay . What's supplements ? Supplements . Uh {vocalsound} uh . {vocalsound} See . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . Fun . +Project Manager: I shoulda {gap} something like that . If I kn see I I knew that . I shoulda sort of engineered it so we k ended up making a diffi difficult shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just for cruelty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Star fruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder if they mean like literally make it , sort of buttons and everything . +Marketing: So sh should Should we leave now , Brian ? +User Interface: No . Oh yeah , we can do buttons . +Marketing: Or we are going to discuss something ? +Project Manager: Um . Uh no , I think that's us our discussion over unless anybody's got questions {vocalsound} or confusions , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I'm good . +Project Manager: 'cause I'm confused . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Excuse me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh we'll probably get questionnaire in a minute , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . Thank you . Yeah . +Project Manager: There we go . Warning , finish meeting now . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: I rounded it up far too fast . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} . Where are we going ? My Documents , that's not what I want . My Project Documents . {vocalsound} There we go . +","In the team meeting, the Project Manager discusses the upcoming meeting format, which will mirror the previous one. The User Interface acknowledges receiving minutes from the last meeting. The Marketing representative, Raj, presents findings from a trend watching and market survey, focused on the design preferences for remote controls. The key points are the importance of design and feel, technological innovation, and ease of use for the remote control. + +The User Interface clarifies the importance ranking of these factors and agrees with the need for a fancy design and technological advancements, such as glow-in-the-dark features and speech recognition. The User Interface also highlights the importance of a simple, user-friendly design. The conversation shifts to relate the design to fruits and vegetables, suggesting that organic and natural trends could impact the product design. + +The Industrial Designer suggests a ""big sponge lemon"" as a potential design concept, while Marketing emphasizes the tactile feel of the material, suggesting something spongy over a hard plastic look. The User Interface agrees that the material’s feel aligns with predictions, and they discuss the product being playful and engaging. + +The Marketing representative and the User Interface debate material choices such as rubber versus more gel-like substances for the remote's exterior. Marketing suggests that the material should be healthy, disposable, and environmentally friendly, which aligns with the company's values. + +The group contemplates incorporating ""fashion"" aspects into the design, potentially using colors and themes related to fruits and vegetables. The discussion includes various concepts for the remote design, the importance of ease of use, recognizable button shapes, and the inclusion of new technologies. A debate ensues on whether to include an LCD screen and how to keep the design within budget. + +The Project Manager plans to discuss clay models in the next meeting and sends further instructions. The team also touches on various options for powering the remote, such as solar or dynamo, but decides on a rechargeable battery. There is further discussion on buttons, colors, and the interface design, deciding on a comfortable, fruit-inspired shape that could attract the target age group of 25-35. + +The meeting ends without a definitive decision on the final design, but with some clear ideas on materials, technology, usability, and aesthetics. The team is tasked with creating a clay model and given instructions to save their work to shared project documents." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Oops That's as far as it goes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Hi guys uh good morning everybody here . And uh I want to introduce myself , uh my name is uh Shrida Daseri and uh I'm a project manager for this new project which we are going to discuss now . So I want to introduce first of all uh the names and the colleagues here . And what you're uh drawing ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh sure my name is Agnes and I'm an user {disfmarker} usability user interface designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My name is Ed and I do accounting . +Project Manager: Uh how you spell your name uh ? +Marketing: E_D_ . +Project Manager: E_D_ okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: Do you also do marketing ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: So only accounting ? Okay . +Marketing: Accounting , yes . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: And I'm Christine , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and my role in this uh scenario is to be the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Industrial designer . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not really one . +Project Manager: So who is uh marketing , nobody in the market +Marketing: Marketing is uh , is me {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's you , okay . So thanks for coming for the meeting first of all , and uh we have a long time , just twenty-five minutes to discuss about uh this project and the the project initiation . First of all I want to ask uh Mister Ed about your uh marketing plan and your product plan and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I think that we'll see that throughout the day in how we're going to put this together as a marketing to to market the product . We'll have to see on a through discussion on where we're gonna go from here and from {disfmarker} with this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm but uh do you already have like a functional design or a technical design or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh for the moment not yet . +Project Manager: Oh for the moment not yet , okay , but uh what's what's your uh {disfmarker} do you have some project plan , something with you or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good question {vocalsound} . No , this is like I said that we have to be discussed between all of us and we'll go from there . We'll have to {disfmarker} simply we'll have to work on it together . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so uh by when you think you can uh give me some kind of uh project plan , okay , a discussion with uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Certainly by the next meeting . +Project Manager: By next meeting , okay that will be great . Uh Okay , so there's any questions or uh first of all about uh this project ? +Industrial Designer: What is the goal of the project ? +Project Manager: Uh the goal of the project I think maybe I'll uh hand out to the Ed , okay , so to explain uh what is the project because he's in the sales and the accounting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm in the sales I'm supposed to explain them what to do {vocalsound} . We have to define exactly what our product is , from uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so can you explain uh what exactly the product is ? +Marketing: From what I had in mind we're supposed to be marketing coffee , is that right ? +Project Manager: Oh I think uh , if I'm not wrong , we're making the remote control . +User Interface: Um I was wondering {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote controls , 'cause I had two different things . I had a first part of mine was to make a remote control for a new f remote control for television , and afterward I had a discussion about coffee so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: we'll start with the remote control for television then . So we're have to design something that is very user friendly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Something uh visual that has something that will will draw people to buy the product , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because I think everybody's experienced with uh remote controls , and some remote controls are are worth uh throwing out the window . Uh th most of them ar I don't know we're have to come up with a new idea on how to make it a lot easier to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause a lot of times uh spend uh half a day through the instruction book trying to figure out how to use it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh what abo uh Christine , what about your uh the industrial design plan ? Are you have a design already on this product or uh you're still working on the design ? +Industrial Designer: Um no , I I have not begun working on the design , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um I uh I actually didn't know we were designing a remote control , I thought we were designing a new monitor . Um the website I went to look at had some announcements about an introduction of a um uh some sort of a seven inch um monitor , and um I understood that that was the project goal . So um I'm glad I didn't d do any work um ahead of time because uh I clearly didn't understand the project goal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um I just did s see that we were starting a new project together and there was going to be a four member team composed of these people , and um that's about uh that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and I I read through the different steps , and what my responsibilities were relative to the steps . +Project Manager: So uh you'll be leading the team for your design team or how many members is working in the team , for the design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh for the industrial design ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um well , I would th think that depends on how much money you give us . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um because uh , you know , you can uh you can make it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have different choices with different financial models . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh before we talk about uh the finance , okay , uh do you have some idea how we can uh sell this product or project in the market and how much is going to benefit to the company and uh of course it's to the individual also . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , you know um , I kind of think that in general you have to do uh um y you have to have something that's very fashionable , that's uh very attractive {disfmarker} that um people see and recognize uh its goal , and uh they immediately wanna have it uh have one of their own . So it would {disfmarker} really would need to um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the iPod would be good , seems to have caught on fairly well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so um d uh you know , I don't care what it does , just so it looks cool . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh uh when you think you can give me like a kind of design on the functional design or the technical design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh I've got a lot of other projects I'm doing right now um and so I'll have to wait and see how those uh how those go . If they uh go quickly then uh it could be a month . If um if I run into any problems in my other projects it might be six months . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I need something in the writing , so like uh what's your functional design , what's your technical design , and uh how many people you need for this project , and what's the time frame you're looking , okay , and what is the budget , maybe uh initial budget you're looking , okay , and uh how is going to the market , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so you've you've had to meet with the marketing team and how they're going to market and what are the marketing strategic plan , okay , when are you going to introduce , okay , and by the time you introduce the product and uh you know there there would be a competition , okay , so I need some kind of uh uh the plan in the writing from you . Okay , and it's po +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And when would you like that ? +Project Manager: B as soon as possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh well if uh if we have enough time uh then d do you think um two weeks is a {disfmarker} is close enough ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh that would be good , because I need to go to the management and uh tell them what we are going to do , and uh what cost is , okay , and what's the time frame and what's the project plan , because uh without any uh documentations , I cannot go to the management and say , so we are going to do this and we need this much money , okay , so then it's it's difficult for me to say , okay , that's the reason I need uh some kind of plan from you , initially , okay , then we can have the further discussion again . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} are there other people who will be contributing to the plan ? +Project Manager: Yes , of course , if you need some help , uh so let me know . So , who are the people you need uh from the marketing or uh the technical side or uh the administration point of view , okay , to add in any documentation , or some technical point of view , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so just let me know so I can uh coordinate all the teams . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll get back to you on that . +Project Manager: Yes . Thank you . Okay . And uh Ed uh so what's {disfmarker} what do you think about uh this uh project for the remote control and d do you have some already planned something for your marketing strategy or uh the sales strategy ? +Marketing: Well not yet other than uh doing research and taking remote controls and looking what other companies have to do uh , what they're building , their designs , their ideas , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh also have to pinpoint which market we're gonna go into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It should be a fairly large market because uh the number of people that uh {disfmarker} the competition , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh th I agree it has to be something {disfmarker} it has to be something new , it has to be something that that draws people saying eh , I like this . Whether it works or not , they have to first say I like this , I like the design , and then it's gotta be simple to use . +Project Manager: Yes , so what I uh prefer maybe uh you need to interact uh more with the Christine , okay , because you know what she is going to do it , okay , and you know how to sell it . Okay , because uh she is doing the design , but you are the core because you are in the marketing , okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so because you need to sell {disfmarker} and you're the responsible for the all the money , the finance , okay , tomorrow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , what I prefer , okay , so you need to interact with the Christine more and uh within her team , okay , who is using the functional design or technical design , okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you need to come up with some kind of plan , okay , how we are going to do the {disfmarker} your sales plan , okay , th +Marketing: Do we already have a cost limit on this , th an idea of how much uh we want to market this for , how much it's gonna sell for , +Project Manager: Th That {disfmarker} that's +Marketing: that's up that's up to us to decide , eh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , that's {disfmarker} you have to decide , okay , so the best thing is you {disfmarker} uh both of uh the Christine and you discuss with yourself , okay , and come up with the cost , and how we are going to compete in the market , okay , in the the technically , or in the sales wise , okay , the commercial wise , okay . Then uh we have to design , okay , how long it will take the whole project , okay , how much is going to cost us , and how much we are going to benefit for the company . Okay , of course it's it's uh of benefit for everybody individually . Okay , so I think it's uh maybe if we can uh give me some kind of your uh the sales plan , okay , including the technical what uh she's going to talk to you within the team , okay , then it will help me to discuss with the management for further , okay , and put it in the the proper project plan . Okay , and if you need uh any coordination in between uh compared to the maybe the some technical vendors or commercial vendors , okay , depends if you want to have some uh uh marketing plan or technical plan , okay , so you let me know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Project Manager: Okay , I can coordinate , +Marketing: Very good . +Project Manager: or maybe uh , you are my coordinator , am I right ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Between uh all the coor +User Interface: Well , no , not exactly . I mean my job from what I understood was to look at the usability requirements and make sure that the product is usable , it's acceptable to the people who are gonna use it and look at the best ways to do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think I'll have to interact with Christine and discuss with her , so that she's not designing something that my studies will show right off the bat that it's not going to work , +Project Manager: Th Christine , yeah {vocalsound} . Which is {disfmarker} +User Interface: and so it's sort of {disfmarker} it's a loop that feeds in , but I don't think necessarily that I'm in a coordinating position for it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah , so basically you need to interact with Christine more , okay , for the user acceptability , okay , and the testing , okay , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then you will {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which will also feed into the marketing , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because depending on what users want , depends on how you sell it , what tag lines you attach to it , how you try to make it more attractive to users . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I think all three groups will need to interact quite a bit . Um , and then I guess build the plan based on all of that , because I think you need to take all the factors into account . +Project Manager: Yep . But what I request , okay , {gap} keep Ed in the loop , okay , in between your uh meeting and Christine meeting , because uh he should know what's happening . +User Interface: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} . Yeah , we can C_C_ him on any discussions or documents that are passed around . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay and please please copy all the mails , okay , all the discussions to me , okay , so I need to submit to the management . +User Interface: Sure . No problem . +Project Manager: So any questions for uh time being ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So , the immediate next step is to start determining the functional design , or +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . To come up with the functional design and uh to discuss with Ed , okay , and how it's going to be work , and uh first of all with your user acceptance , okay , how it looks like and how it's going to be work in the market , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so then we can discuss about uh further things . So , we'll meet when the {disfmarker} we'll discuss on the further meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? Thanks for coming . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you mind um at the conclusion of our meeting could could you send us a copy of your slides ? +Project Manager: Yes , I will . Yes . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah , that would be useful . +Project Manager: I'll copy , uh le let us keep all the emails and all the copies , okay , share each other , okay , so you know everybody what's happening , okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: And if anything you need anytime so please either you can call me , or just send me email , or uh just come and uh knock my door , okay , so I'm available here . It's good ? Okay , thanks for coming and uh I wish you a nice time then . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , see you later . Bye . +User Interface: Thank you . +","The conversation involves a project manager named Shrida Daseri, an industrial designer named Christine, a user interface designer named Agnes, and a marketing and accounting employee named Ed. Shrida starts by introducing herself and the meeting's purpose, which is to discuss a new project about designing a remote control for television, although there was initial confusion with some team members thinking the project was for designing coffee or a new monitor. + +The project manager queries about marketing and design plans. Ed from marketing mentions that a marketing plan will develop throughout the day, and Christine admits she hasn't begun designing because she was unaware of the product's nature. The project manager seeks detailed plans from marketing and industrial design, including budget, timeframe, sales strategy, and how the product will benefit the company. There's an emphasis on collaboration among team members, especially between marketing (Ed) and industrial design (Christine), to ensure the product is attractive, functional, and competitive in the market. + +The user interface designer Agnes clarifies her role in ensuring product usability and the importance of coordination between teams to feed into marketing and design. The project manager stresses the importance of keeping Ed in the loop, and all communication should be copied to her for management review. + +Finally, the project manager requests a follow-up with concrete action plans, including a functional design from Christine and a marketing strategy from Ed. Agnes is to collaborate with Christine on usability, which will influence marketing. The project manager asks for slides to be shared at the conclusion and reminds the team to keep communications open for further coordination." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , good morning . This is our first team meeting . +User Interface: Good day . +Marketing: Morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: I'll be your Project Manager for today , for this project . My name is Mark {gap} will be giving this presentation for you to kick the project off . {vocalsound} That's my uh that's the agenda for today . Well , of course we're new to each other , so I'd like to get acquainted first . So let's do that first , I mean {disfmarker} Let's start with you , can you introduce yourself ? You're our Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} Um my name is Dirk , Dirk Meinfeld . Um I will be uh {gap} Pr Project {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . And I will see what the user wants and uh what we can do uh with the new produ project {disfmarker} product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . And you are User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nick Broer , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: User Interface Designer . I'm going to uh look at the technical design from the uh user point of view . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay . +Industrial Designer: My name is Xavier Juergens , I'm the Industrial Designer , and there are three main questions that I have to find an answer to today . First one is uh what happens inside the apparatus , second is what is uh the apparatus made of , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the third is what should it look like . +Project Manager: What should it look like ? Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Oh , let's kick it off . Oh , there we go . So , our new project is about {disfmarker} we need design a remote control for television set , so , which has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I took this off our corporate website . {disfmarker} I think well it sums up what we need to do . It's We're inspired by latest fashion , not only electronics , but also the latest trends in clothes and interior design . That's why our product will always fit in your home . So apparently we need to {vocalsound} um be very at um very open to what's currently hot in the market . So that's what you need to do to bring us the latest info and what people want . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So we put the fashion in electronics . So that's what we need to go for . Anyway , we'll take this project in three steps , three pha uh three phase of design . First step will be the functional design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's basically what we're gonna do . Everybody has uh a piece of individual work and a meeting afterwards , so we can share information about {disfmarker} So I'm gonna keep this short , since we had a technical problem . So skip through this . Uh . Okay . Every meeting we {disfmarker} everybody can present their uh their views and everything , so to help with these , you have {disfmarker} we have the SMARTboards here . We can use a regular PowerPoint presentation . I'm supposed to give you an introduction on this doodling board , so it's {disfmarker} actually it's very easy . Like it says , very simple , you just take out the pen . Like you see here , I'll just take the {disfmarker} take {gap} here . That's it , you just put it on the board . You see a pen here . You go here , just like using a pen . You can just draw whatever you want . It's like the eraser , can erase whatever you want . And so it will be easy just to illustrate your views , if you wanna change the format , you just {vocalsound} either take out jus just like the pen , and whatever you want , your current colour , your line width , just to make the line bigger . So it should be really easy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This is to take the {disfmarker} just take a new slide and back again . We're just gonna keep using this board all the time , so I think it will be {disfmarker} it's very clear for everyone , I suppose . So I'll take this out . {vocalsound} Okay . We'll use that later . Anyway . Yeah , just just just stuff that you wanna share , just put it in the in the project folder , like I put my presentation now . I'll put the the minutes of every meeting , I'll put them there too , so everybody can read up if they have to leave early or whatever . So next , been here . {vocalsound} Well , {gap} gonna give the electronic white-board uh a shot . So basic idea is we have a blank sheet . Just try whatever you want , and like it says , draw your favourite animal . I think the creative genius should go first . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The creative genius ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: So , draw us your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , I'm more into the technical aspects of drawing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I'm not really good at drawing animals , +Project Manager: Draw us a technical animal . +User Interface: but uh the animal which I {gap} {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still erasing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh format . Else my animal will be like king-size . I pretty much like {vocalsound} a dolphin , because of its uh its freedom basically . Let's see . A head . {gap} actually worked with this . It's like uh it's a very {disfmarker} Uh high-tech . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bit low-responsive though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's what we don't want . +User Interface: Prefer pen and paper . +Project Manager: We want a high-responsive product . So {disfmarker} It looks more like nuclear bomb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice dolphin . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} {vocalsound} doesn't look like a nuclear bomb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This thing isn't doing what I'm {disfmarker} What I want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's go easy on it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , well it does look like a nuclear bomb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll just finish up real soon , because I'm {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it doesn't really look like a dolphin , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , +User Interface: but then again , this is all new for me . +Project Manager: it should {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} It's supposed to be a dolphin , you like the freedom that it {disfmarker} that it represents . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Like the ocean , like swimming . Do that in my spare time , so that's basically an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you like ? Okay . Well , +User Interface: Now we can forget this ever happened . +Project Manager: our Marketing Expert . Show us an animal . +Marketing: Um an animal . +Project Manager: {gap} Pick a {disfmarker} pick a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like the elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: pick a clean sheet . Oh . Take a clean sheet first . +Marketing: What ? Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just press next . That's it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Oh , a blank . Okay , next . Free , I like the elephant . It's big , it's strong , so uh uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not really that responsive , no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to hold it , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} It's a beautiful animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , you have to p press it pretty hard . With a smile on it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cute elephant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's very important . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh not to forget its tail . Oh . +Project Manager: It's a nice beard . +Marketing: Yeah , it's okay . Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And you was making comments on my dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I will beat the dolphin . {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's just a bee . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I suggest you make us the elephant in the market . The big and strong player in the market . This would be good . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . On to the next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , you should press next . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Press next . Yeah , it's up there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well the animal I'd like to draw is a tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You picked a hard one , didn't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My drawing skills are really bad , so . +Marketing: Experience with the tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? They are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They are really bad , my drawing skills . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh-huh . +Project Manager: Sure looks smooth . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how the legs should go , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh these are stripes . +User Interface: Got it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've picked this animal because it's very fast . It is uh it knows exactly what it wants . Uh it hardly ever wastes any resources . +Project Manager: What does it want ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well , basically uh it hunts for prey , but it does it always in a very well-thought way . Uh it knows exactly what it wants . It never kills an animal uh just for the killing , so it's very efficient . And it tries to do everything as fast as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it always goes for uh security , in seeking uh uh a hide spot and uh and doing everything , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: security , speed and efficiency is important . And I think uh those things we can use . +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: , I'm supposed to draw the animal next . Yay I introduce to the world the amazing ant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh hard worker . +Project Manager: Great team-workers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do everything to Uh really small , but together they're really strong . So I'm gonna give it a smiley face . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Not sure where the p {gap} . Just put 'em here . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it need shoes . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just too lazy to draw it all black , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's the coolest ant ever . +User Interface: You've done this before , haven't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love to draw ants . It's my hobby . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway {disfmarker} Nah . {vocalsound} Just {disfmarker} I think it's very representative what we drew , I guess . Like you take {disfmarker} just take your freedom and use a a trendy interface that you design for us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . You're supposed to make i make it different from uh from what other people have , and just make it a little distinct . Anyway . {gap} another beep to stop the meeting . See . Warning . Finish meeting now . Uh put this down . Examples . Well I guess we have a little little time extra , but {disfmarker} Just a little quick discussion to to open open our work . So what do you guys think about {disfmarker} The first idea is just very short . I'll start with you . What are y What are your first ideas for the new product ? What {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I basically had a question . Do {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Are we going to introduce a multi remote control ? Is it just the T_V_ or do we want to in +Project Manager: The project I got was just for a T_V_ remote control . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well , I was thinking about design remote control , with our uh motto and all . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh thing to keep in mind is that we need to stick to what people are familiar with . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No rational changes or whatever , 'cause it {disfmarker} revolutionary changes , +Project Manager: Okay , so very intuitive design , I guess . +User Interface: yes . {vocalsound} Uh we might have to consider other design aspects of our product . So that was something I wanted to add , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and perhaps some usability aspect . T_V_ is becoming central in most homes . Do we want people who are disabled in any way to uh , yeah , to be able to use it as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we want {disfmarker} I suppose we want almost everyone to be using it . So {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I mean , really disabled people , yeah , {vocalsound} might be a problem , but I think it's a little {gap} take it into consideration . Um yeah . I think we really need to cut the meeting short . You have anything you wanna share quickly ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Only one thing uh that has to be added according to me is uh the the material it is made of , it should be something light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} it speaks for itself , +Project Manager: It should be light , okay . +Industrial Designer: but some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , let's see , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: where did I {disfmarker} Let's skip that . Oh , this is it . Sorry , I skipped this sheet . +Marketing: Selling price . +Project Manager: What do we {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} Quick {gap} {disfmarker} What we're going to {disfmarker} Selling price , twenty five Euros . That's for you . The production price , twelve and a half Euros , approximately . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Just go go for that . We'll reach the uh reach that profit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , well that's not that much to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} international . +Project Manager: No , it's not much to work on . I'm sorry , I skipped it . {vocalsound} Anyways , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , this is it . Do you have anything you you came up with yet ? About uh marketing transfer , whatever ? +Marketing: Um about what ? Marketing ? +Project Manager: Marketing {gap} I'm not sure what you what you came up with yet . You have anything to share ? Or else we'll cut the meeting just cut the meeting short +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um no , not really yet , +Project Manager: since we're supposed to stop . +Marketing: but I've some ideas +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and I will uh say it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyways , the the personal coach will give you the your p your personal assignments and everything . So we'll just meet back in here thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sure we have that . +Industrial Designer: Good luck everyone . +Project Manager: Yeah , thanks for attending . +User Interface: Mm , good luck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll see you back here in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In the first team meeting for a new project led by Project Manager Mark, each team member introduced themselves. Dirk is the Marketing Expert, Nick is the User Interface Designer, and Xavier is the Industrial Designer. The project entails designing a trendy, user-friendly remote control inspired by the latest fashions in electronics, clothing, and interior design. The project will follow three design phases, starting with functional design. The team will utilize SMARTboards for presentations and a project folder to share documents. They quickly test the electronic whiteboard by drawing their favorite animals, discussing the remote control's design briefly, and setting a selling price target of 25 Euros with a production cost of 12.5 Euros. Each member will receive personal assignments from a coach and reconvene in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hello {vocalsound} . 'Kay . +Project Manager: You all saw the newsflash ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or you got the same message ? +Marketing: Yeah I I just saw it one minute ago . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah sorry . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: When I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't see it yet I think . +User Interface: Newsflash ? D did I miss something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I received an email so I thought I I can't mail you so I thought I'd just drop it in the folder , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah pretty much . +Industrial Designer: Hey what's wrong with my computer ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Is it unlocked ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah that's my presentation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Woah . I uh kind of opened it {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Marketing: Mm ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh right . +User Interface: I think you have to uh change your desktop uh +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: size . +Marketing: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Not really . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Project Manager: No no no . Yes yes yes . +User Interface: {gap} computer is uh not functioning ? +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Where do I find this ? I'm not so g display huh ? +User Interface: Uh display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then uh settings ? +Industrial Designer: Appearance ? +Marketing: Huh . +User Interface: Mm I'm not sure I {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You read the newsflash ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Can we get started +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No what was it about ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: or is there some pressing issue ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah my computer is not functioning properly . +Project Manager: Oh no pressing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did you plug in the power cable when you come back ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . No but my screen is reduced in size . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's difficult . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Feedback . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} alt delete . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Format . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Format save . +Marketing: {gap} . So it doesn't draw the attention away . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This is dreadful . +User Interface: I made uh uh my own map . +Project Manager: Oh yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: No not this , but the task . +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have Playstation also ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} No that's okay . No I just flapped it , closed it , took it here and then this happened . Ah . Uh {disfmarker} where was it ? In settings ? Okay . Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Do you guys like your tasks ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was gonna do and then a couple of minutes before this I get my function you know the information that I need . +User Interface: Yeah wa wa you actually {disfmarker} Yeah . But it it's not clear what you have to to to type uh type in your presentation . +Industrial Designer: So frustrating . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I I had a whole idea and then just was typing it and then oh . I have to do that so switch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} Yeah exactly . This presentation is mainly based on my own ideas 'cause I hadn't time to intergrate tha the information yet so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Really annoying . +Project Manager: Okay . So there we are again . +Marketing: By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay this is the agenda . Um we have three presentations , I heard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah really . {vocalsound} So who wants to start ? +Marketing: Yeah that's fine {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have to start it right away ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is you ? +Marketing: Functional ? Yeah functional requirements . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . I'm gonna talk about functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} Well uh some research has be done uh has been done . Uh observing of one hundred uh subjects in the usability lab using a remote control . Uh and they also filled in a questionnaire . The findings were um , well you can see them for yourself . They disliked the look-and-feel of current remotes controls . {vocalsound} Users think they're ugly . Um {vocalsound} they do not match the the operating behaviour of the users . So they they d they don't match what they want to have on it . Um {vocalsound} they are often lost somewhere in the room . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . And they're bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} I don't know uh how a user can reach that but okay . Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ts +Marketing: there is also uh was also some research on uh the most relevant and and and irrelevant uh f functions . Uh most irrelevant and less used were audio settings , mono , stereo , uh pitch , bass . Um screen settings for brightness and colour and stuff like that . Um but they are used . I mean the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So they do need to be in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah they do need to be on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I mean if you can't control the the sound settings {disfmarker} I mean if you dislike a very uh loud bass or something , you you need to change that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} often . +Marketing: So um yeah we have to . +Industrial Designer: By the way my T_V_ doesn't have an equ equaliser but +Marketing: We c we c Yeah I mean w we can't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next generation does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: my my T_V_ has , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: but we we can leave them uh away . Uh most relevant , uh most used functions , uh they speak for themselves I guess . Uh power button , uh channel , volume selection . Uh teletext but we can skip that because I saw the newsflash , and teletext is so outdated that it it's i should not be used uh any more in the future . +Project Manager: N not used anymore . +Marketing: So forget this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh channel settings , so for programming uh your channels in in the right order . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: By the way where did you guys get that newsflash from ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} I was wondering uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't get anything . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} on on the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Not by mail . I receiv the mail but you don't . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you you've got more information than {disfmarker} uh . +Marketing: No so it's a text file n in the project folder . So teletext can be skipped . +Project Manager: That's in the presentation , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there was some research on new features in a remote control . Uh about an L_C_D_ screen uh and speech recognition . Well we got an update for the for the audience . Or the the the targeted group . So it's above forty I guess . +Project Manager: Uh below I believe . +Marketing: The new product ? Or below {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah below forty . +Marketing: because that's pretty relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought I read a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Our current customers are in the age group forty plus . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: And the new product should reach new markets , which is the customers below forty . +Marketing: Below ? Okay well {vocalsound} +User Interface: But where did you get uh that information ? +Project Manager: That's in a newsflash . +Marketing: that's that's in the newsfla +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay that's a good to know . Um because you see see a clear distinction between the age groups , concerning the features . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean uh above forty people are not so interested uh not so interested in a screen or speech recognition . Uh but below that age they uh they pretty much are . So I think we can build that in . Um {disfmarker} Yeah well we can skip this part as well , because I thought I read above forty so we could skip the features , but we just have to build them in because uh they find it very interesting . Um well we have to keep all the classic functions but make the buttons as user-friendly as possible . Um and and also there's {disfmarker} so not only the design of the bus uh buttons but o how you can push them , and stuff like that . So the physical uh aspect of it . Um {disfmarker} And I think {disfmarker} and certainly for for the for the lower age groups , uh nice design , which uh does not make the remote control {gap} in your room . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's actually a part of your interior , of of your design in your room . So it's {vocalsound} the people can say , well what's that , well that's my remote control , so it's d it has to look nice and feel nice , and and have all the functions that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it also needs to have corporate identity . +Marketing: Yeah so the the logo has to be +Project Manager: Present and the colours . +Marketing: uh present yeah , and the colours as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can't change much of that . +Industrial Designer: Do we have {disfmarker} uh yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah so but I I don't think that's that's a problem because the thing has to have a colour anyway , and most of the times there is a brand present on it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So I think that's not gonna gonna affect it very uh very much . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well that are the the consequences uh on a marketing uh part . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's open already so you can use {gap} to +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: find yours . +User Interface: Mm . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go Jurgen . +User Interface: Oh . What is this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How do I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You pressed alt F_ four ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no . I pressed the mouse button . +Project Manager: Oh great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} th that's the self-destruct button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe you can do it from your computer so talk us through it . +User Interface: Okay . Um if you all go stand around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Computer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: F_ five . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: I uh had uh two examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um this one is the the yeah the advanced one with a lot of options and functions and buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This the easy one +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we have to to combine them . And uh yeah merge the best functions of all examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but yeah the the age is uh under forty ? +Project Manager: The mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and and and marketing research stated that that that kind of users are not afraid of of a lot of functions . +User Interface: So we {disfmarker} Okay so so we have the option for more functions . +Marketing: So not not too much but {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we do have to integrate the screen and the the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the speech recognition yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: alright . +User Interface: Uh yeah this this one we can remove for kids . It's just only for adults so uh we can uh use some advanced options . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah from age of sixteen so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but I prefer we we uh use the the basic options uh yeah . We have to to make them very easy so for just uh zapping around the channels you can just push one button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But if you want to to use your your video recorder or something else , you should use use an uh an advanced option . +Marketing: Yeah but uh the the newsflash also stated that it should control only one device , only your television . +User Interface: Okay one device . +Project Manager: Yeah . So n it's very easy . +User Interface: Okay . I didn't see {gap} . +Marketing: So w +Project Manager: Now yeah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay and I also uh yeah . W yeah . +Marketing: So there are not extra options in this case , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have to make it fashionable . Like you uh said uh before . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh yeah the basic functions . Um yeah only use a extra function if they are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah so maybe you can hide them or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah well what what we can do with the screen is is all the the configuration options , you can put that in the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you make a screen menu or something . +Marketing: And the and the {disfmarker} yeah screen menu to to to uh to do that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the basic function just on the device itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it looks very simple and all the advanced features are hidden in the screen , uh with a clear menu . +Project Manager: Yeah and the other oth other uh functionality is the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does the screen do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} wh +Project Manager: Yeah . It's low power . +User Interface: did I break it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: What {gap} . +Project Manager: So what does the screen do ? They said they needed it but what does it do ? What do they want with the screen ? +User Interface: For for the advanced functions I think . +Project Manager: Yeah that's what we make it up . +Marketing: Yeah well it {gap} yeah it didn't +Project Manager: So but what did the marketing {disfmarker} +Marketing: it didn't say what they want to do with the screen . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well I , my guess is it's it's pretty handy for advanced uh advanced functions . +Project Manager: Yeah okay it's handy . With no predefined uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like searching for channels and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah look . +Marketing: Yeah searching for channels , programming them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have your uh {disfmarker} oh never mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're back online . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} I'm al I'm almost finished so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} we have to to to watch out for the {disfmarker} i if we make it f very fashionable , it it the functional functionality will go down . So we have to make uh a compromise between functionality and fashional fashionable +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Content and form . +User Interface: yeah content and form . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Now that that was uh was the end . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was the end . Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well my presentation is a bit uh sucky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well you can improvise right ? +Project Manager: Uh which one is it ? Technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a little bit . +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that would be it then . {gap} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You didn't put it in ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea . +Marketing: So we we can go for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That w {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} it's not really English . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Let me check . I know . +Project Manager: Uh kick off . Oh working design I got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we can go for the look-and-feel of the the left example , and then a screen on top of it . +Project Manager: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: Alright how do I uh skip pages ? +Project Manager: Just uh press uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The keys yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um yeah well I was working on this before I got my information . So I was just working off the top of my head and using my colin common knowledge about uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And well the info on the website which came too late . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so I didn't really know what kind of functions we had to put into it yet . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh this is basically an overview of what we discussed in our last uh meeting . Those were my uh starting points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I was working on a s yeah on a schedule , and I was supposed to do it like this . But um yeah then uh the information came and it was kind of exact with all the steps in the remote control that I had to follow , so I was trying to organise them for myself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And then make the +Project Manager: Design yeah . +Industrial Designer: the design , a the actual design , +Marketing: Design ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I never came around to do that . So I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say about it . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean everything speaks for itself I guess . Mean you press a button um {vocalsound} the it tru goes , it sends a signal to a chip , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which uh translates it into infrared signal of certin spatial frequencies . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah frequency . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh or temporal fr frequencies actually . And then uh through a uh transformer , it the signal gets boosted and then sent to the to the receiver on the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah decoder . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ will translate it into a function . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah well this was actually {vocalsound} all I got around to do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Blank . Yeah okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I dunno if I'm too slow for this stuff , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Work harder . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay shou should we make a list of the of all the functions we want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we want to incorporate in uh into it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um for those that didn't see yet um the basic new requirements of the management were no teletext , only for T_V_ . Uh it should be designed for a use g uh group below forty , but I don't think it's w wrong if we can uh target the current customer group as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh the corporate identity should be clear in the design of the remote control . And we have to decide on the functions , and on the , let's see what was it , uh the target group . We have to make be clear what that is . +Marketing: {gap} group of users , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah users . +Marketing: because it says below forty I mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah so I think it's easy but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess that's that's the tar yeah uh or male and female {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh it's it's also for children or just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's below forty so we can decide where to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh six {disfmarker} the marketing research started on s on the age of sixteen . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Sixteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , thirty five to forty five , something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . So below forty is okay . +Marketing: So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we need an {disfmarker} lower level which to s uh focus . +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: So is it from sixteen to forty ? Is it from twenty to forty ? Is it from thirty ? +Marketing: Uh sixteen to forty . +Project Manager: Yeah ? 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . We we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I guess people of sixteen are are quite used to technology . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they they adapt to it pretty soon I guess . +User Interface: And if we have a larger public we have uh yeah more options to to uh sell our product . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so what we might wanna do is uh yeah cust I have customised the screen functions , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The uh younger users are more acquainted with these kind of machines so they can use more advanced functions . But maybe elderly people don't understand it so well , so they need a simpler remote . +Project Manager: Design . Mm . +Industrial Designer: And yeah that you can choose what the design displays , or wha whatever . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's why uh I wanted to to make yeah two uh different uh yeah groups of functions . The the simple functions for for the the whole public , and the the advanced options for the younger people yeah who are more yeah experienced with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And maybe y +Industrial Designer: Experienced yeah . +Marketing: But uh all incorporated in the screen or or just on the remote itself ? +User Interface: Na I w I should uh put uh the the yeah the extra advanced options on the onto the onscreen display . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like like you have a visual of the of the brightness with with a kind of sliding bar and a bus and and stuff like that for sound and and vis and and visuals ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So is {disfmarker} you should have a menu for all the the functions you don't use regular and which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh you can make a {disfmarker} if you make a drawing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Aye yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Shall I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh black's okay . {vocalsound} And draw it very big . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} no , it doesn't have line control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we get the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah well , this is basically uh it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The remote ? +Project Manager: The remote , yeah ? +Marketing: alright the remote ? Um well usually the power button is on top I guess . +Project Manager: Basic . Is on top . Which should be easy , easily reached with the thumb . +Marketing: Yeah so it should fit right in into your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . L left top or right uh top ? +Project Manager: T I s should said right . +Marketing: Right . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Right top . +Marketing: I most people are right-handed so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: maybe left-handed special addition , but okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you put it like like here . Or something . I dunno . Um then you could put a screen , like on a mobile phone , also on top I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but if you are using the the normal functions , the the basic functions , you normally press them on the u yeah . +Project Manager: Do the also with the thumb . So it should be a little bit longer so that you can put your uh thumb , also reach the middle . Or you should screen at the bottom and then you can see it very clearly . +Marketing: Okay so y yeah you have you have it in your hand , and the screen is below , and the buttons are in the middle . +Project Manager: You you need to be able to hold it so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay for example {vocalsound} if you put the screen here , it's more about the functions now than the than the layout . +Project Manager: Yeah okay that's true . Layout . That's for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Doesn't work too well . It's uh it's bent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I can't help it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: You broke it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Man . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay you get it . Uh for example if y if you put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You want the normal piece of paper ? And you have a pen ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And might be easier huh ? +Marketing: Maybe this . {gap} kind of works . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Like if you have like uh ten buttons for for all the for all the channels , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: um and here one for for +Project Manager: And the for flipping up and down . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . And volume control . +Marketing: Yeah that that usually uh {disfmarker} like here , here , here , here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you have up and down for the for the channels , and left and right for the volume uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And left to right . And those can also be used for the menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . I thought {disfmarker} but this is really your department , that we need just the functional display and four cursors . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but this is function so if you can use them for multiple things {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you you have {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: most of the time you have one button in the middle . It says menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: For the menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and then if you press it you {disfmarker} the screen gets activated and then you can use these buttons to scroll up and down and left and right to go into functon +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: mo most of the time this menu button is also like okay , to to confirm a a kind of action . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you scroll into it , okay . You select a function like v like uh bass . You just adjust it with these two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Then okay to confirm , and then uh on on each on each screen there's there should be an option to go back to a to a upper level . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then finally say okay , exit . Or or one button to exit it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh in one time I dunno , that's not really my department . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And do we need a a logo on our uh remote control , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's more your uh your department to to uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But it should be {disfmarker} if the screen is here then the logo should be like on on top , +User Interface: On the left uh top yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but that depends on where you put the screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But it's essential that there is a screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I mean the position of the screen is also more essential than {disfmarker} I mean we we look where we have space left and then put the logo over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . And for the speech uh recognition part , if we want to incorporate that , we need a microphone . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} Yeah so it should be {disfmarker} I mean if you have it in your hand here , should be on top somewhere , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah . This would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why did we wanna put the display in the bottom ? +Marketing: I mean i +Project Manager: No that's not s sure so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That's not sure +Project Manager: uh we need a display . +Marketing: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah may maybe because you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because yeah if you use the functions your hand will block the display . +User Interface: Yeah okay but {gap} only for the basic functi if you're going to use the advanced option , you're going to press the the menu button and then {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I mean a screen on top looks more lo logical to me . +Industrial Designer: Normal for logical t +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Also because people use m mobile phones and they also have the screen on top . +Project Manager: Yeah they're used to it . +User Interface: Okay the {disfmarker} yeah . That's possible . +Marketing: So you you just have to reach a little bit for the power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean if you grab it . +Industrial Designer: On once it's on it's on . You don't need the power button . +Marketing: But most most of the times if a if if a T_V_'s on standby people just press a channel to put it on . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Okay we put it on top . +Marketing: So we put this on top , and then make the corporate logo +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like over here . R_R_ . And j and the microphone , I mean it can be very small . If you look at your mobile phones {gap} are some stripes , {vocalsound} little little holes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe on the top or even on the side . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah maybe on the side . I mean if the if the microphone is good . +Project Manager: Yeah but then it's possible that you cover it with your hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: Yeah okay . So on the on the top is better . +Project Manager: I think that top is the best option . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if you uh if you hold the ma the remote like this , if you put it on the top on the side {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Should be able to work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: Depends on the sensitivity of the microphone , but I think that's okay . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Can we leave this up to you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it doesn't matter that much . So {disfmarker} but um the screen is on top ? Which functions did we have left ? I mean this is basically numbers , volume , uh channel up and down . +Project Manager: Volume . Up . Channel up and down , and the control of the advanced options . +Marketing: Screen is over there . +Project Manager: So maybe it , we should decide what advanced options we want to put in the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah . If we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . That's uh that's a good one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so we we needed to integrate the sound and uh and image options right ? +Project Manager: Yeah so sounds ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like uh bass uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Sound ? +Industrial Designer: so we need kind of an equaliser . If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Equaliser . So if you have sound {disfmarker} But not too advanced . I mean most T_V_s use only treble and bass . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah it it's just a remote control so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah treble , middl middle , bass or something . +Project Manager: They're not used often so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's uh pretty hard to write . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah as {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Okay but you have sound ? +Project Manager: Yeah sounds . +Marketing: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: oh y you have digital uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: better write it down over there yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . I'm just a {vocalsound} secretary . +Marketing: So you have sound . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Coffee ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah sound and then within sound I guess treble and bass ? +Industrial Designer: Yes please . +Project Manager: Treble bass . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the mono stereo option ? +Marketing: Yeah . Also . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And there there was something else also . +Project Manager: Pitch I believe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then pitch . +Marketing: Pitch . Yeah . But pitch , isn't that {disfmarker} yeah that's the the height of the tone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fr yeah the frequency of the tones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , +Project Manager: Yeah and mono stereo . +Marketing: wh why would you use that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah isn't that that depends on the on the signal of the of what program you're watching . +Marketing: If people like talk like uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the tuning part ? +Marketing: Programming part . +Project Manager: Yeah programming . So channel programming ? +Marketing: Uh so we have sound , yeah ? Channel programming . +Industrial Designer: And yeah in the functionality of the +User Interface: Television uh itself uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: no no of the remote uh do do we want uh the buttons to make sound when you press them ? As a confirmation or whatever you know ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I think it g it gets annoying . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean most mobile phones used that in the beginning but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We we could make an option for it , but uh you can disable s +Industrial Designer: Under the a yeah advanced option menu you can put those things . +User Interface: Yeah . But uh the the television itself has also the the options {gap} brightness and uh screen colour etcetera . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Contrast yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but people don't want to sit on their knees on their knees in front of their television with {gap} only three buttons then it's very hard to +Project Manager: Mm . No . Uh , so contrast , +Marketing: y yeah contrast and brightness ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: bright , +Marketing: Yeah those are the most used I guess . If you look at your monitor . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} And the others were in your presentation right ? So I can just copy those ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} yeah well I guess that these were the only ones , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} It's easy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But so we have we have T_V_ options , which is all this . +Marketing: Yeah . I will look it up . +Project Manager: Yeah the button options and the L_C_D_ options . +Industrial Designer: The sound , sound and image . And you have in that uh the indeed the remote control options . +Project Manager: Indeed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we need two menus kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah you have basically a button menu , which you can use directly , uh according to the old principle . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: And the L_C_D_ options are activated by some some software options , thats communicates with the infrared uh decoder yeah . +Marketing: Yeah with the chip and then {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you {disfmarker} You have an additional processor and and software part . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} yeah . Well {disfmarker} yeah we have power button , whether that's present . +Project Manager: Compared to o +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Channel volume selection present . Uh numbers present . Yeah a audio settings , mono , stereo , pitch , bass , treble . Screen settings , brightness and colour . +Project Manager: L_ s Yeah . Colour . Yeah I I call it contrast . +Marketing: Yeah con contrast is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I make it c colour . +Marketing: Yeah okay , colour and brightness . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and what you say , channel settings or channel programming ? So you you have an option to to start scanning all the frequencies , and when it encounters one , well it shows on your T_V_ . And then you can um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and automatically um {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh and then you can select uh a number in your remote on which you want to save it . +Project Manager: Yeah so I've g channel program is autoseek ? +Marketing: Yeah , autoseek . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh name a channel , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well most T_V_s automatically display the name , which they get through the cable . +Project Manager: Oh they get automatic names , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So you only have to choose the position on your +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It only has to match the the channel frequency on your T_V_ , with with the with the position on your T_V_ and and so your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but can you also say I want f uh Veronica on the channel number uh five or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Help . +Marketing: If you already programmed it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If you want to move it . Yeah that should be possible too . +Project Manager: Yeah . How do you call that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah how do you call that ? Mm ? Wait you you should be able to to browse through a list or something , which w displays all the all the values , all the channels which are possible . +Project Manager: Channels ? Yeah . +Marketing: I mean like one to f thirty of or ninety or whatever . +Project Manager: Ninety nine or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Just browse through it and then um in some kind of way see if it if it if it is programmed . +Project Manager: S swap channels ? Can I call it that ? +Marketing: Yeah . Swap channels . +Project Manager: Swap's good option . Okay . Uh other functions ? +Marketing: So you {disfmarker} most of the time if you if you swap it {disfmarker} S uh let's say for example you have uh R_T_L_ five on on channel five . And Veronica on channel eight and you want to move Veronica to channel five , most of the times you override the previous uh the previous one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's 's up to uh Mister User Interface Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It's it's pretty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah I mean you have to look on on the menu +Industrial Designer: {gap} working design . Doch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Also . +Marketing: on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He only has to figure out how it has to look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but also , which buttons you have to press to get a certain result ? +Industrial Designer: And how +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the working design was to specify how ph the physical interation between the components was , as I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But {disfmarker} You did your homework . But um {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or or is it too hard to to ju to just do it all on your remote ? To programme the channels ? +Project Manager: No I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No no . It should be able to do any remote . +User Interface: No that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: But I think the communication with the television is difficult . But that's not our part . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have to design a protocol so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's true . That's true . +Industrial Designer: Thank god . +User Interface: Okay {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So we have a figure a figure out a way to to do that easily . I mean th the autoseek is is not a problem . +Project Manager: No that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you uh you uh current channel and then then it just says , uh on which number do you want to save this , and you just press a number on your remote , and then say confirm , okay , and then it's it's saved . It's easier , {gap} it's it's it's harder to , if you have already programmed it , to to swap . +Project Manager: Yeah . So but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to think of something for that . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} The User Interface Designer can design a menu for all these function I put them on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah k kind of structure into layers . +User Interface: On the uh yeah can you i make a a map with with all the {disfmarker} yeah 'cause it's now {disfmarker} there are lots and lots of documents +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah . Yeah I can . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll just try to reorganise uh things . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you design the basic function menu for the L_C_D_ screen ? Uh um {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} +Marketing: And and the layout of of the thing itself . +Project Manager: th I think the yeah the layout of the screen +User Interface: The the layout of the remote control ? +Project Manager: and I think you can concentrate more on the button placement and the placement of the uh screen itself on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Isn't that more the the u uh the user interface part ? +Project Manager: {gap} . No I d I think that's more in {disfmarker} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh all the functional uh aspects of the remote I think are in my department . +Marketing: Maybe more on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have to know what it has to do , so if you wanna you know the changing the channels kind of s thing is , I have to integrate that in the design . +Project Manager: Okay . So he's layout and you're function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Form function okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a that's a good separation . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But do I have to to uh to yeah to make the the menu layout also ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are you going to do that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah ? I I'm going to make {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i that's your department yes , +User Interface: yeah o okay . +Project Manager: because w he already knows what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have to kind of work together . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If if I make the the the yeah the menu like , I have to state which function has to be in the menu , +Project Manager: But we're not allowed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then you have to decide , it's , in a in a way that b is user-friendly . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Y you you are going to make a list of what functions are uh are going to to be on the the screen , the menu screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And I'm going to make a a nice menu uh with with {gap} pages and yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: With with some l with some layers in it . +Project Manager: Yeah and also make clear which buttons to press to get certain result , +Marketing: So some menus . +Project Manager: because that's always the difficulty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Every device has its own {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well I guess this this button , the the the okay , +Project Manager: Menu okay . +Marketing: menu okay . Or you can incorporate two uh difference uh different buttons . Uh like uh for your mobile phone . Um so this is only for to get in the menu , or to exit it . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then one to confirm , and one to go one step back . +Project Manager: Back . Yeah . +Marketing: So it's like the the save button on your your mobile phone , if you have a Nokia or like that . Or the or the no button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: To go one step back you {gap} it's only two extra buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . W we {disfmarker} +Marketing: but if it if it's very clear that they are for the screen {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think we have to to group , to make two groups . Um the {disfmarker} one group for the for the display , and one group for the basic functions , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but they're incorporated {gap} ? Up and down is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay but we we have a m +Marketing: Yeah because this this is used for both . +User Interface: yeah but maybe that's that's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Smart ? +User Interface: yeah if you're if you're z zapping uh with your uh yeah remote control , you can press the the menu button , and then you are suddenly into the the yeah the display . +Marketing: Into your screen . Okay . So you +Industrial Designer: You wanna separate uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: l should leave the menu button out of here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And {gap} and just put it under the screen , the screen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it on top . +User Interface: Yeah j just just group group the {disfmarker} yeah we make these the advanced functions and these the basic functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we make a yeah a line between them . +Marketing: Yeah . But we should place the screen on top , right ? +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: F oh yeah . Okay yeah we swap uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: But that's uh J Jurgen's department . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we make it a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You just you just find out and {gap} . +Project Manager: You just make the layout . You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: do we do the extra two buttons or not ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you should . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's easier . If you put too many functions in one button it gets confusing . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we have a a menu button and a s +Project Manager: And to , okay and back , also . +User Interface: Okay . Okay and back button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , or confirm and back . Whatever . +Project Manager: And of course the four arrows . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But those are still y doubly used . Both the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should we save this picture , or or you know what it looks like ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm not s clear about uh the the extra two buttons . We have a menu button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That that just to to activate the screen . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the the one with the {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Menu button access the menu in the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: And then with these buttons , woa , y you navigate . +Project Manager: You can navigate . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you can also navigate the channels . And the volume . +User Interface: Okay so that that's not uh {disfmarker} Yeah that {disfmarker} Those are +Project Manager: Those are both both {disfmarker} +User Interface: multifunctional . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey is it interesting for users if we put LED lights under the buttons ? So that if you uh press on the menu function that only the buttons that are used for the menu are ligh li light up . +Marketing: Yeah . L l litten up yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh five minutes . +Marketing: That's very good idea . +Industrial Designer: N +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Light uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's a good idea because then it becomes clear which buttons are active now , which you can use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then it's also easier to integrate several functions in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Marketing: Those buttons are are lit up . +Industrial Designer: I think not . +Marketing: But just one thing . Should we use those two ? Them ? Or only this to to scroll ? +Project Manager: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use the two functional buttons to confirm , to go into something ? Oh no we have to use this to adjust some some bars ? +Project Manager: Volume . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah keep it optional 'cause maybe you can you know go left to right and up and down in a in one menu . +Marketing: Yeah . And maybe we should use this also as an okay button , still . And then just only a back button . +Project Manager: Well we have those buttons . We use all four . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The pr the problem with the okay button in the middle is , sorry +Project Manager: Yeah okay go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: sorry , uh is uh if you're pressing up and down , you can easily press the okay once you , when you're not already at your choice . +User Interface: Yeah . So maybe make one uh one okay button and and one navigation button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that was already decided . +Marketing: And one back . +User Interface: Yeah the with with the the channel and the volume uh {disfmarker} yeah m a multifunctional navigation button . +Project Manager: Okay that's what we decided earlier on . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You wanna close down huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah I wanna close down . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have to , sorry . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not because I don't like you but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Project Manager: yh we have lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Already . +Project Manager: and then we can work for thirty minutes , and I have to write very fast to make the minich min minutes . And then uh we'll see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . How m how long is the lunchbreak ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Nobody told me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to ask . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But do we have to write uh to write down uh the our stuff now ? Or first lunchbreak ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No I th believe there's first lunch break . +User Interface: Because I {disfmarker} I've everything in my head now {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Or you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can put uh the laptop back in the room and {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes sir . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Time pressure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Yeah it's a lot of pressure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sorry for my uh not finished presentation uh . +Project Manager: That's okay . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah we'll kick your ass later . No . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bring it on . +Project Manager: I don't know if it works but it should be saved . +Marketing: Aye {disfmarker} Y you saved it ? Does it save automatically in the project folder ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We'll see . +Project Manager: Should be here . Smart board . +Marketing: Just put back my laptop . +Project Manager: Don't know if you can use it but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah you can open it with the picture preview or stuff like that . +User Interface: And uh we have to make uh some maps with uh with the all the the data we uh gathered . +Project Manager: Yeah . I try to organise it by these three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . It's it's just my own map so I put everything into the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really mind . I just put the minutes here and we'll see . +User Interface: But you got some extra information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's in the functional design uh folder . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah that's just basically what I just showed . +User Interface: But where do you did you get the newsflash ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I got it by {disfmarker} +User Interface: You're the only one uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: yeah . I'm gonna get kicked if I don't do it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} internet . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Make me proud . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll try to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So first we have a lunchbreak now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: I believe so . {gap} just ask . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I dunno where she {gap} . +","In this scenario, the team comprising an Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, Project Manager, and a Marketing team member are gathered to discuss the development of a new remote control aimed at users below forty years of age. The conversation initiates with an acknowledgment of a newsflash or an update that only some team members are aware of. They briefly struggle with some computer issues, which distracts from the main conversation but eventually resolve it with the help of the User Interface Designer recommending a desktop setting change. + +The Project Manager attempts to steer the discussion towards the task at hand after ensuring everyone's computer issues are resolved. The meeting's agenda is to discuss functional requirements informed by recent research observed from one hundred subjects in a usability lab. The findings indicate a dislike for current remotes’ look-and-feel, a mismatch with user behavior, being easily lost, difficult to learn, and being harmful to repetitive strain injury (RSI). The research also identified the most and least used functions on remotes, noting that despite their rare use, functions like audio and screen settings need to be accessible on the remote. + +The Marketing team member details that while features such as LCD screens and speech recognition are enticing to younger demographics, they may be superfluous for users above forty. Updates on the targeted audience's age groups are clarified, reiterating a focus on users below the age of forty. + +The discussion shifts to the remote control design, which prioritizes a balance between classic functions, user-friendliness, and appealing aesthetics. The importance of incorporating a strong corporate identity through branding elements like logos and colors is also emphasized. + +The team struggles initially with the software presentation tools, but once they overcome the technical challenge, they commence with consolidating the design features. They deliberate about incorporating an LCD screen, speech recognition, button placement, and distinguishing between basic and advanced functions. Lighting up buttons for specific actions and ensuring ergonomic design are brought up as user-friendly features. + +The team also discusses channel programming, transferring channels to another number, and professional preferences such as the tactile feedback from button presses. A suggestion is made to have LED lights under the buttons to indicate active functions. The Project Manager is concerned with the upcoming lunch break and feels pressure to wrap up the meeting after which he is responsible for summarizing the meeting's minutes. + +Overall, the team needs to harmonize their understanding of the design and functions that should be a part of the new remote, ensuring that it caters to the newer, tech-savvy demographic without alienating existing older customers, all while upholding the company’s corporate identity. + +The meeting closes with some unresolved issues around organizing the various documents and folders related to the project, and the User Interface designer seeks clarification on his role concerning the menu layout and the division of tasks between the team members. Despite some confusion and technical setbacks, the team seems to make substantial progress in understanding the project requirements and their next steps before heading off to their respective post-lunch assignments." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um nice to see you again . Uh . So , uh . Tod uh for this meeting I will take the notes and do the minutes . Uh so we will see our three presentations . Um we will start with the uh Manager Expert wi who will talk about uh user re requirements , whats user needs and what it desire for this devi device . +Marketing: Okay , can I have the laptop over here , or ? +Project Manager: Yep . Oh , I don't think so . I think you have to come here . +Marketing: Okay . Have to get up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . I think it should stay . +Marketing: Excuse me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Should stay in the square here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh , maybe . +Marketing: Okay , so basically I'm gonna present some findings of a study we conducted uh into uh what users want in this remote control . +Project Manager: Oh , you can put it here . Oh that's okay , it's jus +Marketing: Um so first of all we {disfmarker} what we did is we um conducted a an experiment with a hundred test subjects . Um we put them in a in our um usability laboratory and got them to , you know , um play with remote controls , and also to complete , after they'd done that , to complete a questionnaire uh to tell us what they like and what they don't like in remote controls . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So basically um the major things we found out was that um basically users don't like the look and feel of of most remote controls that are currently on the market . Um they , you know , seventy five percent of the people we we uh did the experiments on , found that rem remote the remote controls that they'd used in the past were ugly . Completely ugly . Um they they didn't match the operating behaviour of the user , that is , you know , the the way users use remote controls when they're watching T_V_ . Um , that the layout of the remote controls didn't match they way that they used it . Um and thirdly they say that w half of the users that we um tested said that they only used ten percent of the buttons that uh are on remote controls . Um so we collect we also some collected some usage statistics uh based on how these test subjects were using their remote control . And from this we basically came up with the figure that the channel buttons , the channel selection buttons are the most {disfmarker} by far the most used buttons on the remote control . Um and you can see they're used a hundred and sixty eight times per hour on average , um , while the user's watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um the closest button that was used , well the cl the button that was used that was closest to the channel button was the teletext button , um which was used fourteen times per hour , followed by the volume button , which was four times per hour , um , all the other , all the other um buttons , such as ch um audio and picture selection um configuration buttons and things were used , you know , l approx well less than or equal to one times per hour . Um we also asked users um which buttons had the most importance to them , you know , which which buttons they felt were the most important buttons on on the remote control . And basically they came {disfmarker} they said the channel , volume , and power buttons had the highest relevance to users , um note that only power was very infrequently used , it only had a b a a fr usage frequency of about one times per hour , but users ranked it as having a very very high relevance . Um and the audio and picture settings had a very {disfmarker} that well the users thought that um w the audio and picture settings were very uh weren't very important to them um , and they used them very infrequently a as well . {vocalsound} So we asked users what what um frustrates them the most about um current remote controls . And fifty percent of the users said that uh what frustrates them is losing the remote control um somewhere in the room and not being able to find it . Um {vocalsound} they also said that it um it takes a lot of time to learn a new remote control , especially when there's many buttons and it's a , you know , a c a a unintuitive interface . Um and then thirdly , they {disfmarker} some users commented on the fact that the the you know the way that you have to hold and press buttons on a remote control ar are bad and um cause u repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} We also asked some users about some specific features that they'd like to see in the {disfmarker} on the remote control . In particular , do they want an L_C_D_ d display , and secondly , do they think speech recognition uh is a useful feature to have on a remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um basically our findings are that um amongst a younger age groups uh the answer is umv overwhelmingly yes . They want these features , they want these high technology features . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um for instance , ninety one percent of pe of people aged between fifteen and twenty five said yes , they want these features . Whereas um {vocalsound} the the trend was as users as users um became older and older uh they were less likely to want these sort of features in a um in a remote control . So I guess it depends on where we're focusing our our market . Um and as our company motto is putting fashion in electronics , um I think we're focusing on the younger younger um target demographic , and so maybe we should think about adding these sort of high technology features into our remote control . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's my dic that's my presentation . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , um maybe now we can talk about a user interface and uh about the technical function of this device . So uh Pet Peter , can you talk say something about that ? +Industrial Designer: Well , okay , yeah . Yeah , but the user user interface is responsible . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: B you think uh I I'm User Interface Manager . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , I'm {disfmarker} Sorry . Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: If I could go there with this cable . +Industrial Designer: You're scaring me with L_C_D_ man . And speech recognition in remote unit , it will be very e expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's true , but , you know , they're features that users want , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And our production cost of twelve fifty Euros per per unit is fairly high I think , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so I think we can afford to to add these sort of features into our remote . +Industrial Designer: At least we have couple of months t to work on it so so it will be cheaper finally . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sh okay . {gap} +Marketing: It is true . +User Interface: Where's delete button ? Okay . Oh I'm sorry . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: That's the wrong one , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still Bob Morris . +User Interface: Oh . Presentation three ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah you should have put yes . +Industrial Designer: Because you cancelled it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Click on yes . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Okay , so here is my presentation about technical function design . I will talk about different components and s of system and how they react together . Okay , uh , first what is a remote control ? Simply it's a device , as you know , for uh , for sending some commands by some waves to uh another device to to tell different commands uh with this device . And the main idea we don't use any cable and we can rec react simpler with the device . Uh i it has different blocks , different blocks . Uh first is remote control have sh ha should have some electric circuits uh making interface with uh keyboard and uh r reading uh keyboard and reading the keyboard uh commands . And then inter then make uh these keyboard commands , uh in interpret these int uh keyboard commands . And then there should be uh an electronic circuit making uh electronic signals according to these commands and uh finally there is a transmitter which is a cord or a a diode making uh making uh waves to transmit through the air and uh uh this air this uh wave uh will be received by the by the other device like a television or whatever , to uh r to realise the command . Okay , {vocalsound} uh about {disfmarker} what I found about uh different uh these different blocks are uh , usually there are two different methods uh to {disfmarker} for designing a remote control . They are based on infra-red uh waves or uh uh radio waves . +Industrial Designer: You still want me the presentation . +User Interface: There are two different uh uh solutions I mean . This is uh this can be uh uh the the differences the th between different kind of waves , infra-red or radio waves . And uh also as uh I understood , and uh I think it was a part of uh Bob , uh uh presentation , people prefer to have uh to have uh the remote control with less button . So for the electronic part , working and interfacing , with button , we should we should try to t try to design a remote control having uh some some simpler buttons or some rolling buttons to just to just to search between different options , and showing o something on T_V_ and putting less lesser stuff on the uh on the remote control . And uh personal preferences , uh uh uh uh certainly a remote control with {disfmarker} uh working with radio waves is uh preferred because uh you can pr you can take it in any direction and you don't need to tune it any way . And uh uh again , using bigger buttons and less number of buttons are also preferred , as I see . Okay . That was my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . I have a question . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Do you think radio waves um will interfere with other appliances in the home ? +User Interface: Uh , I don't think so , because uh we can make uh we ca we can make this wave in a specific frequency . So they can be in a range which is not inter interfering with the {vocalsound} with other devices inside the home . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So can we use any any frequency ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be okay {gap} . +Project Manager: We have the right to use any frequency ? +User Interface: Uh no but as I know , there is a range for uh for this uh f for for uh for this stuff , for designing this circuit . We can we can we can tune our uh transmitter to work in this range , and for this range we don't need to ask any permission . +Project Manager: Okay . And what happen with uh radio waves when two neighbours have the same {disfmarker} have our remote control , for example ? And so do they have the same frequency , or ? +User Interface: Uh for this I'm not uh I I don't know the solution , but one solution can be something like putting uh p password or something inside the wave , so the only your T_V_ can understand it +Project Manager: Okay . A kind of identification {gap} , +User Interface: Yeah , identification code inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah f {vocalsound} uh I know about this , since it's my {disfmarker} it's exactly my field , so . +Project Manager: okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's uh kind of handshaking , uh , when starting to {disfmarker} uh when you start to communicate with the your T_V_ then then it's like an handshaking protocol with your your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if two two devices are trying to go to communicate with the T_V_ set then the the the one which has the more energy in the wave is chosen . Well it can be a problem sometimes , but most of the time it works okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The password may simply {disfmarker} uh or uh i identification code may simply solve this problem . A specific uh remote control has a specific f +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but we we don't have to think uh about this because I think as a function designer that we will use the already made uh circuits which we probably bu buy . It's worth to buy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And they have these problems solved so . So we don't have to think about these . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe you can talk about the function , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I have only a couple of things because I had {disfmarker} I struggled a bit with the software that I'm supposed to use in this uh uh in this company . I was used to use Linux before , so . But I tried to tried to break through this {gap} too , I guess . +Project Manager: Open . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} How to make it big ? +Project Manager: Slide show . +User Interface: Five . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Slide show . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should work , so you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh so I will speak about working design . That's the first slide . Uh what uh I have to do ? A look at what the other company {disfmarker} Okay so uh presently I am looking what is possible to use , what circuits to use and stuff like that because uh I didn't work uh with these uh circuits so far so I have to look what what is a v a v available on the market for for the communication {disfmarker} for the I_R_ circuits and so on , so I'm currently looking what is available on the web . And uh I wanted to ask you m maybe afterwards , after after our discussion , if we have some contacts in some companies , so , which can report on what is going on there , so , I would be glad if you can tell me about them . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , you know . Uh , okay findings , that's {gap} the point that I'm working on currently but uh so far I I was uh looking what what are the blue circuit , I mean radio wave {disfmarker} radio frequency circuits are available now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the prices I read are high . So , I know that uh the user interface people and these speak about radio frequency waves because you can you can uh you can make the T_V_ do what you want even if you are in the bathroom or so on , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know , when you are not close to the T_V_ you probably won't need to to change the program and so on and so I am I am voting for s to stick to the um infra-red control instead of R_W_ but we will discuss it later maybe . Uh . Components to use , I'm not exactly sure what I will use for the design of the circuit . It depends uh on whether we will use the L_C_D_ and mainly the speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because the speech rec Yeah ? +Marketing: Are we um are we planning to take an off the shelf an O_E_M_ component for the radio wave circuit , or are we planning to construct our own circuit board ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no no . This we this we buy I think , because it's rather cheap nowadays and it's not worth to construct ourselves . +Marketing: Okay s So we just buy a circuit board and {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not sure about the circuit which is responsible for speech recognition . This I prefer that we should make ourselves . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it depends whether we take a decision to use it . Same thing . It's fairly expensive to use these circuits . So , speech recognition {disfmarker} well , L_C_D_ it's okay because it's common nowadays to use L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I agree on using any kind of L_C_D_ , less buttons good for me as a as a designer of the circuit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the speech recognition we have to compare whether the price and the {disfmarker} what does it offer , you know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So what do you think would be the price , it would be out of range ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be maybe feasible ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . I was not thinking too much about the price . But if we use the L_C_D_ uh even the radio frequency communication with the T_V_ set and the backlight and uh related things like the photo diodes and stuff , it should be okay . If we decide to use the speech recognition , then we probably could struggle but we'll see afterwards . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It depends of you if if the M_E_ or U_I_D_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry about the names , I don't really know , uh want to have it like in metal or in plastic , these things , it it depends on you not {disfmarker} Because the the the electronic device's price is not not so big in comparison to to the overall shape and stuff like that , so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We will discuss it afterwards . Oh , this is nothing . This is just my notes on what to use . And uh my personal preference is yes , I would like also preferably to use R_W_ circuit , but from the point of view uh of the design and price , I would stick to I_R_s . That's my opinion . Uh I mean if infra-red uh circuit not not the radio frequency . +Project Manager: Why ? Because it's simpler ? +Industrial Designer: Because because the the range where you can use it is fair . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's okay I think . And the price is fairly cheap for this . +Project Manager: Okay . It's a a price matter . +Industrial Designer: Well , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Jus just the price . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise I don't care what I put there because it's the chip which I buy or which we buy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it's o y o {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What how much more expensive ? Are we talking three times more expensive ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well , three to three to five . +Marketing: Or ten times more expensive ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N not ten times , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it depends what what we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . That's still a lot . I think it's it's probably not worth spending the extra money , +Project Manager: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: because I mean all the other remote controls on the market have infra-red , so people don't expect anything other than infra-red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's not worth spending the extra money . +Project Manager: Well I {gap} , oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th they are used to use it when they can see the T_V_ so , I don't know . +Project Manager: On the other side , we want to have something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , where +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want to to have something new and So we I think we should still thinking about it . But maybe {gap} . +Marketing: But I think , based on my usability studies I th I feel that users are {disfmarker} prioritise the look and the feel and the trendiness above , you know , the difference between infra-red or radio waves . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I think we're better off spending money in the usability phase . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You the user interface , and management man , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Peter . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I have to inform you I receive an email from the management bon board today and they have new requirements for the for the remote control . Um +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: first um , they say that's uh about something about t teletext . Uh apparently it becomes from {disfmarker} according to them it becomes out of date . Out-dated . And uh {disfmarker} Because of the internet popularity and everybody has internet at home , and actually it's not useful to have teletext . Um . So I think we can avoid the teletext . Um the second thing is uh they suggest that that we should uh use the remote control only for T_V_ , not for D_V_D_ and other devices , because it make it {disfmarker} it makes it's too complex and uh because we have not much time for this project we should stay on T_V_ on the {disfmarker} only specific T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: I agree . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third {vocalsound} the third one is uh about the the the image of the company . So um uh we should we should keep uh {disfmarker} The the product should be recognisable . Uh , uh It's {disfmarker} That mean we should use the colour of our company and maybe put somewhere the s the slogan of the company , which is uh , we put fashion of {disfmarker} in electronics . So , when people see the the remote control , they should say oh it's from Real Reaction and he s they should recognise the company . So , um {disfmarker} So now we we should take the decision what we are going to {disfmarker} what function we will have on this uh on this remote control . So , mm , are we going to use L_C_D_ , speech recognition ? Uh . +Marketing: Well , should we start with just the core , the basic functions that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we can move on to the more advanced features . +User Interface: Mm . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the available things are L_C_D_ , the buttons and everything . Uh radio frequency depends . And , well the recognition it depends on you guys . +Project Manager: Yeah but first maybe what is {disfmarker} what are the usual function of a standard remote control ? +Industrial Designer: You should probably speak . +Project Manager: I mean +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: what do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , well , I mean the obvious one is changing channels . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we should stick on very useful functions , because we want less button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So , turning channel , of course . Volume setting . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh just one note to the chan channel changing . Do we {disfmarker} will we use only two buttons , or or like numbered buttons ? I mean those nine plus one or two ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it would be a b {gap} +Industrial Designer: Because it's many buttons and we were speaking about lowering the number . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: On the other side we have more and more channels , and if you want to pass through all the channels to get the channel you want , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay so so we keep all these all these buttons . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe we could think of something more betweens , like +User Interface: Yeah yeah , at least nine , ten button . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like ten plus , five plus , one plus , one minus or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe something like that . +Industrial Designer: Or using the names and the keyboard {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} Ah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or something {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know . Oh . Maybe we could have key buttons , like uh discovery channe like documentary channel , and movies channel and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You mean like hierarchical structure . +Project Manager: And inside this this thing you can move , maybe switch . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Okay . Like categorising channels . +Project Manager: If you want to see a movie you click on the movie button so you have all the movie channels and after you've you plus plus plus . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so s +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry . +Project Manager: I It just an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know what you think about that but . +Industrial Designer: So it requires the use of L_C_D_ probably , to to tell you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: To have some feedback . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I'll make a note on L_C_D_ . +Marketing: We could maybe also c um incorporate Petre's idea of the um slider for the volume , with the channel . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we c you could quickly just {vocalsound} {vocalsound} through many channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like roller for the {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For the channels , perhaps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else ? +Marketing: So we've got channel and volume . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we are still s speaking about the common devices +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: or we are inviting the new one ? +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think basically the core functions we want , and then more advanced ones . +Project Manager: What about the settings of the T_V_ ? Because it's button we don't use very often , but it's {disfmarker} we need it anyway . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh we don't have any uh we don't have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we should just design the remote control and we sh we don't have any access to the to the T_V_ design or we can change some design . Because one solution for this um uh uh ch changing channels is to see a summary of all channels , some some preview of all channels and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the screen , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah b {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not on the control , but on the screen . +User Interface: Not on the control , on the screen , on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well , this would avoid L_C_D_ , then . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't Oh , I don't but I don't think we're we're the ones . I mean this remote control we're developing is a generic control for all T_V_s , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . I don't know if it's possible to to watch something on T_V_ {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . W I I think it it would be better to to stick to the remote control and not to bother the T_V_ to to to print these things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well it wi it will be still more expensive , but for the L_C_D_ and this stuff is no problem in the price . +User Interface: {gap} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , what are we doing with the settings ? Because settings {disfmarker} if we want to do settings we need buttons for that and we want less buttons , so . Maybe with the L_C_D_ we can do something with less buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But then you don't want to make the L_C_D_ display too complicated at the same time . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two T_V_s . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean there's always {disfmarker} we can always have these l less often used functions hidden somewhere , under a cover or at the back of {disfmarker} under a slide or some +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like ma +Project Manager: Oh , the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We we could have for example two buttons like simple mode and advanced mode . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or like children and grandfather's mode , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the , well the the user +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not the user , the man mana T_V_ manager mode {vocalsound} . Ah , I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So we have five minutes left . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: So I think s the settings we th we are agreeing {disfmarker} are agreed that they're required . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's just how to a +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should hide them somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hide them , okay . +Project Manager: In the menus of the L_C_D_ or in the back of the remote control , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . Uh , okay , what else ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {gap} Yes . +Marketing: I mean a power button's obviously +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This I was thinking . Do we need a power button at all ? +Marketing: uh required . +Industrial Designer: Should should shouldn't we do it like sleep mode after five minutes of not using it ? Because generally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's it's a kind of setting , I think . It should fit in those settings functions . +User Interface: Mm . Settings . +Project Manager: Because it's not a very current useful function . +Marketing: Uh , well I think when they say power button they mean to turn the T_V_ on and off . +Project Manager: No , I think it's after after five minutes or something {gap} a timer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well I I uh +Project Manager: I I think , no ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if you're watching T_V_ for two hours , you don't want your T_V_ to turn off after five five minute {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't need to {disfmarker} every five minutes to keep it alive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh probably . Okay , so we should keep this button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean based on our usability studies again , um {vocalsound} pe um people said that the power button was v a very relevant button . +Project Manager: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , it was nine out of ten +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we we could p what we could probably do is to keep also to keep uh keep the L_C_D_ and all the buttons and stuff , +Marketing: re relevance . +Industrial Designer: we could make it like a opening opening style that if you open it you are {disfmarker} you just turn on the T_V_ and if you close it , it will +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: turn off the T_V_ . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: If if you like this , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . B Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because , well {gap} {disfmarker} it's maybe question for you t +Marketing: I think we need to concentrate on the , you know , the major usage of the th of the control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which is you sit down , you turn on your T_V_ , you change channels , you change the volume , you turn the T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Yeah . So s yeah . +Marketing: Um and all the other f functionality is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , they can yeah they can be hide somewhere by a cover or something like this . +Marketing: not used very often . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Like covering cu . +Project Manager: On the back , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I mean like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like mobile phone covering . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we have the L_C_D_ , we didn't need too much button too many buttons . Um , okay , just um the decision of the power button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we make it a button , or some some something which would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For what ? +Industrial Designer: Uh power button . +Marketing: I think a button . +User Interface: A button is better . +Project Manager: Ah oh yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I think it should be a bu +Industrial Designer: If it if it's a button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah a button , yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Its own button on the front . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , one nice big button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Old fashioned button , to satisfy the grandmothers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , any other suggestions or functions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: S What about things like the clock and um timers ? +Industrial Designer: Do we still have the time ? I I just wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have still one or two minutes to talk , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh . Well what w what was the question ? +User Interface: Clock or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh um , you know , some func some features on the control to display a time , or t to display {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually it's already on T_V_ or something like that . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we want to control all the televisions , and and it would probably be worth to to set the timing on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: no ? Because if if the T_V_ turns on itself , it well you know , if the time The timer should be there . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . If we if we add the time , we have to have maybe a bigger display or something like that , and is it very useful ? I mean , are users wants to have the time on the on the remote ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is the question . +Marketing: Probably not . +Project Manager: Is it useful ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: It's a questi yeah , it's a trade-off . +Project Manager: W In my opinion we should have only useful thing and Because apparently they want {disfmarker} The simpler it's is better . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay simple . +Industrial Designer: Did you did you ever use the like the timing of turning on the T_V_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} And based on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very , yeah okay , very occasionally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I do use the I do use the display of the time quite often , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it can be on the display in in a corner all the time on the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's okay , that's true . Okay , so no time button {gap} . Okay . +Project Manager: No time on {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: And uh do we need to include anything about the speech recognition and the speech commands , or ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I thin I think it will not take lots of place , we just need a microphone and the software , so , and it sh and it will be a little bit new and interesting , so people may be attracted to buy this stuff and it's not very difficult to uh put a software inside the the electronic device and put a microphone . It doesn't take that much place and also that much {disfmarker} It doesn't cost that much . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we should be careful about the battery life , then . If we use the speech recognition . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe we think {disfmarker} we can think more about that , and discuss that maybe last time {disfmarker} next time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh yeah , now the meeting room is busy . Somebody booked the meeting room just for {disfmarker} at one P_M_ , and so we should leave . Uh . So , um . So now we are going for for a small lunch . It's uh funded by the company . And uh after we have uh thirteen minutes to to do indevel individual works . And uh I will do the minutes . And uh you are going to work on your individual works . And uh you will receive as usual your specific instruction and so on . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Thank you everybody . +Marketing: cool . Okay +User Interface: Thanks . +Marketing: Thank you . +","In a detailed summary of the transcript above, a project management meeting took place that included discussions led by the Project Manager, and presentations from marketing, industrial design, and user interface personnel concerning the development of a new remote control device. The atmosphere of the meeting seemed informal and collaborative, with participants interjecting sounds and informal language, suggesting a casual and perhaps creative corporate culture. + +The meeting began with the Project Manager stating their role in taking notes and preparing the minutes, highlighting the agenda would revolve around three presentations concerning various aspects of the remote control's development. The Manager Expert was to speak about user requirements, needs, and desires relating to the device. + +The Marketing team member then presented findings from a study involving 100 test subjects in a usability laboratory. The study involved interaction with various remote controls and completing questionnaires concerning likes and dislikes. Critical findings presented were users' displeasure with the look and feel of current market remote controls, a mismatch between the layout of the buttons, and the users' operational behaviors when watching TV. Alarmingly, 75% of users found most remotes 'ugly,' and half reported using only 10% of the buttons available. Usage statistics showed channel selection buttons were the most used feature, while teletext and volume followed. Users also cited loss of the remote, time taken to learn new controls due to complex interfaces, and physical discomfort as major frustrations. + +Marketing continued with demographic preferences, noting a considerable desire for advanced technological features such as LCD displays and speech recognition among younger users. This insight aligned with the company's motto of ""putting fashion in electronics"" and directed their suggestion towards focusing on a younger target demographic and incorporating high-technology features favored by this group. + +Following the discussion by Marketing, User Interface and Industrial Design weighed in on the technical function and design components. User Interface highlighted the importance of simplicity in design, with fewer and bigger buttons, and a preference for remote controls functioning via radio waves instead of infrared for ease of operation from any direction within the room. Certain concerns about interfering with other appliances were raised but soothed by the prospect of assigning unique frequencies or identification codes to each remote. + +The Industrial Designer then discussed his challenges with the software used within the company, his experience in circuit design, and the considerations surrounding using off-the-shelf OEM components versus in-house-designed parts, specifically for speech recognition capabilities. A proposal of incorporating LCD and fewer buttons was made, with a suggestion toward an advanced 'handshaking protocol' to prevent interference with other devices. Adding features such as an LCD, fewer buttons, and potentially higher-cost speech recognition features were considered in light of the cost-benefit analysis. + +Issues concerning the power button's necessity arose, with some proposing an innovative sleep mode after inactivity, while others suggested retaining a physical power button for simplicity and traditional usability reasons. + +After a brief interaction regarding the meeting room's availability and time constraints, the Project Manager provided updates from the management board, which included discarding teletext due to its obsolescence with growing internet use, limiting the remote's compatibility to TVs only (bypassing DVD players and other devices), and emphasizing the importance of the product's visual connection to the company brand. + +The group then brainstormed on basic to advanced remote control functions, including efficient channel browsing methods, volume control, settings menus, and how best to conceal less-used but necessary functions. The discussion reached a preliminary consensus on physical design aspects and integration of new technologies, though decisions on features like speech recognition were left open for further discussion. + +As the meeting came to a close, participants agreed to pursue a company-sponsored lunch, after which they would disperse to attend to individual work with further instructions to be distributed. The Project Manager reaffirmed their responsibilities for the meeting minutes, and appreciation was expressed amongst the attendees." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um nice to see you again . Uh . So , uh . Tod uh for this meeting I will take the notes and do the minutes . Uh so we will see our three presentations . Um we will start with the uh Manager Expert wi who will talk about uh user re requirements , whats user needs and what it desire for this devi device . +Marketing: Okay , can I have the laptop over here , or ? +Project Manager: Yep . Oh , I don't think so . I think you have to come here . +Marketing: Okay . Have to get up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno . I think it should stay . +Marketing: Excuse me . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Should stay in the square here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh , maybe . +Marketing: Okay , so basically I'm gonna present some findings of a study we conducted uh into uh what users want in this remote control . +Project Manager: Oh , you can put it here . Oh that's okay , it's jus +Marketing: Um so first of all we {disfmarker} what we did is we um conducted a an experiment with a hundred test subjects . Um we put them in a in our um usability laboratory and got them to , you know , um play with remote controls , and also to complete , after they'd done that , to complete a questionnaire uh to tell us what they like and what they don't like in remote controls . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So basically um the major things we found out was that um basically users don't like the look and feel of of most remote controls that are currently on the market . Um they , you know , seventy five percent of the people we we uh did the experiments on , found that rem remote the remote controls that they'd used in the past were ugly . Completely ugly . Um they they didn't match the operating behaviour of the user , that is , you know , the the way users use remote controls when they're watching T_V_ . Um , that the layout of the remote controls didn't match they way that they used it . Um and thirdly they say that w half of the users that we um tested said that they only used ten percent of the buttons that uh are on remote controls . Um so we collect we also some collected some usage statistics uh based on how these test subjects were using their remote control . And from this we basically came up with the figure that the channel buttons , the channel selection buttons are the most {disfmarker} by far the most used buttons on the remote control . Um and you can see they're used a hundred and sixty eight times per hour on average , um , while the user's watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um the closest button that was used , well the cl the button that was used that was closest to the channel button was the teletext button , um which was used fourteen times per hour , followed by the volume button , which was four times per hour , um , all the other , all the other um buttons , such as ch um audio and picture selection um configuration buttons and things were used , you know , l approx well less than or equal to one times per hour . Um we also asked users um which buttons had the most importance to them , you know , which which buttons they felt were the most important buttons on on the remote control . And basically they came {disfmarker} they said the channel , volume , and power buttons had the highest relevance to users , um note that only power was very infrequently used , it only had a b a a fr usage frequency of about one times per hour , but users ranked it as having a very very high relevance . Um and the audio and picture settings had a very {disfmarker} that well the users thought that um w the audio and picture settings were very uh weren't very important to them um , and they used them very infrequently a as well . {vocalsound} So we asked users what what um frustrates them the most about um current remote controls . And fifty percent of the users said that uh what frustrates them is losing the remote control um somewhere in the room and not being able to find it . Um {vocalsound} they also said that it um it takes a lot of time to learn a new remote control , especially when there's many buttons and it's a , you know , a c a a unintuitive interface . Um and then thirdly , they {disfmarker} some users commented on the fact that the the you know the way that you have to hold and press buttons on a remote control ar are bad and um cause u repetitive strain injury . {vocalsound} We also asked some users about some specific features that they'd like to see in the {disfmarker} on the remote control . In particular , do they want an L_C_D_ d display , and secondly , do they think speech recognition uh is a useful feature to have on a remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um basically our findings are that um amongst a younger age groups uh the answer is umv overwhelmingly yes . They want these features , they want these high technology features . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um for instance , ninety one percent of pe of people aged between fifteen and twenty five said yes , they want these features . Whereas um {vocalsound} the the trend was as users as users um became older and older uh they were less likely to want these sort of features in a um in a remote control . So I guess it depends on where we're focusing our our market . Um and as our company motto is putting fashion in electronics , um I think we're focusing on the younger younger um target demographic , and so maybe we should think about adding these sort of high technology features into our remote control . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's my dic that's my presentation . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , um maybe now we can talk about a user interface and uh about the technical function of this device . So uh Pet Peter , can you talk say something about that ? +Industrial Designer: Well , okay , yeah . Yeah , but the user user interface is responsible . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: B you think uh I I'm User Interface Manager . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , I'm {disfmarker} Sorry . Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: If I could go there with this cable . +Industrial Designer: You're scaring me with L_C_D_ man . And speech recognition in remote unit , it will be very e expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's true , but , you know , they're features that users want , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And our production cost of twelve fifty Euros per per unit is fairly high I think , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so I think we can afford to to add these sort of features into our remote . +Industrial Designer: At least we have couple of months t to work on it so so it will be cheaper finally . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sh okay . {gap} +Marketing: It is true . +User Interface: Where's delete button ? Okay . Oh I'm sorry . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: That's the wrong one , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still Bob Morris . +User Interface: Oh . Presentation three ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah you should have put yes . +Industrial Designer: Because you cancelled it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Click on yes . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Okay , so here is my presentation about technical function design . I will talk about different components and s of system and how they react together . Okay , uh , first what is a remote control ? Simply it's a device , as you know , for uh , for sending some commands by some waves to uh another device to to tell different commands uh with this device . And the main idea we don't use any cable and we can rec react simpler with the device . Uh i it has different blocks , different blocks . Uh first is remote control have sh ha should have some electric circuits uh making interface with uh keyboard and uh r reading uh keyboard and reading the keyboard uh commands . And then inter then make uh these keyboard commands , uh in interpret these int uh keyboard commands . And then there should be uh an electronic circuit making uh electronic signals according to these commands and uh finally there is a transmitter which is a cord or a a diode making uh making uh waves to transmit through the air and uh uh this air this uh wave uh will be received by the by the other device like a television or whatever , to uh r to realise the command . Okay , {vocalsound} uh about {disfmarker} what I found about uh different uh these different blocks are uh , usually there are two different methods uh to {disfmarker} for designing a remote control . They are based on infra-red uh waves or uh uh radio waves . +Industrial Designer: You still want me the presentation . +User Interface: There are two different uh uh solutions I mean . This is uh this can be uh uh the the differences the th between different kind of waves , infra-red or radio waves . And uh also as uh I understood , and uh I think it was a part of uh Bob , uh uh presentation , people prefer to have uh to have uh the remote control with less button . So for the electronic part , working and interfacing , with button , we should we should try to t try to design a remote control having uh some some simpler buttons or some rolling buttons to just to just to search between different options , and showing o something on T_V_ and putting less lesser stuff on the uh on the remote control . And uh personal preferences , uh uh uh uh certainly a remote control with {disfmarker} uh working with radio waves is uh preferred because uh you can pr you can take it in any direction and you don't need to tune it any way . And uh uh again , using bigger buttons and less number of buttons are also preferred , as I see . Okay . That was my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . I have a question . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Do you think radio waves um will interfere with other appliances in the home ? +User Interface: Uh , I don't think so , because uh we can make uh we ca we can make this wave in a specific frequency . So they can be in a range which is not inter interfering with the {vocalsound} with other devices inside the home . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So can we use any any frequency ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be okay {gap} . +Project Manager: We have the right to use any frequency ? +User Interface: Uh no but as I know , there is a range for uh for this uh f for for uh for this stuff , for designing this circuit . We can we can we can tune our uh transmitter to work in this range , and for this range we don't need to ask any permission . +Project Manager: Okay . And what happen with uh radio waves when two neighbours have the same {disfmarker} have our remote control , for example ? And so do they have the same frequency , or ? +User Interface: Uh for this I'm not uh I I don't know the solution , but one solution can be something like putting uh p password or something inside the wave , so the only your T_V_ can understand it +Project Manager: Okay . A kind of identification {gap} , +User Interface: Yeah , identification code inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah f {vocalsound} uh I know about this , since it's my {disfmarker} it's exactly my field , so . +Project Manager: okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's uh kind of handshaking , uh , when starting to {disfmarker} uh when you start to communicate with the your T_V_ then then it's like an handshaking protocol with your your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so if two two devices are trying to go to communicate with the T_V_ set then the the the one which has the more energy in the wave is chosen . Well it can be a problem sometimes , but most of the time it works okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The password may simply {disfmarker} uh or uh i identification code may simply solve this problem . A specific uh remote control has a specific f +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but we we don't have to think uh about this because I think as a function designer that we will use the already made uh circuits which we probably bu buy . It's worth to buy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And they have these problems solved so . So we don't have to think about these . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe you can talk about the function , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I have only a couple of things because I had {disfmarker} I struggled a bit with the software that I'm supposed to use in this uh uh in this company . I was used to use Linux before , so . But I tried to tried to break through this {gap} too , I guess . +Project Manager: Open . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} How to make it big ? +Project Manager: Slide show . +User Interface: Five . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Slide show . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It should work , so you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh so I will speak about working design . That's the first slide . Uh what uh I have to do ? A look at what the other company {disfmarker} Okay so uh presently I am looking what is possible to use , what circuits to use and stuff like that because uh I didn't work uh with these uh circuits so far so I have to look what what is a v a v available on the market for for the communication {disfmarker} for the I_R_ circuits and so on , so I'm currently looking what is available on the web . And uh I wanted to ask you m maybe afterwards , after after our discussion , if we have some contacts in some companies , so , which can report on what is going on there , so , I would be glad if you can tell me about them . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , you know . Uh , okay findings , that's {gap} the point that I'm working on currently but uh so far I I was uh looking what what are the blue circuit , I mean radio wave {disfmarker} radio frequency circuits are available now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the prices I read are high . So , I know that uh the user interface people and these speak about radio frequency waves because you can you can uh you can make the T_V_ do what you want even if you are in the bathroom or so on , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know , when you are not close to the T_V_ you probably won't need to to change the program and so on and so I am I am voting for s to stick to the um infra-red control instead of R_W_ but we will discuss it later maybe . Uh . Components to use , I'm not exactly sure what I will use for the design of the circuit . It depends uh on whether we will use the L_C_D_ and mainly the speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because the speech rec Yeah ? +Marketing: Are we um are we planning to take an off the shelf an O_E_M_ component for the radio wave circuit , or are we planning to construct our own circuit board ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no no . This we this we buy I think , because it's rather cheap nowadays and it's not worth to construct ourselves . +Marketing: Okay s So we just buy a circuit board and {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not sure about the circuit which is responsible for speech recognition . This I prefer that we should make ourselves . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it depends whether we take a decision to use it . Same thing . It's fairly expensive to use these circuits . So , speech recognition {disfmarker} well , L_C_D_ it's okay because it's common nowadays to use L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I agree on using any kind of L_C_D_ , less buttons good for me as a as a designer of the circuit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the speech recognition we have to compare whether the price and the {disfmarker} what does it offer , you know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So what do you think would be the price , it would be out of range ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or it would be maybe feasible ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . I was not thinking too much about the price . But if we use the L_C_D_ uh even the radio frequency communication with the T_V_ set and the backlight and uh related things like the photo diodes and stuff , it should be okay . If we decide to use the speech recognition , then we probably could struggle but we'll see afterwards . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It depends of you if if the M_E_ or U_I_D_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry about the names , I don't really know , uh want to have it like in metal or in plastic , these things , it it depends on you not {disfmarker} Because the the the electronic device's price is not not so big in comparison to to the overall shape and stuff like that , so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We will discuss it afterwards . Oh , this is nothing . This is just my notes on what to use . And uh my personal preference is yes , I would like also preferably to use R_W_ circuit , but from the point of view uh of the design and price , I would stick to I_R_s . That's my opinion . Uh I mean if infra-red uh circuit not not the radio frequency . +Project Manager: Why ? Because it's simpler ? +Industrial Designer: Because because the the range where you can use it is fair . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's okay I think . And the price is fairly cheap for this . +Project Manager: Okay . It's a a price matter . +Industrial Designer: Well , depends . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Jus just the price . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise I don't care what I put there because it's the chip which I buy or which we buy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I I think it's o y o {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What how much more expensive ? Are we talking three times more expensive ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well , three to three to five . +Marketing: Or ten times more expensive ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N not ten times , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it depends what what we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . That's still a lot . I think it's it's probably not worth spending the extra money , +Project Manager: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: because I mean all the other remote controls on the market have infra-red , so people don't expect anything other than infra-red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's not worth spending the extra money . +Project Manager: Well I {gap} , oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th they are used to use it when they can see the T_V_ so , I don't know . +Project Manager: On the other side , we want to have something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , where +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want to to have something new and So we I think we should still thinking about it . But maybe {gap} . +Marketing: But I think , based on my usability studies I th I feel that users are {disfmarker} prioritise the look and the feel and the trendiness above , you know , the difference between infra-red or radio waves . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I think we're better off spending money in the usability phase . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You the user interface , and management man , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Peter . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I have to inform you I receive an email from the management bon board today and they have new requirements for the for the remote control . Um +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: first um , they say that's uh about something about t teletext . Uh apparently it becomes from {disfmarker} according to them it becomes out of date . Out-dated . And uh {disfmarker} Because of the internet popularity and everybody has internet at home , and actually it's not useful to have teletext . Um . So I think we can avoid the teletext . Um the second thing is uh they suggest that that we should uh use the remote control only for T_V_ , not for D_V_D_ and other devices , because it make it {disfmarker} it makes it's too complex and uh because we have not much time for this project we should stay on T_V_ on the {disfmarker} only specific T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: I agree . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The third {vocalsound} the third one is uh about the the the image of the company . So um uh we should we should keep uh {disfmarker} The the product should be recognisable . Uh , uh It's {disfmarker} That mean we should use the colour of our company and maybe put somewhere the s the slogan of the company , which is uh , we put fashion of {disfmarker} in electronics . So , when people see the the remote control , they should say oh it's from Real Reaction and he s they should recognise the company . So , um {disfmarker} So now we we should take the decision what we are going to {disfmarker} what function we will have on this uh on this remote control . So , mm , are we going to use L_C_D_ , speech recognition ? Uh . +Marketing: Well , should we start with just the core , the basic functions that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we can move on to the more advanced features . +User Interface: Mm . Yes . +Project Manager: Maybe , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the available things are L_C_D_ , the buttons and everything . Uh radio frequency depends . And , well the recognition it depends on you guys . +Project Manager: Yeah but first maybe what is {disfmarker} what are the usual function of a standard remote control ? +Industrial Designer: You should probably speak . +Project Manager: I mean +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: what do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , well , I mean the obvious one is changing channels . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we should stick on very useful functions , because we want less button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So , turning channel , of course . Volume setting . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh just one note to the chan channel changing . Do we {disfmarker} will we use only two buttons , or or like numbered buttons ? I mean those nine plus one or two ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it would be a b {gap} +Industrial Designer: Because it's many buttons and we were speaking about lowering the number . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: On the other side we have more and more channels , and if you want to pass through all the channels to get the channel you want , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay so so we keep all these all these buttons . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe we could think of something more betweens , like +User Interface: Yeah yeah , at least nine , ten button . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like ten plus , five plus , one plus , one minus or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe something like that . +Industrial Designer: Or using the names and the keyboard {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} Ah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or something {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know . Oh . Maybe we could have key buttons , like uh discovery channe like documentary channel , and movies channel and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You mean like hierarchical structure . +Project Manager: And inside this this thing you can move , maybe switch . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Okay . Like categorising channels . +Project Manager: If you want to see a movie you click on the movie button so you have all the movie channels and after you've you plus plus plus . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so s +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry . +Project Manager: I It just an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know what you think about that but . +Industrial Designer: So it requires the use of L_C_D_ probably , to to tell you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: To have some feedback . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I'll make a note on L_C_D_ . +Marketing: We could maybe also c um incorporate Petre's idea of the um slider for the volume , with the channel . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we c you could quickly just {vocalsound} {vocalsound} through many channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Like roller for the {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For the channels , perhaps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else ? +Marketing: So we've got channel and volume . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we are still s speaking about the common devices +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: or we are inviting the new one ? +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think basically the core functions we want , and then more advanced ones . +Project Manager: What about the settings of the T_V_ ? Because it's button we don't use very often , but it's {disfmarker} we need it anyway . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh we don't have any uh we don't have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we should just design the remote control and we sh we don't have any access to the to the T_V_ design or we can change some design . Because one solution for this um uh uh ch changing channels is to see a summary of all channels , some some preview of all channels and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On the screen , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah b {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not on the control , but on the screen . +User Interface: Not on the control , on the screen , on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well , this would avoid L_C_D_ , then . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't Oh , I don't but I don't think we're we're the ones . I mean this remote control we're developing is a generic control for all T_V_s , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . I don't know if it's possible to to watch something on T_V_ {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . W I I think it it would be better to to stick to the remote control and not to bother the T_V_ to to to print these things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well it wi it will be still more expensive , but for the L_C_D_ and this stuff is no problem in the price . +User Interface: {gap} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , what are we doing with the settings ? Because settings {disfmarker} if we want to do settings we need buttons for that and we want less buttons , so . Maybe with the L_C_D_ we can do something with less buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But then you don't want to make the L_C_D_ display too complicated at the same time . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Two T_V_s . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean there's always {disfmarker} we can always have these l less often used functions hidden somewhere , under a cover or at the back of {disfmarker} under a slide or some +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like ma +Project Manager: Oh , the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We we could have for example two buttons like simple mode and advanced mode . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or I dunno . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or like children and grandfather's mode , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the , well the the user +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not the user , the man mana T_V_ manager mode {vocalsound} . Ah , I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . So we have five minutes left . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: So I think s the settings we th we are agreeing {disfmarker} are agreed that they're required . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's just how to a +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should hide them somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hide them , okay . +Project Manager: In the menus of the L_C_D_ or in the back of the remote control , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . Uh , okay , what else ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {gap} Yes . +Marketing: I mean a power button's obviously +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This I was thinking . Do we need a power button at all ? +Marketing: uh required . +Industrial Designer: Should should shouldn't we do it like sleep mode after five minutes of not using it ? Because generally {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's it's a kind of setting , I think . It should fit in those settings functions . +User Interface: Mm . Settings . +Project Manager: Because it's not a very current useful function . +Marketing: Uh , well I think when they say power button they mean to turn the T_V_ on and off . +Project Manager: No , I think it's after after five minutes or something {gap} a timer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well I I uh +Project Manager: I I think , no ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if you're watching T_V_ for two hours , you don't want your T_V_ to turn off after five five minute {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't need to {disfmarker} every five minutes to keep it alive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh probably . Okay , so we should keep this button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean based on our usability studies again , um {vocalsound} pe um people said that the power button was v a very relevant button . +Project Manager: Oh okay , yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , it was nine out of ten +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we we could p what we could probably do is to keep also to keep uh keep the L_C_D_ and all the buttons and stuff , +Marketing: re relevance . +Industrial Designer: we could make it like a opening opening style that if you open it you are {disfmarker} you just turn on the T_V_ and if you close it , it will +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: turn off the T_V_ . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: If if you like this , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . B Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because , well {gap} {disfmarker} it's maybe question for you t +Marketing: I think we need to concentrate on the , you know , the major usage of the th of the control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which is you sit down , you turn on your T_V_ , you change channels , you change the volume , you turn the T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Yeah . So s yeah . +Marketing: Um and all the other f functionality is +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , they can yeah they can be hide somewhere by a cover or something like this . +Marketing: not used very often . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Like covering cu . +Project Manager: On the back , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I mean like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like mobile phone covering . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we have the L_C_D_ , we didn't need too much button too many buttons . Um , okay , just um the decision of the power button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we make it a button , or some some something which would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For what ? +Industrial Designer: Uh power button . +Marketing: I think a button . +User Interface: A button is better . +Project Manager: Ah oh yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I think it should be a bu +Industrial Designer: If it if it's a button or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah a button , yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Its own button on the front . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , one nice big button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Old fashioned button , to satisfy the grandmothers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , any other suggestions or functions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: S What about things like the clock and um timers ? +Industrial Designer: Do we still have the time ? I I just wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have still one or two minutes to talk , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Oh . Well what w what was the question ? +User Interface: Clock or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh um , you know , some func some features on the control to display a time , or t to display {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually it's already on T_V_ or something like that . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but since we want to control all the televisions , and and it would probably be worth to to set the timing on the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: no ? Because if if the T_V_ turns on itself , it well you know , if the time The timer should be there . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . If we if we add the time , we have to have maybe a bigger display or something like that , and is it very useful ? I mean , are users wants to have the time on the on the remote ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is the question . +Marketing: Probably not . +Project Manager: Is it useful ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: It's a questi yeah , it's a trade-off . +Project Manager: W In my opinion we should have only useful thing and Because apparently they want {disfmarker} The simpler it's is better . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah . +Marketing: Okay simple . +Industrial Designer: Did you did you ever use the like the timing of turning on the T_V_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well {disfmarker} And based on your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very , yeah okay , very occasionally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I do use the I do use the display of the time quite often , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it can be on the display in in a corner all the time on the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's okay , that's true . Okay , so no time button {gap} . Okay . +Project Manager: No time on {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: And uh do we need to include anything about the speech recognition and the speech commands , or ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I thin I think it will not take lots of place , we just need a microphone and the software , so , and it sh and it will be a little bit new and interesting , so people may be attracted to buy this stuff and it's not very difficult to uh put a software inside the the electronic device and put a microphone . It doesn't take that much place and also that much {disfmarker} It doesn't cost that much . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we should be careful about the battery life , then . If we use the speech recognition . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe we think {disfmarker} we can think more about that , and discuss that maybe last time {disfmarker} next time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh yeah , now the meeting room is busy . Somebody booked the meeting room just for {disfmarker} at one P_M_ , and so we should leave . Uh . So , um . So now we are going for for a small lunch . It's uh funded by the company . And uh after we have uh thirteen minutes to to do indevel individual works . And uh I will do the minutes . And uh you are going to work on your individual works . And uh you will receive as usual your specific instruction and so on . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Thank you everybody . +Marketing: cool . Okay +User Interface: Thanks . +Marketing: Thank you . +","In the meeting, the project manager stated they would take notes and handle the minutes. The Marketing representative presented findings from a study indicating users disliked the look and feel of most remote controls and only used a fraction of the buttons provided. They emphasized channel selection as the most used function while stating users wanted fewer buttons and more intuitive layouts. The study also showed that younger users preferred high-tech features such as LCD displays and voice recognition. + +The Industrial Designer and User Interface Manager discussed the technical aspects of the remote control, debating between infrared and radio wave communication technologies. Cost implications and user preferences were a significant part of the decision-making conversation. There was also talk about potential interference issues with radio waves and the preference for simpler designs with fewer buttons. + +The project manager brought up new requirements from the management board, including dropping teletext due to its obsolescence and focusing on TV-specific remote controls rather than universal ones. These changes would help simplify the device and align it with company branding, emphasizing fashion in electronics. + +The meeting concluded with a discussion on basic functions needed for the remote, like channel changing and volume control, with additional features to be possibly hidden or shown less prominently. Power buttons, clock settings, and speech recognition were also discussed briefly before it was time to wrap up the meeting, with a note to continue discussing speech recognition at the next meeting. Lunch and individual work assignments followed the meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: So , I mean , everyone who 's on the wireless check that they 're on . +PhD F: C we {disfmarker} +Grad G: Alright . +Postdoc C: I see . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , our agenda was quite short . +Professor B: Oh , could you {pause} close the door , maybe ? Yeah . +Grad E: Sure . Two items , which was , uh , digits and possibly stuff on {disfmarker} on , uh , forced alignment , which Jane said that Liz and Andreas had in information on , +Professor B: +Grad E: but they didn't , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I guess the only other thing , uh , for which I {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +PhD F: We should do that second , because Liz might join us in time for that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Um . OK , so there 's digits , alignments , and , um , I guess the other thing , {vocalsound} which I came unprepared for , uh , {vocalsound} is , uh , to dis s s see if there 's anything anybody wants to discuss about the Saturday meeting . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: So . Any {disfmarker} I mean , maybe not . +Grad E: Digits and alignments . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD F: Talk about aligning people 's schedules . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Right . Yeah , I mean , it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's forced alignment of people 's schedules . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Forced align . +PhD F: If we 're very {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: With {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} whatever it was , a month and a half or something ahead of time , the only time we could find in common {disfmarker} roughly in common , was on a Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Ugh . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: It 's pretty sad . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Have {disfmarker} Have we thought about having a conference call to include him in more of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in more of the meeting ? I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , if we had the {disfmarker} if we had the telephone on the table {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . But , h I mean , he probably has to go do something . +PhD F: No , actually I {disfmarker} I have to {disfmarker} I have to shuttle {pause} kids from various places to various other places . +Professor B: Right ? +Postdoc C: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So . And I don't have {disfmarker} and I don't , um , have a cell phone +PhD D: A cell phone ? +PhD F: so I can't be having a conference call while driving . +Professor B: R r right . +Postdoc C: No . {comment} It 's not good . +Professor B: So we have to {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's not good . +PhD F: Plus , it would make for interesting noise {disfmarker} background noise . +Professor B: +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So we have to equip him with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with a head - mounted , uh , cell phone +Grad E: Ye - we and we 'd have to force you to read lots and lots of digits , +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it could get real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} real car noise . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Take advantage . +PhD D: And with the kids in the background . +PhD F: I 'll let {disfmarker} I 'd let {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: I let , uh , my five - year - old have a try at the digits , eh . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So , anyway , I can talk about digits . Um , did everyone get the results or shall I go over them again ? I mean that it was basically {disfmarker} the only thing that was even slightly surprising was that the lapel did so well . Um , and in retrospect that 's not as surprising as maybe i it shouldn't have been as surprising as I {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I felt it was . The lapel mike is a very high - quality microphone . And as Morgan pointed out , that there are actually some advantages to it in terms of breath noises and clothes rustling {pause} if no one else is talking . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Exactly . +Grad E: Um , so , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of the bre the breath noises and the mouth clicks and so forth like that , the lapel 's gonna be better on . +Grad G: It 's g it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or the cross - talk . Yeah . +Professor B: The lapel is typically worse on the {disfmarker} on clothes rustling , but if no one 's rustling their clothes , +Grad E: Right . I mean , a lot of people are just sort of leaning over and reading the digits , +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a very different task than sort of the natural . +PhD D: Yeah . You don't move much during reading digits , I think . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Probably the fact that it picks up other people 's speakers {disfmarker} other people 's talking is an indication of that it {disfmarker} the fact it is a good microphone . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So in the digits , in most {disfmarker} most cases , there weren't other people talking . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Grad G: So . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: D do the lapel mikes have any directionality to them ? +Professor B: There typically don't , no . +PhD F: Because I {disfmarker} I suppose you could make some that have sort of {disfmarker} that you have to orient towards your mouth , +Grad E: They have a little bit , +PhD F: and then it would {disfmarker} +Grad E: but they 're not noise - cancelling . So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're intended to be omni - directional . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: And th it 's {disfmarker} and because you don't know how people are gonna put them on , you know . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , also , Andreas , on that one the {disfmarker} the back part of it should be right against your head . And that will he keep it from flopping aro up and down as much . +PhD F: It is against my head . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah , we actually talked about this in the , uh , front - end meeting this morning , too . Much the same thing , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} uh , I mean , there the point of interest to the group was primarily that , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the system that we had that was based on H T K , that 's used by , you know , {pause} all the participants in Aurora , {vocalsound} was so much worse {vocalsound} than the {disfmarker} than the S R +Grad E: Everybody . +Professor B: And the interesting thing is that even though , {vocalsound} yes , it 's a digits task and that 's a relatively small number of words and there 's a bunch of digits that you train on , {vocalsound} it 's just not as good as having a {disfmarker} a l very large amount of data and training up a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a nice good big {vocalsound} HMM . Um , also you had the adaptation in the SRI system , which we didn't have in this . Um . So . Um . +PhD F: And we know {disfmarker} Di - did I send you some results without adaptation ? +Grad E: No . +Professor B: I s I think Stephane , uh , had seen them . +Grad E: Or if you did , I didn't include them , cuz it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , I think I did , actually . So there was a significant loss from not doing the adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple percent or some I mean {disfmarker} Well , I don't know it {disfmarker} Overall {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember , but there was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} there was a significant , um , loss or win {comment} from adaptation {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with adaptation . And , um , that was the phone - loop adaptation . And then there was a very small {disfmarker} like point one percent on the natives {disfmarker} uh , win from doing , um , you know , adaptation to {pause} the recognition hypotheses . And {pause} I tried both means adaptation and means and variances , and the variances added another {disfmarker} or subtracted another point one percent . So , {vocalsound} it 's , um {disfmarker} that 's the number there . Point six , I believe , is what you get with both , uh , means and variance adaptation . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But I think one thing is that , uh , I would presume {disfmarker} Hav - Have you ever t {vocalsound} Have you ever tried this exact same recognizer out on the actual TI - digits test set ? +PhD F: This exact same recognizer ? No . +Professor B: It might be interesting to do that . Cuz my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} cuz my sense , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but , I have {disfmarker} I mean , people {disfmarker} people at SRI are actually working on digits . +Grad E: I bet it would do even slightly better . +PhD F: I could {disfmarker} and they are using a system that 's , um {disfmarker} you know , h is actually trained on digits , um , but h h otherwise uses the same , you know , decoder , the same , uh , training methods , and so forth , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and I could ask them what they get {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah , bu although I 'd be {disfmarker} I think it 'd be interesting to just take this exact actual system so that these numbers were comparable +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and try it out on TI - digits . +PhD F: Well , Adam knows how to run it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +PhD F: so you just make a f +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Cuz our sense from the other {disfmarker} from the Aurora , uh , task is that {disfmarker} +Grad E: And try it with TI - digits ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , cuz we were getting sub one percent {vocalsound} numbers on TI - digits also with the tandem thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} so there were a number of things we noted from this . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: One is , yeah , the SRI system is a lot better than the HTK {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: this , you know , very limited training HTK system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , but the other is that , um , the digits {vocalsound} recorded here in this room with these close mikes , i uh , are actually a lot harder than the {pause} studio - recording TI - digits . I think , you know , one reason for that , uh , might be that there 's still {disfmarker} even though it 's close - talking , there still is some noise and some room acoustics . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And another might be that , uh , I 'd {disfmarker} I would presume that in the studio , uh , uh , situation recording read speech that if somebody did something a little funny or n pronounced something a little funny or made a little {disfmarker} that they didn't include it , +Grad E: They didn't include it . +Professor B: they made them do it again . +Grad E: Whereas , I took out {pause} the ones that I noticed that were blatant {disfmarker} that were correctable . +Professor B: Mmm . Yeah . +Grad E: So that , if someone just read the wrong digit , I corrected it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And then there was another one where Jose couldn't tell whether {disfmarker} I couldn't tell whether he was saying zero or six . And I asked him and he couldn't tell either . +Grad I: Hmm . +Grad E: So I just cut it out . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: You know , so I just e edited out the first , i uh , word of the utterance . Um , so there 's a little bit of correction but it 's definitely not as clean as TI - digits . So my expectations is TI - digits would , especially {disfmarker} I think TI - digits is all {pause} American English . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? So it would probably do even a little better still on the SRI system , but we could give it a try . +PhD F: Well . But {pause} remember , we 're using a telephone bandwidth front - end here , uh , on this , uh {disfmarker} on this SRI system , so , {vocalsound} um , I was {disfmarker} I thought that maybe that 's actually a good thing because it {disfmarker} it gets rid of some of the {disfmarker} uh , the noises , um , you know , in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} below and above the {disfmarker} um , the , you know , speech bandwidth +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and , um , I suspect that to get sort of the last bit out of these higher - quality recordings you would have to in fact , uh , use models that , uh , were trained on wider - band data . And of course we can't do that or {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wha - what 's TI - digits ? I thought t +Professor B: It 's wide - band , yeah . It 's {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in fact , we looked it up +Grad E: It is wide - band . OK . +Professor B: and it was actually twenty kilohertz sampling . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . I {disfmarker} I did look that up . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I couldn't remember whether that was TI - digits or one of the other digit tasks . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . But {disfmarker} but , I would {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy enough to try , just run it on {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: See w +Grad E: So , Morgan , you 're getting a little breath noise . +PhD F: Now , eh , does {disfmarker} +Grad E: You might wanna move the mike down a little bit . +PhD F: one {disfmarker} one issue {disfmarker} one issue with {disfmarker} with that is that {vocalsound} um , the system has this , uh , notion of a speaker to {disfmarker} which is used in adaptation , variance norm uh , you know , both in , uh , mean and variance normalization and also in the VTL {pause} estimation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I noticed the script that extracted it . +PhD F: Do y ? Is {disfmarker} ? So does {disfmarker} so th so does {disfmarker} does , um , {vocalsound} the TI - digits database have speakers that are known ? +Grad E: Yep . Yep . +PhD F: And is there {disfmarker} is there enough data or a comparable {disfmarker} comparable amount of data to {disfmarker} to what we have in our recordings here ? +Grad E: That I don't know . I don't know . I don't know how many speakers there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} and how many speakers per utterance . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Well , the other thing would be to do it without the adaptation and compare to these numbers without the adaptation . That would {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Uh , but I 'm not so much worried about the adaptation , actually , than {disfmarker} than the , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} the , uh , VTL estimation . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: If you have only one utterance per speaker you might actually screw up on estimating the {disfmarker} the warping , uh , factor . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: I strongly suspect that they have more speakers than we do . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it 's not the amount of speakers , it 's the num it 's the amount of data per speaker . +Grad E: Right . So we {disfmarker} we could probably do an extraction that was roughly equivalent . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad E: Um . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , although I {disfmarker} I sort of know how to run it , there are a little {disfmarker} a f few details here and there that I 'll have to {pause} dig out . +PhD F: OK . The key {disfmarker} So th the system actually extracts the speaker ID from the waveform names . +Grad E: Right . I saw that . +PhD F: And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a script {disfmarker} and that is actually all in one script . So there 's this one script that parses waveform names and extracts things like the , um , speaker , uh , ID or something that can stand in as a speaker ID . So , we might have to modify that script to recognize the , um , speakers , {vocalsound} um , in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits {pause} database . +Grad E: Right . Right . And that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or you can fake {disfmarker} you can fake {pause} names for these waveforms that resemble the names that we use here for the {disfmarker} for the meetings . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: That would be the , sort of {disfmarker} probably the safest way to do {disfmarker} +Grad E: I might have to do that anyway to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} because we may have to do an extract to get the {pause} amount of data per speaker about right . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: The other thing is , isn't TI - digits isolated digits ? +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Or is that another one ? I 'm {disfmarker} I looked through a bunch of the digits t corp corpora , and now they 're all blurring . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cuz one of them was literally people reading a single digit . And then others were connected digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Most of TI - digits is connected digits , I think . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , we had a Bellcore corpus that we were using . It was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that was isolated digits . +Grad E: Maybe it 's the Bell Gram . Bell Digits . Alright . +Professor B: Um . +PhD F: By the way , I think we can improve these numbers if we care to compr improve them {vocalsound} by , um , {vocalsound} not starting with the Switchboard models but by taking the Switchboard models and doing supervised adaptation on a small amount of digit data collected in this setting . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Because that would adapt your models to the room acoustics and f for the far - field microphones , you know , to the noise . And that should really improve things , um , further . And then you use those adapted models , which are not speaker adapted but sort of acous you know , channel adapted {disfmarker} +Grad E: Channel adapted . +PhD F: use that as the starting models for your speaker adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the thing is , uh {disfmarker} I mean , w when you {disfmarker} it depends whether you 're ju were just using this as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a starter task for {disfmarker} you know , to get things going for conversational or if we 're really interested i in connected digits . And I {disfmarker} I think the answer is both . And for {disfmarker} for connected digits over the telephone you don't actually want to put a whole lot of effort into adaptation +PhD F: Well , I don't know . +Professor B: because {vocalsound} somebody {pause} gets on the phone and says a number and then you just want it . You don't {disfmarker} don't , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that one 's better . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , but , you know , I {disfmarker} uh , my impression was that you were actually interested in the far - field microphone , uh , problem , I mean . So , you want to {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} That 's the obvious thing to try . +Postdoc C: Oh . Oh . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Right ? Then , eh {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you don't have any {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's where the most m acoustic mismatch is between the currently used models and the {disfmarker} the r the set up here . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 'd be anoth another interesting data point . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm saying I don't know if we 'd want to do that as the {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Other way . +Grad E: Other way . Liz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Now you 're all watching me . +Grad E: It f it clips over your ears . +PhD A: Alright . This way . +Grad E: There you go . +Postdoc C: If you have a strong fe if you have a strong preference , you could use this . +PhD A: You 're all watching . This is terrible . +Postdoc C: It 's just we {disfmarker} we think it has some spikes . So , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't use that one . +PhD A: I 'll get it . +Postdoc C: But you could if you want . +Professor B: Yeah . At any rate , I don't know if w +Postdoc C: I don't know . And Andre - Andreas , your {disfmarker} your microphone 's a little bit low . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It is ? +Professor B: I don't know if we wanna use that as the {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh , it pivots . +PhD F: Uh . +Postdoc C: So if you see the picture +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like this . +PhD F: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and then you have to scr +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I already adjusted this a number of times . +Grad E: Eh . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I +Grad E: Yeah , I think these mikes are not working as well as I would like . +PhD F: can't quite seem to {disfmarker} Yeah , I think this contraption around your head is not {pause} working so well . +Professor B: Too many adju too many adjustments . Yeah . Anyway , what I was saying is that I {disfmarker} I think I probably wouldn't want to see that as sort of like the norm , that we compared all things to . +Postdoc C: That looks good . Yeah . +Professor B: To , uh , the {disfmarker} to have {disfmarker} have all this ad all this , uh , adaptation . But I think it 's an important data point , if you 're {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Um . The other thing that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} of course , what Barry was looking at was {disfmarker} was just that , the near versus far . And , yeah , the adaptation would get {vocalsound} th some of that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , I think even {disfmarker} even if there was , uh , only a factor of two or something , like I was saying in the email , I think that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's a big factor . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: N +Grad E: Liz , you could also just use the other mike if you 're having problems with that one . +Postdoc C: Well . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . This would be OK . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we think that this has spikes on it , +PhD A: It 's this thing 's {disfmarker} This is too big for my head . +Postdoc C: so it 's not as good acoustically , +PhD F: Yeah , basically your ears are too big . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , mine are too . E th everybody 's ears are too big for these things . +PhD A: No , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} But this is too big for my head . So , I mean , {comment} {comment} it doesn't {disfmarker} you know , it 's sit +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , if you 'd rather have this one then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , well . +Professor B: It 's {pause} great . +Grad E: So the {disfmarker} To get that , uh , pivoted this way , it pivots like this . +PhD A: No this way . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . There you go . +Postdoc C: And there 's a screw that you can tighten . +Grad E: And then it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: I already {pause} tried to get it close . +Postdoc C: Good . +Grad E: So if it doesn't bounce around too much , that 's actually good placement . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: That looks good . +Grad E: But it looks like it 's gonna bounce a lot . +Professor B: So , where were we ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Digits . Adaptation . +Professor B: Uh , adaptation , non - adaptation , um , factor of two , um {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . I know what I was go w +PhD F: What k u By the way , wh what factor of two did you {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Oh , no , no . +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's tha that {disfmarker} that we were saying , you know , well is {disfmarker} how much worse is far than near , you know . +PhD F: Oh , th OK . +Professor B: And I mean it depends on which one you 're looking at , +PhD F: That factor of two . +Professor B: but for the everybody , it 's {vocalsound} little under a factor or two . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I know what I was thinking was that maybe , uh , i i we could actually t t try at least looking at , uh , some of the {disfmarker} the large vocabulary speech from a far microphone , at least from the good one . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , before I thought we 'd get , you know , a hundred and fifty percent error or something , but if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if , uh {disfmarker} if we 're getting thirty - five , forty percent or something , {vocalsound} u um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Actually if you run , though , on a close - talking mike over the whole meeting , during all those silences , you get , like , four hundred percent word error . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . I understand . But doing the same kind of limited thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} or some high number . +Professor B: Yeah , sure . Get all these insertions . But I 'm saying if you do the same kind of limited thing {vocalsound} as people have done in Switchboard evaluations or as {disfmarker} a +PhD A: Yeah . Where you know who the speaker is and there 's no overlap ? And you do just the far - field for those regions ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . The same sort of numbers that we got those graphs from . Right ? +Grad E: Could we do exactly the same thing that we 're doing now , but do it with a far - field mike ? +Professor B: Yeah , do it with one of {disfmarker} on +Grad E: Cuz we extract the times from the near - field mike , but you use the acoustics from the far - field mike . +PhD A: Right . I understand that . I just meant that {disfmarker} so you have {pause} three choices . There 's , um {disfmarker} You can use times where that person is talking only from the transcripts but the segmentations were {disfmarker} were synchronized . Or you can do a forced alignment on the close - talking to determine that , the you know , within this segment , these really were the times that this person was talking and elsewhere in the segment other people are overlapping and just front - end those pieces . Or you can run it on the whole data , which is {disfmarker} which is , you know , a {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but how did we get the {disfmarker} how did we determine the links , uh , that we 're testing on in the stuff we reported ? +PhD A: In the H L T paper we took {pause} segments that are channel {disfmarker} time - aligned , which is now h being changed in the transcription process , which is good , and we took cases where the transcribers said there was only one person talking here , because no one else had time {disfmarker} any words in that segment and called that "" non - overlap "" . +Professor B: And tha And that 's what we were getting those numbers from . +PhD A: Yes . Tho - good {disfmarker} the good numbers . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: The bad numbers were from {pause} the segments where there was overlap . +Professor B: Well , we could start with the good ones . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But anyway {disfmarker} so I think that we should try it once with {vocalsound} the same conditions that were used to create those , and in those same segments just use one of the P Z +PhD A: Right . So we {disfmarker} we can do that . Yeah . +Professor B: And then , you know , I mean , the thing is if we were getting , uh {disfmarker} what , thirty - five , forty percent , something like that on {disfmarker} on that particular set , uh , does it go to seventy or eighty ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Or , does it use up so much memory we can't decode it ? +PhD A: It might also depend on which speaker th it is and how close they are to the PZM ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know how different they are from each other . +PhD F: You want to probably choose the PZM channel that is closest to the speaker . +PhD A: To be best {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: For this particular digit ones , I just picked that one . +PhD A: f +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . So we would then use that one , too , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: This is kind of central . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} so i but I would {disfmarker} I 'd pick that one . It 'll be less good for some people than for other , but I {disfmarker} I 'd like to see it on the same {disfmarker} exact same data set that {disfmarker} that we did the other thing on . +Grad E: Actually {disfmarker} I sh actually should 've picked a different one , +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: because {pause} that could be why the PDA is worse . Because it 's further away from most of the people reading digits . +PhD D: It 's further away . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's probably one of the reasons . +Postdoc C: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Well , yeah . You could look at , I guess , that PZM or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: But the other is , it 's very , uh {disfmarker} I mean , even though there 's {disfmarker} I 'm sure the f f the {disfmarker} the SRI , uh , front - end has some kind of pre - emphasis , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} still , th it 's picking up lots of low - frequency energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , even discriminating against it , I 'm sure some of it 's getting through . Um . But , yeah , you 're right . Prob - a part of it is just the distance . +PhD A: And aren't these pretty bad microphones ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , they 're bad . But , I mean , if you listen to it , it sounds OK . You know ? u Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . When you listen to it , uh , the PZM and the PDA {disfmarker} Yeah , th the PDA has higher sound floor but not by a lot . It 's really pretty {disfmarker} uh , pretty much the same . +PhD A: I just remember you saying you got them to be cheap on purpose . Cheap in terms of their quality . So . +Professor B: Well , they 're {pause} twenty - five cents or so . +Grad E: Th - we wanted them to be {disfmarker} to be typical of what would be in a PDA . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So they are {disfmarker} they 're not the PZM three hundred dollar type . They 're the twenty - five cent , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: buy them in packs of thousand type . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: But , I mean , the thing is people use those little mikes for everything because they 're really not bad . +Grad E: Everything . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're not {vocalsound} doing something ridiculous like feeding it to a speech recognizer , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} you know , you can hear the sou hear the sounds just fine . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} I mean , i it 's more or less the same principles as these other mikes are built under , it 's just that {pause} there 's less quality control . They just , you know , churn them out and don't check them . Um . So . So that was {disfmarker} Yeah . So that was i interesting result . So like I said , the front - end guys are very much interested in {disfmarker} in this is as {disfmarker} as well and +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so , but where is this now ? I mean , what 's {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad E: Yeah . That was gonna be my question . +PhD F: I mean , we {disfmarker} so we have a {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} a system that works pretty well but it 's not , you know , the system that people here are used to using {disfmarker} to working with . +Professor B: Well , I think what we wanna do is we want to {disfmarker} eh , +PhD F: So what {disfmarker} what do we do now ? +Professor B: and we 've talked about this in other {pause} contexts {disfmarker} we want to {vocalsound} have the ability to feed it different features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , um , {vocalsound} from the point of view of the front - end research , it would be s uh , substituting for HTK . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Professor B: I think that 's the key thing . And then if we can feed it different features , then we can try all the different things that we 're trying there . +PhD F: OK . Alright . +Professor B: And then , um , uh , also Dave is {disfmarker} is thinking about using the data in different ways , uh , to {vocalsound} um , uh , explicitly work on reverberation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: starting with some techniques that some other people have {pause} found somewhat useful , and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} so the key {pause} thing that 's missing here is basically the ability to feed , you know , other features {vocalsound} i into the recognizer +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: and also then to train the system . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: OK . And , uh , es I don't know when Chuck will be back but that 's exactly what he {disfmarker} he 's gonna {disfmarker} +Professor B: H h He 's {disfmarker} he 's sort of back , but he drove for fourteen hours an and wasn't gonna make it in today . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So , I think that 's one of the things that he said he would be working on . Um . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Just sort of t to make sure that {pause} we can do that +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} uh , I mean , the {disfmarker} the front - end is f i tha that 's in the SRI recognizer is very nice in that it does a lot of things on the fly but it unfortunately {pause} is not {pause} designed and , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like the , uh , ICSI system is , where you can feed it from a pipeline of {disfmarker} of the command . So , the {disfmarker} what that means probably for the foreseeable future is that you have to , uh , dump out , um {disfmarker} you know , if you want to use some new features , you have to dump them into individual files and {pause} give those files to the recognizer . +Grad E: We do {disfmarker} we tend to do that anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: Oh . So , although you {disfmarker} you can pipe it as well , we tend to do it that way because that way you can concentrate on one block and not keep re - doing it over and over . +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So tha that 's exactly what the P - file {pause} is for . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the cumbersome thing is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} is that you actually have to dump out little {disfmarker} little files . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So for each segment that you want to recognize {vocalsound} you have to {pause} dump out {pause} a separate file . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Just like i th like th as if there were these waveform segments , but instead you have sort of feature file segments . But , you know {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Cool . OK . So the s the {disfmarker} the next thing we had on the agenda was something about alignments ? +PhD A: Oh . Yes , we have {disfmarker} I don't know , did you wanna talk about it , or {disfmarker} ? I can give a {disfmarker} I was just telling this to Jane and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} W we {disfmarker} we were able to get some definite improvement on the forced alignments by looking at them first and then realizing the kinds of errors {pause} that were occurring and um , some of the errors occurring very frequently are just things like the first word being moved to as early as possible in the recognition , which is a um , I think was both a {disfmarker} a pruning {pause} problem and possibly a problem with needing constraints on word locations . And so we tried both of these st things . We tried saying {disfmarker} I don't know , I got this {vocalsound} whacky idea that {disfmarker} just from looking at the data , that when people talk {pause} their words are usually chunked together . It 's not that they say one word and then there 's a bunch of words together . They 're {comment} might say one word and then another word far away if they were doing just backchannels ? But in general , if there 's , like , five or six words and one word 's far away from it , that 's probably wrong on average . So , um {disfmarker} And then also , ca the pruning , of course , was too {disfmarker} too severe . +PhD F: So that 's actually interesting . The pruning was the same value that we used for recognition . And we had lowered that {disfmarker} we had used tighter pruning after Liz ran some experiments showing that , you know , it runs slower and there 's no real difference in {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually it was better with {disfmarker} slightly better or about th +Grad E: No gain . +PhD A: it was the same with tighter pruning . +PhD F: Right . So for free recognition , this {disfmarker} the lower pruning value is better . +PhD A: It 's probably cuz the recognition 's just bad en at a point where it 's bad enough that {disfmarker} that you don't lose anything . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} Correct . Right . Um , but it turned out for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to get accurate alignments it was really important to open up the pruning significantly . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD F: Um {pause} because otherwise it would sort of do greedy alignment , um , in regions where there was no real speech yet from the foreground speaker . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , {vocalsound} so that was one big factor that helped improve things and then the other thing was that , you know , as Liz said the {disfmarker} we f enforce the fact that , uh , the foreground speech has to be continuous . It cannot be {disfmarker} you cannot have a background speech hypothesis in the middle of the foreground speech . You can only have background speech at the beginning and the end . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , yeah , it isn't always true , and I think what we really want is some clever way to do this , where , um , you know , from the data or from maybe some hand - corrected alignments from transcribers that things like words that do occur just by themselves {pause} a alone , like backchannels or something that we did allow to have background speech around it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: those would be able to do that , +Postdoc C: Sorry . +PhD A: but the rest would be constrained . So , I think we have a version that 's pretty good for the native speakers . I don't know yet about the non - native speakers . And , um , we basically also made noise models for the different {disfmarker} sort of grouped some of the {pause} mouth noises together . Um , so , and then there 's a background speech model . And we also {disfmarker} There was some neat {disfmarker} or , interesting cases , like there 's one meeting where , {vocalsound} um , Jose 's giving a presentation and he 's talking about , um , the word "" mixed {pause} signal "" and someone didn't understand , uh , that you were saying "" mixed "" {disfmarker} I think , Morgan . And so your speech - ch was s saying something about mixed signal . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And the next turn was a lot of people saying "" mixed "" , like "" he means mixed signal "" or "" I think it 's mixed "" . And the word "" mixed "" in this segment occurs , like , a bunch of times . +PhD H: Sh +PhD A: And Chuck 's on the lapel here , and he also says "" mixed "" but it 's at the last one , and of course the aligner th aligns it everywhere else to everybody else 's "" mixed "" , +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: cuz there 's no adaptation yet . So there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think there 's some issues about {disfmarker} u We probably want to adapt at least the foreground speaker . But , I guess Andreas tried adapting both the foreground and a background generic speaker , and that 's actually a little bit of a f funky model . Like , it gives you some weird alignments , just because often the background speakers match better to the foreground than the foreground speaker . +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So there 's some things there , +PhD H: Oh . +PhD A: especially when you get lots of the same words , uh , occurring in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you can do better by {vocalsound} uh , cloning {disfmarker} so we have a reject phone . And you {disfmarker} and what we wanted to try with {disfmarker} you know , once we have this paper written and have a little more time , {vocalsound} uh , t cloning that reject model and then one copy of it would be adapted to the foreground speaker to capture the rejects in the foreground , like fragments and stuff , and the other copy would be adapted to the background speaker . +PhD A: Right . I mean , in general we actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now the words like {pause} partial words are {pause} reject models and you normally allow those to match to any word . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But then the background speech was also a reject model , and so this constraint of not allowing rejects in between {disfmarker} you know , it needs to differentiate between the two . So just sort of working through a bunch of debugging kinds of issues . +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: And another one is turns , like people starting with {vocalsound} "" well I think "" and someone else is {pause} "" well how about "" . So the word "" well "" is in this {disfmarker} in this {pause} segment multiple times , and as soon as it occurs usually the aligner will try to align it to the first person who says it . But then that constraint of sort of {disfmarker} uh , proximity constraint will push it over to the person who really said it in general . +Grad E: Is the proximity constraint a hard constraint , or did you do some sort of probabilistic weighting distance , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: We {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now it 's a kluge . +PhD F: No . We {disfmarker} w OK . We {disfmarker} it 's straightforward to actually just have a {disfmarker} a penalty that doesn't completely disallows it but discourages it . But , um , we just didn't have time to play with , you know , tuning yet another {disfmarker} yet another parameter . +Grad E: The ve level . Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: And really the reason we can't do it is just that we don't have a {disfmarker} we don't have ground truth for these . So , {vocalsound} we would need a hand - marked , um , {vocalsound} word - level alignments or at least sort of the boundaries of the speech betw you know , between the speakers . Um , and then use that as a reference and tune the parameters of the {disfmarker} of the model , uh , to op to get the best {pause} performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: G given {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I wa I wa I was gonna ask you anyway , uh , how you assessed that things were better . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I looked at them . I spent two days {disfmarker} um , in Waves {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Oh , it was painful because {vocalsound} the thing is , you know the alignments share a lot in common , so {disfmarker} And you 're {disfmarker} yo you 're looking at these segments where there 's a lot of speech . I mean , a lot of them have a lot of words . Not by every speaker +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but by some speaker there 's a lot of words . No , not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean that if you look at the individual segments from just one person you don't see a lot of words , +PhD H: Ju +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but altogether you 'll see a lot of words up there . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And so the reject is also mapping and pauses {disfmarker} So I looked at them all in Waves and just lined up all the alignments , and , at first it sort of looked like a mess and then the more I looked at it , I thought "" OK , well it 's moving these words leftward and {disfmarker} "" You know , it wasn't that bad . It was just doing certain things wrong . So {disfmarker} But , I don't , you know , have time to l {comment} to look at all of them and it would be really useful to have , like , a {disfmarker} a transcriber who could use Waves , um , just mark , like , the beginning and end of the foreground speaker 's real words {disfmarker} like , the beginning of the first word , the end of the last word {disfmarker} and then we could , you know , do some adjustments . +Postdoc C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} OK . I have to ask you something , is i does it have to be Waves ? Because if we could benefit from what you did , incorporate that into the present transcripts , {comment} that would help . +PhD F: No . +Postdoc C: And then , um , the other thing is , I believe that I did hand So . One of these transcripts was gone over by a transcriber and then I hand - marked it myself so that we do have , uh , the beginning and ending of individual utterances . Um , I didn't do it word level , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but in terms {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So I {disfmarker} so for {disfmarker} for one of the N S A groups . And also I went back to the original one that I first transcribed and {disfmarker} and did it w uh , w uh , utterance by utterance for that particular one . So I think you do have {disfmarker} if that 's a sufficient unit , I think that you do have hand - marking for that . But it 'd be wonderful to be able to {vocalsound} benefit from your Waves stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: We don't care what {disfmarker} what tool you use . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , if {disfmarker} if you can , um {disfmarker} if you wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . I used it in Transcriber +PhD F: U uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: well , Jane and I were {disfmarker} just in terms of the tool , talking about this . I guess Sue had had some {pause} reactions . You know , interface - wise if you 're looking at speech , you wanna be able to know really where the words are . And so , {vocalsound} we can give you some examples of sort of what this output looks like , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . Middle of the word , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: um , and see if you can in maybe incorporate it into the Transcriber tool some way , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , I th I 'm thinking just ch e e incorporating it into the representation . +PhD A: Um . +Postdoc C: I mean , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: You mean like {disfmarker} Yeah , word start insights . +Postdoc C: if you have start points , if you have , like , time tags , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which is what I assume . Isn't that what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} ? Well , see , Adam would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , whatever you use . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , we convert it to this format that the , um , NIST scoring tool unders uh , CTM . Conversation Time - Marked file . And {disfmarker} and then that 's the {disfmarker} that 's what the {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think Transcriber , uh , outputs CTM . +Postdoc C: If it {disfmarker} ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: So you would know this more than I would . +Grad E: I think so . +PhD A: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It seems like she {disfmarker} if she 's g if she 's moving time marks around , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: since our representation in Transcriber uses time marks , it seems like there should be some way of {disfmarker} of using that {disfmarker} benefitting from that . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Yeah , it wou the advantage would just be that when you brought up a bin you would be able {disfmarker} if you were zoomed in enough in Transcriber to see all the words , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: you would be able to , like , have the words sort of located in time , if you wanted to do that . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if we e e even just had a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} It sounds like w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we almost do . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: Uh , if we {disfmarker} We have two . +Postdoc C: We have two . +Professor B: Yeah . Just ha uh , trying out {pause} the alignment {vocalsound} procedure that you have on that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you could actually get something , um {disfmarker} uh , uh , get an objective measure . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You mean on {disfmarker} on the hand - marked , um {disfmarker} So we {disfmarker} we only r hav I only looked at actually alignments from one meeting that we chose , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I think MR four , just randomly , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually , not randomly . +PhD A: Not randomly {disfmarker} +PhD F: We knew {disfmarker} we knew that it had these insertion errors from {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had sort of {pause} average recognition performance in a bunch of speakers +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and it was a Meeting Recorder meeting . Um . But , yeah , we should try to use what you have . I did re - run recognition on your new version of MR one . +Postdoc C: Oh , good . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the one with Dan {pause} Ellis in it {vocalsound} and Eric . +Postdoc C: Good ! Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: I don't think that was the new version . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} Yeah , actually it wasn't the new new , it was the medium new . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but we would {disfmarker} we should do the {disfmarker} the latest version . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: It was the one from last week . +Grad G: You {disfmarker} did you adjust the {disfmarker} the utterance times , um , for each channel ? +Postdoc C: Yes . Yes , I did . And furthermore , I found that there were a certain number where {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not {disfmarker} not a lot , but several times I actually {vocalsound} moved an utterance from {vocalsound} Adam 's channel to Dan 's or from Dan 's to Adam 's . So there was some speaker identif And the reason was because {vocalsound} I transcribed that at a point before {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , before we had the multiple audio available f so I couldn't switch between the audio . I {disfmarker} I transcribed it off of the mixed channel entirely , which meant in overlaps , I was at a {disfmarker} at a terrific disadvantage . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Postdoc C: In addition it was before the channelized , uh , possibility was there . And finally I did it using the speakers of my , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , off the CPU on my {disfmarker} on my machine cuz I didn't have a headphone . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: So it @ @ , like , I mean {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , i in retrospect {vocalsound} it would 've been good to ha {vocalsound} have got I should 've gotten a headphone . But in any case , um , thi this is {disfmarker} this was transcribed in a {disfmarker} in a , {vocalsound} uh , less optimal way than {disfmarker} than the ones that came after it , and I was able to {disfmarker} you know , an and this meant that there were some speaker identif identifications which were changes . +Grad G: Well , I know there were some speaker labelling problems , um , after interruptions . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Fixed that . +Grad G: Is that what you 're referring to ? I mean , cuz there 's this one instance when , for example , you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Oh , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: I remember this meeting really well . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Don {disfmarker} Don has had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He knows {disfmarker} he can just read it like a play . +Grad G: Right . It 's a {disfmarker} Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 'm very well acquainted with this meeting . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I can s +PhD A: "" And then she said , and then he said . "" +Grad G: Yeah , I know it by heart . So , um , {vocalsound} there 's one point when you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Uh - oh . +Grad G: Right ? And , like , there 's an interruption . You interrupt somebody , but then there 's no line after that . For example , there 's no speaker identification after that line . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Is that what you 're talking about ? Or were there mislabellings as far as , like , the a Adam was {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: That was fixed , um , before {disfmarker} i i i I think I I think I understood that pretty {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Cuz I thought I let you know about that . +Postdoc C: Thank you for mentioning . Yeah , no , tha that {disfmarker} That I think went away a couple of versions ago , +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Postdoc C: but it 's good to know . +Grad G: But you 're actually saying that certain , uh , speakers were mis mis - identified . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So , with {disfmarker} under {disfmarker} um , uh , listening to the mixed channel , there were times when , as surprising as that is , I got Adam 's voice confused with Dan 's and vice versa {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Postdoc C: not for long utterances , +Grad G: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: but jus just a couple of places , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and embedde embedded in overlaps . The other thing that was w interesting to me was that I picked up a lot of , um , backchannels which were hidden in the mixed signal , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which , you know , I mean , you c not {disfmarker} not too surprising . But the other thing that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hadn't thought about this , but I thou I wanted to raise this when you were {disfmarker} uh , with respect to also a strategy which might help with the alignments potentially , but that 's {disfmarker} When I was looking at these backchannels , they were turning up usually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very often in {disfmarker} w well , I won't say "" usually "" {disfmarker} but anyway , very often , I picked them up in a channel {vocalsound} w which was the person who had asked a question . S so , like , someone says "" an and have you done the so - and - so ? "" And then there would be backchannels , but it would be the person who asked the question . Other people weren't really doing much backchannelling . And , you know , sometimes you have the {disfmarker} Yeah , uh - huh . +PhD A: Well , that 's interesting . Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean , i it wouldn't be perfect , but {disfmarker} but it does seem more natural to give a backchannel when {disfmarker} when you 're somehow involved in the topic , +PhD A: No , that 's really interesting . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and the most natural way is for you to have initiated the topic by asking a question . +PhD F: Well , +PhD A: That 's interesting . +PhD F: I think {disfmarker} No . I think it 's {disfmarker} actually I think what 's going on is backchannelling is something that happens in two - party conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And if you ask someone a question , you essentially initiating a little two - party conversation . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , actu Yeah , when we looked at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD F: So then you 're {disfmarker} so and then you 're expected to backchannel because the person is addressing you directly and not everybody . +Postdoc C: Exactly . Exactly my point . An - and so this is the expectation thing that {disfmarker} uh , uh , +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: just the dyadic {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: But in addition , you know , if someone has done this analysis himself and isn't involved in the dyad , but they might also give backchannels to verify what {disfmarker} what the answer is that this {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the answerer 's given {disfmarker} +Professor B: H +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: I tell you , I say {disfmarker} I say "" uh - huh "" a lot , +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: There you go . +PhD A: Well , but it 's interesting cuz , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: while people are talking to each other . +PhD A: But there are fewer {disfmarker} I think there are fewer "" uh - huhs "" . +Postdoc C: There you go . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , just from {disfmarker} We were looking at word frequency lists to try to find the cases that we would allow to have the reject words in between in doing the alignment . You know the ones we wouldn't constrain to be next to the other words . +Postdoc C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: And "" uh - huh "" is not as frequent as it sort of would be in Switchboard , if you looked at just a word frequency list of one - word short utterances . And "" yeah "" is way up there , but not "" uh - huh "" . And so I was thinking thi it 's not like {pause} you 're being encouraged by everybody else to keep {pause} talking in the meeting . And uh , that 's all , I I 'll stop there , cuz I I think what you say makes a lot of sense . +Postdoc C: Well , that 's right . And that would {disfmarker} +PhD A: But it was sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , an And what you say is the {disfmarker} is the re uh , o other side of this , which is that , you know , so th there are lots of channels where you don't have these backchannels , w when a question has been asked and {disfmarker} and these {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . There 's just probably less backchannelling in general , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . So that 's good news , really . +PhD A: even if you consider every other person altogether one person in the meeting , but we 'll find out anyway . We were {disfmarker} I guess the other thing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} I should say is that we 're gonna , um try {disfmarker} compare this type of overlap analysis to Switchboard , where {disfmarker} +PhD F: And +PhD A: and CallHome , where we have both sides , so that we can try to answer this question of , you know , {vocalsound} is there really more overlap in meetings or is it just because we don't have the other channel in Switchboard +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and we don't know what people are doing . Try to create a paper out of that . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , y y you folks have probably {pause} already told me , but were {disfmarker} were you intending to do a Eurospeech submission , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , you mean the one due tomorrow ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , we 're still , like , writing the scripts for doing the research , and we will {disfmarker} Yes , we 're gonna try . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I was telling Don , do not {pause} take this as an example of how people should work . +Professor B: Do as I say , +Grad G: That 's r +PhD A: So , {comment} we will try . +Professor B: don't do as I do . Yeah . +PhD A: It 'll probably be a little late , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm gonna try it . +Grad E: It is different . In previous years , Eurospeech only had the abstract due by now , not the full paper . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: And so all our timing was off . I 've given up on trying to do digits . I just don't think that what I have so far makes a Eurospeech paper . +PhD A: Well , I 'm no We may be in the same position , and I figured {vocalsound} we 'll try , because that 'll at least get us to the point where we have {disfmarker} We have this really nice database format that Andreas and I were working out that {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's not very fancy . It 's just a ASCII line by line format , but it does give you information {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's the spurt format . +PhD A: It {disfmarker} Yeah , we 're calling these "" spurts "" after Chafe . I was trying to find what 's a word for {pause} a continuous region with {pause} pauses around it ? +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I know that th the Telecom people use {disfmarker} use "" spurt "" for that . +Postdoc C: Good . +PhD A: They do ? Oh ! +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: And that 's {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was using that for a while when I was doing the rate of speech stuff , +PhD A: I would jus +Professor B: because I {disfmarker} because I looked up in some books and I found {disfmarker} OK , I wanna find a spurt {vocalsound} in which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , right ! It 's just , like , defined by the acoustics . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} an because {disfmarker} cuz it 's another question about how {pause} many pauses they put in between them . +Grad E: Horrible . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But how fast do they do {pause} the words within the spurt ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , that 's what we were calling spurt , +Grad E: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: you know "" Burst "" also ? +Grad E: Burst . +Grad G: Isn't "" burst "" is used also ? +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: Spurt has the horrible name overloading with other {disfmarker} with hardware at ICSI . +Professor B: Here . Just very locally , yeah . +PhD A: Well , well , Chafe had this wor I think it was Chafe , or somebody had a {disfmarker} the word "" spurt "" originally , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but that just {disfmarker} +PhD H: Here @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD A: and so I {disfmarker} But tha that 's good to know . +Postdoc C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: Was thi it 's Chafe ? +Postdoc C: Well , see , I know S Sue wrote about spurts of development . +PhD F: So maybe we should talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe it was Sue {disfmarker} ? Y +Postdoc C: But , in any case , I think it 's a good term , +PhD A: So we have spurts and we have spurt - ify dot shell and spurt - ify +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: And ma maybe {disfmarker} maybe Chafe did . +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: And then it 's got all {disfmarker} it 's a verb now . +Postdoc C: I know {disfmarker} I know Ch - Chafe dealt with {disfmarker} +PhD F: So s +Grad G: That 's cool . +PhD F: W uh , w +Postdoc C: Chafe speaks about intonation units . +PhD A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc C: But maybe he speaks about spurts as well +PhD F: We +Postdoc C: and I just don't know . Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: I 've heard "" burst "" also . +PhD F: So what we 're doing {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} maybe someone has s some {disfmarker} some ideas about how to do it better , +Grad G: Mmm . +PhD F: but we {disfmarker} So we 're taking these , uh , alignments from the individual channels . We 're {disfmarker} from each alignment we 're producing , uh , one of these CTM files , +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD F: which essentially has {disfmarker} it 's just a linear sequence of words with the begin times for every word and the duration . +PhD A: It looks like a Waves label file almost . Right ? +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and of course {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it has {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} the first column has the meeting name , so it could actually contain several meetings . Um . And the second column is the channel . Third column is the , um , start times of the words and the fourth column is the duration of the words . And then we 're , um {disfmarker} OK . Then we have a messy alignment process where we actually insert into the sequence of words the , uh , tags for , like , where {disfmarker} where sentence {disfmarker} ends of sentence , question marks , um , {vocalsound} various other things . +PhD A: Yeah . These are things that we had Don {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: So , Don sort of , um , propagated the punctuation from the original transcriber {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: so whether it was , like , question mark or period or , {vocalsound} um , you know , comma and things like that , and we kept the {disfmarker} and disfluency dashes {disfmarker} uh , kept those in because we sort of wanna know where those are relative to the spurt overlaps {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: sp overlaps , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so those are actually sort of retro - fitted into the time alignment . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: And then we merge all the alignments from the various channels and we sort them by time . And then there 's a {disfmarker} then there 's a process where you now determine the spurts . That is {disfmarker} Actually , no , you do that before you merge the various channels . So you {disfmarker} you id identify by some criterion , which is pause length {disfmarker} you identify the beginnings and ends of these spurts , and you put another set of tags in there to keep those straight . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And then you merge everything in terms of , you know , linearizing the sequence based on the time marks . And then {vocalsound} you extract the individual channels again , but this time you know where the other people start and end talking {disfmarker} you know , where their spurts start and end . And so you extract the individual channels , uh , one sp spurt by spurt as it were . Um , and inside the words or between the words you now have begin and end {pause} tags for overlaps . So , you {disfmarker} you basically have everything sort of lined up and in a form where you can look at the individual speakers and how their speech relates to the other speakers ' speech . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Uh , I mean , I think that 's actually really u useful also +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: because even if you weren't studying overlaps , if you wanna get a transcription for the far - field mikes , how are you gonna know which words from which speakers occurred at which times relative to each other ? You have to be able to {pause} get a transcript like {disfmarker} like this anyway , just for doing far - field recognition . So , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: I thi it 's just an issue we haven't dealt with before , how you time - align things that are overlapping anyway . +Postdoc C: That 's wonderful . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , i I never thought about it before , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Y yes . +PhD F: In {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , s when I came up with the original data {disfmarker} suggested data format based on the transcription graph , there 's capability of doing that sort of thing in there . +PhD A: Right . But you can't get it directly from the transcription . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: Right . Well , this is {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , this is like a poor man 's ver formatting version . But it 's , you know {disfmarker} It 's clean , it 's just not fancy . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Um . +PhD F: Well , there 's lots of little things . It 's like there 're twelve different scripts which you run and then at the end you have what you want . But , um , at the very last stage we throw away the actual time information . All we care about is whether {disfmarker} that there 's a certain word was overlapped by someone else 's word . So you sort of {disfmarker} at that point , you discretize things into just having overlap or no overlap . Because we figure that 's about the level of analysis that we want to do for this paper . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But if you wanted to do a more fine - grained analysis and say , you know , how far into the word is the overlap , you could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just {disfmarker} it 'll just require more {disfmarker} +PhD A: Just {pause} sort of huge . +PhD F: you know , slightly different {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: What 's interesting is it 's exactly what , um , i in discussing with , um , Sue about this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: um , she , um , i i i indicated that that {disfmarker} you know , that 's very important for overlap analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to know , +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: and also I think as a human , like , I don't always hear these in the actual order that they occur . So I can have two foreground speakers , you know , Morgan an and {vocalsound} um , Adam and Jane could all be talking , and I could align each of them to be starting their utterance at the correct time , and then look where they are relative to each other , and that 's not really what I heard . +Postdoc C: And that 's another thing she said . +PhD A: Cuz it 's just hard to do . +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} This is Bever 's {disfmarker} Bever 's effect , +PhD A: Y Yeah . +Postdoc C: when {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} In psy ps psycho - linguistics you have these experiments where people have perceptual biases a as to what they hear , +PhD A: It 's sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , you sort of move things around until you get to a {pause} low information point +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Not the best {disfmarker} +PhD A: and yo then you can bring in the other person . So it 's {vocalsound} actually not even possible , I think , for any person to listen to a mixed signal , even equalize , and make sure that they have all the words in the right order . So , I guess , we 'll try to write this Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Superb . +PhD A: I mean , we will write it . Whether they accept it {pause} late or not , I don't know . Um , and the good thing is that we have {disfmarker} It 's sort of a beginning of what Don can use to link the prosodic features from each file to each other . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's the good thing about these pape +PhD A: So . i You know , might as well . +PhD F: Plus , mayb +PhD H: Hmm ? +PhD A: We - I ju Otherwise we won't get the work done {comment} {vocalsound} on our deadline . +PhD F: I don't know , m +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , u u Jane likes to look at data . Maybe , you know , you could {disfmarker} you could look at this format and see if you find anything interesting . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} that 's the good thing about these pape paper deadlines and , uh , you know , class projects , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and things like that , +Postdoc C: Well , what I 'm thinking is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , my {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well th th the other thing that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that yo that you usually don't tell your graduate students is that these deadlines are actually not that , um , you know , strictly enforced , +Professor B: because you {disfmarker} you really get g +PhD A: Forces you to do the work . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad E: Strict . +PhD F: because {pause} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , now it 's out in the public , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this secret information . +PhD F: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I think we can ha +PhD F: bec b {vocalsound} Nah {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: No . +Professor B: No . +Postdoc C: Nah . +PhD F: i Because these {disfmarker} the conference organizers actually have an interest in getting lots of submissions . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: I mean , a {disfmarker} a monetary interest . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um . +Professor B: Th - that 's {disfmarker} that 's true . +Postdoc C: And good ones , good ones , which sometimes means {pause} a little extra time . +PhD F: And good submission +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD F: Well {disfmarker} That 's another issue , +Professor B: By th by the way , this is totally unfair , you may {disfmarker} you may feel , +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the morning meeting folks actually have an {disfmarker} an extra month or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad E: Yep . The Aurora {disfmarker} there 's a special Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: When {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's a special Aurora session +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: and the Aurora pe people involved in Aurora have till Ma - uh , early May {pause} or something to turn in their paper . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh , well maybe we 'll submit to s {comment} {vocalsound} Actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , then you can just {disfmarker} Maybe you can submit the digits paper on e for the Aurora session . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I could ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I if it w +Grad E: I could submit that to Aurora . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: That would be pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: i it has {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: +Grad E: S That wouldn't work . +Professor B: No , it wouldn't work . +Grad E: It 's not Aurora . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the Aurora {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the Aurora task . +PhD A: Maybe they 'll get s +Grad E: Aurora 's very specific . +Professor B: It +PhD A: Well , maybe it won't be after this {vocalsound} deadline {pause} extension . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but the people {disfmarker} I mean , a {disfmarker} a paper that is not on Aurora would probably be more interesting at that point +PhD A: Maybe they 'll {disfmarker} +PhD F: because everybody 's so sick and tired of the Aurora task . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I thought you meant this was just the digits section . I didn't know you meant it was Aurora digits . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , no . If you {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} it 's to {disfmarker} if you discuss some relation to the Aurora task , like if you use the same {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is not the Aurora task . So they just do a little grep for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do {disfmarker} uh , d d Do not {disfmarker} do not {disfmarker} we are not setting a good example . +PhD F: Um . Well , a relation other than negation , maybe , +PhD A: This is not a {disfmarker} +PhD F: um . So . +PhD A: Anyway . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: But the good thing is this does {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I I don't know . I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do a paper on {pause} what 's wrong with the Aurora task by comparing it to {pause} other ways of doing it . +PhD F: How well does an Aurora system do on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} you know , on digits collected in a {disfmarker} in this environment ? +PhD H: +Grad E: Different way . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Maybe . +PhD F: Maybe . +Grad E: Pretty hokey . +Professor B: I think it 's a littl little far - fetched . Nah , I mean , the thing is Aurora 's pretty closed community . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: I mean , you know , the people who were involved in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the only people who are allowed to test on that are people who {disfmarker} who made it above a certain threshold in the first round , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's very specific . +Professor B: uh {vocalsound} w in ninety - nine and it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not like a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , that 's maybe why they don't f know that they have a crummy system . I mean , a crummy back - end . No , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , seriously , if you {disfmarker} if you have a very {disfmarker} No , I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} "" beep "" {vocalsound} "" bee "" +Grad E: I mean , th +PhD F: No . I didn't mean anybody {disfmarker} any particular system . I meant this H T K back - end . +Professor B: Oh , you don't like HTK ? +PhD F: If they {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't h I don't have any stock in HTK or Entropic or anything . +Professor B: No . I mean , this {disfmarker} it it 's the HTK {pause} that is trained on a very limited amount of data . +Grad E: It 's d it 's very specific . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But so , if you {disfmarker} But maybe you should , you know , consider more {disfmarker} using more data , or {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I really think that that 's true . And they i i +PhD F: If yo if you sort of hermetically stay within one task and don't look left and right , then you 're gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: But they {disfmarker} they had {disfmarker} +Professor B: i But {disfmarker} +Grad E: They had something very specific in mind when they designed it . Right ? +Professor B: Well , u i +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} you can argue about maybe that wasn't the right thing to do , but , you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they had something specific . +Professor B: But , one of the reasons I have Chuck 's messing around with {disfmarker} with the back - end that you 're not supposed to touch {disfmarker} I mean , for the evaluations , yes , we 'll run a version that hasn't been touched . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , one of the reasons I have him messing around with that , because I think it 's sort of an open question that we don't know the answer to . People always say very glibly {vocalsound} that i if you s show improvement on a bad system , that doesn't mean anything , cuz it may not be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} show {disfmarker} uh , because , you know , it doesn't tell you anything about the good system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I {disfmarker} I 've always sort of felt that that depends . You know , that if some peopl If you 're actually are getting at something that has some {pause} conceptual substance to it , it will port . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And in fact , most methods that people now use were originally tried with something that was not their absolute {pause} best system at some level . But of course , sometimes it doesn't , uh , port . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting question . If we 're getting {pause} three percent error on , uh , u uh , English , uh , nati native speakers , {vocalsound} um , using the Aurora system , and we do some improvements and bring it from three to two , {vocalsound} do those same improvements bring , uh , th you know , the SRI system from one point three to {disfmarker} you know , to {vocalsound} point eight ? +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Zero . +Professor B: Well . You know , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's something we can test . +PhD F: Mmm . Right . +Professor B: So . Anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think we 've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 've covered that one up extremely well . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Whew ! +Professor B: OK . So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . So tha so we 'll {disfmarker} you know , maybe you guys 'll have {disfmarker} have one . Uh , you {disfmarker} you and , uh {disfmarker} and Dan have {disfmarker} have a paper that {disfmarker} that 's going in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty solid , on the segmentation {pause} stuff . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . I will send you the {disfmarker} the final version , +Professor B: Yeah . And the Aurora folks here will {disfmarker} will definitely get something in on Aurora , +PhD D: which is not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually this {disfmarker} this , um {disfmarker} So , there 's another paper . +Professor B: so . +PhD F: It 's a Eurospeech paper but not related to meetings . But it 's on digits . So , um , uh , a colleague at SRI developed a improved version of MMIE training . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And he tested it mostly on digits because it 's sort of a {disfmarker} you know , it doesn't take weeks to train it . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Um . And got some very impressive results , um , with , you know , discriminative , uh , Gaussian training . Um , you know , like , um , error rates {pause} go from {disfmarker} I don't know , in very noisy environment , like from , uh , uh {disfmarker} I for now I {disfmarker} OK , now I have the order of magnit I 'm not sure about the order of magnitude . Was it like from ten percent to {vocalsound} eight percent or from e e you know , point {disfmarker} you know , from one percent to point eight percent ? +Professor B: H i it got {disfmarker} it got better . +PhD F: I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: It got better . That 's the important thing . +Grad E: Hey , that 's the same percent relative , +PhD F: Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's , uh , something in {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Twenty percent relative gain . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} let 's see . I think the only thing we had left was {disfmarker} unless somebody else {disfmarker} Well , there 's a couple things . Uh , one is {pause} anything that , um , {vocalsound} anybody has to say about Saturday ? Anything we should do in prep for Saturday ? Um {disfmarker} I guess everybody knows about {disfmarker} I mean , u um , Mari was asking {disfmarker} was trying to come up with something like an agenda and we 're sort of fitting around people 's times a bit . But , um , {vocalsound} clearly when we actually get here we 'll {pause} move things around this , as we need to , but {disfmarker} so you can't absolutely count on it . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Are we meeting in here probably or {disfmarker} ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That was my thought . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think this is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are we recording it ? +PhD A: We won't have enough microphones , +Professor B: +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: u No . I {disfmarker} I hadn't in intended to . +PhD A: There 's no way . +Professor B: We won we wanna {disfmarker} I mean , they 're {disfmarker} there 's gonna be , uh , Jeff , Katrin , Mari and two students . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: So there 's five {pause} from there . +Grad E: And Brian . +Professor B: And Brian 's coming , +PhD F: But you know th +Professor B: so that 's six . +Grad E: And plus all of us . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Can use the Oprah mike . +PhD A: Depends how fast you can {pause} throw it . +Grad E: It seems like too many {disfmarker} too much coming and going . +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We don't even have enough channel {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because it would be a different kind of meeting , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: I hadn't {pause} really thought of it , +PhD F: Maybe just {disfmarker} maybe not the whole day +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: but just , you know , maybe some {disfmarker} I mean , +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +PhD F: part of it ? +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +Grad E: Make everyone read digits . +Professor B: At the same time . +PhD A: At the same time . +Grad E: At the same time . +PhD F: Please . +PhD H: +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: We c +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD A: That 's their initiation into our +Professor B: Any +PhD A: w +Grad E: Into our {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our cult . +PhD A: Yeah , our {disfmarker} Yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD F: Maybe the sections that are not right afte you know , after lunch when everybody 's still munching and {disfmarker} +PhD A: So can you send out a schedule once you know it , jus ? +Professor B: OK . Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is there a r ? +Professor B: OK . Yeah . I guess I sent it around a little bit . +PhD A: There 's a res Is it changed now , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: But {disfmarker} I hadn't heard back from Mari after I {disfmarker} I u u uh , brought up the point abou about Andreas 's schedule . So , {vocalsound} um , maybe when I get back there 'll be {pause} some {disfmarker} some mail from her . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: So , I 'll make a {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'm looking forward to seeing your representation . That 'd be , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: And w we should get {pause} the two meetings from y +Postdoc C: I 'd like to see that . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , I know about the first meeting , um , but the other one that you did , the NSA one , which we {pause} hadn't done cuz we weren't running recognition on it , because the non - native speaker {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: there were five non - native speakers . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . I see . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But , it would be useful for the {disfmarker} to see what we get {pause} with that one . So . +Postdoc C: Great . OK . It 's , uh , two thousand eleven twenty - one one thousand . +PhD A: Yeah , three . Right . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Great . I sent email when I finished the {disfmarker} that one . +PhD A: N S A three , I think . +Postdoc C: That was sort of son Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . That 's much simpler . +PhD A: I don't know what they said but I know the number . +Professor B: Th - that part 's definitely gonna confuse somebody who looks at these later . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I mean , this is {disfmarker} we we 're recording secret NSA meetings ? +PhD F: Um . Not the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Not that NSA . +PhD F: Uh . The {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} +PhD A: They are hard to understand . +Professor B: It 's network services and applications . +PhD F: Wait . +PhD A: They 're very , uh , out there . +PhD F: The {disfmarker} +PhD A: I have no idea what they 're talking about . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: The , um {disfmarker} th the other good thing about the alignments is that , um , it 's not always the machine 's fault if it doesn't work . So , you can actually find , um , +PhD A: It 's the person 's fault . +PhD F: problem {disfmarker} uh , proble +PhD A: It 's Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's always Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find , uh , problems with {disfmarker} with the transcripts , um , you know , +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: and go back and fix them . +PhD A: Tha - There are some cases like where the {disfmarker} the wrong speaker {disfmarker} uh , these ca Not a lot , but where the {disfmarker} the wrong person {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech is addre attached to the wrong speaker +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: and you can tell that when you run it . Or at least you can get {pause} clues to it . +Postdoc C: Interesting . +PhD A: So these are from the early transcriptions that people did on the mixed signals , like what you have . +Postdoc C: I guess it does w Mm - hmm . It also raises the possibility of , um , using that kind of representation {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , this 'd be something we 'd wanna check , {comment} but maybe using that representation for data entry and then displaying it on the channelized , uh , representation , cuz it {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} I mean , my {disfmarker} my preference in terms of , like , looking at the data is to see it {pause} in this kind of musical score format . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And also , s you know , Sue 's preference as well . +PhD A: Yeah , if you can get it to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but , I mean , this {disfmarker} if this is a better interface for making these kinds of , uh , you know , lo clos local changes , then that 'd be fine , too . I don't {disfmarker} I have no idea . I think this is something that would need to be checked . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Th - the other thing I had actually was , I {disfmarker} I didn't realize this till today , but , uh , this is , uh , Jose 's last day . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD H: Is my last {disfmarker} my last day . +PhD A: Oh ! +Postdoc C: Oh . +PhD F: Oh ! +Grad E: You 're not gonna be here tomorrow ? +PhD H: My {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my last meeting {pause} about meetings . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . Tomorrow {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: The last meeting meeting ? +PhD H: Because , eh , I leave , eh , the next Sunday . +Grad E: It 's off . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: I will come back to home {disfmarker} to Spain . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I d so I {disfmarker} I jus +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: And I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to say thank you very much , eh , to all people {pause} in the group and at ICSI , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . It was good having you . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD H: because I {disfmarker} I enjoyed @ @ very much , +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD H: uh . And I 'm sorry by the result of overlapping , because , eh , {vocalsound} I haven't good results , eh , yet but , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to continuing out to Spain , eh , during the {disfmarker} the following months , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD H: eh , because I have , eh , another ideas but , eh , I haven't enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with six months it 's not enough to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to research , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: eh , and e i I mean , if , eh , the topic is , eh , so difficult , uh , in my opinion , there isn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe somebody else will come along and will be , uh , interested in working on it and could start off from where you are also , you know . They 'd make use of {disfmarker} of what you 've done . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . But , eh , I {disfmarker} I will try to recommend , eh , at , eh , {vocalsound} the Spanish government but , eh , the following @ @ scholarship , eh , eh , {vocalsound} eh , will be here {pause} more time , because eh , i in my opinion is {disfmarker} is better , {vocalsound} eh , for us {pause} to {disfmarker} to spend more time here and to work more time i i in a topic . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's a very short time . +PhD H: No ? But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , six months is hard . +PhD H: Yeah . It is . +Grad E: I think a year is a lot better . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: It 's difficult . You {disfmarker} e you have , eh {disfmarker} you are lucky , and you {disfmarker} you find a solution {comment} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some few tim uh , months , eh ? OK . But , eh , I think it 's not , eh , common . But , eh , anyway , thank you . Thank you very much . Eh , I {disfmarker} I bring the chocolate , eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to tear , uh , with {disfmarker} with you , +PhD A: Oh . +Postdoc C: Ah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: uh . I {disfmarker} I hope if you need , eh , something , eh , from us in the future , I {disfmarker} I will be at Spain , {vocalsound} to you help , uh . +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Great . +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Thank you , Jose . +Postdoc C: Thank you . +PhD H: And , thank you very much . +PhD F: Have a good trip . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Keep in touch . +PhD H: Thank you . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . I guess , uh , unless somebody has something else , we 'll read {disfmarker} read our digits +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: and we 'll get our {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: get our last bit of , uh , Jose 's {disfmarker} Jose {disfmarker} Jose 's digit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oops . +Grad E: Are we gonna do them simultaneously or {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: You {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I 'm sorry ? +PhD H: Ye - ye you prefer , eh , to eat , eh , chocolate , eh , at the coffee break , eh , at the {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Or you prefer now , before after {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Well , we have a time {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , we prefer to keep it for ourselves . +PhD D: During {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , we have a s a time {disfmarker} time constraint . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: during digits . +Professor B: So keep it away from that end of the table . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Why is it that I can read your mind ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 've gotta wait until after di after we take the mikes off . +PhD D: No , no . +Grad E: So are we gonna do digits simultaneously +PhD A: You {disfmarker} This is our reward if we {pause} do our digi +Professor B: Well ? Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: or what ? +PhD D: Simultaneous digit chocolate task . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I think , eh , it 's enough , eh , for more peopl for more people {pause} after . +Professor B: We 're gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna do digits at the same {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm ! +Postdoc C: That 's nice . +PhD H: But , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , thanks , Jose . +Professor B: Um . +Postdoc C: Wow . +PhD H: To Andreas , the idea is {disfmarker} is good . {vocalsound} s To eat here . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Wow . Very nice . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh , wow . +Professor B: Tha - that 's {disfmarker} that looks great . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . Th - it doesn't {disfmarker} it won't leave this room . +Professor B: Alright , so in the interest of getting to the {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could do digits while other people eat . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's background crunching . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: We don't have background chewing . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: Is , eh , a {disfmarker} another acoustic event . +PhD D: Background crunch . Yeah . +PhD A: No , we don't have any data with background eating . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm serious . You +Professor B: She 's {disfmarker} she 's serious . +PhD A: I am serious . +Grad E: It 's just the rest of the digits {disfmarker} the rest of the digits are very clean , +Professor B: She is serious . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: Are you {disfmarker} ? Oh , they 're clean . +PhD D: Yeah ! +Grad E: um , without a lot of background noise , +PhD A: And it {disfmarker} You have to write down , like , while y what you 're {disfmarker} what ch chocolate you 're eating +Grad E: so I 'm just not sure {disfmarker} +PhD A: cuz they might make different sounds , like n nuts {disfmarker} chocolate with nuts , chocolate without nuts . +Postdoc C: Oh . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Crunchy frogs . +PhD F: Chocolate adaptation . +Professor B: Actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} actually kind of careful cuz I have a strong allergy to nuts , so I have to sort of figure out one without th +PhD A: That w Oh , yeah , they {disfmarker} they might . +Professor B: It 's hard to {disfmarker} hard to say . +PhD A: Maybe those ? They 're so {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} You know , this is a different kind of speech , +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD H: Take {disfmarker} take several . +PhD A: looking at chocolates , deciding {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: you know , it 's another style . +Professor B: Yeah . I may {disfmarker} I may hold off . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: But if I was {disfmarker} eh , but maybe I 'll get some later . Thanks . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} well , why don't we {disfmarker} ? He {disfmarker} he 's worried about a ticket . Why don't we do a simultaneous one ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Simultaneous one ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: And you laughed at me , too , f the first time I said that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Remember to read the transcript number , please . +PhD F: Right . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: I have to what ? +PhD D: Oops . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: You laughed at me , too , the first time I sa said {disfmarker} +Professor B: I did , +PhD A: You really shouldn't , uh , te +Professor B: and now I love it so much . +Grad E: OK , everyone ready ? +PhD A: You have to sort of , um {disfmarker} Jose , if you haven't done this , you have to plug your ears while you 're t talking +Professor B: W wait {disfmarker} wait a minute {disfmarker} wait a minute . W we want {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that you don't get confused , I guess . +Professor B: we want it synchronized . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , you 've done this one before ? +Postdoc C: Hey , you 've done this before . Haven't you ? +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Together ? +Postdoc C: You 've read {pause} digits together with us , haven't you {disfmarker} I mean , at the same time ? +PhD A: I 'm not {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Oh , and you haven't done this either . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc C: Oh , you haven't ! +PhD H: No . +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: I the first time is {pause} traumatic , +Professor B: We +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y {vocalsound} Yeah , bu +Postdoc C: Oh , and the groupings are important , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc C: so yo you 're supposed to pause between the groupings . +PhD H: The grouping . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: You mean that the {disfmarker} the grouping is supposed to be synchronized ? +Professor B: No , no . +Postdoc C: No . +Grad E: Yeah , sure . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: That 'd be good . +Professor B: Synchronized digits . +Postdoc C: No . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: We - we 'll give everybody the same sheet +PhD F: It 's like a {disfmarker} like a Greek {disfmarker} like a Greek choir ? +PhD A: but they say different {disfmarker} +PhD F: You know ? +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Hey , what a good idea . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We could do the same sheet for everyone . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: Have them all read them at once . +PhD A: Well , different digits +PhD D: Eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but same groupings . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} or just same digits . +PhD A: So they would all be {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 'd be good . +Grad E: See if anyone notices . +Professor B: There 's so many possibilities . +Postdoc C: And then {disfmarker} then we can sing them next time . +Professor B: Uh . OK , why don't we go ? Uh , one two three {disfmarker} Go ! +Postdoc C: OK . Mmm ! +Professor B: And Andreas has the last word . +Grad E: Did you read it twice or what ? +PhD A: He 's try No , he 's trying to get good recognition performance . +Postdoc C: He had the h +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc C: He had the {disfmarker} the long form . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: And we 're off . +PhD F: No . +","The meeting commences with Grad E confirming the beginning of the session, and Professor B acknowledging the start. Grad E then prompts everyone on the wireless connection to ensure they are connected, which PhD F acknowledges with a verbal marker of disfluency. Grad G and Postdoc C affirm their status in the discussion. + +Grad E gives a brief rundown of the agenda, highlighting its brevity and the two main items for discussion: digits and a topic on forced alignment. Professor B interrupts requesting the door be closed for better privacy during their conversation. + +The agenda becomes more focused, emphasizing the need to cover digits and alignments, and the slight possibility of discussing Saturday's meeting, though they appear to lack preparation on that count. Conversation flows into the logistics of arranging people's schedules for meetings, particularly a forced alignment of such schedules on a Saturday, showing the difficulty of coordinating everyone's availability. PhD F points out the sadness of having to schedule meetings on weekends due to conflicting schedules. + +Postdoc C suggests the option of including one of their members via a conference call to aid in more inclusive discussions. However, considerations about safety while driving and background noise are raised. Professor B humorously suggests equipping someone with a head-mounted cellphone to overcome communication barriers while driving. The chat turns to a situation where PhD F's hypothetical involvement while driving would necessitate forcing the participant to engage with vast amounts of numerical data (""digits""), while also managing background noise, like car sounds and children. + +Discussion shifts to specifics about the digits project. Grad E talks about the surprising performance of the lapel microphone in the tests and the advantages it offers concerning breath noises and less interference from clothing rustle when there's no other speech. + +The conversation continues into the technical details of digits recognition, comparing different microphones' performances, and the unexpected success with the lapel mic. Aspects of the recordings, such as mouth clicks, breath noises, and the non-invasiveness of the lapel mic for clothing rustle when people are not moving, are highlighted. They discuss the effect of these factors on recordings and recognition results, with observations about how people don't move much while reading digits. + +The attendees note that the lapel mic's higher pickup of other people talking is indicative of its quality. They also consider the importance of directionality in microphones and how it impacts noise-cancellation capabilities. + +Grad E offers insight into an experiment involving digits recognition, expressing their surprise at the high-quality lapel microphone's success. Morgan pointed out some advantages of the lapel mic in certain conditions, despite expectations. They reflect on how natural recordings can differ from laboratory conditions or studio-recorded data like the TI digits corpus. + +The discussion evolves into the effectiveness of omnidirectional mics like lapel mics compared to directional ones for capturing breath noises and mouth click sounds, reflecting on the practical challenges of using mics in real-world settings, as opposed to studio conditions. + +The conversation turns to the intricacies of speech recognition technology, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs), the SRI system, mean and variance adaptation, and the importance of large datasets in training recognition systems more effectively than smaller, constrained sets. The merits of adapting systems to specific types of noise found in far-field recordings and accounting for variations in room acoustics and individual speaker characteristics are discussed. The conversation conveys the complexities and nuances involved in the speech recognition process and the ongoing efforts to improve its accuracy through a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical experimentation. + +As they approach the end of the meeting, they discuss their efforts to improve forced alignment of speech data, reflecting on their methods, results, and the challenges faced, such as disfluencies in speech. They contemplate using adapted phone-loop models to capture background speech and reject models for non-foreground speech. The talk also hints at difficulties in aligning overlapping speech and the possibility of speaker mislabeling, particularly in noisy environments with multiple speakers. + +Professor B reminds everyone of Jose's last day at the institute, leading to an appreciation of Jose's contributions and his plans to continue research after returning to Spain. The meeting concludes with the group sharing chocolates brought by Jose, and they playfully consider the acoustic implications of eating during a meeting. + +In conclusion, the gathering serves as an interactive platform where the participants delve into various aspects of digital speech processing while dealing with logistical arrangements for future meetings. The discussions reflect a shared interest in advancing speech recognition technology, a commitment to collaborative research, and the challenges of coordinating across different schedules, nationalities, and research focuses." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Oh right okay . {vocalsound} I cover myself up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I feel like Madonna with one of these on . I said I feel like Madonna with one of these on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've always wanted one of these , I really have . {vocalsound} Where do you buy 'em from ? {vocalsound} They're {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Back again for another wonderful meeting . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is uh everyone ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Almost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we c we can hold on for a minute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh my gosh . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I figured with the spam thing , if you can't beat it , join in . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the kind of spam that everybody likes to receive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? Okay , right , well , I take it that you are all ready now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um alright first off we'll just uh recap from our last meeting . Um {vocalsound} which was we got together just to basically decide on {disfmarker} well to talk about what it is that we were actually uh supposed to be doing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and who we all are and stuff like that , mm get bit more of an idea together of what's going on . {vocalsound} Um what we are gonna talk about in this meeting is um now that we know what it is that we are doing , now we know that it's a T_V_ remote and stuff and you guys have just been off doing some some uh R_ and D_ for that , that's research and development for those that haven't heard that before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: see I'm learning all sorts of new technologi terms in technology today . Um yeah , we're gonna hear your uh th three little presentations , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whether they be on computer or on the whiteboard or whatever you want . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Do you have any preference uh of order ? +Project Manager: Um I'd like to um hear +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: o I'd like to hear who's g who's on the um from from uh Catherine actually first . I want {disfmarker} what I'd like to hear about is uh if we've finally decided on um what sort of energy we're gonna be using and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Batteries . +User Interface: I think she is still finishing her {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no no , it's fine I'm just preparing . +Project Manager: It's just that {disfmarker} yeah , let's let's hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Where is that thing ? +User Interface: Okay , it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's here . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry , couldn't see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Would that work ? +Project Manager: Get yourself in position . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so that's me again . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so um for the energy sources we can have a basic battery , a hand dynamo which is {disfmarker} which was used uh in the fifties for torches , if you remember that kind of {disfmarker} which wouldn't be v wouldn't be v v +Project Manager: I don't think any of us remember the fifties . +User Interface: Is it like a crank thing or something {gap} . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . It wouldn't be very fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a kinetic provision of energy , which is used on some watches these days . So if you have just a bit of gentle movement that {disfmarker} it will give it the energy to work . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Or you can use solar cells , but I'm not sure about that indoors , really , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there's sometimes combinations , I mean , like calculators do combinations of battery with {disfmarker} but also using some solar power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do {gap} sol solar panel things , do they have to work from the sun or can they work from a light bulb ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Does anybody know ? +Industrial Designer: I dunno actually . +User Interface: Uh I think , it has to be on the on the solar energy , but I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Um . Think the the uh what would cost the less would be the basic battery , really . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh if we want something fancier , I think the kinetic provision of energy could be nice , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if it's worth the cost . So we've got to discuss that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , jolly good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For the case of the remotes itself , um they can be a general case , which is just a flat one . You can have uh a curved one or a double curved one , if you know what I mean , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's a double curved one ? +Industrial Designer: You know , kind of more ergonomic , that kind of suits the palm of your hand , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um then the case material itself , so it can be uh uh either plastic or latex , uh rubber , wood , or titanium . And th for each of them you have uh cases where {disfmarker} for example titanium , you can't use it for {disfmarker} if you if we're choosing a double curved case , we can't choose titanium . And if we are choosing um solar cells then we can't choose latex for the case material , so we just have to take that into account . But if we're choosing just the flat case then we can go for anything . And I think we discussed earlier on the R_ S_ I_ problem thing , so we could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that might be an idea of using the rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it should , you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's have a squeezable remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And also it doesn't break as easily maybe , +Project Manager: {gap} when a T_V_ programme's got one {gap} +Industrial Designer: I dunno {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: watching the match and {gap} your team's just lost , you can fuzz it across the room and it'll bounce off the wall back at you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that idea . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So rubber would be {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: I think rubber's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Rubber , we're all we're all going {disfmarker} we're all liking that idea ? You think you can market that ? +Marketing: But after my after my fashion thing , I think you'll realise that rubber is more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh , we like rubber , ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh s so if d +Marketing: People . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . And then there are the push-buttons , so you can have basic push-buttons or a scroll-wheels , like you have on a mouse , um or you could have um L_C_D_ , which gives you a display . Um scroll buttons , as well . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: So if you use a rubber double curved case , you must use rubber push-buttons . So if we're going for rubber then we have to decide for the case . Um and if we choose double curved then we have to go for rubber push-buttons . +Project Manager: Well , we're gonna go with {gap} I think we've decided that it's gonna be a rubber case so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it's a constraint . Yeah , but is it a double curved one or not ? {vocalsound} If it's not a double curved , then we've got the choice for the push-buttons , if it's a double curve , we've gotta go for rubber push-buttons . If that makes sense . +Project Manager: {gap} push buttons instead of the wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: If it's rubber , isn't it malleable anyway , {gap} it doesn't matter if it's double {disfmarker} I mean isn't a rubber case , mean it's completely flexed , I mean , it it flexes to whatever they want it to ? Mean so what's the difference between a normal rubber case and a rubble doub double {disfmarker} rubber double curved case ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} rubble double double . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but na le you see , you've got , okay , the energy that's one thing , +Project Manager: I'll have a Big Mac , please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then you have the case is uh , whether it's flat or curved . And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we don't care if it's rub rubber or not , but then we've decided that we going for rubber for the case material . So if we've chosen rub rubber and if now we have the choice for the case whether it's flat , single curved or double curved . And I'm just saying if it {disfmarker} if we choose it to be double curved then we need to go {disfmarker} I dunno why , but we need to go for uh rubber push-buttons . So , either {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno we just need to decide on the on the case . +Project Manager: Let's have rubber push buttons , hey . +User Interface: Okay . Go rubber . Go rubber the whole way . +Industrial Designer: Let's go crazy . {vocalsound} And then , do I have a last slide ? Yes , I do . Um so the push-buttons themselves they can be just simple or they can be {disfmarker} so that's just the electronics between the but behind the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the price that go with it with it , so the simple push-buttons are gonna be the cheapest . Uh if we get a scroll-wheel , that's a higher price range . If we get an advanced chip which is um used for the L_C_D_ , the display thing , then that's even more expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Simple , yeah . Chip on print . It's a bit {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay , uh what I'm not understanding here +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} is uh , okay , advanced chip on print , which I presume is like one P_C_B_ and that's got all the electronics on one board including the um infra-red sender ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The infra-red . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um what a what alternatives do we have to that ? {vocalsound} Y um {vocalsound} what alternatives do we have to the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Well , if if it's not chip on print then , I guess , you get different chip components , and you build them separately and doesn't include the infra-red . It's less expensive mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so it sounds {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Technically speaking , it's not as advanced , but it does the job , too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , why would we not go for that ? If it's something that's inside the the unit . {vocalsound} I it doesn't affects whether the customer's gonna buy it or not . +Industrial Designer: Fo It doesn't , yeah , yeah , yeah . Totally . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we wanna go for an i i all {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So let's not go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so long as it works , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: you know . So let's not let's uh not bother with the chip on print . +Industrial Designer: So it's either um the scroll-wheel or the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . S yeah , push buttons . +Marketing: What about the just developed uh sample sensor ? +User Interface: I think push-buttons is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about what ? +Marketing: G there , the sample sensor , sample speaker thing . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , what do we need a speaker for in a remote control unit ? +Marketing: Mm , I dunno . Be cool . +Industrial Designer: It'd be it'd be cool , but they are saying they've just developed it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Channel two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just guessing . But it's gonna be the most expensive option , probably and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Th the the {vocalsound} speech recognition um option is {disfmarker} it doesn't seem really very promising for us uh , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not something that we wanna t go into with this product . +User Interface: 'cause uh {disfmarker} The yeah the example that they're already using it for is with the coffee machine , where , basically , you can program a sample wi um {disfmarker} That when you say something it will give a response , and you program the response as well . Just uh clips of tha that you record yourself . So you can program your coffee-maker that when you say , good morning , to it it says , hello Rick , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , I mean , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: it would be one thing if it was speech recognition where you say something and it turns the T_V_ on like , turn the T_V_ on , and i turns {disfmarker} comes on , but it's not that . It just gives you a it just gives you a verbal response . +Marketing: Oh , it just gives an answer . +User Interface: So , yeah , I mean , like what's the point of saying , Hello remote , I mean , hello , how how are you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , then then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just if you are really lonely , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought I thought it was {disfmarker} when they said {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , if you're really lonely , it is it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought when they said , voice recognition , they meant um like , +Industrial Designer: Channel five . And then it switches on . +Marketing: channel five , and it will change . +User Interface: No , tha that w that w that would be more promising . +Marketing: Like you talk to it . Can I have channel five ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It it's just a remote that talks to you . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} I mean to certain cues . +Marketing: Oh , then {gap} forget about it . Oh right okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'll go back , maybe , to the previous slide and we can decide for each problem , what we should choose . So for the energy source , do we go for the battery or the {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah , I'm fine with the basic battery . +Project Manager: Basic battery . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's cheap , it's cheerful , it's worked , does work . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheaper option . Are you happy with that ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So we'll go for the battery . Then the case , do you want it flat or curved or sing or double curved ? +Project Manager: We were go we were going with the late with the the R_S_I_ rubber , weren't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , so we want it rub rubber double curved . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it will look like something like this . +Industrial Designer: Double ? +Project Manager: The double whopper , please . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so then if we use double curved case , then we have to u choose rubber push-buttons , +Project Manager: Yep , but {disfmarker} we're going for the simple buttons . +User Interface: So rubber rubber keys , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's fine ? +Project Manager: And it's cheapest all round , it sounds kinda funky , and we can also market it +Industrial Designer: P +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: as i 'cause we were s saying earl you were saying earlier in your research that um the the people have the R_ {disfmarker} people were getting the {disfmarker} complaining about R_S_I_ , and this is anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's another marketing point that we can use . +Marketing: Well the rubber push-buttons {gap} . Don't you have to move your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But anything is gonna have buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Even if it's a jog wheel , it's still repetitive . You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought they would give an option of flat buttons or a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You see , you can still get {disfmarker} it does you still get repetitive strain injury , whether you are pressing a button or pressing a flat bit of screen . +Industrial Designer: That they don't . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's the v it's the fact that you are pressing the same {disfmarker} doing the same movement . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: It's not actually what you are doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the fact that this this rubber i is actually used in these anti-R_S_I_ ps specific {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , the rubber's good . +User Interface: We're giving them a way to burn off steam , basically , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so they can sit there and go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that watching T_V_ should be that stressful . +Project Manager: And you know , yeah , you can fuzz it across the room and throw it at throw it at your children {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I guess T_V_ can be stressful , yeah , if you're watching sports . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , that's me done . +Project Manager: Okay , Gabriel . Let's um let's let's hear from you about the um it's {disfmarker} the interface . +User Interface: Alright . Alright . Yeah , some of what I have to say ties into what Catherine was just talking about . +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: Okay , so I'm continuing with the user interface uh topic . And so basically I consulted with our manufacturing division . It sounded like Catherine was also speaking with them . Uh I also took uh Reissa's marketing findings from the last meeting into consideration um , 'cause I think that's that's crucial as far as uh what keys we're going to inc inclu what buttons we are going to include and and how they're laid out . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh and so the manufacturing division uh sent some some samples of of uh interface components that we might be interested in using that have been used in other products , uh like the coffee machine . So I already mentioned the speech recognition interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess , we we basically vetoed that idea . It's it's pointless . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's just a sample sensor sample output . It would just be probably the most expensive part of our remote without any actual interesting functionality as far as operating the T_V_ . Uh so yeah , they they also give the uh {disfmarker} they they suggested the idea of using a spinning wheel like you use on the side of an M_P_ three player like iPod . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um so we've already addressed that and I think that would actually be worse for something like R_S_I_ I mean you got that thumb movement that you're constantly doing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um the other suggestion , +Marketing: That does get annoying . +User Interface: and I I have a feeling that we're interested in in something more general , but they suggested uh , you know , going i a little bit into a a niche , like either gearing our remote towards kids , where you could have {gap} lot of colours um , the keys might be you know , funny or or {gap} , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: or uh something for the elderly , where the remote's very large and the buttons are very large and there's only a few buttons . But you know we can we can discuss this , but it sounded like from our last meeting we really wanted something that was general , but done well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {gap} um {disfmarker} So , the key layout and design are really crucial . You don't want uh you want people to be able to quickly access the buttons that they use a lot without uh always pressing the wrong one um . And I didn't mention that we need a power button {gap} in our last {disfmarker} I can give you an example here of uh , {gap} good layout and bad layout +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh from our manufacturing department . So this would be an example of bad layout , where you have volume up and volume down , but they have a V_ on both of them , so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: it's sort of confusing for the user . Uh this is the example of the giant remote that's impossible to lose . +Project Manager: Do we have an uh example of a good one ? {gap} {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And for {disfmarker} something for kids . Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And so , yeah , I th I think my personal preferences of {disfmarker} we've all kind of talked about and seemed to be on the same page um . Uh so I was against the speech recognition and against going uh towards anything in in a niche sense . I think it should be more general . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I didn't I didn't think the spinning-wheel or the uh L_C_ display were were crucial for us . And , yeah , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay . Well let's um {disfmarker} so w what are our definite decisions on this then as a team ? The um {disfmarker} The the um the interface type we're going for {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we're {disfmarker} we're not gonna have any sort of display I think uh . +Project Manager: Just the simple s simple straight set of buttons . +User Interface: So , yeah , it's just gonna be just gonna be push-buttons . Um . I think we shall have a limited number of buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: ideally , I mean a a power , channel up , channel down , volume up , volume down , and a numerical keypad . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . And some sort of {disfmarker} it will either have a a lock button like we mentioned or or a cover or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it's to the point where we need to decide about that . +Project Manager: Okay , and we're not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well now that we've decided on our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Are we gonna hav hav {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} are we d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: have we decided on whether w we're gonna s supplement it with anything , you know , colours or particular gimmicky bits to it , we're not we're just gonna go for something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um it seems like we wouldn't wanna make it too busy and too sort of gaudy , +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} Yeah , I would say mayb maybe a couple of colours like uh like a black with with yellow and somewhere , like maybe the R_R_ can be yellow , or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . Okey-dokey . Yeah , I don't have any other questions on this . Let's move over to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I guess {vocalsound} the fact uh also that we are having a rubber case uh would prevent us from having the cover function that we thought of before . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: I mean , 'cause uh s so if we wanna have a lock of some sort it would have to be a button . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: But I think that should be {disfmarker} I mean um , I can speak with the button department , but uh I think that it should be easy to have a button that just prevents prevents the other uh the other buttons from operating . +Project Manager: Yeah , the button that just does that , yeah . +User Interface: So that should be simple . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: Right . Well , I'm just basically letting you know what's happening in the markets +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: and what the fashions are for next year . Um . So yes {vocalsound} , so from looking at this year's trends and fashions +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and also recent investigation that we've done in the remote control market , we have found that for the remote control market {vocalsound} these are like most important aspects like that we really need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we've already probably discussed . Um {vocalsound} the most important aspect is look and feel . So the remote control has to look and feel fancier than the ones that already {disfmarker} that we already have . So it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why should people buy this when they're already got a remote that came with the T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um second , uh it should be technologically innovative innovative . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's that mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technologically it should be like um work , basically , I guess . It should work . +User Interface: Well it should be it should be maybe cutting edge in some sense , +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean have something that's little more technologically advanced than what's on the market . +Marketing: That's new . +Project Manager: Okay , now the trouble is is we've already decided that we're going with the stuff that works already , that's cheap . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Actually , I mean , these first two points we've already sort of gone away from , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause our rubber one is not fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I mean it's different , but I wouldn't say like a rubber remote is fancy . If that's what people want then we {disfmarker} maybe we're going in the wrong direction . And it's it's not technologically innovative either . +Project Manager: Maybe we could um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , {gap} no loose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: That's why I was thinking , Bluetooth , 'cause if you like put up Bluetooth , and it's like a Bluetooth remote control , everybody's gonna like , oh , 'cause Bluetooth is the in thing nowadays , like it really is {vocalsound} , like people {disfmarker} and um when it comes to marketing like that's what people go for , they don't really care whether , you know , at the end of the day whether it works properly or not . +Project Manager: Of course , they do . +Marketing: Well , they do , but it's like it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One hundred per cent , that's your first thing , you go , oh I'm not gonna buy that , 'cause I dunno if it works or not . +Marketing: Yeah , but it looks good . If it looks good and it's {disfmarker} it can just be there for decoration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well , what do you two think about this ? +User Interface: So is is the advantage of Bluetooth that you can just like synchronise it with other +Marketing: But like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} I don't understand what m +User Interface: electronics ? +Marketing: You could always insert , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's basically what it allows you to do , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: and it {disfmarker} this is just gonna {gap} {disfmarker} all this is being used for is your television . +Marketing: Yeah , but , I mean , people like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would {disfmarker} that would mean you'd need a television that has Bluetooth in it , which no no television does , +Marketing: Well , if you're looking at {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you {gap} looking at something that's going to be bought by people , you have to make it new , you have to make it state of the art . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? That would mean we'd have to make a television as well . +Industrial Designer: Bluetooth would , for example , enable you , I think , to um um connect {disfmarker} for example you if you get a w call on your mobile phone , but your mobile phone is downstairs or something , you would get on your television you're being called by this person right now . Things like that . +Project Manager: No , that would be your telephone {gap} in with your television . +Industrial Designer: No i +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that wouldn't be the remote so much , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and i +Industrial Designer: No , but if you get Bluetooth on the remote , you'd be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , the televi the television would have to be a Bluetooth compatible , basically . +Industrial Designer: I with the television , yeah . {gap} I was just trying to find an advantage . Wha what w what advantage would you get for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Well , it doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: An and there is no there is no such thing +Marketing: Like it doesn't have to be , you know , Bluetooth , that was just an idea , but like it needs do something that , you know , is new . Whether it's a battery {disfmarker} it could be something really really minor , you know , like {disfmarker} but I think we are really keeping to what is already out there , and people've already seen it , people've already got it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: If we want something new , we need to move away from what we already have and um just go creative . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the kinetic mo provision of energy then . It's been done for watches , but I haven't seen that for remotes , yet . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} that's that's very good . +Marketing: And then you can market it . Never have to change a battery again . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Change the batteries ever again . +Project Manager: And and this is all tying in very nicely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The fact that it's made out of this rubber , we can throw it about . Th we should encourage people to throw their remote controls about , because it charges itself up by doing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , and in little characters you say , yeah , but not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , so can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah , by the squeezing it the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think , safety s +User Interface: Yeah , we can make the squeezing of the rubber be the be the generating {disfmarker} like the energy generator . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a great idea . Well done . +Marketing: Yeah . Third most important aspect {vocalsound} uh is it's easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} we're all about that . +Marketing: And I think we've all um worked that out . Um okay , in the fashion , how it's supposed to look . Next year's fashion i very much in fruit and vegetables are thm are like the theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} So next year people will be buying {vocalsound} , I found this really funny {vocalsound} , you know , strawberry shaped chairs , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so we could have keys that are like a b like a broccoli key and a uh and an avocado key on them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I wanna watch the pineapple channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rubber things . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and as it's rubber the feel which is in this year is spongy , so it's it's not quite spongy , but spongy , I would say is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well spongy , that's where {gap} . Yeah , we're we're ahead of the game there . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great for us . +Marketing: yeah , so we're in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And so personal {gap} what I was just saying like move away from the current remote controls uh like the look and the feel of the current ones and change the look and feel , while still keeping to the company's image , basically . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . I had to say {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we're moving in the right direction like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , yeah , no , this i this is good , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so through all that we've {disfmarker} we go we're {disfmarker} right , we're gonna go go back to um going with the kinetic thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: that's great , using the spongy rubber that we were talking about that anti-R_S_I_ you can {disfmarker} as you squeeze it you are not only therapeuticising yourself , you are charging the batteries {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: and um I'm not sure about the buttons being in the shape of fruit though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No vegetables . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know how we incorporate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We don't have to follow every trend , I guess . +Marketing: Maybe make it like fruity colours or something . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Some sort . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: The power button could be like a big apple or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , but Apple would sue you for that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , this is true {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They don they don't own {vocalsound} all images of apples . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} sued the Beatles so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , we'll make it a uh pomegranate , a big pomegranate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , okay , it seems like the only thing that we haven't really finally um agreed on is its image . Like , yeah , we're we're saying no we don't want it to be fruit and vegetables , but we dunno what it should be , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: or like are we going {disfmarker} yeah it looks slick , but what do what do we mean by slick sort of thing ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think , if it's rubber it needs to be +Project Manager: I mean you said earlier on i {vocalsound} it should be funky . +Marketing: different . I think , it's {disfmarker} it should be {disfmarker} I mean , what do you associate with rubber ? You know like +Project Manager: {vocalsound} L keep it clean , keep it clean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: really different colours basically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , sor I sorry , I used the wrong word , what do you associate with the mate the material {vocalsound} that material ? {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um like I'm just thinking bright colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright natural colours , nothing too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bright , but not too bright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bright , but too {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like no lime green or bright yellow or bright pink . Wanna make it different colours so {vocalsound} anybody can choo like like {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like the volume buttons should be the {disfmarker} all the same colour and the d and the the channel buttons should be one colour and stuff like that , do you mean ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . And on the back of it have the logo . +Project Manager: Okay , what {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Okay . Tha +User Interface: The one thing I'm wondering about , I hope that we're not going like too much down a gimmicky road of of having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean we {disfmarker} that's we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean if somebody go goes into the store they're gonna see like three or four normal remotes , and then a big spongy pink t tomato uh remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is the remote control tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean {vocalsound} what are ninety per cent of people gonna take ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can say in this country , you'll get , you know , lots of people wanting something really funky and cool . Like {disfmarker} and kids will be walking in with their parents saying , Mummy I wanna buy that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And uh parents will see the will see the pro as well , because it's um like kids won't break it , it's not breakable if you throw it around . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Especially with younger kids , you know they can pick it up and and {disfmarker} Yeah . The only thing is is that really small kids might chew on it , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it's it's gotta be chew proof . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'm gonna write that down . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: so it's rea it's quite +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's quite like um user friendly +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and also for different families , like like family use as well , so for little kids and for old ki like teenagers will like it , I think . Especially maybe younger girls if it's in pink they'll be like {gap} pink remote control for their room something . +Project Manager: So , what are you saying , maybe we should market it in different colours for different {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we could do like the pink range , the blue range , the green range , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So like you walk in , you're like , oh I like that remote control , because it's so bright , and then , and then the shop assistant comes up and says , oh what colour would you like ? and then they go like , oh I can choose the colour {vocalsound} wow . So it puts , I think , even the customer into more control over what they're buying instead of , you've got all colour it's either that or nothing . So they also get to pick . Well , personally I like walking into a shop and choosing a colour . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , that that seems to work well with for products like iPod , +Marketing: It's um {disfmarker} +User Interface: where , you know , you have a variety of colours , that people feel like they're customising it when they buy it , even , you know , just just by the fact of choosing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Although I'd be curious to see how many uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: D you've got the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You know , there are some colours that I wouldn I would never choose , and I would be curious how many people choose that colour . +Project Manager: Well that's that can be down to bit of market researching you know , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: if that's easy enough to find out what colours are more popular . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And produce less of the silly colours , maybe . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . Well um , we'll {disfmarker} alright let's {disfmarker} what we're gonna aim to get together by the next meeting then um {vocalsound} is from you Catherine wi your y y you know you're gonna be working on the the look and feel design . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um Gabriel , you're gonna be working on , you know {disfmarker} come up with the the user interface design . Then basically , you two are gonna be working together on this . You won't be going off to your separate offices . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and I think you are gonna get a chance to play with some clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Project Manager: I think , yeah , it's gonna {vocalsound} you know , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: come up ki you know , be ab for the next meeting be able to come in and show us some some i some physical ideas . 'Cause at the moment , uh you know , it's it's hard . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: We were kinda going , yeah , it's gotta feel nice , it's gotta look cool and that it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know now we can actually start , you know , s some sort of physical something or other . +User Interface: That sounds good . +Project Manager: Um and you're gonna be working on the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Evaluation . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} And I {vocalsound} will be uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: talking to the bosses , basically , and uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: f fielding off some more spam and uh +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: that's it really . Keeping things t well , uh you know , ho hopefully uh keeping things together . Um . Yeah , that's {disfmarker} This is this is uh good . So we know for definite we know we've we've now got some definite things going on . We definitely know how it's powered , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we definitely know that um it's gonna be a simple buttons , we're not gonna be going for the new technological chip on print expensive things , so we've we're keeping the costs down . It's this rubber casing that we can sell as um fun and funky . Don't know of any other remote controls that are made out of this stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: People , you know , people are saying , oh , standard stuff gives you repetitive strain injury , well this remote control is designed to do the complete opposite , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's supposed to fix it rather than cause it . Um . {gap} you know , we're gonna we we're gonna as a sort of extra something on it , you know what what extra things {disfmarker} are there extra things this product have ? We'll look into this lock key +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: facility , although whether or not it happens , {vocalsound} or is possible , I don't know , but something to look into . Okay . I think that's um {disfmarker} well done everybody . Anyone have any uh any questions , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: everyone know what they're doing ? 'Cause if you don't , you'll {disfmarker} I'm sure you'll soon get an e-mail about it . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I think we all know what we need to do now . +Marketing: S This gives you all the details ? +Project Manager: Okay . right well . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's um we're we've still couple of minutes until our meeting's due to finish . But um I got a note saying that you two who are gonna be working together {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so bef before you all disappear off just +User Interface: Okay , I'll stay in here . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hold hold fire . Um . +User Interface: Does the pay-raise immediately come into effect on our next pay-check , or is that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I think , it's uh , yeah , I think , it's gonna be par part more of a profit sharing on the product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we're buying fut I mean , we're getting futures in the company {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think i I think that's I think that's the way it's gonna happen at the moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we really have a incentive to make this remote work . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: I'd like to share in the coffee machine profits , because that's really doing well . +Project Manager: I want a share in the space rocket . Did you {gap} see that this k that this company {gap} we've made a spaceship . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This company has its its fingers in a lot of different pots . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , we're definitely not in the money making department . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Well I I did notice looking at {disfmarker} I mean , they told you that they wanted whatev our product to represent the the R_R_ brand and and to be immediately noticeable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , if you look like at the coffee maker at the at the corporate web page , it's not obvious . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: R_R_ . Well it is to us , because we we worked worked here for years and we use that coffee machine , but it's {disfmarker} doesn't have the colour scheme of of the of the company anywhere on it obviously it's just sil silver and black . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Project Manager: And the spaceship doesn't have the R_ {vocalsound} {gap} have a massive R_ and R_ down the side of it +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} I still want one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um I've just had a sign flashing up saying , finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Right , well , I guess that's us . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not telling {disfmarker} it's not saying do anything in particular just yet . So maybe you should go back to your own offices . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Are we taking these off ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it says you two {disfmarker} +","Summary: + +In a meeting among team members from Marketing, Project Management, User Interface, and Industrial Design, the group discusses their next steps for creating a user-friendly TV remote. They opt for a kinetic energy source to avoid battery changes, decide on a rubber case to combat repetitive strain injury, and agree to make the remote squeezable for ergonomics and durability. The idea of integrating Bluetooth is considered but dismissed as not all televisions are Bluetooth compatible. They briefly discuss marketing strategies, including making the remote available in different colors for customer customization, and contemplate how new features can be innovative while still associating with the company's brand. The team concludes by assigning tasks for the next meeting, where they plan to present more tangible design ideas." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay everyone's ready . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: So we are here for uh for uh functional design . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay ? So we are here for the functional design meeting mm {vocalsound} so first I will show the agenda so we will uh I will take notes during this meeting so I will try to summarise it and put that summary in the shared folder if you want to look at it afterwards +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so then uh each of you will uh lead a presentation on the task that has been required last time so user requirement specification , technical function design and working design . Then I will uh present you some new project requirements I received from uh the management board . Then we will take uh the decision on on the remote control uh needed functions and then I will assign you the task for the next part of the meeting . Of the {disfmarker} of the process . So uh who want to start the the presentation of what they did ? +Industrial Designer: F do you want to start ? +User Interface: Make a start yeah . +Project Manager: You can start . +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cable , camera . +Project Manager: You have uh PowerPoint ? +User Interface: Should be in my {disfmarker} in their folder no ? +Project Manager: Ah yeah maybe there . Okay . +User Interface: Up . +Project Manager: Who are you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um at three I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Ouch . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have a technical problem uh . +User Interface: Do we think w s in the {disfmarker} in the wrong folder maybe ? {vocalsound} It is possible . +Project Manager: You put it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: It was somewhere in something like this . I don't remember the name actually must be something like messenger AMI or something . +Industrial Designer: What do you have in short cut ? +User Interface: Go up . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +User Interface: Yeah go up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Again . No . Go back . +Project Manager: You have no {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh maybe messenger AMI . Messenger . +Project Manager: Over . Okay . +User Interface: No . There is nothing . +Project Manager: There's no {disfmarker} We have a technical problem . +User Interface: Let's go and check . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll go and check . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , could you just describe by hand ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: With the the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: If you remember yeah +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh . Basically {vocalsound} what we want here is a remote control right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So um the question well first of all what to control . So {vocalsound} most people want to have a a remote for their hi-fi and T_V_ and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} but other people want th also remotes for {vocalsound} controlling uh and toys like robotic pets and little robots and stuff +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and other people also want to have remotes for controlling um whole house . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , so there's a project I think called X_ house or something like that that does that , uh you can integrate your remote with uh computers stuff . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: there is one {disfmarker} that is one thing . The other is the the finder feature yeah by whistling or whatever . Uh if you have the finder feature then you can also have +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: uh at the same time as {disfmarker} and general voice commands if you want yeah . {vocalsound} So I think it should be a package in that case . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so the user interface will consist of two parts . {vocalsound} One is the voice command part and on one is the actual buttons part . {vocalsound} Uh and th the buttons part would be uh a set of buttons for choosing devices , a set of buttons for special navigation in space , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a set of buttons for {vocalsound} linear access of medium and a set of buttons for random access . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by linear access then ? +User Interface: Like a video tape goes forward , backwards , uh fast and stuff yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay so special navigation , linear access , random access +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and there's a fourth one no ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: So the better now for special navigation ? +User Interface: Yeah . For special navigation for example you might have a T_V_ in the menu and you going to change yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . Then linear access +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: then random access . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah and also parameter changing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah parameter okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So if there are common parameters maybe we should put special buttons for that um +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or maybe we could have everything uh generic but uh there are a lot of uh remotes on the market right now and {vocalsound} basically this is most of the {disfmarker} almost everybody has this stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay and and voice command did you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Voice command w we could specify anything . We could assign any button {disfmarker} a command to any button , if we have enough processing power , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: I guess so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh that close your investigations ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah I think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Not so far . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have a look at the user requirements with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um I dunno if you can open the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno if I can open it . Maybe you can s +Marketing: uh m is not here . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh in {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Messenger no ? +Marketing: No . In document {gap} . Mm computer yeah . +Project Manager: In which folder ? +User Interface: Where did you put it ? +Marketing: Here . Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Short-cut to AMI shared folder ? +User Interface: {gap} mm . +Marketing: But it's not {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: Maybe you can send it to me by email . Just to participant one . At AMI . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I can do that . +Project Manager: I will try to show it to everyone , that would be more comfortable . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: You send it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's participant one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is this email . +User Interface: I'm designing the user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . You can uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So maybe I can switch slides when you {disfmarker} whenever you ask , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that will be more convenient . So okay , functional requirements . +Marketing: Okay so you can {disfmarker} you can go . Okay so {vocalsound} in our usability lab we observed the remote control use among one hundred subjects +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and the subjects also filled a questionnaire +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? And here I have the results so you can see that um seventy five per cent of users find most remote controls ugly so we have to find something to make them more {vocalsound} more nice , more kind . Eighty per cents of users would spend more money when the remote control would look fancy . {vocalsound} Eighty hundred per cent of users would spend more money when the remote control would look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} it's not good . {vocalsound} So okay . +Project Manager: We can just keep doing that ? +Marketing: So it's not in theory {disfmarker} but I I can I can say yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fifty f uh seventy five per cent of users say they s zap a lot . So mm {vocalsound} we have to have a remote control uh very um {vocalsound} out for that . {vocalsound} Uh the buttons have {disfmarker} are to be um uh uh like you say resist resisting to to shocks . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and fifty per cents of users say they only use uh {vocalsound} ten per cents of but of the buttons in the {disfmarker} in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So all the buttons we we have to put are {disfmarker} have to to have um a use a real use +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and not only or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so fewer buttons maybe would be good ? +Marketing: Yeah . F not many buttons , and uh and uh uh u useable buttons {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But what kind of remote controls did you look at ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: What kind of task was it ? It was a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh {vocalsound} most for most is T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but in fact we {disfmarker} it it seems that we are going to make a T_V_ remote control according to new requirements I received from the management +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: bo I will present them in the following . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Ah ! Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay you can go so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So there are other frustrations expressed by users , so they said uh they lost uh often the remote control in in the room so they want to have a way to {vocalsound} to +Project Manager: Yeah . To find it . +Marketing: to find it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and um lot of the time they {disfmarker} it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they want something s really very simple and uh easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh remote controls are bad for +Project Manager: What is her other side ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Other side yeah , yo wa your wrist +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It i can become painful you can have tendonditis . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I did not knew that . +User Interface: If you also {gap} up on a computer in a strange position . +Project Manager: Okay so you {disfmarker} we have to make it uh more ergonomic yeah . +User Interface: Ergonomic . But uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Have to say ha ha . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's your job {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Uh sorry {vocalsound} got a message from Microsoft . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um before that I I have some some {vocalsound} some thing {vocalsound} uh to say before um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We know that uh the user use uh a lot their um remote control um to to change channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um to to change uh volume selection of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh and not uh a lot for setting {disfmarker} for setting the the channels and uh thing things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's better to put uh uh uh something very easy to set and uh and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . This function should be very uh accessible . +Marketing: Very accessible yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . This is the main function okay . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} So then we asked some questions to them +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and um we asked this question if they prefer an L_C_D_ screen or on their remultific function remotes control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if they mm pay more for speech recognition in remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can go {vocalsound} we have here the results of +User Interface: The first question . +Marketing: of the questions . So you know that um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the younger it's very important +Project Manager: To have L_C_D_ and voice . +Marketing: to have the s yes and speech recognition . And uh and the others is not so important but uh we know that uh uh people between fifteen and twenty five are people who watch a lot T_V_ and uh who who wh can use a lot this uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So maybe we we can have a speech recognition in . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe this this is important . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Moreover th maybe those uh like those teenager customer could advice their parents to buy this equipment and so we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have to take care of that point of view I think or so . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay and if there is th the conclusion now . So as we say before , I think uh um a remote control lightening in the dark it's it's a good thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh not to many mud buttons like we we said before , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: e easy to use uh a way to find it easily in the room and uh uh resistant to to shock and to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} An I s no , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay these are the user requi +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno if you see something else important or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking of some thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} We want to have a {disfmarker} no , I don't know if this is a good idea . We want to have a a general remote control for everything . +Project Manager: No no no . We {disfmarker} w it seems that we no want to have a T_V_ remote control . From the management board I receive an email . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cos it would be costly uh and and also it it would take more time to develop to have a a general generic remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it's not true I think . The the second claim that you put . +Industrial Designer: No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That it would be too long to develop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that should be the same . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Because I received that email from management board and they seems to tell that that if we want to be on the market as early as possible we should uh focus on T_V_ more where it seems that the market is more important . So maybe it's a good decision . I dunno . What's your opinion ? +User Interface: I have uh I've no idea I mean I should know a bit more about how fast we can uh design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Finish tonight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But basically yeah maybe I can continue with my presentation , it would be al you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we have some technical problem or so . So I'm just going to describe briefly what we do in the remote control . +Project Manager: Maybe you can go to the whiteboard if you have some drawings to do +Industrial Designer: If fact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Do I have {disfmarker} oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now I have enough cables . +User Interface: Like a {disfmarker} you feel a bit like a dog with this stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay so I'm just going to describe {disfmarker} in fact for for a remote control this is quite easy . We just have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry , I'm going {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are you okay ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like that . I'm just going to describe . Basically we have a a battery a power supply here . After that we just have um user interface . Let's say that um something like that , which could be um a L_C_D_ let's say or um an array of push button , something like that . Push button or a L_C_D_ . After that we we feed that into um uh an electronic chip . So I say U_C_ and I feed that to uh L_E_D_ which is uh infrared {disfmarker} um which is a an infrared um component . And so what we {disfmarker} for for myself this {disfmarker} for for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: U_C_ is the central unit ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} this just a chip which does all the um numerical +Project Manager: Computation . +Industrial Designer: numerical computation according to your display . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And so for us uh this is quite easy . We just need to take {disfmarker} to define what we want to do when the user interface um wants something and after that we just do the coding to s and send that to to to the {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} to the television . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay so this is quite easy . There is not that much constraints . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um we just have to define the processing power that we need uh especially if we want to do some uh speech recognition , in that case that mean that we are going to use more for simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} This will {disfmarker} think this will take more time to develop also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course of course . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um but for a standard one this is really easy . It's a question of one month and so on s +User Interface: Soon . +Project Manager: To have a {disfmarker} you s you speak about with voi voice control ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no , +Project Manager: Standard button one . +Industrial Designer: I say {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} standard uh standard remote control takes maybe uh one month to to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . So the only time problem is the sp voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So do you have any idea of how long it would take to have voice recognition now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ten years . +Industrial Designer: I would say {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I would say uh about eight months to have the first results . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so i it's a bit long yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: One month for the standard one with button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Even if we have a L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah even . I mean that this is really standard devices now . Um eight . For uh speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . Okay so we can take this into account . So who think it would be good to go for uh like speech recognition ? +User Interface: But we don't have time to market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it will . +Industrial Designer: And also {disfmarker} how much uh I think +User Interface: I think we should contact management . +Industrial Designer: during the kickoff meeting you say that we we shouldn't {disfmarker} we shouldn't go up to twelve point five Euro per unit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Euros . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so how many units should we sell to have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well each unit is is sell uh twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but how many {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: How muc how much do you get {disfmarker} how much do you {disfmarker} if you buy one million units h no , one hundred thousand units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Eh chips . We're gonna need chips right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . How much will it cost for one hundred thousand ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Usually this is less tha at two dollars per chip . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have any idea for a powerful one that has uh good enough for do speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: It seems that that we want to sell like four million units from the first meeting . +User Interface: No it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . Four million . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we can uh we can look at the new requirement I receive from the management board and discus discuss all function we want to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um I just had a question uh do you want to continue with your presenta ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I I will continue . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well ask your question if you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um you say that I don't remember by heart but thirty per cent +Marketing: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: of the tested people say that's it's quite difficult to to to use the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do they say that this is difficult but for the same reason or do they have other reason ? To to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: maybe to keep in mind maybe to access to that menu you should do something like that . +Marketing: Would j Uh {vocalsound} yeah w I I think they they say that it's uh difficult to learn how to use it but i when you know how to use it , it's it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . It's not intuitive first . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah maybe and what about if we design a remote control which can be configure as you want ? You say that I want , I have six button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mh-hmm . A a lot of people are uh {disfmarker} if you have the L_C_D_ screen if you can do it completely the way you want because the buttons also look the way you want them +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , but also it seems that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but it will be hard to configure I mean imagine i uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's really something for the expert user . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean there are markets and markets . I think the young people are th uh are uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christine here said uh you have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} uh it is yeah . {vocalsound} So for our young people uh it will be cool , they can be able to use it . Th maybe their parents will not but they will configure it . I guess . I don't know if there is study about that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe it would be more complex to configure it to be simple {vocalsound} than creating a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And there are {disfmarker} another thing is that if we make something that's simple and easy to use that's bas to use immediately that means that it will be exactly the same as everything else . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: All right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise , if it's different then of course everybody has {disfmarker} somebody has to learn to use it first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But also we we see that that most people find it {disfmarker} find remote controls too complex because they have too many buttons and they mainly use only channels and volume buttons . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So we may just uh make a very easy to use remote control with mainly those buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and maybe also um some lightning stuff too because most people find also hard to to find the remote control . Losed lose it etcetera . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: These {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} these two points are the main frustrations so maybe if we design something very simple and easy to uh find when lost it will uh add uh a serious competitive advantage without making something too complex and too long to develop . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So but le let us see first the new requirement . So we don't have to {disfmarker} so this this uh is uh is um in the this is in the same direction as we were speaking so we don't have to make a very complex remote controls to access teletext and stuff like that {disfmarker} +User Interface: But teletext is just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah but then you have to {disfmarker} you have to define the buttons to surf amongst pages and stuff . +User Interface: You you just write the {disfmarker} write the numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well {disfmarker} +User Interface: So will you add with the channel keys , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . So anyway we don't have to include this feature because it's it's not used any more by users , +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they prefer to s +User Interface: I am . I'm sure that uh it don't like but uh I don't see just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . I dunno . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: If i one button is still one more button . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to make it very simple we have to reduce number of buttons compared to th to our competitors . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well anyway I have this point . We can discuss . Also um {disfmarker} so as as I told before uh it would be better if it's only for the T_V_ um because we want to be quick on on the market . And then also we have to make very uh uh clear that this uh this remote control is is part of of our products and show our corporate uh logo and and colours on the {disfmarker} on the design as well so that uh they identify it as one of our product . So this is the the key point . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So before uh finishing we can uh define uh what would be the characteristic of the {disfmarker} o th of the control {disfmarker} of the remote control and which button do we need which function do we want etcetera . +User Interface: Capital . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So do you um so so from from the the Marketing Expert I think a key aspect is the easy to use aspect , it should be very simple and most button are never used +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: only ten per cent of the button are are used often so I think we have to do something very simple and I think we all agree on that point , no ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well if it is going to be just a T_V_ remote control it is going to be very simple . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . So yeah the key point here is simple . Maybe . {vocalsound} So few buttons , channel , volume control and what el what function do you see in addition to that ? +User Interface: Well if it's going to be as simple as possible then just have the remote control , there is no other function that I can see +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: really . +Project Manager: Maybe switch T_V_ on and off {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no you want to keep television on so that the advertising can {disfmarker} revenue can come back to us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Volume , maybe a mute button , and then on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And that's all ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I know that som you say that many people are doing plenty of {disfmarker} a lot of zapping . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know tha I discovered that when I did a quick look , uh they do now som they do something which is quite nice now , +User Interface: It's a memory , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you have a button , you you press it , and this is uh the previous channel which has come back . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah this is cool . Maybe we can include that also . Previous previous channel button . So we have like channel button , the previous channel button , the volume button , plus a mute button , and uh just the the traditional on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and of course the channel changing buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I I talk about that , yeah ? +User Interface: How should they how should we implement that ? Because uh could be numerical only or could be also incremental . +Project Manager: Yeah . Incremental definitely because zapping you you switch them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that we can do something like that . This is uh incremental , but once you press it for a long time , you go five by five . +Project Manager: We go faster ? +Industrial Designer: To go fa to go faster . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . It's an interesting idea , that if you press it for a long time it does something else , in general . So if you you have your ten buttons for the {disfmarker} for the numeric the numerical buttons and you have {disfmarker} instead of having just one memory +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you have if you press them for a long time {disfmarker} No . Doesn't work {vocalsound} does it . +Project Manager: Maybe we should have also a digit button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we should have a complete keyboard and just type console commands . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Change channel to eight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe we have also to have digits or only incremental . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno bec because if you have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well if it's useful like if if you want to change between three channels for example then you h you cannot {disfmarker} you cannot cannot work with just memory being incremental . +Project Manager: Uh . Yeah . Because you have your previous channel button if you have incremental only it's not uh it isn't worth it because the previous channel is eith either minus one or plus one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we need also digits . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we we can make very obvious the channel and volume button button and smaller button down there with the the digits . +User Interface: Yeah when you zap usually you will have to press the same button all the time {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or we can do something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can design the remote control to have access . You know some remote control have uh protection +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so you you y +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hey I just thought this thing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: there is a {disfmarker} I mean you know there is are some {gap} with a wheel like this . Instead of having the up down buttons for uh you can have the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a kind of joystick . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can have a wheel for incremental . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have a wheel for incremental , have the digits uh on the lower side that can be closed so as you say protected , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh yeah I think this is the basi +User Interface: On the lower side I think it {disfmarker} you have to turn it . +Project Manager: And do we {disfmarker} do we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: No ? If we do that . +Industrial Designer: Or a {disfmarker} or a ball , yeah , not a a wheel but a ball , and you say uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , a wheel is better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say the wheel is better . +User Interface: Because of that {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What is the expert of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The channels change one by one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you have to the user has to like to should feel the the the discrete sense a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well also we have to decide uh so it should be lightening in the dark I think because most people lost their remote control . +Industrial Designer: 'S quite {disfmarker} it's quite easy we do that w with back light on the {disfmarker} on the wheel . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Even if i L_E_D_ uh or a if if it's the L_C_D_ feature uh +Industrial Designer: A blue {disfmarker} a blue L_E_D_ and we sell that um . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: whatever , yeah . +Project Manager: and do we put an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because it was important for young customers if you remember . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's only put on if cou have multi function . If you do not multi function then there is no p point in having L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just increase the cost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user does not have an advantage really . +Project Manager: So no L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And so no speech as well because it w it would delay too much the development process +User Interface: Well if it's going to delay yeah +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} it will be cool . It would . Because a user could say C_N_N_ for example and it would go C_N_N_ . Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . That would be cool . But eight months is really long +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Maybe we can just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ten years {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um I I will uh {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} so I we will move to next meeting so in {disfmarker} after the lunch break uh here are the individual uh action uh you are required to do +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but you will be uh recalled to the actions by uh email I think but you can take notes if you {disfmarker} if you want but well the instruction will be sent . So thank you for uh your suggestion +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I I will make a summary of that meeting that I will put in the shared folder you can't see {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh and then you will um you will be able to to see what has been uh has been said on on this meeting and and what has been decided . Uh maybe for next meeting uh send me your presentation before by email so that we can see them uh altogether . That would be easier . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: What is the folder that you put yours in ? And did it it did work ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: No it did not work . +Marketing: No no . +Project Manager: She send it to me by email . +User Interface: Ah yeah . Mm . +Marketing: I dunno , I dunno it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe this is better , to send it by email . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay what is your email ? +Project Manager: So yeah I I'm {disfmarker} it's in the first uh email so I'm participant one at AMI +User Interface: At participant one . Okay . +Project Manager: uh where is that , it's here . Participant one at AMI . {vocalsound} Okay . So see you after lunch break . +User Interface: Well during lunch break actually . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay thank you . +User Interface: So next time we should have a fight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How about uh {gap} management or something . Who happens to be your friend . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +","The transcript provided appears to be a record of an internal meeting involving the team of an industrial design project, consisting of a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface Designer, and a Marketing representative. The meeting discussion centers around the functional design of a remote control. Throughout the meeting, there are mentions of technical issues with presentations and project document access, emphasizing the need for better coordination of shared materials. + +The Project Manager initiates the gathering with an agenda overview, highlighting the intent to review user requirement specifications, technical function designs, and working designs. They also note new project requirements received from the management board, and the decision-making process for the remote control's functionalities. The interaction is somewhat fragmented, with inaudible or unclear parts marked variously as {vocalsound}, {disfmarker}, or {gap}. + +At one stage, the User Interface Designer begins discussing the product's design features, mentioning a combined package that includes voice commands and physical buttons. They cover the demands for control over different devices — ranging from hi-fi systems and TVs to robotic pets and home automation. They hint at consumer interest in features like a finder function, and voice command customization if the processing power allows. + +Technical problems arise when the User Interface Designer attempts to access their PowerPoint presentation, leading to some back-and-forth conversations about locating the correct folder. Eventually, the team resorts to describing things verbally, and the Industrial Designer improvises with a whiteboard. + +Marketing insights reveal that a majority of consumers find most remote controls unattractive and are willing to pay more for aesthetically pleasing designs. Issues like the difficulty of finding lost remotes, complex learning curves, and potential ergonomic impacts such as wrist pain from extended use are voiced. The discussion suggests that simplicity, user-friendliness, and durability are important consumer desires, and the majority of users utilize only a small portion of the available buttons. + +The team debates the possibility of integrating an LCD screen or voice recognition into the remote. However, concerns about increasing complexity, extended development timeframes, and higher costs guide the decision toward a simpler design. Consensus trends towards focusing solely on functionality for TV control, de-prioritizing generalized multi-device compatibility, and omitting features like teletext. + +Suggestions for the design include a small number of core buttons (such as for channels and volume), the possibility of a previous channel button, digit buttons for direct channel access, and backlighting for visibility in the dark. The conversation offers an incremental channel changing wheel, which could be quick when pressed longer. The remote might also have a protected digit area and be identifiable by the company's corporate colors and logo for brand recognition. + +The meeting is an exercise in multidisciplinary collaboration, illustrating how differing perspectives can influence product design outcomes. Communication challenges, the need for clear documentation, and user-centered design principles are apparent throughout the session. Despite technical hiccups and the incomplete nature of some discussions, the team roughly sketches an idea for a remote control offering a balance of usability and aesthetic appeal, targeted primarily at the TV market. + +The Project Manager concludes with tasks for the next session and emphasizes the importance of sharing presentations via email to avoid technical difficulties. The team decides to revisit the ideas after a lunch break, with the User Interface Designer jesting about having a fight with the management, suggesting a common theme in project work of tensions between creative desires and pragmatic constraints." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good . +Industrial Designer: Beep . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: So well uh +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: welcome everyone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um as you may have noticed I uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: created separate folders because it was uh tending to get a little busy in our uh shared project documents uh folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't know if everybody uh put their own uh documents in the right folder , which is for now the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: That's new one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We didn't make any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , we should save that one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I'll move this one . +User Interface: Didn't we just do that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , save in the folder . Save as project . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh no , this is just one big document , so you can leave that wherever it is . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we have a evaluation left here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Agenda . +Project Manager: Well not main documents this time . Oh uh yes . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: I have it open myself I guess . Um well the detailed design meeting {disfmarker} Huh ? We're finally getting somewhere hopefully . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um what are we going to do ? I've opened it already . Um I'm still going to take some minutes , and if I'm right , you two are going to give a prototype presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Aren't you ? +User Interface: We could . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , you are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh m did you do something with evaluation criteria ? +Marketing: Yep . Yep . +Project Manager: Good . And we have a correct agenda . And uh then we have to look at something which is less nice , the finance uh aspect , whether we can afford what we have designed , +User Interface: Oops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and if we can we can uh commence the final part which is the production or project evaluation , how did we work together and what are the results , and how happy are we with those . Okay , well finance uh will be later . Now I'd like to give the word to you two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: Get up stand up . {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we made a prototype . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: We first start with the overall uh {disfmarker} This is about the total remote control . +Industrial Designer: View . +User Interface: We made it green . +Industrial Designer: Just example colour , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh there's one of the colours we would like to uh see in our prototype . +User Interface: It's a fresh colour . And uh the screen light blue . Oh uh this the scroll button and the microphone on the on the sides here under . And the R_ and R_ logo , it just says R_ and R_ now , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay ? +User Interface: Any questions so far ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Big microphone . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just uh just an idea about how to m th that could also be possible . +Marketing: Oh okay . That's the place where it's going to be , not the size . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh well , it's an idea in a {disfmarker} so . +User Interface: Oh y you {disfmarker} perhaps you should make it a bit big , so people know it's there and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do not forget it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To function it it doesn't really have to be sm uh big of course . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Of course . +Industrial Designer: The microphone could be just a minor uh hole uh on the left uh button . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um +Marketing: Small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we also made some uh ideas about how uh the options menu would work . Uh using the scroll button on sides uh y uh I uh um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You push the scroll button +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you push the scroll button +User Interface: and it's claps out if there's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a drop down menu or a pull out menu comes out and uh you get uh you get the options uh becoming available . For example uh T_V_ settings , uh remote settings , et cetera . +User Interface: Remote settings , et cetera . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh you can scroll down too with the scroll uh button , uh as you can see {disfmarker} oh , it's here , just push it in , uh the menu comes out like this and uh i it all becomes visible . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And you could also touch it so that it comes out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's c +User Interface: and and use the the the scroll thing as a {disfmarker} with your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Indeed . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um it's also uh nice to see that um we made a small uh menu , uh the options menu uh becoming available when pressing the uh scroll uh button , and the opportunity to use the teletext , whi which is used uh {disfmarker} which should still be used and we think that it's uh very handy to put it uh not uh under the options menu , but in uh {disfmarker} Yes . In an apart uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So a separate button for for text , +Industrial Designer: In a separate button , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Perhaps we should use the teletext sign in p yeah . +Industrial Designer: A sign , yeah , just like {disfmarker} Okay , indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Forgot . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can uh modify that later . Okay . Would you like to make any comments about next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , this is the total interface uh that f of the L_C_D_ screen . Uh the numbers , which is pretty straight forward . We put ano an an extra button in . We can erase it , but {disfmarker} It's the button where you can switch channels . {gap} just when you are one and you go to two , you can {disfmarker} or if you go to five , you can go back to one with that button . Yeah , that one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Previous page , yeah , indeed . +User Interface: It has a name . And uh uh we put that in , +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +User Interface: I thought it would be handy there . Uh this the one number or two numbers button . Below that , the page and the sound . And uh in the middle the the mute . Uh battery indicator . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's quite large . +User Interface: It's {vocalsound} it's a bit big . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the on off uh knop , the stand by uh knop . Or at least it should look like it . And the options uh of teletext . +Industrial Designer: Okay . You can see very clearly now that the uh teletext and options menu isn't uh taking uh much uh {disfmarker} uh it's taking much part of the screen , so it's very uh {disfmarker} when you uh {vocalsound} when you use it , doesn't uh become irritating to see . +User Interface: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you put it on the top you always get see the the options menu . 'Cause people regularly uh read from left top to right down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well this about it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . Looks good . +User Interface: I will put it back on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the nice green . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I just missed when I was typing {disfmarker} The R_R_ stands for ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's the logo of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Logo , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . It's th th right now it's only R_ R_ , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Full screen . +Project Manager: I would have recognised it if it were the right colours of course . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shit . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , the evaluation criteria , +User Interface: Oh full screen , yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Evaluation . 'Kay , my task was this time to put up a questionnaire by which we can evaluate the design of the remote control by the questions we {gap} {disfmarker} requirements from the {disfmarker} of the users . My name , my job , okay . +Industrial Designer: My name , my job . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods . Questionnaire with seven point scale from one to seven , from true to false , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: like question , is remote big enough , we can say it's true or it's false by steps . One means absolutely not true , seven {gap} {disfmarker} means true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The three important things of refa {vocalsound} {gap} are uh from th of this year is {disfmarker} are , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you used the PowerPoint {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: is the remote control fancy enough , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: is it in innovative enough , and is it easy enough to use . And then evaluation itself . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: First question . Is the design fancy enough ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project Manager , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Well it's {disfmarker} looks fancy , especially with the green colour . And the the curves which we decided , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Only what happened to the single curve we spoke about last meeting ? +User Interface: It uh {disfmarker} oh it's in the background . Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now uh the single curved idea was uh {disfmarker} Yeah , okay , you ge um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y you should make uh a sideways uh view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The sideways view , uh that that that ma +User Interface: It will be , I guess . Oh , we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ho not that pen . {vocalsound} Not that pen . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: g {vocalsound} I would {vocalsound} {disfmarker} smart board . +Project Manager: it might work one time , huh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Suppose so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh can I draw here or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think . +User Interface: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , you can . +User Interface: So it would be uh something like this from the side , but with a bit of uh curve here , +Industrial Designer: it works . +User Interface: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the single curve indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . So if you v flip it like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Here's {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's not very {disfmarker} i it's also uh very handy if you make a side curve way to make the the remote control very thin at the bottom uh at a bottom at a bottom . Uh make it uh rather thick on the top , because uh on the top it has uh the screen , which takes uh in some uh space , and the batteries can be located over there , +User Interface: Yeah . So you just make the back of this part a bit bigger , +Industrial Designer: so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that it lays a bit o +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Isn't going to be a little bit heavy at the top ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a bit of problem maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: With two batteries , the whole print plate and t and top , and if you're holding it quite a lot I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I think yeah , the battery should be in here , because it's just nothing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , indeed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to rate uh these things now ? +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise I think i +Marketing: Yeah , we have to rate . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is it fancy enough ? True is one , false is seven . So fancy enough means , does it comes to the younger people and the elder people . +User Interface: I think it does . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +User Interface: I if you don't make it green , then the elder people won't won't like it . +Industrial Designer: It's pretty fancy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I have to agree , all the colour colours don don doesn't matter that m that much now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} you get th +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's only design . +User Interface: I think it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the design . +Project Manager: Well I think uh especially because of the microphone and the L_C_D_ screen also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know whether older people will use it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Very new thing . Well {disfmarker} Fancy {gap} the old people will . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it a two or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: A two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} It's true , it's a one . {vocalsound} Very fancy . +User Interface: Huh ? Alright , it's a one . {vocalsound} Oh it's a one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's a two . {vocalsound} Little bit strange we have to judge that ourselves , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I n used {disfmarker} I wouldn I should use that one , but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's a one uh {disfmarker} Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , no it's two ? True is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Very true , is it very true or isn't that true ? +Project Manager: Well I'd say two on a scale {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they think it's very true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very true , because we designed it to be very fancy , +Marketing: Yeah , I think two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fancy , I think . +User Interface: We should perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have you ever seen a remote control like this ? +Project Manager: No , okay well , that's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , okay , +User Interface: That not . +Industrial Designer: so so it's fancy . +Marketing: That's fancy enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , one two . +Marketing: Then ? +Project Manager: That doesn't matter that much , so make it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's give it a two . Is it innovative ? +User Interface: I think it is , +Marketing: Enough . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: because it has an L_C_D_ screen , a mi microphone . +Project Manager: m +Industrial Designer: And uh uh the scroll is rubber , +User Interface: It's from rubber . +Marketing: We have for the search function . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so s Eno enough to {gap} I think . +Marketing: The scroller a bit {disfmarker} I think it's it's a one yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a one I think . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: True . Also huh uh-huh {disfmarker} the buttons , are they easy to find ? That was a big requirement of the old people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , because they're right on your screen . So you can use the b the the arrows . They're right on your screen , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: so I don't know where you'd search . +Industrial Designer: With the ones {gap} +Marketing: Are all the buttons easy to find ? Not only this buttons , all the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I think they are . The options are it {disfmarker} uh little bit harder , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you touch the options then it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Take a harder look , yeah , sure . +Marketing: I think th it's +Industrial Designer: It's easier than the regular uh remote control . +Marketing: easy t +Project Manager: Yeah , and you use these buttons the most , +Marketing: Yeah , I think this is easy now . I think th I think the options buttons are not the the easiest way to to +Project Manager: huh ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No they're not , but they're they're they are easy to find . +Marketing: to handle . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are a lot easier to find than uh th than on the regular remote controls +Marketing: I would rate it a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: where you have to uh find out what {disfmarker} which sign or icon means on uh every button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , that's true , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So you have t you have to use the the the manual to understand most {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's that's vantage of L_C_D_ screen , you can have text . +Project Manager: So which number are we going to fill in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I would say yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh it's a two , at least . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: A two , yeah ? +User Interface: you can make it a two . +Project Manager: Two , three and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not perfect , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: A three ? +Project Manager: Okay , so we have two , two , three . +Industrial Designer: And why is that ? +Marketing: I personally think , because I d I don't think i maybe it's easy to use , it has to be easy to find right away . I I think if you have the button at the right , I don't think you can find the option button that easy . +User Interface: Yeah , but you don't have t have to use the button on the right . You can touch it . +Marketing: You can touch it . +User Interface: Yeah . You you can touch options . +Industrial Designer: It said bo both the options . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but you have y then you have here s written option on here , the teletext button , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , then okay , good . Then I think also two , yeah . +User Interface: You can touch options +Project Manager: A two , okay , +User Interface: and it's comes out . +Project Manager: because we have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two , a two . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The uh the um {disfmarker} Below . +Project Manager: It's the box below it , +Industrial Designer: Uh the next question the next question . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Otherwise we have two results in one question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's different . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , next question . +Marketing: It's easy to use , as well for younger as elderl elderly people . +User Interface: For young people I think it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Young means sixteen to forty years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And elderly from forty eight to their death . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it's the most useful uh remote control ever to be manufactured . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In the entire mankind . +Project Manager: Okay , you're very enthusiastic about your own design , +Marketing: Also if you're sixty years old {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but because it has the regular uh controls , li uh as you can see in the screen now , and uh you don't have all the other options uh always uh on your screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's t I think it's really easy to use . You want these options to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Also +Project Manager: As well for the for the older people ? +Industrial Designer: Uh sure . +Marketing: Yeah , as well as your {disfmarker} if you're fif sixty years old , you're holding one of those things in your hand {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah , but they they don't want the uh extra options , right ? +Marketing: No , but we're going to th make this f for a all kind of people , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And would it be easy for them to use the speech recognition ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Marketing: so it it it has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: but so they could {disfmarker} Uh I think it is . If they read a manual . +Project Manager: Because that might {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you read the manual , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps that is one of the most uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} always . +Project Manager: M maybe that's the most user friendly and easy to use . +User Interface: Because it it's not it's not it's it's not uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Uh because a lot of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You say you say uh record to to the to the speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Channel one , channel four , yeah . +User Interface: then you say the question and the answer . And that's everything it does , the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well maybe that would make it even more easy to use for them . +User Interface: Yeah . I think it would make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it does . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because all the people who can't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it two . +Marketing: Also two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a two . Sure , two . +Marketing: Not a seven for this {gap} ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: I'd say three . +Marketing: I would also say three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have three three two two +User Interface: Oh . You ? +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Two and a half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , a three , I see . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three ? No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Give me more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Another question . +Marketing: Remotes overwhelmed with buttons . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No , that that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um I mean , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: that's definitely one . +Marketing: Tha that's a one , I think , that's definitely a one . +Industrial Designer: That's definitely our uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh nee , oh seven is it ? It is . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: the remote score . +Industrial Designer: A false , yeah . +Project Manager: but I think you should make it one scale with with one being good and seven being bad , +Marketing: Yeah , I think isn't , this has to be something like isn't overwhelmed . +Project Manager: because otherwise we can't uh calculate anything from the results , +User Interface: It's not overwhelmed . Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Okay , a one , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: because we designed for that , huh ? +Marketing: Remote control has uh colours that different {disfmarker} that meet different target groups . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause we make them in different colours , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so that they uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: is optional . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I though w we had about single colours , +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: but you can also make uh a wood colour , not just one single colour but a wood-like thing , +User Interface: Yeah . That it that it looks like wood , like something , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: can't you ? +Marketing: Also with rubber ? +User Interface: Uh I think you can . +Project Manager: Whether it looks like wood , it isn't w it isn't wood +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it feels like rubber , +Project Manager: You can make a print on rubber , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: can't you ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's a one then , +User Interface: Well but then when you scratch it it does come off . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a one ? +User Interface: So that's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is it is harder to +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Do you have many questions ? +Marketing: Uh I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh we have time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Geez . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} We also {disfmarker} We have to get to the money . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting paid . We're getting paid . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The material used is spongy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: that that's uh that's a one , that's m rubber . +Project Manager: What {gap} spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's very spongy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: I th think it's not the most spongy thing . +User Interface: but not {disfmarker} it's not very spongy , because it's hard rubber . I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's a three , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because you want to make it uh rather flexible but not too flexible , +User Interface: Hard but {disfmarker} Yeah . You can {vocalsound} break it . +Industrial Designer: because it has a L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hard to lose , +Marketing: Remote control is hard to lose . +Industrial Designer: yeah it sh and it's easy to find . +User Interface: Y yeah , you could you could call it . +Marketing: Y you can't you can't lose it if you're sixty years old . If first time see the thing you didn didn't adjust uh {disfmarker} set the microphone , and then you lose it , then you have lost it . +User Interface: Yeah , y you can lose it , but it isn't hard to lose . +Marketing: It isn't hard , no . I think I think this is a two , personally . +User Interface: Two . That it's hard to lose ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , it it is {disfmarker} there's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose . +Project Manager: so isn't hard to lose you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a six , you think ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't hard to lose . +User Interface: So it's a two . Yeah , you can lose it , so I don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can't lose it . +User Interface: you can make it a three I {gap} {disfmarker} It does have an {disfmarker} a built in function . +Marketing: Or if you're you're sixty years old , your demands {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but a har A hard to lose is good . So it should {disfmarker} this question should be hard to lose . It's difficult to lose it . +User Interface: Nee . Hard to lose . Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this this is hard to lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is hard to lose . Yeah , so then this is {disfmarker} it is almost true , +Industrial Designer: This {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A two . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think also . +User Interface: so a two . +Project Manager: A two . +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And most all because of the option to {disfmarker} Whoa . +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's okay . That happens above also . But maybe when you scroll away and back it will be normal , +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah ? Oh , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yep . Oh , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: it isn't , +User Interface: Oh well , +Project Manager: well okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: {gap} put the cor cursor {gap} on the {gap} . +Project Manager: Remember . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Click . +Marketing: Remote control mainly be sold to younger people . +User Interface: I think it will , +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah ? True ? Very true ? +User Interface: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} a +Marketing: No , I don't think very true because the colours . +User Interface: a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have the colours . Um we have the buttons is {disfmarker} aren't that that much . +Industrial Designer: Materials , yeah . +Marketing: Nah , the material isn't that {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's much more younger . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . So ma uh make it make it a two . +Marketing: So I don I think I think it's a three . +Project Manager: Well I think it's it's uh a lower number , so better because w we designed it for young people especially , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: didn't we ? +User Interface: I think it's a two +Marketing: but I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: I think because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Questions ? +Industrial Designer: A two ? I think it's two . I think it's two too , two too too . +Project Manager: Two . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: Two two two . {vocalsound} Let's make everything a two . +Marketing: In the features ? +Project Manager: Dissatisfy younger people . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Younger people . It has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well perhaps not . +User Interface: What did {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because younger peoples are cr critical and they wanted a lot of features on this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Well that {disfmarker} it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Well , n not exactly but uh uh if it had some games on it or something like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's for a remote control I think it i {vocalsound} it would satisfy those needs . +User Interface: I think they like the speech . You could call to your uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech possibility , +User Interface: yeah , and the screen , +Industrial Designer: the colours . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen and scroll . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Scroll options , yeah . +Marketing: I I think they'll be quite met with their expectations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but those are more fancy functions , not not really many features or something . +User Interface: Right , that that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It has relatively few features , +User Interface: those are features . +Marketing: It's three features , basically , +Project Manager: with {disfmarker} +Marketing: the L_C_D_ {gap} touch screen is feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Marketing: The microphone is a feature . +User Interface: aren't the features {disfmarker} the microphone's feature and that you can change the channel's feature , and that you can change the volume is feature , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that you can change the options of the remote , uh uh something like that . Yeah . +Project Manager: Ours had other features with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . I think {disfmarker} yeah , and then you have the audio settings , channel setting , video settings . +Industrial Designer: The easy volume up button . +User Interface: Those are features . +Industrial Designer: Remote {disfmarker} younger people usually use the remote control to put on the volume . {vocalsound} Turn uh turn up the volume . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Enough features ? +Marketing: So I've chos I shou I think it's it's it's a one . Personally , yeah . I think once you've {disfmarker} 'cause you have the channel features b uh you have the uh screen features , audio features , the {disfmarker} you have all buttons on it which you'd like , microphone extra , L_C_D_ screen extra , scroll thing extra . +Project Manager: Okay , you think one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +User Interface: I think two or three . +Project Manager: You . {gap} three , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: I'd say three , so two it is then +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah uh a two a two . {vocalsound} Just another two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make it make it a two . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One two three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or make it uh a fucking two . +User Interface: We like two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You can see the remote control is {gap} R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Yeah , there's R_ and R_ in front . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} Has {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's not the colour , so maybe you should make two , but it has R_ and R_ . +Marketing: oh yeah , do did have {disfmarker} nah y you have the black one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And we'll probably make also a yellow one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but not R_ and R_ yellow I think . +Project Manager: maybe maybe two . Well m th but the logo is on on the front , +Industrial Designer: Okay , true , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe two . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} a two , yeah , +User Interface: One d on i it's the colours and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: X_ marks spot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the menu is avail that is available is easy to use . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is , but I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's easier to use than a regular remote control , because when you push on the options menu , you get the the the various options uh entirely explained . Entirely explained . +Marketing: Yeah , tha that's so true . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Instead of uh just finding out what an icon means on a button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you can navigate easier , because wi with the {disfmarker} you have to push the the the arrows and {disfmarker} with a normal T_V_ uh remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can navigate . Uh . +Marketing: I think that wou that would be quite hard to learn to use it . +Industrial Designer: You're not satisfied , okay . Let's start over again then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I'm not not convinc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's make a different remote . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's go th for {vocalsound} inhalation of air] +User Interface: Menu . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it would be a t yeah , two . +User Interface: A two ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A two . +Marketing: Now lower . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , well that's that's pretty good , +User Interface: We only have twos . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just twos . One three and a few ones . +Industrial Designer: And three . +Marketing: So okay , we have one three , a one , that that have to got up . {gap} +User Interface: Two threes . +Marketing: Two two two two two . +User Interface: We m mostly have twos , so it's pretty good . +Marketing: So two , yeah . The average is a two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The average . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is quite good +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: in my opinion . That {gap} +User Interface: We can be happy . +Marketing: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Save . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: What is it ? It's like a bug or something . +Industrial Designer: It's a fly . +User Interface: A fly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh m +User Interface: A f butterfly . +Marketing: Top . +User Interface: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: That was your evaluation uh show , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , so we don't have to calculate anything because of um these results . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: No , it's two . The average is two . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: It's good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um let's see {disfmarker} oh , it isn't asked to save but it did already {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah , I uh uh I uh saved it . +Project Manager: And this {gap} Everything okay . Well , the next part uh might be a little bit difficult to do in a group , but I am willing to try it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we are going to look at the finance and I have a nice Excel sheet to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Redesign . No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And um I'm not sure if I put it in the project folder . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: look on that . Um and we're going to calculate the production costs , and if they are uh under or at twelve Euro fifty , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're good , and if they're not we're going to uh re-design , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we have to do that uh very very quick I think , +User Interface: So we're going to erase features or something . +Project Manager: yes . Um I don't know if I +User Interface: Do you have the cost +Project Manager: put the Excel sheet in the +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's hope . +Project Manager: n not in the +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} f fifty five Euros . +Project Manager: folder . I think it's +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's still in my own documents folder . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We're goin still going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh shit . +User Interface: I doubt it . Perhaps we've got features that don't exist in the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah mm yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , +Marketing: The microphone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: it was in my uh my information , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It i It wasn't too much . +Marketing: Yeah ? {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe you're going scrap scrap it . +Industrial Designer: As well as the L_C_D_ screen . Whoa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well this is it . +User Interface: Well , if it doesn't work {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um maybe I could ask one of you to uh fill it in , so that I can also uh take minutes , +User Interface: I want to fill it in , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh maybe the other can uh use that thing to count uh numerous functions . +Marketing: No prob . Ah . +User Interface: But you should uh direct {disfmarker} +Marketing: Count it ? Li like write it be +Project Manager: Well we have to count some things and we have to think about some things . But you have to fill in this column , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Count it . You got Excel to count . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The number of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: No , uh count uh number of functions , because for every button you have to pay {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: and there are different screen shots , so {disfmarker} or different different screens , +Industrial Designer: Well I dra +Marketing: Ah , okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: uh Danny , Danny , I'll do that , +Marketing: Huh ? Yeah ? Oh , yea yeah , you design it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I draw the uh +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: We've got a battery , one or t two batteries , or not ? nee one battery , with two small batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's it's more about the energy source , huh ? Do you use a hand dynamo , a battery , kinetic or solar cells ? +User Interface: Yeah . I would do a battery {disfmarker} we do . Right ? +Marketing: Solar cell . No +Project Manager: We'll wait . +User Interface: A battery . One battery , +Industrial Designer: No , no solar cell , no no no no . +Marketing: it took a battery ? +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No hand dynamo . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Electronics , simple chip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have {disfmarker} +User Interface: advanced chip , right ? +Marketing: No , we have sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: On advanced chip . +Marketing: But b al but we also have sample speaker , do +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: so this one and this one . Uh we ha we have um single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , we already on nine . +User Interface: what ? Are we ? Oh yay . +Marketing: We have double curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The single . +Industrial Designer: Single nee single curved . Double curved was uh uh see uh ju three dimensional . +Marketing: Single . +Industrial Designer: But it isn't three dimensional , +User Interface: Oh the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't curved in a l +Marketing: This one is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not going to work uh people . We have rubber . +Marketing: This one is curved like this , +Project Manager: I'll just fill it in . +Marketing: right . It's curved like this . +Industrial Designer: No no no , +Project Manager: Um rubber indeed ? +Industrial Designer: single curved is like this . Uh that's the only curve you made , +Marketing: Yeah , bu what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: not th uh curved like that . That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , but we have curves like it and it . +User Interface: Thirteen ? +Marketing: There are two curves , right ? Oh , okay I understand , I understand . +User Interface: With a scroll wheel , +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: right ? Is he integrated ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber . +User Interface: No , eh ? I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Push button . No , we don't have push button . +Industrial Designer: we gotta integrate scroll wheel and push button , because when you push it and you w it won't just pu uh makes possible to s +User Interface: Oh yeah , right , we want it to {disfmarker} it's not it's not {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not going to work ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fifteen , oh , too bad . {vocalsound} Oh but with special colour we have . A special form , right ? +Industrial Designer: But now button supplements . We don't got the button supplements . +User Interface: Oh , we don't have any buttons , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eighteen and a half , +User Interface: Yeah , we need to uh +Marketing: damn . +Industrial Designer: Damn . +Marketing: We have to lower it with six points . +User Interface: No , uh we have fifteen and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Twelve and half . +User Interface: oh , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +Marketing: We could use {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I would lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: We could lose the scroll wheel . You could make it just a regular scroll wheel . +User Interface: But you can't push it , so you have to tap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you can't push it you have to tap the the options window uh button here and then uh scroll down with the d with uh {vocalsound} with uh the button . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will be our best bet . +User Interface: So normal scroll wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Normal scroll wheel . +User Interface: And I think we should lose the curve . +Marketing: I think we should scrap the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Lose {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's four pri it four units . +User Interface: Yeah , but if you {disfmarker} would i it is a new feature , it it's something special . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we don't exactly need the single {disfmarker} We don't need a curve . +Marketing: But w d wha +User Interface: No , the curve doesn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S possible to lose curve . +Marketing: Curved then it will be square . +User Interface: No , then it will {disfmarker} won't uh stand up from the table . Then it would just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Was that {disfmarker} does that mean to it , single curve ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's meant with scr uh with s curve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The curve is uh in a dimension . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If you make it a flat one , s n it's no curve , you got no curves . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We would lose this one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but tha that that only is one . +User Interface: Yeah , we could s yeah , a bit . +Industrial Designer: No , two . +Marketing: No , one . +User Interface: Sixteen point three . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , indeed . +Marketing: So we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we also have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to make {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could could we do it on a regular chip on print or something ? +Marketing: No , otherwise we don't have an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: No ? Ma y you just can't do that , or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: And what did you change ? You changed the uh scroll wheel +User Interface: We changed th +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the single curved to uncurved . +Marketing: Single curved . +Project Manager: Oh , but it's just one +Marketing: Flat . Yeah , so that does doesn't doesn't that mu I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: point , so maybe you should should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Scrap sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you should you should drop the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: The sample speaker is two d wait , f s four points . +Marketing: That that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's t +Marketing: Yes , four points . +Project Manager: And then you can keep the curve . +User Interface: Yeah , but it is uh it it is a new feature , +Project Manager: Or can't you ? +User Interface: it is something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh becau uh when you lose the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but what what else what else uh do you want to scrap ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: F You have to {disfmarker} we have to scrap four points . +User Interface: Yeah , that's difficult . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or make it on a hand dynamo , but {vocalsound} I don't think that will work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ma make it with wood instead of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Make it w uh when you made it uh uh uh a remote control of wood ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make it titanium instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't make a remote control of {disfmarker} Ah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: it it i +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , it also {disfmarker} uh it also takes one point less . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh a wooden remote control only helps for uh old people we discussed , +User Interface: Oh . Oh can I ask something ? +Project Manager: yes ? +User Interface: What is special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Is that the wood uh wood uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it is . +User Interface: this , we have to have that one too ? +Industrial Designer: It isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: What ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's only a half . But I think the only option is to drop the uh sample speaker . +Marketing: Yeah . Sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: To knock the sample speaker , yeah . And sample sensor . +User Interface: Th then we still have too much +Marketing: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: if we use the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But m yeah , course , +Marketing: three . Point three . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we we scrap that one ? +Industrial Designer: What we'll have . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Let's make it thirteen or fourteen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: See , a po +Marketing: Point twelve {gap} . +User Interface: three . {vocalsound} We need point three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's a colour . Don't make it wood . +Industrial Designer: A colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but a wood {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can make it brown , dark brown , not wood . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's special colour , is it a all kind of colours ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special colours , fruity colours . +User Interface: It's also green or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: no that that's just normal colour {disfmarker} fruit colours . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's a special colour than just rubber colour . +Marketing: Normal colours , yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to add something to the rubber to make it green . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You don't say here's green rubber . +Industrial Designer: They don't sell green rubber plants . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but then I d I don't think we can ever make to a twelve and half . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , you can , you should {disfmarker} you have to lose {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then we have to scrap L_C_D_ display , we have to scrap uh +User Interface: No , it is the scroll wheel , I guess . +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: s advanced chip . No then we have to scrap everything we got because how many colours we gonna make ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the scroll wheel and make it totally uh depending uh dependent on uh the touch screen +Marketing: Five ? Then we have two . +User Interface: A push , +Marketing: S +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: touch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} then it's possible to make . And then you can {vocalsound} and then you can add to the colours . +Marketing: Then we can make {disfmarker} add two colours on it . Yeah , two colours {gap} it . +Industrial Designer: Special c +User Interface: Switch colours . +Industrial Designer: Okay , if you lose uh {vocalsound} if you lose the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It was such a great idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You lose this one , you got eleven point five +Marketing: They can add two colours . +Industrial Designer: and you make i and then you can make uh the spec single curve , for example . +Marketing: But the colours . Um how ma uh the colours like l she told , is that all the colours we add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How d uh uh how many colours ? +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Industrial Designer: Special colours , all the colours you want , because you want to make p +Marketing: Yeah , but we we we are {disfmarker} we have yellow , red , uh black , titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh when you use more than one colour , it's a special colour . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: But I think when you use the colour that's not originally the rubber then you use special colour , +Industrial Designer: I suppose . +User Interface: 'cause you have to add it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but the rubbers alls original black . +User Interface: Yeah , so you always lose the special colour . You co you could make it always black , like normal remote . +Marketing: Yeah b Yeah , but we're gonna make it yellow {disfmarker} uh red , and then you add {disfmarker} you have two special colours on top of the one we have now . +Industrial Designer: Nee we we also want to make ano another colour . +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Yeah , we should u +Marketing: Yeah , but m +User Interface: Yeah . We have to make this like four or five or something . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: That's what it means . +Marketing: because we have more colours than only black . +Project Manager: Yeah , but isn't it per remote that you pay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} then I think I p I don I don't think they me mean they're special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half ? +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Is it per remote ? +Project Manager: I think you pay half per remote . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: So each remote with a special colour . +User Interface: and you {disfmarker} one colour per remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed , yeah . +User Interface: So then it is one . +Industrial Designer: You don't need four of those {vocalsound} uh four of those special colours in one in one remote . +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay , true . True , true . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have two points spare . +Project Manager: So the battery , +Marketing: Nee one point . +Project Manager: we have um advanced chip on print . +User Interface: One . So it would be curved , single curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because of {disfmarker} thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well you can at least make it curved again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So y you just can't make a nice remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , single curve . +Project Manager: Because that was very important , +User Interface: It's too bad for the speaker . +Project Manager: huh ? So it's curved , it's still that {disfmarker} so we we dropped the speech recognition together with the speaker . +User Interface: Should we change that tha that that's a one if not , +Marketing: Mm yep . +Project Manager: We dropped the scroll wheel . +User Interface: or not ? Could you copy it ? +Project Manager: And the rest is the same , +User Interface: And make it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? Am I right ? +Marketing: Y yea the scroll wheel is dropped . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The entire uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Huh . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Perhaps you can then copy page or so . Ooh . No . Oh you you made the entire {disfmarker} could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Undo , undo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: Undo . +User Interface: not {disfmarker} Well {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So , 'kay . +User Interface: Would you ? +Industrial Designer: Twenty minutes ? +User Interface: By the {disfmarker} Perhaps you can save this one , and then copy or something . Add it copy page . Select all . +Project Manager: No , but you c yeah . +User Interface: Alright , something went wrong . +Marketing: Tap . +Project Manager: Okay , but this this new remote we can afford . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It doesn't work . Let's forget . +Marketing: It should've work . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you had this list at start ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm ? No , I hadn't . +Industrial Designer: Alright . When did you receive this list ? +Project Manager: I just received it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: They don't work so hard at the finance department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: ignore that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . I suppose this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too bad . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we lose the scroll wheel , +User Interface: Yeah . The microphone . +Industrial Designer: the s +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the microphone . +User Interface: A and we changed something , I guess , or not ? We {disfmarker} Oh no . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Twelve Euro fifty . Um and did you try to make a new design , or what were you trying to do ? +User Interface: Yeah , I tried to copy that one , but it didn't work . +Project Manager: It didn't work . +User Interface: So we could fix it like tha that it's like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . Strange . +User Interface: You could select it all , but then you can't erase . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Strange . +Project Manager: Oh , you can arrange {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can only re erase ? +User Interface: Erase . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: When you saw th li uh {disfmarker} Earlier when we selected it , w I couldn't erase anything . +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +Project Manager: Hmm , can't you then just say copy ? +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Project Manager: New page . Paste . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Select none . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just up somewhere b uh besides it , +Marketing: {gap} just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and now you can erase . +User Interface: I don't think I can , but uh we can try . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we already try . +Project Manager: Well it should be possible . +User Interface: Oh , yeah , +Project Manager: Oh no . +User Interface: no , ha-ha . +Project Manager: Well you can draw over it with white uh pen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , we tried it earlier . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's very much work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but that's also useful for the evaluation , because I think uh we have a prototype now +Marketing: Evaluation drops . +Project Manager: which we can afford and uh we only need to draw a little bit to get a good uh design . Doodle . And I think we should then move on to the production evaluation because of the time . +Marketing: And erase the mic . +User Interface: Yeah , goodbye mic . +Industrial Designer: All I need is no mic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's see , we can save this now . +User Interface: Oh , I already erased half of the line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bon chance {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And move back to here . +User Interface: Too bad , oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like this ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Still looks nice . +Project Manager: And then all green . Okay , well thank you . +User Interface: Oh , that's erase . +Marketing: Looks like a iPod . +Project Manager: Oh , no {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Hey , but you can erase that . +Industrial Designer: add {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit weird . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Oh , now I'm {gap} line . +Industrial Designer: S Difference between lines and text and the pen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . All I need is {gap} mic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you can't erase this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm , strange . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Okay , well uh +User Interface: it's weird . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just leave it at this and quickly save . +Marketing: Station page . +Project Manager: Um and then we are going to the project or product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Huh , looks fucking boring now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We just did {gap} our project evaluation . Um well , I think I can sit for that since it's almost my final slide . Um what did you think about uh the process ? How satisfied are we ? +Industrial Designer: Deadlines were sometimes very short . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Bu but stressful . You think , no , my presentation isn't ready . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And stressful . +Marketing: I think we {disfmarker} it should be b it would be better if we worked a little bit together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we worked through each other , +Project Manager: And you could ask things . +User Interface: Yeah , you had information I didn't have +Marketing: something he said {disfmarker} +User Interface: and then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , and you had information I also had , +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so some some things I had in my presentation , they already told , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for me it sometimes was a surprise who was going to present what , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So yeah , that {disfmarker} I don't think that is the best way to work at {disfmarker} for such project . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So you would say uh communicate during our individual uh work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , no , or maybe session of five minutes together or something , and then work separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but why not work here together , for example ? +User Interface: Yeah , you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why should we be separated from each other in those difference {disfmarker} uh different rooms ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well , probably to simulate the whole working uh process , +User Interface: I think so too . Yeah , but then you can work together too +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: huh , th {gap} you can't have a meeting uh for several weeks . +User Interface: when {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah m yeah , like she told . Then you can work together too by mail or by , I dunno , chat , something , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: A chat would also be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh , oh right . +Marketing: but now we're completely separated from each other . I don't think that was the best way , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the technology was uh fantastic . {gap} +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , the technology's okay . +User Interface: I I don't really like the board , it doesn't really work great . Sometimes I think {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Work now ? +Marketing: Yeah okay , but I don I do I think becau that's because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps it is e +User Interface: It does work , but sometimes it doesn't erase or it doesn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , perhaps it is easier to get one of those uh dig digital pens or so and to uh {disfmarker} and lay it next to that keyboard over there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can draw uh {disfmarker} see it over th on the screen . +Marketing: Yeah , like the f like a plotters or something , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . Yep yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: So you don't think the SMARTboard is is really useful +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's useful , but not m +User Interface: it is useful , +Marketing: Yeah , it is useful , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it doesn't really work all the time . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Th the pen doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put this pen on the screen uh uh for exam and line is d being drawn at at two or three centimetres uh below . +User Interface: The line is a bit off . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's maybe a bit unnatural also . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: you can point to where you want the line to be . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The project uh {disfmarker} because of the deadlines you didn't had the time to uh {disfmarker} have , you didn't have time to uh {disfmarker} to make a very uh qualitati qualitative uh presentation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you used uh this uh the different PowerPoint presentations uh in which you put your uh material in the {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That wasn't me . Uh {vocalsound} so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wasn't me . +Project Manager: the means , we discussed the smart board , and what about uh this digital pen ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I I used it , +Marketing: I didn't use it at all . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it it was {disfmarker} you can use it , it's quite handy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , well +Industrial Designer: But I didn't {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I use it as a a normal pen and and and only you use it to uh get it on the computer , +User Interface: Yeah , I used it to y to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah , it did work pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I used it too , but {disfmarker} oh well . +User Interface: I don't think why you would want to use it actually , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: but it it does work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because it shou +Marketing: No {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: To make some designs , +Marketing: It is it is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it is very easy . +Marketing: yeah , it is easy for {disfmarker} to design something and then load it in your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then you can show it to everybody . +Industrial Designer: But to write it th yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It doesn't really write normally . +Marketing: Yeah . It's b bi little bit too big to write . +User Interface: It's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's too big , it's too fat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fat document , those . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um and what about the teamwork ? +User Interface: I think it was great , +Marketing: Team work was okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I think so too . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Only thing that we worked through , past each other . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: but that was {disfmarker} it was our assignment , +Marketing: With some things that was only problem , +User Interface: Yeah , but it was because we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: but furthermore better . +Project Manager: and maybe I should walk out of the room when you discuss uh this point , the leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I thought it was good , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , no prob . Ah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not too much , not too too too too {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And creativity ? Well , when we look at this I'd say we have been creative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the room for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There was room for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was the idea to be creative , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You got some standard ideas in your head {vocalsound} and this what came out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you get get stuff from the from the computer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The information uh was sometimes uh a little bit too late +Marketing: Little bit uh lo yeah . Too late {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it it took a lot of time before you got your ema +User Interface: You just sit there for ten minutes . Yeah , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: where is that email ? +Marketing: I played I think seven times Solitaire something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You did ? Well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I didn't have time for that . +User Interface: did you ? Is it on there ? {vocalsound} Is it on there ? +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I didn't find the {disfmarker} didn't look but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: At some times I {disfmarker} Sometimes I received like like five emails at at one moment , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Was searching and searching . +Marketing: Oh right , +User Interface: I didn't look , +Marketing: it is there . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I I never got that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I always {disfmarker} +User Interface: I got like one email after ten minutes or something . +Project Manager: I even got spam . {vocalsound} Or something like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what we said . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So does this {disfmarker} I think lik oh and information was a bit low I think , sometimes , +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} not a lot uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: in in in in the beginning I didn't understand what what to do . +User Interface: No , the first one . +Industrial Designer: No , w I didn't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't know uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like I {disfmarker} with with the remote {gap} and I never new we have t we had to uh {disfmarker} yeah made a made a rec a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Make a r +User Interface: nee . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And I didn't know what to do for the first ten minutes before we got here , +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: so I went , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No stepping on the table and then looking at the internet page . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I was working and working and work {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just looking at the screen and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} but after all we can say uh we are satisfied , but it it could've been uh better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When we get uh {disfmarker} when we have {disfmarker} we would have gotten uh more information . +User Interface: Yeah , an +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Faster . +Industrial Designer: more information about the costs . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be handy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: First of all I didn't think uh that we were able to make an L_C_D_ screen uh {disfmarker} first point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it was possible uh {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it only costs four units . Uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea uh so tha actually you could make an L_C_D_ screen but no mic , or it could make mic but no L_C_D_ screen , when you look at that . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was a bit mean to put it in the end . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh what were the other points to to improve this whole process ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , I dunno . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Think that's about it . +Marketing: Nothing . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we got it already . +User Interface: Heavier um {disfmarker} less heavy laptops . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're pretty heavy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Faster laptop . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . They were they were just fine . +User Interface: But that's not really uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And furthermore the the the network was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Everything you loaded was also +User Interface: Yeah , everything worked . +Marketing: av available there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And so more time uh w might have improved the the quality of work , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is what you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , but that {disfmarker} It's now half past four {disfmarker} half past three , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just the the off hours between that you will work alone . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Then it pops up {disfmarker} pop up screen came . Five minutes in the meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hm . Mm . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so more time during the individual work phases . Um okay well uh +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: I just got my warning for the last five minutes , so I'll move on to I guess my last slide , +User Interface: You did ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yes , which is the closing . Well uh , we managed , but we did it very quickly . I don't know if that's the best way to {disfmarker} when it isn't {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} when it is too expensive to quickly re-arrange it and say , okay , this is it , +User Interface: Oh , right . +Project Manager: but we had to do it , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh , because we have to have a design , and that is within the budget . And we evaluated . Maybe we should re-evaluate uh the product , but we did that before , and we also evaluated the project . And I think uh everybody's uh very happy . At least I am , with the results , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh celebration , well , for the three of you , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh I have to write the final report now . +User Interface: Champagne . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh {vocalsound} well , thank you very much for your co-operation , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I had a very nice day so far . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: No prob . +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Do we get another email ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bling . {vocalsound} You're fired . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you do . +User Interface: I I think we have to fill in a questionnaire again , +Project Manager: Yeah I have t +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we also have to go to our own rooms again , but um {disfmarker} well +User Interface: We do ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I at least . But maybe you can try uh to make a screen shot of this , so I can try to include it in the final report . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh th that that one ? +Industrial Designer: You cannot {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can save it . +Project Manager: {gap} wants to , but at least this one . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} it isn't a picture or , well , is it ? +Project Manager: I know , we should remove this , +Industrial Designer: You s uh file save as the J_ PEG J_ PEG . +Project Manager: but it won't h Okay . And uh please put it in the project folder then , huh . +Marketing: Can you find it as a J_ PEG ? +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: isn't possible . But you can make a screen shot , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , well I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: I hereby officially close the meeting and uh I hope to see you uh soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} In uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In about five minutes . +User Interface: Uh oh , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +User Interface: export . +Project Manager: I think we'll be a bit a bit longer , +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} okay . Well , happy celebration , huh ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +User Interface: Images . +Industrial Designer: Whoo-hoo . Let's let's have party . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebra {vocalsound} +User Interface: How big do you want the images ? +Marketing: Or shouldn't I ? +Industrial Designer: Let's have some fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How big ? Uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: not too big . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: This one ? +Project Manager: Whatever you think is good . +Marketing: Six hundred . No , +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: that uh is one thousand twenty four . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think eight hundred six hundred is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If it browse . +Marketing: Nah , name . {gap} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Desktop . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Well it isn't on the desktop . +Marketing: Hey . +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I do not know . +User Interface: You can only save it in my documents . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh ? +Marketing: Oh my God . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , alright . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ten . +User Interface: Can we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why can't we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebration time , come on . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Peace out nigger . Entree +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +","In a dynamic and somewhat disorganized meeting environment, a project team composed of a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface designer, and a Marketing representative engaged in a detailed design meeting to discuss the development and organization of their shared project documents, specifically focusing on a prototype for a new remote control design. + +Initially, the Project Manager, responsible for keeping the project on track, announced the creation of separate folders in response to the growing clutter within the shared documents folder. The situation seemed slightly chaotic with team members questioning whether they had placed their documents in the correct folders. + +Attention was then drawn to the new remote control prototype. The Industrial Designer and User Interface designer presented their prototype, now in a bold green color, highlighting innovative features like light blue scroll buttons, a microphone, and an R&R logo. Discussions about the design were punctuated by various nonverbal vocal sounds indicating engagement or acknowledgment. + +The possibility of a big microphone feature sparked discussions among the team, eventually settling on making it scalable to ensure visibility without compromising functionality. A major topic was the user interface, where creative ideas such as a dropdown menu activated by the scroll button were hashed out. However, the prototype's sleek design encountered concerns during the evaluation phase, particularly regarding its financial feasibility. + +The Marketing team member brought forth an evaluation questionnaire that mirrored the user requirements with a seven-point scale ranging from true to false to measure attributes like fanciness, innovativeness, and ease of use of the proposed design. + +The lively brainstorming session led to several iterations of the remote control’s features, addressing considerations such as the size and placement of the microphone, the ergonomic shape of the controller, and practicality for users across age demographics. The visual representation of these features was diligently modified in real-time on the shared visual medium, although minor technological hiccups with the system were noted. + +When the discussion shifted towards financial contemplation, the practicality of the design was met with the hard truth of budget constraints. The conversation moved at a brisk pace, pivoting between design aspirations and the need to cut costs. This culminated in a compromise, with the team agreeing to drop certain features like the speech recognition to maintain a balance between innovative design and affordability. + +A user interface design showcased how a menu could appear on the LCD screen, with the designers crafting and adjusting elements like battery indicators, logos, options menu visibility, and a separate button for the teletext feature. + +Towards the meeting's end, the focus shifted to a project evaluation where team members reflected on their collaborative process. They discussed the highs and lows, emphasizing the need for better communication and information flow, and acknowledging that clearer directions at the onset would have been beneficial. + +The smart board, digital pen, and other technological aids the team used were scrutinized for both their innovative contributions to the design process and the challenges they posed. They concluded that although there were struggles with the technology and tight deadlines, their collective efforts led to a balanced and cost-conscious design ready for the production evaluation phase. + +Despite the constraints, the team expressed overall satisfaction with their creative process and the results that followed. The meeting wrapped up with an acknowledgment of the hard work done, an agreement to save the hard-won design progress in the project folder for inclusion in the final report, and the Project Manager’s announcement of the pending post-meeting work and celebration." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , this is one channel . Can you uh , say your name and talk into your mike one at a time ? +PhD C: This is Eric on channel three , I believe . +Grad A: OK . Uh , I don't think it 's on there , Jane . +Undergrad D: Tasting one two three , tasting . +Postdoc E: OK , this is Jane on channel five . +Grad A: Uh , I still don't see you Jane . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , what am I doing wrong ? +Undergrad D: Can you see me on channel four ? Really ? +Grad A: Yeah , I s +Undergrad D: My lucky day . +Postdoc E: Uh , screen no , {disfmarker} it is , oh , maybe it just warmed up ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , can you can't see channel five yet ? +Grad A: Uh , well , the mike isn't close enough to your mouth , so . +Postdoc E: Oh , this would be k OK , is that better ? +Grad A: S uh , try speaking loudly , +Undergrad D: I like the high quality labelling . +Grad A: so , +Postdoc E: Hello , +Grad A: OK , good . +Undergrad D: David , can we borrow your labelling machine to improve the quality of the labelling a little bit here ? +Postdoc E: hello . Alright . +Grad A: Thank you . +PhD B: One t +Undergrad D: How {disfmarker} how many are there , one to five ? +PhD B: One five , yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah , please . +Postdoc E: Would you like to join the meeting ? +Grad A: Well , we don't wanna renumber them , +Postdoc E: I bet {disfmarker} +Grad A: cuz we 've already have like , forms filled out with the numbers on them . So , let 's keep the same numbers on them . +PhD B: Yeah , OK , that 's a good idea . +Grad A: OK , Dan , are you on ? +PhD B: I 'm on {disfmarker} I 'm on two and I should be on . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Want to join the meeting , Dave ? Do we {disfmarker} do {disfmarker} do we have a spare , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: And I 'm getting lots of responses on different ones , so I assume {pause} the various and assorted P Z Ms are on . +Undergrad D: We ' r we 're {disfmarker} we ' r This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a meeting meeting . +Postdoc E: This is abou we 're {disfmarker} we 're mainly being taped but we 're gonna talk about , uh , transcription for the m future meeting meetings . +Grad A: Stuff . Yeah , this is not something you need to attend . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . e OK . +PhD C: You 're always having one of those days , Dave . +Postdoc E: Y you 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Besides , I don't want anyone who has a weird accent . +Postdoc E: You 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Right , Dan ? +Undergrad D: So , I don't understand if it 's neck mounted you don't get very good performance . +PhD C: It 's not neck mounted . It 's supposed to be h head mounted . +Undergrad D: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it should be head mounted . Right ? +Grad A: Well , then put it on your head . +PhD B: I don't know . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: What are you doing ? +Undergrad D: Cuz when you do this , you can {disfmarker} Rouww - Rouww . +Postdoc E: Why didn't I {disfmarker} you were saying that but I could hear you really well on the {disfmarker} on the transcription {disfmarker} on the , uh , tape . +Grad A: Well , I m I would prefer that people wore it on their head +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: i +Grad A: but they were complaining about it . Because it 's not {disfmarker} it doesn't go over the ears . +Undergrad D: Why ? +Postdoc E: It 's badly designed . +Grad A: It 's very badly designed so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's very badly designed ? +Undergrad D: What do you mean it doesn't go over the ears ? +PhD B: Why ? It 's not s It 's not supposed to cover up your ears . +Grad A: Yeah but , there 's nowhere to put the pad so it 's comfortable . +PhD B: I mean , it 's only badly {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So that 's what you 're d He 's got it on his temples so it cuts off his circulation . +PhD B: Oh , that 's strange . +PhD C: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I have . +Grad A: And it feels so good that way . +PhD C: It feels so good when I stop . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I again would like to do some digits . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Try it . +Grad A: Um . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna close the door ? +Grad A: Sure . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: We could do it with noise . +Grad A: So let me {disfmarker} +PhD C: You 're always doing digits . +Grad A: Well , you know , I 'm just that sort of {disfmarker} digit - y g sorta guy . OK . So this is Adam . +Postdoc E: Uh , this is the same one I had before . +Grad A: I doubt it . +PhD B: It 's still the same words . +Grad A: I think we 're session four by the way . Or m it might be five . +Undergrad D: Psss ! Oh , that 's good . +Postdoc E: No +Grad A: I didn't bring my previous thing . +PhD B: We didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Now , just to be sure , the numbers on the back , this is the channel ? +PhD B: That 's the microphone number . +Postdoc E: That 's the microphone number . +Grad A: Yeah , d leave the channel blank . +Postdoc E: Uh - oh . OK , good . +Undergrad D: But number has to be {disfmarker} ? So we have to look up the number . +Postdoc E: Five {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , good . +Postdoc E: Good . OK . Well , this is Jane , on mike number five . Um . I just start ? Do I need to say anything more ? +Grad A: Uh , transcript number . +PhD B: Transcript number {disfmarker} +PhD C: OK , this is Eric on microphone number three , +Undergrad D: This is Beck on mike four . +Grad A: Thanks . Should I turn off the VU meter Dan ? Do you think that makes any difference ? +PhD B: Oh , God . No , let me do it . +Grad A: Why ? Are you gonna do something other than hit "" quit "" ? +PhD B: No , but I 'm gonna look at the uh , logs as well . +Grad A: Oh . Should have done it before . +Postdoc E: Uh , you said turn off the what ? +Grad A: The VU meter which tells you what the levels on the various mikes are and there was one hypothesis that perhaps that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the act of recording the VU meter was one of the things that contributed to the errors . +Postdoc E: Oh . Oh , I see . +Undergrad D: Yeah , but Eric , uh , you didn't think that was a reasonable hypothesis , right ? +Postdoc E: I See . +Grad A: That was me , +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry y +Grad A: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That was malarkey . +Grad A: Well , the only reason that could be is if the driver has a bug . Right ? Because the machine just isn't very heavily loaded . +Undergrad D: No chance of that . +Grad A: No chance of that . Just because it 's beta . Look OK ? +PhD B: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} there was a {disfmarker} there was a bug . There was a glitch last time we ran . +Undergrad D: Are - are yo are you recording where the table mikes are by the way ? +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Do you know which channels {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , we usually do that . +PhD B: No , we don't . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: But we {disfmarker} we ought to st we ought to standardize . +Undergrad D: Why not ? +PhD B: I think , {vocalsound} uh , I s I spoke to somebody , Morgan , {comment} about that . I think {disfmarker} I think we should put mar Well , no , w we can do that . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just do this ? +Grad A: I mean , that 's what we 've done before . +PhD B: I know what they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're four , three , two , one . In order now . +Undergrad D: Four . +PhD B: Three , two , {vocalsound} and one . +Undergrad D: Three . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think we should put them in standard positions . I think we should make little marks on the table top . +Grad A: Which means we need to move this thing , and sorta decide how we 're actually going to do things . +PhD B: So that we can put them {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I guess that 's the point . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: It 'll be a lot easier if we have a {disfmarker} if we have them permanently in place or something like that . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: I do wish there were big booms coming down from the ceiling . +PhD B: You do ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Would it make you feel more important ? +Grad A: Mmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: I see . +Undergrad D: Wait till the projector gets installed . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad A: That 'll work . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 'll be good . +Grad A: That 'll work . +PhD B: Oh , gosh . +Undergrad D: Cuz it 's gonna hang down , make noise . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: When 's it gonna be installed ? +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Well , {vocalsound} it depends on +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: Is this b is this being recorded ? +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Uh , I think Lila actually is almost getting r pretty close to even getting ready to put out the purchase order . +PhD B: OK . Cool . +Undergrad D: I handed it off to her about a month ago . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: OK , so , topic of this meeting is I wanna talk a little bit about transcription . Um , I 've looked a little bit into commercial transcription services and Jane has been working on doing transcription . Uh , and so we wan wanna decide what we 're gonna do with that and then get an update on the electronics , and then , uh , maybe also talk a little bit about some infrastructure and tools , and so on . Um , you know , eventually we 're probably gonna wanna distribute this thing and we should decide how we 're gonna {disfmarker} how we 're gonna handle some of these factors . So . +PhD B: Distribute what ? +Grad A: Hmm ? +PhD B: The data ? +Grad A: Right . Right . I mean , so we 're {disfmarker} we 're collecting a corpus and I think it 's gonna be generally useful . I mean , it seems like it 's not a corpus which is {disfmarker} uh , has been done before . And so I think people will be interested in having {disfmarker} having it , +PhD B: Oh . +Grad A: and so we will {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: u Using , like , audio D V Ds or something like that ? +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD B: Yes . +Undergrad D: Audio D V +Grad A: Well , or something . Yeah , audio D V C Ds , +Undergrad D: Or t +Grad A: you know . +Undergrad D: Yeah . tapes . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and so how we do we distribute the transcripts , how do we distribute the audio files , how do we {disfmarker} how do we just do all that infrastructure ? +PhD C: Well , I think {disfmarker} I mean , for that particular issue ther there are known sources where people go to {disfmarker} to find these kind of things like the LDC for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , +Grad A: Right , but {disfmarker} but so should we do it in the same format as LDC +Postdoc E: that 's right . +Grad A: and what does that mean to what we 've done already ? +PhD B: Right . The {disfmarker} It 's not so much the actu The logistics of distribution are secondary to {pause} preparing the data in a suitable form for distribution . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: Right . So , uh , as it is , it 's sort of a {pause} ad - hoc combination of stuff Dan set and stuff I set up , which we may wanna make a little more formal . So . +PhD B: And the other thing is that , um , University of Washington may want to start recording meetings as well , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: in which case w w we 'll have to decide what we 've actually got so that we can give them a copy . +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: A field trip . +Grad A: Yeah . I was actually thinking I wouldn't mind spending the summer up there . That would be kind of fun . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Yeah . Visit my friends and spend some time {disfmarker} +PhD B: Different for you . Yes . +Grad A: Well , and then also I have a bunch of stuff for doing this digits . So I have a bunch of scripts with X Waves , and some Perl scripts , and other things that make it really easy to extract out {vocalsound} and align where the digits are . And if U d UW 's going to do the same thing I think it 's worth while for them to do these digits tasks as well . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And what I 've done is pretty ad - hoc , um , so we might wanna change it over to something a little more standard . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: You know , STM files , or XML , or something . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's interest up there ? +Grad A: What 's that ? +Undergrad D: There 's interest up there ? +Grad A: Well they {disfmarker} they certainly wanna collect more data . And so they 're applying , I think I B Is that right ? Something like that . +PhD B: I don't know . +Grad A: Um , for some more money to do more data . So we were planning to do like thirty or forty hours worth of meetings . They wanna do an additional hundred or so hours . So , they want a very large data set . Um , but of course we 're not gonna do that if we don't get money . So . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: And I would like that just to get a disjoint speaker set and a disjoint room . I mean , one of the things Morgan and I were talking about is we 're gonna get to know this room really well , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the acoustics of this room . +PhD B: All about that . +Undergrad D: Including the fan . +Grad A: Including the fan . +Undergrad D: Did you notice the fan difference ? +PhD B: Oh , now you 've touched the fan control , now all our data 's gonna be {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hear the difference ? +Grad A: Oh , it 's enormous . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's great . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's better . +Undergrad D: Do you wanna leave it off or not ? +Postdoc E: That 's better . +Grad A: All the others have been on . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} You sure ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Grad A: y Absolut +PhD B: Absolutely . +Undergrad D: You {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You think that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: things after the f then This fan 's wired backwards by the way . Uh , I think this is high speed here . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it 's noticeable . +Undergrad D: Well , not clear . +PhD B: Well it 's {disfmarker} well like {vocalsound} "" low "" is mid {disfmarker} mid - scale . +Undergrad D: Maybe it {disfmarker} Maybe it isn't . +PhD B: So it could be {vocalsound} that it 's not actually wired backwards +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD B: it 's just that ambiguous . +Undergrad D: I was wondering also , Get ready . {comment} whether the lights made any noise . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: There 's definitely {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD B: Oh , they do . +PhD C: Yeah , a little bit . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: High pitch hum . Wow . +Undergrad D: So , {vocalsound} do our meetings in the dark with no air conditioning in the future . +Grad A: Yeah , just get a variety . +Postdoc E: I think candles would be nice if they don't make noise . +Grad A: They 're very good . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: It would {disfmarker} you know , it would real really mean that we should do short meetings when you {vocalsound} turn off the {disfmarker} {comment} turn off the air conditioning , +Grad A: Carbon monoxide poisoning ? +Undergrad D: Short meetings , that 's right . Or {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of {comment} r r +PhD C: got to finish this meeting . +Undergrad D: Tear t {pause} Tear your clothing off to stay cool . +PhD C: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Actually , the a th air {disfmarker} the air conditioning 's still working , that 's just an auxiliary fan . +PhD C: Right , I see . +Grad A: So +PhD C: So , um , in addition to this issue about the UW stuff there was announced today , uh , via the LDC , um , a corpus from I believe Santa Barbara . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I saw it . I 've been watching for that corpus . +PhD C: Um , of general spoken English . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD C: And I don't know exactly how they recorded it but apparently there 's a lot of different {vocalsound} styles of speech and what not . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: They had people come in to a certain degree and they {disfmarker} and they have DAT recorders . +PhD C: I see . So it is sort of far field stuff . Right ? +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I assume so , actually , I hadn't thought about that . Unless they added close field later on but , um , I 've listened to some of those data and I , um , I 've been {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was actually on the advisory board for when they set the project up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: What 's it sound like ? +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to see that it got released . +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I wish {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it it 's a very nice thing . +Grad A: I wish we had someone here working on adaptation +PhD C: S +Grad A: because it would nice to be able to take that stuff and adapt it to a meeting setting . You know {disfmarker} +PhD C: But it may be {disfmarker} it may be useful in {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: How do you mean {disfmarker} do you mean mechanical adaptation or {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , software , to adapt the speech recognition . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Well , what I was thinking is it may be useful in transcribing , if it 's far field stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: right ? In doing , um , some of our first automatic speech recognition models , it may be useful to have that kind of data +Postdoc E: Great idea . +PhD C: because that 's very different than any kind of data that we have so far . +Grad A: That 's true . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and their recording conditions are really clean . I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've heard {disfmarker} I 've listened to the data . +Grad A: Well that 's not good , right ? +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's not great . +Postdoc E: It sounds {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Tr +Postdoc E: well but what I mean is that , um {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But far field means great distance ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just these . +Undergrad D: Not head mounted ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And so that 's why they 're getting away with just two channels or something , or are they using multiple DATs ? +Postdoc E: Um , oh , good question and I can't ans answer it . +Grad A: Well we can look into it . +Postdoc E: I don't know . +PhD C: No , and their web {disfmarker} their web page didn't answer it either . So I 'm , I uh , was thinking that we should contact them . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: So it 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of a beside - the - point point . But . +Grad A: So we can get that just with , uh , media costs , +Undergrad D: Still a point . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: is that right ? +PhD C: Uh , in fact we get it for free +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: cuz they 're distributing it through the LDC . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad A: So that would be {disfmarker} yeah , that would be something to look into . So . +PhD C: So , I can {disfmarker} I can actually arrange for it to arrive in short order if we 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: The other thing too is from {disfmarker} from a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it 's silly to do unless we 're gonna have someone to work on it , so maybe we need to think about it a little bit . +PhD C: Huh . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that their their jus their transcription format is really nice and simple in {disfmarker} in the discourse domain . But they also mentioned that they have it time aligned . I mean , I s I {disfmarker} I saw that write - up . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe we should {disfmarker} maybe we should get a copy of it just to see what they did +PhD B: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} we can compare . +Postdoc E: It 's very nice . +Grad A: OK , why don't you go ahead and do that then Eric ? +PhD B: Absolutely . +PhD C: Alright , I 'll do that . I can't remember the name of the corpus . It 's Corps - S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: CSAE . +PhD C: S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Corpus of Spoken American English . +PhD C: Right , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , sp I 've been {disfmarker} I was really pleased to see that . I knew that they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had had some funding problems in completing it +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but , um , +PhD C: Well they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: this is clever . +PhD C: Apparently this was like phase one +Postdoc E: Got it through the LDC . +PhD C: and the there 's still more that they 're gonna do apparently or something like that unless of course they have funding issues +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: and then then it ma they may not do phase two but {vocalsound} from all the web documentation it looked like , "" oh , this is phase one "" , whatever that means . +Postdoc E: Super . Super . Great . Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , they 're really well respected in the linguistics d side too and the discourse area , +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} So this is a very good corpus . +PhD C: But , it uh it would also maybe help be helpful for Liz , if she wanted to start working on some discourse issues , you know , looking at some of this data and then , +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: you know {disfmarker} So when she gets here maybe that might be a good thing for her . +Grad A: Actually , that 's another thing I was thinking about is that maybe Jane should talk to Liz , to see if there are any transcription issues related to discourse that she needs to get marked . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Maybe we should have a big meeting meeting . +PhD B: Sure , of course . +Undergrad D: That would be a meeting meeting meeting ? +Grad A: A meeting meeting meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Well this is the meeting about the meeting meeting meeting . So . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad A: Um . +PhD C: Right . But maybe we should , uh find some day that Liz {disfmarker} uh , Liz and Andreas seem to be around more often . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So maybe we should find a day when they 're gonna be here and {disfmarker} and Morgan 's gonna be here , and we can meet , at least this subgroup . I mean , not necessarily have the U - dub people down . +Grad A: Well , I was even thinking that maybe we need to at least ping the U - dub {disfmarker} to see {disfmarker} +PhD C: We need {disfmarker} we need to talk to them some more . +Grad A: you know , say "" this is what we 're thinking about for our transcription "" , if nothing else . So , well w shall we move on and talk a little bit about transcription then ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Let 's . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so {comment} {vocalsound} since that 's what we 're talking about . What we 're using right now is a tool , um , from this French group , called "" Transcriber "" that seems to work very well . Um , so it has a , uh , nice useful Tcl - TK user interface and , uh , +Undergrad D: Thi - this is the process of converting audio to text ? +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: And this requires humans just like the {disfmarker} the STP stuff . +Grad A: Yes , yeah . Right , right . So we 're {disfmarker} we 're at this point only looking for word level . So all {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} so what you have to do is just identify a segment of speech in time , and then write down what was said within it , and identify the speaker . And so the things we {disfmarker} that we know {disfmarker} that I know I want are {vocalsound} the text , the start and end , and the speaker . But other people are interested in for example stress marking . And so Jane is doing primary stress , {vocalsound} um , stress marks as well . Um , and then things like repairs , and false starts , and , {vocalsound} filled pauses , and all that other sort of stuff , {vocalsound} we have to decide how much of that we wanna do . +Postdoc E: I did include a glo {comment} uh , a certain first pass . My {disfmarker} my view on it was when you have a repair {vocalsound} then , uh {disfmarker} it seems {disfmarker} I mean , we saw , there was this presentation in the {disfmarker} one of the speech group meetings about how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think Liz has done some stuff too on that , that it , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you get it bracketed in terms of like {disfmarker} well , if it 's parenthetical , which I know that Liz has worked on , then {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} y y you 'll have different prosodic aspects . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And then also {vocalsound} if it 's a r if it 's a repair where they 're {disfmarker} like what I just did , {vocalsound} then it 's nice to have sort of a sense of the continuity of the utterance , the start to be to the finish . And , uh , it 's a little bit deceptive if you include the repai the pre - repair part {disfmarker} and sometimes or of it 's in the middle . Anyway , {vocalsound} so what I was doing was bracketing them to indicate that they were repairs which isn't uh , very time - consuming . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I is there already some sort of plan in place for how this gonna be staffed or done ? Or is it real {disfmarker} is that what we 're talking about here ? +Grad A: Well , that 's part of the thing we 're talking about . So what we wanted to do was have Jane do basically one meeting 's worth , you know , forty minutes to an hour , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: As a pilot study . +Undergrad D: Yourself ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is like five times real time or ten times real time {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , as a pilot study . +Grad A: Ten times about , is {disfmarker} and so one of the things was to get an estimate of how long it would take , and then also what tools we would use . And so the next decision which has to be made actually pretty soon is how are we gonna do it ? So . +Undergrad D: And so you make Jane do the first one so then she can decide , oh , we don't need all this stuff , just the words are fine . +Postdoc E: That 's right , that 's right . +PhD B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: I wanna hear about these {disfmarker} uh , we have a g you were s continuing with the transcription conventions for s +Grad A: R right , so {disfmarker} so one {disfmarker} one option is to get linguistics grad students and undergrads to do it . And apparently that 's happened in the past . And I think that 's probably the right way to do it . Um , it will require a post pass , I mean people will have to look at it more than once to make sure that it 's been done correctly , but I just can't imagine that we 're gonna get anything that much better from a commercial one . And the commercial ones I 'm sure will be much more expensive . +Undergrad D: Can't we get Joy to do it all ? +Grad A: Yeah right . +Postdoc E: No , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: We will just get Joy and Jane to do everything . +Undergrad D: Is tha wasn't that what she was doing before ? Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: But , you know , that 's what we 're talking about is getting some slaves who {disfmarker} who need money +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: and , uh , duh , again o +Postdoc E: I object to that characterization ! +PhD B: Oh , really . +Grad A: I meant Joy . And so again , I have to say "" are we recording "" +Postdoc E: Oh , thank you . OK . +Grad A: and then say , uh , Morgan has {disfmarker} has consistently resisted telling me how much money we have . +Undergrad D: Right . Well , the answer is zero . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: There 's a reason why he 's resisted . +Grad A: Well , if it 's zero then we can't do any transcription . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad A: I mean , cuz we 're {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: I have such a hard name . +Grad A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I can't imagine us doing it ourselves . Right ? +Undergrad D: Well , we already {disfmarker} we already {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We already have a plan in place for the first meeting . +Grad A: N right . +Undergrad D: Right ? That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well th there is als Yeah , really . There is also the o other possibility which is if you can provide not money but instructional experience or some other perks , {vocalsound} you can {disfmarker} you could get people to {disfmarker} to um , to do it in exchange . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , i b but seriously , I {disfmarker} I mean , Morgan 's obviously in a bind over this and thing to do is just the field of dreams theory , which is we we go ahead as though there will be money at the time that we need the money . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best we can do . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: i b To not do anything until we get money is {disfmarker} is ridiculous . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: We 're not gonna do any {disfmarker} get anything done if we do that . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So at any rate , Jane was looking into the possibility of getting students , at {disfmarker} is that right ? Talking to people about that ? +Postdoc E: I 'm afraid I haven't made any progress in that front yet . +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: I should 've sent email and I haven't yet . +Grad A: Yeah , right . So , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I d do {disfmarker} So until you actually {vocalsound} have a little experience with what this {disfmarker} this French thing does we don't even have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And I do have {disfmarker} +Grad A: She 's already done quite a bit . +Undergrad D: Oh , we have . +Postdoc E: I have {disfmarker} a bunch of hours , +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry . So that 's where you came up with the f the ten X number ? +Postdoc E: yeah . +Undergrad D: Or is that really just a guess ? +Postdoc E: Actually that 's the {disfmarker} the one people usually use , ten X . +PhD C: How fast are you ? +Postdoc E: And I haven't really calculated {disfmarker} How fast am I ? +Undergrad D: Yeah i +Postdoc E: I haven't done a s see , I 've been at the same time doing kind of a boot strapping in deciding on the transcription conventions that {disfmarker} that are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and {disfmarker} and stuff like , you know , how much {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: There 's some interesting human factors problems like , {vocalsound} yeah , what span of {disfmarker} of time is it useful to segment the thing into in order to uh , transcribe it the most quickly . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Cuz then , you know , you get like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you get a span of five words , that 's easy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But then you have to take the time to mark it . And then there 's the issue of {vocalsound} it 's easier to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hear it th right the first time if you 've marked it at a boundary instead of {vocalsound} somewhere in the middle , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz then the word 's bisected or whatever and {disfmarker} And so I mean , I 've been sort of playing with , uh , different ways of mar cuz I 'm thinking , you know , I mean , if you could get optimal instructions you could cut back on the number of hours it would take . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: D does uh {disfmarker} this tool you 're using is strictly {disfmarker} it doesn't do any speech recognition does it ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: No , it doesn't but what a super tool . It 's a great environment . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but is there anyway to {disfmarker} to wire a speech recognizer up to it and actually run it through {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's an interesting idea . +Grad A: We 've {disfmarker} we 've thought about doing that +Postdoc E: Hey ! +Grad A: but the recognition quality is gonna be horrendous . +Undergrad D: Well , a couple things . +PhD B: Wow . +Undergrad D: First of all the time marking you 'd get {disfmarker} you could get by a tool . +PhD B: That 's true . +Undergrad D: And so if the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the issue really +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +Undergrad D: uh , I 'm think about the close caption that you see running by on {disfmarker} on live news casts . +Grad A: Most of those are done by a person . +Undergrad D: You know , yo I know {disfmarker} I know that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I +Undergrad D: No , I understand . And {disfmarker} in a lot of them you see typos and things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} but it occurs to me that {vocalsound} it may be a lot easier to correct things than it is to do things from scratch , no matter how wonderful the tool is . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah , we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But if {disfmarker} if there was a way to merge the two {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , I mean , but sometimes it 's easier to type out something instead of going through and figuring out which is the right {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , we 've talked about it +Postdoc E: That 'd be fun . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , it depends on the error rate , right ? +Undergrad D: Well s but {disfmarker} but again the timing is for fr should be for free . The timing should be {disfmarker} +PhD C: But we don't care about the timing of the words . +Undergrad D: Well I thought you just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} said that was a critical issue . +Grad A: We don't care about the timing of the words , just of the utterances . +Postdoc E: No , uh the {disfmarker} the boundary {disfmarker} +PhD C: We cut it s s +PhD B: We don't {disfmarker} we don't know , actually . +Postdoc E: boundary . +PhD B: We haven't decided which {disfmarker} which time we care about , and that 's kind of one of the things that you 're saying , is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have the option to put in more or less timing data {disfmarker} and , uh , be in the absence of more specific instructions , {vocalsound} we 're trying to figure out what the most convenient thing to do is . +Grad A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so what {disfmarker} what she 's done so far , is sort of {disfmarker} more or less breath g not breath groups , {comment} sort of phrases , continuous phrases . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , um , that 's nice because you {disfmarker} you separate when you do an extract , you get a little silence on either end . So that seems to work really well . +Postdoc E: That 's ideal . +Grad A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Although I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , the alternative , which I was sort of experimenting with before I ran out of time , {vocalsound} recently was , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , you know , ev if it were like an arbitrary segment of time {disfmarker} i t pre - marked cuz it does take time to put those markings in . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's really the i the interface is wonderful because , you know , the time it takes is you listen to it , {vocalsound} and then you press the return key . But then , you know , it 's like , {vocalsound} uh , you press the tab key to stop the flow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , the return key to p to put in a marking of the boundary . But , you know , obviously there 's a lag between when you hear it and when you can press the return key +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so it 's slightly delayed , so then you {disfmarker} you listen to it a second time and move it over to here . +Undergrad D: a +Postdoc E: So that takes time . +Undergrad D: i a +Postdoc E: Now if it could all be pre - marked at some , {vocalsound} l you know , good {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: ar but +Grad A: Hmm . +Undergrad D: Are {disfmarker} are those d delays adjustable ? Those delays adjustable ? See a lot of people who actually build stuff with human computer interfaces {vocalsound} understand that delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} and so when you {disfmarker} by the time you click it it 'll be right on because it 'll go back in time to put the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It could do that +Postdoc E: Yeah , uh , not in this case . +Grad A: We could program that pretty easily , +PhD B: couldn't it . +Postdoc E: It has other {disfmarker} +Grad A: couldn't we Dan ? Yeah , mis Mister TCL ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting point . +PhD B: I would have thought so , yeah . +Postdoc E: Ah ! {comment} Interesting point . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: OK , that would make a difference . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not bad +Grad A: But , if we tried to do automatic speaker ID . +Postdoc E: but it does {disfmarker} take twice . +Grad A: I mean , cuz primarily the markings are at speaker change . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: But that would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: But we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got the most channel data . We 'd have to do it from your signal . Right . I mean , we 've {disfmarker} we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of data . +Postdoc E: Oh , good point ! Ah ! +Grad A: Yeah , I guess the question is how much time will it really save us versus the time to write all the tools to do it . +Postdoc E: We 've got volume . +PhD B: Right . but the chances are if we if we 're talking about collecting {vocalsound} ten or a hundred hours , which is going to take a hundred or a thousand hours to transcribe {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: if we can go from ten X to five X we 're doing a big {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 're gonna need {disfmarker} we 're gonna need ten to a hundred hours to train the tools , and validate the tools the do the d to {disfmarker} to do all this anyway . +PhD C: Right . So maybe {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: If we 're just doing silence detection {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but it op +Grad A: I knew you were gonna do that . Just saw it coming . +Postdoc E: I 'm sorry . I wish you had told me {disfmarker} wish you 'd told me . +Undergrad D: Put {disfmarker} put it on your sweater . +Postdoc E: At what part ? OK , I 'm alright . +PhD B: Um , i it seems like {disfmarker} Well , uh , I don't know . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's maybe like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a week 's work to get to do something like this . So forty or fifty hours . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Could you get it so that with {disfmarker} so it would {disfmarker} it would detect volume on a channel and insert a marker ? And the {disfmarker} the format 's really transparent . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's just a matter of {vocalsound} a very c clear {disfmarker} it 's XML , isn't it ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: It 's very {disfmarker} I mean , I looked at the {disfmarker} the file format and it 's just {disfmarker} it has a t a time {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time indication and then something or other , and then an end time or something or other . +PhD C: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we could try the following experiment . Take the data that you 've already transcribed +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Is this already in the past or already in the future ? +PhD C: Already in the past . +Undergrad D: You 've already {disfmarker} you 've already done some ? +Grad A: She 's {disfmarker} she 's done about half a meeting . +PhD C: She {disfmarker} she 's done one {disfmarker} she 's one {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes I have . +Undergrad D: Oh - Oh , I see . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , +Grad A: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: good . +Grad A: About half ? +PhD C: I 'm go +Postdoc E: S I 'm not sure if it 's that 's much but anyway , enough to work with . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Several minutes . +PhD C: Um , and {disfmarker} and throw out the words , but keep the time markings . And then go through {disfmarker} I mean , and go through and {disfmarker} and try and re - transcribe it , given that we had perfect boundary detection . +Postdoc E: OK . Good idea . +PhD C: And see if it {disfmarker} see if it {disfmarker} see if it feels easier to you . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And forgetting all the words because you 've been thr +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd be cheating a little bit g with familiarity effect . +PhD C: Yeah , I mean uh , that 's part of the problem is , is that what we really need is somebody else to come along . +PhD B: Well , no , you should do it {disfmarker} you should do it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do it again from scratch and then do it again at the boundaries . So you do the whole thing three times and then we get {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: No . Now , there 's a plan . +Undergrad D: And then {disfmarker} then w since we need some statistics do it three more . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And so you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll get down to one point two X by the time you get done . +Postdoc E: Oh , yeah . I 'll do that tomorrow . I should have it finished by the end of the day . +Undergrad D: No , but the thing is the fact that she 's {disfmarker} she 's did it before just might give a lower bound . That 's all . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Uh , which is fine . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Undergrad D: It 's {disfmarker} And if the lower bound is nine X then w it 's a waste of time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , uh but there 's an extra problem which is that I didn't really keep accurate {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh ! +Postdoc E: uh , it wasn't a pure task the first time , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it 's gonna be an upper bound in {disfmarker} in that case . And it 's not really strictly comparable . So I think though it 's a good proposal to be used on a new {disfmarker} a new batch of text that I haven't yet done yet in the same meeting . Could use it on the next segment of the text . +PhD B: The point we {disfmarker} where do we get the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the oracle boundaries from ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Or the boundaries . +Grad A: Yeah , one person would have to assign the boundaries and the {disfmarker} and the other person would have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , but couldn't I do it for the next {disfmarker} +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could get fake {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's easy enough . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I could do that . +Postdoc E: Well , but the oracle boundaries would come from volume on a partic specific channel wouldn't they ? +Grad A: No , no . +PhD B: That would be the automatic boundaries . +PhD C: No , no , no , no . You wanna know {disfmarker} given {disfmarker} Given a perfect human segmentation , I mean , you wanna know how well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the {disfmarker} the question is , is it worth giving you the segmentation ? +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's easy enough . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: I could generate the segmentation and {disfmarker} and you could do the words , and time yourself on it . So . +Undergrad D: A little double - blind - ear kind of thing . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} that might be worth doing . +Postdoc E: That 's good . I like that . +Grad A: That would at least tell us whether it 's worth spending a week or two trying to get a tool , that will compute the segmentations . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: And the thing to keep in mind too about this tool , guys is that {vocalsound} sure , you can do the computation for what we 're gonna do in the future but if {disfmarker} if UW 's talking about doing two , or three , or five times as much stuff and they can use the same tool , then obviously there 's a real multiplier there . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is with {disfmarker} with speaker identification , if {disfmarker} if that could handle speaker identification that 's a big deal . +PhD B: Well it w +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , use it . Yeah , that 's why we s bought the expensive microphones . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah , I mean , that 's a nice feature . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's a major {disfmarker} that 's like , one of the two things that {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , there 's gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be {disfmarker} in the meeting , like the reading group meeting that we had the other day , that 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a bit of a problem +PhD B: OK . +PhD C: because , like , I wasn't wearing a microphone +PhD B: Yes . +PhD C: f and there were other people that weren't wearing microphones . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But you didn't say anything worth while anyway , right ? +Grad A: That 'll s +PhD B: Right . +PhD C: That 's pretty much true +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: it might save ninety percent of the work though . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but , yes . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} we need to look at what {disfmarker} what the final output is but it seems like {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems like it 's not really not that hard to have an automatic tool to generate {vocalsound} the phrase marks , and the speaker , and speaker identity without putting in the words . +Grad A: Yeah . I 've already become pretty familiar with the format , +Postdoc E: That 'd be so great . +Grad A: so it would be easy . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: If you 'd tell me where it is , huh ? +Postdoc E: We didn't finish the {disfmarker} the part of work already completed on this , did we ? I mean , you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you talked a little bit about the transcription conventions , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and , I guess you 've mentioned in your progress report , or status report , that you had written a script to convert it into {disfmarker} So , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} it 's quickest for me in terms of {vocalsound} the transcription part {vocalsound} to say {vocalsound} something like , you know , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if Adam spoke to , um {disfmarker} to just say , "" A colon "" , Like who could be , you know , I mean at the beginning of the line . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and E colon {vocalsound} instead of entering the interface for speaker identification and clicking on the thing , uh , indicating the speaker ID . So , and then he has a script that will convert it into the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , would indicate speaker ID . +Grad A: It 's pretty cute . +Postdoc E: If that 's clear . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But at any rate . So , um , +Postdoc E: It 's Perl script . +Grad A: Right . So {disfmarker} so I think the guess at ten X seems to be pretty standard . Everyone {disfmarker} more or less everyone you talk to says about ten times for hard technical transcription . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Using wh using stone age +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Undergrad D: using stone age tools . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad A: Using {disfmarker} using stone age tools . I mean , I looked at Cyber Transcriber +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: which is a service that you send an audio file , they do a first - pass speech recognition . And then they {disfmarker} they do a clean up . But it 's gonna be horrible . They 're never gonna be able to do a meeting like this . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} i just approximately , what did you find out in terms of price or {disfmarker} or whatever ? +Grad A: Well , for Cyber Transcriber they don't quote a price . They want you to call and {disfmarker} and talk . So for other services , um , they were about thirty dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Of {disfmarker} of tape ? +Grad A: Thirty {disfmarker} So , yeah . +Postdoc E: Or of action ? +Grad A: For thirty dollars an hour for {disfmarker} of their work . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . Oh , of their {disfmarker} +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so if it 's ten times it 's three hundred dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +PhD C: So that 's three {disfmarker} that 's three hours . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: D did you talk to anybody that does closed captioning for {disfmarker} for uh , TV ? +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: No . +Undergrad D: Cuz they a usually at the end of the show they 'll tell what the name of the company is , the captioning company that 's doing it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so my {disfmarker} my search was pretty cursory . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad A: It was just a net search . And , uh , so it was only people who have web pages and are doing stuff through that . +Undergrad D: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing {disfmarker} the thing about this is thinking kind of , maybe a little more globally than I should here but {comment} {vocalsound} that really this could be a big contribution we could make . Uh , I mean , we 've been through the STP thing , we know what it {disfmarker} what it 's like to {disfmarker} to manage the {disfmarker} manage the process , and admittedly they might have been looking for more detail than what we 're looking for here but {vocalsound} it was a {disfmarker} it was a big hassle , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I mean , uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they constantly could 've reminding people and going over it . And clearly some new stuff needs to be done here . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's only {vocalsound} our time , where "" our "" of course includes Dan , {vocalsound} Dan and you guys . It doesn't include me at all . Uh . j Just seems like {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I mean I don't know if we 'd be able to do any thing f to help STP type problems . But certainly for this problem we can do a lot better than {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Bec Why ? Because they wanted a lot more detail ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: No . Because they had {disfmarker} because they only had two speakers , right ? I mean , the {disfmarker} the segmentation problem is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Trivial . +Undergrad D: Only had two . +Grad A: They had two speakers over the telephone . +Undergrad D: Oh , I see . So what took them so long ? +Grad A: Um , mostly because they were doing much lower level time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So they were doing phone and syllable transcription , as well as , uh , word transcription . +Undergrad D: Right . Right . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And so we 're {disfmarker} w we decided early on that we were not gonna do that . +Undergrad D: I see . But there 's still the same issue of managing the process , of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of reviewing and keeping the files straight , and all this stuff , that {disfmarker} which is clearly a hassle . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . And so {disfmarker} so what I 'm saying is that if we hire an external service I think we can expect three hundred dollars an hour . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I think that 's the ball park . There were several different companies that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the range was very tight for technical documents . Twenty - eight to thirty - two dollars an hour . +PhD C: And who who knows if they 're gonna be able to m manage multal multiple channel data ? +PhD B: Yeah , they won't . +Grad A: They won't . +PhD B: They w they 'll refuse to do it . +Grad A: We 'll have to mix them . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: No , but I mean , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they will refuse to transcribe this kind of material . +Postdoc E: And then there 's the problem also that {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's not what they 're d quoting for , right ? +Grad A: Yes , it is . +Undergrad D: Well , they might {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they might quote it {disfmarker} +PhD B: For quoting meetings ? +Grad A: Sev - several of them say that they 'll do meetings , and conferences , and s and so on . None of them specifically said that they would do speaker ID , or speaker change mark . +PhD B: Wow . Yeah . +Grad A: They all just said transcription . +Undergrad D: Th - th the th there may be just multiplier for five people costs twice as much and for ten people co {comment} Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well , the {disfmarker} the way it worked is it {disfmarker} it was scaled . So what they had is , {vocalsound} if it 's an easy task it costs twenty - four dollars an hour and it will take maybe five or six times real time . And what they said is for the hardest tasks , bad acoustics , meeting settings , it 's thirty - two dollars an hour and it takes about ten times real time . So I think that we can count on that being about what they would do . +PhD B: I see . Yeah . +Grad A: It would probably be a little more +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: because we 're gonna want them to do speaker marking . +Undergrad D: A lot of companies I 've worked for y the , uh {disfmarker} the person leading the meeting , the executive or whatever , would sort of go around the room and {disfmarker} and mentally calculate h how many dollars per hour this meeting was costing , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: right ? In university {vocalsound} atmosphere you get a little different thing . But you know , it 's a lot like , "" he 's worth fifty an hour , he 's worth {disfmarker} "" And so he so here we 're thinking , "" well let 's see , if the meeting goes another hour it 's going to be another thousand dollars . "" You know ? It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , we have to have a short meeting . +Undergrad D: So ch {vocalsound} So every everybody ta Talk really fast . +Postdoc E: That 's very interesting . +Grad A: Stop talking ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Let 's get it over with . +Postdoc E: Talk {vocalsound} slowly but with few words . +Grad A: And clearly . +PhD B: That 's right . +Undergrad D: And only talk when you 're pointed to . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad A: Content words only . +Postdoc E: We could have some telegraphic meetings . That might be interesting . +PhD B: Yeah , it 'd be cheap . +Undergrad D: +PhD B: Cheap to transcribe . +Grad A: So . But at any rate , so we {disfmarker} we have a ballpark on how much it would cost if we send it out . +Undergrad D: And we 're talking about do doing how many hours worth of meetings ? +Grad A: Thirty or forty . +Undergrad D: So thirty or forty thousand dollars . +PhD B: Well , for ten thousand dollars . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: So , meanwhile {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh . What {disfmarker} Well , it was thirty times {disfmarker} +PhD B: Three hundred . +Grad A: Three hundred dollars an hour . +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry , three hundred . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right , I w got an extra factor of three there . +PhD C: So it 's thirty dollars an hour , essentially , right ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD C: But we can pay a graduate student seven dollars an hour . And the question is what 's the difference {disfmarker} +PhD B: How {disfmarker} how much lower are they ? +PhD C: or ei eight dollars . What {disfmarker} do you know what the going rate is ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} on the order of eight to ten . +Postdoc E: I think uh that would give us a {disfmarker} a good {disfmarker} good estimate . +PhD C: I think . But I 'm not sure . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ten . +Postdoc E: yeah , I was gonna say eight {disfmarker} you 'd say ten ? +PhD C: Let 's say ten . +PhD B: Yeah , give them a break . +PhD C: Cuz it 's easier . +Undergrad D: The - these are not for engineering graduate students , right ? +Grad A: Right , these are linguistics grad students . Six . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't know what the {disfmarker} I don't know what the standard {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD C: but there is a standard pay scale +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I just don't know what it is . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . +PhD C: Um , so that means that even if it takes them thirty times real time it 's cheaper to {disfmarker} to do graduate students . +Postdoc E: And there 's another aspect too . +Grad A: I mean , that 's why I said originally , that I couldn't imagine sending it out 's gonna be cheaper . +PhD B: No , it isn't . So . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that , uh , if they were linguistics they 'd be {disfmarker} you know , in terms of like the post editing , i uh {disfmarker} tu uh content wise they might be easier to handle cuz they might get it more right the first time . +Grad A: And also we would have control of {disfmarker} I mean , we could give them feedback . Whereas if we do a service it 's gonna be limited amount . +PhD B: Yep , yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +Grad A: I mean , we can't tell them , you know , "" for this meeting we really wanna mark stress +Postdoc E: Good point . +PhD B: Yep . +Grad A: and for this meeting we want {disfmarker} "" +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: Good point . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and they 're not gonna provide {disfmarker} they 're not gonna provide stress , they 're not gonna re provide repairs , they 're not gonna {vocalsound} provide {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they may or may not provide speaker ID . So that we would have to do our own tools to do that . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Just hypoth hypothetically assuming that {disfmarker} that we go ahead and ended up using graduate students . I who {disfmarker} who 's the person in charge ? Who 's gonna be the Steve here ? +Grad A: I hope it 's Jane . +Undergrad D: You ? +Grad A: Is that alright ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . Um , now would this involve some manner of uh , monetary compensation or would I be the voluntary , uh , coordinator of multiple transcribers for checking ? +Grad A: Um , I would imagine there would be some monetary involved but we 'd have to talk to Morgan about it . +PhD B: Yeah , out of {disfmarker} out of Adam 's pocket . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: You know , it just means you have to stop working for Dave . See ? +Postdoc E: Oh , +Undergrad D: That 's why Dave should have been here . +Postdoc E: I don't wanna stop working for Dave . +Undergrad D: To pr protect his people . +Grad A: Well , I would like you to do it because you have a lot more experience than I do , +Postdoc E: Oh , cool . Yeah . +Grad A: but if {disfmarker} if that 's not feasible , I will do it with you as an advisor . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: W we 'd like you to do it and we 'd like to pay you . +Postdoc E: We 'll see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Not being Morgan though , it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . +PhD B: We 'd like to . Unfortunately {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , six dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I see . +PhD C: That 's a {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . Boy , if I wanted to increase my income I could start doing the transcribing again . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah . +Undergrad D: an an an and be and be sure and say , would you like fries with that when you 're thinking about your pay scale . +Postdoc E: I see . Good . Yeah , no , that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would be interested in that {disfmarker} in becoming involved in the project in some aspect like that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . More . +Postdoc E: more . Yeah . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad A: Um , any more on transcript we wanna talk about ? +PhD B: What s so what are you {disfmarker} so you 've done some portion of the first meeting . And what 's your plan ? +Postdoc E: Yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: To carry on doing it ? +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} Well , you know what I thought was right now we have p So I gave him the proposal for the transcription conventions . He made his , uh , suggestion of improvement . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's a good suggestion . So as far as I 'm concerned those transcription conventions are fixed right now . And so my next plan would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} what do they cover ? +Postdoc E: They 're very minimal . So , {vocalsound} it would be good to {disfmarker} just to summarize that . So , um , {vocalsound} one of them is the idea of how to indicate speaker change , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and this is a way which meshes well with {disfmarker} with , uh , making it {vocalsound} so that , uh , you know , on the {disfmarker} At the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Boy , it 's such a nice interface . When you {disfmarker} when you get the , um {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you get the speech signal you also get {vocalsound} down beneath it , {vocalsound} an indication of , {vocalsound} uh , if you have two speakers overlapping in a s in a single segment , you see them {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} displayed one above each other . And then at the same time {vocalsound} the top s part of the screen is the actual verbatim thing . You can clip {disfmarker} click on individual utterances and it 'll take you immediately to that part of the speech signal , and play it for you . And you can , eh you can work pretty well between those two {disfmarker} these two things . +Undergrad D: Is there a limit to the number of speakers ? +Grad A: Um , the user interface only allows two . And so if {disfmarker} if you 're using their interface to specify overlapping speakers you can only do two . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad A: But my script can handle any . And their save format can handle any . And so , um , using this {disfmarker} the convention that Jane and I have discussed , you can have as many overlapping speakers as you want . +Undergrad D: Do y is this a , uh , university project ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Th - this is the French software , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , French . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Grad A: Yeah . And they 're {disfmarker} they 've been quite responsive . +PhD B: their academic . +Undergrad D: eh +Grad A: I 've been exchanging emails on various issues . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Undergrad D: Uh , did you ask them to change the interface for more speakers ? +Postdoc E: Oh . +Grad A: Yes , and they said that 's on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the works for the next version . +Undergrad D: Good . +PhD C: Oh , so multi multichannels . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: Multichannels was also {disfmarker} Well , they said they wanted to do it but that the code is really very organized around single channels . So I think that 's n unlikely to ha happen . +PhD C: I see . OK . +Undergrad D: Do - do you know what they 're using it for ? Why 'd they develop it ? +Grad A: For this exact task ? +PhD C: For transcription . +Undergrad D: Are they linguists ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But I mean , are they {disfmarker} are they linguists or are they speech recognition people ? +Grad A: I think they 're linguists . +Postdoc E: Ho +PhD B: Linguists . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: They 're {disfmarker} they have some connection to the LDC cuz the LDC has been advising them on this process , the Linguistic Data Consortium . Um , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} but a apart from that . +Grad A: It 's also {disfmarker} All the source is available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: If you {disfmarker} if you speak TCLTK . +Undergrad D: Great . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And they have {disfmarker} they 've actually asked if we are willing to do any development and I said , well , maybe . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: So if we want {disfmarker} if we did {disfmarker} if we did something like programmed in a delay , which actually I think is a great idea , um , I 'm sure they would want that incorporated back in . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I do too . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Their pre pre - lay . +PhD B: Pre - lay . +Grad A: Way . +Postdoc E: Pre - lay . Well , and they 've thought about things . You know , I mean , they {disfmarker} they do have {disfmarker} So you have {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} when you play it back , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is useful to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a break mark to {disfmarker} se segment it . But it wouldn't be strictly necessary cuz you can use the {disfmarker} uh , the tabbed key to toggle {vocalsound} the sound on and off . I mean , it 'll stop the s speech you know if you if you press a tab . And , um . And so , uh , that 's a nice feature . And then also once you 've put a break in then you have the option of {vocalsound} cycling through the unit . You could do it like multiply until you get {comment} crazy and decide to stop cycling through that unit . +Undergrad D: Loop it ? Yo - you n you know , there 's al also the {disfmarker} the user interface that 's missing . +Postdoc E: Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's missing from all of our offices , and that is some sort of analog input for something like this . It 's what audio people actually use of course . It 's something that wh {vocalsound} when you move your hand further , the sound goes faster past it , like fast forward . You know , like a joy stick or a {disfmarker} uh , you could wire a mouse or trackball to do something like that . +Postdoc E: Why , that 's {disfmarker} That 's not something I wanted to have happen . +Undergrad D: No , but I 'm saying if this is what professionals who actually do this kind of thing for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} m for video or for audio {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where you {disfmarker} you need to do this , +Postdoc E: I see . Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: and so you get very good at sort of jostling back and forth , rather than hitting tab , and backspace , and carriage return , and enter , and things like that . +PhD B: Mmm . Mmm . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , we talked about things like foot pedals and other analog {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {vocalsound} I mean , tho those are things we could do but I {disfmarker} I just don't know how much it 's worth doing . I mean we 're just gonna have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Ye - Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . They {disfmarker} they have several options . So , uh , you know , I mentioned the looping option . Another option is it 'll pause when it reaches the end of the boundary . And then to get to the next boundary you just press tab +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc E: and it goes on to the next unit . +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's very nicely thought out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: They thought about {disfmarker} and also it 'll {vocalsound} go around the c the , uh , I wanna say cursor but I 'm not sure if that 's the right thing . +Grad A: Point , whatever . +Postdoc E: Anyway , you can {disfmarker} so they thought about different ways of having windows that you c uh work within , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} But so in terms of the con the conventions , then , {vocalsound} uh , basically , {vocalsound} uh , it 's strictly orthographic which means with some w provisions for , uh , w uh , {vocalsound} colloquial forms . So if a person said , "" cuz "" instead of "" because "" then I put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an apostrophe at the beginning of the word and then in {disfmarker} in double ang angle brackets what the full lexical item would be . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And this could be {vocalsound} something that was handled by a table or something but I think {vocalsound} to have a convention marking it as a non - standard or wha I don't mean standard {disfmarker} but a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non {vocalsound} uh , ortho orthographic , uh , whatever . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Non - canonical . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: "" Gonna "" or "" wanna "" , you know , the same thing . And {disfmarker} and there would be limits to how much refinement you want in indicating something as non - standard pres pronunciation . +PhD C: How are you handling backchannels ? +Postdoc E: Backchannels ? +Grad A: Comments . +Postdoc E: Um , you know {disfmarker} oh , yes , there was some {disfmarker} in my view , when i when you 've got it densely overlapping , um , I didn't worry about {disfmarker} I didn't worry about s specific start times . +PhD C: What do you mean by du +Postdoc E: I sort of thought that this is not gonna be {comment} easily processed anyway and {vocalsound} maybe I shouldn't spend too much time getting exactly when the person said {vocalsound} "" no "" , or , you know , uh , i "" immediate "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And instead just sort of rendered "" within this time slot , {vocalsound} there were two people speaking during part of it +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {vocalsound} if you want more detail , figure it out for yourself "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I think what {disfmarker} w what Eric was talking about was channels other than the direct speech , +PhD C: I see . +Postdoc E: was sort of the way I felt @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: right ? +PhD C: Well , yeah , what I mean is wh I mean , when somebody says "" uh - huh "" in the middle of , uh , a @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . That happened very seldom . +PhD C: Oh , cuz I was {disfmarker} I was listening to {disfmarker} Dan was agreeing a lot to things that you were saying as you were talking . +Undergrad D: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: Oh , well , thank you Dan . +PhD C: So . +Postdoc E: Appreciate it . Well , if it {disfmarker} if there was a word like "" right "" , you know , then I wou I would indicate {vocalsound} that it happened within the same tem time frame +Grad A: Yeah , there 's an overlapping mark . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but wouldn't say exactly when it happened . +Undergrad D: I 'll be right back . +PhD B: I transcribed a minute of this stuff +PhD C: I see . +PhD B: and there was a lot of overlapping . It was {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: A lot of overlapping , yeah . +Grad A: Well there there 's a lot of overlapping at the beginning and end . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Huge amounts . +PhD B: It was at the beginning . +Grad A: Um , when {disfmarker} when no one i when we 're not actually in the meeting , {vocalsound} and we 're all sort of separated , and {disfmarker} and doing things . But even during the meeting there 's a lot of overlap but it {disfmarker} it 's marked pretty clearly . Um , some of the backchannel stuff Jane had some comments {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but I think a lot of them were because you were at the meeting . And so I think that {disfmarker} that often {disfmarker} {vocalsound} often you can't tell . +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true . That 's another issue . +Grad A: I mean , Jane had {disfmarker} had comments like uh , to {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the person was speaking to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Only when it was otherwise gonna be puzzling +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: because he was in the other room talking . +Grad A: Yeah , but someone who , uh , {vocalsound} was just the transcriber wouldn't have known that . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Or when Dan said , "" I wa I wasn't talking to you "" . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: That 's true . I know . +Undergrad D: So you take a bathroom break in the middle and {disfmarker} and keep your head mount +Grad A: You have to turn off your mike . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Oh , you do ? +PhD B: You don't have to . +Postdoc E: Well he was so {disfmarker} so he was checking the meter levels and {disfmarker} and we were handling things while he was labeling the {disfmarker} the whatever it was , the PDA ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and so he was {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} you were sort of talking {disfmarker} you know , so I was saying , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} "" and I could label this one left . Right ? "" And he {disfmarker} and he said , "" I don't see anything "" . And he said {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he said , {vocalsound} "" I wasn't talking to you "" . Or {disfmarker} it wasn't {disfmarker} it didn't sound quite that rude . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But really , no , uh {disfmarker} w you know in the context if you know he can't hear what he 's saying {disfmarker} +Grad A: but when you w when you listen to it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: he he It was a lot funnier if you were there though . +Postdoc E: Uh , yeah , +Grad A: Well what {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what happens is if you 're a transcriber listening to it it sounds like Dan is just being a total {disfmarker} {vocalsound} totally impolite . +Postdoc E: I know . Well , you 'll see . You can listen to it . Oh , I thought it was you who was . No , well , but you were {disfmarker} you were asking off the wall questions . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but if you knew that {disfmarker} that I wasn't actually in the room , and that Dan wasn't talking to me , it {disfmarker} it became OK . So . +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: So th +Postdoc E: And that 's w that 's where I added comments . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: The rest of the time I didn't bother with who was talking to who but {disfmarker} but this was unusual circum circumstance . +Undergrad D: So this is {disfmarker} this is gonna go on the meeting meeting transcriber bloopers tape , right ? +Grad A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc E: Well and part of it was funny , uh {disfmarker} reason was because it was a mixed signal so you couldn't get any clues from volume {vocalsound} that , you know , he was really far away from this conversation . +Grad A: Stereo . Yeah . +Postdoc E: You couldn't do that symmetrically in any case . +PhD B: No . +Grad A: Oh . I should rewrite the mix tool to put half the people in one channel and half in the other . I have a {pause} auto - gain - mixer tool that mixes all the head mounted microphones into one signal +Postdoc E: That 's a good idea . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and that seems to work really well for the uh {pause} transcribers . +Undergrad D: Great . +Postdoc E: But I thought it would be {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't wanna add more contextual comments than were needed but that , it seemed to me , clarified that the con what was going on . And , uh {disfmarker} OK , +PhD C: So , s +Postdoc E: so normalization {disfmarker} +PhD C: I was just gonna ask , uh , so I just wanted to c sort of finish off the question I had about backchannels , +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: if that 's OK , +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: which {disfmarker} which was , so say somebody 's talking for a while +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: and somebody goes "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of it , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and what not , does the conversation come out from the {disfmarker} or the person who 's speaking for the long time as one segment and then there 's this little tiny segment {vocalsound} of this other speaker or does it {disfmarker} does the fact that there 's a backchannel split the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it in two . +Postdoc E: OK , my {disfmarker} my focus was to try and maintain conten con content continuity and , uh , to keep it within what he was saying . Like {vocalsound} I wouldn't say breath groups but prosodic or intonational groups as much as possible . So {vocalsound} if someone said "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of a {disfmarker} of someone 's , {vocalsound} uh , uh , intonational contour , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I indicated it as , like what you just did . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: then I indicated it as a segment which contained {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} this utterance plus an overlap . +PhD B: But that 's {disfmarker} but there 's only one {disfmarker} there 's only one time boundary for both speakers , +PhD C: OK . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . And you know , it could be made more precise than that +PhD C: I see , +Postdoc E: but I just thought {disfmarker} +PhD C: I see , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: I think whenever we use these speech words we should always {vocalsound} do the thing like you 're talking about , accent , +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . And then {pause} "" hesitation "" . Yeah . OK , and so then , uh , in terms of like words like "" uh "" and "" um "" I just wrote them because I figured there 's a limited number , and I keep them to a {disfmarker} uh , limited set because it didn't matter if it was "" mmm "" or "" um "" , {comment} {vocalsound} you know , versus "" um "" . So I just always wrote it as U M . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: And "" uh - huh "" , you know , "" UHUH . "" I mean , like a s set of like five . But in any case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I didn't mark those . +PhD B: No . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: "" Uh - huh "" is "" U H H U H . "" H U H . "" +Postdoc E: I 'd be happy with that . That 'd be fine . It 'd be good to have that in the {disfmarker} in the conventions , what 's to be used . +PhD C: Huh - uh . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I did notice that there were some segments that had pauses on the beginning and end . We should probably mark areas that have no speakers as no speaker . Then , so question mark colon is fine for that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a fine idea . That 's a fine idea . +Grad A: Just say silence . +Undergrad D: Well , what 's that mean ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You mean re +Grad A: No one 's talking . +Undergrad D: ye s Oh . Silence all around . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: Yep . +PhD B: We have to mark those ? +Postdoc E: So I had {disfmarker} +PhD B: Don't they {disfmarker} d can't we just leave them unmarked ? +Postdoc E: I d Well , you see , that 's possible too . +Grad A: Well , I wanna leave the marked {disfmarker} I don't want them to be part of another utterance . So you just {disfmarker} you need to have the boundary at the start and the end . +PhD B: OK . Sure . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Now that 's refinement that , uh , maybe it could be handled by part of the {disfmarker} part of the script or something more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , yeah , it seems like {disfmarker} it seems like the , uh , tran the transcription problem would be very different if we had these {vocalsound} automatic speaker detection turn placing things . Because suddenly {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , actually it sounds like there might be a problem {vocalsound} putting it into the software if the software only handles two parallel channels . But assuming we can get around that somehow . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Well you were saying , I think it can read {disfmarker} +Grad A: It can read and write as many as you want , it 's just that it +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But what if you wanna edit it ? Right ? I mean , the point is we 're gonna generate {vocalsound} this transcript with five {disfmarker} five tracks in it , but with no words . Someone 's gonna have to go in and type in the words . Um , and if there are five {disfmarker} five people speaking at once , +Grad A: Right , i it 's {disfmarker} I didn't explain it well . If we use the {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} the conventions that Jane has established , I have a script that will convert from that convention to their saved convention . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . Yes . +Postdoc E: Which allows five . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And it can be m edited after the fact , +Grad A: Yes . +Postdoc E: can't it also ? But their {disfmarker} but their format , if you wanted to in indicate the speakers right there instead of doing it through this indirect route , {vocalsound} then i they {disfmarker} a c window comes up and it only allows you to enter two speakers . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Undergrad D: But you 're saying that by the time you call it back in to {disfmarker} from their saved format it opens up a window with window with five speakers ? +Postdoc E: So . But . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Oh ! That is sort of {pause} f +Grad A: It 's just user interface . +Undergrad D: They didn't quite go the whole {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i it 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , they didn't go the whole route , +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole saved form the saved format and the internal format , all that stuff , handles multiple speakers . +Undergrad D: did they ? They just {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just there 's no user interface for specifying multiple {disfmarker} any more than two . +Undergrad D: Right . So your {disfmarker} your script solves {disfmarker} Doesn't it solve all our problems , +Postdoc E: And that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: cuz we 're always gonna wanna go through this preprocessing {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: uh , assuming it works . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: And that works nicely cuz this so quick to enter . So I wouldn't wanna do it through the interface anyway adding which {disfmarker} worry who the speaker was . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: I see . Right . Good . +Postdoc E: And then , uh , let 's see what else . Oh , yes , I {disfmarker} I wanted to have {disfmarker} So sometimes a pers I {disfmarker} uh in terms of like the continuity of thought {vocalsound} for transcriptions , it 's {disfmarker} i it isn't just words coming out , it 's like there 's some purpose for an utterance . And {vocalsound} sometimes someone will {vocalsound} do a backchannel in the middle of it but you wanna show that it 's continued at a later point . So I have {disfmarker} I have a convention of putting like a dash {vocalsound} arrow just to indicate that this person 's utterance continues . And then when it uh , catches back up again then there 's an arrow dash , and then you have the opposite direction {vocalsound} to indicate continuation of ones own utterance versus , um , sometimes {vocalsound} we had the situation which is {disfmarker} you know , which you {disfmarker} which you get in conversations , {comment} of someone continuing someone else 's utterance , +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and in that case I did a tilde arrow versus a arrow tilde , {vocalsound} to indicate that it was continuation but it wasn't {disfmarker} Oh , I guess I did {vocalsound} equal arrow for the {disfmarker} for the own {disfmarker} for yourself things +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz it 's {disfmarker} the speakers the same . And then tilde arrow if it was a different {disfmarker} if a different speaker , uh , con continuation . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Postdoc E: But just , you know , the arrows showing continuation of a thought . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And then you could track whether it was the same speaker or not by knowing {disfmarker} you know , at the end of this unit you 'd know what happened later . And that was like this person continued +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and you 'd be able to {vocalsound} look for the continuation . +Grad A: So +PhD B: But the only time that becomes ambiguous is if you have two speakers . Like , if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you only have one person , if you only have one thought that 's continuing across a particular time boundary , you just need {vocalsound} one arrow at each end , and if it 's picked up by a different speaker , it 's picked up by a different speaker . The time it becomes ambiguous if you have more than one speaker and that {disfmarker} and they sort of swap . I guess if you have more than one thread going , then you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} then you need to know whether they were swapped or not . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: How often does that happen do you think ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hopefully not very much . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I didn't use it very often . +Grad A: Especially for meetings . I mean , if i if you were just recording someone 's day , it would be impossible . You know , +Undergrad D: It l ou +Grad A: if you were trying to do a remembrance agent . But I think for meetings it 's probably alright . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: But , a lot of these issues , I think that for {disfmarker} uh , from my point of view , where I just wanna do speech recognition and information retrieval , it doesn't really matter . +PhD B: Sure . +Grad A: But other people have other interests . +PhD B: I know . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: But it {disfmarker} it does feel {disfmarker} it does feel like it 's really in there . I {disfmarker} you know I did this {disfmarker} I did this transcription and I marked that , I marked it with ellipsis because it seemed like there was a difference . It 's something you wanted to indicate that it {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} this was the end of the phrase , this was the end of {vocalsound} that particular transcript , but it was continued later . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: And I picked up with an ellipsis . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD B: I didn't have the equal , not equal thing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Well that 's {disfmarker} you know , I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't {comment} I didn't do it n {vocalsound} I mean , that 's why I thought about it , and {disfmarker} and re - ev +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: and it didn't do {disfmarker} I didn't do it in ten times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the time . +Grad A: Well , so anyway , are we interested then in writing tools to try to generate any of this stuff automatically ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that something you want to do , Dan ? +PhD B: No . +Grad A: No . +PhD B: But it 's something @ @ that I feel we definitely ought to do . +Postdoc E: I also wanted to ask you if you have a time estimate on the part that you transcribed . Do you have a sense of how long {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , it took me half an hour to transcribe a minute , but I didn't have any {disfmarker} I didn't even have a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: I was trying to get Transcriber to run but I couldn't . So I was doing it by typ typing into a text file and trying to fit {disfmarker} It was horrible . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . +Undergrad D: So thirty to one 's what you got ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: So that 's a new upper limit ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's because you didn't have the segmentation help and all the other {disfmarker} +Grad A: But I think for a first try that 's about right . +PhD B: Is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so if we hired a who if we hired a whole bunch of Dan 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It was actually {disfmarker} it was quite {disfmarker} it was a t +Undergrad D: a +Grad A: If we {pause} hire an infinite number of Dan 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: it w +Undergrad D: It 'd b a a +Postdoc E: And there 's always a warm up thing of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are we gonna run out of disk space by the way ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , +PhD B: No . +Grad A: good . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: d Doesn't it beep in the other room when you 're out of disk space ? +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Is there {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . +PhD C: Maybe we should s consider also , um , starting to build up a web site around all of these things . +PhD B: Web site ! That 's great ! +PhD C: I know . +Grad A: Dan 's sort of already started . +PhD B: We could have like business - to - business E - commerce as well ! +PhD C: That 's right . No , but I 'm it would be interesting {disfmarker} it would be interesting to see {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can we sell banner ads ? +Undergrad D: Get {disfmarker} get paid for click - throughs ? +Grad A: What a good idea , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: that 's how we could pay for the transcription . +PhD C: I want to introduce {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to introduce the word "" snot - head "" into the conversation at this point . +PhD B: We can have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You wanna word that won't be recognized ? +PhD C: You see , cuz {disfmarker} uh , cuz {disfmarker} Exactly . Um . +Postdoc E: Oh , I don't think so . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Hey , what about me ? +PhD C: The r w What {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc E: You 're the one who raised the issue . +PhD C: No . Alright , see here 's {disfmarker} here 's {disfmarker} here 's my thought behind it which is that , uh , the {disfmarker} the stuff that you 've been describing , Jane , I gu one has to , {vocalsound} of course {vocalsound} indicate , {comment} {vocalsound} um , i is very interesting , +Postdoc E: Alright . +PhD C: and I I 'd like to be able to {disfmarker} to pore through , you know , the {disfmarker} the types of tr conventions that you 've come up with and stuff like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So I would like to see that kind of stuff on the web . +Postdoc E: OK , now , w the alternative to a web site would be to put it in Doctor speech . +PhD B: Yes . Yes . +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} cuz what I have is a soft link to my transcription {vocalsound} that I have on my account +PhD C: Either 's fine . +PhD B: We c +Postdoc E: but it doesn't matter . +Grad A: We can do it all . +PhD B: we can do it all ! We can write {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc E: Web site 's nice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Then you have to t you have to do an HT access . +Undergrad D: Web site 's what ? +PhD B: We could actually {disfmarker} maybe we could use the TCL plug - in . Oh , man . +Postdoc E: Ooo ! He 's committed himself to something . +PhD C: Ow . See he said the word TCL and {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But he does such a good job of it . He should be allowed to {disfmarker} to , you know , w do it . +Postdoc E: I know , I know . +PhD B: I know , but that {disfmarker} but , I {disfmarker} Right . But I should be allowed to but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If you just did a crappy job , {vocalsound} no nobody would want you to do it . +PhD B: I sh I shouldn't be allowed to by m by my own {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by my {disfmarker} according to my own priorities . Alright . Let 's look at it anyway . So definitely we should {disfmarker} we should have some kind of access to the data . +Grad A: And we have {disfmarker} we have quite a disparate number of web and other sorts of documents on this project sort of spread around . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: I have several and Dan has a few , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right , so we can add in links and stuff like that to other things . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Nice . +PhD B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well so then th +Grad A: Try {disfmarker} try to s consolidate . I mean , who wants to do that though ? +PhD B: the other side is , yeah . +PhD C: Uh , right . +Grad A: No one wants to do that . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Right , that 's the problem . +PhD C: Well , we could put {disfmarker} we could put sort of a disorganized sort of group gestalt {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Why ? What {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the issue ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Undergrad D: No one what ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Grad A: Yeah , I own the project but I don't wanna do it . +PhD B: No one wants to own the project . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: W well {pause} Do {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's mine ! All mine ! +PhD B: Well then you have to do the web site . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Wah - hah - hah - hah - hah - hah . "" +PhD B: You know , it 's like , it 's that simple . +Undergrad D: b but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but what are you {disfmarker} what are you talking about for web site hacking ? +PhD B: No {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You 're talking about writing HTML , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm talking about putting together all the data in a form that {disfmarker} that is legible , and pleasant to read , and up to date , and et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: But , is it against the law to actually use a tool to help your job go easier ? +Grad A: Absolutely . It 's {disfmarker} it 's absolutely against the law to use a tool . I haven't found any tools that I like . +Undergrad D: You y +Grad A: It 's just as easy to use {disfmarker} to edit the raw HTML as anything else . +Undergrad D: No kidding ? +PhD B: That 's obviously not true , +Grad A: It 's obviously not true . +PhD B: but you have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , it it it 's obviously true that he hasn't found any he likes . +PhD B: Right . That 's true . +Undergrad D: The question is what is {disfmarker} what 's he looked at . +Postdoc E: Which one do you use Jim ? +Undergrad D: I use something called Trellix . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's right . I remember . Yeah . +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Which produces also site maps . +Grad A: Now , I guess if I were {disfmarker} if I were doing more powerful {disfmarker} excuse me {disfmarker} more complex web sites I might want to . +Undergrad D: it 's - it it 's very powerful . +Grad A: But most of the web sites I do aren't that complex . +Postdoc E: Well , would this be to document it also for outside people or mainly for in house use ? +Grad A: But . I think both . +PhD C: No , I think in +Grad A: Mostly in house . +PhD B: That 's right . +PhD C: I think mostly internal . +Undergrad D: Well , yeah , +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: but what does internal mean ? +PhD B: No , both . +Undergrad D: I mean , you 're leaving . People at UW wanna look at it . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's internal {comment} until {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Internal to the project . +Undergrad D: I see . +Postdoc E: We could do an HT access which would accommodate those things . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , well , send me links and I wi send me pointers , rather , and I 'll put it together . +PhD B: I 'm not {disfmarker} o +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +PhD B: OK . I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} how {vocalsound} important that distinction is . I don't think {vocalsound} we should say , {vocalsound} "" oh , it 's internal therefore we don't have to make it very good "" . I mean , you can say {vocalsound} "" oh {disfmarker} oh , it 's internal +PhD C: No . No . +PhD B: therefore we can put data in it that we don't {disfmarker} we don't have to worry about releasing "" . But I think the point is to try and {vocalsound} be coherent and make it a nice presentation . +Undergrad D: Right . I agree . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it is true , that is {disfmarker} it benefits to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Cuz you 're gonna have to wor do the work sooner or later . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . I mean , it 's the early on . +Undergrad D: Even if it 's just writing things up . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: You know ? +Postdoc E: It 's a great idea . +Grad A: OK , um , let 's move on to electronics . +PhD B: Ah . Great . +Undergrad D: d we {disfmarker} we out of tape {disfmarker} out of disk ? +PhD B: No , we 're doing {disfmarker} we 're doing great . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I was looking for the actual box I plan to use , uh , but I {disfmarker} c all I could {disfmarker} I couldn't find it at the local store . But this is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the technology . It 's actually a little bit thinner than this . And it 's two by two , by one , and it would fit right under the {disfmarker} right under th the the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the lip , +Grad A: Yeah , does everyone know about the lip on the table ? It 's great . +Undergrad D: yeah . There 's a lip in these tables . +Postdoc E: Nice . +Undergrad D: And , it oc I p especially brought the bottom along to try and generate some frequencies that you may not already have recorded . +Grad A: Clink ! Clink ! +Undergrad D: Let 's see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} see what it does to the {disfmarker} But this was the uh {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just to review , and I also brought this {comment} along rather than the projector so we can put these on the table , and sort of w push them around . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and crinkle them and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What ? +Postdoc E: And th "" that "" being a diagram . +PhD B: What ? +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} that 's the six tables that we 're looking at . These six tables here , {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with little boxes sort of , uh , in the middle here . +PhD B: I see . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Which es would {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the boxes are pretty much out of the way anyway . I 'll - I 'll show you the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the cro this is the table cross section . I don't know if people realize what they 're looking at . +PhD B: You trying to {pause} screw up the m the microphones ? +Grad A: Yes . He is . Absolutely . +PhD B: I mean th +Undergrad D: Well why not ? I mean , cuz this is what 's gonna happen . You got plenty of data . I won't come to your next meeting . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you So this is the box 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Get your paper off my PDA ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , let {disfmarker} let the record show that this is exhibit two B . +Undergrad D: That 's right . "" Or not to be "" . Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Uh , the box , uh {disfmarker} there 's a half inch lip here . The box is an inch thick so it hangs down a half an inch . And so the {disfmarker} the two {vocalsound} head set jacks would be in the front and then the little LED to indicate that that box is live . The {disfmarker} the important issue about the LED is the fact that we 're talking about eight of these total , which would be sixteen channels . And , uh , even though we have sixteen channels back at the capture , they 're not all gonna be used for this . +PhD B: Hmm . +Undergrad D: So there 'd be a subset of them used for {disfmarker} obviously j just use the ones at this end for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for this many . So {disfmarker} Excuse me . you 'd like a {disfmarker} a way to tell whether your box is live , so the LED wouldn't be on . +PhD B: Right . All the lights . +Undergrad D: So if you 're plugged in it doesn't work and the LED is off that 's {disfmarker} that 's a tip off . And then the , uh {disfmarker} would wire the {disfmarker} all of the cables in a {disfmarker} in a bundle come through here and o obviously collect these cables at the same time . +Postdoc E: That 's good . +Undergrad D: Uh , so this {disfmarker} this notion of putting down the P Z Ms {vocalsound} and taking them away would somehow have to be turned into leaving them on the table +Grad A: Right . Well , we wanna do that definitely . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: Right . And so the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we just epoxy them down or something . Big screw into the table . +PhD B: Velcro . +Undergrad D: Uh , and even though there 's eight cables they 're not really very big around so my model is to get a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a p piece of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sleeve . +Undergrad D: yeah , that {disfmarker} that stuff that people put with the little {disfmarker} you slip the wires into that 's {vocalsound} sort of shaped like that cross section . +Grad A: Oh . OK , not just sleeve them all ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm r a I 'm going up and then I 'm going down . +Grad A: And leave them loose ? +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: That looks like a semi - circle . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like a {disfmarker} it 's a sleeping policeman . +Grad A: Whoo ! +PhD B: Speed bump ! +Postdoc E: Sleeping pol +PhD B: Speed bump . +Grad A: Speed A "" sleeping policeman "" ! +Undergrad D: Yeah , it 's like a speed bum {vocalsound} An +Postdoc E: Speed bump . That 's good . There we go s +Grad A: Cool . +Undergrad D: And they 're ac they 're actually ext extruded from plastic . +PhD C: What is {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: They sorta look like this . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: What does that mean ? +PhD B: That 's the s that 's British for speed bump , +PhD C: Is it a speed bump ? +Undergrad D: So that the wires go through here . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD C: Wow . +Postdoc E: Oh , is that right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I never heard that . +Grad A: That 's really cruel . +Undergrad D: So . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: OK , so that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: s So it would c basically go on the diagonal here . +PhD C: It could go either way . +Grad A: So why do we have sixteen channels instead of like some fewer number ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess . +Undergrad D: Uh , because the {disfmarker} +PhD B: How else are you gonna distribute them around the tables ? +Undergrad D: Because they 're there . +Grad A: Well , OK , let me rephrase that . Why two each ? +PhD B: Oh , because then you don't have to just have one each . So that if t if you have two people sitting next to each other they can actually go into the same box . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And to {disfmarker} See , thi this is really the way people sit on this table . Th +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh . Dot , dot , dot . +Postdoc E: Which means two at each station . +Undergrad D: Well that {disfmarker} that 's the way people sit . That 's how many chairs are in the room . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Alright . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I 'm just saying that for the recording . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And certainly you could do a thing where all sixteen were plugged in . +Grad A: But then none of these . +Undergrad D: Uh if {disfmarker} if you ha if you had nothing else . +Grad A: Right . N none of these and no P Z Ms then . +Undergrad D: Yeah . Right . Right . I agree . +PhD B: Only if you had {disfmarker} Well it depends on this box , right ? +Undergrad D: Oh , true enough . And actually , at the m my plan is to only bring eight wires out of this box . +PhD B: Exactly . +Grad A: Oh , I didn't understand {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} this box {disfmarker} Thi - thi thi this box is a one off deal . +Postdoc E: That being the wiring box . +Grad A: Oh , I see , I see . +Undergrad D: Uh . And , uh , it 's function is to s to , uh , essentially a wire converter to go from these little blue wires to these black wires , plus supply power to the microphones cuz the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} he the , uh , cheap head mounteds all require low voltage . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so you 'd imagine some sort of {disfmarker} in some sort of patch panel on top to figure out what the mapping was between each d of these two and each of those one or what ? +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: Well I w I I the simplest thing I could imagine , i which is really , really simple is to {disfmarker} quite literally that these things plug in . And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a plug on the end of each of these {disfmarker} these , uh , ei eight cables . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . Each of the blue wires ? +PhD B: But there are only four . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's only {disfmarker} there 's only four slots that are {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} in the first version or the version we 're planning to {disfmarker} to build . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: So {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that was the whole issue with the LED , that you plug it in , the LED comes on , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you 're live . +Grad A: Oh , then it comes on . I see , I see . OK , good . +Undergrad D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the subtle issue here is that {disfmarker} tha I {disfmarker} I haven't really figured out a solution for this . So , we it 'll have to be convention . What happens if somebody unplugs this because they plug in more of something else ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Well the {disfmarker} there 's no clever way to let the up stream guys know that you 're really not being powered . So {disfmarker} th there will be a certain amount of looking at cables has to be done if people , uh , rewire things . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , I mean , we {disfmarker} I had that last time . +Undergrad D: But . +PhD B: But uh there are actually {disfmarker} that you know , there 's an extra {disfmarker} there 's a mix out on the radio receiver ? +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So there are actually six {vocalsound} XLR outs on the back of the radio receiver and only five cables going in , I had the wrong five , so I ended up {vocalsound} not recording one of the channels and recording the mix . +Undergrad D: How interesting . D did you do any recognition on the mix {disfmarker} mix out ? +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Wonder whether it works any {disfmarker} +PhD B: But I subtracted the four that I did have from the mix and got a pretty good approximation of the @ @ . +Undergrad D: Got the fifth ? +Grad A: You g +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: Oh , how great . +Grad A: And did it work ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Did it sound good ? +PhD B: It 's not bad . +Undergrad D: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's not bad , +Grad A: Wow . +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: Ain't science wonderful ? +Postdoc E: That 's amazing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So what 's the schedule on these things ? +Undergrad D: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , you always {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: Uh , well I was wrestling with th with literally the w number of connectors in the cable and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {vocalsound} powering system . And I {disfmarker} I was gonna do this very clever phantom power and I decided a couple days ago not to do it . +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: So I 'm ready to build it . Which is to say , uh , the neighborhood of a week to get the circuit board done . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So I think the other thing I 'd like to do is , do something about the set up +PhD B: See +Grad A: so that it 's a little more presentable and organized . +Undergrad D: I agree . +Grad A: And I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just not sure what that is . I mean , some sort of cabinet . +Undergrad D: Well I can build a cabinet . The {disfmarker} the difficulty for this kind of project is the intellectual capital to design the cabinet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: In other words , to figure out ex exactly what the right thing is . That cabinet can {disfmarker} can go away . We can use that for {disfmarker} for uh kindling or something . But if you can imagine what the right form factor is . Dan - Dan and I have sort of gone around on this , and we were thinking about something that opened up in the top {vocalsound} to allow access to the mixer for example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: But there 's these things sticking out of the mixer which are kind of a pain , so you end up with this thing that {disfmarker} if if you stuck the mixer up here and the top opened , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be fine . You wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} Well , you s understand what I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I understand . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can start {disfmarker} start s sketching it out , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: and I can certainly build it out of oak no problem , would it {disfmarker} you know , arb you know , arbitrarily amount of {disfmarker} +Grad A: I need a desk at home too , alright ? Is that gonna be a better solution than just going out and buy one ? +Undergrad D: Well , the {disfmarker} as we found out with the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , Jeff bought a long time ago to hold our stereo system {vocalsound} the stuff you buy is total crap . And I mean this is something you buy . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: And it 's total crap . +Undergrad D: It 's total crap . Well , it 's useless for this function . Works fine for holding a Kleenex , +Grad A: Right , Kleenex and telephones . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Um , so yeah , I g I guess it 's just a question , is that something you wanna spend your time on ? +Undergrad D: Oh , I {disfmarker} I 'm paid for . +Grad A: OK , great . +Undergrad D: I have no problem . No , but w certainly one of the issues is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is security . +Grad A: Hmm ? Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I mean , we 've been {disfmarker} been {disfmarker} been lax and lucky . +Grad A: Lax . +PhD B: Yeah . Yep . +Undergrad D: Really lucky with these things . But they 're not ours , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the , uh {disfmarker} the flat panels . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Grad A: I 'm telling you , I 'm just gonna cart one of them away if they stay there much longer . +PhD B: Well w yeah , exactly . +Undergrad D: Uh , let the record show at {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} at f four thirty - five {vocalsound} Adam Janin says {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . Tempting . +PhD B: We 'll know {disfmarker} we 'll know to come after . +Postdoc E: Tempting . Yeah . +Grad A: So , um , j uh , then the other question is do we wanna try to do a user interface that 's available out here ? +PhD B: Sorry ? +Undergrad D: Slipped {disfmarker} almost slipped it by Dan . +Postdoc E: Use - user interface {disfmarker} +Grad A: A user interface . I mean , do we wanna try to get a monitor ? Or just something . +PhD B: Oh ! Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Well of course we do . +Grad A: And how do we want to do that ? +Postdoc E: You mean like see {disfmarker} see meter readings , from {disfmarker} while sitting here . +Grad A: J just so we see something . +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: How about use the thing that um ACIRI 's doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Which is to say just laptop with a wireless . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Which we 'll borrow from them , {vocalsound} when we need it . +Undergrad D: What 's wrong with yours ? If we bought you a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , a Applecard . Sure . Right . Yeah , you could use my machine . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: What ? +Grad A: I have an IRAM machine I 've borrowed and we can use it . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: N no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm serious . Does {disfmarker} does the wireless thing work on your {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , isn't that an ethernet connection or is that a phone ? +PhD B: Uh , that 's an ethernet connection . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's going next door . +Undergrad D: Yeah {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no I 'm a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ain't joking here . +Grad A: We jus +Undergrad D: I 'm serious , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . No , no , absolutely , that 's the right way to do it . T to have it uh , just {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's very convenient especially if Dan happens to be sitting at that end of the table to not have to run down here and {disfmarker} and look in the thing every so often , +PhD B: Yeah . And given {disfmarker} given that we 've got a wireless {disfmarker} that we 've got a {disfmarker} we got the field . +Undergrad D: but just have the {disfmarker} It 's right there . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: Right ? The antenna 's right there , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: right outside the {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't know . +Undergrad D: Y I mean , we need {disfmarker} obviously need to clear this with ACIRI but , uh , how tough can that be ? There {disfmarker} it you 'd {disfmarker} all you need 's web access , isn't it ? +PhD B: W we don't need X access +Undergrad D: In {disfmarker} in theory . +PhD B: but I mean that 's fine . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what it does , +Undergrad D: OK , +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: great , great . +Grad A: Um , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: right , so it 's just a question of getting a laptop and a wireless modem . +PhD B: With a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} w +Undergrad D: No , and he {disfmarker} he had , reque @ @ {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my proposal is you have a laptop . +PhD B: No . Yeah . I do ! +Undergrad D: You don't ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} if we bought you the thing would you mind using it with i the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I would love to but I 'm not sure if my laptop is compatible with the wave LAN thing they 're using . +Undergrad D: Really ? +Grad A: To {pause} Mac . +PhD B: Well Apple has their own thing , right ? +PhD C: He 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Your new one ? +Grad A: Airport . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry ? +PhD B: Apple has their own thing . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I thought it just came through a serial p or an Ethernet port . +PhD B: Yeah , I think what {disfmarker} I think you {disfmarker} I think it just plug plugs in a PC card , so you could probably make it run with that , but . +Grad A: The question is , is there an Apple driver ? +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} e +PhD B: Yeah , I 'm sure . I imagine there is . But {disfmarker} uh anyway there are {disfmarker} there are abs there are a bunch of machines at ICSI that have those cards +Undergrad D: But the two t +PhD B: and so I think if w if it doesn't {disfmarker} we should be able to find a machine that does that . I {disfmarker} I mean I know that doesn't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't the important people have those little blue VAIOs that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Well , uh , b that {disfmarker} to me that 's a whole nother . That 's a whole nother issue . +Postdoc E: Hmm . Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: The {disfmarker} the idea of con convincing them that we should use their network i is fairly straight forward . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: The idea of being able to walk into their office and say , "" oh , can I borrow your machine for a while "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a non - starter . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think that 's gonna work . So , I mean , either {disfmarker} either we figure out how to use a machine somebody already {disfmarker} in the group already owns , {vocalsound} a a and the idea is that if it 's it perk , you know , it 's an advantage not {disfmarker} not a disadvan {comment} {vocalsound} or else we {disfmarker} we literally buy a machine e exactly for that purpose . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Absolutely . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Certainly it solves a lot of the problems with leaving a monitor out here all the time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not a big fan of doing things to the room that make the room less attractive for other people , +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: right ? Which is part of the reason for getting all this stuff out of the way +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , so a monitor sitting here all the time you know people are gonna walk up to it and go , "" how come I can't get , you know , Pong on this "" or , whatev +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . I 've {disfmarker} I 've borrowed the IRAM VAIO Sony thingy , +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: and I don't think they 're ever gonna want it back . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: You 're kidding ! +Undergrad D: Well , the next conference they will . +Grad A: So . Sure . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: But that does mean {disfmarker} so we can use that as well . +Undergrad D: Well , uh , the {disfmarker} certainly , u you should give it a shot first See whether you you can get compatible stuff . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh , ask them what it costs . Ask them if they have an extra one . Who knows , they might have an extra {vocalsound} hardware s +PhD B: I 'd trade them a flat panel display for it . Yeah . +PhD C: What is the , um , projector supposed to be hooked up to ? +Undergrad D: Good . Uh , the , uh {disfmarker} Tsk . It 's gonna be hooked up to all sorts of junk . There 's gonna be actually a {disfmarker} a plug at the front that 'll connect to people 's laptops so you can walk in and plug it in . And it 's gonna be con connected to the machine at the back . So we certainly could use that as {disfmarker} as a constant reminder of what the VU meters are doing . +PhD B: Huge VU meters . +Undergrad D: So people sitting here {comment} are going {vocalsound} "" testing , one , two , three "" ! +PhD C: But I mean , that 's another {disfmarker} that 's another possibility that , you know , solves {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} a +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD B: That 's an end +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I think the idea of having a control panel it 's {disfmarker} that 's there in front of you is really cool . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I think and uh , having {disfmarker} having it on wireless is {disfmarker} is the neatest way {disfmarker} neatest way to do it . +Undergrad D: R +Grad A: I had {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: As long as you d as l as long as you 're not tempted to sit there and f keep fiddling with the volume controls going , "" can you talk a bit louder ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I had actually earlier asked if I could borrow one of the cards to do wireless stuff +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: and they said , "" sure , whenever you want "" . So I think it won't be a problem . +PhD B: Oh , cool . OK . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and it 's a {disfmarker} a PCMCIA card , right ? +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: PC card , +Grad A: PC card . +Undergrad D: so you can have a slot , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: right ? In your new machine ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it really come down to the driver . +Undergrad D: Is it with s +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , I mean , and if {disfmarker} and if his doesn't work , as I said , we can use the PC . +Undergrad D: Right , i it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll work {disfmarker} It 'll work the first time . I {disfmarker} I trust Steve Jobs . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Um , +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: well , that sounds like a d good solution one way or the other . +Grad A: So Jim is gonna be doing wiring and you 're gonna give some thought to cabinets ? +Undergrad D: Uh , y yeah . +Grad A: Great . +Undergrad D: We {disfmarker} we need to {vocalsound} figure out what we want . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 'd {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hey , what are those green lights doing ? +Grad A: They 're flashing ! +PhD B: Uh - oh ! Uh - oh ! Does that {disfmarker} it means {disfmarker} it means it 's gonna explode . No . +Undergrad D: Cut the red wire , the red wire ! +PhD B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: When people talk , it {disfmarker} they go on and off . +PhD B: This {disfmarker} So again , Washington wants to equip a system . Our system , we spent ten thousand dollars on equipment not including the PC . However , seven and a half thousand of that was the wireless mikes . Uh , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: using {disfmarker} using these {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} and the f the five thousand for the wires , so if I 'm gonna do {disfmarker} No . +PhD B: Yeah , +Undergrad D: It 's a joke . +PhD B: that 's true +Undergrad D: I have to do {disfmarker} +PhD B: but we haven't spent that , right ? But once we {disfmarker} once we 've done the intellectual part of these , uh , we can just knock them out , right ? +Grad A: Cheap . +PhD B: We can start {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} you can make a hundred of them or something . +Undergrad D: Oh , of the {disfmarker} of the boards ? Yeah , yeah , sure , right . +PhD B: And then we could {disfmarker} Washington could have a system that didn't have any wireless but would had {disfmarker} what 's based on these +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and it would cost {disfmarker} +Grad A: A PC and a peanuts . +Undergrad D: Peanuts . +PhD B: PC and two thousand dollars for the A - to - D stuff . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: And that 's about {disfmarker} cuz you wouldn't even need the mixer if you didn't have the {disfmarker} Oh th {vocalsound} the P Z +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: P Z Ms cost a lot . But anyway you 'd save , on the seven {disfmarker} seven or eight thousand for the {disfmarker} for the wireless system . So actually that might be attractive . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: OK , I can move my thumb now . +Postdoc E: That 's a great idea . +Undergrad D: What ? +Postdoc E: It 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be thinking toward that . +Undergrad D: Oh , I thought like if we talked softer the disk lasts longer . +Grad A: Well , actually shorten {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: There 's a speech compression program that works great on things like this , cuz if the dynamic range is low it encodes it with fewer bits . And so most of the time no one 's talking so it shortens it dramatically . But {vocalsound} if you talk quieter , the dynamic range is lower and it will compress better . So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . Hmm . +Undergrad D: It also helps if you talk in a monotone . +Grad A: Probably . +Undergrad D: Constant volume all the time . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . And shorter words . +Grad A: Shorter words . +PhD C: Now , shorter words wouldn't {disfmarker} would induce more dynamics , right ? You want to have {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but if the words are more predictable . +Grad A: How about if you just go "" uh "" ? +PhD C: Huh . +Undergrad D: Uh . +Postdoc E: That 's a long word ! +Grad A: How do you spell that ? +Postdoc E: I don't know . +Grad A: OK , can you do one more round of digits ? Are we done talking ? +Undergrad D: Well it 's a choice {disfmarker} if we get a choice , let 's keep talking . +Grad A: Do we have more to talk about ? +Undergrad D: Sure . No , I 'm done . +PhD C: I 'm done . +Grad A: Are you done ? +Postdoc E: I 'm done , +Grad A: I 'm done . +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD C: Dan isn't but he 's not gonna say anything . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's a problem {disfmarker} a structural problem with this though . You really need an incentive at the end if you 're gonna do digits again . Like , you know , candy bars or something , +Grad A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll remember to bring M and M 's next time . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or or a little , uh {disfmarker} you know , toothbrushes like they give you at the d dentist . +PhD B: Mmm ! +Postdoc E: Or both . +Undergrad D: Or both . +PhD B: Sorry . +Undergrad D: Eric , you and I win . We didn't make any mistakes . +Grad A: It 's harder at the end than at the beginning . +Postdoc E: We don't know that for sure , do we ? +Grad A: I should have mentioned that s uh , to pause between lines but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , I know . I 'm just giving you a hard time . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's only a hard time for the transcriber not for the speech recognizer . +PhD B: Tha - tha +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} I also think you said channel four +Grad A: Me . +Postdoc E: and I think you meant microphone four . And I think that 's a mistake . +Undergrad D: Very good . So Eric , you win . But the other thing is that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a colon for transcripts . And there shouldn't be a colon . Because see , everything else is stuff you fill in . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's been filled in for you . +Undergrad D: Right ? Automatically . +PhD B: But they 're in order ! +Undergrad D: But real +PhD B: They start , six , seven , eight , nine , zero , one , two , three , four , five , six , eight , nine . +Undergrad D: Where 'd they come from ? +PhD B: And they 're in order because they 're sorted lexically by the file names , which are {disfmarker} have the numbers in digits . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And so they 're actually {disfmarker} this is like all the {disfmarker} all utterances that were generated by speaker MPJ or something . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And then within MPJ they 're sorted by what he actually said . +Grad A: Ugh ! I didn't know that . I should have randomized it . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: It doesn't matter ! It 's like {disfmarker} Cuz you said "" six , seven , eight "" . +Undergrad D: Well , we think it doesn't matter . +PhD B: We think it doesn't matter . If I {disfmarker} if not I {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But the real question I have is that , why bother with these ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just ask people to repeat numbers they already know ? Like phone numbers , you know , social security numbers . +PhD B: Cuz we have these writt written down , right ? +Grad A: Because {disfmarker} Right . +PhD B: That 's why {disfmarker} +Grad A: If we have it , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I know . +Postdoc E: Social security numbers . +Undergrad D: I kn +Grad A: we don't have to transcribe . +PhD B: You can {disfmarker} you can generate {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Bank account numbers . +Undergrad D: Credit card numbers , +Grad A: We don't have to tran +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , please . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's a great idea . +Postdoc E: Passport numbers . +Undergrad D: Yeah , so you just say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} say your credit card numbers , say your phone numbers , say your mother 's maiden name . +Grad A: Bet we could do it . +Undergrad D: You know pe +Postdoc E: Password to your account . +Undergrad D: people off the street . +Postdoc E: Go on . +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually , this {disfmarker} I got this directly from another training set , from Aurora . +PhD B: Alright . +Grad A: So . We can compare directly . +PhD B: Looks good . Looks like there were no errors . +Postdoc E: I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the reason I made my mistake was {disfmarker} +Grad A: What ? +Postdoc E: Wa - was this {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: There were no {disfmarker} there were no direct driver errors , by the look of it , which is good . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Good news . +Grad A: OK , the mike 's off . +PhD B: So I 'm gonna stop it . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad A: Thank you all . +Undergrad D: Mony on the mike . +PhD B: Uh - oh . +","In this meeting, participant Grad A, presumably the leader of the group and the person responsible for managing the transcription process, opens the dialogue by testing the audio channels. Individuals identified as PhD C (Eric), Postdoc E (Jane), and Undergrad D partake in the conversation, signifying their presence by stating their names as they check their microphones. However, there seems to be some initial confusion and issues with equipment as Jane (Postdoc E) faces trouble being recognized on the channel she is designated to, causing a slight disturbance in the process. + +Undergrad D humorously uses ""tasting"" instead of ""testing,"" perhaps to lighten the atmosphere as they work through the technical difficulties. Grad A, during the check, notices that Jane's microphone is not close enough to her mouth, which might have been contributing to her initial issues. Questions arise about the quality of labeling, with Undergrad D suggesting borrowing a labeling machine from David, presumably for the purpose of better organizing and identifying equipment. + +The topic then shifts to a brief discussion about renumbering, with Grad A highlighting the importance of keeping current numbers to align with existing forms. PhD B, identified as Dan, ensures he is on the correct channel and there is mention of standardizing the positioning of table microphones for better consistency. It's clear they are conducting some experimental audio recording and may be working within a research laboratory or academic setting. + +Later, they delve into future meeting planning and transcription processes, discussing whether commercial services might be worth the investment. Jane (Postdoc E) explains how she's been working on transcriptions manually using specific software and seems to have developed some preliminary conventions for transcribing speech nuances such as overlaps, repairs, and non-standard pronunciations. + +As the group considers the cost and logistics of transcription services, they compare the rates of commercial transcribers against possibly hiring linguistics students, with the latter appearing to be a more cost-effective solution, although more management intensive. + +Aside from transcription discussions, there are technical elements mentioned, such as the physical setup of microphones (with a comical aside about potential discomfort due to bad design), data collection for corpora, and their distribution. More technical considerations follow surrounding the actual infrastructure needed for data collection and recording, hinting at an extensive project involving various research objectives and methods. + +Undergrad D (David) oversees the electronics and infrastructure planning, and proposes a more organized setup for equipment and cables, including designs to accommodate laptop connections and incorporating considerations for network access, perhaps indicating a collaborative project environment. + +Throughout the conversation, there is humor interwoven with the technical dialogue, lightening what seems to be a complex and sometimes arduous process of data collection, equipment setup, meeting recording, and transcription for research purposes. There's awareness of the necessity to balance practicality with budget constraints and available resources. The group also discusses a potential website as a repository for their project data, which would require consolidation and presentation efforts. + +As the meeting concludes, they consider the feasibility of incorporating user interfaces for easier access to the system during meetings, such as visual indicators for active mics or possibly employing wireless connectivity and laptop usage. There's mention of coordinating with other departments such as ACIRI or utilizing existing equipment like VAIO laptops and Apple Airport for wireless connections. + +The group finishes on a humorous note, discussing an ideal method for future speech recordings which might include personal information like credit card or social security numbers, obviously in jest. The light-hearted banter exemplifies the team's camaraderie and ability to infuse humor into their technical work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , is everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah I'd to just put on my microphone here and I'll be right with you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} I take it you all have received instructions as to what you were supposed to do +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and um I think the Marketing Manager probably should go first , addressing the needs and desires . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay you want me to start right now ? +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , could you um put my slides up 'cause I think it might be helpful if uh we looked at the slides at the same time . +Project Manager: Okay . You're participant four . +Marketing: I'm participant four I believe . Yes uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay , and now I can uh full screen . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Open . +Project Manager: Uh , okay , okay . +Marketing: There we go . Okay well I think we have introduced ourselves , +Industrial Designer: And then full screen . +Marketing: so the functional requirements are {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} is part of my goal but why don't we pass right to the second slide . Cause that's where m my discussion starts . Right well um since I'm in charge of trying to figure out what we should put on this thing since I have to try to sell it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} I thought that the method I should follow would be gather suggestions from everybody , and th the reason I just put that there like that is that uh in the init in the initial stage I think I should just be open to lots of suggestions . You know you can say anything you want no matter how silly it sounds you know it should run your car , it should heat up your motor if should um turn on your C_D_ {vocalsound} whatever you want it to do {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: um and then as we go on what we'll have to do is accept and eliminate these suggestions according to um design and budget feasibility . So I'll be coming to you um frequently as the Industrial Expert to tell me how hard it's gonna be to add a feature or how expensive it's gonna be or if your time , if it takes five years to develop this it's just something we can't do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Hmm hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So in the beginning just have a big puddle of things that we {disfmarker} anybody can th throw anything in +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just weed things out that can't be done for one reason or another , and then the things that seem the most attractive that to uh to a customer we'll try to then prioritise those . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: So that was um what I meant there , and as I said on the slide there consulting the Industrial Engineer about that and the other thing is timing is really gonna be as important as money , because if we're gonna sell this thing , I think the best time to sell it is as a Christmas present . Twenty five Euros makes a nice little present , and we want it to be an impulse purchase , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: we want somebody to see it and think it's , gee I just gotta have that . And take out their wallet and buy it . So it's gotta be really attractive and it {disfmarker} but it's gotta go to market by September , 'cause anything that you don't already have out there in September showing it around , isn't gonna sell for Christmas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} and then I'll be coming to you as the User Interface person to try to tell me from your point of view what are the most friendly features that we could put on it and try to prior help me with that prioritising of uh of the features and of the the look and the colour +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and I'll be coming back to you to help weed out those suggestions from that point of view . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So I'll be coming to you for how much is it gonna cost us and how long is it gonna take you , +Industrial Designer: Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: and I'll be coming to you to tell me what's gonna make somebody take out their wallet you know , +User Interface: What features . +Marketing: what what's what's gonna really be what they call a sizzle , +User Interface: S sellable . Yes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'cause we gotta sell this sizzle {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A lot of times the thing that works the best from an engineering point of view isn't the thing that somebody's really just gonna take out their wallet and buy for Christmas for for their child or for their husband or whatever . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay can we go to the next slide please ? Alright I I already did a little bit of research after our first meeting where we threw out some ideas and it looks to me that within the budget that we're looking at the uh the whole house idea really isn't gonna be possible . So I'd like your suggestions to come back to the other slide where I was saying we we could suggest anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd like the suggestions to be really specific , so that we'll have a list of things we can cross off , not something like you know whole house control what'll be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} And then I found on the internet from from my research that some extended electronic entertainment control should be possible . At the budget that we're looking at and at the price point we're looking at , we should be able to make it work the T_V_ , the V_C_R_ , the stereo set um maybe something else cute like a coffee pot or one other appliance or maybe a lamp . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay , can can I at this point interject um something ? +Marketing: I have to wind up ? Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Um we have received instruction from higher up that certain things should not be uh considered . Um the one thing for example {disfmarker} something to eliminate maybe that's the teletext , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because that's sort of outdated with the internet , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and according to to higher management the {disfmarker} it should only control the T_V_ , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mostly because they feel that it's too comp complex a task to um to to include other things , +Industrial Designer: Complicated , yeah , of course . +Project Manager: and they are concerned with the time to market . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so that's something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the third thing that they wanna make sure um that their {disfmarker} that the corporate image is being maintained , and that the corporate colour and design are being used on the product , so that it's easy that that that they can be easily identified as a product of of of the company , and that there's no mistake that it could be somebody else who is bringing this out . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I just wanted to interject this here so we're not getting too much off track here with uh with the things we wanna look at . These were instructions from higher up so we have to eliminate uh these things , so it's only gonna be T_V_ , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the one thing maybe that could be um eliminated is the teletext uh idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright , thanks for that . Um alright now {vocalsound} other things that I found out on {disfmarker} in my research is that the complaints that people have about the remote controls that are out there now . 'Cause a lot of them take too much time to learn how to use , and that was thirty four percent but even more important the thing that we did address in our last meeting that frequently it's lost somewhere in the room . Um so those are two things that we definitely do wanna address , uh we wanna s make it as simple as possible , we wanna make it um obvious and intuitive to use , and then the things about finding it we talked about the {disfmarker} a light emitting thing as well as uh maybe a beep , and I think that those are things after my research that we definitely wanna try to incorporate . 'Kay can we go to the next slide please ? Okay , so , my personal preferences in this um project are really have to concentrate on the sizzle . That is the selling point , the thing that's gonna make it an impulse purchase . Uh because once there's no be-back , well in sales they always say you know , be-backs don't come back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If somebody says , oh I'll come back and get it next week you're dead . They're never gonna come back and buy it . You've gotta make it attractive enough so they buy it now now now w now is a big word in in my book for selling this thing . And , in order to make it really sellable we've gotta shorten the learning curve , make sure it's really intuitive and easy to use . We have to have as few buttons as possible , because more buttons is more confusion , so that's why I'm saying , simplicity is good . Finding it's important , obviously you can't use it if you can't find it . So we've gotta concentrate on the features that help you find it , and I've already said this several times but I put it down in writing here , it should be an attractive impulse purchase at twenty five Euros . So it has to have enough value that when somebody looks at it they say , uh twenty five Euros I'm not gonna take that . Has to be so great that they're gonna say , uh twenty five Euros isn't much . Um and then maybe a motto , like we put fashion in electronics might be something we can use in our marketing campaign . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay that's uh about it for me right now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . And uh who would be next , uh , I guess that would be you . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'kay . +Project Manager: You want me to get your slide show up ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And you are number three ? +Industrial Designer: Number two , +Project Manager: Number two . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh can you make it uh full screen please ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Industrial Designer: No , it's like a well you you have to press here . The cup cup shape here ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: The thir third . +Project Manager: There , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . Uh so today I'm going to talk about the working design of the remote controller . Um can you go to the next sli slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The metal is like uh in a remote controller you have a chip integrated circuit which is like a brain of the remote controller . It takes the power from a battery say a battery it it can be a elec an electric supply like you have to uh like uh switch connec connect connect your remote controller to uh power supply from the you know electricity or something like that . It should be a battery because uh uh remote controller should be like you you you should take it t to wherever you want and then um uh th +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: this integrated circuitry takes energy from the power source and whatever like if you press a button it's like a input for the remote controller and it takes the input and it it transforms into a infro infrared bits and it sends it into the device , like a T_V_ or a air conditioner , something like that so . Uh a remote controller is specifically designed to a single device . If you want to design it for multiple devices then you should make all the devices compatible with the frequency like uh th the remote controller it sends some bits some uh waves like with a particular frequency the device should know what the frequency is . It should re re recognise the uh waves which are coming from the remote controller and it should take the action like if you press a button channel or something like that then uh the remote uh remote controller will send a send a se {vocalsound} send a signal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Signal . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ it should translate that into like change the channel or something like that , change the volume control +User Interface: Receive . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh so uh I think it's hard to design a remote controller for multiple uh devices . +User Interface: Multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yo and it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah well that's already been eliminated by management , so we're off the hook {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah {disfmarker} but it's so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um . So uh user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages like there should be a user user in interface like you know switch pad or something like that buttons should be there . So uh you can control whatever you want , you want to change the channel you want to control the volume you you want to uh mute uh mute the uh T_V_ or you want to have a child lock or you want to do some operations there's a {disfmarker} there should be some device to tell what to do to the uh in uh integrated circuit so that the integrated circuit can s send the signals and T_V_ can perform the actions . +Marketing: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: So can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I just would like to uh add some extra features to the remote controller um I think these are the very simple features and uh they don't take much uh uh much of the um um investment also , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's like el the text or buttons which uh which are there on the uh remote controller they {disfmarker} those we can make uh um like fluorescent uh they'll be like light emitting if it is dark so that you can find your remote controller if it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And ther there should be a beep if many buttons are pressed if suppose a child is playing with the remote controller and a and she she or he is pressing the buttons all at the time then there should be a beep saying that it's {disfmarker} this this is not a a you know a a action , there can be no action taking to that so . And there should be a child lock , like uh uh you should be able to lock your remote controller so that uh um whatever buttons are pressed by a child they can't be like y you i you if you have ki kids and all then they'll be pl playing with the remote controllers so can lock the remote controller . If make it useable for more than one device it's a it's hard but I think it's possible +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah well that has been e that has been eliminated , so that's that's unfortunately a moot point now . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it uh +Marketing: Well we already eliminated that . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: Eliminated . +Industrial Designer: so it's it's okay , yeah , yeah . And uh different shapes that we can do like uh we can have you know a all animals shapes or you know comfortable uh whi which can fit into your hands +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and um so that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now that's good from a marketing point of view , the fun {disfmarker} the fun shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah and colours also , different colours , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm colours . +Marketing: And that {disfmarker} you you say that won't add too much to the budget ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , it won't uh I don't think it will be like , +Marketing: To d the shape is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can have you know for uh if you want ther there to be more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It just build a mould basically and uh you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Industrial Designer: It's it's just a s shape so it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: As the budget we're looking at if you build one mould I don't think that's going to make a big difference whether it's gonna be square or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you think there's any chance of um having ser in {disfmarker} having basically the same machine with the same buttons but maybe several different shapes ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is also possible I uh yeah I I yeah . +Project Manager: Oh yes . +Marketing: Is that gonna be a possible ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause that might help with the marketing . +Project Manager: I think we will have to look at the budget on that +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think in principle that that would be {disfmarker} that would be kind of fun , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Because we had something sort of sexy for adults and we could have something sort of +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Silly for children . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for children , yeah exactly . +Marketing: silly for children +Project Manager: Like an animal or {disfmarker} +Marketing: or a little animal shape or in a {disfmarker} or a little elephant so they can remember where it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like a doll , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And and the butto buttons also I think if you want to have more features in your remote controller then there should be more buttons . If there are more buttons then it will be more complicated . If you have less features then your remote controller won't be attractive , so I think uh we need to make some buttons which are {disfmarker} which are like um uh f in uh in intended for two or three operations , like if you press one button in one mode then it will change the channel , if you press the other button in another mode it will change the colour . So if you want to have less buttons we can have that option but I think it will complicate the matter more I think so . +Marketing: Mm . Well , I think {disfmarker} I think that that's something that we'll have to discuss um with the User Interface person +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yep , yeah . +Marketing: because I think there's a lot of argument to be made for one button for one feature . Because I think one of the things were complaining about in my {disfmarker} what I found out in my research is when they complained about how hard it is to learn a new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The changing modes was something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like you know {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: I mean you and I , all f all four of us we work with computers all the time , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: changing modes is nothing for us , but people who {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , a little elderly , a little arthritic hand you know , +Marketing: {vocalsound} N and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and and it's a small button and and it {disfmarker} they don't press it exactly +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know something else happens n not their favourite channel comes up but something else +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: and they're very frustrated you know . +User Interface: Something else . +Marketing: And that's {disfmarker} and that's the kind of thing people learn by feel , and um {vocalsound} you don't feel the mode change . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah you don't {vocalsound} us yeah yeah , usually . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um maybe having buttons be various shapes might be a help too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah shapes also , different shapes . +Marketing: You know , like the {disfmarker} a triangle is for the volume and a square is for changing channels , so that people can uh develop a tactile sense of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: But we'll get to that with you . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also text should be very clear so that there there won't be any ambiguities and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right , yeah . Now that's a good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh display clock i if you want more features then we can display a clock it I I don't think it will take any money extra money because anyway we have an integrated circuit I think we can just definitely fit that feature into the circuit so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we display a clock . +Marketing: because the clock would be really friendly , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and and when is your favourite show coming on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and then you can just see your remote controller yeah yeah yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're sitting there already or maybe you have no other uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , and a lot of time there's not a clock on the screen , and you have to go somewhere but you just wanna look at the news for a minute . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's that's good , the clock is good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh components uh the main components we need for uh it ha like buttons and uh underneath that there should be switch . And uh bulbs . Like uh we can have a bulb like whenever we are operating a remote controller or uh whenever the T_V_ is on suppose , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: then the remote controller should automatically have a b s light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then it will be like if you switch on your T_V_ through anoth another source , not from {disfmarker} through a remote remote controller and you you lost your remote controller maybe you can find with the light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can have that . Whenever the T_V_ is on , remote controller will have a light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh infrared bulbs . Um this is like uh when it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And battery , there should be a battery for power supply , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and a chip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: chip which is like a brain to the remote controller which does all the operations , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and wires connecting all chips , which is uh lights , everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so there should be wires . And uh uh of course there should be a case where we can keep all the things and , you know different shapes or whatever it is there should be a case to put to give a shape . +User Interface: To keep the remote ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Case . +User Interface: A case holder . A holder {disfmarker} remote holder . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , holder . +Project Manager: Holder , yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um uh can you move onto the next slide . Um next sli slide please . Um I have referred the site uh the homepage of the um our website , uh from where I have uh uh I got s few points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's it , that's it from me now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} um we should visit this site and have a look at uh what's up there ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Well , you don't have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's not like that , I have referred the page to get new ideas or like what can be the working design to how it works and all and so and so . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . So it might be helpful if we had a look at that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you want . Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . Could you go back to that slide where she had that uh s slide up Betsy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's actually there now , there on the screen . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: And Francine ? +User Interface: Participant two . +Project Manager: You are number two ? +User Interface: Yes . No no , I'm three . +Project Manager: You're three . Would you want it full full screen ? +User Interface: I can make it full ? Yes yes yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . +User Interface: Okay . As uh User Interface Designer I did a little research to find out what are the features which a user would like to have on their remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah can you please go onto the next slide ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I found out that uh but uh the main purpose of a remote is to uh f control the function of a television at a far off distance at remote distance . Now for that , uh a remote controller should have a switch on off button by which a user can sit anywhere in the room in front of the T_V_ and he can control the functionalities different functionalities of the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There should be a signal uh something like a radio wave or a infrared light or a LED which can be used to change the different functionalities in the television if the user wants to uh change the channels or increase the volume he can change it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now there should be some timer to set for viewing a particular a particular programme or switching on and off a uh a particular programme according to the user choice . +Project Manager: On the on on the remote . Yeah , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . So if if he want to view a particular programme at say nine o'clock he can set the time , and the T_V_ will automatically it will switch on at that particular time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So he can use that kind of uh uh properties of features and then there should be a child lock system if a particular channel is not to be viewed by a particular uh for a certain age , then the parents can lock that particular channel so that the ch children cannot view that channel . +Project Manager: Yes . By your child , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh the uh the uh and the {disfmarker} one of the feature a user would like to have is the compactness of the co remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh t the remote should be compact and it should ha it should have as many buttons as possible for controlling different functionalities of the T_V_ television . And um uh as uh uh this is my personal preference that it should be in the shape of a T_ in alphabet for more compactability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and uh and it is one more point which I noted it down , like uh the material which which which is used for remotes should be human friendly it should not cause any skin disease or something some al allergy to either children or to um ad adult person . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it should have an uh it can have an alarm clock a a person if some if somebody wants to get up at around eight eight P_M_ then he can set the time and it can be used as an alarm clock , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and I don't think it will cost much to set an alarm clock inside a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If there is a clock then there can be a alarm clock . +User Interface: Yes , +Marketing: And an alarm clock , yeah that should {disfmarker} that should be okay . +User Interface: and as John Reece said the buttons can be , uh can me we can use the fluorescence to light up the buttons so different uh buttons will glow differently . So in even in the dark the user can know what buttons to use to switch on a particular channel . And uh uh the design of the uh um remote should be in such a way that there should not be any sharp projections so that if a child plays with a remote , he uh he should not be harmed in any way . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And findings , uh I found out uh y um on different sites that uh there are different remotes which can be used , there are remotes which use the infrared for controlling the different functionalities , there are remotes which use the radio waves to control the functions and there are uh {disfmarker} So uh there you have different uh types of remotes for different light source which are used {disfmarker} which can be used for controlling the different functionalities of a television . Next slide . And these are my few personal preferences like it can be used for a multipurpose use . Not , uh no uh like it can {disfmarker} it can be used as a T_V_ control as plus an alarm clock to set an alarm a timing and it should have a child lock , and then to save electricity uh there should not be uh much s move uh lots of circuits and all that . And if a person if if if parents wants the television to be switched off by ten o'clock then it should be switched off ten o at ten o'clock automatically , so that nobody else comes later and use it . +Industrial Designer: It's like a t okay , it's like a timer {gap} it's like a lock to the television . +Project Manager: Timer , yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Timer . Yeah and then you can use a timer as well . Yes . Yeah that's it . +Project Manager: Uh okay , now I have {disfmarker} On my slide show basically we already {disfmarker} we have already done the agenda , and uh on the closing uh basically there will be lunch break and all that . However uh the decision we have to take in this meeting is who is our target group . And uh what function , working design , how how does it work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So these are the two things we should come up wit with . So uh the first thing is pro maybe a little easier on uh who is our target group . Um . I guess in many ways everybody . Everybody who has a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm , T_V_ , yeah . +User Interface: T_V_ television we was . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I think today there are probably not many people who don't have a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Don't T_V_ , yeah . +Project Manager: There are a few but in general not . {vocalsound} Now , talking about the target group which is in a sense everybody , but I think within the target group we have subgroups . We have {disfmarker} we have earlier it was mentioned about um for example elderly people who have limited function with their fingers and hands , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I think that's uh one group that's certainly important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we have just the nervous people who can never press a little button on anything um unless it's really very clear . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how much we want to cater to children's use . I mean that's a question um whether that's important that children can really use it or not . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} these are just some thoughts I have on it , and um I dunno what you feel about whether we can just say we have one target group and for this one target group we're gonna design this one thing {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or whether we're looking at what we like we we talking about different shapes , whether that different shape also includes maybe different uh buttons uh for different groups . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well you know there's the old motto , children under six never shop alone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if you've designed something that's very attractive to children um the mummy please mummy please um you know we want it now we wanna go to the store and see it um that has uh a lot of marketing pull . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That has a lot of {disfmarker} that has a lot of appeal but I think uh I'm I'm talking about the functionality now on it whether we're looking at different groups . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the children issue can be addressed with the shape and with colours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You know , like you make it nice and pink , fluorescent , banana colour or whatever {vocalsound} you know +User Interface: Different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: You can make a banana shaped one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , for example you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: But the question is really , who is our target group . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do we look at one target group ? {vocalsound} And with the twenty five Euros you know can we can we afford to have uh I'm asking the technical people here whether um to look at sort of subgroups with maybe different buttons for each group how much would that throw us out of the cost we are supposed to respect ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Respect . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . No uh generally we can we can design a remote which is mainly for people with uh f age from ten to um forty +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: and and then we can add on uh specific functional buttons for children as well as the elderly people or the people wit with who have nervous problems , yes . +Project Manager: With with {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We can design different remotes for different people , like for aged people there will be big buttons and you know . +Project Manager: Well that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But in a family {disfmarker} in a family there will be a aged person , children and a middle aged but they cannot buy three different remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . Children and everybody , yeah . +User Interface: They would like to buy just one and um just one which can be used all the three uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course that we can do , but specifically if y if like elderly people want big buttons then you can't really make a bi big remote controller so maybe specifically you can design a big con remote controller for elderly and for children , like in a different you know . +Marketing: What about the electronics ? That's not really gonna change much , is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Cost effective . +Industrial Designer: No , it it doesn't cost , yeah . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {vocalsound} that w that won't change much , will it uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Doesn't doesn't doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The the quest the question to be addressed here is only who is the target group and how will it function , +Marketing: I d I wouldn't think so . +Project Manager: and I think the how will it function is probably the question of the buttons you know , within the target group or subgroups . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: The question is only whether our budget will allow to have more than one design in a sense . I mean the basic design I understand will be the same , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but the question is how much will that set us back if let's say {vocalsound} uh forty percent we make large buttons and the rest we make regular buttons for example . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that remains to s to be seen but {vocalsound} uh the target group as a whole is is basically everybody with a T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and can we {disfmarker} can we is it even feasible to make one one remote control with something for everyone , or would we have to use the same electronics and make three different shapes ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well that's that's the question . +Marketing: Um the same electronics and basically all that's gonna be different is the plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Marketing: And in that case we could probabl moulded plastic isn't all that expensive is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . Mm , I I I don't think no . It's not . +Marketing: Um you as an industrial person ? +Project Manager: Well maybe there's {disfmarker} there's an idea you know t the new for example new portable phones ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: They have like removable plastic cases , so you can have a striped one or you can have a fluorescent blue one , or whatever , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and maybe something like that , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: that in each package you know you have {disfmarker} you you have {disfmarker} you have for example uh {vocalsound} you have let's say a fluorescent blue on it but then you have uh another colour or stripe whatever that already comes in a package . +Marketing: Well there's a real idea yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And then if people really want more colours they can buy it separately . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , like for mobile phones we have uh different you know covers , like designs and all so that w we can have that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} but like if if then everybody is is is tired of the fluorescent blue and of the striped or whatever they have as another one in the package , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: then they can go to the store and for a few uh Francs or Euros whatever they can buy +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An alternate package . +Project Manager: an alternate package with another two colours in it you know for example you know . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: But uh yeah I I have a doubt like will it be cost wise effective if we {disfmarker} if we design a remote having all the uh different features for different people or designing three different um remotes for three different categories of people . +Project Manager: Well I think {disfmarker} I think the idea here is to uh to to d design one remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we can only aff {gap} , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and what the only change is gonna be um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the funct d t yeah uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cosmetic . +User Interface: Of th okay . +Project Manager: the functional {vocalsound} functional cosmetics if you want to put it that way , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um having maybe larger buttons or buttons that light up or buttons that are slightly differently shaped for people uh either for children um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Five minutes that was I guess tha that's the old message . +Marketing: Warning , finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Um um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we may have to come back to one or two of these points at our next meeting but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we do some more research , maybe we {gap} . +Project Manager: I I think to sum it up the target group is basically everybody . If money permits we can address some features for some subgroups within that . +User Interface: Okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah , +Project Manager: Do we agree , do we ? +Industrial Designer: I think maybe seventy percent is a unique uh uh remote controller and thirty percent is yeah it's sort of like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay but we have to l +Project Manager: Do we agree on on that in principle , like money will tell whether we will be able to do that or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , of course , yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? So now I understand it's lunch break . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um . So that's what we will do . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So hank you very much . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And we'll see you after lunch . +","Summary of the Conversation: + +During a team meeting, the Project Manager confirms that all participants have received their instructions. The Marketing Manager is asked to present first, focusing on addressing the needs and desires for a product. Marketing suggests a collaborative approach to gather a wide range of ideas from the team initially and later narrow them down based on design and budget feasibility. The Marketing Manager emphasizes the importance of launching the product by September for the Christmas market, aiming for a price of 25 Euros to make it an attractive impulse purchase. + +The Industrial Designer talks about the technical aspects of a remote control's design, such as its power source, chip, and compatibility with different devices. Suggestions are made about possible features, such as illuminated buttons, a beep for multiple button presses, and child lock. They also discuss the possibility of creating different shapes and colors for the remote without significantly impacting the budget. + +The User Interface Designer presents research findings on desired remote control features, emphasizing the importance of simplicity, intuitiveness, and safety in design to cater to different age groups. They suggest additional features like an alarm clock and programmable timers. + +The Project Manager interjects with instructions from higher management to limit the device to controlling only TVs, maintain corporate colors and design, and eliminate outdated features like teletext. The team discusses the target group (essentially everyone with a TV) and the feasibility of incorporating features that cater to subgroups within the main target audience. The team contemplates various designs and additional features, such as interchangeable cases for different user preferences. + +The discussion ends with the Project Manager summarizing that the target audience is everyone with a TV, and the possibility of addressing subgroup features depends on budget constraints. The team agrees to this approach in principle and decides to take a lunch break, planning to reconvene afterward." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes , you can help me for the slide when {gap} +User Interface: Yep . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , welcome back . I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time . How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting . Okay , and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you . And it's in the , I think uh , in the sharing folder . And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects . So can you go to the next slide ? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening . Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management , what I'm going to do , and uh , of course , I'm doing the project management and secretary both , okay , to take the minutes of the meeting . And there are three presentations . One is uh new project requirements . And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions . And uh finally we are closing . Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes , so you have to be very quick . And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal , okay , and I have to discuss a few points on this . Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project . Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded , okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology . So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design . And the second one is about uh the remote control . Should be used only for the T_V_ . That's what our uh management says . And the third point , it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image , okay , with this new project or new product . Okay . {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes , can you go to the third slide ? +User Interface: No , this is the third slide . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} . So , I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , do you wanna open the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . Um . You're participant s +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +User Interface: Two ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +User Interface: Do you want the mouse , or do you want me to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes . Yeah , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements , and from my experience , I wanna uh , and from {vocalsound} research I did , uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button , you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it . Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them . So uh , I also , since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product , thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those , and , as I said in the first meeting , um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction , especially in the the uh the outside of the product +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance , and it is reliable , and so forth . {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth , so , I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic , which I kinda like the idea , 'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off , that might be interesting . And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off , and the sound on and off , and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today , uh fifty years later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation , but it was uh sensitive to the sun , so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems . So , uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind . +Marketing: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find . And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off , you could use it for something else . And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer , I didn't really know what to do with this slide . But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this , and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board . {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this . So , uh {vocalsound} personal preferences , {vocalsound} um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here , and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it . I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme , be very colourful , or you could make it clear , and um kind of blend in with things , so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home . Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof , because uh sometimes they fall into cups +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and , you know , it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that . Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not , because half the time , I keep pushing on the remote control , and I don't know if it's actually understood my message , so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue . And uh , course I never wanna replace the battery . {vocalsound} So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences , and that's my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah , let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility , other feature , like uh unbreakable . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , because uh especially today , you know , you have the family and the kids , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay , so if you can add the feature , okay , for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay , with unbreakable , okay , I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product , if I'm not wrong . Maybe you can uh add it in that . +Industrial Designer: Good idea . Good idea , I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes , very good . +Project Manager: Okay , uh thank you Christine , and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications , or any discussion on the functional design ? +User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials ? 'Cause , for example , in the unbreakable thing , doing something plastic would be harder , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: whereas having something like , I dunno , steel or titanium isn't really economically viable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Titanium . Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy , too , +Marketing: Titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wouldn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback , I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these , but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , yeah . No , I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium . It's light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah +Marketing: Expensive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: you know , nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly , maybe if I can go back {vocalsound} . I know the project plan and the budget . So I can close this , {gap} not sure . Was in uh {disfmarker} S This . So let me see where is this file . +User Interface: That's Christine's . +Project Manager: This is Christine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And that's mine , I think . +Project Manager: That's yours , okay . Saving . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: In modified . +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Okay , uh +Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell . +Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail , okay ? The project may be the the project aim , okay . At the end of the day , the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro . Okay , and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side . Okay , that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market . Okay . Then uh you can come back with your feedback . And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion . This remote control , okay , it can be for like universal , to use for any T_V_ . Okay , and it will be slim , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat ? +Project Manager: Not fat . +Industrial Designer: Not fat , huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find , though . +Project Manager: Yep . But let's try it , okay , with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs , okay , the functional designs . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? So any other questions ? +Marketing: Uh from her side , I don't think uh there's too many more questions . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you Christine for uh time being , +Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so then uh Ed , so can you tell about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah , from the marketing side , just to to give an idea what the management is looking for , I was looking for a a remote control to have a s +User Interface: S 'scuse me for one sec . +Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro , with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro . For what uh I think from what we're trying to find , we're tr we're looking for , I don't think that price is exactly in the market . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys , uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five , eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty-five Euros , uh that's that's a preson reasonable price . That's a market price right now . Now if we're gonna take a risk , and push this up a bit , make it more expensive , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell . Obviously the risk is there . Too expensive , they're not gonna buy . But , I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group , which always spends more money on trendy new things , speech recognition is requested . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? . +Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Obviously , we can't make a remote into a computer , but maybe simple commands . I dunno , louder , softer , on , off . That might be a possibility , even though it costs more , to be the first on the market to produce this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use . So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly . {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands , say remote , and there's a beep beep beep , and they can find it through , you know , ten tons of newspapers , magazines , whatever you have at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , in the cost that uh the management is looking for , that's not gonna be possible . But if it's trendy , if it's fancy , it's got some colour to it , if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use , if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control , like I said , louder , softer , change channel , on , off , remote , it goes beep beep , I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset 'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on . So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea , with the ideas of the industrial uh design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , price obviously we have to talk about . +Project Manager: Yep . So what do you think about uh the design {gap} ? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design , uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition ? +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh training is always an issue with uh commands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process , uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost . Not sure how . {vocalsound} But um anyway , um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life . And um so , maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it . So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh , you know , gets uh , from the light , um a a solar cell inside there +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things . +User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition , yeah , it's a great feature , but if you're watching T_V_ , there's a lot of ambient sound , and it's words . It's not just , you know , noises like something hitting . It's actual speech , so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech , and the the user's speech . Otherwise , you can say remote . +Industrial Designer: Off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing , all of a sudden , you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies , because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_ . {vocalsound} So , I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems , then yeah , it'd be a really good marketing gimmick . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: But , I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation . +Industrial Designer: Very good point . +Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition , 'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom , and it calls up Mom . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay the radio can be on and everything . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition , if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television . If somebody's speaking on the se the television , they're not gonna stop and say remote , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: okay . So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . No , I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements . +Marketing: Like the t like the telephone . No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home , and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: so well , that's kinda cute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , what I can uh suggest to you , Christine , okay , uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback , or some training , okay , about uh this facility , especially for the speech recognition , I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_ , okay , because they're already in this uh speech recognition part , okay . And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them , some kind of a technical tie-up . Okay , and uh if you want , I can coordinate , okay , to get some information , okay , and uh you can uh let me know , okay , so what kind of uh the details you require okay , to add this feature in this project . I don't think it's uh the difficult . And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop , apart from uh what {gap} today . +Industrial Designer: Okay , we'll find that out . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: From from your side uh , you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: What do they want ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} , a risk , take a risk on the market ? Something that's gonna cost more , but could very easily s make a boom in the market ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different , has to be total totally new . Something that nobody has right now . +Project Manager: Yeah but +Marketing: And it's gonna cost . +Project Manager: but end of the day , you're the sales guy , so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . And uh , so I don't mind to convince , okay , the management to spend some more money on the project , okay , if you can make out of +Marketing: Obviously . +Project Manager: the money from this project . +Marketing: If the bottom line is positive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay I don't mind to convince the the management , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The management says , okay , so they they don't want certain facilities , which it's already worked , okay , they want something uh new , okay . I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree , I don't think they'll say no for that , okay . And uh I hope I can convince the management on that , okay . So if you have any uh new ideas , okay , for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special , okay , coordination , okay , between any uh technical companies , which you can uh hide their technology backup , okay , for your uh functional design or technical design , okay , then I am ready to do that . And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um well , I mean , maybe if I go through my presentation , you can sort of see what the user perspective is , and how it ties into the other two comments . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so you are finish , Ed , uh so I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll uh hand over to Agnes . Just gonna close this . T Uh where are you , here ? +User Interface: Mm participant three . +Project Manager: Participant three . +User Interface: Nope , here {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , so I'll {disfmarker} yep . Okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: Is it okay ? +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alri +User Interface: Yeah , and that's fine . Okay . So , basically , the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products . So , in our case , existing remote controls . And then , what the good ideas are , and what the bad ideas are , and why they're bad and good , which isn't always as obvious . We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad , but when you look , technically , at how it works , sometimes that's not the case . Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep , 'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work . Um and then what the remote control should look like , obviously , once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are . So , in terms of the functionalities that we need , you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off . You need to change channels , both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing . You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever . So , the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls , in general . The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do . Um often , you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done , um which you don't necessarily always remember , especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often . And that the buttons are too small . So , here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side , you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The buttons , in a lot of cases , are tiny . Um they're hard to see , and okay , they're labelled , but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much . Whereas , on the other side , you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed . And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it . So , I would be inclined to go sort of towards this , in terms of design , rather than this . And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons , then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons . So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit , or to a minimum , sorry , make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed , so like the on button being really obvious one , the channel changing and the volume , and to keep the design basically sleek and simple . +Project Manager: Click mm . +User Interface: Which , I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably . Um so , that's pretty much it , an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it's um , seems {vocalsound} very understandable . Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , that's true . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh , you know , but that's okay . That's why we're all here at the table , so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh , when you hold it , is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal 'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about , th th the look and the feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh , you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , that's definitely a very important factor , especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases , I think . +Industrial Designer: First . Yep . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay , so I don't have any questions . Sounds good . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help , for time being , on this uh subjects , okay , so please come back to me , +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh Christine , maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim , okay , and to add some features , like we are talking about , the speech recognition and all . +User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table , but do we actually want to incorporate all of them , or have we missed anything ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide , maybe that would provide some guidance ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us . +Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab +Marketing: Individual actions . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept , supposed to work on the user interface concept , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends . Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach . I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now +User Interface: I thought {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process , that's my suggestion . +Project Manager: Okay , that will be great . {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I I'm just thinking in terms of time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , now I'm objecting . No , I mean , I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away ? I mean , it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features , um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use , maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting , +Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker} +User Interface: guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause w our meeting time has run out . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: and , you know , we can't hang out here +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and talk about this , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay , what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break , okay , then uh we can discuss furthermore , okay , with our areas , and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting . So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting , and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then . Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Agreed . {vocalsound} +","The meeting involved discussions on the functional design of a new remote control product. The agenda covered project management, new project requirements, remote control functions, and closing, with a 40-minute time limit. It was noted that teletext features are outdated and the remote control should be TV-specific, contributing to the company's marketing image. + +Three presentations were given: +1. Industrial Designer: Emphasized the importance of user requirements, such as ease of use with a big power button and findability. Suggested features like an unbreakable design, waterproofing, oral feedback on commands, and slim and universal design were discussed. + +2. Marketing: Discussed pricing strategies and market demographics. Highlighted the desire for trendy, user-friendly products with features such as speech recognition, which has high demand among 15-35-year-olds. Cautioned about the balance between risk and innovation in product pricing. + +3. User Interface: Advocated for minimal buttons, larger frequently used buttons, and a sleek, simple design based on user preferences. Identified common user issues with existing remote controls, such as too many buttons and unclear functionalities. + +The team agreed to explore all potential features and make decisions on which to include as the project progresses. Coordination with technical companies for advanced features like speech recognition was considered. The meeting concluded with the plan to consolidate ideas and information in the sharing folder before the next meeting. A lunch break was decided, after which discussions would continue." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Is it starting now ? +PhD E: Yep . +Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hello ? +Professor B: Whatever we say from now on , it can be held against us , right ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor B: and uh +Grad A: It 's your right to remain silent . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held , if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what 's going on +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD E: Yeah , that 's usually what we do . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what 's going on , what 's the latest uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . OK . So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what 's happening in Aurora in general , at least what from my perspective . +PhD E: Yeah . That would be great . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so , I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting , +PhD D: Uh o +Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really , but we are competitors . Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . It seemed like there were still some issues , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: right ? that they were trying to decide ? +Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there 're plenty of issues . +PhD E: Like the voice activity detector , +Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals , which was French Telecom Alcatel , and us both had uh voice activity detector . And I said "" well big surprise , I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago , except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either , cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because that 's buying us the most uh thing . And everybody said "" Well but this is not fair . We didn't know that . "" And of course uh the {disfmarker} it 's not working on features really . And be I agreed . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: I said "" well yeah , you are absolutely right , I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer , uh to account for these long silences , because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing . "" And so then ev ev everybody else says "" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector , or we have to do something about it "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We said uh "" yeah "" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case , uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data , we probably will use a different set of tricks . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done , because French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , now everybody has access to our code , so everybody is going to copy what we did . "" Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code , and everybody always had access to our code . We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that . We thought that people are honest , that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate , or something , +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: right ? I mean , if you find our technique useful , we are very happy . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them , "" which probably is also true . I mean , you know , it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that . But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad , as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run , because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code . So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say "" well listen this is what you stole from me "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know ? +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: "" so let 's deal with that "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So I don't see the problem . The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims "" well we fulfilled the conditions . We are the best . Uh . We are the standard . "" And e and other people don't feel that , because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data , essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech , because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Ah . +Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms , but I assume so . Because uh we would fight for that , really . uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up . And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} +PhD E: But wait a minute , I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases . +Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , but you still have that with the MFCC . +Professor B: Y yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And so , so now they want to say "" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition , and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed . And so last time uh during the meeting , I just uh brought up the issue , I said "" well you know uh quite frankly I 'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision . For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying "" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less "" , but maybe we should discuss that . And everybody said "" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there "" and I said "" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things . "" Then they said "" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited . "" However , there is only ten or fifteen lines , so people can't even con you know participate . So eh they agreed , and so they said "" OK , we will discuss that . "" Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said "" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So now officially , Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support , uh I think QualComm is uh saying , too "" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet . We should at least try once again , one more round . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is where we are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call , so we 'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes . +PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems , the well - matched , and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's a g very good uh point , because David says "" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways . "" So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh yeah , if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition , or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: And they 're the {disfmarker} staying the same ? +Professor B: Well , of course people will not like it . Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have solution . Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen . But it 's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I don't think we did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Basically , I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made , and {disfmarker} and everything . So , so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is . So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected , like noise separation . Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically , which would be a l uh , f more robust to noise , and so far not much uh success . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested , instead of using Fourier spectrum , from Fourier transform , use the spectrum from LPC model . Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum , so it may be m naturally more robust in noise . And I thought "" well , that makes sense , "" but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} +PhD E: You haven't tried that yet ? +Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much . Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So . {comment} I mean , uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: right ? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And it was working at the time . It was kind of like one of these things , you know , but if you think about it , it 's actually pretty ingenious . So well , you know , just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant , C , to every {disfmarker} every value . +PhD E: Well you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically y Yeah . So you 're making all your training data more uniform . +Professor B: Exactly . And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy , it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you 'll s then you 're clean recognition goes down , but I mean it 's yet to be seen how much , it 's a very simple technique . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes indeed it 's a very simple technique , you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT , {pause} add constant , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: you know ? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum , what you can s start doing , you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum . Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero . That 's what we want to try . I have a visitor from Brno . He 's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty . pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he 's {disfmarker} so he 's looking into that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition . This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns . +PhD E: Hmm ! What is that ? +Professor B: Ah , you don't know about TRAPS ! +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar , I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name , but , what it is , is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC , mel cepstrum , uh , everything starts with a spectral slice . Uh so if you s So , given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing , and you have a spectrogram . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can say "" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency "" , and what you get is then , that you get a p {pause} vector . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme . Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector . And you can try to classify based on that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it 's a very different vector , very different properties , we don't know much about it , but the truth is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . But you have many of those vectors per phoneme , +Professor B: Well , so you get many decisions . +PhD E: right ? Uh - huh . +Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions . Exactly , that 's what {disfmarker} yeah , that 's what it is . +PhD E: Hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition , you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct . You know , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis , so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it 's much better than chance . +PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands ? +Professor B: That 's another thing . Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum . For various reasons . But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time . +Grad A: Are they adjacent , or are they s +Professor B: Adjacent , adjacent . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that . Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about , will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands , and also experiments with release of masking , which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands , across bands . And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers ? +Professor B: It 's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number , {pause} time t +PhD E: Yeah but what 's the number ? Is it just the {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's a spectral energy , logarithmic spectral energy , +PhD E: it 's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval . +Professor B: yeah . Yes , yes . Yes , yes . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm saying then , so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector . It 's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum , or something . But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: for instance a question is like "" how correlated are the elements of this vector ? "" Turns out they are quite correlated , because I mean , especially the neighboring ones , right ? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So there 's a very high correlation . So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it . So we 're thinking about de - correlating them . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Then the question is uh "" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions "" , or to what extent ? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on . So we are learning quite a lot about that . And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension ? So we somehow made arbitrary decision , "" yes "" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that 's what 's happening in recognition . Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands , but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands . That 's what masking experiments tell you . But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions , you compare what 's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what 's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands . And that 's how you make uh decisions . That 's why the articulatory events , which uh F F Fletcher talks about , they are about two critical bands . You need at least two , basically . You need some relative , relative relation . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else , what 's happening but it 's what 's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood . So if you are making decision what 's happening at one kilohertz , you want to know what 's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz , but you don't much care what 's happening at three kilohertz . +PhD E: So it 's really w It 's sort of like saying that what 's happening at one kilohertz depends on what 's happening around it . It 's sort of relative to it . +Professor B: To some extent , it {disfmarker} that is also true . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance , {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands , recognition can discard it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is what 's happening {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Hey ! +Professor B: Hey ! OK , we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here . +PhD E: Hey Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah , I think so . Yeah ? +PhD E: Yep . Sure . Go ahead . +Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band , that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you 're making about a signal within a critical band . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated . If the noise is modulated , with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band , the amount of masking is less . The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So the s m masking curve , normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here , so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band , so the amount of maching is increasing . And when you e hit a certain point , which is a critical band , then the amount of masking is the same . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's the famous experiment of Fletcher , a long time ago . Like that 's where people started thinking "" wow this is interesting ! "" So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But , if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise , the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band , the masking goes down . So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that 's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what 's happening in the neighboring bands . But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad , you are not increasing much more , so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is , then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it 's not helping you much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program . +PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate , +Professor B: Probably not . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: Well , maybe , most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules . +PhD E: Yeah . Ah . +Professor B: like because uh uh +PhD E: Latency and things . +Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because uh we don't know any better , yet , than to use the neural net classifiers , uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors , so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that , and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So this is uh what 's happening . Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month 's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years , I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no . So he 's in India . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is he getting married or something ? +Professor B: Uh well , he may be looking for a girl , for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask . I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged . +PhD E: Right . Well , I mean , I 've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month , they come back married , +Professor B: Yeah . I know . I know , I know , +PhD E: you know , huh . +Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife . And she 's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} +PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish , +Professor B: Oh yeah . We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition , the technology , and he was involved there . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me . +PhD E: When he knew you were happy , +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I said "" well , yeah , OK "" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that , though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he 's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served , though one year he was getting masters . So . So . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation ? June or something ? +Professor B: Which ? Speaker recognition ? +PhD E: No , for uh Aurora ? +Professor B: Uh there , we don't know about evaluation , next meeting is in June . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together . +PhD E: Oh , OK . Are people supposed to rerun their systems , +Professor B: Nobody said that yet . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I assume so . Uh yes , uh , but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data . +PhD E: Hmm . Wow . +Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff . But I uh , yeah , what I think would be of course extremely useful , if we can come to our next meeting and say "" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement . If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how "" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it 's impossible . +PhD E: Hmm . Do you know what the new baseline is ? Oh , I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} +Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline . +PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector ? +Professor B: u Yes . Yes . But I assume that it will be similar , I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be . +PhD E: Similar , yeah . +Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz if it is worse , then we will raise the objection , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: we say "" well you know how come ? "" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector , which we don't claim even that it 's wonderful , it 's just like one of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: We get this sort of improvement , how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it could be even better , +Professor B: I think so . +PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating , it 's using the alignment of the speech recognition system , +Professor B: Yeah . C yeah uh +PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel , and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel . +Professor B: and on clean speech data . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines ? So they must have run already something . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . And Harry said "" Yeah . But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet , that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So there 's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion . Because Nokia was objecting , with uh QualComm 's {disfmarker} we basically supported that , we said "" yes "" . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now everybody else is saying "" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind . "" uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: Ericsson 's laying off twenty percent of people . +Grad A: Wow . +PhD E: Where 's uh Guenter going ? +Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule , the technical college not too far from Aachen . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So it 's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , not quite a university , not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it 's not Aachen University , but it 's a good school and he {disfmarker} he 's happy . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm ! +Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well , he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis , but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They think about survival . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So . But this is being now discussed right now , and it 's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through , that we will still stick to fifty percent . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement . yet , wi with the current system . Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent , from the new baseline . +Professor B: Uh , but not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline , which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yes . Yes . We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there , right . +PhD C: Well . We are around fifty , fifty - five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number ? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines , it 's just a quick c comp co computation ? +PhD C: Yeah . I don't know exactly if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . I think it 's about right . +PhD C: Yeah , because it de it depends on the weightings +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah . But . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . How 's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week ? +PhD C: Yeah , finally we {disfmarker} we 've not finished with this . We stopped . +PhD D: More or less it 's finished . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English , and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail , something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: but it 's more or less ready . +PhD C: Yeah . Well , we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments , +PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography . +PhD C: but +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it 's not , yeah , finished yet . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments ? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Right . We 've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters , and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all . You can remove it from the vector , it doesn't hurt . +PhD E: Really ? ! That has no effect ? +PhD C: Um . +PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline ? or in uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No , in the proposal . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh , uh - huh . +Professor B: So we were just discussing , since you mentioned that , in {disfmarker} it w +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning , we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which is , like , "" imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient , which you are using in your vector , in some general power . +PhD E: In some what ? +Professor B: General pow power . Like sort of you take a s power of two , or take a square root , or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root , that effectively makes your model half as efficient . Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model , right ? computes the mean . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it 's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function . +PhD E: You 're compressing the range , +Professor B: So you 're compressing the range of this coefficient , so it 's becoming less efficient . +PhD E: right ? of that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . So . Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor , you know , uh in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: you know , just compress the whole vector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I said "" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements , like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances , we were doing this liftering of parameters , right ? +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition . And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody , but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter , or triangle lifter , basic number of lifters . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And . But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f +PhD E: Insertions . +Professor B: Insertions , deletions , or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The only of course problem is that there 's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y +PhD E: Oh . Uh - huh . You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , you need a lot of graduate students , and a lot of computing power . +PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm , that basically tries random permutations of these things . +Professor B: I know . Exactly . Oh . If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike , right ? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM , that 's what {disfmarker} maybe that 's what somebody would be doing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh , I mean , I mean the places which have a lot of computing power , so because it is really it 's a p it 's a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants . +PhD E: You know actually , I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad . I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once , +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: right ? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely . And hev everything is fixed . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Everything is fixed . Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} +PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training ? or only recognition ? +Professor B: For both , you would have to do . Yeah . +PhD E: You would do it on both . +Professor B: You have to do bo both . +PhD E: So you 'd actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because essentially you are saying "" uh this feature is not important "" . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Or less important , so that 's {disfmarker} th that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a painful one , yeah . +PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try , it would require a training and a recognition ? +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but wait a minute . You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model . You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature . You don't have to retrain it . +PhD E: Oh . So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves , you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models . +Professor B: You just multiply . Yeah . Yep . You modify the Gaussian in the model , but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power , but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model , all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But why {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're multi if you 're altering the model , why w in the test data , why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients ? +Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model . You have uh only data . But in a {disfmarker} in a tr +PhD E: No . But you 're running your data through that same model . +Professor B: That is true , but w I mean , so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes , that C - one is not important , you can do two things . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer , in the model , you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one , you put them to zero . +Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it . But what I 'm proposing now , if it is important but not as important , you multiply it by point one in a model . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: But what are you multiplying ? Cuz those are means , right ? +Grad A: You 're multiplying the standard deviation ? +PhD E: I mean you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math , I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , I think you 'd have to modify the standard deviation or something , so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower . +Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively , that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . That 's what you do . That 's what you do , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively you , you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model , you put a constant . S yeah effectively what you 're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation . Right ? +Grad A: The spread , +PhD E: Oop . +Grad A: right . +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: Yeah , the spread . +Grad A: It 's the same {disfmarker} same mean , +PhD E: So . +Grad A: right ? +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower , {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: unless it 's exactly right on the mean . +Professor B: Your als No . By making it narrower , +PhD E: Right ? +Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean there 's {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're allowing for less variance . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes , so you making this particular dimension less important . Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions , or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important , uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful , less important , what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model . But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes , but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it . That becomes uh th gets less variance , subsequently becomes less important . +PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data ? +Professor B: That would be very bad , because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh , that wouldn't work . Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important . After you train the model , you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially , that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model , you don't have to retrain the model . You train it on the original vector . But after , you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model , and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data . s by the same amount . +PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say , C - one , couldn't you , in your test data , uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model ? So that effectively , the C - one never really contributes to the score ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , that would be a severe mismatch , +PhD E: Do you know what I 'm say +Professor B: right ? what you are proposing ? N no you don't want that . +PhD E: Yeah , someth +Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely . Your likelihood would be low , right ? Because you would be providing severe mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But what if you set if to the mean of the model , then ? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data , you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had . +Professor B: No that would be very good match , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well , yeah , but we have several means . So . +Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying , +PhD C: Right ? +Grad A: Saying . +Professor B: but uh , {vocalsound} no , no I don't think that it would be the same . I mean , no , the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean , that would {disfmarker} No , you can't do that . Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck , you can't do that . +PhD E: Oh , that 's true , right , yeah , because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: you can't do that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But what you can do , I 'm confident you ca +PhD E: +Professor B: well , I 'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record , right ? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now , is {pause} what you can do , is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is . So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one , you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two . And you will compress your test data by square root . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match . Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square , f fourth root . Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is , based on training , then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 're talking about the standard deviation ? +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one . Then it becomes more important . In the overall score , I believe . +PhD C: Yeah , but , at the {disfmarker} +PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean , also ? +Professor B: No . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: But I think it 's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation . So . I think it 's maybe it 's the contrary . If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter , you have to increase it 's variance . +Professor B: Yes . Right . Yes . +PhD D: Multiply . +Professor B: Exactly . Yeah . So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around , +PhD C: Hmm . That 's right . OK . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And now you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're changing that by squaring it . Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four . But your model still has a mean of two . So even though you 've expended the range , your mean doesn't match anymore . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Let 's see . +PhD E: Do you see what I mean ? +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features , which are computed once for all , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: but you just tune the model . So . You have your features . You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . You would have to modify the mean in the model . I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you . Yeah . Yeah , but I mean , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's i it 's do - able , +PhD C: Well . +PhD E: Yeah , so y +Professor B: right ? I mean , it 's predictable . Uh . Yeah . +PhD E: It 's predictable , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's predictable . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . But as a simple thing , you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance . +PhD C: Just adjust the model , yeah . +PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you 're talking about , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: It might be . +PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , because if you had a huge variance , you 're dividing by a large number , {comment} you get a very small contribution . +Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , it becomes more flat +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , the sharper the variance , the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , you know actually , this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN . We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing , was spitting out zeros . So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering , we were getting groups uh of features +Professor B: p Pretty new outliers , interesting outliers , right ? +PhD E: yeah , with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance . +Professor B: Variance . +PhD E: So , when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it , we got a great score . I mean it was just , {nonvocalsound} you know , incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score , and so that was throwing everything off . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So . {vocalsound} So that 's a way , yeah , yeah {disfmarker} That 's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah , n That 's interesting . So in fact , that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining . +Professor B: Yeah . No . No . +PhD C: No , that 's right . So it 's +PhD E: So that means it 's just +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: just tuning the models and testing , actually . +PhD E: recognitions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: It would be quick . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models , make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make , and rerun recognition . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think , and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble . +PhD E: That 's an interesting idea , actually . For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh ! +Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK 's set up on the new Linux boxes ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Hey ! +PhD E: In fact , and {disfmarker} and they 're just t right now they 're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box . +Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Absinthe . +Professor B: Well , you know , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Absinthe . We 've got five processors on that . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's a good thing +Grad A: That 's right . +Professor B: because then y you just write the "" do "" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing . +PhD E: And two gigs of memory . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Pretend , yeah . +PhD E: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD D: Go fishing . +PhD E: See how many cycles we used ? +Professor B: Yeah . Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , since it is on the record , I can't say uh which company it was , but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion , there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said "" wh why are you hitting this carriage return ? "" And he said "" well you know , we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract . And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use . "" It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing . +PhD E: Oh , my gosh ! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project . +PhD E: Yeah . How {disfmarker} Idle time . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out . +PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's this thing that 's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water ? +Professor B: Yeah , I know , right . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: That 's an interesting experiment . +Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia , right ? so we were watching for American airplanes , coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower , pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right ? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village +PhD E: Ugh ! +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above , and so that was the only work which they had . They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o ' clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call , "" this plane is uh uh passing "" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub . And they were calling from the pub . And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made , and when they screwed up , they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore . And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane . At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there , right ? And the pub owner says "" oh my {disfmarker} four o ' clock , OK , quickly p pick up the phone , call that there 's a plane flying . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: There was no plane for some reason , +PhD E: And there wasn't ? +Professor B: it was downed , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble . But . {vocalsound} But uh . +PhD E: Huh ! Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a really i +Professor B: So . So . Yeah . +PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe I could set that up . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And we 'll just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with . But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures . It might be that uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one . +Professor B: Because you see , I mean , what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it 's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable , +PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? How do we {disfmarker} +PhD E: Wh - yeah , when the data matches that , then you get really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: How do we know , especially when it comes to noise ? +PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like , I 've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients , the numbers seem to get smaller , right ? So d +PhD C: They {disfmarker} t +PhD E: I mean , just naturally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: They have smaller means , also . Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Exactly . And so it seems like they 're already sort of compressed . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: The range {pause} of values . +Professor B: Yeah that 's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance . Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast , I believe , as the index of the cepstral coefficients . I think you can show that uh uh analytically . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients . +PhD E: Hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: +Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah . When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center . Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley . I 'm sure that it 's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here , like , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know , nowadays , yeah . It 's actually do - able , almost . +PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to "" Aurora - inhouse "" , does that go up to you guys also ? +Professor B: I don't think so . No . +PhD C: No . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So we should do that . +PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh no . We don't have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh ! Maybe we should set that up . That would make it much easier . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , that would make it easier . +PhD E: So maybe just call it "" Aurora "" or something that would {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right , and it goes to everybody +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . Maybe we can set that up . +Professor B: Because what 's happening naturally in research , I know , is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered , right ? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this , is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution , but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , there 's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report . Lucash , I think , uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system . reasonably uh good one , because he 's doing it for Intel , but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything . Cuz Intel 's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use . Just uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because Morgan 's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy . He says "" well you know it 's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing , in quotes , except which is not s is not the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles , another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles . So . And {disfmarker} And then it 's difficult to c compare . +PhD C: What about Harry ? Uh . We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments . +Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software . Yeah . They sent the release . +PhD C: And use this Intel version . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone ? uh some amount of money , not much . Not much I can say on a microphone . Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work . And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it , which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries , but in the process , Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing , including MLP , trained MLP is one piece of uh software . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Wow ! +Professor B: Is it useful ? +Grad A: Ye - Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad A: I mean , I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission . +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That 's what he was saying , right . He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when , and {disfmarker} and so that 's where he started and that 's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well , the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries , +Professor B: uh e ev +PhD C: because if it 's the case , it 's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture . +Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} +PhD C: Ah yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries , I think they are available free of f freely . But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe . +Professor B: Yeah , on Intel architecture , may not run in SUN . +PhD C: I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible . That 's why Intel of course is distributing it , +PhD C: Well . +Professor B: right ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I don't know . I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in . Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC 's now , with Intel . In that way Intel succeeded with us , because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . So . So we run everything on Intel . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Does anybody have anything else ? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} +PhD E: So . Hynek , I don't know if you 've ever done this . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn , {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits , the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So you don't say "" eight hundred and fifty "" , you say "" eight five oh "" , and so forth . +Professor B: OK . OK . So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then ? +PhD E: Um . Sure . +","A concise summary of the conversation: + +The individuals engage in discussion about a meeting and acknowledge that their words can have repercussions, with a humorous exchange about the right to remain silent. They delve into technical details about their work, specifically talking about voice activity detectors, data evaluations, and competition among peers at an Amsterdam meeting. They discuss the issues regarding technology proposals and data sharing, as well as the dilemma of improving speech recognition technology amid concerns over fairness and intellectual property. The participants then consider strategies for feature vector manipulation and model adjustment to improve system performance without full retraining. Toward the end, they suggest better communication among team members and possibly unifying the software platform they work on across different sites. The conversation ends with arrangements for a reading task related to digit recognition." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wouldn't wanna be Project Manager . {vocalsound} Uh , what we going to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , once again I'm uh gonna take minutes . So , um no presentation for me . Uh , first we have a prototype presentation by G_ and G_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Afterwards some uh +User Interface: Yo . +Marketing: J_ and J_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: eval eval evalu +Industrial Designer: Evaluation . +Project Manager: evaluation +User Interface: Evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: s {vocalsound} sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh evaluation crit criteria . Uh , in combination with the finance I um {vocalsound} uh I received uh a an uh an Excel uh file +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: which we have to fill in later on . Um , you see . Uh , and then we must see uh if we uh stay under the twelve and a half Euro . +Marketing: Hmm . Interesting . Ah , okay . +Project Manager: So , that's uh that's a big +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oops . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . That's gonna be t problem . +Project Manager: l so let's uh wait it uh um +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have we have must {disfmarker} uh , +User Interface: Some creative uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we must have uh some time for that uh because it will be uh {disfmarker} yeah , quite a lot of mathematics . +User Interface: Oh . Yeah . +Project Manager: And after that , uh uh an evaluation of uh the process how we uh how we have done it here with the SMARTboard , with the with our laptops , with the {disfmarker} all uh all this . And uh afterwards , uh we closing . Once again , forty minutes , so uh let's start . +User Interface: Ok okay . +Project Manager: I would g give the word to um G_ and G_ for the prototype presentation . +User Interface: Shall I give a short introduction and then uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well sure . +Marketing: J_ and J_ . +Project Manager: J_ and J_ . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} J_ and J_ , okay . +Marketing: Jane and Jane . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay guys , take it away . +User Interface: Take it away . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , this was our first concept . We decided to use a single touch-screen . So , we've worked out this concepts , how to how to hold it , where to put the buttons and and stuff . And um , well , we began with uh with a form of shape , that is uh is easy to hold w in one hand , left or right handed . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , we made i it a little bit less thick and uh it has some ar artistic meaning . No ? This uh isn't nothing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Idea maybe uh is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , during the meeting I showed you the concept of uh placing the buttons on top , usable with your thumb , and uh the menu structure , uh if necessary , with your other hand , so it's just gonna hold it easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it has to be acce accessible with your uh other hand too , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we began uh working out a concept . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh well , and as you saw , we would just have the basic remote with the panel L_C_D_ uh screen . Well , these would be the main buttons , h you could uh change them later on in your own profile if you want to . But , well it's standard they will be delivered with this kind of uh set-up . We have the {gap} more advanced menu uh setting right here . We have the sub-menus and stu stuff . We made a top {disfmarker} oh , or a front view . Just so like you wanna uh back view . As you can see , this uh {disfmarker} there , there are uh two uh weird bumps in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This is for uh the added uh effect of uh well uh y youth and dynamic . And uh this is for the artistic effect . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , what we figured is uh we'll show you a picture {gap} later on {gap} you have more b a better idea after that . But , idea is for to stay in balance with these two uh {disfmarker} with these two . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so when you put it on the table , it will just {gap} lay down . It won't {vocalsound} uh roll around or stuff . But it will lie more in your hand like an old telephone maybe , or like these old uh phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Y you you may get the idea . So thi this is about uh how we figured it should be . The s panel we g you would hide with some more uh rubber layers , like we discussed early on . Uh , you would s you wouldn't see the uh straight panel , but more fluidly and round . +User Interface: Yeah , the panel just uh of course goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the overlaying layer is uh a little bit uh curved and stuff . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh , in these bumps you could actually uh {gap} put some electronics uh that would {disfmarker} you can make a more thinner uh design , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that would actually look very nice , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh , about the colour , what have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , we added that this um can be held with your hands for this {disfmarker} maximum is om yeah , one and a half centimetres . So , you have room here for your battery and maybe even other um electronic chips . S and you can just be the the layer of the touchscreen and some {disfmarker} have some wires underneath it to make it as uh thin as possible in the middle for good grip . +Marketing: Okay . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f uh , as colours , do you do you have the picture in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Now , well this is the idea about uh the bumps . Uh , you can see there's a v a very uh youthful uh dynamic uh exterior . It uh {disfmarker} you just want to hold it you uh you are young and uh dynamic like us . +Marketing: 'S l {disfmarker} it's like an uh Easter egg . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like an e but this is for children . We we want a more adult version . But , this is like a remote control for children . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's called a weemote {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . A weemote . +Marketing: Weemote . +Project Manager: Weemote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Hey , that's actually a brilliant uh marketing stand . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait what I w got in mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this actually basic the idea . We we just want to build a more uh adult vers adult version of of this . +Project Manager: Yeah , I can imagine that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and for colours , we we figured starting with basic colours like uh white or metallic grey . Those are the technological colours actually , +User Interface: Yeah . It would be best to to appeal to a broad public and make the covers exchangeable , +Industrial Designer: so it d +User Interface: so the young people will buy an orange and a red and blue and a purple , +Industrial Designer: Or blue or whatever . +User Interface: but when the o older people uh go in the shop and they see uh an orange um remote control , it would be less appealing than a white one . And young people , we think , are a little bit more flexible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: they think , ah I'll buy for a couple of Euros some noi nice hip uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Maybe it's an idea to sell it without a cover , so that you can pick a cover in the in the shop . +User Interface: Well , um I think a cover is necessary , 'cause als otherwise you'll just have the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So , there must be some cheap standard cover , um maybe white or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . +User Interface: that's could comes with it and you can buy , so we can make extra money . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh you d you mustn't forget that uh our target aim is younger people . +Marketing: Oui okay . +Project Manager: Uh , we had decided to uh put uh some flashy fruity colours in it , uh and uh in the survey from uh Milan and Paris uh it uh it came out that uh uh the d the older people are uh more willing to uh to spend money on extra features . So I think uh it will be a better idea to have some uh flashy fruity colours as as a standard , +User Interface: Okay . The other way around , you mean . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and for the people who uh really want uh a more sophisticated , more traditional look , they're willing to pay uh that . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: They want uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want more luxury stuff , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but they have the money to do it and they want to b to buy that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe it's an idea to put that as an extra and not as a standard . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} yeah , perhaps you're right . Uh , I I would I would actually agree with this sounds logical . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: An another idea . Uh , maybe we could uh develop a cover uh with wood style . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They'll please the elder users as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well yeah , a colour of {disfmarker} a wood style , a white c and uh a couple of h hip uh fruity colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And lea uh l delivered standard with a fruity colour , but not too not too much . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Not not too uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: This is banana and mango , not not purple or p orange and yellow . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , the mai I think th uh the standard must be some kind of uh uh attractive flashy colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Or blue or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not too , but w a little , +User Interface: Ah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because that's our aim . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: li like like this like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This isn't this isn't too much , is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I f +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well , the buttons don't have to be uh all uh all of {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} The buttons , +Marketing: Well I I I think so . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , except for the buttons it's {disfmarker} it could be a standard model . +Project Manager: yeah . It {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh something like this would be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's that's it from us . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: 'Kay , it's my time now . +User Interface: It's my turn . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: Uh-oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: During the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} During the design uh design life-cycle we uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we made lot of requirements and trend analysis and stuff . Um , now is the time to uh evaluate our prototype concept to uh to the past requirements . {vocalsound} So we are going to evaluate the design according to the past user requirements and trends analysis . Um , we're going to do that with a seven point scale . Opening a Word document now . Okay . One {disfmarker} oh , okay , uh I have to expla explain something . We have to uh be consensive about about things . So , it has to be a group uh group decision . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: so we gon we gonna evaluate the +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} We're going to vote . We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the the thing we {gap} saw . +Marketing: yeah ? The prototype . +Project Manager: Okay , just saw . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , one . The remote control is designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Seven is false . +Project Manager: Uh , true . {vocalsound} Sorry . +Marketing: Yeah , b one or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , one I think . +Industrial Designer: Why ? +Marketing: Most true ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not just uh designed for people under the age of forty . It's also designed for people above forty . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so a o one is appropriate ? +User Interface: No no , a little more in the middle . +Marketing: Or , more like a four . +User Interface: No , uh three or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two or three , because it's not just {disfmarker} uh the qu question is aimed at is it designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also designed for people of age above forty . So , +Marketing: Ah , exactly . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: I'll say it's about three . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: it will be primary appealing to to m minus forty , but also appealing to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But also for {disfmarker} yeah , okay . Uh , second . The remote control is beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , acco according to us , it's one ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's the marketing uh angle on television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: We have a wonderful {disfmarker} +Marketing: p s Of c of course you have to be uh very positive and uh enthusiastic about your own product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , it's also fancy then . +Marketing: Three . Uh , the remote control looks fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Of course . We have a perfect remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Good . Four . The remote control has big , clear channel switching buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah yeah , oh they have to agree but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Leads to user face , yeah . +User Interface: I'm the User Interface uh Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Daniel . Uh , teletext buttons and volume buttons ? +User Interface: Um , uh no . +Project Manager: No teletext buttons . Teletext is in the menu . +User Interface: You you've different menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , false . +Marketing: False ? +User Interface: And volume is impo +Marketing: And volume ? +Project Manager: Volume is true . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh , hmm . +Marketing: Big and clear ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the they are big and clear . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , big and clear . +Project Manager: Yeah , big and clear . +User Interface: But you could make a teletext button uh six . +Marketing: Hey . +User Interface: Otherwise , the people who read this uh are gonna think we have no teletext button . +Marketing: Hey . Hide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but the teletext button . Yeah , you can ch That's in a menu . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , it's w yeah , it {disfmarker} it it +Marketing: yeah , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't entirely unclear , +Marketing: J +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} So , I wouldn't give it a seven . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a more a five or a six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don I don't know . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: What do you think , uh Mister Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , I agree . I was thinking very black and white . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Black and red . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you J_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , don't forget to save it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . Okay . Volume . The remote control is easy to be found . +User Interface: Uh well , when we put in fancy colours , yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it has these {disfmarker} all these fruity colours and it has a strange shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , if you so if you have {vocalsound} trouble finding it {disfmarker} +User Interface: But , um it it's not making any sound uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: have we deciding ? +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If you put uh your normal uh remote control under your bed , or you throw this remote control under your bed , is it better findable ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll make a difference . We have the better re {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , I think so . My remote control's black . +Marketing: A li little bit maybe ? +User Interface: A little bit , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we p we can do it glow in the dark . +Marketing: Four ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fi +Project Manager: So , if it's in the dark place , you still see it glowing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} K yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fo fo yeah fo five is {gap} . +Marketing: Ah , I I I think five . It's it's {disfmarker} it doesn't really make a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , then uh then I'll go for four . +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because uh four is between three and uh uh also between between true and false . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , but five is between four and six . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so I'll I'll go for four . +Project Manager: Ah , you must see it as uh , w uh according to uh the the other uh remote controls , there may uh uh be there in your uh T_V_ room , this one will stand out , I think . +Industrial Designer: Wha +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B_ . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that's a better question actually . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Exa I think that that's what it's about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: If your uh fifteen remotes in a drawer , uh you find it , yeah ? +Project Manager: If it {disfmarker} if this lying on your couch , you're you're {disfmarker} you think what's that for kinda orange uh thing . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but the survey under users was that they uh really lost it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like , no not uh not seeing it , but lost it in the house or something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Uh , but when you lost it you're just not {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , if i if you see a strange shape lying somewhere , uh then you'd uh recognise it as , whoa , that is strange . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's our remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , mostly when you lose your remote control , it it's under your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . Yeah , I I agree , I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , what is that . Uh , +User Interface: Most of times when you lose it you're sitting on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Eight , the remote control has fresh , fruity colours . +Project Manager: True . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um I would call uh {disfmarker} choose two , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause we decided not to make two f uh fresh colours , as it would not {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , not too flashy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control is made of soft material . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , rubber , is kind of soft . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not too soft we have decided . +User Interface: kinda soft , but but not this {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Three , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah yeah , easy to use , +Project Manager: Easy to use . One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} very afford . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , can it be zero ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} I don yeah , it is kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Top easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not the most easy to use {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , you can do two , because um +Industrial Designer: No . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It can be easier . +User Interface: it can be easier . But then you're l +Industrial Designer: It could {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Jus just with ten buttons , that's the easiest . +User Interface: yeah , but then you'll lose {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: function f yeah , functionality and our fancy uh look , so . +Industrial Designer: Functional ability . +Marketing: Yeah , but the most uh easy to use is just with one button +User Interface: But {disfmarker} It is r it is rather easy to use , because you have the primary buttons always visible . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: on t {vocalsound} Yeah , okay , but easy n not not the most easy to use , I think . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it {disfmarker} I I'll go for two . My vote's on two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . Yeah , two . +User Interface: Yeah , m mine too . +Marketing: We also have to compare it to the uh to the remote controls on the market nowadays . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but waits just a minutes . Inspiration . +Project Manager: What's the time ? We also have uh to do the evaluation , uh the production costs and uh stuff . +User Interface: These are the m regular remotes . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , I'm uh hurrying . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , eleven . The remote control is innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , true , one . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You're agree , Tim ? +Marketing: A very {disfmarker} of course . +Project Manager: You haven't seen a more innovative uh thing in uh Paris ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: The remote control has m remova {vocalsound} removable {gap} from Multilux . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , one . Very multifunctional . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: The remote control , i it has speech recognition . +Project Manager: False . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Marketing: False . +Industrial Designer: it {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is used with speech recognition , this . +Marketing: The remote control has built-in games ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . But uh , maybe make it two , because the games are in a sub-menu and not uh {disfmarker} it's not an entire game . +Project Manager: Yeah , but they are built in , so it's one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are built in . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not down . +Marketing: And the last , paren {vocalsound} parental advisory function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You really like the parental advisory . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Freak . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , {vocalsound} I do . +User Interface: Th did you make this or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: Save as . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , he made it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} It changes it maybe . +Marketing: Okay , I will uh +User Interface: Oh yay . +Marketing: do the the math . +User Interface: Oh dear . +Marketing: Now it's your turn . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , we have now to c uh to calculate the production cost . If it's under uh twelve and half Euro , then it's uh ok uh okay . But i is it {disfmarker} if it is b Huh ? No , this isn't right . Okay so , {gap} . Redesign . +User Interface: If they're under twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , if they under {disfmarker} Yeah . No . Oh yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? Cau 'cause {disfmarker} so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . Yeah , if the costs are under twelve and a half Euro , uh then we uh can uh ra uh move on to the project evaluation , as we have uh experienced it . Otherwise , we have uh do uh have to do a little uh redesign uh thingy . So {disfmarker} Uh , we have to fill in the numbers of the component uh components . We have to uh fil uh , want to uh do it in and uh see uh if we stay under the twelve and a half Euro . So , do we have uh a hand dynamo ? No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: That's zero . +Industrial Designer: Me , too . +User Interface: Battery , yes . One . +Project Manager: Battery , one ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Kinetic , one ? +User Interface: Kinetic , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , solar cells , zero . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh simple chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , n no . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No ? No , advanced chip . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Sample sensor sample speaker ? +User Interface: No , the advanced chip is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip is three . +Project Manager: Three ? +Marketing: Three Euros , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah uh , but it it's one one thing , it's three Euro . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have one . We have one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , one piece , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh , what's the sample sensor ? +Industrial Designer: No , sev zero . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speech recognition , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , you give it a sample , uh one . +Industrial Designer: yeah , speech recognition +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and s +Project Manager: Zero . Uh , uncurved flat . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: A zero . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But is it s it's not made from a single uncurved thingy and then uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Marketing: Thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? Okay . {vocalsound} So it's only uh once double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: 'cause um the layer around it fits around the bubbles on the o on the uh the back of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: three . Eight . +Project Manager: Okay . We're now in a problem , 'cause uh we have uh reached eleven Euro yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , we don't have anything else . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , go on . Just go on . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just go on . Then we'll see uh {disfmarker} we'll we'll see uh wha how much we are over budget . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little to the right ma +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Uh , rubber . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You . +Industrial Designer: Zero . +Project Manager: Titanium , no ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: And zero . Special uh {disfmarker} is the special colour ? +Project Manager: Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . No , this is a standard colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we want to make uh the wood colours , uh that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , this is a special colour . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , if if you're honest , we'll uh type one , special colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but but D but Daniel , tha that's that's another brand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's an add-on . +Project Manager: Yeah , one . +Marketing: That's another article to sell . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we we going to {disfmarker} yeah yeah , that's true . But yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , j maybe we'll finish uh the the list first and then look back , aye ? +Marketing: That doesn't account for this . Producing this . +Project Manager: Okay , the push-button , no . +User Interface: No . Scroll wheel , no . +Project Manager: Scroll-wheel , no . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} No . +Project Manager: No . Oh , no . Yes , one . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , button , no . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Project Manager: No , the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Mm , is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't have a s +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: These three . +Project Manager: no . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , we're only four Euro over budget . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . So , um what's the thing we can change ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Well , other case , we can make it single-curved or uncurved . +Project Manager: Uh , can I uh I say something ? +User Interface: Mm , single-curves . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , can I say something uh as Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The kinetic thing , can we just skip it , +User Interface: Just cut off the kine yeah . +Project Manager: because uh you have to shake it , but that's not really innovative . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , sure . +User Interface: yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we just put a good battery it it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mobile phones nowadays . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Daniel . Daniel , +Project Manager: Yo . Sorry , +Marketing: what do you think about {disfmarker} Here . +Project Manager: yeah , yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think about uh putting a battery in it , but also selling like uh the covers , a docking station +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: just apart from the from the thing , so that you can uh put uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} rechargeable batteries in it and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But you can use rechargeable batteries anyway , just you s you have to recharge them manual . +Project Manager: Yeah , and not really {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} if you forget about the kinetic , +Marketing: Just an idea . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a cost reduc +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: well if we do that , we shall {gap} . +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well you you can go from double-curved to single-curved . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And that would solve the budget problem . +Project Manager: Uh , b but i but the single-curved is just {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , so we have to bake the ba back flat , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's it's just one curve and not a back uh curved I think . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just {disfmarker} yeah well , the single-curve that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: So that's wh tha that's one option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or are these two curves ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then w yeah , and then we could have it , but uh {disfmarker} it's its' well it's it's r it is the main point of the the the the look . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what else uh do we have to cut out ? No advanced chip , uh that's a little bit of problem . +Industrial Designer: We going to cut {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , tho uh that that can be done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh , +User Interface: Although , can we make it with a regular chip ? +Project Manager: okay , a little less uh conversation . +User Interface: Curvy . +Marketing: Hey , those ar arcs , why are there for ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The blue blue uh +Project Manager: Fill in {gap} {disfmarker} Just a +User Interface: Explanation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: explanation . +User Interface: Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I can delete it for you if you want . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no no . +Project Manager: So , if we do this , uh we're on uh twelve and a half Euro . And we're done . +User Interface: Yeah , but does it fit with our design ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh well , the only uh thing that don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do we have to u adapt it ? It's single-curves . +Project Manager: Yeah , single-curved , but there's a curve in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: W Could we just make the bubbles uh cut off the back , and then we're uh has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we just make it flat . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But , you do l +Marketing: But , wha 'Kay , look , what is the uh {disfmarker} If you make it double-curved , it costs one Euro more . +User Interface: More . Yeah . You make it optional . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} No , but does it have a lot of extra uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: Function . +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: fun function more like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Worth , does it have added worth ? +User Interface: Uh , there's an a a athe aesthetic value , but not functionality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's really a static value . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh aesthetic . I mean , uh you make like eleven and a half Euros profit instead of twelve and a half . But {disfmarker} I don't know if twelve and a half is uh a fixed uh fixed price . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well let's assume it is . +Marketing: No , we can't go above that . +Industrial Designer: We we should assume it i that it is . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I figured that the kinetic would be a marketing promotion . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: R if you uh promote a kinetic um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} kinetic remote control , I mean , that would b sell better than an {disfmarker} a normal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? Well , now you can shake your remote {gap} control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: No , well , y I mean uh , y you can go into your neighbour and tell him , ha , my k uh remote control is kinetic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Kinetic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You have standard old battery control uh remote con +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: What a what about all the m the environment freaks ? +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't fit in our co cost profile . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not freaks , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the envi No . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: I I think it's it's {disfmarker} It look like this one . +User Interface: You ma can make an an especialised extra gold version . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Who {disfmarker} because if you want to go to kinetic , you're uh you're on thirteen and a half and you must go to flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think now it's it's more of uh a compromise +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if you make the single curve ha just a big curve , {vocalsound} then it's uh then it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , just one big curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , one big good curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I was going to uh say nasty words , but I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is strange by the way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wood is m is is is cheaper than rubber . We thought that wood would be more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh , this uh American figures . You just cut down some trees . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . But uh that {disfmarker} this is this is it ? Yeah . Okay , this is it . +Marketing: This is it . +User Interface: Whoever makes uh a remote control out of titanium . +Project Manager: I'm gonna save it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but you can't use double uh curves for titanium . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: That's one of the functionability uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well , considering we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah no , we have to do all those hours again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go back . One back ? Costs on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No redesign . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we were above , so we did a little redesign {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We sue . {vocalsound} We {vocalsound} Yeah , we'll start her all o all over again . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um now uh it's about time to uh talk about uh this project . Uh , some uh things . Were there uh room for uh {disfmarker} was there room for creativity in our meetings or in your individual meetings ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . I I didn't think so . That {disfmarker} there was a lot of room for it . But , that's mainly because uh of the information that was delivered to us . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It was just fixed information and get your stuff from there , and I couldn't go on on i on the internet and search my own stuff . Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . That's true . I agree with that . +Industrial Designer: Well , I th I think you two , {vocalsound} uh especially you and uh and uh Daniel , you d you you both had uh the less creative uh roles in the project . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For us , there was a lot of creativity . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I think m +User Interface: We could just sign up an uh remote if we liked . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: I think Jeroen and I , we had a more design {disfmarker} we could have more {disfmarker} we had more room for creativity than than you two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh how about the leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ha . +Marketing: Leadership was uh crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Crappy . {vocalsound} Cra +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah , the leadership wasn't crappy , it was the leader that was crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . No , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} leadership was okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're done . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , example of crappy leadershi +Marketing: No , leadership was uh +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I thought uh the first meeting was a little bit of unstructured meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , you could have {disfmarker} but uh , it was your first , no uh no disrespect or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could have uh structure it a l little bit more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So like , I I was talking most of the time the first meeting meeting , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could of said , shut up you fool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I notice it too . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was a I was also very uh unhappy , uh very unsatisfied uh about the +Marketing: About me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} about the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh I hope uh uh the the the other meetings uh +Industrial Designer: Try to learn from your mistake . {vocalsound} And we will never do it again . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you made up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: get better and uh I think the the last two meetings uh also we we reached uh some good decisions about uh talk {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it {disfmarker} you did better . +User Interface: Yeah , more more consensus . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Ev everybody w was agreeing every {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Much more constructive . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , teamwork ? Well , maybe that's uh only {disfmarker} Yeah well , it's for us , because uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we work together on a project , but everybody has his own task . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah and it's wo more like presentation and some points were discussed . +User Interface: So , it is a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But , really teamwork were you two uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No {disfmarker} Well , it went okay . +Marketing: Two guys . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that went w it went well . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It's it's just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid stupid pen , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No hard feelings . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah , we we had some trouble with the pen , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Now you you must push a little while . +User Interface: Yeah , but but draw something uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but us {disfmarker} +User Interface: D uh just write your name right now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Try to write your name , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: in in writing letters , of course , yeah ? Yeah , normally , uh this uh {disfmarker} the w Block letter sign it , yeah ? +Project Manager: O Just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just write your name in in one line . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: If it's a little bit too small {disfmarker} {gap} bit quicker now . +Project Manager: You can be {disfmarker} you can go quicker , 'cause then it it won't notice it . +User Interface: It didn't {disfmarker} Uh he he knows how it works , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: I follow the Master class for the SMARTboard , so I think that's the that's the main issue . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , so uh about this one you were uh you're dealing with , +Marketing: Means . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um the the the the digital pen . +User Interface: Y well , yeah . Th the i The idea is great , but it doesn't work properly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Digital pen , I thought uh th the first time I did individual work , I used it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But , a and the first two meetings I brought it with me , but I didn't use it at all after the first the first meeting . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I have it working . But , uh yeah , well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not real real use for me . +Industrial Designer: No , it doesn't have that much added value to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nee . As uh as I said a m a c few moments ago , it {disfmarker} I would like , myself , to write with a normal pen , because must um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's almost the same concept , but you can just sim more simply put it on our scanner . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I it's the same concept as the pen , where you f have to download the software or s uh very uh slow . +Project Manager: M yeah . Yeah . And it is still your own handwriting uh popping up in uh Word . +User Interface: Yes . No , and it doesn't give any added value . +Project Manager: No , uh that's true . No . +Marketing: Not really , no . +Project Manager: And uh the SMARTboard is uh useful , but the the pen is I uh {gap} {disfmarker} not user-friendly , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , not user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be it it takes a lot of time to draw things and to write things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and it's it's not very precise . +Project Manager: and that's the {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're trying to m to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like when you do this . +User Interface: Yeah , it may um {disfmarker} Yeah , and tr try to wri write your name uh in a in a normal uh size , yeah . Smaller . +Marketing: Smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , smaller . Just like when you're writing on a letter . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not th the the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} when you {gap} at a foreign audience , you b don't gonna wr uh write uh small . +User Interface: No , a as you saw on on this drawing , just open open this one or that one . It's uh th it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh we had more problems even here when we trying to draw these buttons , it's almost impossible to get clear uh {gap} when you're uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh . Sorry . +Project Manager: But maybe there's some function with {disfmarker} no , it isn't . With uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the eraser was another problem . It w t is is this large . {vocalsound} And when you try to erase this line , y {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I'm gonna erase my uh name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm gonna erase my name there . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a big uh big eraser . +Marketing: Okay . New ideas ? +User Interface: M Abo What kind of new ideas ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Well , the the idea of the touch-screen is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Do you ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New ideas about uh the working of this software , about about the project , about the remote controls or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm , yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: I don't know what what I mean . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Did you heard what he said ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Know what I mean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't {vocalsound} I don't know what I mean . {vocalsound} Oh , I have some figure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: The eva the evaluation , +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: the mm the mean uh number is uh one point eight one point eight six . +Project Manager: That's interesting . +Marketing: So that's fairly uh fairly good , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because what does it mean ? +User Interface: So true . +Marketing: Uh , that uh +Project Manager: All the mo yeah , are between one and two . +Marketing: all the requirements uh are true or very true , right . Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Thank you , expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the new ideas found for uh wi with working with this uh software ? +User Interface: Not really , just they have to improve it . +Project Manager: Not really , yeah ? +User Interface: Uh , the concept is okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it has to be quicker . Uh , it is still opening my programme , n almo almost uh my entire computer is locked up during the process +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it , yeah , just takes too many time . People will still feel the need to to write it quickly on uh a page and not download it and save it , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You had expected it to to be uh more more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: More user-friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause when you use a pen , you can just draw like you d draw normally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and you do +Marketing: May maybe the idea you proposed is uh a screen here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And draw it , and it's it's placed over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that l +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Would be easier . Or at least when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't have to adapt to the technology , just you can write in the way you normally write . And now you have to um keep constantly in mind that you're drawing on this screen . +Marketing: Hmm ? No . +User Interface: And that's a very bad concept . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Ah , very bad . +User Interface: Nah , okay , I I {disfmarker} it's my opinion that I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} I think this is better than regular flip-overs , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's can be saved easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But if you're in normal flip-over {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} a lot of people write text . There's no text option . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And writing text {disfmarker} uh , yeah , you've gotta really do your best to write some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and and maybe some uh functions for uh {vocalsound} uh uh circle or uh a square . You have to draw it yourself now . +User Interface: Yeah . Or maybe even insert picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh some presentation , and you have some f +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or text function . Just t t type text , and that that would be uh excellent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but insert image isn't available ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause then you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Here . Picture from scanner , clip-art . +Project Manager: Yeah , that that can be done already . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: But not the the the the predefined uh squares I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hyperlink ? Hey , what if you do like hyperlink ? +User Interface: With uh W_W_ dot Google dot com . +Marketing: Type type it ? +User Interface: Oh yeah . Maybe {gap} . +Marketing: Re Real Reaction dot N_L_ . +Project Manager: Hmm ? Sorry ? +Marketing: Yes , is {disfmarker} now is okay . Okay ? +User Interface: You'll just make a link in {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Well , that's nice . +User Interface: There's one way to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay , double-click it . +User Interface: Maybe if if you're not using the eraser {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here . oh . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: You're erasing . +User Interface: Something else th Yeah , arrow . +Project Manager: Yeah . Here , that . +Marketing: Double-click it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as you saw , you have a little uh {disfmarker} Oh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , thank you . You can go uh +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: there . So there the the the functionality is there , but it's not it's not ideal , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's it's very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: it costs a lot of time to uh +User Interface: To use , yeah . +Project Manager: to use . And that's a pity , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh if you have uh thirty , forty minutes uh for this kind of things , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we are now with four people , +User Interface: And that's m +Project Manager: but it {disfmarker} well , imagine you are here {disfmarker} you're with the ten people and everyone uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mostly the case , from the {disfmarker} over here with the managements you get two minutes to make your case , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and if you have to do all this kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two minutes of drawing , yeah . +User Interface: You'll rather use PowerPoint and work it out in advance . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And th the one or two things you have to draw when you're there , just use a flip-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: What I really miss also is uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} is a d is a turtle {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: is a decision uh decision system like um {disfmarker} With the evaluation , you have to Polls like , what do you want , a one , a two , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe a a l a little application like uh uh {vocalsound} give your own number and click one two three four five six seven . +Project Manager: Yeah , just like he said with the with the {disfmarker} a screen which you can write , also uh a kind of voting uh mechanism . +Marketing: Yeah , j ju ju yeah , v voting application . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Just a little group group decision application . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh , {gap} problem is , well you can't discuss anything {disfmarker} well you you ca uh you can , but you will discuss a lot less than l like we did now . We {disfmarker} I mean uh w w w one one person s maybe said three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well uh I {disfmarker} we said {disfmarker} uh , no I w th think two , because this and this , and then you can react uh on it . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you you put a three on it , uh just {vocalsound} figure well , everybody knows what I'm knowing , so they'll all just put a two on . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . But , uh you can still discuss about it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it would {disfmarker} {gap} yeah . +Marketing: but but click it in an application , that's a lot easier to process . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , the {disfmarker} for processing part . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The digit . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then uh , I think the idea of one person entering it and the rest uh discussing it , that uh isn't that bad idea , actually . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not that your opinion isn't valued , but but still . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yo , manager . +Marketing: That's it ? +Project Manager: Uh well , just about , +User Interface: When are w +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When are we going to produce it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , tomorrow ? Uh , the costs are within the budget . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: Uh , the project is evaluated . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , before we going to celebrate , uh I have uh a little question which you can't answer , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh there must be some kind of end report . I am busy with the end report right now . You might thinking what the hell was he doing uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What is an end report ? +Project Manager: Uh about all the meetings , what we have decided , a r r a report of this day . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , that must be made , but I don't know , {vocalsound} here is uh standing uh whoa , we can celebrate now , but the end report is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , you ha you have ten minutes left , I uh read . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: You have now ten minutes left to finish up the end report . +Project Manager: Okay well , that uh that can be done . Maybe we can do it uh together . You can see what I've uh {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I I s I will uh put it on a story-board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: You can see it . Because I think it will uh it must be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} You you already made a beta version , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a three uh {gap} with seventy five uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pages . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , just about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yikes . {vocalsound} Seventy five pages . +Project Manager: Well , just a moment . End report . +Marketing: Okay , Daniel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want a chair maybe ? +User Interface: A chairman . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no no , +Marketing: Hey ? +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: you can s you can read it and uh {disfmarker} here here it is . End report . +Industrial Designer: So you you finished it actually , and so we just have to read it and say yes or no ? +Project Manager: Well , this not nit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: read-only . But it's not uh fully finished yet . +Marketing: Five minutes for finishing . +Project Manager: Um , this is about the functional design , the things {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +Marketing: Management Expert , you have to change that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I'm uh {disfmarker} when I said it , I remember I had it here . +Marketing: Marketing . +User Interface: It's a read-only version . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can save it u the {disfmarker} under another name . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Expert , okay . Um about the three functions where {disfmarker} uh which are most used and uh which must uh immediately be visible on our uh remote control . Um , it must be uh simple to use , very clear what to do , and at the younger people . So , this is really about wh uh what kind things uh must be in it and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe um the {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I understand you , I can talk a little bit Dutch . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , you have to put {disfmarker} uh , switch channels uh at the top , because that's the most used function and teletext at the second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oka okay , okay , I {disfmarker} I really {vocalsound} didn't knew that . +Marketing: Oh nay , a volume changing , second . +Project Manager: So , this one's first . +Marketing: S switch , yes . +Project Manager: You go there and you go there . So , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , go on . +Project Manager: Well , maybe I can then do it one two three . +Marketing: Yes , very good . +User Interface: One two three . +Project Manager: If the order is in uh {disfmarker} is is uh important , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the word for {gap} . +Marketing: The order . +Project Manager: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then the conceptual design . Uh , well all the things we have uh discussed , uh the energy , which uh turn out to be uh batteries , so that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , okay , maybe you can add it later that we decided in the end because of the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah , because {disfmarker} yeah . Uh , he here it is still double-curve , the rubber , the flashy , the fruity , the removable . +Marketing: Single-curves . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , the buttons +Industrial Designer: It's not double . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Hmm ? +User Interface: A single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's not double anymore , eh ? +Project Manager: Not double anymore . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Nay but that {disfmarker} this is what um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Was initial , the plan . The initial plan . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the added functions like Tetris snake , it's under the parental control , the touch-screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's uh just a summary of what uh we had discussed uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On thing uh {disfmarker} One small thing uh , the added functions . Uh , was it included in the cost ? I don't think so , eh ? +User Interface: Ah , it's very cheap . +Project Manager: Uh , it's very cheap , +Industrial Designer: It's very cheap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you you maybe you you you you come at uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it's it's not very cheap , but that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's very necessary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: no , but it's a development inside corporation . Like , uh w we don't have to buy parental control . Our own people can make that , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it still has some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it it has some cost , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay , but so we can discuss that uh +User Interface: He'll do it in his free time . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can discuss that kind of things I think with the with the the board of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Of directur or directors . +Project Manager: What's it what's the company called ? I just keep forgetting it . +Marketing: Real Reaction . +Project Manager: Real Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Real Reaction , yeah . +User Interface: You can ask your personal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh anybody uh misses something here about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the end conclusion . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's that's what I'm gonna write b between now . +Marketing: Okay . Still the end conclusion . That's all , I think . +Project Manager: But , i in here nothing uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , the decision to make um the buttons on the top , and the menu on the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: on the bottom . And clearly {disfmarker} Yeah , touch-screen you've mentioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , touch-screen I've mentioned . +Marketing: Yeah , but but the the decisions are put in the uh conclusion , I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Why we decided to use a flat uh L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Okay , this n yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , well I gonna redesign uh something now . No . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Party party {gap} . +Project Manager: Because I think it will {disfmarker} Oh , five minutes from {disfmarker} to finish meeting . +User Interface: Oh , before you change anything maybe you um save it first . +Marketing: Save it . +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: you can select file and export and then those J_ PEG files . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you had the same thing . +User Interface: Well , eight . And we have uh , {gap} another blank one . +Marketing: Example of children remote . +User Interface: Did we change anything ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh wait . Wait . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a new uh {vocalsound} commercial logo . +Marketing: Hmm . That's a pity . +User Interface: Don't save it , aye ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that's cool , Tim . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Uh , +Project Manager: Well , I'm I'm +User Interface: why are only the first five SMARTboard files +Project Manager: I'm going to finish my end report . +User Interface: saved ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , um hereby is {disfmarker} the meeting is finished . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You declare . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I am the one who can say that . Yeah ? Hereby the meeting is finished . Yeah . +","The project team discussed the prototype of a remote control, evaluating it based on certain criteria. The Project Manager led the meeting, outlining the need to stay within a budget of €12.50 and to fill out an Excel file. They considered various functionalities, including the design, buttons, and user interface, stressing the importance of appealing to a younger demographic through color choices and design elements like a touchscreen. They also considered eco-friendliness by discussing kinetic charging options, but due to cost constraints, they settled on using batteries. Despite some issues with the digital equipment used during the meeting, they managed to complete an evaluation and agreed on making modifications to the prototype to meet budget requirements. The meeting ended with the Project Manager stating that they would finish the end report." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD D: Damn . +Professor C: And uh Hans - uh , Hans - Guenter will be here , um , I think by next {disfmarker} next Tuesday or so . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to be here for about three weeks , +PhD B: Oh ! That 's nice . +PhD A: Just for a visit ? +Professor C: and , uh {disfmarker} Uh , we 'll see . +PhD A: Huh . +Professor C: We might {disfmarker} might end up with some longer collaboration or something . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: So he 's gonna look in on everything we 're doing +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and give us his {disfmarker} his thoughts . And so it 'll be another {disfmarker} another good person looking at things . +PhD B: Oh . Hmm . +Grad E: Th - that 's his spectral subtraction group ? +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Is that right ? +Professor C: yeah . +Grad E: Oh , OK . So I guess I should probably talk to him a bit too ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . No , he 'll be around for three weeks . He 's , uh , um , very , very , easygoing , easy to talk to , and , uh , very interested in everything . +PhD A: Really nice guy . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , we met him in Amsterdam . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , he 's been here before . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wh - Back when I was a grad student he was here for a , uh , uh {disfmarker} a year or {comment} n six months . +PhD B: I haven't noticed him . +Professor C: N nine months . +PhD A: Something like that . +Professor C: Something like that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . He 's {disfmarker} he 's done a couple stays here . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , um , {vocalsound} {comment} I guess we got lots to catch up on . And we haven't met for a couple of weeks . We didn't meet last week , Morgan . Um , I went around and talked to everybody , and it seemed like they {disfmarker} they had some new results but rather than them coming up and telling me I figured we should just wait a week and they can tell both {disfmarker} you know , all of us . So , um , why don't we {disfmarker} why don't we start with you , Dave , and then , um , we can go on . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad E: So , um , since we 're looking at putting this , um {disfmarker} mean log m magnitude spectral subtraction , um , into the SmartKom system , I I did a test seeing if , um , it would work using past only {comment} and plus the present to calculate the mean . So , I did a test , um , {vocalsound} where I used twelve seconds from the past and the present frame to , um , calculate the mean . And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Twelve seconds {disfmarker} Twelve {disfmarker} twelve seconds back from the current {pause} frame , is that what you mean ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Twelve seconds , um , counting back from the end of the current frame , +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad E: yeah . So it was , um , twen I think it was twenty - one frames and that worked out to about twelve seconds . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And compared to , um , do using a twelve second centered window , I think there was a drop in performance but it was just a slight drop . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is {disfmarker} is that right ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , I mean , it was pretty {disfmarker} it was pretty tiny . Yeah . +Grad E: Uh - huh . So that was encouraging . And , um , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , that 's encouraging for {disfmarker} for the idea of using it in an interactive system like And , um , another issue I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about is in the SmartKom system . So say twe twelve seconds in the earlier test seemed like a good length of time , but what happens if you have less than twelve seconds ? And , um {disfmarker} So I w bef before , um {disfmarker} Back in May , I did some experiments using , say , two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . In those I trained the models using mean subtraction with the means calculated over two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um , here , I was curious , what if I trained the models using twelve seconds but I f I gave it a situation where the test set I was {disfmarker} subtracted using two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um {disfmarker} So I did that for about three different conditions . And , um {disfmarker} I mean , I th I think it was , um , four se I think {disfmarker} I think it was , um , something like four seconds and , um , six seconds , and eight seconds . Something like that . And it seems like it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it hurts compared to if you actually train the models {comment} using th that same length of time but it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt that much . Um , u usually less than point five percent , although I think I did see one where it was a point eight percent or so rise in word error rate . But this is , um , w where , um , even if I train on the , uh , model , and mean subtracted it with the same length of time as in the test , it {disfmarker} the word error rate is around , um , ten percent or nine percent . So it doesn't seem like that big a d a difference . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} but looking at it the other way , isn't it {disfmarker} what you 're saying that it didn't help you to have the longer time for training , if you were going to have a short time for {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's true . Um , +Professor C: I mean , why would you do it , if you knew that you were going to have short windows in testing . +Grad E: Wa +PhD A: Yeah , it seems like for your {disfmarker} I mean , in normal situations you would never get twelve seconds of speech , right ? I 'm not {disfmarker} e u +PhD B: You need twelve seconds in the past to estimate , right ? Or l or you 're looking at six sec {disfmarker} seconds in future and six in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , t twelve s +Professor C: No , total . +Grad E: N n uh {disfmarker} For the test it 's just twelve seconds in the past . +PhD B: No , it 's all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: Is this twelve seconds of {disfmarker} uh , regardless of speech or silence ? Or twelve seconds of speech ? +Grad E: Of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The other thing , um , which maybe relates a little bit to something else we 've talked about in terms of windowing and so on is , that , um , I wonder if you trained with twelve seconds , and then when you were two seconds in you used two seconds , and when you were four seconds in , you used four seconds , and when you were six {disfmarker} and you basically build up to the twelve seconds . So that if you have very long utterances you have the best , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but if you have shorter utterances you use what you can . +Grad E: Right . And that 's actually what we 're planning to do in +Professor C: OK . Yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} s so I g So I guess the que the question I was trying to get at with those experiments is , "" does it matter what models you use ? Does it matter how much time y you use to calculate the mean when you were , um , tra doing the training data ? "" +Professor C: Right . But I mean the other thing is that that 's {disfmarker} I mean , the other way of looking at this , going back to , uh , mean cepstral subtraction versus RASTA kind of things , is that you could look at mean cepstral subtraction , especially the way you 're doing it , uh , as being a kind of filter . And so , the other thing is just to design a filter . You know , basically you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing a high - pass filter or a band - pass filter of some sort and {disfmarker} and just design a filter . And then , you know , a filter will have a certain behavior and you loo can look at the start up behavior when you start up with nothing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , you know , it will , uh , if you have an IIR filter for instance , it will , um , uh , not behave in the steady - state way that you would like it to behave until you get a long enough period , but , um , uh , by just constraining yourself to have your filter be only a subtraction of the mean , you 're kind of , you know , tying your hands behind your back because there 's {disfmarker} filters have all sorts of be temporal and spectral behaviors . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the only thing , you know , consistent that we know about is that you want to get rid of the very low frequency component . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: But do you really want to calculate the mean ? And you neglect all the silence regions {comment} or you just use everything that 's twelve seconds , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , you {disfmarker} do you mean in my tests so far ? +PhD B: Ye - yeah . +Grad E: Most of the silence has been cut out . +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} There 's just inter - word silences . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And they are , like , pretty short . Shor +Grad E: Pretty short . +PhD B: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . So you really need a lot of speech to estimate the mean of it . +Grad E: Well , if I only use six seconds , it still works pretty well . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +Grad E: I saw in my test before . I was trying twelve seconds cuz that was the best {pause} in my test before +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: and that increasing past twelve seconds didn't seem to help . +PhD B: Hmm . Huh . +Grad E: th um , yeah , I guess it 's something I need to play with more to decide how to set that up for the SmartKom system . Like , may maybe if I trained on six seconds it would work better when I only had two seconds or four seconds , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , and again , if you take this filtering perspective and if you essentially have it build up over time . I mean , if you computed means over two and then over four , and over six , essentially what you 're getting at is a kind of , uh , ramp up of a filter anyway . And so you may {disfmarker} may just want to think of it as a filter . But , uh , if you do that , then , um , in practice somebody using the SmartKom system , one would think {comment} {disfmarker} if they 're using it for a while , it means that their first utterance , instead of , you know , getting , uh , a forty percent error rate reduction , they 'll get a {disfmarker} uh , over what , uh , you 'd get without this , uh , um , policy , uh , you get thirty percent . And then the second utterance that you give , they get the full {disfmarker} you know , uh , full benefit of it if it 's this ongoing thing . +PhD A: Oh , so you {disfmarker} you cache the utterances ? That 's how you get your , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'm saying in practice , yeah , +Grad E: M +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor C: that 's {disfmarker} If somebody 's using a system to ask for directions or something , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: you know , they 'll say something first . And {disfmarker} and to begin with if it doesn't get them quite right , ma m maybe they 'll come back and say , "" excuse me ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , or some {disfmarker} I mean it should have some policy like that anyway . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , uh , uh , in any event they might ask a second question . And it 's not like what he 's doing doesn't , uh , improve things . It does improve things , just not as much as he would like . And so , uh , there 's a higher probability of it making an error , uh , in the first utterance . +PhD A: What would be really cool is if you could have {disfmarker} uh , this probably {disfmarker} users would never like this {disfmarker} but if you had {disfmarker} could have a system where , {vocalsound} before they began to use it they had to introduce themselves , verbally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know . "" Hi , my name is so - and - so , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm from blah - blah - blah . "" And you could use that initial speech to do all these adaptations and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh , the other thing I guess which {disfmarker} which , uh , I don't know much about {disfmarker} as much as I should about the rest of the system but {disfmarker} but , um , couldn't you , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you sort of did a first pass I don't know what kind of , uh , uh , capability we have at the moment for {disfmarker} for doing second passes on {disfmarker} on , uh , uh , some kind of little {disfmarker} small lattice , or a graph , or confusion network , or something . But if you did first pass with , um , the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} either without the mean sub subtraction or with a {disfmarker} a very short time one , and then , um , once you , uh , actually had the whole utterance in , if you did , um , the , uh , uh , longer time version then , based on everything that you had , um , and then at that point only used it to distinguish between , you know , top N , um , possible utterances or something , you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} it might not take very much time . I mean , I know in the large vocabulary stu uh , uh , systems , people were evaluating on in the past , some people really pushed everything in to make it in one pass but other people didn't and had multiple passes . And , um , the argument , um , against multiple passes was u u has often been "" but we want to this to be r you know {disfmarker} have a nice interactive response "" . And the counterargument to that which , say , uh , BBN I think had , {comment} was "" yeah , but our second responses are {disfmarker} second , uh , passes and third passes are really , really fast "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , if {disfmarker} if your second pass takes a millisecond who cares ? Um . +Grad E: S so , um , the {disfmarker} the idea of the second pass would be waiting till you have more recorded speech ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , so if it turned out to be a problem , that you didn't have enough speech because you need a longer {disfmarker} longer window to do this processing , then , uh , one tactic is {disfmarker} you know , looking at the larger system and not just at the front - end stuff {comment} {disfmarker} is to take in , um , the speech with some simpler mechanism or shorter time mechanism , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um , do the best you can , and come up with some al possible alternates of what might have been said . And , uh , either in the form of an N - best list or in the form of a lattice , or {disfmarker} or confusion network , or whatever . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then the decoding of that is much , much faster or can be much , much faster if it isn't a big bushy network . And you can decode that now with speech that you 've actually processed using this longer time , uh , subtraction . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: So I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's common that people do this sort of thing where they do more things that are more complex or require looking over more time , whatever , in some kind of second pass . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: um , and again , if the second pass is really , really fast {disfmarker} Uh , another one I 've heard of is {disfmarker} is in {disfmarker} in connected digit stuff , um , going back and l and through backtrace and finding regions that are considered to be a d a digit , but , uh , which have very low energy . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of things you can do in second passes , at all sorts of levels . Anyway , I 'm throwing too many things out . But . +PhD A: So is that , uh {disfmarker} that it ? +Grad E: I guess that 's it . +PhD A: OK , uh , do you wanna go , Sunil ? +PhD B: Yep . Um , so , the last two weeks was , like {disfmarker} So I 've been working on that Wiener filtering . And , uh , found that , uh , s single {disfmarker} like , I just do a s normal Wiener filtering , like the standard method of Wiener filtering . And that doesn't actually give me any improvement over like {disfmarker} I mean , uh , b it actually improves over the baseline but it 's not like {disfmarker} it doesn't meet something like fifty percent or something . So , I 've been playing with the v +PhD A: Improves over the base line MFCC system ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} The improvement is somewhere around , like , thirty percent over the baseline . +Professor C: Is that using {disfmarker} in combination with something else ? +PhD B: No , just {disfmarker} just one stage Wiener filter +Professor C: With {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is a standard Wiener filter . +Professor C: No , no , but I mean in combination with our on - line normalization or with the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So I just plug in the Wiener filtering . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I mean , in the s in our system , where {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So , I di i di +Professor C: So , does it g does that mean it gets worse ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: No . It actually improves over the baseline of not having a Wiener filter in the whole system . Like I have an LDA f LDA plus on - line normalization , and then I plug in the Wiener filter in that , +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD B: so it improves over not having the Wiener filter . So it improves but it {disfmarker} it doesn't take it like be beyond like thirty percent over the baseline . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: But that 's what I 'm confused about , cuz I think {disfmarker} I thought that our system was more like forty percent without the Wiener filtering . +PhD B: No , it 's like , uh , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Is this with the v new VAD ? +PhD B: well , these are not {disfmarker} No , it 's the old VAD . So my baseline was , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} nine {disfmarker} This is like {disfmarker} w the baseline is ninety - five point six eight , and eighty - nine , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: So I mean , if you can do all these in word errors it 's a lot {disfmarker} a lot easier actually . +PhD B: What was that ? Sorry ? +Professor C: If you do all these in word error rates it 's a lot easier , right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK , OK , OK . Errors , right , I don't have . +Professor C: OK , cuz then you can figure out the percentages . +PhD B: It 's all accuracies . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is something similar to a w I mean , the t the {disfmarker} the baseline that you are talking about is the MFCC baseline , right ? +PhD B: The t yeah , there are two baselines . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the baseline {disfmarker} One baseline is MFCC baseline that {disfmarker} When I said thirty percent improvement it 's like MFCC baseline . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so what 's it start on ? The MFCC baseline is {disfmarker} is what ? Is at what level ? +PhD B: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's just the mel frequency and that 's it . +Professor C: No , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the number ? +PhD B: Uh , so I I don't have that number here . OK , OK , OK , I have it here . Uh , it 's the VAD plus the baseline actually . I 'm talking about the {disfmarker} the MFCC plus I do a frame dropping on it . So that 's like {disfmarker} the word error rate is like four point three . Like {disfmarker} Ten point seven . +Professor C: Four point three . What 's ten point seven ? +PhD B: It 's a medium misma OK , sorry . There 's a well ma well matched , medium mismatched , and a high matched . +Professor C: Ah . +PhD B: So I don't have the {disfmarker} like the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , four point three , ten point seven , +PhD B: And forty forty . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Forty percent is the high mismatch . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And that becomes like four point three {disfmarker} +Professor C: Not changed . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's like ten point one . Still the same . And the high mismatch is like eighteen point five . +Professor C: Eighteen point five . +PhD B: Five . +Professor C: And what were you just describing ? +PhD B: Oh , the one is {disfmarker} this one is just the baseline plus the , uh , Wiener filter plugged into it . +Professor C: But where 's the , uh , on - line normalization and so on ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Sorry . So , with the {disfmarker} with the on - line normalization , the performance was , um , ten {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like four point three . Uh , and again , that 's the ba the ten point , uh , four and twenty point one . That was with on - line normalization and LDA . So the h well matched has like literally not changed by adding on - line or LDA on it . But the {disfmarker} I mean , even the medium mismatch is pretty much the same . And the high mismatch was improved by twenty percent absolute . +Professor C: OK , and what kind of number {disfmarker} an and what are we talking about here ? +PhD B: It 's the It - it 's Italian . +Professor C: Is this TI - digits +PhD B: I 'm talking about Italian , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} Italian ? +PhD B: yeah . +Professor C: And what did {disfmarker} So , what was the , um , uh , corresponding number , say , for , um , uh , the Alcatel system for instance ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: Do you know ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it looks to be , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: You have it ? +PhD D: Yep , it 's three point four , uh , eight point , uh , seven , and , uh , thirteen point seven . +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} Thanks . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , uh , this is the single stage Wiener filter , with {disfmarker} The noise estimation was based on first ten frames . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Actually I started with {disfmarker} using the VAD to estimate the noise and then I found that it works {disfmarker} it doesn't work for Finnish and Spanish because the VAD endpoints are not good to estimate the noise because it cuts into the speech sometimes , so I end up overestimating the noise and getting a worse result . So it works only for Italian by u for {disfmarker} using a VAD to estimate noise . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It works for Italian because the VAD was trained on Italian . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , uh {disfmarker} so this was , uh {disfmarker} And so this was giving {disfmarker} um , this {disfmarker} this was like not improving a lot on this baseline of not having the Wiener filter on it . And , so , uh , I ran this stuff with one more stage of Wiener filtering on it but the second time , what I did was I {disfmarker} estimated the new Wiener filter based on the cleaned up speech , and did , uh , smoothing in the frequency to {disfmarker} to reduce the variance {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , I have {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've observed there are , like , a lot of bumps in the frequency when I do this Wiener filtering which is more like a musical noise or something . And so by adding another stage of Wiener filtering , the results on the SpeechDat - Car was like , um {disfmarker} So , I still don't have the word error rate . I 'm sorry about it . But the overall improvement was like fifty - six point four six . This was again using ten frames of noise estimate and two stage of Wiener filtering . And the rest is like the LDA plu and the on - line normalization all remaining the same . Uh , so this was , like , compared to , uh , uh {disfmarker} Fifty - seven is what you got by using the French Telecom system , right ? +PhD D: No , I don't think so . +PhD B: Y i +PhD D: Is it on Italian ? +PhD B: No , this is over the whole SpeechDat - Car . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah , fifty - seven {disfmarker} +PhD B: point {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , so the new {disfmarker} the new Wiener filtering schema is like {disfmarker} some fifty - six point four six which is like one percent still less than what you got using the French Telecom system . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it 's a pretty similar number in any event . +PhD B: It 's very similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But again , you 're {disfmarker} you 're more or less doing what they were doing , right ? +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's different in a sense like I 'm actually cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum which they 're not doing . They 're d what they 're doing is , they have two stage {disfmarker} stages of estimating the Wiener filter , but {disfmarker} the final filter , what they do is they {disfmarker} they take it to their time domain by doing an inverse Fourier transform . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And they filter the original signal using that fil filter , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: which is like final filter is acting on the input noisy speech rather than on the cleaned up . So this is more like I 'm doing Wiener filter twice , but the only thing is that the second time I 'm actually smoothing the filter and then cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum first level . And so that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what the difference is . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And actually I tried it on s the original clean {disfmarker} I mean , the original spectrum where , like , I {disfmarker} the second time I estimate the filter but actually clean up the noisy speech rather the c s first {disfmarker} output of the first stage and that doesn't {disfmarker} seems to be a {disfmarker} giving , I mean , that much improvement . I {disfmarker} I didn didn't run it for the whole case . And {disfmarker} and what I t what I tried was , by using the same thing but {disfmarker} Uh , so we actually found that the VAD is very , like , crucial . I mean , just by changing the VAD itself gives you the {disfmarker} a lot of improvement +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: by instead of using the current VAD , if you just take up the VAD output from the channel zero , {comment} when {disfmarker} instead of using channel zero and channel one , because that was the p that was the reason why I was not getting a lot of improvement for estimating {comment} the noise . So I just used the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise so that it gives me some reliable mar markers for this noise estimation . +Professor C: What 's a channel zero VAD ? +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused about that . +PhD B: so , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's the close - talking microphone . +PhD B: Yeah , the close - talking without {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD B: So because the channel zero and channel one are like the same speech , but only w I mean , the same endpoints . +Professor C: +PhD B: But the only thing is that the speech is very noisy for channel one , so you can actually use the output of the channel zero for channel one for the VAD . I mean , that 's like a cheating method . +Professor C: Right . I mean , so a are they going to pro What are they doing to do , do we know yet ? about {disfmarker} as far as what they 're {disfmarker} what the rules are going to be and what we can use ? +PhD D: Yeah , so actually I received a {disfmarker} a new document , describing this . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And what they did finally is to , mmm , uh , not to align the utterances but to perform recognition , um , only on the close - talking microphone , +PhD B: Which is the channel zero . +PhD D: and to take the result of the recognition to get the boundaries uh , of speech . +Professor C: So it 's not like that 's being done in one place or one time . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's just a rule and we 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you were permitted to do that . Is {disfmarker} is that it ? +PhD D: Uh , I think they will send , um , files but we {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} Well , apparently {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , so they will send files so everybody will have the same boundaries to work with ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: But actually their alignment actually is not seems to be improving in like on all cases . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Oh , i Yeah , so what happened here is that , um , the overall improvement that they have with this method {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well , to be more precise , what they have is , they have these alignments and then they drop the beginning silence and {disfmarker} and the end silence but they keep , uh , two hundred milliseconds before speech and two hundred after speech . And they keep the speech pauses also . Um , and the overall improvement over the MFCC baseline So , when they just , uh , add this frame dropping in addition it 's r uh , forty percent , right ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Fourteen percent , I mean . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um , which is , um , t which is the overall improvement . But in some cases it doesn't improve at all . Like , uh , y do you remember which case ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It gives like negative {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in like some Italian and TI - digits , +PhD D: Yeah , some @ @ . +PhD B: right ? +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . So by using the endpointed speech , actually it 's worse than the baseline in some instances , which could be due to the word pattern . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Yeah , the other thing also is that fourteen percent is less than what you obtain using a real VAD . +PhD B: Yeah , our neural net {disfmarker} +PhD D: So with without cheating like this . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So I think this shows that there is still work {disfmarker} Uh , well , working on the VAD is still {disfmarker} still important I think . +Professor C: Yeah , c +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can I ask just a {disfmarker} a high level question ? Can you just say like one or two sentences about Wiener filtering and why {disfmarker} why are people doing that ? +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD A: What 's {disfmarker} what 's the deal with that ? +PhD B: OK , so the Wiener filter , it 's {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like you try to minimize {disfmarker} I mean , so the basic principle of Wiener filter is like you try to minimize the , uh , d uh , difference between the noisy signal and the clean signal if you have two channels . Like let 's say you have a clean t signal and you have an additional channel where you know what is the noisy signal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you try to minimize the error between these two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's the basic principle . And you get {disfmarker} you can do that {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have only a c noisy signal , at a level which you , you w try to estimate the noise from the w assuming that the first few frames are noise or if you have a w voice activity detector , uh , you estimate the noise spectrum . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do you assume the noise is the same ? +PhD B: Yeah . in {disfmarker} yeah , after the speech starts . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but that 's not the case in , uh , many {disfmarker} many of our cases but it works reasonably well . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and then you What you do is you , uh b fff . So again , I can write down some of these eq Oh , OK . Yeah . And then you do this {disfmarker} uh , this is the transfer function of the Wiener filter , so "" SF "" is a clean speech spectrum , power spectrum +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And "" N "" is the noisy power spectrum . And so this is the transfer function . +Professor C: Right +PhD B: And , +Professor C: actually , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And then you multiply your noisy power spectrum with this . You get an estimate of the clean power spectrum . +PhD A: I see . OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but the thing is that you have to estimate the SF from the noisy spectrum , what you have . So you estimate the NF from the initial noise portions and then you subtract that from the current noisy spectrum to get an estimate of the SF . So sometimes that becomes zero because you do you don't have a true estimate of the noise . So the f filter will have like sometimes zeros in it +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because some frequency values will be zeroed out because of that . And that creates a lot of discontinuities across the spectrum because @ @ the filter . So , uh , so {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that was just the first stage of Wiener filtering that I tried . +PhD A: So is this , um , basically s uh , similar to just regular spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's all pretty related , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's a di there 's a whole class of techniques where you try in some sense to minimize the noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And it 's typically a mean square sense , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , i in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some way . And , uh {disfmarker} uh , spectral subtraction is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} uh , one approach to it . +PhD A: Do people use the Wiener filtering in combination with the spectral subtraction typically , or is i are they sort of competing techniques ? +PhD B: Not seen . They are very s similar techniques . +PhD A: Yeah . O oh , OK . +PhD B: So it 's like I haven't seen anybody using s Wiener filter with spectral subtraction . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see , I see . +Professor C: I mean , in the long run you 're doing the same thing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: but y but there you make different approximations , and {disfmarker} in spectral subtraction , for instance , there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an estimation factor . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: You sometimes will figure out what the noise is and you 'll multiply that noise spectrum times some constant and subtract that rather than {disfmarker} and sometimes people {disfmarker} even though this really should be in the power domain , sometimes people s work in the magnitude domain because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it works better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh , uh , you know . +PhD A: So why did you choose , uh , Wiener filtering over some other {disfmarker} one of these other techniques ? +PhD B: Uh , the reason was , like , we had this choice of using spectral subtraction , Wiener filtering , and there was one more thing which I which I 'm trying , is this sub space approach . So , Stephane is working on spectral subtraction . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So I picked up {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're sort of trying @ @ them all . +PhD B: Y Yeah , +PhD A: Ah , +PhD B: we just wanted to have a few noise production {disfmarker} compensation techniques +PhD A: I see . Oh , OK . +PhD B: and then pick some from that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: pick one . +Professor C: I m I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I mean , there 's Car - Carmen 's working on another , on the vector Taylor series . +PhD B: VA Yeah , VAD . w Yeah . +Professor C: So they were just kind of trying to cover a bunch of different things with this task and see , you know , what are {disfmarker} what are the issues for each of them . +PhD A: Ah , OK . That makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: Cool , thanks . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} so one of {disfmarker} one of the things that I tried , like I said , was to remove those zeros in the fri filter by doing some smoothing of the filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Like , you estimate the edge of square and then you do a f smoothing across the frequency so that those zeros get , like , flattened out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that doesn't seems to be improving by trying it on the first time . So what I did was like I p did this and then you {disfmarker} I plugged in the {disfmarker} one more {disfmarker} the same thing but with the smoothed filter the second time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that seems to be working . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's where I got like fifty - six point five percent improvement on SpeechDat - Car with that . And {disfmarker} So the other thing what I tried was I used still the ten frames of noise estimate but I used this channel zero VAD to drop the frames . So I 'm not {disfmarker} still not estimating . And that has taken the performance to like sixty - seven percent in SpeechDat - Car , which is {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which like sort of shows that by using a proper VAD you can just take it to further , better levels . And {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So that 's sort of like , you know , best - case performance ? +PhD B: Yeah , so far I 've seen sixty - seven {disfmarker} I mean , no , I haven't seen s like sixty - seven percent . And , uh , using the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise also seems to be improving but I don't have the results for all the cases with that . So I used channel zero VAD to estimate noise as a lesser 2 x frame , which is like , {vocalsound} everywhere I use the channel zero VAD . And that seems to be the best combination , uh , rather than using a few frames to estimate and then drop a channel . +Professor C: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still a little confused . Is that channel zero information going to be accessible during this test . +PhD B: Nnn , no . This is just to test whether we can really improve by using a better VAD . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} So this is like the noise compensation f is fixed +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but you make a better decision on the endpoints . That 's , like {disfmarker} seems to be {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so we c so I mean , which {disfmarker} which means , like , by using this technique what we improve just the VAD +Professor C: Yes . +PhD B: we can just take the performance by another ten percent or better . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that was just the , uh , reason for doing that experiment . And , w um {disfmarker} Yeah , but this {disfmarker} all these things , I have to still try it on the TI - digits , which is like I 'm just running . And there seems to be not improving a {disfmarker} a lot on the TI - digits , so I 'm like investigating that , why it 's not . And , um , um {disfmarker} Well after that . So , uh {disfmarker} so the other {disfmarker} the other thing is {disfmarker} like I 've been {disfmarker} I 'm doing all this stuff on the power spectrum . So {disfmarker} Tried this stuff on the mel as well {disfmarker} mel and the magnitude , and mel magnitude , and all those things . But it seems to be the power spectrum seems to be getting the best result . So , one of {disfmarker} one of reasons I thought like doing the averaging , after the filtering using the mel filter bank , that seems to be maybe helping rather than trying it on the mel filter ba filtered outputs . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So just th +Professor C: Ma Makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} that 's the only thing that I could think of why {disfmarker} why it 's giving improvement on the mel . And , yep . So that 's it . +Professor C: Uh , how about the subspace stuff ? +PhD B: Subspace , {comment} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm like {disfmarker} that 's still in {disfmarker} a little bit in the back burner because I 've been p putting a lot effort on this to make it work , on tuning things and other stuff . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I was like going parallely but not much of improvement . I 'm just {disfmarker} have some skeletons ready , need some more time for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: Tha - that it ? +PhD B: Yep . Yep . +PhD A: Cool . Do you wanna go , Stephane ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So , {vocalsound} I 've been , uh , working still on the spectral subtraction . Um , So to r to remind you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a little bit of {disfmarker} of what I did before , is just {vocalsound} to apply some spectral subtraction with an overestimation factor also to get , um , an estimate of the noise , uh , spectrum , and subtract this estimation of the noise spectrum from the , uh , signal spectrum , {comment} but subtracting more when the SNR is {disfmarker} is , uh , low , which is a technique that it 's often used . +PhD A: "" Subtracting more "" , meaning {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: So you overestimate the noise spectrum . You multiply the noise spectrum by a factor , uh , which depends on the SNR . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD D: So , above twenty DB , it 's one , so you just subtract the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then it 's b Generally {disfmarker} Well , I use , actually , a linear , uh , function of the SNR , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is bounded to , like , two or three , {comment} when the SNR is below zero DB . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , doing just this , uh , either on the FFT bins or on the mel bands , um , t doesn't yield any improvement +Professor C: Oh ! Um , uh , what are you doing with negative , uh , powers ? +PhD D: o Yeah . So there is also a threshold , of course , because after subtraction you can have negative energies , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So what I {disfmarker} I just do is to put , uh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to add {disfmarker} to put the threshold first and then to add a small amount of noise , which right now is speech - shaped . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Speech - shaped ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} a it has the overall {disfmarker} overall energy , uh {disfmarker} pow it has the overall power spectrum of speech . So with a bump around one kilohertz . +PhD A: So when y when you talk about there being something less than zero after subtracting the noise , is that at a particular frequency bin ? +PhD D: i Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: There can be frequency bins with negative values . +PhD A: And so when you say you 're adding something that has the overall shape of speech , is that in a {disfmarker} in a particular frequency bin ? Or you 're adding something across all the frequencies when you get these negatives ? +PhD D: For each frequencies I a I 'm adding some , uh , noise , but the a the amount of {disfmarker} the amount of noise I add is not the same for all the frequency bins . +PhD A: Ah ! OK . I gotcha . Right . +PhD D: Uh . Right now I don't think if it makes sense to add something that 's speech - shaped , because then you have silence portion that have some spectra similar to the sp the overall speech spectra . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . So this is something I can still work on , +PhD A: So what does that mean ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Hmm . +PhD A: I 'm trying to understand what it means when you do the spectral subtraction and you get a negative . It means that at that particular frequency range you subtracted more energy than there was actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: That means that {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so yeah , you have an {disfmarker} an estimation of the noise spectrum , but sometimes , of course , it 's {disfmarker} as the noise is not perfectly stationary , sometimes this estimation can be , uh , too small , so you don't subtract enough . But sometimes it can be too large also . If {disfmarker} if the noise , uh , energy in this particular frequency band drops for some reason . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: So in {disfmarker} in an ideal word i world {comment} if the noise were always the same , then , when you subtracted it the worst that i you would get would be a zero . I mean , the lowest you would get would be a zero , cuz i if there was no other energy there you 're just subtracting exactly the noise . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm , +Professor C: Yep , there 's all {disfmarker} there 's all sorts of , uh , deviations from the ideal here . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about the signal and noise , um , at a particular point . And even if something is sort of stationary in ster terms of statistics , there 's no guarantee that any particular instantiation or piece of it is exactly a particular number or bounded by a particular range . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , you 're figuring out from some chunk of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the signal what you think the noise is . Then you 're subtracting that from another chunk , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and there 's absolutely no reason to think that you 'd know that it wouldn't , uh , be negative in some places . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , on the other hand that just means that in some sense you 've made a mistake because you certainly have stra subtracted a bigger number than is due to the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} Also , we speak {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} where all this stuff comes from is from an assumption that signal and noise are uncorrelated . And that certainly makes sense in s in {disfmarker} in a statistical interpretation , that , you know , over , um , all possible realizations that they 're uncorrelated +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or assuming , uh , ergodicity that i that i um , across time , uh , it 's uncorrelated . But if you just look at {disfmarker} a quarter second , uh , and you cross - multiply the two things , uh , you could very well , uh , end up with something that sums to something that 's not zero . So in fact , the two signals could have some relation to one another . And so there 's all sorts of deviations from ideal in this . And {disfmarker} and given all that , you could definitely end up with something that 's negative . But if down the road you 're making use of something as if it is a power spectrum , um , then it can be bad to have something negative . Now , the other thing I wonder about actually is , what if you left it negative ? What happens ? +PhD B: Is that the log ? +Professor C: I mean , because {disfmarker} Um , are you taking the log before you add them up to the mel ? +PhD B: After that . No , after . +Professor C: Right . So the thing is , I wonder how {disfmarker} if you put your thresholds after that , I wonder how often you would end up with , uh {disfmarker} with negative values . +PhD B: But you will {disfmarker} But you end up reducing some neighboring frequency bins {disfmarker} @ @ in the average , right ? When you add the negative to the positive value which is the true estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . But nonetheless , uh , you know , these are {disfmarker} it 's another f kind of smoothing , right ? that you 're doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So , you 've done your best shot at figuring out what the noise should be , and now i then you 've subtracted it off . And then after that , instead of {disfmarker} instead of , uh , uh , leaving it as is and adding things {disfmarker} adding up some neighbors , you artificially push it up . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which is , you know , it 's {disfmarker} there 's no particular reason that that 's the right thing to do either , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: So , um , uh , i in fact , what you 'd be doing is saying , "" well , we 're d we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to definitely diminish the effect of this frequency in this little frequency bin in the {disfmarker} in the overall mel summation "" . It 's just a thought . I d I don't know if it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sort of the opposite of that would be if {disfmarker} if you find out you 're going to get a negative number , you don't do the subtraction for that bin . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . That is true . +Professor C: Nnn , yeah , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although {disfmarker} +PhD A: That would be almost the opposite , right ? Instead of leaving it negative , you don't do it . If your {disfmarker} if your subtraction 's going to result in a negative number , you {disfmarker} you don't do subtraction in that . +Professor C: Yeah , but that means that in a situation where you thought that {disfmarker} that the bin was almost entirely noise , you left it . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm just saying that 's like the opposite . +PhD B: We just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's the opposite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: And , yeah , some people also {disfmarker} if it 's a negative value they , uh , re - compute it using inter interpolation from the edges and bins . +PhD B: For frames , frequency bins . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , there are different things that you can do . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: People can also , uh , reflect it back up and essentially do a full wave rectification instead of a {disfmarker} instead of half wave . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: But it was just a thought that {disfmarker} that it might be something to try . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yep . Well , actually I tried , {vocalsound} something else based on this , um , is to {disfmarker} to put some smoothing , um , because it seems to {disfmarker} to help or it seems to help the Wiener filtering +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , mmm {disfmarker} So what I did is , uh , some kind of nonlinear smoothing . Actually I have a recursion that computes {disfmarker} Yeah , let me go back a little bit . Actually , when you do spectral subtraction you can , uh , find this {disfmarker} this equivalent in the s in the spectral domain . You can uh compute , y you can say that d your spectral subtraction is a filter , um , and the gain of this filter is the , um , {vocalsound} signal energy minus what you subtract , divided by the signal energy . And this is a gain that varies over time , and , you know , of course , uh , depending on the s on the noise spectrum and on the speech spectrum . And {disfmarker} what happen actually is that during low SNR values , the gain is close to zero but it varies a lot . Mmm , and this {disfmarker} this is the cause of musical noise and all these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {comment} the fact you {disfmarker} we go below zero one frame and then you can have an energy that 's above zero . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Mmm . So the smoothing is {disfmarker} I did a smoothing actually on this gain , uh , trajectory . But it 's {disfmarker} the smoothing is nonlinear in the sense that I tried to not smooth if the gain is high , because in this case we know that , uh , the estimate of the gain is correct because we {disfmarker} we are not close to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to zero , um , and to do more smoothing if the gain is low . Mmm . Um . Yeah . So , well , basically that 's this idea , and it seems to give pretty good results , uh , although I 've just {disfmarker} just tested on Italian and Finnish . And on Italian it seems {disfmarker} my result seems to be a little bit better than the Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the one you showed yesterday . +PhD D: right ? +PhD B: Right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , I don't know if you have these improvement the detailed improvements for Italian , Finnish , and Spanish there +PhD B: Fff . No , I don't have , for each , +PhD D: or you have {disfmarker} just have your own . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} just have the final number here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So these numbers he was giving before with the four point three , and the ten point one , and so forth , those were Italian , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} so , no , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually didn't give you the number which is the final one , +PhD D: uh , no , we 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is , after two stages of Wiener filtering . I mean , that was I just {disfmarker} well , like the overall improvement is like fifty - six point five . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , his number is still better than what I got in the two stages of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: On Italian . But on Finnish it 's a little bit worse , apparently . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: But do you have numbers in terms of word error rates on {disfmarker} on Italian ? So just so you have some sense of reference ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , so , it 's , uh , three point , uh , eight . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Am I right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . Yeah , right , OK . +PhD D: And then , uh , d uh , nine point , uh , one . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And finally , uh , sixteen point five . +Professor C: And this is , um , spectral subtraction plus what ? +PhD D: Plus {disfmarker} plus nonlinear smoothing . Well , it 's {disfmarker} the system {disfmarker} it 's exactly the sys the same system as Sunil tried , +Professor C: On - line normalization and LDA ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But instead of double stage Wiener filtering , it 's {disfmarker} it 's this smoothed spectral subtraction . Um , yeah . +PhD A: What is it the , um , France Telecom system uses +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: for {disfmarker} Do they use spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: They use spectral subtraction , right . +PhD D: For what ? +PhD B: French Telecom . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering . +PhD D: am I right ? +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD D: Well , it 's some kind of Wiener filtering {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , filtering . Yeah , it 's not exactly Wiener filtering but some variant of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , plus , uh , I guess they have some sort of cepstral normalization , as well . +PhD B: s They have like {disfmarker} yeah , th the {disfmarker} just noise compensation technique is a variant of Wiener filtering , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: plus they do some {disfmarker} some smoothing techniques on the final filter . The {disfmarker} th they actually do the filtering in the time domain . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: So they would take this HF squared back , taking inverse Fourier transform . And they convolve the time domain signal with that . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD B: And they do some smoothing on that final filter , impulse response . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: But they also have two {disfmarker} two different smoothing @ @ . +PhD B: I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm @ @ . +PhD D: One in the time domain and one in the frequency domain by just taking the first , um , coefficients of the impulse response . +PhD B: But . +PhD D: So , basically it 's similar . I mean , what you did , it 's similar +PhD B: It 's similar in the smoothing and {disfmarker} +PhD D: because you have also two {disfmarker} two kind of smoothing . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: One in the time domain , and one in the frequency domain , +PhD B: Yeah . The frequency domain . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , do you get this musical noise stuff with Wiener filtering or is that only with , uh , spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: No , you get it with Wiener filtering also . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help with that ? Or some other smoothing ? +PhD B: Oh , no , you still end up with zeros in the s spectrum . Sometimes . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , it 's not clear that these musical noises hurt us in recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: We don't know if they do . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , they {disfmarker} they sound bad . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . +Professor C: But we 're not listening to it , usually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , actually the {disfmarker} the smoothing that I did {disfmarker} do here reduced the musical noise . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I cannot {disfmarker} you cannot hear beca well , actually what I d did not say is that this is not in the FFT bins . This is in the mel frequency bands . Um {disfmarker} So , it could be seen as a f a {disfmarker} a smoothing in the frequency domain because I used , in ad mel bands in addition and then the other phase of smoothing in the time domain . Mmm . But , when you look at the spectrogram , if you don't have an any smoothing , you clearly see , like {disfmarker} in silence portions , and at the beginning and end of speech , you see spots of high energy randomly distributed over the {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's the musical noise ? +PhD D: Which is musical noise , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: yeah , if {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} If you listen to it {disfmarker} uh , if you do this in the FFT bins , then you have spots of energy randomly distributing . And if you f if you re - synthesize these spot sounds as , like , sounds , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , none of these systems , by the way , have {disfmarker} I mean , y you both are {disfmarker} are working with , um , our system that does not have the neural net , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . So one would hope , presumably , that the neural net part of it would {disfmarker} would improve things further as {disfmarker} as they did before . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , although if {disfmarker} if we , um , look at the result from the proposals , {comment} one of the reason , uh , the n system with the neural net was , um , more than {disfmarker} well , around five percent better , is that it was much better on highly mismatched condition . I 'm thinking , for instance , on the TI - digits trained on clean speech and tested on noisy speech . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , for this case , the system with the neural net was much better . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not much on the {disfmarker} in the other cases . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And if we have no , uh , spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , i the system is {disfmarker} Uh , we thought the neural {disfmarker} neural network is much better than before , even in these cases of high mismatch . So , maybe the neural net will help less but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Maybe . +PhD A: Could you train a neural net to do spectral subtraction ? +Professor C: Yeah , it could do a nonlinear spectral subtraction +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but I don't know if it {disfmarker} I mean , you have to figure out what your targets are . +PhD A: Yeah , I was thinking if you had a clean version of the signal and {disfmarker} and a noisy version , and your targets were the M F - uh , you know , whatever , frequency bins {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's not so much spectral subtraction then , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but at any rate , yeah , people , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: People do that ? +Professor C: y yeah , in fact , we had visitors here who did that I think when you were here ba way back when . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , people {disfmarker} d done lots of experimentation over the years with training neural nets . And it 's not a bad thing to do . It 's another approach . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: M I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The objection everyone always raises , which has some truth to it is that , um , it 's good for mapping from a particular noise to clean but then you get a different noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the experiments we saw that visitors did here showed that it {disfmarker} there was at least some , um , {vocalsound} {comment} gentleness to the degradation when you switched to different noises . It did seem to help . So that {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's another {disfmarker} another way to go . +PhD A: How did it compare on {disfmarker} I mean , for {disfmarker} for good cases where it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh , stuff that it was trained on ? Did it do pretty well ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah , it did very well . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but to some extent that 's kind of what we 're doing . I mean , we 're not doing exactly that , we 're not trying to generate good examples but by trying to do the best classifier you possibly can , for these little phonetic categories , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . You could say it 's sort of built in . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's kind of built into that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and that 's why we have found that it {disfmarker} it does help . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} so , um , yeah , I mean , we 'll just have to try it . But I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine that it will help some . I mean , it {disfmarker} we 'll just have to see whether it helps more or less the same , but I would imagine it would help some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So in any event , all of this {disfmarker} I was just confirming that all of this was with a simpler system . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: OK ? +PhD D: yeah . Um , Yeah , so this is th the , um {disfmarker} Well , actually , this was kind of the first try with this spectral subtraction plus smoothing , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was kind of excited by the result . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , then I started to optimize the different parameters . And , uh , the first thing I tried to optimize is the , um , time constant of the smoothing . And it seems that the one that I chose for the first experiment was the optimal one , so {vocalsound} uh , +Professor C: It 's amazing how often that happens . +PhD D: Um , so this is the first thing . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , another thing that I {disfmarker} it 's important to mention is , um , that this has a this has some additional latency . Um . Because when I do the smoothing , uh , it 's a recursion that estimated the means , so {disfmarker} of the g of the gain curve . And this is a filter that has some latency . And I noticed that it 's better if we take into account this latency . So , instead o of using the current estimated mean to , uh , subtract the current frame , it 's better to use an estimate that 's some somewhere in the future . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: And that 's what causes the latency ? OK . +PhD B: You mean , the m the mean is computed o based on some frames in the future also ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} or no ? +PhD D: It 's the recursion , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's the center recursion , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} and the latency of this recursion is around fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: One five ? +PhD D: +Professor C: One five ? Five zero ? +PhD D: Five zero , +Professor C: Five zero . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: I 'm sorry , +PhD D: mmm . +PhD B: why {disfmarker} why is that delay coming ? Like , you estimate the mean ? +PhD D: Yeah , the mean estimation has some delay , right ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: I mean , the {disfmarker} the filter that {disfmarker} that estimates the mean has a time constant . +PhD B: It isn't {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like it looks into the future also . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: What if you just look into the past ? +PhD D: It 's , uh , not as good . It 's not bad . +Professor C: How m by how much ? +PhD D: Um , it helps a lot over the ba the baseline but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor C: By how much ? +PhD D: it {disfmarker} It 's around three percent , um , relative . +Professor C: Worse . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um , +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's depending on how all this stuff comes out we may or may not be able to add any latency . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . So , yeah , it depends . Uh , y actually , it 's {disfmarker} it 's l it 's three percent . Right . Mmm . Yeah , b but I don't think we have to worry too much on that right now while {disfmarker} you kno . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , s Yeah , I mean , I think the only thing is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: I would worry about it a little . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Because if we completely ignore latency , and then we discover that we really have to do something about it , we 're going to be {disfmarker} find ourselves in a bind . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , you know , maybe you could make it twenty - five . You know what I mean ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , just , you know , just be {disfmarker} be a little conservative +PhD D: Oh yes . +Professor C: because we may end up with this crunch where all of a sudden we have to cut the latency in half or something . +PhD D: s Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Um . So , yeah , there are other things in the , um , algorithm that I didn't , uh , @ @ a lot yet , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD D: which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry . A quick question just about the latency thing . If {disfmarker} if there 's another part of the system that causes a latency of a hundred milliseconds , is this an additive thing ? Or c or is yours hidden in that ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's added . +PhD A: It 's additive . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} OK . We can do something in parallel also , in some like {disfmarker} some cases like , if you wanted to do voice activity detection . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: And we can do that in parallel with some other filtering you can do . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: So you can make a decision on that voice activity detection and then you decide whether you want to filter or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But by then you already have the sufficient samples to do the filtering . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So , sometimes you can do it anyway . +PhD A: I mean , couldn't , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Couldn't you just also {disfmarker} I mean , i if you know that the l the largest latency in the system is two hundred milliseconds , don't you {disfmarker} couldn't you just buffer up that number of frames and then everything uses that buffer ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: And that way it 's not additive ? +Professor C: Well , in fact , everything is sent over in buffers cuz of {disfmarker} isn't it the TCP buffer some {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: You mean , the {disfmarker} the data , the super frame or something ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , but that has a variable latency because the last frame doesn't have any latency +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and first frame has a twenty framed latency . So you can't r rely on that latency all the time . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} I mean the transmission over {disfmarker} over the air interface is like a buffer . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Twenty frame {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: twenty four frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} But the only thing is that the first frame in that twenty - four frame buffer has a twenty - four frame latency . And the last frame doesn't have any latency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Because it just goes as {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I wasn't thinking of that one in particular +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: but more of , you know , if {disfmarker} if there is some part of your system that has to buffer twenty frames , uh , can't the other parts of the system draw out of that buffer and therefore not add to the latency ? +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} and that 's sort of one of the {disfmarker} all of that sort of stuff is things that they 're debating in their standards committee . +PhD A: Oh ! Hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , um , there is uh , {comment} these parameters that I still have to {disfmarker} to look at . Like , I played a little bit with this overestimation factor , uh , but I still have to {disfmarker} to look more at this , um , at the level of noise I add after . Uh , I know that adding noise helped , um , the system just using spectral subtraction without smoothing , but I don't know right now if it 's still important or not , and if the level I choose before is still the right one . Same thing for the shape of the {disfmarker} the noise . Maybe it would be better to add just white noise instead of speech shaped noise . +Professor C: That 'd be more like the JRASTA thing in a sense . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um , yep . Uh , and another thing is to {disfmarker} Yeah , for this I just use as noise estimate the mean , uh , spectrum of the first twenty frames of each utterance . I don't remember for this experiment what did you use for these two stage {disfmarker} +PhD B: I used ten {disfmarker} just ten frames . Yeah , because {disfmarker} +PhD D: The ten frames ? +PhD B: I mean , the reason was like in TI - digits I don't have a lot . I had twenty frames most of the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . But , so what 's this result you told me about , the fact that if you use more than ten frames you can {disfmarker} improve by t +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's using the channel zero . If I use a channel zero VAD to estimate the noise . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: Which {disfmarker} +PhD D: But this is ten frames plus {disfmarker} plus +PhD B: Channel zero dropping . +PhD D: channel {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , no , these results with two stage Wiener filtering is ten frames +PhD B: t Oh , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: but possibly more . I mean , if channel one VAD gives you {disfmarker} +PhD B: f Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . OK . Yeah , but in this experiment I did {disfmarker} I didn't use any VAD . I just used the twenty first frame to estimate the noise . And {disfmarker} So I expected it to be a little bit better , {vocalsound} if , uh , I use more {disfmarker} more frames . Um . OK , that 's it for spectral subtraction . The second thing I was working on is to , um , try to look at noise estimation , {comment} mmm , and using some technique that doesn't need voice activity detection . Um , and for this I u simply used some code that , uh , {vocalsound} I had from {disfmarker} from Belgium , which is technique that , um , takes a bunch of frame , um , and for each frequency bands of this frame , takes a look at the minima of the energy . And then average these minima and take this as an {disfmarker} an energy estimate of the noise for this particular frequency band . And there is something more to this actually . What is done is that , {vocalsound} uh , these minima are computed , um , based on , um , high resolution spectra . So , I compute an FFT based on the long , uh , signal frame which is sixty - four millisecond {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you have one minimum for each frequency ? +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what I d uh , I do actually , is to take a bunch of {disfmarker} to take a tile on the spectrogram and this tile is five hundred milliseconds long and two hundred hertz wide . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: And this tile {disfmarker} Uh , in this tile appears , like , the harmonics if you have a voiced sound , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's the FTT bins . And when you take the m the minima of {disfmarker} of these {disfmarker} this tile , when you don't have speech , these minima will give you some noise level estimate , If you have voiced speech , these minima will still give you some noise estimate because the minima are between the harmonics . And {disfmarker} If you have other {disfmarker} other kind of speech sounds then it 's not the case , but if the time frame is long enough , uh , like s five hundred milliseconds seems to be long enough , {comment} you still have portions which , uh , are very close {disfmarker} whi which minima are very close to the noise energy . +Professor C: I 'm confused . You said five hundred milliseconds +PhD D: Mmm ? +Professor C: but you said sixty - four milliseconds . Which is which ? What ? +PhD D: Sixty - four milliseconds is to compute the FFT , uh , bins . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the FFT . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Um , actually it 's better to use sixty - four milliseconds because , um , if you use thirty milliseconds , then , uh , because of the {disfmarker} this short windowing and at low pitch , uh , sounds , {vocalsound} the harmonics are not , wha uh , correctly separated . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So if you take these minima , it {disfmarker} b {vocalsound} they will overestimate the noise a lot . +Professor C: So you take sixty - four millisecond F F Ts and then you average them {comment} over five hundred ? Or {disfmarker} ? Uh , what do you do over five hundred ? +PhD D: So I take {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I take a bunch of these sixty - four millisecond frame to cover five hundred milliseconds , +Professor C: Ah . OK . +PhD D: and then I look for the minima , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the bunch of uh fifty frames , right ? +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . So the interest of this is that , as y with this technique you can estimate u some reasonable noise spectra with only five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of signal , so if the {disfmarker} the n the noise varies a lot , uh , you can track {disfmarker} better track the noise , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is not the case if you rely on the voice activity detector . So even if there are no no speech pauses , you can track the noise level . The only requirement is that you must have , in these five hundred milliseconds segment , {comment} you must have voiced sound at least . Cuz this {disfmarker} these will help you to {disfmarker} to track the {disfmarker} the noise level . Um . So what I did is just to simply replace the VAD - based , uh , noise estimate by this estimate , first on SpeechDat - Car {disfmarker} Well , only on SpeechDat - Car actually . And it 's , uh , slightly worse , like one percent relative compared to the VAD - based {pause} estimates . Um , I think the reason why it 's not better , is that the SpeechDat - Car noises are all stationary . Um . So , u y y there really is no need to have something that 's adaptive +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Uh , well , they are mainly stationary . Um . But , I expect s maybe some improvement on TI - digits because , nnn , in this case the noises are all sometimes very variable . Uh , so I have to test it . Mmm . +Professor C: But are you comparing with something {disfmarker} e I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} p s a little confused again , i it {disfmarker} Uh , when you compare it with the V A D - based , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: VAD - Is this {disfmarker} is this the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} It 's the France - Telecom - based spectra , s uh , Wiener filtering and VAD . So it 's their system but just I replace their noise estimate by this one . +Professor C: Oh , you 're not doing this with our system ? +PhD D: In i I 'm not {disfmarker} No , no . Yeah , it 's our system but with just the Wiener filtering from their system . Right ? Mmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Actually , th the best system that we still have is , uh , our system but with their noise compensation scheme , right ? +Professor C: Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: So I 'm trying to improve on this , and {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by replacing their noise estimate by , uh , something that might be better . +Professor C: OK . But the spectral subtraction scheme that you reported on also re requires a {disfmarker} a noise estimate . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Couldn't you try this for that ? +PhD D: But I di +Professor C: Do you think it might help ? +PhD D: Not yet , because I did this in parallel , +Professor C: I see , +PhD D: and I was working on one and the other . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , for {disfmarker} for sure I will . I can try also , mmm , the spectral subtraction . +PhD B: So I 'm also using that n new noise estimate technique on this Wiener filtering what I 'm trying . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I have , like , some experiments running , I don't have the results . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't estimate the f noise on the ten frames but use his estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . I , um , also implemented a sp um {disfmarker} spectral whitening idea which is in the , um , Ericsson proposal . Uh , the idea is just to {vocalsound} um , flatten the log , uh , spectrum , um , and to flatten it more if the {disfmarker} the probability of silence is higher . So in this way , you can also reduce {disfmarker} somewhat reduce the musical noise and you reduce the variability if you have different noise shapes , because the {disfmarker} the spectrum becomes more flat in the silence portions . Um . Yeah . With this , no improvement , uh , but there are a lot of parameters that we can play with and , um {disfmarker} Actually , this {disfmarker} this could be seen as a soft version of the frame dropping because , um , you could just put the threshold and say that "" below the threshold , I will flatten {disfmarker} comp completely flatten the {disfmarker} the spectrum "" . And above this threshold , uh , keep the same spectrum . So it would be like frame dropping , because during the silence portions which are below the threshold of voice activity probability , {comment} uh , w you would have some kind of dummy frame which is a perfectly flat spectrum . And this , uh , whitening is something that 's more soft because , um , you whiten {disfmarker} you just , uh , have a function {disfmarker} the whitening is a function of the speech probability , so it 's not a hard decision . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so I think maybe it can be used together with frame dropping and when we are not sure about if it 's speech or silence , well , maybe it has something do with this . +Professor C: It 's interesting . I mean , um , you know , in {disfmarker} in JRASTA we were essentially adding in , uh , white {disfmarker} uh , white noise dependent on our estimate of the noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: On the overall estimate of the noise . Uh , I think it never occurred to us to use a probability in there . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You could imagine one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that made use of where {disfmarker} where the amount that you added in was , uh , a function of the probability of it being s speech or noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah , w Yeah , right now it 's a constant that just depending on the {disfmarker} the noise spectrum . +PhD B: There 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz that {disfmarker} that brings in sort of powers of classifiers that we don't really have in , uh , this other estimate . So it could be {disfmarker} it could be interesting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what point does the , uh , system stop recording ? How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'll keep going till {disfmarker} I guess when they run out of disk space , +Professor C: It went a little long ? I mean , disk {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} I think we 're OK . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there are {disfmarker} with this technique there are some {disfmarker} I just did something exactly the same as {disfmarker} as the Ericsson proposal but , um , {vocalsound} the probability of speech is not computed the same way . And I think , i for {disfmarker} yeah , for a lot of things , actually a g a good speech probability is important . Like for frame dropping you improve , like {disfmarker} you can improve from ten percent as Sunil showed , if you use the channel zero speech probabilities . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: For this it might help , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: S so , yeah . Uh , so yeah , the next thing I started to do is to , {vocalsound} uh , try to develop a better voice activity detector . And , um {disfmarker} I d um {disfmarker} yeah , for this I think we can maybe try to train the neural network for voice activity detection on all the data that we have , including all the SpeechDat - Car data . Um {disfmarker} And so I 'm starting to obtain alignments on these databases . Um , and the way I mi I do that is that I just use the HTK system but I train it only on the close - talking microphone . And then I aligned {disfmarker} I obtained the Viterbi alignment of the training utterances . Um {disfmarker} It seems to be , uh i Actually what I observed is that for Italian it doesn't seem {disfmarker} Th - there seems to be a problem . +PhD B: No . So , it doesn't seems to help by their use of channel zero or channel one . +PhD D: Well . Because {disfmarker} What ? +PhD B: Uh , you mean their d the frame dropping , right ? Yeah , it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So , u but actually the VAD was trained on Italian also , +PhD B: Italian . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} Um , the c the current VAD that we have was trained on , uh , t SPINE , right ? +PhD B: TI - digits . +PhD D: Italian , and TI - digits with noise and {disfmarker} +PhD B: +PhD D: Uh , yeah . And it seems to work on Italian but not on the Finnish and Spanish data . So , maybe one reason is that s s Finnish and Spanish noise are different . And actually we observed {disfmarker} we listened to some of the utterances and sometimes for Finnish there is music in the recordings and strange things , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so the idea was to train all the databases and obtain an alignment to train on these databases , and , um , also to , um , try different kind of features , {vocalsound} uh , as input to the VAD network . And we came up with a bunch of features that we want to try like , um , the spectral slope , the , um , the degree o degree of voicing with the features that , uh , we started to develop with Carmen , um , e with , uh , the correlation between bands and different kind of features , +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: The energy also . +PhD D: The energy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Well , Hans - Guenter will be here next week so I think he 'll be interested in all {disfmarker} all of these things . And , so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mmm . +PhD A: OK , shall we , uh , do digits ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD A: OK . +","The discussion centered on work and advancements in noise compensation techniques for robust speech recognition systems among a group of PhD students and a professor. The conversation began with PhD A signaling the start of the meeting. PhD D expressed some frustration, and Professor C informed everyone that Hans-Guenter, a respected figure in the field, would arrive by the following Tuesday and stay for about three weeks, potentially leading to a longer collaboration. + +The group discussed various approaches to address issues in speech recognition systems. Grad E shared his research on spectral subtraction and its application to the SmartKom system, focusing on mean subtraction over different time windows and their impacts on performance. + +PhD A and Professor C engaged with Grad E in a detailed discussion about the implications of using a 12-second window for calculating the mean and its comparison with shorter windows, emphasizing the slight performance drop when using past-only data. Professor C suggested that an incremental window strategy might work better for utterances of different lengths. + +Furthermore, Professor C proposed considering a filtering perspective rather than just mean subtraction, recommending designing a filter to better handle speech signals. This would involve second pass strategies, which could be very fast and offer improved performance for continuous use, especially considering different usage scenarios such as asking for directions. + +Attention then shifted to PhD B's work on Wiener filtering. PhD B detailed his efforts in developing single-stage and two-stage Wiener filtering techniques, explaining the improvements he achieved over the baseline system and comparisons with MFCC baseline results. Professor C engaged with discussions on parameter optimization and the impacts of different noise estimation techniques, including variations in accuracy across languages like Italian. + +The conversation also touched upon the potential for developing a voice activity detector (VAD) that performs well across languages without being overly sensitive to changes in background noise. The participants discussed various audio processing techniques, including spectral whitening, and how these could be integrated into robust speech recognition systems. + +Overall, the group emphasized collaboration and the sharing of research findings, looking forward to Hans-Guenter's input and the possibility of applying insights from one another's work to enhance overall system performance. The meeting concluded with plans to continue working on the various aspects of noise compensation and anticipation for Hans-Guenter's visit, suggesting further discussions and possible experimentation with the integration of different techniques." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So is {disfmarker} Why not save that . +Marketing: No , you'll ha have to open it up from elsewhere . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} Do you want to replace existing file , no . {vocalsound} I actually tried to transfer it to My Documents , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you have to you have to close that window . 'Cause that's the save one isn't it , so {disfmarker} And then find it . +Project Manager: {gap} spreadsheet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but I've ta uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right , I'll just re-do it . That's the easiest way . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Well we've made our prototype anyway . We can have a good look at that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You pass it round to have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Y no , it's a slightly curved around the sides . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm very nice . +User Interface: Um , it's almost curved like up to the main display as well . And the little line at the bottom indicates the bit {disfmarker} the panel that you pull down . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the extra function buttons are below that panel on the little line . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we've got the stick on the button with the company logo on . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We also have a apple slash cherry design at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So it is , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cherry would be alright actually . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's a bit more fun , isn't it ? And it's kinda not really at a kind of {disfmarker} you think apple , you think computers , like Apple Mac . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we might get a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Copyright , yeah . What's this this one ? +User Interface: Yeah , and cherries are fun , summery . +Marketing: What's that one there ? +User Interface: Ah , that's the mute . +Industrial Designer: For the M_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} it'd probably have to be labelled mute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're thinking {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , we didn't have anything small enough to write . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: For the first time , well it was hard to get the h um the actual labelling on the individual buttons . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , we just chose simple shapes for all them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , the important ones are the volume ones . So we made them a bit bigger . The mute could possibly be a bit smaller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hum , you separate off in colour the volume related buttons from the channel related buttons , so you've got the volume in orange on design there , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the the channel is in blue . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: R right . Um , +User Interface: Yeah , and we chose a V_ plus and V_ minus . +Project Manager: all these things have cost implications . And so when I done my thing on cost {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I had assumed that the only uh button that would be a different colour would be the uh the red apple button . So {disfmarker} However , I've now {gap} . {vocalsound} But um , {vocalsound} yeah so uh but there would be a cost implication on that , +Marketing: I'll see if I can find them . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} as I suppose that {vocalsound} so whether {vocalsound} wanted to put in all these colours , would be uh open to debate , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sis +User Interface: Well the colours wouldn't {disfmarker} like that's {disfmarker} they wouldn't be too important , +Marketing: Have {disfmarker} +User Interface: but we didn't have any white Play-Doh . {vocalsound} So that's where the colour buttons came from . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} An important consideration . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , okay so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the second one underneath would be the idea for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , we'll have the slide-away . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So we've got um detail design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} So , we've got {vocalsound} prototype presentation , which we've just done , evaluation criteria , um and finance , so I guess w we have to evaluate if that meets the various uh aspects that we're looking for uh from um our previous meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So other than the fact that it doesn't have the second layer , but um obviously obviously it would . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But other than that , we got the red apple . We got the buttons and the only thing that has really changed is the is the colouration of the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: and {vocalsound} the bit after the evaluation criteria is uh is the finance . {vocalsound} And the {vocalsound} and the cost implication . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The only snag about this is that uh {vocalsound} the cost is probably kind of important . So um , and then the production evaluation , as to how easy that would be to uh to manufacture . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and whether it would uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So if you had to do a presentation or {disfmarker} will you just work it on the prototype ? +Industrial Designer: This this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yes , this is our presentation of the prototype . +Marketing: That's the pr +Project Manager: Right , so uh as far as the the finance of it would be concern would be to make sure that the cost {disfmarker} aye the production cost 'cause you may remember that was one of the first uh considerations was to be in d under um uh twelve fifty or two and a half {disfmarker} uh twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , there's no redesign . So that should uh {disfmarker} Right , so , seems to me that the thing that I have to do is is quickly find that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could we get this on the board just so we can see {disfmarker} or do you mean do you have the figures there ? +Marketing: {gap} we should {gap} plug it in . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Do you wanna plu do you wanna plug it in into the the back of that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , Alice . So , sh +Marketing: We could do it as we d go along , the production costs , looking at the prototype . +Project Manager: Right . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay this should be then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , by the fact that we've got uh the simple chip and the uh kinetic energy source , we've got a single curved case . We've got a rubber uh case materials supplements . So , we had decided that we're having rubber buttons and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Have a push button interface . +Project Manager: Okay . W the button supplements . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , originally , I thought there would just be uh one in there because it was the one red apple . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the so the real w the real question then would come in . Do you make all the buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well do we'll do it on the prototype , +Project Manager: O +Marketing: so do two , see how much it is . +Project Manager: Well , so we've got one special button form , which was the apple . Everything else is gonna be a standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We've got special material , rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera and that , +Industrial Designer: And then we'd have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} originally , I was thinking {gap} rubber wasn't special , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but according to this , maybe it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And the r I mean effectively we've got sixteen buttons that we're gonna have on there . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you just do one , don't you , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} I don't know {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is the sort of answer , is that meant to be all sixteen buttons , and therefore {disfmarker} I mean , what's the op The option was maybe not to have rubber buttons , but just to have the one that was soft and spongy , and therefore {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think it's just it's just a one . Else {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whereas it would be {disfmarker} the special colour would be for the {disfmarker} So you would only have the one special button that was rubber , whereas the rest would be hard plastic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I think I think the button supplement i is just a supplement for all the buttons {gap} made in a different material , rather than per button . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know though . +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Every design change is uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound] I dunno , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , um , if we just had all the buttons as standard , except for the one red apple , then that would take care of that , I guess . We'd have one special colour and one special button form . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And when I plugged that in last time {disfmarker} {gap} remember it has to be under twelve and a half . As far as I know , that um {vocalsound} that took care of the uh of the various supplements . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if {disfmarker} What happened ? +Marketing: You've just gone off the window into another one . It's on the bottom row . +User Interface: Maybe if you just minimise that one in the top right-hand corner of the little box . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , but the point would be that if we uh if we just did special {disfmarker} Sorry , you were saying that it would be that one , that you would put in one there . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's nine point one there so we've got some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it {disfmarker} Well , is it s is {disfmarker} no , it's nine point seven I've got . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Just give us a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , that would {vocalsound} that would work out fine if uh uh as assuming your correction are are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} assuming that that one change covers all the buttons , then that would be fine . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And there's nothing else as far as I can see that we we had uh planned to put on {gap} . +User Interface: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {gap} switching around those th um on the electronics we got the sample sensor . At the moment we've just got the simple chip , which costs one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um , I guess the sample sens sample speaker would be the voice recognition thing , which puts up to four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should be slightly over our budget but if we gather something else down to slightly lower standard , and maybe go with the one the special form buttons , then we could have the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , hold on . Um , if we Okay , that gives us twelve point seven +Industrial Designer: So uh maybe if we got rid of like the maybe one of the special colours , kept them all the same colour , then we could have the voice recognition +Project Manager: But remember that the idea was to keep it the colour of the {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , I see , so just take out the special colour for the apple and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Um , {gap} . D wouldn't you have to keep the simple chip there as well ? You know how you turn that one to a zero , wouldn't the chip and the sample speaker be separate things , +Marketing: Yeah , we have to have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh possibly , yeah , yeah maybe . +User Interface: so you need both of them ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe um we'd be giving up on the kinetic . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And go for battery instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would give you one less . +Industrial Designer: We should {disfmarker} Yeah , that would save us one , though we'd still be slightly ov +Project Manager: But you reckon that i I mean the thing is that you wanted to a appeal to people and not have to replace batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Well , since it's the {disfmarker} through the whole technology type thing , um , you were saying in the market research that people like kind of interesting gadgets in them . Um , whether they would figure the {vocalsound} the s uh sample senor and the sample speaker , voice recognition be sort of a worthwhile thing to have . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then still have the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or whatever they would prefer not uh {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? The the problem was the battery's running out and losing the um losing the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you gotta decide which of those is more important to them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But which do you think {disfmarker} or which do we think is the more important of the options ? In a sense , at the moment , we've got a total which we need to reduce down by one point two . +User Interface: I think the voice recognition . +Project Manager: At least . Remember that was a minimum requirement . The other option if we're planning on just going for something cheap and cheerful , would be to um make it {gap} originally , we're gonna make it a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shall we shall we evaluate the prototype as we've got it now first , and then sort of make decisions about what needs to be changed after ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Marketing: Okay . Right um , I have a little thing . So , we've all got a note of {disfmarker} it's thirteen point seven , isn't it , with everything we want on . +Project Manager: {gap} . Sorry , do you want that back up ? +Marketing: Yeah , I just had a presentation to do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But I do think uh the v uh voice recognition thing would be more impressive than the fact that it's got no battery . +Project Manager: Okay , but remember the main {disfmarker} the only reason we were planning on having the voice recognition was so that they could find the remote if it got lost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Right okay um , This is about the evaluation criteria that we use for the the prototype we've got here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so the method is that the design team makes a prototype , and we evaluate the prototype against some criteria that we've formulated . And those ones are gonna be in response to sort of market research , and also finance , I guess . {vocalsound} And do that on a scale from say true being one and false being seven , so if it's neither true nor false , then that's four . So , I got a set of criteria just based on the marketing that we need to add in a financial one as well , at the end . Um so , We have to say whether it's true or false that the product looks and feels fancy . Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} whether the product demonstrates technical innovation . Whether it's easy to use . Whether it's incorporating sort of the fashion element to attract the buyer . And whether it's a sort of recognisable Real Reaction product . And I have to go up onto the whiteboard and do this apparently , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} I'll go over here . {vocalsound} Right . So the first one is um , does the product look and feel fancy . So if we do a sort of a one {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we have a single curve , which was {gap} maybe like the feel of the product's quite good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , then we have the rubber kinda spongy feel , which was in at the time . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} sorry that'd be considered fancy . +User Interface: Yeah , I'd maybe give it a a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of {disfmarker} but I think {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Is one false , or is t one true ? +User Interface: One's true . +Marketing: I forgot . One's true , and okay . Seven's fal +User Interface: And a four is neutral . +Marketing: Four is neutral , okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So maybe {gap} maybe a two . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we haven't got the double curve , so we can't like say it's completely true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go for one . {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it's pretty close . We've got almost everything we can . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I gonna put underneath so I've got some more space . So , false is seven , true is one , and {disfmarker} So uh say about a two for fancy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not not , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: m m maybe nearer three . +Marketing: Okay , well d you do an average at the end , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two three . Well , it's just that uh saying something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remember that when you look down , we've got solar power , we've got uh various other things you could have , and we're not going for these options . +Marketing: Uh-huh . This this is just this is just for like the look . Does it sort of look fancy rather than functional . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose that might be in the technical innovation bit . +Marketing: Yeah , so that {disfmarker} so sh should we go for a a two on that ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . And I mean , how much does the product demonstrate technical innovation do you reckon ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {gap} deciding between the kinetic power or um the speech recognition , and if we had either of those for our budget , they both show a reasonable amount of speech recognition . +Marketing: D yeah . Okay . So , what about the pr The prototype as it is , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: we've got we've got the speech recognition on it , haven't we . +Industrial Designer: But not the kinetic . +Marketing: But not the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Like the power . +Project Manager: No . 'Cause you can't afford that {disfmarker} w we took that out too . +Industrial Designer: No , we c ca yeah , we can't afford both . +Marketing: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Didn't you ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it doesn't {disfmarker} It's pretty {disfmarker} The prototype as it is isn't sort of um fulfilling the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No may is {disfmarker} maybe about neutral +User Interface: Maybe a three . +Industrial Designer: plus it it it's got something , but it hasn't got {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , wait a minute . In thirteen point seven we do have kinetic . +User Interface: I would give it more than a four . +Project Manager: The problem is we have to reduce down from there to get it down to twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And one way of doing that would be to take out the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , it's very much dependant on what you do with your options . And if you're definitely going for the sample sensor and sample speaker , then {disfmarker} because that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: the other functions we've got in are are more at the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} The special material , the rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera , if you go for that , th that's at the high end 'cause that's point six , whereas down at uh just special colours uh is point two . Now you're trying to lose one point two , so it seems to me that if you're going for the sample sensors {disfmarker} speaker , you're basically then having to go for the cheaper options on everything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And and the simple way to do it would be to have a battery , to have your uh sample sensor speaker , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you're looking to uh take out uh point two , +Marketing: S I'm just gonna check my email . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which would be {disfmarker} come from the button supplements category . +Marketing: I'm just gonna check exactly what it said in the email for um the product . +User Interface: How much of a difference would it make if we made the case in plastic ? Because we did say that we don't wanna follow the fashion too much . If the buttons are rubber that might be spongy enough . +Project Manager: Um , interface type um , +User Interface: And then it stand the test of time better . +Project Manager: well plastic rather than rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . But I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That that that would make the significant difference . You could either {vocalsound} you could have it {disfmarker} If you have a in plastic rather than rubber , then that would uh enable you to get {disfmarker} you could keep kinetic then , you could keep your sample sensor , and you'd be looking to take out point two . So you could uh fiddle that down your special form at the bottom , or your special colour at the bottom . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And that would enable you to to do it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it says if we make a slightly more fancy , then we lose points innovation , and if we make it more innovative innovative , then we lose points on it being fancy , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} , I just read the email again and it sort of says it's evaluate the design sort of as it is , I think , so I think we need to think about finance after we've sort of evaluated that design . I don't know whether we're doing it in the wrong order or something or . +Project Manager: Well , okay , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I suppose it's rubber as it is , isn't it . +Project Manager: It's rubber as it is , yes . +Marketing: So , I mean does this need to go up a bit or something , 'cause we've got both the both the um the speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We got {disfmarker} we've we've got thirteen point seven +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've got it in at the moment and if {disfmarker} and basically , we're going to reduce down from that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the current one , you'd say would be fancy , would be too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , for for innovation , so we've got the speech the speech thing , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I would've said about a two as well . +Marketing: Do you reckon a two ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . I'd be happy with a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Two . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: And the next one is {disfmarker} I'll have to get it back up now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next on Well , I can just sing about . Easy to use . I would've said yes . I would go for a one on that at this point in time . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I would say so as well . +Project Manager: Um , incorporates elements of fashion to attract buyer . Well , yeah it certainly has some . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , it's got the cherry and the sponginess . +Industrial Designer: It does , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Say about a three maybe ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just doing it quite well . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think we're gonna have to lose some of these , but the moment , as it stands , it's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I woulda said two would seem reasonable . +Marketing: It's a two . +Project Manager: The product is a recognisable real {disfmarker} r uh {disfmarker} reaction product ? +Marketing: Yeah , this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} the sensor using all of its all of its products , all of its buttons , +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's got a fairly big label on the bottom saying where it comes from . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit rough at the minute . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} So this is about sort of the corporate image of like new sort of sleek technology and all that sort of thing , as well as having the logo on and all that . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {gap} sort of {disfmarker} Is it sort of a recognisable product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does it fit in with our other other products , which uh are sort of coffee makers and spacecraft . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well it's got the same um speech feature as the coffee machine . +Marketing: What do y +Industrial Designer: Also it's kind of {gap} spongy rubberiness is maybe bit more kinda comfortable than {disfmarker} kinda sleek and new age . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , it depends which way you look at it . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're going for a two , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a kind of three ? Uh d +Project Manager: {gap} three ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Well , the logo would be more um recognisable on the actual thing . It's just that the pen wouldn't really write on that paper . +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I think the logo would definitely be recognisable . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it does have attributes that other products do . Two ? Aye . Go for it . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Two or three . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , come on . That's that decided . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So we're now on to changing it to get it to fit in with the budget requirements , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: What does {disfmarker} what do all them numbers mean then ? Do we add them up and rate {gap} or anything ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah we s yeah , I think we sort of add them up so sort of at an average is gonna be {disfmarker} I'm just gonna do this in my head . +Project Manager: About a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: One point eight isn't it or something . {vocalsound} I think , anyway . So yeah , pretty close to a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I mean it's pretty good at the moment , but it's gonna get worse , isn't it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But we've gotta try and make sure it doesn't get too bad . +Project Manager: Two b two b two {gap} , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should we get {disfmarker} So are {gap} definite {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} thirteen point seven was the definite price rule if {gap} has . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , you can lose one point two and still meet the requirements . +Marketing: Do you wanna plug it into yours so we can get up the the finances {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well I put it back on . +Industrial Designer: So I guess this {disfmarker} Is this the last stage once we sort out the finances part of it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} we'll probably have to re-rate it . +Project Manager: Yes , I would've thought so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah we'll make the adjustments +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then see how are rates are going . +Project Manager: Okay , so what was it , control uh F_ eight , wasn't it ? +User Interface: Ah it's on . +Marketing: {gap} it's come on already . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh . How kind . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . So , you can see there that the {disfmarker} If you want to keep kinetic , right , you've got a choice there of going down to battery , which would save you one . You've got the sample sensor and and sample speaker , which is your big item . +Industrial Designer: Oh actually we just have a plastic case , then we lose two points , +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: which gets us um {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} right within the budget range . +Project Manager: Which gets you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that'd be fine . Because that was just a trend , and we do have rubber buttons anyway . +Industrial Designer: So that's eleven point seven , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we could make sure we definitely had all the button supplements . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Different different colours , yeah . Yeah , I was I was thinking that because maybe maybe the sort of rubber case is a bit less in sort of the corporate identity than the sort of you know sleeker plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Possibly , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that would allow us to have all the technical innovations . So we'd lose a little bit on the {disfmarker} maybe kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're going for plastic , yes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lose a little bit on the fashion , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , and that would now be {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's within the budget . Um {disfmarker} Do we actually have {disfmarker} Do we just have one special {disfmarker} uh {gap} special forms down here ? +Project Manager: Well , uh w uh there was debate as to how you would count them . You got special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well originally I was assuming we had the red apple , and therefore , that was the special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we we've we've got {disfmarker} we've got enough for another +User Interface: Yeah , I think we should just imagine white buttons . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we've got nought point eight left , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we've got enough for another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we've got special form . Now that would be one button , and the question was was that all buttons or is that just one button . 'Cause our plan really was to have one button only with a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So so no matter how you look at that , that would be the same . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other thing would then be special material , rubber , wood , titanium . +Industrial Designer: I think maybe the special colour , we've got three now just because {gap} the volume buttons are different , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we'd have the ones which are blue at the moment would would just be the standard colour . +Project Manager: Alright . So , special colour , you want three in there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which I think we should {disfmarker} Yeah , they'll still be fine for the for the price . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well I thin I think you you you just need two for the special colour 'cause it's just two supplements , you know . One original colour and then sort of two supplements , I think maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh that's probably it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we only ne we only need two for that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I mean these these are moulded . The one colour's gonna be moulded out of a piece of plas uh of rubber , isn't it . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , I would agree with that , I think . And we've got special form {vocalsound} is the one apple . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The rest are all standard , although you could argue that should maybe be {disfmarker} You were making these buttons down the bottom , I was presuming , bigger than the other ones , or were you ? Was that the idea ? +Industrial Designer: Ne uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the volume ones should stand out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that'll be a second supplement . Then there's a spe a second special form . +Marketing: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . I would have thought that's probably about r {vocalsound} well . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Well you got you got twelve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so tha +Industrial Designer: So I think that should still be okay . Yeah , that's twelve point three , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so we're still within budget on that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} decide we've lost a little bit on the fashion and lost a bit on the fancy kinda side of it , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: but generally speaking , we've kept the other attributes to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I woulda said so . Yeah . So you'd maybe put fash fan uh fashion at three rather than two . +Industrial Designer: That's without {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So shall we do a {disfmarker} Well , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And specially it definitely could fits the the real product {disfmarker} What was the {disfmarker} what's the company name ? +Project Manager: Real Reaction produ +User Interface: Real Reactions ? +Industrial Designer: R yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure , what does that mean ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean it still seems definitely fit that p so that's like if that's the new age kind of um inno innovative c type company , then um having the kinetic feature and the voice recognition is p quite high up on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep {vocalsound} I would s +Marketing: So it's w if we've if we've put in for another special form on a button , then maybe they could be {vocalsound} a different shape . Like we got a cherry one . Maybe other ones could be something else shaped . {vocalsound} I don't know . That would be poss seeing as seeing as it's cheaper to make them a different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} seeing as we've got , you know , we've made it a a special form , so +Project Manager: You mean of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {disfmarker} And that would sort of maybe keep us close on the sort of the fashion type one . And it would sort of , you know , keep it quite fancy as well , +Project Manager: Well you could argue you might do it once a year , you would change , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: because at the moment you're making a red apple . So next year you could make {disfmarker} next year's model the same , but have it as a a yeah whate whatever , a lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it's a {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well you could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever fruit was in fashion next year . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , l a lemon lemon or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean the volume buttons could be lemons or something , maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: amount {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , we've {disfmarker} what have we what have we rid of . We got rid of the plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah , we've {disfmarker} the main thing we've changed really is the casing isn't it ? +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} yeah , that was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The rubber . +Industrial Designer: that was just about all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we've saved quite a bit because we've just got the push-button interface , which is by far the cheapest . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} So maybe in a sense not having that , maybe we've lost some {disfmarker} maybe lost something on the innovation side ? +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . And {gap} that is like the most standard type of button . +Marketing: So I mean , we've got {disfmarker} we got rid of the rubber case , but we've now s we now sort of got an extra form , and an extra colour for the buttons . So maybe in terms of sort of fanciness and fashionability , we're pretty much the same , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I mean we could maybe put two again on them . +Industrial Designer: And everything else has stayed pretty much the same , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , ease has certainly stayed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , plus if anything that is special forms makes it slightly easier to to use . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And what about the sort of innovation ? +Industrial Designer: Um , well we've still got the kinetic energy . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And the speech feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then , the corporate identity . +Industrial Designer: I think we've cut just about the same . We've maybe lost {disfmarker} Hasn't it {disfmarker} It's hard to tell how the rubber the rubber casing would really affect {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How it would play out , yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . Whether whether that's considered to be sort of part of the corporate identity , I don't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , it's maybe not . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think more the the features of the actual control will be more important than maybe than the the actual aesthetics , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But either way , I think we've made it fairly close to what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , well I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't see how we could make it any more . Um , apart from maybe doing the whole thing in the kinda light shade of blue , like the casing . +Marketing: We cou Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then what colour would you make the R_s ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} just the the company logo . So maybe there's like a set design which we get printed off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but you've got the company logo on there , which would effectively be a stick-on badge . So you're {disfmarker} in a sense , you're comparing the product without the company logo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then y but you've got the space for it to stick it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Hey , what what what's the company colour ? Did you get told what the company colour is or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm still not quite sure we've established that . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Don't think so . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but i but in the sense that , as you saw with um the Windows logo badge , it doesn't really matter . +User Interface: We got the logo off the web browser . +Marketing: Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's virtually n The way that you frame , you know , the Windows badge on there , it really doesn't matter what colour it is , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} so long as our company's logo is framed w in the same way as that with a like a black outline . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Fact , they've got black and white or black and silver . So basically , even if you had a silver {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the same colour of silver on your display , because you've got effectively a double edging on the uh on the logo , it means that it splits off what your logo is from the from the product . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's actually quite a sneaky way of doing it . +Marketing: Okay . Uh-huh . 'Cause you've got sort of {disfmarker} we've got point two to play with if you really wanted to . +Project Manager: You could put in another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Another colour . +Project Manager: Well , in this one , you've actually got three colours of buttons . +Marketing: Or would that be t +Project Manager: Well , we decided that the blue ones were the um the standard colour . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you were talking about uh um {disfmarker} We're assuming that all the buttons on the second panel , the hidden away panel , would all be standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which m may or may not be the case . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall we save the point two for profitability then ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . Bu but but uh was the was there not a button that you were thinking of on the um on the other opt you know , on the second page , as it were , that uh you were thinking of maybe having as a different colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't think they would really need to be . I think if they were just all small round blue buttons , it'd be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we've m {vocalsound} +User Interface: Needs to be an enter button , but could just be the same as well . +Industrial Designer: Maybe for the the one they're gonna see all the time , we make it look good , and um , fit the kind of idea of what they want . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then for the more functional buttons , we don't worry too much about that and just have that as like a {disfmarker} plus it's hidden away anyway , you're not gonna see it at the start . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean it's the sort of thing that , I mean , you wanna pick up the controller and just hit a button quickly to change the channel or volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if it's dead obvious , then that's fine . But if you're opening the panel and you're looking and you're tuning , then you're paying a bit more attention . So it may be sort of different colour buttons isn't so important . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we just add that to profitability in effect . {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean so we've dropped the cost , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , so we're meant to finish up in five minutes . +Marketing: Same sort of function ? The criteria ? It's alright . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just made a load of money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shouldn't we maybe lose a point on fashion , go to a three ? 'Cause we've lost the overall spongy feel . 'Cause it doesn't seem right that it just hasn't changed at all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , but I think we said that w Because you got rid of the rubber , we put an extra an extra sort of fruit um shape on one of the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} le lemon sh +User Interface: Did we decide what that was , which button it was ? On the volume ones ? +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well , we could have lemon shaped ones with the volume ones or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , {gap} . That's good . +Marketing: Or something like that . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Definitely lemon shaped . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did {disfmarker} did you have to have a rubber case , though , for rubber buttons ? Or was it the other way around ? +Industrial Designer: You had to have rubber buttons if you had the rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can {disfmarker} we're okay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: So we're okay this way around . +Marketing: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Until the design team comes in and says , get off . +Marketing: so we've saved {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But you are the design team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then we say it's fine , so it's all good . +Marketing: Saved two Euros on that . +Project Manager: So what bit are we on to ? +User Interface: Um , can I just check if that's a cherry or an apple ? Did we decide against the apple because of Apple Mac ? And did we make it a cherry officially ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I th I th {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Just in case we need that point two for lawsuits and such like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh drats , I've botched that , haven't I . +User Interface: So were we aiming for a certain target on that scale ? +Marketing: Well , we're aiming for um one for all of them . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: M but it really has to fit into the budget , so {disfmarker} I guess we just have to adjust things to get it i in the {disfmarker} Which is fair enough . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we seem to have {gap} least something in each criteria . We haven't completely left anything out , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I think +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} As an overall product which has to be quite cheap , we've just about achieved everything . +Marketing: most {disfmarker} Yeah . Yep . +User Interface: So do we have anything else to discuss ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . What's on the agenda ? +Project Manager: Right , okay um {disfmarker} What's happened here ? Right , okay um {disfmarker} Mm {vocalsound} . Right , okay um , {gap} {disfmarker} Right . So we got {disfmarker} So we've done the the finance bit and the Excel project and the {disfmarker} We've done the redesign . +Industrial Designer: We've got the closing . +Project Manager: So we're now on to project process . Now satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , et cetera , whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . So , we're actually now uh , in a sense , on to the evaluation of the course rather than the evaluation of the project is m my understanding of it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So what did you {disfmarker} and remembering that nobody's just over the curtain . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Finish your meeting now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We should just go through this quickly and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I suppose the easiest way of doing it is to put some notes down , which I will do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh I think I have to finish that page . Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project evaluation . So , um {disfmarker} Creativity . Did you feel you got a chance to express yourselves {vocalsound} well enough ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I thought some of the divisions though between sort of the individual meetings were a bit arbitrary . +Project Manager: Individual meetings . How do you mean ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well , we were finding out various things in {vocalsound} in be in-between the meetings , +Project Manager: In you on your own . +Marketing: and they didn't {disfmarker} the one meeting didn't always follow on for the other one , you know , sort of {disfmarker} we had things thrown in at the second meeting where , you know , you'd looked at the remote controls and seen the curviness , but in the first one you'd also looked at some remote controls and looked at the buttons , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I don't understand why it would be in separate meetings that you'd do that . You know , you'd sort of {disfmarker} you'd probably present it at one or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} The only thing you find is in a manufacturing process , you would {disfmarker} normally , you go to a meeting , you decide , right , you do this , you do that , you do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you go away . You find out information . You then come back . You then discuss it . You then go and change things around , +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and then go back . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I suppose and then {gap} be going out and finding more information each time +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whereas , this time , you're really getting it from a database source , +Industrial Designer: and then diff things will be relevant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not uh well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anyway , so , what do you want to put down ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I've put , seemed okay . Creativity , seemed okay . Um um flow of information on on any given subject {disfmarker} given subject um sometimes disjointed . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it maybe could have been a slightly more creative project . I mean a remote control isn't the most um kind of fancy thing that you could imagine designing . +Marketing: Yeah , the thing itself . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can't think of a better example at the minute . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Have {disfmarker} could have used a different example {disfmarker} pel to increase {disfmarker} create {disfmarker} Creativity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is this go {disfmarker} It kinda kis fits the purpose that it was something everyone knows about and then something we can at least look at and think how we can improve on . +Project Manager: You have to do it within a set time frame is the other thing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . But {gap} think like it was a bit restrictive just to say that you have to design a television remote control , in a way . I mean it depends what sort of business you're in , I guess . I mean this one seems {gap} . From the website it looks {gap} it's quite innovative , but we're coming up with some bucket shop product aren't we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's , you know , fifteen quid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} one of those things . Like uh , companies can have like a range of products and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I uh d +Industrial Designer: {gap} I don't know how it works but I guess that something got sent out and {gap} have like a brief to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the other thing is that uh they're {disfmarker} I'm guessing that they're trying to use this um software to to demonstrate how you could uh do a project . I mean , m my wife at the moment , for instance , is uh acting as a computer +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} for um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} normally , you got a problem , so you go to your tutor and find out information to see how to get it fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So what she's doing is she's {vocalsound} having to spend a day at the computer terminal at one end so that any student that comes along can uh ask whatever question . And then you {disfmarker} or the idea is that the {disfmarker} whichever uh person's at the other end can point them in the right direction , show them where to {disfmarker} either give them directly {disfmarker} give them help , or secondly , point them in the right direction , either at the library , or uh or or come back , or go and see Joe Bloggs , or whatever . So uh , and that was a project I suspect similar to this , because they they were actually trying to debug the uh computer software to enable um {disfmarker} to enable it to work . And of course , you had the machine crashing +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and various things going wrong . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , sh {gap} we look at the last slide , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: see if it's got anything else . +Project Manager: Alright , +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think there's one one more to go . +Project Manager: so we've got uh +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} I mean if you look at their products on their website here , Real Reaction , I mean it's all pretty high-tech and cutting edge . +Project Manager: New ideas found , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: did we find any , no . +Industrial Designer: It was quite good with this um {disfmarker} the white board , having that and the digital pens . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Like , that's something that made it a little easier . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership , teamwork . +Marketing: {gap} we did find a new idea , I mean sort of a kinetic remote control . I've never seen one of them before . {gap} batteries , I think . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} voice recognition , especially not {gap} could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've got voice recognition computers , +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: that's not remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well it's a different application of it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's just like the same products , but just put together in a different way . +Project Manager: so how do you reckon teamwork went ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That went okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we all had separate ideas and then discussed them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To uh go uh reasonably well . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think sort of the budget um allowed us to do anything {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bit {disfmarker} bit arbitrary . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , I mean I don't think it {disfmarker} I just don't think it fitted in with the rest of their products . I mean , they've got all these sort of , you know , high definition D_V_D_ and portable seven inch d um lightweight computer screens , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh I'm thinking , do you know , one cheap remote control doesn't really fit in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we're m we're meant to comment on leadership and the means , E_ G_ whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Surely they they should produ +Project Manager: And and new i new ideas found was the the other thing . +User Interface: Well leadership's a bit of a funny one , isn't it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But we can't really all fairly comment on leadership because you are the Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You were the leader . {vocalsound} So our experience of leadership wasn't really as much as yours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , I'd much rather be in marketing {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I certainly didn't get this uh computer to work as well as I would have liked . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , um {disfmarker} Alright uh means , so whiteboard um {disfmarker} so really , it's uh equipment . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . It worked . +User Interface: Yeah , very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Comput computers could be a bit difficult at times but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I mean , I d I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure I see the value in these . I mean , they record what you're writing , and then what do you do with it ? Where do you get the recording ? Do you plug {gap} the computer or something ? +Marketing: I think there's a little there's a little um chi +Industrial Designer: So it's not just for us , it's for the experiment as a whole , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a little there's a little chip , I think you must plug it into something +Industrial Designer: Should we quickly look at the last slide ? +Marketing: and it produces a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I think you watch a video of it kind of . +Marketing: I don't know . Whether it just produces a big image of sort of everything you've written or something , and {disfmarker} Page after page . +Project Manager: Right . New ideas found , so one or two . +Marketing: Yeah . Kinetic powered remote control . Um , what was the other one ? +User Interface: Voice um recognition thing . +Marketing: Vo yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} um and uh voice +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , was it voice activated um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Voice recognition , yeah . S +Project Manager: recognition . +Marketing: Almost . +User Interface: Pretty much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To fill in these fill in these questionnaires +Project Manager: Right , so , uh are the costs within budget , +Marketing: Oh no . +Project Manager: yes . Is the project evaluated , yes . Uh , don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . Then celebration . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Is that everything ? +Marketing: Hmm ? I think that we've got two questionnaires and a report on the last meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , so we don't re So really {disfmarker} I tried to save this the last time at twelve point three , and it didn't seem to have saved anywhere . Mind you , the the figure last was was different , but it should be poss +","The conversation involves a team discussing the design, features, and cost implications of a remote control prototype. Initially, the project manager struggles with saving a file, leading to a discussion about the spreadsheet they're working on. The team from various departments—User Interface, Marketing, Industrial Designer, and the Project Manager—go on to present their prototype, which has a curved design, a cherry/apple logo, and additional function buttons. They debate about the fruit logo design, settling on a cherry rather than an apple due to potential copyright issues with Apple Inc. + +They address concerns about finance, specifically meeting a budget of under twelve and a half Euros. The project manager notes there will be cost implications based on the chosen colors and materials. The team explores options such as eliminating kinetic energy in favor of batteries to save costs and considers the balance between technical innovation and aesthetic design within the budget constraints. + +The discussion moves toward the evaluation criteria of the product, weighing factors like look and feel, technical innovation, ease of use, fashion elements, and whether it fits the Real Reaction product line. After some deliberation, they decide to change the case material to plastic instead of rubber, allowing them to maintain other features like the kinetic energy source and voice recognition while staying within budget. This leads to a final project evaluation, assessing aspects like creativity, leadership, and teamwork. The team contemplates the effectiveness of the digital tools used in the meeting and deliberates the potential to introduce the new ideas discovered through the project, such as the kinetic-powered and voice recognition features, within the budget constraints. They conclude by noting they need to fill out questionnaires and write a meeting summary." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Jack Sargeant and I'm very pleased to welcome Jayne Bryant back, who is substituting for Jack today. Are there any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, this morning, is our sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning: Sally Jenkins, who is chair of All Wales Heads of Children’s Services and is here representing the Association of Directors of Social Services; Alastair Birch, who is senior system leader for equalities and safeguarding at Pembrokeshire County Council, who is here representing the Association of Directors of Education Wales; and Councillor Huw David, who is the Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for health and social care and leader of Bridgend County Borough Council. So, thank you all for attending this morning. We're very pleased to have you here. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so, if you're happy, we'll go straight into questions and I'll start just by asking about your general support for the Bill, which is outlined in the evidence. Can you just explain why you think the current law is ineffective or unclear? +Alastair Birch: Bore da—bore da, bawb. So, I'm Alastair Birch. The statement, really, from ADEW is that the rights of the child should be educated and achieved, really, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The current legislation has been criticised, obviously, by the UN concerning the defence of reasonable punishment still being within our current legislation. So, we will always—ADEW will always—advocate that the rights of the child be upheld, so that is really the fundamental aspect in terms of the statement from ADEW, and the position of ADEW is that the rights of the child are fundamental in this process. And there are certain articles—. I know that the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 made sure that article 3 and article 4, article 12 and article 37 were a focus in terms of making sure that the best interests of the child were put first, that children expressing their views and opinions was a priority. And we know, for safeguarding purposes, that the express opinions of the child and the voice of the child are a fundamental aspect of any safe environment, whether it be a school or college. So, that is—the position is really following that legal position under the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Nothing to add at this stage, no? +Sally Jenkins: I'll just add, on behalf of ADSS and on behalf of children's services and social services more widely, for us, this is not a change in our position, this is not new; this is a position that we, on behalf of the leaders of social services across Wales, have taken over many years, going back 20, 25 years. I think what we would say is that we really welcome this Bill and we welcome the proposed change for the clarity it would bring—the clarity that it would bring for children, for parents and for professionals. I think what we would recognise is that this is a very little-used piece of legislation, so it's rare, it's not as if this is something that is going to cast great change across the scene for children and families in Wales, but what it will do is represent a change in the reality of how we care and nurture our children. I would echo absolutely what Alastair has said in terms of the rights of the child, but equally, in terms of all of our policies in Wales in terms of promoting well-being for children, this has to be key. So, for us, this is about a natural progression of change in how we care for our children in Wales. For children's services at the very sharp end of this world, for us, it brings a true clarity. This continues with an ambiguity in how we treat our children and how we care for our children, and the shift for us brings that very much needed clarity. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The committee has already heard different views about whether there's clear evidence that physical punishment is harmful to children. What evidence does the work of social services provide about whether physical punishment is actually harmful? +Sally Jenkins: Obviously, what you'll all be aware of is that, as part of the consultation for this Bill, the Public Policy Institute did a further piece of research to look at the impact of physical punishment on children. A number of things that we know—we know from across the world that the evidence is that introducing legislation or changing legislation in this way improves children's positions within their families. What we know is that children themselves, as Alastair has already referred to, really find physical punishment demeaning and harmful, and for children it is an emotionally damaging experience. Now, there may be disagreement about that, there will be different views on that, but that's the voice of the child in this debate. The voice of the child is very clear that physical punishment is for them harmful. I think what we would also say is that, in the world that we work in, it's part of a continuum, and, whilst this is an element of how children are cared for, what we see is a continuum where an acceptance of how we treat children in a particular way perpetuates throughout our work. By changing this, it helps that shift to that absolute recognition that our children must be cared for in a way that is physically safe in all dimensions for them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've had evidence from the equal protection network that the reasonable punishment defence undermines child protection and fails to protect children because it permits an arbitrary level of violence, which invades children's physical integrity, making it a potential pathway to more serious physical or sexual abuse, and you did refer to that just now. Is there anything you want to add on that? +Sally Jenkins: I would echo that. I think there is something in this that is about our culture, about how we see our children. It is about how we see our smallest and most vulnerable people, and if it is acceptable it opens the door to those other, more extreme versions of violence, which then complicates the issue for us. This is about clarity, and, whilst there is an argument that this is a small episode for a child, it's not a small episode for a child, it is a major episode for a child, and I think absolutely, as you said, the potential for it then to lead on, and over gradation and time to increase the risk for children, is clearly there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question from me: your written evidence emphasises the need for greater clarity around the definition of what constitutes corporal punishment, but that contrasts with what we've been told by the children's commissioner and the equal protection network, who've emphasised the importance of simplicity in the Bill. How do you respond to that view, and is what you're calling for essential to be on the face of the Bill? +Sally Jenkins: It's not essential for it to be on the face of the Bill. What we would like to see is discussion within the implementation phase for that nuancing. Absolutely agree in terms of simplicity—I think that is really important—and I've already mentioned clarity. What we don't want to do is further confuse the position. We know that the legislation in different countries has done that, and there are ways that you can do it, but what we would welcome is an opportunity during the implementation phase for discussion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Huw David: And, as a principle, obviously we would welcome full involvement, and we know there's the commitment from Welsh Government to full involvement in the implementation, because, as with every piece of legislation, implementation is the most important part, and we would want to ensure there is that commitment to a major awareness-raising campaign, and there is that from Welsh Government, because we need to take families, carers and parents with us on this. Also we need to ensure that there is that support available to parents and carers that do sometimes struggle with parenting, and that needs to be a universal offer across Wales. If we're to progress with this, that has to be an option that is offered to every parent in Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Sally Jenkins: Local authorities have already been very heavily involved in terms of looking at this Bill and exploring what the issues are and the discussions and looking at what the implications from a local authority perspective will be, as Huw describes, both in terms of the awareness raising, early support and intervention and prevention services for families against the backdrop of the current issues that we have in local government, but also awareness raising—because absolutely it is key that families come with us on this journey. This is not an imposition. This is embracing a culture and a value system for our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden on the implementation of the Bill. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. So, you've pre-empted me, Huw. +Huw David: Right. Sorry. I've got good eyesight; I can't see—. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: You've already said, obviously, that you're looking towards working with Welsh Government in terms of its implementation. What's been your role so far in terms of the implementation of the Bill—local authorities generally, now? Have you had a role? Has Welsh Government been involving you in discussions around the introduction of the Bill so far? +Huw David: Yes. So, obviously we were consulted—a key consultee—but also our officials have worked very closely with Welsh Government officials to make sure this is implemented successfully, if it is progressed. +Sally Jenkins: Our involvement with this, from a social services perspective, goes back over two years, directly in working towards this point, never mind the history in terms of work towards this area. But, very directly in relation to this Bill, we were first involved at least two years ago, to recollect, and that was in a series of workshops with other agencies, for example Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru and the police, and looking in real depth at what the implications would be for us as agencies to look at what the likely trajectory would be in terms of our pathways for referral into our services and what that might mean for us. And then particularly, for example, with CAFCASS Cymru in relation to private law, what the fallout might be, and then what, if anything—and that's the discussion that we need to have—that could mean for children's services in particular, given the pressures that we're already under. So, we've been in constant, I suppose, involvement in terms of the Bill already, as part of the consultation, in terms of the focus groups and in terms of direct work with Welsh Government officials to take this forward. And we are absolutely committed to continuing with that work. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. You touched there on the pressures that you're already under, which we fully appreciate, but you also mentioned in answers to Lynne Neagle earlier on that you welcomed the Bill in terms of its clarity. So, are you confident that the Bill can be implemented without any major impact on your capacity to deal with it? +Sally Jenkins: We've done—. A number of local authorities—my own included, Newport City Council, has done some work to look at what the likely impact would be and then actually to look at what some of that costing would need to be. Further work is needed on that area, and that needs to be carried out during the implementation phase. I think what we've done is we've looked internationally at what the impact has been elsewhere when similar legislation has been introduced to try and gauge, but that's difficult to do in terms of comparable nations and size and also different systems. And obviously our approach in terms of children and pedagogy is very different from some of the nations that have already done this. I wouldn't like to say one way or the other, because I think, in terms of that culture shift, it could be a double impact on us in terms of increased referrals because of increased awareness, but it could also be, I suppose, as Huw alludes to, that, if we're looking at ensuring greater awareness of preventative services and support services for parents, actually people coming to the fore and asking us for those services as well. So, at this stage, I think what we would want to say is that we continue to be fully involved in the implementation phase, to look at what the cost implications for that could be, and not just for the local authorities but also the police, CAFCASS Cymru, for third sector organisations involved in preventative services. I don't think any of that should undermine the position in terms of children and their rights within our society. So, a difficult answer, in the sense that— +Dawn Bowden AM: No, I understand. What you're saying is that this is a piece of legislation that, in your view, is a good piece of legislation. It's setting out to, hopefully, achieve what the purpose of it is and you will deliver what you need to. Can I ask you whether, then, you've also given thought to the impact on—we've talked about social services, but the impact on other services, like housing, education and so on? You're obviously coming at it from slightly different angles in other sections. +Alastair Birch: We are part of the universal service for children, and we very much work in co-operation with the WLGA and our social care colleagues, and we've been part of that consultation. In terms of education, the main changes, or adaptations, would be around training and awareness. And, in terms of the Bill, there needs to be the clarity—ambiguity would be bad—in terms of making sure that safeguarding leads within all schools have the right training and support. So, really, that's the key element there, and then obviously the preventative services for the parents that schools can signpost, and sometimes possibly even host, in terms of being community schools. These positive parenting approaches that—. I have colleagues who have worked in that area for many years and see the benefits in how those positive parenting approaches make a difference to families. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, from your point of view, it's awareness raising, is it? +Alastair Birch: It's awareness raising; it's making sure that professionals are fully briefed on necessary changes, that there's very little ambiguity, that we are aware that—. We still have that duty to report whenever there is any safeguarding concern. That'll still be part of the all-Wales child protection procedures. That won't change, and that duty is always going to be there for all our professionals. But that awareness raising and training will be the key, and then, obviously, working in co-operation with our colleagues. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, I understand that. Have you been given an indication of how long you've got between Royal Assent and implementation, and whether you've thought through any of the key milestones that need to be implemented? +Sally Jenkins: There's a group proposed that would be a strategic leadership group in the steering group that we're part of, which is now laying out what would happen after Royal Assent if that is given. So, we will work towards that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question, Chair, is about some of the responses we've had to this committee that say that the state should not get involved in family life—I'm sure you've heard those views—unless it's in the most serious circumstances. To what extent do you think that this Bill undermines the existing local authority responsibilities, or don't you? +Huw David: The state's paramount role is to protect children from harm. That is our legal responsibility, it's our moral responsibility, and we will discharge that. And there is obviously a view—it's a view that is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—that physical punishment, physical harm to a child is harm to a child, and we should be preventing that and act to prevent that. That would be the position of the Welsh Local Government Association, and we also respect the mandate that Members of the National Assembly for Wales have too. And we believe that children can be raised by parents without recourse to physical punishment, effectively, and we'd support parents in that. We do not believe that in the 50 nations across the world where such legislation exists that the state is interfering in family life unnecessarily. We believe this action reflects a cultural change, a sea change that's taken place in Wales over the last 30 to 40 years, where the vast majority of parents now say that they do not use it themselves, they do not support it, and we believe this is actually a reflection of what has happened in Welsh society. We support Assembly Members in the view that the natural progression of that is that children's rights are protected across Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, I've got largely positive feedback from you in terms of the Bill and its intentions, and so on. Do you foresee any unintended consequences for this Bill? +Huw David: If we implement it carefully, if we implement it with the right resources, then I hope not. I think not. But as with every piece of legislation, it is about the implementation, it is about the cultural change as well, and that's why I cannot overstress the importance of making sure that resources are made available, because our social services departments—children's social services in particular—are overstretched. They are at breaking point—make no bones about it—and they are dealing with children who are facing serious harm and neglect. We are having record numbers of contacts from police, from teachers, from doctors and, of course, from children themselves who are experiencing that harm and neglect. And obviously, we want to focus our energy and our attention on those children. Equally, though, we don't want to lose sight of those families and children that are experiencing significant problems, but who we want to support through our early intervention and prevention programmes, and that is why it is important that there is investment in those programmes, so that children do not end up in that terrible position where we have to, for their safety, take them from their birth families to protect them. And the reality is, in Wales, that we are doing that to more children than we've done for a long time, and the numbers are growing across Wales. And that is only because of the most appalling neglect and abuse, because there is no way that any judge would permit us to act to make a child safe if it was not for that fact, and the facts are there. So, I don't want that focus to be lost, but, of course, we welcome and understand the need to progress this piece of legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: That rise that you talk about here, is that due to more interventions, greater awareness, more incidents? I'm trying to link this to the Bill in terms of whether the Bill is actually going to give you more work to do in those areas. +Sally Jenkins: On the reasons for the rise in the numbers of looked-after children in Wales, which are higher than those in England, and also the numbers of contacts that we have across the local authorities, the work of the care crisis review, which was completed last year; the work of Isabelle Trowler, who's the chief social worker in England; countless research and reports that have taken place in the last 18 months; and currently the public law working group, under the auspices of the president of the family court, would all indicate that it's multifactorial. So, what you have is a range of reasons that have led to the increasing numbers of children becoming looked after across England and Wales. What you can't do is identify a single reason. There have been headlines that have said, 'Is it increased austerity?' That is clearly a part of this. Is it in Wales an increased awareness of adverse childhood experiences and the emphasis of the impact on children of, for example, domestic abuse? Is it because of our understanding of what happens to children in those households? All of that research would say it's all of those things. And then, when you also add in changes in our practice with our colleagues in the judiciary, changes in our police service, but also changes in our preventative services, you've got that whole range of elements. And there is going on across the local authorities and Welsh Government a huge amount of work to try to address and understand that, and then to ameliorate that. Children who need to be in care for safety need to be in care, but what we have to do is get to a point where fewer children come into care and we're able to protect them, firstly, and secondly where those children who are in care are cared for in a way that delivers the best possible outcomes for them. So, there is no simple answer unfortunately. I think, in terms of this Bill and unintended consequences, I agree absolutely with everything that Huw has said. My job is around children at that far end, but what this Bill does is it brings clarity. It brings a clarity even for those children at that very far end. It takes away even that point of discussion that this could possibly be okay, and I think that's important to hang on to. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Sorry. +Alastair Birch: One unintended consequences is that I think that there will be an increased focus on the UNCRC. And, in terms of children having a discussion around this point, children need to be part of that discussion. It's something that affects them. And a key aspect of education is the voice of the child. It has become significantly—. It's changed completely in the last 10 years, and it is one of the key things in terms of us driving improvements. +Dawn Bowden AM: Would that be something that you would be looking to do in schools? +Alastair Birch: Anything that improves the voice of the child in any educational context is good and it's very powerful for the children. And it improves their educational experiences, encouraging the opportunities for them to discuss the issues, the adverse childhood experiences that they encounter, which are significant, and it's our educational professionals that are facing this day-in, day-out. They've become a very highly trained workforce, they're ACE aware, they're trauma aware, and anything that focuses, even increases, their professionalism and understanding around a particular point, and also—. So it's a positive unintended consequence, shall we say, that it could reinvigorate some of the voice of the child discussion within various contexts. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions now on implementation for social services, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. If this Bill becomes law, would you encourage members of the public to contact social services departments if they do see a child being smacked? +Sally Jenkins: We already encourage members of the public to contact social services or the police, depending on the circumstances. Interestingly, I'm picking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What, if a child is being smacked now? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. If a child is being smacked now, we would ask that people contact. We have a duty to report, as professionals. But if you were walking out, and you saw something happening to a child, in the same way as if you saw something to an adult. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Right. +Sally Jenkins: So, I think that the challenge is about—we've all probably, sadly, witnessed incidents in the doctor's reception, or in a supermarket, and we've failed to do something about it. And I think we then walk away and feel pretty guilty about that, realistically, when you see something happening to a child in a particular circumstance. I think we can't ignore the fact that a child is being assaulted in those circumstances. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. A campaign opposing this Bill, Be Reasonable Wales, have said that 'If the law is changed, the consequences for parents will be considerable.' It also says, 'Anyone accused or convicted of assaulting a child—under the new definition—' so, I suppose you could argue, a minor tap— 'will be subject to long-term social services involvement in their family and social stigma.' To what extent is this accurate, and, also, will thresholds for social services intervention change if the Bill is enacted? +Sally Jenkins: There are a number of parts to that. Firstly, in terms of long-term social services intervention in a family's life, I think, for people to be fully aware of the very few numbers of families where we have long-term intervention currently, even where there is what would be perceived as very significant abuse. What we do is we go in for short periods in families' lives, to support them to work with their strengths, to work with them and their family members. It's not about us going into families, whatever some of the public perception may be. Our aim is to get in and get out. So, in terms of long-term intervention, what we want is for families to find their own solutions. We want families to be able to work with each other, and together, and local community support, and preventative services, to be able to address issues. This is not about punitive approaches from social services. So, that's the first element. In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen. Because we also know that this is actually quite a rare occurrence currently; this is not a defence that's being used with great frequency, this is not something that is happening. And if we look at the data, we know that the incidents of children, and the number of parents who now recognise this as an acceptable form of punishment, has steadily declined over the last 15 to 20 years. So it's diminishing as it is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, on that one then, is there a need for legislation that will—obviously there'll be resources for the Welsh Government and there'll be resources out of hours and things like that—is there a need for legislation if, as you say, natural behaviour and the culture is changing? Let's be honest, as you've rightly pointed out, in social services—I know in my own authority—in your own authority, you're saying that even now you're working with the police, on systematic failings within the system. +Sally Jenkins: Two things. Firstly, we want legislation that reflects our society—we don't want the two to be out of kilter. That would be my first natural response: surely our legislation should be reflective of what our world is. It shouldn't be that we've got these rather confusing elements running in parallel, and that continues to perpetuate a lack of clarity and the ambiguity that we currently see. I think the other element is that, again, this is about potentially an accelerating of that awareness and that culture in our society, about how we care for our children. We've got there naturally; we've got there by the change that's happened in Wales over the last 15 to 20 years. What this does is to continue with that change and continue with that awareness and understanding of how we positively, from a strength-based approach, should care for our children, bearing in mind what's required of us in terms of the UNCRC. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Are there any comments from anyone else? +Huw David: Simply to say that I think that, in terms of that clarity for the very vulnerable children out there who are currently being assaulted—seriously assaulted and abused by their parents, which goes on on a daily basis—that is already covered by existing legislation. But at the moment, they don't know, because they could be being told—and they probably are being told—by their parents that's it's okay, that they can smack their child and that that's acceptable. They don't know the difference. A young child is not going to know that difference and there is confusion about what is—. And if you asked most parents, and in fact lots of professionals, they would not be able to tell you, and probably most of you wouldn't be able to tell me exactly where is the threshold— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, where's that line. +Huw David: Well, at the moment, we don't know where that line is. That vulnerable child, at home, being abused by their parents, does not know where that line is. And they should know where that line is because then they can pick up the phone to Childline or they can talk to a professional and ask them where that line is. So, that would be a step forward. I do recognise, though, that what we don't want to do—and the last thing any of us want to do—is criminalise parents who are bringing up their children. That is why we're saying there needs to be an emphasis on the support programmes that are available to parents. And to be clear, there is no way that we want long-term involvement in any child's life, but particularly not in the lives of children who have been smacked by their parents. That is not going to be the result of this legislation, trust me, because we don't want to be involved in—we haven't got the resources to be involved in children's lives. The social worker or the police officer—if they become involved, then there would be a proportionate response to that, and there'll also be a test about whether or not that is progressed. So, if there is an allegation—if this legislation is passed—then that will be looked into and a consideration will be made about whether any action will be taken, and as with any allegation of the law being broken, there would be a proportionate response, as there is now. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the next question does relate to the practical response to that. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Can you outline the practical ways in which social services' interaction with parents will change as a result of this proposed law and do you envisage that all referrals to the police will be automatically referred to social services for an assessment? Who's going to make those decisions? +Sally Jenkins: That will be part of the implementation phase about that decision making. Interestingly, the number of referrals that we currently get from the police that we take absolutely no action on is extraordinary. So, we get a very, very large number of—. It will be happening now; sitting in the civic centre in Newport City Council will be a whole host of social workers taking in the public protection notifications from overnight. It's 10 o'clock, so they're assessing them now, as we speak. And an awful lot of those will have no further action from the local authority. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But will they be investigated? +Sally Jenkins: No. There will be no action. There are countless referrals made by agencies to local authorities that we take no action on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, if there's an increase as a result of greater awareness— +Sally Jenkins: What happens is there is a paper assessment of them. There's a look at what's happened, who's involved, what the police have reported, and there's work being done with the police to improve that. Because one of the things that we want to get to is actually where we're not using huge amounts of time to look at that, but what comes to us is what we act on. So, there is work going on with a number of police authorities to look at how you improve that process. But I suppose, to pick up, each incident will be looked at, each one will be assessed in a way that is proportionate, as Huw says, to look at what's happened and then investigated. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sally, can you give us a couple of examples of what kind of things might have come in that you would then take no action on? +Sally Jenkins: We get countless referrals, for example, where there's been a domestic abuse incident overnight where a child wasn't present in the property and we then haven't taken action. It’ll be where the level of harm that’s perceived to happen to that child is below the threshold for intervention from children's services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I’m pretty cynical about assessment, because, you know, I have people come in who are benefit claimants where, when they’ve been assessed, the whole process has been very flawed and I’ve had to fight and fight and fight on their behalf. So— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But if you're struggling now with those assessments— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social services are as laid out in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. So, we have within what we carry out, I suppose, that kind of initial look, that look at the information, what else do we know about that family— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And are they qualified people that are doing this? +Sally Jenkins: Yes, absolutely. +Huw David: And, in fact, in lots of places in Wales now, it’s a multi-agency assessment. So, it’s a joint assessment carried out with police professionals and health professionals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what proportion currently would you not be taking any action on, if a report came in of some domestic abuse where a child had perhaps been smacked? +Sally Jenkins: If something came in to us where a child had been smacked and there was something clearly there, we would look at it. We would clearly look at it and we would take some sort of action. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Even now, before the legislation? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can you ask a final question? And I'm going to have to appeal for brief answers, because we've got a lot of ground to cover. +Huw David: Just very quickly, there may be no action from social services, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t offer support. So, the expectation is that support is offered in those circumstances from family support services, for example— +Sally Jenkins: Or prevention. +Huw David: —or prevention services. So, we would not say, if we were aware, for example, that there was domestic abuse at a home, ‘There’s no role for children’s social services’, because there may be an assessment that that child may not be at immediate risk of harm, but we would obviously recognise that there are causes for concern there and we would offer that support. So, just to be clear about that. And that’s a process that happens in every social services department in the UK, and it’s happened for a very long time, and, in fact, it’s reflective of the legislation that you have laid down as Assembly Members. +Lynne Neagle AM: And are those services there, Huw? Because I’m very acutely aware of the pressure on local government. Are the services there? Is there sufficient resource in things like Families First? Because what I’m hearing on the ground is that eligibility is changing for even those preventative services. +Huw David: There’s not enough of those services, and, obviously—you may have heard me saying this before—I think we need to invest more in those services, and I hope you invest more in the services, because, obviously, prevention is better than cure. And those pressures that Sally talked about earlier are pressures that are not going away; they’re only increasing by the day, actually, and I would want us to be able to offer those services now. Because that example of a child that perhaps is in a home where there is domestic abuse—we’ll probably have another referral off them in a couple of months’ time, and that could escalate. And what I’d rather do is provide support to that family and try and stop that family breaking down so that, in six months, we're not going back and saying that we've got to take this child into care because the domestic abuse has worsened and that child is at risk. But those services need additional investment. +Sally Jenkins: I appreciate that time is of the essence, but, just really quickly in relation to that, it’s not just social services. So, for example, there are developments like Encompass, which is a piece of work that is being rolled out across Gwent and across other areas, which is where the police automatically notify the school overnight of an incident, not expecting the school to do anything per se, but to be aware, to be able to offer care for that child. +Alastair Birch: Can I add to that? Operation Encompass I know in Gwent has been operational, and we started it in Pembrokeshire 18 months ago. We as a local authority—and it’ll be education that will contact the school around the domestic incident happening, and the school as part of that protocol will provide a level of universal service support for that child when they come in, before 9 o’clock, so that professionals are aware of the needs of the welfare of that child at that point. So, you know, schools play a key role in the universal service of this and we work very closely with our social care colleagues on that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, your last question, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The Bill's explanatory memorandum refers to an estimate of 274 offences annually where lawful chastisement was used as a defence or considered. It says there is also potential to create extra demand on out-of-hours social services teams due to the time that the offences were reported, and in order to support safeguarding measures. Have you assessed how this Bill will impact on emergency and out-of-hours local authority services? +Sally Jenkins: We have considered that, and again I think that's something that we would very much want to look at as part of implementation. We have out-of-hours provision, we have emergency duty teams already across Wales that operate 24/7. There's no doubt that they exist and they work very closely with our police colleagues. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Are they overstretched at the moment? +Sally Jenkins: I think in the same way as all of social services is. If we were offered additional resource, we are going to take that. But are they working in a way that protects children day in, day out, and vulnerable adults? Yes, they are, and they will continue to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We've got some specific questions now on the impact on education from Jayne Bryant. +Jayne Bryant AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Alastair, you've already mentioned about awareness raising and training, which will be key with educational professionals. How confident are you that teachers and others working in those educational settings will be clear about how to support the implementation of this Bill, if enacted? +Alastair Birch: Training requirements for all professionals in education settings are clear. The universal tier 1 training is there, and all local authorities in Wales will implement that. In that level of general safeguarding awareness and training, the infinite emphasis is on the duty to report. That will remain the same. The thresholds for social care, that's their responsibility. That duty to report will always be there. It says in 'Keeping learners safe', which is the bible in terms of education professionals, that there's a responsibility on the professional to make that referral and for that universal service. So, the more specialist safeguarding leads within the schools, who have become highly skilled professionals in terms of understanding what might be significant harm—because that's what we're talking about—they understand the legalities when a referral needs to be made. There's always the collation of safeguarding information, where there might be just general concerns about neglect and other areas, which combined would create a picture that there might be significant neglect or significant harm to the child, and then that referral would be made to the child care assessment team or the police. So, that awareness—it needs to be clear for educational professionals that that duty to report is always there. If they believe that that significant harm has happened then that report then goes to the child care assessment team. They will make the judgment on the threshold because they are the professionals. They have the multi-agency awareness of how that meets the threshold. But in terms of education, it'll be that awareness, making sure that there's clarity. If there's anything that professionals need to be trained additionally on, it'll need to go into 'Keeping learners safe', which at the moment is being rewritten. So, there would have to be some new possible information there relating to this. But as long as there's clarity, and once that implementation phase and the discussion has happened, as long as it's clear for professionals that the duty is always there and they feel a significant harm, then that report will always be there and will always need to be made. It's making sure—and I'll echo what my colleague said, Huw—that the services are key for families. Schools are absolutely fundamental in that support for the families. They have those relationships with the families. I know there was discussion around professional trust. On a daily basis, professionals are working on that trust with parents, because they are the ones that can engage with those families. The family support officers that are working on the ground with highly complex families, with multiple leads and supporting the children—they are fundamental, and investment in that level of support would also help our colleagues as well. So, anything that's preventative. That is already happening in schools and is effective, and is shown to be effective, and has an evidence base—we'd always support that that would continue to be invested in. So, that's really my answer. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay. And you were saying about how important trust is as well, but do you think that there's a risk that those in education settings will have a key role in referring more parents to social services, which some have said could cause potential harm to relationships and cause mistrust? +Alastair Birch: I don't think it's a matter of mistrust—it's a matter of, you know, if a professional believes, based on the evidence that they have, because they're working with that child every day, that there is significant harm to that child, they are under a duty to report that to social care. So, part of the work is with families, and most of the referrals we make are with parental consent. That consent is a key element of this, and conversation with our social care colleagues is usually, 'You need to speak to the parents again and have a conversation with them.' Some of the NFAs—the ones that don't get referred at threshold—it will come back to school for, possibly, some support from the family or a team around the family or some other aspect. So, I don't think—. The trust in the professionals—it's actually more important that we are seen to be upholding our duties under the all-Wales safeguarding procedures. That's what engenders trust in a professional workforce. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to move on now to some questions about the importance of awareness raising from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. In looking at your written evidence, you say that we must make it very clear to parents, guardians and the public that this legislation is not trying to criminalise parents, and that is clearly very important for you. How do you think we should do that and who should be doing that work? +Sally Jenkins: I think that's really broad. Obviously, colleagues in education, colleagues in social care, colleagues in preventative services, but also Welsh Government and the National Assembly, in terms of those drivers in relation to that awareness raising are really, really key. If you look at some of the other campaigns that have been run, notably in relation to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, and echoing some of those building campaigns that have been done to raise awareness—I think those would be really good models to begin to consider in terms of how this is taken forward with awareness. We also know that there are a number of routes that we can go through in terms of raising awareness. We have existing preventative services, we have all our universal services, we have the regional safeguarding boards and the national safeguarding boards. So, there are a number of avenues that we could then explore. In terms of not wishing to criminalise, I think if we look at the numbers, they are very, very small. And I think one of the things we need to hold on to in this is a sense of proportion about what is or isn't likely to happen once or if this Bill ever gets to the point of Royal Assent—they are small numbers who currently use this defence. It is about that wider issue of awareness raising, and using all of those avenues will help us to do that in the broadest sense. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you, therefore, believe that this needs to be on the face of the Bill? That is, you don't say this in your evidence. I'd like to know your opinion on that. Scotland is going to be making it a duty for Scottish Ministers to raise awareness of the impact of the Bill. So far, the Welsh Government says that we don't need to do that in Wales. Wouldn't it make it clearer for you if it was a clear duty on the face of the Bill, for example as it was with the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013? There was a duty in that Act for Ministers to promote transplantation. Surely, that awareness raising aspect would be clearer for everyone if it was on the face of the Bill. Do you have an opinion on that? +Huw David: Well, Welsh Government have given that commitment, and I know the Welsh Government honour every commitment that they make—[Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's why I'm asking. +Huw David: I don't know whether that is necessary—I'm not a legislator. I think that there's obviously an inherent interest in Welsh Government raising awareness, because we have to raise awareness effectively for this to be successful, otherwise we will have parents who feel that they're being criminalised, and that's the last thing we want. I think it's worthy of consideration, but, as I say, I'm not a legislator or a lawyer, so I don't know what implications that will have long term. But to be fair to Welsh Government, I think that commitment is one that I'm sure will be honoured, because Welsh Government will want to make a success of this Bill if it does receive Royal Assent. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But is it clear who would pay for all of that? +Huw David: I've suddenly changed my mind—[Laughter.] I think it should be a duty on Welsh Government Ministers—absolutely. I don't need to check with lawyers or legislators. There we go. And that's the WLGA position; I don't need to ask the other 21 leaders on that either. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: Wouldn't it make it clearer if there was a clear duty on the face of the Bill that awareness raising had to happen? It would be clearer, then, for local authorities and people in the front-line services what needs to happen. +Sally Jenkins: I'm going to echo Huw. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I thought you might. Okay, fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're moving on now, then, to the contentious issue of resources and we've got some questions from Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Sally Jenkins, you said that the purpose of the Bill is to bring clarity and to remove what is a little-used defence. Isn't this an expensive way of doing that? +Sally Jenkins: I don't think so, no. I think that our children deserve the best legislation. +Hefin David AM: But introducing this legislation diverts finances from other areas of children's services—or doesn't? +Sally Jenkins: Well, I would say, no, I don't think it will divert resources from children's services. Firstly, going back to the comment made, I think, proportionally, this is a very small number of cases. It's a very small number of existing cases that go through in terms of prosecution, or consideration for prosecution. We know that it's likely, from some of the work that we've already done, that it's not opening floodgates for a sudden sea of referrals to children's services—that's not the way this is going to be, because the numbers are not out there because of the changes that have already happened in Welsh family life and Welsh society. So, I think as part of the implementation phase, we need to have a really clear understanding of the trajectory of those costs and what's likely to happen over the first six months, 12 months in terms of people's awareness and understanding and what is referred and how that's worked. But in terms of a huge number, no, I don't anticipate it being that. +Hefin David AM: But the costs wouldn't just be directed to the number of referrals and the number of cases raised, it's the cost around that, with training of staff, awareness—all those extra additional costs that always come with legislation. Is it too much? Is it—? +Sally Jenkins: No. And I agree with that—that there clearly are—but if you think, many of those things will be aligned with work we are already doing, but it brings a clarity to that work. So, our teachers, our social workers, our health workers, our police officers already get substantial training around child protection, around safeguarding, around adverse childhood experiences and around a trauma-informed approach to children. What this does is it layers a clarity on that. But rather than having a part of that training, which has to deal with this as an aspect—that is no longer there; it is a clear message for all professions. +Hefin David AM: I fully appreciate that, and in the briefing note you've given us, you've outlined the pressures on social services. So, do you think this is another way of getting money into social services? +Sally Jenkins: If this was a way of getting money into—. I can think of better ways, but I don't think this is it. No, I mean, I absolutely do not think that. I think this is a clear commitment to the rights of children in Wales; this is not about levering additional resources into children's services. Oh that it was so simple. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, do you think those costs are quantifiable? +Sally Jenkins: I think we are currently looking at work and are doing work across my own local authority and across two others to look at breaking down those costs, not just for local authority, but also for health, for police and for Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru. So, there is work currently taking place to try to quantify those costs. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I think there was a bit about local authorities that Siân— +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian has got a question on resources. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just to carry on from that, in a way. The explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Bill talks about the unknown costs for different agencies. You mentioned there that you're doing work around trying to identify some of those costs, but wouldn't it be useful if the explanatory memorandum did explain more about any unknown or unidentified costs, partly in order to calm some of those fears around that? Giving a title 'unidentified costs'—is that good enough? +Sally Jenkins: I think, clearly, that is a challenge, and that is work that we are participating in and are committed to completing with Welsh Government, to look at what those costs are. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then they can be added into this. +Huw David: I think this is where it would be helpful in the committee's deliberations and where our concern would be, because the reality is we're not going to know what the costs are until it's actually implemented, because we haven't implemented this before. And, therefore, I think there needs to be a commitment that, whatever the costs are, those costs are met because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. And whilst we don't see it as levering in additional resources, we don't think it should be at the expense of current service provision to vulnerable families in Wales, and therefore it's important that it is properly and fully resourced. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I would argue on that is that you have to try and forecast. You say it's difficult to forecast how much this is going to cost, but we have to try and forecast that, and part of the argument for trying to have projections is to show that, perhaps, it's not going to cost that much, and that would add to the argument that, 'Okay, this is going to be fine to do and it's not going to put too much pressure on us'. Or we need to know that this is going to cost a lot to do it effectively, and therefore you have to make your argument, then, 'Well, we can't afford that, the money has to come from somewhere else.' We have to get the costs, surely. +Huw David: Yes, and we will work very closely with Welsh Government to try and establish those costs as quickly as possible. There will be some costs that we will be able to identify. So, for example, a campaign, an awareness-raising campaign, the marketing, if you like, but some of the other costs will be more difficult to establish in terms of the resource implications for front-line workers. I expressed a view that we need to see some additional investment in some of those programmes that are not targeted directly at families that would be impacted by this but support all families across Wales that have different needs, and some of that provision is universal. Obviously, my view is the more we put into that, the better. So, there's no limit to that, but I suspect Welsh Government will take a very different view to that. But I think that is something where we need to see a commitment to some additional resources. But I don't put an upper limit on that, because I don't think there's an authority in Wales, and I don't think there's a charity, a police service or a health board in Wales that doesn't think that we need to do more of that and could offer more of that if the resources were available. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for attending and for answering all of our questions? It's been a really useful and informative discussion. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for coming. +Huw David: And thank you for your questions and engagement. We welcome the opportunity. +Alastair Birch: Thank you very much. +Sally Jenkins: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government—additional information for our inquiry into school funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services on in-patient child and adolescent mental health services provision, and I would like to briefly return to that when we go into private. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","Summary: +At a session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle AM welcomed the members present and noted apologies from Suzy Davies and Jack Sargeant. Jayne Bryant was acknowledged as substituting for Jack. The committee discussed the sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Witnesses included Sally Jenkins, chair of All Wales Heads of Children’s Services, Alastair Birch from Pembrokeshire County Council, and Councillor Huw David, spokesperson for health and social care. Discussions focused on support for the Bill, its impact on law clarity, evidence on physical punishment's harm to children, and concerns about the potential for the Bill to interfere in family life. There was a strong emphasis on the importance of clarity, simplicity, and culture shift towards treating children without physical punishment. The witnesses also discussed the role of social services and education in implementing the Bill, the importance of awareness raising, and resource implications. The session concluded with a recognition of the need for additional support and investment in preventive services. The committee noted additional papers and moved to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Now what . +Project Manager: 'Kay , hello everybody . Uh , I guess you all know what is it about , you all received the email , I guess . Uh , we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control . So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project . And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself . I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself . So I dunno , you can starts . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so my name is Petre {gap} . You can call me Petre {gap} , or Peter if you like . I don't care {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor . +Project Manager: And you are ? In the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in the project I'm supposed to be the technic . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: 'Kay . So my name's Bob Morris . I'm the Marketing Expert for this project . +Industrial Designer: Bob , +Marketing: Bob yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar , and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh , so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project , so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project . We are talking about the project plan , and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on , and , yeah . So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting . Um . So what is the goal of this project ? Is to design a new remote control . So it should be , of course , new and original , and um it should be trendy , and user friendly . That mean it's a very challenging project , and uh uh . So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best , and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy . So , um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project ? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way . Um . Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this . Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project . So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here . So {gap} uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it . Mm . Uh {vocalsound} . So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal . Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , you can draw the picture , of course {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should . +Marketing: Yeah go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so . Um {vocalsound} . Okay , American , um . Um . I would use the bird . So I tried to sketch it out . I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it , but ah . Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: That's its head . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it is enough line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit . C could we put it here , to make it as straight as possible ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it {disfmarker} it works like this . +Marketing: Uh , that's better . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , pity {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Should I clean ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful , so if I want to write it here , I think I can . {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah , it's maybe better if you leave it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Maybe we should just continue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , don't worry about it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} , no worry . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You won't draw them , or ? +Project Manager: You can draw it , if you want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno if I can . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just try . I would like to see how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno , whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing . Okay , so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird , I think . I dunno what is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , I think it's clear . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Four . Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I'm shameful {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good , it's good . +Industrial Designer: It's okay . It's in it's indeed beautiful . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Yeah , and strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bob . Have to remember it . Bob . +Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So , let's talk about money . Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro . And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro . And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world . So {gap} n not only for Switzerland , but for the world . Uh . So , um . The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro . +Industrial Designer: Per unit , I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Y oh okay . +Project Manager: Um , so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control , and any idea ? So , if you have some experience , good or bad , with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea . Anything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Well , from experience , um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small , and it's been very hard to to to use , because there's so many buttons , and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what , and the buttons are very small and very hard to press . Um and and normally you only every use , you know , on a T_V_ remote you only ever use , mostly , you know , f four or f six buttons . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past , th that . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I have also some points uh . Maybe two points . Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound} , so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room , so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery , so . So something like this . And the second thing , f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like . +Marketing: Ah , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know , some slider or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , n {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels , or is that +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down , or or make a high volume . +Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah , n . +Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , also if y when you take the the remote control , for example on the table , you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f It depends what what you feel about that . +Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards , but if {gap} you have some more notes on that . +Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Do you have something ? +User Interface: just a simple experience . I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves , because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah without obstacles and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's continue . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes , so maybe we should hurry . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . So we will close uh this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just a second . {gap} +Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Uh . The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work . Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control , start to to have new idea and +Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed , {gap} ? +Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer ? No , you're the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno which one , uh v . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: I think that's the first . I_D_ . Industrial Designer . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay . +Marketing: And then last one's marketing , which is me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'm the first one . +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer , which is Hamed um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh , you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: I see . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager , I dunno , okay , which is Bob , uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control . Um , you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign . +Project Manager: Yep finished . So I see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Great , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Thanks guys . Bye . +User Interface: Bye . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh . {gap} +","A project meeting is held to initiate the design process for a new remote control. Project Manager Fabien Cardinaux oversees the project. Participants include Industrial Designer Petre, Marketing Expert Bob Morris, and User Interface Designer Hamed Getabdar. The team discusses their personal experiences with remote controls, and ideas like backlighting, fewer buttons, a potential-meter for volume control, and radio wave technology are mentioned. The project aims to sell the remote control for 25 euros with a production cost maximum of 12.50 euros and an expected profit of 50 million euros globally. The meeting concludes with the manager assigning tasks: Hamed is to work on technical functions, Bob on user requirements, and Petre's role is unspecified. The next meeting is scheduled in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Now can you give me the uh {pause} remote T ? +Professor D: OK , so Eva , co uh {disfmarker} could you read your numbers ? +Grad A: Go ahead and read . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Alright . +Professor D: Yeah , let 's get started . Um {disfmarker} Hopefully Nancy will come , if not , she won't . +Grad B: Uh , Robert , do you uh have any way to turn off your uh screensaver on there so that it 's not going off every {disfmarker} uh , it seems to have about at two minute {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it 's not that I didn't try . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and um I {disfmarker} I told it to stay on forever and ever , but if it 's not plugged in it just doesn't obey my commands . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: It has a mind . +Grad B: Got it . +Grad C: But I I just {disfmarker} You know , sort of keep on wiggling . +Undergrad E: Wants to conserve . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} we 'll just be m m working on it at intensity so it doesn't happen . We 'll see . Should we plunge right into it ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So , would you like to {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think so . +Grad C: So what I 've tried to do here is list all the decision nodes that we have identified on this {pause} side . Commented and {disfmarker} what they 're about and sort of {disfmarker} the properties we may um give them . And here are the uh {disfmarker} tasks to be implemented via our data collection . So all of these tasks {disfmarker} The reading is out of these tasks more or less imply that the user wants to go there , sometime or the other . And analogously for example , here we have our EVA um {disfmarker} intention . And these are the data tasks where w we can assume the person would like to enter , view or just approach the thing . Analogously the same on the object information we can see that , you know , we have sort of created these tasks before we came up with our decision nodes so there 's a lot of things where we have no analogous tasks , and {pause} that may or may not be a problem . We can change the tasks slightly if we feel that we should have data for e sort of for every decision node so {disfmarker} trying to im um {disfmarker} implant the intention of going to a place now , going to a place later on the same tour , or trying to plant the intention of going sometime on the next tour , or the next day or whenever . +Professor D: Right , right . +Grad C: But I think that might be overdoing it a little . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So let me pop up a level . And uh s s make sure that we 're all oriented the same . So What we 're gonna do today is two related things . Uh one of them is to work on the semantics of the belief - net which is going to be the main inference engine for thi the system uh making decisions . And decisions are going to turn out to be parameter choices for calls on other modules . so f the natural language understanding thing is uh , we think gonna only have to choose parameters , but You know , a fairly large set of parameters . So to do that , we need to do two things . One of which is figure out what all the choices are , which we 've done a fair amount . Then we need to figure out what influences its choices and finally we have to do some technical work on the actual belief relations and presumably estimates of the probabilities and stuff . But we aren't gonna do the probability stuff today . Technical stuff we 'll do {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} another day . Probably next week . But we are gonna worry about all the decisions and the things that pert that contribute to them . And we 're also , sort of uh in the same process , going to work with Fey on what there should be in the dialogues . So One of the s steps that 's coming up real soon is to actually get subjects uh {disfmarker} in here , and have them actually record like this . Uh record dialogues more or less . And {disfmarker} depending on what Fey sort of provokes them to say , we 'll get information on different things . +Grad C: Well how people phrase different intentions more or less , +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Fo - v yeah people with the {disfmarker} phrase them +Grad C: huh ? +Professor D: and so {disfmarker} Uh for , you know , Keith and people worrying about what constructions people use , uh {disfmarker} we have some i we have some ways to affect that by the way the dialogues go . So what Robert kindly did , is to lay out a table of the kinds of uh {pause} things that {disfmarker} that might come up , and , the kinds of decisions . So the uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} on the left are decision nodes , and discreet values . So if {disfmarker} if we 're right , you can get by with um just this middle column worth of decisions , and it 's not all that many , and it 's perfectly feasible technically to build belief - nets that will do that . And he has a handout . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe it was too fast plunging in there , because j we have two updates . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Um you can look at this if you want , these are what our subject 's going to have to fill out . Any comments I can {disfmarker} can still be made and the changes will be put in correspondingly . +Undergrad E: m {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . +Grad C: Let me summarize in two sentences , mainly for Eva 's benefit , who probably has not heard about the data collection , at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Or have you heard about it ? +Grad A: Not that much you didn't . +Grad C: No . OK . We were gonna put this in front of people . They give us some information on themselves . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Then {disfmarker} then they will read uh {disfmarker} a task where lots of German words are sort of thrown in between . And um {disfmarker} and they have to read isolated proper names And these change {disfmarker} +Professor D: S I don't see a release +Grad C: No , this is not the release form . This is the speaker information form . +Professor D: Got it . OK , fine . OK . +Grad C: The release form is over there in that box . +Professor D: Alright , fair enough . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And then they gonna have to f um um choose from one of these tasks , which are listed here . They {disfmarker} they pick a couple , say three {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh six as a matter of fact . Six different things they sort of think they would do if they were in Heidelberg or traveling someplace {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} and they have a map . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: Like this . Very sketchy , simplified map . And they can take notes on that map . And then they call this computer system that works perfectly , and understands everything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is a fictional system obviously , +Grad C: The comp Yeah , the computer system sits right in front of you , +Grad B: huh . +Grad C: that 's Fey . +Undergrad E: I 've {disfmarker} I understand everything . +Professor D: And she does know everything . +Undergrad E: Yes I do . +Grad C: And she has a way of making this machine talk . So she can copy sentences into a window , or type really fast and this machine will use speech synthesis to produce that . So if you ask "" How do I get to the castle "" then a m s several seconds later it 'll come out of here "" In order to get to the castle you do {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK ? And um {disfmarker} And then after three tasks the system breaks down . And Fey comes on the phone as a human operator . And says "" Sorry the system broke down but let 's continue . "" And we sort of get the idea what people do when they s think they speak to a machine and what people say when they think they speak to a human , or know , or assume they speak to a human . +Grad A: OK . Huh . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's the data collection . And um {disfmarker} And Fey has some thirty subjects lined up ? Something ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And they 're {disfmarker} r ready uh {disfmarker} to roll . +Undergrad E: And more and more every day . +Grad C: And we 're gonna start tomorrow at three ? four ? one ? +Undergrad E: Tomorrow , well we don't know for sure . Because we don't know whether that person is coming or not , +Grad C: OK . Around four - ish . +Undergrad E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um we 're still l looking for a room on the sixth floor because they stole away that conference room . Um {disfmarker} behind our backs . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , there are these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} oh , I see , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tricky . We 'll {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} we 'll do that off - line , OK . +Grad C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} i i it 's happening . David and {disfmarker} and Jane and {disfmarker} and Lila are working on that as we speak . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . That was the uh {disfmarker} the data collection in a nutshell . And um {disfmarker} I can report a {disfmarker} so I did this but I also tried to do this {disfmarker} so if I click on here , Isn't this wonderful ? we get to the uh {disfmarker} uh belief - net just focusing on {disfmarker} on the g Go - there node . uh {disfmarker} Analogously this would be sort of the reason node and the timing node and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what w what happened is that um design - wise I 'd sort of n noticed that we can {disfmarker} we still get a lot of errors from a lot of points to one of these sub Go - there User Go - there Situation nodes . So I came up with a couple of additional nodes here where um whether the user is thrifty or not , and what his budget is currently like , is going to result in some financial state of the user . How much will he {disfmarker} is he willing to spend ? Or can spend . Being the same at this {disfmarker} just the money available , which may influence us , whether he wants to go there if it is {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} charging tons of dollars for admission or its gonna g cost a lot of t e whatever . Twenty - two million to fly to International Space Station , you know . just {disfmarker} Not all people can do that . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: So , and this actually turned out to be pretty key , because having specified sort of these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} intermediate level Um and sort of noticing that everything that happens here {disfmarker} let 's go to our favorite endpoint one is again more or less {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} then the situation nodes contributing to the {disfmarker} the endpoint situation node , which contributes to the endpoint and so forth . um {disfmarker} I can now sort of draw straight lines from these to here , meaning it g of course goes where the sub - S {disfmarker} everything that comes from situation , everything that comes from user goes with the sub - U , and whatever we specify for the so - called "" Keith node "" , or the discourse , what comes from the {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} parser , construction parser , um will contribute to the D and the ontology to the sub - O node . And um one just s sort of has to watch which {disfmarker} also final decision node so it doesn't make sense {disfmarker} t to figure out whether he wants to enter , view or approach an object if he never wants to go there in the first place . But this makes the design thing fairly simple . And um now all w that 's left to do then is the CPG 's , the conditional probabilities , for the likelihood of a person having enough money , actually wanting to go a place if it costs , you know this or that . And um {disfmarker} OK . and once um Bhaskara has finished his classwork that 's where we 're gonna end up doing . You get involved in that process too . And um {disfmarker} And for now uh the {disfmarker} the question is "" How much of these decisions do we want to build in explicitly into our data collection ? "" So {disfmarker} Um , one could {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} think of {disfmarker} you know we could call the z see or {disfmarker} you know , people who visit the zoo we could s call it "" Visit the zoo tomorrow "" , so we have an intention of seeing something , but not now {disfmarker} but later . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . Yeah , so {disfmarker} let 's s uh s see I th I think that from one point of view , Uh , um , all these places are the same , so that d d That , um {disfmarker} in terms of the linguistics and stuff , there may be a few different kinds of places , so I th i it seems to me that We ought to decide you know , what things are k are actually going to matter to us . And um , so the zoo , and the university and the castle , et cetera . Um are all big - ish things that um {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} have different parts to them , and one of them might be fine . +Grad C: Hmm . Hmm , hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the reason why we did it that way , as a {disfmarker} as a reminder , is uh {disfmarker} no person is gonna do all of them . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: They 're just gonna select u um , according to their preferences . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: "" Ah , yeah , I usually visit zoos , or I usually visit castles , or I usually {disfmarker} "" And then you pick that one . +Professor D: Right , no no , but {disfmarker} but s th point is to {disfmarker} to y to {disfmarker} build a system that 's got everything in it that might happen you do one thing . +Undergrad E: They 're redundant . +Professor D: T to build a system that um {disfmarker} had the most data on a relatively confined set of things , you do something else . And the speech people , for example , are gonna do better if they {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} things come up uh {disfmarker} repeatedly . Now , of course , if everybody says exactly the same thing then it 's not interesting . So , all I 'm saying is i th there 's {disfmarker} there 's a kind of question of what we 're trying t to accomplish . and {disfmarker} I think my temptation for the data gathering would be to uh , you know {disfmarker} And each person is only gonna do it once , so you don't have to worry about them being bored , so if {disfmarker} if it 's one service , one luxury item , you know , one big - ish place , and so forth and so on , um {disfmarker} then my guess is that {disfmarker} that the data is going to be easier to handle . Now of course you have this I guess possible danger that somehow there 're certain constructions that people use uh when talking about a museum that they wouldn't talk about with a university and stuff , um {disfmarker} but I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I uh m my temptation is to go for simpler . You know , less variation . But I don't know what other people think about this in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I don't exactly understand {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: like I I {disfmarker} I guess we 're trying to {disfmarker} limit the detail of our ontology or types of places that someone could go , right ? But who is it that has to care about this , or what component of the system ? +Professor D: Oh , well , uh {disfmarker} th I think there are two places where it comes up . One is uh {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} th these people who are gonna take this and {disfmarker} and try to do speech with it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Lots of pronunciations of th of the same thing are going to give you better data than l you know , a few pronunciations of lots more things . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: That 's one . +Grad B: So we would rather just ask {disfmarker} uh have a bunch of people talk about the zoo , uh and assume that that will {disfmarker} that the constructions that they use there will give us everything we need to know about these sort of zoo , castle , whatever type things , these bigger places . +Professor D: Bigger {disfmarker} Y yeah thi well this is a question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: And that way you get the speech data of people saying "" zoo "" over and over again or whatever too . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . So this is a question for you , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , you know , if we {disfmarker} if we do , and we probably will , actually try to uh build a prototype , uh probably we could get by with the prototype only handling a few of them anyway . So , Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the this was sort of {disfmarker} these are all different sort of activities . Um But I think y I {disfmarker} I got the point and I think I like it . We can do {disfmarker} put them in a more hierarchical fashion . So , "" Go to place "" and then give them a choice , you know either they 're the symphony type or opera type or the tourist site guide type or the nightclub disco type person and they say "" yeah this is {disfmarker} on that "" go to big - ish place "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: this is what I would do . "" And then we have the "" Fix "" thing , and then maybe "" Do something the other day "" thing , so . My question is {disfmarker} I guess , to some extent , we should {disfmarker} y we just have to try it out and see if it works . It would be challenging , in {disfmarker} in a sense , to try to make it so {disfmarker} so complex that they even really should schedule , or to plan it , uh , a more complex thing in terms of OK , you know , they should get the feeling that there are these s six things they have to do and they sh can be done maybe in two days . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: So they make these decisions , +Professor D: Well I think th th +Grad C: "" Can I go there tomorrow ? "" +Professor D: yeah . +Grad C: or {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} influences +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , I think it 's easy enough to set that up if that 's your expectation . So , the uh system could say , "" Well , uh we 'd like to {disfmarker} to set up your program for two days in Heidelberg , you know , let 's first think about all the things you might like to do . So there {disfmarker} th i i in {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I 'm sure that if that 's what you did then they would start telling you about that , and then you could get into um various things about ordering , if you wanted . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah , but I think this is part of the instructor 's job . And that can be done , sort of to say , "" OK now we 've picked these six tasks . "" "" Now you have you can call the system and you have two days . "" +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +Grad C: And th w +Professor D: No , we have to help {disfmarker} we have to decide . Fey will p carry out whatever we decide . But we have to decide you know , what is the appropriate scenario . That 's what we 're gonna talk about t yeah . +Grad C: Yep , yep . +PhD F: But these are two different scenarios entirely . I mean , one is a planner {disfmarker} The other , it kind of give you instructions on the spot +Grad C: Yeah , but th the {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not really interested in sort of "" Phase planning "" capabilities . But it 's more the {disfmarker} how do people phrase these planning requests ? So are we gonna masquerade the system as this {disfmarker} as you said simple response system , "" I have one question I get one response "" , or should we allow for a certain level of complexity . And a I w think the data would be nicer if we get temporal references . +Professor D: Well , so Keith , what do you think ? +Grad B: Well , um it seems that {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , off the top of my head it kinda seems like you would probably just want , you know , richer data , more complex stuff going on , people trying to do more complex sets of things . I mean {pause} you know , if our goal is to really sort of be able to handle a whole bunch of different stuff , then throwing harder situations at people will get them to do more linguistic {disfmarker} more interesting linguistic stuff . But I mean {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure Uh , because I don't fully understand like what our choices are of ways to do this here yet . +Grad C: I mean w we have tested this and a y have you heard {disfmarker} listen to the f first two or th as a matter of fact the second person is uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was faced with exactly this kind of setup . +Grad B: I started to listen to one and it was just like , um , uh , sort of depressing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: I thought I 'd just sort of listen to the beginning part and the person was just sort of reading off her script or something . And . +Grad C: Oh , OK . That was the first subject . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: First one wasn't very good . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So um , I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , it is {disfmarker} already with this it got pretty {disfmarker} with this setup and that particular subject it got pretty complex . +Undergrad E: Although {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Maybe {disfmarker} I suggest we make some fine tuning of these , get {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} run through ten or so subjects +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then take a breather , and see whether we wanna make it more complex or not , depending on what {disfmarker} what sort of results we 're getting . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . It {disfmarker} In fact , um , I am just you know {disfmarker} today , next couple days gonna start really diving into this data . I 've basically looked at one of the files {disfmarker} you know one of these {disfmarker} l y y y you gave me those dozens of files and I looked at one of them which was about ten sentences , found fifteen , twenty different construction types that we would have to look for and so on and like , "" alright , well , let 's start here . "" Um . So I haven't really gone into the , you know {disfmarker} looked at all of the stuff that 's going on . So I don't really {disfmarker} Right , I mean , once I start doing that I 'll have more to say about this kind of thing . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: And y and always {disfmarker} +Professor D: But well th but you did say something important , which is that um you can probably keep yourself fairly well occupied uh {disfmarker} with the simple cases for quite a while . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Although , obviously th so {disfmarker} so that sa s does suggest that {disfmarker} Uh , now , I have looked at all the data , and it 's pre it 's actually at least to an amateur , quite redundant . +Grad B: Yeah , Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that it was {disfmarker} it was very stylized , and quite a lot of people said more or less the same thing . +Grad B: I um {disfmarker} I did sort of scan it at first and noticed that , and then looked in detail at one of them . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: But yeah , yeah I noticed that , too . +Professor D: So , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna do more than that . +Grad C: And with this we 're getting more . No question . +Professor D: OK . Right . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: uh w do we wanna get going beyond more , which is sort of the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's take {disfmarker} let 's I {disfmarker} I think your suggestion is good , which is we 'll do a b uh {disfmarker} a batch . OK . And , uh , Fey , How long is it gonna be till you have ten subjects ? Couple days ? Or thr f a A week ? Or {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a feel for th +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean I s I think can probably schedule ten people , uh , whenever . +Professor D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's up to you , I mean I j I {disfmarker} uh e We don't have any huge time pressure . It 's just {disfmarker} when you have t +Undergrad E: How long will it be ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would say maybe two weeks . +Professor D: Oh , OK . So let 's do this . Let 's plan next Monday , OK , to have a review of what we have so far . +Grad C: This means audio , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Huh ? +Grad C: no transcriptions of course , yeah . +Professor D: No , we won't have the transcriptions , but what we should be able to do and I don't know if , Fey , if you will have time to do this , but it would be great if you could , um , not transcribe it all , but pick out uh , some stuff . I mean we could lis uh {disfmarker} just sit here and listen to it all . Are you gonna have the audio on the web site ? OK . +Grad C: Until we reach the gigabyte thing and David Johnson s ki kills me . And we 're gonna put it on the web site . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , we could get {disfmarker} I mean , you can buy another disk for two hundred dollars , right ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like {disfmarker} OK . So , we 'll take care of David Johnson . +Grad C: No , he {disfmarker} uh , he {disfmarker} he has been solving all our problems or {disfmarker} is wonderful , +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Take {disfmarker} care of him . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: so s +Professor D: Alright . So we 'll buy a disk . But anyway , so , um , If you {disfmarker} if you can think of a way {disfmarker} to uh , point us to th to interesting things , sort of as you 're doing this or {disfmarker} or something uh , make your {disfmarker} make notes or something that {disfmarker} that this is , you know , something worth looking at . And other than that , yeah I guess we 'll just have to uh , listen {disfmarker} although I guess it 's only ten minutes each , right ? Roughly . +Undergrad E: Well , I guess . I 'm not sure how long it 's actually going to take . +Grad C: The reading task is a lot shorter . That was cut by fifty percent . And the reading , nobody 's interested in that except for the speech people . +Professor D: Right . No , we don't care about that at all . +Grad C: So . It 's actually like five minutes dialogue . +Professor D: I b My guess is it 's gonna be ten . +Grad C: Ten minutes is long . +Professor D: People {disfmarker} I understand , but people {disfmarker} people {disfmarker} you know uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: It feels like a long time +Grad C: Yeah . +Undergrad E: but . +Grad C: It feels like forever when you 're doing it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: but then it turns out to be three minutes and forty five seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Could be . OK . I was thinking people would , you know , hesitate and {disfmarker} Whatever . Whatever it is we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll deal with it . +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} And it 's fun . +Professor D: OK , so that 'll be {disfmarker} that 'll be {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the web page . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: That 's great . Um But anyway {disfmarker} yeah , so I think {disfmarker} it 's a good idea to start with the sort of relatively straight forward res just response system . And then if we want to uh {disfmarker} get them to start doing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} multiple step planning with a whole bunch of things and then organize them an um tell them which things are near each other and {disfmarker} you know , any of that stuff . uh {disfmarker} You know , "" Which things would you like to do Tuesday morning ? "" +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: So yeah I {disfmarker} th that seems {disfmarker} pretty straight forward . +Undergrad E: But were you saying that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I need those back by the way . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's for {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm sorry , Fey , what ? +Undergrad E: That w maybe one thing we should do is go through this list and sort of select things that are categories and then o offer only one member of that category ? +Professor D: That 's what I was suggesting for the first round , yeah . +Undergrad E: OK . +Grad B: So rather than having zoo and castle . +Undergrad E: And then , I mean , they could be alternate versions of the same {disfmarker} If you wanted data on different constructions . +Professor D: They could , but i but i uh tha eh they c yeah , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Like one person gets the version with the zoo as a choice , and the other person gets the {disfmarker} +Professor D: You could , but i but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think in the short run , {disfmarker} +Grad C: And no , th the per the person don't get it . I mean , this is why we did it , because when we gave them just three tasks for w part - A and three tasks for part - B a +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Well no , they could still choose . They just wouldn't be able to choose both zoo and say , touring the castle . +Grad C: Exactly . This is limiting the choices , but yeah . Right . OK , sorry . But um I {disfmarker} I think this approach will very well work , but the person was able to look at it and say "" OK , This is what I would actually do . "" +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad E: He was vicious . +Grad C: OK , we gotta {disfmarker} we gotta disallow uh {disfmarker} traveling to zoos and uh castles at the same time , sort of {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: I mean there {disfmarker} they are significantly different , but . +Grad C: But no , they 're {disfmarker} I mean they 're sort of {disfmarker} this is where tour becomes {disfmarker} you know tourists maybe a bit different +Undergrad E: Yeah , I guess so . +Grad C: and , um , these are just places where you {disfmarker} you enter um , much like here . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: But we can uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , in fact if y if y if you use the right verb for each in common , like at you know , "" attend a theater , symphony or opera "" is {disfmarker} is a group , and "" tour the university , castle or zoo "" , +Grad C: mm - hmm Yeah . +Professor D: all of these d do have this kind of "" tour "" um {disfmarker} aspect about the way you would go to them . And uh , the movie theater is probably also uh {disfmarker} e is a "" attend "" et cetera . +Grad C: Attend , yeah . +Professor D: So it may turn out to be not so many different kinds of things , +Grad C: Hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then , what one would expect is that {disfmarker} that the sentence types would {disfmarker} uh their responses would tend to be grouped according to the kind of activity , you would expect . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But I mean i it seem that um {disfmarker} there is a difference between going {disfmarker} to see something , and things like "" exchange money "" or "" dine out "" +Professor D: Oh , absolutely . Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} @ @ function , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , this is where {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} th the function stuff is definitely different and the getting information or g stuff {disfmarker} yeah . OK . But this is open . So since people gonna still pick something , we we 're not gonna get any significant amount of redundancy . And for reasons , we don't want it , really , in that sense . And um we would be ultimately more interested in getting all the possible ways of people asking , oh , for different things with {disfmarker} or with a computer . And so if you can think of any other sort of high level tasks a tourist may do just always {disfmarker} just m mail them to us and we 'll sneak them into the collection . We 're not gonna do much statistical stuff with it . +Professor D: We don't have enough . +Grad C: No . But it seems like since we {disfmarker} since we are getting towards uh subject {disfmarker} uh fifty subjects and if we can keep it up um to a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} sort of five four - ish per week rate , we may even reach the one hundred before Fey t takes off to Chicago . +Undergrad E: That means that one hundred people have to be interested . +Grad B: Good luck . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , um , these are all f people off campus s from campus so far , +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: So we {disfmarker} yeah we don't know how many we can get next door at the {disfmarker} uh shelter for example . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Uh for ten bucks , probably quite a few . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . So , alright , so let 's go {disfmarker} let 's go back then , to the {disfmarker} the chart with all the decisions and stuff , and see how we 're doing . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Do {disfmarker} do people think that , you know this is {disfmarker} is gonna {disfmarker} um cover what we need , or should we be thinking about more ? +Grad C: Okay , in terms of decision nodes ? I mean , Go - there is {disfmarker} is a yes or no . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: Right ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: I 'm also interested in th in this "" property "" uh line here , so if you look at {disfmarker} sorry , look at that um , timing was um {disfmarker} I have these three . Do we need a final differentiation there ? Now , later on the same tour , sometimes on the next tour . +Grad B: What 's this idea of "" next tour "" ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's sort of next day , so you 're doing something now and you have planned to do these three four things , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can do something immediately , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you could sort of tag it on to that tour +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: or you can say this is something I would do s I wanna do sometime l in my life , basically . +Grad B: OK . OK . So {disfmarker} so this tour is sort of just like th the idea of current s round of {disfmarker} of touristness or whatever , +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , probably between stops back at the hotel . +Grad B: OK . Got it . +Professor D: I mean if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you wanted precise about it , uh you know , +Grad B: Got it . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} and I think that 's the way tourists do organize their lives . +Grad B: Sure , sure , sure . +Professor D: You know , "" OK , we 'll go back to the hotel and then we 'll go off +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} "" +PhD F: So all tours {disfmarker} b a tour happens only within one day ? +Professor D: Yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +PhD F: So the next tour will be tomorrow ? +Professor D: Right . For this . +Grad B: OK . Just to be totally clear . OK . +Grad C: Well , my visit to Prague there were some nights where I never went back to the hotel , so whether that counts as a two - day tour or not we 'll have to {vocalsound} think . +Grad B: You just spend the whole time at U Fleku or something , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} w we will {disfmarker} we will not ask you more . +Grad B: ri +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right . +Undergrad E: That 's enough . +Grad C: I don't know . What is the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the English co uh um cognate if you want , for "" Sankt Nimmerlandstag "" ? +Grad B: Keine Ahnung +Grad C: Sort of "" We 'll do it on {disfmarker} when you say on that d day it means it 'll never happen . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: Do you have an expression ? Probably you sh +Grad B: Not that I know of actually . +Grad C: Yeah , when hell {disfmarker} Yep , we 'll do it when hell freezes over . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So maybe that should be another {vocalsound} property in there . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Never . +Professor D: No . +Grad C: OK . Um , the reason why {disfmarker} why do we go there in the first place IE uh {disfmarker} it 's either uh {disfmarker} for sightseeing , for meeting people , for running errands , or doing business . Entertainment is a good one in there , I think . I agree . +Grad B: So , business is supposed to uh , be sort of {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like professional type stuff , right , or something like that ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . Um . +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} this w this is uh an old uh Johno thing . He sort of had it in there . "" Who is the {disfmarker} the tour is the person ? "" So it might be a tourist , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: it might be a business man who 's using the system , who wants to sort of go to some {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or both . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , I mean like for example my {disfmarker} my father is about to travel to Prague . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: He 'll be there for two weeks . He is going to uh {disfmarker} He 's there to teach a course at the business school but he also is touring around and so he may have some mixture of these things . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mmm . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Sure . Right . +Grad C: He would {disfmarker} +PhD F: What ab What do you have in mind in terms of um {disfmarker} socializing ? What kind of activities ? +Grad C: Eh , just meeting people , basically . "" I want to meet someone somewhere "" , which be puts a very heavy constraint on the "" EVA "" +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , because then if you 're meeting somebody at the town hall , you 're not entering it usually , you 're just {disfmarker} want to approach it . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} I mean , does this capture , like , where do you put {disfmarker} "" Exchange money "" is an errand , right ? But what about uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mm - hmm +Grad B: So , like "" Go to a movie "" is now entertainment , "" Dine out "" is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Socializing , I guess . +Professor D: No , I I well , I dunno . Let {disfmarker} Let {disfmarker} well , we 'll put it somewhere , +Grad B: So I mean {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I would say that if "" Dine out "" is a special c uh {disfmarker} if you 're doing it for that purpose then it 's entertainment . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} we 'll also as y as you 'll s further along we 'll get into business about "" Well , you 're {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} this is going over a meal time , do you wanna stop for a meal or pick up food or something ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's different . That 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of part of th that 's not a destination reason , that 's sort of "" en passant , "" right . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: That goes with the "" energy depletion "" function , blech . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right , yeah . +Grad C: OK , "" endpoint "" . +Grad B: "" Tourist needs food , badly "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Endpoint "" is pretty clear . Um , "" mode "" , uh , I have found three , "" drive there "" , "" walk there "" uh {disfmarker} or "" be driven "" , which means bus , taxi , BART . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Obviously taxis are very different than buses , but on the other hand the system doesn't have any public transport {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the planner system doesn't have any public transport in it yet . +Grad C: So this granularity would suffice , I think w if we say the person probably , based on the utterance we on the situation we can conclude wants to drive there , walk there , or use some other form of transportation . +Grad B: H How much of Heidelberg can you get around by public transport ? I mean in terms of the interesting bits . There 's lots of bits where you don't really I 've only ev was there ten years ago , for a day , so I don't remember , but . I mean , like the {disfmarker} sort of the tourist - y bits {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - Well , +Grad C: Everywhere . +Grad B: is it like {disfmarker} +Professor D: you can't get to the Philosophers ' Way very well , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but , I mean there are hikes that you can't get to , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: but I think other things you can , if I remember right . +Grad A: So is like "" biking there "" {disfmarker} part of like "" driving there "" , +Grad C: Yeah , um we actually {disfmarker} biking should be {disfmarker} should be a separate point because we have a very strong bicycle planning component . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: So . +Professor D: Oh ! +Undergrad E: Mmm g that 's good . +Grad C: Um . +Professor D: Put it in . +Grad C: Bicycles c should be in there , but , will we have bic I mean is this realistic ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , we can leave it out , I guess . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: We can {disfmarker} we can sort of uh , drive {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would {disfmarker} I would lump it with "" walk "" because hills matter . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right ? You know . Things like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Skateboards right , anyway . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Scooters , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: OK , "" Length "" is um , you wanna get this over with as fast as possible , +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: you wanna use some part of what {disfmarker} of the time you have . Um , they can . But we should just make a decision whether we feel that they want to use some substantial or some fraction of their time . +Professor D: Ye +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , they wanna do it so badly that they are willing to spend uh {disfmarker} you know the necessary and plus time . And um {disfmarker} And y you know , if we feel that they wanna do nothing but that thing then , you know , we should point out that {disfmarker} to the planner , that they probably want to use all the time they have . So , stretch out that visit for that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Wow {disfmarker} It seems like this would be really hard to guess . I mean , on the part of the system . It seems like it {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about rather than having the user decide this you 're supposed t we 're supposed to figure it out ? +Professor D: w well +Grad C: Th - the user can always s say it , but it 's just sort of we {disfmarker} we hand over these parameters if we make {disfmarker} if we have a feeling that they are important . +Grad B: Overrider +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And that we can actually infer them to a significant de degree , or we ask . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: And par yeah , and part of the system design is that if it looks to be important and you can't figure it out , then you ask . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But hopefully you don't ask you know , a all these things all the time . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} eh so , y but there 's th but definitely a back - off position to asking . +Grad B: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Grad C: And if no {disfmarker} no part of the system ever comes up with the idea that this could be important , no planner is ever gonna ask for it . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: y so {disfmarker} And I like the idea that , you know , sort of {disfmarker} Jerry pushed this idea from the very beginning , that it 's part of the understanding business to sort of make a good question of what 's s sort of important in this general picture , what you need t +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If you wanna simulate it , for example , what parameters would you need for the simulation ? And , Timing , uh , uh , Length would definitely be part of it , "" Costs "" , "" Little money , some money , lots of money "" ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Actually , maybe uh F {comment} uh so , F Yeah , OK . Hmm ? +Grad B: You could say "" some "" in there . +PhD F: I must say that thi this one looks a bit strange to me . Um {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} It seems like appropriate if I go to Las Vegas . Well {disfmarker} but I decide k kind of how much money uh I 'm willing to lose . But a I as a tourist , I 'll just paying what 's {disfmarker} what 's more or less is required . +Professor D: Well , no . I think there are {disfmarker} there 're different things where you have a ch choice , +Undergrad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: for example , uh this t interacts with "" do am I do oh are you willing to take a taxi ? "" +Grad B: Dinner . +Professor D: Or uh , you know , if {disfmarker} if you 're going to the opera are you gonna l look for the best seats or the peanut gallery +PhD F: The best seat or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: or , you know , +Grad B: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: whatever ? S so I think there are a variety of things in which um {disfmarker} Tour - tourists really do have different styles eating . Another one , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: you know . +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right , that 's true . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what my sort of sentiment is they 're {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I once had to write a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a charter , a carter for a {disfmarker} a student organization . And they had {disfmarker} wanted me to define what the quorum is going to be . And I looked at the other ones and they always said ten percent of the student body has to be present at their general meeting otherwise it 's not a {disfmarker} And I wrote in there "" En - Enough "" people have to be there . And it was hotly debated , but people agreed with me that everybody probably has a good feeling whether it was a farce , a joke , or whether there were enough people . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And if you go to Turkey , you will find when people go shopping , they will say "" How much cheese do you want ? "" and they say "" Ah , enough . "" And the {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} this used all over the place . Because the person selling the cheese knows , you know , that person has two kids and you know , a husband that dislikes cheese , so this is enough . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um so the middle part is always sort of the {disfmarker} the golden way , right ? So you can s you can be really {disfmarker} make it as cheap as possible , or you can say "" I want , er , you know , I don't care "" +Grad B: Money is no object . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Money is no object , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: or you say "" I just want to spend enough "" . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Or the sufficient , or the the appropriate amount . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But , Then again , this may turn out to be insufficient for our purposes . But well , this is my first guess , +Grad B: I mean y Yeah . +Grad C: in much the same way as how {disfmarker} how d you know {disfmarker} should the route be ? Should it be the easiest route , even if it 's a b little bit longer ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No steep inclinations ? Go the normal way ? Whatever that again means , er {disfmarker} or do you {disfmarker} does the person wanna rough it ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . I mean {disfmarker} th so there 's a couple of different ways you can interpret these things right ? You know {disfmarker} "" I want to go there and I don't care if it 's really hard . "" Or if you 're an extreme sport person , you know . "" I wanna go there and I insist on it being the hard way . "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Right ? you know , so I assume we 're going for the first interpretation , +Undergrad E: Right . +Grad B: right ? Something like {disfmarker} I 'll go th I mean {disfmarker} I 'd li I dunno . It 's different from thing to {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , I think he was going for the second one ar actually . +Grad B: Yeah ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor D: Anyway , we 'll sort th yeah , we 'll sort that out . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad C: Well , this is all sort of um , top of my head . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No {disfmarker} no research behind that . Um {disfmarker} "" Object information "" , "" Do I {disfmarker} do I wanna know anything about that object ? "" is either true or false . And . if I care about it being open , accessible or not , I don't think there 's any middle ground there . Um , either I wanna know where it is or not , I wanna know about it 's history or not , or , um I wanna know about what it 's good for or not . Maybe one could put scales in there , too . So I wanna know a l lot about it . +Professor D: Yeah , now ob OK , I 'm sorry , go ahead , what were you gonna say ? +Grad C: One could put scales in there . So I wanna know a lot about the history , just a bit . +Professor D: Yeah , right well y i w if we {disfmarker} w right . So "" object "" becomes "" entity "" , right ? +Grad C: Yep , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah , but we don't have to do it now . +Grad C: Yep . That was the wrong shortcut anyhow . +Professor D: And we think that 's it , interestingly enough , that um , you know , th or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something very close to it is going to be uh {disfmarker} going to be enough . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Still wrong . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Alright , so um {disfmarker} So I think the order of things is that um , Robert will clean this up a little bit , although it looks pretty good . And {disfmarker} +Grad C: What , well this is the part that {disfmarker} +Professor D: Huh ? +Grad C: this is the part that needs the work . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} right , so {disfmarker} So , um In parallel , uh {disfmarker} three things are going to happen . Uh Robert and Eva and Bhaskara are gonna actually {disfmarker} build a belief - net that {disfmarker} that , um , has CPT 's and , you know , tries to infer this from various kinds of information . And Fey is going to start collecting data , and we 're gonna start thinking a about {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} what constructions we want to elicit . And then w go it may iterate on uh , further data collection to elicit {disfmarker} +Grad B: D Do you mean {disfmarker} Do you mean eliciting particular constructions ? Or do you mean like what kinds of things we want to get people talking about ? Semantically speaking , eh ? +Professor D: Well , yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Both . Uh , and {disfmarker} Though for us , constructions are primarily semantic , right ? +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean from my point of view I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to care about the syntax , so you know {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well that too , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but um {disfmarker} You know if th if we in {disfmarker} if we you know , make sure that we get them talking about temporal order . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , that would be great and if th if they use prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses or whatever , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: um {disfmarker} W You know , whatever form they use is fine . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But I {disfmarker} I think that probably we 're gonna try to look at it as you know , s what semantic constructions d do we {disfmarker} do we want them to uh do direc +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: you know , um , "" Caused motion "" , I don't know , something like that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh But , Eh - uh this is actually a conversation you and I have to have about your thesis fantasies , and how all this fits into that . +Grad B: Got it . Yeah . Uh Yeah . OK . +Professor D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I will tell you the German tourist data . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Because I have not been able to dig out all the stuff out of the m ta thirty D V +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that roughly the equivalent of {disfmarker} of what I 've seen in English or is it {disfmarker} +Grad C: No , not at all . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Dialogues . SmartKom {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: SmartKom {disfmarker} Human . Wizard of Oz . +Grad B: OK . Same {disfmarker} OK , that . Got it . Like what {disfmarker} What have I got now ? I mean I have uh what {disfmarker} what I 'm loo what I {disfmarker} Those files that you sent me are the user side of some interaction with Fey ? +Grad C: A little bit of data , I {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that what it is ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: With nothing . +Grad B: Just talking into a box and not hearing anything back . +Professor D: No , no . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yep . Some data I collected in a couple weeks for training recognizers and email way back when . +Grad B: OK . OK . +Grad C: Nothing to write home about . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} see this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} ontology node is probably something that I will try to expand . Once we have the full ontology API , what can we expect to get from the ontology ? And hopefully you can sort of also try to find out , you know , sooner or later in the course of the summer what we can expect to get from the discourse that might , you know {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: not the discourse , the utterance as it were , uh , +Professor D: mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: in terms of uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right , but we 're not expecting Keith to actually build a parser . +Grad B: Right , Right . +Grad C: No , no , no , no , no . +Professor D: OK . We are expecting Johno to build a parser , +Grad C: Uh , this is {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad B: By the end of the summer , too . +Professor D: but that 's a {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: No . +Professor D: No . Uh {disfmarker} He 's g he 's hoping to do this for his masters ' thesis s by a year from now . +Grad C: But it 's sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . Hmm . Still , pretty formidable actually . +Professor D: Eh - absolutely . Uh {disfmarker} limited . I mean , you know , the idea is {disfmarker} is , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , the hope is that the parser itself is , uh , pretty robust . But it 's not popular {disfmarker} it 's only p only {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right , Right . Existence proof , you know . Set up the infrastructure , +Professor D: Right . It 's only popula +Grad B: yeah . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Um sometime , I have to talk to some subset of the people in this group , at least about um what sort of constructions I 'm looking for . I mean , you know obviously like just again , looking at this one uh thing , you know , I saw y things from {disfmarker} sort of as general as argument structure constructions . Oh , you know , I have to do Verb Phrase . I have to do uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} unbounded dependencies , you know , which have a variety of constructions in {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} instantiate that . On the other hand I have to have , you know , there 's particular uh , fixed expressions , or semi - fixed expressions like "" Get "" plus path expression for , you know , "" how d ho how do I get there ? "" , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" How do I get in ? "" , "" How do I get away ? "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: and all that kind of stuff . Um , so there 's a variety of sort of different sorts of constructions +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of like anything goes . Like {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK , so this is {disfmarker} I think we 're gonna mainly work on with George . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK , and hi let me f th {disfmarker} say what I think is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} so the idea is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} first of all I misspoke when I said we thought you should do the constructions . Cause apparently for a linguist that means to do completely and perfectly . So what I {disfmarker} yeah , OK , {disfmarker} So what {disfmarker} what I meant was "" Do a first cut at "" . +Grad B: er {disfmarker} that 's what Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK , Because uh {disfmarker} we do wanna get them r u perfectly {disfmarker} but I think we 're gonna have to do a first cut at a lot of them to see how they interact . +Grad B: Of course . Right , exactly . Now it {disfmarker} w we talked about this before , right . And I {disfmarker} I me it would it would be completely out of the question to really do more than , say , like , oh I don't know , ten , over the summer , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but uh , but you know obviously we need to get sort of a general view of what things look like , so yeah . +Professor D: Right . So the idea is going to be to do {disfmarker} sort of like Nancy did in some of the er these papers where you do enough of them so you can go from top to bottom {disfmarker} so you can do f you know , f f uh {disfmarker} have a complete story ov of s of some piece of dialogue . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's gonna be much more useful than having all of the clausal constructions and nothing else , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something like that . +Grad B: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor D: So that the {disfmarker} the trick is going to be t to take this and pick a {disfmarker} some sort of lattice of constructions , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: so some lexical and some phrasal , and {disfmarker} and , you know , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: whatever you need in order to uh , be able to then , uh , by hand , you know , explain , some fraction of the utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: And so , exactly which ones will partly depend on your research interests and a bunch of other things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . OK . But I mean in terms of the s th sort of level of uh {disfmarker} of analysis , you know , these don't necessarily have to be more complex than like the "" Out of "" construction in the BCP paper where it 's just like , you know , half a page on each one or something . +Professor D: Correct . Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . V a half a page is {disfmarker} is what we 'd like . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And if {disfmarker} if there 's something that really requires a lot more than that then it does and we have to do it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +Grad B: For the first cut , that should be fine , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: We could sit down and think of sort of the {disfmarker} the ideal speaker utterances , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I mean two or three that follow each other , so , where we can also sort of , once we have everything up and running , show the tremendous , insane inferencing capabilities of our system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , you know , as {disfmarker} as the SmartKom people have . This is sort of their standard demo dialogue , which is , you know , what the system survives and nothing but that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , we could also sor sort of have the analogen of o our sample sentences , the ideal sentences where we have complete construction coverage and , sort of , they match nicely . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the "" How do I get to X ? "" , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , that 's definitely gonna be uh , a major one . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's about six times in this little one here , so uh , {vocalsound} yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Where is X ? "" might be another one which is not too complicated . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um "" Tell me something about X . "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And hey , that 's {disfmarker} that 's already covering eighty percent of the system 's functionality . +Professor D: Ye - Right , but it 's not covering eighty percent of the intellectual interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No , we can w throw in an "" Out of Film "" construction if you want to , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , no , no . Well the {disfmarker} th the thing is there 's a lot that needs to be done to get this right . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: OK , I th We done ? +Grad C: I have one bit of news . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: Um , the action planner guy has wrote {disfmarker} has written a {disfmarker} a p lengthy {disfmarker} proposal on how he wants to do the action planning . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: And I responded to him , also rather lengthy , how he should do the action planning . And {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Action planning "" meaning "" Discourse Modeling "" ? +Grad C: Yes . And I tacked on a little paragraph about the fact that the whole world calls that module a dis disc dialogue manager , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: and wouldn't it make sense to do this here too ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: And also Rainer M Malaka is going to be visiting us shortly , most likely in the beginning of June . +Professor D: Uh - huh , I 'll be gone . +Grad C: Yeah . He - he 's just in a conference somewhere and he is just swinging through town . +Professor D: Sure , OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} m making me incapable of going to NAACL , for which I had funding . But . No , no Pittsburg this year . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: When is the uh Santa Barbara ? +Professor D: S +Grad C: Who is going to ? uh should a lot of people . That 's something I will {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} sort of enjoy . +Professor D: Probably should go . That was {disfmarker} that 's one you should probably go to . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: How much does it cost ? +Grad C: There 's +Grad B: I haven't planned to go . +Professor D: Uh , probably we can uh {disfmarker} pay for it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Um a student rate shouldn't be very high . So , if we all decide it 's a good idea for you to go then you 'll {disfmarker} we 'll pay for it . +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Undergrad E: Then you can go . +Professor D: I mean I {disfmarker} I don't have a feeling one way or the other at the moment , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but it probably is . OK , great . +Grad B: Thanks . +","In this detailed conversation, members of a research team engage in a multifaceted discussion regarding their ongoing project. The dialogue primarily involves Grad C, Professor D, Grad B, and Undergrad E, with occasional contributions from Grad A and PhD F. The project seems to involve designing a dialogue system or a software application that aids in decision-making, potentially for tourists in a city. + +The conversation starts with Grad C asking for assistance with a technical issue regarding a screensaver, which leads to a brief exchange about the importance of keeping their machines operative during the meeting. They move on to discuss the anticipated arrival of a team member named Nancy and the need to address a screensaver issue Robert is experiencing. + +The group then discusses their project in more detail. Grad C presents a list of identified decision nodes and associated tasks, which appear to be key elements in their decision-making system. Tasks imply that a hypothetical user wants to visit certain locations, invoking the concept of ""EVA intention"" that seems linked to data collection. + +Professor D describes the goal for the day's meeting. They plan to focus on the semantics of the belief network which serves as the main inference engine deciding the parameters for calls on other modules. A substantial portion of the meeting involves reviewing the belief network and the relevant factors affecting decision-making such as user attributes, situational factors, and the financial state of the user, which influences their willingness to pay for certain activities. Grad C highlights the need for conditional probability graphs to predict user behavior in response to different costs. + +Next, the conversation touches upon the dialogue aspect of the project and the importance of eliciting natural language utterances from study participants. The need for a realistic, human-like interface for data collection is emphasized, and Fey's role as someone who can provoke natural responses is noted. They discuss the challenges in capturing the nuances of user intentions and differences between speaking to a machine versus a human. They also talk about the protocol for a speaker form and the technical aspects of the data collection process, including the breakdown of tasks and the interactions with the system. + +Issues relating to room reservations, data collection logistics, and the scope of acceptable responses from the system are addressed. The group deliberates over the structure of their tasks and tasks categorization, aiming to simulate real tourists' choices. They weigh the pros and cons of adding complexity to their experimental design. + +Furthermore, they consider recording and analyzing mock dialogues to understand phrasal constructions and language use. Grad B expresses a need to understand the syntactic constructions they should focus on, and there is mention of a parser being developed. + +In summary, the team is working on a complex system involving decision-making, natural language understanding, and data collection. They aim to model user intentions accurately, design a system that responds realistically, and collect data that reflects genuine speech patterns. Technical issues related to the system's functionality and operation are intertwined with broader scientific questions about user behavior and language usage." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL—skills, higher education and lifelong learning—and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that—I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now—Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the—well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper, 'Securing Wales' Future'. There has been ongoing work being done—as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions—so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success—and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects—the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a 'no deal' or in a 'deal' scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further. +Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the 'no deal' scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 'no deal'? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one. +Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a 'no deal' scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses. +Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined. +Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a 'no deal' has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a 'no deal' scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a 'no deal' on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it— +Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got— +Suzy Davies AM: —particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it? +Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges—I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education. +Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored—the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked. +Eluned Morgan AM: —the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see—just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit—then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about £15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this? +Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera. +Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about. +Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee—those kinds of ministerial arrangements. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU—it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a 'no deal' Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a 'no deal' Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a 'no deal' Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding—ESF funding—which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care—obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers, 'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?' and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a £10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time—we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector. +Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a 'no deal' would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year—that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates—we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that. +Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK. +Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring. +Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions. +Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University—if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible. +Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea? +Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important—and this is not about any one institution—what I think is really important is that we look to—. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right—so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want. +Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector. +Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor—but the others, not. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme. +Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: The additional £6.4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending? +Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of £5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and £5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level. +Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent. +Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able. +Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of £3.5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment. +Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam. +Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions—should they have a desire to participate—will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12? +Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee—there are so many committees these days—have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push? +Kirsty Williams AM: No—gosh—Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running—but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it—it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths. +John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need. +John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews—the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the 'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit? +Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships—it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges—we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and—? I'll stop there for the moment. +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to—. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying, 'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'—I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about £15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that—I don't think we should be—because they made some promises. +John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually—the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with—well, both your sectors, really? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's—. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today—the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get—that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment. +Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well—we mustn't forget that. +Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to—[Inaudible.] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF—the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a 'no deal' scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them—for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements—that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course—. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put £10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back—? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about— +Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: —fees—. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a 'no deal' scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement— +Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal— +Lynne Neagle AM: —then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","In the session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee chaired by Lynne Neagle AM, the committee addressed several issues concerning the impact of Brexit on higher and further education in Wales. Lynne Neagle acknowledged the apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders and welcomed new member Suzy Davies to the committee, expressing gratitude to former members Mark Reckless and Darren Millar for their previous contributions. + +The committee was addressed by Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, who were accompanied by Huw Morris, Group Director at SHELL (skills, higher education, and lifelong learning), and Marie Knox, Deputy Director overseeing European transition. The discussions tackled the state of readiness and preparedness of higher education institutions in the face of Brexit. + +Suzy Davies AM inquired about the sector analyses performed to gauge Brexit's impact and referenced research done by Cardiff University that had allegedly superseded prior sector analyses. Kirsty Williams AM explained the collaborative efforts with the higher and further education sectors to understand on-the-ground challenges, emphasizing the varied institution-specific impacts of Brexit in both 'no deal' or 'deal' scenarios. + +Huw Morris gave details on how the Higher Education Brexit Working Group and Welsh Government officials had been liaising with individual institutions to discuss their preparedness for a 'no deal' outcome, assuring that funds for activities like Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020 remained secured until December 2020 under such a scenario. + +The discussions shifted towards student recruitment, with the committee exploring the drop in EU student applications in Wales, the sustainability of funding arrangements in higher and further education, and the implications of relying on a year-to-year budgeting situation as opposed to the multi-year European funding structures which provided more security. + +Eluned Morgan AM emphasised the importance of maintaining the range of learning opportunities currently funded by EU money and expressed concerns about the potential impact of Brexit on apprenticeship programmes and the wider economy. The ongoing dialogue between FE institutions and employers via regional skills partnerships was highlighted, and Eluned Morgan AM asserted that the Welsh Government's targets for apprenticeships remained on track. + +There was also discussion around the UK Government's promises of funding commitments post-Brexit, specifically in relation to maintaining the level of funding opportunities in Wales. Eluned Morgan AM alluded to the shared prosperity fund and expectations that no financial commitments from the UK Government should necessitate any funding cutbacks due to Brexit. + +The meeting closed with assurance from Kirsty Williams AM that the higher education institutions retain the autonomy to set international fees in the absence of reciprocal arrangements made in a Brexit deal. Notably, the committee noted a comprehensive block of 18 papers, expressing the intent to address paper 18 in a private session. + +The session underscored Welsh Government's proactive approach to ensuring higher and further education institutions are vigilant and adaptable in the wake of Brexit uncertainties, while emphasizing the crucial need for clear and consistent funding commitments from the UK Government to uphold the robustness and quality of educational opportunities in Wales." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So in last meeting we have discussed the conceptual design and we asked you to prepare a prototype for the for the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {gap} . {vocalsound} So let's see the {disfmarker} what did you prepare . +User Interface: Yeah , so can you go out to the shared folder ? Mm the shared folder . +Project Manager: Sh share folder for th your presentation ? +User Interface: Yes . We have a presentation . +Project Manager: Because I have here {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I got the participant uh three . W uh {vocalsound} . Three . It's the final design , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay just one {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S so so I discussed with Guillaume . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Right . {vocalsound} And uh {vocalsound} so we have {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and we we are both agreed on some two versions of the prototypes , because we were no not decided whether we wanted to have an L_C_D_ or not because it's too expensive . So we come up with two versions . One with and one without L_C_D_s . Um but both comes with a charger and then detachable and uh or {gap} control module . And detachable big buttons for all people um . So {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S okay so I'll show you the the two prototypes {vocalsound} . Here we have the first one with the beautiful uh L_C_D_ um display . You you can s here . And you can uh just um browse into the the navigation menu by uh joystick joystick-like uh button . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You can uh choose the direction and if you just push on it it's considered like a enter function . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You have on the mm on the side here the microphone for the {vocalsound} for the speech recognition system here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And here the the switch that control if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why you why you you put it in the the side ? +Industrial Designer: Well I I I think uh it's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not a good place maybe {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: No i i it's the all around camer uh microphone isn't it . The the microphone picks up the speeches from anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it an only a single mic or a microphone array ? +Industrial Designer: Well so it's a microphone array . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it's very costly , microphone array {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's just a single microphone , and you {disfmarker} I I think uh we we put it here because I think when you when you are browsing your L_C_D_ you will be close to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well it's better to to to place it here th than here , for instance . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And here is a little switch that control if you want the the speaker uh recognition system to um to be on or off . And uh so this remote control comes up with its charger . +Project Manager: How much does it cost this one ? +Industrial Designer: Well this this prototype is um made for about uh well fi fi fifteen fifteen dollars +User Interface: For the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen dollars ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} fifteen dollars , +Project Manager: Ah it's above it's above the budget . +Industrial Designer: but uh well it's not it's not uh {disfmarker} yeah , but uh it's just a prototype and if we uh if we optimises the um the uh {disfmarker} voila . +Marketing: The cost would be le reduced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {gap} and the the production costs we we can achieve uh about ten dollars . {gap} +User Interface: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: How many b battery is there ? +Industrial Designer: How many , excuse me ? +Project Manager: Battery . +Industrial Designer: Well uh f battery , we use uh about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it n the two A_A_s batteries in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A_A_ rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable of course , +User Interface: Yeah rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: because we have the charger . +User Interface: We have the charger so it's no problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So one one battery ? +Industrial Designer: On uh yeah one battery . +Marketing: Is that two or one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's kinetic reserve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Actually uh it's a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You just n uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now what is the whole day rating for that ? +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} excuse me ? +Marketing: Whole day's rating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What type of battery ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah it's just a r uh simple battery a rechargeable uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: if you uh like it's exist . +Marketing: Something like a two A_ , A_ three size batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So and if you want to charge the battery you just put the remote control like that to plug in the the charger +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh leave it uh alone , it's alright . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} At uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then the next time you pick it , oh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it works {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I forgot to tell you there is only a single button there , b this button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah just explain the button uh Norman . +User Interface: yeah alright . This button is like the mouse {disfmarker} is like a joystick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you can move in three hundred and sixty degrees of direction so you can make a turn and it {disfmarker} the additi functions associated to all the actions you ma you have a click you have a double click all in a single button {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can move up , down , left , right , or you can do a swing . So a swing to the left , a swing to the right defines other functions . So even though it's a single button , but it is pretty s flexible because of the three hundred and sixty degree movement {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ is this one , on the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . This is the version y that comes with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Here I present another version without the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's not a good idea because after maybe one or two months of function is {gap} getting destroyed . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If you +User Interface: Uh okay this is new prototype uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we have the the second version also with the different uh button configuration . The second version is also simpler , we d uh we had just uh I have to put the microphone also {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically th it's the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh and also the switch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Basically it's the same uh things uh uh as uh I presented before . But here we have uh we have uh four buttons for navigation . Press one button uh acting as a a enter button . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um yeah according to what you said it's more robust to the user . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it's also cheaper to produce . We can produce uh such remote control for about uh four dollars . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No four dollars , it's {vocalsound} {gap} good . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think you forgot a point here to have an button to find the charger , +User Interface: Oh no +Marketing: because that's a major that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: th actually th we'll come to that point in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's it's embed in the uh speech recognition system . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: and if you disable speech recognition system then ? +User Interface: W w I'll I'll come to that point later on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so Norman will explain to you {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: And we will we will serve the charger with this ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah of course mm {gap} . +User Interface: Th they {vocalsound} either these with the {disfmarker} uh the the charger any +Project Manager: With the remote control . +User Interface: in either versions you they they ha they use the same charger yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the price of the charger included in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's a standard module so you should get it for a cheap price uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Thank thank you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's that same charger that you can use for the hand-phone but uh again depends on the types . I think we have to investigate more on that , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The price should be below twelve and a half Euro . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Well that's {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as the Marketing Manager says , people is willing to {disfmarker} people are willing to pay more for good design . +Project Manager: We have we have just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but the company is not willing to invest more at the moment . +Project Manager: The price of selling is twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the price of production {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright please uh go on Norman with the special features {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we'll we'll come up to that , the the the thing that makes this the controller cheap is that it is modular so you want more function you pay more . If you want less function i i if you want a reasonable price you pay for the functions that you add on to the system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so is uh modular . +Project Manager: That's for this basis function and if you want more you pay more . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: for example the L_C_D_ , you can take it you can put it {disfmarker} put it back in , or you can use the other one , +Marketing: Something like customised . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or {vocalsound} the speech recogniser with the microphone yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You want a microphone to put in the {vocalsound} speech recogniser you don't wan you pay less for the system you see {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm okay . +User Interface: It's pretty flexible in the yeah price {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You also have the the the two other modules for the parental control +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah yeah you should present that . +Industrial Designer: that that you ca you can add up {vocalsound} to the {disfmarker} to your remote control +Marketing: And this is other one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: i i if you uh if you want to to have more more power on what you do , and uh which channel you want to choose and so on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: H here is just the the the module for the kids and th if the parents want to watch T_V_ , up {disfmarker} they come up with their modules , +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: they just plug in it +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they can have all the control they want here . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We also have this module for uh old people with big buttons , clearly labelled , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it acts like the previous one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you just plug in and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the i the idea the the conceptual idea is that simplicity and powerful . Simplicity meaning that we have few buttons , powerful is that all the controls with {vocalsound} the one you saw we saw earlier in the meetings with lots of buttons n but here you only have few buttons but you retain the mm the same powerful functionalities . But in addition with simplicity . So that's the best idea , the cond that that's our uh an innovation um uh i in this uh design here {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay now we come to other important features that I did not tell you . The first one is the speech recogniser , again it's detachable or add-on . And then we also have security feature for example this here {disfmarker} oop {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's very robust {gap} , it doesn't break and the material , what's the material again ? +Industrial Designer: The titanium +Project Manager: Titanium . +Industrial Designer: and so it's very uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Again uh and the battery life is uh is an is an endurable one , again because this is A_A_ batteries you can choose the types of battery you want . +Marketing: Yeah that's fine . +User Interface: Lithium-ion may be a good one , but you can replace it with cheaper one , again you pay for what you get , and then um y the other p points are robust and misplacement reminder . So when you finish watching your T_V_ {vocalsound} and you the you t you turn off the T_V_ , uh and then there's this message coming out that uh please put that back to the charger , so so that's the {disfmarker} or is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: that's the reminder part . Yeah and um {disfmarker} And it also use a programmable channel and vocabulary , so we didn't define the vocabulary so it's up to the user to define +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then uh because of the chil because children are using the device so we have also a a {gap} of T_V_ programmes by genre , and this can be used by the adult or by the children . So instead of choosing the channel you are choosing the T_V_ contents of the night . So it's pretty powerful , and that's that's why the num buttons are reduced , because of this feature . Yeah . And {vocalsound} and for the materials that is cheap to produce I think uh it's quite clear from {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And also like the {gap} and the fancy designs yeah . +Project Manager: What what's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we can improve more on the design but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the price to p to produce ? +User Interface: {disfmarker} uh this is the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the price to produce {disfmarker} For uh the simplest one , say we start from four dollars to produce such a device . +Project Manager: With with with the charge ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's about it {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} without without the charger +Marketing: With the charger ? +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's about uh well two dollars to produce uh the microphone and speech recognition systems . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Two dollars for the uh for the add-on modules , and finally three dollars for the charger . So if you uh sum up uh everything wi with the L_C_D_ {vocalsound} , which costs two dollar , you have two plus four plus four plus two plus two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have charger . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we can use Excel {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's about {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't have all the options {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: so the total cost if you if you want all the fuct functionalities will be about uh fifteen dollars . +Project Manager: Charger we don't have charger here either . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No it's +Industrial Designer: But it's just if you want all functionalities . +Project Manager: it's below the the the budget . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Project Manager: It's below the bu the budget . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's a nice input +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we have an other inputs from the l public demands . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: I think we will just have a rough look and then we can make our statements , and we can finalise the product based on this discu +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can just go to my presentation then . We can wind up . Or we could uh come to some f uh final conclusions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So the marketing made an evaluation criteria and these were some of the findings , and uh in the market the people are not really interested with L_C_D_ , without L_C_D_ , with speech recognition interface , or without speech recognition interface , but most of the people what they are interested is {disfmarker} first thing is , they want to have an fancy look and feel , it should be very fancy with colourful and uh very handy to hold . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is it should be much more technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Of course in that we could put L_C_D_ or recognition to be more technologically innovative . And the third one is easy to use . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think that the technical in innovation is is in the product itself since we haven't yet a remote who are allowing to to choose interactively with the T_V_ screen uh uh with just four buttons . +Marketing: Okay and if we go to the next slide , here you can find {disfmarker} these are the latest fashion updates , and so this {disfmarker} in Paris and Milan {gap} they have detected this trends that the this year it's going to be an year of fruit and vegetable , so people are really interested to see if they have an remote in the shape of the fruit or a vegetable , or whatever they like . +User Interface: Spongy spongy . Mm mm . +Marketing: So I think it should be much more customised to make a different uh shapes . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is , and if the material , they really do not want it to be very hard , as in the case of very pl plastic or titanium , it should be somewhat spongy . +User Interface: But the the problem is that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it robust to mishandling ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We have {disfmarker} you should find a material that is robust at the same time spongy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: A sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah so uh {vocalsound} so finally we have these three criterias . +User Interface: Spongy {vocalsound} . +Marketing: One is fancy look , second is innovative , and third is easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the f uh three criteria on which we are going to build our remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} and we have an evaluation criteria for each one of these , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: say that we have a seven point scale , from one to seven , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and for each of the product you could just give me the scale according to this . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now you have with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so on this scale , if it is true , if it is {disfmarker} if it has a fancy look you could just tell me one , or if it is false , it doesn't {disfmarker} it looks uh {disfmarker} it doesn't look much fancy , then you could just tell me seven . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We can make our study on this and {disfmarker} +User Interface: so is the e evaluation depending on us or other users ? +Marketing: No no we have {disfmarker} you have designed two products now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: one is with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But who will give the scoring uh we ourself or or a third party ? +Project Manager: You . +Marketing: According to you , no according to you designers , how will feel {disfmarker} does it uh with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay let us make this L_ and without L_C_D_ . On on this scale the L_C_D_ remote control . How do you look {disfmarker} how does it look ? +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: D is it very fancy or doesn't look much fancy ? +Industrial Designer: Well it doesn't look much fancy I'll I'll say three or four . +Marketing: And you both agree for that ? +Project Manager: And you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can improve on the design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som someone um commented this is like a the stone age uh {gap} {vocalsound} design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um we have been focused all all this {vocalsound} time on the {vocalsound} on the technical aspect , functional aspect , but also the simplicity . +Industrial Designer: Technical aspects . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: As for the design maybe we c should hire a designer to help {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So I take three on {disfmarker} with L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a three . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ how would you rate it ? +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh four . I think it's it's uh more easy to make f fancy things when it's not complicated +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: so removing the L_C_D_ um gives us a li more liberty to to have a fancy look . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: And in the sense of innovativeness , with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Well it's it's the same for both so {vocalsound} I will give a five , six . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Five with L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well five also uh {disfmarker} Norman please . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: from the innovation aspect I feel that uh what is most innovative of our prototype compared to the existing prototypes that we saw l in the last meeting is that um {vocalsound} the retrieval of T_V_ programmes by content , because uh that is really innovative , and for now {disfmarker} and another innovation we have is simplicity and {disfmarker} simplicity , few buttons , we've uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A lot of functionalities . +Industrial Designer: With lot of functionalities . +User Interface: So that is uh that is uh for both th +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Our gi I think that the our our product is uh has the best in all {disfmarker} well this is a biased judgement {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because we designed them . +Marketing: No no according to design aspect we want to know how would you feel the innovativeness ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the innovation is v is very high I think . +Project Manager: For L_C_D_ . +Marketing: With L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: And without L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm for both it's the the same innovations . +User Interface: For both . It's the same innovation . So maybe I can put six to seven . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} six , let's go for six . +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: No actually uh to make it with L_C_D_ you make more efforts . So I {disfmarker} there is high innovativeness included if you make it with L_C_D_ y +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then when it is without L_C_D_ there is not much innovativeness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no innovative yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh uh there w there was a there was a issue here is that what are what is the display on the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: So we can't go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Talk about {disfmarker} +User Interface: We haven't really uh determined {vocalsound} what are {disfmarker} actually actually +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean that what you are sayin that's what the design {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's good to have a L_C_D_ but what are we gonna display on a L_C_D_ ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's like this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean on the L_C_D_ , according to what I understand from your model is , you have a joystick here , and you have L_C_D_ , you just press your joystick , you get here a programme . +Project Manager: So let's remove it . +User Interface: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you have the same programme on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: Uh then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Project Manager: This is the problem . +Marketing: No on the T_V_ you don't it doesn't display on the T_V_ now . +Industrial Designer: If you have the L_C_D_ , but if n +Marketing: L_C_D_ ? Then uh there is no meaning in having it on the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or then again you have a channels , volume and all the stuff and what a +User Interface: But you cannot display all on a L_C_D_ . +Marketing: I mean that depends upon your design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Anyway for for the users who who who opt for L_C_D_ {vocalsound} we'll give them the give them the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: we give what the customer uh wants , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ you want to put it fi the same level of innovativeness ? And which {gap} do you recommend e easy to use , with L_C_D_ or without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think both are really easy to use because there are few button buttons , +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh well t p the menu are clear , well-organised , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well with little knowing of the technology you can you can easily use the product +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I will give a six for the easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's just if I I see the the f the rate I think it's better to do it without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's with L_C_D_ just will increase the price , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I thi i they have the same rate so without L_C_D_ it will be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or we can just go back to the previous slide uh where we ha we have a few updates . So I mean in the product design you could just amend it to make some few changes +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: according to fruit and vegetable or a spongy touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: without L_C_D_ and without speech recognition . Even then our product is going to be very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper to produce . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh if the the {disfmarker} well if we have less technology we have more liberty to uh for the shape and uh things like that so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . I have another thing to say about the easy to use aspect . I think the easy to use uh aspect is different for different people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For the young generation easy to use may be very complicated +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: because uh they w they wants lot of controls with lots of buttons . For kids they want simply the {gap} s similarit for the old people they want simplicity , +Marketing: Yeah yeah that's right . +User Interface: so that's why {vocalsound} we have the parental module . Uh we can ha have {disfmarker} build a more complex design if if they want it , but but uh what I'm trying to say here is that the um {disfmarker} we have different sets of buttons for different kinds of people . So in terms of easy to use I think it's very user customisable . User customisation is very important yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ I just take it five ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: W uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you want it to be six ? +User Interface: I think it's the same . +Industrial Designer: Um six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes as you say , with better uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +Marketing: S s oh I think it's better to have this without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . And to improve the the look . +Marketing: As our Programme Manager s Pro Project Manager says that without L_C_D_ it is going to reduce the cost also , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and it's going to be much simpler to use . +Industrial Designer: Yes and to give us more liberty to have a fancy look so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so let's go back to our laboratory and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} To improve on the design . +Project Manager: What a what what about the sys speech recognition ? +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: {gap} what about the integration of speech recognition ? +User Interface: Huh ? The speech recogniser is a add-on module . Right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's going to be an optional . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wants to buy it they can have it , otherwise no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah so it's optional with the {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: It's an optional . +Industrial Designer: It's optional yeah , since well according to this study uh people more {vocalsound} likes more to have a spongy uh {vocalsound} remote control than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it will be {disfmarker} I think i +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it will be better if we have all these modules in the same remote control , because maybe parents will lose these uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean if you have an add-ons , the kids may just uh hide the parental module +Project Manager: Yeah . Or ma yeah . +Marketing: and so that their parents can't use it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or maybe parents they can for forget where they put it or , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: so mayb better if you have all this in the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: In the same set , yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: and and individual buttons to make them work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The problem is if i we are bla if a customer wants a certain component , and doesn't want the parental control because it's a couple who do not have children {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when you sell the product in the market you could meet any kind of people , and not all people will need all the functionalities we propose to them . So we might lose the customer because of this . I don't know , +Project Manager: So you mean that even if these modules will be will be functional {disfmarker} uh will be optional . +User Interface: what do you think uh ? Yes exa what do you think , I don't know . You are Marketing Manag {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean how to how to how to make a marketing survey that uh how many married couple {disfmarker} or how many couples have a T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or to the number or singles who have a television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So based on that I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the the question is n does those modularity increase the production cost or decrease the production cost ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it inc increase . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you can {gap} {disfmarker} if you had uh something li +Project Manager: I think it i increases . +Industrial Designer: Oh no , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because if you if you add uh something {disfmarker} well yeah maybe because it's three different pieces uh to to to build but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But you can make it on a single P_C_ with three different options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's I think it's cheaper if you if you already built the all the {vocalsound} functionalities um on the same module , but uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: On the same P_C_B_ +User Interface: Well well the other aspect is that if {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} when they have the ar existing product you you gonna maintain the the {disfmarker} you're gonna keep the same customer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah yeah . +User Interface: because the same customer will come back to buy other add-ons . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: So so {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you could just provide with an optional {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah i i so if don't don't buy now they can buy i in the future . So in in that way you're actually keeping the cus the same customer , attracting them to come back in again and again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's something like a Microsoft product {vocalsound} update . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and we we we we we we don't want that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not trying to follow the Microsoft and we don't want to the m {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Updates and we sell it . We make updates and sell it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well if the buyers can be up the th would be {disfmarker} can be upgraded , it would be a good thing right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it depends on the v production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh what's the idea about uh the shape of the remote controls ? +Industrial Designer: Well so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh can they be made into a fruit and vegetable types ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: Do you require different types of P_C_B_s and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah but we are also the um well the components will have to change because uh we have to deal with the shape and um {disfmarker} but I don't think it will uh increase the cost too much so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or uh it could be like this {disfmarker} the P_C_B_ would be the same for all , but only the exterior uh shape is different o for all . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh well but it's a bit complicated to {disfmarker} if if if you need machines to {disfmarker} different machines to um ah well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . What we can change is to propose the {vocalsound} customers with skins . For example the i the mobile phones nowaday , they sell different kinds of skin +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's right . +User Interface: and then people just feel that oh I have a new skin and looks better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah we can have the same global shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh add on skins and with with this uh tex spongy texture uh things like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah you can pl in what material would that be in uh ? +Industrial Designer: Sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think you need to look into the material . +User Interface: Yeah or furry like a pet dog kind of thing {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we finished the prototype uh presentation if you have uh something else to say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think the Project Manager would be interested to look about the financial issues in making these models . +Project Manager: {gap} Project evaluation project satisfaction , for example . I don't know , we have to ask these question . We have to give answers so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I suppose that you {gap} this criteria , is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Project evaluation . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Room for creativity . This room is a bit small , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} but I think it's okay for us to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I feel it's fine , we know we don't need uh {disfmarker} I think it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: That was good . +Marketing: This is fine for making a presentat for project presentations . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah anyway we have the laboratory nearby to build our modules so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And the leadership was excellent . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good job {vocalsound} good job . +Industrial Designer: Fine yes uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He gave you the liberty to talk as you wants {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh the teamwork was very very good . I was really {disfmarker} I am very satisfying to work with with you . +Industrial Designer: Very democratic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: And new ideas found . Any new ideas to make these presentations more interactive and more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Come up with new product {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean uh what type of product would you think {disfmarker} could we make this more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm we {disfmarker} I I know something , we need more cakes , more biscuits on the table while we have meetings . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and also more well uh {vocalsound} more seriously I think it's it's a good idea to have uh clear clear points whenever we do a meeting +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh prior to the meeting to have uh well a list with the points who will be discussed or things like that , but I think it's alright . We achieved uh project goal I think . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: De +Marketing: that is within the budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's w yes , more or less . +Marketing: And the evaluation was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Without without L_C_D_ , without speech recognition , it will be simple . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . So . +Marketing: And the next is celebration . +Industrial Designer: So uh coffee machine . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} free free coffee +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright then , we finished ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah thank you for your work and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah thank you , thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you very much . +","In a project meeting, the team discussed a remote control prototype. The Industrial Designer and User Interface designer presented two versions—one with an LCD screen and one without—highlighting features like joysticks, speech recognition, and special modules for children and the elderly. They stressed modularity and affordability, with estimates around $15 for production but a potential to decrease costs. The Project Manager raised concerns about staying within budget, while Marketing emphasized the need for a fancy, innovative design that's easy to use. They discussed materials, design changes, and add-on modules' pros and cons. The meeting ended with a positive outlook on the project's direction and a call for future improvement ideas." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is that alright now ? {vocalsound} Okay . Sorry ? Okay , everybody all set to start the meeting ? Okay , we've got half an hour for this one um to uh discuss the um functional design . +Marketing: Could you plug me in ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: All ready to go ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so hopefully you've all been working away , and I've put the minutes of the last meeting in the project folder . Um so I guess just to to recap on uh what we did last time . Um kind of uh got to know each other a little bit and uh got familiar with all the equipment and started to discuss um a bit about the project , you know , cost-wise how much how much money we had to s Um just want to tell you that you have three new requirements , which is the {disfmarker} The first one {vocalsound} is that um uh the company's decided that teletext is outdated uh because of how popular the internet is . Nobody uses teletext very much anymore , so we don't really need to consider that in the functionality of the {disfmarker} of the remote control . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um they've also suggested that we um we only use the remote control to control the television , not the V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ or anything else . I think the worry is that if the project becomes too complex then it'll affect um how long it takes us to get it into into production , the time to market . So um , we're just gonna keep it simple and it'll just control the T_V_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And the other thing was that the company want the corporate colour and slogan to be implemented in the new design . Um I'm not entirely sure what the corporate colour is . It might be yellow , because there seems to be a lot of yellow everywhere . +Marketing: And the slogan , like the actual written slogan , or just to embody the idea of the slogan ? +Project Manager: Well that's the thing , I'm I'm not sure um {vocalsound} uh th because on the the company website , uh what does it say {disfmarker} Uh something {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Bout putting the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean do they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is that something they want actually written on it , 'cause it's quite long . Um or yeah , just the idea , but I'm not sure . So that's something we can discuss as well . So those are the three things , just not to worry about teletext , uh only control the T_V_ , and um and uh incorporate the uh colour and slogan of the company . Um so is everybody okay with any of that , or do you want me to recap at all ? +Industrial Designer: Nope , we're all set . +Project Manager: Right um , time for presentations then . Who would like to go first ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Alright um , can I st steal this from the back of your laptop ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , of course , yeah . G go on ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} so this is the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Right {gap} to do the um {vocalsound} the design I have I've had a look online , I've had a look at the homepage , which has given us um some insp inspiration from previous products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um I've had a look at the previous products to see what they offer and um I would like to ask you guys for um {vocalsound} your ideas about the design at the end of the meeting . Um unfortunately we're not allowed to talk outside the meeting room , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um , having a look at the existing products , I found out that um it tends to come in sort of two extremes , there's either um a very complicated one that's got lots of buttons , lots of colours , very confusing , you don't know what you're doing . {vocalsound} Um in that case the the labelling tends to be very bad . Um there's an example I'll show you at the end , um {gap} sh show you now . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} here um the button there and there . This one's prog . Sorry . That one's perg and that one's prog , and it doesn't really tell you what it does . Um , not sure if you had a a look at the other um control in that example . Um it's a very simple one . It's got only the basic functions mm but um {vocalsound} it's the same size as the the hard to use one . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it looked a bit clunky . They're very big and not very much use for {gap} buttons . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} and it's just very hard to access the advanced functions . There's there's nothing for instance for a slow motion button . Um , my own preferences , I prefer the the clunky one . Um it's very easy to use . Um but unfortunately it does lack the advanced functions which I I quite like having on the controls . {vocalsound} Um so I believe the the advanced functions should maybe be hidden in a drawer , or something like tha {gap} from the bottom of it . So , {vocalsound} now I'd like to ask for your preferences . Um not sure of how long we've got , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . Well we can chat away for uh for five minutes or so I think at at most . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Just a couple of minutes anyway . +Marketing: M yeah , like a lot of a lot of what I've um read and prepared for this meeting fits in really closely with what with what Craig's just gone over . So in part I could I could give you some of my personal preferences but I could also th add some to this which is just about sort of um sort of market research . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But anyway , +Project Manager: Shall we sh well we'll stick to kind of your area for now . +Marketing: um we might come to that later . +Industrial Designer: Which which is the clunky one , the one on left or on the right?. . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , the clunky one is the one on the right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um clunky in what sense , like um h heavier ? Larger ? +User Interface: Um I think it's supposed to be the same size , but um it's got much fewer buttons . It's , you know , it's very spread out +Marketing: I see , so it's more just basic . +Project Manager: Looks kind of {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: and kind of {disfmarker} you know +Marketing: Right , okay . +User Interface: , I get the idea it'd be sort of about this size . {vocalsound} {gap} got very few buttons on it and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a valid point . I mean like the one on the left looks quite um quite complicated , and that P_R_T_ p P_R_O_T_ thing is incredibly confusing . Um so I see I see why yo you know you might prefer the simpler design , but yeah you don't want to lose out on , you know , what it does , so maybe you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know you get a lot of remote controls where you kind of flip the thing open , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} do we have any functions that um we'd want on it ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean so far I've got um on and off , um switch the channel up and down , and put the volume up and down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh . +User Interface: Um they're just the the very basics you could use for a T_V_ . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then actual numbers for channels as well , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um , you say that's a h a required one or a requested one ? Would you like +Marketing: Which was that ? +User Interface: um the channels like the the numbers on thing , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Up {disfmarker} the numbers , or the up down ? +Project Manager: God , I wou I would say that's required , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean there's no way anybody's gonna buy a remote control these days when if you can't actually individually select channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean would anybody disagree with that ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , what else , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So don't need to worry about teletext , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: don't need to worry about V_C_R_ , uh any kind of like display controls at all do you think we need to worry about , +Marketing: We don't ? No ? +Project Manager: you know like brightness and contrast ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well I think I think es essentially what we're doing right now is we're categorising . We're saying well we want this to be a product that offers all the sort of more tricky features but we want them to be in another area ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is that what we're we're doing ? +User Interface: Um , yeah . +Marketing: We're kind of like sorting them an Or are we actually eliminating things we just don't want the product to have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} are you are you maybe kind of thinking what we absolutely have to have and what would be nice ? +User Interface: Uh , to start with um sort of a bit both , um we need to find out exactly what we have to have +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um and after that we can add things if they're possible . +Project Manager: Okay , right . Well , do you wanna maybe just , at this point decide on what we absolutely must have as a p as a function of this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so so far , just to recap you've got volume and channel control and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: There's um on and off , um volume and channel , and skip to certain channels with the numbers . +Project Manager: Right okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one one way I would look at this um would be that we a approach the different controls in terms of um like control types , so that for the user it's very clear what they want to do where they go . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm yeah . +Marketing: Uh and also think maybe a little bit about sorta w w what would just wanna be acc easily accessible . +Project Manager: Oka +Marketing: For example if we had audio controls , those could be something people set up very rarely . Maybe they're un they're they're they're in a little area but covered up um , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: things like channel and volume um are used all the time , so we just have them right out on top , um very just very sort of self-explanatory . Um so maybe we need to think about having three or more groupings of controls , you know like one which are just the the habitual ones that should be right within your natural grip . And others that are uh also available +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then others that are concealed . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Uh well , just to to wrap up quickly on this this little section {disfmarker} Have I just lost {disfmarker} Oh no . Um , uh do you think maybe that's the only kind of uh essential requirements , and then maybe just things that would be nice if it could do would be things like audio set up and display set up and things like that , maybe like a mute button , that sort of thing . Any of {disfmarker} you anything to add to that at all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: I'll add it later , I guess {gap} the presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if we can move on to next presentation then please . Um +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Do you wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you want to switch places ? +Marketing: Can this can this pl reach ? Can this plug come across ? +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Project Manager: Probably not , actually . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So why don't I just pick up and move then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Here , I'll just {vocalsound} Why don't I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just just switch them . +Marketing: Mm er , can you go up behind me ? Kinda {disfmarker} This is so {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} bit complicated . It'd be nice if everything was wireless , wouldn't it ? +Marketing: I'm all in a knot now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . So I can I can say already , I dunno whether this is for good or for bad but there'll be a lot of kind of uh redundancy in the in the the issues and the the uh {vocalsound} the things . +Project Manager: Oh , like overlap between what you said ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh well , for all you know that {disfmarker} that'll happen . +Marketing: Which is ma not necessarily a bad thing , but may what I've already started doing is cr I created a slide in in my presentation here so um so that we kind of think well what's the cumulative effect of what we've taken from your ideas and and mine , because certainly I I have a hard time separating separating things completely . +Project Manager: Mm hard to know what {disfmarker} where your role ends , yeah . +Marketing: Obviously obviously what you've just told me what you've just told me impacts a lot on what um like market research mm that that I've been {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So how do I how do I get this up ? +Industrial Designer: Um function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Uh pr yeah , press function and F_ eight , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Alright . So {disfmarker} F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: Function , the blue button . Next to the control on the left . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , and F_ eight . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to push it together . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , I think that that's doing it now . +Industrial Designer: Nope . Try that again . +Marketing: Uh , again ? +Industrial Designer: Wait . +User Interface: Think maybe the the wire in the back might be loose . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} Oh oh here we go . +Marketing: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yep , there we go . +Project Manager: There you go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} okay great . Okay . Just um {disfmarker} Before I bring this up what I'll just say is um what I've what I've done is tried to collect some information so that I can then relay this to to you guys so that it's {disfmarker} now becomes a collective thing . And then kind of lead us in the direction of deciding , 'kay what what are our options , what should we decide and do you know what I mean , so . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Increase that 'cause we can't see the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's much better . +Project Manager: Right . Can you um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . That would be {disfmarker} Okay . So um does that make sense ? So what I basically got is I just looked into some information and sort of th tried to think about how how we could review it and how we could {disfmarker} and what kind of decisions we could take away from it and then maybe by the end of just looking at some of these things we can think about what are our priorities . 'Cause certainly there's lots of different information to go through . So um I'm thinking here about uh primarily about customer needs , that we start with the customer , and w you know , what they want and what are issues with with um existing products . Uh to think about trends and also about {disfmarker} try and connect that as you see with the company vision which is about fashion in electronics . Um and then , as I say uh w we'd like to prioritise our design features from this and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bouncing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So this is what I've found here , um a lot of this is new to me , so we'll just read through together . Um , users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls . So they find them ugly . Most people find them ugly . Um {vocalsound} the vast majority would spend more money for it to look fancy as well , we'll see later , the vast majority would spend more money for um slightly more intuitive control , such as voice recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay I'm gonna {disfmarker} we'll look at that in a second . Um most people use only a f a very slim portion of all the controls . So I guess what we're looking at here is people want this h technology , they tend to use the most simple controls and overall they find remote controls to be something they don't {disfmarker} doesn't really appeal to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think what we're doing is we're trying to take like {disfmarker} if for me this is sorta like three different different um inspirations , you know , one is that we want uh something that's high-tech but we want it to seem easy . And in spite of the primitive side of it and the very high-tech side , we want it to just be an appealing piece of equipment in people's hands . Um , {vocalsound} frustrations . They get lost a lot , s as it came up in our last meeting . Um , takes time to learn how to use them . This is uh why I mention when Craig was uh showing us some ideas that we actually try and group controls , so d it doesn't just look like a big panel , kinda like when you you look at , you know , a new computer keyboard , or something that is quite explanatory . If you want audio , if you want visual , then you have those . Um and I will admit I don't know what R_S_I_ stands for . +Project Manager: Repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Is installing a new remote control something that people {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , no , that did not come up at all . Um so here here is another um sort of a a review here of the main things . I also found that most people would uh adults at least would pay more for voice recognition . Now apparently we do have access to all the tech cutting edge technology in remote control . So I dunno if that's possible we might consider getting into it . Um . {vocalsound} And and again here as we sort of move m sort of thin start thinking about how we wanna sell and market this , I think a recurring theme here is the company wants it to be {disfmarker} wants us to make something that's fashionable and sleek and trendy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um people {vocalsound} uh additionally aren't aren't liking the appearance of their products , so we wanna think about as we take all the sort of the techie features how we can um put that into a unit which is which people like . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You know , they like the aesthetics and the ergonomics . +Project Manager: So want something that looks good and is easy to use , big priorities . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , so you know just c looking at what what Craig um Craig's i uh ideas are s sorta tell me that maybe what we wanna do is try and um separate the different things that we wanna include in this . So if we do say well we want there to be all the technology will we try and make that almost be like optional technology . You know , it's like like I find a lot of T_V_s these days , something really like about 'em is if you wanna just turn 'em on and off you can , but they have little panels where you click and there's just like tons of features you go through . +Project Manager: Mm . So it {disfmarker} you wanna group all the different kind of types of functions together , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . That's s that's sort of the um {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} my hope here is that I'm putting out this information so that we can then say okay , well how do we collectively move on with it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Um I I haven't brought out one specific marketing idea , although my sense is that what we should try and think about is what are the current trends in materials and shapes and styles , and then use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But not let that confine us technologically . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Marketing: So Alright ? Any um comments on all of that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , um one of the things that we have to decide on by the end of the meeting is who we're gonna be um {disfmarker} who's our our target audience , our target market . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , so if we want something that that looks good and is easy to use , but has y is fairly powerful product , whatever , who do we really want to aim that at ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: I mean {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where's the money , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , who wou who would have the money to spend . Well i if if like twenty five Euro is our is our selling price then you can imagine , +Marketing: Yeah . And who watches T_V_ . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well I don't {disfmarker} I'm not really sure how much that will retail at . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But you want {disfmarker} it's somebody who's not gonna just use the remote that comes with their telly , I suppose , they're gonna actually go out and buy one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , who do you think we're aiming this at ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think it'll be the mid range to the high end market , in terms of people . 'Cause twenty five Euros for a remote , how much is that lo locally in pounds ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's about sixteen , seventeen pounds , I think . +Industrial Designer: Is that too {disfmarker} is that a lot of money to buy an extra remote or a replacement remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so maybe not the high end range , but maybe middle , middle up-ish . Kind of . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know how much ? I dunno I guess you pay , what , ten ten quid for a remote ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like a simple replacement , right . I mean if you lost your remote and the first thing you just wanna go out and get , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: would you {disfmarker} how much would you pay ? +Marketing: This this kinda touches on your comments there , David . These are the age groups which we have information on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and these are {disfmarker} this is a table of h what people would pay more for a certain feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay +Marketing: Just gives us a rough idea of where the w the will to spend money on T_V_ equipment is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mostly focused around the twenty five age group . +Project Manager: Yeah , so do you think we're we're aiming at a fairly young market then ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Sort of young professional , kind of . Mm-hmm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you think then uh voice recognition is something we should really seriously consider ? What what do you think , Craig ? +User Interface: Well , did you not say it was the the adults that were going for the the voice recognition ? Sort of the the older group . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , it's the {disfmarker} Yep . +User Interface: Uh f +Marketing: It does it does fit with the market that we're sort of identifying , +Project Manager: N yeah . +Marketing: in terms of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we are gonna have to narrow it down , to say let's target these people and give them what they want +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and 'cause you know , there needs to be some kind of selling point to it . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: So um anybody {disfmarker} anything there to add {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just kind of young professionals , uh th like {vocalsound} if we are going to include speech recognition , it's kind of between fifteen and thirty five seems to be like a really high response to that . So we could say that was our target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I I think twenty five to thirty five is is is fair to add that in as a group as well +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because that's more than half your group of people who are willing to at least try and use your technology . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so fifteen to thirty five , look fairly young . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , they have bit of expendable income to spend on this sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think perhaps that age group is significant as well because those are people who use the computer , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: who are familiar with their {disfmarker} with computers in in their everyday work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think people who are maybe about {disfmarker} I wouldn't say thirty five , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but people who are about forty-ish and above now would not be so dependent and reliant on a computer or a mobile phone or something like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: So these are people who are gadgety , right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: People who are u growing up used to , you know in schools and in universities , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: when you go on to their working lives , people who would you know regular +Project Manager: Yeah . So they'll not sh not shy away from something quite high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: That that's that's a good point . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so shall we make the decision uh to include speech recognition +Marketing: If we can . +Industrial Designer: I I think one thing we should try not to avoid is not to say we have to use speech recognition right now , +Project Manager: if we can . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because um , based on what you've go y everybody's saying , right , you want something simple . +Project Manager: Okay . Why is that ? +Industrial Designer: You want basic stuff and you want something that's easy to use . Speech recognition might not be the simplest thing for somebody to use . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could it be an on off thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um , +Marketing: Like if you want it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but what I'm saying is that we're we're trying to lock ourselves into a s particular kind of technology , +Project Manager: Where you can activate it and deactivate it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: rather than focusing on on exactly what are the features that we're gonna say , and then , you know , say speech recognition is good for this , speech recognition is not good for this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I suggest that we think about speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: anyway it's a {disfmarker} it's something that can be used to fulfil a function , but at end of the day we don't look at the technology , but we look at the function first . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Sure . Yep . +Project Manager: Uh okay , well do you wanna um give us your presentation +Industrial Designer: Okay , sure . +Project Manager: and then then we can {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: um might have been a good idea to all deliver our presentations and then discuss , but this is this is how we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's good {disfmarker} well it's good to get ideas out while they're fresh in mind . +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh it's something that's just occurred to me as well is if we make it um speech reco if we incorporate speech recognition , that's appealing to people um maybe with a physical disability as well . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . And not losing . And also it helps in terms of people not losing this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know they {disfmarker} they're saying oh it's {disfmarker} I lose it in the couch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} like we're kind of what we're b sort of getting in into here is mating different uh design features together +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that they {disfmarker} +User Interface: I reckon one problem with speech recognition is um I've actually seen one of them used and uh the technology that was in that one wasn't particularly amazing , so you end up yelling at the control for hours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? +User Interface: Channel up . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really , you've seen one before . +Project Manager: Do you think maybe we need like further advances in that kind of area until it's worthwhile incorporating it though ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it'd probably quite expensive to put in . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , do you mind passing me my notepad . +Project Manager: Mm . Course not . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . Cool , +Project Manager: There you go . +Industrial Designer: um . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just the working design um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just what {disfmarker} how I would go about it . Um I guess I try to define like what we're doing now , try to define what we're trying to get done . Um I think in a practical way , we kind of know what it is . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: We've used it , we're familiar with it , but we're {disfmarker} we can't n we haven't narrowed down um exactly what the things we're trying to fulfil , like {disfmarker} Besides the basics , I think back {disfmarker} in the back of our minds we know what the basics are . Has to change channels , has to change volume , but in like specifics , right , which one of the basics are you trying to target . Um are there certain parts of the basics that are more important or less important than the basics ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and I just {disfmarker} the idea is just to get everybody to um {disfmarker} I usually {vocalsound} have a have have a design that's there as a basic , so , you know , things that {disfmarker} to start everything going . But I guess everybody does have some idea , so I don't think um there's a need for that . Um okay this finding things is a little bit confusing , so I'll go into the diagram first . It just explains how the process goes through , from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: from the basic technology point of view , the basic steps that you need um in the diagram and in this slide probably works better . Um okay , you need some power source . 'Kay , a battery or something , to keep it going . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and that power source is important because it ties you down to um how long the device will last . Um it ties you down perhaps a bit later on in terms of the technologies +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um how far you can transmit the signal or the complexity of the functions that you want . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like for example , voice recognition , right . That might be constrained because that {disfmarker} you might need to power a microphone , you might need to power other things , so that's one perhaps constraint there . Um {vocalsound} Th Okay , the basic thing is there's a user interface where people punch a button or talk into it or smile to it or blink their eyes , whatever . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know , and that um picks up an input from a user , um uh a logic {disfmarker} a series of logic has to decide what the user is telling the device , and the device has to r you know , based on you push button A_ , so I will do something with button A_ . So maybe button A_ is the power button , okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and then it needs to be able to send the signal out to the device itself which is the receiver here . Um and I think that's about it in terms of my design um . It's fairly general , um and I guess the purpose of this is also not to restrict you in in the way you're thinking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like um voice recognition , right , um , if it's something which is important then we just add more power rather than having a thing that we don't have enough power . So it's not really a constraint in that sense , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I mean these are functionally , you know , the base , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what the technology has to do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so I guess the rest of it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think we should maybe you you wanna go back to what the functions are ? I think that's more relevant to a discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Well , do you wan do you wanna finish up your your whole presentation then ? +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w I'm done . +Project Manager: Are you are you all done ? +Industrial Designer: More or less . Yeah . Ps Oh , it's just putting the rest of it into words , but it's essentially the same thing . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um you have a transmitter , an input device , logic chip , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you know , stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: And like on the {disfmarker} means {disfmarker} b +Industrial Designer: I guess this would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Since we're on the topic of the technology , uh are there any like {disfmarker} what are our options ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Alright , what's what i in {disfmarker} Is this the only way that we go about it , or are there other thin +Industrial Designer: Um , these these aren't technology options in that sense . This is just um +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: a basic principles and basic components that are needed . +Marketing: The basic principle of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: For example , if you needed um if you needed to add uh a voice recognition , right , then your user interface would be split , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: broken down into more components , right , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which you have a microphone , the V_R_ and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Oh . So this just show how we're kind of modularising the whole thing . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh Yep . Yep . So each component represents one function , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I think the basic functions are the logic , the transmitter , um and the receiver , okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the power are things that you won't have to care about . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and those are things that based on what your user interface requires then we'll add more functionality to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um there might be one other consideration which would be that the the transmission between the remote control and the T_V_ for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um are we gonna restrict ourselves to using the traditional technologies of infra-red thing ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because that's something you need to actually be physically be pointing to . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well well a worry that was was expressed in the new requirements was that if we made this too complex it would e it would effect um how long how long it took us to get this to market , so I th suspect it might be a good idea just to restrict our kind of our creative influence on this on the user interface and not worry so much about uh how we transmit it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: um because I mean it it's tried and tested intra-red , so we could stay with tha +Industrial Designer: There might be one other problem with the transmission , um in particular right now , since we're talking about voice recognition . Um if somebody's gonna h talk to the device , you ideally want them to hold it to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: I it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you may not require that , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but you know , um it's it's +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: it's something very natural , I guess , you know , to hold it , to signal to the user , +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and push a button maybe to start s talking about it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then you need to send the signal out , so because if you're using infra-red , the line of sight um say the T_V_'s at that chair , and I'm standing in front of here and the transmitter is here , it blocks it . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So in that sense , there's not really a restriction +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it's something which you may have to think about later on in the process . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not so much further down . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And um just a clarification before we finish this . Uh does c is our controller is it have the option of being um on a standard uh frequency as all of the other equipment , so that the one controller can control several pieces of equipment ? +Industrial Designer: There's there's not much specific specific information , +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: but I think that um one indication of infra-red mean that you're just targeting traditional devices . Because infra-red is something which everybody has . +Project Manager: Yeah . W Well well we've um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: In the new requirement spec they said just to focus on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just to T_V_ , okay . +Project Manager: so that's what we should do for now I think . Something I was wondering about was the power . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , is it worth considering like having like a charging unit as opposed to just regular batteries ? I mean is that something we really want to go into , do you think , +Industrial Designer: There's a there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or should we just consider running on regular batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , from from a from a component point of view there's added complexity , and you add cost to it , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um and then there's probably the fact that you need another physical component . You need a docking cradle , for example , for you to put it in to charge . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or you need to get the user to plug it in . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um and most users are very f use already used to the idea of buying batteries and putting it into the controller . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But unless the controller's gonna consume a lot of batteries , like he's gonna run through like twenty batteries a month , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then I don't think rechargeable is something we should {disfmarker} you know , we really need to care about . +Project Manager: Okay , so just stick to to regular {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , right . So basically the um {disfmarker} I'm just gonna just recap uh what I said at the start , was that um the the whole point of this meeting was to f absolutely finalise who we're gonna aim this at , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and what exactly the product's gonna do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um just to recap on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we all happy about the idea of um aiming the product at um the fifteen to thirty five bracket ? Um and also the funct the the actual functions of what it's gonna do . +Marketing: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Do you wanna recap on that , Craig ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we just say that it was gonna be the the most basic stuff possible . Um on off , up and down channels , up and down volume and uh skip to a channel . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +User Interface: Ta . +Marketing: And is it going to include any of the uh the more advanced features , or are we gonna eliminate those ? +User Interface: Um I think we include mute , but apart from that um I think we just {disfmarker} we'll go for the simpleness . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I think +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . R is it is it is it s is it not an option still that we include some things just as a sort of under {disfmarker} like sort of under a door or some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's as optional functions . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause what what I'm {disfmarker} I'd be a bit worried about is if someone was h had previously developed habits of expecting to control surround sound or this and that with their controller and then and then they , you know , w they get ours and w it's doesn't have that . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if that'd be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Another thing that you were saying about categorising the controls ? Um maybe I could suggest we we break them down into three simple categories . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One would be audio controls , +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: one would be video controls , and the other one would be a device . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this may not map very well to advanced functionality especially , but I think that um from a manufacturer's point of view , from a person designing the device , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think from a point of view of a person using the device , you know a T_V_ is something they see and something they hear , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um it's something they do other things to like turn it on and turn it off . I mean like so what we could have is like three buckets , right , where we could throw things into , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if we want this feature , let's throw it into there , and then from there decide whether it's basic , or it's non-basic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean it might help with the visualisation . +Marketing: 'Kay , okay . Like that . Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it would actually help with the component build as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm okay , great . +Project Manager: Um , okay well I gotta kind of {disfmarker} got five minutes to wrap up now . Um next thing we're doing is having lunch . Whoohoo . Um and then we're gonna have thirty minutes of working on the next stage . Um so I'll be putting the minutes of this uh this meeting into the project documents folder . Um so uh I guess just to just to confirm that we know what we're doing in the next {disfmarker} well in the thirty minutes after lunch anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um for uh our Industrial Designer , you're gonna be thinking about the components concept . Um User Interface Designer gonna be thinking about our user interface , and marketing you're gonna be thinking about trend watching . Um and you'll all get specific instructions as well . So um I dunno , just just to to ask now if you've got anything else you've thought about while we've been talking . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , do you wanna start with David . Anything else to say at all ? +Industrial Designer: Mm no , not really . +Project Manager: No , okay . {vocalsound} Andrew ? +Marketing: Um yeah , just {disfmarker} I just wanted to ask then before we wrap up , shall we agree for sake of um sort of clarity and when we when we r resume that we'll u use this idea David's proposed , where we think of these three sort of buckets and anything anything we discuss about them is sort of , okay , we're talking about this . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I think that's definitely a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Shall we do that , then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , great . +User Interface: Um just about the three buckets , um what would go in the the device functions one ? +Industrial Designer: Um things like on off . Because they don't have anything to do with what you see . I me mean in terms of picture and the entertainment value , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know , um so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and channel . +Industrial Designer: And channel . Because the on off also goes , you know , like on off like power , not on off sound . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not on off video . Although you don't turn off the video on your T_V_ , but um you might wanna you know turn off the sound , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: say you wanna pick up the phone , there's a mute button , right , so you you have you have a choice of putting it on to um others or a device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Device is basically anything which we can't categorise , right . We put it out . +Project Manager: Okay , so you're gonna have um audio which is gonna be like you know your bass settings and actual volume {disfmarker} hi +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , anything to do with what you hear , right . You you put that into audio . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then video is anything that you can see . +Project Manager: Okay , and then visual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so brightness , contrast , things like that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yep . +Project Manager: and then just actual device things , +Marketing: Colour , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: like what channel you're watching , turning on an off , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: stuff like that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then k I suppose quite likely what would happen is in the d device category there might be some which are just like the habitual standard and then others which are maybe a bit more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like random which we have no other place to put , but we need it somewhere there . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um even even if it doesn't map very clearly what happens is that people at least have some in their mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use , I think that's one thing that um {disfmarker} and I guess from the component point of view it's easy to build as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause things are like fixed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um so yeah , I guess just things to think about are you know like the fact it's gotta look good , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of who we're we're , you know , targeting this at . Um something maybe kind of quirky in design maybe . Make it kind of ergonomic kind of to hold , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know , things like that . Um , {vocalsound} so I guess I guess that's it . That's the meeting over . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Whoohoo . +Marketing: Then we get to go find out what was picked up for lunch for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","In a recent project meeting, the team, composed of a Project Manager, Marketing representative, User Interface Designer, and Industrial Designer, convened to discuss the functional design of a new remote control project with a strict 30-minute time constraint. The session commenced with the Project Manager verifying that all attendees were set and provided a brief recap of the previous meeting, where the team familiarized themselves with one another and the available equipment, and initiated discussions on project finances and necessities. + +A crucial update was conveyed by the Project Manager, announcing three new requirements set forth by the company: Firstly, the obsolete nature of teletext in light of internet prevalence meant it would no longer be a functional consideration for the remote control. Secondly, simplification was favored with the remote designed solely for TV use, eliminating controls for VCRs, DVDs, and other devices to avoid complications that could delay market entry. Lastly, it was imperative to integrate the company's corporate color and slogan into the design, although the specifics regarding the exact hue and whether the slogan was to be inscribed on the product or embodied conceptually remained uncertain. + +The User Interface Designer presented technical functions and design inspiration gleaned from online sources and previous products. The assessment revealed a dichotomy: extremely complex remotes that are overly sophisticated and poorly labeled versus overly simplistic ones that, while easy to use, lack advanced functions. An idea was proposed to obscure advanced features, possibly in a drawer compartment, to avoid interface clutter while retaining functionality, sparking a debate over essential and nice-to-have features. + +Marketing highlighted the importance of customer needs, trends, and alignment with the company's vision of 'putting the fashion in electronics.' The discussion encompassed user frustration with pre-existing remotes, including their tendency to get lost, the learning curve, and ergonomic factors like RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). Market research suggested that a significant portion of users would be willing to spend more on additional features such as intuitive controls like voice recognition, in line with making remotes visually appealing and user-friendly. + +The Industrial Designer brought a technology-centric perspective, outlining the basic functional requirements for the remote's design, such as power source, interface, logic, and transmission methods. A potential hindrance of infrared technology, which requires line-of-sight, was touched upon, and the concept of categorizing controls into audio, video, and device groupings was proposed to streamline the design process. + +Amidst technical concerns, the Project Manager kept focus on targeting the young professional market segment aged 15-35 and the remote's core functions, which included basic controls and possibly some advanced features packaged discreetly for a sleek, straightforward user experience. + +As the meeting reached its conclusion, the Project Manager underscored the next steps – working on component concepts, user interface design, and trend watching – and emphasized adhering to the new market-driven guidelines defined during the meeting. The team briefly considered the idea of incorporating voice recognition and alternative power sources but resolved to keep design and functionality straightforward. The meeting closed on a light-hearted note with the prospect of lunch and further work to be done post-break, leaving the team to ponder how to combine a high-tech appeal with operational simplicity, and whether to introduce features such as voice control in a market where cutting-edge technology is increasingly in demand." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right w welcome to the the first meeting of uh Real Reaction's uh um development meetings for our our new television remote control . Uh this follows our very successful entry into the the consumer market over the last year or so um which we want to to build on , taking advantage of the uh the the latest developments in in technology and the uh the latest uh {vocalsound} uh feelings in in consumer design and and demand and uh we want to make this the the very best product th that's possible for everybody , uh one that everybody wants , uh at a good price for the consumer and at a good price for the company . Uh and to that end we need all to work together uh to do that . Um and uh b in no particular order because ev everybody is uh {vocalsound} just as vital to this project +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I'll just go round th the table , Andrew , marketing , um m Kendra with the uh um {disfmarker} designing the the the User Interface uh uh and Kate with the the industrial design . Um . {vocalsound} What's uh {disfmarker} the the th th project is is here to do , is is to to get this this project up and moving , ev everybody is is free to uh say wh whatever they want , uh everybody has a contribution to make and uh {vocalsound} everybody feel free to interrupt me at any time to to say what you want to say . Um in in terms of the immediate meeting the uh um {gap} everybody knows everybody else , everybody's worked for the the company for a while , if if an anybody feels that they need to say more about themselves please do , if if if anybody wants to b briefly give their their background so that everybody's quite clear what everybody uh {disfmarker} uh everybody's experience is please do so . Uh in fact I'd I'd I'd welcome anybody to uh say something briefly about themselves , in fact we will do that by by going round the table quickly and and saying what what contribution you {disfmarker} you're looking to make . So we'll start with Andrew . +Marketing: Oh my name's Andrew I'm a {disfmarker} I'm the Market Research person for this uh for this meeting and this uh project for creating this new remote control and uh yeah I'll be uh presenting information statistics on what people want to want to uh get from this new design , what people want to {gap} like {disfmarker} and from a fashion point of view and the practicality point of view . +Project Manager: Right {vocalsound} Kendra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Kendra and I'm the Us User Interface Designer and um {vocalsound} I haven't had a whole lot of experience in this kind of thing before but I'm m so I'll be {vocalsound} working on the design . +Project Manager: Right at least means you haven't got any preconceived ideas so . +User Interface: Right . Yep , I'm just open to being creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I'm Katie , +Project Manager: Yep , good . +Industrial Designer: I'm the Industrial Designer and I'll just be I guess presenting about the the inter workings of our little remote control and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , very very quickly , um {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} I don't want to make this meeting too structured because the the whole idea is that it's a um you know a think tank . Everybody says what they {gap} what they want to say , uh and we don't want to be constrained by uh kind of convention or uh uh slides on screens or or anything else um but um briefly um th th this is what we want to do . The the remote control needs to be original , there has to be something about it that uh other remote controls don't have so that as soon as people see it they think um yes that's different , uh I want one , um and that goes along with being trendy , uh uh you know the I want it uh scenario . User-friendly as as we all know , remote controls can be uh uh very user-unfriendly so we want to make ours one that people can pick up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and think oh yes that's {disfmarker} it's obvious how that works , uh and they also want to look at the price and think oh yeah that's something that {disfmarker} I may not need another remote control but uh it's such a nice one I'm gonna have one . And last but not least , or indeed first of all , it it must make the company money , and we make the company money by producing what the consumer wants . The uh the further work to be done is i the um the functional design , uh what it uh what it must actually do , the uh conceptual design , uh how we actually present that to the consumer and th the the detailed design i is uh how we get that into production . Uh now th the main design tool that we have available to us at the moment is is the white board and uh uh {vocalsound} let us very quickly do what i what it says in the in the in the prompt slide here , um {disfmarker} In fact I suggest to avoid everybody untangling themselves from the uh the the wires , that we don't do that , um So I I {disfmarker} everybody knows what whiteboard is so we'll um uh we'll do a virtual drawing on the on on the whiteboard of of your your own uh uh favourite animal , but le let's go round the table , your favourite animal . +Marketing: Um , badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm and why ? +Marketing: Uh it's it's got nice contrast with black {vocalsound} and white and uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I feel they're {gap} underdog kind of status +Project Manager: Oh right +Marketing: and they're , the +Project Manager: uh my my wife says my beard looks like a badger's arse 'cause of the the white streaks in it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um probably a duck +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kendra . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} I li I like the way they look and they're just nice animals and I like how they can fly or swim or walk around or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh 's horses , no particular reason why {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , {gap} fair enough yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure that I've got any favourite animal to be quite honest , I think homo sapien +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of their {disfmarker} their uh overall ability to uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make mobile phones and T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: to make T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Indeed absolutely yes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: tha that's um {disfmarker} Okay and uh w we need to keep in mind here that the uh {disfmarker} we want to sell this for for twenty five Euro um , we want to m make an overall profit for the the company of fifty million Euros so we're we're looking at selling a lot of these um ag across the the entire planet and and we're looking at a gross profit of fifty percent . {vocalsound} It needs to cost twelve Euros fifty to make . Um so we're not only looking at a a very trendy original product , we're looking at making it at a very good price . Um , okay , um {vocalsound} would anybody like t like to to start by giving their o um sort of quick views of of current remote controls . +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} I find a lot of them really complicated to use with all the different buttons and uh it's handiest when you have one that works both the D_V_D_ player or whatever and the T_V_ as well . Um , but that {disfmarker} it's easy to {gap} if you can switch back and forth instead of having to {vocalsound} press a bunch of different buttons +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} so I think it's is best when they're clearly labelled and you can see which buttons you're supposed to use , you know . +Project Manager: Any any thoughts about buttons or any oth other way of approaching the p the uh the problem ? Or anybody else , strong feelings about remote controls ? Are there you know , bad ones they've used or good ones they've used or ones that they've lost and never found again ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's important that you should be able to {disfmarker} when you when you press the buttons it'll actually pick up the signals from kind of anywhere and you shouldn't have to like contort yourself and twist your remote control to get it {disfmarker} the T_V_ to actually pick up the signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Think a lot of the time , remotes that come with T_V_ players and {gap} T_V_s and D_V_ players , like they aren't +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: like an area that's put a lot of effort into , they're very boring , very plain . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Like it's very {disfmarker} a very {disfmarker} like um making a a stylish remote control would be a very like {disfmarker} Easily put us one step ahead of the current competition . +Project Manager: Um what so wh what's in in {disfmarker} what particular style features are you thinking about ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . Something that looks looks {disfmarker} doesn't look like remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if you want , {vocalsound} something that looks like uh {disfmarker} something that makes you think oh what's this ? Like this pen doesn't really look like a pen , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: but it makes you think oh . +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , sorry that's a bit vague {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: d no I mean do you think there's a risk if it doesn't look like remote control , {vocalsound} people won't see it as a remote control um and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I suppose suppose that's up to the marketing to to make make people aware of the product . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Any other thoughts about um th the physical appearance of a {disfmarker} of remote controls ? +User Interface: I think something that's comfortable to hold because sometimes you get the remote controls that are just those big , rectangular things +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh they're kind of awkward to hold onto , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so something that's more comfortable that fits in a person's hand better . +Project Manager: I mean th the thing that i immediately comes to mind is computer mouses which um I mean y you get all sorts of shapes in the shops +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and s you know some quite fancy ones um than the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: some from personal experience which look nice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} aren't particularly comfortable . Um {vocalsound} any thoughts about buttons or flat screens or uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well from the mouse idea you could , {gap} remote is a piece of plastic with the big rubber buttons sticking out of it which you press , whereas if you want {gap} {disfmarker} could all be flat and the buttons are very kind of almost subtle that instead of being raised out of the device uh you push into device you see , like a mouse button . +Project Manager: Yes , I mean {vocalsound} the only thing is if if you're watching television in a in a a darkened room um you need to be able to uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I suppose . +Project Manager: fi find the button buttons easily . +Marketing: Easily , yeah yeah . +User Interface: But maybe they could be concave instead of sticking up to have them {disfmarker} be kind of down so you could feel them +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: better . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} must admit I don't think I've ever seen one with concave buttons , that's uh {disfmarker} certainly be different . Um do we need it to uh {disfmarker} I can't think of any re remote controls that I know of that actually light up at all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Do we do we want uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm that would be good . +User Interface: Like a like a mobile phone ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , yeah that would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . So , Andrew have you had any thoughts yet about how we might market something which there are already millions out there and that we want to uh uh uh t take over the entire um {disfmarker} the planet with ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , um {vocalsound} especially if we try to sell , what two million of them . Oh sorry , four million of 'em , but uh {disfmarker} I think if w if we market it as as not as not {disfmarker} well this {disfmarker} you c you could either market it as the point of view {disfmarker} we could have the two {disfmarker} we could have parallel marketing s schemes where you've got one where it appeals to people that want to have the new device that looks cool , is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and like you just {disfmarker} it's it's like uh it's one that rather than ra I wan I want rather than a kind of a need relationship with the device , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but that might {disfmarker} considering the act what the device is for and the nature of some people might not like respond to having a device that they just looks nice , therefore they want it so {disfmarker} make it practical at the same time . I think it's {disfmarker} this is gonna have to appeal to people that want device that can enhance their living room +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh but also a device that uh is practically sound . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , yeah , yeah , well +Marketing: So um , I dunno we'll have to decide which which angle we're gonna go to or both . If you {gap} . +Project Manager: I d I think an any uh any facets that we identify w we aim {disfmarker} need to aim for for all of . Um okay well +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: first thoughts on um the the industrial design side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh I think it's it's {disfmarker} remote controls are kind of a unique object 'cause it's {disfmarker} you depend on them so much , but you don't {disfmarker} i i it's {disfmarker} you sort of just assume they're always gonna work , you don't think of them as a comp like a computer can break down and you're kinda like oh well fair enough there's all these complex things going on , it's gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna get messed up eventually . They they just need to be very very dependable because people sort of take them for granted and then if your remote control breaks it's {gap} {disfmarker} God forbid you actually get up and manually change the channel {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it just {disfmarker} it needs to be very effective , very {disfmarker} always dependable . Uh I don't think we should make it too small I {disfmarker} 'cause I think it needs to {gap} it can't be too big like you were saying big an and huge and um awkward , but also if you make it too small kinda like you know how mobile phones are getting smaller and smaller um , it's just gonna end up under a couch cushion somewhere and um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} so yes dependable , and have a {gap} good medium range size . +Project Manager: Okay , and um colours , materials ? Kendra , anyone ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , most {disfmarker} I think most of the remote controls now are either just black or grey , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: so maybe we should go with something different or be able to {disfmarker} I was just thinking of um {vocalsound} what they're doing with mobile phones now how you can get the different um {disfmarker} what are they called ? Like the face-plates +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: that you change so we could have maybe {disfmarker} I don't know if it would be feasible to do something with that , where you can change the face-plates or have kind of a variety +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so people can get different different things . Have it kind of look how they want to , different colours , things like that , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: probably just plastic because that's always the lightest . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay that's uh {disfmarker} Again I don't think that's ever been done before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh the sort of {gap} the sort of thing that would get people uh thinking yes that's something that I haven't got and uh might need so . Uh Andrew , any thoughts about uh how we might market interchangeable fronts on on the remote control ? +Marketing: Um , well we could either market it together by getting control in a set colour or with {disfmarker} like you buy it with several uh like you ge you get the f uh the face-plates with it when you buy or as a separate thing , but uh {vocalsound} maybe thinking of that , it's {disfmarker} considering the nature of the device , maybe a second thing {disfmarker} like a second campaign to market new facials for your {disfmarker} to your {disfmarker} might go a bit astray +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: since it is the kind of thing where y you generally get one and then forget about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Unless you were trying to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well you could come up with like novelty ones , like they've done with the the mobile phones , you can get like different you know scenes from different movies and stuff on the remote control +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: and sorta stagger the release of them +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} that's a that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and get people like oh I want that cover on it now and that'll keep them spending money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , okay +Marketing: Yeah true . +Project Manager: I think we've got um a good idea now . We uh {disfmarker} meeting is uh {disfmarker} Needs to be k uh wrapped up fairly quickly . So uh um we've got thirty minutes to start looking at the um at the design in more detail . Um then we'll we will reconvene in in thirty minutes and try to get some of these ideas uh uh more formalised . Uh thank you very much indeed . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +","Summary: + +The Real Reaction company convened its first development meeting to discuss the creation of a new television remote control. The Project Manager emphasized the importance of innovation, consumer demand, and cost-effectiveness for the new product. Team members introduced themselves: Andrew from Marketing, Kendra the User Interface Designer, and Katie the Industrial Designer. + +The Project Manager encouraged open communication and stressed the need for the remote to be original, user-friendly, trendy, and profitable. Ideas thrown around included making the remote comfortable to hold, like a computer mouse, with perhaps concave buttons for ease of use in the dark. + +There was a suggestion to create interchangeable faceplates for customization, similar to those available for mobile phones, which could potentially boost appeal and sales as additional or novelty accessories. Finally, the group briefly discussed marketing strategies, acknowledging the need to appeal to both style-conscious consumers and those focused on practicality. + +The team agreed to reconvene in thirty minutes to begin detailed design discussions, with a view to achieving a EUR 25 price point, EUR 50 million in profits for the company, and a 50% gross margin." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello , uh this meeting we are it's fo should be focused on the conceptual design of the remote control . +Marketing: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Um the goal of this meeting is to reach a decision at the end on the concept and I think the last time we talked about an a lot and we had a rough idea of what is going to be , but uh in th at the end of this meeting we have to to reach a decision . So , uh we will have again three presentation , from all of you , and uh I hope it will be fast because I would like to have time to for long discussion and and decisions . So , who wants to start ? Okay . +User Interface: I s +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: No , no , you you can start . +Project Manager: So start , uh +Marketing: Okay , I'll start . Can you open my presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: please . +Project Manager: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: I'm number four . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Trend . Yep . Can you pass the mouse , please . {vocalsound} Oh okay , that's fine . +Project Manager: Turn . +Marketing: Okay . Um so basically I just want to presented to you {disfmarker} present to you some recent results we've had from um looking at uh um some remote control market research and some fashion trends around the world . Um the fashion trends we got from talking to our our contacts in the fashion industry based in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so f from our market research basically we've come to the conclusion that a fancy look and feel , um as opposed to a functional look and feel , is our number one priority . Um fancy is is is is the , you know , highest priority . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Secondly um that our remote control needs to be techn technologically innovative . Um so this is t number two priority but it's two times less important as the fancy criteria . Um and third thirdly the easiness of use is is the um is is important as well , but again two times less important as the technologically innovativeness of the remote control . {vocalsound} From our f fashion people in Paris and Milan , um we've discovered that this year um fruit the fruit and vegetable motif will be the most important thing in in clothes , shoes and furniture . So , {vocalsound} I'm pretty confident that our remote control fits into the furniture category . And also um the feel of material this year um is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so hopefully our remote control reflects that s in some way . +Industrial Designer: What does it mean , spongy ? +Marketing: Uh sort of um squishy . +Industrial Designer: Like soft , or something ? +Marketing: Um . Yeah soft , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like a uh like a sponge . +Project Manager: Like a sponge . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I will see . +Marketing: Um so in conclusion , we need a our remote control needs to be something that's really fancy , um has lots of technolog tech technology in it . {vocalsound} Um somehow would be good to have it related to fruit and vegetables with a spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that it's easy to use and from our last meeting our you know Fabian told us that w you know one of the requirements is that we have to reflect the look and feel of our {disfmarker} of th the Real Reaction company . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Easy to use , is it uh a as much as important than technology or fancy thing . It's less important , right ? +Marketing: Less important . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: So um fanciness first and then two ti you know , half as important as that is technology technology , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and half important as technology is easy to use . So . +Project Manager: {gap} So , Hamed , can you {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . The second one . Could you please show the presentation number three . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the biggest struggle will be the easy to use feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Number ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: This one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {gap} Just Could you please check if it is the first one or the second . Uh , n n no , it's the first one . The second one . +Project Manager: So it's not this one . +User Interface: Uh yeah . Okay . {gap} Okay . So I am going to talk about {disfmarker} a little bit about how this remote control should be appear to be more easy to use . I think uh I think the feature easy to use is more important than being fancy , but okay , we can discuss about it uh later . Um {vocalsound} generally , generally uh this remote control uh uh should be should be something , in my opinion , uh the first feature is just to be easy to use . So , the more frequent buttons should be larger , they should be placed in a good position uh uh inside the remote control . And uh s uh I can conclude like this , that we shouldn't need to learn how to use it . It should be {disfmarker} we shouldn't need to es open a a t book and uh start reading and uh learning how to use this uh this uh remote control . {vocalsound} Okay . So what I found out that uh as I said uh I think it's better to put uh more frequent uh uh uh ke uh buttons which are used more in the middle of the remote control , and they should be bigger in size . Uh the shape of remote control should be in a way which can {disfmarker} which should be taken easily in hand . It should not be completely like uh a cube . It should be it should have round edge , so uh then it's easier . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: And maybe uh just like some toys , some joystick which is easier to take inside the hand . And uh also f uh uh m because because customers doesn't like to buy lots of battery , it should not uh consume lots of energy . Okay . And my personal p uh preference is uh , as I said , uh just putting this buttons in a special places and covered some buttons which are not used uh that much like settings button , like mobile phone . Usually some mobile phone cover the dialling number part , so we can cover these buttons which are not used or uh number buttons for the for the for the can channels , and just put uh volume change or s ch can uh channel change buttons uh uh in the remote control . And if the user needed to do some more complex task uh he he can open the cover and then change settings or something like this . Uh . And also uh I think if we put some some some some some buttons inside of the remote control it can be used easier . Not on remote control . I dunno if I can explain well . But uh just inside . For example , a sliding or rolling uh uh d uh stuff , if we put it inside then we can easily manipulate with uh thumb . So it can be another uh preference . And uh I dunno but uh I think usage of a speech recogn uh r recogniser can be good . I know that it consumes lots of energy , but if we do it in some way that it asleeps when there is no sound and when it detects some sound it may consume less energy . And I think it's good because it's something new and usually young people like something new . So it may not be very useful but because it's new , people may buy it . Uh I personally think there should be a big difference between uh between something . Otherwise they prefer to buy something which is coming from a famous company , or . Okay . That's mine . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so good news from me uh uh for me from Hamed , but bad news from Bob obviously , because spongy design , I don't like it as {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so could you please , Fabien , open it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm person two . And which one , uh probably the first one . I'm not sure but check the first one . I {disfmarker} Most of the things I have to write myself on the board , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . Just {disfmarker} It's only this slide ? Yeah . This this is just uh one thing I wanted to mention and show you that I just uh I just found this , that our company uh developed a s a seven f seven fingers or I'll just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Inch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven seven inch T_ {disfmarker} T_F_T_ screen , which is good news for us , since we wanted to include a display there . Uh so I I probably draw it down raw scheme . +Project Manager: Oh , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: This is this is the stuff that I can use to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the {disfmarker} this will be like the overall scheme or overall requirements from the engineering point of view . Uh first thing is uh this will be the overall shape , no uh I'm not speaking about the real shape of the device , but the shape of the inside of the device . So there will be some circuit uh for the power . So , say power circuit here . Uh the main energy will be taken from batteries that we can uh uh {disfmarker} And if we decide to use the speech recognition stuff there , we must use additional source of energy , which I found the best is to use the solar cells which can which can uh supply everything . I was computing all the all the things related to the speech recognition , and it's okay to use just uh two batteries and solar cells , so . So no problem . There can be also solar cell . Uh the main board with all the circuits will take at least seven to seven centimetres , so this is my like hard requirement for the guys from the design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So at least seven to seven . It depends where you put your screen , because the screen is uh seven inch , so it depends on you where where you put it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It doesn't matter . Um it's just one cord from from the main board to the screen which can be elsewhere . So this will be T_F_T_ . And on the main board we have the um interface to the microphone , which is somewhere , say here . Interface to the microphone . Then the graphical card uh for the T_F_T_ and the third unit is the I_R_ . The good news is that we can uh we decided to use the infra-red unit because our company has also developed the chip for communication by the infra-red , including all the stuff inside , so it will be very cheap for us . So infra-red here . So the {disfmarker} once again the overall requirements , seven to seven centimetres for the board , which has to be {disfmarker} which can be spongy but has to be this size , and the T_F_T_ which is seven inches . Um I have to check what I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh from my point of view I don't care about the about the material used for the overall des uh ov all the device . +Project Manager: Can you fit any uh for example a T_F_T_ or any electronic device in a spongy thing , or is there any problem for that ? For example , put electronic card on a spongy thing , I can I can imagine it could be a problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A all these things in in uh in this box are okay to put in in any shape , basically . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But we have to take care of the T_F_T_ . Well , sponginess . Maybe it a good feature , since it takes {disfmarker} if it's around the T_F_T_ then it's good , because it's just keeps it safe , +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Well maybe it can have two shells , a hard shell inside and a spongy shell outside . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe put electronic in a box and a spongy thing around . {gap} maybe after . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's maybe related to the U_I_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ca Can I ask a question . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A Yeah , that's all from me . +Marketing: This seven inch T_F_T_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: how big is it in reality ? +Industrial Designer: Well , seven to seven inches . +Marketing: So like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's quite big . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh uh have we decided that we're gonna use this T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: No , I don't think it's seven by seven , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's seven {disfmarker} the diagonal is seven . +Industrial Designer: To be honest , I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually when they say seven inch I think it's the diagonal . +User Interface: Yeah yes {gap} . +Marketing: But I mean even even that is like this big . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I dunno I dun I dun One each {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: . But , yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , honestly speaking I was thinking that it was seven centimetres initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it's seven inches . But I I think we can we can cut it . +Marketing: You can cut the T_F_T_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no no problem , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because because because then the size of the graphic card will be one fourth . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's cut the T_F_T_ . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but no problem to to me to cut the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so for the same price we have four screens now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: These technical engineers , huh . +Marketing: So , what's the size of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Ah well this is like this is almost nothing . Seven to seven to at least well some three millimetres or something . +Marketing: Even from my perspective seven t seven centimetres by seven centimetres is still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we wanted the big buttons and stuff like that , you know . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} Can you hold that , or ? +Industrial Designer: Because if it's t too small we can we can lose it , at home , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What user wants . He wants a small remote control , or ? Uh uh with big buttons . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I thought that it it should fit in the hand or something . +Marketing: Yeah , a small c control that they can hold in hand . +Project Manager: It's difficult . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A sm +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is something that's seven centimetres square e easy to hold ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W I I think so . I if the roller buttons are on the side you don't have to catch it like that , but just like this , and you know follow follow {disfmarker} Well , that's that's no task for me , but well seven to seven at least yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe you can finish your presentation , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and afterwards we will discuss about all this . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +User Interface: Maybe this {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay thanks {gap} . +Project Manager: That's it . Okay . So . {vocalsound} {gap} No . Uh , so I think we have a lot {disfmarker} We have to take decision today , so I think we have to do some work to finalise our idea and take decisions . Uh first I think energy it's a key problem because uh it depend what can we have as feature if we use only batteries , for example , or something like that . Because can we have L_C_D_ and speech recognition with battery , and it's also r related to the size of the of the devi of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Not {disfmarker} J uh just a point to the energy th things . If we use the batteries , and the additional so solar cell , then it's okay for L_ uh speech recognition and L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so no problem in energy , I think . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But we have to use the solar cell . +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise not . +Project Manager: but using how many batteries , for example ? Are are what Maybe what is the size of the battery {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I was thinking just common A_A_ cells . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh one two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So like three to five centimetres , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno exactly , but . +Marketing: So if we use s solar cells , um where is the sun if someone's watching T_V_ inside ? +Industrial Designer: S Uh d doesn't need to be sun . It it's just the daylight , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: The television lights . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well I I suppose that I suppose that uh that this remote control won't be in the in the room like this , where there is light only when when there are people , but . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: At least when there is T_V_ you can get light from the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah from the T_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's enough , uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a it's a compromise , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At least it's new and maybe technology New technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's why I wanted to to include the speech recognition , because you wanted all the new things . +Marketing: It's it's quite innovative , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: And if you watch T_V_ outside it's {vocalsound} very useful . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think before talking about the other thing , it's important thing it's the case . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh what what are gonna be the size , because its weight drives the other {disfmarker} what we are going to use as features and so on . For example for the for the L_C_D_ , if we choose to have a small device , we cannot use this um a such a a a screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh the s the screen is okay , but the board , uh that's the problem . Well what what would you guess as a shape ? Or what what would be the shape ? +User Interface: Mm . I think I think their being uh large or small is not important . The only important thing is to be able to take it in uh inside hand easily . So let's say an average size , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and it should not be very heavy also . And I prefer to {disfmarker} is it shouldn't have a uniform shape , so in the middle it should be a little bit thinner , maybe maybe . So we c it's like like some joysticks . You can take uh some some joystick you can take inside hand easier because it's it's designed for your f uh taking into account your finger shape and your palm shape . So the general shape should be like this . I think uh seven centimetre by seven centimetre is a little bit large . So uh seven {disfmarker} not seven but let's say five by ten it's I think it's {disfmarker} that's my opinion . It's easier . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Which is the same area . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could you re could you redesign your board ? +Industrial Designer: Five to ten . Well that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , five five centimetres by ten centimetres . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's feasib Well one um um {disfmarker} How could we do it ? We could put the board next to , well , under the L_C_D_ and for example make the L_C_D_ be totally unrelated to the thing that you hold in your hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like holding something , and the L_C_D_ to be just on top of it , you know somehow . Well {disfmarker} But maybe let's stick to the s spongy thing , like one unit . +Project Manager: Oh . I've I s I think the easiest thing would be to to have a smaller L_C_D_ , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Well fi five to ten it would be feasible . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so five to ten , I I think it's it's feasible . +Project Manager: Okay . So we are agree with a small +Industrial Designer: I'll make it . +User Interface: {gap} Or uh or I don't know +Project Manager: L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fo Five by ten . +User Interface: but I don't want to now invent something new , because we didn't discuss about it . So using some L_C_D_s we can touch , so we can remove uh keys and just uh having uh , I dunno the name , L_C_D_ responding to fingers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Touching the screen . Something like +Project Manager: Tactile or something , yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Mm like tactile . +Marketing: Mm , touch screen . +Project Manager: Touch screen , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} But for now if we don't want to use such kind of screens I I think we using a a smaller screen is better , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The problem is we have a limit in a month of time , so we cannot do something very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's go for a small L_C_D_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so Yeah , so so just just give me the the the five by ten numbers that you find the best and send it me +User Interface: A smaller s +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , five by s ten . +Industrial Designer: and I will work it out . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so what about , so the case we talked about . Um something easy to use , you said something easy to use but how does that fit in a fashion way , like with fruit and vegetable , and about the colour and logo of the of the company and so on , now , can we do that ? My first idea is because our colour is more yellow , and the {disfmarker} it should be easy to take in a hand , I thought about banana , or something like that , which is fruits , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seven to ten banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A big banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Rather mango or something or . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's it's definitely the obvious choice , with the colour of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I mean what other what other fruit and vegetables {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it's just an idea . I dunno what you think about , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know of any any other fruit and vegetables that are yellow ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno if it can fit with the technology . You are the specialists of that . +Industrial Designer: You mean banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , but {disfmarker} If it's {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If it {disfmarker} If the banana is big enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then , yes . {vocalsound} But if you want to look at the screen {gap} , no . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think this {gap} is not good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The screen has to be {vocalsound} square ? Or it can be like a a shape , quite , uh with curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it can be whatever you want . +Project Manager: It could . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if it's square then we get four screens out of one by cutting just . But if you want some shape then we can only get like two screens out of seven to seven inches , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's like more more expensive to have shape like that . But I don't care . You know , if we fit this requirement . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I'd like a shaped screen . I think that's more important than saving a bit of money on on the T_F_T_ screen . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , m maybe the banana could be like a bit uh fatter than than the c c common one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it should remember banana , but it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to b to be uh uh really the size and exactly the shape of a banana . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like modified banana , okay . +Project Manager: So we are agree with the banana thing ? +Industrial Designer: Well it {disfmarker} we'll stick to banana , or ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , banana's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: So , {gap} the last point we decided it's infra-red , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , I think infra-red . +Project Manager: Everybody's agreed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Uh , so that's it I think about the concepts . You have other thing to add to this point , or uh no ? So , uh about the user interface , so we are going to use L_C_D_ . In the last meeting we talked about uh hidden buttons . I don't know what we are going to do with that . You talked about the buttons on the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like peeling of the banana you s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , peeling of the banana . +Project Manager: Mm what ? +Industrial Designer: It would be cool , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Peeling of the banana , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: should should discover the other buttons , which are hidden . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And you mean the first layer would be spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First layer obviously spo Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: w It's it's like silly , but the people will really appreciate it , yeah I think . +Project Manager: Is it is it possible to do that ? It would be a great idea , but is it possible technically ? +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like doing a spongy layer of the banana , and you open it . +Marketing: I think if we if we have a spongy layer on the outside of the banana then it's easy to make that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , to manipulate that to hav be a cover that you can pull off and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , some {disfmarker} Something like a plastic cover covering uh some interface , U_S_B_ interface as in the in uh digital camera . If you see it's like peeling . You open a plastic cover and you see some U_S_B_ interfaces , some some interfaces for adaptor . So keys can be uh buttons can be covered like this , with a plastic cover and uh when uh and when you open this cover it's like peeling a banana . So , something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you see that as a rigid thing , or like like a banana , something very soft , you can open like banana , or . +Industrial Designer: Well is it possible to make it soft ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah it's a lic like a plastic cover , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think if it's so then it's cool ? +Project Manager: So , I dunno what you think , Bob , but it would be great for users I think , and very good for marketing . +Marketing: I think for sure . Definitely . The softer the better . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Honestly speaking , I cannot imagine it , so far , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it will be terrible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . And setting buttons hidden in {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm , other remarks , or something , or . Something we didn't talk about yes yet , or . I think we are almost there {gap} . Uh maybe , how can we , if we have a soft thing , like this , and to open it we have to attach it somewhere , I dunno how to do that technically , or . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Pof . +Marketing: We could use Velcro . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Or uh ma maybe a magnetic +User Interface: Yes , yeah {gap} it's a good idea . +Marketing: thing . +Project Manager: Ma magnetic {gap} oh . +User Interface: Magnetic {gap} . Mm . Yeah or a {disfmarker} Yeah it can is it can be a plastic cover uh sticking to the to the all the stuff like uh with magnetic p uh magnetic uh magnetic uh {vocalsound} materials in the border , so it's it sticks like refrigerator door , completely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And when you try to open it , it will be opened easily . So you you can be sure that it will not be open while you're uh while while uh you are commonly using uh buttons on the banana . +Project Manager: Okay . And what would be the matter here of the first layer I mean ? Mm . Likes . Soft plastic , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I imagine some sort of vinyl thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: In a in a sort of a with a suede sort of feel . Maybe . +Industrial Designer: Well since since the since the things like the like the screen and um how to say that , solar cell has to be has to be like kept kept in the shape , we cannot b uh {disfmarker} So we need that the that the peeling {disfmarker} uh I dunno but we should we should take care of these two two things . So , if if uh the solar cell won't be visible while the banana is closed , then the material must be able to put the light inside , you know . So that we can reach the energy out of it {disfmarker} out of that . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . So you're saying is it possible to have a solar cell and this removable cover and +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but , well if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a and a banana . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno how to how to do it if if t if to if it's better to put the solar cell to the t to the peeling or outside it , or or inside . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then it must be some window there , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And something we forgot , maybe , uh about the speech recognition system , are we going to use it , or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , I think . I think so . +Marketing: I think it's important . +Project Manager: It i Yeah , it seems feasible , and it would be something very great . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} One of our p priorities is tech technology . +Project Manager: So we have the de design , the a good shape , new and so on , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we have also the technology thing w will be . And even the easy to use thing , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so it will be perfect . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we add also the speech recognition device . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: So , that great . We have decided everything . And think we are on a good way . So , um uh the next meeting will start in thirty minutes . Um , so uh the the Industrial Manager uh will uh will work on the look and feel design . The User Interface uh uh Mana uh Manager will work on the user interface device . And the the Marketing Expert will do the first project evaluation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , I hope you can do that in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh , yeah , I uh I think you should work together , s you uh Hamed and Peter , to work uh in a in a first prototype , and uh more about the shape and so on and how you can manage to put everything together . And um as usual you will receive some specific instructions on . So thank you all everybody , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you . +","The meeting is about finalizing the conceptual design of a remote control. Marketing presents their research, emphasizing the need for the remote control to have a fancy look and feel, technological innovativeness, and ease of use, in that order of priority. Fashion trends from Paris and Milan suggest incorporating fruit and vegetable motifs and a spongy material feel. + +The User Interface Designer argues that ease of use is more important and suggests that frequently used buttons should be larger and better positioned. Energy consumption is also a concern, and they propose alternatives like hidden buttons for less frequent tasks and possibly using speech recognition for a modern touch. + +The Industrial Designer discusses technical constraints, such as the integration of a 7-inch TFT screen, solar cells for energy, and the need for at least a 7x7 cm board for circuits. They also explain that an infra-red unit will be cheap due to in-house development. + +Throughout the discussion, they consider using a spongy material, possibly with a banana-inspired design to align with the company's color and fashion trends. There’s a consensus on incorporating solar cells and infra-red technology. They discuss potential technical implementations, such as the shape and size of the screen, and the use of spongy material to give it the desired fancy look. Speech recognition is considered key for the technology aspect, and ideas to protect the buttons and screen components are brainstormed, including a peelable spongy layer mimicking a banana peel. + +Decisions made include using a smaller LCD to fit the agreed dimensions, possibly attaching the cover with magnets, and incorporating soft materials for the exterior. They agree to meet again in thirty minutes for further work with the Project Manager instructing collaboration between the Industrial Designer and User Interface Manager for a prototype and the Marketing Expert to conduct an initial project evaluation." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright ? Alright . Thank you for coming to this third meeting of the uh uh design group . Um I think we uh made some definite progress at the last one um and come up with some interesting uh uh w suggestions for our our new remote control . Um I'll again very quickly uh just present some notes of that meeting . Um {vocalsound} the the the problem with existing remote controls , we felt , was that they're ugly um and that people are prepared to pay a premium for something better . Um they've got lots of buttons on them that uh people don't use and find difficult to learn . Um and people lose them . And {vocalsound} We we thought that f for our our new uh uh remote control that everybody will want to rush out and buy , um {vocalsound} that we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we should look at speech recognition rather than r rather than buttons , and that if we have any buttons they should be very few of them and only for those functions that are actually identified that that people use . That {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} we want to go for uh a long lasting battery that we gua we guarantee for the life of the uh uh the product and a shape that will be instantly recognisable , A_ um as uh a trendy remote control , and and B_ as uh a Real Reaction product . So that w uh when people are uh happy with that , they will they will want to buy uh everything else from us . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So again um , I'll {disfmarker} we'll have the three three presentations from the the the three of you and then uh we'll we'll make a a final a final uh decision . Um and the the decisions that we need to to make today , finally , are um what energy source we want to use , whether i it is practical to use uh um a a a long lasting one . And uh I I think our discussion was around the fact that uh if we're gonna go for uh a long lasting power supply , then basically it's uh sealed for life and uh if anybody does manage to run one down , we'll we'll give them another one . And uh it it'll be uh , you know , prominently displayed as part of the th the advertising literature that it's um um , you know , for life , guaranteed for life . Um {vocalsound} now the the the internal chip um {disfmarker} and uh this is where I need uh uh Kate's expert advice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and given that {vocalsound} th this has to to go to market as quickly as possible um d d do we go for a custom designed chip ? Or or do we buy one off the shelf and and programme it ourselves ? Uh I mean I'm I'm I'm n not an expert on these things , but presumably , there must be loads of 'em already on the market that we can modify . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh that that's uh that's your area of expertise . And then the uh , you know , the the overall design of the case uh is is is Kendra's field and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we we had some discussions last time as as to uh how we might go forward and we'll we'll finalise those uh da today . Um and thi this is all linked in with the the the user interface , whether we p um {vocalsound} go for voice , buttons , or or a bit of both . Uh and then uh , you know , f for the next meeting Kate will be looking at the the the s the look , feel and design , Kendra the uh ho how the the user actually uses it and and Andrew of course the the product evaluation . And uh Kate and Kendra will be producing a a model for us to uh to look at . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh so , if if we can have the the three presentations again please , and uh um p perhaps you'd like to start uh k . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kate . Oh I'm sorry , oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Um p there we go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay , I'll just be talking about the components design . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , basically I just uh looked at what exactly do remotes do . Uh basically they wait for you to press a key or give a voice command and then this is translated uh into uh light signals which are then seen by the T_V_ . Uh the materials we're gonna need to look at {disfmarker} uh the two big ones are the integrated circuit chip and the battery and the in integrated circuit chip uh works in conjunction with a a diode transistor or resonator , uh two more resistors and a capacitor and the battery works in conjunction with a resistor and a capacitor . Um . {vocalsound} Uh basically what happens is you'll press a number or give a voice command and this creates a a connection within the the remote that allows the chip {disfmarker} the chip then senses this connection and produces a signal in a Morse code format . This signal's sent to the transistor which amplifies it and then sends it on to the light emitting diode and uh {disfmarker} which is then trai changed into a infrared light which is sent to the T_V_ and sort of seen by the T_V_ and which uh changes the channels . {vocalsound} Um . Oh . {vocalsound} Uh cool . {vocalsound} Uh so as for how we should end up uh using this in our remote uh t couple of main questions are the buttons . Uh y the fewer buttons you have , I guess the fewer internal connections and internal codes you're gonna need . Um however uh to n not have buttons or to use a voice commands instead of buttons might make these connections more difficult and uh raise the production cost . That's something we should think about . Also we have to work within the company constraints , and the company has informed me via email that uh they're experts at pushbuttons and that seems to be the most uh cost-effective way of producing it . Um also with battery connections the company has some limits on the batteries we can use , so I was thinking perhaps a combination of solar cells with a back-up basic battery and somehow between the combination of that two we might be able to come up with something that uh will last the the lifetime or the five to ten years and we could still keep that original idea . {vocalsound} Um we also need to look at the chips , uh v custom-designed versus off the shelf , and the custom-designed will give us much more flexibility and enable us to incorporate the voice function that we all uh seem to have agreed upon . Um , however that's gonna cost more , but uh the off the shelf is gonna be uh cheaper and it's gonna be {disfmarker} allow us to produce it quicker and get out there faster , but it's going to be less flexible with the features , especially things like uh voice activation , which haven't really been used much on remotes , so there's not really chips out there that would be easy to uh to convert , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: so if we were uh definitely gonna go with the the voice option we'd probably have to design um our own chip . {vocalsound} And that pretty much sums it up . +Project Manager: so how um {disfmarker} sorry , can you uh just put that one back up again , please ? Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh yep , sorry . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Uh d d d {vocalsound} okay , I mean uh inevitably a b a custom design chip is gonna be more expensive . Do we do we know uh by how much ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Um I don't actually have any price information , no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and do we know how long it'll take to uh develop a a custom chip . +Industrial Designer: Um it {disfmarker} a lot longer than an off the shelf chip . Oh w yeah , we did {disfmarker} the the problem is the the the voice technology is not really highly developed , +Project Manager: Right , +Industrial Designer: it's sort of still still in an ex experimental form , +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: uh so it would uh {disfmarker} it's hard to predict the time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I think we need to make a a decision here . Uh given that the company wants this on the market quickly and cheaply , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that would appear to uh effectively constrain us to an existing chip and thus therefore conventional button technology . Um uh now before we go round everybody else , does anybody um h have any have anyti ha anything to say about that ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} I just have a question about that . Um does it make a difference if there are just a few commands , for example if you um can pre-programme in like numbers one through ten and pre-programme say , you know , nine channels and then just use the voice recognition to say channel one and then you've programmed in say B_B_C_ four as your channel one , as your favourite , it's like to have a certain number of favourites um +Industrial Designer: W just to to incorporate the voice activation in it is is sorta the trick . +User Interface: and that w +Industrial Designer: Once you've got the whole voice chip in there , then it's pretty much the the world {disfmarker} the the sky is your limit , +User Interface: Okay . Then it doesn't matter . Okay . +Industrial Designer: but to actually {disfmarker} the the big step is to actually get the voice activation chips in there and working . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Cause uh I {vocalsound} must say I find it slightly surprising given that , you know , mobile phones incorporate voice activated dialling . So uh um I mean +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I d d for slightly different {disfmarker} well no , I mean , it's if you you {disfmarker} speak somebody's name and it'll dial the number for you , so uh bu I mean the this this information is from {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} this is the internal company information , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh bits of it , yeah . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course mobile phones do tend to be more expensive , +Industrial Designer: Yes , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know , hundred and fifty pounds or something . As opposed to the twenty Euros , twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm true , again but if it's without any without any uh p price informations that's uh difficult to uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh decide . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Also lots of mobile phones have got a lot of technology in them , not just that , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's right . It's like {disfmarker} it's it's {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} 'cause mobile phones are expensive , you can't say it's the voice recognition bit that is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: But we don't know . Um . {vocalsound} I mean uh I su i I mean if {disfmarker} given that the um the technology is not well developed and and given that it's it's never been done before , um th th the double risk , uh perhaps we ought to uh stick to uh to buttons , since the last thing we want to do is present a product that doesn't work . Um . Thoughts ? +User Interface: Well , another thought I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Would {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , sorry , go ahead . +Marketing: Oh I was just gonna say mayb maybe it sh like um {disfmarker} maybe we can like cut corners somewhere else to bring in over cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean do w do we think that the voice technology is fundamental to the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's fundament well I mean I guess it it's something we've discussed uh since the the sort of the beginning , so I th I think in in our in our minds it's it's fundamental , but I don't know that the uh the upper echelons of the company would necessarily agree with that , so I think you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean I think we {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I kinda think if we're gonna have the voice recognition for part of it , then maybe we should have it for the whole thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I I I I think that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: And we've been talking about it the whole time . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +User Interface: Anyway , I'm I'm incli kinda inclined to say that we should just go for it . +Project Manager: Mm , right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {gap} it's the second most important aspect to users that the device should be technologically innovative . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: From uh my presentation show , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Fine . Okay . +Industrial Designer: that sounds good . Mm . +Project Manager: I it will have voice recognition um uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . Cool . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: if if that means uh if that means we can't afford buttons but I mean b b {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: second question , do we need the five buttons for channel change , up down , {vocalsound} volume up down and on off , just as a a backup or just so that people can uh j j just sit there pressing buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I would say we do , yeah . +User Interface: I think so . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Sorry , d did you want to say anything ? No ? +Industrial Designer: Uh nope , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that was it , that was it . +Project Manager: Shall we move rapidly on to uh Kendra ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh um ra rapidly move the cable over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh good . +User Interface: Oh . Yes . Is it gonna work ? +Project Manager: Mm yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's thinking about it . +Project Manager: it'll get there . Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so I did some research on the internet and um {vocalsound} what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , the interf user interface are just aspects that are seen by users , um commands and mechanisms for the operation , and there're just kind of a variety of choices . Um findings , so a lot of times they tend to look cluttered +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and these were just a couple examples of um different kinds that are a little bit more unusual . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: There're some special ones available , like this one right here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: which is marketed towards children , um different designs , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: and one of the things that n we need to watch out for is a V_ in volume because people some {vocalsound} Bring a little picture of what I thought ours could look like {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So just kind of minimise the clutter , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: avoid too many buttons and also um {vocalsound} one of the things that people have used is a slide button , like you have on a mouse , that possibly we could use that on the sides for volume , for example , have the slide button on the side , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and then you can pre-programme the channels , the voice recognition and then the voice response sample locator . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm yeah . Sorry y y yeah , {vocalsound} if I can interrupt you . Well d {vocalsound} p 'kay , do you wanna say anything about um slide controls ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean I think the reason everybody uses pushbuttons is that they're they're si simple , cheap and reliable . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh I think they're they're about the same cost really . I I mean , I think it's just sort of {disfmarker} the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there's a lot of slide buttons out there . I think it's pretty much the same sort of connection . Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , fair enough , fine . +User Interface: Just because I n for example if I'm using a mouse I like to be able to slide it up and down +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so I thought it might be good for volume to just be able to kind of roll it and then have the up and down +Project Manager: Yeah . Good , good . +User Interface: and then the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: this is my great little drawing . +Project Manager: So three three {disfmarker} there's three buttons on a slider . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three buttons , channel up channel up down and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y yes , yes . +Marketing: Well , if you g if you if you got a channel up down , we can have a slider in that as well . Because if it {disfmarker} if you no +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: if you notice on the thing it it kind of like has got kind of {disfmarker} if you you know it s kind of like sticks , if you know what I mean , up like one unit , if you see what I mean . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it kinda goes up one , then y like you can keep rolling it up , but it's like like like like a cog or something . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So you kinda take it up one at a time . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The only advantage I was thinking of to having the buttons , like the buttons on one side for the channel , and then the slider is that if you're just holding in your hand , and you pick it up , it's easy to n s know , okay , this is just the volume and this is the channel . +Marketing: D +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: This one on the one side and one {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh you could you could {vocalsound} as l as like a mouse you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah , 'cause I've definitely picked up remotes and like meant to change the channel and turn the volume , or vice versa , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it'd be kinda good to have them be {disfmarker} feel completely different . You'd know what you were fiddling with . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} yeah uh th th the {disfmarker} I mean thi this is what the {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like the shape of it almost like a mouse , with a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to come up with is the the actual shape that people can ins instantly pick it up and and know know uh know what it's going to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we we're looking at sliders for both a {disfmarker} uh volume and channel change +User Interface: Um well +Project Manager: of one sort . +User Interface: I was thinking kind of just for the volume , +Project Manager: Just for the volume , uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but what what do you guys think ? +Marketing: Dep I dunno if it {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could {disfmarker} +Marketing: depending on the final shape of it , 'cause you could have like , I dunno , {gap} it looks like you can c control the volume with your thumb , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then you could control the buttons with your fingers . +Project Manager: Fingers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if {disfmarker} yeah , in that kinda position the fingers would be better for pressing and the {disfmarker} that for rolling , +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it it it seems to me that uh it uh it al also has the advantage that it it {disfmarker} the two are clearly different , +User Interface: B +Industrial Designer: just the way it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um that there's no no possibility of uh confusing the two . +Marketing: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So okay . Right so uh +User Interface: I'm just gonna pass this along . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} sorry is that that all you want to say at the mo +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm right . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here we go . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , this is my report on trend watching . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The data's come off internet uh from executive summary for us on the top three things wanted by the consumer . And we got reports from Paris , Milan on new fashions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the most important aspect is the l the look {disfmarker} it has to look fancy , look and feel +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh instead of the current functional look and feel . This is a st well I was gonna say yeah twice as important as the second aspect , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: which is the technologically innov innovative um side of it . So uh and the third being easy to use is probably a given , we have to try and incorporate , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I mean I th I think that what we're suggesting ought to address all three of those . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh exactly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I s that out of sequence ? Uh yeah , sorry . Uh yeah , and uh from the fashion watchers from Milan and Paris have said fruit and vegetables are an important theme for clothes and furniture and shoes , et cetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Uh sorry , clothes , shoes and furniture +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: and uh a spongy material to be used on the {vocalsound} on the outside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I hadn't thought of that , that's different , certainly . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But uh I was gonna say um yeah , +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: fruit and vegetables , uh important to {disfmarker} this year um important to furniture , I'm just gonna say uh {vocalsound} f like it's in {disfmarker} if if fashion {disfmarker} if we're going for the it looks fancy , then fashion is obviously the line we gotta be going through . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But fashions do don't last very long . +Industrial Designer: Well that can kinda tie into our changing uh face things , like we could have the fruit and vegetable theme this year +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh whatever happens next year , we can have the face plates , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , we can have a sp like a spongy skin on it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: and then we can just whip that off and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah like the kind you get on like hand weights . You know , that kind of spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that weird {disfmarker} I dunno what that is , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: but yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: A kind of {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Also means you can drop it without damaging it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} , yeah , it's good as well . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} c cool . Um {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} if we could save {disfmarker} depending on the cost of the product itself , you know , could we have uh a cheaper b cheaper power source and then just have it annually renewed ? Instead of having a ten year guarantee ? With interchangeable covers , could just buy a new one every year , a new one when new fashions come out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I mean it its uh I {disfmarker} that's an interesting idea , it's like the old Swatch watch where uh um on only batteries ever got changed in those , 'cause people just bought a new one when it went out of fashion , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but it's just never been seen as a a fashion item before . Um that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Wh +Project Manager: yes if if if they're made in sufficient quantity {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think it's easier sometimes to have them buy changeable covers for it than to buy a whole new one , because you don't feel like you're investing in a whole new product . +Project Manager: W I mean we we can uh uh b but I mean my feeling is that current power sources are such that for relatively little cost you can make it last , you know , a long time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but if we also make it cheap enough that people either change the cover every year or even buy a new one every year then it it's it's even better . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: What if we included the batteries in the cover ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . I like that . +User Interface: So um +Industrial Designer: That all c also kind of encourages 'em to buy new covers +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so can I see that thing ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} this as examples . +Project Manager: I n I know {disfmarker} the only p I mean the the the the immediate thing that comes to mind with that is that it it it {disfmarker} y you've then got the connection +User Interface: So f +Project Manager: and you've immediately got a sort of unreliability , whereas the advantage of having it plumbed in is that that the whole thing is all , you know , completely soldered together +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: and it it it {disfmarker} you know , total reliability , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess that's true . +Project Manager: but I mean I d I I uh I know what you're saying and uh understand where you're coming from . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} well , but like uh like more than just the battery , like a complete different {disfmarker} like you've only got like , you know like th uh this bit's the bit you keep , and this is the expensive bit , this is like the chip +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and this is the microphone . And then this is the power source and the bit everyone sees . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I s I think if we're gonna go down that route , then we're talking about uh {disfmarker} even if it costs slightly more than that , um just building the whole thing in one , then having {disfmarker} getting cheaper production costs +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you probably are right . +Project Manager: um and , you know giving people the option of buying a new uh {disfmarker} a a complete new thing , the advantage of a replaceable cover is that even if they don't {disfmarker} it doesn't have a cover on at all , it will still work um totally . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um then if , you know , if people lose the cover , I mean they they might be well inclined to go out and spend however many Euros on a on a new one um rather than a a complete new re remote . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that that's just it with the covers , you're sort of tricking 'em into continuing to spend their money on our products without making 'em feel like they're being ripped off having to buy a new product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it is {disfmarker} it's up to it's up to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +User Interface: Yeah , just another five Euro to get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's up to our marketing people to to ma to ma turn it into a a fashion item . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Um and , you know , as as external fashions change , then we get new new covers on the market and , you know , readily available . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the sort of thing , once you get the mould set , you can just whip out different colours , different pictures very very quickly . +Project Manager: {gap} that's that's right , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , like they have for mobile phones +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , exactly , exactly . +User Interface: that are just fruits and animal prints and colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh i so uh okay . {vocalsound} Um right , +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: sorry . Um we hadn't finished your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh , don't worry it's all said , I was just gonna say uh {disfmarker} yeah , are we gonna make this as part of like like uh {disfmarker} a part of the f like it it {disfmarker} the fashions apply to furniture , so are we gonna make this part of the furniture ? +Project Manager: It's the sort of thing that we want people to have prominent dis displayed on their um coffee table to say this says something about me . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this is fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah . This is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I , you know , I'm I'm I'm with it , I'm up to date . And you know , th the the design that I've got , and and it could be a a home-made design , um you know this says this is not just a a television remote control , this is , you know , a fashion accessory . Um , so I mean the the the basic shape i is is what we uh {disfmarker} I mean given that we've got you know one one on off button presumably , two buttons for uh channel change and one slider and basically nothing else , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: um w we need to decide on the {disfmarker} just the basic shape of the thing . And , know whether we go down the fruit and veg route , and I don't suggest we make it look like a banana , but um know sort of the the organic , you know , curved look , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , t to deliberately get away from the uh um {vocalsound} uh you know , the the the the square look of most um current uh remotes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and , you know , whether whether the you know , the the fixed part of it is the corporate yellow . Um mm or uh {disfmarker} 'cause there's certainly you know , the the corporate logo needs to be prominently uh displayed so that people s th looked at it and say right , that's a Real Reaction remote control , I want one of those . +Industrial Designer: I dunno that we should make the whole thing yellow I kinda thought with a {disfmarker} you'd have like a yellow circle with the R_R_ in it somewhere on it , +Project Manager: Yeah uh the the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or or b +Industrial Designer: but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yellow seems a bit of a strong colour +User Interface: like an {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I'd I'd um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to make the ent like the thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Uh no +Industrial Designer: no , but I mean just like white or grey or black or some sort of blah colour . +Project Manager: I d I I agree , I mean we're we're we're simply {disfmarker} it's simply required to incorporate the the the the corporate logo prominently um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . Mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And make that a fashion symbol as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n +Project Manager: Well , th this is {disfmarker} this is the whole point , yes , you know , I'm {disfmarker} I've got a a Real Reaction uh remote control to go with my Real Reaction coffee maker or or whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh then people , you know , people demand more Real Reaction stuff . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well I was sort of mm kinda picturing like maybe um {vocalsound} a shape that's almost like a mouse . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: So that , you know , when they hold it it's {disfmarker} because a mouse is pretty comfortable to hold in your hand um maybe we could make it a slightly different shape so they could hold on to it , but that way they can have the volume on the side and then the channel buttons and +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: have the power , wherever , somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean I've uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: I mean that was just an idea that I had . +Project Manager: Oh no that {disfmarker} well there's the sim {disfmarker} my my idea was something a b probably you know a bit fatter than this but sort of tha that sorta shape +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: so that you can just sort of ho hold it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you'd want it narrower than a mouse though +User Interface: Kind of a c +Industrial Designer: 'cause it {disfmarker} a mouse you're kinda just resting on it , you want something you can definitely grip . +Project Manager: W it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} well it's sort of it's it's sort of uh a a mouse , +Industrial Designer: So maybe it'd be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Sort of a combination . +Project Manager: but held , you know , so it's {disfmarker} you sorta hold it in your hand like that , i with , you know , and fiddling with the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and fiddle around with it and press it . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} yeah , kind of maybe maybe a little wider than this , 'cause this is pretty comfortable to hold , and then if you had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe almost like a hairbrush , like you could get the {disfmarker} about the width of that end of the pen and then it widens up top +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and you can fiddle +User Interface: then wider up here . +Industrial Designer: an yeah . +User Interface: And then it would have a l uh wider thing to uh have the light , the infrared light at the T_V_ and just kinda change channels and adjust the volume +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: and the power could be wherever , up up the top or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , cool . +User Interface: What do you guys think about that ? +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that sounds {disfmarker} Um I'm just {disfmarker} I'm suddenly realising that yeah we're discussing how much {disfmarker} how good it's gonna be to change channels t we still can just tell it to . I mean are we are we starting to get away from the the voice functionality of it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It is a very good point . +Project Manager: I think we d I think we decided that w we're actually going down both routes . That um the {vocalsound} we n +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we need the the manual controls and that they should be of that form , but that uh {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} do you know , this shape also kind of les lend itself to to voice {gap} 'cause if you're you're holding it and you're fiddling , but you can also bring it up like that +Project Manager: Then you just bring it up to your mouth and just speak to it , +Industrial Designer: and it's microphone-esque , +User Interface: Yeah , and just say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe we cou like w like we're leaving out the buttons for the the f less frequently used stuff , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but maybe we could incorporate that into the voice . +Project Manager: I th I th honest uh {vocalsound} my personal view is that if it's not there , people wouldn't use it anyway um . +Marketing: Mm I suppose , but t there is the off chance that , you know , th the brightness is wrong on your T_V_ or the contrast needs changing . +Project Manager: It's cer it's certainly possible I mean , but they {disfmarker} we we're going beyond w w +Industrial Designer: Bu Mm . +Project Manager: given the state of the technology {vocalsound} we want something that we kno we know will will work um . +Marketing: Hmm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well you can still i incorporate the voice with with less buttons . I mean {vocalsound} uh if the power button was also somehow like a menu button you could press that and {disfmarker} or do voice commands , and {vocalsound} either volume thing could also be to scroll through other options like y and you could scroll through brightness +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and and sc +Marketing: that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can minimise the buttons +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose I sup +Industrial Designer: and still have those , you know , brightness and tint and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If we we're {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} I'm getting a clear message that we think that we should have those facilities available . +User Interface: So I guess we could have a menu button as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could have the channels and the power and then a menu button and then the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So have four buttons and the volume instead of three buttons and the volume . +Project Manager: Uh uh uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , if we if we're going down that route , then we need some sort of display . Do we need some sort of display ? +Industrial Designer: But the television would be the display +Project Manager: We actually use the television , okay . Okay , okay , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's on the T_V_ , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} things like that usually c pop up on a televi like you hit menu +User Interface: Yeah , and then y +Industrial Designer: and menu will come up on television and have like tint brightness , and you'd use the scroll , scroll through it yeah . +Marketing: Well I mean +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: on a {disfmarker} onto like a mouse , the ru the scrolling button , is actually a button as well , you could press it , you could press that and have it as a menu button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah , press that is t +Industrial Designer: I never understood how that worked though , +User Interface: yeah , that might work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's like um {disfmarker} yeah , it's like the mouse where you just kinda click it . You just press it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Yeah , and you could just click that to {disfmarker} so if you had like the menu then you could scroll through and then click it to select . +Industrial Designer: Mm , oka yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You know what I mean ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Okay , we got five minutes to go in this meeting , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: so um I d I think we've actually very conveniently just uh come to uh a good point to s to sum up um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: So um b b Kate and Kendra now go away and uh pa play play with a bit of Plasticine or play-dough , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Play with play-dough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whatever it is on the other side of the Atlantic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and actually put what we've discussed into something uh {disfmarker} I was gonna say concrete , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but that's a slightly inappropriate word {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um to something that we can we can see and um Andrew n can go away and th th think about how we can uh actually market this as a concept and not j not just a uh um a a simple remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh can I just get some things clear just for {vocalsound} my sake . +Project Manager: Yeah , certainly , of course . +Marketing: Our energy source is gonna be +Project Manager: I think I think we decided that we're gonna {disfmarker} for +Marketing: long term . +Project Manager: for simplicity of , you know , manufacturing and uh maintenance that we will go for a a long term battery source um , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Cool . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} you know , on the basis that um that , you know , if we're going for making it a fashion statement , then uh people are more likely to change it anyway uh before i it runs out and um {vocalsound} make an assumption that we we can aim for a battery that will last most people for uh we'll say at least five five ten years +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that we'll w we will guarantee it for for five years um . +Marketing: And we're having a custom chip ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We're having a a custom chip , but given the the {disfmarker} we've cut the functions down , um that will hopefully not be too problematic , but given that um technol technological innovation is important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then we need to , I'll say it again , technologically innovate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh we we , know , we must resist any efforts to uh to try and water that down um . +Marketing: And interchangeable case ? +Project Manager: I i interchangeable case seems to be um {vocalsound} um important to the concept . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um it it should be cheap , you know , if if we avoid any , you know , electrical connections . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh i you know , i if we can come up with some way of of allowing people to actually personalise it uh to whatever they want , then uh {disfmarker} I mean uh uh this is totally new . +Marketing: Mm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We d we don't know whether that {disfmarker} to what extent people do it or not , but if they've at least got a a good selection of um covers that they can use anyway , and uh and if if we can keep them , you know , rolling , then uh {disfmarker} you know , so they can get them in the supermarket when they go down to um a any of the famous supermarkets , I won't mention any mention any names , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um it's uh it's good for the supermarket +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's good for us and it hopefully makes them feel better . +Marketing: And uh are we gonna have it il being illuminated from inside onto the buttons or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean that's {disfmarker} no , because we've got so few buttons that it {disfmarker} that actually makes that redundant . +Industrial Designer: Mm , does actually , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . +Marketing: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , and especially for making them so like different and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm different to feel , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , that that solves one of the problems of b of battery life , 'cause that would {disfmarker} well that would clobber the battery life , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so no , I mean given the nature of the buttons we're having , it's actually uh uh unnecessary I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we having it that it's any angle , or is it just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As uh as wide +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cer certainly wider angle than than current , +Marketing: As wide as possible . +Project Manager: so that if you're holding it , you know , anyway like you're likely to and uh it's uh {vocalsound} you know , i i it will work most of the time um . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Like this or like this . +Project Manager: Not like my my mum who points it at the ceiling and wonders why the th th the television doesn't work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I mean I d I th I sorta envisaged that if if this was the the thing , then sort of the the whole of the top would be the uh the infrared uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , kinda like this whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you could use like this and it would go {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause I mean the r reality is people are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they're gonna be looking at the television whilst they're using it , the chances are , so if if they're holding it anyway , the they're reasonably likely to be holding it to use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then uh then that that's the sort of coverage that we want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , d we're all clear where we go from here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep , sounds good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so thank you very much indeed and I'll s see you all again in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +","In a detailed and elaborate meeting led by the Project Manager, the design group convened for its third session to discuss and make critical decisions for the development of a new remote control product by Real Reaction. As part of the team’s project, the Industrial Designer, User Interface Specialist, and Marketing Expert presented their inputs and collaboratively worked to identify solutions for the outlined challenges and concerns. + +The Project Manager recapped the last meeting, noting how conventional remote controls were considered unattractive and over-complicated for users, with many unnecessary buttons and a propensity to get lost. The group had previously agreed on prioritizing user-friendly design and aesthetics. + +The Project Manager proposed speech recognition as the main interaction method over buttons, though it was suggested that a few buttons could be retained for essential functions. The team discussed the feasibility of a long-lasting battery, even guaranteed for the product's lifetime to elevate the product's appeal. + +The Industrial Designer delved into components design, suggesting fewer buttons to simplify the internal mechanism, which would potentially lower production costs. He also raised challenges around using voice recognition technology and the choice between custom-designed chips and off-the-shelf alternatives. The latter could compromise on flexibility, especially with the new feature like voice activation, while custom chips would incur greater costs and development time. + +During the meeting, considerations were made regarding the remote’s case design presented by the User Interface Specialist. They explored options to make the remote less cluttered and more visually appealing, suggesting the use of a slide button for volume control and retaining several key buttons for essential controls. The group deliberated on retaining tactile buttons due to their proven reliability and cost-effectiveness. + +Marketing insights highlighted consumer priorities such as aesthetics and technological innovation, suggesting interchangeable covers for the remote to address these demands. The idea of making the remote a fashion item, with regular updates in design and covers, was also discussed, potentially leveraging themes like fruits and vegetables becoming popular in other industries. + +In regards to energy sources, the team proposed using a long-lasting power supply sealed for life, with a commitment to replace it if it ever ran out. There was support for a custom-designed chip, despite greater expense and production time, to incorporate voice command functionality demanded by the market. + +The group weighed on the design, with the User Interface Specialist suggesting a form resembling a mouse for ergonomic benefits. The consensus seemed to favor a device that was easy to hold, with separated regions for volume and channel controls to prevent confusion, and possibly using a slider mechanism for volume control. + +Marketing raised the concept of integrating the remote control into home décor, with the Project Manager underscoring the importance of the device reflecting the user's personality and being a testament to their fashion-forwardness. + +As the meeting concluded, action points were established: the Industrial Designer and User Interface Specialist were tasked with creating physical models to visualize the discussed concepts, and Marketing was asked to think about strategies to position the remote control not only as a functional device but as a desirable lifestyle product. + +The meeting encapsulated the team’s commitment to creating a remote control that not only pushed the boundaries of technology and design but also strived to meet consumer desires for a product that was both a functional tool and a style statement. The team planned to reconvene in thirty minutes to continue their work." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good to see you all again . Let's see if that comes up . This is our functional design meeting . Um . Just a sec while my PowerPoint comes up . Et voila . Okay . Mm um we put the fashion in electronics . Let's start . Okay , our agenda today um {disfmarker} just check the time , it's twelve thirteen . Um . I'm gonna do an opening , talk about um {disfmarker} did you all get the minutes ? I e-mailed them to you . I'm also putting 'em {disfmarker} them in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So um then I {disfmarker} we'll talk about our general objectives +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and have your three presentations . Um I'll talk about the new project requirements I've just received , and then we have to make a decision on our remote control functions . Finally we'll just close . We're starting this meeting at approximately twelve thirteen and we have forty minutes . So {disfmarker} First of all the functional design objectives . Uh we need to keep in mind the user requirement specification , what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , the {gap} functions design , what effects the apparatus should have , and the working design , how the apparatus actually works to fulfil its function . Okay , three presentations , um you can go in any order you choose um . +Marketing: {gap} Mm shall we go in the order that you just did it ? +Project Manager: Sure , please do . +Marketing: I dunno . How do I hook my screen up ? +Industrial Designer: I think , you might have to disconnect Rose . +Project Manager: Yes I do . Yeah . +User Interface: Well there's a wee a wee plug just just that one there +Marketing: Where does it go ? Mm-hmm . Hmm , I'm not supposed to move this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah that's it , yep . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: And then you have to press function F_ eight +Project Manager: Function , F_ eight , yeah . +User Interface: I think it is on your laptop . +Project Manager: The blue one , F_N_ . +Marketing: Where's function ? No signal . +Project Manager: Is it plugged in all the way and you screwed it in and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , wait , 's screw in . +Industrial Designer: I I think you just have to push it in really hard . +Marketing: Push the screw . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , got it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm alright +Project Manager: It's taking it a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've never attached to anything . +Industrial Designer: Mm , neither have I . +Project Manager: 'Kay there you go . +Marketing: Alright , so , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I don't know if you guys are able to get access to um the report that was online or if I'm the only one who is . But , I don't even know how to play this . No . +Project Manager: Press the little presentation . It's the um {disfmarker} it looks like a Y_ kind of {disfmarker} over there above Draw . There , that one , there you go . +Marketing: Alright . So we're just gonna talk a little bit about the functional requirements that people specified when they were asked . Um I guess Real Reaction did some market research . They had a hundred subjects and their usability lab and they watched them watch T_V_ and recorded the frequency that they used particular buttons and the relevance that those buttons had . What they found was they analysed people's desires and needs . Focusing on their desires , um people specifically said that they thought remotes were ugly {vocalsound} , seventy five per cent of the a hundred subjects noted that and that they {disfmarker} more importantly though , eighty per cent said that they would be willing to pay more for a fancier looking remote . I don't know anything beyond what fancy means , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: but that's particularly of use to us , I think . Um also they did some questions on voice recognition and found that the desire for voice recognition was inversely related to age , so younger people were more inclined to want something with voice recognition , whereas the older people in the like sixty and above segment or so did not really think that they would pay more money for voice recognitions . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um people also had certain frustrations , that I think that we could try to take into consideration with our design . That being people k um frustrated with losing their remotes . I think , over fifty percent of the people mentioned that that was their biggest frustration . People are also frustrated with the difficulty it is to learn how to use a remote and I think that ties back to what you were saying before +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: just that there's too many buttons , it just needs to be easy to use . It also mentioned something called R_S_I_ and I was hoping someone might be able to inform me as to what R_S_I_ is , +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: because I don't know . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What ? Ah . There we go . +User Interface: So if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wow . People do not like that . So I guess sort of the carpal tunnel type thing , people do not like that , um the repetitive use , I guess , caused a strain . Um looking at the needs people specified , the problem right now is that people's remotes are not matching their operating behaviour . People are only using ten per cent of the buttons that they have offered to them on their remote . And what people do most often is changing the channel and changing the volume . People also zap like to change the channel , about um sixty five per cent during an hour of use . So we really just need to focus in on those volumes and channel changers rather than things like the audio settings , the screen settings and the channel settings , because they're used much more infrequently and probably just complicate what's going on . So I think that some things that we might wanna think about , the idea of an L_C_D_ screen was brought up although they didn't have any details on what people's preferences on that were , so I dunno know if that's coming to me later , or something like that . But something for us to consider also just the phenomenon that less is more when it comes to the buttons on the remote or what we wanna make easiest to use , make sure that , you know , something like an audio setting isn't given as much importance and visibility on the remote as something like channel changing that's used a lot more often . And basically in order for us to win over to the consumer we just need to focus on what it looks like , that it has a fancy appeal and that it's not ugly {vocalsound} and that it feels like the way they're gonna use it , so it doesn't give them any hand injuries or things like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . That was that was great . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} 's move on to the next presentation um on effects . Was that you ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: Yeah , have I unscrewed it ? +Project Manager: Push . User interface , right . Interface . +Marketing: Here we go . +User Interface: Cheers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And I think that's in the shared , if I did it right , if anyone wants to look at it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay , great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Here we go . Right so I'm gonna talk about the technical technical functions design of the remote control um . We need to start by considering what a remote control actually is . It's a device that allows us to produce certain effects on our television , so i it's basically a communication device . We we tell the remote control what we want to do , it sends a message to the television saying change the channel , change the volume , uh yeah , adjust these settings , adjust the brightness . Um how do we actually go about designing a new television remote control ? First thing to do is to come up with the design specifications . We need to know what our final product is gonna be like , so we need a a clear idea of exactly what this product does , uh how it works , and what the end-user is gonna want from this product . Um . Oh , a way I'd suggest that we could go about this is by designing uh several different prototypes of user interfaces for this product , um and then uh trying to get some feedback uh about +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: h how well these particular prototypes work , uh sorta find out what people think of 'em . Um using a remote control is is quite a subjective experience . Um , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and different different people sort of prefer different things . Um we should remember that remote controls are a a fairly standard piece of equipment . When a users using a remote control , he or she expects the buttons to be in certain places . So in some sense we're gonna we're gonna have to aim for a device which is fairly conventional in design uh so that we're not completely shocking people . But I think within that there is also room for us to introduce novel ideas uh and to make something that's that's perhaps a little bit different , something that stands out . Um also in in designing the user interface we need to consider practicalities . Uh the first of these is is technological ye uh what can we do with the current state of technology as it is . The second is is economic , uh we need to find a balance between features and price . So as you mentioned things like voice recognition would would add to the price uh but it would also im improve the design of the product . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: So I had a look on the {disfmarker} on the web uh to see if I could find a few examples of existing television remote controls . In analysing these we can consider what what things {disfmarker} what's good about them , uh what things do they get right , what's bad about them , what's wrong with 'em , um how we can improve on the designs that that that I found and what can we do to make our product stand out from from the large majority of remote controls . Here's two examples uh probably at the extreme ends of the spectrum . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um on the left here we've got uh an engineering-based design for a remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's one that's got lots of buttons , it's it's fully featured , everything you might possibly want to do is there , you know , it's got forward , backwards , up , down , channel numbers , volume , uh freeze frame . Yeah , it's it's fully featured and it might take a while to get to learn to use it , but once you've learned it you can {disfmarker} you can do whatever you want with your T_V_ . The one on the right is a lot more basic . It's just got the essential functions of the T_V_ changing the channel , play , stop , volume . It would be a lot quicker to learn to use it , but again th it's it's swings and roundabouts . There are disadvantages , you can't use it say to to freeze the television picture . Uh there's a lot of features that are missing from that remote control . So we've got to to find our {disfmarker} find a way of striking a balance between the two . Um as I said before , remote controls are subjective , different people want want different things . Um personally wa what I want from a remote control is a device that's simple , it it's easy to use , uh it's got big buttons for doing the things I do most often , changing the volume , changing the channel . It it does everything that I need it to uh , as I said before , I'm quite lazy , I don't wanna walk across the room just to adjust my television . I also want something that that looks cool , um and that that feels good , that's ergonomically designed . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Thank you very much . That was very useful . {vocalsound} It's funny to see the {vocalsound} drastic difference between those two remotes . {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And neither of them were very pretty , you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that could be our selling point . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: A fashion fashion remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think there's there's certainly a market for technology that looks cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I think that's that's why companies like Apple've 've 've made a lot of progress . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , I really can't see what I'm doing , so does anyone have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} there it is . +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha , look at that , showing up already . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: So wait , did it let you go on the Internet or was that just what it let you see ? +User Interface: Uh that was just on the d on the company web site , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause I was like googling +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then I'm like wait {vocalsound} it won't let me google . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright um {disfmarker} No , how do I play again ? +Project Manager: Um the {disfmarker} it's right above Draw . There are three thingy if {disfmarker} it's way at the bottom . Under three icons +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: and it's the one that looks like a desk . Yeah , that one . There are Y_s {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is our working design presentation . Um I had a bit of {disfmarker} some issues with this , because I wasn't able to find everything I needed , but I guess that's {disfmarker} we're still in early stages . Um so , yeah , this is this . Though th the thing about working design is the {disfmarker} what we're trying to do as a working design is figure out how the aparata apparatus can fulfil its function . Um one of the examples that kept coming up for me is that a coffee grinder . It works because it converts electrical energy to grinding the beans and then you put the bean through a filter and that filters out , and then you get coffee at the end that's nice and hot because of the combination of electrical energy and then the other things that are brought in to make it work . Don't know if I'm explaining that very well , but {disfmarker} how do I get to the next s ah . So h the method as um working designers figure out what you need to make it fulfil this practical function , what what needs to be done and how do we convert all the elements to make that done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So wha the easiest thing to do is to break down all the points at which you need something to happen . So you make a schematic of the way that the the energy is converted tsh towards this practical function . And then I think the easiest thing to do is gonna be work on each task separately . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You just press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah , just click . That'll be fine . +Industrial Designer: So the findings that I got uh very {disfmarker} just very briefly is that you have a choice of the way that the information is projected to the receiver and in my opinion infra-red is the best way to do that 'cause you don't need a sight line . So that's one thing we're gonna work on . Um the user interface is critical here , because a lot of the things that happen in a remote control happen through the chip that controls {disfmarker} that converts the electrical energy into data , which then goes through the infra-red , so the the chip that uh I think Ian is designing , is gonna be crucial . And really it all comes down to the to the user , because they're the one that's controlling most of the working design . So the components that we find here are the energy source , you know the battery or whatever that's gonna m make it work , then the chip , which converts the data , the user that's controlling the chip , and the infra-red bulb that's gonna let us move the data to the receiver . So you have four main components and they are designed sort of like this . You have your energy source right there which then um brings uh energy or information to the chip , which is also controlled by the users . You have energy going to the user who's controlling the chip {disfmarker} ooh 's not what I wanted to do uh uh . +Project Manager: Um yeah use that thing {gap} you can go back , previous . +Industrial Designer: Previous . Sorry about that , guys . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pardon . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh , well . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's just get back to my schematic here . +Project Manager: Ye Double click on it . With the right {disfmarker} with the left hand one . +Industrial Designer: W yeah , yeah . I think it's frozen . Here . Don't show me that tip again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we are . +Industrial Designer: There we are . Sorry about this , guys . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm kind of pathetic with things like this . Um alright . So you have your energy source , your user interface who's controlling the chip , the chip also uses the energy , and the chip through the use of the user interface is gonna control the switch which will work your infra-red bulb , which will then bring the data to the receiver . So hopefully that makes sense for everyone in my kind of garbled way . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: This is the the parts of the working design that need to be figured out . And {vocalsound} personal preferences , besides the fact that I can't spell , we need a long-lasting energy source , people don't wanna be changing it a lot . We need a chip that works well with the user interface , that isn't too complicated . We need a straightforward interface , like Ian was saying , simple , not overwhelming it with information and we need a reliable and clear infra-red signal , so that you're not waving your remote around +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and having to get frustrated and go do it by hands . So that's pretty much it for the working design . +Project Manager: Excellent . {gap} So , um . +Industrial Designer: Rose , do you think you can give me a hand with this ? +Project Manager: Yes , absolutely . Ah I can never tell which way to turn these things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Lefty loosey , righty tighty , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lefty loosey , righty tighty . +User Interface: Lefty loosey . Uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Never heard that before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +User Interface: that's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll think of that every time now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's gonna stick in your head . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good one it'll stick with you . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um I have nothing on my screen . Just a sec . Here we are . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ooh , +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: no signal . +Project Manager: Okay , requirements . We have a couple new requirements that I was just e-mailed right before the meeting and that we have to keep in in um in mind as we're creating this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We didn't bring it up yet , or at all in the meetings so far , but we're not gonna work with teletext because um {disfmarker} well it {disfmarker} that's been taken over by the internet , so we're not gonna worry about um {disfmarker} we're not gonna worry about that . +Marketing: What's teletext ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's a British thing . +Marketing: Oh . Oh , +User Interface: You don't have it in the States ? +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no . W d could {disfmarker} would you care to explain it ? +User Interface: Oh , I didn't realise . Um yeah , it's like a {disfmarker} I suppose it's kind of similar to a very very basic web browser . Um you have like you have uh numbers on your remote control , uh y and you type in the page number you want , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so like you type a hundred on your remote control and this this kind of index appears on the television screen with just some some text and some very blocky looking graphics on it . And you just type numbers to go to different pages and it gives you information , mostly rather boring stuff like what's on T_V_ next and share prices and that kind of thing . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} Lottery numbers and sport scores . +User Interface: Yep , news headlines . +Industrial Designer: But if you ever see the T_V_ saying like go to page one sixty on Ceefax now , that's what they're talking about . +Project Manager: How ? +User Interface: It's earl it's pretty old technology . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: It's like nineteen eighties . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That explains a lot . +Industrial Designer: I have no idea why we don't have it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Interesting . Okay um , well , we're not gonna {disfmarker} the management has decided we're not gonna work with that . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay um and we're also gonna w like your question earlier um whether this is going to be t for television , video , or etcetera . Just for television . That's what we're focused on . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Um otherwise becomes to complex , we wanna get this out um very quickly . We only have a a short amount of time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um and finally there's more marketing , I think , um , our corporate image has to be recognisable . So while we're gonna make it look pretty we need to use our colour and our slogan i in the new design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So what's our corporate image like ? It's {disfmarker} It's kind of yellow colour with uh we put fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Looks like , yeah , kind of a yellow and black and we have that {disfmarker} the emphasis on the R_s in um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like double R_ . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it's , yeah , we put the um fashion in electronics . So we gotta keep that in that in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we want something that looks good +Project Manager: Yep . Yep . +Industrial Designer: and is yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , or {vocalsound} ha maybe some buttons could be yellow . Like , we can we can play around with it a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , we need to talk about our functions and our target group . We need to decide who our target group is . You um in your analysis of different market um {disfmarker} of the marketing , you identified that different groups wanted different things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or had certain preferences , for example that um that older people didn't really care for um voice recognition , but younger people did . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and so who are we aiming this at ? +Industrial Designer: Well if we're gonna say that function um fashion {disfmarker} we put the fashion in in electronics then you {disfmarker} automatically , I think , a sort of younger group that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} who's gonna be attracted to this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , I do think , who's gonna have the money to buy that also , that one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . It's gonna be twenty five Euro remember , so um it has to be avai marketable to um whomever it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} is it something that's gonna be sold separately from the television or is it something that comes w with a television ? 'Cause that would affect the way that we market it . +Project Manager: Well at least right now what we're doing is um deciding on just the remote itself , so it will probably be sold separately , twenty five Euro by itself . +User Interface: Right . Right , okay . +Marketing: The only break-down that I was given in terms of age was the voice activation and basically there's a big jump , after thirty five people don't really care if it has voice , so it's like basically fifteen to thirty five that think that that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I dunno I'm gonna be given any other numbers broken down in terms of age later , but if that's sort of the only quality that we have that is divided into age then we would wanna stick between the fifteen and thirty five range . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's probably uh a population w quite a little bit of disposable income for use on technology anyway , so that might be a fairly good target group for us . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now , those are {disfmarker} that's all specific for speech recognition . Are we gonna use that as one of our functions ? +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I I would say no , because it's gonna add too much to the price . Especially if we are marketing it as a separate product , people are gonna be paying +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: uh , well , uh we've got a price limit of {disfmarker} was it twelve twelve and a half Euros for {disfmarker} to produce it ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: To produce it , yeah . +Project Manager: To produce it , yes . +User Interface: And I wonder if we can get voice recognition into that twelve and a half Euros without having to make too many other compromises . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But what else are we gonna put , I mean not that I'm really gung-ho about it , I don't know what else you can put in a remote to make it technologically advanced though . So like other than just making it look good , how is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean it can look really great and still have the same up-n-down buttons +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: and why's anyone gonna buy a new remote ? +Industrial Designer: Well but why are we why are we aiming for a technological advancement ? Everything we're talking about is ease of use and simple and that doesn't necessarily mean more technology , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a good thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: in fact it could use {disfmarker} it could mean , not . If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they might be overwhelmed with with remotes that have too many buttons and too much technology . +Marketing: If someone's looking to buy a new remote , don't they want like an upgrade ? I dunno . +Project Manager: Upgrade ? Well , we can look for {disfmarker} we can look at upgrade or we can look at um user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simplification . +Project Manager: Simplification , +Industrial Designer: They could have a crap remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that came with their T_V_ that's just impossible to use , or maybe it broke , or maybe they're just missing it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , mm . And we also need to talk about if we're only gonna have the very simple ones or also have the other ones just separate somehow or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} I mean this may be too complicated , but , I wish I had something to explain it , like if it was just a simple , either this way or this way , that had like the main buttons and then you could like pull something out , kind of and like you got the rest the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Marketing: but the rest of them like went in . +User Interface: The remote {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know what I'm saying ? +Project Manager: Kind of pull out of the side . +User Interface: There are remote controls like that , yeah . Like some T_V_s they have a sort of uh a sliding screen on the remote control of it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that hides all the complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So if you wanna do something complicated like programme your television or re-tune it , then you you open up this little hatch or or slide the screen down +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and there's all the {disfmarker} all the special buttons . +Marketing: 'Cause then 's like people who don't wanna ever look at them , never even have to see them +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if you like get the instruction manual that comes with it and you just don't even read it then you'll never even know that those things can pull out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And you're a happy person and everyone else doesn't have to have like two remotes , one that has the easy ones and one that has +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: more complicated ones , +User Interface: I think that's a good idea , yeah . +Marketing: but 's all still in one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um we have to be careful that that that doesn't impede um the chip transmitting information , but um that's gonna be mostly technological thing . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um , so what are we emphasising ? I {disfmarker} what in this project ? +User Interface: Si simplicity and fashion . +Project Manager: Simplicity and fashion . +Marketing: I think simplicity , fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: Okay , those are very good goals , I think , um that we have to keep in mind in {disfmarker} with everything we do . Simplicity and fashion and , yeah , {disfmarker} or usability speci however you wanna say that , which includes um an emphasis on making the infra-red very functional , so that you don't have to travel around a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: What can you do to like make the infra-red more functional , like why would it not be ? I'm just wondering . +Project Manager: I think it's a lot {vocalsound} to do with battery , but that's just my {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The battery and that {disfmarker} I think that the chip takes the data and presents it well , without sort of scattering . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So 's just the quality of the chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The quality {vocalsound} uh quality of all the components really , I mean , we can't really do anything {disfmarker} shoddy work , 'cause it's +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: gonna be visible down the line . +Project Manager: So our target group , we're saying , fifteen to thirty five ? +Marketing: Well , I dunno how useful that number is if we're not doing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S voice recognition , which I kind of I kind of feel like voice recognition is not necessary in a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . I don't . +Project Manager: like it might be necessary for a T_V_ but not for the remote c , you know . +User Interface: It's , yeah , it's pretty it's pretty high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Seems a little bit {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it might be too expensive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And if the whole idea is you're using a remote then why would you have voice , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you know what I mean and then it's like you wouldn't need a remote you'd just talk to your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's for , like , the ultimately lazy people , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: who can't even be bothered to pick up the remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} I mean if I get m more numbers , I'll e-mail you before the next meeting in terms of ages . But this doesn't divide up anything and there was only a hundred subjects also , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which isn't , I mean , really isn't that representative , especially if it's a hundred subjects that th they then can subdivide into age groups that means there's very few in each age group , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I th I think regardless we're we're aiming for the under sixty five or something . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Under sixty five , okay , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: that's a good start . Um . I'd say we're {disfmarker} uh can we narrow it down to maybe um teenagers and families ? 'Cause that would go up to like fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Or like single professionals or something . +Project Manager: Okay , single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty to like fifty five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's it's hard to narrow it down . +Industrial Designer: It's really hard to figure out right now . +User Interface: I think the product appeals across a quite a broad range of ages . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean , we we said simplicity is is one of the features , so it's going to appeal to people , maybe people who have problems with technology , you know , people who get scared by having lots of buttons , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and that might be older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but then we've also got fashion , which is something that definitely appeals to younger people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well maybe we don't have to defi define the target group by the demographic of age , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: maybe we can define it by like the demographic of like h t how much money they have to spend or something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah aim for a {disfmarker} an income group . +Industrial Designer: That's a good point . +Marketing: like , well +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: obviously it has to be someone who owns a television , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and like how recently have they bought their television like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe it's more useful to d d to define objectives like fashion and simplicity than to find specific target group as far as age is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , t probably . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because , yeah , things so different will appeal to different people , but {disfmarker} Okay . Um oh , there're a couple functions {disfmarker} do we want something so that {disfmarker} do we want some kind of thing to find it if it's lost ? Like a button on a T_V_ you can press +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'll ring or something , I don't know like {disfmarker} or beep ? +Marketing: H I mean , like I said before , fifty per cent of of the fru f like frustration someone can have that was the biggest one and half the people said that happened and we all mentioned it before we knew about it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And if we're talking about making something easy that sort of goes along with it so it wouldn't be like a random thing to sort of add in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It would be relevant to like the overall goal I think , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll probably be good . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we have to {disfmarker} we have about four minutes left to define our functions . So let's do that quickly . Um so we want something to keep it from getting lost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} we want um we want large buttons for the essential things . Large , accessible buttons for the essentials . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We want a possibility to um to get um a possibility to get the extra functions . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which are kind of hidden away in some way or well not hidden but they're uh they're not as prominent as the main features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um , yeah , hidden way . And we also want it to be fashionable , which I'm not sure if that's a function so much as a um yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} on your coffee table , it's not like an eye sore , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , do it . Any other essential functions that we need ? Battery ? Do we need a long-life battery ? +Industrial Designer: Battery battery use . Yeah , but I think that goes in with simplicity and ease of use really . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But we might as well . +Marketing: So you never have to change the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We should maybe investigate whether it needs a battery at all . I suspect the remote control does need a battery , +Project Manager: Yeah , I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but I dunno if you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just 'cause it is an electronic device , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} I think it does . I don't I don't think of a way you can operate a chip and convert that much data without without one . +User Interface: Yeah , without the energy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you could maybe have it in a little charging station like a mobile phone , or like a little cradle for your iPod . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's possible . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could maybe do that instead . +Project Manager: Charging . +Industrial Designer: So you don't ha you got like a rechargeable battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , that might contribute to less people losing it too if it {vocalsound} it stays in one place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We have to think about um space in living-rooms , too , like 'cause they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean , would you put it on top of the T_V_ ? I don't know , just think {disfmarker} okay , that's {vocalsound} that's a good idea , we'll keep it . Think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's just off the top of my head . +Project Manager: And maybe fun . Okay . Um 'kay we're gonna conclude now , has everyone said their functions and {disfmarker} 'kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um after the meeting we're gonna each complete a sks um a questionnaire and a summaries {disfmarker} summary . I don't know what summarisation . Um and then we'll have our lunch break . After that we have thirty minutes of individual work . Um I'll make sure to put up um the minutes and the project documentation and including these PowerPoint slides . If everyone could do that as well , that'd be great . Um you each have individual actions , I_ um I_D_ Industrial Design you've your components concept , User Interface , the user interface concept , market trend wa watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And as as per last time you'll get specific incrat instructions from your personal coach e-mailed to you . And hopefully , I hope , next time you'll be able to access more of the web site that they they seem to tell you that you could . It's kinda frustrating , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , who knows . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Be sure to note any frustrations or any um issues that come up in your um in your um summary . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Project Manager: Mm 'kay ? +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Great seeing y'all . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you um {disfmarker} were you able to like put yours in the group folder ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I just did that . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hopefully it is there for people . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Looks like there are um {disfmarker} looks like there's a second one kind of of mine that's {disfmarker} that I didn't do , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's from like an earlier project , I think so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Where is that ? Yours is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Under the shared folder , I don't know it might not even be under yours as well . +Industrial Designer: Technical . So +Project Manager: Projects . +Industrial Designer: in there we have technical functions presentation , working design presentation and the functional requirements . At least that's what I have in . +Marketing: I only have three , I just have like our three . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I have as well , R Rose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . You don't have mine ? +Industrial Designer: So . +Marketing: No , but that's 'cause I think yours is in the e-mail separate , like it's not on the server . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But if I open it and then save it , probably will be there . Oh wait , never mind you can't save it to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I'll figure that out in the meantime . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +","Summary: + +The functional design meeting began with the Project Manager (PM) setting the agenda, which included reviewing minutes, discussing general objectives, presentations from each department, and discussing new project requirements and decisions on remote control functions. Marketing presented the market research findings, underscoring that customers desire more aesthetically pleasing remotes and have an interest in voice recognition, mainly among the younger demographic. They also highlighted user frustrations, such as losing remotes and learning difficulties due to too many buttons. + +The User Interface (UI) presenter discussed the significance of design specifications and balancing practicalities like technology and economics. They stressed the need for simplicity and familiarity in design while allowing room for innovation. + +The Industrial Designer discussed the working design, focusing on how the apparatus fulfills its functions. The key components highlighted were the energy source, chip, user interface, and an infrared signal. + +The PM introduced new project requirements: omitting teletext functionality and focusing solely on television, aligning with corporate image guidelines, and maintaining cultural recognition. + +The team affirmed that simplicity and fashion were primary objectives for the design. They discussed not including voice recognition to keep costs down and deliberated on which age demographic to target, eventually agreeing on a broad range rather than specified age groups. Other features discussed included a finding mechanism for lost remotes, large and accessible primary buttons, the possibility of extra features, a stylish design, and long-lasting battery life or recharging options. + +The meeting concluded with instructions for post-meeting tasks, including filling out questionnaires and summaries, a lunch break, thirty minutes of individual work, and uploading project documentation. The PM urged the team to record any issues met during their work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we are here for the concept design meeting . So , we will first start by summarizing the mm {vocalsound} the previous meeting and the decision we've taken . Uh I will take notes during this meeting so uh that you can uh look at my uh folder to see the summary of this meeting afterwards . So each of you will uh show us the various investigation they've done during uh previous uh hours . We'll then t take decision in concert and then uh uh we will uh define the nest {disfmarker} next task , to have {disfmarker} to be done before the next meeting . So , last time we decided to have a simple interface . We also decided to have a wheel to change channel {disfmarker} previous channel button . Channel digit uh buttons should be uh protected by plastic cover or something for the remote control to look very simple . We have also button for volume , and to switch on off the T_V_ . We have also uh the lightening feature for the remote control to be easy to find , and for fast development and low cost we have decided to have no L_C_D_ no voice features . So now uh we will have three presentations . So the conceptual specification by Industrial Designer , the specification of the U_I_ by {disfmarker} or U_I_ {vocalsound} +User Interface: Abdul al-Hasred is my name . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} And uh the last point is uh trend watching by Market Expert . So maybe we can start with uh industrial design . So this is the presentation . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I_D_ you want ? +Project Manager: Maybe I can switch slide uh on your request . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I only v have three slides , so . I just look at the mm {disfmarker} um just this . On some web pages to find some documentation +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think a remote control is , as I s mentioned previously , you just have a a very simple chip and the mm the user interface is just done usually by push button and in our case we are using a um a wheel control . So uh uh I was looking basically for that chip , which is uh very very standard , and uh I just looked for the wheel sensor and the standard push button . And um {vocalsound} yeah we can change directly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In fact I have the number of that element which is very standard for remote control . The push button are usually extremely cheap , but I just have one problem and this is related with the wheel sensor , which seems to be quite expensive . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I think we if we could just talk about that if we really need a wheel sensor or if we can not {disfmarker} if if we could combine something with the push button . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a wheel sensor is fifty time the price of a a a push button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But is it a significant price on the whole remote control ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because we can afford up to twelve Euros for the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: So will will will this with uh including all possible things , so buttons , wheel and the chip , be uh lower than twelve Euros to produce ? +Industrial Designer: I I th {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh we should {disfmarker} We should talk about uh the design of the box also which needs some money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Also have to say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Did you receive the email about the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's all {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? +Project Manager: You received something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . I haven't chec +User Interface: Yeah . You we uh an email from the manufacturing division that they have basically a voice recognition chip already developed . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Says {disfmarker} Yeah . It says that ri right now they just use it to uh to record uh answers to particular questions . But I guess it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And could it be adapted ? +User Interface: I guess it's possible . I mean instead of recording the answers you can just uh record uh something simpler like a command . +Project Manager: Okay and there can uh recognize some commands and stuff ? +User Interface: Yeah you reco recognize commands and you can record new commands and stuff , so if they already have it as uh as a chip +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: then we we could use it . +Project Manager: Okay maybe we can just uh listen to this presentation and then take decision later on {disfmarker} according to those news . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think it's yeah {disfmarker} Sorry , I haven't written my personal references . Um {vocalsound} the I I just want to mention the the problem of the the r wheels sensor which is much more expensive than any push button , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and if we could reduce that . We we have already some good things uh with um um with the backlight of the push button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I have a question about that actually {vocalsound} . Um , what is the purpose of the light ? +Industrial Designer: Just to to make something which is uh slightly more design that uh a squarey box with a rubber {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can easily find the button in the dark or so ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But in th in the dark uh {disfmarker} Yeah but is going to be always turned on , the light ? +Project Manager: It will be turned on when the when the user move the remote control I think , no ? +User Interface: But if you move it then you have it , you don't need to find it . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: You can see the buttons better , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Actually . +User Interface: But if you move it then you have to have some sensor to {disfmarker} when you move it to detect your movement . +Industrial Designer: As soon as you thought to move the the remote control you have the light . +User Interface: Yeah , but you need another sensor for that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Again . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} no it's too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that this is really expensive , but at the end this is plenty of unexpen eh very cheap devices but uh the bill starts to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm . Extra . Yeah , okay . Mm . Yeah , but I expected also the wheel would be cheap but you tell me that it is very expensive so , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First of all I was thinking to have a a continuous light +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you w when t you you you you press the on button you have the light on your remote control , when you want to turn off your device {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But it can be uh battery consuming , no ? To have the light always on ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a little bit . A little bit . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Well we will discuss that after maybe +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay +Project Manager: the other presentations . +User Interface: . So uh my one , it uh should be in the shared folder . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So . It was last time I saw it . +Project Manager: And it is . +User Interface: Okay . So , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} just move to the next slide . {vocalsound} So basically {vocalsound} want very simple , right ? That's the major idea , as simple as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I just look at some current designs uh on the web , of usually more complicated remote controls . And let's look at two of them because uh th even though they have many buttons they look quite simple . And in our case we just uh reject the buttons what we don't need and it become even simpler . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: And also does it uh fit well in hand ? Because it was uh th your wrist problem with the usage . +User Interface: Yeah . Well this these uh these remotes are quite big , so go to the next page , so . We have all these buttons as you can see , but most of them , we just need the ones in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , from the bottom or whatever is there , uh the uh the numbers and then the top , uh until the ten also , this middle part , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and on the left one is exactly the same . So it's basically more or less how we would like it , with a big volume control , big channel control , and mute and power , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: These are the basic thing . +Project Manager: So it's only the central part . +User Interface: So basically , w software we will build will look more or less the same as these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . With a maybe a more ergonomic design on on the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , if you have , for example {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think that the volume and the buttons that are there on the top are not very easy to reach with your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It could be on the right side , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Because we don't have these input buttons and this other stuff that they have . And I think that the plastic cover is not very good uh idea because +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: you open it , it can break , you ca you can do various things . +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Uh you just need to put the channel numbers somewhere a bit out of the way . +Project Manager: Okay . Will be down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that they're separate a bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . Uh and it's easy to press the other {disfmarker} the big buttons , but uh , it's not that difficult to press the the channel buttons either . Mm . Yeah , I think that if you put the cover it will be even more difficult for the user . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Alright , you won't {disfmarker} yeah . Usually what {disfmarker} I have noticed that people put the plastic cover on things that you normally don't mess with , like buttons for t uh tuning the channels and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . That you want to protect a bit . And I think it's uh it's reasonable . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah , this is just the the wheel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: We could use the {disfmarker} some wheels can be pushed down , could use the push down of the wheel for the record if we want . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so we could just basically use one just wheel and uh user could use just the wheel to do everything with the channels in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the wheel will be a {vocalsound} good advantage over our competitors . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise it's pretty standard apart the fact that it's very simple . So maybe it's worse to uh to have more expense on that's that aspect . +Industrial Designer: To s Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess the market researcher will tell us all about that . +Project Manager: Okay . So we can move to the {disfmarker} Is there any question ? For designer of user interface ? {vocalsound} or we can move to the next part , maybe , and discuss afterwards ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay , I can go ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Can I ? {vocalsound} So now the recent investigation we we have done fo of the remote control um . So , the most important aspect for remote controls is to be fancy look and feel and not current functional look and feel . And um the second aspect is uh that the remote control should be uh technological innovative . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the third most important aspect is to to {disfmarker} is that the co remote control should be easy to use . So , are things we are we have uh speak about before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} so you you can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: after . And there is a fashion watchers in Paris and Milan that have detected the following trends , uh fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes , and furnitures . {vocalsound} So , maybe if our {vocalsound} remote control have to be a fruit form or vegetable form {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: something like that , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I support an apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the mm the material is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I don't know which material {vocalsound} can be spongy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is good also for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , wou wou I think we can certainly just put the electronics in a spongy thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: it it would work , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it is good also f to have a spongy material , yeah . +User Interface: You can throw it to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , because it's robust . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Marketing: It's robust , yeah . +User Interface: Hey that's a cool one . We could say that if you throw it , you have a sensor , and you throw it and hits the television and turns it off . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When it d uh takes a shock . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not good . +Project Manager: uh sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Ah it's okay . I know that they do that for alarm clock also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: An and and uh this uh you can yeah you can say that . You ca uh you can go uh before +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Before ? +Marketing: , before , yes . And you know here the more iz important aspect is the fancy look and feel , after is uh technological innovative , and after the easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I think it's innovative to use the mm the wheel because I think no one else has . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it ? +Marketing: Yeah that's why I think we have to keep that if it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's {disfmarker} it makes it both easy and both innos innovative . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Innovative . Mm . +Project Manager: So I think it's a good aspect and it should be kept . +User Interface: How do we make it look cool is the question . +Project Manager: Cool , fancy ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to make it l look like a fruit or vegetable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh um {vocalsound} a colour that remember some fruit uh , things like that . +Industrial Designer: What about um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Oh , colour , yeah . +User Interface: Well the obvious thing is a banana , I guess . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought about a a pear , for example . You know the pear , is like that and it's it's easy to to have in in hand +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's ergonomic as well . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: A pear . +User Interface: The banana is also ergonomic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe pear yeah or something like that . +Marketing: Or a fruit like that . I dunno . +Project Manager: Yeah . We can discuss that uh . D D Is is there anything you want to add ? +User Interface: Is there any fruit that is spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . I think we we can have like yeah a pear is good , fit well , or banana as you told . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like that . +Industrial Designer: And for maybe look and feel , what about a a piece of ice , with blue L_E_D_ inside ? +Project Manager: But that's not in the trend . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: You can make it um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The trend is spongy , and vegetable fruits . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not hard , the metal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think p spongy is good because it it will be robust as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we can keep the wheel because it's uh easy , it's innovative , even if the cost is a bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we also have to find a , so , a fruit like pear or banana wit uh any others idea you have . What kind of fr fruit would you like to to control your T_V_ with ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Odi +Industrial Designer: Banana I think , it's a nice idea . +Project Manager: Banana is also yellow so you you can't lost your remote control then . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You y you don't use the banana when the banana is curving like that , +User Interface: Two of the button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when the banana is curving like that , with the wheel on the top and to control , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here you have a a push button to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah so you can just have uh just have this curve , yeah , and you move uh your hand here to press the buttons and then you move uh on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you can have it on on two sides and it'll be cool , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: no ? +Project Manager: I think it's a good design and it's innovative as well then . Maybe we can keep the banana . And it will be very easy to find . +Industrial Designer: And everybody knows what is a banana . +User Interface: You can put also vibrator inside . +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you if you start with uh fancy fruits and fra s and tha +User Interface: Ah-ha . You can also take into account the fact that the banana fits with the colour scheme of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's really uh really a good point . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I hope the students of management die , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but anyway . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now who are recording this meeting ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} One second . So we have to take some decision on this aspect . So , uh so for {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , for uh component , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to think about those aspects , sorry . +Industrial Designer: So we will just use a a standard battery ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the chip we {disfmarker} chip imprint we know exactly which one we are going to use . Uh what do you mean by case ? +Project Manager: I think it's the box that should be spongy , banana's shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I mean for me if we use a a spongy banana case , doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just want to have so something to prin to to fix my my components onto that box , and that's it . +User Interface: The only th Yeah . Y Yeah that can be in inside th in the structure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But uh the thing is that the buttons and the wheel have to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy also . +User Interface: I mean if it's spongy then the buttons and the wheel have to {disfmarker} I mean if it's spongy then it's going to move , right ? So , it's going to be bend a lot . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh no I think it's possible . +User Interface: So if we try to push the buttons , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No the button would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: You think it's possible ? +Project Manager: In fact it it should be something odd shaped , with a spongy cover . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: . This is uh like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay odd shape with spongy {disfmarker} cover . And standard battery okay , a chip imprint , there's no specific problem . So we agree to put the wheel {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Wheel on the top . Button , where do we want some buttons ? +User Interface: Well , usually hold {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay , we want it to be good also for the left-hand users , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it have to {disfmarker} it has to be symmetrical . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah but okay . Sa let's say that th o {vocalsound} It has to be {disfmarker} basically you can only take two sides , one on ths this side where is the thumb and the other side where there is uh yeah also the thumb . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Basically . Or you could use use this one , but I don't know if it's very comfortable , to use this one for the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe the thumb is more comfortable . +User Interface: This for the wheel and then this for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think it's okay for both right and left . Mm . +User Interface: Should have the two sides . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So if {gap} the left , we have {disfmarker} the op +Project Manager: I think you can turn it this way also . You can do both with both hands . +User Interface: Wheel {disfmarker} Wheel buttons . +Project Manager: I think it's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the problem is if you have buttons and wheel then when you turn it around , the buttons are on the other side . So you cannot see them . +Project Manager: Well , you you will get used to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And moreover , th the button ar are lighted so you you immediately identify the right side , because you have light on buttons . +User Interface: So the buttons have to be here and the wheel has to be {disfmarker} Y Yeah I know , but uh if you hold with your left hand , and the wheel is here , and the buttons are here , then when you turn it around the buttons will be on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . No you you {disfmarker} I think you will use it only on the right or left hand , whether you are righty or lefty . I think for lefty it's okay . I can do this movement , and for righty as well . I think this doesn't change that much . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . Maybe . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , for interface we said also that we have uh this banana shape with button on the s on the side . And {disfmarker} and uh a wheel on the top . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the colour is yellow . I think it's uh {disfmarker} we defined everything according to what we should {disfmarker} what the decision we should take , yeah . So maybe we can um we can uh work on those aspects uh until next meeting . So have the final uh look and feel design according to the decision . And have the the user interface design and uh then evaluate the prodyuc {disfmarker} the product . That is to say , uh check if it fit the the requirement uh given by the users , but according to uh your presentation it seems to be okay . It seems to be fancy , innovative , and easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} to prepare the prototype I would suggest that the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer uh work together . That would uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: be better , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} And so uh you will receive further instruction by emails , as usual . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes master . +Project Manager: do you need to add anything ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You feel okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You feel uh free to express what you want to say ? You don't feel too constrained ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You don't feel free to answer this ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe you can make {gap} uh {vocalsound} uh mm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you . +","Summary: + +The meeting was attended by the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer (named Abdul al-Hasred), and the Market Expert. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the concept design for a simple and cost-effective remote control with specific features decided in their last meeting. These features included a simple interface, a wheel for changing channels, channel digit buttons with protection, volume control, a power switch, and a backlight feature, but no LCD or voice features. + +During the current meeting, the Industrial Designer raised a concern regarding the high cost of the wheel sensor compared to push buttons. The team discussed the necessity of the wheel sensor versus combining it with push buttons and reviewed the total cost of production to ensure it stayed below 12 Euros, including design considerations for the box. + +The User Interface Designer mentioned an email about potential voice recognition chip technology that could be adapted for the remote control. + +The team also considered the inclusion of a motion sensor for the backlighting feature, which would illuminate the remote when moved, but were wary of cost and complexity of additional sensors. + +Furthermore, the Market Expert shared insights, emphasizing the trends toward fancy look and feel, technological innovation, and ease of use for remote controls. A suggestion inspired by fashion trends in Paris and Milan was raised to create a remote control with a fruit or vegetable shape with spongy material, possibly considering the company's color scheme. + +The team tentatively decided on a banana shape due to its ergonomic and colorful nature, fitting the company's identity. They discussed integrating a wheel for innovation and ease of use despite the higher cost and considered making the remote robust enough to handle being thrown. The Project Manager encouraged collaboration between the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer to refine the prototype, assuring it aligns with user requirements for a product that is fancy, innovative, and user-friendly. + +Decisions on specific component choices like batteries, the chip, and casing were to be refined, but the team agreed upon integrating the wheel feature and a banana-shaped, spongy yellow cover for the remote control. + +The Project Manager took notes and mentioned a summary of the meeting would be provided, and attendees were reassured that they could share their ideas freely. They concluded the discussion with intentions to further develop the product design while considering the points raised and to prepare for evaluating the prototype at the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we are here for the concept design meeting . So , we will first start by summarizing the mm {vocalsound} the previous meeting and the decision we've taken . Uh I will take notes during this meeting so uh that you can uh look at my uh folder to see the summary of this meeting afterwards . So each of you will uh show us the various investigation they've done during uh previous uh hours . We'll then t take decision in concert and then uh uh we will uh define the nest {disfmarker} next task , to have {disfmarker} to be done before the next meeting . So , last time we decided to have a simple interface . We also decided to have a wheel to change channel {disfmarker} previous channel button . Channel digit uh buttons should be uh protected by plastic cover or something for the remote control to look very simple . We have also button for volume , and to switch on off the T_V_ . We have also uh the lightening feature for the remote control to be easy to find , and for fast development and low cost we have decided to have no L_C_D_ no voice features . So now uh we will have three presentations . So the conceptual specification by Industrial Designer , the specification of the U_I_ by {disfmarker} or U_I_ {vocalsound} +User Interface: Abdul al-Hasred is my name . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} And uh the last point is uh trend watching by Market Expert . So maybe we can start with uh industrial design . So this is the presentation . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I_D_ you want ? +Project Manager: Maybe I can switch slide uh on your request . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I only v have three slides , so . I just look at the mm {disfmarker} um just this . On some web pages to find some documentation +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think a remote control is , as I s mentioned previously , you just have a a very simple chip and the mm the user interface is just done usually by push button and in our case we are using a um a wheel control . So uh uh I was looking basically for that chip , which is uh very very standard , and uh I just looked for the wheel sensor and the standard push button . And um {vocalsound} yeah we can change directly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In fact I have the number of that element which is very standard for remote control . The push button are usually extremely cheap , but I just have one problem and this is related with the wheel sensor , which seems to be quite expensive . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I think we if we could just talk about that if we really need a wheel sensor or if we can not {disfmarker} if if we could combine something with the push button . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a wheel sensor is fifty time the price of a a a push button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But is it a significant price on the whole remote control ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because we can afford up to twelve Euros for the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: So will will will this with uh including all possible things , so buttons , wheel and the chip , be uh lower than twelve Euros to produce ? +Industrial Designer: I I th {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh we should {disfmarker} We should talk about uh the design of the box also which needs some money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Also have to say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Did you receive the email about the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's all {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? +Project Manager: You received something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . I haven't chec +User Interface: Yeah . You we uh an email from the manufacturing division that they have basically a voice recognition chip already developed . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Says {disfmarker} Yeah . It says that ri right now they just use it to uh to record uh answers to particular questions . But I guess it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And could it be adapted ? +User Interface: I guess it's possible . I mean instead of recording the answers you can just uh record uh something simpler like a command . +Project Manager: Okay and there can uh recognize some commands and stuff ? +User Interface: Yeah you reco recognize commands and you can record new commands and stuff , so if they already have it as uh as a chip +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: then we we could use it . +Project Manager: Okay maybe we can just uh listen to this presentation and then take decision later on {disfmarker} according to those news . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think it's yeah {disfmarker} Sorry , I haven't written my personal references . Um {vocalsound} the I I just want to mention the the problem of the the r wheels sensor which is much more expensive than any push button , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and if we could reduce that . We we have already some good things uh with um um with the backlight of the push button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I have a question about that actually {vocalsound} . Um , what is the purpose of the light ? +Industrial Designer: Just to to make something which is uh slightly more design that uh a squarey box with a rubber {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can easily find the button in the dark or so ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But in th in the dark uh {disfmarker} Yeah but is going to be always turned on , the light ? +Project Manager: It will be turned on when the when the user move the remote control I think , no ? +User Interface: But if you move it then you have it , you don't need to find it . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: You can see the buttons better , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Actually . +User Interface: But if you move it then you have to have some sensor to {disfmarker} when you move it to detect your movement . +Industrial Designer: As soon as you thought to move the the remote control you have the light . +User Interface: Yeah , but you need another sensor for that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Again . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} no it's too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that this is really expensive , but at the end this is plenty of unexpen eh very cheap devices but uh the bill starts to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm . Extra . Yeah , okay . Mm . Yeah , but I expected also the wheel would be cheap but you tell me that it is very expensive so , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First of all I was thinking to have a a continuous light +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you w when t you you you you press the on button you have the light on your remote control , when you want to turn off your device {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But it can be uh battery consuming , no ? To have the light always on ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a little bit . A little bit . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Well we will discuss that after maybe +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay +Project Manager: the other presentations . +User Interface: . So uh my one , it uh should be in the shared folder . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So . It was last time I saw it . +Project Manager: And it is . +User Interface: Okay . So , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} just move to the next slide . {vocalsound} So basically {vocalsound} want very simple , right ? That's the major idea , as simple as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I just look at some current designs uh on the web , of usually more complicated remote controls . And let's look at two of them because uh th even though they have many buttons they look quite simple . And in our case we just uh reject the buttons what we don't need and it become even simpler . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: And also does it uh fit well in hand ? Because it was uh th your wrist problem with the usage . +User Interface: Yeah . Well this these uh these remotes are quite big , so go to the next page , so . We have all these buttons as you can see , but most of them , we just need the ones in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , from the bottom or whatever is there , uh the uh the numbers and then the top , uh until the ten also , this middle part , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and on the left one is exactly the same . So it's basically more or less how we would like it , with a big volume control , big channel control , and mute and power , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: These are the basic thing . +Project Manager: So it's only the central part . +User Interface: So basically , w software we will build will look more or less the same as these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . With a maybe a more ergonomic design on on the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , if you have , for example {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think that the volume and the buttons that are there on the top are not very easy to reach with your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It could be on the right side , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Because we don't have these input buttons and this other stuff that they have . And I think that the plastic cover is not very good uh idea because +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: you open it , it can break , you ca you can do various things . +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Uh you just need to put the channel numbers somewhere a bit out of the way . +Project Manager: Okay . Will be down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that they're separate a bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . Uh and it's easy to press the other {disfmarker} the big buttons , but uh , it's not that difficult to press the the channel buttons either . Mm . Yeah , I think that if you put the cover it will be even more difficult for the user . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Alright , you won't {disfmarker} yeah . Usually what {disfmarker} I have noticed that people put the plastic cover on things that you normally don't mess with , like buttons for t uh tuning the channels and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . That you want to protect a bit . And I think it's uh it's reasonable . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah , this is just the the wheel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: We could use the {disfmarker} some wheels can be pushed down , could use the push down of the wheel for the record if we want . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so we could just basically use one just wheel and uh user could use just the wheel to do everything with the channels in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the wheel will be a {vocalsound} good advantage over our competitors . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise it's pretty standard apart the fact that it's very simple . So maybe it's worse to uh to have more expense on that's that aspect . +Industrial Designer: To s Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess the market researcher will tell us all about that . +Project Manager: Okay . So we can move to the {disfmarker} Is there any question ? For designer of user interface ? {vocalsound} or we can move to the next part , maybe , and discuss afterwards ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay , I can go ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Can I ? {vocalsound} So now the recent investigation we we have done fo of the remote control um . So , the most important aspect for remote controls is to be fancy look and feel and not current functional look and feel . And um the second aspect is uh that the remote control should be uh technological innovative . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the third most important aspect is to to {disfmarker} is that the co remote control should be easy to use . So , are things we are we have uh speak about before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} so you you can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: after . And there is a fashion watchers in Paris and Milan that have detected the following trends , uh fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes , and furnitures . {vocalsound} So , maybe if our {vocalsound} remote control have to be a fruit form or vegetable form {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: something like that , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I support an apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the mm the material is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I don't know which material {vocalsound} can be spongy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is good also for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , wou wou I think we can certainly just put the electronics in a spongy thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: it it would work , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it is good also f to have a spongy material , yeah . +User Interface: You can throw it to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , because it's robust . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Marketing: It's robust , yeah . +User Interface: Hey that's a cool one . We could say that if you throw it , you have a sensor , and you throw it and hits the television and turns it off . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When it d uh takes a shock . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not good . +Project Manager: uh sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Ah it's okay . I know that they do that for alarm clock also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: An and and uh this uh you can yeah you can say that . You ca uh you can go uh before +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Before ? +Marketing: , before , yes . And you know here the more iz important aspect is the fancy look and feel , after is uh technological innovative , and after the easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I think it's innovative to use the mm the wheel because I think no one else has . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it ? +Marketing: Yeah that's why I think we have to keep that if it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's {disfmarker} it makes it both easy and both innos innovative . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Innovative . Mm . +Project Manager: So I think it's a good aspect and it should be kept . +User Interface: How do we make it look cool is the question . +Project Manager: Cool , fancy ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to make it l look like a fruit or vegetable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh um {vocalsound} a colour that remember some fruit uh , things like that . +Industrial Designer: What about um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Oh , colour , yeah . +User Interface: Well the obvious thing is a banana , I guess . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought about a a pear , for example . You know the pear , is like that and it's it's easy to to have in in hand +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's ergonomic as well . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: A pear . +User Interface: The banana is also ergonomic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe pear yeah or something like that . +Marketing: Or a fruit like that . I dunno . +Project Manager: Yeah . We can discuss that uh . D D Is is there anything you want to add ? +User Interface: Is there any fruit that is spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . I think we we can have like yeah a pear is good , fit well , or banana as you told . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like that . +Industrial Designer: And for maybe look and feel , what about a a piece of ice , with blue L_E_D_ inside ? +Project Manager: But that's not in the trend . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: You can make it um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The trend is spongy , and vegetable fruits . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not hard , the metal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think p spongy is good because it it will be robust as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we can keep the wheel because it's uh easy , it's innovative , even if the cost is a bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we also have to find a , so , a fruit like pear or banana wit uh any others idea you have . What kind of fr fruit would you like to to control your T_V_ with ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Odi +Industrial Designer: Banana I think , it's a nice idea . +Project Manager: Banana is also yellow so you you can't lost your remote control then . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You y you don't use the banana when the banana is curving like that , +User Interface: Two of the button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when the banana is curving like that , with the wheel on the top and to control , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here you have a a push button to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah so you can just have uh just have this curve , yeah , and you move uh your hand here to press the buttons and then you move uh on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you can have it on on two sides and it'll be cool , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: no ? +Project Manager: I think it's a good design and it's innovative as well then . Maybe we can keep the banana . And it will be very easy to find . +Industrial Designer: And everybody knows what is a banana . +User Interface: You can put also vibrator inside . +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you if you start with uh fancy fruits and fra s and tha +User Interface: Ah-ha . You can also take into account the fact that the banana fits with the colour scheme of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's really uh really a good point . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I hope the students of management die , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but anyway . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now who are recording this meeting ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} One second . So we have to take some decision on this aspect . So , uh so for {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , for uh component , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to think about those aspects , sorry . +Industrial Designer: So we will just use a a standard battery ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the chip we {disfmarker} chip imprint we know exactly which one we are going to use . Uh what do you mean by case ? +Project Manager: I think it's the box that should be spongy , banana's shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I mean for me if we use a a spongy banana case , doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just want to have so something to prin to to fix my my components onto that box , and that's it . +User Interface: The only th Yeah . Y Yeah that can be in inside th in the structure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But uh the thing is that the buttons and the wheel have to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy also . +User Interface: I mean if it's spongy then the buttons and the wheel have to {disfmarker} I mean if it's spongy then it's going to move , right ? So , it's going to be bend a lot . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh no I think it's possible . +User Interface: So if we try to push the buttons , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No the button would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: You think it's possible ? +Project Manager: In fact it it should be something odd shaped , with a spongy cover . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: . This is uh like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay odd shape with spongy {disfmarker} cover . And standard battery okay , a chip imprint , there's no specific problem . So we agree to put the wheel {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Wheel on the top . Button , where do we want some buttons ? +User Interface: Well , usually hold {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay , we want it to be good also for the left-hand users , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it have to {disfmarker} it has to be symmetrical . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah but okay . Sa let's say that th o {vocalsound} It has to be {disfmarker} basically you can only take two sides , one on ths this side where is the thumb and the other side where there is uh yeah also the thumb . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Basically . Or you could use use this one , but I don't know if it's very comfortable , to use this one for the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe the thumb is more comfortable . +User Interface: This for the wheel and then this for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think it's okay for both right and left . Mm . +User Interface: Should have the two sides . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So if {gap} the left , we have {disfmarker} the op +Project Manager: I think you can turn it this way also . You can do both with both hands . +User Interface: Wheel {disfmarker} Wheel buttons . +Project Manager: I think it's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the problem is if you have buttons and wheel then when you turn it around , the buttons are on the other side . So you cannot see them . +Project Manager: Well , you you will get used to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And moreover , th the button ar are lighted so you you immediately identify the right side , because you have light on buttons . +User Interface: So the buttons have to be here and the wheel has to be {disfmarker} Y Yeah I know , but uh if you hold with your left hand , and the wheel is here , and the buttons are here , then when you turn it around the buttons will be on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . No you you {disfmarker} I think you will use it only on the right or left hand , whether you are righty or lefty . I think for lefty it's okay . I can do this movement , and for righty as well . I think this doesn't change that much . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . Maybe . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , for interface we said also that we have uh this banana shape with button on the s on the side . And {disfmarker} and uh a wheel on the top . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the colour is yellow . I think it's uh {disfmarker} we defined everything according to what we should {disfmarker} what the decision we should take , yeah . So maybe we can um we can uh work on those aspects uh until next meeting . So have the final uh look and feel design according to the decision . And have the the user interface design and uh then evaluate the prodyuc {disfmarker} the product . That is to say , uh check if it fit the the requirement uh given by the users , but according to uh your presentation it seems to be okay . It seems to be fancy , innovative , and easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} to prepare the prototype I would suggest that the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer uh work together . That would uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: be better , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} And so uh you will receive further instruction by emails , as usual . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes master . +Project Manager: do you need to add anything ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You feel okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You feel uh free to express what you want to say ? You don't feel too constrained ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You don't feel free to answer this ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe you can make {gap} uh {vocalsound} uh mm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you . +","In this comprehensive summary, we join the inner workings of a concept design meeting led by the Project Manager, who is orchestrating a discussion between the User Interface Designer—identified as Abdul al-Hasred—and the Industrial Designer, with input from the Marketing Expert. + +The meeting's primary objective is to iterate on the design of a new remote control, with the Project Manager taking the responsibility of documenting the meeting’s proceedings for later reference. + +The Project Manager begins by recapping decisions made in the previous meeting: they aimed for a simple user interface and minimalistic design, incorporating a wheel for channel navigation in lieu of previous channel buttons, volume controls, a power button, and a lighting feature for ease of finding the remote in the dark. However, plans for an LCD display and voice features were discarded to prioritize fast development and cost-effectiveness. + +Delving into the presentations, the Industrial Designer raises concerns about the cost of the wheel sensor, which is significantly higher than standard push buttons, prompting a discussion of design trade-offs and cost considerations. The remote control’s budget has been capped at twelve euros, which must include all components like buttons, the wheel sensor, and the chip. Moreover, the practicalities of designing the box that houses the components have to be considered within the budget constraints. + +As the conversation moves to the User Interface Designer's segment, he informs the team that he has drawn inspiration from more complicated remote controls, seeking to simplify them by eliminating unnecessary buttons. Ergonomics come into play when considering the placement of buttons for ease of reach by the user's thumb. + +The Marketing Expert shares insights from recent research and trend analysis, indicating that consumers favor remote controls with a modern, aesthetically pleasing appearance, technological innovation, and user-friendliness. There is a notable fashion trend leaning towards fruit and vegetable themes, as well as spongy materials, which ignites a brainstorming session on creating a remote control with a fruit-shaped, possibly banana or pear, design using spongy materials for robustness and ergonomic comfort. + +Intriguing ideas emerge, including integrating a voice recognition chip from the manufacturing division that can interpret commands, albeit this strays from the initial decision to exclude voice features. The concept is postponed for further evaluation after all presentations. + +The discussion solidifies around the decision to pursue a banana-shaped design to match the company's yellow color scheme, which also promises to be both distinctive and intuitive. Additionally, the incorporation of the wheel sensor, despite its higher cost, is justified due to its innovative potential. + +In conclusion, the team agrees to explore a banana-shaped, yellow, spongy remote with a wheel for channel control, emphasizing innovation, usability, and a design that would stand out in the market. The meeting adjourns with assignments divvied up among the team members to progress the design towards the prototype stage, with further coordination to be conducted via email. + +The summary concludes with the Project Manager affirming that the team members should continue to communicate openly and without constraint, ensuring a collaborative environment going forward. The next steps involve fusing industrial and interface design efforts to craft a product that encapsulates the creative vision while remaining consumer-friendly." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay everyone's ready . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: So we are here for uh for uh functional design . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay ? So we are here for the functional design meeting mm {vocalsound} so first I will show the agenda so we will uh I will take notes during this meeting so I will try to summarise it and put that summary in the shared folder if you want to look at it afterwards +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so then uh each of you will uh lead a presentation on the task that has been required last time so user requirement specification , technical function design and working design . Then I will uh present you some new project requirements I received from uh the management board . Then we will take uh the decision on on the remote control uh needed functions and then I will assign you the task for the next part of the meeting . Of the {disfmarker} of the process . So uh who want to start the the presentation of what they did ? +Industrial Designer: F do you want to start ? +User Interface: Make a start yeah . +Project Manager: You can start . +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cable , camera . +Project Manager: You have uh PowerPoint ? +User Interface: Should be in my {disfmarker} in their folder no ? +Project Manager: Ah yeah maybe there . Okay . +User Interface: Up . +Project Manager: Who are you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um at three I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Ouch . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have a technical problem uh . +User Interface: Do we think w s in the {disfmarker} in the wrong folder maybe ? {vocalsound} It is possible . +Project Manager: You put it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: It was somewhere in something like this . I don't remember the name actually must be something like messenger AMI or something . +Industrial Designer: What do you have in short cut ? +User Interface: Go up . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +User Interface: Yeah go up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Again . No . Go back . +Project Manager: You have no {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh maybe messenger AMI . Messenger . +Project Manager: Over . Okay . +User Interface: No . There is nothing . +Project Manager: There's no {disfmarker} We have a technical problem . +User Interface: Let's go and check . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll go and check . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , could you just describe by hand ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: With the the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: If you remember yeah +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh . Basically {vocalsound} what we want here is a remote control right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So um the question well first of all what to control . So {vocalsound} most people want to have a a remote for their hi-fi and T_V_ and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} but other people want th also remotes for {vocalsound} controlling uh and toys like robotic pets and little robots and stuff +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and other people also want to have remotes for controlling um whole house . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , so there's a project I think called X_ house or something like that that does that , uh you can integrate your remote with uh computers stuff . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: there is one {disfmarker} that is one thing . The other is the the finder feature yeah by whistling or whatever . Uh if you have the finder feature then you can also have +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: uh at the same time as {disfmarker} and general voice commands if you want yeah . {vocalsound} So I think it should be a package in that case . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so the user interface will consist of two parts . {vocalsound} One is the voice command part and on one is the actual buttons part . {vocalsound} Uh and th the buttons part would be uh a set of buttons for choosing devices , a set of buttons for special navigation in space , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a set of buttons for {vocalsound} linear access of medium and a set of buttons for random access . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by linear access then ? +User Interface: Like a video tape goes forward , backwards , uh fast and stuff yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay so special navigation , linear access , random access +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and there's a fourth one no ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: So the better now for special navigation ? +User Interface: Yeah . For special navigation for example you might have a T_V_ in the menu and you going to change yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . Then linear access +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: then random access . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah and also parameter changing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah parameter okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So if there are common parameters maybe we should put special buttons for that um +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or maybe we could have everything uh generic but uh there are a lot of uh remotes on the market right now and {vocalsound} basically this is most of the {disfmarker} almost everybody has this stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay and and voice command did you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Voice command w we could specify anything . We could assign any button {disfmarker} a command to any button , if we have enough processing power , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: I guess so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh that close your investigations ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah I think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Not so far . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have a look at the user requirements with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um I dunno if you can open the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno if I can open it . Maybe you can s +Marketing: uh m is not here . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh in {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Messenger no ? +Marketing: No . In document {gap} . Mm computer yeah . +Project Manager: In which folder ? +User Interface: Where did you put it ? +Marketing: Here . Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Short-cut to AMI shared folder ? +User Interface: {gap} mm . +Marketing: But it's not {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: Maybe you can send it to me by email . Just to participant one . At AMI . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I can do that . +Project Manager: I will try to show it to everyone , that would be more comfortable . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: You send it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's participant one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is this email . +User Interface: I'm designing the user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . You can uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So maybe I can switch slides when you {disfmarker} whenever you ask , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that will be more convenient . So okay , functional requirements . +Marketing: Okay so you can {disfmarker} you can go . Okay so {vocalsound} in our usability lab we observed the remote control use among one hundred subjects +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and the subjects also filled a questionnaire +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? And here I have the results so you can see that um seventy five per cent of users find most remote controls ugly so we have to find something to make them more {vocalsound} more nice , more kind . Eighty per cents of users would spend more money when the remote control would look fancy . {vocalsound} Eighty hundred per cent of users would spend more money when the remote control would look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} it's not good . {vocalsound} So okay . +Project Manager: We can just keep doing that ? +Marketing: So it's not in theory {disfmarker} but I I can I can say yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fifty f uh seventy five per cent of users say they s zap a lot . So mm {vocalsound} we have to have a remote control uh very um {vocalsound} out for that . {vocalsound} Uh the buttons have {disfmarker} are to be um uh uh like you say resist resisting to to shocks . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and fifty per cents of users say they only use uh {vocalsound} ten per cents of but of the buttons in the {disfmarker} in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So all the buttons we we have to put are {disfmarker} have to to have um a use a real use +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and not only or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so fewer buttons maybe would be good ? +Marketing: Yeah . F not many buttons , and uh and uh uh u useable buttons {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But what kind of remote controls did you look at ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: What kind of task was it ? It was a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh {vocalsound} most for most is T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but in fact we {disfmarker} it it seems that we are going to make a T_V_ remote control according to new requirements I received from the management +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: bo I will present them in the following . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Ah ! Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay you can go so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So there are other frustrations expressed by users , so they said uh they lost uh often the remote control in in the room so they want to have a way to {vocalsound} to +Project Manager: Yeah . To find it . +Marketing: to find it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and um lot of the time they {disfmarker} it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they want something s really very simple and uh easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh remote controls are bad for +Project Manager: What is her other side ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Other side yeah , yo wa your wrist +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It i can become painful you can have tendonditis . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I did not knew that . +User Interface: If you also {gap} up on a computer in a strange position . +Project Manager: Okay so you {disfmarker} we have to make it uh more ergonomic yeah . +User Interface: Ergonomic . But uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Have to say ha ha . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's your job {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Uh sorry {vocalsound} got a message from Microsoft . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um before that I I have some some {vocalsound} some thing {vocalsound} uh to say before um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We know that uh the user use uh a lot their um remote control um to to change channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um to to change uh volume selection of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh and not uh a lot for setting {disfmarker} for setting the the channels and uh thing things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's better to put uh uh uh something very easy to set and uh and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . This function should be very uh accessible . +Marketing: Very accessible yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . This is the main function okay . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} So then we asked some questions to them +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and um we asked this question if they prefer an L_C_D_ screen or on their remultific function remotes control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if they mm pay more for speech recognition in remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can go {vocalsound} we have here the results of +User Interface: The first question . +Marketing: of the questions . So you know that um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the younger it's very important +Project Manager: To have L_C_D_ and voice . +Marketing: to have the s yes and speech recognition . And uh and the others is not so important but uh we know that uh uh people between fifteen and twenty five are people who watch a lot T_V_ and uh who who wh can use a lot this uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So maybe we we can have a speech recognition in . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe this this is important . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Moreover th maybe those uh like those teenager customer could advice their parents to buy this equipment and so we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have to take care of that point of view I think or so . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay and if there is th the conclusion now . So as we say before , I think uh um a remote control lightening in the dark it's it's a good thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh not to many mud buttons like we we said before , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: e easy to use uh a way to find it easily in the room and uh uh resistant to to shock and to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} An I s no , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay these are the user requi +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno if you see something else important or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking of some thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} We want to have a {disfmarker} no , I don't know if this is a good idea . We want to have a a general remote control for everything . +Project Manager: No no no . We {disfmarker} w it seems that we no want to have a T_V_ remote control . From the management board I receive an email . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cos it would be costly uh and and also it it would take more time to develop to have a a general generic remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it's not true I think . The the second claim that you put . +Industrial Designer: No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That it would be too long to develop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that should be the same . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Because I received that email from management board and they seems to tell that that if we want to be on the market as early as possible we should uh focus on T_V_ more where it seems that the market is more important . So maybe it's a good decision . I dunno . What's your opinion ? +User Interface: I have uh I've no idea I mean I should know a bit more about how fast we can uh design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Finish tonight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But basically yeah maybe I can continue with my presentation , it would be al you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we have some technical problem or so . So I'm just going to describe briefly what we do in the remote control . +Project Manager: Maybe you can go to the whiteboard if you have some drawings to do +Industrial Designer: If fact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Do I have {disfmarker} oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now I have enough cables . +User Interface: Like a {disfmarker} you feel a bit like a dog with this stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay so I'm just going to describe {disfmarker} in fact for for a remote control this is quite easy . We just have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry , I'm going {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are you okay ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like that . I'm just going to describe . Basically we have a a battery a power supply here . After that we just have um user interface . Let's say that um something like that , which could be um a L_C_D_ let's say or um an array of push button , something like that . Push button or a L_C_D_ . After that we we feed that into um uh an electronic chip . So I say U_C_ and I feed that to uh L_E_D_ which is uh infrared {disfmarker} um which is a an infrared um component . And so what we {disfmarker} for for myself this {disfmarker} for for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: U_C_ is the central unit ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} this just a chip which does all the um numerical +Project Manager: Computation . +Industrial Designer: numerical computation according to your display . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And so for us uh this is quite easy . We just need to take {disfmarker} to define what we want to do when the user interface um wants something and after that we just do the coding to s and send that to to to the {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} to the television . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay so this is quite easy . There is not that much constraints . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um we just have to define the processing power that we need uh especially if we want to do some uh speech recognition , in that case that mean that we are going to use more for simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} This will {disfmarker} think this will take more time to develop also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course of course . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um but for a standard one this is really easy . It's a question of one month and so on s +User Interface: Soon . +Project Manager: To have a {disfmarker} you s you speak about with voi voice control ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no , +Project Manager: Standard button one . +Industrial Designer: I say {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} standard uh standard remote control takes maybe uh one month to to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . So the only time problem is the sp voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So do you have any idea of how long it would take to have voice recognition now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ten years . +Industrial Designer: I would say {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I would say uh about eight months to have the first results . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so i it's a bit long yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: One month for the standard one with button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Even if we have a L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah even . I mean that this is really standard devices now . Um eight . For uh speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . Okay so we can take this into account . So who think it would be good to go for uh like speech recognition ? +User Interface: But we don't have time to market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it will . +Industrial Designer: And also {disfmarker} how much uh I think +User Interface: I think we should contact management . +Industrial Designer: during the kickoff meeting you say that we we shouldn't {disfmarker} we shouldn't go up to twelve point five Euro per unit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Euros . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so how many units should we sell to have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well each unit is is sell uh twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but how many {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: How muc how much do you get {disfmarker} how much do you {disfmarker} if you buy one million units h no , one hundred thousand units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Eh chips . We're gonna need chips right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . How much will it cost for one hundred thousand ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Usually this is less tha at two dollars per chip . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have any idea for a powerful one that has uh good enough for do speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: It seems that that we want to sell like four million units from the first meeting . +User Interface: No it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . Four million . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we can uh we can look at the new requirement I receive from the management board and discus discuss all function we want to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um I just had a question uh do you want to continue with your presenta ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I I will continue . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well ask your question if you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um you say that I don't remember by heart but thirty per cent +Marketing: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: of the tested people say that's it's quite difficult to to to use the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do they say that this is difficult but for the same reason or do they have other reason ? To to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: maybe to keep in mind maybe to access to that menu you should do something like that . +Marketing: Would j Uh {vocalsound} yeah w I I think they they say that it's uh difficult to learn how to use it but i when you know how to use it , it's it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . It's not intuitive first . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah maybe and what about if we design a remote control which can be configure as you want ? You say that I want , I have six button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mh-hmm . A a lot of people are uh {disfmarker} if you have the L_C_D_ screen if you can do it completely the way you want because the buttons also look the way you want them +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , but also it seems that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but it will be hard to configure I mean imagine i uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's really something for the expert user . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean there are markets and markets . I think the young people are th uh are uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christine here said uh you have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} uh it is yeah . {vocalsound} So for our young people uh it will be cool , they can be able to use it . Th maybe their parents will not but they will configure it . I guess . I don't know if there is study about that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe it would be more complex to configure it to be simple {vocalsound} than creating a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And there are {disfmarker} another thing is that if we make something that's simple and easy to use that's bas to use immediately that means that it will be exactly the same as everything else . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: All right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise , if it's different then of course everybody has {disfmarker} somebody has to learn to use it first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But also we we see that that most people find it {disfmarker} find remote controls too complex because they have too many buttons and they mainly use only channels and volume buttons . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So we may just uh make a very easy to use remote control with mainly those buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and maybe also um some lightning stuff too because most people find also hard to to find the remote control . Losed lose it etcetera . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: These {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} these two points are the main frustrations so maybe if we design something very simple and easy to uh find when lost it will uh add uh a serious competitive advantage without making something too complex and too long to develop . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So but le let us see first the new requirement . So we don't have to {disfmarker} so this this uh is uh is um in the this is in the same direction as we were speaking so we don't have to make a very complex remote controls to access teletext and stuff like that {disfmarker} +User Interface: But teletext is just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah but then you have to {disfmarker} you have to define the buttons to surf amongst pages and stuff . +User Interface: You you just write the {disfmarker} write the numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well {disfmarker} +User Interface: So will you add with the channel keys , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . So anyway we don't have to include this feature because it's it's not used any more by users , +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they prefer to s +User Interface: I am . I'm sure that uh it don't like but uh I don't see just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . I dunno . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: If i one button is still one more button . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to make it very simple we have to reduce number of buttons compared to th to our competitors . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well anyway I have this point . We can discuss . Also um {disfmarker} so as as I told before uh it would be better if it's only for the T_V_ um because we want to be quick on on the market . And then also we have to make very uh uh clear that this uh this remote control is is part of of our products and show our corporate uh logo and and colours on the {disfmarker} on the design as well so that uh they identify it as one of our product . So this is the the key point . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So before uh finishing we can uh define uh what would be the characteristic of the {disfmarker} o th of the control {disfmarker} of the remote control and which button do we need which function do we want etcetera . +User Interface: Capital . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So do you um so so from from the the Marketing Expert I think a key aspect is the easy to use aspect , it should be very simple and most button are never used +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: only ten per cent of the button are are used often so I think we have to do something very simple and I think we all agree on that point , no ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well if it is going to be just a T_V_ remote control it is going to be very simple . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . So yeah the key point here is simple . Maybe . {vocalsound} So few buttons , channel , volume control and what el what function do you see in addition to that ? +User Interface: Well if it's going to be as simple as possible then just have the remote control , there is no other function that I can see +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: really . +Project Manager: Maybe switch T_V_ on and off {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no you want to keep television on so that the advertising can {disfmarker} revenue can come back to us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Volume , maybe a mute button , and then on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And that's all ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I know that som you say that many people are doing plenty of {disfmarker} a lot of zapping . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know tha I discovered that when I did a quick look , uh they do now som they do something which is quite nice now , +User Interface: It's a memory , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you have a button , you you press it , and this is uh the previous channel which has come back . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah this is cool . Maybe we can include that also . Previous previous channel button . So we have like channel button , the previous channel button , the volume button , plus a mute button , and uh just the the traditional on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and of course the channel changing buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I I talk about that , yeah ? +User Interface: How should they how should we implement that ? Because uh could be numerical only or could be also incremental . +Project Manager: Yeah . Incremental definitely because zapping you you switch them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that we can do something like that . This is uh incremental , but once you press it for a long time , you go five by five . +Project Manager: We go faster ? +Industrial Designer: To go fa to go faster . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . It's an interesting idea , that if you press it for a long time it does something else , in general . So if you you have your ten buttons for the {disfmarker} for the numeric the numerical buttons and you have {disfmarker} instead of having just one memory +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you have if you press them for a long time {disfmarker} No . Doesn't work {vocalsound} does it . +Project Manager: Maybe we should have also a digit button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we should have a complete keyboard and just type console commands . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Change channel to eight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe we have also to have digits or only incremental . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno bec because if you have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well if it's useful like if if you want to change between three channels for example then you h you cannot {disfmarker} you cannot cannot work with just memory being incremental . +Project Manager: Uh . Yeah . Because you have your previous channel button if you have incremental only it's not uh it isn't worth it because the previous channel is eith either minus one or plus one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we need also digits . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we we can make very obvious the channel and volume button button and smaller button down there with the the digits . +User Interface: Yeah when you zap usually you will have to press the same button all the time {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or we can do something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can design the remote control to have access . You know some remote control have uh protection +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so you you y +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hey I just thought this thing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: there is a {disfmarker} I mean you know there is are some {gap} with a wheel like this . Instead of having the up down buttons for uh you can have the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a kind of joystick . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can have a wheel for incremental . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have a wheel for incremental , have the digits uh on the lower side that can be closed so as you say protected , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh yeah I think this is the basi +User Interface: On the lower side I think it {disfmarker} you have to turn it . +Project Manager: And do we {disfmarker} do we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: No ? If we do that . +Industrial Designer: Or a {disfmarker} or a ball , yeah , not a a wheel but a ball , and you say uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , a wheel is better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say the wheel is better . +User Interface: Because of that {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What is the expert of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The channels change one by one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you have to the user has to like to should feel the the the discrete sense a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well also we have to decide uh so it should be lightening in the dark I think because most people lost their remote control . +Industrial Designer: 'S quite {disfmarker} it's quite easy we do that w with back light on the {disfmarker} on the wheel . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Even if i L_E_D_ uh or a if if it's the L_C_D_ feature uh +Industrial Designer: A blue {disfmarker} a blue L_E_D_ and we sell that um . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: whatever , yeah . +Project Manager: and do we put an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because it was important for young customers if you remember . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's only put on if cou have multi function . If you do not multi function then there is no p point in having L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just increase the cost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user does not have an advantage really . +Project Manager: So no L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And so no speech as well because it w it would delay too much the development process +User Interface: Well if it's going to delay yeah +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} it will be cool . It would . Because a user could say C_N_N_ for example and it would go C_N_N_ . Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . That would be cool . But eight months is really long +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Maybe we can just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ten years {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um I I will uh {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} so I we will move to next meeting so in {disfmarker} after the lunch break uh here are the individual uh action uh you are required to do +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but you will be uh recalled to the actions by uh email I think but you can take notes if you {disfmarker} if you want but well the instruction will be sent . So thank you for uh your suggestion +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I I will make a summary of that meeting that I will put in the shared folder you can't see {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh and then you will um you will be able to to see what has been uh has been said on on this meeting and and what has been decided . Uh maybe for next meeting uh send me your presentation before by email so that we can see them uh altogether . That would be easier . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: What is the folder that you put yours in ? And did it it did work ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: No it did not work . +Marketing: No no . +Project Manager: She send it to me by email . +User Interface: Ah yeah . Mm . +Marketing: I dunno , I dunno it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe this is better , to send it by email . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay what is your email ? +Project Manager: So yeah I I'm {disfmarker} it's in the first uh email so I'm participant one at AMI +User Interface: At participant one . Okay . +Project Manager: uh where is that , it's here . Participant one at AMI . {vocalsound} Okay . So see you after lunch break . +User Interface: Well during lunch break actually . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay thank you . +User Interface: So next time we should have a fight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How about uh {gap} management or something . Who happens to be your friend . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +","The conversation takes place during a functional design meeting where project stakeholders are discussing a new remote control design. Attendees include the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing expert. + +The meeting starts with technical issues regarding accessing a PowerPoint presentation required for discussions. They discuss the functions the new remote control should possess, the user requirements based on the observations made in a usability lab, and design concepts that align with user preferences and management guidelines. + +The User Interface Designer suggests features customers desire, like controlling various devices, including hi-fi systems, robotic pets, and whole-house systems, along with voice command functionality. + +Marketing presents findings indicating that users want attractive and simple-to-use remote controls with less complexity, durability against shocks, and a way to find the remote control when lost. It's noted that many buttons are redundant as users primarily use just a few for channel changing and volume control. A preference for backlighting in dark conditions and easy-to-set configurations was also discussed. + +The team debates technology use, such as LCD screens and speech recognition, considering time and cost constraints. Management's directive indicates that the new remote should be relatively simple, focus on TV control, and be quickly launched to the market. + +They conclude by prioritizing simplicity, essential functions (on/off, channel, volume control), durability, and visibility in the dark. It's agreed to potentially include incremental channel switching via buttons or a wheel, and the possibility of using fewer buttons with more intuitive and multifunctional use is considered. + +The Project Manager summarizes and agrees to share notes in a shared folder and asks for materials to be emailed for future meetings. They plan to reconvene after a lunch break and casually mention potential contentious discussions for future meetings." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I g yeah . Time is it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fourteen twenty six . +Project Manager: Okay . Lovely to see you all again . Um {vocalsound} it's our conceptual design meeting and it's starting at approximately fourteen twenty five and so we have forty minutes for this one again and so we'll go just after three o'clock . Um okay {vocalsound} our agenda , we're gonna do an opening , I'm gonna review the minutes of the last meeting , then we'll have your three presentations um and then we'll have to make a decision on the remote control concepts , and finally we'll close . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: opening . Um these are our minutes from r the functional design . We decided our target group is the focus on who can afford it , because we have international appeal and we said it's for all age groups , different um functions of it . Our main objectives were simplicity and fashion . {vocalsound} And s um in specific functions are something to keep the remote from getting lost , large buttons for the essential functions , a possibility for extra functions , like a sliding a sliding piece {vocalsound} and a long-life battery or a charging station . Okay , now three presentations . I'd like to do it in this order , first do the conceptual specification of components , properties and materials {vocalsound} um and then the conceptual specification of user interface {vocalsound} and finally trend watching . +Industrial Designer: That would be me . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Well . +Project Manager: Mm . 'kay . Function F_ eight it . There we go . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um I'm very excited by this one actually guys I uh had a lot of fun doing it . Components design . This is where you look at what does it take to make a remote control and what should we make our specific remote control out of . {vocalsound} Um . So , we need to examine each element separately , but we're designing a full thing , so you wanna keep it integrated as a whole . The main elements of remote controls in general , and therefore ours as well , are the case , the buttons , the circuit board with the chip and the battery . These are all things that we had sort of addressed before , but I'm gonna take each one a little bit separately here as we figure out what they should be made of and what they should look like . The case , uh the options that I've gotten from headquarters about what we can do , um there's there's the shape of a case , we could do a flat sh a flat case , a curved case or maybe even a double double-curved case . I haven't seen any pictures of what this exactly looks like yet , just keep that in mind , but these are the options that we have from manufacturing and we can make our case out of plastic , the m the main base will be plastic , but we have all these sort of fashion and technological elements we can add in , wood , latex , titanium , rubber or other coloured types of plastic . That would be our case . Um buttons , for buttons we have um pushbuttons , which is what Real Reaction uses the most often , but we also have scror scroll wheels , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which can have integrated pushbuttons , or we could go all high-tech and have an L_ L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Um circuit board and chip we can have a simple one , a regular one or an advanced one , depending on what our other needs are . And then battery I think is where things get most exciting . We're talking about long-life batteries here . {vocalsound} Um we can we can have your sort of basic double A_ batteries , but we also have these options of um {vocalsound} using a kinetic battery , like are used in high-tech watches , where you just have to move it a little bit to get it to power up . Um so simple movements like pushing buttons would recharge the battery . Or a solar battery , although there are slight um {vocalsound} complications with solar batteries as in we can't use a latex case if we have a solar battery . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or um something they only described as the type of battery you find in torches from about fifty years ago , flashlights . Not quite sure what that is , but that's the description that I received , so that's what I'm passing on to you . {vocalsound} So those are our options . Um personal preferences that I was thinking through {disfmarker} here's what we've been talking about all through , fashion and simplicity . So if we're going for fashion in our cases , I think that what we're gonna wanna look at is a curved or a double-curved case , probably with a variety of design elements . Maybe titanium , maybe some wood . We're gonna have to investigate that better when I get specifics of the actual materials , but that's sort of what I have in mind . And we wanna go for simplicity . Probably pushbuttons , but I'm sort of intrigued by the idea of a scroll scroll wheel , if anyone has anything +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: any ideas on that ? I mean I know the iPods and things right now have touch scroll um buttons which are exactly like what they're describing , so that might be something we wanna look into . And I'm really intrigued by the idea of a kinetic battery . {vocalsound} Solar I don't think would be such a good idea , because how often are you sure that your remote control will get a certain amount of light . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But this idea of the kinetic , that you don't have to replace , and that a simple just shaking it around will make it work , I think that that m would be a very interesting thing . But I think we'd also wanna go for e a simple chip or regular chip to keep our costs down . Uh we really only need a regular or advanced chip t if we're gonna start using an L_C_D_ . So I think we want to be aware of not making things overly t technological if they don't need to be , 'cause that'll keep our manufacturing price way down . That's what I have for options . Um I'd appreciate anyone's input , but that's what I'm seeing for the future of the the look of this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is double-curved like {disfmarker} would be like two hands kind of thing ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . I haven't received any specific +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: visuals of this yet . +Marketing: 'Cause I'm imagining like double-curved is like , you know , like two sides that curve +Industrial Designer: This is what I'm sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then like one curve would just be like a single vertical-ish kind of looking thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm not sure , +Marketing: but I've no idea . +Industrial Designer: but I'll let you know as soon as I get any pictures . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Yeah , I wonder {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know if we do have a double-curved case , it can't have any titanium in it . But the titanium , they were quite {disfmarker} they're marketing quite hard to us as being used in the space programme , so that could be quite interesting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Space-age remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Just an interesting marketing kind of element . +Industrial Designer: Just all things to keep in mind . Yeah . {vocalsound} That's about all I have to do , guys . I hope I didn't go through that too quickly . +Project Manager: Uh just a real quick question um the weight of these different elements , have you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , n +Project Manager: no idea , okay . +Industrial Designer: no idea , no idea . Um I'm assuming that a kinetic battery isn't gonna take up that much weight , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that a tita titanium is very light , I know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um but other than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: that's really basic , I mean , that's all I have gotten so far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? Any other questions ? +User Interface: Uh-huh . Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No ? Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: I have save this in the uh shared projects , if anyone wants to look +Project Manager: Thank you , perfect . +Industrial Designer: and I have c considerable notes on the topic as well , if anyone needs any more information . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Um if you made notes yourself you can put those on our um {disfmarker} underneath our {disfmarker} oh , uh in your book , +Industrial Designer: Just in my notebook , +Project Manager: then don't worry about that . +Industrial Designer: but if anyone has any specific questions , don't hesitate to email me or something . Alright ? Uh I guess I can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay now we're um concepts concepts of user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , um . This one's so much tighter than the other one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I know . +Project Manager: Okay . Nope . There we go . Here you are . +User Interface: Jess . +Industrial Designer: G oh , geez . +User Interface: Alright , so I'm gonna describe the the concept of the user interface of this des device . Um we've talked about uh the two essential properties of the user interface . We want it to be simple and we want it to be fashionable . Um other {disfmarker} we've also got to remember that this is a device that serves as a useful purpose . Uh we want people to be able to use it s as a remote control , so we need to determine what the essential functions of the d of the device are and make sure that we include {disfmarker} that we've included all of those and that we actually end up with a device that is going to be useful to people . We have a number of different choices for a design concept um and s that's that's something that that I'll show you some examples of um , but essentially we need to choose how how is this device going to work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how how {disfmarker} what kind of model is there going to be for user interaction with this device . Uh once we've chosen a a concept for it , we can then design the features around the concept , making sure that we get all the essential functions in the device and uh the extra functions and the more advanced features . And of course we also have to make it look cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So basically , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's what we don't want . {vocalsound} M we don't want lots of buttons , uh complicated features . We want something that looks nice and simple . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Here's a a fairly simple device . This is an an iPod from Apple . Um I think the main thing to notice about it is it just has four buttons . It's very minimalistic in its design . Uh you use these four buttons to m to move around a range of settings on the small L_C_D_ screen . Um {vocalsound} the thing I like about this is that it's very very quick to access the main features . Uh you can just about make out uh that the button {disfmarker} three buttons are uh previous track , next track and play pause . They're the main the main features of the iPod , the things you will use a all the time . Um then if you want to do anything more advanced , you go into the little menu on the L_C_D_ screen and you use the buttons just to scroll around and and find the more advanced features that you want . So I think that's that's a good a good kind of model that we could have . Um {vocalsound} here's a another example . This is uh {disfmarker} it's an interesting idea and I think i it looks pretty cool . Um it's certainly got novelty value . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's nice and colourful , it's nice and bright . Uh it's also something that you can kind of feel your way around . The buttons are are different shapes and and you can sort of {disfmarker} yeah if you're watching T_V_ in the dark or whatever , you can work out which button's which and basically , yeah it's ith it's fun . So I {vocalsound} I like I like this idea of just having buttons for the features that you use most often . So you'd need a few buttons to select your favourite channels . I mean most people , when they watch T_V_ , they have two hundred and fifty channels on their T_V_ and they watch of 'bout four of them at the most . So , you have buttons for your favourite channel , changing the volume , which is something you do all the time when you're watching T_V_ , and the button to switch it off , in case you get bored . Um other features , things like adjusting the brightness , tuning the T_V_ , uh I don't know what else you do with a T_V_ . Um but these are these are all necessary functions . Uh you can't have a t there's no point having a television that you can't tune or that you can't set the contrast , so we need to find a way of including these somehow . Um and one other suggestions I'd make is to in is to include in a menu system , a bit like on the iPod . So we'd either have a small L_C_D_ display on the device itself , or uh have a dis a menu display that comes up on your television and can b be controlled through the device . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And that would allow you to access access the advanced features uh whilst keeping a very small and simple set of buttons for the features that you use most often . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd be advocating an L_C_D_ then ? +User Interface: I think that's {vocalsound} that's one way to go , yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um I mean there are there are advantages and disadvantages if you if you have an L_C_D_ display , it's it's nice , because it's {disfmarker} it it lets you just sort of sit there and st and control your television from your armchair . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There are disadvantages , an an L_C_D_ display would have to be quite small , 'cause we're we're {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right +User Interface: well we're {disfmarker} I assume we're gonna be making quite a small device . Um it would also have to have uh a kind of backlighting in it , 'cause you ten you tend to watch T_V_ in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but you need to be able to see your L_D_D_ L_C_D_ display . The alternative is to have a {vocalsound} an on-screen display on your television that you control through your remote control . Uh a bit like a bit like how they have these um digital boxes where you you press the buttons and it comes up with your {disfmarker} this thing of watch lo what's on each channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean that that's also a good idea . It's it can it does have it's problems as well , if you've got a small T_V_ and you're sitting on the other side of a room , it's hard to read the little text that comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh but that's a that's a design decision that we can make . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I do think that um one of the important features for a remote is seeing a menu and seeing what's on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like favourite channels is is applicable , but I think th that you do need to have some kind of function where it's {disfmarker} um you have t you can see the title of the show or possibly a description of it . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Are you are you tak +Project Manager: Like I I know I use that often enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait , but is that separate from what he was saying ? +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: if it if it was a L_ L_C_D_ on th on the remote , I don't know that you could f that you'd be able to see a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I think I think we're talking menu like contrast and tuning the V_C_R_ or something if I've understood you correctly , rather than menu as what's on . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that that would be one of the features , yes . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that would be more specifically a digital box , +User Interface: But it's it's it's something to bear in mind is that if we put a display on the remote control the c uh communication is one way , +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can't have the televisions and information back to the remote control , at least I don't think you can . +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're moving on to market . Marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should I plug that in ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is that going on ? Okay . +Marketing: Maybe it's just not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that should be alright , actually . +Marketing: Is it on ? Ri What F_ do you have to press , +Project Manager: Eight . +Marketing: five ? I just keep pressing lots of 'em . Well , I don't know how relevant all of this gonna be . {vocalsound} If anything , the {gap} that they gave me . +Project Manager: Oops , it's not plugged in , quite in well enough . +Industrial Designer: No signal . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: There we are . +Industrial Designer: Oop , there we go . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so we're gonna look a little bit at trend watching . {vocalsound} Basically , I was given um an executive summary that was a market investigation on remote controls that was recently conducted , and then also some fashion watchers in Paris and Milan commented on some things that are gonna be going on this year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So first um they had people {disfmarker} they ranked um the important aspects of r remote controls , and right now i d they're saying that currently there's a functional look and feel preference , but that really , over the next year it it that's gonna be switching to fancy look and feel remotes , so that just goes back to the whole desire of our c Real Reaction company wanting to focus on fashion and so , even though we're stressing , when we're talking , we've all been talking about this like simplicity and easy to use idea , they're sort of wanting us to remember that the number one thing for everyone is that it's fancy look and feel . And as these are ranked , the top one is doubly important to the second one , which is doubly important to the third one , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so just to take that weight into account . {vocalsound} The second thing that was mentioned as important was the technological innovations . That would be like if we use something like the space material or the L_C_D_ screen , things like that . And then ease of use was the third most important , whi so really , no matter what , we need to focus the most on fancy look and feel , according to this . I don't know how much we agree with that . {vocalsound} And then {vocalsound} the fashion watch talks about that this year's top trend for clothes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: shoes and furniture is fruits and vegetables and tha that there's a preference for spongy , {vocalsound} tight material . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S sweet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And so that brings us to my personal preferences . Who wants a spongy remote or one with {vocalsound} fruit and vegetable padding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Personally , I don't really think that I want one that's gonna go out of style or go stale , excuse the pun , um in a year , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} even though this is coming from us as , you know , trend watch , market research , I don't know how much of it we necessarily {vocalsound} wanna take away . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Also , considering that the d research b has been carried out by Real Reaction , I'm a little hesitant as to {vocalsound} like , how these questions may have been worded , and if necessarily this whole fashion to technology y edas ease of use is necessarily the right ranking . Personally , like I might reverse it , but if we're working for this company then I guess no matter what , we have to stress fashion the most . {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it doesn't necessarily need to be a spongy material . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} there's all kinds of scope for imagination in that one though . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't have a lot of notes to share if you want them , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that pretty much sums it up . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , do we have any {disfmarker} s some questions for this , let's see um . +Marketing: Yeah , what can I possibly enlighten on ? +Project Manager: Um do you have any ideas how to possibly use these ? Um how to how to use a fruit or vegetable or um or the spongy material at all ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Like could we make a s like could we make a spongy remote ? It would be easier on the hands . +Industrial Designer: If it's latex {disfmarker} if it's latexy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's kind of {disfmarker} and then it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we would have to find a way to protect like the chip and all that , +User Interface: A kind of thing that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: An uh I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} my understanding of a latex case is that it's in fact hard to protect stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that it's covered with the latex , which is spongier and softer on your hands . It's {disfmarker} there's something to be said , I mean we we got that thing earlier from you about um not wanting it to {disfmarker} R_ R_ repetitive stress injuries and things +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , so something , m m instead of a necess +Industrial Designer: something grippable , I mean we don't we don't we don't wanna go spongy , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah , grip , I'm thinking grip more than like sinking into your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: you know , i and I think I'm envisioning more like , you know , the material that you have when you sit on like a bicycle , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that it doesn't hurt when you're sitting down for a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like I'm imagining that sort of thing , I don't know what th that material's called . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that given the list of materials I w I was forwarded it's {disfmarker} that seems doable . {vocalsound} could we go in fruit and vegetable colours ? We could colour-co-ordinate them , +Project Manager: F for sure , or maybe like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: um couple main ones being like , I dunno , lemons or strawberries or something . +Industrial Designer: The buttons could be fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: Could they be smelly ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I Is it supposed to be shaped like a vegetable ? Uh like uh I dunno , like uh carrots or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or carrot shaped , +Industrial Designer: it's quite easy to s shape thing like carrot +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Maybe , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like large button , +Industrial Designer: Or maybe the buttons could be shaped like different fruits . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's what I was thinking of , yeah . +Marketing: What about the idea of like a round remote ? Instead of like a vertical up and down one . Like in terms of holding it . Like that's a f shape of a fruit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of like a potato . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Might {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'd be harder to f bu uh buttons I think . +Project Manager: would you think you you {disfmarker} do you think you'd be able to hold it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just to tie it in a little . +Project Manager: 'Cause I think the reason they're long is {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It'd be harder to press button . +Project Manager: Harder to push . +User Interface: Depends . When you when you use a remote , do you press the buttons with your thumb , usually ? Or your fingers ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I usually hold it in one hand . Maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe you want something that's shaped like a mobile phone , so you you hold it in one hand , and you press the buttons with your thumb . +Project Manager: But then the buttons would have to be very small . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's ts how I tend to do it . +Project Manager: Don't you think ? +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: just thumb-sized . +Marketing: 'cause otherwise your fingers can't move around . +Industrial Designer: Jus +Project Manager: But I mean in order to get to all of them , +Marketing: But I like i +Project Manager: you know . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: They would have to be within a certain amount of space with each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +User Interface: But if you've only got like four or five buttons anyway , then it's it's not so much a problem , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Right . I When I'm when I'm pressing buttons on my iPod , that's how I do it , hold it and press the four . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you hold it in one hand and you press you press the buttons with your thumb +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or in and use my thumb or my pointer finger on the touch scroll wheel . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} And you find that works quite well ? +Marketing: I love the idea of the wheel like the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause th +User Interface: The button on an iPod , is it {disfmarker} what is it , is it just four buttons or is it li more like a scroll thing ? +Marketing: It's like five , +Project Manager: It's a scroll , yeah , it's a wheel . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} wel well {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause there's one in the middle . +Industrial Designer: yeah , it would {disfmarker} I mean each version of it has been a little bit different , +Project Manager: The one I have doesn't have the four on i like around it , I don't think . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh yeah , you had one of the in-between ones , when they weren't doing that anymore . Ts and you press the centre button , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: that's that's your all-purpose select button right there . +User Interface: Oh , I see , right , yeah . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Since it's the one in the centre that's not marked , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's quite a good design . +Marketing: I think why it would be good for us is 'cause like you could have the same wheel sort of effect for like channel flipping and then the other one could be like for volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like just the idea of like those {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh +Marketing: so few buttons for main things , +Industrial Designer: t +Marketing: but then how you could go back to the menu and like , I dunno if we would want it on the screen there or on the actual T_V_ . I kind of am wanting to say on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause if you're changing the brightness , don't you wanna see it happening , kind of ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then you could still have that available . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think an {vocalsound} L_C_D_ screen might be good in theory , but not as useful in practice . +User Interface: I think it could be difficult in practice , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Also z yeah , 'cause you would be z looking down at the L_C_D_ screen , than back up at your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and people don't wanna do that . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay um we have we've about fifteen minutes left , +Industrial Designer: Oh we probably have to get going , don't we ? +Project Manager: so I'm I'm gonna continue with my pres presentation . Um I've one more slide before we close , but in that slide is when we need to make decisions about this {disfmarker} these kinds of things , so I'll just bring that up and show you all +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Project Manager: before we move on . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} Could we uh could we have changeable covers like for your mobile ? In different fruit and vegetable colours , +Marketing: If I get any more information of fruits and vegetables , I'll let you know . +User Interface: Like , to make it different fruits . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then like the the covers could be spongy latex +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: wherea but the actual model could be titanium . +Industrial Designer: And you could co-ordinate with your house {vocalsound} or whatever . All these options . +User Interface: I think maybe th the packaging , it should be like a lemon and the the packaging is like the peel . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So instead of opening the box you just kind of peel it , and the remote control's inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Ah hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Don't know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: there we go . The iPod packaging is me like was so {disfmarker} that was like half the fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's like the way it all comes all cute . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Options . +Marketing: Lemons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: components concept . Energy , chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Uh-hu oh , oh yes . +Project Manager: G +Industrial Designer: Right , I had sort of skipped over that hoping it wouldn't get {disfmarker} be necessary but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's th th this is the agenda they gave me . So can you just explain what that is real quick ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , so um decisions , what the {disfmarker} okay deci decisions on energy I'm thinking is based on the battery . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno , what do people think about this kinetic battery idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's awesome . I think it's really cool . +Industrial Designer: Am I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean , it would t totally take care of our problem of not wanting to change batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , um I think it's good , as as long as we consider the the cost and the uh how reliable it is , +Industrial Designer: Right , I haven't gotten any {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as far as I know , the technology is good . +Marketing: Costs . +Industrial Designer: yeah , any more information on cost other than it's more expensive than a regular battery , but um but if we're using a an i a cheaper chip , then it'll even out , I think . +Marketing: But over time {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um circuit boards . Um yeah , I got a whole bunch of information on how circuit boards are produced . They're {vocalsound} they're thin fibreglass with copper wires etched on to them , and di I think they're quite easily printed on by machine , which is chip on print is where the machine prints on the wires and solders it all together for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't really know what to tell you as far as decisions . I wasn't really given any options , I was just given that this is how they're done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I can't can't really tell you . I can I can tell you a whole lot about how it works . But I don't know any decisions on {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If they're if they're really options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I did f +User Interface: Al all circuit boards are pretty much the same , I think . Uh it's fairly fairly standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , then we'll move on to the case . Um oh bu I guess maybe if we decided on like a simple , a regular , or an advanced chip , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well okay , here's the here's the thing on the chips that I that I got . Um simple , regular , advanced chip on print . The chip on print includes an infrared sensor , so we don't have to worry about that . Um , {vocalsound} 'kay , the pushbutton {disfmarker} if we're gonna have pushbuttons , they require a simple chip , but a scroll wheel requires a regular chip , and an L_C_D_ requires advanced . Do we want a scroll wheel , or do we just want pushbuttons ? +User Interface: Um I don't think we ne really need the scroll whe wheel . I mean it might be nice for changing the volume . +Project Manager: It would be nice for changing the volume , +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I don't know how useful it'd be for changing the channel . 'Cause you don't have control over numbers +User Interface: I don't think it would really work . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you really need buttons for changing a channel . +Industrial Designer: th it'd be it'd be handy for going through if there was an on-screen menu of your channel choices , than you can scroll down on the scroll . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But if you c if you could scroll through the channels , and then the volume would just be +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left for the meeting , so . +Marketing: and the volume would just be like the same way , forward and backward as {disfmarker} I'm just thinking like it would make it much like sleeker sort of looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And otherwise , no matter how may buttons we have , we're gonna have like , you know , black with red sticking out and th no {disfmarker} it's gonna inevitably sort of start looking like those group of sort of ugly ones that we saw stacked up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So , have a scroll for volume ? +Industrial Designer: F or for all those secret functions ? +Project Manager: F +Industrial Designer: When you get on the on-screen menu of all your functions that your remote could do for you without the buttons and you could have a scroll wheel to go through those menus . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think a scroll wheel would be nice , but it's not necessary . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . So we could either go with a simple or a regular chip , depending {disfmarker} and maybe we could table that decision for later . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: I think w well {disfmarker} I think when we go on to the une userface , we're gonna have to decide {disfmarker} the interface we're gonna have to decide um whether we're gonna have a scroll or not . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , let's think about that while we talk about the case . +Project Manager: Okay , let's do case . +Industrial Designer: Uh I'm kinda liking the idea of latex , if if spongy is the in thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm a little um I'm a little hesitant about it , because I'm worried about protecting the stuff on the inside . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh could it be hard , and then something around it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , everything I've {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I would be more okay with like a titanium actual thing and then maybe like a mobile phone kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: N oh wha what I've what I've seen , just not related to this , but of latex cases before , is that {vocalsound} there's uh like a hard plastic inside , and it's just covered with the latex . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not too thick a layer of latex , just enough to be grippable , like bike handles or or anything that you've seen like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: The inside is hard . I don't think we need to worry about protecting the circuit board , +Project Manager: Ge o +Industrial Designer: I think that that's done for us . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we uh we do want latex . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Latex . Um and probably in colours , maybe fruity , vegetable colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity colours . {vocalsound} Okay um let's go to the ufe user interface then we'll come back to the chip I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Oh and we want a curved case , yeah ? Or a double-curved ? +Project Manager: Well , we don't really know what the difference is , right ? +Marketing: I'm thinking curved of some sort . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We don't really know what the difference {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , interface , the type and the supplements . So push or scroll , +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: right ? Or both ? +User Interface: Yep . Um {disfmarker} And I think if we wanna keep our costs down , we should just go for pushbuttons , 'cause then we can have a a simple chip and it's simpler , it's it's cheaper to make pushbuttons than it is a scroll button . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: So in terms of uh in terms of uh economics it's probably better to have pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And if we had a sc an on-screen um kind of thing that you could scroll through , like you can use your buttons to scroll through things . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's fairly simple . +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} yeah . For channel surfing I think a scroll {disfmarker} an actual {disfmarker} like an iPod's kind of scroll thing would be too fast , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I say pushbuttons at least unless we get any information but I have no idea how much more expensive a scroll wheel is than than a pushbutton , but it's gotta be some more expensive , so I think it might be better to put our money into the stuff like the kinetic battery and the cool case +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How you feeling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And let's like see if we get anything else . I mean I'm not like hard-sold on the scroll wheel , it's more just to give it a different kind of look , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but if it's gonna be in a latex type thing and that's gonna look cool , then that's probably gonna have a bigger impact than the scroll wheel . +Project Manager: It might be cool enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're gonna go with um type pushbuttons , and then supplements , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: how are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: Uh what do you mean by supplements , exactly ? +Project Manager: Um I assume that's what else we're gonna {disfmarker} like h ha the um the additional buttons we can use . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're gonna have like a menu button , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so that we can access on-screen things then ? +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um so we're doing an on-screen menu that we can scroll through . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Um in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what are what are our buttons gonna be ? +User Interface: Yeah . On off , +Industrial Designer: On off {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh volume , favourite channels , uh and menu . +Industrial Designer: So like one through five , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah +Marketing: Like a radio type sorta situation ? +User Interface: about {disfmarker} yeah like {disfmarker} yeah , a bit like radio presets . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Pre-set channels and then we're gonna need um numbers one through zero , right ? +User Interface: Uh we wouldn't even need the numbers . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I think maybe numbers seems {disfmarker} is kind of old-fashioned . +Project Manager: Well , but in order to pre-set a cha oh I guess you can just hold it down when you get to one when you're scrolling through . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and you need some kind of , I dunno , sort of up down kind of button , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , up down . +User Interface: but the volume control could double for that , for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , um finishing the meeting now . Um our next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um you each have things to do , look and feel design , user interface design , product evaluation , and you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . You'll get specific instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . +Project Manager: Um did we decide on a chip ? Let's go with a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: Simple chip . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We are done . Thank you everyone . Oh I di these are already in our shared folder , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cool . Clay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Clay . I wasn't expecting that . {vocalsound} +","Summary of the conversation: + +The meeting begins with the Project Manager confirming the current time and discussing the agenda, which includes reviewing minutes from the last meeting, presentations, and making decisions on remote control concepts. The Industrial Designer talks about the components and materials for the remote control, including the case, buttons, circuit board, battery, and considering user preferences for simplicity and fashion. Marketing brings up market research indicating a shift towards fancy look and feel for remotes and the latest fashion trends involving fruits, vegetables, and spongy materials. + +The User Interface designer proposes keeping the design simple and fashionable, with easy access to essential functions, and the possibility of using an LCD or on-screen display for advanced features. There's a discussion about incorporating trend insights into the design, leading to suggestions of a spongy remote, fruity colors, or shape like a vegetable or fruit. + +The meeting progresses with discussions about scroll wheels versus pushbuttons, kinetic batteries as a power source, and preferences for case materials. They lean towards a latex case for a spongy feel and titanium for a hard protective interior. The team also debates the interface design, considering an LCD screen, but eventually deciding to aim for simplicity and lower costs with pushbuttons and potentially an on-screen menu. + +The meeting ends with tasks assigned for the next meeting, including working on the look and feel design, user interface design, product evaluation, and creating a prototype using modeling clay. They agree on using a simple chip for the remote and confirm that all materials are shared in the folder." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry to be late . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody . +User Interface: Yeah . Thanks . +Project Manager: So this meeting agenda will be the detailed design meeting . And uh opening and uh P_M_s {gap} of the meet minutes , uh prototype presentation from uh Christine and uh Agnes . +Industrial Designer: Agnes , yes . +Project Manager: Yes and uh evaluation criteria . The finance , it's uh from my side , from the management , and uh production evaluation . Then uh closing . So we have forty minutes to discuss and uh finalise and close the product and project and to move further , okay , so {disfmarker} Okay , let's talk about uh maybe first uh for the prototype . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: So I handle to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I've done a presentation , but it pretty much covers work that we've both done , so if I'm missing anything , Christine can just correct me . +Project Manager: So shall I go to {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh thank you , so you did a PowerPoint presentation , good for you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . S Okay , let's go to A_M_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not the biggest PowerPoint presentation in the world , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So in two or three or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . Um . {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably . Technical pa I would think . +User Interface: think it's the last one . No , then this is {vocalsound} the la yeah , that one , final design . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It is named appropriately , you just couldn't see the name . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay , can I have the mouse ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Thanks . Alright , so from {disfmarker} when we were discussing specifying the case in the last meeting , we decided that we wanted an ergonomic shape , the material that we chose was wood , and uh the colour would be customisable , 'cause you can stain the wood whatever colour . Um , so in terms of function , you have to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off , volume and channel control , menu control , voice recognition control , and we've incorporated the L_C_D_ screen on the flip panel as part of the design , if we figure out it's too expensive , well then you just take it off . {vocalsound} Um , so {vocalsound} to unveil our lovely product . This is our remote control , with the flip panel as you can see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you lift up the panel , you can see the lovely yellow L_C_D_ display . {vocalsound} Um , this is actually hard to do . The yellow button you have is the on off button , so it's really big , hard to miss . You have the the red um triangles are the toggles for changing the volume . So up {disfmarker} volume up , down {disfmarker} volume down . The green are the channel changing . {vocalsound} S And it's one of those very light , very touchable displays . And then you have the numeric pad in the dark blue at the bottom , and on the right-hand side you have the access to the menu on the T_V_ , and on the left-hand side you have the the the ability to turn off the voice recognition . So this is pretty much what we had on the white board the last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Um and uh I could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the d +User Interface: Additional feature on the back is that you can have your own customised backing and I suppose you could do the same thing on the flip case on the front . So that you can really make this a highly highly customisable remote control . +Industrial Designer: We haven't um uh specified where the speaker or the microphone will be placed . That depends on the uh s design of the circuit board inside and uh what room is left um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the microphone is on on the top , uh on the middle , the {disfmarker} under the flip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , okay . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So that will be the safe , so p any {disfmarker} the chip {disfmarker} it's not on the chip because you need to have microphone {gap} to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I mean it depends on the design of the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: But it shouldn't be under the flip either , because you can have the remote control closed , but you still might want to activate it by voice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's it's {disfmarker} Yeah , but uh uh my opinion I think it's better under the flip because whenever you want to uh the talk , okay , so then you can speak then you can close it . But if you put it on the on the flip , okay , then uh technical I don't think it's uh feasible , 'cause most of the time you speak then it will be recognised . +User Interface: But if you've already got the remote control in your hand you need to open the flip to use the voice , why use the voice , why not just use your hand ? I mean the whole point of the voice is that if the remote control is sitting there and I'm too lazy to reach over and pick it up , I can just use my voice . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I've got my hand in the popcorn bowl and I'm holding my cup of Coca-Cola in the other hand . +User Interface: Yeah . And you don't wanna let go of either one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't wanna say . Louder . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean it doesn't have to be on the flip , it can be on the side somewhere . +Marketing: Can also be on the side . +Project Manager: Yeah , the sides maybe is good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , I mean I can pass this around if anyone wants to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . So it's maybe good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , y better you pass it around with a napkin . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , because y you can easily put a microphone on the side that would have no problem would haven't been {disfmarker} not be damaged or anything , and it'd be accessible all the time to voice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's maybe good idea . S s +Industrial Designer: It's um {disfmarker} It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Compliments to the artist . +Industrial Designer: You need to work on the weight a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . S {vocalsound} I'm fine , I'm satisfi +User Interface: And maybe the shape of the buttons , +Project Manager: I'm satisfied . +User Interface: the little egg shapes aren't the most economical , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're glad you're satisfied . +Project Manager: Of course it's it's it's looks more heo heavy , but I think when it's completely {gap} maybe it's a less weight . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean this is plasticene . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: There's only so much you can do . We could have possibly made it a lot thinner as well . {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} And part of the thing is m a lot of people say that they don't like something that's too light , because they don't feel like they have enough control over it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I mean maybe this is excessively heavy , but I think it needs to have some weight , +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: it needs to feel like you're still holding something . {vocalsound} So that's pretty much it for our presentation actually . +Project Manager: That's your uh prototype model ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's good , thank you very much . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any comments or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the prototype is is very well within the design and ideas that we've we've talked about on the previous meetings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now it goes into this next phase as the financial uh marketing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , that uh {disfmarker} So I'll come back to the {disfmarker} {gap} So evaluation criteria , I think uh that will be good , so then let's come to the finance uh , I have some uh calculations which I made uh as for uh the budget . So here you can uh look like uh the energy {gap} and uh {gap} dynamo and uh kinetic and solar cells . Uh it's optional , somewhat optional and Ed wants the chip on print , that's what uh we were talking about that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So then we have sample sensor and sample speaker , then uh we have the wood material , then special colour and push button . So it's uh {disfmarker} actually , our budget was uh twelve point five Euro , but uh it's coming to nine point nine five Euro , so we are under uh {disfmarker} below the budget , okay , so still we are saving some money . I think it's a good figure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , great I {disfmarker} I'm surprised . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Than thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we haven't come to mine yet , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . It's gonna cost a long way to c you know , cost a lot of money to market it , is it ? +Marketing: we're gonna have a bit of difference of opinion , yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe it's {disfmarker} for some money we can utilise for our uh marketing , for the sales , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , it just depends on if we're gonna add a {vocalsound} o on this pr provisionary cost analysis , we do not have a L_C_ display . L_C_ display is gonna be very expensive , +User Interface: No we do , but it's not filled in . +Marketing: it's gonna be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not . +Industrial Designer: Thirty . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} it doesn't say . +User Interface: It's number thirty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: We don't have the price up there , +User Interface: Oh , yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: you're right , sorry , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: okay , so if we add approximately two to three Euro per remote , now we're up around about twelve , twelve and a half as to what uh the company had initially uh requested . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So that means we can put the uh {disfmarker} the L_C_D_ in , yeah . +Marketing: Display in . But as far as production um I'm putting up a question because we're talking about profit also , and in mine you'll see uh {vocalsound} the problem with uh our survey , the p the possibility that how many units can be sold , what percentage of the market , etcetera etcetera because that {gap} has to be taken in into consideration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh this is just production cost , it is not uh advertising cost , it's not transportation cost uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so still uh we have twelve point five Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that will inflate quite a bit the cost of the uh {disfmarker} the cost of the unit for the company . +Project Manager: Yes . {gap} Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yep . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: So to come up with what the company wants is a fifty million Pound profit , we're gonna have to go a long ways . +Project Manager: Yes . This we are talking about one unit , okay , so when it go into the quantity , okay , and the cost will come down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Although customisation , because this is being done , you know , the on {disfmarker} on-order basis , it might be uh the the quantity won't m won't uh +Marketing: Slightly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's gonna be very hard to reduce . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: the circuit board will b you're right , would be in producing quantity , but the cost of the case would uh {vocalsound} be fixed at the {disfmarker} Uh you got some pretty cheap labour that can do this case for one Euro . +Marketing: That's not bad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's really {disfmarker} that's the cost of the material and lab wow , that's really outstanding . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But anyhow , still we are under control , okay , so what uh I will do is I will try to negotiate with the vendors , okay , to get uh the production cost less , okay , so then we can save some money , okay , to put into th our marketing or uh you know the promotions , whatever , okay , so that uh I will look after . I will speak to the management and how to get uh you know some more uh cost down . +Marketing: If we can go to to my display . And we'll come back to yours +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: just to give everybody an idea of the market . So now I'm gonna scare everybody out of this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I'm still here . +Project Manager: You're in four ? +Marketing: {gap} Yep The four gives me {disfmarker} it's gotta be uh TrendWatch . +Project Manager: TrendWatch . +Industrial Designer: Is this the same one you did before ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It shouldn't be +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} no , I think it's the same one . +Marketing: if it's not {disfmarker} it's not the right one . No , no we g no , that's the same one . You have to go back and find another one . Whatever name it popped up under . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: Uh functional , try functional , it might not be it either , but we'll see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It looks like it , there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} S Yeah . +Marketing: Yep , that's it . So we'll go screen by screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Although {vocalsound} since uh we need to have some type of idea on a market uh we had independent study that says it {disfmarker} this this market has an availability to absorb eight mi eight million units per year . Okay ? Our internal company evaluation puts it between eight to nine million which is approximately the same as the independent study . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we continue , we'll look at the findings . Next screen . {vocalsound} Which means that uh if we have a target of two million would the company has to take twenty five percent of the market in the first year , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is actually a tremendous amount . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , no kidding . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No kidding , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mayb maybe they already expected something . +Marketing: So , if we put an inflated price of fifty Euro at a production cost that cannot exceed twenty-five Euro , okay , we're already in that that price , okay , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: with transport , promotion , labour , because we hav {gap} gi included the promotion in the cost , transport for the material to the stores or whatever how however we're gonna break this down between our our retailers . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: Twenty-five percent of the market to get to two million units . At two million units , we have to have a profit of twenty-five Euro per unit to get to the fifty million unit Eu Euro profit . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Marketing: Okay ? So , obviously we w w I just did a run down the evaluation of the form , the fan uh the fancy stylishness of the {disfmarker} of the unit , the ease of use , speech recognition , cost , we've gone through these . Now , the company must evaluate the feasibility of being able to take enough of the market to justify in production . Or we project this over two years , but being that the market changes very very quickly , maybe there's no more interest in buying this thing in eighteen months from now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . Of course . +Marketing: So , now we have to come up with a decision . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can the company sell two million units ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Can it sell it for fifty Euros ? +Industrial Designer: Could could I go to findings ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh um I would uh like to explore the possibility of using um alternative um delivery and sales channel which would be um to use the internet for promotion and ordering +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was thinking the same thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then to drop-ship the p product to the customer's residence . +User Interface: Directly . +Industrial Designer: That way you have no storage , you have no um {disfmarker} you do have transportation , still have the labour cost , +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you don't have the transport to the uh point of sale . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: The point of sale is online . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: To the agents . +User Interface: Yeah . You can do a shipping centre somewhere , or strategically place shipping centres to minimise distance costs . +Industrial Designer: Right , like Amazon . In fact , we should sell through Amazon , +Project Manager: Yes . Or eBay , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: don't you think ? Or eBay , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Going with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To impro more profit and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: S Upscale technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah , we we're do you know , selling a unique product uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . +User Interface: That actually makes more sense if we're gonna make it so highly customisable , 'cause on the web people can look at the different options they have , see maybe what other people have done , what the range of possibility as , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: There are several companies that have gone that way . +User Interface: whereas if you're in a store , you can't {disfmarker} unless you're a highly imaginative person , you may not really know what it is you want , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: whereas on the web , if you have a bunch of pictures , it can sort of trigger ideas and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . And you can even have an {disfmarker} a movie that you can rotate the object and look at the di the only thing that you're missing really is the weight . +User Interface: Yeah . The weight and feel . +Marketing: Weight , the feel of the product , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're getting used to that . It's not quite like trying on a shoe , but people are getting used to buying things online that they can't touch before buying . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: There are several that have gone through with the watches , too . You can customise a watch , you can see how it is at the f at the end of the production , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you can change it uh {disfmarker} There's a lot of online that's {disfmarker} that is doing this now . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And when you're rotating , you'll look behind and look this way uh {disfmarker} it's possible to do with this , maybe there's a possibility of selling more than two million units in one year , which could {vocalsound} you know , feasibili feasibility uh lower the price of the unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: I don't think that's uh not possible , it's uh {disfmarker} okay then , l uh let's wait for the production , okay , then uh you can evaluate the product , so how it looks like technically and uh how it look like uh the real . +User Interface: What turnaround time do we have ? +Project Manager: T +User Interface: 'Cause I mean production evaluation can be very very quick or very very long . +Project Manager: Oh but {disfmarker} Yes it's it's very quick , of course . It will uh come back in two weeks , okay , it will be ready in two weeks . +Industrial Designer: Works for me . +Project Manager: For evaluation , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Prototypes , you mean . +Project Manager: Yes , the prototype uh {disfmarker} prototype product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: In um {disfmarker} We probably should do some market tests uh once we have the prototypes and do some orders and things like that and test-market it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Well , obviously . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm that'd have to be thrown out on the market for people to get an idea , +Project Manager: So you can take a minimum two weeks to a maximum four weeks . +Marketing: to see {disfmarker} get get their {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Think minimum two weeks if we're gonna develop prototypes and then try to take them to different places and see how people use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not a trivial task . +Project Manager: Yeah , because we we are not going to do it in uh our factory , okay , so we can give it a product evalua +User Interface: No no . We definitely shouldn't do it in our factory . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we'll do it in the other place , and I don't think it's take more than four weeks time . Or uh {disfmarker} Okay , so then the real production we will start once we product evaluation , okay , then uh it's approve from uh the technical team and uh your team , okay , uh from the management , then we can launch in the market . Hm ? +Industrial Designer: Any outstanding {disfmarker} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: S Any any other uh questions or uh comments to be discuss ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'm +User Interface: What ab +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} go ahead . +Marketing: I think we pretty much covered everything . +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Did you have something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I was just wondering about if we're gonna do a product evaluation then what about time for redesign if the users come back and tell us no this is bad , this is bad , we want this done differently . +Project Manager: Okay uh , let's take like this . Let's proceed with this model , okay , for the for the marketing direction , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So no more changes will be made , okay , in this {disfmarker} the basic design . Okay ? So we will introduce m this model and uh let's introduce in the market and let's take the feedback from the customers , then we can uh go for the +Industrial Designer: Second generation . +Project Manager: second generation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . There's no end , there's not limit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The problem is there might not be a second generation if the first generation flops for some silly reason that we haven't thought of . +Project Manager: Every every custom +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , then it may not be . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , every customer , okay , they have their own ideas , they have their own test , okay , so there's no end , there's no limit . +Marketing: Like people don't like wood . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , but there's a difference between releasing a product that has been minimally tested and fine-tuned to suit a general range of requirements versus releasing a product that we think will work but we don't really have anything to back it up . +Marketing: {gap} very specific . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that's the reason you are here for uh the design , okay , I hope you made a good design . +User Interface: Yes , but I'm not everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean the whole point of user evaluation is to see what real people need . We have our own motivations in mind , we have our own ideas in mind , but that doesn't mean that that's what's gonna sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh see , we ought to take a few considerations , okay , one is the price consideration , one is future consideration , okay , like uh you can eat uh {disfmarker} you can all eat more chi I can eat more chilli , okay , so i it's a depends on the individual taste , you know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we have we have to balance somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah , of course . I'm just trying to point out that I think that your evaluation and redesign turnaround time is too short {disfmarker} well you have no redesign {disfmarker} not you personally , but in the project we have no redesign time and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Our project doesn't {disfmarker} um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ed , d do you know what season of the year or time of the year is the most important for T_V_ remote control sales ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would it be the Christmas season by any chance ? +Project Manager: The sports time . +Industrial Designer: Sports season . Which sport season ? +Marketing: Right before the Eur {vocalsound} the World Cup . {vocalsound} World soccer . World Cup soccer , +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} so +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: they need those things that they have their hands g occupied and they need to be able to talk to the con remote control . +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: maybe what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think what we need to do is perhaps to synchronise the final {disfmarker} the the launch of a user-tested device with some {gap} special event . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: And and then um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: so that gives us a little more time perhaps then we anticipated , because I don't know when the World Cup is , but I'm sure there's gonna be one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or any major sports . +Industrial Designer: Or another {gap} m major sports event . Probably not the um the football games coming up the end of January . I think that might be a little too aggressive um , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but , so , I'm just ig uh pointing out a uh a strategy to uh do some additional user testing +Project Manager: Research . +Industrial Designer: pri and then to launch um at a a major sports event +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: or uh perhaps to uh also {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's actually good place to advertise it too . +Industrial Designer: And to work with motion pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There might be some motion pictures that are coming out um {disfmarker} that are coming out on D_V_D_ that uh they need to have a m special remote control to work with it , so we could maybe work out a campaign with uh with Sony Pictures for example . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe some management has got uh relationships there we can leverage . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , the {disfmarker} that of course uh I will convince the management to do that , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just something to to keep in mind , 'cause it's really really important . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure , sure , yes . +User Interface: A lot of products have gone out there without being properly user-tested and completely flopped , when in fact it gets re-released a few years down the line with proper testing and it takes off like crazy . +Industrial Designer: Disposable diapers is an example of that in fact . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it is one of the first consumer products that was launched about thirty years {disfmarker} that was a disposable consumer product , +User Interface: {vocalsound} That I didn't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh people {disfmarker} the market hadn't really {vocalsound} gotten on to the concept that you could use something and then throw it away , 'cause it wasn't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but then when they re-launched them thirty years later , they were virtually the same design , +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but people had gotten the throw-away , you know , paper cups and napki y all kinds of things that they hadn't um {disfmarker} so , you're right , timing is very important , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we've got a good product . +Project Manager: That's the reason Ed is here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think he can promote the the brand value and the product value . +Industrial Designer: That's right . It's gonna be very important to the company . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . We are behind the scene and he is the front screen , so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's on the big screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm the one who takes the heat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good luck , Ed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it's a flop , it's the marketer . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You look very relaxed , considering h you know , the uh the weight on your shoulders , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Yes . Stress . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh let's come to the closing and uh are the costs within the budget +Marketing: Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh is the product evaluated , okay , so that will uh come soon . Okay for uh {disfmarker} but our time being , so thanks for all your efforts and great work and uh great design and uh let's leave it to the Ed for later for once production is over and the meantime let's celebrate . So let's meet up uh this evening to hang up for some party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Industrial Designer: Nice working with you . +Marketing: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you again for all . +User Interface: Thanks +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And see you in the evening for drinks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye-bye . Yep , okay , see you later on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bye . +","During a team meeting, the Project Manager outlined the agenda which included discussing the prototype presentation by Christine and Agnes, evaluation criteria, financial aspects, and production evaluation. User Interface presented a customizable remote control design with ergonomic shape, wood material, and customizable color. It featured controls for TV functions and an optional LCD screen on a flip panel. Concerns were raised about the location of the microphone for voice recognition. Marketing discussed the potential to sell two million units of the product, suggesting a retail price of fifty Euros to achieve a profit of fifty million Pounds. They also proposed internet sales as a strategy. Industrial Designer highlighted the need for market testing before launch, potentially aligning with a significant sports event for maximum impact. The group concluded with a discussion on the importance of user testing and agreed to celebrate their progress that evening." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right uh . So um . So where's the PowerPoint presentation ? Sorry ? Microsoft PowerPoint , right . Right , okay . So . Right . Okay , so we've got uh so we've got new project requirements . Um . So basically we've got three things , and we've got forty minutes in which to uh {disfmarker} for this meeting to uh to discuss the various options . Um . Three presentations . +Industrial Designer: We have a {disfmarker} I guess we have a presentation each , 'cause I've got one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I see , right . +Marketing: I've got one too . +Project Manager: That's nice to know , one from each of you . Um new project requirements . Um so do we want to do the presentation first , or do we want to um {disfmarker} W I I got um {gap} or or three things basically , um relating to the remote being only for T_V_ . We discussed that last time +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and in actual fact that was pr pretty well what we came up with anyway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled {vocalsound} in a sense . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um we've got uh teletext outdated . Um did you get any information on that ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we didn't , no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Right and the corporate image was the uh final thing . +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't personally . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I I got that in email form . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Right okay . So I guess if we go ahead with the uh with the three presentations . So we'll start with yourself on the basis that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's fine . I'll just um I'll grab the wire out the back of this one . +Project Manager: Sorry , yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What is it ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not quite sure how it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think you've got to do um control F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Control {gap} {disfmarker} Doesn't seem to be quite working at the moment . +User Interface: Shift F_ eight . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Alt function F_ eight . {vocalsound} Again not doing anything . +Marketing: {vocalsound} There's usually a little thing in the top right for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Ah there , +Marketing: Oh hang on , +User Interface: it's doing something . +Marketing: it's just coming on . +Industrial Designer: {gap} pressed about five times now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's me {gap} . Okay , um I have to go {gap} again . +Project Manager: {gap} it going ? +Industrial Designer: Hopefully that should be it this time . Okay , I think we're there . That's good . Okay , um {disfmarker} Okay I'm gonna be looking at the working design . Um {vocalsound} of the of the remote control . Um I've just got three sections , first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself um . And then that involves the components required in it and the systems uh design of the actual the actual remote . Um so having researched the existing models within the market , um I found my research off the internet . Um I've established what the components required for the remote control to function , actually are . And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television . Um the basic components are an energy source which I guess um in most existing models would be a battery supply . Whether that'll be sort of two batteries , four batteries , um it may vary . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We then have the user interface , which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote . Um the various functions used for changing channel , uh channel up and down , volume , things like that . Um there's also a chip inside the remote which does all the computer type things . And then the sender , which um is usually , I've found , an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television . Um and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself , because that's obviously found in the television . {gap} . Um I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because uh it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working , so . I'll just go through there . S um um do we have a cloth to wipe this down with , or ? Oh I'll j +Project Manager: Uh there's the rubber on the right , I think . +User Interface: I think it's that little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I see . Oh okay . I'll get rid of the bear.$ +Project Manager: {gap} it's magic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's great . Okay , so we start off with a um battery suppl Uh no , a power supply which we'd probably get {disfmarker} it's probably gonna be the battery . Um we then have a particular button , which may be {disfmarker} {gap} that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons . Um but this is how the basic system works . Um that sends {gap} after you press that that sends the message to the chip , which um then sends {disfmarker} It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender . {vocalsound} Um . So that's {gap} . That's the remote in itself , that's the components of the remote and how they work together . So this is the uh user interface . Um this is the chip itself , which then {gap} , and that's the that's the infra-red sender . And then on the separate thing we have on the on the television we have a a receiver . And the sender sends a message to the receiver . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So the the top bit's the power source , yes ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah yes , that's the power source . Um . {gap} going on to personal preferences , I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote , just because of the size . You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote . Um and then the sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and infra-red um has been used quite successfully . If the battery's on reasonable power , they always seem to work fairly well . You don't have to be point directly at the television itself . +Project Manager: So the battery is the {disfmarker} in the sender . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Yes . 'Kay and that's it for the moment . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . So , now more design . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Thank you . Mine's not quite as complicated as all that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what we like to hear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I press function ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh , th there you go . +User Interface: Oh . Um . Okay so I'm gonna talk a bit about the technical functions design . I'm Louisa , the User Interface Designer , as you know . {vocalsound} Um so the m basic method of this is to send a signal from the remote to the television set , so that a desired function is performed . Um an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down , uh so obviously you need two different buttons for that . Um to change the channel , either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down . Um to switch the television on or off , maybe a standby button . Um here are two example remotes . Um by the look of it they both have um kind of play and fast forward , rewind functions , so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about . Uh but as you can see , the left remote is quite um quite busy looking , quite complicated . Um whereas the right remote is much simpler , it looks much more user friendly . Um so my personal preference would be the right remote . So , {vocalsound} it's got nice big buttons , it's got a very limited number of buttons . Um they're nice , kinda clearly labelled . Um I like the use of the kind of um symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the um kind of play functions and all that . So it's very very user friendly , and it's got a little splash of colour . Could maybe do with some more colour . Um . +Project Manager: Well there's a couple of things there . Um we have to remember that we have our own um logo and colour scheme . So basically we'd have to uh we'd have to be putting that on um the the product . +User Interface: Hmm . Do we get to see that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I haven't as yet , no . +User Interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But uh I got uh I got an email that basically said to uh make sure that uh whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate um the corporate colour and slogan . So uh I'm guessing that uh uh I notice on the bottom there it's got uh what's that ? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme , although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here , the the sort of circular section , because that seems to be for a video as well . So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume . Possibly ? +User Interface: What do you mean by the circular section ? +Industrial Designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah +User Interface: Like all of that bottom bit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that {disfmarker} I think that's still um a video remote part , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we could get rid of that as well . +User Interface: Yeah . And I don't really think that you need nine numbers . +Project Manager: Well b uh w +User Interface: I mean how often do you use seven , eight and nine ? I think just one to six and then channel up and down should be enough . +Project Manager: Well th the on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like how often do you hit nine ? +Project Manager: Well uh for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we'd have to have some room for uh future such channels . But but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just people are used to seeing that , so if we didn't have them then they might think it's {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: But , well possibly but the the other thing is that with um the current expansion of uh channels uh in the process of taking place , certainly the button up and down , but uh I mean {vocalsound} how many channels do we have to um {disfmarker} actual television channels do we have to uh prepare for ? I would have thought that uh {gap} it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got {disfmarker} although you've onl you've got the five standard , you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh there's uh I don't know exactly how many channels there are on uh when you take into account uh Sky and various other um various others . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't , you know , rather {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , if the time of flicking from one to other , but presumably it'll take a second +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause you have to be able to stop it . Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise . Y you'd want you'd want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six , um if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , I s I suppose in a sense you could have um if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting {disfmarker} rather than having to go one to a hundred , you could go one to one to ten , ten to twenty +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and that would cut down your time . +User Interface: Mm . Um . +Project Manager: Anyway . +User Interface: But I think a lot of um like Cable and Sky and stuff , that would be tuned to one channel , and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whatever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Limit the number of buttons , user friendly . +User Interface: But I suppose nine's not really excessive . +Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you {disfmarker} uh it's like uh multiples you can put them together so you can make any number . +User Interface: I suppose it does make a good pattern . +Industrial Designer: So with that we'd kind of by-pass any problems with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah Well that's true , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever , that that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Um I think that's just for a video , so we wouldn't need any of that at all . +Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what ? +Project Manager: If it's just for T_V_ , which is what it is at the moment . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we get to {disfmarker} How many buttons have we got ? We've just got ten , eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need . I guess . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um which isn't really too many . That'll be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well we've we've got um that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with uh which would endanger the time to market {vocalsound} was one of the considerations . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm {disfmarker} I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or was I meant to give you that information ? +Marketing: Um I'm not sure . I had I've had some market information , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: but not from the company , no . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so basically time to market seems to be important , therefore speed of delivery . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We've only got about another four hours left . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so is everyone happy with that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes , that seems good . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Right well that's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . I'm gonna pull this off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you just give it a second to maybe catch up . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think she said twenty seconds to um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll have by the end of today . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll give it another go . Yeah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Right , we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control . And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and um how do people use it ? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them . Um how d how does a remote control look and feel for them , and what improvements would would they like to remote control . And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers . And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s uh a fancier remote control And that of all the buttons on the remote control , the sort of setting buttons for sort of the picture picture and brightness and the audio settings , um they weren't used very often at all . People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons . Uh we also asked them about speech recognition uh for remote control . And young people were quite receptive to this , but as soon as we got sort of over about into a thirty five to forty age {disfmarker} forty five age group and older , people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition . There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well . Um we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it . And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control , it was difficult to learn um all the buttons and all the functions , and to find your way around it . {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some {vocalsound} sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech {disfmarker} A design which looks high-tech , basically . Um and that we should come up with fewer buttons than most of the controls on the market , and we should sort of concentrate on the channels and sort of power , and also volume and that sort of thing , as as Louisa said . Um we could maybe come up with a menu , a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control . That's worth thinking about . Um and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well , because um sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design . That that might be the market that we're we're looking for . And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room , rather than sort of um having it to {vocalsound} speech recognition to change the channels . 'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise , so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um , and that's the end of the slide show . That's it . Cool . +Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? +User Interface: Do {gap} a lot of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um about speech recognition ? +Project Manager: Speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that was only for young people that preferred it , older people didn't . +Marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah , they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups , people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to , so . +Industrial Designer: No what I maybe think is um it seems the technology would be quite advanced for that and they might end up costing more than our twelve fifty budget for for the speech recognition . Um . +Project Manager: Well that's right . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have {disfmarker} You know with your mobile phone , you lose that and you can ring it . Maybe we can have some kind of sensor which is kept somewhere where you can {disfmarker} {gap} some kind of buzzer system between the two . So you can press a button which is always kept in one place +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else , wherever the remote actually is . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah . Yeah , we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well , +Industrial Designer: That is true , yes . +Marketing: which which again would probably be a bit expensive , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: There's key rings um that you kind of whistle at or clap at , I can't remember , and then they whistle back , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . +User Interface: That'd probably be really simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: they're cheap . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the {disfmarker} or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote . +Project Manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product 'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing , you know without sound recognition . But if you {disfmarker} I know . Um I was gonna say a sharp noise , you know a clapping of hand or whatever . {vocalsound} You'd want to try and av just have the one product that if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I dunno um talking about vo I mean obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command , a set command whatever that happened to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with uh voice recognition then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you could have an option to turn it off . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps , um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {vocalsound} Any sugges Well , any conclusions ? +Marketing: Um would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if it does then we can't . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Considering {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's that simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because we've got uh th th three um primary um uh requisites from uh from and email uh that was sent to me whereby we had {disfmarker} The design logo was one , which we've already mentioned . We've got um the remote was only for the television and not for {disfmarker} because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the uh third thing was that um teletext uh as far as uh the management is concerned , um is becoming dated uh due to the popularity of the internet . So that means that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so these are the sort of three um extra parameters that have been put on this uh project . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is uh wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: So anything that uh is to be added , such as voice recognition et cetera has to be very simple and has to be very quick +Industrial Designer: Has to be simple enough to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because time to market is is critical . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It would . But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Added extras would be nice , but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within uh this short time window , which effectively now is sort of four hours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} and if {disfmarker} and we've gotta get to the end . Uh d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with um added extras if possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Right okay , uh so I need to {disfmarker} Right . So I don't know how long we have left of our uh time . But we have to make the decisions on uh the remote control functions +Marketing: About five minutes . +Project Manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next uh meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll also know w when the next meeting is +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I um {disfmarker} so we'll know how long we've got to complete that task . And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes , we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this , this is how far we've progressed . Does that make reasonable sense ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes that seems right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing . And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting , if you get any additional information that uh only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making um process , then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do it via the email +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: so that rather than coming you know {disfmarker} If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine . Come along with it in the next meeting , we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting , let everybody else know 'cause that might have an impact on their uh {disfmarker} on what they come up with {vocalsound} effectively at the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , is there {disfmarker} +Marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now ? S +Project Manager: I would guess so . +User Interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of um kind of whistle back kind of function . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause that'll solve kind of the frustration of losing it . +Marketing: Yeah and {disfmarker} Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said , so . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that , so . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't really know about the voice recognition thing . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} w well uh i +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment , +Project Manager: Something simple . Uh if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time , time's short , +Industrial Designer: and if something comes back {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: something that's quick and simple . So , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: sounds good . +User Interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either , 'cause everyone can whistle or clap , and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology . +Project Manager: Well , so maybe a clap rather than a whistle would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: On the basis that if we've got {disfmarker} if we're catering to the whole age range , you want something that's easy to do , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: now something that doesn't like whis uh +Marketing: No not everyone can whistle , can they , though ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I I don't know . Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine , then go for that option , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle , +Marketing: No , +Industrial Designer: I'd go more {disfmarker} +Marketing: clapping , I think clapping , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , f more for clap . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so uh so clap option . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button , haven't we ? +Project Manager: Uh . Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying , +User Interface: Is that one of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that uh if uh if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so so take out teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking out teletext , okay . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide on having the ten um the ten numbers +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so , so zero to nine . +Marketing: Mm . I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you can press any two and it'll sort of put them together . +Industrial Designer: Okay , ten numbers +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then some kind of device to allow uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll put delay to allow um multiple numbers . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or multiple digits . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide anything about um the other functions ? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that ? You had an had an idea about the menu ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} we could possibly put an L_ {disfmarker} a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in , but that again is probably an expense that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But just thinking um people probably {disfmarker} I mean you don't have {disfmarker} you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once , but you have to be able to tune it that once . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks , you get a new one , you're gonna have to be able to tune it . You can't really avoid that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Except the new digital markets which do it by themselves . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic +Industrial Designer: So that'll be in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and if it is at the moment , that's fine . But at the moment it's not , so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters , 'cause otherwise it would make it {disfmarker} uh your device would become inoperable , or only operable in certain circumstances +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and the idea is to have an international market +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale , so we're not really going for something that's uh terribly high-tech . +Marketing: Yeah . I s I suppose um if people are buying remotes , then they're probably buying it to replace another remote +Project Manager: Possibly . +Marketing: 'cause all most tellies come with remotes , so . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: I mean we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions , so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So how would this menu function work ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button , then you'd use the other buttons , maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: like the volume or something . +Marketing: that would be a good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you do need um kind of brightness and contrast and everything as well . My dad was watching a film the other week +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and it was too dark , so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} we're gonna have the the individual numbers +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced um instruction booklet to come with it , to guide {disfmarker} Presu uh I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp um just off like the menu {gap} use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet 'cause one {disfmarker} the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right , okay um . +Marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons , you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it , so you're basically pressing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two , and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +User Interface: Well , if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well , have you seen those remotes where kind of um the bottom bit slides down , so there's kind of um everything else revealed ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So y Ah That's a very good idea . +User Interface: So you don't use it that much , you don't have to see it all the time . But it's all there if you need it . +Industrial Designer: That is that is a good idea actually . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sor sort of a second . +Project Manager: So you keep um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a hidden panel . +Project Manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting , so I've been told . I don't know if you've got the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh not quite , but I guess {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so keep um keep detailed functions um hidden at the back . +Industrial Designer: Keep the other buttons but hide them away . +User Interface: Hmm . And that'll be better for the older generation as well 'cause , well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu , +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: but he can pretty much read a button if it's displayed properly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well . So we're gonna have like two separate two separate lists , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} data functions hidden at back . Can bring out when needed . +Marketing: So th the {disfmarker} The detailed ones would be sort of brightness , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh sorta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back . We have to decide . +Industrial Designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So on front , +Industrial Designer: {gap} about the number {gap} . +Project Manager: numbers , +Industrial Designer: Um the volume up and down . +User Interface: And the volume ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} volume . +Industrial Designer: Shall we have a mute button as well ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A mute button as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're handy . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And probably a power one as well . {vocalsound} Dunno . +User Interface: I know it's probably like um not an issue to raise here , but um the whole thing about not using your standby uh because of the like waste of electricity {gap} . Have you seen the adverts ? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like we should maybe try to discourage people from standby . +Industrial Designer: But then they might not buy it if they haven't got one . 'Cause people might just be too fickle and not want to change . +User Interface: Yeah , it's maybe too much of a big issue for here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so are you having the stand-by on the front , then ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-oh danger sign . +Industrial Designer: I think you probably should . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but a little bit smaller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Compromise . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons ? +Marketing: Um 'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'll have um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there ? +Project Manager: Channel up and down . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: What else have we got ? What was that , sixteen ? +Marketing: Numbers is ten , volume is twelve , +Project Manager: Volume button . How many volumes ? +Marketing: th Yeah si One up , one down . +Project Manager: Right okay . +User Interface: On mute . +Marketing: And a mute , yeah . That's sixteen isn't it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is there anything else ? Um . +Marketing: I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: Power button , stand-by , channel , up and down . So is that it ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} so . +Project Manager: Okay . That's sixteen buttons , you reckon . And then at the back ? +Marketing: You've got brightness and contrast . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time , one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So on the back it'll have brightness , contrast , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: anything else ? You're also gonna have the channel tuner {gap} , as it were . +User Interface: Uh there's audio functions . +Industrial Designer: So tuner up and down , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Tuner , would that have up and down ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um up {disfmarker} Tune one way , tune the o +User Interface: I think they normally do . +Project Manager: {gap} okay {gap} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I dunno I dunno possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know , saying that you want that particular thing tuned in . So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah and th and a enter button just to select . Yeah , okay . Um I guess we're keeping s it simple . We don't really need any other audio funct uh functions because it's just volume up , volume down . +Project Manager: Um up volume , yeah , I would have thought so . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think um there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio , surround sort of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do they have their own {disfmarker} do they have their own controls on their actual products , then , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um maybe for the younger market . +Industrial Designer: or do you have to do it via the remote ? +User Interface: Um I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their {disfmarker} if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Oh no , I mean um like there's kind of individual buttons for them , like on the T_V_ remote . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: But I don't really know what they're for , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I've never used them . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: I just know they're something to do with Dolby . +Industrial Designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you might get some research . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well shall we look into that and just get back together . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right so I'll do the minutes of uh this meeting . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we'll meet back at I'm not sure . Um forty minutes , I believe is the time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +","In the transcribed meeting session above, participants from different departments—Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing—are gathered to discuss a new project focusing on the design of a television remote control. Their discussions revolve around presentations, design specifications, market research findings, and user preferences, aiming to finalize the remote's functions and features within the constraint of a tight four-hour deadline. + +The meeting begins with the Project Manager checking the status of the PowerPoint presentations before delving into the discussions. Each team member has brought a presentation, suggesting that they will discuss each one in turn. Immediately afterward, they address the technical difficulties in getting the presentation equipment to work properly, reflecting a typical real-world scenario of technical hiccups during meetings. + +Once the technicalities are sorted, the Industrial Designer outlines the design and components of the remote, including the energy source, user interface, chip, sender, and receiver. Detailed explanations are given on how these parts interact to make the remote function. The Designer even resorts to drawing on the board to illustrate the concept since the PowerPoint presentation proves to be problematic. + +The User Interface Designer suggests a focus on making the remote user-friendly, presenting two example remotes and expressing a preference towards simplicity and ease of use, with big, clearly labeled buttons. + +The Marketing representative then shares market research insights, which reveal consumer preferences such as the desire for a sleek-looking remote with fewer buttons focused on essential functions like channel and volume control. There is also a discussion about the possibility of speech recognition technology, though it becomes evident that there is a generational divide on this feature, with younger users being more open to it. Moreover, consumers have expressed frustrations with remotes getting lost and the learning curve involved in mastering new controls. + +The team deliberates on possible innovations like a whistle back or clapping function to help locate a lost remote, and the need to possibly limit the number of buttons to simplify the usage and complement the consumer preferences of a sleek design. They ponder over the technical and financial feasibility of incorporating speech recognition within their cost constraints, eventually deciding that a simple, practical solution would take precedence. + +Throughout the meeting, there's an ongoing acknowledgement of corporate directives, such as ensuring the remote is designed for TV only (to avoid complexity), incorporates the company's corporate color and slogan, and caters to a broad audience. Teletext is deemed outdated due to internet popularity and hence may be excluded from the design. + +The discussion veers towards specific button functions, with attention given to essential features like power, volume adjustment, channel selection, and a potential slide-out panel for less frequently used functions like brightness and contrast—proposing to keep the remote's interface both intuitive and uncluttered for the users. + +The meeting is characterized by practical considerations, collaborative decision-making, and a series of problem-solving discussions aimed at aligning the product design with market expectations and company objectives. The team is conscious of the limited time frame to finalize their concepts, and the necessity to communicate effectively between meetings to stay on target for the project's swift completion. + +The session ends with a plan to reconvene in 40 minutes and the Project Manager taking on the task of minute taking, reflecting a typical corporate approach to efficient meeting management and the importance of action items and follow-ups in project development processes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: So , we are asked to to make uh uh a new remote control for television . And the characteristics of this new remote control should be original and trendy and of course user user friendly . So people can {gap} can use it without any any problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we should set the the points to to drive the project and uh +User Interface: Mm . B did you send us an email about this ? +Project Manager: Uh , not yet , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , we we received an email about this uh d designs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want do you want me to send you a mail ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ah it's Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or you can put it in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yeah , you see the email ? You {gap} email . The v very {disfmarker} no , no the first one . +Marketing: No , I didn't get it . +User Interface: It's inside . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: The third one . Oh , you didn't get anything . +Marketing: No , {gap} . +User Interface: It's strange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: I got an email about the dis about the discussion . Yeah . +Project Manager: You get email , {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno from who . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the account manager . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} From the account manager . You have received the same email , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's for your guys to {vocalsound} how to design it all the aspects so you need that information . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Yeah , so each of us has a role to do . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think {gap} assign your uh roles . +User Interface: In each {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For each for each one . +User Interface: We already have our role . +Marketing: For each person , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Kay , we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So there are {disfmarker} so we have three {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there are three kinds of designs , that's all . +Project Manager: f yeah . We have functional design , conceptual design , and detail design . +User Interface: Okay , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , who will be the the responsible for the functional design ? Any any volunteer ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think our uh responsibilities will be assigned when we {disfmarker} in our mail we received from the account manager . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh +User Interface: I'm doing the interface . +Project Manager: You are doing th +Industrial Designer: No , I'm doing the interface . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Are you using the {disfmarker} you are doing the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I'm I'm {disfmarker} Well , maybe we have {disfmarker} okay so I {gap} industrial design . It was a little confusion about my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's alright . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll for industrial design . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And and you {disfmarker} Norman ? +User Interface: Mm ? Um working on i . {vocalsound} User interface . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'm into marketing . +Project Manager: {gap} doing the marketing . +Marketing: {gap} yeah nothing much in the project . +Project Manager: Nothing related here to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Marketing in this design . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: A design is basically for industrial design and the user interface . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You see the second mail ? Yeah , it's inside . Go down . Appendix . +Marketing: Yeah , this is {gap} . +User Interface: See there's a role for everybody . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right , +User Interface: Even for the marketing . +Marketing: first {gap} . {gap} us user define . +Project Manager: Next {gap} . +User Interface: But look at your role , your marketing role . +Marketing: There's a trend watching . +Project Manager: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah , that's your role . +Project Manager: I {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we can have a little discussion about what has to be done +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and what are your ideas about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About the design or {disfmarker} Maybe we'll discuss this later , no ? +Industrial Designer: Well , w we want to have a new re remote control for for T_V_ distribution I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} plan how how it would be developed and uh +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: how we can make it work {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I mean working remotes we already have . This will be something different from the other remotes {disfmarker} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we we have to keep in mind the {disfmarker} these characteristics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And of course it should not be very costly . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I I think that Norman and I would think about um the technical points and um we should discuss it in the next meeting , or +User Interface: Need to collect information . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: About the {disfmarker} about what ? +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} I I'm part of design , perhaps . Uh , what is most important in a {disfmarker} in a remote control ? What is the most important function aspect ? Uh . +Project Manager: You mean the external {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , you have to make it work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of g of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {vocalsound} that's the big thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it should be easy to work with . +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can think about an interface with uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . We {disfmarker} maybe you can have a speech uh recognition interface . You just tell the television I want {disfmarker} which channel . +Project Manager: You won't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or or you can say for example , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I want uh to list all the programme tonight . Y you know {gap} , instead of {gap} uh remote control it's doing the {disfmarker} some searching for you , so you don't have to look for the channel you want . Just say maybe I just want to press {disfmarker} I wanna have a button for all the movies tonight . Or a button for all the magazines , all the information {disfmarker} documentary tonight . And then you list a few , and I will choose from the list . So instead of pressing the channel number , I am choosing the programmes directly . Yeah , that's one way of uh making it useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I I think if we include a lot of technology on the remote control it will be very costly . +User Interface: No , because {disfmarker} no , +Project Manager: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not very {disfmarker} a lot . Th this information exists . For example you can get um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like s uh you you you say we can use speech . +User Interface: You can use uh {disfmarker} well for example {disfmarker} anything . {vocalsound} The {vocalsound} the idea of using speech to reduce the button , but uh and it's more natural . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think if you want t to choose uh from a list of programme or or something like that you you may have to to use uh w uh I dunno +Marketing: I'm a {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the main uh function of remote control is to have something in the hand +Project Manager: In the hand . +Marketing: and we should be very careful about the size of the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: If we are going to add a speech interface , I'm not sure with {gap} trendy slim size of the remote control it would be able to put a speech recog +User Interface: Yeah . Yes , possible . +Marketing: if you want to put a speech recognition system f interface for that I think the T_V_ itself could have it . +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And I could talk to the T_V_ {disfmarker} television itself . +Project Manager: Except if if you are far from the T_V_ . +Marketing: I need not have an {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean we have some {gap} or something , different technology but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . But th the main idea I wanted to s I wanted to say is that um {vocalsound} there should be a function , instead of choosing the ch T_V_ channel , there's a option you can choose , either T_V_ channels or or pr or the or the contain or the contents of the programme . +Industrial Designer: On the content . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah it's it's a good idea it's a good idea +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So it's more powerful . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I I think that technically it would be um a little bit uh uh more tricky to to achieve this than just to {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No , because you see now all the T_V_ programmes are available on the webs . They they are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are available in X_M_L_ format or whatever the format . We don't care . We just say that this are some content . We just want to retrieve the content and then classi sort them by the types of programmes . Some of the websites they already provide this service , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: so we can just use the service available . Download it uh to the {disfmarker} to this remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And then there's {disfmarker} there are only six buttons for six categories , or sev seven . The most there are only seven buttons . So I just choose the category one and you reuse the same button , for example to to choose among the the sorted list the programme you want , so {vocalsound} you don't have to choose among hundred channels , if you have hundred channels , you just have six buttons , seven buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah we should also optimise the the number of buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I I I I think that j just by using navigation buttons and the user interface on the screen we are able to uh navigate uh through the {disfmarker} Well channel programme or contents or {disfmarker} in an easy way , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {gap} good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah , yes . So {gap} . Yeah . Yeah , so you don't have to display here , just display on the T_V_ screen , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah in the dis display on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Good idea {vocalsound} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and just uh with the with your remote control would just navigate through the f +User Interface: I think I think that will be revol revolutionary {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Because all the T_V_ uh the the remote control have all numbers , lots of buttons and then you dunno what to choose in the end . Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think for for the technical points we have to to to check how to gather the data from programme or contents and all this stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have five minutes to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah w w we have sometimes to use the white-board . +Project Manager: Ah you can y you can you can use it if you {disfmarker} so , can we +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five minutes . +Marketing: And another interesting idea for this would be to have an light adaptation system depending upon the picture of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So , I mean , if you're watching a movie and suddenly there is a dark uh {vocalsound} some dark scene , the lights adapt themself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The lighting in the room changes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but we are designing just remote control . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean , we have a option in the remote control . If we want to have that option , you press that button in the remote . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , do you want to have a conceptual remote control there , or you just want to put the function in ? +Project Manager: Yeah . If if you you you can if you want you can use th the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Please , Norman , draw uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Go on , draw something {gap} . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Oh , I'm afraid you forgot to put your lapel . +User Interface: Where is it ? +Marketing: The lapel . +Project Manager: Or before the before the the design that says {gap} . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where where is it ? Here . +Marketing: Yeah , that one . +Project Manager: Norman . +Marketing: Just plug it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Be before before writing you can uh sit and that says {gap} what we what we said +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: then after that you can you can use the {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , alright . So so the most functional des mm the most important function is to ch choo buttons to choose the content . Right ? We agree on that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , uh first one is to uh {vocalsound} buttons i or it could be anything with {gap} buttons . Uh to choose uh content s or channels . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have both . The user can choose w which one they want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , by content or by channel , +User Interface: By content or by channel . +Industrial Designer: it's a good idea . +User Interface: Choose by contents or by channels . And then what did we say just now ? Other than this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we we have to find a way how to gather information about the contents . +User Interface: Okay , so technically how {disfmarker} the problems that {disfmarker} how to do it is to {disfmarker} how to get the content . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Challenge . +Industrial Designer: I think i it's not very difficult to to browse by channel but it's a little bit tricky to browse by contents so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Content . Okay , so these we have to work it out . So this one of the problem . And uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's the {gap} the things to do +User Interface: The main thing . +Industrial Designer: and uh to uh reflect about it +User Interface: Okay . Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh discuss it in the next meeting . +User Interface: So we are {disfmarker} we'll discuss it {disfmarker} we will get some information in the next meeting , so for now we get uh the funct this is the functional designer {gap} ? That's the first aspect . Right . We will {gap} get information and then we'll come back in . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you everybody . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we'll come . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll meet in maybe five minutes ? And we'll discuss the other other aspects . +User Interface: Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you all {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you , mis {vocalsound} +","In a collaborative team meeting, various members of a project team, including the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface specialist, and Marketing representative, come together to discuss the design of a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control for televisions. The Project Manager initiates the meeting, underscoring the need for the remote control to be effortlessly usable. + +While the meeting progresses, there's an evident struggle with communication, partly due to the use of vocal sounds instead of clear exchanges, and the members are trying to verify if all relevant emails and documents are received and shared appropriately, suggesting some degree of disorganization or technical hitches. The Marketing team member seems to have missed an email, and there’s a brief confusion over the distribution of information. + +The concept of assigning roles is touched upon, with each member acknowledging their roles, but there’s a moment of confusion about the specific responsibilities, especially around the functional, conceptual, and detail design aspects of the project. Both the Industrial Designer and the User Interface specialist claim responsibility for the interface, but this is quickly clarified, and discussions about roles, specifically concerning the responsibility of functional design, continue. + +At some point, the Project Manager proposes sending an email to clarify roles, while Marketing suggests using a shared folder. Members have a moment of discussing the emails and shared documents again, with some difficulty in locating and confirming receipt of the relevant files. + +The core of the discussion revolves around the technical features of the remote control. Ideas like speech recognition and category-based program selection are debated, with an emphasis on user experience and the simplification of interface design, aiming to reduce the complexity typically associated with a multitude of buttons and channels. The marketing perspective introduces considerations of cost and the form factor, emphasizing the need to balance innovation with practicality and trendiness. + +Moreover, there's discussion about how to technically collect and integrate TV program content data into the remote control, which is identified as a challenge. Technical features like navigation and adapting the room's lighting based on a movie scene are also floated as potential features that could be integrated. + +Near the end of the interaction, the importance of allocating functions and creating a design that focuses on content selection over channel selection is agreed upon. The User Interface specialist sketches on a whiteboard to help visualize the concept, although there are some missing items, like the lapel, which they are reminded to include. + +Finally, the Project Manager suggests taking a short break before resuming the meeting to discuss other aspects. There is a mutual understanding that further information is required and that the next meeting will need to address these technical challenges head-on. + +The meeting exemplifies the exploratory phase of a product design project where ideas are diverse, the exchange is dynamic, and the need for clear communication and role definition is critical for success. It also reflects the potentially transformative nature of new user interfaces that aim to revolutionize how consumers interact with technology. The team appears to be leaning towards a design that takes advantage of available content categorization services and deploys a minimalist approach with fewer buttons for a more streamlined user experience." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hello . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dang it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you have to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's important to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot over here . +User Interface: Okay . No , that's okay . Joost , your mouse . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: No mouse needed ? +Marketing: I've got a touch-pad . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: A touch-pad ? +Marketing: No , my laptop . +User Interface: Slap it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You with your brilliant ideas . I don't know if I can touch the power button . Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Try the power button . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on , move it . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now , wake up , bitch . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: F_ five . F_ five {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I've lost my screen . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so did I . +User Interface: I don't . +Marketing: I closed it . That wasn that wasn't very smart , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . Get back to me . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I closed the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I closed it . +User Interface: You've got your name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , my name is name . +Marketing: No , I didn't restart it , I just closed it . Yes . +User Interface: Hope it working . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Never close your laptop . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Everybody's ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Great . Thanks . +Project Manager: Great . Well , welcome to the kick-off meeting . I uh forgot to put my name over here , it's uh {vocalsound} it's Martin . Uh , so you all know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , this is the agenda for today . Well , the opening is what I'm doing right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , we gonna do some acquaintance acquaintance things . Uh give some um examples of the tool training , project plan discussion and the closing . We have twenty five minutes . Okay , the project aim is to design a new remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , some of the {vocalsound} oje objectives are that is has to be original , trendy , and user-friendly . So now we all know what our +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: goal is . Um , I {disfmarker} oh forget {disfmarker} I forget the whole acquaintance part , but we we all know each other . We all know each other's names . Joost , Guido , Antek . +User Interface: What is your name ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Antek . +User Interface: Antek Ahmet . And Joost . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . I think we uh al already uh been through that part . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it consists of uh three levels of design . Uh we begin with the functional design , then we go to the conceptual design and the detailed design . Every uh level of design consists of some individual work , and we uh close it with a meeting . You all received an email with a example of our explanation of what uh the particular level of design uh means to the different uh functions , and uh you p you probably read that already , so I don't have to tell you about that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , first we're gonna um uh gonna try some different things with the tools we have over here , so you get acquainted with these uh um uh meeting tools . We have the smart-boards , uh the thes those two boards . This is the presentation boards , wh which one I'm using right now . You can uh um {disfmarker} there's a document folder called um the sh {vocalsound} shared document folder . You can upload your uh documents to that folder and then you can open them over here , so you can do your PowerPoint presentations on this screen . We also have the white-board . Uh , we're gonna skip through th +User Interface: Can we see the white-board on our laptops ? +Project Manager: No , no . Just on the on the screen over there . +User Interface: No , I saw I saw the file , the smart-board that X_B_K_ but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , no . Probably is , but I don't know if the software is on the laptop {gap} . Is is {disfmarker} if it's mainly a thing for in the meeting , so I don't think it's {disfmarker} I don't know if it's important . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This an explanation of the smart-boards . There is a tool-bar over here . It's quite simple . You have the the pen function , eraser function . It's like a very simple uh paint application . Uh , we {disfmarker} well , we use the same file during uh the whole day , and uh you can make new sheets by uh by pu puttin pressing on the blank button . It works like this . Oh . {vocalsound} If pen is selected , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , no no . +User Interface: With that pen ? +Project Manager: It's not {disfmarker} But it is pen . It's not working like a pen yet . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Huh . Huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's doing some stuff now . So you can use a pen . +User Interface: Little bit slower . +Project Manager: You can use an eraser . And you can make new uh fi uh new blanks , and you can change uh the line width and the colour of the pen by pressing on forward , which y you have to select pen format . And then select current colour or line width . So , it's quite easy . Uh well , now you're all uh acquainted with the different tools . Right , we're gonna try out the electronic white-boards . Uh , every participant should draw his favourite animal and some of its favourite characteristics , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: on blank sheets with different colours , with different pen widths . Uh , I'll start off then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll use this uh same sheet . Alright . Oh , let me think . Different colours . Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I'm gonna draw um a p piranha . Uh , a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} piranha . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I'm gonna use some different colour {gap} now . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Some {disfmarker} a little white . Looks like a fish . Think it is . Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Uh , colour . This is black ? I think so . +User Interface: Yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Oh , this is just uh {vocalsound} useless uh drawings but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh teeth . I need teeth . {vocalsound} Well , they're not supposed to be green , or whatever colour this is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . What was uh {disfmarker} I have su to sum up its favourite characteris +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Well , I like its uh sharp {disfmarker} razor sharp teeth . {vocalsound} Plus , uh the the big uh forehead and uh a small uh , well a small actual face . And I like its overall uh aggressive look and {disfmarker} Well , that's what I like about uh piranha . I think that's kind of what uh the intention should be . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , who wants to be next ? +Marketing: Nobody , I guess . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I will try . Yeah . I will try . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You go , Guido ? Okay . Uh , make a new sheet . Uh , it's by pressing on blank . +User Interface: Blank ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Then pen again ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} so in the format menu you can choose the different uh colours and uh pen widths . +User Interface: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Format . +User Interface: {gap} control . Uh {disfmarker} Ah , purple . Um , I don't know what my uh favourite uh animal is , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but the easiest animal I can think is is a bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I will {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know , I thought of that actually . +User Interface: That's my bird . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't it quite {disfmarker} it's a little bit light . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , another colour maybe . A red one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A small one . Uh , line width . Two ? Three . Oh that's okay . That's another one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , tell us something about uh your favourite characteristics of these uh particular birds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ano {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Its simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh the most simple uh animal I know , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't know . Maybe because uh there's there's some s uh free uh maybe in the sky or something like that . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Okay . +User Interface: Maybe a little bit . Yeah . I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . No , uh it's clear . +User Interface: So {gap} more uh birds ? +Project Manager: N no {vocalsound} no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We get your point . Okay . Who wants to be next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , {vocalsound} okay , {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , whatever . I'll go next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +User Interface: M +Marketing: I haven't got a favourite animal too , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pictionary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} What should I draw ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: A cow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Thank you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'll draw a penguin . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I'll draw a penguin . Whatever . I can't draw , so you can start to laugh already . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll do so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever . Something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , it's little bit hard . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm , orange . +User Interface: Orange , of course . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , {vocalsound} it's better than your bird . +User Interface: {gap} Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Everything's better than your bird . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} True . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , it's blue . No . Whatever . Um , I like its ugliness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , whatever . The way it walks or whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Your turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm going to draw a cat . I don't know why , but a cat is a very uh smart animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And you can have them at home . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Which is not as the case with uh with bingwings and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you can have a piranha at home . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yes , {vocalsound} yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Or a line . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A little bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean a bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Don't mess with my birds , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not very uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very good drawn , but you can see a cat from it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . It's a handicapped cat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} cat . +Project Manager: I don't think uh I don't think uh Darwin would agree with that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , it's not scared . He's crying but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} He's crying because it's ugl because of his ugliness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What do you like about it then ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh it's i most cats are small . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: You can handle them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then we are uh through the tool training , I guess . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wouldn't call it training , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , this is uh something about the project finance . The selling price of our remote control is gonna be twenty five Euros . And our profit aim is fifteen million Euros . We're very ambitious on this one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The market range is international , so it's gonna be sold world-wide , and the production cost should be a maximum of twelve Euro fifty per remote control . So that's clear . {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , we're now gonna discuss some stuff when {disfmarker} well , we're gonna brainstorm about uh what kind of kemoro romo remote control it's gonna be . Uh , well tell me about your experiences with the remote controls . Do you have uh {disfmarker} know what good experiences with remote controls ? Or do they annoy you sometimes ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Are they difficult to understand , or maybe they don't interact with different kind of uh equipment very well ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't th I don't think the four of us got problems with remote controls , +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: but if you see elderly people , all these buttons , and then they buy new T_V_ because their previous one was stolen or whatever . +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a totally different remote control with with different functions on different places , and half of the functions a are removed , or whatever . Uh , so I think what we need is is a clear uh remote control with uh grouped buttons , you know . All th all the buttons which apply to the text functions in in one uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Different functions of of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one area or whatever , not like the button to enter text on top of the remote control and the button to um , yeah , to minimise it to this this {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or whatever o o other functions {vocalsound} totally somewhere else . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we should group them . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And same for the for the volume buttons and the the t +Project Manager: And uh , is it gonna be a remote control that's um {disfmarker} what it can be used for different kind of equipment , like your T_V_ and your home stereo ? +Marketing: Well I was I was thinking uh since a T_V_ is uh mostly used together with a V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player or recorder , and not with a stereo , I think it should be good to include functions for V_C_R_s and D_V_D_ players , recorders . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But uh , the D_V_D_ players and home cinema sets often double as stereo hi-fi sets probably . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's what , from my experience . +User Interface: But isn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . Hi-fi set is uh not often used uh as I know of in combination with television . +Project Manager: Okay . But we gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's only for television , I thought . Not {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , it is only for televis +User Interface: {gap} I thought it was only for television . So so we probably don't have to have to uh have the functions for D_V_D_ player or V_C_R_ . +Marketing: Yes , it is only for television , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So wha what {disfmarker} What wha {vocalsound} what uh what document {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} well we we're gonna brainstorm about that . If we think it's useful , we do it . +Project Manager: But , where where did it uh {disfmarker} Where did you find that ? +User Interface: Uh , in the email . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: I thought it said uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right . It's a television remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I was thinking since it is useful with D_V_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most television remote controls support other functions as well . So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh something extras . +Project Manager: No , we have to think about that . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh but uh we've gonna put some a uh is is it so user-friendliness , is a is a pri priority in this case , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , also no one's gonna buy it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Only the experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess . +Project Manager: Well , this the maybe is uh some aspect of the {disfmarker} uh , or or some point at at which we can excel by making it very useful . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That w Well , then you're you're the usability uh man , so this uh gonna be a very important task for you then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my God . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , other ideas ? How can we make it trendy or something ? Do uh by just sh shape and the look of it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , to go with to go with fashion and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe a can opener underneath it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} For the bear . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know . Or someth something special , like uh M_P_ three player inside of it , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I uh , no I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , well then the production costs are gonna be too high probably . +User Interface: Uh , I th I think yo we have to keep it simple , to get a whole market . +Marketing: Yeah , way too high . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe with different type of fronts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's international , so we have to use a standard . +Project Manager: Well , m has to be something {vocalsound} spectacular or uh one which makes it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well that's an idea of course , yeah . +Project Manager: We gonna skip back to the goals probably . Uh , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: original , trendly , and user-friendly {disfmarker} Well , we al also already talked about user-friendliness . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: No , well something trendy and original , well that that goes hand in hand I guess . When something is original , it tends to be trendy , probably , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: or we should make it combination of that . 'Kay , so you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the um technical part of the process is something you're gonna look after for , so you have to think about what kind of uh equipment you want to uh , you know , you want to manage with it . Well , and that's an important part for you then , with gogors regards to the user-friendly part of it . +User Interface: Use friendly . Yep . +Project Manager: Well , and you uh should look out for what makes it trendy . {vocalsound} Well , you know , y like some special feature . Or some {disfmarker} {gap} Does it does it gets some gadgetness or something . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes , what the market wishes . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , the closing . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Individual , I think so . The the Industrial Designer will w or the working design , of course , we will uh {disfmarker} Already s said that . The User Interface Designer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it a User Inter User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Interface d +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the technical functions design . And the Management Expert of uh {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . User requirements specifi Well , this one was already clear to us . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . I don't know how much time we have left . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , not many I guess . We started at twelve . +Marketing: You just got a message . +Project Manager: Oh , and what does it said ? +Marketing: And it said uh five minutes , so we got four and a half . +User Interface: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W Okay , well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't get a message . +Marketing: No . He's the whatever . +User Interface: Oh , the Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Team Leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we're uh ahead of schedule then . +Marketing: Team Leader . {vocalsound} He is the whatever . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , close it . I'm gonna make some minutes or take some minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: And uh it's it's clear you can put the stuff in the project documents presentations . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: You can all {disfmarker} Or we're all uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project joc project documents is for showing uh on the white-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , but we're all familiar with uh uh Microsoft PowerPoint , are we ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I'm gonna wri uh write some stuff down +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: and then we're ready . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or we can leave already {gap} I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} or uh or sh or should we uh {disfmarker} or is important that we leave at exact uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . I don't think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: We'll see each other in uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , good luck . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will need it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I will need it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","In a complex and interactive meeting involving members from Marketing, Project Management, User Interface, and Industrial Design departments, the team members gathered to hash out the details for a new project: designing an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. + +The meeting began with a bit of a rocky start, with some technical glitches and members trying to ensure their laptops were set up correctly on marked spots. The marketing representative had trouble waking their laptop and hilariously considered the suggestion to ""slap it"" made by the User Interface member. + +Once technical issues were ironed out, including confusion with electronic whiteboards and presentations being lost or accidentally closed, the project manager, Martin, introduced the agenda for the meeting. The agenda included acquainting team members, tool training, project plan discussion, and the objectives of the remote control design. + +They emphasized the importance of the product being original, trendy, and user-friendly. The familiarity among members was glossed over as most knew each other – confirmed by a roster call-out of names like Joost, Guido, and Antek. + +A practical demonstration of the smart-boards was conducted, with participants drawing their favorite animals, using various tools and colors. This quirky exercise helped familiarize members with the meeting tools and served as a creative ice breaker. Throughout this process, the team members made light-hearted comments about each other's drawings. + +Proceeding to more serious matters, Martin briefed the team on the project's financial objectives. With an aim of fifteen million Euros in profit and a twenty-five Euro selling price per remote control, they discussed production costs and the international market range. This led to a brainstorming session on the remote control's design and functionality. The Marketing expert highlighted the need for simplicity, particularly for elderly users, suggesting that buttons should be logically grouped by function. + +The team deliberated whether the remote control should be limited to TV only or include functionality for other devices like VCRs or DVD players. A consensus was not fully reached, highlighting the need for more in-depth brainstorming. User Interface and usability were flagged as top priorities, with user-friendliness crucial to the product's success. + +The debate continued around making the remote control trendy. There were suggestions for integrating fashionable aspects or additional functionalities, like a built-in MP3 player, but concerns about production costs were raised. The idea of maintaining simplicity for a broader market appeal dominated the discussion. + +The team agreed that the physical design and technical functions would be critical areas of focus, with each member responsible for different aspects, such as ensuring user-friendliness and trendiness. + +The meeting was then called to a close by the project manager, with reminders about the next steps. Each member was to receive specific instructions from their personal coach, and they agreed to reconvene in thirty minutes for the next session. The Project Manager prepared to take meeting minutes and confirm they were all PowerPoint proficient, readying them to put their work into project documents for later presentation. + +With goodbyes and wishes of good luck expressed, the individuals went their separate ways to their respective tasks, setting the stage for the exciting design journey of this user-oriented remote control." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something . +Industrial Designer: Tha +User Interface: This one right there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation ? +User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You will as well ? +User Interface: Huh . Oh I thought we all were . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I have one too , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I just wanna {disfmarker} 'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here 'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_ . C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_ . +Project Manager: Okay , and +User Interface: Uh Gabriel . +Project Manager: Gabriel . E_L_ is it ? +User Interface: E_L_ . +Project Manager: 'Kay . And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: I am Reissa . R_E_I_S_S_A_ . Double S_ A_ , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , right . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right , welcome to meeting B_ . Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting , basically , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh 'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager , and , uh yeah , I'm just here to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going , get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically . Um right , this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you , what you've been working on for the last wee while , when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and , you know , filling out silly questionnaires and things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive . So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work , you know , from each of your presentations . We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all . Um and then we'll , yeah , we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it . +Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting ? +Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long . It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now . So I want each of your presentations to not be too long , five five minutes , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} No problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy , it doesn't matter , it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium . If you haven't had time to prepare one , you can draw stuff on the noteboard , you can talk to us , you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation , basically , you can . Don't feel pressurised into using this thing . 'Cause I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . So um . You okay over there ? Reissa , +Marketing: I'm fine . Yeah . +Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here +Marketing: I uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation . +Marketing: D I mean , I I'm finishing off my presentation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} Uh I'm done . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , jolly good . Alright , let's have um {disfmarker} well , we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be . So that's gonna be you Catherine , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um just connecting this . +Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really ? +Project Manager: there you go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Cool . Okay . So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So the working design , I've got a very quick presentation on this , so um I've {disfmarker} oh no , you can't see a thing . {vocalsound} Oh well , I'm gonna draw it on the board then . It's in blue uh , and I couldn't change it . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen , but never mind . So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um , which in our case will pr , oh well {disfmarker} okay , never mind . So um I think maybe uh two batteries , I dunno what they're called {gap} six , or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal , which could be uh an infra-red signal , um which will be sent by an electronic chip . And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface . So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels . Um and that's it really for the working design . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally . +Industrial Designer: Really ? Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , should I erase this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment , I just wanna copy this down . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this ? +Industrial Designer: Fine . {vocalsound} Or suggestions ? +Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's just , you don't want it plugged in really , s +User Interface: Yeah , alternate energy source , like win wind power or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you blow on it and i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In indoors . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power . +Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No 'cause like cha 'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound} , I dunno , solar charged ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's worked for the last fifty years you know . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: One question I have , and I don't know how much control we have over this is um , as far as the infra-red signal , do we have control over , you know , how far away you can be from the receiving unit , the the T_V_ , and still have it be operational ? I mean , maybe we want one with a strong signal stream . +Project Manager: How far away is your television ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be , you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch , it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? Doesn't have to go through a wall , because you're not gonna be looking through a wall . +User Interface: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down , and go into the other room . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it . I didn't think about that but {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about Bluetooth ? {gap} Instead of using infra-red , use Bluetooth . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more +Marketing: Isn't that a better signal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things . +Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know we don't need it . +Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice , but then I don't th I dunno , either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room , +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Basically , we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage , maybe , I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'S just an idea . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , well done , Catherine . Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do you need the border ? +User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Technical {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , while this is warming up , +Marketing: Adjusting . +User Interface: there it is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and basically uh , as far as methods , I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes , trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there . Thinking of what we can retain , what we can do away with , uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um . {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change , I guess , I mean people want a remote that's familiar , that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that , the basic functionality that people want . Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control , um so up-down keys for that , uh channel keys up-down , but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want , rather than doing up-down , and uh a mute button . Uh one thing that I didn't include here , that I forgot that we talked about last time , was doing um some sort of lock uh function . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , I don't I dunno , uh that's one possibility . And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes , ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred , which I don't know if I can access the web page from here , but I can show you {disfmarker} uh . Yeah . So this is a engineer centred one , so you see it's rather busy , but it also lets you play your movie , stop your movie , fast-forward , all this , um {vocalsound} freeze frame . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one . Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after , uh or the direction we were going in at least . Um . So , the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality , but it can be a little bit overwhelming , so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use . Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh , Reissa , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh , yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . Now that's I just have a q a q question for you . This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other , you know , existing units {gap} stuff . Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know . I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it . Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've , haven't I've never seen a locking functionality . I dunno , what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do , which I think it probably should be , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: even if it's a physical , you know , a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote , even something like that , um then yes , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: it's {gap} like , you know , like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing , something like that , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but you know being physical . Look into . Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well , something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit . It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know , the the company it's it's , from what I can see from our other products , are yellow with blue writing on them . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Right . And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . There you go . +User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable . If if remote control {disfmarker} well , if telephones can be fashionable , then maybe remote control units can be . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well yeah these , I think , we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design . +Project Manager: Yeah . Because we need {disfmarker} +User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here , I mean . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , everything is going t ergonomic , you know , there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market , I guess . Um . +Project Manager: Okay , fantastic . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , well done , Gabriel . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um Reissa . Let's plug you in , baby . +Marketing: Where does it go into ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The blue thing . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , this is getting all {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up . +Marketing: Well , function F_ eight . No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , w it it just takes a wee while . +User Interface: Yeah , it just takes a second uh . +Marketing: oh . {vocalsound} Come on . Right . Okay . {gap} . Okay . Well , for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab , and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out . Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know , so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings . So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly . Okay , so they don't like the look of the remote control . Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy . So I think we all agree with that . Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user . So , they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave . Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote , so probably if you have like one , two , three , four , five , the whole up to z ten , they probably don't use those , they only use the up and down channel . +Project Manager: 'Cause we've only got five channels . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing . {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap . Not quite sure what they mean , zap , goes like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels . +User Interface: Yeah , you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . I think especially for uh the older generation . I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones , takes ages to work how to use . Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room , so nobody can find them . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: Um personal preferences . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are a child of technology , aren't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use , especially for older people . Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool , flashy groovy for people to buy it . And it's easy to find {vocalsound} , so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So voice activation . So and this was what we came up with . Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age , sorry , {gap} age groups . So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes . +Project Manager: So there you go , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one . And neither did the older generation , but the younger generation who we are catering for , like who have most of the money nowadays , do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money ? They they don't . +User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people , yeah . +Project Manager: It's older generation , they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old , and thirty five , and the thirty five to forty five , forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five , you're kinda saying , yeah , they want it . Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five , +User Interface: Yeah , that would be my guess as well . +Project Manager: uh 'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years . +Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there , so yeah , it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent . +Marketing: These guys are growing up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost ? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , okay , there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best . +Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Um also with um with buttons , {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_ , so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , repetitive strains injury , so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often , keep changing channel hurts their wrist . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: maybe not so hard . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be , instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's jus {gap} +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years' time , say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Yeah , we should probably consult with our legal department uh . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department , the the ergonomic department , we can make some some really good improvements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: or we just like flat buttons , something . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that is me . +Project Manager: That's great , thank you very much for that , Reissa . {vocalsound} Um okay , so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be , you know uh , we're going for a basic television remote . It's gotta be safe to use , it's gotta look cool . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap . S um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it , you know , we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth . I think , we should just go with the simplest option on everything , uh and that would be infra-red , energy source , that would be batteries . Uh mean we we can look into using the s , you know , the little tiny weeny batteries , all like special long-lasting batteries . Um . {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years , because technology will have changed and , you know , we won't have televisions in ten years' time . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that . Um anyone have any questions ? Everybody happy in their work ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page . +Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good , we've got a good structure going on . We all know where we're going to . {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers ? +User Interface: Oh it's probably just you , 'cause you're the project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , just questionnaires . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay . Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other ? +Marketing: Yeah , you can . +Project Manager: Right . Do all you all know my e-mail address ? +User Interface: Okay . No I don't . I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , in the project announcement , you've got the addresses , I think . +Marketing: I think he's participant one , aren't you ? +Industrial Designer: So Project Manager , it's participant one at A_M_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's just participant one oh okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them , +User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one , participant two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail . +Project Manager: Send me , yeah +Industrial Designer: You want to have friends , don't you ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue ? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background , but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves . +Project Manager: Well , maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes , so somebody can choose different col +Project Manager: Well , see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image . +Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: But if it's a R_R_ , it would be Real Reaction , +Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_ . +Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan , this is the the the the type . +Marketing: Whoa . +User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so , I mean , we are sort of beholden to them . +Marketing: So we have to have it one colour . +Project Manager: Well , not necessarily . But we have to incorporate it . +User Interface: Not one colour , but the pattern needs to be recognisable . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products +Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a , you know , a Panasonic product . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe , so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If {gap} . +Project Manager: Quite poss yeah . Well this is all your department . Mm okay . Well , well done everybody . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And um , I think we uh stop for lunch now . +User Interface: Yeah , pretty soon I think , I guess that's now . +Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule ? +Project Manager: We might possibly have done . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Alright , see you all soon . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish , then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . Right . I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down , but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off , kick back , smoke 'em if you got 'em . {vocalsound} +","In this extensive descriptive summary, we are given insight into a collaborative meeting process involving a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface Designer, and a Marketing Executive. The conversation signifies a pivotal point in a project's development phase, marred slightly by some technical difficulties, incomplete sentences, and moments of uncertainty, exemplified by the use of placeholders like ""disfmarker,"" ""gap,"" and ""vocalsound"" representing missing or unclear words, pauses, or non-verbal sounds. + +The key objective of the meeting is to refine the design and functionality of a new remote control unit, aligning it with the corporate brand and consumer expectations. The Project Manager initiates the dialogue by struggling to remember everyone's name, thus highlighting the importance of personal connection and address for smoother cooperation. Participants introduce themselves by spelling out their names, with the Project Manager jotting down the correct spellings. + +As the conversation unfolds, we learn of the respective areas of focus for each team member: + +1. **Industrial Designer (Catherine)** + - Overviews the physical working design, considering the energy source (batteries) and signal transmission (possibility of infra-red versus Bluetooth). + - Discusses implementation details, including electronic chips controlled by UI for signal sending and questions like the signal's range. + - Encounters an issue with the PowerPoint presentation and proceeds to draw ideas on the noteboard instead. + +2. **User Interface Designer (Gabriel)** + - Shares insights from reviewing existing remotes, emphasizing the balance between maintaining familiarity and revamping features for ease of use. + - Hints at locking functionality, which is a novel concept in remote designs, and how it might appeal to users. + - Discusses two approaches to design—engineering-centered and user-centered—with the latter being favored for this project. + - Highlights the importance of intuitive layout and ergonomic aspects, targeting a remote that is efficient and comfortable to use. + +3. **Marketing Executive (Reissa)** + - Presents market research findings, noting that aesthetics are crucial as a significant percentage of users consider current remotes unattractive. + - Reveals that many users appreciate a remote's appearance and would pay more for an aesthetically pleasing design while also expressing frustration over complicated controls. + - Discusses how most users only utilize a fraction of available buttons, leading to discussions on optimizing button layout. + - Raises the concept of voice activation from a marketing perspective but faces skepticism about its appeal across all age groups and its feasibility cost-wise. + +Throughout the dialogue, team members weigh the advantages and disadvantages of design choices such as the need for signal transmission through walls, the viability of incorporating new technologies like Bluetooth instead of infrared signals, and the feasibility of including fashionable yet functional features in line with the corporate brand aesthetics like yellow with blue writing. The emphasis is on crafting a remote that is not overly complex, caters to the company's marketing slogan ""We put the fashion in electronics,"" and upholds the company's image. + +Questions about potential legal ramifications of ergonomic design elements surface, pointing to concerns about conditions like Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). There's also mention of the annoyance of replacing batteries and losing remotes—a marketing challenge to address. + +Despite minor technical hiccups, the Project Manager manages to lead the team toward a solution that balances cost, design, functionality, and brand identity. The meeting concludes with an agreement to continue exploring the design that reflects a user-friendly, commercially viable, and brand-aligned product. The Project Manager encourages the exchange of contact details for further collaboration, indicating further discussions and iterations will follow. The team disbands for a well-deserved lunch break, possibly a little ahead of schedule, emblematic of a successful meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody is not ready . +User Interface: Uh almost . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Ready . +Project Manager: Okay , let's go . So , we're here today to to have our first kick-off meeting about uh this new project we're going to tak to talk about in a few minutes . Um so I will be uh Sebastian the Project Manager . Um you are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm uh Michael . I'm the user interface designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hi I'm Guillermo {gap} . I'm the Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: And I am Hemant , the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay , very good . Thanks for being here . Um so let's have a look to the the agenda . So , we are going to go through this agenda uh and mainly first to uh {vocalsound} to make {disfmarker} to to be used to the tools uh available in this nice and smart meeting room we have here . Um then we'll go to uh the plans for project and have general discussions about it . So , the goal of this project is to uh developed a new remote control . Um it should be original , trendy , and also user friendly . As usual we will follow the the project method um {vocalsound} that we are using in the {disfmarker} in our company . It is in three step as you know . First the functional design . The second's a conceptual design , and then the detailed design . During each step uh of each design we wi you will work uh s separately , individually on uh your specific tasks and will m we will meet to um to discuss and take decisions about uh what you've you've you did and what uh we will do next . So first , we have to to train ourself with all the um the tools availables in the in this nice meeting room and uh particularly the the white board so uh we are going to go through the white board and take some um s some notes or do some drawings . So who want to start ? Mister {gap} . +User Interface: Ah well if no one else wants to , yeah . Okay so , want me to draw my favourite animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . Well , I don't really have a favourite animal , but um +Project Manager: You have one in mind ? +User Interface: uh I think I have one in mind , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm gonna {vocalsound} {gap} about the uh spider because you can actually draw it pretty well in the corner of a white board . The spider has a {disfmarker} spider lives in a web {vocalsound} and uh it has eight legs , and uh it can move all about the web in two dimensions . Unless it's a three dimensional web which y they have sometimes . There are some spiders that live in like {disfmarker} that have like uh kind of a a big ball of a of a web . And uh the other thing is some spiders can actually uh fly like uh they have uh they let out like uh a stream of like the web building material but it's it acts like a parachute so they can actually kind of go and find new uh {disfmarker} build a new web somewhere else . So I think they did this in uh in Charlotte's Web that movie that little uh {disfmarker} well it's actually a book first but uh um at the end all the the spiders kinda flew away . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , that's my animal . +Project Manager: Th thank you . Very interesting . {vocalsound} Guillermo you want to ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'kay {vocalsound} I dunno why , but {vocalsound} when I was a child I I wanted to be a a panther +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} not a pink panther , +Industrial Designer: But don't you think it's very difficult to draw a panther ? +Marketing: or maybe yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It would be very funny for us . +Marketing: Uh yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bad I don't like it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay it's a friendly panther . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe it's happy 'cause it just ate someone . +Marketing: Yeah maybe {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . Actually , honestly I I I dunno what's what's his it's be behaviour , I dunno if if it's the male who who hunts or it's the female uh , I I I have watched that lions di didn't hunt it's the the female lions who who hunt , so {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} I like it because it's fast , and it's black as well , so it can he {disfmarker} it can hide itself very easily and it's it's {disfmarker} it looks like um {vocalsound} powerful , strong , uh I dunno . I I watch a a film about a black panther when I was a child and {vocalsound} I was in that age when everything was shocking me a lot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hemant . +Industrial Designer: Um sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you don't like pink panthers ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Thanks . This lapel is coming out once in a while . It's not very strong . Okay . So , not the favourite animal , but I think I'll draw elephant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll try to draw elephant {vocalsound} . It's a problem . Okay , thanks . Okay so , elephant goes like this , {gap} and then it has four feet {vocalsound} . I don't know whether there's any dist there should be any distance or not , but I think this is the easiest . And then we have it's trunk . And yep something like this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An eye , cute {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Poor elephant {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} and sometimes they have a hump . It seems that uh elephants are pretty friendly and they they have one very important way {disfmarker} a different way of walking . So when they walk , wherever they are going to put their first feet , the second feet will always be . When they'll come to that position the second , the third feet will be there . That's the way they walk . And that's very peculiar about them . None of the other animals walk like this . And they are very useful to human beings . At least few few hundred years ago when there was no means of transportations or something , or when they had to carry huge um loads from one place to another , elephants were very useful . And they are found in um usually the warm countries . And um they are the biggest terrestrial animal . That's what I know about them . So , that's what I wanted to tell about elephants . +User Interface: So is this uh an Indian or an African elephant , 'cause you haven't drawn the ears ? +Industrial Designer: There are two kind of uh yeah , they are very different , Indian and African elephants . So Indian elephant is having one bump , I think , and the African have two . And then there's a difference in the trunk of the animals , these elephants who are Indian and {disfmarker} So at some {disfmarker} for some elephants it's {disfmarker} the trunk is having one {disfmarker} Do we have some message there ? +Project Manager: Yes . We have to {disfmarker} I have to catch you , +Industrial Designer: Wind up +Project Manager: sorry . We have to to go through the meeting . +Industrial Designer: ? Okay , some other time . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you {vocalsound} . +User Interface: We can discuss that off-line . +Project Manager: Yeah we'll discuss a f a fly or do {disfmarker} we'll do another meeting abo on elephants . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so another important part of the project is about money , uh and about {disfmarker} so about finances . So {vocalsound} we should target selling price of twenty-five Euro for this remote control and uh we have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} which which would generate a profit of of um {vocalsound} fifty million Euros , okay . And we should target the inter an international market . +User Interface: So could I just ask one question , um is this a stand-alone unit that we're gonna be selling ? So it's gonna be you already have a T_V_ but you're buying an extra remote control for it or something ? +Project Manager: O this is the {vocalsound} next topic we have to discuss exactly , +User Interface: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: so let's go to it . So um we should decide which kind of remote control we want to uh we want to uh we want to go . Should be should should it be um specific remote control to some specific device ? Should it be a universal one ? And uh etcetera . So um {vocalsound} so I'm waiting for your for your inputs very quickly because we have only three three minutes to go . +User Interface: Okay well , so , it seems the the first thing that they've kinda specified is the price like based on how much profit we wanna make , which seems to {disfmarker} a kind of a little strange if we don't know what the the product is yet , but I guess if that's {disfmarker} if that's the requirement that we need to to design the the product to actually fit that that price bracket so , I guess we're gonna need to find out what's actually {disfmarker} you know , what people ar are willing to pay for {disfmarker} um what kind of product they're expecting for twenty-five Euro +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because it seems quite a lot for a remote control , +Project Manager: Okay I think this is more a job to our +User Interface: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: market person yeah . +Industrial Designer: Marketing person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it should be the topic of maybe of the next meeting just to to have an overview of this and uh in which direction we should go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we need to close the meeting . Uh we'll have a new meeting soon and uh so {gap} the work every every of you ha have t d to do . So um you have to work on the on the working design , you have to uh work on the technical functions , and uh you have to work on us user requirements specs , alright ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um you will receive some information by emails , i as usual . Thanks for coming today . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: Alright . +","The project team, including a project manager named Sebastian, user interface designer Michael, marketing expert Guillermo, and industrial designer Hemant, gathered for their kick-off meeting to discuss the development of a new, trendy, user-friendly remote control. They will follow the company's project method which involves three steps: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The team practiced using tools in the meeting room, such as a whiteboard, where they drew their favorite animals as an icebreaker. The goal is to create a remote control with a target selling price of 25 Euros to generate a 50 million Euro profit for the international market. The team discussed whether the remote should be specific to a device or universal. They agreed to further explore market expectations, and each member was assigned tasks related to design, technical functions, and user requirements to work on separately before the next meeting. Communication about tasks and progress will continue via email." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} minutes from the last meeting which were essentially that we uh had decided on roles for each of you , however , um there are some changes that I've got from on high +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um are a bit uh {disfmarker} well w what I didn't actually realise it was that the uh {vocalsound} this is for a specific television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the all in one idea goes out the window . And {vocalsound} they require that the uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: actually I'll get to that at the end {gap} point number four , um we'll get what you've got and then we can see what we can adapt from it . So um , presentations , were you {disfmarker} anybody got , raring to go ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Raring to go ? Okay . Good stuff . Mm . +Marketing: Um . So how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I need to plug you in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S {gap} +Project Manager: Just about . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a inspired design . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sh do you want me to hold it ? +Project Manager: Uh there we go , just screw 'em on in . Gonna have to swap them round so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , after that ? +Project Manager: now , it was function F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight . {vocalsound} f oh sorry F_ eight . +Project Manager: That's the wee blue one . Blue one F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Should do it , good one . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , me again , Rajan the Marketing Expert . Uh , as we have decided in the last meeting that I have to find out , sorry , yeah sure . +Project Manager: Hold on , sorry . {gap} and if you just click that it'll go ahead , one at a time . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Uh actually , sorry I have to see the other {gap} , sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , uh . +Marketing: Yeah , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , yes , I have to look at the uh market potential for this product , uh , like consumer likings and everything , what is the potential for this product and are we able to achieve our a net profit or our aims or not ? Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: P press F_ five to start it first . +Marketing: Sorry . Okay . Yeah , I can , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Jesus . +Marketing: Uh then uh the methodology I adopted to find out all this was market survey . A a detailed market survey on consumers was done to find out their likings and dislikings , what they prefer what they not prefer , w what problems they do encounter in all this type of things . And what we got was , we found that {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh , what they th what problems they are having with different uh remote controls available in the market . Seventy five percent of users they do find it that the remote controls available in the market are ugly . They are not so good looking . So , we have to put stress on this , uh we have to take care of this fact also like our design , uh should be appropriate , should be good looking for the consumers . And yes that's wi uh this will definitely , this can definitely put uh uh enhance our sales . Uh and even uh the good thing about this is that eighty percent of users they are willing to pay high uh pay more for this uh good looking remote controls also . So even if the available market goes for the available {disfmarker} uh even if the market goes for the available remote control is less even then we can sell it at twenty five Euros , which maybe which may seem quite high but if our looks are are if the re remote control we design have a good better uh better look uh designs , then we can hope that consumers will prefer these g remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} {gap} And the second thing , some some companies they think that they should have more and more functions of the users uh or in their remote controls , but rather than those having more functions in the remote controls we should emphasise what actually consumer want , what they operate , rather than making it too complicated . Because mostly it has been found that fifty percent of the users they use only ten percent of the buttons , so there is no point of having ninety percent buttons making the remote controls too bulky , too complicated too expensive a because I think I believe that technology is useful only if uh the consumers they want to use it . Otherwise there is no point of having all this type of things . So this will not only reduce the cost of our remote controls but it will increase our profit also . So we have to take care of this fact also . Then . Uh it was function I want to go to . +Project Manager: Oh you wanna go back ? Just escape . +Marketing: Uh , escape , okay thank you . Then if we look at this slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: uh these are in your shared documents , you can see , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} Uh , sorry . +User Interface: So , sorry {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , what was the question for this ? Or is {disfmarker} are you coming on to that ? +Marketing: Ah t look all the market potential , what uh how we should design consu our remote controls , what they should be there so as to en enhance our profit , enhance our sales . +User Interface: Okay . So these percentages are are what ? +Marketing: Yeah , these are different age group persons like uh sorry , I can open it in another way . +Project Manager: Okay . Speech recognition . +Marketing: Uh , yes . If we look at the costs whether the consumers they are willing to uh pay more for speech recognition in a remote control or not , we can find that they up to a thirty five years age group we have a very good disliking for this uh this uh point , like for speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we can emphasise on this point also like , because it will definitely enhance our sales in this ag in this particular age group from uh fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: and I uh and I think that most of the users of the rem uh T_V_ are belong to this age group . So we should look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . We're als we we're looking at who buys it as well . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . We can look at that that factor also , so yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , which I think the twenty five to thirty five is uh usual , sort of . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , mm . +Marketing: So , and {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen to twe +Marketing: Yes . I think so . Uh if we look at this data how how uh h how what are the problems the consumers are facing with the existing remote controls in the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They find that thirt uh thirty five percent uh thirty four percent of the consumers they find too difficult to operate a remote control . So it should be in such a way that it should be easy to learn how to operate these remote controls and we should provide pl uh spe uh proper manuals for its use also so as that people {disfmarker} consumers could easily learn . They need not to have any , much technical knowledge to see uh to know how to operate these remote controls . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also a very goo uh major factor to loo uh take into consideration to enhance our profits and sales . So um this is all about +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh market potential by me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , yes , th thank you . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . Um , {vocalsound} follow on with Helen ? Yeah please . +User Interface: Yep , sure , that's cool , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to take that {gap} out . +Project Manager: Oh , so we do yeah . +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fun and games . +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Don't know if the cable's gonna be long enough . +Marketing: Uh sorry , I have {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think I just kicked over whatever it runs on underneath as well . +Marketing: Brian , this one also I {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you very much Brian . +User Interface: I can turn my computer quickly if that's okay . +Marketing: If you want me to help , yeah . +User Interface: Um , yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and then what do I press , F_ eight ? +Marketing: Uh F_ eight . Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm s . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: It's not coming . Function F_ eight , okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . No signal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Computer . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Computer adjusting , yeah . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay and then how do I press the the big one , to get it on to the big {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five and I press that again to get it off as well do I ? +Marketing: Escape . +Project Manager: Um , F_ five and escape'll bring it back and just uh the left button for advancing . +User Interface: Okay , so um I'm the interface design designer , User Interface Designer sorry , uh I'm concerned with um w what effect the apparatus should have on the user and um I'm I'm also {disfmarker} I want to point out that our motto , put the fashion in electronics , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so obviously we as a company we want to make our products trendy and fashionable , it's a big concern of ours . Okay , and how do I press n just the next button ? +Project Manager: Uh just a left uh +User Interface: The arrow ? Okay . +Project Manager: left mouse button . +User Interface: So um I looked at existing designs and also um the information that Raj gave us was very useful about what people like , what people dislike . Um and what people {disfmarker} fashionable , because we said people between twenty five and thirty five were the main um buyers of of our T_V_ I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: So um what they like and what they find fashionable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And ergonomics , we said um , I don't know I haven't actually been able to do any of this myself , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but um maybe that comes up , I don't know . +Project Manager: That can come under Arlo as well . +User Interface: And the findings , well the basic {disfmarker} that was the basic function to send messages to the television set . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: That's what people want to do . Um , so they need to be included , um , but I've got some pictures here of some leading ones . I don't know how to get to them , +Project Manager: Uh if you if you escape then you can see your bar . +User Interface: {vocalsound} do I press F_ five is it ? {gap} escape ? Oh okay , cool . I haven't got my glasses on so I hope it's this one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +User Interface: These are two leading um remote controls at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: You know they're grey , they've I mean this one's got loads of buttons , it's hard to tell from here what they actually do , +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they don't look very exciting at all . Um , personally I prefer this one just because it's looks easier use , it's a bit more sleek with more of this silver stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um , but there you go , that's what we're up against , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we can do much better than that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We hope so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um hang on . F_ five , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , sorry . Personal preferences . Um , well I think we need to l I think the ergonomics is quite um important , um +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , particularly if we've uh there was a bit in Raj's about R_S_I_ and things as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . And um I thought not too edgy and like a box , more kind of hand-held more um {vocalsound} not as uh computery and +Project Manager: Organic {vocalsound} . +User Interface: or organic , yeah , more organic shape I think . {vocalsound} Um simple designs , like the last one we just saw , not too many buttons and as Raj pointed out , only ten percent {disfmarker} fifty percent of people only use ten percent of the buttons , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so I think what we can miss out on the buttons we can make up for in design and and how nice it looks . +Project Manager: Sales , {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: Um , hand-held and portable I think is portamint is important because T_F_T_ have just um released um I think is it a a remote control for presentations or uh and a big seven inch big screen , anyway , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's like a , yeah . {vocalsound} It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , no seven inches isn't that big but um anyway um so hand-held and portable and uh m I thought about other functions for T_V_ but as you pointed out people don't actually want that , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the company want to keep it stuck to the T_V_ for uh to keep down the production time . +User Interface: so maybe we forget about that . It's for one T_V_ oh right okay , sure . And so the last thing I thought w which I quickly mentioned in the other one was maybe a bit of a gimmick to set us apart from other people , like glow-in-the-dark +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: um which {vocalsound} does already e exist but it's not very widely used I don't think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Easy finder with the a whistle function or something , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or rechargeable station because it's a pain when you run out of batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And I think that , yep , that's it . +Project Manager: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: So uh , I noticed your talk about speech recognition and whistling , +User Interface: Okay ? Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh I was just curious to know , have we done any research into how many people can whistle ? Um , or if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is that a function we want in the remote ? +Project Manager: Um , do you have trouble whistling ? +User Interface: Um , I haven't been able to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't , but I I know a lot of people do right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah it just +Project Manager: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean it has to be a certain kind of whistle too , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I suppose that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah +Project Manager: Well I suppo uh you could y you could have the +User Interface: or some sort of voice {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you could have the basically um instead of a whistle if it's got the voice recognition you could have it just , you know , where are you ? {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's costly though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um a much easier thing is just any loud noise like clapping um , shouting , you know , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh and then , what would the response be ? It beeps back at you or something ? +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: Yeah , something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , uh let me set this up . So I plug it in , press F_ five ? Function F_ five ? +Project Manager: Function F_ eight for the um the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or function F_ eight ? Okay . +User Interface: Oh you need to twiddle the thingamibobsy thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think it's {vocalsound} uh just to lock it in . It's got it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} So as the Industrial Designer my job is to take an input from you guys , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um so it's good you went first , +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: and I jotted down some notes as to what are the b needs and uh what kind of novel features we can add to differentiate our product from the others . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's remember that . +Industrial Designer: Um so Raj told us that uh consumers are willing to spend more for fancy products , and um he also mentioned that uh the current products don't always match users' operating behaviour . Um , a lot of the buttons aren't used , and uh {vocalsound} he mentioned that they're not fun to use . And uh a novel feature which uh we just brought up was this this automatic speech recognition feature or noise detection feature for when you lose the remote , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: there could be a little microphone on it , and any noise over a certain threshold um it'll pick up as a a distress signal um from you and it'll beep back and say you know oh here I am or something of this sort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But sure surely that would have to be um sort of specific rather than above a threshold 'cause if you had a loud movie on you're likely to get it beeping back at you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe you could have a um hmm {vocalsound} tha that would be a consideration to take into account yes . Um . +Project Manager: Sorry I didn't mean to derail you there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well tha that's uh for later down the road um , and then as for the user interface it should be trendy , um {vocalsound} and not computery , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , so more low tech and not too many buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I took these all into consideration and also I have some limitations from the boss . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right um , and practical limitations which I kinda threw out the window . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so I did a little research and unfortunately all I had to work on was our uh our corporate archives of the great products we've made before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which include , you know , um space craft , coffee makers , and bullet trains {disfmarker} Or uh or a high speed train . +Project Manager: Ah is that what that is ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right and having personally worked with all these products uh I have a great deal of experience with uh with industrial design of these . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well that's cool . If you if you can build space craft you'll have no problem with a remote control , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , +User Interface: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: I figured , just put 'em all together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You got a a caffeine powered space shuttle train transport to your T_V_ , and um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: as for the user interface problem , you know , too many buttons . Give it one button +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and and it's a {disfmarker} you know , for the the cowboy in all of us {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I I'm not quite sure what the the function is there but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I like that design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's a g I mean you could have a you know a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that just switches on the speech recognition and it's entirely speech operated , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right . So I think I I missed the budget thing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it was fifty million Euros ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we gotta sell twenty five of them ? Right . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , not a problem . +Marketing: Fifty million was uh prof +Project Manager: Ah now it's fif fifty million Euros we've gotta uh we've g {vocalsound} +Marketing: As a profit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , so I I mixed those numbers . +Project Manager: gotta make profit , so we're making that at twelve and a half Euros a time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well I guess more realistically then , we need a product that's got some kinda nifty outer casing , cheap plastic uh , you know , um that should be just like uh a tenth of the price maybe or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: An energy source which'd probably just be uh your regular batteries {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: um , we don't wanna have it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Would it be possible to have the rechargeable idea ? Is that is that gonna mark up a lot ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Or a little base station or something , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we could do that too . Um , I hadn't thought of that . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That might cost more though , 'cause obviously with batteries we don't need to provide , well we provide the first batteries , but it's more , it's {disfmarker} that's cheaper to just provide batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: I mean if you think about these base stations now it's essentially just a a lead with a sort of self connecting brake in it , +User Interface: A battery in it , kinda . +Project Manager: so I don't think it'd up up the price that much . +Industrial Designer: Right , so so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: the unirs the user interface +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: uh the canonical user interface for these would be just a bunch of buttons , but since we're a cutting edge company , we uh of course will have alternatives like uh speech recognition , whistling recognition and rocket power +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: behind our product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and lastly the transmission interface is uh , just some engineering thing you don't have to worry about . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so here's you know , a great schematic that my uh apprentice designer gave me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um as you can see the the remote control have parts and those parts look like that and um {vocalsound} you know it's got a little operating procedure that looks something like that . {vocalsound} And I suppose you all know how it works because we've all used it and we wouldn't be in a company designing remote controls if we didn't know what they were so {disfmarker} uh personal preferences , I think uh programmable options which um just require a small amount of memory , uh non volatile memory , just um so the user can put in their favourite channels and maybe their preferred volume settings so that when they turn it on it's not blasting . +User Interface: Mm . Mm that's a good idea actually I like the programmable options . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . And the uh , the bells and whistles that we mentioned you know , they take more budgeting , um more technical uh expenditure of effort +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's also much more likely to not work if if we add these bells and whistles . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's all I got . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you very much , um I'll take that back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh that's tight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , also so um a notice I got not very long before the meeting , so didn't manage to forward it on to you , it is {disfmarker} let's see , I'll find it myself , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ta +Industrial Designer: Okay , I don't think we need to screw it in . +Project Manager: nah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just push it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had that um to dis-include teletext um because it's become outdated , and everybody uses the internet anyway . Um , {vocalsound} dunno what Oracle would have to say with that but never mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um it's only for the television , which I'm presuming means it's for a specific television , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and um instead of colours and sorta colour options , they want corporate colour and slogan somehow implemented in the new design . +User Interface: Corporate colour . +Project Manager: Yellow . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I presume . Um , everything , all their sort of uh you know the uh corporate website and everything's yellow . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the logo uh the sort of slogan we put the fa fashion in electronics uh {disfmarker} I don't know exactly how sort of incorpor I mean , I guess if you're going for a sort of globular shape you could kind of have it working its way round it or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , where am I ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , we have to decide on which functions we're going to actually have . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh , {vocalsound} now , we had as listed options we had +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: speech recognition potentially , flat screen interface , L_C_D_ interface um we also want to limit the number of buttons so we'll pretty much take that one as read . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll use the the basic functions for a television . No teletext . Um {vocalsound} okay hold on . +User Interface: Although the the danger with that is , it could look a bit cheap . +Project Manager: Not enough buttons you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So sorta strike a balance between a a few and a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or it looks like we're just cutting on the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . On the number of buttons , kind of functions and stuff . +Project Manager: I do however have this from over my head , that they don't want teletext on it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh maybe Raj you could find out what people would think about that , or maybe they'll send +Marketing: About cost . +Project Manager: some information about that , about um what people , whether people would require um teletext in a remote {disfmarker} teletext option in a remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay um {gap} . So uh I take it your position Arlo is that the bells and whistles we've gotta come up with the {disfmarker} a gimmick but not too complicated a gimmick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Um so I mean a a the sort of inkling I'm getting from little bits of um web chatter that I'm getting sent is that they're quite interested in a T_F_T_ display , interactive display . However that does sound a bit like the more complicated design that rav uh sorry Raj um {vocalsound} said people didn't like . Although I guess if there's a sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If you think about standard interfaces that people use already , sort of Windows-style drop down menus or whatever , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think maybe that's a bit , going a bit far +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but you know like in a basic sense that you could have your basic selection of buttons , and if you hit a sort of menu at the top you have um {vocalsound} it goes to a different selection of buttons , so it sorta keeps it simple . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um glow in the dark , is that sort of with a light inside it or is it sort of glow in the dark material ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Glow in the dark material I was thinking . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , so I I guess that would be cheaper than a light I think . +Marketing: Uh may I say something about {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh actually I think it's really really very important point uh as if we look at the market because people mor fifty percent people they find that the remote controls are often lost somewhere in the remote , in the room . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Often lost s was that , +Marketing: yeah are lost +Project Manager: Lost , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: and means they forget where they have kept the remote control last time . But if we add speech recognition as well as glow in the dark then both these factors will help their locating the remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like if they come and speak something at the remote control uh replies to something something and it glows in the dark . Both these factors uh both these points will help them to locate the where they have kept this remote control , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: and this will definitely enhance our uh market sales , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Marketing: so we should take it into consideration also . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: Well hmm . +Project Manager: Um speech recognition I take it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't , I've {disfmarker} I know of no products um that use speech recognition well . +Industrial Designer: They're act there there was a remote control that came out two years ago that had a {disfmarker} some basic speech recognition on it . You could programme it with your channels and then you say you know like uh B_B_C_ one and it goes to that channel . +Project Manager: Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it didn't work very well though because of this noise interference problem . They mentioned you know if the television says you are listening to B_B_C_ one {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , or a yeah an advert an advert for B_B_C_ two on B_B_C_ one'll switch the channel for you kinda thing . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right , right , and so there was a lot of this , you'd be watching the T_V_ and then all of a sudden it'd it'd pick up a noise and turn it off or you know or turn the volume off or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but if you can work around that that noise problem {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Well what about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: this might get a bit too expensive actually , but what about um something that's built into the T_V_ um that you can press and it'll send out a little signal you know like the ones that we can't hear or {vocalsound} something +Project Manager: Ah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: um that that will activate the remote control starts to beep . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So like a kind of backwards remote from the telly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you find if y +Industrial Designer: Right and then it would do just you know , uh subtractive kind of cancellation of the noise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What you could do then would be you have uh {vocalsound} a remote controlled by the T_V_ speaker , or not a remo I'm sorry , a microphone by the T_V_ speaker and a transmitter there that sends back to your remote , 'cause you can't um expect uh the the television manufacturers to to put that feature into their T_V_s . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , that's the only thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah , then you have like the little se separate module by the T_V_ speaker +Project Manager: That we should just stick on , yeah . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} +User Interface: That comes with our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right , and then the remote control would know um what's being produced by the television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's a sort of basic R_F_ kind of frequency so it'll be cheap . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah that's certainly possible then an another thing was about this losing the remote and trying to find it again . If you do have this sorta speech interface to it , you don't even need to find it . You just say you know , um whatever you whatever you want the remote for , you know to change the channel or to uh turn the T_V_ on and off , you just shout your command to it and it would do it for you if it's within you know , within hearing range . And uh you know it could be somewhere in the room y that you've no idea where it is and it would still do its job . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: That could also be built into the T_V_ though , which might make our remote control a bit obsolete . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , hopefully we're uh we're ahead of the curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It might do us out of a job . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} I like the whole sort of remote feedback thing . Um so I think rather than {disfmarker} and that also kind of takes out the speech recognition in terms of the interference of it not working very well and things like that , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so I th +User Interface: And the expense . +Project Manager: yeah and expense and the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think if we're going to go {disfmarker} well I mean like the thing about the {disfmarker} there's the problem with the T_F_T_ or the L_C_D_ kind of thing is if you're also wanting the the kind of uh organic globby sort of feeling to it then you might have trouble incorporating the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , but I guess not I thin we'll just we'll just pretend that's not a problem . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} and how are you about the glow in the dark material ? Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Maybe not even all of it 'cause we said um colours and fashion w were important so maybe um just like a little l line that's kind of around the outside and then you can make the rest a different colour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Contrast contra well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no th the material's cheap but it's just uh the the glow in the dark material needs some light to charge it you know , and then uh if you're , if you're sitting in the dark for too long it uh it won't glow any more . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if it's dow it's d uh yeah . Or if it's down under the couch cushions +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um which is where I usually find mine . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay , well we can use {disfmarker} we can still use the glow in the dark as a gimmick essentially , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: um if we're gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause what I thought , main {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're gonna have the logo on as well , bright yellow logo in our our um slogan . +User Interface: Slogan , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then you know they're gonna be fairly brightly coloured anyway , and we can have sort of a a a trimming as well , of the glow in the dark material , just as gimmickyness . +User Interface: Right . Mm-hmm . 'Cause yeah , that w more than finding it , that was more like you know if you're watching a film in the dark , you can um still see the remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright , so n sorta if if if we're gon if we're gonna go with the idea of um {vocalsound} uh of feedback , sort of remote finder , then that kinda stuffs that one out then . +User Interface: That was more of a a gimmick . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh it makes it fairly unnecessary then . +User Interface: Yeah , unnecessary . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , okay so scratch that . Uh so we've got do we want to go with the T_F_T_ idea or the {disfmarker} is that far too expensive ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah we're getting a lot of features now , I I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I mean I think I think the sort of find the finder things I mean it's uh I could probably write the circuit diagram for that myself . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think a consideration too is that these uh remotes get abused a lot , you know they get thrown around , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's a good chance the the T_F_T_ screen would break or uh get damaged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty fragile . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So is that one of our definite requirements that they wa that it needs a T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: Um no , I mean {gap} that was going on ravs uh Raj's sort of um marketing research I guess . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So we'll stick with sort of programmability um for the buttons that we do have . Um . {gap} So that's sort of included in your sub-module kind of stuff , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} you were finding out about teletext . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you could find out that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Totally , it takes cheap speech recognition , she {disfmarker} they wi +Project Manager: Um I think we're gonna scratch the speech recognition as a bit of a +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: um expensive , +User Interface: Yeah you think so ? +Industrial Designer: Oh no it's it's much cheaper than the T_F_T_ , it's just a microphone and some some integrated circuits . +Project Manager: no ? Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: And it'd it'd be a small vocabulary speech recognition system , +Project Manager: Is it not the circuits that cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh well that kind of takes back the R_F_ {vocalsound} the R_F_ remote sort of idea as well . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Five minutes . Okay . Decisions . Uh , votes , let's vote . Who wants T_F_T_ ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No-one does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , so we'll go with speech recognition , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , that's cool . +Project Manager: Um , speech recognition , limited buttons , organic design . And what else was I thinking of that I haven't written down and therefore fallen out my head , +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: programmability . +Marketing: Glow in dark . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: if it's not too expensive s I think it's a good gimmick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh o okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: And also , integrating the , remember to integrate the logo and the s slogan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so . Um can you put all these reports in the project documents folder if they're not already in there as well . So , it just helps me summarize them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Here ? Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um I'll put any {disfmarker} {gap} I'm I'm putting anything I do in there anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And where is it sorry ? +Project Manager: Uh pro uh project documents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it should be when you save +Project Manager: On A_M_I_ scenario controller . +Industrial Designer: on your desktop , so it goes save as , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . +Marketing: Uh it is in shared documents ? +Industrial Designer: And then uh hit that little folder up thing again . +Project Manager: Where am I ? +Marketing: Projoct uh projector . +Industrial Designer: Again . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah , it's on your desktop as well . +Industrial Designer: All the way to the top , yeah that's up to desktop . Right and then project documents . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Hmm . It is not giving anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shared documents . +Project Manager: And I will tr {gap} getting strings of um information , I'll try and forward any specific to anybody in particular , as soon as I get them now , rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I was about to sort of tell you about the changes before the meeting , and then the meeting turned up , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Did you get my email ? Okay . +Project Manager: I did {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just making sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What I thought as well about the material is um maybe not this kind of material , but maybe more like um this kind of rubbery material , it's a bit more bouncy , like you said they get chucked around a lot . Um , a bit more {vocalsound} durable and that can also be ergonomic +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and it kind of feels a bit different from all the other remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The rubber rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: More sort of um flesh-like than plasticky sort of . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: Um but we have to take care like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we have to take care of our children also if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} means if children catch hold of your or if they chew it it shouldn't be too harmful . So , whatever material we use it should be {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh no , ethics , {vocalsound} that's gonna cost us money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we have to safety point of view also , we have to take care . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , safety . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Oh I think wi with the more organic shape of it it won't be as {disfmarker} it won't as have many sharp corners as that , so that's something good , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could go comp yeah . +Project Manager: It sme {vocalsound} smells good for children . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could go completely out of the box and make the thing a big red ball foam ball . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's got the thing on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there's no buttons at all , it's always on , and just yell at it , and it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That sounds , +User Interface: That's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: And then ch children will love it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah it's gonna have to be it's gonna be have a big yellow foam ball , yeah , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Oh yellow , yellow ball . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , d with the colour , um does it have to be all yellow , do you know ? +Project Manager: Please God no . Um . Well , I wouldn't th I mean , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: my reaction to an all-yellow remote control wouldn't be anything other than horror , so I think just having it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Small logo with the like a small yellow strip or y yellow {gap} with the logo in it . +Project Manager: surrounding the logo . +User Interface: Having a little bit . Okay cool . Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: And I'll see if I can argue with boss about putting the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: what was it ? We put {vocalsound} we put fashion into {disfmarker} Whoops , it's not working . Can't believe I've forgotten it {gap} . We put the fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} I bet that'll catch on well . +User Interface: Oh yeah , that's a good one that . Yeah so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , any last +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Twelve thirty . +Project Manager: worries , queries ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S s {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I know what you're thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay then , lunchtime , yay . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Okay , that felt a bit more like a {disfmarker} something with order and and reason to it than the last one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is quite fun actually . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Has anybo oh . +Project Manager: I really don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Has anybody pressed okay , it vibrates . It's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Check here . +Project Manager: Wow you've {gap} your first page . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I've been using up the pages . +Project Manager: I was just writing really big . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , got small writing . I don't wanna waste it . +Project Manager: I've finished the meeting now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody needs k questionnaire . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +Project Manager (PM) opens the meeting by mentioning changes in decisions due to new directives received. User Interface (UI), Marketing, and Industrial Designer (ID) team members participate in discussions about the design and features of a new remote control tailored for a specific television. They address aspects like aesthetics, market research on customer preferences, ergonomics, and technical functionalities including the exclusion of teletext, the desire for corporate color (yellow) and slogans in design, and the potential for features like speech recognition. + +Key points discussed and decisions made include: +- The remote control should no longer be an all-in-one design, but specifically for a television. +- Market research shows a demand for good-looking remotes and that most users find current remotes ugly. +- Marketing points out the possibility of selling at a higher price point if the design is appealing. +- There is a consensus to limit the number of buttons since many buttons remain unused. +- Speech recognition and a glow-in-the-dark feature were considered for ease of finding the remote. +- The design should be ergonomic and appealing to the target age group of 25-35. +- The team contemplates incorporating the company's colors and slogan into the remote design. +- Concerns about the durability and safety of the materials are raised. +- With the meeting ending, the team is tasked with inputting their findings into the project documents folder for further review. + +The meeting closes with plans to follow up on the points discussed, focusing on a fashionable, user-friendly, and technically practical design for the remote control." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Adam , what is the mike that , uh , Jeremy 's wearing ? +Grad F: It 's the ear - plug mike . +Postdoc A: Ear - plug . +PhD E: That 's good . +PhD C: Is that a wireless , or {disfmarker} ? Oh . +Grad F: No . +Grad G: It 's wired . +Professor B: Oh ! +Postdoc A: Is that {disfmarker} Does that mean you can't hear anything during the meeting ? +Grad D: It 's old - school . +Grad F: Huh ? What ? Huh ? +Professor B: Should we , uh , close the door , maybe ? +Grad F: It {disfmarker} it 's a fairly good mike , actually . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh . +Grad F: Well , I shouldn't say it 's a good mike . All I really know is that the signal level is OK . I don't know if it 's a {disfmarker} the quality . +Professor B: Well , that 's a +Grad F: Ugh ! So I didn't send out agenda items because until five minutes ago we only had one agenda item and now we have two . So . {vocalsound} And , uh . +Professor B: OK . So , just to repeat the thing bef that we said last week , it was there 's this suggestion of alternating weeks on {vocalsound} more , uh , automatic speech recognition related or not ? Was that sort of {pause} the division ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: So which week are we in ? +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} We haven't really started , but I thought we more {disfmarker} we more or less did Meeting Recorder stuff last week , so I thought we could do , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I thought we had a thing about speech recognition last week too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: But I figure also if they 're short agenda items , we could also do a little bit of each . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . I seem to be having difficulty getting this adjusted . Here we go . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: So , uh , as most of you should know , I did send out the consent form thingies and , uh , so far no one has made any {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} {comment} any comments on them . So , no on no one has bleeped out anything . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . +Grad F: So . I don't expect anyone to . But . +Professor B: Um . {vocalsound} So , w what follows ? At some point y you go around and get people to sign something ? +Grad F: No . We had spoken w about this before +Professor B: Yeah , but I 've forgotten . +Grad F: and we had decided that they have {disfmarker} they only needed to sign once . And the agreement that they already signed simply said that we would give them an opportunity . So as long as we do that , we 're covered . +Professor B: And how long of an opportunity did you tell them ? +Grad F: Uh , July fifteenth . +Professor B: July fifteenth . Oh , so they have a plenty of time , and y +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: Given that it 's that long , um , um {disfmarker} Why was that date chosen ? You just felt you wanted to {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Jane told me July fifteenth . So , that 's what I set it . +Postdoc A: Oh . I just meant that that was {pause} the release date that you had on the {pause} data . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Oh . I {disfmarker} I didn't understand that there was something specific . +Postdoc A: I , uh {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} y you had {disfmarker} +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad F: I had heard July fifteenth , so that 's what I put . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , the only {disfmarker} th the only {pause} mention I recall about that was just that July fifteenth or so is when {vocalsound} this meeting starts . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . That 's why . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: You said you wanted it to be available then . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean it to be the hard deadline . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's fine with me if it is , or we cou But I thought it might be good to remind people two weeks prior to that +Professor B: w +Postdoc A: in case , uh {disfmarker} you know , "" by the way {pause} this is your last {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Uh . Yeah . +Professor B: We probably should have talked about it , cuz i because if we wanna be able to give it to people July fifteenth , if somebody 's gonna come back and say "" OK , I don't want this and this and this used "" , uh , clearly we need some time to respond to that . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah . As I said , we {disfmarker} I just got one date +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Damn ! +Grad F: and that 's the one I used . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . But I can send a follow - up . I mean , it 's almost all us . I mean the people who are in the meeti this meeting was , uh , these {disfmarker} the meetings that {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} are in set one . +PhD C: Was my {disfmarker} was my response OK ? +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD C: I just wrote you {disfmarker} replied to the email saying they 're all fine . +Grad F: Right . I mean , that 's fine . +PhD C: OK , good . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} My understanding of what we {pause} had agreed upon when we had spoken about this months ago was that , uh , we don't actually need a reply . +PhD C: That makes it easy . +Grad F: We just need to tell them that they can do it if they want . +Professor B: OK . I just didn't remember , but {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so no reply is no changes . +Postdoc A: And he 's got it so that the default thing you see when you look at the page is "" OK "" . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: So that 's very clear all the way down the page , "" OK "" . And they have two options they can change it to . One of them is {pause} "" censor "" , and the other one is "" incorrect "" . Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} your word is "" incorrect "" ? +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Which means also we get feedback on {pause} if {pause} um , there 's something that they w that needs to be {pause} adjusted , because , I mean , these are very highly technical things . I mean , it 's an added , uh , level of checking on the accuracy of the transcription , as I see it . But in any case , people can agree to things that are wrong . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: So . +Grad F: Yeah . The reason I did that it was just so that people would not censor {disfmarker} not ask to have stuff removed because it was transcribed incorrectly , +Postdoc A: And the reason I liked it was because {disfmarker} +Grad F: as opposed to , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: was because it , um {disfmarker} it gives them the option of , uh , being able to correct it . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Approve it and correct it . And {pause} um . So , you have {pause} it nicely set up so they email you and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: When they submit the form , it gets processed and emailed to me . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I wanted to say the meetings that are involved in that set are Robustness and Meeting Recorder . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: The German ones will be ready for next week . Those are three {disfmarker} three of those . A different set of people . And we can impose {disfmarker} +PhD C: The German ones ? +Postdoc A: Uh , well . +PhD H: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: NSA . +Postdoc A: OK . I spoke loosely . The {disfmarker} the German , French {disfmarker} Sorry , the German , {vocalsound} Dutch , and Spanish ones . +PhD E: Spanish . Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , those are the NSA meetings ? +PhD E: The non - native {disfmarker} +PhD H: Those are {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: German , Dutch , Swiss and Spanish . +PhD C: Oh , oh ! OK . +PhD E: The all non - native {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's r +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Uh - huh . +PhD C: OK . I 'd {disfmarker} I d +Postdoc A: Yeah . {pause} It 's the other group . +Professor B: I It was the network {disfmarker} network services group . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean to {pause} isolate them . +Professor B: Otherwise known as the German , Dutch , and Spanish . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Sorry . It was {disfmarker} it was not the best characterization . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: But what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I meant to say was that it 's the other group that 's not {disfmarker} n no m no overlap with our present members . And then maybe it 'd be good to set an explicit deadline , something like {pause} a week {pause} before that , uh , J July fifteenth date , or two weeks before . +Professor B: I mean , I would suggest we discuss {disfmarker} I mean , if we 're going to have a policy on it , that we discuss the length of time that we want to give people , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that we have a uniform thing . So , tha that 's a month , which is fine . I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +PhD C: Twelve hours . +Grad F: Well , the only thing I said in the email is that {pause} the data is going to be released on the fifteenth . I didn't give any other deadline . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So my feeling is if someone after the fifteenth says , "" wow I suddenly found something "" , we 'll delete it from our record . We just won't delete it from whatever 's already been released . +Postdoc A: Hmm . That 's a little bit difficult . +Grad F: What else can we do ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: If someone says "" hey , look , I {pause} found something in this meeting and {pause} it 's libelous and I want it removed "" . What can we do ? +Postdoc A: Well . {pause} That 's true . +Grad F: We have to remove it . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I agree with that part , but I think that it would {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} we need to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a message to them very clearly that {vocalsound} beyond this date , you can't make additional changes . +Professor B: I mean , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i I think that somebody might {pause} request something even though we say that . But I think it 's good to at least start some place like that . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: So if we agreed , {vocalsound} OK , how long is a reasonable amount of time for people to have {disfmarker} if we say two weeks , or if we say a month , I think we should just say that {disfmarker} say that , you know , i a as {pause} um , {vocalsound} "" per the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , page you signed , you have the ability to look over this stuff "" and so forth "" and , uh , because we w "" these , uh {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine some sort of generic thing that would say "" because we , uh , will continually be making these things available {vocalsound} to other researchers , uh , this can't be open - ended and so , uh , uh , please give us back your response within this am you know , within this amount of time "" , whatever time we agree upon . +Grad F: Well , did you read the email and look at the pages I sent ? +Professor B: Did I ? No , I haven't yet . No , just {disfmarker} +Grad F: No . OK , well why don't you do that and then make comments on what you want me to change ? +Professor B: No , no . I 'm not saying that you should change anything . I I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm trying to spark a discussion hopefully among people who have read it so that {disfmarker} that you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you can , uh , decide on something . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I 'm not telling you what to decide . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I 'm just saying you should decide something , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I already did decide something , and that 's what 's in the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . OK , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: And if you disagree with it , why don't you read it and give me comments on it ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that there 's one missing line . +Professor B: Well , the one thing that I did read and that you just repeated to me {pause} was that you gave the specific date of July fifteenth . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And you also just said that the reason you said that was because someone said it to you . So what I 'm telling you {pause} is that what you should do is come up with a length of time that you guys think is enough +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and you should use that rather than {pause} this date that you just got from somewhere . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: OK ? +Postdoc A: I ha I have one question . This is in the summer period and presumably people may be out of town . But we can make the assumption , can't we ? that , um , they will be receiving email , uh , most of the month . Right ? Because if someone {disfmarker} +Professor B: It {disfmarker} well , it {disfmarker} well , you 're right . Sometimes somebody will be {pause} away and , uh , you know , there 's , uh {disfmarker} for any length of time that you {vocalsound} uh , choose {pause} there is some person sometime who will not {pause} end up reading it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , just a certain risk to take . +PhD H: S so maybe when {disfmarker} Am I on , by the way ? +Grad F: I don't know . You should be . +PhD H: Oh . Hello ? Hello ? +Grad F: You should be channel B . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Alright . So . The , um {disfmarker} Maybe we should say in {disfmarker} w you know , when the whole thing starts , when they sign the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the agreement {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} you know , specify exactly uh , what , you know , how {disfmarker} how they will be contacted and they can , you know {disfmarker} they can be asked to give a phone number and an email address , or both . And , um , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We did that , I {disfmarker} I believe . +PhD H: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: So . {vocalsound} A And , then , you know , say very clearly that if they don't {disfmarker} if we don't hear from them , you know , as Morgan suggested , by a certain time or after a certain {vocalsound} period after we contact them {vocalsound} that is implicitly giving their agreement . +Grad F: Well , they 've already signed a form . +Postdoc A: And the form says {disfmarker} +PhD E: And nobody {disfmarker} nobody really reads it anyway . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: So . And the s and the form was approved by Human Subjects , +PhD H: Says that . Right . +Postdoc A: Uh , the f +PhD H: Well , if that 's i tha if that 's already {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad F: so , eh , that 's gonna be a little hard to modify . +Postdoc A: Well , the form {disfmarker} Well , the form doesn't say , if {disfmarker} uh , you know , "" if you don't respond by X number of days or X number of weeks {disfmarker} "" +PhD H: I see . Uh {disfmarker} Oh , OK . So what does it say about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the process of {disfmarker} of , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} y the review process ? +Postdoc A: It doesn't have a time limit . That you 'll be provided access to the transcripts and then , uh , allowed to {pause} remove things that you 'd like to remove , before it goes to the general {disfmarker} uh , larger audience . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Hmm . Right . +Grad F: Here . +Postdoc A: There you go . +Grad F: You can read what you already signed . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: I guess when I {pause} read it , um {disfmarker} +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: I 'm not as diligent as Chuck , but I had the feeling I should probably respond and tell Adam , like , "" I got this and I will do it by this date , and if you don't hear from me by then {disfmarker} "" You know , in other words responding to your email {pause} once , right away , saying "" as soon as you get this could you please respond . "" +Grad F: Right . +PhD E: And then if you {disfmarker} if the person thinks they 'll need more time because they 're out of town or whatever , they can tell you at that point ? Because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I didn't wanna do that , because I don't wanna have a discussion with every person {pause} if I can avoid it . +PhD E: Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: So what I wanted to do was just send it out and say "" on the fifteenth , the data is released , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: if you wanna do something about it , do something about it , but that 's it "" . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I kind of like this . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . So , we 're assuming that {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that would be great if {disfmarker} but you should probably have a {pause} legal person look at this and {pause} make sure it 's OK . Because if you {disfmarker} if you , uh , do this {vocalsound} and you {disfmarker} then there 's a dispute later and , uh , some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , someone who understands these matters concludes that they didn't have , uh , you know , enough opportunity to actually {vocalsound} exercise their {disfmarker} their right {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or they {disfmarker} they might never have gotten the email , because although they signed this , they don't know by which date to expect your email . And so {pause} someone whose machine is down or whatever {disfmarker} I mean , we have no {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: in internally we know that people are there , +Grad F: Well , OK . l Let me {disfmarker} Let me reverse this . +PhD E: but we have no confirmation that they got the mail . +Grad F: So let 's say someone {disfmarker} I send this out , and someone doesn't respond . Do we delete every meeting that they were in ? +PhD E: Well , then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't think so . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} we 're hoping that doesn't happen , +PhD H: No . +PhD E: but that 's why there 's such a thing as registered mail +Grad F: That will happen . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +PhD H: That will happen . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: That will absolutely happen . Because people don't read their email , or they 'll read and say "" I don't care about that , I 'm not gonna delete anything "" and they don just won't reply to it . +PhD H: Maybe {disfmarker} uh , do we have mailing addresses for these people ? +Grad F: No . We have what they put on the speaker form , +PhD H: No . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Grad F: which was just generic contact information . +PhD H: Oh . +Postdoc A: But the ones that we 're dealing with now are all local , +PhD H: Well , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: except the ones who {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we 're totally in contact with all the ones in those two groups . +PhD H: Mmm . OK . +Postdoc A: So maybe , uh , I {disfmarker} you know , that 's not that many people and if I {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} i i there is an advantage to having them admit {disfmarker} and if I can help with {disfmarker} with processing that , I will . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there is an advantage to having them be on record as having received the mail and indicating {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean I thought we had discussed this , like , a year ago . +Postdoc A: Yes , we did . +Grad F: And so it seems like this is a little odd for it to be coming up yet again . +Postdoc A: You 're right . Well , I {disfmarker} you know . But sometimes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we {disfmarker} we haven't experienced it before . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 'll either wonder {pause} at the beginning or you 'll wonder at the end . +Postdoc A: Need to get it right . +PhD E: I mean , there 's no way to get around {disfmarker} I It 's pretty much the same am amount of work except for an additional email just saying they got the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: And maybe it 's better legally to wonder before {disfmarker} you know , a little bit earlier than {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's much easier to explain {pause} this way . +Grad F: OK . Well , why don't you talk {pause} t +Postdoc A: T t to have it on record . +Grad F: Morgan , can you talk to our lawyer about it , and find out what the status is on this ? Cuz I don't wanna do something that we don't need to . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but w Mmm . +Grad F: Because what {disfmarker} I 'm telling you , people won't respond to the email . No matter what you do , you there 're gonna be people who {pause} you 're gonna have to make a lot of effort to get in contact with . +Postdoc A: Well , then we make the effort . +Grad D: I mean , i it 's k +Grad F: And do we want to spend that effort ? +PhD H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: We make the effort . +Grad D: It 's kind of like signing up for a mailing list . They have opt in and opt out . And there are two different ways . I mean , and either way works probably , I mean . +Postdoc A: Except I really think in this case {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm agr I agree with Liz , that we need to be {pause} in the clear and not have to after the fact say "" oh , but I assumed "" , and "" oh , I 'm sorry that your email address was just accumulating mail without notifying you "" , you know . +Professor B: If this is a purely administrative task , we can actually have administration do it . +Postdoc A: Oh , excellent . +Professor B: But the thing is that , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , without going through a whole expensive thing with our lawyers , {vocalsound} from my previous conversations with them , my {disfmarker} my sense very {pause} much is that we would want something on record {pause} as indicating that they actually were aware of this . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad F: Well , we had talked about this before +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I thought that we had even gone by the lawyers asking about that and they said you have to s they 've already signed away the f with that form {disfmarker} that they 've already signed once . +Postdoc A: I don't remember that this issue of {pause} the time period allowed for response was ever covered . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We never really talked about that . +Grad F: OK . +PhD E: Or the date at which they would be receiving the email from you . +Postdoc A: Or {disfmarker} or how they would indicate {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: They probably forgot all about it . +Professor B: We certainly didn't talk , uh , about {disfmarker} with them at all about , uh , the manner of them being {disfmarker} {vocalsound} made the , uh , uh , materials available . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: We do it like with these {disfmarker} +Professor B: That was something that was sort of just within our implementation . +Grad F: OK . +PhD H: We can use it {disfmarker} we can use a {disfmarker} a ploy like they use to , um {disfmarker} you know , that when they serve , like {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} {comment} uh , you know , like dead - beat dads , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they make it look like they won something in the lottery and then they open the envelope +Grad D: And they 're served . +PhD H: and that {disfmarker} Right ? Because {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing is served . So you just make it , you know , "" oh , you won {disfmarker} you know , go to this web site and you 've , uh {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} "" +PhD E: That 's why you never open these things that come in the mail . +Postdoc A: That one . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , it 's just , we 've gone from one extreme to the other , where at one point , a few months ago , Morgan was {disfmarker} you were saying let 's not do anything , +PhD H: Right . {vocalsound} Right . No , it I {disfmarker} it might {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , it doesn't matter . +PhD H: i i it {disfmarker} it might well be the case {disfmarker} +Grad F: and now we 're {disfmarker} we 're saying we have to follow up each person and get a signature ? +PhD H: it might {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: I mean , what are we gonna doing here ? +PhD H: It might well be the case that {disfmarker} that this is perfectly {disfmarker} you know , this is enough to give us a basis t to just , eh , assume their consent if they don't reply . +Professor B: Well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: But , I 'm not {disfmarker} you know , me not being a lawyer , I wouldn't just wanna do that without {pause} having the {disfmarker} the expert , uh , opinion on that . +Postdoc A: And how many people ? Al - altogether we 've got twenty people . These people are people who read their email almost all the time . +Grad F: Then I think we had better find out , so that we can find a {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Let me look at this again . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I really don't see that it 's a problem . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's a common courtesy to ask them {disfmarker} uh , to expect for them to , uh , be able to have @ @ {comment} us try to contact them , +Grad F: For {disfmarker} for th +Postdoc A: u just in case they hadn't gotten their email . I think they 'd appreciate it . +Professor B: Yeah . My {disfmarker} Adam , my {disfmarker} my view before was about {pause} the nature of what was {disfmarker} of the presentation , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: of {disfmarker} of how {pause} my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} the things that we 're questioning were along the lines of how easy {disfmarker} uh , h how m how much implication would there be that it 's likely you 're going to be changing something , as opposed to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That was the kind of dispute I was making before . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I remember that . +Professor B: But , um , the attorneys , I {disfmarker} uh , I can guarantee you , the attorneys will always come back with {disfmarker} and we have to decide how stringent we want to be in these things , but they will always come back with saying {vocalsound} that , um , you need to {disfmarker} you want to have someth some paper trail or {disfmarker} which includes electronic trail {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that they have , uh , in fact {pause} O K 'd it . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I think that if you f i if {pause} we send the email as you have and if there 's half the people , say , who don't respond {pause} at all by , you know , some period of time , {vocalsound} we can just make a list of these people and hand it to , uh {disfmarker} you know , just give it to me and I 'll hand it to administrative staff or whatever , +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and they 'll just call them up and say , you know , "" have you {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this OK ? And would you please mail {disfmarker} you know , mail Adam that it is , if i if it , you know , is or not . "" So , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can do that . +PhD E: The other thing that there 's a psychological effect that {disfmarker} at least for most people , that if they 've responded to your email saying "" yes , I will do it "" or "" yes , I got your email "" , they 're more likely to actually do it {comment} {pause} later {pause} than to just ignore it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And of course we don't want them to bleep things out , but it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit better if we 're getting the {disfmarker} their , uh , final response , once they 've answered you once than if they never answer you 'd {comment} at al at all . That 's how these mailing houses work . So , I mean , it 's not completely lost work because it might benefit us in terms of getting {pause} responses . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , an official OK from somebody {pause} is better than no answer , even if they responded that they got your email . And they 're probably more likely to do that once they 've responded that they got the email . +Postdoc A: I also think they 'd just simply appreciate it . I think it 's a good {disfmarker} a good way of {disfmarker} of fostering goodwill among our subjects . Well , our participants . +Professor B: I think the main thing is {disfmarker} I mean , what lawyers do is they always look at worst cases . +Grad F: Sending lots of spam . +Professor B: So they s so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Tha - that 's what they 're paid to do . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: And so , {vocalsound} it is certainly possible that , uh , somebody 's server would be down or something and they wouldn't actually hear from us , and then they find this thing is in there and we 've already distributed it to someone . So , {vocalsound} what it says in there , in fact , is that they will be given an opportunity to blah - blah - blah , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if in fact {disfmarker} if we sent them something or we thought we sent them something but they didn't actually receive it for some reason , {vocalsound} um , then we haven't given them that . +Grad F: Well , so how far do we have to go ? Do we need to get someone 's signature ? Or , is email enough ? +Professor B: I i i em email is enough . +Grad F: Do we have to have it notarized ? I mean {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I 've been through this {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not a lawyer , but I 've been through these things a f things f like this a few times with lawyers now +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} I I 'm pretty comfortable with that . +PhD C: Do you track , um , when people log in to look at the {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Uh . If they submit the form , I get it . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad F: If they don't submit the form , it goes in the general web log . But that 's not sufficient . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad F: Right ? Cuz if someone just visits the web site that doesn't {pause} imply anything in particular . +PhD C: Except that you know they got the mail . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I could get you on the notify list if you want me to . +Grad F: I 'm already on it . +Postdoc A: For that directory ? OK , great . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So again , hopefully , um , this shouldn't be quite as odious a problem either way , uh , in any of the extremes we 've talked about because {vocalsound} uh , we 're talking a pretty small {pause} number of people . +Grad F: W For this set , I 'm not worried , because {pause} we basically know everyone on it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: You know , they 're all more or less here or it 's {disfmarker} it 's Eric and Dan and so on . But for some of the others , you 're talking about visitors who are {pause} gone from ICSI , whose email addresses may or may not work , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} So what are we gonna do when we run into someone that we can't get in touch with ? +Postdoc A: I don't think , uh {disfmarker} They 're so recent , these visitors . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} they 're also so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: They 're prominent enough that they 're easy to find through {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I w I 'll be able to {disfmarker} if you have any trouble finding them , I really think I could find them . +Grad F: Other methods ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it really does promise here is that we will ask their permission . Um , and I think , you know , if you go into a room and close the door and {disfmarker} and ask their permission {vocalsound} and they 're not there , it doesn't seem {comment} that that 's the intent of , uh , meaning here . So . +Grad F: Well , the qu the question is just whether {disfmarker} how active it has to be . I mean , because they {disfmarker} they filled out a contact information and that 's where I 'm sending the information . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And so far everyone has done email . There isn't anyone who did , uh , any other contact method . +Professor B: Well , the way ICSI goes , people , uh , who , uh , were here ten years ago still have acc {vocalsound} have forwards to other accounts and so on . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's unusual that {disfmarker} that they , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: So my original impression was that that was sufficient , that if they give us contact information and that contact information isn't accurate that {pause} we fulfilled our burden . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then they just come back . +PhD C: All my files were still here . +PhD E: Same as us . +Postdoc A: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if we get to a boundary case like that then maybe I will call the attorney about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: But , you know , hopefully we won't need to . +Postdoc A: I d I just don't think we will . For all the reasons that we 've discussed . +Grad F: Alright . +Professor B: So we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see if we do or not . +Grad F: Yep . And we 'll see how many people respond to that email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So far , two people have . +Professor B: Yeah . I think very few people will +Grad F: So . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , people {disfmarker} people see long emails about things that they don't think {vocalsound} is gonna be high priority , they typically , uh , don't {disfmarker} don't read it , or half read it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Cuz people are swamped . +Postdoc A: And actually , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} didn't anticipate this so I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't give this comment , and it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} this discussion has made me think it might be nice to have a follow - up email within the next couple of days saying "" by the way , you know , we wanna hear back from you by X date and please {disfmarker} "" , and then add what Liz said {disfmarker} "" please , uh , respond to {disfmarker} please indicate you received this mail . "" +Professor B: Uh , or e well , maybe even additionally , uh , um , "" Even if you 've decided you have no changes you 'd like to make , if you could tell us that "" . +Grad F: Respond to the email . {comment} Yep . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . It is the first time through the cycle . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . That would {disfmarker} that would definitely work on me . You know , it makes you feel m like , um , if you were gonna p if you 're predicting that you might not answer , you have a chance now to say that . Whereas , I {disfmarker} I mean , I would be much more likely myself , +PhD C: And the other th +PhD E: given all my email , t to respond at that point , saying "" you know what , I 'm probably not gonna get to it "" or whatever , rather than just having seen the email , thinking I might get to it , and never really , {vocalsound} uh , pushing myself to actually do it until it 's too late . +PhD C: Yeah . I was {disfmarker} I was thinking that it also {pause} lets them know that they don't have to go to the page to {pause} accept this . +PhD E: Right . R Right . That 's true . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . So that way they could {disfmarker} they can see from that email that if they just write back and say "" I got it , no changes "" , they 're off the hook . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: They don't have to go to the web page +Professor B: I mean , the other thing I 've learned from dealing with {disfmarker} dealing with people sending in reviews and so forth , uh , is , um , {vocalsound} if you say "" you 've got three months to do this review "" , {vocalsound} um , people do it , you know , {vocalsound} two and seven eighths months from now . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: If you say "" you 've got three weeks to do this review "" , they do {disfmarker} do it , you know , two and seven eighths weeks from now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they do the review . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: And , um {disfmarker} So , if we make it {pause} a little less time , I don't think it 'll be that much {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , and also if we want it ready by the fifteenth , that means we better give them deadline of the first , if we have any prayer of actually getting everyone to respond in time . +Professor B: There 's the responding part and there 's also what if , uh , I mean , I hope this doesn't happen , what if there are a bunch of deletions that have to get put in and changes ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Then {vocalsound} we actually have to deal with that +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Some lead time . +Professor B: if we want it to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Ugh ! Disk space , +Postdoc A: By the way , has {disfmarker} has Jeremy signed the form ? +Grad F: oh my god ! I hadn't thought about that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: That for every meeting {disfmarker} any meeting which has any bleeps in it we need yet another copy of . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD C: Just that channel . +Grad D: Can't you just do that channel ? +PhD C: Oh , no . We have to do {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , of course not . +PhD E: Yeah . You have to do all of them , +Grad F: You need all the channels . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD C: Do you have to do the other close - talking ? +PhD E: as well as all of these . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: You have to do all {disfmarker} You could just do it in that time period , though , +Grad F: Yes . Absolutely . There 's a lot of cross - talk . +Grad G: Wow . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: but I guess it 's a pain . +Grad F: Well , but you have to copy the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? Because we 're gonna be releasing the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . You 're right . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} you know , I think at a certain point , that copy that has the deletions will become the master copy . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's just I hate deleting any data . So I {disfmarker} I don't want {disfmarker} I really would rather make a copy of it , rather than bleep it out +Professor B: Are you del are you bleeping it by adding ? +Grad F: and then {disfmarker} Overlapping . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's exactly a censor bleep . So what I really think is "" bleep "" +Professor B: I I I I understand , but is {disfmarker} is it summing signals +Grad F: and then I want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: or do you {pause} delete the old one and put the new one in ? +Grad F: I delete the old one , put the new one in . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Cuz {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's nothing left of the original signal . +Professor B: Oh . Cuz if you were summing , you could {disfmarker} No . But anyway {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . It would be qui quite easy to get it back again . +Postdoc A: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And then w I was gonna say also that the they don't have to stay on the system , as you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then someday we can sell the {pause} unedited versions . +Postdoc A: cuz {disfmarker} cuz the {disfmarker} the ones {disfmarker} +Grad F: Say again ? +Postdoc A: Once it 's been successfully bleeped , can't you rely on the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Or {pause} we 'll tell people the frequency of the beep +Professor B: Encrypt it . +PhD C: and then they could subtract the beep out . +Grad D: You can hide it . Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can't you rely on the archiving to preserve the older version ? +PhD H: Oh , yeah . +Grad D: It wouldn't be that hard to hide it . +PhD E: Right . Exactly . I see . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . Yeah . Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: See , this is good . I wanted to create some {pause} side conversations in these meetings . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . You could encrypt it , you know , with a {disfmarker} with a two hundred bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} thousand bit , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can use spread spectrum . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Hide it . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Here we go . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , there you go . +PhD E: Cuz we don't have enough asides . +PhD H: I have an idea . You reverse the signal , +Grad D: There you go . +PhD H: so it {disfmarker} it lets people say what they said backwards . +Grad F: Backwards . +Grad D: Then you have , like , subliminal , uh , messages , +Grad F: But , ha you 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the speech recognition system that reversed very short segments . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad D: like . +Grad F: Did you read that paper ? It wouldn't work . +PhD H: No . +Grad F: The speech recognizer still works . +PhD E: Yeah . And if you do it backward then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's cuz they use forward - backward . +PhD E: H - good old HMM . +Grad F: Forward but backward . That 's right . +PhD E: No , it 's backward - forward . +Grad F: Good point . A point . Well , I 'm sorry if I sound a little peeved about this whole thing . It 's just we 've had meeting after meeting after meeting a on this and it seems like we 've never gotten it resolved . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Well , but we never also {disfmarker} we 've also never done it . +PhD E: Uh . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: This is the first cycle . +PhD E: If it makes {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: There 're bound to be some glitches the first time through . +Professor B: So . {vocalsound} And , uh {disfmarker} and I 'm sorry responding without , uh , having much knowledge , but the thing is , uh , I am , like , one of these people who gets a gazillion mails and {disfmarker} and stuff comes in as +Grad F: Well , and that 's exactly why I did it the way I did it , which is the default is if you do nothing we 're gonna release it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Because , you know , I have my {pause} stack of emails of to d to be done , that , you know , fifty or sixty long , and the ones at the top I 'm never gonna get to . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And , uh {pause} So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD C: Move them to the bottom . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so the only thing we 're missing is {disfmarker} is some way to respond to easily to say , uh , "" OK , go ahead "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah , right . So , i this is gonna mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just re - mail them to yourself and then they 're at the bottom . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's actually definitely a good point . The m email doesn't specify that you can just reply to the email , as op as opposed to going to the form +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: In {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it also doesn't give a {disfmarker} a specific {disfmarker} I didn't think of it . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: S I think it 's a good idea {disfmarker} an ex explicit time by which this will be considered definite . +Grad F: Yeah , release . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and it has to be a time earlier than that endpoint . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's converging . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD H: This {disfmarker} um , I 've seen this recently . Uh , I got email , and it {disfmarker} i if I use a MIME - capable mail reader , it actually says , you know , click on this button to confirm receipt {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the mail . +Postdoc A: Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's like certified mail . +Grad F: A lot of mailers support return receipt . +Postdoc A: Could do that . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: But it doesn't confirm that they 've read it . +PhD H: No , no , no . This is different . This is not {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I know , you can tell , you know , the , uh , mail delivery agent to {disfmarker} to confirm that the mail was delivered to your mailbox . +Postdoc A: Mmm . +Grad F: Right . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but , no . This was different . Ins - in the mail , there was a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , just a button . +PhD H: uh , th there was a button that when you clicked on it , it would send , uh , you know , a actual acknowledgement to the sender that you had actually looked at the mail . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Unfor - Yeah , we could do that . But I hate that . +PhD H: But it o but it only works for , you know , MIME - capable {disfmarker} you know , if you use Netscape or something like that for your n +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: You might as well just respond to the mail . +Professor B: And we actually need a third thing . +PhD E: I mean +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: It 's not that you 've looked at it , it 's that you 've looked at it and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and agree with one of the possible actions . +PhD H: No , no . You can do that . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD H: You know , you can put this button anywhere you want , +Professor B: Oh ? Oh , I see . +PhD H: and you can put it the bottom of the message and say "" here , by {disfmarker} you know , by clicking on this , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , you know , I acknowledge {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: That i i my first - born children are yours , and {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Quick question . Are , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I could put a URL in there without any difficulty and {pause} even pretty simple MIME readers can do that . So . +Postdoc A: But why shouldn't they just {pause} email back ? I don't see there 's a problem . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Reply . +PhD H: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's very nice . I {disfmarker} I like the high - tech aspect of it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but I think {disfmarker} +PhD H: No , no , no . {vocalsound} I actually don't . +Postdoc A: I appreciate it . +PhD H: I 'm just saying that +Grad F: Well , I {disfmarker} cuz I use a text mail reader . +PhD H: if ev but I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD E: Don't you use VI for your mai ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . That 's {disfmarker} that 's my guy . Alright . +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you read email {pause} in VI ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . {vocalsound} I like VI . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} i There 's these logos {pause} that you can put at the bottom of your web page , like "" powered by VI "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . +Grad D: I see . +PhD E: Anyway , quick question . +Grad F: You could put wed bugs in the email . +PhD E: How m +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD E: Like , there were three meetings this time , or so +Postdoc A: Six . +PhD E: or how many ? Six ? But , no of different people . So I guess if you 're in both these types of meetings , you 'd have a lot . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} I mean , it also depends on how many {disfmarker} Like , if we release {disfmarker} this time it 's a fairly small number of meetings , but what if we release , like , twenty - five meetings to people ? In th +Grad F: Well , what my s expectation is , is that we 'll send out one of these emails {pause} every time a meeting has been checked and is ready . +PhD E: I don't know . Oh . Oh , OK . So this time was just the first chunk . OK . +Grad F: So . Tha - that was my intention . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} that we just happened to have a bunch all at once . +PhD E: Well , that 's a good idea . +Grad F: I mean , maybe {disfmarker} Is that {pause} the way it 's gonna be , you think , Jane ? +Postdoc A: I agree with you . It 's {disfmarker} we could do it , uh {disfmarker} I I could {disfmarker} I 'd be happy with either way , batch - wise {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} Uh , so this one {disfmarker} That was exactly right , that we had a {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had wanted to get the entire set of twelve hours ready . Don't have it . But , uh , this was the biggest clump I could do by a time where I thought it was reasonable . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: People would be able to check it and still have it ready by then . My , um {disfmarker} I was thinking that with the {pause} NSA meetings , I 'd like {disfmarker} there are three of them , and they 're {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I will have them done by Monday . Uh , unfortunately the time is later and I don't know how that 's gonna work out , but I thought it 'd be good to have that released as a clump , too , because then , {vocalsound} you know , they 're {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have a {disfmarker} it it 's in a category , it 's not quite so distracting to them , is what I was thinking , and it 's all in one chu But after that , when we 're caught up a bit on this process , then , um , I could imagine sending them out periodically as they become available . +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc A: I could do it either way . I mean , it 's a question of how distracting it is to the people who have to do the checking . +Professor B: We heard anything from IBM ? at all ? +PhD C: Uh . Let 's see . We {disfmarker} Yeah , right . So we got the transcript back from that one meeting . Everything seemed fine . Adam {pause} had a script that will {pause} put everything back together and there was {disfmarker} Well , there was one small problem but it was a simple thing to fix . And then , um , {vocalsound} we , uh {disfmarker} I sent him a pointer to three more . And so he 's {pause} off and {pause} working on those . +Grad F: Yeah . Now we haven't actually had anyone go through that meeting , to see whether the transcript is correct and to see how much was missed and all that sort of stuff . +Postdoc A: That 's on my list . +Grad F: So at some point we need to do that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well , that 's on my list . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's gonna have to go through our regular process . +Grad F: I mean , the one thing I noticed is it did miss a lot of backchannels . There are a fair number of "" yeahs "" and "" uh - huhs "" that {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} that aren't in there . So . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Like you said , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be our standard proc that 's what the transcribers are gonna be spending most of their time doing , I would imagine , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor B: once {disfmarker} once we {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Yeah . +Postdoc A: One question about the backchannels . +Professor B: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Do you suppose that was because they weren't caught by the pre - segmenter ? +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: Oh , interesting . Oh , interesting . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're not in the segmented . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: It 's not that the {pause} IBM people didn't do it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: Just they didn't get marked . +Postdoc A: OK . So maybe when the detector for that gets better or something {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} There 's another issue which is this {disfmarker} we 've been , uh , contacted by University of Washington now , of course , to , um {disfmarker} We sent them the transcripts that correspond to those {pause} six meetings and they 're downloading the audio files . So they 'll be doing that . Chuck 's {disfmarker} Chuck 's , uh , put that in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I pointed them to the set that Andreas put , uh , on the {vocalsound} web so th if they want to compare directly with his results they can . And , um , then once , uh , th we can also point them at the , um , uh , the original meetings and they can grab those , too , with SCP . +PhD E: Wait . So you put the reference files {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No , no . They d they wanted the audio . +PhD E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Jane sent them the , uh , transcripts . +PhD E: No , I mean of the transcripts . Um . Well , we can talk about it off - line . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's another meeting in here , what , at four ? Right ? Yeah , so we have to finish by three forty - five . +PhD H: D d So , does Washi - does {disfmarker} does UW wanna u do this {disfmarker} wanna use this data for recognition or for something else ? +PhD C: Uh , for recognition . +PhD E: I think they 're doing w +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: didn't they want to do language modeling on , you know , recognition - compatible transcripts +PhD H: Oh . I see . +Postdoc A: This is to show you , uh , some of the things that turn up during the checking procedure . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: Um @ @ {comment} So , this is from one of the NSA meetings and , uh , i if you 're familiar with the diff format , the arrow to the left is what it was , and the arrow to the right is {pause} what it was changed to . So , um . {vocalsound} And now the first one . "" OK . So , then we started a weekly meeting . The last time , uh {disfmarker} "" And the transcriber thought "" little too much "" But , {vocalsound} uh , really , um , it was "" we learned too much "" , which makes more sense syntactically as well . +PhD H: And these {disfmarker} the parentheses were f from {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Then {disfmarker} Oh , this {disfmarker} that 's the convention for indicating uncertain . +Grad F: U uncertains . +Postdoc A: So the transcriber was right . +PhD H: S +Postdoc A: You know , she was uncertain about that . +PhD H: OK . +Postdoc A: So she 's right to be uncertain . And it 's also a g a good indication of the {disfmarker} of that . +PhD H: Oh . {comment} OK . +Postdoc A: The next one . This was about , uh , Claudia and {pause} she 'd been really b busy with stuff , such as waivers . Uh , OK . Um , next one . Um . {vocalsound} This was {pause} an interesting one . So the original was "" So that 's not {disfmarker} so Claudia 's not the bad master here "" , and then he laughs , but it really "" web master "" . +Grad F: Web master . +Grad D: Oh . {comment} Uh - oh . +Postdoc A: And then you see another type of uncertainty which is , you know , they just didn't know what to make out of that . So instead of "" split upon unknown "" , {comment} it 's "" split in principle "" . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Jane , these are from IBM ? +Grad F: Spit upon ? +Grad D: The top lines ? +Postdoc A: No , no . These are {disfmarker} these are our local transcriptions of the NSA meetings . +Grad F: No , these are {pause} ours . +Postdoc A: The transcribers {disfmarker} transcriber 's version ver versus the checked version . +Grad D: Oh . Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: My {disfmarker} my checked version , after I go through it . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc A: Um , then you get down here . Um . Sometimes some speakers will insert foreign language terms . That 's the next example , the next one . The , uh , version beyond this is {disfmarker} So instead of saying "" or "" , especially those words , "" also "" and "" oder "" and some other ones . Those sneak in . Um , the next one {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's cool . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: S +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? Discourse markers ? Sure . Sure , sure , sure . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: And it 's {disfmarker} and it makes sense +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz it 's , like , below this {disfmarker} it 's a little subliminal there . +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc A: Um . OK , the next one , uh , {vocalsound} this is a term . The problem with terminology . Description with th the transcriber has "" X as an advance "" . But really it 's "" QS in advance "" . I mean , I {disfmarker} I 've benefited from some of these , uh , cross - group meetings . OK , then you got , um , {vocalsound} uh , instead of "" from something - or - other cards "" , {comment} it 's "" for multicast "" . And instead of "" ANN system related "" , it 's "" end system related "" . This was changed to an acronym initially and it should shouldn't have been . And then , you can see here "" GPS "" was misinterpreted . It 's just totally understanda This is {disfmarker} this is a lot of jargon . Um , and the final one , the transcriber had th "" in the core network itself or the exit unknown , not the internet unknown "" . And it {disfmarker} it comes through as "" in the core network itself of the access provider , not the internet backbone core "" . Now this is a lot of {pause} terminology . And they 're generally extremely good , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc A: but , you know in this {disfmarker} this area it really does pay to , um {disfmarker} to double check and I 'm hoping that when the checked versions are run through the recognizer that you 'll see s substantial improvements in performance cuz the {disfmarker} you know , there 're a lot of these in there . +PhD H: Yeah . So how often {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah , but I bet {disfmarker} I bet they 're acoustically challenging parts anyway , though . +Postdoc A: No , actually no . +Grad D: Mmm . +Postdoc A: Huh - uh . +Grad F: Oh , really ? Uh , it 's {disfmarker} Oh , so it 's just jargon . +Postdoc A: It 's jargon . Yeah . I mean this is {disfmarker} cuz , you know you don't realize in daily life how much you have top - down influences in what you 're hearing . +PhD H: Well , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it 's jar it 's jargon coupled with a foreign accent . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} But we don't {disfmarker} I mean , our language model right now doesn't know about these words anyhow . So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: you know , un until you actually {pause} get a decent language model , @ @ {comment} Adam 's right . +Grad F: It probably won't do any better . +PhD H: You probably won't notice a difference . But it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's definitely good that these are fixed . I mean , {vocalsound} obviously . +Postdoc A: Well , also from the standpoint of getting people 's approval , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz if someone sees a page full of uh , um , barely decipherable w you know , sentences , and then is asked to approve of it or not , {vocalsound} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Did I say that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That would be a shame if people said "" well , I don't approve it because {pause} the {disfmarker} it 's not what I said "" . +Grad F: Well , that 's exactly why I put the extra option in , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Exactly . That 's why we discussed that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: is that I was afraid people would say , "" let 's censor that because it 's wrong "" , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: and I don't want them to do that . +Postdoc A: And then I also {disfmarker} the final thing I have for transcription is that I made a purchase of some other headphones +PhD H: C +Postdoc A: because of the problem of low gain in the originals . And {disfmarker} and they very much appro they mu much prefer the new ones , and actually I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that there will be fewer things to correct because of the {disfmarker} the choice . We 'd originally chosen , uh , very expensive head headsets +Grad F: Yeah . Ugh ! +Postdoc A: but , um , they 're just not as good as these , um , in this {disfmarker} with this respect to this particular task . +PhD H: Well , return the old ones . +Grad F: It 's probably impedance matching problems . +Postdoc A: I don't know exactly , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but we chose them because that 's what 's been used here by prominent projects in transcription . +Professor B: Could be . +Postdoc A: So it i we had every reason to think they would work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: So you have spare headsets ? +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? +PhD H: You have spare headsets ? +Grad F: They 're just earphones . They 're not headsets . They 're not microphones . +PhD E: Right . +PhD H: No , no . I mean , just earphones ? Um , because I , uh , I could use one on my workstation , just to t because sometimes I have to listen to audio files and I don't have to b go borrow it from someone and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We have actua actually I have {disfmarker} W Well , the thing is , that if we have four people come to work {pause} for a day , I was {disfmarker} I was hanging on to the others for , eh {disfmarker} for spares , +PhD H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: but I can tell you what I recommend . +Professor B: No , but you 'd {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} Yeah , w we should get it . +PhD H: Sure . No problem . +Grad F: But if you need it , just get it . +PhD H: I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Come on . +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . If you need it . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 'd just have to be a s a separate order {disfmarker} an added order . +Grad D: Yeah , I still {disfmarker} I still need to get a pair , too . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're pretty inexpensive . +PhD E: Yeah , that {disfmarker} We should order a cou uh , t two or three or four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm using one of these . Yeah . +PhD E: We have {disfmarker} +PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home , but it 's f just for music listening +Professor B: No . Just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just buy them . +PhD E: Sh - Just get the model number +PhD H: and it 's not {disfmarker} Nnn . Yeah . +Professor B: Just buy them . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Where do you buy these from ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks , just down the street . +PhD E: Like {disfmarker} ? You just b go and b +Postdoc A: Yeah . They always have them in stock . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: That 'd be a good idea . +PhD H: Anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: W uh , could you email out the brand ? +Postdoc A: Oh , sure . Yeah . OK . +Grad F: Cuz I think {disfmarker} sounds like people are interested . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Definitely . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: It 's made a difference in {disfmarker} in how easy . Yeah . +Professor B: I realized something I should talk about . So what 's the other thing on the agenda actually ? +Grad F: Uh , the only one was Don wanted to , uh , talk about disk space yet again . +Grad D: Yeah . u It 's short . I mean , if you wanna go , we can just throw it in at the end . +Professor B: No , no . Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you go ahead since it 's short . +Grad D: Um , well , uh . +Grad F: Oh , I thought you meant the disk space . Yeah , we know disk space is short . +PhD H: The disk space was short . Yeah . That 's what I thought too . +PhD E: That 's a great ambiguity . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's one of these {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's social +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} I i i it i +PhD E: and , uh , discourse level +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it 's great . Yeah , +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: double {disfmarker} double {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , it was really goo +PhD E: See , if I had that little {pause} scratch - pad , I would have made an X there . +Grad D: Thank you , thank you . +Grad F: Uh , well , we 'll give you one then . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . {vocalsound} So , um , without thinking about it , when I offered up my hard drive last week {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , no . +Grad D: Um , this is always a suspect phrase . +PhD E: It was while I was out of town . +Grad D: But , um , no . I , uh {disfmarker} I realized that we 're going to be doing a lot of experiments , um , {vocalsound} o for this , uh , paper we 're writing , so we 're probably gonna need a lot more {disfmarker} We 're probably gonna need {vocalsound} that disk space that we had on that eighteen gig hard drive . But , um , we also have someone else coming in that 's gonna help us out with some stuff . +Professor B: We 've just ordered a hundred gigabytes . +Grad D: So {disfmarker} OK . We just need to {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think we need , like , another eighteen gig disk {pause} to be safe . +Professor B: Well , we 're getting three thirty {disfmarker} thirty - sixes . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That are going into the main f file server . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Markham 's ordering and they should be coming in soon . +Grad D: W Well . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Soon ? +Grad D: Yeah . I mean , I guess the thing is is , all I need is to hang it off , like , {vocalsound} the person who 's coming in , Sonali 's , computer . +PhD H: Oh , so {disfmarker} so , you mean the d the internal {disfmarker} the disks on the machines that we just got ? +Grad D: Whew . Or we can move them . +Grad F: No . +PhD C: These are gonna go onto Abbott . +Grad F: Ne - new disks . +PhD H: Or extra disk ? +Professor B: Onto Abbott , the file server . +Grad D: So are we gonna move the stuff off of my hard drive onto that when those come in ? +Grad F: On {disfmarker} +PhD H: Oh , oh . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i +Grad F: Once they come in . Sure . +Grad D: OK . That 's fine . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when is this planned for {pause} roughly ? +PhD C: They should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I imagine next week or something . +Grad D: OK . +PhD E: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're desperate , I have some space on my drive . +Grad D: I think if I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad F: But I {disfmarker} I vacillate between no space free and {pause} a few gig free . +Grad D: Yeah . I think I can find something if I 'm desperate +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad D: and , um , in the meantime I 'll just hold out . +Grad F: OK . +Grad D: That was the only thing I wanted to bring up . +PhD C: It should be soon . We {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So there 's another hundred gig . So . +Grad D: Alright . Great . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . It 's great to be able to do it , +Grad D: That 's it . +Professor B: just say "" oh yeah , a hundred gig , +PhD E: Good . +Professor B: no big deal "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . A hundred gig here , a hundred gig there . +PhD E: Well , each meeting is like a gig or something , +Grad F: It 's eventually real disk space . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: so it 's really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I was just going to comment that I I 'm going to , uh , be on the phone with Mari tomorrow , late afternoon . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: We 're supposed to {vocalsound} get together and talk about , uh , where we are on things . Uh , there 's this meeting coming up , uh , and there 's also an annual report . Now , I never actually {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was asking about this . I don't really quite understand this . She was re she was referring to it as {disfmarker} I think this actually {pause} didn't just come from her , but this is {pause} what , uh , DARPA had asked for . Um , she 's referring to it as the an annual report for the fiscal year . But of course the fiscal year starts in October , so I don't quite understand w w why we do an annual report that we 're writing in July . +PhD C: She 's either really late or really early . +Grad F: Huh . Or she 's getting a good early start . +Professor B: Uh , I think basically it it 's none of those . It 's that the meeting is in July so they {disfmarker} so DARPA just said do an annual report . So . So . So anyway , I 'll be putting together stuff . I 'll do it , uh , you know , as much as I can without bothering people , just by looking at {disfmarker} at papers and status reports . I mean , the status reports you do are very helpful . +PhD H: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , so I can grab stuff there . And if , uh {disfmarker} if I have some questions I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad F: When we remember to fill them out . +Professor B: Yeah . If {pause} people could do it as soon as {disfmarker} as you can , if you haven't done one si recently . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , but , you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure before {pause} it 's all done , I 'll end up bugging people for {disfmarker} for more clarification about stuff . Um . {vocalsound} But , um , I don't know , I guess {disfmarker} I guess I know pretty much what people have been doing . We have these meetings and {disfmarker} and there 's the status reports . Uh . But , um . Um . Yeah . So that wasn't a long one . Just to tell you that . And if something {vocalsound} hasn't , uh {disfmarker} I 'll be talking to her late tomorrow afternoon , and if something hasn't been in a status report and you think it 's important thing to mention on {vocalsound} this kind of thing , uh , uh , just pop me a one - liner and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll have it in front of me for the phone conversation . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: Uh . I guess , uh , you you 're still pecking away at the {pause} demos and all that , probably . +Grad F: Yep . And Don is {pause} gonna be helping out with that . +Professor B: Oh , that 's right . +Grad F: So . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Did you wanna talk about that this afternoon ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad F: Not here , but later today ? +Grad D: We should probably talk off - line about when we 're gonna talk off - line . +Grad F: OK . OK . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , I might want to get updated about it in about a week cuz , um , I 'm actually gonna have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a few days off the following week , a after the {disfmarker} after the picnic . So . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's all I had . +Grad F: So we were gonna do sort of status of speech transcription {disfmarker} automatic transcription , but we 're kind of running late . So . +PhD E: How long does it take you to save the data ? +Grad F: Fifteen minutes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . If you wanna do a quick +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: ten minute {disfmarker} +PhD E: Guess we should stop , like , twenty of at the latest . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: We {disfmarker} we have another meeting coming in that they wanna record . +Professor B: And there 's the digits to do . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: So maybe {disfmarker} may maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Well , we can skip the digits . +Professor B: We could . Fi - five minute report or something . +PhD E: It 's up to you . I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Whatever you want . +Professor B: Well , I would love to hear about it , +Grad F: What do you have to say ? +Professor B: especially since {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'm interested , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I 'm gonna be on the phone tomorrow , so this is just a {pause} good example of {pause} the sort of thing I 'd like to {pause} hear about . +PhD E: Wait . Why is everybody looking at me ? +PhD C: I don't know . +Grad F: Sorry . +Professor B: Cuz he looked at you +PhD H: What ? +Professor B: and says you 're sketching . +PhD E: Uh . I 'm not sure what you were referring to . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} actually , I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} ? Are we supposed to have done something ? +Grad F: No . We were just talking before about alternating the subject of the meeting . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: And this week we were gonna try to do {pause} t automatic transcription {pause} status . +PhD H: Alternating . +PhD E: I wasn't here last week . Sorry . +PhD H: Oh ! +PhD E: Oh . +Grad F: But we sort of failed . +PhD H: We did that last week . Right ? +PhD E: Hhh . +Grad F: No . +Professor B: I thought we did . +Grad F: Did we ? OK . +PhD H: Yeah . We did . +Grad F: OK . So now {disfmarker} now we have the schedule . So next week we 'll do automatic transcription status , plus anything that 's real timely . +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: Oh . OK . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK . Whew ! +PhD C: Good update . +Grad F: Whew ! +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} +Grad F: Dodged that bullet . +Professor B: Yeah . Nicely done , Liz . +Postdoc A: A woman of few words . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but lots of prosody . OK . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad F: Th +PhD H: Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} we really haven't done anything . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD H: Sorry . +Postdoc A: Well , since last week . +PhD E: Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} +PhD H: I mean , the {disfmarker} the next thing on our agenda is to go back and look at the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the automatic alignments because , uh , I got some {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I learned from Thilo what data we can use as a benchmark to see how well we 're doing on automatic alignments of the background speech {disfmarker} or , of the foreground speech with background speech . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD H: So . +PhD E: And then , uh , I guess , the new data that Don will start to process {disfmarker} +PhD H: But , we haven't actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the , um {disfmarker} when he can get these {disfmarker} You know , before we were working with these segments that were all synchronous and that caused a lot of problems +PhD H: Mmm . +PhD E: because you have timed sp at {disfmarker} on either side . +Grad F: Oh . Right , right . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And so that 's sort of a stage - two of trying the same kinds of alignments with the tighter boundaries with them is really the next step . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I 'll be interested . +PhD E: We did get our , um {disfmarker} I guess , good news . We got our abstract accepted for this conference , um {disfmarker} workshop , ISCA workshop , in , um , uh , New Jersey . And we sent in a very poor abstract , but they {disfmarker} very poor , very quick . Um , but we 're hoping to have a paper for that as well , which should be an interesting {disfmarker} +Grad F: When 's it due ? +PhD E: The t paper isn't due until August . The abstracts were already due . So it 's that kind of workshop . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But , I mean , the good news is that that will have sort of the European experts in prosody {disfmarker} sort of a different crowd , and I think we 're the only people working on prosody in meetings so far , so that should be interesting . +Postdoc A: What 's the name of the meeting ? +PhD E: Uh , it 's ISCA Workshop on Prosody in Speech Recognition and Understanding , or something like that {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's called Prosody to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Good . +PhD E: some generic {disfmarker} Uh , so it 's focused on using prosody in automatic systems and there 's a {disfmarker} um , a web page for it . +Professor B: Y you going to , uh , Eurospeech ? Yeah . +Grad F: I don't have a paper +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: but I 'd kinda like to go , if I could . Is that alright ? +Professor B: We 'll discuss it . +Grad F: OK . {vocalsound} I guess that 's "" no "" . +Professor B: My {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my car {disfmarker} my car needs a good wash , by the way . +Grad F: OK . Well , that th Hey , if that 's what it takes , that 's fine with me . +Professor B: Um . +Grad F: I 'll pick up your dry - cleaning , too . Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD H: Can I go next ? Because I have to leave , actually . +Grad F: Yep . Go for it . Hmm ! Thanks . Thank you . +Professor B: So you get to be the one who has all the paper rustling . Right ? +","In a recent meeting involving various members of an academic research group, including graduate students, postdocs, PhDs, and a professor, discussions centered around specific technical and administrative matters. The meeting opened with a casual inquiry by PhD C into the particulars of a microphone being used by Jeremy, leading to a brief dialogue on the nature of the ear-plug microphone, which was identified as wired, not wireless. + +The conversation then moved on to practical matters of the group, with Grad F explaining that the agenda items for the meeting were scant, having only two points to discuss, one of which had just been added. The first agenda item related to the administrative handling of consent forms and the opportunity for individuals to request changes or removals from the records before a certain deadline, in this case, July 15th. The discussion revealed confusion over the significance of this date, with various members chipping in to clarify its relation to the release date of certain data sets. The group agreed on the importance of communicating these deadlines and obtaining people's explicit permission. + +Attention shifted towards the completion of administrative paperwork and the requirements for consent, with Professor B suggesting a follow-up reminder to participants regarding the opportunity to review transcripts. Grad F highlighted the forms that had already been signed, which the group had previously discussed, while others expressed concern over ensuring that people were aware and responsive within the given timeframe. + +The ensuing dialogue touched upon the technicalities of handling the transcription process, including methods for handling uncertain transcriptions and the potential impact these might have on both research and participant approval. Postdoc A introduced the issue of securing accurate transcription data, sharing specific examples of corrections made during the checking process. Challenges such as terminology, accents, and foreign language insertions were highlighted as areas requiring careful attention. + +Grad D brought up a concern about disk space, which had been previously offered but now needed due to upcoming experiments and the arrival of a new team member. The discussion concluded with Professor B reminding the group that they were in the process of acquiring additional storage capacity to accommodate their needs. + +The meeting continued with a review of recent progress made in speech transcription and recognition by the research group. PhD E mentioned the acceptance of an abstract at an upcoming workshop on prosody in speech recognition and understanding. The unique focus on utilizing prosody in automatic systems within meeting data provided an interesting avenue for them to contribute to the field. + +Though the meeting appeared somewhat disorganized and had technical discussions interlaced with administrative concerns, it exemplified a typical academic research group's efforts to coordinate among various tasks and responsibilities. The participants juggled between technical topics like microphone types, transcription challenges, and research updates, alongside administrative necessities like consent acquisition, data releases, and the management of physical resources such as disk space. + +Overall, despite the unstructured nature of the meeting, it shed light on the diverse and often intricate blend of discussions integral for the smooth operation and progress of research within academic settings." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , well I think we're ready to begin . Right , my name's Adam Duguid , we're here because of real reaction , um , we have in the group +Marketing: Oh , Ebenezer Ademesoye . Would you like me to spell that ? +Project Manager: Um , yeah , +Marketing: S +Project Manager: go for it mate . +Marketing: Um , N_E_Z_ +Project Manager: N_ E_ Z_ . +Marketing: E_R_ . +Project Manager: Ebenezer . And your role is ? +Marketing: I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: You're the Marketing Expert , okay . Next we have ? +Industrial Designer: Tarik Rahman . T_A_R_I_K_ . +Project Manager: T_ R_ I_ K_ . And your role in this is ? +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . And , lastly we have ? +User Interface: Uh , Dave Cochrane . +Project Manager: And you're going to be the User Interface , +User Interface: User Interface Defin Designer , yes . +Project Manager: is it ? Designer . Okay . Right . This is the agenda for today's meeting . As you can see , w opening , acquaintance , tool training , project plan discussion , and closing . Um , we already got n through opening , and partially through acquaintance . So , the reason we're here , we're gonna design a new remote control , as you probably all know . The very broad overview is original , trendy , and user-friendly . Course , we'll have to go into a bit more um detail than that , but uh {vocalsound} personally I think that the original is gonna be a very key aspect to this design . Um , there's a lot of remote controls out there anyway , so we're gonna need something that's really gonna set it apart . This is how today seems to be going to work . We're gonna have the three kay phases , as you've probably already been told , the functional , architectural , and the detailed design . Um {disfmarker} First one's gonna be covering the user requirement spec , technical functions , working design . Second seems to be conceptual components , properties , materials , and the last one is a detailed analysis of our design so far . Of course , you've all got the similar emails , I believe , right . {vocalsound} What can I say ? Ebenezer , you wanna have a {disfmarker} you wanna draw your favourite animal {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Whiteboard . 'Kay . S okay . I will make this quick , since we don't have much time . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} 'Kay , so it's not the best picture in the world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here we have an elephant . First point , begins with an E_ , same like Ebenezer . Also , elephants have a very good memory , much like myself , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I can't remember back when I used to live back in Nigeria , but I think I used to have a pet elephant . So elephants are big , strong and gentle , and they have great memories , and they begin with the letter E_ , just like Ebenezer . +Project Manager: Brilliantly done . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Tarik , would you like to have a shot at a bit of artistry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh , um , +Marketing: Oh . Oh {vocalsound} oh +Project Manager: you can clip them to your belt . +Industrial Designer: Do we take them off ? +Marketing: I think you ga +Industrial Designer: Oh right , +Project Manager: You should also l um have your {disfmarker} the lapel mic on as well . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: The little {disfmarker} The the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha . +Marketing: Oh that's good , we can clip them on . Okay . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now where do I put the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just um somewhere {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , the {gap} , it's just across there , that's it . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Is this supposed to be clipped as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: It'll follow you if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . There you go . +Project Manager: You can probably just stick it in your pocket for now , I wouldn't worry too much . Should have good range . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , destroying your elephant here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , here we have a tiger . Uh {disfmarker} I've always loved tigers . They're just {disfmarker} they're big , they're biggest cats , uh I did a project on cats in the wild when I was a kid and uh it was my favourite cat , just 'cause it was {disfmarker} looks the best , the stripes , orange . My dad used to talk about {disfmarker} he's from Bangladesh so he used to tell me all about them when he was {disfmarker} when I was a kid . And uh they're just the most feared of of uh animals in the wild . So uh that's why I like them . Didn't say an anything about me really but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent , thank you very much . Dave , if you'd like to uh have a dash . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , the monkey , um . The one f uh {disfmarker} in fact this is a {gap} somewhat oblique reference in fact to uh {disfmarker} well my {disfmarker} I have a three uh three y year old daughter who h who who who is affectionately known as Miss Monkey . Um , monkeys have attitude . Which I think is a good thing . And I mean fr {vocalsound} and from uh from the point of view of sort of the study of human evolution they and other primates are terribly interesting . Um , so I like monkeys . And and th th th th thi thi this one seems to have perhaps more attitude than most . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cheers . Hardly what I'd call the best drawing in the world but it'll do for now . Also not quite as feared as your average tiger , but uh cats are one of my favourite animals , they're very independent , they're snotty as hell at the best of times , and uh , what can you say , you got to love those qualities in an animal . Right . I think we've all managed to master the whiteboard there by looks of it , so , on to it . Project finance . As you can see , twelve point five Euros per unit . That's not a terrible lot as far as I'm aware , and we're hoping to sell them for twenty five . If we're aiming for fifty million Euros we're gonna have to be selling an awful lot of them . +Marketing: Oh , that was profiting , that was an amount , so that's the amount made , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: Well , fifty million , and if you're making twelve point five Euros on each one , then , awful lot need to be sold . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Now we better actually just get on with the uh the meat of the project . So I'm gonna guess that we've all used remote controls . Any ideas of where you think a new remote control could go into this market ? +User Interface: Well , one thing I'm aware of is , th there uh um at the sort of v very high price end of the market there's there's a em emerging market for sort of touch screen L_C_D_ remotes that can be uh programmed in m much more sophisticated ways than sort of conventional models , so you get the sort of you get um you {vocalsound} you can redesign the interface to your own needs , you can programme in macros , and you get a much greater degree um um I mean you get in these sort of {vocalsound} three in one , five in one , whatevers , but you can get integration between the different uh the the the diff the different things that it's designed to control , to a much greater extent , and you can have one uh you know one macro to turn the uh you know turn the T_V_ to the right channel , get the uh re uh rewind the tape in the V_C_R_ and get it to play once it's rewound , for instance . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um b it occurs to me there might be a niche for uh for a remote that aimed towards some of that sort of functionality but using a just conventional push button design . And therefore putting it into a um well much lower price bracket . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , tha that's true , with the price range we're looking at , going for a touch screen would probably be possibly out of our {disfmarker} +User Interface: Absolutely prohibitive , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But you think uh again something to control multiple units in uh a simple fashion . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean I wouldn't like to say you g {vocalsound} I mean you get ones that you can switch between multiple units , but something that could um operate between multiple units in a more integrated fashion . Some {gap} and ideally something into which it would have some at least limited facility for {vocalsound} um running macros . +Project Manager: Would the the idea something along the lines of , one on button would turn on say the video recorder , the T_V_ , maybe the sound system as well , all in one go , is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance , um let's say oh oh um , or um you know you pr uh you press uh say the play button for the D_V_D_ player and it turns the T_V_ on and onto the right channel as well , um +Project Manager: Okay , that sounds like a a good strong idea . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Any takes on this ? +Marketing: Well um I've noticed that uh gaming c is becoming quite popular with television , um when I was younger we used to e play games using our cable , using the cable subscribed the cable providers , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but our remote controls would get worn out really easily , and {vocalsound} the remote control was not a great kind of keyboar , um keypad , for playing games . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So perhaps one that was more um specialised for game playing or interactive television . They they've recently brought out this new remote control , for people to set their favourite channels , or um to record things . Instead of people entering in what time things start , you simply stri slide a bar to say what time it begins , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and slide another bar to say what time it ends , you know that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I've heard {disfmarker} I've seen the bar-code design before , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's taken out the {disfmarker} Y you don't have to be uh really clever to use a remote control . I think for gaming , you know you want you want some big buttons for up , down , left and right , shoot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , you wanna be able to change angles in interactive television , so you need buttons to change the television angle , the camera angles and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: we're beginning to run out of time now , so , we've got a couple of ideas , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} we'll have to work fast , um , alright as you can see we've got thirty minutes until the next meeting , so {vocalsound} we'll have to try and decide on some of the basic functionality , um , how the user interface might work , that'll be a key aspect especially if the idea of um some kind of macros facility because you have to program it , you have to have a lot of response back , or at least some kind . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And we're gonna maybe n try and have to figure out +Marketing: What the user wants uh . +Project Manager: what the user wants , yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , right . Has anybody got anything they'd like to add at this stage , anything they think that might have been missed so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well when you're talking about gaming and stuff , do you think they should have some sort of stick on it , rather than buttons ? +Marketing: Oh . Okay , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Like uh control pads , you know of games , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or is that a bit ridiculous ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I don't see why not , almost everybody is probably used to a console by now , and all of them incorporate small keypads on them , in fact even the mobile phones these days are beginning to use them as well , so it's probably an interface that most people are used to . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that could allow n easy navigation , used as a joystick as well . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . The other key feature that uh that would be a good idea built into it is t is is to make something you know fairly sort of ergonomic , something that just fits {vocalsound} fits as comfortably as possible into the hand . But of course , uh al al also allows for {gap} the possibility of a more sort of slightly unconventional or attractive uh sha shape for it overall , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So , +User Interface: A curve , +Project Manager: small , stylish , and something that's just a little different . +User Interface: mm-hmm . Something sort of sort of sl slightly sort of biomorphic in form , {vocalsound} uh which it would need to be to sort of conform to the shape of the hand more efficiently anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . That's definitely something that we should be able to do quite easily . I would I would have hoped so anyway . Um , right . I'd say we finish this one up , we get started , I'll get in , I'll write up what we've um kind of quickly done , and I'll get that out to everybody . Yeah ? +Marketing: 'Kay . So . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um , as far as I'm aware we leave the microphones here , um unless we get told otherwise , and just take the laptops with us . +","Adam Duguid, the Project Manager, leads a meeting to design a new remote control. Participants include Ebenezer Ademesoye (Marketing Expert), Tarik Rahman (Industrial Designer), and Dave Cochrane (User Interface Designer). The team discusses the project's goals, which include creating an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. They outline the three key phases of the project (functional, architectural, and detailed design) and review the agenda, which covers topics like tool training and project plan discussions. The conversation moves on to the project's finances, aiming for a cost of 12.5 Euros per unit with a selling price of 25 Euros to reach a goal of 50 million Euros. + +During the brainstorming session, Dave suggests a lower-cost remote with sophisticated functionality like integrated control of multiple devices and the possibility of programming macros. Ebenezer proposes a design catering to the gaming market - remotes that are durable and have a user-friendly interface for playing games. The discussion then touches on the importance of ergonomic design and the potential inclusion of a joystick for gaming. + +As they're running out of time, the team agrees to focus on basic functionality and the user interface, with a particular emphasis on programming capabilities and ergonomic design to appeal to the gaming market. They decide to expedite their decisions to meet deadlines and plan for Adam to summarize the meeting outcomes and distribute them to the team. The meeting closes with logistical arrangements regarding the microphones and laptops." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We’re very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it’s important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it’s really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs. +Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development? +Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time. +Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it’s probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do. +Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government’s approach 'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.' And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it’s absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it’s grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it’s eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things. +Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said: 'We can't say yet what we're going to do'? +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had—. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon. +Hefin David AM: Before Christmas? +Julie Morgan AM: I hope so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually—. We need to—. +Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Siân. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work? +Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder—? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in 'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire—and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven—who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded. +Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in—I think it was—February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter.] +Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter.] +Julie Morgan AM: Very significant. +Hefin David AM: In your report, the 'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that 'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about £81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within 'Prosperity for All' and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change. +Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and,for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities' role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase? +Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so,in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that—we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources—the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group? +Julie Morgan AM: It is demand— +Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible.]—because the offer is targeted at working parents— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes. +Nicola Edwards: —obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Nicola Edwards: Right, okay. +Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Môn was nearly 90 per cent or something— +Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding. +Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand. +Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower—in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that? +Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured? +Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to— +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any  case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities' Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on? +Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic. +Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps—we see this quite a lot in the office—quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only? +Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes—. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful. +Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information. +Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture. +Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody—so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare. +Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to—. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand? +Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of £50 million to £55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of £40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Môn, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots. +Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about 'on the cusp' of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what 'on the cusp' of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what 'on the cusp of returning to work' is—what that means from your perspective—and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments—that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the— +Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said—the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education—and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies—who are—the letters may have come in from some of your constituents—not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on 'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently—those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the—? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression 'on the cusp of work' we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly— +Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question— +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Siân. Sorry, Dawn. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work? +Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that? +Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think 'secured' is probably a slightly premature phrase. +Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years. +Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful. +Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process— +Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously. +Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents? +Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about? +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families. +Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference? +Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of £5.6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another—. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place. +Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022. +Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know—. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of— +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that— +Dawn Bowden AM: —what would happen beyond that. +Julie Morgan AM: —funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath. +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money—£1 million, I understand—has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC? +Julie Morgan AM: +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation. +Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was— +Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know—. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of—. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail—going through HMRC would put limits on that. +Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties— +Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good. +Julie Morgan AM: But there are—. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this? +Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called 'special characters' in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there— +Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was—. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that. +Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it—. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC—if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that—and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this—the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that—that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option—and this is only going back a few months—because it will remove—and this is quoting them— 'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'— blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know—. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence—we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases—I certainly have—where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local—. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose. +Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag? +Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about £2.5 million. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure—that's fine. +Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things? +Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân, do you want to ask about the Welsh language? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've—. I'm happy with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really—? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened. +Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem. +Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems. +Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning? +Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers' standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea? +Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment? +Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area. +Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great—very successful. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that: 'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government’s work on the Early Years system.' That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension— +Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system— +Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more—. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it. +Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that—unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children—on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five—that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas—I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that—? Do you know the actual percentage? +Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but— +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty.FootnoteLink +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is—basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter.] +Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second—oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course—in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can’t prove it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we’ve been working with the SAIL—secure anonymised information linkage—and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children’s progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions. +Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we’re thinking of doing with Flying Start—. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we’re looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities—we talked about that earlier—so, that’s where we’re going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that’s what we’re looking at. And we’re looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no—we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected? +Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we’ve taken to evaluation in Flying Start—. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you’re familiar with the work that, as I say, we’ve been doing with SAIL. We’re currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We’ve been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child’s chances have improved primarily because they’re getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There’s got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference. +Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky—in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so— +Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do. +Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me—yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition—taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire? +Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year— +Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you? +Julie Morgan AM: —and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to—well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that— +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago. +Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that. +Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for—. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries—it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided? +Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course—we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really. +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment. +Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting—again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful. +Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3. +Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure. +Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","The conversation is a transcript from a scrutiny session held by the Children, Young People and Education Committee, where they discussed early childhood education and care. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting, with Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, along with Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty, and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play, and early years division in Welsh Government, attending as witnesses. + +Hefin David AM initially questioned the Deputy Minister about the primary objectives of early childhood education and care - whether it was focused on supporting child development or getting parents into work. Julie Morgan clarified that the government aimed to support both, noting the importance of early years for children and stable jobs for parents. She mentioned the childcare system's role in employment and plans to simplify the complex system, including looking into funding provision and connecting services from birth to school. + +The discussion covered the Welsh Government's approach to streamline the variety of existing programmes that support parents, families, and children, the exploration of different methods to simplify support systems, and the prospect of co-location of childcare and education facilities. Jo-Anne Daniels elaborated on the Welsh Government's priorities and the ongoing pathfinder projects aimed at integrating services provided by health boards and local authorities. + +Julie Morgan discussed the childcare offer, explaining the government's intention to possibly include parents in education and training. She also addressed the concern of funding for the expansion of the childcare offer and affirmed that sufficient funds will be provided. + +The Deputy Minister responded to questions around the cessation of collaboration with HMRC for childcare funding, stating that HMRC's IT system would have restricted the flexibility needed for the Welsh childcare offer, especially for expanding to include education, training, and special cases. The Welsh Government intends to work with local authorities for a system better suited to their needs. + +Julie Morgan discussed the Flying Start programme, its success, and limitations due to budget constraints, considering an expansion through pathfinder projects that could extend benefits to more children. + +The committee asked detailed questions about the data collection in Flying Start areas, the impact of the programme on childhood development, and ways to improve parental engagement with the courses it offers. Furthermore, the conversation touched on the financial aspects of this programme and the future of these initiatives post-Brexit. + +To conclude, the committee members acknowledged the receipt of a letter regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 and resolved to continue the meeting in private." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Hey , you 're not supposed to be drinking in here dude . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Do we have to read them that slowly ? OK . Sounded like a robot . Um , this is t +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: When you read the numbers it kind of reminded me of beat poetry . +Grad D: I tried to go for the EE Cummings sort of feeling , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Three three six zero zero . Four two zero zero one seven . That 's what I think of when I think of beat poetry . +Grad C: Beat poetry . +Grad A: You ever seen "" So I married an axe murderer "" ? +Grad C: Uh parts of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: There 's a part wh there 's parts when he 's doing beat poetry . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad A: And he talks like that . That 's why I thi That uh probably is why I think of it that way . +Grad D: Hmm . No , I didn't see that movie . Who did {disfmarker} who made that ? +Grad A: Mike Meyers is the guy . +Grad D: Oh . OK . +Grad A: It - it 's his uh {disfmarker} it 's his cute romantic comedy . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That 's his cute romantic comedy , yeah . The other thing that 's real funny , I 'll spoil it for you . is when he 's {disfmarker} he works in a coffee shop , in San Francisco , and uh he 's sitting there on this couch and they bring him this massive cup of espresso , and he 's like "" excuse me I ordered the large espresso ? "" +Grad D: Uh . We 're having , {vocalsound} a tiramisu tasting contest this weekend . +Grad A: Wait {disfmarker} do are y So you 're trying to decide who 's the best taster of tiramisu ? +Grad D: No ? Um . There was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fierce argument that broke out over whose tiramisu might be the best and so we decided to have a contest where those people who claim to make good tiramisu make them , +Grad A: Ah . +Grad D: and then we got a panel of impartial judges that will taste {disfmarker} do a blind taste {vocalsound} and then vote . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Should be fun . +Grad A: Seems like {disfmarker} Seems like you could put a s magic special ingredient in , so that everyone know which one was yours . Then , if you were to bribe them , you could uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , I was thinking if um {disfmarker} y you guys have plans for Sunday ? We 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} it 's probably going to be this Sunday , but um we 're sort of working with the weather here because we also want to combine it with some barbecue activity where we just fire it up and what {disfmarker} whoever brings whatever you know , can throw it on there . So only the tiramisu is free , nothing else . +Grad A: Well , I 'm going back to visit my parents this weekend , so , I 'll be out of town . +Grad D: So you 're going to the west Bay then ? No , +Grad A: No , the South Bay , +Grad D: south Bay ? +Grad A: yeah . +Grad D: South Bay . +Grad C: Well , I should be free , so . +Grad D: OK , I 'll let you know . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: We are . Is Nancy s uh gonna show up ? Mmm . Wonder if these things ever emit a very , like , piercing screech right in your ear ? +Grad D: They are gonna get more comfortable headsets . They already ordered them . OK . +Grad C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Let 's get started . The uh {disfmarker} Should I go first , with the uh , um , data . Can I have the remote {vocalsound} control . Thank you . OK . So . On Friday we had our wizard test data test and um {vocalsound} these are some of the results . This was the introduction . I actually uh , even though Liz was uh kind enough to offer to be the first subject , I sort of felt that she knew too much , so I asked uh Litonya . just on the spur of the moment , and she was uh kind enough to uh serve as the first subject . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , this is what she saw as part of {disfmarker} as uh for instr introduction , this is what she had to read {pause} aloud . Uh , that was really difficult for her and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Because of l all the names , you mean ? +Grad D: The names and um this was the uh first three tasks she had to {disfmarker} to master after she called the system , and um then of course the system broke down , and those were the l uh uh I should say the system was supposed to break down and then um these were the remaining three tasks that she was going to solve , with a human {disfmarker} Um . There are {disfmarker} here are uh the results . Mmm . And I will not {disfmarker} We will skip the reading now . D Um . And um . The reading was five minutes , exactly . And now comes the {disfmarker} This is the phone - in phase of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wait , can I {disfmarker} I have a question . So . So there 's no system , right ? Like , there was a wizard for both uh {disfmarker} both parts , is this right ? +Grad D: Yeah . It was bo it both times the same person . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: One time , pretending to be a system , one time , to {disfmarker} pretending to be a human , which is actually not pretending . +Grad C: OK . And she didn't {disfmarker} +Grad D: I should {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean . Well . Isn't this kind of obvious when it says "" OK now you 're talking to a human "" and then the human has the same voice ? +Grad D: No no no . We u Wait . OK , good question , but uh you {disfmarker} you just wait and see . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} You 're gonna l learn . And um the wizard sometimes will not be audible , Because she was actually {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} there was some uh lapse in the um wireless , we have to move her closer . +Grad A: Is she mispronouncing "" Anlage "" ? Is it "" Anlaga "" or "" Anlunga "" +Grad D: They 're mispronouncing everything , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: but it 's {disfmarker} This is the system breaking down , actually . "" Did I call Europe ? "" So , this is it . Well , if we {disfmarker} we um +Professor B: So , are {disfmarker} are you trying to record this meeting ? +Grad D: There was a strange reflex . I have a headache . I 'm really sort of out of it . OK , the uh lessons learned . The reading needs to be shorter . Five minutes is just too long . Um , that was already anticipated by some people suggested that if we just have bullets here , they 're gonna not {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} subjects are probably not gonna {disfmarker} going to follow the order . And uh she did not . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad D: She {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: Oh , it 's surprising . +Grad D: She {disfmarker} she jumped around quite a bit . +Professor B: S so if you just number them "" one "" , "" two "" , "" three "" it 's +Grad D: Yeah , and make it sort of clear in the uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . Right . +Grad D: Um . We need to {disfmarker} So that 's one thing . And we need a better introduction for the wizard . That is something that Fey actually thought of a {disfmarker} in the last second that sh the system should introduce itself , when it 's called . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: And um , um , another suggestion , by Liz , was that we uh , through subjects , switch the tasks . So when {disfmarker} when they have task - one with the computer , the next person should have task - one with a human , and so forth . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So we get nice um data for that . Um , we have to refine the tasks more and more , which of course we haven't done at all , so far , in order to avoid this rephrasing , so where , even though w we don't tell the person "" ask {pause} blah - blah - blah - blah - blah "" they still try , or at least Litonya tried to um repeat as much of that text as possible . +Grad C: Say exactly what 's on there ? Yeah . +Grad D: And uh my suggestion is of course we {disfmarker} we keep the wizard , because I think she did a wonderful job , +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: in the sense that she responded quite nicely to things that were not asked for , "" How much is a t a bus ticket and a transfer "" so this is gonna happen all the time , we d you can never be sure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . Johno pointed out that uh we have maybe a grammatical gender problem there with wizard . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad D: So um . +Grad A: I wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't sure whether wizard was the correct term for {pause} uh "" not a man "" . +Grad C: There 's no female equivalent of {disfmarker} +Grad D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are you sure ? +Grad C: No , I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Not that I know of . +Grad D: Well , there is witch and warlock , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's so @ @ . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: and uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Uh . +Grad D: OK . And um {disfmarker} So , some {disfmarker} some work needs to be done , but I think we can uh {disfmarker} And this , and {disfmarker} in case no {disfmarker} you hadn't seen it , this is what Litonya looked at during the uh {disfmarker} um while taking the {disfmarker} while partaking in the data collection . +Grad C: Ah . +Professor B: OK , great . So {pause} first of all , I agree that um we should hire Fey , and start paying her . Probably pay for the time she 's put in as well . Um , do you know exactly how to do that , or is uh Lila {disfmarker} I mean , you know what exactly do we do to {disfmarker} to put her on the payroll in some way ? +Grad D: I 'm completely clueless , but I 'm willing to learn . +Professor B: OK . Well , you 'll have to . Right . So anyway , um +Grad D: N +Professor B: So why don't you uh ask Lila and see what she says about you know exactly what we do for someone in th +Grad D: Student - type worker , +Professor B: Well , yeah she 's un she 's not a {disfmarker} a student , +Grad D: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: she just graduated but anyway . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor B: So i if {disfmarker} Yeah , I agree , she sounded fine , she a actually was {pause} uh , more uh , present and stuff than {disfmarker} than she was in conversation , so she did a better job than I would have guessed from just talking to her . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I think that 's great . +Grad D: This is sort of what I gave her , so this is for example h how to get to the student prison , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: and I didn't even spell it out here and in some cases I {disfmarker} I spelled it out a little bit um more thoroughly , +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: this is the information on {disfmarker} on the low sunken castle , and the amphitheater that never came up , and um , so i if we give her even more um , instruments to work with I think the results are gonna be even better . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , and then of course as she does it she 'll {disfmarker} she 'll learn @ @ . So that 's great . Um {pause} And also if she 's willing to take on the job of organizing all those subjects and stuff that would be wonderful . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh she 's {disfmarker} actually she 's going to graduate school in a kind of an experimental paradigm , so I think this is all just fine in terms of h her learning things she 's gonna need to know uh , to do her career . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I {disfmarker} my guess is she 'll be r r quite happy to take on that job . And , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yep . Yeah she {disfmarker} she didn't explicitly state that so . +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: And um I told her that we gonna um figure out a meeting time in the near future to refine the tasks and s look for the potential sources to find people . She also agrees that you know if it 's all just gonna be students the data is gonna be less valuable because of that so . +Professor B: Well , as I say there is this s set of people next door , it 's not hard to +Grad D: We 're already {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: However , we may run into a problem with a reading task there . And um , we 'll see . +Professor B: Yeah . We could talk to the people who run it and um see if they have a way that they could easily uh tell people that there 's a task , pays ten bucks or something , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but um you have to be comfortable reading relatively complicated stuff . And {disfmarker} and there 'll probably be self - selection to some extent . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor B: Uh , so that 's good . Um . Now , {pause} I signed us up for the Wednesday slot , and part of what we should do is this . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So , my idea on that was {pause} uh , partly we 'll talk about system stuff for the computer scientists , but partly I did want it to get the linguists involved in some of this issue about what the task is and all {disfmarker} um you know , what the dialogue is , and what 's going on linguistically , because to the extent that we can get them contributing , that will be good . So this issue about you know re - formulating things , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: maybe we can get some of the linguists sufficiently interested that they 'll help us with it , uh , other linguists , if you 're a linguist , but in any case , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um , the linguistics students and stuff . So my idea on {disfmarker} on Wednesday is partly to uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean , what you did today would {disfmarker} i is just fine . You just uh do "" this is what we did , and here 's the {pause} thing , and here 's s some of the dialogue and {disfmarker} and so forth . "" But then , the other thing of course is we should um give the computer scientists some idea of {disfmarker} of what 's going on with the system design , and where we think the belief - nets fit in and where the pieces are and stuff like that . Is {disfmarker} is this {pause} make sense to everybody ? +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it 's worth a lot of work , particularly on your part , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to make a big presentation . I don't think you should {disfmarker} you don't have to make any new {pause} uh PowerPoint or anything . I think we got plenty of stuff to talk about . And , then um just see how a discussion goes . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Sounds good . The uh other two things is um we 've {disfmarker} can have Johno tell us a little about this +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: and we also have a l little bit on the interface , M - three - L enhancement , and then um that was it , I think . +Grad A: So , what I did for this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} uh , a pedagogical belief - net because I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I took {disfmarker} I tried to conceptually do what you were talking about with the nodes that you could expand out {disfmarker} so what I did was I took {disfmarker} I made these dummy nodes called Trajector - In and Trajector - Out that would isolate the things related to the trajector . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And then there were the things with the source and the path and the goal . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And I separated them out . And then I um did similar things for our {disfmarker} our net to {disfmarker} uh with the context and the discourse and whatnot , um , so we could sort of isolate them or whatever in terms of the {disfmarker} the top layer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then the bottom layer is just the Mode . So . +Professor B: So , let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't understand it . Let 's go {disfmarker} Slide all the way up so we see what the p the p very bottom looks like , or is that it ? +Grad A: Yeah , there 's just one more node and it says "" Mode "" which is the decision between the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , great . Alright . +Grad A: So basically all I did was I took the last {pause} belief - net +Professor B: So {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and I grouped things according to what {disfmarker} how I thought they would fit in to uh image schemas that would be related . And the two that I came up with were Trajector - landmark and then Source - path - goal as initial ones . +Professor B: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then I said well , uh the trajector would be the person in this case probably . +Professor B: Right , yep . +Grad A: Um , you know , we have {disfmarker} we have the concept of what their intention was , whether they were trying to tour or do business or whatever , +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: or they were hurried . That 's kind of related to that . And then um in terms of the source , the things {disfmarker} uh the only things that we had on there I believe were whether {disfmarker} Oh actually , I kind of , {disfmarker} I might have added these cuz I don't think we talked too much about the source in the old one but uh whether the {disfmarker} where I 'm currently at is a landmark might have a bearing on whether {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or the "" landmark - iness "" of where I 'm currently at . And "" usefulness "" is basi basically means is that an institutional facility like a town hall or something like that that 's not {disfmarker} something that you 'd visit for tourist 's {disfmarker} tourism 's sake or whatever . "" Travel constraints "" would be something like you know , maybe they said they can {disfmarker} they only wanna take a bus or something like that , right ? And then those are somewhat related to the path , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: so that would determine whether we 'd {disfmarker} could take {disfmarker} we would be telling them to go to the bus stop or versus walking there directly . Um , "" Goal "" . Similar things as the source except they also added whether the entity was closed and whether they have somehow marked that is was the final destination . Um , and then if you go up , Robert , Yeah , so {disfmarker} um , in terms of Context , what we had currently said was whether they were a businessman or a tourist of some other person . Um , Discourse was related to whether they had asked about open hours or whether they asked about where the entrance was or the admission fee , or something along those lines . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Uh , Prosody I don't really {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure what prosody means , in this context , so I just made up you know whether {disfmarker} whether what they say is {disfmarker} or h how they say it is {disfmarker} is that . +Professor B: Right , OK . +Grad A: Um , the Parse would be what verb they chose , and then maybe how they modified it , in the sense of whether they said "" I need to get there quickly "" or whatever . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um , in terms of World Knowledge , this would just basically be like opening and closing times of things , the time of day it is , and whatnot . +Grad D: What 's "" tourbook "" ? +Grad A: Tourbook ? That would be , I don't know , the "" landmark - iness "" of things , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: whether it 's in the tourbook or not . +Professor B: Ch - ch - ch - ch . Now . Alright , so I understand what 's {disfmarker} what you got . I don't yet understand {pause} how you would use it . So let me see if I can ask +Grad A: Well , this is not a working Bayes - net . +Professor B: a s Right . No , I understand that , but {disfmarker} but um So , what {disfmarker} Let 's slide back up again and see {disfmarker} start at the {disfmarker} at the bottom and Oop - bo - doop - boop - boop . Yeah . So , you could imagine w Uh , go ahead , you were about to go up there and point to something . +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} OK , I just {disfmarker} Say what you were gonna say . +Professor B: Good , do it ! +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: No no , go do it . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} No , I was gonna wait until {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . So , so if you {disfmarker} if we made {disfmarker} if we wanted to make it into a {disfmarker} a real uh Bayes - net , that is , you know , with fill {disfmarker} you know , actually f uh , fill it @ @ in , then uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'd have to get rid of this and connect these things directly to the Mode . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} That 's an issue . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cuz I don't understand how it would work otherwise . +Professor B: Well , here 's the problem . And {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} Bhaskara and I was talking about this a little earlier today {disfmarker} is , if we just do this , we could wind up with a huge uh , combinatoric input to the Mode thing . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} oh yeah , I unders I understand that , I just {disfmarker} uh it 's hard for me to imagine how he could get around that . +Professor B: Well , i But that 's what we have to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: OK , so , so , uh . There {disfmarker} there are a variety of ways of doing it . Uh . Let me just mention something that I don't want to pursue today which is there are technical ways of doing it , uh I I slipped a paper to Bhaskara and {disfmarker} about Noisy - OR 's and Noisy - MAXes and there 're ways to uh sort of back off on the purity of your Bayes - net - edness . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so . If you co you could ima and I now I don't know that any of those actually apply in this case , but there is some technology you could try to apply . +Grad A: So it 's possible that we could do something like a summary node of some sort that {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And , um So . +Grad A: So in that case , the sum we 'd have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} I mean , these wouldn't be the summary nodes . We 'd have the summary nodes like where the things were {disfmarker} I guess maybe if thi if things were related to business or some other {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So what I was gonna say is {disfmarker} is maybe a good at this point is to try to informally {disfmarker} I mean , not necessarily in th in this meeting , but to try to informally think about what the decision variables are . So , if you have some bottom line uh decision about which mode , you know , what are the most relevant things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the other trick , which is not a technical trick , it 's kind of a knowledge engineering trick , is to make the n {pause} each node sufficiently narrow that you don't get this combinatorics . So that if you decided that you could characterize the decision as a trade - off between three factors , whatever they may be , OK ? then you could say "" Aha , let 's have these three factors "" , OK ? and maybe a binary version f for each , or some relatively compact decision node just above the final one . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And then the question would be if {disfmarker} if those are the things that you care about , uh can you make a relatively compact way of getting from the various inputs to the things you care about . So that y so that , you know , you can sort of try to do a knowledge engineering thing +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: given that we 're not gonna screw with the technology and just always use uh sort of orthodox Bayes - nets , then we have a knowledge engineering little problem of how do we do that . Um and +Grad A: So what I kind of need to do is to take this one and the old one and merge them together ? +Professor B: "" Eh - eh - eh . "" Yeah . +Grad A: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , mmm , something . I mean , so uh , Robert has thought about this problem f for a long time , cuz he 's had these examples kicking around , so he may have some good intuition about you know , what are the crucial things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: and , um , I understand where this {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} this is a way of playing with this abs Source - path - goal trajector exp uh uh abstraction and {disfmarker} and sort of sh displaying it in a particular way . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I don't think our friends uh on Wednesday are going to be able to {disfmarker} Well , maybe they will . Well , let me think about whether {disfmarker} whether I think we can present this to them or not . Um , Uh , +Grad D: Well , I think this is still , I mean , ad - hoc . This is sort of th the second {vocalsound} version and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} look at this maybe just as a , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} whatever , UML diagram or , you know , as just a uh screen shot , not really as a Bayes - net as John {disfmarker} Johno said . +Grad A: We could actually , y yeah draw it in a different way , in the sense that it would make it more abstract . +Grad D: Yeah . But the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the nice thing is that you know , it just is a {disfmarker} is a visual aid for thinking about these things which has comple clearly have to be specified m more carefully +Professor B: Alright , well , le let me think about this some more , +Grad D: and uh +Professor B: and uh see if we can find a way to present this to this linguists group that {disfmarker} that is helpful to them . +Grad D: I mean , ultimately we {disfmarker} we may w w we regard this as sort of an exercise in {disfmarker} in thinking about the problem and maybe a first version of uh a module , if you wanna call it that , that you can ask , that you can give input and it it 'll uh throw the dice for you , uh throw the die for you , because um I integrated this into the existing SmartKom system in {disfmarker} in the same way as much the same way we can um sort of have this uh {disfmarker} this thing . Close this down . So if this is what M - three - L um will look like and what it 'll give us , um {disfmarker} And a very simple thing . We have an action that he wants to go from somewhere , which is some type of object , to someplace . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And this {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} this changed now only um , um {disfmarker} It 's doing it twice now because it already did it once . Um , we 'll add some action type , which in this case is "" Approach "" and could be , you know , more refined uh in many ways . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Good . +Grad D: Or we can uh have something where the uh goal is a public place and it will give us then of course an action type of the type "" Enter "" . So this is just based on this one {disfmarker} um , on this one feature , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's about all you can do . And so in the f if this pla if the object type um here is {disfmarker} is a m is a landmark , of course it 'll be um "" Vista "" . And um this is about as much as we can do if we don't w if we want to avoid uh uh a huge combinatorial explosion where we specify "" OK , if it 's this and this but that is not the case "" , and so forth , it just gets really really messy . +Professor B: OK , I 'm sorry . You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: It was much too quick for me . OK , so let me see if I understand what you 're saying . So , I {disfmarker} I do understand that uh you can take the M - three - L and add not {disfmarker} and it w and you need to do this , for sure , we have to add , you know , not too much about um object types and stuff , and what I think you did is add some rules of the style that are already there that say "" If it 's of type "" Landmark "" , then you take {disfmarker} you 're gonna take a picture of it . "" +Grad D: Exactly . +Professor B: F full stop , I mean , that 's what you do . Ev - every landmark you take a picture of , +Grad D: Every public place you enter , and statue you want to go as near as possible . +Professor B: you enter {disfmarker} You approach . OK . Uh , and certainly you can add rules like that to the existing SmartKom system . And you just did , right ? OK . +Grad D: Yeah . And it {disfmarker} it would do us no good . +Professor B: Ah . +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Ultimately . +Professor B: Well . So , s well , and let 's think about this . +Grad D: W +Professor B: Um , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's another kind of baseline case , that 's another sort of thing "" OK , here 's a {disfmarker} another kind of minimal uh way of tackling this "" . Add extra properties , a deterministic rule for every property you have an action , "" pppt ! "" You do that . Um , then the question would be Uh Now , if that 's all you 're doing , then you can get the types from the ontology , OK ? because that 's all {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} all you 're using is this type {disfmarker} the types in the ontology and you 're done . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Right ? So we don't {disfmarker} we don't use the discourse , we don't use the context , we don't do any of those things . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Alright , but that 's {disfmarker} but that 's OK , and I mean it it 's again a kind of one minimal extension of the existing things . And that 's something the uh SmartKom people themselves would {disfmarker} they 'd say "" Sure , that 's no problem {disfmarker} you know , no problem to add types to the ont "" Right ? +Grad D: Yeah . No . And this is {disfmarker} just in order to exemplify what {disfmarker} what we can do very , very easily is , um we have this {disfmarker} this silly uh interface and we have the rules that are as banal as of we just saw , and we have our content . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad D: Now , the content {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} whi which is sort of what {disfmarker} what we see here , which is sort of the Vista , Schema , Source , Path , Goal , whatever . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: This will um be um a job to find ways of writing down Image schema , X - schema , constructions , in some {disfmarker} some form , and have this be in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in the content , loosely called "" Constructicon "" . And the rules we want to throw away completely . And um {disfmarker} and here is exactly where what 's gonna be replaced with our Bayes - net , which is exactly getting the input feeding into here . This decides whether it 's an whether action {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Enter , the Vista , or the whatever +Professor B: Uh , "" approach "" , you called it , I think this time . +Grad D: uh Approach um construction should be activated , IE just pasted in . +Professor B: That 's what you said {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's fine . Yeah , but {disfmarker} Right . But it 's not construction there , it 's action . Construction is a d is a different story . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . This is uh {disfmarker} so what we 'd be generating would be a reference to a semantic uh like parameters for the {disfmarker} for the X - schema ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that uh i if you had the generalized "" Go "" X - schema and you wanted to specialize it to these three ones , then you would have to supply the parameters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: And then uh , although we haven't worried about this yet , you might wanna worry about something that would go to the GIS and use that to actually get you know , detailed route planning . So , you know , where do you do take a picture of it and stuff like that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that 's not {disfmarker} It 's not the immediate problem . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But , presumably that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that functionality 's there when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} +Grad A: So the immediate problem is just deciding w which {disfmarker} +Grad D: Aspects of the X - schema to add . +Professor B: Yeah , so the pro The immediate problem is {disfmarker} is back t t to what you were {disfmarker} what you are doing with the belief - net . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , uh what are we going to use to make this decision {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right and then , once we 've made the decision , how do we put that into the content ? +Professor B: Yeah . Right . Right . Well , that {disfmarker} that actually is relatively easy in this case . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: The harder problem is we decide what we want to use , how are we gonna get it ? And that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the hardest problem . So , the hardest problem is how are you going to get this information from some combination of the {disfmarker} what the person says and the context and the ontology . The h So , I think that 's the hardest problem at the moment is {disfmarker} is +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: where are you gonna {disfmarker} how are you gonna g get this information . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} so , getting back to here , uh , we have a d a technical problem with the belief - nets that we {disfmarker} we don't want all the com +Grad A: There 's just too many factors right now . +Professor B: too many factors if we {disfmarker} if we allow them to just go combinatorially . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: So we wanna think about which ones we really care about and what they really most depend on , and can we c you know , clean this {disfmarker} this up to the point where it {disfmarker} +Grad A: So what we really wanna do i cuz this is really just the three layer net , we wanna b make it {disfmarker} expand it out into more layers basically ? +Professor B: Right . We might . Uh , I mean that {disfmarker} that 's certainly one thing we can do . Uh , it 's true that the way you have this , a lot of the times you have {disfmarker} what you 're having is the values rather than the variable . So uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . So instead of in instead it should really be {disfmarker} just be "" intention "" as a node instead of "" intention business "" or "" intention tour "" . +Professor B: OK ? So you {disfmarker} Yeah , right , and then it would have values , uh , "" Tour "" , "" Business "" , or uh "" Hurried "" . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But then {disfmarker} but i it still some knowledge design to do , about i how do you wanna break this up , what really matters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean , it 's fine . You know , we have to {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's iterative . We 're gonna have to work with it some . +Grad A: I think what was going through my mind when I did it was someone could both have a business intention and a touring intention and the probabilities of both of them happening at the same time {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , you {disfmarker} you could do that . And it 's perfectly OK {pause} to uh insist that {disfmarker} that , you know , th um , they add up to one , but that there 's uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it doesn't have to be one zero zero . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Professor B: OK . So you could have the conditional p So the {disfmarker} each of these things is gonna be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a probability . So whenever there 's a choice , uh {disfmarker} so like landmark - ness and usefulness , +Grad A: Well , see I don't think those would be mutually {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK {disfmarker} +Grad A: it seems like something could both be {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And so that you might want to then have those b Th - Then they may have to be separate . They may not be able to be values of the same variable . +Grad D: Object type , mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} but again , this is {disfmarker} this is the sort of knowledge design you have to go through . Right . It 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's great {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , you know , as one step toward uh {disfmarker} toward where we wanna go . +Grad D: Also it strikes me that we {disfmarker} we m may want to approach the point where we can sort of try to find a {disfmarker} uh , a specification for some interface , here that um takes the normal M - three - L , looks at it . Then we discussed in our pre - edu {disfmarker} EDU meeting um how to ask the ontology , what to ask the ontology um the fact that we can pretend we have one , make a dummy until we get the real one , and so um we {disfmarker} we may wanna decide we can do this from here , but we also could do it um you know if we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a belief - net interface . So the belief - net takes as input , a vector , right ? of stuff . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And um it Output is whatever , as well . But this information is just M - three - L , and then we want to look up some more stuff in the ontology and we want to look up some more stuff in the {disfmarker} maybe we want to ask the real world , maybe you want to look something up in the GRS , but also we definitely want to look up in the dialogue history um some s some stuff . Based on we {disfmarker} we have uh {disfmarker} I was just made some examples from the ontology and so we have for example some information there that the town hall is both a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a building and it has doors and stuff like this , but it is also an institution , so it has a mayor and so forth and so forth and we get relations out of it and once we have them , we can use that information to look in the dialogue history , "" were any of these things that {disfmarker} that are part of the town hall as an institution mentioned ? "" , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: "" were any of these that make the town hall a building mentioned ? "" , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: and so forth , and maybe draw some inferences on that . So this may be a {disfmarker} a sort of a process of two to three steps before we get our vector , that we feed into the belief - net , +Professor B: Yeah . I think that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's exactly right . +Grad D: and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: There will be rules , but they aren't rules that come to final decisions , they 're rules that gather information for a decision process . Yeah , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: no I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's just fine . Uh , yeah . So they 'll {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} presumably there 'll be a thread or process or something that "" Agent "" , yeah , "" Agent "" , whatever you wan wanna say , yeah , that uh is rule - driven , and can {disfmarker} can uh {disfmarker} can do things like that . And um there 's an issue about whether there will be {disfmarker} that 'll be the same agent and the one that then goes off and uh carries out the decision , so it probably will . My guess is it 'll be the same basic agent that um can go off and get information , run it through a {disfmarker} a c this belief - net that {disfmarker} turn a crank in the belief - net , that 'll come out with s uh more {disfmarker} another vector , OK , which can then be uh applied at what we would call the simulation or action end . So you now know what you 're gonna do and that may actually involve getting more information . So on once you pull that out , it could be that that says "" Ah ! Now that we know that we gonna go ask the ontology something else . "" OK ? Now that we know that it 's a bus trip , OK ? we didn't {disfmarker} We didn't need to know beforehand , uh how long the bus trip takes or whatever , but {disfmarker} but now that we know that 's the way it 's coming out then we gotta go find out more . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I think that 's OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . So this is actually , s if {disfmarker} if we were to build something that is um , and , uh , I had one more thing , the {disfmarker} it needs to do {disfmarker} Yeah . I think we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can come up with a {disfmarker} a code for a module that we call the "" cognitive dispatcher "" , which does nothing , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: but it looks of complect object trees and decides how {disfmarker} are there parts missing that need to be filled out , there 's {disfmarker} this is maybe something that this module can do , something that this module can do and then collect uh sub - objects and then recombine them and put them together . So maybe this is actually some {disfmarker} some useful tool that we can use to rewrite it , and uh get this part , +Professor B: Oh , OK . Uh . +Grad D: then . Yeah . +Professor B: I confess , I 'm still not completely comfortable with the overall story . Um . I i This {disfmarker} this is not a complaint , this is a promise to do more work . So I 'm gonna hafta think about it some more . Um . In particular {disfmarker} see what we 'd like to do , and {disfmarker} and this has been implicit in the discussion , is to do this in such a way that you get a lot of re - use . So . What you 're trying to get out of this deep co cognitive linguistics is the fact that w if you know about source {disfmarker} source , paths and goals , and nnn {comment} all this sort of stuff , that a lot of this is the same , for different tasks . And that {disfmarker} uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's some {disfmarker} some important generalities that you 're getting , so that you don't take each and every one of these tasks and hafta re - do it . And I don't yet see how that goes . Alright . +Grad D: There 're no primitives upon which {pause} uh +Professor B: u u What are the primitives , and how do you break this {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah . +Professor B: So I y I 'm just {disfmarker} just there saying eee {comment} well you {disfmarker} I know how to do any individual case , right ? but I don't yet {disfmarker} see what 's the really interesting question is can you use uh deep uh cognitive linguistics to {pause} get powerful generalizations . And +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um +Grad D: Maybe we sho should we a add then the "" what 's this ? "" domain ? N I mean , we have to "" how do I get to X "" . Then we also have the "" what 's this ? "" domain , where we get some slightly different {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could . Uh . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Um Johno , actually , does not allow us to call them "" intentions "" anymore . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So he {disfmarker} he dislikes the term . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't like the term either , so I have n i uh i i y w i i It uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: But um , I 'm sure the "" what 's this ? "" questions also create some interesting X - schema aspects . +Professor B: Could be . I 'm not a {disfmarker} I 'm not op particularly opposed to adding that or any other task , +Grad D: So . +Professor B: I mean , eventually we 're gonna want a whole range of them . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor B: I 'm just saying that I 'm gonna hafta do some sort of first principles thinking about this . I just at the moment don't know . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: H No . Well , no the Bayes {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets {disfmarker} The Bayes - nets will be dec specific for each decision . But what I 'd like to be able to do is to have the way that you extract properties , that will go into different Bayes - nets , be the {disfmarker} uh general . So that if you have sources , you have trajectors and stuff like that , and there 's a language for talking about trajectors , you shouldn't have to do that differently for uh uh going to something , than for circling it , for uh telling someone else how to go there , +Grad D: Getting out of {disfmarker} +Professor B: whatever it is . So that {disfmarker} that , the {disfmarker} the decision processes are gonna be different What you 'd really like of course is the same thing you 'd always like which is that you have um a kind of intermediate representation which looks the same o over a bunch of inputs and a bunch of outputs . So all sorts of different tasks {pause} and all sorts of different ways of expressing them use a lot of the same mechanism for pulling out what are the fundamental things going on . And that 's {disfmarker} that would be the really pretty result . And pushing it one step further , when you get to construction grammar and stuff , what you 'd like to be able to do is say you have this parser which is much fancier than the parser that comes with uh SmartKom , i that {disfmarker} that actually uses constructions and is able to tell from this construction that there 's uh something about the intent {disfmarker} you know , the actual what people wanna do or what they 're referring to and stuff , in independent of whether it {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} what is this or where is it or something , that you could tell from the construction , you could pull out deep semantic information which you 're gonna use in a general way . So that 's the {disfmarker} You might . You might . You might be able to {disfmarker} to uh say that this i this is the kind of construction in which the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Let 's say there 's a uh cont there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the land the construction implies the there 's a con this thing is being viewed as a container . OK . So just from this local construction you know that you 're gonna hafta treat it as a container you might as well go off and get that information . And that may effect the way you process everything else . So if you say "" how do I get into the castle "" OK , then um {disfmarker} Or , you know , "" what is there in the castle "" or {disfmarker} so there 's all sorts of things you might ask that involve the castle as a container and you 'd like to have this orthogonal so that anytime the castle 's referred to as a container , you crank up the appropriate stuff . Independent of what the goal is , and independent of what the surrounding language is . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the thesis level +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's unfortunate also that English has sort of got rid of most of its spatial adverbs because they 're really fancy then , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for these kinds of analysis . But uh . +Professor B: Well , you have prepositional phrases that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , but they 're {disfmarker} they 're easier for parsers . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: Parsers can pick those up but {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} with the spatial adverbs , they have a tough time . Because the {disfmarker} mean the semantics are very complex in that . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: OK , yeah ? I had one more {pause} thing . I don't remember . I just forgot it again . No . Oh yeah , b But an architecture like this would also enable us maybe to {disfmarker} to throw this away and {disfmarker} and replace it with something else , or whatever , so that we have {disfmarker} so that this is sort of the representational formats we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're talking about that are independent of the problem , that generalize over those problems , and are oh , t of a higher quality than an any actual whatever um belief - net , or "" X "" that we may use for the decision making , ultimately . Should be decoupled , yeah . OK . +Professor B: Right . So , are we gonna be meeting here from now on ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm happy to do that . We {disfmarker} we had talked about it , cuz you have th th the display and everything , that seems fine . +Grad D: Yeah , um , Liz also asks whether we 're gonna have presentations every time . I don't think we will need to do that but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so far I think it was nice as a visual aid for some things and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh yeah . No I {disfmarker} I think it 's worth it to ass to meet here to bring this , and assume that something may come up that we wanna look at . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . Why not . +Grad D: And um . Yeah , that was my {disfmarker} +Professor B: She was good . Litonya was good . +Grad D: Yeah ? The uh {disfmarker} um , she w she was definitely good in the sense that she {disfmarker} she showed us some of the weaknesses +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: and um also the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the fact that she was a real subject you know , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah and {disfmarker} and she took it seriously and stuff l No , it was great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So I think that um {disfmarker} I mean , w Looking {disfmarker} just looking at this data , listening to it , what can we get out of it in terms of our problem , for example , is , you know , she actually m said {disfmarker} you know , she never s just spoke about entering , she just wanted to get someplace , and she said for buying stuff . Nuh ? So this is definitely interesting , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: Um , and in the other case , where she wanted to look at the stuff at the graffiti , also , of course , not in the sentence "" How do you get there ? "" was pretty standard . Nuh ? except that there was a nice anaphora , you know , for pointing at what she talked about before , and there she was talking about looking at pictures that are painted inside a wall on walls , so +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Actually , you 'd need a lot of world knowledge . This would have been a classical um uh "" Tango "" , actually . Um , because graffiti is usually found on the outside and not on the inside , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but OK . So the mistake {comment} would have make a mistake {disfmarker} the system would have made a mistake here . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Click ? Alright . +","In a conversational exchange amongst several graduate students (labeled as Grad A, Grad C, Grad D) and their professor (Professor B), a series of topics related to an academic project are discussed. This dialogue covers several themes such as the structure and execution of a wizard-of-oz study, the interpretation and processing of data, and the potential for system design improvements. + +The conversation kicks off with Grad A reprimanding someone for drinking in an unsuitable location, followed by a series of acknowledgments of “OK” from the involved parties. Grad A then reflects on how reading numbers in a robotic tone reminded him of beat poetry, instigating a brief interaction about the use of rhythm in poetry and its relation to a comedic scene from the movie ""So I Married an Axe Murderer"" where the character engages in beat poetry. + +Attention shifts to a discussion about a tiramisu tasting contest organized as a result of a heated debate on who makes the best tiramisu. Grad D shares the plans for the event which includes blind tasting by impartial judges. This spawns further discussion on the strategies to ensure fairness in the contest and the additional plans to have a barbecue during the event. + +The conversation becomes technical as Grad D and Professor B delve into discussions about a ""wizard test data test"" and the results. Various complications and learning outcomes are discussed, such as the necessity for shorter reading times and better introductions for the so-called wizard, who is engaged in the research experiment but presented differently across the study conditions. They also touch on the gender terminology used for this ""wizard"" and consider whether terms like “witch” or “warlock” would work in this context. + +Attention then turns to a project operational concern about hiring a person named Fey, discussing the procedural aspects with someone named Lila. Professor B appreciates the preliminary outcomes and contemplates giving Fey additional responsibilities. + +The dialogue cites the need for a programming construct named ""cognitive dispatcher,"" which would manage object trees and delegate tasks to appropriate modules, suggesting a modular and extendable system architecture design. + +As Grad A walks the group through a ""pedagogical belief-net"" he designed, the group considers the problems of representing intentions and the nature of destinations or goals within the system. Professor B emphasizes the importance of generalizing certain cognitive elements across tasks to allow the system to handle a variety of input and output cases without the need for task-specific rules. + +A deep discussion ensues regarding the essential aspects that affect a user's inquiry and how to extract and use this information in making system decisions. A belief-net model, wherein conditional probability is used to infer the most likely scenarios based on available knowledge, is discussed as a critical part of this process. + +The talk concludes with the planning of future meetings and the potential presentation of the team’s findings to a wider group, including linguists, which could help refine the system’s dialogue and understanding further. The meeting ends with the acknowledgment of the complexity involved in building systems that utilize deep cognitive linguistics and construction grammar for more powerful interpretations of input and subsequent actions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the detailed design meeting . Again , I'm gonna take minutes . Oh , we're gonna have a prototype presentation first . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , who's gonna give the prototype presentation ? You two guys ? Okay . Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} coffee . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we've made a prototype . Um , we've got uh {vocalsound} uh our aspects from the last meeting . Uh , especially we looked at the form , material and the colour . Um , we've uh drawn here the p prototype . The logo is uh is uh {vocalsound} is pretty uh {vocalsound} obvious to see on the on the remote control , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it is necessary when you want to build your uh company f to a level higher . Um , {vocalsound} our interface elements , there are shown in the in the drawing . Maybe you can uh point them uh {disfmarker} The functions . +User Interface: Uh , well the uh {disfmarker} all the functions are discussed uh {disfmarker} I think the most of the functions are uh uh obvious . Uh , it's a little bit . Uh , power button . Uh then the the the nine uh channels . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the volume uh uh at the side , and the other side is the programmes . And then we had uh just uh two buttons , we place them in the middle , uh the menu , and for the teletext +Project Manager: Oh no , the the the mute button misses now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I thought that was th +Marketing: Alright , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do y do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , the mute button . +Project Manager: did we want to have a m mute button ? +Industrial Designer: But uh that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's uh here then , in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Alright , and uh you gotta point out which is the volume um uh button and which is the programme button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah mo uh mo +Industrial Designer: we've disc +User Interface: Yeah , well most of them are right-handed . +Industrial Designer: Most of the users +Marketing: Yeah , but you you gotta make it clear on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well , I don't have time in uh anymore on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , y there there will be a p a little a little P_ on that and a little uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and a and a triangle on that . +User Interface: Oh yeah , just progr programme above , I think . +Marketing: Yes . Next to that I kinda miss a zero actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait , there's {disfmarker} was one thing I wanted to ask . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , there are different ways for remote controls to uh {vocalsound} do uh like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh d I call it teens and twenties . Uh , y th th th the two numbers . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: All n no , that's um {vocalsound} kinda dependent on the television . +User Interface: Yeah , true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a television . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do we have {disfmarker} do we need extra buttons , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} for example some uh some have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think so . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , you have you have a lot of standard buttons that has to be uh on it , uh th with the one and a double uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think you should add {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Zero ? +Marketing: A cross , or whatever . Yeah , line . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't you don't actually need them , +User Interface: May maybe here ? +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: becau b l a lot of remote controls work that y when y that you when you fir you push the one first , then you have a couple of seconds {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And then a second . +Marketing: No , that's dependent on the television . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you have televisions , then you have to , you know , you have to uh press {disfmarker} +Marketing: I do know so . +User Interface: Is it depending on television ? +Project Manager: Nah , I don't think so really , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you have a {disfmarker} I know some remote controls that don't have these buttons , but you still can , know , obviously you can still select the twenty {disfmarker} uh a number in the twenty or in the ten . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but a lot {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh uh no uh remote control nowadays are um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they come with the television . Or actually , the other way around . +Project Manager: No , I think {disfmarker} uh I really think it's n +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because you can {disfmarker} when when you put a button on it with like one and uh then a dash , it's the same thing as when you just push the one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it i it first gives you the functionality of that that uh separate button you also had to uh apply . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but +Marketing: Yeah , well {disfmarker} but su {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: some televisions don't accept uh that that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because that's i it's for television . It's exact the same thing . +Industrial Designer: No , no , but s +Marketing: No no no . So some television respond differently . Look , if uh i i +Project Manager: No , listen listen . When you push the button , the remote control gives a signal . I in th in the first place it gives a signal which it would also send when you put a separate button on it . +Marketing: Yes . Yes , that's true . +Project Manager: The one with dash , that signal gi and when y whe when you don't push another button on the remote control within five seconds , then the remote control gives a signal for channel one . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it works that way , really . +Marketing: No , it it it works uh if you haven't got uh a special button for it , uh if you push a one , then on your television there will appear a one and a a line , which is an empty space . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's exact the same {gap} that w would appear when you put a separate button {disfmarker} push a separate button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but some some old televisions uh you have to uh click on uh a special button , uh then you go to a a next level , you can push two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't underst uh you don't understand my point . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} True . +Project Manager: I think it's exact the same thing when y +Industrial Designer: You want {disfmarker} Yes , but some television don't support it . +Project Manager: No , but then they would a would also support that button , because it's the same thing . +User Interface: But the ex +Project Manager: Listen , with {disfmarker} that that's that special but button {gap} you're talking about , eh ? That's just a signal to recei ju they send a t signal to the v tv T_V_ that they have to put a one in {disfmarker} on your screen and a dash , which you can pu so you can uh still put another number on it . When you don't have that separate button , and you push y one , it's exactly the same thing . Do y you {disfmarker} the remote control gives that same signal as it would give when you only had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: No , s some some televisions need the input first uh and and you c +Industrial Designer: a remote can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: But you give the input . +Industrial Designer: so they need {disfmarker} no , they need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You push the one . That's the same thing as the button with the one and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's not true . +Project Manager: yes it it is . +Marketing: It's simply not true . It's simply not true . +Project Manager: Think about it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: You uh you can wai when you push the one you can show on the telly a one and just a dash , and then wait uh two uh seconds or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's the same thing what happens and a g remote control gives another signal after five seconds that is just one . +Marketing: No , remote control doesn't give signal after five seconds . Remote control is a stupid thing . If you push a button , it sends it immediately to to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah , but I m uh but it's {disfmarker} I I know for sure that some televisions that w th th the remote control supplied , only ha has the c these buttons with a one and a dash and a two and a dash , but when you use a bu a n remote control that doesn't sport these buttons , it still works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But okay , we we'll impl +Marketing: No , definitely not . Definitely not . +User Interface: We'll discuss them in the usability lab . +Project Manager: No , we'll apply them then for now . +User Interface: Uh eva evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know uh I don't know if if it's it's necessary . +Project Manager: Yeah , app just apply them next to the zero , the one and the two . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah , for now , if we don't know for sure whether {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the button for the SCART uh audio video uh external input . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Ach . +Project Manager: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , you can access that uh via zero , and then minus , I guess . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} What I said about uh the remote control sending another signal , that that might not be true , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I still think i it it {disfmarker} all T_V_s in some ways support it , I don't know . I think it's more c is m maybe we don't {disfmarker} uh we both don't really understand how it i how it really works , +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: but I think there's more to in than wha than what you just said . +Industrial Designer: Uh , remote control sends one signal at one button uh press . +Project Manager: I do think that uh m T_V_s support mur multiple kind of remote controls . M +Industrial Designer: Uh , some {disfmarker} N some televisions when when you want to go further than uh ten {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th won't work wi with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you have to you have to uh give the television uh two or more signals . +Project Manager: to have that special button . +Industrial Designer: When you uh press one button , you give one signal . And the older televisions need more signals to go a level higher . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well we'll see . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: When you make the technology that that it will uh give more signals , it could work , but {disfmarker} Just a basic idea of of of the most uh {disfmarker} most y most common uh and simple uh operations on the remote . +Marketing: Okay . I kinda miss the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's here on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , uh there's nothing {disfmarker} I think it's pretty basic , +Industrial Designer: We came uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the {disfmarker} there's no fu +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: there's one there's one button , +Marketing: No nothing really trendy about it . +User Interface: that's wha there's there's there's one function and that's n the one button when you want to find it . +Industrial Designer: But maybe we can maybe we can make the docking station uh uh a bit standard for for uh the other products we sell , +Marketing: The button . +Industrial Designer: because Real {vocalsound} Real Reaction sells more products than only remote controls . So maybe we can uh use the docking station , for example , uh M_P_ three players or or uh +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: uh hearing devices . +Marketing: I think that's very difficult , because of different shapes of uh uh devices . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you put that same volt voltages on it , you can put uh {disfmarker} when the when the when uh o the the the lowest part of it , when it's o the same as the other products , you can put it all on the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . Mm-hmm . Well it it got it {disfmarker} it has got to fit into the shape , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: The technology and the voltage can be the same . That's uh that's true . But uh i if you all make the m having a bottom like this , then they all fit . +Industrial Designer: No , we can make uh make the most lowest part all the same . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When when the the recharger has a has a bit what points out , we can place all on top of it . Just have to be big enough for the biggest {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh I I g Shouldn't it fall then ? It {disfmarker} isn't going to fall down ? {vocalsound} That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , when you make it large enough no it it will not . +Marketing: yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then it's a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but if if {disfmarker} like this , I'll I'll point it out , if you got uh a a a base a base like this , +Industrial Designer: But it's just an idea . +Marketing: I won't draw it really . If you got a base which is uh as big as this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's flat it's flat as as this , so we can p make all the products as flat as this . +User Interface: You can . But i i i it's backwards . +Marketing: Yeah sure , but if you got if you got a tiny player , it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you make uh uh a bit of big {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it's it's backwards . It's leaning . It's leaning backwards , I think , in the in the docking station . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , wha what you could do if you uh {disfmarker} from the bottom {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's text . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh , right , help . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , you could make like a hole in it , you know , of uh {disfmarker} in in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , little holer {disfmarker} littler {disfmarker} Uh , little products go deeper in it . +Marketing: Yeah . That i that is possible , yep . +Project Manager: Well let's ha let's talk about the docking station later , because uh maybe we have we have to uh consider the docking station anyway , because we have some uh cost issues {vocalsound} still to come . +Marketing: Yeah , sure , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . And uh uh +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But we have to look n I don't know . +Industrial Designer: the f the look and feel would be great on this uh remote control , because uh you always uh will uh pick up the remote control in the in the smallest uh area . +Marketing: I don't like the colours . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then your uh left thumb of uh {disfmarker} your right thumb is uh near the programme uh button , which is the most common used uh function , and all the other buttons are available for your uh thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's it's really good design . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . That's it ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh on the side uh there will be a strip of rubber , and in the middle uh there is uh a hard uh a hard material , a bit hard plastic with a light uh behind it . +Marketing: The light . Okay . And other lights ? +Project Manager: I think added lights are gonna be a problem too . +Industrial Designer: Yes , we can make also n neon lights on it , or or the buttons that can make uh light on it . +Marketing: No , o on the on the front . Yeah , okay . Maybe the uh the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} lights ? +Industrial Designer: But , it will also uh uh use batteries , +Marketing: Yeah , why not ? +Industrial Designer: and do we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course . +Project Manager: Okay . For now , uh this is uh is good enough . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , what was uh on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} all the aspects of the interface buttons were uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but in the {disfmarker} oh yeah , the colour , because we're gonna use uh one colour for the the plastic enclosure and one colour for the rubber , isn't it ? Then we're gonna do the buttons in the i are we're gonna have rubber buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And they're be a {disfmarker} {gap} they'll be in the same colour as the rubber on the side . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Uh , in the same colour as the side . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think that'll be good . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think we should use a a darker colour for the um plastic , and maybe some more m brighter and flashy stuff {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can use on the on the lights on the side we can use uh uh multiple uh lights , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: so it will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll talk about the lights later . 'Cause I also don yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: it's depends on the costs and such . But uh , and we have to agree uh upon the exact colours , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but may I dunno if that's important , but we'll talk about that later . Okay , for now this is this is okay . +Marketing: We will . +Project Manager: Um , the next p y you gonna give a presentation too ? Uh , I have to see the agenda . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Well , uh yeah , I I'm gonna do something right there , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Detail design . +Marketing: We gotta do that on the right {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} right-most screen , because the leftmost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Yep , that's me . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . I will be needing that image , so leave it please . Um {disfmarker} Go away . Right , we're gonna evaluate that design according to a few points . {vocalsound} Um , we g the four of us are going to do that um together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I wanna have a colour over here , come on . Right , the remote {vocalsound} is not ugly , a bit weird sentence , but the positive things has to be on the left , so I {vocalsound} said not ugly instead of ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , what would you say , we we gotta give points to uh to all of these to evaluate uh that design , and please forget the drawing skills of these guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is not ugly . How do you feel ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think four maybe would be appropriate , because it's {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe it really depends on taste . Uh , I mean it's kind of {gap} , our design . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: so if maybe a lot of people find it really ugly , you know , o other people find it really cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Background colour . +Project Manager: I don't know or uh I don't know how you {disfmarker} Casting . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I think the the fronts will give it a more uh uh uh less uglier uh side , because you can uh make it in your own {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you guys feel ? The different designs . +Industrial Designer: yes , you can make it in your own uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: more to your own personality or or house style . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we d we didn't {disfmarker} we're we're not planning to use fronts , I believe . +Marketing: No , not not fronts , but different designs . +Project Manager: With a colour a co a colours . Oh , okay . +User Interface: No , not fronts . Different designs . Different colours maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And that's still uh uh , yeah , is is uh is a little personal touch , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay , but {disfmarker} Oh , maybe we should do three or something that w you know , our {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? Yeah , wha wha what would you uh guys uh think ? Personally . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or forty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can make it a one . +Marketing: Personally . Yes , but what is it ? +Industrial Designer: I think two or three . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Guido ? +User Interface: I agree . +Marketing: Two or three . +User Interface: Um , I uh I go for the positive . So I go for two . +Marketing: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking about three , so I guess +Project Manager: Uh , I was thinking about four , so I think three is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , three . +Marketing: three is uh a bit uh {disfmarker} oh , what am I doing ? I'll mark it . The remote control's uh uh that n makes uh zapping easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , let that {disfmarker} let's make that a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Two . One . One . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Antek , you agree ? +User Interface: Okay yeah , I'll I'll agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: That's one thing for sure . +Marketing: Yeah . You're not Antek . +User Interface: I'm the I'm the usability , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I totally agree . The remote control the remote control's relevant buttons are prominently visible . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , two or a one , I guess . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's something we really put work into . +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's all about the buttons . +Marketing: I would say a one because uh every button is uh uh relevant . {vocalsound} And our {disfmarker} oh yeah , it's a b yeah . Yeah ? Alright . That's a one ? You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . I think we totally succeeded there . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe a two , because of the menu button or something . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well menu {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . That's true . +Project Manager: And telete +Industrial Designer: Also , the the the buttons of the one , the two , the the digits , +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know if the {disfmarker} uh they're necessary . +Industrial Designer: o they're used uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the {disfmarker} yeah , m well , you d you've got a point . +Project Manager: I think a two . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Can {disfmarker} yes , three , two . +Project Manager: Came a long way , but not {disfmarker} we didn't not uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Mm two . +Industrial Designer: But you can't make a remote control without them , +Marketing: Two ? Antek . +User Interface: Because we got {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nay that that that's true , that's true . They're definitely needed . +Project Manager: No , w w it can also always be more simplistic , but two is {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} we put it on a two ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: The remote control has got a really trendy look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . A one . +Project Manager: Yeah , uh a t I think a two . +Marketing: Maarten . +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , y i it's hard to say from this picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} we've tried to make it uh the the best trendy look uh ever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Ever , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guido . +Project Manager: But I do think it's more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I will I will make it a three , because uh {disfmarker} yeah . I I th +Project Manager: But I do think that it's more trendy than beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I agree . I agree . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so I think maybe it has to score higher uh on this than on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . True , yeah . +Marketing: I was planning to give it a two , uh where I give the not ugly uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A th a three . +Marketing: oh , yeah , that's true . You agree on the two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I i uh when you compare to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Great . Remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . +Project Manager: Uh uh what's the difference with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I copied that one . Well , uh forget that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Go away . Remote control has got innovative technology implanted . +User Interface: No . We're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: well , maybe the the the {disfmarker} on the side . +Industrial Designer: No , not L_C_D_ , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we uh {disfmarker} {gap} you mean the rubber stuff ? +Marketing: Yeah , and the light . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have t we have to talk about the lights uh . +User Interface: And the light maybe . +Industrial Designer: But that that's not innovative . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I don't u also it's also really not innovative , +Industrial Designer: Lights lights are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I g +Project Manager: it's more {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} seven ? +Project Manager: No , six . Or seven maybe , {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Well , six . No , six . +Project Manager: Or six . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Why uh why not a seven ? +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah , mine is seven . +Industrial Designer: Because we've tried to make it a little bit innovative , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it but it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh it's uh depends on the on the maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: How ? +Industrial Designer: With the lights it {disfmarker} it's it's kind of future {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think I think actually it's a seven maybe , but there's nothing innovative about it . +Marketing: Yeah , you think the lights are innovative ? Well , it's n true . Uh , I agree , +Industrial Designer: But still you can retrieve it when it's when it's gone , with the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +Marketing: m but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Innovative in generally or just f original for {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll {disfmarker} Yeah , you you didn't draw the docking station . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} The docking station is a is a little bit innovative . +Project Manager: N no no , +Marketing: Yeah , it it's {disfmarker} I think I think with its {disfmarker} +Project Manager: t {gap} . +User Interface: A docking station is innova +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean the dock station , but but uh , I think the the docking station , {vocalsound} it's gonna be a {gap} kind of a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a part of the remote . +Marketing: I think more m +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And with the speaker on the {disfmarker} there's also a speaker . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh that {disfmarker} that's n +Project Manager: Well , let's leave it open for uh for us later to see what , because we have to reevaluate anyway . Well I i {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: No uh , well , the agenda says evaluate now , so I think we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , for now it's a six or a seven uh , sev +Marketing: It's it's a six . +Project Manager: six maybe , +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the retrieval or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That m f +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't I don't know if it's very {vocalsound} inno yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , for the retrieval function . Yeah . I think that's very innovative for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , v +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} how would you innovate a remote control more ? +Project Manager: Yeah , more through uh like function T_V_ functionalities and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To put it on your head . +Project Manager: no no , you know what I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} {gap} must be innovative technology for remote controls , but more in how you control stuff , not in how you find your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah sure , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I d I definitely don't think it's a five , +Project Manager: that's that's {disfmarker} think about it la later on +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control is easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a a one or a two ma uh at least . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think a two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's good . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: More two . +Marketing: Come on . The remote control hasn't got uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Project Manager: No , I would have seen {vocalsound} that one before . Oh , you skipped one uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've just filled {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: Uh , here . +Marketing: Go away . +Industrial Designer: You like the buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found twelve questions so much , but it still is ten . +Project Manager: Remote control will be bought by {disfmarker} +Marketing: It will be bought by people under the age of forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In in {disfmarker} and comparing with uh people of th of the age above ? +Marketing: No no no . No , just if they if they buy it . +Project Manager: Uh , just in general . Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think I think two . +Marketing: Yeah , what do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think two , yeah . I agree . Two . +Marketing: Antek ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , two , but only in c when you compare it with with elderly . +Project Manager: Uh , that is not the question . It's just w it will be bought by people under forty . +Marketing: No , that's no comparison . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} yeah , you can be very picky about it . +Marketing: And I don't mean two people . +Industrial Designer: This is just guessing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah , just make it {disfmarker} we'll make it a two . +Industrial Designer: Make it a two . +Marketing: W w +Industrial Designer: When it succeeds , uh it can get a two , mu +Marketing: Right , the rem The remote control has recognisable corporate image , colour , logo or slogan . +Project Manager: Oh no . Yeah . Yeah , you have make an +User Interface: We don't have the slogan though . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} slogan is quite obvious {gap} . +Marketing: Oh , the slogan . +Project Manager: Oh the {disfmarker} oh sorry , no , not not the slogan . +Marketing: Can we see the slogan ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put that on the side if {vocalsound} if we would like to . +User Interface: The logo . +Industrial Designer: A logo . +User Interface: Underneath it or something . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh encrypted uh with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and I will I th still think it's gonna be a two or a three . +Marketing: Are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} A three . Three . +Project Manager: Maybe a three this time . +User Interface: Yeah , a three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Three ? I agree . Because of the slogan {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control's got a basic design intended uh for novice users . +Project Manager: Uh , it's a one or a two . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , make it a two . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Two . Alright . We gotta add up the scores now to see our total average . Four , five , seven , nine . Forget that . Fifteen , seventeen , twenty one , twenty four , twenty six . Twenty six . It's a two point six . +Project Manager: It's not that bad . +Marketing: Alright , we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's mostly the inno +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: when we uh score higher on innovative technology , we would score two , +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: which is uh quite a great score . Okay . Uh , this is {disfmarker} was uh the evaluation ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} This was my evaluation . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because I I still think that the most important part of this meeting still has {disfmarker} +Marketing: We did a pretty nice job until now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , is this your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is there something after this uh meeting ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . Well , I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: No . Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Still opened or uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , finance . Because um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shoot . +Project Manager: I received uh a spreadsheet . +Marketing: A five . A five . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I uh actually don't need this presentation , I guess . Oh . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +Project Manager: I'm gonna open the spreadsheet and we're gonna work this out together , because I didn't really fin uh I have a {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Didn't really finish it . Well , we uh {disfmarker} We'll see . We'll stumble upon some problems . +Marketing: We probably will . +Project Manager: {gap} I probably have already opened it here . {gap} try it again . First of all , the mm all the docking station and costs and such are not included in this list . But let's let's st start with beginning . We include one battery . I i uh I'll explain its {disfmarker} Uh , the the components are listed over here . Uh , price is given . We um {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: The amount , yeah . +Project Manager: we we uh indicate the amount of components of the specif specific component , how much we need of them . And then uh , we'll uh calcula Don't watch the number yet . I don't know if it's filled in properly . Okay , we need one battery . One battery . I think one battery is enough . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: We don't need kinetic , solar cells , hand dynamo . A s okay , this this is a p first problem . Uh , I think we should know how many simple chips , regular chips {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's one one chip , but but you have to choose one from it . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The simple chip is e enough I I think , but with the lights with the lights and the retrieval , it can be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Where did we find this information ? Was it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I haven't got an idea on on which we need to use , really . +Project Manager: I think it was uh your job in the first uh meet Uh , f your first presentation to make this clear , but then you had some t time problems . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , uh I {disfmarker} Yes , my my my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the email I got said uh simple chip , but when we put in the speaker and the retriever uh device , it will uh cost a a bit more , like I think the advanced chip {disfmarker} maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . And how do you know ? I mean , you got that email . Did it point out what to use them for ? +Industrial Designer: Bec No , the {disfmarker} they didn't know about a retriever or a speaker uh in it . +Project Manager: Maybe you can uh look it up right now . Okay , but {disfmarker} okay . When we don't {disfmarker} when we leave the uh retriever and such aside , what {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Then it's a simple chip . +Project Manager: then it would be a simple chip . And with the retriever , it would be an advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I I I s I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright , well , point out the advanced chip for now , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That will be enough for future uh recommendations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it will it will it will be {disfmarker} cause a lot of problems . {vocalsound} The sample sensor {disfmarker} sample speaker . What is it m is that the speaker we were t I don't know what it is . +Industrial Designer: I don't know it uh either . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay , we went for the double-curved case +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: made out of plastic and rubber . And with a special colour . I guess that's what we were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , special colour . {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't know about the special colour , but I think w uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , you get uh a standard uh plastic colour . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if it's very special . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we uh we have special colours . +User Interface: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: Standard rubber . +Marketing: Alright , that's okay . +Project Manager: Okay , then the push-button , I was just counting them . +Industrial Designer: St {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think you have to indicate the amount of push-buttons we want to use , isn't it ? +User Interface: Whoa , it's a little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's bit of a problem , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: because I re but I really don't understand that , because I can imagine a remote control with far more push-buttons , and it wouldn't be possible according to this uh sheet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's huge . No . We have {vocalsound} the simplest buttons . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's only uh when you use push-buttons , it will cost that much . +Marketing: I don't think so , because it says amount . +Industrial Designer: If you use a scroll-wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . Yeah , it wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the the yellow row is the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fill in the number of components you plan to use in the {gap} and the total cost {disfmarker} I don't know . I +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's the kind of push-buttons . You can have f four kind of push-buttons . +User Interface: Uh , one til nine . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Is that one or is that nine buttons ? +Industrial Designer: You can have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I count them like this . One two three uh four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and thirteen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} Oh , this is {disfmarker} oh , this is one , okay . Twelve , okay , then it would be eighteen , because uh , I uh rated them as uh um as uh uh uh separate buttons . +Marketing: To n +Industrial Designer: Different , +Marketing: that's total of four buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: And plus these two , f uh plus the mute button , and it's will be uh eighteen . +Marketing: I think that {disfmarker} Eighteen . One two three four five , si +Industrial Designer: Why is that so uh expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't understand . Y I do I don't get the point , because it's would be s relatively so expensive , just these m small buttons . +User Interface: Is it cents , the the the fifty cents a button ? +Marketing: Fifty cents for one single stupid button . +User Interface: No way . +Industrial Designer: So , whe when you {disfmarker} so then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , okay , well well let's make it just one . +Industrial Designer: It's eighty percent of the price of the of the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , now it's now it's already s +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Project Manager: shall we just give our own interpretation to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because else we would really have a problem . It would be impossible to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's way {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I I couldn't understand it if it was fifty cents per uh uh per button . Really . +Industrial Designer: When you have the same amount of button , you have to put in wi in your carton . Board . +Project Manager: And and less buttons than this isn't possible . +Industrial Designer: And then throw it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the most simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , no no . +Project Manager: yeah , it is possible , but I've never seen one before . +Industrial Designer: But whe +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've seen one uh one remote control with only the pu yeah , only with uh page up , page down and volume , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , really . +Project Manager: Yeah , without the numbers . That's possible . Yeah , we could skip the numbers . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I d I wouldn't want to own that . Really . +User Interface: That's still four . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's it's still for little children . They can handle that remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then uh , teletext would also be im impossible . +Industrial Designer: but but it isn't fo Yes , it's for {disfmarker} it's li uh it's just for a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's no option , that's no option . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll we'll just {disfmarker} okay . But then still , {vocalsound} when we {disfmarker} there's no room for a docking station or something . Tha w Le let's see th we have uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , button supplements . We'll give the buttons special colour . We'll give them a special form . Uh , I think we should mark the special form thing , because it {disfmarker} this will be some special forms incorporated in these big buttons , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A special colour , why a special colour ? +Project Manager: Because the buttons will be uh d will be matching colour between the buttons and the rubber surroundings . +User Interface: But wha what s what special ? +Project Manager: I think that's the {disfmarker} what they mean by a special colour . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think the special form is really true . +Project Manager: I think all the special colour things have to be marked over here , because that's what we were planning to do , making it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special form also , it says . +Project Manager: Yeah , special material r also , +Marketing: Is it ? +Project Manager: because i has rubber . And the buttons have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: What is the normal material ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh yeah . +User Interface: Plastic , I think . +Industrial Designer: Classic ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Oh , plastic . +Marketing: Plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay , but the problem now is that {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} There's no such thing as a docking station in this list , but we can all imagine that it would be impossible to make a docking station for thirty cents . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can uh sell the remote control and uh sell the docking station {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Separately . +User Interface: Se no no no . +Industrial Designer: yes . And and {disfmarker} but we don't have to tell it , but what we can say of {disfmarker} can um almost make it impossible to buy a remote control without the docking station . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . Yeah , but I do like the idea , but we {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It uh {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} then the docking station isn't relevant for this project anymore , but we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No , but you {disfmarker} otherwise you can't retrieve it . +Project Manager: but then you still have to use {disfmarker} we have to find out what chip we u need . +Marketing: Yeah , I really don't get it . I mean if it's a simple chip , then we suddenly got two Euros and thirty cents . +Project Manager: I think we can agree on this . I I think the special colour thing has to be uh marked . 'Cause I think we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's what what what they uh mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for two Euros and thirty cents , we uh we don't get a docking station . +Marketing: I think so , too . Oh , I don't know . +Project Manager: But can we find out uh about uh this chips ? Because when we don't need a d a docking station , then probably we also have only {disfmarker} we also need a simple chip . +User Interface: And then we can get a docking station . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And maybe then we can do something extra . Oh , n uh oh , still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh , it's gonna get more expensive with {gap} . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have some money left . We can put then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For two Euros . +Project Manager: We can put a scroll-wheel on it or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh why ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well who knows . Or a little bit of tin titanium . +Marketing: I mean i i if you {disfmarker} if it would cost two Euros , that had a total a total thing , it would be nice too , I mean uh we're not gonna add uh a trip to Hawaii to it . +User Interface: But what what can we do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , or we can ki do the kinetic cells . That's also maybe an idea . +User Interface: But uh what can we do with the simple chip and what's difference with a regular chip and a advanced chip ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's what then what he has to find out . Maybe you can uh find it in your email right now , then we know {disfmarker} then we exactly know what it will cost us . +User Interface: If if i +Project Manager: Maybe is that {disfmarker} that's nice to know . +User Interface: Regular chip and {disfmarker} because we don't have uh special functions to use uh in advanced chip , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , bu bu but when we {disfmarker} yeah , but when we skip when we um {disfmarker} when we don't use the do we're not gonna make the docking station , then we still {disfmarker} yeah , we need something else maybe to make it kind of special , +Marketing: I like the hand dynamo part . +Project Manager: because that was our our special feature . +Marketing: We can make a plain docking station for two Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . We'll go back uh tomorrow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , you can also do that , but maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wi wi without recharge {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still is a special remote control cons uh you know , wi its form is special and material . +Marketing: Yeah , but but we can make a docking station for two Euros uh if you don't put the recharge function in it . I mean , it has a shape . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for two Euros , then we have still {disfmarker} maybe we have to use the advanced chip , +Marketing: Of course it has a shape , but i i +Project Manager: then two Euros isn't even possible . +Marketing: Why should that not be possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah , then {disfmarker} because then we'd {disfmarker} thirty cents left . +Marketing: No , for for the uh for the docking station if you do if you choose the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know , because maybe d uh yeah , we have to find out with the simple chip . +User Interface: That's the question . If we do i do we need an advanced chip , or is it okay f +Project Manager: Yeah , and w and and we uh need f +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , so I don't know it uh either . +Project Manager: and what is this ? Sample sensor sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , I uh I {disfmarker} I've got a schematic view of the remote control , but nothing about uh advanced chips or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} You can look at it for s presentation . S technical functions ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh I've got here in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , they were uh mine , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I will put a I will put a page on it . When my mouse works again . +Project Manager: Oh , oh oh . Hey . Oh . +Industrial Designer: My mouse is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Reanimate it . +User Interface: Died . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Ah , I've got it . I will put uh my email on the the network . +Marketing: What the hell are these ? +Industrial Designer: It's on it . +Marketing: Oh , whatever . +User Interface: Yeah , it's open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't think here {disfmarker} it's in here already . +User Interface: It's circuit board . It's only just basics for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's nothing about s yeah . +User Interface: At the end circuit there is an infrared LED . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: This isn't helpful . +Project Manager: No . But i in the presentation of yours , there was also something about different components . Which one was it ? +User Interface: Components design . +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that was my presentation . +User Interface: Components design maybe . N on top . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that was mine . +Project Manager: Ah . Ah yes , it was the second one . +Industrial Designer: But that was my second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it was your second {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's already open . +Project Manager: your first presentation . +Marketing: It's at the bottom . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: Working design . +Marketing: It's uh at your task bar . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's the the other one . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , this is n this is not this n +User Interface: Was it working design or components design ? +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: that's not the right one . I don't {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: No , this is the other one . Or maybe something is uh {disfmarker} maybe there's something abo in in these {disfmarker} +User Interface: Chip set . +Industrial Designer: But this is the same uh {disfmarker} This is o only the possibilities . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We can use a simple , a regular , or advanced chip . +Marketing: Yeah , nice . I it doesn't say anything . +User Interface: The display requires an advanced chip . +Project Manager: You know that a push-button requires a simple chip , but a scroll-wheel , it it me requires {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only need a simple chip . +User Interface: Requires . +Industrial Designer: With the light . +User Interface: Little lights . Yeah , but that that's just the same as the the LED . +Project Manager: No no , that's just a simple chip . A scroll-wheel {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's not needed . +Project Manager: it s uh only states that a scroll-wheel requires a regular chip , and that a display requires an advanced chip . So , we don't need any of them . +Marketing: A display uh is , of course , uh for showing letters . For showing text . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think that uh just a l a little light {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . I think uh the uh normal uh simple chip will be okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And what's the sample sensor slash sample speaker ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can say against the remote uh page uh f uh page up , page down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess so too . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Well , that's not too {disfmarker} what we want . +Marketing: Next channel . No . Well , we might want it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All in twelve Euros . +Project Manager: Back to the costs . +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euros and fifty cents . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're gonna use the simple chip . +User Interface: So , simple chip is okay . +Marketing: Great . Delete . +Industrial Designer: And the lights . Where uh are the lights ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , lights , yeah , there's no +Marketing: Well , there're three , I guess . +User Interface: category . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , there is some money left to be spent . +User Interface: Can we do it wi within two two Euro ? +Marketing: I think we can make a docking station . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but what we have to think about now is that is is it still a special remote control ? But I mean it isn't {disfmarker} it hasn't got any innovative technology , we aren't gonna apply any uh innovated {disfmarker} innovative te technology anyway , I think . I don't I don't see any possibility to do so , because it would {disfmarker} wouldn't fit our defi design philosophy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . But it's original . +Project Manager: But what w is there some extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: maybe I think maybe the kinetic thing is something . Instead of the rechargeable {disfmarker} the rechargeable thing was something to um {disfmarker} know , so y so people wouldn't have to worry about their batteries anymore . +Marketing: M bu +Project Manager: Maybe we {disfmarker} if we put the kinetic thing in it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but sometimes you put a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you leave the p yeah , I know , but still I {disfmarker} they will think about that . I mean if you u +Industrial Designer: Kinetics aren't uh nowadays only used in watches and that's because you're always walking . +Project Manager: The uh {disfmarker} it's made for s people {disfmarker} well , the they don't {disfmarker} if it was uh uh r useless technology , they wouldn't put it uh as a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells are useless . +Project Manager: And i it it {disfmarker} th th the the target +Marketing: Or the hand dynamo dynamo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the target uh group are people who zap regularly and throw with their remote control as a matter of speaking {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because I think it {disfmarker} when when there w was a remote control where it was useful to have a kinetic uh uh power source , then it would be this one . Because it's one {disfmarker} it gets thrown around {gap} thrown around a lot and it gets used a lot {disfmarker} Hey that {disfmarker} maybe that's cool {disfmarker} that's a cool thing about it , you know . You don't use batteries . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if we ca +Project Manager: I've never seen it before in a remote control . +User Interface: But then we could make a docking station . +Marketing: I don't know if {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Project Manager: No , we we we can't make a docking station anyway . +Marketing: That's not true . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can als or uh also m we we can make one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow , w why no li +Marketing: We can make a docking station for two thirty . +Project Manager: we can still make {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look at now , we got two +Industrial Designer: Fo {vocalsound} for a docking station . +Marketing: Two thirty . +User Interface: two thirty left . Ca can't we make a docking station of that ? +Marketing: We can make a docking station . Sure . +Industrial Designer: With a cable , with uh buttons on it , with retrieval uh device in it . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: The power device is is i i is very cheap . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's just a regular uh power cable and whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , but be serious , then uh the docking station will be a fifth of the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wi with a button to +User Interface: Well , we we uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: wi with a button to retrieve it , so it will beep . +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Uh , so it's uh wireless technology . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we uh we don't inc we haven't looked at the {disfmarker} these costs of the speaker and other stuff . I don't think it's realistic for you to do so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well then it's a useless project . +Industrial Designer: Look at the case , +Project Manager: Oh , because we {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the case the case of of uh of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then we don't have any innovation things . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} well look at all the special stuff we have . Colour a the colours are special , the form is special . It {disfmarker} th this is whole concept . Uh maybe it {disfmarker} with the kinetic thing , I think we could do uh do a compromise uh with the kim kinetic thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Can't we uh {disfmarker} Can't we say fifteen Euros ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , sta yeah {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , then we have to sell it for thirty Euros . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: No , we only make less profit of it . +Industrial Designer: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can sell for twenty seven and a half . Then you make as much profit as you would with twelve and a half production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don my suggestion is to just forget about the whole docking station thing and make it uh like a {disfmarker} Uh uh I I I I still fee I also feel this concept of making it kinetic , because of the {disfmarker} you know , it g it gives something dynamic to the remote control . +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can uh can do it both . Maybe we can do it both uh in the in the in the remote . Battery and kinetic . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that wouldn't n no . +Marketing: Thirteen twenty . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it is also not a good {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} you have to really do it only kinetic , you don't want it to think about batteries anymore . +Marketing: And I think only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when it's {disfmarker} then when it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but only kinetic , then you gotta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No no . +Industrial Designer: then you have to shake it uh and all when it's when it's empty . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's great . +Marketing: You you gotta throw uh throw it through the room like twenty times an hour , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . No no , this is very sophisticated technology technology . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When you use it {disfmarker} your remote like once a day , or maybe even less i i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You asked for three d No , that's n that's not true . Uh , a watch is uh kinetic because you walk all the time . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We can make it {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} no . Becau be but a remote control gets {disfmarker} why do they state that this technology can be used if it +Industrial Designer: Yes , solar cells are also stated . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but a w uh uh n uh a calculator also works on r on solar cells . +Industrial Designer: Why don't we use solar cells then ? +Project Manager: Because I think the d whole dynamic part , do you know , appeals to me qui uh thinking of our design philosophy , you know , with the rubber parts and uh sturdiness of the thing , and y when you move it around a lot , then people find the idea funny that when I move my remote control around and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , it's funny for a week . I guess something like that , where you have to move it around very frequently , is demotivating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but you don't have to . Trust me . The idea of this technology is that you don't think about it , it just happens . +Marketing: No , I I don't move my uh my remote control very much , seriously . +Project Manager: Okay , then we d Okay , well y we don't have to do it , but what {disfmarker} that would just have a lack of key features , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oui . +Project Manager: You m have to put something on your box . You have to make people buy it and uh {disfmarker} We can really can do the docking thing , uh it's not {disfmarker} yeah , uh we can do it , but it's would be a easy way out . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can do it for fifty cents . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , we've got more than fifty Cents . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to grou to agree upon something , +Industrial Designer: The c {vocalsound} The case the case alone is is is uh +Project Manager: because uh we only have a minute left or so . +Industrial Designer: the case alone for uh remote control is at least one Euro . Then we have one Euro thirty for the whole docking station . +Project Manager: No no , it's not possible . Okay , w b we can s we can leave it on be well then then th it's {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} then then our concept is ready . +User Interface: Cheap remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make some extra profit of it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , we won't , but that's um something else . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It w it won't tell , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , this not gonna sell . No . +Project Manager: Huh , any ideas ? +Marketing: Of course not . +User Interface: No , uh , n no +Industrial Designer: Great {gap} . It's great . +User Interface: Yeah , we just have to go all what we did today again . You have to do it over . +Industrial Designer: Our remote control . +Marketing: We come back tomorrow , okay ? +Project Manager: No no uh there's still there's still someth concept and something special left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seventy Euros . +Project Manager: I mean we're gonna {disfmarker} it's gonna excel in in on in the the range in the field of design and and uh looks and feel . +User Interface: No , but {disfmarker} no . +Project Manager: That's what it's {disfmarker} makes it special . Yeah , and I would li I would have liked a kinetic part as well , to give it some just to give it some extra special feature , and uh I know it will work , but uh it's it's an {disfmarker} They're they're not putting technologies on this {gap} , but if it if it was impossible to to make it happen . +Industrial Designer: Why not a hand dynamo then ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well we leave it like this . Then it's c then we're {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can't do anything else . Warning , finish meeting now . +Industrial Designer: We're done . +Project Manager: Okay , project e uh +Industrial Designer: Is this it ? +Project Manager: well , we were gonna what look {disfmarker} take a look at the last sheet . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , we can't . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . Celebration . I don't see why , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire , to be honest . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I don't uh hear a bell . +Marketing: No , not yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We can do it here then . +Marketing: Alright , I'll see you guys in a minute . +Industrial Designer: Bye . +User Interface: Can we {disfmarker} can't we do it here ? +Marketing: I don't think so . I don't know . I don't I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Just fill that one in . +User Interface: Yeah , we're doing now . But it's {gap} . Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't know . +User Interface: Nice . +","The meeting in question, heavily based on an in-depth design discussion, revolves around the development of a prototype for a new remote control. The Project Manager sets the stage for the detailed design meeting, emphasizing the planned prototype presentation as the opening agenda. The presentation is handled by two individuals, presumably working on the industrial design and user interface aspects of the remote control development. Initially mentioned gaps in the dialogue suggest perhaps a lack of clarity or coordination between meeting participants about the presentation process and content. + +The Industrial Designer takes the lead on presenting the prototype, highlighting the adjustments and design rejuvenations around form, material, and color. Driven by the feedback from the previous meeting, the prototype's physical attributes, including the logo placement and noticeable interface elements, are detailed in the presentation. The User Interface then contributes by specifying the layout of the functions, particularly focusing on the button's arrangement, including the power, channels, volume, program selection, menu, and teletext. + +A critical moment arises when the Project Manager notices the absence of a mute button, revealing a clear oversight. This moment of realization underscores a key function inadvertently omitted, prompting swift acknowledgment and amendment by the team. Subsequent discussions elaborate on the button arrangements, tailoring them with visible indications suitable for right-handed majority use, yet accommodating to all users. + +Further into the meeting, the discussion moves towards the button numbering system on the remote control, touching upon the varied interaction users may have with the remote depending on their televisions. The discourse on whether additional buttons are necessary illuminates the team's strive for an intuitive interface, highlighting a fundamental goal of aligning the remote control design to accommodate traditional viewing habits and technical necessities. + +Marketing then enters the conversation, expressing concern about the user interface clarity concerning button identification—volume versus program—and emphasizing the need for intuitive design cues. Nevertheless, a fleeting instance suggests the attention given to making the user interface as straightforward as possible while maintaining functionality. + +As the meeting progresses, the team grapples with external design elements, including a docking station and its relevance, alongside material characteristics such as a rubber strip for grip enhancement. The discussion reveals the team's dedication to a cohesive product line, pondering the possibility of a standardized docking feature across Real Reaction's product range, though concerns about practicality and stability in design stay at the forefront. + +The concluding part of the meeting involves drilling into cost analysis and evaluation criteria for the remote control's design. The deliberations cycle through the necessity and inclusion of features like zero buttons, neon lights, and innovative technology. Despite disagreements, the debate reveals a healthy tension between cost efficiency, practicality, and aesthetic appeal—the typical melting pot of concerns in a product development environment. + +The meeting's conclusion fixates on finalizing the remote's attributes and resolving pending cost issues. Persistent focus on maintaining the remote's unique selling proposition leads to the contemplation of incorporating kinetic energy as an alternative power source, although the feasibility and user receptivity to this concept are questioned. + +The Project Manager, together with Marketing, Industrial Designer, and User Interface designer, navigate an intense dialogue teeming with technical terms, cost considerations, and user experience optimization, underlying a concerted effort to distill a remote control design that embodies innovation, functionality, and market readiness—all within the constraints of a realistic production budget and timeline. As the meeting wraps up, the team contemplates post-meeting tasks and the steps required to finalize their design objectives." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh 'kay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So so so . +User Interface: Put on your mic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you forgot how this works again ? +User Interface: Boss . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Boss . +Marketing: Maybe . Maybe maybe maybe . +Project Manager: Okay so we're here to talk about the detailed design of the product , 'kay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And here's the agenda for this meeting . Uh I'm just gonna open , say a few boring words to start with again , and start taking minutes afterwards . You guys are gonna give us a presentation of our wonder product that I can see some demonstrations of over there . Looks cool . And then we're gonna evaluate it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bra +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we're gonna talk about finance , and I've got a lovely Excel spreadsheet that I knocked up in the last five minutes for this . And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hmm you knocked it up ? +Project Manager: yep . And {vocalsound} we're gonna evaluate the product and close . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Got forty minutes to do this in . We should be fine . Let's try and keep this one on schedule . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your thing is in {disfmarker} where is it ? Is it in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Three , three . +Industrial Designer: Thi third third third . The end product thingy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants it ? +User Interface: Pedro can have it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I'll help talk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah so what we ended up with . Production costs estimated by our manufacturing department and um the research department , which is us , is uh fifteen point eight Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: someone forgot the {vocalsound} units there +User Interface: Unit price . +Industrial Designer: yeah , uh unit price {disfmarker} unit production price cost thing . Um we implemented the basic functions , which is just T_V_ functions plus the locator , which was one of the marketing things , cradle , scroll wheel for uh the {vocalsound} the channels , and uh we implemented the f the the way of putting the new and revolutionary zapping , your favourite channels functionality , in the scroll . +Project Manager: Zapping your favourite channels , eh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Scrolling through your favourites list . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Zapping you know zapping . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay okay , that's favourites . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's just a Portuguese thing {vocalsound} . And um yeah that was the result . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay . I like the the the the logo on there as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's very prominent {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is very prominent . So this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} here I'll give you the {disfmarker} so this is the cradle unit , and this is the actual remote itself . Um so the scroll bar is {disfmarker} or the scroll wheel is this this green little scrolly guy here , um and then the volume controls are here and here . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh you've got the keypad which is the numbers uh f from zero to nine and then ten . This is the power button . Uh we have our um {vocalsound} we have the enter button and uh what was the other button here ? This is the teletext . +Industrial Designer: Start s the the start uh to to to +User Interface: The programme button , +Industrial Designer: programme yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay I see . +User Interface: yeah the programme button . So this bl this button will be used both for the favourites and for programming {vocalsound} your uh the um the type of television you wanna use . So um the plastic is the white area of this {disfmarker} of the model here , and the red area is like a rubber covering . +Project Manager: It's pretty cool . +User Interface: So you can see that when it lays like this or like this {disfmarker} and the buttons are all gonna be rubber , so it's pretty hard to actually damage it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that {disfmarker} could that be easy to {disfmarker} for the scroll wheel to be rotated if it lands on it ? +User Interface: Yeah that might be a possible a mi uh possible problem , but if you drop it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not helping {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh well I guess it depends on the stiffness a little of it . +User Interface: Yeah and it depends on if it's sliding , but I think it's pretty ergonomic . You can feel it . +Project Manager: Mm . Feels good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take it that this is gonna be slightly lighter in the final design as well . +User Interface: Yeah of course . Well this is clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it's kinda cool . You have to reach a little bit don't you . +User Interface: Yeah the the power button is a bit of a reach , but I think we might scale down the final model a bit . +Project Manager: Ah yeah that wouldn't make sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} These {disfmarker} this is a bit larger than it would be , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: Don't have no one to handle that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And hold it so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wh what's the marketing perspective ? +Marketing: oh that's {disfmarker} oh I like it . I mean you guys gave me more than I was asking for , so I'm happy because we've got some really marketable features in this . Yeah I think it's good . Good good good job . +User Interface: Mm Pedro can demonstrate the the paging ability . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So you ha you have like the the base station with um the little button for the where's my remote . +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh pla +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The locator function . +Marketing: I'm ha +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's great . That's great . It's a great feature . +User Interface: Um beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm it's impressing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wicked isn't it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let me get it , +User Interface: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if I press this button {disfmarker} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see . That's pretty cool . Hang on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} be shut up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can take this ho take this home with you tonight and you can push that and he'll be across town {disfmarker} +User Interface: Beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I plan to do that as well . +User Interface: okay . Um no no no tha that's alri +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So the the two blue {disfmarker} are are those for the the it to charge off of {disfmarker} in ? +User Interface: Exactly that's exactly what those are for . +Project Manager: Ah okay okay . +User Interface: And um there's one other feature that we were debating , but we decided to go against it , is um {disfmarker} you could +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we were thinking that it might be interesting to have a trigger button here because you have this finger {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} it's the right shape isn't it ? +User Interface: it it's it kinda feels like there should be something there , but we couldn't figure out what button is important enough to put there . And we we don't wanna accidentally be hitting the power button like that so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe if you had a trigger plus the scroll then that would get past the the problem of it landing and scrolling , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: 'cause then it would need to be hit on both sides {gap} . +User Interface: Right . So maybe in a final design phase we might tweak that a little bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I can see that . +Project Manager: But it's definitely got options for like different types of models and things as well based on that , hasn't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep I like . Good job . +Project Manager: So is that the the final colour scheme as well or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no . +User Interface: Oh no this is {vocalsound} just what we had to work with at the time . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So we'll leave the colour scheme up to the marketing people . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Careful . +Project Manager: It came off . The scroll wheels , {gap} a problem with them not being sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think the user interface guy wants to touch it anymore . +Marketing: Well I mean of course , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My my s my suggestion is we're gonna go go to the silvers and blacks like most of the televisions . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: You know some blend of silvers and blacks . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Beep beep beep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay enough of that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well i it's cool guys . 'Kay so are we done with the this presentation ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you're not gonna find my uh my folder up there I gotta do mine up at the board . +Project Manager: Have you ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can I not get your get at stuff from your shared folder now ? +Marketing: No it's not in there because I had the computer problem and I I I cou I couldn't create it . +Project Manager: Oh I see I see . +Marketing: I couldn't create it in the PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I think I've got this really strange cable . So what I had , basically going from the PowerPoint format , is that uh yeah yeah I like this a lot . Is this one of the tests is to see how we can adapt to s changing situations in the in the meeting room ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So what we had is we had the method . That's not how you spell method , is it ? +User Interface: No way . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No A_ {vocalsound} . {gap} . {vocalsound} So this doesn't go so fast this way . And when I speak about method I speak about the marketing of the product huh . And uh to me with this product we got uh {disfmarker} we got {vocalsound} basically three things to market . We've got the features , we have the uh characteristics , and we have the {vocalsound} I I don't know what we would call the other part {disfmarker} what we call you know the the {vocalsound} the corp corporate {disfmarker} Help me . The the corporation stands behind the product , okay . So the features I think {vocalsound} we got the scroll , we've got the uh the locator , we've got the durability , we've got the dependability , +Industrial Designer: It fell off . +Marketing: we've got you know the features that make this a unique product . Um +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} the characteristics I talk about , we have reliability , we have comfort , we have ergonomics , we have environmentally s sensitive . Uh and the corporation , we're talking about {disfmarker} we're we're a new we're a new company . We're wanting to make a name for ourself . We're wanting you to uh find our product so we're gonna give you a good product at a fair price . One thing I would want to to see is uh is can we can we get a lifetime uh guarantee on this product , a normal use guarantee , which means that this product , for the for the life of of {disfmarker} the life use , if it should have a technical problem , that we could re replace it at no cost ? That was something I would be interested in . Um so {vocalsound} yeah without uh going into great details , we have a we have a product , it has the features and the characteristics , and the background , I believe , to make it marketable I believe at a cost of of of thirty thirty five to to fifty Euros . We're gonna be competitive , and we're gonna we're gonna have a market niche . Um w +Project Manager: Do you {disfmarker} would you a argue that that we're better going for the higher cost than bringing it down into twenty f five as we probably could , but lowering our profit margins ? +Marketing: That that would be uh that would be I think a decision best made by corporate um I I m for my evaluation , based on what our competition is , I th I think that that we can go after this and and and go after more of the uh exclusivity sense than the mass market sense . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm sh I'm sure open to to market this in either direction . But you guys came up with a great product , and at that cost I think it uh {disfmarker} there's nobody else that's putting this this combination of of ingredients together . The only limitations I see to this is that we're focused on television only . Uh that's the only that's the only drawback I see to this . But with all of these other features I think people c {vocalsound} one thing I'm I'm hoping for is people are not gonna even notice . There's gonna be somebody going home and say oh sh this thing doesn't work for my D_V_D_ and my {disfmarker} but I like these other things , so they keep it , they don't take it back . +Project Manager: And we're actually quite open to be able to expand the product for a later version with those features quite simply anyway , aren't we ? Th there's no fundamentally different technology to do that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well one of one of the thoughts that I had is can can this unit be be produced in a way that makes it upgradable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: You know uh like like a um a sim card in a in a um in a telephone . You know is there a card in th can we make a card and so after {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we need we need we need s some more buttons if it would to work on some other stuff , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , but you follow what I'm s I'm s +Industrial Designer: We we w yeah we could get another version of it that actually works . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause if if we can make this unit upgradable then we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah but then we talk about changing the warranty concept and everything , but that's that was just an idea I had . Uh to me the only additions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the plus there's the the risk of making it unusable as well , or making it less {disfmarker} b because at the moment it's actually very straightforward to look at all the buttons , you know what they do , it's very simple , and it just works . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm there's a risk of that . +Marketing: Yep . But anyway that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so we can talk about finance now . So I have a little spreadsheet for us where {disfmarker} I I was wondering , you {disfmarker} when you talked about the fifteen point eight Euros , I was wondering how you came up with that figure ? +User Interface: Well , that was just just our technical team added up the um production costs of the individual units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so I have bit of a spreadsheet here for this . {vocalsound} Now +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Very co very colf colourful . +Project Manager: I've made a f few assumptions here in that I'm assuming that our power adaptor we can make for a cost of four Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Project Manager: equivalent to solar cells , which I think is probably fair considering that we have in-house manufacturing of power adaptors already . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} and I'm assuming that the locator beacon , the you know the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: beep beep beep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can be made for {disfmarker} it sounded different that time {disfmarker} uh can be made for a similar price to uh an L_C_ display , +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh an uh {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh do you think that's fair coming from a {disfmarker} m the manufacturing ? +User Interface: Yeah um I do think we that we we {vocalsound} uh don't need the events chip on print , we only need the uh the regular chip on print , +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: so there may have been a m miscalculation in there . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . So we're down to sixteen point four , yeah . +User Interface: And we and we have a single-curved uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a single-curved rather than a double-curved ? +User Interface: Uh I think that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not entirely sure what single-curve versus double-cur +Marketing: {vocalsound} We've got a we've got a curve and a droop . I don't know whether that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's single-curved , +Project Manager: You think ? Okay +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm {gap} convinced . But we save one Euro that way , yeah ? So we come {disfmarker} bring it down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifteen point four . +User Interface: See it's a little bit more than f single-curved . So yeah it's fifteen point eight , that's where we came up with it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well hang on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do don't speak so {disfmarker} it's in here , in that {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: w do we have any {disfmarker} we have special form don't we ? +User Interface: Yeah we do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Ah . What do you know {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: But the the the {disfmarker} we haven't talked about any special colour though uh I don't th +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh it's {vocalsound} a that's not very special , it's pretty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're going for greys and silvers then I don't think we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} O okay so we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} If th {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Push-button , scroll wheel , we're {disfmarker} basically we have uh th +Industrial Designer: We don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is this intended to be a button as well or just a scroll ? +User Interface: That's a scroll . +Industrial Designer: It's a scroll . +Project Manager: Just a scroll ? It's not one of the scrolls where , for example , with this one you could push it down to be a button ? +User Interface: Uh no we just use it as a scroll . +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: Okay then we have fifteen point eight Euros . +User Interface: It was a pretty accurate estimate I would say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It wasn't bad . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: We're wicked . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay so we're on to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: S 's kind of s frighteningly accurate {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're on to the pat-on-the-back part of the presentation , where we have a look at the criterias th that Paul {vocalsound} the criterion criteria that Paul has has given us {vocalsound} , and we can use that to tell {disfmarker} How's it going ? {vocalsound} Anyone got any thoughts ? +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: How how have we done today ? +User Interface: I think we did pretty well . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That looks pretty spectacular . +Marketing: No , I think we come up with a with a attractive marketable um product and and concept . +Project Manager: Any other chang uh thoughts ? Okay so th th what about um room for creativity ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That was mm-hmm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sh I think there was plenty of room . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we we ended up being quite creative there . +User Interface: We got a couple innovative i +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Couple innovative ideas . +Marketing: well we we we kinda broke {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we kinda at least adjusted every every criteria they gave us +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: because we d we still have the the teletext capability in this thing right , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: we raised the price of it , we've added two t new technology to it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you know you know if this thing flies then we've we've adjusted or broken every every idea they gave us . +Project Manager: Not every idea necessarily , +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Project Manager: it's still a remote control {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Uh no yeah but {disfmarker} we did we did break with the specs a little bit I guess , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I like {disfmarker} I mean when I say we have we had {disfmarker} I believe we have room for creativity 'cause w this is {disfmarker} we did it . +Project Manager: 'Kay leadership , what do we report back to the bosses ? No th th I think they were r reasonably flexible with us over the whole changing the specs thing . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: It was more of a teamwork thing then really leadership based project was +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: Teamwork . +Marketing: Cohesive yeah . +Project Manager: Synergy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} There was a lot of synergy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes synergistic yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Teamwork , yeah he is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What did we think of the meeting room , I guess is an important thing here . Mm . +User Interface: These cables suck {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , this falls off +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the white board worked really well without any pro +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: D you must have very long shirts . That's way far down lapel mic . +Project Manager: Mm-mm , lapel . Wha okay , oh , alright {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Lapel lapel lapel {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Lapel . +Industrial Designer: That's almost a crotch {vocalsound} mi cr {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it's down , it's quite close . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know you know what they're gonna have on the recording in there from that microphone is your lunch digesting you know th {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Keep it , keep it calm . {vocalsound} Oh dear {vocalsound} . No more pizza for me {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh dear oh dear {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So yeah the the pen came in alright and it's a little uncomfortable to use but I guess it works . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this is {disfmarker} you were using it o upside down . Still that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's our boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nah , I'm I'm not convinced of that at all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I've been wor I've been wondering about that all day , but see these look like they're {disfmarker} that looks the oth that looks like it would be that way around , +Industrial Designer: Use them like that . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: but it feels more comfortable , wh what you call upside-down . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: I don't care . Uh okay so that data might be slightly invalid . What new ideas have we found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh wel +Marketing: New ideas f uh for the product or for the the the the environment or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well let's do both then . +Marketing: what are we ta +Project Manager: Uh for the product ? +User Interface: Well we had the favourites list , and the scroll bar , and we have the cradle , and the r uh remote call feature . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah we came up with quite a bit . +Industrial Designer: Bunch of new ideas . +Project Manager: And for the meeting room , Has anyone got any more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah comfortable headsets would be nice . +Project Manager: Yeah less sore on the ears . +Marketing: Well I I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: clearly remote control microphones would be the would be a nice solution to all these cables , but I'm sure that there's there's some justification for these things that I don't know about . And of course I did not have so much fun with my computer this afternoon . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not been uh it's not been cooperating so well , but {vocalsound} I don't think that's the that's avoidable . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} Are the costs within the budget ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm n {vocalsound} no . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh hang on it really {disfmarker} that's something we {disfmarker} that the costs were under twelve fifty Euros . No requirements are changed . We're still under twenty Euros to build , so we're good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And the costs within the budget ? Not the original budget , but they are now . Is the project evaluated ? Mm I think so yeah , then celebration as it says . +Industrial Designer: Hooray . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Free coke provided at the cafeteria . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know how that got there . +User Interface: All right . +Project Manager: Uh anyway . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who wrote that one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: So we need to close this meeting , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah bravo . Congratulations . +User Interface: Good job guys . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: S I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on so let's close this and come back and {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on too . Oh . +","In the meeting, the Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer discuss the detailed design and evaluation of a new product. They begin with the Project Manager outlining the agenda, which includes an introduction, product presentation, finance discussion, and then product evaluation. The team presents a remote control with features like TV functions, a locator, a cradle, and a scroll wheel for zapping favorite channels. They note the production cost to be around 15.8 Euros per unit. + +The Project Manager mentions a spreadsheet created to discuss finances, with cost estimates for various components. Marketing suggests selling the product for 30-50 Euros, positioning it more as an exclusive, niche product rather than mass-market. The possibility of offering a lifetime guarantee is discussed, as well as the potential for making the product upgradeable in the future. + +They also consider the product's design, discussing the ergonomics, materials, and functionality, with some reservations about the scroll wheel's design. Marketing then covers the marketing strategy, focusing on the product's features, characteristics, and corporate backing. Challenges such as limited compatibility (only with TVs) are acknowledged, but they hope customers will be drawn by the unique features. + +As they wrap up, they reflect on how well they did against the meeting's objectives, discussing creativity, leadership, and room for improvement in the meeting environment. The group encounters some technical and computer issues but manages to tackle the agenda. They conclude that the project costs are within the budget and evaluate their success before closing the meeting, with some team members needing to catch up on paperwork." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Are we on ? We 're on . OK . +PhD E: Is it on ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . OK , +PhD D: One , two {disfmarker} u OK . +PhD A: Why is it so cold in here ? +Professor B: so , uh , we haven't sent around the agenda . So , i uh , any agenda items anybody has , wants to talk about , what 's going on ? +Postdoc G: I c I could talk about the meeting . +Grad H: Does everyone {disfmarker} has everyone met Don ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's on ? +PhD C: Now , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah ? OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Hello . +Professor B: OK , agenda item one , +PhD D: We went {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: introduce Don . OK , we did that . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I had a {disfmarker} just a quick question but I know there was discussion of it at a previous meeting that I missed , but just about the {disfmarker} the wish list item of getting good quality close - talking mikes on every speaker . +Professor B: OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} So let 's just do agenda {pause} building right now . OK , so let 's talk about that a bit . +PhD A: I mean , that was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , @ @ tuss close talking mikes , better quality . OK , {vocalsound} uh , we can talk about that . You were gonna {disfmarker} starting to say something ? +Postdoc G: Well , you {disfmarker} you , um , already know about the meeting {comment} that 's coming up and I don't know if {disfmarker} if this is appropriate for this . I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's something we should handle outside of the meeting . +Professor B: No , no , that 's OK . +PhD E: What meeting ? +Professor B: We can {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} we can ta so n NIST is {disfmarker} NIST folks are coming by next week +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and so we can talk about that . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: I think +PhD E: Who 's coming ? +Professor B: Uh , uh , John Fiscus +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I think George Doddington will be around as well . Uh , OK , so we can talk about that . Uh , I guess just hear about how things are going with , uh , uh , the transcriptions . That 's right . +Postdoc G: Sure . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That would sorta be an obvious thing to discuss . Um , An - anything else , uh , strike anybody ? +PhD A: Uh , we started {pause} running recognition on {pause} one conversation but it 's the r {pause} isn't working yet . So , But if anyone has {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Wha +PhD A: uh , the main thing would be if anyone has , um , knowledge about ways to , uh , post - process the wave forms that would give us better recognition , that would be helpful to know about . +Professor B: Um , +Grad H: Dome yeah , it sounds like a topic of conversation . +Professor B: Yeah , so , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What about , uh , is there anything new with the speech , nonspeech stuff ? +PhD C: Yeah , we 're working more on it but , {vocalsound} it 's not finished . +Professor B: OK . Alright , that seems like a {disfmarker} a good collection of things . And we 'll undoubtedly think of {pause} other things . +Postdoc G: I had thought under my topic that I would mention the , uh , four items that I {disfmarker} I , uh , put out for being on the agenda f on that meeting , which includes like the pre - segmentation and the {disfmarker} and the developments in multitrans . +Professor B: Oh , under the NIST meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah , under the NIST thing . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , why don't we start off with this , u u I guess the order we brought them up seems fine . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so , better quality close talking mikes . So the one issue was that the {disfmarker} the , uh , lapel mike , uh , isn't as good as you would like . And so , uh , it {disfmarker} it 'd be better if we had close talking mikes for everybody . Right ? +PhD A: Ri - um , +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} is that basically the point ? +PhD A: yeah , the {disfmarker} And actually in addition to that , that the {disfmarker} the close talking mikes are worn in such a way as to best capture the signal . And the reason here is just that for the people doing work not on microphones but on sort of like dialogue and so forth , uh {disfmarker} or and even on prosody , which Don is gonna be working on soon , it adds this extra , you know , vari variable for each speaker to {disfmarker} to deal with when the microphones aren't similar . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} And I also talked to Mari this morning and she also had a strong preference for doing that . And in fact she said that that 's useful for them to know in starting to collect their data too . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so one th +Grad H: Well , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , well one thing I was gonna say was that , um , i we could get more , uh , of the head mounted microphones even beyond the number of radio channels we have because I think whether it 's radio or wire is probably second - order . And the main thing is having the microphone close to you , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: u although , not too close . +Grad H: Right , so , uh , actually the way Jose is wearing his is {disfmarker} is c {pause} correct . +PhD D: Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad H: The good way . So you want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I it 's not cor it 's correct ? +Professor B: Is . +Grad H: Yeah , th that 's good . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: So it 's towards the corner of your mouth so that breath sounds don't get on it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And then just sort of about , uh , a thumb or {disfmarker} a thumb and a half away from your {disfmarker} from your mouth . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: But we have more than one type of {disfmarker} +Professor B: How am I d +PhD A: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: And this one isn't very adjustable , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: so this about as good as I can get +PhD A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: cuz it 's a fixed boom . +PhD D: Is fixed . Yeah . +PhD A: But if we could actually standardize , you know , the {disfmarker} the microphones , uh , as much as possible that would be really helpful . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , I mean it doesn't hurt to have a few extra microphones around , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: so why don't we just go out and {disfmarker} and get an order of {disfmarker} of if this microphone seems OK to people , uh , I 'd just get a half dozen of these things . +Grad H: Well the onl the only problem with that is right now , um , some of the Jimlets aren't working . The little {disfmarker} the boxes under the table . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: And so , w Uh , I 've only been able to find three jacks that are working . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Can we get these , wireless ? +Grad H: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , but my point is {disfmarker} +PhD A: But y we could just record these signals separately and time align them with the start of the meeting . +Professor B: R r right {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I 'm follow . Say that again ? +Professor B: Right now , we 've got , uh , two microphones in the room , that are not quote - unquote standard . So why don't we replace those {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , just two . +Professor B: Well , however many we can plug in . You know , if we can plug in three , let 's plug in three . +Grad H: OK . +PhD D: Mm - yeah . +Professor B: Also what we 've talked before about getting another , uh , radio , +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: and so then that would be , you know , three {pause} more . +Grad H: Right . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} so we should go out to our full complement of whatever we can do , but have them all be the same mike . I think the original reason that it was done the other way was because , it w it was sort of an experimental thing and I don't think anybody knew whether people would rather have more variety or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or , uh , more uniformity , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} but uh , sounds {disfmarker} sounds fine . +Grad H: Sounds like uniformity wins . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Well , for short term research it 's just {disfmarker} there 's just so much effort that would have to be done up front n uh , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: so {disfmarker} yeah , uniformity would be great . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD E: Is it because {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 're saying the {disfmarker} for dialogue purposes , so that means that the transcribers are having trouble with those mikes ? Is that what you mean ? +PhD A: Well Jane would know more about the transcribers . +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc G: And that 's true . I mean , I {disfmarker} we did discuss this . Uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . Couple times . +Postdoc G: a couple times , so , um , yeah , the transcribers notice {disfmarker} And in fact there 're some where , um {disfmarker} ugh well , I mean there 's {disfmarker} it 's the double thing . It 's the equipment and also how it 's worn . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: And he 's always {disfmarker} they always {disfmarker} they just rave about how wonderful Adam 's {disfmarker} Adam 's channel is . +Grad H: What can I say . +Postdoc G: And then , +PhD A: So does the recognizer . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Oh , really ? Yeah , I 'm not surprised . I mean , "" Baaah ! "" +PhD A: Even if {disfmarker} if you 're talking on someone else 's mike it 's still {pause} you w +Postdoc G: Yeah , but I mean it 's not just that , it 's also you know you +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: It 's also like n no breathing , no {disfmarker} You know , it 's like it 's {disfmarker} it 's um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: it 's really {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} it makes a big difference from the transcribers ' point of view +Grad H: Yeah , it 's an advantage when you don't breath . +Postdoc G: and also from the research s point of view . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: When we 're doing {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I think that the point of doing the close talking mike is to get a good quality signal . We 're not doing research on close talking mikes . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: So we might as well get it as uniform as we can . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Now , this is locking the barn door after the horse was stolen . We do have thirty hours , of {disfmarker} of speech , which is done this way . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh , yeah , for future ones we can get it a bit more uniform . +PhD A: Great , great . +Grad H: So I think just do a field trip at some point . +Professor B: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , to the store we talked about and that {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: And there was some talk about , uh , maybe the h headphones that are uncomfortable for people , to {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . So , as {disfmarker} as I said , we 'll do a field trip and see if we can get all of the same mike that 's more comfortable than {disfmarker} than these things , which I think are horrible . +Postdoc G: OK . Good . +Grad H: So . +PhD A: Great , thank you very much . +PhD E: Especially for people with big heads . +PhD A: It 's makes our job a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad H: And , you know , we 're researchers , so we all have big heads . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , OK , second item was the , uh , NIST visit , and what 's going on there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . OK , so , um , uh , Jonathan Fiscus is coming on the second of February and I 've spoken with , uh , {pause} u u a lot of people here , not everyone . Um , and , um , he expressed an interest in seeing the room and in , um , seeing a demonstration of the modified multitrans , which I 'll mention in a second , and also , um , he was interested in the pre - segmentation and then he 's also interested in the transcription conventions . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: And , um {disfmarker} So , um , it seems to me in terms of like , um , i i it wou You know , OK . So the room , it 's things like the audio and c and audi audio and acoustic {disfmarker} acoustic properties of the room and how it {disfmarker} how the recordings are done , and that kind of thing . And , um . OK , in terms of the multi - trans , well that {disfmarker} that 's being modified by Dave Gelbart to , uh , handle multi - channel recording . +Grad H: Oh , I should 've {disfmarker} I was just thinking I should have invited him to this meeting . I forgot to do it . +Postdoc G: Yeah , OK . +Grad H: So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Well that 's OK , I mean we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad H: Sorry . +Postdoc G: Yeah , and it 's t and it looks really great . He {disfmarker} he has a prototype . I {disfmarker} I , uh , @ @ {comment} didn't {disfmarker} didn't see it , uh , yesterday but I 'm going to see it today . And , uh , that 's {disfmarker} that will enable us to do {pause} nice um , tight time marking of the beginning and ending of overlapping segments . At present it 's not possible with limitations of {disfmarker} of the , uh , original {pause} design of the software . And um . So , I don't know . In terms of , like , pre - segmentation , that {disfmarker} that continues to be , um , a terrific asset to the {disfmarker} to the transcribers . Do you {disfmarker} I know that you 're al also supplementing it further . Do you want to mention something about that c Thilo , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Um , yeah . What {disfmarker} what I 'm doing right now is I 'm trying to include some information about which channel , uh , there 's some speech in . But that 's not working at the moment . I 'm just trying to do this by comparing energies , uh {disfmarker} normalizing energies and comparing energies of the different channels . +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD C: And so to {disfmarker} to give the transcribers some information in which channel there 's {disfmarker} there 's speech in addition to {disfmarker} to the thing we {disfmarker} we did now which is just , uh , speech - nonspeech detection on the mixed file . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm relying on {disfmarker} on the segmentation of the mixed file +Postdoc G: This is good . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to subdivide the speech portions into different portions if there is some activity in {disfmarker} in different channels . +Postdoc G: Excellent , so this 'd be like w e providing also speaker ID {pause} potentially . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: Wonderful . Wonderful . +Professor B: Um , something I guess I didn't put in the list but , uh , on that , uh , same day later on in {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} No , actually {pause} it 's this week , uh , Dave Gelbart and I will be , uh , visiting with John Canny who i you know , is a CS professor , +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: who 's interested in ar in array microphones . +Grad H: HCC . Oh , he 's doing array mikes . +Professor B: Yeah . And so we wanna see what commonality there is here . You know , maybe they 'd wanna stick an array mike here when we 're doing things +PhD E: That would be cool . +Grad H: Yeah , that would be neat . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a specific array microphone they want +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: That would be really neat . +Professor B: but they might wanna just , {disfmarker} uh , you know , you could imagine them taking the four signals from these {disfmarker} these table mikes and trying to do something with them {disfmarker} Um , I also had a discussion {disfmarker} So , w uh , we 'll be over {disfmarker} over there talking with him , um , after class on Friday . Um , we 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what goes with that . Also had a completely unrelated thing . I had a , uh , discussion today with , uh , Birger Kollmeier who 's a , uh , a German , uh , scientist who 's got a fair sized group {vocalsound} doing a range of things . It 's sort of auditory related , largely for hearing aids and so on . But {disfmarker} but , uh , he does stuff with auditory models and he 's very interested in directionality , and location , and {disfmarker} and , uh , head models and {pause} microphone things . And so , uh , he 's {disfmarker} he and possibly a student , there w there 's , uh , a student of his who gave a talk here last year , uh , may come here , uh , in the fall for , uh , sort of a five month , uh , sabbatical . So he might be around . Get him to give some talks and so on . But anyway , he might be interested in {pause} this stuff . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That {disfmarker} that reminds me , I had a {disfmarker} a thought of an interesting project that somebody could try to do with {pause} the data from here , either using , you know , the {disfmarker} the mikes on the table or using signal energies from the head worn mikes , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and that is to try to construct a map of where people were sitting , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: uh , based on {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well Dan {disfmarker} Dan had worked on that . Dan Ellis , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh , did he ? Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad H: yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's the cross - correlation stuff , was {disfmarker} was doing b beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And so you could plot out who was sitting next to who +Professor B: A little bit , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , he didn't do a very extreme thing but just {disfmarker} it was just sort of +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: No , he did start on it . +Professor B: e e given that , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the block of wood with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two mikes {comment} on either side , +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if I 'm speaking , or if you 're speaking , or someone over there is speaking , it {disfmarker} if you look at cross - correlation functions , you end up with a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if {disfmarker} if someone who was on the axis between the two is talking , then you {disfmarker} you get a big peak there . And if {disfmarker} if someone 's talking on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , uh , one side or the other , it goes the other way . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , uh , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it even looks different if th t if the two {disfmarker} two people on either side are talking than if one in the middle . It {disfmarker} it actually looks somewhat different , so . +PhD E: Hmm . Well I was just thinking , you know , as I was sitting here next to Thilo that um , when he 's talking , my mike probably picks it up better than {pause} your guys 's mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: So if you just looked at {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , that 's another cl cue , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah , {comment} looked at {comment} the energy on my mike and you could get an idea about who 's closest to who . +Grad H: that 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or who talks the loudest . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , well you have to {disfmarker} the appropriate normalizations are tricky , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and are probably the key . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: You just search for Adam 's voice on each individual microphone , you pretty much know where everybody 's sitting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We 've switched positions recently so you can't {disfmarker} Anyway . OK . So those are just a little couple of news items . +Postdoc G: Can I ask one thing ? Uh , so , um , Jonathan Fiscus expressed an interest in , uh , microphone arrays . +Professor B: Yes . +Postdoc G: Um , is there {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} b And I also want to say , his {disfmarker} he can't stay all day . He needs to uh , leave for {disfmarker} uh , from here to make a two forty - five flight +Grad H: Oh , so just morning . +Postdoc G: from {disfmarker} from Oakland . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc G: So it makes the scheduling a little bit tight but do you think that , um {disfmarker} that , uh , i John Canny should be involved in this somehow or not . I have no idea . +Professor B: Probably not but I {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll know better after I see him this Friday what {disfmarker} what kind of level he wants to get involved . +Postdoc G: It 's premature . Fine . Good . +Professor B: Uh , he might be excited to and it might be very appropriate for him to , uh , or he might have no interest whatsoever . I {disfmarker} I just really don't know . +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad H: Is he involved in {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} I 'm blanking on the name of the project . NIST has {disfmarker} has done a big meeting room {disfmarker} instrumented meeting room with video and microphone arrays , and very elaborate software . Is {disfmarker} is he the one working on that ? +Professor B: Well that 's what they 're starting up . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , that 's what all this is about . They {disfmarker} they haven't done it yet . They wanted to do it {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK . I had read some papers that looked like they had already done some work . +Professor B: Uh , well I think they 've instrumented a room but I don't {pause} think they {disfmarker} they haven't started recordings yet . They don't have the t the transcription standards . They don't have the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Are they going to do video as well ? +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I think they are . +Grad H: Oh , cuz what {disfmarker} what I had read was , uh , they had a uh very large amount of software infrastructure for coordinating all this , both in terms of recording and also live room where you 're interacting {disfmarker} the participants are interacting with the computer , and with the video , and lots of other stuff . +Professor B: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: All {disfmarker} all I know is that they 've been talking to me about a project that they 're going to start up recording people meet in meetings . +Grad H: OK . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: And , uh , it is related to ours . They were interested in ours . They wanted to get some uniformity with us , uh , about the transcriptions and so on . +Grad H: Alright . +Professor B: And one {disfmarker} one notable difference {disfmarker} u u actually I can't remember whether they were going to routinely collect video or not , but one {disfmarker} one , uh , difference from the audio side was that they are interested in using array mikes . So , um , I mean , I 'll just tell you the party line on that . The reason I didn't go for that here was because , uh , the focus , uh , both of my interest and of Adam 's interest was uh , in impromptu situations . And we 're not recording a bunch of impromptu situations but that 's because it 's different to get data for research than to actually apply it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , for scientific reasons we thought it was good to instrument this room as we wanted it . But the thing we ultimately wanted to aim at was a situation where you were talking with , uh , one or more other people i uh , in {disfmarker} in an p impromptu way , where you didn't {disfmarker} didn't actually know what the situation was going to be . And therefore it would not {disfmarker} it 'd be highly unlikely that room would be outfitted with {disfmarker} with some very carefully designed array of microphones . Um , so it was only for that reason . It was just , you know , yet another piece of research and it seemed like we had enough troubles just {disfmarker} +PhD E: So there 's no like portable array of mikes ? +Professor B: No . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} uh , there 's a whole range of things {disfmarker} there 's a whole array of things , {vocalsound} that people do on this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the big arrays , uh , places , uh , like uh , Rutgers , and Brown , and other {disfmarker} other places , uh , they have , uh , big arrays with , I don't know , a hundred {disfmarker} hundred mikes or something . +Grad H: Xerox . +Professor B: And so there 's a wall of mikes . And you get really , really good beam - forming {comment} with that sort of thing . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} and , um , in fact at one point we had a {disfmarker} a proposal in with Rutgers where we were gonna do some of the sort of per channel signal - processing and they were gonna do the multi - channel stuff , but {pause} it d it d we ended up not doing it . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've seen demonstrations of the microphone arrays . It 's amazing how {disfmarker} how they can cut out noise . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's r It 's really neat stuff . +Grad H: And then they have little ones too +Professor B: And then they had the little ones , yeah . +Grad H: but I mean {disfmarker} but they don't have our block of wood , right ? +Professor B: Yeah , our block of wood is unique . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But the {vocalsound} But the No , there are these commercial things now you can buy that have four mikes or something +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} So , yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a range of things that people do . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor B: Um , so if we connected up with somebody who was interested in doing that sort of thing that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing to do . I mean , whenever I 've described this to other people who are interested on the {disfmarker} with the acoustic side that 's invariably the question they ask . Just like someone who is interested in the general dialogue thing will always ask {vocalsound} "" um , are you recording video ? "" +PhD A: Right , +Professor B: Um , right ? +PhD A: right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the acoustic people will always say , "" well are you doing , uh , uh , array microphones ? "" So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to do , but it doesn't solve the problem of how do you solve things when there 's one mike or at best two mikes in {disfmarker} in this imagined PDA that we have . So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll do some more of it . +Postdoc G: Well one thing I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . I mean , I know that having an array of {disfmarker} I mean , I would imagine it would be more expensive to have a {disfmarker} an array of microphones . But couldn't you kind of approximate the natural sis situation by just shutting off uh , channels when you 're {disfmarker} later on ? I mean , it seems like if the microphones don't effect each other then couldn't you just , you know , record them with an array and then just not use all the data ? +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just a lot of infrastructure that for our particular purpose we felt we didn't need to set up . +Postdoc G: I see . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Fine . +Professor B: Yeah , if ninety - nine percent of what you 're doing is c is shutting off most of the mikes , then going through the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: But if you get somebody who 's {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who has that as a primary interest then that put {disfmarker} then that drives it in that direction . +Grad H: That 's right , I mean if someone {disfmarker} if someone came in and said we really want to do it , +PhD A: Right . +Grad H: I mean , we don't care . That would be fine , +PhD E: So to save that data you {disfmarker} You have to have one channel recording per mike in the array ? +Grad H: Buy more disk space . +Professor B: Well , uh , at some level {disfmarker} at some level . +PhD E: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad H: I usually do a mix . +Professor B: But then , you know , there 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: What you save , I mean , if you 're going to do research with it . yeah +Professor B: There 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what they 're going to do and I don't know how big their array is . Obviously if you were gonna save all of those channels for later research you 'd use up a lot of space . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , th +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad H: Well their software infrastructure had a very elaborate design for plugging in filters , and mixers , and all sorts of processing . So that they can do stuff in real time and not save out each channel individually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +Grad H: So it was , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I mean , uh , for optimum flexibility later you 'd want to save each channel . But I think in practical situations you would have some engine of some sort doing some processing to reduce this to some {disfmarker} to the equivalent of a single microphone that was very directional . +PhD E: Uh , oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD A: I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Sort of saving the result of the beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: it seems to me that there 's {disfmarker} you know , there are good political reasons for {disfmarker} for doing this , just getting the data , because there 's a number of sites {disfmarker} like right now SRI is probably gonna invest a lot of internal funding into recording meetings also , which is good , um , but they 'll be recording with video and they 'll be {disfmarker} You know , it 'd be nice if we can have at least , uh , make use of the data that we 're recording as we go since it 's sort of {disfmarker} this is the first site that has really collected these really impromptu meetings , um , and just have this other information available . So , if we can get the investment in just for the infra infrastructure and then , I don't know , save it out or have whoever 's interested save that data out , transfer it there , it 'd be g it 'd be good to have {disfmarker} have the recording . I think . +Grad H: You mean to {disfmarker} to actually get a microphone array and do that ? +PhD A: Well , if {disfmarker} Even if we 're not {disfmarker} +Grad H: And video and {disfmarker} +PhD A: I 'm not sure about video . That 's sort of an {disfmarker} video has a little different nature since right n right now we 're all being recorded but we 're not being taped . Um , but it {disfmarker} definitely in the case of microphone arrays , since if there was a community interested in this , then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well , but I think we need a researcher here who 's interested in it . To push it along . +Professor B: See the problem is it {disfmarker} it took , uh , uh , it took at least six months for Dan to get together the hardware and the software , and debug stuff in {disfmarker} in the microphones , and in the boxes . And it was a really big deal . And so I think we could get a microphone array in here pretty easily and , uh , have it mixed to {disfmarker} to one channel of some sort . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , e I think for I mean , how we 're gonna decide {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for maximum flexibility later you really don't want to end up with just one channel that 's pointed in the direction of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the p the person with the maximum energy or something like that . I mean , you {disfmarker} you want actually to {disfmarker} you want actually to have multiple channels being recorded so that you can {disfmarker} And to do that , it {disfmarker} we 're going to end up greatly increasing the disk space that we use up , we also only have boards that will take up to sixteen channels and in {pause} this meeting , we 've got eight people and {disfmarker} and six mikes . And there we 're already using fourteen . +Grad H: And we actually only have fifteen . +Professor B: E +Grad H: One of them 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Details . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: But fifteen , not sixteen . +PhD A: Well if there 's a way to say time {disfmarker} to sort of solve each of these f those {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So suppose you can get an array in because there 's some person at Berkeley who 's interested and has some {pause} equipment , uh , and suppose we can {disfmarker} as we save it we can , you know , transfer it off to some other place that {disfmarker} that holds this {disfmarker} this data , who 's interested , and even if ICSI it itself isn't . Um , and it {disfmarker} it seems like as long as we can time align the beginning , do we need to mix it with the rest ? I don't know . You know ? The +Professor B: Yeah . So I think you 'd need a separate {disfmarker} a separate set up +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: and the assumption that you could time align the two . +PhD A: I mean it 's just {disfmarker} it 's worth considering as sort of +Grad H: And y it 'd certainly gets skew . +PhD A: once you make the up front investment {comment} and can sort of save it out each time , and {disfmarker} and not have to worry about the disk space factor , then it mi it might be worth having the data . +Professor B: I 'm not so much worried about disk space actually . I mentioned that , b as a practical matter , +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the real issue is that , uh , there is no way to do a recording extended to what we have now with low skew . So {pause} you would have a t completely separate set up , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: which would mean that the sampling times and so forth would be all over the place compared to this . So it would depend on the level of pr processing you were doing later , but if you 're d i the kind of person who 's doing array processing you actually care about funny little times . And {disfmarker} and so you actually wou would want to have a completely different set up than we have , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: one that would go up to thirty - two channels or something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So basically {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or a hundred thirty - two . +Professor B: or a hun Yeah . So , I 'm kinda skeptical , but um I think that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , I don't think we can share the resource in that way . But what we could do is if there was someone else who 's interested they could have a separate set up which they wouldn't be trying to synch with ours which might be useful for {disfmarker} for them . +PhD A: Right , I mean at least they 'd have the data and the transcripts , +Professor B: And then we can offer up the room , +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Right . +Professor B: Yeah , we can o offer the meetings , and the physical space , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah , the transcripts , and so on . +PhD A: OK . Right , I mean , just {disfmarker} it 'd be nice if we have more information on the same data . You know , and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} if it 's impossible or if it 's a lot of effort then you have to just balance the two , +Professor B: Well I thi +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: yeah , the thing will be , u u in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} again , in talking to these other people to see what {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what we can do . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh , we 'll see . +PhD E: Is there an interest in getting video recordings for these meetings ? +Professor B: Right , so we have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean +Grad H: Yes , absolutely . But it 's exactly the same problem , that you have an infrastructure problem , you have a problem with people not wanting to be video taped , and you have the problem that no one who 's currently involved in the project is really hot to do it . +PhD E: Hmm . So there 's not enough interest to overcome all of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . Internally , but I know there is interest from other places that are interested in looking at meeting data and having the video . So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah , w although I {disfmarker} m {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I have to u u mention the human subjects problems , {pause} that i increase with video . +PhD A: Right , that 's true . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's , uh , people {disfmarker} people getting shy about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: There 's this human subjects problem . There 's the fact that then um , if {disfmarker} i I I 've heard comments about this before , "" why don't you just put on a video camera ? "" But you know , it 's sort of like saying , "" uh , well we 're primarily interested in {disfmarker} in some dialogue things , uh , but , uh , why don't we just throw a microphone out there . "" I mean , the thing is , once you actually have serious interest in any of these things then you actually have to put a lot of effort in . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you really want to do it right . +Grad H: I know . Yep . +Professor B: So I think NIST or LDC , or somebody like that I think is much better shape to do all that . We {disfmarker} there will be other meeting recordings . We won't be the only place doing meeting recordings . We are doing what we 're doing . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , hopefully it 'll be useful . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it occurred to me , has Don signed a human subject 's form ? +Grad H: Oh ! Probably not . +Postdoc G: A permission form ? +Grad H: Has Don {disfmarker} have you s did you si I thought you did actually . +Grad F: I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I was {disfmarker} I was here {disfmarker} I was here before once . +Grad H: Didn't you read a digit string ? +PhD E: You were here at a meeting before . +Postdoc G: You were here at a meeting before . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad H: Yeah , and you {disfmarker} and you signed a form . +Grad F: Oh , I think so . +Postdoc G: Did you sign a form ? +Grad F: Did I ? I don't know . +Grad H: I 'm pretty sure . Well I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll get another one before the end of the meeting . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Thank you . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: You don't {disfmarker} you don't have to leave for it . +Professor B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: But I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Can I verbally consent ? +Postdoc G: you know . +Grad H: Well I can't , I 'm wired in . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we don't , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . You 're on recor you 're being recorded +Postdoc G: o +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: we don't {disfmarker} we don't perform electro - shock during these meetings , +Grad F: I don't care . You can do whatever you want with it . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Usually . +Grad F: That 's fine . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Uh , transcriptions . +Postdoc G: Transcriptions , OK . Um , I thought about {disfmarker} there are maybe three aspects of this . So first of all , um , I 've got eight transcribers . Uh , seven of them are linguists . One of them is a graduate student in psychology . Um , Each {disfmarker} I gave each of them , uh , their own data set . Two of them have already finished the data sets . And {pause} the meetings run , you know , let 's say an hour . Sometimes as man much as an hour and a half . +PhD E: How big is the data set ? +Postdoc G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} what I mean is one meeting . +PhD E: Ah , OK . +Postdoc G: Each {disfmarker} each person got their own meeting . I didn't want to have any conflicts of , you know , of {disfmarker} of when to stop transcribing this one or {disfmarker} So I wanted to keep it clear whose data were whose , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc G: And , uh , meetings , you know , I think that they 're {disfmarker} they go as long as a {disfmarker} almost two hours in some {disfmarker} in some cases . So , you know , that means {disfmarker} you know , if we 've got two already finished and they 're working on {disfmarker} Uh , right now all eight of them have differe uh , uh , additional data sets . That means potentially as many as ten might be finished by the end of the month . +PhD E: Wow . +Postdoc G: Hope so . But the pre - segmentation really helps a huge amount . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc G: And , uh , also Dan Ellis 's innovation of the , uh {disfmarker} the multi - channel to here really helped a r a lot in terms of clearing {disfmarker} clearing up h hearings that involve overlaps . But , um , just out of curiosity I asked one of them how long {pause} it was taking her , one of these two who has already finished her data set . She said it takes about , uh , sixty minutes transcription for every five minutes of real time . So it 's about twelve to one , which is what we were thinking . +Grad H: or Yep . +Postdoc G: It 's well in the range . +Grad H: It 's pretty good . +Postdoc G: OK . Uh , these still , when they 're finished , um , that means that they 're finished with their pass through . They still need to be edited and all but {disfmarker} But it 's word level , speaker change , the things that were mentioned . OK , now I wanted to mention the , um , teleconference I had with , uh , Jonathan Fiscus . We spoke for an hour and a half and , um , had an awful lot of things in common . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc G: He , um , um , he in indicated to me that they 've {disfmarker} that he 's been , uh , looking , uh , uh , spending a lot of time with {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure the connection , but spending a lot of time with the ATLAS system . And I guess that {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I need to read up on that . And there 's a web site that has lots of papers . But it looks to me like that 's the name that has developed for the system that Bird and Liberman developed {comment} for the annotated {pause} graphs approach . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: So what he wants me to do and what we {disfmarker} what we will do and {disfmarker} uh , is to provide them with the u already transcribed meeting for him to be able to experiment with in this ATLAS System . And they do have some sort of software , at least that 's my impression , related to ATLAS and that he wants to experiment with taking our data and putting them in that format , and see how that works out . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I explained to him in {disfmarker} in detail the , uh , conventions that we 're using here in this {disfmarker} in this word level transcript . And , um , you know , I {disfmarker} I explained , you know , the reasons that {disfmarker} that we were not coding more elaborately and {disfmarker} and the focus on reliability . He expressed a lot of interest in reliability . It 's like he 's {disfmarker} he 's really up on these things . He 's {disfmarker} he 's very {disfmarker} Um , independently he asked , "" well what about reliability ? "" So , {vocalsound} he 's interested in the consistency of the encoding and that sort of thing . OK , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry , can you explain what the ATLAS {disfmarker} I 'm not familiar with this ATLAS system . +Postdoc G: Well , you know , at this point I think {disfmarker} Uh , well Adam 's read more {disfmarker} in more detail than I have on this . I need to acquaint myself more with it . But , um , there {disfmarker} there is a way of viewing {disfmarker} Uh , whenever you have coding categories , um , and you 're dealing with uh , a taxonomy , then you can have branches that {disfmarker} that have alternative , uh , choices that you could use for each {disfmarker} each of them . And it just ends up looking like a graphical representation . +Grad H: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is ATLAS the {disfmarker} his annotated transcription graph stuff ? I don't remember the acronym . The {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what I think you 're referring to , they {disfmarker} they have this concept of an an annotated transcription graph representation . +PhD A: Oh . Oh . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: And that 's basically what I based the format that I did {disfmarker} I based it on their work almost directly , in combination with the TEI stuff . And so it 's very , very similar . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a data representation and a set of tools for manipulating transcription graphs of various types . +PhD E: Is this the project that 's sort of , uh , between , uh , NIST and {disfmarker} and , uh , a couple of other places ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Including LDC . +PhD E: Yeah , +Postdoc G: I think so . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD E: y right , OK . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Then there 's their web site that has lots of papers . And I looked through them and they mainly had to do with this , um , this , uh , tree structure , uh , annotated tree diagram thing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: So , um , um {disfmarker} and , you know , in terms of like the conventions that I 'm a that I 've adopted , it {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's no conflict at all . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc G: And he was , you know , very interested . And , "" oh , and how 'd you handle this ? "" And I said , "" well , you know , this way "" and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and we had a really nice conversation . Um , OK , now I also wanted to say in a different {disfmarker} a different direction is , Brian Kingsbury . So , um , I corresponded briefly with him . I , uh , c I {disfmarker} He still has an account here . I told him he could SSH on and use multi - trans , and have a look at the already done , uh , transcription . And he {disfmarker} and he did . And what he said was that , um , what they 'll be providing is {disfmarker} will not be as fine grained in terms of the time information . And , um , that 's , uh {disfmarker} You know , I need to get back to him and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , explore that a little bit more and see what they 'll be giving us in specific , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: The p the people {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but I just haven't had time yet . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the folks that they 're , uh , subcontracting out the transcription to , are they like court reporters +Postdoc G: Sorry , what ? Yes . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Apparently {disfmarker} Well , I get the sense they 're kind of like that . Like it 's like a pool of {disfmarker} of somewhat uh , secretarial {disfmarker} I don't think that they 're court reporters . I don't think they have the special keyboards and that {disfmarker} and that type of training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I get the sense they 're more secretarial . And that , um , uh , what they 're doing is giving them {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Like medical transcriptionist type people {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nu - it 's mostly {disfmarker} it 's for their speech recognition products , +PhD E: But aren't {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yep . +Grad H: that they 've hired these people to do . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're hiring them , they 're coming . It 's not a service they send the tapes out to . +Grad H: Well they {disfmarker} they do send it out but my understanding is that that 's all this company does is transcriptions for IBM for their speech product . +PhD E: Ah ! Oh . OK . I gotcha . +Grad H: So most of it 's ViaVoice , people reading their training material for that . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Up to now it 's been monologues , uh , as far my understood . +Grad H: Yep , exactly . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , um , Adam sent them a CD and Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} uh , cuz , you know , I mean , we wanted to have it so that they were in familiar f terms with what they wanted to do . He downloaded {pause} from the CD onto audio tapes . And apparently he did it one channel per audio tape . So each of these people is {pause} transcribing from one channel . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc G: And then what he 's going to do is check it , a before they go be beyond the first one . Check it and , you know , adjust it , and all that . +PhD E: So each person gets one of these channels {disfmarker} +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: So if they hear something off in the distance they don't {disfmarker} they just go {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well , but that 's OK , because , you know , you 'll do all them and then combine them . +PhD E: But there could be problems , right ? with that . +Postdoc G: I have t I , you know I {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +Postdoc G: I think it would be difficult to do it that way . I really +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Well if you 're tran if you got that channel right there {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: d uh , in my case {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: No , no . We 're talking about close talking , not the {disfmarker} not the desktop . +PhD D: No , close talk . +Professor B: Are you ? +Postdoc G: Yes . Well I th I think so . +Grad H: I sure hope so . It 'd be really foolish to do otherwise . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would think that it would be kind of hard to come out with {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's sort of hard just playing the {disfmarker} you know , just having played the individual files . And I {disfmarker} I mean , I know you . I know what your voice sounds like . I 'm sort of familiar with {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , it 's pretty hard to follow , especially +Grad H: One side . +PhD A: there are a lot of words that are so reduced phonetically that make sense when you know what the person was saying before . +Postdoc G: I agree . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , it sort of depends where you are in {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And especially since a lot of these {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I mean we had this {disfmarker} we 've had this discussion many times . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we have . +Grad H: And the answer is we don't actually know the answer because we haven't tried both ways . +Postdoc G: Well , except I can say that my transcribers use the mixed signal mostly +Grad H: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc G: unless there 's a huge disparity in terms of the volume on {disfmarker} on the mix . In which case , you know , they {disfmarker} they wouldn't be able to catch anything except the prominent {comment} channel , +Grad H: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: then they 'll switch between . +Grad H: Well I think that {disfmarker} that might change if you wanted really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but really {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: But they 're not giving f really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually , are th so {vocalsound} are they giving any time markings ? +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: In other words , if {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I have to ask him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's my email to him . That needs to be forthcoming . +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but the , uh {disfmarker} I did want to say that it 's hard to follow one channel of a conversation even if you know the people , and if you 're dealing furthermore with highly abstract network concepts you 've never heard of {disfmarker} So , you know , one of these people was {disfmarker} was transcribing the , uh , networks group talk and she said , "" I don't really know what a lot of these abbreviations are , "" "" but I just put them in parentheses cuz that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the convention and I just "" {disfmarker} Cuz you know , if you don't know {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I 'd be curious to {disfmarker} to look at that . +PhD E: Just out of curiosity , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: They also all have h heavy accents . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: The networks group meetings are all {disfmarker} +PhD E: Given all of the effort that is going on here in transcribing why do we have I B M doing it ? Why not just do it all ourselves ? +Professor B: Um , it 's historical . I mean , uh , some point ago we thought that uh , it {disfmarker} "" boy , we 'd really have to ramp up to do that "" , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: No , just {disfmarker} +Professor B: you know , like we just did , and , um , here 's , uh , a {disfmarker} a , uh , collaborating institution that 's volunteered to do it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , that was a contribution they could make . Uh in terms of time , money , you know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it still might be a good thing +PhD E: I 'm just wondering now {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actu yeah , Mar - Mari asked me the same question as sort of {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering now if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well we can talk about more details later . +PhD A: um , you know , yeah , whether to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , so . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We 'll see . I mean , I think , th you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 've proceeded along a bit . Let 's see what comes out of it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , have some more discussions with them . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . It 's very {disfmarker} a real benefit having Brian involved because of his knowledge of what the {disfmarker} how the data need to be used and so what 's useful to have in the format . +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad H: So , um , Liz , with {disfmarker} with the SRI recognizer , {comment} can it make use of some time marks ? +PhD A: OK , so this is a , um , +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I guess I don't know what that means . +PhD A: and actually I should say this is what Don has b uh , he 's already been really helpful in , uh , chopping up these {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so first of all you {disfmarker} um , I mean , for the SRI front - end , we really need to chop things up into pieces that are f not too huge . Um , but second of all , uh {disfmarker} in general because some of these channels , I 'd say , like , I don't know , at least half of them probably {comment} on average are g are ha are {disfmarker} have a lot of cross - ta sorry , some of the segments have a lot of cross - talk . Um , it 's good to get sort of short segments if you 're gonna do recognition , especially forced alignment . So , uh , Don has been taking a first stab actually using Jane 's first {disfmarker} the fir the meeting that Jane transcribed which we did have some problems with , and Thilo , uh , I think told me why this was , but that people were switching microphones around {comment} in the very beginning , so {disfmarker} the SRI re +PhD C: No , th Yeah . No . They {disfmarker} they were not switching them but what they were {disfmarker} they were adjusting them , +PhD A: and they {disfmarker} They were not {disfmarker} +PhD C: so . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: Adjusting . Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And aft after a minute or so it 's {disfmarker} it 's way better . +PhD A: So we have to sort of normalize {comment} the front - end and so forth , and have these small segments . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD A: So we 've taken that and chopped it into pieces based always on your {disfmarker} your , um , cuts that you made on the mixed signal . And so that every {disfmarker} every speaker has the same cuts . And if they have speech in it we run it through . And if they don't have speech in it we don't run it through . And we base that knowledge on the transcription . +Grad H: On {disfmarker} Just on the marks . Right ? +PhD A: Um , the problem is if we have no time marks , then for forced alignment we actually don't know where {disfmarker} you know , in the signal the transcriber heard that word . And so {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I see , +PhD A: I mean , if {disfmarker} if it 's a whole conversation and we get a long , uh , you know , par paragraph of {disfmarker} of talk , +Grad H: it 's for the length . I see . +PhD A: uh , I don't know how they do this . Um , we actually don't know which piece goes where . +Grad H: I understand . +PhD A: And , um , I think with {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well you would need to {disfmarker} like a forced alignment before you did the chopping , right ? +PhD A: No , we used the fact that {disfmarker} So when Jane transcribes them the way she has transcribers doing this , whether it 's with the pre - segmentation or not , +Grad H: It 's already chunked . +PhD A: they have a chunk and then they transcribes {comment} the words in the chunk . And maybe they choose the chunk or now they use a pre - segmentation and then correct it if necessary . But there 's first a chunk and then a transcription . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Then a chunk , then a transcription . That 's great , cuz the recognizer can {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh , it 's all pretty good sized for the recognizer also . +PhD A: Right , and it {disfmarker} it helps that it 's made based on sort of heuristics and human ear I think . +Postdoc G: Good . Oh good . +PhD A: Th - but there 's going to be a real problem , uh , even if we chop up based on speech silence these , uh , the transcripts from I B M , we don't actually know where the words were , which segment they belonged to . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So that 's sort of what I 'm {pause} worried about right now . +PhD E: Why not do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a forced alignment ? +Grad H: That 's what she 's saying , is that you can't . +PhD A: If you do a forced alignment on something really {disfmarker} +Grad H: Got uh six sixty minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD A: well even if you do it on something really long you need to know {disfmarker} you can always chop it up but you need to have a reference of which words went with which , uh , chop . +Postdoc G: Now wasn't {disfmarker} I thought that one of the proposals was that IBM was going to do an initial forced alignment , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: after they {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think that they are , +Grad H: We 'll have to talk to Brian . +Professor B: um , yeah , I 'm sure they will and so we {disfmarker} we have to have a dialogue with them about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it sounds like Liz has some concerns +PhD A: Maybe they have some {disfmarker} you know , maybe actually there is some , even if they 're not fine grained , maybe the transcribers {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh , I don't know , maybe it 's saved out in pieces or {disfmarker} or something . That would help . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: But , uh , it 's just an unknown right now . +Postdoc G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} to write to him . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc G: I just {disfmarker} you know , it 's like I got over - taxed with the timing . +PhD A: Right . But the {disfmarker} it is true that the segments {disfmarker} I haven't tried the segments that Thilo gave you but the segments that in your first meeting are great . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good length . +Postdoc G: A good size . Good . +PhD A: Right , cuz {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I {disfmarker} I was thinking it would be fun to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , uh , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} wouldn't mind , {comment} {vocalsound} to give us a pre - segmentation . +PhD A: y yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Uh , maybe you have one already of that first m of the meeting that uh , the first transcribed meeting , the one that I transcribed . +PhD C: Um , I 'm sure I have some +Postdoc G: Do you have a {disfmarker} could you generate a pre - segmentation ? +Grad H: February sixteenth I think . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but that 's the one where we 're , um , trai training on , so that 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh . +Postdoc G: Oh , I see . +PhD C: It 's a little bit at odd to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh , darn . Of course , of course , of course . Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: And actually as you get transcripts just , um , for new meetings , {comment} um , we can try {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , the {disfmarker} the more data we have to try the {disfmarker} the alignments on , um , the better . So it 'd be good for {disfmarker} just to know as transcriptions are coming through the pipeline from the transcribers , just to sort of {disfmarker} we 're playing around with sort of uh , parameters f on the recognizer , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz that would be helpful . Especially as you get , en more voices . +Postdoc G: Excellent , good . +PhD A: The first meeting had I think just four people , +PhD C: Four speakers , yeah . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah , Liz and I spoke d w at some length on Tuesday and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and I was planning to do just a {disfmarker} a preliminary look over of the two that are finished and then give them to you . +PhD A: Oh , great , great . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: That 's great . I guess the other thing , I {disfmarker} I can't remember if we discussed this in the meeting but , uh , I know you and I talked about this a little bit , there was an issue of , uh , suppose we get in the , uh , I guess it 's enviable position although maybe it 's just saying where the weak link is in the chain , uh , where we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , we have all the data transcribed and we have these transcribers and we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we 're still a bit slow on feeding {disfmarker} at that point we 've caught up and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , the weak link is {disfmarker} is recording meetings . OK , um , two questions come , is you know what {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how do we {disfmarker} uh , it 's not really a problem at the moment cuz we haven't reached that point but how do we step out the recorded meetings ? And the other one is , um , uh , is there some good use that we can make of the transcribers to do other things ? So , um , I {disfmarker} I can't remember how much we talked about this in this meeting but there was {disfmarker} +Grad H: We had spoken with them about it . +Postdoc G: And there is one use that {disfmarker} that also we discussed which was when , uh , Dave finishes the {disfmarker} and maybe it 's already finished {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the modification to multi - trans which will allow fine grained encoding of overlaps . Uh , then it would be very {disfmarker} these people would be very good to shift over to finer grain encoding of overlaps . It 's just a matter of , you know , providing {disfmarker} So if right now you have two overlapping segments in the same time bin , well with {disfmarker} with the improvement in the database {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the , uh , sorry , in the interface , it 'd be possible to , um , you know , just do a click and drag thing , and get the {disfmarker} uh , the specific place of each of those , the time tag associated with the beginning and end of {disfmarker} of each segment . +Professor B: Right , so I think we talking about three level {disfmarker} three things . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: One {disfmarker} one was uh , we had s had some discussion in the past about some very high level labelings , +Postdoc G: Yeah . The types of overlaps {disfmarker} +Professor B: types of overlaps , and so forth that {disfmarker} that someone could do . Second was , uh , somewhat lower level +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just doing these more precise timings . And the third one is {disfmarker} is , uh , just a completely wild hair brained idea that I have which is that , um , if , uh {disfmarker} if we have time and people are able to do it , to take some subset of the data and do some very fine grained analysis of the speech . For instance , uh , marking in some overlapping {disfmarker} potentially overlapping fashion , uh , the value of , uh , ar articulatory features . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , just sort of say , OK , it 's voiced from here to here , there 's {disfmarker} it 's nasal from here to here , and so forth . Um , as opposed to doing phonetic {disfmarker} uh , you know , phonemic and the phonetic analysis , +Grad H: +Professor B: and , uh , assuming , uh , articulatory feature values for those {disfmarker} those things . Um , obviously that 's extremely time - consuming . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: That would be really valuable I think . +Professor B: but , uh , we could do it on some small subset . +Postdoc G: Also if you 're dealing with consonants that would be easier than vowels , wouldn't it ? I mean , I would think that {disfmarker} that , uh , being able to code that there 's a {disfmarker} a fricative extending from here to here would be a lot easier than classifying precisely which vowel that was . +Grad H: Which one . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I think vowels {disfmarker} vowels are I think harder . +Professor B: Well , yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but I think also it 's just the issue that {disfmarker} that when you look at the {disfmarker} u w u u when you look at Switchboard for instance very close up there are places where whether it 's a consonant or a vowel you still have trouble calling it a particular phone +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at that point +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , OK . +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but just saying what the {disfmarker} +Professor B: because it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's this movement from here to here +Postdoc G: Yeah , I 'm sure . Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's {disfmarker} so I +PhD E: You 're saying r sort of remove the high level constraints and go bottom - up . +Professor B: Yeah , describe {disfmarker} describe it . +PhD E: Then just say {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , just features . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Now I 'm suggesting articulatory features . Maybe there 's {disfmarker} there 's even a better way to do it but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but that 's , you know , sort of a traditional way of describing these things , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: um , and {disfmarker} uh , I mean , actually this might be a g neat thing to talk to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: That 's nice . +PhD E: Acoustic features versus psychological categories . +Professor B: Sort of . I mean , it 's still {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: some sort of categories but {disfmarker} but something that allows for overlapping change of these things and then this would give some more ground work for people who were building statistical models that allowed for overlapping changes , different timing changes as opposed to just "" click , you 're now in this state , which corresponds to this speech sound "" and so on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So this is like gestural {disfmarker} uh , these g +Professor B: Yeah , something like that . +PhD A: Right . OK . +Professor B: I mean , actually if we get into that it might be good to , uh , uh , haul John Ohala into this +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and ask his {disfmarker} his views on it I think . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: But is {disfmarker} is the goal there to have this on meeting data , +Postdoc G: Excellent . +PhD A: like so that you can do far field studies {comment} of those gestures or {disfmarker} um , or is it because you think there 's a different kind of actual production in meetings {comment} that people use ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that purpose I 'm just viewing meetings as being a {disfmarker} a neat way to get people talking naturally . And then you have i and then {disfmarker} and then it 's natural in all senses , +PhD E: Just a source of data ? +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: in the sense that you have microphones that are at a distance that you know , one might have , and you have the close mikes , and you have people talking naturally . And the overlap is just indicative of the fact that people are talking naturally , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so I think that given that it 's that kind of corpus , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if it 's gonna be a very useful corpus um , if you say w OK , we 've limited the use by some of our , uh , uh , censored choices , we don't have the video , we don't {disfmarker} and so forth , but there 's a lot of use that we could make of it by expanding the annotation choices . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , most of the things we 've talked about have been fairly high level , and being kind of a bottom - up person I thought maybe we 'd , {vocalsound} do some of the others . +Grad H: Hmm . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , that would be good . +Postdoc G: It 's a nice balance . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: That would be really nice to offer those things with that wide range . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah and hopefully someone would make use of it . +Postdoc G: Really nice . +Professor B: I mean , people didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , I mean , people have made a lot of use of {disfmarker} of TIMIT and , uh w due to its markings , and then {pause} the Switchboard transcription thing , well I think has been very useful for a lot of people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I guess I wanted to , um , sort of make a pitch for trying to collect more meetings . +Postdoc G: Cool . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I actually I talked to Chuck Fillmore and I think they 've what , vehemently said no before but this time he wasn't vehement and he said you know , "" well , Liz , come to the meeting tomorrow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and try to convince people "" . So I 'm gonna {pause} try . Go to their meeting tomorrow and see if we can try , uh , to convince them +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: Cuz they have something like three or four different meetings , +PhD A: because they have {disfmarker} And they have very interesting meetings from the point of view of a very different type of {disfmarker} of talk than we have here +Professor B: right ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: and definitely than the front end meeting , probably . Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: You mean in terms of the topic {disfmarker} topics ? +PhD A: Well , yes and in terms of the {disfmarker} the fact that they 're describing abstract things and , uh , just dialogue - wise , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , so I 'll try . And then the other thing is , I don't know if this is at all useful , but I asked Lila if I can maybe go around and talk to the different departments in this building to see if there 's any groups that , for a free lunch , +Professor B: Yes . +PhD A: if we can still offer that , might be willing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Great . +Grad H: You mean non - ICSI ? +PhD A: non - ICSI , non - academic , +Grad H: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} you can try +PhD A: you know , like government people , +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad H: The problem is so much of their stuff is confidential . +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: It would be very hard for them . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is it in these departments ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Also it does seem like it takes us way out of the demographic . I mean , it seems like we {disfmarker} we had this idea before of having like linguistics students brought down for free lunches +Grad H: Well , tha I think that 's her point . +Postdoc G: and that 's a nice idea . +PhD A: Right , and then we could also {disfmarker} we might try advertising again because I think it 'd be good if {disfmarker} if we can get a few different sort of non - internal types of meetings +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and just also more data . So . +PhD E: Does {disfmarker} does John Ohala have weekly phonetics lab meetings ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And I think , uh , if we could get {disfmarker} +PhD A: So I actually wrote to him and he answered , "" great , that sounds really interesting "" . But I never heard back because we didn't actually advertise openly . We a I mean w I told {disfmarker} I d asked him privately . Um , and it is a little bit of a trek for campus {pause} folks . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yeah . You might give them a free lunch . +PhD A: Um , so it 's still worthwhile . +Grad H: But , um , it would be nice if we got someone other than me who knew how to set it up and could do the recording +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: so u I didn't have to do it each time . +PhD A: Exactly , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD A: and I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor B: He - he 's supposed {disfmarker} he 's supposed to be trained {vocalsound} to do it . +PhD A: Yeah . Plus we could also get you know , a s a student . +Grad H: OK , next week {pause} you 're going to do it all . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And I 'm willing to try to learn . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I would do my best . Um , the other thing is that {disfmarker} there was a number of things at the transcription side that , um , transcribers can do , like dialogue act tagging , +Grad H: It 's not that hard . +PhD A: disfluency tagging , um , things that are in the speech that are actually something we 're y {comment} working on for language modeling . And Mari 's also interested in it , Andreas as well . So if you wanna process a utterance and the first thing they say is , "" well "" , and that "" well "" is coded as some kind of interrupt u tag . Uh , and things like that , um , th +Postdoc G: Of course some of that can be li done lexically . +PhD A: A lot of it can be done {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I also {disfmarker} they are doing disfluency tagging to some degree already . +PhD A: Great . So a {disfmarker} a lot of this kind of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: I think there 's a second pass and I don't really know what would exist in it . But there 's definitely a second pass worth doing to maybe encode some kinds of , you know , is it a question or not , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} um , that maybe these transcribers could do . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc G: They 'd be really good . They 're {disfmarker} they 're very {disfmarker} they 're very consistent . +PhD A: That 'd be great . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: Uh , I wanted to {disfmarker} whi while we 're {disfmarker} Uh , so , to return just briefly to this question of more meeting data , um {disfmarker} I have two questions . One of them is , um , Jerry Feldman 's group , they {disfmarker} they , uh , are they {disfmarker} I know that they recorded one meeting . Are they willing ? +Professor B: I think they 're open to it . I think , you know , all these things are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: I think there 's {disfmarker} we should go beyond , uh , ICSI but , I mean , there 's a lot of stuff happening at ICSI that we 're not getting now that we could . +PhD A: Oh , that we could . +Professor B: So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . I thought that all these people had sort of said "" no "" twice already . +Professor B: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} +PhD A: If that 's not the case then {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no . No . So th there was the thing in Fillmore 's group but even there he hadn't {disfmarker} What he 'd said "" no "" to was for the main meeting . But they have several smaller meetings a week , +Grad H: So . +Professor B: and , uh , the notion was raised before that that could happen . And it just , you know {disfmarker} it just didn't come together +PhD A: Just {disfmarker} OK . +PhD E: Well , and {disfmarker} and the other thing too is when they originally said "" no "" they didn't know about this post - editing capability thing . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD A: Right . That was a big fear . +PhD E: So . +Postdoc G: That 's important . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean there 's possibilities there . I think Jerry 's group , yes . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , the networks group , uh , I don't {disfmarker} Do they still meeting regularly or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Well , I don't know if they meet regularly or not but they are no longer recording . +Professor B: But I mean , ha ha have they said they don't want to anymore or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Um , ugh , what was his name ? +Professor B: Uh , i i +Postdoc G: Joe Sokol ? +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: When {disfmarker} with him gone , it sorta trickled off . +Professor B: OK , so they 're down to three or four people +Grad H: They {disfmarker} and they stopped {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but the thing is three or four people is OK . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: We might be able to get the administration {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well he was sort of my contact , so I just need to find out who 's running it now . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc G: I see that Lila has a luncheon meeting in here periodically . +PhD A: Yeah , I mean , it {disfmarker} One thing that would be nice +Postdoc G: I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: and this {disfmarker} it sounds bizarre but , I 'd really like to look at {disfmarker} to get some meetings where there 's a little bit of heated discussion , like ar arguments and {disfmarker} or emotion , and things like that . And so I was thinking if there 's any like Berkeley political groups or something . I mean , that 'd be perfect . Some group , "" yes , we must {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Who 's willing to get recorded and distributed ? +PhD A: Well , you know , something {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I don't think the more political argumentative ones would be willing to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with potential use from the defense department . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: No , but maybe stu student , uh , groups or , um , film - makers , or som Something a little bit colorful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , th there 's a problem there in terms of , uh , the um commercial value of {disfmarker} of st uh , +Postdoc G: Yeah , of course there is this problem though , that if we give them the chance to excise later we e {vocalsound} might end up with like five minutes out of a f {comment} {pause} of m one hour +PhD D: Film - maker . +Grad H: Of beeps , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: yeah . +PhD A: And I don't mean that they 're angry +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: of {disfmarker} {comment} Yes . Really . +PhD A: but just something with some more variation in prosodic contours and so forth would be neat . So if anyone has ideas , I 'm willing to do the leg work to go try to talk to people but I don't really know which groups are worth pursuing . +Postdoc G: Well there was this K P F A +Grad H: No that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} OK . +Grad H: Legal . +Postdoc G: OK , OK . +Professor B: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it turned out to be a bit of a problem . +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I had one other {disfmarker} one other aspect of this which is , um , uh , uh , Jonathan Fiscus expressed primar uh y a major interest in having meetings which were all English speakers . Now he wasn't trying to shape us in terms of what we gather +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: but that 's what he wanted me to show him . So I 'm giving him our , um {disfmarker} our initial meeting because he asked for all English . And I think we don't have a lot of all English meetings right now . +Professor B: Of all {disfmarker} all nat all native speakers . +PhD E: Did he mean , uh {disfmarker} did he mean and non - British ? +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: The all native . +Postdoc G: That 's what I mean , yeah . +Grad H: Well if he meant and non - British I think we have zero . +Postdoc G: He doesn't care . No . Eh , well , British is OK . +PhD E: He said British was OK ? +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Sure , sure , sure . +Professor B: Why ? +Grad H: British is English ? +PhD C: +Postdoc G: Yeah . Different varieties of English . +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} if he didn't say that {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Native speaking . Native speaking English . +Grad H: I bet he meant native speaking American . +Postdoc G: Yes . +Professor B: I bet he did . +PhD C: American English ? +Postdoc G: Oh , really . +Grad H: So , why would he care ? +PhD E: Knowing the application {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember wh I I remember a study {disfmarker} +PhD A: I was thinking , knowing the , uh , n National Institute of Standards , it is all {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember a study that BBN did where they trained on {disfmarker} this was in Wall Street Journal days or something , they trained on American English and then they tested on , uh , different native speakers from different areas . And , uh , uh , the worst match was people whose native tongue was Mandarin Chinese . The second worst was British English . +Postdoc G: That 's funny . +Professor B: So h it 's , you know , t +Postdoc G: Alright . And so that would make sense . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} German was much better , +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Postdoc G: I didn't have the context of that . +Professor B: it was Swiss w Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} so I think , you know , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's thinking in terms of recognition kind of technology I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think he would probably want , uh {vocalsound} American English , +Postdoc G: All America , OK . +Grad H: I wonder if we have any . +Professor B: yeah . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} yeah , unless we 're gonna train with a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: I think that the {disfmarker} Feldman 's meetings tend to be more that way , aren't they ? I mean , I sort of feel like they have {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think so , +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad H: And maybe there are a few of {disfmarker} with us where it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: you know , Dan wasn't there and before Jose started coming , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's pretty tough , uh , this group . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , what about {disfmarker} what about people who involved in some artistic endeavor ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , film - making or something like that . +PhD A: Exactly , that 's what I was {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd think like they would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: A film - maker . +PhD A: something where there {disfmarker} there is actually discussion where there 's no right or wrong answer but {disfmarker} but it 's a matter of opinion kind of thing . Uh , anyway , if you {disfmarker} if you have ideas {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: It 's be fun . +Grad H: RASTA . PLP . RASTA . PLP . +PhD D: Yes . +Grad F: We can just discu we can just have a political discussion one day . +PhD A: Yeah , we could {disfmarker} +PhD E: A any department that calls itself science +PhD D: Department . +Grad F: Uh , I could make that pretty {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , like computer science . +PhD D: Computer sci +Grad H: That {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: We could get Julia Child . I know . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm actually serious +Grad H: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: because , uh , you know , we have the set up here +Grad H: Got a ticket . +Professor B: Yeah , I know you are . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that has a chance to give us some very interesting fun data . So if anyone has ideas , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: if you know any groups that are m you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I had asked some {disfmarker} some of the students at the business school . +PhD A: student groups c like clubs , things like that . +Grad F: I know {disfmarker} +Grad H: I could {disfmarker} +PhD A: Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Put a little ad up saying , "" come here and argue "" . +PhD A: Yeah . "" If you 're really angry at someone use our conference room . "" +Grad H: The Business school . Uh , the business school might be good . I actually spoke with some students up there +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad H: and they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they expressed willingness back when they thought they would be doing more stuff with speech . +PhD A: Really . +Grad H: But when they lost interest in speech they also {pause} stopped answering my email about other stuff , so . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Or people who are really h +Professor B: They could have a discussion about te +Grad F: I {disfmarker} +Grad H: We should probably bleep that out . +Professor B: about {disfmarker} about tax cuts or something . +Grad F: I heard that at Cal Tech they have a special room {disfmarker} someone said that they had a special room to get all your frustrations out that you can go to and like throw things and break things . +Professor B: Yeah , now that is not actually what we {disfmarker} +Grad F: So we can like post a {disfmarker} +Grad H: Th - that 's not what we want . +Grad F: No , not to that extent +PhD A: Well , far field mikes can pick up where they threw stuff on the wall . +Grad F: but , um . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , but we don't want them to throw the far field mikes is the thing . +PhD A: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah , right . +Grad H: That 's right . +PhD D: The fa +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: +Grad H: "" Please throw everything in that direction . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . +Grad H: Padded cell . +Postdoc G: It 'd be fun to get like a {disfmarker} a p visit from the {disfmarker} +Grad H: There was a dorm room at Tech that , uh , someone had coated the walls and the ceiling , and , uh , the floor with mattresses . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: The entire room . +Professor B: I had as my fourth thing here processing of wave forms . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: What did we mean by that ? Remember @ @ ? +Grad H: Uh , Liz wanted to talk about methods of improving accuracy by doing pre - processing . +Postdoc G: Pre - processing . +PhD A: Well I think that {disfmarker} that was just sort of {disfmarker} I I already asked Thilo +Professor B: Oh , you already did that . +PhD A: but that , um , it would be helpful if I can stay in the loop somehow with , um , people who are doing any kind of post - processing , whether it 's to separate speakers or to improve the signal - to - noise ratio , or both , um , that we can sort of try out as we 're running recognition . Um , so , i is that {disfmarker} Who else is work I guess Dan Ellis and you +PhD C: Dan , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and Dave uh {pause} Gel - Gelbart again , +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: and Dave . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: he 's {disfmarker} he 's interested in {disfmarker} in fact we 're look starting to look at some echo cancellation kind of things . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Which uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: I am not sure how much that 's an issue with the close talking mikes , +Professor B: Hmm ? +Grad H: but who knows ? +Professor B: Well , let 's {disfmarker} w i isn't that what {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . I 'm bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: t No , so {disfmarker} No , i w wha what you {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} when you 're saying improving the wave form you want the close talking microphone to be better . +PhD A: It 's like {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: And the question is to w to what extent is it getting hurt by , uh {disfmarker} by any room acoustics or is it just {disfmarker} uh , given that it 's close it 's not a problem ? +PhD A: It doesn't seem like big room acoustics problems to my ear +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm not an expert . It seems like a problem with cross - talk . +Professor B: OK , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: e I bet with the lapel mike there 's plenty , uh , room acoustic +PhD A: That {disfmarker} that may be true . +Grad H: but I I think the rest is cross - talk . +PhD A: But I don't know how good it can get either by those {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those methods {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} I think it 's just , +PhD A: Oh , I don't know . +Grad H: yeah , what you said , cross - talk . +PhD A: All I meant is just that as sort of {disfmarker} as this pipeline of research is going on we 're also experimenting with different ASR , uh , techniques . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so it 'd be w good to know about it . +PhD E: So the problem is like , uh , on the microphone of somebody who 's not talking they 're picking up signals from other people {comment} and that 's {vocalsound} causing problems ? +PhD A: R right , although if they 're not talking , using the {disfmarker} the inhouse transcriptions , were sort of O K because the t no one transcribed any words there and we throw it out . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But if they 're talking at all and they 're not talking the whole time , so you get some speech and then a "" mm - hmm "" , and some more speech , so that whole thing is one chunk . And the person in the middle who said only a little bit is picking up the speech around it , that 's where it 's a big problem . +Postdoc G: You know , this does like seem like it would relate to some of what Jose 's been working on as well , the encoding of the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and he also , he was {disfmarker} +PhD A: The energy , +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD A: right . Exactly . +PhD D: energy . +Postdoc G: I was t I was trying to remember , you have this interface where you {disfmarker} i you ha you showed us one time on your laptop that you {disfmarker} you had different visual displays as speech and nonspeech events . +PhD D: Yeah , c Yeah . May {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I only display the different colors for the different situation . But , eh , for me and for my problems , is uh {disfmarker} is enough . Because , eh , it 's possible , eh , eh , in a simp sample view , uh , to , nnn , to compare with c with the segment , the {disfmarker} the kind of assessment what happened with the {disfmarker} the different parameters . And only with a different bands of color for the , uh , few situation , eh , I consider for acoustic event is enough to @ @ . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I see that , eh , you are considering now , eh , a very sophisticated , eh , ehm , eh , @ @ {comment} set of , eh , graphic s eh , eh , ehm , si symbols to {disfmarker} to transcribe . No ? Because , uh , before , you {disfmarker} you are talking about the {disfmarker} the possibility to include in the Transcriber program eh , um , a set of symbols , of graphic symbol to {disfmarker} t to mark the different situations during the transcription +Postdoc G: Oh , I w Uh - huh . +PhD D: during the transcription . No ? +Postdoc G: Well , you 're saying {disfmarker} So , uh , symbols for differences between laugh , and sigh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and slam the door and stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . The s the symbols , you {disfmarker} you talk of before . +Postdoc G: Or some other kind of thing ? +PhD D: No ? To {disfmarker} to mark {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I wouldn't say {vocalsound} symbols so much . The {disfmarker} the main change that I {disfmarker} that I see in the interface is {disfmarker} is just that we 'll be able to more finely c uh , time things . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: But I {disfmarker} I also st there was another aspect of your work that I was thinking about when I was talking to you +PhD A: Hmm . +Postdoc G: which is that it sounded to me , Liz , as though you {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe I didn't q understand this , but it sounded to me as though part of the analysis that you 're doing involves taking segments which are of a particular type and putting them together . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And th so if you have like a p a s you know , speech from one speaker , {pause} then you cut out the part that 's not that speaker , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: and you combine segments from {pause} that same speaker to {disfmarker} {comment} and run them through the recognizer . Is that {pause} right ? +PhD A: Well we try to find as close of start and end time of {disfmarker} as we can to the speech from an individual speaker , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because then we {disfmarker} we 're more guaranteed that the recognizer will {disfmarker} for the forced alignment which is just to give us the time boundaries , because from those time boundaries then the plan is to compute prosodic features . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And the sort of more space you have that isn't the thing you 're trying to align the more errors we have . Um , so , you know , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} it would help to have either pre - processing of a signal that creates very good signal - to - noise ratio , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Cuz i OK . +PhD A: which I don't know how possible this is for the lapel , um , or to have very {disfmarker} to have closer , {vocalsound} um , time {disfmarker} you know , synch times , basically , around the speech that gets transcribed in it , or both . And it 's just sort of a open world right now of exploring that . So I just wanted to {pause} see , you know , on the transcribing end from here things look good . Uh , the IBM one is more {disfmarker} it 's an open question right now . And then the issue of like global processing of some signal and then , you know , before we chop it up is {disfmarker} is yet another way we can improve things in that . +PhD E: What about increasing the flexibility of the alignment ? +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD E: Do you remember that thing that Michael Finka did ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: that experiment he did a while back ? +PhD A: Right . You can , um {disfmarker} The problem is just that the acoustic {disfmarker} when the signal - to - noise ratio is too low , um , you {disfmarker} you 'll get , a uh {disfmarker} an alignment with the wrong duration pattern or it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , so that 's the problem , is the {disfmarker} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's not the fact that you have like {disfmarker} I mean , what he did is allow you to have , uh , words that were in another segment move over to the {disfmarker} at the edges of {disfmarker} of segmentations . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Or even words inserted that weren't {disfmarker} weren't there . +PhD A: Right , things {disfmarker} things near the boundaries where if you got your alignment wrong {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz what they had done there is align and then chop . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , and this problem is a little bit j more global . It 's that there are problems even in inside the alignments , uh , because of the fact that there 's enough acoustic signal there t for the recognizer to {disfmarker} to eat , {vocalsound} as part of a word . And it tends to do that . S So , uh , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: but we probably will have to do something like that in addition . Anyway . So , yeah , bottom {disfmarker} bottom line is just I wanted to make sure I can be aware of whoever 's working on these signal - processing techniques for , uh , detecting energies , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: because that {disfmarker} that 'll really help us . +Professor B: O K , uh tea has started out there I suggest we c run through our digits and , +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , So , OK , we 're done . +","In a research meeting among academics, various agenda items were discussed including: + +1. Introduction of a new member named Don. +2. Consideration of updating to better quality, close-talking microphones for all speakers to improve recordings. +3. Upcoming visit by NIST representatives John Fiscus and George Doddington, where discussion would include the transcription processes and meeting preparations. +4. PhD A's inquiry about post-processing waveforms for better speaker recognition and whether anyone within the group had knowledge on that. +5. The ongoing effort to increase the variety of recorded meeting data, possibly including meetings with only English speakers and exploring opportunities to record outside of the ICSI environment. +6. The transcription progress, including a discussion with Jonathan Fiscus about transcription consistency and reliability, the IBM transcription efforts, and the possibility of doing more fine-grained transcription work such as dialogue act tagging. +7. Liz (PhD A) mentioned the value of having more meetings to record, perhaps including those with heated discussions for variety in prosodic contours. + +The meeting concluded with a recognition that tea had started outside." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh good afternoon . This is our third meeting already . +Marketing: Good afternoon . +Project Manager: I hope you enjoyed your lunch . {vocalsound} I did anyway . {vocalsound} Um let's see . Presentation three . Okay this is um the second phase uh we're going to discuss today . It's the conceptual design meeting . And a few points of interest in this meeting um are the conceptual specification of components . Uh conceptual specification of design . And also trend-watching . Um these are hopefully the points you addressed in uh your pre uh presentations you're going to show me in a few minutes . Um but first I'll show you the agenda . Uh first the opening . Then we have three presentations . Uh after that we have to come to a decision on remote control concepts . How we're going to make it . And then we're closing . We have about forty minutes . Uh so I suggest let's get started . Uh did someone encounter any problems during the preparation ? No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Everything fine ? +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: That's nice . Then a little uh thing about the last meeting . Uh these are the points um we agreed on . The requirements and the target market . Uh requirements are uh teletext , docking station , audio signal , small screen , with some extras that uh button information . And we are going to use default materials . Um does somebody have any comments on these requirements ? Maybe ? No ? These are just the the things we thought of , so maybe if you figured something else or thought of something else , just let me know . And maybe we can uh work it out . And we're going to target uh sixty to to eighty year old customers . So now everybody knows what we're do we're doing , um I suggest let's get started with the presentations . So shall we keep the same uh line-up as uh last time ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll start off then . +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Doh . 'Kay I'm uh gonna inform you about the trend-watching I've done over the past few days . Um we've done some market research . We distributed some more enquetes , questionnaires . And um besides that um I deployed some trend-watchers to Milan and Paris to well get all of the newest trends . And I've consulted some additional trend-watch trend-watchers , after the original trend-watchers return , about what the the best design would be . Um okay these are some overall findings . Um most important thing is the fancy design . Um the research indicated that that was by far the most important factor . Um innovativeness was about half as important as the fancy design . By innovativeness this means um functions which are not featured in other remote controls . Um about half of , half as important as the innovativeness was the was easy to use . Um for our um group , we're focusing on the people of sixty to eighty y years old , this is um , these factors are slightly more equal . 'Kay these are some more group specific findings . Uh the older people prefer dark colours . Uh they like recognisable shapes , and familiar material . And our surveys have indicated that especially wood is pretty much the material for older people . Um this is , this image will give you a little bit of an impression about um the look-and-feel that um the remote should have . Um this leads us to some personal preferences . Uh the remote control and the docking station should uh blend in in the in the room . Um so this would mean no uh eye-catching designs . Just keep it simple and {disfmarker} Well the docking station and small screen would be our main points of interest , because this would be the {disfmarker} These would uh be the innovativeness in the remote control . So this would be very important that we {vocalsound} at least include these features . Um well the trend-watchers I consulted advised that it b should be , the remote control and the docking station should be telephone-shaped . So you could imagine that uh the remote control will be standing up straight in the docking station . This is not really {disfmarker} This is pretty much a new shape to uh older people . So they would prefer uh a design where the remote control just lies flat in the docking station . So it would be kinda more telephone-shaped . Um besides that we would advise um to bring two editions , one with a wood-like colour and maybe feel , and one with a grey-black colour . The wood-like for the more uh exclusive people . People with more money . Uh the grey-black colour for well people with less means . That would be all . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Any questions about the the trends ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: Mayb +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , we go on to the next one . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} 'kay um yeah . {gap} uh some uh research uh a about um designing of an interface . Um the uh last meeting uh we had a about um uh using a f few buttons . So uh um uh that's w what I what I want to uh uh to do in uh our design . So um finding an attractive uh way to control uh the remote control . Um the uh {disfmarker} I found some uh something about uh speech uh recognition . So maybe uh we can uh use uh that . Um {disfmarker} Uh and uh using a little uh display . So um findings . Um yeah just um we have just to focus on the primary um functions . So uh only uh buttons uh for uh sound , um for uh on-off , um uh shifting u up uh sa uh ca channel or uh down shifting down . Um uh let's see . Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh {gap} we uh need some uh new a attractive functions uh uh which attract uh uh people for using it . So uh it's uh like a speak uh speech uh recognition and um a special button for selecting uh subtitles . Just uh what we uh mentioned uh last uh meeting . Um and yeah overall um user-friendly . So uh using uh large large buttons . Um {disfmarker} It's uh possible to uh uh to make um quite cheap uh system for uh speech uh recognition . Um you can think about um uh when you lost your um remote control , you can uh call it and um it gives an um sig signal . So uh uh yeah . And and uh for uh shifting up a sen uh c ch channel or uh for um uh putting out uh sound or something , you can uh just give a sign uh say um sound off or {disfmarker} A and uh yeah . Television uh put the sound off uh put the sound off uh . Um {disfmarker} Let's see . Uh yeah . I was thinking about the special uh button for uh subtitles , um just one button to keep it uh simple . Uh one push on the button uh you get uh uh small uh subtitles . Um double push push um , if double click , um so uh you get uh big uh subtitles , for uh people uh um uh which c f uh who can't uh read small uh subtitles . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah and w we have to keep uh in general buttons uh so um we've got um the buttons we have to use . The on-off , sound on-off , sound higher or lower , um the numbers , uh zero to uh uh nine . Um the general buttons m more general b one button for shifting up and shifting down uh channel . Um also we want to uh use a little d display uh for um for displaying the uh the functions of the buttons . And um we can uh build in a function f which uh shows the channel or some uh which the t television is on . So um made a little uh picture of uh it . Um {disfmarker} See . Um yeah . Just um we can put uh the on-off button uh over in this uh corner , um almost uh e all uh remote controls uh are using a on-off button on that place . Um so uh people uh will uh recognise uh um the button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} D display uh of it , it's uh just a small display . Uh um you can put it uh on top . Um it's uh most uh uh place where people uh , most of {gap} looks at . So uh um and a special uh button for shifting up uh and uh shifting down uh channel , um it's uh on place where um the thumb of of the {disfmarker} So you you can uh easily uh shift up or shift down . Um it's uh quite uh handy place . So um and uh all the f functions for subtitle uh one button , uh for sound uh {disfmarker} Uh and uh for our design , um uh we have to discuss about it uh I think uh so uh the form of it so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Project Manager: Uh thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . About the components design . Um for the energy source we can use a basic battery or , a as an optional thing , a kinetic energy , like in a watch , which you just shake and it produces energy . But if we choose for that option , the docking station would c become obsolete . So I don't think it's really an option . Uh for the casing , uh the uh manufacturing department can deliver uh a flat casing , single or double curved casing . It's really up the the design that we're gonna use . It's uh doesn't uh imply any technical restrictions . Uh as a case supplement , we could um , I thought of that l later , uh a rubber uh belt , like a anti-slip . Uh for the b buttons , we can use plastic or rubber . And the chip-set , um it says simple here , but it should be advanced , because we're using an L_C_D_ uh screen . And as uh the trend-watcher presentation showed , um people like wood , but it raises the price and it doesn't really fit the image , unless we would start two product lines . Form should follow function overall . Um well the kinetic energy source is rather fancy . But depends on what we want . I think we should disc discuss that . Um for the case , uh the supplement and the buttons , it really depends on the designer . And the chip-set uh really should be advanced because otherwise uh it would really be a simple uh remote control . And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . So that brings us to the discussion about our concepts . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . So these are the points we have to discuss . Um first I think we can talk about the energy source , since that's um has a pretty big influence on production price , uh and image . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so uh f I think first of all we have to see uh it is possible to introduce kinetic energy in our budget , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yes w there there are four options . We could use the basic normal battery . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a hand dynamo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't think that's {vocalsound} really an option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna swing before you can watch television . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells . But not every room is very light +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so it's not a very good option . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Or the kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: And how exactly does the kinetic energy work ? +Industrial Designer: Well y you basically shake your remote , and then it powers up . +Marketing: You just {disfmarker} You use it and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: Okay . Well personally I don't think that older people like to shake their remote control before they use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: And besides that you mentioned it would make the docking station obsolete . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: And I think our docking station could be one of the marketing issues with which we can um get great popularity for our product . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But +Marketing: Um wel +User Interface: what's the function ? Yeah f for loading up uh the batteries {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah you could load up the batteries , +User Interface: B b +Marketing: you could um insert the find the lost remote control function in there . +User Interface: Okay but uh it won't use uh much e energy uh I I believe . Uh it's uh just a small display so I believe uh it will run on one battery for um six months or f or or more . So I believe one battery uh is just enough . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well I think uh elderly people just like to have everything in place . +Marketing: That's true . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I don't think they they like uh remotes just laying everywhere in their rooms . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe a docking station will help them give the remote a place . +User Interface: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: And also what you said . Um you can introduce voice recognition by uh finding back your remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I think it's um more efficient and cheaper to put it in the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have a but button on your docking station which you can push , and then it starts beeping . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we can we can still use the voice recognition , but maybe then for only the the channels . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh . +Project Manager: That's safe . +Marketing: I'm wondering um what will the voice recognition mean for the production price ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good point . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't have any information on pricing . So I'll have to ask the manufacturing department . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause in our earlier um market research , if you'd allow me to go to the flat board , SMARTboard . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . Go ahead . +Marketing: Um so it was open here . Um we also um asked if w they would , if people would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Well you can see here , our target group would not do that . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: So if that would increase the price for which we're selling our remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I would greatly advise not to do it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think that would be better to uh insert in our other product , that is meant for the +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: younger people . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: But that would also go for the L_C_D_ screen then I guess . It's a bit higher percentage , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well this is Yeah but this is here the question was , would you prefer it . So that doesn't really mean they wouldn't pay extra for it . And on top of that the L_C_D_ screen would um help in making the remote control easier to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And I think a voice recognition function would not make the remote control much easier to use . +Project Manager: Easier to use ? No , I think that's a good point . +User Interface: But uh is uh our uh research um about um bi large uh L_C_D_ sh uh display , or uh just a small one uh we want to uh use ? +Marketing: Um well this was for like an L_C_D_ screen like you would have on a on the the most advanced mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So pretty large . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I personally think the L_C_D_ screen we wanna use , with the extra information , I think nobody has anything against it . Because it's just uh some extra information , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: and it's easy to ignore as well . So if you don't wanna use it you just don't use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um yeah I think the um {disfmarker} Maybe we have to uh discard the voice recognition . Because it will increase cost uh signifi uh significantly . And I don't think the {disfmarker} I don't think it will be a lot easier to use , as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that brings us back to the energy . If we don't have the voice recognition , it will it won't use a lot of energy to use . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in that case we could use kinetic uh energy , but I think just a simple battery which you can reload on a docking station is just as good . And much cheaper as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the best choice . +Project Manager: Okay let me just choose for the battery . That brings us to the chip . +Industrial Designer: Well there isn't any choice there because we're using the the the the display . +Project Manager: Just the advanced . +Industrial Designer: So it's gotta be advanced . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , advanced chip . And then we get to the point of the case . Um which brings us a little bit back to marketing as well . Uh if we wanna choose for wood or the black and grey . Or both ? Um as we saw there is not {disfmarker} Yeah wood is a lot more expensive to produce . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um but I think it will attract elderly people who wanna have something exclusive , which they can show off to their grandkids . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Look I've got a new remote control , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I dunno . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I think most important factor there is the wooden colour . So it wouldn't actually have to be wood , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: if it's just +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: wood-coloured . +Project Manager: But with colour was a lot more expensive ? Or ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I dunno . +Project Manager: You don't know ? +Industrial Designer: I'll have to uh research . +Project Manager: I think so because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: It's a lot more difficult to to handle and to to get in the right shape . +User Interface: Mm . Uh is it possible uh to make um changeable uh case . So um uh you 'cause uh {disfmarker} Yeah with uh mobile phones uh uh so uh like the Nokia mobile phones , uh when you can change the case of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Change the cases . Yeah . +User Interface: maybe it's possible uh possibility . So um um you have just to make one um standard um remote control , and um yeah you can sell uh few uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can sell the cases . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a very good option . Because um then you can advertise as well with the {disfmarker} Give your grandfather a new case for his remote control , or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's a {disfmarker} it's something extra , it's something other remotes don't have , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we can get a great advantage point . +Marketing: Yeah that is true . +Project Manager: So and then you can make them with colour . Black and grey , other colours as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We would have to look carefully into the design though . +Project Manager: Costs . +Marketing: 'Cause we would have to make one w uh control which would fit in with a wooden cover and a plastic cover . The more original one , or the more standard one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you suggest we should design two different telephones on which you can apply , yeah {vocalsound} remote controls , on which you can apply different case covers , for example . +Marketing: Well I wouldn't design a telephone +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well no I think w we should just , we should then just design one um +Project Manager: Remote . +Marketing: one remote , but it would have to be fancy with either the wood cover or the plastic one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So , but that shouldn't be too much of a problem . +Project Manager: So everybody's okay with the changing covers ? I think that's a good uh good option . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Changing case covers . +Marketing: Um I heard our Industrial Designer talk about uh flat , single and double curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Could you explain that a little more ? +Industrial Designer: Well the the general like most older remotes are flat , just straight . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh our d manufacturing department can also deliver single curved or double curved ca curved cases . +Marketing: And what would single curved and double curved mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um it would just only affect the form , for as far as I know . So it's j really just up to the design department what we're gonna use . It doesn't really matter for the price or the functionality . +Marketing: Okay . So we can pretty much just do whatever we want . +Industrial Designer: Pick one you like , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's good . +Project Manager: Uh but the form has to be um {disfmarker} It has to {disfmarker} It's has to be possible to stand up ? Or just only to lie down ? +Marketing: No just to lie down . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: And the the cover of the the docking station is also +Marketing: We'll go for that . +Project Manager: on top of the television then ? Or not ? +Marketing: Well or besides it . +Project Manager: And you can just yeah then click it in . That's okay . Um so the interface . What type of interface do we want to use ? Um maybe you can make a little drawing of it on the +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: on the the board . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Does somebody have ideas for a form or +User Interface: Uh we can just use the regular form of it , but it's um not quite uh fancy . So um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Um you uh said you wanted to put the um changing channels button on the right side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you could , so your thumb would be easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well uh I think that was a very good point 'cause I pointed out earlier that a lot of remotes cause R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that would be great for that . Um I thought maybe we could just make one of those buttons on both the left and the right side . +User Interface: For uh {disfmarker} Uh for {disfmarker} +Marketing: For left-handed users also . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah we Is it possible to um program it s so uh you got on the left side uh or on the right side uh buttons for for shifting u up and shifting up ? And on the uh other uh {vocalsound} uh o other side uh buttons for uh shifting , uh for for the sound ? Or {disfmarker} Or isn't it ? +Marketing: For the volume . Um well +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that could {gap} Yeah we could do that but I'm not sure if that would be very good for the easy , ease of use . +Project Manager: Usabili Yeah ease of use will be a lot more difficult , +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: and then it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we would make um a changing channels and changing volume button on both sides , that would certainly yield great options for the design of the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause it could be made all symmetrical and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: But you have extra buttons . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So people can get confused . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: That is true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they have the same writings on it . +User Interface: See um yeah . Or we have to make a left uh {disfmarker} For lefties +Project Manager: Can't we make uh {disfmarker} Can't we make a remote which you can flip over and use on the same +User Interface: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: functions as the normal one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see if I ca A blank one . And then you get {disfmarker} Here's a little L_C_D_ screen . Uh now I have to think . It's a plus and a min . No it's not very handy I think . Because the plus and the min will be opposite +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: and all kinds of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's not gonna work . I guess . Maybe we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it a problem that left-handed persons use a different hand ? I think the functions are that basic that nobody should have any problems with uh choosing a channel +Marketing: Yeah . That is true . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's just uh u using uh your thumb . +Project Manager: Y yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So um it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we could just uh leave it a normal shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh but maybe we have to make it a l a bit more fancy . In one or ano another way . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should start by by choosing a case . Because that's the basis you're building on . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yeah +Industrial Designer: So I could draw them out . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's look at the flat case . Oh . It's from the side so it's rather normal . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the single curved so I'm not really sure what they're gonna look like , but I think it's something like this . So this type should be better for you or better {disfmarker} Should prevent repetitive strain injury a bit . +Project Manager: Easier ? +Industrial Designer: And the double curved s looks something like this I guess . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So th those are the three options we have . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suggest um the single curved , because maybe the curve is pretty good to put the the screen in . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so that elderly people can uh use the remote control and at the same time look easily at the screen , because it's a bit , it has a bit of a angle . +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Do you say this um {disfmarker} S uh {disfmarker} Uh you got like uh sort of a {disfmarker} I believe {disfmarker} {gap} There ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So um you want to put a display over here ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh +Project Manager: But now it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can make it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have it upside down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Do you have it +User Interface: That's the top . +Project Manager: this that's top ? Okay . +User Interface: So uh this top . This down . Um maybe it's possible to uh make this side like um {disfmarker} Let's see . Um {disfmarker} Colour uh okay . Uh to make this side um like mm the right colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um bit like so uh um in the form of your hand . So um {disfmarker} Uh it's an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So so the remote control have to um lay in your hand . So uh it's possib um yeah for s so and +Project Manager: So get your mouse . Yeah . +User Interface: And to put uh the the buttons for um changing uh the channel uh over here uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good one . But I think it's better to put the screen uh on top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh rem +Project Manager: So just flip it a hundred and eighty degrees around then you get {disfmarker} {gap} here . +User Interface: Yeah but this place um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you can have this one , you turn it like this . And then flip it upside down . +User Interface: Uh it's {disfmarker} Yeah I dunno um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because uh maybe your hand is in the way , if you have the display here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's more logical to have it on top as well +Project Manager: I think i +Industrial Designer: because , like on your mobile phone , it's always above . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On top . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh maybe you should just s start on a blank page . +Project Manager: {gap} . So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: then we get {disfmarker} Here's {disfmarker} That's the curve . +User Interface: Five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here the display , and then buttons . Yeah and then we can have a little bit off here and here maybe . Just that's for left hand and right hand users . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then h the rest of the buttons over here . +User Interface: Yeah . But um the on-off button , um still on the top uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah still here +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: jus +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I'd prefer the corners to be round . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Should be more bit more friendly , +Marketing: Think that would be better . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Friendly on the eye . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Supplements . That's okay . Where's my mouse ? Then {disfmarker} We've got a general idea of the concepts and the materials we're going to use . So now for the next meeting uh we'll have to look at the look-and-feel design . It's important that the corporate design image uh is going to be in the remote . So check out the corporate website maybe . The user interface design , it's the same story . And product evaluation . So the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer are going to work together on this one . But you're going to get your instructions I think sended by the coach . So just um I will put these um minutes on the in the folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we're going to uh try to finish our project , and uh make a good design for all the grandfathers and grandmothers , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which are {disfmarker} Uh let's see . I'm not sure if you're going to start right away to work together or {disfmarker} I think you're going to fill in the questionnaires first . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then you'll get a message . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh basically it . Maybe this one ? Then we can save this one in the folders group . Uh yes , it's here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} SMARTboard , there it it . So if you wanna have a look at it , it's over there in the projects folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then I guess we'll start in thirty minutes again . Thank you . +Marketing: Very good . +User Interface: Okay . +","The summary highlights the proceedings of a third project management meeting attended by the Project Manager, someone from Marketing, a User Interface Designer, and an Industrial Designer. The meeting agenda included three presentations, decision-making on remote control concepts, and a discussion on various design and function specifications. + +During lunch, the Project Manager expressed satisfaction with their meal and outlined the meeting's main discussion points, namely, the conceptual specification of components and design, as well as trend-watching. The agenda for the forty-minute meeting included an opening, presentations, decision making on remote control concepts, and closing. The Project Manager showed the agenda and asked if there were any problems during preparation, which no one reported. + +Next, a recap of the last meeting was provided, touching upon agreed requirements and the target market. The requirements included teletext, a docking station, audio signal, small screen, button information, and use of default materials. The target demographic comprised customers aged 60 to 80 years old. No additional comments were added on these requirements. + +The Marketing representative began presenting by sharing their trend-watching activities, including market research with distributed questionnaires, consulting with trend-watchers in Milan and Paris, and follow-up consultations on the best design. They highlighted the importance of fancy design, innovativeness, and ease of use, citing that older users prefer dark colors, recognizable shapes, and wood as a favored material. For the remote control and docking station, the suggestion was made to blend these into the room’s decor, with a focus on simplicity and unassuming design. They suggested releasing two editions of the remote—wood-like for a more exclusive clientele and a grey-black color for those with fewer means. No questions followed the presentation regarding trends. + +The User Interface Designer presented their research on designing an interface, stressing the need for large, user-friendly buttons and the inclusion of speech recognition functionality. They recommended focusing on primary functions, such as sound, on-off switches, channel shifting, and subtitles. An idea was proposed for the remote to emit a signal if lost, controllable by voice, such as “sound off.” However, they acknowledged that a special button for subtitles and information on primary functions and large buttons should be maintained. + +The Industrial Designer discussed component design, focusing on energy sources, casing, buttons, and chipset. They mentioned basic batteries and kinetic energy, with the latter potentially rendering the docking station obsolete. Flat, single, or double curved casings were offered without technical restrictions, and both plastic and rubber were options for buttons. The chipset had to be advanced to support the LCD screen. They mentioned people's preference for wood might suggest starting two product lines, but costs and practicality would need to be considered. + +This led to discussions about whether to incorporate physical motion (kinetic energy) into the battery, with consensus being regular battery use was preferable for the target age group. Speech recognition was also debated, and due to cost concerns and the fact that the target market would not pay extra for this feature, it was decided it may not be implemented. Marketing research indicated that the speech recognition feature might not be deemed necessary, and an LCD screen would be useful for ease of use. + +The discussion turned to the possibility of multiple casings or changeable case covers for the remote, considering the preferences of different users. The group leaned towards the single curved case design for reasons of ergonomics and to accommodate an LCD screen. + +The User Interface Designer and Industrial Designer were tasked with working together on further detailing these concepts, specifically creating an interface that is both functional and aligned with the company's corporate design image. The Project Manager stated the meeting minutes would be made available and preparations for the subsequent stages would be handled by the coach. + +As the meeting closed, responsibilities and next steps were confirmed, with the goal of creating a remote control suitable for older adults. The group agreed to reconvene in thirty minutes to continue the work, reflecting on their shared aim to design a product tailored towards grandparents. The SMARTboard was used in the meeting, storing their collaborative ideas, allowing participants to review them later in the projects folder. + +The meeting exemplified a collaborative effort to merge user-friendly design, technical feasibility, and market trends, to create a remote control catering to the needs of elderly users. With clear roles and responsibilities, the team showcased a structured approach to product development, with each member contributing their expertise and considering the preferences and limits of their target demographic." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc B: Alright . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um , so I wanted to discuss digits briefly , but that won't take too long . +Professor C: Oh good . Right . OK , agenda items , Uh , we have digits , What else we got ? +PhD A: New version of the presegmentation . +Professor C: New version of presegmentation . +Postdoc B: Um , do we wanna say something about the , an update of the , uh , transcript ? +PhD G: Yeah , why don't you summarize the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Update on transcripts . +PhD G: And I guess that includes some {disfmarker} the filtering for the , the ASI refs , too . +Postdoc B: Mmm . +Professor C: Filtering for what ? +PhD G: For the references that we need to go from the {disfmarker} the {pause} fancy transcripts to the sort of {nonvocalsound} brain - dead . +Postdoc B: It 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be {disfmarker} basically it 'll be a re - cap of a meeting that we had jointly this morning . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: With Don , as well . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Got it . Anything else more pressing than those things ? So {disfmarker} So , why don't we just do those . You said yours was brief , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . OK well , the , w uh as you can see from the numbers on the digits we 're almost done . The digits goes up to {pause} about four thousand . Um , and so , uh , we probably will be done with the TI - digits in , um , another couple weeks . um , depending on how many we read each time . So there were a bunch that we skipped . You know , someone fills out the form and then they 're not at the meeting and so it 's blank . Um , but those are almost all filled in as well . And so , once we 're {disfmarker} it 's done it would be very nice to train up a recognizer and actually start working with this data . +PhD D: So we 'll have a corpus that 's the size of TI - digits ? +Grad F: And so {disfmarker} One particular test set of TI - digits . +PhD D: Test set , OK . +Grad F: So , I {disfmarker} I extracted , Ther - there was a file sitting around which people have used here as a test set . It had been randomized and so on +PhD D: +Grad F: and that 's just what I used to generate the order . of these particular ones . +PhD D: Oh ! Great . Great . +Professor C: So , I 'm impressed by what we could do , Is take the standard training set for TI - digits , train up with whatever , you know , great features we think we have , uh for instance , and then test on uh this test set . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: And presumably uh it should do reasonably well on that , and then , presumably , we should go to the distant mike , and it should do poorly . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we should get really smart over the next year or two , and it {disfmarker} that should get better . +Grad F: Right . And inc increase it by one or two percent , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: Um , but , in order to do that we need to extract out the actual digits . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um , so that {disfmarker} the reason it 's not just a transcript is that there 're false starts , and misreads , and miscues and things like that . And so I have a set of scripts and X Waves where you just select the portion , hit R , um , it tells you what the next one should be , and you just look for that . You know , so it {disfmarker} it 'll put on the screen , "" The next set is six nine , nine two two "" . And you find that , and , hit the key and it records it in a file in a particular format . +Professor C: So is this {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so the {disfmarker} the question is , should we have the transcribers do that or should we just do it ? Well , some of us . I 've been do I 've done , eight meetings , something like that , just by hand . Just myself , rather . So it will not take long . Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , what {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Postdoc B: My feeling is that we discussed this right before coffee and I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a fine idea partly because , um , it 's not un unrelated to their present skill set , but it will add , for them , an extra dimension , it might be an interesting break for them . And also it is contributing to the , uh , c composition of the transcript cuz we can incorporate those numbers directly and it 'll be a more complete transcript . So I 'm {disfmarker} I think it 's fine , that part . +Grad F: There is {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor C: So you think it 's fine to have the transcribers do it ? +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +Grad F: There 's one other small bit , which is just entering the information which at s which is at the top of this form , onto the computer , to go along with the {disfmarker} where the digits are recorded automatically . +PhD D: Good . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And so it 's just , you know , typing in name , times {disfmarker} time , date , and so on . Um , which again either they can do , but it is , you know , firing up an editor , or , again , I can do . Or someone else can do . +Postdoc B: And , that , you know , I 'm not , that {disfmarker} that one I 'm not so sure if it 's into the {disfmarker} the , things that , I , wanted to use the hours for , because the , the time that they 'd be spending doing that they wouldn't be able to be putting more words on . +Professor C: Mmm . +Postdoc B: But that 's really your choice , it 's your {disfmarker} +PhD D: So are these two separate tasks that can happen ? Or do they have to happen at the same time before {disfmarker} +Grad F: No they don't have {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} you have to enter the data before , you do the second task , but they don't have to happen at the same time . +PhD D: OK . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's just I have a file whi which has this information on it , and then when you start using my scripts , for extracting the times , it adds the times at the bottom of the file . And so , um , I mean , it 's easy to create the files and leave them blank , and so actually we could do it in either order . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of nice to have the same person do it just as a double - check , to make sure you 're entering for the right person . But , either way . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah just by way of uh , uh , a uh , order of magnitude , uh , um , we 've been working with this Aurora , uh data set . And , uh , the best score , on the , nicest part of the data , that is , where you 've got training and test set that are basically the same kinds of noise and so forth , uh , is about , uh {disfmarker} I think the best score was something like five percent , uh , error , per digit . +PhD A: Per digit . +Professor C: So , that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Per digit . +Professor C: You 're right . So if you were doing {pause} ten digit , uh , recognition , {vocalsound} you would really be in trouble . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} The point there , and this is uh car noise uh , uh things , but {disfmarker} but real {disfmarker} real situation , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: well , "" real "" , Um , the {disfmarker} uh there 's one microphone that 's close , that they have as {disfmarker} as this sort of thing , close versus distant . Uh but in a car , instead of {disfmarker} instead of having a projector noise it 's {disfmarker} it 's car noise . Uh but it wasn't artificially added to get some {disfmarker} some artificial signal - to - noise ratio . It was just people driving around in a car . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's an indication , uh that was with , many sites competing , and this was the very best score and so forth , so . More typical numbers like +PhD D: Although the models weren't , that good , right ? I mean , the models are pretty crappy ? +Professor C: You 're right . I think that we could have done better on the models , but the thing is that we got {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is the kind of typical number , for all of the , uh , uh , things in this task , all of the , um , languages . And so I {disfmarker} I think we 'd probably {disfmarker} the models would be better in some than in others . Um , so , uh . Anyway , just an indication once you get into this kind of realm even if you 're looking at connected digits it can be pretty hard . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Hmm . It 's gonna be fun to see how we , compare at this . Very exciting . s @ @ . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: How did we do on the TI - digits ? +Grad F: Well the prosodics are so much different s it 's gonna be , strange . I mean the prosodics are not the same as TI - digits , for example . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much of effect that will have . +PhD D: H how do {disfmarker} +PhD G: What do you mean , the prosodics ? +Grad F: Um , just what we were talking about with grouping . That with these , the grouping , there 's no grouping at all , and so it 's just {disfmarker} the only sort of discontinuity you have is at the beginning and the end . +PhD G: So what are they doing in Aurora , are they reading actual phone numbers , +Grad F: Aurora I don't know . I don't know what they do in Aurora . +PhD G: or , a {disfmarker} a digit at a time , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: no , no I mean it 's connected {disfmarker} it 's connected , uh , digits , +PhD G: Connected . +Professor C: yeah . But . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: So there 's also the {disfmarker} not just the prosody but the cross {disfmarker} the cross - word modeling is probably quite different . +PhD D: H How +Grad F: But in TI - digits , they 're reading things like zip codes and phone numbers and things like that , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: do we do on TI - digits ? +Grad F: so it 's gonna be different . I don't remember . I mean , very good , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , I mean we were in the . +Grad F: One and a half percent , two percent , something like that ? +Professor C: Uh , I th no I think we got under a percent , but it was {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but I mean . The very best system that I saw in the literature was a point two five percent or something that somebody had at {disfmarker} at Bell Labs , or . Uh , but . But , uh , sort of pulling out all the stops . +Grad F: Oh really ? +Postdoc B: s @ @ . It s strikes me that there are more {disfmarker} each of them is more informative because it 's so , random , +Grad F: OK . Alright . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor C: But I think a lot of systems sort of get half a percent , or three - quarters a percent , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: and we 're {disfmarker} we 're in there somewhere . +Grad F: But that {disfmarker} I mean it 's really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's close - talking mikes , no noise , clean signal , just digits , I mean , every everything is good . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's the beginning of time in speech recognition . +Grad F: Yes , exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And we 've only recently got it to anywhere near human . +PhD G: It 's like the , single cell , you know , it 's the beginning of life , +PhD D: Pre - prehistory . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad F: And it 's still like an order of magnitude worse than what humans do . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: When {disfmarker} When they 're wide awake , yeah . Um , +Grad F: Yeah . After coffee . +Professor C: after coffee , you 're right . Not after lunch . +Grad F: OK , so , um , what I 'll do then is I 'll go ahead and enter , this data . And then , hand off to Jane , and the transcribers to do the actual extraction of the digits . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . One question I have that {disfmarker} that I mean , we wouldn't know the answer to now but might , do some guessing , but I was talking before about doing some model modeling of arti uh , uh , marking of articulatory , features , with overlap and so on . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: And , and , um , On some subset . One thought might be to do this uh , on {disfmarker} on the digits , or some piece of the digits . Uh , it 'd be easier , uh , and so forth . The only thing is I 'm a little concerned that maybe the kind of phenomena , in w i i The reason for doing it is because the {disfmarker} the argument is that certainly with conversational speech , the stuff that we 've looked at here before , um , just doing the simple mapping , from , um , the phone , to the corresponding features that you could look up in a book , uh , isn't right . It isn't actually right . In fact there 's these overlapping processes where some voicing some up and then some , you know , some nasality is {disfmarker} comes in here , and so forth . And you do this gross thing saying "" Well I guess it 's this phone starting there "" . So , uh , that 's the reasoning . But , It could be that when we 're reading digits , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's for such a limited set , that maybe {disfmarker} maybe that phenomenon doesn't occur as much . I don't know . Di - an anybody {disfmarker} ? {pause} Do you have any {disfmarker} ? {pause} Anybody have any opinion about that , +Postdoc B: and that people might articulate more , and you that might end up with more {disfmarker} a closer correspondence . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I agree . +PhD D: Sort of less predictability , +Grad F: That {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} You hafta {disfmarker} +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Would , this corpus really be the right one to even try that on ? +PhD G: Well it 's definitely true that , when people are , reading , even if they 're re - reading what , they had said spontaneously , that they have very different patterns . Mitch showed that , and some , dissertations have shown that . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: So the fact that they 're reading , first of all , whether they 're reading in a room of , people , or rea you know , just the fact that they 're reading will make a difference . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: And , depends what you 're interested in . +Professor C: See , I don't know . So , may maybe the thing will be do {disfmarker} to take some very small subset , I mean not have a big , program , but take a small set , uh , subset of the conversational speech and a small subset of the digits , and {pause} look and {disfmarker} and just get a feeling for it . Um , just take a look . Really . +Postdoc B: H That could {disfmarker} could be an interesting design , too , cuz then you 'd have the com the comparison of the , uh , predictable speech versus the less predictable speech +Professor C: Cuz I don't think anybody is , I at least , I don't know , of anybody , uh , well , I don't know , {vocalsound} the answers . +PhD D: Hey . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and maybe you 'd find that it worked in , in the , case of the pr of the , uh , non - predictable . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hafta think about , the particular acoustic features to mark , too , because , I mean , some things , they wouldn't be able to mark , like , uh , you know , uh , tense lax . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Some things are really difficult . You know , +Postdoc B: Well . +PhD D: just listening . +Grad F: M I think we can get Ohala in to , give us some advice on that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Also I thought you were thinking of a much more restricted set of features , that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was , like he said , {vocalsound} I was gonna bring John in and ask John what he thought . +Postdoc B: Yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . But I mean you want {disfmarker} you want it be restrictive but you also want it to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have coverage . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah +Professor C: You know i you should . It should be such that if you , if you , uh , if you had o um , all of the features , determined that you {disfmarker} that you were uh ch have chosen , that that would tell you , uh , in the steady - state case , uh , the phone . So , um . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad F: Even , I guess with vowels that would be pretty hard , wouldn't it ? To identify actually , you know , which one it is ? +Postdoc B: It would seem to me that the points of articulation would be m more , g uh , I mean that 's {disfmarker} I think about articulatory features , I think about , points of articulation , which means , uh , rather than vowels . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: Points of articulation ? What do you mean ? +Postdoc B: So , is it , uh , bilabial or dental or is it , you know , palatal . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Which {disfmarker} which are all like where {disfmarker} where your tongue comes to rest . +Professor C: Place , place . +PhD D: Place of ar place of articulation . +Grad F: Uvular . +PhD A: Place . +Postdoc B: Place . Thank you , what {disfmarker} whatev whatever I s said , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I really meant place . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK , I see . +Professor C: Yeah . OK we got our jargon then , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +PhD G: Well it 's also , there 's , really a difference between , the pronunciation models in the dictionary , and , the pronunciations that people produce . And , so , You get , some of that information from Steve 's work on the {disfmarker} on the labeling +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and it really , I actually think that data should be used more . That maybe , although I think the meeting context is great , that he has transcriptions that give you the actual phone sequence . And you can go from {disfmarker} not from that to the articulatory features , but that would be a better starting point for marking , the gestural features , then , data where you don't have that , because , we {disfmarker} you wanna know , both about the way that they 're producing a certain sound , and what kinds of , you know what kinds of , phonemic , differences you get between these , transcribed , sequences and the dictionary ones . +Professor C: Well you might be right that mi might be the way at getting at , what I was talking about , but the particular reason why I was interested in doing that was because I remember , when that happened , and , John Ohala was over here and he was looking at the spectrograms of the more difficult ones . Uh , he didn't know what to say , about , what is the sequence of phones there . They came up with some compromise . Because that really wasn't what it look like . It didn't look like a sequence of phones +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: it look like this blending thing happening here and here and here . +Grad F: Yeah , so you have this feature here , and , overlap , yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: There was no name for that . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: But it still is {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} there are two steps . One {disfmarker} you know , one is going from a dictionary pronunciation of something , like , "" gonna see you tomorrow "" , +Grad F: And {disfmarker} Or "" gonta "" . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +PhD G: it could be "" going to "" or "" gonna "" or "" gonta s "" you know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD G: And , yeah . "" Gonna see you tomorrow "" , uh , "" guh see you tomorrow "" . And , that it would be nice to have these , intermediate , or these {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} these reduced pronunciations that those transcribers had marked or to have people mark those as well . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Because , it 's not , um , that easy to go from the , dictionary , word pronuncia the dictionary phone pronunciation , to the gestural one without this intermediate or a syllable level kind of , representation . +Grad F: Well I don't think Morgan 's suggesting that we do that , though . +Professor C: Do you mean , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , I I I 'm jus at the moment of course we 're just talking about what , to provide as a tool for people to do research who have different ideas about how to do it . So for instance , you might have someone who just has a wor has words with states , and has uh {disfmarker} uh , comes from articulatory gestures to that . And someone else , might actually want some phonetic uh intermediate thing . So I think it would be {disfmarker} be best to have all of it if we could . But {pause} um , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} What I 'm imagining is a score - like notation , where each line is a particular feature . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: so you would say , you know , it 's voiced through here , and so you have label here , and you have nas nasal here , and , they {disfmarker} they could be overlapping in all sorts of bizarre ways that don't correspond to the timing on phones . +Professor C: I mean this is the kind of reason why {disfmarker} I remember when at one of the Switchboard , workshops , that uh when we talked about doing the transcription project , Dave Talkin said , "" can't be done "" . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: He was {disfmarker} he was , what {disfmarker} what he meant was that this isn't , you know , a sequence of phones , and when you actually look at Switchboard that 's , not what you see , and , you know . And . It , +Grad F: And in {disfmarker} in fact the inter - annotator agreement was not that good , right ? On the harder ones ? +Professor C: yeah I mean it was +PhD G: It depends how you look at it , and I {disfmarker} I understand what you 're saying about this , kind of transcription exactly , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: because I 've seen {disfmarker} you know , where does the voicing bar start and so forth . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: All I 'm saying is that , it is useful to have that {disfmarker} the transcription of what was really said , and which syllables were reduced . Uh , if you 're gonna add the features it 's also useful to have some level of representation which is , is a reduced {disfmarker} it 's a pronunciation variant , that currently the dictionaries don't give you +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because if you add them to the dictionary and you run recognition , you , you add confusion . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD G: So people purposely don't add them . So it 's useful to know which variant was {disfmarker} was produced , at least at the phone level . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} it would be great if we had , either these kind of , labelings on , the same portion of Switchboard that Steve marked , or , Steve 's type markings on this data , with these . +PhD G: Right . That 's all , I mean . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , no I {disfmarker} I don't disagree with that . +PhD G: And Steve 's type is fairly {disfmarker} it 's not that slow , uh , uh , I dunno exactly what the , timing was , but . +Professor C: Yeah u I don't disagree with it the on the only thing is that , What you actually will end {disfmarker} en end up with is something , i it 's all compromised , right , so , the string that you end up with isn't , actually , what happened . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's the best compromise that a group of people scratching their heads could come up with to describe what happened . +PhD D: And it 's more accurate than , phone labels . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But . And it 's more accurate than the {disfmarker} than the dictionary or , if you 've got a pronunciation uh lexicon that has three or four , +Grad F: The word . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: this might be have been the fifth one that you tr that you pruned or whatever , +PhD D: So it 's like a continuum . +PhD G: Right . +Professor C: so sure . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} you 're going all the way down , +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD G: That 's what I meant is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: an and in some places it would fill in , So {disfmarker} the kinds of gestural features are not everywhere . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: So there are some things that you don't have access to either from your ear or the spectrogram , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but you know what phone it was and that 's about all you can {disfmarker} all you can say . +PhD D: Right . +PhD G: And then there are other cases where , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 's basically just having , multiple levels of {disfmarker} of , information and marking , on the signal . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Well the other difference is that the {disfmarker} the features , are not synchronous , +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: right . They overlap each other in weird ways . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's not a strictly one - dimensional signal . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So I think that 's sorta qualitatively different . +PhD G: Right . You can add the features in , uh , but it 'll be underspecified . +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD G: Th - there 'll be no way for you to actually mark what was said completely by features . +Grad F: Well not with our current system but you could imagine designing a system , that the states were features , rather than phones . +PhD G: And i if you 're {disfmarker} Well , we {disfmarker} we 've probably have a {vocalsound} separate , um , discussion of , uh {disfmarker} of whether you can do that . +Postdoc B: That 's {disfmarker} Well , {pause} isn't that {disfmarker} I thought that was , well but that {disfmarker} wasn't that kinda the direction ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I thought +Professor C: Yeah , so I mean , what , what {disfmarker} where this is , I mean , I I want would like to have something that 's useful to people other than those who are doing the specific kind of research I have in mind , so it should be something broader . But , The {disfmarker} but uh where I 'm coming from is , uh , we 're coming off of stuff that Larry Saul did with {disfmarker} with , um , uh , John Dalan and Muzim Rahim in which , uh , they , uh , have , um , a m a multi - band system that is , uh , trained through a combination of gradient learning an and EM , to {pause} um , estimate , uh , {vocalsound} the , uh , value for m for {disfmarker} for a particular feature . OK . And this is part of a larger , image that John Dalan has about how the human brain does it in which he 's sort of imagining that , individual frequency channels are coming up with their own estimate , of {disfmarker} of these , these kinds of {disfmarker} something like this . Might not be , you know , exact features that , Jakobson thought of or something . But I mean you know some , something like that . Some kind of low - level features , which are not , fully , you know , phone classification . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th this particular image , of how thi how it 's done , is that , then given all of these estimates at that level , there 's a level above it , then which is {disfmarker} is making , some kind of sound unit classification such as , you know , phone and {disfmarker} and , you know . You could argue what , what a sound unit should be , and {disfmarker} and so forth . But that {disfmarker} that 's sort of what I was imagining doing , um , and {disfmarker} but it 's still open within that whether you would have an intermediate level in which it was actually phones , or not . You wouldn't necessarily have to . Um , but , Again , I wouldn't wanna , wouldn't want what we {disfmarker} we produced to be so , know , local in perspective that it {disfmarker} it was matched , what we were thinking of doing one week , And {disfmarker} and , and , you know , what you 're saying is absolutely right . That , that if we , can we should put in , uh , another level of , of description there if we 're gonna get into some of this low - level stuff . +PhD D: Well , you know , um {disfmarker} I mean if we 're talking about , having the , annotators annotate these kinds of features , it seems like , You know , you {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the question is , do they do that on , meeting data ? Or do they do that on , Switchboard ? +Grad F: That 's what I was saying , +Postdoc B: W Well it seems like you could do both . +Grad F: maybe meeting data isn't the right corpus . +Postdoc B: I mean , I was thinking that it would be interesting , to do it with respect to , parts of Switchboard anyway , in terms of , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} partly to see , if you could , generate first guesses at what the articulatory feature would be , based on the phone representation at that lower level . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: It might be a time gain . But also in terms of comparability of , um , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well cuz the yeah , and then also , if you did it on Switchboard , you would have , the full continuum of transcriptions . +Postdoc B: what you gain Yep . +PhD D: You 'd have it , from the lowest level , the ac acoustic features , then you 'd have the , you know , the phonetic level that Steve did , +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah that {disfmarker} that 's all I was thinking about . +Postdoc B: And you could tell that {disfmarker} +PhD D: and , yeah . +PhD G: it is telephone band , so , the bandwidth might be {disfmarker} +PhD D: It 'd be a complete , set then . +Postdoc B: And you get the relative gain up ahead . +Professor C: It 's so it 's a little different . So I mean i we 'll see wha how much we can , uh , get the people to do , and how much money we 'll have and all this sort of thing , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But it {disfmarker} it might be good to do what Jane was saying uh , you know , seed it , with , guesses about what we think the features are , based on , you know , the phone or Steve 's transcriptions or something . to make it quicker . +Professor C: but , Might be do both . +Grad F: Alright , so based on the phone transcripts they would all be synchronous , but then you could imagine , nudging them here and there . +PhD D: Adjusting ? Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Scoot the voicing over a little , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Well I think what {disfmarker} I mean I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm a l little behind in what they 're doing , now , and , uh , the stuff they 're doing on Switchboard now . But I think that , Steve and the gang are doing , something with an automatic system first and then doing some adjustment . As I re as I recall . So I mean that 's probably the right way to go anyway , is to {disfmarker} is to start off with an automatic system with a pretty rich pronunciation dictionary that , that , um , you know , tries , to label it all . And then , people go through and fix it . +Postdoc B: So in {disfmarker} in our case you 'd think about us s starting with maybe the regular dictionary entry , and then ? Or {pause} would we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , regular dictionary , I mean , this is a pretty rich dictionary . It 's got , got a fair number of pronunciations in it +Postdoc B: But {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or you could start from the {disfmarker} if we were gonna , do the same set , of sentences that Steve had , done , we could start with those transcriptions . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . So I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: That 's actually what I was thinking , is tha {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: the problem is when you run , uh , if you run a regular dictionary , um , even if you have variants , in there , which most people don't , you don't always get , out , the actual pronunciations , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: so that 's why the human transcriber 's giving you the {disfmarker} that pronunciation , +Postdoc B: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: Actually maybe they 're using phone recognizers . +PhD G: and so y they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} I thought that they were {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is that what they 're doing ? +Grad F: They are . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: we should catch up on what Steve is , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} I think that would be a good i good idea . +Professor C: Yeah , so I think that i i we also don't have , I mean , we 've got a good start on it , but we don't have a really good , meeting , recorder or recognizer or transcriber or anything yet , so . So , I mean another way to look at this is to , is to , uh , do some stuff on Switchboard which has all this other , stuff to it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , um , As we get , further down the road and we can do more things ahead of time , we can , do some of the same things to the meeting data . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And I 'm {disfmarker} and these people might {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they are , s most of them are trained with IPA . +Professor C: Yeah +Postdoc B: They 'd be able to do phonetic - level coding , or articulatory . +PhD D: Are they busy for the next couple years , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I mean they , they {disfmarker} they 're interested in continuing working with us , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I , and this would be up their alley , so , we could {disfmarker} when the {disfmarker} when you d meet with , with John Ohala and find , you know what taxonomy you want to apply , then , they 'd be , good to train onto it . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Anyway , this is , not an urgent thing at all , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: just it came up . +PhD D: It 'd be very interesting though , to have {pause} that data . +Postdoc B: I think so , too . +Grad F: I wonder , how would you do a forced alignment ? +PhD G: Yeah . Might {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Interesting idea . +Grad F: To {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I mean , you 'd wanna iterate , somehow . Yeah . It 's interesting thing to think about . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD G: It might be {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean you 'd {disfmarker} you 'd want models for spreading . +PhD G: I was thinking it might be n +PhD D: Of the f acoustic features ? +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well it might be neat to do some , phonetic , features on these , nonword words . Are {disfmarker} are these kinds of words that people never {disfmarker} the "" huh ""s and the "" hmm ""s and the "" huh "" {vocalsound} and the uh {disfmarker} These k No , I 'm serious . There are all these kinds of {pause} functional , uh , elements . I don't know what you call {pause} them . But not just fill pauses but all kinds of ways of {pause} interrupting {comment} and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And some of them are , {vocalsound} yeah , "" uh - huh ""s , and "" hmm ""s , and , "" hmm ! "" "" hmm "" {comment} "" OK "" , "" uh "" {comment} Grunts , uh , that might be interesting . +Postdoc B: He 's got lip {disfmarker} {pause} lipsmacks . +PhD G: In the meetings . +Professor C: We should move on . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , new version of , uh , presegmentation ? +PhD A: Uh , oh yeah , um , {vocalsound} I worked a little bit on the {disfmarker} on the presegmentation to {disfmarker} to get another version which does channel - specific , uh , speech - nonspeech detection . And , what I did is I used some normalized features which , uh , look in into the {disfmarker} which is normalized energy , uh , energy normalized by the mean over the channels and by the , minimum over the , other . within each channel . And to {disfmarker} to , mm , to , yeah , to normalize also loudness and {disfmarker} and modified loudness and things and that those special features actually are in my feature vector . +Grad F: Oh . +PhD A: And , and , therefore to be able to , uh , somewhat distinguish between foreground and background speech in {disfmarker} in the different {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} each channel . And , eh , I tested it on {disfmarker} on three or four meetings and it seems to work , well yeah , fairly well , I {disfmarker} I would say . There are some problems with the lapel mike . +Grad F: Of course . +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Wow that 's great . +PhD A: And . +Grad F: So I {disfmarker} I understand that 's what you were saying about your problem with , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . And . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I had {disfmarker} I had , uh , specific problems with . +Grad F: I get it . So new use ninetieth quartile , rather than , minimum . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow . +PhD A: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah , then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD A: as there {disfmarker} there are some {disfmarker} some problems in , when , in the channel , there {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the the speaker doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't talk much or doesn't talk at all . Then , the , yeah , there are {disfmarker} there are some problems with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with n with normalization , and , then , uh , there the system doesn't work at all . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm glad that there is the {disfmarker} the digit part , where everybody is forced to say something , +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: so , that 's {disfmarker} that 's great for {disfmarker} for my purpose . And , the thing is I {disfmarker} I , then the evaluation of {disfmarker} of the system is a little bit hard , as I don't have any references . +Grad F: Well we did the hand {disfmarker} the one by hand . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the one {disfmarker} one wh where I do the training on so I can't do the evaluation on So the thing is , can the transcribers perhaps do some , some {disfmarker} some meetings in {disfmarker} in terms of speech - nonspeech in {disfmarker} in the specific channels ? +Grad F: Uh . +Postdoc B: Well , I have {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well won't you have that from their transcriptions ? +Postdoc B: Well , OK , so , now we need {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , cuz we need is really tight . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: so , um , I think I might have done what you 're requesting , though I did it in the service of a different thing . +PhD A: Oh , great . +Postdoc B: I have thirty minutes that I 've more tightly transcribed with reference to individual channels . +PhD A: OK . OK , that 's great . That 's great for me . Yeah , so . +Postdoc B: And I could {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Hopefully that 's not the same meeting that we did . +Postdoc B: No , actually it 's a different meeting . +Grad F: Good . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: So , um , e so the , you know , we have the , th they transcribe as if it 's one channel with these {disfmarker} with the slashes to separate the overlapping parts . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then we run it through {disfmarker} then it {disfmarker} then I 'm gonna edit it and I 'm gonna run it through channelize which takes it into Dave Gelbart 's form format . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And then you have , all these things split across according to channel , and then that means that , if a person contributed more than once in a given , overlap during that time bend that {disfmarker} that two parts of the utterance end up together , it 's the same channel , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and then I took his tool , and last night for the first thirty minutes of one of these transcripts , I , tightened up the , um , boundaries on individual speakers ' channels , +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: cuz his {disfmarker} his interface allows me to have total flexibility in the time tags across the channels . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {pause} um , so . +PhD A: so , yeah {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's great , but what would be nice to have some more meetings , not just one meeting to {disfmarker} to be sure that {disfmarker} that , there is a system , +PhD D: So , current {disfmarker} This week . +Postdoc B: Yes . Might not be what you need . +Grad F: Yeah , so if we could get a couple meetings done with that level of precision I think that would be a good idea . +PhD A: OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Uh , how {disfmarker} how m much time {disfmarker} so the meetings vary in length , what are we talking about in terms of the number of minutes you 'd like to have as your {disfmarker} as your training set ? +PhD A: It seems to me that it would be good to have , a few minutes from {disfmarker} from different meetings , so . But I 'm not sure about how much . +Postdoc B: OK , now you 're saying different meetings because of different speakers or because of different audio quality or both or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Both {disfmarker} both . Different {disfmarker} different number of speakers , different speakers , different {pause} conditions . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , we don't have that much variety in meetings yet , uh , I mean we have this meeting and the feature meeting and we have a couple others that we have uh , couple examples of . But {disfmarker} but , uh , +PhD A: Yeah , m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Even probably with the gains {pause} differently will affect it , you mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , not really as {disfmarker} +Professor C: Poten - potentially . +PhD A: uh , because of the normalization , yeah . +Grad E: Oh , cuz you use the normalization ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD G: We can try running {disfmarker} we haven't done this yet because , um , uh , Andreas an is {disfmarker} is gonna move over the SRI recognizer . i basically I ran out of machines at SRI , +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: cuz we 're running the evals and I just don't have machine time there . But , once that 's moved over , uh , hopefully in a {disfmarker} a couple days , then , we can take , um , what Jane just told us about as , the presegmented , {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the segmentations that you did , at level eight or som {comment} at some , threshold that Jane , tha {pause} right , and try doing , forced alignment . um , on the word strings . +Grad F: Oh , shoot ! +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: The pre presegment +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD A: With the recognizer ? Yeah . +PhD G: And if it 's good , then that will {disfmarker} that may give you a good boundary . Of course if it 's good , we don't {disfmarker} then we 're {disfmarker} we 're fine , +PhD A: Yeah . M +PhD G: but , I don't know yet whether these , segments that contain a lot of pauses around the words , will work or not . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I would quite like to have some manually transcribed references for {disfmarker} for the system , as I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if it 's really good to compare with {disfmarker} with some other automatic , found boundaries . +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Postdoc B: Well , no , if we were to start with this and then tweak it h manually , would that {disfmarker} that would be OK ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah {pause} sure . +PhD G: They might be OK . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} you know it really depends on a lot of things , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: but , I would have maybe a transciber , uh , look at the result of a forced alignment and then adjust those . +PhD A: Yeah . To a adjust them , or , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +PhD G: That might save some time . +PhD A: Yeah , great . +PhD G: If they 're horrible it won't help at all , but they might not be horrible . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} but I 'll let you know when we , uh , have that . +PhD A: OK , great . +Postdoc B: How many minutes would you want from {disfmarker} I mean , we could {pause} easily , get a section , you know , like say a minute or so , from every meeting that we have so f from the newer ones that we 're working on , everyone that we have . And then , should provide this . +PhD A: If it 's not the first minute of {disfmarker} of the meeting , that {disfmarker} that 's OK with me , but , in {disfmarker} in the first minute , uh , Often there are some {disfmarker} some strange things going on which {disfmarker} which aren't really , well , for , which {disfmarker} which aren't re re really good . So . What {disfmarker} what I 'd quite like , perhaps , is , to have , some five minutes of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of different meetings , so . +Postdoc B: Somewhere not in the very beginning , five minutes , OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And , then I wanted to ask you just for my inter information , then , would you , be trai cuz I don't quite unders so , would you be training then , um , the segmenter so that , it could , on the basis of that , segment the rest of the meeting ? So , if I give you like {pause} five minutes is the idea that this would then be applied to , uh , to , providing tighter time {pause} bands ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I could do a {disfmarker} a retraining with that , yeah . +Postdoc B: Wow , interesting . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I hope that I {disfmarker} I don't need to do it . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD A: So , uh it c can be do in an unsupervised way . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Excellent . Excellent , OK . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , but , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for those three meetings whi which I {disfmarker} which I did , it seems to be , quite well , but , there are some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} as I said some problems with the lapel mike , but , perhaps we can do something with {disfmarker} with cross - correlations to , to get rid of the {disfmarker} of those . And . Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I {disfmarker} that 's my {pause} future work . Well {disfmarker} well what I want to do is to {disfmarker} to look into cross - correlations for {disfmarker} for removing those , false overlaps . +Postdoc B: Wonderful . +PhD G: Are the , um , wireless , different than the wired , mikes , at all ? I mean , have you noticed any difference ? +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure , um , if {disfmarker} if there are any wired mikes in those meetings , or , uh , I have {disfmarker} have to loo have a look at them but , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I think there 's no difference between , +PhD G: So it 's just the lapel versus everything else ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so then , if that 's five minutes per meeting we 've got like twelve minutes , twelve meetings , roughly , that I 'm {disfmarker} that I 've been working with , then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the meetings that you 're working with , how many of them are different , tha +PhD A: No . +Professor C: are there any of them that are different than , these two meetings ? +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} oh wa in terms of the speakers or the conditions or the ? +Professor C: Yeah , speakers . Sorry . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Um , we have different combinations of speakers . +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I mean , just from what I 've seen , uh , there are some where , um , you 're present or not present , and , then {disfmarker} then you have the difference between the networks group and this group +PhD A: Yeah , I know , some of the NSA meetings , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So I didn't know in the group you had if you had {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: so you have the networks meeting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yep , we do . +Professor C: Do you have any of Jerry 's meetings in your , pack , er , +Postdoc B: Um , no . +Professor C: No ? +Postdoc B: We could , I mean you {disfmarker} you recorded one last week or so . I could get that new one in this week {disfmarker} I get that new one in . +Grad F: Yep . u +PhD G: We 're gonna be recording them every {pause} Monday , +Professor C: Yeah . Cuz I think he really needs variety , +PhD G: so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Great . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and having as much variety for speaker certainly would be a big part of that I think . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK , so if I , OK , included {disfmarker} include , OK , then , uh , if I were to include all together samples from twelve meetings that would only take an hour and I could get the transcribers to do that right {disfmarker} I mean , what I mean is , that would be an hour sampled , and then they 'd transcribe those {disfmarker} that hour , right ? That 's what I should do ? +Professor C: Yeah . And . +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's . +Postdoc B: I don't mean transcribe +Professor C: Right . Ye - But you 're {disfmarker} y +Postdoc B: I mean {disfmarker} I mean adjust . So they get it into the multi - channel format and then adjust the timebands so it 's precise . +Professor C: So that should be faster than the ten times kind of thing , +Postdoc B: Absolutely . I did {disfmarker} I did , um , uh , so , last night I did , uh , +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh gosh , well , last night , I did about half an hour in , three hours , which is not , terrific , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , um , anyway , it 's an hour and a half per {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Well , that 's probably . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc B: Well , I can't calculate on my , {vocalsound} on my feet . +PhD A: Do the transcribers actually start wi with , uh , transcribing new meetings , or {pause} are they ? +Postdoc B: Well , um they 're still working {disfmarker} they still have enough to finish that I haven't assigned a new meeting , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: but the next , m m I was about to need to assign a new meeting and I was going to take it from one of the new ones , +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc B: and I could easily give them Jerry Feldman 's meeting , no problem . And , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: So they 're really running out of , data , prett I mean that 's good . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Uh , that first set . +PhD G: Um , OK . +Professor C: They 're running out of data unless we s make the decision that we should go over and start , uh , transcribing the other set . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: There {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} the first half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And so I was in the process of like editing them but this is wonderful news . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Postdoc B: We funded the experiment with , uh {disfmarker} also we were thinking maybe applying that that to getting the , Yeah , that 'll be , very useful to getting the overlaps to be more precise all the way through . +Professor C: So this , blends nicely into the update on transcripts . +Postdoc B: Yes , it does . So , um , {comment} um , Liz , and {disfmarker} and Don , and I met this morning , in the BARCO room , with the lecture hall , +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , please . Go ahead . And this afternoon . +Postdoc B: and this afternoon , it drifted into the afternoon , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , concerning this issue of , um , the , well there 's basically the issue of the interplay between the transcript format and the processing that , they need to do for , the SRI recognizer . And , um , well , so , I mentioned the process that I 'm going through with the data , so , you know , I get the data back from the transcri Well , s uh , metaphorically , get the data back from the transcriber , and then I , check for simple things like spelling errors and things like that . And , um , I 'm going to be doing a more thorough editing , with respect to consistency of the conventions . But they 're {disfmarker} they 're generally very good . And , then , I run it through , uh , the channelize program to get it into the multi - channel format , OK . And {pause} the , what we discussed this morning , I would summarize as saying that , um , these units that result , in a {disfmarker} a particular channel and a particular timeband , at {disfmarker} at that level , um , vary in length . And , um , {nonvocalsound} their recognizer would prefer that the units not be overly long . But it 's really an empirical question , whether the units we get at this point through , just that process I described might be sufficient for them . So , as a first pass through , a first chance without having to do a lot of hand - editing , what we 're gonna do , is , I 'll run it through channelize , give them those data after I 've done the editing process and be sure it 's clean . And I can do that , pretty quickly , with just , that minimal editing , without having to hand - break things . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And then we 'll see if the units that we 're getting , uh , with the {disfmarker} at that level , are sufficient . And maybe they don't need to be further broken down . And if they do need to be further broken down then maybe it just be piece - wise , maybe it won't be the whole thing . So , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we were discussing , this morning as far as I {disfmarker} Among {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: also we discussed some adaptational things , +PhD G: Then lots of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so it 's like , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: uh {disfmarker} You know I hadn't , uh , incorporated , a convention explicitly to handle acronyms , for example , but if someone says , PZM it would be nice to have that be directly interpretable from , the transcript what they said , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: or Pi - uh Tcl {disfmarker} TCL I mean . It 's like y it 's {disfmarker} and so , um , I 've {disfmarker} I 've incorporated also convention , with that but that 's easy to handle at the post editing phase , and I 'll mention it to , transcribers for the next phase but that 's OK . And then , a similar conv uh , convention for numbers . So if they say one - eighty - three versus one eight three . Um , and also I 'll be , um , encoding , as I do my post - editing , the , things that are in curly brackets , which are clarificational material . And eh to incorporate , uh , keyword , at the beginning . So , it 's gonna be either a gloss or it 's gonna be a vocal sound like a , laugh or a cough , or , so forth . Or a non - vocal sound like a doors door - slam , and that can be easily done with a , you know , just a {disfmarker} one little additional thing in the , in the general format . +PhD G: Yeah we j we just needed a way to , strip , you know , all the comments , all the things th the {disfmarker} that linguist wants but the recognizer can't do anything with . Um , but to keep things that we mapped to like reject models , or , you know , uh , mouth noise , or , cough . And then there 's this interesting issue Jane brought up which I hadn't thought about before but I was , realizing as I went through the transcripts , that there are some noises like , um , well the {disfmarker} good example was an inbreath , where a transcriber working from , the mixed , signal , doesn't know whose breath it is , +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: and they 've been assigning it to someone that may or may not be correct . And what we do is , if it 's a breath sound , you know , a sound from the speaker , we map it , to , a noise model , like a mouth - noise model in the recognizer , and , yeah , it probably doesn't hurt that much once in a while to have these , but , if they 're in the wrong channel , that 's , not a good idea . And then there 's also , things like door - slams that 's really in no one 's channel , they 're like {disfmarker} it 's in the room . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +PhD G: And {pause} uh , Jane had this nice , uh , idea of having , like an extra , uh couple tiers , +Grad F: An extra channel . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been adding that to the ones I 've been editing . +PhD G: yeah . And we were thinking , that is useful also when there 's uncertainties . So if they hear a breath and they don't know who breath it is it 's better to put it in that channel than to put it in the speaker 's channel because maybe it was someone else 's breath , or {disfmarker} Uh , so I think that 's a good {disfmarker} you can always clean that up , post - processing . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So a lot of little details , but I think we 're , coming to some kinda closure , on that . So the idea is then , uh , Don can take , uh , Jane 's post - processed channelized version , and , with some scripts , you know , convert that to {disfmarker} to a reference for the recognizer and we can , can run these . So {pause} when that 's , ready {disfmarker} you know , as soon as that 's ready , and as soon as the recognizer is here we can get , twelve hours of force - aligned and recognized data . And , you know , start , working on it , +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: so we 're , I dunno a coup a week or two away I would say from , uh , if {disfmarker} if that process is automatic once we get your post - process , transcript . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . And that doesn't {disfmarker} the amount of editing that it would require is not very much either . I 'm just hoping that the units that are provided in that way , {nonvocalsound} will be sufficient cuz I would save a lot of , uh , time , dividing things . +PhD G: Yeah , some of them are quite long . Just from {disfmarker} I dunno how long were {disfmarker} you did one ? +Grad E: I saw a couple , {vocalsound} around twenty seconds , and that was just without looking too hard for it , so , I would imagine that there might be some that are longer . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Well n One question , e w would that be a single speaker or is that multiple speakers overlapping ? +Grad E: No . No , but if we 're gonna segment it , like if there 's one speaker in there , that says "" OK "" or something , right in the middle , it 's gonna have a lot of dead time around it , +PhD G: Right . It 's not the {disfmarker} it 's not the fact that we can't process a twenty second segment , it 's the fact that , there 's twenty seconds in which to place one word in the wrong place +Grad E: so it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD G: You know , if {disfmarker} if someone has a very short utterance there , and that 's where , we , might wanna have this individual , you know , ha have your pre pre - process input . +PhD A: Yep . Yeah . Sure . +Postdoc B: That 's very important . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought that perhaps the transcribers could start then from the {disfmarker} those mult multi - channel , uh , speech - nonspeech detections , if they would like to . +PhD G: And I just don't know , I have to run it . +Postdoc B: In {disfmarker} in doing the hand - marking ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's what I was thinking , too . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD G: So that 's probably what will happen , but we 'll try it this way and see . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's probably good enough for force - alignment . If it 's not then we 're really {disfmarker} then we def definitely +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: uh , but for free recognition I 'm {disfmarker} it 'll probably not be good enough . We 'll probably get lots of errors because of the cross - talk , and , noises and things . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor C: Good s I think that 's probably our agenda , or starting up there . +Postdoc B: Oh I wanted to ask one thing , the microphones {disfmarker} the new microphones , +Professor C: Yeah ? K . +Postdoc B: when do we get , uh ? +Grad F: Uh , they said it would take about a week . +Postdoc B: Oh , exciting . K . K . +Professor C: K . +PhD D: You ordered them already ? +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Great . +PhD G: So what happens to our old microphones ? +Professor C: They go where old microphones go . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +PhD G: Do we give them to someone , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well the only thing we 're gonna have extra , for now , +PhD G: We don't have more receivers , we just have {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right , we don so the only thing we 'll have extra now is just the lapel . +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: Not {disfmarker} not the , bodypack , just the lapel . +PhD G: Just the lapel itself . +Grad F: Um , and then one of the {disfmarker} one of those . Since , what I decided to do , on Morgan 's suggestion , was just get two , new microphones , um , and try them out . And then , if we like them we 'll get more . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: Since they 're {disfmarker} they 're like two hundred bucks a piece , we won't , uh , at least try them out . +PhD D: So it 's a replacement for this headset mike ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: And they 're gonna do the wiring for us . +PhD D: What 's the , um , style of the headset ? +Grad F: It 's , um , it 's by Crown , and it 's one of these sort of mount around the ear thingies , and , uh , when I s when I mentioned that we thought it was uncomfortable he said it was a common problem with the Sony . And this is how apparently a lot of people are getting around it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad F: And I checked on the web , and every site I went to , raved about this particular mike . It 's apparently comfortable and stays on the head well , so we 'll see if it 's any good . But , uh , I think it 's promising . +Postdoc B: You said it was used by aerobics instructors ? +Grad F: Yep . Yep , so it was {disfmarker} it was advertised for performers +Postdoc B: That says a lot . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: For the recor for the record Adam is not a paid employee or a consultant of Crown . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} Excuse me ? +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor C: I said "" For the record Adam is {disfmarker} is not a paid consultant or employee of Crown "" . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD G: Right . +Grad F: That 's right . +PhD G: However , he may be solicited after these meetings are distributed . +Grad F: Well we 're using the Crown P Z +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD G: Don't worry about finishing your dissertation . +Grad F: These are Crown aren't they ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: The P Z Ms are Crown , aren't they ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I thought they were . +Professor C: You bet . You bet . +Grad F: And they work very well . +PhD G: Yes . +Professor C: So if we go to a workshop about all this {disfmarker} this it 's gonna be a meeting about meetings about meetings . OK . So . +Grad F: And then it {disfmarker} we have to go to the planning session for that workshop . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , what {disfmarker} Which 'll be the meeting about the meeting about the meeting . +PhD D: Oh , god . +Grad F: Cuz then it would be a meeting about the meeting about the meeting about meetings . +Postdoc B: +Professor C: Yeah ? Just start saying "" M four "" . Yeah , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . M to the fourth . +Professor C: Should we do the digits ? +Grad F: Yep , go for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: S {pause} s +Grad F: Pause between the lines , remember ? +Grad E: Excuse me . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: OK . +PhD G: Huh . +","The conversation involves multiple participants discussing their agenda items, including Grad F, Professor C, PhD A, Postdoc B, PhD D, and PhD G. The key points are as follows: + +Grad F brings up the topic of ""digits,"" mentioning that they are close to completing a project involving them, considering the number of digits they have handled. They anticipate using the data to train a recognizer soon. + +PhD A talks about a new version of the presegmentation they're working on. + +Postdoc B and PhD G discuss an update on transcripts. They inquire about incorporating filtering for ASI references and talk about an ongoing issue related to the update of transcripts and the issue of accurately transcribing false starts, misreads, and miscues in data. + +There's further discussion about the efficacy of the recognizer on a test set and the potential for improving recognition over the next couple of years. + +Professor C talks about a potential project involving the marking of articulatory features with overlap in speech data. The idea is to understand better how the acoustic signal corresponds to overlapping articulatory movements rather than discrete phone sequences. + +The group contemplates the use of a small subset of the conversational speech data for potential research into articulatory feature marking, debating the implications and purposes of doing so. + +The group discusses the status and potential ways to improve the presegmentation for speech and nonspeech detection, involving normalized features that could help identify foreground and background speech in different channels. + +An update on transcripts includes discussing how to manage acronyms, numbers, and annotations in transcripts. Tools like ""channelize"" might be used to handle multichannel data, and the possibility of using the transcriptions as references for a speech recognizer is considered. + +Finally, the group plans to purchase new microphones that are reportedly more comfortable than the current headsets being used and are due to arrive in about a week. + +Overall, the conversation centers around ongoing projects related to speech data processing and transcription, as well as the logistics of handling such data and the equipment needed for it." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD D: Damn . +Professor C: And uh Hans - uh , Hans - Guenter will be here , um , I think by next {disfmarker} next Tuesday or so . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to be here for about three weeks , +PhD B: Oh ! That 's nice . +PhD A: Just for a visit ? +Professor C: and , uh {disfmarker} Uh , we 'll see . +PhD A: Huh . +Professor C: We might {disfmarker} might end up with some longer collaboration or something . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: So he 's gonna look in on everything we 're doing +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and give us his {disfmarker} his thoughts . And so it 'll be another {disfmarker} another good person looking at things . +PhD B: Oh . Hmm . +Grad E: Th - that 's his spectral subtraction group ? +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Is that right ? +Professor C: yeah . +Grad E: Oh , OK . So I guess I should probably talk to him a bit too ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . No , he 'll be around for three weeks . He 's , uh , um , very , very , easygoing , easy to talk to , and , uh , very interested in everything . +PhD A: Really nice guy . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , we met him in Amsterdam . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , he 's been here before . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wh - Back when I was a grad student he was here for a , uh , uh {disfmarker} a year or {comment} n six months . +PhD B: I haven't noticed him . +Professor C: N nine months . +PhD A: Something like that . +Professor C: Something like that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . He 's {disfmarker} he 's done a couple stays here . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , um , {vocalsound} {comment} I guess we got lots to catch up on . And we haven't met for a couple of weeks . We didn't meet last week , Morgan . Um , I went around and talked to everybody , and it seemed like they {disfmarker} they had some new results but rather than them coming up and telling me I figured we should just wait a week and they can tell both {disfmarker} you know , all of us . So , um , why don't we {disfmarker} why don't we start with you , Dave , and then , um , we can go on . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad E: So , um , since we 're looking at putting this , um {disfmarker} mean log m magnitude spectral subtraction , um , into the SmartKom system , I I did a test seeing if , um , it would work using past only {comment} and plus the present to calculate the mean . So , I did a test , um , {vocalsound} where I used twelve seconds from the past and the present frame to , um , calculate the mean . And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Twelve seconds {disfmarker} Twelve {disfmarker} twelve seconds back from the current {pause} frame , is that what you mean ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Twelve seconds , um , counting back from the end of the current frame , +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad E: yeah . So it was , um , twen I think it was twenty - one frames and that worked out to about twelve seconds . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And compared to , um , do using a twelve second centered window , I think there was a drop in performance but it was just a slight drop . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is {disfmarker} is that right ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , I mean , it was pretty {disfmarker} it was pretty tiny . Yeah . +Grad E: Uh - huh . So that was encouraging . And , um , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , that 's encouraging for {disfmarker} for the idea of using it in an interactive system like And , um , another issue I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about is in the SmartKom system . So say twe twelve seconds in the earlier test seemed like a good length of time , but what happens if you have less than twelve seconds ? And , um {disfmarker} So I w bef before , um {disfmarker} Back in May , I did some experiments using , say , two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . In those I trained the models using mean subtraction with the means calculated over two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um , here , I was curious , what if I trained the models using twelve seconds but I f I gave it a situation where the test set I was {disfmarker} subtracted using two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um {disfmarker} So I did that for about three different conditions . And , um {disfmarker} I mean , I th I think it was , um , four se I think {disfmarker} I think it was , um , something like four seconds and , um , six seconds , and eight seconds . Something like that . And it seems like it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it hurts compared to if you actually train the models {comment} using th that same length of time but it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt that much . Um , u usually less than point five percent , although I think I did see one where it was a point eight percent or so rise in word error rate . But this is , um , w where , um , even if I train on the , uh , model , and mean subtracted it with the same length of time as in the test , it {disfmarker} the word error rate is around , um , ten percent or nine percent . So it doesn't seem like that big a d a difference . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} but looking at it the other way , isn't it {disfmarker} what you 're saying that it didn't help you to have the longer time for training , if you were going to have a short time for {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's true . Um , +Professor C: I mean , why would you do it , if you knew that you were going to have short windows in testing . +Grad E: Wa +PhD A: Yeah , it seems like for your {disfmarker} I mean , in normal situations you would never get twelve seconds of speech , right ? I 'm not {disfmarker} e u +PhD B: You need twelve seconds in the past to estimate , right ? Or l or you 're looking at six sec {disfmarker} seconds in future and six in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , t twelve s +Professor C: No , total . +Grad E: N n uh {disfmarker} For the test it 's just twelve seconds in the past . +PhD B: No , it 's all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: Is this twelve seconds of {disfmarker} uh , regardless of speech or silence ? Or twelve seconds of speech ? +Grad E: Of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The other thing , um , which maybe relates a little bit to something else we 've talked about in terms of windowing and so on is , that , um , I wonder if you trained with twelve seconds , and then when you were two seconds in you used two seconds , and when you were four seconds in , you used four seconds , and when you were six {disfmarker} and you basically build up to the twelve seconds . So that if you have very long utterances you have the best , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but if you have shorter utterances you use what you can . +Grad E: Right . And that 's actually what we 're planning to do in +Professor C: OK . Yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} s so I g So I guess the que the question I was trying to get at with those experiments is , "" does it matter what models you use ? Does it matter how much time y you use to calculate the mean when you were , um , tra doing the training data ? "" +Professor C: Right . But I mean the other thing is that that 's {disfmarker} I mean , the other way of looking at this , going back to , uh , mean cepstral subtraction versus RASTA kind of things , is that you could look at mean cepstral subtraction , especially the way you 're doing it , uh , as being a kind of filter . And so , the other thing is just to design a filter . You know , basically you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing a high - pass filter or a band - pass filter of some sort and {disfmarker} and just design a filter . And then , you know , a filter will have a certain behavior and you loo can look at the start up behavior when you start up with nothing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , you know , it will , uh , if you have an IIR filter for instance , it will , um , uh , not behave in the steady - state way that you would like it to behave until you get a long enough period , but , um , uh , by just constraining yourself to have your filter be only a subtraction of the mean , you 're kind of , you know , tying your hands behind your back because there 's {disfmarker} filters have all sorts of be temporal and spectral behaviors . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the only thing , you know , consistent that we know about is that you want to get rid of the very low frequency component . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: But do you really want to calculate the mean ? And you neglect all the silence regions {comment} or you just use everything that 's twelve seconds , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , you {disfmarker} do you mean in my tests so far ? +PhD B: Ye - yeah . +Grad E: Most of the silence has been cut out . +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} There 's just inter - word silences . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And they are , like , pretty short . Shor +Grad E: Pretty short . +PhD B: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . So you really need a lot of speech to estimate the mean of it . +Grad E: Well , if I only use six seconds , it still works pretty well . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +Grad E: I saw in my test before . I was trying twelve seconds cuz that was the best {pause} in my test before +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: and that increasing past twelve seconds didn't seem to help . +PhD B: Hmm . Huh . +Grad E: th um , yeah , I guess it 's something I need to play with more to decide how to set that up for the SmartKom system . Like , may maybe if I trained on six seconds it would work better when I only had two seconds or four seconds , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , and again , if you take this filtering perspective and if you essentially have it build up over time . I mean , if you computed means over two and then over four , and over six , essentially what you 're getting at is a kind of , uh , ramp up of a filter anyway . And so you may {disfmarker} may just want to think of it as a filter . But , uh , if you do that , then , um , in practice somebody using the SmartKom system , one would think {comment} {disfmarker} if they 're using it for a while , it means that their first utterance , instead of , you know , getting , uh , a forty percent error rate reduction , they 'll get a {disfmarker} uh , over what , uh , you 'd get without this , uh , um , policy , uh , you get thirty percent . And then the second utterance that you give , they get the full {disfmarker} you know , uh , full benefit of it if it 's this ongoing thing . +PhD A: Oh , so you {disfmarker} you cache the utterances ? That 's how you get your , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'm saying in practice , yeah , +Grad E: M +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor C: that 's {disfmarker} If somebody 's using a system to ask for directions or something , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: you know , they 'll say something first . And {disfmarker} and to begin with if it doesn't get them quite right , ma m maybe they 'll come back and say , "" excuse me ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , or some {disfmarker} I mean it should have some policy like that anyway . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , uh , uh , in any event they might ask a second question . And it 's not like what he 's doing doesn't , uh , improve things . It does improve things , just not as much as he would like . And so , uh , there 's a higher probability of it making an error , uh , in the first utterance . +PhD A: What would be really cool is if you could have {disfmarker} uh , this probably {disfmarker} users would never like this {disfmarker} but if you had {disfmarker} could have a system where , {vocalsound} before they began to use it they had to introduce themselves , verbally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know . "" Hi , my name is so - and - so , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm from blah - blah - blah . "" And you could use that initial speech to do all these adaptations and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh , the other thing I guess which {disfmarker} which , uh , I don't know much about {disfmarker} as much as I should about the rest of the system but {disfmarker} but , um , couldn't you , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you sort of did a first pass I don't know what kind of , uh , uh , capability we have at the moment for {disfmarker} for doing second passes on {disfmarker} on , uh , uh , some kind of little {disfmarker} small lattice , or a graph , or confusion network , or something . But if you did first pass with , um , the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} either without the mean sub subtraction or with a {disfmarker} a very short time one , and then , um , once you , uh , actually had the whole utterance in , if you did , um , the , uh , uh , longer time version then , based on everything that you had , um , and then at that point only used it to distinguish between , you know , top N , um , possible utterances or something , you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} it might not take very much time . I mean , I know in the large vocabulary stu uh , uh , systems , people were evaluating on in the past , some people really pushed everything in to make it in one pass but other people didn't and had multiple passes . And , um , the argument , um , against multiple passes was u u has often been "" but we want to this to be r you know {disfmarker} have a nice interactive response "" . And the counterargument to that which , say , uh , BBN I think had , {comment} was "" yeah , but our second responses are {disfmarker} second , uh , passes and third passes are really , really fast "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , if {disfmarker} if your second pass takes a millisecond who cares ? Um . +Grad E: S so , um , the {disfmarker} the idea of the second pass would be waiting till you have more recorded speech ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , so if it turned out to be a problem , that you didn't have enough speech because you need a longer {disfmarker} longer window to do this processing , then , uh , one tactic is {disfmarker} you know , looking at the larger system and not just at the front - end stuff {comment} {disfmarker} is to take in , um , the speech with some simpler mechanism or shorter time mechanism , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um , do the best you can , and come up with some al possible alternates of what might have been said . And , uh , either in the form of an N - best list or in the form of a lattice , or {disfmarker} or confusion network , or whatever . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then the decoding of that is much , much faster or can be much , much faster if it isn't a big bushy network . And you can decode that now with speech that you 've actually processed using this longer time , uh , subtraction . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: So I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's common that people do this sort of thing where they do more things that are more complex or require looking over more time , whatever , in some kind of second pass . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: um , and again , if the second pass is really , really fast {disfmarker} Uh , another one I 've heard of is {disfmarker} is in {disfmarker} in connected digit stuff , um , going back and l and through backtrace and finding regions that are considered to be a d a digit , but , uh , which have very low energy . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of things you can do in second passes , at all sorts of levels . Anyway , I 'm throwing too many things out . But . +PhD A: So is that , uh {disfmarker} that it ? +Grad E: I guess that 's it . +PhD A: OK , uh , do you wanna go , Sunil ? +PhD B: Yep . Um , so , the last two weeks was , like {disfmarker} So I 've been working on that Wiener filtering . And , uh , found that , uh , s single {disfmarker} like , I just do a s normal Wiener filtering , like the standard method of Wiener filtering . And that doesn't actually give me any improvement over like {disfmarker} I mean , uh , b it actually improves over the baseline but it 's not like {disfmarker} it doesn't meet something like fifty percent or something . So , I 've been playing with the v +PhD A: Improves over the base line MFCC system ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} The improvement is somewhere around , like , thirty percent over the baseline . +Professor C: Is that using {disfmarker} in combination with something else ? +PhD B: No , just {disfmarker} just one stage Wiener filter +Professor C: With {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is a standard Wiener filter . +Professor C: No , no , but I mean in combination with our on - line normalization or with the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So I just plug in the Wiener filtering . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I mean , in the s in our system , where {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So , I di i di +Professor C: So , does it g does that mean it gets worse ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: No . It actually improves over the baseline of not having a Wiener filter in the whole system . Like I have an LDA f LDA plus on - line normalization , and then I plug in the Wiener filter in that , +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD B: so it improves over not having the Wiener filter . So it improves but it {disfmarker} it doesn't take it like be beyond like thirty percent over the baseline . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: But that 's what I 'm confused about , cuz I think {disfmarker} I thought that our system was more like forty percent without the Wiener filtering . +PhD B: No , it 's like , uh , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Is this with the v new VAD ? +PhD B: well , these are not {disfmarker} No , it 's the old VAD . So my baseline was , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} nine {disfmarker} This is like {disfmarker} w the baseline is ninety - five point six eight , and eighty - nine , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: So I mean , if you can do all these in word errors it 's a lot {disfmarker} a lot easier actually . +PhD B: What was that ? Sorry ? +Professor C: If you do all these in word error rates it 's a lot easier , right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK , OK , OK . Errors , right , I don't have . +Professor C: OK , cuz then you can figure out the percentages . +PhD B: It 's all accuracies . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is something similar to a w I mean , the t the {disfmarker} the baseline that you are talking about is the MFCC baseline , right ? +PhD B: The t yeah , there are two baselines . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the baseline {disfmarker} One baseline is MFCC baseline that {disfmarker} When I said thirty percent improvement it 's like MFCC baseline . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so what 's it start on ? The MFCC baseline is {disfmarker} is what ? Is at what level ? +PhD B: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's just the mel frequency and that 's it . +Professor C: No , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the number ? +PhD B: Uh , so I I don't have that number here . OK , OK , OK , I have it here . Uh , it 's the VAD plus the baseline actually . I 'm talking about the {disfmarker} the MFCC plus I do a frame dropping on it . So that 's like {disfmarker} the word error rate is like four point three . Like {disfmarker} Ten point seven . +Professor C: Four point three . What 's ten point seven ? +PhD B: It 's a medium misma OK , sorry . There 's a well ma well matched , medium mismatched , and a high matched . +Professor C: Ah . +PhD B: So I don't have the {disfmarker} like the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , four point three , ten point seven , +PhD B: And forty forty . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Forty percent is the high mismatch . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And that becomes like four point three {disfmarker} +Professor C: Not changed . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's like ten point one . Still the same . And the high mismatch is like eighteen point five . +Professor C: Eighteen point five . +PhD B: Five . +Professor C: And what were you just describing ? +PhD B: Oh , the one is {disfmarker} this one is just the baseline plus the , uh , Wiener filter plugged into it . +Professor C: But where 's the , uh , on - line normalization and so on ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Sorry . So , with the {disfmarker} with the on - line normalization , the performance was , um , ten {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like four point three . Uh , and again , that 's the ba the ten point , uh , four and twenty point one . That was with on - line normalization and LDA . So the h well matched has like literally not changed by adding on - line or LDA on it . But the {disfmarker} I mean , even the medium mismatch is pretty much the same . And the high mismatch was improved by twenty percent absolute . +Professor C: OK , and what kind of number {disfmarker} an and what are we talking about here ? +PhD B: It 's the It - it 's Italian . +Professor C: Is this TI - digits +PhD B: I 'm talking about Italian , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} Italian ? +PhD B: yeah . +Professor C: And what did {disfmarker} So , what was the , um , uh , corresponding number , say , for , um , uh , the Alcatel system for instance ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: Do you know ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it looks to be , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: You have it ? +PhD D: Yep , it 's three point four , uh , eight point , uh , seven , and , uh , thirteen point seven . +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} Thanks . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , uh , this is the single stage Wiener filter , with {disfmarker} The noise estimation was based on first ten frames . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Actually I started with {disfmarker} using the VAD to estimate the noise and then I found that it works {disfmarker} it doesn't work for Finnish and Spanish because the VAD endpoints are not good to estimate the noise because it cuts into the speech sometimes , so I end up overestimating the noise and getting a worse result . So it works only for Italian by u for {disfmarker} using a VAD to estimate noise . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It works for Italian because the VAD was trained on Italian . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , uh {disfmarker} so this was , uh {disfmarker} And so this was giving {disfmarker} um , this {disfmarker} this was like not improving a lot on this baseline of not having the Wiener filter on it . And , so , uh , I ran this stuff with one more stage of Wiener filtering on it but the second time , what I did was I {disfmarker} estimated the new Wiener filter based on the cleaned up speech , and did , uh , smoothing in the frequency to {disfmarker} to reduce the variance {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , I have {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've observed there are , like , a lot of bumps in the frequency when I do this Wiener filtering which is more like a musical noise or something . And so by adding another stage of Wiener filtering , the results on the SpeechDat - Car was like , um {disfmarker} So , I still don't have the word error rate . I 'm sorry about it . But the overall improvement was like fifty - six point four six . This was again using ten frames of noise estimate and two stage of Wiener filtering . And the rest is like the LDA plu and the on - line normalization all remaining the same . Uh , so this was , like , compared to , uh , uh {disfmarker} Fifty - seven is what you got by using the French Telecom system , right ? +PhD D: No , I don't think so . +PhD B: Y i +PhD D: Is it on Italian ? +PhD B: No , this is over the whole SpeechDat - Car . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah , fifty - seven {disfmarker} +PhD B: point {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , so the new {disfmarker} the new Wiener filtering schema is like {disfmarker} some fifty - six point four six which is like one percent still less than what you got using the French Telecom system . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it 's a pretty similar number in any event . +PhD B: It 's very similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But again , you 're {disfmarker} you 're more or less doing what they were doing , right ? +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's different in a sense like I 'm actually cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum which they 're not doing . They 're d what they 're doing is , they have two stage {disfmarker} stages of estimating the Wiener filter , but {disfmarker} the final filter , what they do is they {disfmarker} they take it to their time domain by doing an inverse Fourier transform . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And they filter the original signal using that fil filter , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: which is like final filter is acting on the input noisy speech rather than on the cleaned up . So this is more like I 'm doing Wiener filter twice , but the only thing is that the second time I 'm actually smoothing the filter and then cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum first level . And so that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what the difference is . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And actually I tried it on s the original clean {disfmarker} I mean , the original spectrum where , like , I {disfmarker} the second time I estimate the filter but actually clean up the noisy speech rather the c s first {disfmarker} output of the first stage and that doesn't {disfmarker} seems to be a {disfmarker} giving , I mean , that much improvement . I {disfmarker} I didn didn't run it for the whole case . And {disfmarker} and what I t what I tried was , by using the same thing but {disfmarker} Uh , so we actually found that the VAD is very , like , crucial . I mean , just by changing the VAD itself gives you the {disfmarker} a lot of improvement +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: by instead of using the current VAD , if you just take up the VAD output from the channel zero , {comment} when {disfmarker} instead of using channel zero and channel one , because that was the p that was the reason why I was not getting a lot of improvement for estimating {comment} the noise . So I just used the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise so that it gives me some reliable mar markers for this noise estimation . +Professor C: What 's a channel zero VAD ? +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused about that . +PhD B: so , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's the close - talking microphone . +PhD B: Yeah , the close - talking without {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD B: So because the channel zero and channel one are like the same speech , but only w I mean , the same endpoints . +Professor C: +PhD B: But the only thing is that the speech is very noisy for channel one , so you can actually use the output of the channel zero for channel one for the VAD . I mean , that 's like a cheating method . +Professor C: Right . I mean , so a are they going to pro What are they doing to do , do we know yet ? about {disfmarker} as far as what they 're {disfmarker} what the rules are going to be and what we can use ? +PhD D: Yeah , so actually I received a {disfmarker} a new document , describing this . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And what they did finally is to , mmm , uh , not to align the utterances but to perform recognition , um , only on the close - talking microphone , +PhD B: Which is the channel zero . +PhD D: and to take the result of the recognition to get the boundaries uh , of speech . +Professor C: So it 's not like that 's being done in one place or one time . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's just a rule and we 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you were permitted to do that . Is {disfmarker} is that it ? +PhD D: Uh , I think they will send , um , files but we {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} Well , apparently {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , so they will send files so everybody will have the same boundaries to work with ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: But actually their alignment actually is not seems to be improving in like on all cases . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Oh , i Yeah , so what happened here is that , um , the overall improvement that they have with this method {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well , to be more precise , what they have is , they have these alignments and then they drop the beginning silence and {disfmarker} and the end silence but they keep , uh , two hundred milliseconds before speech and two hundred after speech . And they keep the speech pauses also . Um , and the overall improvement over the MFCC baseline So , when they just , uh , add this frame dropping in addition it 's r uh , forty percent , right ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Fourteen percent , I mean . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um , which is , um , t which is the overall improvement . But in some cases it doesn't improve at all . Like , uh , y do you remember which case ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It gives like negative {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in like some Italian and TI - digits , +PhD D: Yeah , some @ @ . +PhD B: right ? +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . So by using the endpointed speech , actually it 's worse than the baseline in some instances , which could be due to the word pattern . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Yeah , the other thing also is that fourteen percent is less than what you obtain using a real VAD . +PhD B: Yeah , our neural net {disfmarker} +PhD D: So with without cheating like this . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So I think this shows that there is still work {disfmarker} Uh , well , working on the VAD is still {disfmarker} still important I think . +Professor C: Yeah , c +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can I ask just a {disfmarker} a high level question ? Can you just say like one or two sentences about Wiener filtering and why {disfmarker} why are people doing that ? +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD A: What 's {disfmarker} what 's the deal with that ? +PhD B: OK , so the Wiener filter , it 's {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like you try to minimize {disfmarker} I mean , so the basic principle of Wiener filter is like you try to minimize the , uh , d uh , difference between the noisy signal and the clean signal if you have two channels . Like let 's say you have a clean t signal and you have an additional channel where you know what is the noisy signal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you try to minimize the error between these two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's the basic principle . And you get {disfmarker} you can do that {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have only a c noisy signal , at a level which you , you w try to estimate the noise from the w assuming that the first few frames are noise or if you have a w voice activity detector , uh , you estimate the noise spectrum . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do you assume the noise is the same ? +PhD B: Yeah . in {disfmarker} yeah , after the speech starts . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but that 's not the case in , uh , many {disfmarker} many of our cases but it works reasonably well . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and then you What you do is you , uh b fff . So again , I can write down some of these eq Oh , OK . Yeah . And then you do this {disfmarker} uh , this is the transfer function of the Wiener filter , so "" SF "" is a clean speech spectrum , power spectrum +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And "" N "" is the noisy power spectrum . And so this is the transfer function . +Professor C: Right +PhD B: And , +Professor C: actually , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And then you multiply your noisy power spectrum with this . You get an estimate of the clean power spectrum . +PhD A: I see . OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but the thing is that you have to estimate the SF from the noisy spectrum , what you have . So you estimate the NF from the initial noise portions and then you subtract that from the current noisy spectrum to get an estimate of the SF . So sometimes that becomes zero because you do you don't have a true estimate of the noise . So the f filter will have like sometimes zeros in it +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because some frequency values will be zeroed out because of that . And that creates a lot of discontinuities across the spectrum because @ @ the filter . So , uh , so {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that was just the first stage of Wiener filtering that I tried . +PhD A: So is this , um , basically s uh , similar to just regular spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's all pretty related , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's a di there 's a whole class of techniques where you try in some sense to minimize the noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And it 's typically a mean square sense , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , i in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some way . And , uh {disfmarker} uh , spectral subtraction is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} uh , one approach to it . +PhD A: Do people use the Wiener filtering in combination with the spectral subtraction typically , or is i are they sort of competing techniques ? +PhD B: Not seen . They are very s similar techniques . +PhD A: Yeah . O oh , OK . +PhD B: So it 's like I haven't seen anybody using s Wiener filter with spectral subtraction . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see , I see . +Professor C: I mean , in the long run you 're doing the same thing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: but y but there you make different approximations , and {disfmarker} in spectral subtraction , for instance , there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an estimation factor . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: You sometimes will figure out what the noise is and you 'll multiply that noise spectrum times some constant and subtract that rather than {disfmarker} and sometimes people {disfmarker} even though this really should be in the power domain , sometimes people s work in the magnitude domain because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it works better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh , uh , you know . +PhD A: So why did you choose , uh , Wiener filtering over some other {disfmarker} one of these other techniques ? +PhD B: Uh , the reason was , like , we had this choice of using spectral subtraction , Wiener filtering , and there was one more thing which I which I 'm trying , is this sub space approach . So , Stephane is working on spectral subtraction . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So I picked up {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're sort of trying @ @ them all . +PhD B: Y Yeah , +PhD A: Ah , +PhD B: we just wanted to have a few noise production {disfmarker} compensation techniques +PhD A: I see . Oh , OK . +PhD B: and then pick some from that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: pick one . +Professor C: I m I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I mean , there 's Car - Carmen 's working on another , on the vector Taylor series . +PhD B: VA Yeah , VAD . w Yeah . +Professor C: So they were just kind of trying to cover a bunch of different things with this task and see , you know , what are {disfmarker} what are the issues for each of them . +PhD A: Ah , OK . That makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: Cool , thanks . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} so one of {disfmarker} one of the things that I tried , like I said , was to remove those zeros in the fri filter by doing some smoothing of the filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Like , you estimate the edge of square and then you do a f smoothing across the frequency so that those zeros get , like , flattened out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that doesn't seems to be improving by trying it on the first time . So what I did was like I p did this and then you {disfmarker} I plugged in the {disfmarker} one more {disfmarker} the same thing but with the smoothed filter the second time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that seems to be working . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's where I got like fifty - six point five percent improvement on SpeechDat - Car with that . And {disfmarker} So the other thing what I tried was I used still the ten frames of noise estimate but I used this channel zero VAD to drop the frames . So I 'm not {disfmarker} still not estimating . And that has taken the performance to like sixty - seven percent in SpeechDat - Car , which is {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which like sort of shows that by using a proper VAD you can just take it to further , better levels . And {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So that 's sort of like , you know , best - case performance ? +PhD B: Yeah , so far I 've seen sixty - seven {disfmarker} I mean , no , I haven't seen s like sixty - seven percent . And , uh , using the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise also seems to be improving but I don't have the results for all the cases with that . So I used channel zero VAD to estimate noise as a lesser 2 x frame , which is like , {vocalsound} everywhere I use the channel zero VAD . And that seems to be the best combination , uh , rather than using a few frames to estimate and then drop a channel . +Professor C: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still a little confused . Is that channel zero information going to be accessible during this test . +PhD B: Nnn , no . This is just to test whether we can really improve by using a better VAD . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} So this is like the noise compensation f is fixed +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but you make a better decision on the endpoints . That 's , like {disfmarker} seems to be {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so we c so I mean , which {disfmarker} which means , like , by using this technique what we improve just the VAD +Professor C: Yes . +PhD B: we can just take the performance by another ten percent or better . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that was just the , uh , reason for doing that experiment . And , w um {disfmarker} Yeah , but this {disfmarker} all these things , I have to still try it on the TI - digits , which is like I 'm just running . And there seems to be not improving a {disfmarker} a lot on the TI - digits , so I 'm like investigating that , why it 's not . And , um , um {disfmarker} Well after that . So , uh {disfmarker} so the other {disfmarker} the other thing is {disfmarker} like I 've been {disfmarker} I 'm doing all this stuff on the power spectrum . So {disfmarker} Tried this stuff on the mel as well {disfmarker} mel and the magnitude , and mel magnitude , and all those things . But it seems to be the power spectrum seems to be getting the best result . So , one of {disfmarker} one of reasons I thought like doing the averaging , after the filtering using the mel filter bank , that seems to be maybe helping rather than trying it on the mel filter ba filtered outputs . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So just th +Professor C: Ma Makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} that 's the only thing that I could think of why {disfmarker} why it 's giving improvement on the mel . And , yep . So that 's it . +Professor C: Uh , how about the subspace stuff ? +PhD B: Subspace , {comment} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm like {disfmarker} that 's still in {disfmarker} a little bit in the back burner because I 've been p putting a lot effort on this to make it work , on tuning things and other stuff . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I was like going parallely but not much of improvement . I 'm just {disfmarker} have some skeletons ready , need some more time for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: Tha - that it ? +PhD B: Yep . Yep . +PhD A: Cool . Do you wanna go , Stephane ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So , {vocalsound} I 've been , uh , working still on the spectral subtraction . Um , So to r to remind you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a little bit of {disfmarker} of what I did before , is just {vocalsound} to apply some spectral subtraction with an overestimation factor also to get , um , an estimate of the noise , uh , spectrum , and subtract this estimation of the noise spectrum from the , uh , signal spectrum , {comment} but subtracting more when the SNR is {disfmarker} is , uh , low , which is a technique that it 's often used . +PhD A: "" Subtracting more "" , meaning {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: So you overestimate the noise spectrum . You multiply the noise spectrum by a factor , uh , which depends on the SNR . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD D: So , above twenty DB , it 's one , so you just subtract the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then it 's b Generally {disfmarker} Well , I use , actually , a linear , uh , function of the SNR , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is bounded to , like , two or three , {comment} when the SNR is below zero DB . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , doing just this , uh , either on the FFT bins or on the mel bands , um , t doesn't yield any improvement +Professor C: Oh ! Um , uh , what are you doing with negative , uh , powers ? +PhD D: o Yeah . So there is also a threshold , of course , because after subtraction you can have negative energies , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So what I {disfmarker} I just do is to put , uh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to add {disfmarker} to put the threshold first and then to add a small amount of noise , which right now is speech - shaped . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Speech - shaped ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} a it has the overall {disfmarker} overall energy , uh {disfmarker} pow it has the overall power spectrum of speech . So with a bump around one kilohertz . +PhD A: So when y when you talk about there being something less than zero after subtracting the noise , is that at a particular frequency bin ? +PhD D: i Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: There can be frequency bins with negative values . +PhD A: And so when you say you 're adding something that has the overall shape of speech , is that in a {disfmarker} in a particular frequency bin ? Or you 're adding something across all the frequencies when you get these negatives ? +PhD D: For each frequencies I a I 'm adding some , uh , noise , but the a the amount of {disfmarker} the amount of noise I add is not the same for all the frequency bins . +PhD A: Ah ! OK . I gotcha . Right . +PhD D: Uh . Right now I don't think if it makes sense to add something that 's speech - shaped , because then you have silence portion that have some spectra similar to the sp the overall speech spectra . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . So this is something I can still work on , +PhD A: So what does that mean ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Hmm . +PhD A: I 'm trying to understand what it means when you do the spectral subtraction and you get a negative . It means that at that particular frequency range you subtracted more energy than there was actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: That means that {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so yeah , you have an {disfmarker} an estimation of the noise spectrum , but sometimes , of course , it 's {disfmarker} as the noise is not perfectly stationary , sometimes this estimation can be , uh , too small , so you don't subtract enough . But sometimes it can be too large also . If {disfmarker} if the noise , uh , energy in this particular frequency band drops for some reason . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: So in {disfmarker} in an ideal word i world {comment} if the noise were always the same , then , when you subtracted it the worst that i you would get would be a zero . I mean , the lowest you would get would be a zero , cuz i if there was no other energy there you 're just subtracting exactly the noise . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm , +Professor C: Yep , there 's all {disfmarker} there 's all sorts of , uh , deviations from the ideal here . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about the signal and noise , um , at a particular point . And even if something is sort of stationary in ster terms of statistics , there 's no guarantee that any particular instantiation or piece of it is exactly a particular number or bounded by a particular range . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , you 're figuring out from some chunk of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the signal what you think the noise is . Then you 're subtracting that from another chunk , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and there 's absolutely no reason to think that you 'd know that it wouldn't , uh , be negative in some places . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , on the other hand that just means that in some sense you 've made a mistake because you certainly have stra subtracted a bigger number than is due to the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} Also , we speak {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} where all this stuff comes from is from an assumption that signal and noise are uncorrelated . And that certainly makes sense in s in {disfmarker} in a statistical interpretation , that , you know , over , um , all possible realizations that they 're uncorrelated +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or assuming , uh , ergodicity that i that i um , across time , uh , it 's uncorrelated . But if you just look at {disfmarker} a quarter second , uh , and you cross - multiply the two things , uh , you could very well , uh , end up with something that sums to something that 's not zero . So in fact , the two signals could have some relation to one another . And so there 's all sorts of deviations from ideal in this . And {disfmarker} and given all that , you could definitely end up with something that 's negative . But if down the road you 're making use of something as if it is a power spectrum , um , then it can be bad to have something negative . Now , the other thing I wonder about actually is , what if you left it negative ? What happens ? +PhD B: Is that the log ? +Professor C: I mean , because {disfmarker} Um , are you taking the log before you add them up to the mel ? +PhD B: After that . No , after . +Professor C: Right . So the thing is , I wonder how {disfmarker} if you put your thresholds after that , I wonder how often you would end up with , uh {disfmarker} with negative values . +PhD B: But you will {disfmarker} But you end up reducing some neighboring frequency bins {disfmarker} @ @ in the average , right ? When you add the negative to the positive value which is the true estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . But nonetheless , uh , you know , these are {disfmarker} it 's another f kind of smoothing , right ? that you 're doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So , you 've done your best shot at figuring out what the noise should be , and now i then you 've subtracted it off . And then after that , instead of {disfmarker} instead of , uh , uh , leaving it as is and adding things {disfmarker} adding up some neighbors , you artificially push it up . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which is , you know , it 's {disfmarker} there 's no particular reason that that 's the right thing to do either , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: So , um , uh , i in fact , what you 'd be doing is saying , "" well , we 're d we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to definitely diminish the effect of this frequency in this little frequency bin in the {disfmarker} in the overall mel summation "" . It 's just a thought . I d I don't know if it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sort of the opposite of that would be if {disfmarker} if you find out you 're going to get a negative number , you don't do the subtraction for that bin . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . That is true . +Professor C: Nnn , yeah , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although {disfmarker} +PhD A: That would be almost the opposite , right ? Instead of leaving it negative , you don't do it . If your {disfmarker} if your subtraction 's going to result in a negative number , you {disfmarker} you don't do subtraction in that . +Professor C: Yeah , but that means that in a situation where you thought that {disfmarker} that the bin was almost entirely noise , you left it . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm just saying that 's like the opposite . +PhD B: We just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's the opposite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: And , yeah , some people also {disfmarker} if it 's a negative value they , uh , re - compute it using inter interpolation from the edges and bins . +PhD B: For frames , frequency bins . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , there are different things that you can do . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: People can also , uh , reflect it back up and essentially do a full wave rectification instead of a {disfmarker} instead of half wave . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: But it was just a thought that {disfmarker} that it might be something to try . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yep . Well , actually I tried , {vocalsound} something else based on this , um , is to {disfmarker} to put some smoothing , um , because it seems to {disfmarker} to help or it seems to help the Wiener filtering +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , mmm {disfmarker} So what I did is , uh , some kind of nonlinear smoothing . Actually I have a recursion that computes {disfmarker} Yeah , let me go back a little bit . Actually , when you do spectral subtraction you can , uh , find this {disfmarker} this equivalent in the s in the spectral domain . You can uh compute , y you can say that d your spectral subtraction is a filter , um , and the gain of this filter is the , um , {vocalsound} signal energy minus what you subtract , divided by the signal energy . And this is a gain that varies over time , and , you know , of course , uh , depending on the s on the noise spectrum and on the speech spectrum . And {disfmarker} what happen actually is that during low SNR values , the gain is close to zero but it varies a lot . Mmm , and this {disfmarker} this is the cause of musical noise and all these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {comment} the fact you {disfmarker} we go below zero one frame and then you can have an energy that 's above zero . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Mmm . So the smoothing is {disfmarker} I did a smoothing actually on this gain , uh , trajectory . But it 's {disfmarker} the smoothing is nonlinear in the sense that I tried to not smooth if the gain is high , because in this case we know that , uh , the estimate of the gain is correct because we {disfmarker} we are not close to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to zero , um , and to do more smoothing if the gain is low . Mmm . Um . Yeah . So , well , basically that 's this idea , and it seems to give pretty good results , uh , although I 've just {disfmarker} just tested on Italian and Finnish . And on Italian it seems {disfmarker} my result seems to be a little bit better than the Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the one you showed yesterday . +PhD D: right ? +PhD B: Right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , I don't know if you have these improvement the detailed improvements for Italian , Finnish , and Spanish there +PhD B: Fff . No , I don't have , for each , +PhD D: or you have {disfmarker} just have your own . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} just have the final number here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So these numbers he was giving before with the four point three , and the ten point one , and so forth , those were Italian , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} so , no , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually didn't give you the number which is the final one , +PhD D: uh , no , we 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is , after two stages of Wiener filtering . I mean , that was I just {disfmarker} well , like the overall improvement is like fifty - six point five . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , his number is still better than what I got in the two stages of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: On Italian . But on Finnish it 's a little bit worse , apparently . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: But do you have numbers in terms of word error rates on {disfmarker} on Italian ? So just so you have some sense of reference ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , so , it 's , uh , three point , uh , eight . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Am I right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . Yeah , right , OK . +PhD D: And then , uh , d uh , nine point , uh , one . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And finally , uh , sixteen point five . +Professor C: And this is , um , spectral subtraction plus what ? +PhD D: Plus {disfmarker} plus nonlinear smoothing . Well , it 's {disfmarker} the system {disfmarker} it 's exactly the sys the same system as Sunil tried , +Professor C: On - line normalization and LDA ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But instead of double stage Wiener filtering , it 's {disfmarker} it 's this smoothed spectral subtraction . Um , yeah . +PhD A: What is it the , um , France Telecom system uses +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: for {disfmarker} Do they use spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: They use spectral subtraction , right . +PhD D: For what ? +PhD B: French Telecom . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering . +PhD D: am I right ? +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD D: Well , it 's some kind of Wiener filtering {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , filtering . Yeah , it 's not exactly Wiener filtering but some variant of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , plus , uh , I guess they have some sort of cepstral normalization , as well . +PhD B: s They have like {disfmarker} yeah , th the {disfmarker} just noise compensation technique is a variant of Wiener filtering , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: plus they do some {disfmarker} some smoothing techniques on the final filter . The {disfmarker} th they actually do the filtering in the time domain . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: So they would take this HF squared back , taking inverse Fourier transform . And they convolve the time domain signal with that . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD B: And they do some smoothing on that final filter , impulse response . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: But they also have two {disfmarker} two different smoothing @ @ . +PhD B: I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm @ @ . +PhD D: One in the time domain and one in the frequency domain by just taking the first , um , coefficients of the impulse response . +PhD B: But . +PhD D: So , basically it 's similar . I mean , what you did , it 's similar +PhD B: It 's similar in the smoothing and {disfmarker} +PhD D: because you have also two {disfmarker} two kind of smoothing . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: One in the time domain , and one in the frequency domain , +PhD B: Yeah . The frequency domain . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , do you get this musical noise stuff with Wiener filtering or is that only with , uh , spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: No , you get it with Wiener filtering also . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help with that ? Or some other smoothing ? +PhD B: Oh , no , you still end up with zeros in the s spectrum . Sometimes . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , it 's not clear that these musical noises hurt us in recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: We don't know if they do . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , they {disfmarker} they sound bad . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . +Professor C: But we 're not listening to it , usually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , actually the {disfmarker} the smoothing that I did {disfmarker} do here reduced the musical noise . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I cannot {disfmarker} you cannot hear beca well , actually what I d did not say is that this is not in the FFT bins . This is in the mel frequency bands . Um {disfmarker} So , it could be seen as a f a {disfmarker} a smoothing in the frequency domain because I used , in ad mel bands in addition and then the other phase of smoothing in the time domain . Mmm . But , when you look at the spectrogram , if you don't have an any smoothing , you clearly see , like {disfmarker} in silence portions , and at the beginning and end of speech , you see spots of high energy randomly distributed over the {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's the musical noise ? +PhD D: Which is musical noise , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: yeah , if {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} If you listen to it {disfmarker} uh , if you do this in the FFT bins , then you have spots of energy randomly distributing . And if you f if you re - synthesize these spot sounds as , like , sounds , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , none of these systems , by the way , have {disfmarker} I mean , y you both are {disfmarker} are working with , um , our system that does not have the neural net , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . So one would hope , presumably , that the neural net part of it would {disfmarker} would improve things further as {disfmarker} as they did before . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , although if {disfmarker} if we , um , look at the result from the proposals , {comment} one of the reason , uh , the n system with the neural net was , um , more than {disfmarker} well , around five percent better , is that it was much better on highly mismatched condition . I 'm thinking , for instance , on the TI - digits trained on clean speech and tested on noisy speech . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , for this case , the system with the neural net was much better . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not much on the {disfmarker} in the other cases . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And if we have no , uh , spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , i the system is {disfmarker} Uh , we thought the neural {disfmarker} neural network is much better than before , even in these cases of high mismatch . So , maybe the neural net will help less but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Maybe . +PhD A: Could you train a neural net to do spectral subtraction ? +Professor C: Yeah , it could do a nonlinear spectral subtraction +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but I don't know if it {disfmarker} I mean , you have to figure out what your targets are . +PhD A: Yeah , I was thinking if you had a clean version of the signal and {disfmarker} and a noisy version , and your targets were the M F - uh , you know , whatever , frequency bins {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's not so much spectral subtraction then , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but at any rate , yeah , people , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: People do that ? +Professor C: y yeah , in fact , we had visitors here who did that I think when you were here ba way back when . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , people {disfmarker} d done lots of experimentation over the years with training neural nets . And it 's not a bad thing to do . It 's another approach . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: M I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The objection everyone always raises , which has some truth to it is that , um , it 's good for mapping from a particular noise to clean but then you get a different noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the experiments we saw that visitors did here showed that it {disfmarker} there was at least some , um , {vocalsound} {comment} gentleness to the degradation when you switched to different noises . It did seem to help . So that {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's another {disfmarker} another way to go . +PhD A: How did it compare on {disfmarker} I mean , for {disfmarker} for good cases where it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh , stuff that it was trained on ? Did it do pretty well ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah , it did very well . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but to some extent that 's kind of what we 're doing . I mean , we 're not doing exactly that , we 're not trying to generate good examples but by trying to do the best classifier you possibly can , for these little phonetic categories , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . You could say it 's sort of built in . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's kind of built into that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and that 's why we have found that it {disfmarker} it does help . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} so , um , yeah , I mean , we 'll just have to try it . But I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine that it will help some . I mean , it {disfmarker} we 'll just have to see whether it helps more or less the same , but I would imagine it would help some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So in any event , all of this {disfmarker} I was just confirming that all of this was with a simpler system . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: OK ? +PhD D: yeah . Um , Yeah , so this is th the , um {disfmarker} Well , actually , this was kind of the first try with this spectral subtraction plus smoothing , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was kind of excited by the result . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , then I started to optimize the different parameters . And , uh , the first thing I tried to optimize is the , um , time constant of the smoothing . And it seems that the one that I chose for the first experiment was the optimal one , so {vocalsound} uh , +Professor C: It 's amazing how often that happens . +PhD D: Um , so this is the first thing . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , another thing that I {disfmarker} it 's important to mention is , um , that this has a this has some additional latency . Um . Because when I do the smoothing , uh , it 's a recursion that estimated the means , so {disfmarker} of the g of the gain curve . And this is a filter that has some latency . And I noticed that it 's better if we take into account this latency . So , instead o of using the current estimated mean to , uh , subtract the current frame , it 's better to use an estimate that 's some somewhere in the future . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: And that 's what causes the latency ? OK . +PhD B: You mean , the m the mean is computed o based on some frames in the future also ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} or no ? +PhD D: It 's the recursion , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's the center recursion , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} and the latency of this recursion is around fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: One five ? +PhD D: +Professor C: One five ? Five zero ? +PhD D: Five zero , +Professor C: Five zero . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: I 'm sorry , +PhD D: mmm . +PhD B: why {disfmarker} why is that delay coming ? Like , you estimate the mean ? +PhD D: Yeah , the mean estimation has some delay , right ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: I mean , the {disfmarker} the filter that {disfmarker} that estimates the mean has a time constant . +PhD B: It isn't {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like it looks into the future also . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: What if you just look into the past ? +PhD D: It 's , uh , not as good . It 's not bad . +Professor C: How m by how much ? +PhD D: Um , it helps a lot over the ba the baseline but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor C: By how much ? +PhD D: it {disfmarker} It 's around three percent , um , relative . +Professor C: Worse . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um , +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's depending on how all this stuff comes out we may or may not be able to add any latency . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . So , yeah , it depends . Uh , y actually , it 's {disfmarker} it 's l it 's three percent . Right . Mmm . Yeah , b but I don't think we have to worry too much on that right now while {disfmarker} you kno . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , s Yeah , I mean , I think the only thing is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: I would worry about it a little . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Because if we completely ignore latency , and then we discover that we really have to do something about it , we 're going to be {disfmarker} find ourselves in a bind . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , you know , maybe you could make it twenty - five . You know what I mean ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , just , you know , just be {disfmarker} be a little conservative +PhD D: Oh yes . +Professor C: because we may end up with this crunch where all of a sudden we have to cut the latency in half or something . +PhD D: s Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Um . So , yeah , there are other things in the , um , algorithm that I didn't , uh , @ @ a lot yet , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD D: which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry . A quick question just about the latency thing . If {disfmarker} if there 's another part of the system that causes a latency of a hundred milliseconds , is this an additive thing ? Or c or is yours hidden in that ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's added . +PhD A: It 's additive . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} OK . We can do something in parallel also , in some like {disfmarker} some cases like , if you wanted to do voice activity detection . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: And we can do that in parallel with some other filtering you can do . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: So you can make a decision on that voice activity detection and then you decide whether you want to filter or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But by then you already have the sufficient samples to do the filtering . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So , sometimes you can do it anyway . +PhD A: I mean , couldn't , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Couldn't you just also {disfmarker} I mean , i if you know that the l the largest latency in the system is two hundred milliseconds , don't you {disfmarker} couldn't you just buffer up that number of frames and then everything uses that buffer ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: And that way it 's not additive ? +Professor C: Well , in fact , everything is sent over in buffers cuz of {disfmarker} isn't it the TCP buffer some {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: You mean , the {disfmarker} the data , the super frame or something ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , but that has a variable latency because the last frame doesn't have any latency +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and first frame has a twenty framed latency . So you can't r rely on that latency all the time . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} I mean the transmission over {disfmarker} over the air interface is like a buffer . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Twenty frame {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: twenty four frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} But the only thing is that the first frame in that twenty - four frame buffer has a twenty - four frame latency . And the last frame doesn't have any latency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Because it just goes as {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I wasn't thinking of that one in particular +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: but more of , you know , if {disfmarker} if there is some part of your system that has to buffer twenty frames , uh , can't the other parts of the system draw out of that buffer and therefore not add to the latency ? +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} and that 's sort of one of the {disfmarker} all of that sort of stuff is things that they 're debating in their standards committee . +PhD A: Oh ! Hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , um , there is uh , {comment} these parameters that I still have to {disfmarker} to look at . Like , I played a little bit with this overestimation factor , uh , but I still have to {disfmarker} to look more at this , um , at the level of noise I add after . Uh , I know that adding noise helped , um , the system just using spectral subtraction without smoothing , but I don't know right now if it 's still important or not , and if the level I choose before is still the right one . Same thing for the shape of the {disfmarker} the noise . Maybe it would be better to add just white noise instead of speech shaped noise . +Professor C: That 'd be more like the JRASTA thing in a sense . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um , yep . Uh , and another thing is to {disfmarker} Yeah , for this I just use as noise estimate the mean , uh , spectrum of the first twenty frames of each utterance . I don't remember for this experiment what did you use for these two stage {disfmarker} +PhD B: I used ten {disfmarker} just ten frames . Yeah , because {disfmarker} +PhD D: The ten frames ? +PhD B: I mean , the reason was like in TI - digits I don't have a lot . I had twenty frames most of the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . But , so what 's this result you told me about , the fact that if you use more than ten frames you can {disfmarker} improve by t +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's using the channel zero . If I use a channel zero VAD to estimate the noise . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: Which {disfmarker} +PhD D: But this is ten frames plus {disfmarker} plus +PhD B: Channel zero dropping . +PhD D: channel {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , no , these results with two stage Wiener filtering is ten frames +PhD B: t Oh , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: but possibly more . I mean , if channel one VAD gives you {disfmarker} +PhD B: f Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . OK . Yeah , but in this experiment I did {disfmarker} I didn't use any VAD . I just used the twenty first frame to estimate the noise . And {disfmarker} So I expected it to be a little bit better , {vocalsound} if , uh , I use more {disfmarker} more frames . Um . OK , that 's it for spectral subtraction . The second thing I was working on is to , um , try to look at noise estimation , {comment} mmm , and using some technique that doesn't need voice activity detection . Um , and for this I u simply used some code that , uh , {vocalsound} I had from {disfmarker} from Belgium , which is technique that , um , takes a bunch of frame , um , and for each frequency bands of this frame , takes a look at the minima of the energy . And then average these minima and take this as an {disfmarker} an energy estimate of the noise for this particular frequency band . And there is something more to this actually . What is done is that , {vocalsound} uh , these minima are computed , um , based on , um , high resolution spectra . So , I compute an FFT based on the long , uh , signal frame which is sixty - four millisecond {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you have one minimum for each frequency ? +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what I d uh , I do actually , is to take a bunch of {disfmarker} to take a tile on the spectrogram and this tile is five hundred milliseconds long and two hundred hertz wide . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: And this tile {disfmarker} Uh , in this tile appears , like , the harmonics if you have a voiced sound , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's the FTT bins . And when you take the m the minima of {disfmarker} of these {disfmarker} this tile , when you don't have speech , these minima will give you some noise level estimate , If you have voiced speech , these minima will still give you some noise estimate because the minima are between the harmonics . And {disfmarker} If you have other {disfmarker} other kind of speech sounds then it 's not the case , but if the time frame is long enough , uh , like s five hundred milliseconds seems to be long enough , {comment} you still have portions which , uh , are very close {disfmarker} whi which minima are very close to the noise energy . +Professor C: I 'm confused . You said five hundred milliseconds +PhD D: Mmm ? +Professor C: but you said sixty - four milliseconds . Which is which ? What ? +PhD D: Sixty - four milliseconds is to compute the FFT , uh , bins . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the FFT . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Um , actually it 's better to use sixty - four milliseconds because , um , if you use thirty milliseconds , then , uh , because of the {disfmarker} this short windowing and at low pitch , uh , sounds , {vocalsound} the harmonics are not , wha uh , correctly separated . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So if you take these minima , it {disfmarker} b {vocalsound} they will overestimate the noise a lot . +Professor C: So you take sixty - four millisecond F F Ts and then you average them {comment} over five hundred ? Or {disfmarker} ? Uh , what do you do over five hundred ? +PhD D: So I take {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I take a bunch of these sixty - four millisecond frame to cover five hundred milliseconds , +Professor C: Ah . OK . +PhD D: and then I look for the minima , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the bunch of uh fifty frames , right ? +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . So the interest of this is that , as y with this technique you can estimate u some reasonable noise spectra with only five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of signal , so if the {disfmarker} the n the noise varies a lot , uh , you can track {disfmarker} better track the noise , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is not the case if you rely on the voice activity detector . So even if there are no no speech pauses , you can track the noise level . The only requirement is that you must have , in these five hundred milliseconds segment , {comment} you must have voiced sound at least . Cuz this {disfmarker} these will help you to {disfmarker} to track the {disfmarker} the noise level . Um . So what I did is just to simply replace the VAD - based , uh , noise estimate by this estimate , first on SpeechDat - Car {disfmarker} Well , only on SpeechDat - Car actually . And it 's , uh , slightly worse , like one percent relative compared to the VAD - based {pause} estimates . Um , I think the reason why it 's not better , is that the SpeechDat - Car noises are all stationary . Um . So , u y y there really is no need to have something that 's adaptive +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Uh , well , they are mainly stationary . Um . But , I expect s maybe some improvement on TI - digits because , nnn , in this case the noises are all sometimes very variable . Uh , so I have to test it . Mmm . +Professor C: But are you comparing with something {disfmarker} e I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} p s a little confused again , i it {disfmarker} Uh , when you compare it with the V A D - based , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: VAD - Is this {disfmarker} is this the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} It 's the France - Telecom - based spectra , s uh , Wiener filtering and VAD . So it 's their system but just I replace their noise estimate by this one . +Professor C: Oh , you 're not doing this with our system ? +PhD D: In i I 'm not {disfmarker} No , no . Yeah , it 's our system but with just the Wiener filtering from their system . Right ? Mmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Actually , th the best system that we still have is , uh , our system but with their noise compensation scheme , right ? +Professor C: Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: So I 'm trying to improve on this , and {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by replacing their noise estimate by , uh , something that might be better . +Professor C: OK . But the spectral subtraction scheme that you reported on also re requires a {disfmarker} a noise estimate . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Couldn't you try this for that ? +PhD D: But I di +Professor C: Do you think it might help ? +PhD D: Not yet , because I did this in parallel , +Professor C: I see , +PhD D: and I was working on one and the other . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , for {disfmarker} for sure I will . I can try also , mmm , the spectral subtraction . +PhD B: So I 'm also using that n new noise estimate technique on this Wiener filtering what I 'm trying . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I have , like , some experiments running , I don't have the results . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't estimate the f noise on the ten frames but use his estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . I , um , also implemented a sp um {disfmarker} spectral whitening idea which is in the , um , Ericsson proposal . Uh , the idea is just to {vocalsound} um , flatten the log , uh , spectrum , um , and to flatten it more if the {disfmarker} the probability of silence is higher . So in this way , you can also reduce {disfmarker} somewhat reduce the musical noise and you reduce the variability if you have different noise shapes , because the {disfmarker} the spectrum becomes more flat in the silence portions . Um . Yeah . With this , no improvement , uh , but there are a lot of parameters that we can play with and , um {disfmarker} Actually , this {disfmarker} this could be seen as a soft version of the frame dropping because , um , you could just put the threshold and say that "" below the threshold , I will flatten {disfmarker} comp completely flatten the {disfmarker} the spectrum "" . And above this threshold , uh , keep the same spectrum . So it would be like frame dropping , because during the silence portions which are below the threshold of voice activity probability , {comment} uh , w you would have some kind of dummy frame which is a perfectly flat spectrum . And this , uh , whitening is something that 's more soft because , um , you whiten {disfmarker} you just , uh , have a function {disfmarker} the whitening is a function of the speech probability , so it 's not a hard decision . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so I think maybe it can be used together with frame dropping and when we are not sure about if it 's speech or silence , well , maybe it has something do with this . +Professor C: It 's interesting . I mean , um , you know , in {disfmarker} in JRASTA we were essentially adding in , uh , white {disfmarker} uh , white noise dependent on our estimate of the noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: On the overall estimate of the noise . Uh , I think it never occurred to us to use a probability in there . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You could imagine one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that made use of where {disfmarker} where the amount that you added in was , uh , a function of the probability of it being s speech or noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah , w Yeah , right now it 's a constant that just depending on the {disfmarker} the noise spectrum . +PhD B: There 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz that {disfmarker} that brings in sort of powers of classifiers that we don't really have in , uh , this other estimate . So it could be {disfmarker} it could be interesting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what point does the , uh , system stop recording ? How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'll keep going till {disfmarker} I guess when they run out of disk space , +Professor C: It went a little long ? I mean , disk {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} I think we 're OK . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there are {disfmarker} with this technique there are some {disfmarker} I just did something exactly the same as {disfmarker} as the Ericsson proposal but , um , {vocalsound} the probability of speech is not computed the same way . And I think , i for {disfmarker} yeah , for a lot of things , actually a g a good speech probability is important . Like for frame dropping you improve , like {disfmarker} you can improve from ten percent as Sunil showed , if you use the channel zero speech probabilities . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: For this it might help , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: S so , yeah . Uh , so yeah , the next thing I started to do is to , {vocalsound} uh , try to develop a better voice activity detector . And , um {disfmarker} I d um {disfmarker} yeah , for this I think we can maybe try to train the neural network for voice activity detection on all the data that we have , including all the SpeechDat - Car data . Um {disfmarker} And so I 'm starting to obtain alignments on these databases . Um , and the way I mi I do that is that I just use the HTK system but I train it only on the close - talking microphone . And then I aligned {disfmarker} I obtained the Viterbi alignment of the training utterances . Um {disfmarker} It seems to be , uh i Actually what I observed is that for Italian it doesn't seem {disfmarker} Th - there seems to be a problem . +PhD B: No . So , it doesn't seems to help by their use of channel zero or channel one . +PhD D: Well . Because {disfmarker} What ? +PhD B: Uh , you mean their d the frame dropping , right ? Yeah , it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So , u but actually the VAD was trained on Italian also , +PhD B: Italian . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} Um , the c the current VAD that we have was trained on , uh , t SPINE , right ? +PhD B: TI - digits . +PhD D: Italian , and TI - digits with noise and {disfmarker} +PhD B: +PhD D: Uh , yeah . And it seems to work on Italian but not on the Finnish and Spanish data . So , maybe one reason is that s s Finnish and Spanish noise are different . And actually we observed {disfmarker} we listened to some of the utterances and sometimes for Finnish there is music in the recordings and strange things , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so the idea was to train all the databases and obtain an alignment to train on these databases , and , um , also to , um , try different kind of features , {vocalsound} uh , as input to the VAD network . And we came up with a bunch of features that we want to try like , um , the spectral slope , the , um , the degree o degree of voicing with the features that , uh , we started to develop with Carmen , um , e with , uh , the correlation between bands and different kind of features , +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: The energy also . +PhD D: The energy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Well , Hans - Guenter will be here next week so I think he 'll be interested in all {disfmarker} all of these things . And , so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mmm . +PhD A: OK , shall we , uh , do digits ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD A: OK . +","PhD A suggests starting the meeting, and Professor C updates the group that Hans-Guenter will be visiting soon for a potential longer collaboration. The group discusses their specific research tasks, including updating on noise reduction techniques like spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering, and voice activity detection. Grad E explains testing he did relating to mean log magnitude spectral subtraction and considers the impact of using less data for training models. Professor C ponders whether certain techniques are necessary and discusses how these might align with filtering perspectives. PhD B recounts his work on Wiener filtering, finding that an additional stage of filtering showed promising improvement, and speaks about experimenting with noise estimation techniques. PhD D updates on his progress with spectral subtraction and considers alternative noise estimation methods without requiring voice activity detectors. Finally, they discuss the potential impact of these techniques on system latency." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay Right {vocalsound} Um well this is the kick-off meeting for our our project . Um {vocalsound} and um this is just what we're gonna be doing over the next twenty five minutes . Um so first of all , just to kind of make sure that we all know each other , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm Laura and I'm the project manager . {vocalsound} Do you want to introduce yourself again ? +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Hi , I'm David and I'm supposed to be an industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I'm Andrew and I'm uh our marketing +User Interface: Um I'm Craig and I'm User Interface . +Marketing: expert . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . {vocalsound} Um so we're designing a new remote control and um {disfmarker} Oh I have to record who's here actually . So that's David , Andrew and Craig , isn't it ? And you all arrived on time . Um yeah so des uh {vocalsound} design a new remote control . Um , as you can see it's supposed to be original , trendy and user friendly . Um so that's kind of our our brief , as it were . Um and so there are three different stages to the design . Um I'm not really sure what what you guys have already received um in your emails . What did you get ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just got the project announcement about what the project is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Designing a remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's about it , didn't get anything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's that's it . +Project Manager: Is that what everybody got ? +Industrial Designer: Did you get the same thing ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . So we're gonna have like individual work and then a meeting about it . And repeat that process three times . Um and at this point we get try out the whiteboard over there . Um . {vocalsound} So uh you get to draw your favourite animal and sum up your favourite characteristics of it . So who would like to go first ? +Marketing: I will go . That's fine . +Project Manager: Very good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This one here , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Very nice . Alright . My favourite animal is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} A beagle . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um charac favourite characteristics of it ? Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , right , well basically um high priority for any animal for me is that they be willing to take a lot of physical affection from their family . And , yeah that they have lots of personality and uh be fit and in robust good health . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is blue . Blue beagle . My family's beagle . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Well , my favourite animal would be a monkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then they're small cute and furry , and uh when planet of the apes becomes real , {vocalsound} I'm gonna be up there with them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's too much gear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can take as long over this as you like , because we haven't got an awful lot to discuss . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ok oh we do we do +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't feel like you're in a rush , anyway . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I coulda told you a whole lot more about beagles . +Project Manager: Ach {gap} why not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Boy , let me tell you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We might have to get you up again then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what mine is . I'm gonna have to think on the spot now . +Marketing: Impressionist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't draw . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Is that a whale ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , well anyway , I don't know , it's just the first animal I can think off the top of my head . Um . Yes . Big reason is 'cause I'm allergic to most animals . Allergic to animal fur , +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: so um fish was a natural choice . Um , yeah , and I kind of like whales . They come in and go {vocalsound} eat everything in sight . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And they're quite harmless and mild and interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . God , I still don't know what I'm gonna write about . Um . +Marketing: Superb sketch , by the way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tail's a bit big , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I was gonna choose a dog as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'll just draw a different kind of dog . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: M my favourite animal is my own dog at home . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} That doesn't really look like him , actually . He looks more like a pig , actually . Ah well . +Marketing: I see a dog in there . +Project Manager: Do you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's very good of you . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Now I see a rooster . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: What kind is it ? +Project Manager: Um he's a mixture of uh various things . Um and what do I like about him , um {disfmarker} That's just to suggest that his tail wags . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um he's very friendly and cheery and always pleased to see you , and very kind of affectionate and um {vocalsound} uh and he's quite quite wee as well so you know he can {disfmarker} doesn't take up too much space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh {disfmarker} And he does a funny thing where he chases his tail as well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is quite amusing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is he aware that th it's his own cha tail he's chasing ? +Project Manager: It is . I think it is . He only does it after he's had his dinner +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um he'll just all of a sudden just get up and start chasing his tail 'round the living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's an after dinner dog then . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably when he was little he got lots of attention for doing it and has forever been conditioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . {vocalsound} Right , um where did you find this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just down here ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um what are we doing next ? Uh um . Okay , uh we now need to discuss the project finance . Um so according to the brief um we're gonna be selling this remote control for twenty five Euro , um and we're aiming to make fifty million Euro . Um so we're gonna be selling this on an international scale . And uh we don't want it to cost any more than uh twelve fifty Euros , so fifty percent of the selling price . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , can we just go over that again ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: Uh , so bas at twel Alright , yeah . Okay . So cost {disfmarker} like production cost is twelve fifty , +Project Manager: All together . +Marketing: but selling price is {disfmarker} is that wholesale or retail ? Like on the shelf . +Project Manager: Um I dunno . I imagine {disfmarker} That's a good question . +Marketing: Our sale our sale anyway . +Project Manager: I imagine it probably is our sale actually +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay . +Project Manager: because it's probably up to the the um the retailer to uh sell it for whatever price they want . Um . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I {disfmarker} I don't know , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: I mean do you think the fact that it's going to be sold internationally will have a bearing on how we design it at all ? +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it will ? Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: Well right away I'm wondering if there's um th th uh , like with D_V_D_ players , if there are zones . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , regions and stuff , yeah . +Marketing: Um f frequencies or something +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: um as well as uh characters , um different uh keypad styles and s symbols . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well for a remote control , do you think that will be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: I suppose it's depends on how complicated our remote control is . +Marketing: I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does make sense from maybe the design point of view 'cause you have more complicated characters like European languages , then you need more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a and then al the other thing international is on top of the price . I'm thinking the price might might appeal to a certain market in one region , whereas in another it'll be different , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What , just like in terms of like the wealth of the country ? +Marketing: Just a chara just a characteristic of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like how much money people have to spend on things like ? +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} Or just like , basic product podi positioning , the twenty five Euro remote control might be a big hit in London , might not be such a big hit in Greece , who knows , +Project Manager: Aye , I see what you mean , yeah . +Marketing: something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Marketing . Good marketing thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Oh gosh , I should be writing all this down . Um . +Marketing: Right away I'm making some kind of assumptions about what what information we're given here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: thinking , 'kay trendy probably means something other than just basic , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: something other than just standard . Um so I'm wondering right away , is selling twenty five Euros , is that sort of the {disfmarker} thi is this gonna to be like the premium product kinda thing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Like how much does , you know , a remote control cost . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Well twenty five Euro , I mean that's um that's about like eighteen pounds or something , isn't it ? Or no , is it as much as that ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Sixteen seventeen eighteen pounds . +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , I'd say so , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno , I've never bought a remote control , so I don't know how how good a remote control that would get you . Um . +Marketing: No . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But yeah , I suppose it has to look kind of cool and gimmicky . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um right , okay . Let me just scoot on ahead here . Okay . Um well d Does anybody have anything to add to uh to the finance issue at all ? Thin +Marketing: Do we have any other background information on like how that compares to other +Project Manager: No , actually . That would be useful , though , +Marketing: other {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wouldn't it , if you knew like what your money would get you now . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , interesting thing about discussing um production of a remote control for me is that l as you point out , I just don't think of remote controls as somethin something people consciously assess in their purchasing habits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: It's just like getting shoelaces with shoes or something . +Project Manager: Oh . Five minutes to end of meeting . +Marketing: It just comes along . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . We're a bit behind . +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like so sort of like how do you I I mean one one way of looking at it would be , well the people producing television sets , maybe they have to buy remote controls . Or another way is maybe people who have T_V_ sets are really fed up with their remote control and they really want a better one or something . +User Interface: I know um {disfmarker} My parents went out and bought um remote controls because um they got fed up of having four or five different remote controls for each things the house . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Right . Right . +User Interface: So um for them it was just how many devices control . +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} Right , so in function one of the priorities might be to combine as many uses {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Right , so do you think that should be like a main design aim of our remote control d you know , +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: do your your satellite and your regular telly and your V_C_R_ and everything ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Well like um , maybe what we could use is a sort of like a example of a successful other piece technology is palm palm pilots . They're gone from being just like little sort of scribble boards to cameras , M_P_ three players , telephones , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: everything , agenda . So , like , I wonder if we might add something new to the to the remote control market , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: such as the lighting in your house , or um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or even like , you know , notes about um what you wanna watch . Like you might put in there oh I want to watch such and such and look a +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's a good idea . So extra functionalities . +Marketing: An Yeah . Like , p personally for me , at home I've I've combined the um the audio video of my television set and my D_V_D_ player and my C_D_ player . So they w all work actually function together but I have different remote controls for each of them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's sort of ironic that that then they're in there um you know , the sound and everything it's just one system . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But each one's got its own little part . +Project Manager: Um okay , uh I'd wel we're gonna have to wrap up pretty quickly in the next couple of minutes . Um I'll just check we've nothing else . Okay . Um so anything else anybody wants to add about what they don't like about remote controls they've used , what they would really like to be part of this new one at all ? +Industrial Designer: And you keep losing them . +Project Manager: You keep losing them . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Finding them is really a pain , you know . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's usually quite small , or when you want it right , it slipped behind the couch +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or it's kicked under the table . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: W You get those ones where you can , if you like , whistle or make a really high pitched noise they beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know . +Marketing: That's just really good id Yep . +Project Manager: There {disfmarker} I mean is that something we'd want to include , do you think ? +Marketing: Uh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dunno . +Marketing: sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I remember when the first remote control my my family had was on a cable . Actually had a cable between it and the T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and big like buttons that sort of like , like on a blender or something . +Project Manager: My goodness . +Marketing: And um , you know , when I think about what they are now , it's better , but actually it's still kind of , I dunno , like a massive junky thing on the table . +Project Manager: Still feels quite primitive . +Marketing: Maybe we could think about how , could be more , you know , streamlined . S +Project Manager: Maybe like a touch screen or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Or whatever would be technologically reasonable . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . Well I guess that's up to our industrial designer . +Marketing: 'Cause it could b it could it could be that f it could be that functionally that doesn't make it any better , but that just the appeal of of not having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks better . +Marketing: You know , these days there's a r pe things in people's homes are becoming more and more like chic , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , nicer materials +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and might be +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: be worth exploring anyway . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Right , well um so just to wrap up the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes . So that's about um about ten to twelve by my watch . Um so inbetween now and then , um as the industrial designer , you're gonna be working on you know the actual working design of it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so y you know what you're doing there . Um for user interface , technical functions , I guess that's you know like what we've been talking about , what it'll actually do . Um and uh marketing executive , you'll be just thinking about what it actually {disfmarker} what , you know , what requirements it has to has to fulfil and you'll all get instructions emailed to you , I guess . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's th the functional design stage is next , I guess . {vocalsound} And uh and that's the end of the meeting . So I got that little message a lot sooner than I thought I would , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Before we wrap up , just to make sure we're all on the same page here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um , do we {disfmarker} We were given sort of an example of a coffee machine or something , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? Well , um are we at ma right now on the assumption that our television remote control may have features which go beyond the television ? Or are we keeping sort of like a a design commitment to television features ? +Project Manager: Th Okay , well just very quickly +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: 'cause this {disfmarker} we're supposed to finish now . Um I guess that's up to us , +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean you probably want some kind of unique selling point of it , so um , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think one factor would be production cost . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because there's a cap there , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so um depends on how much you can cram into that price . Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think that that's the main factor . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , okay , we'll that's that's the end of the meeting , then . Um +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you all for coming . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","The transcript provided describes the events of a project kick-off meeting involving a project manager named Laura, a marketing executive named Andrew, an industrial designer named David, and a user interface designer named Craig. The team has convened to begin working on designing a new remote control, aiming for it to be original, trendy, and user-friendly. + +At the outset, Laura attempts to set a welcoming tone by encouraging team members to introduce themselves to foster familiarity. The meeting's goal is to define the project's scope, understand the participants' knowledge level, and discuss initial design concepts. David and Andrew mention receiving basic project announcement emails without further details, indicating the team's starting point is on common ground with limited initial information. + +The project manager then outlines a three-stage design process involving individual work and collaborative meetings. As an ice-breaking activity, Laura suggests using the whiteboard to draw their favorite animals and share attributes they appreciate about them. This personal touch likely aims to create a relaxed atmosphere and spur creativity. Andrew draws a beagle and values its affectionate nature and robust health. Craig chooses a monkey for its cuteness and humorously refers to ""Planet of the Apes."" David selects a whale, appreciating its harmless nature and the practical reason of his allergy to animal fur. + +Next, the meeting shifts to discussing the project's financial framework. Laura specifies that the remote control should be retailed at €25 with the goal of making €50 million, emphasizing that production costs should not exceed €12.50 to maintain a 50% margin. The discussion turns to the strategic implications of international sales, including regional preferences, pricing strategies across different markets, and potential technical variations like local frequency requirements or keypad designs. + +Marketing's contribution touches on consumer perspectives, suggesting that a remote control is often overlooked as a standalone purchase, similar to acquiring shoelaces with shoes. This prompts reflections on how to differentiate the product amidst competitors. The remote control's functionality enters the conversation, with the user interface designer sharing a personal anecdote about parents' frustrations over managing multiple remotes. This leads to a consensus on the desirability of a multi-functional remote that could simplify the consumer experience. + +A brainstorming session ensues, with team members sharing dislikes about current remote controls and suggesting potential improvements. They surface common problems like remotes being lost easily and consider features that could enhance the device's appeal, such as tracking capabilities or a more ergonomic design. Creative ideas for expanding the remote’s functionality float in, like integrating lighting controls or personal reminders for TV shows. + +Towards the meeting's close, Laura reminds the team about the importance of considering production costs, which could restrict some of the more ambitious feature sets. The dialogue wraps up with a quick review of the next steps, assigning specific design and functional tasks to the team members. + +As the meeting concludes, the group acknowledges they have not exploited all the potential discussions and ideas surrounding the remote control project. Still, they agree to continue their explorations and deliberations in the following session, scheduled for 30 minutes later. + +Overall, the meeting is characterized by a conversational tone with occasional interruptions and sound expressions (noted as {vocalsound}), and concluded with a focus on both the practicalities of production costs and the potential for innovative features that could elevate the standard remote control into a more desirable and differentiated product." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Good morning . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: Uh before I start with the with the meeting I have a few things to tell you about the the setting we're in , uh because we're uh being watched by uh Big Brother . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: By Big Brother ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This uh {disfmarker} These are cameras , so are these . This thing uh that looks like a pie , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: are actually all microphones . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you must be careful with uh with uh all this . And uh as I can see you uh you have placed your laptops uh exactly on the place where it must be . And that has to do with the camera settings , so we don't have our uh laptops in front of the cameras . +Marketing: Of our faces . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Indeed . So they can see our faces . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome at the kick-off meeting . My name is uh Danny Wolfs . {vocalsound} Uh this is the agenda for today . Uh first a little opening . Uh I will introduce myself , uh and uh I think it's very uh good to introduce uh yourself . Uh then uh a little bit of acquaintance , acquaintance to uh to to ourselves . So uh we get to know each other . Uh that will be done uh with a tool training from the he these two uh smart boards . Then the project plan . What we're going to do , and how we're going to do it . Uh and discussion about that and a little closing at the end . {vocalsound} Okay uh , my name is uh Danny Wolfs . I'm the Project Manager . What's your name ? +User Interface: I'm Juergen Toffs . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: User interface , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hi , my name's uh {gap} . I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial , yes . +Marketing: I'm uh Tim {gap} . Um my function is the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . First a little about the project aim . Uh the the the aim is to make a new remote control . Uh maybe you have read uh read the website . It's a very uh , yeah , very uh ambitious uh company . They uh they wanna do something else . I w Uh there must be a new remote control . Uh first of all uh it must be original , uh and trendy . That's two things really uh close to each other . But at the same time uh user-friendly . And they have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that's uh very important uh for them . Uh there are three stages . There is a functional design . So uh what are we going uh to uh to do ? What are we going to uh uh make f uh kind of functions in the remote ? And why are we going to do it ? Then the conceptual design . How are going to do it ? {vocalsound} And that's uh really global . Uh because at the detailed design , how , part two , uh we go uh to dig in uh really about how the the te the technical of {disfmarker} If it's uh it's possible technical-wise . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh each stage is uh {vocalsound} uh is broken up in two uh two stages , individual work and a meeting . So it's uh it's very straightforward . {vocalsound} Okay , the tool training . We have two smart boards . {vocalsound} This one is for the presentations , the PowerPoint presentations or the Word presentation of whatever you uh you had . Uh and this is uh only for uh drawing . So uh we uh must let it uh stand on this uh this programme . {vocalsound} This is called a smart board +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speaks for itself . +Project Manager: thing uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it speaks for itself . Um and as you uh may have heard , the documents in the shared folder uh can be uh showed on this screen . Not in y the the My Documents . So if you wanna show something , put it in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} This uh is {gap} very straightforward , with the save , the print , the undo , the blank , the select , the pen . Well , I don't uh gonna explain it all , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think you know uh how it works . Um we must not forget uh everything we draw on here , uh all must be saved . We we may not delete anything . So uh if you have uh drawn something , save it . Never delete it . That's a very important uh thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh little uh little {vocalsound} kinda exercise to uh know each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} At uh the white board on the left . Every uh every one of us uh must draw our favourite animal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh tell uh tell us why we uh had uh chosen that animal . Uh important is that we use different colours , {vocalsound} and uh different pen widths . Widths . Widths . +Marketing: I have a question . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Marketing: Um this exercise , um did the company board tell you to do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or uh did you just make it up yourself ? +Project Manager: No no no . It's uh it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I I I must do it . +Marketing: It's part of the introduction , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . 'Cause we uh really don't know each other , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: and uh it's kinda new . So getting used to each other , we can uh have a little fun then , before we uh dig in really to the hard stuff . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That kind of thing . Would you start with drawing your uh favourite animal ? +Marketing: Um , yeah . I don't know really how it works . But maybe you can show us first ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . Yeah , okay . Drawing goes with uh this thing . Do not touch your hand on uh this little uh thingy here . That's uh important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So hold it uh like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You g you get electrocuted or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , kinda . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} You must p p uh push a little uh {disfmarker} Good . Because {disfmarker} And uh wait uh wait a few seconds . It's not uh fully real-time , so uh watch it . +User Interface: Ach . {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Well I'm gonna paint in the red . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Ooph . +Project Manager: That's the background colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , undo . Um {disfmarker} The pen ? No . One minute please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's the one . Well , five . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} My favourite animal huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's like Pictionary ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you can guess what it is . +Marketing: The the one who says it first {vocalsound} gets a raise . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} May uh paint uh next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a pork ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it's not an orc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't see it uh at the ears ? +Marketing: Mm yeah , I have it at home . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an orc at home ? +User Interface: Very artistic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's it called ? +Project Manager: Simba . 'Cause uh we have a cat at home +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: and he's called Simba . 'Cause he looks like the uh the the lion from The Lion King . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Miniature size ? +Project Manager: So we uh found it kinda cool to uh name it after a lion . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's happy with us , so uh he's smiling . +User Interface: Wow . He does have body uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Huh . +Project Manager: No , only the face . Because we have we have twen twenty five minutes . So we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We have to speed up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Remember you use uh different colours , and different pen widths . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , who wants to go next ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So choose a colour , choose a pen width and draw a {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't have to change the colour and the pen width during uh the drawing . +Marketing: Save it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to save it . +Project Manager: Save it , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've done it . New ? 'Kay . +User Interface: You have to draw uh push hard on the pen or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} Not really . +Project Manager: Kind of firm touch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +User Interface: Oh . Uh hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . Open . Which one is it ? Smart board ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . And now ? Okay . Okay , thanks . 'Kay , I've speed up . 'Kay , that's fine . Line width . +Industrial Designer: By the way , why was your cat uh red ? +Project Manager: Because uh my cat is red uh at home . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I have red hair , so uh must be red . +User Interface: It's a very bloody cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah , sure . +User Interface: It's a frog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , it's a turtle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's an apple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not an apple . +Industrial Designer: Must be a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A dog ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . Colour . {vocalsound} Something like this . Smaller . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , it is a turtle . +Project Manager: It is a turtle . Why a turtle ? Why ? Tim ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} 'Cause I liked Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: It's uh inside its shell . You'll be uh finished sooner . +Marketing: No , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a scared turtle . +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} It's coming up . Mm . Uh . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Tim . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something like this . {vocalsound} Okay , you know {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very artistic . +Project Manager: Jurgen , you want to go next ? +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Okay . Wha Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah ? Here you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How did it work ? +Project Manager: Format ? And then you have the the current colour , +User Interface: Performance ? +Project Manager: you can change . So no red or green . +User Interface: And a pen ? +Project Manager: And uh line uh width . I had five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Tim had {disfmarker} Uh Tim , what kinda line width did you have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the big lines were like nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . It's a dog . +User Interface: Well , very good . {vocalsound} I just uh thought I'd pick the easiest one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Why a dog ? You have a dog at home ? +User Interface: Well , we had a dog , a few years ago . +Project Manager: Had a dog ? +Marketing: Uh , it's p +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: And and it , {gap} yeah , when it died we didn't get a new one or something . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's pretty good uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an artistic uh inner middle . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} An artist . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh a Graphical User Designer , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Hey . +Marketing: Think you uh picked the wrong uh function . Wrong job . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . Can work together . Ah colour . +Project Manager: So I think you can see it's real uh really a easy programme to use . Not difficult at all . +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: it's okay {gap} . +Project Manager: thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's enough , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Janus ? The last one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thanks . +Marketing: I wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah . After a cat , a turtle and a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think he's gonna draw an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I figure I should do something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'm gonna do something much more difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Uh-oh . Oh , he is the artistic {gap} design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna design a remote uh {vocalsound} remote control animal . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remote control animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Well with the interface , it might be easier to ha to draw here and display there uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: That that might be easier . But at the other hand , uh a pen like that is easy to hold in your hand , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think it's easier to draw . +Project Manager: Better to draw with a with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . With a pen than with a mouse mouse . +User Interface: Than on the , with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I m I mean like uh like on here , drawing drawing uh . And then displaying on screen , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mouth . Oh , okay . Yeah . W with this paper it's too mu too expensive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But what is he uh ? +User Interface: Too expensive , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have a rabbit at home ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: It's a rabbit with uh broken legs ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it a white rabbit f It's the white rabbit from The Matrix . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , then yeah . +User Interface: There , the g white green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's a little bit stoned there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh I figured this is a pretty b good impression of a rabbit . +Marketing: Yeah . It will do . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} Uh well . +Project Manager: Okay . Finishing touch and then we're going further . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project Manager ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Where does the pen go ? Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have you been uh counting the time ? +Project Manager: Yeah , a little . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's go on then . +Project Manager: Well , I think the dog is the the most uh artistic . +Industrial Designer: Uh I figured the rabbit was actually the most uh impressive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't choose for youself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's selfish . Okay , now we're gonna dig into the to the serious stuff . +Marketing: It's pretty abstract . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the selling price for the remote will be uh twenty five Euro , and the production cost uh may not be more than uh twenty and a half Euro . So uh from my point of view , I don't think it's uh gonna be very uh very high tech , high definition , uh ultra modern uh kinda remote , for twelve uh fift uh twelve and a half Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the profit we must make with uh the new remote is uh fifty million Euro . So that's a lot . We have to sell uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how much is it ? +Marketing: Like how much ? +User Interface: Hundred million uh remotes or something ? +Project Manager: Uh I think uh w when the selling price is twenty five , uh uh you got two million , two million remotes . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twenty million . Two million , oh yeah , two million . Yeah . +Project Manager: But our marketing range is uh , market range is international . So we have uh virtually the whole world we can sell uh we can sell our r remotes to . At least that uh countries which have uh a television . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So now it's time uh for us to uh going uh to discuss a little uh things . You can think about uh experience with a remote control uh yourself , at home . What you think might be uh a useful uh new feature . What uh what can distinguish our new trendy remote control from all the others . Um so uh let's uh let's uh discuss a little . I'm gonna join you at the table . {vocalsound} Well what what's the most uh important thing at a remote control ? +User Interface: Um well I think the most important thing of a remote control is that you can switch channels . And my opinion is you should keep it as basic as possible . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So not a not a remote control who uh uh which can uh can be used for television and a D_V_D_ and radio and {disfmarker} Or just only {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I think so . Uh but I have some points . Can I show them on the on the big screen ? Maybe ? +Project Manager: If you have them on uh {disfmarker} I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I can find {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , in case you want it {disfmarker} This is a dead kind of fly . Between the the the , yeah , the the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Screen ? +Project Manager: Yeah , be The screens . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Is it possible to open pen drawings in this uh on this screen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . Only {disfmarker} All the drawings go there , at the left uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Uh but um which {disfmarker} The ones we made on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that pen drawings . Uh no , I think uh when it is uh in Word and you have saved it in the Shared Documents folder , you can show it there . +User Interface: Oh , only in Word , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Okay , I have some uh points from marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um just the standard thing li things like uh intuitive , uh small , fairly cheap . Uh it's pretty cheap , twenty five Euros . Uh brand independent . Um I think , it doesn't have to matter uh which brand your T_V_ or other thing is . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Five minutes . +Marketing: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I'll wrap it up quickly . Um I personally think it has to be multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh most of the remote c uh remote controls are uh just for one purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And uh by making it multi-purpose , it uh has a new feature , adds a new feature to the market , and distinguish from uh from current products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um maybe some other technology than infrared . Uh I rather find it very annoying um , like when someone is standing in front of the T_V_ then you can't switch it . Um {vocalsound} think about um sending it over radio waves or bluetooth . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: That might be a little bit uh expensive . Um {disfmarker} And something like an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: For what purpose ? +Marketing: Um uh like I said here um {disfmarker} Maybe it's easy . It's nice as an added feature feature , that um , {vocalsound} when you're on a certain channel , you can see on the L_C_D_ screen uh what programmes are coming up or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So it be uh a multi-purpose uh very technically uh high uh +Marketing: From my point of view , yeah . +Project Manager: remote ? Yeah , it must be really uh innovative , technical-wise ? +Marketing: Yeah , it has to be uh {disfmarker} Yeah , our company is very uh good in making new innovative uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah . So yeah , I I agree with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i i i i +Project Manager: So we must focus on things who are really uh really add something to uh to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To the current market . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look , {vocalsound} you got some cheap uh remote controls there . They just uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you got a dozen of 'em . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: But when you enter a new market with a remote control and +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh wanna gain market share +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you have to do something special , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But we have to keep an eye that it's {disfmarker} Uh at the beginning of such a project , it's it's it's very uh cool to talk about , well , this would be cool , that would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh but we must not uh lose uh sight of the the user uh uh friendly uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And and the price . {gap} +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} But but this is just from marketing uh aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: I don't know anything about user interface or {vocalsound} design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} And that's because we have him . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and him . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And him . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , uh next meeting will start in thirty minutes . So uh you uh will have uh individual actions where I presume uh will be some feedback , uh via the m the mail . Um {vocalsound} the the the Industrial uh Designer has to uh look at the working design . {vocalsound} Uh the User Interface Designer has to look at the technical functions . So that's the thing we uh discussed . +User Interface: Yeah . Um one thing uh , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: we must first agree on uh what we're going to m going to make . Do we {disfmarker} Are we going to use um it it for multiple systems ? Or uh {disfmarker} We should have some agreement on that before we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Um wha +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm uh I I don't think we have to be , we have to agree on that . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I figure we could get back to it on the next meeting actually . +Marketing: I think th that's a pha Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: That's a phase further . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ju just uh make some mock-ups , some some general ideas . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: And and then we can plan {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can plan further , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But maybe , because uh you are working on the user requirements , you are working on the technical functions , we uh must uh have a little or kinda uh uh uh {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Consensus on the , what we're gonna do . +Project Manager: Uh a little plan on on what we're going to do . So you don't uh uh come up with the user requirements who don't fit the the the the technical functions at all . Some basic things we co we want to going to do . Uh I think that's well uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Will come in handy . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . You decide . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You're the Project Manager . +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} He says {disfmarker} +User Interface: if the technical functions have to be designed , I I've gotta know for what kind of machines they will be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or do we use it a text screen ? Or uh will it be with uh with bluetooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , th that's that's really a step further . But if you say uh {vocalsound} is it uh uh one way or multi-purpose , that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh tha that's a same step further . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Then looking at individual components , +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: so that's actually a f step further . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like we all have a list of uh things that has to b that have to be in it , or how it has to be like . And then in the next meeting we decide +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can take it from there . +Marketing: w what it's gonna be . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree uh , we can take it from there . +Marketing: A And then you s then you can delete uh +Industrial Designer: Or edit . +Marketing: the o the obsolete uh details . +Project Manager: Okay . So uh +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: each individually i individually uh must think on what's uh at uh his point of view is the most important . And uh then we're going to fit uh all the pieces together the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I must finish off now , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's over . You uh will receive specific specific instructions uh by your personal coach . And I see you in uh thirty minutes . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cheers . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Be careful . +Marketing: Damn . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Success ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No . Come up . +","The meeting took place in a setting that was being monitored, as indicated by the Project Manager, Danny Wolfs, who briefed attendees on the observation measures, including cameras and microphones set up in the room. The attendees were advised to position their laptops to avoid obstruction of the camera's view of their faces. + +The individual present in the meeting included the Project Manager, Danny Wolfs; User Interface Designer, Juergen Toffs; an Industrial Designer; and a Marketing Expert named Tim. Danny initiated the session by outlining the agenda, which involved personal introductions, getting to know each other, a tool training segment concerning smart boards in the room, an overview of the project plan, a discussion phase, and a closing. + +The project's aim was clearly outlined by Danny: to create a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. Danny stressed the importance of the remote control being distinct and practical. The project plan was to proceed in three stages: functional design (defining the functions of the remote), conceptual design (conceptualizing how it will be made), and detailed design (technical specifics). + +After explaining the use of the smart board technologies for presentations and drawing, Danny initiated an ice-breaking exercise where each participant was instructed to draw their favorite animal on the smartboard using different colors and pen widths. The exercise through drawings of a cat, a turtle, a dog, and a rabbit sparked conversation about the participants' personal lives, allowing them to become more comfortable with each other. + +Moving on to the core discussion of the project, various ideas were put forward about what the new remote control should feature: simplicity, multifunctionality, and possibly utilizing technology beyond infrared, like Bluetooth. Juergen voiced the need for a basic remote that primarily changed channels. However, Marketing proposed additional features, like an LCD screen that could display upcoming TV programs, suggesting these as ways to differentiate the product in the market. + +The Project Manager underscored the importance of balancing innovative features with user-friendliness and costs, especially since the remote was to be affordable at twenty-five Euros and needed to generate substantial profits. The group was international in scope, aiming to cater to a broad audience. + +During the discussion, team members considered features that might enhance the product's desirability and market distinction. Tim, from Marketing, emphasized the need for the product to be a departure from ordinary, single-purpose remote controls, suggesting that a multi-functional device would stand out. + +Towards the end of the meeting, they transitioned into planning individual tasks and acknowledging the need for future alignment on key decisions such as whether the product would be multi-purpose and considerations of technology implementations like touch screens or Bluetooth. + +Finally, Danny reminded the team of the impending meeting in thirty minutes, where they would resume the conversation. He highlighted that individual contributions would be critical to the meeting's progress, urging everyone to think about the essential features from their unique perspectives. + +The attendees parted, intending to reconvene shortly, having laid a foundation for their collective mission to develop a new and innovative remote control. They acknowledged the complexities ahead, from design and user experience to marketing strategies, all while keeping in mind the delicate balance between innovation, practicality, and cost-effectiveness." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're on . +Professor C: OK , what are we talking about today ? +PhD B: I don't know . Do you have news from the conference talk ? Uh , that was programmed for yesterday {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday morning on video conference . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: Well +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry . +Grad E: Oh . Conference call . +Professor C: I know {disfmarker} now I know what you 're talking about . No , nobody 's told me anything . +PhD B: Alright . +PhD A: Oh , this was the , uh , talk where they were supposed to try to decide {disfmarker} +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to decide what to do , +PhD A: Ah , right . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , that would have been a good thing to find out before this meeting , that 's . No , I have no {disfmarker} I have no idea . Um , Uh , so I mean , let 's {disfmarker} let 's assume for right now that we 're just kind of plugging on ahead , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: because even if they tell us that , uh , the rules are different , uh , we 're still interested in doing what we 're doing . So what are you doing ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , well , we 've {disfmarker} a little bit worked on trying to see , uh , what were the bugs and the problem with the latencies . +PhD D: To improve {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , We took {disfmarker} first we took the LDA filters and , {vocalsound} uh , we designed new filters , using uh recursive filters actually . +Professor C: So when you say "" we "" , is that something Sunil is doing or is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor C: Who is doing that ? +PhD B: Uh , us . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , oh . Oh , OK . +PhD B: So we took the filters {disfmarker} the FIR filters {vocalsound} and we {comment} designed , uh , IIR filters that have the same frequency response . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Well , similar , but that have shorter delays . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they had two filters , one for the low frequency bands and another for the high frequency bands . And so we redesigned two filters . And the low frequency band has sixty - four milliseconds of delay , and the high frequency band filter has something like eleven milliseconds compared to the two hundred milliseconds of the IIR filters . But it 's not yet test . So we have the filters but we still have to implement a routine that does recursive filtering +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: You {disfmarker} you had a discussion with Sunil about this though ? +PhD B: No . No . +Professor C: Uh - huh . Yeah , you should talk with him . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I mean , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole problem that happened before was coordination , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so you need to discuss with him what we 're doing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , cuz they could be doing the same thing and {disfmarker} or something . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know if th that 's what they were trying to {disfmarker} They were trying to do something different like taking , uh {disfmarker} well , using filter that takes only a past +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: and this is just a little bit different . But I will I will send him an email and tell him exactly what we are doing , so . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . Um , +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} We just {disfmarker} we just have to be in contact more . I think that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fact that we {disfmarker} we did that with {disfmarker} had that thing with the latencies was indicative of the fact that there wasn't enough communication . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Um , Yeah . Well , there is w one , um , remark about these filters , that they don't have a linear phase . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: Well , I don't know , perhaps it {disfmarker} perhaps it doesn't hurt because the phase is almost linear but . Um , and so , yeah , for the delay I gave you here , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , computed on the five hertz modulation frequency , which is the {disfmarker} mmm , well , the most important for speech so . Uh , this is the first thing . +Professor C: So that would be , uh , a reduction of a hundred and thirty - six milliseconds , +PhD D: The low f f +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: which , uh {disfmarker} What was the total we ended up with through the whole system ? +PhD B: Three hundred and thirty . +Professor C: So that would be within {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , but there are other points actually , uh , which will perhaps add some more delay . Is that some other {disfmarker} other stuff in the process were perhaps not very {disfmarker} um perf well , not very correct , like the downsampling which w was simply dropping frames . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , so we will try also to add a nice downsampling having a filter that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: well , a low - pass filter at {disfmarker} at twenty - five hertz . Uh , because wh when {disfmarker} when we look at the LDA filters , well , they are basically low - pass but they leave a lot of what 's above twenty - five hertz . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , and so , yeah , this will be another filter which would add ten milliseconds again . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , yeah , and then there 's a third thing , is that , um , basically the way on - line normalization was done uh , is just using this recursion on {disfmarker} on the um , um , on the feature stream , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} but this is a filter , so it has also a delay . Uh , and when we look at this filter actually it has a delay of eighty - five milliseconds . So if we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Eighty - five . +PhD B: Yeah . If we want to be very correct , so if we want to {disfmarker} the estimation of the mean t t to {disfmarker} to be {disfmarker} well , the right estimation of the mean , we have to t to take eighty - five milliseconds in the future . Mmm . +Professor C: Hmm ! That 's a little bit of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . Um , But , well , when we add up everything it 's {disfmarker} it will be alright . We would be at six so , sixty - five , plus ten , plus {disfmarker} for the downsampling , plus eighty - five for the on - line normalization . So it 's +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus eighty for the neural net and PCA . +Professor C: yeah , but then there 's {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD B: So it would be around two hundred and forty {disfmarker} so , well , +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just barely in there . +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus the frames , but it 's OK . +PhD A: What 's the allowable ? +Professor C: Two - fifty , unless they changed the rules . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which there is {disfmarker} there 's some discussion of . +PhD A: What were they thinking of changing it to ? +Professor C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , well the people who had very low latency want it to be low {disfmarker} uh , very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very very narrow , uh , latency bound . And the people who have longer latency don't . So . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD B: So , yeah . +Professor C: Unfortunately we 're the main ones with long latency , but +PhD A: Ah ! +Professor C: But , uh , +PhD B: Yeah , and basically the best proposal had something like thirty or forty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: you know , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: So . Well . +Professor C: Yeah , so they were basically {disfmarker} I mean , they were more or less trading computation for performance and we were , uh , trading latency for performance . And they were dealing with noise explicitly and we weren't , and so I think of it as complementary , that if we can put the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Think of it as what ? +Professor C: Complementary . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I think the best systems {disfmarker} so , uh , everything that we did in in a way it was {disfmarker} it was just adamantly insisting on going in with a brain damaged system , which is something {disfmarker} actually , we 've done a lot over the last thirteen years . Uh , {vocalsound} which is we say , well this is the way we should do it . And then we do it . And then someone else does something that 's straight forward . So , w th w this was a test that largely had additive noise and we did {disfmarker} we adde did absolutely nothing explicitly to handle ad additive noise . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: We just , uh , you know , trained up systems to be more discriminant . And , uh , we did this , uh , RASTA - like filtering which was done in the log domain and was tending to handle convolutional noise . We did {disfmarker} we actually did nothing about additive noise . So , um , the , uh , spectral sub subtraction schemes a couple places did seem to seem to do a nice job . And so , uh , we 're talking about putting {disfmarker} putting some of that in while still keeping some of our stuff . I think you should be able to end up with a system that 's better than both but clearly the way that we 're operating for this other stuff does involved some latency to {disfmarker} to get rid of most of that latency . To get down to forty or fifty milliseconds we 'd have to throw out most of what we 're doing . And {disfmarker} and , uh , I don't think there 's any good reason for it in the application actually . I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're speaking to a recognizer on a remote server and , uh , having a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a quarter second for some processing to clean it up . It doesn't seem like it 's that big a deal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: These aren't large vocabulary things so the decoder shouldn't take a really long time , and . +PhD A: And I don't think anybody 's gonna notice the difference between a quarter of a second of latency and thirty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: So . No . What {disfmarker} what does {disfmarker} wa was your experience when you were doing this stuff with , uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the surgical , uh , uh , microscopes and so forth . Um , how long was it from when somebody , uh , finished an utterance to when , uh , something started happening ? +PhD A: Um , we had a silence detector , so we would look for the end of an utterance based on the silence detector . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I {disfmarker} I can't remember now off the top of my head how many frames of silence we had to detect before we would declare it to be the end of an utterance . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , but it was , uh , I would say it was probably around the order of two hundred and fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's when you 'd start doing things . +PhD A: Yeah , we did the back trace at that point to get the answer . +Professor C: Yeah . Of course that didn't take too long at that point . +PhD A: No , no it was pretty quick . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} so you had a +PhD A: this w +Professor C: so you had a {disfmarker} a quarter second delay before , uh , plus some little processing time , +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: and then the {disfmarker} the microscope would start moving or something . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: And there 's physical inertia there , so probably the {disfmarker} the motion itself was all {disfmarker} +PhD A: And it felt to , uh , the users that it was instantaneous . I mean , as fast as talking to a person . It {disfmarker} th I don't think anybody ever complained about the delay . +Professor C: Yeah , so you would think as long as it 's under half a second or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not an expert on that +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: but . +PhD A: I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I don't think you can really tell . A person {disfmarker} I don't think a person can tell the difference between , uh , you know , a quarter of a second and a hundred milliseconds , and {disfmarker} I 'm not even sure if we can tell the difference between a quarter of a second and half a second . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean it just {disfmarker} it feels so quick . +Professor C: Yeah . I mean , basically if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you said , uh , um , "" what 's the , uh , uh {disfmarker} what 's the shortest route to the opera ? "" and it took half a second to get back to you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , {vocalsound} it would be f I mean , it might even be too abrupt . You might have to put in a s a s {vocalsound} a delay . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , it may feel different than talking to a person +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: because when we talk to each other we tend to step on each other 's utterances . So like if I 'm asking you a question , you may start answering before I 'm even done . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So it {disfmarker} it would probably feel different +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: but I don't think it would feel slow . +Professor C: Right . Well , anyway , I mean , I think {disfmarker} we could cut {disfmarker} we know what else , we could cut down on the neural net time by {disfmarker} by , uh , playing around a little bit , going more into the past , or something like that . We t we talked about that . +PhD A: So is the latency from the neural net caused by how far ahead you 're looking ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And there 's also {disfmarker} well , there 's the neural net and there 's also this , uh , uh , multi - frame , uh , uh , KLT . +PhD A: Wasn't there {disfmarker} Was it in the , uh , recurrent neural nets where they weren't looking ahead at all ? +Professor C: They weren't looking ahead much . They p they looked ahead a little bit . +PhD A: A little bit . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean , you could do this with a recurrent net . And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} But you also could just , um , I mean , we haven't experimented with this but I imagine you could , um , uh , predict a , uh {disfmarker} um , a label , uh , from more in the past than in {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than in the future . I mean , we 've d we 've done some stuff with that before . I think it {disfmarker} it works OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We 've always had {disfmarker} usually we used the symmetric windows +Professor C: So . +PhD A: but I don't think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} but we played a little bit with {disfmarker} with asymmetric , guys . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You can do it . So . So , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what you 're busy with , s messing around with this , +PhD B: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: yeah . And , uh , +PhD D: Also we were thinking to {disfmarker} to , uh , apply the eh , spectral subtraction from Ericsson +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and to {disfmarker} to change the contextual KLT for LDA . +PhD A: Change the what ? +PhD D: The contextual KLT . +PhD A: I 'm missing that last word . Context +Professor C: K {disfmarker} KLT . +PhD A: KLT . +PhD D: KLT {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . KLT . +PhD A: Oh , KLT . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: KLT , I 'm sorry . Uh , to change and use LDA discriminative . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD A: What is the advantage of that ? +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's that by the for the moment we have , uh , something that 's discriminant and nonlinear . And the other is linear but it 's not discriminant at all . Well , it 's it 's a linear transformation , that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So at least just to understand maybe what the difference was between how much you were getting from just putting the frames together and how much you 're getting from the discriminative , what the nonlinearity does for you or doesn't do for you . Just to understand it a little better I guess . +PhD B: Mmm . Well {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} yeah . Actually what we want to do , perhaps it 's to replace {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have something that 's discriminant but linear , also . And to see if it {disfmarker} if it improves ov over {disfmarker} over the non - discriminant linear transformation . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: And if the neural net is better than this or , well . So . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's what I meant , is to see whether {disfmarker} whether it {disfmarker} having the neural net really buys you anything . +PhD B: Ye Mmm . +Professor C: Uh , I mean , it doe did look like it buys you something over just the KLT . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: But maybe it 's just the discrimination and {disfmarker} and maybe {disfmarker} yeah , maybe the nonlinear discrimination isn't necessary . +PhD D: S maybe . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD D: Maybe . +Professor C: Good {disfmarker} good to know . But the other part you were saying was the spectral subtraction , so you just kind of , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: At what stage do you do that ? Do you {disfmarker} you 're doing that , um {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: So it would be on the um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the mel frequency bands , +PhD D: We was think +PhD B: so . Yeah , be before everything . +Professor C: OK , +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: so just do that on the mel f +PhD D: we {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} nnn We {disfmarker} we was thinking to do before after VAD or +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD D: Oh , {comment} we don't know exactly when it 's better . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Before after VAD or {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the way that they 're {disfmarker} +PhD D: and then +PhD B: Um . +Professor C: uh , one thing that would be no {disfmarker} good to find out about from this conference call is that what they were talking about , what they 're proposing doing , was having a third party , um , run a good VAD , and {disfmarker} and determine boundaries . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then given those boundaries , then have everybody do the recognition . +PhD D: Begin to work . +Professor C: The reason for that was that , um , uh {disfmarker} if some one p one group put in the VAD and another didn't , uh , or one had a better VAD than the other since that {disfmarker} they 're not viewing that as being part of the {disfmarker} the task , and that any {disfmarker} any manufacturer would put a bunch of effort into having some s kind of good speech - silence detection . It still wouldn't be perfect but I mean , e the argument was "" let 's not have that be part of this test . "" "" Let 's {disfmarker} let 's separate that out . "" And so , uh , I guess they argued about that yesterday and , yeah , I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} don't know the answer but we should find out . I 'm sure we 'll find out soon what they , uh {disfmarker} what they decided . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there 's the question of the VAD but otherwise it 's {disfmarker} it 's on the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the mel fil filter bank , uh , energies I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: You do {disfmarker} doing the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And you 're {disfmarker} you 're subtracting in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} I guess it 's power {disfmarker} power domain , uh , or {disfmarker} or magnitude domain . Probably power domain , right ? +PhD B: I guess it 's power domain , yeah . +Professor C: why +PhD B: I don't remember exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: I don't remember . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} yeah , so it 's before everything else , +Professor C: yep . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , if you look at the theory , it 's {disfmarker} it should be in the power domain but {disfmarker} but , uh , I 've seen implementations where people do it in the magnitude domain +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: I have asked people why and they shrug their shoulders and say , "" oh , it works . "" So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , and there 's this {disfmarker} I guess there 's this mysterious {disfmarker} I mean people who do this a lot I guess have developed little tricks of the trade . I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this , um {disfmarker} you don't just subtract the {disfmarker} the estimate of the noise spectrum . You subtract th that times {disfmarker} +PhD B: A little bit more and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} or less , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And generated this {disfmarker} this , +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: um , so you have the estimation of the power spectra of the noise , and you multiply this by a factor which is depend dependent on the SNR . So . Well . +PhD D: Hmm , maybe . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: When the speech lev when the signal level is more important , compared to this noise level , the coefficient is small , and around one . But when the power le the s signal level is uh small compared to the noise level , the coefficient is more important . And this reduce actually the music musical noise , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD B: uh which is more important during silence portions , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: when the s the energy 's small . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: So there are tricks like this but , mmm . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD A: Is the estimate of the noise spectrum a running estimate ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what differs from different {disfmarker} different tasks and different s uh , spectral subtraction methods . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have , uh , fair assurance that , uh , the noise is {disfmarker} is quite stationary , then the smartest thing to do is use as much data as possible to estimate the noise , get a much better estimate , and subtract it off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But if it 's varying at all , which is gonna be the case for almost any real situation , you have to do it on - line , uh , with some forgetting factor or something . +PhD A: So do you {disfmarker} is there some long window that extends into the past over which you calculate the average ? +Professor C: Well , there 's a lot of different ways of computing the noise spectrum . So one of the things that , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch did , uh {disfmarker} and pas and other people {disfmarker} actually , he 's {disfmarker} he wasn't the only one I guess , was to , uh , take some period of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of speech and in each band , uh , develop a histogram . So , to get a decent histogram of these energies takes at least a few seconds really . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean you can do it with a smaller amount but it 's pretty rough . And , um , in fact I think the NIST standard method of determining signal - to - noise ratio is based on this . +PhD A: A couple seconds ? +Professor C: So {disfmarker} No , no , it 's based on this kind of method , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: this histogram method . So you have a histogram . Now , if you have signal and you have noise , you basically have these two bumps in the histogram , which you could approximate as two Gaussians . +PhD A: But wh don't they overlap sometimes ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So you have a mixture of two Gaussians . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right ? And you can use EM to figure out what it is . You know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so basically now you have this mixture of two Gaussians , you {disfmarker} you n know what they are , and , uh {disfmarker} I mean , sorry , you estimate what they are , and , uh , so this gives you what the signal is and what the noise e energy is in that band in the spectrum . And then you look over the whole thing and now you have a noise spectrum . So , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch and others have used that kind of method . And the other thing to do is {disfmarker} which is sort of more trivial and obvious {comment} {disfmarker} is to , uh , uh , determine through magical means that {disfmarker} that , uh , there 's no speech in some period , and then see what the spectrum is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , but , you know , it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's tricky to do . It has mistakes . Uh , and if you 've got enough time , uh , this other method appears to be somewhat more reliable . Uh , a variant on that for just determining signal - to - noise ratio is to just , uh {disfmarker} you can do a w a uh {disfmarker} an iterative thing , EM - like thing , to determine means only . I guess it is EM still , but just {disfmarker} just determine the means only . Don't worry about the variances . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then you just use those mean values as being the {disfmarker} the , uh uh signal - to - noise ratio in that band . +PhD A: But what is the {disfmarker} it seems like this kind of thing could add to the latency . I mean , depending on where the window was that you used to calculate {pause} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD B: Yeah , sure . But {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor C: Not necessarily . Cuz if you don't look into the future , right ? +PhD A: OK , well that {disfmarker} I guess that was my question , +Professor C: if you just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , if you just {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you , uh {disfmarker} a at the beginning you have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: Guess . +Professor C: esti some guess and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's an interesting question . I wonder how they did do it ? +PhD B: Actually , it 's a mmm {disfmarker} If - if you want to have a good estimation on non - stationary noise you have to look in the {disfmarker} in the future . I mean , if you take your window and build your histogram in this window , um , what you can expect is to have an estimation of th of the noise in {disfmarker} in the middle of the window , not at the end . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , yeah , +PhD B: the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but people {disfmarker} +Professor C: but what does {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what does Alcatel do ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and France Telecom . +PhD B: The They just look in the past . I guess it works because the noise are , uh pret uh , almost stationary +Professor C: Pretty stationary . +Grad E: Pretty stationary , +PhD B: but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , the thing , e e e e +Grad E: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , y I mean , you 're talking about non - stationary noise but I think that spectral subtraction is rarely {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not gonna work really well for {disfmarker} for non - stationary noise , +PhD B: Well , if y if you have a good estimation of the noise , +Professor C: you know ? +PhD B: yeah , because well it it has to work . +Professor C: But it 's hard to {disfmarker} +PhD B: i +Professor C: but that 's hard to do . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's hard to do . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} that what {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} wh what 's more common is that you 're going to be helped with r slowly varying or stationary noise . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's what spectral subtraction will help with , practically speaking . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: If it varies a lot , to get a If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} to get a good estimate you need a few seconds of speech , even if it 's centered , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you need a few seconds to get a decent estimate but it 's changed a lot in a few seconds , then it , you know , i it 's kind of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , imagine e five hertz is the middle of the {disfmarker} of the speech modulation spectrum , +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: right ? So imagine a jack hammer going at five hertz . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , good {disfmarker} good luck . So , +PhD B: So in this case , yeah , sure , you cannot {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But I think y um , Hirsch does experiment with windows of like between five hundred milliseconds and one second . And well , five hundred wa was not so bad . I mean and he worked on non - stationary noises , like noise modulated with well , wi with amplitude modulations and things like that , +PhD A: Were his , uh , windows centered around the {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Um , yeah . Well , I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the paper he showed that actually the estimation of the noise is {disfmarker} is delayed . Well , it 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you have to center the window , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: No , I understand it 's better to do but I just think that {disfmarker} that , uh , for real noises wh what {disfmarker} what 's most likely to happen is that there 'll be some things that are relatively stationary +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: where you can use one or another spectral subtraction thing +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and other things where it 's not so stationary and {disfmarker} I mean , you can always pick something that {disfmarker} that falls between your methods , +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: uh , uh , but I don't know if , you know , if sinusoidally , uh , modul amplitude modulated noise is {disfmarker} is sort of a big problem in {disfmarker} in in {disfmarker} practice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I think that {vocalsound} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could probably get a really good estimate of the noise if we just went to the noise files , and built the averages from them . +Professor C: Yeah . Well . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} What do you mean ? +Professor C: Just cheat {disfmarker} You 're saying , cheat . +PhD B: But if the {disfmarker} if the noise is stationary perhaps you don't even need some kind of noise estimation algorithm . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: We just take th th th the beginning of the utterance and +Professor C: Oh , yeah , sure . +PhD B: I I know p I don't know if people tried this for Aurora . +PhD D: It 's the same . +PhD B: Well , everybody seems to use some kind of adaptive , well , scheme +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: but , +PhD D: A dictionary . +PhD B: is it very useful +Professor C: you know , stationary {disfmarker} +PhD A: Very slow adaptation . +PhD B: and is the c +PhD A: th +Professor C: Right , the word "" stationary "" is {disfmarker} has a very precise statistical meaning . But , you know , in {disfmarker} in signal - processing really what we 're talking about I think is things that change slowly , uh , compared with our {disfmarker} our processing techniques . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if you 're driving along in a car I {disfmarker} I would think that most of the time the nature of the noise is going to change relatively slowly . It 's not gonna stay absolute the same . If you {disfmarker} if you check it out , uh , five minutes later you may be in a different part of the road +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or whatever . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i i i using the local characteristics in time , is probably going to work pretty well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But you could get hurt a lot if you just took some something from the beginning of all the speech , of , you know , an hour of speech and then later {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so they may be {disfmarker} you know , may be overly , uh , complicated for {disfmarker} for this test but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , I don't know . But what you 're saying , you know , makes sense , though . I mean , if possible you shouldn't {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} you should make it , uh , the center of the {disfmarker} center of the window . But {disfmarker} uh , we 're already having problems with these delay , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} delay issues . +PhD B: Yeah , so . +Professor C: So , uh , we 'll have to figure ways without it . Um , +PhD A: If they 're going to provide a , uh , voice activity detector that will tell you the boundaries of the speech , then , couldn't you just go outside those boundaries and do your estimate there ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . You bet . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I imagine that 's what they 're doing , right ? Is they 're {disfmarker} they 're probably looking in nonspeech sections and getting some , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , they have some kind of threshold on {disfmarker} on the previous estimate , and {disfmarker} So . Yeah . I think . Yeah , I think Ericsson used this kind of threshold . Yeah , so , they h they have an estimate of the noise level and they put a threshold like six or ten DB above , and what 's under this threshold is used to update the estimate . Is {disfmarker} is that right +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think so . +PhD B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have not here the proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like saying what 's under the threshold is silence , +Professor C: Does France Telecom do this {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: Does France Telecom do th do the same thing ? More or less ? +PhD B: I d I {disfmarker} Y you know , perhaps ? +PhD D: No . I do I have not here the proposal . +Professor C: OK . Um , OK , if we 're {disfmarker} we 're done {disfmarker} done with that , uh , let 's see . Uh , maybe we can talk about a couple other things briefly , just , uh , things that {disfmarker} that we 've been chatting about but haven't made it into these meetings yet . So you 're coming up with your quals proposal , and , uh {disfmarker} Wanna just give a two three minute summary of what you 're planning on doing ? +Grad E: Oh , um , two , three , it can be shorter than that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've talked to some of you already . Um , but I 'm , uh , looking into extending the work done by Larry Saul and John Allen and uh Mazin Rahim . Um , they {disfmarker} they have a system that 's , uh , a multi - band , um , system but their multi - band is {disfmarker} is a little different than the way that we 've been doing multi - band in the past , where um {disfmarker} Where we 've been @ @ {comment} uh taking {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} sub - band features and i training up these neural nets and {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on phonetic targets , and then combining them some somehow down the line , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're taking sub - band features and , um , training up a detector that detects for , um , these phonetic features for example , um , he presents um , uh , a detector to detect sonorance . And so what {disfmarker} what it basically is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} at the lowest level , there {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR ga I mean , it 's an AND gate . So , uh , on each sub - band you have several independent tests , to test whether um , there 's the existence of sonorance in a sub - band . And then , um , it c it 's combined by a soft AND gate . And at the {disfmarker} at the higher level , for every {disfmarker} if , um {disfmarker} The higher level there 's a soft OR gate . Uh , so if {disfmarker} if this detector detects um , the presence of {disfmarker} of sonorance in any of the sub - bands , then the detect uh , the OR gate at the top says , "" OK , well this frame has evidence of sonorance . "" +PhD A: What are {disfmarker} what are some of the low level detectors that they use ? +Grad E: And these are all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . Well , the low level detectors are logistic regressions . Um , and the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that , by the way , basically is a {disfmarker} is one of the units in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} our neural network . +Grad E: the one o +Professor C: So that 's all it is . It 's a sig it 's a sigmoid , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , with weighted sum at the input , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: which you train by gradient {pause} descent . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , so he uses , um , an EM algorithm to {disfmarker} to um train up these um parameters for the logistic regression . +Professor C: Well , actually , yeah , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: so I was using EM to get the targets . So {disfmarker} so you have this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this AND gate {disfmarker} what we were calling an AND gate , but it 's a product {disfmarker} product rule thing at the output . And then he uses , uh , i u and then feeding into that are {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR at the output , isn't it ? Yeah , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so that 's the product . And then , um , then he has each of these AND things . And , um , but {disfmarker} so they 're little neural {disfmarker} neural units . Um , and , um , they have to have targets . And so the targets come from EM . +PhD A: And so are each of these , low level detectors {comment} {disfmarker} are they , uh {disfmarker} are these something that you decide ahead of time , like "" I 'm going to look for this particular feature or I 'm going to look at this frequency , "" or {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at ? +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What are their inputs ? +Grad E: Uh Right , so the {disfmarker} OK , so at each for each sub - band {comment} there are basically , uh , several measures of SNR and {disfmarker} and correlation . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Grad E: Um , um and he said there 's like twenty of these per {disfmarker} per sub - band . Um , and for {disfmarker} for every s every sub - band , e you {disfmarker} you just pick ahead of time , um , "" I 'm going to have like five {pause} i independent logistic tests . "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And you initialize these parameters , um , in some {disfmarker} some way and use EM to come up with your training targets for a {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} the low - level detectors . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , once you get that done , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you train the whole {disfmarker} whole thing on maximum likelihood . Um , and h he shows that using this {disfmarker} this method to detect sonorance is it 's very robust compared to , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to typical , uh , full - band Gaussian mixtures um estimations of {disfmarker} of sonorance . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh so {disfmarker} so that 's just {disfmarker} that 's just one detector . So you can imagine building many of these detectors on different features . You get enough of these detectors together , um , then you have enough information to do , um , higher level discrimination , for example , discriminating between phones +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and then you keep working your way up until you {disfmarker} you build a full recognizer . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So , um , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the direction which I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about going in my quals . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: You know , it has a number of properties that I really liked . I mean , one is the going towards , um , using narrow band information for , uh , ph phonetic features of some sort rather than just , uh , immediately going for the {disfmarker} the typical sound units . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Another thing I like about it is that you t this thing is going to be trained {disfmarker} explicitly trained for a product of errors rule , which is what , uh , Allen keeps pointing out that Fletcher observed in the twenties , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , for people listening to narrow band stuff . That 's Friday 's talk , by the way . And then , um , Uh , the third thing I like about it is , uh , and we 've played around with this in a different kind of way a little bit but it hasn't been our dominant way of {disfmarker} of operating anything , um , this issue of where the targets come from . So in our case when we 've been training it multi - band things , the way we get the targets for the individual bands is , uh , that we get the phonetic label {disfmarker} for the sound there +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and we say , "" OK , we train every {disfmarker} "" What this is saying is , OK , that 's maybe what our ultimate goal is {disfmarker} or not ultimate but penultimate {vocalsound} goal is getting these {disfmarker} these small sound units . But {disfmarker} but , um , along the way how much should we , uh {disfmarker} uh , what should we be training these intermediate things for ? I mean , because , uh , we don't know uh , that this is a particularly good feature . I mean , there 's no way , uh {disfmarker} someone in the audience yesterday was asking , "" well couldn't you have people go through and mark the individual bands and say where the {disfmarker} where it was sonorant or not ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know , I think having a bunch of people listening to critical band wide , {vocalsound} uh , chunks of speech trying to determine whether {disfmarker} {comment} I think it 'd be impossible . +Grad E: Ouch . +Professor C: It 's all gonna sound like {disfmarker} like sine waves to you , more or less . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} Well not I mean , it 's g all g narrow band uh , i I m I think it 's very hard for someone to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} a person to make that determination . So , um , um , we don't really know how those should be labeled . It could sh be that you should , um , not be paying that much attention to , uh , certain bands for certain sounds , uh , in order to get the best result . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , what we have been doing there , just sort of mixing it all together , is certainly much {disfmarker} much cruder than that . We trained these things up on the {disfmarker} on the , uh the final label . Now we have I guess done experiments {disfmarker} you 've probably done stuff where you have , um , done separate , uh , Viterbis on the different {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Forced alignment on the sub - band labels ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: You 've done that . Did {disfmarker} did that help at all ? +Grad E: Um , it helps for one or t one iteration but um , anything after that it doesn't help . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so that may or may t it {disfmarker} that aspect of what he 's doing may or may not be helpful because in a sense that 's the same sort of thing . You 're taking global information and determining what you {disfmarker} how you should {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , I th I think a little more direct . +PhD A: How did they measure the performance of their detector ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} Well , he 's look he 's just actually looking at , uh , the confusions between sonorant and non - sonorant . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he hasn't applied it to recognition or if he did he didn't talk about it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} And one of the concerns in the audience , actually , was that {disfmarker} that , um , the , uh , uh {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he did a comparison to , uh , you know , our old foil , the {disfmarker} the nasty old standard recognizer with {vocalsound} mel {disfmarker} mel filter bank at the front , and H M Ms , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And , um , it didn't do nearly as well , especially in {disfmarker} in noise . But the {disfmarker} one of the good questions in the audience was , well , yeah , but that wasn't trained for that . I mean , this use of a very smooth , uh , spectral envelope is something that , you know , has evolved as being generally a good thing for speech recognition but if you knew that what you were gonna do is detect sonorants or not {disfmarker} So sonorants and non - sonorants is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is almost like voiced - unvoiced , except I guess that the voiced stops are {disfmarker} are also called "" obstruents "" . Uh , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} uh , but with the exception of the stops I guess it 's pretty much the same as voiced - unvoiced , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Um . So , um , if you knew you were doing that , if you were doing something say for a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Vocoder , you wouldn't use the same kind of features . You would use something that was sensitive to the periodicity and {disfmarker} and not just the envelope . Uh , and so in that sense it was an unfair test . Um , so I think that the questioner was right . It {disfmarker} it was in that sense an unfair test . Nonetheless , it was one that was interesting because , uh , this is what we are actually using for speech recognition , these smooth envelopes . And this says that perhaps even , you know , trying to use them in the best way that we can , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we ordinarily do , with , you know , Gaussian mixtures and H M Ms {comment} and so forth , you {disfmarker} you don't , uh , actually do that well on determining whether something is sonorant or not . +PhD A: Didn't they {disfmarker} +Professor C: Which means you 're gonna make errors between similar sounds that are son sonorant or obstruent . +PhD A: Didn't they also do some kind of an oracle experiment where they said "" if we {pause} could detect the sonorants perfectly {pause} and then show how it would improve speech recognition ? I thought I remember hearing about an experiment like that . +Professor C: The - these same people ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I don't remember that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: That would {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's exactly the question to follow up this discussion , is suppose you did that , uh , got that right . Um , Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: What could be the other low level detectors , I mean , for {disfmarker} {comment} Other kind of features , or {disfmarker} ? in addition to detecting sonorants or {disfmarker} ? Th - that 's what you want to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to go for also +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: What t Oh , build other {disfmarker} other detectors on different {pause} phonetic features ? +PhD B: Other low level detectors ? Yeah . +Grad E: Um , uh Let 's see , um , Yeah , I d I don't know . e Um , um , I mean , w easiest thing would be to go {disfmarker} go do some voicing stuff but that 's very similar to sonorance . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , +PhD A: When we {disfmarker} when we talked with John Ohala the other day we made a list of some of the things that w +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: like frication , +Grad E: Oh ! OK . +PhD A: abrupt closure , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: R - coloring , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} Uh . +Professor C: Yeah , so there 's a half dozen like that that are {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , nasality . +Professor C: Now this was coming at it from a different angle but maybe it 's a good way to start . Uh , these are things which , uh , John felt that a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a human annotator would be able to reliably mark . So the sort of things he felt would be difficult for a human annotator to reliably mark would be tongue position kinds of things . +Grad E: Oh , OK . Placing stuff , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . +PhD A: There 's also things like stress . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can look at stress . +Professor C: But stress doesn't , uh , fit in this thing of coming up with features that will distinguish words from one another , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to mark and will probably help us ultimate with recognition +PhD A: Yeah , there 's a few cases where it can like permit {comment} and permit . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} that 's not very common in English . In other languages it 's more uh , important . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but i either case you 'd write PERMIT , right ? So you 'd get the word right . +PhD A: No , I 'm saying , i i e I thought you were saying that stress doesn't help you distinguish between words . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Oh , I see what you 're saying . As long as you get {disfmarker} The sequence , +Professor C: We 're g if we 're doing {disfmarker} if we 're talking about transcription as opposed to something else {disfmarker} +PhD A: right ? Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So where it could help is maybe at a higher level . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Like a understanding application . +PhD A: Understanding , yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But that 's this afternoon 's meeting . Yeah . We don't understand anything in this meeting . Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's , you know , a neat {disfmarker} neat thing and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So . +Grad E: S so , um , Ohala 's going to help do these , uh {pause} transcriptions of the meeting data ? +PhD A: Uh , well I don't know . We d we sort of didn't get that far . Um , we just talked about some possible features that could be marked by humans and , um , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: because of having maybe some extra transcriber time we thought we could go through and mark some portion of the data for that . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , that 's not an immediate problem , that we don't immediately have a lot of extra transcriber time . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but , uh , in the long term I guess Chuck is gonna continue the dialogue with John and {disfmarker} and , uh , and , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll end up doing some I think . +PhD A: I 'm definitely interested in this area , too , f uh , acoustic feature stuff . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I think it 's an interesting {disfmarker} interesting way to go . +Grad E: Cool . +Professor C: Um , I say it like "" said - int "" . I think it has a number of good things . Um , so , uh , y you want to talk maybe a c two or three minutes about what we 've been talking about today and other days ? +Grad F: Ri Yeah , OK , so , um , we 're interested in , um , methods for far mike speech recognition , um , {pause} mainly , uh , methods that deal with the reverberation {pause} in the far mike signal . So , um , one approach would be , um , say MSG and PLP , like was used in Aurora one and , um , there are other approaches which actually attempt to {pause} remove the reverberation , instead of being robust to it like MSG . And so we 're interested in , um , comparing the performance of {pause} um , a robust approach like MSG with these , um , speech enhancement or de - reverber de - reverberation approaches . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , {vocalsound} it looks like we 're gonna use the Meeting Recorder digits data for that . +PhD B: And the de - reverberation algorithm , do you have {disfmarker} can you give some more details on this or {disfmarker} ? Does it use one microphone ? +Grad F: o o +PhD B: Several microphones ? Does it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: OK , well , um , there was something that was done by , um , a guy named Carlos , I forget his last name , {comment} who worked with Hynek , who , um , +Professor C: Avendano . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Who , um , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um , it was like RASTA in the sense that of it was , um , de - convolution by filtering um , except he used a longer time window , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like a second maybe . And the reason for that is RASTA 's time window is too short to , um include the whole , um , reverberation {disfmarker} um , I don't know what you call it the reverberation response . I if you see wh if you see what I mean . The reverberation filter from my mouth to that mike is like {disfmarker} it 's t got it 's too long in the {disfmarker} in the time domain for the um {disfmarker} for the RASTA filtering to take care of it . And , um , then there are a couple of other speech enhancement approaches which haven't been tried for speech recognition yet but have just been tried for enhancement , which , um , have the assumption that um , you can do LPC um analysis of th of the signal you get at the far microphone and the , um , all pole filter that you get out of that should be good . It 's just the , um , excitation signal {comment} that is going to be distorted by the reverberation and so you can try and reconstruct a better excitation signal and , um , feed that through the i um , all pole filter and get enhanced speech with reverberation reduced . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's also this , uh , um , uh , echo cancellation stuff that we 've sort of been chasing , so , uh we have , uh {disfmarker} and when we 're saying these digits now we do have a close microphone signal and then there 's the distant microphone signal . And you could as a kind of baseline say , "" OK , given that we have both of these , uh , we should be able to do , uh , a cancellation . "" So that , uh , um , we {disfmarker} we , uh , essentially identify the system in between {disfmarker} the linear time invariant system between the microphones and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and re and invert it , uh , or {disfmarker} or cancel it out to {disfmarker} to some {disfmarker} some reasonable approximation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: through one method or another . Uh , that 's not a practical thing , uh , if you have a distant mike , you don't have a close mike ordinarily , but we thought that might make {disfmarker} also might make a good baseline . Uh , it still won't be perfect because there 's noise . Uh , but {disfmarker} And then there are s uh , there are single microphone methods that I think people have done for , uh {disfmarker} for this kind of de - reverberation . Do y do you know any references to any ? Cuz I {disfmarker} I w I was {disfmarker} w w I {disfmarker} I lead him down a {disfmarker} a bad path on that . +PhD B: Uh , I g I guess {disfmarker} I guess when people are working with single microphones , they are more trying to do {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . +PhD B: well , not {disfmarker} not very {disfmarker} Well , there is the Avendano work , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: but also trying to mmm , uh {disfmarker} trying to f t find the de - convolution filter but in the um {disfmarker} not in the time domain but in the uh the stream of features uh I guess . Well , @ @ {comment} there {disfmarker} there 's someone working on this on i in Mons +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: So perhaps , yeah , we should try t to {disfmarker} He 's working on this , on trying to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: on re reverberation , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: The first paper on this is gonna have great references , I can tell already . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: It 's always good to have references , especially when reviewers read it or {disfmarker} or one of the authors and , {vocalsound} feel they 'll "" You 're OK , you 've r You cited me . "" +PhD B: So , yeah . Well , he did echo cancellation and he did some fancier things like , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , training different network on different reverberation conditions and then trying to find the best one , but . Well . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: The oth the other thing , uh , that Dave was talking about earlier was , uh , uh , multiple mike things , uh , where they 're all distant . So , um , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this work on arrays , but the other thing is , uh , {pause} what can we do that 's cleverer that can take some advantage of only two mikes , uh , particularly if there 's an obstruction between them , as we {disfmarker} as we have over there . +PhD B: If there is {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: An obstruction between them . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: It creates a shadow which is {disfmarker} is helpful . It 's part of why you have such good directionality with , {vocalsound} with two ears +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: even though they 're not several feet apart . For most {disfmarker} for most people 's heads . +PhD A: That could help though . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} Yeah , the {disfmarker} the head , in the way , is really {disfmarker} that 's what it 's for . It 's basically , +PhD A: That 's what the head 's for ? To separate the ears ? +Professor C: Yeah , it 's to separate the ears . That 's right , yeah . Yeah . Uh , so . Anyway , O K . Uh , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's all we have this week . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor C: And , uh , I think it 's digit time . +PhD A: Actually the , um {disfmarker} For some reason the digit forms are blank . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD A: Uh , I think th that may be due to the fact that {comment} Adam ran out of digits , {comment} uh , and didn't have time to regenerate any . +Professor C: Oh ! Oh ! I guess it 's {disfmarker} Well there 's no real reason to write our names on here then , +PhD A: Yeah , if you want to put your credit card numbers and , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: is there ? +Grad E: Oh , no {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Or do {disfmarker} did any {disfmarker} do we need the names for the other stuff , +PhD A: Uh , yeah , I do need your names and {disfmarker} and the time , and all that , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? Oh , OK . +PhD A: cuz we put that into the "" key "" files . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Um . But w +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: That 's why we have the forms , uh , even if there are no digits . +Professor C: OK , yeah , I didn't notice this . I 'm sitting here and I was {disfmarker} I was about to read them too . It 's a , uh , blank sheet of paper . +PhD A: So I guess we 're {disfmarker} we 're done . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , I 'll do my credit card number later . OK . +","Meeting participants discussed various research topics, including conference talks, speech filtering, latency issues, reverberation, and the development of new techniques for far-microphone speech recognition. They explored several approaches to feature detection, including voice activity detection, and provided updates on their respective projects. The group also considered using Meeting Recorder digits data for speech enhancement comparisons and raised the possibility of comparing robustness techniques like MSG and PLP with methods that aim to remove reverberation. Additionally, they discussed the potential of using multiple distant microphones, the challenges of echo cancellation, and the usefulness of obstructions in separating sound for improved directionality. Lastly, the meeting ended with a mention of digit forms for their records." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So in last meeting we have discussed the conceptual design and we asked you to prepare a prototype for the for the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {gap} . {vocalsound} So let's see the {disfmarker} what did you prepare . +User Interface: Yeah , so can you go out to the shared folder ? Mm the shared folder . +Project Manager: Sh share folder for th your presentation ? +User Interface: Yes . We have a presentation . +Project Manager: Because I have here {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I got the participant uh three . W uh {vocalsound} . Three . It's the final design , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay just one {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S so so I discussed with Guillaume . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Right . {vocalsound} And uh {vocalsound} so we have {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and we we are both agreed on some two versions of the prototypes , because we were no not decided whether we wanted to have an L_C_D_ or not because it's too expensive . So we come up with two versions . One with and one without L_C_D_s . Um but both comes with a charger and then detachable and uh or {gap} control module . And detachable big buttons for all people um . So {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S okay so I'll show you the the two prototypes {vocalsound} . Here we have the first one with the beautiful uh L_C_D_ um display . You you can s here . And you can uh just um browse into the the navigation menu by uh joystick joystick-like uh button . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You can uh choose the direction and if you just push on it it's considered like a enter function . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You have on the mm on the side here the microphone for the {vocalsound} for the speech recognition system here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And here the the switch that control if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why you why you you put it in the the side ? +Industrial Designer: Well I I I think uh it's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not a good place maybe {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: No i i it's the all around camer uh microphone isn't it . The the microphone picks up the speeches from anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it an only a single mic or a microphone array ? +Industrial Designer: Well so it's a microphone array . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it's very costly , microphone array {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's just a single microphone , and you {disfmarker} I I think uh we we put it here because I think when you when you are browsing your L_C_D_ you will be close to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well it's better to to to place it here th than here , for instance . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And here is a little switch that control if you want the the speaker uh recognition system to um to be on or off . And uh so this remote control comes up with its charger . +Project Manager: How much does it cost this one ? +Industrial Designer: Well this this prototype is um made for about uh well fi fi fifteen fifteen dollars +User Interface: For the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen dollars ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} fifteen dollars , +Project Manager: Ah it's above it's above the budget . +Industrial Designer: but uh well it's not it's not uh {disfmarker} yeah , but uh it's just a prototype and if we uh if we optimises the um the uh {disfmarker} voila . +Marketing: The cost would be le reduced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {gap} and the the production costs we we can achieve uh about ten dollars . {gap} +User Interface: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: How many b battery is there ? +Industrial Designer: How many , excuse me ? +Project Manager: Battery . +Industrial Designer: Well uh f battery , we use uh about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it n the two A_A_s batteries in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A_A_ rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable of course , +User Interface: Yeah rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: because we have the charger . +User Interface: We have the charger so it's no problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So one one battery ? +Industrial Designer: On uh yeah one battery . +Marketing: Is that two or one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's kinetic reserve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Actually uh it's a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You just n uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now what is the whole day rating for that ? +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} excuse me ? +Marketing: Whole day's rating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What type of battery ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah it's just a r uh simple battery a rechargeable uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: if you uh like it's exist . +Marketing: Something like a two A_ , A_ three size batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So and if you want to charge the battery you just put the remote control like that to plug in the the charger +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh leave it uh alone , it's alright . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} At uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then the next time you pick it , oh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it works {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I forgot to tell you there is only a single button there , b this button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah just explain the button uh Norman . +User Interface: yeah alright . This button is like the mouse {disfmarker} is like a joystick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you can move in three hundred and sixty degrees of direction so you can make a turn and it {disfmarker} the additi functions associated to all the actions you ma you have a click you have a double click all in a single button {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can move up , down , left , right , or you can do a swing . So a swing to the left , a swing to the right defines other functions . So even though it's a single button , but it is pretty s flexible because of the three hundred and sixty degree movement {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ is this one , on the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . This is the version y that comes with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Here I present another version without the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's not a good idea because after maybe one or two months of function is {gap} getting destroyed . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If you +User Interface: Uh okay this is new prototype uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we have the the second version also with the different uh button configuration . The second version is also simpler , we d uh we had just uh I have to put the microphone also {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically th it's the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh and also the switch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Basically it's the same uh things uh uh as uh I presented before . But here we have uh we have uh four buttons for navigation . Press one button uh acting as a a enter button . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um yeah according to what you said it's more robust to the user . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it's also cheaper to produce . We can produce uh such remote control for about uh four dollars . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No four dollars , it's {vocalsound} {gap} good . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think you forgot a point here to have an button to find the charger , +User Interface: Oh no +Marketing: because that's a major that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: th actually th we'll come to that point in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's it's embed in the uh speech recognition system . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: and if you disable speech recognition system then ? +User Interface: W w I'll I'll come to that point later on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so Norman will explain to you {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: And we will we will serve the charger with this ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah of course mm {gap} . +User Interface: Th they {vocalsound} either these with the {disfmarker} uh the the charger any +Project Manager: With the remote control . +User Interface: in either versions you they they ha they use the same charger yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the price of the charger included in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's a standard module so you should get it for a cheap price uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Thank thank you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's that same charger that you can use for the hand-phone but uh again depends on the types . I think we have to investigate more on that , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The price should be below twelve and a half Euro . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Well that's {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as the Marketing Manager says , people is willing to {disfmarker} people are willing to pay more for good design . +Project Manager: We have we have just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but the company is not willing to invest more at the moment . +Project Manager: The price of selling is twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the price of production {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright please uh go on Norman with the special features {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we'll we'll come up to that , the the the thing that makes this the controller cheap is that it is modular so you want more function you pay more . If you want less function i i if you want a reasonable price you pay for the functions that you add on to the system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so is uh modular . +Project Manager: That's for this basis function and if you want more you pay more . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: for example the L_C_D_ , you can take it you can put it {disfmarker} put it back in , or you can use the other one , +Marketing: Something like customised . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or {vocalsound} the speech recogniser with the microphone yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You want a microphone to put in the {vocalsound} speech recogniser you don't wan you pay less for the system you see {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm okay . +User Interface: It's pretty flexible in the yeah price {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You also have the the the two other modules for the parental control +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah yeah you should present that . +Industrial Designer: that that you ca you can add up {vocalsound} to the {disfmarker} to your remote control +Marketing: And this is other one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: i i if you uh if you want to to have more more power on what you do , and uh which channel you want to choose and so on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: H here is just the the the module for the kids and th if the parents want to watch T_V_ , up {disfmarker} they come up with their modules , +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: they just plug in it +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they can have all the control they want here . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We also have this module for uh old people with big buttons , clearly labelled , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it acts like the previous one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you just plug in and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the i the idea the the conceptual idea is that simplicity and powerful . Simplicity meaning that we have few buttons , powerful is that all the controls with {vocalsound} the one you saw we saw earlier in the meetings with lots of buttons n but here you only have few buttons but you retain the mm the same powerful functionalities . But in addition with simplicity . So that's the best idea , the cond that that's our uh an innovation um uh i in this uh design here {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay now we come to other important features that I did not tell you . The first one is the speech recogniser , again it's detachable or add-on . And then we also have security feature for example this here {disfmarker} oop {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's very robust {gap} , it doesn't break and the material , what's the material again ? +Industrial Designer: The titanium +Project Manager: Titanium . +Industrial Designer: and so it's very uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Again uh and the battery life is uh is an is an endurable one , again because this is A_A_ batteries you can choose the types of battery you want . +Marketing: Yeah that's fine . +User Interface: Lithium-ion may be a good one , but you can replace it with cheaper one , again you pay for what you get , and then um y the other p points are robust and misplacement reminder . So when you finish watching your T_V_ {vocalsound} and you the you t you turn off the T_V_ , uh and then there's this message coming out that uh please put that back to the charger , so so that's the {disfmarker} or is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: that's the reminder part . Yeah and um {disfmarker} And it also use a programmable channel and vocabulary , so we didn't define the vocabulary so it's up to the user to define +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then uh because of the chil because children are using the device so we have also a a {gap} of T_V_ programmes by genre , and this can be used by the adult or by the children . So instead of choosing the channel you are choosing the T_V_ contents of the night . So it's pretty powerful , and that's that's why the num buttons are reduced , because of this feature . Yeah . And {vocalsound} and for the materials that is cheap to produce I think uh it's quite clear from {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And also like the {gap} and the fancy designs yeah . +Project Manager: What what's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we can improve more on the design but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the price to p to produce ? +User Interface: {disfmarker} uh this is the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the price to produce {disfmarker} For uh the simplest one , say we start from four dollars to produce such a device . +Project Manager: With with with the charge ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's about it {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} without without the charger +Marketing: With the charger ? +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's about uh well two dollars to produce uh the microphone and speech recognition systems . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Two dollars for the uh for the add-on modules , and finally three dollars for the charger . So if you uh sum up uh everything wi with the L_C_D_ {vocalsound} , which costs two dollar , you have two plus four plus four plus two plus two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have charger . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we can use Excel {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's about {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't have all the options {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: so the total cost if you if you want all the fuct functionalities will be about uh fifteen dollars . +Project Manager: Charger we don't have charger here either . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No it's +Industrial Designer: But it's just if you want all functionalities . +Project Manager: it's below the the the budget . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Project Manager: It's below the bu the budget . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's a nice input +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we have an other inputs from the l public demands . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: I think we will just have a rough look and then we can make our statements , and we can finalise the product based on this discu +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can just go to my presentation then . We can wind up . Or we could uh come to some f uh final conclusions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So the marketing made an evaluation criteria and these were some of the findings , and uh in the market the people are not really interested with L_C_D_ , without L_C_D_ , with speech recognition interface , or without speech recognition interface , but most of the people what they are interested is {disfmarker} first thing is , they want to have an fancy look and feel , it should be very fancy with colourful and uh very handy to hold . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is it should be much more technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Of course in that we could put L_C_D_ or recognition to be more technologically innovative . And the third one is easy to use . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think that the technical in innovation is is in the product itself since we haven't yet a remote who are allowing to to choose interactively with the T_V_ screen uh uh with just four buttons . +Marketing: Okay and if we go to the next slide , here you can find {disfmarker} these are the latest fashion updates , and so this {disfmarker} in Paris and Milan {gap} they have detected this trends that the this year it's going to be an year of fruit and vegetable , so people are really interested to see if they have an remote in the shape of the fruit or a vegetable , or whatever they like . +User Interface: Spongy spongy . Mm mm . +Marketing: So I think it should be much more customised to make a different uh shapes . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is , and if the material , they really do not want it to be very hard , as in the case of very pl plastic or titanium , it should be somewhat spongy . +User Interface: But the the problem is that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it robust to mishandling ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We have {disfmarker} you should find a material that is robust at the same time spongy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: A sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah so uh {vocalsound} so finally we have these three criterias . +User Interface: Spongy {vocalsound} . +Marketing: One is fancy look , second is innovative , and third is easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the f uh three criteria on which we are going to build our remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} and we have an evaluation criteria for each one of these , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: say that we have a seven point scale , from one to seven , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and for each of the product you could just give me the scale according to this . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now you have with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so on this scale , if it is true , if it is {disfmarker} if it has a fancy look you could just tell me one , or if it is false , it doesn't {disfmarker} it looks uh {disfmarker} it doesn't look much fancy , then you could just tell me seven . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We can make our study on this and {disfmarker} +User Interface: so is the e evaluation depending on us or other users ? +Marketing: No no we have {disfmarker} you have designed two products now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: one is with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But who will give the scoring uh we ourself or or a third party ? +Project Manager: You . +Marketing: According to you , no according to you designers , how will feel {disfmarker} does it uh with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay let us make this L_ and without L_C_D_ . On on this scale the L_C_D_ remote control . How do you look {disfmarker} how does it look ? +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: D is it very fancy or doesn't look much fancy ? +Industrial Designer: Well it doesn't look much fancy I'll I'll say three or four . +Marketing: And you both agree for that ? +Project Manager: And you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can improve on the design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som someone um commented this is like a the stone age uh {gap} {vocalsound} design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um we have been focused all all this {vocalsound} time on the {vocalsound} on the technical aspect , functional aspect , but also the simplicity . +Industrial Designer: Technical aspects . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: As for the design maybe we c should hire a designer to help {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So I take three on {disfmarker} with L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a three . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ how would you rate it ? +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh four . I think it's it's uh more easy to make f fancy things when it's not complicated +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: so removing the L_C_D_ um gives us a li more liberty to to have a fancy look . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: And in the sense of innovativeness , with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Well it's it's the same for both so {vocalsound} I will give a five , six . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Five with L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well five also uh {disfmarker} Norman please . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: from the innovation aspect I feel that uh what is most innovative of our prototype compared to the existing prototypes that we saw l in the last meeting is that um {vocalsound} the retrieval of T_V_ programmes by content , because uh that is really innovative , and for now {disfmarker} and another innovation we have is simplicity and {disfmarker} simplicity , few buttons , we've uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A lot of functionalities . +Industrial Designer: With lot of functionalities . +User Interface: So that is uh that is uh for both th +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Our gi I think that the our our product is uh has the best in all {disfmarker} well this is a biased judgement {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because we designed them . +Marketing: No no according to design aspect we want to know how would you feel the innovativeness ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the innovation is v is very high I think . +Project Manager: For L_C_D_ . +Marketing: With L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: And without L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm for both it's the the same innovations . +User Interface: For both . It's the same innovation . So maybe I can put six to seven . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} six , let's go for six . +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: No actually uh to make it with L_C_D_ you make more efforts . So I {disfmarker} there is high innovativeness included if you make it with L_C_D_ y +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then when it is without L_C_D_ there is not much innovativeness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no innovative yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh uh there w there was a there was a issue here is that what are what is the display on the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: So we can't go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Talk about {disfmarker} +User Interface: We haven't really uh determined {vocalsound} what are {disfmarker} actually actually +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean that what you are sayin that's what the design {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's good to have a L_C_D_ but what are we gonna display on a L_C_D_ ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's like this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean on the L_C_D_ , according to what I understand from your model is , you have a joystick here , and you have L_C_D_ , you just press your joystick , you get here a programme . +Project Manager: So let's remove it . +User Interface: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you have the same programme on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: Uh then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Project Manager: This is the problem . +Marketing: No on the T_V_ you don't it doesn't display on the T_V_ now . +Industrial Designer: If you have the L_C_D_ , but if n +Marketing: L_C_D_ ? Then uh there is no meaning in having it on the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or then again you have a channels , volume and all the stuff and what a +User Interface: But you cannot display all on a L_C_D_ . +Marketing: I mean that depends upon your design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Anyway for for the users who who who opt for L_C_D_ {vocalsound} we'll give them the give them the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: we give what the customer uh wants , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ you want to put it fi the same level of innovativeness ? And which {gap} do you recommend e easy to use , with L_C_D_ or without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think both are really easy to use because there are few button buttons , +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh well t p the menu are clear , well-organised , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well with little knowing of the technology you can you can easily use the product +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I will give a six for the easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's just if I I see the the f the rate I think it's better to do it without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's with L_C_D_ just will increase the price , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I thi i they have the same rate so without L_C_D_ it will be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or we can just go back to the previous slide uh where we ha we have a few updates . So I mean in the product design you could just amend it to make some few changes +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: according to fruit and vegetable or a spongy touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: without L_C_D_ and without speech recognition . Even then our product is going to be very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper to produce . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh if the the {disfmarker} well if we have less technology we have more liberty to uh for the shape and uh things like that so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . I have another thing to say about the easy to use aspect . I think the easy to use uh aspect is different for different people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For the young generation easy to use may be very complicated +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: because uh they w they wants lot of controls with lots of buttons . For kids they want simply the {gap} s similarit for the old people they want simplicity , +Marketing: Yeah yeah that's right . +User Interface: so that's why {vocalsound} we have the parental module . Uh we can ha have {disfmarker} build a more complex design if if they want it , but but uh what I'm trying to say here is that the um {disfmarker} we have different sets of buttons for different kinds of people . So in terms of easy to use I think it's very user customisable . User customisation is very important yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ I just take it five ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: W uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you want it to be six ? +User Interface: I think it's the same . +Industrial Designer: Um six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes as you say , with better uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +Marketing: S s oh I think it's better to have this without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . And to improve the the look . +Marketing: As our Programme Manager s Pro Project Manager says that without L_C_D_ it is going to reduce the cost also , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and it's going to be much simpler to use . +Industrial Designer: Yes and to give us more liberty to have a fancy look so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so let's go back to our laboratory and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} To improve on the design . +Project Manager: What a what what about the sys speech recognition ? +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: {gap} what about the integration of speech recognition ? +User Interface: Huh ? The speech recogniser is a add-on module . Right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's going to be an optional . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wants to buy it they can have it , otherwise no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah so it's optional with the {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: It's an optional . +Industrial Designer: It's optional yeah , since well according to this study uh people more {vocalsound} likes more to have a spongy uh {vocalsound} remote control than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it will be {disfmarker} I think i +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it will be better if we have all these modules in the same remote control , because maybe parents will lose these uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean if you have an add-ons , the kids may just uh hide the parental module +Project Manager: Yeah . Or ma yeah . +Marketing: and so that their parents can't use it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or maybe parents they can for forget where they put it or , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: so mayb better if you have all this in the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: In the same set , yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: and and individual buttons to make them work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The problem is if i we are bla if a customer wants a certain component , and doesn't want the parental control because it's a couple who do not have children {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when you sell the product in the market you could meet any kind of people , and not all people will need all the functionalities we propose to them . So we might lose the customer because of this . I don't know , +Project Manager: So you mean that even if these modules will be will be functional {disfmarker} uh will be optional . +User Interface: what do you think uh ? Yes exa what do you think , I don't know . You are Marketing Manag {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean how to how to how to make a marketing survey that uh how many married couple {disfmarker} or how many couples have a T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or to the number or singles who have a television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So based on that I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the the question is n does those modularity increase the production cost or decrease the production cost ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it inc increase . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you can {gap} {disfmarker} if you had uh something li +Project Manager: I think it i increases . +Industrial Designer: Oh no , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because if you if you add uh something {disfmarker} well yeah maybe because it's three different pieces uh to to to build but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But you can make it on a single P_C_ with three different options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's I think it's cheaper if you if you already built the all the {vocalsound} functionalities um on the same module , but uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: On the same P_C_B_ +User Interface: Well well the other aspect is that if {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} when they have the ar existing product you you gonna maintain the the {disfmarker} you're gonna keep the same customer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah yeah . +User Interface: because the same customer will come back to buy other add-ons . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: So so {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you could just provide with an optional {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah i i so if don't don't buy now they can buy i in the future . So in in that way you're actually keeping the cus the same customer , attracting them to come back in again and again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's something like a Microsoft product {vocalsound} update . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and we we we we we we don't want that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not trying to follow the Microsoft and we don't want to the m {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Updates and we sell it . We make updates and sell it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well if the buyers can be up the th would be {disfmarker} can be upgraded , it would be a good thing right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it depends on the v production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh what's the idea about uh the shape of the remote controls ? +Industrial Designer: Well so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh can they be made into a fruit and vegetable types ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: Do you require different types of P_C_B_s and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah but we are also the um well the components will have to change because uh we have to deal with the shape and um {disfmarker} but I don't think it will uh increase the cost too much so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or uh it could be like this {disfmarker} the P_C_B_ would be the same for all , but only the exterior uh shape is different o for all . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh well but it's a bit complicated to {disfmarker} if if if you need machines to {disfmarker} different machines to um ah well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . What we can change is to propose the {vocalsound} customers with skins . For example the i the mobile phones nowaday , they sell different kinds of skin +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's right . +User Interface: and then people just feel that oh I have a new skin and looks better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah we can have the same global shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh add on skins and with with this uh tex spongy texture uh things like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah you can pl in what material would that be in uh ? +Industrial Designer: Sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think you need to look into the material . +User Interface: Yeah or furry like a pet dog kind of thing {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we finished the prototype uh presentation if you have uh something else to say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think the Project Manager would be interested to look about the financial issues in making these models . +Project Manager: {gap} Project evaluation project satisfaction , for example . I don't know , we have to ask these question . We have to give answers so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I suppose that you {gap} this criteria , is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Project evaluation . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Room for creativity . This room is a bit small , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} but I think it's okay for us to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I feel it's fine , we know we don't need uh {disfmarker} I think it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: That was good . +Marketing: This is fine for making a presentat for project presentations . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah anyway we have the laboratory nearby to build our modules so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And the leadership was excellent . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good job {vocalsound} good job . +Industrial Designer: Fine yes uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He gave you the liberty to talk as you wants {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh the teamwork was very very good . I was really {disfmarker} I am very satisfying to work with with you . +Industrial Designer: Very democratic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: And new ideas found . Any new ideas to make these presentations more interactive and more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Come up with new product {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean uh what type of product would you think {disfmarker} could we make this more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm we {disfmarker} I I know something , we need more cakes , more biscuits on the table while we have meetings . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and also more well uh {vocalsound} more seriously I think it's it's a good idea to have uh clear clear points whenever we do a meeting +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh prior to the meeting to have uh well a list with the points who will be discussed or things like that , but I think it's alright . We achieved uh project goal I think . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: De +Marketing: that is within the budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's w yes , more or less . +Marketing: And the evaluation was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Without without L_C_D_ , without speech recognition , it will be simple . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . So . +Marketing: And the next is celebration . +Industrial Designer: So uh coffee machine . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} free free coffee +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright then , we finished ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah thank you for your work and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah thank you , thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you very much . +","During the meeting, the project manager, industrial designer, user interface specialist, and marketing representative gathered to discuss the progress and details of a remote control prototype. The meeting began with the project manager recalling the last discussion about the conceptual design and requesting to see the prepared prototype. + +The user interface specialist directed the team to a shared folder where a presentation was stored, which seemed to include details about the prototype. There were some communication issues with gaps and distortions in speech, indicating either technical difficulties or possible speech disfluencies among the participants. + +The industrial designer presented two prototype versions of the remote control, one with an LCD screen and one without. The version with the LCD featured a joystick-like navigation button, directional choices, and an enter function when pressed. Additionally, it included a microphone array for speech recognition and a switch to control this feature. The project manager questioned the microphone’s placement, prompting a discussion about its functionality and cost. The team also considered whether to have a single microphone or an array, balancing functionality with production costs. + +The second prototype, simpler and less expensive to produce, had four navigation buttons and one enter button. The conversation extended to the battery options, including the use of rechargeable AA batteries and the possibilities of a charger. + +As the discussion continued, the team debated different features such as parental control modules, programmability, and robustness of design. They contemplated spongy or custom materials for the remote’s casing, which would make it more visually appealing according to current market trends. The team also explored the idea of having the remote remind users to place it back on the charger after use. + +The user interface specialist emphasized modularity and user customization as unique selling points, allowing users to pay for additional functions they desire. Marketing insights suggested that although technological innovations such as an LCD screen and speech recognition were of interest, consumers valued aesthetics and ease of use equally, if not more. The marketing representative shared consumer trends showing a preference for colorful, handy, and spongy remotes that could be customized to resemble fruits or vegetables. + +The team reviewed the remote's features and conducted an internal assessment of its innovativeness, fancy look, and ease of use on a scale. They discussed the implications of including or excluding certain features like the LCD and speech recognition from a cost and marketing perspective. + +The project manager was concerned about the budget and emphasized the need to stay within cost limitations. They considered whether to integrate multiple functionalities into the remote or to keep them as add-ons to offer customization to consumers. The team debated whether modularity would raise production costs and discussed potential material choices for the new designs. + +Wrapping up the meeting, the participants provided feedback on the project's management, teamwork, creativity, and the presentation itself. Suggestions included having clear points for discussion in future meetings and celebrating their progress. They decided to head to the coffee machine to conclude their session, signaling an agreed-upon direction for the product's design and features." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Alright . We 're on . +Professor B: Test , um . Test , test , test . Guess that 's me . Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Ooh , Thursday . +Professor B: So . There 's two sheets of paper in front of us . +PhD A: What are these ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . +Professor B: This is the arm wrestling ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , we formed a coalition actually . +PhD E: Yeah . Almost . +PhD C: We already made it into one . +Professor B: Oh , good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Excellent . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's the best thing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , tell me about it . +PhD E: So it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's {pause} spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , depending on if we put {disfmarker} if we square the transfer function or not . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And then with over - estimation of the noise , depending on the , uh {disfmarker} the SNR , with smoothing along time , um , smoothing along frequency . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: It 's very simple , smoothing things . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And , um , {vocalsound} the best result is {vocalsound} when we apply this procedure on FFT bins , uh , with a Wiener filter . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And there is no noise addition after {disfmarker} after that . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So it 's good because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's difficult when we have to add noise to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find the right level . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Are you looking at one in {disfmarker} in particular of these two ? +PhD E: Yeah . So the sh it 's the sheet that gives fifty - f three point sixty - six . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , {vocalsound} the second sheet is abo uh , about the same . It 's the same , um , idea but it 's working on mel bands , {vocalsound} and it 's a spectral subtraction instead of Wiener filter , and there is also a noise addition after , uh , cleaning up the mel bins . Mmm . Well , the results are similar . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {comment} it 's actually , uh , very similar . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , {vocalsound} if you look at databases , uh , the , uh , one that has the smallest {disfmarker} smaller overall number is actually better on the Finnish and Spanish , uh , but it is , uh , worse on the , uh , Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's worse on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean on the , uh , TI - TI - digits , +PhD E: on the multi - condition in TI - digits . Yeah . +Professor B: uh , uh . Um . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So , it probably doesn't matter that much either way . But , um , when you say u uh , unified do you mean , uh , it 's one piece of software now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So now we are , yeah , setting up the software . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , it should be ready , uh , very soon . Um , and we +PhD A: So what 's {disfmarker} what 's happened ? I think I 've missed something . +Professor B: OK . So a week ago {disfmarker} maybe you weren't around when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when Hynek and Guenther and I {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Hynek was here . +PhD A: Yeah . I didn't . +Professor B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Yeah , let 's summarize . Um {disfmarker} And then if I summarize somebody can tell me if I 'm wrong , which will also be possibly helpful . What did I just press here ? I hope this is still working . +PhD E: p - p - p +Professor B: We , uh {disfmarker} we looked at , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} anyway we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} after coming back from QualComm we had , you know , very strong feedback and , uh , I think it was {vocalsound} Hynek and Guenter 's and my opinion also that , um , you know , we sort of spread out to look at a number of different ways of doing noise suppression . But given the limited time , uh , it was sort of time to {pause} choose one . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , and so , uh , th the vector Taylor series hadn't really worked out that much . Uh , the subspace stuff , uh , had not been worked with so much . Um , so it sort of came down to spectral subtraction versus Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , we had a long discussion about how they were the same and how they were d uh , completely different . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , I mean , fundamentally they 're the same sort of thing but the math is a little different so that there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's an exponent difference in the index {disfmarker} you know , what 's the ideal filtering , and depending on how you construct the problem . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , uh , I guess it 's sort {disfmarker} you know , after {disfmarker} after that meeting it sort of made more sense to me because {vocalsound} um , if you 're dealing with power spectra then how are you gonna choose your error ? And typically you 'll do {disfmarker} choose something like a variance . And so that means it 'll be something like the square of the power spectra . Whereas when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're doing the {disfmarker} the , uh , um , {vocalsound} looking at it the other way , you 're gonna be dealing with signals +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you 're gonna end up looking at power {disfmarker} uh , noise power that you 're trying to reduce . And so , eh {disfmarker} so there should be a difference {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , conceptually of {disfmarker} of , uh , a factor of two in the exponent . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 're so many different little factors that you adjust in terms of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} uh , over - subtraction and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so forth , um , that {vocalsound} arguably , you 're c and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the choice of do you {disfmarker} do you operate on the mel bands or do you operate on the FFT beforehand . There 're so many other choices to make that are {disfmarker} are almost {disfmarker} well , if not independent , certainly in addition to {pause} the choice of whether you , uh , do spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , that , um , {vocalsound} @ @ again we sort of felt the gang should just sort of figure out which it is they wanna do and then let 's pick it , go forward with it . So that 's {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} that was last week . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , we said , uh , take a week , go arm wrestle , you know , +Grad D: Oh . +Professor B: figure it out . I mean , and th the joke there was that each of them had specialized in one of them . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and so they {disfmarker} so instead they went to Yosemite and bonded , and {disfmarker} and they came out with a single {disfmarker} single piece of software . So it 's {vocalsound} another {disfmarker} another victory for international collaboration . So . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so you guys have combined {disfmarker} or you 're going to be combining the software ? +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Well , the piece of software has , like , plenty of options , +PhD E: Oh boy . +PhD C: like you can parse command - line arguments . So depending on that , it {disfmarker} it becomes either spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So , ye +PhD A: They 're close enough . +Professor B: Well , that 's fine , but the thing is {disfmarker} the important thing is that there is a piece of software that you {disfmarker} that we all will be using now . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: There 's just one piece of software . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I need to allow it to do everything and even more {disfmarker} more than this . +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Well , if we want to , like , optimize different parameters of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Parameters . Yeah . +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: Yeah , we can do it later . But , still {disfmarker} so , there will be a piece of software with , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , will give this system , the fifty - three point sixty - six , by default and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how is {disfmarker} how good is that ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have a sense of {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's just one percent off of the {pause} best proposal . +PhD C: Best system . +PhD E: It 's between {disfmarker} i we are second actually if we take this system . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Right ? +PhD A: Compared to the last evaluation numbers ? Yeah . +Professor B: But , uh {disfmarker} w which we sort of were before +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but we were considerably far behind . And the thing is , this doesn't have neural net in yet for instance . You know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So it {disfmarker} so , um , it 's {disfmarker} it it 's not using our full bal bag of tricks , if you will . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , and it {disfmarker} it is , uh , very close in performance to the best thing that was there before . Uh , but , you know , looking at it another way , maybe more importantly , uh , {vocalsound} we didn't have any explicit noise , uh , handling {disfmarker} stationary {disfmarker} dealing with {disfmarker} e e we didn't explicitly have anything to deal with stationary noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And now we do . +PhD A: So will the {pause} neural net operate on the output from either the Wiener filtering or the spectral subtraction ? Or will it operate on the original ? +Professor B: Well , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so argu arguably , I mean , what we should do {disfmarker} I mean , I gather you have {disfmarker} it sounds like you have a few more days of {disfmarker} of nailing things down with the software and so on . But {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} but , um , {vocalsound} arguably what we should do is , even though the software can do many things , we should for now pick a set of things , th these things I would guess , and not change that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then focus on {pause} everything that 's left . And I think , you know , that our goal should be by next week , when Hynek comes back , {vocalsound} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , really just to have a firm path , uh , for the {disfmarker} you know , for the time he 's gone , of {disfmarker} of , uh , what things will be attacked . But I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would thought think that what we would wanna do is not futz with this stuff for a while because what 'll happen is we 'll change many other things in the system , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll probably wanna come back to this and possibly make some other choices . But , um . +PhD A: But just conceptually , where does the neural net go ? Do {disfmarker} do you wanna h run it on the output of the spectrally subtracted {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Well , depending on its size {disfmarker} Well , one question is , is it on the , um , server side or is it on the terminal side ? Uh , if it 's on the server side , it {disfmarker} you probably don't have to worry too much about size . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's kind of an argument for that . We do still , however , have to consider its latency . So the issue is {disfmarker} is , um , {vocalsound} for instance , could we have a neural net that only looked at the past ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , what we 've done in uh {disfmarker} in the past is to use the neural net , uh , to transform , {vocalsound} um , all of the features that we use . So this is done early on . This is essentially , {vocalsound} um , um {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's more or less like a spee a speech enhancement technique here {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? {disfmarker} where we 're just kind of creating {vocalsound} new {disfmarker} if not new speech at least new {disfmarker} new FFT 's that {disfmarker} that have {disfmarker} you know , which could be turned into speech {disfmarker} uh , that {disfmarker} that have some of the noise removed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , after that we still do a mess of other things to {disfmarker} to produce a bunch of features . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: And then those features are not now currently transformed {vocalsound} by the neural net . And then the {disfmarker} the way that we had it in our proposal - two before , we had the neural net transformed features and we had {vocalsound} the untransformed features , which I guess you {disfmarker} you actually did linearly transform with the KLT , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , to orthogonalize them {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they were not , uh , processed through a neural net . And Stephane 's idea with that , as I recall , was that {vocalsound} you 'd have one part of the feature vector that was very discriminant and another part that wasn't , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , which would smooth things a bit for those occasions when , uh , the testing set was quite different than what you 'd trained your discriminant features for . So , um , all of that is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} still seems like a good idea . The thing is now we know some other constraints . We can't have unlimited amounts of latency . Uh , y you know , that 's still being debated by the {disfmarker} by people in Europe but , {vocalsound} uh , no matter how they end up there , it 's not going to be unlimited amounts , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so we have to be a little conscious of that . Um . So there 's the neural net issue . There 's the VAD issue . And , uh , there 's the second stream {pause} thing . And I think those that we {disfmarker} last time we agreed that those are the three things that have to get , uh , focused on . +PhD A: What was the issue with the VAD ? +Professor B: Well , better {comment} ones are good . +PhD A: And so the w the default , uh , boundaries that they provide are {disfmarker} they 're OK , but they 're not all that great ? +Professor B: I guess they still allow two hundred milliseconds on either side or some ? Is that what the deal is ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , so th um , they keep two hundred milliseconds at the beginning and end of speech . And they keep all the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Outside the beginnings and end . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And all the speech pauses , which is {disfmarker} Sometimes on the SpeechDat - Car you have pauses that are more than one or two seconds . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: More than one second for sure . Um . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . And , yeah , it seems to us that this way of just dropping the beginning and end is not {disfmarker} We cou we can do better , I think , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , um , {vocalsound} with this way of dropping the frames they improve {pause} over the baseline by fourteen percent and {vocalsound} Sunil already showed that with our current VAD we can improve by more than twenty percent . +PhD A: On top of the VAD that they provide ? +PhD C: No . +PhD E: Just using either their VAD or our current VAD . +PhD C: Our way . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD E: So , our current VAD is {disfmarker} is more than twenty percent , while their is fourteen . +PhD A: Theirs is fourteen ? I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD E: So . Yeah . And {pause} another thing that we did also is that we have all this training data for {disfmarker} let 's say , for SpeechDat - Car . We have channel zero which is clean , channel one which is far - field microphone . And if we just take only the , um , VAD probabilities computed on the clean signal and apply them on the far - field , uh , test utterances , {vocalsound} then results are much better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In some cases it divides the error rate by two . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: So it means that there are stim {comment} still {disfmarker} +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much latency does the , uh {disfmarker} does our VAD add ? +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if we can have a good VAD , well , it would be great . +PhD A: Is it significant , +PhD E: Uh , right now it 's , um , a neural net with nine frames . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So it 's forty milliseconds plus , um , the rank ordering , which , uh , should be +PhD C: Like another ten frames . +PhD E: ten {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Rank . Oh . +PhD E: So , right now it 's one hundred and forty {pause} milliseconds . +Professor B: With the rank ordering {disfmarker} ? I 'm sorry . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the smoothing {disfmarker} the m the {disfmarker} the filtering of the probabilities . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} The , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: on the R . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not a median filtering . It 's just {disfmarker} We don't take the median value . We take something {disfmarker} Um , so we have eleven , um , frames . +Professor B: Oh , this is for the VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} for the VAD , yeah {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: and we take th the third . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad D: Dar +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . So {disfmarker} {comment} Yeah , I was just noticing on this that it makes reference to delay . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So what 's the {disfmarker} ? If you ignore {disfmarker} Um , the VAD is sort of in {disfmarker} in parallel , isn't i isn't it , with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} ? I mean , it isn't additive with the {disfmarker} the , uh , LDA and the Wiener filtering , and so forth . +PhD C: The LDA ? +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what happened right now , we removed the delay of the LDA . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So we {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} so if we {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so which is like if we reduce the delay of VA So , the f the final delay 's now ba is f determined by the delay of the VAD , because the LDA doesn't have any delay . So if we re if we reduce the delay of the VAD , I mean , it 's like effectively reducing the delay . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much , uh , delay was there on the LDA ? +PhD C: So the LDA and the VAD both had a hundred millisecond delay . So and they were in parallel , so which means you pick either one of them {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the biggest , whatever . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now the LDA delays are more . +Professor B: And there {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And there didn't seem to be any , uh , penalty for that ? There didn't seem to be any penalty for making it causal ? +PhD C: Pardon ? Oh , no . It actually made it , like , point one percent better or something , actually . +Professor B: OK . Well , may as well , then . +PhD C: Or something like that +Professor B: And he says Wiener filter is {disfmarker} is forty milliseconds delay . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . So that 's the one which Stephane was discussing , like {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: The smoothing ? +PhD C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} you smooth it and then delay the decision by {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Right . OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not bad . So we may in fact {disfmarker} we 'll see what they decide . We may in fact have , {vocalsound} um , the {disfmarker} the , uh , latency time available for {disfmarker} to have a neural net . I mean , sounds like we probably will . So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 'd be good . Cuz I {disfmarker} cuz it certainly always helped us before . So . +PhD A: What amount of latency are you thinking about when you say that ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're disputing it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: You know , they 're saying , uh {disfmarker} one group is saying a hundred and thirty milliseconds and another group is saying two hundred and fifty milliseconds . Two hundred and fifty is what it was before actually . So , +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: uh , some people are lobbying {disfmarker} lobbying {comment} to make it shorter . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Um . And , um . +PhD A: Were you thinking of the two - fifty or the one - thirty when you said we should {pause} have enough for the neural net ? +Professor B: Well , it just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} when we find that out it might change exactly how we do it , is all . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: I mean , how much effort do we put into making it causal ? I mean , {vocalsound} I think the neural net will probably do better if it looks at a little bit of the future . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um , it will probably work to some extent to look only at the past . And we ha you know , limited machine and human time , and {vocalsound} effort . And , you know , how {disfmarker} how much time should we put into {disfmarker} into that ? So it 'd be helpful if we find out from the {disfmarker} the standards folks whether , you know , they 're gonna restrict that or not . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . But I think , you know , at this point our major concern is making the performance better and {disfmarker} and , um , {vocalsound} if , uh , something has to take a little longer in latency in order to do it that 's {pause} you know , a secondary issue . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if we get told otherwise then , you know , we may have to c clamp down a bit more . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD C: So , the one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one difference is that {disfmarker} was there is like we tried computing the delta and then doing the frame - dropping . +Grad D: S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: The earlier system was do the frame - dropping and then compute the delta on the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So this {disfmarker} +PhD A: Which could be a kind of a funny delta . Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh , oh . So that 's fixed in this . Yeah , we talked about that . +PhD C: Yeah . So we have no delta . And then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Good . +PhD C: So the frame - dropping is the last thing that we do . So , yeah , what we do is we compute the silence probability , convert it to that binary flag , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: and then in the end you c up upsample it to {vocalsound} match the final features number of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Did that help then ? +PhD C: It seems to be helping on the well - matched condition . So that 's why this improvement I got from the last result . So . And it actually r reduced a little bit on the high mismatch , so in the final weightage it 's b b better because the well - matched is still weighted more than {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , @ @ I mean , you were doing a lot of changes . Did you happen to notice how much , {vocalsound} uh , the change was due to just this frame - dropping problem ? What about this ? +PhD C: Uh , y you had something on it . Right ? +PhD E: Just the frame - dropping problem . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult . Sometime we {disfmarker} we change two {disfmarker} two things together and {disfmarker} But it 's around {pause} maybe {disfmarker} it 's less than one percent . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . {vocalsound} But like we 're saying , if there 's four or five things like that then {vocalsound} pretty sho soon you 're talking real improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And then we have to be careful with that also {disfmarker} with the neural net +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: because in {comment} the proposal the neural net was also , uh , working on {disfmarker} after frame - dropping . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a real good point . +PhD E: So . Well , we 'll have to be {disfmarker} to do the same kind of correction . +Professor B: It might be hard if it 's at the server side . Right ? +PhD E: Mmm . Well , we can do the frame - dropping on the server side or we can just be careful at the terminal side to send a couple of more frames before and after , and {disfmarker} So . I think it 's OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: You have , um {disfmarker} So when you {disfmarker} Uh , maybe I don't quite understand how this works , but , um , couldn't you just send all of the frames , but mark the ones that are supposed to be dropped ? Cuz you have a bunch more bandwidth . Right ? +Professor B: Well , you could . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it always seemed to us that it would be kind of nice to {disfmarker} in addition to , uh , reducing insertions , actually use up less bandwidth . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But nobody seems to have {vocalsound} cared about that in this {pause} evaluation . +PhD A: And that way the net could use {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD A: If the net 's on the server side then it could use all of the {pause} frames . +PhD C: Yes , it could be . It 's , like , you mean you just transferred everything and then finally drop the frames after the neural net . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But you could even mark them , before they get to the server . +PhD C: Yeah . Right now we are {disfmarker} Uh , ri Right now what {disfmarker} wha what we did is , like , we just mark {disfmarker} we just have this additional bit which goes around the features , {vocalsound} saying it 's currently a {disfmarker} it 's a speech or a nonspeech . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So there is no frame - dropping till the final features , like , including the deltas are computed . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: And after the deltas are computed , you just pick up the ones that are marked silence and then drop them . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +Professor B: So it would be more or less the same thing with the neural net , I guess , actually . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what , uh , this is doing right now . +PhD A: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . OK . So , uh , what 's , uh {disfmarker} ? That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good set of work that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just one more thing . Like , should we do something f more for the noise estimation , because we still {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . I was wondering about that . That was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had written that down there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: So , we , uh {disfmarker} actually I did the first experiment . This is {pause} with just fifteen frames . Um . We take the first fifteen frame of each utterance to it , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and average their power spectra . Um . I tried just plugging the , um , {vocalsound} uh , Guenter noise estimation on this system , and it {disfmarker} uh , it got worse . Um , but of course I didn't play {pause} with it . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Uh , I didn't {pause} do much more {pause} for noise estimation . I just tried this , +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . Well , it 's not surprising it 'd be worse the first time . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , um , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it does seem like , you know , i i i i some compromise between always depending on the first fifteen frames and a a always depending on a {disfmarker} a pause is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good idea . Uh , maybe you have to weight the estimate from the first - teen {disfmarker} fifteen frames more heavily than {disfmarker} than was done in your first attempt . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . No , I mean {disfmarker} Um , do you have any way of assessing how well or how poorly the noise estimation is currently doing ? +PhD E: Mmm . No , we don't . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: We don't have nothing {pause} that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is there {disfmarker} was there any experiment with {disfmarker} ? Well , I {disfmarker} I did {disfmarker} The only experiment where I tried was I used the channel zero VAD for the noise estimation and frame - dropping . So I don't have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't have a split , like which one helped more . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So . It {disfmarker} it was the best result I could get . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's something you could do with , um , this final system . Right ? Just do this {disfmarker} everything that is in this final system except , {vocalsound} uh , use the channel zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . For the noise estimation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . We can try something . +Professor B: And then see how much better it gets . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Sure . +Professor B: If it 's , you know , essentially not better , then {pause} it 's probably not worth +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: any more . +PhD C: Yeah . But the Guenter 's argument is slightly different . It 's , like , ev even {disfmarker} even if I use a channel zero VAD , I 'm just averaging the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the s power spectrum . But the Guenter 's argument is , like , if it is a non - stationary {pause} segment , then he doesn't update the noise spectrum . So he 's , like {disfmarker} he tries to capture only the stationary part in it . So the averaging is , like , {vocalsound} different from {pause} updating the noise spectrum only during stationary segments . So , th the Guenter was arguing that , I mean , even if you have a very good VAD , averaging it , like , over the whole thing is not a good idea . +Professor B: I see . +PhD C: Because you 're averaging the stationary and the non - stationary , and finally you end up getting something which is not really the s because , you {disfmarker} anyway , you can't remove the stationary part fr I mean , non - stationary part from {vocalsound} the signal . +Professor B: Not using these methods anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So you just {pause} update only doing {disfmarker} or update only the stationary components . Yeah . So , that 's {disfmarker} so that 's still a slight difference from what Guenter is trying +Professor B: Well , yeah . And {disfmarker} and also there 's just the fact that , um , eh , uh , although we 're trying to do very well on this evaluation , um , we actually would like to have something that worked well in general . And , um , relying on having fifteen frames at the front or something is {disfmarker} is pretty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean , you might , you might not . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Um , it 'd certainly be more robust to different kinds of input if you had at least some updates . Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . Well , I don't know . What {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what do you guys see as {disfmarker} as being what you would be doing in the next week , given wha what 's {pause} happened ? +PhD C: Cure the VAD ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? +PhD C: VAD . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So , should we keep the same {disfmarker} ? I think we might try to keep the same idea of having a neural network , but {vocalsound} training it on more data and adding better features , I think , but {disfmarker} because the current network is just PLP features . Well , it 's trained on noisy {pause} PLP {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just the cepstra . Yeah . +PhD E: PLP features computed on noisy speech . But {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there is no nothing particularly robust in these features . +PhD A: So , I I uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . +PhD E: There 's no RASTA , no {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember what you said {vocalsound} the answer to my , uh , question earlier . Will you {disfmarker} will you train the net on {disfmarker} after you 've done the spectral subtraction or the Wiener filtering ? +Professor B: This is a different net . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: So we have a VAD which is like neur that 's a neural net . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Hmm . +PhD A: Oh , you 're talking about the VAD net . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: So that {disfmarker} that VAD was trained on the noisy features . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now we have , like , uh {disfmarker} we have the cleaned - up features , so we can have a better VAD by training the net on {pause} the cleaned - up speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +PhD C: Yeah , but we need a VAD for uh noise estimation also . So it 's , like , where do we want to put the VAD ? Uh , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net to do both , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net that you {disfmarker} that I was talking about to do the VAD ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Uh , it actually comes at v at the very end . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So the net {disfmarker} the final net {disfmarker} I mean , which is the feature net {disfmarker} so that actually comes after a chain of , like , LDA plus everything . So it 's , like , it takes a long time to get a decision out of it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can actually do it for final frame - dropping , but not for the VA - f noise estimation . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You see , the idea is that the , um , initial decision to {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that you 're in silence or speech happens pretty quickly . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Cuz that 's used by some of these other {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: And that {disfmarker} Yeah . And that 's sort of fed forward , and {disfmarker} and you say "" well , flush everything , it 's not speech anymore "" . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought that was only used for doing frame - dropping later on . +Professor B: Um , it is used , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's only used f Well , it 's used for frame - dropping . Um , it 's used for end of utterance +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: because , you know , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have {pause} more than five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of nonspeech then you figure it 's end of utterance or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . +PhD E: And it seems important for , like , the on - line normalization . Um . We don't want to update the mean and variance during silen long silence portions . Um . So it {disfmarker} it has to be done before +PhD A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: this mean and variance normalization . Um . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . So probably the VAD and {disfmarker} and maybe testing out the noise {pause} estimation a little bit . I mean , keeping the same method but {disfmarker} but , uh , {vocalsound} seeing if you cou but , um noise estimation could be improved . Those are sort of related issues . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It probably makes sense to move from there . And then , uh , {vocalsound} later on in the month I think we wanna start including the {pause} neural net at the end . Um . OK . Anything else ? +PhD E: The Half Dome was great . +Professor B: Good . Yeah . You didn't {disfmarker} didn't fall . That 's good . +PhD C: Well , yeah . +Professor B: Our e our effort would have been devastated if you guys had {comment} {vocalsound} run into problems . +PhD A: So , Hynek is coming back next week , you said ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the plan . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the week after he 'll be , uh , going back to Europe , and so we wanna {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is he in Europe right now or is he up at {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's dropped into the US . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . Hmm . +Professor B: So . Uh . {vocalsound} So , uh . Uh , the idea was that , uh , we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd sort out where we were going next with this {disfmarker} with this work before he , uh , left on this next trip . Good . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , Barry , you just got through your {vocalsound} quals , so I don't know if you {vocalsound} have much to say . But , uh . +Grad D: Mmm . No , just , uh , looking into some {disfmarker} some of the things that , um , {vocalsound} uh , John Ohala and Hynek , um , gave as feedback , um , as {disfmarker} as a starting point for the project . Um . In {disfmarker} in my proposal , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about starting from a set of , uh , phonological features , {vocalsound} or a subset of them . Um , but that might not be necessarily a good idea according to , um , John . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: He said , uh , um , these {disfmarker} these phonological features are {disfmarker} are sort of figments of imagination also . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . S +Professor B: In conversational speech in particular . I think you can {disfmarker} you can put them in pretty reliably in synthetic speech . +Grad D: Ye +Professor B: But {vocalsound} we don't have too much trouble recognizing synthetic speech since we create it in the first place . So , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . Yeah . So , um , a better way would be something more {disfmarker} more data - driven , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: just looking at the data and seeing what 's similar and what 's not similar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , um , taking a look at some of , um , {vocalsound} Sangita 's work on {disfmarker} on TRAPS . She did something where , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w where the TRAPS learn She clustered the {disfmarker} the temporal patterns of , um , certain {disfmarker} certain phonemes in {disfmarker} in m averaged over many , many contexts . And , uh , some things tended to cluster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right ? You know , like stop {disfmarker} stop consonants clustered really well . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Um , silence was by its own self . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , uh , um , {vocalsound} v vocalic was clustered . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , {vocalsound} um , so , {vocalsound} those are {pause} interesting things to {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're {disfmarker} now you 're sort of looking to try to gather a set of these types of features ? +Grad D: Right . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Just to see where {disfmarker} where I could start off from , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh , you know ? A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of small features and continue to iterate and find , uh , a better set . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , short meeting . That 's OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So next week hopefully we 'll {disfmarker} can get Hynek here to {disfmarker} to join us and , uh , uh . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Digits , digits . OK , now . +PhD A: Go ahead , Morgan . You can start . +Professor B: Alright . Let me get my glasses on so I can {pause} see them . OK . +PhD A: OK . And we 're off . +Professor B: Mm +","In a recorded conversation among several academics, including PhD candidates and a professor, all seem to be collaborating on a research project involving noise suppression techniques. The transcript captures their informal meeting where they discuss varying approaches to noise suppression, decide on a unified path forward for software development and share updates on individual research components. + +The discussion begins with a casual check-in and an acknowledgment of the presence of two sheets of paper that seem to hold important data or instructions for the meeting. Professor B leads the talk by questioning the contents, which PhD E explains involve methods of spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering, techniques for noise reduction in audio processing. The methods differ by an exponent in the index, which impacts the outcome depending on whether the transfer function is squared. + +PhD E outlines the best approach to apply these methods, emphasizing the simplicity of the procedures like smoothing along time and frequency domains. He stresses that the ideal result involves applying the procedure to FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) bins with a Wiener filter, resulting in no additional noise after the process, which is favorable as adding noise back to reach an optimal level can be a tricky endeavor. + +The conversation evolves into more technical details and comparisons of the two different sheets, with one sheet outlining a method that operates on mel bands, another conceptualization of sound frequency, which contrasts with FFT bins. They note that the results from both sheets are comparable, albeit a few differences in performance across varied databases and languages. + +There's also discussion about the ""vector Taylor series"" and ""subspace stuff,"" which suggests various computational methods that were considered but did not prove to be the best options given the limited time and the impetus to choose one approach. This leads to the mention of a coalition between the PhD candidates (possibly PhD C and PhD E), who were separately specialized in spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering but unified their efforts during a trip to Yosemite, symbolically highlighted as international collaboration's victory. + +Professor B stresses the importance of having unified software that will now be used by all, moving from an environment with many individual approaches to a consensus on a particular method. This shift towards collaborative software suggests a standardized way of working that can accommodate either spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering, illustrating the flexibility of their approach. + +The conversation shifts to Hynek's input after returning from Qualcomm and the collective decision to focus on one method due to limited time. There seems to be a consensus that, even though spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering are somewhat similar in goal and outcome (noise reduction), they are theoretically different enough to warrant a solid discussion and decision on which path to take. + +After deciding to focus on one method that could be applied using unified software, they delve into the importance of noise estimation, discussing the subtleties of when and how to update noise estimation only for stationary noise segments, which Professor B suggests could be more robust to varying input conditions. Moreover, they consider the prospect of integrating a neural network later in their process, which Professor B indicates might be possible depending on the latency they have to work with. + +There is clear recognition that they need to improve voice activity detection (VAD) and consider how it will work in conjunction with noise estimation and frame dropping, reaching an agreement to focus on this in the upcoming week. The importance of the VAD, especially in the context of noise estimation and mean and variance normalization during periods of silence in speech, is reinforced. + +There is also an allusion to other parts of the project that are not part of the transcript’s main focus, like the logistics of an upcoming trip by Hynek to Europe, the inclusion of a neural net at the end of the month, and Grad D's project on phonological features in conversational speech that may be based on data-driven principles rather than theoretical sets of features. + +The transcript ends with a light-hearted shift from their dense technical discussion to a concluding administrative procedure involving reading digits aloud, which seems to be a routine part of their meetings. + +Overall, the conversation reflects a multidisciplinary team navigating the complexities of noise suppression in speech signals, showcasing close scrutiny of various methodologies, the challenges of collaboration, the importance of practical outcomes, and considerations for future improvements and testing of their systems." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . So , uh You can fill those out , uh {pause} after , actually , so So , I got , uh {pause} these results from , uh , Stephane . Also , um , I think that , uh {pause} um {pause} we might hear later today , about other results . I think s that , uh , there were some other very good results that we 're gonna wanna compare to . But , {vocalsound} r our results from other {disfmarker} other places , yeah . +PhD A: I I 'm sorry ? I didn't +Professor D: Um , I got this from you +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and then I sent a note to Sunil about the {disfmarker} cuz he has been running some other systems +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: other than the {disfmarker} the ICSI OGI one . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} um , I wan wanna {disfmarker} wanna see what that is . But , uh , you know , so we 'll see what it is comparatively later . But {pause} it looks like , um +PhD A: M yeah . +Professor D: You know most of the time , even {disfmarker} I mean even though it 's true that the overall number for Danish {disfmarker} we didn't improve it If you look at it individually , what it really says is that there 's , um , uh Looks like out of the six cases , between the different kinds of , uh , matching conditions {pause} out of the six cases , there 's basically , um , a couple where it stays about the same , uh , three where it gets better , and one where it gets worse . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , go ahead . +PhD A: Y Actually , uh , um , for the Danish , there 's still some kind of mystery because , um , um , when we use the straight features , we are not able to get these nice number with the ICSI OGI one , I mean . We don't have this ninety - three seventy - eight , we have eight +PhD E: Eighty - nine forty - four . +PhD A: yeah . Uh , so , uh , that 's probably something wrong with the features that we get from OGI . Uh , and Sunil is working on {disfmarker} on trying to {disfmarker} to check everything . +Professor D: Oh , and {disfmarker} and we have a little time on that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} actually so +PhD A: Hmm ? +Professor D: We have a little bit of time on that , actually . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: We have a day or so , so When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you folks leave ? +PhD A: Uh , Sunday . +Professor D: Sunday ? So So , uh Yeah , until Saturday midnight , or something , we have W we {disfmarker} we have time , yeah . Well , that would be good . That 'd be good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Uh , and , you know , i u when whenever anybody figures it out they should also , for sure , email Hynek because Hynek will be over there {vocalsound} telling people {vocalsound} what we did , so he should know . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Good , OK . So , um So , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll hold off on that a little bit . I mean , even with these results as they are , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not that bad . But {disfmarker} but , uh , um And it looks like the overall result as they are now , even without , you know , any {disfmarker} any bugs being fixed is that , uh , on the {disfmarker} the other tasks , we had this average of , uh , forty uh {disfmarker} nine percent , or so , improvement . And here we have somewhat better than that than the Danish , and somewhat worse than that on the German , but I mean , it sounds like , uh , one way or another , the methods that we 're doing can reduce the error rate from {disfmarker} from mel ceptrum {pause} down by , you know {pause} a fourth of them to , uh , a half of them . Somewhere in there , depending on the {pause} exact case . So So that 's good . I mean , I think that , uh , one of the things that Hynek was talking about was understanding what was in the other really good proposals and {disfmarker} and trying to see if what should ultimately be proposed is some , uh , combination of things . Um , if , uh {disfmarker} Cuz there 's things that they are doing {pause} there that we certainly are not doing . And there 's things that we 're doing that {pause} they 're not doing . And {disfmarker} and they all seem like good things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: How much {disfmarker} how much better was the best system than ours ? +Professor D: So Well , we don't know yet . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , first place , there 's still this thing to {disfmarker} to work out , and second place {disfmarker} second thing is that the only results that we have so far from before were really development set results . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: So , I think in this community that 's of interest . It 's not like everything is being pinned on the evaluation set . But , um , for the development set , our best result was a little bit short of fifty percent . And the best result of any system was about fifty - four , where these numbers are the , uh , relative , uh , reduction in , uh , word error rate . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: And , um , the other systems were , uh , somewhat lower than that . There was actually {disfmarker} there was much less of a huge range than there was in Aurora one . In Aurora one there were {disfmarker} there were systems that ba basically didn't improve things . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And here the {disfmarker} the worst system {pause} still reduced the error rate by thirty - three percent , or something , in development set . +PhD C: Oh , wow . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so , you know , sort of everybody is doing things between , well , roughly a third of the errors , and half the errors being eliminated , {vocalsound} uh , and varying on different test sets and so forth . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So I think Um {pause} It 's probably a good time to look at what 's really going on and seeing if there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a way to combine the best ideas while at the same time not blowing up the amount of , uh , resources used , cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's critical for this {disfmarker} this test . +PhD C: Do we know anything about {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who 's was it that had the lowest on the dev set ? +Professor D: Um , uh , the , uh , the there were two systems that were put forth by a combination of {disfmarker} of , uh , French Telecom and Alcatel . And , um they {disfmarker} they differed in some respects , but they e em one was called the French Telecom Alcatel System the other was called the Alcatel French Telecom System , {vocalsound} uh , which is the biggest difference , I think . But {disfmarker} but there 're {disfmarker} there 're {disfmarker} there 're some other differences , too . Uh , and {disfmarker} and , uh , they both did very well , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: you know ? So , {vocalsound} um , my impression is they also did very well on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the , uh , evaluation set , but , um , I {disfmarker} I we haven't seen {disfmarker} you 've - you haven't seen any final results for that +PhD C: And they used {disfmarker} the main thing that {disfmarker} that they used was spectral subtraction ? +Professor D: yeah . +PhD C: Or +Professor D: There is a couple pieces to it . There 's a spectral subtraction style piece {disfmarker} it was basically , you know , Wiener filtering . And then {disfmarker} then there was some p some modification of the cepstral parameters , where they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , actually , something that 's close to cepstral mean subtraction . But , uh , the way the mean is adapted {disfmarker} um , it 's signal dependent . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , uh So , basically , the mean is adapted during speech and not during silence . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's very close to {disfmarker} to cepstral mean subtraction . +Professor D: But some people have done {vocalsound} {pause} exactly that sort of thing , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's not {disfmarker} To {disfmarker} to look in {pause} speech only , to try to m to measure these things during speech , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: that 's p that 's not that uncommon . But i it it {disfmarker} so it looks like they did some {disfmarker} some , uh , reasonable things , uh , and they 're not things that we did , precisely . We did unreasonable things , {vocalsound} which {disfmarker} because we like to try strange things , and {disfmarker} and , uh , and our things worked too . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And so , um , uh , it 's possible that some combination of these different things that were done would be the best thing to do . But the only caveat to that is that everybody 's being real conscious of how much memory and how much CPU they 're using +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: because these , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , standards are supposed to go on cell phones with m moderate resources in both respects . +PhD C: Did anybody , uh , do anything with the models as a {disfmarker} an experiment ? Or +Professor D: Uh , they didn't report it , if they did . +PhD C: N nobody reported it ? +Professor D: Yeah . I think everybody was focused elsewhere . Um , now , one of the things that 's nice about what we did is , we do have a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a filtering , which leads to a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a reduction in the bandwidth in the modulation spectrum , which allows us to downsample . So , uh , as a result of that we have a reduced , um , transmission rate for the bits . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was misreported the first time out . It {disfmarker} it said the same amount because for convenience sake in the particular way that this is being tested , uh , they were repeating the packets . So it was {disfmarker} they were s they {disfmarker} they had twenty - four hundred bits per second , but they were literally creating forty - eight hundred bits per second , {vocalsound} um , even though y it was just repeated . +PhD C: Oh . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: So , uh , in practice +PhD C: So you could 've had a repeat count in there or something . +Professor D: Well , n I mean , this was just a ph phoney thing just to {disfmarker} to fit into the {disfmarker} the software that was testing the errors {disfmarker} channel errors and so on . +PhD C: Oh . Oh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so in reality , if you put this {disfmarker} this system in into , uh , the field , it would be twenty - four hundred bits per second , not forty - eight hundred . So , um , so that 's a nice feature of what {disfmarker} what we did . Um , but , um , well , we still have to see how it all comes out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Um , and then there 's the whole standards process , which is another thing altogether . +PhD C: When is the development set {disfmarker} I mean , the , uh , uh , test set results due ? Like the day before you leave or something ? +Professor D: Uh , probably the day after they leave , but we 'll have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll have to stop it the day before {comment} we leave . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . So +PhD C: Huh . +Professor D: I think tha I think the {disfmarker} the meeting is on the thirteenth or something . +PhD A: Yeah , this Tuesday , yeah . +Professor D: And , uh , they , uh Right . And the {disfmarker} the , uh , results are due like the day before the meeting or something . So +PhD A: Yeah , probably , well +Professor D: I th I think {disfmarker} I I think they are , +PhD A: Yeah , well +Professor D: yeah . So {pause} {vocalsound} um , since we have a bit farther to travel than {vocalsound} some of the others , {vocalsound} uh , we 'll have to get done a little quicker . But , um , I mean , it 's just tracing down these bugs . I mean , just exactly this sort of thing of , you know , why {disfmarker} why these features seem to be behaving differently , uh , in California than in Oregon . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Might have something to do with electricity shortage . Uh , we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't have enough electrons here and Uh , but , um Uh , I think , you know , the main reason for having {disfmarker} I mean , it only takes w to run the {disfmarker} the two test sets in {disfmarker} just in computer time is just a day or so , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: So +PhD A: it 's very short interval . +Professor D: yeah . So , I think the who the whole reason for having as long as we have , which was {pause} like a week and a half , is {disfmarker} is because of bugs like that . So Huh So , we 're gonna end up with these same kind of sheets that have the {pause} the percentages and so on just for the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so there are two more columns in the sheets , +Professor D: Oh , I guess it 's the same sheets , +PhD A: two . Yeah , it 's the same sheets , +Professor D: yeah , yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: just with the missing columns filled in . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 'll be good . So , I 'll dis I 'll disregard these numbers . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD A: So , Hynek will try to push for trying to combine , uh , different things ? Or Hmm ? +Professor D: Uh , well that 's {pause} um yeah I mean , I think the question is "" Is there {disfmarker} is there some advantage ? "" I mean , you could just take the best system and say that 's the standard . But the thing is that if different systems are getting at good things , um , a again within the constraint of the resources , if there 's something simple that you can do Now for instance , uh , it 's , I think , very reasonable to have a standard for the terminal 's side and then for the server 's side say , "" Here 's a number of things that could be done . "" So , um , everything that we did could probably just be added on to what Alcatel did , and i it 'd probably work pretty well with them , too . So , um , uh , that 's one {disfmarker} one aspect of it . And then on the terminal 's side , I don't know how much , um , memory and {disfmarker} and CPU it takes , but it seems like the filtering {pause} Uh , I mean , the VAD stuff they both had , right ? And , um , so {disfmarker} and they both had some kind of on - line normalization , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +Professor D: Of sorts , yeah ? So {disfmarker} so , it seems like the main different there is the {disfmarker} is the , uh , filtering . And the filtering {disfmarker} I think if you can {disfmarker} shouldn't take a lot of memory to do that Uh , and I also wouldn't think the CPU , uh , would be much either for that part . So , if you can {disfmarker} if you can add those in {pause} um {pause} then , uh , you can cut the data rate in half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So it seems like the right thing to do is to {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the terminal 's side , take what they did , if it {disfmarker} if it does seem to generalize well to German and Danish , uh , take what they did add in a filter , and add in some stuff on the server 's side and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and that 's probably a reasonable standard . Um {pause} Uh +PhD A: They are working on this already ? Because {disfmarker} yeah , Su - Sunil told me that he was trying already to put some kind of , uh , filtering in the {vocalsound} {pause} France Telecom . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what That would be ideal {disfmarker} would be is that they could , you know , they could actually show that , in fact , a combination of some sort , {vocalsound} uh , would work even better than what {disfmarker} what any of the systems had . And , um , then it would {disfmarker} it would , uh {pause} be something to {disfmarker} to discuss in the meeting . But , uh , not clear what will go on . Um , I mean , on the one hand , um , sometimes people are just anxious to get a standard out there . I mean , you can always have another standard after that , but {vocalsound} this process has gone on for a while on {disfmarker} already and {disfmarker} and people might just wanna pick something and say , "" OK , this is it . "" And then , that 's a standard . Uh , standards are always optional . It 's just that , uh , if you disobey them , then you risk not being able to sell your product , or {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} um And people often work on new standards while an old standard is in place and so on . So it 's not final even if they declared a standard . The other hand , they might just say they just don't know enough yet to {disfmarker} to declare a standard . So you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you will be {disfmarker} you will become experts on this and know more {disfmarker} far more than me about the tha this particular standards process once you {disfmarker} you go to this meeting . So , be interested in hearing . So , uh , I 'd be , uh , interested in hearing , uh , your thoughts now I mean you 're almost done . I mean , you 're done in the sense that , um , you may be able to get some new features from Sunil , and we 'll re - run it . Uh , but other than that , you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically done , right ? So , uh , I 'm interested in hearing {disfmarker} hearing your thoughts about {pause} where you think we should go from this . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , we tried a lot of things in a hurry , and , uh , if we can back off from this now and sort of take our time with something , and not have doing things quickly be quite so much the constraint , what {disfmarker} what you think would be the best thing to do . +PhD A: Uh , well Hmm Well , first , uh , to really have a look at {disfmarker} at the speech {pause} {vocalsound} from these databases because , well , we tried several thing , but we did not really look {vocalsound} at what what 's happening , and {vocalsound} where is the noise , and +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Eh +Professor D: It 's a novel idea . Look at the data . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Or more generally , I guess , what {disfmarker} what is causing the degradation . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Actually , there is one thing that {disfmarker} well {pause} Um , generally we {disfmarker} we think that {vocalsound} most of the errors are within phoneme classes , and so I think it could be interesting to {disfmarker} to see if it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's still true when we add noise , and {vocalsound} so we have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess the confusion ma the confusion matrices are very different when {disfmarker} when we have noise , and when it 's clean speech . And probably , there is much more {pause} between classes errors for noisy speech . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} so , um Yeah , so perhaps we could have a {disfmarker} a large gain , eh , just by looking at improving the , uh , recognition , not of phonemes , but of phoneme classes , simply . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} which is a s a s a simpler problem , perhaps , but {disfmarker} which is perhaps important for noisy speech . +Professor D: The other thing that strikes me , just looking at these numbers is , just taking the best cases , I mean , some of these , of course , even with all of our {disfmarker} our wonderful processing , still are horrible kinds of numbers . But just take the best case , the well - matched {pause} uh , German case after {disfmarker} er well - matched Danish after we {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: the kind of numbers we 're getting are about eight or nine {pause} uh {pause} p percent {pause} error {pause} per digit . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: This is obviously not usable , +PhD A: No . +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Sure . +Professor D: I mean , if you have ten digits for a phone number {comment} I mean , every now and then you 'll get it right . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , {vocalsound} um So , I mean , the other thing is that , uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a and {disfmarker} and also , um {pause} part of what 's nice about this is that this is , uh , {vocalsound} um {pause} a realistic {disfmarker} almost realistic database . I mean , it 's still not people who are really trying to accomplish something , but {disfmarker} but , uh , within the artificial setup , it isn't noise artificially added , you know , simulated , uh , additive noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's real noise condition . And , um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training {disfmarker} the training , I guess , is always done on the close talking +PhD A: No , actually {disfmarker} actually the well - matched condition {pause} is {pause} still quite di still quite difficult . +Professor D: No ? +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} they have all these data from the close mike and from the distant mike , {vocalsound} from different driving condition , open window , closed window , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and they take all of this and they take seventy percent , I think , for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , training is done {vocalsound} on different conditions and different microphones , and testing also is done {pause} on different microphone and conditions . So , probably if we only take the close microphones , {vocalsound} I guess the results should be much much better than this . +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Oh , OK , +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: that explains it partially . Wha - what about i in {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} there is this , the mismatched is , um {pause} the same kind of thing , +Professor D: go ahead . +PhD A: but {pause} the driving conditions , I mean the speed and the kind of road , is different for training and testing , is that right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: And the last condition is close microphone for training and distant for testing . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , OK , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s so {disfmarker} +Professor D: so I see . So , yeah , so the high {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} so the highly mismatched {vocalsound} case {pause} is in some sense a good model for what we 've been , you know , typically talking about when we talk about additive noise in {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} and i i k it does correspond to a realistic situation in the sense that , {vocalsound} um , people might really be trying to , uh , call out telephone numbers or some or something like that , in {disfmarker} in their cars +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and they 're trying to connect to something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um +PhD A: Actually , yeah , it 's very close to clean speech training because , well , because the close microphone {vocalsound} and noisy speech testing , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah . And the well - matched condition {pause} is what you might imagine that you might be able to approach , if you know that this is the application . You 're gonna record a bunch on people in cars and so forth , and do these training . And then , uh , when y you sell it to somebody , they will be a different person with a different car , and so on . So it 's {disfmarker} this is a an optim somewhat optimistic view on it , uh , so , you know , the real thing is somewhere in between the two . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , uh , but +PhD A: But the {disfmarker} I mean , the {pause} th th +Professor D: Even the optimistic one is +PhD A: it doesn't work . +Professor D: Yeah , +PhD A: It {disfmarker} +Professor D: right . Right , it doesn't work . So , in a way , that 's , you know , that 's sort of the dominant thing is that even , say on the development set stuff that we saw , the , uh , the numbers that , uh , that Alcatel was getting when choosing out the best single numbers , {vocalsound} it was just {disfmarker} you know , it wasn't good enough for {disfmarker} for {pause} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} for a real system . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , {vocalsound} um So , uh , we still have stuff to do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , and , uh I don't know So , looking at the data , where , you know {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's th what 's characteristic i e yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing . Does a any you have any thoughts about what else {vocalsound} y you 're thinking that you didn't get to that you would like to do if you had more time ? Uh +PhD E: Oh , f a lot of thing . Because we trying a lot of s {pause} thing , and we doesn't work , {vocalsound} we remove these . Maybe {vocalsound} we trying again with the articulatory feature . I don't know exactly because we tried {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} one experiment that doesn't work . Um , forgot it , something {pause} I don't know exactly +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , tsk {comment} {vocalsound} maybe do better some step the general , {vocalsound} eh , diagram . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I don't know exactly s to think what we can improve . +Professor D: Yeah , cuz a lot of time it 's true , there were a lot of times when we 've tried something and it didn't work right away , even though we had an intuition that there should be something there . And so then we would just stop it . Um And , uh , one of the things {disfmarker} I don't remember the details on , but I remember at some point , when you were working with a second stream , and you tried a low - pass filtering to cepstrum , in some case you got {disfmarker} +PhD E: MSG Yeah . +Professor D: Well , but it was {comment} an MSG - like thing , but it wasn't MSG , right ? Uh , you {disfmarker} y I think in some case you got some little improvement , but it was , you know , sort of a small improvement , and it was a {disfmarker} a big added complication , so you dropped it . But , um , that was just sort of one try , right ? You just took one filter , threw it there , +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: right ? And it seems to me that , um , if that is an important idea , which , you know , might be , that one could work at it for a while , as you 're saying . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor D: And , uh Uh , and you had , you know , you had the multi - band things also , and , you know , there was issue of that . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: Um , Barry 's going to be , uh , continuing working on multi - band things as well . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We were just talking about , um , {vocalsound} some , uh , some work that we 're interested in . Kind of inspired by the stuff by Larry Saul with the , uh {pause} uh , learning articulatory feature in {disfmarker} I think , in the case of his paper {disfmarker} with sonorance based on , uh , multi - band information where you have a {disfmarker} a combination of gradient learning an and , uh , EM . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um , and {pause} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um , so , I think that , you know , this is a , uh {disfmarker} this is a neat data set . Um , and then , uh , as we mentioned before , we also have the {disfmarker} the new , uh , digit set coming up from recordings in this room . So , there 's a lot of things to work with . Um and , uh what I like about it , in a way , is that , uh , the results are still so terrible . Uh {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} I mean , they 're much better than they were , you know . We 're talking about thirty to sixty percent , uh , error rate reduction . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really great stuff to {disfmarker} to do that in relatively short time . But even after that it 's still , you know , so poor that {disfmarker} that , uh , no one could really use it . So , um I think that 's great that {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} and y also because again , it 's not something {disfmarker} sometimes we 've gotten terrible results by taking some data , and artificially , you know , convolving it with some room response , or something {disfmarker} we take a very {disfmarker} Uh , at one point , uh , Brian and I went downstairs into the {disfmarker} the basement where it was {disfmarker} it was in a hallway where it was very reverberant and we {disfmarker} we made some recordings there . And then we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , made a simulation of the {disfmarker} of the room acoustics there and {disfmarker} and applied it to other things , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and uh But it was all pretty artificial , and {disfmarker} and , you know , how often would you really try to have your most crucial conversations in this very reverberant hallway ? Um {pause} So , uh {pause} This is what 's nice about the Aurora data and the data here , is that {disfmarker} is that it 's sort of a realistic room situation {pause} uh , acoustics {disfmarker} acoustic situation , both terms in noise and reflections , and so on and n n And , uh , uh , with something that 's still relatively realistic , it 's still very very hard to do very well . So Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so d well Actually , this is {disfmarker} tha that 's why we {disfmarker} well , it 's a different kind of data . We 're not {disfmarker} we 're not used to work with this kind of data . That 's why we should have a loo more closer look at what 's going on . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Yeah . So this would be the first thing , and then , of course , try to {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} kind of debug what was wrong , eh , when we do Aurora test on the MSG {pause} particularly , and on the multi - band . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . No , I {disfmarker} I think there 's lots of {disfmarker} lots of good things to do with this . So Um So let 's {disfmarker} I guess {pause} You were gonna say something else ? Oh , OK . What do you think ? +PhD C: About +Professor D: Anything +PhD C: About other experiments ? Uh , now , I 'm interested in , um , uh {pause} looking at the experiments where you use , um {pause} uh , data from multiple languages to train the neural net . And I don't know how far , or if you guys even had a chance to try that , but {pause} that would be some it 'd be interesting to me . +PhD A: Yeah , but +Professor D: S b +PhD A: Again , it 's the kind of {disfmarker} of thing that , uh , we were thin thinking {disfmarker} thinking that it would work , but it didn't work . And , eh , so there is kind of {disfmarker} of {pause} not a bug , but something wrong in what we are doing , perhaps . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +PhD A: Uh , something wrong , perhaps in the {disfmarker} just in the {disfmarker} the fact that the labels are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: well +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What worked best is the hand - labeled data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Uh , so , yeah . I don't know if we can get some hand - labeled data from other languages . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It 's not so easy to find . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: But {pause} that would be something interesting t to {disfmarker} to see . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Also , uh , {vocalsound} I mean , there was just the whole notion of having multiple nets that were trained on different data . So one form of different data was {disfmarker} is from different languages , but the other Well , i in fact , uh , m in those experiments it wasn't so much combining multiple nets , it was a single net that had different +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So , first thing is would it be better if they were multiple nets , for some reason ? Second thing is , never mind the different languages , just having acoustic conditions rather than training them all up in one , would it be helpful to have different ones ? So , um That was a question that was kind of raised by Mike Shire 's thesis , and on {disfmarker} in that case in terms of reverberation . Right ? That {disfmarker} that sometimes it might be better to do that . But , um , {vocalsound} I don't think we know for sure . So , um Right . So , next week , we , uh , won't meet because you 'll be in Europe . Whe - when are you two getting back ? +PhD E: Um , I 'm +PhD A: You on Friday or S on Saturday or {pause} ? +PhD E: Sunday +PhD A: S oh yeah , Sunday , yeah . +PhD E: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's less expensive , the price {disfmarker} the price the ticket . +PhD C: +Professor D: Yeah , that 's right . You 've gotta S have a Saturday overnight , right ? +PhD A: I 'll be back on Tuesday . +Professor D: Tuesday . +PhD C: Where {disfmarker} where 's the meeting ? +Professor D: Uh , Amsterdam , I think , yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah , Amsterdam . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yep . Um {pause} So , we 'll skip next week , and we 'll meet two weeks from now . And , uh , I guess the main topic will be , uh , you telling us what happened . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , so Yeah , well , if we don't have an anything else to discuss , we should , uh , turn off the machine and then say the real nasty things . +PhD C: Should we do digits first ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , yeah , digits . +Professor D: Oh yeah , digits ! Yeah . Good point . Yeah , good thinking . Why don't you go ahead . +PhD C: OK . OK . +","In a detailed academic discussion, Professor D and several PhD students (A, C, and E) explore the outcomes of speech recognition tests and strategize future research directions. Initially, Professor D references results received from Stephane and anticipates additional data to compare against. There's mention of reaching out to Sunil, who has been running alternative systems, to include his data in their evaluation. + +Throughout the conversation, they reflect on the performance of the Danish language recognition tests, noting a mix of outcomes—including cases where results remained the same, improved, or deteriorated. PhD A highlights an issue with extracting features, specifically mentioning an inconsistency with numbers obtained from the ICSI OGI system versus other methods. + +Professor D touches on the expected results timeline involving others in their research community and stresses the importance of communicating updates to Hynek, another colleague involved remotely. Discussions turn to the specifics of the recognition performance, revealing that some approaches reduced errors significantly—up to half in particular cases. Professor D expresses an interest in combining the effective aspects of high-performing systems. + +Attention is drawn toward data from various languages and how the team's methods have influenced the error rates, with particular focus on German and Danish speech. PhD C inquires about comparison to other systems, and Professor D clarifies they await the full results, noting so far only development set outcomes are available. The conversation indicates that there's a range of effectiveness, with even the worst-case scenarios showing substantial error rate reduction on development sets. + +PhD A and Professor D delve into the use of spectral subtraction and cepstral parameter adjustments by a competing system from French Telecom and Alcatel. A debate ensues on the efficacy and specifics of these techniques. They examine the differences between their strategies and those yielding positive results, contemplating whether combining various methodologies might enhance overall performance, given constraints on resources such as memory and CPU usage, which are crucial for deploying standards on mobile devices. + +Professor D and PhD C discuss the value of experimenting with models and the schedule for submitting test set results, hinting at an impending conference where these findings will be relevant. They speculate about the potential merits and challenges of setting new standards within their industry. + +As they wrap up, the team pivots towards reflecting on the research process itself, with Professor D soliciting thoughts from the PhD students on their experiences, what they've learned, and possible future avenues for their work. PhD A advocates for a closer examination of the underlying speech data and noise characteristics, while PhD E suggests revisiting some sidelined experiments, like articulatory features. PhD C brings up the topic of training neural networks with data from multiple languages for possibly more robust performance. + +The meeting concludes with plans to reconvene in two weeks, after some team members return from a trip to Amsterdam for the conference, where they hope to glean more insights to inform their research. The atmosphere is collaborative, engaged, and focused on understanding and improving speech recognition technology to effectively cope with noisy environments and language variations." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh it fell off . One , two , three , four , yeah , we're ready . Okay . Welcome to this second meeting . Um it's now quarter after twelve and we're given forty minutes um for this meeting . This is a meeting on functional design . Um and I wanna welcome you all and thank you all for doing some research in between . Um I did {disfmarker} took the minutes from the first meeting and I'll show them to you in a moment . Um I know each of you have a presentation and um in thinking about the forty minutes , I thought it would take only like three minutes for the previous minutes , um each of you having about seven minutes or maybe a little more , maybe a little less for your pre presentations and a little discussion , because there's {disfmarker} I happen to have been told there were some new project requirements and we have to make some uh decision on what functions it will have . Okay ? Is this ap everybody agree with this ? +Industrial Designer: Oops . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and after the meeting there'll be things to be done and as you can see it says we get to get lunch , um and then some more individual work and then putting minutes away and individual actions . {vocalsound} Um but uh now for the minutes of the first meeting . And go to that one . Um as you can see it was this earlier today . Um Kate , Steph , Sarah and myself in our four capacities were present . I opened the meeting , the product was developed uh and reviewed , and we talked about the financial end of it . Um and it had some implications , um the four million sales target and new ideas of not too many buttons , bright colours and some of the influence of the Japanese . And we closed early so you could then proceed with your research and getting your reports together for tod this meeting {vocalsound} Anybody have any questions on those minutes ? Are they complete , did they discuss everything that we covered last time ? 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think so , +Project Manager: Did I miss something ? +Industrial Designer: we we we talked about the the individual roles that we each had as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm afraid I incorporated {vocalsound} that when I said who was present , but {disfmarker} yes , we did , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: and we did a little bit of uh team building of uh of making the pictures , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I accept the minutes . +Project Manager: but I didn't think those were appropriate to the minutes necessarily . So um as a group I think we've {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} they're accepting the minutes . And uh {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Is that what we're supposed to say ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I do . +Project Manager: Good . Um , then we'll move to the three presentations . Okay ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm we need to move this . Who wants to go f first ? {vocalsound} That's as far as it goes . +User Interface: Uh not really meant to touch those microphones . Oh it doesn't have any on , does it ? That's fine . +Marketing: Excellent , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Oy , big loop under the table . +Project Manager: She said we didn't need to screw it in . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , that looks good . +Project Manager: It's doing its thing . There we are . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you very much . Um . One of the the biggest issues I found about um from last meeting was the fact that we need to sell four million of these um remote controls and I think that this is an opportunity to really take Real Reaction in the direction of of similar {disfmarker} of handheld tools that have been used and are used by many of us and to kind of bring the remote control into the si same realm as an accessible um useful electronic device , as opposed to something that is lost in the couch and what have you . So um my main goal here is to re-envision the remote control in in this context and to think about menu functionality and current technology and the fact that it could be interactive with other tools . Um some of the research uh in the market has shown that people really are not happy with remote controls as they are now , and um that means we do need to make some decisions about what what keys or or buttons on the on the remote control to perhaps keep and and what ones to discard . And if we devote some energy into this , I think the um recent productions of Real Reaction , the I go everywhere power and the high definition D_V_D_ players {disfmarker} although it makes immediate sense to {vocalsound} have our remote control interact with these , I think we can also use this as a platform to make it interact with other tools . And um in fact I think the high definition D_V_D_ players and all of this will come along in the uh {disfmarker} will only benefit from the positive feedback {vocalsound} from our well designed tool . So again , most uh users really dislike the current look and feel of remote controls . Um {vocalsound} fifty percent {disfmarker} I think of all these uh numbers the most important is fifty percent of user say they only use ten percent of the buttons . And eighty percent of users , and if we think about this {vocalsound} there are a lot of uh television , D_V_D_ , stereo remote control users out there , eighty percent would spend more money on a remote control that looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} can I ask where these figures come from , is this market research we've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um it was market research and there were a hundred people in the room , so eighty out of a hundred said they would spend more money . +Project Manager: Now in between , as the Project Manager , they sent me an email from the powers that be +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um that teletext is outdated um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the internet is coming in as important , but that they want this remote control to only be for T_V_ um with incorporating the corporate image , colour and slogan . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Well I think we can {disfmarker} I I think we can really focus on this remote and and again bring the Real Reaction um brand in in and and get some positive marketing for our other tools , even if we directly don't um advertise {vocalsound} for the I go everywhere line . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So an interesting um element was the would you pay more for speech recognition question . So these market research uh uh questionnaires {vocalsound} looked into your your uh concern about technology +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and s specifically wanted to find out information about speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now the early adopters , those of us who grew up with technology and uh luck lucky for us have the uh cash to to pay for it , the young age group without the mortgages and responsibilities , ninety one percent of them {vocalsound} would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Very interesting , I I leave this up to the group to decide if we wanna use this uh if {disfmarker} and you know , the the designers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but ninety one percent , fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a large enough target market to target it ? +Marketing: Well , I I I think {disfmarker} especially in terms of growth , I think this would be a very smart group to target . I mean s three quarters of the next age group , twenty five to thirty five are interested , and uh with the technologies improving , if we can get these uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In real numbers , does the ninety one percent and the seventy six percent translate to ex in excess of the four million ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . To {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um yes . +Project Manager: Or eight million . +Marketing: Yes . But would you pay more and does it work and is it approachable and and did I know that it was it was an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: that's a that's a very good question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if speech recognition should be um should be included , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but I think it's an interesting {disfmarker} I think that maybe shows more about uh being open to technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it definitely needs uh a lot more research +Marketing: Shall I go back ? +User Interface: on like how much more it would be and any , you know , existing examples , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and what reactions to them have been , and that sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How d I'm wondering how how ou how our target price compares with the the typical price of these things . I expect an Industrial Designer should know that , but if we're aiming to to build this thing for twelve Euros fifty , um is that a lot or a little ? +Marketing: Exactly . I mean I I I uh did not receive any information on that , but I think the competition , sussing out what other people are doing and what's in the pipeline is very very important , because um there is a question about do you want an L_C_D_ screen and and that wasn't responded to , but uh some of the larger remotes do have screens where you can navigate , you know , so it turns into something {disfmarker} uh perhaps you all have seen uh the Osbournes where Ozzy Osbourne is is attempting to manage his super entertainment system with something that looks like a uh a small tray . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh surely he's in the wrong age group . +Marketing: You know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} I a and I think , you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He must be w one of a s small population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you {disfmarker} Kate , you're exactly right there . {vocalsound} But I think the key is to get the early adopters , people who are familiar with technology and and uh they'll be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we're not looking at whether they're early adopters on that screen , +Marketing: Uh , mm . +Project Manager: that's looking at age groups . +Marketing: Exactly . I {vocalsound} yes , and I'm making and I'm making the the uh uh leap that people who are familiar {disfmarker} younger people are l are more familiar with technology than than older people . Or comfortable , +Project Manager: Leap . {vocalsound} Hmm . Mm . +Marketing: you know , um so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , you had the other power channel . +Marketing: I think the most important thing is an attractive streamlined remote control and to be extraordinarily reductionist , power , channel , volume and everything else is is uh up to the designers . {vocalsound} And this is this is also supported by the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . That's my contribution . +Project Manager: Alright . And we'll turn to the next presentation . I think she said we don't need to screw it in , just stick it in . And then press , what ? F F_N_ and F_ eight . Next to the control button on the bottom , and then F_ eight at the top . +User Interface: Yeah , press them . +Project Manager: And then w be patient . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , here we go . +Project Manager: Tada . +Industrial Designer: And if you want it to go into slide show mode , it's that little button there . +User Interface: Can I not just uh do each one in order ? +Industrial Designer: I you can if you like , it it {disfmarker} that that just sets it up to do a p a p +Project Manager: There we are . Yay . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: no that one , that one there . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: Left , left a bit , left a bit , that one , yep . +User Interface: That ? Right , technical functions design . Uh well I think first off , basically I do agree with what Sarah has defined as as uh your personal preferences,yeah . I think we need uh a more streamlined volume with no extraneous functions . So my method was to look at the existing remotes and what functions they have . And what we all need to discuss is whether we want these functions uh pretty much the same as what existing remotes have . If we can build on this with the speech recognition , that's not something I'd thought about at all , but it's also something we can discuss . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and and I presume we can miss out the functions really to to a video or D_V_D_ remote control , if this is only gonna be a , you know , satellite , cable , T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: T_V_ only . +User Interface: So these are two models of existing remote controls . Uh the one on the left seems to be a fairly uh standard universal remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ugh . +User Interface: It has fast-forward , stop , play , all relating to movies . It also has {disfmarker} seems to have channel up and channel down , which is which is more what you'd expect from a , you know , like a Sky or cable remote control +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: where you've got hundreds of channels instead of a merely terrestrial one . Uh but I think we should be looking more along the lines of the one on the right , which has {disfmarker} it also has play , stop and pause and everything , I don't think we need them at all . I think we just need channel selection , volume up , volume down and I think an an enter function where you can access {disfmarker} it's not like teletext , but along the same lines , access things on the screen . Uh not related to the internet one that you mentioned , because that'd be far outside our budget and what we want this to do . +Project Manager: Mm . And exceed the requirements they're expecting of us . +User Interface: So it really exceed the requirements , 'cause the requirements really are just {disfmarker} want to be able to change channels and functions , which is more a text on the screen thing than uh than actual buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: o I was thinking something {disfmarker} some smooth , sleek , little remote control with big user-friendly buttons and uh a menu that you can access . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Uh but then I do think we need to discuss the speech um recognition possibility . +Project Manager: Okay . Any uh thing else you wanna add ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But we could go back to the pictures of the {disfmarker} uh , what're they called ? The pictures of the remote controls and possibly discuss what we think about them , +Marketing: Or if {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} maybe should hear what Kate has to say first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's hear what Kate has to say . +User Interface: Okay then . +Marketing: Maybe afterwards we could do a uh whiteboard with that {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the one on the right as a as a basis . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Whiteboard session . +Project Manager: I think the white {disfmarker} that one on the right is , as well as less cluttered , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Definitely less cluttered and {disfmarker} I mean but still it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's there +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: I was just {disfmarker} I'll just uh resume something else I was gonna say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The the style of these is terrible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I I really think we need to uh not only possibly even materials , like the type of plastic used , but everything including size and shape of buttons , positioning of buttons , the actual shape of the hand-held device , colours , just every e yeah , everything to do with this has to be revolutionised . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The ergonomics , the way it fits in your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's that for now . +Industrial Designer: Cheers . Mm , I haven't actually got a display on my screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Still , I'll do without that . Okay um , now I wanna bring us down to earth again I'm afraid and talk about the actual practicalities of how the thing needs to work . {vocalsound} Um oh and this is the methodology I used in preparing for this meeting . Um basically I've been doing a little bit of web-based research , {vocalsound} and if I had a design team , I would've been discussing my ideas with 'em . But the the net result is that I've come up with a first cut for the working design that I'd like to discuss with you . So , let's go back to what the basic function of a remote control is . It's for sending a message , um typically um via infrared . {vocalsound} And the the basic components we've got to build in for our twelve Euros fifty are um an energy source , the user interface and {disfmarker} which will um in incorporate um an integrated circuit that actually composes the message um based on what the {disfmarker} which buttons the user presses , we turn that into a message , um and then we need a sending mechanism to send it to the receiver . Now I would have hoped {disfmarker} I think that's my only slide actually , yeah . I would have have hoped to um do you a pretty PowerPoint slide of um my first cut design , but unfortunately the technology defeated me , so if you'll bear with me I'll do it on the whiteboard . {vocalsound} So we want an energy source which is there . And we've got to think about what that might be . +Project Manager: Hmm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh we obviously don't want wires on this thing . Uh typically it would be a battery , but I'm open to suggestions . {vocalsound} Um and then we have the the user interface . Oops . And the main components in there are the the th the chip that actually has the intelligence of the machine that translates button presses into a message , which it then transfers to some sending mechanism , which encodes it and sends the message to the receiver . So those are the basic things that we've got to get in for our twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Right . But those things {disfmarker} as long as we can get those components , the block , that that rectangle for the user interface , is where the user comes in of {disfmarker} what what does it look like ? What do the buttons look like ? Uh what does it feel like ? That's where the user interface is really coming into its own . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The technical end is what's actually gonna be in there , but also it has to be easy enough to change or repair if something goes wrong . For example the battery energy source or um what if the chip , for whatever reason , breaks down after a certain amount of time , do you just replace it ? Um is there any um {disfmarker} because it may be in the same area with several other user interfaces , like for D_V_D_s , movies , whatever . Um does it have to have a a way of being segregated from the others , in a different frequency or something ? +Industrial Designer: Well I may be wrong here , but I'd been thinking of this device as being a a cheap mass-produced device . We're trying to sell four million of 'em , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: um that's that's , you know , that's almost one in every tenth household or whatever it is . Um and I hadn't thought of it as being a reparable thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: you just {disfmarker} if it goes wrong you chuck it out , and that's why I'm a bit concerned . I like the idea of speech recognition , that's a great idea , but I'm not convinced we can put it into this box for the price that we need {disfmarker} gonna need to hit . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Whoop . +Marketing: Do we have um ki some idea of how much it would cost to create a device that has these basic elements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Isn't that your job ? +Marketing: Because then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: the chip composer marketing . Oh no , the chip composer sender . +Project Manager: Mm . What they cost . +Industrial Designer: Um , I'm I'm I'm hoping that my personal coach is gonna {vocalsound} give me some advice on that , if you're asking me , +Marketing: I I don't believe I know , um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Be because then we would ha ha figure out how much we had to play with in terms of user interface and this look and feel idea . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does it does seem as if we're just to do something really simple and mass-produced , the {disfmarker} which is pretty much the same as these existing models , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: just maybe a little bit more inspired , +Marketing: Inspired ? +User Interface: but basically just the same . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Although what what uh suddenly came into my head is , you know how they always take two A_A_ batteries which which is really not very efficient at all . Could it be possible to have uh , you know , like a rechargeable internal battery , like , well , like an M_P_ three player does ? With that you could jus or a mobile phone or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could {disfmarker} you know , you just plug into a power source for a couple of hours , and then it's recharged for ages and ages and ages , and you don't have to worry with replacing A_A_ batteries , +Marketing: Well +User Interface: which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: that has another element , which is if every time you're done using the remote you put it on a charger , then you {disfmarker} then it has a place . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You'd never need uh batteries would y uh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but it also has a place , +User Interface: And it's not stuck down the back of the sofa . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then again I d I don't know if this is within our price range or not . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh think that's a very interesting idea , but um I'm not a very good industrial designer and I don't know much about what these things cost . {vocalsound} I'll do some research for the next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's better than my idea about solar , probably . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well solar may not be so good when you're watching T_V_ in the night , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well it is just so annoying how {disfmarker} +Marketing: Depen +Project Manager: It would have to sor store up the energy +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess . +Project Manager: and then use it . Solar can do that . +Industrial Designer: We may be talking quite heavy then . +Project Manager: M yeah , that would be too heavy +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'd cost too much . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , but just a rechargeable internal battery would probably {disfmarker} I mean it might cost more to {disfmarker} at first to develop and to install , +Marketing: Mm-hmm +User Interface: but for long-term use it'll be so much more convenient and economic than fiddling around trying to replace chunky A_A_ batteries and not having any in your kitchen drawer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and +Industrial Designer: So do you think we might make that a selling point if it was something that we found we could afford to develop ? +User Interface: you know f +Marketing: Definitely , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause I'm thinking in terms of um uh {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} loss and breakage of um remotes , how much of that is is to do with it not really having a uh a home , a um a nest , a place to live , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Sort of have its little dock that you could put it in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if you can dock it , um you know , you could s argue that this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the dock could look very fancy and that could be your inspiration of having it looking decent . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Still I don't know if it's quite within our price range . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause you are talking about another component , like another piece of hardware . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are we agreed as to what our target group is though ? Pretty much , so that we'd be looking for the younger end . +Marketing: Well I I brought up some {disfmarker} exactly , but I think you raised some good questions about are there enough of these people out there , or are they making purchasing decisions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: You know , +Industrial Designer: I was wondering that , +Marketing: these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I ag I agree that there there're people with uh how can I put it , more money than sense and who are liable to buy {vocalsound} something new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I s usually put more money than brains . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Bu but what I was gonna say was , although they they may be buying um , you know , personal music devices and all that , +Marketing: Oh oh oh I'll make a note of that , Kate . Good , good comment . +Industrial Designer: are they necessarily buying T_V_ remote controls ? Because they probably live in a household that has a T_V_ if they're at the lower end of the age range , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It might be good to know um uh who , you know , who's actually buying televisions and are we in a uh uh s region where people have more than one television in a home ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think we've got a big hill to climb here , haven't we ? I mean we've gotta persuade people who've got a remote control 'cause it came with the telly that they should buy our product instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or do we s make sure that it goes to the man through the manufacturer ? We sell to the manufacturer as the remote that goes with it . +Industrial Designer: Right , good point . Yeah , yeah okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , good point . +User Interface: That's probably more what it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What would be a more efficient way of doing it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , and and some of our D_V_D_ players incidentally have them , because we have the relationship with our own department , but moreover we need to to go for the the manufacturers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not gonna get any resolutions by the end of the day , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably not . +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um the other thing that we're supposed to do is make decision on our functions . Our functions , we've so far decided , I think , that power , channel , volume make it attractive . Um it has to have an enter key and of course the number keys . It has to have big user-friendly buttons and sh n {vocalsound} definitely we wanna be inspired that the current {vocalsound} styles are just plain awful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do we need {disfmarker} um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that agreeable to everyone ? +Marketing: Br actually , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: the enter key {disfmarker} I have a chart here that I didn't include . Um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want the gizmo ? +Marketing: yeah , which might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Throw some light on that . +Marketing: Th yeah , th those are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} felt like had a lot of charts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um actually we're , you know , we are almost a half hour out of the forty minutes , so we have to get close to finishing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , I I {disfmarker} my only comment is I think maybe um we could somehow include an enter key in like a power key if power power was enter and pow that was my only {disfmarker} just really in terms of streamlining . +Project Manager: Ah . Mm-hmm . Okay . Enter , power as a s oh um a sum simultaneous key . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Exactly . Again , you know , +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Marketing: thinking of menus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry , +Project Manager: Would that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: H how does that work ? +User Interface: I was miles away . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} so so how does that work , +User Interface: I was re I was reading the chart to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um well +Project Manager: uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: how do you avoid switching the thing off when you actually wanna press enter ? +Marketing: if you're pressing enter , the the thing would already be on , and so maybe um when you press power , initially it turns it on , press power again and use that as an enter um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you'd have to have an off te off key . +Marketing: so you press power after you've um {disfmarker} well I was thinking maybe you {disfmarker} to turn it off you'd have to press power twice in succession , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and maybe power follows something like a channel up channel down power , and then that would make that choice . +Industrial Designer: It's not getting a bit complicated ? Could granny do this , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or are we just not aiming at granny ? +Marketing: Or y yeah . Or something that has a a turning dial , where at the far end is on or off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's got an iPod then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} um I wish . Anyway , uh {vocalsound} that was the only comment about um some of the the decisions people have made , what's most important . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It's definitely channel , volume , power . +User Interface: Yeah , things like screen settings and audio settings , I would generally do them on the actual television itself , +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: like here you have a you know , a little flap th with a little control panel on the actual box itself . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: I I wouldn't know how to do it using a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so um I would say that they are definitely less relevant . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay , well . Thanks for looking at that . +Project Manager: I guess easy to use is the other thing that we want 'em to be able to do . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: As you said , you know , don't make it too hard for the granny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We don't wanna outsmart {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just joined that set last week . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} first grandchild arrived . +Marketing: Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so are we agreed then of those things ? And let's go back to agenda +Marketing: D +Project Manager: and hook me up . Mm . This oughta be fun . It probably won't go the first time , it'll probably be like a g mess . Come on . Uh it lost it off here . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh you're fine . It's fine . +Project Manager: No , it was up there , but I couldn't see it down here . Mm . This time it should be both . There we go . +Industrial Designer: How do you do that ? How do you make it do both ? +Project Manager: Um you have to keep doing the financi the the F_N_ and F_ eight to {disfmarker} five minutes to finish , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , it toggles through , +Project Manager: thank you a lot for telling me . +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right , +Marketing: I think you have to cycle through . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're ready to close . Um {gap} will be completed q questionnaire , um then we'll have some time for individual work to continue our research um and I'll put some minutes of this meeting together . Um your individual assignments are for um Kate to do the components , for you , Steph , to do the user interface and for you the trend-watching . Um and each of us will get help from our coach . Are we agreed to get ourselves together and then have lunch ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds good . +Project Manager: Then that's the end of this meeting . And I hope that's good enough for her {vocalsound} to tell her that's the end . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We didn't come to any sort of decision on the functions though . +Project Manager: Well I think I went over the functions and wrote them down and marked them . +User Interface: Alright , well that's fine then . +Project Manager: Um that's what I went over and nobody was objecting to them . +Marketing: Okay . Um and you'd mentioned {disfmarker} I I was just gonna say , could you reiterate the new project requirements , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because it {disfmarker} they were {disfmarker} it has to be for a T_V_ , just to keep myself {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um the teletext is outdated , +Industrial Designer: So we're still in meeting , aren't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the internet is important , +Marketing: Yeah , I think I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's only to be for a T_V_ and it must include the corporate image , colour and slogan um +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: which I think is more in the user uh range , with Steph . +User Interface: Mm . Sorry , what what actually are these {disfmarker} is that the yellow and black ? +Project Manager: It doesn't tell me . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: From their {disfmarker} I'll just use it from their website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . Thank you . +","Summary: + +The project management team convened for their second meeting to discuss the functional design of a product, with a time slot of forty minutes allocated. The team briefly reviewed the minutes from the first meeting, which covered product development and financial goals, including a sales target of four million units. Present members from different functions—Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Design—concurred on the previous meeting's minutes and discussed new project requirements such as the elimination of teletext in favor of features more relevant to TV use, incorporating corporate branding into the design, and the possibility of including advanced technologies like speech recognition within budget constraints. Marketing research suggested a focus on user-friendly design with few essential buttons and the adoption of new technology to appeal to a younger audience. The team planned to continue individual research after the meeting, with further assistance from personal coaches. Key decisions about the remote's functions were summarized, and the meeting closed with assignments distributed for further development." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're on . +Professor C: OK , what are we talking about today ? +PhD B: I don't know . Do you have news from the conference talk ? Uh , that was programmed for yesterday {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday morning on video conference . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: Well +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry . +Grad E: Oh . Conference call . +Professor C: I know {disfmarker} now I know what you 're talking about . No , nobody 's told me anything . +PhD B: Alright . +PhD A: Oh , this was the , uh , talk where they were supposed to try to decide {disfmarker} +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to decide what to do , +PhD A: Ah , right . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , that would have been a good thing to find out before this meeting , that 's . No , I have no {disfmarker} I have no idea . Um , Uh , so I mean , let 's {disfmarker} let 's assume for right now that we 're just kind of plugging on ahead , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: because even if they tell us that , uh , the rules are different , uh , we 're still interested in doing what we 're doing . So what are you doing ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , well , we 've {disfmarker} a little bit worked on trying to see , uh , what were the bugs and the problem with the latencies . +PhD D: To improve {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , We took {disfmarker} first we took the LDA filters and , {vocalsound} uh , we designed new filters , using uh recursive filters actually . +Professor C: So when you say "" we "" , is that something Sunil is doing or is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor C: Who is doing that ? +PhD B: Uh , us . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , oh . Oh , OK . +PhD B: So we took the filters {disfmarker} the FIR filters {vocalsound} and we {comment} designed , uh , IIR filters that have the same frequency response . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Well , similar , but that have shorter delays . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they had two filters , one for the low frequency bands and another for the high frequency bands . And so we redesigned two filters . And the low frequency band has sixty - four milliseconds of delay , and the high frequency band filter has something like eleven milliseconds compared to the two hundred milliseconds of the IIR filters . But it 's not yet test . So we have the filters but we still have to implement a routine that does recursive filtering +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: You {disfmarker} you had a discussion with Sunil about this though ? +PhD B: No . No . +Professor C: Uh - huh . Yeah , you should talk with him . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I mean , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole problem that happened before was coordination , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so you need to discuss with him what we 're doing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , cuz they could be doing the same thing and {disfmarker} or something . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know if th that 's what they were trying to {disfmarker} They were trying to do something different like taking , uh {disfmarker} well , using filter that takes only a past +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: and this is just a little bit different . But I will I will send him an email and tell him exactly what we are doing , so . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . Um , +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} We just {disfmarker} we just have to be in contact more . I think that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fact that we {disfmarker} we did that with {disfmarker} had that thing with the latencies was indicative of the fact that there wasn't enough communication . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Um , Yeah . Well , there is w one , um , remark about these filters , that they don't have a linear phase . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: Well , I don't know , perhaps it {disfmarker} perhaps it doesn't hurt because the phase is almost linear but . Um , and so , yeah , for the delay I gave you here , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , computed on the five hertz modulation frequency , which is the {disfmarker} mmm , well , the most important for speech so . Uh , this is the first thing . +Professor C: So that would be , uh , a reduction of a hundred and thirty - six milliseconds , +PhD D: The low f f +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: which , uh {disfmarker} What was the total we ended up with through the whole system ? +PhD B: Three hundred and thirty . +Professor C: So that would be within {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , but there are other points actually , uh , which will perhaps add some more delay . Is that some other {disfmarker} other stuff in the process were perhaps not very {disfmarker} um perf well , not very correct , like the downsampling which w was simply dropping frames . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , so we will try also to add a nice downsampling having a filter that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: well , a low - pass filter at {disfmarker} at twenty - five hertz . Uh , because wh when {disfmarker} when we look at the LDA filters , well , they are basically low - pass but they leave a lot of what 's above twenty - five hertz . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , and so , yeah , this will be another filter which would add ten milliseconds again . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , yeah , and then there 's a third thing , is that , um , basically the way on - line normalization was done uh , is just using this recursion on {disfmarker} on the um , um , on the feature stream , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} but this is a filter , so it has also a delay . Uh , and when we look at this filter actually it has a delay of eighty - five milliseconds . So if we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Eighty - five . +PhD B: Yeah . If we want to be very correct , so if we want to {disfmarker} the estimation of the mean t t to {disfmarker} to be {disfmarker} well , the right estimation of the mean , we have to t to take eighty - five milliseconds in the future . Mmm . +Professor C: Hmm ! That 's a little bit of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . Um , But , well , when we add up everything it 's {disfmarker} it will be alright . We would be at six so , sixty - five , plus ten , plus {disfmarker} for the downsampling , plus eighty - five for the on - line normalization . So it 's +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus eighty for the neural net and PCA . +Professor C: yeah , but then there 's {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD B: So it would be around two hundred and forty {disfmarker} so , well , +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just barely in there . +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus the frames , but it 's OK . +PhD A: What 's the allowable ? +Professor C: Two - fifty , unless they changed the rules . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which there is {disfmarker} there 's some discussion of . +PhD A: What were they thinking of changing it to ? +Professor C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , well the people who had very low latency want it to be low {disfmarker} uh , very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very very narrow , uh , latency bound . And the people who have longer latency don't . So . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD B: So , yeah . +Professor C: Unfortunately we 're the main ones with long latency , but +PhD A: Ah ! +Professor C: But , uh , +PhD B: Yeah , and basically the best proposal had something like thirty or forty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: you know , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: So . Well . +Professor C: Yeah , so they were basically {disfmarker} I mean , they were more or less trading computation for performance and we were , uh , trading latency for performance . And they were dealing with noise explicitly and we weren't , and so I think of it as complementary , that if we can put the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Think of it as what ? +Professor C: Complementary . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I think the best systems {disfmarker} so , uh , everything that we did in in a way it was {disfmarker} it was just adamantly insisting on going in with a brain damaged system , which is something {disfmarker} actually , we 've done a lot over the last thirteen years . Uh , {vocalsound} which is we say , well this is the way we should do it . And then we do it . And then someone else does something that 's straight forward . So , w th w this was a test that largely had additive noise and we did {disfmarker} we adde did absolutely nothing explicitly to handle ad additive noise . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: We just , uh , you know , trained up systems to be more discriminant . And , uh , we did this , uh , RASTA - like filtering which was done in the log domain and was tending to handle convolutional noise . We did {disfmarker} we actually did nothing about additive noise . So , um , the , uh , spectral sub subtraction schemes a couple places did seem to seem to do a nice job . And so , uh , we 're talking about putting {disfmarker} putting some of that in while still keeping some of our stuff . I think you should be able to end up with a system that 's better than both but clearly the way that we 're operating for this other stuff does involved some latency to {disfmarker} to get rid of most of that latency . To get down to forty or fifty milliseconds we 'd have to throw out most of what we 're doing . And {disfmarker} and , uh , I don't think there 's any good reason for it in the application actually . I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're speaking to a recognizer on a remote server and , uh , having a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a quarter second for some processing to clean it up . It doesn't seem like it 's that big a deal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: These aren't large vocabulary things so the decoder shouldn't take a really long time , and . +PhD A: And I don't think anybody 's gonna notice the difference between a quarter of a second of latency and thirty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: So . No . What {disfmarker} what does {disfmarker} wa was your experience when you were doing this stuff with , uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the surgical , uh , uh , microscopes and so forth . Um , how long was it from when somebody , uh , finished an utterance to when , uh , something started happening ? +PhD A: Um , we had a silence detector , so we would look for the end of an utterance based on the silence detector . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I {disfmarker} I can't remember now off the top of my head how many frames of silence we had to detect before we would declare it to be the end of an utterance . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , but it was , uh , I would say it was probably around the order of two hundred and fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's when you 'd start doing things . +PhD A: Yeah , we did the back trace at that point to get the answer . +Professor C: Yeah . Of course that didn't take too long at that point . +PhD A: No , no it was pretty quick . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} so you had a +PhD A: this w +Professor C: so you had a {disfmarker} a quarter second delay before , uh , plus some little processing time , +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: and then the {disfmarker} the microscope would start moving or something . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: And there 's physical inertia there , so probably the {disfmarker} the motion itself was all {disfmarker} +PhD A: And it felt to , uh , the users that it was instantaneous . I mean , as fast as talking to a person . It {disfmarker} th I don't think anybody ever complained about the delay . +Professor C: Yeah , so you would think as long as it 's under half a second or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not an expert on that +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: but . +PhD A: I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I don't think you can really tell . A person {disfmarker} I don't think a person can tell the difference between , uh , you know , a quarter of a second and a hundred milliseconds , and {disfmarker} I 'm not even sure if we can tell the difference between a quarter of a second and half a second . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean it just {disfmarker} it feels so quick . +Professor C: Yeah . I mean , basically if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you said , uh , um , "" what 's the , uh , uh {disfmarker} what 's the shortest route to the opera ? "" and it took half a second to get back to you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , {vocalsound} it would be f I mean , it might even be too abrupt . You might have to put in a s a s {vocalsound} a delay . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , it may feel different than talking to a person +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: because when we talk to each other we tend to step on each other 's utterances . So like if I 'm asking you a question , you may start answering before I 'm even done . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So it {disfmarker} it would probably feel different +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: but I don't think it would feel slow . +Professor C: Right . Well , anyway , I mean , I think {disfmarker} we could cut {disfmarker} we know what else , we could cut down on the neural net time by {disfmarker} by , uh , playing around a little bit , going more into the past , or something like that . We t we talked about that . +PhD A: So is the latency from the neural net caused by how far ahead you 're looking ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And there 's also {disfmarker} well , there 's the neural net and there 's also this , uh , uh , multi - frame , uh , uh , KLT . +PhD A: Wasn't there {disfmarker} Was it in the , uh , recurrent neural nets where they weren't looking ahead at all ? +Professor C: They weren't looking ahead much . They p they looked ahead a little bit . +PhD A: A little bit . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean , you could do this with a recurrent net . And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} But you also could just , um , I mean , we haven't experimented with this but I imagine you could , um , uh , predict a , uh {disfmarker} um , a label , uh , from more in the past than in {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than in the future . I mean , we 've d we 've done some stuff with that before . I think it {disfmarker} it works OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We 've always had {disfmarker} usually we used the symmetric windows +Professor C: So . +PhD A: but I don't think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} but we played a little bit with {disfmarker} with asymmetric , guys . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You can do it . So . So , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what you 're busy with , s messing around with this , +PhD B: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: yeah . And , uh , +PhD D: Also we were thinking to {disfmarker} to , uh , apply the eh , spectral subtraction from Ericsson +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and to {disfmarker} to change the contextual KLT for LDA . +PhD A: Change the what ? +PhD D: The contextual KLT . +PhD A: I 'm missing that last word . Context +Professor C: K {disfmarker} KLT . +PhD A: KLT . +PhD D: KLT {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . KLT . +PhD A: Oh , KLT . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: KLT , I 'm sorry . Uh , to change and use LDA discriminative . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD A: What is the advantage of that ? +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's that by the for the moment we have , uh , something that 's discriminant and nonlinear . And the other is linear but it 's not discriminant at all . Well , it 's it 's a linear transformation , that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So at least just to understand maybe what the difference was between how much you were getting from just putting the frames together and how much you 're getting from the discriminative , what the nonlinearity does for you or doesn't do for you . Just to understand it a little better I guess . +PhD B: Mmm . Well {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} yeah . Actually what we want to do , perhaps it 's to replace {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have something that 's discriminant but linear , also . And to see if it {disfmarker} if it improves ov over {disfmarker} over the non - discriminant linear transformation . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: And if the neural net is better than this or , well . So . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's what I meant , is to see whether {disfmarker} whether it {disfmarker} having the neural net really buys you anything . +PhD B: Ye Mmm . +Professor C: Uh , I mean , it doe did look like it buys you something over just the KLT . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: But maybe it 's just the discrimination and {disfmarker} and maybe {disfmarker} yeah , maybe the nonlinear discrimination isn't necessary . +PhD D: S maybe . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD D: Maybe . +Professor C: Good {disfmarker} good to know . But the other part you were saying was the spectral subtraction , so you just kind of , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: At what stage do you do that ? Do you {disfmarker} you 're doing that , um {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: So it would be on the um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the mel frequency bands , +PhD D: We was think +PhD B: so . Yeah , be before everything . +Professor C: OK , +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: so just do that on the mel f +PhD D: we {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} nnn We {disfmarker} we was thinking to do before after VAD or +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD D: Oh , {comment} we don't know exactly when it 's better . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Before after VAD or {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the way that they 're {disfmarker} +PhD D: and then +PhD B: Um . +Professor C: uh , one thing that would be no {disfmarker} good to find out about from this conference call is that what they were talking about , what they 're proposing doing , was having a third party , um , run a good VAD , and {disfmarker} and determine boundaries . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then given those boundaries , then have everybody do the recognition . +PhD D: Begin to work . +Professor C: The reason for that was that , um , uh {disfmarker} if some one p one group put in the VAD and another didn't , uh , or one had a better VAD than the other since that {disfmarker} they 're not viewing that as being part of the {disfmarker} the task , and that any {disfmarker} any manufacturer would put a bunch of effort into having some s kind of good speech - silence detection . It still wouldn't be perfect but I mean , e the argument was "" let 's not have that be part of this test . "" "" Let 's {disfmarker} let 's separate that out . "" And so , uh , I guess they argued about that yesterday and , yeah , I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} don't know the answer but we should find out . I 'm sure we 'll find out soon what they , uh {disfmarker} what they decided . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there 's the question of the VAD but otherwise it 's {disfmarker} it 's on the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the mel fil filter bank , uh , energies I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: You do {disfmarker} doing the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And you 're {disfmarker} you 're subtracting in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} I guess it 's power {disfmarker} power domain , uh , or {disfmarker} or magnitude domain . Probably power domain , right ? +PhD B: I guess it 's power domain , yeah . +Professor C: why +PhD B: I don't remember exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: I don't remember . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} yeah , so it 's before everything else , +Professor C: yep . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , if you look at the theory , it 's {disfmarker} it should be in the power domain but {disfmarker} but , uh , I 've seen implementations where people do it in the magnitude domain +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: I have asked people why and they shrug their shoulders and say , "" oh , it works . "" So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , and there 's this {disfmarker} I guess there 's this mysterious {disfmarker} I mean people who do this a lot I guess have developed little tricks of the trade . I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this , um {disfmarker} you don't just subtract the {disfmarker} the estimate of the noise spectrum . You subtract th that times {disfmarker} +PhD B: A little bit more and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} or less , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And generated this {disfmarker} this , +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: um , so you have the estimation of the power spectra of the noise , and you multiply this by a factor which is depend dependent on the SNR . So . Well . +PhD D: Hmm , maybe . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: When the speech lev when the signal level is more important , compared to this noise level , the coefficient is small , and around one . But when the power le the s signal level is uh small compared to the noise level , the coefficient is more important . And this reduce actually the music musical noise , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD B: uh which is more important during silence portions , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: when the s the energy 's small . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: So there are tricks like this but , mmm . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD A: Is the estimate of the noise spectrum a running estimate ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what differs from different {disfmarker} different tasks and different s uh , spectral subtraction methods . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have , uh , fair assurance that , uh , the noise is {disfmarker} is quite stationary , then the smartest thing to do is use as much data as possible to estimate the noise , get a much better estimate , and subtract it off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But if it 's varying at all , which is gonna be the case for almost any real situation , you have to do it on - line , uh , with some forgetting factor or something . +PhD A: So do you {disfmarker} is there some long window that extends into the past over which you calculate the average ? +Professor C: Well , there 's a lot of different ways of computing the noise spectrum . So one of the things that , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch did , uh {disfmarker} and pas and other people {disfmarker} actually , he 's {disfmarker} he wasn't the only one I guess , was to , uh , take some period of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of speech and in each band , uh , develop a histogram . So , to get a decent histogram of these energies takes at least a few seconds really . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean you can do it with a smaller amount but it 's pretty rough . And , um , in fact I think the NIST standard method of determining signal - to - noise ratio is based on this . +PhD A: A couple seconds ? +Professor C: So {disfmarker} No , no , it 's based on this kind of method , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: this histogram method . So you have a histogram . Now , if you have signal and you have noise , you basically have these two bumps in the histogram , which you could approximate as two Gaussians . +PhD A: But wh don't they overlap sometimes ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So you have a mixture of two Gaussians . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right ? And you can use EM to figure out what it is . You know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so basically now you have this mixture of two Gaussians , you {disfmarker} you n know what they are , and , uh {disfmarker} I mean , sorry , you estimate what they are , and , uh , so this gives you what the signal is and what the noise e energy is in that band in the spectrum . And then you look over the whole thing and now you have a noise spectrum . So , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch and others have used that kind of method . And the other thing to do is {disfmarker} which is sort of more trivial and obvious {comment} {disfmarker} is to , uh , uh , determine through magical means that {disfmarker} that , uh , there 's no speech in some period , and then see what the spectrum is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , but , you know , it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's tricky to do . It has mistakes . Uh , and if you 've got enough time , uh , this other method appears to be somewhat more reliable . Uh , a variant on that for just determining signal - to - noise ratio is to just , uh {disfmarker} you can do a w a uh {disfmarker} an iterative thing , EM - like thing , to determine means only . I guess it is EM still , but just {disfmarker} just determine the means only . Don't worry about the variances . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then you just use those mean values as being the {disfmarker} the , uh uh signal - to - noise ratio in that band . +PhD A: But what is the {disfmarker} it seems like this kind of thing could add to the latency . I mean , depending on where the window was that you used to calculate {pause} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD B: Yeah , sure . But {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor C: Not necessarily . Cuz if you don't look into the future , right ? +PhD A: OK , well that {disfmarker} I guess that was my question , +Professor C: if you just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , if you just {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you , uh {disfmarker} a at the beginning you have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: Guess . +Professor C: esti some guess and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's an interesting question . I wonder how they did do it ? +PhD B: Actually , it 's a mmm {disfmarker} If - if you want to have a good estimation on non - stationary noise you have to look in the {disfmarker} in the future . I mean , if you take your window and build your histogram in this window , um , what you can expect is to have an estimation of th of the noise in {disfmarker} in the middle of the window , not at the end . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , yeah , +PhD B: the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but people {disfmarker} +Professor C: but what does {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what does Alcatel do ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and France Telecom . +PhD B: The They just look in the past . I guess it works because the noise are , uh pret uh , almost stationary +Professor C: Pretty stationary . +Grad E: Pretty stationary , +PhD B: but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , the thing , e e e e +Grad E: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , y I mean , you 're talking about non - stationary noise but I think that spectral subtraction is rarely {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not gonna work really well for {disfmarker} for non - stationary noise , +PhD B: Well , if y if you have a good estimation of the noise , +Professor C: you know ? +PhD B: yeah , because well it it has to work . +Professor C: But it 's hard to {disfmarker} +PhD B: i +Professor C: but that 's hard to do . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's hard to do . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} that what {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} wh what 's more common is that you 're going to be helped with r slowly varying or stationary noise . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's what spectral subtraction will help with , practically speaking . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: If it varies a lot , to get a If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} to get a good estimate you need a few seconds of speech , even if it 's centered , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you need a few seconds to get a decent estimate but it 's changed a lot in a few seconds , then it , you know , i it 's kind of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , imagine e five hertz is the middle of the {disfmarker} of the speech modulation spectrum , +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: right ? So imagine a jack hammer going at five hertz . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , good {disfmarker} good luck . So , +PhD B: So in this case , yeah , sure , you cannot {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But I think y um , Hirsch does experiment with windows of like between five hundred milliseconds and one second . And well , five hundred wa was not so bad . I mean and he worked on non - stationary noises , like noise modulated with well , wi with amplitude modulations and things like that , +PhD A: Were his , uh , windows centered around the {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Um , yeah . Well , I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the paper he showed that actually the estimation of the noise is {disfmarker} is delayed . Well , it 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you have to center the window , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: No , I understand it 's better to do but I just think that {disfmarker} that , uh , for real noises wh what {disfmarker} what 's most likely to happen is that there 'll be some things that are relatively stationary +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: where you can use one or another spectral subtraction thing +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and other things where it 's not so stationary and {disfmarker} I mean , you can always pick something that {disfmarker} that falls between your methods , +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: uh , uh , but I don't know if , you know , if sinusoidally , uh , modul amplitude modulated noise is {disfmarker} is sort of a big problem in {disfmarker} in in {disfmarker} practice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I think that {vocalsound} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could probably get a really good estimate of the noise if we just went to the noise files , and built the averages from them . +Professor C: Yeah . Well . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} What do you mean ? +Professor C: Just cheat {disfmarker} You 're saying , cheat . +PhD B: But if the {disfmarker} if the noise is stationary perhaps you don't even need some kind of noise estimation algorithm . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: We just take th th th the beginning of the utterance and +Professor C: Oh , yeah , sure . +PhD B: I I know p I don't know if people tried this for Aurora . +PhD D: It 's the same . +PhD B: Well , everybody seems to use some kind of adaptive , well , scheme +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: but , +PhD D: A dictionary . +PhD B: is it very useful +Professor C: you know , stationary {disfmarker} +PhD A: Very slow adaptation . +PhD B: and is the c +PhD A: th +Professor C: Right , the word "" stationary "" is {disfmarker} has a very precise statistical meaning . But , you know , in {disfmarker} in signal - processing really what we 're talking about I think is things that change slowly , uh , compared with our {disfmarker} our processing techniques . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if you 're driving along in a car I {disfmarker} I would think that most of the time the nature of the noise is going to change relatively slowly . It 's not gonna stay absolute the same . If you {disfmarker} if you check it out , uh , five minutes later you may be in a different part of the road +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or whatever . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i i i using the local characteristics in time , is probably going to work pretty well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But you could get hurt a lot if you just took some something from the beginning of all the speech , of , you know , an hour of speech and then later {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so they may be {disfmarker} you know , may be overly , uh , complicated for {disfmarker} for this test but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , I don't know . But what you 're saying , you know , makes sense , though . I mean , if possible you shouldn't {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} you should make it , uh , the center of the {disfmarker} center of the window . But {disfmarker} uh , we 're already having problems with these delay , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} delay issues . +PhD B: Yeah , so . +Professor C: So , uh , we 'll have to figure ways without it . Um , +PhD A: If they 're going to provide a , uh , voice activity detector that will tell you the boundaries of the speech , then , couldn't you just go outside those boundaries and do your estimate there ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . You bet . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I imagine that 's what they 're doing , right ? Is they 're {disfmarker} they 're probably looking in nonspeech sections and getting some , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , they have some kind of threshold on {disfmarker} on the previous estimate , and {disfmarker} So . Yeah . I think . Yeah , I think Ericsson used this kind of threshold . Yeah , so , they h they have an estimate of the noise level and they put a threshold like six or ten DB above , and what 's under this threshold is used to update the estimate . Is {disfmarker} is that right +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think so . +PhD B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have not here the proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like saying what 's under the threshold is silence , +Professor C: Does France Telecom do this {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: Does France Telecom do th do the same thing ? More or less ? +PhD B: I d I {disfmarker} Y you know , perhaps ? +PhD D: No . I do I have not here the proposal . +Professor C: OK . Um , OK , if we 're {disfmarker} we 're done {disfmarker} done with that , uh , let 's see . Uh , maybe we can talk about a couple other things briefly , just , uh , things that {disfmarker} that we 've been chatting about but haven't made it into these meetings yet . So you 're coming up with your quals proposal , and , uh {disfmarker} Wanna just give a two three minute summary of what you 're planning on doing ? +Grad E: Oh , um , two , three , it can be shorter than that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've talked to some of you already . Um , but I 'm , uh , looking into extending the work done by Larry Saul and John Allen and uh Mazin Rahim . Um , they {disfmarker} they have a system that 's , uh , a multi - band , um , system but their multi - band is {disfmarker} is a little different than the way that we 've been doing multi - band in the past , where um {disfmarker} Where we 've been @ @ {comment} uh taking {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} sub - band features and i training up these neural nets and {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on phonetic targets , and then combining them some somehow down the line , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're taking sub - band features and , um , training up a detector that detects for , um , these phonetic features for example , um , he presents um , uh , a detector to detect sonorance . And so what {disfmarker} what it basically is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} at the lowest level , there {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR ga I mean , it 's an AND gate . So , uh , on each sub - band you have several independent tests , to test whether um , there 's the existence of sonorance in a sub - band . And then , um , it c it 's combined by a soft AND gate . And at the {disfmarker} at the higher level , for every {disfmarker} if , um {disfmarker} The higher level there 's a soft OR gate . Uh , so if {disfmarker} if this detector detects um , the presence of {disfmarker} of sonorance in any of the sub - bands , then the detect uh , the OR gate at the top says , "" OK , well this frame has evidence of sonorance . "" +PhD A: What are {disfmarker} what are some of the low level detectors that they use ? +Grad E: And these are all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . Well , the low level detectors are logistic regressions . Um , and the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that , by the way , basically is a {disfmarker} is one of the units in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} our neural network . +Grad E: the one o +Professor C: So that 's all it is . It 's a sig it 's a sigmoid , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , with weighted sum at the input , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: which you train by gradient {pause} descent . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , so he uses , um , an EM algorithm to {disfmarker} to um train up these um parameters for the logistic regression . +Professor C: Well , actually , yeah , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: so I was using EM to get the targets . So {disfmarker} so you have this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this AND gate {disfmarker} what we were calling an AND gate , but it 's a product {disfmarker} product rule thing at the output . And then he uses , uh , i u and then feeding into that are {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR at the output , isn't it ? Yeah , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so that 's the product . And then , um , then he has each of these AND things . And , um , but {disfmarker} so they 're little neural {disfmarker} neural units . Um , and , um , they have to have targets . And so the targets come from EM . +PhD A: And so are each of these , low level detectors {comment} {disfmarker} are they , uh {disfmarker} are these something that you decide ahead of time , like "" I 'm going to look for this particular feature or I 'm going to look at this frequency , "" or {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at ? +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What are their inputs ? +Grad E: Uh Right , so the {disfmarker} OK , so at each for each sub - band {comment} there are basically , uh , several measures of SNR and {disfmarker} and correlation . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Grad E: Um , um and he said there 's like twenty of these per {disfmarker} per sub - band . Um , and for {disfmarker} for every s every sub - band , e you {disfmarker} you just pick ahead of time , um , "" I 'm going to have like five {pause} i independent logistic tests . "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And you initialize these parameters , um , in some {disfmarker} some way and use EM to come up with your training targets for a {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} the low - level detectors . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , once you get that done , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you train the whole {disfmarker} whole thing on maximum likelihood . Um , and h he shows that using this {disfmarker} this method to detect sonorance is it 's very robust compared to , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to typical , uh , full - band Gaussian mixtures um estimations of {disfmarker} of sonorance . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh so {disfmarker} so that 's just {disfmarker} that 's just one detector . So you can imagine building many of these detectors on different features . You get enough of these detectors together , um , then you have enough information to do , um , higher level discrimination , for example , discriminating between phones +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and then you keep working your way up until you {disfmarker} you build a full recognizer . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So , um , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the direction which I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about going in my quals . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: You know , it has a number of properties that I really liked . I mean , one is the going towards , um , using narrow band information for , uh , ph phonetic features of some sort rather than just , uh , immediately going for the {disfmarker} the typical sound units . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Another thing I like about it is that you t this thing is going to be trained {disfmarker} explicitly trained for a product of errors rule , which is what , uh , Allen keeps pointing out that Fletcher observed in the twenties , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , for people listening to narrow band stuff . That 's Friday 's talk , by the way . And then , um , Uh , the third thing I like about it is , uh , and we 've played around with this in a different kind of way a little bit but it hasn't been our dominant way of {disfmarker} of operating anything , um , this issue of where the targets come from . So in our case when we 've been training it multi - band things , the way we get the targets for the individual bands is , uh , that we get the phonetic label {disfmarker} for the sound there +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and we say , "" OK , we train every {disfmarker} "" What this is saying is , OK , that 's maybe what our ultimate goal is {disfmarker} or not ultimate but penultimate {vocalsound} goal is getting these {disfmarker} these small sound units . But {disfmarker} but , um , along the way how much should we , uh {disfmarker} uh , what should we be training these intermediate things for ? I mean , because , uh , we don't know uh , that this is a particularly good feature . I mean , there 's no way , uh {disfmarker} someone in the audience yesterday was asking , "" well couldn't you have people go through and mark the individual bands and say where the {disfmarker} where it was sonorant or not ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know , I think having a bunch of people listening to critical band wide , {vocalsound} uh , chunks of speech trying to determine whether {disfmarker} {comment} I think it 'd be impossible . +Grad E: Ouch . +Professor C: It 's all gonna sound like {disfmarker} like sine waves to you , more or less . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} Well not I mean , it 's g all g narrow band uh , i I m I think it 's very hard for someone to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} a person to make that determination . So , um , um , we don't really know how those should be labeled . It could sh be that you should , um , not be paying that much attention to , uh , certain bands for certain sounds , uh , in order to get the best result . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , what we have been doing there , just sort of mixing it all together , is certainly much {disfmarker} much cruder than that . We trained these things up on the {disfmarker} on the , uh the final label . Now we have I guess done experiments {disfmarker} you 've probably done stuff where you have , um , done separate , uh , Viterbis on the different {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Forced alignment on the sub - band labels ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: You 've done that . Did {disfmarker} did that help at all ? +Grad E: Um , it helps for one or t one iteration but um , anything after that it doesn't help . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so that may or may t it {disfmarker} that aspect of what he 's doing may or may not be helpful because in a sense that 's the same sort of thing . You 're taking global information and determining what you {disfmarker} how you should {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , I th I think a little more direct . +PhD A: How did they measure the performance of their detector ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} Well , he 's look he 's just actually looking at , uh , the confusions between sonorant and non - sonorant . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he hasn't applied it to recognition or if he did he didn't talk about it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} And one of the concerns in the audience , actually , was that {disfmarker} that , um , the , uh , uh {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he did a comparison to , uh , you know , our old foil , the {disfmarker} the nasty old standard recognizer with {vocalsound} mel {disfmarker} mel filter bank at the front , and H M Ms , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And , um , it didn't do nearly as well , especially in {disfmarker} in noise . But the {disfmarker} one of the good questions in the audience was , well , yeah , but that wasn't trained for that . I mean , this use of a very smooth , uh , spectral envelope is something that , you know , has evolved as being generally a good thing for speech recognition but if you knew that what you were gonna do is detect sonorants or not {disfmarker} So sonorants and non - sonorants is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is almost like voiced - unvoiced , except I guess that the voiced stops are {disfmarker} are also called "" obstruents "" . Uh , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} uh , but with the exception of the stops I guess it 's pretty much the same as voiced - unvoiced , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Um . So , um , if you knew you were doing that , if you were doing something say for a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Vocoder , you wouldn't use the same kind of features . You would use something that was sensitive to the periodicity and {disfmarker} and not just the envelope . Uh , and so in that sense it was an unfair test . Um , so I think that the questioner was right . It {disfmarker} it was in that sense an unfair test . Nonetheless , it was one that was interesting because , uh , this is what we are actually using for speech recognition , these smooth envelopes . And this says that perhaps even , you know , trying to use them in the best way that we can , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we ordinarily do , with , you know , Gaussian mixtures and H M Ms {comment} and so forth , you {disfmarker} you don't , uh , actually do that well on determining whether something is sonorant or not . +PhD A: Didn't they {disfmarker} +Professor C: Which means you 're gonna make errors between similar sounds that are son sonorant or obstruent . +PhD A: Didn't they also do some kind of an oracle experiment where they said "" if we {pause} could detect the sonorants perfectly {pause} and then show how it would improve speech recognition ? I thought I remember hearing about an experiment like that . +Professor C: The - these same people ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I don't remember that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: That would {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's exactly the question to follow up this discussion , is suppose you did that , uh , got that right . Um , Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: What could be the other low level detectors , I mean , for {disfmarker} {comment} Other kind of features , or {disfmarker} ? in addition to detecting sonorants or {disfmarker} ? Th - that 's what you want to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to go for also +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: What t Oh , build other {disfmarker} other detectors on different {pause} phonetic features ? +PhD B: Other low level detectors ? Yeah . +Grad E: Um , uh Let 's see , um , Yeah , I d I don't know . e Um , um , I mean , w easiest thing would be to go {disfmarker} go do some voicing stuff but that 's very similar to sonorance . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , +PhD A: When we {disfmarker} when we talked with John Ohala the other day we made a list of some of the things that w +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: like frication , +Grad E: Oh ! OK . +PhD A: abrupt closure , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: R - coloring , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} Uh . +Professor C: Yeah , so there 's a half dozen like that that are {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , nasality . +Professor C: Now this was coming at it from a different angle but maybe it 's a good way to start . Uh , these are things which , uh , John felt that a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a human annotator would be able to reliably mark . So the sort of things he felt would be difficult for a human annotator to reliably mark would be tongue position kinds of things . +Grad E: Oh , OK . Placing stuff , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . +PhD A: There 's also things like stress . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can look at stress . +Professor C: But stress doesn't , uh , fit in this thing of coming up with features that will distinguish words from one another , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to mark and will probably help us ultimate with recognition +PhD A: Yeah , there 's a few cases where it can like permit {comment} and permit . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} that 's not very common in English . In other languages it 's more uh , important . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but i either case you 'd write PERMIT , right ? So you 'd get the word right . +PhD A: No , I 'm saying , i i e I thought you were saying that stress doesn't help you distinguish between words . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Oh , I see what you 're saying . As long as you get {disfmarker} The sequence , +Professor C: We 're g if we 're doing {disfmarker} if we 're talking about transcription as opposed to something else {disfmarker} +PhD A: right ? Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So where it could help is maybe at a higher level . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Like a understanding application . +PhD A: Understanding , yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But that 's this afternoon 's meeting . Yeah . We don't understand anything in this meeting . Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's , you know , a neat {disfmarker} neat thing and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So . +Grad E: S so , um , Ohala 's going to help do these , uh {pause} transcriptions of the meeting data ? +PhD A: Uh , well I don't know . We d we sort of didn't get that far . Um , we just talked about some possible features that could be marked by humans and , um , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: because of having maybe some extra transcriber time we thought we could go through and mark some portion of the data for that . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , that 's not an immediate problem , that we don't immediately have a lot of extra transcriber time . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but , uh , in the long term I guess Chuck is gonna continue the dialogue with John and {disfmarker} and , uh , and , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll end up doing some I think . +PhD A: I 'm definitely interested in this area , too , f uh , acoustic feature stuff . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I think it 's an interesting {disfmarker} interesting way to go . +Grad E: Cool . +Professor C: Um , I say it like "" said - int "" . I think it has a number of good things . Um , so , uh , y you want to talk maybe a c two or three minutes about what we 've been talking about today and other days ? +Grad F: Ri Yeah , OK , so , um , we 're interested in , um , methods for far mike speech recognition , um , {pause} mainly , uh , methods that deal with the reverberation {pause} in the far mike signal . So , um , one approach would be , um , say MSG and PLP , like was used in Aurora one and , um , there are other approaches which actually attempt to {pause} remove the reverberation , instead of being robust to it like MSG . And so we 're interested in , um , comparing the performance of {pause} um , a robust approach like MSG with these , um , speech enhancement or de - reverber de - reverberation approaches . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , {vocalsound} it looks like we 're gonna use the Meeting Recorder digits data for that . +PhD B: And the de - reverberation algorithm , do you have {disfmarker} can you give some more details on this or {disfmarker} ? Does it use one microphone ? +Grad F: o o +PhD B: Several microphones ? Does it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: OK , well , um , there was something that was done by , um , a guy named Carlos , I forget his last name , {comment} who worked with Hynek , who , um , +Professor C: Avendano . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Who , um , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um , it was like RASTA in the sense that of it was , um , de - convolution by filtering um , except he used a longer time window , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like a second maybe . And the reason for that is RASTA 's time window is too short to , um include the whole , um , reverberation {disfmarker} um , I don't know what you call it the reverberation response . I if you see wh if you see what I mean . The reverberation filter from my mouth to that mike is like {disfmarker} it 's t got it 's too long in the {disfmarker} in the time domain for the um {disfmarker} for the RASTA filtering to take care of it . And , um , then there are a couple of other speech enhancement approaches which haven't been tried for speech recognition yet but have just been tried for enhancement , which , um , have the assumption that um , you can do LPC um analysis of th of the signal you get at the far microphone and the , um , all pole filter that you get out of that should be good . It 's just the , um , excitation signal {comment} that is going to be distorted by the reverberation and so you can try and reconstruct a better excitation signal and , um , feed that through the i um , all pole filter and get enhanced speech with reverberation reduced . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's also this , uh , um , uh , echo cancellation stuff that we 've sort of been chasing , so , uh we have , uh {disfmarker} and when we 're saying these digits now we do have a close microphone signal and then there 's the distant microphone signal . And you could as a kind of baseline say , "" OK , given that we have both of these , uh , we should be able to do , uh , a cancellation . "" So that , uh , um , we {disfmarker} we , uh , essentially identify the system in between {disfmarker} the linear time invariant system between the microphones and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and re and invert it , uh , or {disfmarker} or cancel it out to {disfmarker} to some {disfmarker} some reasonable approximation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: through one method or another . Uh , that 's not a practical thing , uh , if you have a distant mike , you don't have a close mike ordinarily , but we thought that might make {disfmarker} also might make a good baseline . Uh , it still won't be perfect because there 's noise . Uh , but {disfmarker} And then there are s uh , there are single microphone methods that I think people have done for , uh {disfmarker} for this kind of de - reverberation . Do y do you know any references to any ? Cuz I {disfmarker} I w I was {disfmarker} w w I {disfmarker} I lead him down a {disfmarker} a bad path on that . +PhD B: Uh , I g I guess {disfmarker} I guess when people are working with single microphones , they are more trying to do {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . +PhD B: well , not {disfmarker} not very {disfmarker} Well , there is the Avendano work , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: but also trying to mmm , uh {disfmarker} trying to f t find the de - convolution filter but in the um {disfmarker} not in the time domain but in the uh the stream of features uh I guess . Well , @ @ {comment} there {disfmarker} there 's someone working on this on i in Mons +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: So perhaps , yeah , we should try t to {disfmarker} He 's working on this , on trying to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: on re reverberation , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: The first paper on this is gonna have great references , I can tell already . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: It 's always good to have references , especially when reviewers read it or {disfmarker} or one of the authors and , {vocalsound} feel they 'll "" You 're OK , you 've r You cited me . "" +PhD B: So , yeah . Well , he did echo cancellation and he did some fancier things like , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , training different network on different reverberation conditions and then trying to find the best one , but . Well . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: The oth the other thing , uh , that Dave was talking about earlier was , uh , uh , multiple mike things , uh , where they 're all distant . So , um , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this work on arrays , but the other thing is , uh , {pause} what can we do that 's cleverer that can take some advantage of only two mikes , uh , particularly if there 's an obstruction between them , as we {disfmarker} as we have over there . +PhD B: If there is {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: An obstruction between them . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: It creates a shadow which is {disfmarker} is helpful . It 's part of why you have such good directionality with , {vocalsound} with two ears +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: even though they 're not several feet apart . For most {disfmarker} for most people 's heads . +PhD A: That could help though . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} Yeah , the {disfmarker} the head , in the way , is really {disfmarker} that 's what it 's for . It 's basically , +PhD A: That 's what the head 's for ? To separate the ears ? +Professor C: Yeah , it 's to separate the ears . That 's right , yeah . Yeah . Uh , so . Anyway , O K . Uh , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's all we have this week . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor C: And , uh , I think it 's digit time . +PhD A: Actually the , um {disfmarker} For some reason the digit forms are blank . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD A: Uh , I think th that may be due to the fact that {comment} Adam ran out of digits , {comment} uh , and didn't have time to regenerate any . +Professor C: Oh ! Oh ! I guess it 's {disfmarker} Well there 's no real reason to write our names on here then , +PhD A: Yeah , if you want to put your credit card numbers and , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: is there ? +Grad E: Oh , no {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Or do {disfmarker} did any {disfmarker} do we need the names for the other stuff , +PhD A: Uh , yeah , I do need your names and {disfmarker} and the time , and all that , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? Oh , OK . +PhD A: cuz we put that into the "" key "" files . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Um . But w +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: That 's why we have the forms , uh , even if there are no digits . +Professor C: OK , yeah , I didn't notice this . I 'm sitting here and I was {disfmarker} I was about to read them too . It 's a , uh , blank sheet of paper . +PhD A: So I guess we 're {disfmarker} we 're done . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , I 'll do my credit card number later . OK . +","In this meeting, a diverse group of PhD students and a professor gathered to discuss ongoing research topics and various proposed projects. The meeting kicked off with PhD A confirming that they were ready to start, followed by Professor C initiating a conversation about the agenda for the day. They quickly delved into a recent conference call that PhD B was curious about, but it appeared that no attendees had any updates about the conference talk in question, leading to a bit of confusion. + +The conversation then turned towards technical discussions about the research projects they were working on. PhD B mentioned their work on reducing latencies and the development of new filters for signal processing, specifically discussing the design of IIR filters with shorter delays compared to FIR filters. The potential technical improvements and the adjustments needed for the filters' frequency responses were also addressed. There was a concern about the communication gap between the team and a colleague named Sunil, which Professor C highlighted as an issue that needed addressing. This led to a broad agreement about the importance of increased collaboration and communication among team members. + +The topic of latencies persisted, with PhD B breaking down their effort to reduce total system latency and the implications of their decisions on the overall delay. The discussion became even more technical with chat around specific milliseconds of delay being reduced and how this related to the effectiveness of their system in speech recognition applications. They also considered how the de-normalization process and various filters might contribute to the system's overall latency. + +PhD A and Professor C engaged in an elaborate exchange about the trade-offs between computational demands and performance and how different systems handle background noise. They touched on complementary approaches to tackling this issue, with a shared curiosity about the outcomes of the conference call which could potentially involve changes in rules that could affect their work. + +The conversation shifted to discuss some practical implications of latency in real-world applications. PhD A recounted an experience with surgical microscopes, leading to a broader discussion about the acceptable thresholds for latency in voice recognition systems and how users perceive the response time. + +Afterwards, the meeting veered into even more detailed technical topics, including potential improvements to the current research and how to implement these improvements. There was a considerable amount of detail regarding the architecture of neural networks, specific types of filters, and the handling of noise in the data. The options of implementing spectral subtraction and the challenges of noise estimation with single vs. multiple microphones were discussed, as well as the reliance on voice activity detectors (VAD) and potential changes coming forth from conference outcomes. + +Towards the end, Grad E briefly presented their work on multi-band speech recognition systems, building on research by Larry Saul, John Allen, and Mazin Rahim. This set the stage for a deeper discussion on distinct phonetic features, such as sonorance, that can be detected in narrow bands of the frequency spectrum. + +Finally, Grad F introduced the topic of far-field speech recognition, focusing on the challenges posed by reverberation. The discussion compared robustness approaches like MSG and PLP with speech enhancement approaches that aim to remove reverberation. The use of Meeting Recorder digits data to investigate these methods was also mentioned. + +In closing, it was clear that the meeting was filled with high-level technical discussions punctuated by concerns about coordination and potential modifications to their research methodology based on new information from conferences and changing rules. The meeting ended humorously with the realization that no digits were provided for their data entry activity, prompting them to conclude the session without the usual task. The attentiveness of the participants to detail and their readiness to adapt their research in response to evolving information was evident throughout the summary." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Oh right okay . {vocalsound} I cover myself up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I feel like Madonna with one of these on . I said I feel like Madonna with one of these on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've always wanted one of these , I really have . {vocalsound} Where do you buy 'em from ? {vocalsound} They're {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Back again for another wonderful meeting . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is uh everyone ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Almost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we c we can hold on for a minute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh my gosh . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I figured with the spam thing , if you can't beat it , join in . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the kind of spam that everybody likes to receive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? Okay , right , well , I take it that you are all ready now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um alright first off we'll just uh recap from our last meeting . Um {vocalsound} which was we got together just to basically decide on {disfmarker} well to talk about what it is that we were actually uh supposed to be doing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and who we all are and stuff like that , mm get bit more of an idea together of what's going on . {vocalsound} Um what we are gonna talk about in this meeting is um now that we know what it is that we are doing , now we know that it's a T_V_ remote and stuff and you guys have just been off doing some some uh R_ and D_ for that , that's research and development for those that haven't heard that before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: see I'm learning all sorts of new technologi terms in technology today . Um yeah , we're gonna hear your uh th three little presentations , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whether they be on computer or on the whiteboard or whatever you want . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Do you have any preference uh of order ? +Project Manager: Um I'd like to um hear +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: o I'd like to hear who's g who's on the um from from uh Catherine actually first . I want {disfmarker} what I'd like to hear about is uh if we've finally decided on um what sort of energy we're gonna be using and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Batteries . +User Interface: I think she is still finishing her {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no no , it's fine I'm just preparing . +Project Manager: It's just that {disfmarker} yeah , let's let's hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Where is that thing ? +User Interface: Okay , it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's here . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry , couldn't see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Would that work ? +Project Manager: Get yourself in position . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so that's me again . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so um for the energy sources we can have a basic battery , a hand dynamo which is {disfmarker} which was used uh in the fifties for torches , if you remember that kind of {disfmarker} which wouldn't be v wouldn't be v v +Project Manager: I don't think any of us remember the fifties . +User Interface: Is it like a crank thing or something {gap} . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . It wouldn't be very fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a kinetic provision of energy , which is used on some watches these days . So if you have just a bit of gentle movement that {disfmarker} it will give it the energy to work . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Or you can use solar cells , but I'm not sure about that indoors , really , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there's sometimes combinations , I mean , like calculators do combinations of battery with {disfmarker} but also using some solar power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do {gap} sol solar panel things , do they have to work from the sun or can they work from a light bulb ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Does anybody know ? +Industrial Designer: I dunno actually . +User Interface: Uh I think , it has to be on the on the solar energy , but I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Um . Think the the uh what would cost the less would be the basic battery , really . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh if we want something fancier , I think the kinetic provision of energy could be nice , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if it's worth the cost . So we've got to discuss that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , jolly good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For the case of the remotes itself , um they can be a general case , which is just a flat one . You can have uh a curved one or a double curved one , if you know what I mean , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's a double curved one ? +Industrial Designer: You know , kind of more ergonomic , that kind of suits the palm of your hand , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um then the case material itself , so it can be uh uh either plastic or latex , uh rubber , wood , or titanium . And th for each of them you have uh cases where {disfmarker} for example titanium , you can't use it for {disfmarker} if you if we're choosing a double curved case , we can't choose titanium . And if we are choosing um solar cells then we can't choose latex for the case material , so we just have to take that into account . But if we're choosing just the flat case then we can go for anything . And I think we discussed earlier on the R_ S_ I_ problem thing , so we could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that might be an idea of using the rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it should , you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's have a squeezable remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And also it doesn't break as easily maybe , +Project Manager: {gap} when a T_V_ programme's got one {gap} +Industrial Designer: I dunno {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: watching the match and {gap} your team's just lost , you can fuzz it across the room and it'll bounce off the wall back at you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that idea . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So rubber would be {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: I think rubber's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Rubber , we're all we're all going {disfmarker} we're all liking that idea ? You think you can market that ? +Marketing: But after my after my fashion thing , I think you'll realise that rubber is more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh , we like rubber , ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh s so if d +Marketing: People . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . And then there are the push-buttons , so you can have basic push-buttons or a scroll-wheels , like you have on a mouse , um or you could have um L_C_D_ , which gives you a display . Um scroll buttons , as well . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: So if you use a rubber double curved case , you must use rubber push-buttons . So if we're going for rubber then we have to decide for the case . Um and if we choose double curved then we have to go for rubber push-buttons . +Project Manager: Well , we're gonna go with {gap} I think we've decided that it's gonna be a rubber case so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it's a constraint . Yeah , but is it a double curved one or not ? {vocalsound} If it's not a double curved , then we've got the choice for the push-buttons , if it's a double curve , we've gotta go for rubber push-buttons . If that makes sense . +Project Manager: {gap} push buttons instead of the wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: If it's rubber , isn't it malleable anyway , {gap} it doesn't matter if it's double {disfmarker} I mean isn't a rubber case , mean it's completely flexed , I mean , it it flexes to whatever they want it to ? Mean so what's the difference between a normal rubber case and a rubble doub double {disfmarker} rubber double curved case ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} rubble double double . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but na le you see , you've got , okay , the energy that's one thing , +Project Manager: I'll have a Big Mac , please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then you have the case is uh , whether it's flat or curved . And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we don't care if it's rub rubber or not , but then we've decided that we going for rubber for the case material . So if we've chosen rub rubber and if now we have the choice for the case whether it's flat , single curved or double curved . And I'm just saying if it {disfmarker} if we choose it to be double curved then we need to go {disfmarker} I dunno why , but we need to go for uh rubber push-buttons . So , either {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno we just need to decide on the on the case . +Project Manager: Let's have rubber push buttons , hey . +User Interface: Okay . Go rubber . Go rubber the whole way . +Industrial Designer: Let's go crazy . {vocalsound} And then , do I have a last slide ? Yes , I do . Um so the push-buttons themselves they can be just simple or they can be {disfmarker} so that's just the electronics between the but behind the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the price that go with it with it , so the simple push-buttons are gonna be the cheapest . Uh if we get a scroll-wheel , that's a higher price range . If we get an advanced chip which is um used for the L_C_D_ , the display thing , then that's even more expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Simple , yeah . Chip on print . It's a bit {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay , uh what I'm not understanding here +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} is uh , okay , advanced chip on print , which I presume is like one P_C_B_ and that's got all the electronics on one board including the um infra-red sender ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The infra-red . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um what a what alternatives do we have to that ? {vocalsound} Y um {vocalsound} what alternatives do we have to the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Well , if if it's not chip on print then , I guess , you get different chip components , and you build them separately and doesn't include the infra-red . It's less expensive mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so it sounds {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Technically speaking , it's not as advanced , but it does the job , too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , why would we not go for that ? If it's something that's inside the the unit . {vocalsound} I it doesn't affects whether the customer's gonna buy it or not . +Industrial Designer: Fo It doesn't , yeah , yeah , yeah . Totally . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we wanna go for an i i all {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So let's not go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so long as it works , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: you know . So let's not let's uh not bother with the chip on print . +Industrial Designer: So it's either um the scroll-wheel or the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . S yeah , push buttons . +Marketing: What about the just developed uh sample sensor ? +User Interface: I think push-buttons is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about what ? +Marketing: G there , the sample sensor , sample speaker thing . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , what do we need a speaker for in a remote control unit ? +Marketing: Mm , I dunno . Be cool . +Industrial Designer: It'd be it'd be cool , but they are saying they've just developed it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Channel two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just guessing . But it's gonna be the most expensive option , probably and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Th the the {vocalsound} speech recognition um option is {disfmarker} it doesn't seem really very promising for us uh , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not something that we wanna t go into with this product . +User Interface: 'cause uh {disfmarker} The yeah the example that they're already using it for is with the coffee machine , where , basically , you can program a sample wi um {disfmarker} That when you say something it will give a response , and you program the response as well . Just uh clips of tha that you record yourself . So you can program your coffee-maker that when you say , good morning , to it it says , hello Rick , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , I mean , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: it would be one thing if it was speech recognition where you say something and it turns the T_V_ on like , turn the T_V_ on , and i turns {disfmarker} comes on , but it's not that . It just gives you a it just gives you a verbal response . +Marketing: Oh , it just gives an answer . +User Interface: So , yeah , I mean , like what's the point of saying , Hello remote , I mean , hello , how how are you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , then then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just if you are really lonely , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought I thought it was {disfmarker} when they said {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , if you're really lonely , it is it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought when they said , voice recognition , they meant um like , +Industrial Designer: Channel five . And then it switches on . +Marketing: channel five , and it will change . +User Interface: No , tha that w that w that would be more promising . +Marketing: Like you talk to it . Can I have channel five ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It it's just a remote that talks to you . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} I mean to certain cues . +Marketing: Oh , then {gap} forget about it . Oh right okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'll go back , maybe , to the previous slide and we can decide for each problem , what we should choose . So for the energy source , do we go for the battery or the {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah , I'm fine with the basic battery . +Project Manager: Basic battery . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's cheap , it's cheerful , it's worked , does work . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheaper option . Are you happy with that ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So we'll go for the battery . Then the case , do you want it flat or curved or sing or double curved ? +Project Manager: We were go we were going with the late with the the R_S_I_ rubber , weren't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , so we want it rub rubber double curved . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it will look like something like this . +Industrial Designer: Double ? +Project Manager: The double whopper , please . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so then if we use double curved case , then we have to u choose rubber push-buttons , +Project Manager: Yep , but {disfmarker} we're going for the simple buttons . +User Interface: So rubber rubber keys , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's fine ? +Project Manager: And it's cheapest all round , it sounds kinda funky , and we can also market it +Industrial Designer: P +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: as i 'cause we were s saying earl you were saying earlier in your research that um the the people have the R_ {disfmarker} people were getting the {disfmarker} complaining about R_S_I_ , and this is anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's another marketing point that we can use . +Marketing: Well the rubber push-buttons {gap} . Don't you have to move your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But anything is gonna have buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Even if it's a jog wheel , it's still repetitive . You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought they would give an option of flat buttons or a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You see , you can still get {disfmarker} it does you still get repetitive strain injury , whether you are pressing a button or pressing a flat bit of screen . +Industrial Designer: That they don't . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's the v it's the fact that you are pressing the same {disfmarker} doing the same movement . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: It's not actually what you are doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the fact that this this rubber i is actually used in these anti-R_S_I_ ps specific {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , the rubber's good . +User Interface: We're giving them a way to burn off steam , basically , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so they can sit there and go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that watching T_V_ should be that stressful . +Project Manager: And you know , yeah , you can fuzz it across the room and throw it at throw it at your children {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I guess T_V_ can be stressful , yeah , if you're watching sports . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , that's me done . +Project Manager: Okay , Gabriel . Let's um let's let's hear from you about the um it's {disfmarker} the interface . +User Interface: Alright . Alright . Yeah , some of what I have to say ties into what Catherine was just talking about . +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: Okay , so I'm continuing with the user interface uh topic . And so basically I consulted with our manufacturing division . It sounded like Catherine was also speaking with them . Uh I also took uh Reissa's marketing findings from the last meeting into consideration um , 'cause I think that's that's crucial as far as uh what keys we're going to inc inclu what buttons we are going to include and and how they're laid out . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh and so the manufacturing division uh sent some some samples of of uh interface components that we might be interested in using that have been used in other products , uh like the coffee machine . So I already mentioned the speech recognition interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess , we we basically vetoed that idea . It's it's pointless . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's just a sample sensor sample output . It would just be probably the most expensive part of our remote without any actual interesting functionality as far as operating the T_V_ . Uh so yeah , they they also give the uh {disfmarker} they they suggested the idea of using a spinning wheel like you use on the side of an M_P_ three player like iPod . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um so we've already addressed that and I think that would actually be worse for something like R_S_I_ I mean you got that thumb movement that you're constantly doing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um the other suggestion , +Marketing: That does get annoying . +User Interface: and I I have a feeling that we're interested in in something more general , but they suggested uh , you know , going i a little bit into a a niche , like either gearing our remote towards kids , where you could have {gap} lot of colours um , the keys might be you know , funny or or {gap} , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: or uh something for the elderly , where the remote's very large and the buttons are very large and there's only a few buttons . But you know we can we can discuss this , but it sounded like from our last meeting we really wanted something that was general , but done well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {gap} um {disfmarker} So , the key layout and design are really crucial . You don't want uh you want people to be able to quickly access the buttons that they use a lot without uh always pressing the wrong one um . And I didn't mention that we need a power button {gap} in our last {disfmarker} I can give you an example here of uh , {gap} good layout and bad layout +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh from our manufacturing department . So this would be an example of bad layout , where you have volume up and volume down , but they have a V_ on both of them , so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: it's sort of confusing for the user . Uh this is the example of the giant remote that's impossible to lose . +Project Manager: Do we have an uh example of a good one ? {gap} {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And for {disfmarker} something for kids . Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And so , yeah , I th I think my personal preferences of {disfmarker} we've all kind of talked about and seemed to be on the same page um . Uh so I was against the speech recognition and against going uh towards anything in in a niche sense . I think it should be more general . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I didn't I didn't think the spinning-wheel or the uh L_C_ display were were crucial for us . And , yeah , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay . Well let's um {disfmarker} so w what are our definite decisions on this then as a team ? The um {disfmarker} The the um the interface type we're going for {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we're {disfmarker} we're not gonna have any sort of display I think uh . +Project Manager: Just the simple s simple straight set of buttons . +User Interface: So , yeah , it's just gonna be just gonna be push-buttons . Um . I think we shall have a limited number of buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: ideally , I mean a a power , channel up , channel down , volume up , volume down , and a numerical keypad . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . And some sort of {disfmarker} it will either have a a lock button like we mentioned or or a cover or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it's to the point where we need to decide about that . +Project Manager: Okay , and we're not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well now that we've decided on our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Are we gonna hav hav {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} are we d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: have we decided on whether w we're gonna s supplement it with anything , you know , colours or particular gimmicky bits to it , we're not we're just gonna go for something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um it seems like we wouldn't wanna make it too busy and too sort of gaudy , +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} Yeah , I would say mayb maybe a couple of colours like uh like a black with with yellow and somewhere , like maybe the R_R_ can be yellow , or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . Okey-dokey . Yeah , I don't have any other questions on this . Let's move over to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I guess {vocalsound} the fact uh also that we are having a rubber case uh would prevent us from having the cover function that we thought of before . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: I mean , 'cause uh s so if we wanna have a lock of some sort it would have to be a button . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: But I think that should be {disfmarker} I mean um , I can speak with the button department , but uh I think that it should be easy to have a button that just prevents prevents the other uh the other buttons from operating . +Project Manager: Yeah , the button that just does that , yeah . +User Interface: So that should be simple . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: Right . Well , I'm just basically letting you know what's happening in the markets +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: and what the fashions are for next year . Um . So yes {vocalsound} , so from looking at this year's trends and fashions +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and also recent investigation that we've done in the remote control market , we have found that for the remote control market {vocalsound} these are like most important aspects like that we really need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we've already probably discussed . Um {vocalsound} the most important aspect is look and feel . So the remote control has to look and feel fancier than the ones that already {disfmarker} that we already have . So it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why should people buy this when they're already got a remote that came with the T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um second , uh it should be technologically innovative innovative . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's that mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technologically it should be like um work , basically , I guess . It should work . +User Interface: Well it should be it should be maybe cutting edge in some sense , +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean have something that's little more technologically advanced than what's on the market . +Marketing: That's new . +Project Manager: Okay , now the trouble is is we've already decided that we're going with the stuff that works already , that's cheap . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Actually , I mean , these first two points we've already sort of gone away from , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause our rubber one is not fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I mean it's different , but I wouldn't say like a rubber remote is fancy . If that's what people want then we {disfmarker} maybe we're going in the wrong direction . And it's it's not technologically innovative either . +Project Manager: Maybe we could um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , {gap} no loose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: That's why I was thinking , Bluetooth , 'cause if you like put up Bluetooth , and it's like a Bluetooth remote control , everybody's gonna like , oh , 'cause Bluetooth is the in thing nowadays , like it really is {vocalsound} , like people {disfmarker} and um when it comes to marketing like that's what people go for , they don't really care whether , you know , at the end of the day whether it works properly or not . +Project Manager: Of course , they do . +Marketing: Well , they do , but it's like it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One hundred per cent , that's your first thing , you go , oh I'm not gonna buy that , 'cause I dunno if it works or not . +Marketing: Yeah , but it looks good . If it looks good and it's {disfmarker} it can just be there for decoration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well , what do you two think about this ? +User Interface: So is is the advantage of Bluetooth that you can just like synchronise it with other +Marketing: But like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} I don't understand what m +User Interface: electronics ? +Marketing: You could always insert , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's basically what it allows you to do , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: and it {disfmarker} this is just gonna {gap} {disfmarker} all this is being used for is your television . +Marketing: Yeah , but , I mean , people like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would {disfmarker} that would mean you'd need a television that has Bluetooth in it , which no no television does , +Marketing: Well , if you're looking at {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you {gap} looking at something that's going to be bought by people , you have to make it new , you have to make it state of the art . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? That would mean we'd have to make a television as well . +Industrial Designer: Bluetooth would , for example , enable you , I think , to um um connect {disfmarker} for example you if you get a w call on your mobile phone , but your mobile phone is downstairs or something , you would get on your television you're being called by this person right now . Things like that . +Project Manager: No , that would be your telephone {gap} in with your television . +Industrial Designer: No i +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that wouldn't be the remote so much , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and i +Industrial Designer: No , but if you get Bluetooth on the remote , you'd be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , the televi the television would have to be a Bluetooth compatible , basically . +Industrial Designer: I with the television , yeah . {gap} I was just trying to find an advantage . Wha what w what advantage would you get for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Well , it doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: An and there is no there is no such thing +Marketing: Like it doesn't have to be , you know , Bluetooth , that was just an idea , but like it needs do something that , you know , is new . Whether it's a battery {disfmarker} it could be something really really minor , you know , like {disfmarker} but I think we are really keeping to what is already out there , and people've already seen it , people've already got it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: If we want something new , we need to move away from what we already have and um just go creative . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the kinetic mo provision of energy then . It's been done for watches , but I haven't seen that for remotes , yet . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} that's that's very good . +Marketing: And then you can market it . Never have to change a battery again . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Change the batteries ever again . +Project Manager: And and this is all tying in very nicely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The fact that it's made out of this rubber , we can throw it about . Th we should encourage people to throw their remote controls about , because it charges itself up by doing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , and in little characters you say , yeah , but not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , so can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah , by the squeezing it the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think , safety s +User Interface: Yeah , we can make the squeezing of the rubber be the be the generating {disfmarker} like the energy generator . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a great idea . Well done . +Marketing: Yeah . Third most important aspect {vocalsound} uh is it's easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} we're all about that . +Marketing: And I think we've all um worked that out . Um okay , in the fashion , how it's supposed to look . Next year's fashion i very much in fruit and vegetables are thm are like the theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} So next year people will be buying {vocalsound} , I found this really funny {vocalsound} , you know , strawberry shaped chairs , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so we could have keys that are like a b like a broccoli key and a uh and an avocado key on them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I wanna watch the pineapple channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rubber things . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and as it's rubber the feel which is in this year is spongy , so it's it's not quite spongy , but spongy , I would say is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well spongy , that's where {gap} . Yeah , we're we're ahead of the game there . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great for us . +Marketing: yeah , so we're in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And so personal {gap} what I was just saying like move away from the current remote controls uh like the look and the feel of the current ones and change the look and feel , while still keeping to the company's image , basically . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . I had to say {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we're moving in the right direction like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , yeah , no , this i this is good , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so through all that we've {disfmarker} we go we're {disfmarker} right , we're gonna go go back to um going with the kinetic thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: that's great , using the spongy rubber that we were talking about that anti-R_S_I_ you can {disfmarker} as you squeeze it you are not only therapeuticising yourself , you are charging the batteries {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: and um I'm not sure about the buttons being in the shape of fruit though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No vegetables . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know how we incorporate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We don't have to follow every trend , I guess . +Marketing: Maybe make it like fruity colours or something . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Some sort . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: The power button could be like a big apple or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , but Apple would sue you for that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , this is true {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They don they don't own {vocalsound} all images of apples . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} sued the Beatles so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , we'll make it a uh pomegranate , a big pomegranate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , okay , it seems like the only thing that we haven't really finally um agreed on is its image . Like , yeah , we're we're saying no we don't want it to be fruit and vegetables , but we dunno what it should be , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: or like are we going {disfmarker} yeah it looks slick , but what do what do we mean by slick sort of thing ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think , if it's rubber it needs to be +Project Manager: I mean you said earlier on i {vocalsound} it should be funky . +Marketing: different . I think , it's {disfmarker} it should be {disfmarker} I mean , what do you associate with rubber ? You know like +Project Manager: {vocalsound} L keep it clean , keep it clean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: really different colours basically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , sor I sorry , I used the wrong word , what do you associate with the mate the material {vocalsound} that material ? {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um like I'm just thinking bright colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright natural colours , nothing too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bright , but not too bright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bright , but too {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like no lime green or bright yellow or bright pink . Wanna make it different colours so {vocalsound} anybody can choo like like {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like the volume buttons should be the {disfmarker} all the same colour and the d and the the channel buttons should be one colour and stuff like that , do you mean ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . And on the back of it have the logo . +Project Manager: Okay , what {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Okay . Tha +User Interface: The one thing I'm wondering about , I hope that we're not going like too much down a gimmicky road of of having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean we {disfmarker} that's we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean if somebody go goes into the store they're gonna see like three or four normal remotes , and then a big spongy pink t tomato uh remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is the remote control tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean {vocalsound} what are ninety per cent of people gonna take ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can say in this country , you'll get , you know , lots of people wanting something really funky and cool . Like {disfmarker} and kids will be walking in with their parents saying , Mummy I wanna buy that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And uh parents will see the will see the pro as well , because it's um like kids won't break it , it's not breakable if you throw it around . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Especially with younger kids , you know they can pick it up and and {disfmarker} Yeah . The only thing is is that really small kids might chew on it , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it's it's gotta be chew proof . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'm gonna write that down . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: so it's rea it's quite +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's quite like um user friendly +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and also for different families , like like family use as well , so for little kids and for old ki like teenagers will like it , I think . Especially maybe younger girls if it's in pink they'll be like {gap} pink remote control for their room something . +Project Manager: So , what are you saying , maybe we should market it in different colours for different {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we could do like the pink range , the blue range , the green range , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So like you walk in , you're like , oh I like that remote control , because it's so bright , and then , and then the shop assistant comes up and says , oh what colour would you like ? and then they go like , oh I can choose the colour {vocalsound} wow . So it puts , I think , even the customer into more control over what they're buying instead of , you've got all colour it's either that or nothing . So they also get to pick . Well , personally I like walking into a shop and choosing a colour . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , that that seems to work well with for products like iPod , +Marketing: It's um {disfmarker} +User Interface: where , you know , you have a variety of colours , that people feel like they're customising it when they buy it , even , you know , just just by the fact of choosing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Although I'd be curious to see how many uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: D you've got the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You know , there are some colours that I wouldn I would never choose , and I would be curious how many people choose that colour . +Project Manager: Well that's that can be down to bit of market researching you know , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: if that's easy enough to find out what colours are more popular . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And produce less of the silly colours , maybe . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . Well um , we'll {disfmarker} alright let's {disfmarker} what we're gonna aim to get together by the next meeting then um {vocalsound} is from you Catherine wi your y y you know you're gonna be working on the the look and feel design . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um Gabriel , you're gonna be working on , you know {disfmarker} come up with the the user interface design . Then basically , you two are gonna be working together on this . You won't be going off to your separate offices . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and I think you are gonna get a chance to play with some clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Project Manager: I think , yeah , it's gonna {vocalsound} you know , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: come up ki you know , be ab for the next meeting be able to come in and show us some some i some physical ideas . 'Cause at the moment , uh you know , it's it's hard . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: We were kinda going , yeah , it's gotta feel nice , it's gotta look cool and that it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know now we can actually start , you know , s some sort of physical something or other . +User Interface: That sounds good . +Project Manager: Um and you're gonna be working on the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Evaluation . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} And I {vocalsound} will be uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: talking to the bosses , basically , and uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: f fielding off some more spam and uh +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: that's it really . Keeping things t well , uh you know , ho hopefully uh keeping things together . Um . Yeah , that's {disfmarker} This is this is uh good . So we know for definite we know we've we've now got some definite things going on . We definitely know how it's powered , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we definitely know that um it's gonna be a simple buttons , we're not gonna be going for the new technological chip on print expensive things , so we've we're keeping the costs down . It's this rubber casing that we can sell as um fun and funky . Don't know of any other remote controls that are made out of this stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: People , you know , people are saying , oh , standard stuff gives you repetitive strain injury , well this remote control is designed to do the complete opposite , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's supposed to fix it rather than cause it . Um . {gap} you know , we're gonna we we're gonna as a sort of extra something on it , you know what what extra things {disfmarker} are there extra things this product have ? We'll look into this lock key +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: facility , although whether or not it happens , {vocalsound} or is possible , I don't know , but something to look into . Okay . I think that's um {disfmarker} well done everybody . Anyone have any uh any questions , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: everyone know what they're doing ? 'Cause if you don't , you'll {disfmarker} I'm sure you'll soon get an e-mail about it . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I think we all know what we need to do now . +Marketing: S This gives you all the details ? +Project Manager: Okay . right well . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's um we're we've still couple of minutes until our meeting's due to finish . But um I got a note saying that you two who are gonna be working together {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so bef before you all disappear off just +User Interface: Okay , I'll stay in here . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hold hold fire . Um . +User Interface: Does the pay-raise immediately come into effect on our next pay-check , or is that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I think , it's uh , yeah , I think , it's gonna be par part more of a profit sharing on the product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we're buying fut I mean , we're getting futures in the company {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think i I think that's I think that's the way it's gonna happen at the moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we really have a incentive to make this remote work . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: I'd like to share in the coffee machine profits , because that's really doing well . +Project Manager: I want a share in the space rocket . Did you {gap} see that this k that this company {gap} we've made a spaceship . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This company has its its fingers in a lot of different pots . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , we're definitely not in the money making department . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Well I I did notice looking at {disfmarker} I mean , they told you that they wanted whatev our product to represent the the R_R_ brand and and to be immediately noticeable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , if you look like at the coffee maker at the at the corporate web page , it's not obvious . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: R_R_ . Well it is to us , because we we worked worked here for years and we use that coffee machine , but it's {disfmarker} doesn't have the colour scheme of of the of the company anywhere on it obviously it's just sil silver and black . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Project Manager: And the spaceship doesn't have the R_ {vocalsound} {gap} have a massive R_ and R_ down the side of it +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} I still want one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um I've just had a sign flashing up saying , finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Right , well , I guess that's us . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not telling {disfmarker} it's not saying do anything in particular just yet . So maybe you should go back to your own offices . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Are we taking these off ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it says you two {disfmarker} +","The summary of the above dialogue is as follows: + +A cross-functional team, composed of members from Marketing, Project Management, Industrial Design, and User Interface, convened for a product development meeting with the goal of designing a new TV remote control. The meeting begins with casual banter, including playful comments about the headsets they are using which prompt references to Madonna. + +As they progress to business, the Project Manager recaps the objectives from the last meeting before moving on to discussing the remote control's features. The team makes concerted efforts to understand each other's roles and to integrate their specific areas of expertise into the development of the product. + +A significant portion of the meeting is devoted to the technical considerations for the remote, including possible energy sources like conventional batteries, hand dynamos, kinetic energy, and solar cells. The Industrial Designer provides options for the remote's physical design, such as the shape and the material of the casing, as well as the types of controls such as push-buttons or scroll wheels. The team deliberates over these choices, paying special attention to the practicalities of manufacturing and user-friendliness. + +Marketing contributes insights on trends and customer preferences, stressing the importance of a visually appealing and technologically innovative product. Taking into account next year's trend towards fruit and vegetable themes and the desirability of a ""spongy"" feel, the team contemplates how these elements can be incorporated into their design without sacrificing the product's utility. Marketing also pitches the idea of integrating Bluetooth connectivity, but this concept is debated due to compatibility issues with existing TVs. + +As they conclude the meeting, the team settles on several key decisions: +- The remote will be powered by kinetic energy to eliminate the need for battery replacement. +- It will have a rubberized, anti-Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) design for a comfortable grip and the ability to withstand being thrown without damage. +- The remote will feature simple push-buttons for ease of use. +- They will explore options for a lock key feature to prevent accidental button presses. +- They agree to design multiple color options, making the product customizable and appealing to different age groups. + +To summarize, the team successfully makes progress by assigning action items to each department. These include the finalization of the design, interface, and marketing evaluation. Furthermore, they agree upon the overall strategy of creating a product that is easy to use, engaging, and aligns with R_R_'s brand identity. The collaborative and relatively humor-filled nature of the discussion underscores the team's cohesiveness and commitment to developing a standout remote control in a competitive market." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come to the third meetings . I have {gap} good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so in the last meeting we have discussed the functional design and now we will talk about the conceptual design . So we will talk about some specific details . +Industrial Designer: Okay so I think I will do my presentation on the components concept so can you please uh open uh {disfmarker} I'm participant two . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Components design . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay so uh the first thing uh I have done is to to made a review together with the uh manufactural uh department and have which components was uh available to build a remote control . So for energy sources we have we have to choose between the solar energy , hand dynamo and uh kinetic um well uh kinetic uh technique {vocalsound} to to store the energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We also um {vocalsound} we also can put a regular battery in the in the remote control . Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh this is what we have decided in the last meeting . But if we use battery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah b uh f well uh I meant uh by by battery I meant uh I will not have a uh a wire between the remote control and the energy source but uh I didn't fou we didn't decide yet which kind of battery we will put inside the the remote . So uh it's a point to discuss . Then uh the case material we have uh uh also several choices , like wood , rubber , titanium or latex . {vocalsound} But uh well it's not a a re uh well a real issue for the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} from the technical uh point of view . Concerning the interface uh we can we can put mm just simple buttons or scrolls or buttons uh much more complicated , but it also requires that the chip to process the button is more complicated so . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh this is the last point , the choice of chips . So what I have f found is that I think basic battery or kinetic uh energy uh collection is the is the better way to provide energy because I think solar energy wi won't work {vocalsound} in a cluttered uh {vocalsound} uh environment . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So um so I think we can start with these two main things . For the case uh well uh I think that uh titanium is um is a good choice because it's trendy and it's uh it's uh well it's modern and uh user are are are {disfmarker} mm will be uh very happy to have a {vocalsound} a a nice remote . For the interface uh I think that we can ach achieve uh all the desired functionalities by s just uh using uh rubber buttons , simple buttons and th thus this allow to use a regular chip {vocalsound} that are uh well cheaper . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And s so uh we can move to the next slide . +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What is this single curved {disfmarker} what does it mean ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh uh i i it's uh it's the the shape of the um of the remote . +User Interface: So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You you will have the {disfmarker} well um the the curve will fit into your hand when you grab the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yo l yeah . When you hold on it , it is comfortable to hold . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's more confog f comfortable that if these uh it's completely flat . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . And the battery , is it kind of a rechargeable or it doesn't matter ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the um that's the point . The kinetic one is uh y you can recharge uh by the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That that's what it means by kinetic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and by {disfmarker} well by just by moving the ar uh your arm the mm well the remote will uh accumulate energy . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I d I don't know it's {disfmarker} if it is feasible because I don't know if yet if if the user will move enough to provide the remote um all the necessary energy . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Okay . Yeah . Yeah . We we might check with our R_ and D_ department to see if they have this product {vocalsound} ready for market . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} yeah and so can you go to the next slide please . So and uh that's uh that summarize well what I have said . +User Interface: Mm mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wha +Industrial Designer: So uh you're right we can uh see in our uh R_ and D_ uh {vocalsound} if the kinetic metal is sufficient to provide enough energy . +User Interface: Ah the department . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} So I um keep in touch with the R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I take care , it's all right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So the titanium case is the normal case that {disfmarker} I'll show you some pictures that I have and you tell me whether they are titanium case or not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All right . Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause I am not very sure , plastic , titanium or whatever . There's another point I want to make , is that the uh {disfmarker} well you've seen them I le na my presentation that um I point out some {disfmarker} why buttons are not the mm not the only ways you can {vocalsound} use {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , maybe n +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So the user interface is uh i it uses the aspect uh of a computer system , a programme which can be seen or heard or otherwise perceived by the human user +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and the commands and mechanism the user uses to control its operation and input data . So you s this gives you the ways to input data and we have uh {disfmarker} we are more {disfmarker} we emphasise more on the graphical user interface here . The idea is to represent buttons as figures , diagrams , symbols and on so you you can easily when you look at the symbols you understand what it is doing . +Project Manager: What's the function of this button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: I think it makes the the interface really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ea easy to use . So next one . +Project Manager: Graphical user interface {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} function five . So I can use the button , the mouse maybe . +Project Manager: A graphical user interface emphasise the use of pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . So next line . So the {disfmarker} here are some examples . So they cluster the buttons together . They group them into col they colour them and uh they have different forms as well . Mm but this interface are kind of confusing . Uh basically there are too many buttons . Right . Next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So some people are propose voice recognition and so {disfmarker} ah by the way I receive an email from the from one our departments saying that the voice recognition has been used in the coffee machine {vocalsound} for this by a company +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: when you tell the {disfmarker} you say good morning coffee machine and the machine are reply to you . So I just got an email saying that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm mm . +User Interface: And it seems like this voice recognition technology is ready to be used so we might consider that , supposedly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah fine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next one . Mm so somebody {disfmarker} some people use uh some people use a spinning wheel th with the L_C_ display so instead of using the mm buttons you have a L_C_D_ screen and then there you can u you can use that as buttons , you can use that as real {disfmarker} so so that could be an option as well . Touch screen , I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Next one . And some people propose a scroll button . Integrated with push buttons or you may have scroll button instead of p just the push button . Like the one we have here . Uh , next one . So mm +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so there are a few aspects that I collected here . So s basically this deals with special users , children , handicapped people , old people , and uh mm and prog basically they are programmable , specially for children . And uh mm {disfmarker} yeah yeah . And then they also secure uh covers , to protect uh secure and hidden programming and battery covers that will protect your settings . So {disfmarker} But we don't have to integrate all these complicated features . I'm just saying that the {disfmarker} currently in the market there are there are control there are remote controllers f {gap} customisable for different people . Yeah , so that's the point . The next one . And uh you see this is the one where you have the protection cover . Mm maybe useful for children , they migh you you they only see the buttons outside . And for adults wh where you have more control you can see the one inside . So the adults might wanna have a key to lock that to pr so children will not touch the button inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: S a good idea . +User Interface: The next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this guy {disfmarker} this is another company that provides big buttons . At {disfmarker} I see that that is useful for old people and then you don't get it lost . But for our product we don't need a big one because you have voice recognition e eventually with use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And you can call your remote controller if you don't know where it is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} T_V_ remote controller where are you ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then , he will beeps and to say that I am here , {vocalsound} for example . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We should include speech synthesis in this case , no ? +User Interface: Is it possible ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as Norman say if uh there is uh already a commercial product available who t who do this we we can check uh to integrate it i into our uh new remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And uh , this is another one where you can uh {disfmarker} the the the part that's a V_ standing for the volume . So there's a up arrow and a down arrow . But you the see that in the V_ , the V_ appears to be the down arrow on the top {disfmarker} on the top up arrow {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: up arrow there's a V_ like as as if it's turning down so it's confusing interface , so I wanna avoid this kind of thing in the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: And here are {disfmarker} is uh here is a s short summary that I summary that I compiled after the findings I found . Big buttons are convenient , voice recognition helps , push buttons , scroll buttons , spinning wheels can be used as navigation tools . And uh user customisable is important and finally simplicity simplicity is the key . Yeah . So {vocalsound} we have many concepts there +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we have to choose later on which ones are important to be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And basically uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I {vocalsound} I think you it's it's it's fine you have uh reviewed all all the possibilities +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh uh well uh i if we consider that uh the user interface is displayed on the T_V_ screen I don't think we nee uh we need much buttons in the remote +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we we just have to navigate and to have a okay or enter key or things like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: because uh adding wheels or scrolls uh makes the thing more complicated and more expensive also , so . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Or maybe we can include the user manual in the in the remote control {gap} and we should have just a button like help and you say uh and you ik you press the button help and maybe you see the the user m might in the in the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To have a help button . +User Interface: A help button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you are display on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: On T_V_ T_V_ screen . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: On the T_V_ screen . On the T_V_ screen the uh how to use your remote . +Project Manager: So just you push the button +User Interface: Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: So that eliminates all the complicated documentation {gap} , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . So wi +Marketing: But people are often enough looking at the help , +Project Manager: If the if {disfmarker} +Marketing: once they see the help button they say oh this is a complicated stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} In the case where they need help , in the case where they need help . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a psychology . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In a marketing point of view . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And let us see what the market demands . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We could just go to my presentation . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} uh wel well I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for user customizable , for kids or old people . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it just showed us the remote with an cap which could be used for kids and if you remove the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: Same remote with some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can be used by both kids and old people . +Marketing: Both yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Well uh what I s propose is that uh you know a remote controller , i {vocalsound} it could be a cube , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: is uh a small device that uh looks like a cube and maybe you can just change the {vocalsound} um the buttons , if you ch turn one side you get one one buttons , you turn the other side you get the other buttons , so for maybe new generation people who get used to the computer they want lots of controls . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe for kids , kids they like uh t no l they like to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So le le let's see what uh what {vocalsound} people want . +User Interface: Let's see the market demand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then we can decide what what we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: What what {gap} market {disfmarker} yes yes . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So we just made an marketing survey of what people need from our remotes and how it could be special from the other remotes . And we got the best on the responses from the questionnaires . Uh we also have some prizes for the most creative solutions . And we found the following solutions which we could {disfmarker} which would be helpful for our design . So seventy percent of the users , they find their remote controls very ugly , they don't find it pleasant to use in the size or usage or anything . And eighty percent of the people they are always l I mean they are willing to spend more money if the remote control would look fancy . And the current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . And seventy five percent of the users said they zap a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And fifty percent say they use only ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so the rest of the ninety percent of the buttons they're not used most of the times . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes . +Marketing: So this were the findings which we found . And also they cited frustrations with the present remote controls . Most of {disfmarker} fifty percent of the time the remote controls are lost somewhere in the room and people are always searching for them {vocalsound} rather than watching the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And by the time they found the remote control the program is finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} they're frustrated a lot {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um if the remote control is too complicated it takes much time to learn the functionality of it . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , the functionalities yeah . +Marketing: So you can just see the percentage , fifty percent people they responded that they always lose their remotes and thirty four percent they say that it's quite difficult to learn if it's too complex . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So keeping in view all these findings and the frustrations I think this should be the solution for them . We should have an L_C_D_ on the rem remote control . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well mm w well I I I don't really see the advantage of having uh L_C_D_ on the on the remote control if we have a a a big screen and uh display on the screen . +User Interface: Big screen . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Industrial Designer: yeah of course it's fancy trendy and so on but it's it's expensive to produce {vocalsound} and it's not really {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean as our survey says that people are willing to pay more if their remotes are fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we have a L_C_D_ on the remote , rather than looking onto the T_V_ you just look into a remote and navigate it . It's the same menu as we have saw that iPod remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . The thing {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: We just {vocalsound} play around +Industrial Designer: Yeah but when you play with the iPod you don't have {vocalsound} a big screen in front of you , s +Project Manager: You can use this screen instead of the big se screen , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: instead of use the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: If you re-use the existing screen , we element {disfmarker} eliminate the L_C_D_ , after all the L_C_D_ just to display +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and if you have the colourful screen you can make the display colourful , fancy , as fancy as the one on the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: maybe even better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean this were the points which we got from the market demands . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So +Industrial Designer: So I th I I {vocalsound} well I think we we can focus on the uh on the fancy look on the uh +User Interface: Yeah . More on a fancy design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's fine . +Industrial Designer: on the speech recognition if the technology is available +Marketing: Yeah . I mean that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but well I think L_C_D_ will uh will uh make us spend a lot of money for not so big results . +User Interface: Mm . Remember we have a s budget for the cost of producing the remote controller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So i is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah we have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so the thing is you can find out how much an L_C_D_ will cost and then we'll decide again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean that should be found out by the Industrial Designers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh maybe you can find out the price and tell us next time {gap} . Is i if i +Industrial Designer: So price of uh L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it's always good to have an voice recognition for the remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah . And also the cost for the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Mm . It's for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ask our R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's just for small vocabulary . We {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it's o only for a limited vocabulary , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And ho +Marketing: say eighty commands or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And also the scroller button , how much will it cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well uh compared to the to s the simpl simpler simplest button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Push push {gap} . +Marketing: Mm , the scroll button , {gap} from the survey we never see that people would like to have some scrolling button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because they they just they're just frightened to use the scrollings or {vocalsound} help button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I I think that uh well uh as we have seen in the in the presentation uh well uh about uh uh fifty percent of the of the percent n choose the button +User Interface: Don't use the buttons . +Industrial Designer: so uh I think to have uh five uh simple button is sufficient for our functionality . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: It doesn't mean that the other buttons are not necessary or important . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Important . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they are just less used compar +Marketing: They're not used much . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the uh the thing is is i is that we can add a functionality on the on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like uh a a list of function +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then you choose with the with the button to {disfmarker} well you navigate +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . So so the at most {disfmarker} more power uh . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe we can u uh or maybe we can uh make this the ten percent of button more bigger than the others . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if i i if we if we could have a a a display uh g a user interface that is very complete on the T_V_ screen {vocalsound} I think that just five buttons are sufficient , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: one to go up left right down and uh enter +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you you you just select the functionality you want to access or things like that . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to to switch to a channel to another uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be like this , as the people say , if they have a L_C_D_ on the remote not on the television . Because when you have the L_C_D_ onto the television screen you miss the picture in the background , we are most focused on the commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have then L_C_D_ in the remote , you just have a menu , and increasing and lower these signs here to change the programs and this menu when you press the menu , in the L_C_D_ displays as you go on pressing the menu it faster displays volume , then the program , then the brightness , contrast and all the stuff . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Yeah but if you look at the L_C_D_ you you don't look at the T_V_ screen +Marketing: And accordingly you can just increase or decrease . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} i i it's not really worth to get {disfmarker} to have the image if you don't look at , so . +User Interface: I if {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: And I think it's increases the cost of the the remote control if you use L_C_D_ . I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that has to be checked out . +User Interface: I think that there's no contradiction here , because if there are few buttons , you don't have to look at your your controller any more because you know where the buttons are , so if you wanna control the screen d sh sharpness you just say sharpness +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you t turn {disfmarker} you just press lef increase or decrease button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the same for the volume and the channel , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you had the speech recognition there you just shout your channel , just tell your channel and then you don't even have to look at the butto at the controller so finally that wil eliminates the the need for L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: with the help of speech recogniser you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , {gap} better if we could just check all the cost with L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and also with the speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we could find which would would be a more suitable in this case . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . A and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the third problem was to find the remote control . Always , so fifty percent of the people say they lose the remotes . +Industrial Designer: Well so we we can think about a well a a vocal command like uh find +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} when the remote control uh hears fine well yeah just uh to make him beep or t +Project Manager: You will listen to a peep , {vocalsound} special peep . +User Interface: Where {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right , that's exactly what I mean by voice commander . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be also something like this , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it's always boring to change the batteries of the remotes control , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so we have some one charger there and whenever we don't use the remote control we put it in the charger . +User Interface: Put it back at the charge . +Industrial Designer: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And when we're using that t remote and if we misplace somewhere , in the charger we have a small button , and just by pressing the button in the charger the uh remote control beeps , wherever it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And that's a good idea , that's simple , like in phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I mean it doe it also doesn't require a voice command , +Project Manager: But you don't you don't have to move the the charger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because there are problems with a voice command . +User Interface: Hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Th yeah . Mm yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: You have to keep it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean charger would be fixed +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because it's always with electricity plugged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if there if there uh there is nuff not enough battery . Also and uh uh the remote is lost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . There's {disfmarker} mm . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: That {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} what we can do is we can program a function whereby when you press the switch off T_V_ button , the off button , the remote there be s uh instruction on the screen , please charge charge me . You never get it lost +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh every time you're off the computer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the T_V_ you are asked the the command the T_V_ com remote controller would tell you to put it back to where {disfmarker} to the charger . +Marketing: It's an good reminder , +User Interface: Yeah . So you will never get lost {gap} {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe for some people {gap} {vocalsound} lazy people . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah because everything is programmed inside . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So it's it's uh it's all about strategy , y +Marketing: And of course the final point is a fancy look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: As we have seen earlier the remotes which were displayed by Norman they weren't fancy , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I mean mm very big or something with lot of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should have something {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the last one with the um {vocalsound} yeah with the two parts was uh {gap} original , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: With uh two two two parts controller . +Marketing: I mean {gap} uh I mean uh I mean uh you see if it's like that even a kid who wants to have a control he could just plug it and {vocalsound} use it , you can't avoid him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But you can have an button for child lock . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So just by pressing the button with some code , you t you put a lock onto the remote , so that he can't use even {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well we can think about uh having uh on the on the on the user interface when you switch on the T_V_ you can uh well write a code or choose a category , if it is kids , uh things like that . +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Or maybe you have to to show some specific programmes for kids and then just just {disfmarker} yeah just push uh kids button so it's automatically +User Interface: Mm . {gap} these are probl yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So if he {gap} . +Marketing: I think these other four points they're the market demands and so it's for the user interface design and industrial design to just think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So for mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So for my part I will check the prices the um the prices difference uh of what to use , where to use , and s uh and so on . +Marketing: Yeah I think it should be clearer for us in the next meeting that th uh these {gap} could be included . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I think we need to define also a s the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh if you want {gap} uh say we can sort by channels or sort by T_V_ programs , you have to decide a category of vocabularies for them . If numbers , they're easy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if {gap} name the channel by by name {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we can we can have just numbers for channels and you can say to your remote control like uh sports and then on the T_V_ you have a list with with uh uh well with sports program playing now +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we have a problem there . You see uh if you have a voice commands and you are s you are watching a score on uh {disfmarker} basketball score or something , and if the score comes twenty four thirty five , you've just say twenty five +Project Manager: Yeah it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and suddenly {vocalsound} the screen the channel goes to twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So I think there should be a prefix to some numbers {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well but well e every possible word uh has a probability to come about of the T_V_ so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the the {disfmarker} you just check all the probability that saying T_V_ twenty five and just ordinary twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Ordinary twenty five you almost there's a probability of being said around sixty seventy percent +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but well {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: and T_V_ twenty five I dunno it will be round about one or two percent . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So it's better to have some prefix {gap} before the number . +User Interface: But I I I think that the user would like wou would like to associate the channel or call the channel rather than than the numbers . +Marketing: Yeah something , some code . +User Interface: You say numbe channel number five of the T_V_ correspond to something else in the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So some people may want to say , I want to see this channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm mm . Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: That will be too big . +Project Manager: Or just {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it will be difficult for the vocabulary also . +User Interface: Yeah . Check with the v R_ and D_ department the capability of recogniser . +Project Manager: It's difficult to to just say the the name of the channel . It will be difficult to say just the name of the channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: Because you have to s t uh a ch +User Interface: Well , it's convenient for the user . +Project Manager: yeah but you have to to have all the name of the channel in your vocabulary . +Marketing: Als might be you just forgot the channel name , you kno only know the number . +Project Manager: Or maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe the user can create his own vocabulary , +User Interface: The {disfmarker} uh uh mm . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: just pronouncing the the name of channels and include in the vocabulary . +User Interface: I I think that I have {disfmarker} mm mm {vocalsound} I think there's another way you can do is that uh you can uh {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} when the user ch press a button to choose the channel for example , then what you can do is that the {disfmarker} you can make the T_V_ screen to split them into small little little squares of images where you you you have a snapshot of every channel , so let's say it's a four by four matrix of the images , so now what you do is f looking at the all the sixteen channels available at one time , you just use the control button uh , you just you you just choose the the option you want +Marketing: Yeah , the {gap} . +User Interface: and then you just hit the button and then you go to that channel . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or lets the user create his own vocabulary of channel . +User Interface: Mm . So you you don't use the speech recogniser in that way . +Project Manager: No . Just you have uh in the beginning you have uh t you have to train {disfmarker} you have to create the vocabulary by yourself . +User Interface: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh I also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By associating each channel with the name or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I also think about uh another problem , if if there is uh more than one person who is watching T_V_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for each one has his own . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the s well the the speech uh r recogniser should be able to distinguish between the two . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh I remember when I was a {vocalsound} young child with my sister we {disfmarker} yeah we always want to w to watch different emission at the at the same time +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or you have to s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I wanna watch this , I wanna watch that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a pr it could be a problem if uh if well if someone passes by when you are watching T_V_ and say oh T_V_ thirty {vocalsound} and just run , s +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: A and in the same lines we would have a {disfmarker} one more problem . If we are using the television in the different environments , say in the factories or in the shops where there is a lot of noise and this voice commands if they fail to work , that would bring a bad name {disfmarker} bad uh reputation for our company . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we should specify some pre-requirements if we want to use a voice commands , say that it should be used in an silent homely environment or s something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we can switch on or switch off the the special {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right that should be an option . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} well I think that's a good uh a good option because it's simple and uh simple to implement also , so . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think these are the practical problems . So we need to take care of them in the design . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll discuss them in next meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's time to close this meeting . +User Interface: Well , you you stay a five minutes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh it came there on three minutes back so we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think we can just press the okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks for your collaborations . +Industrial Designer: So I see ya . +Marketing: Okay . See you another thirty minutes . +","Summary: + +In the third meeting involving a project manager, industrial designer, user interface developer, and marketing representative, the team discusses the conceptual design of a new remote control. The industrial designer presents various energy source options, including batteries, solar energy, hand dynamo, and kinetic energy techniques. They also debate material choices for the case, such as wood, rubber, titanium, or latex, and consider user interface options like rubber buttons, scrolls, and chips. + +The UI developer contributes the idea of using simple buttons to keep costs down while maintaining functionality. The industrial designer prefers kinetic energy collection for the power source, considering solar energy unsuitable for cluttered environments, and suggests titanium for the case due to its modern appeal. + +The concept of ease of use is emphasized, with the UI proposing graphical user interfaces using symbols, diagrams, and possibly voice recognition. Marketing brings up survey findings indicating user preferences for aesthetically pleasing remote controls willing to spend more for such designs. Concerns are expressed over the loss of remote controls, the complexity of usage, and preferences towards using only a small portion of the available buttons. + +Several suggestions are made, including a voice command to locate lost remotes, charging docks that remind users to recharge, child-lock functionalities, user-programmable channels, and a screen on the remote itself, though this last idea is debated due to cost and practicality considerations. + +Ultimately, the design should be user-friendly, affordable, and possibly customizable. The team plans to further evaluate the cost and feasibility of various features like LCD displays and voice recognition while considering solutions for potential problems such as noise interference or multiple users trying to control the TV at once. The meeting concludes with action items to research the cost implications of various design choices and a decision to reconvene for further discussion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Well hi everyone again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Hello +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and so here we go . Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote +User Interface: Designer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_ . It should have nine channel buttons , a next button , volume buttons , subtitle buttons , switch to control features , colour contrast , sharpness etcetera . It should have a memory switch , a mute button in case the telephone rings or something . Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote . Um . {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons , colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons . Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she , she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote . The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue . She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong , not using any harmful materials , should be recyclable and should be colourful . Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant . She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated . Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor , diode transistor , resonator , and if possible a rechargeable battery . Uh and of course a circuit board . And how it would works , you press the button , the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore . Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases . The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition , has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small , easy to use and it should be eye catching . From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does . To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on . Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter . So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home . Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel . She feels that's really what people want today . And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser , the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip , should be trendy design , compact and strong , and should have buttons . And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting . Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just the look like , the button part I'll explain . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made . This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oops , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als +Marketing: Oh that's good , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: no , that's nice and friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led , for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote . Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Yeah , okay , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: on the side of the model . Then we have included one to nine buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels . Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: What kind of button ? +User Interface: Menu button . +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh menu th menu , uh one one . +User Interface: Yes , menu {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu button . {vocalsound} +User Interface: At the centre +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour , sharpness , brightness +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Of the screen . Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: of this uh picture . We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button . Now this is uh a special , special feature which we have included . Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel , if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel . It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button . +Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap , this button . +Marketing: Yeah , mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , okay . +User Interface: And at the end , it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is our proposed model . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Tell , yeah . +User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised , right ? +Marketing: The buttons are all raised +Project Manager: Are raised , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around , turn it upside down , move it up , up and down , +Project Manager: Right . Or have two hands to operate it , yeah . +Marketing: I really like that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You really did a good job on that , my little designers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place . That's that's a really good good thing . +Project Manager: Yes , and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Abs okay . +Marketing: The colour's very attractive . Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute +User Interface: No , these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here , are the mute buttons . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute ? +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: So you can push either one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter . +Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me ? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes , yes . +Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker} +User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels . +Marketing: F f okay . +User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels . +Marketing: Right , very good . Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I have one question +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons , like that people know , or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what ? +User Interface: Yes , it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , which can be easily recognised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols 'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , and also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols , text or something so that people kn +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text . +Marketing: Symbols on it . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself , +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay , mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A shell shape . +Marketing: For the snail , yeah , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , snail shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +Marketing: He goes right back into his shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course , yeah . +Marketing: you know that would , that would really work . +Project Manager: Now what , what are our special features for the marketing ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And then , and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use . +Marketing: Yep +Project Manager: You know . +Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical . I think we have to , we have to dwell on on on the appearance . +Project Manager: Colours . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the +Project Manager: Cutest . +Marketing: cutest remote control on the block . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image , play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think those are the two things to push . The look and the voice recognition . They're gonna be our two selling points . +Project Manager: Okay , now uh having said that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation , aren't I ? +Project Manager: No , now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , there is a production evaluation . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Is that you ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: But that's after the financing . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: See ? Fi see ? +Marketing: Sorry , sorry . Mm-mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Okay , we had looks and voice recognition . Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is . Okay uh energy source we say that's battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay , now . So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What ? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected . Well , that's nice . She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work . Hmm . +Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's see . Okay , one , okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh go away . Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh electronics , simple chip on print ? Is that's what we're using ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: One of those ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . Okay , one . Uh regular chip on print . No . That's all we need , the one +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} case , uncurved flat , single curved , double curved . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single curve ? Mm . +Marketing: I guess it's double curved . +Project Manager: Double curved ? One of those ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Case materi s supplements . Plastic we said , right ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh wood , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber , because we're gonna have the soft buttons . +Project Manager: Uh but , yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material . +Project Manager: That's just for the case material , +User Interface: Is this for the case ? Yes . +Project Manager: so special colours though , we having that , +Marketing: Oh okay , the mm-hmm , mm' kay . +Project Manager: right ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel , no . Integrated scroll wheel , L_C_ display ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Button . +Marketing: 'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all , right ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , button supplement special colour ? +User Interface: Speci Yes +Project Manager: Special form ? +User Interface: Yes d we do have special form . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And special material , rubber , wood , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I think that's the price . +Project Manager: That's the price . +User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine +Project Manager: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n +Project Manager: Eight , eight point two . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nine points , +Project Manager: hmm ? +User Interface: okay , yes . +Project Manager: Eight point two , right ? So , we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . I guess I should save this I suppose , huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . Uh-huh huh huh . +User Interface: On the desktop . +Project Manager: I just tried that . My documents , computer . +Industrial Designer: AMI . +Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is , yes . +Industrial Designer: AMI should for +Project Manager: Okay , fine . Save . Okay good , so that's the good news . We gonna be popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation . +Marketing: Okay , I'll take my file down so you can bring it up . 'Kay should be able to get it now . 'Kay , why don't you move just to the next slide right away . +Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah right away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question , will it sell ? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course , but maybe we just need to get a few . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups , we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it , we think it's good , we're gonna get behind it and sell it . Um , next slide please . Okay , now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype . I wanted the shape to be biomorphic , I didn't want anything with angles and all square , I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that . The size is small , the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted . We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible , we'll have the soft buttons +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and the way this is shaped , even though it's gonna be hard plastic , it feels good in your hand so that's nice . And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features , in other words , the look , the feel um and the shape , that's what people are gonna get in the store . +User Interface: Fee selling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: They don't have a television in the store , they can't play with it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points . So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please . Okay , so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one . That's really , really excellent shape . The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the , for the marketing , these aren't i in how I feel . I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven . I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And our colour I think is great . The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there . And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible . And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality , obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it . +Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that , too . +Marketing: Well , um we had what , eight eight euros twenty as our cost ? +Project Manager: Eight , eight twenty , yes . +Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend . +Industrial Designer: We have um four euros , yeah +Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well um that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished , as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that . I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price , the the the problem is quality . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , still . +Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Included , yeah . Hmm , +User Interface: Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: hmm +Project Manager: So to beware of that . You wanna go to this next slide , marketing expert ? +Marketing: Uh , well I isn't this my last slide ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Maybe . +Project Manager: Yes it is . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Go ahead . I think that was my last slide , yeah . Um . Mm okay . And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard . Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now , so if you put my last slide back up there . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that , um . +Project Manager: Why ? Wh why you need that up ? +Marketing: Hmm ? Well because I can't remember what I put on there . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here . +Project Manager: I think you can make it there . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . You ready . So now we're all supposed to say what we think . Um okay so on shape I gave it a one . Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst . +User Interface: Worse , okay . +Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is ? +User Interface: One . +Marketing: One , okay , and Be Betsy ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even my {disfmarker} yeah , shape is one . +Marketing: Okay , uh-huh one , okay . And how about on size ? On size {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four . +Marketing: I gave it a four , yeah , I feel it's just average . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno . I think I would give it at least a two . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I think it is one . It's quite small . +Marketing: Okay . Okay {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're the designer , of course you wanna give it a one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour ? +Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Colour , I gave it a one . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: I really like all those nice bright , warm colours . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours . One . +User Interface: One . Yes . +Marketing: One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One , one , one , okay . And how about the feel ? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand . +Project Manager: Uh , I think I would give it a two . +Marketing: Okay , I gave it a three , two , +User Interface: I'll give three . +Marketing: yeah ? Three . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two , +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh three , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . Well , um . It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product . Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe , heaven forbid , having another meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product . Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate ? +Project Manager: Uh . Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity . Um . Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy ? +User Interface: We can always improve , yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah , include some more buttons and uh um +User Interface: Yes , features . +Industrial Designer: yeah features . We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller . Uh I think they are quite big , so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case . If we want to have more features than that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yes . Voices . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons , instead of having two mute buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , definitely , yeah , two mu mute buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control . Maybe we can put that all on one button . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that . +Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't , with this particular item , we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . No . +Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process ? Uh , um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created ? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy . +Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too , yeah um , +Project Manager: Um an +Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy . +Marketing: it's something I think I can market . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job , Miss leader . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , yes you've done a good job . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , definitely . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good , I think we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used ? We used whiteboard , we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more , yeah , +User Interface: Whiteboard more , yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably . +Marketing: we didn't use that enough . +Project Manager: Yes , we could . Uh , it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , I think so , I think absolutely , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , many . +Marketing: I think we were we were very good , yeah , mm . +Project Manager: I think we we did , uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Are the costs within budget ? Yes , yes . Uh is the project evaluated ? Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um then celebration . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Celebration . +User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes , yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of 'em we have champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much . Um , I think this was very good and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible . Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Okay . Watch I I have my cord behind you here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I always get it on here , but getting it off is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left ? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: They say it's forty minutes . +Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later +Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time , whenever we felt we were finished . +Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace . {vocalsound} Oh , there we go . +","In a project meeting, the team reviewed and confirmed elements of the design for a new remote control, focusing on its look, features, and functionality. Key features include a child-friendly, colorful design with easy-to-use buttons, speech recognition, and a strong, recyclable plastic case with soft rubber buttons. Marketing emphasized the need for a small, eye-catching design, and rapid market entry focusing on one or two standout features, such as the innovative speech recognition. The prototype was described as snail-shaped with a bright blue color and yellow buttons. The group discussed marketing strategies and evaluated the product on shape, size, color, feel, and functionality, generally agreeing that it was a strong product. The project costs were within budget, and the team also discussed potential improvements and creative ideas. The meeting ended with the team feeling positive about the project's progress and readiness for the prototype presentation and market launch." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our scrutiny session on Estyn's annual report 2018-19. I'm very pleased to welcome Meilyr Rowlands, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Estyn; Jassa Scott, strategic director at Estyn; and Claire Morgan, strategic director at Estyn. Thank you all for attending. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. We'll go straight into questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Bore da. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the papers upfront, in which you say that the most striking feature of the education system, looking forward, of course is the curriculum and the change that that's bringing. How can we be sure that, during this period of change, standards don't slip? And also, from the point of view of scrutiny, will we be back in a situation where we're being told, 'You can't compare one set of results against the previous year's results, because of the nature of the change'? +Meilyr Rowlands: Bore da, bawb. Thank you for the invitation to come here. I think that's a good question. I think any kind of major educational reform has got risks attached to it, particularly if those changes were made too quickly. I think this process of reform has been going on in the background for a few years now, so I think there is a track record of standards and provision not slipping. We've seen small incremental improvements. So, overall, I think we can be fairly confident that standards won't slip during this period of preparation. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask: is that based on your evidence around primary schools, where the sort of ethos that we've seen in the curriculum has been already articulated through the foundation phase? +Meilyr Rowlands: The track record I'm talking about is across the board, so it's very difficult to think of anything that's actually got worse over the last three or four years, so it's difficult to say that standards of provision is slipping. It might not be improving as quickly as we would like, but the purpose of major curriculum and, more generally, educational reform is to make sure that we do get a more substantial sort of improvement. I think we should congratulate the profession for the work they've been doing. A large number of schools and teachers and leaders have been part of preparing the new curriculum and all the associated work, as well as doing the day job. I think their commitment and their engagement with curriculum reform, and engagement with wider education reform, is to be congratulated. So, I think going forward, we must make sure that that is continued; that this process that's called co-construction—engaging with the profession, making sure that they're behind all the changes—continues. I think that's what's going to make sure that we don't see any slippage. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and on that point of comparing year on year, we will be able to make those comparisons legitimately then? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, in terms of our inspection outcomes and our inspection work, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great, thank you. Can I just ask you then about the difference in preparedness between primary and secondary schools, which I've just mentioned previously, and also what your views are on the impact of funding for schools on that as well? Because we're in a situation where a number of primary schools have got surplus funds, sometimes that's because of end of year additional funds just being magicked up, but there is a serious worry that so many secondary schools are in deficit and that, overall, secondary schools are in deficit. Is there a correlation between those two positions, that secondary schools may be less ready for this than primary schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's probably true to say that secondary schools have a greater challenge than primary schools generally in terms of preparedness for the new curriculum. I think that's why we welcomed the phasing in of the new curriculum. With any sort of education reform, you've got that danger of people wanting to see change as soon as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand you need time to pilot things, to make sure that people have the right professional learning and make sure that there's opportunity for evaluation and thinking and so forth. So, we've got to get that balance right. +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, that could be difficult to do if a school doesn't have money to create that space, couldn't it? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. You raised two issues, I think. One, about the difference between primary and secondary: I think what I'm saying there is I think the fact that the new curriculum is going to be brought in for all the years in primary, but it's going to be phased in year by year for secondary is a recognition of that difference. In terms of funding, probably everyone in this room, and certainly me included, would like to see more money for the education system—any educationalist would like to see that. But, you know, that is a decision for local and central Government to decide how much they can afford. I think there is an argument for saying that the funding has become more challenging for schools over time. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, just to keep it on track, are you finding that that's having an impact on secondary schools particularly—their ability to make space to get their heads around the curriculum? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think you can make that straightforward correlation. But if you do look at surpluses and reserves, they have been more or less constant for primary schools over a long period of time, but they have declined for secondary schools. So, I think there probably is an argument for saying that we need to look at the funding of secondary schools in particular because, overall, they're in deficit now. So, I think there is an argument for looking at that. The other thing that's worth saying about funding is that even a small decrease in real terms can be disproportionately time consuming to manage. So, you know, if you have a large school and you have to maybe make one member of staff redundant, it can have a real big effect on the morale in the school. But also the time it takes for the headteacher and the senior staff to make those decisions can take their eye off the educational ball because they're looking at these financial and staffing issues. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Siân might develop that a little bit further on. The final question from me is: there's a general concern about the number of teachers that we have in the system at the moment, particularly at secondary level and in particular subjects as well. How do you think we can improve that? What impact is it likely to have on the ability of secondary schools to really get a grip on this? +Meilyr Rowlands: Obviously, the most important resource for the education system is the teachers. So, it is a concern that recruitment is getting more and more difficult and that targets for initial teacher training are not being hit. And we're not seeing them hit, if I remember correctly, even in primary, let alone secondary. So, there is a challenge, and I think we've got to look at this in the round. We've got to make sure that we have both a long-term strategy and a shorter term strategy for this. So, long term, we've got to make sure that education is an attractive option for young people and more mature people to want to go into. So, that is partly to do with workload and staff well-being. I think there's a general acceptance now that that needs to be higher up on the agenda, that people need to take that seriously, and there's work going on regarding the workload issue. +Suzy Davies AM: I suppose what I'm coming to, and I will finish with this, Chair, is, we're asking our existing workforce to undertake a fair bit of continuous professional development—let's call it that—in order to get ready for this curriculum when they've barely got time for lunch as it is. Do you think that's going to have an impact on the ability of secondary schools to get to grips with this, albeit that there'll be a phasing in? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think it will have an effect, but I think it'll have a positive effect. I think the new curriculum, one of the things about the new curriculum is that it re-professionalises the profession. It gives back agency and ownership to teachers. I think it's really important. And one of the reasons why teaching maybe hasn't been that attractive a profession is that teachers in the past have just been delivering a set curriculum, and now they've got a much more creative part in deciding for themselves how to teach something and what to teach. So, I think that is a very important part of attracting intelligent people into the profession. There are short-term things we need to do, of course, as well. I think we need to have a much more varied set of routes into teaching, so I welcome some of the part-time Open University courses, for example. So, there are lots of ways—we were talking about maybe converting people from primary into secondary, particularly in Welsh-medium, where there's a shortage. So, all those kinds of varied routes, I think, into teaching, are important as well. +Suzy Davies AM: Degree apprenticeships, potentially. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I think it's well worth exploring that. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian now has some questions on secondary schools causing concern. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just before going on to that, just to pick up on that last point that you made about the shortage of teachers and losing teachers during the first year of their training. Has Estyn done any themed work on that particular issue, or do you intend to do anything on that? Also, looking at the financial incentives and how they compare with the situation in England, for example; do we need, perhaps, to think about financial incentives, not just for specific subjects, but for going to schools where there are particular issues, perhaps? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, yes, there are currently discussions ongoing between us and the Government about working in those early years for teachers. It's possible that we will be undertaking work in the near future on that. I know that Professor Mick Waters is looking at this currently, and we've had the discussion with him. And I think we would welcome the opportunity to look at this particular period. Now, we are, of course, looking at initial teacher training, but we haven't looked at the first couple of years for many a year. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Right, thank you very much. And for your information, I've commissioned a piece of work on that particular issue, and that work will be published in due course. So, I hope to have a discussion with you about that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you very much. Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the secondary schools, that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it, rather than the primary sector. How much of a concern is it to you that children’s chances of going to a secondary school that is good or better appear to be 50:50, and that, indeed, over 10 per cent of secondary schools are judged to be failing and 12 per cent are under Estyn review? How much of a concern is that to you? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it is of concern to us, of course. I hope that we will have an opportunity to talk about the positive aspects of the education system in Wales, because there are a number of good things we can report also. The primary sector, the special sector, post-16—there are many sectors that are doing well, and I think a story that's particularly positive this year is that we have seen pupil referral units improving. We have seen examples of excellent practice in that sector for the first time in many a year, and we've also seen excellent practice in independent special schools, which is also a sector—. Because these are two sectors where there are very, very vulnerable children in attendance. So, I think that's very encouraging. But, you're right, of course, the biggest concern for the system, I would say, is secondary schools, and that is an issue of leadership, and also of the quality of the teaching and learning. Those are the recommendations that we make most often in our inspection reports. So, I believe that there is a need to find a long-term solution, as I mentioned previously, and also a short-term solution to this problem. In the long term, to improve the quality of teaching and learning—well, that’s the main aim of the new curriculum. So, I am confident that that strategy is the right strategy. It will take time, as we mentioned previously; it will take longer in secondary schools, and that's for a number of reasons, and I have discussed the challenges that are additional for secondary schools in previous annual reports. So, there are many reasons why secondary schools find it more difficult, possibly, than primary schools. The children themselves are older and they have greater challenges. Life is more complicated for them, possibly. It’s more difficult to engage with the parents of older children than younger children, and that’s an important factor. That’s one of the reasons why I believe it’s important that we do have community schools that ensure that the parents are part of the school’s life and take an interest in the education of their children. We also know that qualifications take a very prominent role in secondary schools’ mindsets, and, in some cases, perhaps excessively so. So, we need to ensure that those qualifications are reformed as a result of the reform of the curriculum, and, of course, Qualifications Wales is carrying out that work currently. And also, we need to change the measures that we use to measure the schools’ successes. Now, there is work ongoing on that as well. But there are all kinds of variations and differences between the primary and secondary sectors. In primary schools, for example, the greatest and most obvious difference, I would say, is that you’ve got one teacher who looks after a child for a whole year, and that teacher can identify the needs of the pupil very well over a period of time, getting to know the child and, possibly, the family very well. It’s much more complicated for secondary school to do that; there have to be systems put in place for that. So, there are many long-term things that we need to respond to. But in the short term, what is important is that those schools that cause concern receive much more support, and that is why I am glad and do welcome what's being piloted currently, which is a system of supporting these schools, the multi-agency approach, that is. So, that is something that we have been calling for for quite a long period of time and piloted ourselves a few years ago. So, I'm very glad that we are doing this in secondary schools throughout Wales. I believe there are about 12 schools that are in that pilot scheme. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You said previously that it's a cause of concern for you that these schools that are failing or underachieving are not identified early enough. Are there signs that that's improving? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, one of the things that's very positive about this pilot scheme is that it's not just the schools that are officially causing concern that are a part of the pilot scheme, that is, the schools that we have identified, through inspections, as needing to be put in a statutory category. So, there are schools involved in the pilot scheme that the authorities and the consortia have identified themselves as schools that are at risk of causing concern. I believe that it's fair to say that we have not reached a point yet where we have a system of agreed criteria in relation to identifying these schools yet. I think that there has been initial work that has been commissioned or that is about to arrive in relation to that, and the types of measures you would expect us to take account of would be dissatisfaction from parents, staff leaving, a change in leadership. We use surveys with the children, for instance, and that gives you quite a good idea of whether a school is possibly facing difficulties. So, there's not one single criteria alone that will tell you, 'This is a school that is at risk of causing concern', but taken together, having a set of criteria that everyone has agreed would be a good way of monitoring schools, I believe. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, we'll be coming on to that middle tier later on, and perhaps that's where the problem lies, namely that if there isn't an agreed system from consortia and yourselves, perhaps that's where the focus needs to be. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would say that it's not the identification of the schools that is the greatest problem. The greatest problem is ensuring that there is support for them and that the support is multi-agency support, where all the agencies that support these schools are working together. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, how long does it take, therefore, for a school to move from an improvement category, in terms of special measures, to be escalated then? Because one sees sometimes that there's an excellent school, and within five years' time, it's in the red. So, there's a great deal of variance in that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would be something quite unusual—to move from excellent to red. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, gradually, perhaps. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. Perhaps Claire can respond to this. +Claire Morgan: On average, secondary schools that are in need of special measures take just over two years, on average. Some are shorter; some are quite a considerable amount longer. It's a little less for schools that go into significant improvement. With primary schools, of course, it's much shorter because the issues are far less complex; it's easier to bring about improvements in teaching. When you've got large numbers of staff, you've got large secondary schools, it takes time to actually bring about those improvements, but it is a long time, just over two years, when you think that some pupils, maybe in key stage 4 for the two years—. Certainly, we want to see schools coming out of category much quicker, and this is where the multi-agency approach certainly is a positive step. All partners involved in supporting the school are involved in these improvement boards. They focus on bringing about improvement in the areas of the school that are weakest, and it is the responsibility of everybody involved—that is: ourselves, the regions, local authorities, the schools themselves and their governing bodies—to look at how they can best support the school to bring about that improvement. So, it's getting an agreement on what the issues are, and then planning the support so that we avoid duplication, but that we support the school in the areas they need more support. And we hope that this then will accelerate the improvement of the schools that find themselves in category. But, as Meilyr already said, there are some schools involved in that particular pilot that are at danger of causing serious concern. So, the pilot is trying out those two different approaches as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. And just finally from me, for the time being at least, the financial situation; we've spoken about that already this morning. If you could—. If funding was injected into the system tomorrow, say, what would you spend it on? What aspects would benefit from that additional funding? +Meilyr Rowlands: Were you asking about something specific there? +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the schools themselves, if you were a school leader, what would you— +Meilyr Rowlands: Oh, if I were a school leader. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. How would you use any additional funding that would flow into the school? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's difficult to make that decision, because every school is different. It is important, of course, that leaders do have the power and the ability to make those decisions themselves. But, certainly, in the short term, the type of thing I would have thought would be to prepare for the new curriculum. That means freeing up teachers to think about what the new curriculum means to them. The schools that have been a part of developing the curriculum have been in a fortunate position in that they've had plenty of time to think about this. So, it's now time—and this was the chief message of my annual report this year—for every school in Wales to start to think. Because I think that the new curriculum is truly an opportunity to take a forward step in terms of how we teach and learn within schools. But that means that time is needed for schools to think this through and, in that thinking, to contact the community, to talk to their children as well, to see what the community in its broader sense would like to see being in the new curriculum, because it's up to every school. Although the new curriculum sets a framework, it is up to each and every school to decide what they're going to teach, and what they're teaching in order to prepare their young people for this new world that we have in the twenty-first century. Therefore, to give you a somewhat superficial answer, I would be setting time aside for the training of teachers. +Jassa Scott: Can I just add one thing there? I think what we've seen over the years recently is that local authorities, to some extent, have safeguarded the funding that goes to the schools, but the effect of that is that we've seen less funding going into some of the local authority services; for example, those services that support well-being, that promote attendance, and that perhaps support behaviour and assistance for schools. So, I think that all of those factors contribute to how schools can support and assist their pupils, and to improve themselves. So, I think that side of things is important as well—in the school or in the local authority, if funding is available, it should be allocated to all of those things so that those services can also support the children to succeed. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on to the middle tier, if I can just ask about the quality of teaching? There's been a consistent message from Estyn that that is the weakest part of the system in Wales. The Government recognises that and has invested a very significant amount of money in that area, yet it's still an issue again in your annual report. You haven't said whether it's getting better or going in the right direction. What is your assessment of whether we are seeing the improvements we need to see in the quality of teaching? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, in nearly all the elements of our framework, the picture is fairly similar. So, in terms of quality of teaching, we have seen gradual but quite small-scale improvements in primary. So, you can feel that that is going in the right direction. In secondary, it's more or less level; we haven't seen it getting particularly better or particularly worse. One of the things that's really important to realise is that the curriculum is about the quality of teaching. It is about the teaching and learning; those are two sides of the same coin, if you like. What's important is the learning experience that our pupils get in school. From the perspective of the pupil, it's the learning; from the perspective of the teacher, it's the teaching. They are two sides to the same coin. I think there's no doubt and I think there's general agreement that, in order to have a step change in the quality of teaching and learning—. I think it was Einstein who said that if you keep on doing the same thing, you'll get the same result. So, you're going to have to change something, and what's changing is the curriculum. I think there's general consensus that this is the right approach to improve the quality of teaching. And that's exactly what all schools need to do now: to think how does this new curriculum affect them in their particular school, in their particular circumstances, in the context of their particular children. How can they use this opportunity now to improve the teaching and learning in their school? +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It does cause one concern, because if the teaching and learning standards just stay the same in the secondary sector, and we know that 12 per cent of secondary schools are under Estyn review and 11 per cent of them are in special measures, we're talking about half of the schools almost, and no improvement in the teaching quality in general. So, there is a major cohort of children captured in that situation, and then there's a new curriculum that comes in. I see the opportunities, but these schools that are doing well are going to go, 'Wow, up there', but schools are there in the bottom layer and one is genuinely concerned about those children in those schools. Isn't that where the focus should be and any additional funding that's allocated? You talked about releasing teachers for training, but perhaps it's in those particular schools that we need to focus. +Meilyr Rowlands: I do agree that the best schools will welcome the opportunities and that their standards will improve even more. But then, with regard to the other schools, in a way, there are two very broad categories, which are those that need only a little support just to help them to improve—. And I believe that the new curriculum and the general support that's going to be surrounding that will be the solution for those schools. It's going to be an opportunity for the quality of the teaching and the learning to improve. But you're right to say that there is another smaller cohort that has a much greater need for support, and they're going to find coping with the new curriculum difficult, because they'll also have many other problems. So, I do agree—. And you're not talking about a huge number of schools—some 200 secondary schools is what we have in Wales, so that percentage is relatively small, the number is relatively small—but they need much greater support. That is why this pilot scheme of the multi-agency approach of supporting those schools is important. I do believe that you're right to say that there are funding implications to supporting those schools. I don't think it's enormous, but certainly there's a certain amount of funding that is needed to offer those schools that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. The Minister recently told the committee that a number of recent Estyn inspections of local authorities' education services have been disappointing. Do you agree? That, of course, is based on the inspections carried out under the current cycle. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, indeed. I think we've done nine inspections of local authorities' education services so far this cycle. We've got another two this academic year. We'll have done half of them by the end of the academic year. We'll then evaluate how things have gone. But of those nine we've put three into category—we've identified them as causing concern—and they're Pembrokeshire, Powys and Wrexham. So, we do have concerns about those authorities. So, we'll be supporting those authorities, moving forward. But I think a common factor in those inspections was secondary schools. So, we've talking quite a bit about secondary schools this morning, and I think that, again, is a factor in those local authorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You say that the proportion of secondary schools causing concern is a challenge for several local authorities and for the system as a whole. Which local authorities are these—you've probably named them all—and have these been inspected yet under the current cycle? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think you're taking about three secondary schools in a category in Pembrokeshire, Wrexham and Torfaen. So, we've inspected Pembrokeshire and Wrexham already, but we haven't inspected Torfaen yet. And two schools in a category in Powys, Newport and Gwynedd. And we've inspected Powys and Newport, but we haven't inspected Gwynedd yet. So, in answer to your question: we've inspected most of those, but not all of them. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What is your latest assessment of how well the regional consortia are supporting and driving school improvement? Does this vary across the different regions? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly does vary, but I'll ask Jassa to go into more detail. +Jassa Scott: We haven't directly inspected the regional consortia since—I think 2017 was the last time we did some direct monitoring with them. But I think, over the last three years, we do feel that they've improved their knowledge. They're still relatively new in the big scheme of things. So, they did take a little while to embed, and I think that came across when we did the work that we did with them back in 2017. But, more recently, they've improved their knowledge of individual schools' strengths and areas for improvement, and they are using this knowledge better to support and challenge schools, and particularly schools causing concern. But obviously, as we've been talking about this morning, there's still work to do. I think they've prioritised well the work that schools are doing around literacy and numeracy, but their support for schools to develop digital competence has been a bit weaker. Even though we've had the framework as an early part of the curriculum developments there, we haven't seen quite the focus that we've seen on other areas. I think for schools causing concern, what we found—and we do look at their work through our local authority inspection, so we are getting some first-hand evidence of their impact through that—they're not always focused, in those schools causing concern, on improving teaching and learning, so actually getting in and looking and working with teachers and with staff to actually make improvements there. I think, generally, their support for secondary schools has had less impact across the consortia than it has for primary schools, and I think sometimes that's because they're struggling to recruit appropriate specialists, to support with secondary, or perhaps they don't have the depth of strong practice that we talked about earlier within their region. So, they're having to work a bit harder to find effective practice, to share practice and to get the secondary expertise and knowledge to support those schools. We will be, over the next year, looking specifically at the work of consortia to support curriculum reform work. Well, we think we will be—we haven’t had our remit letter yet. But that's one of the areas we've discussed, about doing some specific work on over the next year to look in a bit more depth. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what is the cycle of inspections for regional consortia, and how robust are those inspections? What areas do you cover? +Jassa Scott: Well, regional consortia aren't actually statutory entities at the moment, and we don't have specific inspection powers relating to regional consortia. What we have are powers to inspect school improvement. So, on each of our local authority inspections, there will be, usually, an area that we're looking at that relates to school improvement, and that would involve us looking at the work of the consortia that the local authority has commissioned. What we've agreed with Welsh Government is that, over the next few years, we will take a thematic approach. So, the first area that we've said is that we'll look specifically at how each of them is supporting curriculum reform, and report on that. So, that will report specifically on the different ones, but it wouldn't be the same as doing an inspection of their work at this time. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should they be on a statutory footing? +Jassa Scott: Well, I think that's something to be discussed over the next few years. There's, obviously, local government legislation that has been debated recently, which has the potential to create corporate joint committees, and school improvement was one of the areas that is being considered there. So, there may be an opportunity, if that's created, to think how we then adapt inspection to look specifically at that. So, I think there is an opportunity. I think we do get a handle on their work through the local authority and, ultimately, it's looking at what that consortia brings to that local authority and to the schools and the pupils in that area that's the important bit, I think, ultimately, to see the impact there. So, we are looking at them in that way, and then taking that thematic approach, but we'll keep reviewing it over the next couple of years. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are Estyn's views on the latest position regarding regional working in south-west and mid Wales? Would it be preferable for school improvement advisers to be based in the consortium, Education through Regional Work, rather than each local authority employing their own, as is the case at present? +Meilyr Rowlands: If I can just go back to the last question as well, what we did in order to inspect regions was we paused our local authority inspection cycle back in 2014, I think, for about three years. So, then, we spent time looking at regions, basically, because we didn't have the resource to do both at the same time. So, we're in negotiation with Welsh Government currently, so that, going forward, we can look at local authorities and regions at the same time. If regions become statutory entities, that would be in legislation, and then you could have legislation that gives us directly the powers to inspect them, which we don't currently have. So, we have to, effectively, wait for Welsh Government to ask us to do that work. But, as Jassa said, currently, what we intend to do in the short is to do some thematic work on that. In terms of ERW, they were the region that, at the end of the last cycle of regional inspections, we were still monitoring. We are concerned about their progress, particularly in the light of recent developments. So, for example, the chair of the joint committee has resigned, the managing director remains a temporary appointment and there are no clear plans for a permanent leadership. Some of the leadership team have left—the capacity has gone down—and various staff that were appointed last summer have already left. The budget has not been agreed and certain key meetings—executive board and joint committee meetings—have been cancelled. So, we are particularly worried about ERW, and, because of that, we will be going in to visit them in April—next month—and we'll be visiting all of the authorities to make sure that they do have a plan for an appropriate school improvement service going forward. But, Jassa, probably, can say a little bit more about our plans there. +Jassa Scott: Yes, I think you asked a specific question about, you know, which is better. I think our view has been that, generally, the local authorities are too small to deliver that whole range of school improvement services, particularly given the national reform agenda at the moment. We felt last summer, when we went to ERW, that they'd managed to reach the best possible model, given the constraint they've placed, collectively, on themselves—that they want to deliver aspects of school improvement locally, through the local authorities, and have some central capacity. So, we felt that, given that they wanted to do some locally and some centrally, enough thought had been put into that structure last summer and that it could be workable. There were key aspects such as support for secondary schools causing concern and there was some capacity centrally that could support areas such as Powys. Unfortunately, as Meilyr has described, some of those aspects have since been disbanded or those staff who were on secondment have gone back, so I think it is a key risk, particularly for some of those authorities you've talked about that are causing concern, such as Powys or Pembrokeshire—that they haven't necessarily got that local capacity to support their schools causing concern. So, you've got some concerns within school capacity and you've got concerns about local authority capacity, and what you don't have there now is that collective capacity centrally that might support them. So, that's why we're going to go and do a slightly more detailed link visit to try to understand how they are mitigating the risks that we see are arising as a result of some of those things that have happened recently. Our understanding is that there's a joint committee meeting of ERW on 19 March, so, hopefully, after that point, we'll have a little bit more information about how they're planning to manage that collective set of services going forward—it's a little bit of an unknown at the moment. +Meilyr Rowlands: You were asking, 'Would it be better for every authority to have their own team?' But, before regions were invented, if you like, we were saying consistently that they tended to be too small. What happened in practice was that authorities did come together voluntarily to have joint advisory services. So, you had Cynnal in the north west, you had the Education and School Improvement Service, you had Gwent—so, they naturally did come together in groups, maybe a little bit smaller than the current regions, but they, of their own accord, produced something not very dissimilar to a region. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, did you have a supplementary? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just on ERW. Does the fact that there is a dispute on the highest level feed down to the school and to the children? Are the children in south-west and mid Wales affected by this? Are standards decreasing in that part of Wales? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it's difficult to say directly, but we have inspected nine authorities and two of those are in that area, so, the lack of support at that level, as Jassa was saying, may be the reason why those authorities are suffering difficulties. +Jassa Scott: And it is clear that many people across that area are expending energy and time discussing these issues. Any reorganisation does take energy out of the system, so it is clear that that time isn't then being spent, perhaps, on investment in improving schools and supporting staff in schools. So, as Meilyr says, it's not clear, but a lot of energy is being expended in that particular discussion that is ongoing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? And I've got to be honest, up in the north, I know that there are concerns about regional consortia, and when local authorities are under pressure financially, it questions, sometimes, the value of regional consortia. So, what disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think we've talked in general terms and we feel that local authorities probably are too small on their own. In general terms, you can't say that any particular authority couldn't, maybe, put things together in such a way that it's effective. Also, it has a knock-on effect on the rest of the consortium, if one withdraws. I don't know whether, Jassa, you've got anything to add to the general points we've made. +Jassa Scott: I mean, I think, what you've alluded to there, it has the potential to be a destabilising factor across the whole of the national model that we've got for supporting school improvement at a time where Welsh Government are kind of relying heavily on that consortium model to help support curriculum reform and to drive professional learning and be the conduit for lots of the aspects of reform that we've talked about. So, I think that potential risk of any destabilising across the system is a disadvantage generally. I think—. Clearly, we've talked about that capacity at a local level. There is that aspect of what that means in terms of the joint capacity across the other authorities there. And I think it's just what I've already talked about in terms of being a distraction at a crucial time for support where schools need to feel that they're confident in where they need to go for support. I should say that we're planning, as part of that visit that we do in April, to survey schools in that region about the support that they're getting, be that from their authority or from the central teams in ERW. That's something we did at the time when we did the inspections previously, and we thought it would be helpful to get some first-hand views of any disadvantages or impact that they might be feeling, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. And then, finally, for me:what involvement has Estyn had with the strategic education delivery group chaired by Professor Dylan Jones and what are your expectations for how it will improve the work of the middle tier? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've been members of that group right from the beginning. I personally am on it and colleagues are on it as well, and I'm a member of the sub-group that does some of the background work for that group as well, and Estyn has given several presentations to that group. I think the group is important. I remember commenting the first time it met that it was welcoming. The rather obvious thing is that you get all the strategic educational organisations together in one room, but it had never been done before, as far as I know. So, it was a really important step forward for that to happen. I'm a very firm believer in making those relationships, building those relationships, so that people understand what each of us contributes to the whole of the education system. We need to have that forum to be able to make sure that we're clear about what each of our roles is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, all. In your report you talked about in early settings where skills development is less effective, that children begin to feel at a very early age that they can't do certain things. I don't know whether that is anecdotal evidence or is that specific outcome-based evidence—whatever, it's quite worrying. But what do you think the long-term effect on a child's development has in that respect? +Claire Morgan: It's probably worth saying that skill development is a strength in about three quarters of our schools—primary schools and early years settings. But in a minority of schools and settings, as you've picked up, children are often introduced to things too early. So, they're introduced to phonics, they're introduced to learning to read, when they're not at that developmental stage. And really, long term, it means the children lose confidence, because if they're introduced to these things too early they don't succeed, they tend to need additional support, and it can give them a negative impression, it can give them negative thoughts about their ability. So, we need to address that, and really it's about— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, what sort of age range are we talking about here? +Claire Morgan: These would be children from three to five. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Claire Morgan: So, this is very, very early on. +Dawn Bowden AM: And is there something, then, in that—and I don't think there's much we can do about that, but it may be in terms of the way that the schools or the early learning settings address this—you will have children at a very young age that have almost a year's difference in their age group, so they're born just before 1 September or just after 1 September? So, that's a huge gap, isn't it, at that point in their development? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that not being addressed in a way that those children are being taught and approached at that age? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Right, okay. That's fine. In terms of reading and literacy skills, we still remain quite low in the Programme for International Student Assessment ratings for reading, and I know there is a particular concern about the impact on boys in that regard. What do you think are the most pressing priorities that face them around reading and literacy? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think literacy has been, and still is, and still needs to be a top priority. I mean, literacy clearly is something that underpins the rest of education, so it really does need to be a top priority. I think it has been a high priority, but we need to continue prioritising it. We've seen some improvements over the years. For example, we've given a lot of attention to writing over the years, and making sure that children get the opportunity to write in an extended way, not just short sentences, but having the opportunity to have extended writing, and there's some evidence that that now is beginning to have an effect. But almost ironically, the same sort of issue is true of reading. So, it's not just reading small little snippets—we need to encourage children to have a love for reading and read whole books. So, I gave a little bit of attention to that in the annual report—that that needs attention. I think the other thing I would emphasise is that this is not just for the foundation phase, it's not just for very young children—it's really important at key stage 2 and in secondary school. One of the things we have been worried about, and I think there was some reflection of this in PISA, is that there are strengths in reading in Wales. So, PISA, for example, said that children in Wales are very good at comparing lots of little snippets, but what they're saying, and they're saying this themselves, is that the love of books is decreasing, and the number of children who read regularly whole books. So, I think there is something there for teachers to set and model a good example, to show their own interest in reading, to encourage children to read themselves. +Dawn Bowden AM: It's probably a wider societal problem as well, isn't it? I'm thinking about gaming, electronic gaming, computers. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. I think there is some sort of link with the digital world, and the way people read—the actual technique of reading, is evolving. But I think reading is so important, and developing a complex vocabulary is so important in being able to communicate, in order to get a good job, to have enjoyment out of life—all of those things are so important. We ourselves are going to give this quite a lot of priority in future, so we're doing a major piece of work on language acquisition, which will cover some of this next year. Every year one of our thematics is the major bit of work we do, and we try to support that with a conference. So, that will be the focus that we give to our work next year—it is on language acquisition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you for that. Just one other supplementary on that, I guess, is whether you have a good idea of how many young people are coming out of school at 16—so, those that are not staying on to do A-levels—and are coming out with an inability to read or white. Do we know what the figure is for that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I can't tell you that off the top of my head, but I'm sure that there will be evidence. That's not something we inspect as such. +Dawn Bowden AM: No, no, but there should be evidence around that. Okay. +Jassa Scott: There has been a shift in that there's been continued emphasis in post-16 education and training around literacy and picking that up. For example, anyone who's studying in a further education college will have to do resits. There's an aim to try and get everyone to a basic level. In apprenticeships they'll use essential skills and so on to try and get that basic level of literacy as well, so there is an emphasis. I think one of the worrying indications, maybe, that post-16 sectors find is that sometimes even when learners are coming out with a basic qualification in a GCSE, potentially in English or a literature subject, they don't necessarily have a really good foundation of some of the basic skills as well. So, there is a lot of work to do in this area. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, all right. Could I just move you on—? Sorry— +Meilyr Rowlands: The only thing I would add to that is, I guess, it's quite small, the number of people who don't have basic reading. I think one of the things we need to emphasise is that learning reading is something you do throughout your life, and what we need to do is to develop, in particular, pupils' higher level reading skills. The fact that they can just read isn't the end of the story; they need to be developing those higher level reading skills and continuing to widen the range of things they read, and be able to develop their vocabulary at a higher level. +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension, I guess. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry? +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension as well. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes—those higher level skills of comprehension and inference and those sorts of things. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, okay. Can I just move you on, then, to numeracy and whether you can tell us if you're satisfied with the progress in numeracy, because I think we were doing better on the PISA results in maths in Wales than we did previously? So, what are your thoughts on that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is a fairly clear good news story here. PISA shows improvements and a lot of that can be attributed, I think, to the new GCSE mathematics numeracy. I think there's much less predictability in that work; you can't approach it in a formulaic way, either the pupils or the teachers in terms of teaching it. There's much more problem solving. It's about applying what you've learnt in the core mathematics lessons to new situations in subjects across the curriculum. I think that that GCSE numeracy has built on the work that's been done lower down on the national numeracy framework, which has the same philosophy of applying that mathematics knowledge in a problem-solving situation. That has been a really good news story, really. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's something to be positive about, anyway. That's good. My final question, Chair, is: in your view, to what extent is Wales on track to meet the target of 500 points in each of the domains in the 2020-1 cycle for PISA? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that that target is somewhat arbitrary, but assuming that we continue on this journey that we are on—the current change programme of the new curriculum and so forth—I think we would expect to see those improvements we've seen in science and in mathematics to continue. We've talked about reading and I think we will be giving more attention to reading. I think the education system more generally, hopefully, will give more attention to reading. So, I would hope to see improvements there as well. The only other thing I would add is that there is some research that indicates or suggests that the effect of schools is greater on mathematics and science than on reading, and the reason for that is you don't do a lot mathematics or science in the home. But the attitude towards reading is very much dependent on family and community factors, more so, maybe, than mathematics and science. So, I think that's another reason why I think a community-school approach is really important. You need to get everybody on board; it's not just what the teacher does in the classroom—it's important that the whole family and the community thinks that reading is important. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just on numeracy, it was interesting because one of the schools in my constituency have actually contacted my office and a number of other organisations across the constituency to ask us how we use maths in our work. So, they're obviously trying to relate that now to everyday life and working, which I thought was quite good. +Meilyr Rowlands: That's good. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around progress of specific groups of pupils. If I can start and ask you how concerning is it that the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and other pupils has not narrowed in the last 10 years, especially given the £475 million pupil deprivation grant investment. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think secondary schools and the issue of poverty were the two things I've noted in the annual report. So, I think it is a concern to us. I think it is worth also remembering that compared to other countries, for example, in PISA, we do compare quite well in terms of equity. There's also an argument that maybe poverty and austerity have increased, so that we're in a way running to keep still. And I think also, as I was suggesting about the reading, poverty really is a social phenomenon. Schools can't solve that on their own. So, there are a lot of caveats to be made around the fact that that poverty gap hasn't closed, but that's not to say that schools can't do something about it, and I've suggested in the annual report a sort of a two-pronged approach. One is the new curriculum. I think there is evidence in the international research that teaching and learning, better teaching and learning, helps disadvantaged poor pupils disproportionately. So, they gain more from it that their peers. So, I think improving teaching and learning, and we discussed that earlier this morning about how the new curriculum is really all about improving the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. So, that's one approach, and then the other approach, which I've also mentioned earlier, is having a community-focused approach to schools. The schools that do more successfully tackle the poverty gap are the schools that take that kind of approach. It means helping the pupils. It means helping their families. It's about making pupil well-being really high on the agenda. It's very difficult for children to do well in school if they've got all kinds of things happening in their background. So, it's important that schools can maybe signpost those families to other services that can support them and help them. So, it's quite a complex—. It's challenging for schools to go down this route, and I think the more help we can give schools to take that approach, the better. But the schools that do do it do benefit a lot from it. They have better engagement from parents, from the families, and that then reflects back on the work of the children. +Jassa Scott: And we've just published a collection of good practice about how schools support vulnerable learners, and we'll be teasing out the aspects around community-focused schools a lot more in a report that we'll publish in the next couple of months. So, we've kind of drilled down and looked at what some schools are doing in that area in a bit more detail. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just quickly. Obviously, I think we've all been to schools where the PDG is actually used to engage parents more for exactly the reasons you say. But I just wanted to interrogate the deprivation gap a little bit, because, of course, even though, as you say, there's perhaps more equity in Wales, one of the reasons for that is because our children from better-off backgrounds do less well, and considerably less well than their peers in the other parts of the United Kingdom. So, whereas their attainment gaps are pretty dreadful, that's one of the reasons—that our better-off children aren't doing as well as perhaps they might do. Is that a concern as well? We don't want this rush to the middle, do we? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's essential that all groups of pupils do as well as they possibly can, absolutely. So, it's not quite the same issue, but we've talked about the importance of making sure that more able and talented children do well. +Suzy Davies AM: They're not the same. +Meilyr Rowlands: They're not the same, clearly, because you have more able and talented children from poor backgrounds. Differentiation is a challenge for schools, but it's absolutely essential that all groups of children do as well as they possibly can. So, in things like PISA, in terms of reading, for example, we can't just say it's that group that needs to improve—all the groups need to improve. And I think that's why something like the new curriculum gives schools more scope to tailor their teaching and learning to the particular groups that they have, whether they’re more able, whether they're advantaged or whether they're disadvantaged. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Lynne. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Pupils' confidence in their school's ability to help them with their emotional and mental well-being is much less at secondary school and that's been a consistent theme as well from your reports. Why do you think that is? +Jassa Scott: Yes, you're right. As we mentioned earlier, we do pupil surveys before all our inspections, and across a number of those indicators, like, 'How well does the school listen? Do adults in school care about me? How well does the school deal with bullying?'—quite a lot those ones around well-being do tail off. Nine out of 10 pupils at key stage 2 have that confidence, down to half at key stage 4, as you say. And I think there are a number of factors that we think contribute to that: I think one of the factors is that pupils face, sometimes, more challenges as they get older in those teenage years, but they also become more reflective and perhaps more discerning. And I think what we find in secondary schools is perhaps secondary school pupils notice sometimes the differences between their everyday life that they experience in school and perhaps the messages that they're getting about well-being in terms of their lessons, in terms of assemblies and in terms of school policies and so on. So, they are probably more discerning in noticing those differences and maybe there are some of those differences also there in primary school, but the pupils don't notice. I think we've already touched upon things like the differences in the way that, at primary school, you would tend to have a go-to adult, which is your teacher. The best secondary schools find ways to make sure that pupils do feel that level of support and feel there are trusted people, but it's more of a challenge to make sure that that happens, because of the way they're operating. We still have some concerns about personal and social education and the health and well-being support, which we've made a recommendation about in the past in some of our thematic reports, but also recently in some of our secondary school inspection reports. And I think I already touched upon the fact that sometimes, when the budget is tight, it can be some of those—they're not peripheral in their importance, but they're not the teacher in the classroom: well-being support assistants and so on and family liaison workers—staff in the school who perhaps really support that pastoral care that the school as a whole can provide—it may be that those are the roles that are less prevalent at times of less funding. So, I think there are some great members of staff doing a really good job, but perhaps they're not those members of staff who can support teachers and support pupils in creating that kind of caring environment. Maybe there a fewer of them around. So, I think there's not an obvious answer and part of it is that they do become more discerning and perhaps more vocal in those responses generally, as they get older. So, you might have a truer reflection of opinions than perhaps—. And that might explain some of the difference with primary, where, generally, they're quite positive about everything across most of the schools that we ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, it's not that secondary schools—because you've said that in a previous inspection report—are just not as good at prioritising mental health and well-being. +Jassa Scott: I think there's an element that it's more of a challenge for a secondary school to provide an effective set of support from that whole-staff awareness of some of the challenges. And one of the pieces of work we've done recently is around adverse childhood experiences, and we have found that primary schools have taken that and embraced it. Once you've trained your staff, then they've got that knowledge. They're the ones who are working day to day with the schools. Secondary schools haven't always taken a whole-school approach to that. They might have trained a set of staff. So, maybe not every member of staff has the same level of understanding, but also those staff aren't spending the same amount of time with pupils. So, in terms of getting to know pupils, picking up on signs that they may be struggling, or that there might be concerns—it's much more of a challenge. You've got to work a lot harder as a secondary school to make sure that staff have that knowledge and that you've got the tracking systems that can put those different bits of  information together to actually mean that you can target support where it's needed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm just thinking again about specific groups of pupils. Obviously, we've had one case in north Wales, in an independent school, where there were serious concerns. What's that done to your desire to monitor and check what's going on in these independent schools? Are they regulated sufficiently? +Jassa Scott: I'll pick up on that as well. Just to explain how we work with independent schools, initially, to give the context. So, there are different kinds of independent schools. So, some have boarding provision, and where they have boarding provision, Care Inspectorate Wales would look at the boarding side of it, we'd look at the educational side of it. There are others where they may have a linked children's home, which can be another room in the same house, or it can be a number of miles away, and similarly there CIW would look at the residential aspects of the care and we'd look at the school. So, I think, there's a focus in the independent school standards regulations, which is a minimum that all schools have to meet to maintain a registration. There is a focus in that on how that school looks after and cares for its pupils, and there are focuses on that element of boarding provision where relevant, and the national minimum standards that the care inspectorate look at that have aspects around supporting well-being as well. What we do find in our inspections is that, overall, we generally find that pupils' well-being develops, they make good progress, and that care, support and guidance that schools give is good. What we mean by that, really, practically, is that they are developing their resilience and their self-esteem. In special schools, this might mean particularly that those pupils learn to manage their anxieties better so that they improve their behaviour, which may be one of the reasons why they're in that specialist setting. In mainstream independent schools, what we find is that people develop their tenacity, their curiosity for learning—their resilience in that way. But there are shortcomings sometimes. For example, there was one school where we found that they weren't making appropriate referrals to child and adolescent mental health services. So, these schools do operate independently by their nature, and their awareness, perhaps, of some of the guidance and support that is out there—sometimes, maybe, there can be more to be done, and I think we've talked to Welsh Government about that. +Suzy Davies AM: What's Estyn's role in that—to bring that level of awareness to those schools? +Jassa Scott: I think we do through our inspection guidance, and the independent school standards do refer to Welsh Government guidance—it's something like 'Keeping learners safe', which is a really key document, which supports safeguarding and caring across schools. That's regularly discussed and talked about and referred to with those schools. So, I think the other area is that sometimes we don't have the intelligence about what—. So, for example, if there's been a safeguarding referral from a school, we don't necessarily always get that information, which means that when we do go to inspect, we may not have the full picture to help us tailor our inspection activity. So, that's something we've raised— +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—be brief and brief in answers. +Suzy Davies AM: Al right, okay. Do you mind if I move on to the next question? +Lynne Neagle AM: We're going to have to skip those, I'm afraid, and talk to the last set of questions, just because of the time pressures. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to ask in Welsh, please. What role, if any, did Estyn have in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest review of progress in school improvement when they visited Wales in late 2019? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we were interviewed. Therefore, the three of us had an interview with the OECD officials and we offered evidence to them. And I think that, when the report is published, you will see that the OECD does draw on our broader evidence and will be quoting our reports—the annual report and some of our thematic reports. That is the part that we played in that work. +Hefin David AM: Thanks. How significant a role do you believe the national evaluation and improvement resource will play in raising school standards? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that it's very important. It's Claire who has been specifically tasked with that, so I'll ask Claire to speak about it. +Claire Morgan: I think working together with the practitioners, the regions and representatives from local authorities is a great opportunity to develop a national approach, because we know across Wales there's some excellent practice, but we know there are schools that struggle to bring about improvement. So, this national resource has the potential to provide schools with detailed guidance on how they can approach not only self-evaluation, but, more importantly, how they can bring about that improvement. So, it will be a resource that develops over time. It's starting—we're piloting currently with around 40 schools. Half of those have been involved in developing the tools and approaches right from the start, and 22 new schools have come on board this year. But we anticipate that there will be lots of tools and approaches within that resource that schools can use to improve the quality of self-evaluation throughout the school, primaries, secondaries, PRUs and special schools. But it will focus on establishing a culture within the school that focuses on improvement, that establishes a reflective culture where all staff are involved in development. So, we're hoping that this tool—it's still currently in development, but we hope that that will support schools really well. +Hefin David AM: So, it's an evolving piece of work. +Claire Morgan: Yes, it is. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with regard to comparison of performance, does the lack of comparative attainment data raise difficulties when you're inspecting and drawing conclusions and standards in schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not really, no. I think there was a bit of a myth that a lot of this performance data was just for Estyn, but actually it never has been. When we inspect, we look at a whole range of aspects of the work. We look at standards, we look at teaching and learning in the classroom, we look at well-being, we look at care support and guidance, we look at leadership, we look at all of these things, and we look at it based on first-hand evidence—what we actually see in the classroom. So, we're quite happy to continue to inspect schools, and we in fact support having less emphasis on data because, although data is useful, and we hope that schools will continue to analyse their data and use that data to help them self-improve and self-evaluate, we don't actually need it and it has actually created a bit of a high-stakes culture. So, I think stepping back from that culture is a good idea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for your attendance? As usual, you'll receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. But thank you very much again for coming in this morning. +Meilyr Rowlands: Diolch yn fawr—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a ministerial update on the emotional and mental health of children and young people in Wales—next steps for 'Mind over matter'. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government regarding teachers' pay and pensions, and paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education from us regarding the school funding review. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Can I then propose under Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Great. Okay. Thank you. +","During a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee in Wales, Lynne Neagle AM chaired a session which involved no apologies for absence and no declarations of interest from members. The committee engaged in a scrutiny session on Estyn's annual report for 2018-19. Present were Meilyr Rowlands, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector at Estyn; Jassa Scott, strategic director at Estyn; and Claire Morgan, strategic director at Estyn. The discussion was initiated by Suzy Davies AM and focused on the impact of curriculum changes on educational standards and the robustness of comparing results year-on-year amidst these changes. + +Meilyr Rowlands confirmed that improvements had been seen though there were risks with rapid reforms. However, with incremental improvements noted over the past few years, there was confidence that standards would not slip. Their evidence suggested this extended beyond primary and well into secondary education. He stressed the importance of ongoing engagement with the education profession (co-construction) to maintain standards, despite curriculum changes. + +Further questioning delved into differential preparedness between primary and secondary schools for the new curriculum, highlighting secondary schools' greater challenges. Concerns about the impact of school funding, especially with secondary schools facing deficits, as well as teacher recruitment and retention, which is increasingly difficult, were raised. Meilyr Rowlands underscored the need for attractive career options in education and a variety of routes into the teaching profession. + +The committee also discussed concerns regarding the state of secondary schools. With a significant percentage under review or in need of special measures, Meilyr Rowlands emphasized a need for greater support, particularly a multi-agency approach to aid these schools. The challenges secondary schools face, such as engaging older students and their parents, the central role of qualifications, and existing financial pressures, were acknowledged. Immediate support for struggling schools and long-term improvement strategies hinged on curriculum reform and Qualifications Wales's ongoing work. + +The committee shifted to inquire about local authorities' education services' inspections, which revealed several areas of concern. With a focus on regions, it was noted that several local authorities, such as Pembrokeshire, Powys, and Wrexham, faced significant issues largely connected to challenges in secondary education. + +The discussion highlighted concerns regarding regional consortia's effectiveness in supporting school improvement. Direct Estyn inspections revealed that the impact varied across regions. Challenges included recruiting secondary specialists and the lesser impact consortia had on secondary schools compared to primaries. Questions regarding the structure of regional consortia and the financial landscape raised the importance of robust support for schools, particularly given ERW's instability that elicited particular attention. + +Moving to specific groups of pupils, it was noted that the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and other pupils had not narrowed despite substantial investment, which Meilyr Rowlands found concerning. Addressing educational inequities required a two-pronged approach: improved teaching and learning via curriculum reform and a community-focused approach, supporting both pupils and their families. + +On the matter of pupil mental health, it was noted that secondary school pupils had less confidence in their schools' support systems compared to primary pupils. Factors contributing to this included more complex challenges faced by older students, possibly fewer well-being support staff due to budget cuts, and school structures making it harder to support pupils consistently. + +Lastly, Estyn's participation in the OECD review of school improvement was mentioned alongside discussions about a national evaluation and improvement resource, which was anticipated to aid schools in establishing cultures of self-evaluation and improvement. Lastly, the committee addressed concerns over comparative attainment data, with Meilyr Rowlands confirming that Estyn did not overly rely on such data, preferring a broader range of firsthand evidence to evaluate school standards." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . 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And we wanted uh the buttons in a special colour . Okay . What's the first thing we should drop ? The special colour of the buttons ? +User Interface: No that's that's for the trendy uh feel and look . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . 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I mean we have to drop on everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can keep it single curved with uh top view still curved , but from the side it's it's flat , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and the screen screen is just {disfmarker} Well you just have to hold it like this then . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} Sorry . +Project Manager: Uh another option I saw was to drop the buttons one through nine , so you can't directly access a channel , but instead use only the up and down arrows . That would skip nine buttons and four and a half Euros . +Industrial Designer: That's what I was thinking . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: A a +Marketing: Let's do it then . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then we have left {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we don't have any basic options any more . +Marketing: {gap} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: And uh 'cause then they don't have to n They don't need special colour as well . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Project Manager: They don't need special colours . Fine . That's more like it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You were saying something . +Industrial Designer: That was exactly my point . Like let's drop all the buttons , and just make one +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean we're gonna use the L_C_D_ screen anyway . So we'll just have to use it for everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then you can make an overview of channels in the screen , and select a channel , click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , some more menu options . Yeah . Okay so maybe we can drop few more buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Now let's look . +User Interface: Yeah we c could {disfmarker} We only need the the the the the menu arrow arrow button uh thing . Everything you can do with with the menu . So {disfmarker} With the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need one integrated button for everything then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The joystick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Kind of . I was {disfmarker} Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , scroll-wheel , push-button uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you if you go to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Integrated scroll-wheel push-button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you go to our uh view , like you {disfmarker} if you are in the sound system there , uh and you wanna adjust the treble for instance , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: this is just uh an example , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: y y you wanna see a bar on which you can adjust it from zero to ten for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But you want a sound preview of how it's gonna sound , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? So you wanna click on it , activate it , whe and when you move it , hear the difference of the treble coming out or going into the sound . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you'll you'll need a a kind of a joystick uh button . +Marketing: Yeah or or the integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's kind of on your mouse and then you can click it , adjust it , click again and then you're out of it . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: But you still {disfmarker} But you then still need to have {disfmarker} Well you can use the scroll-wheel as well for um maybe for the channels . But you still um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's r Yeah . +Marketing: You still have to have some some button in the menu to go back . +User Interface: So you do one inte You can do one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And then just drop all the other buttons . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Well not all . +User Interface: But but th the cost of one integrated button is far more than a few extra push-buttons . +Marketing: Not s not sound I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} One integrated button is five times the cost of a normal button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have to to make it s uh more uh {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could also drop j three more of these , without losing much functionality . You just drop the Okay and the Back . +Marketing: Yeah . Wh wh what what what is the what is the uh sample sensor sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Oh , that's for the speech . +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Could drop the speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: S s Drop speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's possible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We we d +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's expensive , but uh we never considered the possibilities of uh speech recognition . 'Cause it can take the function of a lot of uh uh buttons . +Project Manager: Buttons . +Marketing: Buttons . +Project Manager: That's not very easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: No , it can be disturbed by by noise and +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but lets just say that the speech recognition works . +Marketing: stuff like that . Let let let me see what's more what's more popular . I guess the the screen was more popular than um than the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I have to look on that . Let me see . {vocalsound} Uh well no I was wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There are more people who like speech recognition than an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . Because if you d lose the L_C_D_ screen , we {vocalsound} need a lot of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it it {disfmarker} it's a it's a both a hypers +User Interface: We lose our whole concept . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} No we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We need a lot of extra buttons . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We keep the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Well we Yeah we keep the screen . I mean it's it's about the same . Eight one to ninety one percent , uh sixty six to seventy six . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: We uh we we haven't really integrated this {disfmarker} the speech into the system , +Project Manager: so we drop the speech . +Industrial Designer: so we can might as well s drop that . {gap} +Project Manager: And drop it yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Let's drop the speech . +Project Manager: Okay . S Fo Four less Euros . So we still have three and a half Euro to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sixteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to lose some buttons . +Marketing: But y y +Project Manager: Yeah if you lose the the Back , the Okay button {disfmarker} Uh v let's say we only have the four arrows , and the Menu button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then and then use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh and the power button we have also . +Marketing: The the {disfmarker} Okay . And the menu button does also does the okay function then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then when you in the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's one Euro . +Marketing: S so so you activate the menu . +User Interface: If we do uh two integrated scroll-wheel push-buttons , we can drop all the the push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah ? And {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: With with one uh integrated button we can uh do the whole menu thing . With the other , we can do the the channel , the volume , et cetera . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: That would save zero point two Euros compared to {disfmarker} No . +User Interface: No it's three Euros . No ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . To This together is more expensive than {disfmarker} Oof , it's almost the same as t keeping this . +User Interface: No it's it's n Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we can drop these two . +Marketing: Well okay . +User Interface: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: For example if you have f f four buttons , {vocalsound} channel up and down , uh volume left right {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: Okay , I've {disfmarker} I think we have to keep that . +Project Manager: And the power button . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} and the power button . So that's five . +Project Manager: That's the basic . +Marketing: That's basic . That that's what you need anyway . And then for the menu , um you can have a button that activates menu . Or d or do we just integrate an an an scroll-wheel with a push-button . And then if the moment you use the scroll-wheel , the the the menu gets activated , and then you can scroll , choose an option , click on it , it goes into an feature . Click on it again , selects features , scroll , adjust it . Click again , it's okay . Then you only need one button to move back . Or or under each option , you set a {disfmarker} you set an a screen thing what says back , and you select that one , click again , and you go one step back . And in that menu , scroll , click , one step back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that then you need five buttons , and one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay th that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can't drop three buttons . +Industrial Designer: Which {gap} {disfmarker} That's even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I see that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's one Euro more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's not a good idea . +Project Manager: That's not an option . +Marketing: Because which buttons do we have now ? Those five which I mentioned , and then menu , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Menu , power . +Marketing: Yeah . F of the four things ? +Project Manager: Four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah , th power . +Project Manager: Power . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you if you go to eight {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which more ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh power I believe ? +Marketing: Power . Th Yeah that's five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} We have a Back and a Okay button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay that's seven , +Project Manager: And the Menu . +Marketing: and one to activate the menu , yeah . So okay that's eight . Well we can't reduce that . We we keep the display . +Project Manager: Yeah , and even if we drop three buttons from here , we still have to make some adjustments around here . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , well okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we need the chip for the for the L_C_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ ? Yeah . +User Interface: Let's make the {disfmarker} Let's make the case plastic . +Marketing: Yeah well we need the advanced {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I rather make it wood . +Marketing: Instead of r +Project Manager: Because then also it's good in the market with the forty five plus uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah but but that's not our market . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that {disfmarker} maybe not . But maybe it's better than plastic anyway . +Marketing: Ah no , hard plastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic with a with a special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: A woo wood uh wood uh wood colour . +Marketing: Yeah , plastic with special colour . +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No but I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because we have to use the special colour anyway . You forgot that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we do one one s +Marketing: {vocalsound} So let's go for the plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Plastic . +Marketing: And since it's not kinetic , it doesn't have to flip around that much ? +Project Manager: Uh that's easy because plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: We still have problem of two Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh if we dropped uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No the buttons , those are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah th th it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we can't drop them . +User Interface: An advanced chip-on-print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You still need that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we really need that advanced chip for an L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So the other option would be to go for the the sample speaker , and {disfmarker} Which can use a regular chip , wh which is six Euros in total . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: That doesn't matter . +Marketing: Oh . I rather keep I rather keep the display . +Project Manager: No , I keep the re Yeah . Yeah . Because we already designed for it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . +Marketing: So the only option is an hand dynamo . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and something else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no tha Oh that's one Euro , right . +Industrial Designer: uh can't we f uh fit all the buttons in an intreg integrated scroll push-button ? 'Cause that will save us one and a half Euro already . And then if w +Marketing: And then integrated s Yeah but that would make it not so easy to use . +Project Manager: No y you would rec +Marketing: I mean it's not that important , easy to use , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then we have to scroll through a lot of menus to be able to get where you want , huh ? +Project Manager: Then you still need two additional buttons I believe . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d at l Yeah . At least one for power . +Project Manager: You can use those {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah and power . That's three buttons and this would cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah it's just as expensive as what we have now . +User Interface: But the integrated uh button ? How many func functions can it uh have ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Three . Up , down , Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah endlessly . I mean it can be a power button as soon as it powered on . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You can go into you in you main menu , +Marketing: You you press it for like three seconds . +Industrial Designer: you can choose uh flip channel , uh you can choose sound options , any options . +Marketing: Then then then you should do everything in the menu . On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . It would save enough {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe we should . 'Cause we don't have money and w we want the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you can choose this , drop these , then we have a half Euro left . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can maybe still use power button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we have to . +Marketing: It s it saves us four Euros and it costs us two and a half . So let's see , we we drop the price by one and a half . +Project Manager: Yeah . You see ? +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll be on {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we still have thirteen left . +Project Manager: Oh still {disfmarker} Yeah ? Oh then I miscalculated . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Thirteen . So still half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shit . Drop the special colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There goes the special co {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That would make it less appealing . So that's no option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . What else ? Uncurved ? +User Interface: No no , it has to be um curved . +Marketing: We sure about the advanced chip we need for the display ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it says right here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They made it very easy for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} yeah . We made it hard for ourselves with the display , but it's a cool feature . +Project Manager: Ah , I don't think I can s uh persuade the management to say , this is better for the market so you sell more than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Wh what we could do is um {disfmarker} drop the the special colour , and uh do the special colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . That's {disfmarker} Oh yeah since we only have one button . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but I mean what is meant by special colour ? +Project Manager: I just m I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just something else than than black or white I think . +Project Manager: Uh yeah it's {disfmarker} I think it's grey , regular . +Marketing: S yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Grey and rubber . +Industrial Designer: But we definitely want the thing to be a special colour though . +Project Manager: Of plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Damn . +Marketing: So I rather have an hand dynamo {vocalsound} than than drop the colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: You can still play with it then I guess . I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a hand dynamo costs a lot of energy to keep the screen working . So I guess that isn't an option . +User Interface: The display {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , you only have to power it up when you wanna use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} But if you have to power the for ten minutes , {vocalsound} then the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I don't think the current status of uh chips are pretty uh energy conserving , no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Let's let's go for the hand dynamo then . +Project Manager: Yeah hand dynamo ? Do you want an extra button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or or do we {disfmarker} Or do we do uncurved and flat ? Instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it has to be curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it has to be curved and has to have that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . Just put a special special colour of the buttons , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And a screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's the most import +Project Manager: Yep ? Instead of an additional power button ? +User Interface: Yeah or spe special form ? +Marketing: Yeah . S what what is special f Oh yeah , special form . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Maybe that's nicer . +Project Manager: It's for scroll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any buttons . +Industrial Designer: We only have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But it's it's for the integrated button , I think also . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: d Uh make it a special colour then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ma make it a special colour then . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's just a scroll-wheel which you can push down . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Make it a special colour and then it look fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah ? So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Woah we're within budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a miracle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's let's save it . +User Interface: oh ma make it two special colours , but we only have one button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Let's do it like this , I mean , because it does not lose our identity of the product as we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well {disfmarker} {gap} . 'Kay , this was old . +Industrial Designer: Well we come back to the drawing board then , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah all your designs are uh pretty much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah back to work . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did I save it ? +Industrial Designer: It's silly 'cause we we should have had this meeting before we start drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but that but that's the fun part of it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I wanted to go , but I wasn't allowed . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah ? {gap} okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh I just forgot to save this . Just a minute . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah what's the next uh phase ? +Project Manager: Yeah , this the last phase of course , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the agenda . By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh f {vocalsound} Frustrated . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well we first should have had a uh prototype presentation . But well as you saw that hadn't made no sense , because we had to drop it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Drop everything . Yeah . +Marketing: Drop , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We went straight into finance ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it was more important , so I just +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: pushed up the agenda . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , evaluation criteria . You have t produced something about that ? +Marketing: Yeah that that's {disfmarker} Yeah . I uh I sure did . And it combines with product evaluation . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you put it in the {gap} . +Marketing: We all have to keep in mind what has changed now . So what we have left on the {disfmarker} Because evaluation is based on the initial uh user requirements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's make it big . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well we evaluate uh the design with a seven point scale , as following . Well the remote controls according criteria blah blah blah . True or false , and then on a scale of seven points , a {gap} scale , as we all know it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Well the criteria are based on the user requirements , uh the trends from the marketing research , and the marketing strategy of the company itself . Um well they are in a Word document , which I will open now . +Project Manager: Alt up +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . I don't know it's open yet . No . And we all have to uh agree on a certain level . What's this ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Freaky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . I don't know . Um {disfmarker} Well the first point is the remote control matches the operating behaviour of the young user . So that means the operating behaviour was using quite a lot of functions . How do you think about that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it does . Because the operating {gap} behaviour of the young user was also defined in colour and shape and the use of L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Uh , of course we dropped a little bit of those uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah the us u It it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's it's mainly con mainly concentrating on a lot of functions , in this question . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So do you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , we have extended menus , on the on the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can you can ma +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah , you can make a lot of extended menus . That's true . I mean the the possibilities are almost unlimited , to to build in menus in the screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {gap} No . +Marketing: So on a scale from one to seven , what do you think ? +User Interface: Two or three . Two or three . +Marketing: Huh ? Two or three ? Something like that ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well we have to choose one . So uh what do you say ? +Project Manager: Uh y we should fill this in now . +Marketing: I agree on two . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I uh I say two , personally . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah in the new design I s would say it's three . But now , in original design I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah well we have to evaluate I guess what we have now . +Project Manager: Okay then I say three . +Marketing: Yeah ? You say three , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you you said al also three ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? Okay well I say still two , but it has to be three then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you're marketing , eh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I know . So it's made bold . But it's {disfmarker} nah , it's not very clear on the sc +Project Manager: Hmm . M maybe underline . +User Interface: Or give it a colour . +Marketing: Maybe other colour , yeah . That's better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright . Oh , it doesn't have to be bold anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah very true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well the remote control has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Wha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He types everything . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Definitely one . It has to be . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control has irrelevant or less used functions . For example audio settings and screen settings . +User Interface: It hides uh basic functions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Everything . {vocalsound} You don't use anything else . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well , yeah . So it it's a very true point . I mean it hides all those function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're not gonna find them . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true . +Marketing: But , I mean uh they're hidden in the screen . If you don't want to use them , you don't s you s just scroll over them . And you place them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} F I don't know where . So that's very true , I guess , for our case . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the next {disfmarker} Not so much so . +Marketing: Uh the second point . It shows the relevant and most used functions . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Power button . Do we ha still have a power button ? +Project Manager: Uh check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Well yeah the button's integrated , huh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah it's uh it's integrated . +Marketing: Yeah we dropped it . You j you just push it in for {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's in {disfmarker} Oh yeah it was integrateds . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah integrate it . +Marketing: Yeah just just push it in for th for three seconds or something , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: E exactly just like a m mobile . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just go scrolling and it will activate . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um it shows the relevant and most used functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah uh on the other {disfmarker} uh on one side I would say yes , and the other side I would say no . So it's {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: It shows the most used functions and they are relevant , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can you uh change channels directly with with just one button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , you have to scroll through the menu , before +Marketing: With the scroll butt Yeah and then say channel . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh we should b build it so that if you don't kind of push into the menu or something , if {disfmarker} When it's on , yeah , it's turned on , +Project Manager: You say you double click on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: It automatically has the the programme and the volume function , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but as soon as you click it you go into the menu or some {gap} {disfmarker} Of you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or you double click it . +Marketing: But but how do you change from volume to channel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No because it has four arrows , right ? +Project Manager: No , not anymore . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because he's {gap} now have a scroll-wheel that you can push in . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like on the the mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking still about our uh integrated joystick . +Marketing: No we have n we have no buttons left . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Say . +Marketing: the joystick was not an option . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is a bummer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so you hav {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you have to double-click , I mean , for , I mean , uh volume , +Project Manager: To get into menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and three double click for the menu , or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or hold it ten seconds . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll make it a Morse code . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But but ease of use was not very important , may I remind you . +Project Manager: No no no . Uh it should be trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that that's not a question . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control shows the relevant and most used functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well I think it's pretty much in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: You have to search for them in in the in the s in the screen , in the menu . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , im {disfmarker} in the menu . +User Interface: Seven . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe it's more like a f a five . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I would go for five or six , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Five or six ? +Project Manager: Five . +User Interface: Five . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay five . +Marketing: Five ? Alright . +Industrial Designer: Let's not diss our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's the weirdest remote control I've ever seen . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Just one button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's different . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . Uh the the remote control makes use of technolog technological innovation like L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Uh yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well yeah but we dropped the speech recognition . But it has at least one innovation . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still {disfmarker} Yeah , I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We still have the fruit and vegetable print . +Marketing: I say two then . +Project Manager: Oh , that's the next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that that's not that's not this question . Uh thi uh that's the other question . +Industrial Designer: Fr Oh I mean the {disfmarker} Oh never mind . I'm a bit lost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: I think a two . No . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: I think L_C_D_'s more useful than speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: What ? Oh not the bold one . +Industrial Designer: It's way more practical , yeah . +Marketing: Right . Okay , it has a fancy look and feel by using fruit and vegetable prints , primary colours and sponge-like material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It should have been two questions . {vocalsound} I realise now , because {vocalsound} sponge-like material is dropped . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But the look and feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You still have rubber d Or no . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we still uh we still have the primary colours . But only on the on the outside , not on the button . +User Interface: No you got a plastic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The button has also colour . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The one button we have . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . The one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah still we we dropped also on the the double uh curve . +Project Manager: Yeah you could check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . You only have one {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we have single curve now , +Industrial Designer: And and colour . +Marketing: and no and no material +Industrial Designer: Yeah . S +Marketing: . So maybe in the middle or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Four . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's +Project Manager: Yeah or three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: worth the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: We have something . +Industrial Designer: Actually we d we didn't do so well on this one . Because it's basically an old one , uh with little curve on the side , and in a different colour . Still , it's still hard . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean the sponge-like and the three D_ shape , that would give it something young and fresh . +Project Manager: New . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But then we would have to drop the screen . +User Interface: Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh red . Yeah . +Project Manager: You like both . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I like bold . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control displays the corporate logo . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um oh yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You just have to draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , just one minute . +User Interface: It's the white part uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it {disfmarker} be because uh we couldn't hardly draw on the b s on the lower half of the screen , we could not make it big enough to actually draw in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have a we have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I mean I wanted to put digits on the buttons as well . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But there's uh enough space for the corporate logo . I mean , {vocalsound} if there's only one thing . +Industrial Designer: Hell yeah . If we have only one button . +Marketing: Yeah . So I will say that is very true . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And even the shape we have now uh simulates kind of an R_ and the reversed R_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is easy to use . Well I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Skill , uh I would say six , or something . I don't think it's easy to use , or not so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The only e the only thing easy about it is that you don't have to move your fingers . 'Cause it has only one button . +User Interface: Ah i +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And that you only have to control one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . It it it has a nice screen . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: It gives visual feedback . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I I would say a five or a six . +User Interface: I think a five . Five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would say six . +Marketing: What do you say ? Easy to use ? Five or a six ? +Industrial Designer: It's really not easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No not anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you're putting everything {disfmarker} +Marketing: So a six , more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I would go for the six too . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most votes count . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well , another question , +User Interface: Yeah that looks uh great . +Marketing: uh the remote control is durable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know if that's the correct word . +User Interface: Yeah . Nah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Definitely in casing , 'cause we have a hard plastic +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} In use , both battery as casing ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah because the the batteries , those thingies last forever . +Marketing: Yeah ? True , true . +Industrial Designer: And the the casing , hard plastic also lasts forever . +Marketing: And the casing is plastic , {gap} ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . If you don't drop it too much , it's uh should last pretty long . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I would go for one . +Marketing: Yeah ? But uh I think rubber compared is better . So I think a two is more appropriate +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . +Marketing: than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I will go {disfmarker} go for two . {vocalsound} Uh the last one ? The remote control's a good example for company's motto , we put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . No m +User Interface: No we put the electronics into the fashion . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would g +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} uh {disfmarker} {gap} turn around . Yeah . But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I would go for four . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Because we kind of tried to but we kind of failed with the budget that we have . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: So a four . It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it g it g goes , it's not the best we could do , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it all has to do with the budget , because it's it's not the bad idea we had , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , four is okay . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Marketing: So if I understood it right , we have to count these numbers . +Project Manager: Ooh . And {disfmarker} Yeah ? What ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} Alright . Word document , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to count them . +Project Manager: Count them . Add them ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah just add them and then uh divide them . +Project Manager: Could somebody start calculator ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah we can do the math . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I all made it po I I all made it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I all made it possible uh for a positive questions , so we can count it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean if you have reversed question , you have to reverse the scale , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So four and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Did you make this questionnaire or what ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice work . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Three plus ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wouldn't be able to do it that fast . +Project Manager: O one . +User Interface: Plus one . +Project Manager: Plus five . +User Interface: Plus five ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} Easy . +Project Manager: Bo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Question number four , yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh two . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: Oh . Wait a second . Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's it's gone wrong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How hard is it ? +User Interface: Okay . It's your turn . +Industrial Designer: Pretty difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah just use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Start over ? +User Interface: No it's if you press twice on the plus button , then you get s s +Marketing: Oh there tho uh there's no n There's no num pads . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . That's why it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a it's a bit uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just type in the digits . They're all one digit numbers right ? And then you can count them together . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you can just count them by a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just count it to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um let's move over . +Project Manager: Okay . Three , four , nine . +Marketing: Three , plus one , four . Nine . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , yeah . Are you here ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven . +Marketing: Eleven . +Project Manager: Eleven , +Industrial Designer: Fifteen . +Marketing: Fifteen . +Project Manager: fifteen . +User Interface: Sixteen . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +Marketing: Sixteen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Seventeen . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: No sixteen . Uh sixteen plus six . +Industrial Designer: Oh what ? +User Interface: Twenty two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How hard is this ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty two . Twenty two , yeah ? +User Interface: Twenty four . Twenty six . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Twenty four . Twenty eight . +Marketing: Tw +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {gap} . +Marketing: Twenty {disfmarker} Twenty eight . +Project Manager: That was the last one . That was that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my . +Industrial Designer: Twenty eight . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Twenty eight . +Project Manager: So divided by nine . +Marketing: Twen Uh okay . By nine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: That's uh three uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Or le less than a three . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the lower the {disfmarker} The lower the score the better , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Twenty eight +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Divided by nine . +Marketing: di divided by nine +Project Manager: So thr t two . +Marketing: makes three point one one one one one one one . +Project Manager: So we're better than average . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I Are you sure we {disfmarker} this number actually tells us somethings ? +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so because some questions are related to positive issues and some to negative . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some questions are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you give a true to a positive , it actually means that the low {disfmarker} the lower the better . But if you give true to a negative question {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but there are no negative questions I guess . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Good example . Durable use . +Industrial Designer: Durable , that's good . +Marketing: Easy to use . This {gap} is good . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fancy look and feel , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +Marketing: Technology innovation was good , because of a marketing uh requirement . +Industrial Designer: Also good . Yeah okay . +Marketing: Re relevant most used function . +Industrial Designer: I guess you did do it . +Marketing: And hides these functions . {vocalsound} That was also a good thing . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah . No {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then matches the opera of the {gap} user was also a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So it were all positive questions , by uh by purpose . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . +Marketing: Yes , so the {disfmarker} It tells us something , yes . Becau But the picture would be a lot different if we didn't have to drop those uh those things , I guess . +User Interface: Oh great . +Project Manager: Things , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because now it's just an average {disfmarker} It's remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah it it's it's better than average , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay because of the L_C_D_ screen . But uh it looks and stuff , it still uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So th +Project Manager: It's still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has some shortcomings . +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's not really eye-catching , except for the colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The colour and the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this we had , this we had . We have to do a product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Product evaluation . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh prototype presentation we dropped . So {disfmarker} Uh the finance we looked . We have redesigned . Uh not on that , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we we have to maybe if we have to redesign it on this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you can just make one big L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay it's your turn now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we try ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} With some casing around it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Black . Okay uh we're still gonna go for the fancy colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But are we gonna stick with the green or are we gonna do blue ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah we we can just uh use this one . And then uh over-paint it with uh uh the green uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the button has a special colour , the frame has a special colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: he only needs one button . +Industrial Designer: One scroll button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's plastic . {vocalsound} And single curved . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to delete this one or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and you might want to add a uh infrared LED . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Otherwise it uh doesn't function uh so well . +Industrial Designer: For what ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have to do other things ? +Project Manager: Well I have to um um make an uh report of every decision we made so far . +Marketing: Or just redesign ? {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: And I try to get chip just before uh I uh receive the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you made a start , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah I'm I'm somewhere , but maybe you can help me . +Industrial Designer: Should give it some time ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but how do we make the the scroll uh button ? +Project Manager: I was here . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have to take this away also . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that's the infrared uh {vocalsound} thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , of course . +Marketing: The the target group has a weak spot for fruit and vegetables , like primary colours , spongy shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um pen yeah ? Format . Current colour red . +Marketing: The playfulness , we decided to use kinetic energy as a power sour +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} Yeah we did our special colour for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Line widths , now that's a ten . +Marketing: That's conceptual , yes . +Project Manager: That's enough to get started with , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Um , uh it's just a scroll {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be one str scroll . +User Interface: Yeah , is it's horizontal or vertical ? +Marketing: How many pages ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I just took one for every step and then a conclusion . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . Y you have you have done the first two . +Industrial Designer: Horizontal's easier too , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , and and the look and feel is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it more natural than this ? +Project Manager: Well I think I have to make a p an issue called finance . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So let's say {disfmarker} Whoops . 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Basically . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't look like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The items we had to drop . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it {disfmarker} it's it's not {disfmarker} Yeah . It's not very fashionable anymore . But uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: It's really ugly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Where did we start with price ? +User Interface: Maybe m make it bigger ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty six and a half . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or not ? Or twenty six ? Something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . That looks little bit more uh {disfmarker} Maybe that's a s a special colour for it . So we can make it uh special ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean ? Like a other colour than this one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or or speckles in it ? I dunno . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speckles ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah can we do it uh {disfmarker} uh can we do a print ? +User Interface: ..$ I'm not sure . +Project Manager: ... . I don't think so , if you see the options . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to choose , yeah ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay special colour . We do have special colour . +User Interface: Yeah red is already a special colour , I think . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it mean uh that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not very special , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we just give it some dots to make it look pretty ? +User Interface: Yeah . Just uh put the purple uh purple on it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Purdy . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some big dots . +Industrial Designer: Purple ? +User Interface: That's trendy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh no my remote has acne . +Marketing: ... . We have the original balance sheet , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Woah . +Industrial Designer: No . That's why we have that button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's so cute . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh what ? +Industrial Designer: Doh . +Marketing: Woah . +User Interface: {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just cut . Control Z_ . +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: No no . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How the {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} did we do that ? +User Interface: Oh it's it's just one computer ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just dual screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . But can we delete it , just with delete ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can try . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't respond also to the undo . It looks like it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Crashed . {vocalsound} Oh , no . +Industrial Designer: No , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Where do you want some more dots ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , over here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can't even draw anymore . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Y y you you {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's this ? +Project Manager: Even children can draw . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you push the button or something . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you just push pen and then keep on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Oh that's the select button . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's not the prettiest , I know . +User Interface: No , it looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not so random huh ? +Marketing: Lot of options . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's okay . Specially the the R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the R_ and another R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: It's called the Real Remote , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe it c it can say that . The Real Remote . +Project Manager: Yeah just on the the m um the L_C_D_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Welcome . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is your Real Remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can make a l a logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {gap} put it like the shape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D designed by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something like that . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's not too uh {disfmarker} That's not their logo , is it ? +User Interface: No . Do they have a lo {disfmarker} Oh , the {disfmarker} here . This i this is the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Two R_s and a one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You can just reuse that , because the name is the same . Initials . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can copy and paste the picture if you want . +Industrial Designer: How {gap} {disfmarker} Shall we do the logo in black or not ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} What is that ? Look more {disfmarker} Looks more like a campfire . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you dissing my drawing ? {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like a ribbon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So who wants to draw ? This is actually quite fun . Do we need to do anything ? +User Interface: Are we uh ready ? Uh {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I hear you people are typing . +Marketing: Type in your report . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Marketing: I don't see any new messages . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luckily . +Marketing: Hmm ? Luckily , yeah . +User Interface: Is this uh the last assignment ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh +User Interface: Final {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's almost four . +Marketing: What time do we have to deliver the report ? Four o'clock or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} At four , yeah , {gap} ? +Marketing: Or before that ? +Project Manager: Okay . And copy this . +Marketing: Just compare uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just a minute . +Industrial Designer: This is really bizarre . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like there's a {disfmarker} It looks like a butterfly . +User Interface: Um bug . Bug . +Project Manager: It's somewhere {disfmarker} I d It isn't inside . +User Interface: No it's in inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and don't know how it's {disfmarker} or eject it . +Marketing: No it's on the on the beamer I guess . +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: From up there ? +Industrial Designer: No , but it i It's not a bu a beamer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: B It's a normal T_V_ screen , kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah it's somewhere in here . +User Interface: Hey , you've got it uh read only . So you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Save copy . +Marketing: Yeah . Strange . This something what's projection from behind , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: It's too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah there is some kind of projection I think . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah it it's a beamer , but then with a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With a with a mirror , huh ? Or something . +Marketing: within a mirror , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it looks like a big screen , but {gap} {disfmarker} in fact it isn't . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna change anything to this ? +User Interface: It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean is it gonna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's it's single single curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's now single curved . So {disfmarker} It's flat . Oh no . +Industrial Designer: This is gonna be flat . Yeah exactly . +Marketing: Th this is flat . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . It doesn't matter . It's it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's better to have in the front , this kind of shape , because it looks nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean you see more of this than of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , more like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And this is also gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not very uh ideal . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Marketing: Do like this . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes then uh all of a sudden it does work . +Marketing: Yeah . What's this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the detector uh for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I don't see a detector over there . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} I think you only need two points . Or not . No , you sh +Marketing: I thought it was a kind of thing to put it on , and then draw right lines or something . +User Interface: Maybe that's why it's it's not working , because it's more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Slanted yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Or just messed it up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well maybe . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it matters for the aim of this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but it wasn't good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You've to make it s uh ninety degrees . +Marketing: Yeah it it has to touch the corners , I guess . But th this one wasn't good , because if I was drawing here , I drew a line and then it came over here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um now you probably have to recalibrate . +User Interface: You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes to the end of the meeting . +User Interface: Oh we're always long . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the recalibration is done using this icon here . +User Interface: Yeah , can we t can we get to that @ i +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh it's not working anymore . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well I just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , it's it's okay . It's working again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah , it's it's working , it's working . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It's better than before . +User Interface: We're improving uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's improved uh pretty much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's only a bit like to that side , but that is that one by the way . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but it's better , it's better {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this one makes the angle either like this . So i if I change this , it will go there , if I change that , will go there . +Marketing: Mm . No . It's better than it was I guess . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will take this away 'cause it looks messy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Silly . Yeah . Works pretty well . Five minutes before the meeting's over . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And then ? +Project Manager: Then I have to uh uh write this , +Marketing: We have to present {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and I don't know if you have to present , because I didn't receive any information about that so far . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we will . +Project Manager: Maybe we get a a final mail . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} after the {disfmarker} after after these five minutes , you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , I have still ten minutes to finish the report . +Industrial Designer: What's this anyway ? +User Interface: So cake . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . After after that five minutes , you have ten minutes to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like candle wax . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . And we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh just uh relax and uh have cup of coffee or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Chill . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh no , they don't have beer here so you can't celebrate . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: You can just if you ma finish my presentation please . Uh over there . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Project Manager: The presentation is still open . So if you finish that then you'll see uh {disfmarker} Yeah next . +Marketing: Next slide . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , we have to do the project uh evaluation . Just uh do that quickly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you do it ? +Project Manager: Uh well basically what that says , we discuss it and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: So how were {disfmarker} did the project process uh go ? Did you , were you all pleased with the process as it was ? Or are there uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh th uh do you mean the the interaction between us ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah the interaction and the steps we followed , and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well at first I was really stressed . Because it went a bit fast . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But then as I knew the tempo that I had to be on , the second time I think I did a bit better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the third time yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we move more to to working together as team , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because at first you you make your individual contribution , and then come here , and you have no idea what the others have to make . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: And then finally you have some idea , okay this is gonna w this is what we gonna make together and okay I will arrange this and you will arrange that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and you have a k a kind of idea what you can expect on the next half hour when you have to work on your own . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we {disfmarker} +Marketing: The process , I mean , the interaction between us became better and better I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Especially after the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially if f f if you see {disfmarker} uh you se you saw the largest difference from the first to the second meeting I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay and was that due to my leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you did become more assertive the the second time round , so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You were more in charge kind of thing . +Project Manager: That okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um was there uh enough room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but only the the financial parts uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Li Limiteded afterwards , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If if you don't take that into account , there's plenty of room for creativ creativity . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Also not only the drawing and the the making of the thing itself , but also in explaining it to the other people , by means of uh +Industrial Designer: We were pretty democratic . +Marketing: the the board and uh PowerPoint and Word and stuff like that . +Project Manager: So and the {disfmarker} uh about the board {gap} digital pen ? Uh was that helpful or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Mm uh I think in in essence +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the digital pen is better than the SMARTboard . Because it it it just works better . +Project Manager: Yeah it works . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean uh uh I've made {disfmarker} yeah , uh I've made several notes just to test it , and and just put the pen in into it , and then it came onto my screen and it looked perfectly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it it's better a better device than uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: than the screen . But the screen is useful , in essence , but it doesn't work that well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's uh it's {disfmarker} The the pen is more intuitive , 'cause we're all used to writing with pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Use the pen . +Industrial Designer: And uh as I said , uh I uh have no idea how PowerPoint works , so will take me half a day to be able to make a normal PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But once I get to know the program probably , I mean , it looks better , you know . Or uh something like that . You can give it a kind of a home style , like we have i the the logo and everything . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Blink . Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Finish meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , are are there {vocalsound} any new ideas about this ? All I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I didn't really receive , yeah . +Marketing: It's use especially useful , I guess , to to evaluate designs and graph graphical stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh uh w uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and +Project Manager: S sorry uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: the {gap} screen and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think the PowerPoint is is too limited . You can't uh draw easy in in PowerPoint . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah . The drawing board has to be integrated into PowerPoint , so that you can just easily {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the problem with PowerPoint for me is that you have to i put in the pre-made chunks c as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know , you can draw something on the sketch-board and then take it there , or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . But it it's useful to to show something to to an {disfmarker} a small audience , and then to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah just for text , for text it's uh it's okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . These these kind of screens this size are useful to discuss things . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . Check your email . +Project Manager: Uh we should uh enter our questionnaire . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} You also . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Woah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes boss . +Industrial Designer: Well , s see you in a second huh ? {gap} . +Project Manager: That's the management . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well see you soon . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Hope so . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} we have to pull it this way , huh ? Wait . +","The project team discussed cost implications on product design, the need to drop certain features due to budget constraints, and how to prioritize features that align with the design and market trends. They debated on various aspects like color, kinetic energy, button design, and L_C_D_ screens. Marketing emphasized a trendy design, and the Industrial Designer highlighted the importance of user functionality. Decisions were made to drop features like speech recognition and special colors to meet financial limitations while retaining core design elements. They also examined technological innovations, the durability of the product, and how it represents the company's motto. The team struggled with technical difficulties using their presentation tools but managed to recalibrate and continue their work. They conducted a self-evaluation of the project process, acknowledging improved teamwork and decision-making throughout their meetings. The Project Manager then had to complete a report and the team was instructed to fill out a questionnaire towards the close of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay everyone's ready . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: So we are here for uh for uh functional design . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay ? So we are here for the functional design meeting mm {vocalsound} so first I will show the agenda so we will uh I will take notes during this meeting so I will try to summarise it and put that summary in the shared folder if you want to look at it afterwards +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so then uh each of you will uh lead a presentation on the task that has been required last time so user requirement specification , technical function design and working design . Then I will uh present you some new project requirements I received from uh the management board . Then we will take uh the decision on on the remote control uh needed functions and then I will assign you the task for the next part of the meeting . Of the {disfmarker} of the process . So uh who want to start the the presentation of what they did ? +Industrial Designer: F do you want to start ? +User Interface: Make a start yeah . +Project Manager: You can start . +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cable , camera . +Project Manager: You have uh PowerPoint ? +User Interface: Should be in my {disfmarker} in their folder no ? +Project Manager: Ah yeah maybe there . Okay . +User Interface: Up . +Project Manager: Who are you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um at three I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Ouch . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have a technical problem uh . +User Interface: Do we think w s in the {disfmarker} in the wrong folder maybe ? {vocalsound} It is possible . +Project Manager: You put it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: It was somewhere in something like this . I don't remember the name actually must be something like messenger AMI or something . +Industrial Designer: What do you have in short cut ? +User Interface: Go up . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +User Interface: Yeah go up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Again . No . Go back . +Project Manager: You have no {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh maybe messenger AMI . Messenger . +Project Manager: Over . Okay . +User Interface: No . There is nothing . +Project Manager: There's no {disfmarker} We have a technical problem . +User Interface: Let's go and check . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'll go and check . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , could you just describe by hand ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: With the the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: If you remember yeah +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: So uh . Basically {vocalsound} what we want here is a remote control right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So um the question well first of all what to control . So {vocalsound} most people want to have a a remote for their hi-fi and T_V_ and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} but other people want th also remotes for {vocalsound} controlling uh and toys like robotic pets and little robots and stuff +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and other people also want to have remotes for controlling um whole house . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , so there's a project I think called X_ house or something like that that does that , uh you can integrate your remote with uh computers stuff . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: there is one {disfmarker} that is one thing . The other is the the finder feature yeah by whistling or whatever . Uh if you have the finder feature then you can also have +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: uh at the same time as {disfmarker} and general voice commands if you want yeah . {vocalsound} So I think it should be a package in that case . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so the user interface will consist of two parts . {vocalsound} One is the voice command part and on one is the actual buttons part . {vocalsound} Uh and th the buttons part would be uh a set of buttons for choosing devices , a set of buttons for special navigation in space , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a set of buttons for {vocalsound} linear access of medium and a set of buttons for random access . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by linear access then ? +User Interface: Like a video tape goes forward , backwards , uh fast and stuff yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay so special navigation , linear access , random access +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and there's a fourth one no ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: So the better now for special navigation ? +User Interface: Yeah . For special navigation for example you might have a T_V_ in the menu and you going to change yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . Then linear access +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: then random access . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah and also parameter changing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah parameter okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So if there are common parameters maybe we should put special buttons for that um +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or maybe we could have everything uh generic but uh there are a lot of uh remotes on the market right now and {vocalsound} basically this is most of the {disfmarker} almost everybody has this stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay and and voice command did you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Voice command w we could specify anything . We could assign any button {disfmarker} a command to any button , if we have enough processing power , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: I guess so . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh that close your investigations ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh yeah I think so . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Not so far . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have a look at the user requirements with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um I dunno if you can open the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno if I can open it . Maybe you can s +Marketing: uh m is not here . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh in {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Messenger no ? +Marketing: No . In document {gap} . Mm computer yeah . +Project Manager: In which folder ? +User Interface: Where did you put it ? +Marketing: Here . Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Short-cut to AMI shared folder ? +User Interface: {gap} mm . +Marketing: But it's not {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: Maybe you can send it to me by email . Just to participant one . At AMI . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I can do that . +Project Manager: I will try to show it to everyone , that would be more comfortable . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: You send it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's participant one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is this email . +User Interface: I'm designing the user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . You can uh . +Project Manager: Okay . So maybe I can switch slides when you {disfmarker} whenever you ask , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that will be more convenient . So okay , functional requirements . +Marketing: Okay so you can {disfmarker} you can go . Okay so {vocalsound} in our usability lab we observed the remote control use among one hundred subjects +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and the subjects also filled a questionnaire +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? And here I have the results so you can see that um seventy five per cent of users find most remote controls ugly so we have to find something to make them more {vocalsound} more nice , more kind . Eighty per cents of users would spend more money when the remote control would look fancy . {vocalsound} Eighty hundred per cent of users would spend more money when the remote control would look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} it's not good . {vocalsound} So okay . +Project Manager: We can just keep doing that ? +Marketing: So it's not in theory {disfmarker} but I I can I can say yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fifty f uh seventy five per cent of users say they s zap a lot . So mm {vocalsound} we have to have a remote control uh very um {vocalsound} out for that . {vocalsound} Uh the buttons have {disfmarker} are to be um uh uh like you say resist resisting to to shocks . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and fifty per cents of users say they only use uh {vocalsound} ten per cents of but of the buttons in the {disfmarker} in the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So all the buttons we we have to put are {disfmarker} have to to have um a use a real use +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and not only or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so fewer buttons maybe would be good ? +Marketing: Yeah . F not many buttons , and uh and uh uh u useable buttons {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But what kind of remote controls did you look at ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +User Interface: What kind of task was it ? It was a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . Uh {vocalsound} most for most is T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but in fact we {disfmarker} it it seems that we are going to make a T_V_ remote control according to new requirements I received from the management +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: bo I will present them in the following . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Ah ! Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay you can go so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So there are other frustrations expressed by users , so they said uh they lost uh often the remote control in in the room so they want to have a way to {vocalsound} to +Project Manager: Yeah . To find it . +Marketing: to find it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and um lot of the time they {disfmarker} it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they want something s really very simple and uh easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh remote controls are bad for +Project Manager: What is her other side ? +Marketing: R_S_I_ {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Other side yeah , yo wa your wrist +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It i can become painful you can have tendonditis . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I did not knew that . +User Interface: If you also {gap} up on a computer in a strange position . +Project Manager: Okay so you {disfmarker} we have to make it uh more ergonomic yeah . +User Interface: Ergonomic . But uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Have to say ha ha . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's your job {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Uh sorry {vocalsound} got a message from Microsoft . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um before that I I have some some {vocalsound} some thing {vocalsound} uh to say before um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We know that uh the user use uh a lot their um remote control um to to change channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um to to change uh volume selection of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh and not uh a lot for setting {disfmarker} for setting the the channels and uh thing things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's better to put uh uh uh something very easy to set and uh and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . This function should be very uh accessible . +Marketing: Very accessible yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . This is the main function okay . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} So then we asked some questions to them +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and um we asked this question if they prefer an L_C_D_ screen or on their remultific function remotes control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if they mm pay more for speech recognition in remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can go {vocalsound} we have here the results of +User Interface: The first question . +Marketing: of the questions . So you know that um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} for the younger it's very important +Project Manager: To have L_C_D_ and voice . +Marketing: to have the s yes and speech recognition . And uh and the others is not so important but uh we know that uh uh people between fifteen and twenty five are people who watch a lot T_V_ and uh who who wh can use a lot this uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So maybe we we can have a speech recognition in . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe this this is important . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Moreover th maybe those uh like those teenager customer could advice their parents to buy this equipment and so we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have to take care of that point of view I think or so . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay and if there is th the conclusion now . So as we say before , I think uh um a remote control lightening in the dark it's it's a good thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh not to many mud buttons like we we said before , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: e easy to use uh a way to find it easily in the room and uh uh resistant to to shock and to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} An I s no , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay these are the user requi +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno if you see something else important or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking of some thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} We want to have a {disfmarker} no , I don't know if this is a good idea . We want to have a a general remote control for everything . +Project Manager: No no no . We {disfmarker} w it seems that we no want to have a T_V_ remote control . From the management board I receive an email . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cos it would be costly uh and and also it it would take more time to develop to have a a general generic remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it's not true I think . The the second claim that you put . +Industrial Designer: No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That it would be too long to develop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that should be the same . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Because I received that email from management board and they seems to tell that that if we want to be on the market as early as possible we should uh focus on T_V_ more where it seems that the market is more important . So maybe it's a good decision . I dunno . What's your opinion ? +User Interface: I have uh I've no idea I mean I should know a bit more about how fast we can uh design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Finish tonight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But basically yeah maybe I can continue with my presentation , it would be al you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we have some technical problem or so . So I'm just going to describe briefly what we do in the remote control . +Project Manager: Maybe you can go to the whiteboard if you have some drawings to do +Industrial Designer: If fact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Do I have {disfmarker} oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now I have enough cables . +User Interface: Like a {disfmarker} you feel a bit like a dog with this stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay so I'm just going to describe {disfmarker} in fact for for a remote control this is quite easy . We just have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: sorry , I'm going {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are you okay ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like that . I'm just going to describe . Basically we have a a battery a power supply here . After that we just have um user interface . Let's say that um something like that , which could be um a L_C_D_ let's say or um an array of push button , something like that . Push button or a L_C_D_ . After that we we feed that into um uh an electronic chip . So I say U_C_ and I feed that to uh L_E_D_ which is uh infrared {disfmarker} um which is a an infrared um component . And so what we {disfmarker} for for myself this {disfmarker} for for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: U_C_ is the central unit ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} this just a chip which does all the um numerical +Project Manager: Computation . +Industrial Designer: numerical computation according to your display . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And so for us uh this is quite easy . We just need to take {disfmarker} to define what we want to do when the user interface um wants something and after that we just do the coding to s and send that to to to the {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} to the television . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So for us this is quite easy . +Project Manager: Okay so this is quite easy . There is not that much constraints . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um we just have to define the processing power that we need uh especially if we want to do some uh speech recognition , in that case that mean that we are going to use more for simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} This will {disfmarker} think this will take more time to develop also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course of course . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um but for a standard one this is really easy . It's a question of one month and so on s +User Interface: Soon . +Project Manager: To have a {disfmarker} you s you speak about with voi voice control ? +Industrial Designer: No no no no , +Project Manager: Standard button one . +Industrial Designer: I say {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} standard uh standard remote control takes maybe uh one month to to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . So the only time problem is the sp voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So do you have any idea of how long it would take to have voice recognition now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ten years . +Industrial Designer: I would say {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I would say uh about eight months to have the first results . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so i it's a bit long yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: One month for the standard one with button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Even if we have a L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah even . I mean that this is really standard devices now . Um eight . For uh speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . Okay so we can take this into account . So who think it would be good to go for uh like speech recognition ? +User Interface: But we don't have time to market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it will . +Industrial Designer: And also {disfmarker} how much uh I think +User Interface: I think we should contact management . +Industrial Designer: during the kickoff meeting you say that we we shouldn't {disfmarker} we shouldn't go up to twelve point five Euro per unit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Euros . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so how many units should we sell to have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well each unit is is sell uh twenty five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but how many {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: How muc how much do you get {disfmarker} how much do you {disfmarker} if you buy one million units h no , one hundred thousand units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Eh chips . We're gonna need chips right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . How much will it cost for one hundred thousand ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Usually this is less tha at two dollars per chip . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you have any idea for a powerful one that has uh good enough for do speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: It seems that that we want to sell like four million units from the first meeting . +User Interface: No it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . Four million . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we can uh we can look at the new requirement I receive from the management board and discus discuss all function we want to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um I just had a question uh do you want to continue with your presenta ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I I will continue . +Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well ask your question if you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um you say that I don't remember by heart but thirty per cent +Marketing: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: of the tested people say that's it's quite difficult to to to use the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do they say that this is difficult but for the same reason or do they have other reason ? To to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: maybe to keep in mind maybe to access to that menu you should do something like that . +Marketing: Would j Uh {vocalsound} yeah w I I think they they say that it's uh difficult to learn how to use it but i when you know how to use it , it's it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . It's not intuitive first . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah maybe and what about if we design a remote control which can be configure as you want ? You say that I want , I have six button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mh-hmm . A a lot of people are uh {disfmarker} if you have the L_C_D_ screen if you can do it completely the way you want because the buttons also look the way you want them +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , but also it seems that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but it will be hard to configure I mean imagine i uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's really something for the expert user . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean there are markets and markets . I think the young people are th uh are uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christine here said uh you have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} uh it is yeah . {vocalsound} So for our young people uh it will be cool , they can be able to use it . Th maybe their parents will not but they will configure it . I guess . I don't know if there is study about that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe it would be more complex to configure it to be simple {vocalsound} than creating a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And there are {disfmarker} another thing is that if we make something that's simple and easy to use that's bas to use immediately that means that it will be exactly the same as everything else . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: All right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise , if it's different then of course everybody has {disfmarker} somebody has to learn to use it first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But also we we see that that most people find it {disfmarker} find remote controls too complex because they have too many buttons and they mainly use only channels and volume buttons . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So we may just uh make a very easy to use remote control with mainly those buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and maybe also um some lightning stuff too because most people find also hard to to find the remote control . Losed lose it etcetera . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: These {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} these two points are the main frustrations so maybe if we design something very simple and easy to uh find when lost it will uh add uh a serious competitive advantage without making something too complex and too long to develop . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So but le let us see first the new requirement . So we don't have to {disfmarker} so this this uh is uh is um in the this is in the same direction as we were speaking so we don't have to make a very complex remote controls to access teletext and stuff like that {disfmarker} +User Interface: But teletext is just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah but then you have to {disfmarker} you have to define the buttons to surf amongst pages and stuff . +User Interface: You you just write the {disfmarker} write the numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well {disfmarker} +User Interface: So will you add with the channel keys , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . So anyway we don't have to include this feature because it's it's not used any more by users , +User Interface: So . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they prefer to s +User Interface: I am . I'm sure that uh it don't like but uh I don't see just one button . +Project Manager: Yeah . I dunno . +User Interface: So . +Project Manager: If i one button is still one more button . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to make it very simple we have to reduce number of buttons compared to th to our competitors . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well anyway I have this point . We can discuss . Also um {disfmarker} so as as I told before uh it would be better if it's only for the T_V_ um because we want to be quick on on the market . And then also we have to make very uh uh clear that this uh this remote control is is part of of our products and show our corporate uh logo and and colours on the {disfmarker} on the design as well so that uh they identify it as one of our product . So this is the the key point . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So before uh finishing we can uh define uh what would be the characteristic of the {disfmarker} o th of the control {disfmarker} of the remote control and which button do we need which function do we want etcetera . +User Interface: Capital . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So do you um so so from from the the Marketing Expert I think a key aspect is the easy to use aspect , it should be very simple and most button are never used +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: only ten per cent of the button are are used often so I think we have to do something very simple and I think we all agree on that point , no ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well if it is going to be just a T_V_ remote control it is going to be very simple . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . So yeah the key point here is simple . Maybe . {vocalsound} So few buttons , channel , volume control and what el what function do you see in addition to that ? +User Interface: Well if it's going to be as simple as possible then just have the remote control , there is no other function that I can see +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: really . +Project Manager: Maybe switch T_V_ on and off {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no you want to keep television on so that the advertising can {disfmarker} revenue can come back to us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Volume , maybe a mute button , and then on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And that's all ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I know that som you say that many people are doing plenty of {disfmarker} a lot of zapping . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know tha I discovered that when I did a quick look , uh they do now som they do something which is quite nice now , +User Interface: It's a memory , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you have a button , you you press it , and this is uh the previous channel which has come back . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah this is cool . Maybe we can include that also . Previous previous channel button . So we have like channel button , the previous channel button , the volume button , plus a mute button , and uh just the the traditional on off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and of course the channel changing buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I I talk about that , yeah ? +User Interface: How should they how should we implement that ? Because uh could be numerical only or could be also incremental . +Project Manager: Yeah . Incremental definitely because zapping you you switch them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that we can do something like that . This is uh incremental , but once you press it for a long time , you go five by five . +Project Manager: We go faster ? +Industrial Designer: To go fa to go faster . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . It's an interesting idea , that if you press it for a long time it does something else , in general . So if you you have your ten buttons for the {disfmarker} for the numeric the numerical buttons and you have {disfmarker} instead of having just one memory +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you have if you press them for a long time {disfmarker} No . Doesn't work {vocalsound} does it . +Project Manager: Maybe we should have also a digit button {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we should have a complete keyboard and just type console commands . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Change channel to eight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe we have also to have digits or only incremental . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno bec because if you have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well if it's useful like if if you want to change between three channels for example then you h you cannot {disfmarker} you cannot cannot work with just memory being incremental . +Project Manager: Uh . Yeah . Because you have your previous channel button if you have incremental only it's not uh it isn't worth it because the previous channel is eith either minus one or plus one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we need also digits . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we we can make very obvious the channel and volume button button and smaller button down there with the the digits . +User Interface: Yeah when you zap usually you will have to press the same button all the time {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or we can do something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can design the remote control to have access . You know some remote control have uh protection +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so you you y +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hey I just thought this thing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: there is a {disfmarker} I mean you know there is are some {gap} with a wheel like this . Instead of having the up down buttons for uh you can have the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a kind of joystick . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can have a wheel for incremental . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have a wheel for incremental , have the digits uh on the lower side that can be closed so as you say protected , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh yeah I think this is the basi +User Interface: On the lower side I think it {disfmarker} you have to turn it . +Project Manager: And do we {disfmarker} do we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: No ? If we do that . +Industrial Designer: Or a {disfmarker} or a ball , yeah , not a a wheel but a ball , and you say uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , a wheel is better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say the wheel is better . +User Interface: Because of that {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What is the expert of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The channels change one by one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you have to the user has to like to should feel the the the discrete sense a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well also we have to decide uh so it should be lightening in the dark I think because most people lost their remote control . +Industrial Designer: 'S quite {disfmarker} it's quite easy we do that w with back light on the {disfmarker} on the wheel . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Even if i L_E_D_ uh or a if if it's the L_C_D_ feature uh +Industrial Designer: A blue {disfmarker} a blue L_E_D_ and we sell that um . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: whatever , yeah . +Project Manager: and do we put an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because it was important for young customers if you remember . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's only put on if cou have multi function . If you do not multi function then there is no p point in having L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just increase the cost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user does not have an advantage really . +Project Manager: So no L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: And so no speech as well because it w it would delay too much the development process +User Interface: Well if it's going to delay yeah +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} it will be cool . It would . Because a user could say C_N_N_ for example and it would go C_N_N_ . Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . That would be cool . But eight months is really long +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Maybe we can just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ten years {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um I I will uh {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} so I we will move to next meeting so in {disfmarker} after the lunch break uh here are the individual uh action uh you are required to do +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but you will be uh recalled to the actions by uh email I think but you can take notes if you {disfmarker} if you want but well the instruction will be sent . So thank you for uh your suggestion +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I I will make a summary of that meeting that I will put in the shared folder you can't see {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh and then you will um you will be able to to see what has been uh has been said on on this meeting and and what has been decided . Uh maybe for next meeting uh send me your presentation before by email so that we can see them uh altogether . That would be easier . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: What is the folder that you put yours in ? And did it it did work ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: No it did not work . +Marketing: No no . +Project Manager: She send it to me by email . +User Interface: Ah yeah . Mm . +Marketing: I dunno , I dunno it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe this is better , to send it by email . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay what is your email ? +Project Manager: So yeah I I'm {disfmarker} it's in the first uh email so I'm participant one at AMI +User Interface: At participant one . Okay . +Project Manager: uh where is that , it's here . Participant one at AMI . {vocalsound} Okay . So see you after lunch break . +User Interface: Well during lunch break actually . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay thank you . +User Interface: So next time we should have a fight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How about uh {gap} management or something . Who happens to be your friend . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +","Meeting Summary: + +The group convened for a functional design meeting to discuss the development of a TV remote control. Presentations were planned on user requirement specifications, technical function design, and working design. The project manager intended to address new project requirements from the management board, decide on necessary functions for the remote control, and assign tasks for the next phase. + +Despite technical difficulties with presentation materials, discussions continued around the design of the user interface and the remote's functions. Key focus points included simplifying the remote to cater to user preferences for fewer and more usable buttons, integrating light for visibility in the dark, and possibly including a previous channel button, volume control, and an on/off switch. Features like an LCD screen and voice recognition were considered, but the potential time delay in development and additional costs were concerns. + +The group seemed to agree on targeting a simple, durable, and easily discoverable remote control, primarily for TV use. The emphasis was on creating a remote with minimal buttons, a wheel or button for incremental channel switching, and clearly identified main functions. Backlighting was suggested to help users find the remote in the dark. + +Decisions on exact features and functions were to be further clarified, with tasks and presentations to follow after the lunch break. The project manager proposed to summarize the meeting and place it in a shared folder, and requested future presentation materials be emailed in advance for more efficient discussions." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright ? Alright . Thank you for coming to this third meeting of the uh uh design group . Um I think we uh made some definite progress at the last one um and come up with some interesting uh uh w suggestions for our our new remote control . Um I'll again very quickly uh just present some notes of that meeting . Um {vocalsound} the the the problem with existing remote controls , we felt , was that they're ugly um and that people are prepared to pay a premium for something better . Um they've got lots of buttons on them that uh people don't use and find difficult to learn . Um and people lose them . And {vocalsound} We we thought that f for our our new uh uh remote control that everybody will want to rush out and buy , um {vocalsound} that we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we should look at speech recognition rather than r rather than buttons , and that if we have any buttons they should be very few of them and only for those functions that are actually identified that that people use . That {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} we want to go for uh a long lasting battery that we gua we guarantee for the life of the uh uh the product and a shape that will be instantly recognisable , A_ um as uh a trendy remote control , and and B_ as uh a Real Reaction product . So that w uh when people are uh happy with that , they will they will want to buy uh everything else from us . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So again um , I'll {disfmarker} we'll have the three three presentations from the the the three of you and then uh we'll we'll make a a final a final uh decision . Um and the the decisions that we need to to make today , finally , are um what energy source we want to use , whether i it is practical to use uh um a a a long lasting one . And uh I I think our discussion was around the fact that uh if we're gonna go for uh a long lasting power supply , then basically it's uh sealed for life and uh if anybody does manage to run one down , we'll we'll give them another one . And uh it it'll be uh , you know , prominently displayed as part of the th the advertising literature that it's um um , you know , for life , guaranteed for life . Um {vocalsound} now the the the internal chip um {disfmarker} and uh this is where I need uh uh Kate's expert advice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and given that {vocalsound} th this has to to go to market as quickly as possible um d d do we go for a custom designed chip ? Or or do we buy one off the shelf and and programme it ourselves ? Uh I mean I'm I'm I'm n not an expert on these things , but presumably , there must be loads of 'em already on the market that we can modify . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh that that's uh that's your area of expertise . And then the uh , you know , the the overall design of the case uh is is is Kendra's field and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we we had some discussions last time as as to uh how we might go forward and we'll we'll finalise those uh da today . Um and thi this is all linked in with the the the user interface , whether we p um {vocalsound} go for voice , buttons , or or a bit of both . Uh and then uh , you know , f for the next meeting Kate will be looking at the the the s the look , feel and design , Kendra the uh ho how the the user actually uses it and and Andrew of course the the product evaluation . And uh Kate and Kendra will be producing a a model for us to uh to look at . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh so , if if we can have the the three presentations again please , and uh um p perhaps you'd like to start uh k . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kate . Oh I'm sorry , oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Um p there we go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay , I'll just be talking about the components design . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , basically I just uh looked at what exactly do remotes do . Uh basically they wait for you to press a key or give a voice command and then this is translated uh into uh light signals which are then seen by the T_V_ . Uh the materials we're gonna need to look at {disfmarker} uh the two big ones are the integrated circuit chip and the battery and the in integrated circuit chip uh works in conjunction with a a diode transistor or resonator , uh two more resistors and a capacitor and the battery works in conjunction with a resistor and a capacitor . Um . {vocalsound} Uh basically what happens is you'll press a number or give a voice command and this creates a a connection within the the remote that allows the chip {disfmarker} the chip then senses this connection and produces a signal in a Morse code format . This signal's sent to the transistor which amplifies it and then sends it on to the light emitting diode and uh {disfmarker} which is then trai changed into a infrared light which is sent to the T_V_ and sort of seen by the T_V_ and which uh changes the channels . {vocalsound} Um . Oh . {vocalsound} Uh cool . {vocalsound} Uh so as for how we should end up uh using this in our remote uh t couple of main questions are the buttons . Uh y the fewer buttons you have , I guess the fewer internal connections and internal codes you're gonna need . Um however uh to n not have buttons or to use a voice commands instead of buttons might make these connections more difficult and uh raise the production cost . That's something we should think about . Also we have to work within the company constraints , and the company has informed me via email that uh they're experts at pushbuttons and that seems to be the most uh cost-effective way of producing it . Um also with battery connections the company has some limits on the batteries we can use , so I was thinking perhaps a combination of solar cells with a back-up basic battery and somehow between the combination of that two we might be able to come up with something that uh will last the the lifetime or the five to ten years and we could still keep that original idea . {vocalsound} Um we also need to look at the chips , uh v custom-designed versus off the shelf , and the custom-designed will give us much more flexibility and enable us to incorporate the voice function that we all uh seem to have agreed upon . Um , however that's gonna cost more , but uh the off the shelf is gonna be uh cheaper and it's gonna be {disfmarker} allow us to produce it quicker and get out there faster , but it's going to be less flexible with the features , especially things like uh voice activation , which haven't really been used much on remotes , so there's not really chips out there that would be easy to uh to convert , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: so if we were uh definitely gonna go with the the voice option we'd probably have to design um our own chip . {vocalsound} And that pretty much sums it up . +Project Manager: so how um {disfmarker} sorry , can you uh just put that one back up again , please ? Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh yep , sorry . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Uh d d d {vocalsound} okay , I mean uh inevitably a b a custom design chip is gonna be more expensive . Do we do we know uh by how much ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Um I don't actually have any price information , no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and do we know how long it'll take to uh develop a a custom chip . +Industrial Designer: Um it {disfmarker} a lot longer than an off the shelf chip . Oh w yeah , we did {disfmarker} the the problem is the the the voice technology is not really highly developed , +Project Manager: Right , +Industrial Designer: it's sort of still still in an ex experimental form , +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: uh so it would uh {disfmarker} it's hard to predict the time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I think we need to make a a decision here . Uh given that the company wants this on the market quickly and cheaply , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that would appear to uh effectively constrain us to an existing chip and thus therefore conventional button technology . Um uh now before we go round everybody else , does anybody um h have any have anyti ha anything to say about that ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} I just have a question about that . Um does it make a difference if there are just a few commands , for example if you um can pre-programme in like numbers one through ten and pre-programme say , you know , nine channels and then just use the voice recognition to say channel one and then you've programmed in say B_B_C_ four as your channel one , as your favourite , it's like to have a certain number of favourites um +Industrial Designer: W just to to incorporate the voice activation in it is is sorta the trick . +User Interface: and that w +Industrial Designer: Once you've got the whole voice chip in there , then it's pretty much the the world {disfmarker} the the sky is your limit , +User Interface: Okay . Then it doesn't matter . Okay . +Industrial Designer: but to actually {disfmarker} the the big step is to actually get the voice activation chips in there and working . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Cause uh I {vocalsound} must say I find it slightly surprising given that , you know , mobile phones incorporate voice activated dialling . So uh um I mean +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I d d for slightly different {disfmarker} well no , I mean , it's if you you {disfmarker} speak somebody's name and it'll dial the number for you , so uh bu I mean the this this information is from {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} this is the internal company information , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh bits of it , yeah . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course mobile phones do tend to be more expensive , +Industrial Designer: Yes , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know , hundred and fifty pounds or something . As opposed to the twenty Euros , twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm true , again but if it's without any without any uh p price informations that's uh difficult to uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh decide . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Also lots of mobile phones have got a lot of technology in them , not just that , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's right . It's like {disfmarker} it's it's {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} 'cause mobile phones are expensive , you can't say it's the voice recognition bit that is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: But we don't know . Um . {vocalsound} I mean uh I su i I mean if {disfmarker} given that the um the technology is not well developed and and given that it's it's never been done before , um th th the double risk , uh perhaps we ought to uh stick to uh to buttons , since the last thing we want to do is present a product that doesn't work . Um . Thoughts ? +User Interface: Well , another thought I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Would {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , sorry , go ahead . +Marketing: Oh I was just gonna say mayb maybe it sh like um {disfmarker} maybe we can like cut corners somewhere else to bring in over cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean do w do we think that the voice technology is fundamental to the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's fundament well I mean I guess it it's something we've discussed uh since the the sort of the beginning , so I th I think in in our in our minds it's it's fundamental , but I don't know that the uh the upper echelons of the company would necessarily agree with that , so I think you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean I think we {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I kinda think if we're gonna have the voice recognition for part of it , then maybe we should have it for the whole thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I I I I think that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: And we've been talking about it the whole time . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +User Interface: Anyway , I'm I'm incli kinda inclined to say that we should just go for it . +Project Manager: Mm , right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {gap} it's the second most important aspect to users that the device should be technologically innovative . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: From uh my presentation show , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Fine . Okay . +Industrial Designer: that sounds good . Mm . +Project Manager: I it will have voice recognition um uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . Cool . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: if if that means uh if that means we can't afford buttons but I mean b b {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: second question , do we need the five buttons for channel change , up down , {vocalsound} volume up down and on off , just as a a backup or just so that people can uh j j just sit there pressing buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I would say we do , yeah . +User Interface: I think so . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Sorry , d did you want to say anything ? No ? +Industrial Designer: Uh nope , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that was it , that was it . +Project Manager: Shall we move rapidly on to uh Kendra ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh um ra rapidly move the cable over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh good . +User Interface: Oh . Yes . Is it gonna work ? +Project Manager: Mm yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's thinking about it . +Project Manager: it'll get there . Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so I did some research on the internet and um {vocalsound} what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , the interf user interface are just aspects that are seen by users , um commands and mechanisms for the operation , and there're just kind of a variety of choices . Um findings , so a lot of times they tend to look cluttered +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and these were just a couple examples of um different kinds that are a little bit more unusual . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: There're some special ones available , like this one right here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: which is marketed towards children , um different designs , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: and one of the things that n we need to watch out for is a V_ in volume because people some {vocalsound} Bring a little picture of what I thought ours could look like {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So just kind of minimise the clutter , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: avoid too many buttons and also um {vocalsound} one of the things that people have used is a slide button , like you have on a mouse , that possibly we could use that on the sides for volume , for example , have the slide button on the side , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and then you can pre-programme the channels , the voice recognition and then the voice response sample locator . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm yeah . Sorry y y yeah , {vocalsound} if I can interrupt you . Well d {vocalsound} p 'kay , do you wanna say anything about um slide controls ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean I think the reason everybody uses pushbuttons is that they're they're si simple , cheap and reliable . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh I think they're they're about the same cost really . I I mean , I think it's just sort of {disfmarker} the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there's a lot of slide buttons out there . I think it's pretty much the same sort of connection . Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , fair enough , fine . +User Interface: Just because I n for example if I'm using a mouse I like to be able to slide it up and down +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so I thought it might be good for volume to just be able to kind of roll it and then have the up and down +Project Manager: Yeah . Good , good . +User Interface: and then the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: this is my great little drawing . +Project Manager: So three three {disfmarker} there's three buttons on a slider . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three buttons , channel up channel up down and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y yes , yes . +Marketing: Well , if you g if you if you got a channel up down , we can have a slider in that as well . Because if it {disfmarker} if you no +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: if you notice on the thing it it kind of like has got kind of {disfmarker} if you you know it s kind of like sticks , if you know what I mean , up like one unit , if you see what I mean . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it kinda goes up one , then y like you can keep rolling it up , but it's like like like like a cog or something . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So you kinda take it up one at a time . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The only advantage I was thinking of to having the buttons , like the buttons on one side for the channel , and then the slider is that if you're just holding in your hand , and you pick it up , it's easy to n s know , okay , this is just the volume and this is the channel . +Marketing: D +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: This one on the one side and one {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh you could you could {vocalsound} as l as like a mouse you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah , 'cause I've definitely picked up remotes and like meant to change the channel and turn the volume , or vice versa , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it'd be kinda good to have them be {disfmarker} feel completely different . You'd know what you were fiddling with . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} yeah uh th th the {disfmarker} I mean thi this is what the {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like the shape of it almost like a mouse , with a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to come up with is the the actual shape that people can ins instantly pick it up and and know know uh know what it's going to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we we're looking at sliders for both a {disfmarker} uh volume and channel change +User Interface: Um well +Project Manager: of one sort . +User Interface: I was thinking kind of just for the volume , +Project Manager: Just for the volume , uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but what what do you guys think ? +Marketing: Dep I dunno if it {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could {disfmarker} +Marketing: depending on the final shape of it , 'cause you could have like , I dunno , {gap} it looks like you can c control the volume with your thumb , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then you could control the buttons with your fingers . +Project Manager: Fingers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if {disfmarker} yeah , in that kinda position the fingers would be better for pressing and the {disfmarker} that for rolling , +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it it it seems to me that uh it uh it al also has the advantage that it it {disfmarker} the two are clearly different , +User Interface: B +Industrial Designer: just the way it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um that there's no no possibility of uh confusing the two . +Marketing: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So okay . Right so uh +User Interface: I'm just gonna pass this along . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} sorry is that that all you want to say at the mo +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm right . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here we go . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , this is my report on trend watching . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The data's come off internet uh from executive summary for us on the top three things wanted by the consumer . And we got reports from Paris , Milan on new fashions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the most important aspect is the l the look {disfmarker} it has to look fancy , look and feel +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh instead of the current functional look and feel . This is a st well I was gonna say yeah twice as important as the second aspect , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: which is the technologically innov innovative um side of it . So uh and the third being easy to use is probably a given , we have to try and incorporate , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I mean I th I think that what we're suggesting ought to address all three of those . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh exactly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I s that out of sequence ? Uh yeah , sorry . Uh yeah , and uh from the fashion watchers from Milan and Paris have said fruit and vegetables are an important theme for clothes and furniture and shoes , et cetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Uh sorry , clothes , shoes and furniture +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: and uh a spongy material to be used on the {vocalsound} on the outside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I hadn't thought of that , that's different , certainly . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But uh I was gonna say um yeah , +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: fruit and vegetables , uh important to {disfmarker} this year um important to furniture , I'm just gonna say uh {vocalsound} f like it's in {disfmarker} if if fashion {disfmarker} if we're going for the it looks fancy , then fashion is obviously the line we gotta be going through . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But fashions do don't last very long . +Industrial Designer: Well that can kinda tie into our changing uh face things , like we could have the fruit and vegetable theme this year +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh whatever happens next year , we can have the face plates , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , we can have a sp like a spongy skin on it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: and then we can just whip that off and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah like the kind you get on like hand weights . You know , that kind of spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that weird {disfmarker} I dunno what that is , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: but yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: A kind of {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Also means you can drop it without damaging it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} , yeah , it's good as well . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} c cool . Um {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} if we could save {disfmarker} depending on the cost of the product itself , you know , could we have uh a cheaper b cheaper power source and then just have it annually renewed ? Instead of having a ten year guarantee ? With interchangeable covers , could just buy a new one every year , a new one when new fashions come out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I mean it its uh I {disfmarker} that's an interesting idea , it's like the old Swatch watch where uh um on only batteries ever got changed in those , 'cause people just bought a new one when it went out of fashion , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but it's just never been seen as a a fashion item before . Um that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Wh +Project Manager: yes if if if they're made in sufficient quantity {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think it's easier sometimes to have them buy changeable covers for it than to buy a whole new one , because you don't feel like you're investing in a whole new product . +Project Manager: W I mean we we can uh uh b but I mean my feeling is that current power sources are such that for relatively little cost you can make it last , you know , a long time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but if we also make it cheap enough that people either change the cover every year or even buy a new one every year then it it's it's even better . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: What if we included the batteries in the cover ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . I like that . +User Interface: So um +Industrial Designer: That all c also kind of encourages 'em to buy new covers +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so can I see that thing ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} this as examples . +Project Manager: I n I know {disfmarker} the only p I mean the the the the immediate thing that comes to mind with that is that it it it {disfmarker} y you've then got the connection +User Interface: So f +Project Manager: and you've immediately got a sort of unreliability , whereas the advantage of having it plumbed in is that that the whole thing is all , you know , completely soldered together +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: and it it it {disfmarker} you know , total reliability , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess that's true . +Project Manager: but I mean I d I I uh I know what you're saying and uh understand where you're coming from . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} well , but like uh like more than just the battery , like a complete different {disfmarker} like you've only got like , you know like th uh this bit's the bit you keep , and this is the expensive bit , this is like the chip +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and this is the microphone . And then this is the power source and the bit everyone sees . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I s I think if we're gonna go down that route , then we're talking about uh {disfmarker} even if it costs slightly more than that , um just building the whole thing in one , then having {disfmarker} getting cheaper production costs +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you probably are right . +Project Manager: um and , you know giving people the option of buying a new uh {disfmarker} a a complete new thing , the advantage of a replaceable cover is that even if they don't {disfmarker} it doesn't have a cover on at all , it will still work um totally . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um then if , you know , if people lose the cover , I mean they they might be well inclined to go out and spend however many Euros on a on a new one um rather than a a complete new re remote . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that that's just it with the covers , you're sort of tricking 'em into continuing to spend their money on our products without making 'em feel like they're being ripped off having to buy a new product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it is {disfmarker} it's up to it's up to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +User Interface: Yeah , just another five Euro to get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's up to our marketing people to to ma to ma turn it into a a fashion item . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Um and , you know , as as external fashions change , then we get new new covers on the market and , you know , readily available . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the sort of thing , once you get the mould set , you can just whip out different colours , different pictures very very quickly . +Project Manager: {gap} that's that's right , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , like they have for mobile phones +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , exactly , exactly . +User Interface: that are just fruits and animal prints and colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh i so uh okay . {vocalsound} Um right , +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: sorry . Um we hadn't finished your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh , don't worry it's all said , I was just gonna say uh {disfmarker} yeah , are we gonna make this as part of like like uh {disfmarker} a part of the f like it it {disfmarker} the fashions apply to furniture , so are we gonna make this part of the furniture ? +Project Manager: It's the sort of thing that we want people to have prominent dis displayed on their um coffee table to say this says something about me . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this is fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah . This is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I , you know , I'm I'm I'm with it , I'm up to date . And you know , th the the design that I've got , and and it could be a a home-made design , um you know this says this is not just a a television remote control , this is , you know , a fashion accessory . Um , so I mean the the the basic shape i is is what we uh {disfmarker} I mean given that we've got you know one one on off button presumably , two buttons for uh channel change and one slider and basically nothing else , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: um w we need to decide on the {disfmarker} just the basic shape of the thing . And , know whether we go down the fruit and veg route , and I don't suggest we make it look like a banana , but um know sort of the the organic , you know , curved look , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , t to deliberately get away from the uh um {vocalsound} uh you know , the the the the square look of most um current uh remotes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and , you know , whether whether the you know , the the fixed part of it is the corporate yellow . Um mm or uh {disfmarker} 'cause there's certainly you know , the the corporate logo needs to be prominently uh displayed so that people s th looked at it and say right , that's a Real Reaction remote control , I want one of those . +Industrial Designer: I dunno that we should make the whole thing yellow I kinda thought with a {disfmarker} you'd have like a yellow circle with the R_R_ in it somewhere on it , +Project Manager: Yeah uh the the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or or b +Industrial Designer: but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yellow seems a bit of a strong colour +User Interface: like an {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I'd I'd um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to make the ent like the thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Uh no +Industrial Designer: no , but I mean just like white or grey or black or some sort of blah colour . +Project Manager: I d I I agree , I mean we're we're we're simply {disfmarker} it's simply required to incorporate the the the the corporate logo prominently um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . Mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And make that a fashion symbol as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n +Project Manager: Well , th this is {disfmarker} this is the whole point , yes , you know , I'm {disfmarker} I've got a a Real Reaction uh remote control to go with my Real Reaction coffee maker or or whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh then people , you know , people demand more Real Reaction stuff . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well I was sort of mm kinda picturing like maybe um {vocalsound} a shape that's almost like a mouse . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: So that , you know , when they hold it it's {disfmarker} because a mouse is pretty comfortable to hold in your hand um maybe we could make it a slightly different shape so they could hold on to it , but that way they can have the volume on the side and then the channel buttons and +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: have the power , wherever , somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean I've uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: I mean that was just an idea that I had . +Project Manager: Oh no that {disfmarker} well there's the sim {disfmarker} my my idea was something a b probably you know a bit fatter than this but sort of tha that sorta shape +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: so that you can just sort of ho hold it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you'd want it narrower than a mouse though +User Interface: Kind of a c +Industrial Designer: 'cause it {disfmarker} a mouse you're kinda just resting on it , you want something you can definitely grip . +Project Manager: W it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} well it's sort of it's it's sort of uh a a mouse , +Industrial Designer: So maybe it'd be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Sort of a combination . +Project Manager: but held , you know , so it's {disfmarker} you sorta hold it in your hand like that , i with , you know , and fiddling with the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and fiddle around with it and press it . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} yeah , kind of maybe maybe a little wider than this , 'cause this is pretty comfortable to hold , and then if you had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe almost like a hairbrush , like you could get the {disfmarker} about the width of that end of the pen and then it widens up top +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and you can fiddle +User Interface: then wider up here . +Industrial Designer: an yeah . +User Interface: And then it would have a l uh wider thing to uh have the light , the infrared light at the T_V_ and just kinda change channels and adjust the volume +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: and the power could be wherever , up up the top or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , cool . +User Interface: What do you guys think about that ? +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that sounds {disfmarker} Um I'm just {disfmarker} I'm suddenly realising that yeah we're discussing how much {disfmarker} how good it's gonna be to change channels t we still can just tell it to . I mean are we are we starting to get away from the the voice functionality of it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It is a very good point . +Project Manager: I think we d I think we decided that w we're actually going down both routes . That um the {vocalsound} we n +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we need the the manual controls and that they should be of that form , but that uh {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} do you know , this shape also kind of les lend itself to to voice {gap} 'cause if you're you're holding it and you're fiddling , but you can also bring it up like that +Project Manager: Then you just bring it up to your mouth and just speak to it , +Industrial Designer: and it's microphone-esque , +User Interface: Yeah , and just say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe we cou like w like we're leaving out the buttons for the the f less frequently used stuff , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but maybe we could incorporate that into the voice . +Project Manager: I th I th honest uh {vocalsound} my personal view is that if it's not there , people wouldn't use it anyway um . +Marketing: Mm I suppose , but t there is the off chance that , you know , th the brightness is wrong on your T_V_ or the contrast needs changing . +Project Manager: It's cer it's certainly possible I mean , but they {disfmarker} we we're going beyond w w +Industrial Designer: Bu Mm . +Project Manager: given the state of the technology {vocalsound} we want something that we kno we know will will work um . +Marketing: Hmm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well you can still i incorporate the voice with with less buttons . I mean {vocalsound} uh if the power button was also somehow like a menu button you could press that and {disfmarker} or do voice commands , and {vocalsound} either volume thing could also be to scroll through other options like y and you could scroll through brightness +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and and sc +Marketing: that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can minimise the buttons +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose I sup +Industrial Designer: and still have those , you know , brightness and tint and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If we we're {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} I'm getting a clear message that we think that we should have those facilities available . +User Interface: So I guess we could have a menu button as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could have the channels and the power and then a menu button and then the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So have four buttons and the volume instead of three buttons and the volume . +Project Manager: Uh uh uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , if we if we're going down that route , then we need some sort of display . Do we need some sort of display ? +Industrial Designer: But the television would be the display +Project Manager: We actually use the television , okay . Okay , okay , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's on the T_V_ , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} things like that usually c pop up on a televi like you hit menu +User Interface: Yeah , and then y +Industrial Designer: and menu will come up on television and have like tint brightness , and you'd use the scroll , scroll through it yeah . +Marketing: Well I mean +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: on a {disfmarker} onto like a mouse , the ru the scrolling button , is actually a button as well , you could press it , you could press that and have it as a menu button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah , press that is t +Industrial Designer: I never understood how that worked though , +User Interface: yeah , that might work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's like um {disfmarker} yeah , it's like the mouse where you just kinda click it . You just press it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Yeah , and you could just click that to {disfmarker} so if you had like the menu then you could scroll through and then click it to select . +Industrial Designer: Mm , oka yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You know what I mean ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Okay , we got five minutes to go in this meeting , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: so um I d I think we've actually very conveniently just uh come to uh a good point to s to sum up um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: So um b b Kate and Kendra now go away and uh pa play play with a bit of Plasticine or play-dough , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Play with play-dough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whatever it is on the other side of the Atlantic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and actually put what we've discussed into something uh {disfmarker} I was gonna say concrete , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but that's a slightly inappropriate word {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um to something that we can we can see and um Andrew n can go away and th th think about how we can uh actually market this as a concept and not j not just a uh um a a simple remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh can I just get some things clear just for {vocalsound} my sake . +Project Manager: Yeah , certainly , of course . +Marketing: Our energy source is gonna be +Project Manager: I think I think we decided that we're gonna {disfmarker} for +Marketing: long term . +Project Manager: for simplicity of , you know , manufacturing and uh maintenance that we will go for a a long term battery source um , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Cool . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} you know , on the basis that um that , you know , if we're going for making it a fashion statement , then uh people are more likely to change it anyway uh before i it runs out and um {vocalsound} make an assumption that we we can aim for a battery that will last most people for uh we'll say at least five five ten years +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that we'll w we will guarantee it for for five years um . +Marketing: And we're having a custom chip ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We're having a a custom chip , but given the the {disfmarker} we've cut the functions down , um that will hopefully not be too problematic , but given that um technol technological innovation is important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then we need to , I'll say it again , technologically innovate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh we we , know , we must resist any efforts to uh to try and water that down um . +Marketing: And interchangeable case ? +Project Manager: I i interchangeable case seems to be um {vocalsound} um important to the concept . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um it it should be cheap , you know , if if we avoid any , you know , electrical connections . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh i you know , i if we can come up with some way of of allowing people to actually personalise it uh to whatever they want , then uh {disfmarker} I mean uh uh this is totally new . +Marketing: Mm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We d we don't know whether that {disfmarker} to what extent people do it or not , but if they've at least got a a good selection of um covers that they can use anyway , and uh and if if we can keep them , you know , rolling , then uh {disfmarker} you know , so they can get them in the supermarket when they go down to um a any of the famous supermarkets , I won't mention any mention any names , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um it's uh it's good for the supermarket +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's good for us and it hopefully makes them feel better . +Marketing: And uh are we gonna have it il being illuminated from inside onto the buttons or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean that's {disfmarker} no , because we've got so few buttons that it {disfmarker} that actually makes that redundant . +Industrial Designer: Mm , does actually , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . +Marketing: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , and especially for making them so like different and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm different to feel , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , that that solves one of the problems of b of battery life , 'cause that would {disfmarker} well that would clobber the battery life , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so no , I mean given the nature of the buttons we're having , it's actually uh uh unnecessary I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we having it that it's any angle , or is it just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As uh as wide +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cer certainly wider angle than than current , +Marketing: As wide as possible . +Project Manager: so that if you're holding it , you know , anyway like you're likely to and uh it's uh {vocalsound} you know , i i it will work most of the time um . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Like this or like this . +Project Manager: Not like my my mum who points it at the ceiling and wonders why the th th the television doesn't work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I mean I d I th I sorta envisaged that if if this was the the thing , then sort of the the whole of the top would be the uh the infrared uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , kinda like this whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you could use like this and it would go {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause I mean the r reality is people are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they're gonna be looking at the television whilst they're using it , the chances are , so if if they're holding it anyway , the they're reasonably likely to be holding it to use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then uh then that that's the sort of coverage that we want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , d we're all clear where we go from here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep , sounds good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so thank you very much indeed and I'll s see you all again in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +","Project Manager led a design meeting to discuss progress on a new remote control, emphasizing the consumer desire for aesthetics, functionality, and a long battery life. The team agreed to develop a device with limited buttons for essential functions, a long-lasting guaranteed battery, a distinctive shape with potential for customizable covers, and to explore speech recognition technology. The Industrial Designer discussed potential internal components, considering cost and production constraints. The User Interface designer suggested ergonomic design features and minimal clutter. Marketing highlighted the importance of innovation and fashion trends in product appeal. The team concluded the meeting, aiming to refine the design further based on their discussion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we are here to talk about functional design . Now hopefully we've all got a better idea from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} than we did f leaving the last meeting as to what it is we are up to now . So here's an agenda . Uh I'll open . Um you should know that I'll be taking minutes during all the meetings , as I was struggling to our last time uh and that'll be easier for me now because I'm not actually giving the whole presentation . Uh the additional points are just the stuff that we sent and that I forwarded on from upper management having a few bright ideas to make our lives painful . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now {vocalsound} you can all give your presentations . We can talk about the requirements and hopefully come to some decisions . {vocalsound} Right , forty minutes for this meeting , so a bit more time than the last one . Here's the additional points I just wanted to put those in there to see if you guys had any comments on them . Uh did you all receive that email ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anyone have any overall {gap} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} uh what comes up for me is that if we're gonna if we're gonna be marketing a product that is going to be uh having {vocalsound} no teletext , people are very comfortable {vocalsound} with {vocalsound} the idea of having teletext and using teletext , and so we're not {disfmarker} we're gonna be a new product without something that people are very comfortable having right now . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yep . +Marketing: So that's , from a marketing perspective I I see I see a lack . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And so we have to go , I think , in the other direction . What are we gonna have that makes this thing better than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well tha that first point could uh also be an op opportunity because in seeing that teletext is becoming outdated , some sort remote control that can work with the Internet {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there is the opportunity that's presented , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Yeah . No , I I agree with you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So what I'm talking about is I see that one side we're eliminating something so we have to come up with another side which is , what are we gonna be targeting our market uh that {vocalsound} identifies our product as better than {disfmarker} because it doesn't have teletext it has ta-ta-ta-ta-ta . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that's that's that was my reactions . +Project Manager: Yeah . but but we are sort of being dictated that this should only be for the television . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So we're quite fixed . So we're really probably , in terms of marketing , are looking for that's uh that's a cost winner rather than a fantastic new feature product . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but we we're designing only the remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: we not design the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh we're gonna be removing the teletext out of any T_V_ that we {disfmarker} people use our remote with . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So it's kind of a stupid decision . +Marketing: I think we take with you . +Project Manager: But there's also the potential for mark there's a market here for our lost teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: For example someone that just goes to the shop that wants a replacement {disfmarker} wants it as {vocalsound} cheap as possible . Twenty-five Euros is the selling price , we really have to innovate here I guess . +Marketing: That's what I'm that's what I'm talking about is is that we have to find something that is gonna be very attractive about this product 'cause somebody , some people are gonna be hap unhappy 'cause it took {disfmarker} they can't ac access their teletext . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause we're talking about {vocalsound} eighty percent or ninety percent or ninety-five percent of the televisions out there are are teletext . +Project Manager: K yeah . +Marketing: So so it's it's not that I'm criticizing the product at all . It's just when we eliminate that then what do we bring ? What are we bringing in to take the place of this , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: and we have to d {disfmarker} in my opinion we have to double up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we lose one we need to bring two or three . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay I think that the {vocalsound} last point is probably quite uh straightforward . Obviously the the {disfmarker} w it has to be branded . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: So then the double R_ will be our our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the product yeah . Can you handle that black and yellow ? +User Interface: I think one of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I tho I tho I thou I think Rol Ro Rolls-Royce might mind , but don't worry . +User Interface: I think w , yeah , one of the things that we should also keep in mind um when we're doing this {disfmarker} I mean our company's slogan is we put the fashion in electronics , right . So I think our kind of {disfmarker} our target here is to {vocalsound} have some kind of very like sleek {vocalsound} nice look remote and we want it to be functional as well , but I think one of the main selling points is that we don't want it to be clunky like like this thing here . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You know we don't wanna a big clunker . We want something that looks nice and it's fashionable and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you have this ? +Project Manager: Nah . So we have three presentations , and I think we'll go in order of participant number here . So we can have a look at the working design first from participant two . That's {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: That's fine . Okay so +Project Manager: Mm it's enough . But uh click it on off ? +User Interface: so you all know me , I'm the Industrial Designer . And we've some basic components that um our remote is gonna need , just basically every remote'll need 'em . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need some kinda of power d power source . Um we have to decide on our our user interface , which is his department , but the in user interface is also a major component . Um we need a programmable digital signal processor to um to take the input from the user and translate that into uh into electronic signal , which we pass to the infra-red L_E_D_ , which you aim at the television uh which {disfmarker} and it receives that signal . You need a on-off switch um I don't know how that got in there . And uh we also need to um have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if we want a universal remote we need to have encryption codes for the different makes of T_V_s . So we need to know all the different you know all the different signals and so that'll require some memory as well . Um so here's just a basic layout of how how the remote would work . You ha the v the power source is in the upper right-hand corner there , and you can see that uh we have the user interface here which is connected to the chip which does all our signal processing , and then passes that signal on to the infra-red L_E_D_ and that signal is then emitted and received by the television at the photo-transistor . So {vocalsound} those are the basic components that need to go into this and everything else is pretty much uh open to move around . +Marketing: Now is {disfmarker} would this be {vocalsound} considered just a standard uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think any des +Marketing: This is not this is not cutting edge technology we're talking here . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: We're talking about existing technology . +User Interface: Right I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing is being modified or upgraded or new discoveries . +User Interface: Yeah this is just {disfmarker} this is just a basic layout of ev {vocalsound} of all the components that w w are gonna be absolutely necessary f to have a working remote . We can add things in like if we wanted some voice recognition , I mean that {vocalsound} I mean {vocalsound} that you can kinda say would {vocalsound} would fall under the user interface and the digital signal processing chip . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Do we have an idea of costs of different components ? +User Interface: Um well the most the most costly components are gonna be the chip and the uh th it could als basically the user interface and the casing are gonna be expensive as well . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um the L_E_D_ and the the transistors and everything else are you know they're they're pretty cheap . So depending on what we want our functionality to be , um the chip could be expensive or it could be cheap . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um depending on the n amount of memory we need in there and stuff like that and h and h {vocalsound} you know how much power . +Project Manager: Do we have any ballpark figures for that yet ? No . +User Interface: Uh I don't have any figures right now . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: We uh we have to wait until we get to a more specific design phase for that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but {disfmarker} and I think a significant part of the cost could be the actual the actual casing itself and and you know the the b the buttons and things like that , I think . +Marketing: N okay . Mm . Mm the shell ? +User Interface: Yeah . Basically yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So yeah . That's all I have really . +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks . And we have participant three , which I believe is Pedro . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can give you that to click on . +Industrial Designer: Hey mouse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you wanna get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When we're fighting over it's also more {disfmarker} lot more fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: View a slide show , that's what you wanna do , yeah ? Just go up to view . +User Interface: Click , don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: This doesn't work . {vocalsound} So yeah function design . Um you guys know me , Pedro , and um what I found is we want to do fashion and I think , honestly , we should keep technology low and just simple basically and try to aim for design . If basically a case will will cost the same if it looks good or bad so we ma we have to make it look good . Um something cute and small . The big chunky remotes are died in the eighties . So we should just go for something that people will like to actually look at . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um although mo most people will buy s televisions and everything for uh {disfmarker} that have loads of loads of little functions and everything and they mostly end up using simple functions and little things and most the people won't won't get too mad of actually having to go the {disfmarker} to the s to the television to , for instance , tune in their {disfmarker} the stations . There's no need to have that in the remote . So um um as for what I would recommend for uh the the interface design , and uh I will change the colours on the on the logo , but {vocalsound} um we should go for the user-oriented device , so simple controls and good ergonomics . Um and uh although I th I th I'm still here recommending the teletext so I'll remove that , I guess , but um we should go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I t I think what the {vocalsound} the management recommendation was less that there's a worry that teletext will become outdated rather than we shouldn't have it . So I I still think if it's cheap enough functionality-wise to include , it really should be in there . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise we're just going to {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} even if it's necessary or not , if you {disfmarker} if you're given the choice between a t a remote with teletext or without uh when it really {disfmarker} if it i {vocalsound} if it isn't more expensive for us to k make {disfmarker} because as far as I understand it , {vocalsound} it can be operated with the same set of buttons , yeah ? So it should be in there . +User Interface: Right as far as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: i it's just uh {vocalsound} the cost of an extra button . I mean software-wise there's really no difference . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have maybe a silly question . I {disfmarker} in the very beginning it said with the with the advent of computers there's gonna be the {disfmarker} it's gonna be out-moded teletext . I I don't understand how those two things are connected . How does how does computers and teletext {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} why is one eliminating the need of the other ? I don't understand that . +Project Manager: Well maybe what we're getting into here is the the idea of uh Internet through the T_V_ for example . So that might play on what we can do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the they're basically aiming at saying that {vocalsound} you would use {disfmarker} you know a couple of years ago teletext to be the easiest way to check like for uh uh the scheduling and the next programme and stuff like that +User Interface: Scheduling . Um to find out what what you're watching even if there's commercials you know . +Industrial Designer: and now {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and now you can c look it over Internet . But I still think teletext is way more convenient until until we have the same commodities . +User Interface: I think I ha I agree . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause , yeah , I just {disfmarker} I don't see the cross-over between computers and television . I mean I do see the cross-over in some sense , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's not happen yet . Yeah . +Marketing: but but but but with the {disfmarker} the remote is is used for television , okay . +User Interface: Well for me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you have digital T_V_ still already . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So so if we make the cross-over and we're gonna view television on computers then we're then we're losing the the necessity of the remote . S +User Interface: Unless you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there there is a {disfmarker} for example on digital T_V_ systems you have {disfmarker} you can press a button and you can buy things in adverts , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can uh you can view through a catalogue for example . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: A a family member of mine has got a system where you just um you can {disfmarker} Yeah , and there's other features for example on other systems where you can pause live T_V_ and things like that . They're just features from the Internet uh from computers are are coming into the T_V_ sort of under the covers , but you still use it through a teletext . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So now the things to think here are that that there's gonna be more functionality , potentially that we can handle . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we don't we're not aiming a command for that . That's the thing . And all of those require the other commands with more complexity and more software and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} I think a lot of that's proprietary anyways . You're not gonna be able to , you , like command a TiVo with our remote . I don't think . +Project Manager: Mm . But still there there's an opportunity . If if it's {vocalsound} , for example , a trainable one then we're {vocalsound} just simply having like an up , down , left , right , an okay button or something like that might might do as well in future proofing it . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we would increase the price to try to make it a trainable one , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno . One way the other teletext was there but I guess we can remove it or , you know , make two separate interface designs . +User Interface: I think if it's possible you should try to you know have a talk with management about that . Just you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I don't I don't see the logic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I I don't see the logic in elimination of teletext , I just I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and neither do I in fact . +Marketing: but I'm not a tech-mind either . I just don't see the cross-over between computers and and and +Project Manager: Bu uh . +Marketing: {disfmarker} 'Cause we are designing something for a television , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll communicate that back to those guys there a a and th the message really we wanna be sending to them is that , although teletext may become outdated w there's no l logic in not having it in there anyway i if it doesn't affect the price . +User Interface: Right it's just not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but I I think what they're pushing us towards here is in terms of thinking of ways to future-proof our system for future systems that have something else other than teletext maybe . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We are selling it to an existing market . +Project Manager: I dunno I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we're not putting some {disfmarker} there's no no putting anything in in the place of teletext . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: That's the problem . +Marketing: and and , yeah , and and we're also {vocalsound} marketing a product . It's {disfmarker} what I'm seeing is a is a mid-range cost product . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So so w we can't go and pump a whole bunch of technology into this thing +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because all of a sudden we are gonna have cost overruns . So if we drop {disfmarker} if we are gonna choose to drop teletext , again what are we adding to the product that makes it marketable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . So if we're keeping it basic we're loo loo what we're looking to sell it basically is it's uh just being very easy to use , looking exceptionally good , that sort of thing . 'Cause we really don't have anything else there , do we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't I don't see it , and to me if I'm gonna market a product for b for beauty for for design I'm gonna I'm gonna try to market it at a much higher price . I need to make it special with a high price tag . I don't want to make it economically uh g uh competitive . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I want I want to market it as exclusive . So I would market this product it {disfmarker} at eighty-nine Euros and come up with some really {vocalsound} beautiful exterior design or something th but but I don't think we have that flexibility . +Project Manager: But i if design if design is cheap and functionality is basic , then twenty-five Euros is probably a high price for a commoner garden {disfmarker} stan standard T_V_ so the place {disfmarker} uh remote the then the place we're going to justify that cost is through through design through making it a a sleek elegant {vocalsound} high-priced basic remote . Does that make sense , huh ? +Marketing: No I no I I understand what you say , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but what I'm what I'm , okay {disfmarker} we probably need to move along , +Project Manager: Yeah we probably should . +Marketing: but my my concern is trying to find a marketing niche for this product , +Project Manager: We we're doing alright for time . +Marketing: and if I'm coming in with a with with twenty-five Euros , which is mid-market price , um then what am I going to give these people for this ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's just my question , but we can keep talking . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorry that kinda cut into you there . +Industrial Designer: No just I I would I would advocate for continuing teletext and those would be the basic commands . Um as for , you know , the the case design uh maybe I'll come up with more concrete ideas . Right now it's just the idea of simplicity and slickness , cute and small um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I'm just thinking you know with all these universal remotes that are out there , how many people {vocalsound} how many people actually use every feature that ar you know i like these trainable remotes and things like that , where , you know , it's just so confusing to do {vocalsound} to use all these functions . Where I think the largest portion of the market is just gonna {disfmarker} you know they lost their T_V_ remote , they need another one that'll work with their T_V_ . They want something that looks nice , that that that isn't gonna break when they drop it , that you know that maybe it's it's ergonomic , it feels good in your hand , something like that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I think that's gonna be where you're gonna find the biggest , you know , market share . +Project Manager: So we are looking for something that looks good and just works , rather than looking for any special features . Is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the more bells and whistles we add , it's just gonna cut into our into our profits . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Because I think as we as we add costs for things like uh {disfmarker} for like if we add the voice recognition and things like that , I think {vocalsound} you know what percentage of the of the um of the market is actually gonna use that ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Maybe five percent , you know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: But we can talk a little bit more potentially in the marketing marketing presentation about this . +User Interface: and how much {disfmarker} Right . Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +User Interface: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Uh sorry , I didn't mean to cut in {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Sorry boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I'm not the boss {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Oh P Pedro , I just want to say quickly I I would really like it when you can come up with some more bells and whistles , eh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know sell uh {disfmarker} things come to my mind is uh uh something that's uh {vocalsound} um voice-activated . I know we're getting into some , I hope , some big money on this thing , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's probably a question more for for this guy here , yeah . +Marketing: Is that for over here ? +User Interface: Yeah . Well it's kinda both of us . +Marketing: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: Is it ? +User Interface: Us us user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause uh and I think of voice-activated I think of of {vocalsound} how many times I've I've lost my my remote and I can't find it . So some way that I can I can find my remote by clapping my hands or something +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I was thinking about that . Then your lights would go off , though . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: uh and and so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this 's just something . I'm trying to find some bells and whistles 'cause when they talk about tel taking out teletext , it's like , what are we gonna put in ? What makes this thing attractive ? And it's only for televisions . So we {disfmarker} everyth our our competition out there has got these these multiple adaptors where they can use 'em for their V_C_R_s , their D_V_D_s , their {vocalsound} their televisions and we're coming out with one remote for television only . And so to me we have to make this a really special product +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I I I don't s I really have to say I don't see the market niche for this product . At this price I don't see it yet . I'm {disfmarker} I I go along with this , because this is what we're given to try to market , but I I don't see the market niche for this product without without some really sort of something really special to identify it as as unique in the market . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we th that should be design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That should be the design basically . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: I think technology we'd we {disfmarker} we're not in the price range to do it . We don't have the money to do it towards t f technology so we should we should aim at design . +Marketing: Okay . Have to do {disfmarker} you have to do it in the box ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay well , so so that's up to you then to {vocalsound} to make this box in something that's absolutely extraordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe make it in the form of a gun . We can sell it in United States . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have a question uh for you . Does any of the um the features that Pedro's spoken about here have any implications we might not have thought about on in terms of just pure functionality ? In terms of making it work or the cost of that or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think all these things are pretty standard . I think we'll be okay . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . Cheers . Onto participant {vocalsound} four . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} you know for marketing f {vocalsound} marketing for me is uh {disfmarker} and uh how do I go here ? Okay . +User Interface: Mm you can just click . +Marketing: Go go . +User Interface: No no no +Marketing: Is that right ? +User Interface: you just get off that . You just click anywhere . +Marketing: Ah-ha . Yeah , what for me is it um {disfmarker} I d I don't know what I'm marketing right now , okay , 'til you spoke and when I wrote this , I don't know what I'm marketing . I just know that I I was identified as a a {disfmarker} we identified ourselves as a as a developer , as a manufacturer , and as a as a um distributor t to other wholesalers . And so the th the twenty-five Euros that we've identified as the sale price is a wholesale price rather than a retail price . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: That's what we decided here . Um so what I did is I I decided that {vocalsound} that this this needs to be a product in a in a sense can market itself . So what we've identified here as our main marketing stratagem is is in design . We're making the most beautiful attractive uh whatever we decide it is . So that means we have about seven more minutes or ten minutes left . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} so I would like to have a product that that we can sell easily . So I say inspiration , so having something beauty , something attractive , uh something that in a sense will sell itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh innovation I think fits into what we're talking about here with design . Uh cutting edge technology , I don't think we're gonna have that , these were ideas I was putting together , um unless we come up with some New Age product a as far as the casing is concerned . I I wanna make this thing something that I can identify as special in some way , so maybe we can have some {disfmarker} I I talked about environmentally sensitive , uh maybe we have a product that can be identified in some way as advantageous in a home . I don't know . These are just thoughts . Uh I wanted to talk about uh who we are as a as a corporation , that we're new , we're aggressive , we're competitive , we're we're trying to provide a product from a new perspective rather than from an old corporate line . So to me it's about selling d uh our identity {disfmarker} our corporate identity along with the product . {vocalsound} Um what I found is that the projected costs are competitive . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh we're kind of in the middle of the market , but what I'm seeing is that the market is ready for {disfmarker} I I identified new technology , but again , because what I see is budget restrictions and limitations , I don't know that we can bring any new technology into this thing . If if we could have a technological something {disfmarker} +User Interface: I have an idea . +Marketing: Mm p please . +User Interface: And it's kind of {vocalsound} along the s lines of environmentally sensitive , and it may even fit into ergonomics , and even kind of address the issue of losing losing the remote , what we were saying it's a common issue . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what we can do is , well you know that batteries {disfmarker} throwing a aw remotes run through batteries like crazy . Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Solar . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} s for some people {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Well maybe not a solar remote but instead what about if we had like a power cradle ? +Marketing: But solar {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a a cradle that is is there to hold the remote when you're not using it , so you'll always know where the remote is 'cause you have to put it back there to charge the remote , and we can , instead of having instead of having , you know , replaceable batteries we'll just have a power cell that stays there for the life of the remote . You never have to get {disfmarker} go through the {disfmarker} go through {vocalsound} uh all these different batteries . And also you can {disfmarker} I I think it's a good opportunity for the user design {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} not just for the user design , but also for the {disfmarker} just for the look and feel of the remote as as a whole . You know you could have some kind of neat little , you know , {vocalsound} a sexy design for d a cradle and the remote itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Blah , I like it . I like the idea , but we're talking about {disfmarker} in cost is gonna probably double . +User Interface: It w it would increase the cost . +Marketing: But boy , we can sell this thing , because there's no batteries , it's environmentally sensitive , i we can identify it as a safer product in some form . +User Interface: And you could page the remote if you lose it . Maybe there's a button on the cradle . +Marketing: Yep , that's right . I really see +Project Manager: Now the the question is can we make this for less than twelve-fifty per ? +Marketing: But the cost i No no . No no , we have t we have to change the end cost . +Project Manager: We we well do we necessarily have to change the end cost because uh {vocalsound} Can we dl can we do that without {vocalsound} uh changing it twelve-fifty per product , if we basically can sell more based on this ? +Marketing: There's uh {disfmarker} I mean I don't see it anyway . Yeah , that's gonna be up to these guys . +User Interface: Well +Marketing: I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} my reaction is no , but +User Interface: {vocalsound} what I can do is I can d look into ho well Pedro and I can look into how much this might increase our our costs +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you can look into what kind of effect an increased cost is gonna have on our on our final numbers . +Project Manager: Yeah we we can certainly push for a more expensive product if that's gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , see I I {disfmarker} see I I'm an advocate to make this an exclusive product . You know , let's let's sell this wholesale for for fifty Euros , sixty Euros . Let's make this thing really exclusive , environmentally sensitive , uh high-tech design , uh ergonomics , all of this . Just make this thing uh , yeah , the the the Rolls Royce of of remote controls . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Every home's got to have it . If you don't have one , hey what kind of remote do you have ? Oh you've got one of those , oh fantastic , I want one of those too . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I just don't have enough money right now . +User Interface: I just don't know about that , because in order to do that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} in order to price it at that kind of level I think we'd need to have every functionality that all the other competitors are offering like being able to operate , you know , the D_V_D_ player and , you know , the stereo system and all that . Which is a pretty basic function that w we've opted out of . And additionally we're m maybe not supporting teletext um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , I think we can say with certainty now that we are supporting teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I do think there are some basic features that we don't have that a lot of other remotes are going to have . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep , one one thing I don't understand is h they've they've given us this package , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Now uh in my opinion we need to give them a package back , okay . They say they say okay here you go . They gave us a fundament a foundation of of what they want , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and and w it's our place to kinda analyse and evaluate . I don't think it's our place to create their product for them , maybe it is . I don't know what kind of role we have in this {disfmarker} in the corporate ladder uh , but to me it's like , okay , you have got your {disfmarker} here's our ideas , okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then let them look at those ideas and they say , yeah well , we can we can raise the price twenty percent , you know we like this idea , this idea no , but {vocalsound} to me it's it's about a choice , do we follow their directives or do we make uh presentations back and and then and then discuss ? beca I I do not {disfmarker} I do not see the market niche for the product that they're handing f handing us right now . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: I don I I d +Marketing: I don't see it . +User Interface: I have to disagree though . I think our market niche is basically people who need {vocalsound} {disfmarker} who have lost their remote or uh who've broken their remote and don't wanna send back to the manufacturer , they just wanna run out to the store and get a remote , and then they're gonna look on the shelf and they're gonna see ours is the nicest looking remote . It does what they need . These aren't {disfmarker} I I think that it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and th to get to back to another point , sorry uh uh {vocalsound} for cutting in but , I th I think it's important to remember that that this remote has to work with multiple T_V_s , yeah , 'cause it's selling on its own . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: It's not going to be specifically for Hitachi T_V_s or or whatever . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: No I understand that . +Project Manager: So technologically , if I understand it , uh T_V_s {vocalsound} T_V_ remote's working exactly the same way as video remotes and D_V_D_ remotes . All you need to do is train them to the individual one , all you need to do is is know the the f like some four-digit code . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So saying that it works with all T_V_s is equivalent to saying that it'll work with D_V_D_s and other things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nope , they've identified the product as not working for anything but televisions . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y y you you wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: They've identified this product limita +Project Manager: We have done this . +Marketing: That's why I say I don't I don't see the market niche for this . +Industrial Designer: The interface will be different . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: If we if w if we were going to have a product that worked for D_V_D_s , V_C_R_s and everything , then I can see the market niche , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but we we're only identified as going for televisions without teletext . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: And it's like whoa we ha in my opinion we have to go with something that's extremely exclusive to make this thing marketable , +User Interface: Well here's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I I'd {disfmarker} +Marketing: because who wants just a television remote ? +Project Manager: Mm sorry . +User Interface: Right . We he well here's my thing about that . +Marketing: I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you're in the market for this ultimate remote , you're not gonna go for just a television remote . If it can't control {disfmarker} if it can't control your your D_V_D_ player and a al if y if you can't get that all-in-one ultimate remote , that just {disfmarker} you can throw all your other remotes away . I'm not gonna buy a d seventy-five Euro remote . +Marketing: That's right . {vocalsound} I I I have a tendency to agree with you . I really do . +Project Manager: So we really can't chase that . +Marketing: That's why I say I quest I q I question the marketability of the product . I really question where we create the demand . +User Interface: So I think what we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're really looking for something basic . +User Interface: So that's what I'm saying {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the one thing that that that you said really struck a chord with me here in that we're we're carrying the corporate identity with the product , but we're actually looking for a large profit at the same time where I'd be inclined to go back to upper-level management and say like let's just cut down our profit expected on this product because we are actually branding our company here . We're selling more than just the product . We're trying to get mind-share about uh Real Reaction to to the people who are gonna buy consumer electronics . We want people to eventually say , oh that's that's Real Reaction that's a good m make . It's reliable . And and we're gonna make it {disfmarker} we're gonna win mind-share by uh either being a fantastic product +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or for it working , it just being good , reasonable-priced , {vocalsound} and solid . So if we can make {disfmarker} if we can put an emphasis here on it not breaking I think that's in itself an extremely {vocalsound} big thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I think that's big . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} okay if you if you drop the cost , now if you make if you make {disfmarker} go to the other side of the cost scale , and you make it less expensive , then all of a sudden now we're going into an a a new market area . So we can say low-cost uh uh um uh good design , beautiful , wa-da-da-da-da-da . +Industrial Designer: Good design . +Project Manager: We only have a few minutes left . +Marketing: But what I'm saying is right now we're middle market . +Project Manager: Is twenty-five Euros a mid-market price for a remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: I think so , yeah . +Marketing: for for multi for a multi-function remote , that's a mid-market price . In a discount right now you can buy 'em on sale sometimes for about about uh eighteen , nineteen Euro , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and that's for the multi-functions , uh D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , uh catch-alls . And and they have 'em in a little box in the middle , and and this is the consciousness that most people have about replacement remote controls . So to me {vocalsound} , to market this a t only a television remote control we have to change consciousness . We have to have something that will change people's thinking to identify this as advantageous , and I don't know what that is . It's gotta be low-cost or high-cost with with special design features . +Project Manager: Well I'd be inclined to say , if we can make the design better than any comparable remote while reducing the cost , then that's the way we really should play it . If we can take it down to you know fifteen rather than twenty-five and make a low profit-margin on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we're really doing that to sell the brand . Yep we have five minutes left . Uh rather th uh to to to sell for Real Reactions . +Marketing: Or my d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I can communicate this to to the more senior {vocalsound} uh mm people within the company here to to get a reaction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about um the idea that I had with the cradle ? How do you feel about that ? +Project Manager: Well how does everybody feel ? +User Interface: Or how does everybody feel ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean I I {vocalsound} well we g we're talking about the other end now . +Project Manager: {gap} I I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like it . +User Interface: No , but I {disfmarker} that's the thing I I don't think it's necessarily the other end . +Marketing: I like the idea , but we have t we have to find out {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other the o the problem with that in my mind I just think off-hand as a as a consumer , would I wanna buy that ? And I think maybe not because I've got a remote and I'll take it to different chairs , I'll take it to different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I w I don't wanna go over somewhere and put it down . It {disfmarker} i if it is gonna be somewhere that you put it down then it needs to be at the side of your armchair , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and that implies that there's only one T_V_ user . So it's very good for some people but it's not a like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it lasts {disfmarker} it would last for several hours on its own power , but when you're done with it you put it back in the cradle . +Project Manager: But it it takes away the ease of use of the remote to a certain extent . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: You have to l sort of remember . +User Interface: well it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You have to d shift down the side of the couch to find it and put it back and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I d I d I d I think it it {disfmarker} in my mind it doesn't seem like something that oh I'd really want uh because of that fact . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But I I don't know , that's just my opinion . +Marketing: Well , I think again it's it {disfmarker} we have a cost issue here . You know if we're gonna go in this direction , to me we're going to the other side of the cost range . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Are we gonna make this {disfmarker} selling selling the cost as a high high-tech uh um environmentally sensitive whatever , or are we gonna go to the lower side of the range ? {vocalsound} Again I don't see our market niche in the middle for our product yet . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: I don't see it yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what do we think maybe we should {disfmarker} Pedro , do you have any opinion on it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we should keep it simple , mm medium-low cost mar um cost area and uh make it look good . +Marketing: W {vocalsound} a question I have in in a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} 'cause I I I think I agree with you on , we gotta make it a box . The box is gonna sell it I think , the outside , the casing . +Project Manager: Really need to wrap up now . +Marketing: Can can can we have multiple designs ? Have a modern , have a traditional , have a {disfmarker} you know , and so so instead of them all looking the same , people can have maybe four or five different designs they can choose from . I don't know what that creates cost , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well the the problem with that is we may end up with a whole bunch of inventory of a of a poor design you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep one over another . Yeah , okay , I hear that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , complicated but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um but what we could do is some kind of {vocalsound} well I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we need to , I mean , have a few designs to look at and then come up with something that I think we all agree is , you know , the best fit . I think w what's really important is it has to look good , it has to feel {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has to feel good in your hand , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it has to be durable , it has to a and I think it's really important that it doesn't look cheap . I think I think we have to make sure people look at it an and feel like it its like a quality remote . Even though the cost may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What ab what ab {disfmarker} what about a a remote that's {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} doesn't maybe look like a remote ? Just an idea . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just just okay 'cause I mean we all know what a remote looks like on the outside . They're selling these things everywhere . Maybe that could be part of our design exclusivity , is we make a remote that doesn't even look like a remote it it opens like a telephone . +User Interface: Or what if it looks like a pen ? +Marketing: Doesn't matter , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm just jus I talking about some {disfmarker} something to make this thing unique . +User Interface: A pointer ? +Marketing: It {disfmarker} That's the thing , I'm gonna keep thumping on . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'll sell whatever you guys design . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't have a problem selling a product , that's not the issue . I give you ideas , you guys create the product . Once you have the finished product I'll find a way to sell it . Don't worry about it . I just give you these things now , because these are my thoughts and feelings . +User Interface: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: just {vocalsound} to touch on m my point one last time that I had brought up . Um I really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} un unless you guys are die-hard against the fact that um it's possible like it reduces the usability of the remote b and the fact that you can't lose it on your own , I think it still might be a good idea to investigate having like a power cradle . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Because I really think i in a certain sense it almost like {disfmarker} for me I would want to have that just , because I know at the end of when I'm done watching T_V_ that when I'm done , oh I better go find the remote and put it back where it belongs . Maybe th th th that's just some people that like that . +Project Manager: I mean there's al there's also remote controls I remember that that worked uh , this hasn't been done in a while I think , but th as a as a watch . +User Interface: A lot of people {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no . +User Interface: As a watch ? +Project Manager: Yeah , there is remote control watches um , +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: but I think they're a sorta eighties thing , so it might not be easy to market in it {disfmarker} uh but the the technologies came along and it might be cheaper to make now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are not simple . +Project Manager: Those things may have been inexpensive for all I know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: One thing I just thought about when you were saying that , is that the p our target market is gonna be someone who has lost or broken {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I was saying . +Marketing: We gotta stop ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Gotta cut up . +Marketing: Who's lost or broken their their remote . So {vocalsound} how many remotes do they wanna buy ? Can we p can we sell them a remote that can maybe guarantee they will not need to buy another one ? +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And so with with with this kind of system or locator or something , to to think about , how have people been been losing or breaking their remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: How does this happen ? +Project Manager: The last remote you'll ever buy . +User Interface: And also presumably they've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and then and then design the product , maybe some component of the product that can identify this as the last one you'll ever need to buy . +Project Manager: Well if if we're going down that then we can {disfmarker} we don't need to go the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: it it strikes me that the locator feature might actually be uh quite expensive to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Whereas actually just putting it in a power cradle might not be too expensive at all because that's just done with mobile phones +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: you can just n we we have said we have actually similar products that we can take from and potentially cut costs there . +User Interface: Right . Yeah . The locator'll definitely be more expensive . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um need to look into whether we can do that but uh I think we we have some m mobile phone-based products uh checking quickly our Internet . We really need to finish up here . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} uh {disfmarker} we can make it in the shape of a coffee pot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we have the {gap} the power-adaptor products . We sell power-adaptor products . So for example there's nothing stopping us using that technology . +Marketing: It's uh just it's that I think it's telling us to stop our meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we have the c we probably have have on-line in our in our system , we have the ability to create this , we're talking about . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so , +Marketing: A charging system . +Project Manager: without it being too {disfmarker} In fact we can cut costs through using the manufacturing that's already gonna be in place here . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: If if we can create this we have probably five or six or seven really strong marketing characteristics . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think one of the things that we can put right on the box is , never buy another battery . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: You know , something like that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: No that's not what I want , I want {disfmarker} Oh look it here . +","At a project meeting regarding the design of a television-only remote control, team members discussed various aspects such as functionality, marketing, and design. They considered how to innovate without teletext, which consumers are comfortable using, and how to make the product stand out without adding excessive costs. Ideas centered on creating a visually appealing and easy-to-use product to gain market share, possibly by incorporating a power cradle to avoid battery replacement and encourage product placement discipline. The team also discussed the remote being both durable and cost-effective to establish a strong brand identity, potentially at a lower price point to make it more competitive. They considered how to position the remote in the market, with options ranging from exclusive high-end to economical and basic. The project manager suggested focusing on branding through reliability and design, aiming for a lasting impression that might justify a sacrifice in profit margins." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: 'S to do now is to decide how to fulfil what your stuff is , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so in that sense {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: so it does kind of make sense , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It kinda does make sense , doesn't it , because when we get into the end of meeting we're kind of {vocalsound} talking about action and design as opposed to background . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Everything I have is kinda background . +Project Manager: Okay we all ready to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Well how um on the {disfmarker} in this meeting then if we um {disfmarker} I'll just just recap on the minutes from the last meeting . And we uh decided on +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: decided on our our target group being fifteen to thirty five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we decided that it was gonna be non-rechargeable battery-powered , that we're gonna group our audio-visual and other functions into into those categories , um {vocalsound} . And I told you guys about the three new requirements about ignoring teletext , ignoring everything except the T_V_ , and trying to incorporate the the uh corporate colour and slogan . Um so that was the last meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Is there anything {disfmarker} have I forgotten anything ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Is that everything ? +Marketing: Uh that sounds {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so if we have the three presentations , and then if you have anything to kind of {disfmarker} that you know you're gonna want to discuss , maybe just make a note of it , and we'll have all the discussion at the end . That might be a better idea this time . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: And so if we start off uh with Andrew and then Craig and then David , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: if that's alright . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um and then after that we'll have to make some decisions about stuff , right {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah , cool . +Project Manager: So if you wanna take this . +Marketing: Why don't I get that {vocalsound} ? Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Screwed in quite tightly . Uh what did {disfmarker} uh how did we leave it with speech recognition now ? We {disfmarker} did we say we were gonna try {disfmarker} maybe incorporate it but we hadn't made a definite decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . Oh I should also point out that um the you know the kind of final objective of this meeting is to reach a decision on the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that's kind of the end result hopefully . +Marketing: Okay . Um alright so c is it function F_ eight ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Hopefully appear in a wee second . +Marketing: Hmm . Come on . I think it's working . +Project Manager: Up there we go . +Marketing: Okay great s so let me just start this . {vocalsound} Okay great . So um {vocalsound} uh s move on . Uh-huh {disfmarker} oh where'd it all go ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: It's not good . Okay lemme just see where I can find it . This looks more like it . I think I just opened up the template . +Project Manager: Oh right . +Marketing: Sorry about that . Okay alright so let's have a look here . +Project Manager: Here we go . +Marketing: Okay so this was the method that um I've taken . Uh basically what I wanna do here , before we get into it uh too far , is I want to show you all the background information I have that I think we need to acknowledge if we want this to be successful . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh and then sorta g go through some of the way that I've dealt with that information , and then sort of bring us all together into it to see {disfmarker} sorta see how this fits in with the overall vision . Um so I've tried to take a whole lot of market research and summarise it for us , and then ide identify uh trends that are are sort of in sync and are important to our our uh p project plan that we have so far , and then uh initiate a kind of discussion on design options so that it sorta helps us to to narrow in on on aspects that will inform other uh other elements of the of the project . Does that make sense , tha that sort of strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought that that will impact on the rest of what we do , so that's why I suggested we get in this . +Project Manager: Aye a fair point definitely . +Marketing: Okay so out of um different uh figures and ratings ob uh of people in general , um consumers in general , the number one thing that was found was that uh the br t television remote control , a fancy look and feel , okay , and not , it specified , not a functional look or or feel , uh b f f fancy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um however , this is where we kinda have to be very , I think , creative about it . Number two was that it be innovative . Okay so that tells me that we have to find a way to be innovative without a adding just unnecessary um sort of functional bits to it . Uh and third priority uh for ease of use , so again that kind of gives us a general picture of how it has to be , um {vocalsound} quite user friendly while still having technology . So it {disfmarker} I'll just say right away as a bit of a foreshadowing into how we proceed with this in terms of m marketing , is that I think um {vocalsound} what we should think about is how the um {vocalsound} about how the innovation uh contributes to the look and feel , and not so much to the functionality of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aye right . +Marketing: For example like when you pick it up and push it like it all lights up or something , you know what I mean , like , or it's got something else to it that just seems innovative +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: because obviously the thing that {disfmarker} the message here is ease of use . So how do you make innovation make something more {vocalsound} more easy to use ? Well that's I guess where we're gonna go with this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay then there's the other aspect of the back the the market um research I have here is on fashion style , okay , which as we've agreed is a priority . Uh top European fashion trend um {vocalsound} that I read about says there's this emerging theme of fruit and vegetables , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: especially in clothes and furniture . And when I first saw that I thought hmm , well do we want to actually try and think about this trend and how we add something to it , or we get right into it , or we completely steer away from it , +Project Manager: Okay okay . +Marketing: do you know what I mean ? So my my feeling is that we w do want to observe this trend , but we want to think also about the fact that it sort of has to fit in with something which is not specifically electronics . Um 'cause I think what we're in what we're in is partly sort of home decor , partly something like a computer , um {vocalsound} so I think we might wanna be careful about how you know how quickly we create like a remote control in the shape of an apple or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that would be pushing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then in terms of m material trends are for things to be soft and spongy and sort of , you might say ergonomic or or friendly to handle , which is {disfmarker} which also in indicated that last year this was this was not the case . So um probably a lot of the competition on the market will be still in last year's mode , so if we try and really capitalise on that , I think that'll be in our favour . Um {disfmarker} So these this is the summary of everything . Um style is number one uh thing in the in the market of who we're selling to . Uh innovative design technology's also a must in that it's seen {disfmarker} it'd be seen to be uh cutting edge , uh but ease of use t has to be insured throughout . That was like the number three thing . And then at the end there are vibrant natural colours um that's the way I interpreted it anyway , softness in materials , shape , and function , and so I've written at written at the bottom to give us sort of a context of discussion , Mac iPods , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: something which is , I'd have to say very high-tech , ten gigabytes , whatever , but when you hold it in your hand there's like no buttons . +Project Manager: Mm that's true , yeah . +Marketing: You know what a Mac iPod is ? I'm thinking however Mac iPod is sort of last year's because it's very hard and sort of glassy and glossy , so I'm thinking if we imagine that we're taking some of the features of a Mac iPod and we're then making it s more of like a more of like a comfortable type of {disfmarker} or more of like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe more vibrant to friendly thing to have . Um and then so this is w with all that information what I'm what I'm suggesting in this slide here is that we we take these ideas , and as we get into more the more um {vocalsound} techni like sort of production side of things , that we think about shape , materials , and themes or series that go throughout . Sort of like a {disfmarker} I dunno like um we think of some kind of a thin theme that unifies it all , that we agree on , uh sorta like a marketing identity . Um {disfmarker} Does that make sense ? Yeah . So {vocalsound} so like I threw out a few ideas there just to kinda get us thinking along those lines like lemon , lime , I dunno , green colours , pe whatever , it's just an idea , 'cause I'm thinking that some of these ideas will seem quite coherent if we use them in terms of their {disfmarker} what people associate this {disfmarker} them with in terms of texture , shape , colours , things like that . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Great . +Marketing: Like um the ones the ones which I'm most fond of in terms of giving like a theme to it would be like um like lemon or something like that , you know something which is , like you see a lot in in other areas . Like I see lots of websites and things that seem to associate with like lemon and lime and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So anyway it's just just an idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm thinking maybe we could incorporate some of these features into a fairly um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} into something which is {disfmarker} which seems to have something to it which is almost gimmicky because like um like something to do with like lighting within it . Like you know just within the simple sense , when you pick up a phone and touch a button it uh lights up , q usually the buttons light up . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: How can we build on that ? Maybe like it could light up in different colours or something or or people could buy the buy the control and then it comes with different like covers or something so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anyway those are {disfmarker} that's all I have , +Project Manager: That's great . +Marketing: but uh hopefully we can we can revisit those ideas when we get into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay great . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Um thank you for that . Uh Craig do you wanna +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: uh plug yours in then ? +User Interface: Is it working ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . Not quite . +Marketing: Did you press F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: It's probably not sending . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh something coming now , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep , there it is . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: And so think of this concept . Um to research it I've um had a look on the the homepage again . It's provided me with more examples of um previously existing c remote controls . Um there's a wee bit of discussion about the other existing ones there , um so I've taken the um suggestions from them and tried to incorporate them into this um {disfmarker} So then this {disfmarker} we're looking for um suggestions on size th um size of control and the buttons , um the shape of the control , and whereabout the buttons should be located on the control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what I found from the research is that most the current controls are just basically big bricks with loads of buttons all over them . Um they're not very attractive to look at , {vocalsound} and they're not very comfortable to hold , they're {disfmarker} I just hold 'em like big bricks , and they're very easily lost . Um they tend to be very dark colours , so if there are shadowy places down the side of couches you can't really see them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} the the controls themselves tend to use a very inconsistent colour scheme . Um for instance , the stand-by button isn't always red , uh it really should be . It's uh something the user then uh identify with . This is a red switch off , that's how it should be . Um I'm not sure if there's any other examples of that , but something to look out for . Um there's a problem that I've I've got couple of preferences for the the end control {vocalsound} um I get 'em with the the red colour button for stand-by and s the other examples of that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The buttons should be large . They shouldn't be tiny little things like you get on some mobile phones . They should be easy to press , very comfortable . {vocalsound} Um one of the examples given on the homepage was um {vocalsound} there's an up and down volume button but both of them have a V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so the up volume button looks like it should be a down volume button , that's kinda confusing . Um should avoid s things like that . Um {vocalsound} if the the corporate colour scheme allows it we should have a very bright colour so that it can be easily identified anywhere . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um obviously trying trying to avoid being tacky there , but it could um tie-in very easily with your your lime and lemon idea . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , do we have a corporate colour scheme ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's yellow +Marketing: I didn't know . +Project Manager: because like the website is yellow and there's a band at the bottom is yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the Play-Doh 's yellow {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so yellow , lemon , you know definitely food for thought there , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but keep going +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and we'll discuss it after . +User Interface: Um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: any extra features we add beyond the basic ones should be m hidden , they shouldn't be on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} um shouldn't be visible without something be opened or some sort of special extra effort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um if we did decide to go for voice activation {vocalsound} there sh should always be a button as alternative , possibly hidden in the the opened up section um making that something is wrong with it or with somebody's voice , maybe they got a cold or {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} we should definitely avoid the big square block look . That's just wrong . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um we got an email uh from I think it's the the research department , {vocalsound} and they've said th the voice control um can now talk back if you ask it a question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So it sh it could be good to have them um confirm any action you take +Project Manager: Aye that's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: and {gap} possibility . Right and these are problems I've had with it . Um I don't know where the slogan should go , or really what the slogan is . I think it's um , fashion into electronics . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we don't know how flexible the colour scheme is . I mean you say you wanted the the corporate colours , but they don't say you know if we can use any other colours at all or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Great . {vocalsound} Lots of good information there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that that was very good , +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay um . +Project Manager: and uh now with David . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think I'm cool . +Marketing: It's a shame the cable wasn't just in the middle {gap} {vocalsound} of the table , +Project Manager: I know it'd be handy , wouldn't it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: huh ? Just um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: Do y do you wanna sit in the the line of sight of this um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Let me just get this going first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah there it is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It takes a second , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , that should be it . Okay um I guess the same thing again , I started with something very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So just so you guys have some idea of what's involved in my process , um and then you can just work through it +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and we 'll either modify it or start from scratch um depending on what your needs are . Um the components are exactly the same . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I think , like what you guys said , um the most input that's needed is basically in the user interface . The rest of the components um they do have an impact in terms of cost and complexity . Um like you said time to market was a problem , um and how many components are physically in there in cost . And the power is basically a factor of that . Um and the lower components , the power , the logic , the transmitter , and the infrared , um they affect you in terms of the size of your device , um and that would have some inte impact on how y I think more how you hold rather than um the actual use using the the remote control because um like we've said {disfmarker} we've defined , like we only want the basic things that {disfmarker} to be visible , and the rest of them we try to hide . So um you know it's just a matter of working out space . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I guess three things , um cost , um complexity , and the size . These are the three things that um will have an impact on you . So just go through it in the components . Um these are the options that are available to you , um I'm not very sure about the voice thing 'cause I got another email and it was in fact quite sketchy on what n the voice options are . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um it said it could talk to you , but it never said anything about being able to listen . I it said something about a sensor but never clarified that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: well I could see the other email that they sent you , um 'cause they got back to me with like different requirements {vocalsound} , or different offerings of what components availa Okay so your basic components are buttons , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: okay and you have a wheel available , like a mouse scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: okay there's an L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} um I think these are quite standard things . +Marketing: They're standard , aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No um they're {disfmarker} well in the sense that these are all the options available for you . I'll explain to you the complexity and the cost thing again a bit later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um then there's um how the case actually looks . It can actually be flat or it can be curved , um and then the different types of materials that you can use , um I don't think you can use them in a combination , um but um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I could check back for you , but I don't think you can actually use them in a combination . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} you couldn't have like plastic and rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think plastic and rubber would be fine , but plastic , rubber , and wood , I wasn't {disfmarker} I'm not very sure about the titanium . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They had some restrictions on using the rubber and the titanium . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the rubber was a restriction on the kind of power source you could use , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but the titanium had a different kind of things on the shape of the thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so I think that there is some restriction on um {disfmarker} I think you could probably group plastic and rubber together , wood and titanium , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know it might be easier from a cost perspective and a complexity just to use one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know as opposed to two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other components are logic chips , um again I'll I'll go back to the component chips . The com how complex or how easy the logic is , it depends on how many functions you have on the on the unit um and that impacts cost . Um I don't think the logic chip has a issue about size 'cause they should be about the same size . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Power consumption should be about the same . Um I think the main impact is complexity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and the other thing is um the power options . Um the first one is a standard battery . Okay the second one I think is more of a gimmick then actually a useable thing , it's a wind-up {vocalsound} you know , a crank {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll clear one of these things for you . Just by moving it yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that that might be something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think that's more of a look and feel decision because I don't think you can have one power source if you're using the alternative power sources . I think whatever it is you still need a battery 'cause I don't think anybody wants to keep doing one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay the other ones are a solar powered cell , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which may not be a great idea in Europe or {vocalsound} any country that has seasons 'cause half the year you'd be dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So like what I said , you probably need like a battery and something else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the kinetic one I guess for me is the most interesting one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because it's movement and people like to fiddle with their {disfmarker} and it's a nice sales gimmick I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: From a marketing gimmick it it's a technology thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's a shake it {vocalsound} it doesn't work , shake it , knock it or something . You know +Project Manager: W yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: you have {disfmarker} you had those balls , you know those stress balls where you bounce the ball and it and it lights up and it goes , +Project Manager: Uh yeah yeah , I see . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know that might be a gimmick combined with rubber . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know just to {disfmarker} if you get frustrated wi remote control you can throw it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: kind of {vocalsound} you know just uh you know um {disfmarker} so . Um okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know what you mean yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: my {disfmarker} from my role , I don't think that personal preferences but role preferences , I think um something comfortable to hold , um small and slim +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess that's more in the sense of {disfmarker} small and slim in terms of comfortable not so small you can't , you know like a phone or something , too small phone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other thing is from a production point of view um the less components we use and the simpler the components means you reduce your cost and you increase your profit . Um and also the time to market and the complexity of developing designing and debugging it {disfmarker} um so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um okay let me just go back and talk about some of the restrictions . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} The user interface restrictions basically means that if you use more complicated features , like the buttons are standard okay , the L_C_D_ panel and the scroll wheel you need more complicated logic . {vocalsound} Um the case {disfmarker} okay with a rubber case you can't have the solar panels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay with the titanium case , let me just check that um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium case can't be curved , it has to be square . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um there's no restriction on the plastic , and +Marketing: It can't be curved . +Industrial Designer: it can't be curved on the wood . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's again , I don't think you can use them in a combination , um especially the titanium +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I suspect they're very fixed to a particular need . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} mixing them may not be a good idea um yep . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Right can I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh question on {disfmarker} can I ask a question ? +Project Manager: Yeah well yeah it's just I'm quite keen to get the discussion going with the time we've left so {disfmarker} but yeah you c ask away . +Marketing: Okay . Can we uh power a light in this ? Can we get a strong enough battery to power a light ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think we could because the L_C_D_ panel requires power , and the L_C_D_ is a form of a light +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So maybe one of the things we can just try and include is a really good battery . +Project Manager: Why what kind of light do you want {disfmarker} are you thinking of ? +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I mean I'm thinking it might be {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} for uh this to be a high-tech thing it's gonna have to have something high-tech about it +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Yeah . +Marketing: and that's gonna take battery power , and to make that to make that a realistic goal I think one of the issues that will come up later is , can the battery power it ? +Industrial Designer: Are you thinking are you thinking of of a light in the sense of um a light light , or a light in the sense of it glows kind of you know Frankenstein , it's alive . +Marketing: Illuminate the buttons . Yeah it glows . Well m I'm thinking along the lines of you're you're in the dark watching a D_V_D_ and you um you find the thing in the dark and you go like this , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: and that's what everybody does . Oh where's the volume button in the dark , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: and uh y you just touch it , or you just pick it up , and it lights up or something . +Project Manager: Like a phone yeah , like the backlight in a phone . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Like a phone , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Marketing: Whereas with phones , people charge them once a week . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna need to put in a really good battery so people don't have to charge their r remote control every few days . +Industrial Designer: Um that's why I think the option of the the kinetic thing which basically means as long as you shake it like a watch , like an automatic watch +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But are people gonna wanna shake their movie controller ? +Industrial Designer: um it's probably sensitive enough when you fiddle it . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So you could trigger that to a light , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: like I said the bouncing ball thing , or you could trigger that to use that to power the light +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so when they pick it up , right , and then that that sorta triggers the +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: glowingness . +Project Manager: okay um well {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , great . +Project Manager: let's just go right back to the marketing ideas for a start , and just giving an id idea on the time , we've got about fifteen minutes to play with at most . So um yeah so just t to bear in mind that the ultimate goal of this meeting is to reach an {gap} decision on the the the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So back to your idea about um incorporating the idea of like fruit and veg , and the corporate colour , and things like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I mean what does everybody think about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Does anybody have any ideas of {disfmarker} about how we can fit all that in together ? I mean that's kind of the user interface type of thing , what are your thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think we could go for like um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe not a p a fruit shape but a very sort of curvy type shape . Um you could have the same sort of texture and colour as a fruit . +Project Manager: So maybe {disfmarker} do y are we thinking something that like s could sit in your hand comfortably , or do you th you'd hold onto comfortably or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um probably something that s sits in your hand comfortably , sort of feels right in your hand . +Project Manager: So something quite curvy ? Okay um right okay . Colour-wise I mean you made a re uh was it you or uh I can't remember who made the point about how if you've a nice bright colour you'll not lose it , was that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think he made that . +Project Manager: Whose {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Project Manager: about how if you have a bright colour you'll not lose it so much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and when the corporate colour is yellow , I mean maybe we could think about about the colour of the whole product being yellow I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then obviously the uh the materials {disfmarker} when it {disfmarker} has anybody got like an overall picture in their mind about what what might work ? That's all . +Marketing: Well I mean I'm thinking that what we need to do is have something that kind of unifies a lot of the different concepts , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if we think that what we are w our number one marketing motive is um {vocalsound} the look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So for the look and feel to seem coherent and not just sorta bits and bits and pieces of of concept and technology or or whatever or fashion , then we should have it kind of come back to one thing that we kind of all sorta can visualize . Um maybe what we could do is t th think about a concept which touches b back to the {disfmarker} on the um {vocalsound} the colour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you said company colour yellow . I mean if we think of something , like I was saying also lime and lemon you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: what {disfmarker} can we come up with something where we we try and associate it with with like the series . We just come up with something like that we kind of use it as a theme to inspire the +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: shapes and things . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Is there a particular shape that you're interested in ? Like does marketing have any research on {disfmarker} does it need to be long ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Does it need {disfmarker} with a square thing wha +Project Manager: Oh you know like in circular in shape or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause that will n help narrow down the choice of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Choice of material yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like fruit . {vocalsound} I'm thinking fruits in my head , but that's tacky . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I was kinda thinking about as well {disfmarker} you know how you get these shock resistant mobile phones , +User Interface: See I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're plastic but then also have like rubber on the outside , and it kinda feels {disfmarker} it feels kind of warmer to the touch . It feels a bit more comfortable , and maybe we could incorporate plastic and rubber into it . And then then we could have curved shapes , 'cause wood or titanium , yeah , it's gonna have to be boxy and rectangular and I think we might be moving away from that you know so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well I'm {disfmarker} do we really want it in like the shape of a lemon or {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no not at all . +Project Manager: no I don't think we do either {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's more more just that we we think about like what it is we're trying to achieve , so and then we have one one sorta theme that we stick with . +Project Manager: Okay right well um +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so thoughts about the actual shape of the thing . +User Interface: I'd quite like a sort of uh snowman type shape . +Project Manager: A snowman shape ? +User Interface: Um so a p sort of larger bit sits in your hand , and then you got maybe another bubble at the top for just any other function you need . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . That's quite a distinctive shape , +Marketing: Right , +Project Manager: that would be good +Marketing: sure . +Project Manager: wouldn't it . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so yeah should we go with that ? +Marketing: Um can we yeah like to and wha like do you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna draw it on the board ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} yeah just t we can visualize it . +User Interface: Um something like that um you got two groups there um maybe it could fold up and you get a third group inside +Project Manager: Ooh that'd be good . +User Interface: or uh you have volume controls about there . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So call it the snowman-shape trademark {vocalsound} . Yeah that's cool . Um and I mean colour-wise what does everybody think ? I think it is quite important to get yellow in there somewhere . I mean do you want the whole thing yellow , maybe like yellow and white {disfmarker} do you want something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So I reckon it'd look quite nice if we just had um this {gap} here , had a sorta background yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then have sort of a nice bold colour for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay cool . Um and also I mean how are we going to incorporate the slogan in ? The fact that it talks to you , I mean it might be quite cool if when you first start using it it says , what is it , putting fashion into electronics or something , I dunno . Or when you like {disfmarker} or if you turn it off or something {disfmarker} if it can speak if it could actually say the slogan it might be a bit more powerful than just having it written on it somewhere . +User Interface: I think that might scare me . +Project Manager: I d I d any thoughts on that at all ? +User Interface: I think that'd probably scare me . You turn it on your control possessed s {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know . Um unless an a I mean if you {disfmarker} also would that work if we wanted to incorporate um an L_C_D_ display , where would we put that ? Would we put that on the inside or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we need an L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What what's the functionality of that ? +Project Manager: It's bound to increase the cost of it a lot , I would've thought . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the question is what are we using it {disfmarker} +Marketing: What would it achieve ? +Industrial Designer: what would we what would we achieve from it ? Putting in lights is cheap but putting in an L_C_D_ panel just to make it glow is a bit of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} L_C_ well I'd {disfmarker} when you used to mention the L_C_D_ I'd think I wonder what that would be about . And the th the thing I could see it helping with would be if it was somehow connected with um listings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So as you scroll through , 'cause we said we might have a jog dial , so as you scroll through your stations you can y it actually tells you what it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think that will be a problem because we don't have an input device to get the listings into it , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: so um it's a bit nuts to get the {gap} Monday Tuesday Wednesday you know . +Project Manager: Mm oh yeah that's true . Yeah . So so no need for an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I I'm not saying there's no need for an L_C_D_ display , but um it's {disfmarker} what's what what would it tell the user , +Project Manager: I think that would make it very complex . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the L_C_D_ tends to be an output as uh as opposed to an input so um does the remote control need to talk back to the user ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm not real +Industrial Designer: We have the option of the speaker as well {disfmarker} the sa the same thing goes for the speaker , is there a need for the remote control to to talk back ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if there is really , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Nah . +Project Manager: no um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say no need for a talk-back . Uh does anybody disagree with that ? +Industrial Designer: You could put a game on it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Easy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: When the T_V_ dies you can play with the remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay um right +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: so you're gonna have the three different sets of of functionalities , um I mean do you wanna group them into s head of the snowman , body of the snowman , inside of the snowman , is that what you're thinking ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well I think the advanced ones the the ones you don't usually use could be hid inside . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: B um I think the {gap} we had were fairly basic ones , they'd have to go on the the front somewhere . +Project Manager: Okay right um what else do you need to talk about ? +Marketing: Well i I was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where would you physically position the buttons ? Um I think that that has some impact on on on many things . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe you wanna draw onto the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'm just gonna um pop this in here 'cause I have a slide about decision making which I'd forgotten about . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh sh God we've got five minutes um okay uh back we go . Um energy what {disfmarker} do you think that's suggesting we're {disfmarker} how we're powering the thing ? I really like the idea of this kinetic thing where you'd have the back-up of the battery , but have have kinetic power , +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean what does anybody think about that ? +Marketing: Um I've had kinetic things before , and the the the one issue we need to keep in mind with them is that you're committing the user to moving it , +Industrial Designer: No , like I said we have a h hybrid kind of thing , so it's not gonna charge the battery , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: and watches yeah {disfmarker} Sure , okay , right , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Support for it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean just {disfmarker} it's just worth pointing out because like I've I've known I've known people to have kinetic watches that they wear all the time , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's just like magic because it's always powered and there's no battery . I've also known people to have {vocalsound} things like like a jewellery watch they wear from time to time , and they eventually just say it's just too much of a nuisance because I don't wear it all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Like remote control is similar , you're away on vacation , I dunno whatever , you something , and it just starts to get worn down . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I suppose that if you're if you're away and you're not using it , then you're not using any power either . +Marketing: So we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you'd have the battery as the kind of {disfmarker} to keep it ticking over idea {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm really sorry we're gonna have to wrap up quite quickly , we don't have as much time as I thought . Um so I think that's what energy is referring to here . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Chip on print , is that {disfmarker} that's an industrial design thing , is it David ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay um as for the case , kind of discussed that {disfmarker} +Marketing: And this size here , I'd suggest this be small , like quite small . +Project Manager: Yeah I know we're gonna have like rubber buttons that feel kind of {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah I think so yeah . +Marketing: Um just a a lot of the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean one of the things running through my mind right now , I realise we're being efficient to wrap up the meeting and have lots of decisions made , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um but we are leaning quite a bit to the side of being low-tech , rubber buttons plastic frame , it's almost like we're reproducing the same old remote control that's out there . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Should we think about how we are actually getting this high-tech user friendly uh um theme {disfmarker} like what is it that we're u we're using to to achieve those goals ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could have things like backlighting the buttons and stuff like that . +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} Okay so so backlighting , that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Or even a clear case . Um you know a a glowing a a glowing yellow type case where the yellow is showable , +Marketing: Yeah clear , +Project Manager: Aye that would be a good idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but in the dark it sort of , it's alive {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Um in in a slight subtle way . +Project Manager: S so like cur slightly transparent case , so it's yellow , like tinted yellow , but you can maybe see through it . +Marketing: Yeah that'd be really good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or there might be a light running through it like a mouse . +Project Manager: Is that what you mean ? +Industrial Designer: You know you have cordless mice and they don't eat that much power right . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: So the power {disfmarker} the battery in that sense , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you have one or two stratig strategically placed lights +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . Yeah they they emanate a light through it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: but because the case is transparent so it gives it a little bit of a glow , doesn't make it freaky . +Project Manager: Lights . +Marketing: 'Kay . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Um and then the other thing that we we're s we've committed ourselves to achieving is simplicity , and so I'm thinking maybe should we try and think about having something like um some kind of an innovative concept about how the um the volume and the channels are controlled , 'cause that's the main thing people will f wanna do . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Could we use like a jog dial , like a nice just sort of round , somewhere on it where you just roll it ? +Industrial Designer: The question is when you're rolling it , how do you wanna roll it ? +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? 'Cause in a mouse your hand's in a position to roll it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas the other thing about having it jog dial this way , it tends to get moved accidentally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah if you are holding it in your hand you could you could do that , couldn't you ? +Marketing: Well why don't we do it like a mouse then ? +Project Manager: If you're holding it in your hand you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's a very unnatural motion to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Can you imagine you have to scroll a lot . Um it might work for volume , and maybe some of the brightness controls and stuff like that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not for channels right . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you have a Telewest box you've got like , you don't have to buy all the channels , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you've about fifty channels , can you imagine trying to {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay okay +Industrial Designer: Um and I don't think having that you know too quick too slow kin it's confusing to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , but then for um for skipping a large amount of channels you do have to uh to skip the channel button , the number part . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . But users tend to tend to want to use that +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and once they lose out on the user experience they're like {disfmarker} Because that's becomes the most accessible thing in front of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But that's not a bad thing is it ? +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because when you think about it , the alternative is to go push the button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Jog dials are much easier than that . +Project Manager: Okay um right well wouldn't it {disfmarker} +Marketing: You just roll . +Project Manager: we do need to make a decision on whether we want to incorporate a jog dial in nice and quickly . Um I'm all for them actually , I think they're quite {disfmarker} you know th very quick to m to use . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anybody oppose the idea of of incorporating one into the design at all ? No . And the other thing was um can we think of any way of getting the slogan into this thing ? +Marketing: Yeah like I mean if we if if we keep coming back to this board here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I wouldn't be surprised if we could take this idea , imagine that , I dunno , that it's within the shape of the hand , it's quite small {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh ooh okay , we really gotta wrap up +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's small , and that we've got like the the l slogan somewhere like on the casing at the side , +Project Manager: Okay well if we can do that , great . +Marketing: and that yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: well I mean isn't that what we just h said said we s just have to decide now ? +Project Manager: Yeah let's let's try and get the slogan on there um , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you wanna expand the shape of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then like a jo And then like a jog dial somewhere that fits in with the shape of it like I dunno like here , in with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that might have one problem in terms of um in terms of whether you're left handed or you're right handed you might be locking yourself in . +Marketing: It would get bumped , it's {disfmarker} doesn't really fit with your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or maybe just fit it in like down the middle here . +Industrial Designer: Could I just could I just jump in and suggest something quickly ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A jog di +Project Manager: I'm really gonna have to hurry you on here 'cause we're we're actually over time . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Um is there anything anybody's unsure about ? +Marketing: . It's kind of yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just for {disfmarker} in closing just {disfmarker} the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes , and so you can see in the screen here what each of you are gonna hopefully be doing , uh I know that the designers are gonna be working with Play-doh on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that'll be that'll be good . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Um and I'll get the the minutes up as soon as possible . Anything at all you think we haven't discussed that we need to ? Is everybody kind of happy about what they're gonna be doing ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um I think one thing would be the jog dial 'cause that's gonna have quite a big impact on the thing um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think the jog dial , you know it just after you drew that , what if it was flat and you just spun it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's what I was thinking the {disfmarker} +Marketing: that'd be great . +Industrial Designer: a slide , because then you you don't have to put the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think incorporating a logo is quite straight forward . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's lots of space for it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's kind of a design thing that you guys can can discuss , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's also a a marketing and a function {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah and materials we sorta said we'd do plastic and rubber , didn't we , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think maybe we should try and stay away from just the big protruding rubber buttons , 'cause that'd just be so standard . +Project Manager: To make something flush with the case ? +Marketing: Something a bit more flush , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay right . +Marketing: or maybe have rubber incorporated into the case as well , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so that it has {disfmarker} and also t plastic I've seen can get really textured , so you can get plastics that actually feel soft in your hand . +Project Manager: Sp kinda grippy ? +Industrial Designer: Feel like fruit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Fruits kids {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They feel kind of like um , you get pens now and then that you'd think that they were rubber but they're not , +Industrial Designer: No like {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: they're actually just plastic that's textured , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah kinda like that yeah . +Marketing: kind of a little bit like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to call this to a close 'cause we're way over time . So um that's really good , like we've s had much to talk about that um pretty much run out of time to do so . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So off you go and design stuff +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: wooh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Play-doh time . +Project Manager: Yeah quite jealous actually . +Industrial Designer: You got to choose first . {vocalsound} No , we're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , can I just swipe your power cable , I don't think it matters . {vocalsound} Okay lemme {disfmarker} okay , I'm gonna pull everybody out first and then put in whoever needs to be left . It's you . Argh . This is a real hassle and a {disfmarker} oops . I'm gonna take the microphones , 'cause it's {disfmarker} too lazy t take them off again . Cool . +","In the conversation, members of a project team, including an Industrial Designer, Marketing personnel, and a Project Manager, discuss design features, target market, and functionality for a product. The previous meeting's decisions on target demographics, battery specifications, and feature groupings are recapped. New requirements of ignoring non-TV functions and incorporating corporate colors and slogans are also mentioned. + +Marketing highlights the importance of a visually appealing design that is innovative yet user-friendly. A discussion occurs around incorporating a fashionable trend of fruit and vegetable themes into the design, emphasizing the product's potential role in home decor alongside its technological function. The importance of vibrant colors, soft materials, and ergonomic design to create a high-tech yet comfortable and user-friendly product is emphasized. + +The conversation also explores options for power sources, with a particular focus on battery life and potential alternative power sources like kinetic energy. Marketing stresses the need for exceptional battery life to maintain the high-tech feel without requiring frequent recharging. A discussion of color schemes and an overall visual theme leads to consideration of transparency and illumination for the product case, with the intention of achieving both a high-tech feel and ease of use in low-light conditions. + +There is further dialogue about the user interface, including button placement, incorporation of a jog dial for channel and volume control, and the possibility of having a speaking feature or an LCD display, which is ultimately deemed unnecessary. They debate the slogan integration and physical product shape, eventually deciding on a ""snowman-like"" shape that is comfortable to hold. + +The meeting concludes with the expectation that the next steps include using Play-Doh for the design process of the remote control, with additional discussions to follow about the slogan's incorporation and material texture preferences for the final product design. There's recognition that while striving for technical innovation, the team wants to avoid making the product too complex or high-tech to retain a user-friendly appeal." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the detailed design meeting . Again , I'm gonna take minutes . Oh , we're gonna have a prototype presentation first . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , who's gonna give the prototype presentation ? You two guys ? Okay . Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} coffee . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we've made a prototype . Um , we've got uh {vocalsound} uh our aspects from the last meeting . Uh , especially we looked at the form , material and the colour . Um , we've uh drawn here the p prototype . The logo is uh is uh {vocalsound} is pretty uh {vocalsound} obvious to see on the on the remote control , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it is necessary when you want to build your uh company f to a level higher . Um , {vocalsound} our interface elements , there are shown in the in the drawing . Maybe you can uh point them uh {disfmarker} The functions . +User Interface: Uh , well the uh {disfmarker} all the functions are discussed uh {disfmarker} I think the most of the functions are uh uh obvious . Uh , it's a little bit . Uh , power button . Uh then the the the nine uh channels . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the volume uh uh at the side , and the other side is the programmes . And then we had uh just uh two buttons , we place them in the middle , uh the menu , and for the teletext +Project Manager: Oh no , the the the mute button misses now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I thought that was th +Marketing: Alright , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do y do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , the mute button . +Project Manager: did we want to have a m mute button ? +Industrial Designer: But uh that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's uh here then , in the middle . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Alright , and uh you gotta point out which is the volume um uh button and which is the programme button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah mo uh mo +Industrial Designer: we've disc +User Interface: Yeah , well most of them are right-handed . +Industrial Designer: Most of the users +Marketing: Yeah , but you you gotta make it clear on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well , I don't have time in uh anymore on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , y there there will be a p a little a little P_ on that and a little uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and a and a triangle on that . +User Interface: Oh yeah , just progr programme above , I think . +Marketing: Yes . Next to that I kinda miss a zero actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait , there's {disfmarker} was one thing I wanted to ask . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , there are different ways for remote controls to uh {vocalsound} do uh like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh d I call it teens and twenties . Uh , y th th th the two numbers . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: All n no , that's um {vocalsound} kinda dependent on the television . +User Interface: Yeah , true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a television . Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , but do we have {disfmarker} do we need extra buttons , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} for example some uh some have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think so . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , you have you have a lot of standard buttons that has to be uh on it , uh th with the one and a double uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think you should add {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Zero ? +Marketing: A cross , or whatever . Yeah , line . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't you don't actually need them , +User Interface: May maybe here ? +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: becau b l a lot of remote controls work that y when y that you when you fir you push the one first , then you have a couple of seconds {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And then a second . +Marketing: No , that's dependent on the television . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you have televisions , then you have to , you know , you have to uh press {disfmarker} +Marketing: I do know so . +User Interface: Is it depending on television ? +Project Manager: Nah , I don't think so really , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you have a {disfmarker} I know some remote controls that don't have these buttons , but you still can , know , obviously you can still select the twenty {disfmarker} uh a number in the twenty or in the ten . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but a lot {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh uh no uh remote control nowadays are um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they come with the television . Or actually , the other way around . +Project Manager: No , I think {disfmarker} uh I really think it's n +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because you can {disfmarker} when when you put a button on it with like one and uh then a dash , it's the same thing as when you just push the one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it i it first gives you the functionality of that that uh separate button you also had to uh apply . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but +Marketing: Yeah , well {disfmarker} but su {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: some televisions don't accept uh that that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , because that's i it's for television . It's exact the same thing . +Industrial Designer: No , no , but s +Marketing: No no no . So some television respond differently . Look , if uh i i +Project Manager: No , listen listen . When you push the button , the remote control gives a signal . I in th in the first place it gives a signal which it would also send when you put a separate button on it . +Marketing: Yes . Yes , that's true . +Project Manager: The one with dash , that signal gi and when y whe when you don't push another button on the remote control within five seconds , then the remote control gives a signal for channel one . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it works that way , really . +Marketing: No , it it it works uh if you haven't got uh a special button for it , uh if you push a one , then on your television there will appear a one and a a line , which is an empty space . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but it's exact the same {gap} that w would appear when you put a separate button {disfmarker} push a separate button . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but some some old televisions uh you have to uh click on uh a special button , uh then you go to a a next level , you can push two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't underst uh you don't understand my point . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} True . +Project Manager: I think it's exact the same thing when y +Industrial Designer: You want {disfmarker} Yes , but some television don't support it . +Project Manager: No , but then they would a would also support that button , because it's the same thing . +User Interface: But the ex +Project Manager: Listen , with {disfmarker} that that's that special but button {gap} you're talking about , eh ? That's just a signal to recei ju they send a t signal to the v tv T_V_ that they have to put a one in {disfmarker} on your screen and a dash , which you can pu so you can uh still put another number on it . When you don't have that separate button , and you push y one , it's exactly the same thing . Do y you {disfmarker} the remote control gives that same signal as it would give when you only had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: No , s some some televisions need the input first uh and and you c +Industrial Designer: a remote can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Project Manager: But you give the input . +Industrial Designer: so they need {disfmarker} no , they need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You push the one . That's the same thing as the button with the one and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's not true . +Project Manager: yes it it is . +Marketing: It's simply not true . It's simply not true . +Project Manager: Think about it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: You uh you can wai when you push the one you can show on the telly a one and just a dash , and then wait uh two uh seconds or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's the same thing what happens and a g remote control gives another signal after five seconds that is just one . +Marketing: No , remote control doesn't give signal after five seconds . Remote control is a stupid thing . If you push a button , it sends it immediately to to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah , but I m uh but it's {disfmarker} I I know for sure that some televisions that w th th the remote control supplied , only ha has the c these buttons with a one and a dash and a two and a dash , but when you use a bu a n remote control that doesn't sport these buttons , it still works . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But okay , we we'll impl +Marketing: No , definitely not . Definitely not . +User Interface: We'll discuss them in the usability lab . +Project Manager: No , we'll apply them then for now . +User Interface: Uh eva evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know uh I don't know if if it's it's necessary . +Project Manager: Yeah , app just apply them next to the zero , the one and the two . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah , for now , if we don't know for sure whether {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the button for the SCART uh audio video uh external input . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Ach . +Project Manager: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , you can access that uh via zero , and then minus , I guess . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} What I said about uh the remote control sending another signal , that that might not be true , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I still think i it it {disfmarker} all T_V_s in some ways support it , I don't know . I think it's more c is m maybe we don't {disfmarker} uh we both don't really understand how it i how it really works , +Industrial Designer: No , no . +Project Manager: but I think there's more to in than wha than what you just said . +Industrial Designer: Uh , remote control sends one signal at one button uh press . +Project Manager: I do think that uh m T_V_s support mur multiple kind of remote controls . M +Industrial Designer: Uh , some {disfmarker} N some televisions when when you want to go further than uh ten {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th won't work wi with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , you have to you have to uh give the television uh two or more signals . +Project Manager: to have that special button . +Industrial Designer: When you uh press one button , you give one signal . And the older televisions need more signals to go a level higher . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well we'll see . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: When you make the technology that that it will uh give more signals , it could work , but {disfmarker} Just a basic idea of of of the most uh {disfmarker} most y most common uh and simple uh operations on the remote . +Marketing: Okay . I kinda miss the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . It's here on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah , uh there's nothing {disfmarker} I think it's pretty basic , +Industrial Designer: We came uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: the the {disfmarker} there's no fu +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: there's one there's one button , +Marketing: No nothing really trendy about it . +User Interface: that's wha there's there's there's one function and that's n the one button when you want to find it . +Industrial Designer: But maybe we can maybe we can make the docking station uh uh a bit standard for for uh the other products we sell , +Marketing: The button . +Industrial Designer: because Real {vocalsound} Real Reaction sells more products than only remote controls . So maybe we can uh use the docking station , for example , uh M_P_ three players or or uh +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: uh hearing devices . +Marketing: I think that's very difficult , because of different shapes of uh uh devices . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you put that same volt voltages on it , you can put uh {disfmarker} when the when the when uh o the the the lowest part of it , when it's o the same as the other products , you can put it all on the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . Mm-hmm . Well it it got it {disfmarker} it has got to fit into the shape , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: The technology and the voltage can be the same . That's uh that's true . But uh i if you all make the m having a bottom like this , then they all fit . +Industrial Designer: No , we can make uh make the most lowest part all the same . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: When when the the recharger has a has a bit what points out , we can place all on top of it . Just have to be big enough for the biggest {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , but uh I I g Shouldn't it fall then ? It {disfmarker} isn't going to fall down ? {vocalsound} That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , when you make it large enough no it it will not . +Marketing: yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then it's a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but if if {disfmarker} like this , I'll I'll point it out , if you got uh a a a base a base like this , +Industrial Designer: But it's just an idea . +Marketing: I won't draw it really . If you got a base which is uh as big as this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But it's flat it's flat as as this , so we can p make all the products as flat as this . +User Interface: You can . But i i i it's backwards . +Marketing: Yeah sure , but if you got if you got a tiny player , it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when you make uh uh a bit of big {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it's it's backwards . It's leaning . It's leaning backwards , I think , in the in the docking station . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , wha what you could do if you uh {disfmarker} from the bottom {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's text . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh , right , help . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , you could make like a hole in it , you know , of uh {disfmarker} in in the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , little holer {disfmarker} littler {disfmarker} Uh , little products go deeper in it . +Marketing: Yeah . That i that is possible , yep . +Project Manager: Well let's ha let's talk about the docking station later , because uh maybe we have we have to uh consider the docking station anyway , because we have some uh cost issues {vocalsound} still to come . +Marketing: Yeah , sure , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . And uh uh +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But we have to look n I don't know . +Industrial Designer: the f the look and feel would be great on this uh remote control , because uh you always uh will uh pick up the remote control in the in the smallest uh area . +Marketing: I don't like the colours . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then your uh left thumb of uh {disfmarker} your right thumb is uh near the programme uh button , which is the most common used uh function , and all the other buttons are available for your uh thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's it's it's really good design . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . That's it ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh on the side uh there will be a strip of rubber , and in the middle uh there is uh a hard uh a hard material , a bit hard plastic with a light uh behind it . +Marketing: The light . Okay . And other lights ? +Project Manager: I think added lights are gonna be a problem too . +Industrial Designer: Yes , we can make also n neon lights on it , or or the buttons that can make uh light on it . +Marketing: No , o on the on the front . Yeah , okay . Maybe the uh the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} lights ? +Industrial Designer: But , it will also uh uh use batteries , +Marketing: Yeah , why not ? +Industrial Designer: and do we want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course . +Project Manager: Okay . For now , uh this is uh is good enough . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , what was uh on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} all the aspects of the interface buttons were uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but in the {disfmarker} oh yeah , the colour , because we're gonna use uh one colour for the the plastic enclosure and one colour for the rubber , isn't it ? Then we're gonna do the buttons in the i are we're gonna have rubber buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And they're be a {disfmarker} {gap} they'll be in the same colour as the rubber on the side . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Uh , in the same colour as the side . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think I think that'll be good . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think we should use a a darker colour for the um plastic , and maybe some more m brighter and flashy stuff {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can use on the on the lights on the side we can use uh uh multiple uh lights , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: so it will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll talk about the lights later . 'Cause I also don yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: it's depends on the costs and such . But uh , and we have to agree uh upon the exact colours , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but may I dunno if that's important , but we'll talk about that later . Okay , for now this is this is okay . +Marketing: We will . +Project Manager: Um , the next p y you gonna give a presentation too ? Uh , I have to see the agenda . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Well , uh yeah , I I'm gonna do something right there , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Detail design . +Marketing: We gotta do that on the right {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} right-most screen , because the leftmost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Yep , that's me . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . I will be needing that image , so leave it please . Um {disfmarker} Go away . Right , we're gonna evaluate that design according to a few points . {vocalsound} Um , we g the four of us are going to do that um together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I wanna have a colour over here , come on . Right , the remote {vocalsound} is not ugly , a bit weird sentence , but the positive things has to be on the left , so I {vocalsound} said not ugly instead of ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , what would you say , we we gotta give points to uh to all of these to evaluate uh that design , and please forget the drawing skills of these guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is not ugly . How do you feel ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think four maybe would be appropriate , because it's {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe it really depends on taste . Uh , I mean it's kind of {gap} , our design . It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: so if maybe a lot of people find it really ugly , you know , o other people find it really cool . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Background colour . +Project Manager: I don't know or uh I don't know how you {disfmarker} Casting . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think I think the the fronts will give it a more uh uh uh less uglier uh side , because you can uh make it in your own {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you guys feel ? The different designs . +Industrial Designer: yes , you can make it in your own uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: more to your own personality or or house style . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we d we didn't {disfmarker} we're we're not planning to use fronts , I believe . +Marketing: No , not not fronts , but different designs . +Project Manager: With a colour a co a colours . Oh , okay . +User Interface: No , not fronts . Different designs . Different colours maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And that's still uh uh , yeah , is is uh is a little personal touch , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay , but {disfmarker} Oh , maybe we should do three or something that w you know , our {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? Yeah , wha wha what would you uh guys uh think ? Personally . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or forty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can make it a one . +Marketing: Personally . Yes , but what is it ? +Industrial Designer: I think two or three . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Guido ? +User Interface: I agree . +Marketing: Two or three . +User Interface: Um , I uh I go for the positive . So I go for two . +Marketing: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking about three , so I guess +Project Manager: Uh , I was thinking about four , so I think three is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , three . +Marketing: three is uh a bit uh {disfmarker} oh , what am I doing ? I'll mark it . The remote control's uh uh that n makes uh zapping easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , let that {disfmarker} let's make that a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Two . One . One . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Antek , you agree ? +User Interface: Okay yeah , I'll I'll agree . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: That's one thing for sure . +Marketing: Yeah . You're not Antek . +User Interface: I'm the I'm the usability , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I totally agree . The remote control the remote control's relevant buttons are prominently visible . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , two or a one , I guess . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's something we really put work into . +Marketing: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's all about the buttons . +Marketing: I would say a one because uh every button is uh uh relevant . {vocalsound} And our {disfmarker} oh yeah , it's a b yeah . Yeah ? Alright . That's a one ? You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . I think we totally succeeded there . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe a two , because of the menu button or something . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well menu {disfmarker} Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . That's true . +Project Manager: And telete +Industrial Designer: Also , the the the buttons of the one , the two , the the digits , +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know if the {disfmarker} uh they're necessary . +Industrial Designer: o they're used uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} the the {disfmarker} yeah , m well , you d you've got a point . +Project Manager: I think a two . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Can {disfmarker} yes , three , two . +Project Manager: Came a long way , but not {disfmarker} we didn't not uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Mm two . +Industrial Designer: But you can't make a remote control without them , +Marketing: Two ? Antek . +User Interface: Because we got {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nay that that that's true , that's true . They're definitely needed . +Project Manager: No , w w it can also always be more simplistic , but two is {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} we put it on a two ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: The remote control has got a really trendy look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . A one . +Project Manager: Yeah , uh a t I think a two . +Marketing: Maarten . +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , y i it's hard to say from this picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} we've tried to make it uh the the best trendy look uh ever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Ever , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guido . +Project Manager: But I do think it's more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I will I will make it a three , because uh {disfmarker} yeah . I I th +Project Manager: But I do think that it's more trendy than beautiful . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I agree . I agree . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so I think maybe it has to score higher uh on this than on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . True , yeah . +Marketing: I was planning to give it a two , uh where I give the not ugly uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A th a three . +Marketing: oh , yeah , that's true . You agree on the two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I i uh when you compare to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Great . Remote control hasn't got too much redundant or unneeded buttons . +Project Manager: Uh uh what's the difference with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I copied that one . Well , uh forget that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Go away . Remote control has got innovative technology implanted . +User Interface: No . We're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: well , maybe the the the {disfmarker} on the side . +Industrial Designer: No , not L_C_D_ , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we uh {disfmarker} {gap} you mean the rubber stuff ? +Marketing: Yeah , and the light . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have t we have to talk about the lights uh . +User Interface: And the light maybe . +Industrial Designer: But that that's not innovative . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I don't u also it's also really not innovative , +Industrial Designer: Lights lights are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I g +Project Manager: it's more {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} seven ? +Project Manager: No , six . Or seven maybe , {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Well , six . No , six . +Project Manager: Or six . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Why uh why not a seven ? +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah , mine is seven . +Industrial Designer: Because we've tried to make it a little bit innovative , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it but it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh it's uh depends on the on the maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: How ? +Industrial Designer: With the lights it {disfmarker} it's it's kind of future {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think I think actually it's a seven maybe , but there's nothing innovative about it . +Marketing: Yeah , you think the lights are innovative ? Well , it's n true . Uh , I agree , +Industrial Designer: But still you can retrieve it when it's when it's gone , with the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +Marketing: m but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Innovative in generally or just f original for {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'll {disfmarker} Yeah , you you didn't draw the docking station . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} The docking station is a is a little bit innovative . +Project Manager: N no no , +Marketing: Yeah , it it's {disfmarker} I think I think with its {disfmarker} +Project Manager: t {gap} . +User Interface: A docking station is innova +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean the dock station , but but uh , I think the the docking station , {vocalsound} it's gonna be a {gap} kind of a problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a part of the remote . +Marketing: I think more m +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And with the speaker on the {disfmarker} there's also a speaker . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh that {disfmarker} that's n +Project Manager: Well , let's leave it open for uh for us later to see what , because we have to reevaluate anyway . Well I i {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: No uh , well , the agenda says evaluate now , so I think we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , for now it's a six or a seven uh , sev +Marketing: It's it's a six . +Project Manager: six maybe , +User Interface: Six . +Project Manager: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the retrieval or the {disfmarker} +Marketing: That m f +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't I don't know if it's very {vocalsound} inno yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , for the retrieval function . Yeah . I think that's very innovative for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , v +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} how would you innovate a remote control more ? +Project Manager: Yeah , more through uh like function T_V_ functionalities and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To put it on your head . +Project Manager: no no , you know what I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} {gap} must be innovative technology for remote controls , but more in how you control stuff , not in how you find your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah sure , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I d I definitely don't think it's a five , +Project Manager: that's that's {disfmarker} think about it la later on +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control is easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a a one or a two ma uh at least . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think a two . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's good . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: More two . +Marketing: Come on . The remote control hasn't got uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Project Manager: No , I would have seen {vocalsound} that one before . Oh , you skipped one uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've just filled {disfmarker} uh +Project Manager: Uh , here . +Marketing: Go away . +Industrial Designer: You like the buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found twelve questions so much , but it still is ten . +Project Manager: Remote control will be bought by {disfmarker} +Marketing: It will be bought by people under the age of forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Definitely . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: In in {disfmarker} and comparing with uh people of th of the age above ? +Marketing: No no no . No , just if they if they buy it . +Project Manager: Uh , just in general . Yeah , a two . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think I think two . +Marketing: Yeah , what do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah , I think two , yeah . I agree . Two . +Marketing: Antek ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , two , but only in c when you compare it with with elderly . +Project Manager: Uh , that is not the question . It's just w it will be bought by people under forty . +Marketing: No , that's no comparison . +Project Manager: Yeah , you can {disfmarker} yeah , you can be very picky about it . +Marketing: And I don't mean two people . +Industrial Designer: This is just guessing . +Project Manager: Ah yeah , just make it {disfmarker} we'll make it a two . +Industrial Designer: Make it a two . +Marketing: W w +Industrial Designer: When it succeeds , uh it can get a two , mu +Marketing: Right , the rem The remote control has recognisable corporate image , colour , logo or slogan . +Project Manager: Oh no . Yeah . Yeah , you have make an +User Interface: We don't have the slogan though . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} slogan is quite obvious {gap} . +Marketing: Oh , the slogan . +Project Manager: Oh the {disfmarker} oh sorry , no , not not the slogan . +Marketing: Can we see the slogan ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you can put that on the side if {vocalsound} if we would like to . +User Interface: The logo . +Industrial Designer: A logo . +User Interface: Underneath it or something . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh encrypted uh with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and I will I th still think it's gonna be a two or a three . +Marketing: Are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} A three . Three . +Project Manager: Maybe a three this time . +User Interface: Yeah , a three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Three ? I agree . Because of the slogan {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote control's got a basic design intended uh for novice users . +Project Manager: Uh , it's a one or a two . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , make it a two . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Two . Alright . We gotta add up the scores now to see our total average . Four , five , seven , nine . Forget that . Fifteen , seventeen , twenty one , twenty four , twenty six . Twenty six . It's a two point six . +Project Manager: It's not that bad . +Marketing: Alright , we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's mostly the inno +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: when we uh score higher on innovative technology , we would score two , +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: which is uh quite a great score . Okay . Uh , this is {disfmarker} was uh the evaluation ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} This was my evaluation . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because I I still think that the most important part of this meeting still has {disfmarker} +Marketing: We did a pretty nice job until now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , is this your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is there something after this uh meeting ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . Well , I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: No . Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Still opened or uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , finance . Because um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shoot . +Project Manager: I received uh a spreadsheet . +Marketing: A five . A five . +Project Manager: Yeah , but I uh actually don't need this presentation , I guess . Oh . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +Project Manager: I'm gonna open the spreadsheet and we're gonna work this out together , because I didn't really fin uh I have a {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Didn't really finish it . Well , we uh {disfmarker} We'll see . We'll stumble upon some problems . +Marketing: We probably will . +Project Manager: {gap} I probably have already opened it here . {gap} try it again . First of all , the mm all the docking station and costs and such are not included in this list . But let's let's st start with beginning . We include one battery . I i uh I'll explain its {disfmarker} Uh , the the components are listed over here . Uh , price is given . We um {disfmarker} yeah , +Marketing: The amount , yeah . +Project Manager: we we uh indicate the amount of components of the specif specific component , how much we need of them . And then uh , we'll uh calcula Don't watch the number yet . I don't know if it's filled in properly . Okay , we need one battery . One battery . I think one battery is enough . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: We don't need kinetic , solar cells , hand dynamo . A s okay , this this is a p first problem . Uh , I think we should know how many simple chips , regular chips {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's it's one one chip , but but you have to choose one from it . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The simple chip is e enough I I think , but with the lights with the lights and the retrieval , it can be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Where did we find this information ? Was it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I haven't got an idea on on which we need to use , really . +Project Manager: I think it was uh your job in the first uh meet Uh , f your first presentation to make this clear , but then you had some t time problems . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , uh I {disfmarker} Yes , my my my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the email I got said uh simple chip , but when we put in the speaker and the retriever uh device , it will uh cost a a bit more , like I think the advanced chip {disfmarker} maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . And how do you know ? I mean , you got that email . Did it point out what to use them for ? +Industrial Designer: Bec No , the {disfmarker} they didn't know about a retriever or a speaker uh in it . +Project Manager: Maybe you can uh look it up right now . Okay , but {disfmarker} okay . When we don't {disfmarker} when we leave the uh retriever and such aside , what {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Then it's a simple chip . +Project Manager: then it would be a simple chip . And with the retriever , it would be an advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , I I I s I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright , well , point out the advanced chip for now , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That will be enough for future uh recommendations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it will it will it will be {disfmarker} cause a lot of problems . {vocalsound} The sample sensor {disfmarker} sample speaker . What is it m is that the speaker we were t I don't know what it is . +Industrial Designer: I don't know it uh either . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay , we went for the double-curved case +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: made out of plastic and rubber . And with a special colour . I guess that's what we were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , special colour . {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't know about the special colour , but I think w uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , you get uh a standard uh plastic colour . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if it's very special . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we uh we have special colours . +User Interface: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: Standard rubber . +Marketing: Alright , that's okay . +Project Manager: Okay , then the push-button , I was just counting them . +Industrial Designer: St {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think you have to indicate the amount of push-buttons we want to use , isn't it ? +User Interface: Whoa , it's a little {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's bit of a problem , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: because I re but I really don't understand that , because I can imagine a remote control with far more push-buttons , and it wouldn't be possible according to this uh sheet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's huge . No . We have {vocalsound} the simplest buttons . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's only uh when you use push-buttons , it will cost that much . +Marketing: I don't think so , because it says amount . +Industrial Designer: If you use a scroll-wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . Yeah , it wouldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the the yellow row is the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fill in the number of components you plan to use in the {gap} and the total cost {disfmarker} I don't know . I +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's the kind of push-buttons . You can have f four kind of push-buttons . +User Interface: Uh , one til nine . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Is that one or is that nine buttons ? +Industrial Designer: You can have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I count them like this . One two three uh four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and thirteen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because {disfmarker} Oh , this is {disfmarker} oh , this is one , okay . Twelve , okay , then it would be eighteen , because uh , I uh rated them as uh um as uh uh uh separate buttons . +Marketing: To n +Industrial Designer: Different , +Marketing: that's total of four buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: And plus these two , f uh plus the mute button , and it's will be uh eighteen . +Marketing: I think that {disfmarker} Eighteen . One two three four five , si +Industrial Designer: Why is that so uh expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don't understand . Y I do I don't get the point , because it's would be s relatively so expensive , just these m small buttons . +User Interface: Is it cents , the the the fifty cents a button ? +Marketing: Fifty cents for one single stupid button . +User Interface: No way . +Industrial Designer: So , whe when you {disfmarker} so then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , okay , well well let's make it just one . +Industrial Designer: It's eighty percent of the price of the of the amount of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , now it's now it's already s +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Project Manager: shall we just give our own interpretation to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because else we would really have a problem . It would be impossible to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's way {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I I couldn't understand it if it was fifty cents per uh uh per button . Really . +Industrial Designer: When you have the same amount of button , you have to put in wi in your carton . Board . +Project Manager: And and less buttons than this isn't possible . +Industrial Designer: And then throw it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the most simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , no no . +Project Manager: yeah , it is possible , but I've never seen one before . +Industrial Designer: But whe +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've seen one uh one remote control with only the pu yeah , only with uh page up , page down and volume , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , really . +Project Manager: Yeah , without the numbers . That's possible . Yeah , we could skip the numbers . +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I d I wouldn't want to own that . Really . +User Interface: That's still four . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's it's still for little children . They can handle that remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then uh , teletext would also be im impossible . +Industrial Designer: but but it isn't fo Yes , it's for {disfmarker} it's li uh it's just for a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's no option , that's no option . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll we'll just {disfmarker} okay . But then still , {vocalsound} when we {disfmarker} there's no room for a docking station or something . Tha w Le let's see th we have uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , button supplements . We'll give the buttons special colour . We'll give them a special form . Uh , I think we should mark the special form thing , because it {disfmarker} this will be some special forms incorporated in these big buttons , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A special colour , why a special colour ? +Project Manager: Because the buttons will be uh d will be matching colour between the buttons and the rubber surroundings . +User Interface: But wha what s what special ? +Project Manager: I think that's the {disfmarker} what they mean by a special colour . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't think the special form is really true . +Project Manager: I think all the special colour things have to be marked over here , because that's what we were planning to do , making it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special form also , it says . +Project Manager: Yeah , special material r also , +Marketing: Is it ? +Project Manager: because i has rubber . And the buttons have to be rubber . +Industrial Designer: What is the normal material ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh yeah . +User Interface: Plastic , I think . +Industrial Designer: Classic ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Oh , plastic . +Marketing: Plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay , but the problem now is that {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} There's no such thing as a docking station in this list , but we can all imagine that it would be impossible to make a docking station for thirty cents . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we can uh sell the remote control and uh sell the docking station {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Separately . +User Interface: Se no no no . +Industrial Designer: yes . And and {disfmarker} but we don't have to tell it , but what we can say of {disfmarker} can um almost make it impossible to buy a remote control without the docking station . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . Yeah , but I do like the idea , but we {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It uh {disfmarker} but it {disfmarker} then the docking station isn't relevant for this project anymore , but we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No , but you {disfmarker} otherwise you can't retrieve it . +Project Manager: but then you still have to use {disfmarker} we have to find out what chip we u need . +Marketing: Yeah , I really don't get it . I mean if it's a simple chip , then we suddenly got two Euros and thirty cents . +Project Manager: I think we can agree on this . I I think the special colour thing has to be uh marked . 'Cause I think we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's what what what they uh mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for two Euros and thirty cents , we uh we don't get a docking station . +Marketing: I think so , too . Oh , I don't know . +Project Manager: But can we find out uh about uh this chips ? Because when we don't need a d a docking station , then probably we also have only {disfmarker} we also need a simple chip . +User Interface: And then we can get a docking station . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And maybe then we can do something extra . Oh , n uh oh , still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh , it's gonna get more expensive with {gap} . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have some money left . We can put then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For two Euros . +Project Manager: We can put a scroll-wheel on it or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh why ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well who knows . Or a little bit of tin titanium . +Marketing: I mean i i if you {disfmarker} if it would cost two Euros , that had a total a total thing , it would be nice too , I mean uh we're not gonna add uh a trip to Hawaii to it . +User Interface: But what what can we do {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , or we can ki do the kinetic cells . That's also maybe an idea . +User Interface: But uh what can we do with the simple chip and what's difference with a regular chip and a advanced chip ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's what then what he has to find out . Maybe you can uh find it in your email right now , then we know {disfmarker} then we exactly know what it will cost us . +User Interface: If if i +Project Manager: Maybe is that {disfmarker} that's nice to know . +User Interface: Regular chip and {disfmarker} because we don't have uh special functions to use uh in advanced chip , for example . +Project Manager: Yeah , bu bu but when we {disfmarker} yeah , but when we skip when we um {disfmarker} when we don't use the do we're not gonna make the docking station , then we still {disfmarker} yeah , we need something else maybe to make it kind of special , +Marketing: I like the hand dynamo part . +Project Manager: because that was our our special feature . +Marketing: We can make a plain docking station for two Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . We'll go back uh tomorrow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , you can also do that , but maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wi wi without recharge {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still is a special remote control cons uh you know , wi its form is special and material . +Marketing: Yeah , but but we can make a docking station for two Euros uh if you don't put the recharge function in it . I mean , it has a shape . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for two Euros , then we have still {disfmarker} maybe we have to use the advanced chip , +Marketing: Of course it has a shape , but i i +Project Manager: then two Euros isn't even possible . +Marketing: Why should that not be possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah , then {disfmarker} because then we'd {disfmarker} thirty cents left . +Marketing: No , for for the uh for the docking station if you do if you choose the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know , because maybe d uh yeah , we have to find out with the simple chip . +User Interface: That's the question . If we do i do we need an advanced chip , or is it okay f +Project Manager: Yeah , and w and and we uh need f +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , so I don't know it uh either . +Project Manager: and what is this ? Sample sensor sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: It isn't in my information , I uh I {disfmarker} I've got a schematic view of the remote control , but nothing about uh advanced chips or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} You can look at it for s presentation . S technical functions ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh I've got here in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , they were uh mine , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I will put a I will put a page on it . When my mouse works again . +Project Manager: Oh , oh oh . Hey . Oh . +Industrial Designer: My mouse is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dead . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Reanimate it . +User Interface: Died . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Ah , I've got it . I will put uh my email on the the network . +Marketing: What the hell are these ? +Industrial Designer: It's on it . +Marketing: Oh , whatever . +User Interface: Yeah , it's open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't think here {disfmarker} it's in here already . +User Interface: It's circuit board . It's only just basics for for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's nothing about s yeah . +User Interface: At the end circuit there is an infrared LED . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: This isn't helpful . +Project Manager: No . But i in the presentation of yours , there was also something about different components . Which one was it ? +User Interface: Components design . +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that was my presentation . +User Interface: Components design maybe . N on top . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that was mine . +Project Manager: Ah . Ah yes , it was the second one . +Industrial Designer: But that was my second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it was your second {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's already open . +Project Manager: your first presentation . +Marketing: It's at the bottom . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: Working design . +Marketing: It's uh at your task bar . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's the the other one . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , this is n this is not this n +User Interface: Was it working design or components design ? +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: that's not the right one . I don't {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Okay , sorry . +Project Manager: No , this is the other one . Or maybe something is uh {disfmarker} maybe there's something abo in in these {disfmarker} +User Interface: Chip set . +Industrial Designer: But this is the same uh {disfmarker} This is o only the possibilities . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We can use a simple , a regular , or advanced chip . +Marketing: Yeah , nice . I it doesn't say anything . +User Interface: The display requires an advanced chip . +Project Manager: You know that a push-button requires a simple chip , but a scroll-wheel , it it me requires {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only need a simple chip . +User Interface: Requires . +Industrial Designer: With the light . +User Interface: Little lights . Yeah , but that that's just the same as the the LED . +Project Manager: No no , that's just a simple chip . A scroll-wheel {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's not needed . +Project Manager: it s uh only states that a scroll-wheel requires a regular chip , and that a display requires an advanced chip . So , we don't need any of them . +Marketing: A display uh is , of course , uh for showing letters . For showing text . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think that uh just a l a little light {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . I think uh the uh normal uh simple chip will be okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And what's the sample sensor slash sample speaker ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can say against the remote uh page uh f uh page up , page down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess so too . +User Interface: Yeah , true . Well , that's not too {disfmarker} what we want . +Marketing: Next channel . No . Well , we might want it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All in twelve Euros . +Project Manager: Back to the costs . +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euros and fifty cents . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're gonna use the simple chip . +User Interface: So , simple chip is okay . +Marketing: Great . Delete . +Industrial Designer: And the lights . Where uh are the lights ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , lights , yeah , there's no +Marketing: Well , there're three , I guess . +User Interface: category . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , there is some money left to be spent . +User Interface: Can we do it wi within two two Euro ? +Marketing: I think we can make a docking station . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but what we have to think about now is that is is it still a special remote control ? But I mean it isn't {disfmarker} it hasn't got any innovative technology , we aren't gonna apply any uh innovated {disfmarker} innovative te technology anyway , I think . I don't I don't see any possibility to do so , because it would {disfmarker} wouldn't fit our defi design philosophy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . But it's original . +Project Manager: But what w is there some extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: maybe I think maybe the kinetic thing is something . Instead of the rechargeable {disfmarker} the rechargeable thing was something to um {disfmarker} know , so y so people wouldn't have to worry about their batteries anymore . +Marketing: M bu +Project Manager: Maybe we {disfmarker} if we put the kinetic thing in it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but sometimes you put a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you leave the p yeah , I know , but still I {disfmarker} they will think about that . I mean if you u +Industrial Designer: Kinetics aren't uh nowadays only used in watches and that's because you're always walking . +Project Manager: The uh {disfmarker} it's made for s people {disfmarker} well , the they don't {disfmarker} if it was uh uh r useless technology , they wouldn't put it uh as a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells are useless . +Project Manager: And i it it {disfmarker} th th the the target +Marketing: Or the hand dynamo dynamo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the target uh group are people who zap regularly and throw with their remote control as a matter of speaking {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because I think it {disfmarker} when when there w was a remote control where it was useful to have a kinetic uh uh power source , then it would be this one . Because it's one {disfmarker} it gets thrown around {gap} thrown around a lot and it gets used a lot {disfmarker} Hey that {disfmarker} maybe that's cool {disfmarker} that's a cool thing about it , you know . You don't use batteries . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if we ca +Project Manager: I've never seen it before in a remote control . +User Interface: But then we could make a docking station . +Marketing: I don't know if {disfmarker} Five minutes . +Project Manager: No , we we we can't make a docking station anyway . +Marketing: That's not true . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can als or uh also m we we can make one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow , w why no li +Marketing: We can make a docking station for two thirty . +Project Manager: we can still make {disfmarker} +User Interface: Look at now , we got two +Industrial Designer: Fo {vocalsound} for a docking station . +Marketing: Two thirty . +User Interface: two thirty left . Ca can't we make a docking station of that ? +Marketing: We can make a docking station . Sure . +Industrial Designer: With a cable , with uh buttons on it , with retrieval uh device in it . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: The power device is is i i is very cheap . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's just a regular uh power cable and whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , but be serious , then uh the docking station will be a fifth of the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wi with a button to +User Interface: Well , we we uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: wi with a button to retrieve it , so it will beep . +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Uh , so it's uh wireless technology . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we uh we don't inc we haven't looked at the {disfmarker} these costs of the speaker and other stuff . I don't think it's realistic for you to do so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well then it's a useless project . +Industrial Designer: Look at the case , +Project Manager: Oh , because we {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the case the case of of uh of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then we don't have any innovation things . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} well look at all the special stuff we have . Colour a the colours are special , the form is special . It {disfmarker} th this is whole concept . Uh maybe it {disfmarker} with the kinetic thing , I think we could do uh do a compromise uh with the kim kinetic thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Can't we uh {disfmarker} Can't we say fifteen Euros ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , sta yeah {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , then we have to sell it for thirty Euros . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: No , we only make less profit of it . +Industrial Designer: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can sell for twenty seven and a half . Then you make as much profit as you would with twelve and a half production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah , I don my suggestion is to just forget about the whole docking station thing and make it uh like a {disfmarker} Uh uh I I I I still fee I also feel this concept of making it kinetic , because of the {disfmarker} you know , it g it gives something dynamic to the remote control . +Marketing: I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can uh can do it both . Maybe we can do it both uh in the in the in the remote . Battery and kinetic . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that wouldn't n no . +Marketing: Thirteen twenty . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it is also not a good {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} you have to really do it only kinetic , you don't want it to think about batteries anymore . +Marketing: And I think only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but when it's {disfmarker} then when it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but only kinetic , then you gotta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No no . +Industrial Designer: then you have to shake it uh and all when it's when it's empty . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's great . +Marketing: You you gotta throw uh throw it through the room like twenty times an hour , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . No no , this is very sophisticated technology technology . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When you use it {disfmarker} your remote like once a day , or maybe even less i i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You asked for three d No , that's n that's not true . Uh , a watch is uh kinetic because you walk all the time . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} We can make it {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} no . Becau be but a remote control gets {disfmarker} why do they state that this technology can be used if it +Industrial Designer: Yes , solar cells are also stated . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but a w uh uh n uh a calculator also works on r on solar cells . +Industrial Designer: Why don't we use solar cells then ? +Project Manager: Because I think the d whole dynamic part , do you know , appeals to me qui uh thinking of our design philosophy , you know , with the rubber parts and uh sturdiness of the thing , and y when you move it around a lot , then people find the idea funny that when I move my remote control around and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , it's funny for a week . I guess something like that , where you have to move it around very frequently , is demotivating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but you don't have to . Trust me . The idea of this technology is that you don't think about it , it just happens . +Marketing: No , I I don't move my uh my remote control very much , seriously . +Project Manager: Okay , then we d Okay , well y we don't have to do it , but what {disfmarker} that would just have a lack of key features , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oui . +Project Manager: You m have to put something on your box . You have to make people buy it and uh {disfmarker} We can really can do the docking thing , uh it's not {disfmarker} yeah , uh we can do it , but it's would be a easy way out . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can do it for fifty cents . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , we've got more than fifty Cents . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to grou to agree upon something , +Industrial Designer: The c {vocalsound} The case the case alone is is is uh +Project Manager: because uh we only have a minute left or so . +Industrial Designer: the case alone for uh remote control is at least one Euro . Then we have one Euro thirty for the whole docking station . +Project Manager: No no , it's not possible . Okay , w b we can s we can leave it on be well then then th it's {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} then then our concept is ready . +User Interface: Cheap remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , we make some extra profit of it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , we won't , but that's um something else . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It w it won't tell , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , this not gonna sell . No . +Project Manager: Huh , any ideas ? +Marketing: Of course not . +User Interface: No , uh , n no +Industrial Designer: Great {gap} . It's great . +User Interface: Yeah , we just have to go all what we did today again . You have to do it over . +Industrial Designer: Our remote control . +Marketing: We come back tomorrow , okay ? +Project Manager: No no uh there's still there's still someth concept and something special left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seventy Euros . +Project Manager: I mean we're gonna {disfmarker} it's gonna excel in in on in the the range in the field of design and and uh looks and feel . +User Interface: No , but {disfmarker} no . +Project Manager: That's what it's {disfmarker} makes it special . Yeah , and I would li I would have liked a kinetic part as well , to give it some just to give it some extra special feature , and uh I know it will work , but uh it's it's an {disfmarker} They're they're not putting technologies on this {gap} , but if it if it was impossible to to make it happen . +Industrial Designer: Why not a hand dynamo then ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well we leave it like this . Then it's c then we're {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can't do anything else . Warning , finish meeting now . +Industrial Designer: We're done . +Project Manager: Okay , project e uh +Industrial Designer: Is this it ? +Project Manager: well , we were gonna what look {disfmarker} take a look at the last sheet . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , we can't . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . Celebration . I don't see why , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: I think we gotta fill out another questionnaire , to be honest . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I don't uh hear a bell . +Marketing: No , not yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We can do it here then . +Marketing: Alright , I'll see you guys in a minute . +Industrial Designer: Bye . +User Interface: Can we {disfmarker} can't we do it here ? +Marketing: I don't think so . I don't know . I don't I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Just fill that one in . +User Interface: Yeah , we're doing now . But it's {gap} . Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Uh , I don't know . +User Interface: Nice . +","In a detailed design meeting for a remote control prototype, the team discussed various design aspects including form, material, color, logo placement, button layout, and functionality. A debate over including a mute button and identifying volume and program buttons occurred. The group also deliberated on the need for numerical buttons, with some suggesting modern TVs may not require them while others argued for traditional designs. They considered the feasibility of technological features such as a kinetic power source and complexity of chips, as well as the cost implications of these features. They decided to skip the docking station due to budget constraints and discussed aiming for a simple design that could be potentially enhanced by a kinetic feature. However, there was no consensus on the next steps toward the remote’s innovation or added features due to cost limitations." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Du +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks for coming to this meeting . +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: S how we doing on our remote ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have some {disfmarker} we have some ideas and some uh ideas for what people want . +User Interface: Uh we yes s I've lo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've done the role that I was asked to do anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright let's just go over the agenda real quick for this meeting . See if I can't get things uh moving along here a little bit better . Um I'll go over what we went over last time , which shouldn't take long . Then I believe each of you have a presentation . Um I've was sent a a couple more requirements for our remote , what they want . Um then we can come to a conclusion on uh what we want the remote to do , um and how it's going to do it hopefully . And uh then we'll have the closing . {vocalsound} Um which we'll have forty minutes for . Uh let's see , the last meeting we went over um {vocalsound} who was responsible for what . I'm responsible for leading the meetings , keeping the notes , uh and coming up with the final presentation . Um Corinne is our Marketing Expert . She's gonna figure out what what um the consumer wants . Um {vocalsound} Ryan is our User Interface Designer . And Manuel is the Industrial Designer . So you're gonna come up with the ideas Ryan , and you're gonna pick 'em apart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided our remote , uh we want it to be a universal remote uh that everyone would want . Um we want to be modern , um fun , different . Uh it needs to be sturdy , um easy to find , so we gonna have that locator function . Um and we want to be different . Um and then we went over a couple of different ideas . Ball-shaped phone . The keyboard shape . Um we decided that it should probably be one-handed . Something we could use with one hand . Um and that was our last meeting . So um why don't um {disfmarker} Do each of you have a presentation ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . I'll hand it off to you and um {disfmarker} Does anyone {disfmarker} do you wanna go first ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can maybe see what uh what the people want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was it ? Function ? +Industrial Designer: Eight . F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight ? Well . {vocalsound} How do I get it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Slide show . +Project Manager: To go to the next one ? +Marketing: Oh right right right . +Project Manager: Yeah you click on that guy . +Marketing: That one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . Well , this is my report , which is going to be based pretty much on a survey that I was sent . Oh gosh , I've no idea . {vocalsound} G +User Interface: Just press the arrow keys I think . Usually goes to it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry I actually need to see something else on my screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think . +Marketing: And then ? Again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You want it to be on both screens , or just just yours ? +Marketing: No I want something else on mine . Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah but I think you have to hit escape . And then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay but now you don't have that . +Project Manager: Oh hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry guys . +Project Manager: I know . I did the same thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then it should come up here shortly . 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So is there no way I can give you the slideshow and +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} oh give us the slideshow and something on your screen ? +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . You could maybe minimise that screen and then have them both up at the same time I think . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . Okay . Um so first of all , the method that I used was by doing some marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: by um doing research on some interviews that were conducted . And then some internet research . And I was sent a report that was {disfmarker} I think there were a hundred remote users that they interviewed . And so I will show you some of the results from that , which I think will be helpful . Um okay here are some of the findings . They said that the users dislike the look and feel of their current remote controls . And seventy five percent of the users find their remote controls to be ugly . Which is a fairly significant number I would say . And eighty percent of the users would be willing to spend more money if they could get a remote that would look fancy . So I think that earlier we were onto something when we were talking about having it be a modern cool look , I think that's definitely important . Um they say that current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot . And if anyone could clarify what that means ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just jus +User Interface: Is is it j just just +Marketing: Zap , does that just mean like changing the channel ? +User Interface: just using it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Um and fifty percent of the users say that they're only using ten percent of the buttons on their remote control . And there was something else , they kept track of the frequency per hour in using certain buttons . And some of them it looks like barely need to be included at all . Of course channel selection is used the most frequently . And then teletext was the next . Volume and then power . And then audio settings and screen settings and channel settings were practically never used . So I think we could definitely eliminate or somehow combine a lot of the functions into one button . Um the biggest user frustrations , as we said fifty percent of people find that their remotes are lost somewhere , and so I think a tracking device of some sort would be a good idea . They said it take {disfmarker} thirty four percent said it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . And twenty six percent said that the controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: Just repetitive strain injury . I think . That's what I guess . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . And so bas okay . Um as far as speech recognition goes , um the younger group looks like they're all for it . From the fifteen to twenty five age group over ninety percent said they would pay more . And it kind of just went down incrementally . The groups at {disfmarker} the older they get it looks like the less willing they are to pay , so maybe we could discuss this and think {disfmarker} and decide if we think it's worth investing in this . At least if we're targeting the younger groups . And so in conclusion . Some things that I drew from this are that I think we were correct . We definitely need to focus on a new modern appearance , since so many people seem to be concerned about the ugliness of their remote control . Um a multifunctional remote could be a good thing to explore . So you only have one rather than five different remotes sitting all over your room . Uh we need to simplify the remote and reduce the number of buttons , get rid of the ones that don't seem to be serving much purpose . And then lastly I thought that maybe we could discuss the idea of speech recognition . And that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Very nice . Now we actually have some ideas of what what people want , what we should focus on . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wait can I look at that real quick ? {gap} . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Sorry did you guys get time to write everything that you needed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Having just listened to what Corinne just said , I'll draw on some of the things as well . {vocalsound} {gap} Some things that sort of relevant to what I wanna say . 'Kay so I'm just gonna yeah approach the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} the method I used was to explore the uh technical functions of a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And t s simplest approach that I came to is is to change , programme and operate an electronic device remotely . I mean that's an obvious thing to say , but it's not attached to the device that you want to control . Um I had some things sent to me . Not very much . To look at similar devices . Um defined in some them . And then the personal preferences that I will suggest . Um we discussed a universal one . Um like it's just been brought up again then . But I think a universal remote control is actually quite a difficult object to design , and po possibly within maybe the budget that we do it , um because you'd need to know all the spef specifications of a all the like electronic companies . I'm not sure have you ever come across a universal remote control yourself , but you have to {disfmarker} i they're a nightmare to use . You have to set them , reset them to everything . Um and that would only add buttons . Whereas I think the aim is to take away buttons . So I think it'd be better maybe to concentrate on maybe just a universal one for T_V_s . Um or maybe just one that you could we could design and then different people , manufacturers could use it to set to their specifications , if if the aim is to get something that's unique in design . Um {disfmarker} Okay here here's just two pictures of remote controls . They're just simple T_V_ remote controls . But one is uh user-centred . That is the one on the left . And you can straight away see there's less buttons . And the other one is {gap} engineer-centred where that's more uh specified for the sort of the elaborate piece of equipment it's trying to control um {disfmarker} {gap} which appeals more to the product that we want , and on what the {gap} have said and the market research and stuff {gap} probably looking at something that should be user-centred . Fewer buttons , simpler to use , and if ten percent um is hidden away {disfmarker} if ten percent is what's used , maybe the other fifty percent , the buttons that are used very rarely like programming , they could be hidden maybe under {disfmarker} some remote controls you might have come across have maybe a little flip thi thing where they're hidden away . And the main buttons are the ones you or the ones you come across . Um and finally , um uh sort I've sort of covered that , our product I think should be user interface orientated . Um {disfmarker} Like I said to concentrate on T_V_ remote control , a universal remote might be too complex . Um and as what it , the major findings {gap} market researchers have said , it's the image and the appearance that people di dislike . So that we should concentrate on something that would set a trend . And that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} cable there . Thank you . +Project Manager: What was your last conclusion on that one ? Focus on uh the i +User Interface: On something on the image of it . +Project Manager: the image of it . +User Interface: Uh the f the actual design . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Good . Good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Gonna talk to you about the working design of the interiors basically which is what dictates the design the both the interface basically and the outer appearance because this is all the stuff that needs to go in there . Right . So unfortunately the people who were supposed to do this little presentation for me obviously were too drunk to actually accomplish it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um {vocalsound} I'm going to do a lot of the stuff on the board . Um just {disfmarker} This is the basic basic premise of a remote control . Um the basic function is to send messages to another system . Okay so much is clear . An energy source feeds an integrated circuit , like a chip , that can compose messages . {vocalsound} Often in the form of infrared bits . This is the most mostly used . Um there's uh also some sound systems but infrared is the better or the more more used system . Um parts are cheaper as well . A user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages . This is where my people screwed up basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'm going to explain that on the board rather . Um what we have is different components that obviously need to go in there . We'll start with an energy source . Right . Um which is usually a battery right ? {vocalsound} Since it's not feasible to add a cable to that . This energy source of course is connected to the the user interface itself {vocalsound} . Uh which can be buttons , whatever , which in fact controls a chip . Right ? This is the user interface and there we have the chip . Um the way this goes normally is that this chip then controls an infrared lamp . That sends out the signal . Of course the signal differs accordingly . Um depending on what the chip tells the infrared lan lamp . And {disfmarker} Of course that's controlled , the chip itself is controlled by the user interface . The way you normally normally do it is that you add a little device such as a lamp to the whole thing as well , so that you know that it's working basically . You press something , you get a response . Which is also comparatively um important on one of those devices . Now this , what we're talking about here , or what I think should be discussed are these two components mostly . The the uh energy source for one thing can be altered . What we probably cannot alter is of course the infrared , the sending device basically , the infrared lamp . We cannot change the chip which controls the infrared lamp . Right ? These two are components that we have to use , and these are dictated by the whole function of the whole thing . Um the lamp can be put onto the desi the device . It c it doesn't have to be there . This can be discussed as well . {vocalsound} The user interface . That's something we can also discuss . Um as we've heard uh speech recognition is the hype obviously in the moment . Speech recognition um interface , we don't know that . Or if we just do the usual button thing . Or we have a touch pad or something like that {disfmarker} that's something we can discuss . And of course the energy source . Batteries . Solar cells . Who knows ? {vocalsound} Of course it's always a question whether these these components are in fact {vocalsound} available cheap enough , developed enough . But that's like I s I suppose rather up to marketing , and not to +Project Manager: So we could {disfmarker} the the +Industrial Designer: to the industrial design department . +Project Manager: the more complex we make it of course , the more expensive {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Expensive it's gonna be get uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: But people have said that they would {disfmarker} well younger generations of people have said that they would pay more for a speech recognition remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So possibly it might be worth the investment . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think speech recognition was uh one of those things where um they have to be really good for them to work . 'Cause sometimes you find yourself just saying things over and o {gap} if it's on your phone . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I agree . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you need to sort of take into light languages and then {vocalsound} different dialects I suppose as well . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} myself I find , when you , h when there's something like spee speech recognition . Like uh you call on the phone and you try to change your telephone or power or something . Sometimes they have a a speech recognition on the other end , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you say one for this , and you find yours , like you said , saying the same thing over and over and over . I find myself , especially if I'm in a crowd of people , looking really silly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe if you're sitting on your couch with a bunch of people then you know , you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: And wou I don't know if would would you want to keep saying stuff if you were watching stuff . If you were watching something would you sort of be wanting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume up . Volume down . Change the channel , you know channel up , channel down ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I I don't know . +Marketing: Another thing about these figures is ninety one percent of the youngest age groups said they'd do it , but probably a lot of them that's actually their parents money . Like I don't know if they would actually go out and purchase this themselves , a fifteen year old you know . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} As well it'd be j the gimmick factor for the younger people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But practically I don't think it's {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a , it's a gimmick factor that they like at first , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It'll wear off . +Marketing: Gets old yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} Let's see here . +User Interface: Do you wanna put your cord back in ? +Project Manager: Yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Trade you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I was sent a couple of things to modify our uh new requirements . Um the remote's only gonna be for the television , which is good because we already decided {disfmarker} y your your research showed that uh not only is a universal remote more complicated , it's more cost , more costly . And your re uh research showed that you know most of the people don't even use it . I think uh you said fifty percent of the people only use half the or ten percent of the buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we remove the universal remote then that solves that problem . Um no teletext . Um {disfmarker} So we don't have to worry about that . Um but we do have to use the the company wants us to incorporate the corporate colour and our slogan , which is we put the fashion in electronics . And our corporate colours are grey and yellow . And we could probably get away with black too but {disfmarker} So those are the three um the three new requirements that that I was told we need to use . Um from all all three of your uh presentations , I think that we were on the right track a lot in our last meeting . We want something that looks good . Um we want something that's simple . We want something that you can find easily . Um {disfmarker} And the speech recognition I I guess is kind of uh give or take . It's gonna cost more . S the young the younger people say that they like it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um it's probably , I would say , probably not worth the investment at this point in time . So maybe we should just do away with speech recognition . Um {disfmarker} And that way we can focus on our form . +User Interface: I did have have a thought about the sort of the tracking thing . Is that {disfmarker} if it came with maybe a holder or holster , whatever you wanna call it . Um that you you should put it back in . Your remote . But if you don't put it back in , you press something like a little button on that , and that just sort of sends out a beep {vocalsound} to find where it is or something . Just by infrared . That shouldn't be too complex I would've thought . +Project Manager: That'd be , that'd be good if we were going with our our ball . +User Interface: Yeah it would be quite good . +Project Manager: Or or with {disfmarker} you know I guess with any form that that would be good . +User Interface: The ball could sit on a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: You know that could be the charger . For you know +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we could use rechargeable batteries in the remote . And that would be {disfmarker} or solar . Or you know {disfmarker} However , however you wanted to go about it , the holder could also be the charging unit . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the locator button . Um and if it were the ball you'd no longer have to have a flat space on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um like +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: if +Industrial Designer: you still do . +Project Manager: we still have the how to hold on to it +Industrial Designer: You s you still {disfmarker} W yeah . You put it on t on the couch table . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's gonna roll away . +Industrial Designer: While you're watching , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Rolls away +Industrial Designer: it's gonna roll off . So +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's not an issue really . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So I guess after the meeting {vocalsound} we'll have some questionnaires . And uh and some summaries for for what's going on . Um then we'll take lunch . Then we can come back and uh work on our individual work . Um {disfmarker} I'll do the minutes . Uh let's see . It looks like you're already on your way for uh working with the components . Um chips , the what chips we need +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: and what uh you know how to power it and whatnot . User interface concept , we want it to be something simple . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Minimal number of buttons . I guess our , I guess our main um main thing that we should focus on until then is probably deciding on a certain look , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Did you have time earlier to to work on that . Did you guys feel you have enough time in between our meetings to get everything done that you need to get done ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll yeah I'll have a look , try {gap} look at the actual appearance in the next break . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I th I I do still think it needs to be something that is ultimately one-handed . The ball is probably not a good idea . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And even something that's held like that might be difficult . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that I think it still has to be a variation . On maybe a a rect on a rectangle but maybe not necessarily as boring , as plain as a rectangle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Shall we maybe shoot for a a specific uh target group ? That way we could l I mean if it were , if we were shooting for young guys then it's um a certain look to the remote . Or girls or older people ? Um {disfmarker} Would that {disfmarker} you think that would help us find um a specific form ? That we would would wanna pick out ? +User Interface: D I don't know if that might cope with like the trend-watching . I {gap} find anything more on that . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah not yet but maybe by the next meeting we'll have some info on that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . So um we know that the remote's gonna have to be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we'll just say we've got a colour scheme for it . Um yellow and {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know yellow it's nice and bright , with the buttons being grey or black . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And our slogan pasted somewhere on it , on the the bottom +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or the +User Interface: Bottom perhaps +Project Manager: you know . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we could sketch a {disfmarker} so basically all of our remotes all of our typical remotes now are just kind of a rectangular sort . You know . Um maybe we could flare it or something . You know . So it's more {disfmarker} of course this will look like a bone then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} go ahead and erase this . Um {disfmarker} Hope everyone memorised that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} I mean it might be to look at sort of the the shape and trend of like things like mobile phones , and the shapes that the they've been going . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: They've gone from big brick block things , which is {gap} a remote control is , to sort of slinky small things . +Project Manager: Yeah everybody's got a mobile phone right ? Except for me now . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But they are all , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , mobile phones um they've kind of taken a turn to where they're really small . Um which may defeat our purpose for being able to locate our remote all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: But then again you don't want you know like the first mobile phone that was this big +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you had a handbag to carry it around in . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we've got basically what remotes look like now is kind of what we're what we're stuck with . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we could go with a square or something . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +Project Manager: Um you know with minimal number of buttons . I guess you've got you know one through nine . For typing in your channels . Uh you've got volume , up and down . Channel up and down . +Marketing: Power . +Project Manager: Power . Usually at the top . Um a mute . +Industrial Designer: That's the classical design . +Project Manager: That's that's pretty much all you need I think . Um {disfmarker} A menu button , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So you know . If you , if we want the remote to do other things like um {disfmarker} or I guess the T_V_ to be able to change the tint and the colour and you know all those kind of things that are built into T_V_s , we just have that under one standard menu button where you go in , press the menu button , scroll up and down to select it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talking of which maybe a scrolling function is not not too bad . +Project Manager: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talk about maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} f look at that from the side , there maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is technically the easiest option . Would probably be like a scrolling , little scrolling wheel like this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Like a wheel on your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sort of like that . +Project Manager: Sort of . +Industrial Designer: You can even if we're coming from mice , we can even add a click function , where you , in order to verify the information you just press it down . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Also when it comes to the ergonomics of the whole thing , if you wanna make it square for the looks of it , then maybe to make it more comfortable to hold the whole thing , you add a little bulge down here . Just which maybe from an engineering point this could be holding the the batteries and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I know . You know what I'm getting at here , +Project Manager: Look g yeah . Looks good . +Industrial Designer: fel look at it from the side . It's {gap} like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} Then you hold it in your hand like this . And maybe you bring the buttons nearer to the {disfmarker} or the imp more important buttons nearer to the to the side . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To the thumb . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Mm . +User Interface: To the thumb yeah . Maybe the buttons could like uh decrease in s the bigger ones you know they could actually be bigger in size than the ones that are less important , the smaller here . +Industrial Designer: Right . You can also have it , maybe , talking about mobile phones again , sliding open . With the lesser used functions on this part , +User Interface: Yeah . Behind . +Industrial Designer: and then it slides into that part . And out . +User Interface: Definitely . {gap} just like o on a sort of side view . Something that you know it would sort of fit in the hand better . So you know you just sort of have your hand +Industrial Designer: Mm well I was just thinking , this this of course causes +User Interface: Yeah . Right on the {disfmarker} and your thumb would be up here type thing . +Industrial Designer: causes a problem um for left or right-handed people actually . So . +User Interface: Yeah that's also true . {gap} instantly sort of always going for the right-handed person . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: But I mean {gap} the older so +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} is everyone {disfmarker} who in here's right-handed , left-handed ? You guys all right-handed ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . So +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm left-handed but I , so I can say that most things are designed for right-handed people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's right . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like the written language . {vocalsound} Or English . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe you could buy like a special left-handed version of the remote . {vocalsound} Special order . +Project Manager: Maybe . Ow . I would say I mean it should be probably designed for a right-handed p person . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but that's that's good . That's {disfmarker} w I think we've got a kind of a good plan there . Um {disfmarker} At least for what buttons we're gonna use . Um {disfmarker} So we've got uh {disfmarker} I like the scroll , the scroll action and the {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I'm just just thinking maybe if it was um circular um with the sort of {disfmarker} that sort of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the sort of early idea we had , with the way that was more like that , whereas this is just a one-handed thing that you sort of almost wrap round the thumb . So you'd have your , you'd put your hand into there with the thumb there . And then your thumb would do {disfmarker} you'd have all the buttons sort of round here . And that I think could work . On any hand . If you just had it like wrapped round there . Left or right . +Project Manager: Yeah . Kinda like holding a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {vocalsound} That minimises it size-wise as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Minimise its size . It could be you know really quite small . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Then there's maybe another point of making it a two-in-one kind of thing . If we have a smaller a smaller device that actually fits into the big one . You give it the full functions in here , and just a couple of functions in there . Like your zap zapping device is just u channels up-down , uh volume , and on-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Zapping functions . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could be good . +Project Manager: So two remotes in one . But then would be easier to lose one or the other . +Industrial Designer: That's right . Means the big one has to be sufficiently big . And perhaps heavy , so you can't move it around . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It actually is your coffee table . +Industrial Designer: Make it a piece of furniture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} yes . Yes , there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or a statue or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Well we need to finish up here . Um {disfmarker} So for the next {disfmarker} So for the next um {disfmarker} before the next meeting w uh sh shall we work on {disfmarker} you're watching trends to see what what kind of new information we've got going on . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Manuel you're going to work on the components for for what we're gonna use . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Let's go with our our uh rounded kind of fit in your hand {disfmarker} let's explore uh the the uh possibility of having the two-piece . So one for the the quick zapping um and possibly one you know with just that rounded part that fits into your hand . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And Ryan you work on um how how well they'll work with the us with the user . So both of those concepts . +User Interface: How well it'll work yeah . +Project Manager: And uh okay I think we made some good progress here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} see you in {disfmarker} I dunno . I gu I guess we'll take lunch in about uh half an hour . {vocalsound} Or I guess we'll be taking lunch shortly and then then in about half an hour after that we'll probably have another meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +","Summary of Project Meeting on Remote Control Design + +The meeting began with the Project Manager (PM) initiating a conversation about the progress on the remote control project. The User Interface (UI) designer indicated that their role had been carried out as requested, with sporadic additional input from the Marketing representative. After some initial exchanges and recognition of responsibilities assigned in the previous meeting—which included the PM leading meetings and final presentations, Corinne from Marketing focusing on consumer desires, Ryan from UI handling design ideas, and Manuel the Industrial Designer tasked with analyzing these ideas—the PM reviewed that the goal was to create a universal remote that was modern, fun, different, sturdy, easy to find, and primarily one-handed in operation. + +The meeting moved on to individual presentations starting with Marketing. Corinne presented findings from market research, underscoring that 75% of users find remote controls ugly, and a majority would spend more to have a remote with a fashionable appearance. She also noted that most users only utilize a small portion of available buttons and that there's a substantial interest in a tracking feature for misplaced remotes. The report also highlighted the potential of speech recognition, particularly among younger users, though older demographics were less inclined to pay extra for such technology. + +Ryan from UI focused on the technical functions, questioning the feasibility of designing a universal remote within the budget constraints due to complexities with manufacturer specifications. He presented images comparing user-centered designs to engineer-centered ones, arguing for a user-central approach with fewer buttons and more emphasis on the remote's visual appeal. + +Manuel, the Industrial Designer, discussed the working internals of remote controls. He highlighted that while certain elements like the chip and infrared lamp were non-negotiable, there were opportunities for innovation in the user interface and energy source (discussing alternatives like batteries and potentially solar cells). He stressed the importance of considering costs in relation to features like speech recognition, suggesting that while it was in demand, the cost-benefit might not justify its inclusion. + +Subsequently, the PM presented new requirements indicating that the remote would only be for television, should incorporate the corporate color (grey and yellow) and slogan, and eliminate the need for teletext. After listening to the presentations, the team agreed to drop the concept of speech recognition, considering its potential cost, gimmicks nature, and practical annoyances. + +Discussion then shifted to design concepts for the remote with a particular focus on the ergonomics. Concepts included a design that fits in one hand, an emphasis on more frequently used buttons while incorporating fewer overall buttons, possibly using a sliding function to conceal less used controls, and the use of a scroll wheel. The team also considered creating a two-in-one remote concept: a smaller portable remote with basic functions fitting into a larger base unit with comprehensive controls. + +Before adjourning, the PM asked the team to confirm their individual assignments. Corinne would continue watching market trends, Manuel would work on detailing components and their costs, and Ryan would explore how to optimize user interaction with the two proposed design concepts. The meeting concluded with plans to reconvene after lunch for further discussion. + +In summary, the project team worked on defining the direction and specific features for a stylish, modern television remote control that emphasized usability and minimalism. While considering additional functionalities like tracking and speech recognition, they found that it may be best to focus on core functions and design elements that cater to user preferences. The meeting showcased a collaborative approach to tackling the challenges in designing an electronic device that balances functionality, aesthetics, and consumer desires while also adhering to the company's branding requirements." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the second meeting of this uh design group . Um {vocalsound} I'll briefly go through the uh notes of the of the last meeting uh just done in in note form and I haven't attributed anything to individuals , because we're working strictly as a team here and uh n nobody's working equally , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: so uh . Um we we s we saw that the the problems with existing remote controls were the uh b a boring shape and boring colour . Um and and we s we saw that the um what we needed to do was to to make sure the device um controls several items , that switching was easy , that you shouldn't need to point the thing at uh anything in particular , um that it need to be contoured to make it interesting , that the keys might be concave , simply because that hasn't been done before that we know of . Um should have interchangeable fascias so people can personalise it , um illuminated so that people can see it in dark rooms . Um and that people might want it as as {disfmarker} in addition to their existing remote controls . Um {vocalsound} and that it sh it should just always work , whenever you uh um mm uh use it . And that it shouldn't be too small , mm that it it gets lost . Um . {gap} Now uh uh I'll shortly ask for for three three presentations . Uh before I do that , however , I will go through some new project requirements that um {disfmarker} the the management have placed on us and uh will be challenging in terms of what we discussed at the first meeting . Um the uh the ma the management has had it's own thoughts on this and uh the they don't necessarily agree with with what we uh we thought . Um and and then we'll {disfmarker} as a result of that we will then talk through the the functions that we see the the device um actually b carrying out , and we have uh forty minutes to do this in and I uh {disfmarker} Anyway . Okay . Now , the n the new requirements are um the the management team see that um teletext is no longer of any importance given the uh the rise of the internet . Um and and they want it only to cover televisions . Um now , what is not q quite clear from their directive is whether they mean th they don't want it to cover teletext or whether they don't want it to cover , you know , videos , D_V_D_s , um satellite boxes , which uh {disfmarker} I mean we saw as being fundamental to the uh to the exercise . The um the actual wording of the directive is that it should cover television only . Um and on that basis um I I think we we need to bear that in mind , um but possibly uh keep at the backs of our minds that the reality that people even when they uh no longer {disfmarker} they don't look at teletext anymore , they certainly do look at other things . Um {vocalsound} the device has to incorporate the company logo and colours . Um the the logo uh being at b the bottom of the screen there , the the the two R_s in grey against uh a yellow background . Um now this doesn't {vocalsound} necessarily mean that we have to give up some of our ideas about making it attractive to the t to the market . But uh do do introduce some some constraints as to how we might do that . Um it also has to be simple , which to some extent goes along w with the first one , and that {disfmarker} we've already said that it must be simple 'cause that's what people want anyway . Um but they also want it to be simple to get it to the market quickly , which um mm {vocalsound} uh is is is their choice , but uh um we we need to talk that through . Um okay , so uh after the meeting it'll be summarised and uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um notes sent out and uh etcetera . Okay , so {vocalsound} we'll first of all mm have individual reports from everybody . Um again I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there is no order of precedence here um so I I I'll leave it up to you to {disfmarker} who who who thinks they would like to go go first ? +Marketing: Uh I don't mind . {gap} +Project Manager: P fine . +Marketing: Uh can I steal the cable ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry , you can indeed . +Marketing: Cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got a {disfmarker} how do I start there ? +Project Manager: Oh , if you click on the um uh the one that that looks like a projection screen , no the one to the right of that . That one . +Marketing: That one . Cool . Well these are functionality requirements from the {disfmarker} our our guys down in the the research lab . Took hundred people and covered all the aspects of what um is needed by people and what they want to see . Um {vocalsound} everything kinda from functionality and how individual functions are {disfmarker} how mu how how often they're used and how much their necessary and stuff . And general opinions about current current remotes . See that , as we kinda noticed , seventy five percent of people find their remote controls ugly . So some kind of a new style should be incorporated that's less ugly {vocalsound} . Uh along with um looking less ugly , if it looks better , eighty percent of people said they'd spend more money on it . Which is a a plus for us , if we can make it look better , it'd be uh more cost effective and we can put the price up . Current remote controls do not match the operating behaviour of the user . I can empl I kinda take that to mean as um {vocalsound} they they don't uh {disfmarker} they , yeah , they only use {disfmarker} they only work for the television or yeah like as in in my flat I've got six remote controls for a stereo system , a digital box , a D_V_D_ player , a video player and T_V_ . If it was uh {disfmarker} I mean th my behaviour is to use multiple things at the same time and multiple remotes aren't really matched well to my behaviour . {vocalsound} Uh again , seventy five percent is {disfmarker} seventy five percent of users say they zap a lot . I took to mean that they just {disfmarker} they use it a lot , they use it regularly rather than standing up and manually change channels or volume {gap} . {vocalsound} And uh yeah , uh I think the big issue is fifty percent users only use ten percent of the buttons , 'cause uh wh if we got a remote that like {disfmarker} well we'll have some buttons taken off by the lack of teletext , but uh oh and we're going to see uh on the {disfmarker} uh that some of the functions like audio settings aren't h hardly ever used and used very {disfmarker} aren't considered relevant by the user . So I think maybe fewer buttons , which also make the design look sleeker , I dunno . Uh um yeah and uh frustrations of like people losing remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I dunno maybe some kind of system of you press a button on the T_V_ or maybe that's b it would have to incorporate {gap} , but like some kind of system where you can f use something else to find the remote control . Maybe like it'll beep or something . And um , yep , the uh time taken to learn new remote controls is {disfmarker} Uh don't want to make it too complicated , easy to use for uh new {disfmarker} like first time users and stuff . And uh repetitive strain injury , I suppose we should make it more comfortable and make ma possibly even use {disfmarker} have to make it , yeah , fewer buttons , like I was saying about the whole mice {disfmarker} the mouse idea of it feels more comfortable . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Maybe don't even have to hold it as such . +Project Manager: Gosh , must be some telly addicts out there if they get R_S_I_ from their television remote , is all I can say . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh yeah . It also asked um if we would {disfmarker} if people would pay more for speech recognition +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: and younger people say they would . And uh there was another section on our {disfmarker} on the report for uh L_C_D_ displays , but the data wasn't there , so . I don't actually know what the results for that were , +Project Manager: Mm . Right . Mm . +Marketing: so . {vocalsound} May be incrementally emitting , but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I must say that um the uh {disfmarker} I c can't remember what {vocalsound} um f you know phone service I was using the other day , but that had sorta speech recognition which worked uh remarkably well , so that is indeed a uh um a thought +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it would cut out the R_S_I_ as well if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it it cuts out uh {disfmarker} I was was gonna say , you can't get a lot of R_S_I_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: j just get jaw ache . Okay , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , um {disfmarker} oh yeah , so possibly the speech recognition is possibly something could add into the design . Oh , I've got some other things I couldn't fit onto this presentation . Um . You see this okay ? Almost {disfmarker} no ? It's {disfmarker} sorry it's a bit {gap} . I'll read out to you . Uh functionality , uh like people's opinions on functionality , the relevance to the remote and how often they're used . So um like the power . Using the using the d swi the power switch to switch on T_V_ is a high relevance of nine , but it's not frequently used . You see what I mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whereas channel selection , which is very high relevance +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is used the most . So m we can maybe even start to cut down on {disfmarker} or I was possibly even thinking of a design that maybe some of the buttons are hidden from everyday use . Maybe like uh a folding ledge or something . So that we can maybe go into the channel settings and the audio settings , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: which are low relevance +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: and rarely used . And keep the v volume selection and channel selection very easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be {disfmarker} oh uh I was just gonna say uh maybe like the flip phones that they use ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Have you seen the new mo mobile phones +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: that flip out and they have the like texting , and then the numbers on one side , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: so +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: you could have the most {vocalsound} used buttons on top and flip it out or something . +Project Manager: Hmm , hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , like the one that like slides back +Project Manager: Uh . Should we actually bite the bullet here ? +Marketing: and the buttons are concealed underneath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: If people really don't use those buttons to any extent at all um {vocalsound} remove them altogether . +Marketing: Just remove them completely ? +Project Manager: We we could actually have we could actually have a remote control with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That might be the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I wonder whether we could get the remote control with no buttons at all if we went for voice recognition , given that um the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um now the the age structure we were looking at {disfmarker} um I mean w we had usage by age structure , what we didn't have was what proportion of people using remotes were in those particular age groups . Now do we know whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Forty {disfmarker} no sorry {disfmarker} for forty five to fifty five age group , uh to put myself right in the middle of it , um u use remote controls to a great extent . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um no this is for {disfmarker} pay more for speech recognition . +Project Manager: That would 've speech recogn right . So , we're looking at {disfmarker} um well again , we don't know the relative proportion {disfmarker} the relative numbers in the age groups . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: If we wanted something different , truly different , then the buttonless remote control w would be it . +Industrial Designer: P Well the only problem I can think of with that is if you've got a lot of people that don't wanna be bothered learning how to use new rem remote controls . If you just kind of take away everything that they're used to knowing , that's gonna be quite a change . +Project Manager: But if you just lift it up and say , channel one or B_B_C_ {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or even {disfmarker} I mean you could even just have it left on . +User Interface: Maybe i +Marketing: You could just put it down once on top your T_V_ and never have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , have a big kind of like the satellite box or the cable box +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and have it just go on the T_V_ and then it doesn't matter where in the room you are , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you won't lose it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It c well it {disfmarker} I can I can see technical problems with that in terms of the , you know , the sound from the television , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: because if somebody actually on the television says uh uh , you know , I_T_V_ and you're watching B_B_C_ then then it might um change itself , +Marketing: {vocalsound} B_B_C_ one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it probably needs to be um {disfmarker} possibly actually need a button on it +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: just to activate it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Or or something just to identify that you've lifted it up and it's use . And and then just say , oh I don't know , a thought and and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh I mean that that would certainly be uh truly different . {vocalsound} Um 'cause uh you know audio settings , nought point eight percent . I mean if they weren't there , {vocalsound} would people miss them ? +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: But look at the importance of them . The volume settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Relevance of two out of ten , +Project Manager: Vol volume , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes um +Industrial Designer: They're not used often +Project Manager: th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but they are quite important when they're used . +Project Manager: w we need to s identify things that {vocalsound} people actually need +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and it's a function of frequency and relevance . And um I would say ignoring ig ignoring power for the moment , um the channel and volume +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and th w w given given that we've been told to ignore teletext . Uh channel and volume are the only ones that +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh would appear to be essential . +Marketing: Stand out . +Project Manager: Um . So {disfmarker} if we can design something that that looks interesting , know , or looks different , um incorporates the the logo and and the colours and um we can still have our interchangeable fascias even if it's {gap} the yellow and grey , um and uh I dunno , buttons or or buttons as an option . +Marketing: Uh I just had a thought actually , sorry to interrupt . +Project Manager: Do , please . +Marketing: Uh you were saying about um it could {disfmarker} technical problems of like uh someone on the television saying a channel number and it changed {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we could maybe have like an activation word . +Project Manager: You cer certainly could . +Marketing: 'Cause I've seen I've seen this used on computers before , where you just {disfmarker} you address the remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depe uh i depends whether um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you address the computer , and then give it a command . +Project Manager: if we want to make this so simple that anybody can walk into the room and lift it up and say +Marketing: Oh I see . Oh yeah , I see . +Project Manager: B_B_C_ one . Um okay , I mean you could print {disfmarker} actually print it on the uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: device itself . Um . +Marketing: I mean I'm just thinking of the point of view of peop you could still like lose this remote . +Project Manager: S th this I th {vocalsound} that's always gonna be a problem I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um and I I I s so I suppose one um {disfmarker} could make it so desirable that if people lose it they immediately go out and buy another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , sorry , carry on . Do you want to just carry on with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I interrupted you , +Project Manager: no no , no uh b I was in the middle of in the middle of your report there . {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . Oh okay . Um well , I was just kinda wrapping up there . Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I was thinking um , yeah , maybe such things are relevant . We could make things much more f I think the the eighty percent of people would spend more on uh a remote uh that looks better , combined with uh decrease the {disfmarker} or take out the limited functio functions that we don't really use much . {gap} alright take out teletext , but as for channel settings and stuff it might it might um turn people somewhe peop some people that want the whole functionality away . But , since {disfmarker} if we're marketing a more kind of fashionable approach then it'd {disfmarker} it would be fashion and fashion over practicality . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . S s we could {disfmarker} we could make it dual function {gap} voice recognition and {gap} still have buttons on it um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , we could , yeah . We c yeah , +Project Manager: 'cause we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: we could even have it as like a {disfmarker} yeah the buttons control this and the voice functions control the f things that you would do all the time , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Certainly could . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So uh yeah , if we could uh {disfmarker} power on and channel selection and and volume selection , wouldn't have to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} The {disfmarker} I mean the the advantage of doing away the buttons altogether is it makes the thing cheaper . +Marketing: Yeah and probably it would look better as well . +Project Manager: No , it cou certainly opens up the possibility for making it uh , you know , visually very distinctive . +Marketing: Yeah . yeah . +Project Manager: Um 'cause you know , it does not have to be a oblong box . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Lined with numbered buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . Okay , who {disfmarker} sorry , have you have you finished there Andy ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah , that's everything . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Um {vocalsound} given that we've already had a extensive discussion uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay well , I can do mine . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Do you want the cable ? +User Interface: Yeah , let's see if I can make this work . Um . +Industrial Designer: Oh , you have to hit like function and F_ something . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ eight . +User Interface: Is it doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Marketing: Uh , give it about twenty seconds , or so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Ah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's going . +User Interface: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so this is just about the technical functions . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: So the method , I looked online for examples of other similar products and then just kind of was trying to brainstorm some possible design ideas and um identify what the necessary things are , what people are {disfmarker} what you really wanna have a remote control do . Um and then there are two different kinds that I found . There's a user centred one and an engineering centred one which I will have pictures of and then we kinda have to decide which one this should be . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So these are the two different ones . This one um {disfmarker} this is the user centred , it has uh quite a few mm uh um fewer buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then this is the engineering centred , which has a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and probably this is one that people complain about , about having too many buttons that you don't use . So basically , what a remote control is is you {disfmarker} it's to send messages to the television set , you know , turn on , off , switch the channels and the volume and things such as that . And so for this product it's gonna be television only , and then it has to have the uh logos for the company and the colours . And so , for my personal preferences , I think this one is easier to use and has quite a {disfmarker} you know , fewer buttons . Um we want something that sends messages easily to the television and I was kind of wondering about this example that they have . It looks kind of narrow at the top , and I was thinking maybe if it were wider at the top , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: then that would be easier . Um {vocalsound} and so we have to decide what's gonna make our product different . E the unique style , maybe have it light up so it's visible in the dark , um the changeable face-plates , and the lighting up and visible I was {disfmarker} when we were talking about havi losing it , maybe to have a button on the television that you press and it {disfmarker} maybe if it makes a noise or lights up or something like that , so it's easier to find if someone has hidden under the couch or something like that . So that's my presentation . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , can I um {disfmarker} I'm actually gonna use the um {disfmarker} it's gonna cause great technical problems over here . I'm actually gonna use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: F they probably clip to you . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they might be movable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they're all {disfmarker} they're not connected to anything on the table , you just leave 'em on and walk around with 'em . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , rather than the uh the the traditional {disfmarker} in fact , um I won't even go that far . Um something like this shape , you know , sort of something that you can {disfmarker} that's sort of a more vertical shape , um that you you sort of hold in your hand , um , well I'm trying to think uh uh uh l uh l such as {disfmarker} I mean um something you hold up like that , possibly with a couple of buttons like that , but with the the entire top with the , you know , the uh the infrared or whatever source . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh so that you know , it's flying off in all directions , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so that uh um uh {vocalsound} again the {disfmarker} n need to look at the the the technicalities of um actually achieving that in terms of whether the , you know , the power requirements of the uh {disfmarker} such a source , um you know , compromise the {disfmarker} our our need for uh you know , it it being um mm permanently uh you know , available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh whether whether different technology {disfmarker} um I mean th all all these remotes are presumably infrared , and like they have been for a long time . Uh we we possibly need to be looking at at at something different , um you know , short range , not like the old uh radio remote controls where you'd change next door's telly when you change yours . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but uh uh I think basically i if we're going for {disfmarker} i if minimum number of buttons is our priority , then we should , as I say , r know , really bite the bullets and and reduce the buttons to absolute minimum , you know , possibly with backup channel and volume buttons and on off . Um and nothing else . {vocalsound} Um so that it can al it could uh almost end up like that , but again , except that um {disfmarker} you know the risk of losing it . Um anyway okay um so Kate , wh what are your uh your thoughts on this ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , mm . {gap} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Which one does this plug into ? +User Interface: Hmm I think it's all there . +Industrial Designer: That one . +User Interface: H +Industrial Designer: I can't {disfmarker} did you {gap} {disfmarker} could you see it on you screen when it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's kind of strange . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Anyways . Um alright , yeah , so um I'll just do my presentation on the working design uh . {vocalsound} Oh there we go . Okay um just at the m yeah the whole sort of method of how the remote control works . Uh the basic function of the remote control is to send messages to another sh system , the the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ player or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and it does this uh by {disfmarker} well , you need {disfmarker} to start off you need an energy source {vocalsound} and this energy source will feed into an integrated circuit chip and the circuit chip is the part that actually composes the different messages uh within the remote um which will then be sent to the uh the television , the D_V_D_ to tell that what to do . Um and you need a user interface , which controls the chip and thus the messages and uh the user interface is {disfmarker} that's basically just you kn the s sorta design of the actual remote which you hold in your hands and what buttons will be on it . Um {disfmarker} Oh shoot . Okay . Uh just general findings . Uh what we need uh technically speaking for the remote control is some sort of energy source , {vocalsound} uh some sort of user interface , which I think we've mostly been talking about the user interface and the design of that . Um a circuit chip within that to uh control and send the messages and um a sender and receiver . And um {disfmarker} oops . Uh-huh . This is just sort of a little schematic diagram of what we're looking for . Uh this just kinda represents the energy source +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which feeds into the circuit chip uh which maybe then we could have that feed into a switch which would send signals f to um {vocalsound} a subcomponent and on to a light bulb between {disfmarker} so it'll light up once we start {disfmarker} once you start pressing buttons . Um also send signals to the um infrared bulb , which will be the part that actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what ? Sends signals to the the television . And then you've got your happy little T_V_ watcher there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so my personal preferences {disfmarker} I I just think we need sorta big uh energy source that won't die out , uh perhaps some sort of rechargeable battery or a battery dock you could place it in , so it'd constantly be charged , so you wouldn't have to uh be worrying about it running out of batteries and not changing channels for you . Uh a wide range uh sender-receiver , so that you can hit the buttons from basically anywhere in the room , and the channel'll still be changed . Uh also definitely a user-friendly interface {vocalsound} um and I think we've all sort of mentioned adding a a locating device on it , so when it does get stuck under the couch cushions , as they inevitably do , you can find them easily . And that's pretty much it . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh it seems seems to me there are a number of fundamental decisions to make before we um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: I think your point about the the big energy source is uh a very valid one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I don't suppose we've got any statistics on the the life expectancy of uh remote controls , particularly sort of independent ones . Um given you know , the number of things you buy these days , which you know , have a a a lithium whatever battery in , that's uh , you know never needs replacing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um perhaps we should have the the disposable remote control , uh um you know , one {disfmarker} some sort of typical usage . You know , the the the battery will last know , five , ten years . By which time {disfmarker} I mean when all's said and done , the digital television {vocalsound} will be taking over in that time scale . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh uh p perhaps we should , know , reduce the uh , you know , the sort of moving parts even more by not even having a battery compartment and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just having one that's guaranteed to last five to ten years ? +Project Manager: Yeah , and if if anybody manages to run it down , we'll we'll give 'em a new one . +Industrial Designer: Oh , cool . {vocalsound} Yeah , fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um it's , you know , it's {disfmarker} what it saves in cost and you know there there's a {disfmarker} well , it's actually a marketing gimmick . I mean it's hardly a gimmick , it's uh it's totally practical . Uh so I th think you know the idea of a rechargeable one is um uh unless you're really high tech and it sort of just recharges itself if it's n by , you know , magnetic waves or whatever , if if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could have like uh {disfmarker} know like a cordless phone in your house it s got like a base that sits there all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: Are are people really gonna use it though ? Um . +User Interface: Yeah , people are pro +Marketing: {vocalsound} I suppose , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would think that people might forget {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean people forget to put their cordless phones back on there , +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +User Interface: so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} I mean I know that somei times my my wife goes out in the morning and says oh I should have put the phone on to charge +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and then then she's had those for so long that if she hasn't worked that out by now . Um . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I only remember to charge my cell phone uh when battery dies . {vocalsound} And that's pretty much {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When it {disfmarker} yeah , wh when it's died is a problem . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , when it turns itself off , that's when I plug it in , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , {gap} so uh um +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what so wh what what do we think about the um the the permanent mm battery ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think that's a good idea . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Uh . That sounds pretty good , yeah . +Project Manager: Is the uh {disfmarker} you know , we we we are really going for the ultimate in ex uh external simplicity here . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um you know , cut cost within the manufacturing and uh you know , if we have a high tech interior , then then that that sh may well be cost effective . +User Interface: Do they make batteries that last that long ? +Project Manager: I mean th th certainly . Um I can't think of anything off the s top of my head , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They usually have the little light uh {vocalsound} source , +Project Manager: but there are certainly things that you buy . I mean calculators for example . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the heck they're called , +User Interface: Yeah , they have that little solar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the {disfmarker} but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Som well some do , +Industrial Designer: yeah , the little cells that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean th th but there are battery ones +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that um are you know , sort of permanently sealed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: In in fact I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most of them , don't they have sort of a combination of the two , like when there is light , they'll work off the light , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and if there isn't , they'll kick into this battery , +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so we can maybe do something like that whereas there is a battery , but if there's enough light , then it's using the light , so that it's not actually draining the battery all the time , but you will have the battery there for when you need it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I mean th th this needs going t into the technology a bit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean the the actual time that a remote control is actually operating +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I would think is i is is probably , you know , no more than minutes in its entire life . Um . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it depend if it's {disfmarker} uh depends who who's using it , who's just sitting there clicking clicking clicking clicking , +User Interface: Yeah , some people are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If , but I say if if people are getting R_S_I_ from it then uh then uh then then perhaps we're looking at the wrong market +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , {vocalsound} then they're clicking a lot , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} W +Project Manager: n +Marketing: like like this um this uh market research thing says number of times per hour that it's used , channel selection a hundred and sixty eight +User Interface: {vocalsound} Per hour ? +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: times per hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} That's a lot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , I must admit I hadn't um {disfmarker} I'd I'd missed that . That does sound excessive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: But then again , if you think it {disfmarker} of the amount of , you know amount of use it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less than a second , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , and and I I don't I don't even know whether the I don't even know whether the s the signal lasts as long as you actually keep the button pressed , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: or whether it's just a +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: sorta tenth of a second , no matter how long you press it for , I don't know I don't actually know . Um . +User Interface: Though I think with digital T_V_ , like I know on my cable box , you're not supposed to do that because the channel can't keep up with it if you just press it like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so you're supposed to use the menu and go through the different +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: channels that way instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , so I've got a message to say five minutes , I dunno how long ago that appeared . Um 'cause we're we're getting +User Interface: Uh-oh . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} right , so I'd {disfmarker} I need to sum up very quickly here um . {vocalsound} We're looking at extreme simplicity . We're looking at a radically different shape . Possibly no buttons at all um , but if you can incorporate um channel change and volume buttons um in into the design , then then that's fine . Um in the {disfmarker} I mean the the role of the of the um the user interface des designer becomes b you know more important here , because , you know , shape is no longer an a uh um a serious constraint . But we clearly only need th the main buttons , although , uh if {disfmarker} clearly only need the main functions . Um I don't see why we shouldn't go for voice recognition um and the the only buttons that I think we need are channel control , volume control and on off . Um it needs to incorporate the corporate logo , uh the the grey and yellow colour scheme and {vocalsound} there's no reason why we can't introduce um interchangeable uh covers . {vocalsound} Um uh d so does that accurately summarise what we've discussed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . We are doing just the television . +User Interface: Oh I just have one question . So are we doing just the television or are we doing {disfmarker} so not D_V_D_ players , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: we okay , okay . +Project Manager: I think that's quite clear from the the information that we've been given , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: no ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , like in the email of television only . In fact they're {gap} in the constraints email that I got . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Didn't you mention the teletext , just television only ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah well th that's one I s that's one I sent you , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which which was my interpretation of uh of the uh {disfmarker} what came down from from head office . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's {vocalsound} that that that that's their uh their view . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh we can all give some thought to that uh for for the next meeting , thank you very much indeed . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","The meeting involved discussions about designing a new remote control, focusing on problems with existing ones such as boring shapes and colors. The team aimed for a device that controls multiple items, is easy to switch, doesn't require pointing, has an interesting contour with concave keys, interchangeable fascias, and illumination for darkness. Management imposed new requirements – the remote should only work for televisions, not teletext or other devices, and incorporate the company logo and colors. Speech recognition and a user-friendly interface were considered, with suggestions for a longer-lasting energy source, wide-range sender-receiver, and a locator for when it's lost. A radical design with potentially no buttons and voice activation was discussed, emphasizing simplicity and rapid market entry. The meeting concluded with the decision to develop a simple, distinctive remote with minimal buttons, possibly relying on voice recognition, displaying the corporate logo and colors, and allowing interchangeable covers." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the third meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, April20, the committee is meeting for the purposes of considering ministerial announcements, allowing members to present petitions, and questioning ministers of the crown, including the Prime Minister, in respect of the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand there's an agreement to observe a moment of silence in memory of the six members of the Canadian Armed Forces who lost their lives last Wednesday in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece. We'll return to order. Colleagues, we meet today to continue our discussion about how our country is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. As we do, Canadians, like everyone around the world, are doing their best to live their lives until things improve. Meanwhile, as we look towards the future, I believe that it is also important to remember our past and to continue to mark the important moments in our shared history. At this very moment, the Dominion Carillonneur, Dr. Andrea McCrady, is performing a special recital to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by the Canadian Forces. In May 1945, Canadian Forces played a major role in liberating the Dutch people from Nazi occupation. May 5 is now a national holiday in the Netherlands that commemorates the event and the great friendship that now exists between our two countries. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Please be aware that the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. Let me remind you that, as in the House or in committee, members may not take photographs of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure orderly meetings, I will outline a few rules. Interpretation of this video conference will be done as it is at normal committee meetings and in the House. At the bottom of your screen, you can choose floor, English or French. As you have seen, I change as I am speaking. I have now switched over to English in order to speak English. If you look at the bottom, you have a little flag that indicates whether it's English or French, and that's how we will be speaking. It makes it easier. That was where we had a little bit of a glitch in the last session. I understand that there are no statements by ministers. We can now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that petitions presented during a meeting of the special committee must already have been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure that the petition is considered to have been properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for petitions certified in a previous Parliament should be emailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. on the day before the committee. I thank all the members for their usual co-operation. Thank you all. Now we'll proceed to presenting petitions. Our first petition comes from the honourable member for Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions today. The first petition is with respect to government Bill C-7. Petitioners raised concerns that this bill removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime. It includes removing the mandatory 10-day reflection period and the number of required witnesses who will witness a person's consent. The petitioners urge the House of Commons to immediately discontinue the removal of safeguards for people requesting euthanasia, and to put in place additional measures to protect vulnerable people. This would require that bill to be amended or not passed. The second petition is with respect to Senate public bill S-204. This is on organ harvesting and trafficking. Petitioners call on members of the House, and hopefully the Senate as well, to support Bill S-204, which would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It would also create provisions under which a person could be made inadmissible to Canada if they had been involved in organ harvesting or trafficking. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Thank you. I want to remind all the members that there are specific headsets that have been mandated to all of us. If you don't have one, please talk to your IT ambassador and they will get one to you as quickly as possible. The reason for them is not so much for what you hear, but that our interpreters are working and there are work conditions that really make it difficult. Part of that is not having the appropriate boom on your headset, which will make it very difficult for them to hear and interpret for our members. Now we go to the member for BeachesEast York, Mr. Erskine-Smith. +Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (BeachesEast York, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I had to learn how to tie my tie all over again. It's been so long. I want to thank Jenna Robar, who's led this petition e-2453. The petitioners have noted that there are approximately 60 indigenous languages in Canada and that 2019, last year, was declared by the UN to be the year of indigenous languages. They draw attention to article 13 of the UNDRIP and to the TRC's calls to action numbers 13 to 16. Fundamentally, they call upon the Government of Canada to recognize indigenous languages as being official languages of Canada and to have each language recognized nationally, with implementations on regional and provincial levels, acknowledging that many regions have different languages. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am proud to present a petition on behalf of one of my constituents, Myles Lynch of St. Andrews West in my riding. Myles made history as the first Canadian ever to survive three double-lung transplants. Myles lives with cystic fibrosis and has had three lung transplants in the last five years, and he's only 22 years old. Myles created a documentary called 8 Thousand Myles, which had a few showings in my riding. It documented his journey across Canada. One thing Myles has been advocating for is the creation of a national opt-out program for organ donation. Myles asked me how he could help raise awareness of that issue. I mentioned to him e-petitions online and getting people across the country to sign them. I am proud to have this certified today, with 1,318 signatures, asking the Standing Committee on Health to launch a study into the feasibility of the creation of a national opt-out program. I give kudos to Myles not only for his strength personally but also for his advocacy for others and for saving lives in our country by advocating for a better and an improved organ donation system. Kudos to Myles. I'm proud to present this petition today. +Mr. Peter Julian (New WestminsterBurnaby, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'm very pleased to present this certified petition on behalf of several dozen residents of Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton, Ontario, who add their voices to those of the thousands upon thousands of Canadians who have signed similar petitions. Given that Canadians are living through unprecedented, catastrophic climate events, and at the same time our society, as you know, is suffering from worsening social and economic inequalitieshalf of Canadian families are only $200 away from insolvency in any given monthand particularly given the pandemic that we are currently experiencing, these petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to support motion M-1, a made-in-Canada green new deal that I am presenting in front of the House of Commons. It calls on Canada to take bold and rapid action to tackle the climate emergency, and to put in place a shift to a clean and renewable energy economy. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to table a petition on behalf of constituents from CourtenayAlberni. They are concerned, obviously, about fentanyl-related deaths. Over 12,000 Canadians have died over the last four years due to fentanyl-poisoned sources. They cite that the current war on drugs has been costly and grossly ineffective; that it has resulted in widespread stigma towards addiction and against those who use illicit drugs; and that criminalization of particular substances has resulted in the establishment of a drug trade that now trafficks dangerous and lethal products such as fentanyl. They are citing that regulating to ensure safe sources, with proper measures and bylaws, will reduce the criminal element associated with street drugs. Problematic substance use is a health issue and is not resolved through criminalization of personal possession and consumption. They are calling on the Government of Canada to declare the current opioid overdose and fenanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act. They are calling for the government to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession, as has been done in Portugal and other countries, and to create with urgency and immediacy a system to provide safe and unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source. +Mr. Brad Vis (MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon, CPC): Mr. Chair, I'm presenting a petition today that contains the concerns of Canadians in my riding with the government's approach to firearms legislation and regulation. The petition highlights that the Liberal government's December 5, 2019, Speech from the Throne contains numerous inaccuracies about current firearms legislation and regulation; that the term military-style assault rifles is a political phrase undefined in Canadian law; that municipalities are constitutionally unable to enact criminal law to ban handguns in their jurisdictions; that the experts, including chiefs of police, agree that banning firearms and requiring law-abiding gun owners to follow more unnecessary red tape will not increase public safety; that the majority of guns used in violent crimes are smuggled into Canada from the United States; and that the Liberal government continues to target law-abiding firearms owners instead of the gangs, drug traffickers and illegal gun traffickers responsible for violence in our communities. The petitioners in MissionMatsquiFraser Canyon are calling on the government to stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners; to cancel all plans to confiscate firearms legally owned by federally licensed, RCMP-vetted Canadians; and to focus our limited resources on anti-gang enforcement, on reducing the involvement of at-risk youth and gangs, on mental health and on providing the Canada Border Services Agency with the tools they need to do their job effectively. +The Chair: Very good. That's all for petitions today. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind honourable members that no member shall be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the question should do so by simply turning on their mike and speaking. I want to again remind honourable members to use the boom on the official headsets so that everything runs smoothly, not only for ourselves but also for the interpreters. We start the question period with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Although we are right in the middle of a pandemic and the government has agreed to set aside all parliamentary business in order to concentrate solely on eliminating the virus in Canada and its impacts, the Prime Minister is deceiving Canadians by introducing measures to punish law-abiding firearm owners. Why? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr.Chair, I feel that all Canadians were affected by the massacre in Nova Scotia. Once again, too many families are facing tragedy and tremendous grief. During the last election campaign, we promised to ban military-style assault weapons, and that is exactly what we have done. We will be working with members from all parties in order to continue strengthening gun control. It is a shame that, once more, the Conservatives do not want to strengthen gun control in the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I understand the Prime Minister's reply. However, I would like to know whether he considers that, with this order in council, organized crime, street gangs and other criminals are simply going to turn in their weapons. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: This is indeed only a first step, but it is an important one. We are doing other things to eliminate or restrict handguns in our municipalities, to strengthen the control at our borders, and to implement other measures. I am pleased to hear the hon. member speak of those measures, because we are going to work together in the House to strengthen gun control. I hope that the Conservative Party will be part of that discussion in a positive way, in order to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, I can simply say to the Prime Minister that the Conservative Party has always been committed to battling criminals, not law-abiding citizens. Speaking of criminals, we know that, even before the pandemic, the Prime Minister had asked the Parole Board of Canada to release prisoners more easily and more quickly. Now we are learning that, because of the pandemic, some releases are happening very quickly. The Minister of Public Safety told us that the people were approaching the end of their sentences or were older, but we are learning in the media that some dangerous criminals are being released. Can the Prime Minister give us an explanation? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The protection, the safety and the health of all Canadians are important for the government. This is why we have taken additional measures in our correctional services to ensure that guards and inmates are protected. We have indeed opened the doors to some more speedy releases, but only in very specific cases that present little or no danger for Canadians. We have managed to find the right balance. We must protect Canadians and we must also ensure that they are safe. Those two things go hand-in-hand. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So is the Prime Minister confirming to us that no dangerous criminals have been precipitously released so that they do not have to experience COVID-19 within the walls? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There are very strict rules and principles to ensure that people posing a threat to society are not released. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have one minute left. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Chinese government has not been transparent with the rest of the world about the coronavirus. Australia asked for an in-depth investigation, but has received threats from the communist regime. Is Canada going to stand by its allies in the Five Eyes and demand that the Chinese government be completely transparent? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We continue to stand in solidarity with our allies, including the Five Eyes, as they have stood in solidarity with Canada in terms of the two Canadians who have been unjustly detained for a long time in China. In the coming months and years, we expect to obtain answers to all our questions about the origin of this pandemic, including questions that are important for China. At the same time, we are going to work hard to ensure that all Canadians have the equipment and the protection they need to get through this pandemic. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am sorry that I do not have my official headset. I was elsewhere, and I did not bring it with me. I hope that you can still hear me properly. For some days, discussions have been going on between people from the Bloc Qubcois and people from the government with a view to collaboratively coming up with a proposal for seniors in Quebec and Canada. The gist of our proposal is to temporarily increase the old age security by about $25per week, or $110per month. By the way, I hate the term ""old age security. I prefer ""senior security. The discussion has been going on for some time and it's a proposal that we made in the election campaign. We are asking for it to be done at this point, at least temporarily. Parliament stopped sitting in the middle of March. We are now in May, and seniors still have nothing. They are impatient themselves, and we spend a good part of our days answering them. Given that impatience, I realized I should not be the one answering them, it should be the Prime Minister. So here is my question for the Prime Minister: what are you doing to seek a solution that will increase the purchasing power of seniors in Quebec and Canada in the very short term? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Clearly, seniors need support and significant services from us because of COVID-19. Our priority was to implement income replacement benefits for workers who have lost their jobs because of COVID-19. Then we announced different measures, including measures for seniors. The most vulnerable seniors are going to receive reimbursement of the GST, which will help them very quickly. We have also reduced by 25% the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds. We have also channelled $9million through the United Way, to help the most vulnerable seniors. Absolutely, I recognize that more must be done. I am very pleased that we have been able to work with other parliamentarians, including those in the Bloc Qubcois, to hear these concerns and to find the best way to help seniors in the short term. In terms of the pandemic, they have concerns about their physical security, but also about their financial security. We will have more to say about this soon. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the last few hours, the Prime Minister has indicated that he could need the cooperation of other parties, including the Bloc Qubcois, on a completely different matter. We are very open to that discussion, but we want the same openness when we are asking for something to serve the people of Quebec. The cost of a basket of groceries has increased for seniors, as it has for everyone else. It's true for all seniors over 65years old, of course. The current old age pension represents less than half of the Canada emergency student benefit. It represents less than one third of the basic Canada emergency response benefit. Seniors in my constituency, as in any other of the 338constituencies, are asking what we are doing. They are asking how there can be nothing for them. When will there be something for them? I want to be able to give them an answer of some kind. What is the Prime Minister's answer? I will repeat it to them. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: There will be announcements in the coming days on the way in which we will be able to help seniors, particularly the most vulnerable seniors. We recognize that the cost of a basket of groceries is increasing for everyone. That is why we have to do better for our seniors. There are horror stories, whether about the CHSLDs, or about our most vulnerable seniors across the country. Far too many families are experiencing tremendous grief. There are seniors who are alone, seniors who are afraid of falling ill without ever seeing their grandchildren or their children again. We have to be there for those who belong to that great generation that fought for us during the second world war. Now we have to fight for them in their homes. That is exactly what we are going to do. +The Chair: We'll go to the next question. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, every day I hear from people who are struggling to pay their bills and to keep a roof over their head. Instead of making sure that Canadians get the help they need, the government has created complicated programs that are still letting people fall through the cracks. If the Prime Minister won't commit to a universal benefit, will he at least commit to removing the restrictive eligibility criteria that are leaving the most vulnerable people behind? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we knew, when this pandemic hit, that we needed to help Canadians who were suffering from coast to coast to coast, particularly the most vulnerable. That is why we moved forward rapidly with the Canada emergency response benefit, which has helped over seven million individual Canadians and has made a huge difference. We had to move very quickly to get this money out to people, and that is exactly what we did. We also recognized that there would be a need to do more. That is why since that moment, we have continually worked on reaching out to the most vulnerable and supporting them as well. We have more to do, but we knew that targeted approaches were what was most needed. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government continues to leave people behind. I spoke to a woman in my riding who was homeless last year. She recently found a job and a place to live. However, because she didn't make $5,000 last year, when the pandemic hit she didn't qualify for any benefits. She didn't qualify, but she is one of the people who need it the most. I'm wondering why the Prime Minister doesn't think she deserves our support. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our focus throughout this crisis has been on helping the most vulnerable with targeted measures that will lift Canadians out of poverty and will support them. Over the past five years, we've lifted over a million people out of poverty in this country, and we've continued to put the most vulnerable at the heart of everything we're doing. We will continue to. We've put significant investments forward to charitable organizations and foundations that are helping the most vulnerable. At the same time, we will continue to look for more ways to help even more than the seven million Canadians who successfully receive the CERB. We recognize there's more to do, and we will continue trying to do everything we can in this unprecedented situation. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the government is weirdly committed to eligibility criteria that result in regular people not getting the support they need, but not so committed to criteria for corporations and billionaires who get our help. If a company is cheating the public, using offshore tax havens not to pay its fair share, it should not be eligible for government bailouts or benefits. Other countries, like Poland, Denmark and France, have made this commitment, and if they can do it, so can we. The Prime Minister said one thing one day and another the next. Will he commit now that if a company has money in offshore tax havens, it will not receive public funds? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the measures we've put forward are focused on helping workers who lose their jobs, regardless of the companies they work for. It is a shame to hear the NDP, which used to be the party of workers, choosing to judge workers by which multinational they work for. We have moved forward with a wage subsidy such that the employers are obliged to pass every single penny on to the workers. That is not help for the companies. That is help for the workers, and that has been our focus all the way through: ordinary Canadians who need support because they are unable to work because of COVID-19. That has been our priority, and that is what Canadians need right now. Of course, we continue to have very strong measures to fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion. We spent a billion dollars to strengthen our Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, can I ask my last question? Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We will continue to do that. +The Chair: I'm just going to pause the time for a moment. I want to remind honourable members that we're trying to stay within committee rules, which state that the length of a question and the length of an answer should be approximately the same amount of time. I just want to remind our members of that. I'll go back to Ms. Collins. She has about 45 seconds left, and hopefully that's about half and half for the question and the answer. Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Thanks so much, Mr. Chair. My last question is about housing and homelessness. My community was facing a crisis long before the pandemic hit, and now people who are living on the streets or in parks don't have the luxury of following public health advice and just staying home. In Victoria, the province and the municipality have stepped up with solutions to house people, at least for the short term, in local hotels. Will the federal government respond to this immediate crisis and provide the needed investments in long-term, stable housing? +The Chair: The right honourable Prime Minister, in 25 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Chair, we have moved forward with a historic national housing strategy that puts $40 billion toward housing. Working with partners, we have reduced poverty by over a million people in this country, but there is more to do. We are reducing homelessness by half with historic investments. We recognize that during this pandemic there's even more to do for vulnerable Canadians, and we are partnering with orders of government to make sure that happens. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): A point of order, Mr.Chair. +The Chair: Order. Mr.Godin has a point of order. +Mr. Jol Godin: Mr.Chair, I cannot hear the French interpretation. Could we please check so that I can hear in French what the Prime Minister is saying? +The Chair: Okay. Can we check that? +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I can try speaking English. I believe I was on the English tab, as is important. Are you hearing the translation now? +The Chair: That is exactly what the issue was. I just want to point that out to all the members. I'm speaking English right now and I'm on the English toggle at the bottom of the screen. It does create a bit of a disjoint when we're speaking, but it's the way to get around that so we have interpretation that works for everyone. The next question will go to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, as this is our first opportunity to meet in any forum, I want to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the families of the brave men and women who lost their lives in the helicopter crash. I know that I speak for all parliamentarians when I extend our sympathy to their families and loved ones. Mr. Chair, I want to raise with the Prime Minister an issue that I've raised several times before, and that is a gap in the wage subsidy program. There is a company in my riding that employs thousands of people across the country. Last year, they acquired another company. Those companies separately would qualify for the wage subsidy, but because of rules that the government designed, together they do not. Even though collectively they have experienced a massive drop in revenue and would otherwise be eligible, so far they've been unable to get confirmation that they will be able to access the program. As a result, thousands of jobs are threatened. Will the Prime Minister be able to deliver some good news to people who work for Brandt Tractor all across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the honourable member for his question and for his advocacy for his community and businesses in his riding. As I told him when we spoke directly, Finance officials have been directly in contact with the company in his riding. We recognize that there are particular elements in regard to this company that are challenging around application for the wage subsidy, but I know that Finance officials are working very hard to try to make sure that everyone who needs the subsidy gets it, so that the workers in his community can get the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The Prime Minister knows that there are many companies across the country that fall into this category as well, so we're hoping for some good news. Just flagging the time and date, it is well into May now and important decisions have to be made in very short order. There are other aspects of the government's plans to help get people through this crisis that are also causing people to fall through the cracks. The plan to help businesses with rent applies only after a business has lost 70% of their revenue. As provinces start to open up, many companies are going to be faced with a very difficult decision of operating at perhaps 35% or 45% of regular revenues. They will not be able to access these programs and, in many cases, there is going to be a disincentive to reopen and put people back to work. Will the Prime Minister amend these programs to provide for more flexibility so that more and more Canadians can start to return to work in the weeks ahead? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we are in an unprecedented crisis and we had to move quickly to support workers and to support families across the country, and that's exactly what we did. We're going to continue to work to try to respond to the reality that people and businesses are facing right across the country. I am eager to be faced with the challenge of how to ease off in these measures so that people can get back to work. We are getting closer to that point, but we are not there yet. We are still focused very much on giving the supports to workers and families that are so necessary in this time of crisis. As different provinces move forward towards reopening, as we look at different paths forward, I know that I will be able to count on all members in the House and, indeed, on Canadians from coast to coast to coast to figure out together what the best way will be to move forward on keeping us safe and restoring economic activity in the right way. That will be good to work on together once we get there. +The Chair: We have about a minute left for maybe a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, no one is disputing the need to move quickly. We are now in May, though, and these programs have been announced for weeks. Canadians have been accessing them. The problems with them have been flagged for the government for weeks as well, but we're also going to see an additional challenge, where people who are receiving the emergency response benefit, who may have the option to go back to work and work some hours, are faced with a hard cap of $1,000 a month before they lose the CERB. Conservatives are proposing a progressive system, a more flexible system, where people will be able to earn more without losing their benefits as businesses ramp up but before normal working hours are restored. Again, will the Prime Minister build in some flexibility to lift the restrictive ceiling on what people can earn before losing benefits so that it always pays more to work? +The Chair: I believe the timer is telling all of us that the time is up, but I'll give the right honourable Prime Minister about 30 seconds to answer that, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our priority was getting support for Canadians right across the country with the CERB, with the wage subsidy and with other measures for students, for seniors, for farmers and for agricultural producers. That has been our priority, and that's what we have worked on. I hear the concerns that the Conservative Party has around disincentives. We are going to work with communities and with industry as we look to reopen, to make sure that people have opportunities to work and are not penalized for it. However, our overarching priority was allowing Canadians to be confident in their ability to stay home, care for their loved ones, buy groceries and pay their rent so that we could keep safe during this pandemic. That's exactly what we did. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu now. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Mr. Chair, seniors in my riding are struggling. We've heard the Prime Minister admit that fixed incomes for some of them are down, rent is increasing and the price of groceries is increasing. He's been saying for weeks that in the coming days, something would be announced for seniors. The fact is that the Liberals ran on an election promise to increase the old age security. Which of the days in the coming weeks will they keep their promise to seniors? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, after a lifetime of hard work, of course Canadians deserve peace of mind when it comes to their retirement security. COVID-19 is definitely having a disproportionate impact on seniors. They have a greater need for services and supports. Happily, their pensions and their benefits are still flowing, unlike for so many of those who have lost their jobs, but it's still tough. We introduced measures Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Which day? Hon. Deb Schulte: at the beginning of April. People received a GST credit, a supplementary payment that was $400 on average for single seniors and $600 for couples. That was of significant help to low- and moderate-income seniors. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Yes, Mr. Chair. I think you had reminded us as members that the amount of time for the answer should be similar to the amount of time for the question. I would just ask the minister to keep to that. I would like to go to my second question. +The Chair: I want to remind all honourable members to keep their answers as well as their questions as concise as possible. Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Very good, Mr. Chair. My riding is on the border of Canada and the U.S. We see a number of inconsistencies in what is considered essential travel with regard to the U.S. and actually in the interpretation of different CBSA agents. While we have Americans coming over to buy cheaper prescription medications and to fish, individuals in my riding who are trying to get auditors over so that they can be approved for export businesses are being declined. We have people who have purchased masts from Canadian producers for their boats, and who want to come and pick them up, who are not being allowed to do that. People trying to sell plasma into the U.S. are being denied. When will they clarify the rules to the CBSA agents so that essential travel and trade and commerce, including individual commerce, is understood? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, we have implemented very rigorous rules that have been well documented and understood by CBSA to stop all non-essential travel. Those measures have been very successful. We've seen a 99% reduction in international travel coming into Canada. At the same time, we recognize the importance of maintaining essential supply routes so that goods and services could reach Canada and we could put groceries on our shelves. We also recognize the important work that essential workers do on both sides of the border. We have provided CBSA with clarification. Their interpretation of those rules has been broadly consistent. I've heard from a number of our colleagues in caucus with concerns about individual cases. When we receive those inquiries, we follow up immediately. I want to assure the member that we'll continue to do that. The work we are doing to stop non-essential travel has been important for the health and safety of Canadians, and we will continue with that work. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, my next question has to do with sole proprietor businesses. We see that many of them are not eligible for any of the benefit packages that have been rolled outEI, CERB, the wage subsidy, etc. What is the government going to do to address sole proprietors who are currently falling through the cracks? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, first, let me say that we absolutely recognize there are businesses across the country of all sizes that are finding this to be extremely difficult. The intent of the measures we put forward is obviously not only to give individuals a bridge but to give businesses a bridge. We are looking at ways that we can ensure that the Canada emergency business account has the broadest possible application. More than 500,000 businesses have already been approved for these loans, representing over $20 billion. We are looking at ways we can consider that eligibility process, recognizing that we need to make sure that the program continues to have its desired impact, and we will have more to say on that. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, this is my first appearance, so I hope you can hear me okay. +The Chair: We can hear you fine. Please proceed. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to see everyone's faces. On April 3, the fisheries minister said opening dates would be determined by harvesters. Since then the minister has overruled the will of harvesters in Prince Edward Island and in the gulf who voted to start their seasons on time, but she has allowed harvesters from her own riding to proceed with their seasons as scheduled, giving them access to markets weeks before their competitors. This double standard is severely unfair and Atlantic harvesters are furious, as demonstrated during the protests on the Canso Causeway yesterday. When will the minister stop abusing her position and start respecting fish harvesters by opening up lobster fishing areas 23, 24 and 26? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Mr. Chair, when making decisions with regard to when seasons open, a number of factors are taken into account. They are complex decisions that take into account what is necessary for processors to be ready for the season, what is necessary for harvesters to be ready for the season, as well socio-economic impacts on the area. We're looking at all of those measures when we make these decisions. We do not make them lightly. They are difficult decisions to make. In the decisions we've made around the gulf, one of the main things we heard from all of those areas is that it was very important for them to start on the same date. That is why the decision was made to start on the 15th of May. We're looking forward to seeing the harvesters out on the water. We're looking forward to the product that they bring in. We'll continue do everything we can to support the industry. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Minister. I believe the time +The Chair: Excuse me. No, the hon. minister had another 15 seconds coming to her. I'd like to remind hon. members not to interrupt a person while they are speaking. I'll do my best to try to keep it about level. Maybe I'll start muting if it's necessary, but interrupting is not going to solve anything. Mr. Arnold, I'll let you continue. You have three minutes and nine seconds left. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. West coast fishing tourism is a key economic driver in British Columbia, especially in coastal communities, and yet the public fishery gets no respect from the government. Last year, the public fishery was weakened by restrictions based on ideology and not science. A year later, the fisheries minister refuses even to discuss viable, science-based solutions to conserve B.C.'s public fisheries. Does the minister and her government have a will and a plan to support Canada's west coast fisheries and the communities they sustain? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, the fishery is important in every coastal community. I recognize its value for our economy, as well as what it means to our coastal communities. That's why we continue to work with those communities and with the fisheries to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to support them. During these extremely difficult times, we're working on measures with the fishery in B.C., as well as on the Atlantic coast and eastern Quebec, to make sure that we're delivering for them and that all of the issues they're having are being addressed. +The Chair: Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, Canada's seniors, especially those on basic incomes, are being hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis as they face new rising costs and scarcity of services. Seniors require adequate caregiver supports, physical safety and freedom to access their savings to reinforce their financial security. Why has the government failed to recognize the increasing challenges that seniors are facing? Will the government support Canada's senior citizens? +The Chair: The hon. minister in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to assure my hon. colleague that the government has been focused on seniors during this challenging time. We have provided a GST credit supplement of $400 for single seniors and $600 for couples, for low- and modest-income seniors. We have also ensured that the Canada emergency response benefit is there for seniors who have lost income due to COVID-19. We've made them eligible. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Arnold. Mr. Arnold, you have a minutehopefully a 30-second question and a 30-second answer. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On April 23, my colleagues and I called on the government to create a program that would match students seeking employment with employers in Canada's essential food supply chains. What has the government done to match students and other Canadians seeking employment with employers in the agriculture and agri-food sectors, including those in the fish and seafood sector? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we're doing all we can to make sure, using our existing employment programs, that we create opportunities for students to work and get work experience this summer. We know that this is going to be really tough, especially in areas like agriculture, so we have dedicated streams for agriculture sector employers to access students with help from the government, and a number of different initiatives including Canada summer jobs, which I'm really excited to see the results of in the coming days. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to the next question from Ms. Harder. Ms. Rempel, do you have a point of order? +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. With my colleague, Mr. Arnold, it's the second time that I note you've threatened to cut off a Conservative microphone. I'm just wondering, given that this isn't the House of Commons and it's structured as a committee, what standing order would give you the right to cut off a member of Parliament using a mute button. It seems a little dictatorial, and I was just wondering whether you could clarify that, based on the Standing Orders. +The Chair: I don't think I threatened to use mute, but thank you for bringing that up. I am trying to keep the rules where the questions and the answers are equal, so that there are no interruptions on either side. That's how we're going to continue. I didn't use the mute. I did it verbally and I think that's a little more civil way of doing it. I hope you approve. I'm not asking you to comment on that. We'll go over to Ms. Harder. Thank you. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: But, on the point of order, Mr. Chair, you actually, to me, last week, and to Mr. Arnold, did suggest that you were going to use the mute button. +The Chair: I believe that if we take everything out and go over it.... Bring the papers with the actual verbiage on it where I threatened, and we'll go over it, but I don't think this is the venue to do that. If you want to bring forward a point of order, I'm all in favour of it. +Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: Well, I am bringing forward a point of order. I've asked you to clarify +The Chair: Very good. We'll look into it and get back to you. Thank you. We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Canadians have outrightly expressed outrage and disappointment with the government's initiative to put a gun ban in place. Does the minister stand by his comment that these changes would have prevented the tragedy in Nova Scotia? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 15 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: We have heard from health professionals, women's rights organizations, victims groups and the police and our unions. They're all very supportive of the government's measure to ban weapons that have no place in a civil society and were designed to kill people. +Ms. Rachael Harder: It's interesting that the minister is misleading Canadians in that comment because the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has actually said that a gun ban will do nothing of the sort, that it actually will not protect Canadians. So I'd be curious. How many criminals will see guns seized because of the changes that have been implemented by the Liberal government? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, let's actually quote what the police have said. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police said that they support a prohibition on all military-designed assault rifles. The chief in Toronto said that taking those assault rifles off the streets contributes to public safety, and the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs has declared that military assault rifles are produced for the sole purpose of killing people in large numbers and they urged successive governments to enact legislation to ban all military assault rifles. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The answer to that question is zero. Absolutely no criminals will see their guns seized based on the Liberals' legislation that's coming forward because it actually goes after those who legally own and use their firearms. Can the Prime Minister please tell us why he decided to go after law-abiding citizens instead of actually going after criminals who have gotten their firearms in an illegal manner and then used them to commit crimes? +The Chair: The honourable minister in 25 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, to be very clear, the order in council actually is targeted at weapons, weapons that were designed for military use, and in their design and in their intent, to kill people, they've actually been used in this country, at cole Polytechnique; in Moncton; at a Quebec City mosque; in Fredericton; at Mayerthorpe and most recently in Nova Scotia. These are weapons that really have no place.... They are being used and have been used in Canada and around the world to commit mass murder, and in the interest of public safety and at the urging +The Chair: We'll go on to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Thank you. Now I understand the Prime Minister has his food prepared for him at 24 Sussex Drive and then it's delivered to him at the cottage where he lives. Contrary to his privileged understanding, food actually originates with farmers. Now, they're in a crisis right now, which means that regular Canadians are actually at risk of not having food available for them at the grocery stores where they purchase theirs. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture requested $2.6 billion to help them out. Today, the government announced one-tenth of this amount. Why doesn't the Prime Minister care about the women and the men who work incredibly hard to keep Canada fed? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, let me assure the hon. member that our government cares very, very much about the women and men who work so hard to feed our country. Let me just say I am grateful to all the farmers, like my dad, who are out in their fields right now getting ready for seeding. We, as Canadians, are lucky to be citizens of an agricultural superpower, and our government believes in supporting our farmers and ranchers. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm confused as to why the Prime Minister didn't take my question, and at a bare minimum as to why the agriculture minister doesn't feel it's important enough for her to be a part of this discussion today. When we have farmers who produce for Canadians on a daily basis and they're asking some serious and some very important questions, and we don't even have a minister who's willing to come to the table and engage in this conversation, that's shameful. Several meat-packing plants have been forced to shut down because of COVID-19 and, as a result, farmers are forced to hold stock longer than expected. Cattle producers in my region are spending more than $60,000 a day to keep their livestock fed while they wait for processing plants to reopen. The amount that was announced today by the federal government is a drop in the bucket. It's a crumb. When will the government take this seriously and at least implement a set-aside program for those who are beef producers in Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just say that I feel there is nothing shameful at all in having me, the Deputy Prime Minister, answer questions about agriculture. I am actually very proud to speak up for Canada's amazing farmers, for our country's amazing ranchers, for our amazing pork producers and our poultry producers. I feel so close to our farmers. I love them and our government supports them. Today, we announced $252 million of support for our producers. They need it. They deserve it. We're here for them. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too would like to express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the six military heroes who lost their lives at sea last week. I'm sure that all members of the House stand shoulder to shoulder with the families, with the crew of the HMCS Fredericton and, indeed, with the entire Canadian Armed Forces community during this time of grief. Can the Minister of National Defence give us an update as to the Cyclone helicopter crash off the coast of Greece last week? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, the deaths of the Canadian Armed Forces members are felt by all, and especially the families. Our condolences go out to them. Our number one priority is to make sure that we look after them, and that's exactly what we are doing. Currently, the investigation is ongoing. Our investigative team is currently on the ground. I actually spoke with the Italian minister of defence and he promised full support for this investigation and any support that's required. +The Chair: I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off there, if we're going by the rules that were pointed out by the House. Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you to Minister Sajjan again, I'm going to change gears a bit. I know that back in early January, military intelligence through CF Intelligence Command was reporting, through the chain of command, the novel coronavirus and the outbreak in Wuhan. On what date was he, as Minister of National Defence, given his first intelligence briefing on the outbreak and the pandemic in China? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, we have been following this crisis from day one. We work with our Five Eyes intelligence sources and this has been a whole-of-government effort, right from the beginning. I can assure you that our response to this pandemic has been with all the necessary information. Obviously, I can't discuss the intelligence in this forum, but I can assure you that our response has been well informed with the correct information. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, we know that intelligence was going up the chain of command in National Defence. It was reported in the media that in early January the hierarchy within the Canadian Armed Forces was being made aware of the coronavirus outbreak. I asked you, Minister, when you became aware of it and what you did with that intelligence. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I get regular briefings on intelligence. Yes, I was made aware of this in January. As with all our intelligence, we work together from a whole-of-government perspective with all of our intelligence agencies. One thing I can assure you is that our response has been well informed with all the correct information that is provided to me and other members of cabinet. +Mr. James Bezan: What was that timeline? From the time you were first told, Minister Sajjan, about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, what did you do with that intelligence? When did you give it to the Prime Minister or to Minister Hajdu as the Minister of Health? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me say that our government's response to this global pandemic has of course been informed by the excellent work of Canadian intelligence agencies throughout. We have been working on this from very early on. On January 2, PHAC first spoke with provincial health authorities to alert them to the situation. On January 14, it convened a meeting of all provincial health authorities. In January, the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the incident response group, and in January we increased screening at all major airports. All of these actions were informed by the work of our excellent intelligence community, and of course our work with our Five Eyes, NATO and NORAD allies. +Mr. James Bezan: I want to come back +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. James Bezan: I still have 30 seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Can I go ahead, Mr.Chair? +The Chair: Yes, go ahead. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. In an interview with Grald Fillion, tax expert Andr Lareau, who specializes in tax havens, pointed out that $350billion Canadian is parked in just 12tax havens. Companies are using tax havens for financing, operations and intellectual property activities. Mr.Lareau also notes that the government is aware that all of this Canadian money is stashed in tax havens but is doing nothing about it. He said that it's time for Canada to tackle the problem given that it has a $250-billion deficit, and that if it doesn't act now to change things, it never will. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to outlaw the corporate use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, as soon as we took office, in 2015, our government made cracking down on tax evaders in Canada and abroad a priority. That's precisely why we put nearly a billion dollars towards that effort. I realize that my fellow member is impatient, but he has to understand that this is a very complex issue. Under our leadership, in three years, the Canada Revenue Agency has undertaken twice as many audits related to offshore tax evasion as it did in the 10years the Conservatives were in power. As we speak, the agency is conducting more than 50criminal investigations tied to international tax evasion. I repeat, this is a top priority for our government. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: You're right, I am very impatient, because whenever I bring up the fact that companies are using tax havens legally, the minister misses the point and tells me that she is going after fraudsters. I am talking about the legal use of tax havens by companies. Since Parliament began sitting virtually, it's been mentioned a few times that Denmark and Poland have decided to deal with the issue. Even France's finance minister, Bruno LeMaire, said that companies with subsidiaries in tax havens would not be eligible for public assistance. We hear thePrime Minister and other government officials say all the time that the wage subsidies are going to workers, so I'd like to cite another examplebanks. The government is injecting huge amounts of cash into the financial system and repurchasing troubled assets in massive quantities, and yet, the five major banks in Toronto, alone, are continuing to save billions of dollars every year by artificially redirecting their profits to tax havens. This is unacceptable. This has nothing to do with wages for workers, and everything to do with the repurchase of troubled assets, cash flow and billions of dollars that the government could be going after. Is the government going to seize this opportunity to make the corporate use of tax havens illegal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, our government is taking unprecedented steps through the Canada emergency wage subsidy measure to support businesses and workers affected by COVID-19. This is largely a trust-based program, and we will not tolerate abuse. Anyone who tries to bypass the rules will face serious consequences. Applicants have to designate an individual to attest to the truth of their claim. What's more, any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face a fine of up to 225% of the wage subsidy amount and up to five years in prison. The Canada Revenue Agency also has a myriad of tools at its disposal to detect a fraudulent claim. As I mentioned, cracking down on tax evasion is a priority for our government. +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds to ask your question, and about the same for the answer. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you, Mr.Chair. That's an excellent answer, but it has nothing to do with my question. The Minister of Finance has the power to fix the problem now. Although completely immoral, the use of tax havens by companies is legal under section5907 of the Income Tax Regulations. Through simple regulatory amendments, the finance minister could put an end to this kind of abuse. We are going to have a $250-billion deficit to pay off, and everyone is going to have to chip in, including the rich who are currently taking advantage of the system. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, thanks to a historic billion-dollar investment, our government has given the agency the resources it needs to do the job, and we are starting to see results. I set up an expert advisory committee to provide us with guidance and recommendations. We tightened the rules for the voluntary disclosures program. We signed tax information exchange agreements with a number of countries. We audit four jurisdictions a year. We also work closely with the OECD. +The Chair: We now move on to another member. The next questioner is Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'm sharing my time slot with the member for SurreyNewton. In the wake of COVID-19, so many Canadians have been affected in so many ways. Financial loss and other burdens are having a huge impact on families across our country. I'm proud of how the Government of Canada has been beside Canadians through every step of this pandemic and has supported Canadians when they needed it most. In BonavistaBurinTrinity and across our country, our commercial fishery has seen many challenges and impacts. Last week, my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, announced an investment that will ensure resilience of the food system by allowing Canada's fish and seafood processing sector to safely and efficiently process, store, package and distribute healthy, high-quality products on to the plates of Canadians. The fish harvesters in my riding are fearful of what will happen within this industry and their immediate futures. They are facing a reduction in available markets and market prices. They are asking what our government is putting in place to assist in these extremely challenging times. When can we expect to hear an answer to our harvesters' requests for assistance? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague from BonavistaBurinTrinity for keeping us well aware of what's happening in his riding with harvesters and with processors. We know how important the fish and seafood sector is to our rural communities, our coastal communities. It's the backbone and the lifeblood of our communities and that's why we want to be there to support them. We've already taken steps by making sure that the CERB is now able to be accessed by people who are seasonal workers. As well, we are making sure that people who are running out of fishers EI are also able to qualify for it. We also have made an investment of $62.5 million to support our processors to make sure they are able to be ready for the challenges that they are going to face because of COVID-19. We know there is more to do. We know that the harvesters need support. We are working with our partners across industry to make sure we're hearing what their major concerns are. We know they are going to have some very challenging times this season. We will have more to say about that and what we will be able to do in the coming days. +The Chair: The next questioner is Mr. Dhaliwal. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (SurreyNewton, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all +The Chair: We have a point of order. Mr. Kurek. +Mr. Damien Kurek (Battle RiverCrowfoot, CPC): Sorry, but there seems to be an issue with the audio. I'm unable to hear the honourable member. +The Chair: It is very faint. Mr. Dhaliwal, can you check your audio to make sure everything's working well? +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: It was +The Chair: There we go. It's fine now. I think what happened was the boom had fallen down and it wasn't being picked up. There you go. Very good. +Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal: Mr. Chair, in my riding of SurreyNewton, I'm in close contact with businesses that represent all vantage points in the supply chainfrom manufacturers to retailers, transport companies to warehousing. With provinces and territories moving at different speeds and implementing different protocols for reopening the economy, there is a lot of confusion in my local business community on the timing and logistics of how this will happen. With so many different parts of the supply chain operating in different jurisdictions, and with each business serving unique roles on this spectrum, how can the federal government serve to best coordinate with the provinces and territories so that the supply chain can be implemented smoothly as we embark on our economic recovery? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for his question and for his hard work. One of the most important things the federal government can do when it comes to the reopening of the Canadian economy is to work in close collaboration with the premiers of the provinces and territories. That's why I was so pleased that last week the Prime Minister, together with all the first ministers of the country, was able to issue a statement around the principles that will be guiding our entire country as we move towards a restart. This is so important because, as my colleague has pointed out, all of our business, our economic activity, happens across the country. It happens across provincial and territorial boundaries. I would really also like to take this opportunity to thank the first ministers across the country. They belong to different parties, but everyone has really been able to put partisanship aside. We have been able to work together in fighting coronavirus, and we are going to work together in the future to keep on fighting coronavirus and to reopen Canada. Thank you. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to represent my constituents virtually during this challenging period of physical distancing. I'd like to start by asking about supports for workers. In Alberta, meat-packing plants are directly responsible for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 cases. The government and management ignored the pleas of workers and did not put effective safety protocols in place to deal with COVID-19. Now, two workers are dead, at least six more are in intensive care and COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire through these communities. There are over 1,400 cases. Yesterday, employees were forced back to work even though their concerns had not been addressed. On March 27, regarding the CERB, the Minister of Finance said that if workers don't feel comfortable in their work, if they decide to stay home, they can apply for the benefit, yet the website says differently. Will the minister guarantee that every Canadian receiving CERB, EI or the CESB will not lose their benefits if they refuse to return to work or to accept work that is unsafe due to COVID-19? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me thank the member, first of all, for her really very important question. I think all of us share the concern for Canada's essential workers who are keeping us safe, putting food on our tables and often working in difficult conditions. When it comes to the Cargill plant, this is an issue that our government has been very closely engaged in. My colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has spoken with her provincial counterpart and the head of the plant. The decisions about suspending and reopening are taken by local and provincial health authorities. To the question my colleague asked about workers, it is absolutely the case that no Canadian should feel they need to work in an environment that is unsafe, and it is also very much the case that any Canadian who is feeling unwell should stay at home. This is the way that collectively we take care of ourselves and we take care +The Chair: We will go on to Ms. McPherson for the next question. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I just want to be clear, because I'm not a hundred per cent sure that I got an answer in that response, so I'll try one more time. Knowing that workers have a fundamental right to refuse unsafe work, can the minister confirm one hundred per cent that if workers refuse unsafe work, they will be able to access the CERB, or was the Minister of Finance incorrect when he spoke on March 27? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'm sorry, but I was struggling with my mute button. I apologize. Let me just be very clear. No Canadian worker at any time should feel obliged to go to work in unsafe conditions. +Ms. Heather McPherson: But then could they access the CERB? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: In a time of coronavirus that is even more the case, and the government of course should not penalize workers for doing the right thing and declining to go to work in unsafe conditions. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair to avoid back and forth, just to try to keep some order in the meeting. Ms. McPherson, please continue. +Ms. Heather McPherson: I'm sorry, Chair. I have another question on the protection for workers. At the meat-packing plant, workers are calling for the plant to be shut down. In fact, we know that 85% of workers are afraid for their safety. If the provincial government won't shut down the plant, will the federal government shut down unsafe plants through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, let me be very clear that my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, has been in touch with provincial authorities. She has been in touch with the plant. The duties of the food inspection agency, of course, are to ensure that the food produced at the plant is safe. That is what inspectors are trained to do and what they are focused on. We are working closely with provincial authorities and with health authorities to ensure that +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. McPherson. +Ms. Heather McPherson: Mr. Chair, this will be one of my final questions on the meat-packing plant in Alberta. Can the finance minister please let us know if Cargill, a company that is owned by billionaires, with business in Luxembourg, a known tax haven, has received any federal funding this year for COVID-related support? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: This is a tough time for Canadians, and our government is doing everything it can to support them. More than 7million Canadians have applied for the Canada emergency response benefit, which the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada administer. I want to say how proud I am of the work the agency is doing; staff worked tirelessly to get the program up and running in record time. MinisterQualtrough is responsible for developing the eligibility criteria and processing the claims. +The Chair: We are moving on to the next question. We'll continue now with Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question today is for the Prime Minister. Potato farmers in New Brunswick and across Canada are sitting on massive stores of potatoes that were destined for the restaurant industry, but due to the pandemic, they now have no customers. It's estimated that there is $300 million worth of potatoes still sitting in storage. What is the Prime Minister's plan for the helping farmers offload these potatoes so that they are ready for the 2020 season? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I think all of us as Canadians are proud of the great potato farmers across the country. We are aware that the coronavirus, by keeping us away from restaurants where we eat french fries, has had a profound effect on the market for potatoes. The program announced today by the Prime Minister and my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, will be very helpful for potato farmers, including with the surplus food program that starts with a $50 million fund, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bragdon now. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, thank you. With an estimated $300 million worth of potatoes in storage, the announced funding from the government today simply doesn't go far enough. In 2018 the New Brunswick potato industry lost over $20 million. It is estimated this year that the financial loss will exceed $40 million. For many producers still recovering from the hit they took in 2018, another major loss is totally unacceptable. How does the Prime Minister plan to mitigate these shortfalls and allow farmers to continue to grow the food we so desperately need? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the honourable member spoke about farmers generally. The program today is $252 million, which comes on top of the broad range of other programs that farmers, of course, have access to. On potato farmers, in particular, I agree with the honourable member that this is a specific area of concern. I think all Canadians would like to see those potatoes not be wasted but be used, and that's why the $50 million for surplus food purchase is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, farmers across all agricultural sectors are hurting during this pandemic. The $16-billion beef industry is expected to take a massive hit due to the closures and reduced production of the meat-packing plants. Does the government truly believe that the announced $125 million that is shared between beef, poultry and pork producers will be enough to support these multi-billion dollar industries so they can put food on the tables of Canadians? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the honourable member that our beef, pork and poultry producers are absolutely essential for our country. I am very pleased as a Canadian that we have security that comes from being a country that produces not only enough food for ourselves, but also enough food to feed the world. That is why the $125 million specifically to support our beef, pork and poultry producers is going to be so helpful. +Mr. Richard Bragdon: Mr. Chair, the government's announcement of $252 million for the agriculture sector falls well short of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's request for immediate government relief for farmers. The president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Mary Robinson, put it today something like this: that if the farmhouse is on fire, the government has offered the equivalent of a bucket of water. This will not go nearly far enough to help those in a desperate situation. Does the government have a plan to offer more than just crumbs to keep the vital agriculture sector operating and providing the food we so desperately need? When will the government finally make those who literally keep our land and grow our food a priority in this time of crisis? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I don't know about the honourable member, but where I come from, $252 million is not just crumbs. I know that Canadian farmers don't feel that $252 million is nothing, either. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two other aspects of the essential support for farmers that we announced today: the $77 million to support food processors, which will not only be important for the processors, but helpful for the farmers who produce products that go to them; and the $250 million that we would like to add to the Canadian Dairy Commission's line of credit to raise it to half a billion dollars, which will be very helpful to our essential dairy farmers. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question. Go ahead, Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Mr. Chair, a couple in my riding has had to shut down their business, and they are on CERB. They were shocked when their 16-year-old son also qualified, and he is receiving $8,000 on the basis of part-time work throughout the school year. Why is the government handing out a windfall to teenagers who are living at home while denying university students and ignoring seniors on fixed incomes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, any individual who has lost work for COVID reasons is eligible for the CERB, regardless of their personal circumstances. If you made $5,000 in the past year and are a resident of Canada, you qualify for the CERB. This is not a matter of differentiating between the personal circumstances of individuals but of acknowledging that many workers in different situations have lost their work or have had their work significantly reduced because of COVID. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Clearly, high school students would not have the same needs as university students and our seniors who are suffering at this time. The government's own findings on banning handguns and assault firearms state, In all cases the data does not conclusively demonstrate that these handgun or assault weapon bans have led to reductions in gun violence. Why is the Prime Minister so bent on penalizing law-abiding firearms owners when he should be focusing on funding our CBSA officers first, giving them the resources they need to seize smuggled firearms at our borders? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I note with some interest that when we brought forward legislation in a budget in the last two years to increase the number of officers at the border, the member opposite voted against it. I'm very pleased to hear that she now supports it. Let us be very clear. The evidence is overwhelming that these weapons are designed to be used, and have been used, to kill innocent people. Countries that adopt sensible gun policiesplaces like New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdomhave all recognized that there's no place for these weapons in a civil society. We promised Canadians that we would act on that concern. There have been far too many people killed with these weapons, and even most recently, to honour and respect the terrible tragedy in Nova Scotia, the time to act is now, and we've acted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Last week the Minister of Agriculture said, Step by step we are giving our farmers...the tools they need to continue their...work. On April 30, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called on the minister to create a $2.6-billion fund to maintain food security in Canada. This morning, the Prime Minister announced $252 million, hit-and-miss, across the agriculture sector. With all due respect, this is a slap in the face to our farmers and the agri-food sector. Instead of being here to speak to this announcement, the minister has chosen to do a press conference. This certainly reveals how seriously the minister takes this virtual sitting and parliamentary accountability. If the deputy minister is going to answer the question in her place, how does she see it is right to be providing $9 billion to students and only crumbs to our agriculture sector? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, first of all, let me say I do not, as has now been suggested by two members opposite, consider it in any way shameful that I should be answering questions about our support for the agricultural sector. Our government strongly supports our farmers. I have to say I personally very strongly support our farmers and have a strong personal connection to them. The $252 million of support is real and meaningful, and it is directed exactly where it is needed. It is directed at food processors, beef and pork producers and the dairy sector. As to the question about students, let me just point out that farm kids are students too, and farm kids will be benefiting from the support for students. I know they, their parents and grandparents are very +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Time is up. +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux, the next question goes to you. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Meat packing plants like Quebec-based Olymel are extremely worried that they won't be able to stay open throughout the pandemic. In the summer, these plants rely on students to do overtime and fill in for full-time employees on vacation. However, the Canada emergency student benefit makes it possible for these much-needed workers to stay home while still collecting the same amount of money. That's why the government must adjust its current summer job program for students in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. When is the government going to make these critical changes? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I can assure you that we are doing our best efforts to not disincentivize work. We know we need to support students with income support, but we also need to create jobs. We are looking at ways we can create additional jobs through Canada summer jobs, through the +The Chair: There is a point of order. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, what the minister is saying is not being interpreted. +The Chair: We'll just check to see how the technology is going. Is everything okay now? +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Yes, it's working. +The Chair: Let's try that again, Minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Last week, as part of the measures announced around supporting our students, we announced the creation of 76,000 additional jobs, including jobs in the agriculture and processing sectors. We know we need to work directly with employers to ensure they have the people they need. This is exactly what we're doing through our youth employment and skills strategy, and that's what we'll continue to do. We won't apologize for supporting students with income support in these difficult times. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I'm not sure the minister understood my question about the Canada emergency student benefit. I am very concerned about the agricultural sector, but the tourist and horticultural sectors are also on my mind. A number of business owners in my riding have reached out to me because the shortage of student workers is forcing them to shut down for the summer. This government has pulled the rug out from under them with the benefit it introduced for students. Minister, what do you have to say to those business owners in the tourist and horticultural sectors whom you are not helping? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, with all due respect, I believe we are helping students. We've heard very clearly from the students that they want to work and want to serve in their communities in this time of crisis. That's why we're creating additional employment opportunities and an income support mechanism that allows them to work. We're going to continue to look at ways we can support them through additional opportunities this summer. We know they want to work and they want to serve. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I hope that we'll see some concrete results. Pork and beef producers are feeling the impact of the country's shutdown triggered by the pandemic. Processing plants are suspending operations and buyers are tearing up their contracts. For the past five years, the government has been saying that the programs to help producers will be improved. Now more than ever, producers need these programs. However, the programs haven't been reviewed yet. When will the government make these changes, including the changes to agristability, and when can producers access them? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: We announced over $77 million in assistance for food processors to help them protect their workers and deal with the costs associated with the coronavirus. To help livestock and pork producers, we established agrirecovery, a national initiative that will provide $125million to help producers adapt to market changes. We're launching +The Chair: Mr.Lehoux has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I understand some of what the minister is saying. The measures announced at noon today received a very cold reception from the entire agriculture and agri-food sector, since the sector had asked for about $2.6billion. I think that it's important to support our agri-food industry and our farms, given the significant need for sovereignty. Many Canadians in the agriculture and agri-food sector have made this clear, as I was saying earlier. Something must be done quickly, before our country becomes completely dependent on its neighbours. Has the government considered making significant changes to the various programs currently in place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our country, Canada, will never depend on its neighbours or any other country for food. Canada is a major beef, pork and grain producer. Canada is an agricultural superpower and we should all take pride in that. I want to mention another significant part of our announcement today, which is the $50million surplus food purchase program. This is very significant. I think that all Canadians must support this initiative. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We'll now move on to the next question. Mr.Calkins, the member for RedDeerLacombe, has the floor. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Madam Chair, how will the government's forced confiscation of law-abiding firearms owners' property prevent criminals from illegally acquiring firearms from the United States? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, in response to that, I would simply remind the member that we have made it very clear that these weapons have no place in civil society, so we have prohibited military-style assault weapons that have been designed to be used to kill people and have been used to kill people. I would also advise the member we will bring forward legislation to deal more effectively at the border. We'll make significant new investments in border services officers and in police. We'll bring forward new authorities, new offences, new penalties to deal with people who smuggle weapons across the border. We're also bringing in new regulations for the storage of weapons to make it more difficult for people to steal these guns. To deal with people who purchase them illegally and sell them illegally, there will be new offences and penalties to make ensure that they face the consequences. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: The government previously has said that decisions like classifying firearms should be left to experts. The recent decision was purely political and it flies in the face of evidence-based policy. A legal opinion that's already been obtained says that the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun with the choke removed is in excess of 20 millimetres. That means every 12-gauge shotgun with a choke in it with that choke removed is now prohibited. That is the same firearm that Olympic trap shooters, Olympic skeet shooters, duck hunters and geese hunters all across our country use on a very regular basis. Why did the government abandon an evidence-based policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to correct the member. First of all, we have prohibited large-bore weapons, such as grenade launchers, but with reference to the 10-gauge shotgun and the 12-gauge shotgun, I would simply remind the member that the bore of a 10-gauge shotgun is 19.69 millimetres in width and the bore of a 12-gauge shotgun is 18.53 millimetres in width, both of them under the size for prohibition and therefore not covered in the new prohibitions that the government introduced on Friday. I'm afraid his expert opinion is wrong. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, the opinion is that of one of the foremost experts we have in Canada when it comes to firearms legislation. If the entirety of the barrel length is considered, then the removal of the choke makes that barrel in excess of 20 millimetres. I would appreciate the minister clarifying that for law-abiding firearms owners. There is no plan for a buyback program in this policy, and law-abiding firearms owners are not able currently to surrender their firearms. Given this, and the fact that law-abiding firearms owners aren't committing any gun violence, what was the government's immediate benefit of making this announcement on May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to clarify. Along with the prohibition that we have put in place, we have also, using the order in council, established an amnesty period, but the amnesty period is non-permissive grandfathering of those weapons. They cannot be used, they can't be taken to the range for shooting, they can't be used for hunting, they can't be sold and they can't be transferred, so we have put in strong measures to ensure that these weapons will not be available for use. We have also put in an amnesty period that will allow us to bring forward the legislation and a budget in order to effect a responsible, safe and effective buyback program to remove these weapons from society. I look forward to the member's support for those measures as we go forward. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Madam Chair, since January 1, 2002, any law-abiding citizen who was issued with a firearms licence by the government would have been cross-referenced with a continuous eligibility check 6,695 times up until May 1 of this year. How many times was this most recent mass murderer here in Canada checked against a criminal database since January 2002? +Hon. Bill Blair: As the member is probably aware, there is a very extensive investigation currently being conducted into that individual and how he acquired his firearms, and it's not appropriate to discuss that. However, I think what is appropriate is to recognize that the weapons that this individual had available to him are weapons that were not designed for target shooting or hunting purposes or any sporting purposes. They were designed for soldiers to kill soldiers. In the hands of someone who is intent on mass murder, they represent an unacceptable and deadly risk to Canadians, and that's why we have prohibited them. I'd also remind the member that other countries that have adopted sensible gun control laws, such as New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, have also implemented very similar bans. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to the hon. member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to start by giving my condolences for the crew from the HMCS Fredericton who died, and in particular to the family of Captain Kevin Hagen. He was originally a constituent from NanaimoLadysmith. Other countries are strongly recommending that all citizens wear masks wherever people gather indoors, including in schools, on public transit and in stores. Taiwan has effectively stopped the spread of the coronavirus by supplying people with masks and installing dispensers of hand sanitizer throughout public spaces. The Taiwanese do not do a lot of testing or contact tracing. They do not have a lockdown. Taiwan started in the top 10 countries affected by COVID-19, and today it is number 119. Will Canada follow Taiwan's example so we can lift the lockdown safely and get Canadians back to work? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for his question. There's no doubt that masks can play a role in a layered approach to protecting Canadians' health and safety, but as the member has mentioned, there are many other aspects to ensuring that Canadians are safe no matter where they go. For example, it is of utmost importance that Canadians practise social distancing. Social distancing can provide the most protection, in fact, when you're out in public or you're in another place where there are other people. Wearing a non-medical mask can add a layer of protection, and certainly Dr. Tam has said that when physical distancing is not an option, Canadians should consider wearing a mask. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you. I'd like to give a shout-out to Martha and her team, who are doing a fundraiser for the SPCA by making masks for citizens in my riding. Madam Chair, many people are falling through the cracks in the pandemic relief plan, including seniors who face an increase in the cost of living and a loss of retirement investment income. Will the government make the CERB a universal benefit to ensure that all Canadians who need help get help? If not, will the government increase old age security and allow seniors to withdraw funds from their RRSP without penalties so that they can pay their bills? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, and I really appreciate the question. We do recognize that OAS and GIS are very important parts of the retirement income of Canadians, particularly lower-income seniors. We've already introduced measures like the GST credit supplement to help seniors. The CERB is there for working seniors who have lost income as a result of COVID-19. We've also reduced the mandatory retirement withdrawals by 25%, and we've also spent half a billion dollars to support organizations that assist vulnerable Canadians, including seniors +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are going back to Mr. Manly. Thank you. +Hon. Deb Schulte: I do recognize that there's more to be done. Thank you. +Mr. Paul Manly: Many small businesses do not meet the eligibility requirements for the various relief programs on offer, particularly sole proprietorships. I have a long list of businesses in my riding that are missing out. At the same time, we have large companies in this country that use tax havens and loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of public services. Will the government ensure that the needs of small businesses are met and withhold relief from corporations that use tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): I want to thank the hon. member for the question. Small businesses are indeed incredibly important to all of our communities across the country. That is why we have implemented many measures to help them weather this difficult period in COVID-19. Whether it is a small business loan, a wage subsidy or commercial rent assistance, or just lowering the cost by deferring GST or HST or customs duties, many measures have been put forward to help our small businesses through this very difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Manly, you may have a very short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Madam Chair. As we navigate this pandemic crisis, we are also in the middle of another major crisis: the climate emergency. Will this government develop its economic recovery plan for the pandemic with the climate emergency at the forefront of its planning? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): The hon. minister has 15 seconds. +Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (Minister of Environment and Climate Change): Thank you for the question. The focus of the government at the present time is on combatting the virus and on steps to start to relax some of the measures that have been taken. As we look forward, we need to learn from the experiences of this crisis as well as look forward to some of the looming crises on the horizon. Climate change is one of those, and we certainly intend to reflect on resilience for the economy as we move forward. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Now we will go to Ms. Ashton. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is to the Minister of Indigenous Services. First nations across northern Manitoba and many others across the country have been doing everything possible to keep COVID-19 out of their communities. Many here have implemented strict lockdowns or travel restrictions, but the federal government has done virtually nothing to deal with the chronic issues that have made them vulnerable in the first place, such as overcrowded housing and the lack of hospitals. We have to be very concerned about a possible second deadly wave of COVID-19. What is your government doing to support communities in the face of that possibility? Why isn't the government supporting the call for a ventilation centre in Berens River, a hospital in Cross Lake, a hospital in the Island Lake region? If the government couldn't act in time for this first wave of the pandemic, can it at least act in time for a potential second wave? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Indeed, Madam Chair, one of the reflections we have in coming out of this global pandemic is that we don't want to go into the next one with the same social determinants of health that have made indigenous communities more vulnerable and more susceptible to contracting and then spreading COVID-19. A lot of the historic housing funds that we have mobilized in order to address overcrowding in particular are cold comfort to those communities that are still finding themselves in overcrowded situations. In the staged approach to the epidemic and the onset of COVID-19, there are many measures that Indigenous Services Canada and as a whole of government we will deploy, including surge capacity, increased PPE, and nurses and doctors. Obviously, we are looking for a medical solution to a medical problem, and that is what we will spare no expense or resource to address as indigenous communities continue to face the looming threat of a second wave of COVID-19 as they start to relax some of their confinement procedures. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Again, Madam Chair, to the Minister of Indigenous Services, many of us across northern Canada are deeply concerned by the outbreak taking place in northern Saskatchewan, centred in La Loche. The outbreak started from a worker who came back from a work camp in Fort McMurray. These camps are making workers sick, and they are proving deadly for first nations and northern communities. These work camps put public health at risk during a pandemic. Your government says it's committed to doing everything it can to keep first nations safe, yet nothing has been done to support calls for pandemic shutdowns. Will you support first nations in their call for shutdowns during this pandemic to save lives now? +Hon. Marc Miller: Madam Chair, the situation in La Loche is a very pressing concern. Members won't be surprised to know that that number will only increase as the days go on and as we implement aggressive testing and contact tracing. We are working with surrounding first nations and communities and with the Mtis and Dene communities in La Loche to ensure that medical precautions are being put into place and that strict social distancing is being put into effect. This is a situation that is very much evolving minute by minute, and it is something for which we have deployed additional resources, along with Meadow Lake and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority to ensure that there is a health response to a health problem. Clearly, we need coordination with the provinces to ensure that we have a seamless approach +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question referred to La Loche, but this is a broader issue. There are many work camps, including here in our north, that first nations are extremely concerned about. Will your government step in to support their calls for temporary shutdowns at this time? +Hon. Marc Miller: One of the things we see as we see the evolving dynamic and the potential spreads, particularly the fear of clusters as communities, provinces, territories may choose to relax certain measures, is the need to have a more targeted approach as to how the economy reacts and deals with it, particularly in northern and vulnerable communities. This is something for which we will need to have a serious approach, with both the Minister of Natural Resources and also our provincial counterparts, to make sure that we aren't taking hasty measures to reopen the economy while we're trying to protectand this is our most important goalindigenous communities from getting exposed and spreading COVID-19. +Ms. Niki Ashton: Madam Chair, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries. Hundreds of fishers and their families here in Manitoba who work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation are desperately calling for emergency support. Many are calling on the federal government to also work with them and the FFMC to redirect their product to domestic markets and communities here at home to address the growing food insecurity people are facing. When will your government announce support for inland fishers, including here in Manitoba, and will you work to ensure that their product, healthy fish, can be provided here at home for people who need it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Madam Chair, we know that COVID-19 is having extreme impacts on northern first nations communities, especially with regard to fisheries in areas that rely on it for not only their livelihoods but also for the cultural importance. Indigenous harvesters are able to access through the aboriginal financial institutions the $306 million we've put in for support for indigenous small and medium-sized businesses. The funding allows for short-term interest-free loans as well as for non-repayable contributions. We also announced earlier that the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency has made available $15 million in non-repayable support for businesses. We know that there's more that needs to be done to support our first nations communities as well as our harvesters. We're doing everything we can and we will continue to make sure that we address those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I need to interrupt you. We'll now hear from ClaudeDeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Thank you, MadamChair. I don't want to talk about tax cheats. I don't want to talk about the $1billion that the government used to track down tax cheats. I want to ask the minister why she isn't taking this opportunity to learn from countries that are putting an end to tax avoidance in tax havens, a legal but immoral practice in this day and age. Can she explain why she isn't showing leadership by convincing cabinet to change course and eliminate the legal measure known as tax avoidance, which enables companies to avoid paying taxes and put money in tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, as soon as our government took office in 2015, we made it a priority to crack down on tax cheats. Our government's historic investments of almost $1 billion have ensured that the agency can access the necessary resources for its work. We're already starting to see the results. As I was saying, I established an expert advisory committee to advise us. We've also been working on tightening the rules of the voluntary disclosures program. We've entered into country-by-country agreements that make it possible to share information. We're auditing four countries a year. We're working with the OECD. Currently, over 50 criminal investigations are related to international tax evasion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms.DeBellefeuille has the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, does the minister realize that she's being filmed and recorded and that she isn't answering my question? I don't want to talk about cheats. I want to talk about companies that use a legal mechanism to avoid paying taxes and to put their money in tax havens. I can see that she doesn't want to answer my question. I'll ask her another question. Can she tell me how many companies legally take advantage of tax avoidance in tax havens? How much money escapes taxation through this legal mechanism? The government could invest this money in its economic recovery post-COVID-19. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: MadamChair, I completely understand my colleague's impatience. However, she must understand that this type of issue is very complex. Under the former Conservative government, the issue wasn't a priority at all. Regarding tax evasion abroad, our leadership made it possible for the agency to conduct twice as many audits in three years as it conducted in 10 years under the Conservatives. Over 50criminal investigations related to international tax evasion are ongoing. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Go ahead, Madame DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: MadamChair, I'm not impatient. However, I don't understand the government's lack of willingness to eliminate this mechanism, which is legal but completely immoral. Our questions remain unanswered. My next question is for the Minister of Finance. The Fdration de la relve agricole du Qubec and the UPA approached the Minister of Finance two weeks ago and still haven't received a response regarding the following issue. We know that many farms don't pay wages. As a result, these farms are being penalized because they aren't eligible for the $40,000 in loans available through the Canada emergency business account. To qualify for these loans, the farms needed a payroll of $20,000 to $1.5million in 2019. Does the Minister of Finance plan to respond to the farmers who want to access the $40,000 in loans? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Ms.DeBellefeuille. We know that the Canada emergency response benefit must be made available to the people who need it. +Mr. Damien Kurek: On a point of order +Hon. Bill Morneau: That's why we're considering our approach. Of course +Mr. Damien Kurek: I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): MinisterMorneau, please wait a moment. A member is raising a point of order. Mr. Kurek, do you have a point of order? You have to unmute yourself. +Mr. Damien Kurek: Yes. It's that the translation is at the same volume as the minister. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): You'll have to put yourself on English. Rather, the minister has to put himself on French. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Sorry. I was on the English channel. We know that the people who need the Canada emergency response benefit must have access to it. That's why we're considering the challenges each time. If I receive a letter, I'll look at it. Once we have a response, we'll pass it directly on to the member. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): This question is for the tourism minister. The tourism ministry was one of the first and hardest-hit industries during this crisis, yet despite the Prime Minister's announcement over three weeks ago now of a plan to bring forward a tourism-specific aid package to help the businesses who employ millions of unemployed Canadians who work in tourism, there's still been nothing from this government. When will the government finally act to provide help to this nearly crippled industry? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, obviously we know that the tourism sector has been deeply impacted. I had the chance to talk to many of the leaders in the sector, and clearly there's a lot of anxiety. We also had the chance to work with all the G20 ministers of tourism all together, and we know we have to act +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards: I didn't really get much of an answer there. I hear a lot about talking and not much on action. Tourism-based communities like the ones in Banff and Canmore, which I represent, are tourism-based economies and have unemployment rates of 85% or higher. They also don't qualify for a lot of the programs because they're seasonal businesses and make most or all of their revenues for the year from May to October, so they're at risk of losing their entire season. I have a couple of very specific questions. Will the government consider making changes to the programs to make sure that seasonal businesses can get help? What does the government plan to do to help the tourism industry recover after the pandemic? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Thank you. Obviously, the tourism sector has access to many measures, including the CEBA account, the $40,000 account. They also have access to the wage subsidy. They have access to rent relief. They will be having access also to funding through the regional development agencies, and we'll be coming up with the details soon. Of course, in my colleague's riding of Banff, which is a fantastic place and a tourism gem, they will have access to the support through WD, western economic diversification. If there are particular cases you would like to raise with me, I would be more than happy to talk to you to see how, on the ground, we can help the tourism operators. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, clearly the tourism minister hasn't been listening. She says she's talking to the industry. She's not hearing their concerns. What she just said does not address many of the concerns they have about being seasonal industries. It doesn't address anything about their concerns about the hard economic recovery they'll have after the pandemic. Let's try another minister and see if we can get some answers. Another industry that's very hard hit in my province and my riding is the oil and gas industry. It's another industry the Prime Minister has promised to help, but there hasn't been anything. Clearly there's a pattern here. The only so-called assistance there's been to help hurting Albertans in the oil patch has been measures to speed up the death of the industry that they work in. Will the Liberal government ever show any concern for Albertans? Will they bring forward a plan to preserve Canadian jobs? Will they put forward a plan to ensure the use of Canadian oil before oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): In fact, Mr. Chair, the federal government has taken several steps in recent weeks that will meaningfully support workers and communities that depend on this industry. We have the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which covers 75% of an employee's wages for the employer. We have more liquidity for oil and gas companies through new loans of $15 million to $60 million from the Business Development Bank of Canada. We continue to step forward in our response to the impacts of COVID-19 on my province here in Newfoundland and Labrador and on Alberta and Saskatchewan. These three provinces are being hit by two crises at the same time, a crisis of demand for oil and gas on the world markets and of course a crisis of public health with COVID-19. +Mr. Blake Richards: Mr. Chair, a lot of these things we're hearing about aren't going to actually help the industry to recover. What we need to see is the government give the industry and the private sector the opportunity to succeed. Maybe what they could do is consider expediting the approval of billions of dollars of private sector projects that would put thousands and thousands of Canadians back to work. Will the government consider looking at ways that we can expedite projects? Will they look at ways that we can encourage the use of Canadian oil before the use of oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we have been working with our provincial partners. We have been working with businesses of all sizes in the oil and gas industry. We have been working with labour, concentrating on workers and concentrating on the companies that support those jobs to make sure that they remain whole and those jobs will be there for those workers. We're particularly proud of our orphan wells program, which was launched by the Alberta government in conjunction with us. It was launched last week. I am pleased to inform this House that the uptake on applications for that program is significantly higher than even we expected. +The Chair: That's all the time we have for questions today. I want to thank all the members for taking part. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. Thank you. +","The House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic held its third meeting with Hon. Anthony Rota presiding. The committee discussed ministerial announcements, petitions, and questioning of ministers and the Prime Minister regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. A moment of silence was observed for six Canadian Armed Forces members who lost their lives in a helicopter crash. The meeting also acknowledged the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian Forces. + +Dr. Andrea McCrady commemorated the event with a special recital. The meeting, conducted via video conference, emphasized adherence to rules facilitating interpretation services. No statements by ministers were made but numerous petitions were presented. These included concerns about Bill C-7 and the euthanasia regime, organ harvesting and trafficking, as well as recognition of indigenous languages as official languages of Canada. Other petitions addressed a national opt-out program for organ donation and the opioid overdose crisis. + +Several MPs highlighted the importance of firearms control, questioning why the government is targeting law-abiding firearms owners rather than criminals. Questions were raised about the release of criminals during the pandemic, with assurances from the Prime Minister of strict protocols to protect society. The Chinese government's transparency on COVID-19 was also called into question. Additionally, MPs addressed economic inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic and the response to catastrophic climate events. + +Discussions extended to other topics, including the need for greater support for seniors, labor shortages in the fishery sector due to emergency benefits offered to students, and the plight of businesses, especially sole proprietors, unable to access relief packages. Concerns were raised about the gap in wage subsidy programs and the need for a more flexible approach to aid businesses and workers during the economic reopening. The importance of gun control and tackling organized crime was debated, with ministers highlighting measures to ban firearms intended for mass killings. + +Finally, the issue of support for the agriculture sector was addressed, with calls for more funding and questions about the government's commitment to Canadian farmers in light of a significant budget deficit and the devastating impact of COVID-19 on various industries. + +(Note: This summary is based solely on the text provided, and due to the nature of the meeting, it does not capture all individual conversations or nuances of the exchanges.)" +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr.AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. +The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. +The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12:56:06 and was cut off at 1:00:32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. +The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. +The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? +Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. +The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary +Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. +Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the +The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been +The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2.6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals' reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians' tables right across the country and we will continue to. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians' pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians' pockets. +The Chair: We now continue with Mrs.Gill. Mrs.Gill, you have the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to +Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62.5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62.5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. +The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B.C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Berthold. Mr.Berthold, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. +The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms.McKenna, you have the floor. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr.Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, do I have any time left? +The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B.C. Minister of Citizens' Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. +Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. +The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. +Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117.15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? +Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned . I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. +The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms.Gaudreau. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians' privacy rights. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians' privacy in jeopardy. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. +The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19, 79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers' concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? +Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. +The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr.Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. +The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms.McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. +The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. +Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U.S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? +Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? +The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. +Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? +Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? +Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. +Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. +The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. +Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? +The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. +The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. +The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. +The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. +The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr.Godin. Mr.Godin, you may go ahead. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. +Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr.Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. +Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. +The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr.Perron. Mr.Perron, you may go ahead. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers' eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. +Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2.5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. +Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. +The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. +Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians' concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25, 44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. +Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. +Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. +Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22, 15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. +Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. +Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. +The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon. +","The committee meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic is discussed, focusing on ministerial announcements, petitions, and questioning ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 situation. VE Day is recognized, and technical instructions for video conferencing are provided. Members discuss various issues, including support for the energy sector, agriculture, fisheries, municipal funding, transit systems, and the justice system. Concerns from opposition members include implied criticism of the government's response, with calls for more support for small businesses, sectors like agriculture, and seniors. Matters concerning the CBC and tax-avoiding corporations receiving bailout funds are also raised. The Minister of Agriculture is repeatedly questioned about financial assistance for farmers, with opposition MPs highlighting insufficiencies in the announced support. Additionally, questions are asked about COVID-19 testing capabilities in Canada and the strategy for economic and social relaunch." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Um welcome to our second meeting . This is the functional design meeting . And I hope you all had a good individual working time . Okay , let's get started . Okay , here's the agenda for the meeting . After the opening um I am going to fulfil the role of secretary , take the meeting minutes . And we're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you . Then we're gonna discuss some new project requirements . Um gonna come to a decision on the functions of the remote control . And then we're gonna close up the meeting . And we're gonna do this all in about forty minutes . {gap} Okay . First I want to discuss the goals of this meeting . First we need to determine the user requirements and the question that we can ask ourselves is what needs and desires are to be fulfilled by this remote control . And then we're going to determine the technical functions , what is the effect of the apparatus , what actually is it supposed to do , what do people pick up the remote and use it for . And then lastly we're going to determine its working design , how exactly will it perform its functions , that's the whole technical side of {disfmarker} 'Kay I'll just give you a minute , 'cause it looks like you're making some notes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Oh , well let's go ahead and , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} back , previous . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what I wanna do right now is hear from all three of you , on your research that you just did . Who would like to start us off ? 'Kay . +User Interface: I don't mind going first . +Project Manager: Okay . Um do you have a PowerPoint or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the {disfmarker} should be in the m Project . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you want us to do our PowerPoints now or {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know you could you could do it yourself actually . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you send it ? +Project Manager: Save it in the project documents . +User Interface: Put it in Project Documents , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm . This one ? +User Interface: Sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Great . +User Interface: Okay . Um well , the function {vocalsound} of a remote control , as what uh we've been informed , is basically to send messages to the television set , for example , switch it on , switch it off , go to this channel , go to channel nine , turn the volume up , etcetera . Um some of the considerations is just um for example the what it needs to include it's the numbers , you know , zero to nine , so you can move to a channel , the power button on slash off , the channel going up and down , volume going up and down , and then mute , a mute function . And then functions for V_H_S_ , D_V_D_ , for example , play , rewind , fast-forward , stop , pause , enter . And enter would be for like , you know , the menus . {vocalsound} And then other menus for D_V_ as well as T_V_ , whether that means like um we can go and decide the brightness of the screen , things like that , all the more complicated functions of menus . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And we can decide if that's what we want , {gap} , um if we want to include that on the remote , if that's something that would stay on the T_V_ itself , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: These are two examples . Um and you can see on the left , it's got a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't know if you can read it , but it says , step , go to , freeze , um slow , repeat , program , mute , and so those are some of the buttons and so it gives you an idea of s one example . And then on the right , it's a lot more simpler , it's got volume , it's got the play the like circle set , which is play , rewind , but it's also what is {disfmarker} fast-forward is also like next on a menu . So you have functions that are d uh duplicating . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And you have a mute button and then the numbers and the eject , and the power button . So that gives you two different kinds , a more complex and more simple version . Okay . +Project Manager: Ready . +User Interface: And then lastly , it's just the questions that we want to consider like what functions do we want it to include , and how simple , complex it should be ? And what functions it needs to complete . Uh , what are needed to complete insulation process , 'cause , you know , that's something that also has to be considered and it's gonna be hopefully a one-time thing , when you set it up it should be set to go , but we have to include the functions that can allow it to set up i in the first place . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's it . +Project Manager: Alright . Very good presentation . Thank you . You speak with such authority on the matter . +User Interface: Mm . Left . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Who would like to um follow that one up ? Now , that we've discussed {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can go . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you want me to run it or you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you should run it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Functional requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Alright . Now we have Courtney with the functional requirements . +Marketing: Yes , okay so we tested a hundred subjects in our lab , and we just we watched them and we also made them fill out a questionnaire , and we found that the {vocalsound} users are not typically happy with current remote controls . Seventy five percent think they're ugly . Eighty percent want {disfmarker} they've {disfmarker} are willing to spend more , which is good news for us um if we make it look fancier , and basically w we just need something that really I mean there's some other points up there , but they {disfmarker} it needs to be snazzy and it {disfmarker} but yet simple . +User Interface: {gap} Wait . +Marketing: So that's really what we need to do . And we need we need it to be simple , yet it needs to be high-tech looking . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And that meaning what ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} They like I guess use the buttons a lot . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I don't know . It's from my uh research . +Project Manager: Okay , what do you m +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: My team wasn't very clear . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: What do you mean by um the current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user , like they have to press the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's okay . I I think it's like the engineering versus user , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: whereas like the engineering she showed that the engineering ones are more complex +Project Manager: Oh , right . +Marketing: and users don't really need all of the buttons that are contained on there , because they only use ten percent of the buttons really . +Project Manager: The buttons . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: We only use ten per cent of our brains . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good point . +Project Manager: It works . +Marketing: It's a necessary evil . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And so people say that they typically lose it , as you yourself know , because you probably lose your remote control all the time , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: much like any small appliance like a cellphone , +User Interface: Lost . +Marketing: and they {disfmarker} we need something simple , because most people , well thirty four percent say that it's just too much time to learn how to use a new one , and we don't want to go {disfmarker} we don't want to vary too far from the normal standard remote , +User Interface: S +Marketing: but I mean they do need to be able to identify it , and R_S_I_ , I'm not very sure what that is . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's very important . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , it is important for the remote control world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wait , is that like your {disfmarker} ergonomics like your hand movements or something ? +Marketing: Sh +Project Manager: Could be , yeah . +Marketing: Uh possibly . +Industrial Designer: Do we really need t to provide more information on what R_S_I_ is ? +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , that's what my web site said , I +User Interface: Channel , volume , power . +Project Manager: I think that's a pretty good guess though . +Marketing: don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I would assume so . +User Interface: It's like if you're holding it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we're supposed to know it as remote control experts . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But also s so the channel , the volume and the power buttons are the most important on our company website you can find like the specific statistics concerning to how much each button is used , but those are the definitely the top ones . +Project Manager: Okay . Next slide ? +Marketing: Yes . And so personally I think that we need a modern eye-catching design , but it it really needs to be simple . So saying from y your slide , your presentation , the engineering versus the user-specified remotes , I think that we should go with something that's more user-friendly . +Project Manager: User-friendly . +Marketing: Where the engineering ones , the boxes , tend to make it look more complicated than it really is . Um the functionality of the product really needs to be considered as to like what type of buttons do we really need on it . And it needs to be open to a wide range of consumers , so even though we need a small number of buttons , we also need to take in {disfmarker} like are most people going to be using it for a D_V_D_ player , a TiVo , what what exactly are we using it for , as well as the age range . So we need a hip , but not a corny marketing scheme for promoting our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And also we found {disfmarker} our team found that speech recognition is {disfmarker} it's like an up-and-coming thing they really {disfmarker} consumers are really interested in it , and since our findings found that people are willing to pay more money for a remote for it to be more high-class we could consider it . +Project Manager: And so just to {disfmarker} just to clarify by speech recognition you mean they would say , channel five , and the thing would go to channel five ? +Marketing: I guess so , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} to just say , where are you , and thing beeps , you know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that'd be lovely . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess we can interpret it like , we can just try out different types of speech recognition within our remote programme . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Didn't they {disfmarker} um didn't our rival companies manufacture a remote that you would press the button on the T_V_ and it would {disfmarker} the remote would beep so if you have lost it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kinda like what the remote phone used to do . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: You know like go to the base . +Project Manager: We could definitely include that if we wanted to . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's within our price . Okay . Are we ready for our last presentation , Amber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm just trying to move it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . I think it should be there , working design . +User Interface: Working design . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Uh I didn't get a chance to complete this one , 'cause some of the tools that I was given were frustrating . +Project Manager: Oh my bad . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so method method of our design , I think I just start listing th some of the things that we actually need to put into this . +User Interface: Help me . +Industrial Designer: We need a power source , we're gonna need a smart chip if we're gonna make it multi-functional . Um extra functions will probably need an additional chip . Either that or the smart chip will have to be extremely smart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What exactly is a smart chip ? +Industrial Designer: Usually a smart chip is just a chip that's been programmed and designed so that it can complete a fair range of functions . +User Interface: Well , how much extra would the additional chip be ? Is that gonna push us over our production costs ? +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't think so , 'cause we could probably get it from like , in bulk , from a a newer company . And they tend to sell their chips pretty cheap . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Um yep , nothing here . +Project Manager: That's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um power source , I figured , batteries , 'cause they're easily available . Typically a remote has either two double A_s or four triple A_s , sometimes three . Uh it really kinda depends on the size of the actual remote itself . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um a large on-off button , {vocalsound} demographically we're moving towards an older generation of people , so a large on-off button would probably be good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Selection button for various entertainment devices , so you want something that will permit you to select the D_V_D_ player or the T_V_ or the stereo system . Um smart chip that perverts {disfmarker} uh that permits , sorry , universal application again , something that'll allow us to skip over between devices , and that's kinda it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is my fifty second design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Power source over here . We're gonna have a switch obviously between the power source and the rest of it , and you're gonna need the switch . Um extra bulb could just be for flashiness , um subcomponent which would be like a way of diverting the power to different parts of the the device . Um the chip and of course the infra-red bulb , so it can communicate with the various devices that it needs to talk to . +Marketing: So what exactly we are looking at , is this like the front of the remote ? +Industrial Designer: This is just like a rough schematic . +Project Manager: So this would be the front ? +Industrial Designer: So this is the internal workings . +Project Manager: So the red would be the front of the remote though , right ? +Marketing: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's gonna be what's communicating with the T_V_ , but the other bulb , I think , is good to just to indicate , I'm doing something , it's sort of like a reassurance . +Project Manager: The l {vocalsound} the light up kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you don't have to stare at that infra-red , +Marketing: Like that we know the battery's working . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you know when the battery starts dying in your remote currently , you have to actually stare at that bulb and go , okay , when I push this button , is it working ? +Project Manager: Hmm . It'd probably be lighting up the key too , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We can skip that whole thing . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can put it in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and that's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We should make it glow in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , definitely . 'Kay nex R Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay , any p 'Kay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Anything you wanna add for personal preferences though , you f you said already that we needed a large on-off button , you think . Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: I think that that's a good idea , because you know that's one of the most important buttons . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , should it be larger buttons in general , you know like uh the examples that I had , they were swi quite small . So should we try and go for something that has l larger buttons ? +Marketing: I think we should . Like I think that would be in a as in {disfmarker} like in {disfmarker} for the design , sorry , um . I think we should definitely go with buttons that don't look like a normal remote , 'cause most remotes have small square buttons , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should do something like maybe bigger and round like bubbles . +User Interface: Ovals . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , let's talk about all of our {disfmarker} We'll come to decision later about all the components that we need to include , let's um wrap up this one , and {vocalsound} I'm gonna go back to my PowerPoint , 'cause we need to discuss the new project requirements which you might've already seen flashed up on the screen a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Wait , come back . Alright . Sorry , let's go through this . Alright . Here we go . New product requirements . First it's only going to be a T_V_ remote . We're trying not to over-complicate things . So no D_V_D_ , no TiVo , no stereo . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: It's not gonna be multi-functional . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Hey . And we th need to promote our company more , so we need to somehow include our colour and our company slogan on the remote . We're trying to get our name out there in the world . Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: And you know what teletext is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} in States we don't have it , but um it's like they just have this channel where just has news and weather , kind of sports , +User Interface: I know . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's very um bland looking , it's just text on the screen , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's like black , black and white kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just black with just text . +Marketing: Like running along the bottom ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can also get the kind of the T_V_ guide so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It'll give you the sports . +Marketing: Wait , is it like the Weather Channel where it's got like the ticker running on the bottom or something ? +Project Manager: Kind of . +User Interface: Except the entire screen . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the whole screen . +Industrial Designer: It's the entire screen is just running information at random . +Project Manager: So anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can pick sports , you can pick the news , you entertainment , +Industrial Designer: Seemingly . +User Interface: you know it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: So it's like a separate channel from like what you're watching ? +Project Manager: Right . But it's becoming out-dated now , because of the Internet . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nobody needs to go to the teletext channel to check the news , {vocalsound} and we have twenty four hour news channels now too , so {disfmarker} Those are our new product requirements . Alright . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , do we have to include the company colour within that ? +Project Manager: Yes . It's part of the logo . Okay . +User Interface: Company colour being yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we're going to do right now is come to some decisions , definitive that we can all agree on , about um the target group and the functions and just definite things that we need to do and then we'll close up the meeting . So . Alright . {gap} Whatever . Okay . So our target group is {disfmarker} You mentioned um older people ? Would it just be universal for everyone , you think ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because I think even if something has large buttons , as long as they are not childishly large , like even technically {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's gonna make it nicer . Yeah . +Project Manager: non-technically challenged people are gonna use it . I mean they want something user-friendly , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm well , even if we kept the regular standard size of remote , if we reduced the buttons down to the ones that people are saying that they use the most often and a couple extra , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they're saying they only use ten per cent of them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then we should be able to accommodate fairly decent sized buttons . +Project Manager: Okay , so we want um for our target group would we say , I mean , young and old , all age ranges , all um , not kids obviously , right ? Or kids ? +Marketing: No , kids need to know how to use a remote , I would think . +Industrial Designer: Most of them will intuitively pick it up though . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: They gotta change between Disney Channel , Cartoon Network . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're going to go anywhere from kids to adult in the age range {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think we need it all . +Project Manager: Um what about technic technical um specifications , like how how technically literate are these people who are going to be using our remote ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um I would say we should say dumber than the average person . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We should go for the lowest denominator . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So so they need no technical experience to operate {disfmarker} +User Interface: High school educated . +Industrial Designer: {gap} how 'bout little to no , because there is no way that you are gonna be able to make it no . +Project Manager: Okay . And we also need to determine the specific functions of this , just to get it all out on paper . So we said it needs to send messages to the T_V_ , needs to change the channel , turn on and off , just basic simple stuff like this . So if you have something just say it and we'll add it to my meeting minutes . +User Interface: Well it's channel , on-off button , volume , mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , volume . +Marketing: And channel . Yeah . Those are the most important ones . +Project Manager: Right . And we wanna keep um {disfmarker} I'll make a note here that we wanna keep the number of buttons down . Correct , because people only use ten percent . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hey , what else ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Do we want this thing to be able to be found easily ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think so . What do you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: A finding kind of device or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And +Marketing: I need {disfmarker} we we need a like homing device . +Project Manager: Yeah , ho homing device . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if this is gonna get lost underneath the coach , how are we going to accommodate the quick ability to find it ? +User Interface: Oh right yeah okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Tracking . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Because people really are looking for a remote that's more high-tech . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: What if we gave it a charger ? And on the charger , just like a phone , like you get a portable phone and it's got a charger , and if you d leave your phone somewhere , you push the button to find it , and it finds th the phone beeps for you . +User Interface: But you got a base . +Marketing: Do you think people'll really go for that though ? +Industrial Designer: It's useful for the remote phone . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Would that add to our costs at all , I wonder ? +Marketing: I would think so , because you'd have to develop a base . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Well , if you have the base , you could start putting in a charger and then you have a different kind of battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable batteries are cheaper usually . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . I I think we can make a decision about that later . Uh we'll still put that as a point that we need to discuss . So that would include battery source {disfmarker} Power source rather . Is it going to have a charger , or is it going to be run strictly off batteries ? And we also need to deal with the issue you mentioned of speech recognition , if we want that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Well , then we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do w +User Interface: If we have the speech recognition then we can start aiming at a like another kind of more handicapped disabled uh demo demographic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , th there's the people who desire speech recognition , there's the different demog demographics have different desires , I don't know if you guys ge +Project Manager: You could um {disfmarker} we could hook it up . +Marketing: It wouldn't copy onto the the thing 'cause it's black , +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: but all the different age groups have different desires for speech recognition . So {vocalsound} basically older people don't really care . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: It's really the people twenty five to thirty five . I feel those are the people that really watch a lot of T_V_ though . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're the ones that get addicted to soap operas and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if and if we introduced it when they're this age , they're going to probably always buy a remote that has {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: just sitcoms and stuff . Right . +User Interface: Well , then then do you put the voice recognition {disfmarker} do you put the r like receiver on the actual television , in the base , or in the actual remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause then you've already got remote in your hand , why you just gonna speak to the remote , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: whereas if you just speak in general and you don't have to have the remote in your hand and like talk at it . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} and the speech recognition could be part of the lost and found device , too . If we said , find remote , locate remote , or something . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: A certain phrase then it could beep . I dunno . Just throwing it out there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Still {gap} fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , anything else we wanna discuss ? +User Interface: Um . Well , do we wanna include the numbers like zero through nine ? Can we conceive of leaving them out ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Wait , on the remote itself ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like you have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , zero . +Project Manager: How how , +Marketing: Well , we definitely need those . +Project Manager: yeah , how would you leave those out ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I don't know , I mean , if you can {gap} like well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unless you could say the channel . +User Interface: I don't know , if there's just a way of leaving them out ? +Industrial Designer: I think people would find that too foreign . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also remember that in this day in age we need , you know , like a hundred button , too . +Marketing: You definitely need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I used to have a remote that did not even go up past like fifty . {vocalsound} So I couldn't {disfmarker} whenever I got cable , I had to get a new T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: It's when we get satellite . +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} get your own remote , or digital cable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . I guess , we're gonna discuss the project financing later , making sure that we can fit all of the stuff that we want to on our budget . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause I don't have any material pricing information available to me at the moment , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . And don't forget we need to include the colour of our company and the logo . +User Interface: The colour being yellow ? +Marketing: Wait . +Project Manager: I'm guessing . And the R_R_ . +User Interface: And how do we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I feel like a ye I feel like a yellow one would be too garish . +Industrial Designer: R_ the double R_ . +Project Manager: We could just have the logo in yellow , +User Interface: Can't make it entirely {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or maybe a yellow light for the keys . +Industrial Designer: Or is the l +Marketing: Or put like stripes , oh yeah , yellow lights . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} yellow could be and it could {disfmarker} doesn't have to be huge . +User Interface: Well if you have like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hang on . If you have this sort of strip kind of down at the bottom {gap} the base of it , just like yellow with the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Right . So we've simplified , we don't need all those um play , fast-forward , rewind , +User Interface: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: or no menu buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've pretty much pared it down to on-off , volume , mute , channel up and down , um the numbers {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um can we go back to {disfmarker} I'm gonna look really quickly back at those +User Interface: Two examples . +Project Manager: examples and see if there is anything . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which one is yours , technical functions or functional requirement ? +User Interface: Oh , it's a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , audi audio settings and screen settings , we need those like audio settings mono , stereo , pitch , screen settings like brightness , colour , or do we just want that accessed accessed from the television itself ? +Project Manager: The T_V_ . I think that that's fine just for the T_V_ . I mean how often does the average user need to do that kind of stuff ? +User Interface: Well , the other option is sort of like down at the bottom , like farther away , you just have this sort of box inset where it's like the buttons that you don't use as much , but occasionally you will use . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and so it's like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to {disfmarker} we definitely need to have buttons for like sub-titles and things like that . It's 'cause the foreign film market is expanding and stuff , and like on television like I know f k living in Los Angeles it's tons of Spanish network television if it has English sub-titles it's definitely helpful . +Project Manager: Couldn't we do that all through one button , something , a menu button , that pops up with a menu on the T_V_ that says , you know , audio , video , whatever , language , +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} well , I don't know . +Project Manager: you know ? +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we need up , down , and side-to-side buttons . +Project Manager: For the menus . +User Interface: Well , that could be {disfmarker} No you could just double up with like the channel or the volume buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's true . +User Interface: Channel is just up and down . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And then add a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that looks mayb you know . +Marketing: Such as , yeah , the one the one over there on the left the engineering centred one . +Project Manager: Y right , right right right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That one ? +User Interface: So we just have it like {disfmarker} add a menu button then for the various things needed , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: including v voice recognition if we have any like settings for voice recognition now +Project Manager: In the middle perhaps . +User Interface: included in the menu . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Ooh , I just got an idea for a design . +Project Manager: {gap} good . Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up in this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I had something , but I forgot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} get out of here . Let's go back to the meeting closure then and see what we need to do next . Mm . Alright . After this meeting we're gonna be sent a questionnaire and summary again which we need to reply to that e-mail . And then we're gonna have lunch break . And after lunch thirty minutes of individual work time . Um I'm gonna put the minutes {disfmarker} I put the minutes for the first meeting already in the project documents folder , if you'd like to review them . And I'm gonna type up the minutes for this one as well . Um here's what we're each going to do . The I_D_ is going to work on the components concept , um U_I_D_ the user interface concept , and you're going to do some trend watching . 'Kay . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . And if anybody has anything they would like to add ? No ? Okay , well , this meeting is officially over . Thank you all . +","In the second functional design meeting, the project team discusses various aspects of creating a new TV remote control. The Project Manager starts by outlining the agenda and goals for the meeting—to identify user requirements, understand the desired technical functions, and determine the working design of the remote. They hear presentations from User Interface, Marketing, and the Industrial Designer, each providing input based on their expertise. + +The User Interface presentation includes an overview of basic remote control functions and considerations for button inclusion, such as numbers, power, channel and volume controls, mute function, and specific buttons for VHS and DVD devices. + +The Marketing presentation details findings from user research, including the dissatisfaction with current remotes' aesthetics, a preference for simplicity combined with a high-tech appearance, and interest in a homing feature for lost remotes. They suggest a modern and eye-catching, yet simple design that’s user-friendly and open to a wide range of consumers. Speech recognition technology as an up-and-coming feature consumers are interested in is discussed, and there’s an emphasis on the most used buttons being the channel, volume, and power buttons. + +The Industrial Designer discusses internal components like power source, smart chip, and the need for a large on/off button considering the older demographic, as well as universal application between different devices. + +The meeting then shifts focus to new project requirements: it will only be a TV remote without DVD or other functions, and it must incorporate the company color and slogan for brand promotion. The team debates features such as a homing device for finding the remote, speech recognition for various demographics, the inclusion of a charger base, and whether or not to include number buttons. + +Throughout the conversation, there are mentions of decision points needing further discussion, such as reducing the number of buttons, the size of buttons, the costs associated with added features, and how to integrate speech recognition appropriately. In the end, the Project Manager concludes the meeting and assigns tasks for individual work time. They will create minutes for the meeting and send a summary and questionnaire to the team members." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17.22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Gareth Rogers: Thank you. +Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. +Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. +Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. +John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about £5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that—that's anecdotal—but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money—we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful—but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. +Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU—so international students, not from Europe—have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? +Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level—£12.5 million less—then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding—the Augar review. +John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? +Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see—the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment—. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students' appetite to come. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? +Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary—let's hope it is—as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the £9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England—there was one in Wales—chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that £9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. +Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. +Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. +Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. +Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? +Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then—and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution—in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions—and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. +Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? +Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? +Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. +Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. +Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? +Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation—I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. +Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? +Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. +Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. +Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales—it's 'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. +Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities—quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. +Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? +Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. +Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? +Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. +Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? +Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting £38 million income from European students, and approximately £91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income—£1.5 billion—of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of £17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace—either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. +Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? +Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. +Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? +Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter—so, we've got £10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further £20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed—Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. +Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? +Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend—a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection—so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19—in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year—so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. +Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process—they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or—? What's the plan? +Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. +Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether—it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? +Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit—it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? +Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar—we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts—data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later—. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans—they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail—five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. +Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? +Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? +Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure—students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. +Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? +Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring—or whatever you like to describe the role as—quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. +Bethan Owen: I think we can advise—we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about, 'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?' It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. +Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility—either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are—so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan—if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed—. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether—and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU—that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. +Dr David Blaney: I think the— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry—especially if it means that they do more of it. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? +Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may—. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale—that's a UK Government issue. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? +Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. +Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come—you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any—and there are some at the moment, as we've described—and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course—you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. +Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was £129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place—and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? +Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. +Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's—. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. +Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? +John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? +Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. +Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? +Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is—. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. +Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? +Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so—. +Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities—repeated opportunities—in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. +Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls 'houskeeping' that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment—I don't like the expression 'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing—the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one—and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful—is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM—it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research—tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further—so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better—that engagement—because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Sêr Cymru II? +Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Sêr Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have £100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? +Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. +Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. +Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. +Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every £1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another £4 on top, because that £1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash—. +Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest—. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves—they're running at a loss. +Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? +Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session. +","Summary: + +Gareth Rogers is chairing a meeting for the Children, Young People and Education Committee as the regular Chair cannot attend. John Griffiths has been temporarily appointed as Chair for today's meeting. The committee discusses the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. Dr. David Blaney of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and Bethan Owen speak about the financial and organizational challenges facing Welsh higher education due to Brexit, such as uncertainty with European relationships and funding. There is also discussion about the decline in EU and non-EU student applications and the potential causes. The implementation of Sir Ian Diamond's review is considered critical for financial sustainability. Discussions include the effect of Brexit on student mobility and Erasmus+ programs, student charters, quality assurance, and the role of the HEFCW in advising institutions. There's concern about the loss of income from the EU, the effectiveness of Welsh universities in international markets, Brexit transition funding needs, and the potential barriers to attracting UK research council and charity funding. The uncertainty surrounding the reallocation of funds saved from the Diamond review to the HE sector is also addressed." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Alright . We 're on . +Professor B: Test , um . Test , test , test . Guess that 's me . Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Ooh , Thursday . +Professor B: So . There 's two sheets of paper in front of us . +PhD A: What are these ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . +Professor B: This is the arm wrestling ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , we formed a coalition actually . +PhD E: Yeah . Almost . +PhD C: We already made it into one . +Professor B: Oh , good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Excellent . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's the best thing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , tell me about it . +PhD E: So it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's {pause} spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , depending on if we put {disfmarker} if we square the transfer function or not . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And then with over - estimation of the noise , depending on the , uh {disfmarker} the SNR , with smoothing along time , um , smoothing along frequency . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: It 's very simple , smoothing things . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And , um , {vocalsound} the best result is {vocalsound} when we apply this procedure on FFT bins , uh , with a Wiener filter . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And there is no noise addition after {disfmarker} after that . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So it 's good because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's difficult when we have to add noise to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find the right level . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Are you looking at one in {disfmarker} in particular of these two ? +PhD E: Yeah . So the sh it 's the sheet that gives fifty - f three point sixty - six . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , {vocalsound} the second sheet is abo uh , about the same . It 's the same , um , idea but it 's working on mel bands , {vocalsound} and it 's a spectral subtraction instead of Wiener filter , and there is also a noise addition after , uh , cleaning up the mel bins . Mmm . Well , the results are similar . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {comment} it 's actually , uh , very similar . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , {vocalsound} if you look at databases , uh , the , uh , one that has the smallest {disfmarker} smaller overall number is actually better on the Finnish and Spanish , uh , but it is , uh , worse on the , uh , Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's worse on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean on the , uh , TI - TI - digits , +PhD E: on the multi - condition in TI - digits . Yeah . +Professor B: uh , uh . Um . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So , it probably doesn't matter that much either way . But , um , when you say u uh , unified do you mean , uh , it 's one piece of software now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So now we are , yeah , setting up the software . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , it should be ready , uh , very soon . Um , and we +PhD A: So what 's {disfmarker} what 's happened ? I think I 've missed something . +Professor B: OK . So a week ago {disfmarker} maybe you weren't around when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when Hynek and Guenther and I {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Hynek was here . +PhD A: Yeah . I didn't . +Professor B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Yeah , let 's summarize . Um {disfmarker} And then if I summarize somebody can tell me if I 'm wrong , which will also be possibly helpful . What did I just press here ? I hope this is still working . +PhD E: p - p - p +Professor B: We , uh {disfmarker} we looked at , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} anyway we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} after coming back from QualComm we had , you know , very strong feedback and , uh , I think it was {vocalsound} Hynek and Guenter 's and my opinion also that , um , you know , we sort of spread out to look at a number of different ways of doing noise suppression . But given the limited time , uh , it was sort of time to {pause} choose one . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , and so , uh , th the vector Taylor series hadn't really worked out that much . Uh , the subspace stuff , uh , had not been worked with so much . Um , so it sort of came down to spectral subtraction versus Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , we had a long discussion about how they were the same and how they were d uh , completely different . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , I mean , fundamentally they 're the same sort of thing but the math is a little different so that there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's an exponent difference in the index {disfmarker} you know , what 's the ideal filtering , and depending on how you construct the problem . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , uh , I guess it 's sort {disfmarker} you know , after {disfmarker} after that meeting it sort of made more sense to me because {vocalsound} um , if you 're dealing with power spectra then how are you gonna choose your error ? And typically you 'll do {disfmarker} choose something like a variance . And so that means it 'll be something like the square of the power spectra . Whereas when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're doing the {disfmarker} the , uh , um , {vocalsound} looking at it the other way , you 're gonna be dealing with signals +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you 're gonna end up looking at power {disfmarker} uh , noise power that you 're trying to reduce . And so , eh {disfmarker} so there should be a difference {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , conceptually of {disfmarker} of , uh , a factor of two in the exponent . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 're so many different little factors that you adjust in terms of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} uh , over - subtraction and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so forth , um , that {vocalsound} arguably , you 're c and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the choice of do you {disfmarker} do you operate on the mel bands or do you operate on the FFT beforehand . There 're so many other choices to make that are {disfmarker} are almost {disfmarker} well , if not independent , certainly in addition to {pause} the choice of whether you , uh , do spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , that , um , {vocalsound} @ @ again we sort of felt the gang should just sort of figure out which it is they wanna do and then let 's pick it , go forward with it . So that 's {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} that was last week . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , we said , uh , take a week , go arm wrestle , you know , +Grad D: Oh . +Professor B: figure it out . I mean , and th the joke there was that each of them had specialized in one of them . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and so they {disfmarker} so instead they went to Yosemite and bonded , and {disfmarker} and they came out with a single {disfmarker} single piece of software . So it 's {vocalsound} another {disfmarker} another victory for international collaboration . So . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so you guys have combined {disfmarker} or you 're going to be combining the software ? +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Well , the piece of software has , like , plenty of options , +PhD E: Oh boy . +PhD C: like you can parse command - line arguments . So depending on that , it {disfmarker} it becomes either spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So , ye +PhD A: They 're close enough . +Professor B: Well , that 's fine , but the thing is {disfmarker} the important thing is that there is a piece of software that you {disfmarker} that we all will be using now . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: There 's just one piece of software . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I need to allow it to do everything and even more {disfmarker} more than this . +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Well , if we want to , like , optimize different parameters of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Parameters . Yeah . +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: Yeah , we can do it later . But , still {disfmarker} so , there will be a piece of software with , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , will give this system , the fifty - three point sixty - six , by default and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how is {disfmarker} how good is that ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have a sense of {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's just one percent off of the {pause} best proposal . +PhD C: Best system . +PhD E: It 's between {disfmarker} i we are second actually if we take this system . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Right ? +PhD A: Compared to the last evaluation numbers ? Yeah . +Professor B: But , uh {disfmarker} w which we sort of were before +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but we were considerably far behind . And the thing is , this doesn't have neural net in yet for instance . You know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So it {disfmarker} so , um , it 's {disfmarker} it it 's not using our full bal bag of tricks , if you will . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , and it {disfmarker} it is , uh , very close in performance to the best thing that was there before . Uh , but , you know , looking at it another way , maybe more importantly , uh , {vocalsound} we didn't have any explicit noise , uh , handling {disfmarker} stationary {disfmarker} dealing with {disfmarker} e e we didn't explicitly have anything to deal with stationary noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And now we do . +PhD A: So will the {pause} neural net operate on the output from either the Wiener filtering or the spectral subtraction ? Or will it operate on the original ? +Professor B: Well , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so argu arguably , I mean , what we should do {disfmarker} I mean , I gather you have {disfmarker} it sounds like you have a few more days of {disfmarker} of nailing things down with the software and so on . But {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} but , um , {vocalsound} arguably what we should do is , even though the software can do many things , we should for now pick a set of things , th these things I would guess , and not change that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then focus on {pause} everything that 's left . And I think , you know , that our goal should be by next week , when Hynek comes back , {vocalsound} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , really just to have a firm path , uh , for the {disfmarker} you know , for the time he 's gone , of {disfmarker} of , uh , what things will be attacked . But I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would thought think that what we would wanna do is not futz with this stuff for a while because what 'll happen is we 'll change many other things in the system , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll probably wanna come back to this and possibly make some other choices . But , um . +PhD A: But just conceptually , where does the neural net go ? Do {disfmarker} do you wanna h run it on the output of the spectrally subtracted {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Well , depending on its size {disfmarker} Well , one question is , is it on the , um , server side or is it on the terminal side ? Uh , if it 's on the server side , it {disfmarker} you probably don't have to worry too much about size . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's kind of an argument for that . We do still , however , have to consider its latency . So the issue is {disfmarker} is , um , {vocalsound} for instance , could we have a neural net that only looked at the past ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , what we 've done in uh {disfmarker} in the past is to use the neural net , uh , to transform , {vocalsound} um , all of the features that we use . So this is done early on . This is essentially , {vocalsound} um , um {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's more or less like a spee a speech enhancement technique here {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? {disfmarker} where we 're just kind of creating {vocalsound} new {disfmarker} if not new speech at least new {disfmarker} new FFT 's that {disfmarker} that have {disfmarker} you know , which could be turned into speech {disfmarker} uh , that {disfmarker} that have some of the noise removed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , after that we still do a mess of other things to {disfmarker} to produce a bunch of features . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: And then those features are not now currently transformed {vocalsound} by the neural net . And then the {disfmarker} the way that we had it in our proposal - two before , we had the neural net transformed features and we had {vocalsound} the untransformed features , which I guess you {disfmarker} you actually did linearly transform with the KLT , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , to orthogonalize them {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they were not , uh , processed through a neural net . And Stephane 's idea with that , as I recall , was that {vocalsound} you 'd have one part of the feature vector that was very discriminant and another part that wasn't , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , which would smooth things a bit for those occasions when , uh , the testing set was quite different than what you 'd trained your discriminant features for . So , um , all of that is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} still seems like a good idea . The thing is now we know some other constraints . We can't have unlimited amounts of latency . Uh , y you know , that 's still being debated by the {disfmarker} by people in Europe but , {vocalsound} uh , no matter how they end up there , it 's not going to be unlimited amounts , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so we have to be a little conscious of that . Um . So there 's the neural net issue . There 's the VAD issue . And , uh , there 's the second stream {pause} thing . And I think those that we {disfmarker} last time we agreed that those are the three things that have to get , uh , focused on . +PhD A: What was the issue with the VAD ? +Professor B: Well , better {comment} ones are good . +PhD A: And so the w the default , uh , boundaries that they provide are {disfmarker} they 're OK , but they 're not all that great ? +Professor B: I guess they still allow two hundred milliseconds on either side or some ? Is that what the deal is ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , so th um , they keep two hundred milliseconds at the beginning and end of speech . And they keep all the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Outside the beginnings and end . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And all the speech pauses , which is {disfmarker} Sometimes on the SpeechDat - Car you have pauses that are more than one or two seconds . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: More than one second for sure . Um . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . And , yeah , it seems to us that this way of just dropping the beginning and end is not {disfmarker} We cou we can do better , I think , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , um , {vocalsound} with this way of dropping the frames they improve {pause} over the baseline by fourteen percent and {vocalsound} Sunil already showed that with our current VAD we can improve by more than twenty percent . +PhD A: On top of the VAD that they provide ? +PhD C: No . +PhD E: Just using either their VAD or our current VAD . +PhD C: Our way . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD E: So , our current VAD is {disfmarker} is more than twenty percent , while their is fourteen . +PhD A: Theirs is fourteen ? I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD E: So . Yeah . And {pause} another thing that we did also is that we have all this training data for {disfmarker} let 's say , for SpeechDat - Car . We have channel zero which is clean , channel one which is far - field microphone . And if we just take only the , um , VAD probabilities computed on the clean signal and apply them on the far - field , uh , test utterances , {vocalsound} then results are much better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In some cases it divides the error rate by two . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: So it means that there are stim {comment} still {disfmarker} +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much latency does the , uh {disfmarker} does our VAD add ? +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if we can have a good VAD , well , it would be great . +PhD A: Is it significant , +PhD E: Uh , right now it 's , um , a neural net with nine frames . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So it 's forty milliseconds plus , um , the rank ordering , which , uh , should be +PhD C: Like another ten frames . +PhD E: ten {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Rank . Oh . +PhD E: So , right now it 's one hundred and forty {pause} milliseconds . +Professor B: With the rank ordering {disfmarker} ? I 'm sorry . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the smoothing {disfmarker} the m the {disfmarker} the filtering of the probabilities . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} The , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: on the R . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not a median filtering . It 's just {disfmarker} We don't take the median value . We take something {disfmarker} Um , so we have eleven , um , frames . +Professor B: Oh , this is for the VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} for the VAD , yeah {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: and we take th the third . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad D: Dar +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . So {disfmarker} {comment} Yeah , I was just noticing on this that it makes reference to delay . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So what 's the {disfmarker} ? If you ignore {disfmarker} Um , the VAD is sort of in {disfmarker} in parallel , isn't i isn't it , with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} ? I mean , it isn't additive with the {disfmarker} the , uh , LDA and the Wiener filtering , and so forth . +PhD C: The LDA ? +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what happened right now , we removed the delay of the LDA . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So we {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} so if we {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so which is like if we reduce the delay of VA So , the f the final delay 's now ba is f determined by the delay of the VAD , because the LDA doesn't have any delay . So if we re if we reduce the delay of the VAD , I mean , it 's like effectively reducing the delay . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much , uh , delay was there on the LDA ? +PhD C: So the LDA and the VAD both had a hundred millisecond delay . So and they were in parallel , so which means you pick either one of them {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the biggest , whatever . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now the LDA delays are more . +Professor B: And there {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And there didn't seem to be any , uh , penalty for that ? There didn't seem to be any penalty for making it causal ? +PhD C: Pardon ? Oh , no . It actually made it , like , point one percent better or something , actually . +Professor B: OK . Well , may as well , then . +PhD C: Or something like that +Professor B: And he says Wiener filter is {disfmarker} is forty milliseconds delay . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . So that 's the one which Stephane was discussing , like {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: The smoothing ? +PhD C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} you smooth it and then delay the decision by {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Right . OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not bad . So we may in fact {disfmarker} we 'll see what they decide . We may in fact have , {vocalsound} um , the {disfmarker} the , uh , latency time available for {disfmarker} to have a neural net . I mean , sounds like we probably will . So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 'd be good . Cuz I {disfmarker} cuz it certainly always helped us before . So . +PhD A: What amount of latency are you thinking about when you say that ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're disputing it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: You know , they 're saying , uh {disfmarker} one group is saying a hundred and thirty milliseconds and another group is saying two hundred and fifty milliseconds . Two hundred and fifty is what it was before actually . So , +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: uh , some people are lobbying {disfmarker} lobbying {comment} to make it shorter . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Um . And , um . +PhD A: Were you thinking of the two - fifty or the one - thirty when you said we should {pause} have enough for the neural net ? +Professor B: Well , it just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} when we find that out it might change exactly how we do it , is all . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: I mean , how much effort do we put into making it causal ? I mean , {vocalsound} I think the neural net will probably do better if it looks at a little bit of the future . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um , it will probably work to some extent to look only at the past . And we ha you know , limited machine and human time , and {vocalsound} effort . And , you know , how {disfmarker} how much time should we put into {disfmarker} into that ? So it 'd be helpful if we find out from the {disfmarker} the standards folks whether , you know , they 're gonna restrict that or not . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . But I think , you know , at this point our major concern is making the performance better and {disfmarker} and , um , {vocalsound} if , uh , something has to take a little longer in latency in order to do it that 's {pause} you know , a secondary issue . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if we get told otherwise then , you know , we may have to c clamp down a bit more . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD C: So , the one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one difference is that {disfmarker} was there is like we tried computing the delta and then doing the frame - dropping . +Grad D: S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: The earlier system was do the frame - dropping and then compute the delta on the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So this {disfmarker} +PhD A: Which could be a kind of a funny delta . Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh , oh . So that 's fixed in this . Yeah , we talked about that . +PhD C: Yeah . So we have no delta . And then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Good . +PhD C: So the frame - dropping is the last thing that we do . So , yeah , what we do is we compute the silence probability , convert it to that binary flag , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: and then in the end you c up upsample it to {vocalsound} match the final features number of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Did that help then ? +PhD C: It seems to be helping on the well - matched condition . So that 's why this improvement I got from the last result . So . And it actually r reduced a little bit on the high mismatch , so in the final weightage it 's b b better because the well - matched is still weighted more than {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , @ @ I mean , you were doing a lot of changes . Did you happen to notice how much , {vocalsound} uh , the change was due to just this frame - dropping problem ? What about this ? +PhD C: Uh , y you had something on it . Right ? +PhD E: Just the frame - dropping problem . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult . Sometime we {disfmarker} we change two {disfmarker} two things together and {disfmarker} But it 's around {pause} maybe {disfmarker} it 's less than one percent . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . {vocalsound} But like we 're saying , if there 's four or five things like that then {vocalsound} pretty sho soon you 're talking real improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And then we have to be careful with that also {disfmarker} with the neural net +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: because in {comment} the proposal the neural net was also , uh , working on {disfmarker} after frame - dropping . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a real good point . +PhD E: So . Well , we 'll have to be {disfmarker} to do the same kind of correction . +Professor B: It might be hard if it 's at the server side . Right ? +PhD E: Mmm . Well , we can do the frame - dropping on the server side or we can just be careful at the terminal side to send a couple of more frames before and after , and {disfmarker} So . I think it 's OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: You have , um {disfmarker} So when you {disfmarker} Uh , maybe I don't quite understand how this works , but , um , couldn't you just send all of the frames , but mark the ones that are supposed to be dropped ? Cuz you have a bunch more bandwidth . Right ? +Professor B: Well , you could . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it always seemed to us that it would be kind of nice to {disfmarker} in addition to , uh , reducing insertions , actually use up less bandwidth . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But nobody seems to have {vocalsound} cared about that in this {pause} evaluation . +PhD A: And that way the net could use {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD A: If the net 's on the server side then it could use all of the {pause} frames . +PhD C: Yes , it could be . It 's , like , you mean you just transferred everything and then finally drop the frames after the neural net . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But you could even mark them , before they get to the server . +PhD C: Yeah . Right now we are {disfmarker} Uh , ri Right now what {disfmarker} wha what we did is , like , we just mark {disfmarker} we just have this additional bit which goes around the features , {vocalsound} saying it 's currently a {disfmarker} it 's a speech or a nonspeech . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So there is no frame - dropping till the final features , like , including the deltas are computed . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: And after the deltas are computed , you just pick up the ones that are marked silence and then drop them . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +Professor B: So it would be more or less the same thing with the neural net , I guess , actually . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what , uh , this is doing right now . +PhD A: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . OK . So , uh , what 's , uh {disfmarker} ? That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good set of work that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just one more thing . Like , should we do something f more for the noise estimation , because we still {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . I was wondering about that . That was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had written that down there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: So , we , uh {disfmarker} actually I did the first experiment . This is {pause} with just fifteen frames . Um . We take the first fifteen frame of each utterance to it , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and average their power spectra . Um . I tried just plugging the , um , {vocalsound} uh , Guenter noise estimation on this system , and it {disfmarker} uh , it got worse . Um , but of course I didn't play {pause} with it . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Uh , I didn't {pause} do much more {pause} for noise estimation . I just tried this , +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . Well , it 's not surprising it 'd be worse the first time . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , um , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it does seem like , you know , i i i i some compromise between always depending on the first fifteen frames and a a always depending on a {disfmarker} a pause is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good idea . Uh , maybe you have to weight the estimate from the first - teen {disfmarker} fifteen frames more heavily than {disfmarker} than was done in your first attempt . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . No , I mean {disfmarker} Um , do you have any way of assessing how well or how poorly the noise estimation is currently doing ? +PhD E: Mmm . No , we don't . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: We don't have nothing {pause} that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is there {disfmarker} was there any experiment with {disfmarker} ? Well , I {disfmarker} I did {disfmarker} The only experiment where I tried was I used the channel zero VAD for the noise estimation and frame - dropping . So I don't have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't have a split , like which one helped more . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So . It {disfmarker} it was the best result I could get . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's something you could do with , um , this final system . Right ? Just do this {disfmarker} everything that is in this final system except , {vocalsound} uh , use the channel zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . For the noise estimation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . We can try something . +Professor B: And then see how much better it gets . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Sure . +Professor B: If it 's , you know , essentially not better , then {pause} it 's probably not worth +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: any more . +PhD C: Yeah . But the Guenter 's argument is slightly different . It 's , like , ev even {disfmarker} even if I use a channel zero VAD , I 'm just averaging the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the s power spectrum . But the Guenter 's argument is , like , if it is a non - stationary {pause} segment , then he doesn't update the noise spectrum . So he 's , like {disfmarker} he tries to capture only the stationary part in it . So the averaging is , like , {vocalsound} different from {pause} updating the noise spectrum only during stationary segments . So , th the Guenter was arguing that , I mean , even if you have a very good VAD , averaging it , like , over the whole thing is not a good idea . +Professor B: I see . +PhD C: Because you 're averaging the stationary and the non - stationary , and finally you end up getting something which is not really the s because , you {disfmarker} anyway , you can't remove the stationary part fr I mean , non - stationary part from {vocalsound} the signal . +Professor B: Not using these methods anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So you just {pause} update only doing {disfmarker} or update only the stationary components . Yeah . So , that 's {disfmarker} so that 's still a slight difference from what Guenter is trying +Professor B: Well , yeah . And {disfmarker} and also there 's just the fact that , um , eh , uh , although we 're trying to do very well on this evaluation , um , we actually would like to have something that worked well in general . And , um , relying on having fifteen frames at the front or something is {disfmarker} is pretty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean , you might , you might not . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Um , it 'd certainly be more robust to different kinds of input if you had at least some updates . Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . Well , I don't know . What {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what do you guys see as {disfmarker} as being what you would be doing in the next week , given wha what 's {pause} happened ? +PhD C: Cure the VAD ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? +PhD C: VAD . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So , should we keep the same {disfmarker} ? I think we might try to keep the same idea of having a neural network , but {vocalsound} training it on more data and adding better features , I think , but {disfmarker} because the current network is just PLP features . Well , it 's trained on noisy {pause} PLP {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just the cepstra . Yeah . +PhD E: PLP features computed on noisy speech . But {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there is no nothing particularly robust in these features . +PhD A: So , I I uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . +PhD E: There 's no RASTA , no {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember what you said {vocalsound} the answer to my , uh , question earlier . Will you {disfmarker} will you train the net on {disfmarker} after you 've done the spectral subtraction or the Wiener filtering ? +Professor B: This is a different net . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: So we have a VAD which is like neur that 's a neural net . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Hmm . +PhD A: Oh , you 're talking about the VAD net . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: So that {disfmarker} that VAD was trained on the noisy features . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now we have , like , uh {disfmarker} we have the cleaned - up features , so we can have a better VAD by training the net on {pause} the cleaned - up speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +PhD C: Yeah , but we need a VAD for uh noise estimation also . So it 's , like , where do we want to put the VAD ? Uh , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net to do both , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net that you {disfmarker} that I was talking about to do the VAD ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Uh , it actually comes at v at the very end . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So the net {disfmarker} the final net {disfmarker} I mean , which is the feature net {disfmarker} so that actually comes after a chain of , like , LDA plus everything . So it 's , like , it takes a long time to get a decision out of it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can actually do it for final frame - dropping , but not for the VA - f noise estimation . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You see , the idea is that the , um , initial decision to {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that you 're in silence or speech happens pretty quickly . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Cuz that 's used by some of these other {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: And that {disfmarker} Yeah . And that 's sort of fed forward , and {disfmarker} and you say "" well , flush everything , it 's not speech anymore "" . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought that was only used for doing frame - dropping later on . +Professor B: Um , it is used , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's only used f Well , it 's used for frame - dropping . Um , it 's used for end of utterance +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: because , you know , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have {pause} more than five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of nonspeech then you figure it 's end of utterance or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . +PhD E: And it seems important for , like , the on - line normalization . Um . We don't want to update the mean and variance during silen long silence portions . Um . So it {disfmarker} it has to be done before +PhD A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: this mean and variance normalization . Um . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . So probably the VAD and {disfmarker} and maybe testing out the noise {pause} estimation a little bit . I mean , keeping the same method but {disfmarker} but , uh , {vocalsound} seeing if you cou but , um noise estimation could be improved . Those are sort of related issues . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It probably makes sense to move from there . And then , uh , {vocalsound} later on in the month I think we wanna start including the {pause} neural net at the end . Um . OK . Anything else ? +PhD E: The Half Dome was great . +Professor B: Good . Yeah . You didn't {disfmarker} didn't fall . That 's good . +PhD C: Well , yeah . +Professor B: Our e our effort would have been devastated if you guys had {comment} {vocalsound} run into problems . +PhD A: So , Hynek is coming back next week , you said ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the plan . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the week after he 'll be , uh , going back to Europe , and so we wanna {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is he in Europe right now or is he up at {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's dropped into the US . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . Hmm . +Professor B: So . Uh . {vocalsound} So , uh . Uh , the idea was that , uh , we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd sort out where we were going next with this {disfmarker} with this work before he , uh , left on this next trip . Good . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , Barry , you just got through your {vocalsound} quals , so I don't know if you {vocalsound} have much to say . But , uh . +Grad D: Mmm . No , just , uh , looking into some {disfmarker} some of the things that , um , {vocalsound} uh , John Ohala and Hynek , um , gave as feedback , um , as {disfmarker} as a starting point for the project . Um . In {disfmarker} in my proposal , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about starting from a set of , uh , phonological features , {vocalsound} or a subset of them . Um , but that might not be necessarily a good idea according to , um , John . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: He said , uh , um , these {disfmarker} these phonological features are {disfmarker} are sort of figments of imagination also . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . S +Professor B: In conversational speech in particular . I think you can {disfmarker} you can put them in pretty reliably in synthetic speech . +Grad D: Ye +Professor B: But {vocalsound} we don't have too much trouble recognizing synthetic speech since we create it in the first place . So , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . Yeah . So , um , a better way would be something more {disfmarker} more data - driven , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: just looking at the data and seeing what 's similar and what 's not similar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , um , taking a look at some of , um , {vocalsound} Sangita 's work on {disfmarker} on TRAPS . She did something where , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w where the TRAPS learn She clustered the {disfmarker} the temporal patterns of , um , certain {disfmarker} certain phonemes in {disfmarker} in m averaged over many , many contexts . And , uh , some things tended to cluster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right ? You know , like stop {disfmarker} stop consonants clustered really well . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Um , silence was by its own self . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , uh , um , {vocalsound} v vocalic was clustered . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , {vocalsound} um , so , {vocalsound} those are {pause} interesting things to {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're {disfmarker} now you 're sort of looking to try to gather a set of these types of features ? +Grad D: Right . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Just to see where {disfmarker} where I could start off from , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh , you know ? A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of small features and continue to iterate and find , uh , a better set . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , short meeting . That 's OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So next week hopefully we 'll {disfmarker} can get Hynek here to {disfmarker} to join us and , uh , uh . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Digits , digits . OK , now . +PhD A: Go ahead , Morgan . You can start . +Professor B: Alright . Let me get my glasses on so I can {pause} see them . OK . +PhD A: OK . And we 're off . +Professor B: Mm +","In the conversation, several members of a research team, including professors and PhD students, are discussing their work on noise suppression techniques and their upcoming software development plans. PhD E elaborates on the differences between spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering, dependent on the transfer function and SNR, highlighting the complexity and challenges associated with noise addition. They also discuss the merits of two different paper sheets, one focused on spectral subtraction in mel bands and the other on Wiener filtering without noise addition post-process. + +PhD A seeks clarification on which paper they should focus on, to which PhD E responds about a particular sheet related to the performance metrics of their system. Professor B comments on the similarity of the results of the methodologies on different databases and languages but acknowledges variations in performance on particular datasets like Finnish, Spanish, and the TI-digits. + +The group acknowledges forming a coalition to create unified software with multiple options for spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering. The software is almost ready, and there's a discussion about its impact on the project's progress. Professor B summarizes the past meeting's conclusions on choosing between spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering, emphasizing the pressing need to select one due to time constraints. + +Hynek and Guenther's feedback post-QualComm was influential, and the group agreed to focus on specific methods due to limited time, dismissing others like the vector Taylor series and subspace methods. They acknowledged the mathematical similarities and differences between spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering, particularly in terms of error handling and the decision to either work with power spectra or signals directly. + +The group then discusses software issues related to neural networks, voice activity detection (VAD), and noise estimation, noting the importance of integrating these features to handle noise effectively. They contemplate whether to incorporate neural networks before or after noise suppression methods and discuss issues of latency and performance enhancement. + +Grad D shares that he is starting a project based on feedback from a recent qualification process, considering data-driven approaches and clustering phonemes based on temporal patterns. + +Professor B wraps up the meeting, proposing to reconvene next week with Hynek, who is expected to return. The meeting disengages with a casual exchange about a traditional digits exercise." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , almost there . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint , I guess . How was that , was that fun ? +User Interface: Mm . Very fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes , but I will do . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker} +Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: copy . {gap} +Project Manager: Alright , okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there's good news ? +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we have budget problems . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Cutbacks . +Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked . Oops . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't even have this on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay , have you got a presentation to make ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No , not mine yet . +Project Manager: No . Okay +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so it's just your your show . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We made three for you . +Project Manager: Three ? Oh . +User Interface: Um one's based on the banana , one's based on the tomato +Project Manager: Tomato ? What tomato ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the other one is st +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Look . Oh yeah , well yeah , we had v some red left over . +Project Manager: Ah I see , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So . Okay , so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one , or as mm few buttons as possible , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mainly speak recognition . The yellow there is the um +Project Manager: Logo . +User Interface: the slogan , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +User Interface: that we need to incorporate , it's very simple . If you do need buttons , you can flip it over , and there's some there , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons would be like , you know individual users , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that . Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , you guys can have a look at that if you want . +Project Manager: That's groovy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it , I like the feel of it . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . Um that one is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , it's delicate . +Project Manager: At Oh dear . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one . That's it stand . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: It does also lie flat , but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant mm . +User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan . +Project Manager: Okay , nice and obvious there {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Uh yeah , that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we did think of that . +Project Manager: if it's standing up , I guess , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , if it's standing up it's it's on there , but also we're gonna have the company name on the front , which is the little black kind of line in the middle . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay , brilliant . Like that from its centre . +User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing . These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down . We n were weren't sure about putting them there , because um i it's it kind of could get bashed . +Project Manager: Where you're , yeah , uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , if you hold it , you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it , is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: if you've got small hands . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger . +Project Manager: Yeah , scale model , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um that's a speaker at the top , so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons . Yeah kind of self-explanatory , just buttons whenever you need them . Tried to keep it simple . Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap} . And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's not in the traditional place , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place . +Project Manager: It's out of the way as well , I suppose , so . Excellent . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This one is uh , I suppose for the younger audiences . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah excellent , just what we need . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah . Well , nice to have uh options at least . +Industrial Designer: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It won't stand . +Project Manager: Oh there are issues , oh there are issues . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down , it wont stand . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Uh , let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons , uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So we have to +Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left ? {gap} +Project Manager: rea Sorry , I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} There we go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh god , why is it doing that ? +User Interface: Ooh . +Project Manager: There we go . {vocalsound} So basically , um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape , but just have it flattened . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: More like a traditional remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape , so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no , hold on . Doesn't save us quite as much . I don't know what's going on with this again . +Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them ? +Project Manager: Oh , good point . +Marketing: And double curve on both sides ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Curve {vocalsound} . Yeah , this is double-curve , +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out . +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: Is i +Marketing: This is double-curve . It {disfmarker} This one is single curve . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause this is single curve , this is curved on both sides . So double-curve . +Project Manager: No , I think it means double curved as in um +User Interface: Like an S_ shape . +Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half , and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , I might be wrong though . +Marketing: Like this , one curve on this side , one curve on that side . +Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve , I think that's just a shape . +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there , right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and why why I've got it two , I don't know , I can't seem to select any more however . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out . But you think it should be one . +Project Manager: It's meant to be one , yeah , I don't know why I put two in there , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it , I think this shift button might be stuck again . No maybe the shift button's stuck in . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay , so that would take away three , which would give us {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty . +User Interface: Cool . Cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we could even add something . +Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite , have the scroll-wheel , unfortunately . +Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants . +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah , we could add things . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell , where you're starting from , and then use the arrow keys . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Does that work ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , that just extends it as well . +Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah , this box . Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking , I don't know {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay , just a minute . Okay . No input , like this . {vocalsound} Shift . No it's not . +Project Manager: No , it's 'cause the uh the shift button's stuck , or something . +Marketing: Yeah , it's not working . +Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe ? +Marketing: Should we ask Meli +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine . Um we've worked out what it would be anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons ? It could be the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cancel . Piss off . +Industrial Designer: That's too bad . +Project Manager: Oh well , never mind . Um {vocalsound} . Right , so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add ? Um +User Interface: Well maybe we could add something , but maybe if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money , so . Yeah , if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money , if we don't have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there , then , you know , feel free to add it . Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now . +Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay , so project evaluation . We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty . Project process , how do we think that went ? Are we happy ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Evaluation . Oh we've been writing this up for m months . +User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly . +Project Manager: Uh room for creativity , were we happy with that ? +User Interface: W I think we were very creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I mea I think it means sort of individually . +User Interface: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , no , maybe ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Groovy . So uh we're just gonna . Uh yeah , okay . Teamwork ? Leadership , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Great leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Excellent leadership . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you very much . You're all get you're all getting a raise . Uh teamwork . I thought went well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , everyone got enough input , I think . +Project Manager: Uh and well means , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , we {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though . +Project Manager: I don't know what , new ideas found , means , to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , these are new ideas , like glow-in-the-dark or something like that . We discussed all the new ideas , but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals , we couldn't use these {gap} , but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this . These are new ideas we And new shapes , everything +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: . At le {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Groovy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Well um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} . I suppose yeah . Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this , right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it , um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay . +Project Manager: Whoops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it go back in , does it ? Reusable . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian , have you have you finished ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Uh mine needs also this . +Project Manager: Um I have , yes . +Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation . +Project Manager: Huh ? Oh right , okay , you've got more , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh , you got a presentation , +Project Manager: Sorry uh . +User Interface: sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh ok +Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this +Marketing: S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thing . Is it ? Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated , that is mine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me . {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves , we thought we were great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Mm , love to eat that now . +Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of a green banana now . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well , sorry , we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex , new material that we've got . +Project Manager: O okay , hold on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got . +Industrial Designer: {gap} blue . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want . {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I didn't realise you had that bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . Thank you . +Marketing: So now is the final evaluation , final evaluation of the uh uh of our product . How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not . How mu What rating we will give to these products . So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work , w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything . So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements , whether it meets the user requirements or not , this product . Then trends , whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not ? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also . Then marketing strategy of the company . As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market , not only in terms of providing quality products , not only in pro providing latest technologies , but also in terms of providing environmental s +User Interface: Sorry {gap} . Sorry , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: carry on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products , uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues . So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale . I'm having this scale this scale , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so we have to do it on a board . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think . +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The board working again , is it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: There it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product . First of all uh comes user requirement . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not . I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views , what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah , it did . +Marketing: S +User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so . +Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_ , +User Interface: Does it work ? +Project Manager: so yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give . +Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet . +User Interface: I would say seven . +Marketing: Seven . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good , yeah , isn't it ? I can't {disfmarker} True or false ? No sorry tr one is true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One , yeah . +Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven , or one ? +Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end , and false is the oth +Industrial Designer: No that's false . +Marketing: Okay , right right . So it's one for from your point of view . +User Interface: Okay , so one . +Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert ? +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . It's hard to know . I I give it a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design , because she was our i Interface Expert . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology , whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I think i it might even exceed it um . But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: And what about uh you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Oh , I'll go for a one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You will go for one . +Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh for me personally it is everything fine , it may be having good design , it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise , price-wise , but there is one thing which limits the customers , like we are having only two , three designs , like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah , lower end . And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana , or orange , you are limiting him . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't buy our product , because we are l we like this only . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: two or three kinds rather , and {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: Is that no is that not trends ? +Marketing: Uh no , uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits , they give a range of products , a range of shapes , like if we see , look at the smallest thing , toffee chocolates , they give a variety of different things . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape , some apple shape , some even pineapple shape , some orange shape . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers . And by limiting them , we are limiting our sales , limiting our profit also . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But in electronics , I think , it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think , you know , if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from , a company'll have two or three choices , but they're different designs . We were coming up with one product . +Marketing: Uh maybe . Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , on an average we can think three , four sevenths , maybe . Three or four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , no sorry , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it should be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Six . Five or six . +User Interface: What are we doing ? +Industrial Designer: What are we doing ? +Marketing: No sorry , sorry , sorry , sorry , we are doing a very wrong thing . +User Interface: Adding them up ? +Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , we are taking everything , +Industrial Designer: Okay . So seven fourths . +Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah uh +Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight . +Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly . So we can say one or two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two , so we will do two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see . +Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So trends . +Marketing: So where were the trends . +Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends ? +Marketing: Yeah , again the the fashion trends , this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had , that fruit and vegetables are quite popular , and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons , I would give it um , well , because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at , that that looks cool , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I would actually give it a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Tha three or four , I'm not sure . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Three . Go for three . That's fine . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . As far as the uh technology it its' got the latest trends in speech technology , but it's missing the screen , as we said , um but it does have the push-buttons , or the scroll-buttons , um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism . So I give it a a four . I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: for technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in , I mean uh it might +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it might be trendy to some , but I'm just not swallowing the fruit , so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it . Um so yeah I'd say about four as well . +Marketing: Okay . Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends , these products are quite good , like , these products are in fruit shape , because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised , like clothes , shoes , and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables , or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So and in this way our product is good . And the second thing , now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market . And yes . It is cus spongy also . So they can play with it , it's quite good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So then I think , maybe I can give it two . So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap} . So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine ? So what about company strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the company strategy , okay . Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing , that was good . Um I feel I got my say . Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Is that the question ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Is it ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Okay , so {vocalsound} one or two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: One . Okay , just leave it , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: I'll go with two . +Marketing: So what about you , Brian ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , a three . Pretty much kept to the company strategy , so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one , as we not only kept it , but we were limited by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , and me also , like , this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers' requirement , as per latest technology , and it should be environmental safe . So since our product meets all these requirements , so I would also prefer to give it rank one . So four six six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half . +Marketing: half . +User Interface: Yeah , one . +Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . So th seven seven . Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something , but we can round it as two . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good . +Project Manager: Cool , groovy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So we can launch it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . Brilliant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Woo-hoo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done . 'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +","In the conversation, members of a project team (User Interface, Industrial Designer, Project Manager, and Marketing) are discussing the final stages of a product they've been working on. The dialog opens with standard acknowledgements before the Project Manager realizes they've forgotten to mail the minutes and promises to do so. Marketing forgets their copy of a document, which causes a slight disruption. + +There is mention of a prototype and some good news, which turns out to be sarcastically delivered bad news about budget problems leading to the joke that everyone is sacked. The User Interface presents three prototype designs based on a banana, a tomato, and another unspecified design. The designs prioritize speech recognition and have a minimalist approach to buttons. They discuss the ergonomics and features of the designs, including flip-over buttons, slogans, charging stands, and LED functionality. + +The team seems to agree they have a winning product but discuss finances, with a concern over the costs of specific design features like double curves. They come up with a solution to save money by flattening the design to reduce costs. + +The team conducts an internal evaluation of their project based on user requirements, trends, and company strategy on a seven-point scale. Each team member gives their input, with various viewpoints on the design's alignment with user needs, trendiness, and how well it fits the company's strategy. They eventually agree on an overall positive evaluation, indicating the product can be launched. + +The conversation ends with a light-hearted suggestion by the Project Manager for a celebratory champagne lunch, acknowledging that the team has successfully evaluated the product and stayed within budget." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning . Sorry ? Yeah , busy job . Good morning . So {disfmarker} Oh , good morning everyone . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I'd uh like to welcome you to our first meeting . I've prepared a little presentation . My name is {gap} and uh I hope you will introduce yourself uh in a few minutes , as will I . Um I'm the Project Manager of this project , and uh , well I will tell you {gap} on what actually is the project . This is uh the agenda for our first meeting . Um this is the opening , then we will get {disfmarker} {gap} I will hope we will get acquainted to each other . We'll do a little tool training with these two things . We'll take a look at the project plan . Uh there will be time for discussion . Actually we have to discuss because we have to create a product . And then we will close this session . Um but first of all we I'd like to uh introduce you to this room . Um as you probably have noticed there are little black uh fields on the table . Um you have to put your laptop exactly in that field so the little cameras can see your face . Um there are cameras +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: everywhere around the room especially here for your face , of course , and this isn't a pie , it's a a set of microphones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and there are microphones here also . But please uh don't be afraid of them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They won't hurt you . Um well uh +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I said I'm the Project Manager and uh I'm hoping uh for a good project and uh I'd like to hear uh who you are and what your functions are uh on this project . Let's start with the ladies {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well uh I'm uh {gap} and my uh function is User Interface Design , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So uh that's me . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh I'm {gap} uh I'm the Industrial Designer and I uh hope to uh {disfmarker} look forward to uh a very uh pleasing uh end of this uh project . +Project Manager: Okay , so I . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: My name's {gap} . I'm uh {vocalsound} Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} My job is in the company to promote company or promote products to the customers . So I also h hope we have a pleasant uh working with uh with each other . +Project Manager: Okay , well we have some expertise from uh different pieces of the of the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . Um well I said uh we're working on a project and the aim for the project is to to create a {disfmarker} to design a new remote control which uh has to be original , trendy and of course , user friendly . {vocalsound} And uh I hope we have the expertise to create such a project {disfmarker} such a product . Um the way we hope to achieve that is uh the following methods . It consists of three phases , namely the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . As you can see , all of these phases consists of two parts , namely individual work part and a meeting where we will discuss uh our work so far . Okay . But first I will uh tell you something about the tools we have here . I already talked about the cameras and microphones , but they are not of uh much use to us . Uh we will have to take advantage of these two things . They are smart boards . As you can see , you can give a presentation on them . And uh this one here is a white board . I will uh instruct you about that soon . Um as you also noticed uh this presentation document is in our uh project folder and every document you put in this folder uh is uh it is possible to show that here in our meeting room . Um and yeah there are available on both smart boards but I think we will uh mainly use this one for the documents in the shared folder . As you can see , this is the same tool bar uh as is located here . Um the most functions uh we will use will be to to add a new page , um uh to go back and forward between pages , and of course uh to save it every now and then . Um and this is the pen with which you can draw on the board , for instance like this if everything's okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I first have to put it on the pen , you see I'm new to it too . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and then you can write things like test or whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: As you can see you have to move it a little bit slow , it's not such a fast board , it's a smart board but also a slow board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but you can write things and of course you can also , when you click here , uh erase things , so we have uh est left . And um you can also delete an entire page , but we ask you not to do that . Just simply create a new one and uh start all over because we want to save all the results . Um does everyone understand this +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we can't erase anything . +Project Manager: nice application ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you can erase it with the eraser , but uh you shouldn't delete an entire page , but just create a new blank one . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I will delete this one now because we don't use it yet . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: But you can of course erase when you make a mistake , but don't uh delete entire pages . And you can also um let's see I think it's here uh change the uh colour of your pen , for instance take a blue one and uh change the line width like to five . Um that's what you will need for our first exercise , because I'm uh going to ask you to draw your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's also to gets to know each other because um I'm asking three things , uh for that uh drawing , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: to do it on a blank sheet , with different colours and I just showed you how to pick a colour , and also with different pen widths which I also showed you . Um and a favourite characteristic can be just uh one word . Well I'm not very good at drawing , but I will uh go first and um try to draw {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or maybe you should guess what I'm drawing , eh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {gap} No . +User Interface: It's a sheep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinos +Industrial Designer: Seal , a seal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinosaur . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Beaver . +User Interface: {gap} A beaver . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A be {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it uh +User Interface: It's weird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: could be everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . With a tail and a mouth . +Project Manager: Maybe when I put on +User Interface: It has wings ? +Marketing: Turtle . +Project Manager: this thing it could be a turtle , or a snail , +Industrial Designer: Snail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well the snail doesn't have legs . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But a turtle has . And those are slow . And I hope our project group will not be slow , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we will uh work to a good result +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and do it uh as fast as we can . Okay , time for another animal . Would you like to go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . No problem . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . It was four months ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice , okay . +User Interface: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The hell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To make it a little bit easier . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . +Industrial Designer: Make that cute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , it's a giraffe . 'Kay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think it's easy to r uh to recognise as a giraffe . +User Interface: Yes . Giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , the favourite charis characteristic is that the long neck , {vocalsound} it can reach everything . And I hope I can also reach a lot with this project . So that's my favourite animal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anything else you need to know ? +Project Manager: Could you write the words , uh underneath it ? Or more words . +Marketing: Oh , uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tall . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tall . So , +User Interface: Should I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'kay . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So I can draw , but uh {disfmarker} Uh . Well . {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: B {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a mouse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Oh wrong one . Uh . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: you can guess what it is , I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . No problem . +Project Manager: Little rabbits . +User Interface: It's a rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh well uh it's uh quick , I guess . That's uh my uh favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And our final drawing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bob Ross . +User Interface: A dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , um . +Marketing: Dolphin . +Industrial Designer: Uh I uh draw I I've drawn a dolphin because of its intelligence . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: One of the most intelligent uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: animals in our world . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah intelligent . +User Interface: With an E_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Eraser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can try out the eraser now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pen . Well not perfect , but okay . +Project Manager: Okay , well +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: thank you very much . I can see we have some uh drawing talent uh in this group , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? Well , nice animals , nice words . Sounds good . Um back to business , back to the money part . Um from the finance department I have learned that we are aiming for a selling price of twenty five Euros . And we're hoping for a aim of fifty million Euros and uh we are hoping to achieve that uh by aiming for an international market . And the production cost will be twelve Euro fifty max . Okay , well it's time uh for some discussion . I've wrote down some examples here of what we can can speak about . Uh what's your experience with remote controls , um what kind of ideas do you have to design a new remote control , maybe for which market segments should we aim , or should we aim for all segments . Uh well actually I'd like to hand the word uh back to you . What's your experience with remote control ? +User Interface: {gap} I always lose them . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons . And you always lose them . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons which you don't use +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or who you don't use +Marketing: Complex . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Complex . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Not user friendly . +User Interface: {gap} search for the buttons , which one is which +Marketing: No . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Boring . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boring , it's not fun to use a remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Black , all black . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Black colours . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should try to make it fun . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} They use batteries and {gap} batteries uh and poor signal . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Perhaps that you have a lot of road remotes r road con remote controls . +Marketing: The the angle you have to use . You had different remote controls for different devices . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , different remote controls , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: perhaps you can integrate them or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the use of different uh devices {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your stereo and your T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and uh . Perhaps that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but then again you you still have a lot of buttons , +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . And which you don't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you could uh I thin uh there's a possibility to g uh to uh to put those buttons uh behind some uh kind of uh protection +Marketing: Flap +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so that if y y you only get to see them when you need 'em . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , okay , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's possible , so that you only get the {disfmarker} +Marketing: but it'll get very big the the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . You should just give it to {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No n n no , just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh for example you got th uh the same size uh remote control you use everyday , but um {vocalsound} the usual buttons such as uh um {vocalsound} zapping uh as you call it in Dutch . Uh and the volume control uh are only the only possible buttons uh to use directly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Changing channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh {vocalsound} the numbers , of course . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {gap} numbers . +Industrial Designer: But uh not uh the buttons used to search on the the channels on your television . +Marketing: On and off . +Industrial Designer: You only use those uh the first time , or . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So . Uh . +Marketing: play , pause , stop . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So maybe a a minimalist design , the least uh possible amount uh of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yes . But you should make sure that you have every button they need on it . Because uh things for uh teletext , I dunno uh , {vocalsound} w +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what's the name ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} think so . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So you don't want to bother people with uh loads of buttons , but on the other hand they need many buttons +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: so they don't have to get out of their seat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Because I think a market will be all kind of people . Elderly p el elderly , young people , so . +User Interface: But if if it's if it's international you should uh look in {disfmarker} think in Britain they have uh different things they can do with the T_V_ , or so uh that you can choose what you want to see . I dunno if you should uh take that in consideration , or that you just should aim for the normal T_V_s +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I understand . +Marketing: Yeah I think that's the better one , +User Interface: And the B_B_C_ {gap} . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I think if you you're going to target a lot of people and the whole world and only Britain then I think the cost will uh rise higher than the twelve fifty , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Yeah , I don't know if the they have that anywhere else , though . +Marketing: I think the aim is better to use uh the whole world and Britain , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , we can leave that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: When I think of it uh +Marketing: Not that much . +Industrial Designer: I think the main idea uh of this remote remote control is uh to make it user friendly . So uh I think uh when p uh when uh the customers will buy this remote control , they already have uh the remote control which uh companies uh uh with uh the the standards uh remote control with which comes uh with the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Standard deliver . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it only has to have uh the most used buttons . You don't have to integrate the buttons to search the channels on your television . +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: In those {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but then you have to to find your other remote control if you want to search . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , th it {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} I think that's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I {disfmarker} but it is impossible to uh to accommodate uh accommodate uh all the buttons on the s on the difference {disfmarker} different televisions sets on one remote control . It's impossible . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Yeah , okay {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh for example Sony television uh has the opportunity to s to make uh uh to make it possible for {disfmarker} to see on one side of the screen uh teletext , and on the other side uh just n uh regular television . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh {gap} . +Marketing: I think n m n most televisions nowadays do this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh they don't use the same signal , uh on remote control . +User Interface: Well not everywhere . +Marketing: So {gap} I think numerals . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't use a Panasonic uh remote control on a on a Philips television . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you have to choose the {disfmarker} always with r universal remotes you have to choose the code . +User Interface: Yeah , you can choose the code {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay , +Marketing: You can use which which type of television you have . That's no problem . But I think like the two pages on the same screen , like teletext and normal television , that's that's nowadays standard , I think . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} uh I think that most people uh th uh will buy the remote control because {vocalsound} because uh the first {disfmarker} they lost the one they lost first one +Marketing: Simplicity . +Industrial Designer: or the first one is broken , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh uh perhaps they have a got a an older television , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that option is not {vocalsound} uh optional for those uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah g available . +User Interface: But the people have a new television , +Marketing: True . +User Interface: and c if you look into the future , then they want {disfmarker} will want the button , if their thing is broke . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we should take that in consideration . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: any more ideas ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh mm , no . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Guess not . +Marketing: Of course . +Industrial Designer: Things'll come up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah well we have some time . Let's see what more I have to tell you . I don't think there is much left . Nope . We're starting to close . Um our next meeting uh will start {disfmarker} well we're a little bit early , but our next meeting will start in in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the meantime uh there's time for some uh individual actions . Um , as you can see , the different roles have uh different tasks . And there's a ping . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it my laptop ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Stop the meeting now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Ah well +User Interface: Yeah meeting will close in five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's good , five minutes and uh the meeting's over , uh right on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um the Marketing Expert will uh will take a look at the user requirement specification . The User Interface Designer will work out the technical functions design . And this was the Interface Designer ? Or the Interaction Designer . +User Interface: Hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or what was it , I_D_ ? +User Interface: No interface . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Interface . +Project Manager: Interface Designer , okay , first guess was right . Uh will take a look at the the working design . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No +Industrial Designer: the Industrial Designer will take a look at the working design , +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the in uh usability interaction {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: sorry . {vocalsound} Let's just use the acronyms . Um and of course specific instructions uh will be sent to you uh through your personal coach . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So I should look at uh what you should be able to do with the remote , or uh , or how {disfmarker} I don't really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well those instructions will be uh in the email you will receive uh shortly , I hope . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Alright . {vocalsound} Me too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And of course you have your own uh expertise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh that was what I had to say . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh are there any more questions ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Okay well I think then we have to head uh back to our offices and uh start working . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I have one question . +Project Manager: Okay , one question ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Where does it says we have to make a remote , because I presumed {disfmarker} {gap} She didn't know who . Okay , no {vocalsound} , no problem . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} No problem . Okay . +Project Manager: we're still going {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well I expect everything will be much clearer with the instructions we will receive uh shortly . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay well uh see you all in about thirty minutes , then . +Industrial Designer: Alrighty . Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +","In the transcript provided, we are taken through the events of an inaugural project meeting, helmed by an unnamed Project Manager leading a diverse team. The conversation takes place in a room optimized for collaboration, evidenced by the presence of multiple cameras, microphones, smart boards, and designated areas for placing laptops to ensure visibility. + +The Project Manager initiates the session with a warm welcome and briefly outlines the agenda that includes introductions, a presentation, tool training, project plan overview, and an open discussion aimed at fostering collective ideas for the creation of a new product. It is gathered the team's assignment is to design a trendy, original, and user-friendly remote control aiming for an international market, with sales aspirations hanging on a 50 million Euro goal and production costs capped at 12.50 Euros. The venture's success hinges on striking a price point of 25 Euros per unit. + +Team introductions reveal the presence of expertise in user interface design, industrial design, and marketing, with each member briefly acknowledging their roles and expressing optimism about the project’s outcome. The meeting proceeds with a lighthearted ice-breaker where team members draw their favorite animals on the smart board, a function of dually breaking the ice and demonstrating the use of the smart board's features. + +After the exercise, the Project Manager returns focus to the target product, the remote control, explaining it will follow a design trajectory broken into three key phases: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design, each comprising individual and collaborative elements. A discourse on the functionality of the meeting room's smart board tools ensues, with specific attention to the technology's utility, operation, and document-sharing capabilities strengthening the collaborative environment. + +The meeting pivots to an open discussion on remote controls, inviting personal anecdotes and criticisms of existing designs. Key points raise issues with too-many-unused buttons, frequent misplacement, complexity, lack of user-friendliness, dull aesthetics, dependency on batteries, poor signal, and the inconvenience of multiple remotes. These insights converge on the consensus that the design should aim for a minimalist approach that does not overwhelm the user while ensuring adaptability and preserving essential functions. + +Marketing considerations add to the dialogue, identifying a target market that spans demographics potentially from the elderly to the tech-savvy youth, reinforcing the need for a universally approachable product design. + +As the meeting draws to a close, the Project Manager assigns post-meeting tasks tailored to each team member's expertise, hinting at instructions to follow from their personal coaches. Limited confusion regarding the precise focus of their roles arises, which the Project Manager assures will be cleared with upcoming email instructions. + +The meeting adjourns slightly ahead of schedule, leaving a thirty-minute interval before reconvening for the next session. Marketing raises a final query regarding the project's scope, to which the Project Manager responds with reassurance that forthcoming instructions should provide the necessary clarity. + +In summary, the meeting serves as a foundational step for an interdisciplinary team kick-starting a project to develop an innovative, accessible, and financially viable remote control product destined for the global market. The session balances formality with interactive engagement, setting the stage for project strategies and surface-level discourse on design philosophies that will likely shape the contours of their collaborative work moving forward." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Uh . Somebody else should run this . I 'm sick of being the one to sort of go through and say , "" Well , what do you think about this ? "" You wanna {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Should we take turns ? You want me to run it today ? +Professor B: Yeah . Why don't you run it today ? OK . +PhD F: OK . OK . Um . Let 's see , maybe we should just get a list of items {disfmarker} things that we should talk about . Um , I guess there 's the usual {pause} updates , everybody going around and saying , uh , you know , what they 're working on , the things that happened the last week . But aside from that is there anything in particular that anybody wants to bring up +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: for today ? No ? OK . So why don't we just around and people can give updates . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD F: Uh , do you want to start , Stephane ? +PhD C: Alright . Um . Well , the first thing maybe is that the p Eurospeech paper is , uh , accepted . Um . Yeah . +PhD F: This is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what 's in the paper there ? +PhD C: So it 's the paper that describe basically the , um , system that were proposed for the {pause} Aurora . +PhD F: The one that we s we submitted the last round ? +PhD C: Right , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So and the , fff {comment} comments seems {disfmarker} from the reviewer are good . So . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Where {disfmarker} where 's it gonna be this year ? +PhD C: It 's , uh , Aalborg in Denmark . And it 's , +PhD F: Oh , OK . +PhD C: yeah , September . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD C: Mmm {disfmarker} Yeah . Then , uh , whhh well , I 've been working on {disfmarker} on t mainly on on - line normalization this week . Uh , I 've been trying different {disfmarker} slightly {disfmarker} slightly different approaches . Um , the first thing is trying to play a little bit again with the , um , time constant . Uh , second thing is , uh , the training of , uh , on - line normalization with two different means , one mean for the silence and one for the speech . Um , and so I have two recursions which are controlled by the , um , probability of the voice activity detector . Mmm . This actually don't s doesn't seem to help , although it doesn't hurt . So . But {disfmarker} well , both {pause} on - line normalization approach seems equivalent . Well , they {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are the means pretty different {pause} for the two ? +PhD C: Yeah . They can be very different . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: So do you maybe make errors in different places ? Different kinds of errors ? +PhD C: I didn't look , uh , more closely . Um . It might be , yeah . Mm - hmm . Um . Well , eh , there is one thing that we can observe , is that the mean are more different for {disfmarker} for C - zero and C - one than for the other coefficients . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And {disfmarker} Yeah , it {disfmarker} the C - one is {disfmarker} There are strange {disfmarker} strange thing happening with C - one , is that when you have different kind of noises , the mean for the {disfmarker} the silence portion is {disfmarker} can be different . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: So when you look at the trajectory of C - one , it 's {disfmarker} has a strange shape and I was expecting th the s that these two mean helps , especially because of the {disfmarker} the strange C - ze C - one shape , uh , which can {disfmarker} like , yo you can have , um , a trajectory for the speech and then when you are in the silence it goes somewhere , but if the noise is different it goes somewhere else . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: So which would mean that if we estimate the mean based on all the signal , even though we have frame dropping , but we don't frame ev uh , drop everything , but {disfmarker} uh , this can {disfmarker} hurts the estimation of the mean for speech , and {disfmarker} Mmm . {comment} But I still have to investigate further , I think . Um , a third thing is , um , {vocalsound} that instead of t having a fixed time constant , I try to have a time constant that 's smaller at the beginning of the utterances to adapt more quickly to the r something that 's closer to the right mean . T t um {disfmarker} Yeah . And then this time constant increases and I have a threshold that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: well , if it 's higher than a certain threshold , I keep it to this threshold to still , uh , adapt , um , the mean when {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the utterance is , uh , long enough to {disfmarker} to continue to adapt after , like , one second +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Uh , well , this doesn't help neither , but this doesn't hurt . So , well . It seems pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Wasn't there some experiment you were gonna try where you did something differently for each , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} I don't know whether it was each mel band or each , uh , um , FFT bin or someth There was something you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , {comment} some parameter you were gonna vary depending on the frequency . I don't know if that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: I guess it was {disfmarker} I don't know . No . u Maybe it 's this {disfmarker} this idea of having different {pause} on - line normalization , um , tunings for the different MFCC 's . +PhD F: For each , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I thought , Morgan , you brought it up a couple meetings ago . And then it was something about , uh , some and then somebody said "" yeah , it does seem like , you know , C - zero is the one that 's , you know , the major one "" or , uh , s I can't remember exactly what it was now . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . There {disfmarker} uh , actually , yeah . S um , it 's very important to normalize C - zero and {pause} much less to normalize the other coefficients . And , um , actu uh , well , at least with the current on - line normalization scheme . And we {disfmarker} I think , we {vocalsound} kind of know that normalizing C - one doesn't help with the current scheme . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . In my idea , I {disfmarker} I was thinking that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason is maybe because of these funny things that happen between speech and silence which have different means . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . But maybe it 's not so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so easy to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , I I really would like to suggest looking , um , a little bit at the kinds of errors . I know you can get lost in that and go forever and not see too much , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sometimes , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but , um , just seeing that each of these things didn't make things better may not be enough . It may be that they 're making them better in some ways and worse in others , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or increasing insertions and decreasing deletions , or {disfmarker} or , um , um , you know , helping with noisy case but hurting in quiet case . And if you saw that then maybe you {disfmarker} it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something would occur to you of how to deal with that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Alright . Mmm . Yeah . W um , So that 's it , I think , for the on - line normalization . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I 've been playing a little bit with some kind of thresholding , and , mmm , as a first experiment , I think I Yeah . Well , what I did is t is to take , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to measure the average {disfmarker} no , the maximum energy of s each utterance and then put a threshold {disfmarker} Well , this for each mel band . Then put a threshold that 's fifteen DB below {disfmarker} well , uh , a couple of DB below this maximum , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Actually it was not a threshold , it was just adding noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So I was adding a white noise energy , uh , that 's fifteen DB below the maximum energy of the utterance . And {disfmarker} Yeah . When we look at {disfmarker} at the , um , MFCC that result from this , they are {pause} a lot more smoother . Um , when we compare , like , a channel zero and channel one utterance {disfmarker} um , so a clean and , uh , the same noisy utterance {disfmarker} well , there is almost no difference between the cepstral coefficients of the two . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: Um . And {disfmarker} Yeah . And the result that we have in term of speech recognition , actually it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not worse , it 's not better neither , but it 's , um , kind of surprising that it 's not worse +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: because basically you add noise that 's fifteen DB {disfmarker} just fifteen DB below {pause} the maximum energy . +Grad A: Sorry . +PhD C: And at least {disfmarker} +PhD F: So why does that m {pause} smooth things out ? I don't {disfmarker} I don't understand that . +Professor B: Well , there 's less difference . Right ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} I think , it 's whitening {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the portion that are more silent , +Professor B: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: as you add a white noise that are {disfmarker} has a very high energy , it whitens everything +PhD F: Huh . Oh , OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and the high - energy portion of the speech don't get much affected anyway by the other noise . And as the noise you add is the same is {disfmarker} {pause} the shape , it 's also the same . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So they have {disfmarker} the trajectory are very , very similar . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , I mean , again , if you trained in one kind of noise and tested in the same kind of noise , you 'd {disfmarker} you know , given enough training data you don't do b do badly . The reason that we d that we have the problems we have is because {pause} it 's different in training and test . Even if {vocalsound} the general kind is the same , the exact instances are different . And {disfmarker} and +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so when you whiten it , then it 's like you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only noise {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to first order , the only th noise that you have is white noise and you 've added the same thing to training and test . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So would that {pause} be similar to , like , doing the smoothing , then , over time or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's a kind of smoothing , +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's different . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's something that {disfmarker} yeah , that affects more or less the silence portions because {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Well , anyway , the sp the portion of speech that ha have high energy are not ch a lot affected by the noises in the Aurora database . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: If {disfmarker} if you compare th the two shut channels of SpeechDat - Car during speech portion , it 's n n n the MFCC are not very different . They are very different when energy 's lower , like during fricatives or during speech pauses . And , +Professor B: Yeah , but you 're still getting more recognition errors , +PhD C: uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: which means {vocalsound} that the differences , even though they look like they 're not so big , {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are hurting your recognition . +PhD C: Ye +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So it distort {vocalsound} the speech . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . +PhD F: So performance went down ? +PhD C: No . It didn't . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , but in this case I {disfmarker} I really expect that maybe the {disfmarker} the two {disfmarker} these two stream of features , they are very different . I mean , and maybe we could gain something by combining them +Professor B: Well , the other thing is that you just picked one particular way of doing it . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I mean , first place it 's fifteen DB , uh , {vocalsound} down across the utterance . And {vocalsound} maybe you 'd want to have something that was a little more adaptive . Secondly , you happened to pick fifteen DB +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and maybe twenty 'd be better , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or twelve . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD F: So what was the {disfmarker} what was the threshold part of it ? Was the threshold , uh , how far down {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , he {disfmarker} yeah , he had to figure out how much to add . So he was looking {disfmarker} he was looking at the peak value . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? And then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and so what 's {disfmarker} ho I don't understand . How does it go ? If it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the peak value 's above some threshold , then you add the noise ? Or if it 's below s +PhD C: I systematically {comment} add the noise , but the , um , noise level is just {pause} some kind of threshold below the peak . +PhD F: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Which is not really noise , actually . It 's just adding a constant to each of the mel , uh , energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: To each of the {pause} mel filter bank . Yeah . +PhD F: I see . +PhD C: So , yeah , it 's really , uh , white noise . I th +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So then afterwards a log is taken , and that 's so sort of why the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the little variation tends to go away . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So may Well , the {disfmarker} this threshold is still a factor that we have to look at . And I don't know , maybe a constant noise addition would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would be fine also , or {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} or not constant but {disfmarker} but , uh , varying over time {pause} in fact is another way {pause} to go . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Were you using the {disfmarker} the normalization in addition to this ? I mean , what was the rest of the system ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . It was {disfmarker} it was , uh , the same system . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: It was the same system . Mmm . Oh , yeah . A third thing is that , um , {vocalsound} I play a little bit with the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} finding what was different between , um , And there were a couple of differences , like the LDA filters were not the same . Um , he had the France Telecom blind equalization in the system . Um , the number o of MFCC that was {disfmarker} were used was different . You used thirteen and we used fifteen . Well , a bunch of differences . And , um , actually the result that he {disfmarker} he got were much better on TI - digits especially . So I 'm kind of investigated to see what was the main factor for this difference . And it seems that the LDA filter is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was hurting . Um , {vocalsound} so when we put s some noise compensation the , um , LDA filter that {disfmarker} that 's derived from noisy speech is not more {disfmarker} anymore optimal . And it makes a big difference , um , {vocalsound} on TI - digits trained on clean . Uh , if we use the {disfmarker} the old LDA filter , I mean the LDA filter that was in the proposal , we have , like , eighty - two point seven percent recognition rate , um , on noisy speech when the system is trained on clean speech . But {disfmarker} and when we use the filter that 's derived from clean speech we jumped {disfmarker} so from eighty - two point seven to eighty - five point one , which is a huge leap . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um . Yeah . So now the results are more similar , and I don't {disfmarker} I will not , I think , investigate on the other differences , which is like the number of MFCC that we keep and other small things that we can I think optimize later on anyway . +Professor B: Sure . But on the other hand if everybody is trying different kinds of noise suppression things and so forth , it might be good to standardize on the piece {vocalsound} that we 're not changing . Right ? So if there 's any particular reason to ha pick one or the other , I mean {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} which one is closer to what the proposal was that was submitted to Aurora ? Are they {disfmarker} they both {disfmarker} ? Well , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think th th uh , the new system that I tested is , I guess , closer because it doesn't have {disfmarker} it have less of {disfmarker} of France Telecom stuff , +PhD D: You mean the {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} whatever you , uh , tested with recently . Right ? +PhD C: Mmm ? Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor B: Well , no , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah , you 're trying to add in France Telecom . +PhD C: But , we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Tell them about the rest of it . Like you said the number of filters might be {vocalsound} different or something . Right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD D: The number of cepstral coefficients is what ? +Professor B: Cep +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , I think we 'd wanna standardize there , wouldn't we ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So , sh you guys should pick something +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} Well , all th all three of you . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I think we were gonna work with {disfmarker} with this or this new system , or with {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} right now , the {disfmarker} the system that is there in the {disfmarker} what we have in the repositories , with {disfmarker} uses fifteen . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD C: But we will use the {disfmarker} the LDA filters f derived from clean speech . Well , yeah , actually it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the {disfmarker} the LDA filter . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's something that 's also short enough in {disfmarker} in latency . +PhD D: Yeah . Well . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So , we haven't {disfmarker} w we have been always using , uh , fifteen coefficients , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: not thirteen ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , uh , that 's {disfmarker} something 's {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . Then {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think as long as you guys agree on it , it doesn't matter . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think we have a maximum of sixty , {vocalsound} uh , features that we 're allowed . So . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Ma - maybe we can {disfmarker} I mean , at least , um , I 'll t s run some experiments to see whether {disfmarker} once I have this {vocalsound} {comment} noise compensation to see whether thirteen and fifteen really matters or not . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Never tested it with the compensation , but without , {vocalsound} uh , compensation it was like fifteen was s slightly better than thirteen , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: so that 's why we stuck to thirteen . +PhD C: Yeah . And there is {disfmarker} there is also this log energy versus C - zero . +PhD D: Sorry , fifteen . Yeah , the log energy versus C - zero . +PhD C: Well . W w if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other thing . I mean , without noise compensation certainly C - zero is better than log energy . Be - I mean , because the {disfmarker} there are more , uh , mismatched conditions than the matching conditions for testing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know , always for the matched condition , you always get a {pause} slightly better performance for log energy than C - zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not for {disfmarker} I mean , for matched and the clean condition both , you get log energy {disfmarker} I mean you get a better performance with log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , um , maybe once we have this noise compensation , I don't know , we have to try that also , whether we want to go for C - zero or log energy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We can see that . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD F: So do you have {pause} more , Stephane , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Uh , that 's it , I think . Mmm . +PhD F: Do you have anything , Morgan , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , no . I 'm just , you know , being a manager this week . So . +PhD F: How about you , Barry ? +Grad A: Um , {vocalsound} still working on my {disfmarker} my quals preparation stuff . Um , {vocalsound} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about , um , starting some , {vocalsound} uh , cheating experiments to , uh , determine the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the relative effectiveness of , um , some intermediate categories that I want to classify . So , for example , um , {vocalsound} if I know where voicing occurs and everything , um , {vocalsound} I would do a phone {disfmarker} um , phone recognition experiment , um , somehow putting in the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the perfect knowledge that I have about voicing . So , um , in particular I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in the hybrid framework , just taking those LNA files , {vocalsound} and , um , {vocalsound} setting to zero those probabilities that , um {disfmarker} that these phones are not voicing . So say , like , I know this particular segment is voicing , um , {vocalsound} I would say , uh , go into the corresponding LNA file and zonk out the {disfmarker} the posteriors for , um , those phonemes that , um , are not voiced , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then see what kinds of improvements I get . And so this would be a useful thing , um , to know {vocalsound} in terms of , like , which {disfmarker} which , um {disfmarker} which of these categories are {disfmarker} are good for , um , speech recognition . +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , that 's {disfmarker} I hope to get those , uh {disfmarker} those experiments done by {disfmarker} by the time quals come {disfmarker} come around in July . +PhD F: So do you just take the probabilities of the other ones and spread them out evenly among the {disfmarker} the remaining ones ? +Grad A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking {disfmarker} OK , so just set to {disfmarker} set to some really low number , the {disfmarker} the non - voiced , um , phones . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? And then renormalize . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: Right . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Cool . That will be really interesting to see , you know . So then you 're gonna feed the {disfmarker} those into {pause} some standard recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Uh , wh are you gonna do digits +Grad A: Yeah , m Um , well , I 'm gonna f work with TIMIT {disfmarker} +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? With TIMIT . OK . +Grad A: TIMIT {disfmarker} uh , phone recognition with TIMIT . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so then you 'll feed those {disfmarker} Sorry . So where do the outputs of the net go into if you 're doing phone recognition ? +Grad A: Oh . Um , the outputs of the net go into the standard , h um , ICSI hybrid , um , recognizer . So maybe , um , Chronos +PhD F: An - and you 're gonna {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you 're gonna do phone recognition with that ? +Grad A: or {disfmarker} Phone recognition . Right , right . +PhD F: OK , OK . I see . +Grad A: So . And , uh , another thing would be to extend this to , uh , digits or something where I can look at whole words . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And I would be able to see , uh , not just , like , phoneme events , but , um , {vocalsound} inter - phoneme events . So , like , this is from a stop to {disfmarker} to a vo a vocalic +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: segment . You know , so something that is transitional in nature . +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Cool . Great . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see , I haven't done a whole lot on anything related to this this week . I 've been focusing mainly on Meeting Recorder stuff . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: So , um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll just pass it on to Dave . +Grad G: Uh , OK . Well , in my lunch talk last week I {disfmarker} I said I 'd tried phase normalization and gotten garbage results using that l um , long - term mean subtraction approach . It turned out there was a bug in my Matlab code . So I tried it again , um , and , um , the results {vocalsound} were {disfmarker} were better . I got intelligible speech back . But they still weren't as good as just subtracting the magnitude {disfmarker} the log magnitude means . And also I 've been talking to , um , Andreas and Thilo about the , um , SmartKom language model and about coming up with a good model for , um , far mike use of the SmartKom system . So I 'm gonna be working on , um , implementing this mean subtraction approach in the {vocalsound} far - mike system {disfmarker} for the SmartKom system , I mean . And , um , one of the experiments we 're gonna do is , um , we 're gonna , um , train the {disfmarker} a Broadcast News net , which is because that 's what we 've been using so far , and , um , adapt it on some other data . Um , An - Andreas wants to use , um , data that resembles read speech , like {pause} these digit readings , because he feels that the SmartKom system interaction is not gonna be exactly conversational . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: S so actually I was wondering , how long does it take to train that Broadcast News net ? +Professor B: The big one takes a while . Yeah . That takes two , three weeks . +Grad G: Two , three weeks . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} but , you know , uh , you can get {disfmarker} I don't know if you even want to run the big one , uh , um , in the {disfmarker} in the final system , cuz , you know , it takes a little while to run it . So , {vocalsound} um , you can scale it down by {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , it was two , three weeks for training up for the large Broadcast News test set {disfmarker} training set . I don't know how much you 'd be training on . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: The full ? +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , i so if you trained on half as much {vocalsound} and made the net , uh , uh , half as big , then it would be one fourth {pause} the amount of time +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and it 'd be nearly as good . So . +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Also , I guess we had {disfmarker} we 've had these , uh , little di discussions {disfmarker} I guess you ha haven't had a chance to work with it too much {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} about , uh {disfmarker} uh , uh m other ways of taking care of the phase . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess that was something I could say would be that we 've talked a little bit about +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you just doing it all with complex arithmetic and , uh {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not , uh , doing the polar representation with magnitude and phase . But {vocalsound} it looks like there 's ways that one could potentially just work with the complex numbers and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and in principle get rid of the {vocalsound} effects of the average complex spectrum . But {disfmarker} +Grad G: And , um , actually , regarding the phase normalization {disfmarker} So I did two experiments , and one is {disfmarker} So , phases get added , modulo two pi , and {disfmarker} because you only know the phase of the complex number t t to a value modulo two pi . And so I thought at first , um , that , uh , what I should do is unwrap the phase because that will undo that . Um , but I actually got worse results doing that unwrapping using the simple phase unwrapper that 's in Matlab than I did not unwrapping at all . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . P So . +Grad G: And that 's all I have to say . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still hopeful that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we don't even know if the phase {vocalsound} is something {disfmarker} the average phase is something that we do want to remove . I mean , maybe there 's some deeper reason why it isn't the right thing to do . But , um , at least in principle it looks like there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , a couple potential ways to do it . One {disfmarker} one being to just work with the complex numbers , um , and , uh {disfmarker} in rectangular kind of coordinates . And the other is {vocalsound} to , uh , do a Taylor series {disfmarker} Well . So you work with the complex numbers and then when you get the spectrum {disfmarker} the average complex spectrum {disfmarker} um , actually divide it out , um , as opposed to taking the log and subtracting . So then , um , um , you know , there might be some numerical issues . We don't really know that . The other thing we talked a little bit about was Taylor series expansion . And , um , uh , actually I was talking to Dick Karp about it a little bit , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , since I got thinking about it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , so one thing is that y you 'd have to do , I think , uh {disfmarker} we may have to do this on a whiteboard , but I think you have to be a little careful about scaling the numbers that you 're {vocalsound} taking {disfmarker} the complex numbers that you 're taking the log of because {vocalsound} the Taylor expansion for it has , you know , a square and a cube , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And {disfmarker} and so if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have a {disfmarker} a number that is modulus , you know , uh , very different from one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It should be right around one , if it 's {disfmarker} cuz it 's a expansion of log one {disfmarker} one minus epsilon or o is {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} one plus epsilon , or is it one plus {disfmarker} ? Well , there 's an epsilon squared over two and an epsilon cubed over three , +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: and so forth . So if epsilon is bigger than one , then it diverges . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: So you have to do some scaling . But that 's not a big deal cuz it 's the log of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of K times a complex number , then you can just {disfmarker} that 's the same as log of K plus {vocalsound} log of the complex number . +Grad G: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , so there 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Professor B: converges . But . +PhD F: Hmm . OK . How about you , Sunil ? +PhD D: So , um , I 've been , uh , implementing this , uh , Wiener filtering for this Aurora task . And , uh , I {disfmarker} I actually thought it was {disfmarker} it was doing fine when I tested it once . I it 's , like , using a small section of the code . And then I ran the whole recognition experiment with Italian and I got , {vocalsound} like , worse results than not using it . Then I {disfmarker} So , I 've been trying to find where the problem came from . And then it looks like I have some problem in the way {disfmarker} there is some {disfmarker} some very silly bug somewhere . And , ugh ! I {disfmarker} I mean , i uh , it actually {disfmarker} i it actually made the whole thing worse . I was looking at the spectrograms that I got and it 's , like {disfmarker} w it 's {disfmarker} it 's very horrible . Like , when I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I missed the v I 'm sorry , I was {disfmarker} I was distracted . I missed the very first sentence . So then , I 'm a little lost on the rest . +PhD D: Oh , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . I actually implemented the Wiener f f fil filtering as a module and then tested it out separately . +Professor B: Yeah , I see . Oh , OK . +PhD D: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it gave , like {disfmarker} I just got the signal out and it {disfmarker} it was OK . So , I plugged it in somewhere and then {disfmarker} I mean , it 's like I had to remove some part and then plugging it in somewhere . And then I {disfmarker} in that process I messed it up somewhere . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: So . So , it was real I mean , I thought it was all fine and then I ran it , and I got something worse than not using it . So , I was like {disfmarker} I 'm trying to find where the m m problem came , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and it seems to be , like , somewhere {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: some silly stuff . And , um , the other thing , uh , was , uh , uh {disfmarker} Well , Hynek showed up one {disfmarker} suddenly on one day and then I was t talking wi +Professor B: Right . Yeah . As {disfmarker} as he is wont to do . Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So I was actually {disfmarker} that day I was thinking about d doing something about the Wiener filtering , and then Carlos matter of stuff . And then he showed up and then I told him . And then he gave me a whole bunch of filters {disfmarker} what Carlos used for his , uh , uh , thesis and then {vocalsound} that was something which came up . And then , um {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm actually , {vocalsound} uh , thinking of using that also in this , uh , W Wiener filtering because that is a m modified Wiener filtering approach , where instead of using the current frame , it uses {vocalsound} adjacent frames also in designing the Wiener filter . So instead of designing our own new Wiener filters , I may just use one of those Carlos filters in {disfmarker} in this implementation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and see whether it {disfmarker} it actually gives me something better than using just the current f current frame , which is in a way , uh , something like the smoothing {disfmarker} the Wiener filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but @ @ {disfmarker} S so , I don't know , I was h I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , like {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} so that is the next thing . Once this {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} once I sort this pro uh , problem out maybe I 'll just go into that also . And the {disfmarker} the other thing was about the subspace approach . So , um , I , like , plugged some groupings for computing this eigen uh , uh , uh , s values and eigenvectors . So just {disfmarker} I just @ @ some small block of things which I needed to put together for the subspace approach . And I 'm in the process of , like , building up that stuff . And , um , uh {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} Yep . I guess that 's it . And , uh , th th that 's where I am right now . So . +PhD F: Oh . How about you , Carmen ? +PhD E: Mmm . I 'm working with VTS . Um , I do several experiment with the Spanish database first , only with VTS and nothing more . Not VAD , no LDA , nothing more . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what is VTS again ? +PhD D: New {disfmarker} +PhD E: Eh , Vectorial Taylor Series . +PhD F: Oh , yes . +PhD E: To remove the noise too . +PhD F: Right , right . I think I ask you that every single meeting , don't I ? +PhD E: What ? +PhD F: I ask you that question every meeting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 'd be good from {disfmarker} for analysis . +PhD E: If {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's good to have some , uh , cases of the same utterance at different {disfmarker} different times . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: "" What is VTS ? "" +PhD E: VTS . I 'm sor Well , um , the question is that {disfmarker} Well . Remove some noise but not too much . And when we put the {disfmarker} m m the , em , VAD , the result is better . And we put everything , the result is better , but it 's not better than the result that we have without VTS . No , no . +Professor B: I see . So that @ @ {comment} given that you 're using the VAD also , the effect of the VTS is not {pause} so far {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is not . +Professor B: Do you {disfmarker} How much of that do you think is due to just the particular implementation and how much you 're adjusting it ? Or how much do you think is intrinsic to {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Pfft . I don't know because {disfmarker} +PhD C: Are you still using only the ten first frame for noise estimation +PhD E: Hhh , +PhD C: or {disfmarker} ? Or i ? +PhD E: Uh , I do the experiment using only the f onl eh , to use on only one fair estimation of the noise . +PhD C: Yeah . Hmm . +PhD E: And also I did some experiment , {vocalsound} uh , doing , um , a lying estimation of the noise . And , well , it 's a little bit better but not {disfmarker} n +PhD C: Maybe you have to standardize this thing also , noise estimation , because all the thing that you are testing use a different {disfmarker} They all need some {disfmarker} some noise {disfmarker} noise spectra +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . No , I do that two {disfmarker} t did two time . +PhD C: but they use {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all use a different one . +Professor B: I have an idea . If {disfmarker} if , uh , uh , y you 're right . I mean , each of these require this . Um , given that we 're going to have for this test at least of {disfmarker} uh , boundaries , what if initially we start off by using {pause} known sections of nonspeech {pause} for the estimation ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? S so , e um , +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first place , I mean even if ultimately we wouldn't be given the boundaries , {vocalsound} uh , this would be a good initial experiment to separate out the effects of things . I mean , how much is the poor {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , relatively , uh , unhelpful result that you 're getting in this or this or this is due to some inherent limitation to the method for these tasks and how much of it is just due to the fact that you 're not accurately {vocalsound} finding enough regions that {disfmarker} that are really {vocalsound} n noise ? +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . So maybe if you tested it using that , {vocalsound} you 'd have more reliable {pause} stretches of nonspeech to do the estimation from and see if that helps . +PhD E: Yeah . Another thing is the , em {disfmarker} the codebook , the initial codebook . That maybe , well , it 's too clean and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Cuz it 's a {disfmarker} I don't know . The methods {disfmarker} If you want , you c I can say something about the method . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . In the {disfmarker} Because it 's {vocalsound} a little bit different of the other method . Well , we have {disfmarker} If this {disfmarker} if this is the noise signal , {nonvocalsound} uh , in the log domain , we have something like this . Now , we have something like this . And the idea of these methods is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} n given a , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: +PhD E: How do you say ? I will read because it 's better for my English . I i given is the estimate of the PDF of the noise signal when we have a , um , a statistic of the clean speech and an statistic of the noisy speech . And the clean speech {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech is {pause} from a {pause} codebook . Mmm ? This is the idea . Well , like , this relation is not linear . The methods propose to develop this in a vectorial Taylor series {pause} approximation . +Professor B: I I 'm actually just confused about {pause} the equations you have up there . So , uh , the top equation is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD E: No , this in the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is the log domain . I {disfmarker} I must to say that . +Professor B: Which is {disfmarker} which is the log domain ? +PhD E: Is the T {disfmarker} is egual {disfmarker} {comment} is equal to , uh , log of {disfmarker} +Professor B: And {disfmarker} but Y is what ? Y of {disfmarker} the spectrum +PhD E: Uh , this {disfmarker} this is this +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: and this is this . +Professor B: No , no . The top Y is what ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is that power spectrum ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the noisy speech . +PhD C: p s this {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , is that power spectrum ? Is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's the power spectrum of noisy speech . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's the power spectrum . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is the noisy {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: of the value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , OK . So this {disfmarker} it 's the magnitude squared or something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , so you have power spectrum added there and down here you have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you put the {disfmarker} depends on T , but {disfmarker} b all of this is just {disfmarker} you just mean {disfmarker} +PhD E: w o Yeah . It 's the same . +Professor B: you just mean the log of the {disfmarker} of the one up above . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so that is X times , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , +PhD D: One {disfmarker} one plus N by X . +PhD E: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: o +PhD E: But , n Well , y we can expre we can put this expression {disfmarker} +Professor B: X times one plus , uh , N {disfmarker} uh , N {disfmarker} N {disfmarker} N minus X ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: And then , uh {disfmarker} So that 's log of X plus log of one plus , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: And the noise signal . +Professor B: Well . Is that right ? Log of {disfmarker} +PhD D: One plus N by X . +PhD E: Well , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: I actually don't see how you get that . Uh . +PhD E: Well , if we apply the log , we have E is n +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD D: Uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , log {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} E is equal , oh , to log of X plus N . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And , well , +PhD D: And , log of {disfmarker} +PhD E: uh , we can say that E {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} is equal to log of , {nonvocalsound} {nonvocalsound} um , exponential of X plus exponential of N . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Well , if E restricts {disfmarker} It is y +PhD E: Well , this is {disfmarker} this is in the ti the time domain . Well , we have that , um {disfmarker} We have first that , for example , X is equal , uh {disfmarker} Well . This is the frequency domain +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and we can put {vocalsound} u that n the log domain {disfmarker} log of X omega , but , well , in the time domain we have an exponential . No ? No ? Oh , maybe it 's I am {disfmarker} I 'm problem . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , just never mind what they are . Uh , it 's just if X and N are variables {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD D: What is , uh {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log of X plus N is not the same as the log of E to the X plus E to the N . +PhD E: Yeah . But this i Well , I don't {disfmarker} Well , uh , +Professor B: Maybe we can take it off - line , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: but I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I can do this incorrectly . Well , the expression that appear in the {disfmarker} in the paper , {nonvocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: The log {disfmarker} the Taylor series expansion for log one plus N by X is {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Is it the first - order expansion ? +PhD E: is X {disfmarker} +Professor B: I i +PhD D: Yeah , the first one . +PhD C: Yeah , I guess . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . Cuz it doesn't just follow what 's there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: It has to be some , uh , Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD D: Y yeah . If {disfmarker} if you take log X into log one plus N by X , and then expand the log one plus N by X into Taylor series {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Now , this is the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the second {pause} expression that you put is the first - order expansion of the nonlinear relation between {disfmarker} +PhD E: Not exactly . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: No , no , no . It 's not the first space . Well , we have {disfmarker} pfft , uh , em {disfmarker} Well , we can put that X is equal {disfmarker} I is equal to log of , uh , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor B: That doesn't follow . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD E: Well , we can put , uh , this ? +PhD D: No . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} the f top one does not {pause} imply the second one . Because {disfmarker} cuz the log of a sum is not the same as {pause} th +PhD E: The top ? +Professor B: I mean , as {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: But we can {disfmarker} uh , we {disfmarker} we know that , for example , the log of {vocalsound} E plus B is equal to log of E plus log to B . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And we can say here , it i +Professor B: Right . So you could s +PhD C: What is that ? +PhD E: And we can , uh , put this inside . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And then we can , uh , +Professor B: N no , +PhD E: you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't see how you get the second expression from the top one . +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , just more generally here , {vocalsound} if you say "" log of , um , A plus B "" , the log of {disfmarker} log of A plus B is not {disfmarker} or A plus B is not the , um , log of E to the A plus E to the B . +PhD E: No , no , no , no , no , no , no . This not . +Professor B: Right ? And that 's what you seem to be saying . +PhD E: No . No . It 's not . But this is the same {disfmarker} oh . +Professor B: Right ? Cuz you {disfmarker} cuz you {disfmarker} up here you have the A plus B {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . I say if I apply log , I have , uh , log of E is equal to log of , uh {disfmarker} in this side , is equal to log of X +Professor B: Plus N . +PhD E: plus N . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And then how do you go from there to the {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: This is right . And then if I apply exponential , to have here E {disfmarker} +Professor B: Look . OK , so let 's {disfmarker} I mean , C equals A plus B , +PhD C: It 's log o of capital Y . Yeah , right . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +PhD C: Capital {pause} Y . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: X . X . This is X , inside . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: We have this , no ? +Professor B: Yeah . That one 's right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: One and {disfmarker} +PhD E: S uh , i th we can put here the set transformation . +Professor B: Oh . I see . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: I see . OK , I understand now . Alright , thanks . +PhD E: Yeah . In this case , well , we can put here a {nonvocalsound} Y . +Professor B: OK . So , yeah . It 's just by definition {pause} that the individual {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that the , uh {disfmarker} So , capital X is by definition the same as E to the little X because she 's saying that the little X is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is the log . Alright . +PhD E: Now we can put this . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: No ? +Professor B: Alright . +PhD E: And here we can multiply by X . +Professor B: I think these things are a lot clearer when you can use fonts {disfmarker} different fonts there +PhD E: Oh , yes . +Professor B: so you know which is which . But I {disfmarker} I under I understand what you mean now . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . That 's true . That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: But this {disfmarker} this is correct ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: And now I can do it , uh {disfmarker} pfff ! I can put log {nonvocalsound} of EX {vocalsound} plus log {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . Yes . I understand now . And that 's where it comes from . +PhD E: And this is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Now it 's correct . +Professor B: Right . OK . Thanks . +PhD E: Well . The idea {disfmarker} Well , we have fixed this equa +Professor B: OK . So now once you get that {disfmarker} that one , then you {disfmarker} then you do a first or second - order , or something , Taylor {vocalsound} series expansion of this . +PhD E: Yeah . This is another linear relation that this {disfmarker} to develop this in {vocalsound} vector s Taylor series . +PhD C: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And for that , well , the goal is to obtain , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} est estimate a PDF for the noisy speech when we have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a statistic for clean speech and for the noisy speech . Mmm ? And when w the way to obtain the PDF for the noisy speech is {disfmarker} well , we know this statistic and we know the noisy st well , we can apply first order of the vector st Taylor series of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} well , the order that we want , increase the complexity of the problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And then when we have a expression , uh , for the {vocalsound} mean and variance of the noisy speech , we apply a technique of minimum mean - square estimation +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: to obtain the expected value of the clean speech given the {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} statistic for the noisy speech {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: the statistic for clean speech and the statistic of the noisy speech . This only that . But the idea is that {disfmarker} +PhD C: And the {disfmarker} the model of clean speech is a codebook . Right ? +PhD E: u Yeah . We have our codebook with different density {vocalsound} Gaussian . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: We can expre we can put that the {vocalsound} PDF {comment} for the clean test , probability of the clean speech is equal to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , how {disfmarker} h how much {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the work they reported , how much noisy speech did you need to get , uh , good enough statistics for the {disfmarker} to get this mapping ? +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I need to s +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I don't know exactly . +Professor B: Cuz I think what 's certainly characteristic of a lot of the {pause} data in this test is that , um , you don't have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training set may not be a {disfmarker} a great estimator for the noise in the test set . Sometimes it is and sometimes it 's not . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} the clean speech {disfmarker} the codebook for clean speech , I am using TIMIT . And I have now , uh , sixty - four {nonvocalsound} Gaus - Gaussian . +Professor B: Uh - huh . And what are you using for the noisy {disfmarker} ? Y y doing that strictly {disfmarker} +PhD E: Of the noise {disfmarker} I estimate the noises wi +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Well , for the noises I only use one Gaussian . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and you {disfmarker} and you train it up entirely from , uh , nonspeech sections in the test ? +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , yes . The first experiment that I do it is solely to calculate the , mmm {disfmarker} well , this value {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: uh , the compensation of the dictionary o one time using the {disfmarker} the noise at the f beginning of the sentence . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the first experiment . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And I fix this for all the {disfmarker} all the sentences . Uh , because {disfmarker} well , the VTS methods {disfmarker} In fact the first thing that I do is to {disfmarker} to obtain , uh , an expression for E {disfmarker} probability e expression of {disfmarker} of E . That mean that the VTS {disfmarker} mmm , with the VTS we obtain , uh {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we obtain the means for each Gaussian {comment} and the variance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is one . Eh , this is the composition of the dictionary . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This one thing . And the other thing that this {disfmarker} with these methods is to , uh , obtain {disfmarker} to calculate this value . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Because we can write {disfmarker} uh , we can write that {vocalsound} the estimation of the clean speech is equal at an expected value of the clean speech conditional to , uh , the noise signal {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the probability f of the {disfmarker} the statistic of the clean speech and the statistic of the noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This is the methods that say that we 're going obtain this . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And we can put that this is equal to the estimated value of E minus a function that conditional to E to the T {disfmarker} to the noise signal . Well , this is {disfmarker} this function is the {vocalsound} the term {disfmarker} after develop this , the term that we {disfmarker} we take . Give PX and , uh , P the noise . +PhD D: X K C noise . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD E: And I can {vocalsound} put that this is equal to {pause} the {pause} noise signal minus {disfmarker} Well , I put before {pause} this name , uh {disfmarker} And I can calculate this . +Professor B: What is the first variable in that probability ? +PhD E: Uh , this is the Gaussian . +Professor B: No , no . I 'm sorry . In {disfmarker} in the one you pointed at . What 's that variable ? +PhD E: v Uh , this is the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Weak . So probably it {disfmarker} it would do that . +PhD E: like this , +PhD C: It 's one mixture of the model . Right ? +PhD E: but conditional . No , it 's condition it 's not exactly this . It 's modify . Uh , if we have clean speech {disfmarker} we have the dictionary for the clean speech , we have a probability f of {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our weight for each Gaussian . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: No . And now , this weight is different now +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: because it 's conditional . And this I need to {disfmarker} to calcu I know this +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and I know this because this is from the dictionary that you have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: I need to calculate this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD E: And for calculate this , {vocalsound} I have an {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can develop an expression that is +PhD D: It 's overlapping . +PhD E: that . I can calculate {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} I calculated this value , {vocalsound} uh , with the statistic of the noisy speech that I calculated before with the VTS approximation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} well , normalizing . And I know everything . Uh , with the , nnn {disfmarker} when I develop this in s Taylor {disfmarker} Taylor series , I can't , um , {vocalsound} calculate the mean and the variance {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} for each of the Gaussian of the dictionary for the noisy speech . Now . And this is fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: If I never do an estimat a newer estimation of the noise , this mean as {disfmarker} mean and the variance are fixed . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And for each s uh , frame of the speech the only thing that I need to do is to calculate this in order to calculate the estimation of the clean speech given our noisy speech . +Professor B: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not following this perfectly but , um , I {disfmarker} Are you saying that all of these estimates are done {pause} using , um , estimates of the probability density for the noise that are calculated only from the first ten frames ? And never change throughout anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Never cha This is one of the approximations that I am doing . +Professor B: Per {disfmarker} per {disfmarker} per utterance , or per {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: Per utterance . OK . +PhD E: Per utterance . Yes . +Professor B: So it 's done {disfmarker} it 's done new for each new utterance . +PhD E: And th +Professor B: So this changes the whole mapping for every utterance . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , the dictionary . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: And the other estimation is when I do the uh on - line estimation , I change the means and variance of th for the noisy speech +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: each time that I detect noise . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I do it uh again this develop . Estimate the new mean and the variance of the noisy speech . And with th with this new s new mean and variance I estimate again this . +Professor B: So you estimated , uh , f completely forgetting what you had before ? Uh , or is there some adaptation ? +PhD E: Um , no , no , no . It 's not completely {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} I am doing something like an adaptation of the noise . +Professor B: OK . Now do we know , either from their experience or from yours , that , uh , just having , uh , two parameters , the {disfmarker} the mean and variance , is enough ? Yeah . I mean , I know you don't have a lot of data to estimate with , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: I estimate mean and variance for each one of the Gaussian of the codebook . +Professor B: No , I 'm talking about the noise . +PhD E: Oh , +Professor B: There 's only one Gaussian . +PhD E: um . Well , only one {disfmarker} I am only {disfmarker} using only one . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: I don't know i +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} right , it 's only {disfmarker} it 's only one {disfmarker} Wait a minute . This is {disfmarker} what 's the dimensionality of the Gaussian ? This is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , it 's in {disfmarker} after the mel filter bank . +Professor B: So this is twenty or something ? +PhD E: Twenty - three . +Professor B: Twenty ? So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So it 's actually forty numbers {pause} that you 're getting . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you don't have a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh , the original paper say that only one Gaussian for the noise . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But , I mean , {vocalsound} no {disfmarker} no paper is {disfmarker} is a Bible , +PhD E: Yeah , maybe isn't the right thing . +Professor B: you know . This is {disfmarker} this is , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor B: The question is , um , {vocalsound} whether it would be helpful , i particularly if you used {disfmarker} if you had more {disfmarker} So , suppose you did {disfmarker} This is almost cheating . It certainly isn't real - time . But if y suppose you use the real boundaries that {disfmarker} that you were {disfmarker} in fact were given {vocalsound} by the VAD and so forth or I {disfmarker} I guess we 're gonna be given even better boundaries than that . And you look {disfmarker} you take all o all of the nonspeech components in an utterance , so you have a fair amount . Do you benefit from having a better model for the noise ? That would be another question . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor B: So first question would be {vocalsound} to what extent i are the errors that you 're still seeing {vocalsound} based on the fact that you have poor boundaries for the , uh , uh , nonspeech ? And the second question might be , given that you have good boundaries , could you do better if you used more parameters to characterize the noise ? Um . Also another question might be {disfmarker} Um , they are doing {disfmarker} they 're using first term only of the vector Taylor series ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you do a second term does it get too complicated cuz of the nonlinearity ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's quite complicated . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . No , I won't ask the next question then . +PhD E: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} for me it 's the first time that I am working with VTS . +Professor B: Yeah . No , it 's interesting . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , w we haven't had anybody work with it before , so it 's interesting to get your {disfmarker} get your feedback about it . +PhD E: It 's another type of approximation because i because it 's a statistic {disfmarker} statistic approximation to remove the noise . I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Great . OK . Well , I guess we 're about done . Um , so some of the digit forms don't have digits . Uh , {vocalsound} we ran out there were some blanks in there , so not everybody will be reading digits . But , um , I guess you 've got some . Right , Morgan ? +Professor B: I have some . +PhD F: So , why don't you go ahead and start . And I think it 's {pause} just us down here at this end that have them . +PhD D: S +PhD E: um +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Uh , OK . +PhD D: S so , we switch off with this +PhD F: Whenever you 're ready . +PhD D: or n ? +PhD F: Uh , leave it on , +PhD D: No . OK . +PhD F: uh , +Professor B: They prefer to have them on +PhD F: and the {disfmarker} +Professor B: just so that they 're continuing to get the distant , uh , information . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK . S +","Summary: + +In the meeting, Professor B is tired of always directing the discussions and suggests that others should take turns. PhD F volunteers to lead the meeting today. The group decides to begin by going around and giving updates. PhD C reports that their paper has been accepted for Eurospeech in Aalborg, Denmark, in September. The paper is about a system for the Aurora project. PhD C has been working on online normalization approaches and trying different methods. Professor B suggests looking into the kinds of errors made to see if there might be ways to improve. + +PhD C also mentions experimenting with thresholding and adding noise to reduce variation in measurements. Professor B and PhD F discuss whether this sort of whitening might be similar to smoothing. PhD F reports that they've been focusing on other projects, and Grad A discusses considering cheating experiments to examine the effectiveness of certain intermediate categories for classification. Grad G fixed a bug in his Matlab code related to phase normalization and talked to Andreas and Thilo about language models. PhD D is working on Wiener filtering for the Aurora task but encountered unexpected, negative results and is in the process of debugging. + +Finally, PhD E is working with Vectorial Taylor Series (VTS) methods for noise removal in the Spanish database. She finds the VTS method isn't improving results as much as hoped. Professor B engages in a technical discussion with her about the methodology of VTS and considers various approaches, such as using different boundaries for non-speech sections and using more parameters to characterize noise. The meeting concludes with some members assigned to read digits for testing purposes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: Channel one . +PhD G: Test . +PhD E: Hello . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD G: Test . +PhD A: Uh - oh . +Professor F: So you think we 're going now , yes ? OK , good . Alright Going again Uh {disfmarker} So we 're gonna go around as before , and uh do {disfmarker} do our digits . Uh transcript one three one one dash one three three zero . {comment} three two three {comment} four seven six five {comment} five three one six two four one {comment} six seven {comment} seven {comment} eight {comment} nine zero nine four zero zero three {comment} zero one five eight {comment} one seven three five three {comment} two six eight zero {comment} three six two four three zero seven {comment} four {comment} five zero six nine four {comment} seven four {comment} eight five seven {comment} nine six one five {comment} O seven eight O two {comment} zero nine six zero four zero zero {comment} one {comment} two {comment} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you don't actually n need to say the name . +Grad C: OK , {vocalsound} this is Barry Chen and I am reading transcript +Professor F: That 'll probably be bleeped out . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: So . That 's if these are anonymized , but {vocalsound} Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . {comment} OK . +Professor F: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} not that there 's anything defamatory about uh {disfmarker} eight five seven or {vocalsound} or anything , but +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , anyway . Uh {disfmarker} so here 's what I have for {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was just jotting down things I think th w that we should do today . Uh {disfmarker} This is what I have for an agenda so far Um , We should talk a little bit about the plans for the uh {disfmarker} the field trip next week . Uh {disfmarker} a number of us are doing a field trip to uh Uh {disfmarker} OGI And uh {disfmarker} mostly uh First though about the logistics for it . Then maybe later on in the meeting we should talk about what we actually you know , might accomplish . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , in and {pause} kind of go around {disfmarker} see what people have been doing {disfmarker} talk about that , {pause} a r progress report . Um , Essentially . Um {disfmarker} And then uh {disfmarker} Another topic I had was that uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Dave here had uh said uh "" Give me something to do . "" And I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I have uh {disfmarker} failed so far in doing that . And so maybe we can discuss that a little bit . If we find some holes in some things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} someone could use some help with , he 's {disfmarker} he 's volunteering to help . +PhD A: I 've got to move a bunch of furniture . +Professor F: OK , always count on a {vocalsound} serious comment from that corner . So , um , uh , and uh , then uh , talk a little bit about {disfmarker} about disks and resource {disfmarker} resource issues that {disfmarker} that 's starting to get worked out . And then , anything else anybody has that isn't in that list ? Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just wondering , does this mean the battery 's dying and I should change it ? +Professor F: Uh I think that means the battery 's O K . {disfmarker} +PhD A: Let me see . +Professor F: d {disfmarker} do you +Grad D: Oh OK , so th +PhD A: Yeah , that 's good . You 're alright ? +Grad D: Cuz it 's full . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Alright . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . It looks full of electrons . OK . Plenty of electrons left there . OK , so , um , uh . OK , so , uh , I wanted to start this with this mundane thing . Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was kind of my bright idea to have us take a plane that leaves at seven twenty in the morning . +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Um . Uh {vocalsound} this is uh {disfmarker} The reason I did it uh was because otherwise for those of us who have to come back the same day it is really not much of a {disfmarker} of a visit . Uh {disfmarker} So um the issue is how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how would we ever accomplish that ? Uh {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what part of town do you live in ? +Grad C: Um , I live in , um , the corner of campus . The , um , southeast corner . +Professor F: OK . OK , so would it be easier {disfmarker} those of you who are not , you know , used to this area , it can be very tricky to get to the airport at {disfmarker} at uh , you know , six thirty . Um . So . Would it be easier for you if you came here and I drove you ? Yeah ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , so if {disfmarker} if everybody can get here at six . +PhD E: At six . +Professor F: Yeah , I 'm afraid we need to do that to get there on time . +Grad C: Six , OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so . Oh boy . Anyway , so . +PhD A: Will that {pause} be enough time ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so I 'll just pull up in front at six and just be out front . And , uh , and yeah , that 'll be plenty of time . It 'll take {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it won't be bad traffic that time of day and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD A: I guess once you get past the bridge {pause} that that would be the worst . +PhD B: Yeah , Oakland . +Professor F: Going to Oakland . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Oakland . +PhD A: Once you get past the turnoff to the {pause} Bay Bridge . +Professor F: Bridge oh , the turnoff to the bridge +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Won't even do that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: I mean , just go down Martin Luther King . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then Martin Luther King to nine - eighty to eight - eighty , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: and it 's {disfmarker} it 'd take us , tops uh thirty minutes to get there . +PhD A: Oh , I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that leaves us fifty minutes before the plane {disfmarker} it 'll just {disfmarker} yeah . So Great , OK so that 'll It 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's still not going to be really easy but {disfmarker} well Particularly for {disfmarker} for uh {disfmarker} for Barry and me , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not staying overnight so we don't need to bring anything particularly except for {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} a pad of paper and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , and , uh you , two have to bring a little bit +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but uh {disfmarker} you know , don't {disfmarker} don't bring a footlocker and we 'll be OK So . +Grad C: s So just {disfmarker} +Professor F: W you 're staying overnight . I figured you wouldn't need a great big suitcase , yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: That 's sort of {pause} {vocalsound} one night . So . Anyway . OK . +Grad C: So , s six AM , in front . +Professor F: Six AM in front . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , I 'll be here . Uh {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll give you my phone number , If I 'm not here for a few m after a few minutes then +Grad C: Wake you up . +Professor F: Nah , I 'll be fine . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it just means getting up a half an hour earlier than I usually do . Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not a lot , +Grad C: OK . Wednesday . +Professor F: so OK , that was the real real important stuff . Um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I figured maybe wait on the potential goals for the meeting uh {disfmarker} until we talk about wh what 's been going on . So , uh , what 's been going on ? Why don't we start {disfmarker} start over here . +PhD G: Um . {vocalsound} Well , preparation of the French test data actually . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , {vocalsound} it means that um , well , it is , uh , a digit French database of microphone speech , downsampled to eight kilohertz and I 've added noise to one part , with the {disfmarker} actually the Aurora - two noises . And , @ @ so this is a training part . And then {pause} the remaining part , I use for testing and {disfmarker} with other kind of noises . So we can {disfmarker} So this is almost ready . I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the HTK baseline for this task . And , yeah . +Professor F: OK Uh , So the HTK base lines {disfmarker} so this is using mel cepstra and so on , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: And again , I guess the p the plan is , uh , to uh {disfmarker} then given this {disfmarker} What 's the plan again ? +PhD G: The plan with {pause} these data ? +Professor F: With {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Does i Just remind me of what {disfmarker} what you were going to do with the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} y You just described what you 've been doing . So if you could remind me of what you 're going to be doing . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh , this is {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Grad C: Tell him about the cube . +PhD G: Well . The cube ? I should tell him about the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh ! Cube . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Fill in the cube . +PhD G: Uh we {disfmarker} actually we want to , mmm , Uh , {vocalsound} uh , analyze three dimensions , the feature dimension , the {pause} training data dimension , and the test data dimension . Um . Well , what we want to do is first we have number for each {pause} uh task . So we have the um , TI - digit task , the Italian task , the French task {pause} and the Finnish task . +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD G: So we have numbers with {pause} uh {disfmarker} systems {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I mean neural networks trained on the task data . And then to have systems with neural networks trained on , {vocalsound} uh , data from the same language , if possible , with , well , using a more generic database , which is phonetically {disfmarker} phonetically balanced , and . Um . +Professor F: So - so we had talked {disfmarker} I guess we had talked at one point about maybe , the language ID corpus ? +PhD G: Yeah . So . +Professor F: Is that a possibility for that ? +PhD G: Ye - uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , but , uh these corpus , w w there is a CallHome and a CallFriend also , The CallFriend is for language ind identification . Well , anyway , these corpus are all telephone speech . So , um . {vocalsound} This could be a {disfmarker} {pause} a problem for {disfmarker} Why ? Because uh , uh , the {disfmarker} the SpeechDat databases are not telephone speech . They are downsampled to eight kilohertz but {disfmarker} but they are not {vocalsound} uh with telephone bandwidth . +Professor F: Yeah . That 's really funny isn't it ? I mean cuz th this whole thing is for {pause} developing new standards for the telephone . +Grad C: Telephone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the idea is to compute the feature before {pause} the {disfmarker} before sending them to the {disfmarker} Well , {pause} you don't {disfmarker} do not send speech , you send features , computed on th the {disfmarker} {pause} the device , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know , but the reason {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: Oh I see , so your point is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} the features are computed locally , and so they aren't necessarily telephone bandwidth , uh or telephone distortions . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you {pause} happen to find out anything about the OGI multilingual database ? +Professor F: Yeah , that 's wh that 's wh that 's what I meant . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I said {disfmarker} @ @ , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's an OGI language ID , not the {disfmarker} not the , uh {disfmarker} the CallFriend is a {disfmarker} is a , uh , LDC w thing , right ? +PhD G: Yea - Yeah , there are also two other databases . One they call the multi - language database , and another one is a twenty - two language , something like that . But it 's also telephone speech . +PhD A: Oh , they are ? OK . +PhD G: Uh . Well , nnn . +Professor F: But I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , we ' r e e The bandwidth shouldn't be such an issue right ? Because e e this is downsampled and {disfmarker} and filtered , right ? So it 's just the fact that it 's not telephone . And there are so many other differences between these different databases . I mean some of this stuff 's recorded in the car , and some of it 's {disfmarker} I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's many different acoustic differences . So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} . I mean , unless we 're going to include a bunch of car recordings in the {disfmarker} in the training database , I 'm not sure if it 's {disfmarker} completely rules it out +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: if our {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if our major goal is to have phonetic context and you figure that there 's gonna be a mismatch in acoustic conditions does it make it much worse f to sort of add another mismatch , if you will . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , i i I {disfmarker} I guess the question is how important is it to {disfmarker} for us to get multiple languages uh , in there . +PhD G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah . Well , actually , for the moment if we w do not want to use these phone databases , we {disfmarker} we already have uh {disfmarker} English , Spanish and French uh , with microphone speech . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: So that 's what you 're thinking of using is sort of the multi the equivalent of the multiple ? +PhD G: Well . Yeah , for the multilingual part we were thinking of using these three databases . +Professor F: And for the difference in phonetic context {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? Provide that . +PhD G: Well , this {disfmarker} Uh , actually , these three databases are um generic databases . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So w f for {disfmarker} for uh Italian , which is close to Spanish , French and , i i uh , TI - digits we have both uh , digits {pause} training data and also {pause} more general training data . So . Mmm . +Professor F: Well , we also have this Broadcast News that we were talking about taking off the disk , which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is microphone data for {disfmarker} for English . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , perhaps {disfmarker} yeah , there is also TIMIT . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: We could use TIMIT . +Professor F: Right . Yeah , so there 's plenty of stuff around . OK , so anyway , th the basic plan is to , uh , test this cube . Yes . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: To fill in the cube . +Professor F: To fill i fill it in , yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah , and perhaps , um {disfmarker} {pause} We were thinking that perhaps the cross - language issue is not , uh , so big of a issue . Well , w w we {disfmarker} perhaps we should not focus too much on that cross - language stuff . I mean , uh , training {disfmarker} training a net on a language and testing a for another language . +Professor F: Uh - huh . But that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mmm . Perhaps the most important is to have neural networks trained on the target languages . But , uh , with a general database {disfmarker} general databases . u So that th Well , the {disfmarker} the guy who has to develop an application with one language can use the net trained o on that language , or a generic net , +Professor F: Uh , depen it depen it depends how you mean "" using the net "" . +PhD G: but not trained on a {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , if you 're talking about for producing these discriminative features {pause} that we 're talking about {pause} you can't do that . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Because {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} what they 're asking for is {disfmarker} is a feature set . Right ? And so , uh , we 're the ones who have been weird by {disfmarker} by doing this training . But if we say , "" No , you have to have a different feature set for each language , "" I think this is ver gonna be very bad . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +PhD G: You think so . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . I mean , in principle , I mean conceptually , it 's sort of like they want a re @ @ {comment} well , they want a replacement for mel cepstra . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So , we say "" OK , this is the year two thousand , we 've got something much better than mel cepstra . It 's , you know , gobbledy - gook . "" OK ? And so {vocalsound} we give them these gobbledy - gook features but these gobbledy - gook features are supposed to be good for any language . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Cuz you don't know who 's gonna call , and you know , I mean so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} how do you know what language it is ? Somebody picks up the phone . So thi this is their image . Someone picks up the phone , right ? +PhD G: Well , I {comment} chh {disfmarker} +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and he {disfmarker} he picks up the ph +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the application is {disfmarker} there is a target language for the application . +Professor F: Yeah . y y y +PhD G: So , if a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well . But , no but , y you {disfmarker} you pick up the phone , +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: you talk on the phone , +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: and it sends features out . OK , so the phone doesn't know what a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what your language is . +PhD G: Yeah , if {disfmarker} Yeah . If it 's th in the phone , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: But that 's the image that they have . +PhD G: well , it {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that could be th at the server 's side , +Professor F: It could be , +PhD G: and , well . Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: but that 's the image they have , right ? So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one could argue all over the place about how things really will be in ten years . But the particular image that the cellular industry has right now is that it 's distributed speech recognition , where the , uh , uh , probabilistic part , and {disfmarker} and s semantics and so forth are all on the servers , and you compute features of the {disfmarker} uh , on the phone . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're involved in . We might {disfmarker} might or might not agree that that 's the way it will be in ten years , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what they 're asking for . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} th th it is an important issue whether it works cross - language . Now , it 's the OGI , uh , folks ' perspective right now that probably that 's not the biggest deal . And that the biggest deal is the , um envir acoustic - environment mismatch . And they may very well be right , but I {disfmarker} I was hoping we could just do a test and determine if that was true . If that 's true , we don't need to worry so much . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe we have a couple languages in the training set and that gives us enough breadth uh , uh , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the rest doesn't matter . Um , the other thing is , uh , this notion of training to uh {disfmarker} which I {disfmarker} I guess they 're starting to look at up there , {comment} training to something more like articulatory features . Uh , and if you have something that 's just good for distinguishing different articulatory features that should just be good across , you know , a wide range of languages . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so I don't th I know {disfmarker} unfortunately I don't {disfmarker} I see what you 're comi where you 're coming from , I think , but I don't think we can ignore it . +PhD G: So we {disfmarker} we really have to do test with a real cross - language . I mean , tr for instance training on English and testing on Italian , or {disfmarker} Or we can train {disfmarker} or else , uh , can we train a net on , uh , a range of languages and {disfmarker} which can include the test {disfmarker} the test @ @ the target language , +Grad C: Test on an unseen . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , so , um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} This is complex . So , ultimately , uh , as I was saying , I think it doesn't fit within their image that you switch nets based on language . Now , can you include , uh , the {disfmarker} the target language ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , from a purist 's standpoint it 'd be nice not to because then you can say when {disfmarker} because surely someone is going to say at some point , "" OK , so you put in the German and the Finnish . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , now , what do you do , uh , when somebody has Portuguese ? "" you know ? Um , and {disfmarker} Uh , however , you aren't {disfmarker} it isn't actually a constraint in this evaluation . So I would say if it looks like there 's a big difference to put it in , then we 'd make note of it , and then we probably put in the other , because we have so many other problems in trying to get things to work well here that {disfmarker} that , you know , it 's not so bad as long as we {disfmarker} we note it and say , "" Look , we did do this "" . +PhD G: Mmm ? +PhD A: And so , ideally , what you 'd wanna do is you 'd wanna run it with and without the target language and the training set for a wide range of languages . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps . Yeah . +PhD A: And that way you can say , "" Well , "" you know , "" we 're gonna build it for what we think are {pause} the most common ones "" , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: but if that {disfmarker} somebody uses it with a different language , you know , "" here 's what 's you 're l here 's what 's likely to happen . "" +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the truth is , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like there are {disfmarker} I mean , al although there are thousands of languages , uh , from uh , uh , the point of view of cellular companies , there aren't . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: There 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , there 's fifty or something , you know ? So , uh , an and they aren't {disfmarker} you know , with the exception of Finnish , which I guess it 's pretty different from most {disfmarker} most things . uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} most of them are like at least some of the others . And so , our guess that Spanish is like Italian , and {disfmarker} and so on . I guess Finnish is a {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a little bit like Hungarian , supposedly , right ? +PhD A: I don't know anything about Finnish . +Professor F: Or is {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} well , I kn oh , well I know that H uh , H I mean , I 'm not a linguist , but I guess Hungarian and Finnish and one of the {disfmarker} one of the languages from the former Soviet Union are in this sort of same family . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: But they 're just these , you know , uh {disfmarker} countries that are pretty far apart from one another , have {disfmarker} I guess , people rode in on horses and brought their {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Oh , my turn . +Professor F: Your turn . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Um , Let 's see , I {disfmarker} I spent the last week , uh , looking over Stephane 's shoulder . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and understanding some of the data . I re - installed , um , um , HTK , the free version , so , um , everybody 's now using three point O , which is the same version that , uh , OGI is using . +Professor F: Oh , good . +Grad C: Yeah . So , without {disfmarker} without any licensing big deals , or anything like that . And , um , so we 've been talking about this {disfmarker} this , uh , cube thing , and it 's beginning more and more looking like the , uh , the Borge cube thing . It 's really gargantuan . Um , but I I 'm {disfmarker} Am I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So are {disfmarker} are you going to be assimilated ? +PhD A: Resistance is futile . +Grad C: Exactly . Um , yeah , so I I 've been looking at , uh , uh , TIMIT stuff . Um , the {disfmarker} the stuff that we 've been working on with TIMIT , trying to get a , um {disfmarker} a labels file so we can , uh , train up a {disfmarker} train up a net on TIMIT and test , um , the difference between this net trained on TIMIT and a net trained on digits alone . Um , and seeing if {disfmarker} if it hurts or helps . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Anyway . +Professor F: And again , when y just to clarify , when you 're talking about training up a net , you 're talking about training up a net for a tandem approach ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Um . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and the inputs are PLP and delta and that sort of thing , +Grad C: Well , the inputs are one dimension of the cube , +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: which , um , we 've talked about it being , uh , PLP , um , M F C Cs , um , J - JRASTA , JRASTA - LDA {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah , but your initial things you 're making one choice there , +Grad C: Yeah , +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: right . +Professor F: Which is PLP , or something ? +Grad C: Um , I {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't decided on {disfmarker} on the initial thing . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Probably {disfmarker} probably something like PLP . Yeah . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Um , so {disfmarker} so you take PLP and you {disfmarker} you , uh , do it {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you , uh , use HTK with it with the transformed features using a neural net that 's trained . And the training could either be from Digits itself or from TIMIT . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: And that 's the {disfmarker} and , and th and then the testing would be these other things which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which might be foreign language . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor F: I see . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I get in the picture about the cube . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: OK . Uh - huh . +Professor F: OK . Um , I mean , those listening to this will not have a picture either , so , um , I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not any worse off . But but at some point {disfmarker} somebody should just show me the cube . It sounds s I {disfmarker} I get {disfmarker} I think I get the general idea of it , +Grad C: Yeah , yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: So , when you said that you were getting the labels for TIMIT , {comment} um , are y what do you mean by that ? +Grad C: b May Mm - hmm . Oh , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just , uh , transforming them from the , um , the standard TIMIT transcriptions into {disfmarker} into a nice long huge P - file to do training . +PhD A: Mmm . Were the digits , um , hand - labeled for phones ? +Grad C: Um , the {disfmarker} the digits {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or were they {disfmarker} those labels automatically derived ? +Grad C: Oh yeah , those were {disfmarker} those were automatically derived by {disfmarker} by Dan using , um , embedded {disfmarker} embedded training and alignment . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor F: Ah , but which Dan ? +Grad C: Uh , Ellis . Right ? +Professor F: OK . OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So . +PhD A: I was just wondering because that test you 're t +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think you 're doing this test because you want to determine whether or not , uh , having s general speech performs as well as having specific {pause} speech . +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor F: Well , especially when you go over the different languages again , because you 'd {disfmarker} the different languages have different words for the different digits , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . And I was {disfmarker} +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah , so I was just wondering if the fact that TIMIT {disfmarker} you 're using the hand - labeled stuff from TIMIT might be {disfmarker} confuse the results that you get . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I think it would , but {disfmarker} but on the other hand it might be better . +PhD A: Right , but if it 's better , it may be better because {pause} it was hand - labeled . +Professor F: Oh yeah , but still @ @ probably use it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor F: I mean , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm sounding cavalier , but I mean , I think the point is you have , uh , a bunch of labels and {disfmarker} and they 're han hand uh {disfmarker} hand - marked . Uh , I guess , actually , TIMIT was not entirely hand - marked . It was automatically first , and then hand {disfmarker} hand - corrected . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , um , uh , it {disfmarker} it , um , it might be a better source . So , i it 's {disfmarker} you 're right . It would be another interesting scientific question to ask , "" Is it because it 's a broad source or because it was , you know , carefully ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh . And that 's something you could ask , but given limited time , I think the main thing is if it 's a better thing for going across languages on this training tandem system , +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: then it 's probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: What about the differences in the phone sets ? +Grad C: Uh , between languages ? +PhD A: No , between TIMIT and the {disfmarker} the digits . +Grad C: Oh , um , right . Well , there 's a mapping from the sixty - one phonemes in TIMIT to {disfmarker} to fifty - six , the ICSI fifty - six . +PhD E: Sixty - one . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +Grad C: And then the digits phonemes , um , there 's about twenty twenty - two or twenty - four of them ? Is that right ? +PhD A: Out of that fifty - six ? +PhD G: Yep . +Grad C: Out of that fifty - six . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely broader , yeah . +PhD G: But , actually , the issue of phoneti phon uh phone phoneme mappings will arise when we will do severa use several languages +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: because you {disfmarker} Well , some phonemes are not , uh , in every languages , and {disfmarker} So we plan to develop a subset of the phonemes , uh , that includes , uh , all the phonemes of our training languages , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and use a network with kind of one hundred outputs or something like that . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . You mean a superset , sort of . +PhD G: Uh , yeah , +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: superset , +PhD E: Yeah . I th I looks the SAMPA SAMPA phone . +PhD G: yeah . +PhD E: SAMPA phone ? For English {disfmarker} uh American English , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the language who have more phone are the English . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD E: Of the {disfmarker} these language . But n for example , in Spain , the Spanish have several phone that d doesn't appear in the E English and we thought to complete . But for that , it needs {disfmarker} we must r h do a lot of work {vocalsound} because we need to generate new tran transcription for the database that we have . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Other than the language , is there a reason not to use the TIMIT phone set ? Cuz it 's larger ? As opposed to the ICSI {pause} phone set ? +Grad C: Oh , you mean why map the sixty - one to the fifty - six ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . I have {disfmarker} +Professor F: Um , I forget if that happened starting with you , or was it {disfmarker} o or if it was Eric , afterwards who did that . But I think , basically , there were several of the phones that were just hardly ever there . +PhD A: Yeah , and I think some of them , they were making distinctions between silence at the end and silence at the beginning , when really they 're {pause} both silence . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: I th I think it was things like that that got it mapped down to fifty - six . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Yeah , especially in a system like ours , which is a discriminative system . You know , you 're really asking this net to learn . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of hard . +PhD A: There 's not much difference , really . And {pause} the ones that are gone , I think are {disfmarker} I think there was {disfmarker} they also in TIMIT had like a glottal stop , which was basically a short period of silence , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so . +PhD B: Well , we have that now , too , right ? +PhD A: I don't know . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor F: i It 's actually pretty common that a lot of the recognition systems people use have things like {disfmarker} like , say thirty - nine , phone symbols , right ? Uh , and then they get the variety by {disfmarker} by bringing in the context , the phonetic context . Uh . So we actually have an unusually large number in {disfmarker} in what we tend to use here . Um . So , a a actually {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} now you 've got me sort of intrigued . What {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Can you describe what {disfmarker} what 's on the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah , w I th I think that 's a good idea +Professor F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: to {disfmarker} to talk about the whole cube +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: and maybe we could sections in the cube for people to work on . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Um , OK . Uh , do you wanna do it ? +Professor F: OK , so even {disfmarker} even though the meeting recorder doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't , uh {disfmarker} and since you 're not running a video camera we won't get this , but if you use a board it 'll help us anyway . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , point out one of the limitations of this {vocalsound} medium , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but you 've got the wireless on , +Grad C: Yeah , I have the wireless . +Professor F: right ? Yeah , so you can walk around . +Grad C: OK . Can y can you walk around too ? No . OK , well , um , +Professor F: Uh , he can't , actually , but {disfmarker} +Grad C: s basically , the {disfmarker} the cube will have three dimensions . +Professor F: He 's tethered . +Grad C: The first dimension is the {disfmarker} the features that we 're going to use . And the second dimension , um , is the training corpus . And that 's the training on the discriminant neural net . Um and the last dimension happens to be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah and again {disfmarker} Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the training for HTK is always {disfmarker} that 's always set up for the individual test , right ? That there 's some training data and some test data . So that 's different than this . +Grad C: Right , right . This is {disfmarker} this is for {disfmarker} for ANN only . And , yeah , the training for the HTK models is always , uh , fixed for whatever language you 're testing on . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: And then , there 's the testing corpus . So , then I think it 's probably instructive to go and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and show you the features that we were talking about . Um , so , let 's see . Help me out with {disfmarker} +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: With what ? +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: PLP ? OK . +PhD G: MSG . +Grad C: MSG . +PhD G: Uh , JRASTA . +Grad C: JRASTA . +PhD G: And JRASTA - LDA . +Grad C: JRASTA - LDA . +PhD G: Um , multi - band . +Grad C: Multi - band . +PhD G: So there would be multi - band before , um {disfmarker} before our network , I mean . +Grad C: Yeah , just the multi - band features , right ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh - huh . Ah . Ah . +PhD G: So , something like , uh , s TCT within bands and {disfmarker} Well . And then multi - band after networks . Meaning that we would have , uh , neural networks , uh , discriminant neural networks for each band . Uh , yeah . And using the {disfmarker} the outputs of these networks or the linear outputs or something like that . Uh , yeah . +PhD A: What about mel cepstrum ? Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: you don't include that because it 's part of the base or something ? +PhD E: Yeah databases . +Professor F: Well , y you do have a baseline system that 's m that 's mel cepstra , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: But , uh , well , not for the {disfmarker} the ANN . I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , yeah , we could {disfmarker} we could add {pause} MFCC also . +Grad C: We could add {disfmarker} +Professor F: Probably should . I mean at least {disfmarker} at least conceptually , you know , it doesn't meant you actually have to do it , +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: but conceptually it makes sense as a {disfmarker} as a base line . +PhD A: It 'd be an interesting test just to have {disfmarker} just to do MFCC with the neural net +PhD E: Without the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and everything else the same . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Compare that with just M - MFCC without the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think Dan did some of that . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Um , in his previous Aurora experiments . And with the net it 's {disfmarker} it 's wonderful . Without the net it 's just baseline . +Professor F: Um , I think OGI folks have been doing that , too . D Because I think that for a bunch of their experiments they used , uh , mel cepstra , actually . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Um , of course that 's there and this is here and so on . OK ? +Grad C: OK . Um , for the training corpus {disfmarker} corpus , um , we have , um , the {disfmarker} the d {pause} digits {nonvocalsound} from the various languages . Um , English Spanish um , French What else do we have ? +PhD G: And the {pause} Finnish . +Grad C: Finnish . +PhD A: Where did th where did that come from ? +PhD E: And Italian . +PhD A: Digits ? +PhD E: Uh , no , Italian no . Italian no . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Oh . Italian . +PhD E: I Italian yes . Italian ? +Professor F: Italian . +PhD A: Is that {disfmarker} Was that distributed with Aurora , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: One L or two L 's ? +PhD A: Where did that {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: The newer one . +PhD G: So English , uh , Finnish and Italian are Aurora . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And Spanish and French is something that we can use in addition to Aurora . Uh , well . +Professor F: Yeah , so Carmen brought the Spanish , and Stephane brought the French . +Grad C: OK . And , um , oh yeah , and {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is it French French or Belgian French ? There 's a {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's , uh , French French . +Grad C: French French . +PhD E: Like Mexican Spain and Spain . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Or Swiss . +PhD E: I think that is more important , +PhD B: Swiss - German . +PhD E: Mexican Spain . Because more people {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , probably so . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , Herve always insists that Belgian is {disfmarker} i is absolutely pure French , has nothing to do with {disfmarker} but he says those {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those Parisians talk funny . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . They have an accent . +Professor F: Yeah they {disfmarker} they do , yeah . Yeah . {pause} But then he likes Belgian fries too , so . OK . +Grad C: And then we have , uh , um , broader {disfmarker} broader corpus , um , like TIMIT . TIMIT so far , +PhD E: And Spanish too . +Grad C: right ? Spanish {disfmarker} Oh , Spanish stories ? +PhD E: Albayzin is the name . +PhD A: What about TI - digits ? +Grad C: Um , TI - digits {disfmarker} uh all these Aurora f d data p data is from {disfmarker} is derived from TI - digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh . Oh OK . +Grad C: Um , basically , they {disfmarker} they corrupted it with , uh , different kinds of noises at different SNR levels . +PhD A: Ah . I see . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: y And I think Stephane was saying there 's {disfmarker} there 's some broader s material in the French also ? +PhD G: Yeah , we cou we could use {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . The French data . +PhD E: Spanish stories ? +Grad C: No . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Sp - Not Spanish stories ? +PhD E: No . No . Albayz +Professor F: Spanish {disfmarker} +Grad C: Spanish something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: Did the Aurora people actually corrupt it themselves , or just specify the signal and the signal - t +Grad C: They {disfmarker} they corrupted it , um , themselves , +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: but they also included the {disfmarker} the noise files for us , right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: so we can go ahead and corrupt other things . +Professor F: I 'm just curious , Carmen {disfmarker} I mean , I couldn't tell if you were joking or {disfmarker} i Is it {disfmarker} is it Mexican Spanish , +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: or is it {disfmarker} +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: Oh , no , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's Spanish from Spain , Spanish . +PhD E: Spanish from Spain . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: From Spain . +Professor F: Alright . Spanish from Spain . Yeah , we 're really covered there now . OK . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: And the French from France . +PhD G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} No , the French is f yeah , from , uh , Paris , +Grad C: Oh , from Paris , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: And TIMIT 's from {pause} lots of different places . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: From TI . From {disfmarker} i It 's from Texas . So may maybe it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: From the deep South . +Professor F: So - s so it 's not really from the US either . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . And , um , with within the training corporas um , we 're , uh , thinking about , um , training with noise . So , incorporating the same kinds of noises that , um , Aurora is in incorporating in their , um {disfmarker} in their training corpus . Um , I don't think we we 're given the , uh {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions , though , right ? +Professor F: I think what they were saying was that , um , for this next test there 's gonna be some of the cases where they have the same type of noise as you were given before hand and some cases where you 're not . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , presumably , that 'll be part of the topic of analysis of the {disfmarker} the test results , is how well you do when it 's matching noise and how well you do where it 's not . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: I think that 's right . +Grad C: So , I guess we can't train on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions . +Professor F: Well , not if it 's not seen , +Grad C: Right . If {disfmarker} Not if it 's unseen . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . I mean , i i i i it does seem to me that a lot of times when you train with something that 's at least a little bit noisy it can {disfmarker} it can help you out in other kinds of noise even if it 's not matching just because there 's some more variance that you 've built into things . But , but , uh , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , exactly how well it will work will depend on how near it is to what you had ahead of time . So . OK , so that 's your training corpus , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and then your testing corpus {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Um , the testing corporas are , um , just , um , the same ones as Aurora testing . And , that includes , um , the English Spa - um , Italian . Finnish . +PhD E: Finnish . +Grad C: Uh , we ' r we 're gonna get German , right ? Ge - {comment} At the final test will have German . +Professor F: Well , so , yeah , the final test , on a guess , is supposed to be German and Danish , +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: The s yeah , the Spanish , perhaps , +Grad C: Spanish . Oh yeah , we can {disfmarker} we can test on s Spanish . +PhD G: we will have . Yeah . But the {disfmarker} the Aurora Spanish , I mean . +Grad C: Oh yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Oh , there 's a {disfmarker} there 's Spanish testing in the Aurora ? +PhD G: Uh , not yet , but , uh , yeah , uh , e +PhD E: Yeah , it 's preparing . +PhD G: pre they are preparing it , +PhD E: They are preparing . +PhD G: and , well , according to Hynek it will be {disfmarker} we will have this at the end of November , or {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: OK , so , uh , something like seven things in each , uh {disfmarker} each column . +PhD G: Yeah {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that 's , uh , three hundred and forty - three , uh , {vocalsound} different systems that are going to be developed . There 's three of you . +Grad C: Yeah . One hundred each , about . +Professor F: Uh , so that 's hundred and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hundred and fourteen each . +Grad D: What a what about noise conditions ? +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: w Don't we need to put in the column for noise conditions ? +Professor F: Are you just trying to be difficult ? +Grad D: No , I just don't understand . +Grad C: Well , th uh , when {disfmarker} when I put these testings on there , I 'm assumi +Professor F: I 'm just kidding . Yeah . +Grad C: There - there 's three {disfmarker} three tests . Um , type - A , type - B , and type - C . And they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all gonna be test tested , um , with one training of the HTK system . Um , there 's a script that tests all three different types of noise conditions . Test - A is like a matched noise . Test - B is a {disfmarker} is a slightly mismatched . And test - C is a , um , mismatched channel . +Grad D: And do we do all our {pause} training on clean data ? +Grad C: Um , no , no , +PhD E: Also , we can clean that . +Grad C: we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be , um , training on the noise files that we do have . +PhD G: No . +Professor F: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I guess the question is how long does it take to do a {disfmarker} a training ? I mean , it 's not totally crazy t I mean , these are {disfmarker} a lot of these are built - in things and we know {disfmarker} we have programs that compute PLP , we have MSG , we have JRA you know , a lot of these things will just kind of happen , won't take uh a huge amount of development , it 's just trying it out . So , we actually can do quite a few experiments . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But how {disfmarker} how long does it take , do we think , for one of these {pause} {comment} trainings ? +Grad C: That 's a good question . +PhD A: What about combinations of things ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , that 's right . I mean , cuz , so , for instance , I think the major advantage of MSG {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh ! +Professor F: Yeah , +Grad C: Och ! +Professor F: good point . A major advantage of MSG , I see , th that we 've seen in the past is combined with PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Um . +Grad C: Now , this is turning into a four - dimensional cube ? +PhD A: Well , you just select multiple things on the one dimension . +PhD B: Or you just add it to the features . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Here . +Grad C: Oh , yeah . OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I mean , you don't wanna , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see , seven choose two would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} be , uh , twenty - one different combinations . Um . +PhD B: It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: Probably {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: What ? +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , I hope not . Yeah , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: That would be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , yeah , so PLP and MSG I think we definitely wanna try cuz we 've had a lot of good experience with putting those together . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . Yeah . +PhD A: When you do that , you 're increasing the size of the inputs to the net . Do you have to reduce the hidden layer , or something ? +Professor F: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean , so i it doesn't increase the number of trainings . +PhD A: No , no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering about number of parameters in the net . Do you have to worry about keeping that the same , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , I don't think so . +PhD B: There 's a computation limit , though , isn't there ? +Professor F: Yeah , I mean , it 's just more compu Excuse me ? +PhD B: Isn't there like a limit {pause} on the computation load , or d latency , or something like that for Aurora task ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , we haven't talked about any of that at all , have we ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , so , there 's not really a limit . What it is is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's just penalty , you know ? That {disfmarker} that if you 're using , uh , a megabyte , then they 'll say that 's very nice , but , of course , it will never go on a cheap cell phone . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Um . And , u uh , I think the computation isn't so much of a problem . I think it 's more the memory . Uh , and , expensive cell phones , exa expensive hand - helds , and so forth , are gonna have lots of memory . So it 's just that , uh , these people see the {disfmarker} the cheap cell phones as being still the biggest market , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . But , yeah , I was just realizing that , actually , it doesn't explode out , um {disfmarker} It 's not really two to the seventh . But it 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} i i it doesn't really explode out the number of trainings cuz these were all trained individually . Right ? So , uh , if you have all of these nets trained some place , then , uh , you can combine their outputs and do the KL transformation and so forth +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So , what it {disfmarker} it blows out is the number of uh testings . And , you know {disfmarker} and the number of times you do that last part . But that last part , I think , is so {disfmarker} has gotta be pretty quick , so . Uh . Right ? I mean , it 's just running the data through {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . +PhD A: But wh what about a net that 's trained on multiple languages , though ? +Professor F: Well , you gotta do the KL transformation , +PhD G: Eight {disfmarker} y +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that just separate nets for each language then combined , or is that actually one net trained on ? +PhD E: Necessary to put in . +Professor F: Good question . +PhD G: Uh , probably one net . Well . Uh . +Professor F: One would think one net , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: but we 've {disfmarker} I don't think we 've tested that . Right ? +PhD G: So , in the broader training corpus we can {disfmarker} we can use , uh , the three , or , a combination of {disfmarker} of two {disfmarker} two languages . +PhD E: Database three . +PhD A: In one net . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I guess the first thing is if w if we know how much a {disfmarker} how long a {disfmarker} a training takes , if we can train up all these {disfmarker} these combinations , uh , then we can start working on testing of them individually , and in combination . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Because the putting them in combination , I think , is not as much computationally as the r training of the nets in the first place . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So y you do have to compute the KL transformation . Uh , which is a little bit , but it 's not too much . +PhD G: It 's not too much , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: no . +Professor F: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But there is the testing also , which implies training , uh , the HTK models +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the HTK model . +PhD G: and , well , +Professor F: Uh , right . +PhD G: it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . So if you do have lots of combinations , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not so long . It @ @ {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: How long does it take for an , uh , HTK training ? +PhD G: It 's around six hours , I think . +PhD E: It depends on the {disfmarker} +PhD G: For training and testing , yeah . +PhD E: More than six hours . +PhD G: More . +PhD E: For the Italian , yes . Maybe one day . +PhD G: One day ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: For HTK ? +PhD E: Well . +Professor F: Really ? Running on what ? +PhD E: Uh , M {disfmarker} MFCC . +Professor F: No , I 'm sorry , ru running on what machine ? +PhD E: Uh , Ravioli . +Professor F: Uh , I don't know what Ravioli is . Is it {disfmarker} is it an Ultra - five , or is it a {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: mmm Um . Who is that ? +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD B: I don't know what a Ravioli is . +PhD E: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD B: We can check really quickly , I guess . +PhD G: Yeah , I I think it 's - it 's - it 's not so long because , well , the TI - digits test data is about , uh how many hours ? Uh , th uh , thirty hours of speech , I think , +Professor F: It 's a few hours . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Right , +PhD G: something like that . And it p Well . +Professor F: so , I mean , clearly , there {disfmarker} there 's no way we can even begin to do an any significant amount here unless we use multiple machines . +PhD G: It 's six hours . +Professor F: Right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} I mean there 's plenty of machines here and they 're n they 're often not in {disfmarker} in a great {disfmarker} great deal of use . So , I mean , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's key that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} that you look at , uh , you know , what machines are fast , what machines are used a lot {disfmarker} Uh , are we still using P - make ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , I don't know how w how we would P - make this , though . Um . +Professor F: Well , you have a {disfmarker} I mean , once you get the basic thing set up , you have just all the {disfmarker} uh , a all these combinations , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} let 's say it 's six hours or eight hours , or something for the training of HTK . How long is it for training of {disfmarker} of , uh , the neural net ? +Grad C: The neural net ? Um . +PhD G: I would say two days . +PhD A: Depends on the corpuses , right ? +PhD E: It depends . +PhD B: It s also depends on the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: Depends on the corpus . +PhD B: How big is the net ? +PhD E: For Albayzin I trained on neural network , uh , was , um , one day also . +Professor F: Uh , but on what machine ? +Grad C: On a SPERT board . +PhD E: Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the neural net SPERT . +Grad C: Y you did a {disfmarker} you did it on a SPERT board . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: OK , again , we do have a bunch of SPERT boards . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: And I think there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} I think you folks are probably go the ones using them right now . +PhD A: Is it faster to do it on the SPERT , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , don't know . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's still a little faster on the +Professor F: Used to be . +PhD A: Is it ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Ad - Adam {disfmarker} Adam did some testing . Or either Adam or {disfmarker} or Dan did some testing and they found that the SPERT board 's still {disfmarker} still faster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the benefits is that , you know , you run out of SPERT and then you can do other things on your {disfmarker} your computer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you don't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . So you could be {disfmarker} we have quite a few SPERT boards . You could set up , uh , you know , ten different jobs , or something , to run on SPERT {disfmarker} different SPERT boards and {disfmarker} and have ten other jobs running on different computers . So , it 's got to take that sort of thing , or {disfmarker} or we 're not going to get through any significant number of these . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , I kind of like this because what it {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: uh , no , what I like about it is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we do have a problem that we have very limited time . You know , so , with very limited time , we actually have really quite a {disfmarker} quite a bit of computational resource available if you , you know , get a look across the institute and how little things are being used . And uh , on the other hand , almost anything that really i you know , is {disfmarker} is new , where we 're saying , "" Well , let 's look at , like we were talking before about , uh , uh , voiced - unvoiced - silence detection features and all those sort {disfmarker} "" that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: I think it 's a great thing to go to . But if it 's new , then we have this development and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and learning process t to {disfmarker} to go through on top of {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the work . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how we 'd do it . So what I like about this is you basically have listed all the things that we already know how to do . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and all the kinds of data that we , at this point , already have . And , uh , you 're just saying let 's look at the outer product of all of these things and see if we can calculate them . a a Am I {disfmarker} am I interpreting this correctly ? Is this sort of what {disfmarker} what you 're thinking of doing in the short term ? +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so then I think it 's just the {disfmarker} the missing piece is that you need to , uh , you know {disfmarker} you know , talk to {disfmarker} talk to , uh , Chuck , talk to , uh , Adam , uh , sort out about , uh , what 's the best way to really , you know , attack this as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a mass problem in terms of using many machines . Uh , and uh , then , you know , set it up in terms of scripts and so forth , and {disfmarker} uh , in {disfmarker} in kind o some kind of structured way . Uh . Um , and , you know , when we go to , uh , OGI next week , uh , we can then present to them , you know , what it is that we 're doing . And , uh , we can pull things out of this list that we think they are doing sufficiently , +Grad C: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: that , you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we won't be contributing that much . Um . And , uh {disfmarker} Then , uh , like , we 're there . +PhD B: How big are the nets you 're using ? +Grad C: Um , for the {disfmarker} for nets trained on digits , {comment} um , we have been using , uh , four hundred order hidden units . And , um , for the broader class nets we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to increase that because the , um , the digits nets only correspond to about twenty phonemes . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So . +Professor F: Broader class ? +Grad C: Um , the broader {disfmarker} broader training corpus nets like TIMIT . Um , w we 're gonna {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , it 's not actually broader class , it 's actually finer class , but you mean {disfmarker} y You mean {vocalsound} more classes . +Grad C: Right . Right . Yeah . More classes . Right , right . More classes . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's what I mean . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . And . Yeah . +Professor F: Carmen , did you {disfmarker} do you have something else to add ? We {disfmarker} you haven't talked too much , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: D I begin to work with the Italian database to {disfmarker} nnn , to {disfmarker} with the f front - end and with the HTK program and the @ @ . And I trained eh , with the Spanish two neural network with PLP and with LogRASTA PLP . I don't know exactly what is better if {disfmarker} if LogRASTA or JRASTA . +Professor F: Well , um , JRASTA has the potential to do better , but it doesn't always . It 's {disfmarker} i i JRASTA is more complicated . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} instead of doing RASTA with a log , you 're doing RASTA with a log - like function that varies depending on a J parameter , uh , which is supposed to be sensitive to the amount of noise there is . So , it 's sort of like the right transformation to do the filtering in , is dependent on how much noise there is . +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: And so in JRASTA you attempt to do that . It 's a little complicated because once you do that , you end up in some funny domain and you end up having to do a transformation afterwards , which requires some tables . And , uh , +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little messier , uh , there 's more ways that it can go wrong , uh , but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you 're careful with it , it can do better . +PhD E: It 's a bit {disfmarker} I 'll do better . +Professor F: So , it 's {disfmarker} So . +PhD E: Um , and I think to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to recognize the Italian digits with the neural netw Spanish neural network , and also to train another neural network with the Spanish digits , the database of Spanish digits . And I working that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: But prepa to prepare the {disfmarker} the database are difficult . Was for me , n it was a difficult work last week with the labels because the {disfmarker} the program with the label obtained that I have , the Albayzin , is different w to the label to train the neural network . And {pause} {vocalsound} that is another work that we must to do , to {disfmarker} to change . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I didn't understand . +PhD E: Uh , for example Albayzin database was labeled automatically with HTK . It 's not hand {disfmarker} it 's not labels by hand . +Professor F: Oh , "" l labeled "" . +PhD E: Labels . +Professor F: I 'm sorry , +PhD E: I 'm sorry , +Professor F: I have a p I had a problem with {vocalsound} the pronunciation . +PhD E: I 'm sorry . The labels . I 'm sorry . The labels . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Oh , also that {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , OK , so let 's start over . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: So , TI TIMI TIMIT 's hand - labeled , and {disfmarker} and you 're saying about the Spanish ? +PhD E: The Spanish labels ? That was in different format , that the format for the em {disfmarker} the program to train the neural network . +Professor F: Oh , I see . +PhD E: I necessary to convert . And someti well {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're just having a problem converting the labels . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but n yes , because they have one program , Feacalc , but no , l LabeCut , l LabeCut , but don't {disfmarker} doesn't , eh , include the HTK format to convert . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD E: And , I don't know what . I ask {disfmarker} e even I ask to Dan Ellis what I can do that , and h they {disfmarker} he say me that h he does doesn't any {disfmarker} any s any form to {disfmarker} to do that . And at the end , I think that with LabeCut I can transfer to ASCII format , and HTK is an ASCII format . And I m do another , uh , one program to put ASCII format of HTK to ase ay ac ASCII format to Exceed +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and they used LabCut to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to pass . +Professor F: OK , yeah . +PhD E: Actually that was complicated , +Professor F: So you +PhD E: but well , I know how we can did that {disfmarker} do that . +Professor F: Sure . So it 's just usual kind of uh {disfmarker} sometimes say housekeeping , right ? To get these {disfmarker} get these things sorted out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So it seems like there 's {disfmarker} there 's some peculiarities of the , uh {disfmarker} of each of these dimensions that are getting sorted out . And then , um , if {disfmarker} if you work on getting the , uh , assembly lines together , and then the {disfmarker} the pieces sort of get ready to go into the assembly line and gradually can start , you know , start turning the crank , more or less . And , uh , uh , we have a lot more computational capability here than they do at OGI , so I think that i if {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's great about this is it sets it up in a very systematic way , so that , uh , once these {disfmarker} all of these , you know , mundane but real problems get sorted out , we can just start turning the crank +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and push all of us through , and then finally figure out what 's best . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I was thinking two things . Uh , the first thing was , um {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we actually had thought of this as sort of like , um {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not in stages , {comment} but more along the {disfmarker} the time axis . Just kind of like one stream at a time , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: je - je - je - je - je {comment} check out the results and {disfmarker} and go that way . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah , sure . No , I 'm just saying , I 'm just thinking of it like loops , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor F: right ? And so , y y y if you had three nested loops , that you have a choice for this , a choice for this , and a choice for that , +Grad C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: right ? And you 're going through them all . That {disfmarker} that 's what I meant . +Grad C: Right , right . +Professor F: And , uh , the thing is that once you get a better handle on how much you can realistically do , uh , um , {vocalsound} concurrently on different machines , different SPERTs , and so forth , uh , and you see how long it takes on what machine and so forth , you can stand back from it and say , "" OK , if we look at all these combinations we 're talking about , and combinations of combinations , and so forth , "" you 'll probably find you can't do it all . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor F: OK , so then at that point , uh , we should sort out which ones do we throw away . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Which of the combinations across {disfmarker} you know , what are the most likely ones , and {disfmarker} And , uh , I still think we could do a lot of them . I mean , it wouldn't surprise me if we could do a hundred of them or something . But , probably when you include all the combinations , you 're actually talking about a thousand of them or something , and that 's probably more than we can do . Uh , but a hundred is a lot . And {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , and the {disfmarker} the second thing was about scratch space . And I think you sent an email about , um , e scratch space for {disfmarker} for people to work on . And I know that , uh , Stephane 's working from an NT machine , so his {disfmarker} his home directory exists somewhere else . +Professor F: His {disfmarker} his stuff is somewhere else , yeah . Yeah , I mean , my point I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} Yeah , thanks for bring it back to that . My {disfmarker} th I want to clarify my point about that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Chuck repeated in his note . Um . We 're {disfmarker} over the next year or two , we 're gonna be upgrading the networks in this place , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: but right now they 're still all te pretty much all ten megabit lines . And we have reached the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the machines are getting faster and faster . So , it actually has reached the point where it 's a significant drag on the time for something to move the data from one place to another . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , you {disfmarker} you don't w especially in something with repetitive computation where you 're going over it multiple times , you do {disfmarker} don't want to have the {disfmarker} the data that you 're working on distant from where it 's being {disfmarker} where the computation 's being done if you can help it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh . Now , we are getting more disk for the central file server , which , since it 's not a computational server , would seem to be a contradiction to what I just said . But the idea is that , uh , suppose you 're working with , uh , this big bunch of multi multilingual databases . Um , you put them all in the central ser at the cen central file server . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Then , when you 're working with something and accessing it many times , you copy the piece of it that you 're working with over to some place that 's close to where the computation is and then do all the work there . And then that way you {disfmarker} you won't have the {disfmarker} the network {disfmarker} you won't be clogging the network for yourself and others . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's the idea . So , uh , it 's gonna take us {disfmarker} It may be too late for this , uh , p precise crunch we 're in now , but , uh , we 're , uh {disfmarker} It 's gonna take us a couple weeks at least to get the , uh , uh , the amount of disk we 're gonna be getting . We 're actually gonna get , uh , I think four more , uh , thirty - six gigabyte drives and , uh , put them on another {disfmarker} another disk rack . We ran out of space on the disk rack that we had , so we 're getting another disk rack and {vocalsound} four more drives to share between , uh {disfmarker} primarily between this project and the Meetings {disfmarker} Meetings Project . Um . But , uh , we 've put another {disfmarker} I guess there 's another eighteen gigabytes that 's {disfmarker} that 's in there now to help us with the immediate crunch . But , uh , are you saying {disfmarker} So I don't know where {pause} you 're {disfmarker} Stephane , where you 're doing your computations . If {disfmarker} i so , you 're on an NT machine , so you 're using some external machine +PhD G: Yeah , it , uh {disfmarker} Well , to {disfmarker} It 's Nutmeg and Mustard , I think , +Professor F: Do you know these yet ? +PhD G: I don't know what kind . +PhD A: Nuh - uh . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . Uh , are these {disfmarker} are these , uh , computational servers , or something ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 've been kind of out of it . +PhD G: Yeah , I think , yeah . I think so . +Professor F: Unfortunately , these days my idea of running comput of computa doing computation is running a spread sheet . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , haven't been {disfmarker} haven't been doing much computing personally , so . Um . Yeah , so those are computational servers . So I guess the other question is what disk there i space there is there on the computational servers . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , I 'm not sure what 's available on {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} you said Nutmeg and what was the other one ? +PhD G: Mustard . +PhD A: Mustard . OK . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor F: Yeah , Well , you 're the {disfmarker} you 're the disk czar now . +PhD A: Right , right . +Professor F: So +PhD A: Well , I 'll check on that . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so basically , uh , Chuck will be the one who will be sorting out what disk needs to be where , and so on , and I 'll be the one who says , "" OK , spend the money . "" So . {vocalsound} Which , I mean , n these days , uh , if you 're talking about scratch space , it doesn't increase the , uh , need for backup , and , uh , I think it 's not that big a d and the {disfmarker} the disks themselves are not that expensive . Right now it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: What you can do , when you 're on that machine , is , uh , just go to the slash - scratch directory , and do a DF minus K , and it 'll tell you if there 's space available . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , and if there is then , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: But wasn't it , uh {disfmarker} I think Dave was saying that he preferred that people didn't put stuff in slash - scratch . It 's more putting in d s XA or XB or , +PhD A: Well , there 's different {disfmarker} there , um , there 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: right ? +PhD A: Right . So there 's the slash - X - whatever disks , and then there 's slash - scratch . And both of those two kinds are not backed up . And if it 's called "" slash - scratch "" , it means it 's probably an internal disk to the machine . Um . And so that 's the kind of thing where , like if {disfmarker} um , OK , if you don't have an NT , but you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Unix workstation , and they attach an external disk , {comment} it 'll be called "" slash - X - something "" uh , if it 's not backed up and it 'll be "" slash - D - something "" if it is backed up . And if it 's inside the machine on the desk , it 's called "" slash - scratch "" . But the problem is , if you ever get a new machine , they take your machine away . It 's easy to unhook the external disks , put them back on the new machine , but then your slash - scratch is gone . So , you don't wanna put anything in slash - scratch that you wanna keep around for a long period of time . But if it 's a copy of , say , some data that 's on a server , you can put it on slash - scratch because , um , first of all it 's not backed up , and second it doesn't matter if that machine disappears and you get a new machine because you just recopy it to slash - scratch . So tha that 's why I was saying you could check slash - scratch on those {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , um , Mustard and {disfmarker} and Nutmeg to see if {disfmarker} if there 's space that you could use there . +Professor F: I see . +PhD A: You could also use slash - X - whatever disks on Mustard and Nutmeg . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , and we do have {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , so {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's better to have things local if you 're gonna run over them lots of times so you don't have to go to the network . +Professor F: Right , so es so especially if you 're {disfmarker} right , if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're taking some piece of the training corpus , which usually resides in where Chuck is putting it all on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , file server , uh , then , yeah , it 's fine if it 's not backed up because if it g g gets wiped out or something , y I mean it is backed up on the other disk . So , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so , {vocalsound} one of the things that I need to {disfmarker} I 've started looking at {disfmarker} Uh , is this the appropriate time to talk about the disk space stuff ? +Professor F: Sure . +PhD A: I 've started looking at , um , disk space . Dan {disfmarker} David , um , put a new , um , drive onto Abbott , that 's an X disk , which means it 's not backed up . So , um , I 've been going through and copying data that is , you know , some kind of corpus stuff usually , that {disfmarker} that we 've got on a CD - ROM or something , onto that new disk to free up space {pause} on other disks . And , um , so far , um , I 've copied a couple of Carmen 's , um , databases over there . We haven't deleted them off of the slash - DC disk that they 're on right now in Abbott , um , uh , but we {disfmarker} I would like to go through {disfmarker} sit down with you about some of these other ones and see if we can move them onto , um , this new disk also . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot more space there , +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: and it 'll free up more space for doing the experiments and things . So , anything that {disfmarker} that you don't need backed up , we can put on this new disk . Um , but if it 's experiments and you 're creating files and things that you 're gonna need , you probably wanna have those on a disk that 's backed up , just in case something {comment} goes wrong . So . Um So far I 've {disfmarker} I 've copied a couple of things , but I haven't deleted anything off of the old disk to make room yet . Um , and I haven't looked at the {disfmarker} any of the Aurora stuff , except for the Spanish . So I {disfmarker} I guess I 'll need to get together with you and see what data we can move onto the new disk . +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Um , yeah , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} an another question occurred to me is {disfmarker} is what were you folks planning to do about normalization ? +PhD G: Um . Well , we were thinking about using this systematically for all the experiments . Um . +Professor F: This being {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: So , but {disfmarker} Uh . So that this could be another dimension , but we think perhaps we can use the {disfmarker} the best , uh , um , uh , normalization scheme as OGI is using , so , with parameters that they use there , +Professor F: Yeah , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD G: u {vocalsound} u +Professor F: I mean it 's i i we {disfmarker} we seem to have enough dimensions as it is . So probably if we {vocalsound} sort of take their {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor F: probably the on - line {disfmarker} line normalization because then it {disfmarker} {comment} it 's {disfmarker} if we do anything else , we 're gonna end up having to do on - line normalization too , so we may as well just do on - line normalization . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . Um . So that it 's plausible for the final thing . Good . Um . So , I guess , yeah , th the other topic {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} maybe we 're already there , or almost there , is goals for the {disfmarker} for next week 's meeting . Uh . i i i it seems to me that we wanna do is flush out what you put on the board here . Uh . You know , maybe , have it be somewhat visual , a little bit . +Grad C: OK . Like a s like a slide ? +Professor F: Uh , so w we can say what we 're doing , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: yeah . And , um , also , if you have {pause} sorted out , um , this information about how long i roughly how long it takes to do on what and , you know , what we can {disfmarker} how many of these trainings , uh , uh , and testings and so forth that we can realistically do , uh , then one of the big goals of going there next week would be to {disfmarker} to actually settle on which of them we 're gonna do . And , uh , when we come back we can charge in and do it . Um . Anything else that {disfmarker} I a a Actually {disfmarker} started out this {disfmarker} this field trip started off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Stephane talking to Hynek , so you may have {disfmarker} you may have had other goals , uh , for going up , and any anything else you can think of would be {disfmarker} we should think about {pause} accomplishing ? I mean , I 'm just saying this because {pause} maybe there 's things we need to do in preparation . +PhD G: Oh , I think basically , this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh . Alright . And uh {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last topic I had here was , um , uh d Dave 's fine offer to {disfmarker} to , uh , do something {pause} {vocalsound} on this . I mean he 's doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} he 's working on other things , but to {disfmarker} to do something on this project . So the question is , "" Where {disfmarker} where could we , uh , uh , most use Dave 's help ? "" +PhD G: Um , yeah , I was thinking perhaps if , um , additionally to all these experiments , which is not really research , well I mean it 's , uh , running programs +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um , {vocalsound} trying to have a closer look at the {disfmarker} perhaps the , um , {vocalsound} speech , uh , noise detection or , uh , voiced - sound - unvoiced - sound detection and {disfmarker} Which could be important in {disfmarker} i for noise {disfmarker} noise {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think that would be a {disfmarker} I think that 's a big {disfmarker} big deal . Because the {disfmarker} you know , the thing that Sunil was talking about , uh , with the labels , uh , labeling the database when it got to the noisy stuff ? The {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} that really throws things off . You know , having the noise all of a sudden , your {disfmarker} your , um , speech detector , I mean the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} What was it ? What was happening with his thing ? +Professor F: +PhD A: He was running through these models very quickly . He was getting lots of , uh , uh insertions , is what it was , in his recognitions . +Professor F: The only problem {disfmarker} I mean , maybe that 's the right thing {disfmarker} the only problem I have with it is exactly the same reason why you thought it 'd be a good thing to do . Um , I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} Let 's fall back to that . But I think the first responsibility is sort of to figure out if there 's something {pause} that , uh , an {disfmarker} an additional {disfmarker} Uh , that 's a good thing you {disfmarker} remove the mike . Go ahead , good . Uh , uh . What an additional clever person could help with when we 're really in a crunch for time . Right ? Cuz Dave 's gonna be around for a long time , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? He 's {disfmarker} he 's gonna be here for years . And so , um , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: over years , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's interested in , you know , voiced - unvoiced - silence , he could do a lot . But if there {disfmarker} if in fact there 's something else {pause} that he could be doing , that would help us when we 're {disfmarker} we 're sort of uh strapped for time {disfmarker} We have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 've , you know , only , {pause} uh , another {disfmarker} another month or two {pause} to {disfmarker} you know , with the holidays in the middle of it , um , to {disfmarker} to get a lot done . If we can think of something {disfmarker} some piece of this that 's going to be {disfmarker} The very fact that it is sort of just work , and i and it 's running programs and so forth , is exactly why {pause} it 's possible that it {disfmarker} some piece of could be handed to someone to do , because it 's not {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , so that {disfmarker} that 's the question . And we don't have to solve it right this s second , but if we could think of some {disfmarker} some piece that 's {disfmarker} that 's well defined , that he could help with , he 's expressing a will willingness to do that . +PhD A: What about training up a , um , a multilingual net ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yes , maybe to , mmm , put together the {disfmarker} the label {disfmarker} the labels between TIMIT and Spanish or something like that . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , so defining the superset , +PhD E: Yes . +PhD G: and , uh , joining the data and {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah , that 's something that needs to be done in any event . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So what we were just saying is that {disfmarker} that , um {disfmarker} I was arguing for , {pause} if possible , coming up with something that {disfmarker} that really was development and wasn't research because we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we have a time crunch . And so , uh , if there 's something that would {disfmarker} would save some time that someone else could do on some other piece , then we should think of that first . See the thing with voiced - unvoiced - silence is I really think that {disfmarker} that it 's {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} to do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a poor job is {disfmarker} is pretty quick , uh , or , you know , a so - so job . You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can throw in a couple fea we know what {disfmarker} what kinds of features help with it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor F: You can throw something in . You can do pretty well . But I remember , in fact , when you were working on that , and you worked on for few months , as I recall , and you got to , say ninety - three percent , and getting to ninety - four {pause} {vocalsound} really really hard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Another year . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . So , um {disfmarker} And th th the other tricky thing is , since we are , uh , even though we 're not {disfmarker} we don't have a strict prohibition on memory size , and {disfmarker} and computational complexity , uh , clearly there 's some limitation to it . So if we have to {disfmarker} if we say we have to have a pitch detector , say , if we {disfmarker} if we 're trying to incorporate pitch information , or at least some kind of harmonic {disfmarker} harmonicity , or something , this is another whole thing , take a while to develop . Anyway , it 's a very very interesting topic . I mean , one {disfmarker} I think one of the {disfmarker} a lot of people would say , and I think Dan would also , uh , that one of the things wrong with current speech recognition is that we {disfmarker} we really do throw away all the harmonicity information . Uh , we try to get spectral envelopes . Reason for doing that is that most of the information about the phonetic identity is in the spectral envelopes are not in the harmonic detail . But the harmonic detail does tell you something . Like the fact that there is harmonic detail is {disfmarker} is real important . So . Um . So , uh . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} wh that {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the other suggestion that just came up was , well what about having him {pause} work on the , uh , {pause} multilingual super f superset {pause} kind of thing . Uh , coming up with that and then , you know , training it {disfmarker} training a net on that , say , um , from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from TIMIT or something . Is that {disfmarker} or uh , for multiple databases . What {disfmarker} what would you {disfmarker} what would you think it would {disfmarker} wh what would this task consist of ? +PhD G: Yeah , it would consist in , uh , well , um , creating the {disfmarker} the superset , and , uh , modifying the lab labels for matching the superset . Uh . +Professor F: Uh , creating a superset from looking at the multiple languages , +PhD G: Well , creating the mappings , actually . +Professor F: and then creating i m changing labels on TIMIT ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Or on {disfmarker} or on multiple language {disfmarker} {vocalsound} multiple languages ? +PhD E: No . The multiple language . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , with the @ @ three languages , +PhD E: Maybe for the other language because TIMIT have more phone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: So you 'd have to create a mapping from each language to the superset . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: From each language to the superset , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad C: There 's , um {disfmarker} Carmen was talking about this SAMPA thing , and it 's , um , {vocalsound} it 's an effort by linguists to come up with , um , a machine readable IPA , um , sort of thing , right ? And , um , they {disfmarker} they have a web site that Stephane was showing us that has , um {disfmarker} has all the English phonemes and their SAMPA correspondent , um , phoneme , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: and then , um , they have Spanish , they have German , they have all {disfmarker} all sorts of languages , um , mapping {disfmarker} mapping to the SAMPA phonemes , which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , the tr the transcription , though , for Albayzin is n the transcription are of SAMPA the same , uh , how you say , symbol that SAMPA appear . +PhD B: SAMPA ? What does "" SAMPA "" mean ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD E: But I don't know if TIMIT o how is TIMIT . +PhD B: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Professor F: Go ahead . +PhD B: I was gonna say , does that mean IPA is not really international ? +Grad C: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's saying {disfmarker} +PhD A: It uses special diacritics and stuff , which you can't do with ASCII characters . +Grad C: y can't print on ASCII . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: So the SAMPA 's just mapping those . +PhD B: Oh , I see . Got it . +Professor F: What , uh {disfmarker} Has OGI done anything about this issue ? Do they have {disfmarker} Do they have any kind of superset that they already have ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 're going actually the {disfmarker} the other way , defining uh , phoneme clusters , apparently . Well . +Professor F: Aha . That 's right . Uh , and that 's an interesting {pause} way to go too . +PhD A: So they just throw the speech from all different languages together , then cluster it into sixty or fifty or whatever clusters ? +PhD G: I think they 've not done it , uh , doing , uh , multiple language yet , but what they did is to training , uh , English nets with all the phonemes , and then training it in English nets with , uh , kind of seventeen , I think it was {disfmarker} seventeen , uh , broad classes . +PhD A: Automatically derived {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Automatically derived broad classes , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD G: Uh , and , yeah . And the result was that apparently , when testing on cross - language it was better . I think so . But Hynek didn't add {disfmarker} didn't have all the results when he showed me that , so , well . +Professor F: So that does make an interesting question , though . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is there 's some way that we should tie into that with this . Um . Right ? I mean , if {disfmarker} if in fact that is a better thing to do , {pause} should we leverage that , rather than doing , {pause} um , our own . Right ? So , if i if {disfmarker} if they s I mean , we have {disfmarker} {pause} i we have the {disfmarker} the trainings with our own categories . And now we 're saying , "" Well , how do we handle cross - language ? "" And one way is to come up with a superset , but they are als they 're trying coming up with clustered , and do we think there 's something wrong with that ? +PhD G: I think that there 's something wrong +Professor F: OK . What w +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well , because {disfmarker} Well , for the moment we are testing on digits , and e i perhaps u using broad phoneme classes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK for um , uh classifying the digits , but as soon as you will have more words , well , words can differ with only a single phoneme , and {disfmarker} which could be the same , uh , class . +Professor F: I see . +PhD G: Well . So . +Professor F: Right . Although , you are not using this for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So , I 'm +Professor F: You 're using this for the feature generation , though , not the {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , but you will ask the net to put one for th th the phoneme class +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So you 're saying that there may not be enough information coming out of the net to help you discriminate the words ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well . Yeah , yeah . Mmm . +PhD B: Fact , most confusions are within the phone {disfmarker} phone classes , right ? I think , uh , Larry was saying like obstruents are only confused with other obstruents , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , this is another p yeah , another point . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so , maybe we could look at articulatory type stuff , +Professor F: But that 's what I thought they were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? +Professor F: Did they not do that , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , +Professor F: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: they were talking about , perhaps , but they d +Professor F: They 're talking about it , +PhD G: I d +Professor F: but that 's sort of a question whether they did +PhD G: w Yeah . +Professor F: because that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other route to go . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Instead of this , you know {disfmarker} +Grad C: Superclass . +Professor F: Instead of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the superclass thing , which is to take {disfmarker} So suppose y you don't really mark arti To really mark articulatory features , you really wanna look at the acoustics and {disfmarker} and see where everything is , and we 're not gonna do that . So , uh , the second class way of doing it is {pause} to look at the , uh , phones that are labeled and translate them into acoustic {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} articulatory , uh , uh , features . So it won't really be right . You won't really have these overlapping {pause} things and so forth , +PhD A: So the targets of the net {disfmarker} are these {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Articulatory features . +Professor F: Articulatory feature . +PhD A: But that implies that you can have more than one on at a time ? +Professor F: Right . That 's right . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor F: You either do that or you have multiple nets . +PhD A: I see . +Professor F: Um . And , um I don't know if our software {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} if the qu versions of the Quicknet that we 're using allows for that . Do you know ? +Grad C: Allows for {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Multiple targets being one ? +Grad C: Oh , um , we have gotten soft targets to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} that 'll work , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . So , um , that 's another thing that could be done {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor F: is that we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , just translate {disfmarker} instead of translating to a superset , {pause} just translate to articulatory features , some set of articulatory features and train with that . Now the fact {disfmarker} even though it 's a smaller number , {pause} it 's still fine because you have the {disfmarker} the , uh , combinations . So , in fact , it has every , you know {disfmarker} it had {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has every distinction in it that you would have the other way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: But it should go across languages better . +PhD A: We could do an interesting cheating experiment with that too . We could {disfmarker} I don't know , if you had uh the phone labels , you could replace them by their articulatory features and then feed in a vector with those uh , things turned on based on what they 're supposed to be for each phone to see if it {disfmarker} if you get a big win . Do you know what I 'm saying ? +Professor F: No . +PhD A: So , um , I mean , if your net is gonna be outputting , uh , a vector of {disfmarker} basically of {disfmarker} well , it 's gonna have probabilities , but let 's say that they were ones and zeros , then y and you know for each , um , I don't know if you know this for your testing data , but if you know for your test data , you know , what the string of phones is and {disfmarker} and you have them aligned , then you can just {disfmarker} instead of going through the net , just create the vector for each phone and feed that in to see if that data helps . Eh , eh , what made me think about this is , I was talking with Hynek and he said that there was a guy at A T - andT who spent eighteen months working on a single feature . And because they had done some cheating experiments {disfmarker} +Professor F: This was the guy that we were just talking a that we saw on campus . So , this was Larry Saul who did this {disfmarker} did this . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: He used sonorants . +PhD A: Right , OK , +Professor F: Was what he was doing . +PhD A: right . And they {disfmarker} they had done a cheating experiment or something , right ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: and determined that {disfmarker} +Professor F: He {disfmarker} he di he didn't mention that part . +PhD A: Well , Hynek said that {disfmarker} that , I guess before they had him work on this , they had done some experiment where if they could get that one feature right , it dramatically improved the result . +Professor F: But . I see . OK . +PhD A: So I was thinking , you know {disfmarker} it made me think about this , that if {disfmarker} it 'd be an interesting experiment just to see , you know , if you did get all of those right . +Professor F: Should be . Because if you get all of them in there , that defines all of the phones . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's equivalent to saying that you 've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} got all the phones right . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: So , if that doesn't help , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Although , yeah , it would be {disfmarker} make an interesting cheating experiment because we are using it in this funny way , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: where we 're converting it into features . +PhD A: And then you also don't know what error they 've got on the HTK side . You know ? It sort of gives you your {disfmarker} the best you could hope for , kind of . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm , I see . +PhD B: The soft training of the nets still requires the vector to sum to one , though , right ? +Grad C: To sum up to one . +PhD B: So you can't really feed it , like , two articulatory features that are on at the same time with ones cuz it 'll kind of normalize them down to one half or something like that , for instance . +PhD G: But perhaps you have the choice of the {pause} final nonl +Grad C: Right . Nonlinearity ? +PhD G: uh , nonlinearity , +Grad C: Um , +PhD G: yeah . Is it always softmax +Grad C: it 's sig No , it 's actually sigmoid - X +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad C: for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So if you choose sigmoid it 's o it 's OK ? +Grad C: You , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did we just run out of disk , +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think apparently , the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Why don't you just choose linear ? Right ? +Grad C: What 's that ? +PhD B: Linear outputs ? +Grad C: Linear outputs ? +PhD B: Isn't that what you 'll want ? +Grad C: Um . +PhD B: If you 're gonna do a KL Transform on it . +Grad C: Right , right . Right , but during the training , we would train on sigmoid - X +PhD B: Oh , you {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad C: and then at the end just chop off the final nonlinearity . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're off the air , or {disfmarker} ? About to be off the air . +","The meeting involved several participants, including professors, PhD students, and graduates, involved in a research project linked to speech recognition and processing. Initially, the conversation centered around communication checks and equipment status, with mentions of channel adjustments and battery checks. Attention then shifted to the agenda for an upcoming field trip to OGI, which appeared to be a critical component of their research activities. Professor F described the primary plans, logistics for traveling to OGI, and the importance of discussing the project's progress report and resource issues. + +Grad C was tasked with reading transcripts, but it was noted that names would likely need to be anonymized. Professor F mentioned various administrative details and laid out the meeting structure. They discussed plans to address the logistics of the upcoming field trip, the progress of individual contributors, and resource allocations. There was also a discussion of more technical aspects of their work, such as training data, test conditions, and the use of different neural network models. + +PhD G was responsible for the preparation of French test data and was working on baseline models using HTK (Hidden Markov Model Toolkit), incorporating noise and comparing results across different datasets. The intent was to analyze the impact of various features, training data, and test data on the system's performance. + +Grad C installed HTK and suggested a cube-like structure to arrange the system experiments, known as ""the cube,"" which represents an interplay between features, training corpus, and testing corpus. He also mentioned the logistics and technicalities involved in the project work. + +There was extensive discussion on the Aurora project and the use of various languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Finnish, for speech recognition tests, with considerations for noise conditions and language-specific issues. They considered the potential complexity of integrating multilingual corpora, including label mappings and phoneme subsets. + +The participants discussed the benefits of different features, such as Perceptual Linear Predictive (PLP), Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), and RASTA-PLP, among others. Professor F and PhD G further explored the idea of generalized neural networks versus specialized networks for different acoustic environments and languages. + +A significant thread in their conversation pertained to leveraging computational resources to execute vast numbers of experiments, emphasizing the importance of optimizing the resources and modeling processes. PhD E also shared challenges she faced regarding data labeling and conversion, suggesting the use of SAMPA, which provides a phonetic transcription system that can facilitate multilingual database management. + +The meeting turned toward the execution strategy, particularly concerning disk space management, the allocation of data on servers, and efficient storage solutions for the large scope of operations. They considered the implications of the normalization process in the given computational context. + +Towards the conclusion of the meeting, they deliberated on the immediate tasks to focus on due to the time constraints and the potential contributions Dave, a member of the research team, could make to the project. They touched upon the topic of voiced-unvoiced-silence detection features, finding a consensus on addressing that topic later and identifying immediate, well-defined tasks that could utilize additional personnel support effectively. + +The meeting ended with ongoing discussions about setting up neural networks for broad classes or languages and considering articulatory features as another route that could potentially enhance cross-language performance. They discussed the potential for overlapping distinctions and the use of sigmoid functions in neural networks training, concluding with technical matters related to the equipment status." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17.22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Gareth Rogers: Thank you. +Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. +Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. +Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. +John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about £5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that—that's anecdotal—but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money—we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful—but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. +Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU—so international students, not from Europe—have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? +Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level—£12.5 million less—then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding—the Augar review. +John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? +Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see—the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment—. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students' appetite to come. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? +Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary—let's hope it is—as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the £9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England—there was one in Wales—chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that £9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. +Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. +Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. +Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. +Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? +Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then—and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution—in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions—and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. +Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? +Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? +Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. +Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. +Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? +Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation—I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. +Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? +Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. +Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. +Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales—it's 'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. +Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities—quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. +Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? +Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. +Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? +Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. +Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? +Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting £38 million income from European students, and approximately £91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income—£1.5 billion—of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of £17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace—either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. +Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? +Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. +Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? +Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter—so, we've got £10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further £20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed—Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. +Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? +Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend—a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection—so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19—in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year—so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. +Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process—they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or—? What's the plan? +Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. +Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether—it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? +Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit—it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? +Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar—we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts—data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later—. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans—they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail—five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. +Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? +Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? +Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure—students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. +Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? +Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring—or whatever you like to describe the role as—quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. +Bethan Owen: I think we can advise—we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about, 'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?' It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. +Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility—either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are—so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan—if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed—. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether—and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU—that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. +Dr David Blaney: I think the— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry—especially if it means that they do more of it. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? +Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may—. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale—that's a UK Government issue. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? +Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. +Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come—you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any—and there are some at the moment, as we've described—and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course—you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. +Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was £129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place—and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? +Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. +Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's—. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. +Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? +John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? +Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. +Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? +Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is—. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. +Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? +Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so—. +Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities—repeated opportunities—in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. +Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls 'houskeeping' that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment—I don't like the expression 'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing—the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one—and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful—is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM—it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research—tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further—so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better—that engagement—because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Sêr Cymru II? +Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Sêr Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have £100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? +Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. +Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. +Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. +Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every £1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another £4 on top, because that £1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash—. +Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest—. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves—they're running at a loss. +Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? +Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session. +","The conversation is from a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee where Gareth Rogers, standing in for the absent Chair, called for temporary Chair nominations, resulting in John Griffiths being appointed. The committee addressed the impact of Brexit on Welsh higher education, with Dr. David Blaney and Bethan Owen from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales providing evidence. They discussed the apolitical stance of HEFCW, the significant economic impact of universities in Wales, and concerns about EU student applications declining due to Brexit uncertainty and funding arrangement changes. + +Bethan Owen highlighted the financial pressures faced by Welsh institutions, particularly due to the implementation of recommendations by Sir Ian Diamond regarding funding and student finance. She mentioned a managed sector-wide deficit and the uncertain financial future with Brexit looming. Further, she indicated that changes to student recruitment from the EU and non-EU international students had decreased, with many factors speculated to contribute, including perceptions of welcoming attitudes and investment levels in the institutions. + +The funding allocations for research and higher education in Wales were discussed, emphasizing the importance of resolving uncertainties and the possible repercussions of funding disruptions. The committee touched on the potential for Welsh institutions to increase capital investments and the uncertainty surrounding the receipt of funds saved from the implementation of the Diamond recommendations. + +On the quality of higher education, it was noted that Brexit could impact student diversity and negatively affect collaboration networks unless efforts are made to maintain standards and investment in research. There was also mention of working towards attracting more funding from the UK research councils and charitable research grants, with the lack of overhead funding being a challenge. + +The session concluded with administrative matters, agreeing to note several letters regarding codes, bills, and grants relevant to education and childcare in Wales and moving to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting and for certain items in a future meeting. + +Summary: The meeting covered the appointment of a temporary Chair and examined the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the impact of Brexit on higher education in Wales, discussing financial pressures, student recruitment, investment in facilities, and research quality. The committee navigated through various administrative topics before concluding in a private session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Afternoon guys . It's gonna be {gap} . +Marketing: Rock and roll . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: So do we need to re-train Mike on how to put his mic on ? +Project Manager: We may do . +Industrial Designer: Think s +Marketing: Okay , can he get it all by himself this time ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm feeling like a big boy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Pro +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Probably not , 'cause he's 'S been listening to {gap} too much . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He's getting retarded . Yay . +Marketing: I believe I can fly . +User Interface: Alright well we got some exciting stuff for you guys . +Industrial Designer: Or not . +User Interface: Or not . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Just what I needed was something exciting . Remember , I'm an old man . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , ready to go ? +User Interface: All ready . +Project Manager: 'Kay so we've got our conceptual design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Apparently I'm old as well . +Project Manager: Hopefully we've all got exciting ideas now . +Marketing: Thirty's really young , eh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We do . +Project Manager: Uh k exciting ideas . 'Kay so here's our agenda our agenda . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm gonna open . I'm gonna talk for a bit about what we're gonna do . I'm gonna take some notes . We're gonna all do a presentation , and then hopefully we're gonna make some decisions now . {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} Well when I say hopefully , we have to . So +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I'm gonna let you guys talk before we make decisions . And does anyone really want to go first ? +User Interface: I guess I'll go first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You p two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Component , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Components design . +User Interface: Yep that's it . +Industrial Designer: Presented by name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: My name is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your name is name ? +Marketing: Jose he man is . +User Interface: My name is name . +Project Manager: Huh hi name . +Industrial Designer: My name is Inigo Montoya . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You killed my father . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry I did this in a bit of a rush . +Industrial Designer: Prepare to die . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N name . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So so here's a look inside your really old-looking remote control . Um you've got {vocalsound} a printed {vocalsound} a printed uh circuit board here , and you've got all these buttons which kinda press down little rubber {vocalsound} nubbies into these little holes that activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've all broke a remote control ri um s yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah we've all broken a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you've also got um {disfmarker} you've got your chip here , your batteries here , and some sorta electronics . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I just love you tech guys , huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there's a thingy and a dingy and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You press this and it does th +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah y do jabber {vocalsound} +User Interface: so you've got {disfmarker} here's here's a transistor , and this amplifies your signal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um you've got the L_E_D_ here on the end of the uh uh on the end of the printed circuit board . Um you've got a couple diodes here for I don't know who and whatnot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno who and whatnot . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +User Interface: So um we've got a {disfmarker} i in this in this uh drawing he uh in this example here , this is a eighteen pin um uh chip {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: P Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it's two double A_ batteries . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is pretty standard remote . So here are options for our power sources . You can use a basic battery , which we've already discussed , um {vocalsound} th our tech department also said we have the option of doing some kind of hand dynamo where maybe you crank it or something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wanna change that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I don't know if that's really {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I gotta I gotta flashlight , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know we got some qu crazy guys down there in that department so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You shake it . +Marketing: yeah but it's interesting 'cause you shake it like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: So that's the next bullet is the um the kinetic provision of energy , +Marketing: And that's on the camera {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's like that flashlight where you have to shake it {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Uh we've got solar cells , which I don't think is a very good idea because um you could not use your remote at night {vocalsound} which doesn't make a lot of sense . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: And finally we've got our cradle o our power cradle idea . +Project Manager: Okay so we basically have battery versus cradle here ? +User Interface: M battery versus cradle I think is {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I like the kinetic . +Project Manager: So we have battery versus cradle {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I g I I figured you would . Yes . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It could be fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's actually a novel thing because you could sell it a as a novelty , just to be actually serious for a minute here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it is it is more uh {disfmarker} I mean it is more eco-friendly than the than the cradle 'cause you're still using power off the grid with the cradle . So um +Project Manager: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: our case design . We have uh choices in materials and choices in the general shapes that we can do . Our material choices are a plastic latex um ty or plastic , a rubber latex type thing , uh wood , or titanium . If we go with titanium we're gonna be uh limited in the amount of shapes we can do because it's tough to shape the titanium , and uh {disfmarker} Yeah pers +Project Manager: Wood wood would ge would give us a little bit of a marketing niche , wouldn't it . +User Interface: I think wood i {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It it it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah . +User Interface: I I can't see anybody wanting to use a wooden remote , it's just anti-technology really , you know . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Hmm . +Marketing: Uh uh to me in a marketing sense it's not it's not relative . We can we can o we can uh accentuate whatever {disfmarker} whatever product you put in there we can find a way to accentuate it . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And what we may be able to do , and I think this might be the best option is to combine some {disfmarker} a couple of these . Um my recommendation personally would be to do some kind of a plastic inner shell with a like a rubber outer shell , to make it um to mak uh like a thick plastic inner shell and a t um kind of a {disfmarker} to have that rubber outer shell to make it more durable , and also maybe i I think it feels a little better than the plastic . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Do you get a good grip on the rubber ? Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if you make it from that super rubber , when you drop it on the floor it can bounce right back up in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: You don't even need to lean down to get it . +User Interface: The advantages of working with plastic and rubber is {disfmarker} w we we'll have a lot more um options just in terms of shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because you can extrude plastic in basically any shape you want . So um {disfmarker} and then we can cover you know the breakable bits with rubber yeah so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But basically these are {vocalsound} curved and double-curved I I believe that the tech department , in their um {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} message to me , that they were referring to the number of th curves in the bottom . I have no idea exactly what they're talking about , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but that's what they told me , {vocalsound} uncurved , flat , curved , or double-curved . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would guess this like this pen would be kinda like a double-curved , where it's curved on m m multiple axes , right ? I think curved means just curved in one axis and double-curved is curved in two axes +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or surfaces . I have no idea . +Project Manager: I think it might mean something like that sorta shape because a double curve rather than a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm yeah that's {disfmarker} yeah that's what I see . +Project Manager: yeah that's what {gap} . +User Interface: Oh okay oh like a wave , okay . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I see also . +User Interface: Alright that makes sense okay . Um okay , with the interface we have the following options , we can u we can use push buttons , we can use a scroll wheel with an integrated push button , and L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: or multiple scrolling wheels . Um so these are all options that the user interface guy can uh {disfmarker} has at his disposal to put together a user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: For electronics , we have these very technical um {vocalsound} descriptions here . A simple chip , which is the least expensive , but I have no numbers to give you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: a regular chip , which is {vocalsound} like the medium porridge {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} medium expense uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} D do we have actually any concept of what the difference is between a simple chip and an advanced chip ? +User Interface: Yes the difference is , with a simple chip {disfmarker} a simple chip will operate {disfmarker} oh why doesn't this scroll up ? Previous previous , okay . A simple chip is required to operate push buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} an advanced chip is required to to operate um the L_C_D_ display , and it didn't say specifically , but I I have a hunch that a regular chip is gonna be the scroll wheel and the multiple scroll wheels . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that makes sense . So presentation from {disfmarker} I guess design would go best . Next . +User Interface: That's the end of my presentation . +Project Manager: Technical functions or interface concept ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh interface concept . +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very long presentation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , but it has your name on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that doesn't bo bode well for it for it tats as well . Um so , somehow that thing's too big , but um {disfmarker} okay um our uh manufacturing division wanted the speech recognition . They say they could put it to work but um we don't think so . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . It it it {disfmarker} you'll be you know be affected by the by the other speech and {disfmarker} +User Interface: If the T_V_ is working , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} I mean it'll {disfmarker} if somebody says up in the middle of a television show , it's gonna change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and and fighting for the remote would not be fun anymore , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I think that's one of the things we wanna keep . +Project Manager: But what if you actually had to press a button to make it recognize ? So if you pressed it and went , up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That kinda would r d +User Interface: Well then why don't you just press the up button ? +Project Manager: Man yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . That would kind of lose it . +Project Manager: But if it's just one thing with a button that you can just go {disfmarker} Up . +User Interface: Even still there's gonna be interf th there's there still will be interference from the T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: It might not be it might not be completely confusing , but I think you'll still y it's still {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think it's practical at all . I think it's a bad idea frankly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so um taking that away , our uh {disfmarker} the the the rubber but rubber buttons are the more reliable {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You guys know your stuff . +Industrial Designer: it's the the ones that would al would allow us to to market our product as being you know less prone to damage and more resistant to things like spillage of liquids over it or you know mistreat misuses as it happens to remote controls . Um as for the point that we making about losing it . Well , we wanna small r remote control one side because uh we want it to be cool and uh designed , but um apparently um market shows that bigger s bigger um remotes get less lost , +User Interface: That I would believe . +Industrial Designer: about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But um yeah I think we we need to compromise between those two and somehow we'll do that . Somehow . Um so {vocalsound} the the {disfmarker} what I would propose is something more or less in the uh direction of what is to yo the right of that slide uh but without {disfmarker} with a l a less complicated um design , so the numbers , the volume control , and channel control , and teletext access . Uh the volume and channel control can just become those the the four button array as in if it was a round dial . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um if you just think about it as the one to the right but with the numbers and the four buttons plus maybe a centre one with teletext . +Project Manager: So we're suggesting doing a sorta scroll wheel thing for the volume ? +Industrial Designer: Ye no it's not +User Interface: That's not a scroll wheel . +Industrial Designer: i i it's just four buttons that are on a cross , +Project Manager: Nah . Oh okay okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: so that you ba basically can control all of the important tasks from that {gap} alone . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . +User Interface: Instead of play , stop , rewind , and fast forward there , that's up , down , louder , and quieter . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um yeah so I think we w we go for something mid-sized , so something looks good +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh is not too prone to get lost . That be it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So on to {disfmarker} Y functional requirements or trend watching ? +Marketing: I dunno . +User Interface: Trend watching has a later date there . +Marketing: Trend watching I guess . Trend watching I believe . +Project Manager: {gap} forty six nineteen fifty seven . Yep . +Marketing: See what it looks like . It's been so long . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} I don't know what to say . When I s when I see the {disfmarker} when I see the product I I I I don't wanna buy it . I see so many of 'em out there . There's nothing about that product that makes me wanna choose that product over other products that are out there . +User Interface: Are you talking about the picture ? That's not our that's not our b design , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: that's just a {disfmarker} that's just something he a a graphic he used to show you the layout of what the layout of the buttons might be like . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Okay 'cause 'cause right now I don't have too much to say about how to market this product because we don't have a product to market yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh from from talking to Mike is that we have we have uh we can market a more expensive product now . That's what I understand so , +Project Manager: Upper management said yes . +Marketing: hello . +Project Manager: Uh e excuse that , that's a bit of spam . +Marketing: And and so {disfmarker} yeah I'm a I'm a little bit stuck right now in that what uh w what is it that I'm gonna market ? Uh without special or increased marketable features I don't believe the product has a consumer demand . Uh I like the idea of of the scroll makin {vocalsound} there are so many people making these products at this price right now . What are we gonna do to make this one special and unique ? +User Interface: What's special and unique about a scroll ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} well I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . +Marketing: yeah it's {disfmarker} I I just see it as different . I don't say it's specially mm {disfmarker} I don't say it's special . Uh I say that it's different I {disfmarker} what I'm looking for as marketing is m give me something different . I give me a lower price , give me a higher price , give me some new technology , don't give me the same thing that everybody else is putting out there on the shelf it's f at the same price . I need something to market about this thing . We're we're a new firm . +Project Manager: I'd I'd say though that we {disfmarker} if we did make the decision to go with the cradle though , the then we have that as well , +Marketing: What i {vocalsound} if when when we have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but wi with a similar {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah when we when we have something like the cradle or or something give that's {disfmarker} as as a marketing standard {disfmarker} I need something to market , to make this product unique . +User Interface: Well right I think the two big th points that we have so far are the {disfmarker} having the cradle and also having uh the um the actual design of the uh case itself having like this like rubber shell maybe with a plastic interior , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: having it look really nice um and also be really durable . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Just remember when I made up this report I didn't have the information that we're discussing here . +Project Manager: Mm . Course . +User Interface: Right yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And and so so uh yeah when we have a cradle , when we have some kind of design , so what I'm saying is , from my perspective , I don't have a product to market right now . Um uh my personal preference is that we make some adjustment in the cost , either lower or develop an integrated new technol technology . That's that is the next step , there's technology and then there is technology , which we're moving into the next phase . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause that's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so uh we're gonna have some new technology to enhance the marketability . Yeah uh again I'm not sold on the product because we don't have a product in my opinion yet . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I need a product . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Well let's get a product then . +Marketing: I need a product to market . And I just {disfmarker} whatever product you guys put together , we'll find a way to market it . Tha that I'm not concerned with . +Project Manager: So now {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you give me {disfmarker} if you give me a cut-out of what everybody else has then I need to I need to find a lower cost . +Project Manager: So our big {vocalsound} questions here really are cradle or not cradle ? Do we go basic or do we go for features ? Uh d does anyone really wanna do anything with the scroll wheel or should we ditch that off-hand first ? +User Interface: Well my question is what would the scroll wheel do ? Function-wise , what does that do that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh but that was in your presentation {vocalsound} so wh what would you imagine it doing ? +Marketing: Yeah wh wh what's the {vocalsound} wh +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well it's it's just another way to do the exact same thing that the buttons do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay +Industrial Designer: But would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay now what I see with the scroll wheel is everybody has buttons . So from a marketing standpoint I have I have another door to walk through when we have something that's unique . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If it creates something more complex or more expensive , then I don't know if that makes it uh a marketing necessity . But again , from a marketing perspective I want as much new and different about this thing as possible because we're we're co {vocalsound} it's a very competitive market . +Project Manager: What I understand about scroll wheels is they're they're quite expensive to to make . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I d +User Interface: Th they are gonna be more expensive , but on the other hand , I mean , it {disfmarker} I mean it is an alternative if if you think that's gonna sell some some uh you know {disfmarker} if if we're gonna make up the extra cost by extra sales I think maybe it's worth it to do it , but I mean I would just use {disfmarker} if I was gonna do this I would just use the scroll wheel for s channels up and channels down . I don't think volume {disfmarker} or do you think volume would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I'll bet first in volume maybe . I dunno . +User Interface: No we can {disfmarker} we can do multiple scroll wheels but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I d I like the idea of basically focusing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my personal preference is focusing the p the product on the idea of the uh the case the the {vocalsound} uh dock to put it in {disfmarker} to to charge it . We can target like environmentally friendly ideas , that sorta things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It s i m makes it easy to market , +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: it's easy to differentiate the product , yeah so . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} that's right . I think so . +Project Manager: And if we we keep the rest in a format that is durable because th th the whole product's gonna need to be more durable th thus because you're not going to be ditching it as often . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's gonna need to be more expensive because of the cradle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we can market it in terms of that and yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . I think we got some exclusivity in that , you know , we got something that nobody else has right now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and and that means we can we can make some adjustments in the retail or wholesale price if we need to and it also can create it's own demand from it's uniqueness . +Project Manager: So our big decision then is like how do we do um like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have to decide on the details and we have to decide on well n not exactly the details , but d do we have uh {disfmarker} What type of casing ? I personally like what you were saying about the plastic with the rubber . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm thinking {disfmarker} yeah something like kinda almost like these pens , you know , where there's {disfmarker} you have plastic bits and then it's not really rubber but just kinda like a fused {disfmarker} the plastic with rubber on the outside . +Project Manager: Okay . Just a very thin sorta sheet for a a grip , sorta thing or for {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well no ma yeah maybe a bit more then th is on here but ju just as a kind of an inspiration , these pens I think are are kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So then if we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} d d do we want to do anything more basic with the {disfmarker} uh more advanced with the user interface in terms of do we want to go for {vocalsound} um buttons , or do we want {disfmarker} if we're ditching the scroll wheels do we want to go L_C_D_ ? Do we want to give {disfmarker} do we want to have anything else on it ? +Industrial Designer: It's only a T_V_ . +User Interface: Or from from my perspective I think L_C_D_ is a mistake because this is a universal remote and all you're doing {disfmarker} I mean it's {disfmarker} you're not gonna get any information back from the television , so the only information you can display on this remote is what channel you {vocalsound} just sent it at last and there's just not a lot of information , you know , there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It receives no information . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I I don't see any reason for having an L_C_D_ 'cause it's an increased cost . Unless you can think of something interesting to do with it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right now there's {disfmarker} right now there's nothing coming out of the T_V_ to receive , so you know unless technology changes and information starts coming out of the {disfmarker} a cable box or something there's no s I don't see the , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I don't see the necessity of an L_C_D_ either . Don't see it . +Project Manager: Okay so the question is now I guess we need t to decide on {disfmarker} well y you guys basically have to now go and figure out the details of this thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , what we need to know in terms of marketing and uh project management are are there any other questions that we need to answer now before you guys can go and build this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what overall things have we not decided on ? +User Interface: Well we have to {disfmarker} I think for me it's still not exactly clear exactly what the inter user interface is gonna be . There's the scroll wheel , in or out ? What do you guys like in the user interface ? +Project Manager: I think maybe in terms of marketing , is that gonna make enough of a difference to justify the cost ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Again . Well I think it's it's {disfmarker} the more uniqueness you can bring to the product , the easier it is , I believe , for me to market . Uh again the push-buttons I I see are are everywhere . And so we can go with the same thing , but we're gonna be com competing in a in a broader market than if we go with something unique . You know the other thing I thought about was you know , do we go to something like this ? Make a remote that doesn't look like a remote . It's just another {disfmarker} it's just a an idea , and I don't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I dunno about like the flip-phone idea , because {vocalsound} I think , as far as durability th it's not a big {disfmarker} well maybe when it's closed . +Marketing: I mean what I see {disfmarker} one of the things one of the things you brought up in an earlier presentation is , when you got children , {vocalsound} their their stuff gets inside the circuitry , they get dirty , they get messy with drinks and stuff . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And what I keep throwing out there {disfmarker} I just keep throwing out ideas to try to make this thing look or act or in some way identify itself as unique or different . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But you guys are the ones that have to c ultimately create the product within cost . +Project Manager: Yeah and I guess th th the question th {vocalsound} th that you're being asked right now is whether {disfmarker} is the dock enough of a unique feature to be able to go out and sell that a a as a a very different product , or do we really need the scroll wheel as well ? +Marketing: Oh okay +Project Manager: Because the scroll wheel comes at quite a cost . +Marketing: phew . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you gotta g get into cost effectiveness . I think if you can have the base station with a with a locator , I think those are two very strong features , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: if that's something that can be integrated without a bunch of extra cost . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The locator's gonna require a radio transmitter , which will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's gonna n is that gonna need a better chip as well ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} we're probably gonna have to go with a like a medium chip , s I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: No it's just different . +User Interface: But we I we will need a receiver , an antenna . +Marketing: Integrated , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just uh I I think that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It should be a really simple signal though so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know personally that would be a very attractive feature , is to have a uh have a button I can push to find my remote control . +Project Manager: And it's presumably gonna need a little speaker in it or something like that as well to beep . +User Interface: That's true yeah . +Project Manager: But I guess a little tiny speaker is gonna be quite cheap , it's not gonna need q quality , is it ? It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah . It'll be really cheap . +Marketing: Or maybe you can like have a a smell-o-rama , you know you push a button and it s puts out a stink . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe not {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Makes your living room more fresh as you watch {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we're doing well for time here . +Industrial Designer: S +Project Manager: Um we've got about another ten minutes . I think that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So the scroll wheel , in or out ? +Project Manager: Mm pr my personal preference is out . I don't think the cost is justified {vocalsound} for a little bit more uniqueness when we already have that , and I don't s think it's obvious and natural how it would be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think we have {disfmarker} like and it's not very usable and it will bring down the robustness of the whole thing , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's it it breaks down easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For me I think the scroll wheel actually might not be so bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know exactly what the increased cost is gonna be , but I think he does have a point , i it might push somebody over the edge when they're looking at our at our remote versus something else , when they see this one has a scroll wheel to go up and down on the channels . I think it might be kinda neat to be able to do it like that . +Project Manager: But then that that surely d depends a little on the T_V_ +Marketing: W +Project Manager: because some T_V_s are quite slow at changing channels from like so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: if you've got a scroll wheel and you s you have to scroll scroll it really really slowly just so that you're actually keeping in pace with the T_V_'s ability to to change channels . Or do you have to go through and you wait for it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You scroll it a bunch of times and you wait for it to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I think wh what it would be is like like the m like this , where it's maybe you know a digital wheel , right , where it's where it's quantized into you know certain {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I see I see . That's where you {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was that was my my intuition of what the scroll wheel would be . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ah I see I see what you're talking about now . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} it's basically {disfmarker} it it's just a f look and feel thing . It has the same exact functionality as two buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I think there's {disfmarker} you know that uh there are so many people today that are that are surfing {disfmarker} are television surfers , and I see the scroll as a as a great mechanism for surfing . +Project Manager: Yeah if you're just sitting there going {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Instead of going button-to-bu you just {vocalsound} j you'd j j j j j j . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's kinda cool actually . +Marketing: I really I really think that's a really cool thing for surfing . +Project Manager: I like that . +User Interface: Now just just so you know though uh you did bring up a point which is very valid , is a lot of T_V_s won't re the T_V_s won't respond exactly the same . Some of them are gonna be kinda slow switching , so you may like queue up like fifteen channel changes , and it'll be like flip , flip , flip . +Marketing: Well there's ano +Project Manager: Well not n necessarily . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could basically make it so that it'll {disfmarker} I mean it's just gonna be sending a signal to the T_V_ yeah the T_V_'s ge so if you send about five flip channels , if you did that it's gonna flip once . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: If you do that . +User Interface: Yeah it just might be frustrating where you can't make it go as fast as you want , +Project Manager: Other than click click click . Yeah . +User Interface: but I think once people get used to it {disfmarker} I I do like the idea of the scroll wheel though . +Project Manager: And if we're marketing it as a high niche product , then we're gonna be selling it to people who are buying good T_V_s as well , yeah , presumably . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Primarily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think so . I I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Now the the only thing I I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} on the interface side of it , is that {vocalsound} I I I see the dilemma . {vocalsound} But if we have the option of of scrolling {vocalsound} at any particular speed , or the option of jumping direct , okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I can go uh {vocalsound} presuming I have , on my television , something that tells me what channel I'm on , I can scroll direct from channel five to channel thirty two . {vocalsound} I know what {disfmarker} because it's on the television . The television tells me what channel it's on when I change it . So {vocalsound} I don't know that really that's that's gonna be a a d problem , 'cause the television can go automatically from channel five to channel thirty two with the push of a button . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ca can we can we create that kind of interface within a scroll system ? You understand what I'm saying ? +User Interface: I think I know what you might be getting at , or or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh I see so if {disfmarker} maybe if we had an L_C_D_ up the top that just did a number on it , right ? And then it {disfmarker} that basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no we could read it from the television . +User Interface: Well , what about this {disfmarker} what about if you can programme in your favourite channels into this scroll wheel and you can just like roll through your favourite channels , +Project Manager: Mm . Well that's quite cool . +User Interface: and it c it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You'd need a display on the th the thing . +User Interface: Why ? It'll tell you when you flip the channel on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah the the television can tell you . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can . +Project Manager: Oh yeah yeah no I see what you're talking about . Yeah that's kinda cool . How would you program it though ? +User Interface: Well you just {disfmarker} it's one extra button . You say programme start , and then type in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause you still have the typing you know you'll still have the keypad where you can type 'em in manually . +Project Manager: Okay okay . +User Interface: So programme start , zero , one , enter , zero , five , enter , {vocalsound} thirty eight , enter , programme end . +Project Manager: Okay and yeah +Marketing: And then . +Project Manager: and that just basically flips between it and it'll go {disfmarker} it sends out zero , five , and then thirty six , and then zero , one again . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that's kinda cool . I like that . +Marketing: And again we have another another great marketing tool . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: We have about three {disfmarker} we have three or four things here . +Project Manager: That's not gonna be too expensive because that's gonna be {disfmarker} you're gonna be able to nab that off of computer mouse manufacturers really . You could basically {vocalsound} come up with a partnership to be able to produce that quite cheaply . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno and an maybe we maybe even have this as in-house technology . This may be something that's available through our own uh through our own services . +Project Manager: Might be , but tha that's not gonna be such a costly feature . The problem we're gonna have is making it robust . Making it last . +User Interface: Oh well we also have to determine in some manner how to switch between modes , between going through your favourites list and just hitting up one , up two . +Marketing: Or we go directional up {vocalsound} we go we go this we go this we go this way for one , we go this way for the other . +Project Manager: So if there's a button {vocalsound} for each type . +User Interface: No because you wanna be able to go up and down through the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah people are gonna have their favourite sorta , whether they do that or whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah-ha okay . Okay , okay , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: well then you just have , you have a diff you have a mode switch . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah the mode switch . +User Interface: I think we'll need a {vocalsound} we'll need a mode switch , but then if we have a mode switch we're gonna need some kinda indicator +Project Manager: Just the lights behind the buttons . +User Interface: to which , an L_E_ an L_E_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could have back-lit buttons maybe . +User Interface: okay . +Project Manager: Would that work ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: okay we have five minutes . So right details th {vocalsound} that we've talked about here are that we want a scroll wheel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We want {vocalsound} a mode indicator . We want {vocalsound} back-lit buttons . And if we're making back-lit buttons period , do we want that just for the mode indicator or maybe to indicate what button you're pressing at the time , so that you know if it's actually pressed or not . I've seen some remotes do that . +User Interface: Okay . Just so you know I think {disfmarker} I mean it was my understanding that before we were gonna stay in the mid-market range . It seems we're kind of approaching a higher-end range . +Project Manager: I think we are yeah . +User Interface: I wanna make sure everybody's okay with that . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Well you had acknowledged that we have more money for this . +Project Manager: Yeah well we don't have {vocalsound} it's not that we have more money , +Marketing: Didn't you say so ? +Project Manager: we can push up the the price . +Marketing: That's what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can increase the cost . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: So I don't know I don't know whether having {disfmarker} +User Interface: I just wanna make sure everybody's on board with it . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So we really need to be sure as to what we can push the cost up to , though we haven't got to a stage where we're ready to pin down the price of components . But I'd say what sorta price are we looking to be able to sell something like that , and what sorta price can we make it for ? +Marketing: Well I think th I think the design and technology has to come back and say , okay to create this product we see it's gonna cost us this much for this volume , because we do have a volume target of of fifty million profit . +Project Manager: Yeah no I I think that's where we really should be more flexible than anything else because as we said in the last meeting , our management is really looking for us to push our brand . We're entering a new market here , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: so I think the the profit expectation for this one product is maybe not as important as being able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay I'm I'm okay with that . I guess what I just want {disfmarker} to me the next step is for these guys to come come in with the design proposal w with the cost estimate attached , and then we have to take this to the next level . +Project Manager: But th what's our ballpark as to what we'd be able to sell something like this for ? +User Interface: Well y yeah . Let's let's try and think now , how much would you pay for +Marketing: We have to find cost . +User Interface: {disfmarker} with all these features {disfmarker} how much would you pay if you went to the store , and you were in the market f to replace your T_V_ remote , how much would you pay for that ? +Project Manager: But you've gotta think who our target market is because I I'm not our target market . +User Interface: I'm just asking you . +Project Manager: I'm a student , but on the other hand I would think , mm with my Project Manager salary , I would think {disfmarker} yeah I could probably afford this {disfmarker} +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you could probably afford this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: uh would I buy it ? Maybe . If I had a cool new T_V_ and this was r looking really slick and it had the dock and it had the scroll wheel , which I think's a really cool idea , that would sell me on it a little . Then maybe you know . I do I don't think I'd go over a hundred Euro certainly , that would be way too much , +User Interface: Oh no no . +Project Manager: but the {disfmarker} I would be happy paying over forty for it , I guess , but not much {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say thirty five to forty . +Marketing: Yeah , I was gonna say thirty five to fifty . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Thirty five to fifty Euros is our sales bracket okay . So the question is what we ca we make it for . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Because one of th one of the things we're marketing about this product is that this is the last one you will ever need to buy for your television . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: It's one of the marketing features in this . +Project Manager: That's why the scroll needs to be really robust . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we'll come up with something between thirty five and fifty that is rug rubber , robust , with scroll wheel , with the new facilities of the scroll wheel like favourite stuff , favourite channels , and and with a cradle , and yeah and the locator . +User Interface: With a cradle , radio transmitters , and back-lit buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it's gonna look sexy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Or not {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Or not . It might look like clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay so you can market pe depending on that ? +Marketing: Yeah yeah . Bas th that's that's easy . That's that's not a , it's a {gap} . 'Cause we have about six , six , seven features in that alone . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: Under the title of uniquenesses . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . The next meeting starts in thirty {vocalsound} minutes , although does it ? It starts at three twenty one , the next meeting . So we've got more than a thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} we've got more like fifty . +Marketing: Well I have {disfmarker} Is my {disfmarker} three twenty one is the next meeting ? +Project Manager: The the ne next meeting is three twenty one yeah . +Marketing: That's that's almost uh fifty minutes . +Project Manager: Yeah that is . Uh they've they've changed the times from the presentations . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You guys can {disfmarker} You guys you guys can uh create a {disfmarker} All kinds of things . +User Interface: Probably . We'll let you know when we're done , if we can go earlier . +Marketing: {gap} Thanks , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you guys will be getting your modelling done now and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay are there any other questions with regards to what this thing's gonna do , look like , how it's gonna work that need to be addressed before we really look at this in a lot of detail ? +User Interface: I don't think so . If we have any questions we'll just email you I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think it {disfmarker} pretty much everything's covered . +Project Manager: Okay . This one was quite easy . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Always the optimist . +Marketing: Still . +Industrial Designer: Yes I am . +Project Manager: 'Kay thanks guys . +Marketing: Thank you . I don't have any emails . This means I can go home . Oh , we all leave . {gap} +","In this extensive and detailed meeting, a team comprised of individuals from project management, marketing, industrial design, and user interface development convened to discuss the conceptual design of a new remote control product. The meeting aimed to finalize various aspects of the product’s design, features, and market positioning. + +The Project Manager greeted the group and led the meeting, beginning with an acknowledgment that training might be required for Mike on microphone usage, which sparked brief banter about his competence, as he was seemingly influenced by questionable music choices. The discussion then quickly moved into the primary agenda: the conceptual design of a remote control. + +The User Interface representative unveiled exciting features for the prospective remote control, but the Industrial Designer met these with skepticism, hinting at an established camaraderie and possible age-related self-deprecation within the team. The talk transitioned to the upcoming design meeting where the Project Manager outlined the structure: an opening speech, individual presentations, note-taking, and decision-making. There was a preference to let User Interface present first on component design. + +The User Interface developer proceeded to critique an old remote control, dissecting its various components, including the printed circuit board, chips, batteries, and the potential for other power sources like hand dynamos or solar cells. This generated a debate about practicality and marketability, with the Industrial Designer bringing a playful energy to the conversation by referencing ""The Princess Bride."" + +As the meeting advanced, the focus shifted onto other aspects like case design and material options (plastic, rubber, latex, wood, titanium), with marketing emphasizing the need for a unique selling proposition. The design team considered various combinations of materials that balanced aesthetic appeal with practicality and durability. The conversation touched on the functionalities of the interface, including buttons, scroll wheels, LCD displays, and various technical specifications. + +The team delved deeper into the user interface, discussing the merits and limitations of buttons versus scroll wheels, with a lengthy exploration of the industrial design elements necessary to create an attractive, efficient, and marketable product. They hashed out the pros and cons of implementing features like speech recognition, debating its usefulness and potential drawbacks within the product concept. + +The discussion went back and forth, with various perspectives shared on the integration of a locator, the use of backlit buttons for ease of use in dark settings, and even whimsical suggestions like a ""smell-o-rama"" feature. They scrutinized the need for durability and how the scroll wheel—which was seen as a unique selling point—could be utilized for channel surfing, with the potential inclusion of a favorites list for user-selected channels. + +Marketing expressed the need for standout product features to drive consumer demand, and as ideas were floated and fleshed out, they debated the implications of each feature on production costs, considering both the budget and the desired profit margin. There was a consensus to aim for a product that would be robust, high-end, and with innovative features that could justify a higher price point, aiming for a price range of 35 to 50 Euros. + +In conclusion, the team agreed that the next steps would include fleshing out the design proposal with cost estimates, deciding on specific features like scroll wheel functionalities, a cradle, radio transmitters for the locator, and a sexy, durable case design. The meeting closed with the understanding that any unresolved issues could be communicated via email, recognizing the potential for a premier remote control product poised for success in the competitive tech market." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi Team . Hope you had a good lunch . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay we're back for the conceptual design meeting . Um let's get started . 'Kay , here is the agenda for today's meeting . Um we're gonna open it and I'm gonna keep the minutes as Project Manager . We're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you again . And then we are going to come to decision on the remote control concepts and then we're gonna close it up . And we have forty minutes again . 'Kay , and just to reiterate um after this meeting the team will reach a decision on the concepts of the remote control . Okay . Let's go ahead and start off with your presentations . Who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Just trying to move mine right now . +Project Manager: Okay . Um Courtney would you mind starting us off ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Trend watching ? 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , so trend watching . Uh since we do put the fashion in electronics , it is kind of important how our product looks . So I guess we can go ahead and go to the next . So what they want . Right now customers want fancy versus functional . Um basically about fifty eight percent of what they {disfmarker} like of the product that they want , describing like the {disfmarker} in order of how much they want , fifty eight per cent of the decision of what it should look like , fancy versus functional , and then it has to also be technologically innovative , and yet easy to use . So the customer basically is confused . They don't know exactly what they want . They want us to tell them . {gap} +Industrial Designer: They want everything , but simply . +Marketing: Yes . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So we can go to next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay . So in Milan and Paris recently the trends have been showing that clothing , shoes and furniture are basically just covered with fruits and vegetable patterns . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't know if we want to go with that um and also the spongy feel is in in contrast to last year . I don't know really , I mean I guess the spongy could relate to the buttons if we want to +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: rather than like a hard clicky button that you find on like some mobiles and stuff , you'd want like a softer touch . I mean do you guys know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah th +Marketing: Yeah . Um . But as for the fruits and vegetable patterns , I don't know if we really want to go with that , because it is just a trend , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: and our product we want to stay around for much longer than just a few months , +Project Manager: Right . People don't buy a new remote every so often . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I can {disfmarker} +Marketing: because {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean that could just be a Spring thing right now . +Industrial Designer: I can address some of that issue , I think , with uh my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so design preferences , um we need easy to read like large buttons , clearly labelled so that , I mean 'cause we talked about that being a problem . Um and then also buttons illuminating upon touch , you said that in your design , with the bulb . Um and that could also tie in with the colour scheme . Uh we need the Real Reaction logo and colour scheme obviously . That's one of our key goals , we wanna promote our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And I was thinking about different types of designs and I came up with something . Actually right here . So what we could do is something like an old-fashioned telephone like this , where we put the buttons around , like we'd put a big on-off button or something else in the middle , I mean it could be the arrows or whatever for channel up and down , and then put the numbers around in like an old-fashioned dial shape . 'Cause then it'll appeal to older generation and like said retro's cool . So it's classically retro . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: So I mean that's just an idea if you guys like it . +Project Manager: Very good . I like it . {vocalsound} Okay , ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , yep . And that's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Op mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Great . Great presentation . Ready ? +User Interface: Okay hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: See if it's there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Which one is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . Hang on . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Interface concepts , no ? +Project Manager: Interface concepts new . +User Interface: Either refresh it , or it sh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Oh wait , maybe I didn't put it there . Hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mine will always read copy of something or other . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I copied mine before I sent it over . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Sorry , hang on . Don't know {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh there we go . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay , um {vocalsound} looking at the interface concept , it's gonna be mostly examples of possibilities of where we can go with this . Uh if you wanna start the next slide . +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: Um uh can't really see , but there's two possible ways , on the r left , if you see on th on the sides of of the remote , you have the sort of scroll down , so you have that option right there . And then also there's the idea of the base . That's sort of like an idea there . And then on the right , we have what's really big trend right now , it's the iPod . It's becoming really {gap} and so you have this sort of very very simplistic menu section uh with the round buttons , and it's sort of like you have the both {gap} kind of trendy and hip , but also very sleek and um and very simple , but technologically advanced . So if you wanted to do that th if we could find a way of sort of like {vocalsound} using that idea in a remote control then sort of look into it , but {disfmarker} Anyway , next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um there's the idea of like being able to do it by feel as well as by um by sight . You'd you know you're in the dark , you don't wanna be looking at the remote control . And the picture particularly is pointing out if you look at the top volume button it's a V_ , and so yo you're kind of feeling a V_ like volume up . What it really is is a V_ and what it you think it is is down , because the down arrow . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so it's like a sort of a criticism you'd probably turn that o the other way up . Um but then you have {disfmarker} you could either do it by raised type , which could be you know , iffy , um sort of old-fashioned in a way . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Either that or just have it by shape , for example you have a specific triangular shape that you know you're looking at the up and down arrow . And then the round ones you sort of feel by , you know , that's the second one down , that sort of thing . So it's sort of looking into how we wanted t to do it by feel . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . Um this is sort of an example of going for a s certain demographic . Um this is particularly geared towards children . +Marketing: That's cute . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um it's very cute , and we could probably change it to yellow , bright yellow for like a the for the company logo . Um and you have the shapes and it's very simplistic and friendly looking . Um and then the other thing that it would be able to do is just to pro be ab you program certain {disfmarker} {vocalsound} channels that only these children would watch , so it's like they ch watch , you know , the C_ Beebies or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh keep them away from other channels . So that's like another ar Um , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean , these are three examples sort of looking at it . You have the wider section for the main controls there . Uh you could see how many buttons there are . And then on the left you have an example of the round buttons , and a simpler design . On the bottom we probably wouldn't need that , because it's more for like a D_V_D_ {vocalsound} function which we are not gonna be using . Um . So again it's sort of like just give you ideas and then down at the bottom you have the logos and that's where you could put the R_R_ , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And then finally these are like the sort of same examples , but also some more , just possibilities that we could go with . None of them I'm particularly keen on by the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But it's sort of like just taking aspects out of that and saying , well out of this one we like , you know the round section of um , b or we'd like the the button size on this . +Project Manager: Mm . Or I like , you know , the black finish or the silver finish or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I have four of those remotes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good lord . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Ready ? Oh , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Great job . +Industrial Designer: Okay , my turn . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Whoo . +Project Manager: What's the title ? +Industrial Designer: It'll be copy of component design . +Project Manager: Got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Th that looks like it . 'Kay . So basic remote operation runs as follows , press button makes connection with the power source and the rest of the circuit , chip senses the connection , chip produces a morse code infra-red signal , specific to that button . So you press the button , it produces uh a signal that's encoded specifically for that button . Transistors amplify that signal and it goes to the T_V_'s centre , which interprets the signal response accordingly , changes channel etcetera . So that being said {disfmarker} Next slide , please . Findings oh which were the required materials for the basic internal construction , so all the really simplistic functions that we just discussed , we need rubber for buttons , aluminium for battery y contacts , integrated circuit which consists of a diode , transistor , resonator , resistors , and a capacitator , all those basic things that make a circuit function . Um fibreglass and thin copper wire to create the actual circuit board itself . An L_E_D_ , which is a light emitting diode , um contact discs for the buttons , plastic for the casing , and a power-source , whatever power-source we've actually determined we want . Next slide , please . Thank you . Uh personal preferences , uh to save money for the components , the remote should be mass-produced and basic materials should be bought en masse . Um if we find another company who can produce the required chips , casing , L_E_D_ , any additional materials we decide we require at a less expensive rate than we ourselves are producing , we should go for it . {vocalsound} Next slide , please . Um just talking to the um manufacturing division . They suggested power options , solar cells , hand dynamo , and kinetic power , so you shake it and it increases the power . Um I'm not sure how the hand dynamo works , they have yet to get back to me on that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So next slide , please . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Suggested casing options . Okay . We can offer options for casing such as straight , curved , double-curved , you know , very specific to the customer . Options for materials , plastic , rubber , titanium , wood . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I don't think anyone's gonna go for a wood one , because splinters {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be amazing , though , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No , splinters would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um certain restrictions do apply here though . Uh latex , you can't do solar power with a latex one . So , if they want some a soft squishy rubber , they can't have the solar powered option . Double-curved , you can't do titanium . +Marketing: What is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um that would be two curvatures , so it would actually , if you {disfmarker} the shape of your hand , you curve here and you curve here , so you could have two curves that match the shape of your hand to make it more comfortable to hold . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now if you wanted that , you can't do titanium . And uh so you {gap} functions what {disfmarker} for the buttons , scrolling function could be very beneficial to us instead of actual buttons themselves . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think I have one more slide . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: No , I didn't . Um the manufacturing division also has said that um {vocalsound} they have several types of chips and they've just developed a sample sensor or sample speaker chip , which we could utilise . Um push button requires a simple chip and scroll requires more complicated chip . So depends on what we decide we wanna do . In addition to that if we're offering all those different options to the customer for producing their remote , we're going to have to have multiples of each type , like a double-curved in rubber , um you know , each option should have a certain select number produced with all those options . So we'll have to mix it up , make sure we produce enough of everyone . But that could also drive up the price of the actual remote itself if they know that we only produced five thousand , you know , double-curved wooden remotes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright , +Industrial Designer: And that's all I got . +Project Manager: well thank you for those informative presentations . Let's go back to um {disfmarker} Now we have to make some decisions . Where were we ? +User Interface: Let me just add one more thing that I couldn't say before , +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: and that's just that there's the new technology that they've developed on the voice recognition . Um . +Marketing: Oh this {disfmarker} the thing we were talking about earlier . +User Interface: Right except that it's sort of odd , and I'm no not exactly sure why they are explaining it in the way they are , um there's a sample sensor and there's a sample speaker unit for {disfmarker} So , you would say like , good morning , coffeemaker , and it would respond , good morning , Jill , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I'm not sure exactly how it's gonna work , 'cause do you programme {disfmarker} do we program the responses and the questions . So does that mean that the user then has to ask the specific question , and can't change it in order for it to be recognised , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: or can it be altered in a certain way , or does the actually user program it , to say a channel means this . +Project Manager: Right . Right . +Marketing: Yeah , like using the menu to be like , enter your name into the screen like on the menu options . +User Interface: Right , +Marketing: So that way the remote reads it . +User Interface: so it's got like a limited memory and {gap} programme it . So it's sort of iffy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but that's kind of what you'd say . +Marketing: I feel like voice recognition would be , I don't know , w it would be too hard to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . Programme . +Marketing: I mean we could do it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If it's within our price to get that kind of chip that would , you know , technology {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , we are making the chip . +Marketing: Technology . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , I mean {disfmarker} But , I guess , we have to look at w what {vocalsound} our production cost is for the chip itself anyway . +Marketing: And it is a growing trend , the higher technological , like +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the , I mean just like the more advanced it is , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the better it'll sell . +Industrial Designer: I I thought {vocalsound} offering some of those options for different materials that it could be made of different , you know {disfmarker} I think we'd have to decide on the power options , maybe . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that we could reduce cost . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to know how big it's gonna be and how heavy . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that kind of brings us to this , let's let's see if we can decide what kind of energy source we want to have first and foremost . Um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do we wanna go for batteries or a stand like the one that we saw illustrated earlier ? +Marketing: Oh the base , yeah . +Project Manager: The base , the charging base with rechargeable batteries ? +Industrial Designer: I think the p +User Interface: I always feel like first I wanna know what it looks like , before {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause if it's something really really small , then it's sort of harder to imagine a base for it , that was p quite a s substantial size sort of standing up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and we don't have multiple things that it has to control , it just has to control the T_V_ . +Marketing: W +Project Manager: It's not gonna be a huge universal remote . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: We need to decide , well so we can figure how big it's gonna be , like exactly what buttons we want +Project Manager: What size battery and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , the other thing is like even if it's got a few buttons , so we want it to be bigger than this , +Marketing: and exactly {disfmarker} It could be like this . Yes . +User Interface: 'cause it still fits in your hand , so you still wanted something that's comfortable and substantial , but not necessarily full of buttons . +Marketing: I'd , well uh {disfmarker} This one is really comfortable , like I like the sides whatever , +User Interface: Are you gonna lose it easier ? +Marketing: because {disfmarker} But if we have the um , the locator , then we don't have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: So we can make it small if we have a l locating device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If we do a voice-activated locator , though , we're gonna be looking at a more substantial chip . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So i That's the other thing , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: it's like {disfmarker} You know {gap} Are we gonna have certain chips that are gonna require bigger size {vocalsound} period ? +Marketing: Two double A_s , for this size . +User Interface: But like , you know , if we get more complicated then it's gonna v be {disfmarker} have to be bigger to just accommodate the chip size . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Honestly , I think the customer would be kind of irritated by the fact that it has a base if we did do a nice small , compact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I agree , it's either gonna be bigger with a base or smaller with just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we sh +Marketing: Smaller , without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A battery like this guy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright , so what direction do you want to go in ? You wanna vote ? +Marketing: I think if we had a a locating device with the small one , I think that seems way more advanced . +Project Manager: I'm kind of I'm kind of leaning in the direction of this kind of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'm a away from the base . +Project Manager: bigger and the base . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That just seems so clunky and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , because I mean if even looking at cellphones right now , those trends the smaller the hotter it is , +User Interface: Smaller and smaller , yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only problem with that is if you forget to take it out of your pocket and it goes in wash . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You know it happens . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've had three watches go that way too . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh watches I've {disfmarker} but I've never washed a cell phone . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ouch . A phone , whoa , that would {disfmarker} wow , that would hurt . +Project Manager: Okay , so what kind of material do we want to be made out of ? +Industrial Designer: Pieces everywhere . Well , we have lots of options . I don't think wood is a viable option . +Marketing: Yeah wood . +Project Manager: No . Oh what did you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , titanium s +Project Manager: Oh sorry , go ahead . +User Interface: I was saying that titanium , if we're being restricted then I would probably {vocalsound} lean away from that . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause if it's gonna cost us more to produce a chip , titanium will be more expensive . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: However , +Project Manager: What would you recommend ? +Industrial Designer: well , we only wanna sell it for twenty five Euro +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? 'Cause I was thinking if we wanted to get the high in market then you could produce a few in titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . That'll {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: make them a rarity so to speak . +User Interface: The selling point , yeah . +Marketing: We could do that , because all our research shows that people are definitely willing to spend more if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we restricted by this ? +Project Manager: I I think we should just focus on one design and one concept right now.I'm +Industrial Designer: Well the original {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros +Project Manager: not sure that we'll have the time and money to {vocalsound} produce a whole array of +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: remotes . If this was a successful remote , we might then produce a higher end version of it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good plan . +Marketing: Good plan . +Project Manager: Okay , so we wanna go for plastic , or what would you recommend for materials ? +Industrial Designer: Honestly I'd recommend like um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh since we're going with batteries instead of solar power , I'd recommend maybe a uh soft like latex , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because we could produce , you know how cellphones have those overlays that you can change the colour . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We could do uh one that fits in with the trends of the year so , +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because this year is all fruit , God only knows why , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , who knows . +Industrial Designer: um we could do f a cherry cover for this year and then i if next year is stripes or solids , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So you're talking about like when it leaves our salesroom then it's all gonna be cherry-coloured or is it gonna be the kinda thing where people come back and swap it ? +Marketing: O or we could like take off this . +Project Manager: They could buy cases , maybe , +Industrial Designer: They could come back . And buy the extra case . +Project Manager: if they wanted . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's good to sell a basic thing and then sell options . +Industrial Designer: So we could do like a b a hard base plastic , and then we could {vocalsound} give two latex covers to start . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} what the top face , right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the soft latex definitely is squishy . That's in . Well I mean squishier than like , yeah , just a hard plastic . +Project Manager: Right . Right . Okay , and what kind of chip would we need for this guy ? +Industrial Designer: How complicated {disfmarker} Are we gonna go with the voice activated {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do voice , I think we should just do um the recognition for when it's lost , you know . {gap} could we {disfmarker} +User Interface: A tracker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause that uh {disfmarker} what it type of , yeah , for voice activation would it be like a certain term what we would say like , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: because people could just be talking and we don't want it going off all the time . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could give it a specific code , you know , remote missing . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh see I'm uh I'm strangely attracted to it , because I know that's {disfmarker} it's definitely gonna be big , because it's , I don't know , it's just so high-tech . +User Interface: Well , my little sister got {disfmarker} for Christmas she got one of those key finders that's like a key-ring , and you have to whistle in a certain frequency for it to work . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see that would just irritate me . +User Interface: And then she would laugh and it would start going off in her purse , and you couldn't turn it off . +Project Manager: Oh dear . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: So it became highly irritating . +Marketing: then maybe voice +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think having a key-phrase is much better . +Marketing: maybe voice activation won't be good . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . But it's not gonna be voice activated in the fact that you would say , channel up , and it would work , right ? +Marketing: Yeah , n n no , we just want it to be a finder . +Project Manager: Just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: But then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Hmm . Okay . +Marketing: But do {disfmarker} can your {disfmarker} can the department make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That would be like a mid-class um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , brilliant then . +Industrial Designer: So we don't actually have to go for {disfmarker} Well , if they've just developed the sample sensor , sample speaker , it's a brand new chip . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Why not introduce it in this way ? +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Uh and what size batteries , double A_ , triple A_ ? +Marketing: I think triple A_ , it'll be lighter . +Project Manager: Two ? Could it run off of two {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean more more come in a package . +User Interface: Well , that depends on what the energy is needed . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think , well , we could d r do two or we could do one small lithium , 'cause you know the lithium batteries are doing quite well in most other electronic products , right ? So they're more widely available now . And they also have a longer battery life than most batteries . +Project Manager: They're more expensive though , too . +Industrial Designer: But if you only have to replace it every five years . +Project Manager: Mm . Thoughts anybody ? +Marketing: That's a good point . +User Interface: As long as we sell it with it . +Industrial Designer: Well , how about a initial , you get one battery when you buy it , +User Interface: Right , that's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm pretty sure we can get them pretty cheap on bulk . +Marketing: We could think about it and come back to it next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We still have one more meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . So we've covered that first category , User Interface Concept , meaning design . +User Interface: What's it gonna {disfmarker} Yeah , what's it gonna look like . +Project Manager: Okay . I ki I kind of {vocalsound} like your idea about the retro phone dial , +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and that {disfmarker} the central button could have , maybe our logo on it ? It might be the four way scroll , too . I mean if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be whatever , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: as long as there's something big in the middle , because like the old phones , there's like that just like piece of metal or like a picture or something in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , my issue with that is if it got too big though , 'cause if you have the circle and the button in the middle , then is it gonna get wider than your your hands are , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . +User Interface: because w And then would the buttons be too small if it was enough to fit on it ? +Marketing: Good point . +Industrial Designer: In the sample ones that you showed us there was one that had the scroll buttons on the side , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which I think if we make it curved like a hand like a hand-shape like if we put the the scroll-button on the side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , I see what you mean . +Industrial Designer: that could be particularly useful . +Project Manager: I think so . +Marketing: So scroll buttons on the side and then buttons on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that . 'Kay . +Marketing: But we definitely {disfmarker} If we have scroll things on the side , we definitely have to have 'em labelled . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , if it's just up and down {disfmarker} +Marketing: like on the side of it . Oh if it's just up and down . +User Interface: But is that for {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Volume or channel . +User Interface: Which ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , you could do some on both sides . +User Interface: Do we have both sides ? +Project Manager: Can we ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . We should probably make it that you have to depress it to activate it then , +Project Manager: So that you're just not holding it and it changes the chan +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause oth {vocalsound} otherwise you're not just holding it and going like this , you know . +Marketing: That's squishy . That's squishy . +User Interface: Well , the other option is in instead of a scroll you just have the buttons up on the side which are on the side . +Marketing: {gap} have buttons . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} that . +Project Manager: Hmm . 'Kay any other ideas ? +User Interface: Um what colour ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Latex covers . W +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have to make sure that logo always sticks out when we put the latex covers on , so we'll have to like have a little square or something , so that the our logo's available . +User Interface: Well I sort of like having the a yellow strip at the bottom with the R_R_ like that . And that's at the bottom of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe we should do it on a b button itself though , because if people are able to change the covers , +User Interface: Which button ? +Project Manager: I don't know , maybe the on-off button , something , some {disfmarker} the menu button , I don't know , but you know if we're gonna put our company logo on there and somebody could just get another one . Are they all gonna have our company logo on them ? Every cover ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think we should do that , because that would just be icky . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think maybe putting it on a button is probably a good idea . +Project Manager: If we want it to be visible and {disfmarker} Um are all those {disfmarker} those one that you showed where they were um s met silver-metallic looking ? But those are plastic , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not titanium . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I kind of like that look . Uh but , or if it was really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For our base one ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , for the base or if we're going for the retro look , I think , like a really shiny black would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What are your thoughts ? +Marketing: or like a gun-metal grey , +Project Manager: Gun-metal gray . +Marketing: 'cause then it combines the silver and the black . +Project Manager: There you go , gun-metal gray . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm just really wary of the putting anything on a button . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It'll wear off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's the button {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons wear off . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well , w w then what's the button do , and how do you know that that is what the button does ? I guess . Just looking at examples , y you just don't ever see the logo on a button , it's always on the actual casing . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing saying that we have to put the logo on the front of the actual {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On the back ? +User Interface: But you don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we want it to be seen . +Project Manager: It d visible {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh , yeah , you don't see it . +Project Manager: Visibility though {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need it to be seen . +Project Manager: 'Cause if it was only on the back really the only time you're gonna see it is when you drop it or when you're changing the battery . +User Interface: Well , hang on . The other option is {vocalsound} , I don't know if you can see it but it's like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can find it again . +User Interface: Yeah , it's like the second to last slide . +Project Manager: Okay . And yours was called Interface Concept ? +User Interface: Interface , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Well , for some reason I can't get it to just go to that slide directly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , it's the very right one . You see at the bottom , it's kind of difficult to see , but you have like a d sort of s division between the bottom like , where the logo is , and if we have the replaceable section , it's like the top . It doesn't necessarily replace the entire top . +Project Manager: Mm +User Interface: And so you have that one piece that stays and the rest just sort of clips in . +Project Manager: Okay , yes +User Interface: If c you envisioning it ? +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: And so that stays the same when you have the logo , and then you have this s slip that kinda clips in and that's the bit that changes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The only problem is we're using a latex overlay so {gap} it actually would go over top of everything and have holes for the buttons , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I was thinking maybe instead of doing that what we could do is leave a space for where the logo should be . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Like a little cut-out kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's like , you know , {gap} a a cellphone it's like the the screen is always just left opened . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: And so , what we are gonna do it like bright yellow with the R_R_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anybody see anything that they liked in these ones ? +Marketing: Some of tho Well , some of those buttons though are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um well , a lot of those buttons are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , kind of . Um and then if v we do have them illuminate upon contact , they could illuminate yellow . +User Interface: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yellow , I like that idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like if we {vocalsound} like the one all the way on the left , uh you ca you can see it on your computer better . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um where the button is actually blue , but the number itself is clear or white or whatever so if you pressed it would illuminate yellow . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So we'd have blue and yellow for the touch buttons . +User Interface: Oh , that one . +Project Manager: I like the yellow illumination idea , very good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Any other ideas or thoughts ? We all seem to be fairly in agreement about what we wanna do with this project so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . Ha hang on {gap} {vocalsound} Let me catch up . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Did we finalise what buttons we're including or we {gap} just everything that we said before ? +Project Manager: I think there will be time for that later . I'm guessing . 'Kay , well we're gonna wrap this up . Um next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes , and here's what we're each of us going to do . The I_D_ is going to do the look and feel design , the U_I_D_ the user interface design . I think you're going to get a lot of , I mean , the final say on what buttons get put {disfmarker} We'll all talk about it , but I think , that's pretty much what you're gonna do , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess . 'Kay . And you're gonna do some product evaluation . Okay , and right now , the I_D_ and U_I_D_ , you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Great . Play Doh . +User Interface: Fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , and you should all be getting an email pretty soon . Alright . Well , thank you for a very productive meeting . +Industrial Designer: Wonderful Ooh . +","Project Manager led a conceptual design meeting for a remote control, setting a 40-minute limit. After brief updates, the agenda included presentations from each member, followed by a decision on the remote control concept. Marketing highlighted customer desire for fashion over function and a trend of fruit and vegetable patterns. Industrial Designer discussed material options and power sources, suggesting a focus on basic materials and purchasing en masse for cost-efficiency. User Interface discussed interface ideas, with attention to simplicity, usability in the dark, and considering a children-focused design. Ultimately, the team debated materials, power sources, and design elements, aiming for a small device with latex covers for customization. Decisions on battery types, voice recognition for locators, and brand visibility were discussed, with a final decision pending in the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we are here for the concept design meeting . So , we will first start by summarizing the mm {vocalsound} the previous meeting and the decision we've taken . Uh I will take notes during this meeting so uh that you can uh look at my uh folder to see the summary of this meeting afterwards . So each of you will uh show us the various investigation they've done during uh previous uh hours . We'll then t take decision in concert and then uh uh we will uh define the nest {disfmarker} next task , to have {disfmarker} to be done before the next meeting . So , last time we decided to have a simple interface . We also decided to have a wheel to change channel {disfmarker} previous channel button . Channel digit uh buttons should be uh protected by plastic cover or something for the remote control to look very simple . We have also button for volume , and to switch on off the T_V_ . We have also uh the lightening feature for the remote control to be easy to find , and for fast development and low cost we have decided to have no L_C_D_ no voice features . So now uh we will have three presentations . So the conceptual specification by Industrial Designer , the specification of the U_I_ by {disfmarker} or U_I_ {vocalsound} +User Interface: Abdul al-Hasred is my name . +Project Manager: okay . {vocalsound} And uh the last point is uh trend watching by Market Expert . So maybe we can start with uh industrial design . So this is the presentation . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I_D_ you want ? +Project Manager: Maybe I can switch slide uh on your request . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I only v have three slides , so . I just look at the mm {disfmarker} um just this . On some web pages to find some documentation +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think a remote control is , as I s mentioned previously , you just have a a very simple chip and the mm the user interface is just done usually by push button and in our case we are using a um a wheel control . So uh uh I was looking basically for that chip , which is uh very very standard , and uh I just looked for the wheel sensor and the standard push button . And um {vocalsound} yeah we can change directly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In fact I have the number of that element which is very standard for remote control . The push button are usually extremely cheap , but I just have one problem and this is related with the wheel sensor , which seems to be quite expensive . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I think we if we could just talk about that if we really need a wheel sensor or if we can not {disfmarker} if if we could combine something with the push button . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a wheel sensor is fifty time the price of a a a push button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But is it a significant price on the whole remote control ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because we can afford up to twelve Euros for the price of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: So will will will this with uh including all possible things , so buttons , wheel and the chip , be uh lower than twelve Euros to produce ? +Industrial Designer: I I th {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh we should {disfmarker} We should talk about uh the design of the box also which needs some money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Also have to say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Did you receive the email about the voice recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's all {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? +Project Manager: You received something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . I haven't chec +User Interface: Yeah . You we uh an email from the manufacturing division that they have basically a voice recognition chip already developed . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Says {disfmarker} Yeah . It says that ri right now they just use it to uh to record uh answers to particular questions . But I guess it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And could it be adapted ? +User Interface: I guess it's possible . I mean instead of recording the answers you can just uh record uh something simpler like a command . +Project Manager: Okay and there can uh recognize some commands and stuff ? +User Interface: Yeah you reco recognize commands and you can record new commands and stuff , so if they already have it as uh as a chip +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: then we we could use it . +Project Manager: Okay maybe we can just uh listen to this presentation and then take decision later on {disfmarker} according to those news . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think it's yeah {disfmarker} Sorry , I haven't written my personal references . Um {vocalsound} the I I just want to mention the the problem of the the r wheels sensor which is much more expensive than any push button , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and if we could reduce that . We we have already some good things uh with um um with the backlight of the push button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I have a question about that actually {vocalsound} . Um , what is the purpose of the light ? +Industrial Designer: Just to to make something which is uh slightly more design that uh a squarey box with a rubber {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can easily find the button in the dark or so ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But in th in the dark uh {disfmarker} Yeah but is going to be always turned on , the light ? +Project Manager: It will be turned on when the when the user move the remote control I think , no ? +User Interface: But if you move it then you have it , you don't need to find it . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: You can see the buttons better , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Actually . +User Interface: But if you move it then you have to have some sensor to {disfmarker} when you move it to detect your movement . +Industrial Designer: As soon as you thought to move the the remote control you have the light . +User Interface: Yeah , but you need another sensor for that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Again . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} no it's too expensive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that this is really expensive , but at the end this is plenty of unexpen eh very cheap devices but uh the bill starts to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm . Extra . Yeah , okay . Mm . Yeah , but I expected also the wheel would be cheap but you tell me that it is very expensive so , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First of all I was thinking to have a a continuous light +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you w when t you you you you press the on button you have the light on your remote control , when you want to turn off your device {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But it can be uh battery consuming , no ? To have the light always on ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a little bit . A little bit . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Well we will discuss that after maybe +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay +Project Manager: the other presentations . +User Interface: . So uh my one , it uh should be in the shared folder . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So . It was last time I saw it . +Project Manager: And it is . +User Interface: Okay . So , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} just move to the next slide . {vocalsound} So basically {vocalsound} want very simple , right ? That's the major idea , as simple as possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I just look at some current designs uh on the web , of usually more complicated remote controls . And let's look at two of them because uh th even though they have many buttons they look quite simple . And in our case we just uh reject the buttons what we don't need and it become even simpler . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: And also does it uh fit well in hand ? Because it was uh th your wrist problem with the usage . +User Interface: Yeah . Well this these uh these remotes are quite big , so go to the next page , so . We have all these buttons as you can see , but most of them , we just need the ones in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , from the bottom or whatever is there , uh the uh the numbers and then the top , uh until the ten also , this middle part , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: and on the left one is exactly the same . So it's basically more or less how we would like it , with a big volume control , big channel control , and mute and power , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: These are the basic thing . +Project Manager: So it's only the central part . +User Interface: So basically , w software we will build will look more or less the same as these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . With a maybe a more ergonomic design on on the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , if you have , for example {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think that the volume and the buttons that are there on the top are not very easy to reach with your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It could be on the right side , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Because we don't have these input buttons and this other stuff that they have . And I think that the plastic cover is not very good uh idea because +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: you open it , it can break , you ca you can do various things . +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Uh you just need to put the channel numbers somewhere a bit out of the way . +Project Manager: Okay . Will be down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that they're separate a bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . Uh and it's easy to press the other {disfmarker} the big buttons , but uh , it's not that difficult to press the the channel buttons either . Mm . Yeah , I think that if you put the cover it will be even more difficult for the user . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Alright , you won't {disfmarker} yeah . Usually what {disfmarker} I have noticed that people put the plastic cover on things that you normally don't mess with , like buttons for t uh tuning the channels and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . That you want to protect a bit . And I think it's uh it's reasonable . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah , this is just the the wheel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: We could use the {disfmarker} some wheels can be pushed down , could use the push down of the wheel for the record if we want . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so we could just basically use one just wheel and uh user could use just the wheel to do everything with the channels in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe the wheel will be a {vocalsound} good advantage over our competitors . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because otherwise it's pretty standard apart the fact that it's very simple . So maybe it's worse to uh to have more expense on that's that aspect . +Industrial Designer: To s Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess the market researcher will tell us all about that . +Project Manager: Okay . So we can move to the {disfmarker} Is there any question ? For designer of user interface ? {vocalsound} or we can move to the next part , maybe , and discuss afterwards ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay , I can go ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Can I ? {vocalsound} So now the recent investigation we we have done fo of the remote control um . So , the most important aspect for remote controls is to be fancy look and feel and not current functional look and feel . And um the second aspect is uh that the remote control should be uh technological innovative . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the third most important aspect is to to {disfmarker} is that the co remote control should be easy to use . So , are things we are we have uh speak about before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} so you you can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: after . And there is a fashion watchers in Paris and Milan that have detected the following trends , uh fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes , and furnitures . {vocalsound} So , maybe if our {vocalsound} remote control have to be a fruit form or vegetable form {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: something like that , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I support an apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And the mm the material is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I don't know which material {vocalsound} can be spongy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is good also for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , wou wou I think we can certainly just put the electronics in a spongy thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: it it would work , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it is good also f to have a spongy material , yeah . +User Interface: You can throw it to the television . +Project Manager: Yeah , because it's robust . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Marketing: It's robust , yeah . +User Interface: Hey that's a cool one . We could say that if you throw it , you have a sensor , and you throw it and hits the television and turns it off . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When it d uh takes a shock . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not good . +Project Manager: uh sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Ah it's okay . I know that they do that for alarm clock also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: An and and uh this uh you can yeah you can say that . You ca uh you can go uh before +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Before ? +Marketing: , before , yes . And you know here the more iz important aspect is the fancy look and feel , after is uh technological innovative , and after the easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I think it's innovative to use the mm the wheel because I think no one else has . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Has it ? +Marketing: Yeah that's why I think we have to keep that if it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think it's {disfmarker} it makes it both easy and both innos innovative . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Innovative . Mm . +Project Manager: So I think it's a good aspect and it should be kept . +User Interface: How do we make it look cool is the question . +Project Manager: Cool , fancy ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to make it l look like a fruit or vegetable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh um {vocalsound} a colour that remember some fruit uh , things like that . +Industrial Designer: What about um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Oh , colour , yeah . +User Interface: Well the obvious thing is a banana , I guess . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} i i {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought about a a pear , for example . You know the pear , is like that and it's it's easy to to have in in hand +Project Manager: Yeah , and it's ergonomic as well . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: A pear . +User Interface: The banana is also ergonomic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe pear yeah or something like that . +Marketing: Or a fruit like that . I dunno . +Project Manager: Yeah . We can discuss that uh . D D Is is there anything you want to add ? +User Interface: Is there any fruit that is spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so . I think we we can have like yeah a pear is good , fit well , or banana as you told . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something like that . +Industrial Designer: And for maybe look and feel , what about a a piece of ice , with blue L_E_D_ inside ? +Project Manager: But that's not in the trend . {vocalsound} . +User Interface: You can make it um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The trend is spongy , and vegetable fruits . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not hard , the metal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think p spongy is good because it it will be robust as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we can keep the wheel because it's uh easy , it's innovative , even if the cost is a bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we also have to find a , so , a fruit like pear or banana wit uh any others idea you have . What kind of fr fruit would you like to to control your T_V_ with ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Odi +Industrial Designer: Banana I think , it's a nice idea . +Project Manager: Banana is also yellow so you you can't lost your remote control then . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You y you don't use the banana when the banana is curving like that , +User Interface: Two of the button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when the banana is curving like that , with the wheel on the top and to control , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here you have a a push button to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But you don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah so you can just have uh just have this curve , yeah , and you move uh your hand here to press the buttons and then you move uh on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So you can have it on on two sides and it'll be cool , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: no ? +Project Manager: I think it's a good design and it's innovative as well then . Maybe we can keep the banana . And it will be very easy to find . +Industrial Designer: And everybody knows what is a banana . +User Interface: You can put also vibrator inside . +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you if you start with uh fancy fruits and fra s and tha +User Interface: Ah-ha . You can also take into account the fact that the banana fits with the colour scheme of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's really uh really a good point . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I hope the students of management die , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but anyway . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now who are recording this meeting ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} One second . So we have to take some decision on this aspect . So , uh so for {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , for uh component , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to think about those aspects , sorry . +Industrial Designer: So we will just use a a standard battery ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the chip we {disfmarker} chip imprint we know exactly which one we are going to use . Uh what do you mean by case ? +Project Manager: I think it's the box that should be spongy , banana's shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I mean for me if we use a a spongy banana case , doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just want to have so something to prin to to fix my my components onto that box , and that's it . +User Interface: The only th Yeah . Y Yeah that can be in inside th in the structure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: But uh the thing is that the buttons and the wheel have to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy also . +User Interface: I mean if it's spongy then the buttons and the wheel have to {disfmarker} I mean if it's spongy then it's going to move , right ? So , it's going to be bend a lot . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh no I think it's possible . +User Interface: So if we try to push the buttons , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No the button would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: You think it's possible ? +Project Manager: In fact it it should be something odd shaped , with a spongy cover . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: . This is uh like the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay odd shape with spongy {disfmarker} cover . And standard battery okay , a chip imprint , there's no specific problem . So we agree to put the wheel {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Wheel on the top . Button , where do we want some buttons ? +User Interface: Well , usually hold {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay , we want it to be good also for the left-hand users , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it have to {disfmarker} it has to be symmetrical . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah but okay . Sa let's say that th o {vocalsound} It has to be {disfmarker} basically you can only take two sides , one on ths this side where is the thumb and the other side where there is uh yeah also the thumb . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Basically . Or you could use use this one , but I don't know if it's very comfortable , to use this one for the wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe the thumb is more comfortable . +User Interface: This for the wheel and then this for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think it's okay for both right and left . Mm . +User Interface: Should have the two sides . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So if {gap} the left , we have {disfmarker} the op +Project Manager: I think you can turn it this way also . You can do both with both hands . +User Interface: Wheel {disfmarker} Wheel buttons . +Project Manager: I think it's okay . +User Interface: Yeah , the problem is if you have buttons and wheel then when you turn it around , the buttons are on the other side . So you cannot see them . +Project Manager: Well , you you will get used to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And moreover , th the button ar are lighted so you you immediately identify the right side , because you have light on buttons . +User Interface: So the buttons have to be here and the wheel has to be {disfmarker} Y Yeah I know , but uh if you hold with your left hand , and the wheel is here , and the buttons are here , then when you turn it around the buttons will be on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . No you you {disfmarker} I think you will use it only on the right or left hand , whether you are righty or lefty . I think for lefty it's okay . I can do this movement , and for righty as well . I think this doesn't change that much . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . Maybe . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , for interface we said also that we have uh this banana shape with button on the s on the side . And {disfmarker} and uh a wheel on the top . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the colour is yellow . I think it's uh {disfmarker} we defined everything according to what we should {disfmarker} what the decision we should take , yeah . So maybe we can um we can uh work on those aspects uh until next meeting . So have the final uh look and feel design according to the decision . And have the the user interface design and uh then evaluate the prodyuc {disfmarker} the product . That is to say , uh check if it fit the the requirement uh given by the users , but according to uh your presentation it seems to be okay . It seems to be fancy , innovative , and easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} to prepare the prototype I would suggest that the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer uh work together . That would uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: be better , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} And so uh you will receive further instruction by emails , as usual . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes master . +Project Manager: do you need to add anything ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You feel okay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You feel uh free to express what you want to say ? You don't feel too constrained ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You don't feel free to answer this ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe you can make {gap} uh {vocalsound} uh mm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you . +","During the concept design meeting, the project team discussed the design and features of a new remote control. The previous decision was to maintain simplicity by using a wheel for channel changes and excluding an LCD and voice features. A concern was raised about the cost of the wheel sensor, but it was considered important for innovation and ease of use. The marketing team suggested a fancy and easy-to-use design aligned with current trends of fruit- and vegetable-themed products made of spongy material. The team agreed on a banana shape for ergonomic reasons and visibility, and it fits the company color scheme. Next steps include finalizing the design, user interface, and preparing a prototype with close collaboration between the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer. Further instructions will be communicated via email." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr.AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. +The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. +The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12:56:06 and was cut off at 1:00:32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. +The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. +The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? +Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. +The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary +Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. +Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the +The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been +The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2.6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals' reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians' tables right across the country and we will continue to. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians' pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians' pockets. +The Chair: We now continue with Mrs.Gill. Mrs.Gill, you have the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to +Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62.5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62.5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. +The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B.C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Berthold. Mr.Berthold, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. +The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms.McKenna, you have the floor. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr.Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, do I have any time left? +The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B.C. Minister of Citizens' Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. +Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. +The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. +Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117.15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? +Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned . I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. +The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms.Gaudreau. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians' privacy rights. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians' privacy in jeopardy. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. +The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19, 79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers' concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? +Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. +The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr.Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. +The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms.McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. +The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. +Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U.S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? +Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? +The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. +Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? +Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? +Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. +Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. +The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. +Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? +The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. +The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. +The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. +The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. +The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr.Godin. Mr.Godin, you may go ahead. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. +Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr.Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. +Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. +The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr.Perron. Mr.Perron, you may go ahead. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers' eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. +Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2.5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. +Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. +The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. +Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians' concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25, 44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. +Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. +Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. +Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22, 15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. +Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. +Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. +The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon. +","The fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic was called to order by the Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota from Nipissing–Timiskaming. The objectives of this session were to discuss ministerial announcements, present petitions from committee members, and field questions to ministers, including the Prime Minister, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic response. A special recital by Dr. Andrea McCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, was scheduled for the following day to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, bearing in mind the restrictions on physical gatherings due to the pandemic. + +The meeting was conducted via video conference, adhering to the principle that only the speaker would be shown on the webcast. Members were reminded of rules regarding photography and recordings, as well as procedures to facilitate the work of interpreters in translating proceedings in both official languages. Specific instructions were provided on how to use the video conference system, including language selection, requesting the floor, and technical procedures. Members were advised to speak slowly and clearly for the benefit of interpreters and to keep microphones muted when not speaking, with headsets recommended. + +Mr. Garnett Genuis presented two petitions: one concerning concerns over Bill C-7, which would remove certain safeguards established in Bill C-14 around medically assisted dying, prior to the completion of a five-year review; the other addressed issues of organ harvesting from non-consenting individuals, referencing proposed Senate Bill S-204 aimed at criminalizing the act of going abroad to receive an organ without consent. Mr. Genuis emphasized Canada's role in taking action against this practice. + +Ms. Elizabeth May brought forth a petition previously approved, emphasizing the need to adhere to the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C and calling upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure a Just Transition that would provide fairness and support for workers in the fossil fuel sector as they transition to sustainable energy use. + +During the questioning of ministers, concerns were raised about the lack of support for Canada's energy sector and farmers, the pre-existing and present challenges of agricultural support programs, the financial crises faced by municipalities and the need for federal support, and issues around public transit funding, among other topics. Members pursued clarification on government programs and assistance, particularly those that some constituents struggled to access or which did not address certain businesses' needs adequately. + +Questions were raised about legislative safeguards for those who are in custody, the status of Canada's strategy for recovery, support for the struggling media industry, measures aimed at protecting and assisting senior citizens both within and outside long-term care homes, and the government's approach to address financial imbalances experienced by federal disability recipients. + +The session touched on concerns about federal funding potentially going to companies that use tax havens, the call for increased COVID-19 testing, and the response to building an adequate agricultural support system amid the pandemic. The discussion showcased the government's current actions, its ongoing commitments, and the pressing issues that MPs from various regions and parties sought to resolve in the face of the COVID-19 crisis." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Yeah , I think I got my mike on . OK . Let 's see . +Professor B: OK . Ami , do yours then we 'll open it and I think it 'll be enough . +Grad A: Mmm {disfmarker} Doesn't , uh {disfmarker} It should be the other way . Yeah , now it 's on . +PhD F: Right . OK . +Professor B: OK . So , we all switched on ? +Grad A: We are all switched on , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . Anyway . So , uh , before we get started with the , uh , technical part , I just want to review what I think is happening with the {disfmarker} our data collection . +PhD F: We are all switched on . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , probably after today , {vocalsound} that shouldn't come up in this meeting . Th - this {disfmarker} this is s should be im it isn't {disfmarker} There 's another thing going on of gathering data , and that 's pretty much independent of this . But , uh , I just want to make sure we 're all together on this . What we think is gonna happen is that , uh , in parallel starting about now {vocalsound} we 're gonna get Fey {vocalsound} to , where you 're working with me and Robert , draft a note that we 're gonna send out to various CogSci c and other classes saying , "" here 's an opportunity to be a subject . Contact Fey . "" And then there 'll be a certain number of um , hours during the week which she will be available and we 'll bring in people . Uh , roughly how many , Robert ? We d Do we know ? +Grad C: Um , fifty was our {disfmarker} sort of our first {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . So , we 're looking for a total of fifty people , not necessarily by any means all students but we 'll s we 'll start with {disfmarker} with that . In parallel with that , we 're gonna need to actually do the script . And , so , I guess there 's a plan to have a meeting Friday afternoon Uh , with {disfmarker} uh , Jane , and maybe Liz and whoever , on actually getting the script worked out . But what I 'd like to do , if it 's O K , {vocalsound} is to s to , as I say , start the recruiting in parallel and possibly start running subjects next week . The week after that 's Spring Break , and maybe we 'll look for them {disfmarker} some subjects next door +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {pause} i +Grad C: Yeah . Also , Fey will not be here during spring break . +Professor B: Oh , OK , then we won't do it . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: OK . So that 's easy . Um . So , is {disfmarker} Is that make sense to everybody ? +Grad C: Yeah . Also , um , F {vocalsound} both Fey and I will , um , {vocalsound} do something of which I may , eh {disfmarker} kindly ask you to {disfmarker} to do the same thing , which is we gonna check out our social infrastructures for possible subjects . Meaning , {vocalsound} um , kid children 's gymnastic classes , pre - school parents and so forth . They also sometimes have flexible schedules . So , if you happen to be sort of in a non - student social setting , and you know people who may be interested in being subjects {disfmarker} We also considered using the Berkeley High School and their teachers , maybe , and get them interested in stuff . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +Grad C: And , um . So that 's as far as our brainstorming was concerned . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . The high school 's a great idea . +Grad C: So . But I {disfmarker} I will just make a first draft of the , uh , note , the "" write - up "" note , send it to you and Fey and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: And why don't you also copy Jane on it ? +Grad C: And , um , Are we {disfmarker} Have we concurred that , uh , these {disfmarker} these forms are sufficient for us , and necessary ? +Professor B: Uh , th I think they 're necessary . This {disfmarker} The permission form . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , there has to be one , +Grad C: Nuh . N . +Professor B: and I think we 're just gonna use it as it is , and {pause} Um +Grad C: N . You happy with that ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . There 's one tricky part about , um , they have the right um I The last paragraph {comment} "" if you agree to participate you have the opportunity to have anything excised which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" OK ? Now that , we had to be included for this other one which might have , uh , meetings , you know , about something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In this case , it doesn't really make sense . Um , so what I 'd like to do is also have our subjects sign a waiver saying "" I don't want to see the final transcript "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And if they don't {disfmarker} If they say "" no , I 'm not willing to sign that "" , then we 'll show them the final transcript . But , um . +Grad C: Yep . Makes sense . +Professor B: That , uh {disfmarker} yeah , so we might actually , um S i Jane may say that , "" you know , you can't do this "" , uh , "" on the same form , we need a separate form . "" But anyway . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to , e e um , add an a little thi eh {disfmarker} a thing for them to initial , saying "" nah , do I don't want to see the final transcript . "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But other than that , that 's one 's been approved , this really is the same project , uh , rec you know . And so forth . So I think we just go with it . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So much for the data , except that with Munich everything is fine now . They 're gonna {vocalsound} transcribe . They 're also gonna translate the , uh , German data from the TV and cinema stuff for Andreas . So . They 're {disfmarker} they all seem to be happy now , {vocalsound} with that . So . w c sh should we move on to the technical sides ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: Well I guess the good {disfmarker} good news of last week was the parser . So , um Bhaskara and I started working on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser . Then Bhaskara went to class and once he came back , um , {vocalsound} it was finished . So . It , uh {disfmarker} I didn't measure it , but it was about an hour and ten minutes . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} and now it 's {disfmarker} We have a complete English parser that does everything the German parser does . +Grad D: Something like that . +Professor B: Which is {vocalsound} not a lot . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: That 's the , uh , point . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} uh , that 's not a lot . +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Yes . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad E: What did you end up having to do ? I mean , wha Was there anything {pause} interesting about it at all ? +Grad C: Well , if you , eh {disfmarker} +Grad D: We 'll show you . +Professor B: Yeah , we can show us , +Grad E: or are we gonna see that ? +Professor B: right ? +Grad C: Well , w w We d The first we did is we {disfmarker} we tried to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} change the {disfmarker} the "" laufen "" into "" run "" , {vocalsound} or "" running "" , {vocalsound} or "" runs "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: And we noticed that whatever we tried to do , it no effect . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we were puzzled . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: And , uh , the reason was that the parser i c completely ignores the verb . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So this sentence {disfmarker} sentence is {disfmarker} parses the p the same output , +Grad E: Hmm . Interesting parser property . +Grad C: um , even if you leave out , um , all {disfmarker} all of this . +Grad E: I see . Yeah . +Grad C: So it 's basically feature film and TV . +Grad E: Today +Grad C: That 's what you need . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: If {disfmarker} if you 'd add {disfmarker} add Today and Evening , it 'll add Time or not . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} t and the time , right ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} i it does look at that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But all the rest is p simply frosting on the cake , and it 's optional for that parser . +Grad E: True . +Professor B: So , you can sho You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are you gonna show us the little templates ? +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Grad C: Yeah . We ar we can sh er {disfmarker} I can show you the templates . I {disfmarker} I also have it running here , +Grad E: The former end g "" Oh , I see . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so if I {vocalsound} do this now , um , {vocalsound} you can see that it parsed the wonderful English sentence , "" Which films are on the cinema today {pause} evening ? "" But , um . +Professor B: Well , that sounds {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh do don't worry about it . +Professor B: No i +Grad C: It could be "" this evening , which {disfmarker} which films are on the cinema "" , or "" running in the cinema , which {disfmarker} "" uh , "" today evening "" , uh i "" Is anything happening in the cinema this evening ? "" +Grad E: OK . OK . Key words , e basically . +Professor B: Well +Grad C: Ge - elaborate , or , more or less , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , it 's a little tricky , in that there 's some allowable German orders which aren't allowable English orders and so forth . And it is order - based . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Isn't it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Oh . So it {disfmarker} it doe I it {disfmarker} These {disfmarker} u these optional elements , +Grad C: It is not {disfmarker} +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually a set , not a sequence ? +Grad C: Yeah . We were {disfmarker} I was afraid that , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh ! +Grad E: So it really is key word matching , basically . +Professor B: Really a se +Grad C: Um . +PhD F: e yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , wow . +Grad C: Um , I mean , these sentences are just silly . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: I mean , uh , d these were not the ones we {disfmarker} we actually did it . Um . What 's an idiomatic of phrasing this ? Which films are {pause} showing ? +Grad D: Are pl playing at the cinema ? +Grad C: playing ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Tonight ? +Grad D: I changed that file , actually , where it 's on my account . +Grad E: This {disfmarker} this evening ? +PhD F: Actually , you would say , "" which films are on tonight ? "" +Grad D: You want to get it ? Or {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} di was it easy to get it ? +Grad C: Um . I have no net here . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Do I ? +Grad C: OK . So . Wonderful parse , same thing . Um . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Except that we d w we don't have this , uh , time information here now , which is , um {disfmarker} Oh . This {disfmarker} are the reserve . Anyways . {vocalsound} So . Um . These are the {disfmarker} sort of the ten different sentence types that the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser was able to do . And it still is , now in English . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} Sorry . And , um you have already to make it a little bit more elaborate , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , I mean I changed those sentences to make it , uh , more , uh , idiomatic . And , of course , you can have i many variations in those sentences , they will still parse fine . So , in a sense it 's pretty broad . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: OK . So , if you want to look at the templates , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} they 're conveniently located in a file , "" template "" . Um , and this is what I had to do . I had to change , @ @ {comment} "" Spielfilm "" to "" film "" , uh , "" Film "" to "" movie "" , cinem "" Kino "" to "" cinema "" {disfmarker} to "" today "" {disfmarker} heu "" heute "" to "" today "" , +Grad E: Huh . +Grad C: evening {disfmarker} "" Abend "" to "" evening "" +Professor B: Capitalized as well +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: And , um . +Professor B: Y i +Grad D: One thing I was wondering , was , those functions there , are those things that modify the M - three - L basically ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the next step , +Professor B: p +Grad C: but we 'll get to that in a second . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: And so this means , um , "" this "" and "" see "" are not optional . "" Want I like "" is all maybe in there , but may also not be in there . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , the point is , if it says "" this "" and "" see "" , it also will work in "" see "" and "" this "" ? +Grad E: S +Professor B: In the other order ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: with those two key words ? +Grad C: Should we try it ? +Professor B: "" This is the one I want to see "" or whatever . +Grad C: OK . "" Action watch "" , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad C: whatever . Nothing was specialfi specified . except that it has some references to audio - visual media here . +Grad D: AV medium . +Grad C: Where it gets that from {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: It 's correct , but I don't know where it gets it from . +Grad D: "" See "" . +Grad C: Oh , "" see "" . Yeah . Yeah . Yep . OK . +Grad D: I mean it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: And "" see this "" {comment} is exactly the same thing . +Professor B: OK , so it is set - based . Alright . +Grad D: One thing I was wondering was , {vocalsound} those percentage signs , right ? So , I mean , why do we even have them ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} if you didn't have them {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , I 'll tell you why . Because it gives a {disfmarker} you a score . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the value of the score is , v I assume , I guess , the more of these optional things that are actually in there , the higher the r score {vocalsound} it is . +Grad D: Oh . OK . So that 's the main purpose . Alright . +Grad E: It 's a match . +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: So we {disfmarker} we shouldn't belittle it too much . It 's doing something , some things , and it 's very flexible . I 've just tried to +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: be nice . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: No , no . Fine . +Grad E: Right {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , flexible it is . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . {vocalsound} Um , let 's hope that the generation will not be more difficult , even though the generator is a little bit more complex . Uh but we 'll {disfmarker} Mmm , that means we may need two hours and twenty minutes rather than an hour ten minutes , +Professor B: Alright . +Grad C: I hope . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: And the next thing I would like to be able to do , and it seems like this would not be too difficult either , is {vocalsound} to say , "" OK let 's now pretend we actually wanted to not only change the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the mapping of {disfmarker} of , uh , words to the M - three - L but we also wanted to change {disfmarker} add a new sentence type and and make up some {disfmarker} some new M - three - L {disfmarker} s "" +Professor B: Yep . So That 'd be great . It would be a good exercise to just see {vocalsound} whether one can get that to run . +Grad C: See th Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yep . And , um , +Grad D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: that 's {disfmarker} shouldn't be too tough . +Grad D: Fine , yeah . Yeah , so where are those {disfmarker} those functions "" Action "" , "" Goodbye "" , and so on , right ? Are they actually , um , {vocalsound} Are they going to be called ? Um , are they present in the code for the parser ? +Grad C: Yeah . I think what it does , it i i it does something sort of fancy . It loads um {disfmarker} It has these style sheets and also the , um , schemata . So what it probably does , is it takes the , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Is this where it is ? This is already the XML stuff ? This is where it takes its own , um , syntax , and converts it somehow . Um . Where is the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: What are you looking for ? +Grad C: Um , where it actually produces the {disfmarker} the XML out of the , uh , parsed {pause} stuff . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad C: No , this is not it . Uh . I can't find it now . You mean , where the {disfmarker} where the act how the action "" Goodbye "" maps into something {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , where are those constructors defined ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: Nope . +Grad D: No , that 's not it . +Grad C: Yeah . This is sort of what happens . This is what you would need to {disfmarker} to change {disfmarker} to get the , uh , XML changed . So when it encounts encounters "" Day "" , {vocalsound} it will , uh , activate those h classes in the {disfmarker} in the XML stuff But , um {disfmarker} I saw those actions {disfmarker} uh , the "" Goodbye "" stuff somewhere . Hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm . +Grad A: Grep for it ? +Grad C: Yeah . Let 's do that . Oh . +Grad D: Mmm . M - three - L dot DTD ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: That 's just a {pause} specification for the XML format . +Grad C: Yep . Well , we 'll find that out . So whatever {disfmarker} n this does {disfmarker} I mean this is , basically , looks l to me like a function call , right ? +Professor B: Hmm ? Oh , yeah . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} So , whenever it {disfmarker} it encounters "" Goodbye "" , which we can make it do in a second , here +Grad A: That function automatically generates an initialized XML structure ? +Grad C: I +Grad D: I think each of those functions act on the current XML structure , and change it in some way , for example , by adding a {disfmarker} a l a field to it , or something . +Professor B: y Yeah . They also seem to affect state , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cause some of them {disfmarker} there were other actions uh , that {disfmarker} that s seemed to step {disfmarker} state variables somewhere , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: like the n s "" Discourse Status Confirm "" . OK . So that 's going to be a call on the discourse +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: and {vocalsound} confirm that it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: W we Mm - hmm +Grad D: Oh , you mean that 's not going to actually modify the tree , +Professor B: I think that 's right . +Grad C: e +Grad D: but it 's going to change the event . +Professor B: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} That looks like it 's state modification . +Grad D: Oh . Oh . +Grad C: e mmm Um , well i There is a feature called "" Discourse - Status "" , +Grad D: When there 's a feature . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: And so whenever I just say , "" Write "" , it will {disfmarker} it will put this in here . +Professor B: Oh , so it always just {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} Well , go back , then , cuz it may be that all those th things , while they look like function calls , are just a way of adding exactly that to the XML . +Grad C: h Yep . +Professor B: Uh - huh ! I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad C: So , this {disfmarker} +Professor B: e I 'm not sure {disfmarker} e that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we 'll see , when we say , let 's test something , "" Goodbye "" , causes it to c to create basically an "" Action Goodbye - End - Action "" . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Which is a means of telling the system to shut down . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Now , if we know that "" Write "" produces a "" Feature Discourse - Status Confirm Discourse - Status "" . So if I now say "" Write , Goodbye , "" it should do that . It sho it creates this , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: "" Confirm Goodbye "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: Right there . But there is some kind of function call , because how does it know to put Goodbye in Content , but , uh , Confirm in Features ? +Grad C: Oh . It d it {disfmarker} n That 's because {disfmarker} +Grad D: So So , it 's not just that it 's adding that field . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: It 's +Professor B: Absolutely . Good point . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's under what sub - type you 're doing it . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: It 's mystery functions . +Grad C: Well , sometimes it m Sometimes , i +Grad D: Well , they 're defined somewhere , presumably . +Professor B: Yeah , each is {disfmarker} S so that 's funny . +Grad C: When it {disfmarker} +Professor B: You bury the s the state in the function Alright . +Grad C: it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it just automatically initializes things that are common , right ? +Professor B: Uh +Grad A: So it 's just a shorthand . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: For example {disfmarker} Oh , this is German . Sorry . e So , now , this , it cannot do anymore . Nothing comes out of here . +Grad A: A "" not a number "" is a value . Awesome . +Grad C: So , it doesn't speak German anymore , but it does speak English . And there is , here , a reference {disfmarker} So , this tells us that whatever is {disfmarker} has the ID "" zero "" is referenced here {disfmarker} by @ @ {comment} the restriction seed and this is exa "" I want {disfmarker} "" What was the sentence ? +Professor B: "" I want two seats here . "" +Grad C: "" need two seats here . "" Nuh . "" And where is it playing ? "" There should also be a reference to something , maybe . Our d This is re um Mmm . Here , we change {disfmarker} and so , we {disfmarker} Here we add something to the Discourse - Status , that the user wants to change something that was sort of done before And , uh {disfmarker} and that , whatever is being changed has something to do with the cinema . +Grad A: So then , whatever takes this M - three - L is what actually changes the state , not the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +Professor B: No , right , the Discourse Maintainer , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . I see . And it {disfmarker} and it runs around looking for Discourse Status tags , and doing whatever it does with them . And other people ignore those tags . Alright . So , yeah . I definitely think it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's worth the exercise of trying to actually add something that isn't there . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Professor B: Uh Disc +Grad C: Sort of get a complete understanding of the whole thing . +Professor B: Yeah , a kid understanding what 's going on . Then the next thing we talked about is actually , {vocalsound} um , figuring out how to add our own tags , and stuff like that . +Grad C: OK . Point number two . I got the , uh , M - three - L for the routes today . Uh , so I got some more . This is sort of the uh , {vocalsound} um , Hmm . Interesting . It 's just going up , it 's not going back down . So , this is {disfmarker} um , what I got today is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the new {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} M - three - L for um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the Maps , +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: uh , and with some examples {disfmarker} So , this is the XML and this is sort of what it will look like later on , even though it {disfmarker} you can't see it on {disfmarker} on this resolution . And this is what it {disfmarker} sort of is the {disfmarker} the structure of Map requests , um also not very interesting , and here is the more interesting stuff for us , is the routes , route elements , and , again , as we thought it 's really simple . This is sort of the , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} parameters . We have @ @ {comment} simple "" from objects "" and "" to objects "" and so forth , points of interest along the way {disfmarker} And , um , I asked them whether or not we could , um {disfmarker} First of all , I was little bit {disfmarker} It seemed to me that this m way of doing it is sort of a stack a step backwards from the way we 've done it before . t It seems to me that some notions were missing . +Professor B: S +Grad C: So these are {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} +Professor B: So these are {disfmarker} these are your friends back at EML . +Grad C: Yep . Who are doing this . +Professor B: So this is not a complicated negotiation . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not seven committees , or anything , right ? +Grad C: No . No , this is very straightforward . +Professor B: Great . So this is just trying to {disfmarker} It 's a design thing , not a political thing . Once we 've {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} We can just sort of agree on what oughta be done . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Good . +Grad C: Exactly . And , um {disfmarker} And , uh {disfmarker} However , the , uh {disfmarker} e So that you understand , it is really simple . Uh {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you have a route , and you cut it up in different pieces . And every {disfmarker} every element of that e r r f of that {disfmarker} Every segment we call a "" route element "" . And so , from A to B we cut up in three different steps , and every step has a "" from object "" where you start , a "" to object "" where y where {pause} you sort of end , and some points of interest along the way . What w I was sort of missing here , and uh , maybe it was just me being too stupid , is , {vocalsound} I didn't sort of get the {disfmarker} the notion of the global goal of the whole route . Really , s was not straightforward visibly for me . And some other stuff . And I {vocalsound} suggested that they should n be {disfmarker} k uh , kind enough to do s two things for us , is one , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Also allocating , uh , some tags for our Action Schema Enter - Vista - Approach , and {disfmarker} And also , um , since you had suggested that {disfmarker} that , um , we figure out if we ever , for a demo reason , wanted to shortcut directly to the g GIS and the Planner , of how we can do it . Now , what 's the state of the art of getting to entrances , um , what 's the syntax for that , how get getting to {vocalsound} vista points and calculating those on the spot . And the Approach mode , anyhow , is the default . That 's all they do it these days . Wherever you 'll find a route planner it n does nothing but get to the closest point where the street network is {vocalsound} at minimal distance to the geometric center . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: So , well , let {disfmarker} Now , this is important . Let , uh {disfmarker} I want a a Again , outside of m almost managerial point , um {disfmarker} You 're in the midst of this , so you know better . But it seems to me it 's probably a good idea to li uh {disfmarker} minimize the number of uh , change requests we make of them . So it seemed to me , what we ought to do is get our story together . OK ? And think about it some , internally , before asking them to make changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh . Does this {disfmarker} does this make sense to you guys ? It {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing the {disfmarker} the interaction but it seemed to me that {vocalsound} what we ought to do is come up with a {disfmarker} uh , something where you , um {disfmarker} And I {disfmarker} I don't know who 's mok working most closely on it . Probably Johno . OK . Uh , take what they have , send it to everybody saying "" this is what they have , this is what we think we should add "" , OK ? and then have a d a {disfmarker} an iteration within our group saying "" Hmm , well {disfmarker} "" OK ? And get our best idea of what we should add . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then go back to them . Is i or , I don't know does this make sense to you ? Or +Grad C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Especially if we want {disfmarker} Sort of , what I {disfmarker} my feeling was eh we {disfmarker} we sort of reserved something that has a r eh an OK label . That 's {disfmarker} th that was my th first sort of step . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I w No matter how we want to call it , {vocalsound} this is sort of our playground . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And if we get something in there that is a structure elaborate and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and complex enough to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to maybe enable a whole simulation , one of these days , that would be {disfmarker} u the {disfmarker} the perfect goal . +Professor B: Right . That 's right . So . So , Yeah . The problem isn't the short ra range optimization . It 's the sort of {disfmarker} o one or two year kind of thing . OK . What are the thl class of things we think we might try to do in a year or two ? How {disfmarker} how would we try to characterize those and what do we want to request now {vocalsound} that 's leave enough space to do all that stuff ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And that re that requires some thought . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} so that sounds like a great thing to do {vocalsound} as the priority item um , as soon as we can do it . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: So y so you guys will {vocalsound} send to the rest of us um {pause} {vocalsound} a version of um , this , and {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh , description {disfmarker} +Grad A: With sugge yeah , suggested improvements and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well b Yeah . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Not everyone uh , reads German , so if you 'd um +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: tu uh , tur change the description to , uh , English +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: and , um , Then {disfmarker} then , yeah . Then , with some sug s suggestions about where {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , this {disfmarker} and this , of course , was just the {vocalsound} {vocalsound} action end . Uh , at some point we 're going to have to worry about the language end . But for the moment just {vocalsound} uh , t for this class of {disfmarker} of things , we might want to try to encompass . And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Then the scope of this is beyond {pause} Approach and Vis - or Vista . Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . This is {disfmarker} this is everything that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} {vocalsound} you know , um {pause} we might want to do in the next couple years . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So what would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: We don't {disfmarker} I mean , that 's an issue . We don't know what , entirely . +Grad A: Uh , yeah . but I 'm just {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . So I just {disfmarker} this XML stuff here just has to do with Source - Path - Goal type stuff , in terms of traveling through Heidelberg . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Or travel , specifically . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So , but this O Is the domain greater than that ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I think the i the idea is {pause} that {disfmarker} Oh . It 's beyond Source - Path - Goal , but I think we don't need to get beyond it @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} tourists in Heidelberg . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: It seems to me we can get {vocalsound} all the complexity we want in actions and in language without going outside of tourists in Heidelberg . OK ? But you know , i depending on what people are interested in , one could have , {vocalsound} uh , tours , one could have {vocalsound} um , explanations of why something is {disfmarker} is , you know , why {disfmarker} why was this done , or {disfmarker} I mean , no {disfmarker} there 's no end to the complexity you can build into the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , what a tourist in Heidelberg might ask . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , at least {disfmarker} unless somebody else wants t to suggest otherwise I think {vocalsound} the general domain we don't have t to uh , broaden . That is , tourists in Heidelberg . And if there 's something somebody comes up with that can't be done that way , then , sure . W we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at that , but {vocalsound} uh I 'd be s I I 'd be surprised at {disfmarker} if there 's any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} important issue that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} And , um {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} if you want to {pause} uh , push us into reference problems , that would be great . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK , so this is {disfmarker} his specialty is {disfmarker} reference , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what are these things referring to ? Not only {vocalsound} anaphora , but , uh , more generally the , uh {disfmarker} this whole issue of , uh , referring expressions , and , what is it that they 're actually dealing with in the world ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , again , this is li in the databa this is also pretty well formed because there is an ontology , and the database , and stuff . So it isn't like , {vocalsound} um , you know , the Evening Star or stuff like that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I i it {disfmarker} All the entities do have concrete reference . Although th the {vocalsound} To get at them from a language may not be trivial . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: There aren't really deep mysteries about um , what w what things the system knows about . +PhD F: Right . Right . And you have both proper names and descriptions +Professor B: All those things . +PhD F: and y and you can ask for it . +Professor B: Yeah . You have proper names , and descriptions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And a l and a lot {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and anaphora , and pronouns , +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Professor B: and {pause} all those things . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Now , we hav the {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} Unfortunately , the whole database is , uh , {vocalsound} in German . We have just commissioned someone to translate some bits of it , IE the e the shortest k the {disfmarker} the more general descriptions of all the objects and , um , persons and events . So , it 's a relational database with persons , events , {vocalsound} and , um , objects . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite , um , {vocalsound} there . But did y I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think there will be great because the reference problem really is not trivial , even if you have such a g well - defined world . +Professor B: He knows . +Grad C: Ah - he you are not , uh , throwing uh , uh , carrying owls to Athens . +Grad A: Could you give me an example of a reference problem ? so {disfmarker} so l I can make it more concrete ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? We sort of t think that our bit in this problem is interesting , but , just to get from Powder - Tower to an object I ID in a database is also not really trivial . +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} or if you take something even more scary , um , "" how do I get to the third building after the Tower ? the Ple - Powder - Tower ? "" +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: Uh , you need some mechanism for +Professor B: Yeah . Or , you know , the church across from City Hall , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or the re the restaurant where they wear lederhosen ? +Grad C: Or the +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Or is that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that would be fine . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: O or {disfmarker} or tower , or this tower , or that building , or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Uniquely . +Grad C: hmm ? +Grad A: OK . Trying to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or you can say "" how {disfmarker} "" you know , "" how do I get back ? "" +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And , again , it 's just a question of which of these things , uh , people want to {vocalsound} dive into . What , uh , I think I 'm gonna try to do , and I guess , pwww ! let 's say that by the end of spring break , I 'll try to come up with some {vocalsound} general story about , um , construction grammar , and what constructions we 'd use and how all this might fit together . There 's this whole framework problem that I 'm feeling really uncomfortable about . And I haven't had a chance to {vocalsound} think about it seriously . But I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} I want to do that early , rather than late . And you and I will probably have to talk about this some . +Grad C: u u u u That 's what strikes me , that we sort of {disfmarker} the de g uh , small {disfmarker} Something , uh , maybe we should address one of these days , is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That most of the work people actually always do is look at some statements , and {disfmarker} and analyze those . Whether it 's abstracts or newspapers and stuff like this . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad C: But the whole {disfmarker} i is it {disfmarker} is it really relevant that we are dealing mostly with , sort of , questions ? +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +Grad C: Uh , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean yeah , I d +Grad C: And this is {disfmarker} It seems to me that we should maybe at least spend a session or {disfmarker} or brainstorm a little bit about whether that l this is special case in that sense . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , I don't know . You know {disfmarker} Did we ever find m metaphorical use in {disfmarker} in questions in {disfmarker} in that sense , really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: +Professor B: You will . +Grad C: And how soon , +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . +Professor B: I mean , uh , we could take all the standard metaphor examples and make question versions of them . OK . +Grad C: "" Who got kicked out of France ? "" +PhD F: Muh +Professor B: Yeah , or , you know . "" Wh - why is he {disfmarker} why is he pushing for promotion ? "" +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: or , "" who 's pushing proof "" +Grad C: Nuh . +Professor B: er , just pick {disfmarker} pick any of them and just {vocalsound} do the {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I don't {disfmarker} I don't think , {vocalsound} uh , it 's at all difficult {disfmarker} Uh , to convert them to question forms that really exist and people say all the time , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} we don't know how to handle them , too . Right ? I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I d It {disfmarker} We don't know how to handle the declarative forms , @ @ {comment} really , and , then , the interrogative forms , ah - oh . Uh . Yeah . +Grad D: Ooo ! +Professor B: Nancy , it looked like you were s +Grad E: Oh . it 's just that {disfmarker} that the goals are g very different to cases {disfmarker} So we had this problem last year when we first thought about this domain , actually , was that {vocalsound} most of the things we talked about are our story understanding . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: Uh , we 're gonna have a short discourse and {vocalsound} the person talking is trying to , I don't know , give you a statement and tell you something . And here , {vocalsound} it 's th +Grad C: Help you create a mental model , blah - blah - blah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yea - eh {disfmarker} y Yeah , I guess so . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: And then here , y you are j uh , the person is getting information and they or may not be following some larger plan , {vocalsound} you know , that we have to recognize or , you know , infer . And th th the {disfmarker} their discourse patterns probably {nonvocalsound} don't follo follow quite as many {vocalsound} logical connec +Professor B: Right . No , I think that 's one of things that 's interesting , is {disfmarker} is in this sort of over - arching story we {disfmarker} we worked it out for th as you say , this {disfmarker} the storytelling scenario . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I think it 's really worth thinking through {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what it looks like . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What is the simspec mean , et cetera . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . M Right . Cuz for a while we were thinking , "" well , how can we change the , {vocalsound} um , data to sort of illicit tha {vocalsound} illicit , um , actions that are more like what we are used to ? "" But obviously we would rather , you know , try to figure out what 's {disfmarker} what 's , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe that 's what we 'll do is {disfmarker} is s u e We can do anything we want with it . I mean , once we have fulfilled these requirements , +Grad E: Yep . Mmm {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , and the one for next uh , summer is just half done and then the other half is this , um , "" generation thing "" which we think isn't much different . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So once that 's done , then all the rest of it is , uh , sort of , you know , what we want to do for the research . And we can {disfmarker} w we can do all sorts of things that don't fit into their framework at all . Th - there 's no reason why we 're c we 're constrained to do that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we can use all the , uh , execution engines , then we can , {vocalsound} you know , really {nonvocalsound} try things that would be too {disfmarker} too much pain to do ourselves . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 's no obligation on any of this . So , if we want to turn it into u understan standing stories about Heidelberg , we can do that . I mean , that would just be a t a um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or , as a matter of fact , we need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and if we if we ' r eh {disfmarker} take a ten year perspective , we need to do that , because w e w a Assuming we have this , um , we we ta in that case we actually do have these wonderful stories , and historical anecdotes , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and knights jumping out of windows , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad C: and - and - and {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} tons of stuff . So , th the database is huge , and if we want to answer a question on that , we actually have to go one step before that , and understand that . In order to e do sensible information extraction . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You might , yeah . +Grad C: And so , um , this has been a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Deep Map research issue that was {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is part of the unresolved , and to - do 's , and something for the future , is {vocalsound} how can we sort of run our our text , our content , through a machine {vocalsound} that will enable us , later , to retrieve or answer e questions more sensibly ? +PhD F: Mwa Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Right . Anyway . S Who 's going ? +PhD F: So , uh {disfmarker} So , uh , I was just going to ask , um , {vocalsound} so , what is the {disfmarker} the basic thing that {disfmarker} that you are , um , obligated to do , um , uh , by the summer before w uh y c we can move {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ah ! OK . So {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , what happened is , there 's this , eh , uh {disfmarker} Robert was describing the {disfmarker} There 's two packages there 's a , uh , quote parser , there 's a particular piece {vocalsound} of this big system , which , in German , uh , takes these t sentence templates and produces XML structures . And one of our jobs was to make the English equivalent of that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That , these guys did in a {disfmarker} in a day . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor B: The other thing is , at the other end , roughly at the same level , there 's something that takes , uh , X M L structures , produces an output XML structure which is instructions for the generator . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? And then there 's a language generator , and then after that a s a synthesizer that goes from an XML structure to , uh , language generation , to actual specifications for a synthesizer . Eh , but again , there 's one module in which there 's one piece {vocalsound} that we have to convert to English . +PhD F: Right . Right . Got it . +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} OK . And that {disfmarker} But as I say , this is {disfmarker} all along was viewed as a kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a m a minor thing , necessary , but {disfmarker} but not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And much more interesting is the fact that , {vocalsound} as part of doing this , we {disfmarker} we are , you know , inheriting this system that does all sort of these other {vocalsound} things . +PhD F: That 's great ! Right . +Professor B: Not precisely what we want , and that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's wh where it {disfmarker} it gets difficult . And I {disfmarker} I don't pretend to understand yet what I think we really ought to do . +Grad C: OK . So , e enough of that , but I , uh , um , mmm , the e sort of , Johno and I will take up that responsibility , and , um , get a first draft of that . Now , we have um just , I think two more short things . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: Um , y you guys sort of started fighting , uh , on the Bayes - net "" Noisy - OR "" front ? +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , I thought I should , um , talk a little bit about that , because that might be a good , uh , sort of architecture to have , in general for , uh , problems with , {vocalsound} you know , multiple inputs to a node . +Professor B: Good ! OK . Good . And what 's the other one ? so that {disfmarker} just we know what the d agenda is ? +Grad C: Um , the Wu paper , I think maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I 've got a couple new Wu papers as well . Uh , so I {disfmarker} I 've been in contact with Wu , so , probably let 's put that off till I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} till I understand better , {vocalsound} uh , what he 's doing . It 's just a little embarrassing cause all this was in his thesis and I was on his thesis committee , and , so , {vocalsound} I r really knew this at one time . +PhD F: Ugh . +Professor B: But , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It 's not only uh Is {disfmarker} Part of what I haven't figured out yet is {disfmarker} is how all this goes together . So I 'll dig up some more stuff from Dekai . And {disfmarker} so why don't we just do the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So {disfmarker} should I {disfmarker} Is there a white board here that I can use ? +Professor B: Yeah . You could {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: squealing sound ? +Grad D: Or shall I just use this ? +Professor B: It 's probably just as easy . I +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: You can put the microphone in your pocket . +Grad D: Hey ! +Grad A: I was envying you and your pocket cause I don't have one . +Grad E: It was a quick one , huh ? +Professor B: That 's why they invented "" pocket T 's "" . +Grad A: exactly +Grad E: They have clips ! +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: So , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Recall that , uh , we want to have this kind of structure in our Bayes - nets . Namely , that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You have these nodes that have several bands , right ? So {disfmarker} Does I mean , they sort of {disfmarker} the typical example is that , um , these are all a bunch of cues for something , and this is a certain effect that we 'd like to conclude . So , uh {disfmarker} Like , let 's just look at the case when , um , this is actually the {disfmarker} the final action , right ? So this is like , uh , {vocalsound} you know , touch , +Grad C: Y +Grad D: or {disfmarker} +Grad C: E - EVA +Grad D: Sorry . Uh +Grad C: +Grad D: Yeah , E - {vocalsound} EVA , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Enter , V View , Approach , right ? +PhD F: W what was this ? It {disfmarker} i i i ehhh , {comment} i ehhh . +Professor B: Wri - write it out for for {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , this is {disfmarker} Yeah . Enter , +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: View , Approach . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Grad D: Right . So , I mean , we 'd like to {disfmarker} take all these various cues , right ? +PhD F: Like the army . +Grad D: So this one might be , say , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: New terminology ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: Well , let me pick a random one +Grad E: I haven't heard that before . +Grad D: and say , uh {disfmarker} I don't know , it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This isn't the way it really is , but let me say {disfmarker} that , suppose someone mentioned , uh , admission fees Ah , it takes too long . Try {disfmarker} let me just say "" Landmark "" . If the thing is a landmark , you know , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} then there 's another thing that says if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} if it 's closed or not , at the moment . Alright , so you have nodes . Right ? And the , uh , problem that we were having was that , you know , given N - nodes , there 's "" two to the N "" Given N - nodes , and furthermore , the fact that there 's three things here , we need to specify "" three times "" , uh , "" two to the N "" probabilities . Right ? That 's assuming these are all binary , which f they may not be . For example , they could be "" time of day "" , in which case we could , uh , say , you know , "" Morning , afternoon , evening , night "" . So , this could be more So , it 's a lot , anyway . And , that 's a lot of probabilities to put here , which is kind of a pain . So {pause} Noisy - ORs are a way to , uh , {vocalsound} sort of deal with this . Um Where should I put this ? So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} Let 's call these , uh , C - one , C - two , C - three , and C - four , and E , for Cause and Effect , I guess . The idea is to have these intermediate nodes . Right . Well , actually , the idea , first of all , is that each of these things has a {disfmarker} quote - unquote distinguished state , which means that this is {vocalsound} the state in which we don't really know anything about it . So {disfmarker} right ? So , for example , if we don't really know {vocalsound} if the thing is a landmark or not , Or , i if that just doesn't seem relevant , then that would be th sort of the Disting - the Distinguish state . It 's a really , you know , {vocalsound} if there is something for the person talking about the admission fee , you know , if they didn't talk about it , that would be the Distinguish state . +Grad C: S so , this is a fanciful way of saying "" default "" ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: That 's just what they {disfmarker} the word they used in that paper . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} you have these intermediate nodes , right ? E - one , E - two , E - three and E - four ? +Professor B: So , this is the Heckerman paper you 're working with ? Good . +Grad D: Yeah . So {pause} The idea is that , each of these EI {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} represents what this would be {disfmarker} if all the other ones were in the distinguish state . Right ? So , for example , suppose that the person {disfmarker} I mean , suppose the thing that they talked about is a landmark . But none of the other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sort of cues really apply . Then , {vocalsound} this would be {disfmarker} W The {vocalsound} this would just represent the probability distribution of this , assuming that this cue is turned on and the other ones just didn't apply ? So , you know , if it is a landmark , and no none of the other things really ap applicable , then {disfmarker} this would represent the probability distribution . So maybe in this case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we just t k Maybe we decide that , if the thing 's a landmark and we don't know anything else , then we 're gonna conclude that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They want to view it with probability , you know , point four . They want to enter it with probability , uh {disfmarker} with probability point five and they want to approach it probability point one , say {disfmarker} Right ? So we come up with these l little tables for each of those OK . And the final thing is that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is a deterministic function of these , so we don't need to specify any probabilities . We just have to , um , say what function this is , right ? So we can let this be , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G of E - one comma E - two . E - three , E - four . Right ? and our example G would be , um , {vocalsound} a majority vote ? Right ? +Professor B: Well . OK , so th so the important point {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} W not what the G function is . The important point is {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a general kind of idea of shortcutting the full CPT . Th - c the full conditional probability table {disfmarker} with some function . OK ? Which y w you choose appropriately for each case . So , depending on {vocalsound} what your situation is , there are different functions which are most appropriate . And {disfmarker} So I gave {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Bhaskara a copy of this , eh {disfmarker} sort of "" ninety - two "" {comment} paper . D and you got one , Robert . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't know who else has seen it . +Grad D: There 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} yeah . it 's Heckerman and Breese . +Professor B: It 's short . It 's short . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , I u w Um , yo uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Have you read it yet ? +Grad D: Uh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , you should take a look at it , I guess . +Grad A: OK +Professor B: OK , so you should take a look . Nancy , I 'm sure you read it at some point in life . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} yeah . I {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And {disfmarker} so , you other guys can decide how interested {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , @ @ . +Professor B: Anyway . So the paper isn't th isn't real hard . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} One of the questions just come at Bhaskara is , "" How much of this does JavaBayes support ? "" +Grad D: Yeah , it 's a good question . Um {pause} {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} The {disfmarker} so what we want , is basically JavaBayes to support deterministic , uh , functions . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} In a sense it sup we can make it supported by , um , {vocalsound} manually , uh , entering , you know , probabilities that are one and zeros , right ? +Professor B: Right . So the little handout that {disfmarker} The little thing that I sent {disfmarker} I sent a message saying , uh , here is a way to take {disfmarker} One thing you could do , which is kind of s in a way , stupid , is take this deterministic function , and use it to build the CPT . So , if Ba - JavaBayes won't do it for you , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: that you can convert all that into what the CPT would be . Um {disfmarker} and , what I sent out about a week ago , was an idea of how to do that , for , um , evidence combination . So one of {disfmarker} one function that you could use as your "" G function "" is an e e Evidence - Combining . So you just take {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} uh , if each of th if each of the ones has its own little table like that , {vocalsound} then you could take the , uh , strength of each of those , times its little table , and you 'd add up the total evidence for "" V "" , "" E "" , and "" A "" . +Grad D: Mmm . I don't think you can do this , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G is a function from {pause} that {vocalsound} to that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yep . Right . +Grad D: Right ? So there 's no numbers . There 's just {disfmarker} quadruplets of {disfmarker} well , N - duplets of , uh , E Vs . +Professor B: I i i No , no {disfmarker} But I 'm saying is {disfmarker} There {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is a w I mean , if y if {disfmarker} if you decide what 's {disfmarker} what is appropriate , is probablistic evidence combination , you can write a function that does it . It 's a pui it 's actually one of the examples he 's got in there . But , anyway , s skipping {disfmarker} skipping the question of exactly which functions {disfmarker} now is it clear that you might like to be able to shortcut the whole conditional probability table . +Grad C: I mean , in some {disfmarker} it seems very plausible in some sense , where we will be likely to not be {disfmarker} observe some of the stuff . Cuz we don't have the a access to the information . +Grad D: Oops , {comment} sorry . +Professor B: Right . That 's one of the problems , is , W Is {disfmarker} is , Where would th Where would it all come from ? +Grad C: Yeah . So . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} Oh , right . W would not be ab able to observe +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: I if it 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discar Discourse Initial Phrase , we will have nothing in the discourse history . So , if {disfmarker} if we ever want to wonder what was mention +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh . A are you saying that we 'll not be able to observe certain nodes ? That 's fine . That is sort of orthogonal thing . +Professor B: Yeah , so there 's {disfmarker} there 's two separate things , Robert . The f the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets in general are quite good at saying , "" if you have no current information about this variable just take the prior for that . "" OK ? Th - that 's what they 're real good at . So , if you don't have any information about the discourse , you just use your priors of {disfmarker} of whatever {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} discourse {disfmarker} uh , eh , basically whatever w it 's {disfmarker} Probabilistically , whatever it would be . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of not a great estimate , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} it 's the best one you have , and , so forth . So that , they 're good at . But the other problem is , how do you fill in all these numbers ? And I think that 's the one he was getting at . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So , specifically in this case you have to {disfmarker} f have this many numbers , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: whereas in this case you just have to have three for this , three for this , three for this . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So you have to have just three N ? So , this is much smaller than that . +Grad A: Asymptotically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , pretty quickly . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: U yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , you don't need da data enough to cover {disfmarker} uh , nearly as much stuff . +Grad D: I don't know . +Grad A: So , really , i What a {disfmarker} A Noisy - OR seems to kind of {pause} "" neural - net - acize "" these Bayes - nets ? +Professor B: Eh {disfmarker} well to some No , no . So , "" Noisy - OR "" is a funny way of referring to this , because {vocalsound} the Noisy - OR is only one instance . +Grad D: Yeah . This isn't a Noisy - OR anymore . +Professor B: That one actually isn't a Noisy - OR . So we 'll have to think of {vocalsound} of a way t t +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: it 's a Noisy - arg - max or a Noisy - whatever . +Professor B: Yeah , whatever . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Eh {disfmarker} {comment} Um +Grad A: Well , my point was more that we just {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} With the neural net , right , eh , things come in , you have a function that combines them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Tha - that 's true . It is a is also more neural - net - like , although {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , it isn't necessarily sum {disfmarker} uh , s you know , sum of weights or anything like that . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean i You could have , uh , like the Noisy - OR function , really is one that 's essentially says , uh , take the max . +Grad D: Well , the "" OR "" . +Professor B: Same . +Grad D: Right . I guess you 're right . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh But anyway . So {disfmarker} And , I thi I think that 's the standard way people get around the {disfmarker} uh There are a couple other ones . There are ways of breaking this up into s to {disfmarker} to subnets and stuff like that . But , um The I think we definitely {disfmarker} I think it 's a great idea tha to {disfmarker} to pursue that . +Grad D: Yep . So +Grad C: Wha - still sort of leaves one question . It {disfmarker} I mean you {disfmarker} you can always uh {disfmarker} see easily that {disfmarker} that I 'm not grasping everything correctly , but {vocalsound} what seemed attractive to me in im uh in the last discussion we had , was {vocalsound} that we find out a means of {disfmarker} of getting these point four , point five , point one , of C - four , not because , you know , A is a Landmark or not , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we label this whatever object type , and if it 's a garden , it 's point three , point four , point two . If it 's a castle , it 's point eight , point one , point one . If it 's , {vocalsound} uh , a town hall , it 's point two , point three , point five . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And so forth . And we don't want to write this down {disfmarker} necessarily every time for something but , uh {disfmarker} let 's see . +Grad D: It 'll be students {disfmarker} Where else would it be stored ? That 's the question . +Grad C: Well , in the beginning , we 'll write up a flat file . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: We know we have twenty object types +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and we 'll write it down in a flat file . +Professor B: No . So , i is Well , let me say something , guys , cuz there 's not {disfmarker} There 's a pretty point about this we might as well get in right now . Which is {disfmarker} The hierarchy that s comes with the ontology is just what you want for this . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , if you know about it {disfmarker} let 's say , a particular town hall {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , it 's one that is a monument , {vocalsound} then , that would be stored there . If you don't , you look up the hierarchy , Eh {disfmarker} so , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you may or {disfmarker} So , then you 'd have this little vector of , um , you know , Approach Mode or EVA Mode . Let 's {disfmarker} OK , so we have {vocalsound} the EVA vector for {disfmarker} for various kinds of landmarks . If you know it for a specific landmark you put it there . If you don't , you just go up the hierarchy to the first place you find one . +Grad D: OK . So , is the idea to put it in the ontology ? +Professor B: Absolutely . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: Uh , or , link to {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but in any case {disfmarker} i View it logically as being in the ontology . It 's part of what you know about {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an object , {vocalsound} is its EVA vector . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: And , if yo As I say , if you know about a specific object , you put it there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: This is part of what Dekai was doing . So , when we get to Wu , The - e We 'll see w what he says about that . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: And , then if you {disfmarker} If it isn't there , it 's higher , and if you don't know anything except that it 's a b it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} building , then up at the highest thing , you have the pr what amounts to a prior . If you don't know anything else about a building , {vocalsound} uh , you just take whatever your crude approximation is up at that level , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: which might be equal , or whatever it is . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 's a very pretty relationship between these local vectors and the ontology . And it seems to me the obvious thing to do , unless {vocalsound} we find a reason to do something different . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Does this make sense to you ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Bhask - ? +Grad D: Yeah . So , we are {disfmarker} but we {disfmarker} we 're not doing the ontology , so we have to get to whoever is doing the {disfmarker} u ultimately , +Professor B: Indeed . So , that 's another thing we 're gonna need to do , is {disfmarker} is , to , either {disfmarker} +Grad D: we have to get them to {disfmarker} +Professor B: We 're gonna need some way to either get a p tag in the ontology , or add fields , or {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} some way to associate {disfmarker} Or , w It may be that all we can do is , um , some of our own hash tables that it {disfmarker} Th - the {disfmarker} th you know , there 's always a way to do that . It 's a just a question of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , hash on object name to , you know , uh , the probabilities or whatever . +Professor B: i th Yeah . e Right . And , so , i uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , it strikes me as a What For If we get the mechanism , that will be sort of the wonderful part . And then , {vocalsound} how to make it work is {disfmarker} is the second part , in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , m the guy who was doing the ontology {disfmarker} eh , eh , s ap apologized that i it will take him another through {disfmarker} two to three days because they 're having really trouble getting the upper level straight , and right now . The reason is , {vocalsound} given the craw bet uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the projects that all carry their own taxonomy and , on all history , {vocalsound} they 're really trying to build one top level ontology ft that covers all the EML projects , and that 's , uh , uh , sort of a tough cookie , a little bit tougher than they {vocalsound} figured . I could have told them s so . +Professor B: Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh . But , nevertheless , it 's going to be there by n by , uh , next Monday and I will show you what 's {disfmarker} what some examples {vocalsound} from that for towers , and stuff . And , um , what I don't think is ever going to be in the ontology , is sort of , you know , the likelihood of , eh , people entering r town halls , and looking at town halls , and approaching town halls , especially since we are b dealing with a case - based , not an instance - based ontology . So , there will be nothing on {disfmarker} on that town hall , or on the Berkeley town hall , or on the {vocalsound} Heidelberg town hall , it 'll just be information on town halls . +Professor B: Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} How ar What are they gonna do with instances ? +Grad C: But what {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , you {disfmarker} y +Grad C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Hhh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's al different question . I mean , th the {disfmarker} first , they had to make a design question , {vocalsound} "" do we take ontologies that have instances ? or just one that does not , that just has the types ? "" +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: And , so , since the d decision was on types , on a d simply type - based , {vocalsound} we now have to hook it up to instances . I mean this is +Professor B: But what i What is SmartKom gonna do about that ? +Grad C: one {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz , they have instances all the time . +Grad C: Yeah , but the ontology is really not a SmartKom thing , in {disfmarker} in and of itself . That 's more something that {vocalsound} I kicked loose in {disfmarker} in EML . So it 's a completely EML thing . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} SmartKom 's gonna need an ontology . +Grad C: Yes , u a w a lot of people are aware of that . +Professor B: I understand , {vocalsound} but is anybody doing anything about it ? +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . It 's a political problem . We won't worry about it . +Grad C: No , but {disfmarker} th the r eh {disfmarker} I th I still think that there is enough information in there . For example , whether {disfmarker} OK . So , th it will know about the twenty object types there are in the world . Let 's assume there are only twenty object types in this world . And it will know if any of those have institutional meanings . So , in a sense , "" I "" used as Institutions for some s in some sense or the other . Which makes them {disfmarker} enterable . Right ? In a sense . +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . So we may have to {disfmarker} +Grad C: You know . +Professor B: This is with the whole thing , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: we may have to build another data stru +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Conceptually , we know what should be done . When we see what people have done , it may turn out that the easiest thing to do {vocalsound} is to build a {disfmarker} a separate thing that {disfmarker} that just pools i i Like , i i it {disfmarker} it may be , that , the {disfmarker} the instance {disfmarker} w That we have to build our own instance , uh , things , that , with their types , +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Right , we can just assume {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then it goes off to the ontology once you have its type . So we build a little data structure And so what we would do in that case , is , in our instance gadget have {vocalsound} our E V And if we d there isn't one we 'd get the type and then have the E V As for the type . So we 'd have our own little , {vocalsound} uh , EVA tree . And then , for other , uh , vectors that we need . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: So , we 'd have our own little {vocalsound} things so that whenever we needed one , we 'd just use the ontology to get the type , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then would hash or whatever we do to say , "" ah ! +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it 's that type of thing , and we want its EVA vector , pppt - pppt ! {comment} it 's that . "" So , I I think we can handle that . And then {disfmarker} But , the combination functions , and whether we can put those in Java Bayes , and all that sort of stuff , is , uh {disfmarker} is the bigger deal . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that 's where we have to get technically clever . +Grad A: We could just steal the classes in JavaBayes and then interface to them with our own code . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I me ye {nonvocalsound} eh , yeah , the {disfmarker} +Grad D: That requires understanding the classes in JavaBayes , I guess . @ @ . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it 's , uh , e e e e e cute . I mean , you 've been around enough to {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Just ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , there 's this huge package which {disfmarker} which may or may not be consistent and {disfmarker} you know . But , yeah , we could look at it . +Grad A: Well , I was j OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's b It {disfmarker} It 's an inter sort of a kind of a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The thing is , it 's kind of an interpreter and i i it expects its data structures to be in a given form , and if you say , "" hey , we 're gonna {vocalsound} make a different kind of data structure to stick in there {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Well , no , but that just means there 's a protocol , right ? That you could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It may or may not . I don't know . That 's the question is "" to what extent does it allow us to put in these G functions ? "" And I don't know . +Grad A: Well , no , but {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} What I uh the {disfmarker} So you could have four different Bayes - nets that you 're running , and then run your own {disfmarker} write your own function that would take the output of those four , and make your own "" G function "" , is what I was saying . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's fine if it 's {disfmarker} if it comes only at the end . But suppose you want it embedded ? +Grad A: Well , then you 'd have to break all of your Bayes - nets into smaller Bayes - nets , with all the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's a truly horrible way to do d it . One would hope {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , you bet . But , at that point you may say , "" hey , Java Bayes isn't the only package in town . Let 's see if there 's another package that 's , eh , more civilized about this . "" +Grad D: +Professor B: Now , Srini is worth talking to on this , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: cuz he said that he actually did hack some combining functions into But he doesn't remember {disfmarker} at least when I talked to him , he didn't remember {vocalsound} whether it was an e an easy thing , a natural thing , or whether he had to do some violence to it to make it work . +Grad D: Ah ! +Professor B: Uh . But he did do it . +Grad D: Yeah . I don't see why the , uh , combining f functions have to be directly hacked into I mean , they 're used to create tables so we can just make our own little functions that create tables in XML . +Professor B: Well , I say that 's one way to do it , is {disfmarker} is to just convert it int into a {disfmarker} into a C P T that you zip {disfmarker} It 's blown up , and is a {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's huge , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it doesn't require any data fitting or complication . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , the fact that it blown u blows up is a huge issue in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , OK . So say it blows up , right ? So there 's , like , the you know , ten , f ten , fifteen , uh , things . It 's gonna be like , two to the {disfmarker} that , which isn't so bad . +Professor B: I I understand . I 'm just saying tha that w That was wi that was my note . The little note I sent said that . It said , "" Here 's the way you 'd take the logical f G function and turn it into a CPT . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean that {disfmarker} the Max - the Evidence - Combining function . So we could do that . And maybe that 's what we 'll do . But , um don't know . So , I will , e {vocalsound} e before next week , uh , @ @ {comment} p push {disfmarker} push some more on {disfmarker} on this stuff that Dekai Wu did , and try to understand it . Uh , you 'll make a couple of more copies of the Heckerman paper to give to people ? +Grad D: p Sure . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would like a copy , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: OK . +PhD F: y y yeah . +Professor B: And , um +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . And I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think s through this , uh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} getting EVA vectors dynamically out of ontologies one more time because I s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure whether we all think of the same thing or not , here . +Professor B: Well , you and I should talk about it . +Grad C: Yeah , uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Alright , great ! And , Robert , thank you for {vocalsound} coming in under {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he 's been sick , Robert . +Grad C: Und . +Grad A: I was thinking maybe we should just cough into the microphone and see if they can't {disfmarker} th see if they can handle it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad E: Sure . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} is this , uh {disfmarker} +","In the conversation, participants discuss technical aspects related to data handling and software frameworks for a project they are working on. They specifically talk about ontologies, Bayes-nets, JavaBayes, and combining functions. + +Grad A and Professor B troubleshoot microphone issues before commencing their technical discussion. Professor B wants to review their data collection process before they start working on the technical part. They plan on drafting a note to various classes for subject recruitment, aiming for fifty people, and discuss scheduling around Spring Break and existing social infrastructures they might utilize for subject recruitment. Grad C will draft the initial recruitment note, and they also consider potential forms needed for participation. + +Grad C mentions good progress on creating a complete English parser, replicating what a German parser does, within about an hour and ten minutes. There is a discussion about the details of how the parser ignores certain elements in the sentences, and Professor B shows interest in seeing how templates are used by the parser. + +The group also touches on data from Munich, which is being transcribed and translated for a colleague named Andreas. They contemplate the technical aspects of the parser and generator, and how to add new sentence types and M-three-L to the parser. + +The conversation navigates through various technical details, considering the work done on ontologies, the usage of XML, and their plans for handling different sentence types. It is evident there are some unresolved issues regarding ontologies and instance databases, as they decide how to move forward with their project tasks. + +The conversation concludes with a discussion on using JavaBayes for handling Bayesian networks, with a focus on incorporating deterministic functions. Grad D and Professor B consider how these functions could be implemented and whether they need to be directly integrated into JavaBayes or if they could use a separate approach. + +Overall, the group's conversation revolves around project preparations, data collection strategies, technical details of parser and ontology work, and the integration of Bayesian network functions with JavaBayes for their project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Adam , what is the mike that , uh , Jeremy 's wearing ? +Grad F: It 's the ear - plug mike . +Postdoc A: Ear - plug . +PhD E: That 's good . +PhD C: Is that a wireless , or {disfmarker} ? Oh . +Grad F: No . +Grad G: It 's wired . +Professor B: Oh ! +Postdoc A: Is that {disfmarker} Does that mean you can't hear anything during the meeting ? +Grad D: It 's old - school . +Grad F: Huh ? What ? Huh ? +Professor B: Should we , uh , close the door , maybe ? +Grad F: It {disfmarker} it 's a fairly good mike , actually . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh . +Grad F: Well , I shouldn't say it 's a good mike . All I really know is that the signal level is OK . I don't know if it 's a {disfmarker} the quality . +Professor B: Well , that 's a +Grad F: Ugh ! So I didn't send out agenda items because until five minutes ago we only had one agenda item and now we have two . So . {vocalsound} And , uh . +Professor B: OK . So , just to repeat the thing bef that we said last week , it was there 's this suggestion of alternating weeks on {vocalsound} more , uh , automatic speech recognition related or not ? Was that sort of {pause} the division ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: So which week are we in ? +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} We haven't really started , but I thought we more {disfmarker} we more or less did Meeting Recorder stuff last week , so I thought we could do , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I thought we had a thing about speech recognition last week too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: But I figure also if they 're short agenda items , we could also do a little bit of each . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . I seem to be having difficulty getting this adjusted . Here we go . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: So , uh , as most of you should know , I did send out the consent form thingies and , uh , so far no one has made any {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} {comment} any comments on them . So , no on no one has bleeped out anything . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . +Grad F: So . I don't expect anyone to . But . +Professor B: Um . {vocalsound} So , w what follows ? At some point y you go around and get people to sign something ? +Grad F: No . We had spoken w about this before +Professor B: Yeah , but I 've forgotten . +Grad F: and we had decided that they have {disfmarker} they only needed to sign once . And the agreement that they already signed simply said that we would give them an opportunity . So as long as we do that , we 're covered . +Professor B: And how long of an opportunity did you tell them ? +Grad F: Uh , July fifteenth . +Professor B: July fifteenth . Oh , so they have a plenty of time , and y +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: Given that it 's that long , um , um {disfmarker} Why was that date chosen ? You just felt you wanted to {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Jane told me July fifteenth . So , that 's what I set it . +Postdoc A: Oh . I just meant that that was {pause} the release date that you had on the {pause} data . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Oh . I {disfmarker} I didn't understand that there was something specific . +Postdoc A: I , uh {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} y you had {disfmarker} +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad F: I had heard July fifteenth , so that 's what I put . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , the only {disfmarker} th the only {pause} mention I recall about that was just that July fifteenth or so is when {vocalsound} this meeting starts . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . That 's why . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: You said you wanted it to be available then . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean it to be the hard deadline . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's fine with me if it is , or we cou But I thought it might be good to remind people two weeks prior to that +Professor B: w +Postdoc A: in case , uh {disfmarker} you know , "" by the way {pause} this is your last {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Uh . Yeah . +Professor B: We probably should have talked about it , cuz i because if we wanna be able to give it to people July fifteenth , if somebody 's gonna come back and say "" OK , I don't want this and this and this used "" , uh , clearly we need some time to respond to that . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah . As I said , we {disfmarker} I just got one date +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Damn ! +Grad F: and that 's the one I used . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . But I can send a follow - up . I mean , it 's almost all us . I mean the people who are in the meeti this meeting was , uh , these {disfmarker} the meetings that {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} are in set one . +PhD C: Was my {disfmarker} was my response OK ? +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD C: I just wrote you {disfmarker} replied to the email saying they 're all fine . +Grad F: Right . I mean , that 's fine . +PhD C: OK , good . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} My understanding of what we {pause} had agreed upon when we had spoken about this months ago was that , uh , we don't actually need a reply . +PhD C: That makes it easy . +Grad F: We just need to tell them that they can do it if they want . +Professor B: OK . I just didn't remember , but {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so no reply is no changes . +Postdoc A: And he 's got it so that the default thing you see when you look at the page is "" OK "" . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: So that 's very clear all the way down the page , "" OK "" . And they have two options they can change it to . One of them is {pause} "" censor "" , and the other one is "" incorrect "" . Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} your word is "" incorrect "" ? +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Which means also we get feedback on {pause} if {pause} um , there 's something that they w that needs to be {pause} adjusted , because , I mean , these are very highly technical things . I mean , it 's an added , uh , level of checking on the accuracy of the transcription , as I see it . But in any case , people can agree to things that are wrong . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: So . +Grad F: Yeah . The reason I did that it was just so that people would not censor {disfmarker} not ask to have stuff removed because it was transcribed incorrectly , +Postdoc A: And the reason I liked it was because {disfmarker} +Grad F: as opposed to , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: was because it , um {disfmarker} it gives them the option of , uh , being able to correct it . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Approve it and correct it . And {pause} um . So , you have {pause} it nicely set up so they email you and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: When they submit the form , it gets processed and emailed to me . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I wanted to say the meetings that are involved in that set are Robustness and Meeting Recorder . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: The German ones will be ready for next week . Those are three {disfmarker} three of those . A different set of people . And we can impose {disfmarker} +PhD C: The German ones ? +Postdoc A: Uh , well . +PhD H: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: NSA . +Postdoc A: OK . I spoke loosely . The {disfmarker} the German , French {disfmarker} Sorry , the German , {vocalsound} Dutch , and Spanish ones . +PhD E: Spanish . Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , those are the NSA meetings ? +PhD E: The non - native {disfmarker} +PhD H: Those are {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: German , Dutch , Swiss and Spanish . +PhD C: Oh , oh ! OK . +PhD E: The all non - native {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's r +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Uh - huh . +PhD C: OK . I 'd {disfmarker} I d +Postdoc A: Yeah . {pause} It 's the other group . +Professor B: I It was the network {disfmarker} network services group . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean to {pause} isolate them . +Professor B: Otherwise known as the German , Dutch , and Spanish . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Sorry . It was {disfmarker} it was not the best characterization . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: But what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I meant to say was that it 's the other group that 's not {disfmarker} n no m no overlap with our present members . And then maybe it 'd be good to set an explicit deadline , something like {pause} a week {pause} before that , uh , J July fifteenth date , or two weeks before . +Professor B: I mean , I would suggest we discuss {disfmarker} I mean , if we 're going to have a policy on it , that we discuss the length of time that we want to give people , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that we have a uniform thing . So , tha that 's a month , which is fine . I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +PhD C: Twelve hours . +Grad F: Well , the only thing I said in the email is that {pause} the data is going to be released on the fifteenth . I didn't give any other deadline . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So my feeling is if someone after the fifteenth says , "" wow I suddenly found something "" , we 'll delete it from our record . We just won't delete it from whatever 's already been released . +Postdoc A: Hmm . That 's a little bit difficult . +Grad F: What else can we do ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: If someone says "" hey , look , I {pause} found something in this meeting and {pause} it 's libelous and I want it removed "" . What can we do ? +Postdoc A: Well . {pause} That 's true . +Grad F: We have to remove it . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I agree with that part , but I think that it would {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} we need to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a message to them very clearly that {vocalsound} beyond this date , you can't make additional changes . +Professor B: I mean , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i I think that somebody might {pause} request something even though we say that . But I think it 's good to at least start some place like that . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: So if we agreed , {vocalsound} OK , how long is a reasonable amount of time for people to have {disfmarker} if we say two weeks , or if we say a month , I think we should just say that {disfmarker} say that , you know , i a as {pause} um , {vocalsound} "" per the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , page you signed , you have the ability to look over this stuff "" and so forth "" and , uh , because we w "" these , uh {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine some sort of generic thing that would say "" because we , uh , will continually be making these things available {vocalsound} to other researchers , uh , this can't be open - ended and so , uh , uh , please give us back your response within this am you know , within this amount of time "" , whatever time we agree upon . +Grad F: Well , did you read the email and look at the pages I sent ? +Professor B: Did I ? No , I haven't yet . No , just {disfmarker} +Grad F: No . OK , well why don't you do that and then make comments on what you want me to change ? +Professor B: No , no . I 'm not saying that you should change anything . I I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm trying to spark a discussion hopefully among people who have read it so that {disfmarker} that you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you can , uh , decide on something . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I 'm not telling you what to decide . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I 'm just saying you should decide something , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I already did decide something , and that 's what 's in the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . OK , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: And if you disagree with it , why don't you read it and give me comments on it ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that there 's one missing line . +Professor B: Well , the one thing that I did read and that you just repeated to me {pause} was that you gave the specific date of July fifteenth . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And you also just said that the reason you said that was because someone said it to you . So what I 'm telling you {pause} is that what you should do is come up with a length of time that you guys think is enough +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and you should use that rather than {pause} this date that you just got from somewhere . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: OK ? +Postdoc A: I ha I have one question . This is in the summer period and presumably people may be out of town . But we can make the assumption , can't we ? that , um , they will be receiving email , uh , most of the month . Right ? Because if someone {disfmarker} +Professor B: It {disfmarker} well , it {disfmarker} well , you 're right . Sometimes somebody will be {pause} away and , uh , you know , there 's , uh {disfmarker} for any length of time that you {vocalsound} uh , choose {pause} there is some person sometime who will not {pause} end up reading it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , just a certain risk to take . +PhD H: S so maybe when {disfmarker} Am I on , by the way ? +Grad F: I don't know . You should be . +PhD H: Oh . Hello ? Hello ? +Grad F: You should be channel B . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Alright . So . The , um {disfmarker} Maybe we should say in {disfmarker} w you know , when the whole thing starts , when they sign the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the agreement {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} you know , specify exactly uh , what , you know , how {disfmarker} how they will be contacted and they can , you know {disfmarker} they can be asked to give a phone number and an email address , or both . And , um , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We did that , I {disfmarker} I believe . +PhD H: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: So . {vocalsound} A And , then , you know , say very clearly that if they don't {disfmarker} if we don't hear from them , you know , as Morgan suggested , by a certain time or after a certain {vocalsound} period after we contact them {vocalsound} that is implicitly giving their agreement . +Grad F: Well , they 've already signed a form . +Postdoc A: And the form says {disfmarker} +PhD E: And nobody {disfmarker} nobody really reads it anyway . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: So . And the s and the form was approved by Human Subjects , +PhD H: Says that . Right . +Postdoc A: Uh , the f +PhD H: Well , if that 's i tha if that 's already {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad F: so , eh , that 's gonna be a little hard to modify . +Postdoc A: Well , the form {disfmarker} Well , the form doesn't say , if {disfmarker} uh , you know , "" if you don't respond by X number of days or X number of weeks {disfmarker} "" +PhD H: I see . Uh {disfmarker} Oh , OK . So what does it say about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the process of {disfmarker} of , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} y the review process ? +Postdoc A: It doesn't have a time limit . That you 'll be provided access to the transcripts and then , uh , allowed to {pause} remove things that you 'd like to remove , before it goes to the general {disfmarker} uh , larger audience . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Hmm . Right . +Grad F: Here . +Postdoc A: There you go . +Grad F: You can read what you already signed . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: I guess when I {pause} read it , um {disfmarker} +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: I 'm not as diligent as Chuck , but I had the feeling I should probably respond and tell Adam , like , "" I got this and I will do it by this date , and if you don't hear from me by then {disfmarker} "" You know , in other words responding to your email {pause} once , right away , saying "" as soon as you get this could you please respond . "" +Grad F: Right . +PhD E: And then if you {disfmarker} if the person thinks they 'll need more time because they 're out of town or whatever , they can tell you at that point ? Because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I didn't wanna do that , because I don't wanna have a discussion with every person {pause} if I can avoid it . +PhD E: Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: So what I wanted to do was just send it out and say "" on the fifteenth , the data is released , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: if you wanna do something about it , do something about it , but that 's it "" . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I kind of like this . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . So , we 're assuming that {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that would be great if {disfmarker} but you should probably have a {pause} legal person look at this and {pause} make sure it 's OK . Because if you {disfmarker} if you , uh , do this {vocalsound} and you {disfmarker} then there 's a dispute later and , uh , some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , someone who understands these matters concludes that they didn't have , uh , you know , enough opportunity to actually {vocalsound} exercise their {disfmarker} their right {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or they {disfmarker} they might never have gotten the email , because although they signed this , they don't know by which date to expect your email . And so {pause} someone whose machine is down or whatever {disfmarker} I mean , we have no {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: in internally we know that people are there , +Grad F: Well , OK . l Let me {disfmarker} Let me reverse this . +PhD E: but we have no confirmation that they got the mail . +Grad F: So let 's say someone {disfmarker} I send this out , and someone doesn't respond . Do we delete every meeting that they were in ? +PhD E: Well , then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't think so . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} we 're hoping that doesn't happen , +PhD H: No . +PhD E: but that 's why there 's such a thing as registered mail +Grad F: That will happen . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +PhD H: That will happen . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: That will absolutely happen . Because people don't read their email , or they 'll read and say "" I don't care about that , I 'm not gonna delete anything "" and they don just won't reply to it . +PhD H: Maybe {disfmarker} uh , do we have mailing addresses for these people ? +Grad F: No . We have what they put on the speaker form , +PhD H: No . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Grad F: which was just generic contact information . +PhD H: Oh . +Postdoc A: But the ones that we 're dealing with now are all local , +PhD H: Well , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: except the ones who {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we 're totally in contact with all the ones in those two groups . +PhD H: Mmm . OK . +Postdoc A: So maybe , uh , I {disfmarker} you know , that 's not that many people and if I {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} i i there is an advantage to having them admit {disfmarker} and if I can help with {disfmarker} with processing that , I will . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there is an advantage to having them be on record as having received the mail and indicating {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean I thought we had discussed this , like , a year ago . +Postdoc A: Yes , we did . +Grad F: And so it seems like this is a little odd for it to be coming up yet again . +Postdoc A: You 're right . Well , I {disfmarker} you know . But sometimes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we {disfmarker} we haven't experienced it before . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 'll either wonder {pause} at the beginning or you 'll wonder at the end . +Postdoc A: Need to get it right . +PhD E: I mean , there 's no way to get around {disfmarker} I It 's pretty much the same am amount of work except for an additional email just saying they got the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: And maybe it 's better legally to wonder before {disfmarker} you know , a little bit earlier than {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's much easier to explain {pause} this way . +Grad F: OK . Well , why don't you talk {pause} t +Postdoc A: T t to have it on record . +Grad F: Morgan , can you talk to our lawyer about it , and find out what the status is on this ? Cuz I don't wanna do something that we don't need to . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but w Mmm . +Grad F: Because what {disfmarker} I 'm telling you , people won't respond to the email . No matter what you do , you there 're gonna be people who {pause} you 're gonna have to make a lot of effort to get in contact with . +Postdoc A: Well , then we make the effort . +Grad D: I mean , i it 's k +Grad F: And do we want to spend that effort ? +PhD H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: We make the effort . +Grad D: It 's kind of like signing up for a mailing list . They have opt in and opt out . And there are two different ways . I mean , and either way works probably , I mean . +Postdoc A: Except I really think in this case {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm agr I agree with Liz , that we need to be {pause} in the clear and not have to after the fact say "" oh , but I assumed "" , and "" oh , I 'm sorry that your email address was just accumulating mail without notifying you "" , you know . +Professor B: If this is a purely administrative task , we can actually have administration do it . +Postdoc A: Oh , excellent . +Professor B: But the thing is that , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , without going through a whole expensive thing with our lawyers , {vocalsound} from my previous conversations with them , my {disfmarker} my sense very {pause} much is that we would want something on record {pause} as indicating that they actually were aware of this . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad F: Well , we had talked about this before +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I thought that we had even gone by the lawyers asking about that and they said you have to s they 've already signed away the f with that form {disfmarker} that they 've already signed once . +Postdoc A: I don't remember that this issue of {pause} the time period allowed for response was ever covered . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We never really talked about that . +Grad F: OK . +PhD E: Or the date at which they would be receiving the email from you . +Postdoc A: Or {disfmarker} or how they would indicate {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: They probably forgot all about it . +Professor B: We certainly didn't talk , uh , about {disfmarker} with them at all about , uh , the manner of them being {disfmarker} {vocalsound} made the , uh , uh , materials available . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: We do it like with these {disfmarker} +Professor B: That was something that was sort of just within our implementation . +Grad F: OK . +PhD H: We can use it {disfmarker} we can use a {disfmarker} a ploy like they use to , um {disfmarker} you know , that when they serve , like {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} {comment} uh , you know , like dead - beat dads , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they make it look like they won something in the lottery and then they open the envelope +Grad D: And they 're served . +PhD H: and that {disfmarker} Right ? Because {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing is served . So you just make it , you know , "" oh , you won {disfmarker} you know , go to this web site and you 've , uh {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} "" +PhD E: That 's why you never open these things that come in the mail . +Postdoc A: That one . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , it 's just , we 've gone from one extreme to the other , where at one point , a few months ago , Morgan was {disfmarker} you were saying let 's not do anything , +PhD H: Right . {vocalsound} Right . No , it I {disfmarker} it might {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , it doesn't matter . +PhD H: i i it {disfmarker} it might well be the case {disfmarker} +Grad F: and now we 're {disfmarker} we 're saying we have to follow up each person and get a signature ? +PhD H: it might {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: I mean , what are we gonna doing here ? +PhD H: It might well be the case that {disfmarker} that this is perfectly {disfmarker} you know , this is enough to give us a basis t to just , eh , assume their consent if they don't reply . +Professor B: Well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: But , I 'm not {disfmarker} you know , me not being a lawyer , I wouldn't just wanna do that without {pause} having the {disfmarker} the expert , uh , opinion on that . +Postdoc A: And how many people ? Al - altogether we 've got twenty people . These people are people who read their email almost all the time . +Grad F: Then I think we had better find out , so that we can find a {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Let me look at this again . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I really don't see that it 's a problem . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's a common courtesy to ask them {disfmarker} uh , to expect for them to , uh , be able to have @ @ {comment} us try to contact them , +Grad F: For {disfmarker} for th +Postdoc A: u just in case they hadn't gotten their email . I think they 'd appreciate it . +Professor B: Yeah . My {disfmarker} Adam , my {disfmarker} my view before was about {pause} the nature of what was {disfmarker} of the presentation , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: of {disfmarker} of how {pause} my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} the things that we 're questioning were along the lines of how easy {disfmarker} uh , h how m how much implication would there be that it 's likely you 're going to be changing something , as opposed to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That was the kind of dispute I was making before . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I remember that . +Professor B: But , um , the attorneys , I {disfmarker} uh , I can guarantee you , the attorneys will always come back with {disfmarker} and we have to decide how stringent we want to be in these things , but they will always come back with saying {vocalsound} that , um , you need to {disfmarker} you want to have someth some paper trail or {disfmarker} which includes electronic trail {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that they have , uh , in fact {pause} O K 'd it . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I think that if you f i if {pause} we send the email as you have and if there 's half the people , say , who don't respond {pause} at all by , you know , some period of time , {vocalsound} we can just make a list of these people and hand it to , uh {disfmarker} you know , just give it to me and I 'll hand it to administrative staff or whatever , +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and they 'll just call them up and say , you know , "" have you {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this OK ? And would you please mail {disfmarker} you know , mail Adam that it is , if i if it , you know , is or not . "" So , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can do that . +PhD E: The other thing that there 's a psychological effect that {disfmarker} at least for most people , that if they 've responded to your email saying "" yes , I will do it "" or "" yes , I got your email "" , they 're more likely to actually do it {comment} {pause} later {pause} than to just ignore it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And of course we don't want them to bleep things out , but it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit better if we 're getting the {disfmarker} their , uh , final response , once they 've answered you once than if they never answer you 'd {comment} at al at all . That 's how these mailing houses work . So , I mean , it 's not completely lost work because it might benefit us in terms of getting {pause} responses . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , an official OK from somebody {pause} is better than no answer , even if they responded that they got your email . And they 're probably more likely to do that once they 've responded that they got the email . +Postdoc A: I also think they 'd just simply appreciate it . I think it 's a good {disfmarker} a good way of {disfmarker} of fostering goodwill among our subjects . Well , our participants . +Professor B: I think the main thing is {disfmarker} I mean , what lawyers do is they always look at worst cases . +Grad F: Sending lots of spam . +Professor B: So they s so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Tha - that 's what they 're paid to do . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: And so , {vocalsound} it is certainly possible that , uh , somebody 's server would be down or something and they wouldn't actually hear from us , and then they find this thing is in there and we 've already distributed it to someone . So , {vocalsound} what it says in there , in fact , is that they will be given an opportunity to blah - blah - blah , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if in fact {disfmarker} if we sent them something or we thought we sent them something but they didn't actually receive it for some reason , {vocalsound} um , then we haven't given them that . +Grad F: Well , so how far do we have to go ? Do we need to get someone 's signature ? Or , is email enough ? +Professor B: I i i em email is enough . +Grad F: Do we have to have it notarized ? I mean {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I 've been through this {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not a lawyer , but I 've been through these things a f things f like this a few times with lawyers now +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} I I 'm pretty comfortable with that . +PhD C: Do you track , um , when people log in to look at the {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Uh . If they submit the form , I get it . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad F: If they don't submit the form , it goes in the general web log . But that 's not sufficient . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad F: Right ? Cuz if someone just visits the web site that doesn't {pause} imply anything in particular . +PhD C: Except that you know they got the mail . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I could get you on the notify list if you want me to . +Grad F: I 'm already on it . +Postdoc A: For that directory ? OK , great . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So again , hopefully , um , this shouldn't be quite as odious a problem either way , uh , in any of the extremes we 've talked about because {vocalsound} uh , we 're talking a pretty small {pause} number of people . +Grad F: W For this set , I 'm not worried , because {pause} we basically know everyone on it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: You know , they 're all more or less here or it 's {disfmarker} it 's Eric and Dan and so on . But for some of the others , you 're talking about visitors who are {pause} gone from ICSI , whose email addresses may or may not work , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} So what are we gonna do when we run into someone that we can't get in touch with ? +Postdoc A: I don't think , uh {disfmarker} They 're so recent , these visitors . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} they 're also so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: They 're prominent enough that they 're easy to find through {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I w I 'll be able to {disfmarker} if you have any trouble finding them , I really think I could find them . +Grad F: Other methods ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it really does promise here is that we will ask their permission . Um , and I think , you know , if you go into a room and close the door and {disfmarker} and ask their permission {vocalsound} and they 're not there , it doesn't seem {comment} that that 's the intent of , uh , meaning here . So . +Grad F: Well , the qu the question is just whether {disfmarker} how active it has to be . I mean , because they {disfmarker} they filled out a contact information and that 's where I 'm sending the information . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And so far everyone has done email . There isn't anyone who did , uh , any other contact method . +Professor B: Well , the way ICSI goes , people , uh , who , uh , were here ten years ago still have acc {vocalsound} have forwards to other accounts and so on . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's unusual that {disfmarker} that they , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: So my original impression was that that was sufficient , that if they give us contact information and that contact information isn't accurate that {pause} we fulfilled our burden . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then they just come back . +PhD C: All my files were still here . +PhD E: Same as us . +Postdoc A: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if we get to a boundary case like that then maybe I will call the attorney about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: But , you know , hopefully we won't need to . +Postdoc A: I d I just don't think we will . For all the reasons that we 've discussed . +Grad F: Alright . +Professor B: So we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see if we do or not . +Grad F: Yep . And we 'll see how many people respond to that email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So far , two people have . +Professor B: Yeah . I think very few people will +Grad F: So . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , people {disfmarker} people see long emails about things that they don't think {vocalsound} is gonna be high priority , they typically , uh , don't {disfmarker} don't read it , or half read it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Cuz people are swamped . +Postdoc A: And actually , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} didn't anticipate this so I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't give this comment , and it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} this discussion has made me think it might be nice to have a follow - up email within the next couple of days saying "" by the way , you know , we wanna hear back from you by X date and please {disfmarker} "" , and then add what Liz said {disfmarker} "" please , uh , respond to {disfmarker} please indicate you received this mail . "" +Professor B: Uh , or e well , maybe even additionally , uh , um , "" Even if you 've decided you have no changes you 'd like to make , if you could tell us that "" . +Grad F: Respond to the email . {comment} Yep . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . It is the first time through the cycle . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . That would {disfmarker} that would definitely work on me . You know , it makes you feel m like , um , if you were gonna p if you 're predicting that you might not answer , you have a chance now to say that . Whereas , I {disfmarker} I mean , I would be much more likely myself , +PhD C: And the other th +PhD E: given all my email , t to respond at that point , saying "" you know what , I 'm probably not gonna get to it "" or whatever , rather than just having seen the email , thinking I might get to it , and never really , {vocalsound} uh , pushing myself to actually do it until it 's too late . +PhD C: Yeah . I was {disfmarker} I was thinking that it also {pause} lets them know that they don't have to go to the page to {pause} accept this . +PhD E: Right . R Right . That 's true . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . So that way they could {disfmarker} they can see from that email that if they just write back and say "" I got it , no changes "" , they 're off the hook . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: They don't have to go to the web page +Professor B: I mean , the other thing I 've learned from dealing with {disfmarker} dealing with people sending in reviews and so forth , uh , is , um , {vocalsound} if you say "" you 've got three months to do this review "" , {vocalsound} um , people do it , you know , {vocalsound} two and seven eighths months from now . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: If you say "" you 've got three weeks to do this review "" , they do {disfmarker} do it , you know , two and seven eighths weeks from now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they do the review . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: And , um {disfmarker} So , if we make it {pause} a little less time , I don't think it 'll be that much {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , and also if we want it ready by the fifteenth , that means we better give them deadline of the first , if we have any prayer of actually getting everyone to respond in time . +Professor B: There 's the responding part and there 's also what if , uh , I mean , I hope this doesn't happen , what if there are a bunch of deletions that have to get put in and changes ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Then {vocalsound} we actually have to deal with that +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Some lead time . +Professor B: if we want it to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Ugh ! Disk space , +Postdoc A: By the way , has {disfmarker} has Jeremy signed the form ? +Grad F: oh my god ! I hadn't thought about that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: That for every meeting {disfmarker} any meeting which has any bleeps in it we need yet another copy of . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD C: Just that channel . +Grad D: Can't you just do that channel ? +PhD C: Oh , no . We have to do {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , of course not . +PhD E: Yeah . You have to do all of them , +Grad F: You need all the channels . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD C: Do you have to do the other close - talking ? +PhD E: as well as all of these . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: You have to do all {disfmarker} You could just do it in that time period , though , +Grad F: Yes . Absolutely . There 's a lot of cross - talk . +Grad G: Wow . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: but I guess it 's a pain . +Grad F: Well , but you have to copy the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? Because we 're gonna be releasing the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . You 're right . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} you know , I think at a certain point , that copy that has the deletions will become the master copy . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's just I hate deleting any data . So I {disfmarker} I don't want {disfmarker} I really would rather make a copy of it , rather than bleep it out +Professor B: Are you del are you bleeping it by adding ? +Grad F: and then {disfmarker} Overlapping . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's exactly a censor bleep . So what I really think is "" bleep "" +Professor B: I I I I understand , but is {disfmarker} is it summing signals +Grad F: and then I want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: or do you {pause} delete the old one and put the new one in ? +Grad F: I delete the old one , put the new one in . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Cuz {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's nothing left of the original signal . +Professor B: Oh . Cuz if you were summing , you could {disfmarker} No . But anyway {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . It would be qui quite easy to get it back again . +Postdoc A: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And then w I was gonna say also that the they don't have to stay on the system , as you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then someday we can sell the {pause} unedited versions . +Postdoc A: cuz {disfmarker} cuz the {disfmarker} the ones {disfmarker} +Grad F: Say again ? +Postdoc A: Once it 's been successfully bleeped , can't you rely on the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Or {pause} we 'll tell people the frequency of the beep +Professor B: Encrypt it . +PhD C: and then they could subtract the beep out . +Grad D: You can hide it . Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can't you rely on the archiving to preserve the older version ? +PhD H: Oh , yeah . +Grad D: It wouldn't be that hard to hide it . +PhD E: Right . Exactly . I see . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . Yeah . Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: See , this is good . I wanted to create some {pause} side conversations in these meetings . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . You could encrypt it , you know , with a {disfmarker} with a two hundred bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} thousand bit , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can use spread spectrum . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Hide it . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Here we go . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , there you go . +PhD E: Cuz we don't have enough asides . +PhD H: I have an idea . You reverse the signal , +Grad D: There you go . +PhD H: so it {disfmarker} it lets people say what they said backwards . +Grad F: Backwards . +Grad D: Then you have , like , subliminal , uh , messages , +Grad F: But , ha you 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the speech recognition system that reversed very short segments . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad D: like . +Grad F: Did you read that paper ? It wouldn't work . +PhD H: No . +Grad F: The speech recognizer still works . +PhD E: Yeah . And if you do it backward then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's cuz they use forward - backward . +PhD E: H - good old HMM . +Grad F: Forward but backward . That 's right . +PhD E: No , it 's backward - forward . +Grad F: Good point . A point . Well , I 'm sorry if I sound a little peeved about this whole thing . It 's just we 've had meeting after meeting after meeting a on this and it seems like we 've never gotten it resolved . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Well , but we never also {disfmarker} we 've also never done it . +PhD E: Uh . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: This is the first cycle . +PhD E: If it makes {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: There 're bound to be some glitches the first time through . +Professor B: So . {vocalsound} And , uh {disfmarker} and I 'm sorry responding without , uh , having much knowledge , but the thing is , uh , I am , like , one of these people who gets a gazillion mails and {disfmarker} and stuff comes in as +Grad F: Well , and that 's exactly why I did it the way I did it , which is the default is if you do nothing we 're gonna release it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Because , you know , I have my {pause} stack of emails of to d to be done , that , you know , fifty or sixty long , and the ones at the top I 'm never gonna get to . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And , uh {pause} So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD C: Move them to the bottom . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so the only thing we 're missing is {disfmarker} is some way to respond to easily to say , uh , "" OK , go ahead "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah , right . So , i this is gonna mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just re - mail them to yourself and then they 're at the bottom . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's actually definitely a good point . The m email doesn't specify that you can just reply to the email , as op as opposed to going to the form +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: In {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it also doesn't give a {disfmarker} a specific {disfmarker} I didn't think of it . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: S I think it 's a good idea {disfmarker} an ex explicit time by which this will be considered definite . +Grad F: Yeah , release . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and it has to be a time earlier than that endpoint . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's converging . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD H: This {disfmarker} um , I 've seen this recently . Uh , I got email , and it {disfmarker} i if I use a MIME - capable mail reader , it actually says , you know , click on this button to confirm receipt {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the mail . +Postdoc A: Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's like certified mail . +Grad F: A lot of mailers support return receipt . +Postdoc A: Could do that . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: But it doesn't confirm that they 've read it . +PhD H: No , no , no . This is different . This is not {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I know , you can tell , you know , the , uh , mail delivery agent to {disfmarker} to confirm that the mail was delivered to your mailbox . +Postdoc A: Mmm . +Grad F: Right . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but , no . This was different . Ins - in the mail , there was a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , just a button . +PhD H: uh , th there was a button that when you clicked on it , it would send , uh , you know , a actual acknowledgement to the sender that you had actually looked at the mail . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Unfor - Yeah , we could do that . But I hate that . +PhD H: But it o but it only works for , you know , MIME - capable {disfmarker} you know , if you use Netscape or something like that for your n +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: You might as well just respond to the mail . +Professor B: And we actually need a third thing . +PhD E: I mean +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: It 's not that you 've looked at it , it 's that you 've looked at it and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and agree with one of the possible actions . +PhD H: No , no . You can do that . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD H: You know , you can put this button anywhere you want , +Professor B: Oh ? Oh , I see . +PhD H: and you can put it the bottom of the message and say "" here , by {disfmarker} you know , by clicking on this , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , you know , I acknowledge {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: That i i my first - born children are yours , and {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Quick question . Are , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I could put a URL in there without any difficulty and {pause} even pretty simple MIME readers can do that . So . +Postdoc A: But why shouldn't they just {pause} email back ? I don't see there 's a problem . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Reply . +PhD H: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's very nice . I {disfmarker} I like the high - tech aspect of it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but I think {disfmarker} +PhD H: No , no , no . {vocalsound} I actually don't . +Postdoc A: I appreciate it . +PhD H: I 'm just saying that +Grad F: Well , I {disfmarker} cuz I use a text mail reader . +PhD H: if ev but I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD E: Don't you use VI for your mai ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . That 's {disfmarker} that 's my guy . Alright . +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you read email {pause} in VI ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . {vocalsound} I like VI . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} i There 's these logos {pause} that you can put at the bottom of your web page , like "" powered by VI "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . +Grad D: I see . +PhD E: Anyway , quick question . +Grad F: You could put wed bugs in the email . +PhD E: How m +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD E: Like , there were three meetings this time , or so +Postdoc A: Six . +PhD E: or how many ? Six ? But , no of different people . So I guess if you 're in both these types of meetings , you 'd have a lot . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} I mean , it also depends on how many {disfmarker} Like , if we release {disfmarker} this time it 's a fairly small number of meetings , but what if we release , like , twenty - five meetings to people ? In th +Grad F: Well , what my s expectation is , is that we 'll send out one of these emails {pause} every time a meeting has been checked and is ready . +PhD E: I don't know . Oh . Oh , OK . So this time was just the first chunk . OK . +Grad F: So . Tha - that was my intention . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} that we just happened to have a bunch all at once . +PhD E: Well , that 's a good idea . +Grad F: I mean , maybe {disfmarker} Is that {pause} the way it 's gonna be , you think , Jane ? +Postdoc A: I agree with you . It 's {disfmarker} we could do it , uh {disfmarker} I I could {disfmarker} I 'd be happy with either way , batch - wise {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} Uh , so this one {disfmarker} That was exactly right , that we had a {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had wanted to get the entire set of twelve hours ready . Don't have it . But , uh , this was the biggest clump I could do by a time where I thought it was reasonable . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: People would be able to check it and still have it ready by then . My , um {disfmarker} I was thinking that with the {pause} NSA meetings , I 'd like {disfmarker} there are three of them , and they 're {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I will have them done by Monday . Uh , unfortunately the time is later and I don't know how that 's gonna work out , but I thought it 'd be good to have that released as a clump , too , because then , {vocalsound} you know , they 're {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have a {disfmarker} it it 's in a category , it 's not quite so distracting to them , is what I was thinking , and it 's all in one chu But after that , when we 're caught up a bit on this process , then , um , I could imagine sending them out periodically as they become available . +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc A: I could do it either way . I mean , it 's a question of how distracting it is to the people who have to do the checking . +Professor B: We heard anything from IBM ? at all ? +PhD C: Uh . Let 's see . We {disfmarker} Yeah , right . So we got the transcript back from that one meeting . Everything seemed fine . Adam {pause} had a script that will {pause} put everything back together and there was {disfmarker} Well , there was one small problem but it was a simple thing to fix . And then , um , {vocalsound} we , uh {disfmarker} I sent him a pointer to three more . And so he 's {pause} off and {pause} working on those . +Grad F: Yeah . Now we haven't actually had anyone go through that meeting , to see whether the transcript is correct and to see how much was missed and all that sort of stuff . +Postdoc A: That 's on my list . +Grad F: So at some point we need to do that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well , that 's on my list . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's gonna have to go through our regular process . +Grad F: I mean , the one thing I noticed is it did miss a lot of backchannels . There are a fair number of "" yeahs "" and "" uh - huhs "" that {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} that aren't in there . So . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Like you said , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be our standard proc that 's what the transcribers are gonna be spending most of their time doing , I would imagine , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor B: once {disfmarker} once we {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Yeah . +Postdoc A: One question about the backchannels . +Professor B: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Do you suppose that was because they weren't caught by the pre - segmenter ? +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: Oh , interesting . Oh , interesting . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're not in the segmented . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: It 's not that the {pause} IBM people didn't do it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: Just they didn't get marked . +Postdoc A: OK . So maybe when the detector for that gets better or something {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} There 's another issue which is this {disfmarker} we 've been , uh , contacted by University of Washington now , of course , to , um {disfmarker} We sent them the transcripts that correspond to those {pause} six meetings and they 're downloading the audio files . So they 'll be doing that . Chuck 's {disfmarker} Chuck 's , uh , put that in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I pointed them to the set that Andreas put , uh , on the {vocalsound} web so th if they want to compare directly with his results they can . And , um , then once , uh , th we can also point them at the , um , uh , the original meetings and they can grab those , too , with SCP . +PhD E: Wait . So you put the reference files {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No , no . They d they wanted the audio . +PhD E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Jane sent them the , uh , transcripts . +PhD E: No , I mean of the transcripts . Um . Well , we can talk about it off - line . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's another meeting in here , what , at four ? Right ? Yeah , so we have to finish by three forty - five . +PhD H: D d So , does Washi - does {disfmarker} does UW wanna u do this {disfmarker} wanna use this data for recognition or for something else ? +PhD C: Uh , for recognition . +PhD E: I think they 're doing w +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: didn't they want to do language modeling on , you know , recognition - compatible transcripts +PhD H: Oh . I see . +Postdoc A: This is to show you , uh , some of the things that turn up during the checking procedure . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: Um @ @ {comment} So , this is from one of the NSA meetings and , uh , i if you 're familiar with the diff format , the arrow to the left is what it was , and the arrow to the right is {pause} what it was changed to . So , um . {vocalsound} And now the first one . "" OK . So , then we started a weekly meeting . The last time , uh {disfmarker} "" And the transcriber thought "" little too much "" But , {vocalsound} uh , really , um , it was "" we learned too much "" , which makes more sense syntactically as well . +PhD H: And these {disfmarker} the parentheses were f from {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Then {disfmarker} Oh , this {disfmarker} that 's the convention for indicating uncertain . +Grad F: U uncertains . +Postdoc A: So the transcriber was right . +PhD H: S +Postdoc A: You know , she was uncertain about that . +PhD H: OK . +Postdoc A: So she 's right to be uncertain . And it 's also a g a good indication of the {disfmarker} of that . +PhD H: Oh . {comment} OK . +Postdoc A: The next one . This was about , uh , Claudia and {pause} she 'd been really b busy with stuff , such as waivers . Uh , OK . Um , next one . Um . {vocalsound} This was {pause} an interesting one . So the original was "" So that 's not {disfmarker} so Claudia 's not the bad master here "" , and then he laughs , but it really "" web master "" . +Grad F: Web master . +Grad D: Oh . {comment} Uh - oh . +Postdoc A: And then you see another type of uncertainty which is , you know , they just didn't know what to make out of that . So instead of "" split upon unknown "" , {comment} it 's "" split in principle "" . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Jane , these are from IBM ? +Grad F: Spit upon ? +Grad D: The top lines ? +Postdoc A: No , no . These are {disfmarker} these are our local transcriptions of the NSA meetings . +Grad F: No , these are {pause} ours . +Postdoc A: The transcribers {disfmarker} transcriber 's version ver versus the checked version . +Grad D: Oh . Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: My {disfmarker} my checked version , after I go through it . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc A: Um , then you get down here . Um . Sometimes some speakers will insert foreign language terms . That 's the next example , the next one . The , uh , version beyond this is {disfmarker} So instead of saying "" or "" , especially those words , "" also "" and "" oder "" and some other ones . Those sneak in . Um , the next one {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's cool . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: S +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? Discourse markers ? Sure . Sure , sure , sure . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: And it 's {disfmarker} and it makes sense +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz it 's , like , below this {disfmarker} it 's a little subliminal there . +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc A: Um . OK , the next one , uh , {vocalsound} this is a term . The problem with terminology . Description with th the transcriber has "" X as an advance "" . But really it 's "" QS in advance "" . I mean , I {disfmarker} I 've benefited from some of these , uh , cross - group meetings . OK , then you got , um , {vocalsound} uh , instead of "" from something - or - other cards "" , {comment} it 's "" for multicast "" . And instead of "" ANN system related "" , it 's "" end system related "" . This was changed to an acronym initially and it should shouldn't have been . And then , you can see here "" GPS "" was misinterpreted . It 's just totally understanda This is {disfmarker} this is a lot of jargon . Um , and the final one , the transcriber had th "" in the core network itself or the exit unknown , not the internet unknown "" . And it {disfmarker} it comes through as "" in the core network itself of the access provider , not the internet backbone core "" . Now this is a lot of {pause} terminology . And they 're generally extremely good , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc A: but , you know in this {disfmarker} this area it really does pay to , um {disfmarker} to double check and I 'm hoping that when the checked versions are run through the recognizer that you 'll see s substantial improvements in performance cuz the {disfmarker} you know , there 're a lot of these in there . +PhD H: Yeah . So how often {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah , but I bet {disfmarker} I bet they 're acoustically challenging parts anyway , though . +Postdoc A: No , actually no . +Grad D: Mmm . +Postdoc A: Huh - uh . +Grad F: Oh , really ? Uh , it 's {disfmarker} Oh , so it 's just jargon . +Postdoc A: It 's jargon . Yeah . I mean this is {disfmarker} cuz , you know you don't realize in daily life how much you have top - down influences in what you 're hearing . +PhD H: Well , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it 's jar it 's jargon coupled with a foreign accent . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} But we don't {disfmarker} I mean , our language model right now doesn't know about these words anyhow . So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: you know , un until you actually {pause} get a decent language model , @ @ {comment} Adam 's right . +Grad F: It probably won't do any better . +PhD H: You probably won't notice a difference . But it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's definitely good that these are fixed . I mean , {vocalsound} obviously . +Postdoc A: Well , also from the standpoint of getting people 's approval , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz if someone sees a page full of uh , um , barely decipherable w you know , sentences , and then is asked to approve of it or not , {vocalsound} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Did I say that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That would be a shame if people said "" well , I don't approve it because {pause} the {disfmarker} it 's not what I said "" . +Grad F: Well , that 's exactly why I put the extra option in , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Exactly . That 's why we discussed that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: is that I was afraid people would say , "" let 's censor that because it 's wrong "" , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: and I don't want them to do that . +Postdoc A: And then I also {disfmarker} the final thing I have for transcription is that I made a purchase of some other headphones +PhD H: C +Postdoc A: because of the problem of low gain in the originals . And {disfmarker} and they very much appro they mu much prefer the new ones , and actually I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that there will be fewer things to correct because of the {disfmarker} the choice . We 'd originally chosen , uh , very expensive head headsets +Grad F: Yeah . Ugh ! +Postdoc A: but , um , they 're just not as good as these , um , in this {disfmarker} with this respect to this particular task . +PhD H: Well , return the old ones . +Grad F: It 's probably impedance matching problems . +Postdoc A: I don't know exactly , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but we chose them because that 's what 's been used here by prominent projects in transcription . +Professor B: Could be . +Postdoc A: So it i we had every reason to think they would work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: So you have spare headsets ? +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? +PhD H: You have spare headsets ? +Grad F: They 're just earphones . They 're not headsets . They 're not microphones . +PhD E: Right . +PhD H: No , no . I mean , just earphones ? Um , because I , uh , I could use one on my workstation , just to t because sometimes I have to listen to audio files and I don't have to b go borrow it from someone and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We have actua actually I have {disfmarker} W Well , the thing is , that if we have four people come to work {pause} for a day , I was {disfmarker} I was hanging on to the others for , eh {disfmarker} for spares , +PhD H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: but I can tell you what I recommend . +Professor B: No , but you 'd {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} Yeah , w we should get it . +PhD H: Sure . No problem . +Grad F: But if you need it , just get it . +PhD H: I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Come on . +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . If you need it . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 'd just have to be a s a separate order {disfmarker} an added order . +Grad D: Yeah , I still {disfmarker} I still need to get a pair , too . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're pretty inexpensive . +PhD E: Yeah , that {disfmarker} We should order a cou uh , t two or three or four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm using one of these . Yeah . +PhD E: We have {disfmarker} +PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home , but it 's f just for music listening +Professor B: No . Just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just buy them . +PhD E: Sh - Just get the model number +PhD H: and it 's not {disfmarker} Nnn . Yeah . +Professor B: Just buy them . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Where do you buy these from ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks , just down the street . +PhD E: Like {disfmarker} ? You just b go and b +Postdoc A: Yeah . They always have them in stock . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: That 'd be a good idea . +PhD H: Anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: W uh , could you email out the brand ? +Postdoc A: Oh , sure . Yeah . OK . +Grad F: Cuz I think {disfmarker} sounds like people are interested . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Definitely . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: It 's made a difference in {disfmarker} in how easy . Yeah . +Professor B: I realized something I should talk about . So what 's the other thing on the agenda actually ? +Grad F: Uh , the only one was Don wanted to , uh , talk about disk space yet again . +Grad D: Yeah . u It 's short . I mean , if you wanna go , we can just throw it in at the end . +Professor B: No , no . Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you go ahead since it 's short . +Grad D: Um , well , uh . +Grad F: Oh , I thought you meant the disk space . Yeah , we know disk space is short . +PhD H: The disk space was short . Yeah . That 's what I thought too . +PhD E: That 's a great ambiguity . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's one of these {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's social +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} I i i it i +PhD E: and , uh , discourse level +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it 's great . Yeah , +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: double {disfmarker} double {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , it was really goo +PhD E: See , if I had that little {pause} scratch - pad , I would have made an X there . +Grad D: Thank you , thank you . +Grad F: Uh , well , we 'll give you one then . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . {vocalsound} So , um , without thinking about it , when I offered up my hard drive last week {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , no . +Grad D: Um , this is always a suspect phrase . +PhD E: It was while I was out of town . +Grad D: But , um , no . I , uh {disfmarker} I realized that we 're going to be doing a lot of experiments , um , {vocalsound} o for this , uh , paper we 're writing , so we 're probably gonna need a lot more {disfmarker} We 're probably gonna need {vocalsound} that disk space that we had on that eighteen gig hard drive . But , um , we also have someone else coming in that 's gonna help us out with some stuff . +Professor B: We 've just ordered a hundred gigabytes . +Grad D: So {disfmarker} OK . We just need to {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think we need , like , another eighteen gig disk {pause} to be safe . +Professor B: Well , we 're getting three thirty {disfmarker} thirty - sixes . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That are going into the main f file server . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Markham 's ordering and they should be coming in soon . +Grad D: W Well . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Soon ? +Grad D: Yeah . I mean , I guess the thing is is , all I need is to hang it off , like , {vocalsound} the person who 's coming in , Sonali 's , computer . +PhD H: Oh , so {disfmarker} so , you mean the d the internal {disfmarker} the disks on the machines that we just got ? +Grad D: Whew . Or we can move them . +Grad F: No . +PhD C: These are gonna go onto Abbott . +Grad F: Ne - new disks . +PhD H: Or extra disk ? +Professor B: Onto Abbott , the file server . +Grad D: So are we gonna move the stuff off of my hard drive onto that when those come in ? +Grad F: On {disfmarker} +PhD H: Oh , oh . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i +Grad F: Once they come in . Sure . +Grad D: OK . That 's fine . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when is this planned for {pause} roughly ? +PhD C: They should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I imagine next week or something . +Grad D: OK . +PhD E: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're desperate , I have some space on my drive . +Grad D: I think if I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad F: But I {disfmarker} I vacillate between no space free and {pause} a few gig free . +Grad D: Yeah . I think I can find something if I 'm desperate +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad D: and , um , in the meantime I 'll just hold out . +Grad F: OK . +Grad D: That was the only thing I wanted to bring up . +PhD C: It should be soon . We {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So there 's another hundred gig . So . +Grad D: Alright . Great . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . It 's great to be able to do it , +Grad D: That 's it . +Professor B: just say "" oh yeah , a hundred gig , +PhD E: Good . +Professor B: no big deal "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . A hundred gig here , a hundred gig there . +PhD E: Well , each meeting is like a gig or something , +Grad F: It 's eventually real disk space . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: so it 's really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I was just going to comment that I I 'm going to , uh , be on the phone with Mari tomorrow , late afternoon . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: We 're supposed to {vocalsound} get together and talk about , uh , where we are on things . Uh , there 's this meeting coming up , uh , and there 's also an annual report . Now , I never actually {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was asking about this . I don't really quite understand this . She was re she was referring to it as {disfmarker} I think this actually {pause} didn't just come from her , but this is {pause} what , uh , DARPA had asked for . Um , she 's referring to it as the an annual report for the fiscal year . But of course the fiscal year starts in October , so I don't quite understand w w why we do an annual report that we 're writing in July . +PhD C: She 's either really late or really early . +Grad F: Huh . Or she 's getting a good early start . +Professor B: Uh , I think basically it it 's none of those . It 's that the meeting is in July so they {disfmarker} so DARPA just said do an annual report . So . So . So anyway , I 'll be putting together stuff . I 'll do it , uh , you know , as much as I can without bothering people , just by looking at {disfmarker} at papers and status reports . I mean , the status reports you do are very helpful . +PhD H: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , so I can grab stuff there . And if , uh {disfmarker} if I have some questions I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad F: When we remember to fill them out . +Professor B: Yeah . If {pause} people could do it as soon as {disfmarker} as you can , if you haven't done one si recently . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , but , you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure before {pause} it 's all done , I 'll end up bugging people for {disfmarker} for more clarification about stuff . Um . {vocalsound} But , um , I don't know , I guess {disfmarker} I guess I know pretty much what people have been doing . We have these meetings and {disfmarker} and there 's the status reports . Uh . But , um . Um . Yeah . So that wasn't a long one . Just to tell you that . And if something {vocalsound} hasn't , uh {disfmarker} I 'll be talking to her late tomorrow afternoon , and if something hasn't been in a status report and you think it 's important thing to mention on {vocalsound} this kind of thing , uh , uh , just pop me a one - liner and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll have it in front of me for the phone conversation . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: Uh . I guess , uh , you you 're still pecking away at the {pause} demos and all that , probably . +Grad F: Yep . And Don is {pause} gonna be helping out with that . +Professor B: Oh , that 's right . +Grad F: So . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Did you wanna talk about that this afternoon ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad F: Not here , but later today ? +Grad D: We should probably talk off - line about when we 're gonna talk off - line . +Grad F: OK . OK . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , I might want to get updated about it in about a week cuz , um , I 'm actually gonna have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a few days off the following week , a after the {disfmarker} after the picnic . So . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's all I had . +Grad F: So we were gonna do sort of status of speech transcription {disfmarker} automatic transcription , but we 're kind of running late . So . +PhD E: How long does it take you to save the data ? +Grad F: Fifteen minutes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . If you wanna do a quick +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: ten minute {disfmarker} +PhD E: Guess we should stop , like , twenty of at the latest . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: We {disfmarker} we have another meeting coming in that they wanna record . +Professor B: And there 's the digits to do . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: So maybe {disfmarker} may maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Well , we can skip the digits . +Professor B: We could . Fi - five minute report or something . +PhD E: It 's up to you . I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Whatever you want . +Professor B: Well , I would love to hear about it , +Grad F: What do you have to say ? +Professor B: especially since {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'm interested , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I 'm gonna be on the phone tomorrow , so this is just a {pause} good example of {pause} the sort of thing I 'd like to {pause} hear about . +PhD E: Wait . Why is everybody looking at me ? +PhD C: I don't know . +Grad F: Sorry . +Professor B: Cuz he looked at you +PhD H: What ? +Professor B: and says you 're sketching . +PhD E: Uh . I 'm not sure what you were referring to . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} actually , I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} ? Are we supposed to have done something ? +Grad F: No . We were just talking before about alternating the subject of the meeting . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: And this week we were gonna try to do {pause} t automatic transcription {pause} status . +PhD H: Alternating . +PhD E: I wasn't here last week . Sorry . +PhD H: Oh ! +PhD E: Oh . +Grad F: But we sort of failed . +PhD H: We did that last week . Right ? +PhD E: Hhh . +Grad F: No . +Professor B: I thought we did . +Grad F: Did we ? OK . +PhD H: Yeah . We did . +Grad F: OK . So now {disfmarker} now we have the schedule . So next week we 'll do automatic transcription status , plus anything that 's real timely . +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: Oh . OK . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK . Whew ! +PhD C: Good update . +Grad F: Whew ! +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} +Grad F: Dodged that bullet . +Professor B: Yeah . Nicely done , Liz . +Postdoc A: A woman of few words . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but lots of prosody . OK . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad F: Th +PhD H: Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} we really haven't done anything . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD H: Sorry . +Postdoc A: Well , since last week . +PhD E: Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} +PhD H: I mean , the {disfmarker} the next thing on our agenda is to go back and look at the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the automatic alignments because , uh , I got some {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I learned from Thilo what data we can use as a benchmark to see how well we 're doing on automatic alignments of the background speech {disfmarker} or , of the foreground speech with background speech . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD H: So . +PhD E: And then , uh , I guess , the new data that Don will start to process {disfmarker} +PhD H: But , we haven't actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the , um {disfmarker} when he can get these {disfmarker} You know , before we were working with these segments that were all synchronous and that caused a lot of problems +PhD H: Mmm . +PhD E: because you have timed sp at {disfmarker} on either side . +Grad F: Oh . Right , right . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And so that 's sort of a stage - two of trying the same kinds of alignments with the tighter boundaries with them is really the next step . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I 'll be interested . +PhD E: We did get our , um {disfmarker} I guess , good news . We got our abstract accepted for this conference , um {disfmarker} workshop , ISCA workshop , in , um , uh , New Jersey . And we sent in a very poor abstract , but they {disfmarker} very poor , very quick . Um , but we 're hoping to have a paper for that as well , which should be an interesting {disfmarker} +Grad F: When 's it due ? +PhD E: The t paper isn't due until August . The abstracts were already due . So it 's that kind of workshop . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But , I mean , the good news is that that will have sort of the European experts in prosody {disfmarker} sort of a different crowd , and I think we 're the only people working on prosody in meetings so far , so that should be interesting . +Postdoc A: What 's the name of the meeting ? +PhD E: Uh , it 's ISCA Workshop on Prosody in Speech Recognition and Understanding , or something like that {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's called Prosody to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Good . +PhD E: some generic {disfmarker} Uh , so it 's focused on using prosody in automatic systems and there 's a {disfmarker} um , a web page for it . +Professor B: Y you going to , uh , Eurospeech ? Yeah . +Grad F: I don't have a paper +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: but I 'd kinda like to go , if I could . Is that alright ? +Professor B: We 'll discuss it . +Grad F: OK . {vocalsound} I guess that 's "" no "" . +Professor B: My {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my car {disfmarker} my car needs a good wash , by the way . +Grad F: OK . Well , that th Hey , if that 's what it takes , that 's fine with me . +Professor B: Um . +Grad F: I 'll pick up your dry - cleaning , too . Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD H: Can I go next ? Because I have to leave , actually . +Grad F: Yep . Go for it . Hmm ! Thanks . Thank you . +Professor B: So you get to be the one who has all the paper rustling . Right ? +","Summary: + +The conversation revolves around various technical and administrative topics related to their research group's activities. Discussion points include the type of microphone Jeremy is using, which is a wired ear-plug mic, and the noise and interruptions in their meeting environment. They talk about sending out consent forms and the July 15th deadline for accessing the transcripts, with some confusion over the reason for choosing that specific date. Additionally, they touch on the need to follow up on consent and the administrative process for obtaining acknowledgment from the participants, which involves ensuring that participants have enough time to review and give feedback or consent to the use of their data. + +Professor B plans to write an annual report for DARPA and wants to include recent status updates and significant developments from the group's work, urging everyone to submit their latest information. + +Grad F and PhD E mention a recent abstract acceptance for an ISCA Workshop on Prosody and the importance of submitting a paper by August, with PhD E highlighting their unique position as they are working on prosody in meetings. There is also a mention of Eurospeech, which Grad F expresses interest in attending, and Professor B humorously suggests that Grad F could earn his way to the conference by doing chores like washing his car. + +Finally, the group briefly discusses the need for more disk space for their experiments, as they anticipate needing a significant amount of data storage. They are expecting an additional hundred gigabytes to be added to the file server soon to accommodate this need." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I have received apologies for absence from Jack Sargeant, and I'm very pleased to welcome Vikki Howells, who is substituting for Jack this morning. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our last evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, and I'm really pleased to welcome back Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, who is deputy director of the children and families division; and Emma Gammon, who is the lawyer working on the Bill. So, thank you all for coming. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions because we've got lots of ground that we want to cover, and the first questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Deputy Minister. Of those individuals who responded to our written consultation in a personal capacity, nearly 70 per cent do not support this Bill. We also heard a clear message from the parents we met last week who oppose this Bill that, as parents, they understand clearly the difference between child abuse and a light smack from a loving parent. How would you like to respond to that? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Janet, for that question. I think I'd like to start by saying that child abuse is not the issue that the Bill is trying to address. What the Bill is trying to do is prohibit all forms of physical punishment, and that is in order to protect children's rights and to ensure that children have the same protection from physical punishment as adults. But I do understand that people have different views, and that's why this process has been so important—for us to hear what your views are and what parents' views are. I know that, often, people use different euphemisms really to make light of physical punishment. I've heard expressions used such as a 'light smack' or a 'loving smack' or a 'tap', and really there can be different interpretations of what is a 'light smack', what is a 'loving smack', and that doesn't really cover the issue of the frequency of such actions being taken. But I would say that, however mild it seems to be, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognises that any physical punishment of children, however minor, is incompatible with their human rights, and why should a big person hit a little person? That's been the sort of mantra, really, that has taken me through supporting this legislation—that it just seems wrong to me that there is something in the law that could mean that there could be an excuse for that happening. I believe we shouldn't have anything in the law that defends the physical punishment of children, and I don't think we should be defining acceptable ways of hitting or punishing children, because I think it does send a confused message to children. It says, 'It's okay for me to hit you, but don't you hit anybody else.' I think it causes confusion. So, I'm confident that updating the law will make it much clearer for parents and people working with children—and, of course, I'm sure, as you'll have heard from the evidence you've taken, that people who work with children are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation, and the representative surveys that we've carried out show support for the Bill's principles. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Last week, during the workshop, a few parents—predominantly all of them, actually—said that they use a gentle tap or smacking as part of a toolkit of ways to deal with challenging behaviour or, sometimes, for the safety of the child or, indeed, to carry out the parenting of a child. How do you intend to work with parents going forward, given the finite resources that social care and social services have? I know from the responses we've received to the consultation that parents themselves who have to parent 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they are really, on the scale of things, very upset about this. How do you intend to try and get your message across to those parents on removing what they consider to be part of their toolkit when raising children? How do you intend to deal with that aspect? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, I want to say, as I've said in most evidence sessions, that I completely accept that bringing up children is hard. It's very difficult; many of us have done it and we know how tough it can be. But we don't think that there is any place for physical punishment in bringing up children. There's a whole range of other ways that you can help parents bring up children, and advice you can give them of different methods to use. But, the clear message of this Bill is that we don't want any physical punishment; we don't think it's the right thing to do, and we believe that we are supported by many people in that view. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got other questions, Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Oh, yes. Several consultation responses refer to statistics from Sweden, which they say show that child-on-child violence actually increased by 1,791 per cent between 1984 and 2010, following the ban on physical punishment in 1979. What is your view on these figures and how can we be certain that this Bill won't lead to other long-term negative outcomes in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I'm aware of the debate surrounding the interpretation of the different statistics from Sweden. What's happened, really, in the academic research is that different academics are focused on different figures to support their views, and the methodological ways of doing it makes it quite difficult to have causation. I was very encouraged that a recent study of 88 countries concluded that if a country prohibits corporal punishment, the result is association with less youth violence, and this is one of the largest cross-national analyses of youth violence, with more than 400,000 participants. So, there is other evidence, very widespread evidence, which looks at a whole range of people, that is in contrast to the Swedish evidence. But, evidence in this field is mixed and we have considered a wide range of research and reviews, but ultimately the decision is one that is based on our commitment to children's rights. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you want question 3? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I can do it, yes. The Bill's explanatory memorandum says that 'there is no definitive evidence that ""reasonable"" physical punishment causes negative outcomes for children'. However, we have heard from Equal Protection Network Cymru that international evidence could not be clearer and that they found the Wales Centre for Public Policy's report, on which the explanatory memorandum is based, very confusing and very frustrating, and that it didn't tie in with what they knew. How would you respond to those viewpoints? +Julie Morgan AM: We were very keen to get as balanced research as we possibly could, and we didn't want to just put forward views that we thought agreed with our point of view. So, we were trying to give a balanced point of view, but we did commission the Wales Centre for Public Policy to do an independent literature review and we're honestly reporting to you what they said. But they did make it clear, again, which I think I've said in previous evidence sessions, that all physical punishment, under all conditions, is potentially harmful to children. And certainly, there is no peer-reviewed research that says that physically punishing a child is going to improve things, has favourable outcomes. So, I understand what Equal Protection Network Cymru are saying, because there is a lot of very strong evidence, but we're giving you the evidence that we had from the research that we commissioned. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Suzy on implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I've just got a couple of questions on this balance between the steps that will be needed to implement this Bill and the impact that it'll actually have. You've probably heard in evidence that we've received that there are still some concerns out there about how agencies might address malicious reporting; some detail about how the public interest test might be applied further along the line; what's going to happen with out-of-hours provision from social services, and so on. There are still, from our perspective, quite a few things that are unknown about the effect on our public services in particular of the implementation of this Bill. Would you agree that perhaps we should know a little bit more about that before we proceed with supporting the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's very difficult, bringing in this legislation that hasn't been done before. It's very difficult to gauge the impact, and we've covered that, I know, in previous discussions. But I think it's very important to say that we are not creating a new offence. The Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault. And I think it's an interesting point to make that, in Ireland, they introduced similar legislation through an amendment to a Bill, and had no detailed preparation for bringing in the Bill, and in fact there's no evidence that this has caused any difficulties, and no significant negative impacts or increase in workload. But in any case, we have our implementation group, which is going to address many of these issues. This met on 14 May. That was the first meeting. You see, I think we do have to take a balance between assuming this Bill is going to go through and what we can actually do. We can't presume that the Assembly will accept this Bill, so we have to be staged in what we do. But we had the first strategic implementation group on 14 May, and we had representatives from the police, the police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, the legal profession and the third sector. They're all there, and they're all very keen to make this legislation work and to look at the implications of it. I'd just like to say how grateful I am for all those organisations giving their time and commitment. They've set up four work streams, looking at parenting advice and support; data collection, evaluation and monitoring; operations, procedures and processes; and out-of-court disposals and diversions. These groups will be taking forward this work and will be looking at many of those issues that you've mentioned, and will also be updated on the progress of the awareness strategy that we will be bringing in. I'm really confident that the legislation will be implemented in a very practical and workable way, because we do have the commitment of all these agencies, and there's been a huge amount of preparation done in the Welsh Government to prepare for this in a way that, I have to say, hasn't been done in some of the other countries—as I mentioned, in Ireland. So, as much preparation as could be done is being done and has been done, but we really now see that the implementation group is taking forward all these issues, and obviously those agencies that are taking part in the implementation group are, on the whole, in support of the principles of this Bill. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, thank you for that, Minister, but the way I look at this is that you've already said that, if this Bill passes—and it will pass; it's in enough manifestos to pass, so the question is what type of Bill is going to pass—and if there is a gap of, let's say, two years before anything is implemented, and the implementation group is doing the work that you've described—and we're very relieved to hear that—why is this Bill being introduced now when that implementation group hasn't really come up with a strategy that could help persuade people about what implementing this Bill would look like in real life? You're asking the Welsh public to take a bit of a chance on this. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have, as far as possible, looked at international evidence where this legislation has been introduced. It's different for different countries, so I know it's difficult to get anything that's absolutely linked. But I don't agree that it's a bit of a chance, really. I think we are preparing very well and very carefully. As the team who have been working on this have worked through the preparation for the Bill, lots of issues have arisen as they've done that, and so you have to do that, I think, alongside the actual practical implications with the groups that are coming together, and I think the point at which we've done that is probably just about right, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I hope this isn't going on to somebody else's questions, but accepting what you say, would you then be open to accepting amendments to the face of the Bill that would clarify the position for the Welsh public on certain things that may be of concern to them, which have been fed through to us? I'm not suggesting anything specific, but—. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. I mean, the position is that it is a very simple, one-clause Bill. We want to keep it as simple as possible, but I'm certainly prepared to consider any issues that come up, and I think that's been the case all along. Although our preference is to keep it simple. +Suzy Davies AM: I understand that. It's just what's going to work as a bit of law here, isn't it? And then just finally from me, and you've made the point to a degree, that, of course, not all countries are like Wales. If we look at Ireland, and New Zealand's the one we've been looking at an awful lot, which are the most similar, their work hasn't really been in place for that long, and one of the things that, I think, you're going to need to be able persuade us of is that if the culture change to which we've already referred is going in one way anyway, and if it continues to go in that direction, that this Bill will have had a causal effect. I'm trying to establish whether the culture change is going to happen anyway, whether or not we pass this legislation. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it does look as if a culture change is happening in any case, but the culture change will never really move, I think, as most of us want it, if there is legislation that does appear to condone the use of physical punishment, and having this reasonable punishment in law means that happens. So, I think, passing the legislation by itself will certainly not do everything— +Suzy Davies AM: No. And you'll be aware that this is to go with it. I get that, but— +Julie Morgan AM: You've got to have—. And I think the research has all shown you've got to have an awareness campaign running along with it. That is shown. And in the other countries we've looked at, I don't think an awareness campaign was actually carried out because we are planning a really big awareness campaign because we think it's absolutely fair to the Welsh public, as you said, that they absolutely know what we're doing and everybody's aware of it. So, I think it is—. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, can I just finish—? +Julie Morgan AM: I know the point you're making. You're saying that this would happen in any case, maybe. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm suggesting it. +Julie Morgan AM: But if you've got a bit of legislation there on the Bill, it will always mean that for a very minority group of parents, they will feel that they have got the right to use physical punishment against their child, and I just think it's something we should get rid of. I think it's an anachronism and it's something we should—. And I think Wales has been very strong on children's rights. We've got rid of physical punishment in schools, child minders, regulated care settings. And, of course, the other point that I don't think we say enough about is that it's not just parents; it's people in loco parentis who are working in leisure centres or religious establishments or any of those unregulated settings who also have this defence. So, it's last bit in the jigsaw, really, to have it quite clear that we want to treat our children with respect and dignity and I think this will move us towards that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's the argument you've made before. I think what I was trying to get to is: how are we going to prove that this piece of legislation has worked effectively? It's about the data capture, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What are you going to do to make sure that you acquire evidence in the future to show that this has worked, or potentially not worked? I'd be surprised if that was the case, but—. Because, of course, that has an implication then on the resources for the various people you'll be asking to collect the data. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think that's very important because we need to know what is the effect of the legislation we'll be bringing in. So, we will be having ongoing evaluation, we will be bringing in an independent body to evaluate. We have got ongoing monitoring and we've got ongoing monitoring surveys looking at what are the views of the public. So, yes— +Suzy Davies AM: It'll be directly linked to the Bill, then, rather than that broad culture change. +Julie Morgan AM: The monitoring, asking the views of the public, is generally about issues related to the Bill. The views of parents about whether this legislation— +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, I don't want to labour this point. +Julie Morgan AM: And awareness. How aware they are. +Suzy Davies AM: Basically, we need a question, 'Has this Bill stopped you smacking your child?' That's the core question. So, phrase it differently, yes? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Well, we are in the surveys asking how many people feel that they do smack their child, but this is any physical punishment, actually, not just smacking— +Suzy Davies AM: And it's for the future, not for now. +Julie Morgan AM: —and how many, actually, are doing that. And it is consistently going down, as you said. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I don't want to take it any further. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to explore some of the issues around social services now with questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, Minister. When the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru came in, they were saying to us that they would encourage people to report any instances, anything that they see around somebody smacking a child. That leads on to the question about whether in fact social services, then, would change their thresholds for intervention if there were more cases being referred to them. Are you fairly confident, are you certain, that that wouldn't happen, or do you think there is a danger that social services might actually say, 'Well, actually, if we're getting all these referrals, we need to think again about when and if we intervene', and the thresholds could become a bit lower? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, as you know, social services already receive and investigate reports of children being physically punished—any sort of range of physical punishment—and they use standard procedures to determine how to proceed, but that's done on a case-by-case basis; it's made on the individual case element. And, of course, there is a distinction between reasonable punishment and child neglect or abuse. And if this legislation is enacted, a significant proportion of the incidents of physical punishment will not require any response under the child protection procedures, and we do not expect the threshold of significant harm to change. And I know you took evidence from the ADSS, and I know Sally Jenkins gave evidence, who is one of the lead practitioners, and I understood she said: 'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.' So, I think— +Dawn Bowden AM: So, it's the threshold for intervention that's the key, really, isn't it, rather than—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, they don't see that changing. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. And we don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. The police, when they came in to give evidence, talked about the need for the multi-agency safeguarding hubs. And what we also heard is that it's a bit inconsistent across the country. And I think you acknowledged that as well. Do you think the implementation of the Bill, and its effectiveness, is going to be dependent on us having consistently effective multi-agency safeguarding hubs right the way across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: No. The effective implementation of the Bill does not depend on MASHs, as we call them for short, because bodies, social services, already work closely with the police on a day-to-day basis, really, and they have indicated their willingness to do so, and there are already well-established mechanisms in place that enable this joint working to take place. I know that the MASHs are only in certain areas, and I know that it's—. I think they're probably very good to have, actually, and very good to help the work, but it's certainly not dependent on them. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, but it would be something that you would be wanting to see developed, that eventually we would have these MASHs right across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, there are three MASHs in the south Wales police force, and one pilot MASH in the Gwent police force, but they don't operate in exactly the same way. And I know that other areas have considered having MASHs, but haven't actually brought any in. And a multi-agency strategic group, which is led by South Wales Police, has been set up, and it will consider the effectiveness of MASH arrangements in Wales, so it's very possible there will be more MASHs, but I want to reiterate that we're not dependent on MASHs in order to have the close working. But they're welcome—very welcome. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because the key point from the police's point of view, I think, was that they provide a single point of contact, so it's very simple, isn't it? It's a single point of contact, and I think they were quite concerned that having that single point of contact might actually reduce the level of unnecessary police prosecutions—well, the police don't prosecute, but charges and so on. So, it was just a point that they were raising. +Julie Morgan AM: I think they are very effective and very much to be welcomed, but it's certainly not essential. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Karen. +Karen Cornish: I was just going to say that it's probably worth saying that looking at how agencies work together will be one of the things, again, that will be looked at very carefully on the task and finish group, looking at processes and procedures. We're very alert to the fact that there are different organisations, different services, and that bringing them together, working in as consistent a way as possible, is really, really important. As the Minister has said, social services, the police and others are already committed to working together, and, actually, we just want to make sure that we develop those working practices in the best way possible, recognising that not every area will have a MASH, and reiterating, again, what the Deputy Minister has said—that the effectiveness of the Bill is not predicated on a MASH in every area, but it is important that all those organisations do work together in a consistent and appropriate way. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much. The other response that we've received is from social workers. And they've talked about the fact that the social worker's workload is already very stretched, and you'll be aware of that, Minister. And I think they were getting a little bit concerned about whether a whole raft of new cases are going to land on what is an already extremely heavy workload, and how effectively they could deal with that. Would you say that those concerns, in terms of the impact of this Bill, are unfounded, or are we just saying that this is an unknown quantity at this stage, and we're going to have to wait and see? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, if I can just pay tribute to the work that social workers do. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, absolutely. +Julie Morgan AM: Because, obviously, they’re going to be essential to the successful implementation of this Bill. I was a social worker myself, so I’m very happy to pay tribute to them. [Laughter.] But they do do a hard job, which isn’t always recognised, I think, by the public. So, I do take this point very seriously, but, obviously, the professionals who have given evidence—many of them have said they don’t see there being a big rise of referrals. Jane Randall, National Independent Safeguarding Board—I think she came to you—said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals…I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' I mean, there may be an increase in reporting of incidents, initially, maybe from individuals in the community and organisations such as schools. And I think it could have an impact on the initial stages of social services activity, which I think others—I think Sally Jenkins said that maybe there’d be an increase, a small increase, at the beginning. But as we expect the awareness raising and the ongoing support that we’ll be giving to parents—we do feel that the incidents of physical punishment will be falling over time. And we don’t really see that there will be an increase. But I know that social workers are stretched, and are hard-pressed—and I think that was some of the evidence given to you by the British Association of Social Workers. But I think it’s important to remember that they are also very strongly in support of us carrying out this legislation. But it is important to look at the realities and the practicalities. So, we’re going to work very closely with social services—obviously, key members of our implementation group—and we will collect relevant data for a period before the actual implementation, in order to get a baseline. We want a baseline, and we are working with a small number of social services to try to get the baseline of where it is, and to see what happens when the Bill is implemented. The evidence from other countries is that they certainly have not been overwhelmed. There have been reports in New Zealand that they have not been overwhelmed, and I mentioned Ireland earlier. So, I don’t think, really, we have to fear that social services would be overwhelmed, but we must be prepared, and we must get this data and monitor it closely. +Dawn Bowden AM: Keep it monitored. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I guess things will level out in due course. And social services clearly having to make judgments every day—they will be making those judgments quite quickly and turning them around. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, when they spoke to us, also had—there was a similar kind of concern raised. They did say that they felt that they probably did have adequate resources to support the Bill. But do you think there is any danger at all that it could divert CAFCASS staff, if we have a high volume of reporting, particularly given that we’ve got a 26-week limit in which to deal with those cases? Is that something that causes you any concern at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, CAFCASS are confident that they can deal with the cases that they have. As you know, there's been a big increase in the numbers that CAFCASS is dealing with already, and they have managed to very successfully cope with the demand. So, I've got every confidence that they will be able to cope with it. +Dawn Bowden AM: Because they were basically just saying that it's unpredictable at this stage, weren't they, so—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. It is unpredictable. Our best views are that it will not—. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because they were talking about the fact that no assessment had been made about the risk of malicious reporting. We talked about that in a number of sessions with the police and so on. So, I think their biggest concern was more about the rise in looked-after children and the impact on that in terms of their workload, and it was just a question of whether this would potentially divert any resources, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, in terms of the malicious reporting, obviously that is something that happens a lot now and it is is likely that, perhaps—. I think they felt that, in existing cases, this might be another element that should be brought in, but they seemed, in my discussions, fairly confident. I know they appeared before the committee, and they are coping very well. But, obviously, another area we are very concerned about is the rise in the number of looked-after children, and that's somewhere we want to try to do what we can to bring that down. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before Suzy comes in with a supplementary—CAFCASS didn't come to the committee, they've submitted— +Julie Morgan AM: They sent a letter—that's right. Yes, sorry about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Just very quickly, because I don't want to spend a lot of time on this: isn't it going to be true that any increase in workload for social services or schools or whoever is going to depend on reporting rising? Where do you see the likely rise in reporting taking place? Will it be members of the public or is it going to be professionals who feel that this is something that they can't ignore from now on? +Julie Morgan AM: well, I think it would be mixed. I don't have any view or where it particularly would come from, because if there are any reports that go into agencies now about children being physically punished in any way—I think they investigate those already now. But I suppose members of the public might report if they see any physical punishment going on. They would be made much more aware, we hope, by the legislation—so, that may happen. But I think, in schools, if there is physical punishment reported by a child, the schools would report it in any case. But I think it's likely that there will be a small rise. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just curious about where you thought the main source would be— +Julie Morgan AM: I can't really be definitive about that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The Bill, in essence, is a simple one, of course, is it not? But what it does is  provide a useful discussion on what good parenting is and what discipline methods are the most effective—that is, discipline methods that parents can use rather than physical punishment. Do you think, therefore, that there's a need to invest much more in programmes to do with parenting and in support services for families in terms of parenting, and that as part of an early intervention strategy that's more co-ordinated and robust than what we have at present? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we are developing the Bill as part of a much wider package of support for children and their parents, which, of course, is already in place. This obviously includes the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, which aims to help parents do the best job that they can by providing positive tips on parenting and information. And we're already preparing now to update that, because, of course, that only goes up to age 7 and deals with issues about how you cope with your kids if they're difficult at meal times and if they have tantrums. It is very well used by parents. But, of course, this legislation will go up to 18 years old, and so the issues may be very different. So, we're already starting to prepare to update that 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign. And then, obviously, there's the universal services that give access to help and to promote positive parenting, delivered by local government, health, education, social services, social justice and the third sector. We will be encouraging all those agencies that provide that universal service to help support parents and to pass on this information. Then, there will be the more targeted supports, such as Flying Start and Families First, which offer help and advice. But what I've done is I've asked the officials to carry out a mapping exercise to see where the support is and where the gaps are or opportunities to do more, particularly around information and advice on positive alternatives to physical punishment, but also more widely. So, we are looking to see where the gaps are. I think parents do tend to use information and try to get help in many different ways. A very large number, actually, do use the internet. I was surprised, actually, that so many used the internet to get information. Others ask their mothers, their families, their friends, and go to agencies. It's such a wide range that we need that mapping exercise and we need to see where we need to put in more support. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm pleased that you're going to conduct that exercise, because the evidence that we've received from a number of different directions is that there isn't enough investment in reality in the support services in the early years, and that there is a real need for the focus within Government go back to early intervention and to have a much more co-ordinated strategy. You've mentioned a number of agencies working on different elements, perhaps, but perhaps there's a need to bring them all together. You talk about the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, but I think it's an online campaign effectively, and Flying Start—yes, people who attend those courses find them useful, but, of course, it's not available across Wales and it's not available to every parent. There is a scheme that is available through schools in Gwynedd—perhaps you are aware of it—Incredible Years, with Professor Judy Hutchings, who has been working on this for a number of years now, very successfully, where schools, parents and the children work together on parenting methods that are positive. I wonder if it's time to think about expanding that as part of an early intervention strategy across Wales. Perhaps you can't give a specific answer today, but may I ask you to take a look at that? What concerns me is that the Bill is going through but there's not enough work relating to education and having people's support for different methods, more positive methods, in my opinion, of parenting. There's a real need to move and to invest in that area and perhaps move money towards that work. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, certainly, I think that is the purpose of the mapping exercise, to see what is successful, where things need to be expanded, and that's what we're going to consider. Incredible Years—I know it's very successful; I am aware of that programme. I think there are patches all over Wales of really good progress, but, certainly, I'm sure we need to give more support to parents in the early years, and I think they're only too glad to have it as well. Children are very receptive at that age and early intervention is the key to many of the issues that we have to deal with later on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to return to some of the parenting issues later, but in the meantime we've got questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Just to take it on the next step from what Siân Gwenllian was asking about—in schools, are teachers ready for this legislation? +Julie Morgan AM: On our implementation group, the education sector is represented. They've come to the first meeting of the implementation group. So, they're going to be fully involved in the preparation. Obviously, corporal punishment was banned in schools a long time ago, and I think the education sector is very supportive of this move. But in terms of the awareness for teachers to be ready for it—obviously, the awareness campaign has got to be aimed at professionals in every field and certainly aimed at teachers. +Hefin David AM: So, if I was a teacher in an individual school, what kind of preparation do you think I should expect? +Julie Morgan AM: You know this better than me, having been more in the education field than me, but I think teachers are updated on different parts of childcare legislation now, and have in-service training days and training courses. And, certainly, perhaps this would be part of that—part of the training that teachers get. This would have to be incorporated into that. +Hefin David AM: One of the things that the National Association of Head Teachers told us was that they wouldn't want the cost of that kind of training to come from core budgets. Would you agree with that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would have thought this sort of measure would be incorporated into the training they were using already, actually. I wouldn't have seen it would need something completely separate. +Hefin David AM: So, you think it should come from the core budget that they use for training? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it could be incorporated in what they're already doing. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And do you think that would be a significant additional cost or do you think that that would be minimal? +Julie Morgan AM: I would have thought it would be minimal. They already have training courses about childcare issues, and this would be something that would be absorbed into that. +Hefin David AM: You mentioned the implementation group and the fact that educators are represented on it. Can you just be a bit clearer about how they are represented again? I'm not sure I caught that. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to, Karen, because you were at the group? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, education are represented on it through the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, and they have a representative on the strategic implementation group, and we are working with them to understand who else will be on the task and finish groups that we're setting up that the Minister's already talked about. And we've also had conversations with all of the trade unions. I personally went and spoke to them earlier in the year when the Bill was being introduced, received their feedback and have said that I will go back and speak with them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The things that are being raised so far—would you say they're reflective of the concerns that the NAHT rose about, for example, funding of training? Are those kinds of issues raised? The practical implications of introducing this Bill—are they raised? If not, what other issues might be raised? +Karen Cornish: So, I think that the main concerns that you've already heard as a committee are similar concerns to those that have been raised previously. So, there's not anything in addition to the things that we have discussed, either with the trade unions or through the implementation group, or during the consultation period. And, as the Minister said, for the majority of these sort of things, teachers, education and other workforces already have procedures in place, because this comes under a safeguarding issue at one level. There are procedures and processes that are already there that they all follow. The ask will be based around those safeguarding procedures and, therefore, education and other services update their processes and procedures on a regular basis as a matter of course when any issues like this are addressed. There's a wider context here. Minister, I don't know whether you wanted to say anything about the well-being and the— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. One of the things that I think this committee has been involved in is we want to have a whole-school approach. We want mental health and well-being to be part of the way that the whole school operates, and the culture and how schools engage with pupils and parents. And we want to create that atmosphere where there's no wrong door, where children can bring up any of the concerns that they have with any member of the school staff that they trust. And, obviously, the school staff is wider than the teachers. And so, I think the creation of that sort of atmosphere is very important in taking forward this issue. +Hefin David AM: I appreciate that. I think the Bill, though, introduces a very specific set of changes that— +Julie Morgan AM: It removes the defence; that's all the Bill does. +Hefin David AM: But should a parent witness, now, smacking, then it will require a different kind of approach—sorry, if a teacher were to witness smacking, it would require a different kind of approach, perhaps, to existing approaches. There shouldn't, therefore, be any surprise amongst teachers in how to deal with these things when the Bill comes in. I suppose the question I'm asking is: can we be assured that nothing you've said today in this meeting, in this committee, should be a surprise to teachers and trade unions, because that would already have been communicated through the Bill implementation group? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, well, Karen has already said about the meetings that she's had with the unions and they are present on the implementation group, but a lot of these things happen already. They already have to make decisions about physical punishment they may be told about by children, for example—probably more likely than actually witnessing anything. And they already have to make decisions on those sorts of issues, so I see this as being incorporated in with that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. With regard to health and the communication of this to parents, we've heard about the Healthy Child Wales programme, and the fact that it has the opportunity to play a role in raising parents' awareness. Do you think that's the case? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the Healthy Child Wales programme and the role of the health visitor is absolutely crucial, because, obviously, the health visitor is there right at the beginning. It's a universal service, and so there will be great opportunity for them to promote positive parenting in a much stronger way than they're able to do at the moment, because the fact that you have this defence does mean that the professionals aren't able to make it as clear as they want to make it that positive parenting is the way that they'd like families to go. So, I think this will be a great advantage to health visitors, and, obviously, they support it strongly, because they're trying to encourage parents not to use physical punishment now, but with their hands slightly tied behind their back, because the defence does exist. +Hefin David AM: That's great, that's a good thing, but the concern we've got is that half the parents across Wales are not accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme, and in my community, within the Aneurin Bevan health board area, 80 per cent of parents aren't accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme. So, are there concerns that, if you rely too much on that process for communication, then parents, particularly in the early years, will be left out? +Julie Morgan AM: We've got to rely on a range of ways of reaching parents, and I think that there are other times when there is a much higher ratio of children and families seen. But I think we've had that discussion with the mapping exercise that we've already mentioned, that we're going to identify where there are gaps or where we can do more, and that's where we will identify this. +Karen Cornish: I think as well that that figure relates to one contact point across the whole of the Healthy Child Wales programme, not the Healthy Child Wales programme as a whole. Maybe we could come back with some further information about the contacts, because I'm—. That figure— +Lynne Neagle AM: The percentage relates to the contact at age three and a half, but that is exactly the kind of age when you'd expect more children to—. If they were going to be smacked, it would be at that sort of age, wouldn't it, really? So, that is a concern for the committee, really, in terms of coverage. +Karen Cornish: I can appreciate that, although I would—. Midwives, health visitors and others working with families would actually be giving those messages, core messages, about setting boundaries, managing behaviour, discipline, positive parenting, right from the very beginning. So, reliance on that single point of contact at that one age point is not necessarily the most appropriate, because I think there's a period from birth through to, actually, later as well, when those key health messages, those key messages around positive parenting, are and can be given. As the Minister said, we will be mapping a lot of this, but we can give you some more advice on that, if that would be helpful, about the types of messages that are given during that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I think that would be helpful. I've got some supplementaries on this, because I think the committee is concerned that at a key opportunity at age three and a half, a big chunk of families aren't having that contact that they should expect with their health visitor, really. Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. It's also a time in their child's life when they're likely to be spending time not with their parents, in school or early years. And I just wanted a bit of clarification from you, Minister, on what you were saying to Hefin David about training here. I got the sense you thought this could just be slipped in as a paragraph in existing guidance, but I'm not clear about what happens to a teacher who is told by a child that they've been smacked, and they decide that they're not going to report that—will they get into trouble over that? If it's part of a bigger picture that a teacher should have picked up, that's different, but, if a child tells a teacher, 'Oh, Mammy smacked me because I did such and such', is that teacher going to get into trouble if they don't report that to the police? +Julie Morgan AM: If that happens now, the teacher is expected to report that now. I think they usually call in social services. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, it goes to social services. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: But that clarity is needed as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. That is what happens now, so would you expect a teacher to do it, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I'm just interested to hear a bit more about the mapping exercise that you've referred to, which I think is really important, but it is going to show up a lot of gaps geographically, but also in service provision for different groups of families. It's all very well doing a mapping exercise, but what is the purpose of that, and how are you going to ensure that those gaps don't exist in future? Maybe we could have a note about what the timetable is for this exercise, and more in-depth understanding perhaps about what your intentions are, and how you intend to take it forward once you've done the mapping exercise. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We absolutely acknowledge that there is a lot more work to be done, and we know that we have to work hard at this to reach every family. Obviously, the information that we've had about the Healthy Child Wales, the health boards will be monitoring that information and will be—. I think they're going to establish a project board to consider the themes that are coming out from the Healthy Child Wales, and so that will be certainly addressed there. And we will absolutely acknowledge that we expect that there will be work to be done. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And there will be investment needed, obviously, to fill in those gaps, which means a significant shift in the way Government now looks at its budget, and a shift towards that early prevention. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we all agree that early prevention is the key for happy, healthy children, and so we'll certainly consider everything that arises. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. You've said repeatedly that the intention of this Bill isn't to criminalise parents, and I believe that that's not your intention. So, what I'm interested in hearing about is how you—or the work that you've done to satisfy yourself that the huge majority of parents that are going to be caught up in the change of this Act won't result in parents getting anywhere near the CPS, for example. Obviously, there are going to be occasions where there are recidivists who keep smacking despite perhaps earlier warnings, or families get identified as doing something far more serious with their children than this, and I'm not talking about those—I'm talking about the people who are currently protected, if I can put it like that. I'm very interested in hearing what you've got to say about out-of-court disposals and pre being charged activity. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the assessment and work that you've done in that area. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, there are a number of out-of-court disposals that the police can use, because the police want to respond in a positive and proportionate way. The use of out-of-court disposals is actually a non-devolved responsibility, but we'll be working— +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I wanted to ask you about. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they are non-devolved, but we will be working with the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the CPS, the police and the police and crime commissioners to consider suitable interventions. And one of the main areas of focus of the National Police Chiefs' Council's national strategy is to reduce the current six disposal options to just two. And that's going to be conditional caution and community resolution, and the four Welsh police forces are going to be moving towards this two-tier approach, which they believe will make for greater consistency. So, what we're doing is we are exploring, with the police liaison unit, how we can develop a suitable diversion scheme, with a focus on advice and support on positive alternatives to physical punishment, and how we can tie that into the wider activity. And, obviously, it all depends on the individual circumstances of the case, because the other thing we're going to look at is the individual. But it's possible then we could get a diversion scheme provided through a community resolution order; it could be potentially be given instead of a caution. And so that would be—you know, parents could be referred to a scheme. So, that's what we're discussing with the police liaison unit at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for confirming that, but even that is quite far down the process from the day that a smack is reported, and, as you know, particularly as soon as the police get involved, and even social services, if a record is made of even a complaint—even if that complaint goes no further, even if you don't get anywhere near an arrest, shall we say, that is logged in certain parts of the system and will need to be revealed in certain circumstances. I'm thinking of the enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check in particular, but there are other instances as well. Have you done any impact assessment on that, because that is a—we're talking about a situation where there's a massive impact, potentially, on an adult, when there have been no grounds at all to worry that a child's rights have been infringed, for example? It will happen in malicious reporting, but it could happen in reporting where an apparent battery has taken place, but it turns out to have been something completely different—you know, pushing a child's hand away, that sort of thing. The police are not going to want to take that any further at all, but it's on their records. How are you going to protect parents in those circumstances, within our legislative competence? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the issue of non-conviction data obviously doesn't just apply to this Bill we're bringing in; it applies to everything. So, it's something that you can look at in a general sense—that the police can visit and there's no further action, but that could be for anything— +Suzy Davies AM: But this is very sensitive, this area. +Julie Morgan AM: —and it's still logged. But, obviously, this does have an issue in terms of, particularly, the DBS checks and if you needed an enhanced certificate, if you wanted to be a teacher, a childcare worker, or those sorts of occupations. But, when disclosing information held locally, the police follow the quality assurance framework, and information must pass certain tests, which are related to considerations of relevance, substantiality and proportionality, and considerations of the safety aspects as well of disclosing information. And the police must record their thought process, their rationale, explaining how and why they reached all of their conclusions and their decisions. And this information is then assessed by the chief officer to determine whether it's reasonable to believe that it's relevant, and whether, in their opinion, it ought to be disclosed. Information should only be disclosed if it meets both of those requirements. So— +Suzy Davies AM: Is that in all jobs, though, because my understanding is that there are certain professions where that exemption doesn’t apply, and they’re likely to be the ones that are really relevant to the removal of the defence? So, I’m not talking about, I don't know, people who might work as volunteers; I’m literally talking about teachers and doctors, maybe dentists. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we have done some work on this, haven’t we? Do you want to say about that, Karen? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, it does apply across all professions, and we have been in discussion with the DBS about when and how and why information would be released, and also how often. And our understanding at this moment in time is that this type of information is released only in a very, very small number of cases. I think we’re talking less than 1 per cent of cases— +Suzy Davies AM: One per cent of what figure though? +Karen Cornish: —in the last year. It’s about 1 per cent of 2,500, something like that. I haven’t got the exact figures with me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but it helps us to understand the general amount— +Karen Cornish: So, it’s about two, three, four cases in a year where this type of information is disclosed. It’s information that, obviously, we have got, but I think it’s really important to understand that this is a really rigorous process that the police and the DBS have in place. They consider everything in the round before they would even consider actually releasing any information that's non-conviction information in relation to employment. +Suzy Davies AM: But this is a new consideration for them. They haven't tested their ability to get their judgment right on this one yet. Are you concerned that, in order to be on the safe side, if I can put it like that, there's an increased likelihood of disclosure—which actually might disappear over time, because there's an opportunity to exercise judgment more frequently and get the balance right? +Karen Cornish: I think they do have to consider non-conviction information now and some of that non-conviction information may be in relation to physical punishment of a child. I think you've received evidence from the police saying that there are 18,000 or so incidents in one police force area alone, where information is potentially on their records, and yet we understand that a very, very small proportion of non-conviction information is released to an employer during a recruitment process. So, our expectation, based on that information, would be that it would remain at a very low level. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish off on this one: we don't have legislative competence in this particular area, so we are relying on goodwill and the conversations that you have, which I'm sure are very productive. What will happen if we start getting instances where perhaps that judgment hasn't been exercised correctly? There's nothing, as a Government, you can do to challenge that particularly. +Julie Morgan AM: I can only emphasise the very close working relationships we've got and I think will continue to build as we introduce this legislation. We've got it all set up and it's been very productive so far. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Suzy. Just before we move on, could I ask, then—? Maybe the committee would be grateful for a note providing an update on the latest work that the Government has done on out-of-court disposals, including estimated costs. We'd also appreciate a note on the Welsh Government's discussions with the DBS and the figures that Karen just referred to, if that's okay, please. Thank you. The next questions are from Hefin on resources. +Hefin David AM: When you first appeared before the committee at the beginning of Stage 1, I wasn't hugely reassured by the evidence you gave on the resource implications of the Bill. It seems to be relying, to a great extent, on the limited number of reporting of cases that's likely to happen, as we've seen in the evidence we've received. That's largely been recognised by the stakeholders who've given evidence, but isn't there still the potential for a degree of unknown costs to come into this, and what planning have you done for those unknown costs—those unforeseen costs—that might occur? +Julie Morgan AM: I feel that—. You're right that there always could be unknown costs, but we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate. For example, I've committed to fund the high-intensity awareness-raising campaign, and committed to carry out a mapping exercise to establish whether there are any gaps in the parenting support. We know that evidence from other countries does show that, if we bring in this legislation and raise awareness, it does change people's attitudes, so there may, in the long term, be a saving if we do that. But we are committed to working with organisations to put in place arrangements so that we're able to collect the data so that we know what the impact is. But I just have to repeat that all our evidence, looking at other countries, is that there isn't a huge increase in the workload. +Hefin David AM: No. I think you can make the argument for precedent elsewhere, but you can also say that every country has a different culture and approach to how it raises children, and therefore there'll be a number of differences as well. The explanatory memorandum raises some specific cases. It talks about unknown costs in relation to social services as a result of a potential increasing referrals; family courts and CAFCASS Cymru as a result of a potential increase in allegations, which we talked about; the CPS and a higher volume of requests for charging advice from the police; and the review of training and guidance offered by organisations involved in the safeguarding of children. All those things we've talked around, but what would be reassuring for the committee is, perhaps, if you could give us a broad figure, which the Government would say, 'We'll need to set this number aside in order to be prepared for the implementation of this Bill.' Would you be willing to present that at some point during the passage of the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us. Certainly, the CPS say that they can cope. CAFCASS say that they can cope. And it is very difficult to anticipate what impact there would be on social services. The people who are managing social services say they don't anticipate a big impact. I think the other important thing to recognise is that this area of work is already dealt with by all these people. So, the CPS is already involved in changing its guidance all the time, so it's not going to be much of an impact for them to actually have to do that over this issue. Social services are already dealing with calls and referrals about the physical punishment of children already, including reasonable punishment. And so it's not a new category of work. I accept that we're working in a situation where there's a general pressure on public services, but I think this area that we're legislating on here is part of what everybody's doing already. And so I don't see it as such a big thing in terms of impact. +Hefin David AM: That's a perfectly reasonable answer, but then what about providing a ballpark figure for a kind unforeseen fund that you might set aside? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't think it's possible to do that. We have to measure it as we go along. We've got to get the data. The data will show—. We've got to have baseline data to begin with, and that's what's so difficult to get, because we can't get that from other countries. Only New Zealand recorded any incidents before they actually brought in the legislation, and they did that for three months beforehand. That's why we've been looking at New Zealand a lot of the time, just to make predictions. But we've got to rely on the data. One of these sub-groups is looking at data, so that sub-group should be very productive, I think. And then we will be actually able to see what happens. But I don't think we can respond to that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. And the last question, with regard to resourcing, just to understand the process of how this ties into the wider budgeting—did you and your officials sit down with the Finance Minister and the First Minister's officials to discuss the costing of this? I imagine so. What was the nature of that kind of discussion? +Julie Morgan AM: Some of the costings are decided. For example, the advertising, the awareness-raising campaign—that's £2.2 million over six years. So the decision has been made about that. I don't know if there were further discussions right at the beginning of this process. +Karen Cornish: There have been discussions. The discussions tend to be positive. We can't really say any more beyond that at this moment in time. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And who were the discussions with? +Karen Cornish: There has been an in-the-round discussion before the Bill was introduced, at which the First Minister and the finance Minister and others were present. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And I imagine it's gone to Cabinet for discussion. +Karen Cornish: The consultation and then the Bill going forward has been discussed by Cabinet, and gone through Cabinet processes, as you would expect. +Hefin David AM: So, are we able to say that the Government as a whole is satisfied that there isn't going to be a huge impact on resource as a result of the introduction of this Bill? +Karen Cornish: I think what you can say is that the Government are satisfied that they are supportive of the Bill and have put the Bill forward. I think you can say that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Did you want to come in? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Are you satisfied that that amount of money—£2.5 million over five years [correction: £2.2 million over six years]—is going to be enough? From memory, with the organ donation Bill, the amount was something in the region of around £7 million that was set aside, I think. Or maybe I'm misremembering that, but— +Karen Cornish: I think it was about £4 million— +Lynne Neagle AM: £4 million— +Karen Cornish: Something like that. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, there's a disparity, then. That was a few years ago. You've got to reach a lot of people, haven't you, with this, including some pretty hard-to-reach groups as well. Are you confident that amount of money is going to be enough? +Karen Cornish: We are as confident as we can be at this moment in time. We are obviously going to be working with focus groups and others to look at what sorts of messaging there will need to be. But in terms of the initial stages of the awareness campaign, we are, as I say, as confident as we can be, based on what we know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Hefin, on human rights. +Hefin David AM: I just wanted to ask a very specific question on human rights, because, you know, when it comes to appeals, there are a variety of articles under the European Convention on Human Rights that might be used with regard to a challenge to the law as enacted. So, I'll ask you the question very directly. For the purpose of the record, can you outline to us the assessment you've made in preparation for this Bill in relation to the balancing of relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including but not limited to article 8 on the respect for private life; article 9, freedom of conscience and religion; article 3, the right to protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment; and article 14, protection from discrimination? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. We have given a great deal of thought, as you can imagine, to the human rights considerations as set out in our impact assessments, and it's ultimately a question how we find a balance between the rights of children as well as parents, who both enjoy rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. So, article 3 is the prohibition of torture: 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.' In ensuring that children are protected from physical punishment in the same way as adults, the Bill is following that requirement of article 3, and the positive obligations on states to protect individuals from ill treatment or punishment that is contrary to article 3. And then, in terms of article 8, right to respect for private and family life, 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.' Some of those who are opposed to the prohibition of physical punishment have cited article 8, private and family life, and also cited article 9, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as potentially protecting the right for parents to decide how best to punish their children, including the use of physical punishment. That is used as an argument by those who are opposed to stopping physical punishment. But these rights are not absolute, and action can therefore be taken that interferes with them, provided the interference is justified. It's the Government's view that the Bill's provisions are necessary in order to protect the rights and freedom of children. We are looking here from the point of view of children. The Bill's provisions are regarded as proportionate measures, and given the fundamental importance of protecting children from inhumane or degrading punishment or other ill treatment, we do consider that we have balanced the rights in a proportionate way. And then, article 10, freedom of expression, and article 14, prohibition of discrimination—these rights are not absolute and action can be taken, therefore, that interferes with them, providing the interference is justified. We don't think it's clear that article 10 and 14 rights are being interfered with, but even if they are, we consider we can justify the interference in order to protect the rights and freedoms of children. I don't know, Emma, whether you wanted to add anything to any of that. +Emma Gammon: Only that we set out—. I think it's the equality impact assessment that sets out the positive and negative impacts of the proposal and the balancing of the rights enjoyed by both parents and children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. There are some questions from Vikki on awareness raising. Can I ask for concise questions please? +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. So, last week, the Welsh Government published its baseline survey of public attitudes to physical punishment of children, and that showed us that 58 per cent of the public already thought the law did not allow parents to smack their children. You could look at this two ways. You could think glass half full, which suggests that we don't have many people to try and convince of that. But on the flipside of that, would you suggest, perhaps, that that data shows there is a challenge faced by the Welsh Government to make sure the public understand the proposed legislation, given that more than half of the population, according to those statistics, have a complete misunderstanding of the current law? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, I think that finding is reflected in people I speak to who do think that the law does not allow parents to hit their children. I mean, I'm personally very reassured that 58 per cent of the public think the law doesn't allow that to happen because I think, well, they're not hitting their children, so we're over 50 per cent of where we want to get. So, I think that is a good thing, but it does highlight the fact that the legislation, as it is, is confused. I think it makes a very good case for saying that we do need to simplify this legislation. We need much greater clarity in the law for professionals who are working and trying to help parents, and for parents themselves. So, I think that this is a case for saying that it's very important that we carry out this legislation to make it all much clearer. But I am pleased that 58 per cent of the public think the law has already changed. +Vikki Howells AM: One of the most consistent messages that this committee has heard is that the proposed law won't work unless there's a significant campaign to raise awareness with members of the public. We know that Sweden went to considerable lengths to publicise the change in the law there, and I can remember attending a cross-party group, chaired by yourself, Deputy Minister, where we heard evidence from Ireland to the same effect, as well—the necessity of the public awareness campaign. You already said that a duty on the face of the Bill to raise awareness is not necessary, but then, in your answer to Suzy Davies, you said you would consider putting some things on the face of the Bill. So, can you explain to us your key arguments surrounding this issue? +Julie Morgan AM: I absolutely agree that it's essential that we do have a big awareness campaign, because all the research we've had shows, in fact, that if you don't have the awareness campaign, the legislation won't be as effective. So, we need a joint effort; I'm totally committed to doing that. I've said it publicly here, and I'm saying it again. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have it on the face of the Bill, but as I said to Suzy, I'm prepared to consider anything the committee is bringing forward because I'm very keen for this Bill to progress through this process and to learn from it. So, I'm saying that I'm prepared to consider it. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's very useful. And finally, New Zealand is an oft-cited example, mentioned in the explanatory memorandum as well. So, we know New Zealand prohibited physical punishment in 2007, but yet in a non-binding referendum two years later, 87.5 per cent of voters voted 'no' in response to the question, 'Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand?' On what basis, then, are you confident that this sort of polarisation won't happen in Wales, especially considering the current political climate there is out there? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, what we trying to do is we're trying to take this forward in as consensual a way as we possibly can. We're very keen that we listen to the views of everybody. All those people who don't agree with us, who are a minority, it seems, we want to hear what they've got to say, taking very seriously all the points that are raised here by the committee. I haven't seen any sign of any polarisation in any way that I would be concerned about, because, certainly, the people who do oppose the Bill, I've met with them, I know they've given evidence to your committee and the views of parents have been taken into account. We completely accept that we want to listen to the views of people who don't agree. I hope that they then, if the Bill does become law, will then accept and respect the democratic process. So, I don't feel concerned, really, about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, a brief supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I started at the very beginning, Deputy Minister, with the fact that there's an overwhelming majority of parents—those who are naturally charged with raising their children—against this Bill. So, there is a polarisation. We've gone out to survey on it and the overwhelming response from parents is that they do not support this Bill. And I think that needs to be put on the record. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that our representative surveys that we've carried out do show considerable support for the Bill— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But not from parents. +Julie Morgan AM: —particularly from parents with young children under seven. That's where the support does lie. And it's older people who are much less likely to support the legislation, and I think it's all linked to what many of us were used to, what happened in our childhoods, when it was accepted and it was part of the time that this was what you did. But we have moved on now and we're in a different era. So, I think many older people, because they smacked their children or were smacked themselves, have felt a degree of resistance, perhaps, to the Bill. But as I say, I think times have changed. We want to respect children's rights and what happened in the past is in the past now, and we want to have a new era for respecting children's human rights and dignity. And I think I'll go back to what I said: I don't see that children's rights to dignity is going to happen if a big person is able to hit a small person. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just to clarify, Janet's referring to the committee's consultation and the percentage of responses that we've had. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we had a specific section, but because time is moving quite fast, perhaps you could give us a note in response. Some witnesses saw a risk that the Bill could have a disproportionate impact on specific groups—women, because they are the main carers, minority ethnic groups and very young children. So, if it would be possible for us to receive a note as to whether you agree that this will have a disproportionate impact upon them, and if so, what would be the mitigating measures you would take. But, specifically, we have heard from several witnesses and the equality impact assessment of the Bill does acknowledge that a low income is a risk factor in the use of physical punishment and that this could have a negative impact specifically on this group of parents. Now, we know that Flying Start is available to try to mitigate that to some degree, but of course not all low-income families live within a Flying Start area, so what mitigating work will you be undertaking in that regard? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We are aware of the issue of reaching out to certain groups. We are running focus groups where we will be taking the different groups into account, and we will work with different groups, communities and organisations to make sure that they are aware of the change in the law, and we will—I know you want to move on—but we will write to you about anything more specific. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred to the mapping exercise, which is very welcomed by the committee. Should that mapping exercise identify gaps? Will the Welsh Government be making a commitment to provide funding to plug those gaps so that there is a universal offer of parenting support for families in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We will certainly consider it at that point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time. We've covered a great deal of ground. Thank you, all, for attending and for answering such a diverse range of questions. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much to the three of you for your time this morning. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, and thank you for all the questions and the wide range that we covered. Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, providing additional information following the evidence session on 2 May for this Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services in response to the committee's letter, which requested information on CAFCASS Cymru's response on specific points of interest in relation to the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services making the committee aware of research undertaken in relation to public attitudes to physical punishment. Can I ask if Members are happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make one observation? I think it's on the first of the letters, which is the difficulty that there's been in trying to disaggregate the evidence of smacking as isolated incidents as compared to smacking as part of a bigger pattern of behaviour. I think that's worth noting on the record. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","The committee discussed the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, with testimonies from Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, and other officials. There was notable concern about the public's understanding of the proposed legislation, given that a majority currently think physical punishment is already illegal. The committee heard that an awareness campaign is crucial for the Bill's success and that a significant investment in parenting support programs is needed, particularly in areas not covered by services like Flying Start. There was reassurance from officials that agencies like social services, CAFCASS Cymru, and the CPS could handle potential increases in workload without significant additional resources. + +The need for detailed monitoring and data collection post-implementation to assess the Bill's impact was emphasized, with comparisons drawn from international examples like Sweden, Ireland, and New Zealand. Discussions touched on human rights considerations and the balancing of European Convention on Human Rights articles regarding privacy, freedom from degrading treatment, and non-discrimination. The committee also considered the risk of disproportionate impacts on specific groups such as women, minority ethnic groups, and those from lower-income backgrounds, with a commitment to consider additional funding to address identified gaps in support services." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} We {disfmarker} we had a meeting with , uh {disfmarker} with Hynek , um , in {disfmarker} in which , uh , uh , Sunil and Stephane , uh {vocalsound} summarized where they were and {disfmarker} and , uh , talked about where we were gonna go . So that {disfmarker} that happened sort of mid - week . Uh . +PhD E: D did {disfmarker} did you guys get your code pushed together ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was updated yesterday , +PhD E: Cool . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You probably received the mail . +PhD E: Oh , right , I saw {disfmarker} I saw the note . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What was the update ? +PhD A: What was the update ? So there is th then {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the new features that go in . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: The , um , noise suppression , the re - synthesis of speech after suppression . These are the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is the , um {disfmarker} the CVS mechanism working {pause} well ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Are {disfmarker} are people , uh , up at OGI grabbing code uh , via that ? +PhD D: Uh , I don't think {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I don't know if they use it , but . +PhD D: Yeah , I I don't think anybody up there is like {pause} working on it right now . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mmm . +Professor B: I think it more likely that what it means is that when Sunil is up there {vocalsound} he will grab it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So right now nobody 's working on Aurora there . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} Yeah . They 're working on a different task . +PhD E: I see . I see . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: But what 'll happen is {disfmarker} is he 'll go back up there and , uh , Pratibha will come back from {disfmarker} from , uh , the east coast . Uh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I guess actually , uh , after Eurospeech for a little bit , uh , he 'll go up there too . So , actually everybody {vocalsound} who 's working on it {comment} will be up there for at least a little while . So they 'll remotely access it {vocalsound} from there . +PhD E: So has {disfmarker} Has anybody tried remotely accessing the CVS using , uh , uh , SSH ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um , I don't know if Hari did that or {disfmarker} You d +PhD D: I {comment} can actually do it today . I mean , I can just log into {disfmarker} +PhD E: Have you tried it yet ? +PhD D: No , I didn't . So I I 'll try it today . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Good idea . +PhD A: Actually I {disfmarker} I tried wh while {disfmarker} when I installed the {pause} repository , I tried from Belgium . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I logged in there and I tried {pause} to import {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah ? It worked good ? +PhD A: Yeah , it works . +PhD E: Oh , good ! +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} So , right now it 's the mechanism with SSH . +PhD D: Oh . +PhD E: Great ! +PhD A: I don't {pause} s I didn't set up {disfmarker} You can also set up a CVS server {pause} on a new port . It 's like well {pause} uh , a main server , or d You can do a CVS server . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Then that 's using the CVS password mechanism and all that , +PhD A: But . Yeah , right . +PhD E: right ? +PhD A: But I didn't do that because I was not sure about {pause} security problems . I {disfmarker} I would have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: So w when you came in from Belgian {disfmarker} {comment} Belgium , using SSH , uh , was it asking you for your own {pause} password into ICSI ? So if yo you can only do that if you have an account at ICSI ? +PhD A: Right . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Cuz there is an {disfmarker} a way to set up anonymous CVS right ? +PhD A: Yeah , you ha in this way you ca you have to set up a CVS server but then , yeah , you can access it . +PhD E: So that {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: you {disfmarker} you can set up priorities . +PhD E: So the anonymous mechanism {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can access them and mostly if you {disfmarker} if y the set the server is set up like this . +PhD E: OK . Because a lot of the open source stuff works with anonymous CVS and I 'm just wondering {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for our transcripts we may want to do that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , for this stuff I don't think we 're {pause} quite up to that . I mean , we 're still so much in development . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , +Professor B: We want to have just the insiders . +PhD E: yeah , yeah . Oh , I wasn't suggesting for this . I 'm {pause} thinking of the Meeting Recorder {comment} stuff +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: but . Yeah . OK . Cool . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What 's new ? +Professor B: Well , I mean , I think maybe the thing to me might be {disfmarker} I me I 'm sure you 've just been working on {disfmarker} on , uh , details of that since the meeting , right ? And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm , since the meeting , well , I {disfmarker} I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been train training a new VAD and a new {pause} feature net . +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} that was Tuesday . OK . +PhD A: So they should be ready . Um . +Professor B: But I guess maybe the thing {disfmarker} since you weren't {disfmarker} yo you guys weren't at that {disfmarker} that meeting , might be just {disfmarker} just to , um , sort of recap , uh , the {disfmarker} the conclusions of the meeting . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oh , great . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: You 're talking about the meeting with Hynek ? +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz that was sort of , uh {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 'd sort of been working up to that , that {disfmarker} that , uh , he would come here this week and {disfmarker} and we would sort of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Since he 's going out of town like now , and I 'm going out town in a couple weeks , uh , and time is marching , sort of , given all the mu many wonderful things we could be working on , what {disfmarker} what will we actually focus on ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and what do we freeze ? And , you know , what do we {disfmarker} ? So , um . I mean , this {pause} software that these guys created was certainly a {disfmarker} a key part . So then there 's something central and there aren't at least a bunch of different versions going off in {disfmarker} in ways that {pause} differ {pause} trivially . Uh , um , and , um , +PhD E: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's nice . +Professor B: and then within that , I guess the idea was to freeze a certain set of options for now , to run it , uh , a particular way , and decide on what things are gonna be experimented with , as opposed to just experimenting with everything . So keep a certain set of things constant . So , um . Uh , maybe describe roughly what {disfmarker} what we are keeping constant for now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Well . So we 've been working like six weeks on {disfmarker} on the noise compensation and we end up with something that seems reasonable . Um . +PhD E: Are you gonna use {disfmarker} which of the two techniques ? +PhD A: So finally it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um , Wiener filtering on FFT bins . And it uses , uh , two steps , smoothing of the transfer function , the first step , that 's along time , which use recursion . And {vocalsound} after this step there is a further smoothing along frequency , which use a sliding window of twenty FFT bins . Mmm . And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this is on the {disfmarker} uh , before any mel scaling has been done ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was {disfmarker} +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this smoothing is done on the estimate , um , of what you 're going to subtract ? Or on the thing that has already had something subtracted ? +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , {vocalsound} it 's on the transfer function . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , it 's on the transfer function for the Wiener filter . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so basically we tried {vocalsound} different configuration within this idea . We tried u u applying this on mel bands , having spectral subtraction instead of wiener filtering . Um . Well , finally we end up with {pause} this configuration that works , uh , quite well . So we are going to fix this for the moment and work on the other aspects of {vocalsound} the whole system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , let me int eh , Dave isn't here to talk about it , but let me just interject . This module , in principle , i I mean , you would know whether it 's {vocalsound} true in fact , is somewhat independent from the rest of it . I mean , because you {disfmarker} you re - synthesize speech , right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Uh , well you don't {disfmarker} I guess you don't re - synthesize speech , but you could {disfmarker} +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we do not fo +Professor B: Uh , but you could . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well , we do , but we don't {disfmarker} don't re - synthesize . In {disfmarker} in the program we don't re - synthesize and then re - analyze once again . We just use the clean FFT bins . +Professor B: But you have a re - synthesized thing that you {disfmarker} that 's an {disfmarker} an option here . +PhD A: This is an option that {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I gu I guess my point is that , um , i in some of the work he 's doing in reverberation , one of the things that we 're finding is that , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for an artificial situation , we can just deal with the reverberation and his techniques work really well . But for the real situation uh , problem is , is that you don't just have reverberation , you have reverberation in noise . And if you don't include that in the model , it doesn't work very well . So in fact it might be a very nice thing to do , to just take the noise removal part of it and put that in front of what he 's looking at . And , uh , generate new files or whatever , and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} and then do the reverberation part . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Anyway . +PhD E: So Dave hasn't {pause} tried that yet ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} I mean , e +PhD E: I guess he 's busy with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , prelims , right . +Grad C: Pre - prelim hell . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but {disfmarker} but , you know , that 'll {disfmarker} uh , it 's clear that we , uh {disfmarker} we are not {disfmarker} with the real case that we 're looking at , we can't just look at reverberation in isolation because the interaction between that and noise is {disfmarker} is considerable . And that 's I mean , in the past we 've looked at , uh , and this is hard enough , the interaction between channel effects and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} and additive noise , uh , so convolutional effects and {disfmarker} and additive effects . And that 's hard enough . I mean , I don't think we really {disfmarker} I mean , we 're trying to deal with that . In a sense that 's what we 're trying to deal with in this Aurora task . And we have , uh , the , uh , uh , LDA stuff that in principle is doing something about convolutional effects . And we have the noise suppression that 's doing something about noise . Uh , even that 's hard enough . And {disfmarker} and the on - line normalization as well , in that s category . i i There 's all these interactions between these two and that 's part of why these guys had to work so hard on {disfmarker} on juggling everything around . But now when you throw in the reverberation , it 's even worse , because not only do you have these effects , but you also have some long time effects . And , um , so Dave has something which , uh , is doing some nice things under some conditions with {disfmarker} with long time effects but when it 's {disfmarker} when there 's noise there too , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty hard . So we have to start {disfmarker} Since any {disfmarker} almost any real situation is gonna have {disfmarker} uh , where you have the microphone distant , is going to have both things , we {disfmarker} we actually have to think about both at the same time . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um {disfmarker} So there 's this noise suppression thing , which is sort of worked out and then , uh , maybe you should just continue telling what {disfmarker} what else is in the {disfmarker} the form we have . +PhD A: Yeah , well , {vocalsound} the , um , the other parts of the system are the {disfmarker} the blocks that were already present before and that we did not modify a lot . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} again , that {disfmarker} that 's the Wiener filtering , followed by , uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's done at the FFT level . Then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , th then the mel filter bank , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: then the log operation , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the filtering is done in the frequency domain ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . And then the mel and then the log , and then the +PhD A: Then the LDA filter , +Professor B: LDA filter . +PhD A: mmm , then the downsampling , +Professor B: And then uh downsample , +PhD A: DCT , +Professor B: DCT , +PhD A: then , um , on - line normalization , +Professor B: on - line norm , +PhD A: followed by {pause} upsampling . Then finally , we compute delta and we put the neural network also . +Professor B: Right , and then in parallel with {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a neural net . And then following neural net , some {disfmarker} probably some orthogonalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Um . +PhD A: And finally frame dropping , which um , {vocalsound} would be a neural network also , used for estimated silence probabilities . And the input of this neural network would be somewhere between log {pause} mel bands or one of the earlier stages of the processing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . So that 's sort of {disfmarker} most of this stuff is {disfmarker} yeah , is operating parallel with this other stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So the things that we , um , uh , I guess we sort of {disfmarker} uh , There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , neat ideas for {vocalsound} V A So , I mean , in {disfmarker} I think there 's sort of like {disfmarker} There 's a bunch of tuning things to improve stuff . There 's questions about {pause} various places where there 's an exponent , if it 's the right exponent , or {pause} ways that we 're estimating noise , that we can improve estimating noise . And there 's gonna be a host of those . But structurally it seemed like the things {disfmarker} the main things that {disfmarker} that we brought up that , uh , are {disfmarker} are gonna need to get worked on seriously are , uh , uh , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a significantly better VAD , uh , putting the neural net on , um , which , you know , we haven't been doing anything with , the , uh , neural net at the end there , and , uh , the , uh , {vocalsound} opening up the second front . Uh . +PhD E: The other half of the channel ? +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , I mean , cuz we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have , uh , uh , half the {disfmarker} the , uh , data rate that they allow . +PhD E: That what you mean ? +Professor B: And , uh , so the initial thing which came from , uh , the meeting that we had down south was , uh , that , um , we 'll initially just put in a mel spectrum as the second one . It 's , you know , {pause} cheap , easy . Uh . There 's a question about exactly how we do it . We probably will go to something better later , but the initial thing is that cepstra and spectra behave differently , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so . Um , {comment} I think Tony Robinson used to do {disfmarker} I was saying this before . I think he used to do mel , uh , spectra and mel cepstra . He used them as alternate features . Put them together . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: So if you took the system the way it is now , the way it 's fro you 're gonna freeze it , and it ran it on the last evaluation , where it would it be ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . It , uh , +PhD E: In terms of ranking ? +PhD A: Ri - right now it 's second . +PhD D: Second . +PhD A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Although you {disfmarker} you know , you haven't tested it actually on the German and Danish , have you ? +PhD A: No , we didn't . No , um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So on the ones that you did test it on it would have been second ? +Professor B: Yeah . Would it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} When you 're saying second , you 're comparing to the numbers that the , uh {disfmarker} that the best system before got on , uh {disfmarker} also without German and Danish ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD D: And th the ranking actually didn't change after the German and Danish . So , yeah . +Professor B: Well ranking didn't before , but I 'm just asking where this is to where theirs was without the German and Danish , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where were we actually on the last test ? +Professor B: Oh , we were also esp essentially second , although there were {disfmarker} there were {disfmarker} I mean , we had a couple systems and they had a couple systems . And so , I guess by that {pause} we were third , but I mean , there were two systems that were pretty close , that came from the same place . +PhD E: Uh - huh . I see . OK . +Professor B: Uh , so institutionally we were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we were second , with , uh , the third {disfmarker} third system . +PhD E: We 're {disfmarker} so this second that you 're saying now is system - wide second ? +Professor B: See {disfmarker} Uh , no I think it 's also institutional , isn't it ? +PhD E: Still institutionally second ? +Professor B: Right ? I mean , I think both of their systems probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , we are between their two systems . So +Professor B: Oh , are we ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} It is a triumph . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is it ? +PhD D: Their {disfmarker} their first system is fifty - four point something . And , uh , we are fifty - three point something . +PhD A: But everything is {pause} within the range of one {disfmarker} one percent . +PhD D: And their second system is also fifty - three point something . Yeah , one percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so basically they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all pretty close . +PhD E: Oh , wow ! +PhD A: So . +PhD E: That 's very close . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , {vocalsound} um , you know , in some sense we 're all doing fairly similar things . Uh , I mean , one could argue about the LDA and so forth but I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in a lot of ways we 're doing very similar things . But what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +PhD E: So how did they fill up this {disfmarker} all these {disfmarker} these bits ? I mean , if we 're u +Professor B: Um , why are we using half ? Well , so you could {disfmarker} you c +PhD E: Yeah . Or how are they using more than half , I guess maybe is what I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} uh , you guys are closer to it than me , so correct me if I 'm wrong , but I {disfmarker} I think that what 's going on is that in {disfmarker} in both cases , some kind of normalization is done to deal with convola convolutional effects . Uh , they have some cepstral {pause} modification , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? In our case we have a couple things . We have the on - line normalization and then we have the LDA RASTA . And {pause} they seem to comple complement each other enough and be different enough that they both seem to help {disfmarker} help us . But in any event , they 're both doing the same sort of thing . But there 's one difference . The LDA RASTA , uh , throws away high modulation frequencies . And they 're not doing that . +PhD E: So th So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that if you throw away high modulation frequencies , then you can downsample . +Grad C: Get down . +PhD E: I see . I see . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what if you didn't {disfmarker} So do you explicitly downsample then ? Do we explicitly downsample ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: And what if we didn't do that ? Would we get worse performance ? +PhD A: Um {pause} Yeah , not better , not worse . +Professor B: I think it doesn't affect it , does it ? +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So I think the thing is , since we 're not evidently throwing away useful information , let 's try to put in some useful information . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so I {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've found in a lot of ways for quite a while that having a second stream uh , helps a lot . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's put in , and you know , it may even end up with mel spectrum even though I 'm saying I think we could do much better , just because it 's simple . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . And you know , in the long run having something everybody will look at and say , "" oh , yeah , I understand "" , is {disfmarker} is very helpful . +PhD E: So you would {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} You 're thinking to put the , uh , mel spectrum in before any of the noise removal stuff ? or after ? +Professor B: Well , that 's a question . I mean , we were talking about that . It looks like it 'd be straightforward to {disfmarker} to , uh , remove the noise , um , and , uh , +PhD E: Cuz that happens before the mel conversion , right ? +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , to do it after the mel conversion {disfmarker} uh , after the noise removal , after the mel conversion . There 's even a question in my mind anyhow of whether th you should take the log or not . Uh . I sort of think you should , but I don't know . +PhD A: What about norm normalizing also ? +Professor B: Right . Uh . Well , but normalizing spectra instead of cepstra ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , probably . Some kind would be good . You know ? I would think . +PhD D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} so it actually makes it dependent on the overall energy of the {disfmarker} uh , the frame . +Professor B: If you do or don't normalize ? +PhD D: If yo if you don't normalize and {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you don't normalize . +Professor B: Right . Yes , so I mean , one would think that you would want to normalize . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w w My thought is , uh , particularly if you take the log , try it . And then if {disfmarker} if normalization helps , then y you have something to compare against , and say , "" OK , this much effect "" {disfmarker} I mean , you don't want to change six things and then see what happens . You want to change them one at a time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So adding this other stream in , that 's simple in some way . And then {pause} saying , oh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} particularly because we 've found in the past there 's all these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these different results you get with slight modifications of how you do normalization . Normalization 's a very tricky , sensitive thing and {pause} you learn a lot . So , I would think you would wanna {pause} have some baseline that says , "" OK , we don't normalize , this is what we get "" , when we do this normalization , when we do that normalization . But {disfmarker} but the other question is {disfmarker} So I think ultimately we 'll wind up doing some normalization . I agree . +PhD E: So this second stream , will it add latency to the system +Professor B: No , it 's in parallel . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Para +Professor B: We 're not talking about computation time here . +PhD E: S +Professor B: We 're ta I think we 're pretty far out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's just in terms of what data it 's depending on . It 's depending on the same data as the other . +PhD E: Same data . +Professor B: So it 's in parallel . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So with this , uh , new stream would you train up a VAD on both {disfmarker} both features , somehow ? +PhD D: No , I guess the VAD has its own set of features . +Grad C: OK . that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , which could be this {disfmarker} one of these streams , or it can be something derived from {pause} these streams . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: And there is also the idea of using TRAPS , maybe , for the VAD , which , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , that 's also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , Pratibha apparently showed , when , she was at IBM , that it 's a good idea . So . +Grad C: Would {disfmarker} would that fit on the handset , or {disfmarker} ? Oh ! +PhD A: I have no idea . +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Well , it has t I mean the {disfmarker} th +PhD A: It would have to fit but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , if it has to fit the delays and all this stuff . +Professor B: Well , there 's the delays and the storage , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: yeah . But I don't think the storage is so big for that . +Grad C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think th the biggest we 've run into for storage is the neural net . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . And so I guess the issue there is , are we {disfmarker} are we using neural - net - based TRAPS , and {disfmarker} and how big are they ? So that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll be , you know , an issue . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor B: Maybe they can be little ones . +Grad C: Yeah . Cuz sh Right . +Professor B: Mini - TRAPS . +Grad C: Cuz she also does the , uh {disfmarker} the correlation - based , uh , TRAPS , with without the neural net , just looking at the correlation between {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . And maybe for VAD they would be OK . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Or a simple neural net , right ? I mean , the thing is , if you 're doing correlation , you 're just doing a simple {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} uh , dot product , you know , with some weights which you happened to learn from this {disfmarker} learn from the data . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , putting a nonlinearity on it is , {pause} you know , not that big a deal . It certainly doesn't take much space . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So , uh , the question is , how complex a function do you need ? Do you need to have an added layer or something ? In which case , uh , potentially , you know , it could be big . So . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , uh {disfmarker} So what 's next ? Maybe s s remind us . +PhD E: So the meeting with Hynek that you guys just had was to decide exactly what you were gonna freeze in this system ? Is that {disfmarker} ? Or was there {disfmarker} ? Were you talking about what t new stuff , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: What to freeze and then what to do after we froze . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And like I was saying , I think the {disfmarker} you know , the basic directions are , uh , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of little things , such as improve the noise estimator but the bigger things are adding on the neural net and , uh , the second stream . And then , uh , improving the VAD . Uh . So . +PhD D: So , I 'll , um {disfmarker} I 'll actually {disfmarker} after the meeting I 'll add the second stream to the VAD and maybe I 'll start with the feature net in that case . It 's like , you 're looking at the VAD , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . I I 've a new feature net ready also . +PhD D: I 'll {disfmarker} For the VAD ? +PhD A: No , uh . Well p two network , one VAD and one {pause} feature net . +PhD D: Oh , you already have it ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK , so just figure how to take the features from the final {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD A: Um . But , yeah , I think there are plenty of issues to work on for the feature net @ @ . +Grad C: Feature net . +PhD E: What about the , um {disfmarker} uh , the new part of the evaluation , the , uh , Wall Street Journal part ? +Professor B: Right . Right . Um . Have you ever {disfmarker} ? Very good question . Have you ever worked with the Mississippi State h uh , software ? +PhD A: Sorry . +PhD E: No . Not yet . +Professor B: Oh . Well you {disfmarker} you may be called upon to help , uh , uh , on account of , uh , all the work in this stuff here has been , uh , with small vocabulary . +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . So what {disfmarker} how is the , uh , interaction supposed to happen ? Uh , I remember the last time we talked about this , it was sort of up in the air whether they were going to be taking , uh , people 's features and then running them or they were gonna give the system out or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're gonna just deliver a system basically . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Do we already have it ? +PhD D: Yeah , th I {disfmarker} I guess it 's almost ready . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} That 's what {disfmarker} So they have released their , uh , document , describing the system . +Professor B: Maybe you could , uh , point it {pause} at Chuck , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: because , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD D: Sure . +PhD E: So we 'll have to grab this over CVS or something ? +PhD D: It - no , it 's just downloadable from their {disfmarker} from their web site . +PhD E: Is that how they do it ? OK . +Professor B: Cuz one of the things that might be helpful , if you 've {disfmarker} if you 've got time in all of this is , is if {disfmarker} if these guys are really focusing on improving , uh , all the digit stuff , uh , maybe {disfmarker} and you got the front - end from them , maybe you could do the runs for the {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , you know , iron out hassles that {disfmarker} that you have to , uh , tweak Joe about or whatever , +PhD E: Sure . +Professor B: because you 're more experienced with running the large vocabulary stuff . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: S +PhD D: So I 'll point you to the web site and the mails corresponding . So I +PhD E: And it {disfmarker} but it 's not ready yet , the system ? +PhD D: Uh , I {disfmarker} I think they are still , uh , tuning something on that . So they 're like , d they 're varying different parameters like the insertion penalty and other stuff , and then seeing what 's the performance . +PhD E: Are those going to be parameters that are frozen , nobody can change ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , w I guess there is , uh , time during which people are gonna make suggestions . +PhD E: Oh , but everybody 's gonna have to use the same values . +PhD D: After that . +PhD E: Oh ! Interesting . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So these sugges these {disfmarker} this , uh , period during which people are gonna make suggestions is to know whether it is actually biased towards any set of features or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I th th certainly the thing that I would want to know about is whether we get really hurt , uh , on in insertion penalty , language model , scaling , sorts of things . +PhD E: Using our features . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , in which case , um , H Hari or Hynek will need to , you know , push the case {pause} more about {disfmarker} about this . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD E: And we may be able to revisit this idea about , you know , somehow modifying our features to work with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . In this case , that 's right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's right . Um , some of that may be , uh , a last minute rush thing because if the {disfmarker} if our features are changing {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . But , um . Yeah , the other thing is that even though it 's months away , uh , it 's starting to seem to me now like November fifteenth is right around the corner . And , um , if they haven't decided things like this , like what the parameters are gonna be for this , uh , when "" deciding "" is not just somebody deciding . I mean , in fact there should be some understanding behind the , uh , {vocalsound} deciding , which means some experiments and {disfmarker} and so forth . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it seems pretty tight to me . +PhD E: So wha what 's the significance of November fifteenth ? +Professor B: That 's when the evaluation is . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So , yeah , so after {disfmarker} But , you know , they may even decide in the end to push it off . It wouldn't , you know , entirely surprise me . But , uh , due to other reasons , like some people are going away , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping it 's not pushed off for {vocalsound} a l a long while . That would be , uh {disfmarker} put us in an awkward position . But {disfmarker} Anyway . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Great . Yeah , I think that 'll be helpful . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not anybody OGI currently who 's {disfmarker} who 's , uh , working with this and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} is this part of the evaluation just a small part , or ho how important is this to the overall {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um {disfmarker} it depends how badly {vocalsound} you do . I mean , I think that it {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD D: b +PhD E: This is one of those things that will be debated afterwards ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Conceptually , it {disfmarker} my impression , again , you guys correct me if I 'm wrong , but {pause} my impression is that , um , they want it as a double check . That you haven't come across {disfmarker} you haven't invented features which are actually gonna do badly for a {disfmarker} a significantly different task , particularly one with larger vocabulary . And , um , but it 's not the main emphasis . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: I mean , the truth is , most of the applications they 're looking at are pretty small vocabulary . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a double check . So they 'll probably assign it some sort of low weight . +PhD E: Seems to me that if it 's a double check , they should give you a one or a zero . Y you passed the threshold or you didn't pass the threshold , and they shouldn't even care about what the score is . +Professor B: Yeah . But , I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see what they come up with . Uh , but in {disfmarker} in the current thing , for instance , where you have this well - matched , moderately - matched , and {disfmarker} and mis highly - mismatched , uh , the emphasis is somewhat on the {disfmarker} on the well - matched , but it 's only a {disfmarker} a marginal , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? It 's like forty , thirty - five , twenty - five , or something like that . So you still {disfmarker} if you were way , way off on the highly - mismatched , it would have a big effect . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , it wouldn't surprise me if they did something like that with this . So again , if you 're {disfmarker} if you get {disfmarker} If it doesn't help you much , uh , for noisy versions of this {disfmarker} of large vocabulary data , then , uh , you know , it may not hurt you that much . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: But if it {disfmarker} if you don't {disfmarker} if it doesn't help you much at all , um , or to put it another way , if it helps some people a lot more than it helps other people , uh , if their strategies do , then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . So is this , uh {disfmarker} ? Uh , Guenter was putting a bunch of Wall Street Journal data on our disks . +Professor B: That 's it . +PhD E: So that 's the data that we 'll be running on ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So {pause} we have the data , just not the recognizer . OK . +PhD E: So this test may take quite a while to run , then . May - judging by the amount of data that he was putting on . +Professor B: Uh , well there 's training and test , right ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I guess , I 'm not sure . +Professor B: No , I mean , if it 's like the other things , there 's {disfmarker} there 's data for training the H M Ms and {disfmarker} and data for testing it . +PhD E: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So I wouldn't {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . So there 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , training the recognizer , but , um Um . But I think it 's trained on clean and {disfmarker} Is it trained on clean and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: The Wall Street ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Apparently , no . It 's training on a range between ten and twenty DB , I think , and testing between five and fifteen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I got {pause} on {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's , uh {disfmarker} It 's like a medium {disfmarker} medium - mismatch condition , sort of . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So the noise is {disfmarker} There is a range of different noises also {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} which are selected randomly and added randomly , uh , to the files . And there are noises that are different from the noises used {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I wouldn't imagine that the amount of testing data was that huge . They probably put training {disfmarker} uh , almost certain they put training data there too . Maybe not . So . That 's that . Anybody have anything else ? +PhD E: Uh , one {disfmarker} one last question on that . When did they estimate that they would have that system available for download ? +PhD D: Um , I guess {disfmarker} I guess one {disfmarker} some preliminary version is already there . +PhD E: Oh , so there 's w something you can download to just learn ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's already there . Yeah . +PhD E: OK , +PhD D: But they 're actually parallel - y doing some modifications also , I think . +PhD E: good . +PhD D: So I guess the f final system will be frozen by middle of , like , one more week maybe . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , well that 's pretty soon . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's just one more . +Grad C: Is this their , um , SVM recognizer ? +PhD D: No , it 's just a straightforward HMM . +Professor B: You know , their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} They have a lot of options {pause} in their recognizer and {disfmarker} and the SVM is one of the things they 've done with it , but it 's not their more standard thing . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor B: For the most part it 's {disfmarker} it 's Gaussian mixtures . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just a HMM , Gaussian mixture model . +Grad C: Gaussian mixture HMM . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , the SVM thing was an HMM also . It was just a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was like a hybrid , like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , this is a g yeah , this i +Professor B: what ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So , just so that I understand , they 're providing scripts and everything so that basically , uh , you {disfmarker} you push a button and it does training , and then it does test , and everything ? Is that {pause} the idea ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} yeah , I {disfmarker} I guess something like that . It 's like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} as painless as possible , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: is what {disfmarker} Do they provide all the scripts , everything , and then {disfmarker} Just , +PhD E: I see . Hmm . Somehow yo there 's hooks to put your features in and {disfmarker} +PhD D: ju Yeah , I th I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah , um . In fact , I mean , if you look into it a little bit , it might be reasonable {disfmarker} You know Joe , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just to sort of ask him about the issue of , um , different features having different kinds of , uh , scaling characteristics and so on . So that , you know , w w possibly having entirely different optimal values for {disfmarker} for the usual twiddle factors and what 's {disfmarker} what 's the plan about that ? +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So sh shall we , like , add Chuck also to the mailing lists ? It may be better , I mean , in that case if he 's going to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because there 's a mailing list for this . +Professor B: Is that OK ? +PhD E: Yeah , that 'd be great . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess maybe Hari or Hynek , one of them , has to {pause} send a mail to Joe . Or maybe if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I could send him an email . +PhD D: Well , yeah , to add or maybe wh +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I know him really well . +PhD D: Yeah , so that 's just fine . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I was just talking with him on email the other day actually . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , yeah , and just , um , se maybe see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: About other things , but . +Professor B: Do you have Hari 's , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: I have Hari 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so maybe just CC Hari and say that you 've just been asked to handle the large vocabulary part here , and , uh , you know , +PhD E: OK . Would it be better if I asked Hari to ask Joe ? +Professor B: Uh . Why don't you just ask Joe but CC Hari , and then in the note say , "" Hari , hopefully this is OK with you "" . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And then if Joe feels like he needs a confirmation , Hari can answer it . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: That way you can get started asking {comment} Joe quickly while he 's {disfmarker} while he 's maybe still , you know , putting in nails and screws and Yeah . +PhD D: And there is an , uh , archive of all the mails that has been {vocalsound} gon that has gone , uh , between these people {disfmarker} among these people . So just you can see all this {pause} mails in the ISIP web site {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Mississippi web site . +PhD E: OK . Is that a password controlled {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's password protected . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So , like {disfmarker} like , it 's , like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Have you thought about {pause} how long {pause} would be uh , most useful for you to go up to OGI ? +PhD A: I don't know , uh . We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} For September , we can set up a work schedule and we can maybe work independently . And then at some point it maybe be better to work together again . +Professor B: Oh , so you 're {disfmarker} you 're imagining more that you would come back here first for a while and then {disfmarker} and then go up there ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's to you . +PhD A: Maybe , yeah . +Professor B: I ju you guys are Well , y anyway , you don't have to decide this second but thi think about it {disfmarker} about what {disfmarker} what you would think would be the {disfmarker} the best way to work it . I 'll +PhD A: But , uh {pause} Huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: support it either way , so . +PhD A: Mm - hmm Right . +Professor B: OK . Uh . Got anything to tell us ? +Grad C: Um . Well , I 've been reading some literature about clustering of data . Just , um , I guess , let me put it in context . OK , so we 're talking about discovering intermediate categories to , um {disfmarker} to classify . And , uh , I was looking at some of the work that , uh , Sangita was doing on these TRAPS things . So she has , um {disfmarker} she has temporal patterns for , um , a certain set of phonemes , from {disfmarker} from TIMIT , right ? the most common phonemes . And each one of them has {disfmarker} has a {disfmarker} a nice pattern over time , a one {disfmarker} one second window . And it has {disfmarker} has these patterns . Um , so she has , um a TRAP for each one of the phonemes , um , times fifteen , for each of the fifteen critical bands . And , um , {vocalsound} she does this agglomerative hierarchical clustering which {disfmarker} which basically , um , is a clustering algorithm that , uh , starts with many , many , many different points {disfmarker} many different clusters {disfmarker} uh , corresponding to the number of data , uh , patterns that you have in the data . And then you have this distance mej metric which , uh , measures how {disfmarker} how closely related they are . And you start , um {vocalsound} by merging the patterns that are most closely related . +PhD E: And you create a tree . +Grad C: And y yeah , yeah , a dendrogram tree . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um . +PhD E: And then you can pick , uh , values anywhere along that tree to fix your set of clusters . +Grad C: Right , usually it 's when , um {disfmarker} when the sol similarity measures , um , don't go down as much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And so , uh {disfmarker} so you stop at that point . And what she found was , sh um , was there were five broad , um {disfmarker} broad categories , uh , corresponding to , uh , things like , uh , fricatives and , uh , vocalic , um , and , uh , stops . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , uh , one for silence and {disfmarker} and another one for schwa {disfmarker} schwa sounds . Um , and , um , I was thinking about ways to {disfmarker} to generalize this because w you 're {disfmarker} it 's sort of like a {disfmarker} it 's not a completely automatic way of clustering , because yo beforehand you have these {disfmarker} these TRAPS and you 're saying that {disfmarker} that these frames correspond to this particular phoneme . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's constraining your {disfmarker} your clustering to {disfmarker} to the set of phonemes that you already have . Um , whereas maybe we want to just take {disfmarker} take a look at , um , arbitrary windows in time , um , of varying length , um , and cluster those . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I 'm thinking if we {disfmarker} if we do that , then we would probably , um , at some point in the clustering algorithm find that we 've clustered things like , OK , thi this is a transition , um , this is a relatively stable {disfmarker} stable point . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , and I 'm hoping to find other things of {disfmarker} of similarity and maybe use these things as the intermediate , um {disfmarker} intermediate categories that , uh , um , I 'll later classify . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Are you looking at these in narrow bands ? +Grad C: Um , right . F um , I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz that 's what you 're gonna be using , right ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I haven't exactly figured out , um , the exact details for that but , uh , the {disfmarker} the representation of the data that I was thinking of , was using , um , critical band , um , energies , {vocalsound} um , over different lengths of time . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it seems somehow that needs th uh , there 's a couple things that I wonder about with this . I mean , so one is {disfmarker} is , {pause} again , looking at the same representation , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're going for this sort of thing where you have {pause} uh , little detectors that are looking at narrow bands , then what you 're going to be looking for should be some category that you can find with the narrow bands . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that seems to be kind of fundamental to it . Um , and then the other thing , uh , is {disfmarker} that I wonder about with it , and {disfmarker} and don't take this in the wrong way , like I {disfmarker} I know what I 'm doing or anything , +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: but , I mean . {vocalsound} Um , just wondering really . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , the sort of standard answer about this sort of thing is that if you 're trying to find {pause} the right system in some sense , whether you 're trying by categories or {disfmarker} or parameters {pause} um , and your goal is discrimination , then having choices based on discrimination as opposed to , um , unsupervised nearness of things , um , is actually better . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , and I don't know if that {disfmarker} I mean , since you 're dealing with issues of robustness , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe this isn't right , but it 'd be something I 'd be concerned about . Because , for instance , you can imagine , uh , uh , i i if you remember from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from your {disfmarker} your quals , John Ohala saying that , uh , "" buh "" {comment} and "" puh "" {comment} differed , uh , not really cuz of voicing but because of aspiration . I mean , in as far as wha what 's really there in the acoustics . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , if you looked {disfmarker} if you were doing some coarse clustering , you probably would put those two sounds together . And yet , I would gue I would guess that many of your recognition errors were coming from , uh , um , pfft , {comment} screwing up on this distinction . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , in fact , it 's a little hard because recognizers , to first order , sort of work . And the reasons we 're doing the things we 're doing is because they don't work as well as we 'd like . And since they sort of work , uh , it means that they are already doing {disfmarker} if you go and take any recognizer that 's already out there and you say , "" how well is it distinguishing between {pause} schwas and stops ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Boy , I bet they 're all doing nearly perfectly on this , right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So these {disfmarker} these big categories that differ in huge obvious ways , we already know how to do . So , what are we bringing to the party ? I mean , in fact what we wanna do is have something that , particularly in the presence of noise , uh , is better at distinguishing between , uh , categories that are actually close to one another , and hence , would probably be clustered together . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's th that 's the hard thing . I mean , I understand that there 's this other constraint that you 're considering , is that you wanna have categories that , uh {disfmarker} that would be straightforward for , say , a human being to mark if you had manual annotation . And it 's something that you really think you can pick up . But I think it 's also essential that you wanna look at what are the {vocalsound} confusions that you 're making and how can you come up with , uh , categories that , uh , can clarify these confusions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , the standard sort of way of doing that is take a look at the algorithms you 're looking at , but then throw in some discriminative aspect to it . Y y this is more like , you know , how does LDA differ from PCA ? I mean , they 're the same sort of thing . They 're both orthogonalizing . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: But , you know {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , um , this is a little harder because you 're not just trying to find parameters . You 're actually trying to find the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the categories themselves . Uh , so a little more like brain surgery , I think on yourself . Uh . So , uh +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anyway . That 's my {pause} thought . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: You 've been thinking about this problem for a long time actually . I mean , well {disfmarker} W actually , you stopped thinking about it for a long time , but you used to think about it {vocalsound} a lot . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And you 've been thinking about it more now , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: these categories . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} um , it 's not clear to me how to reconcile , you know , what you 're saying , which I think is right , with {pause} the way I 've been looking at it . That it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's all not very clear to me . But it seems to me that the desire {disfmarker} the desirable feature to have is something that , um , is bottom - up . You know , however we do that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And and so I guess what I don't understand is how to do that and still be discriminative , because to be discriminative you have to have categories and the only categories that we know of to use are sort of these human {disfmarker} human sig significant {disfmarker} categories that are significant to humans , like phonemes , things like that . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: But that 's sort of what you want to avoid . And so that feels {disfmarker} I don't know how to get out of this . +Professor B: Well , here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a , uh , uh Here 's a generic and possibly useless thought , which is , {vocalsound} um , what do you really {disfmarker} I mean , in a sense the only s s systems that make sense , uh , are ones that {disfmarker} that have something from top - down in th in them . Right ? Because if e even the smallest organism that 's trying to learn to do anything , if it doesn't have any kind of reward for doing {disfmarker} or penal penalty for doing anything , then it 's just going to behave randomly . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So whether you 're talking about something being learned through evolution or being learned through experience , it 's gotta have something come down to it that gives its reward or , you know , at least some reinforcement learning , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: So the question is , how far down ? +Professor B: And +PhD E: We could stop at words , but we don't , right ? We go all the way down to phonemes . +Professor B: Right , but I me I {disfmarker} I think that maybe in some ways part of the difficulty is {disfmarker} is trying to deal with the {disfmarker} with these phonemes . You know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and i it 's almost like you want categories if {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our , uh , um , {vocalsound} metric of {disfmarker} of goodness , uh , i if our {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: correction {disfmarker} if our metric of badness {vocalsound} is word error rate then , um , maybe we should be looking at words . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for very nice , uh , reasons we 've looked for a while at syllables , and they have a lot of good properties , but i i i if you go all the way to words , I mean , that 's really {disfmarker} I mean , d w In many applications you wanna go further . You wanna go to concepts or something , or have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} have concepts , actions , this sort of thing . +PhD E: Yeah . But words would be a nice {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , words aren't bad , yeah . And {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Yeah , so the common {disfmarker} right , the common wisdom is you can't do words because there 's too many of them , right ? So you have to have some smaller set that you can use , uh , and {disfmarker} and so everybody goes to phonemes . But the problem is that we {disfmarker} we build models of words in terms of phonemes and these models are {disfmarker} are really cartoon - ish , right ? So when you look at conversational speech , for example , you don't see the phonemes that you {disfmarker} that you have in your word models . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but we 're not trying for models of words here . See , so her here 's maybe where {disfmarker} If the issue is that we 're trying to come up with , um , some sort of intermediate categories which will then be useful for later stuff , uh , then {pause} maybe it doesn't matter that we can't have enough {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , what you wanna do is {disfmarker} is build up these categories that are {disfmarker} that are best for word recognition . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and somehow if that 's built into the loop of what the categories {disfmarker} I mean , we do this every day in this very gross way of {disfmarker} of running o a thousand experiments +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because we have fast computers and picking the thing that has the best word error rate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: In some way {disfmarker} I mean , we derive that all the time . In some ways it 's really not {comment} a bad {disfmarker} bad thing to do because it tells you in fact how your adjustments at the very low level affect the {disfmarker} the final goal . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so maybe there 's a way to even put that in in a much more automatic way , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: where you take , you know , something about the error at the level of the word or some other {disfmarker} it could be syllable {disfmarker} but in some large unit , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: uh , and uh {disfmarker} yeah , you may not have word models , you have phone models , whatever , but you sort of {pause} don't worry about that , and just somehow feed it back through . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so that 's , uh , wh what I called a useless comments because I 'm not really telling you how to do it . But I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know {disfmarker} it +PhD E: No , but I think the important part in there is that , you know , if you want to be discriminative , you have to have uh , you know , categories . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And I think this {disfmarker} the important categories are the words , and {pause} not the phones . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe . And so {disfmarker} Right . If you can put the words in to the loop somehow for determining goodness of your sets of clusters {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Now , that being said , I think that {disfmarker} that if you have something that is , um {disfmarker} i Once you start dealing with spontaneous speech , all the things you 're saying are {disfmarker} are really true . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you {pause} have read speech that 's been manually annotated , like TIMIT , then , you know , i i you the phones are gonna be right , actually , {vocalsound} for the most part . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , uh , it doesn't really hurt them to {disfmarker} to do that , to put in discrimination at that level . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you go to spontaneous speech then it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the phones are {disfmarker} uh , you know , it 's gonna be based on bad pronunciation models that you have of {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor B: and , um {disfmarker} And it won't allow for the overlapping phenomenon +PhD E: Mmm . So it 's almost like there 's this mechanism that we have that , you know , when {disfmarker} when we 're hearing read speech and all the phonemes are there you know , we {disfmarker} we deal with that , but {disfmarker} but when we go to conversational , and then all of a sudden not all the phonemes are there , it doesn't really matter that much to us as humans because we have some kind of mechanism that allows for these word models , whatever those models are , to be {pause} munged , you know , and {disfmarker} and it doesn't really hurt , and I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how to build that in . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , I guess the other thing i is {disfmarker} is to think of a little bit {disfmarker} I mean , we when y when you start looking at these kind of results I think it usually is {disfmarker} is pretty intuitive , but start looking at um , what are the kinds of confusions that you do make , uh , you know , between words if you want or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or , uh , even phones in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in read speech , say , uh , when there is noise . You know , so is it more across place or more across manner ? Or is it cor you know , is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I know one thing that happens is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , uh , you lose the , um , uh , low energy phones . I mean , if there 's added noise then low energy phones {vocalsound} sometimes don't get heard . And if that {disfmarker} if that is {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} uh , if that turns it into another word or {disfmarker} or different {disfmarker} you know , or another pair of words or something , then it 's more likely to happen . But , um , I don't know , I w I would {disfmarker} I would guess that you 'd {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: W I don't know . Anyway , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think part of the difficulty is that a l a lot of the robustness that we have is probably coming from a much higher level . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , we understand the context of the situation when we 're having a conversation . And so if there 's noise in there , you know , our brain fills in and imagines what {disfmarker} what should be there . +Professor B: Well that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing some sort of prediction of what {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , exactly . +Professor B: Oh , sure , that 's really big . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but I mean , even if you do um , uh , diagnostic rhyme test kind of things , you know , where there really isn't an any information like that , uh , people are still better in noise than they {disfmarker} than they are in {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} uh , than the machines are . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} i Right . We can't {disfmarker} we can't get it at all without any language models . Language models are there and important but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh . If we 're not working on that then {vocalsound} we should work on something else and improve it , but {disfmarker} especially if it looks like the potential is there . So {disfmarker} Should we do some digits ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Since we 're here ? +PhD E: Go ahead , Morgan . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: That 's all folks . +","Professor B and colleagues discuss their progress on a speech recognition project. They've summarized their meeting with Hynek and agreed on the aspects of their work to be ""frozen,"" and which will be the focus of future developments. Key topics include noise suppression, re-synthesis, CVS mechanisms, and remote code access via SSH. The group debates how to improve noise estimator functions, the value of intermediate categories for classification, potential for word-level categories, and the importance of discriminative training. They also consider the forthcoming Wall Street Journal part of the evaluation, how to incorporate larger vocabulary data, and the potential need to reconcile bottom-up clustering approaches with word error rate optimization. The conversation includes technical details about their processes and plans for future collaboration, indicating that time constraints and the evolution of their system are impending concerns." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hello everyone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hi . +Marketing: Hi . +Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good . +Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting , more or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working , meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given . Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use . Um it's also an item that people lose a lot . So we should address that . And , of course , it should be something s s that is very simple to use . In addition to that to make it sell , of course , uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because , in particular with smaller items , that's a very important fact , 'cause um if they say , well , I go home and think about it , that won't work . Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve . And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip . Therefore , messages uh will be controlled in the same manner . There should be extra features like lid buttons , maybe a beep . If too many buttons are pressed , mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time , you know , what show they want to watch . Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes . So the components of the thing should be button , bulbs , infra infra-red bulbs , battery , chips , wires , and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item . Francino who is our um +User Interface: Interface designer . +Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it , of course , should have an on-off button , and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock . Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable . It should be compact . Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped . And maybe have an anar alarm-clock . And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature . Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves . Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time ? Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think that pretty much is it . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations . And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh , I don't I don't think so , so whoever w wants {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , I can start first . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . Now my slide , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , your slides . Okay . Oh , come on , close already . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's number two , right ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Participant three . Yes . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Now as an interface designer , I would give more emphasis on the interface , how the remote looks like so that it is sellable , it is attractive to customers . Next , please . Okay . Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television . This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel , like you can have the numbers one , two , three , four , up to nine . +Project Manager: Nine what ? Nine channel uh switches ? +User Interface: Pardon me ? +Project Manager: Nine channel switches ? Is {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , nine numbers . And then you have swapping of uh button +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa . Then it should have a next button , and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television . For example , if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English , then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour , colour of the picture , the contrast , sharpness , brightness of the picture . Now there should be a memory switch . There should be a mute button . Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call , and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_ , but he he can reduce the sound , he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_ . Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature . It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit . So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers , you can record your own voice +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television , for example , if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel , uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah , the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have . So this is one one of the interface which can be created . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , please , next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour , but they have many buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that . So you can you can design an interface which is very simple , and which is user-friendly . Even a kid can use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide . Yeah , so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use , it can be used for T_V_ , it can be used for cable-satellite , it can be used for V_C_R_ , D_V_D_s and audio . And this has in-built voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide ? Yeah , now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly , it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it . And this comes with different colours , different shapes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small , compact , attractive child interface . Next slide , please . Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You don't know me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big , you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created . {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Right . +User Interface: Thank you , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , thank you very much . Uh any comments on uh her presentation ? +Marketing: Well , um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more . I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good , the child one is good , the too big to misplace , I think it's just funny . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think the these are her presentations , but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after +Marketing: Yeah mm . Mm-hmm . Have to come back to that later . Okay . +User Interface: We can . +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation . +Marketing: No , I think her presentation was good , and she really explored all the options . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm right . Mm-hmm . Ho who wants to go next um ? Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: and you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the next one , sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one . +Project Manager: The components design . +Industrial Designer: Components . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , can you go on to the next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit , battery , etcetera , etcetera , it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one , hard plastic , so that it can be strong , even if you just uh uh , {vocalsound} you know , if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down , then it doesn't {vocalsound} break . So it should be strong . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that . And it should be recyclable . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound} , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Good point . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours , blue , red , green , so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components . And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller . If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one . And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures . Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside , it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures . And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility . And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery , capacitor . Can you go on to the next slide , please ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh a diode , a transistor , a resonator , these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller . A battery uh , I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery , even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery . Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one , then uh people can use it for a long time , so in that way we can cut cut the cost , but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one . And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller . Can you go to the next slide , please . And how it works , how the remote controller works . +Project Manager: Go away . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Uh when you press a button , when you do that , you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button , and it will send some signals through the wires , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed . Suppose you have pressed channel one button , number one you have pressed , then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button . Every button , every individual button , has its own morse code . Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one , then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button , and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button . That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit . Now , that signal , that morse code , has to be amplified by the transistor . That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller . It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits . The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately , that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal , then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do . Then it will do the appropriate action . So uh this is how the remote controller works . +User Interface: It works . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Yeah , I have few pictures . When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller . And {gap} to the next slide , please . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all . And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor , three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah , and di and a diode transistor . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah , di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor , and a uh uh cylinder shape , uh that one is a capacitor . Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry , ther there is a diode . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board . The green one is a circuit board . Actually , uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive . Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper , because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires , it's it's better to go for printing , because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing , nothing like uh , you know , you don't need to use wires and all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using . It's just printing something on a board . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits . So th that green uh thing is a circuit board , and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons , like when you press a button , the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the , yeah , um integrated circuit . +User Interface: Transmit . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons . Uh can you see the black uh , round marks ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Next , please . And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls . Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it , but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range . Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery , a more ingenious uh hard dynamo , um a kinetic provision of energy , more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy . So that also we can have in a battery , uh or we can use solar sells . Uh . +Marketing: Hmm , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases . Uh usually , the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have more pictures . Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe d uh I have just one more slide , I think . Um . Like we can have a ma material such as plastic , rubber , wood , titanium , but titanium we can't use . Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print , um also infra it includes the infrared se sender . Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker . An Yeah , that's it . It's all for me now , +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you . +Industrial Designer: thank you . +Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , on the scroll and the push-button , um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , th the the the scrolling wheels are different , like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls , uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now , nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons . +Marketing: Um . We'll just go for push buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah , push-buttons . Yeah . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision , and the marketing expert has to present her her thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Um alright , my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing , and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition , so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers . I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing . And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that , I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have , and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it . And I would encourage you all to do the same . Um and my findings from this is that , you know , small is beautiful . Um people like something that really fits in their hand . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Simple is beautiful . They don't want to have to squint at small print um , they want buttons whose functions are obvious , and they want um as few buttons as possible , and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing . They want each button to do something . And eye-catching is important . It's gotta look cute , it's gotta look appealing . Go ahead , I'm trying to finish fast for you . Um {vocalsound} and our preference is , as far as I'm concerned , are we got to get to the market before the competition . Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others , so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item . And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign . If we try to tell people it has too many great features , um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere . So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things , I think , that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product . And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular . And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular . And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal . They are more back into soft feel , spongy feeling things , things with maybe a little cloth on them . So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone . And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: of the remote ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours , and limit yours a bit ? +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes , I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned ? +User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w +Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature . +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that {gap} be really good , yeah , I agree with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work , because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems , issues . +Marketing: Distance problem ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices , so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system , it's a costly thing , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it's it's , uh yeah , it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already , and then you're expecting an answer from th For example , you have a T_V_ system , I'm the user and my family members are the user , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I will already record uh a question like , uh good morning , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on . It will recognise my voice and will switch on . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , before we get too far off here um , the components of the concept is the energy . What kind of energy do we foresee ? Battery . +Marketing: I think I think battery , +Project Manager: Battery . +User Interface: Battery . +Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And the case . And I think we all agree on the case , we wanna have something uh maybe bright , colourful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright , colourful , trendy trendy design , and strong . +User Interface: And compact . +Industrial Designer: And also strong . +User Interface: Trendy design and compact . +Industrial Designer: Trendy , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Trendy design , compact and strong . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: User interface concept , uh {vocalsound} interface type , supplements +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That will be your area I think , right , Jana . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Um like the switches , like we use buttons for user interface . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: yeah . And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons , like can have a f mute button or a swapping button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think that {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement . +Project Manager: Oh . A what ? +Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement . +Project Manager: Right , right , right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Recogniser . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes , and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then , to have the look and feel design , and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: In this phase , the two of you , Jana and Francine , have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay , it says here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um if you have any questions , you know , you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach , I suppose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes , according to our timetable here . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you . +","### Project Meeting Summary + +#### Participants: +- Project Manager +- Industrial Designer +- User Interface Designer +- Marketing Expert + +#### Meeting Overview: +The meeting began with greetings and a check-in on everyone's status, with participants confirming they are doing well. The Project Manager reviewed the minutes from the last meeting to ensure all were on the same page regarding previously discussed topics. + +#### Topics Reviewed: +- **Marketing Manager's Approach**: The marketing manager had previously presented a method of working which involved collating suggestions to market the product effectively within the given budget. The product had to be easy and intuitive to use, attractive to customers, and address the common issue of such items being frequently lost. The marketing goal was to instill an immediate desire in customers to purchase the product. + +- **Technical Aspects**: The technical team suggested that the product should include a chip with infrared capabilities, a simple user interface to control the chip, and extra features like lid buttons, a beep for an excess of button presses, a child lock, and possibly a display clock. They also proposed different shapes and essential components such as buttons, bulbs, battery, chips, wires, and a holder for the device. + +- **User Interface Designer**: The interface designer emphasized the visual appeal, suggesting a T-shaped, compact, and allergy-free material. The interface could have on-off buttons, channel locks, and possibly an alarm clock. They discussed providing options such as infrared or radio waves and energy-saving features, and a timer to program favorite shows. + +- **Interface Design Presentation**: The User Interface Designer gave an extensive presentation that included a range of potential features such as number buttons for channel selection, swapping channels, volume control, subtitle activation, picture customization (color, contrast, sharpness, brightness), memory switch, and mute function. They also introduced a highly desired feature—speech recognition, allowing for voice commands to operate the TV. + + - **Design Examples**: They showcased multiple remote designs addressing different needs: child-friendly designs, oversized remotes that are hard to lose, and universal remotes with built-in voice recognition. + +#### Technical Components and Operation: +- **Industrial Designer's Focus**: The focus was on the technical components like a sturdy and recyclable case, integrated circuit, resistors, capacitors, transistor, diode, resonator, and battery options, emphasizing the importance of an efficient central processing unit within the remote. + + - **Functionality Explained**: An explanation was given on how pressing a button sends a signal to a chip which then produces a Morse code-like signal specific to that button, which a transistor amplifies and an LED translates into infrared signals that the TV sensor can detect. + +- **Components Discussed**: The physical makeup of the remote was broken down, highlighting the need for a good balance between quality and cost, particularly regarding the battery, which could be rechargeable, thus cutting costs. + +#### Marketing Expert's Contributions: +- **Market Research**: The marketing expert discussed the importance of understanding the competition, current market trends, and consumer preferences. + +- **Consumer Preferences**: Findings showed a preference for small, simple, and eye-catching remotes with obvious and limited buttons/functions and a dislike for hard plastics in favor of soft, spongy materials. + +#### Decisions and Actions: +- The concept of the remote centered around using a battery for energy, a chip on print for internal components, and a case that was bright, colorful, and trendy. + +- A pending decision is to include speech recognition, a feature seen as potentially marketable and a standout point in advertising campaigns, contingent on further research for cost and feasibility. + +- Individual tasks were designated to produce design and evaluation elements, with a focus on creating a prototype using modeling clay. + +#### Next Steps: +The team agreed to regroup in thirty minutes, with specific tasks needing completion by each member. For any ambiguity or queries, members were advised to contact the Project Manager or their respective coaches. + +#### Meeting Conclusion: +The session was adjourned with plans to reconvene shortly and further refine the product based on the agreed-upon concepts and individual research and design tasks to be undertaken." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Hello . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good afternoon . Sorry I'm a little late . +Project Manager: No problem . +Marketing: Got stuck in the traffic . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's possible on uh this time of day . Starts at three o'clock . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , let me see . Our fourth and last meeting . There he is . Yes . Okay this our last meeting . In this meeting we will discuss our final design . And we will do some evaluation about the , not only the product , but also the project . And then we're going to close the project today as well . So after this you will be uh free to go and uh spend all your money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And this uh design , detailed design meeting uh we will discuss uh the look-and-feel of the design , the usability interface design , and we will do the product evaluation . Um , in order to do that we have this agenda . We'll have the prototype presentation first . Then we will set up some evaluation cri um criteria . {vocalsound} Then we will look at the finance . Uh we will have to see if everything we wanna do is also possible within our budget . Because everything costs money , and the more functions you wanna have the more money it will cost . So we have to see if it fits within the twelve and a half Euro per remote . But we will see that later . Then we will do the project uh evaluation , and the closing after that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got forty minutes . So we will be finished at half past three . But first um we will do the {disfmarker} this is prototype presentation . So , if some yeah if somebody wants step forward . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well this is what me and Richard came up with . The default spot for the on-off button . The mute button just below that . Then there's the volume and channel selectors . Simple plus-minus button . Uh we thought of a help button . If you hold it and you press another button , uh the help goes to the L_C_D_ screen . Then there's the zero to {disfmarker} one to zero buttons . A button for teletext . A button for the subtitles . And the company logo . So it's rather simple prototype . And uh we'll have to see from testing uh how the users take it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} is this the moment where we ask or can ask questions about the functionality ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure uh just pop in at any time . +Marketing: Um , when you're in teletext there usually are buttons where you just you just press it and you g go to the next teletext page . +User Interface: Uh , that's just uh the normal uh as th as the normal uh remote controls uh {disfmarker} So um {disfmarker} You put it uh {disfmarker} you um came in uh page uh one hundred . Now you can use the normal uh one to zero buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you {disfmarker} But you can also uh use the um button th for uh changing the the channel . S so uh the shifting uh button . Uh for uh yeah shif shifting up in uh on t on t uh teletext , and shifting uh down . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh but um I thought in a few meetings earlier we uh uh tried to keep it uh simple . Uh just a few buttons and large buttons . +User Interface: Oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But uh I think these are altogether quite a quite a few buttons . So I'm wondering if we if we neely {disfmarker} really need all of those buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you look at most controls , they've got more buttons than this . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And well the on-off button , it's it's a necessity . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can't drop that one . The volume and channel buttons , you need you obviously need those those . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The mute button could be replaced uh by pressing the volume-down button twice . So we could cancel that one . I think the help button really is necessary +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there's no other way to know when someone wants to know what a button does . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh , or you can build in uh when you press uh one button uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Long time . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you put {disfmarker} +User Interface: But m Yeah . We disc discuss that already . But uh we think uh old people uh don't know that uh option . So uh they just put in uh put {vocalsound} press uh the button and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} you can't leave out the number buttons I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh teletext and subtitles are yeah necessary . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's rather basic already . +Marketing: Yeah . Think so . That's what I pointed out earlier . If you just make a control for just the T_V_ there's just not much to gain here . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So we had somebody about th interfa Something about the design of the buttons there ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just n normal plain buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's rather hard to draw on the white-board . +User Interface: it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But they're supposed to be equal sized , round , with a with a little logo on it for the for the volume , the the triangle and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Just to recognise it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just for recognition . +User Interface: Uh yeah and now we don't need uh LEDs or um {disfmarker} Y uh +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: s some uh remote controls uh do it also , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um uh because we use the little display we don't uh have to use it . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and for the materials we've just chosen for rubber buttons . With a a different colour than the case . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: So they jump out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh that's about it . +Project Manager: That's nice . Then because we only have thirty minutes left , I will move on to the finance part , which is pretty exciting , to see if it's all possible what we wanna do . And I can tell you that we're going to have a pretty hard time producing this for twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If we see {disfmarker} I don't know if I've filled in correctly , so just correct me if you see uh something wrong . I counted two batteries . But maybe we can also use one . I don't know if it's possible . +Marketing: Since it rechargeable . +Project Manager: It's rechargeable . That's right . +User Interface: Yeah we can u just uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . That's two Euros off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We need the advanced chip . So there's not much to uh {vocalsound} to save there . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here we have the single curves . Uh we can see that the difference between uncurved and the single curved is one Euro . Um , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know , but I think the single curved is good for design , and also for the display to have a prominent place on the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to keep that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then we have the case material supplements . It's plastic . It's the cheapest one we need . So that's uh not much to save either . But then the biggest costs are the buttons . So maybe we really should try to discard some buttons to uh keep our costs low . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because you have to {disfmarker} we will have to get the twelve and a half Euros at the end . Um , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so if we {disfmarker} Let's fir first count the buttons we have now . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Sixteen , I believe so . +Project Manager: Because I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Sixteen . Nah , that will be even more then . Eighteen Euros . So , +User Interface: Uh seventeen . Uh with the help button . +Project Manager: seventeen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , including the help ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Damn . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh seventeen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we can uh discard the help and the mute button uh by pressing down volume long , or pressing down a a number long . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: That saves us uh one Euro already . 'Cause then we have got fifteen I think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Wouldn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . No . That wouldn't be an option . +Project Manager: And this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , d I assume you'd count the volume and channel thingies for two buttons each , right ? +Project Manager: No those are one , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . Where did uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , think actually there're two buttons , +User Interface: Uh , it's just one button . +Marketing: aren't they ? +User Interface: But , um {disfmarker} Yeah . There were uh two uh for one big button . But they are uh more expensive than the small ones . Uh , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but th it's not stated in this files . +User Interface: It's just a {gap} . +Project Manager: So maybe we can we can even make one button with the volume and the channel in one , by pressing +Marketing: Well I was thinking , maybe you could just integrate three of those numbers to one button . +Project Manager: That's possibility as well . +Marketing: That would cut the cost . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} And it's good for the design as well . So you can make {disfmarker} Uh let's see . If you make this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Looks a bit like uh a cross . {vocalsound} Plus . Min . +User Interface: But I don't don't know if if it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Uh s yeah channel . +User Interface: So uh , +Project Manager: Yeah w +User Interface: we've still got four buttons , but just um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah th I think they count uh the materials . +User Interface: You got uh not not a butt button itself , but uh on the um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah on the chip there . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . On the chip you've got still uh four uh four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think because we have the advanced chip +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we can just count this as one button . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , I think this really is four buttons anyhow . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} No but I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe it is , but then it seems to me that it's impossible to get the twelve and a half Euros . Also the L_C_ display , I think it's , I think it's too expensive for the display we use . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's a big cost . +Project Manager: I think they uh try t +Industrial Designer: If we leave out the display we can also save money on the chip . +Project Manager: That's right , but what's the big advantage of our remote then ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Only the docking station , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Which isn't the {disfmarker} the docking station isn't even in this c s schematic . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: So it's not even taken into the price . +Project Manager: That's extra . {vocalsound} That's extra . That's right . +Marketing: Maybe we should to a different supplier . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's an option . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Poland . Something . {vocalsound} Polish supplier . Don't you think we can , if we can count this as v as one button , and integrate th uh these buttons in three , then we save a lot of money as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We we could save money on it . But would it make the remote more usable for elderly people ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , that's what I'm wondering . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My mother can't even send send an S_M_S_ message . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we gonna buy a um a remote control uh when you can uh use it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Yeah . We m uh we must um stay below the um below um twelve uh fifty or {disfmarker} Can't uh go um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well , since the market research indicated that older people spend their money easier , more easy , maybe it's feasible to just put the price of the remote up a little . Especially since we have those nice features . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yeah but uh we have to stick to the twelve and a half Euros . We don't have any more budget to develop it . +User Interface: Is it impossible to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The margin will get too small . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it is possible to make one uh for uh twelve fifty . +Project Manager: It is . If you leave out the L_C_ display . And if you use less buttons . Say {disfmarker} Or you can take the single chip . +User Interface: I don't think so . +Marketing: It would be a be a pretty rigid one . +User Interface: S Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , you can't use uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ten . +Project Manager: There it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But then w Good looking . +User Interface: Uh , wi with n Oh , with uh attractive uh o options . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh , you can stay uh below uh twelve fifty . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's uh difficult as well , +Marketing: Or b +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Basically becoming a choice between like either a good remote and a higher production cost , or just any other remote control . +Industrial Designer: No remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or we can leave out the ten buttons and take one scroll wheel for the programme numbers . Then w +User Interface: Scroll-wheel's one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because then we save ten buttons . +User Interface: No , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then we have five and one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and see . If we have this one and we've got the advanced {disfmarker} W uh , we're getting close . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting closer . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But how does scroll-wheel work here ? +Project Manager: Then you will {disfmarker} Or maybe you can um scroll . If you scroll you will see the numbers on the L_C_D_ display . Until you've got the right number , then you push it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That would bring up the price of the scroll-wheel also . Integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Alright . It's gotta scroll and push . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay but then you you can push uh some other button as well . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just not scroll for a half a second . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . So if you scroll to a number and then you wait a half second , then it g turns to that channel . +Industrial Designer: So you won't need a button . +Marketing: I think that would be like the end of our usability . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it would definitely crop cost , a lot . +User Interface: D yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we need the battery . {vocalsound} And the regular chip is not possible ? It has to be advanced ? +Industrial Designer: If you want to use an L_C_D_ screen you you need an advanced chip , yes . +Project Manager: It has to be advanced . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And we can save a Euro by a flat design . That's an option we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ja ja . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Then we're almost there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you v could just leave out one more button . +Project Manager: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , or we have to uh skip the subtitle uh button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think that's {disfmarker} That is a big advantage , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a big advantage . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can we use {disfmarker} can't we integrate the teletext and the subtitles in one button ? +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think so . Yeah . +Project Manager: If you push it three times ? +Marketing: Well , think it's pretty much the teletext subtitles are +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right now you just push the teletext button , go to page eight eight eight , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and teletext disappears . But the subtitles stay there . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But if you push the teletext button twice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you have to scroll to page eighty eight ? Eight hundred eighty eight . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that's the case on most {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} One m uh one b uh , a few buttons . +Project Manager: Ah that's not really that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , that could be just uh like the scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: But then again that would be d j just pretty much not an option for older people , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: who don't even know what a scroll-wheel is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Holding a remote with {vocalsound} which they expect to have like ten buttons for the numbers one to zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: With only five buttons on it . And a scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: I think if you make a good advertisement uh on television and in the in the guide , you can explain to the people how to use the scroll wheel . If you just make it real simple . Because it saves it saves a lot of money . And we can keep our L_C_D_ screen , which can provide extra information . How to use the scroll wheel . How to use the other bu buttons as subtitles . +Marketing: True . True . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And it's good for the innovative design as well . If you would erase these . Mm eraser ? And we put uh {disfmarker} Looks a bit odd maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a pretty big scroll wheel . +Project Manager: That is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Something like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then , yeah . We've got the scroll-wheel . One , two , three , four , five buttons , if we erase this one . And these are two buttons then . +Industrial Designer: We could make two buttons out of that . And just um {disfmarker} If you press the volume button you can control the volume with the scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would save two buttons . If you do the same for the channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's really a good good idea , I think . And it will make the use of the scroll wheel uh more obvious indeed . +Industrial Designer: More obvious . +Project Manager: So we make one for the volume , one for the channel . Plus scroll . That's right . +Industrial Designer: So if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we've got one , two , three . Yeah , we can leave the teletext in if we want . That's m that's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So this is five buttons . +Industrial Designer: If we leave out all those buttons , perhaps you can go with the flat flat case . And make it smaller overall . +Project Manager: Y yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put the the volume and channel buttons on the same height as the on-off button , the screen right behi under that , than the scroll button +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Uh yeah , and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you get a a much smaller remote . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it sh +Project Manager: So we can decrease this one to four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right now we have five . +User Interface: But uh , you can make a f quite a big uh remote remote control for uh just the same price as a small one . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's no problem . +User Interface: Just uh you only have to pay for the double curved or single curved . It uh it's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . It's uh it's more the moulds in which they are being made , I think . Single curved is really easy to just fill in . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And cases come right out of the machine . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And single curved you have to have a different uh different machine , than a flat one . I think this is a really easy one . Um , what does everybody think about a flat or a single curved design ? Freek , what do you think ? +Marketing: Well , I still think we should go for the single curve design . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then again , {gap} all these changes are not really okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Richard's argument was very good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But since we just have to . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to cut costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I'm ag +Marketing: I'd rather just go to the board and get us to spend {vocalsound} eighteen dollars a a remote . +Project Manager: Ask for more money . Yeah . Yeah . I am agreeing with the usability . Yeah . +Marketing: Or do some market research and see what the options are . +Project Manager: Yeah . But th um I think we can then keep the single curved one . Just to express our L_C_D_ screen a bit more . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So people will use it more , and especially for the help functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it will be good if we have scroll bar , scroll button . It will be necessary to have good help function , as well . So this is scroll . I think it was better to have this price list a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Before we went on to the to the whole design . +Marketing: Yes . Definitely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The th +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} I'm glad we could make a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's pretty different , if you saw the last one than {vocalsound} this one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's pretty different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this is not really like for the group we were making our remote . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: This will really require a lot of marketing to get this to sell . +Project Manager: Yeah . It will . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause if older people like familiar forms and familiar stuff . This is not familiar for them . +Project Manager: No , but I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we're gonna have to do a lotta convincing them . +Project Manager: I think the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: But they know the scroll-buttons from uh old radios . Uh they cal also uh buttons like that for uh changing uh channels . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can let l +User Interface: So maybe it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can stick it out , a bit . Like a old old buttons . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's recognisable for them as well . Yeah . That's a good one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , I'm afraid we have to move on . And it's uh it's b uh less frightening , I think . If they see this design they think oh , there are only five buttons , and uh {disfmarker} But we will see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . Might uh {disfmarker} might be confusing too . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's definitely right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They'd be like , what ? Only five buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But very special , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But you're not sixty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . I would buy it if I was six . {vocalsound} No I don't know . What it costs under twelve and a half Euros ? No ? Uh , yes they are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . But we can go on with the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . I can sit down I think . We still have fifteen minutes left , so we're nice on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , the project process . +Marketing: So um , I like set up all these criteria . And evaluation of the thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Evaluation criteria . That's right . That was the the point I forgot . I should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There we are . Evaluation criteria . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes I think for those criteria . +Marketing: Five more minutes ? +Project Manager: No we've got fifteen minutes but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yes . What ? +Marketing: 'Kay so I did some literature study study , and analysis of the requirements we set up earlier . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Translated it into criteria , which would be these . Um , is the remote fancy ? The shape , look and feel . Innovative ? What new functions are there ? Uh , easy to use ? Uh , learnability is a very important factor here . Uh , is it functional ? Are there not too many functions uh among the functions ? And are the those functions that are there , are they useful ? And the cost . The target group . Is the remote really for the group we're making it for ? And recognability . If our company is {disfmarker} If it is easily recognisable that our company made it ? And {disfmarker} So we're supposed to evaluate it right now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Let's see . Oh I have to say this was a little hard , because the minutes of our last meeting were not here . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's because my pen failed to upload his data . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I tried to +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: but it's uh it's giving errors by downloading the software . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . 'Kay . +Marketing: Is the design fancy , on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: I think it's fancy . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah . Six . +User Interface: Uh six . Yeah . +Marketing: We all go for six ? Good . Um , is the design innovative ? +Project Manager: Very . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Sh +Marketing: I think so , with our L_C_D_ screen , docking station , scroll-buttons . +Project Manager: Subtitles , buttons . Yeah . Seven . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've got twenty cents for our docking station , huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should be do-able . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: Is the design easy to use ? +User Interface: Mm . Not really . +Project Manager: That's a bit dodgy . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} Would be for us . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: For old people I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say four . Four or five between . Between four or five . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: Four or five . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: I'd go for four , too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it functional ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is the design functional ? Um , do we have all functions that we want to include ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: N Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we do . Do we have too many functions ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I don't think so . It's pretty slim . +Project Manager: Think it's uh seven . +Marketing: Seven . Oh , and do we um take care of the biggest frustrations of the remote control ? Like it getting lost and {disfmarker} R_S_I_ influences ? +User Interface: Mm m +Industrial Designer: Mm , we haven't thought of that one . +Project Manager: It was . +Marketing: Think we do . +Project Manager: I had them worked out . Mm . They are ugly , not very functional , and getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are the production costs within the preset limits ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well they are now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does the design fit the group of focus ? +User Interface: Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I think with our new radio button , I think it's uh I think it's better . +Marketing: I think it doesn't . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} We have to test it s But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I still {disfmarker} I think it's too m too fancy . Too too flashy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think a radio button is not exactly what older people expect to have a remote control . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a four . +Marketing: I'm not sure . I think I'd go for two . +User Interface: I go for three . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have to do the three . It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Is the company company recognisable ? +Project Manager: Yes it is . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Well , we have the logo there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And they wanna put fashion in their products . Uh in the slogan of the company . And we have the removable front cases . So , I think it's very recognisable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: So that will be this . I was also supposed to calculate the score , but thought we would have another private thingy after this . +Project Manager: We've got a calculate it . Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Twendag sieven an twendag . +Marketing: Is this {disfmarker} Like after this , are we done ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N We've gonna {disfmarker} We're going to evaluate it . +Marketing: We're gonna go to our other room again . Well , anyhow . These are seven factors times seven is forty something . Two ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} Forty nine . +Marketing: Nine ? Uh , minus one . Minus three , minus four . {vocalsound} Minus four . So that would be minus eight . Forty one out of forty nine . +Project Manager: Forty one . That's {disfmarker} Around eighty percent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What is it ? +Marketing: Guess I'll just type that in on the bottom here . +Project Manager: That's eighty four percent . I think that's a pretty nice score . +User Interface: Hmm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . 'Kay . So that will be the evaluation . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , that brings us to the project evaluation . Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project process . Did we move through the right phases , you think ? {vocalsound} Along the process ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think we should have a should have had the finance thingy a lot earlier . In the design phase . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . So lack of information about prices . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Satisfaction . Was there room for creativity ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not too much . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's because of the finance sheet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there w there was enough room , but the finance uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , true . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The room was {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And I would've liked to go for the younger users also . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: And just to be able to access internet and get something of your own . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Restrictions . Internet access . 'Kay . Leadership . Was it clear what everybody had to do uh according to their roles and functions ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teamwork ? Did it work out ? Working together ? Also , you {disfmarker} two of you with the uh last phase ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: The tasks are very structured , so you can just do step by step and it's very easy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} tasks . Okay . Were the means sufficient for the tasks uh we had to do ? Or were they too much ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well , the smart-board , the d d drawing is just a pain in the ass , but {disfmarker} The digital the digital pen is very nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Smart-board . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it wants to download its uh data . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Failed download . Smart-board was irritating . {vocalsound} So you rather wanted to have a flip-over ? Or something else ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: A flip-over or a more precise uh digit +User Interface: A flipper's uh easier , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Faster as well , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . Flip-over . +User Interface: But if you want to share uh of uh when you make um a picture like this uh on the presentation , it's easier to uh share it with uh other people . Uh so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you can sh save it uh and uh put it on the internet , or uh uh in shared f uh folder or uh sh uh shared directory . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I tried to open the file on my laptop , +User Interface: Yeah ? No ? +Industrial Designer: No . Didn't work . +Marketing: but {vocalsound} not possible . +Project Manager: Uh you need a smart board uh application I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I think you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: T can uh can you export it uh like a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Should be possible . Yeah you can export it as image . +Marketing: {gap} no . +Project Manager: Must {disfmarker} Yeah must be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should've done that then . +Project Manager: So the sharing of the information was uh was okay ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Pen is here . +Project Manager: Uh , network . +User Interface: Uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , pen is here on the table . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . So you can {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} It's possible . +User Interface: It's possible . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That's nice . Have we found new ideas for having this kind of meetings ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , yeah maybe um uh when we n uh just uh give the numbers of of uh {disfmarker} Uh uh o one of uh out of s uh sev {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's uh easier to uh to do the th things that are like that on a computer . Uh , so uh just l uh like uh at u university uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So everybody puts his own score . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {vocalsound} it mediates the score , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can get one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's better . So that's uh {disfmarker} How do we call ? Evaluation criteria . Okay . Mm , any more ideas ? Or questions about the project ? Or about the product ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because I think then that we get to our last sheet . Are the costs within the budget ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Considering we are not going to make a docking station . +Project Manager: Do we {disfmarker} Docking station . That's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: But maybe because of the docking station the price of the remote can also be a little bit higher ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and I think you can compensate that as well . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I think that shouldn't be the biggest problem , because it's very cheap to make as well . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do we think we gonna get the twelve and a half million ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or what was it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fifty grand . +Project Manager: Fifteen fifteen million . I think we will . {vocalsound} If we gonna export this product . It's innovative . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially in America . People are pretty decadent . Sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , still I think {disfmarker} I mean if we're n gonna make a scroll-button anyway it'd be more for the younger people than for the older people . +Project Manager: You can do more . Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: So maybe we should just re-focus . +Project Manager: Just put it on the market for everybody . You can you can change markets where by changing the front covers . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Or specifically for younger people . +Project Manager: That's one thing you can change it with . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: So you can also try to uh reach the younger people by uh putting fancy covers on on the market . Just as a test . See how it works . That's I think a good advantage . +Marketing: Yeah , I think then it would be way more uh popular with younger people than it is , than would be with older people . Even if it were their covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , uh then I think we can have our little celebration , right now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Party party . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we still have to fit in one more questionnaire . I think . +User Interface: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I didn't get a message from the from ending of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I believe y uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I think I have one now . +Marketing: Oh you did . +Project Manager: Five more minutes ? Oh that's nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we still have some questions . If somebody has some questions they can ask them now . Or we can put these in the project folder as well . Maybe that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Export as picture , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . This is another network , I guess . Does somebody see the project folder ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't . Hmm . My Documents . +User Interface: Uh maybe uh they will save it . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I'll just put it in My Documents +Marketing: Yeah , it probably will . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} That's okay . Okay . {vocalsound} I think I'm going to make our final presentation now . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you're supposed to make a final {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then I will be back in about ten minutes to show you the final presentation . Summary of the project . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Are we supposed to go into our own rooms again ? +User Interface: Uh maybe we have to fill uh another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Yeah . Questionnaire . I think you all get a questionnaire in in your room . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then I'll meet you in I think about ten minutes , or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Hopefully my pen will download its software . Oh . Or data . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That'd be nice . +","Summary: + +The project team held their fourth and final meeting to finalize the design for a remote control and evaluate both the product and the project itself. Marketing arrived late due to traffic, but the Project Manager dismissed it as a typical issue at that time of day. A brief overview of the meeting’s objectives was provided. + +The Industrial Designer presented their prototype design, featuring simple usability with a default spot for the on-off button, mute button, volume and channel selectors, and a help button, among others. Marketing raised questions about the functionality, specifically regarding the navigation of teletext pages. + +The Project Manager recalled the initial aim to keep the remote simple with large buttons but observed there were quite a few buttons in the presented design. Different buttons, their necessity, and possible integrations or removals were discussed to maintain simplicity and reduce costs. + +The finance part of the meeting led to a detailed discussion about whether the design could fit within the project's tight budget of twelve and a half Euros per remote. Several cost-saving measures were explored, including potentially integrating buttons or the use of a scroll wheel to replace number buttons. + +There was clear concern about whether the developed design was easy enough for the senior target group and whether the product could maintain its innovative features while staying on the budget. + +The assessment criteria for the design included its fanciness, innovation, ease of use, functionality, cost, suitability for the elderly target group, and recognizability of the company brand. The design scored quite well overall during this evaluation. + +In the project evaluation, team members discussed the process they went through, satisfaction with creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, and finding new ideas for meetings. Lack of early integration of finance information was mentioned as an improvement point. + +Project conclusion involved considering the sale price, exploring the option of reaching younger markets, and ensuring costs were within budget. The docking station's potential costs and benefits were assessed. + +The team wrapped up, preparing for their celebration. They also had to complete a questionnaire and awaited the Project Manager's final presentation. Issues with technology such as problems importing/exporting files and using the smart board were discussed. Marketing questioned whether the present design really suited older users and suggested the possibility of shifting the target group. The Project Manager reassured them about aiming for a broad market appeal with different front cover designs. + +Overall, the team had to find a balance between innovation, usability for seniors, and staying within financial constraints. The final design showed promise, but with some reservations about its suitability for the intended elderly user group." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Sian Thomas: Bore da. Unfortunately, the Chair, Lynne Neagle, is unable to attend today's meeting. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 17.22, I call for nominations for a temporary Chair, for the duration of the meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Sian Thomas: Any further nominations? I therefore declare that John Griffiths has been appointed temporary Chair, and I invite him to chair for the duration of today's meeting. +John Griffiths AM: Thank you very much. I thank the Members for that. Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The first item on our agenda today is apologies, substitutions, declarations of interest. Obviously, Lynne Neagle isn't able to be with us today. We haven't received any other apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2 on our agenda, the continuation of our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes, and evidence session 8. And I'm very pleased to welcome Estyn here this morning to give evidence to the committee. Would you like to introduce yourselves for the record, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Meilyr Rowlands, chief inspector. +Claire Morgan: Claire Morgan, strategic director. +Simon Brown: Simon Brown, strategic director. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you. And welcome again. If it's okay, we'll move straight into questions—we have quite a number of questions to get through this morning. Firstly, Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning. I just want to start by asking about your perception of how schools are using the pupil development grant funding, and to what extent they are genuinely targeting that funding exclusively towards children eligible for free school meals. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question. This grant has been targeted far better by now than it was originally. Estyn has made several reports regarding the effectiveness of the grant, and, really, going back to before this specific grant, to a similar grant, called RAISE. At the start of this grant, the funding was often spent on tackling underachievement, rather than dealing with the underachievement of children who are eligible for free school meals specifically. But, over a period of time, we have seen that it is targeted much better by now. That's not to say that the targeting is working perfectly still, and I think that we are seeing examples where the targeting isn't going just to children who receive free school meals. Schools sometimes interpret poverty in a slightly wider way than that. In terms of what schools are doing with the grant, we have given evidence to you of the kinds of things that they are doing. They are tracking progress of pupils, they are trying to improve attendance, they are trying to work with families and the community in general, they're doing work specifically to improve how children are doing in exams, in key stage 4, specifically—a lot of funding is being spent on that—improving the confidence of students, taking students on extra-curricular activities, improving literacy and numeracy. Those are the kinds of activities they're being used for. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because the research by Ipsos MORI and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods has shown that there is some kind of blurring—I think that's the term that they use—in terms of who is eligible. But you are relatively comfortable with the fact that there is sufficient targeting happening. You referred to the fact that it is used, perhaps, to reach a slightly wider cohort than just those who are eligible for free school meals, but you do feel that that balance, from your experience, is acceptable. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, it has improved a great deal. When I was looking at this initially, the targeting wasn’t happening at all. It was being spent on children who were underachieving, and one of the things that we did notice in the first report was that much more funding was being spent on boys than girls. And, of course, that raised the question immediately that it wasn't being spent then on children who are eligible for free school meals, because those numbers are equal. So, it wasn’t, but it has improved. There is a discussion about who exactly should have it and whether free school meals is the best definition. So, I think that schools are perhaps not following that exactly, but within the spirit of the grant, I think I’m fairly comfortable. There is a specific question—I don’t know if you are going to ask this—regarding more able and talented pupils. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's where I was going next. +Meilyr Rowlands: So, if there is a cohort of pupils who are missing out on this, they are the more able and talented pupils who receive free school meals. There are a number of reasons for this, I think. One of them is that there’s still some feeling that less able children should be receiving this grant, children who are underachieving. Schools don’t always identify underachievement of those more able children. It seems that they are doing okay, but if they were given more support, they would do even better. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, is it a lack of awareness of the nature of the grant, and that the individual has to be targeted rather than just those who are underachieving? Is that the problem? Or is it the regime that focuses on exam results and the need to draw those pupils who are underachieving up, rather than incentivising those who are achieving to achieve better? +Meilyr Rowlands: A bit of both, I'd say. And the third factor is identifying children who are more able. I think that we have a bit of work to do in that regard. I was in a conference for headteachers last week, where there was new data being discussed, and that data showed the progress of children from a certain point, year 6 tests. I think that kind of data will be very useful, because what that data can do is help secondary schools to identify more able children and that they are underachieving. Even though they're doing quite well, that kind of value-added data is very useful. So, I think that that will help as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Mark, did you want to pursue these matters further? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. I just wanted to ask about the more able and talented stream. It was good to read in your report an increased emphasis on this and to see your awareness of its importance in the PDG as well. Can I just ask—? Would you look at one area regarding schools' engagement with the Seren network, particularly for the more able and talented, and what more Estyn can do through its inspection criteria and otherwise to encourage this from schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think Estyn has always been very strongly focused on improving the performance of more able pupils. For example, in last year's annual report I raised it, and a lot of the debate around this now, I think, was generated by some of the things I've said in previous annual reports. We gave a lot of evidence to the—. Paul Flynn, I think, did the—no, who did the report? Paul Murphy did the report. So, we gave evidence to that. And on Seren, I'm particularly proud that my alma mater, Jesus College, is a very strong supporter of the Seren work. So, I'm personally quite interested in the work of Seren. And we look at the performance of more able pupils in all our inspections. It's a particular part of our inspection framework—looking at the relative performance of different groups. So, we look at the different performance of boys and girls, free school meals and non-free school meals, ethnic minorities, but we also look at the performance of more able pupils in particular, and we question schools about how they provide for the more able pupils, and we've referred to Seren in several of our inspection reports. +Mark Reckless AM: And where schools work particularly hard to engage with Seren and take up opportunities from that and push as many pupils as appropriate to work with that, is that something that you would recognise within your inspection reports? And, on the other side, where schools don't do that, is that something you would pull them up on? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we've done that. We've done it in several reports. +Claire Morgan: Throughout our inspections, we are looking for best practice, because part of our strategy is always to identify where there are weaknesses, but actually to point schools in the direction of where they can find a solution. So, capturing different approaches to more able and talented is part of the role of inspection. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just briefly, you touched earlier on using the measure of those who are eligible for free school meals as a way to identify children from disadvantaged backgrounds so that you can target this funding. Varied evidence has been given to us on this. Do you have an opinion on whether that's the best way? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly is a good way of doing it. There is a strong correlation between children who underachieve and that measure, so it is a strong measure. But, there is scope to discuss how exactly it does work. For example, some people say that if you have received free school meals for a period of time and now you're not receiving them, then perhaps you should still be receiving the funding for a period of time, for example. So, there are ways of fine-tuning that measure, I think. It's worth considering those approaches. +John Griffiths AM: Thanks for that. We move on now to Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. You've reported that the proportion of schools making effective use of the PDG remains around two thirds of secondary and primary schools, meaning that a third are still not using that PDG effectively. Why do you think this is? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that sort of proportion broadly corresponds to the schools that don't have particularly good leadership. I think, ultimately, all of these sorts of initiatives come down to strong leadership and effective leadership—that they know how to organise and use those grants effectively. One of the shortcomings that we often identify is evaluation—that money has been spent on a particular way of using the grant, but it has not been evaluated well. So, I think quite a lot of it is to do with generic leadership skills. But those are some of the specific shortcomings to do with evaluation. +Michelle Brown AM: Are there any patterns by region or type of school in that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think there's any patterns that we've identified in terms of region. +Claire Morgan: As Meilyr said, it's very strongly linked to leadership capacity. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. Thank you. What are the most effective uses of PDG, from your point of view? Is there something in particular that you think that schools should be focusing on? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a lot of evidence on what constitutes good practice in this area. There's the Welsh Government guidance, there's our guidance, there's a lot of research—the Sutton Trust toolkit—and they're the sorts of things I mentioned earlier. I think that more attention does need to be given to the community-focused element of this work. So, schools do a lot of things that they are in control of—the things I mentioned earlier: things like improving attendance, offering extra-curricular activities, literacy and numeracy support, tracking pupils—all those sorts of things. But an important element of this, I think, is engaging with the learners, but also with parents and the community. I think what we've found is that the most effective schools—the ones that really do make a big difference to this cohort of students—are the ones that do that most effectively. +Claire Morgan: I think that there are different situations in different schools, but in the best schools, they evaluate the barriers to learning for their particular children. Often we see that engagement with communities is part of that engagement with families. In Brackla Primary School, in Bridgend, they've got Families at Brackla, and it's a range of activities to engage with families. Families often have had a negative experience of education themselves, and the schools are trying to address some of those concerns. Cefn Hengoed in Swansea, which I'm sure many of you know about, have had an extensive strategy for engaging with the community, with the families, and equipping their children to participate in decisions around the curriculum, making them more confident learners. So, it is about removing the barriers for disadvantaged learners. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. You've made the comment that secondary schools are focusing too much on key stage 4 and not enough on developing pupils' skills in a sustainable way. Can you expand on that and give us a bit more detail on that, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think this is sort of generally accepted now. The latest guidance on the grant now says that 60 per cent of it should be spent on key stage 3. I think that acknowledges this general point. But what a lot of schools did with this money was precisely that, to target key stage 4—to have catch-up homework clubs, revision clubs, specifically to get children better GCSE results, and getting C grades, in particular. Of course, that is an important part of your armoury of tools to use, but I think there was too much use of that. Part of the problem with that is that it doesn't either develop the long-term transferable skills that those pupils have, or should have, nor does it produce the kinds of skills that the teachers need as well. So, it's kind of a quick win, a quick-fix solution, while what we feel would be more effective in the long term, and more sustainable in the long term—because if this money goes, then those quick fixes won't be possible—what would be more effective in the long term is to improve the curriculum and the pedagogy, the quality of the teaching, the quality of the curriculum, so that children are naturally enthused by what is on offer, that they attend better because they want to be in school, that they want to learn. So, we feel that getting the curriculum right, tailoring the curriculum to the needs of the pupils in that area, and improving teaching, is a more sustainable long-term solution. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you think there's anything in particular driving the focus on the key stage 4? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, again, I think most people would say it is the performance indicators. I think there's a general acknowledgement of that. Again, I said last week—. There was a conference of all the secondary heads in Wales, and that was one of the major discussion points in the conference: how do we get the performance indicators right so that there are no perverse incentives in it? +Michelle Brown AM: To what extent are decisions being made in schools concerning the application of the PDG actually evidence-based? To what extent are they using research to back up how they're using the PDG or is it effectively just guesswork? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that, of all the areas of school policy, this is the one that's most evidence-based. I think that, generally, schools can do much more about using evidence and research findings, but this particular area is probably the one that schools are strongest at using research in. That's partly because the guidance strongly suggests that you should do that, but also because there is a lot of easily accessible research evidence available. So, there's a lot of research on this. As I mentioned earlier, the Sutton Trust toolkit is a good example where researchers have really tried very hard to simplify all the evidence that exists in a way that schools can use. So, there are little pound signs to show how costly an intervention is and little stars or something to show how many months of gain pupils get out of this particular intervention. So, it makes it much easier for schools to make a decision. But I think what's missing is that you can't just take that evidence as it is, because you have to implement it in your own school, and that then will affect how effective that particular intervention is. Just because it is evaluated by researchers as being generally very effective doesn't mean that you will necessarily implement it effectively. So, it is therefore important that each school does evaluate. So, there are kind of two sides to using research. There's looking at research, but there's also doing your own research and evaluating how effectively you have implemented something. I think that's been a weakness. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Do you think there's an attendance crisis at key stage 4 for those students eligible for free school meals? +Meilyr Rowlands: 'Crisis' is maybe too strong a word, but I think there's been a lot of attention given to attendance, quite rightly. Over a long period of time, I was a member of the national behaviour and attendance review board under Ken Reid about 10 years ago. So, there's been a lot of attention on attendance, and that's very important because attendance has a very strong correlation with outcomes. +Hefin David AM: Of those students at key stage 4, 35 per cent of those eligible for free school meals are attending for 95 per cent of the time, whereas it's 60 per cent for their peers. Is the PDG making an impact on that? You've mentioned engagement with the curriculum. What more can be done? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what's happening now is that people are targeting their attention on attendance. Attendance has improved in primary and in secondary generally. It has also improved for these cohorts as well, and at a faster rate than the rest of the cohort. So, there have been improvements. Nevertheless, I agree with you totally that it is a major, major problem, and that is why schools do use the PDG specifically to improve attendance. +Hefin David AM: But you said they've not used it well enough. +Meilyr Rowlands: Did I say that? They are using it, and attendance has improved, and the attendance of this cohort has improved more, but there's still a major, major problem. So, I think there needs to be even more attention— +Hefin David AM: So, what—? I'm looking for specifics. What can be done with the PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, as I said earlier, that these are major social issues. So, I think what can be done that hasn't been done currently is to give more attention to the community-focused side of schooling. I think the schools that have done well, that have really improved attendance of this particular group of pupils, are the ones that have taken community relationships very, very seriously and worked with parents. +Hefin David AM: Yes, you mentioned working with families when you were answering Llyr. How does that happen, though? What does it look like? If I'm a parent, what does it look like? +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. I'll ask Claire to give you an example. Cefn Hengoed is a good example of a school that has not cracked it but made a lot of progress. +Claire Morgan: Often, in the best schools, the headteachers consider themselves to be community leaders as well as headteachers, and they often set up arrangements where they engage directly with the families of disadvantaged children or children who are underachieving generally. They try to build very strong relationships with the families so that the school is in a position to either liaise with different agencies or to bring agencies into the school to address some of the issues that are outside school control. +Hefin David AM: And where does the PDG come into this, and the use of it? +Claire Morgan: This sometimes is used for appointing staff whose role it is to facilitate these arrangements to give one-to-one support to children, to monitor attendance, to visit homes where children are not coming into schools, to try and address what the barriers are in getting them into classrooms. +Hefin David AM: And those lessons you've learned from Cefn Hengoed: how are you going to spread that? How does that get spread? +Claire Morgan: Well, we've done it in a number of ways. Obviously, the first thing we do is the inspection report, and we highlight the practice there. We also have things—. This is an example of our best-practice case studies. We also have conferences as well, where we invite the headteachers from those schools to come and present to other headteachers. We also tweet, use social media, to try and get the message out there. But there's also— +Hefin David AM: This all seems like stuff that's done to teachers. It doesn't seem very engaging. +Claire Morgan: Well, it is—. Headteachers tell us that learning about best practice from other headteachers is very, very useful. When we had a conference, and when we looked at leadership and improving schools, Cefn Hengoed, along with a number of other schools, presented, and we had very positive feedback from that. So, it is actually schools learning from other schools, and I think the work that the consortia have been doing on school-to-school support as well can contribute to it. +Hefin David AM: We're spreading the PDG very thinly now, if we're talking about attendance, and then we talk about exclusion as well. Is it possible that it can have an impact on reducing the higher exclusion rates for EFSM students? +Claire Morgan: I think it has the potential to. I think all these strategies have a potential to remove those barriers. But this is— +Hefin David AM: It doesn't sound very convincing. +Claire Morgan: But it is a difficult challenge for schools. These are often complex issues that schools are grappling with, and they are trying a variety of approaches. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm not being overly critical, but it does seem very hit and miss, to me. Some of the answers that you're giving—they seem to be giving certain examples, but there doesn't seem to be a coherence to it. +Claire Morgan: I think it comes back to leadership. Where we have very strong strategic leadership in schools, they are more direct in their approach, and they have a very strong strategy. Where there's weaker leadership, sometimes they are trying different things, perhaps in more of a scattergun approach, rather than trying strategies, evaluating and finding out what works. There is an element of the impact of leadership there. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Hefin? Okay. +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it is true to say that it's difficult to distinguish what some of these better schools do with PDG, as opposed to their general money. If that's what you're getting at, I would totally agree. Schools like Cefn Hengoed will be using more than just the PDG to do this work. +Hefin David AM: And it appears to be a lot about the way things are done, as much as how the money is spent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. +Claire Morgan: It is to do with the ethos and the culture of the school. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thanks for that. We have further questions from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. You've observed that the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those who aren't on free school meals hasn't closed significantly at any stage of learning. Is the PDG actually working? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I'm in danger of repeating myself now. It's quite difficult to identify the cause and the effect in terms of the PDG. So, where there have been improvements, it's quite difficult to say, 'Well, that's definitely down to the PDG', and similarly vice versa: if it's not working, it's difficult to say that it's because of PDG not being used properly. To come back to something else I said previously, there have been small improvements. Whether you say that that is due to PDG or not is quite difficult, but there have been some improvements. But there hasn't been a major step change in closing that gap, that is true, and I think the conclusion that I draw is that these are major societal challenges and barriers that these young people face. Schools can do a certain amount, and of course they must do a certain amount, but to have a step change you do need to engage with the learners, with the parents and with the community and that's why the more successful schools do actually succeed—it's because they do that. So, I think more of a push on that area at a national level would be welcome. +Michelle Brown AM: In most successful schools, how much is the attainment gap being narrowed, in the schools that make the most effective use of PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would vary from school to school. We can look up specific examples for you of specific schools if you like. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, perhaps you could provide a note to the committee on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I could have a list of schools and how much they've closed, perhaps. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, I'll move on. +John Griffiths AM: Perhaps you could include in that what you would consider to be a significant increase. +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. Fine. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. In 2017, we saw a re-widening of the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those not on free school meals. What effect do you think the Welsh Government's changes to performance measures have had in terms of impact? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they definitely had a direct impact on it, and probably there might well be an indirect, longer-term impact as well. But, clearly, changing the performance indicators had a direct, immediate effect, because some of those examinations, qualifications, courses that were typically followed by this cohort of students weren't any longer part of the headline performance indicators. So, you've all heard about BTEC Science and the key skills qualifications. Those sorts of things that many of these pupils used to succeed at, and therefore get the performance indicator for the school, no longer count. So, it's had a direct impact, and it's one of the reasons why it's quite difficult to compare the results of one year and another, because of these changes in performance indicators. +Michelle Brown AM: Yes, that makes sense. Do you think there hasn't been any—? Can we take it from what you've said that there's been a positive improvement, or has it been negative? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a growing realisation that secondary schools, key stage 4, is driven overly by performance indicators, and, whatever performance indicator you come up with, there will be unintended consequences. So, it's not, I think, useful to keep changing the performance indicators and think that you will get to a point where you solve the problem. That's not likely to happen. What needs to be done is to have a different approach to accountability that doesn't put so much attention on these performance indicators, because what you're doing is you're just moving the problem around by changing the performance indicators. Some of these vocational courses that I mentioned are a good example of this. So, I think the previous performance indicators encouraged schools to enter, for example, whole cohorts to do BTEC science, and that's not a good idea because the GCSE sciences are better preparation to go on to A-level science, for example. So, you're cutting out the possibility of progression for those pupils. On the other hand, by discouraging—the new performance indicators discourage BTEC and now people are saying, 'We're not offering BTEC at all', and it is suitable for a certain cohort of pupils. So, it's very difficult to get the performance indicators absolutely right if you put so much pressure on schools to actually achieve those performance indicators. +John Griffiths AM: Michelle, I'd just like to bring in Darren at this point. +Darren Millar AM: I share some of your concern around the unavailability now of BTEC in some schools. It strikes me that the decision to discourage the availability of BTEC, which is what the performance measures do, really is sending a message about vocational qualifications that is not helpful, actually, to many young people for whom vocational qualifications may be perfectly suitable. Is that something with which you concur? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's one of the unintended consequences, and what I'm trying to say is that, almost inevitably, there will be unintended consequences. So, you can sympathise with the original decision to change the performance indicators in such a way that it encouraged more pupils to do GCSEs, for example, but it does have that unintended consequence. In theory, there's nothing stopping a school entering pupils now for those qualifications. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle, we need to move on at this stage, so we'll move on Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you very much. I wanted to ask you about looked-after children and adopted children, and how effective the PDG has been for those groups of children. So, to begin with, how well do the schools know that the PDG does exist for looked-after children and adopted children? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what we found—we did a review of looked-after children fairly recently, and we found there was some confusion about where the grant was, who had the grant and how it was spent, and what the priorities of regional consortia were, because I think the grant goes to regional consortia now. I think previously it went to local authorities. So, I think schools aren't quite sure about how it's spent and what the priorities are. +Claire Morgan: I think we've seen a bit of improvement there. Meilyr was right; there was a lack of clarity. Schools weren't always aware of the grant and the possibility of using it to support those learners. But the consortia are now using the grant, and there's some training being offered to schools around emotional behaviour and attachment training. There's some school-to-school work that is now being funded by the grant to share best practice, and there are some individual bursaries to support the work. So, from quite a concern, some action now is appearing to be done. +Simon Brown: And on other developments, regional consortia, they've have appointed regional LAC co-ordinators, which has been helpful— +Julie Morgan AM: For these particular groups? +Simon Brown: Yes. It has happened since July 2016 and they're now in post and beginning to work. And, as Claire said—she gave some of the spend that the regional consortia are using, targeted spending. It's an improving area of regional consortia's work. They are improving their tracking of looked-after children. There's an issue about adopted children, I think, because, currently, the pupil-level annual school census data doesn't differentiate whether children are adopted or not. So, they're more difficult to track. But looked-after children are being tracked by the consortia. So, it's an improving area, as Claire mentioned. +Julie Morgan AM: Could you give some examples of some work that's been done with looked-after children that you feel has been effective? +Claire Morgan: I think we'd probably need to go away and get that from our evidence base. That would be helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: That would be great if you could do that and send something in to us. I've mentioned before in this context that this previous committee, in the previous Assembly, did an inquiry into adopted children, where we met with a lot of adoptive parents. And one of the big issues that did come out was the fact that there was a great deal of concern about some of the insensitivities in the schools in dealing with adopted children, asking for pictures of when the children were born and things like that that didn't show a degree of sensitivity. Do you feel that those sorts of issues are being addressed on a wider basis now, and are they being addressed through this grant, through the PDG grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: We probably do need to come back to you with some more evidence on this. This is certainly on our radar. We've got two pieces of work currently that we're doing, which will give a little bit more evidence on this. We're doing a piece of work on managed moves and I think that will be helpful because a lot of these pupils are subject to managed moves, and that's the sort of thing we'll be looking at in that report: what information is transferred from one organisation and from one school to another. I think that generally hasn't been very helpful, and there isn't necessarily a good system for exchanging particularly their educational needs—some of the basic things about their date of birth and whatever are transferred, but their educational needs, when children move from one school to another. So, we've got a report coming out on that. The other piece of work we've been doing is on children who have had adverse experiences in their childhood and how schools deal with those traumatic backgrounds. +Julie Morgan AM: That would, of course, be much wider than looked-after and adopted children. +Meilyr Rowlands: It is wider. It is wider. That is wider. But, if you don't mind, we'll try and get you something specifically on— +Julie Morgan AM: If you could, because there does generally seem to be a lack of knowledge about how effective this work is with looked-after and adopted children. You don't have any information about exclusion rates, for example, with looked-after children, and the way this grant has been used to address those sorts of issues? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is some data available. I don't think exclusions have gone down particularly for that group more than any other group. But there has to be quite a bit of caution used with data on exclusions. The Welsh Government's statistics on that come with a big cautionary note, because that data is subject to a lot of variation—exactly what you're talking about, I think: different counties and different authorities do things differently. And I think the work we're doing on managed moves is very pertinent to that because managed moves don't count as part of the exclusion. So, the exclusion rates will differ from area to area, depending on the policy on managed moves. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about attendance? Anything about attendance with looked-after children? Any evidence of— +Meilyr Rowlands: I'll have to look that up as well I think. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, Chair, if we can have some more information on all of this, it would be great. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, yes, we'll look forward to receiving that further information from you. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I just ask a follow-up to a response that we had last week when we had the EAS consortium in, amongst others? They told us that the specific grant—the pupil deprivation grant—principally for looked-after children, they were responsible for, and that certainly the vast bulk of that was spent on a specific programme, aimed not at LACs specifically, but at all children considered vulnerable at times of transition, particularly into year 7. Does that strike you as an appropriate use of that grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think transition is appropriate—that's quite sensible, but clearly if the grant is for looked-after children, it should be spent on looked-after children. +Mark Reckless AM: Are there any other comments on that approach? I think, to take up what EAS has said, there were difficulties about having particular programmes aimed specifically at individual looked-after children, and it was felt that they would benefit vulnerable children, who had more transitions between schools perhaps than others. Is that a sufficient link to justify how that grant is spent? I think this is really in the wider context of how much schools need to make sure this grant goes towards the group it's specified for, and to what extent it is acceptable to blur the boundaries of that and perhaps this is just an example of a higher degree of blurring than some others. +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't know enough about this particular initiative to comment, but I would have thought that looked-after children is a very small group and if you were to blur it that much, then it wouldn't be very targeted. I would have thought that if the grant is specifically for looked-after children, it should be more targeted, but I don't know the details. +Mark Reckless AM: Just following up on another point, I think you said that the 'PLASS' data—. I apologise that I'm not familiar with the abbreviation, but could you explain if anything was being done to address previously looked-after children who are now adopted and seeking to ensure that they are measured to that data to allow proper tracking. Is that work that's in hand, do you know? Could you just clarify for me the 'PLASS' description and what information system that that refers to? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's the information that schools give formally to Welsh Government and every so often, the data that is collected formally by Welsh Government is improved and expanded. Exclusions is a good example. Previously, exclusions weren't collected through PLASC—the pupil level annual school census—and so we had no proper data at all on exclusions. Now that's been improved, but I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, I think what you were referring to—. I think you were saying that previously looked-after children who are now adopted, unlike looked-after children, that wasn't tracked by the PLASC data. +Simon Brown: That's our understanding. Looked-after children are differentiated, but whether they're adopted or not—whether any children are adopted—isn't picked up in the data at the moment. +Mark Reckless AM: But I think for the grant, it's previously looked-after children who have since been adopted rather than all adopted children, isn't it? +John Griffiths AM: Again, perhaps you could clarify that for us in the further information that you will provide. +Meilyr Rowlands: Although, you'd probably be better off asking the Welsh Government directly. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes, I agree—I think that would be better, but just to clarify finally from me, Chair: is your point that, if that group isn't measured, then it is difficult to target them with this grant, and if we want them to be targeted with this grant, we should ensure that they're tracked through that data system? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, that sounds sensible. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark, I think you have some further questions on Schools Challenge Cymru. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Did you consider that the Schools Challenge Cymru programme was a success? +Meilyr Rowlands: It was certainly variable. It lasted for a relatively short period of time, so it's quite difficult to be definitive about the evaluation of it, but it was certainly variable. It varied from school to school. Some were very successful, some didn't make as much improvement. If it had lasted longer, maybe it would have made a difference. Overall, the data made—. There were improvements overall for the 40 schools over and above the general improvement that there was for all schools in Wales. So, you could say that it was successful in that respect. So, it's quite difficult to say whether it was successful, because that was a fairly limited improvement for quite a lot of money. It is, you know, quite a difficult judgment to say whether it was successful or not overall. What strikes one, I think, was the variability in the success of it, and I think that was clear also at an operational level. It was clearly more successful in certain areas where all the various people involved in the work worked together effectively. So, the challenge adviser and the local authority and the regional consortia were all working effectively together. And, in other cases, they weren't, and there had to be changes in personnel and that sort of thing. So, it was quite variable. +Mark Reckless AM: Of the five schools within the programme that Estyn actually inspected in the last year of the programme, I think that three of those were in special measures and two required significant improvement. Doesn't that suggest that, as far as Estyn engaged with the programme, your evidence was not to suggest that it was being successful? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not wildly successful, certainly, but many of these schools would have been in those sorts of categories in the past as well. So, it's not very surprising that many of them still remained. So, it wasn't a huge success, clearly. As you say, many of these schools are still struggling schools, so it hasn't been a panacea. +Mark Reckless AM: Bearing in mind your remarks earlier over the focus on key stage 4, in particular the C to D grade boundary, what sort of minimum length of time should a programme like this run for if we are to expect success? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's a hugely difficult question to answer, and it is at the core of whether this initiative was successful. There has been research, and people have looked at things like the City Challenge and have suggested that two or three years is too short a period to make a proper evaluation of how successful those particular initiatives were. I don't know of similar evaluations to that particular point in Wales for the Schools Challenge Cymru, but with similar initiatives in England, the suggestion has been that you need at least three years to be able to evaluate it properly. +Mark Reckless AM: The Schools Challenge Cymru advisers, I understand that Estyn met with those termly through the programme. Can you explain how useful that engagement was, and also perhaps compare or contrast it to the ongoing engagement you have with the advisers from the regional consortia? +Meilyr Rowlands: You know, the engagement we had with local authorities, and regional consortia, and with Schools Challenge Cymru advisers was not really a problem for us. That was fine. I think the engagement with each other was more of the issue, really. I think the challenge for Schools Challenge Cymru was that it was introduced at a time when regional consortia were just beginning. So, you had a period of time when it wasn't entirely clear what the responsibilities of regional consortia were, compared with local authorities. That has developed and clarified over time, but at that time it wasn't entirely clear. Plus, you were bringing in another player to the school improvement landscape. When all of those different agencies worked well together, then that was a positive thing for schools. When they were all saying the same thing, having that extra resource, extra money, extra attention, was a positive thing; but, clearly, in some cases, that relationship didn't always work, and some schools felt that they were being told different things by different agencies. Clearly, that was one of the reasons why that wasn't as successful. +Mark Reckless AM: So, is Welsh Government now trying to do, through the regional consortia, what it was then trying to do through Schools Challenge Cymru? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what you had then was you had all three: you had local authorities and regional consortia and Schools Challenge Cymru. So, what you have now is a clearer demarcation of who does what. I don't think what Welsh Government are doing now is the same as what they were trying to do in Schools Challenge Cymru, because I think what Schools Challenge Cymru did, and did well, I think, was identify that there are a small number of secondary schools that have particular challenges and they need over and above the normal local authority/regional consortia support, they need over and above that a certain quantum of support and resource. I think that's specifically what Schools Challenge Cymru was trying to do, and that's not quite the same as what the more universal provision of regional consortia is. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, that's all we have time for in this session, I'm afraid. There are some questions that we haven't reached that we'll write to you on to obtain further responses, and there are some matters that you've identified where you need to provide us with further information also. May I thank you very much for coming along this morning to give evidence? You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Thank you very much. The committee will now break for just over six minutes until 11:30. Welcome back, for item 3 on our agenda today, scrutiny of Estyn's annual report for 2016-17. We've got a number of areas to cover, but please, Members, feel free to raise whatever issues you think appropriate, because the areas that we've identified are a general guide only. Okay, welcome back to Estyn, our witnesses for this session also. I don't know if we need further introductions. I don't think we do, really; we've already had that on the record. So, we'll move straight into questions then, and Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you very much. Just to start with, what's your opinion about the way the Government has been introducing reforms in this area over this past inspection cycle? In general, what is your opinion about how effective that has been and how much of an impression has it had? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well the seven year cycle encompasses three Governments if truth be told, but there has been a sense of continuity and progress made in the nature of policy work in general, starting with the fundamental things such as literacy and numeracy in the first instance and also behaviour and attendance, as I said earlier this morning. And then they've developed a far more comprehensive scheme that is at the heart of the development of the curriculum and pedagogy specifically. And I think that that general shift from the foundations—of literacy and numeracy—moving towards the curriculum and pedagogy does make sense. And the other trend that we've seen is to promote collaboration and the self-improvement system, as it's called. I also think that there are a number of progressive countries doing the same kind of thing. So, I think that the general direction is right. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you think—and I'd agree—that the focus on pedagogy is correct and that this culture that appears to be putting more emphasis on self-improvement, and so on, is a positive one. Are there aspects that haven't worked as well in your opinion? +Meilyr Rowlands: Of course, one accepts that one would like to see development and progress happening far more quickly, but, even in that instance, we need to balance the need that we all have to see progress with the pressures that are on teachers—there are so many things changing. I think that the most striking aspect in looking back over the past seven years is that all aspects of work in the education system—I'm trying to avoid saying 'schools', because it's more than just schools; it's colleges and the system as a whole—have changed. All aspects of that have changed, and I think that we need that—all of those aspects need to be changed and improved—but we need to balance that against the fact that we need to not go so fast, because workload on teachers—. This responsibility of self-improvement means that there is more pressure on teachers and headteachers, ultimately. That's why Estyn was very pleased to collaborate with 15 other bodies to give guidance on workload for teachers, because we have to be very careful to get that right as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is it disappointing, then, in the latest annual report, that you are to all intents and purposes coming to the conclusion that the performance is consistent with how it has been over the past inspection cycle? Would you not expect some kind of progress or something more significant in terms of outcomes? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's one way of looking at it. Another way, as I said earlier, is that all of these things are changing and, under those particular circumstances, that it's a good thing that teachers and the education system have been able to maintain standards and the quality of education. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The sector, of course, is continually evolving. We know that a number of these reforms are still playing out and are still being developed and introduced. Of course, there is a risk that we are in this situation continuously, and therefore settling for managing to maintain, for me, perhaps wouldn't show enough ambition. Is there a risk that we will find ourselves continually—? As you say, the inspection cycle has seen three Governments. There are changes and different policies and priorities being implemented. From what you say, that does prevent the development of the sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: We are in the middle of a period of major change, and you're right that there is more change to come. The new curriculum will reach key stage 4 in around seven years again, so we're genuinely in the middle of this period of change. Perhaps 'revolutionary' is too strong a word, but it is the biggest change that I've seen in my career. You have to go back to the 1980s and 1990s to see similar changes. Of course, we all wish to see swifter progress being made, but what that means in practice is that you push more changes through, or that you push through the changes that we currently have more quickly. There was discussion, for example, about when the new curriculum should be introduced. Those are the kinds of practical questions that arise, and you have to remember that, in the classroom, what you will have are individual teachers having to prepare for a new GCSE, a new A-level, and there are new specifications in that regard, and it's a great deal of work. So, we have to be very careful when we say that we need to accelerate that process. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you understand the point I was making about the risk of finding ourselves like this continually and therefore to say, if we were to interpret your conclusion in the recent report, that outcomes have been consistent over the inspection cycle doesn't mean that we are pushing enough or that the reforms happen in a way that allows progress in performance terms. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would wish to see that we wouldn't be in this position continuously. I think that— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you've just suggested that there are seven years ahead of us yet in terms of introducing these reforms. +Meilyr Rowlands: But I do think that the reforms, in looking at them holistically, are fundamental, as I was saying. You have to go back 30, 40 years to see something similar. So, I do think that we need to look at—. One of the problems—. You ask what hasn't worked in the past. Well, I think one of the things, and it's difficult to answer that question, but one of the things that hasn't worked in the past is just doing one aspect of the system. We need to look at transforming the entire education system at the same time, because if you just tinker with one part then it might have an unintended effect in another place. So, I think we need to look at the system as a whole, and I think that what's happening at the moment is a structural change to the system. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, I think that's a fair enough point. What's your assessment, therefore, of how able or how ready schools are to deal with, in moving forward now, all of these changes and reforms? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, as I said, I think that they have coped with a whole host of changes, and that's something to be praised. We are disappointed the standards haven't improved as much as we would have liked to have seen, but we also need to be congratulating the workforce for getting to grips with so many changes in a relatively short period. So, that does give one confidence that they will be able to cope with other changes in future. So, I am confident in that sense, but we do have to be careful in looking out for the workload, because the culture of promoting is one of giving more responsibilities to teachers, to schools, to colleges and to headteachers. So, we have to be very careful that that workload doesn't become excessive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would you also share the concern that the reduction in school budgets will worsen those risks that you referred to? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. As you'll know, international research evidence shows that it is not the amount of funding that goes into education systems that dictates how effective they are. But it is true to say that, if you have financial cuts, that does cause practical problems for headteachers in having to lay off staff, and so on. So, it does take a lot of time and energy to deal with cuts. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Llyr. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I ask the reasons for Professor Donaldson being asked to undertake a review of Estyn's role? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think any good organisation would welcome external scrutiny. I would say that, wouldn't I, because I'm an inspector, but I think it's important that we practise what we preach. There have been in the past systems of quinquennial reviews. I think it is healthy for anybody to have that sort of external view, and I think in particular we're proud in Estyn that we are a body that is developing and trying new things and evolving continuously. So, I think it's that. But if you were to ask, 'Why now?', it's because of the extent of the education reform that we're particularly facing. So, I think it's a good thing to do at any given time, but considering the range and speed of change that we're facing in education now, I thought it was particularly important that we ask Graham Donaldson to look at the implications for our work of all this education reform. +Mark Reckless AM: What have been the biggest benefits to Wales of having Estyn as an independent body inspecting schools and other institutions in Wales compared to the work that Ofsted has done in England? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we have very good relationships with Ofsted and with Education Scotland and the Education Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland. I wouldn't like to compare—I don't think it would be fair to compare ourselves. We do things slightly differently, but we benefit a lot from each other. We have inspectors from Ofsted or from Scotland, from Northern Ireland, on our inspections. We shadow them, and our inspectors go to their countries. So, we're working quite closely with the home countries, but also further afield with Holland and with the Republic of Ireland, for example. So, we're always, all of us, learning from one another about what we think they do well and what they think we do well. We're constantly learning from each other. I wouldn't think it's fair for me to say what I think—you know, where we're better than another country. +Mark Reckless AM: Of course. I'm not asking you to criticise Ofsted. I agree that wouldn't be appropriate. But I think what is fair for me to ask is: perhaps could you highlight one or two areas where you believe that Estyn has a particular difference of emphasis and approach from Ofsted? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think one of the things we've done and we've developed over many years is the use of the nominee and peer inspectors in particular. So, we've got, I think, a really good tradition of doing that in Wales, and when we do meet other inspectorates, they're always very interested in that part of our work. We're a very small organisation; we're only about 50 HMIs. We inspect a wide range of sectors, as you know, but the bulk of that inspection work is actually done now by peer inspectors. So, I think that, and the idea of a nominee, is also of interest to other inspectorates across the world. So, there's always someone from the body that we are inspecting on the inspection team. They're part of all the discussions so they actually understand how we've come to our report, and they can then help the organisation move forward after we've left. +Mark Reckless AM: I've clashed with Welsh Ministers on the absence of league tables for schools in Wales, with less accountability for their results than is the case in England. I note it as a parent myself. But, from, I think, at some point in 2014, you started in your inspection reports of primary schools putting the comparison of how they were doing compared to other schools and local authorities and nationally, as well as what you've described as their family of schools, and being more transparent over their key stage 2 results. So, what led you to do that? What difference has that made? And was that decision taken by Estyn on its own account, or was that something that was agreed with Welsh Ministers? +Meilyr Rowlands: I did listen to Plenary, so I've heard you raise this issue. I'm sure it's inadvertent on your part, but you've confused absolutely everyone with this. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm pleased to let you set the record straight, then. +Meilyr Rowlands: It's not actually true. The data that you refer to is published by the Welsh Government on My Local School. So, if you want to know about your own school or any other school, you should go onto that website. That's hugely—. It's very clear. There's a huge amount of data on it, but it's very, very clear. You can look at it in terms of tables and data and graphs and it shows all that data that you refer to, and that's the right place to have it. We do refer to some of that data in our reports, because our reports are based on evidence. Most of it is first-hand evidence that we see in the classroom and see in pupils' work, but we triangulate that with data and with what parents and pupils say and interviews with staff. So, we refer to that data and we always have referred to the data. Pre 2014, it was in the body of the text, and then after 2014 we put it in an appendix. We had a mid-cycle review and people felt it would be better in an appendix than in the body of the text, but it was always there. There's pros and cons on whether it should be in the body of the text or in an appendix. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, certainly, the data became clear to me in reports after 2014 in a way it wasn't before. So, I will leave that there. Can I just highlight a few of what I felt were either particularly striking statistics or comparisons or points that were made in your annual report of potential concern? You state that headteachers do not understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice in about three quarters of schools—this relates to the foundation phase. I find that quite a shocking statistic. Do you share that view? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. That's why I highlighted it in my foreword. I think there is a general consensus about the benefits of the foundation phase. There's a lot of research, and our own evidence shows that, where it is implemented well, pupils benefit a lot from it and they're well prepared to be independent thinkers. So, it's a development that we should be proud of in Wales, I think, the foundation phase. It's a great thing. But, we are disappointed that only about a quarter of primary schools are implementing it fully. There's a whole range of reasons, as I discuss in the annual report, why that might be the case. It is quite an innovative idea, and I think it's misunderstood by saying it's learning through play, because that's a bit too simplistic a definition of it. We have written a report recently on good practice in the foundation phase, so that we can try and explain clearly to people what the benefits of it are and how best to implement it. But I think it is true that too many headteachers—. Many of them might not have taught in foundation phase, they might not have that infant background, they might have a junior-school background. There might not have been enough—well, we say there wasn't enough training—or there might be people who missed any training that there was then. So, overall, there is a large number of leaders who don't fully appreciate what the foundation phase could deliver. +John Griffiths AM: Darren—is it on this? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, it is on this. I was just wondering—. I mean, one of the problems that I know you've identified in the past is this lack of good practice being able to travel into all parts of Wales, and, of course, we've got local authorities, we've got regional consortia, we've got the Welsh Government—all of which want to see good practice replicated where possible. What opportunities are there, perhaps, to develop some other further opportunities for good practice to be shared and promoted? I know that the Wales Audit Office, for example, has its good practice exchange. Is there something similar that schools can engage with to make things happen? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's a good question. I mean, specifically to do with foundation phase, there is a foundation phase—I can't remember what it's called now—excellence network I think, which is being relaunched. I think it was supposed to be relaunched during the snow period. So, there are networks being established. There's one for mathematics—a national network for excellence in mathematics—there's one for science and there's one for foundation phase in particular. So, I think it is a challenge that we haven't cracked yet in Wales: how do we make sure that good practice does travel? I think one specifically for foundation phase is a good idea, because we've got a specific issue with the foundation phase. +Mark Reckless AM: When you say that— +John Griffiths AM: Mark, just before you go on, I think Julie wanted to come in on this point as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I just wondered if you could give us some examples about how the foundation phase is not being implemented in the true spirit of the foundation phase in the three quarters of schools that you think fall—. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what we mean by that is schools not necessarily teaching badly, but in a more traditional way. And where we've seen that most obviously is in year 1 and year 2. Some schools actually reverted, after the introduction of the new tests, from what was pedagogy that was in line with the foundation phase. And basically, if I understand it correctly, it's more to do with the children making their own choices about what they do. And that is pretty common in nursery and reception classes, but it's less common in year 1 and year 2. +Claire Morgan: I think it is very much, as Meilyr said, the difference between a pupil-led learning experience or a teacher-led learning experience. Because of the lack of training and maybe the confidence to pursue that active and experiential learning approach, teachers have tended to resort to what they feel more comfortable with, which is more of an adult-led learning—often still high quality, but it doesn't ensure that the learners become far more independent, far more engaged in their learning. So, it's almost holding children back to an extent. They're making good progress, but they could be making even more progress. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: So, when you say that some teachers are sort of holding children back, and in the report that three quarters of schools don't understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice, what you mean is that teachers are using traditional methods, including whole-class teaching, rather than moving towards a pupil-led learning experience and one that you said was oversimplified as learning through play. May not the issue here therefore be that Estyn is seeking to impose this different approach on teachers who think that they are better able to teach children in the traditional way, which, at least in my experience, would be supported by quite a number of parents? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think it's Estyn that's imposing it. That's the national policy. +Mark Reckless AM: Do you support that policy? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we do, actually. We do. Our evidence, as I said, is that, when it is implemented properly, pupils do actually gain from it. But we're not imposing it, and what we're saying is that headteachers are not necessarily understanding it. I think there is quite a lot of jargon around it. I was just looking in the annual report. Quite unusually, in this section, we have had to actually explain some of the technical terms, like 'continuous provision'. So that's, I think, one of the reasons why people don't understand it fully. That's why we did produce this quite substantial bit of work, trying to unpack what this actually means in practice and giving a lot of good examples of the practice. +Mark Reckless AM: You referred to evidence of this approach working. Given the timing of when it was brought in and where we are now, has that really had time to distil through the system and give compelling evidence that this approach works better than more traditional approaches? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it has, to be fair. I think this has, because we're talking about a lot of developmental work related to the foundation phase prior to 2010, but it became compulsory for all schools to deliver it from 2010 onwards. So, that gives enough time for children to have been through the whole of the foundation phase onto key stage 2, and we can see the effect of it. In the schools where there is good practice in the foundation phase, we can see the effect when we inspect on key stage 2 children. +Mark Reckless AM: So, would you be confident about this, in the next few years, feeding through into an improvement in Programme for International Student Assessments, rather than a further deterioration? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think that if we did what Darren was talking about, getting more schools to share good practice, I think it will expand and more schools will take it on, yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Okay. On the sharing of good practice, you put emphasis in the report on this being an improving area and trend for the future as well, but I think you did raise concerns that it wasn't monitored or evaluated sufficiently well, particularly where one school was supporting another. How should that be done better? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think this has been a theme of many of the issues we've raised: that, whatever the initiative, you can't tell whether it's been successful or not unless you evaluate it properly. So, those evaluation skills, I think, are very important. I think that, with the development of the national academy for educational leadership, I would hope that research skills and evaluative skills would be part of the kind of training that headteachers get that maybe in the past they didn't. So, that becomes more of the day-to-day work of schools—that naturally, whenever you do something, you evaluate it afterwards. We've evaluated a lot of the school-to-school work. We've published two or three reports on it, and we've identified what we think is good practice and not-so-good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? If we move on at this stage—I wonder, before other Members come in, if I could ask about community-focused schools. Quite a lot of what we discussed earlier was around the importance of getting families and the community more involved in education, and one way of doing that, I think, is through community-focused schools that are very much accessible to the community, linked well with outside organisations, having an extended school-day offer. We have the twenty-first century schools programme, but we have a lot of schools existing that haven't been part of that. I just wondered to what extent Estyn might encourage or highlight the need to encourage greater consistency in community-focused schools across Wales, because I think there is a feeling that it is very inconsistent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we would very much be happy to support anything like that. We discussed it earlier. We were talking about targeting vulnerable learners earlier this morning. We see that as, particularly, a solution for that long-standing issue we have in Wales in particular. So, yes, we do have good examples of good practice. We mentioned some of them earlier this morning. I've puzzled about this. I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the term 'community-focused school'. I think it became thought of as meaning the community just uses the facilities in the evening and, of course, it's a much, much broader concept than that. I think some schools particularly didn't like the community using their facilities in the evening, and that became, I think, possibly part of the reason why community-focused schools didn't become more popular. The way I look at it is, as Claire was explaining earlier about the school offering all kinds of services to people—you know, family learning, those sorts of nurture groups, all those sorts of educationally focused services available from the school, and generally building relationships. They're more to do with the culture than the actual building and the facilities. But, yes, we certainly have seen and identified where that good practice exists. +John Griffiths AM: So, if there might be a mechanism that could have community-focused schools working in the way that you've described right across Wales, would Estyn be in favour of such a mechanism? +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I just ask one further question, then, before, as I said, I bring other Members in? There is a particular concern at the moment—and has been for some time—about white working-class children, and perhaps particularly boys, not attaining as they should through our education system. Is that something that Estyn recognises? Has Estyn done much work on that, and if so, what is that work? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've done work on boys and girls, and we've done work on deprived children—you know, identified, as we were discussing this morning, by eligibility for free school meals. We haven't specifically looked at white working-class boys, but a lot of the solutions, and a lot of the good practice that we have identified generally, through the PDG and whatever I think is the way forward for that particular cohort as well. +John Griffiths AM: So, you wouldn't see the need for a particular focus or a particular piece of work to identify whether there are aspects of education that might particularly benefit that group. +Meilyr Rowlands: I wouldn't object to doing a piece of work on that, in case we have missed something, but I suspect it would be the same schools that do well with that cohort that we've identified already for the same reasons, I suspect. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. To what extent has the rate of improvement differed between the primary and secondary sectors? +Meilyr Rowlands: I'm not sure if there's been a difference in the rate of improvement, but certainly I've raised in this annual report, and indeed in previous annual reports, the difference between primary and secondary. We've got 7 in 10—nearly three quarters—of primary schools doing well and about half of secondary schools. So, I did open debate on why that is the case in last year's annual report. There are several reasons, I think. Generally, there is a widening of gaps when you go from primary to secondary, but also it's from foundation phase to key stage 2 to key stage 3 to key stage 4. There's a general widening of the gender gap, for example. There's a widening of the free-school-meals gap and so forth. So, there are particular challenges facing secondary schools that don't exist in primary. I should say that what you get in secondary schools is greater variability. So, there's actually more excellence in secondary schools according to our inspections than in primary, although the overall proportion of good or better schools is higher in primary than in secondary. So, I think it is a challenge to think why this is the case. It's partly because of the challenges of adolescent, young people. That is part of it. I think also, although I've got no evidence for this, it's probably more difficult for that community focus to work in a larger secondary school than a smaller primary school. You go to primary schools, you often see the parents much more engaged than in secondary school. So, I think that's a bit more of a challenge as well. So, there is a whole range of issues. The other one, of course, is the one we were talking about earlier this morning, the pressure on secondary schools to address performance indicators and examinations in particular. Another possible reason is the structure of secondary schools is subject-based, departmental-based, so children will get 10 to 12 different teachers. In primary school, for a whole year, they will have the same teacher. It's easier, therefore, in a primary school for the school to see the child as an individual and recognise their problems and their needs as a whole. So, I think there is a whole range of issues that explains or goes part way to explaining what you've identified. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. You touched on this quite a bit in your earlier evidence, but you said in the annual report that there's a danger that accountability measures might be having an effect on the advice being given to pupils about subjects they study. Do you have any evidence of that or is that a perception? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think everyone agrees that there's very strong evidence about that. We discussed examples this morning. When you change a performance indicator, the examination pattern changes. We talked about examples like BTEC science this morning. There's a very, very direct and immediate impact on them. There's plenty of evidence of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Michelle? Perhaps we'll move on at this stage—we haven't got a great deal of time left—if that's okay. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: I wanted to ask about special schools in terms of your views about the standards in special schools—whether you've got any views on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we highlighted special schools as a successful sector in the annual report, as we have over many years. Over 90 per cent of them are good or better. It's a very successful sector. The small number of schools that don't do quite as well tend to be the schools that deal with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. But the sector as a whole is a good example of sharing good practice. They work very, very well together. They're constantly—. It's difficult to say why that is in this particular sector, as opposed to other sectors. Possibly they don't have an overlap in catchment areas, they're quite geographically separate, so they don't feel as if they're in competition with one another. But they certainly work very well together, sharing good practice, doing peer reviews of each other. So, it is a successful sector. +Julie Morgan AM: And that includes the independent sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry, I should have said that was mainly to do with the maintained sector. The independent sector tends to focus maybe on those children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, so they have the more difficult task to begin with. But because they're independent, they are, to some extent, in competition with one another. So, we have seen improvement in that independent special sector over the cycle. That's partly down to the work we do in Estyn. We visit them on an annual basis to make sure that they're addressing all our recommendations, and continue to meet the needs of those pupils. And also, I think there's been a trend where more of those independent schools now have—. Several of them have the same owner, so they share good practice amongst that little chain of schools. So, that has been a trend we've seen over time as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about pupil referral units? How are the standards there? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they're more variable. I think they have a lot of challenges. We've contributed a lot of evidence to the various working groups that have been looking at EOTAS—that's education other than at school. Half the children in EOTAS—educated other than at school—are in PRUs. So, we've done a lot of work about that. ADEW, which is the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, have now set up a national body to share good practice amongst PRUs, so I think that is a very positive step forward, because that sharing, I think, wasn't happening with PRUs. I think what we need to do with PRUs is to get them to be more of a part of the education system as a whole. They tend to be sort of semi-detached a little bit from the system. So, the more we can do to involve them in national events, and also, I think, make their governance more like that of a school so that they become more similar to schools—that makes it easier for them to share practice with schools. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thank you very much. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I'd just like to spend a minute or two looking more specifically at post-16 education. The percentage of further education colleges who have reached a  good or better standard has increased, of course, over the past inspection cycle. I'd just like to ask what you think is responsible for that, and are there any lessons we can take out of that and transfer to other sectors within education? +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question, but I'm going to ask Simon to answer. +Simon Brown: As you're aware, the number of colleges from 22 to 12, and I think those mergers resulted in establishments that were stronger in terms of their leadership in particular. That leadership, I think the characteristics we have seen in the 'good' or 'better'—as you say, 80 per cent leadership good or better—has been a culture of openness, a culture of clarity of purpose about where the college is going. High staff morale has been maintained, because a number of those colleges—. Obviously, if you're merging large colleges as they did in north Wales, keeping staff morale high is quite a skill, and I think the leadership have done that very well. They've also supported managers at all levels, and they've encouraged managers to support staff at all levels. So, it's become a very collaborative, very supportive organisation. I think another characteristic of the FE sector is that it's got very strong governance arrangements. I did a training session for college governors about a month ago, and what struck me was the breadth of experience of the college governors, from industry, from academia. They are a very challenging set of governors, I think, who hold the senior leadership to account in the colleges, and that helps to push standards forward. Teaching is 'good' or 'better' in 70 per cent of colleges because the senior leadership team are encouraging teachers in colleges to innovate, encouraging them to engage actively in performance management systems, and to become reflective practitioners in the colleges. And this is impacting, obviously, on the standards at the end of the day. So, I think those are the key features. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And how many of those do you think could effectively be transferred or encouraged in other sectors? +Simon Brown: But I think one sector that—. I think the other post-16 sector, which is work-based learning— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, yes, I was going to ask you. Conversely, of course, there's a different experience there. +Simon Brown: Yes, there is a contrast. And we do have concerns about work-based learning. And, again, those concerns tend to sit mainly with the leadership. As we said in the annual report, standards are 'good' or 'better' in only 50 per cent of work-based learning companies, mainly because the completion rates of learners are not what we'd expect, the progression that learners make isn't what we'd expect. And that is mainly due to the way in which the leadership teams monitor progress—monitor progress in themselves as a provider, but, more importantly, the way they manage sub-contractors, because, as you will already know, there's 19 lead providers; there's about 100 training providers. And the companies that are doing better, or the training providers doing better, are those that have got a firm grip on their sub-contractors, and, most importantly, they put quality as the top part of any agenda at any meeting. And, of course, if you're challenging your sub-contractors about quality, that will impact on standards of teaching, and, hopefully, ultimately, on standards of performance on the learners. And I think, to go back to your original question, Llyr, the sort of leadership models that FE colleges have, I think some of the work-based learning providers would be wise to start to emulate those. It's beginning to happen, because FE is getting more engaged in the work-based learning world, so I think some of those behaviours will start to rub off on the companies. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, who would you look to drive some of those changes through then? Is it the sector themselves,  or to what extent can Government and others do things? +Simon Brown: Well, as you know, Meilyr alluded to the changes across all sectors. We've got PCET—we've got the post-compulsory education and training reforms under way. The Welsh Government is looking at the implementation of Hazelkorn's recommendations. So, ultimately, that will start to drive the sectors closer together in post-16. But I think, in the shorter term, some of the work that groups like Colegau Cymru and the National Training Federation Wales are doing, sharing best practice, bringing the colleges and the training companies together, is beginning to help. I'm going to the national training federation conference tomorrow in Cardiff, and I notice the attendance there—there's a lot of FE colleges attending, senior staff of FE colleges, as well as from the work-based training companies. So, that sort of osmosis of good practice is beginning to happen quite naturally. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Llyr? We haven't got very long left, but we've got five minutes or so for some further questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: With regard to local authorities, you found shortcomings in your 2010-14 inspection in 15 of the 22. And one of the things that struck me in the report was where you said that you found ineffective processes for self-evaluating improvement within those authorities, but you've also said that there's been a high turnover of directors and new directors in place in many of them. Has that had a positive effect on that self-evaluation process? +Simon Brown: As you're aware, over the past three years, out of the 22 authorities, there have been 40 new directors, over the past three years. Those directors have got a range of experience. Some of those directors are very experienced. Other ones have come from headteachership fairly recently. So, that's one factor. I think the other factor is that the status of education directors has changed quite significantly. Some local authorities are a member of the corporate team and they are directors of education and children's services, so they've got very broad portfolios. In other ones, they're being treated more like heads of service, so heads of department level. +Hefin David AM: I know that Caerphilly went in the opposite direction—from having a chief education officer to then appointing a director, I think. +Simon Brown: I'm sorry? +Hefin David AM: In Caerphilly county borough, they went from having a chief education officer and now have got a director again. But, in many cases, they're the same people, aren't they? It's just that their roles are changed. +Simon Brown: Yes, it's the changes as the corporate structure of councils shift and change. I think the other thing that's happened, of course, with the role of the director of education, is, because of the regional consortia now doing the school improvement function, a large chunk of that role has now moved to the consortia. So, I think it's early days to say what the impact of that new cohort of directors will be, but, of course, we're starting a new inspection cycle in September. We don't do pilots. We looked at Neath Port Talbot in December; we looked at Denbighshire in February. Those reports are not yet published, but what I can say is that neither of those authorities are in follow-up. +Hefin David AM: But you said, even though it's not in follow-up, it was still showing signs of not being able to reflect effectively on improvement—in the report. +Simon Brown: Not in those two authorities. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay, but some of those not in follow-up were not reflecting effectively on their improvement—is the statement that was made in the report. +Simon Brown: What we're seeing, and we've seen this before in the previous cycle, is that the performance of some authorities is patchy. There are authorities that we have concerns about. Those are the authorities—. I think I said to committee last year those authorities are ones that we held improvement conferences in last year. That was to get the senior leadership—both political and officer-led leadership—and the consortia and Welsh Government and the Wales Audit Office and, as it was, the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales, around the table to get those senior leadership teams to actually identify what the longer-term issues are, to surface those issues and to put together an action plan. We're revisiting those three authorities very, very shortly. The first of the revisits is in April to see what progress they've made over the past 12 months or so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with things like the curriculum reforms, you've identified the new directors in place, but you've said that, although they're new directors, they're actually very experienced in education, so therefore you're confident that they're going to manage the reforms well as they are developed in the next few years. +Simon Brown: I think one development, and I've raised this in committee before, was—. One of our concerns, apart from the fact that there was a large turnover of directors, was what sort of level of training senior leaders and middle managers were getting in those authorities. One of the things that I'm quite pleased to report is that the Association of Directors of Education in Wales and Welsh Government have stepped up to address that issue. Last year, all serving directors attended residential courses run by the Staff College Wales, facilitated by ADEW, and ADEW have just finished the first round of director—. The name of the course is the 'Welsh future leaders in education' course and 26 people have just finished that—aspiring directors. They're preparing for another cohort in September. That course, again, is developed by the Staff College Wales, but it has a lot of external input. They're putting in directors and chief executives from Scotland, they're putting in headteachers of very successful schools in England, who've got current grass-roots experience to share with these aspiring directors. So, I think the concerns that we had previously about the professional learning for middle managers and leaders in local authorities are being addressed. The proof will be in the pudding when we start to do the inspection cycle, but at least the issue now is being tackled. +Hefin David AM: Can I just look at, then, consortia? One of the criticisms in the report was that national policy wasn't being put in context—I think that was the statement in the report—in certain consortia. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that? +Simon Brown: Yes, when we talked, we said that—. Well, two things are at play. One is that the national model for regional working is being revised at the moment, and that work is ongoing by Welsh Government. That is to bring greater consistency to the four consortia, because one of our concerns, which we expressed in this report and we expressed in previous years, is that, although the national model had a particular approach back in 2012, when Robert Hill did the first review, it had a particular approach to the consortia being fairly similar, over the years, they've gone in four different directions. To be fair, over the past couple of years, the consortia are now collaborating much closer together. They are working together—for example, I mentioned earlier about the regional co-ordinators for LAC. Those four people are meeting regularly. So, they've all got different co-ordination roles in their regions. Whereas before they were working more in silos, they are now working much closer together. So, I think what we were referring to, and what we were talking about in the report, is the fact that the consortia need to have a more consistent approach across all four regions. But that will certainly be driven by the new national model. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And the relationships with local authorities, you said that the sharing of information with the local authorities is not always acted upon by local authorities—from the consortia. Is that a failure of communication, or is that something that sits with the local authority to acknowledge? +Simon Brown: I don't think it's a failure of communication. In the cases where some authorities haven't acted sufficiently in intervening in schools or in issuing warning letters, the consortia have been quite clear. The challenge advisers have highlighted these issues. It's the authority that hasn't acted as swiftly as we would expect it to. But, again, I think that is beginning to improve, because the local authorities are quite sensitive to the fact we are now going to be re-inspecting them and looking at them, and that is one of the issues we'll be picking up on. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, in order to do their jobs, the consortia need to be suitably resourced. Are they, and are they fit for the challenges ahead? +Simon Brown: It's not for us to comment on whether each consortium is sufficiently funded or not, but what we would say is that, generally, in the past, they've spent perhaps too large a proportion of their funds on challenge work and not enough funding on support work, but that, again, is moving. We've picked up that GwE, for example, is in the process of renaming their challenge advisers 'support advisers', because they're moving their culture more over to supporting schools to deal with all the raft of reforms that Meilyr mentioned, and that is, it seems to me, an entirely sensible way to go. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, that brings this session to an end. So, thank you all very much once again for giving evidence to committee today. Once again, you will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay, the next item on our agenda today, item 4, is papers to note. We have one paper to note, which is a letter from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee to the Welsh Government regarding the Hwb programme. Is committee content to note that paper? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 5, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Is committee content so to do? Okay. Thank you very much. We will move into private session. +","In the conversation, Sian Thomas opened the meeting, indicating that the Chair, Lynne Neagle, was unable to attend. She called for nominations for a temporary Chair, with Julie Morgan nominating John Griffiths, who was appointed after no further nominations. + +John Griffiths welcomed everyone and addressed the first agenda item concerning apologies and declarations of interest, noting Lynne Neagle's absence and confirming there were no further apologies or declarations of interest. He then moved to item 2, to continue the inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes with evidence session 8, welcoming representatives from Estyn. + +Meilyr Rowlands (chief inspector), Claire Morgan (strategic director), and Simon Brown (strategic director) introduced themselves for Estyn. Discussions focused on the pupil development grant funding, particularly how schools targeted this funding towards children eligible for free school meals and whether it was being used effectively for disadvantaged learners, including the more able and talented pupils. They discussed its impact on addressing educational inequalities, the possibility of extending the funding to those recently eligible for free school meals, and the need for schools to enhance community engagements. + +John Griffiths invited further questions from Llyr Gruffydd and Mark Reckless regarding a variety of topics, such as improving attendance and exclusion rates among disadvantaged pupils, the effectiveness of the PDG, the role of the Seren network, and fine-tuning measures to identify children from disadvantaged backgrounds. + +The conversation then shifted to the Schools Challenge Cymru program. The effectiveness of the program was debated, with acknowledgment of variability in success amongst the schools and the influence of performance measures. The longevity of such programs was discussed, as well as the importance of evaluation and accountability. + +Finally, Estyn was asked about improvements in the education sector, disparities between the primary and secondary education sectors, and the challenges posed by policy reforms, budget cuts, and the status of directors of education in local authorities. The focus was also directed towards the post-16 education sector, with discussions on further education colleges' performance and differences with the work-based learning sector. The need for sharing best practices across various education sectors and effective leadership was emphasized." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning . Sorry ? Yeah , busy job . Good morning . So {disfmarker} Oh , good morning everyone . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: I'd uh like to welcome you to our first meeting . I've prepared a little presentation . My name is {gap} and uh I hope you will introduce yourself uh in a few minutes , as will I . Um I'm the Project Manager of this project , and uh , well I will tell you {gap} on what actually is the project . This is uh the agenda for our first meeting . Um this is the opening , then we will get {disfmarker} {gap} I will hope we will get acquainted to each other . We'll do a little tool training with these two things . We'll take a look at the project plan . Uh there will be time for discussion . Actually we have to discuss because we have to create a product . And then we will close this session . Um but first of all we I'd like to uh introduce you to this room . Um as you probably have noticed there are little black uh fields on the table . Um you have to put your laptop exactly in that field so the little cameras can see your face . Um there are cameras +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: everywhere around the room especially here for your face , of course , and this isn't a pie , it's a a set of microphones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and there are microphones here also . But please uh don't be afraid of them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They won't hurt you . Um well uh +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I said I'm the Project Manager and uh I'm hoping uh for a good project and uh I'd like to hear uh who you are and what your functions are uh on this project . Let's start with the ladies {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well uh I'm uh {gap} and my uh function is User Interface Design , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So uh that's me . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh I'm {gap} uh I'm the Industrial Designer and I uh hope to uh {disfmarker} look forward to uh a very uh pleasing uh end of this uh project . +Project Manager: Okay , so I . +User Interface: Me too . +Marketing: My name's {gap} . I'm uh {vocalsound} Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} My job is in the company to promote company or promote products to the customers . So I also h hope we have a pleasant uh working with uh with each other . +Project Manager: Okay , well we have some expertise from uh different pieces of the of the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . Um well I said uh we're working on a project and the aim for the project is to to create a {disfmarker} to design a new remote control which uh has to be original , trendy and of course , user friendly . {vocalsound} And uh I hope we have the expertise to create such a project {disfmarker} such a product . Um the way we hope to achieve that is uh the following methods . It consists of three phases , namely the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design . As you can see , all of these phases consists of two parts , namely individual work part and a meeting where we will discuss uh our work so far . Okay . But first I will uh tell you something about the tools we have here . I already talked about the cameras and microphones , but they are not of uh much use to us . Uh we will have to take advantage of these two things . They are smart boards . As you can see , you can give a presentation on them . And uh this one here is a white board . I will uh instruct you about that soon . Um as you also noticed uh this presentation document is in our uh project folder and every document you put in this folder uh is uh it is possible to show that here in our meeting room . Um and yeah there are available on both smart boards but I think we will uh mainly use this one for the documents in the shared folder . As you can see , this is the same tool bar uh as is located here . Um the most functions uh we will use will be to to add a new page , um uh to go back and forward between pages , and of course uh to save it every now and then . Um and this is the pen with which you can draw on the board , for instance like this if everything's okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I first have to put it on the pen , you see I'm new to it too . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and then you can write things like test or whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: As you can see you have to move it a little bit slow , it's not such a fast board , it's a smart board but also a slow board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but you can write things and of course you can also , when you click here , uh erase things , so we have uh est left . And um you can also delete an entire page , but we ask you not to do that . Just simply create a new one and uh start all over because we want to save all the results . Um does everyone understand this +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we can't erase anything . +Project Manager: nice application ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you can erase it with the eraser , but uh you shouldn't delete an entire page , but just create a new blank one . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I will delete this one now because we don't use it yet . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: But you can of course erase when you make a mistake , but don't uh delete entire pages . And you can also um let's see I think it's here uh change the uh colour of your pen , for instance take a blue one and uh change the line width like to five . Um that's what you will need for our first exercise , because I'm uh going to ask you to draw your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's also to gets to know each other because um I'm asking three things , uh for that uh drawing , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: to do it on a blank sheet , with different colours and I just showed you how to pick a colour , and also with different pen widths which I also showed you . Um and a favourite characteristic can be just uh one word . Well I'm not very good at drawing , but I will uh go first and um try to draw {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or maybe you should guess what I'm drawing , eh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {gap} No . +User Interface: It's a sheep . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinos +Industrial Designer: Seal , a seal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dinosaur . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Beaver . +User Interface: {gap} A beaver . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A be {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it uh +User Interface: It's weird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: could be everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . With a tail and a mouth . +Project Manager: Maybe when I put on +User Interface: It has wings ? +Marketing: Turtle . +Project Manager: this thing it could be a turtle , or a snail , +Industrial Designer: Snail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well the snail doesn't have legs . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But a turtle has . And those are slow . And I hope our project group will not be slow , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we will uh work to a good result +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and do it uh as fast as we can . Okay , time for another animal . Would you like to go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . No problem . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . It was four months ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice , okay . +User Interface: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The hell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To make it a little bit easier . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . +Industrial Designer: Make that cute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , it's a giraffe . 'Kay . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think it's easy to r uh to recognise as a giraffe . +User Interface: Yes . Giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , the favourite charis characteristic is that the long neck , {vocalsound} it can reach everything . And I hope I can also reach a lot with this project . So that's my favourite animal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anything else you need to know ? +Project Manager: Could you write the words , uh underneath it ? Or more words . +Marketing: Oh , uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tall . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tall . So , +User Interface: Should I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'kay . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: So I can draw , but uh {disfmarker} Uh . Well . {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: B {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a mouse . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A bunny rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Oh wrong one . Uh . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: you can guess what it is , I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . No problem . +Project Manager: Little rabbits . +User Interface: It's a rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh well uh it's uh quick , I guess . That's uh my uh favourite animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And our final drawing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bob Ross . +User Interface: A dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , um . +Marketing: Dolphin . +Industrial Designer: Uh I uh draw I I've drawn a dolphin because of its intelligence . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: One of the most intelligent uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: animals in our world . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah intelligent . +User Interface: With an E_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Eraser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can try out the eraser now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Pen . Well not perfect , but okay . +Project Manager: Okay , well +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: thank you very much . I can see we have some uh drawing talent uh in this group , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? Well , nice animals , nice words . Sounds good . Um back to business , back to the money part . Um from the finance department I have learned that we are aiming for a selling price of twenty five Euros . And we're hoping for a aim of fifty million Euros and uh we are hoping to achieve that uh by aiming for an international market . And the production cost will be twelve Euro fifty max . Okay , well it's time uh for some discussion . I've wrote down some examples here of what we can can speak about . Uh what's your experience with remote controls , um what kind of ideas do you have to design a new remote control , maybe for which market segments should we aim , or should we aim for all segments . Uh well actually I'd like to hand the word uh back to you . What's your experience with remote control ? +User Interface: {gap} I always lose them . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons . And you always lose them . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: A lot of buttons which you don't use +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or who you don't use +Marketing: Complex . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Complex . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Not user friendly . +User Interface: {gap} search for the buttons , which one is which +Marketing: No . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Boring . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boring , it's not fun to use a remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Black , all black . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Black colours . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should try to make it fun . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} They use batteries and {gap} batteries uh and poor signal . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Perhaps that you have a lot of road remotes r road con remote controls . +Marketing: The the angle you have to use . You had different remote controls for different devices . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , different remote controls , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: perhaps you can integrate them or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the use of different uh devices {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your stereo and your T_V_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and uh . Perhaps that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah but then again you you still have a lot of buttons , +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . And which you don't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you could uh I thin uh there's a possibility to g uh to uh to put those buttons uh behind some uh kind of uh protection +Marketing: Flap +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: so that if y y you only get to see them when you need 'em . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , okay , that's possible , +Industrial Designer: That's possible , so that you only get the {disfmarker} +Marketing: but it'll get very big the the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . You should just give it to {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No n n no , just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh for example you got th uh the same size uh remote control you use everyday , but um {vocalsound} the usual buttons such as uh um {vocalsound} zapping uh as you call it in Dutch . Uh and the volume control uh are only the only possible buttons uh to use directly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Changing channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh {vocalsound} the numbers , of course . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {gap} numbers . +Industrial Designer: But uh not uh the buttons used to search on the the channels on your television . +Marketing: On and off . +Industrial Designer: You only use those uh the first time , or . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So . Uh . +Marketing: play , pause , stop . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So maybe a a minimalist design , the least uh possible amount uh of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yes . But you should make sure that you have every button they need on it . Because uh things for uh teletext , I dunno uh , {vocalsound} w +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what's the name ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} think so . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So you don't want to bother people with uh loads of buttons , but on the other hand they need many buttons +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: so they don't have to get out of their seat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Because I think a market will be all kind of people . Elderly p el elderly , young people , so . +User Interface: But if if it's if it's international you should uh look in {disfmarker} think in Britain they have uh different things they can do with the T_V_ , or so uh that you can choose what you want to see . I dunno if you should uh take that in consideration , or that you just should aim for the normal T_V_s +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I understand . +Marketing: Yeah I think that's the better one , +User Interface: And the B_B_C_ {gap} . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I think if you you're going to target a lot of people and the whole world and only Britain then I think the cost will uh rise higher than the twelve fifty , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Yeah , I don't know if the they have that anywhere else , though . +Marketing: I think the aim is better to use uh the whole world and Britain , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , we can leave that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: When I think of it uh +Marketing: Not that much . +Industrial Designer: I think the main idea uh of this remote remote control is uh to make it user friendly . So uh I think uh when p uh when uh the customers will buy this remote control , they already have uh the remote control which uh companies uh uh with uh the the standards uh remote control with which comes uh with the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Standard deliver . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it only has to have uh the most used buttons . You don't have to integrate the buttons to search the channels on your television . +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: In those {disfmarker} in that {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but then you have to to find your other remote control if you want to search . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , th it {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} I think that's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but I {disfmarker} but it is impossible to uh to accommodate uh accommodate uh all the buttons on the s on the difference {disfmarker} different televisions sets on one remote control . It's impossible . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Yeah , okay {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh for example Sony television uh has the opportunity to s to make uh uh to make it possible for {disfmarker} to see on one side of the screen uh teletext , and on the other side uh just n uh regular television . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh {gap} . +Marketing: I think n m n most televisions nowadays do this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh they don't use the same signal , uh on remote control . +User Interface: Well not everywhere . +Marketing: So {gap} I think numerals . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't use a Panasonic uh remote control on a on a Philips television . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you have to choose the {disfmarker} always with r universal remotes you have to choose the code . +User Interface: Yeah , you can choose the code {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay , +Marketing: You can use which which type of television you have . That's no problem . But I think like the two pages on the same screen , like teletext and normal television , that's that's nowadays standard , I think . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} uh I think that most people uh th uh will buy the remote control because {vocalsound} because uh the first {disfmarker} they lost the one they lost first one +Marketing: Simplicity . +Industrial Designer: or the first one is broken , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh uh perhaps they have a got a an older television , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that option is not {vocalsound} uh optional for those uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah g available . +User Interface: But the people have a new television , +Marketing: True . +User Interface: and c if you look into the future , then they want {disfmarker} will want the button , if their thing is broke . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we should take that in consideration . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: any more ideas ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh mm , no . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Guess not . +Marketing: Of course . +Industrial Designer: Things'll come up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah well we have some time . Let's see what more I have to tell you . I don't think there is much left . Nope . We're starting to close . Um our next meeting uh will start {disfmarker} well we're a little bit early , but our next meeting will start in in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the meantime uh there's time for some uh individual actions . Um , as you can see , the different roles have uh different tasks . And there's a ping . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it my laptop ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Stop the meeting now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Ah well +User Interface: Yeah meeting will close in five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's good , five minutes and uh the meeting's over , uh right on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um the Marketing Expert will uh will take a look at the user requirement specification . The User Interface Designer will work out the technical functions design . And this was the Interface Designer ? Or the Interaction Designer . +User Interface: Hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or what was it , I_D_ ? +User Interface: No interface . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Interface . +Project Manager: Interface Designer , okay , first guess was right . Uh will take a look at the the working design . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No +Industrial Designer: the Industrial Designer will take a look at the working design , +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the in uh usability interaction {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: sorry . {vocalsound} Let's just use the acronyms . Um and of course specific instructions uh will be sent to you uh through your personal coach . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So I should look at uh what you should be able to do with the remote , or uh , or how {disfmarker} I don't really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well those instructions will be uh in the email you will receive uh shortly , I hope . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Alright . {vocalsound} Me too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And of course you have your own uh expertise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh that was what I had to say . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh are there any more questions ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Okay well I think then we have to head uh back to our offices and uh start working . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I have one question . +Project Manager: Okay , one question ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Where does it says we have to make a remote , because I presumed {disfmarker} {gap} She didn't know who . Okay , no {vocalsound} , no problem . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} No problem . Okay . +Project Manager: we're still going {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well I expect everything will be much clearer with the instructions we will receive uh shortly . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay well uh see you all in about thirty minutes , then . +Industrial Designer: Alrighty . Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +","A project manager holds the first meeting for a new remote control design project with a user interface designer, an industrial designer, and a marketing expert. After informal introductions and an ice-breaker involving drawing animals on a smartboard, they discuss the project's aim—creating an original, trendy, user-friendly remote control with a selling price target of €25 and production costs not exceeding €12.50. They talk about the issues with current remote controls, such as too many buttons and loss of the device, and consider an international market appeal. The team discusses minimalistic design and the need for user-friendly features catering to various market segments. The meeting concludes with allocated tasks for individual work before the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: It 's not very significant . +Professor B: Uh , channel one . Yes . +Grad D: Channel three . +Professor B: OK . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD A: Ta +Grad D: Channel three . Alright . +Professor B: OK , did you solve speech recognition last week ? +Grad E: Almost . +Professor B: Alright ! Let 's do image processing . +PhD C: Yes , again . +PhD A: Great . +PhD C: We did it again , Morgan . +Professor B: Alright ! +Grad E: Doo - doop , doo - doo . +PhD A: What 's wrong with {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: OK . It 's April fifth . Actually , Hynek should be getting back in town shortly if he isn't already . +PhD C: Is he gonna come here ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , we 'll drag him here . I know where he is . +PhD C: So when you said "" in town "" , you mean {pause} Oregon . +Professor B: U u u u uh , I meant , you know , this end of the world , yeah , {vocalsound} is really what I meant , +PhD C: Oh . +Grad E: Doo , doo - doo . +Professor B: uh , cuz he 's been in Europe . +Grad E: Doo - doo . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: I have something just fairly brief to report on . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Um , I did some {pause} experim uh , uh , just a few more experiments before I had to , {vocalsound} uh , go away for the w well , that week . +Professor B: Great ! +PhD C: Was it last week or whenever ? Um , so what I was started playing with was the {disfmarker} th again , this is the HTK back - end . And , um , I was curious because the way that they train up the models , {vocalsound} they go through about four sort of rounds of {disfmarker} of training . And in the first round they do {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's three iterations , and for the last three rounds e e they do seven iterations of re - estimation in each of those three . And so , you know , that 's part of what takes so long to train the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the back - end for this . +Professor B: I 'm sorry , I didn't quite get that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's four and there 's seven and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , maybe I should write it on the board . So , {vocalsound} there 's four rounds of training . Um , I g I g I guess you could say iterations . The first one is three , then seven , seven , and seven . And what these numbers refer to is the number of times that the , uh , HMM re - estimation is run . It 's this program called H E +Professor B: But in HTK , what 's the difference between , uh , a {disfmarker} an inner loop and an outer loop in these iterations ? +PhD C: OK . So what happens is , um , at each one of these points , you increase the number of Gaussians in the model . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , right ! This was the mix up stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . The mix up . +Professor B: That 's right . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: I remember now . +PhD C: And so , in the final one here , you end up with , uh {disfmarker} for all of the {disfmarker} the digit words , you end up with , uh , three {pause} mixtures per state , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh , in the final {pause} thing . So I had done some experiments where I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to play with the number of mixtures . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But , um , uh , I wanted to first test to see if we actually need to do {pause} this many iterations early on . +Grad E: Uh , one , two , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so , um , I {disfmarker} I ran a couple of experiments where I {vocalsound} reduced that to l to be three , two , two , {vocalsound} uh , five , I think , and I got almost the exact same results . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} but it runs much much faster . So , um , I {disfmarker} I think m {pause} it only took something like , uh , three or four hours to do the full training , +Professor B: As opposed to {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Good . +PhD C: as opposed to wh what , sixteen hours or something like that ? I mean , it takes {disfmarker} you have to do an overnight basically , the way it is set up now . +PhD F: Yeah . It depends . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , uh , even we don't do anything else , doing something like this could allow us to turn experiments around a lot faster . +Professor B: And then when you have your final thing , do a full one , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: And when you have your final thing , we go back to this . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: So , um , and it 's a real simple change to make . I mean , it 's like one little text file you edit and change those numbers , and you don't do anything else . +PhD F: Oh , this is a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then you just run . +PhD F: OK . +PhD C: So it 's a very simple change to make and it doesn't seem to hurt all that much . +PhD A: So you {disfmarker} you run with three , two , two , five ? That 's a +PhD C: So I {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I have to look to see what the exact numbers were . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I thought was , like , three , two , two , five , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll double check . It was {vocalsound} over a week ago that I did it , +PhD A: OK . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I can't remember exactly . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um , but it 's so much faster . I it makes a big difference . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So we could do a lot more experiments and throw a lot more stuff in there . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um . Oh , the other thing that I did was , um , {vocalsound} I compiled {pause} the HTK stuff for the Linux boxes . So we have this big thing that we got from IBM , which is a five - processor machine . Really fast , but it 's running Linux . So , you can now run your experiments on that machine and you can run five at a time and it runs , {vocalsound} uh , as fast as , you know , uh , five different machines . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , um , I 've forgotten now what the name of that machine is but I can {disfmarker} I can send email around about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And so we 've got it {disfmarker} now HTK 's compiled for both the Linux and for , um , the Sparcs . Um , you have to make {disfmarker} you have to make sure that in your dot CSHRC , {vocalsound} um , it detects whether you 're running on the Linux or a {disfmarker} a Sparc and points to the right executables . Uh , and you may not have had that in your dot CSHRC before , if you were always just running the Sparc . So , um , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: uh , I can {disfmarker} I can tell you exactly what you need to do to get all of that to work . But it 'll {disfmarker} it really increases what we can run on . +Grad E: Hmm . Cool . +PhD C: So , {vocalsound} together with the fact that we 've got these {pause} faster Linux boxes and that it takes less time to do {pause} these , um , we should be able to crank through a lot more experiments . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So after I did that , then what I wanted to do {comment} was try {pause} increasing the number of mixtures , just to see , um {disfmarker} see how {disfmarker} how that affects performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . In fact , you could do something like {pause} keep exactly the same procedure and then add a fifth thing onto it +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that had more . +PhD C: Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad E: So at {disfmarker} at the middle o where the arrows are showing , that 's {disfmarker} you 're adding one more mixture per state , +PhD C: Uh - huh . Uh , +Grad E: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: let 's see , uh . It goes from this {disfmarker} uh , try to go it backwards {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} at this point it 's two mixtures {pause} per state . So this just adds one . Except that , uh , actually for the silence model , it 's six mixtures per state . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , so it goes to two . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Um . And I think what happens here is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Might be between , uh , shared , uh {disfmarker} shared variances or something , +PhD C: Yeah . I think that 's what it is . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . It 's , uh {disfmarker} Shoot . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't remember now what happens at that first one . Uh , I have to look it up and see . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Um , there {disfmarker} because they start off with , uh , an initial model which is just this global model , and then they split it to the individuals . And so , {vocalsound} it may be that that 's what 's happening here . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to look it up and see . I {disfmarker} I don't exactly remember . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: So . That 's it . +Professor B: Alright . So what else ? +PhD A: Um . Yeah . There was a conference call this Tuesday . Um . I don't know yet the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what happened {vocalsound} Tuesday , but {vocalsound} the points that they were supposed to discuss is still , {vocalsound} uh , things like {vocalsound} the weights , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , this is a conference call for , uh , uh , Aurora participant sort of thing . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Do you know who was {disfmarker} who was {disfmarker} since we weren't in on it , uh , do you know who was in from OGI ? Was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} was {disfmarker} was Hynek involved or was it Sunil +PhD A: I have no idea . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm , I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , you don't know . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD A: Um , yeah . So the points were the {disfmarker} the weights {disfmarker} how to weight the different error rates {vocalsound} that are obtained from different language and {disfmarker} and conditions . Um , it 's not clear that they will keep the same kind of weighting . Right now it 's a weighting on {disfmarker} on improvement . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some people are arguing that it would be better to have weights on uh {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to combine error rates {pause} before computing improvement . Uh , and the fact is that for {disfmarker} right now for {pause} the English , they have weights {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they combine error rates , but for the other languages they combine improvement . So it 's not very consistent . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . The , um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} this is a point . And right now actually there is a thing also , {vocalsound} uh , that happens with the current weight is that a very non - significant improvement {pause} on the well - matched case result in {pause} huge differences in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the final number . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so , perhaps they will change the weights to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: How should that be done ? I mean , it {disfmarker} it seems like there 's a simple way {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , this seems like an obvious mistake or something . +Professor B: Well , I mean , the fact that it 's inconsistent is an obvious mistake . +PhD C: Th - they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: But the {disfmarker} but , um , the other thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: In +Professor B: I don't know I haven't thought it through , but one {disfmarker} one would think that {vocalsound} each {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's like if you say what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the best way to do an average , an arithmetic average or a geometric average ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It depends what you wanna show . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} each one is gonna have a different characteristic . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it seems like they should do , like , the percentage improvement or something , rather than the {pause} absolute improvement . +PhD A: Tha - that 's what they do . +Professor B: Well , they are doing that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , that is relative . But the question is , do you average the relative improvements {pause} or do you average the error rates and take the relative improvement maybe of that ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And the thing is it 's not just a pure average because there are these weightings . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: It 's a weighted average . Um . +PhD A: Yeah . And so when you average the {disfmarker} the relative improvement it tends to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to give a lot of {disfmarker} of , um , {vocalsound} importance to the well - matched case because {pause} the baseline is already very good and , um , i it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Why don't they not look at improvements but just look at your av your scores ? You know , figure out how to combine the scores +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: with a weight or whatever , and then give you a score {disfmarker} here 's your score . And then they can do the same thing for the baseline system {disfmarker} and here 's its score . And then you can look at {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's what he 's seeing as one of the things they could do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's just when you {disfmarker} when you get all done , I think that they pro I m I {disfmarker} I wasn't there but I think they started off this process with the notion that {vocalsound} you should be {pause} significantly better than the previous standard . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so they said "" how much is significantly better ? what do you {disfmarker} ? "" And {disfmarker} and so they said "" well , {vocalsound} you know , you should have half the errors , "" or something , "" that you had before "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's , uh , But it does seem like +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: i i it does seem like it 's more logical to combine them first and then do the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Combine error rates and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} is this still this problem of weights . When {disfmarker} when you combine error rate it tends to {pause} give more importance to the difficult cases , and some people think that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +PhD A: well , they have different , {vocalsound} um , opinions about this . Some people think that {vocalsound} it 's more important to look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to have ten percent imp relative improvement on {pause} well - matched case than to have fifty percent on the m mismatched , and other people think that it 's more important to improve a lot on the mismatch and {disfmarker} So , bu +PhD C: It sounds like they don't really have a good idea about what the final application is gonna be . +PhD A: l de fff ! Mmm . +Professor B: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing is {vocalsound} that if you look at the numbers on the {disfmarker} on the more difficult cases , {vocalsound} um , if you really believe that was gonna be the predominant use , {vocalsound} none of this would be good enough . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Nothing anybody 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: whereas {vocalsound} you sort of with some reasonable error recovery could imagine in the better cases that these {disfmarker} these systems working . So , um , I think the hope would be that it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it would work well {pause} for the good cases and , uh , it would have reasonable {disfmarker} reas {vocalsound} soft degradation as you got to worse and worse conditions . Um . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about it in terms of , if I were building the final product and I was gonna test to see which front - end I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I wanted to use , I would {vocalsound} try to {pause} weight things depending on the exact environment that I was gonna be using the system in . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} No . +PhD C: If I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , no {disfmarker} well , no . I mean , {vocalsound} it isn't the operating theater . I mean , they don they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} they don't really {pause} know , I think . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , I th +PhD C: So if {disfmarker} if they don't know , doesn't that suggest the way for them to go ? Uh , you assume everything 's equal . I mean , y y I mean , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think one thing to do is to just not rely on a single number {disfmarker} to maybe have two or three numbers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: you know , +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and say {vocalsound} here 's how much you , uh {disfmarker} you improve {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relatively clean case and here 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or well - matched case , and here 's how {disfmarker} here 's how much you , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So not {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: So not try to combine them . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , actually it 's true . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I had forgotten this , uh , but , uh , well - matched is not actually clean . What it is is just that , u uh , the training and testing are similar . +PhD C: The training and testing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I guess what you would do in practice is you 'd try to get as many , {vocalsound} uh , examples of similar sort of stuff as you could , and then , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} So the argument for that being the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more important thing , {vocalsound} is that you 're gonna try and do that , {vocalsound} but you wanna see how badly it deviates from that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when the , uh {disfmarker} it 's a little different . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , +PhD C: so you should weight those other conditions v very {disfmarker} you know , really small . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} No . That 's a {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's an arg +PhD C: I mean , that 's more of an information kind of thing . +Professor B: that 's an ar Well , that 's an argument for it , but let me give you the opposite argument . The opposite argument is you 're never really gonna have a good sample of all these different things . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I mean , are you gonna have w uh , uh , examples with the windows open , half open , full open ? Going seventy , sixty , fifty , forty miles an hour ? On what kind of roads ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: With what passing you ? With {disfmarker} uh , I mean , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that you could make the opposite argument that the well - matched case is a fantasy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I think the thing is is that if you look at the well - matched case versus the po you know , the {disfmarker} the medium and the {disfmarker} and the fo and then the mismatched case , {vocalsound} um , we 're seeing really , really big differences in performance . Right ? And {disfmarker} and y you wouldn't like that to be the case . You wouldn't like that as soon as you step outside {disfmarker} You know , a lot of the {disfmarker} the cases it 's {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , that 'll teach them to roll their window up . +Professor B: I mean , in these cases , if you go from the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} I mean , I don't remember the numbers right off , but if you {disfmarker} if you go from the well - matched case to the medium , {vocalsound} it 's not an enormous difference in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the training - testing situation , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's a really big {vocalsound} performance drop . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , um {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the reference one , for instance {disfmarker} this is back old on , uh {disfmarker} on Italian {disfmarker} uh , was like {pause} six percent error for the well - matched and eighteen for the medium - matched and sixty for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for highly - mismatched . Uh , and , you know , with these other systems we {disfmarker} we {vocalsound} helped it out quite a bit , but still there 's {disfmarker} there 's something like a factor of two or something between well - matched and medium - matched . And {vocalsound} so I think that {vocalsound} if what you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the goal of this is to come up with robust features , it does mean {disfmarker} So you could argue , in fact , that the well - matched is something you shouldn't be looking at at all , that {disfmarker} that the goal is to come up with features {vocalsound} that will still give you reasonable performance , you know , with again gentle degregra degradation , um , even though the {disfmarker} the testing condition is not the same as the training . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So , you know , I {disfmarker} I could argue strongly that something like the medium mismatch , which is you know not compl pathological but {disfmarker} I mean , what was the {disfmarker} the medium - mismatch condition again ? +PhD A: Um , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Medium mismatch is everything with the far {pause} microphone , but trained on , like , low noisy condition , like low speed and {disfmarker} or {pause} stopped car and tested on {pause} high - speed conditions , I think , like on a highway and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's still the same {disfmarker} same microphone in both cases , +PhD A: Same microphone but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a mismatch between the car conditions . And that 's {disfmarker} uh , you could argue that 's a pretty realistic situation +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I 'd almost argue for weighting that highest . But the way they have it now , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} they compute the relative improvement first and then average that with a weighting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And so then the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that makes the highly - matched the really big thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so , u i since they have these three categories , it seems like the reasonable thing to do {vocalsound} is to go across the languages {pause} and to come up with an improvement for each of those . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just say "" OK , in the {disfmarker} in the highly - matched case this is what happens , in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} m the , uh {disfmarker} this other m medium if this happens , in the highly - mismatched {pause} that happens "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you should see , uh , a gentle degradation {pause} through that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I gather that in these meetings it 's {disfmarker} it 's really tricky to make anything {vocalsound} ac {vocalsound} make any {comment} policy change because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everybody has {disfmarker} has , uh , their own opinion +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but there is probably a {disfmarker} a big change that will {vocalsound} be made is that the {disfmarker} the baseline {disfmarker} th they want to have a new baseline , perhaps , which is , um , MFCC but with {vocalsound} a voice activity detector . And apparently , {vocalsound} uh , some people are pushing to still keep this fifty percent number . So they want {vocalsound} to have at least fifty percent improvement on the baseline , but w which would be a much better baseline . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And if we look at the result that Sunil sent , {vocalsound} just putting the VAD in the baseline improved , like , more than twenty percent , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: which would mean then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} mean that fifty percent on this new baseline is like , well , more than sixty percent improvement on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} o e e uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So nobody would {pause} be there , probably . Right ? +PhD A: Right now , nobody would be there , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Good . Work to do . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So whose VAD is {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this a {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Uh , they didn't decide yet . I guess i this was one point of the conference call also , but {disfmarker} mmm , so I don't know . Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , I {disfmarker} I think th that would be {vocalsound} good . I mean , it 's not that the design of the VAD isn't important , but it 's just that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does seem to be i uh , a lot of {pause} work to do a good job on {disfmarker} on that and as well as being a lot of work to do a good job on the feature {vocalsound} design , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: if we can {pause} cut down on that maybe we can make some progress . +PhD A: M Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: But I guess perhaps {disfmarker} I don't know w {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , yeah . Per - e s s someone told that perhaps it 's not fair to do that because the , um {disfmarker} to make a good VAD {pause} you don't have enough to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the features that are {disfmarker} the baseline features . So {disfmarker} mmm , you need more features . So you really need to put more {disfmarker} more in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the front - end . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So i +Professor B: Um , +PhD A: S +Professor B: sure . But i bu +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Wha - what do you mean ? +PhD A: Yeah , if i +Professor B: So y so you m s Yeah , but {disfmarker} Well , let 's say for ins see , MFCC for instance doesn't have anything in it , uh , related to the pitch . So just {disfmarker} just for example . So suppose you 've {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} what you really wanna do is put a good pitch detector on there and if it gets an unambiguous {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if it gets an unambiguous result then you 're definitely in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a voice in a , uh , s region with speech . Uh . +PhD C: So there 's this assumption that the v the voice activity detector can only use the MFCC ? +PhD A: That 's not clear , but this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} e +Professor B: Well , for the baseline . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if you use other features then y But it 's just a question of what is your baseline . Right ? What is it that you 're supposed to do better than ? +PhD C: I g Yeah . +Professor B: And so having the baseline be the MFCC 's {pause} means that people could {pause} choose to pour their ener their effort into trying to do a really good VAD +PhD C: I don't s But they seem like two {pause} separate issues . +Professor B: or tryi They 're sort of separate . +PhD C: Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Unfortunately there 's coupling between them , which is part of what I think Stephane is getting to , is that {vocalsound} you can choose your features in such a way as to improve the VAD . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And you also can choose your features in such a way as to prove {disfmarker} improve recognition . They may not be the same thing . +PhD C: But it seems like you should do both . +Professor B: You should do both +PhD C: Right ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I think that this still makes {disfmarker} I still think this makes sense as a baseline . It 's just saying , as a baseline , we know {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: you know , we had the MFCC 's before , lots of people have done voice activity detectors , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you might as well pick some voice activity detector and make that the baseline , just like you picked some version of HTK and made that the baseline . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: And then {pause} let 's try and make everything better . Um , and if one of the ways you make it better is by having your features {pause} be better features for the VAD then that 's {disfmarker} so be it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , uh , uh , at least you have a starting point that 's {disfmarker} um , cuz i i some of {disfmarker} the some of the people didn't have a VAD at all , I guess . Right ? And {disfmarker} and +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: then they {disfmarker} they looked pretty bad and {disfmarker} and in fact what they were doing wasn't so bad at all . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . +PhD C: Yeah . It seems like you should try to make your baseline as good as possible . And if it turns out that {pause} you can't improve on that , well , I mean , then , you know , nobody wins and you just use MFCC . Right ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it seems like , uh , it should include sort of the current state of the art {vocalsound} that you want {disfmarker} are trying to improve , and MFCC 's , you know , or PLP or something {disfmarker} it seems like {vocalsound} reasonable baseline for the features , and anybody doing this task , {vocalsound} uh , is gonna have some sort of voice activity detection at some level , in some way . They might use the whole recognizer to do it {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} rather than {vocalsound} a separate thing , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they 'll have it on some level . So , um . +PhD C: It seems like whatever they choose they shouldn't , {vocalsound} you know , purposefully brain - damage a part of the system to {pause} make a worse baseline , or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think people just had +PhD C: You know ? +Professor B: it wasn't that they purposely brain - damaged it . I think people hadn't really thought through {vocalsound} about the , uh {disfmarker} the VAD issue . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and then when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the proposals actually came in and half of them had V A Ds and half of them didn't , and the half that did did well and the {vocalsound} half that didn't did poorly . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Yeah . So we 'll see what happen with this . And {disfmarker} Yeah . So what happened since , um , {vocalsound} last week is {disfmarker} well , from OGI , these experiments on {pause} putting VAD on the baseline . And these experiments also are using , uh , some kind of noise compensation , so spectral subtraction , and putting on - line normalization , um , just after this . So I think spectral subtraction , LDA filtering , and on - line normalization , so which is similar to {vocalsound} the pro proposal - one , but with {pause} spectral subtraction in addition , and it seems that on - line normalization doesn't help further when you have spectral subtraction . +PhD C: Is this related to the issue that you brought up a couple of meetings ago with the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} musical tones +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I have no idea , because the issue I brought up was with a very simple spectral subtraction approach , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: and the one that {vocalsound} they use at OGI is one from {disfmarker} from {vocalsound} the proposed {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora prop uh , proposals , which might be much better . So , yeah . I asked {vocalsound} Sunil for more information about that , but , uh , I don't know yet . Um . And what 's happened here is that we {disfmarker} so we have this kind of new , um , reference system which {vocalsound} use a nice {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a clean downsampling - upsampling , which use a new filter {vocalsound} that 's much shorter and which also cuts the frequency below sixty - four hertz , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: which was not done on our first proposal . +Professor B: When you say "" we have that "" , does Sunil have it now , too , +PhD A: I No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Because we 're still testing . So we have the result for , {vocalsound} uh , just the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and we are currently testing with putting the neural network in the KLT . Um , it seems to improve on the well - matched case , um , {vocalsound} but it 's a little bit worse on the mismatch and highly - mismatched {disfmarker} I mean when we put the neural network . And with the current weighting I think it 's sh it will be better because the well - matched case is better . Mmm . +Professor B: But how much worse {disfmarker} since the weighting might change {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how much worse is it on the other conditions , when you say it 's a little worse ? +PhD A: It 's like , uh , fff , fff {comment} {vocalsound} {pause} um , {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {pause} ten percent relative . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Um . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But it has the , uh {disfmarker} the latencies are much shorter . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - y w when I say it 's worse , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , compare proposal - two to proposal - one , so , r uh , y putting neural network {vocalsound} compared to n not having any neural network . I mean , this new system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: because it has {vocalsound} um , this sixty - four hertz cut - off , uh , clean {vocalsound} downsampling , and , um {disfmarker} what else ? Uh , yeah , a good VAD . We put the good VAD . So . Yeah , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} j uh , uh {disfmarker} pr +Professor B: But the latencies {disfmarker} but you 've got the latency shorter now . +PhD A: Latency is short {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Isn't it +PhD A: And so +Professor B: So it 's better than the system that we had before . +PhD A: Yeah . Mainly because {pause} {vocalsound} of {pause} the sixty - four hertz and the good VAD . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: And then I took this system and , {vocalsound} mmm , w uh , I p we put the old filters also . So we have this good system , with good VAD , with the short filter and with the long filter , and , um , with the short filter it 's not worse . So {disfmarker} well , is it {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: it 's in {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's all fine . +PhD A: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: But what you 're saying is that when you do these {disfmarker} So let me try to understand . When {disfmarker} when you do these same improvements {vocalsound} to proposal - one , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh , on the {disfmarker} i things are somewhat better , uh , in proposal - two for the well - matched case and somewhat worse for the other two cases . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So does , uh {disfmarker} when you say , uh {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} The th now that these other things are in there , is it the case maybe that the additions of proposal - two over proposal - one are {pause} less im important ? +PhD A: Yeah . Probably , yeah . +Professor B: I get it . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} So , yeah . Uh . Yeah , but it 's a good thing anyway to have {vocalsound} shorter delay . Then we tried , um , {vocalsound} to do something like proposal - two but having , um , e using also MSG features . So there is this KLT part , which use just the standard features , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: and then two neura two neural networks . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm , and it doesn't seem to help . Um , however , we just have {vocalsound} one result , which is the Italian mismatch , so . Uh . We have to wait for that to fill the whole table , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . There was a {vocalsound} start of some effort on something related to voicing or something . Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} yeah . So basically we try to , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , find {vocalsound} good features that could be used for voicing detection , uh , but it 's still , uh {disfmarker} on the , um {disfmarker} t +PhD F: Oh , well , I have the picture . +PhD A: we {disfmarker} w basically we are still playing with Matlab to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at {disfmarker} at what happened , +PhD C: What sorts of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: what sorts of features are you looking at ? +PhD F: We have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we would be looking at , um , the {pause} variance of the spectrum of the excitation , +PhD F: uh , um , this , this , and this . +PhD A: something like this , which is {disfmarker} should be high for voiced sounds . Uh , we {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} what does that mean ? The variance of the spectrum of excitation . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} So basically the spectrum of the excitation {vocalsound} for a purely periodic sig signal shou sh +Professor B: OK . Yeah , w what yo what you 're calling the excitation , as I recall , is you 're subtracting the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} the mel {disfmarker} mel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} mel filter , uh , spectrum from the FFT spectrum . +PhD A: e That 's right . Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have the mel f filter bank , we have the FFT , so we {pause} just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really an excitation , +PhD A: No . +Professor B: but it 's something that hopefully tells you something about the excitation . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: We have here some histogram , +PhD A: E yeah , +PhD F: but they have a lot of overlap . +PhD A: but it 's {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} Yeah . So , well , for unvoiced portion we have something tha {vocalsound} that has a mean around O point three , and for voiced portion the mean is O point fifty - nine . But the variance seem quite {vocalsound} high . +PhD C: How do you know {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD C: How did you get your {pause} voiced and unvoiced truth data ? +PhD A: We used , uh , TIMIT and we used canonical mappings between the phones +PhD F: Yeah . We , uh , use {pause} TIMIT on this , +PhD A: and +PhD F: for {disfmarker} +PhD A: th Yeah . +PhD F: But if we look at it in one sentence , it {disfmarker} apparently it 's good , I think . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , so it 's noisy TIMIT . That 's right . Yeah . +Grad E: It 's noisy TIMIT . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: It seems quite robust to noise , so when we take {disfmarker} we draw its parameters across time for a clean sentence and then nois the same noisy sentence , it 's very close . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} there is this . There could be also the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the maximum of the auto - correlation function or {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is this a {disfmarker} a s a trained system ? Or is it a system where you just pick some thresholds ? Ho - how does it work ? +PhD A: Right now we just are trying to find some features . And , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Hopefully , I think what we want to have is to put these features in s some kind of , um {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to obtain a statistical model on these features and to {disfmarker} or just to use a neural network and hopefully these features w would help {disfmarker} +PhD C: Because it seems like what you said about the mean of the {disfmarker} the voiced and the unvoiced {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} that seemed pretty encouraging . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , yeah , except the variance was big . +PhD C: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . Except the variance is quite high . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Well , y +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , y I {disfmarker} I don't know that I would trust that so much because you 're doing these canonical mappings from TIMIT labellings . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Right ? So , really that 's sort of a cartoon picture about what 's voiced and unvoiced . So that could be giving you a lot of variance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , i it {disfmarker} it may be that {disfmarker} that you 're finding something good and that the variance is sort of artificial because of how you 're getting your truth . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . But another way of looking at it {vocalsound} might be that {disfmarker} I mean , what w we we are coming up with feature sets after all . So another way of looking at it is that {vocalsound} um , the mel cepstru mel {pause} spectrum , mel cepstrum , {vocalsound} any of these variants , um , give you the smooth spectrum . It 's the spectral envelope . By going back to the FFT , {vocalsound} you 're getting something that is {pause} more like the raw data . So the question is , what characterization {disfmarker} and you 're playing around with this {disfmarker} another way of looking at it is what characterization {vocalsound} of the difference between {pause} the raw data {pause} and this smooth version {pause} is something that you 're missing that could help ? So , I mean , looking at different statistical measures of that difference , coming up with some things and just trying them out and seeing if you add them onto the feature vector does that make things better or worse in noise , where you 're really just i i the way I 'm looking at it is not so much you 're trying to f find the best {disfmarker} the world 's best voiced - unvoiced , uh , uh , classifier , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: but it 's more that , {vocalsound} you know , uh , uh , try some different statistical characterizations of that difference back to the raw data +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and m maybe there 's something there that {pause} the system can use . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , but ther more obvious is that {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} the more obvious is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} well , using the {disfmarker} th the FFT , um , {vocalsound} you just {disfmarker} it gives you just information about if it 's voiced or not voiced , ma mainly , I mean . But {disfmarker} So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: this is why we {disfmarker} we started to look {pause} by having sort of voiced phonemes +Professor B: Well , that 's the rea w w what I 'm arguing is that 's Yeah . I mean , uh , what I 'm arguing is that that {disfmarker} that 's givi you {disfmarker} gives you your intuition . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But in {disfmarker} in reality , it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's all of this {disfmarker} this overlap and so forth , +Grad E: Oh , sorry . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} But what I 'm saying is that may be OK , because what you 're really getting is not actually voiced versus unvoiced , both for the fac the reason of the overlap and {disfmarker} and then , uh , th you know , structural reasons , uh , uh , like the one that Chuck said , that {disfmarker} that in fact , well , the data itself is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you 're working with is not perfect . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , what I 'm saying is maybe that 's not a killer because you 're just getting some characterization , one that 's driven by your intuition about voiced - unvoiced certainly , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it 's just some characterization {vocalsound} of something back in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the almost raw data , rather than the smooth version . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And your intuition is driving you towards particular kinds of , {vocalsound} uh , statistical characterizations of , um , what 's missing from the spectral envelope . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , obviously you have something about the excitation , um , and what is it about the excitation , and , you know {disfmarker} and you 're not getting the excitation anyway , you know . So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would almost take a {disfmarker} uh , especially if {disfmarker} if these trainings and so forth are faster , I would almost just take a {vocalsound} uh , a scattershot at a few different {vocalsound} ways of look of characterizing that difference and , uh , you could have one of them but {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and see , you know , which of them helps . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD C: So i is the idea that you 're going to take {pause} whatever features you develop and {disfmarker} and just add them onto the future vector ? Or , what 's the use of the {disfmarker} the voiced - unvoiced detector ? +PhD A: Uh , I guess we don't know exactly yet . But , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th +PhD C: It 's not part of a VAD system that you 're doing ? +PhD F: No . +PhD A: Uh , no . No . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: No , the idea was , I guess , to {disfmarker} to use them as {disfmarker} as features . +PhD C: Features . I see . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it could be , uh {disfmarker} it could be {vocalsound} a neural network that does voiced and unvoiced detection , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but it could be in the {disfmarker} also the big neural network that does phoneme classification . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But each one of the mixture components {disfmarker} I mean , you have , uh , uh , variance only , so it 's kind of like you 're just multiplying together these , um , probabilities from the individual features {pause} within each mixture . So it 's {disfmarker} so , uh , it seems l you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think it 's a neat thing . Uh , it seems like a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} I know that , um , people doing some robustness things a ways back were {disfmarker} were just doing {disfmarker} just being gross and just throwing in the FFT and actually it wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't so bad . Uh , so it would s and {disfmarker} and you know that i it 's gotta hurt you a little bit to not have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spectral , uh {disfmarker} a s a smooth spectral envelope , so there must be something else that you get {pause} in return for that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} So . +PhD C: So how does {disfmarker} uh , maybe I 'm going in too much detail , but {vocalsound} how exactly do you make the difference between the FFT and the smoothed {pause} spectral envelope ? Wha - wh i i uh , how is that , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , we just {disfmarker} How did we do it up again ? +PhD F: Uh , we distend the {disfmarker} we have the twenty - three coefficient af after the mel f {vocalsound} filter , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and we extend these coefficient between the {disfmarker} all the frequency range . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And i the interpolation i between the point {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} give for the triang triangular filter , the value of the triangular filter and of this way we obtained this mode this model speech . +PhD A: S +Professor B: So you essentially take the values that {disfmarker} th that you get from the triangular filter and extend them to sor sort of like a rectangle , that 's at that m value . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . I think we have linear interpolation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have {disfmarker} we have one point for {disfmarker} one energy for each filter bank , +PhD F: mmm Yeah , it 's linear . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD A: which is {pause} the energy {pause} that 's centered on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the triangle {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . At the n at the center of the filter {disfmarker} +PhD C: So you {disfmarker} you end up with a vector that 's the same length as the FFT {pause} vector ? +PhD A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: And then you just , uh , compute differences +PhD F: Yeah . I have here one example if you {disfmarker} if you want see something like that . +PhD A: Then we compute the difference . +PhD C: and , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: uh , sum the differences ? +PhD A: So . And I think the variance is computed only from , like , two hundred hertz to {pause} one {disfmarker} to fifteen hundred . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Two thou two {disfmarker} {comment} fifteen hundred ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because {disfmarker} +PhD F: No . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Two hundred and fifty thousand . +PhD A: Fifteen hundred . Because {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Two thousand and fifteen hundred . +PhD A: Above , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it seems that {disfmarker} Well , some voiced sound can have also , {vocalsound} like , a noisy {pause} part on high frequencies , and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , it 's just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} makes sense to look at {pause} low frequencies . +PhD C: So this is {disfmarker} uh , basically this is comparing {vocalsound} an original version of the signal to a smoothed version of the same signal ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So i so i i this is {disfmarker} I mean , i you could argue about whether it should be linear interpolation or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or zeroeth order , but {disfmarker} but +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: at any rate something like this {pause} is what you 're feeding your recognizer , typically . +PhD C: Like which of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No . Uh , so the mel cepstrum is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the cepstrum of this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this , uh , spectrum or log spectrum , +PhD A: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right , right . +Professor B: whatever it {disfmarker} You - you 're subtracting in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {vocalsound} power domain or log domain ? +PhD A: In log domain . Yeah . +PhD F: Log domain . +Professor B: OK . So it 's sort of like division , when you do the {disfmarker} yeah , the spectra . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: It 's the ratio . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . But , anyway , um {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: So what 's th uh , what 's the intuition behind this kind of a thing ? I {disfmarker} I don't know really know the signal - processing well enough to understand what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what is that doing . +PhD A: So . Yeah . What happen if {disfmarker} what we have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} what we would like to have is {pause} some spectrum of the excitation signal , +Professor B: Yeah . I guess that makes sense . Yeah . +PhD A: which is for voiced sound ideally a {disfmarker} a pulse train +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and for unvoiced it 's something that 's more flat . +PhD C: Uh - huh . Right . +PhD A: And the way to do this {vocalsound} is that {disfmarker} well , we have the {disfmarker} we have the FFT because it 's computed in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the system , and we have {vocalsound} the mel {vocalsound} filter banks , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so if we {disfmarker} if we , like , remove the mel filter bank from the FFT , {vocalsound} we have something that 's {pause} close to the {pause} excitation signal . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: It 's something that 's like {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a a train of p a pulse train for voiced sound +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . Yeah . +PhD A: and that 's {disfmarker} that should be flat for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I see . So do you have a picture that sh ? +PhD A: So - It 's {disfmarker} Y +PhD C: Is this for a voiced segment , +PhD A: yeah . +PhD C: this picture ? What does it look like for unvoiced ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: You have several {disfmarker} some unvoiced ? +PhD F: The dif No . Unvoiced , I don't have +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: for unvoiced . +Professor B: Yeah . So , you know , all {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is another voiced example . Yeah . +PhD F: No . But it 's this , +PhD A: Oh , yeah . This is {disfmarker} +PhD F: but between the frequency that we are considered for the excitation {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: for the difference and this is the difference . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: This is the difference . OK . +PhD A: So , of course , it 's around zero , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Sure looks {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: Well , no . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: It is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Because we begin , {vocalsound} uh , in fifteen {vocalsound} point {disfmarker} the fifteen point . +PhD C: So , does {disfmarker} does the periodicity of this signal say something about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Fifteen p +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Pitch . +PhD A: It 's the pitch . +PhD C: the pitch ? +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: That 's like fundamental frequency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , i t t +PhD C: OK . I see . +Professor B: I mean , to first order {vocalsound} what you 'd {disfmarker} what you 're doing {disfmarker} I mean , ignore all the details and all the ways which is {disfmarker} that these are complete lies . Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you know , what you 're doing in feature extraction for speech recognition is you have , {vocalsound} uh , in your head a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a simplified production model for speech , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in which you have a periodic or aperiodic source that 's driving some filters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} the auto - correlation {disfmarker} the R - zero energy . +PhD A: Do you have the mean {disfmarker} do you have the mean for the auto - correlation {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , first order for speech recognition , you say "" I don't care about the source "" . +PhD F: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Well , I mean for the {disfmarker} the energy . +PhD F: I have the mean . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: And so you just want to find out what the filters are . +PhD C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: The filters {vocalsound} roughly act like a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a an overall resonant {disfmarker} you know , f some resonances and so forth that th that 's processing excitation . +PhD F: Here . +PhD A: They should be more close . +PhD F: Ah , no . This is this ? More close . Is this ? And this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So they are {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} there is less difference . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you look at the spectral envelope , just the very smooth properties of it , {vocalsound} you get something closer to that . +PhD A: This is less {disfmarker} it 's less robust . +PhD F: Less robust . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: And the notion is if you have the full spectrum , with all the little nitty - gritty details , {vocalsound} that that has the effect of both , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and it would be a multiplication in {disfmarker} in frequency domain +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that would be like an addition in log {disfmarker} {vocalsound} power spectrum domain . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so this is saying , well , if you really do have that {vocalsound} sort of vocal tract envelope , and you subtract that off , what you get is the excitation . And I call that lies because you don't really have that , you just have some kind of {vocalsound} signal - processing trickery to get something that 's kind of smooth . It 's not really what 's happening in the vocal tract +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so you 're not really getting the vocal excitation . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: That 's why I was going to the {disfmarker} why I was referring to it in a more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a more , uh , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} conservative way , when I was saying "" well , it 's {disfmarker} yeah , it 's the excitation "" . But it 's not really the excitation . It 's whatever it is that 's different between {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . This moved in the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , stand standing back from that , you sort of say there 's this very detailed representation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation cuz this typically generalizes better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , but whenever you smooth you lose something , so the question is have you lost something you can you use ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: Um , probably you wouldn't want to go to the extreme of just ta saying "" OK , our feature set will be the FFT "" , cuz we really think we do gain something in robustness from going to something smoother , but maybe there 's something that we missed . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what is it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And then you go back to the intuition that , well , you don't really get the excitation , but you get something related to it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} and as you can see from those pictures , you do get something {vocalsound} that shows some periodicity , uh , in frequency , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and also in time . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's really neat . +Professor B: so , +PhD C: So you don't have one for unvoiced {pause} picture ? +PhD F: Uh , not here . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: No , I have s +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But not here . +Professor B: But presumably you 'll see something that won't have this kind of , uh , uh , uh , regularity in frequency , uh , in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . +PhD F: Not here . +PhD C: I would li I would like to see those {pause} pictures . +PhD F: Well , so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I can't see you {comment} now . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I don't have . +PhD C: And so you said this is pretty {disfmarker} doing this kind of thing is pretty robust to noise ? +PhD A: It seems , yeah . Um , +PhD C: Huh . +PhD F: Pfft . Oops . The mean is different {vocalsound} with it , because the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the histogram for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the classifica +PhD A: No , no , no . But th the kind of robustness to noise {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if you take this frame , {vocalsound} uh , from the noisy utterance and the same frame from the clean utterance {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: You end up with a similar difference +PhD A: Y y y yeah . We end up with {disfmarker} +PhD C: over here ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Cool ! +PhD F: I have here the same frame for the {pause} clean speech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that 's clean . +PhD F: the same cle +PhD C: Oh , OK +PhD F: But they are a difference . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because here the FFT is only with {vocalsound} two hundred fifty - six point +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: and this is with five hundred {pause} twelve . +PhD A: Yeah . This is kind of inter interesting also +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: because if we use the standard , {vocalsound} uh , frame length of {disfmarker} of , like , twenty - five milliseconds , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} what happens is that for low - pitched voiced , because of the frame length , y you don't really have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't clearly see this periodic structure , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because of the first lobe of {disfmarker} of each {disfmarker} each of the harmonics . +PhD C: So this one inclu is a longer {disfmarker} Ah . +PhD A: So , this is like {disfmarker} yeah , fifty milliseconds or something like that . +PhD F: Fifty millis Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's the same frame and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , it 's that time - frequency trade - off thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Right ? I see . Yeah . +PhD A: So , yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh . Oh , so this i is this the difference here , for that ? +PhD F: No . This is the signal . This is the signal . +PhD A: I see that . Oh , yeah . +PhD F: The frame . +PhD C: Oh , that 's the f the original . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: This is the fra the original frame . +PhD A: So with a short frame basically you have only two periods +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: and it 's not {disfmarker} not enough to {disfmarker} to have this kind of neat things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: And here {disfmarker} No , well . +PhD A: Yeah . So probably we 'll have to use , {vocalsound} like , long f long frames . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: That 's interesting . +Professor B: Yeah , maybe . Well , I mean it looks better , but , I mean , the thing is if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if you 're actually asking {disfmarker} you know , if you actually j uh , need to do {disfmarker} place along an FFT , it may be {disfmarker} it may be pushing things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Would you {disfmarker} would you wanna do this kind of , uh , difference thing {vocalsound} after you do spectral subtraction ? +PhD A: Uh , {vocalsound} maybe . +PhD F: No . Maybe we can do that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . The spectral subtraction is being done at what level ? Is it being done at the level of FFT bins or at the level of , uh , mel spectrum or something ? +PhD A: Um , I guess it depends . +Professor B: I mean , how are they doing it ? +PhD A: How they 're doing it ? Yeah . Um , I guess Ericsson is on the , um , filter bank , +PhD F: FFT . Filter bank , +PhD A: no ? It 's on the filter bank , +PhD F: yeah . +PhD A: so . So , yeah , probably {disfmarker} I i it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: So in that case , it might not make much difference at all . +PhD C: Seems like you 'd wanna do it on the FFT bins . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , certainly it 'd be better . +PhD C: I I mean , if you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , for {disfmarker} for this purpose , that is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: What else ? +PhD A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah , that 's all . So we 'll perhaps {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} try to convince OGI people to use the new {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the new filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Uh , has {disfmarker} has anything happened yet on this business of having some sort of standard , uh , source , +PhD A: Uh , not yet +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: but I wi I will {vocalsound} call them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: now they are {disfmarker} I think they have more time because they have this {disfmarker} well , Eurospeech deadline is {vocalsound} over +PhD C: When is the next , um , Aurora {pause} deadline ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's , um , in June . Yeah . +PhD C: June . +Professor B: Early June , late June , middle June ? +PhD A: I don't know w +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . Um , and {pause} he 's been doing all the talking but {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he 's {disfmarker} he 's , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this by the way a bad thing . We 're trying to get , um , m more female voices in this record as well . So . Make sur make sure Carmen {vocalsound} talks as well . Uh , but has he pretty much been talking about what you 're doing also , and {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Oh , I {disfmarker} I am doing this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . I don't know . I 'm sorry , but I think that for the recognizer for the meeting recorder that it 's better that I don't speak . +Professor B: Yeah , well . +PhD F: Because {disfmarker} +Professor B: You know , uh , we 'll get {disfmarker} we 'll get to , uh , Spanish voices sometime , and {vocalsound} we do {disfmarker} we want to recognize , {vocalsound} uh , you too . +PhD F: After the {disfmarker} after , uh , the result for the TI - digits {vocalsound} on the meeting record there will be foreigns people . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , no . +PhD C: Y +Professor B: We like {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} w we are {disfmarker} we 're in the , uh , Bourlard - Hermansky - Morgan , uh , frame of mind . Yeah , we like high error rates . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: That way there 's lots of work to do . So it 's {disfmarker} Uh , anything to talk about ? +Grad D: N um , not not not much is new . So when I talked about what I 'm planning to do last time , {vocalsound} I said I was , um , going to use Avendano 's method of , um , {vocalsound} using a transformation , um , {vocalsound} to map from long analysis frames which are used for removing reverberation to short analysis frames for feature calculation . He has a trick for doing that {pause} involving viewing the DFT as a matrix . Um , but , uh , um , I decided {vocalsound} not to do that after all because I {disfmarker} I realized to use it I 'd need to have these short analysis frames get plugged directly into the feature computation somehow +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and right now I think our feature computation is set to up to , um , {vocalsound} take , um , audio as input , in general . So I decided that I {disfmarker} I 'll do the reverberation removal on the long analysis windows and then just re - synthesize audio and then send that . +Professor B: This is in order to use the SRI system or something . Right ? +Grad D: Um , or {disfmarker} or even if I 'm using our system , I was thinking it might be easier to just re - synthesize the audio , +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad D: because then I could just feacalc as is and I wouldn't have to change the code . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Yeah . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} um , certainly in a short {disfmarker} short - term this just sounds easier . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , longer - term if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if it turns out to be useful , one {disfmarker} one might want to do something else , +Grad D: Right . That 's true . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} Uh , uh , I mean , in {disfmarker} in other words , you {disfmarker} you may be putting other kinds of errors in {pause} from the re - synthesis process . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} e u From the re - synthesis ? Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: O - OK . I don't know anything about re - synthesis . Uh , how likely do you think that is ? +Professor B: Uh , it depends what you {disfmarker} what you do . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , um {disfmarker} Don't know . But anyway it sounds like a reasonable way to go for a {disfmarker} for an initial thing , and we can look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at exactly what you end up doing and {disfmarker} and then figure out if there 's some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something that could be {disfmarker} be hurt by the end part of the process . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} That was it , huh ? +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Yeah , e That 's it , that 's it . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , anything to {pause} add ? +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've been continuing reading . I went off on a little tangent this past week , um , looking at , uh , {vocalsound} uh , modulation s spectrum stuff , um , and {disfmarker} and learning a bit about what {disfmarker} what , um {disfmarker} what it is , and , uh , the importance of it in speech recognition . And I found some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some , uh , neat papers , {vocalsound} um , historical papers from , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} Kanedera , Hermansky , and Arai . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they {disfmarker} they did a lot of experiments where th where , {vocalsound} um , they take speech {vocalsound} and , um , e they modify {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they measure the relative importance of having different , um , portions of the modulation spectrum intact . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they find that the {disfmarker} the spectrum between one and sixteen hertz in the modulation {vocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} is im important for speech recognition . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , this sort of goes back to earlier stuff by Drullman . +Grad E: Um . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh , the {disfmarker} the MSG features were sort of built up {vocalsound} with this notion {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: But , I guess , I thought you had brought this up in the context of , um , targets somehow . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But i m +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: i it 's not {disfmarker} I mean , they 're sort of not in the same kind of category as , say , a phonetic target or a syllabic target +Grad E: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , I was thinking more like using them as {disfmarker} as the inputs to {disfmarker} to the detectors . +Professor B: or a feature or something . Oh , I see . Well , that 's sort of what MSG does . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , we 'll talk more about it later . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: We can talk more about it later . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So maybe , {vocalsound} le +PhD C: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . Let you {disfmarker} you start . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad E: L fifty . +PhD A: Right . +","The interaction commenced with brief exchanges between the attendees, where they discussed and confirmed the technical settings, specifically the channels being used. Professor B initiated the academic discussion by inquiring about the progress on speech recognition from the week before. Grad E informed that the work on speech recognition was almost complete, prompting Professor B to suggest a transition to image processing. PhD A and PhD C indicated their readiness to engage in the image processing discussion. + +PhD C had some updates regarding experiments conducted using the HTK back-end and the training of models. A detailed explanation of the iterative training rounds was provided, including the number of instances of HMM re-estimation run during each round. However, there was some confusion regarding the rounds, prompting PhD C to consider writing the process out more clearly on a board. + +Professor B queried about the distinction between inner and outer loops in HTK iterations to which PhD C explained that an increased number of Gaussians in the model occurred at each point, referencing the mix-up process. Further, PhD C highlighted an experimental change that could potentially speed up the computationally intensive training process significantly without compromising results. + +Professor B and PhD C then discussed the compilation of the HTK for Linux and its implications for running experiments on a powerful multi-processor machine provided by IBM, which would allow for multiple simultaneous experiments to proceed. + +Following this technical discussion, PhD C shared insights about further experiments played with the number of mixtures in the models, looking for impacts on performance. Professor B stressed the importance of standardizing the process at the final iteration to maintain consistency. + +The conversation shifted toward updates from PhD A regarding a conference call, focusing on issues such as the weighting of error rates from different languages and conditions in the Aurora project. Both PhD A and Professor B deliberated on the inconsistencies and possible changes that could arise, touching upon the significance of well-matched and mismatched cases. The discussion delved furthermore into whether improvements or error rates should be averaged before computing overall improvements. They conversed about the complexities involved in determining a fair and logical standard for such averages given the diverse applications the speech recognition system may have. + +Grad E chimed in with occasional sound simulations, seemingly distant from the main discussion. + +PhD C proposed the simplistic approach of non-improvement-based assessment. However, Professor B questioned this thinking and whether it adequately represented the nature of the real-world application of speech recognition technology. + +The dialogue continued with considerations on the importance of different case weightings and the need for a robust feature set that performs well across varying conditions. The meeting concluded with the participants exploring the idea of adding more robust features such as modulation spectrum in the feature set to improve the recognition rates, especially for noisy conditions. + +Overall, the meeting was characterized by deep-dives into the technical aspects of speech recognition work, exploring iterative model training processes, experiment setups, and extensive debates on ideal practices for error rate weighting and feature extraction in the context of ongoing research projects." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , this is one channel . Can you uh , say your name and talk into your mike one at a time ? +PhD C: This is Eric on channel three , I believe . +Grad A: OK . Uh , I don't think it 's on there , Jane . +Undergrad D: Tasting one two three , tasting . +Postdoc E: OK , this is Jane on channel five . +Grad A: Uh , I still don't see you Jane . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , what am I doing wrong ? +Undergrad D: Can you see me on channel four ? Really ? +Grad A: Yeah , I s +Undergrad D: My lucky day . +Postdoc E: Uh , screen no , {disfmarker} it is , oh , maybe it just warmed up ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , can you can't see channel five yet ? +Grad A: Uh , well , the mike isn't close enough to your mouth , so . +Postdoc E: Oh , this would be k OK , is that better ? +Grad A: S uh , try speaking loudly , +Undergrad D: I like the high quality labelling . +Grad A: so , +Postdoc E: Hello , +Grad A: OK , good . +Undergrad D: David , can we borrow your labelling machine to improve the quality of the labelling a little bit here ? +Postdoc E: hello . Alright . +Grad A: Thank you . +PhD B: One t +Undergrad D: How {disfmarker} how many are there , one to five ? +PhD B: One five , yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah , please . +Postdoc E: Would you like to join the meeting ? +Grad A: Well , we don't wanna renumber them , +Postdoc E: I bet {disfmarker} +Grad A: cuz we 've already have like , forms filled out with the numbers on them . So , let 's keep the same numbers on them . +PhD B: Yeah , OK , that 's a good idea . +Grad A: OK , Dan , are you on ? +PhD B: I 'm on {disfmarker} I 'm on two and I should be on . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Want to join the meeting , Dave ? Do we {disfmarker} do {disfmarker} do we have a spare , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: And I 'm getting lots of responses on different ones , so I assume {pause} the various and assorted P Z Ms are on . +Undergrad D: We ' r we 're {disfmarker} we ' r This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a meeting meeting . +Postdoc E: This is abou we 're {disfmarker} we 're mainly being taped but we 're gonna talk about , uh , transcription for the m future meeting meetings . +Grad A: Stuff . Yeah , this is not something you need to attend . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . e OK . +PhD C: You 're always having one of those days , Dave . +Postdoc E: Y you 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Besides , I don't want anyone who has a weird accent . +Postdoc E: You 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Right , Dan ? +Undergrad D: So , I don't understand if it 's neck mounted you don't get very good performance . +PhD C: It 's not neck mounted . It 's supposed to be h head mounted . +Undergrad D: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it should be head mounted . Right ? +Grad A: Well , then put it on your head . +PhD B: I don't know . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: What are you doing ? +Undergrad D: Cuz when you do this , you can {disfmarker} Rouww - Rouww . +Postdoc E: Why didn't I {disfmarker} you were saying that but I could hear you really well on the {disfmarker} on the transcription {disfmarker} on the , uh , tape . +Grad A: Well , I m I would prefer that people wore it on their head +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: i +Grad A: but they were complaining about it . Because it 's not {disfmarker} it doesn't go over the ears . +Undergrad D: Why ? +Postdoc E: It 's badly designed . +Grad A: It 's very badly designed so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's very badly designed ? +Undergrad D: What do you mean it doesn't go over the ears ? +PhD B: Why ? It 's not s It 's not supposed to cover up your ears . +Grad A: Yeah but , there 's nowhere to put the pad so it 's comfortable . +PhD B: I mean , it 's only badly {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So that 's what you 're d He 's got it on his temples so it cuts off his circulation . +PhD B: Oh , that 's strange . +PhD C: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I have . +Grad A: And it feels so good that way . +PhD C: It feels so good when I stop . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I again would like to do some digits . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Try it . +Grad A: Um . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna close the door ? +Grad A: Sure . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: We could do it with noise . +Grad A: So let me {disfmarker} +PhD C: You 're always doing digits . +Grad A: Well , you know , I 'm just that sort of {disfmarker} digit - y g sorta guy . OK . So this is Adam . +Postdoc E: Uh , this is the same one I had before . +Grad A: I doubt it . +PhD B: It 's still the same words . +Grad A: I think we 're session four by the way . Or m it might be five . +Undergrad D: Psss ! Oh , that 's good . +Postdoc E: No +Grad A: I didn't bring my previous thing . +PhD B: We didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Now , just to be sure , the numbers on the back , this is the channel ? +PhD B: That 's the microphone number . +Postdoc E: That 's the microphone number . +Grad A: Yeah , d leave the channel blank . +Postdoc E: Uh - oh . OK , good . +Undergrad D: But number has to be {disfmarker} ? So we have to look up the number . +Postdoc E: Five {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , good . +Postdoc E: Good . OK . Well , this is Jane , on mike number five . Um . I just start ? Do I need to say anything more ? +Grad A: Uh , transcript number . +PhD B: Transcript number {disfmarker} +PhD C: OK , this is Eric on microphone number three , +Undergrad D: This is Beck on mike four . +Grad A: Thanks . Should I turn off the VU meter Dan ? Do you think that makes any difference ? +PhD B: Oh , God . No , let me do it . +Grad A: Why ? Are you gonna do something other than hit "" quit "" ? +PhD B: No , but I 'm gonna look at the uh , logs as well . +Grad A: Oh . Should have done it before . +Postdoc E: Uh , you said turn off the what ? +Grad A: The VU meter which tells you what the levels on the various mikes are and there was one hypothesis that perhaps that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the act of recording the VU meter was one of the things that contributed to the errors . +Postdoc E: Oh . Oh , I see . +Undergrad D: Yeah , but Eric , uh , you didn't think that was a reasonable hypothesis , right ? +Postdoc E: I See . +Grad A: That was me , +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry y +Grad A: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That was malarkey . +Grad A: Well , the only reason that could be is if the driver has a bug . Right ? Because the machine just isn't very heavily loaded . +Undergrad D: No chance of that . +Grad A: No chance of that . Just because it 's beta . Look OK ? +PhD B: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} there was a {disfmarker} there was a bug . There was a glitch last time we ran . +Undergrad D: Are - are yo are you recording where the table mikes are by the way ? +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Do you know which channels {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , we usually do that . +PhD B: No , we don't . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: But we {disfmarker} we ought to st we ought to standardize . +Undergrad D: Why not ? +PhD B: I think , {vocalsound} uh , I s I spoke to somebody , Morgan , {comment} about that . I think {disfmarker} I think we should put mar Well , no , w we can do that . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just do this ? +Grad A: I mean , that 's what we 've done before . +PhD B: I know what they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're four , three , two , one . In order now . +Undergrad D: Four . +PhD B: Three , two , {vocalsound} and one . +Undergrad D: Three . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think we should put them in standard positions . I think we should make little marks on the table top . +Grad A: Which means we need to move this thing , and sorta decide how we 're actually going to do things . +PhD B: So that we can put them {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I guess that 's the point . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: It 'll be a lot easier if we have a {disfmarker} if we have them permanently in place or something like that . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: I do wish there were big booms coming down from the ceiling . +PhD B: You do ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Would it make you feel more important ? +Grad A: Mmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: I see . +Undergrad D: Wait till the projector gets installed . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad A: That 'll work . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 'll be good . +Grad A: That 'll work . +PhD B: Oh , gosh . +Undergrad D: Cuz it 's gonna hang down , make noise . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: When 's it gonna be installed ? +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Well , {vocalsound} it depends on +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: Is this b is this being recorded ? +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Uh , I think Lila actually is almost getting r pretty close to even getting ready to put out the purchase order . +PhD B: OK . Cool . +Undergrad D: I handed it off to her about a month ago . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: OK , so , topic of this meeting is I wanna talk a little bit about transcription . Um , I 've looked a little bit into commercial transcription services and Jane has been working on doing transcription . Uh , and so we wan wanna decide what we 're gonna do with that and then get an update on the electronics , and then , uh , maybe also talk a little bit about some infrastructure and tools , and so on . Um , you know , eventually we 're probably gonna wanna distribute this thing and we should decide how we 're gonna {disfmarker} how we 're gonna handle some of these factors . So . +PhD B: Distribute what ? +Grad A: Hmm ? +PhD B: The data ? +Grad A: Right . Right . I mean , so we 're {disfmarker} we 're collecting a corpus and I think it 's gonna be generally useful . I mean , it seems like it 's not a corpus which is {disfmarker} uh , has been done before . And so I think people will be interested in having {disfmarker} having it , +PhD B: Oh . +Grad A: and so we will {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: u Using , like , audio D V Ds or something like that ? +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD B: Yes . +Undergrad D: Audio D V +Grad A: Well , or something . Yeah , audio D V C Ds , +Undergrad D: Or t +Grad A: you know . +Undergrad D: Yeah . tapes . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and so how we do we distribute the transcripts , how do we distribute the audio files , how do we {disfmarker} how do we just do all that infrastructure ? +PhD C: Well , I think {disfmarker} I mean , for that particular issue ther there are known sources where people go to {disfmarker} to find these kind of things like the LDC for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , +Grad A: Right , but {disfmarker} but so should we do it in the same format as LDC +Postdoc E: that 's right . +Grad A: and what does that mean to what we 've done already ? +PhD B: Right . The {disfmarker} It 's not so much the actu The logistics of distribution are secondary to {pause} preparing the data in a suitable form for distribution . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: Right . So , uh , as it is , it 's sort of a {pause} ad - hoc combination of stuff Dan set and stuff I set up , which we may wanna make a little more formal . So . +PhD B: And the other thing is that , um , University of Washington may want to start recording meetings as well , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: in which case w w we 'll have to decide what we 've actually got so that we can give them a copy . +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: A field trip . +Grad A: Yeah . I was actually thinking I wouldn't mind spending the summer up there . That would be kind of fun . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Yeah . Visit my friends and spend some time {disfmarker} +PhD B: Different for you . Yes . +Grad A: Well , and then also I have a bunch of stuff for doing this digits . So I have a bunch of scripts with X Waves , and some Perl scripts , and other things that make it really easy to extract out {vocalsound} and align where the digits are . And if U d UW 's going to do the same thing I think it 's worth while for them to do these digits tasks as well . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And what I 've done is pretty ad - hoc , um , so we might wanna change it over to something a little more standard . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: You know , STM files , or XML , or something . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's interest up there ? +Grad A: What 's that ? +Undergrad D: There 's interest up there ? +Grad A: Well they {disfmarker} they certainly wanna collect more data . And so they 're applying , I think I B Is that right ? Something like that . +PhD B: I don't know . +Grad A: Um , for some more money to do more data . So we were planning to do like thirty or forty hours worth of meetings . They wanna do an additional hundred or so hours . So , they want a very large data set . Um , but of course we 're not gonna do that if we don't get money . So . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: And I would like that just to get a disjoint speaker set and a disjoint room . I mean , one of the things Morgan and I were talking about is we 're gonna get to know this room really well , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the acoustics of this room . +PhD B: All about that . +Undergrad D: Including the fan . +Grad A: Including the fan . +Undergrad D: Did you notice the fan difference ? +PhD B: Oh , now you 've touched the fan control , now all our data 's gonna be {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hear the difference ? +Grad A: Oh , it 's enormous . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's great . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's better . +Undergrad D: Do you wanna leave it off or not ? +Postdoc E: That 's better . +Grad A: All the others have been on . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} You sure ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Grad A: y Absolut +PhD B: Absolutely . +Undergrad D: You {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You think that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: things after the f then This fan 's wired backwards by the way . Uh , I think this is high speed here . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it 's noticeable . +Undergrad D: Well , not clear . +PhD B: Well it 's {disfmarker} well like {vocalsound} "" low "" is mid {disfmarker} mid - scale . +Undergrad D: Maybe it {disfmarker} Maybe it isn't . +PhD B: So it could be {vocalsound} that it 's not actually wired backwards +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD B: it 's just that ambiguous . +Undergrad D: I was wondering also , Get ready . {comment} whether the lights made any noise . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: There 's definitely {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD B: Oh , they do . +PhD C: Yeah , a little bit . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: High pitch hum . Wow . +Undergrad D: So , {vocalsound} do our meetings in the dark with no air conditioning in the future . +Grad A: Yeah , just get a variety . +Postdoc E: I think candles would be nice if they don't make noise . +Grad A: They 're very good . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: It would {disfmarker} you know , it would real really mean that we should do short meetings when you {vocalsound} turn off the {disfmarker} {comment} turn off the air conditioning , +Grad A: Carbon monoxide poisoning ? +Undergrad D: Short meetings , that 's right . Or {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of {comment} r r +PhD C: got to finish this meeting . +Undergrad D: Tear t {pause} Tear your clothing off to stay cool . +PhD C: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Actually , the a th air {disfmarker} the air conditioning 's still working , that 's just an auxiliary fan . +PhD C: Right , I see . +Grad A: So +PhD C: So , um , in addition to this issue about the UW stuff there was announced today , uh , via the LDC , um , a corpus from I believe Santa Barbara . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I saw it . I 've been watching for that corpus . +PhD C: Um , of general spoken English . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD C: And I don't know exactly how they recorded it but apparently there 's a lot of different {vocalsound} styles of speech and what not . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: They had people come in to a certain degree and they {disfmarker} and they have DAT recorders . +PhD C: I see . So it is sort of far field stuff . Right ? +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I assume so , actually , I hadn't thought about that . Unless they added close field later on but , um , I 've listened to some of those data and I , um , I 've been {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was actually on the advisory board for when they set the project up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: What 's it sound like ? +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to see that it got released . +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I wish {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it it 's a very nice thing . +Grad A: I wish we had someone here working on adaptation +PhD C: S +Grad A: because it would nice to be able to take that stuff and adapt it to a meeting setting . You know {disfmarker} +PhD C: But it may be {disfmarker} it may be useful in {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: How do you mean {disfmarker} do you mean mechanical adaptation or {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , software , to adapt the speech recognition . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Well , what I was thinking is it may be useful in transcribing , if it 's far field stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: right ? In doing , um , some of our first automatic speech recognition models , it may be useful to have that kind of data +Postdoc E: Great idea . +PhD C: because that 's very different than any kind of data that we have so far . +Grad A: That 's true . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and their recording conditions are really clean . I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've heard {disfmarker} I 've listened to the data . +Grad A: Well that 's not good , right ? +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's not great . +Postdoc E: It sounds {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Tr +Postdoc E: well but what I mean is that , um {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But far field means great distance ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just these . +Undergrad D: Not head mounted ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And so that 's why they 're getting away with just two channels or something , or are they using multiple DATs ? +Postdoc E: Um , oh , good question and I can't ans answer it . +Grad A: Well we can look into it . +Postdoc E: I don't know . +PhD C: No , and their web {disfmarker} their web page didn't answer it either . So I 'm , I uh , was thinking that we should contact them . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: So it 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of a beside - the - point point . But . +Grad A: So we can get that just with , uh , media costs , +Undergrad D: Still a point . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: is that right ? +PhD C: Uh , in fact we get it for free +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: cuz they 're distributing it through the LDC . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad A: So that would be {disfmarker} yeah , that would be something to look into . So . +PhD C: So , I can {disfmarker} I can actually arrange for it to arrive in short order if we 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: The other thing too is from {disfmarker} from a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it 's silly to do unless we 're gonna have someone to work on it , so maybe we need to think about it a little bit . +PhD C: Huh . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that their their jus their transcription format is really nice and simple in {disfmarker} in the discourse domain . But they also mentioned that they have it time aligned . I mean , I s I {disfmarker} I saw that write - up . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe we should {disfmarker} maybe we should get a copy of it just to see what they did +PhD B: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} we can compare . +Postdoc E: It 's very nice . +Grad A: OK , why don't you go ahead and do that then Eric ? +PhD B: Absolutely . +PhD C: Alright , I 'll do that . I can't remember the name of the corpus . It 's Corps - S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: CSAE . +PhD C: S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Corpus of Spoken American English . +PhD C: Right , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , sp I 've been {disfmarker} I was really pleased to see that . I knew that they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had had some funding problems in completing it +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but , um , +PhD C: Well they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: this is clever . +PhD C: Apparently this was like phase one +Postdoc E: Got it through the LDC . +PhD C: and the there 's still more that they 're gonna do apparently or something like that unless of course they have funding issues +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: and then then it ma they may not do phase two but {vocalsound} from all the web documentation it looked like , "" oh , this is phase one "" , whatever that means . +Postdoc E: Super . Super . Great . Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , they 're really well respected in the linguistics d side too and the discourse area , +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} So this is a very good corpus . +PhD C: But , it uh it would also maybe help be helpful for Liz , if she wanted to start working on some discourse issues , you know , looking at some of this data and then , +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: you know {disfmarker} So when she gets here maybe that might be a good thing for her . +Grad A: Actually , that 's another thing I was thinking about is that maybe Jane should talk to Liz , to see if there are any transcription issues related to discourse that she needs to get marked . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Maybe we should have a big meeting meeting . +PhD B: Sure , of course . +Undergrad D: That would be a meeting meeting meeting ? +Grad A: A meeting meeting meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Well this is the meeting about the meeting meeting meeting . So . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad A: Um . +PhD C: Right . But maybe we should , uh find some day that Liz {disfmarker} uh , Liz and Andreas seem to be around more often . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So maybe we should find a day when they 're gonna be here and {disfmarker} and Morgan 's gonna be here , and we can meet , at least this subgroup . I mean , not necessarily have the U - dub people down . +Grad A: Well , I was even thinking that maybe we need to at least ping the U - dub {disfmarker} to see {disfmarker} +PhD C: We need {disfmarker} we need to talk to them some more . +Grad A: you know , say "" this is what we 're thinking about for our transcription "" , if nothing else . So , well w shall we move on and talk a little bit about transcription then ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Let 's . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so {comment} {vocalsound} since that 's what we 're talking about . What we 're using right now is a tool , um , from this French group , called "" Transcriber "" that seems to work very well . Um , so it has a , uh , nice useful Tcl - TK user interface and , uh , +Undergrad D: Thi - this is the process of converting audio to text ? +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: And this requires humans just like the {disfmarker} the STP stuff . +Grad A: Yes , yeah . Right , right . So we 're {disfmarker} we 're at this point only looking for word level . So all {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} so what you have to do is just identify a segment of speech in time , and then write down what was said within it , and identify the speaker . And so the things we {disfmarker} that we know {disfmarker} that I know I want are {vocalsound} the text , the start and end , and the speaker . But other people are interested in for example stress marking . And so Jane is doing primary stress , {vocalsound} um , stress marks as well . Um , and then things like repairs , and false starts , and , {vocalsound} filled pauses , and all that other sort of stuff , {vocalsound} we have to decide how much of that we wanna do . +Postdoc E: I did include a glo {comment} uh , a certain first pass . My {disfmarker} my view on it was when you have a repair {vocalsound} then , uh {disfmarker} it seems {disfmarker} I mean , we saw , there was this presentation in the {disfmarker} one of the speech group meetings about how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think Liz has done some stuff too on that , that it , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you get it bracketed in terms of like {disfmarker} well , if it 's parenthetical , which I know that Liz has worked on , then {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} y y you 'll have different prosodic aspects . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And then also {vocalsound} if it 's a r if it 's a repair where they 're {disfmarker} like what I just did , {vocalsound} then it 's nice to have sort of a sense of the continuity of the utterance , the start to be to the finish . And , uh , it 's a little bit deceptive if you include the repai the pre - repair part {disfmarker} and sometimes or of it 's in the middle . Anyway , {vocalsound} so what I was doing was bracketing them to indicate that they were repairs which isn't uh , very time - consuming . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I is there already some sort of plan in place for how this gonna be staffed or done ? Or is it real {disfmarker} is that what we 're talking about here ? +Grad A: Well , that 's part of the thing we 're talking about . So what we wanted to do was have Jane do basically one meeting 's worth , you know , forty minutes to an hour , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: As a pilot study . +Undergrad D: Yourself ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is like five times real time or ten times real time {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , as a pilot study . +Grad A: Ten times about , is {disfmarker} and so one of the things was to get an estimate of how long it would take , and then also what tools we would use . And so the next decision which has to be made actually pretty soon is how are we gonna do it ? So . +Undergrad D: And so you make Jane do the first one so then she can decide , oh , we don't need all this stuff , just the words are fine . +Postdoc E: That 's right , that 's right . +PhD B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: I wanna hear about these {disfmarker} uh , we have a g you were s continuing with the transcription conventions for s +Grad A: R right , so {disfmarker} so one {disfmarker} one option is to get linguistics grad students and undergrads to do it . And apparently that 's happened in the past . And I think that 's probably the right way to do it . Um , it will require a post pass , I mean people will have to look at it more than once to make sure that it 's been done correctly , but I just can't imagine that we 're gonna get anything that much better from a commercial one . And the commercial ones I 'm sure will be much more expensive . +Undergrad D: Can't we get Joy to do it all ? +Grad A: Yeah right . +Postdoc E: No , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: We will just get Joy and Jane to do everything . +Undergrad D: Is tha wasn't that what she was doing before ? Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: But , you know , that 's what we 're talking about is getting some slaves who {disfmarker} who need money +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: and , uh , duh , again o +Postdoc E: I object to that characterization ! +PhD B: Oh , really . +Grad A: I meant Joy . And so again , I have to say "" are we recording "" +Postdoc E: Oh , thank you . OK . +Grad A: and then say , uh , Morgan has {disfmarker} has consistently resisted telling me how much money we have . +Undergrad D: Right . Well , the answer is zero . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: There 's a reason why he 's resisted . +Grad A: Well , if it 's zero then we can't do any transcription . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad A: I mean , cuz we 're {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: I have such a hard name . +Grad A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I can't imagine us doing it ourselves . Right ? +Undergrad D: Well , we already {disfmarker} we already {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We already have a plan in place for the first meeting . +Grad A: N right . +Undergrad D: Right ? That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well th there is als Yeah , really . There is also the o other possibility which is if you can provide not money but instructional experience or some other perks , {vocalsound} you can {disfmarker} you could get people to {disfmarker} to um , to do it in exchange . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , i b but seriously , I {disfmarker} I mean , Morgan 's obviously in a bind over this and thing to do is just the field of dreams theory , which is we we go ahead as though there will be money at the time that we need the money . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best we can do . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: i b To not do anything until we get money is {disfmarker} is ridiculous . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: We 're not gonna do any {disfmarker} get anything done if we do that . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So at any rate , Jane was looking into the possibility of getting students , at {disfmarker} is that right ? Talking to people about that ? +Postdoc E: I 'm afraid I haven't made any progress in that front yet . +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: I should 've sent email and I haven't yet . +Grad A: Yeah , right . So , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I d do {disfmarker} So until you actually {vocalsound} have a little experience with what this {disfmarker} this French thing does we don't even have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And I do have {disfmarker} +Grad A: She 's already done quite a bit . +Undergrad D: Oh , we have . +Postdoc E: I have {disfmarker} a bunch of hours , +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry . So that 's where you came up with the f the ten X number ? +Postdoc E: yeah . +Undergrad D: Or is that really just a guess ? +Postdoc E: Actually that 's the {disfmarker} the one people usually use , ten X . +PhD C: How fast are you ? +Postdoc E: And I haven't really calculated {disfmarker} How fast am I ? +Undergrad D: Yeah i +Postdoc E: I haven't done a s see , I 've been at the same time doing kind of a boot strapping in deciding on the transcription conventions that {disfmarker} that are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and {disfmarker} and stuff like , you know , how much {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: There 's some interesting human factors problems like , {vocalsound} yeah , what span of {disfmarker} of time is it useful to segment the thing into in order to uh , transcribe it the most quickly . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Cuz then , you know , you get like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you get a span of five words , that 's easy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But then you have to take the time to mark it . And then there 's the issue of {vocalsound} it 's easier to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hear it th right the first time if you 've marked it at a boundary instead of {vocalsound} somewhere in the middle , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz then the word 's bisected or whatever and {disfmarker} And so I mean , I 've been sort of playing with , uh , different ways of mar cuz I 'm thinking , you know , I mean , if you could get optimal instructions you could cut back on the number of hours it would take . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: D does uh {disfmarker} this tool you 're using is strictly {disfmarker} it doesn't do any speech recognition does it ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: No , it doesn't but what a super tool . It 's a great environment . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but is there anyway to {disfmarker} to wire a speech recognizer up to it and actually run it through {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's an interesting idea . +Grad A: We 've {disfmarker} we 've thought about doing that +Postdoc E: Hey ! +Grad A: but the recognition quality is gonna be horrendous . +Undergrad D: Well , a couple things . +PhD B: Wow . +Undergrad D: First of all the time marking you 'd get {disfmarker} you could get by a tool . +PhD B: That 's true . +Undergrad D: And so if the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the issue really +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +Undergrad D: uh , I 'm think about the close caption that you see running by on {disfmarker} on live news casts . +Grad A: Most of those are done by a person . +Undergrad D: You know , yo I know {disfmarker} I know that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I +Undergrad D: No , I understand . And {disfmarker} in a lot of them you see typos and things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} but it occurs to me that {vocalsound} it may be a lot easier to correct things than it is to do things from scratch , no matter how wonderful the tool is . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah , we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But if {disfmarker} if there was a way to merge the two {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , I mean , but sometimes it 's easier to type out something instead of going through and figuring out which is the right {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , we 've talked about it +Postdoc E: That 'd be fun . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , it depends on the error rate , right ? +Undergrad D: Well s but {disfmarker} but again the timing is for fr should be for free . The timing should be {disfmarker} +PhD C: But we don't care about the timing of the words . +Undergrad D: Well I thought you just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} said that was a critical issue . +Grad A: We don't care about the timing of the words , just of the utterances . +Postdoc E: No , uh the {disfmarker} the boundary {disfmarker} +PhD C: We cut it s s +PhD B: We don't {disfmarker} we don't know , actually . +Postdoc E: boundary . +PhD B: We haven't decided which {disfmarker} which time we care about , and that 's kind of one of the things that you 're saying , is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have the option to put in more or less timing data {disfmarker} and , uh , be in the absence of more specific instructions , {vocalsound} we 're trying to figure out what the most convenient thing to do is . +Grad A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so what {disfmarker} what she 's done so far , is sort of {disfmarker} more or less breath g not breath groups , {comment} sort of phrases , continuous phrases . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , um , that 's nice because you {disfmarker} you separate when you do an extract , you get a little silence on either end . So that seems to work really well . +Postdoc E: That 's ideal . +Grad A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Although I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , the alternative , which I was sort of experimenting with before I ran out of time , {vocalsound} recently was , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , you know , ev if it were like an arbitrary segment of time {disfmarker} i t pre - marked cuz it does take time to put those markings in . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's really the i the interface is wonderful because , you know , the time it takes is you listen to it , {vocalsound} and then you press the return key . But then , you know , it 's like , {vocalsound} uh , you press the tab key to stop the flow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , the return key to p to put in a marking of the boundary . But , you know , obviously there 's a lag between when you hear it and when you can press the return key +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so it 's slightly delayed , so then you {disfmarker} you listen to it a second time and move it over to here . +Undergrad D: a +Postdoc E: So that takes time . +Undergrad D: i a +Postdoc E: Now if it could all be pre - marked at some , {vocalsound} l you know , good {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: ar but +Grad A: Hmm . +Undergrad D: Are {disfmarker} are those d delays adjustable ? Those delays adjustable ? See a lot of people who actually build stuff with human computer interfaces {vocalsound} understand that delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} and so when you {disfmarker} by the time you click it it 'll be right on because it 'll go back in time to put the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It could do that +Postdoc E: Yeah , uh , not in this case . +Grad A: We could program that pretty easily , +PhD B: couldn't it . +Postdoc E: It has other {disfmarker} +Grad A: couldn't we Dan ? Yeah , mis Mister TCL ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting point . +PhD B: I would have thought so , yeah . +Postdoc E: Ah ! {comment} Interesting point . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: OK , that would make a difference . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not bad +Grad A: But , if we tried to do automatic speaker ID . +Postdoc E: but it does {disfmarker} take twice . +Grad A: I mean , cuz primarily the markings are at speaker change . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: But that would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: But we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got the most channel data . We 'd have to do it from your signal . Right . I mean , we 've {disfmarker} we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of data . +Postdoc E: Oh , good point ! Ah ! +Grad A: Yeah , I guess the question is how much time will it really save us versus the time to write all the tools to do it . +Postdoc E: We 've got volume . +PhD B: Right . but the chances are if we if we 're talking about collecting {vocalsound} ten or a hundred hours , which is going to take a hundred or a thousand hours to transcribe {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: if we can go from ten X to five X we 're doing a big {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 're gonna need {disfmarker} we 're gonna need ten to a hundred hours to train the tools , and validate the tools the do the d to {disfmarker} to do all this anyway . +PhD C: Right . So maybe {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: If we 're just doing silence detection {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but it op +Grad A: I knew you were gonna do that . Just saw it coming . +Postdoc E: I 'm sorry . I wish you had told me {disfmarker} wish you 'd told me . +Undergrad D: Put {disfmarker} put it on your sweater . +Postdoc E: At what part ? OK , I 'm alright . +PhD B: Um , i it seems like {disfmarker} Well , uh , I don't know . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's maybe like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a week 's work to get to do something like this . So forty or fifty hours . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Could you get it so that with {disfmarker} so it would {disfmarker} it would detect volume on a channel and insert a marker ? And the {disfmarker} the format 's really transparent . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's just a matter of {vocalsound} a very c clear {disfmarker} it 's XML , isn't it ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: It 's very {disfmarker} I mean , I looked at the {disfmarker} the file format and it 's just {disfmarker} it has a t a time {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time indication and then something or other , and then an end time or something or other . +PhD C: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we could try the following experiment . Take the data that you 've already transcribed +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Is this already in the past or already in the future ? +PhD C: Already in the past . +Undergrad D: You 've already {disfmarker} you 've already done some ? +Grad A: She 's {disfmarker} she 's done about half a meeting . +PhD C: She {disfmarker} she 's done one {disfmarker} she 's one {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes I have . +Undergrad D: Oh - Oh , I see . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , +Grad A: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: good . +Grad A: About half ? +PhD C: I 'm go +Postdoc E: S I 'm not sure if it 's that 's much but anyway , enough to work with . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Several minutes . +PhD C: Um , and {disfmarker} and throw out the words , but keep the time markings . And then go through {disfmarker} I mean , and go through and {disfmarker} and try and re - transcribe it , given that we had perfect boundary detection . +Postdoc E: OK . Good idea . +PhD C: And see if it {disfmarker} see if it {disfmarker} see if it feels easier to you . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And forgetting all the words because you 've been thr +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd be cheating a little bit g with familiarity effect . +PhD C: Yeah , I mean uh , that 's part of the problem is , is that what we really need is somebody else to come along . +PhD B: Well , no , you should do it {disfmarker} you should do it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do it again from scratch and then do it again at the boundaries . So you do the whole thing three times and then we get {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: No . Now , there 's a plan . +Undergrad D: And then {disfmarker} then w since we need some statistics do it three more . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And so you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll get down to one point two X by the time you get done . +Postdoc E: Oh , yeah . I 'll do that tomorrow . I should have it finished by the end of the day . +Undergrad D: No , but the thing is the fact that she 's {disfmarker} she 's did it before just might give a lower bound . That 's all . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Uh , which is fine . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Undergrad D: It 's {disfmarker} And if the lower bound is nine X then w it 's a waste of time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , uh but there 's an extra problem which is that I didn't really keep accurate {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh ! +Postdoc E: uh , it wasn't a pure task the first time , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it 's gonna be an upper bound in {disfmarker} in that case . And it 's not really strictly comparable . So I think though it 's a good proposal to be used on a new {disfmarker} a new batch of text that I haven't yet done yet in the same meeting . Could use it on the next segment of the text . +PhD B: The point we {disfmarker} where do we get the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the oracle boundaries from ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Or the boundaries . +Grad A: Yeah , one person would have to assign the boundaries and the {disfmarker} and the other person would have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , but couldn't I do it for the next {disfmarker} +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could get fake {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's easy enough . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I could do that . +Postdoc E: Well , but the oracle boundaries would come from volume on a partic specific channel wouldn't they ? +Grad A: No , no . +PhD B: That would be the automatic boundaries . +PhD C: No , no , no , no . You wanna know {disfmarker} given {disfmarker} Given a perfect human segmentation , I mean , you wanna know how well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the {disfmarker} the question is , is it worth giving you the segmentation ? +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's easy enough . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: I could generate the segmentation and {disfmarker} and you could do the words , and time yourself on it . So . +Undergrad D: A little double - blind - ear kind of thing . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} that might be worth doing . +Postdoc E: That 's good . I like that . +Grad A: That would at least tell us whether it 's worth spending a week or two trying to get a tool , that will compute the segmentations . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: And the thing to keep in mind too about this tool , guys is that {vocalsound} sure , you can do the computation for what we 're gonna do in the future but if {disfmarker} if UW 's talking about doing two , or three , or five times as much stuff and they can use the same tool , then obviously there 's a real multiplier there . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is with {disfmarker} with speaker identification , if {disfmarker} if that could handle speaker identification that 's a big deal . +PhD B: Well it w +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , use it . Yeah , that 's why we s bought the expensive microphones . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah , I mean , that 's a nice feature . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's a major {disfmarker} that 's like , one of the two things that {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , there 's gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be {disfmarker} in the meeting , like the reading group meeting that we had the other day , that 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a bit of a problem +PhD B: OK . +PhD C: because , like , I wasn't wearing a microphone +PhD B: Yes . +PhD C: f and there were other people that weren't wearing microphones . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But you didn't say anything worth while anyway , right ? +Grad A: That 'll s +PhD B: Right . +PhD C: That 's pretty much true +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: it might save ninety percent of the work though . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but , yes . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} we need to look at what {disfmarker} what the final output is but it seems like {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems like it 's not really not that hard to have an automatic tool to generate {vocalsound} the phrase marks , and the speaker , and speaker identity without putting in the words . +Grad A: Yeah . I 've already become pretty familiar with the format , +Postdoc E: That 'd be so great . +Grad A: so it would be easy . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: If you 'd tell me where it is , huh ? +Postdoc E: We didn't finish the {disfmarker} the part of work already completed on this , did we ? I mean , you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you talked a little bit about the transcription conventions , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and , I guess you 've mentioned in your progress report , or status report , that you had written a script to convert it into {disfmarker} So , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} it 's quickest for me in terms of {vocalsound} the transcription part {vocalsound} to say {vocalsound} something like , you know , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if Adam spoke to , um {disfmarker} to just say , "" A colon "" , Like who could be , you know , I mean at the beginning of the line . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and E colon {vocalsound} instead of entering the interface for speaker identification and clicking on the thing , uh , indicating the speaker ID . So , and then he has a script that will convert it into the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , would indicate speaker ID . +Grad A: It 's pretty cute . +Postdoc E: If that 's clear . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But at any rate . So , um , +Postdoc E: It 's Perl script . +Grad A: Right . So {disfmarker} so I think the guess at ten X seems to be pretty standard . Everyone {disfmarker} more or less everyone you talk to says about ten times for hard technical transcription . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Using wh using stone age +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Undergrad D: using stone age tools . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad A: Using {disfmarker} using stone age tools . I mean , I looked at Cyber Transcriber +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: which is a service that you send an audio file , they do a first - pass speech recognition . And then they {disfmarker} they do a clean up . But it 's gonna be horrible . They 're never gonna be able to do a meeting like this . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} i just approximately , what did you find out in terms of price or {disfmarker} or whatever ? +Grad A: Well , for Cyber Transcriber they don't quote a price . They want you to call and {disfmarker} and talk . So for other services , um , they were about thirty dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Of {disfmarker} of tape ? +Grad A: Thirty {disfmarker} So , yeah . +Postdoc E: Or of action ? +Grad A: For thirty dollars an hour for {disfmarker} of their work . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . Oh , of their {disfmarker} +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so if it 's ten times it 's three hundred dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +PhD C: So that 's three {disfmarker} that 's three hours . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: D did you talk to anybody that does closed captioning for {disfmarker} for uh , TV ? +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: No . +Undergrad D: Cuz they a usually at the end of the show they 'll tell what the name of the company is , the captioning company that 's doing it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so my {disfmarker} my search was pretty cursory . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad A: It was just a net search . And , uh , so it was only people who have web pages and are doing stuff through that . +Undergrad D: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing {disfmarker} the thing about this is thinking kind of , maybe a little more globally than I should here but {comment} {vocalsound} that really this could be a big contribution we could make . Uh , I mean , we 've been through the STP thing , we know what it {disfmarker} what it 's like to {disfmarker} to manage the {disfmarker} manage the process , and admittedly they might have been looking for more detail than what we 're looking for here but {vocalsound} it was a {disfmarker} it was a big hassle , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I mean , uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they constantly could 've reminding people and going over it . And clearly some new stuff needs to be done here . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's only {vocalsound} our time , where "" our "" of course includes Dan , {vocalsound} Dan and you guys . It doesn't include me at all . Uh . j Just seems like {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I mean I don't know if we 'd be able to do any thing f to help STP type problems . But certainly for this problem we can do a lot better than {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Bec Why ? Because they wanted a lot more detail ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: No . Because they had {disfmarker} because they only had two speakers , right ? I mean , the {disfmarker} the segmentation problem is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Trivial . +Undergrad D: Only had two . +Grad A: They had two speakers over the telephone . +Undergrad D: Oh , I see . So what took them so long ? +Grad A: Um , mostly because they were doing much lower level time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So they were doing phone and syllable transcription , as well as , uh , word transcription . +Undergrad D: Right . Right . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And so we 're {disfmarker} w we decided early on that we were not gonna do that . +Undergrad D: I see . But there 's still the same issue of managing the process , of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of reviewing and keeping the files straight , and all this stuff , that {disfmarker} which is clearly a hassle . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . And so {disfmarker} so what I 'm saying is that if we hire an external service I think we can expect three hundred dollars an hour . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I think that 's the ball park . There were several different companies that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the range was very tight for technical documents . Twenty - eight to thirty - two dollars an hour . +PhD C: And who who knows if they 're gonna be able to m manage multal multiple channel data ? +PhD B: Yeah , they won't . +Grad A: They won't . +PhD B: They w they 'll refuse to do it . +Grad A: We 'll have to mix them . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: No , but I mean , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they will refuse to transcribe this kind of material . +Postdoc E: And then there 's the problem also that {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's not what they 're d quoting for , right ? +Grad A: Yes , it is . +Undergrad D: Well , they might {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they might quote it {disfmarker} +PhD B: For quoting meetings ? +Grad A: Sev - several of them say that they 'll do meetings , and conferences , and s and so on . None of them specifically said that they would do speaker ID , or speaker change mark . +PhD B: Wow . Yeah . +Grad A: They all just said transcription . +Undergrad D: Th - th the th there may be just multiplier for five people costs twice as much and for ten people co {comment} Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well , the {disfmarker} the way it worked is it {disfmarker} it was scaled . So what they had is , {vocalsound} if it 's an easy task it costs twenty - four dollars an hour and it will take maybe five or six times real time . And what they said is for the hardest tasks , bad acoustics , meeting settings , it 's thirty - two dollars an hour and it takes about ten times real time . So I think that we can count on that being about what they would do . +PhD B: I see . Yeah . +Grad A: It would probably be a little more +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: because we 're gonna want them to do speaker marking . +Undergrad D: A lot of companies I 've worked for y the , uh {disfmarker} the person leading the meeting , the executive or whatever , would sort of go around the room and {disfmarker} and mentally calculate h how many dollars per hour this meeting was costing , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: right ? In university {vocalsound} atmosphere you get a little different thing . But you know , it 's a lot like , "" he 's worth fifty an hour , he 's worth {disfmarker} "" And so he so here we 're thinking , "" well let 's see , if the meeting goes another hour it 's going to be another thousand dollars . "" You know ? It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , we have to have a short meeting . +Undergrad D: So ch {vocalsound} So every everybody ta Talk really fast . +Postdoc E: That 's very interesting . +Grad A: Stop talking ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Let 's get it over with . +Postdoc E: Talk {vocalsound} slowly but with few words . +Grad A: And clearly . +PhD B: That 's right . +Undergrad D: And only talk when you 're pointed to . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad A: Content words only . +Postdoc E: We could have some telegraphic meetings . That might be interesting . +PhD B: Yeah , it 'd be cheap . +Undergrad D: +PhD B: Cheap to transcribe . +Grad A: So . But at any rate , so we {disfmarker} we have a ballpark on how much it would cost if we send it out . +Undergrad D: And we 're talking about do doing how many hours worth of meetings ? +Grad A: Thirty or forty . +Undergrad D: So thirty or forty thousand dollars . +PhD B: Well , for ten thousand dollars . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: So , meanwhile {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh . What {disfmarker} Well , it was thirty times {disfmarker} +PhD B: Three hundred . +Grad A: Three hundred dollars an hour . +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry , three hundred . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right , I w got an extra factor of three there . +PhD C: So it 's thirty dollars an hour , essentially , right ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD C: But we can pay a graduate student seven dollars an hour . And the question is what 's the difference {disfmarker} +PhD B: How {disfmarker} how much lower are they ? +PhD C: or ei eight dollars . What {disfmarker} do you know what the going rate is ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} on the order of eight to ten . +Postdoc E: I think uh that would give us a {disfmarker} a good {disfmarker} good estimate . +PhD C: I think . But I 'm not sure . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ten . +Postdoc E: yeah , I was gonna say eight {disfmarker} you 'd say ten ? +PhD C: Let 's say ten . +PhD B: Yeah , give them a break . +PhD C: Cuz it 's easier . +Undergrad D: The - these are not for engineering graduate students , right ? +Grad A: Right , these are linguistics grad students . Six . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't know what the {disfmarker} I don't know what the standard {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD C: but there is a standard pay scale +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I just don't know what it is . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . +PhD C: Um , so that means that even if it takes them thirty times real time it 's cheaper to {disfmarker} to do graduate students . +Postdoc E: And there 's another aspect too . +Grad A: I mean , that 's why I said originally , that I couldn't imagine sending it out 's gonna be cheaper . +PhD B: No , it isn't . So . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that , uh , if they were linguistics they 'd be {disfmarker} you know , in terms of like the post editing , i uh {disfmarker} tu uh content wise they might be easier to handle cuz they might get it more right the first time . +Grad A: And also we would have control of {disfmarker} I mean , we could give them feedback . Whereas if we do a service it 's gonna be limited amount . +PhD B: Yep , yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +Grad A: I mean , we can't tell them , you know , "" for this meeting we really wanna mark stress +Postdoc E: Good point . +PhD B: Yep . +Grad A: and for this meeting we want {disfmarker} "" +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: Good point . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and they 're not gonna provide {disfmarker} they 're not gonna provide stress , they 're not gonna re provide repairs , they 're not gonna {vocalsound} provide {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they may or may not provide speaker ID . So that we would have to do our own tools to do that . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Just hypoth hypothetically assuming that {disfmarker} that we go ahead and ended up using graduate students . I who {disfmarker} who 's the person in charge ? Who 's gonna be the Steve here ? +Grad A: I hope it 's Jane . +Undergrad D: You ? +Grad A: Is that alright ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . Um , now would this involve some manner of uh , monetary compensation or would I be the voluntary , uh , coordinator of multiple transcribers for checking ? +Grad A: Um , I would imagine there would be some monetary involved but we 'd have to talk to Morgan about it . +PhD B: Yeah , out of {disfmarker} out of Adam 's pocket . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: You know , it just means you have to stop working for Dave . See ? +Postdoc E: Oh , +Undergrad D: That 's why Dave should have been here . +Postdoc E: I don't wanna stop working for Dave . +Undergrad D: To pr protect his people . +Grad A: Well , I would like you to do it because you have a lot more experience than I do , +Postdoc E: Oh , cool . Yeah . +Grad A: but if {disfmarker} if that 's not feasible , I will do it with you as an advisor . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: W we 'd like you to do it and we 'd like to pay you . +Postdoc E: We 'll see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Not being Morgan though , it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . +PhD B: We 'd like to . Unfortunately {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , six dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I see . +PhD C: That 's a {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . Boy , if I wanted to increase my income I could start doing the transcribing again . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah . +Undergrad D: an an an and be and be sure and say , would you like fries with that when you 're thinking about your pay scale . +Postdoc E: I see . Good . Yeah , no , that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would be interested in that {disfmarker} in becoming involved in the project in some aspect like that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . More . +Postdoc E: more . Yeah . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad A: Um , any more on transcript we wanna talk about ? +PhD B: What s so what are you {disfmarker} so you 've done some portion of the first meeting . And what 's your plan ? +Postdoc E: Yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: To carry on doing it ? +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} Well , you know what I thought was right now we have p So I gave him the proposal for the transcription conventions . He made his , uh , suggestion of improvement . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's a good suggestion . So as far as I 'm concerned those transcription conventions are fixed right now . And so my next plan would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} what do they cover ? +Postdoc E: They 're very minimal . So , {vocalsound} it would be good to {disfmarker} just to summarize that . So , um , {vocalsound} one of them is the idea of how to indicate speaker change , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and this is a way which meshes well with {disfmarker} with , uh , making it {vocalsound} so that , uh , you know , on the {disfmarker} At the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Boy , it 's such a nice interface . When you {disfmarker} when you get the , um {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you get the speech signal you also get {vocalsound} down beneath it , {vocalsound} an indication of , {vocalsound} uh , if you have two speakers overlapping in a s in a single segment , you see them {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} displayed one above each other . And then at the same time {vocalsound} the top s part of the screen is the actual verbatim thing . You can clip {disfmarker} click on individual utterances and it 'll take you immediately to that part of the speech signal , and play it for you . And you can , eh you can work pretty well between those two {disfmarker} these two things . +Undergrad D: Is there a limit to the number of speakers ? +Grad A: Um , the user interface only allows two . And so if {disfmarker} if you 're using their interface to specify overlapping speakers you can only do two . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad A: But my script can handle any . And their save format can handle any . And so , um , using this {disfmarker} the convention that Jane and I have discussed , you can have as many overlapping speakers as you want . +Undergrad D: Do y is this a , uh , university project ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Th - this is the French software , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , French . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Grad A: Yeah . And they 're {disfmarker} they 've been quite responsive . +PhD B: their academic . +Undergrad D: eh +Grad A: I 've been exchanging emails on various issues . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Undergrad D: Uh , did you ask them to change the interface for more speakers ? +Postdoc E: Oh . +Grad A: Yes , and they said that 's on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the works for the next version . +Undergrad D: Good . +PhD C: Oh , so multi multichannels . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: Multichannels was also {disfmarker} Well , they said they wanted to do it but that the code is really very organized around single channels . So I think that 's n unlikely to ha happen . +PhD C: I see . OK . +Undergrad D: Do - do you know what they 're using it for ? Why 'd they develop it ? +Grad A: For this exact task ? +PhD C: For transcription . +Undergrad D: Are they linguists ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But I mean , are they {disfmarker} are they linguists or are they speech recognition people ? +Grad A: I think they 're linguists . +Postdoc E: Ho +PhD B: Linguists . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: They 're {disfmarker} they have some connection to the LDC cuz the LDC has been advising them on this process , the Linguistic Data Consortium . Um , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} but a apart from that . +Grad A: It 's also {disfmarker} All the source is available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: If you {disfmarker} if you speak TCLTK . +Undergrad D: Great . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And they have {disfmarker} they 've actually asked if we are willing to do any development and I said , well , maybe . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: So if we want {disfmarker} if we did {disfmarker} if we did something like programmed in a delay , which actually I think is a great idea , um , I 'm sure they would want that incorporated back in . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I do too . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Their pre pre - lay . +PhD B: Pre - lay . +Grad A: Way . +Postdoc E: Pre - lay . Well , and they 've thought about things . You know , I mean , they {disfmarker} they do have {disfmarker} So you have {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} when you play it back , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is useful to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a break mark to {disfmarker} se segment it . But it wouldn't be strictly necessary cuz you can use the {disfmarker} uh , the tabbed key to toggle {vocalsound} the sound on and off . I mean , it 'll stop the s speech you know if you if you press a tab . And , um . And so , uh , that 's a nice feature . And then also once you 've put a break in then you have the option of {vocalsound} cycling through the unit . You could do it like multiply until you get {comment} crazy and decide to stop cycling through that unit . +Undergrad D: Loop it ? Yo - you n you know , there 's al also the {disfmarker} the user interface that 's missing . +Postdoc E: Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's missing from all of our offices , and that is some sort of analog input for something like this . It 's what audio people actually use of course . It 's something that wh {vocalsound} when you move your hand further , the sound goes faster past it , like fast forward . You know , like a joy stick or a {disfmarker} uh , you could wire a mouse or trackball to do something like that . +Postdoc E: Why , that 's {disfmarker} That 's not something I wanted to have happen . +Undergrad D: No , but I 'm saying if this is what professionals who actually do this kind of thing for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} m for video or for audio {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where you {disfmarker} you need to do this , +Postdoc E: I see . Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: and so you get very good at sort of jostling back and forth , rather than hitting tab , and backspace , and carriage return , and enter , and things like that . +PhD B: Mmm . Mmm . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , we talked about things like foot pedals and other analog {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {vocalsound} I mean , tho those are things we could do but I {disfmarker} I just don't know how much it 's worth doing . I mean we 're just gonna have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Ye - Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . They {disfmarker} they have several options . So , uh , you know , I mentioned the looping option . Another option is it 'll pause when it reaches the end of the boundary . And then to get to the next boundary you just press tab +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc E: and it goes on to the next unit . +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's very nicely thought out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: They thought about {disfmarker} and also it 'll {vocalsound} go around the c the , uh , I wanna say cursor but I 'm not sure if that 's the right thing . +Grad A: Point , whatever . +Postdoc E: Anyway , you can {disfmarker} so they thought about different ways of having windows that you c uh work within , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} But so in terms of the con the conventions , then , {vocalsound} uh , basically , {vocalsound} uh , it 's strictly orthographic which means with some w provisions for , uh , w uh , {vocalsound} colloquial forms . So if a person said , "" cuz "" instead of "" because "" then I put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an apostrophe at the beginning of the word and then in {disfmarker} in double ang angle brackets what the full lexical item would be . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And this could be {vocalsound} something that was handled by a table or something but I think {vocalsound} to have a convention marking it as a non - standard or wha I don't mean standard {disfmarker} but a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non {vocalsound} uh , ortho orthographic , uh , whatever . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Non - canonical . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: "" Gonna "" or "" wanna "" , you know , the same thing . And {disfmarker} and there would be limits to how much refinement you want in indicating something as non - standard pres pronunciation . +PhD C: How are you handling backchannels ? +Postdoc E: Backchannels ? +Grad A: Comments . +Postdoc E: Um , you know {disfmarker} oh , yes , there was some {disfmarker} in my view , when i when you 've got it densely overlapping , um , I didn't worry about {disfmarker} I didn't worry about s specific start times . +PhD C: What do you mean by du +Postdoc E: I sort of thought that this is not gonna be {comment} easily processed anyway and {vocalsound} maybe I shouldn't spend too much time getting exactly when the person said {vocalsound} "" no "" , or , you know , uh , i "" immediate "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And instead just sort of rendered "" within this time slot , {vocalsound} there were two people speaking during part of it +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {vocalsound} if you want more detail , figure it out for yourself "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I think what {disfmarker} w what Eric was talking about was channels other than the direct speech , +PhD C: I see . +Postdoc E: was sort of the way I felt @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: right ? +PhD C: Well , yeah , what I mean is wh I mean , when somebody says "" uh - huh "" in the middle of , uh , a @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . That happened very seldom . +PhD C: Oh , cuz I was {disfmarker} I was listening to {disfmarker} Dan was agreeing a lot to things that you were saying as you were talking . +Undergrad D: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: Oh , well , thank you Dan . +PhD C: So . +Postdoc E: Appreciate it . Well , if it {disfmarker} if there was a word like "" right "" , you know , then I wou I would indicate {vocalsound} that it happened within the same tem time frame +Grad A: Yeah , there 's an overlapping mark . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but wouldn't say exactly when it happened . +Undergrad D: I 'll be right back . +PhD B: I transcribed a minute of this stuff +PhD C: I see . +PhD B: and there was a lot of overlapping . It was {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: A lot of overlapping , yeah . +Grad A: Well there there 's a lot of overlapping at the beginning and end . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Huge amounts . +PhD B: It was at the beginning . +Grad A: Um , when {disfmarker} when no one i when we 're not actually in the meeting , {vocalsound} and we 're all sort of separated , and {disfmarker} and doing things . But even during the meeting there 's a lot of overlap but it {disfmarker} it 's marked pretty clearly . Um , some of the backchannel stuff Jane had some comments {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but I think a lot of them were because you were at the meeting . And so I think that {disfmarker} that often {disfmarker} {vocalsound} often you can't tell . +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true . That 's another issue . +Grad A: I mean , Jane had {disfmarker} had comments like uh , to {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the person was speaking to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Only when it was otherwise gonna be puzzling +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: because he was in the other room talking . +Grad A: Yeah , but someone who , uh , {vocalsound} was just the transcriber wouldn't have known that . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Or when Dan said , "" I wa I wasn't talking to you "" . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: That 's true . I know . +Undergrad D: So you take a bathroom break in the middle and {disfmarker} and keep your head mount +Grad A: You have to turn off your mike . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Oh , you do ? +PhD B: You don't have to . +Postdoc E: Well he was so {disfmarker} so he was checking the meter levels and {disfmarker} and we were handling things while he was labeling the {disfmarker} the whatever it was , the PDA ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and so he was {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} you were sort of talking {disfmarker} you know , so I was saying , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} "" and I could label this one left . Right ? "" And he {disfmarker} and he said , "" I don't see anything "" . And he said {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he said , {vocalsound} "" I wasn't talking to you "" . Or {disfmarker} it wasn't {disfmarker} it didn't sound quite that rude . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But really , no , uh {disfmarker} w you know in the context if you know he can't hear what he 's saying {disfmarker} +Grad A: but when you w when you listen to it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: he he It was a lot funnier if you were there though . +Postdoc E: Uh , yeah , +Grad A: Well what {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what happens is if you 're a transcriber listening to it it sounds like Dan is just being a total {disfmarker} {vocalsound} totally impolite . +Postdoc E: I know . Well , you 'll see . You can listen to it . Oh , I thought it was you who was . No , well , but you were {disfmarker} you were asking off the wall questions . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but if you knew that {disfmarker} that I wasn't actually in the room , and that Dan wasn't talking to me , it {disfmarker} it became OK . So . +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: So th +Postdoc E: And that 's w that 's where I added comments . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: The rest of the time I didn't bother with who was talking to who but {disfmarker} but this was unusual circum circumstance . +Undergrad D: So this is {disfmarker} this is gonna go on the meeting meeting transcriber bloopers tape , right ? +Grad A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc E: Well and part of it was funny , uh {disfmarker} reason was because it was a mixed signal so you couldn't get any clues from volume {vocalsound} that , you know , he was really far away from this conversation . +Grad A: Stereo . Yeah . +Postdoc E: You couldn't do that symmetrically in any case . +PhD B: No . +Grad A: Oh . I should rewrite the mix tool to put half the people in one channel and half in the other . I have a {pause} auto - gain - mixer tool that mixes all the head mounted microphones into one signal +Postdoc E: That 's a good idea . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and that seems to work really well for the uh {pause} transcribers . +Undergrad D: Great . +Postdoc E: But I thought it would be {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't wanna add more contextual comments than were needed but that , it seemed to me , clarified that the con what was going on . And , uh {disfmarker} OK , +PhD C: So , s +Postdoc E: so normalization {disfmarker} +PhD C: I was just gonna ask , uh , so I just wanted to c sort of finish off the question I had about backchannels , +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: if that 's OK , +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: which {disfmarker} which was , so say somebody 's talking for a while +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: and somebody goes "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of it , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and what not , does the conversation come out from the {disfmarker} or the person who 's speaking for the long time as one segment and then there 's this little tiny segment {vocalsound} of this other speaker or does it {disfmarker} does the fact that there 's a backchannel split the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it in two . +Postdoc E: OK , my {disfmarker} my focus was to try and maintain conten con content continuity and , uh , to keep it within what he was saying . Like {vocalsound} I wouldn't say breath groups but prosodic or intonational groups as much as possible . So {vocalsound} if someone said "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of a {disfmarker} of someone 's , {vocalsound} uh , uh , intonational contour , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I indicated it as , like what you just did . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: then I indicated it as a segment which contained {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} this utterance plus an overlap . +PhD B: But that 's {disfmarker} but there 's only one {disfmarker} there 's only one time boundary for both speakers , +PhD C: OK . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . And you know , it could be made more precise than that +PhD C: I see , +Postdoc E: but I just thought {disfmarker} +PhD C: I see , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: I think whenever we use these speech words we should always {vocalsound} do the thing like you 're talking about , accent , +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . And then {pause} "" hesitation "" . Yeah . OK , and so then , uh , in terms of like words like "" uh "" and "" um "" I just wrote them because I figured there 's a limited number , and I keep them to a {disfmarker} uh , limited set because it didn't matter if it was "" mmm "" or "" um "" , {comment} {vocalsound} you know , versus "" um "" . So I just always wrote it as U M . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: And "" uh - huh "" , you know , "" UHUH . "" I mean , like a s set of like five . But in any case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I didn't mark those . +PhD B: No . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: "" Uh - huh "" is "" U H H U H . "" H U H . "" +Postdoc E: I 'd be happy with that . That 'd be fine . It 'd be good to have that in the {disfmarker} in the conventions , what 's to be used . +PhD C: Huh - uh . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I did notice that there were some segments that had pauses on the beginning and end . We should probably mark areas that have no speakers as no speaker . Then , so question mark colon is fine for that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a fine idea . That 's a fine idea . +Grad A: Just say silence . +Undergrad D: Well , what 's that mean ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You mean re +Grad A: No one 's talking . +Undergrad D: ye s Oh . Silence all around . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: Yep . +PhD B: We have to mark those ? +Postdoc E: So I had {disfmarker} +PhD B: Don't they {disfmarker} d can't we just leave them unmarked ? +Postdoc E: I d Well , you see , that 's possible too . +Grad A: Well , I wanna leave the marked {disfmarker} I don't want them to be part of another utterance . So you just {disfmarker} you need to have the boundary at the start and the end . +PhD B: OK . Sure . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Now that 's refinement that , uh , maybe it could be handled by part of the {disfmarker} part of the script or something more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , yeah , it seems like {disfmarker} it seems like the , uh , tran the transcription problem would be very different if we had these {vocalsound} automatic speaker detection turn placing things . Because suddenly {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , actually it sounds like there might be a problem {vocalsound} putting it into the software if the software only handles two parallel channels . But assuming we can get around that somehow . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Well you were saying , I think it can read {disfmarker} +Grad A: It can read and write as many as you want , it 's just that it +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But what if you wanna edit it ? Right ? I mean , the point is we 're gonna generate {vocalsound} this transcript with five {disfmarker} five tracks in it , but with no words . Someone 's gonna have to go in and type in the words . Um , and if there are five {disfmarker} five people speaking at once , +Grad A: Right , i it 's {disfmarker} I didn't explain it well . If we use the {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} the conventions that Jane has established , I have a script that will convert from that convention to their saved convention . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . Yes . +Postdoc E: Which allows five . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And it can be m edited after the fact , +Grad A: Yes . +Postdoc E: can't it also ? But their {disfmarker} but their format , if you wanted to in indicate the speakers right there instead of doing it through this indirect route , {vocalsound} then i they {disfmarker} a c window comes up and it only allows you to enter two speakers . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Undergrad D: But you 're saying that by the time you call it back in to {disfmarker} from their saved format it opens up a window with window with five speakers ? +Postdoc E: So . But . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Oh ! That is sort of {pause} f +Grad A: It 's just user interface . +Undergrad D: They didn't quite go the whole {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i it 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , they didn't go the whole route , +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole saved form the saved format and the internal format , all that stuff , handles multiple speakers . +Undergrad D: did they ? They just {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just there 's no user interface for specifying multiple {disfmarker} any more than two . +Undergrad D: Right . So your {disfmarker} your script solves {disfmarker} Doesn't it solve all our problems , +Postdoc E: And that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: cuz we 're always gonna wanna go through this preprocessing {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: uh , assuming it works . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: And that works nicely cuz this so quick to enter . So I wouldn't wanna do it through the interface anyway adding which {disfmarker} worry who the speaker was . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: I see . Right . Good . +Postdoc E: And then , uh , let 's see what else . Oh , yes , I {disfmarker} I wanted to have {disfmarker} So sometimes a pers I {disfmarker} uh in terms of like the continuity of thought {vocalsound} for transcriptions , it 's {disfmarker} i it isn't just words coming out , it 's like there 's some purpose for an utterance . And {vocalsound} sometimes someone will {vocalsound} do a backchannel in the middle of it but you wanna show that it 's continued at a later point . So I have {disfmarker} I have a convention of putting like a dash {vocalsound} arrow just to indicate that this person 's utterance continues . And then when it uh , catches back up again then there 's an arrow dash , and then you have the opposite direction {vocalsound} to indicate continuation of ones own utterance versus , um , sometimes {vocalsound} we had the situation which is {disfmarker} you know , which you {disfmarker} which you get in conversations , {comment} of someone continuing someone else 's utterance , +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and in that case I did a tilde arrow versus a arrow tilde , {vocalsound} to indicate that it was continuation but it wasn't {disfmarker} Oh , I guess I did {vocalsound} equal arrow for the {disfmarker} for the own {disfmarker} for yourself things +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz it 's {disfmarker} the speakers the same . And then tilde arrow if it was a different {disfmarker} if a different speaker , uh , con continuation . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Postdoc E: But just , you know , the arrows showing continuation of a thought . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And then you could track whether it was the same speaker or not by knowing {disfmarker} you know , at the end of this unit you 'd know what happened later . And that was like this person continued +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and you 'd be able to {vocalsound} look for the continuation . +Grad A: So +PhD B: But the only time that becomes ambiguous is if you have two speakers . Like , if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you only have one person , if you only have one thought that 's continuing across a particular time boundary , you just need {vocalsound} one arrow at each end , and if it 's picked up by a different speaker , it 's picked up by a different speaker . The time it becomes ambiguous if you have more than one speaker and that {disfmarker} and they sort of swap . I guess if you have more than one thread going , then you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} then you need to know whether they were swapped or not . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: How often does that happen do you think ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hopefully not very much . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I didn't use it very often . +Grad A: Especially for meetings . I mean , if i if you were just recording someone 's day , it would be impossible . You know , +Undergrad D: It l ou +Grad A: if you were trying to do a remembrance agent . But I think for meetings it 's probably alright . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: But , a lot of these issues , I think that for {disfmarker} uh , from my point of view , where I just wanna do speech recognition and information retrieval , it doesn't really matter . +PhD B: Sure . +Grad A: But other people have other interests . +PhD B: I know . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: But it {disfmarker} it does feel {disfmarker} it does feel like it 's really in there . I {disfmarker} you know I did this {disfmarker} I did this transcription and I marked that , I marked it with ellipsis because it seemed like there was a difference . It 's something you wanted to indicate that it {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} this was the end of the phrase , this was the end of {vocalsound} that particular transcript , but it was continued later . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: And I picked up with an ellipsis . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD B: I didn't have the equal , not equal thing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Well that 's {disfmarker} you know , I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't {comment} I didn't do it n {vocalsound} I mean , that 's why I thought about it , and {disfmarker} and re - ev +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: and it didn't do {disfmarker} I didn't do it in ten times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the time . +Grad A: Well , so anyway , are we interested then in writing tools to try to generate any of this stuff automatically ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that something you want to do , Dan ? +PhD B: No . +Grad A: No . +PhD B: But it 's something @ @ that I feel we definitely ought to do . +Postdoc E: I also wanted to ask you if you have a time estimate on the part that you transcribed . Do you have a sense of how long {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , it took me half an hour to transcribe a minute , but I didn't have any {disfmarker} I didn't even have a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: I was trying to get Transcriber to run but I couldn't . So I was doing it by typ typing into a text file and trying to fit {disfmarker} It was horrible . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . +Undergrad D: So thirty to one 's what you got ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: So that 's a new upper limit ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's because you didn't have the segmentation help and all the other {disfmarker} +Grad A: But I think for a first try that 's about right . +PhD B: Is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so if we hired a who if we hired a whole bunch of Dan 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It was actually {disfmarker} it was quite {disfmarker} it was a t +Undergrad D: a +Grad A: If we {pause} hire an infinite number of Dan 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: it w +Undergrad D: It 'd b a a +Postdoc E: And there 's always a warm up thing of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are we gonna run out of disk space by the way ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , +PhD B: No . +Grad A: good . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: d Doesn't it beep in the other room when you 're out of disk space ? +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Is there {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . +PhD C: Maybe we should s consider also , um , starting to build up a web site around all of these things . +PhD B: Web site ! That 's great ! +PhD C: I know . +Grad A: Dan 's sort of already started . +PhD B: We could have like business - to - business E - commerce as well ! +PhD C: That 's right . No , but I 'm it would be interesting {disfmarker} it would be interesting to see {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can we sell banner ads ? +Undergrad D: Get {disfmarker} get paid for click - throughs ? +Grad A: What a good idea , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: that 's how we could pay for the transcription . +PhD C: I want to introduce {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to introduce the word "" snot - head "" into the conversation at this point . +PhD B: We can have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You wanna word that won't be recognized ? +PhD C: You see , cuz {disfmarker} uh , cuz {disfmarker} Exactly . Um . +Postdoc E: Oh , I don't think so . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Hey , what about me ? +PhD C: The r w What {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc E: You 're the one who raised the issue . +PhD C: No . Alright , see here 's {disfmarker} here 's {disfmarker} here 's my thought behind it which is that , uh , the {disfmarker} the stuff that you 've been describing , Jane , I gu one has to , {vocalsound} of course {vocalsound} indicate , {comment} {vocalsound} um , i is very interesting , +Postdoc E: Alright . +PhD C: and I I 'd like to be able to {disfmarker} to pore through , you know , the {disfmarker} the types of tr conventions that you 've come up with and stuff like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So I would like to see that kind of stuff on the web . +Postdoc E: OK , now , w the alternative to a web site would be to put it in Doctor speech . +PhD B: Yes . Yes . +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} cuz what I have is a soft link to my transcription {vocalsound} that I have on my account +PhD C: Either 's fine . +PhD B: We c +Postdoc E: but it doesn't matter . +Grad A: We can do it all . +PhD B: we can do it all ! We can write {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc E: Web site 's nice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Then you have to t you have to do an HT access . +Undergrad D: Web site 's what ? +PhD B: We could actually {disfmarker} maybe we could use the TCL plug - in . Oh , man . +Postdoc E: Ooo ! He 's committed himself to something . +PhD C: Ow . See he said the word TCL and {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But he does such a good job of it . He should be allowed to {disfmarker} to , you know , w do it . +Postdoc E: I know , I know . +PhD B: I know , but that {disfmarker} but , I {disfmarker} Right . But I should be allowed to but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If you just did a crappy job , {vocalsound} no nobody would want you to do it . +PhD B: I sh I shouldn't be allowed to by m by my own {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by my {disfmarker} according to my own priorities . Alright . Let 's look at it anyway . So definitely we should {disfmarker} we should have some kind of access to the data . +Grad A: And we have {disfmarker} we have quite a disparate number of web and other sorts of documents on this project sort of spread around . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: I have several and Dan has a few , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right , so we can add in links and stuff like that to other things . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Nice . +PhD B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well so then th +Grad A: Try {disfmarker} try to s consolidate . I mean , who wants to do that though ? +PhD B: the other side is , yeah . +PhD C: Uh , right . +Grad A: No one wants to do that . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Right , that 's the problem . +PhD C: Well , we could put {disfmarker} we could put sort of a disorganized sort of group gestalt {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Why ? What {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the issue ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Undergrad D: No one what ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Grad A: Yeah , I own the project but I don't wanna do it . +PhD B: No one wants to own the project . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: W well {pause} Do {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's mine ! All mine ! +PhD B: Well then you have to do the web site . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Wah - hah - hah - hah - hah - hah . "" +PhD B: You know , it 's like , it 's that simple . +Undergrad D: b but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but what are you {disfmarker} what are you talking about for web site hacking ? +PhD B: No {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You 're talking about writing HTML , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm talking about putting together all the data in a form that {disfmarker} that is legible , and pleasant to read , and up to date , and et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: But , is it against the law to actually use a tool to help your job go easier ? +Grad A: Absolutely . It 's {disfmarker} it 's absolutely against the law to use a tool . I haven't found any tools that I like . +Undergrad D: You y +Grad A: It 's just as easy to use {disfmarker} to edit the raw HTML as anything else . +Undergrad D: No kidding ? +PhD B: That 's obviously not true , +Grad A: It 's obviously not true . +PhD B: but you have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , it it it 's obviously true that he hasn't found any he likes . +PhD B: Right . That 's true . +Undergrad D: The question is what is {disfmarker} what 's he looked at . +Postdoc E: Which one do you use Jim ? +Undergrad D: I use something called Trellix . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's right . I remember . Yeah . +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Which produces also site maps . +Grad A: Now , I guess if I were {disfmarker} if I were doing more powerful {disfmarker} excuse me {disfmarker} more complex web sites I might want to . +Undergrad D: it 's - it it 's very powerful . +Grad A: But most of the web sites I do aren't that complex . +Postdoc E: Well , would this be to document it also for outside people or mainly for in house use ? +Grad A: But . I think both . +PhD C: No , I think in +Grad A: Mostly in house . +PhD B: That 's right . +PhD C: I think mostly internal . +Undergrad D: Well , yeah , +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: but what does internal mean ? +PhD B: No , both . +Undergrad D: I mean , you 're leaving . People at UW wanna look at it . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's internal {comment} until {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Internal to the project . +Undergrad D: I see . +Postdoc E: We could do an HT access which would accommodate those things . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , well , send me links and I wi send me pointers , rather , and I 'll put it together . +PhD B: I 'm not {disfmarker} o +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +PhD B: OK . I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} how {vocalsound} important that distinction is . I don't think {vocalsound} we should say , {vocalsound} "" oh , it 's internal therefore we don't have to make it very good "" . I mean , you can say {vocalsound} "" oh {disfmarker} oh , it 's internal +PhD C: No . No . +PhD B: therefore we can put data in it that we don't {disfmarker} we don't have to worry about releasing "" . But I think the point is to try and {vocalsound} be coherent and make it a nice presentation . +Undergrad D: Right . I agree . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it is true , that is {disfmarker} it benefits to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Cuz you 're gonna have to wor do the work sooner or later . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . I mean , it 's the early on . +Undergrad D: Even if it 's just writing things up . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: You know ? +Postdoc E: It 's a great idea . +Grad A: OK , um , let 's move on to electronics . +PhD B: Ah . Great . +Undergrad D: d we {disfmarker} we out of tape {disfmarker} out of disk ? +PhD B: No , we 're doing {disfmarker} we 're doing great . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I was looking for the actual box I plan to use , uh , but I {disfmarker} c all I could {disfmarker} I couldn't find it at the local store . But this is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the technology . It 's actually a little bit thinner than this . And it 's two by two , by one , and it would fit right under the {disfmarker} right under th the the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the lip , +Grad A: Yeah , does everyone know about the lip on the table ? It 's great . +Undergrad D: yeah . There 's a lip in these tables . +Postdoc E: Nice . +Undergrad D: And , it oc I p especially brought the bottom along to try and generate some frequencies that you may not already have recorded . +Grad A: Clink ! Clink ! +Undergrad D: Let 's see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} see what it does to the {disfmarker} But this was the uh {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just to review , and I also brought this {comment} along rather than the projector so we can put these on the table , and sort of w push them around . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and crinkle them and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What ? +Postdoc E: And th "" that "" being a diagram . +PhD B: What ? +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} that 's the six tables that we 're looking at . These six tables here , {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with little boxes sort of , uh , in the middle here . +PhD B: I see . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Which es would {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the boxes are pretty much out of the way anyway . I 'll - I 'll show you the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the cro this is the table cross section . I don't know if people realize what they 're looking at . +PhD B: You trying to {pause} screw up the m the microphones ? +Grad A: Yes . He is . Absolutely . +PhD B: I mean th +Undergrad D: Well why not ? I mean , cuz this is what 's gonna happen . You got plenty of data . I won't come to your next meeting . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you So this is the box 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Get your paper off my PDA ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , let {disfmarker} let the record show that this is exhibit two B . +Undergrad D: That 's right . "" Or not to be "" . Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Uh , the box , uh {disfmarker} there 's a half inch lip here . The box is an inch thick so it hangs down a half an inch . And so the {disfmarker} the two {vocalsound} head set jacks would be in the front and then the little LED to indicate that that box is live . The {disfmarker} the important issue about the LED is the fact that we 're talking about eight of these total , which would be sixteen channels . And , uh , even though we have sixteen channels back at the capture , they 're not all gonna be used for this . +PhD B: Hmm . +Undergrad D: So there 'd be a subset of them used for {disfmarker} obviously j just use the ones at this end for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for this many . So {disfmarker} Excuse me . you 'd like a {disfmarker} a way to tell whether your box is live , so the LED wouldn't be on . +PhD B: Right . All the lights . +Undergrad D: So if you 're plugged in it doesn't work and the LED is off that 's {disfmarker} that 's a tip off . And then the , uh {disfmarker} would wire the {disfmarker} all of the cables in a {disfmarker} in a bundle come through here and o obviously collect these cables at the same time . +Postdoc E: That 's good . +Undergrad D: Uh , so this {disfmarker} this notion of putting down the P Z Ms {vocalsound} and taking them away would somehow have to be turned into leaving them on the table +Grad A: Right . Well , we wanna do that definitely . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: Right . And so the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we just epoxy them down or something . Big screw into the table . +PhD B: Velcro . +Undergrad D: Uh , and even though there 's eight cables they 're not really very big around so my model is to get a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a p piece of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sleeve . +Undergrad D: yeah , that {disfmarker} that stuff that people put with the little {disfmarker} you slip the wires into that 's {vocalsound} sort of shaped like that cross section . +Grad A: Oh . OK , not just sleeve them all ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm r a I 'm going up and then I 'm going down . +Grad A: And leave them loose ? +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: That looks like a semi - circle . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like a {disfmarker} it 's a sleeping policeman . +Grad A: Whoo ! +PhD B: Speed bump ! +Postdoc E: Sleeping pol +PhD B: Speed bump . +Grad A: Speed A "" sleeping policeman "" ! +Undergrad D: Yeah , it 's like a speed bum {vocalsound} An +Postdoc E: Speed bump . That 's good . There we go s +Grad A: Cool . +Undergrad D: And they 're ac they 're actually ext extruded from plastic . +PhD C: What is {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: They sorta look like this . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: What does that mean ? +PhD B: That 's the s that 's British for speed bump , +PhD C: Is it a speed bump ? +Undergrad D: So that the wires go through here . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD C: Wow . +Postdoc E: Oh , is that right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I never heard that . +Grad A: That 's really cruel . +Undergrad D: So . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: OK , so that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: s So it would c basically go on the diagonal here . +PhD C: It could go either way . +Grad A: So why do we have sixteen channels instead of like some fewer number ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess . +Undergrad D: Uh , because the {disfmarker} +PhD B: How else are you gonna distribute them around the tables ? +Undergrad D: Because they 're there . +Grad A: Well , OK , let me rephrase that . Why two each ? +PhD B: Oh , because then you don't have to just have one each . So that if t if you have two people sitting next to each other they can actually go into the same box . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And to {disfmarker} See , thi this is really the way people sit on this table . Th +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh . Dot , dot , dot . +Postdoc E: Which means two at each station . +Undergrad D: Well that {disfmarker} that 's the way people sit . That 's how many chairs are in the room . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Alright . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I 'm just saying that for the recording . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And certainly you could do a thing where all sixteen were plugged in . +Grad A: But then none of these . +Undergrad D: Uh if {disfmarker} if you ha if you had nothing else . +Grad A: Right . N none of these and no P Z Ms then . +Undergrad D: Yeah . Right . Right . I agree . +PhD B: Only if you had {disfmarker} Well it depends on this box , right ? +Undergrad D: Oh , true enough . And actually , at the m my plan is to only bring eight wires out of this box . +PhD B: Exactly . +Grad A: Oh , I didn't understand {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} this box {disfmarker} Thi - thi thi this box is a one off deal . +Postdoc E: That being the wiring box . +Grad A: Oh , I see , I see . +Undergrad D: Uh . And , uh , it 's function is to s to , uh , essentially a wire converter to go from these little blue wires to these black wires , plus supply power to the microphones cuz the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} he the , uh , cheap head mounteds all require low voltage . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so you 'd imagine some sort of {disfmarker} in some sort of patch panel on top to figure out what the mapping was between each d of these two and each of those one or what ? +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: Well I w I I the simplest thing I could imagine , i which is really , really simple is to {disfmarker} quite literally that these things plug in . And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a plug on the end of each of these {disfmarker} these , uh , ei eight cables . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . Each of the blue wires ? +PhD B: But there are only four . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's only {disfmarker} there 's only four slots that are {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} in the first version or the version we 're planning to {disfmarker} to build . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: So {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that was the whole issue with the LED , that you plug it in , the LED comes on , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you 're live . +Grad A: Oh , then it comes on . I see , I see . OK , good . +Undergrad D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the subtle issue here is that {disfmarker} tha I {disfmarker} I haven't really figured out a solution for this . So , we it 'll have to be convention . What happens if somebody unplugs this because they plug in more of something else ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Well the {disfmarker} there 's no clever way to let the up stream guys know that you 're really not being powered . So {disfmarker} th there will be a certain amount of looking at cables has to be done if people , uh , rewire things . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , I mean , we {disfmarker} I had that last time . +Undergrad D: But . +PhD B: But uh there are actually {disfmarker} that you know , there 's an extra {disfmarker} there 's a mix out on the radio receiver ? +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So there are actually six {vocalsound} XLR outs on the back of the radio receiver and only five cables going in , I had the wrong five , so I ended up {vocalsound} not recording one of the channels and recording the mix . +Undergrad D: How interesting . D did you do any recognition on the mix {disfmarker} mix out ? +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Wonder whether it works any {disfmarker} +PhD B: But I subtracted the four that I did have from the mix and got a pretty good approximation of the @ @ . +Undergrad D: Got the fifth ? +Grad A: You g +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: Oh , how great . +Grad A: And did it work ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Did it sound good ? +PhD B: It 's not bad . +Undergrad D: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's not bad , +Grad A: Wow . +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: Ain't science wonderful ? +Postdoc E: That 's amazing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So what 's the schedule on these things ? +Undergrad D: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , you always {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: Uh , well I was wrestling with th with literally the w number of connectors in the cable and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {vocalsound} powering system . And I {disfmarker} I was gonna do this very clever phantom power and I decided a couple days ago not to do it . +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: So I 'm ready to build it . Which is to say , uh , the neighborhood of a week to get the circuit board done . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So I think the other thing I 'd like to do is , do something about the set up +PhD B: See +Grad A: so that it 's a little more presentable and organized . +Undergrad D: I agree . +Grad A: And I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just not sure what that is . I mean , some sort of cabinet . +Undergrad D: Well I can build a cabinet . The {disfmarker} the difficulty for this kind of project is the intellectual capital to design the cabinet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: In other words , to figure out ex exactly what the right thing is . That cabinet can {disfmarker} can go away . We can use that for {disfmarker} for uh kindling or something . But if you can imagine what the right form factor is . Dan - Dan and I have sort of gone around on this , and we were thinking about something that opened up in the top {vocalsound} to allow access to the mixer for example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: But there 's these things sticking out of the mixer which are kind of a pain , so you end up with this thing that {disfmarker} if if you stuck the mixer up here and the top opened , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be fine . You wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} Well , you s understand what I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I understand . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can start {disfmarker} start s sketching it out , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: and I can certainly build it out of oak no problem , would it {disfmarker} you know , arb you know , arbitrarily amount of {disfmarker} +Grad A: I need a desk at home too , alright ? Is that gonna be a better solution than just going out and buy one ? +Undergrad D: Well , the {disfmarker} as we found out with the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , Jeff bought a long time ago to hold our stereo system {vocalsound} the stuff you buy is total crap . And I mean this is something you buy . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: And it 's total crap . +Undergrad D: It 's total crap . Well , it 's useless for this function . Works fine for holding a Kleenex , +Grad A: Right , Kleenex and telephones . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Um , so yeah , I g I guess it 's just a question , is that something you wanna spend your time on ? +Undergrad D: Oh , I {disfmarker} I 'm paid for . +Grad A: OK , great . +Undergrad D: I have no problem . No , but w certainly one of the issues is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is security . +Grad A: Hmm ? Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I mean , we 've been {disfmarker} been {disfmarker} been lax and lucky . +Grad A: Lax . +PhD B: Yeah . Yep . +Undergrad D: Really lucky with these things . But they 're not ours , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the , uh {disfmarker} the flat panels . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Grad A: I 'm telling you , I 'm just gonna cart one of them away if they stay there much longer . +PhD B: Well w yeah , exactly . +Undergrad D: Uh , let the record show at {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} at f four thirty - five {vocalsound} Adam Janin says {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . Tempting . +PhD B: We 'll know {disfmarker} we 'll know to come after . +Postdoc E: Tempting . Yeah . +Grad A: So , um , j uh , then the other question is do we wanna try to do a user interface that 's available out here ? +PhD B: Sorry ? +Undergrad D: Slipped {disfmarker} almost slipped it by Dan . +Postdoc E: Use - user interface {disfmarker} +Grad A: A user interface . I mean , do we wanna try to get a monitor ? Or just something . +PhD B: Oh ! Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Well of course we do . +Grad A: And how do we want to do that ? +Postdoc E: You mean like see {disfmarker} see meter readings , from {disfmarker} while sitting here . +Grad A: J just so we see something . +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: How about use the thing that um ACIRI 's doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Which is to say just laptop with a wireless . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Which we 'll borrow from them , {vocalsound} when we need it . +Undergrad D: What 's wrong with yours ? If we bought you a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , a Applecard . Sure . Right . Yeah , you could use my machine . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: What ? +Grad A: I have an IRAM machine I 've borrowed and we can use it . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: N no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm serious . Does {disfmarker} does the wireless thing work on your {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , isn't that an ethernet connection or is that a phone ? +PhD B: Uh , that 's an ethernet connection . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's going next door . +Undergrad D: Yeah {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no I 'm a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ain't joking here . +Grad A: We jus +Undergrad D: I 'm serious , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . No , no , absolutely , that 's the right way to do it . T to have it uh , just {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's very convenient especially if Dan happens to be sitting at that end of the table to not have to run down here and {disfmarker} and look in the thing every so often , +PhD B: Yeah . And given {disfmarker} given that we 've got a wireless {disfmarker} that we 've got a {disfmarker} we got the field . +Undergrad D: but just have the {disfmarker} It 's right there . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: Right ? The antenna 's right there , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: right outside the {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't know . +Undergrad D: Y I mean , we need {disfmarker} obviously need to clear this with ACIRI but , uh , how tough can that be ? There {disfmarker} it you 'd {disfmarker} all you need 's web access , isn't it ? +PhD B: W we don't need X access +Undergrad D: In {disfmarker} in theory . +PhD B: but I mean that 's fine . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what it does , +Undergrad D: OK , +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: great , great . +Grad A: Um , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: right , so it 's just a question of getting a laptop and a wireless modem . +PhD B: With a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} w +Undergrad D: No , and he {disfmarker} he had , reque @ @ {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my proposal is you have a laptop . +PhD B: No . Yeah . I do ! +Undergrad D: You don't ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} if we bought you the thing would you mind using it with i the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I would love to but I 'm not sure if my laptop is compatible with the wave LAN thing they 're using . +Undergrad D: Really ? +Grad A: To {pause} Mac . +PhD B: Well Apple has their own thing , right ? +PhD C: He 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Your new one ? +Grad A: Airport . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry ? +PhD B: Apple has their own thing . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I thought it just came through a serial p or an Ethernet port . +PhD B: Yeah , I think what {disfmarker} I think you {disfmarker} I think it just plug plugs in a PC card , so you could probably make it run with that , but . +Grad A: The question is , is there an Apple driver ? +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} e +PhD B: Yeah , I 'm sure . I imagine there is . But {disfmarker} uh anyway there are {disfmarker} there are abs there are a bunch of machines at ICSI that have those cards +Undergrad D: But the two t +PhD B: and so I think if w if it doesn't {disfmarker} we should be able to find a machine that does that . I {disfmarker} I mean I know that doesn't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't the important people have those little blue VAIOs that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Well , uh , b that {disfmarker} to me that 's a whole nother . That 's a whole nother issue . +Postdoc E: Hmm . Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: The {disfmarker} the idea of con convincing them that we should use their network i is fairly straight forward . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: The idea of being able to walk into their office and say , "" oh , can I borrow your machine for a while "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a non - starter . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think that 's gonna work . So , I mean , either {disfmarker} either we figure out how to use a machine somebody already {disfmarker} in the group already owns , {vocalsound} a a and the idea is that if it 's it perk , you know , it 's an advantage not {disfmarker} not a disadvan {comment} {vocalsound} or else we {disfmarker} we literally buy a machine e exactly for that purpose . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Absolutely . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Certainly it solves a lot of the problems with leaving a monitor out here all the time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not a big fan of doing things to the room that make the room less attractive for other people , +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: right ? Which is part of the reason for getting all this stuff out of the way +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , so a monitor sitting here all the time you know people are gonna walk up to it and go , "" how come I can't get , you know , Pong on this "" or , whatev +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . I 've {disfmarker} I 've borrowed the IRAM VAIO Sony thingy , +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: and I don't think they 're ever gonna want it back . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: You 're kidding ! +Undergrad D: Well , the next conference they will . +Grad A: So . Sure . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: But that does mean {disfmarker} so we can use that as well . +Undergrad D: Well , uh , the {disfmarker} certainly , u you should give it a shot first See whether you you can get compatible stuff . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh , ask them what it costs . Ask them if they have an extra one . Who knows , they might have an extra {vocalsound} hardware s +PhD B: I 'd trade them a flat panel display for it . Yeah . +PhD C: What is the , um , projector supposed to be hooked up to ? +Undergrad D: Good . Uh , the , uh {disfmarker} Tsk . It 's gonna be hooked up to all sorts of junk . There 's gonna be actually a {disfmarker} a plug at the front that 'll connect to people 's laptops so you can walk in and plug it in . And it 's gonna be con connected to the machine at the back . So we certainly could use that as {disfmarker} as a constant reminder of what the VU meters are doing . +PhD B: Huge VU meters . +Undergrad D: So people sitting here {comment} are going {vocalsound} "" testing , one , two , three "" ! +PhD C: But I mean , that 's another {disfmarker} that 's another possibility that , you know , solves {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} a +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD B: That 's an end +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I think the idea of having a control panel it 's {disfmarker} that 's there in front of you is really cool . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I think and uh , having {disfmarker} having it on wireless is {disfmarker} is the neatest way {disfmarker} neatest way to do it . +Undergrad D: R +Grad A: I had {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: As long as you d as l as long as you 're not tempted to sit there and f keep fiddling with the volume controls going , "" can you talk a bit louder ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I had actually earlier asked if I could borrow one of the cards to do wireless stuff +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: and they said , "" sure , whenever you want "" . So I think it won't be a problem . +PhD B: Oh , cool . OK . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and it 's a {disfmarker} a PCMCIA card , right ? +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: PC card , +Grad A: PC card . +Undergrad D: so you can have a slot , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: right ? In your new machine ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it really come down to the driver . +Undergrad D: Is it with s +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , I mean , and if {disfmarker} and if his doesn't work , as I said , we can use the PC . +Undergrad D: Right , i it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll work {disfmarker} It 'll work the first time . I {disfmarker} I trust Steve Jobs . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Um , +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: well , that sounds like a d good solution one way or the other . +Grad A: So Jim is gonna be doing wiring and you 're gonna give some thought to cabinets ? +Undergrad D: Uh , y yeah . +Grad A: Great . +Undergrad D: We {disfmarker} we need to {vocalsound} figure out what we want . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 'd {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hey , what are those green lights doing ? +Grad A: They 're flashing ! +PhD B: Uh - oh ! Uh - oh ! Does that {disfmarker} it means {disfmarker} it means it 's gonna explode . No . +Undergrad D: Cut the red wire , the red wire ! +PhD B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: When people talk , it {disfmarker} they go on and off . +PhD B: This {disfmarker} So again , Washington wants to equip a system . Our system , we spent ten thousand dollars on equipment not including the PC . However , seven and a half thousand of that was the wireless mikes . Uh , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: using {disfmarker} using these {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} and the f the five thousand for the wires , so if I 'm gonna do {disfmarker} No . +PhD B: Yeah , +Undergrad D: It 's a joke . +PhD B: that 's true +Undergrad D: I have to do {disfmarker} +PhD B: but we haven't spent that , right ? But once we {disfmarker} once we 've done the intellectual part of these , uh , we can just knock them out , right ? +Grad A: Cheap . +PhD B: We can start {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} you can make a hundred of them or something . +Undergrad D: Oh , of the {disfmarker} of the boards ? Yeah , yeah , sure , right . +PhD B: And then we could {disfmarker} Washington could have a system that didn't have any wireless but would had {disfmarker} what 's based on these +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and it would cost {disfmarker} +Grad A: A PC and a peanuts . +Undergrad D: Peanuts . +PhD B: PC and two thousand dollars for the A - to - D stuff . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: And that 's about {disfmarker} cuz you wouldn't even need the mixer if you didn't have the {disfmarker} Oh th {vocalsound} the P Z +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: P Z Ms cost a lot . But anyway you 'd save , on the seven {disfmarker} seven or eight thousand for the {disfmarker} for the wireless system . So actually that might be attractive . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: OK , I can move my thumb now . +Postdoc E: That 's a great idea . +Undergrad D: What ? +Postdoc E: It 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be thinking toward that . +Undergrad D: Oh , I thought like if we talked softer the disk lasts longer . +Grad A: Well , actually shorten {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: There 's a speech compression program that works great on things like this , cuz if the dynamic range is low it encodes it with fewer bits . And so most of the time no one 's talking so it shortens it dramatically . But {vocalsound} if you talk quieter , the dynamic range is lower and it will compress better . So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . Hmm . +Undergrad D: It also helps if you talk in a monotone . +Grad A: Probably . +Undergrad D: Constant volume all the time . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . And shorter words . +Grad A: Shorter words . +PhD C: Now , shorter words wouldn't {disfmarker} would induce more dynamics , right ? You want to have {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but if the words are more predictable . +Grad A: How about if you just go "" uh "" ? +PhD C: Huh . +Undergrad D: Uh . +Postdoc E: That 's a long word ! +Grad A: How do you spell that ? +Postdoc E: I don't know . +Grad A: OK , can you do one more round of digits ? Are we done talking ? +Undergrad D: Well it 's a choice {disfmarker} if we get a choice , let 's keep talking . +Grad A: Do we have more to talk about ? +Undergrad D: Sure . No , I 'm done . +PhD C: I 'm done . +Grad A: Are you done ? +Postdoc E: I 'm done , +Grad A: I 'm done . +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD C: Dan isn't but he 's not gonna say anything . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's a problem {disfmarker} a structural problem with this though . You really need an incentive at the end if you 're gonna do digits again . Like , you know , candy bars or something , +Grad A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll remember to bring M and M 's next time . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or or a little , uh {disfmarker} you know , toothbrushes like they give you at the d dentist . +PhD B: Mmm ! +Postdoc E: Or both . +Undergrad D: Or both . +PhD B: Sorry . +Undergrad D: Eric , you and I win . We didn't make any mistakes . +Grad A: It 's harder at the end than at the beginning . +Postdoc E: We don't know that for sure , do we ? +Grad A: I should have mentioned that s uh , to pause between lines but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , I know . I 'm just giving you a hard time . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's only a hard time for the transcriber not for the speech recognizer . +PhD B: Tha - tha +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} I also think you said channel four +Grad A: Me . +Postdoc E: and I think you meant microphone four . And I think that 's a mistake . +Undergrad D: Very good . So Eric , you win . But the other thing is that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a colon for transcripts . And there shouldn't be a colon . Because see , everything else is stuff you fill in . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's been filled in for you . +Undergrad D: Right ? Automatically . +PhD B: But they 're in order ! +Undergrad D: But real +PhD B: They start , six , seven , eight , nine , zero , one , two , three , four , five , six , eight , nine . +Undergrad D: Where 'd they come from ? +PhD B: And they 're in order because they 're sorted lexically by the file names , which are {disfmarker} have the numbers in digits . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And so they 're actually {disfmarker} this is like all the {disfmarker} all utterances that were generated by speaker MPJ or something . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And then within MPJ they 're sorted by what he actually said . +Grad A: Ugh ! I didn't know that . I should have randomized it . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: It doesn't matter ! It 's like {disfmarker} Cuz you said "" six , seven , eight "" . +Undergrad D: Well , we think it doesn't matter . +PhD B: We think it doesn't matter . If I {disfmarker} if not I {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But the real question I have is that , why bother with these ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just ask people to repeat numbers they already know ? Like phone numbers , you know , social security numbers . +PhD B: Cuz we have these writt written down , right ? +Grad A: Because {disfmarker} Right . +PhD B: That 's why {disfmarker} +Grad A: If we have it , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I know . +Postdoc E: Social security numbers . +Undergrad D: I kn +Grad A: we don't have to transcribe . +PhD B: You can {disfmarker} you can generate {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Bank account numbers . +Undergrad D: Credit card numbers , +Grad A: We don't have to tran +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , please . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's a great idea . +Postdoc E: Passport numbers . +Undergrad D: Yeah , so you just say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} say your credit card numbers , say your phone numbers , say your mother 's maiden name . +Grad A: Bet we could do it . +Undergrad D: You know pe +Postdoc E: Password to your account . +Undergrad D: people off the street . +Postdoc E: Go on . +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually , this {disfmarker} I got this directly from another training set , from Aurora . +PhD B: Alright . +Grad A: So . We can compare directly . +PhD B: Looks good . Looks like there were no errors . +Postdoc E: I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the reason I made my mistake was {disfmarker} +Grad A: What ? +Postdoc E: Wa - was this {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: There were no {disfmarker} there were no direct driver errors , by the look of it , which is good . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Good news . +Grad A: OK , the mike 's off . +PhD B: So I 'm gonna stop it . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad A: Thank you all . +Undergrad D: Mony on the mike . +PhD B: Uh - oh . +","In the conversation, Grad A, PhD C, Undergrad D, and Postdoc E are testing and discussing a multi-channel recording and transcription system for meetings. They are primarily engaged in checking microphone connections to channels, verifying that each individual's microphone is working and appropriate for recording. Additionally, they touch upon issues with the microphone design, discomfort with the head-mounted system, and potential improvements to labeling and organizing the equipment. Some participants express concerns about labeling accuracy and the physical discomfort caused by improperly fitting microphones. They also contemplate the possibility of automating transcription services and the complexity of catching overlapping speaker contributions. Discussions about distributing digital data, collecting more meeting hours, and making the recording environment presentable are also held. The conversation concludes with talks about setting up a user interface accessible in the meeting room, incorporating a wireless solution for monitoring VU meters, and securely managing the equipment setup." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Just put it on the deskt {gap} desktop . +Project Manager: No on the desktop you'll find you should find that there's a project documents link . A well actually just there . +Marketing: Project documents , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: If you dump it in there . +Marketing: What's your username ? +Project Manager: Your username . +Marketing: What's your username and password ? Mm-hmm . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . There we go . +Project Manager: Excellent . Right . Hopefully that's us ready to uh to go . So . Functional design meeting . We'll have to flesh out some of the uh stuff . Um we'll start with the minutes of the last meeting . Not a lot thankfully to say . We introduced ourselves , discussed the possibility of a macro facility , interac interacting the T_V_ a bit more , um mentioning of bar-code , joystick for user manipulation , um and ergonomics of the remote control as well . Um it's come to my attention the following . Teletext has become outdated due to the populat popularity of the internet . Remote control should only be used for the T_V_ . Um due for uh time to market and possibly also cost issues . Um also key is the corporate image should stay recognisable , um f uh your colour and slogan of course is down at the bottom there . Um . Now . Just to say quickly uh I would have thought that only being used for a television the macro facility may now not be required . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um or at l its functionality would have been of limited use . So to the point in my opinion anyway that it might not be worth pursuing . Um if anybody disagrees we can uh definitely say so . Um and hopefully we'll just crack on and we'll get everything going . Um I'd like to if possible hear from our Marketing Expert first , to help us gain an idea of where we're going to go . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I'll just load up your presentation from here if you want . +Marketing: Sure . Um , sh would you like to {vocalsound} I'll just do it from here . +Project Manager: Yep . Sorry . Uh . Is yours the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , try second one maybe . Try it , yeah maybe . +Project Manager: Oh sorry . Okay , right . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Oh , I thought I put in my last name , I guess not , but {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh if you {disfmarker} that's all right . If you {disfmarker} do you want me to just cycle through it for you or ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah , that'd be fine , that'd be great . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . Functional requirement by me Ebenezer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so um we did some research , we asked one hundred people their opinions on remote controls . We asked some uh open ended questions , just , what are your opinions on the remote control , got a lot of re responses , and we asked some very specific questions , and we got a lot of good feedback . Please bear in mind this is only a hundred people , so even when the groups are divided into fifteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , there's only maybe ten people {vocalsound} fifteen people in each group . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} So we got {disfmarker} some the bad stuff we got , remotes are often lost . I often lose my remote control , the back of the couch , some place , and even if it's not lost permanently , it takes me a few minutes to find it . {vocalsound} Most buttons are not used any more , like you said , teletext is outdated now . I remember trying to load a D_V_D_ player recently , and there were so many buttons , it took me I don't know maybe ten minutes to to go through each button , 'cause you have to press the shift button to access the yellow buttons , you know there's just a lot of stuff that no one really uses . And if they do , not very often . Takes too long to master the remote control . I've seen some remote controls that are big , they have a lot of buttons , you have to hold down more than one key at one time to do something , they're just not great to use . We just got a lot of bad complaints about remote controls , people do not like remote controls . Some of the good stuff we got . Between the age of uh fifteen and twenty five , most people would be willing to pay extra for voice recognition software . Now don't get excited yet , I've got more to say on that . Most people'd be willing to pay for that um most people want remote controls to be pretty , they want it to be fancy , th they they want it to be different , everybody has a white remote control with black buttons , and a red button and a green button , not everybody wants that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Finally , my opinion . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The voice recognition thing is cool . And uh voice recognition , the software , open source software exist already . It's a bit sketchy at some times , uh , you're not gonna get good always accurate results , but for a very fixed number of words , you know you have , how many different words can you have for a remote control , up , down , left , right , channel five , channel seven , you know , how many , you can't have that many words . For a fixed vocabulary it works quite well . I'm pretty sure people would buy it . But after a while people may wanna return it , because {vocalsound} if you have to to say som I mean most people use a remote control for switching to channels , and they say they do that about ninety eight percent of the time . Using the remote control , ninety eight percent of the time for changing channels , and that's for flickering through channels . So if you have to say up , up , up , up , if you have to do that all the time , then people might get a bit fed up with that and they may return it . {vocalsound} However , {vocalsound} oh , because the voice recognition software exists already , there's no need to spend money on research and development , but this does mean the need for microphones in the in the remote control , which is an unusual feature in my opinion . But if we do have the voice recognition thing , there's a lot of stuff that you can uh get rid of . See , you could {disfmarker} there're two options . Either you have voice recognition by itself , which I think is a bit impractical for like night time if you wanna be watching television and you wanna be quiet , or I don't know you have a visitor coming round and the remote's only trained for you , it's a bit impractical to have just voice recognition by itself . So you can have voice recognition and a regular remote . But imagine you got rid of the regular remote part , then you can design the remote to look any way you want it to look , because there are no restrictions on physical size , or shape , it it could be as fancy as you want it to be , you know , it could be like a lollipop or something like that , something weird like that . As long as the voice recognition stuff works , that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Okay , yep . +Marketing: So we have the three birds , we have the design , that {vocalsound} we have the the fancy bit , right , the voice recognition's fancy , it's cool , it's different , it's radical , so , and then we have an extra bit I don't remember {vocalsound} so I'm pretty sure people will buy the remote , but is it practical to have a voice recognition system in a remote control , I think is a big question . Um , will people will people be willing to wait for the the period that it'll take to train the remote , 'cause I think it will the remote will uh get better over time with the same user user , but for the first week or for the first two weeks are you willing to wait , are you willing to have a bad remote control . {vocalsound} And uh what if you have visitors come round , they stay the night , they wanna use the T_V_ , they can't use the remote because they speak differently to you . Um , how do you account for regional accents and stuff like that . Uh , will people return the remote control , {vocalsound} I think a lot of young people will buy the remote control , if they have the money , you know , so , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . If you could uh +Marketing: do our audience have the money , but would they return it after a while because it's not as fast as pressing a button , it's not a practical . So . These are things I think we should consider . +Project Manager: sor +Marketing: I think it's cool , +Project Manager: if you could speed it up a bit , yeah . If you could uh speed it up a bit please , yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry ? Sure . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: I'm about to end , yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: I think it's cool but there are definitely some considerations . +Project Manager: Okay . Excellent . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um . Hear from the {vocalsound} User Interface Designer now I think might be an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , you've got your presentation now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did {disfmarker} where did {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the it's in the folder +Project Manager: is it on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: where did you get all your in information {gap} ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: is it ? Okay . +Marketing: There was uh a website , uh , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical functions ? +Marketing: right here . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Okay , this is a {vocalsound} brief run through of the um of the technical functions of the remote . As um is uh the the the presentation is uh already slightly obsolete because I {vocalsound} had in mind something that would uh be i be aimed at controlling multiple devices but uh there's still stuff of relevance , so +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: press on . I've looked at {vocalsound} looked at a num {vocalsound} uh couple of other uh remote control models just for an idea of basic design principles . Um and wasn't really satisfied by what I saw I have to say so this is more sort of springboard for uh how these could be improved on . {vocalsound} Um um basically the job of the device is to send commands to an appliance , in this case the television set . Um to save you getting off your backside . Um and there's two main trends in th in the sort of design practice . On the one hand {disfmarker} and this uh this particularly relates to its sort of earliest models where with you know i so so many buttons on it so about the size of the television set . Um giving you every possible function that the that the device has , the remote control controls . And most of these functions are not going to be used , it creates a rather user unfriendly interface . And on the other hand there's a user focused approach that pares things down to just what {vocalsound} what is most likely to get used . Um {vocalsound} With uh {disfmarker} a and a and of course there is a certain amount of sort of loss of function here obviously , but mostly that's relatively peripheral functions . And so you go for something that's fairly intuitive to use , and um well f the for the most part for T_V_ remote it's uh tha that would be channel control and volume . Um and if you {vocalsound} if you if you are wanting to incorporate uh control of a D_V_ {vocalsound} D_V_D_ or uh {vocalsound} V_C_R_ presumably into that then there's a play , pause , stop , rewind , fast-forward , record , so forth . Um . My own view is that we should definitely be going for a user focused design . Um but uh the pro {vocalsound} I think the problem with a lot of the sort of user focused designs that are about is that they sort of make assumptions in advance about what uh what a given user's going to uh want mo want to do from {vocalsound} want it to do most . So , something that's uh {vocalsound} something that is more programmable , that uh perh perhaps has the full range of functions available to it but you can then specify yourself what you're most likely to want . Um so that those are then immediately {vocalsound} accessible through fairly minimal number of controls , um I liked Ebenezer's idea of including a joystick in that and uh possibly a sort of fairly minimal number of sort of function buttons , and have a disp {vocalsound} you then have some sort of basic display on it so that if you're um sort of cha changing from different modes for the device it'll tell you just exactly what uh you know each direction of the uh of the um joystick's {vocalsound} going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do . Um , this is actually {gap} a again slightly taking inspiration off of uh games controllers , you know the Playstation control where you have four basic function buttons +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: that are just marked with um distinctive uh geometrical shapes but the {vocalsound} and then dependent on what you're doing with it what game and so on um those uh those functions are then sort of further specified . And so it's taking taking the lead from that . Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Right . Um , if we could hear from our Industrial engineer , or Designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh , I was still working on stuff , I hadn't got it finished . Um , {vocalsound} alright . Click to save in {disfmarker} where do I have to save it ? +Project Manager: If you look on the desktop you'll find that there's a link to the project folder , or project documents . If you save it in there we can open it up from here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , what I've done with it , I'm sorry . Shit . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Are you finding it okay or ? +Industrial Designer: I'm just {gap} closing it now . {gap} where I've saved it . +Marketing: Well like if you go to one , uh whichever one you were working {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that's it there , +Marketing: yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: and you just click file save as . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , right I'm responsible for working design , uh , this is basically the inside going on of the the uh remote control . So we have the energy source , we have the user interface , this this is what I've seen . Uh the sender will push the button , the chip will respond , uh and then the dig digital signal is sent to the T_V_ . So uh uh , if you go to next slide , you'll see you'll see uh what do we need on the user interface . Do we need uh many buttons , or do we need l many light bulbs that could be easier to uh to realise which appliances are on or not . Um , {vocalsound} , or would that take too much power , would we need more um components in there to supply the power ? Um , the joystick is another thing , if we were gonna add that , um , there'd be more components to deal with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} , so uh we need to {disfmarker} I dunno exactly what {disfmarker} That's the design of the the the layout of the uh electronic design , um obviously there'll be more details once we've decided what we're putting on the user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , that'll be decided , I guess . {vocalsound} Uh , and the next slide . Oh , yeah {disfmarker} Um , if you go to the next slide then . +Project Manager: Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just used the {vocalsound} it was a mess , uh I was just putting adding it together at the end there . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , don't worry about it at all mate . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so you have the energy source obviously connected to the chip , and the user interface obviously contains everything . You have the switch turn it on , infrared bulb , uh will contact the T_V_ and will have whatever device or D_V_D_ player , the bulb will turn on to say it's on . Uh , so do we need on the control uh different buttons to decide , or different light bulbs , would it be easier ? Um , I dunno what we should decide on that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well . Oh sorry , I'm I'm interrupting you . Are you {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , it's finished , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Okay . Right . Um , {vocalsound} right we can probably skip that for now . So , we've had some stuff put forward , um along with the new user requirements , um we've had a lot of kind of input I'd say so far . Um I hear what the Marketing Expert's saying about {vocalsound} um voice activated control . However I've got a couple of worries about that . {vocalsound} The power required , um and the ability to the cost , it seems like for uh an embedded system , this could cause us issues . +Industrial Designer: Cost . Mm . +Project Manager: Um for example you see that there's fairly robust services on uh computers via uh via voice , I_B_M_ do um drag and dictate , but these require a lot of memory +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and usually um state quite advanced processor requirements . Um voice activation could be an interesting idea but I think that our Ind Industrial Designer would probably upon some research say that it's maybe not feasible . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um that's just my view right now , +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: however the idea of a joystick and then maybe an L_C_D_ which has been kind of put forward so far , it's almost like having a small T_ not T_V_ to say , but if you can control almost all of the functionality from the display , I don't know how much power an L_C_D_ would take , but it might be quite low ? +Marketing: Mm . I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on , or {vocalsound} uh , interactive L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well literally um if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than um those on a {vocalsound} a mobile phone , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: something where you can read an an um fair amount of information , traverse maybe quite a few menus , if we maybe used mobile phones as a good example , they usually incorporate they have the keypad , and then evr all the other functionality is usually associated inside by traversing around . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That could be one possibility . Um and then we could have like say the common buttons as you say , volume control , changing channels {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} I I was thinking that the remote {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for uh volume , left and right for channels . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think that people will get mixed up , like , they'll be looking at this screen and that screen and then , you know , trying to get everything working , would it be a bit confusing ? +User Interface: Um I think probably for the first couple of hours of using it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but you know muscle memory's a wonderful thing , um . And I think {vocalsound} and I think that size of uh display was about what I had in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um though I mean I w I would say that uh we could probably probably be required to um mo most of the mobile phone displays you see these days are colour but we should probably try to stick to black and white . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree with you . +User Interface: Si si simply to keep m keep the unit cost down . Um I mean colour could be a sort of subsequent development but uh you know cost a bit of extra money f w w w w w once everyone's got the first , you know , oh colour's out , we'll have to replace it won't we . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It does nothing extra . +Project Manager: That would be my feeling as well , I think we could possibly create quite a useful user interface . Um now I mean I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or {disfmarker} and a joystick I think like I h if I was in the habit of buying remote controls then I would want one , +Project Manager: sorry , go for it . +Marketing: but I think we don't have a specific audience , you know , like what is our target audience , what niche are {disfmarker} niche are we trying to market and corner . You know , you know what I'm saying , like , for whom is this intended ? Everybody ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it could probably be aimed at most people who've used a mobile . And that might be just another way of saying try to target most people . +Marketing: Most people , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , if we are if we were to follow that avenue , we might be s you know um we're kind of almost relying on their experience with a mobile phone I suppose . But that does cover a very large section of the people out there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . I think that's fair {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , I mean I imagine as well that the actual L_C_D_ and maybe to a certain extent the joystick as well would be for the additional functionality . Which maybe doesn't get used as often , maybe it makes it easy for them to figure out how to um change the channels as in the frequencies and such for reprogramming it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and you can still have the main buttons that allow the people to turn the machine on and off , d up and down , it depends , I mean maybe we have the fol um the joystick as a separate one for the other functions then , that there's just a a small number of as you were saying uh buttons that have already been defined . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like we go for the nice standard um up and down for and volume control . So that literally anybody can come along , pick up the remote and still know what do do . And they can completely ignore most of the functionality which would be for say the o actual owner of the the T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and who would normally use the unit . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th the thing I like about the uh the uh joystick +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: is that uh you you you then basically you can then basically put it I mean for for T_ T_ for T_V_ remote alone , you could put um I mean there are {disfmarker} like I say the the the main things people do with a T_V_ remote control is the volume and the channel . You can pack all that onto was onto a single control . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh but the {vocalsound} but then o uh obviously if uh you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i {vocalsound} you you then get to sort of menu navigation . I mean with things like ch with things like tuning and channels um you know adjusting brightn uh brightness and {vocalsound} fiddly things that no one really bothers with , most T_V_s these days actually have menus anyway so this would be a fairly rational way of integra {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: integrating the uh the remote with the device it's controlling . Um {gap} concern about our market . Um , if we are I mean most of the uh of the replacement remote market is sort of {gap} remote control rationalisation . Um , you've got twenty different devices in your living room , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you want one wo {vocalsound} y you want one that'll do the job of all of them . Um , if all you're replacing is one of the you know however many remotes you have in your living room , um you know you still need separate remotes for everything else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I just think that uh possibly {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well this is a requirement that we have to stick to I'm afraid , +User Interface: mm . +Project Manager: this isn't one that I've just arbitrarily decided on . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So um this is this is one of the solid ones that has to be obeyed , for now . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I can understand your point , and I would agree with you , but this is our design spec for now . 'Fraid to say . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does that um would that include um access to say {vocalsound} interactive functions on digital or cable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say so , yes , because then we have to be able to control the remote boxes , and that is a separate unit . Um I think that it {disfmarker} I would say that the design spec we've been {gap} with is for the television only for now . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And until we hear otherwise we should go with just that . +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , specifically television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we'll hear differently , but for now {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It would be ease of manipulation of certain functions , yes . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Just a thought . {vocalsound} Um maybe then our market should be T_V_ manufacturers , rather than the public . Try and sell it t sell it to them to supply with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is that possibility , yes . B However I don't know exactly where we'll be going with that , but it might not even be the avenue of the Marketing Expert , +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that might be sales , who are not in this meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . It's just , the way I figure it , twelve point five Euros per unit , we have to sell at least like three million or something like that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: not to account for all the the money we waste on remotes that no one buys , you know , like if we made a perf if we made a ks for every remote we made someone bought it , then we have to sell a lot of remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just {disfmarker} Is this gonna be enough to to sell ? +Project Manager: Well , something else that you brought up was uh the ability to lose a remote , which as you said you've done , in fact we've probably all done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know if it's a gimmick or not , but have any of you ever seen those odd little key rings where if you whistle , it will beep and you {disfmarker} tell you where it is . +User Interface: Mm , yeah , I've seen them . +Marketing: I had one of those , and my brother , and my dad , could have beat me up +Project Manager: Um . Well +Marketing: because it it went off all the time accidentally . +Project Manager: the other option of course is that um the +Marketing: The clapping one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well {disfmarker} I was going to say clapping , um {disfmarker} Um digital telephones , uh for example , one unit has {disfmarker} of course you have to have that base unit , somewhere where there's a button , but maybe it's a button that you attach to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: To a television . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something which you when you press that , it would beep to give its location away , on the remote unit . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that could be something could um separate us a bit . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that way , because we're attaching what would be a small button to the T_V_ , again say what , it would be a small transmitter , um watch battery type scenario I would say , or something that if it was problems enough you could actually even just um I don't {disfmarker} power {gap} that might be something that we could look into . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , it's uh putting a lot on your shoulders there , so I mean that could be something that separates us a bit from the market as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So . To go on from here . Um we have to decide exactly what we're going to do with the remote . Before we leave this meeting , it would be best to say this is what we're going {disfmarker} this is the design we're gonna try and get , this is how we're gonna make ourselves look unique . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Do we go for maybe a remote contro uh sorry , we're gonna go for a remote control obviously , do we go for a small joystick that would operate say changing channels , up and down , and then , what , another button that would say that it's now being used to manoeuvre round the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm yeah . Yeah , I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We're just saying volume . Should volume be important in the joystick , do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could use say the left and right for changing channels and the up and down for volume , +User Interface: For volume . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we have a frequency of how what people use a remote control for most . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , power is used like once per hour , +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight per hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's by far the biggest one , and then teletext , is still here , that's like fourteen , +Project Manager: Vol Volume selection okay , yep , +Marketing: and volume selection . +Project Manager: the teletext we're gambling with , and we're gonna say it's dead , the way of the dodo {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , yeah , okay okay . Yeah , um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} well , sorry , we could maybe even go as far as saying power button , small joystick , L_C_D_ , and then what maybe is it one more button to say that you're using the menu system , and with the possibility of pushing down on the joystick to say okay ? So we're having very very few buttons involved , +User Interface: Actually how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but navigation around a menu for most things . +User Interface: Actually I would say maybe two two function buttons , the {disfmarker} y we're now using the menus button and um and an og and an okay button . I mean certainly something I've found with the joystick on mo the joysticks on mobile phones is that a lot of the time th the device mistakes you trying to move it in one direction or the other for pushing down for okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or vice versa . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really irritating . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The o the o the other dis design constraint I think we should bear in mind is that people are you know very much used to using a remote control one handedly , um , so we need to make sure that e even with the joystick , you know something that can just sit comfortably in the palm of the hand and have the joystick just controlled by the thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . So um we're actually that sounds like a rough idea . Do we incorporate the idea of trying to f locate the remote control again via a beeping noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you mind looking {gap} ? +Marketing: Um , I think because it's so small it might be an uh I mean if we only have like two three buttons it might be essential to have to have that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The ability to locate it again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that would require a um transmitter maybe attached to the T_V_ , just so that it says find me , and {vocalsound} what , a basically a small microphone um on the actual unit , can maybe hide it in the base . +Industrial Designer: Light bulb as well , +User Interface: Oh . So {vocalsound} so +Industrial Designer: no ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: a small speaker you mean . +Project Manager: Some speaker , +Marketing: Speaker {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a light bulb ? No . To flash . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Nah , you'd see it anyway , if you hear it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} E us we might be better with the sound possibly {disfmarker} we could maybe incorporate +Marketing: W those little key-rings have both , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: th e the true fact , considering the cost of an L_E_D_ , we could just incorporate it anyway . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: The L_E_D_s can be surprisingly bright now . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Blue ones particularly . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Plus that's a nice wee design touch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: by the sounds of it , with what we're suggesting so far , your design um the user interface is still quite open , you could go for quite an interesting design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because we're only going to have a very few key and you've got you know a small L_C_D_ , joystick , e I think it leaves you open to a a potential wide range of shapes , something that can make it stand out slightly . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um if you could look into what we've suggested so far , the feasibility of um small transmitter , um and such , maybe if an L_C_D_ screen requires too much power , or such . Ebenezer , um , Marketing Expert {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I can give you the frequency , what people what options people use most often , I guess that's gonna be important in the ts defining the the software side of the interface , right . +Project Manager: If , +Marketing: You want the stuff {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah if you could maybe as well see what people think about the idea of this minimalist approach that we've taken , where of a joystick to control the very basic functions , and then the idea of manipulating it like you would a mobile . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know how easy that will be within the time frame , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but could be something we could maybe look into . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . Um any last comments that anybody would like to put forward ? Anything that they think has been missed out . Bit of a wide open question there of course . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Feel free to email me if you think that uh we've screwed something up and wanna get it rectified as soon as possible . +Marketing: Sure . 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I should just look at um the speaker , {gap} the speaker and an L_E_D_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speaker and L_E_D_ for locating , um , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and a transmitter . +Project Manager: transmitter {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually one one wee thought about that . Um , if we do end up trying to market this to television manufacturers then the um then the transmitter could actually be built into the television . +Project Manager: {gap} getting the external power source , yep , that's quite true . Um , and something that we can can easily be adopted at the last minute as well I'd say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The electronics could be s either placed externally or internally , makes no difference to the final product of the actual remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so that's good . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} You know I think +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I mean if it w if we get a major television manufacturer to say y oh yeah we'll have that , save us the bother , then that's you know vast amounts of sales . Quite quickly . +Industrial Designer: P +Project Manager: Oh , one thing that we've almost not talked about at all , my apologies for that , um , user interface , we also need to maybe get the slogan in here , um it's , +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: I'm pointing at my laptop , what in God {disfmarker} Real reaction , and such . So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The slogan is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: yeah , the slogan's we put the fashion in electronics , isn't it ? +Project Manager: My apologies . No it could well be , I've probably missed that . Um , I think that's l almost the last minute thing +Industrial Designer: 'S also look cool . +Project Manager: we can just incorporate into the actual plastic on top . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I'm not too concerned a that we haven't gone into depth about that . But it might be something you could consider when you're thinking about shapes ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In fact we might like to put a slogan on , and um possibly the two R_s to signify the company . Rather than real reaction . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I thought the uh the d the double arc could perhaps uh be the uh the enter button . +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And I'd say that that's us for now . Okay . +","The project team discusses the design of a new TV remote control. The Marketing expert, Project Manager, User Interface Designer, and Industrial Designer contribute opinions on features such as voice recognition, ergonomics, and technical functions. They consider customer feedback on remote control usability, like the tendency to lose them and the need for simplicity. Key points include the potential for voice recognition, the outdatedness of teletext, and the importance of user-friendly design. The team settles on a minimalist approach with a joystick for basic functions and an LCD screen for additional features. An innovative idea is to include a feature to find the remote when lost. They conclude the meeting by summarizing their roles in researching feasibility, gathering additional market feedback, and considering integration with TV manufacturers." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Education for our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Kevin Palmer, who is deputy director, pedagogy, leadership and professional learning; and Andrew Clark, deputy director, further education and apprenticeships division. So, thank you all for attending, and we're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, Cabinet Secretary, we'll go straight to questions. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the first questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair, and bore da. I was going to ask some general questions about the value of the baccalaureate. Could you give us your views on how the Welsh bac is valued by learners and teachers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Julie, and thank you very much for your question. Firstly, I'd like to begin by saying that I as the Cabinet Secretary value the qualification very much indeed. I believe that it helps ensure that we are able to give our young people in Wales a broad and balanced curriculum, recognising the need to develop knowledge and skills in core subjects but recognising also that the purpose of education is to help prepare our children for further study and the world of work, and I believe that the skills challenge element of the baccalaureate does just that. I meet with young people and teachers all the time who tell me about the positive experiences they have had studying for the Welsh bac, and much of that was evidenced in Qualifications Wales's review into the Welsh baccalaureate. They did focus group work with a representative sample, and many of the learners expressed the fact that they have enjoyed studying for the qualification and have gained a great deal from it. I meet regularly with individuals who have been able to use their bac to successfully gain a place at university, so I believe there's a huge value for Welsh young people being able to study this particular qualification alongside the more traditional qualifications that perhaps we're all used to. I think the challenge is that, given that many people are very familiar with what a GCSE is and, as parents, we will know what that is and many of us will have done—some of us are so old we'll have done O-levels. We know what those traditional qualifications look like, and therefore a new qualification—there's always a job of work to do to communicate that, if people aren't used to it, but I value it hugely. I think that, whilst there is always room for improvement—and, of course, you'll be aware of the review that Qualifications Wales undertook and that has suggested ways in which we can further improve and refine the qualification, but I think it is a valuable piece of work for Welsh young people to undertake. +Julie Morgan AM: It's great that you've been around listening to learners and what they have said about it. Have you had any negative feedback? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, occasionally, of course, we do have concerns raised with us, and those concerns are similar to the ones that have been raised in the Qualifications Wales review. So, for instance, we sometimes have concerns about how some students balance the Welsh bac with other qualifications they may be taking. Some teachers feed back around the workload issues associated with the Welsh baccalaureate. For some students, there may be concerns about the nature of the Welsh bac and whether that can impact negatively on their well-being. And, obviously, that's why Qualifications Wales have undertaken this piece of work so that we can refine, if necessary, that qualification and how we continue to look at how we ensure my belief that taking the Welsh bac should be the norm for students but also recognising that, in some cases, there needs to be flexibility to ensure that the well-being of the student is not compromised. +Julie Morgan AM: And so would you say that it's valued by learners more or less at key stage 4 or post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, the vast majority of students I meet report very positively about the opportunities that are afforded for studying at that level. Occasionally, we hear from students who I believe think that in studying the subject they may be compromising their chances because they want to do additional A-levels, and I'm sure we'll come on to, later on, whether universities, and whether the Russell Group universities in particular, value the qualification. But I feel that there are particular strengths. And I think what's really important, and, in talking to universities, since the qualification became graded, rather than just a pass/fail qualification—I think that added rigour since 2015 has been particularly important in ensuring that there's real value in students undertaking that work. +Julie Morgan AM: And what about the effect that the leadership in the school has on the way that the bac is received? Have you—? +Kirsty Williams AM: As always, Julie, leadership is crucial, and students' experiences can be very coloured by the attitude towards the teacher delivering that particular course. And, therefore, we need to continue, alongside the WJEC and Qualifications Wales, to ensure that the Welsh bac is communicated to children in a positive way, the benefits are explained to children and their parents, and, also, we need to ensure that those who are tasked with teaching Welsh bac in their schools or colleges feel confident in their ability to do so and to ensure that students have a really positive experience of that qualification, because if you're being taught by someone who is telling you, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this', then, obviously that's going to colour how you feel about it. And, if I'm honest, I recently attended a youth forum, where young people from the county were discussing all sorts of issues—everything from the environment to their experience in school—and I was struck by the group of year 12 and year 13 students. I specifically asked them about the bac—I always take the opportunity to ask them about their experience of the baccalaureate. One school, the group of students said, 'It's fantastic. We really enjoy it. It's really valuable. I'm learning a lot.' Students from a school seven miles away—just seven miles away—said, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this.' And I suspect that that has got more to do with how that is being delivered in their institutions than it has about the quality of the qualification. So, we need to keep ensuring that those who are tasked with this see it as important, communicate that to students, and have the confidence and the ability to deliver a really positive experience. +Julie Morgan AM: I think our experiences in the committee are very similar. Within the same room, actually, we've had two completely different sets of views. So, what do you intend to do to try to ensure that there's consistent support and enthusiasm for the bac from the leaders? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we have the design group of Qualifications Wales looking to address some of the issues that arose out of the report around ensuring that, especially from a teacher workload perspective, it's not too onerous in terms of assessment. So, there's that to do to make sure that we're not asking children to duplicate and do things over and over and over again, which, of course, for any of us, would be wearing and we would question to the value of. So, there's the design group looking at the qualification itself. We are ensuring, as part of our professional learning for teachers that—. There are existing opportunities via the regional consortia for support for teaching of the qualification. The WJEC has resources and support available, but we will look, as we roll out our national approach to professional learning, at that the professional learning needs of those already in the system are addressed. Of course, our accreditation for our new initial teacher education is predominantly addressed at being able to deliver the new curriculum, but, if you think about the elements of 'Successful Futures' and the skills and the knowledge and the pedagogy associated with that, it's very much in line with the Welsh baccalaureate challenge certificate. So, actually, there are opportunities via initial teacher education as well, and we continue to need to look to work with our partners to be able to reinforce why this is a worthwhile qualification. And I have to say I think the best people to do that—. It's not me. I'd like to see past students of the Welsh baccalaureate being able to talk about their own experiences and why it's made a difference to them. I come across individuals for whom their place at university has been secured by that Welsh baccalaureate, and, all of a sudden, if that's what's got you your place, it becomes a lot more valuable than perhaps it was six months before. We need to make sure that students are aware, and teachers and school leaders are aware, of the importance that this qualification has. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, did you have a supplementary? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. I've got one on IT, but I'll leave that one. I just want to go back to Julie's question about whether there was a different perspective or a different sense of value for students who are post 16 and those who are pre 16. When one of the college leaders here was asked whether he had people coming to him in his FE college who've been through the pre-16 bac and had heard evidence or had stories of, basically, those children cobbling together their bac in the last four weeks of term before they got there, he said that yes, that is his experience. Does that worry you at all, because, of course, the whole purpose of bac is to teach skills over a period of time, and its purpose cannot be fulfilled by getting it all done in the last term of—which year am I in?—year 11, in order to satisfy the curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Obviously, that's not the experience that we would want young people to have, and, as someone who has had a daughter just finish year 11, that's certainly not the experience that my daughter had in her particular school, and I have another daughter who has just gone into year 10, where the Welsh bac has started in year 10 and it is a a two-year course in which elements are undertaken. Obviously, we will need to address, as part of the design group and the work that Qualifications Wales is doing, how that is playing out in individual schools. But that would not be a positive experience; we want this to be taken in exactly the same way as we would expect a GCSE to be taught over a period of two years. But, Andrew, I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add from the college perspective. +Andrew Clark: I think it is variable. I think that it will depend on the feeder schools to the colleges and it'll depend upon the delivery models that are in existence in those schools. It's been around as a qualification now for about a decade, I think. There have been differences in the way that the subject has been—sorry, not the subject, the qualification has been delivered. And I think it'll be helped by a recent review by Qualifications Wales, because they're doing a survey at the moment as to different delivery models in different locations, and that, perhaps, will inform more even practice as we move forwards. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, and Estyn and consortia are looking at it as well. I don't want to cut across questions, so, thank you. +Andrew Clark: No, but it's a known issue, if you like, that various people are attempting to address and bring a more uniform mode of delivery across the nation. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some more detailed questions now on understanding, from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just to drill down rather deeper into the issue of the variability in the way in which the Welsh bac is provided, could you explain why you think that this inconsistency is happening, and then what the impact of the inconsistency and variability is on the value that learners attach to the bac and their understanding of it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the variability can be perhaps explained by the fact that it's a new type of qualification, the fact that different schools have adopted it at different rates— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Ten years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, over that time, there were some early adopters who have done it in a certain way, there are some people who've come later to it, who may be doing it in a different way. And, as I said, it's quite a different departure from traditional O-levels, from GCSE-type subjects, where there is a programme of work and a syllabus. So, it is a different nature of qualification, and, therefore, as Andrew has just alluded to, schools have approached it in a different way. We are alert to that and Qualifications Wales, crucially, is alert to that, and we are looking to ensure greater consistency in how it is delivered in individual schools. We're also aware, in the school setting, in pre 16, there are some concerns about the onerousness of the workload associated with the evaluation of the students' work. Now, clearly, there is a difference between onerous and rigorous. We wrote the qualification to be a rigorous qualification for the students, but we don't want it to be jeopardised by the evaluation of it being too onerous. So, there's that balance to be struck. Again, that's one of the issues that the design group and Qualifications Wales are looking at. That process is a really important process, so there is the design group, but working alongside the design group, who they are testing the messages and testing their thoughts with, is a stakeholder group, and there is also a practitioners group. So, that work by the design group is being tested with those people who have an interest: business, for instance, the world of work—is this qualification really giving students the skills that are valued by potential employers?—but it's also testing its thinking with the practitioners, those people who will be charged with the delivery of the qualification, and I think that's really important to be able to get an understanding of the challenges of making sure there's a consistency, and what are the barriers to that, and what steps need to be taken to ensure a greater level of consistency in delivery. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is there a correlation between consistency in general? Because we know that there's polarisation in the secondary school sector between the good schools and the not-so-good schools. And is there a correlation between—if the schools are good according to Estyn, or excellent, are they also good, excellent at delivering the bac? Is it a fundamental inconsistency across the sector that's causing this inconsistency? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know. I don't have that data to hand, but, of course, from next year, the bac will be a dedicated performance measure for schools. So, actually, we will be looking specifically at completion of the bac as part of the wider set of school performance measures. So perhaps we will be in a better position once that's formally established to be able to track progress. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because some of the evidence we've heard is that if the leadership is good around the bac in the school, well, everything else follows from that. So, it makes sense to me that it could be. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. As I said, I don't have the figures to hand, but, as I said, from next year, the bac actually becomes a formal part of the performance measures for schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. I'll turn, therefore, to the understanding of employers of the Welsh bac and the skills challenge certificate. From the evidence that we've had, it appears that there is a problem in this area, that is, employers generally don't value the qualification. Is that your experience, and how can we improve that? How can we elicit more engagement from employers of all sizes with the value of the baccalaureate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the first thing to say is my understanding of the development of the bac is that employers' voices were reflected and they were part of the process that drew up the qualification in the first place. You'll be aware of the review by Qualifications Wales that found that many employers say that the skills that are developed through the baccalaureate are exactly the kinds of skills that they want young people to be acquiring whilst at school, that put them in a good place for looking for employment later. I would agree with you, Siân, and not just in terms of the bac, there are lots of reasons why we need greater working between education and employers. I sit down with employer organisations to try and explore better ways in which we can work together—everything from ensuring that children have work experience opportunities through to, for instance, what more some of our companies could do to take up governors' roles, for instance, in our local schools, so that employer voice and that business voice are heard at a school management level. I think these things are really important. It's something that's sometimes difficult. There are some excellent examples of really good practice where local employers work really closely with schools. I think of Sony in Bridgend doing a really, really, really good job working with their local schools. In other areas, where you haven't got such a big employer, it can be difficult, can't it, for a small business that is trying to do their small business to think about, 'Oh my goodness, I've got to do something to help improve the education system as well.' So, I'm always looking at new ways in which we can get that working together. As I said, the Qualifications Wales design group has a stakeholder group that is helping them with their review into the qualification at the moment, but there are really good examples where employers and other organisations are working together. We also need to continue, I think, to communicate more clearly with employers the nature of the qualification. Again, because it's relatively new, and the brands of the GCSE and A-level are so strong, people know what they are, unless you've either done the Welsh bac yourself or you have a son or a daughter, or a grandson or granddaughter who has gone through the process, you're probably going to be less familiar, and we need to continue to work together with the WJEC and Qualifications Wales as a Government to better communicate the value of the qualification. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you agree that there is a specific piece of work that needs to be done around employers and that the Government should be leading that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and we are working closely with, as I said, Qualifications Wales to develop a joint communication plan, and we continue, as I said, as part of Qualifications Wales's review into the nature of the qualification—employers' voices are being heard as part of that particular piece of work. But more generally, yes, I think there's more that we can do to better engage employers with the education system in lots and lots of different ways. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Not just on the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move off this section, the variability that the committee has seen has been quite pronounced, really. We've been to a school where they've got a passionate and dedicated Welsh bac school leader, but then we've spoken to other schools where it's tagged on to a variety of teachers' roles, and that clearly has an impact on the way it's being taught. You said in your answer to Siân that you're trying to ensure more consistency in the delivery of it, and you referred to the performance measures; are the performance measures the main vehicle by which you're going to ensure consistency, or are you planning to issue any more guidance to schools on how it should be delivered on the ground? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to reflect the work that Qualifications Wales is undertaking. Professional learning, I think, has a role to play as well as performance measures. So it's not just one thing that we can do that will change this, it is a number of things—everything from the communications plan to making sure that teachers who find themselves responsible for delivering this feel confident and have had the professional learning opportunities to give them the skills so that they do a great job in delivering a positive experience to students. The performance measures, of course, as we know—sometimes in schools, it is those that make schools focus on something. So there's a wide variety of ways in which I think we can look to ensure more consistency. But, in the end, I think it is professional learning and teacher training, ITE, that will make the biggest difference. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. And just on understanding, one of the things the young people in Crickhowell told us was that they thought the name should be changed. They felt that it wasn't reflective of exactly what the qualification is and that maybe having something that was clearer would be better. Is that something you've considered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, I need to declare an interest, because that's the school my daughter goes to, and I don't know if she was the one— +Lynne Neagle AM: She wasn't. Angharad wasn't there. +Kirsty Williams AM: She wasn't the one who said that. Certainly, I'd have to reflect. My gut instinct tells me that one of the issues that we have is developing an understanding of the brand and what that qualification is, and if we move away from 'Welsh bac' and suddenly start to call it something else, I think that could be even harder and set us back from where we are. So, that's not to dismiss it, and I would want to reflect on those views, but I think if one of the issues that we've got is developing a better understanding of the qualification; if we were to suddenly change the name of it, that might have the unintended consequence of making that job even harder. But, obviously, if the committee was to make a recommendation, we would—I'm happy to reflect on that evidence, but, as I said, my gut instinct would tell me that there could be an unintended consequence of moving away from that brand. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You touched on this once or twice in answers to questions about how rigorous the qualification is. We've had mixed evidence, I would suggest, from groups of stakeholders. We've heard people say that the Welsh bac has no rigour, that pupils are spoon-fed. We've heard that the Welsh bac is passively marked, the grades are inflated, that there's little rigour in the sampling and moderation, there's a confusion about how the SCC is graded, and I know that's something you talked about, actually, that introducing the grading system is improving the rigour. I suppose my question to you is: if the Welsh bac is being seen in this way by stakeholders, how are going to address that? To what extent is that a real problem? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think making it a graded qualification has been really important, and I make no apologies for this qualification being rigorous—no apologies for that at all. That's how it should be, and that's how you create value, by ensuring that a qualification is rigorous. What's really important is that it's not just me saying that it's rigorous; there is an independent process that benchmarks qualifications. The fact is that at advanced level—because I don't know if you're making these observations about the pre-16 Welsh bac, or whether we're talking about the advanced level qualification—that is the equivalent of an A-level. It's been benchmarked against A-levels. It has a UCAS tariff associated with it. It is used by universities as a means of qualification that gains entrance into a university in just the same way as an A-level is. So, therefore, I don't have any concerns about the rigour of the qualification. In terms of spoon-feeding, one of the reasons why universities like the qualification is that it's very difficult, for instance, in the individual project work to be spoon-fed. It is very demanding of individual students, and it's very difficult in a way. That's one of the reasons why it's valuable, isn't it, because it teaches a different set of skills? Because if you're doing a traditional, say, history A-level or a science A-level, there's a very strict syllabus and a course, there's a textbook and people are taught to that particular syllabus; with the Welsh bac, it is individual students that have to think, for instance, of their own individual project. You can't get those off a shelf, and you can't necessarily just find that information easily. There's real skill involved in being able to do that well and get graded well for that. So, I do not have concerns about the rigour. I do have concerns about some of the feedback by Qualifications Wales about the onerousness of the evaluation and what that means for teacher workload, which is one of the things that Qualifications Wales is looking at. But in terms of rigour and people being spoon-fed, then I don't share those concerns. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, because those were concerns, in the main, that were articulated by people delivering the Welsh bac—by teachers. So, I suppose the question then comes back to some of the other points that were being raised about the consistency, because that may well be from those teachers in schools where they're not taking the bac as seriously as some others are. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, there would be—. There is a professional responsibility for those teachers delivering that qualification to ensure that the ethos of that qualification and the skills—. It would potentially be a disservice to students if that qualification was being delivered in that way. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I think what I was trying to do was to highlight the different opinions, because we also heard from teachers who were saying that those involved with teaching and studying understood absolutely its rigour, so it was the mixed message, I guess, I was just trying to test out with you. Similarly, on the skills challenge certificate, again we've heard from various stakeholders about whether, in fact, this is considered to be an equivalent qualification. We've heard people say that it is different—it's not the same as an A-level—so, therefore you can't absolutely hold it up and say it's the same as an A-level. It requires different skills, and so on and so forth. So, just your thoughts and views on that, really, as an equivalent qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not a question of if this is an equivalent qualification; this is an equivalent qualification. There is a rigorous process that is undertaken to evaluate these qualifications independent of the Government, and it's not a question. Is it a different model and a different way of studying? Yes, of course it is, and that's why we do it. That's why I want children and young people to do both sets of qualifications, because it does engage and expand the acquisition of knowledge and skills. So, yes, it's different. Is it equivalent? Yes, it is, and that's why, since the graded qualification came in, it is regarded by independent bodies as an equivalent to an A-level, and it has a tariff for UCAS in the same way as A-levels would have tariffs. You only have to speak to the institutes of higher education who use this qualification as a way of setting grades—you know, offers—for students that they see that in the same way as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy's got a supplementary before we go on to talk in detail about universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Because I just want to go back to this element of spoon-feeding at post 16, where you said it's actually very difficult for that to occur, because, obviously, we're talking about the personal project, and so forth. We heard evidence in one of the schools sessions we did that baccalaureate students were being offered a very short and narrow list of subjects on which they could do their personal project, which actually limited the scope of what they were able to do. And we've also heard separately—it may have been with the colleges, I can't quite remember now—that some students were being told, 'On your personal project, just put in what you did for your GCSE-level baccalaureate, and add a few paragraphs.' I'm wondering how easy it is to disguise spoon-feeding at post 16 when we've got two instances there that, to me, suggest it's more about the convenience of the teachers, who perhaps may not be very enthusiastic about the bac, rather than making sure those children get the best out of the qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And that would be really disappointing. And, again, if I can use my own personal family experience, my daughter has tried that on with her Welsh bac teacher. She's in a different school from where she did her earlier bac, and she said, 'Oh, well, I'll just rehash my ""Votes at 16"" that I did last year', and the Welsh bac teacher has said, 'Under no circumstances are you to do that—no, that's not allowed.' This is about using your individual project, linked to something that maybe you hope to study at university, to get the value out of this qualification, and for you to be able to use this in your personal statement, and potentially in an interview. So, again, I guess what this does is show that there's a variation, but certainly, where it is being delivered well, then that practice would not be encouraged, because it would be seen to be— +Suzy Davies AM: It's gaming. +Kirsty Williams AM: —denuding the students of the very valuable experience the qualification has to offer. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Cheers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some questions now on how universities view it. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: We've had an online survey response, which was quite a stark comment, not from the vice-chancellor's office, but from a member of staff within Cardiff University. And it said: 'The Welsh Bacc is not a fair substitute for a full A-level, and should not be regarded as such. I consider it to be a disadvantage for Welsh students, compared with their English counterparts.' Can you reflect on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't agree. +Hefin David AM: Do you think that that's a view that's held within universities, and are you concerned about that? Because it is a view that's obviously held within Cardiff University. +Kirsty Williams AM: No; I would say that that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University— +Hefin David AM: Who has influence over students. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University. And, actually, Cardiff University—indeed, all Welsh universities—accept the Welsh baccalaureate as an A-level equivalent. I think it is really important to reflect on the wide range of opportunities at higher education that the Welsh bac affords individuals. That means that it is deemed as an equivalent to A-level for the vast majority of universities, to get in to some of the most competitive courses, such as dentistry, medicine, veterinary science. So, those courses where we know there's a high demand and high competition for places, there are institutions that are using that, including Cardiff to get into their medical degree. +Hefin David AM: Nick Brazil, the deputy principal of Gower College, said about 50 per cent of the Russell Group don't value the Welsh bac. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know where he's getting that from. I have made it a personal commitment to establish this with universities. I have visited both Cambridge and Oxford. I spoke again to Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Southampton, St Andrews, only last week, who were exhibiting at the Seren conference. I specifically took the opportunity to meet with those universities and to talk to them about how they feel about the Welsh bac. They have a high regard for the Welsh baccalaureate in a variety of ways. First of all, for many of those universities, for many of their courses, they use the Welsh bac as an equivalent to an A-level. If they don't, there are some courses, for instance, where they will lower their offer to gain a place at that university if the Welsh bac is passed at a certain level. So, for instance, rather than maybe offering a Welsh student A, A, B, they would offer a Welsh student A, B, B, plus a Welsh bac, thus giving students two opportunities to gain a place at that university, either with or without their Welsh bac qualification. Even for those universities that don't use the Welsh baccalaureate as a formal part of their offer—and this is the conversation I had again last week with Oxford and Cambridge—they value it as part of a student's personal statement; they value it as part of the interview process in which a student may or may not then be offered a place at that university; and they also recognise that the skills learnt by students whilst undertaking the Welsh baccalaureate are exactly the skills that those students need to make a successful transition from A-level work to university-type work, which, if you can imagine, is very much based on individual research and being able to guide your own learning. So, I just don't recognise that in some way Welsh students are being disadvantaged. The message I get consistently from universities is that there are significant advantages to Welsh learners taking this qualification. +Hefin David AM: Okay. You can not recognise it, but that is contrary to the evidence that we've received. I'm not saying that the evidence is conclusive, but it actually demonstrates inconsistency. So, would you go so far as to accept instead then that there is an inconsistency in the way that universities use the Welsh bac as a tool for application? +Kirsty Williams AM: You would know better than anybody, Hefin, that universities are autonomous institutions and they set their own methods of entry into those institutions. What I'm telling you is that the evidence that I have received from universities is that, whilst there is a variety of approaches to how they regard the qualification in terms of offers, consistently, absolutely across the board, all universities tell me that the Welsh baccalaureate is a valuable qualification and does not disadvantage Welsh students. +Hefin David AM: If the committee were to produce a report based on the evidence we've received, that would be contrary to what you've just said. So, I think we'd end up in a debate in which we are setting out different points of view. So, would you therefore commit to exploring that perspective? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, I would argue that I have indeed explored that perspective because I have taken the trouble to find out first-hand—not via my officials, but first-hand—from those institutions, their views. So, this is not something that is hearsay; I have undertaken to ascertain the views of those universities. We have written to all vice-chancellors—last year—with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. Qualifications Wales has an individual whose specific job it is to ensure that universities across the United Kingdom understand the value of Welsh qualifications. That will become increasingly important as we see a divergence between English and Welsh qualifications. But I have to say that the evidence that I have from universities is that the Welsh baccalaureate, whilst it may be used in different ways in terms of an offer, the consistency from all universities is that it is a valuable qualification. If you've heard differently from admissions tutors and from the universities officially, rather than from somebody who has e-mailed in, then I would be pleased to look at that evidence, because it would be in stark contrast to what I am being told by universities. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin is not referring to an e-mail— +Hefin David AM: No, I've said that. +Lynne Neagle AM: —we did do a survey and we've also taken oral evidence. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and it's representing the evidence that we received. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I'm presenting you with the evidence that I've received. +Hefin David AM: But it will be presented to you as a submission from this committee, no doubt. Let's look at some admissions offers instead then. You do concede that there is inconsistency with how admissions offers are made with regard to the skills challenge certificate. How would you suggest that that is addressed? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, each individual institution and university the length and breadth of the UK have different ways in which they make offers to individuals. What is absolutely clear to me, and if the concern is around the type of institution—. So, for instance, it is accepted as a third-grade offer in Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, the London School of Economics—some of the highest performing universities and Russell Group universities. It is accepted as a fourth qualification or amends the offer in places like Bath University, and it is accepted in tariff-point offers in places like Hull and the University of the West of England. So there is a variety of ways in which universities use the qualification, and that is their prerogative—that's their prerogative as institutions. They will have different ways in which they recruit and how they offer places, just like different universities will have different views on unconditional offers. You know, there's a difference in universities there, isn't there? Some universities don't have unconditional offers at all; other universities— +Hefin David AM: So, what you're saying is that the problem isn't connected to the Welsh bac, it's connected with just the way that universities make offers, and the Welsh bac has got nothing to do with it. +Kirsty Williams AM: I’m saying there is a variety. Just like any other qualification, there is a variety in how universities use qualifications for offers. What I’m saying to you is that, in the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, what they say is that there is certainly no detriment to any Welsh student undertaking this qualification. They value the qualification. They think it is useful. It develops a set of skills that help students to make that transition into higher education. And therefore, I think it is a myth—I would go as far as to say that it’s a myth—that Welsh students are disadvantaged in any way by taking this qualification. Sorry, Andrew. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Andrew Clark: Could I just add to that response? There are, obviously, differences in the way that universities treat the skills challenge certificate and the Welsh baccalaureate, which is the prime focus of this. The attitude of the universities has changed significantly since that was a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that has made a difference. +Andrew Clark: And even those who do not make it part of their offer consider it exceedingly valuable in the way that young people are prepared to go to university and, therefore, as part of their personal statement, as part of their interview, the activity that the young person has taken by means of the skills challenge certificate is definitely recognised, even by those who don’t actually make it part of their offer. So, we’re still on a journey—that graded qualification has only been taught for a couple of years, but the journey is taking us to the right place, towards the right destination. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, it isn’t just about variable admissions practices across universities; it is to deal with the skills challenge certificate as well, which needed changing in order to improve that. +Andrew Clark: But that was changed in September 2015. When it was a 'yes'/'no' qualification, I think they held it in less regard than they do now that it is a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that’s the conversation we had with some of our Russell Group universities. +Andrew Clark: And that was an important shift three years ago. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, last question, then: are you absolutely confident that any concerns we are offering are nothing really to worry about? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to continue to communicate to all audiences the importance of this and the value of this qualification. But I am confident that the university sector, in its wide variety of forms, regards the Welsh baccalaureate qualification as a valuable endeavour for Welsh students to undertake, and they certainly don’t regard it as a detriment to students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân wants to come in on this, and then I've got a question from Suzy on Seren. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just that the committee, of course, has been trying to gain evidence on this sector from the universities themselves, but Universities Wales, which represents the interests of universities in Wales, has rejected the committee's invitation to submit any oral or written evidence. So, can you see the dilemma we're in? We are hearing a few things coming from some universities, we hear what you're saying, but we can't get to the root of the matter because the universities themselves aren't willing to come to speak to us. Are you also disappointed that they have rejected our invitation to come and speak to us? +Hefin David AM: Where's the enthusiasm, Chair? Where's the enthusiasm? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And perhaps that's a sign that they don't want to be drawn into this argument between the Government and us as a committee. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it’s a matter for individual universities to decide whether they want to participate in the work of this committee. I would urge them to do so. All Welsh universities regard the Welsh baccalaureate as an equivalent to A-level, and all universities use it as part of their offer—Welsh universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but you see what our dilemma is, though, because if we can’t actually ask them directly, it's a bit difficult for us to actually probe this and to help move things on? Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's a matter for them, and maybe the Chair would like to take that up with Universities Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: We have had quite an extensive dialogue with them about it. Suzy on Seren. +Suzy Davies AM: So, just briefly, you’ve said several times that having a Welsh bac qualification is an advantage and certainly no detriment, and that it’s valued by universities. But advantage isn't the same as equivalence, and we have had evidence from—I think it was Cardiff University, again, where they had students with two A-levels and a bac who were actually performing as weaker students. So, even though on the face of it you've got three A-levels, those particular students aren't matching up to the expectations of a student with three A-levels. I do want to challenge what you said about the students who are involved in the Seren network about the baccalaureate being accepted for things like veterinary medicine and medicine itself. We've had evidence from FE colleges, which are now significant players in producing our Seren-style students, if you like, that they are exempting their students from doing the bac because it's a distraction, effectively. What's your comment on that? Because if this is a question of communication, which I suspect you're about to tell me, one of the axioms of good communication is you can have the best marketing in the world, but if the product you're selling isn't highly valued then you're actually just doubling the problem. So, can you explain to me why FE is exempting their highest flyers from doing the bac? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think sometimes colleges make the decision that four or five A-levels is of an advantage, and therefore, if you're asking students to carry that workload, which is a considerable workload, that's the preferred route for more able and talented students. Again, what is quite clear in all the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, is that this is a myth. What universities tell me they want is not necessarily students with four or five A-levels; they want students with three really exceptional grades at A-level and a Welsh baccalaureate. I think that's really, really an important message to get across—that it is not necessary to do four or five A-levels if you aspire to go to these Russell Group universities, or if you decide you want to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. As I said, in the conversations that we have had—and there is actually some research, and I will let the committee have links to the research. There is some research to suggest that those students who have been involved in project-based work—and, of course, that's not just the Welsh baccalaureate, that would be the EPQ, which is a qualification that is rapidly gaining traction in England. That is an extended project—research based—qualification, very similar to the individual project element of the Welsh baccalaureate. The EPQ in England is seen as a qualification taken by more able and talented students, and what we see in some of the research that is coming forward is that those students who have engaged in that type of work, project-based work, individual-led, research-based work—those skills are the skills that are really attuned to the nature of university-type work. Therefore, that is valued by universities and there is some indication to say that there is a correlation between the students who have undertaken that work and their potential success at undergraduate level. They also tell me that there is a link between, for instance, being able then to use those skills to gain work experience, placements and internships in the private sector and in the world of work, because, as I said, those types of skills are really, really valuable and therefore that's why they value the qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just add—? It's great that they're telling you, why aren't they telling FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think it's really important that FE colleges understand that there is a myth around the fact that these universities are looking for four or five A-levels, and if that's the reason why then colleges are not allowing students or dissuading students from taking the Welsh bac, I think we need to reflect on what's important to those universities—which is the right A-levels. I think it's really, really important that students are given the best advice about the A-levels they need to take, facilitating subjects to get into a university, and the value of the skills and knowledge they will acquire through the Welsh bac as an assistance to them going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Actually, it's your set of questions next on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll try and keep this on the shorter side, if that's okay, everybody. You say in your evidence that you expect universal adoption, basically, by 2020, I think it is, or it might be 2019. What do you think universal adoption actually means? What does it look like? Does it mean 100 per cent adoption? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is means is that I expect all institutions to be in a position to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate. I believe it should be an entitlement to all Welsh students to be able to study this qualification, and I believe we should work to the situation where it becomes the norm to take the Welsh baccalaureate. I also recognise that in some individual cases, there may be very good reasons why perhaps this is not aligned to the well-being of that particular student. But when I talk about universal adoption, I expect all our institutions to be in a position to deliver the qualification, and I believe it should be an entitlement for Welsh students to be able to undertake this qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: But not an obligation—that's the bit I'm trying to get at. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it should become the norm, and if there are exceptions to that, and there could well be for very legitimate reasons, I think that that flexibility should be allowed. But I think, for those students who are not doing that Welsh baccalaureate, there should be evidence as to why that decision has been taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, so there's a presumption. I think the performance measures, probably, are likely to sharpen the minds of some school leaders, so I won't pursue that. But can you tell me what lesson you may have learnt from the universal obligation for students to study Welsh language in schools when those schools weren't particularly ready to offer a quality course? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've rehearsed earlier, it is important that all of our schools and colleges are in a position to deliver this qualification well and deliver a really positive experience to learners. That's why there is existing support available, and via our new professional learning programmes there will be more support available for teachers to ensure that they have the skills and the confidence to deliver the qualification in a high-quality manner. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's going to take some time. Would you consider pausing the presumption of universal roll-out until you're absolutely sure that all institutions are able to offer the bac to the quality that you would like to see it delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not at this stage. I have no intention of pausing. We have evidence that schools are already delivering the qualification really well— +Suzy Davies AM: But you know that we've had evidence, and you must have as well, that not all schools are doing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: What we do know is that some schools struggle to deliver existing qualifications. I don't know why we would turn round and say that this qualification needs to be stopped when we wouldn't stop other qualifications, and we'd say, 'Well, there we are, we haven't got a 100 per cent guarantee that every single school is delivering this particular qualification especially well, therefore we're going to denude the opportunity of students to study that particular subject.' What we're saying is, 'There is a responsibility on us, on individual schools and on our regional consortia to endure that there is professional learning in place so that all schools are in a position to deliver the qualification well.' +Suzy Davies AM: Isn't it irresponsible to ask students to be obliged to take a qualification that's badly delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is irresponsible is not to invest in professional learning to ensure that all schools are in a position to deliver it well. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, I agree with you on that, actually, which is why I was a bit confused when you had some in-year additional money in this year's budget that was being given out to consortia rather than to schools to improve the ability of their teachers to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate in certain schools. Can you tell me whether the money—I think it was about £5 million that was going to the consortia in-year—will you will offer them suggestions that that is used for improving baccalaureate teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that is available is going via consortia to schools. Individual schools are best placed to understand the professional learning needs of their staff. And if that school understands that they have particular professional learning needs for the Welsh baccalaureate, then I would expect the money to be spent on that. Where a school is doing the Welsh baccalaureate particularly well, then the school might identify other areas where they look to seek improvement. Therefore, it is for the individual school to assess the professional learning needs of their staff. We can't second-guess that, and therefore it has to be right that school leaders are able to plan the professional learning of their staff accordingly. +Suzy Davies AM: I completely accept that and, as I say, it's not for all schools, but bearing in mind we're facing evidence of polarisation of delivery, I'm just wondering whether there wasn't a letter suggesting that they may want to focus on this in the schools that aren't delivering this well at the moment. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, that's a conversation to be had between challenge advisors in our regional consortia who are aware of the strengths and weaknesses in individual schools, in conjunction with the leadership of those schools, to discuss how that professional learning money is best spent. There isn't a school that is fantastic at everything, nor is there a school that is not good at anything, if you know what I mean. There are strengths and weaknesses in all schools. It is for the regional consortia, via challenge advisers, and the headteacher, to have that conversation about what the professional learning needs are for that particular school, to ensure that all their teachers, across the length and breadth of the curriculum, are in a position to deliver good-quality lessons. But we can't second-guess that. +Kevin Palmer: Can I just make a further comment? I'll be this afternoon meeting with the regional consortia, Estyn, the universities, and the rest of what we call 'the middle tier' to discuss with them the configuration of a national curriculum for professional learning, premised on the priorities that are emerging from our current work with pioneer schools. And the shifts in pedagogy that you all know is found behind some of these issues, with the delivery of the Welsh bac, those shifts in pedagogy are right at the core of the national approach to professional learning—so, things like project-based learning, the kinds of things you talked about today, moving away from a spoon-feeding model, not just for the Welsh bac but actually right across the curriculum. The new curriculum requires us to move in these new directions. So, it's absolutely true to say that each individual school is different, each individual practitioner is different, but we must give the regions and the HEIs, as it were, a menu of things, and guidance around where there are clearly weaknesses in schools. Those weaknesses need to be addressed. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that we're going forward towards Donaldson, and I'm sure that you will be getting questions on that at some time in the future. I'm more concerned about this bac that's been around for 10 years, and there's still, as far as we can tell from the evidence that we've had, poor delivery in some schools, where there's the prospect of obligation on the horizon. That was the thing that was worrying me. Anyway, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the issue of the difference between entitlement and obligation is a very important one and is a concern to students. You were saying it's an entitlement, not an obligation, but we have had very clear evidence from colleges that some of them are making young people do it, and schools are making young people do it. So, what do you say to those schools that are insisting on their pupils doing the Welsh bac at post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I hope that it becomes the norm that at post-16 level students take the Welsh baccalaureate, because I think it is of huge value. There may be circumstances that mean that the well-being of that student could be compromised by making them do this qualification. There could be a whole host of reasons why it is not suitable for a child to take this qualification, and therefore there has to be some flexibility in the system, and we have to trust in the professional leadership of our colleges and our headteachers to make that decision in the round, with the pupil and their parents, about what's in the best interests of those pupils. But I do think a situation where, perhaps, an entire cohort of students are suddenly deemed it's unsuitable for, I find that very hard to believe, but there could well be circumstances, for a whole host of reasons, where that particular qualification—. And we would not want to jeopardise the well-being of a student by forcing them to do a qualification that wasn't in their best interests, and we need to have the flexibility in the system to allow school leaders to make that decision, but they should also then be accountable for that decision. +Lynne Neagle AM: But do you recognise there's maybe a case for strengthening guidance, then, on this? Because, we've had teachers tell us that they have insisted on pupils doing this, and then the parents have rung Welsh Government, and they felt undermined, then. So, do you think there's a case for strengthening the guidance or clarifying what the position is to schools and colleges? +Kirsty Williams AM: Very happy to do that. As I said, from time to time, parents do indeed contact Welsh Government, and in that contact there is a whole variety of reasons why that parent feels the Welsh baccalaureate is not in the best interests of those children. Sometimes, that can go from the extreme of, 'I want my child to do five A-levels and I think that's in their best interest to get into Oxford and Cambridge'—I would argue that that is a myth, around the need to do that many A-levels—through to, 'Actually, my child has a range of learning needs, and actually this qualification isn't suited to them. Making them go out and do voluntary work in an organisation with people that don't understand their needs and they are unfamiliar with could jeopardise my child's ability and my child's well-being.' So, there's a whole range of reasons why sometimes people have concerns about the Welsh baccalaureate. Some of those are very legitimate concerns. Sometimes, they're based on information that, perhaps, isn't correct, or the myths around, 'I need to do five A-levels if I want to go to Cambridge'. Schools, then, have some flexibility. I'm aware of a case last year where a parent felt very concerned that the students were also having to study for entrance exams into Cambridge. A conversation was had with the school. They were able to allow the student extra time to study for that qualification and pick up their Welsh bac work later on in the academic year. So, they were able to be flexible in the delivery of that qualification. I'm very pleased to say that we've had correspondence from said parent to say that his son went on to do exceptionally well in his A-levels and his Welsh baccalaureate and gained his place at Cambridge University, and that's about having the flexibility, even at a school level, to be able to respond to the needs of individual students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me on this, then. As you know, mental health and the emotional health of our children and young people is a very core issue for this committee, and Estyn have said that studying the skills challenge certificate alongside three or four A-levels is a significant factor in causing stress for some young people. How do you respond to that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would be the first to acknowledge that studying A-levels can be a very stressful time. That's because students, rightly, regard those qualifications as high stakes and as having a profound effect on the opportunities for the rest of their lives. So, the mere fact of studying A-levels can be a really stressful time for students because they understand how important they are, and students want to do well and they want to be able to move on to the next stage, either of work or of university. We also know—and Estyn reflects this—that students are also often trying to combine that with part-time jobs. These students are of an age when they want to be out and about and earning some of their own money and being a bit more independent. So, that adds added pressure to them. So, undoubtedly, this is a stressful time in young people's lives and we need to ensure that there is support in school to support young people through this time to make sure that students are making the right choices in terms of their A-levels and the qualifications that they're doing so they're not having to do more because they're under the impression that, by doing more, that's going to make them more likely to succeed. What we know, actually, is it's about the quality of what you do rather than the entirety of what you do that's important to universities, and we need to make sure that students are getting really good information, advice and guidance and support at what is a challenging time in their lives, because, of course, it comes on top of working really hard for your GCSEs and then you have, the following year, AS-level examinations and A-level examinations after that. So, these are stressful times in children's lives and they realise the importance of these as high-stakes qualifications. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: This is about the wider impact of studying the Welsh bac on other curriculum subjects and education provision, and we've had representations in that it is causing some concerns. So, do you have any concerns about the effect that the Welsh bac may be having on wider education provisions, such as the narrowing of the curriculum at key stage 4? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. Obviously, schools are responsible for planning their local curriculum offer, and that needs to meet the needs of their learners, and it also needs to meet the needs of the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure 2009. So, there should be a wide variety of choices available. I believe that the skills challenge certificate actually does ensure that there is a broad curriculum and that children are exposed to different learning opportunities. And so, rather than narrowing it, I believe the Welsh bac helps us to make sure that there is an expansive curriculum, and that lots of different issues are explored in the skills challenge certificate that ensure not just academic skills are developed, but, actually, knowledge and skills of a wider range of subjects about you and your place in the world is available via this qualification. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, to what extent do you think that the Welsh bac should be give priority over other curriculum subjects? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't think it's—. It shouldn't be at the expense of other subjects. It should be part of that wide range of opportunities that are afforded to students, and I don't think it's more important or less important than other aspects of what we already ask schools to deliver. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about where we've taken representations that there's a lack of capacity in terms of all the extra pressures of studying the Welsh bac along with other qualifications? I went to a school in Bangor, and, again, as has been said here, it's very polarised, the evidence that we're taking—either some have found it very easy or some, including teachers, have found it extremely difficult to fit everything in, and they do believe that there is a lack of capacity there. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the onerous nature and the consequences of workload for teachers is acknowledged by the Qualifications Wales work and review into the qualification, and that is one of the things that we're looking to address so that the assessment arrangements and workload implications for teachers are not too onerous. And, if there is any element of duplication—students being asked to do things over and over—then that needs to be addressed as well, and that's why there is this review by the design group. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, how do you respond to concerns that learners are avoiding studying the Welsh bac— where they can, that is—by attending institutions in England or institutions that do not offer Welsh-medium provision? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's interesting, isn't it, about where children choose to study and whether they are motivated by the avoidance of the Welsh bac? People make decisions about where to study for a whole host of reasons, and it's difficult sometimes to quantify what those are. So, for instance, we often hear this along the border that, because—. The geography is not easy, but it can be relatively easy to go across into the English system and therefore you don't have to do this. Now, the reasons for that could be very variable. It could be about the nature of the offer. We know that, in some of our rural schools, the secondary sixth forms aren't able to offer a wide variety of A-levels, and perhaps, by going to a different institution, a larger institution across the way, then you can get that combination of the A-levels you want to do, which simply isn't possible if you do it in your home school. Or, we do have some consortia arrangements where A-levels are delivered across a wide variety of schools, which require students to travel. Some students don't want to do that; they don't want to do their A-levels in three different schools, but they'd rather go to an institution where they can do it all under one roof. And that means, sometimes, moving across the border or, in the area I live, children making the decision to go to Merthyr college, because its a lovely, beautiful new building, the facilities are absolutely fantastic and a wide variety of A-levels is available under one roof. We looked at, in particular, also, the perception of quality. So, if we take the example of King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, a school where, in the past, there have been, I think, within the community, some concerns about the quality of that school—whether it's regarded as a good school. And, from that particular location, you can quite easily get to Hereford college—a college that has a fantastic offer, does very, very well and has a beautiful building. What we do, if we look at the tracking of the students who have been retained in King Henry VIII, as that school has been on its improvement journey and has done better and better and better, the number of students that they are retaining into their sixth form has grown. So, the perception is, 'This is a good school, I'm going to get a good-quality experience here', and more and more students are choosing to stay in that school than perhaps make the decision to travel somewhere else. We also have to recognise that, for some students, staying in the sixth form isn't what they want to do; they want a different experience, they want to go to an FE college. They want a different experience. So, we have to take into consideration that students could be motivated by a wide variety of subjects, and there's no hard-and-fast evidence that it is avoidance of the bac that is the sole driver for some of these choices. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, on this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The evidence that we've had from one of the teaching unions—robust and clear evidence—is that this is happening, that is, that young people are leaving Wales to go over the border to schools in England in order to avoid the Welsh bac. That's exactly what was said to us. But you don't accept that evidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not saying that I don't accept it. I'm saying that I think there are a wide variety of reasons why students make decisions about where to study. I'm not aware of any comprehensive piece of work that has looked at those motivations, and I think there could be a whole host of reasons why children are deciding to move across the border. Perhaps the Welsh bac is an easy one to place that hook on, and that's easier to acknowledge, isn't it, than saying that perhaps students are making that choice for other reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions, then, are on teacher learning from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Actually, I've asked the question that I wanted to ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, you don't want to— +Suzy Davies AM: By all means you ask the others I had. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You have referred to training already. The committee's got two concerns, really. One is about preparedness in ITE to teach the Welsh bac, so I don't know if you want to expand on how teachers are being skilled up at that level to deliver the Welsh bac effectively. +Kirsty Williams AM: In the accreditation process, which has not been without its pain, and some significant decisions made in that regard, the criteria for the ITE programmes note that, and I'm going to quote it: 'Teachers should be able to help children and young people to make links across their learning, bringing together different aspects to examine, for example, important topics such as citizenship, enterprise, financial capability and sustainability.' So, the prime driver for our ITE reforms, obviously, is the preparedness for 'Successful Futures', but in preparing our teachers to be in a position to successfully deliver that, those are also the pedagogical principles and that shift in pedagogy that we see aligned to the Welsh baccalaureate. So, it is actually a part of the accreditation process that the curriculum that the new ITE providers will have to deliver—ensuring that teachers have those skills and have that confidence to be able to deliver their teaching in a way that, as I said, ensures that we successfully deliver on Donaldson, but also on the same pedagogical principles that are needed for the successful delivery of the Welsh bac. +Suzy Davies AM: In the pre-Donaldson period, then, bearing in mind what you've just said, do you expect to see a surge in improvement on how the baccalaureate is taken up by those schools that are currently less keen on it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I hope that we will see increased numbers of students taking the qualification and an increase in the quality of that experience for young people. As we discussed earlier, we're not just waiting for the new graduates to come out of our ITE providers. There's a whole cohort of the workforce already out there. They should be given an equal opportunity to ensure that they have the skills to deliver on our curriculum reforms and our reform qualifications, and every time the previous Government has brought in a reformed qualification there have been specific resources made available to ensure that teachers are in a position to do that. So, when we changed to maths numeracy, a new qualification that was to be examined, there was specific resource made available for the professional learning for teachers to make sure that they were in a position to do that, and that's exactly the same as the offer that we have available for teachers who are delivering the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And you've already said about continuing professional development, that this is going to be a core part of the CPD. Is there anything that you want to add on that? Is it going to be fully integrated into the professional learning offer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. There is already—I don't want to make the impression that there's not already support available out there. There is already support out there via regional consortia for professional learning with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate. There is existing support available from the WJEC with regard to Welsh baccalaureate, and it will continue, as we drive forward our national approach to professional learning. And, increasingly, there are interesting ways in which we're supporting students, so I don't know if Members are aware of the new MOOC. The University of Bath, one of the Russell Group universities, delivered a MOOC for the extended project qualification in England. +Lynne Neagle AM: What's a MOOC? [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: So, it is an online—a massive open online course. So, it's a course that is delivered free of charge, and it's delivered by information technology. So, the University of Bath have done this MOOC to support students with the EPQ. They have just launched, in conjunction with Aberystwyth University, a bilingual MOOC for the individual project for Welsh bac. It's our understanding it is the first ever Welsh-medium MOOC, we think; we're not aware of any others. And this resource is there for students to give them advice on how they do choose the thesis for their individual project: how do you go about, then, undertaking good independent research; how do you reference properly, to ensure that you do that correctly? And we've seen over 1,000 students already sign up for the MOOC. So, increasingly, there are lots and lots of new resources out there for both teachers and students to make the most of. And the fact that Bath and Aberystwyth have worked together on this, I believe, shows their commitment and a demonstration of their support for this qualification, otherwise why would the University of Bath bother, if they weren't interested in it? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me. I've written to you about a young constituent who moved institutions and resat the Welsh bac, but wasn't able, because of the WJEC policy, to obtain a higher grade in it, because they've got a policy that the grade is capped when you resit it. Given what the committee's been told about the variability in the way this is taught in institutions in Wales, do you think it's fair that young people shouldn't be able to go and resit it somewhere else and get a better grade? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, given that Welsh Ministers are independent of the qualification system, I would want to be careful about what I said, because it is for the WJEC and Qualifications Wales to regulate this. But, clearly, we would want to reflect on making sure that students have an opportunity, and a fair opportunity. Andrew, I don't know if you've got any observations that you'd like to make. +Andrew Clark: No, not really. I think it's an individual case, this one— +Lynne Neagle AM: But it could apply to lots of young people, couldn't it? I mean, that's the point here. I know it's a constituent's case and I don't normally raise those in the Chair, but I think, given what we've learned about variability, it is a valid issue for young people in Wales, really. +Andrew Clark: Yes, whether it's particularly related to the Welsh baccalaureate, though, I'm not so certain. And I think that would be a better question to ask the WJEC, perhaps, and Qualifications Wales, because it's a deliberate act that that activity is at arm's length from Welsh Ministers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and her officials for attending? We've had a very useful discussion this morning, which will inform our report on this. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, but thank you again for your attendance. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Llywydd to the First Minister on the role of the Assembly in the process of legislating for Brexit. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning with additional information following the meeting on 8 November. Are Members happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make a comment on the first of those letters, the one from the Llywydd? I recommend to Assembly Members that they read that again if they can, because, actually, it's an important issue that is easily lost in the other things that we talk about with Brexit, and that is the role of this Assembly in scrutinising secondary legislation falling out of Brexit. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask a question? Was that a reflection of all the Chairs? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. It came to the panel of Chairs— +Hefin David AM: And it was obviously unanimous— +Lynne Neagle AM: —and we agreed that we wanted that letter sent. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4 is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee met to discuss the status of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification with Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and other education leaders. Discussion topics included the value of the Welsh Bac to learners and teachers, the effect of school leadership on the qualification's perception, employer and university recognition of the Welsh Bac, the possibility of universal adoption, and the broader impact on the educational provision. There were also questions about teacher preparedness and continuing professional development relevant to the Welsh Bac. The committee noted a letter from the Llywydd regarding the Assembly's role in Brexit legislation and additional information from a previous meeting. They also voted to exclude the public for the rest of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , Project Manager , I have something to tell you . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I have a little problems with my laptop . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And uh s s s so I had a little less time to complete . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: No , a little problem , uh {vocalsound} big problem . I just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: What was it , problem ? +User Interface: Um , it didn't work anymore . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The laptop ? +User Interface: The entire Windows uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It hang {disfmarker} hung . +User Interface: It it hung . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha-ha . Oh . Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You're our Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome to the conceptual design meeting +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , hello again . Uh it's uh the same as the last time . Uh uh , also this time there will be uh three presentations . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we um must uh reach a decision on uh the remote control concepts . Um uh , and at the end , uh I uh , when I finish it off I have some uh input from uh a master class I uh {vocalsound} visited . {vocalsound} {gap} information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: During lunch , yeah . +Marketing: Master . +User Interface: He's the master , yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the the the concepts on uh {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} where we uh must reach a decision on . Um uh , our {disfmarker} from uh are of two sorts . +Marketing: Master of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Components concepts and user interface concepts . Uh , the first one is uh really about the the the the the total package uh with uh {disfmarker} Well , we have decided to do a {disfmarker} do the uh {disfmarker} with a touch-screen that must be a case around it so uh it won't be uh uh as breakable . Uh how how about the energy ? Can you uh can you reload it or uh just have batteries which you must exchange ? Uh , the user interface concept . Uh , with the type and uh the the supplements . So uh where to put what button . {vocalsound} And uh uh I would say uh {disfmarker} Jans , can you begin ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At the end , uh {disfmarker} I will take notes uh and at the end of the minutes uh will uh be at the shared folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , let me see . I think it's this one . Ha . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh , well , I'll be talking about the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , what I did was I reviewed previously used items uh by uh two two uh different uh age groups . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh below forty five and above . And uh I just uh watch what the differences are and I checked uh , well , what what d do we want , and {gap} how can we uh d aim a at uh the target group . Well uh what I found was that a senior um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} senior citizens uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ye Ah , it's {vocalsound} it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They , well , they like more the {disfmarker} they like the traditional materials , like wood and and such more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wood and chrome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh uh they like uh straightforward shapes . Um , uh they they they they like luxurious uh styles , where whereas the young and dynamic , they like a more uh soft materials . Think of the Teletubbies , for instance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh , soft and fluffy and colourful and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh , shapes are curved and round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y y you get {vocalsound} the picture . And uh they like sports and gaming , and that gives them uh the vitality . Uh , so w well uh , firs +Project Manager: One one little question . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um about the the material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh a soft material for a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'll I'll get to that . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you'll see . Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , well f first off , let's start start with the energy . W I uh I had a choice between uh a few different uh sources . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh the two basic sources that I found were the best possible were the battery uh versus kinetic . Uh kinetic , that's when you move something , then uh it gets energy . I figured , well that's ki kinda high-tech , when when you have a remote control that well , when you pick it up , it has power . That would be actually very nice , uh I figured . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could also use a battery , that's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but when the power gets low , you have to shake it or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah , you c just you have to shake it around a little bit . +Marketing: Uh , and uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then then it d then it has some more uh energy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well , y you could just go for a battery . Or you can go for both ? +User Interface: Oh , have you considered the option of using a solar panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I actually did . But uh the thing is about solar panel is you have to have l uh light . Well , sunlight preferably . +User Interface: W {gap} nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , and you you could you could use normal light , but uh you wouldn't get the same amount of energy that you would from a battery or something . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for uh ultimate b uh {vocalsound} n uh use of uh solar panels , you could actually use uh {disfmarker} you could use uh solar panels , but uh you ha you'd have to implement them into uh the remote control , leaving you uh a bit less space for the interface . +Marketing: Mm yeah . It's too less space . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} so i i it it wo what's actually {disfmarker} I I c just in f I've figured it out that well , uh seeing that you'll always be uh within the l uh distance of T_V_ , and the {disfmarker} from T_V_ there comes a a a whole bunch of light . So it would actually power itself uh from a T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well you just take up all the space , and you wouldn't uh have the full amount of power actually used . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you prefer kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} I I prefer kinetic because it's uh {disfmarker} well , the costs aren't that much higher , and um , ju just a bit more high-tech than than a normal battery . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you don't move a a remote control too much . +Industrial Designer: I mean , if {disfmarker} No , but uh d Well , you pick it up and you press buttons and y well , you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's enough to to keep the energy level uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well uh actually it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it it {disfmarker} if it isn't , you just shake it a bit and and add add with power up again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , what l what Jarek said , you could you could use a battery that you'd just keep it on the recharging whenever it moves . And for rest , you'd just add juice on the battery . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And when the battery doesn't work , I usually shake it too . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like slamming on it . {vocalsound} It's exactly the same . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: f furthermore , you you {disfmarker} we {gap} {disfmarker} uh checked uh the cases . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have uh different options uh concerning the cases . You ha I {disfmarker} you sim uh you simply add a basic uh standard uh model uh {disfmarker} it was kind of square and uh I figured that's a bit boring . So you you {disfmarker} we could go for uh the single curved or the double curved . Um , single curve , it's just a {disfmarker} well , uh , you know , it's just uh a nice curve . Or but but you could go in a in an double curves . And that's {gap} like several different dimensions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That gives you an whole new uh effec +Project Manager: Dynamic dynamic look ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that gives you a younger and uh more high-tech look , I f I figured . But , that uh we'll discuss later . +Marketing: But , are you going to draw it ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Th th yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You want me to draw in three-D_ ? +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I c I can't imagine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , yeah , I ca I ca I could I could show you . I could show you . +Marketing: I can't imagine how how how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh let's say y uh you uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that's your standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit your d standard design . But you could actually go like uh something like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh in three-D_ effect you could go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So y you you just {disfmarker} Yeah , this is a {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} bit uh difficulty in {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't take a major in art . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But but you could have uh uh a whole new uh the back back the the the depth , you could you could uh just play around a bit with . +Marketing: Oh , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You you don't have to use standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: A little artistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could {disfmarker} y It leaves more space for creativity . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh that might be an idea , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} just a {disfmarker} Well , furthermore , uh well , uh plastic versus rubber ? You {disfmarker} We could choose uh what uh what's better , plastic um or rubber . I I ch prefer rubber because it feels uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's soft and it's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like soft . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the material the younger people want uh , ain't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I mean uh plastic uh is {disfmarker} Plastic also has that cheap feeling to it , {vocalsound} like plastic uh {disfmarker} Your your {disfmarker} I usually associate plastic with uh something that's cheap . Uh that's maybe just me , but {disfmarker} Uh , we could uh uh , oh , talk about it later . Uh furthermore , buttons . Uh traditional uh or a touch screen . Well , we discussed it in a previous meeting , so I figured I'll just leave it at the L_C_D_ . And uh chip set , well uh if we are going to use traditional buttons , we could go uh with a simple chip set . But uh if we decide to go on a n uh um L_C_D_ screen , we would use an uh {disfmarker} we have to use an a advanced chip set . And that would bring uh the necessary costs with with it . So that's something we th have to keep in mind . If it isn't uh manageable uh budget-wise , we'd have to go over to uh to sim to simple buttons . +Marketing: Well , I think uh we're going to sell tell {disfmarker} ten millions of them . So uh I bet a big company in uh Korea or Taiwan , like uh Samsung , can give us uh a big discount on the chips , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: U usually , chips are uh aren't more expensive than one dollar . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably , but {disfmarker} But uh yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That that shouldn't be a real issue , I think . +Industrial Designer: That shouldn't shouldn't be uh that big a issue . I'll I'll I'll just add , uh uh I put a big summary here , so we could discuss it a bit . Uh {gap} what i what are your ideas {gap} concerning battery versus kinetic ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I think you should use kinetic as a back-up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you you should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , a combination . +User Interface: A combination , yeah . +Industrial Designer: A combination . Uh , {gap} you use the battery and w charge it up with kinetic . When you pick it up , it charges up . +Marketing: Yeah . Like an uh aku uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Acu uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , I know . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Just like the watch from Seiko . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Psycho-kinetic . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I con Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what do you think ? +Project Manager: I I uh I would prefer uh both uh too . +Industrial Designer: You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Both ? +Marketing: Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , well that would bring the m m some more costs , but I mean the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who cares , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the Project Manager's problem . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Buy a fifty cents battery and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . Fifty cent . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifty cent uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , why doesn't {disfmarker} And then we have single-curved versus double-curved . +User Interface: Well maybe I have something in my presentation to uh to cope with that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . No , we'll we'll just wait and uh {disfmarker} Uh , plastic versus rubber . Any ideas ? +Marketing: Rubber . +Project Manager: Rubber . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , rubber ? +User Interface: Um , isn't possible to make combination with kind of rubber is {gap} or bendable remotes where you've got a {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or do you think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I figured it will be m rather than hard {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rubber casing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Nah , rubber c uh this is a casing , yeah . Rubber casing , +Marketing: Rather hard . +Industrial Designer: because well if you use an uh d a touch-screen , uh it's just a casing uh around it . So um , you could go for plastic , but I figured {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well d Maybe I can ask it right now the question that I have . +Industrial Designer: I I I would choose rubber . +User Interface: Uh , is it possible uh of {disfmarker} is it necessary to make a touch-screen square ? It isn't , I think , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Well , m I don't know . No . +Marketing: Well , I think that touch-screens are generally square . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's the case you put around it that makes the shape . +User Interface: We're {disfmarker} We put fashion in electronics , +Industrial Designer: That isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: so maybe we can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah okay , but if you have a square uh L_C_D_ screen , and you put a case around it that has uh like bulbs or that that covers part of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would cover it . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that would solve the problem . +User Interface: Oh , yeah . Okay , I I get it . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's custom customisable and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} Uh uh so uh so what are the opinions ? Uh rubber or plastic ? I I I prefer rubber . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Me too . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you too ? +User Interface: That's good . +Industrial Designer: You sure ? You {gap} you you seemed to hesitate a bit . +User Interface: Well , as long a as long as it's it's uh it's firm , and you don't uh {disfmarker} it's not bendable or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I th I think that goes too far . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it it shouldn't it shouldn't flop over when you hold it in your hand uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , that that that that's gonna {disfmarker} The the chip set will hold it firm in place , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh and and uh and a L_C_D_ screen also {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might even bounce back when you drop it on the floor . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it {vocalsound} m might it might . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , tra uh traditional versus L_C_D_ , well I figured we we all set on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh , then also the simple versus advanced . Well I figure if we go for L_ L_C_D_ , we we should have the advanced . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't be a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well that's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Uh , you're welcome . +Marketing: Can I uh do my thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Do your thing , Tim . +Marketing: It uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do your thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bring it on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Expert map . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh {disfmarker} Last week +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I went to uh Paris and Milan for some trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: For marketing . Our research and development department and I went to Paris and Milan . In Paris and Milan , we uh asked different people , uh differing in age and in income , uh the amount of money to spend , um {vocalsound} what they like in design uh and material nowadays . Findings . Our main audience , uh so that's people below forty , uh prefer the following . At first , the colours of fruit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very basic colours , like Janus explained . Um , fresh colours , uh green , red , uh strawberry red , uh yellow , banana yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , considering material , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . They like spongy material , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Spongeball . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} yeah a sponge-ball . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like a s soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Janus m uh mentioned it also . I think he did some uh some findings himself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , the Teletubbies sh {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You wer you weren't in Paris ? {vocalsound} Okay . Like this . Like big uh g flashy colours . Fresh . +Project Manager: Flashy . Yeah . +Marketing: It's nice , I think . Okay , our secondary audience , uh people above forty a forty years in age , they like the dark traditional colours . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh materials like wood that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but wood is not a not a material you {disfmarker} which you build a a remote control of . +Industrial Designer: Well , you could . You you could . +Marketing: No n j just j just a w +Project Manager: Yeah but {vocalsound} never seen one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll float . +Marketing: No , okay , but just just a wooden uh look . +Project Manager: Case . Oh , a wooden look , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like uh you have those fake uh fake panels on the floor . +User Interface: Tables . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} that isn't wood anyway , but {disfmarker} Okay ? {vocalsound} But , that's our secondary audience . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , uh we decided to take mm yeah the people below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , that {disfmarker} this doesn't apply . 'Kay , the third . Uh , there're some overall thoughts about new remote controls . They have to look fancy . Um , they should be technological in innovative . That means uh there have to be fancy things in . Uh , and easy to use . But that's common . My personal preferences . We have to aim at a mu at the {gap} main audience . And uh , therefore use fresh colours . +Project Manager: Would you prefer uh uh {gap} that you can choose the colour of your uh remote control or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'll I'll come to that in a second point . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , think about removable covers , as seen in mobile telephon telephone market . To customise your own remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like the Nokia uh the removable covers , uh just put a red on it and go to the shop and buy a green one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Uh , a third , material being used uh could well be stuff like rubber . Um , two advantages . Uh , it fits within the current market trends . And uh it adds safety to your remote uh when you drop it . So {disfmarker} Uh to come back to your question , I think uh and the people in Milan and Paris also think that uh the rubber should be pretty hard . Like uh seen on regular mobile phones . Actually , they have a lot in common . The phones and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I actually saw a phone that you could use as a remote , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe you could use your remote as a phone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hey . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: There are numbers on it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That might be a next step . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , in my second sheet of personal preferences , uh we have to reconsider the speech function {vocalsound} uh recognition . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , it's very innovative . Innovative . +Project Manager: So that you say um S_P_S_S_ , and it goes to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You you can see that the market is just screaming for new technologies , like speak {disfmarker} uh speech recognition and stuff . But , we have to keep the cost in uh in mind , but it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it it can be uh very expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , second . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , building games like Snake or Tetris {vocalsound} to amuse the younger users . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , also the link with uh mobile phones . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't use that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} th games when you watching television , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} No , okay . But you don't use games when you're d when you're making a telephone call . It's just the same . +User Interface: When your parents are watching some boring program , you can take the remote and do something else . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: When you're at college . +Project Manager: You take your remote control with you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You take your uh remote with you to school . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . You al {vocalsound} you also take {vocalsound} uh t {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you take your IPac and go uh play games . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Well , I do that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And third , I stick with it , {vocalsound} the log-in functionality uh with the slogan , take parental control to a new dimension . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ooh . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh great {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: In {disfmarker} Okay . Um the interface contents . Well that's a just simple PowerPoint mock-up I want to m make it more as dynamic for you so I'll draw there . But , the main concept is um take one big touch screen . Um , always display the primary buttons clear and visible . Maybe even li like this with uh {vocalsound} u uses of a lot of space . And uh make the menu structure changeable . So if you press um system , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well m multiple system options can , maybe five or ten or or one , can fit in . Or maybe even a step further when you want to um t um have some other options that are not programmable with one horizontal button . And um other buttons can may be displayed here if that's necessary . And um well , how do {disfmarker} uh do we want to look at uh uh f um {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} Does a remote look {disfmarker} Well , it's {disfmarker} you've gotta hold it in one hand . So um the middle like all remotes have to be in a little bit small , so you can put it in inside your hands . And some remotes you can use with your thumb . But I think that's too difficult for this one . So you can make it s a little broader . Yeah . And here ? And maybe use your thumb on the on the main buttons . And use your other hands on the menu structure . So here are gonna be the program buttons . One , two {vocalsound} , three , four , et cetera . And the the volume control and program control maybe . And , down here , um , I added , this could be one uh big L_C_D_ . Um , the menu structure . So you can use it in uh in this way . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One thing you've gotta keep in mind , keep the remote clear of too much functions at the same time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} know that if you are changing the menu structure here , um {disfmarker} And well , I still believe you should keep displaying the buttons . But if you're programming the colour of the T_V_ , do not display twenty other options that are possible . Just keep it as simple as uh as possible . And do not use too many levels . Do not have to select a screen first and then brightness and then colour and un-plus , and um push plus twenty times . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But just the um uh just in one button if possible . And um , well , you kn you all know the T_V_ levels . Um , channel one , two . And when you get to n to uh to ten , ye and want to go back , uh well you have a problem . Just m most most modern T_V_s , you {gap} {disfmarker} you press one zero , and it goes to ten . And else , to one and through after that . So the s a button less . And um , things like teletext , put them in the menu . Things like um um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , what do you think about a back-and-forth come-up uh button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah w Yeah , I I find I must trying to uh tell it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} L like in uh internet explorer . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is uh volume plus and minus ? And this is program uh plus and minus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but does it {disfmarker} that is for uh going from four to five . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: But if you go from two to eight , and you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if you're watching Studio Sports on uh on seventeen , and your wife is watching some soap on two {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and on two . That you can switch switch easy . +User Interface: Well yes , I think that's a good idea . But um , well m my preference would to be put it in the menu structure . +Marketing: Yeah it is . Yeah . +User Interface: And if you're using that button a lot of times , well of course the menu will still be displayed on the screen . You just don't have to play games uh in-between . But if you're really switching between two channels , you won't have time uh to d use the other options . +Marketing: Mm no . +User Interface: Um , yeah already already told that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Yeah . That's my conclusion . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I think we can discuss a little about the the three uh kind of revolutionary things uh Tim uh came with . The parental control , the games , and the voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's n not uh too much decision on uh that one so uh {disfmarker} I think that parental control is a good function to uh to put in the remote . I don't know how you think about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I agree , just put it in the menu structure somewhere . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , yeah um system properties , um parental control . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} What I see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How I see it is you put it on the the remote and then you have like a Windows log-on screen with parents , children . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +User Interface: Um , w well , yeah . +Marketing: And w when you want to use the parents uh option , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it has to be fast . You don't want to to go down and watch the news at eight o'clock and turn it on and wait twenty seconds for for uh the log-on screen and then remember your code and all kinds of settings . +Marketing: Yeah , ok +Project Manager: No but I think most people uh find it uh much more important that their children don't watch uh sex or violence uh on the television , and uh wait uh ten or fifteen seconds longer , so they can uh finally watch it uh because of that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Why {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . You c may use {disfmarker} like when there's uh X_P_ , uh a simple log-on , d you just push uh one or two or three . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Pu push parents . +User Interface: And if you push parents , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} then then then you have to uh go to three-digit uh log-in . +User Interface: Yeah . To log in . Yeah . And if you puts a ye +Marketing: Like two one three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And it's in . +User Interface: And if you w you push p children , uh you don't have to uh log in , but you can only watch uh children's channels or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It automatically goes {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know if it's worth uh the time and effort we are going to spend on it . Because well it's a simple function , but it's gonna take a lot of resources and a lot of time um to programming it . Because you'll have to start working with the profiles and such . And I'm not sure if it's actually worth uh investing that much time and effort into it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well I think that's a b there's a big market for it , +Industrial Designer: I don't know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because uh you {disfmarker} Yeah , you read many times in magazines same kind of stuff , and you heard on the news that uh that he Yeah , they believe that children uh are influenced by the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . V violent T_V_ . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} Well , we're we're aiming uh to uh below uh forty uh years . But there are a lot of uh people will below forty who have uh children in young age uh who who want um to uh not watch uh violent or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe um some idea on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make through a remote as it is , but make an option to insert profiles , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause if my grandad would buy this remote , he wouldn't want to bother with all all the all the {gap} uh things to do . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make it an option in menu , ins install powerful profiles or something . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a that's a better idea ? +Marketing: Yeah , w It just has to be w when it's deliver out of the store , it has to be just simple and plain . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: But if you want to install it personally uh {disfmarker} If I got kids , and I could choose between uh two remote controls . One uh w with parent control and one without , and I would would buy the one with . +Project Manager: Yeah , with and one without . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , b well , still some question I have about how to incorporate those ones . +Marketing: I th Yeah . +User Interface: You're thinking about some channels they uh cannot see , but well , {vocalsound} I I {vocalsound} when I think , oh yeah , for the f for all the standard channels , and only for maybe after ten o'clock uh in the evening violent films and movies uh will come +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh maybe maybe some some timing uh will be uh needed {vocalsound} instead of uh of channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: because if you're watching uh , I don't know , you're in the {disfmarker} at day uh , cartoons will come up m on maybe Friday night . {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe it can work with show view . Uh , you you can control your video recorder with show view . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , when you tick in a number , it will uh start and end uh recording . But maybe there's some option that uh that t uh the kind of show view numbers are violent , and that they are blocked out . +User Interface: Yeah , the disadvantage vantage is that someone will has to send all the show-view numbers of the programs that they {gap} remotes and edit it all , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: will have to decide uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but yeah but that isn't possible . +User Interface: That isn't possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well , if you want to {disfmarker} I i i if we in incorporate uh the parental control , uh let's say we do , and and well whatever , cho uh child just goes up to the T_V_ and presses up {vocalsound} for instance . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well uh , nob nobody's stopping the child from uh well checking uh the channel . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Well , yeah you could say if parental control is only {disfmarker} it it'll go from fourteen to sixteen with the page-up then , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that {disfmarker} Well , I'm not sure because um for that to happen , you d you will have to receive a signal from the uh remote control , so it would , yeah , have to be constant uh constant signalling . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: What m what may be better is to incorporate an uh a separate device that uh that you can program with the remote control . And that uh provides parental control , for instance . And that's just an optional uh device . So there's n that's {disfmarker} there's {gap} {disfmarker} uh besides uh the remote control , you'll have a separate uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: I wouldn't put it in an optional device . That that then then then it becomes too much , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: If we do it , we we must do it in a kind of ways that like a profile , a parent profile , and a family profile , and otherwise . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on a separate menu uh option . +Marketing: And and you know w uh when you install another device , uh children can still go up to the T_V_ , p pop open uh the thing and and and g +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . That's true , +Marketing: go to a channel . +Industrial Designer: but uh at same instant , same happens when uh you have remote control . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah of course . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But , only difference is uh {vocalsound} the uh the people buying the remote control will now get the f added feature of parental control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and those people wouldn't uh necessary want it . +Marketing: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , you {disfmarker} you'd be +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But it's just an an added feature feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And what do you uh guys think of the games in the voice recognition ? I personally think that that becomes too much . +User Interface: Yeah , well yeah , I {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more like it gets you to the functionality , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mail too from management that it's very popular to use voice recon recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But I don't think when you're watching T_V_ uh , hearing loud noises from the T_V_ , someone screaming {vocalsound} one , and you f the channel switches , uh {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , like f voice recognition is too much , I think . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And games ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} games . It doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can see games happening . Yeah . +User Interface: W you can put it on chip anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} As long as it's {disfmarker} isn't a primary feature of the remote , +Marketing: That that doesn't c that doesn't co +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that that doesn't cost a lot of extra resources , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . So that will uh {disfmarker} that that that must be in it , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that will be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . So the games uh are in it . The voice recognition are not . And the parental control are +User Interface: Optional in +Project Manager: optional ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's in it . But too ma I I think so , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But how we do it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think also it's a good idea , buts very difficult to incorporate . So we should make it too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is t some menu uh function , you choose parental control , and maybe four files will emerge from menu where put it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh how how it's gonna work uh uh will f be a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh , but uh will there uh uh {disfmarker} Like the first idea uh from uh {disfmarker} You can buy it without and uh with parental contr control ? Or are we going to put it in and uh just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well {disfmarker} Ye I I think best would be uh to put it in and {vocalsound} make it an menu option . +Marketing: To put {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can put on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to put it in always . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . And you can just uh s when you buy it , you can select um personal preference , parental control on , and the password or something . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't know . I I figure if you had two different remotes , you could bo choose one with uh well uh uh a receiver in it . So you could actually easily uh build in uh parental control . But it would would be uh more expensive . So , a and that that way uh you could make cheap model and a expensive model . Could ma make the uh {gap} simple model and the deluxe model , uh for instance . +User Interface: Oh , it's a p Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but T_V_s aren't capable of sending . +Industrial Designer: Yes they are . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? I thought they were just +Project Manager: Yeah , you yo +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you have some T_V_s {gap} any {disfmarker} +Marketing: a able to receive . Yeah , some . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most often not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That is true , that is true . +User Interface: Well , maybe you just have to restrict it to what programs , where the parent says , you cannot watch channel seven , nine , and ten , and you cannot watch all channels after ten o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And there's just some little uh clock in the remote . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you could you could easily you could easily you could easily {gap} to the mote control . +Marketing: Yeah , j just some rules . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you still have the problem about uh the television itself . +User Interface: No , no , it's very simple . There uh th I h I've seen some of {gap} remotes who have a clock in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: So , the remote does doesn't transmit when it's after twelve clock . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But , on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: at least my T_V_ , is a is a compartment which you can press . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And there are buttons uh behind it which you can use , if you d if you don't if you don't have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , that's {disfmarker} To put it very blunt , that's not our problem . Just have um the parents buy uh some glue and uh {disfmarker} It's not not a part of the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is true . Yeah , that is true . +User Interface: You have to f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could you could go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , or make it ourselves very diffic +Industrial Designer: uh that that would actually make uh things a lot more easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just blame it on television and uh make it their problem . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I figured {disfmarker} I figure we could do that . Yeah , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm not sure what marketing thinks about it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or j Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I have to uh {vocalsound} consult my legal advisor about it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So uh I think we have decided on the things that {disfmarker} Uh from Janus , the energy , the combination between battery and kinetic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The case will be double-curved and uh rubber , in a fr flashy fruity colour uh that {disfmarker} with cover is removable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons will be uh touch-screen . Uh but there may not be too many buttons . And in the the menu structure , uh there must not to be uh {disfmarker} Five minutes to go . Uh , too uh too many levels . And uh it must be easy to use . The parental control will be incorporated , but it must be not too complex . And the games {gap} are in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we have uh we have decided uh , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Consensus . +Project Manager: Uh , little more . +Marketing: Oh . Oh . I I have one thing left . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe for uh Jerome . +User Interface: Yeah ? I'm listening . +Marketing: Um , the views . Maybe it's uh handy to build in an expert view and a simple view . +Project Manager: Like a like a moat or s or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: User profile . +Marketing: Like at {disfmarker} In the experts view , you have a lot of more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have that in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking about is just a menu structure , when you don't use it is simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . You use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: And when you push uh system properties , uh entire list pops up with e ev all kind of f stuff you can program . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's already incorporated a little in that concept . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay . Fairly enough . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you you could actually build in a function that you can program it yourself , for the more advanced users . +Marketing: Yeah , wh which buttons you like or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which buttons do you want to in it . Because you can you can like build in a back-forward button , and uh some po somebody would just want to watch two channels . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Just leave the other numbers away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could m have people want uh want that . +Project Manager: We take it to the other meeting , okay ? I have a little w uh little chat to do +Marketing: Okay . Go on . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah , sure . +Project Manager: and uh then we uh finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little chat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I went to uh a master class and uh uh two things uh are uh are uh {disfmarker} can come in handy uh for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: First thing uh is uh we talked about knowledge uh management . Knowledge engineering and uh uh the fact that uh that uh that the idea of knowledge , uh sharing and learning knowledge from other companies is {gap} uh like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's it's uh very hot at the moment , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's it's mostly for the management expert to to look what other uh +Marketing: Marketing . +Project Manager: marketing {disfmarker} or did I said management ? +Marketing: Management . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Just talking about myself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's my function , to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} W {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What other companies uh had to uh also with the the the the marketing campaign when they put on a newer remote , just some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Import export . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som some bench-marker . +Project Manager: Uh , they're a ha they're at {disfmarker} Yeah , benchmarking , that's the word I saw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh couldn't uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh another uh thing is uh there were there there was a survey , and um uh it came out that um people like to buy things from a single large provider , instead of those who uh are partnering uh with us . So , we must uh we must bring it as if uh Real Reaction is uh is big company , uh a trustful company , and uh it has m +Marketing: How {disfmarker} I know a marketing name for our product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: R_ th R_ to the third power . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: R_ three . Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I had a I had another idea to put uh uh the whole the whole idea of uh Real Reaction and uh uh uh a single brand and uh uh that kind of thing . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Project Manager: When you uh put on remote , you see a kind of a {disfmarker} just like when you telephone , you see a little uh animation . +User Interface: Uh , logo . Yeah ? +Marketing: Bling . +Project Manager: Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh with the with the with the motto , we put fashion in electronics . And then you go uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but it has to be like a split second , because {vocalsound} you have to put in a code also and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , you can show somebody a logo for point five seconds , they'll still remember it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . But w th the idea from this uh thing is that we must present it as a {disfmarker} as we are a a single large provider who will stand on our own . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it it l linger on every time you see it . +Industrial Designer: Well , if you if you have the l L_C_D_ screen , you can {gap} you can uh have a small logo i uh at the bottom . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it could just stay there . +Marketing: That spins around like all the time . +Project Manager: Mm yep , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Very annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that spins around or something . +Project Manager: Also also . But we we are uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: It it's just like a uh globe in Internet Explorer . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah y yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , something like that . A small icon . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh think about that kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} It's ok For f +Project Manager: That's what they said in the master class . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh , for the next meeting , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: N {vocalsound} Uh , next meeting starts in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Who uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So uh maybe you can go to Paris and Milan uh {vocalsound} once again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who who gave you the master class ? +Project Manager: The master class ? +Marketing: Ronald Betenberg ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Franz Mehler's . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , very special , uh next uh session . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh idea that you uh {disfmarker} the the industrial uh development uh centre {vocalsound} and uh user interface uh will work together on a prototype . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh will drawing it on the SMARTboard . So that's a kinda new uh thing . And um , the marketing expert will uh will uh ke he will be keeping busy with the product uh evaluation . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: But the most uh specific instructions will be sent to you by email . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we're going to work together right now ? +User Interface: Stay here and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , the {disfmarker} well , uh dids this what I uh what I heard . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: In the master class . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not in the master class . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you uh just wait for the specific instructions and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} P_ . +Project Manager: But I think it was a very uh very good uh session , uh gentlemen . +User Interface: Ah , no new email . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Me too . +Project Manager: I will thank you all . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well thank you too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you . Thank you very much . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thank you too , lord . +Project Manager: Give me a good evaluation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay guys , lot of success . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Industrial Designer: M Aye ? Cheers . +Project Manager: Cheers . See you in a half hour . +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: But keep an eye on your uh laptops for a real uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I'm not sure if we uh we {disfmarker} Because I saw something about individual actions . +Project Manager: Yeah , but th there's there's still the my uh instructions that you will work together . +User Interface: Yeah . Here ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's not my problem . +User Interface: Yeah . If you got a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bye-bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid manager . +Project Manager: The project manager always works alone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} Do you have new email ? +User Interface: No . Don't get what's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +","The project team, including the Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing Expert, have met to discuss various aspects of their project involving the conceptual design for a product called ""Real Reaction."" The User Interface Designer reports a laptop issue that hindered progress. The team collaboratively discusses the remote control design, touching on elements such as energy sources (battery and kinetic), materials (rubber versus plastic), and aesthetics (curved design). They agree to combine both battery and kinetic energies and decide on a rubber casing. + +Marketing presents findings from trend-watching in Paris and Milan, highlighting preferences for fresh fruity colors and hard rubber material for the younger demographic, while older audiences prefer dark traditional colors and materials like wood. They also explore the idea of incorporating parental control in a simple, non-complex way and consider including games in the remote but not voice recognition. + +The Project Manager shares insights from a master class about knowledge management and the benefits of being viewed as a single, large provider rather than relying on partnerships. There's an emphasis on presenting Real Reaction as a trustworthy company, with suggestions of including a startup animation displaying the logo and slogan. A follow-up meeting is planned where the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer will work together on a prototype, with instructions to be sent via email. The session ends with the Project Manager departing and the other team members staying back, potentially waiting for further instructions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults—we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues—diabetes is often cited—cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices. +Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already. +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed? +Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target—we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on—but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question—'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?' +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target. +Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too? +Nathan Cook: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process—and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn—we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions—that's the point we need to consult on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan? +Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of £8 million to £10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy. +Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is—what the goal is? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for? +Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to—? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the £7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? +Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about £56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated—. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures. +Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised £150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was £520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential—£150 million. +Nathan Cook: On a UK level. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential? +Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing £8 million to £10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Siân moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to—? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from—. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference—it's a personal view—is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying, 'Here's a sugar levy', and 'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.' Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful. +Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask— +Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter.] +Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that? +Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see—and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister? +Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as—I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Siân Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us—. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask—sorry to interrupt—how up to date is that? +Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year. +Nathan Cook: The data was published last week. +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows—. It's not getting radically worse—there's always statistical variation in these things—but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11—at age 11 or 12., that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation—the point that was made earlier. +Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be—. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data? +Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years—what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to,  but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation? +Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got—we need to deploy them all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know—. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system—and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question—a really important question—about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now—some London boroughs are now—experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes—. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would—it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well. +Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and—. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we—enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours—that's exactly why we need the consultation. +Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having—you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right—obviously, parents have a role in this, or families—there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at. +Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask: 'you're the accountable person—why has something worked, or not worked?' We will need to know that at some point. +Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools—I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented—the school came and some of the children came and presented—to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was, 'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway. +Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce—education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old—. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today. +Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair? +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like? +Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So—I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question. +Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales—we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well. +Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team—I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that—? I felt completely alienated in school. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences. +Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key? +Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports. +Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do. +Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think—. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education? +Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a— +Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet. +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer. +Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would—. +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is—. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research? +Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember—? You must have seen on tv—I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales—parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools? +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that £56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows? +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations—the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer? +Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it. +Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people? +Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that. +Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that. +Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have—and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we—the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes—Healthy Working Wales, et cetera—that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far. +Nathan Cook: Can I just say—? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms—broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms—about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind—I'm a public health professional—and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about, 'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?' That's true for adults and it's true for children as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again. +Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children’s mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children’s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +","The Children, Young People, and Education Committee met to discuss the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy, focusing on its potential impact on children and young people. Dr. Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government, were in attendance to provide evidence and answer the committee's questions. + +The discussion began with Lynne Neagle AM welcoming everyone and noting apologies from absent members. Dr. Atherton expressed confidence in the strategy addressing the needs of children and young people and highlighted the importance of focusing on the next generation to prevent obesity-related issues. Engagement with children and young people was discussed, with examples of consultations and events with educational institutions and youth ambassadors. + +The committee then inquired about leadership and target setting for reducing childhood obesity. Dr. Atherton advised not adopting aspirational yet unachievable targets, suggesting that if Wales were to set a target, it needed to balance deliverability with challenge. The importance of evaluating progress with appropriate metrics was discussed, as well as the possible financial resources required for implementing the plan. + +There was a conversation about utilizing the planning system to restrict fast food outlets near schools, and Dr. Atherton indicated openness to exploring the impact of such measures based on evidence from other UK areas. + +The committee raised concerns about physical activity in schools and the importance of engaging children to lead active lifestyles. Dr. Atherton and Mr. Cook discussed strategies to make physical activity enjoyable and the idea of utilizing school facilities for community sports. + +Discussions also included reviewing the clinical obesity pathway for children and the importance of addressing family influences on children's health, particularly in the first 1,000 days of life. + +The necessity to support low-income families in making healthier food choices was highlighted, with reference to the socio-economic factors influencing obesity rates. + +The committee agreed to note several letters and reports relevant to their work, including correspondence on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and several education-related topics. + +Finally, the committee resolved to exclude the public from the rest of the meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you that, when speaking, you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. I understand we don't have any ministerial announcements today, so we'll proceed to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition will be presented by Ms.May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise in meeting number 22 of the COVID-19 committee, otherwise known as something like the House of Commons. I'm here to present two petitions containing hundreds of signatures on the issue of the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the People's Republic of China, particularly the practice that's alleged of involuntary organ harvesting. The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to condemn this practice and to publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China. The second petition is from residents throughout SaanichGulf Islands concerned about what was, at the time this petition was submitted, a future problem. It remains an issue, and I present it on behalf of petitioners who wish the Government of Canada not to put public funds into purchasing or maintaining the Trans Mountain pipeline or towards any expansion of the pipeline. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise to table two petitions. The first petition deals with the COVID-19 situation. The petitioners note the pandemic is having a devastating impact on many Canadians nationwide, especially those who have low to modest income, small business gig workers, freelancers, artists, film industry workers, non-salaried workers and individuals on fixed incomes such as seniors and those on disability. It further notes that rent, mortgage and utility payments are due at the end of each month, putting countless Canadians at risk of losing their housing. It is paramount there be safe self-isolation opportunities for all individuals in this country. To that end, the petitioners are calling for the government to immediately enact a nationwide rent freeze, eviction freeze, mortgage freeze and utility freeze, enforce mortgage deferrals for homeowners without penalty or interest charges from financial institutions and provide direct assistance in the form of a monthly, universal, direct payment of $2,000 per month for all, with an additional $250 per child immediately. The second petition deals with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. These petitioners join the hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to the expansion. Trans Mountain, in building the pipeline, brings massive environmental and economic risk with no substantial benefit to British Columbia or to local residents. Approximately 40,000 barrels of oil have already leaked from existing Kinder Morgan pipelines, including two major spills in Burnaby since 2007. I might note, Mr. Chair, that just this past weekend there was yet another spill to the tune of 1,195 barrels here in British Columbia. There is no known scientific technology to clean up the bitumen when there is a spill, and the number of tankers would go from eight to 34 per month into the Burrard Inlet. It puts at risk many residential neighbourhoods and the traditional territories of at least 15 first nations. +The Chair: May I interrupt for a moment, Ms. Kwan. I want to remind all members in the House that when presenting a petition, the idea is to be as concise as possible. Ms. Kwan, I'll let you wrap up, please. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The petitioners are calling for the government to immediately act to prevent this new oil pipeline from proceeding through British Columbia. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I have four petitions to present today. The first petition reflects the outrage of my constituents at the ever-expanding order in council from the government banning more and more firearms. In particular, the petitioners highlight the failure of the government to act on the issue of illegal guns. The petitioners note that virtually all violent crimes committed in Canada, including the recent shooting in Nova Scotia, involve illegal firearms in the hands of those who are already not permitted to possess them. The petition has two asks. First of all, it asks that we reverse the order in council banning certain firearms, but also that we propose measures that will effectively address the illegal use of firearms by criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. It also asks that we ensure that substantial changes to firearms laws in future actually be made by Parliament, not by the government acting in an unaccountable manner. The second petition deals with Bill C-8, which is the government's bill around conversion therapy. The petitioners support efforts to ban conversion therapy. They express concern about problems in the wording of the definition used in the legislation. They're asking the government to support amendments to fix the definition to address the issue of conversion therapy and ensure that the definition is correct and doesn't criminalize certain forms of counselling that individuals may voluntarily enter into. The third petition is regarding Bill S-204, a bill in the Senate that seeks to make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad to receive an organ without consent, dealing especially with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in China. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and want to see it move forward. The final petition is with respect to Bill C-7. There's been much discussion in this House about the need to do better in terms of long-term care. Rather than working to do better in long-term care, unfortunately we've seen the government removing vital safeguards in the area of euthanasia. I think our focus should be on assisting life rather than removing safeguards that are required in association with the euthanasia regime. The petitioners are particularly concerned about the government's plan to remove a 10-day reflection period that normally takes place. That period can already be waived under certain circumstances, but Bill C-7 proposes to remove it entirely as well as reduce the number of witnesses involved. The petitioners are quite concerned about what's going on in Bill C-7 and call for it to be stopped or amended. +The Chair: Presenting petitions. We'll proceed to statements by members. We'll start off with Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and an economic shock. Recent events have ripped open the wound of systemic racism in our country. Racialized and marginalized communities have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Thousands of seniors in long-term care facilities have died. It is clear that we need system change. In the past, governments have bailed out banks and corporations because they were too big to fail. It is time to bail out humanity and the planet. No one will be immune from the threat of climate change and mass extinction. Both are the result of the exploitation of the natural world in the name of the economy. Humans created the economy. We can choose to change it. We must protect our environment or perish. COVID-19 has demonstrated that together we can take courageous action for the common good. We need to do the same for the climate crisis, because humanity and our planet are too big to fail. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Spengemann. +Mr. Sven Spengemann (MississaugaLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today marks World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Underestimated and under-reported, elder abuse exists across the world. At risk of neglect and assault, many of the most vulnerable older persons reside in our long-term care facilities. They are the seniors who have built our country and shaped our communities, who have shown us resilience, courage and selflessness, who have made us stronger, and whose work and teachings continue to inspire us. They are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends and mentors. We have not been there for them in the same way they've been there for us throughout their lives. The Canadian Forces report, alongside the climbing disproportionate death toll in our long-term care facilities, has reconfirmed the ugly, indefensible reality of elder abuse and neglect in Canada. In my community, we mourn the deaths of 68 seniors from one long-term care facility alone, Camilla Care. We must make the same unwavering commitment to older persons as they have shown to us. We must protect and uphold their human rights. We must do better. +The Chair: Before proceeding, I just want to bring up to the members in the background that we want to keep it as simple and as parliamentary as possible in keeping it neutral. We'll now move to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett (LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC): During these trying times, the residents of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes have risen to the challenge. They've made sacrifices and gone above and beyond to make the lives of their neighbours better and to keep our communities safe. It would be impossible to list everyone who has emerged as a community hero, but I'd like to highlight a few, like Lily, an eight-year-old from Elgin who raised funds for her local food bank by building and selling squirrel picnic tables, and Louise Boardman from Spencerville who's making masks for long-term care facilities and selling others in support of the Breast Cancer Action centre. The Knights of Columbus in Prescott raised funds and are distributing some $27,000 in support of charitable groups throughout the region. The Knights of Columbus in Kemptville are working overtime operating the local food bank. Who can forget our top-notch health care workers like Hannah and Mary at the Brockville COVID-19 testing centre? It is the people of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes that make it so great. To everyone working to make a difference and to all of our essential workers, thank you. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, the Indian Act enshrined racism into Canadian law in 1876, and, through residential schools, the child welfare system, our legal system and our police, we criminalized and tore apart indigenous peoples. The deaths of Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi and the assault on Chief Allan Adam are recent examples of systemic racism within the RCMP. Sadly, the RCMP leadership has failed to acknowledge this reality and its root causes. These same systems negatively impact black Canadians. Anti-black racism has resulted in more young black men being jailed, children being streamed or excluded from schools and negative police interaction due to profiling. Black lives matter. No single Canadian is responsible for the prevalence of systemic racism; we all are. Collectively we build institutions that discriminate based on race. It is now time to reimagine and rework our institutions, starting with our police, to ensure that all Canadians can achieve their truest potential. +The Chair: Ms.Larouche, you have the floor. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. June15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. I want to remind members of the link between abuse and the problems of economic dependency among seniors. Improving their purchasing power means reducing the risk of them falling victim to abusive people. That's why the increase in the old age security benefit and the guaranteed income supplement must be extended beyond the pandemic. In three weeks, our seniors will receive their first cheque, when they should be receiving their second. A date must also be announced for the new horizons for seniors program, which helps several groups develop projects to break the isolation of seniors. In closing, I would like to mention the organization Justice alternative et mdiation that during the pandemic, along with other organizations in Shefford, has set up the project Une histoire pour la tienne, which also serves to mark this day. It's a virtual meeting between young people and seniors, allowing them to exchange some inspiring life experiences. Since age prejudice is very much present, I applaud this project, which aims to make us understand each other better and judge each other less. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Sangha. +Mr. Ramesh Sangha (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in the time of this terrible crisis affecting all Canadians, when we are all thinking about how best to deal with it, let's all think about the people around us. Let's show our representation not only to those in the sector of sanctioned workers, but also to all those Canadians who day by day stand up and make a difference. Every day I am proud of the reactions of Canadians to this crisis. I want to acknowledge and celebrate all the contributions made by the people of Brampton Centre, all religious institutions, civil society and community organizations like Knights Table in my riding. We are all standing together to fight COVID-19. Let's continue working hard with that same spirit to get positive results out. Thank you very much. +The Chair: I will proceed to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Mr. Chair, whether graduating from elementary school, high school, Georgian College or graduating from colleges or universities across the country, I am proud of the accomplishments of all the graduates across BruceGreyOwen Sound. I would also like to congratulate and thank all the teachers and parents who have adapted to teaching online or from home and who have supported these graduates over the course of their academic careers. I'd like to extend special congratulations to Cameron Lovell, who just graduated from grade eight, as well as to Neebeesh and Neebin Elliott, originally from the Nawash unceded first nation on the Bruce Peninsula, who will be headed to Michigan State University, and to Jared Lumley from Owen Sound, who just graduated from my alma mater, the Royal Military College of Canada. The college motto of Truth, Duty, Valour is something all Canadians should aspire to live by. I wish all the best to these graduates on their next adventures. I and Canada cannot wait to see how their dreams and goals impact and change the world. I congratulate BruceGreyOwen Sound graduates. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Cormier. +Mr. Serge Cormier (AcadieBathurst, Lib.): Today I pay tribute to RichardLosier, an entrepreneur, visionary and builder who died on June9, 2020, surrounded by his family. Mr.Losier is a giant in the Acadian Peninsula business community. In1968, he co-founded St.Isidore Asphalte, a company that now has more than 200employees. He also launched many other businesses over the years. He was unifying and generous, a philanthropist who cared about young people and never missed an opportunity to improve their lives. I met Mr.Losier when I was 14years old, and I can say that he has been a positive influence in my life. Every time I met him, he gave me a lot of advice and encouragement, which I've never forgotten. Mr.Losier's legacy to his community is invaluable. His commitment remains an example for all of us to follow. Mr.Losier now joins his wife, Nolla. I offer my most sincere condolences to his children, Richard Jr., Ronald, Nathalie, Caroline and Stphane, and to his family and friends. Rest in peace, Mr.Losier. You will be greatly missed. Thank you for everything you've done for our region. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Dabrusin. +Ms. Julie Dabrusin (TorontoDanforth, Lib.): Hello from my community in east end Toronto. People talk about how a city the size of Toronto can be cold, but that's far from the truth in my community. I want to give a shout-out to our teachers, like Mr. Wong of Earl Grey Senior Public School, who delivered home-baked cookies and handwritten notes to all of his students, or Monsieur Steve, who's offering online French classes, or the teachers of Riverdale Collegiate, who paraded through our streets to celebrate our graduates. Our local Michael Garron Hospital put out a call for community members to sew masks and received over 60,000 masks, including those made by Lisa Tancre of Chartwell Avondale Retirement Residence. Michelle Beaton organized a front window scavenger hunt to entertain children and their families. Restaurants, even while facing adversity, have been generously donating food, like the members of the Leslieville BIA or Mezes. There are so many more stories of generosity that I could share, but I'm out of time. I thank everyone who has stepped up. We all appreciate all of their hard work. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, on Saturday night, Calgarians, particularly those in the northeast, in my riding of Calgary Skyview, witnessed a devastating storm, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime. Homes, vehicles, community buildings and structures suffered significant damage due to large hail, floods and high winds. People acted quickly to seek shelter. I'm so grateful that there have been no reports of personal injury or loss of life. I went around the community yesterday to survey the damage. It is extensive. My heart aches for those who have been impacted by the storm in an already incredibly difficult time, but we are resilient. We know that in the coming weeks there will be a lot of cleanup required, both to personal property and in the community. I know my constituents, and we will help one another get through this together. I will work hard to do everything I can to help rebuild this community. +The Chair: Mr.Serr, you have the floor. +Mr. Marc Serr (Nickel Belt, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the people of West Nippissing who organized Pride activities to celebrate the LGBTQ community in June. This week, we are also celebrating National Public Service Week. I thank the public servants for their dedication to the Nickel Belt community and the Valley East and Rayside-Balfour areas. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Mr. Chair, when COVID-19 began spreading across Ontario, Markham, like many other communities, was unprepared. Our front-line health care workers did not have enough personal protective equipment to do their jobs safely. When Markham residents heard about these shortages, my office was flooded with calls from people who had PPE and wanted to donate. Since then my office has been able to deliver tens of thousands of PPE supplies to front-line health care workers and five masks to each family in need. This pandemic has shown that no matter what the challenge is, the Markham community will overcome it. Today, I would like to thank the front-line health care workers who are doing incredible work. I would also like to thank all those who have helped in Markham's hour of need. +The Chair: I understand we had a bit of a glitch there. I'm sorry. With the pause, we thought that was the end of it. Mr.Serr, I would ask you to continue. I understand you started to switch languages. Please continue. You have 30seconds. +Mr. Marc Serr: Thank you. I'm switching to English now. Thank you to our nurses, doctors, pharmacists, cashiers, janitors. Thank you to various retail workers and first responders dealing with COVID-19. You keep our communities safe and healthy, and you feed us. Your dedication and sacrifice are greatly appreciated. As we start to see local businesses reopen, it is important for all of us to remember to follow best practices outlined by local public health. Our front-line workers deserve our respect. It is important for all of us to respect social distancing, to protect all workers and their families. Together we can remain strong and united as we continue to face this challenge together. +The Chair: Again, my apologies for skipping over there, but now we'll to to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, in commemoration of Italian Heritage Month, I would like to pay tribute to the Colombo Lodge and Italian Cultural Centre in Kamloops, British Columbia. The Colombo Lodge was founded in 1914 and is an integral part of our community. Recently they began Colombo Cares take-home dinners with proceeds distributed to different non-profit organizations throughout the region. Last month they very generously gave away hundreds of dinners to Royal Inland Hospital staff and paramedics for their tireless work throughout the pandemic. In their own words they say, Colombo Lodge is very proud of the Italians that have made Kamloops their home. Community members of Italian ancestrypast and presenthave helped and continue to help Kamloops prosper as a giving, welcoming and inclusive community. Personally, I want to thank all members for their friendship and generosity over the years. Our community is forever grateful for their kindness. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Harris. +Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East, NDP): Mr. Chair, many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are facing a serious financial crisis. Most people with disabilities are waiting to be included in the Liberals' promised program. Fish plant workers will need support to avoid a disastrous year. Many small businesses don't qualify for programs. Municipalities need emergency help to meet the crisis. People are worried about what will happen when the CERB runs out in two weeks' time, and the coming tourism season looks very grim. The province itself is in serious financial crisis due to the pandemic and the decline in oil prices. The federal government must overhaul and enhance the fiscal stabilization program to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and other oil-producing provinces through this crisis. Both the province and the oil and gas industry players have committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This is a challenge and an opportunity to transition to a sustainable energy future, but it will require significant investment and support by government to keep the industry strong and make this a just transition for workers. Much has been done. Much more needs to be done. +The Chair: Ms.Gaudreau, you have the floor. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Mr.Chair, all 44elected municipal officials in the riding of LaurentidesLabelle and I have sent a letter to the government asking that cellular and high-speed Internet networks be made available to all. The crisis has accelerated the demonstration of the need for these networks in daily life. The territorial complexity of the Laurentians means that there are areas where the signal is weak, unstable or non-existent. There is an urgent and essential need to change the infrastructure of the current networks. Also, because of the lockdown, Internet failures are being felt, and they prevent distance learning, telemedicine and teleworking, among other things. How can our municipalities develop economically if they can't provide their community with adequate communication tools? We are therefore calling on the government to put the interests of its people first by investing massively right now in the construction of high-speed Internet and cellular infrastructure. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): I rise today to pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Great Britain and one of the greatest leaders history has ever known. In what can only be called a lifetime of service, Churchill's contributions to the Commonwealth and to the world are without equal. During the Second World War he led the allied forces in Europe against the tyranny and fascism of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi regime. When our world was in its darkest hour, Churchill's leadership was a beacon of hope and freedom. I am reminded of something he once said, All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. Sir Winston Churchill himself embodied all of these great things and will forever be a symbol of freedom, democracy and hope. +The Chair: Mr. Gerretsen. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to add my voice to the recognition and celebration of Pride Month, which is celebrated annually during June. Pride Month is important for Canadians because we can be proud of who we are and celebrate our diversity. This June is different from previous years as we cannot celebrate in person all together. However, I know the ongoing pandemic will not stop us from showing our love and support for the LGBTQ+ community. To celebrate Pride Month this year, my office distributed 3,000 pride maple leaf pins across the country; whoever asked received one. Although the majority was sent to constituents in my riding, over 500 pins were sent to the neighbouring ridings of LanarkFrontenacKingston, LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, and HastingsLennox and Addington. It warms my heart to see so many Canadians showing their support. Happy Pride, everyone. +The Chair: We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to take part in today's meeting of this parliamentary committee. Canada has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for three months now. The situation now seems to be improving, although we must remain vigilant. Economically, business people and the entire Canadian economy depend on government decisions. My question is very simple: when will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for his question. I agree with him that Canada and Canadians are doing an excellent and difficult job in the fight against coronavirus. As for the economy, our government is there for Canadians, for workers and for businesses, and it will continue to be. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians, business people and businesses want to know where the government is headed. When will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, Canadians know that the government is there to support them. Eight +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians and Quebeckers also know that the Government of Quebec will table its economic update this week. Why isn't the federal government doing the same? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to explain to hon. members and to Canadians what the government is doing for the economy +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, it is a real pleasure for me to explain to the minister and everybody in the House of Commons that today the Saskatchewan government will table its economic update. Why can't Ottawa do that? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to share with Canadians what our government is doing to support workers, businesses and the economy. Eight million Canadians have received the CERB, essential support for Canadian workers and their families. +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, 11 days ago the Newfoundland government tabled its own economic update. We see governments acting correctly for their people, except for the Liberal government, which cannot table an economic update. When will the Liberal government table an economic update, which Canadians would like to see? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I am delighted to share with the member opposite and with Canadians what we are doing practically that has meaning for Canadians. Let me talk about what we are doing for Canadian businesses. Nearly 670,000 Canadian businesses have received support +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: In Canada, the Quebec government will table its economic update this week. The Saskatchewan government tabled its economic update today. The Newfoundland government has tabled its economic update. Everybody is working hard in Canada, and the business community would like to know where the Liberal government is going. The question is crystal clear. When will the Liberal government table an economic update? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, Canadian workers and Canadian businesses want to know that our government is here to support them. I have shared with this House our support for Canadian workers through the CERB. I've spoken about the CEBA, and let me point out that more than $26 billion of support has been given through that essential program. Let me talk about the wage subsidy. More than 2.6 million +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, this is starting to get interesting; the minister is revealing some of these expenses. Could the minister tell us how much the government has spent in the last three months? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I will continue in French by explaining what our government is doing for Canadians and workers +The Chair: Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, this is a little bit concerning for all Canadians, because this government cannot say when they will table the economic update, cannot identify how much money they have spent in the last three months and cannot say what is the deficit of Canada. Is somebody in this government running this country correctly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, absolutely we are running this country, and we are supporting our economy. In fact, we appreciate that Canada currently is experiencing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. That is why we have devoted nearly 11% of GDP to support Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms.Normandin. Ms.Normandin, you have the floor. +Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, there are times when Quebec and the provinces are not just two solitudes, but they get along and speak as one, such as when the time comes to tell the government to mind its own business. On reading section91 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which sets out the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, nowhere do I find that the federal government must meddle by attaching conditions to health transfers. It is Quebec and the provinces that hire the medical personnel, doctors, nurses and caretakers. It is Quebec and the provinces that are responsible for purchasing the necessary equipment. It is Quebec and the provinces that know what is happening on the ground and what their needs are. Will the government do the only thing within its authority, which is to take the cheque, sign it and put it in the mail? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for her question. We fully understand the importance of federal support for the provinces, especially in our national fight against the coronavirus. I agree with the hon. member that we must give financial support to the provinces, including Quebec absolutely. I would also like to point out the importance of the support of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are doing an important and excellent job in Quebec and Ontario today, right now. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I am glad to see that there is recognition of the importance of transferring this money. My question is whether it can be transferred unconditionally; that's what I'm asking. There's a state of emergency. In the past, we have seen that it takes a long time to negotiate conditions with the federal government. We saw it in the case of the Quebec City tramway, and we are still seeing it now in the case of transfers for housing in Quebec, for which there is no agreement and, therefore, no transfer of money. Will the federal government send the money free of conditions? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the hon. member said in her first question that the only thing the federal government had to do on health care was to sign the cheques. I can't agree because, today, at this time, at the request of the Premier of Quebec, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today; they're there to save the lives of seniors +The Chair: We now return to Ms.Normandin. +Ms. Christine Normandin: It was indeed at Quebec's request. What I'm saying is that, at present, the provinces are unanimously asking that there be no conditions. It's urgent that the money be transferred. The federal government's job here is to sign the cheque and send it to the provinces. The government's job is also to make Parliament work. This is where there should be negotiations so that we can work, among other things, to send money to people living with disabilities, to make sure we fight CERB fraud and to make sure that court time limits are effective in the current crisis. Can the government focus on the issue in order to respect the provinces and transfer money for health care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question, Mr.Chair. I agree with the hon. member that the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today at the request of the Province of Quebec. That said, I hope that the hon. member will agree with me that being there for Quebec's seniors, that saving the lives of Quebec's seniors, is much more than simply signing cheques. I am very proud of the work the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are doing. I think we all should thank these people who are working for Canada, for Quebec, and who are doing an important and excellent job. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I think the Deputy Prime Minister misunderstood me when I was talking about the importance of acting quickly. Negotiations between the government and the provinces take an awfully long time because the federal government decides to place conditions where there shouldn't be any. Right now, the only important thing is to transfer the money quickly so that it can be used in our hospitals and our long-term care facilities, where the need is desperate. Quebec and the provinces know exactly what their needs are. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to point out the extent to which the federal government is there to support the provinces, including Quebec. We have increased funding to the provinces and territories by $500million to help them prepare for COVID-19 outbreaks. This funding is in addition to the $40billion that we already provide annually to the provinces and territories. That's a lot of money. It is strong endorsement +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr. Chair, systemic racism is killing people. It's killing black people and it's killing indigenous people. Recently, Rodney Levi was another victim of systemic racism. He was killed in New Brunswick by the RCMP. To deal with systemic racism, we need systemic change. Will the Liberal government commit to systemic change so that not another life is ever taken again? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I thank the member opposite for the extremely important question, and I'll take this opportunity to acknowledge the work that he has done for many years fighting racism in Canada. Our government absolutely acknowledges that systemic racism exists in Canada. It exists in all of our institutions, including the police and the RCMP. I agree with the member opposite that now is the moment to fight this +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister very much for the response, but there are some specific actions we need to take. There are movements. Black Lives Matter, as a movement, is calling for the defunding of police. What they're saying is we need to make better choices with how money is being spent. When someone is in need of a wellness check or a mental health check, money, financing and support should go to mental health workers and health care workers, not the police. Is the government prepared to fund and prioritize health care workers over the police? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the member quite rightly began his questions by speaking about systemic racism against indigenous people in Canada, and I would like to speak about that for a moment. I spoke to Perry Bellegarde this morning, because it is such a crucial issue. We can describe it as the original sin of our country. I absolutely agree that we need root and branch reform, including in how policing is done in Canada. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the Liberal government commit to a review of the use of force as outlined for the RCMP? Will the Liberals commit to that change? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety had many conversations last week with the RCMP. We all accept that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the government commit to ensuring that de-escalation receives priority? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me continue, Mr. Chair. Systemic racism exists in all of our federal institutions, including the RCMP. It's time to put an end to it. Let me just say +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I'm not getting an answer. Will the Prime Minister or the Liberal government commit to something simple and ensure that at the federal level, racial profiling, street checks and carding are expressly prohibited? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, sadly, I can't agree that rooting out systemic racism is going to be simple, but I can agree that racial profiling is absolutely inappropriate. It is not something that we should +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Well, I'm going to try to get another commitment from the government, because they don't seem able to commit to something as clear as ending racial profiling. We know that millions of Canadians in a couple of weeks are going to be faced with the reality of their CERB ending. These families are worried about how they're going to put food on the table, because they can't return to a job. Will the Liberal government commit today so that those families will have some concrete support, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me be clear, as I was in my previous answer, that our government clearly is opposed to racial profiling. This is a wrong practice and we're very clear about our position there. Now when it comes to the CERB, I absolutely share the concern of the member opposite. The Canadian economy is in its direst state since the Great Depression. We know that all the jobs have not yet come back. We know that Canadian workers, Canadian families, continue to need +The Chair: We'll now pause for a short time to allow staff to change within the safety parameters for the COVID-19 virus, and as we resume, we will go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has mandated his ministers, and I quote, to govern in a positive, open and collaborative way. Ironically, as it stands, Parliament is currently closed for business. Opposition parties have little opportunity to hold the ruling party to account, private members' bills cannot be tabled and legislation cannot be debated. Can the Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau himself, help us understand how all of this fits into his definition of so-called open government? +The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Well, Mr. Chair, we're here, right? We're here, and the opposition is asking questions. They have the equivalent of eight question periods instead of five to ask questions. They have more time than before, so I don't know why they're not happy about it. +Ms. Rachael Harder: That's like when I'm asking for a full meal and your handing me a few jellybeans and saying, Why aren't you happy with that? Mr. Chair, here's the thing. It's like switching a light on and off when it's convenient for the Prime Minister and for the Liberal Party. That's what they want to do here. That's not Parliament. That's not democracy. When will Mr. Trudeau do the right thing, turn the lights on and get back to work for Canadians? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I'm really sorry to hear that my colleague's not working. I can assure you, Mr. Chair, on this side of the House, we're all actually working very hard and we're answering the questions from the opposition. Why? It's because it's extremely important. I sat there for seven years asking questions. I understand important +Ms. Rachael Harder: The member opposite knows very well that he is misleading the Canadian public. This is not true Parliament. This is simply a special committee. Here's the thing. On the Liberal Party website, under the platform commitment, it says that Parliament works best when its members are free to do what they have been elected to do, and that is be the voice for their communities and hold the government to account. This is a Liberal document. Did the Prime Minister forget that strengthening Parliament was part of his 2019 platform commitment? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for quoting our excellent platform. That was a very very good document. The thing is, I think we've reached a balance whereby MPs can come from different places, mostly around Ottawa, and ask questions; but also we can have colleagues from across the country asking questions. Why does my colleague think it is better to have only 35 MPs participating instead of 338? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Does the Prime Minister value democracy, or does he still look up to China's basic dictatorship? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we're answering all the questions from the opposition, not only from the people in this room, but we're answering +The Chair: It's back to Ms. Harder now. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'll ask the question again. Does the Prime Minister still value the basic dictatorship of China over Canada's democracy? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't know where the colleague wants to go from here, Mr. Chair. I'd like to know from her why it is not important to her that her colleagues participate directly. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Mr. Trudeau wrote to his ministers and said to them that they continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency. He went on to explain that This means...government that is open by default. We now have a parliament that is currently shut down. Mr. Trudeau has shut it down and has prevented us from being able to do to the good work that Canadians expect us to do. Is this Mr. Trudeau's idea of open by default? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, do they want to talk about shutting down Parliament? How about the time they prorogued Parliament twicenot only once, but twice? The Conservative government shut down Parliament twice. I was here. I was sitting on the other side of the aisle. It's quite the opposite now. We're taking all the questions. This place is open, and we're answering questions. +The Chair: One moment, please. I haven't acknowledged you yet, Ms. Harder. We've stopped the time there. I want to remind honourable members that questions and answers are being given, and we want to hear both sides. Please keep the heckling down. Ms. Harder, please proceed. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In 2014, the leader of the Liberal Party developed a policy resolution entitled Restoring Trust in Canada's Democracy. That's ironic, because right now, again, Parliament is currently shut down. We are prevented from being able to do the good work that we are expected to do. At the time, the Prime Minister said, Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces in their communities for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful prime minister that he once believed should not exist. Why did he change his mind? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I'd like to know why my colleague wants to shut down the voices of her colleagues who could not speak and could not participate in this room. Mr. Chair, how would we vote on private members' bills, for example? As you know, it is not a government vote or a party vote; it's per row. You want to come back? Are you going to acceptMr. Chair, through youthat we have electronic voting, yes or no? +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, we know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has champagne tastes and London flats, but it's his champagne mortgages that Canadians are concerned about. Specifically, why did the minister only disclose the complete extent of his personal debt to the Chinese government on June 4 of this year? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, as you know, since the minister entered politics, his two mortgages and other liabilities and assets have been fully disclosed to the Ethics Commissioner and placed on the online public registry. It's public, Mr. Chair. It's public. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Now it's public and it's terrible. When will the foreign affairs minister be here to answer these questions himself? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, it's always been public. We're in the middle of a pandemic here, trying to help Canadians, and the best they can do is ask questions about +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: When the minister owes over a million dollars to the Chinese government, people have a right to ask him questions. When will the Minister of Foreign Affairs show up? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The minister shows up every day, Mr. Chair. He shows up and works for Canadians. Once again, those are public documents. Everything the minister did is public. I still don't know why they ask +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, he doesn't even have to come to the House. All he has to do is appear on the screen. Where is the minister? Why is he hiding? Why won't he answer questions about his personal debt to the Chinese government? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, if he goes online he's going to get the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the minister is hiding. Let's ask some specific questions about their China policy. What is the impact on the decision-making? Three-quarters of Canadians don't want Huawei involved in our 5G network. Will the minister put the interests of Canadians ahead of the interests of his creditors and say no to Huawei? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, when it comes to 5G deployment, we are right now currently undergoing a comprehensive review. We have been absolutely clear with allies and with Canadians that we never have and never will compromise Canadians' national interests. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, that is not an answer, and it is completely out of step with what our allies have already recognized. Reports are emerging of multiple deadly viruses exported from Winnipeg's microbiology laboratory to the Wuhan Institute of Virology right before scientists were expelled for policy breaches. In spite of that, scientific co-operation between Canadian institutions and the military-affiliated Wuhan Institute of Virology is continuing. Why hasn't the government put in place new guidelines to prevent the export of sensitive pathogens and information to China? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, he's right that in 2019 the National Microbiology Laboratory shared lab samples with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The National Microbiology Laboratory routinely shares samples with other labs to help advance the international community's understanding of viruses and the research that is ongoing around those viruses. There are strict protocols in place for these transfers, and these samples were transported according to Canadian laws and regulations. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, I think Canadians would be concerned to hear that it's routine to transport viruses to Chinese military-affiliated labs. When Champagne was the parliamentary secretary for finance, the government decided to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, bankrolling Chinese state-controlled development projects in Asia with weak standards in labour, human rights and environment. Will the minister put Canadian taxpayers ahead of his personal creditors and support a pullout from the Communist Party-controlled development bank? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Once again, Mr. Chair, my colleague is trying to connect the dots, and I don't know exactly where he is going from here, but everything is public. There's a thing called Google. He can go on it and check the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the public can listen to this. I'm sure this exchange will also be available on Google, and the public can draw their own conclusions. We have failures on 5G, failures when it comes to the transport of deadly viruses and failures when it comes to giving over $400 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It's clear that the Bank of China's investment in Minister Champagne is paying off. It's time for the minister to settle his debt with the Communist government and not settle it on the backs of Canadians. When will the minister be here in the House and answer questions about this mortgage? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: My colleague should be cautious with what he is saying in the House, Mr. Chair. This is serious stuff. He should be careful about what he says. The minister is actually working extremely hard for all Canadians and is doing his job correctly, Mr. Chair. We're talking about public information. Once again, let him go to Google and google it. That's it. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Canada's ambassador to the United Nations sent a letter last week to all member states of the UN promising that Canada would consider providing more funding for UNRRA, the same UNRRA that is a front for Hamas, which allows weapons of terror to be stored in schools and provides textbooks that call for the destruction of Israel. Do these Liberals have no shame when it comes to their quest for a seat on the UN Security Council? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that question. We know that at this time Canada must show leadership in the face of global challenges. More than ever, Canada is playing a positive role by being a champion in diversity and inclusion, supporting the global fight against COVID-19, addressing climate change, leading peace and security efforts and helping the most vulnerable. A seat on the Security Council will allow Canada to be a strong voice for a fairer, more inclusive and prosperous +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Mr. Chair, I received a letter from Bob Anderson this week, who's advocating for his neighbours like Jean Grevelding, who owns a cottage at Butternut Bay. Like many people, Jean is an American who owns a property on our side of the border. These people are taxpaying members of our communities. These folks have plans in place to follow all Canadian quarantine rules. They're concerned about leaving their properties uncared for over the summer. Will folks like Jean be allowed to cross the border to check on their properties this summer? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Of course, our priority is and always has been and always must be the protection of the health and safety of Canadians. That's why we put in place these restrictions for non-essential travel and have required, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, a 14-day quarantine. I don't know the specifics of the person for whom you advocate, but we want to make sure that if they come into Canada, it is for an essential purpose and that they do it safely and respect the quarantine that has been put in place. +Mr. Michael Barrett: With nine branches throughout my riding, the Royal Canadian Legion offers a great deal to veterans and rural communities alike. They have been experiencing hardship and a loss of revenue, to the point where they may be forced to shut their doors. The Zone G2 commander and local mayors such as Roger Haley have reached out to me expressing their dire need. Will the government offer support to Legions across the country so they can continue to carry out their vital work for our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Yes, we have done a lot to help support groups like the Legions. There is a $350-million emergency community support fund. If they're supplying any help to people regarding COVID, this fund is there. Indeed, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we help the Legions and other groups that do so much to help veterans right across the country. +Mr. Michael Barrett: On May 21, the minister stated that her team was working as quickly as it could to fill the gaps in CEBA. It has now been three weeks, and many business owners, such as mortgage broker Corinna Smith-Gatcke, are still left in the lurch amid the delays, which are pushing businesses closer to shutting their doors for good. Will these businesses have access to CEBA before it's too late for them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the honourable member for that really important question on our Canadian small businesses. Those businesses can absolutely have access to the loan at their financial institution this Friday, and I would encourage them to go and see their bank or credit union. I want businesses to know that nothing is more important for us than making sure they get the support they need during this difficult time. +Mr. Michael Barrett: The County Road 43 expansion project is critical for my riding and the region as a whole. This project will widen the road, increasing safety for the 18,000 motorists who travel the road every day. It's been 334 days since the provincial and local governments announced funding, but there has been nothing from this Liberal government. It's been 181 days since Minister McKenna told me her staff were reviewing the project. Today, there is still nothing, and for the last month the minister's team has not even found the time to respond to my request for an update. Will Minister McKenna finally stop with the delays and commit to funding this project today? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, we work with provinces and territories to advance our infrastructure investments. We're making investments across the country. They are making a real difference in people's lives. We're always happy to work with members of Parliament, but they must also work with provinces and territories so that projects are advanced by them to our office. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Through you, has Mr. MacAulay read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I apologize, but I'll have to ask my honourable colleague to repeat the question. +The Chair: Mrs. Wagantall, we'll freeze the time so that there's no extra time taken. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. My question was whether Mr. MacAulay has read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate my honourable colleague's question. Of course, I appreciate Mr. Dalton's input and all that he has done for veterans. We've discussed it many times. I've done everything and worked with him in order to make sure that we bring the proper compensation to veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: As a result of that study, are the financial outcomes Canada seeks to provide for ill and injured veterans now clearly defined within the Department of Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as the member would know, I am to bring a report to the veterans affairs committee, and there are a number of things done in order to make sure that report is +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Then I would suggest that we get our committee up and going as it should be. Where are these financial directions published? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, of course, lockdown, but just under $90 million that the government put in supplementary estimates to make sure we address the backlog for Veterans Affairs. It's a major help +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Minister, are Canadian Armed Forces members provided with a copy of this document? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague would have to ask the Canadian Armed Forces that question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: There are three different providing lifetime benefits for ill and injured veterans. In Ombudsman Dalton's recent report, did any one of these three provide the best compensation in all nine scenarios that were studied? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Of course, as she knows, there's been a lot of work done in order to make sure that we provide the proper compensation to veterans. We're working very hard, with a lot of help from Mr. Dalton, to make sure that the appropriate +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: In the undisclosed settlement of Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says ...Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure you that anybody is welcome to enter any discussion on compensation of veterans. We're always open to what we can do in order to make sure that we provide appropriate compensation. I don't think the term would be appropriate, but it would provide some compensation to veterans who truly deserve it. They defend our democracy +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. Oh, I'm sorry +Ms. Andranne Larouche: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The interpretation hasn't worked for a few interventions. It's difficult to follow the exchange between the hon. member and the minister. +The Chair: We're having a problem with the interpretation. Minister and Ms. Wagantall, you are joining us virtually. I'm wondering if you have the right language on at the bottom of your screen. We'll start with that for troubleshooting. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: I have English. +The Chair: Very good. Minister MacAulay, what do you have? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I have English, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Very good. Then we'll check on our side. Ms.Larouche, did I understand correctly that the interpretation didn't work for both speakers? +Ms. Andranne Larouche: The sound didn't allow the interpreters to do their job. It seemed to be a problem with the sound. +The Chair: In that case, I would ask both members to maybe put their mike a little bit close to their mouth. We'll see how that works. I'm looking at the screen, and I notice the mike is a little bit far. Could we bend it in a little bit more? I appreciate that. Thank you for your patience. We'll give it another try. Ms. Wagantall, please go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On a point of order, quite often while I'm trying to speak, there are lots of other voices in the background. +The Chair: I would ask everyone to please be on mute, as well as for anyone in the chamber to please refrain from speaking loudly. Just whisper among yourselves if you have something to say. We'll take this one from the top. We have a minute and 45 seconds left. Ms. Wagantall, please proceed with your next question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: You said next question, so we're not going backwards, Chair? +The Chair: Did we have an answer from Minister MacAulay? No? We'll go to Minister MacAulay to finish up the answer. We'll start at 27 seconds, freeze the clock and hear his answer. Then, because of all of the confusion, we'll start at one minute and 45 seconds when we get going again. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Should I repeat the question, sir? +The Chair: Please do. The clock is frozen. After we go through the question and the answer, we'll start the clock again. Mr. Wagantall, please repeat the question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. In the undisclosed settlement to Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says, Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question and concern. Of course I agree. Anybody is quite open to indicate whatever they wish in order to make sure we provide as appropriate a compensation as possible. You can never totally compensate veterans truly for what they deserve, but we want to make sure we provide the best compensation possible. That's what we will do and want to do. +The Chair: Ms. Wagantall, we will start the clock again. You have one minute and 45 seconds remaining. Please proceed. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: If that's the case, is Minister MacAulay aware of the practice of red-flagging veterans' files? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I'm not aware. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Since the deputy minister has indicated that he runs the department, will the minister ask him for the names of veterans and the dates and the reasons that they are, or have been, red-flagged by VAC? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I would certainly ask any veteran or anybody who has a concern to contact my office. I will do anything I can to make sure that the veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Do the most ill and injured still receive from the pension up to $300,000 less for life? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as you know and as the Prime Minister indicated when the pension for life was put in place, it was stated that if anybody receives lessthe Prime Minister himself indicated it quite clearlythat must be adjusted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: For veterans in similar circumstances, should the date of their application for compensation be a factor in determining whether they're treated equitably? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Yes, of course, the date is when the compensation would start. Of course, it's very important and very appropriate. +The Chair: Now we will proceed to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Retired Major Mark Campbell in my riding of Sturgeon RiverParkland lost both legs in the line of duty in Afghanistan. He is an avid sport shooter, but understandably, due to his disability, he is very limited in the kinds of firearms he can use, and all of these firearms have now been banned under the Liberal OIC. My question to the Minister of Public Safety is this: Did their department do a legal analysis and consider the section 15 charter rights of disabled Canadians not to be discriminated against when they passed their OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, there was a very thorough analysis done by the justice department to ensure that the prohibitions we put in place were, in fact, charter compliant. Let me also say, Mr. Chair, how important it was that we prohibited weapons that were not designed for sporting purposes at all. In fact, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat. They have no place in a civil society. We have prohibited them, and we believeand this has been echoed by many people across the countrythat this will make Canadians safer. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that the AR-15 is the most popular sporting rifle in Canada, and is he aware that disabled veterans like Major Mark Campbell are unable to participate in the sport of sport shooting because of his OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: I can assure the member that what I am aware of is that the AR-15 and other weapons like them have been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions, such as at cole Polytechnique, at Dawson College, again at the Quebec mosque and in Moncton. The AR-15s in particular were also used at the terrible tragedy in places like Sandy Hook, where a bunch of kids were killed, so there is no place for +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, it has been months since the Liberals shut down this Parliament and months since the Minister of Finance should have presented a budget or at least an economic update to Canadians. Since then we have seen billions spent with little oversight and no plan. The minister says that he needs certainty before he can table a budget. Well, that didn't stop Stephen Harper and the Conservatives from tabling a budget in the depth of the last great recession. When are these Liberals finally going to take their job seriously and table an economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we're taking this very seriously. We're working for Canadians and bringing forward supports to make sure that businesses, workers and Canadians can put food on the table and pay their rent. We will continue to support Canadians, and when we have a clear projection to present, we will do that. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, the results are in, and businesses aren't happy with the so-called support programs from these Liberals. In fact, the oil and gas industry has been shut out of many of these economic programs. When is the government going to recognize that their business support plans have been an absolute failure with only a fraction of the billions promised being accessible to businesses? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, our government has taken swift and immediate action to support our sector throughout this challenging time. We had the BCAP, which is critically important to providing liquidity to support the SMEs that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. It has taken an enormous team effort. People are working around the clock to get money where it needs to be. We are helping hard-working Canadians, small businesses and large businesses right across the country, but in particular in our energy sector. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to see the Minister of Natural Resources online. He tweeted recently to praise the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and the North West Redwater Partnership refinery in my riding. Can the minister tell us what, if any, support they have given to the innovative carbon capture and sequestration technology in this country? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we see carbon capture and sequestration as an integral part of lowering emissions, making emissions more competitive and making our oil and gas industry more competitive. We're seeing where the investment dollars are going. They are going to jurisdictions that are committed to lowering emissions. Obviously, this government is committing to net zero. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: I note that the minister couldn't name a single example of government support for carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technology. We have spent a lot of time talking about the COVID-19 pandemic, but Canadians are living with another horrific reality, that being the intensifying opioid overdose epidemic. Reports indicate that in the past four years, 14,000 Canadians have died, and the numbers during COVID-19 have been skyrocketing, with British Columbia seeing a 39% increase this year alone. I know this because I've lost a family member to a fentanyl overdose. When is the government going to take this scourge seriously and take action to save the lives of Canadians? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I share the member's deep sadness about the number of lives we've lost to opioid overdose. Our government has been steadily making it easier for people who live with substance use to access medications to treat substance use, such as prescription Suboxone and methadone. We have made it easier to rapidly establish safe injection sites in communities and have supported community-based projects that work with people who are using substances. We need to understand that this is a complex issue, and we need to support people to get the help they need. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes (AlgomaManitoulinKapuskasing, NDP)): The hon. member for Thrse-DeBlainville. +Ms. Louise Chabot (Thrse-De Blainville, BQ): MadamChair, I will come back to the bill introduced last week. As parliamentarians, we felt like we were watching a very bad play, as I imagine the public did. I say that it was theatre, even though it shouldn't be in this place. The government decided to stage a play and act alone and, unfortunately, there were several acts missing. A very important part of this bill was about supporting people with disabilities in this time of crisis. However, the government did not see fit to negotiate with the opposition parties, even though it is in a minority position. Despite this arrogance, the Bloc Qubcois proposed solutions. One of the things we proposed was to split the bill so that we could give this support to people with disabilities, but the Conservatives did not want to do that. We came back and asked for time to negotiate and give support to people with disabilities, but the government defeated the motion. We asked that the House be recalled today so that we could pass this part of the bill concerning support for people with disabilities, but we are still in the dark. Why are we abandoning people with disabilities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): I thank the hon. member for her question. We know this pandemic has deeply affected the lives and health of all Canadians and has disproportionately affected Canadians with disabilities in particular. From the very beginning, we've taken a disability-inclusive approach to our emergency response to ensure that Canadians with disabilities get the support they need. That is why we announced a one-time payment of $600 for persons with disabilities to address these expenses. This will go a long way toward helping Canadians with disabilities. We encourage and urge all parties in the opposition to support this measure. We're confident that this measure, along with other investments, will benefit Canadians with disabilities, and we hope to get the support of the other parties very soon. +Ms. Louise Chabot: MadamChair, I remind you that this measure wasn't passed because we weren't allowed to do so. A measure to help people with disabilities has been put in an omnibus bill. We've tried here, in the House, to provide the means to give that support, so I ask again, can the government be counted on to give a response to people with disabilities? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, it was absolutely not an omnibus bill. It contained assistance for the disabled, of course, but it also contained assistance for our seasonal workers, as well as a number of other measures that the Bloc Qubcois opposed. They refused to debate and, when the question of splitting the bill came up, the Conservatives refused to do that. That is why there is no bill at the moment, and that is very unfortunate. +Ms. Louise Chabot: It was a Bloc Qubcois proposal to split the bill. The government had not thought of it, but they found that it was a good idea. Let me return to the attack. This bill proposed changes to the wage subsidy program, it was supposed to make the CERB more flexible, it proposed fines for fraudsters and, since there was a little section about a benefit for the disabled, the government took it for granted that we would support it without any negotiations with the parties. However, we set one very important condition: that the Liberal Party must get its hands out of taxpayers' pockets in terms of the wage subsidy. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, as we listen to the Bloc Qubcois members, we might think that they invented peanut butter and apple pie. This bill contained a number of measures that all Quebeckers and all Canadians needed, but the Bloc Qubcois refused to debate it. No, we did not follow the Bloc Qubcois' example in splitting the bill; we had thought of it a long time previously. We have not been able to do that because of the Conservatives. Because of them, we cannot help those living with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms.Chabot, you have 45seconds left. +Ms. Louise Chabot: We asked on a number of occasions for the House to be able to sit starting today to pass the part of the bill dealing with those with disabilities. What is the status of that, MadamChair? We have not heard about it since. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, my colleague knows very well that things are not as simple as that. There are procedural mechanisms unique to the House. I hope that, one day, we will be able to pass this bill and be able to provide assistance for those living with disabilities. I hope that the Conservatives will change their minds and give us their support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Surrey Centre. Since 2015 our government has been focused on ensuring its policies mitigate the effects of climate change. Several measures have been implemented for phasing out coal, making polluters pay, providing climate incentives, investing in green technologies and much more, which all together have created a climate plan that is doing more to cut pollution than any other in Canada's history. In my riding of Don Valley East, many innovative businesses have benefited from these investments and initiatives. One area of particular interest is our government's work to protect 25% of Canada's land and 25% of its oceans by 2025. Our natural environment is something that Canadians and my constituents care about deeply. Could the minister update this House on the new conservation projects announced on June 5, World Environment Day, and on how our government is protecting our environment? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, protecting nature is an important part of how we will address climate change and the very real challenges it presents. That's why on June 5, World Environment Day, our government announced over 60 conservation projects under development across Canada. These projects are funded through the Canada Nature Fund's target 1 challenge initiative. They'll conserve Canadian nature and biodiversity and protect species at risk, enhance ecological integrity and connectivity, and enhance the size of Canada's vast network of protected areas. Nearly half of these projects are indigenous-led, with the aim of creating indigenous-protected conserved areas. Madam Chair, projects like these move us closer to our goal of protecting 25% of Canada's lands and oceans by 2025. By working together in partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, indigenous peoples and Canadians, together we can protect our natural environment for generations to come. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms. Ratansi, since you have 25 seconds left, we will go to the honourable member for Surrey Centre. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Madam Chair, there are many small and medium-sized businesses in my riding of Surrey Centre. Many have been impacted by COVID-19. They saw a decrease in business or needed to close their doors completely in order to adhere to public safety measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. These measures helped keep our most vulnerable citizens safe and ensured that our hospital and health care providers did not become overwhelmed with a sharp spike in cases. Thanks to our government's COVID-19 emergency response, many of these businesses have been able to keep their employees and access important liquidity through the Canada emergency business account, which provides loans to small businesses and non-profits, and the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which is helping businesses to keep and rehire their employees while their revenues are down by providing up to 75% of wages for up to 24 weeks. As we begin to reopen the economy and Canadians across the country return to the job market, those benefits will be even more important to help businesses and industries rehire their staff and make important adjustments to align with public health guidelines to gradually increase their operations. Can the minister please update the committee on how many Canadian businesses have taken advantage of CEBA and CEWS since applications for each have been opened? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, I want to begin by thanking the member for Surrey Centre for all the work he does to support his constituents and small businesses. Canadians across the country need to know our government has been working tirelessly and will continue to work tirelessly on their behalf. This is why we put in place the important programs to help them get through this crisis during this difficult time, programs such as the wage subsidy program. We know that in so many businesses the employees are often like extended family members. The wage subsidy has helped these businesses keep their employees on the payroll and are now helping in their rehiring as they slowly and safely restart. There are 348,000 businesses being helped with the wage subsidy program, and this means that 2.6 million workers are being helped. Businesses are also being helped through the interest-free $40,000 loan they can access through CEBA to help stay afloat and pay their expenses during this crisis. I'm pleased to inform this House that to date more than 669,000 +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for St. John's East. +Mr. Jack Harris: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for LondonFanshawe. Madam Chair, with so many recent reports and videos of police using force, sometimes deadly force, and violence against indigenous and black people in Canada, I've called for the public safety committee to reconvene. If the members agree, will the minister come to the committee and provide concrete answers as to how the government intends to address racism inherent in Canada's law enforcement, and in particular the RCMP? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank my colleague for the question. It's perhaps the most important one facing Canada today. Madam Chair, indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes within the entire criminal justice system. In order to respond appropriately, I think it's necessary to begin by acknowledging the lived experience of people who've known bias and discrimination at the hands of the police and our courts and within our prisons. We remain committed to working with all racialized people and all of the members of this House to ensure that we work toward social justice for all Canadians, and I look forward to discussing the member's motion further with him. +Mr. Jack Harris: Will the minister and the government commit to facilitating such a meeting of this committee virtually? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the decisions of the committee are the committee's, so I'm sure that this will be a discussion within the committee, but if called, I will certainly be pleased to come with my officials to provide the committee with whatever support and information it needs to contribute to this very important discussion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Harris, you have 40 seconds. +Mr. Jack Harris: In light of what we've seen with Chief Adam in Fort McMurray and the RCMP accepting that the actions were reasonable, will the minister commit to a full review of the use of force by the RCMP, in particular the philosophy, tactics and training that is given to RCMP officers in dealing with the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member and I want to assure him, first of all, that this is work that is ongoing, not just in the RCMP but throughout the police community. May I also take this opportunity, Madam Chair, to say that I think all police training has to begin with one very important principle, and that's the preservation of all life and the respect for all Canadians. We also know the importance of de-escalation training. We're committed to continuing to work with indigenous communities, racialized communities and with police services and all participants in the criminal justice system to make sure that it is fair for all Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for LondonFanshawe, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Madam Chair, we need more justice for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. They can't be asked to keep waiting. This government recognizes that systemic racism exists but refuses to collect race-based data that would allow us to quantify and truly address this injustice. We need data to protect Canadians. When will this government do the right thing and start collecting race-based data? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, our government agrees that it's important that we collect data, and that's exactly why, in the anti-racism secretariat and the anti-racism strategy, there is a commitment to have money go to Statistics Canada to collect race-based data. We look forward to working with all members to ensure it happens. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Madam Chair, we know that Statistics Canada will start to collect job numbers based on race. This will allow us to identify systemic racism where it is and where we need to ensure a fair and more equal job market for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. Why is this government refusing to follow suit so we can tackle systemic racism everywhere, in every sector? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for her question. She's absolutely correct in her assessment that we need to collect more data, reliable data, data that will help us deal with some of the challenges we're seeing with systemic discrimination, but, more broadly, we want to make sure that we continue to engage with an anti-racism strategy that will allow us to collect that disaggregated data. That is why we allocated $6.2 million to that initiative through Statistics Canada, but we know we must do more and we will do more. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: We know that all people are susceptible to catching COVID-19, but health authorities are clear that parts of cities like Montreal and Toronto have been more impacted than others. For black and racialized people living in these cities, this data is a matter of life and death. Will the government collect and share disaggregated data so we can identify and erase systemic racism, yes or no? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Madam Chair, making decisions based on science and evidence is essential for our government. We took that practice from day one. It is exactly the step we will take moving forward and that's why we are making those investments to ensure that data exists. We are working across all departments. My mandate letter is public. I look forward to continuing to work not only with all ministers, departments and agencies, but all allies and all parties to get this work done. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney, the honourable member for BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. Last week, my plumber told me that, each time Justin Trudeau comes down the steps to make announcements totalling several billion dollars, he feels like someone is rifling through his pockets. My question is simple and goes to the Minister of Finance: where is this money coming from? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, I would like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. Currently, the health and safety of Canadians are our top priorities. We have implemented an emergency economic plan to support Canadians, workers and companies. We will continue to support them during this crisis. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The answer I would have liked is simple: we are borrowing the money and we are going to have to pay it back one day. That is another Liberal craze: they borrow money, they make campaign promises, and off they go. Under the Conservative government, the Chantier Davie in Lvis had 1,700workers for the supply ship Asterix. In the election campaign, the Liberals promised icebreakers. When are the Liberals going to award the icebreaker contracts to the Chantier Davie? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): MadamChair, we are very proud of the Chantier Davie and we completely understand its role in the system. We are currently assessing those requests. We are going to establish the process for the polar ice-breaker, which is essential for the work of the Coast Guard in northern communities, and we are going to make sure that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers do not need words; they need contracts and jobs. The same is true for young people who want to work. There is money in the Canada summer jobs program: in my constituency alone, $150,000has been approved. Companies want young people to work and want to hire them. What is the minister waiting for in order to confirm those positions? In my constituency, and everywhere else in the country, our young people want to work. What is the government waiting for in order to send some cash to the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are proud of the Canada summer jobs program. We are introducing flexibilities into the system to enable employers to be able to hire summer students. We recognize the importance of this program to provide both financial resources and necessary experience for young people. We believe in continuing to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers, the young people and the employers have been waiting for weeks. The money is available; where is the announcement? MadamChair, our young people are not the only ones who want to work. There are also the temporary foreign workers. Let me use Jessie Gito as an example; he has been working at Plate2000 in Saint-Anselme for years. When the time came to renew his work permit, he found out that he has to have some biometric tests. But he cannot get them because the offices are closed. Is the minister going to allow Jessie Gito and the thousands of other temporary foreign workers who want to work to be able to do so until the government biometric testing centres reopen? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, it is important for the honourable member to recognize that we are in the early recovery stage of the pandemic. Employers are slowly reopening businesses. We will ensure that we support both our students and our temporary foreign workers to make sure we get the recovery right. We will continue to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that employers are able to take advantage of the program and give opportunities to young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: It is very simple. Jessie Gito is a foreign worker, who is in a company that provides an essential service. He needs a decision that will let him go to work, rather than staying home and doing nothing. Then, when the government's biometric testing centres are open again, he will gladly go to one. Young people want to work in agriculture as well, and the minister has told us that the government wants young people working and that their files will be processed as quickly as possible. She wants to create 700positions and she knows that people can fill in an application on a first-come first-served basis. Of those 700positions, how many have been confirmed to date? The good weather has arrived, the corn is starting to grow, and this is the time when farmers need the young workers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): MadamChair, the program for young workers in agriculture is open. I also encourage agricultural producers to register for it. This is a program that is not only intended to provide summer jobs, but also to interest young people in making a career in agriculture. As I have said before, the department is processing files as quickly as possible. Each employer will have an answer very shortly. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will now take a short break. Okay, we are ready to start again. We will go to the honourable member for BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Over the course of the pandemic, has the government been using all avenues possible to source much-needed PPE in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, we have been very clear that we have a made-in-Canada initiative that has engaged companies across the country. Over 700 companies have retooled and scaled up their operations for personal protective equipment to help front-line health care workers. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Madam Chair, I need to ask very quickly which ministry and minister are responsible for the sourcing of PPE in Canada. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, this is a collective effort. I work with the Minister of Health and the minister for procurement , and we coordinate with the provinces and territories to make sure there are appropriate levels of PPE to help front-line health care workers and essential workers across the country. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that clarification. That will make this question all the more pertinent. My riding of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte is the home of Southmedic Inc. Southmedic is a renowned medical supply business. For over 37 years, it has provided front-line health care workers with an extensive line of PPE and other essential products required when dealing with respiratory illnesses. This company specializes in respiratory illness equipment. Southmedic currently employs over 700 people, and it has been recognized as one of Canada's best-managed companies by Deloitte on numerous occasions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, both I and the member for BarrieInnisfil have been attempting to obtain some assistance for Southmedic from the federal government. Calls and emails were falling on deaf ears. In early May, I wrote a letter to Minister Anand outlining the situation. I received a letter back from the minister dated May 27 indicating that this issue of Southmedic falls under the mandate of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. I have heard nothing more. When will the federal government reach out and help this great Canadian company and therefore ensure that all front-line workers will have the proper PPE they require? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He knows full well that this is a very challenging time. That is why we had a call to action to engage Canadians right across the country. Since then, we've seen over 6,000 companies step up to offer solutions and ideas, and over 700 companies have retooled their efforts. I acknowledge that some companies are still engaging with the government, and we'll continue to explore all possible options to make sure we continue to procure the necessary levels of personal protective equipment to protect Canadians and to protect front-line health care workers. That has always been our priority. I want to thank the outstanding Canadian companies that have come forward and have helped us in this endeavour. We continue to look forward to working with them. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that answer. Just to follow up, there's no retooling required at this company. They could have been up and going very quickly. They just needed a little assistance at the beginning. Moving on to a different issue, while walking to my office this morning, I stopped at my local small family-run coffee shop and was discussing the current economic situation with the two owners of the establishment. They indicated they are having a very tough time surviving this economic downturn. The only thing keeping them hopeful is that soon the public service will start returning to work, and therefore their business will begin to return. Could the government please give us some indication as to what the plans are for returning the civil service back to work safely, and when? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to answer this question. This is a very important topic, but I'd like to take the opportunity first to thank our public servants, who have worked very hard in the last few weeks, both personally and professionally. In fact, today is a wonderful day to say that, because today is the start of National Public Service Week. That's one more reason to thank them for their dedicated work. They are not going to go back to work. They've been at work for the last few monthsin different circumstances, but they have been working very hard to deliver the services and the support Canadians need and deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Next we'll go to the honourable member for SelkirkInterlakeEastman, Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Defence. First of all, I want to thank the great men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces for the fantastic job they're doing in Operation LASER, serving on the front lines battling COVID-19. Can the Minister of National Defence give the House an update on exactly where we are at with the number of Canadian Armed Forces members who have been infected with COVID-19? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Madam Chair, I want to echo the member opposite's comments in thanking our Canadian Armed Forces members. Currently, we have 13 active cases in the Canadian Armed Forces, but in the long-term care facilities we currently have 50 cases. No member has been currently hospitalized. We have also conducted very thorough reviews of our protection protocols as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Through you, Chair, Minister Sajjan, does that number of active cases include the active cases that are in long-term care facilities right now in Operation LASER? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, as I stated, the 50 cases are strictly from the long-term care facilities. The 13 cases I mentioned are not in the long-term care facilities. Just to give the actual clarification, no member has been currently hospitalized. +Mr. James Bezan: In those numbers, Madam Chair, can Mr. Sajjan say how many of those cases in long-term care facilities are active and how many are recovered? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I don't have the exact number. What I can say to break it down further is that in Quebec we currently have 36 and in Ontario we have 14. As well, 36 of the members have been out of isolation. I'll get more details and pass them on directly to the member, Madam Chair. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Minister. Madam Chair, I have a quick question while we're still talking about Operation LASER. The President of the Treasury Board has said, The Canadian Armed Forces will be present as long as their presence is needed in Quebec. This contradicts what Prime Minister Trudeau is saying, which is that we have a hard deadline of June 26 for the withdrawal of our troops for Operation LASER. That means taking our troops out of our long-term care facilities. Minister, is June 26 the hard date for the winding down of Operation LASER? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to clarify for the House. We've been in very extensive discussions with the Province of Quebec, with my counterpart Minister Guilbault, and we are working very diligently to ensure we have a sustained, appropriate response to the request from Quebec for assistance. That response will result in a transition from the currently deployed Canadian Armed Forces to the deployment of paid volunteers, trained personnel who will take on the important role of providing services to those Canadians who need our help in Quebec. +Mr. James Bezan: I'll go back to the Minister of National Defence. The Department of National Defence auditors have called out the Liberal government for mismanagement over the $553-billion investment in our Canadian military through the defence policy. Only three people have been assigned to oversee the rollout of this money. This is a $553-billion investment in our armed forces, and only three people are managing it. Could the minister tell us how that is even possible? Is this the reason that over 100 projects are currently behind schedule? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, first of all, I want to highlight the unprecedented investment that we're making in defence. We have conducted internal reviews of our procurement. The report the member opposite is talking about is from the previous year. This is the ongoing work we're doing to make sure that we make procurement better. When it comes to the management of this, it's conducted by me and the minister of procurement . We are working toward making our procurement even better. We have already streamlined some aspects of our procurement and we'll continue to do more as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, you've had this report since November of 2019. You've been rolling out this plan since 2017. Only three people are overseeing an expenditure of $553 billion. This is taxpayers' money. Are we going to see more cuts because you have been unable to actually roll out these dollars? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I can assure you we're not going to be cutting. We'll be investing in our defence. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before I go to the next speaker, I want to remind members that they are to address their questions and comments directly through the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for Fort McMurrayCold Lake, Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Madam Chair, the Canada summer jobs program has many challenges. I've seen many indigenous communities in my riding rejected for funding even though they had received funding in previous years. Here are a few examples of communities that were rejected: Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Buffalo Lake Mtis Settlement and the Mtis Nation of Alberta, Region 1. The list goes on. Could the Prime Minister explain why so many indigenous communities have been denied funding from the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in our community across the country every year. We're working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and are supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We are introducing increased flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth, while also providing more supports to employers that deliver essential services to Canadians. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, that didn't really answer my question. Why are so many indigenous communities left out of the Canada summer jobs program? This is very important to my community and to communities throughout the province. Will the government investigate why these communities were rejected? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we, of course, value the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in all communities, including indigenous communities in Canada. I will certainly have an off-line conversation with the honourable member, if he so wishes, about a particular issue, but I can assure him that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had to assist employers to introduce flexibilities +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, in my riding, the City of Cold Lake has been in dispute with the federal government for many years over payment in lieu of taxes. My office has sent many letters over the years regarding the PILT dispute. Could the Minister of Public Services and Procurement give me a rough estimate of when I will receive a response from the minister's office to my first letter, from 2017, and my letters from 2018, 2019 and 2020? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will go to the minister, and we will come back with an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: How much longer does the minister intend to perpetuate the ongoing PILT dispute, which is in excess of $11 million, with the City of Cold Lake? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, once again, I can assure the honourable member that I will speak with the minister and get an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Well, do you know what? I've been writing letters to the department for many years. When you say you're going to get back to me, I really have a hard time believing that. Will the minister agree to follow the prior recommendations of the dispute advisory panel that were accepted by the minister? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will check with the minister and that she will return to the member in due course. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, the drug Trikafta has been proven to increase the quality of life for 90% of cystic fibrosis patients. Two weeks ago, my office sent a letter to the Minister of Health about the boy in my riding named Cael, who through the special access program is able to get Trikafta in Canada. I requested that the minister use her powers to fast-track Trikafta for commercial use, but I have yet to receive a response back. When will the minister make a decision on Trikafta? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I'm glad to hear that Cael was able to access Trikafta through the special access program. In fact, that program is very helpful for people who are seeking access to medication that's not currently marketed in Canada. As the member opposite knows, Vertex has not applied to market Trikafta in Canada, but we look forward to their application, and I encourage him to write a letter to the manufacturer to also encourage them. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Vancouver Granville, Ms. Wilson-Raybould. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Chair. I was very troubled to hear that a CBC radio host in the Yukon felt compelled to resign because, as an indigenous person, she could not speak her truth. While we know the Broadcasting Act states that the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of indigenous peoples, it would seem there are some challenges. Therefore, does the Minister of Heritage share the concern of some journalists that problems of systemic racism in Canada are still existing within the institution of the CBC, and will the government now acknowledge the need to recognize the jurisdiction of indigenous governments? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair; and I thank the member for this important question. As stated by the Prime Minister on numerous occasions, our government recognizes that systemic racism exists in Canada, and we have made a commitment to do everything we can to combat it in whichever organization of the Canadian government. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you. When I was in the government, and as a minister, I learned the term red meat issues. I understand these issues to be ones that challenge societal norms, that are not politically expedient to address because they can lose you votes, even though addressing them is morally right and a smart thing to do. Mostly these are issues addressing inequality and the most marginalized in our society. In the justice system, examples include mandatory minimum penalties, defunding police, and even investing in restorative justice. Red-meat issues often become defining issues for society and for governments as the world changes. Surely now these issues are politically less of a consideration than the tragic reality of even more slain indigenous Canadians at the hands of police, or thousands of indigenous people still incarcerated or living in poverty. Will this government please finally commit to the necessary work originally promised in 2015 and repeal in the justice system the vast majority of mandatory minimum penalties, assuring the necessary discretion for judges, and meaningfully invest in restorative justice measures? +Hon. David Lametti: Madame Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question, as well as for her work as Minister of Justice, and indeed my predecessor. This is an important time. This is a time when we recognize systemic racism. This is a time when we recognize systemic over-incarceration of indigenous peoples, of black peoples, in our criminal justice system. This is a time when we need to look at all potential options to reduce what is a shameful overrepresentation in our criminal justice system. Too often racialized peoples and indigenous peoples have experienced prejudice and systemic discrimination in our justice system, and that has to change. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I'll go on to another red meat issue. In British Columbia we are in the fifth year of the opioid overdose public health emergency crisis. Sadly, May marks the deadliest month of overdose-related deaths. We are halfway into the year and have currently passed 500 deaths caused by overdose. Many of the deaths are related to COVID-19 measures that have prevented people from accessing supervised consumption sites, so they are overdosing alone. While the provinces welcomed the federal backing of safe supply exemption back in March, it is to expire in September of 2020. Echoing the call of the chief coroner of B.C. and Dr. Henry, more is needed from the federal government, more action. Will the government provide the necessary supports to the province and help support safe supply initiatives in the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: It's been a pleasure to work with the Province of British Columbia on innovative ways to work on the tragic situation of opioid overdose. I remain committed to working with the province and in fact any province that wants to work towards solutions that treat people who use substances with the dignity they deserve. Madam Chair, this is a complex issue. We're working closely with our partners to make sure that we can prevent more lives from being lost. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for South OkanaganWest Kootenay, Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. In my riding, Theo's in Penticton is a beloved restaurant. They've been serving great food for 40 years, but now they're struggling, because they don't qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Why is that? The original owners retired last year and sold it to another operator. The new owner can't use a year-to-year comparison to apply for the wage subsidy because he didn't own the restaurant last spring. He is forced to use receipts from January and February, the darkest doldrums of the restaurant year, to compare with the results from May, traditionally one of their best months. Now he has to compete with other local restaurants that can access the subsidy. When will the government fix this inequity and let Theo's compete and survive? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency wage subsidy is supporting over 2.5 million workers across the country. To help even more businesses support their workers and rehire people as they reopen, our government is extending the CEWS, and we will continue to extend the CEWS for an additional 12 weeks to August 29 to ensure that Canadian workers continue to have the support they need during these very difficult times. By extending eligibility, our government is ensuring that more Canadian workers in more sectors have the support they need. +Mr. Richard Cannings: The owner just wants to be able to apply for the wage subsidy, and right now he cannot, and he will not be able to. Thousands of other businesses are hit that way as well. I'd like to move on to forestry. Canada's forest sector has been declared essential during this pandemic, but it's been hit hard after a very difficult 2019. Despite soft markets and thousands out of work, government support programs have left many Canadian forest product companies behind. In my riding, the pulp mill in Castlegar is closing for the month of July because local sawmills aren't producing enough wood chips. What is the government going to do to finally support Canadian forestry workers and communities? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The time is almost up, but I will allow for the answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Thank you, Madam Chair. We have supported and we will continue to support the forestry sector, including through regional development programs. In fact, in Quebec, partnering with Les Bois Francs DV Inc., we have widened market access to our products and updated technology systems. In North Bay we've partnered with the Canadian Wood Council to promote the sector. In Vancouver we're working with FPInnovations to create the indigenous forest sector technical support program. We are supporting the forestry sector and its different needs region by region. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we go to the honourable member for SkeenaBulkley Valley, Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to pick up where my colleague left off, with B.C.'s forest industry. What we've seen in B.C. are multiple rounds of mill shutdowns and start-ups, and in some cases this has made it difficult for forestry workers to qualify for EI. My question to the minister is this: Will the minister work to make the EI program more flexible for forestry workers, similar to what this government has done for oil and gas workers? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, in the oil and gas sector we have focused on workers. That has been key in the inactive and orphan well program, which we are working on with the provincial governments of Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta. The focus on workers has assured that success, and we will continue to focus on workers in all the industries, particularly our natural resource industry, as they go through this extraordinarily difficult time. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Madam Chair, reforestation is a very important part of the forest industry in the riding I represent, and people were keenly interested to hear this government's plan to plant two billion trees in the next 10 years. That's a lot of trees. I'm wondering if the minister could tell us how many trees are going to be planted under this program by the end of this season. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, this government is committed to two billion trees. We are working with forestry associations, the industry and with individual companies to ensure this tree-planting season will be one of the largest the country has ever seen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The floor goes to the honourable member for Rivire-du-Nord. +Mr. Rhal Fortin (Rivire-du-Nord, BQ): MadamChair, last week, the government introduced BillC-17 and the Minister of Justice sent us briefing notes in which he said that it was important to suspend a number of time limits and to extend others, and that the failure to do so could have important repercussions on Canadians, their families, their situations, their finances and their ability to exercise their rights. We in the Bloc Qubcois agree with that. When are we going to talk about it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, the contents of BillC-17 are clearly very important. We have addressed the mandatory time limits in federal legislation as well as certain time limits that courts may not be able to handle. It is very important that we address this issue. That is why the law +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Fortin, you have the floor. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we agree that it is important. I concur. The minister's briefing notes say that, among other things, when it comes to divorcewhich means children are involved people are waiting on custody rights, child support and visitation rights. The minister pointed out that the national security review would require consultations if no decision is made in the prescribed time frame. It could pose a national security risk. It is really a big deal. When are we going to debate it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, I completely agree with my honourable colleague. The issue needs to be addressed. That is why it is in the bill. That is another reason to debate the bill. I beseech my colleagues opposite to debate it with us. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, what a coincidence, because I beseech my colleague opposite to debate it with us. That is what we are asking. Last week, the leader of the Bloc Qubcois asked the Liberal government to debate BillC-17 today. He did not get an answer. It does not seem to matter. Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is hardly a dimwit or greenhorn, told us that the justice system needs to be modernized. As recently as this past Saturday in LaPresse, Justice Wagner said that it is essential that the Criminal Code be amended to address the backlog of court proceedings. When will the Liberal government opposite pull up its socks, do its job, govern the federation, sit down with the opposition and discuss the vital matters in BillC-17? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, if I were my colleague, I would be a little embarrassed, because the bill was sent to the Bloc Qubcois several days in advance. They received a technical note several days in advance. We were all available to take questions. When we asked for the support of the Bloc Qubcois and the other parties to debate itwe were not even asking them to vote in favour of the billthey refused. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we never refused to debate it. Actually, we were the ones who asked to debate it. What exactly does debate it mean? We set some conditions. For example, we asked the Liberals to put the money back into the wage subsidy fund and to commit to dip into it no longer. Are we asking too much of our colleagues opposite? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Can my colleague explain to me what the emergency wage subsidy has to do with a bill about justice? This is an absolutely fundamental piece of legislation. We wanted to debate it, but they refused to do so. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, I would like nothing better than to explain it to him, but I must remind him that he is the leader of the party in power, the party that is supposed to govern the country. So I do not know why he is asking me that. My party proposed that we debate this today but we did not get an answer. Meanwhile, court time limits are running out and people are losing rights. I am thinking of families, child support, child custody, labour law disputes in Federal Court, marine transportation, interprovincial transportation, aviation, banks, and those with grievances waiting for a Federal Court ruling. The whole system, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, everything is on hold because nobody in the government wants to do their job. We want to discuss BillC-17. When can we talk about it? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, we have done our job. We have introduced the bill. We informed them in advance. We told them they could ask us any questions they wanted. We asked for a debate in the House. However, when we asked the Bloc Qubcois if they wanted to debate the bill, they said no, instead of doing what they usually do and saying yes. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Essex, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis (Essex, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When the CERB runs out, many workers in my riding of Essex will not have sufficient hours to collect their EI benefits. In early July, the midnight shift at Chrysler will be eliminated. Because of the shutdown, a mom-to-be who had just returned to work in January, and several hundred of her fellow employees, may not have the 600 hours required for regular or EI parental benefits. Immediate action is needed. What is the government doing now to backstop these workers? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency response benefit has been providing much-needed help to Canadian workers across the country who have stopped working due to COVID-19. We know that there is still a lot of uncertainty for many Canadian workers, and we know that many will be exhausting their benefits in the weeks to come. We will have more to share soon, as early as this week, on our continuing efforts to support Canadian workers and make sure that help is available during this +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Go ahead, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Minister, for the answer. The EI system needs to be fixed. Even before the shutdown, the system was deeply flawed. Will this government commit to a complete review and overhaul of the EI system? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we have been there for Canadian workers. We will continue to make sure that we make the necessary investments in the EI delivery system and modernize it to continue to meet +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Small businesses have been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 shutdown. Many have already been forced into bankruptcy. Much uncertainty lies ahead. As the economy reopens, what is the government doing to help small businesses recover? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, today we are seeing small businesses that have been helped, whether it is getting access to the small business loan, which some are also using in the restart as they are safely restarting, or getting help with their payroll, helping them keep their employees +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Employees are key to a small business's success. How will the government incentivize workers to return to their jobs when recalled? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister can give a brief answer. +Hon. Mary Ng: The Canada emergency wage subsidy is an excellent program to help those employees stay employed and for those employers who are looking at rehiring them right now during this restart process. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, many of my constituents are in a committed cross-border relationship and have not been able to see their partners in quite some time. The current restrictions are arbitrary. Denmark has found a fair resolution. Will Canada adopt the Danish model, and if not, why not? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, as we said from the outset, we've implemented restrictions at the U.S. border on non-essential travel with a single purpose in mind: to protect the health and safety of Canadians. As the member is aware, just last week we introduced new measures that allow people in family relationships to stay together as long as they commit to the necessary 14-day period of quarantine. We'll continue to work with families. Our intention is to keep people together, but mostly to keep people safe. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, with regard to child care, as our economy continues to open, parents are facing a stark choice: Who will care for their children? What's the plan to provide access to child care so parents can confidently return to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are of course committed to continuing to make the record investments that we've been making in child care. Since 2015 we've created over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We're committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. We will continue to invest in this sector because we understand that without investment +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. It sounds as though this government has a desire to force parents to choose between their job and care for their child. Can the government please respond to that quote? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, nothing could be further from the truth. We are committed to the child care sector. Our investments and our results prove the opposite of what the member is asserting. Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I'm sorry. We're out of time. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","In the conversation, there were several key points and exchanges. + +1. Anthony Rota, the Chair, called the meeting to order and reminded members of the procedures for participating in person and via video conference. + +2. Elizabeth May presented two petitions: one about the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China, including allegations of involuntary organ harvesting, and the other about public funds being used for the Trans Mountain pipeline. + +3. Jenny Kwan tabled two petitions. The first called for housing affordability measures in response to COVID-19 impacts, such as rent, mortgage, and utility freezes, along with direct monthly financial assistance. The second petition opposed the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, citing environmental and economic risks. + +4. Garnett Genuis presented four petitions: one regarding the government's firearm ban and the need for measures to address illegal gun use while respecting law-abiding citizens, one on the definition used in conversion therapy legislation, one in support of Bill S-204 against forced organ harvesting in China, and one concerning the removal of safeguards in Bill C-7 related to euthanasia. + +5. Statements by members included topics such as climate change and elder abuse. + +6. The Chair reminded members to keep their remarks concise and neutral. + +7. Grard Deltell asked when the government would present an economic update, highlighting that provinces like Quebec and Saskatchewan have already done or planned to do so. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland responded by noting ongoing support for Canadians but did not provide a specific date for the economic update. + +8. Christine Normandin highlighted the importance of unconditional health care transfers to provinces, while Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland emphasized federal support for provinces, including the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces in Quebec and Ontario. + +9. Jagmeet Singh raised concerns about systemic racism and the need for systemic change, including the potential to ""defund"" police and redirect funds to health care workers. He also inquired about the government's commitment to reviewing the RCMP's use of force and ensuring a continuation of financial support when the CERB ends. + +10. Rachael Harder questioned the Liberal government's commitment to open, transparent governance given the current suspension of Parliament. + +11. Garnett Genuis pressed the government on issues related to China, including personal debt to the Chinese government held by the Foreign Affairs Minister Champagne, the government's stance on Huawei's 5G involvement, and concerns about scientific cooperation with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. + +12. Michael Barrett asked questions related to the difficult situation of certain communities, long-term care facilities and small businesses during the pandemic, as well as the lack of support for legions across the country. + +13. Questions from other MPs touched on various subjects, including the Public Service, the status of small businesses and the Canada Summer Jobs program, the forest industry in British Columbia, the opioid crisis, and the need for collecting race-based data to address systemic racism. + +Overall, the conversation included a mixture of petitions presentations, members' statements, and a Q&A session where opposition members asked the government about economic updates, health transfers, systemic racism, parliamentary transparency, national security, and various regional concerns." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry to be late . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody . +User Interface: Yeah . Thanks . +Project Manager: So this meeting agenda will be the detailed design meeting . And uh opening and uh P_M_s {gap} of the meet minutes , uh prototype presentation from uh Christine and uh Agnes . +Industrial Designer: Agnes , yes . +Project Manager: Yes and uh evaluation criteria . The finance , it's uh from my side , from the management , and uh production evaluation . Then uh closing . So we have forty minutes to discuss and uh finalise and close the product and project and to move further , okay , so {disfmarker} Okay , let's talk about uh maybe first uh for the prototype . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: So I handle to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I've done a presentation , but it pretty much covers work that we've both done , so if I'm missing anything , Christine can just correct me . +Project Manager: So shall I go to {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh thank you , so you did a PowerPoint presentation , good for you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . S Okay , let's go to A_M_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not the biggest PowerPoint presentation in the world , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So in two or three or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . Um . {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably . Technical pa I would think . +User Interface: think it's the last one . No , then this is {vocalsound} the la yeah , that one , final design . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It is named appropriately , you just couldn't see the name . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay , can I have the mouse ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Thanks . Alright , so from {disfmarker} when we were discussing specifying the case in the last meeting , we decided that we wanted an ergonomic shape , the material that we chose was wood , and uh the colour would be customisable , 'cause you can stain the wood whatever colour . Um , so in terms of function , you have to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off , volume and channel control , menu control , voice recognition control , and we've incorporated the L_C_D_ screen on the flip panel as part of the design , if we figure out it's too expensive , well then you just take it off . {vocalsound} Um , so {vocalsound} to unveil our lovely product . This is our remote control , with the flip panel as you can see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you lift up the panel , you can see the lovely yellow L_C_D_ display . {vocalsound} Um , this is actually hard to do . The yellow button you have is the on off button , so it's really big , hard to miss . You have the the red um triangles are the toggles for changing the volume . So up {disfmarker} volume up , down {disfmarker} volume down . The green are the channel changing . {vocalsound} S And it's one of those very light , very touchable displays . And then you have the numeric pad in the dark blue at the bottom , and on the right-hand side you have the access to the menu on the T_V_ , and on the left-hand side you have the the the ability to turn off the voice recognition . So this is pretty much what we had on the white board the last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Um and uh I could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the d +User Interface: Additional feature on the back is that you can have your own customised backing and I suppose you could do the same thing on the flip case on the front . So that you can really make this a highly highly customisable remote control . +Industrial Designer: We haven't um uh specified where the speaker or the microphone will be placed . That depends on the uh s design of the circuit board inside and uh what room is left um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the microphone is on on the top , uh on the middle , the {disfmarker} under the flip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , okay . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So that will be the safe , so p any {disfmarker} the chip {disfmarker} it's not on the chip because you need to have microphone {gap} to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I mean it depends on the design of the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: But it shouldn't be under the flip either , because you can have the remote control closed , but you still might want to activate it by voice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's it's {disfmarker} Yeah , but uh uh my opinion I think it's better under the flip because whenever you want to uh the talk , okay , so then you can speak then you can close it . But if you put it on the on the flip , okay , then uh technical I don't think it's uh feasible , 'cause most of the time you speak then it will be recognised . +User Interface: But if you've already got the remote control in your hand you need to open the flip to use the voice , why use the voice , why not just use your hand ? I mean the whole point of the voice is that if the remote control is sitting there and I'm too lazy to reach over and pick it up , I can just use my voice . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I've got my hand in the popcorn bowl and I'm holding my cup of Coca-Cola in the other hand . +User Interface: Yeah . And you don't wanna let go of either one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't wanna say . Louder . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean it doesn't have to be on the flip , it can be on the side somewhere . +Marketing: Can also be on the side . +Project Manager: Yeah , the sides maybe is good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , I mean I can pass this around if anyone wants to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . So it's maybe good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , y better you pass it around with a napkin . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , because y you can easily put a microphone on the side that would have no problem would haven't been {disfmarker} not be damaged or anything , and it'd be accessible all the time to voice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's maybe good idea . S s +Industrial Designer: It's um {disfmarker} It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Compliments to the artist . +Industrial Designer: You need to work on the weight a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . S {vocalsound} I'm fine , I'm satisfi +User Interface: And maybe the shape of the buttons , +Project Manager: I'm satisfied . +User Interface: the little egg shapes aren't the most economical , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're glad you're satisfied . +Project Manager: Of course it's it's it's looks more heo heavy , but I think when it's completely {gap} maybe it's a less weight . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean this is plasticene . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: There's only so much you can do . We could have possibly made it a lot thinner as well . {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} And part of the thing is m a lot of people say that they don't like something that's too light , because they don't feel like they have enough control over it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I mean maybe this is excessively heavy , but I think it needs to have some weight , +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: it needs to feel like you're still holding something . {vocalsound} So that's pretty much it for our presentation actually . +Project Manager: That's your uh prototype model ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's good , thank you very much . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any comments or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the prototype is is very well within the design and ideas that we've we've talked about on the previous meetings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now it goes into this next phase as the financial uh marketing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , that uh {disfmarker} So I'll come back to the {disfmarker} {gap} So evaluation criteria , I think uh that will be good , so then let's come to the finance uh , I have some uh calculations which I made uh as for uh the budget . So here you can uh look like uh the energy {gap} and uh {gap} dynamo and uh kinetic and solar cells . Uh it's optional , somewhat optional and Ed wants the chip on print , that's what uh we were talking about that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So then we have sample sensor and sample speaker , then uh we have the wood material , then special colour and push button . So it's uh {disfmarker} actually , our budget was uh twelve point five Euro , but uh it's coming to nine point nine five Euro , so we are under uh {disfmarker} below the budget , okay , so still we are saving some money . I think it's a good figure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , great I {disfmarker} I'm surprised . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Than thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we haven't come to mine yet , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . It's gonna cost a long way to c you know , cost a lot of money to market it , is it ? +Marketing: we're gonna have a bit of difference of opinion , yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe it's {disfmarker} for some money we can utilise for our uh marketing , for the sales , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , it just depends on if we're gonna add a {vocalsound} o on this pr provisionary cost analysis , we do not have a L_C_ display . L_C_ display is gonna be very expensive , +User Interface: No we do , but it's not filled in . +Marketing: it's gonna be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not . +Industrial Designer: Thirty . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} it doesn't say . +User Interface: It's number thirty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: We don't have the price up there , +User Interface: Oh , yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: you're right , sorry , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: okay , so if we add approximately two to three Euro per remote , now we're up around about twelve , twelve and a half as to what uh the company had initially uh requested . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So that means we can put the uh {disfmarker} the L_C_D_ in , yeah . +Marketing: Display in . But as far as production um I'm putting up a question because we're talking about profit also , and in mine you'll see uh {vocalsound} the problem with uh our survey , the p the possibility that how many units can be sold , what percentage of the market , etcetera etcetera because that {gap} has to be taken in into consideration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh this is just production cost , it is not uh advertising cost , it's not transportation cost uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so still uh we have twelve point five Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that will inflate quite a bit the cost of the uh {disfmarker} the cost of the unit for the company . +Project Manager: Yes . {gap} Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yep . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: So to come up with what the company wants is a fifty million Pound profit , we're gonna have to go a long ways . +Project Manager: Yes . This we are talking about one unit , okay , so when it go into the quantity , okay , and the cost will come down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Although customisation , because this is being done , you know , the on {disfmarker} on-order basis , it might be uh the the quantity won't m won't uh +Marketing: Slightly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's gonna be very hard to reduce . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: the circuit board will b you're right , would be in producing quantity , but the cost of the case would uh {vocalsound} be fixed at the {disfmarker} Uh you got some pretty cheap labour that can do this case for one Euro . +Marketing: That's not bad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's really {disfmarker} that's the cost of the material and lab wow , that's really outstanding . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But anyhow , still we are under control , okay , so what uh I will do is I will try to negotiate with the vendors , okay , to get uh the production cost less , okay , so then we can save some money , okay , to put into th our marketing or uh you know the promotions , whatever , okay , so that uh I will look after . I will speak to the management and how to get uh you know some more uh cost down . +Marketing: If we can go to to my display . And we'll come back to yours +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: just to give everybody an idea of the market . So now I'm gonna scare everybody out of this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I'm still here . +Project Manager: You're in four ? +Marketing: {gap} Yep The four gives me {disfmarker} it's gotta be uh TrendWatch . +Project Manager: TrendWatch . +Industrial Designer: Is this the same one you did before ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It shouldn't be +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} no , I think it's the same one . +Marketing: if it's not {disfmarker} it's not the right one . No , no we g no , that's the same one . You have to go back and find another one . Whatever name it popped up under . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: Uh functional , try functional , it might not be it either , but we'll see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It looks like it , there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} S Yeah . +Marketing: Yep , that's it . So we'll go screen by screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Although {vocalsound} since uh we need to have some type of idea on a market uh we had independent study that says it {disfmarker} this this market has an availability to absorb eight mi eight million units per year . Okay ? Our internal company evaluation puts it between eight to nine million which is approximately the same as the independent study . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we continue , we'll look at the findings . Next screen . {vocalsound} Which means that uh if we have a target of two million would the company has to take twenty five percent of the market in the first year , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is actually a tremendous amount . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , no kidding . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No kidding , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mayb maybe they already expected something . +Marketing: So , if we put an inflated price of fifty Euro at a production cost that cannot exceed twenty-five Euro , okay , we're already in that that price , okay , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: with transport , promotion , labour , because we hav {gap} gi included the promotion in the cost , transport for the material to the stores or whatever how however we're gonna break this down between our our retailers . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: Twenty-five percent of the market to get to two million units . At two million units , we have to have a profit of twenty-five Euro per unit to get to the fifty million unit Eu Euro profit . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Marketing: Okay ? So , obviously we w w I just did a run down the evaluation of the form , the fan uh the fancy stylishness of the {disfmarker} of the unit , the ease of use , speech recognition , cost , we've gone through these . Now , the company must evaluate the feasibility of being able to take enough of the market to justify in production . Or we project this over two years , but being that the market changes very very quickly , maybe there's no more interest in buying this thing in eighteen months from now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . Of course . +Marketing: So , now we have to come up with a decision . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can the company sell two million units ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Can it sell it for fifty Euros ? +Industrial Designer: Could could I go to findings ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh um I would uh like to explore the possibility of using um alternative um delivery and sales channel which would be um to use the internet for promotion and ordering +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was thinking the same thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then to drop-ship the p product to the customer's residence . +User Interface: Directly . +Industrial Designer: That way you have no storage , you have no um {disfmarker} you do have transportation , still have the labour cost , +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you don't have the transport to the uh point of sale . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: The point of sale is online . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: To the agents . +User Interface: Yeah . You can do a shipping centre somewhere , or strategically place shipping centres to minimise distance costs . +Industrial Designer: Right , like Amazon . In fact , we should sell through Amazon , +Project Manager: Yes . Or eBay , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: don't you think ? Or eBay , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Going with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To impro more profit and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: S Upscale technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah , we we're do you know , selling a unique product uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . +User Interface: That actually makes more sense if we're gonna make it so highly customisable , 'cause on the web people can look at the different options they have , see maybe what other people have done , what the range of possibility as , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: There are several companies that have gone that way . +User Interface: whereas if you're in a store , you can't {disfmarker} unless you're a highly imaginative person , you may not really know what it is you want , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: whereas on the web , if you have a bunch of pictures , it can sort of trigger ideas and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . And you can even have an {disfmarker} a movie that you can rotate the object and look at the di the only thing that you're missing really is the weight . +User Interface: Yeah . The weight and feel . +Marketing: Weight , the feel of the product , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're getting used to that . It's not quite like trying on a shoe , but people are getting used to buying things online that they can't touch before buying . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: There are several that have gone through with the watches , too . You can customise a watch , you can see how it is at the f at the end of the production , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you can change it uh {disfmarker} There's a lot of online that's {disfmarker} that is doing this now . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And when you're rotating , you'll look behind and look this way uh {disfmarker} it's possible to do with this , maybe there's a possibility of selling more than two million units in one year , which could {vocalsound} you know , feasibili feasibility uh lower the price of the unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: I don't think that's uh not possible , it's uh {disfmarker} okay then , l uh let's wait for the production , okay , then uh you can evaluate the product , so how it looks like technically and uh how it look like uh the real . +User Interface: What turnaround time do we have ? +Project Manager: T +User Interface: 'Cause I mean production evaluation can be very very quick or very very long . +Project Manager: Oh but {disfmarker} Yes it's it's very quick , of course . It will uh come back in two weeks , okay , it will be ready in two weeks . +Industrial Designer: Works for me . +Project Manager: For evaluation , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Prototypes , you mean . +Project Manager: Yes , the prototype uh {disfmarker} prototype product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: In um {disfmarker} We probably should do some market tests uh once we have the prototypes and do some orders and things like that and test-market it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Well , obviously . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm that'd have to be thrown out on the market for people to get an idea , +Project Manager: So you can take a minimum two weeks to a maximum four weeks . +Marketing: to see {disfmarker} get get their {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Think minimum two weeks if we're gonna develop prototypes and then try to take them to different places and see how people use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not a trivial task . +Project Manager: Yeah , because we we are not going to do it in uh our factory , okay , so we can give it a product evalua +User Interface: No no . We definitely shouldn't do it in our factory . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we'll do it in the other place , and I don't think it's take more than four weeks time . Or uh {disfmarker} Okay , so then the real production we will start once we product evaluation , okay , then uh it's approve from uh the technical team and uh your team , okay , uh from the management , then we can launch in the market . Hm ? +Industrial Designer: Any outstanding {disfmarker} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: S Any any other uh questions or uh comments to be discuss ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'm +User Interface: What ab +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} go ahead . +Marketing: I think we pretty much covered everything . +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Did you have something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I was just wondering about if we're gonna do a product evaluation then what about time for redesign if the users come back and tell us no this is bad , this is bad , we want this done differently . +Project Manager: Okay uh , let's take like this . Let's proceed with this model , okay , for the for the marketing direction , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So no more changes will be made , okay , in this {disfmarker} the basic design . Okay ? So we will introduce m this model and uh let's introduce in the market and let's take the feedback from the customers , then we can uh go for the +Industrial Designer: Second generation . +Project Manager: second generation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . There's no end , there's not limit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The problem is there might not be a second generation if the first generation flops for some silly reason that we haven't thought of . +Project Manager: Every every custom +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , then it may not be . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , every customer , okay , they have their own ideas , they have their own test , okay , so there's no end , there's no limit . +Marketing: Like people don't like wood . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , but there's a difference between releasing a product that has been minimally tested and fine-tuned to suit a general range of requirements versus releasing a product that we think will work but we don't really have anything to back it up . +Marketing: {gap} very specific . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that's the reason you are here for uh the design , okay , I hope you made a good design . +User Interface: Yes , but I'm not everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean the whole point of user evaluation is to see what real people need . We have our own motivations in mind , we have our own ideas in mind , but that doesn't mean that that's what's gonna sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh see , we ought to take a few considerations , okay , one is the price consideration , one is future consideration , okay , like uh you can eat uh {disfmarker} you can all eat more chi I can eat more chilli , okay , so i it's a depends on the individual taste , you know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we have we have to balance somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah , of course . I'm just trying to point out that I think that your evaluation and redesign turnaround time is too short {disfmarker} well you have no redesign {disfmarker} not you personally , but in the project we have no redesign time and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Our project doesn't {disfmarker} um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ed , d do you know what season of the year or time of the year is the most important for T_V_ remote control sales ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would it be the Christmas season by any chance ? +Project Manager: The sports time . +Industrial Designer: Sports season . Which sport season ? +Marketing: Right before the Eur {vocalsound} the World Cup . {vocalsound} World soccer . World Cup soccer , +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} so +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: they need those things that they have their hands g occupied and they need to be able to talk to the con remote control . +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: maybe what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think what we need to do is perhaps to synchronise the final {disfmarker} the the launch of a user-tested device with some {gap} special event . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: And and then um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: so that gives us a little more time perhaps then we anticipated , because I don't know when the World Cup is , but I'm sure there's gonna be one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or any major sports . +Industrial Designer: Or another {gap} m major sports event . Probably not the um the football games coming up the end of January . I think that might be a little too aggressive um , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but , so , I'm just ig uh pointing out a uh a strategy to uh do some additional user testing +Project Manager: Research . +Industrial Designer: pri and then to launch um at a a major sports event +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: or uh perhaps to uh also {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's actually good place to advertise it too . +Industrial Designer: And to work with motion pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There might be some motion pictures that are coming out um {disfmarker} that are coming out on D_V_D_ that uh they need to have a m special remote control to work with it , so we could maybe work out a campaign with uh with Sony Pictures for example . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe some management has got uh relationships there we can leverage . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , the {disfmarker} that of course uh I will convince the management to do that , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just something to to keep in mind , 'cause it's really really important . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure , sure , yes . +User Interface: A lot of products have gone out there without being properly user-tested and completely flopped , when in fact it gets re-released a few years down the line with proper testing and it takes off like crazy . +Industrial Designer: Disposable diapers is an example of that in fact . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it is one of the first consumer products that was launched about thirty years {disfmarker} that was a disposable consumer product , +User Interface: {vocalsound} That I didn't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh people {disfmarker} the market hadn't really {vocalsound} gotten on to the concept that you could use something and then throw it away , 'cause it wasn't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but then when they re-launched them thirty years later , they were virtually the same design , +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but people had gotten the throw-away , you know , paper cups and napki y all kinds of things that they hadn't um {disfmarker} so , you're right , timing is very important , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we've got a good product . +Project Manager: That's the reason Ed is here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think he can promote the the brand value and the product value . +Industrial Designer: That's right . It's gonna be very important to the company . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . We are behind the scene and he is the front screen , so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's on the big screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm the one who takes the heat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good luck , Ed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it's a flop , it's the marketer . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You look very relaxed , considering h you know , the uh the weight on your shoulders , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Yes . Stress . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh let's come to the closing and uh are the costs within the budget +Marketing: Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh is the product evaluated , okay , so that will uh come soon . Okay for uh {disfmarker} but our time being , so thanks for all your efforts and great work and uh great design and uh let's leave it to the Ed for later for once production is over and the meantime let's celebrate . So let's meet up uh this evening to hang up for some party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Industrial Designer: Nice working with you . +Marketing: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you again for all . +User Interface: Thanks +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And see you in the evening for drinks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye-bye . Yep , okay , see you later on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bye . +","The team meeting led by the project manager centered around the detailed design of a new remote control product. The discussion involved prototype presentation, evaluation criteria, finance, and production evaluations. The prototype, presented by the user interface team member, featured an ergonomic shape, customizable color due to the wood material, various functional buttons, voice recognition, and an optional LCD screen on a flip panel. + +Concerns were raised over the placement of the microphone for voice activation, with suggestions to move it to the side for better accessibility. The marketing team highlighted that the prototype fits within the previously discussed design ideas and is within the €12.5 budget at €9.95 per unit, allowing room in the budget for marketing and sales. + +The market potential was explored, with an aim of selling two million units at a price of €50 to achieve a €50 million profit. However, there were concerns over the ability to capture a significant market share and cover additional costs beyond production. Alternative sales channels, such as online direct shipping, were proposed to reduce costs. + +The debate continued over the feasibility of meeting the ambitious profit targets and the risks involved in not adequately user-testing the product. Suggestions were made to leverage special events for marketing campaigns such as the World Cup or major film releases. Redesign turnaround times and the importance of timing for a product launch were also considered. + +The meeting concluded with the project manager expressing confidence in the design and promotion abilities of the team while acknowledging the importance of user feedback for future iterations. The team planned to celebrate their progress and looked forward to the evening's gathering." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults—we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues—diabetes is often cited—cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices. +Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already. +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed? +Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target—we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on—but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question—'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?' +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target. +Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too? +Nathan Cook: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process—and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn—we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions—that's the point we need to consult on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan? +Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of £8 million to £10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy. +Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is—what the goal is? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for? +Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to—? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the £7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? +Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about £56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated—. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures. +Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised £150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was £520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential—£150 million. +Nathan Cook: On a UK level. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential? +Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing £8 million to £10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Siân moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to—? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from—. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference—it's a personal view—is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying, 'Here's a sugar levy', and 'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.' Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful. +Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask— +Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter.] +Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that? +Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see—and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister? +Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as—I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Siân Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us—. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask—sorry to interrupt—how up to date is that? +Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year. +Nathan Cook: The data was published last week. +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows—. It's not getting radically worse—there's always statistical variation in these things—but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11—at age 11 or 12., that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation—the point that was made earlier. +Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be—. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data? +Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years—what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to,  but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation? +Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got—we need to deploy them all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know—. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system—and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question—a really important question—about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now—some London boroughs are now—experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes—. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would—it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well. +Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and—. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we—enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours—that's exactly why we need the consultation. +Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having—you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right—obviously, parents have a role in this, or families—there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at. +Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask: 'you're the accountable person—why has something worked, or not worked?' We will need to know that at some point. +Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools—I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented—the school came and some of the children came and presented—to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was, 'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway. +Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce—education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old—. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today. +Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair? +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like? +Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So—I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question. +Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales—we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well. +Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team—I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that—? I felt completely alienated in school. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences. +Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key? +Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports. +Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do. +Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think—. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education? +Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a— +Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet. +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer. +Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would—. +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is—. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research? +Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember—? You must have seen on tv—I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales—parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools? +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that £56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows? +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations—the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer? +Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it. +Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people? +Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that. +Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that. +Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have—and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we—the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes—Healthy Working Wales, et cetera—that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far. +Nathan Cook: Can I just say—? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms—broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms—about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind—I'm a public health professional—and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about, 'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?' That's true for adults and it's true for children as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again. +Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children’s mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children’s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +","Summary: + +At the Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting, apologies were received from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant with no substitutions. Lynne Neagle AM welcomed Dr Frank Atherton, Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government, to discuss the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy. The strategy aims to address overweight and obesity across all ages, with a focus on prevention and engaging with children and young people. Discussions centered around the strategy's potential impact, engagement efforts, setting targets for obesity reduction, investment levels, and the role of legislation and planning systems. Specific concerns were raised regarding childhood obesity data, the use of school infrastructure for physical activity, and healthy environments. The need for improving clinical obesity pathways and support for low-income families was also highlighted. Multiple letters concerning CAMHS tier 4 provision and other related matters were noted. The meeting concluded with a motion to exclude the public from the remainder of the session." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Did you get my email with the slides ? Ah . Tricky . +Industrial Designer: I guess I have to change the pen otherwise . Will be completely different . +Marketing: Dunno . Maybe they're supposed {disfmarker} the pen's supposed to go over the seats . Might be seat floor rather than person . Yeah , put it back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And do you think {vocalsound} it's {gap} . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Jo's making faces at me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . Matthew is uh late again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably an important man . Um . So well it is important for him to be here uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: He he he {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what can you {disfmarker} {gap} ? +Project Manager: You did work together didn't you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah we will {disfmarker} yeah , so I will be able to to summarize uh our meeting , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: but still I think uh it would be in very important if the uh as um main designer . I think we can put on the {gap} here . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh basically w yeah we we designed the two uh items . +Project Manager: Mm . Um yes +Industrial Designer: Um , can we have a phone , +Project Manager: but w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: can someone {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , maybe we should phone him . Um well {disfmarker} Um , +Industrial Designer: it's really w well designed {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , object tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: when he is not here we will just we just have to continue . Um so just for record I I will take uh notes again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And um well {vocalsound} first thing uh I was uh uh I got an email from uh from my superior again that we really should stay within the budget of the uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: when you stay in it's good , when you don't stay in you have to redesign . There is no {vocalsound} uh no negotiation uh {vocalsound} possible in this matter . So we have to consider that . {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um so maybe Anna , you can have your presentation . +Marketing: Well we can't {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} we can't do evaluation 'til we have a design . +Project Manager: Okay Matthew . Nice uh you are here . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: Great . Great . Oh ma maybe then you can start now with mm presenting your uh your designs . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So I will start by the the basic one that uh fits into uh eight Euros actually , right , seven eight Euros , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh well first for both they have um a special shape , maybe the designer can uh explain better than me , but uh it's like a surf board . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you you are supposed to surf to browse to surf T_V_ , maybe the web , and uh it's kind of interesting shape because um unconsciously people want to s to surf {vocalsound} when they see this stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or browse . +Industrial Designer: And also it's not too far from um a mobile . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So people are used to that kind of shape , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . Don't take care too much about the colour because w yeah we don't take {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now we are supposed to give some oper offers right now . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So here would be basically the the the infrared uh uh led +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Eye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah L_A_ L_A_ L_E_D_ , +User Interface: L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: the on-off button , in red . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Here would be the volume . On the on the left , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: okay , so {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: easy to turn on t and off . And um so this is a very cheap version so there are {disfmarker} maybe you can carry on uh Matthew . +User Interface: Also {vocalsound} so you have uh uh browsing the channels , actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can go up and down the channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: uh , if you have a video or something you can forward , back . +Industrial Designer: How can you change from V_C_R_ to uh T_V_ , by the way ? +User Interface: Oh {gap} no no no , this is a single {disfmarker} this this is a model with just the T_V_ one . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +User Interface: No no just sorry , this is a standard T_V_ one , we are not talking about that . So and then we have usually there twelve keys but we know that we rel that we have only ten digits . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The extra two are for uh having or giving an option for uh having more than one channel . And the other one is for the teletext or something you want to browse through from that . Actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay so +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's it's t a very basic remote then , it's only {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a very basic minimal thing +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: which you can {disfmarker} which is which is also available in the market , actually that's what it {gap} {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and would cost us to build it about eight Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Seven , eight , ei eight Euros . +Project Manager: Exce except for the for the special shape , the surfing board , it has a quite a a conventional layout of buttons uh . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So this one model +Marketing: Can I see ? +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . +Marketing: Thanks . Okay I like the volume control , that's good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th {vocalsound} this is a magic one but I know we don't want to talk about that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know like {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh i i i it is a very futuristic , it's like uh it's like a brain machine interface and all this stuff we are thinking about in the future , it can come . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it doesn't actually have buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} then what we look t +Marketing: Did you wanna see ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah no you can carry on , +User Interface: This is a model , +Project Manager: I just look how it feels all . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Yes it really feels like like like a mobile phone . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Just I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually , yeah . +Project Manager: I really want to talk to it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It won't talk back . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So but but continue with your uh +User Interface: Uh so well +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: then the this is the {vocalsound} a more a little uh smooth +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: and it gives a lot of functionality , uh in this way , so all we have uh th you see there are only six keys , but don't worry they are ma they are doing the job of twelve keys actually here . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so they have more space actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh it's easy to uh use this and uh you have um so this is a standard uh {gap} uh infrared eye , and then you have a power button , which l volume , what you have , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then other than that you have uh channel up and down and uh f slow pause or s slow lo +Industrial Designer: Play , pause . +User Interface: yeah s pause or stop , and uh then uh you can uh you have a L_C_D_ display , here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh y this is a functional thing which can change like it's a toggle switch which could change the function say , y you press it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From D_V_D_ player to television or something . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah . To audio and to video on demand . +User Interface: Yeah . I really can change it , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Instead of having many switches , y {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes and and and then you get feedback via the L_C_D_ yeah . +User Interface: The L_C_D_ can display what is that on that , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh well you can have a integrated microphone over here , +Industrial Designer: This is the orange button , the {vocalsound} microphone . +User Interface: or in the button th here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so which can uh basically you want to do a speech recognition and uh that channel a lot of information can be di displayed here directly on the um on your on your display . +Industrial Designer: An yeah . +User Interface: And here is a small L_E_D_ which is like blinking one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which tells you like uh are you running out of the battery , and which is can be useful for the locating as I was talking earlier +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . And uh well then we have a cover basically , basically you don't need much of the time this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} when you need you can use it , and this gives additional functionality that tomorrow you want you can add a tactile thing to this cover +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Crazy dis designer , +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Design enter {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: but but but but uh i in there uh when this is closed , will it also uh cover up the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . It's basically to do that . +Project Manager: But but the L_C_D_ screen I mean is a very uh well an eye-attracting feature +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which shouldn't be shouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually when you are watching the T_V_ , {vocalsound} when you are watching anything or listening to them , you hardly care about what is getting displayed here , +Industrial Designer: Oh actually {disfmarker} well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That th that's true . +User Interface: you know , uh you want to uh {disfmarker} and this gives a protection to the L_C_D_ actually , giving a cover to that actually . Gives a protection +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because when it falls down or something it it is it is is is it gives a protec +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yes . Yes , more robust . +User Interface: it's more robust that way . Uh yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: And you have very good chances {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's low weight . You have to see yeah yeah the the components we put inside is very low weight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So the the cost is actually a bit more , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's sixteen Francs . +User Interface: It {disfmarker} Sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen Euros sorry . +Marketing: So it's well outside the budget then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then it's out of budget . +Project Manager: But w +Industrial Designer: But the the main point we we talk about that with our uh manufacturer . And they say basically that the S_R_ system would be uh something like three Francs per item {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so +User Interface: Three Euros . +Industrial Designer: three Euros sorry . And um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on top of the sixteen , or is it part of that ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , part of that , yeah . +User Interface: Part of that {gap} . +Marketing: So that takes it down to thirteen Euros without the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . Hmm . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well uh if you {disfmarker} we can have {disfmarker} if you have new more ideas we can add new more uh some more keys if you want to you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think th th yeah we should {vocalsound} stick with uh a number of keys +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because if we add too much then +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: it's too {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it should not be cluttering up everything . +Marketing: What's this one on the side ? +User Interface: Ah that's for the {disfmarker} it's kind of a L_E_D_ for indicating your battery +Industrial Designer: Locati . Location . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and as well as it's like a blinking one +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +User Interface: you know +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can keep it aside . +Marketing: I like the shape of them , I do like the the size and the the shape . +Project Manager: Well well {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be before ta talking about the money and what's possible and what is not possible , maybe Anna you can uh give our uh give us your um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . And maybe we run the evaluation on both of the products , both of these two . +Project Manager: Yes . Evalua evaluation and also the evaluation criteria , so what what is important to look at . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Basically this is what we've talked about already , um , from the marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just wanna make sure that we've taken into account {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: just do it quickly if if we al already {gap} . +Marketing: So it's just a shortlist of criteria on um the things that we've identified as being important to selling the product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um we just go through these and rate them as a group and then at the end we'll make an evaluation based on that , so just average the score of those items , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} These are the things we identified as being important . Um {gap} the three things were look and feel , innovation and ease of use , were the three important components +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um appealing to the correct demographic so using those things in the right way to appeal to our demographic . And then goin following the company motto , following the fashion trends and putting that into the product as well . So well do you wanna go through and put through those on the the two products now or do we wanna discuss them further and then evaluate them ? +Project Manager: Um , n no why not why not discuss uh discuss it now , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So f just go through onto the whiteboard I guess . Not sure how this is gonna come out . So the first one was really {vocalsound} very far below budget , would you want to take the price down of the end product according to that or just have the high profit on it ? 'Cause if we're only going to make it for eight Euros then we have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , well my my personal view is uh w when when this one is eight Euros we must think how can we improve it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {disfmarker} I mean w w w you must just see it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we can still spend this four and a half Euro +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: and to r because th th th the the selling price is already prite fik uh uh quite fixed on twenty five Euros +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we just have to offer as much as as {disfmarker} well value for the for the customer uh he can have for twenty five Euro . +Industrial Designer: Functionality . +Marketing: Okay so look and feel , innovation {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And now it {gap} easy to use . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And trends . Oh , you following the idea of using the um removable covers on these ? Is that part of both of them or ? +Project Manager: Um well w w we can still discuss that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um , and together with evaluating this uh we we might come with new ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean adding things or uh removing uh of options because they are too expensive , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um I've received uh a framework which we can do this . I mean did you have this this Excel sheet ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No okay , this is these are the the the latest prices of our production uh uh production unit for several components , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we can uh see whether the the price is is within the twelve Euro uh fifty cents uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can start with this , uh , calling this one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Yep . So it's the pink . +Project Manager: Th th this is the first design . +Marketing: And the other one's green . Okay , so +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: look and feel ? Where um one is {vocalsound} I've broken the pen again . S +Project Manager: Uh there is another pen . +Marketing: yeah . Get that one . Um w {vocalsound} one's bad and seven's the best . Sorry , one's true and seven's false . One's the best . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . Okay . So . Look and feel . Well you already feel that uh pretty much I think {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: In i in my opinion purely feel is is is very good , is very good in your hand , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I I I would consider two or or may maybe even one for feel . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But that's just half , we should also consider look , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then i it looks quite conventional . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Don't you agree ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Marketing: On the scale u it's between functional and fancy basically we're looking at , +Project Manager: So maybe two . Hmm . Hmm . Ma ma ma ma maybe say say five +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} It's my opinion , but I don't know what what +User Interface: Well I will give it maybe {disfmarker} we have anyways {disfmarker} the way we have designed it's like the surf as you say {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you know . It {disfmarker} though the look is fine but uh still I will give four in that case +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four maybe . +User Interface: you know . +Marketing: Four ? Okay . +Project Manager: Four , four . +User Interface: Four yeah +Project Manager: Now we th th +User Interface: that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then we settle on four . +User Interface: Yeah . I will gi yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Can you maybe fix the other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you press like this not like this {gap} then you {disfmarker} +Marketing: No that's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: ink's dried . +User Interface: C can you get the batteries ? No no the battery has fallen down , +Marketing: Battery's low , isn't it the ink ? +User Interface: that's i +Marketing: The b that's the that that one ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} battery there . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no it's not that , it's how to close a battery . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay ? Now it should be {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . No I think it's lost a battery . +Project Manager: Mm , try it , just try it . +Marketing: No it's {disfmarker} It would still write +Project Manager: Oh it will not +Marketing: but it wouldn't pick it up with the sensors . +Project Manager: ri mm , mm . +User Interface: Is there another battery there ? Oh yeah . +Marketing: You got a second ? +Industrial Designer: Try a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well we won't be able to tell . +Project Manager: Yes , it it has a {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Marketing: Is that working ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did it come out ? Good . Okay . +Project Manager: Good . Good . +Marketing: Because we'll be able to see it still even if it wasn't working , it's just a normal whiteboard marker +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but it wouldn't be picked up on the the actual whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So then then {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the other one ? +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's slightly better , um , +Project Manager: Ah . Mm . +Marketing: it's hard to tell from just the plasticine , +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When we want to include {disfmarker} I I I'm doubting about this this component . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It it it it breaks in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: No actually this is this is not going to protrude actually , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: it it's n i it is jus +Industrial Designer: It's not a button it's a led , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a led actually which which 'll be covering in a curve {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ac actually yeah it should be embedded . +Project Manager: Mm , yes I see , mm okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} will be embedded there +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh +User Interface: so it won't be really you know protruding or something . +Industrial Designer: you can push push it again , you can push it . +Marketing: Yeah . The other thing is , is the left hand one protruding ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if people are left handed they want to use the other hand , +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: maybe it won't work so well . +User Interface: No you {disfmarker} it it not protruding actually , it will go in better into that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well r r +Marketing: I'd say two or three for that one , personally . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Probably more towards three than two . +Project Manager: I think the look is better +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the feel is is is worse . So so {vocalsound} I would also say this is four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But w w do you {disfmarker} what do you think ? +User Interface: Uh it's fine I think . My {disfmarker} just that um the feel is that um you {disfmarker} right now you you don't see the feel because right uh for example if you press it quite inside now like this , now it's embedded one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yes . +User Interface: This is how embedded one will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , it basically is the same shape . +User Interface: Yeah . It's a bas basically the same thing actually . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: You will be {disfmarker} Except that in this c +Industrial Designer: And the L_C_D_ makes it better . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} you might have a slight thing for to forward and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , okay . Yeah +Industrial Designer: So I will say two . +Marketing: it's d it's definitely more fancier than that one . +Project Manager: Yes , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would say two , three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , consensus ? Two or three ? +Project Manager: Two ? +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Mm . Two's good +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: {gap} looking like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , 'kay . Innovation . The first one , not really muc +Industrial Designer: Basically there is no innovation in the first one compared to what exists in the market , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but except for the design of the surf {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . The surf uh design {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} What features are we actually including ? +User Interface: You should be rea {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are we including like a location kind of thing like trying to find it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no +Marketing: There's nothing like that ? +User Interface: I think it's more of the feel . +Marketing: But th is there any there's no actual innovation in that at all , it's just a straight-out remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The only innova innovation is the shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Say about that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: S so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} this uh look and feel thing , though that's not a technological innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You're right {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So I'd be up for seven for innovation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} And the second one is really uh state of the art , uh in terms of innovation . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And um with many more functionalities , and can open and close the the bottom part . +User Interface: Yeah , it gives it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . A and the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's that's well it's quite innovative . +Industrial Designer: And all the scrolling uh buttons and menu and pro programmable device behind this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh could put it at one or two I would say . Personally . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: So what is it , what are the innovations with this ? Got the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah automatic speech recognition . +Marketing: Is that in this one though ? Is this {disfmarker} 'cause this is the {disfmarker} Th th there were different options we discussed then , +User Interface: No , we ha +Marketing: we discussed the one that was in budget and the one that was out of budget . +Project Manager: We just diske discuss it as you designed it +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we will will try to get it in the budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the cost for these were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: what was the cost for the first one ? Eight Euros ? +Project Manager: Eight . +Industrial Designer: Eight . Well actually we have yeah to check again yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , eight Euros yeah . +Marketing: And this one was sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +User Interface: Sixteen Euros . +Marketing: Okay . So . Innovation for this one is two ? One ? +User Interface: It's a two , I would say two {gap} . +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: W W un to be one what would do we nee actually , yeah , I don't see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why it is one . +Industrial Designer: okay , one would would be without buttons , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A man {disfmarker} w w +Marketing: Mm . Well +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: the speech recognition is a very good innovation I believe it , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: so {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So maybe we can put one . +Project Manager: This this is it w with the speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: It's using speech recognition , yeah . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Okay yeah . +Project Manager: Gi given that {vocalsound} that it works , +Marketing: Give it a one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then it's I think one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Ease of use ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So the first one is really standard , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so everybody i including our grandmothers can use it , +User Interface: He is used to it act +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: They are used to it actually . +Marketing: Yep . So that's maybe a a two for ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Here there may {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , the other one is quite easy , tho though . +User Interface: Uh , though it has more functionality I think it shouldn't be for the user to learn it actually . It shouldn't be diffi +Marketing: Okay . So maybe a three or a four . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh yeah , actually in fact I think it will be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: One me um we hope {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe sometimes people get uh scared with the number of buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} y +Industrial Designer: And there is a {disfmarker} like I would say three . Or maybe four {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . Consensus ? Three or four ? +User Interface: Well we have reduced the keys actually you see . +Project Manager: Three , I would . Three . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah +User Interface: Three is fine with me . +Industrial Designer: because it's n uh it's not like a big one with uh one hundred buttons or so , {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: actually the user has to put some effort to do {disfmarker} use that actually , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: it's not so easy , like this one the normal . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes but then when when he is used to it , i i it is quite easy . +User Interface: Is quite easy yeah . +Project Manager: So so I think th three is good . Yeah . +User Interface: Initially there there is a lot of effort , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: So three's +Project Manager: What's the next ? +Marketing: uh how well it goes to the target demographic . So we're d we're still thinking twenty to forty year olds ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Twe twenty to forty , yes that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This one would be uh for grandmothers {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no , this would I +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I would I would give this model to the old people actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , grandmothers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So sh completely changed our demographic there , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not part of the the funky young thing . +Project Manager: Well exce except for the surfing shape . I mean that's that's something which which has an appeal on this group I think , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's true . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . If it was the very bottom price range or it was like between this and another one we did the same thing then I can imagine it being {disfmarker} applying to the the demographic +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . That's {disfmarker} it's still {disfmarker} Ye +Project Manager: Mm w w w we {disfmarker} after this we can can consider uh for instance , making this more attractive to to the demographic +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause we have got room , we've got some budget there to add a few things to it , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that's right . +Project Manager: But as it is now , I w would say mm , six , something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Oh yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you agree ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it's so important {disfmarker} it's i it was written that it really so important , the um the the look and uh taking care of its {disfmarker} it targets , the right range of people , +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah but but if you sell it in the market it's going to be cheap , actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's going to be cheap whatever though , +Industrial Designer: But w +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: it was set with i we've got a set price . +User Interface: And people can still decide to use the cheaper one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: instead of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But for us it's {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} we have a constraint that we need to sell at twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah , indeed . +Marketing: Yeah . There's nothing that would make me spend an extra k few Euros on that one rather than another one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Ju just think , twenty five Euros , I mean it's not going to be cheaper . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . So in that case well it's fine then . +Marketing: Okay . Um +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: We can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and the demokraphi demographic of the second one ? +User Interface: And the demographics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's got the got the the toys in it , it's got the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Yeah tha tha tha tha tha that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's better , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: because of the L_C_D_ screen which is really an appeal on the on the on the +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: on the {gap} and on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And if you want to target {disfmarker} yeah if we we wish to to sell four millions of this , I think for this audience we need absolutely the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . So , the L_C_D_ screen uh attracts , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: I think especially if we're gonna n have an L_C_D_ screen on a low range product then that's good . +Project Manager: Because it {disfmarker} Mm , ma maybe that's something to consider , yes {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: so . Wh what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'd probably go with three again for that one . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's uh {disfmarker} it has more market actually . +Industrial Designer: Or even {disfmarker} Even one and two . Or two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No s say t two . +User Interface: Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , two , yeah ? +User Interface: two . +Project Manager: Two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Two yeah . +User Interface: Yeah two yeah . Because tomorrow this will be more appealing because you can add {vocalsound} lot of sophistication on that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because then you you have it uh d you have lot of things which you can include +Marketing: Yeah . Yep . And especially I guess 'cause this has the speech recognition as well , +User Interface: for the people to {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that makes it more appealing , it's more of a a new fun toy . +User Interface: We have to practically test it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The field test will tell you how good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , the final point , trends . +Marketing: And following the trends . +User Interface: The trends . +Marketing: So the trends were the fruit and vegetables and the spongy feel . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So as it is , not really doing either of them . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Spongy , uh , that means that it goes in in the water . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the spongy could be part of the the feel of the buttons as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know some {disfmarker} have you tried the mobile phones that have got the kinda spongy buttons and {disfmarker} not not exactly spongy but I'm thinking one of the Nokias that's got like you ca it hasn't got individual buttons +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: it's got just a one bit on it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I know . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} that feels kinda spongy . +Industrial Designer: But this one includes this feature , right ? Spongy buttons . +Marketing: So it's sort of , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . We we we we we yeah , it's the way they are going to be , actually . +Marketing: Mm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: the maybe in the colour we can make it uh fruit and and veggie . +Marketing: But that's if you're using the covers . +Project Manager: And the then we can al +Marketing: Or is it just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes . We can {disfmarker} we can consider uh uh is it possible do you think , to to make a cover for s such a phone ? I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well they make it for mobiles , it can't be that much more complicated . +User Interface: But why do you want to cover that actually ? In that uh w in the mod +Project Manager: Well just with the with the flexible plastic uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you got the option of having different colours or different textures . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . This is possible . +Project Manager: I th I th I think {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh uh y are you sure ? Yeah I think yeah it should be possible like what we do with the mobile phone , yeah . +Project Manager: O o or just two things which can be put on each other . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly like Nokia phones {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , exactly like it . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh , so Maybe we can {vocalsound} but we have to decide it , we can put the the {vocalsound} the fancy f look of vegetables for instance , to to these covers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and s now try to invest in the in in the features . +Marketing: I think the {disfmarker} if we do the cover that's really going with the company's philosophy of having the fashion in in electronics , it lets people have the latest fashion +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: even next year when fruit and vegetables might be out , you'll still be able to put a new cover on it and then it'll still be in fashion . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause sometimes look at this computer , th this laptop , it's all black , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and uh it's quite conventional , and sometimes people don't like too much flashy colours like this one presented here . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could do like in the range the set of what we propose a black one , very standard one , that meets the the requirements of th such people that want really standard uh things . +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And then you have the option of having the different colours , different covers . +Project Manager: Yes . So so so that that would make the trends equal , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we we we really have {disfmarker} don't have , +Marketing: Mm . There's n yeah . 'Cause that's the that's the feature that could be included in either of them . +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Although it is more with the spongy buttons on the um on the other one . +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so a a point better for the for the number two {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Okay . So . Two and three , or one and two ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , it's one . +Project Manager: Say , say one and two . One and two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So le le let's see . So d +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: this one has spongy but buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the blue one uh spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , it says a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , I see , yes okay . Good . +Marketing: Okay so the average of that is three six nine divided by five , so five {disfmarker} mm nine by five , one point s eight ? +Project Manager: Just add it . +Industrial Designer: Nine . +Project Manager: You know . Three , six , seven . +User Interface: One point six , one point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: One point eight yeah . +Marketing: This one , eleven thirteen nineteen twenty one , divided by five is four point two +User Interface: Four point {disfmarker} Uh four point two . +Marketing: yep . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Okay . But we still got a very different price for those two so they're not really comparable yet anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . We {disfmarker} we must try to get them closer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's right , yeah that's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Both in i i +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: or we just have to choose . And adapt . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Because , when we choose for this one we have to {vocalsound} we have to make it more attractive +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and w when we {gap} to d for this one we have to make it more cheap . +Marketing: Well it's easier to just make that one cheaper by just taking the speech recognition out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: That'll basically take us down to the budget . +Project Manager: But I'm {vocalsound} now {disfmarker} did y did you work with the same prices that I have here ? +Industrial Designer: So I I give yeah I just give a call with the manufacturer uh and uh I explained them and they told me this could be possible for sixteen Fr Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh unfortunately we didn't see this chip , uh Matthew , +User Interface: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm , tha +Industrial Designer: so maybe we have to recap with this one . +User Interface: Maybe we ought to reconsider everything with this , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yes , well uh re reconsider it . So {vocalsound} let's let's try to to model this this phone in this sheet , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh what kind of energy source uh I I {disfmarker} we didn't speak about that . It's a {disfmarker} it's a normal battery , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it migh It {disfmarker} it'll need uh more than a conventional one , it won't be uh just {disfmarker} maybe you might use a A_A_ battery actually . What do you say , Mael ? +Industrial Designer: For this one it's a normal battery {gap} . +Project Manager: Yes . Just so one battery . 'Kay . Electronics . {gap} given speech recognition I think w you should go for the less fancy chip . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sample speaker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes , or sample sensor , yes . +Industrial Designer: Sample , yeah , this one . +Project Manager: Yes , this one . Okay . Case ? Um , +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Curved . Double curved yeah right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Double curve . +Marketing: Yeah , it's gonna be more than just the biggest case , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: So which one are we talking to ? +User Interface: Are you talking about this or that ? +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Either of them . +Project Manager: Oh yes , we are talking about , but they have the same shape , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . They're both going to be not basic cases . +Project Manager: but , actually bu +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So th th this would be double curves ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Uh , plastic would be the material . +Marketing: Yeah . The basic one , yep . +Industrial Designer: Is it zero Franc ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A special colour ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh special colour , now we leave it to the covers . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So now we're either going button or L_C_D_s , L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Push . Mm , yes , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ is {gap} . It's okay . Just say L_C_D_ {gap} . +Marketing: Is that price per unit , or for the whole thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah th now this is per per unit , this number of components . +User Interface: Ah good . +Marketing: So it would need twelve buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , we might need a scroll wheel , right , for that ? +Industrial Designer: No but for this one it's twelve Euro . +User Interface: No , for that one also . +Industrial Designer: There are twelve ? +Project Manager: So , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , +User Interface: Yeah that's a scroll . +Project Manager: t Yes . Twelve I believe . So this comes to eighteen . +Marketing: Mm . And that's without any special button supplements . +User Interface: Yeah , one scroll wheel you might need . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we'd have a special colour , special form and special material on all of them . They're not just standard buttons . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} but th do you agree th that thi +Industrial Designer: Wait a minute , it's not it's not double curved , it's single curved , right ? Because it's {disfmarker} there is no like {vocalsound} . +Marketing: But I thought it would be curved on two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I +Marketing: it's like it's curved on the sides and curved on the top and bottom as well , that's what I thought . +Project Manager: Yes I'm I'm no I'm no I'm not sh sure . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: Yes I kno undes I understand what you mean , yes . +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} you know this curve like this so , it's w there is only is is is there is nothing like y you know in the other stuff there are {disfmarker} +Marketing: You talking about concave curves ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: yeah concave . +Project Manager: Both . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can put um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You think a single curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the single curved in the sixteen . That makes uh seventeen . And what are just {disfmarker} The bt buttons , we have twelve buttons , are you sure ? Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have more , we've got those {disfmarker} the scroll wheel on the side +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: and yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had a bad uh bad estimation . +User Interface: Bad estimate , +Marketing: The sc +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: we have {disfmarker} we haven't talk about a {gap} , but that's no a {gap} is very exp inexpensive I believe +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but it is not in the list . +Marketing: We've got a scroll wheel for the volume don't we , or is it some other thing that's not on there . +Project Manager: W ho h is this a scroll wheel or is this a a a sort of button which can be pressed on two sides uh so for higher and lower ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: 'Kay we've only got five minutes left guys so we need to wrap it up pretty fast . +Industrial Designer: Yes , a kind of scroll wheel . +Marketing: So this is even more than the um than the cost you gave , the sixteen Euros . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so based on that , yeah , um where is the es okay sample speaker {disfmarker} +User Interface: That is the sample sensor and sample speaker . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But still , yeah it {gap} +User Interface: We just need that actually . We need one . +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We could go for the for the for the for the for a simple chip , but then we can't have the the speech recognition , yes ? Yes ? +Industrial Designer: No we cannot , yeah . +Project Manager: So so w when we w a +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: this would this would be cutting the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But the um {disfmarker} Yeah but if you have the {disfmarker} near the L_C_D_ you can um {vocalsound} choose {disfmarker} select between um you know like uni universal between audio , T_V_ and V_C_R_ , and this needs a needs a advanced chip . +Project Manager: Transti +Industrial Designer: Right , Matthew ? +User Interface: Oh I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or regular chip ? +User Interface: I think it's going to be {disfmarker} y y +Industrial Designer: I think yeah regular , today we you can do that with regular chip . +User Interface: yeah it's th with the regular chip , yeah . +Project Manager: Say {gap} say it's regular , regular chip , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we still on fifteen , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So . And what about the number of buttons buttons uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my Matthew ? +Project Manager: Yes but that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} Well we can just say +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: one . +Industrial Designer: When you look at this w , this u uh item , {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ca l we are just {disfmarker} when we just want to uh to cut the number of buttons we have to make seven to to fit in in twelve twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So is it possible ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} But that's seven basic buttons right , seven buttons without any adds-on , without special colours or form or material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That'll be {disfmarker} then we have uh have to ask the user to press it several times . +Industrial Designer: You cannot make a phone to your boss saying twelve fifty is really {vocalsound} really low , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: he he he I I +Industrial Designer: no ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} the L_C_D_ display is is three Francs , sorry three Euros , by itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't want to to change that right ? We we really want a L_C_D_ +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: other otherwise we w wouldn not get the market . +Project Manager: Otherwise y you ha you have a s ve very normal uh thing like this . +Industrial Designer: It's evident . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So twelve Euro fifty , we got two off of the battery , +Industrial Designer: And I dunno {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can't do anything about that , so ten fifty , if we want an L_C_D_ dispra display , that's seven fifty um , so we've got seven fifty to use for the case and for the buttons . And the chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sorry the chip's up there already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we're gonna have to scale this down to get within budget , there's no doubt about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A +Industrial Designer: So wha what what each of us think about the {disfmarker} because it's measure point the L_C_D_ , um {disfmarker} Do you think it's important ? +User Interface: Or we could even replace them by buttons actually . +Industrial Designer: Because sometimes whe when you watch the T_V_ in fact , you have a big display and maybe you don't need one more in your hands ? I dunno , I'm just asking . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: A actually it depends , it depends what kind of functionalities you want to add into it , +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: for example if you add two more functionalities then better you add two more buttons , or {disfmarker} and you'll have L_C_D_ display which is {disfmarker} that is going to bring the cost by two two Euros at least . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . I think , unless we can really drive these prices down we need to get rid of the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Okay so we can get rid of it +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true yeah . +User Interface: and then add a couple of buttons . +Industrial Designer: But uh , do we want that ? On the market point of view , yeah . What do you think uh , L_C_D_ is a major feature , or ? +Project Manager: Mm . I +Marketing: For the price , it's gonna be what we can afford , and it's looking like we can't afford the L_C_D_ display , there's no way we can get it in there . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: I {gap} think we have to come to a decision now , just I I think we we what we just do i is vote about the uh the L_C_D_ uh display +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You assume , you want a democratic voyt vote , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . {vocalsound} One man one vote . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S so who thinks the the L_C_D_ disply display should be i should be in it ? +Marketing: I th I'd like t it to be in but I can't see it happening . I can't see it fitting in . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to be . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu y you're a power voter {disfmarker} uh veto anyway as Project Manager . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , I know , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah but the only thing is that what is the multiple functionalities you want to include with that . +Marketing: {gap} well we have to make a decision now , that's it . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh uh having an L_C_D_ s display is just uh uh have very very limited amount of buttons . Is that acceptable ? Ca can I have {disfmarker} can the functions be implement in an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You've {disfmarker} you you agree . +User Interface: W I I I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So hav hav having seven buttons , instead of twelve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that wou would be cutting cutting suh say about these buttons {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Because one yeah th show me that uh actually we could in fact we move these three buttons and have three uh possibilities for each of the three here . Here one , at the middle , and at the bottom . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . I think then we we're really losing ease of use . +Industrial Designer: Okay , {gap} . +User Interface: That will create another problem . For the people to use it . It's not going to be easy . Doing that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . So um +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I I think we should we should cut the L_C_D_ screen . That that's that's my opinion . +User Interface: No , it's okay , you uh cut the L_C_D_ screen +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: and introduce two more buttons . +Marketing: Okay . So L_C_D_'s out , is speech rec out now ? We've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The speech recognition is out . Because of the budget , yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Uh where , L_C_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay w we now we can just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we basically back to the original one now , back to the first version ? Which turns out to be on budget exactly , pretty much . With these new costings . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: So {gap} just look at {disfmarker} forget that one and look at that one now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . I th I th I think w we just go for this one +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and that that now twelve Euros is the is is the price , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My m my supervisor will be glad that it's fifty cents cheaper than he expected . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Actually yeah , +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: we we we will not need the really uh expert designers um because the amount , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . So w we can go back and l talk to the suppliers maybe +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and see if we can drive the prices down to add a few more things in but that's all we can do with the restrictions we have at the moment . +Project Manager: Okay , good . Then we {gap} the same . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That was it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +User Interface: That's it . Cool . +Marketing: Okay . +","The team, consisting of members from marketing, industrial design, project management, and user interface, discusses options for a new remote control design within a budget of 12.50 Euros. They consider removing the LCD display and speech recognition to remain within budget. Ultimately, they agree to remove the LCD and simplify the design to meet the cost constraints while still aiming to appeal to their 20-40-year-old demographic. The project manager's supervisor will be pleased with the cost-saving outcome." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh first of all I'll start with the costs , +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: because that's going to influence our design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: Oh , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Don't know if you al already had a look or not ? +User Interface: No n I I already did it . +Industrial Designer: Did you do your questionnaire already ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: It's not much . It's just one question . +Project Manager: Because we have a problem . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you look closely , you can see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It wants {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um I already took the liberty to make some suggestions . {gap} . {gap} . {vocalsound} At the moment we have fifteen buttons , one L_C_D_ screen , one advanced chip-on-print . We use a uh sensor , that's for the speech . Uh we use kinetic energy . And we wanted uh the buttons in a special colour . Okay . What's the first thing we should drop ? The special colour of the buttons ? +User Interface: No that's that's for the trendy uh feel and look . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but everything is . +Project Manager: Should we switch to a hand dynamo ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh that's the still the same idea as the kinetic energy because you have to use it and do things . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , b but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but young people like that . +Project Manager: Batteries ? +Marketing: So just do normal battery . +Project Manager: Batteries . +User Interface: I think the battery option . +Industrial Designer: Just a normal battery then , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It has to be twelve and a half . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Or not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh my goodness . +Project Manager: You're going to redesign something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're at twenty five . +Marketing: Uh , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Do we keep the shape doubly curved or g do we go for single curved ? +Industrial Designer: Well I guess i we'll have to go for single curve then . I mean we have to drop on everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can keep it single curved with uh top view still curved , but from the side it's it's flat , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and the screen screen is just {disfmarker} Well you just have to hold it like this then . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} Sorry . +Project Manager: Uh another option I saw was to drop the buttons one through nine , so you can't directly access a channel , but instead use only the up and down arrows . That would skip nine buttons and four and a half Euros . +Industrial Designer: That's what I was thinking . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: A a +Marketing: Let's do it then . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then we have left {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we don't have any basic options any more . +Marketing: {gap} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: And uh 'cause then they don't have to n They don't need special colour as well . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Project Manager: They don't need special colours . Fine . That's more like it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You were saying something . +Industrial Designer: That was exactly my point . Like let's drop all the buttons , and just make one +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean we're gonna use the L_C_D_ screen anyway . So we'll just have to use it for everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then you can make an overview of channels in the screen , and select a channel , click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , some more menu options . Yeah . Okay so maybe we can drop few more buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Now let's look . +User Interface: Yeah we c could {disfmarker} We only need the the the the the menu arrow arrow button uh thing . Everything you can do with with the menu . So {disfmarker} With the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need one integrated button for everything then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The joystick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Kind of . I was {disfmarker} Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , scroll-wheel , push-button uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you if you go to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Integrated scroll-wheel push-button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you go to our uh view , like you {disfmarker} if you are in the sound system there , uh and you wanna adjust the treble for instance , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: this is just uh an example , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: y y you wanna see a bar on which you can adjust it from zero to ten for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But you want a sound preview of how it's gonna sound , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? So you wanna click on it , activate it , whe and when you move it , hear the difference of the treble coming out or going into the sound . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you'll you'll need a a kind of a joystick uh button . +Marketing: Yeah or or the integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's kind of on your mouse and then you can click it , adjust it , click again and then you're out of it . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: But you still {disfmarker} But you then still need to have {disfmarker} Well you can use the scroll-wheel as well for um maybe for the channels . But you still um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's r Yeah . +Marketing: You still have to have some some button in the menu to go back . +User Interface: So you do one inte You can do one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And then just drop all the other buttons . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Well not all . +User Interface: But but th the cost of one integrated button is far more than a few extra push-buttons . +Marketing: Not s not sound I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} One integrated button is five times the cost of a normal button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have to to make it s uh more uh {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could also drop j three more of these , without losing much functionality . You just drop the Okay and the Back . +Marketing: Yeah . Wh wh what what what is the what is the uh sample sensor sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Oh , that's for the speech . +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Could drop the speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: S s Drop speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's possible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We we d +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's expensive , but uh we never considered the possibilities of uh speech recognition . 'Cause it can take the function of a lot of uh uh buttons . +Project Manager: Buttons . +Marketing: Buttons . +Project Manager: That's not very easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: No , it can be disturbed by by noise and +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but lets just say that the speech recognition works . +Marketing: stuff like that . Let let let me see what's more what's more popular . I guess the the screen was more popular than um than the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I have to look on that . Let me see . {vocalsound} Uh well no I was wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There are more people who like speech recognition than an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . Because if you d lose the L_C_D_ screen , we {vocalsound} need a lot of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it it {disfmarker} it's a it's a both a hypers +User Interface: We lose our whole concept . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} No we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We need a lot of extra buttons . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We keep the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Well we Yeah we keep the screen . I mean it's it's about the same . Eight one to ninety one percent , uh sixty six to seventy six . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: We uh we we haven't really integrated this {disfmarker} the speech into the system , +Project Manager: so we drop the speech . +Industrial Designer: so we can might as well s drop that . {gap} +Project Manager: And drop it yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Let's drop the speech . +Project Manager: Okay . S Fo Four less Euros . So we still have three and a half Euro to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sixteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to lose some buttons . +Marketing: But y y +Project Manager: Yeah if you lose the the Back , the Okay button {disfmarker} Uh v let's say we only have the four arrows , and the Menu button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then and then use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh and the power button we have also . +Marketing: The the {disfmarker} Okay . And the menu button does also does the okay function then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then when you in the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's one Euro . +Marketing: S so so you activate the menu . +User Interface: If we do uh two integrated scroll-wheel push-buttons , we can drop all the the push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah ? And {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: With with one uh integrated button we can uh do the whole menu thing . With the other , we can do the the channel , the volume , et cetera . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: That would save zero point two Euros compared to {disfmarker} No . +User Interface: No it's three Euros . No ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . To This together is more expensive than {disfmarker} Oof , it's almost the same as t keeping this . +User Interface: No it's it's n Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we can drop these two . +Marketing: Well okay . +User Interface: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: For example if you have f f four buttons , {vocalsound} channel up and down , uh volume left right {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: Okay , I've {disfmarker} I think we have to keep that . +Project Manager: And the power button . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} and the power button . So that's five . +Project Manager: That's the basic . +Marketing: That's basic . That that's what you need anyway . And then for the menu , um you can have a button that activates menu . Or d or do we just integrate an an an scroll-wheel with a push-button . And then if the moment you use the scroll-wheel , the the the menu gets activated , and then you can scroll , choose an option , click on it , it goes into an feature . Click on it again , selects features , scroll , adjust it . Click again , it's okay . Then you only need one button to move back . Or or under each option , you set a {disfmarker} you set an a screen thing what says back , and you select that one , click again , and you go one step back . And in that menu , scroll , click , one step back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that then you need five buttons , and one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay th that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can't drop three buttons . +Industrial Designer: Which {gap} {disfmarker} That's even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I see that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's one Euro more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's not a good idea . +Project Manager: That's not an option . +Marketing: Because which buttons do we have now ? Those five which I mentioned , and then menu , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Menu , power . +Marketing: Yeah . F of the four things ? +Project Manager: Four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah , th power . +Project Manager: Power . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you if you go to eight {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which more ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh power I believe ? +Marketing: Power . Th Yeah that's five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} We have a Back and a Okay button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay that's seven , +Project Manager: And the Menu . +Marketing: and one to activate the menu , yeah . So okay that's eight . Well we can't reduce that . We we keep the display . +Project Manager: Yeah , and even if we drop three buttons from here , we still have to make some adjustments around here . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , well okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we need the chip for the for the L_C_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ ? Yeah . +User Interface: Let's make the {disfmarker} Let's make the case plastic . +Marketing: Yeah well we need the advanced {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I rather make it wood . +Marketing: Instead of r +Project Manager: Because then also it's good in the market with the forty five plus uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah but but that's not our market . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that {disfmarker} maybe not . But maybe it's better than plastic anyway . +Marketing: Ah no , hard plastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic with a with a special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: A woo wood uh wood uh wood colour . +Marketing: Yeah , plastic with special colour . +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No but I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because we have to use the special colour anyway . You forgot that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we do one one s +Marketing: {vocalsound} So let's go for the plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Plastic . +Marketing: And since it's not kinetic , it doesn't have to flip around that much ? +Project Manager: Uh that's easy because plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: We still have problem of two Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh if we dropped uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No the buttons , those are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah th th it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we can't drop them . +User Interface: An advanced chip-on-print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You still need that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we really need that advanced chip for an L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So the other option would be to go for the the sample speaker , and {disfmarker} Which can use a regular chip , wh which is six Euros in total . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: That doesn't matter . +Marketing: Oh . I rather keep I rather keep the display . +Project Manager: No , I keep the re Yeah . Yeah . Because we already designed for it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . +Marketing: So the only option is an hand dynamo . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and something else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no tha Oh that's one Euro , right . +Industrial Designer: uh can't we f uh fit all the buttons in an intreg integrated scroll push-button ? 'Cause that will save us one and a half Euro already . And then if w +Marketing: And then integrated s Yeah but that would make it not so easy to use . +Project Manager: No y you would rec +Marketing: I mean it's not that important , easy to use , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then we have to scroll through a lot of menus to be able to get where you want , huh ? +Project Manager: Then you still need two additional buttons I believe . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d at l Yeah . At least one for power . +Project Manager: You can use those {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah and power . That's three buttons and this would cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah it's just as expensive as what we have now . +User Interface: But the integrated uh button ? How many func functions can it uh have ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Three . Up , down , Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah endlessly . I mean it can be a power button as soon as it powered on . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You can go into you in you main menu , +Marketing: You you press it for like three seconds . +Industrial Designer: you can choose uh flip channel , uh you can choose sound options , any options . +Marketing: Then then then you should do everything in the menu . On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . It would save enough {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe we should . 'Cause we don't have money and w we want the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you can choose this , drop these , then we have a half Euro left . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can maybe still use power button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we have to . +Marketing: It s it saves us four Euros and it costs us two and a half . So let's see , we we drop the price by one and a half . +Project Manager: Yeah . You see ? +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll be on {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we still have thirteen left . +Project Manager: Oh still {disfmarker} Yeah ? Oh then I miscalculated . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Thirteen . So still half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shit . Drop the special colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There goes the special co {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That would make it less appealing . So that's no option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . What else ? Uncurved ? +User Interface: No no , it has to be um curved . +Marketing: We sure about the advanced chip we need for the display ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it says right here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They made it very easy for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} yeah . We made it hard for ourselves with the display , but it's a cool feature . +Project Manager: Ah , I don't think I can s uh persuade the management to say , this is better for the market so you sell more than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Wh what we could do is um {disfmarker} drop the the special colour , and uh do the special colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . That's {disfmarker} Oh yeah since we only have one button . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but I mean what is meant by special colour ? +Project Manager: I just m I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just something else than than black or white I think . +Project Manager: Uh yeah it's {disfmarker} I think it's grey , regular . +Marketing: S yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Grey and rubber . +Industrial Designer: But we definitely want the thing to be a special colour though . +Project Manager: Of plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Damn . +Marketing: So I rather have an hand dynamo {vocalsound} than than drop the colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: You can still play with it then I guess . I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a hand dynamo costs a lot of energy to keep the screen working . So I guess that isn't an option . +User Interface: The display {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , you only have to power it up when you wanna use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} But if you have to power the for ten minutes , {vocalsound} then the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I don't think the current status of uh chips are pretty uh energy conserving , no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Let's let's go for the hand dynamo then . +Project Manager: Yeah hand dynamo ? Do you want an extra button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or or do we {disfmarker} Or do we do uncurved and flat ? Instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it has to be curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it has to be curved and has to have that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . Just put a special special colour of the buttons , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And a screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's the most import +Project Manager: Yep ? Instead of an additional power button ? +User Interface: Yeah or spe special form ? +Marketing: Yeah . S what what is special f Oh yeah , special form . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Maybe that's nicer . +Project Manager: It's for scroll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any buttons . +Industrial Designer: We only have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But it's it's for the integrated button , I think also . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: d Uh make it a special colour then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ma make it a special colour then . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's just a scroll-wheel which you can push down . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Make it a special colour and then it look fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah ? So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Woah we're within budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a miracle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's let's save it . +User Interface: oh ma make it two special colours , but we only have one button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Let's do it like this , I mean , because it does not lose our identity of the product as we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well {disfmarker} {gap} . 'Kay , this was old . +Industrial Designer: Well we come back to the drawing board then , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah all your designs are uh pretty much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah back to work . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did I save it ? +Industrial Designer: It's silly 'cause we we should have had this meeting before we start drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but that but that's the fun part of it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I wanted to go , but I wasn't allowed . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah ? {gap} okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh I just forgot to save this . Just a minute . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah what's the next uh phase ? +Project Manager: Yeah , this the last phase of course , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the agenda . By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh f {vocalsound} Frustrated . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well we first should have had a uh prototype presentation . But well as you saw that hadn't made no sense , because we had to drop it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Drop everything . Yeah . +Marketing: Drop , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We went straight into finance ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it was more important , so I just +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: pushed up the agenda . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , evaluation criteria . You have t produced something about that ? +Marketing: Yeah that that's {disfmarker} Yeah . I uh I sure did . And it combines with product evaluation . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you put it in the {gap} . +Marketing: We all have to keep in mind what has changed now . So what we have left on the {disfmarker} Because evaluation is based on the initial uh user requirements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's make it big . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well we evaluate uh the design with a seven point scale , as following . Well the remote controls according criteria blah blah blah . True or false , and then on a scale of seven points , a {gap} scale , as we all know it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Well the criteria are based on the user requirements , uh the trends from the marketing research , and the marketing strategy of the company itself . Um well they are in a Word document , which I will open now . +Project Manager: Alt up +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . I don't know it's open yet . No . And we all have to uh agree on a certain level . What's this ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Freaky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . I don't know . Um {disfmarker} Well the first point is the remote control matches the operating behaviour of the young user . So that means the operating behaviour was using quite a lot of functions . How do you think about that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it does . Because the operating {gap} behaviour of the young user was also defined in colour and shape and the use of L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Uh , of course we dropped a little bit of those uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah the us u It it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's it's mainly con mainly concentrating on a lot of functions , in this question . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So do you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , we have extended menus , on the on the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can you can ma +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah , you can make a lot of extended menus . That's true . I mean the the possibilities are almost unlimited , to to build in menus in the screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {gap} No . +Marketing: So on a scale from one to seven , what do you think ? +User Interface: Two or three . Two or three . +Marketing: Huh ? Two or three ? Something like that ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well we have to choose one . So uh what do you say ? +Project Manager: Uh y we should fill this in now . +Marketing: I agree on two . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I uh I say two , personally . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah in the new design I s would say it's three . But now , in original design I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah well we have to evaluate I guess what we have now . +Project Manager: Okay then I say three . +Marketing: Yeah ? You say three , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you you said al also three ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? Okay well I say still two , but it has to be three then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you're marketing , eh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I know . So it's made bold . But it's {disfmarker} nah , it's not very clear on the sc +Project Manager: Hmm . M maybe underline . +User Interface: Or give it a colour . +Marketing: Maybe other colour , yeah . That's better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright . Oh , it doesn't have to be bold anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah very true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well the remote control has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Wha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He types everything . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Definitely one . It has to be . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control has irrelevant or less used functions . For example audio settings and screen settings . +User Interface: It hides uh basic functions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Everything . {vocalsound} You don't use anything else . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well , yeah . So it it's a very true point . I mean it hides all those function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're not gonna find them . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true . +Marketing: But , I mean uh they're hidden in the screen . If you don't want to use them , you don't s you s just scroll over them . And you place them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} F I don't know where . So that's very true , I guess , for our case . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the next {disfmarker} Not so much so . +Marketing: Uh the second point . It shows the relevant and most used functions . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Power button . Do we ha still have a power button ? +Project Manager: Uh check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Well yeah the button's integrated , huh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah it's uh it's integrated . +Marketing: Yeah we dropped it . You j you just push it in for {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's in {disfmarker} Oh yeah it was integrateds . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah integrate it . +Marketing: Yeah just just push it in for th for three seconds or something , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: E exactly just like a m mobile . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just go scrolling and it will activate . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um it shows the relevant and most used functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah uh on the other {disfmarker} uh on one side I would say yes , and the other side I would say no . So it's {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: It shows the most used functions and they are relevant , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can you uh change channels directly with with just one button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , you have to scroll through the menu , before +Marketing: With the scroll butt Yeah and then say channel . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh we should b build it so that if you don't kind of push into the menu or something , if {disfmarker} When it's on , yeah , it's turned on , +Project Manager: You say you double click on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: It automatically has the the programme and the volume function , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but as soon as you click it you go into the menu or some {gap} {disfmarker} Of you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or you double click it . +Marketing: But but how do you change from volume to channel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No because it has four arrows , right ? +Project Manager: No , not anymore . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because he's {gap} now have a scroll-wheel that you can push in . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like on the the mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking still about our uh integrated joystick . +Marketing: No we have n we have no buttons left . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Say . +Marketing: the joystick was not an option . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is a bummer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so you hav {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you have to double-click , I mean , for , I mean , uh volume , +Project Manager: To get into menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and three double click for the menu , or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or hold it ten seconds . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll make it a Morse code . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But but ease of use was not very important , may I remind you . +Project Manager: No no no . Uh it should be trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that that's not a question . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control shows the relevant and most used functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well I think it's pretty much in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: You have to search for them in in the in the s in the screen , in the menu . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , im {disfmarker} in the menu . +User Interface: Seven . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe it's more like a f a five . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I would go for five or six , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Five or six ? +Project Manager: Five . +User Interface: Five . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay five . +Marketing: Five ? Alright . +Industrial Designer: Let's not diss our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's the weirdest remote control I've ever seen . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Just one button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's different . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . Uh the the remote control makes use of technolog technological innovation like L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Uh yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well yeah but we dropped the speech recognition . But it has at least one innovation . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still {disfmarker} Yeah , I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We still have the fruit and vegetable print . +Marketing: I say two then . +Project Manager: Oh , that's the next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that that's not that's not this question . Uh thi uh that's the other question . +Industrial Designer: Fr Oh I mean the {disfmarker} Oh never mind . I'm a bit lost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: I think a two . No . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: I think L_C_D_'s more useful than speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: What ? Oh not the bold one . +Industrial Designer: It's way more practical , yeah . +Marketing: Right . Okay , it has a fancy look and feel by using fruit and vegetable prints , primary colours and sponge-like material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It should have been two questions . {vocalsound} I realise now , because {vocalsound} sponge-like material is dropped . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But the look and feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You still have rubber d Or no . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we still uh we still have the primary colours . But only on the on the outside , not on the button . +User Interface: No you got a plastic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The button has also colour . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The one button we have . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . The one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah still we we dropped also on the the double uh curve . +Project Manager: Yeah you could check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . You only have one {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we have single curve now , +Industrial Designer: And and colour . +Marketing: and no and no material +Industrial Designer: Yeah . S +Marketing: . So maybe in the middle or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Four . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's +Project Manager: Yeah or three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: worth the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: We have something . +Industrial Designer: Actually we d we didn't do so well on this one . Because it's basically an old one , uh with little curve on the side , and in a different colour . Still , it's still hard . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean the sponge-like and the three D_ shape , that would give it something young and fresh . +Project Manager: New . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But then we would have to drop the screen . +User Interface: Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh red . Yeah . +Project Manager: You like both . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I like bold . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control displays the corporate logo . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um oh yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You just have to draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , just one minute . +User Interface: It's the white part uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it {disfmarker} be because uh we couldn't hardly draw on the b s on the lower half of the screen , we could not make it big enough to actually draw in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have a we have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I mean I wanted to put digits on the buttons as well . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But there's uh enough space for the corporate logo . I mean , {vocalsound} if there's only one thing . +Industrial Designer: Hell yeah . If we have only one button . +Marketing: Yeah . So I will say that is very true . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And even the shape we have now uh simulates kind of an R_ and the reversed R_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is easy to use . Well I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Skill , uh I would say six , or something . I don't think it's easy to use , or not so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The only e the only thing easy about it is that you don't have to move your fingers . 'Cause it has only one button . +User Interface: Ah i +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And that you only have to control one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . It it it has a nice screen . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: It gives visual feedback . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I I would say a five or a six . +User Interface: I think a five . Five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would say six . +Marketing: What do you say ? Easy to use ? Five or a six ? +Industrial Designer: It's really not easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No not anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you're putting everything {disfmarker} +Marketing: So a six , more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I would go for the six too . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most votes count . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well , another question , +User Interface: Yeah that looks uh great . +Marketing: uh the remote control is durable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know if that's the correct word . +User Interface: Yeah . Nah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Definitely in casing , 'cause we have a hard plastic +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} In use , both battery as casing ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah because the the batteries , those thingies last forever . +Marketing: Yeah ? True , true . +Industrial Designer: And the the casing , hard plastic also lasts forever . +Marketing: And the casing is plastic , {gap} ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . If you don't drop it too much , it's uh should last pretty long . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I would go for one . +Marketing: Yeah ? But uh I think rubber compared is better . So I think a two is more appropriate +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . +Marketing: than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I will go {disfmarker} go for two . {vocalsound} Uh the last one ? The remote control's a good example for company's motto , we put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . No m +User Interface: No we put the electronics into the fashion . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would g +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} uh {disfmarker} {gap} turn around . Yeah . But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I would go for four . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Because we kind of tried to but we kind of failed with the budget that we have . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: So a four . It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it g it g goes , it's not the best we could do , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it all has to do with the budget , because it's it's not the bad idea we had , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , four is okay . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Marketing: So if I understood it right , we have to count these numbers . +Project Manager: Ooh . And {disfmarker} Yeah ? What ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} Alright . Word document , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to count them . +Project Manager: Count them . Add them ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah just add them and then uh divide them . +Project Manager: Could somebody start calculator ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah we can do the math . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I all made it po I I all made it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I all made it possible uh for a positive questions , so we can count it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean if you have reversed question , you have to reverse the scale , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So four and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Did you make this questionnaire or what ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice work . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Three plus ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wouldn't be able to do it that fast . +Project Manager: O one . +User Interface: Plus one . +Project Manager: Plus five . +User Interface: Plus five ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} Easy . +Project Manager: Bo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Question number four , yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh two . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: Oh . Wait a second . Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's it's gone wrong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How hard is it ? +User Interface: Okay . It's your turn . +Industrial Designer: Pretty difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah just use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Start over ? +User Interface: No it's if you press twice on the plus button , then you get s s +Marketing: Oh there tho uh there's no n There's no num pads . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . That's why it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a it's a bit uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just type in the digits . They're all one digit numbers right ? And then you can count them together . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you can just count them by a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just count it to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um let's move over . +Project Manager: Okay . Three , four , nine . +Marketing: Three , plus one , four . Nine . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , yeah . Are you here ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven . +Marketing: Eleven . +Project Manager: Eleven , +Industrial Designer: Fifteen . +Marketing: Fifteen . +Project Manager: fifteen . +User Interface: Sixteen . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +Marketing: Sixteen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Seventeen . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: No sixteen . Uh sixteen plus six . +Industrial Designer: Oh what ? +User Interface: Twenty two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How hard is this ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty two . Twenty two , yeah ? +User Interface: Twenty four . Twenty six . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Twenty four . Twenty eight . +Marketing: Tw +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {gap} . +Marketing: Twenty {disfmarker} Twenty eight . +Project Manager: That was the last one . That was that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my . +Industrial Designer: Twenty eight . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Twenty eight . +Project Manager: So divided by nine . +Marketing: Twen Uh okay . By nine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: That's uh three uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Or le less than a three . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the lower the {disfmarker} The lower the score the better , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Twenty eight +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Divided by nine . +Marketing: di divided by nine +Project Manager: So thr t two . +Marketing: makes three point one one one one one one one . +Project Manager: So we're better than average . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I Are you sure we {disfmarker} this number actually tells us somethings ? +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so because some questions are related to positive issues and some to negative . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some questions are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you give a true to a positive , it actually means that the low {disfmarker} the lower the better . But if you give true to a negative question {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but there are no negative questions I guess . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Good example . Durable use . +Industrial Designer: Durable , that's good . +Marketing: Easy to use . This {gap} is good . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fancy look and feel , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +Marketing: Technology innovation was good , because of a marketing uh requirement . +Industrial Designer: Also good . Yeah okay . +Marketing: Re relevant most used function . +Industrial Designer: I guess you did do it . +Marketing: And hides these functions . {vocalsound} That was also a good thing . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah . No {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then matches the opera of the {gap} user was also a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So it were all positive questions , by uh by purpose . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . +Marketing: Yes , so the {disfmarker} It tells us something , yes . Becau But the picture would be a lot different if we didn't have to drop those uh those things , I guess . +User Interface: Oh great . +Project Manager: Things , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because now it's just an average {disfmarker} It's remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah it it's it's better than average , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay because of the L_C_D_ screen . But uh it looks and stuff , it still uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So th +Project Manager: It's still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has some shortcomings . +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's not really eye-catching , except for the colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The colour and the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this we had , this we had . We have to do a product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Product evaluation . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh prototype presentation we dropped . So {disfmarker} Uh the finance we looked . We have redesigned . Uh not on that , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we we have to maybe if we have to redesign it on this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you can just make one big L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay it's your turn now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we try ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} With some casing around it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Black . Okay uh we're still gonna go for the fancy colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But are we gonna stick with the green or are we gonna do blue ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah we we can just uh use this one . And then uh over-paint it with uh uh the green uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the button has a special colour , the frame has a special colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: he only needs one button . +Industrial Designer: One scroll button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's plastic . {vocalsound} And single curved . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to delete this one or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and you might want to add a uh infrared LED . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Otherwise it uh doesn't function uh so well . +Industrial Designer: For what ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have to do other things ? +Project Manager: Well I have to um um make an uh report of every decision we made so far . +Marketing: Or just redesign ? {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: And I try to get chip just before uh I uh receive the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you made a start , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah I'm I'm somewhere , but maybe you can help me . +Industrial Designer: Should give it some time ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but how do we make the the scroll uh button ? +Project Manager: I was here . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have to take this away also . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that's the infrared uh {vocalsound} thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , of course . +Marketing: The the target group has a weak spot for fruit and vegetables , like primary colours , spongy shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um pen yeah ? Format . Current colour red . +Marketing: The playfulness , we decided to use kinetic energy as a power sour +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} Yeah we did our special colour for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Line widths , now that's a ten . +Marketing: That's conceptual , yes . +Project Manager: That's enough to get started with , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Um , uh it's just a scroll {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be one str scroll . +User Interface: Yeah , is it's horizontal or vertical ? +Marketing: How many pages ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I just took one for every step and then a conclusion . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . Y you have you have done the first two . +Industrial Designer: Horizontal's easier too , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , and and the look and feel is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it more natural than this ? +Project Manager: Well I think I have to make a p an issue called finance . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So let's say {disfmarker} Whoops . 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Basically . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't look like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The items we had to drop . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it {disfmarker} it's it's not {disfmarker} Yeah . It's not very fashionable anymore . But uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: It's really ugly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Where did we start with price ? +User Interface: Maybe m make it bigger ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty six and a half . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or not ? Or twenty six ? Something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . That looks little bit more uh {disfmarker} Maybe that's a s a special colour for it . So we can make it uh special ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean ? Like a other colour than this one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or or speckles in it ? I dunno . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speckles ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah can we do it uh {disfmarker} uh can we do a print ? +User Interface: ..$ I'm not sure . +Project Manager: ... . I don't think so , if you see the options . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to choose , yeah ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay special colour . We do have special colour . +User Interface: Yeah red is already a special colour , I think . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it mean uh that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not very special , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we just give it some dots to make it look pretty ? +User Interface: Yeah . Just uh put the purple uh purple on it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Purdy . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some big dots . +Industrial Designer: Purple ? +User Interface: That's trendy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh no my remote has acne . +Marketing: ... . We have the original balance sheet , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Woah . +Industrial Designer: No . That's why we have that button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's so cute . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh what ? +Industrial Designer: Doh . +Marketing: Woah . +User Interface: {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just cut . Control Z_ . +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: No no . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How the {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} did we do that ? +User Interface: Oh it's it's just one computer ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just dual screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . But can we delete it , just with delete ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can try . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't respond also to the undo . It looks like it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Crashed . {vocalsound} Oh , no . +Industrial Designer: No , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Where do you want some more dots ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , over here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can't even draw anymore . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Y y you you {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's this ? +Project Manager: Even children can draw . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you push the button or something . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you just push pen and then keep on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Oh that's the select button . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's not the prettiest , I know . +User Interface: No , it looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not so random huh ? +Marketing: Lot of options . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's okay . Specially the the R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the R_ and another R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: It's called the Real Remote , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe it c it can say that . The Real Remote . +Project Manager: Yeah just on the the m um the L_C_D_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Welcome . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is your Real Remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can make a l a logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {gap} put it like the shape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D designed by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something like that . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's not too uh {disfmarker} That's not their logo , is it ? +User Interface: No . Do they have a lo {disfmarker} Oh , the {disfmarker} here . This i this is the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Two R_s and a one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You can just reuse that , because the name is the same . Initials . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can copy and paste the picture if you want . +Industrial Designer: How {gap} {disfmarker} Shall we do the logo in black or not ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} What is that ? Look more {disfmarker} Looks more like a campfire . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you dissing my drawing ? {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like a ribbon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So who wants to draw ? This is actually quite fun . Do we need to do anything ? +User Interface: Are we uh ready ? Uh {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I hear you people are typing . +Marketing: Type in your report . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Marketing: I don't see any new messages . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luckily . +Marketing: Hmm ? Luckily , yeah . +User Interface: Is this uh the last assignment ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh +User Interface: Final {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's almost four . +Marketing: What time do we have to deliver the report ? Four o'clock or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} At four , yeah , {gap} ? +Marketing: Or before that ? +Project Manager: Okay . And copy this . +Marketing: Just compare uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just a minute . +Industrial Designer: This is really bizarre . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like there's a {disfmarker} It looks like a butterfly . +User Interface: Um bug . Bug . +Project Manager: It's somewhere {disfmarker} I d It isn't inside . +User Interface: No it's in inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and don't know how it's {disfmarker} or eject it . +Marketing: No it's on the on the beamer I guess . +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: From up there ? +Industrial Designer: No , but it i It's not a bu a beamer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: B It's a normal T_V_ screen , kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah it's somewhere in here . +User Interface: Hey , you've got it uh read only . So you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Save copy . +Marketing: Yeah . Strange . This something what's projection from behind , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: It's too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah there is some kind of projection I think . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah it it's a beamer , but then with a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With a with a mirror , huh ? Or something . +Marketing: within a mirror , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it looks like a big screen , but {gap} {disfmarker} in fact it isn't . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna change anything to this ? +User Interface: It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean is it gonna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's it's single single curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's now single curved . So {disfmarker} It's flat . Oh no . +Industrial Designer: This is gonna be flat . Yeah exactly . +Marketing: Th this is flat . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . It doesn't matter . It's it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's better to have in the front , this kind of shape , because it looks nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean you see more of this than of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , more like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And this is also gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not very uh ideal . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Marketing: Do like this . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes then uh all of a sudden it does work . +Marketing: Yeah . What's this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the detector uh for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I don't see a detector over there . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} I think you only need two points . Or not . No , you sh +Marketing: I thought it was a kind of thing to put it on , and then draw right lines or something . +User Interface: Maybe that's why it's it's not working , because it's more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Slanted yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Or just messed it up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well maybe . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it matters for the aim of this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but it wasn't good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You've to make it s uh ninety degrees . +Marketing: Yeah it it has to touch the corners , I guess . But th this one wasn't good , because if I was drawing here , I drew a line and then it came over here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um now you probably have to recalibrate . +User Interface: You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes to the end of the meeting . +User Interface: Oh we're always long . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the recalibration is done using this icon here . +User Interface: Yeah , can we t can we get to that @ i +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh it's not working anymore . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well I just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , it's it's okay . It's working again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah , it's it's working , it's working . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It's better than before . +User Interface: We're improving uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's improved uh pretty much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's only a bit like to that side , but that is that one by the way . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but it's better , it's better {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this one makes the angle either like this . So i if I change this , it will go there , if I change that , will go there . +Marketing: Mm . No . It's better than it was I guess . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will take this away 'cause it looks messy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Silly . Yeah . Works pretty well . Five minutes before the meeting's over . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And then ? +Project Manager: Then I have to uh uh write this , +Marketing: We have to present {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and I don't know if you have to present , because I didn't receive any information about that so far . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we will . +Project Manager: Maybe we get a a final mail . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} after the {disfmarker} after after these five minutes , you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , I have still ten minutes to finish the report . +Industrial Designer: What's this anyway ? +User Interface: So cake . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . After after that five minutes , you have ten minutes to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like candle wax . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . And we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh just uh relax and uh have cup of coffee or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Chill . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh no , they don't have beer here so you can't celebrate . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: You can just if you ma finish my presentation please . Uh over there . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Project Manager: The presentation is still open . So if you finish that then you'll see uh {disfmarker} Yeah next . +Marketing: Next slide . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , we have to do the project uh evaluation . Just uh do that quickly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you do it ? +Project Manager: Uh well basically what that says , we discuss it and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: So how were {disfmarker} did the project process uh go ? Did you , were you all pleased with the process as it was ? Or are there uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh th uh do you mean the the interaction between us ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah the interaction and the steps we followed , and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well at first I was really stressed . Because it went a bit fast . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But then as I knew the tempo that I had to be on , the second time I think I did a bit better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the third time yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we move more to to working together as team , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because at first you you make your individual contribution , and then come here , and you have no idea what the others have to make . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: And then finally you have some idea , okay this is gonna w this is what we gonna make together and okay I will arrange this and you will arrange that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and you have a k a kind of idea what you can expect on the next half hour when you have to work on your own . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we {disfmarker} +Marketing: The process , I mean , the interaction between us became better and better I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Especially after the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially if f f if you see {disfmarker} uh you se you saw the largest difference from the first to the second meeting I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay and was that due to my leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you did become more assertive the the second time round , so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You were more in charge kind of thing . +Project Manager: That okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um was there uh enough room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but only the the financial parts uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Li Limiteded afterwards , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If if you don't take that into account , there's plenty of room for creativ creativity . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Also not only the drawing and the the making of the thing itself , but also in explaining it to the other people , by means of uh +Industrial Designer: We were pretty democratic . +Marketing: the the board and uh PowerPoint and Word and stuff like that . +Project Manager: So and the {disfmarker} uh about the board {gap} digital pen ? Uh was that helpful or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Mm uh I think in in essence +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the digital pen is better than the SMARTboard . Because it it it just works better . +Project Manager: Yeah it works . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean uh uh I've made {disfmarker} yeah , uh I've made several notes just to test it , and and just put the pen in into it , and then it came onto my screen and it looked perfectly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it it's better a better device than uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: than the screen . But the screen is useful , in essence , but it doesn't work that well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's uh it's {disfmarker} The the pen is more intuitive , 'cause we're all used to writing with pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Use the pen . +Industrial Designer: And uh as I said , uh I uh have no idea how PowerPoint works , so will take me half a day to be able to make a normal PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But once I get to know the program probably , I mean , it looks better , you know . Or uh something like that . You can give it a kind of a home style , like we have i the the logo and everything . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Blink . Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Finish meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , are are there {vocalsound} any new ideas about this ? All I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I didn't really receive , yeah . +Marketing: It's use especially useful , I guess , to to evaluate designs and graph graphical stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh uh w uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and +Project Manager: S sorry uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: the {gap} screen and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think the PowerPoint is is too limited . You can't uh draw easy in in PowerPoint . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah . The drawing board has to be integrated into PowerPoint , so that you can just easily {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the problem with PowerPoint for me is that you have to i put in the pre-made chunks c as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know , you can draw something on the sketch-board and then take it there , or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . But it it's useful to to show something to to an {disfmarker} a small audience , and then to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah just for text , for text it's uh it's okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . These these kind of screens this size are useful to discuss things . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . Check your email . +Project Manager: Uh we should uh enter our questionnaire . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} You also . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Woah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes boss . +Industrial Designer: Well , s see you in a second huh ? {gap} . +Project Manager: That's the management . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well see you soon . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Hope so . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} we have to pull it this way , huh ? Wait . +","In a recent interdisciplinary meeting involving members of the project management, marketing, user interface, and industrial design teams, the group was faced with the challenge of redesigning a remote control within a tight budget. The gathering commenced with the project manager highlighting the importance of cost considerations and their impact on design choices. This prompted immediate concern from the user interface team, symbolized by an audible expression of distress, further echoed by marketing members. + +As the conversation unfolded, it was evident that the primary objective was to identify and potentially eliminate features to lower costs. A significant portion of the discussion centered around the user interface; specifically, the team deliberated on whether to retain the special color of buttons which provided a trendy look. However, this faced opposition due to budget constraints. + +In an effort to economize, the project manager suggested replacing kinetic energy with a hand dynamo for power, sparking debate among the team. Marketing countered that batteries would be more practical, appealing to younger users. Several suggestions were aired, including simplifying the design by removing directly accessible channels and dropping the backlight. The marketing team supported normal batteries, eventually reaching a consensus that aligns with budgetary limitations. + +The team grappled with the dilemma of keeping features like the doubly curved shape, an L_C_D_ screen, and speech recognition—each with their own associated costs and benefits. Tensions rose as various team members made cases for the features they deemed essential, often clashing over the impact of such decisions on the final product. + +Further complicating matters were the additional costs of utilizing an advanced chip-on-print and special sensors. A significant segment of the discussion revolved around the prospect of a singular integrated button to take over multiple functionalities, but this was met with skepticism over the complexity it would introduce for the user. + +Despite these challenges, the marketing department was adamant about retaining the L_C_D_ screen, which had proven more popular than speech recognition according to their data. As they sifted through each feature, the team painstakingly worked to bring costs down. + +The latter part of the meeting shifted toward aesthetics, debating the use of plastic versus wood and the implications of color choices on market appeal. The marketing team suggested compromise with special colors on plastic to preserve the product's attractiveness, with final deliberations focusing on combining function and style while adhering to the budget. + +The session neared its end as the team, with growing desperation, continued to make difficult decisions under time pressure. They discussed the remote control's physical design adjustments in light of the budgetary restrictions, emphasizing the critical balance between maintaining a stylish product and reducing costs. + +Throughout the discussion, there were sporadic technical interruptions and moments of light-hearted banter that punctuated the serious task of honing the product's features, reflecting the dynamic of a multidisciplinary team working under the common goal of innovation within financial constraints. + +As the conversation reached a conclusion, the focus shifted to reflecting on the project's process, with team members expressing their thoughts on the collaboration and tools such as the digital pen and PowerPoint, and the overall effectiveness of their communication and decision-making strategies. + +The meeting demonstrated the complex interplay between design, functionality, user experience, and financial feasibility in product development. The team's ability to pivot and compromise, guided by marketing insights and grounded by the project manager's fiscal focus, highlighted the delicate art of balancing creativity with practicality. The atmosphere of shared effort and the acknowledgment of each member's contributions served as a testament to the importance of teamwork and flexibility in the face of challenging constraints." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good to see you all again . Let's see if that comes up . This is our functional design meeting . Um . Just a sec while my PowerPoint comes up . Et voila . Okay . Mm um we put the fashion in electronics . Let's start . Okay , our agenda today um {disfmarker} just check the time , it's twelve thirteen . Um . I'm gonna do an opening , talk about um {disfmarker} did you all get the minutes ? I e-mailed them to you . I'm also putting 'em {disfmarker} them in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So um then I {disfmarker} we'll talk about our general objectives +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and have your three presentations . Um I'll talk about the new project requirements I've just received , and then we have to make a decision on our remote control functions . Finally we'll just close . We're starting this meeting at approximately twelve thirteen and we have forty minutes . So {disfmarker} First of all the functional design objectives . Uh we need to keep in mind the user requirement specification , what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , the {gap} functions design , what effects the apparatus should have , and the working design , how the apparatus actually works to fulfil its function . Okay , three presentations , um you can go in any order you choose um . +Marketing: {gap} Mm shall we go in the order that you just did it ? +Project Manager: Sure , please do . +Marketing: I dunno . How do I hook my screen up ? +Industrial Designer: I think , you might have to disconnect Rose . +Project Manager: Yes I do . Yeah . +User Interface: Well there's a wee a wee plug just just that one there +Marketing: Where does it go ? Mm-hmm . Hmm , I'm not supposed to move this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah that's it , yep . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: And then you have to press function F_ eight +Project Manager: Function , F_ eight , yeah . +User Interface: I think it is on your laptop . +Project Manager: The blue one , F_N_ . +Marketing: Where's function ? No signal . +Project Manager: Is it plugged in all the way and you screwed it in and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , wait , 's screw in . +Industrial Designer: I I think you just have to push it in really hard . +Marketing: Push the screw . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , got it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm alright +Project Manager: It's taking it a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've never attached to anything . +Industrial Designer: Mm , neither have I . +Project Manager: 'Kay there you go . +Marketing: Alright , so , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I don't know if you guys are able to get access to um the report that was online or if I'm the only one who is . But , I don't even know how to play this . No . +Project Manager: Press the little presentation . It's the um {disfmarker} it looks like a Y_ kind of {disfmarker} over there above Draw . There , that one , there you go . +Marketing: Alright . So we're just gonna talk a little bit about the functional requirements that people specified when they were asked . Um I guess Real Reaction did some market research . They had a hundred subjects and their usability lab and they watched them watch T_V_ and recorded the frequency that they used particular buttons and the relevance that those buttons had . What they found was they analysed people's desires and needs . Focusing on their desires , um people specifically said that they thought remotes were ugly {vocalsound} , seventy five per cent of the a hundred subjects noted that and that they {disfmarker} more importantly though , eighty per cent said that they would be willing to pay more for a fancier looking remote . I don't know anything beyond what fancy means , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: but that's particularly of use to us , I think . Um also they did some questions on voice recognition and found that the desire for voice recognition was inversely related to age , so younger people were more inclined to want something with voice recognition , whereas the older people in the like sixty and above segment or so did not really think that they would pay more money for voice recognitions . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um people also had certain frustrations , that I think that we could try to take into consideration with our design . That being people k um frustrated with losing their remotes . I think , over fifty percent of the people mentioned that that was their biggest frustration . People are also frustrated with the difficulty it is to learn how to use a remote and I think that ties back to what you were saying before +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: just that there's too many buttons , it just needs to be easy to use . It also mentioned something called R_S_I_ and I was hoping someone might be able to inform me as to what R_S_I_ is , +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: because I don't know . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What ? Ah . There we go . +User Interface: So if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wow . People do not like that . So I guess sort of the carpal tunnel type thing , people do not like that , um the repetitive use , I guess , caused a strain . Um looking at the needs people specified , the problem right now is that people's remotes are not matching their operating behaviour . People are only using ten per cent of the buttons that they have offered to them on their remote . And what people do most often is changing the channel and changing the volume . People also zap like to change the channel , about um sixty five per cent during an hour of use . So we really just need to focus in on those volumes and channel changers rather than things like the audio settings , the screen settings and the channel settings , because they're used much more infrequently and probably just complicate what's going on . So I think that some things that we might wanna think about , the idea of an L_C_D_ screen was brought up although they didn't have any details on what people's preferences on that were , so I dunno know if that's coming to me later , or something like that . But something for us to consider also just the phenomenon that less is more when it comes to the buttons on the remote or what we wanna make easiest to use , make sure that , you know , something like an audio setting isn't given as much importance and visibility on the remote as something like channel changing that's used a lot more often . And basically in order for us to win over to the consumer we just need to focus on what it looks like , that it has a fancy appeal and that it's not ugly {vocalsound} and that it feels like the way they're gonna use it , so it doesn't give them any hand injuries or things like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . That was that was great . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} 's move on to the next presentation um on effects . Was that you ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: Yeah , have I unscrewed it ? +Project Manager: Push . User interface , right . Interface . +Marketing: Here we go . +User Interface: Cheers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And I think that's in the shared , if I did it right , if anyone wants to look at it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay , great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Here we go . Right so I'm gonna talk about the technical technical functions design of the remote control um . We need to start by considering what a remote control actually is . It's a device that allows us to produce certain effects on our television , so i it's basically a communication device . We we tell the remote control what we want to do , it sends a message to the television saying change the channel , change the volume , uh yeah , adjust these settings , adjust the brightness . Um how do we actually go about designing a new television remote control ? First thing to do is to come up with the design specifications . We need to know what our final product is gonna be like , so we need a a clear idea of exactly what this product does , uh how it works , and what the end-user is gonna want from this product . Um . Oh , a way I'd suggest that we could go about this is by designing uh several different prototypes of user interfaces for this product , um and then uh trying to get some feedback uh about +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: h how well these particular prototypes work , uh sorta find out what people think of 'em . Um using a remote control is is quite a subjective experience . Um , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and different different people sort of prefer different things . Um we should remember that remote controls are a a fairly standard piece of equipment . When a users using a remote control , he or she expects the buttons to be in certain places . So in some sense we're gonna we're gonna have to aim for a device which is fairly conventional in design uh so that we're not completely shocking people . But I think within that there is also room for us to introduce novel ideas uh and to make something that's that's perhaps a little bit different , something that stands out . Um also in in designing the user interface we need to consider practicalities . Uh the first of these is is technological ye uh what can we do with the current state of technology as it is . The second is is economic , uh we need to find a balance between features and price . So as you mentioned things like voice recognition would would add to the price uh but it would also im improve the design of the product . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: So I had a look on the {disfmarker} on the web uh to see if I could find a few examples of existing television remote controls . In analysing these we can consider what what things {disfmarker} what's good about them , uh what things do they get right , what's bad about them , what's wrong with 'em , um how we can improve on the designs that that that I found and what can we do to make our product stand out from from the large majority of remote controls . Here's two examples uh probably at the extreme ends of the spectrum . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um on the left here we've got uh an engineering-based design for a remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's one that's got lots of buttons , it's it's fully featured , everything you might possibly want to do is there , you know , it's got forward , backwards , up , down , channel numbers , volume , uh freeze frame . Yeah , it's it's fully featured and it might take a while to get to learn to use it , but once you've learned it you can {disfmarker} you can do whatever you want with your T_V_ . The one on the right is a lot more basic . It's just got the essential functions of the T_V_ changing the channel , play , stop , volume . It would be a lot quicker to learn to use it , but again th it's it's swings and roundabouts . There are disadvantages , you can't use it say to to freeze the television picture . Uh there's a lot of features that are missing from that remote control . So we've got to to find our {disfmarker} find a way of striking a balance between the two . Um as I said before , remote controls are subjective , different people want want different things . Um personally wa what I want from a remote control is a device that's simple , it it's easy to use , uh it's got big buttons for doing the things I do most often , changing the volume , changing the channel . It it does everything that I need it to uh , as I said before , I'm quite lazy , I don't wanna walk across the room just to adjust my television . I also want something that that looks cool , um and that that feels good , that's ergonomically designed . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Thank you very much . That was very useful . {vocalsound} It's funny to see the {vocalsound} drastic difference between those two remotes . {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And neither of them were very pretty , you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that could be our selling point . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: A fashion fashion remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think there's there's certainly a market for technology that looks cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I think that's that's why companies like Apple've 've 've made a lot of progress . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , I really can't see what I'm doing , so does anyone have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} there it is . +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha , look at that , showing up already . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: So wait , did it let you go on the Internet or was that just what it let you see ? +User Interface: Uh that was just on the d on the company web site , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause I was like googling +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then I'm like wait {vocalsound} it won't let me google . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright um {disfmarker} No , how do I play again ? +Project Manager: Um the {disfmarker} it's right above Draw . There are three thingy if {disfmarker} it's way at the bottom . Under three icons +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: and it's the one that looks like a desk . Yeah , that one . There are Y_s {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is our working design presentation . Um I had a bit of {disfmarker} some issues with this , because I wasn't able to find everything I needed , but I guess that's {disfmarker} we're still in early stages . Um so , yeah , this is this . Though th the thing about working design is the {disfmarker} what we're trying to do as a working design is figure out how the aparata apparatus can fulfil its function . Um one of the examples that kept coming up for me is that a coffee grinder . It works because it converts electrical energy to grinding the beans and then you put the bean through a filter and that filters out , and then you get coffee at the end that's nice and hot because of the combination of electrical energy and then the other things that are brought in to make it work . Don't know if I'm explaining that very well , but {disfmarker} how do I get to the next s ah . So h the method as um working designers figure out what you need to make it fulfil this practical function , what what needs to be done and how do we convert all the elements to make that done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So wha the easiest thing to do is to break down all the points at which you need something to happen . So you make a schematic of the way that the the energy is converted tsh towards this practical function . And then I think the easiest thing to do is gonna be work on each task separately . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You just press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah , just click . That'll be fine . +Industrial Designer: So the findings that I got uh very {disfmarker} just very briefly is that you have a choice of the way that the information is projected to the receiver and in my opinion infra-red is the best way to do that 'cause you don't need a sight line . So that's one thing we're gonna work on . Um the user interface is critical here , because a lot of the things that happen in a remote control happen through the chip that controls {disfmarker} that converts the electrical energy into data , which then goes through the infra-red , so the the chip that uh I think Ian is designing , is gonna be crucial . And really it all comes down to the to the user , because they're the one that's controlling most of the working design . So the components that we find here are the energy source , you know the battery or whatever that's gonna m make it work , then the chip , which converts the data , the user that's controlling the chip , and the infra-red bulb that's gonna let us move the data to the receiver . So you have four main components and they are designed sort of like this . You have your energy source right there which then um brings uh energy or information to the chip , which is also controlled by the users . You have energy going to the user who's controlling the chip {disfmarker} ooh 's not what I wanted to do uh uh . +Project Manager: Um yeah use that thing {gap} you can go back , previous . +Industrial Designer: Previous . Sorry about that , guys . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pardon . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh , well . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's just get back to my schematic here . +Project Manager: Ye Double click on it . With the right {disfmarker} with the left hand one . +Industrial Designer: W yeah , yeah . I think it's frozen . Here . Don't show me that tip again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we are . +Industrial Designer: There we are . Sorry about this , guys . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm kind of pathetic with things like this . Um alright . So you have your energy source , your user interface who's controlling the chip , the chip also uses the energy , and the chip through the use of the user interface is gonna control the switch which will work your infra-red bulb , which will then bring the data to the receiver . So hopefully that makes sense for everyone in my kind of garbled way . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: This is the the parts of the working design that need to be figured out . And {vocalsound} personal preferences , besides the fact that I can't spell , we need a long-lasting energy source , people don't wanna be changing it a lot . We need a chip that works well with the user interface , that isn't too complicated . We need a straightforward interface , like Ian was saying , simple , not overwhelming it with information and we need a reliable and clear infra-red signal , so that you're not waving your remote around +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and having to get frustrated and go do it by hands . So that's pretty much it for the working design . +Project Manager: Excellent . {gap} So , um . +Industrial Designer: Rose , do you think you can give me a hand with this ? +Project Manager: Yes , absolutely . Ah I can never tell which way to turn these things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Lefty loosey , righty tighty , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lefty loosey , righty tighty . +User Interface: Lefty loosey . Uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Never heard that before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +User Interface: that's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll think of that every time now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's gonna stick in your head . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good one it'll stick with you . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um I have nothing on my screen . Just a sec . Here we are . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ooh , +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: no signal . +Project Manager: Okay , requirements . We have a couple new requirements that I was just e-mailed right before the meeting and that we have to keep in in um in mind as we're creating this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We didn't bring it up yet , or at all in the meetings so far , but we're not gonna work with teletext because um {disfmarker} well it {disfmarker} that's been taken over by the internet , so we're not gonna worry about um {disfmarker} we're not gonna worry about that . +Marketing: What's teletext ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's a British thing . +Marketing: Oh . Oh , +User Interface: You don't have it in the States ? +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no . W d could {disfmarker} would you care to explain it ? +User Interface: Oh , I didn't realise . Um yeah , it's like a {disfmarker} I suppose it's kind of similar to a very very basic web browser . Um you have like you have uh numbers on your remote control , uh y and you type in the page number you want , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so like you type a hundred on your remote control and this this kind of index appears on the television screen with just some some text and some very blocky looking graphics on it . And you just type numbers to go to different pages and it gives you information , mostly rather boring stuff like what's on T_V_ next and share prices and that kind of thing . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} Lottery numbers and sport scores . +User Interface: Yep , news headlines . +Industrial Designer: But if you ever see the T_V_ saying like go to page one sixty on Ceefax now , that's what they're talking about . +Project Manager: How ? +User Interface: It's earl it's pretty old technology . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: It's like nineteen eighties . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That explains a lot . +Industrial Designer: I have no idea why we don't have it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Interesting . Okay um , well , we're not gonna {disfmarker} the management has decided we're not gonna work with that . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay um and we're also gonna w like your question earlier um whether this is going to be t for television , video , or etcetera . Just for television . That's what we're focused on . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Um otherwise becomes to complex , we wanna get this out um very quickly . We only have a a short amount of time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um and finally there's more marketing , I think , um , our corporate image has to be recognisable . So while we're gonna make it look pretty we need to use our colour and our slogan i in the new design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So what's our corporate image like ? It's {disfmarker} It's kind of yellow colour with uh we put fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Looks like , yeah , kind of a yellow and black and we have that {disfmarker} the emphasis on the R_s in um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like double R_ . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it's , yeah , we put the um fashion in electronics . So we gotta keep that in that in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we want something that looks good +Project Manager: Yep . Yep . +Industrial Designer: and is yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , or {vocalsound} ha maybe some buttons could be yellow . Like , we can we can play around with it a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , we need to talk about our functions and our target group . We need to decide who our target group is . You um in your analysis of different market um {disfmarker} of the marketing , you identified that different groups wanted different things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or had certain preferences , for example that um that older people didn't really care for um voice recognition , but younger people did . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and so who are we aiming this at ? +Industrial Designer: Well if we're gonna say that function um fashion {disfmarker} we put the fashion in in electronics then you {disfmarker} automatically , I think , a sort of younger group that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} who's gonna be attracted to this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , I do think , who's gonna have the money to buy that also , that one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . It's gonna be twenty five Euro remember , so um it has to be avai marketable to um whomever it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} is it something that's gonna be sold separately from the television or is it something that comes w with a television ? 'Cause that would affect the way that we market it . +Project Manager: Well at least right now what we're doing is um deciding on just the remote itself , so it will probably be sold separately , twenty five Euro by itself . +User Interface: Right . Right , okay . +Marketing: The only break-down that I was given in terms of age was the voice activation and basically there's a big jump , after thirty five people don't really care if it has voice , so it's like basically fifteen to thirty five that think that that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I dunno I'm gonna be given any other numbers broken down in terms of age later , but if that's sort of the only quality that we have that is divided into age then we would wanna stick between the fifteen and thirty five range . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's probably uh a population w quite a little bit of disposable income for use on technology anyway , so that might be a fairly good target group for us . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now , those are {disfmarker} that's all specific for speech recognition . Are we gonna use that as one of our functions ? +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I I would say no , because it's gonna add too much to the price . Especially if we are marketing it as a separate product , people are gonna be paying +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: uh , well , uh we've got a price limit of {disfmarker} was it twelve twelve and a half Euros for {disfmarker} to produce it ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: To produce it , yeah . +Project Manager: To produce it , yes . +User Interface: And I wonder if we can get voice recognition into that twelve and a half Euros without having to make too many other compromises . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But what else are we gonna put , I mean not that I'm really gung-ho about it , I don't know what else you can put in a remote to make it technologically advanced though . So like other than just making it look good , how is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean it can look really great and still have the same up-n-down buttons +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: and why's anyone gonna buy a new remote ? +Industrial Designer: Well but why are we why are we aiming for a technological advancement ? Everything we're talking about is ease of use and simple and that doesn't necessarily mean more technology , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a good thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: in fact it could use {disfmarker} it could mean , not . If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they might be overwhelmed with with remotes that have too many buttons and too much technology . +Marketing: If someone's looking to buy a new remote , don't they want like an upgrade ? I dunno . +Project Manager: Upgrade ? Well , we can look for {disfmarker} we can look at upgrade or we can look at um user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simplification . +Project Manager: Simplification , +Industrial Designer: They could have a crap remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that came with their T_V_ that's just impossible to use , or maybe it broke , or maybe they're just missing it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , mm . And we also need to talk about if we're only gonna have the very simple ones or also have the other ones just separate somehow or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} I mean this may be too complicated , but , I wish I had something to explain it , like if it was just a simple , either this way or this way , that had like the main buttons and then you could like pull something out , kind of and like you got the rest the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Marketing: but the rest of them like went in . +User Interface: The remote {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know what I'm saying ? +Project Manager: Kind of pull out of the side . +User Interface: There are remote controls like that , yeah . Like some T_V_s they have a sort of uh a sliding screen on the remote control of it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that hides all the complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So if you wanna do something complicated like programme your television or re-tune it , then you you open up this little hatch or or slide the screen down +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and there's all the {disfmarker} all the special buttons . +Marketing: 'Cause then 's like people who don't wanna ever look at them , never even have to see them +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if you like get the instruction manual that comes with it and you just don't even read it then you'll never even know that those things can pull out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And you're a happy person and everyone else doesn't have to have like two remotes , one that has the easy ones and one that has +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: more complicated ones , +User Interface: I think that's a good idea , yeah . +Marketing: but 's all still in one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um we have to be careful that that that doesn't impede um the chip transmitting information , but um that's gonna be mostly technological thing . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um , so what are we emphasising ? I {disfmarker} what in this project ? +User Interface: Si simplicity and fashion . +Project Manager: Simplicity and fashion . +Marketing: I think simplicity , fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: Okay , those are very good goals , I think , um that we have to keep in mind in {disfmarker} with everything we do . Simplicity and fashion and , yeah , {disfmarker} or usability speci however you wanna say that , which includes um an emphasis on making the infra-red very functional , so that you don't have to travel around a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: What can you do to like make the infra-red more functional , like why would it not be ? I'm just wondering . +Project Manager: I think it's a lot {vocalsound} to do with battery , but that's just my {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The battery and that {disfmarker} I think that the chip takes the data and presents it well , without sort of scattering . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So 's just the quality of the chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The quality {vocalsound} uh quality of all the components really , I mean , we can't really do anything {disfmarker} shoddy work , 'cause it's +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: gonna be visible down the line . +Project Manager: So our target group , we're saying , fifteen to thirty five ? +Marketing: Well , I dunno how useful that number is if we're not doing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S voice recognition , which I kind of I kind of feel like voice recognition is not necessary in a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . I don't . +Project Manager: like it might be necessary for a T_V_ but not for the remote c , you know . +User Interface: It's , yeah , it's pretty it's pretty high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Seems a little bit {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it might be too expensive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And if the whole idea is you're using a remote then why would you have voice , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you know what I mean and then it's like you wouldn't need a remote you'd just talk to your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's for , like , the ultimately lazy people , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: who can't even be bothered to pick up the remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} I mean if I get m more numbers , I'll e-mail you before the next meeting in terms of ages . But this doesn't divide up anything and there was only a hundred subjects also , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which isn't , I mean , really isn't that representative , especially if it's a hundred subjects that th they then can subdivide into age groups that means there's very few in each age group , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I th I think regardless we're we're aiming for the under sixty five or something . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Under sixty five , okay , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: that's a good start . Um . I'd say we're {disfmarker} uh can we narrow it down to maybe um teenagers and families ? 'Cause that would go up to like fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Or like single professionals or something . +Project Manager: Okay , single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty to like fifty five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's it's hard to narrow it down . +Industrial Designer: It's really hard to figure out right now . +User Interface: I think the product appeals across a quite a broad range of ages . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean , we we said simplicity is is one of the features , so it's going to appeal to people , maybe people who have problems with technology , you know , people who get scared by having lots of buttons , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and that might be older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but then we've also got fashion , which is something that definitely appeals to younger people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well maybe we don't have to defi define the target group by the demographic of age , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: maybe we can define it by like the demographic of like h t how much money they have to spend or something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah aim for a {disfmarker} an income group . +Industrial Designer: That's a good point . +Marketing: like , well +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: obviously it has to be someone who owns a television , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and like how recently have they bought their television like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe it's more useful to d d to define objectives like fashion and simplicity than to find specific target group as far as age is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , t probably . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because , yeah , things so different will appeal to different people , but {disfmarker} Okay . Um oh , there're a couple functions {disfmarker} do we want something so that {disfmarker} do we want some kind of thing to find it if it's lost ? Like a button on a T_V_ you can press +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'll ring or something , I don't know like {disfmarker} or beep ? +Marketing: H I mean , like I said before , fifty per cent of of the fru f like frustration someone can have that was the biggest one and half the people said that happened and we all mentioned it before we knew about it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And if we're talking about making something easy that sort of goes along with it so it wouldn't be like a random thing to sort of add in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It would be relevant to like the overall goal I think , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll probably be good . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we have to {disfmarker} we have about four minutes left to define our functions . So let's do that quickly . Um so we want something to keep it from getting lost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} we want um we want large buttons for the essential things . Large , accessible buttons for the essentials . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We want a possibility to um to get um a possibility to get the extra functions . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which are kind of hidden away in some way or well not hidden but they're uh they're not as prominent as the main features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um , yeah , hidden way . And we also want it to be fashionable , which I'm not sure if that's a function so much as a um yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} on your coffee table , it's not like an eye sore , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , do it . Any other essential functions that we need ? Battery ? Do we need a long-life battery ? +Industrial Designer: Battery battery use . Yeah , but I think that goes in with simplicity and ease of use really . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But we might as well . +Marketing: So you never have to change the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We should maybe investigate whether it needs a battery at all . I suspect the remote control does need a battery , +Project Manager: Yeah , I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but I dunno if you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just 'cause it is an electronic device , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} I think it does . I don't I don't think of a way you can operate a chip and convert that much data without without one . +User Interface: Yeah , without the energy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you could maybe have it in a little charging station like a mobile phone , or like a little cradle for your iPod . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's possible . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could maybe do that instead . +Project Manager: Charging . +Industrial Designer: So you don't ha you got like a rechargeable battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , that might contribute to less people losing it too if it {vocalsound} it stays in one place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We have to think about um space in living-rooms , too , like 'cause they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean , would you put it on top of the T_V_ ? I don't know , just think {disfmarker} okay , that's {vocalsound} that's a good idea , we'll keep it . Think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's just off the top of my head . +Project Manager: And maybe fun . Okay . Um 'kay we're gonna conclude now , has everyone said their functions and {disfmarker} 'kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um after the meeting we're gonna each complete a sks um a questionnaire and a summaries {disfmarker} summary . I don't know what summarisation . Um and then we'll have our lunch break . After that we have thirty minutes of individual work . Um I'll make sure to put up um the minutes and the project documentation and including these PowerPoint slides . If everyone could do that as well , that'd be great . Um you each have individual actions , I_ um I_D_ Industrial Design you've your components concept , User Interface , the user interface concept , market trend wa watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And as as per last time you'll get specific incrat instructions from your personal coach e-mailed to you . And hopefully , I hope , next time you'll be able to access more of the web site that they they seem to tell you that you could . It's kinda frustrating , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , who knows . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Be sure to note any frustrations or any um issues that come up in your um in your um summary . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Project Manager: Mm 'kay ? +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Great seeing y'all . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you um {disfmarker} were you able to like put yours in the group folder ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I just did that . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hopefully it is there for people . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Looks like there are um {disfmarker} looks like there's a second one kind of of mine that's {disfmarker} that I didn't do , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's from like an earlier project , I think so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Where is that ? Yours is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Under the shared folder , I don't know it might not even be under yours as well . +Industrial Designer: Technical . So +Project Manager: Projects . +Industrial Designer: in there we have technical functions presentation , working design presentation and the functional requirements . At least that's what I have in . +Marketing: I only have three , I just have like our three . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I have as well , R Rose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . You don't have mine ? +Industrial Designer: So . +Marketing: No , but that's 'cause I think yours is in the e-mail separate , like it's not on the server . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But if I open it and then save it , probably will be there . Oh wait , never mind you can't save it to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I'll figure that out in the meantime . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +","In the design meeting, the project manager outlined the meeting's agenda, which included discussions of general objectives, new project requirements, and a decision on remote control functions. Three team members – User Interface, Industrial Designer, and Marketing – were to present their input. + +Marketing discussed market research findings, emphasizing users' desires for nicer looking remotes, the link between age and interest in voice recognition, and common frustrations such as remotes being lost or difficult to use. They also noted that remotes have many unnecessary buttons, as users primarily change channels and volume. + +The User Interface presentation focused on designing a remote that balances conventional expectations with innovative features, remembering that usability is subjective. They showed two remote designs, one complex and one simple, emphasizing the need to make widely used functions like volume and channel control easily accessible. + +The Industrial Designer discussed the working design, including how a remote uses electrical energy to fulfill its function. They addressed the importance of user interface integration with the chip that sends signals to the TV and the relevance of a clear, reliable infrared signal for data transmission. + +The project manager introduced new project requirements: no teletext function, focus on television control only, and incorporation of the corporate image in the design. The group discussed targeting a broader demographic rather than a specific age group, focusing on simplicity and fashion to appeal to a wider range of users, and incorporating features like findability and long battery life or charging options into the remote. They favored a simple design with access to less frequently used functions and a stylish look. + +Post-meeting tasks included filling out summaries and questionnaires, a lunch break, and individual work periods. Specific instructions were to come via email from personal coaches. Technical issues with accessing the company website were noted, and attendees were prompted to report any frustrations. + +In conclusion, the meeting revolved around making a user-friendly and stylish remote control with a focus on being attractive to a broad demographic and incorporating the company's brand image." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Hello . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good afternoon . Sorry I'm a little late . +Project Manager: No problem . +Marketing: Got stuck in the traffic . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's possible on uh this time of day . Starts at three o'clock . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , let me see . Our fourth and last meeting . There he is . Yes . Okay this our last meeting . In this meeting we will discuss our final design . And we will do some evaluation about the , not only the product , but also the project . And then we're going to close the project today as well . So after this you will be uh free to go and uh spend all your money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And this uh design , detailed design meeting uh we will discuss uh the look-and-feel of the design , the usability interface design , and we will do the product evaluation . Um , in order to do that we have this agenda . We'll have the prototype presentation first . Then we will set up some evaluation cri um criteria . {vocalsound} Then we will look at the finance . Uh we will have to see if everything we wanna do is also possible within our budget . Because everything costs money , and the more functions you wanna have the more money it will cost . So we have to see if it fits within the twelve and a half Euro per remote . But we will see that later . Then we will do the project uh evaluation , and the closing after that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got forty minutes . So we will be finished at half past three . But first um we will do the {disfmarker} this is prototype presentation . So , if some yeah if somebody wants step forward . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well this is what me and Richard came up with . The default spot for the on-off button . The mute button just below that . Then there's the volume and channel selectors . Simple plus-minus button . Uh we thought of a help button . If you hold it and you press another button , uh the help goes to the L_C_D_ screen . Then there's the zero to {disfmarker} one to zero buttons . A button for teletext . A button for the subtitles . And the company logo . So it's rather simple prototype . And uh we'll have to see from testing uh how the users take it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} is this the moment where we ask or can ask questions about the functionality ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure uh just pop in at any time . +Marketing: Um , when you're in teletext there usually are buttons where you just you just press it and you g go to the next teletext page . +User Interface: Uh , that's just uh the normal uh as th as the normal uh remote controls uh {disfmarker} So um {disfmarker} You put it uh {disfmarker} you um came in uh page uh one hundred . Now you can use the normal uh one to zero buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you {disfmarker} But you can also uh use the um button th for uh changing the the channel . S so uh the shifting uh button . Uh for uh yeah shif shifting up in uh on t on t uh teletext , and shifting uh down . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh but um I thought in a few meetings earlier we uh uh tried to keep it uh simple . Uh just a few buttons and large buttons . +User Interface: Oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But uh I think these are altogether quite a quite a few buttons . So I'm wondering if we if we neely {disfmarker} really need all of those buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you look at most controls , they've got more buttons than this . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And well the on-off button , it's it's a necessity . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can't drop that one . The volume and channel buttons , you need you obviously need those those . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The mute button could be replaced uh by pressing the volume-down button twice . So we could cancel that one . I think the help button really is necessary +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there's no other way to know when someone wants to know what a button does . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh , or you can build in uh when you press uh one button uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Long time . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you put {disfmarker} +User Interface: But m Yeah . We disc discuss that already . But uh we think uh old people uh don't know that uh option . So uh they just put in uh put {vocalsound} press uh the button and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} you can't leave out the number buttons I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh teletext and subtitles are yeah necessary . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's rather basic already . +Marketing: Yeah . Think so . That's what I pointed out earlier . If you just make a control for just the T_V_ there's just not much to gain here . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So we had somebody about th interfa Something about the design of the buttons there ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just n normal plain buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's rather hard to draw on the white-board . +User Interface: it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But they're supposed to be equal sized , round , with a with a little logo on it for the for the volume , the the triangle and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Just to recognise it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just for recognition . +User Interface: Uh yeah and now we don't need uh LEDs or um {disfmarker} Y uh +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: s some uh remote controls uh do it also , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um uh because we use the little display we don't uh have to use it . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and for the materials we've just chosen for rubber buttons . With a a different colour than the case . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: So they jump out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh that's about it . +Project Manager: That's nice . Then because we only have thirty minutes left , I will move on to the finance part , which is pretty exciting , to see if it's all possible what we wanna do . And I can tell you that we're going to have a pretty hard time producing this for twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If we see {disfmarker} I don't know if I've filled in correctly , so just correct me if you see uh something wrong . I counted two batteries . But maybe we can also use one . I don't know if it's possible . +Marketing: Since it rechargeable . +Project Manager: It's rechargeable . That's right . +User Interface: Yeah we can u just uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . That's two Euros off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We need the advanced chip . So there's not much to uh {vocalsound} to save there . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here we have the single curves . Uh we can see that the difference between uncurved and the single curved is one Euro . Um , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know , but I think the single curved is good for design , and also for the display to have a prominent place on the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to keep that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then we have the case material supplements . It's plastic . It's the cheapest one we need . So that's uh not much to save either . But then the biggest costs are the buttons . So maybe we really should try to discard some buttons to uh keep our costs low . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because you have to {disfmarker} we will have to get the twelve and a half Euros at the end . Um , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so if we {disfmarker} Let's fir first count the buttons we have now . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Sixteen , I believe so . +Project Manager: Because I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Sixteen . Nah , that will be even more then . Eighteen Euros . So , +User Interface: Uh seventeen . Uh with the help button . +Project Manager: seventeen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , including the help ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Damn . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh seventeen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we can uh discard the help and the mute button uh by pressing down volume long , or pressing down a a number long . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: That saves us uh one Euro already . 'Cause then we have got fifteen I think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Wouldn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . No . That wouldn't be an option . +Project Manager: And this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , d I assume you'd count the volume and channel thingies for two buttons each , right ? +Project Manager: No those are one , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . Where did uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , think actually there're two buttons , +User Interface: Uh , it's just one button . +Marketing: aren't they ? +User Interface: But , um {disfmarker} Yeah . There were uh two uh for one big button . But they are uh more expensive than the small ones . Uh , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but th it's not stated in this files . +User Interface: It's just a {gap} . +Project Manager: So maybe we can we can even make one button with the volume and the channel in one , by pressing +Marketing: Well I was thinking , maybe you could just integrate three of those numbers to one button . +Project Manager: That's possibility as well . +Marketing: That would cut the cost . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} And it's good for the design as well . So you can make {disfmarker} Uh let's see . If you make this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Looks a bit like uh a cross . {vocalsound} Plus . Min . +User Interface: But I don't don't know if if it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Uh s yeah channel . +User Interface: So uh , +Project Manager: Yeah w +User Interface: we've still got four buttons , but just um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah th I think they count uh the materials . +User Interface: You got uh not not a butt button itself , but uh on the um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah on the chip there . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . On the chip you've got still uh four uh four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think because we have the advanced chip +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we can just count this as one button . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , I think this really is four buttons anyhow . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} No but I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe it is , but then it seems to me that it's impossible to get the twelve and a half Euros . Also the L_C_ display , I think it's , I think it's too expensive for the display we use . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's a big cost . +Project Manager: I think they uh try t +Industrial Designer: If we leave out the display we can also save money on the chip . +Project Manager: That's right , but what's the big advantage of our remote then ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Only the docking station , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Which isn't the {disfmarker} the docking station isn't even in this c s schematic . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: So it's not even taken into the price . +Project Manager: That's extra . {vocalsound} That's extra . That's right . +Marketing: Maybe we should to a different supplier . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's an option . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Poland . Something . {vocalsound} Polish supplier . Don't you think we can , if we can count this as v as one button , and integrate th uh these buttons in three , then we save a lot of money as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We we could save money on it . But would it make the remote more usable for elderly people ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , that's what I'm wondering . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My mother can't even send send an S_M_S_ message . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we gonna buy a um a remote control uh when you can uh use it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Yeah . We m uh we must um stay below the um below um twelve uh fifty or {disfmarker} Can't uh go um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well , since the market research indicated that older people spend their money easier , more easy , maybe it's feasible to just put the price of the remote up a little . Especially since we have those nice features . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yeah but uh we have to stick to the twelve and a half Euros . We don't have any more budget to develop it . +User Interface: Is it impossible to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The margin will get too small . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it is possible to make one uh for uh twelve fifty . +Project Manager: It is . If you leave out the L_C_ display . And if you use less buttons . Say {disfmarker} Or you can take the single chip . +User Interface: I don't think so . +Marketing: It would be a be a pretty rigid one . +User Interface: S Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , you can't use uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ten . +Project Manager: There it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But then w Good looking . +User Interface: Uh , wi with n Oh , with uh attractive uh o options . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh , you can stay uh below uh twelve fifty . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's uh difficult as well , +Marketing: Or b +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Basically becoming a choice between like either a good remote and a higher production cost , or just any other remote control . +Industrial Designer: No remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or we can leave out the ten buttons and take one scroll wheel for the programme numbers . Then w +User Interface: Scroll-wheel's one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because then we save ten buttons . +User Interface: No , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then we have five and one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and see . If we have this one and we've got the advanced {disfmarker} W uh , we're getting close . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting closer . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But how does scroll-wheel work here ? +Project Manager: Then you will {disfmarker} Or maybe you can um scroll . If you scroll you will see the numbers on the L_C_D_ display . Until you've got the right number , then you push it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That would bring up the price of the scroll-wheel also . Integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Alright . It's gotta scroll and push . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay but then you you can push uh some other button as well . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just not scroll for a half a second . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . So if you scroll to a number and then you wait a half second , then it g turns to that channel . +Industrial Designer: So you won't need a button . +Marketing: I think that would be like the end of our usability . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it would definitely crop cost , a lot . +User Interface: D yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we need the battery . {vocalsound} And the regular chip is not possible ? It has to be advanced ? +Industrial Designer: If you want to use an L_C_D_ screen you you need an advanced chip , yes . +Project Manager: It has to be advanced . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And we can save a Euro by a flat design . That's an option we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ja ja . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Then we're almost there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you v could just leave out one more button . +Project Manager: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , or we have to uh skip the subtitle uh button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think that's {disfmarker} That is a big advantage , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a big advantage . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can we use {disfmarker} can't we integrate the teletext and the subtitles in one button ? +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think so . Yeah . +Project Manager: If you push it three times ? +Marketing: Well , think it's pretty much the teletext subtitles are +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right now you just push the teletext button , go to page eight eight eight , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and teletext disappears . But the subtitles stay there . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But if you push the teletext button twice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you have to scroll to page eighty eight ? Eight hundred eighty eight . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that's the case on most {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} One m uh one b uh , a few buttons . +Project Manager: Ah that's not really that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , that could be just uh like the scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: But then again that would be d j just pretty much not an option for older people , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: who don't even know what a scroll-wheel is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Holding a remote with {vocalsound} which they expect to have like ten buttons for the numbers one to zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: With only five buttons on it . And a scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: I think if you make a good advertisement uh on television and in the in the guide , you can explain to the people how to use the scroll wheel . If you just make it real simple . Because it saves it saves a lot of money . And we can keep our L_C_D_ screen , which can provide extra information . How to use the scroll wheel . How to use the other bu buttons as subtitles . +Marketing: True . True . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And it's good for the innovative design as well . If you would erase these . Mm eraser ? And we put uh {disfmarker} Looks a bit odd maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a pretty big scroll wheel . +Project Manager: That is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Something like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then , yeah . We've got the scroll-wheel . One , two , three , four , five buttons , if we erase this one . And these are two buttons then . +Industrial Designer: We could make two buttons out of that . And just um {disfmarker} If you press the volume button you can control the volume with the scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would save two buttons . If you do the same for the channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's really a good good idea , I think . And it will make the use of the scroll wheel uh more obvious indeed . +Industrial Designer: More obvious . +Project Manager: So we make one for the volume , one for the channel . Plus scroll . That's right . +Industrial Designer: So if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we've got one , two , three . Yeah , we can leave the teletext in if we want . That's m that's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So this is five buttons . +Industrial Designer: If we leave out all those buttons , perhaps you can go with the flat flat case . And make it smaller overall . +Project Manager: Y yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put the the volume and channel buttons on the same height as the on-off button , the screen right behi under that , than the scroll button +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Uh yeah , and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you get a a much smaller remote . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it sh +Project Manager: So we can decrease this one to four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right now we have five . +User Interface: But uh , you can make a f quite a big uh remote remote control for uh just the same price as a small one . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's no problem . +User Interface: Just uh you only have to pay for the double curved or single curved . It uh it's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . It's uh it's more the moulds in which they are being made , I think . Single curved is really easy to just fill in . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And cases come right out of the machine . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And single curved you have to have a different uh different machine , than a flat one . I think this is a really easy one . Um , what does everybody think about a flat or a single curved design ? Freek , what do you think ? +Marketing: Well , I still think we should go for the single curve design . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then again , {gap} all these changes are not really okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Richard's argument was very good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But since we just have to . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to cut costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I'm ag +Marketing: I'd rather just go to the board and get us to spend {vocalsound} eighteen dollars a a remote . +Project Manager: Ask for more money . Yeah . Yeah . I am agreeing with the usability . Yeah . +Marketing: Or do some market research and see what the options are . +Project Manager: Yeah . But th um I think we can then keep the single curved one . Just to express our L_C_D_ screen a bit more . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So people will use it more , and especially for the help functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it will be good if we have scroll bar , scroll button . It will be necessary to have good help function , as well . So this is scroll . I think it was better to have this price list a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Before we went on to the to the whole design . +Marketing: Yes . Definitely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The th +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} I'm glad we could make a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's pretty different , if you saw the last one than {vocalsound} this one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's pretty different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this is not really like for the group we were making our remote . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: This will really require a lot of marketing to get this to sell . +Project Manager: Yeah . It will . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause if older people like familiar forms and familiar stuff . This is not familiar for them . +Project Manager: No , but I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we're gonna have to do a lotta convincing them . +Project Manager: I think the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: But they know the scroll-buttons from uh old radios . Uh they cal also uh buttons like that for uh changing uh channels . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can let l +User Interface: So maybe it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can stick it out , a bit . Like a old old buttons . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's recognisable for them as well . Yeah . That's a good one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , I'm afraid we have to move on . And it's uh it's b uh less frightening , I think . If they see this design they think oh , there are only five buttons , and uh {disfmarker} But we will see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . Might uh {disfmarker} might be confusing too . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's definitely right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They'd be like , what ? Only five buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But very special , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But you're not sixty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . I would buy it if I was six . {vocalsound} No I don't know . What it costs under twelve and a half Euros ? No ? Uh , yes they are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . But we can go on with the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . I can sit down I think . We still have fifteen minutes left , so we're nice on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , the project process . +Marketing: So um , I like set up all these criteria . And evaluation of the thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Evaluation criteria . That's right . That was the the point I forgot . I should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There we are . Evaluation criteria . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes I think for those criteria . +Marketing: Five more minutes ? +Project Manager: No we've got fifteen minutes but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yes . What ? +Marketing: 'Kay so I did some literature study study , and analysis of the requirements we set up earlier . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Translated it into criteria , which would be these . Um , is the remote fancy ? The shape , look and feel . Innovative ? What new functions are there ? Uh , easy to use ? Uh , learnability is a very important factor here . Uh , is it functional ? Are there not too many functions uh among the functions ? And are the those functions that are there , are they useful ? And the cost . The target group . Is the remote really for the group we're making it for ? And recognability . If our company is {disfmarker} If it is easily recognisable that our company made it ? And {disfmarker} So we're supposed to evaluate it right now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Let's see . Oh I have to say this was a little hard , because the minutes of our last meeting were not here . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's because my pen failed to upload his data . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I tried to +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: but it's uh it's giving errors by downloading the software . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . 'Kay . +Marketing: Is the design fancy , on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: I think it's fancy . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah . Six . +User Interface: Uh six . Yeah . +Marketing: We all go for six ? Good . Um , is the design innovative ? +Project Manager: Very . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Sh +Marketing: I think so , with our L_C_D_ screen , docking station , scroll-buttons . +Project Manager: Subtitles , buttons . Yeah . Seven . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've got twenty cents for our docking station , huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should be do-able . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: Is the design easy to use ? +User Interface: Mm . Not really . +Project Manager: That's a bit dodgy . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} Would be for us . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: For old people I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say four . Four or five between . Between four or five . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: Four or five . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: I'd go for four , too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it functional ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is the design functional ? Um , do we have all functions that we want to include ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: N Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we do . Do we have too many functions ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I don't think so . It's pretty slim . +Project Manager: Think it's uh seven . +Marketing: Seven . Oh , and do we um take care of the biggest frustrations of the remote control ? Like it getting lost and {disfmarker} R_S_I_ influences ? +User Interface: Mm m +Industrial Designer: Mm , we haven't thought of that one . +Project Manager: It was . +Marketing: Think we do . +Project Manager: I had them worked out . Mm . They are ugly , not very functional , and getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are the production costs within the preset limits ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well they are now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does the design fit the group of focus ? +User Interface: Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I think with our new radio button , I think it's uh I think it's better . +Marketing: I think it doesn't . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} We have to test it s But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I still {disfmarker} I think it's too m too fancy . Too too flashy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think a radio button is not exactly what older people expect to have a remote control . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a four . +Marketing: I'm not sure . I think I'd go for two . +User Interface: I go for three . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have to do the three . It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Is the company company recognisable ? +Project Manager: Yes it is . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Well , we have the logo there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And they wanna put fashion in their products . Uh in the slogan of the company . And we have the removable front cases . So , I think it's very recognisable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: So that will be this . I was also supposed to calculate the score , but thought we would have another private thingy after this . +Project Manager: We've got a calculate it . Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Twendag sieven an twendag . +Marketing: Is this {disfmarker} Like after this , are we done ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N We've gonna {disfmarker} We're going to evaluate it . +Marketing: We're gonna go to our other room again . Well , anyhow . These are seven factors times seven is forty something . Two ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} Forty nine . +Marketing: Nine ? Uh , minus one . Minus three , minus four . {vocalsound} Minus four . So that would be minus eight . Forty one out of forty nine . +Project Manager: Forty one . That's {disfmarker} Around eighty percent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What is it ? +Marketing: Guess I'll just type that in on the bottom here . +Project Manager: That's eighty four percent . I think that's a pretty nice score . +User Interface: Hmm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . 'Kay . So that will be the evaluation . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , that brings us to the project evaluation . Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project process . Did we move through the right phases , you think ? {vocalsound} Along the process ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think we should have a should have had the finance thingy a lot earlier . In the design phase . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . So lack of information about prices . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Satisfaction . Was there room for creativity ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not too much . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's because of the finance sheet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there w there was enough room , but the finance uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , true . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The room was {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And I would've liked to go for the younger users also . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: And just to be able to access internet and get something of your own . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Restrictions . Internet access . 'Kay . Leadership . Was it clear what everybody had to do uh according to their roles and functions ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teamwork ? Did it work out ? Working together ? Also , you {disfmarker} two of you with the uh last phase ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: The tasks are very structured , so you can just do step by step and it's very easy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} tasks . Okay . Were the means sufficient for the tasks uh we had to do ? Or were they too much ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well , the smart-board , the d d drawing is just a pain in the ass , but {disfmarker} The digital the digital pen is very nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Smart-board . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it wants to download its uh data . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Failed download . Smart-board was irritating . {vocalsound} So you rather wanted to have a flip-over ? Or something else ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: A flip-over or a more precise uh digit +User Interface: A flipper's uh easier , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Faster as well , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . Flip-over . +User Interface: But if you want to share uh of uh when you make um a picture like this uh on the presentation , it's easier to uh share it with uh other people . Uh so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you can sh save it uh and uh put it on the internet , or uh uh in shared f uh folder or uh sh uh shared directory . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I tried to open the file on my laptop , +User Interface: Yeah ? No ? +Industrial Designer: No . Didn't work . +Marketing: but {vocalsound} not possible . +Project Manager: Uh you need a smart board uh application I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I think you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: T can uh can you export it uh like a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Should be possible . Yeah you can export it as image . +Marketing: {gap} no . +Project Manager: Must {disfmarker} Yeah must be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should've done that then . +Project Manager: So the sharing of the information was uh was okay ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Pen is here . +Project Manager: Uh , network . +User Interface: Uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , pen is here on the table . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . So you can {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} It's possible . +User Interface: It's possible . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That's nice . Have we found new ideas for having this kind of meetings ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , yeah maybe um uh when we n uh just uh give the numbers of of uh {disfmarker} Uh uh o one of uh out of s uh sev {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's uh easier to uh to do the th things that are like that on a computer . Uh , so uh just l uh like uh at u university uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So everybody puts his own score . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {vocalsound} it mediates the score , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can get one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's better . So that's uh {disfmarker} How do we call ? Evaluation criteria . Okay . Mm , any more ideas ? Or questions about the project ? Or about the product ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because I think then that we get to our last sheet . Are the costs within the budget ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Considering we are not going to make a docking station . +Project Manager: Do we {disfmarker} Docking station . That's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: But maybe because of the docking station the price of the remote can also be a little bit higher ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and I think you can compensate that as well . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I think that shouldn't be the biggest problem , because it's very cheap to make as well . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do we think we gonna get the twelve and a half million ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or what was it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fifty grand . +Project Manager: Fifteen fifteen million . I think we will . {vocalsound} If we gonna export this product . It's innovative . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially in America . People are pretty decadent . Sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , still I think {disfmarker} I mean if we're n gonna make a scroll-button anyway it'd be more for the younger people than for the older people . +Project Manager: You can do more . Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: So maybe we should just re-focus . +Project Manager: Just put it on the market for everybody . You can you can change markets where by changing the front covers . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Or specifically for younger people . +Project Manager: That's one thing you can change it with . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: So you can also try to uh reach the younger people by uh putting fancy covers on on the market . Just as a test . See how it works . That's I think a good advantage . +Marketing: Yeah , I think then it would be way more uh popular with younger people than it is , than would be with older people . Even if it were their covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , uh then I think we can have our little celebration , right now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Party party . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we still have to fit in one more questionnaire . I think . +User Interface: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I didn't get a message from the from ending of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I believe y uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I think I have one now . +Marketing: Oh you did . +Project Manager: Five more minutes ? Oh that's nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we still have some questions . If somebody has some questions they can ask them now . Or we can put these in the project folder as well . Maybe that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Export as picture , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . This is another network , I guess . Does somebody see the project folder ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't . Hmm . My Documents . +User Interface: Uh maybe uh they will save it . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I'll just put it in My Documents +Marketing: Yeah , it probably will . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} That's okay . Okay . {vocalsound} I think I'm going to make our final presentation now . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you're supposed to make a final {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then I will be back in about ten minutes to show you the final presentation . Summary of the project . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Are we supposed to go into our own rooms again ? +User Interface: Uh maybe we have to fill uh another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Yeah . Questionnaire . I think you all get a questionnaire in in your room . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then I'll meet you in I think about ten minutes , or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Hopefully my pen will download its software . Oh . Or data . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That'd be nice . +","The transcript outlines a multi-disciplinary team meeting involving a Project Manager, members from Marketing, User Interface, and an Industrial Designer. The event described appears to be a final design and project evaluation meeting, likely held at a company that is in the process of finalizing a product - specifically, a remote control aimed at elderly users but potentially adaptable for a younger audience. + +The meeting commences with a casual exchange as the Marketing representative arrives late due to traffic congestion, but the Project Manager downplays the tardiness, showing a willingness to accommodate unforeseen delays. Despite the relaxed start, a serious tone is quickly adopted as the Project Manager outlines the day's agenda, which includes prototype presentation, setting evaluation criteria, financial feasibility discussion, thorough project evaluation, and an acknowledgment of the project's conclusion. + +The transcript highlights a demonstration and subsequent discussion of the prototype remote control. The Industrial Designer presents the features, such as button placements and specific functionalities like help options, channel selectors, and branding elements. This sparks a dialogue about the product's usability and feature set, with various team members weighing in on the necessity and placement of certain buttons. There's a collective attempt to balance functionality with simplicity and cost constraints, as the Project Manager reminds the team that they need to adhere to a budget of twelve and a half Euros per unit. + +As they proceed to discuss the financial aspect, it becomes obvious that budget is a significant constraint that forces the team to consider trade-offs between features, design, and cost of materials. The team goes through the costs meticulously, examining details like the number of batteries, type of chip, case material, and button costs. This reveals a tension between the desire to produce a high-quality, multifunctional remote and the need to maintain financial viability. + +The implications of their decisions on usability, particularly for the elderly target market, are thoughtfully considered. This includes debating the replacement of multiple buttons with a scroll wheel to simplify the interface, and considering how to maintain ease of use for their intended demographic while also appealing to younger users through customizable options like interchangeable front covers. + +A reflective phase follows, where the team evaluates the project against established criteria - such as the remote's fanciness, innovativeness, ease of use, functionality, cost, target group fit, and brand recognizability. Amidst minor technical glitches with equipment like smart boards and digital pens, they express satisfaction but also note points for improvement, including earlier incorporation of financial considerations into the design process and better means of sharing information. + +The meeting draws to a close with the Project Manager committing to creating a final presentation summary, and team members preparing to complete individual questionnaires likely designed to gather feedback on the project process and outcomes. The Project Manager also expresses hope that their digital pen will successfully upload its data, an earlier issue that has yet to be resolved. + +Overall, the summary reflects a collaborative and rigorous approach to product design and project management, underscored by a clear focus on target user needs, financial constraints, and corporate objectives. Despite the jovial undertones and minor setbacks encountered along the way, the session implicitly underlines the complexities and meticulous negotiations involved in bringing a concept to fruition within a professional setting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good . +Industrial Designer: Beep . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: So well uh +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: welcome everyone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um as you may have noticed I uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: created separate folders because it was uh tending to get a little busy in our uh shared project documents uh folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't know if everybody uh put their own uh documents in the right folder , which is for now the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: That's new one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We didn't make any uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , we should save that one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I'll move this one . +User Interface: Didn't we just do that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , save in the folder . Save as project . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh no , this is just one big document , so you can leave that wherever it is . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we have a evaluation left here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Agenda . +Project Manager: Well not main documents this time . Oh uh yes . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: I have it open myself I guess . Um well the detailed design meeting {disfmarker} Huh ? We're finally getting somewhere hopefully . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um what are we going to do ? I've opened it already . Um I'm still going to take some minutes , and if I'm right , you two are going to give a prototype presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Aren't you ? +User Interface: We could . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , you are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh m did you do something with evaluation criteria ? +Marketing: Yep . Yep . +Project Manager: Good . And we have a correct agenda . And uh then we have to look at something which is less nice , the finance uh aspect , whether we can afford what we have designed , +User Interface: Oops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and if we can we can uh commence the final part which is the production or project evaluation , how did we work together and what are the results , and how happy are we with those . Okay , well finance uh will be later . Now I'd like to give the word to you two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh +Industrial Designer: Get up stand up . {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we made a prototype . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: We first start with the overall uh {disfmarker} This is about the total remote control . +Industrial Designer: View . +User Interface: We made it green . +Industrial Designer: Just example colour , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh there's one of the colours we would like to uh see in our prototype . +User Interface: It's a fresh colour . And uh the screen light blue . Oh uh this the scroll button and the microphone on the on the sides here under . And the R_ and R_ logo , it just says R_ and R_ now , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay ? +User Interface: Any questions so far ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Big microphone . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just uh just an idea about how to m th that could also be possible . +Marketing: Oh okay . That's the place where it's going to be , not the size . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh well , it's an idea in a {disfmarker} so . +User Interface: Oh y you {disfmarker} perhaps you should make it a bit big , so people know it's there and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do not forget it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To function it it doesn't really have to be sm uh big of course . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Of course . +Industrial Designer: The microphone could be just a minor uh hole uh on the left uh button . +Marketing: Mm . Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um +Marketing: Small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we also made some uh ideas about how uh the options menu would work . Uh using the scroll button on sides uh y uh I uh um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You push the scroll button +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you push the scroll button +User Interface: and it's claps out if there's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a drop down menu or a pull out menu comes out and uh you get uh you get the options uh becoming available . For example uh T_V_ settings , uh remote settings , et cetera . +User Interface: Remote settings , et cetera . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh you can scroll down too with the scroll uh button , uh as you can see {disfmarker} oh , it's here , just push it in , uh the menu comes out like this and uh i it all becomes visible . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . And you could also touch it so that it comes out , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's c +User Interface: and and use the the the scroll thing as a {disfmarker} with your fingers . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Indeed . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um it's also uh nice to see that um we made a small uh menu , uh the options menu uh becoming available when pressing the uh scroll uh button , and the opportunity to use the teletext , whi which is used uh {disfmarker} which should still be used and we think that it's uh very handy to put it uh not uh under the options menu , but in uh {disfmarker} Yes . In an apart uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So a separate button for for text , +Industrial Designer: In a separate button , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Perhaps we should use the teletext sign in p yeah . +Industrial Designer: A sign , yeah , just like {disfmarker} Okay , indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +User Interface: Forgot . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can uh modify that later . Okay . Would you like to make any comments about next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , this is the total interface uh that f of the L_C_D_ screen . Uh the numbers , which is pretty straight forward . We put ano an an extra button in . We can erase it , but {disfmarker} It's the button where you can switch channels . {gap} just when you are one and you go to two , you can {disfmarker} or if you go to five , you can go back to one with that button . Yeah , that one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Previous page , yeah , indeed . +User Interface: It has a name . And uh uh we put that in , +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +User Interface: I thought it would be handy there . Uh this the one number or two numbers button . Below that , the page and the sound . And uh in the middle the the mute . Uh battery indicator . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's quite large . +User Interface: It's {vocalsound} it's a bit big . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the on off uh knop , the stand by uh knop . Or at least it should look like it . And the options uh of teletext . +Industrial Designer: Okay . You can see very clearly now that the uh teletext and options menu isn't uh taking uh much uh {disfmarker} uh it's taking much part of the screen , so it's very uh {disfmarker} when you uh {vocalsound} when you use it , doesn't uh become irritating to see . +User Interface: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you put it on the top you always get see the the options menu . 'Cause people regularly uh read from left top to right down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well this about it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . Looks good . +User Interface: I will put it back on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the nice green . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I just missed when I was typing {disfmarker} The R_R_ stands for ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's the logo of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Logo , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . It's th th right now it's only R_ R_ , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Full screen . +Project Manager: I would have recognised it if it were the right colours of course . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shit . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , the evaluation criteria , +User Interface: Oh full screen , yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Evaluation . 'Kay , my task was this time to put up a questionnaire by which we can evaluate the design of the remote control by the questions we {gap} {disfmarker} requirements from the {disfmarker} of the users . My name , my job , okay . +Industrial Designer: My name , my job . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods . Questionnaire with seven point scale from one to seven , from true to false , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: like question , is remote big enough , we can say it's true or it's false by steps . One means absolutely not true , seven {gap} {disfmarker} means true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The three important things of refa {vocalsound} {gap} are uh from th of this year is {disfmarker} are , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you used the PowerPoint {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: is the remote control fancy enough , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: is it in innovative enough , and is it easy enough to use . And then evaluation itself . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: First question . Is the design fancy enough ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project Manager , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Well it's {disfmarker} looks fancy , especially with the green colour . And the the curves which we decided , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But does it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Only what happened to the single curve we spoke about last meeting ? +User Interface: It uh {disfmarker} oh it's in the background . Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now uh the single curved idea was uh {disfmarker} Yeah , okay , you ge um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y you should make uh a sideways uh view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The sideways view , uh that that that ma +User Interface: It will be , I guess . Oh , we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ho not that pen . {vocalsound} Not that pen . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: g {vocalsound} I would {vocalsound} {disfmarker} smart board . +Project Manager: it might work one time , huh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Suppose so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh can I draw here or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think . +User Interface: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , you can . +User Interface: So it would be uh something like this from the side , but with a bit of uh curve here , +Industrial Designer: it works . +User Interface: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the single curve indeed . +User Interface: Yeah . So if you v flip it like this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Here's {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's not very {disfmarker} i it's also uh very handy if you make a side curve way to make the the remote control very thin at the bottom uh at a bottom at a bottom . Uh make it uh rather thick on the top , because uh on the top it has uh the screen , which takes uh in some uh space , and the batteries can be located over there , +User Interface: Yeah . So you just make the back of this part a bit bigger , +Industrial Designer: so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that it lays a bit o +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Isn't going to be a little bit heavy at the top ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a bit of problem maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: With two batteries , the whole print plate and t and top , and if you're holding it quite a lot I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I think yeah , the battery should be in here , because it's just nothing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so if you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , indeed . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to rate uh these things now ? +User Interface: 'Cause otherwise I think i +Marketing: Yeah , we have to rate . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Is it fancy enough ? True is one , false is seven . So fancy enough means , does it comes to the younger people and the elder people . +User Interface: I think it does . +Industrial Designer: I think so . +User Interface: I if you don't make it green , then the elder people won't won't like it . +Industrial Designer: It's pretty fancy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I have to agree , all the colour colours don don doesn't matter that m that much now , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} you get th +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it's only design . +User Interface: I think it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the design . +Project Manager: Well I think uh especially because of the microphone and the L_C_D_ screen also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know whether older people will use it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Very new thing . Well {disfmarker} Fancy {gap} the old people will . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it a two or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: A two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} It's true , it's a one . {vocalsound} Very fancy . +User Interface: Huh ? Alright , it's a one . {vocalsound} Oh it's a one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's a two . {vocalsound} Little bit strange we have to judge that ourselves , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I n used {disfmarker} I wouldn I should use that one , but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's a one uh {disfmarker} Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , no it's two ? True is a one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Very true , is it very true or isn't that true ? +Project Manager: Well I'd say two on a scale {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they think it's very true , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very true , because we designed it to be very fancy , +Marketing: Yeah , I think two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fancy , I think . +User Interface: We should perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have you ever seen a remote control like this ? +Project Manager: No , okay well , that's true . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , okay , +User Interface: That not . +Industrial Designer: so so it's fancy . +Marketing: That's fancy enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , one two . +Marketing: Then ? +Project Manager: That doesn't matter that much , so make it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's give it a two . Is it innovative ? +User Interface: I think it is , +Marketing: Enough . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: because it has an L_C_D_ screen , a mi microphone . +Project Manager: m +Industrial Designer: And uh uh the scroll is rubber , +User Interface: It's from rubber . +Marketing: We have for the search function . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so s Eno enough to {gap} I think . +Marketing: The scroller a bit {disfmarker} I think it's it's a one yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a one I think . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: True . Also huh uh-huh {disfmarker} the buttons , are they easy to find ? That was a big requirement of the old people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , because they're right on your screen . So you can use the b the the arrows . They're right on your screen , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: so I don't know where you'd search . +Industrial Designer: With the ones {gap} +Marketing: Are all the buttons easy to find ? Not only this buttons , all the buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I think they are . The options are it {disfmarker} uh little bit harder , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you touch the options then it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Take a harder look , yeah , sure . +Marketing: I think th it's +Industrial Designer: It's easier than the regular uh remote control . +Marketing: easy t +Project Manager: Yeah , and you use these buttons the most , +Marketing: Yeah , I think this is easy now . I think th I think the options buttons are not the the easiest way to to +Project Manager: huh ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No they're not , but they're they're they are easy to find . +Marketing: to handle . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are a lot easier to find than uh th than on the regular remote controls +Marketing: I would rate it a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: where you have to uh find out what {disfmarker} which sign or icon means on uh every button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , that's true , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So you have t you have to use the the the manual to understand most {disfmarker} +Project Manager: which {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's that's vantage of L_C_D_ screen , you can have text . +Project Manager: So which number are we going to fill in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I would say yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh it's a two , at least . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: A two , yeah ? +User Interface: you can make it a two . +Project Manager: Two , three and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not perfect , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: A three ? +Project Manager: Okay , so we have two , two , three . +Industrial Designer: And why is that ? +Marketing: I personally think , because I d I don't think i maybe it's easy to use , it has to be easy to find right away . I I think if you have the button at the right , I don't think you can find the option button that easy . +User Interface: Yeah , but you don't have t have to use the button on the right . You can touch it . +Marketing: You can touch it . +User Interface: Yeah . You you can touch options . +Industrial Designer: It said bo both the options . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but you have y then you have here s written option on here , the teletext button , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , then okay , good . Then I think also two , yeah . +User Interface: You can touch options +Project Manager: A two , okay , +User Interface: and it's comes out . +Project Manager: because we have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A two , a two . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The uh the um {disfmarker} Below . +Project Manager: It's the box below it , +Industrial Designer: Uh the next question the next question . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Otherwise we have two results in one question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's different . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , next question . +Marketing: It's easy to use , as well for younger as elderl elderly people . +User Interface: For young people I think it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Young means sixteen to forty years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And elderly from forty eight to their death . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think it's the most useful uh remote control ever to be manufactured . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In the entire mankind . +Project Manager: Okay , you're very enthusiastic about your own design , +Marketing: Also if you're sixty years old {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but because it has the regular uh controls , li uh as you can see in the screen now , and uh you don't have all the other options uh always uh on your screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it's t I think it's really easy to use . You want these options to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Also +Project Manager: As well for the for the older people ? +Industrial Designer: Uh sure . +Marketing: Yeah , as well as your {disfmarker} if you're fif sixty years old , you're holding one of those things in your hand {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah , but they they don't want the uh extra options , right ? +Marketing: No , but we're going to th make this f for a all kind of people , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And would it be easy for them to use the speech recognition ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay , +Marketing: so it it it has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: but so they could {disfmarker} Uh I think it is . If they read a manual . +Project Manager: Because that might {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you read the manual , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps that is one of the most uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} always . +Project Manager: M maybe that's the most user friendly and easy to use . +User Interface: Because it it's not it's not it's it's not uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Uh because a lot of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: You say you say uh record to to the to the speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Channel one , channel four , yeah . +User Interface: then you say the question and the answer . And that's everything it does , the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well maybe that would make it even more easy to use for them . +User Interface: Yeah . I think it would make it uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it does . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because all the people who can't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would make it two . +Marketing: Also two ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a two . Sure , two . +Marketing: Not a seven for this {gap} ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: I'd say three . +Marketing: I would also say three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have three three two two +User Interface: Oh . You ? +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Two and a half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , a three , I see . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three ? No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Give me more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Another question . +Marketing: Remotes overwhelmed with buttons . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No , that that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um I mean , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: that's definitely one . +Marketing: Tha that's a one , I think , that's definitely a one . +Industrial Designer: That's definitely our uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh nee , oh seven is it ? It is . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: the remote score . +Industrial Designer: A false , yeah . +Project Manager: but I think you should make it one scale with with one being good and seven being bad , +Marketing: Yeah , I think isn't , this has to be something like isn't overwhelmed . +Project Manager: because otherwise we can't uh calculate anything from the results , +User Interface: It's not overwhelmed . Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Okay , a one , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: because we designed for that , huh ? +Marketing: Remote control has uh colours that different {disfmarker} that meet different target groups . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause we make them in different colours , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so that they uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: is optional . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I though w we had about single colours , +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: but you can also make uh a wood colour , not just one single colour but a wood-like thing , +User Interface: Yeah . That it that it looks like wood , like something , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: can't you ? +Marketing: Also with rubber ? +User Interface: Uh I think you can . +Project Manager: Whether it looks like wood , it isn't w it isn't wood +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it feels like rubber , +Project Manager: You can make a print on rubber , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: can't you ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's a one then , +User Interface: Well but then when you scratch it it does come off . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a one ? +User Interface: So that's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is it is harder to +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Do you have many questions ? +Marketing: Uh I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh we have time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Geez . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have {disfmarker} We also {disfmarker} We have to get to the money . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting paid . We're getting paid . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The material used is spongy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: that that's uh that's a one , that's m rubber . +Project Manager: What {gap} spongy . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's very spongy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: I th think it's not the most spongy thing . +User Interface: but not {disfmarker} it's not very spongy , because it's hard rubber . I think it's a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's a three , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because you want to make it uh rather flexible but not too flexible , +User Interface: Hard but {disfmarker} Yeah . You can {vocalsound} break it . +Industrial Designer: because it has a L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hard to lose , +Marketing: Remote control is hard to lose . +Industrial Designer: yeah it sh and it's easy to find . +User Interface: Y yeah , you could you could call it . +Marketing: Y you can't you can't lose it if you're sixty years old . If first time see the thing you didn didn't adjust uh {disfmarker} set the microphone , and then you lose it , then you have lost it . +User Interface: Yeah , y you can lose it , but it isn't hard to lose . +Marketing: It isn't hard , no . I think I think this is a two , personally . +User Interface: Two . That it's hard to lose ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , it it is {disfmarker} there's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose . +Project Manager: so isn't hard to lose you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a six , you think ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't hard to lose . +User Interface: So it's a two . Yeah , you can lose it , so I don't {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can't lose it . +User Interface: you can make it a three I {gap} {disfmarker} It does have an {disfmarker} a built in function . +Marketing: Or if you're you're sixty years old , your demands {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but a har A hard to lose is good . So it should {disfmarker} this question should be hard to lose . It's difficult to lose it . +User Interface: Nee . Hard to lose . Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this this is hard to lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is hard to lose . Yeah , so then this is {disfmarker} it is almost true , +Industrial Designer: This {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A two . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think also . +User Interface: so a two . +Project Manager: A two . +Industrial Designer: Two , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And most all because of the option to {disfmarker} Whoa . +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's okay . That happens above also . But maybe when you scroll away and back it will be normal , +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Yeah ? Oh , okay . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yep . Oh , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: it isn't , +User Interface: Oh well , +Project Manager: well okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: {gap} put the cor cursor {gap} on the {gap} . +Project Manager: Remember . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Click . +Marketing: Remote control mainly be sold to younger people . +User Interface: I think it will , +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah ? True ? Very true ? +User Interface: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} a +Marketing: No , I don't think very true because the colours . +User Interface: a two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have the colours . Um we have the buttons is {disfmarker} aren't that that much . +Industrial Designer: Materials , yeah . +Marketing: Nah , the material isn't that {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's much more younger . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . So ma uh make it make it a two . +Marketing: So I don I think I think it's a three . +Project Manager: Well I think it's it's uh a lower number , so better because w we designed it for young people especially , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: didn't we ? +User Interface: I think it's a two +Marketing: but I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: I think because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Questions ? +Industrial Designer: A two ? I think it's two . I think it's two too , two too too . +Project Manager: Two . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: Two two two . {vocalsound} Let's make everything a two . +Marketing: In the features ? +Project Manager: Dissatisfy younger people . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Younger people . It has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well perhaps not . +User Interface: What did {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because younger peoples are cr critical and they wanted a lot of features on this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Well that {disfmarker} it doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Well , n not exactly but uh uh if it had some games on it or something like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it's for a remote control I think it i {vocalsound} it would satisfy those needs . +User Interface: I think they like the speech . You could call to your uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech possibility , +User Interface: yeah , and the screen , +Industrial Designer: the colours . +Marketing: L_C_D_ screen and scroll . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Scroll options , yeah . +Marketing: I I think they'll be quite met with their expectations . +Project Manager: Yeah , but those are more fancy functions , not not really many features or something . +User Interface: Right , that that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: It has relatively few features , +User Interface: those are features . +Marketing: It's three features , basically , +Project Manager: with {disfmarker} +Marketing: the L_C_D_ {gap} touch screen is feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , +Marketing: The microphone is a feature . +User Interface: aren't the features {disfmarker} the microphone's feature and that you can change the channel's feature , and that you can change the volume is feature , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that you can change the options of the remote , uh uh something like that . Yeah . +Project Manager: Ours had other features with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . I think {disfmarker} yeah , and then you have the audio settings , channel setting , video settings . +Industrial Designer: The easy volume up button . +User Interface: Those are features . +Industrial Designer: Remote {disfmarker} younger people usually use the remote control to put on the volume . {vocalsound} Turn uh turn up the volume . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Enough features ? +Marketing: So I've chos I shou I think it's it's it's a one . Personally , yeah . I think once you've {disfmarker} 'cause you have the channel features b uh you have the uh screen features , audio features , the {disfmarker} you have all buttons on it which you'd like , microphone extra , L_C_D_ screen extra , scroll thing extra . +Project Manager: Okay , you think one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: what do you think ? +User Interface: I think two or three . +Project Manager: You . {gap} three , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: I'd say three , so two it is then +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah uh a two a two . {vocalsound} Just another two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make it make it a two . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One two three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or make it uh a fucking two . +User Interface: We like two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You can see the remote control is {gap} R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Yeah , there's R_ and R_ in front . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} Has {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's not the colour , so maybe you should make two , but it has R_ and R_ . +Marketing: oh yeah , do did have {disfmarker} nah y you have the black one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And we'll probably make also a yellow one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but not R_ and R_ yellow I think . +Project Manager: maybe maybe two . Well m th but the logo is on on the front , +Industrial Designer: Okay , true , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe two . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} a two , yeah , +User Interface: One d on i it's the colours and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: X_ marks spot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the menu is avail that is available is easy to use . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is , but I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's easier to use than a regular remote control , because when you push on the options menu , you get the the the various options uh entirely explained . Entirely explained . +Marketing: Yeah , tha that's so true . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Instead of uh just finding out what an icon means on a button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you can navigate easier , because wi with the {disfmarker} you have to push the the the arrows and {disfmarker} with a normal T_V_ uh remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you can navigate . Uh . +Marketing: I think that wou that would be quite hard to learn to use it . +Industrial Designer: You're not satisfied , okay . Let's start over again then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I'm not not convinc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's make a different remote . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's go th for {vocalsound} inhalation of air] +User Interface: Menu . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it would be a t yeah , two . +User Interface: A two ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A two . +Marketing: Now lower . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , well that's that's pretty good , +User Interface: We only have twos . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just twos . One three and a few ones . +Industrial Designer: And three . +Marketing: So okay , we have one three , a one , that that have to got up . {gap} +User Interface: Two threes . +Marketing: Two two two two two . +User Interface: We m mostly have twos , so it's pretty good . +Marketing: So two , yeah . The average is a two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The average . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is quite good +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: in my opinion . That {gap} +User Interface: We can be happy . +Marketing: Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Save . {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: What is it ? It's like a bug or something . +Industrial Designer: It's a fly . +User Interface: A fly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh m +User Interface: A f butterfly . +Marketing: Top . +User Interface: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: That was your evaluation uh show , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , so we don't have to calculate anything because of um these results . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: No , it's two . The average is two . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: It's good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um let's see {disfmarker} oh , it isn't asked to save but it did already {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah , I uh uh I uh saved it . +Project Manager: And this {gap} Everything okay . Well , the next part uh might be a little bit difficult to do in a group , but I am willing to try it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because we are going to look at the finance and I have a nice Excel sheet to do that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Redesign . No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And um I'm not sure if I put it in the project folder . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: look on that . Um and we're going to calculate the production costs , and if they are uh under or at twelve Euro fifty , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're good , and if they're not we're going to uh re-design , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but we have to do that uh very very quick I think , +User Interface: So we're going to erase features or something . +Project Manager: yes . Um I don't know if I +User Interface: Do you have the cost +Project Manager: put the Excel sheet in the +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's hope . +Project Manager: n not in the +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} f fifty five Euros . +Project Manager: folder . I think it's +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's still in my own documents folder . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We're goin still going to be here at eight o'clock . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh shit . +User Interface: I doubt it . Perhaps we've got features that don't exist in the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah mm yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , +Marketing: The microphone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: it was in my uh my information , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It i It wasn't too much . +Marketing: Yeah ? {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe you're going scrap scrap it . +Industrial Designer: As well as the L_C_D_ screen . Whoa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well this is it . +User Interface: Well , if it doesn't work {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um maybe I could ask one of you to uh fill it in , so that I can also uh take minutes , +User Interface: I want to fill it in , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh maybe the other can uh use that thing to count uh numerous functions . +Marketing: No prob . Ah . +User Interface: But you should uh direct {disfmarker} +Marketing: Count it ? Li like write it be +Project Manager: Well we have to count some things and we have to think about some things . But you have to fill in this column , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Count it . You got Excel to count . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The number of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: No , uh count uh number of functions , because for every button you have to pay {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: and there are different screen shots , so {disfmarker} or different different screens , +Industrial Designer: Well I dra +Marketing: Ah , okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: uh Danny , Danny , I'll do that , +Marketing: Huh ? Yeah ? Oh , yea yeah , you design it . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I draw the uh +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: We've got a battery , one or t two batteries , or not ? nee one battery , with two small batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's it's more about the energy source , huh ? Do you use a hand dynamo , a battery , kinetic or solar cells ? +User Interface: Yeah . I would do a battery {disfmarker} we do . Right ? +Marketing: Solar cell . No +Project Manager: We'll wait . +User Interface: A battery . One battery , +Industrial Designer: No , no solar cell , no no no no . +Marketing: it took a battery ? +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No hand dynamo . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Electronics , simple chip {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have {disfmarker} +User Interface: advanced chip , right ? +Marketing: No , we have sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: On advanced chip . +Marketing: But b al but we also have sample speaker , do +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: so this one and this one . Uh we ha we have um single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , we already on nine . +User Interface: what ? Are we ? Oh yay . +Marketing: We have double curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The single . +Industrial Designer: Single nee single curved . Double curved was uh uh see uh ju three dimensional . +Marketing: Single . +Industrial Designer: But it isn't three dimensional , +User Interface: Oh the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't curved in a l +Marketing: This one is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not going to work uh people . We have rubber . +Marketing: This one is curved like this , +Project Manager: I'll just fill it in . +Marketing: right . It's curved like this . +Industrial Designer: No no no , +Project Manager: Um rubber indeed ? +Industrial Designer: single curved is like this . Uh that's the only curve you made , +Marketing: Yeah , bu what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: not th uh curved like that . That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , but we have curves like it and it . +User Interface: Thirteen ? +Marketing: There are two curves , right ? Oh , okay I understand , I understand . +User Interface: With a scroll wheel , +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: right ? Is he integrated ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber . +User Interface: No , eh ? I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Push button . No , we don't have push button . +Industrial Designer: we gotta integrate scroll wheel and push button , because when you push it and you w it won't just pu uh makes possible to s +User Interface: Oh yeah , right , we want it to {disfmarker} it's not it's not {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not going to work ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fifteen , oh , too bad . {vocalsound} Oh but with special colour we have . A special form , right ? +Industrial Designer: But now button supplements . We don't got the button supplements . +User Interface: Oh , we don't have any buttons , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eighteen and a half , +User Interface: Yeah , we need to uh +Marketing: damn . +Industrial Designer: Damn . +Marketing: We have to lower it with six points . +User Interface: No , uh we have fifteen and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Twelve and half . +User Interface: oh , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: Nah . +Marketing: We could use {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I would lose the curve . +Industrial Designer: We could lose the scroll wheel . You could make it just a regular scroll wheel . +User Interface: But you can't push it , so you have to tap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if you can't push it you have to tap the the options window uh button here and then uh scroll down with the d with uh {vocalsound} with uh the button . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will be our best bet . +User Interface: So normal scroll wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Normal scroll wheel . +User Interface: And I think we should lose the curve . +Marketing: I think we should scrap the sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: Lose {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's four pri it four units . +User Interface: Yeah , but if you {disfmarker} would i it is a new feature , it it's something special . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we don't exactly need the single {disfmarker} We don't need a curve . +Marketing: But w d wha +User Interface: No , the curve doesn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S possible to lose curve . +Marketing: Curved then it will be square . +User Interface: No , then it will {disfmarker} won't uh stand up from the table . Then it would just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Was that {disfmarker} does that mean to it , single curve ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's meant with scr uh with s curve . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The curve is uh in a dimension . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If you make it a flat one , s n it's no curve , you got no curves . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We would lose this one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , but tha that that only is one . +User Interface: Yeah , we could s yeah , a bit . +Industrial Designer: No , two . +Marketing: No , one . +User Interface: Sixteen point three . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , indeed . +Marketing: So we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we also have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to make {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could could we do it on a regular chip on print or something ? +Marketing: No , otherwise we don't have an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: No ? Ma y you just can't do that , or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: And what did you change ? You changed the uh scroll wheel +User Interface: We changed th +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the single curved to uncurved . +Marketing: Single curved . +Project Manager: Oh , but it's just one +Marketing: Flat . Yeah , so that does doesn't doesn't that mu I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: point , so maybe you should should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Scrap sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Yeah , you should you should drop the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: The sample speaker is two d wait , f s four points . +Marketing: That that's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's t +Marketing: Yes , four points . +Project Manager: And then you can keep the curve . +User Interface: Yeah , but it is uh it it is a new feature , +Project Manager: Or can't you ? +User Interface: it is something special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh becau uh when you lose the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but what what else what else uh do you want to scrap ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: F You have to {disfmarker} we have to scrap four points . +User Interface: Yeah , that's difficult . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or make it on a hand dynamo , but {vocalsound} I don't think that will work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ma make it with wood instead of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Make it w uh when you made it uh uh uh a remote control of wood ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make it titanium instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't make a remote control of {disfmarker} Ah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: it it i +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , it also {disfmarker} uh it also takes one point less . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh a wooden remote control only helps for uh old people we discussed , +User Interface: Oh . Oh can I ask something ? +Project Manager: yes ? +User Interface: What is special colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Is that the wood uh wood uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it is . +User Interface: this , we have to have that one too ? +Industrial Designer: It isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: What ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's only a half . But I think the only option is to drop the uh sample speaker . +Marketing: Yeah . Sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: To knock the sample speaker , yeah . And sample sensor . +User Interface: Th then we still have too much +Marketing: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: if we use the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But m yeah , course , +Marketing: three . Point three . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we we scrap that one ? +Industrial Designer: What we'll have . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Let's make it thirteen or fourteen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: See , a po +Marketing: Point twelve {gap} . +User Interface: three . {vocalsound} We need point three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's a colour . Don't make it wood . +Industrial Designer: A colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but a wood {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: we can make it brown , dark brown , not wood . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's special colour , is it a all kind of colours ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special colours , fruity colours . +User Interface: It's also green or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is it also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: no that that's just normal colour {disfmarker} fruit colours . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's a special colour than just rubber colour . +Marketing: Normal colours , yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: You have to add something to the rubber to make it green . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: You don't say here's green rubber . +Industrial Designer: They don't sell green rubber plants . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but then I d I don't think we can ever make to a twelve and half . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , you can , you should {disfmarker} you have to lose {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then we have to scrap L_C_D_ display , we have to scrap uh +User Interface: No , it is the scroll wheel , I guess . +Industrial Designer: No no no . +Marketing: s advanced chip . No then we have to scrap everything we got because how many colours we gonna make ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the scroll wheel and make it totally uh depending uh dependent on uh the touch screen +Marketing: Five ? Then we have two . +User Interface: A push , +Marketing: S +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: touch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} then it's possible to make . And then you can {vocalsound} and then you can add to the colours . +Marketing: Then we can make {disfmarker} add two colours on it . Yeah , two colours {gap} it . +Industrial Designer: Special c +User Interface: Switch colours . +Industrial Designer: Okay , if you lose uh {vocalsound} if you lose the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It was such a great idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You lose this one , you got eleven point five +Marketing: They can add two colours . +Industrial Designer: and you make i and then you can make uh the spec single curve , for example . +Marketing: But the colours . Um how ma uh the colours like l she told , is that all the colours we add or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How d uh uh how many colours ? +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Industrial Designer: Special colours , all the colours you want , because you want to make p +Marketing: Yeah , but we we we are {disfmarker} we have yellow , red , uh black , titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh when you use more than one colour , it's a special colour . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: But I think when you use the colour that's not originally the rubber then you use special colour , +Industrial Designer: I suppose . +User Interface: 'cause you have to add it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but the rubbers alls original black . +User Interface: Yeah , so you always lose the special colour . You co you could make it always black , like normal remote . +Marketing: Yeah b Yeah , but we're gonna make it yellow {disfmarker} uh red , and then you add {disfmarker} you have two special colours on top of the one we have now . +Industrial Designer: Nee we we also want to make ano another colour . +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Yeah , we should u +Marketing: Yeah , but m +User Interface: Yeah . We have to make this like four or five or something . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: That's what it means . +Marketing: because we have more colours than only black . +Project Manager: Yeah , but isn't it per remote that you pay ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} then I think I p I don I don't think they me mean they're special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Half ? +User Interface: Oh right , yeah . Is it per remote ? +Project Manager: I think you pay half per remote . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's right , +Project Manager: So each remote with a special colour . +User Interface: and you {disfmarker} one colour per remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , indeed , yeah . +User Interface: So then it is one . +Industrial Designer: You don't need four of those {vocalsound} uh four of those special colours in one in one remote . +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay , true . True , true . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have two points spare . +Project Manager: So the battery , +Marketing: Nee one point . +Project Manager: we have um advanced chip on print . +User Interface: One . So it would be curved , single curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because of {disfmarker} thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well you can at least make it curved again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So y you just can't make a nice remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , single curve . +Project Manager: Because that was very important , +User Interface: It's too bad for the speaker . +Project Manager: huh ? So it's curved , it's still that {disfmarker} so we we dropped the speech recognition together with the speaker . +User Interface: Should we change that tha that that's a one if not , +Marketing: Mm yep . +Project Manager: We dropped the scroll wheel . +User Interface: or not ? Could you copy it ? +Project Manager: And the rest is the same , +User Interface: And make it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? Am I right ? +Marketing: Y yea the scroll wheel is dropped . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The entire uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Huh . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Perhaps you can then copy page or so . Ooh . No . Oh you you made the entire {disfmarker} could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Undo , undo . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: Undo . +User Interface: not {disfmarker} Well {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So , 'kay . +User Interface: Would you ? +Industrial Designer: Twenty minutes ? +User Interface: By the {disfmarker} Perhaps you can save this one , and then copy or something . Add it copy page . Select all . +Project Manager: No , but you c yeah . +User Interface: Alright , something went wrong . +Marketing: Tap . +Project Manager: Okay , but this this new remote we can afford . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It doesn't work . Let's forget . +Marketing: It should've work . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so you had this list at start ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm ? No , I hadn't . +Industrial Designer: Alright . When did you receive this list ? +Project Manager: I just received it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Oh +Project Manager: They don't work so hard at the finance department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: ignore that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . I suppose this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too bad . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we lose the scroll wheel , +User Interface: Yeah . The microphone . +Industrial Designer: the s +Project Manager: Yeah , and that's it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the microphone . +User Interface: A and we changed something , I guess , or not ? We {disfmarker} Oh no . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Twelve Euro fifty . Um and did you try to make a new design , or what were you trying to do ? +User Interface: Yeah , I tried to copy that one , but it didn't work . +Project Manager: It didn't work . +User Interface: So we could fix it like tha that it's like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . Strange . +User Interface: You could select it all , but then you can't erase . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Strange . +Project Manager: Oh , you can arrange {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can only re erase ? +User Interface: Erase . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: When you saw th li uh {disfmarker} Earlier when we selected it , w I couldn't erase anything . +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +Project Manager: Hmm , can't you then just say copy ? +Industrial Designer: Bling . +Project Manager: New page . Paste . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Select none . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: {gap} just up somewhere b uh besides it , +Marketing: {gap} just tap somewhere . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and now you can erase . +User Interface: I don't think I can , but uh we can try . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we already try . +Project Manager: Well it should be possible . +User Interface: Oh , yeah , +Project Manager: Oh no . +User Interface: no , ha-ha . +Project Manager: Well you can draw over it with white uh pen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: Yeah , we tried it earlier . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's very much work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but that's also useful for the evaluation , because I think uh we have a prototype now +Marketing: Evaluation drops . +Project Manager: which we can afford and uh we only need to draw a little bit to get a good uh design . Doodle . And I think we should then move on to the production evaluation because of the time . +Marketing: And erase the mic . +User Interface: Yeah , goodbye mic . +Industrial Designer: All I need is no mic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's see , we can save this now . +User Interface: Oh , I already erased half of the line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bon chance {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And move back to here . +User Interface: Too bad , oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like this ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Still looks nice . +Project Manager: And then all green . Okay , well thank you . +User Interface: Oh , that's erase . +Marketing: Looks like a iPod . +Project Manager: Oh , no {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Hey , but you can erase that . +Industrial Designer: add {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit weird . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Oh , now I'm {gap} line . +Industrial Designer: S Difference between lines and text and the pen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . All I need is {gap} mic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you can't erase this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm , strange . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Okay , well uh +User Interface: it's weird . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: just leave it at this and quickly save . +Marketing: Station page . +Project Manager: Um and then we are going to the project or product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Huh , looks fucking boring now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We just did {gap} our project evaluation . Um well , I think I can sit for that since it's almost my final slide . Um what did you think about uh the process ? How satisfied are we ? +Industrial Designer: Deadlines were sometimes very short . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Bu but stressful . You think , no , my presentation isn't ready . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And stressful . +Marketing: I think we {disfmarker} it should be b it would be better if we worked a little bit together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we worked through each other , +Project Manager: And you could ask things . +User Interface: Yeah , you had information I didn't have +Marketing: something he said {disfmarker} +User Interface: and then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , and you had information I also had , +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so some some things I had in my presentation , they already told , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And for me it sometimes was a surprise who was going to present what , huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So yeah , that {disfmarker} I don't think that is the best way to work at {disfmarker} for such project . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So you would say uh communicate during our individual uh work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , no , or maybe session of five minutes together or something , and then work separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but why not work here together , for example ? +User Interface: Yeah , you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why should we be separated from each other in those difference {disfmarker} uh different rooms ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well , probably to simulate the whole working uh process , +User Interface: I think so too . Yeah , but then you can work together too +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: huh , th {gap} you can't have a meeting uh for several weeks . +User Interface: when {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah m yeah , like she told . Then you can work together too by mail or by , I dunno , chat , something , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: A chat would also be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh , oh right . +Marketing: but now we're completely separated from each other . I don't think that was the best way , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But the technology was uh fantastic . {gap} +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Yeah , the technology's okay . +User Interface: I I don't really like the board , it doesn't really work great . Sometimes I think {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Work now ? +Marketing: Yeah okay , but I don I do I think becau that's because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps it is e +User Interface: It does work , but sometimes it doesn't erase or it doesn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , perhaps it is easier to get one of those uh dig digital pens or so and to uh {disfmarker} and lay it next to that keyboard over there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can draw uh {disfmarker} see it over th on the screen . +Marketing: Yeah , like the f like a plotters or something , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . Yep yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: So you don't think the SMARTboard is is really useful +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's useful , but not m +User Interface: it is useful , +Marketing: Yeah , it is useful , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it doesn't really work all the time . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Th the pen doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put this pen on the screen uh uh for exam and line is d being drawn at at two or three centimetres uh below . +User Interface: The line is a bit off . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's maybe a bit unnatural also . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: you can point to where you want the line to be . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The project uh {disfmarker} because of the deadlines you didn't had the time to uh {disfmarker} have , you didn't have time to uh {disfmarker} to make a very uh qualitati qualitative uh presentation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you used uh this uh the different PowerPoint presentations uh in which you put your uh material in the {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That wasn't me . Uh {vocalsound} so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wasn't me . +Project Manager: the means , we discussed the smart board , and what about uh this digital pen ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I I used it , +Marketing: I didn't use it at all . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it it was {disfmarker} you can use it , it's quite handy I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , well +Industrial Designer: But I didn't {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I use it as a a normal pen and and and only you use it to uh get it on the computer , +User Interface: Yeah , I used it to y to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah , it did work pretty well . +Industrial Designer: I used it too , but {disfmarker} oh well . +User Interface: I don't think why you would want to use it actually , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I didn't use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: but it it does work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because it shou +Marketing: No {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: To make some designs , +Marketing: It is it is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it is very easy . +Marketing: yeah , it is easy for {disfmarker} to design something and then load it in your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , and then you can show it to everybody . +Industrial Designer: But to write it th yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It doesn't really write normally . +Marketing: Yeah . It's b bi little bit too big to write . +User Interface: It's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's too big , it's too fat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fat document , those . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um and what about the teamwork ? +User Interface: I think it was great , +Marketing: Team work was okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , well I think so too . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Only thing that we worked through , past each other . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: but that was {disfmarker} it was our assignment , +Marketing: With some things that was only problem , +User Interface: Yeah , but it was because we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: but furthermore better . +Project Manager: and maybe I should walk out of the room when you discuss uh this point , the leadership . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I thought it was good , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , no prob . Ah . +Project Manager: Yeah well , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not too much , not too too too too {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And creativity ? Well , when we look at this I'd say we have been creative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: huh ? But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the room for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There was room for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was the idea to be creative , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You got some standard ideas in your head {vocalsound} and this what came out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you get get stuff from the from the computer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The information uh was sometimes uh a little bit too late +Marketing: Little bit uh lo yeah . Too late {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: it it it took a lot of time before you got your ema +User Interface: You just sit there for ten minutes . Yeah , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: where is that email ? +Marketing: I played I think seven times Solitaire something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You did ? Well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I didn't have time for that . +User Interface: did you ? Is it on there ? {vocalsound} Is it on there ? +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I didn't find the {disfmarker} didn't look but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: At some times I {disfmarker} Sometimes I received like like five emails at at one moment , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Was searching and searching . +Marketing: Oh right , +User Interface: I didn't look , +Marketing: it is there . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I I never got that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I always {disfmarker} +User Interface: I got like one email after ten minutes or something . +Project Manager: I even got spam . {vocalsound} Or something like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what we said . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So does this {disfmarker} I think lik oh and information was a bit low I think , sometimes , +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} not a lot uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: in in in in the beginning I didn't understand what what to do . +User Interface: No , the first one . +Industrial Designer: No , w I didn't know {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't know uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like I {disfmarker} with with the remote {gap} and I never new we have t we had to uh {disfmarker} yeah made a made a rec a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Make a r +User Interface: nee . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: And I didn't know what to do for the first ten minutes before we got here , +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: so I went , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No stepping on the table and then looking at the internet page . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I was working and working and work {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just looking at the screen and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , well um +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} but after all we can say uh we are satisfied , but it it could've been uh better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When we get uh {disfmarker} when we have {disfmarker} we would have gotten uh more information . +User Interface: Yeah , an +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Faster . +Industrial Designer: more information about the costs . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be handy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: First of all I didn't think uh that we were able to make an L_C_D_ screen uh {disfmarker} first point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it was possible uh {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it only costs four units . Uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea uh so tha actually you could make an L_C_D_ screen but no mic , or it could make mic but no L_C_D_ screen , when you look at that . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was a bit mean to put it in the end . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh what were the other points to to improve this whole process ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , I dunno . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Think that's about it . +Marketing: Nothing . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we got it already . +User Interface: Heavier um {disfmarker} less heavy laptops . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're pretty heavy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Faster laptop . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . They were they were just fine . +User Interface: But that's not really uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And furthermore the the the network was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Everything you loaded was also +User Interface: Yeah , everything worked . +Marketing: av available there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And so more time uh w might have improved the the quality of work , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is what you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , but that {disfmarker} It's now half past four {disfmarker} half past three , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but it's just the the off hours between that you will work alone . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Then it pops up {disfmarker} pop up screen came . Five minutes in the meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hm . Mm . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so more time during the individual work phases . Um okay well uh +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: I just got my warning for the last five minutes , so I'll move on to I guess my last slide , +User Interface: You did ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yes , which is the closing . Well uh , we managed , but we did it very quickly . I don't know if that's the best way to {disfmarker} when it isn't {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} when it is too expensive to quickly re-arrange it and say , okay , this is it , +User Interface: Oh , right . +Project Manager: but we had to do it , +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: huh , because we have to have a design , and that is within the budget . And we evaluated . Maybe we should re-evaluate uh the product , but we did that before , and we also evaluated the project . And I think uh everybody's uh very happy . At least I am , with the results , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh celebration , well , for the three of you , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh I have to write the final report now . +User Interface: Champagne . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh {vocalsound} well , thank you very much for your co-operation , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I had a very nice day so far . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: No prob . +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Do we get another email ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bling . {vocalsound} You're fired . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you do . +User Interface: I I think we have to fill in a questionnaire again , +Project Manager: Yeah I have t +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we also have to go to our own rooms again , but um {disfmarker} well +User Interface: We do ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I at least . But maybe you can try uh to make a screen shot of this , so I can try to include it in the final report . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh th that that one ? +Industrial Designer: You cannot {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: You can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can save it . +Project Manager: {gap} wants to , but at least this one . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's {disfmarker} it isn't a picture or , well , is it ? +Project Manager: I know , we should remove this , +Industrial Designer: You s uh file save as the J_ PEG J_ PEG . +Project Manager: but it won't h Okay . And uh please put it in the project folder then , huh . +Marketing: Can you find it as a J_ PEG ? +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: isn't possible . But you can make a screen shot , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , well I uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: I hereby officially close the meeting and uh I hope to see you uh soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} In uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In about five minutes . +User Interface: Uh oh , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , +User Interface: export . +Project Manager: I think we'll be a bit a bit longer , +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} okay . Well , happy celebration , huh ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh thank you . +User Interface: Images . +Industrial Designer: Whoo-hoo . Let's let's have party . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebra {vocalsound} +User Interface: How big do you want the images ? +Marketing: Or shouldn't I ? +Industrial Designer: Let's have some fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How big ? Uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: not too big . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: This one ? +Project Manager: Whatever you think is good . +Marketing: Six hundred . No , +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: I {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: that uh is one thousand twenty four . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think eight hundred six hundred is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If it browse . +Marketing: Nah , name . {gap} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Desktop . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Well it isn't on the desktop . +Marketing: Hey . +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I do not know . +User Interface: You can only save it in my documents . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh ? +Marketing: Oh my God . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , alright . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ten . +User Interface: Can we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ten . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Why can't we stay here ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebration time , come on . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Peace out nigger . Entree +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +","Project team members discussed file organization, document placement, and prototype design during a project meeting. The user interface team presented a green prototype remote control. Issues with the microphone size and menu options were discussed. Finance was a key topic, ensuring the design was affordable. The team had to redesign the remote quickly to meet budget constraints by adjusting features such as the scroll wheel and speaker. The process evaluation highlighted the need for better communication and information sharing throughout the project phases. The technology (smart board and digital pen) was useful but had its flaws during use. Teamwork was good but working in isolation was not ideal. Creativity was encouraged but limited by time constraints. Leadership seemed effective, and the team appeared satisfied with the final product, although rapid adjustments to meet budget were necessary. They concluded the meeting planning to celebrate their hard work." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Can I close this ? +User Interface: Uh we don't have any changes , do we ? +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: So no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we go . Okay , here we are again . Detailed design {disfmarker} oh , come on . Well {disfmarker} Ah {gap} s Forgot to insert the minutes , but it's about the same thing we discussed before . Uh {disfmarker} Could open that anyway , think . Other design {disfmarker} anyway , we took as {disfmarker} we took w we took rubber as as the material last time . We also {gap} that you're just busy with it . Took the advanced chip to t uh implement the advanced features . Well , we discussed the design , no sharp corners , we rounded it off , like you see on the {gap} other screen , which is fine . Um {gap} we agreed that the colour should be b uh yellow and black . Yellow in the back because it's m trendy , more trendy than black anyway . So {vocalsound} then we ca yeah . We agreed that we would implement both the L_C_D_ and speech recognition , but I'll get to that in a moment . 'Cause some changes in the finances have left us implications anyway . So so , like I said , we had no insight in finances , no prices , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but we have 'em now , and it's bad . Anyway . We are Oh . Prototype presentation , well first you guys built the prototype . So {vocalsound} you could {gap} {disfmarker} could present that . But um let's see what be handy to do . Nee {disfmarker} no , you just go ahead and present the {disfmarker} w we'll scrap it later because {disfmarker} {gap} What ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's more or less the same as we had . +User Interface: It's basically what we agreed upon , +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Oh that's +User Interface: but just a little bit more specified . +Industrial Designer: No much s +Project Manager: hasn't changed that much , huh ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , not at all . +Project Manager: I didn't expect anyway {gap} . You just coloured it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh s Final design . {vocalsound} Basically in {gap} {disfmarker} what we discussed , cover and buttons will be made of rubber , yellow colour , black components , as you can see right over here . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like the menu . +User Interface: We chose a different type of colour for the menu . A bit darker yellow so that it com really shows in this keypad . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you put them all black , it's not really that good a contrast . +Project Manager: And I suppose the the the yellow is not printed on the on the rubber . It's it's part of the rubber , I suppose . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Probab +Project Manager: I think that's more I think that's more durable anyway than printed on to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . That's the be +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} I guess it's more easier to just paint it on the rubber +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: than to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's uh the integration story again . +Marketing: Mm yeah . Okay . +User Interface: So we have it's a bit round shaped , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +User Interface: that's what we had uh {disfmarker} We chose the buttons to be uh teletext , okay button , favourite channel and the mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that's basically what we chose there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you have anything to add , please interrupt me . +Industrial Designer: No , uh this is just a description of what we see there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Speaks for itself . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That's pretty much it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Now it's my time to ruin everything . Well , not ruin everything , but {disfmarker} no , nah . +User Interface: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finances , that's what we have here , what you drew . We have battery power , we have advanced chips and the sam the sensor . The sample sensor and uh {disfmarker} for speak recognition anyway . So which {disfmarker} you see the {disfmarker} which is de o one of the most expensive parts . So {disfmarker} well , we have sin one curve , {vocalsound} a design . Rubber design . And we had a special colour . Suppose yellow is a special colour . So just half a Euro for {gap} {disfmarker} You have pushbuttons and an L_C_D_ display . You have the total of seventeen Euros in production cost , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which is higher than the twelve and a half that we are permitted to use . So , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: easy . What do we scrap . Well think I had the best solution that I came up with is just to s take out the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: I d +User Interface: I'd say that too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because the L_C_D_ has more support on customer side . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: There are ninety one percent of uh the people , or something like that . But ninety percent who favour an L_C_D_ display , and only sixty percent that favour speech recognition . I think it's also harder to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh we don't really have a extra function with the speech sample , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: which you can't do with a normal remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So I ju +User Interface: which people already do . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I took that out . So {disfmarker} and so it's still stuck with thirteen , so I had to take out the special colour I suppose . And , yeah , I didn't see anything else I could take out . Yeah , I could take out the push-buttons , +Marketing: Pushbut +Project Manager: but we need those . So , generally what I came up with , in order to be cou to to have production cost of twelve and a half Euros , spe scrap speech recognition +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour , yeah . +Project Manager: and the separate covers can account for the {disfmarker} if people want it , we'll just {disfmarker} then we'll do it in black . We'll just deliver it in black , have the {disfmarker} it has all the function that it's supposed to have , and if you want it {disfmarker} if you want the custom design , then you can buy the separate covers . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: You make it d orange or whatever you want . +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} I tend to disagree with you on that , because the trend issue was a big issue when we started designing this . +Project Manager: It was a big issue , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So can't we just basically extend it to thirteen ? +Project Manager: I'll just go back . Uh let's just {disfmarker} let's see what {disfmarker} okay , let's just see what we {disfmarker} no , we we have to be under twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: The p +Project Manager: uh the project is a no-go if we go over twelve and a half , +Industrial Designer: Okay , but there's another problem . +Marketing: And the p +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But there's another problem . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we take another cover , for instance black , then we also need another button frame , 'cause black and black doesn't work obviously . +Project Manager: I think you {disfmarker} that's what you were ass assigned to do really , to to see how b th both those work together . +Industrial Designer: Huh . Huh . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's y one of the {disfmarker} it's a good way to um to help people uh to make {disfmarker} to keep the product trendy too . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Just keep {disfmarker} you just make new covers for the {disfmarker} for it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: like we agreed before . +Industrial Designer: Right . I agree . +Project Manager: And everything that's left is is the basic function that uh that we want our product to have . Because the expensive parts are in either the advanced chip . But we need that for the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then again , we have the L_C_D_ display , which is also expensive . B yeah , but those go together . And yeah , we could take out the curve . +Industrial Designer: Or say let's lose rubber , take plastic . +User Interface: We could take out a curve indeed . +Project Manager: Could {disfmarker} we could take out the curve . Is that an option ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: For you ? +Industrial Designer: Although we are demolishing a little bit the style . +Marketing: But uh the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the colour is more important than the really the curve , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because if you just end up with an entirely black remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} it it does ruin it , +Marketing: Yeah . The people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the fact that I t took that decision or t +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Took this example actually , not really decision , but the example is because we do offer the um {vocalsound} the possibility of adding your own custom covers . So you can change {gap} any colour you want . So it's just you deliver a basic remote control with a possibility to change you into whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: Can we then not also uh change the material ? We take plastic for the basic cover +Project Manager: You can take plastic , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I d it's something that's stuck into my mind is that {disfmarker} something that really came forward from the marketing research is that people like the the the the squishy feeling of {disfmarker} the spongy feeling of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those to the to the other covers . +Project Manager: and it really makes it {disfmarker} also makes it different from the existing remote controls , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because they're all plastic . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So which in in turn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Rubber would increase durability +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it doesn't break . +Industrial Designer: okay . But what do you then suggest we'd lose ? Because we have to lose two things and {disfmarker} I guess . +Project Manager: I al like I said , I lost the speech recognition and I lost the special colour , +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: which would make this black a black and grey . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and that's enough ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that that that's enough , because +User Interface: So black and grey is okay . +Project Manager: I guess those are the basic colours . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which we can fabricate , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think those are basic col They want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: The people want to pay for for it , so why why uh {vocalsound} do we have to keep us uh uh um on the twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: To ensure the profit . That {disfmarker} that's th that's the order . We're just uh {disfmarker} we're the project team and we got our our orders from the pro from the boss of our company +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which say we don't wanna spend more than twelve fifty for this . +Marketing: But we can take a risk . +Project Manager: But that's not for our {disfmarker} that's not our decision to take . We have a budget of twelve fifty per product . +User Interface: No , we basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We need to stick to that . +Project Manager: Stick that . I don't think it's really bad either . I mean if we we have the the backup of {disfmarker} or the backup design thing +Marketing: I hope the people will like it , +Project Manager: to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think they would do . Th I think they do like because yo we {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we agree upon that the that the the the cover thing was a nice idea , +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because p you could have all sort of designs while at the same time just manufacturing one product , one basic product which you could turn into any any taste you want . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it's the best solution to make those cu custom covers for the design aspect +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make m +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and keep the functionality between {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} within the th the boundaries of the your f uh your budget . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: The first sheet . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make clear to our customer that we had to do this to stay under the cost . And that's {disfmarker} uh they know that this is an option and that we had to drop the option to stay under the cost , that they know that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah . Is it worth {disfmarker} is it is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps they decide tha +User Interface: But they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it mean anything to the customer ? Like , it {disfmarker} like , we don't care {disfmarker} we don't care that you had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of course . Perhaps {gap} they uh {disfmarker} no , but perhaps they think uh okay , the cover is such a nice idea , uh let's {disfmarker} that that then they uh that allow us to make some more costs . +Project Manager: True , +Industrial Designer: We ca we uh we can at least tell them that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but we did we didn't get that . So I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't know that . +Project Manager: it should either be a pack , maybe we sh that should be sold in in the s in stores with with a standard cover or something . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I'm not uh talking about that cost {gap} but the one that g has given us the order to design this . We could at least m uh make it like this , like you said , +Project Manager: They could , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then tell them okay , we had to drop this and that , just that you know . It is an {disfmarker} still an option , but {vocalsound} not for this price . +Project Manager: It's an option , but {disfmarker} yeah , it's true . So actually uh it's not that much of an increase , but yeah . We cannot contact them . +User Interface: And if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just the order that we got . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , +Project Manager: So that's what we gotta go with . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's either one fi just just to get it f just to get it through final , it's either {vocalsound} turned into plastic , drop the squishy feel , make it make it more breakable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: um or turn it yellow . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's uh something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: I'd say lose the curve and the colour +Project Manager: I say lose the curve . Oh that's true , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we could lose the c I forgot that , yeah , sorry . Uh the curve . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which curve is that ba +Project Manager: That's just this one just d this is the banana curve . +User Interface: that's basically that curve . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So this would this would be straight . +User Interface: So we could u still have the comfort . +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: No , uh {disfmarker} no , that would be a curve inside the thing , I guess . No , would ju then it would just be a straight remote . Just like {vocalsound} like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Which would , yeah , turn it into something far more ordinary . {gap} we could make it yellow then , +User Interface: I second that . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} You second that , you second that we lose the curve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , that it would turn out to be a pretty straight-forward remote control . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: So that's not really that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it would be a good idea to keep the curve {vocalsound} to separate it from the rest of the remote control world , so to speak . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we keep the curve . So the only only solution is either to use the l y lose the yellow or lose the rubber . +User Interface: I would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'm in favour of keeping the rubber , because it has more more advantages than the colour yellow has . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . I agree . +User Interface: Yeah . I would say {disfmarker} I would agree with you on the colour , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: because that's an extra option , an extra service we can deliver for a little bit of more money . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , um +User Interface: So we can always do that . +Project Manager: I guess people are willing to pay for that . So I think we can take that option and just {disfmarker} with uh with the idea in the back of our head that you can customise your remote control . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think that would still make it a nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , we're final on that . So {vocalsound} it's too bad we can't make the whole super thing . But anyways we're here . Um yeah . +User Interface: Which is basically what we discussed . +Project Manager: This we discussed just now . That's just now {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} we could just discuss how the project went . I mean , was kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I want to do that . +Project Manager: I sort of expected that everything would turn out this way , but because you {disfmarker} yeah , everything cannot be for free . We didn't {disfmarker} I think it was too bad we didn't have the financial info the last time . Because that was {disfmarker} I th +User Interface: Yes , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: it was really essential really +User Interface: we could have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: to ma because we spent uh uh entire stage designing a product of which we had no idea what it would cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we just put something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's really nor not in stroke with reality actually . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too , I felt a bit blind throughout the project , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because in the beginning I had no list of available materials , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {gap} {disfmarker} would have been . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Materials would be ok +Industrial Designer: and then I d had not list of available c finances . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: at least the last meeting I would have expected had to have that . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I suppose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's um {vocalsound} see {gap} um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's see if it sells . I mean I suppose this sells , because it's very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very extended . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I hope it sells . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I suppose it sells , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because it's good . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean it's got everything for the for the reasonable price , because we didn't know what it's gonna cost anyway . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , let's eval evaluate uh the product of us , our design . Um I have some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh a method , a requirements and scale of . I uh will pre present uh some statements and we will decided together wha what {disfmarker} if it's true or false +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh then we see uh if the requirements of the user are fulfilled or not . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have been met , okay . +Marketing: And I will uh make a new blank sheet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So so the buttons , the look and feel . I thought it was okay , but the advanced uh settings , um screen , audio and channel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're stuck under menu . +User Interface: Which are basically accessible through the menu button . +Marketing: We are not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For the menu . I think those are totally met , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because we we really took them for the {disfmarker} they have the feel they want , +Marketing: Oh the menu button is it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hi Oh , okay . +Project Manager: they have the simplicity they want . +Marketing: Then it's all uh {disfmarker} S +Project Manager: I think it's very uh very well met . Either two or one maybe . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: it's true . +Project Manager: I think we took that {disfmarker} everything they wanted into consideration . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it could either be a two or a one . +Marketing: So d Oh wait . Uh pen . +Project Manager: One and a half . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which is not an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The p Oh yeah , +Project Manager: Just create our own option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's red , okay , but {disfmarker} Look and feel is everybo it's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Anyone ? And the next one {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} yeah , when it's lost uh you can find it . +Project Manager: It's perfect . Even for deaf people , yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} I don't think it's perfect , but we did everything possible to to get it back . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: To make it that way , yeah . +Project Manager: Because if it's stuck in you couch , you can see the light . Maybe you can hear it . But I mean we tried , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I think it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that deserves a one . Definitely . +Marketing: And it's and it's {disfmarker} yeah . To {gap} . That's okay then . And the next one . How is that ? Uh w we had {disfmarker} we don't have an uh manual , +Industrial Designer: Manual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the L_C_D_ display could be a little bit more difficult then a normal remote control , +Marketing: But I think that's a part of it . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd use an {gap} remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: but then again , it's for young people . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , an L_C_D_ , it tells a lot about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's pretty straight-forward , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I th +Project Manager: It's pretty straight-forward , uh-huh . +User Interface: you have a navigation {disfmarker} no keys to navigate through the L_C_D_ menus . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . No , that's true . I think it won't be a big problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's a one +User Interface: One I d no , +Marketing: or a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know . +User Interface: actu +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} but we didn't even {disfmarker} +Marketing: For the advanced uh settings . +Project Manager: there was no issue on making a manual actually . We didn't {disfmarker} {gap} really discuss it , +Marketing: No okay , that {disfmarker} uh that's true . +Project Manager: but I don't think it takes {disfmarker} no , it really does doesn't take time to learn , I think . We took it s it's so easy , +User Interface: No , it it is pretty straight-forward . +Marketing: Oh , so it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have so little button , everything speaks for itself really . So I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , we didn't {disfmarker} it's either two or one , I guess . +Marketing: Takes no ti +Project Manager: Maybe it's a two , because d uh the L_C_D_ is a little is a little new and there is {disfmarker} there are some option hidden under the menu button . +Industrial Designer: With the more important functions on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I might make this a two instead of a one , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ , you have to see it . +Project Manager: So just make that a two . +Marketing: Um mm {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit learning . Okay . Uh yeah {vocalsound} it's uh a little bit same . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But it tells you or not ? +Project Manager: You can use the L_C_D_ in a good way . I think so . I think it's perfect , the w where it is , what it can do , if it useful . I think so . +Marketing: But wha w +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh , yeah . What are we uh displaying on the L_C_D_ screen ? Just uh only the channels and {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the menus uh {disfmarker} Things like brightness and uh those kind of things we've put in the menu , +Marketing: What uh ? +Industrial Designer: because we have no buttons for those . +User Interface: Well , basically the menu options indeed . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , in the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: No , y I mean in the L_C_D_ screen , the small screen . What does it display ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And for a channel selection , uh {gap} {disfmarker} or that's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I thought it was I thought it was {disfmarker} I thought that people wanted previews on their {disfmarker} I'm not sure if that even possible , +Marketing: Yeah , I thought I thought too +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} this requires a quite quite a bit of band-width . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's possible really . But the {disfmarker} they didn't really define in what should be used for . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Maybe a T_V_ guide or something in your L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think in for example like T_V_ guides , I think that's {disfmarker} that th that you can transmit through it and everything . Just for extra information on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it must be clear then what {disfmarker} what what for we use it . +Project Manager: But also things like like like menus or p how about preferences of your {disfmarker} uh with configuring your remote control for favourite {disfmarker} your favourite channel for example , how do you configure that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that could be done by L_C_D_ display . I think it's good . No , maybe it's not a one because it's {disfmarker} we're not using it perfectly . We didn't give it {disfmarker} I don't thing over-discussing . Now we gave it enough thought though . I think we d should just lower this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's a three though . We could've used it more effectively probably . +Marketing: Yeah , indeed . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So everybody's agree with an uh three on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , we are using it , +User Interface: Yeah . Two or three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's not +Marketing: W +Project Manager: it's not poorly used , but it's not efficiently used , I think . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could have ev even lost {vocalsound} the selection button and uh done everything via L_C_D_ selection . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} now it's just extra to illustrate im uh extra features , +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but okay . +Marketing: A three . +Industrial Designer: Nah , it's not really {disfmarker} only an extra . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} seven . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No menus . +Marketing: Ah , nothing , that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A seven . Uh that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you talk to remote control ? +User Interface: Or we could say it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it can't talk anymore . So we scrap that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or we could say neutral , +Project Manager: Oh yeah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: we {disfmarker} 'cause we scratched the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just to be a prick , +User Interface: C +Project Manager: but of course you can talk to your remote control , it doesn't do anything . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: But you c {vocalsound} you can talk to it . +Marketing: Not with the speech recognition . Uh yeah , all the trends and no colours uh anymore . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we did take everything into consideration of course . Uh the shape i shape is i +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} uh um only in the curves . +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah , I think that's okay . +Marketing: But the colours , we don't have special colours on it . +User Interface: No , we don't have the colour . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} special co but we took into consideration the fact that it's customisable +User Interface: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: to the fashi +Marketing: but we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but the end product {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: yeah , we don't have it , so d +Project Manager: We don't have it {disfmarker} we do have it , +Marketing: In the end product . +Project Manager: it's just sold as a package . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} M +Project Manager: It does {disfmarker} it's not part of the basic product . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers is also trend that we followed . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} that that's what I call trendy . I mean the shape is trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the sh the the functions are trendy . It's just the colours that are not supporting the basic model . Because you ha +Marketing: Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's just not affordable at the moment . +User Interface: Maybe we should go with a two then , +Marketing: But it's not a one . +User Interface: because it's not perfect , because we can't do it initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's possible , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but you have to pay extra for the for the possibility of having it in a f a different colour . +Marketing: Oh well {disfmarker} Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh it's a two , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: On the last one . Uh that n that's all . +Project Manager: Overall score . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Overall score . +Marketing: Overall . {vocalsound} It's um +Project Manager: One two three . {gap} sixteen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} ten , sixteen three {disfmarker} uh two +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two two point some two point something . +Marketing: two point seven or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't know why . +User Interface: Ten , sixteen , divided by {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: Is two two third . +Project Manager: Two and two thirds . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can say it's it's {disfmarker} the product is {disfmarker} it's okay . +Project Manager: It's okay , but {vocalsound} that's yo m +Marketing: Y not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mostly it's it's influenced by the fact that we didn't have enough resources to implement speech recognition . +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause yeah , that gives you a seven , which ruins your your average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without that it would be like under {disfmarker} it wouldn't {disfmarker} yeah , it would be under two . So I think we have {disfmarker} even with this it's reasonable . +Marketing: Woah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , if we make it into a four , as in neutral , because we didn't implement it , so we can't say that we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that it's really not well implemented . We come out on a average of two one eighth . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's {disfmarker} two is okay . +User Interface: So which is pretty w good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , two is pretty good . +User Interface: It's at least on the positive side . +Project Manager: Definitely . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We could definitely have done better if we've had more resources , +Industrial Designer: Hmm , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's probably {disfmarker} {gap} I +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I do admit that we d {vocalsound} did miss a little {disfmarker} or didn't sp didn't talk {gap} {disfmarker} talk enough about the possibility of the L_C_D_ display . We could have used it more efficiently , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we just didn't think of it that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , with {gap} . ..# +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: So {gap} {disfmarker} like I said , {vocalsound} changing channels , everything hidden in your L_C_D_ display , so you just need the navigation buttons to do everything . +Marketing: The scale . +Industrial Designer: But I think for this price , this is {disfmarker} it's really a reasonable product . +Project Manager: I think we div I think we did very well , +Industrial Designer: It's a good product . +Project Manager: uh ev even if you look at this score , we did quite well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: With an L_C_D_ screen {gap} . +Project Manager: It just looking for improvements what what you could have improved . So . {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if pep people really want speech recognition , then they must be prepared to pu to pay more , because it's cannot be done for this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They sh they should get kids , and just stick 'em in T_V_ and say change the channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you can make 'em another one . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah but for this price uh you cannot ask that . +Project Manager: I don' think so . Uh it's just not {disfmarker} it it's not affordable . +Industrial Designer: You cannot th think of that {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or your sh you should lose the L_C_D_ screen probably , +Industrial Designer: No , it's not . +Project Manager: but I think that's {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ screen is more worth than speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh It's also more attractive . +Project Manager: Definitely . Okay , that was that . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's the final product without the speakers , I guess . +User Interface: So did you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see , what was left in the the {disfmarker} Another one . {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we evaluate the product . {gap} {disfmarker} General project , what's i in {disfmarker} For example , I thou I thought we were pretty creative in what we created . We took the whole new approach of making exchangeable cover for example , which I thought was pretty creative , because it was never never ever listed somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Favourite channel . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} Anyways . Yeah , leadership is up to you . I mean perhaps I screwed up because I d {vocalsound} put a put a speech recognition into it . But that's not for me to decide . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well as team-work though . Because , yeah was very hard to work with one another if you cannot communicate in the meantime , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hmm . +Project Manager: because when I got the when I got the input for the financial results , initially of course I wanted to contact you . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , you're working separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Say , look , this is {disfmarker} you're doing the wrong thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: you're s you're wasting your time now , because we're implementing stuff that we cannot afford . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So it would be better if y if there was more communication between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Direct uh communication with {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: because that's that's what would w you {disfmarker} what you would normally do , either call or email someone . +User Interface: And we could share information which we received . +Project Manager: So that was too bad +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: con was impossible here anyways . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That's the same thing that I had in the beginning . Everybody was using materials that s I didn't have . +Project Manager: It didn't have +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or didn't knew what they costs or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: There was just too little information about what things actually cost and if you could use them . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So that was a little unclear I suppose . I think a SMARTboard SMARTboard is pretty cool . I think uh s especially for design issues , it's very easy just to give your give your thoughts a little {disfmarker} it's easier to share them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My handwriting is little bit {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Although for actual design I'd say the response time should be a little bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's a little less {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the response time is le it's very bad . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's good to visualise everything , but I think the response time should {disfmarker} could be a lot better . +User Interface: The digital pen was definitely better to draw my ideas and to further elaborate on that . +Marketing: But th that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But there's uh also one problem with this I noticed . Uh you have to finish a page before going to a n +Project Manager: No , you don't have to . No , you don't . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: I jin I didn't check the finish button . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: You can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just {disfmarker} you just ditch it and you can copy it or whatever . +Marketing: Done and then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I saw that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh only if you uh check the notes or {vocalsound} press done . Then it um {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} then it exports to Word automatically . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: But it's not necessary to check either one of those two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: You can just preview your p you can just preview your page in the in the programme . +Industrial Designer: but I made {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I made three pages +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they were not finished . And when the third one was finished , I wanted to download it and then it was not possible anymore , because you have to close all the pinnits uh the pages before going further . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , before starting a ne a new page . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , that could be b . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . So we cannot work on more than one page at same time . That's not possible . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to finish it completely , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Oh can you ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: then download it , it's {disfmarker} then start a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's not very uh handy , +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but if you know that , then it's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's understandable , okay . {vocalsound} Any new ideas ? Yeah , more communication between {vocalsound} between uh {disfmarker} that's the thing I noticed , that communication is very um very important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Important to mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because if you get new information , it's essential f for the other team-mates to know that as soon as possible , because you would avoid making {disfmarker} doing extra work , because you were doing extra work now uh m working on the on the speech recognition , you have limitation both on the technical {gap} {disfmarker} on the d on the design side . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think that could have been better . But that's {disfmarker} I think it's more of a a setting here that you cannot communicate than uh {gap} than somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it could also possibly be {disfmarker} well , is it a more real-time information base , so we can all see {vocalsound} which information is available to one another . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . And l less p less spam probably . I'm not sure i I'm not sure you got spammed as well , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but I get spammed like every t every two minutes there was a {disfmarker} there was another email about master classes or something . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which were totally useless actually . I thought I should probably look into them , {vocalsound} but they were all useless . So I just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I personally did not have that , +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} That's probably your l description . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I also didn't {disfmarker} not really . But still , you had that as well . Is that we finished up the design +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: and then we checked the website , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then there was just extra information . +Marketing: Yeah , after {disfmarker} After five minutes , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: There was a little delay in the {disfmarker} {gap} bit of a c crucial delay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't have any uh more information , it's just always the same here . So that's that's kind of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Email uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would change , but not for me . So I'd {disfmarker} I had no extra information to go on that one than what you give me actually . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I couldn't do any research myself +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} I see , that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: yeah , w I could have done a little extra work probably , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But I was busy enough anyway . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Any new ideas found ? Or is that a {gap} 'cause {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh yeah , it's {disfmarker} well , +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: probably is . +User Interface: How much time do we have for this anyway ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . That's like {disfmarker} oh,but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Should i +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: if the project is evaluated and it was it was in b within budget , we should celebrate . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: bring out the beer . +User Interface: Champagne . +Project Manager: Uh okay , think that's about it . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I want one for my own . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure what we should still do though uh t let's see what {disfmarker} all your tasks were finished , right ? What you ha from your assistant . So let's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have no more email . My coach is uh being very silent now . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I should {disfmarker} I think I sh +Marketing: my personal coach i +Project Manager: I still have the the total report to finish up . I think we took very little time now , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , we're in agreement , everything {disfmarker} the design is okay . The one thing we missed though , we don't have a product name . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: How about you cook a {disfmarker} how about you cook up a product name ? +User Interface: Product name . +Industrial Designer: we haven't think above {disfmarker} about that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , name . +Industrial Designer: Huh . It's better than thi I think than a serial number . Sony uh T_R_ something uh f means nothing to me . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or fruit name . +Project Manager: oh , think of a catchy name . I'll be working on this until the beep {disfmarker} until it beeps . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like fruit names . +Marketing: Fruit name or something like that . +Project Manager: What ? Fruit ? +Marketing: The banana remote or something . +Project Manager: You don't want it to resemble a banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , it's the form of it . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anyway . +User Interface: The bana 'cause it's not yellow anymore . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anymore . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} oh , yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is curved , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh I was going for the R_C_ deluxe , but it's not really a catchy name or anything , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: it's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh at least it's not something with numbers . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Numbers are so meaningless to the people . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Something with our {gap} company name , +Marketing: That's true . +User Interface: can we do anything with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Maybe there's something on the website which will help us out . +Marketing: Reaction , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Real Reaction . +User Interface: The reaction deluxe . +Project Manager: Real Reaction future R_C_ . {vocalsound} Step into the future of of remote controlling your T_V_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that a name or a c campaign ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's a that's a catchy slogan . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Control your remote control . +User Interface: Or the {disfmarker} The real reactor . +Industrial Designer: Real react . +Project Manager: I go for future R_C_ probably . Something like {disfmarker} It's short f +Industrial Designer: The Real Reactor , I don't find that uh that bad at all . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Real reactor ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh that that's +User Interface: You should write it down as a {disfmarker} an option . +Industrial Designer: Because our name is Real Reaction . +Project Manager: That makes me think of different {vocalsound} products than a remote control really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Real reaction in a real {disfmarker} +Marketing: Zapping . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's one option . +Project Manager: Real reactor . Didn't notice . +Industrial Designer: I'm looking for things in the name . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So that the first three letters are s the same . R_E_A_ R_E_A_ . +User Interface: Should I write the banana down or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take f +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: yeah , take a banana . +User Interface: Sure ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Remote . Banana recei R_C_ . +Industrial Designer: The triple R_ . Real Reaction remotes control . Triple R_ . +Marketing: Remote . +User Interface: Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +User Interface: Uh do you mean it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} ? +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: You mean it like this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Real Reaction Remote Control . R_ three C_ . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {gap} . +Project Manager: No , not like that . It should be it should be longer , because it's not a product name that you f print on a box . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} triple R_ . +Project Manager: Just write out triple , like a word triple R_C_ , triple stripe {disfmarker} Oh . Triple dash R_ dash s s C_ . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't sound {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ah . +Marketing: Triple R_C_ . The triple R_C_ , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: R_ s R_ three C_ . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} R_ dash C_ . +User Interface: Dash C_ ? +Industrial Designer: I think I like it like this more . +Project Manager: Dash . Triple R_ or triple R_C_ ? +User Interface: Like a C_ right now or a dash in a C_ ? +Marketing: Triple R_ dash . +Project Manager: How about do both ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure if it looks stupid . Uh I think that the the R_C_ together takes away the the the image of {disfmarker} it's a triple {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh the first the first one looks like it's a triple remote control , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's only a single remote control . And it's especially on the triple R_ that's important . The Real Reaction Remote . +Industrial Designer: I would {disfmarker} huh . I would lose the C_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: and just name it triple R_ . +User Interface: Is it triple R_C_s ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It sounds like uh thinking about two different things and combining it . +Marketing: Triple remote . +Industrial Designer: I would just say triple R_s triple R_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , triple R_ {gap} yeah , you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that's another option . +Industrial Designer: That's also short , catchy . +Marketing: It's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , triple R_ . +User Interface: Okay , so which ones are we going to scratch definitely ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Banana remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I say this one as well . +Marketing: Yeah , the deluxe . +Project Manager: I think we're all in agreement about the triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: I think triple R_ is cool . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Triple R_ ? +Marketing: The r triple R_ . +Project Manager: And it looks cool when you print it in font , looks pretty cool . +User Interface: Triple R_ it is . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} did you do now ? +Project Manager: Just like this {gap} just {disfmarker} and you just print triple R_ , it looks {disfmarker} doesn't look bad , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's short , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have to write my report now , I guess . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so we have everything . We have the product , we have the costs , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: we have the possibility of everything . +Marketing: It can't work . That will not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I think it's adjourned . Retire to my lair and finish the report . That was a short meeting . But efficient though . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . The boss is always the last one to go home . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Probably . See . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: goodbye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See you in a minute . +Marketing: Damn . I will write that one in a Word uh document . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Could you guys draw me a picture of the final design to put on the cover of the report ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't we take this one ? +Marketing: Oh sh +Industrial Designer: Otherwise we have to do it all over again . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know whether we can save it as a picture or no . +Industrial Designer: Is it okay if I try ? Is that okay with you ? +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I will ask you when uh I need the information . +Industrial Designer: I'll put it back in a minute . +Marketing: So it's {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it has been saving something , but where to I don't know . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Oh . Merge . +Industrial Designer: Oh , can I say exp yes , I can . +Marketing: Sucks . +Industrial Designer: Export as J_ PEG . {gap} . Okay , can I not put this wherever I wants . My document is the wrong one , huh . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Network places . +Marketing: I don't know . Smart {disfmarker} no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Ma it's maybe it's not on the network of uh the rest . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Marketing: That one is . {gap} . +User Interface: I wouldn't pick that one , no . +Industrial Designer: Document and settings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a pity . That means that we have to gonna draw it again . Are you gonna do that ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} Yes . Okay . Okay . Okay . Yes , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . Oh , it's export . +Marketing: Oh yeah , {gap} . {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Can I see scores ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , of course . +Marketing: Uh , {gap} one one , two threes , two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , then we'll {disfmarker} overall , two points . Yes . +User Interface: I see you later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +","Summary: + +The team, consisting of a Project Manager, User Interface, Marketing, and Industrial Designer, work on finalizing the design and cost decisions for a new remote control. They struggled with the budget limits, debating what features to include or exclude. They chose materials, implemented an LCD and discussed the advanced features, rounded off the design with no sharp corners, and finalized colors as yellow and black. However, due to budget constraints, the special color and speech recognition feature had to be scrapped. To cut costs, they debated removing the curve but decided to keep it as a design feature. They contemplated plastic over rubber for materials and considered offering custom covers as an additional option for trendiness. The team also worked on the final product name, with ""triple R"" finally being chosen. Throughout the session, communication and real-time information sharing were noted as areas needing improvement for project efficiency." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good morning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: So , we are asked to to make uh uh a new remote control for television . And the characteristics of this new remote control should be original and trendy and of course user user friendly . So people can {gap} can use it without any any problem . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we should set the the points to to drive the project and uh +User Interface: Mm . B did you send us an email about this ? +Project Manager: Uh , not yet , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , we we received an email about this uh d designs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want do you want me to send you a mail ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ah it's Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or you can put it in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yeah , you see the email ? You {gap} email . The v very {disfmarker} no , no the first one . +Marketing: No , I didn't get it . +User Interface: It's inside . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: The third one . Oh , you didn't get anything . +Marketing: No , {gap} . +User Interface: It's strange . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: I got an email about the dis about the discussion . Yeah . +Project Manager: You get email , {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno from who . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , from the account manager . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} From the account manager . You have received the same email , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's for your guys to {vocalsound} how to design it all the aspects so you need that information . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think so . +User Interface: Yeah , so each of us has a role to do . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think {gap} assign your uh roles . +User Interface: In each {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For each for each one . +User Interface: We already have our role . +Marketing: For each person , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Kay , we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So there are {disfmarker} so we have three {disfmarker} +User Interface: So there are three kinds of designs , that's all . +Project Manager: f yeah . We have functional design , conceptual design , and detail design . +User Interface: Okay , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , who will be the the responsible for the functional design ? Any any volunteer ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think our uh responsibilities will be assigned when we {disfmarker} in our mail we received from the account manager . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh +User Interface: I'm doing the interface . +Project Manager: You are doing th +Industrial Designer: No , I'm doing the interface . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Are you using the {disfmarker} you are doing the in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I'm I'm {disfmarker} Well , maybe we have {disfmarker} okay so I {gap} industrial design . It was a little confusion about my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it's alright . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll for industrial design . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And and you {disfmarker} Norman ? +User Interface: Mm ? Um working on i . {vocalsound} User interface . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'm into marketing . +Project Manager: {gap} doing the marketing . +Marketing: {gap} yeah nothing much in the project . +Project Manager: Nothing related here to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Marketing in this design . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: A design is basically for industrial design and the user interface . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You see the second mail ? Yeah , it's inside . Go down . Appendix . +Marketing: Yeah , this is {gap} . +User Interface: See there's a role for everybody . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right , +User Interface: Even for the marketing . +Marketing: first {gap} . {gap} us user define . +Project Manager: Next {gap} . +User Interface: But look at your role , your marketing role . +Marketing: There's a trend watching . +Project Manager: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah , that's your role . +Project Manager: I {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well , I think we can have a little discussion about what has to be done +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and what are your ideas about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About the design or {disfmarker} Maybe we'll discuss this later , no ? +Industrial Designer: Well , w we want to have a new re remote control for for T_V_ distribution I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} plan how how it would be developed and uh +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: how we can make it work {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I mean working remotes we already have . This will be something different from the other remotes {disfmarker} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we we have to keep in mind the {disfmarker} these characteristics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I dunno I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And of course it should not be very costly . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I I think that Norman and I would think about um the technical points and um we should discuss it in the next meeting , or +User Interface: Need to collect information . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: About the {disfmarker} about what ? +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} I I'm part of design , perhaps . Uh , what is most important in a {disfmarker} in a remote control ? What is the most important function aspect ? Uh . +Project Manager: You mean the external {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , you have to make it work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of g of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {vocalsound} that's the big thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it should be easy to work with . +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can think about an interface with uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . We {disfmarker} maybe you can have a speech uh recognition interface . You just tell the television I want {disfmarker} which channel . +Project Manager: You won't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or or you can say for example , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I want uh to list all the programme tonight . Y you know {gap} , instead of {gap} uh remote control it's doing the {disfmarker} some searching for you , so you don't have to look for the channel you want . Just say maybe I just want to press {disfmarker} I wanna have a button for all the movies tonight . Or a button for all the magazines , all the information {disfmarker} documentary tonight . And then you list a few , and I will choose from the list . So instead of pressing the channel number , I am choosing the programmes directly . Yeah , that's one way of uh making it useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I I think if we include a lot of technology on the remote control it will be very costly . +User Interface: No , because {disfmarker} no , +Project Manager: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's not very {disfmarker} a lot . Th this information exists . For example you can get um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like s uh you you you say we can use speech . +User Interface: You can use uh {disfmarker} well for example {disfmarker} anything . {vocalsound} The {vocalsound} the idea of using speech to reduce the button , but uh and it's more natural . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think if you want t to choose uh from a list of programme or or something like that you you may have to to use uh w uh I dunno +Marketing: I'm a {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the main uh function of remote control is to have something in the hand +Project Manager: In the hand . +Marketing: and we should be very careful about the size of the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: If we are going to add a speech interface , I'm not sure with {gap} trendy slim size of the remote control it would be able to put a speech recog +User Interface: Yeah . Yes , possible . +Marketing: if you want to put a speech recognition system f interface for that I think the T_V_ itself could have it . +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And I could talk to the T_V_ {disfmarker} television itself . +Project Manager: Except if if you are far from the T_V_ . +Marketing: I need not have an {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean we have some {gap} or something , different technology but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . But th the main idea I wanted to s I wanted to say is that um {vocalsound} there should be a function , instead of choosing the ch T_V_ channel , there's a option you can choose , either T_V_ channels or or pr or the or the contain or the contents of the programme . +Industrial Designer: On the content . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah it's it's a good idea it's a good idea +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So it's more powerful . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I I think that technically it would be um a little bit uh uh more tricky to to achieve this than just to {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No , because you see now all the T_V_ programmes are available on the webs . They they are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are available in X_M_L_ format or whatever the format . We don't care . We just say that this are some content . We just want to retrieve the content and then classi sort them by the types of programmes . Some of the websites they already provide this service , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: so we can just use the service available . Download it uh to the {disfmarker} to this remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And then there's {disfmarker} there are only six buttons for six categories , or sev seven . The most there are only seven buttons . So I just choose the category one and you reuse the same button , for example to to choose among the the sorted list the programme you want , so {vocalsound} you don't have to choose among hundred channels , if you have hundred channels , you just have six buttons , seven buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah we should also optimise the the number of buttons . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I I I I think that j just by using navigation buttons and the user interface on the screen we are able to uh navigate uh through the {disfmarker} Well channel programme or contents or {disfmarker} in an easy way , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This is {gap} good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah , yes . So {gap} . Yeah . Yeah , so you don't have to display here , just display on the T_V_ screen , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah in the dis display on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Good idea {vocalsound} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and just uh with the with your remote control would just navigate through the f +User Interface: I think I think that will be revol revolutionary {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Because all the T_V_ uh the the remote control have all numbers , lots of buttons and then you dunno what to choose in the end . Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think for for the technical points we have to to to check how to gather the data from programme or contents and all this stuff +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have five minutes to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah w w we have sometimes to use the white-board . +Project Manager: Ah you can y you can you can use it if you {disfmarker} so , can we +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Five minutes . +Marketing: And another interesting idea for this would be to have an light adaptation system depending upon the picture of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So , I mean , if you're watching a movie and suddenly there is a dark uh {vocalsound} some dark scene , the lights adapt themself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The lighting in the room changes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but we are designing just remote control . +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean , we have a option in the remote control . If we want to have that option , you press that button in the remote . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , do you want to have a conceptual remote control there , or you just want to put the function in ? +Project Manager: Yeah . If if you you you can if you want you can use th the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Please , Norman , draw uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Go on , draw something {gap} . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Oh , I'm afraid you forgot to put your lapel . +User Interface: Where is it ? +Marketing: The lapel . +Project Manager: Or before the before the the design that says {gap} . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Where where is it ? Here . +Marketing: Yeah , that one . +Project Manager: Norman . +Marketing: Just plug it . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Be before before writing you can uh sit and that says {gap} what we what we said +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: then after that you can you can use the {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , alright . So so the most functional des mm the most important function is to ch choo buttons to choose the content . Right ? We agree on that , right ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , uh first one is to uh {vocalsound} buttons i or it could be anything with {gap} buttons . Uh to choose uh content s or channels . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So we have both . The user can choose w which one they want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , by content or by channel , +User Interface: By content or by channel . +Industrial Designer: it's a good idea . +User Interface: Choose by contents or by channels . And then what did we say just now ? Other than this . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh we we have to find a way how to gather information about the contents . +User Interface: Okay , so technically how {disfmarker} the problems that {disfmarker} how to do it is to {disfmarker} how to get the content . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Challenge . +Industrial Designer: I think i it's not very difficult to to browse by channel but it's a little bit tricky to browse by contents so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Content . Okay , so these we have to work it out . So this one of the problem . And uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's the {gap} the things to do +User Interface: The main thing . +Industrial Designer: and uh to uh reflect about it +User Interface: Okay . Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh discuss it in the next meeting . +User Interface: So we are {disfmarker} we'll discuss it {disfmarker} we will get some information in the next meeting , so for now we get uh the funct this is the functional designer {gap} ? That's the first aspect . Right . We will {gap} get information and then we'll come back in . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you everybody . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we'll come . +Project Manager: So maybe we'll meet in maybe five minutes ? And we'll discuss the other other aspects . +User Interface: Alright . Alright , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well thank you all {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you , mis {vocalsound} +","In this conversation, the project team, consisting of a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface designer, and a Marketing representative, is discussing the design of a new trendy and user-friendly television remote control. The team is trying to establish who is responsible for the various aspects of the design process, including functional, conceptual, and detailed design. They briefly discuss challenges such as keeping costs low while incorporating technology like speech recognition and buttons for navigating content. + +The User Interface designer suggests having fewer buttons that sort and select programs based on content rather than channels. Meanwhile, the Marketing representative emphasizes the importance of the remote's size and suggests incorporating a light adaptation feature, although there's uncertainty about including it in the remote control or the TV. + +The team agrees on focusing on the function of choosing content over channels and discusses the technical challenge of gathering content information. They plan to collect more information and discuss it in the next meeting. Near the end of the conversation, they also touch on using navigation buttons with a user interface on the TV screen, which would be a revolutionary change from traditional remote designs with many buttons. + +The conversation ends with the project team planning to reconvene in five minutes to further discuss the project's various aspects." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: We 're going ? OK . Sh - Close your door on {disfmarker} door on the way out ? +Grad B: OK . Thanks . +Professor A: Thanks . +Grad B: Oh . +Professor A: Yeah . Probably wanna get this other door , too . OK . So . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What are we talking about today ? +PhD E: Uh , well , first there are perhaps these uh Meeting Recorder digits that we tested . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . That was kind of uh interesting . +PhD E: So . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} both the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the SRI System and the oth +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: And for one thing that {disfmarker} that sure shows the {vocalsound} difference between having a lot of uh training data {vocalsound} or not , +PhD E: Of data ? Yeah . +Professor A: uh , the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The best kind of number we have on the English uh {disfmarker} on near microphone only is {disfmarker} is uh three or four percent . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh it 's significantly better than that , using fairly simple front - ends {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the SRI system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I th I think that the uh {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} that 's using uh a {disfmarker} a pretty huge amount of data , mostly not digits , of course , but {disfmarker} but then again {disfmarker} Well , yeah . In fact , mostly not digits for the actual training the H M Ms whereas uh in this case we 're just using digits for training the H M +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Did anybody mention about whether the {disfmarker} the SRI system is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} is doing the digits um the wor as a word model or as uh a sub s sub - phone states ? +PhD E: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh allophone models , +Professor A: Yeah . Probably . +PhD E: so , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Huh ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think so , because it 's their very d huge , their huge system . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . But . So . There is one difference {disfmarker} Well , the SRI system {disfmarker} the result for the SRI system that are represented here are with adaptation . So there is {disfmarker} It 's their complete system and {disfmarker} including on - line uh unsupervised adaptation . +Professor A: That 's true . +PhD E: And if you don't use adaptation , the error rate is around fifty percent worse , I think , if I remember . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's tha it 's that much , huh ? +PhD E: Nnn . It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's quite significant . +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Still . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but uh what {disfmarker} what I think I 'd be interested to do given that , is that we {disfmarker} we should uh {vocalsound} take {disfmarker} I guess that somebody 's gonna do this , right ? {disfmarker} is to take some of these tandem things and feed it into the SRI system , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We can do something like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Because {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But I guess the main point is the data because uh {vocalsound} I am not sure . Our back - end is {disfmarker} is fairly simple but until now , well , the attempts to improve it or {disfmarker} have fail Ah , well , I mean uh what Chuck tried to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do +Professor A: Yeah , but he 's doing it with the same data , right ? I mean so to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's two things being affected . +PhD E: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: I mean . One is that {disfmarker} that , you know , there 's something simple that 's wrong with the back - end . We 've been playing a number of states +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I {disfmarker} I don't know if he got to the point of playing with the uh number of Gaussians yet +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh , uh , you know . But , yeah , so far he hadn't gotten any big improvement , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but that 's all with the same amount of data which is pretty small . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: And um . +PhD E: Mmm . So , yeah , we could retrain some of these tandem on {disfmarker} on huge {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , you could do that , but I 'm saying even with it not {disfmarker} with that part not retrained , just {disfmarker} just using {disfmarker} having the H M Ms {disfmarker} much better H M +PhD E: Ah , yeah . Just {disfmarker} f for the HMM models . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} But just train those H M Ms using different features , the features coming from our Aurora stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . But {vocalsound} what would be interesting to see also is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} perhaps it 's not related , the amount of data but the um recording conditions . I don't know . Because {vocalsound} it 's probably not a problem of noise , because our features are supposed to be robust to noise . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: It 's not a problem of channel , because there is um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normalization with respect to the channel . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . What {disfmarker} what is the problem that you 're trying to explain ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the fact that {disfmarker} the result with the tandem and Aurora system are {vocalsound} uh so much worse . +Professor A: That the {disfmarker} Oh . So much worse ? Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I uh but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm almost certain that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , that it has to do with the um amount of training data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's orders of magnitude off . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah but we train only on digits and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a digit task , so . Well . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but having a huge {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you look at what commercial places do , they use a huge amount of data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: This is a modest amount of data . +PhD E: Alright . Yeah . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} I mean , ordinarily you would say "" well , given that you have enough occurrences of the digits , you can just train with digits rather than with , you know "" {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is , if you have a huge {disfmarker} in other words , do word models {disfmarker} But if you have a huge amount of data then you 're going to have many occurrences of similar uh allophones . +PhD E: Right . Mmm . +Professor A: And that 's just a huge amount of training for it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think it has to be that , because , as you say , this is , you know , this is near - microphone , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it 's really pretty clean data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Now , some of it could be the fact that uh {disfmarker} let 's see , in the {disfmarker} in these multi - train things did we include noisy data in the training ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean , that could be hurting us actually , for the clean case . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , actually we see that the clean train for the Aurora proposals are {disfmarker} are better than the multi - train , +Professor A: It is if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz this is clean data , and so that 's not too surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But um . Uh . So . +PhD E: Well , o I guess what I meant is that well , let 's say if we {disfmarker} if we add enough data to train on the um on the Meeting Recorder digits , I guess we could have better results than this . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And . What I meant is that perhaps we can learn something uh from this , what 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong uh what {disfmarker} what is different between TI - digits and these digits and {disfmarker} +Professor A: What kind of numbers are we getting on TI - digits ? +PhD E: It 's point eight percent , so . +Professor A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: Four - Fourier . +Professor A: So in the actual TI - digits database we 're getting point eight percent , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: and here we 're getting three or four {disfmarker} three , let 's see , three for this ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Sure , but I mean , um point eight percent is something like double uh or triple what people have gotten who 've worked very hard at doing that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and also , as you point out , there 's adaptation in these numbers also . So if you , you know , put the ad adap take the adaptation off , then it {disfmarker} for the English - Near you get something like two percent . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: And here you had , you know , something like three point four . And I could easily see that difference coming from this huge amount of data that it was trained on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: You know , I don't think there 's anything magical here . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's , you know , we used a simple HTK system with a modest amount of data . And this is a {disfmarker} a , you know , modern {vocalsound} uh system uh has {disfmarker} has a lot of nice points to it . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . So . I mean , the HTK is an older HTK , even . So . Yeah it {disfmarker} it 's not that surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But to me it just {disfmarker} it just meant a practical {vocalsound} point that um if we want to {vocalsound} publish results on digits that {disfmarker} that people pay {vocalsound} attention to we probably should uh {disfmarker} Cuz we 've had the problem before that you get {disfmarker} show some {vocalsound} nice improvement on something that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , uh {disfmarker} it seems like too large a number , and uh {vocalsound} uh people don't necessarily take it so seriously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Yeah . Yeah . So the three point four percent for this uh is {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} So why is it {disfmarker} It 's an interesting question though , still . Why is {disfmarker} why is it three point four percent for the d the digits recorded in this environment as opposed to {vocalsound} the uh point eight percent for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the original TI - digits database ? Um . +PhD E: Yeah . th that 's {disfmarker} th that 's my point +Professor A: Given {disfmarker} given the same {disfmarker} Yeah . So ignore {disfmarker} ignoring the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the SRI system for a moment , +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't I {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: just looking at {vocalsound} the TI - di the uh tandem system , if we 're getting point eight percent , which , yes , it 's high . It 's , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's not awfully high , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but it 's , you know {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's high . Um . {vocalsound} Why is it {vocalsound} uh four times as high , or more ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor A: Right ? I mean , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} even though it 's close - miked there 's still {disfmarker} there really is background noise . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . And {vocalsound} uh I suspect when the TI - digits were recorded if somebody fumbled or said something wrong or something that they probably made them take it over . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: It was not {disfmarker} I mean there was no attempt to have it be realistic in any {disfmarker} in any sense at all . +PhD E: Well . Yeah . And acoustically , it 's q it 's {disfmarker} I listened . It 's quite different . TI - digit is {disfmarker} it 's very , very clean and it 's like studio recording +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: whereas these Meeting Recorder digits sometimes you have breath noise and Mmm . +Professor A: Right . Yeah . So I think they were {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {nonvocalsound} not controlled at all , I mean . +Professor A: Bless you . +Grad B: Thanks . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} So . Yes . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's the indication it 's harder . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah and again , you know , i that 's true either way . I mean so take a look at the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , the SRI results . I mean , they 're much much better , but still you 're getting something like one point three percent for uh things that are same data as in T {disfmarker} TI - digits the same {disfmarker} same text . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . And uh , I 'm sure the same {disfmarker} same system would {disfmarker} would get , you know , point {disfmarker} point three or point four or something {vocalsound} on the actual TI - digits . So this {disfmarker} I think , on both systems the {vocalsound} these digits are showing up as harder . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Which I find sort of interesting cause I think this is closer to {disfmarker} uh I mean it 's still read . But I still think it 's much closer to {disfmarker} to what {disfmarker} what people actually face , {vocalsound} um when they 're {disfmarker} they 're dealing with people saying digits over the telephone . I mean . {vocalsound} I don't think uh {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm sure they wouldn't release the numbers , but I don't think that uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the companies that {disfmarker} that do telephone {vocalsound} speech get anything like point four percent on their {vocalsound} digits . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure they get {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for one thing people do phone up who don't have uh uh Middle America accents and it 's a we we it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's US . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it has {disfmarker} has many people {vocalsound} {vocalsound} who sound in many different ways . So . Um . I mean . OK . That was that topic . What else we got ? +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: Did we end up giving up on {disfmarker} on , any Eurospeech submissions , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: or {disfmarker} ? I know Thilo and Dan Ellis are {disfmarker} are submitting something , but uh . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess e the only thing with these {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder and , well , {disfmarker} So , I think , yeah {disfmarker} I think we basically gave up . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} Now , actually for the {disfmarker} for the Aur - uh +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: we do have stuff for Aurora , right ? Because {disfmarker} because we have ano an extra month or something . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . Yeah , for sure we will do something for the special session . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , that 's fine . So th so {disfmarker} so we have a couple {disfmarker} a couple little things on Meeting Recorder +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We don't {disfmarker} we don't have to flood it with papers . We 're not trying to prove anything to anybody . so . That 's fine . Um . Anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Well . So . Perhaps the point is that we 've been working on {vocalsound} is , yeah , we have put the um the good VAD in the system and {vocalsound} it really makes a huge difference . Um . So , yeah . I think , yeah , this is perhaps one of the reason why our system was not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not the best , because with the new VAD , it 's very {disfmarker} the results are similar to the France Telecom results and perhaps even better sometimes . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: Huh . +PhD E: Um . So there is this point . Uh . The problem is that it 's very big and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we still have to think how to {disfmarker} where to put it and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , this VAD uh either some delay and we {disfmarker} if we put it on the server side , it doesn't work , because on the server side features you already have LDA applied {vocalsound} from the f from the terminal side and {vocalsound} so you accumulate the delay so the VAD should be before the LDA which means perhaps on the terminal side and then smaller {vocalsound} and +Professor A: So wha where did this good VAD come from ? +PhD E: So . It 's um from OGI . So it 's the network trained {disfmarker} it 's the network with the huge amounts on hidden {disfmarker} of hidden units , and um nine input frames compared to the VAD that was in the proposal which has a very small amount of hidden units and fewer inputs . +Professor A: This is the one they had originally ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh . Yeah , but they had to {pause} get rid of it because of the space , didn't they ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . Yeah . But the abso assumption is that we will be able to make a VAD that 's small and that works fine . And . So we can {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . So that 's a problem . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} nnn . +Professor A: But the other thing is uh to use a different VAD entirely . I mean , uh i if {disfmarker} if there 's a {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what the thinking was amongst the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the ETSI folk but um if everybody agreed sure let 's use this VAD and take that out of there {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . They just want , apparently {disfmarker} they don't want to fix the VAD because they think there is some interaction between feature extraction and {disfmarker} and VAD or frame dropping But they still {vocalsound} want to {disfmarker} just to give some um {vocalsound} requirement for this VAD because it 's {disfmarker} it will not be part of {disfmarker} they don't want it to be part of the standard . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: So . So it must be at least uh somewhat fixed but not completely . So there just will be some requirements that are still not {disfmarker} uh not yet uh ready I think . +Professor A: Determined . I see . But I was thinking that {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} s "" Sure , there may be some interaction , +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor A: but I don't think we need to be stuck on using our or OGI 's {pause} VAD . We could use somebody else 's if it 's smaller or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: You know , as long as it did the job . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that 's good . +PhD E: Uh . So there is this thing . There is um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh I designed a new {disfmarker} a new filter because when I designed other filters with shorter delay from the LDA filters , {vocalsound} there was one filter with fif sixty millisecond delay and the other with ten milliseconds +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} uh Hynek suggested that both could have sixty - five sixty - s I think it 's sixty - five . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Both should have sixty - five because {disfmarker} +Professor A: You didn't gain anything , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . And . So I did that and uh it 's running . So , {vocalsound} let 's see what will happen . Uh but the filter is of course closer to the reference filter . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Um . Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that means logically , in principle , it should be better . So probably it 'll be worse . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor A: Or in the basic perverse nature uh of reality . Yeah . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah , and then we 've started to work with this of um voiced - unvoiced stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And next week I think we will {vocalsound} perhaps try to have um a new system with uh uh MSG stream also see what {disfmarker} what happens . So , something that 's similar to the proposal too , but with MSG stream . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: OK . +PhD D: No , I w {vocalsound} I begin to play {vocalsound} with Matlab and to found some parameter robust for voiced - unvoiced decision . But only to play . And we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} we found that maybe w is a classical parameter , the {vocalsound} sq the variance {vocalsound} between the um FFT of the signal and the small spectrum of time {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} after the um mel filter bank . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And , well , is more or less robust . Is good for clean speech . Is quite good {vocalsound} for noisy speech . +Professor A: Huh ? Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but um we must to have bigger statistic with TIMIT , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and is not ready yet to use on , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: well , I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . So , basically we wa want to look at something like the ex the ex excitation signal and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: which are the variance of it and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have here . I have here for one signal , for one frame . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the mix of the two , noise and unnoise , and the signal is this . Clean , and this noise . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: These are the two {disfmarker} the mixed , the big signal is for clean . +Professor A: Well , I 'm s uh {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} None of these axes are labeled , so I don't know what this {disfmarker} What 's this axis ? +PhD D: Uh this is uh {disfmarker} this axis is {vocalsound} nnn , "" frame "" . +Professor A: Frame . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And what 's th what this ? +PhD D: Uh , this is uh energy , log - energy of the spectrum . Of the this is the variance , the difference {nonvocalsound} between the spectrum of the signal and FFT of each frame of the signal and this mouth spectrum of time after the f may fit for the two , +Professor A: For this one . For the noi +PhD D: this big , to here , they are to signal . This is for clean and this is for noise . +Professor A: Oh . There 's two things on the same graph . +PhD D: Yeah . I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think that I have d another graph , but I 'm not sure . +Professor A: So w which is clean and which is noise ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think the lower one is noise . +PhD D: The lower is noise and the height is clean . +Professor A: OK . So it 's harder to distinguish +PhD D: It 's height . +Professor A: but it {disfmarker} but it g +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: with noise of course but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . I must to have . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: Pity , but I don't have two different +Professor A: And presumably when there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this should the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the t voiced portions . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah , it is the height is voiced portion . +PhD E: The p the peaks should be voiced portion . +PhD D: And this is the noise portion . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And this is more or less like this . But I meant to have see @ @ two {disfmarker} two the picture . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: This is , for example , for one frame . +Professor A: Yeah +PhD D: the {disfmarker} the spectrum of the signal . And this is the small version of the spectrum after ML mel filter bank . +Professor A: Yeah . And this is the difference ? +PhD D: And this is I don't know . This is not the different . This is trying to obtain {vocalsound} with LPC model the spectrum but using Matlab without going factor and s +Professor A: No pre - emphasis ? Yeah . +PhD D: Not pre - emphasis . Nothing . +Professor A: Yeah so it 's {disfmarker} doesn't do too well there . +PhD D: And the {disfmarker} I think that this is good . This is quite similar . this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this is another frame . ho how I obtained the {vocalsound} envelope , {nonvocalsound} this envelope , with the mel filter bank . +Professor A: Right . So now I wonder {disfmarker} I mean , do you want to {disfmarker} I know you want to get at something orthogonal from what you get with the smooth spectrum Um . But if you were to really try and get a voiced - unvoiced , do you {disfmarker} do you want to totally ignore that ? I mean , do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} I mean , clearly a {disfmarker} a very big {disfmarker} very big cues {vocalsound} for voiced - unvoiced come from uh spectral slope and so on , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , this would be {disfmarker} this would be perhaps an additional parameter , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: simply isn't {disfmarker} +Professor A: I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah because when did noise clear {nonvocalsound} in these section is clear +PhD E: Uh . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if s @ @ {nonvocalsound} val value is indicative that is a voice frame and it 's low values +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you probably want {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} certainly if {vocalsound} you want to do good voiced - unvoiced detection , you need a few features . Each {disfmarker} each feature is {vocalsound} by itself not enough . But , you know , people look at {disfmarker} at slope and {vocalsound} uh first auto - correlation coefficient , divided by power . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Or {disfmarker} or uh um there 's uh {disfmarker} I guess we prob probably don't have enough computation to do a simple pitch detector or something ? I mean with a pitch detector you could have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have a {disfmarker} an estimate of {disfmarker} of what the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Uh . Or maybe you could you just do it going through the P FFT 's figuring out some um probable {vocalsound} um harmonic structure . Right . And {disfmarker} and uh . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD D: you have read up and {disfmarker} you have a paper , {vocalsound} the paper that you s give me yesterday . they say that yesterday {vocalsound} they are some {nonvocalsound} problem +PhD E: Oh , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , but it 's not {disfmarker} it 's , yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's another problem . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} Is another problem . +PhD E: Yeah Um . Yeah , there is th this fact actually . If you look at this um spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: What 's this again ? Is it {vocalsound} the mel - filters ? +PhD D: Yeah like this . Of kind like this . +PhD E: Yeah . OK . So the envelope here is the output of the mel - filters +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and what we clearly see is that in some cases , and it clearly appears here , and the {disfmarker} the harmonics are resolved by the f Well , there are still appear after mel - filtering , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and it happens {vocalsound} for high pitched voice because the width of the lower frequency mel - filters {vocalsound} is sometimes even smaller than the pitch . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's around one hundred , one hundred and fifty hertz {vocalsound} Nnn . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: And so what happens is that this uh , add additional variability to this envelope and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: so we were thinking to modify the mel - spectrum to have something that {disfmarker} that 's smoother on low frequencies . +Professor A: That 's as {disfmarker} as a separate thing . +PhD E: i +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . This is a separate thing . +Professor A: Separate thing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . +Professor A: Yeah . Maybe so . Um . Yeah . So , what {disfmarker} Yeah . What I was talking about was just , starting with the FFT you could {disfmarker} you could uh do a very rough thing to estimate {disfmarker} estimate uh pitch . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh uh , given {disfmarker} you know , given that , uh {vocalsound} you could uh uh come up with some kind of estimate of how much of the low frequency energy was {disfmarker} was explained by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by uh uh those harmonics . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . It 's uh a variant on what you 're s what you 're doing . The {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the mel does give a smooth thing . But as you say it 's not that smooth here . And {disfmarker} and so if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you just you know subtracted off uh your guess of the harmonics then something like this would end up with {vocalsound} quite a bit lower energy in the first fifteen hundred hertz or so and {disfmarker} and our first kilohertz , even . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um {vocalsound} if was uh noisy , the proportion that it would go down would be if it was {disfmarker} if it was unvoiced or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you oughta be able to {vocalsound} pick out voiced segments . At least it should be another {disfmarker} another cue . So . {vocalsound} Anyway . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? That 's what 's going on . Uh . What 's up with you ? +Grad B: Um {vocalsound} our t I went to {vocalsound} talk with uh Mike Jordan this {disfmarker} this week +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um {nonvocalsound} and uh {vocalsound} shared with him the ideas about um {vocalsound} extending the Larry Saul work and um I asked him some questions about factorial H M so like later down the line when {vocalsound} we 've come up with these {disfmarker} these feature detectors , how do we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how do we uh {vocalsound} you know , uh model the time series that {disfmarker} that happens um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} and we talked a little bit about {vocalsound} factorial H M Ms and how {vocalsound} um when you 're doing inference {disfmarker} or w when you 're doing recognition , there 's like simple Viterbi stuff that you can do for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for these H M and {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the great advantages that um a lot of times the factorial H M Ms don't {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} don't over - alert the problem there they have a limited number of parameters and they focus directly on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on uh the sub - problems at hand so {vocalsound} you can imagine {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} five or so parallel {vocalsound} um features um transitioning independently and then {vocalsound} at the end you {disfmarker} you uh couple these factorial H M Ms with uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with uh undirected links um based on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} based on some more data . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: So he {disfmarker} he seemed {disfmarker} he seemed like really interested in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in um {disfmarker} in this and said {disfmarker} said this is {disfmarker} this is something very do - able and can learn a lot and um yeah , I 've just been {vocalsound} continue reading um about certain things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um thinking of maybe using um {vocalsound} um m modulation spectrum stuff to {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} as features um also in the {disfmarker} in the sub - bands +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because {vocalsound} it seems like {vocalsound} the modulation um spectrum tells you a lot about the intelligibility of {disfmarker} of certain um words and stuff So , um . Yeah . Just that 's about it . +Professor A: OK . +Grad C: OK . And um so I 've been looking at Avendano 's work and um uh I 'll try to write up in my next stat status report a nice description of {vocalsound} what he 's doing , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's an approach to deal with {vocalsound} reverberation or that {disfmarker} the aspect of his work that I 'm interested in the idea is that um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normally an analysis frames are um {vocalsound} too short to encompass reverberation effects um in full . You miss most of the reverberation tail in a ten millisecond window and so {vocalsound} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you 'd like it to be that {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the reverberation responses um simply convolved um in , but it 's not really with these ten millisecond frames cuz you j But if you take , say , a two millisecond {vocalsound} um window {disfmarker} I 'm sorry a two second window then in a room like this , most of the reverberation response {vocalsound} is included in the window and the {disfmarker} then it um {vocalsound} then things are l more linear . It is {disfmarker} it is more like the reverberation response is simply c convolved and um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can use channel normalization techniques {vocalsound} like uh in his thesis he 's assuming that the reverberation response is fixed . He just does um {vocalsound} mean subtraction , which is like removing the DC component of the modulation spectrum and {vocalsound} that 's supposed to d um deal {disfmarker} uh deal pretty well with the um reverberation and um {vocalsound} the neat thing is you can't take these two second frames and feed them to a speech recognizer um {vocalsound} so he does this {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} method training trading the um {vocalsound} the spectral resolution for time resolution {vocalsound} and um {vocalsound} come ca uh synthesizes a new representation which is with say ten second frames but a lower s um {vocalsound} frequency resolution . So I don't really know the theory . I guess it 's {disfmarker} these are called "" time frequency representations "" and h he 's making the {disfmarker} the time sh um finer grained and the frequency resolution um less fine grained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: s so I 'm {disfmarker} I guess my first stab actually in continuing {vocalsound} his work is to um {vocalsound} re - implement this {disfmarker} this thing which um {vocalsound} changes the time and frequency resolutions cuz he doesn't have code for me . So that that 'll take some reading about the theory . I don't really know the theory . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh , and um , {vocalsound} another f first step is um , so the {disfmarker} the way I want to extend his work is make it able to deal with a time varying reverberation response um {vocalsound} and um we don't really know {vocalsound} how fast the um {disfmarker} the reverberation response is varying the Meeting Recorder data um so um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we have this um block least squares um imp echo canceller implementation and um {vocalsound} I want to try {vocalsound} finding {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the response , say , between a near mike and the table mike for someone using the echo canceller and looking at the echo canceller taps and then {vocalsound} see how fast that varies {vocalsound} from block to block . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That should give an idea of how fast the reverberation response is changing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . Um . I think we 're {vocalsound} sort of done . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So let 's read our digits and go home . +Grad C: Um . S so um y you do {disfmarker} I think you read some of the {disfmarker} the zeros as O 's and some as zeros . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: Is there a particular way we 're supposed to read them ? +PhD E: There are only zeros here . Well . +Professor A: No . "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" and "" zero "" are two ways that we say that digit . +PhD E: Eee . Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ha ! +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} i +PhD E: Perhaps in the sheets there should be another sign for the {disfmarker} if we want to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the guy to say "" O "" or +Professor A: No . I mean . I think people will do what they say . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean in digit recognition we 've done before , you have {disfmarker} you have two pronunciations for that value , "" O "" and "" zero "" . +Grad C: Alright . +PhD E: OK . +Grad C: OK . +PhD E: But it 's perhaps more difficult for the people to prepare the database then , if {disfmarker} because here you only have zeros +Professor A: No , they just write {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} and people pronounce "" O "" or zero {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} they write down OH . or they write down ZERO a and they {disfmarker} and they each have their own pronunciation . +PhD E: Yeah but if the sh the sheet was prepared with a different sign for the "" O "" . +Professor A: But people wouldn't know what that wa I mean {vocalsound} there is no convention for it . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . +Professor A: See . I mean , you 'd have to tell them {vocalsound} "" OK when we write this , say it tha "" , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: you know , and you just {disfmarker} They just want people to read the digits as you ordinarily would +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and people say it different ways . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad C: OK . Is this a change from the last batch of {disfmarker} of um forms ? Because in the last batch it was spelled out which one you should read . +PhD E: Yeah , it was orthographic , so . +Professor A: Yes . That 's right . It was {disfmarker} it was spelled out , and they decided they wanted to get at more the way people would really say things . +Grad C: Oh . OK . +Professor A: That 's also why they 're {disfmarker} they 're bunched together in these different groups . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Everything 's fine . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: OK . Actually , let me just s since {disfmarker} since you brought it up , I was just {disfmarker} it was hard not to be self - conscious about that when it {vocalsound} after we {disfmarker} since we just discussed it . But I realized that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} when I 'm talking on the phone , certainly , and {disfmarker} and saying these numbers , {vocalsound} I almost always say zero . And uh {disfmarker} cuz {disfmarker} because uh i it 's two syllables . It 's {disfmarker} it 's more likely they 'll understand what I said . So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's the habit I 'm in , but some people say "" O "" and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah I normally say "" O "" cuz it 's easier to say . +Professor A: Yeah it 's shorter . Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} So . {vocalsound} So uh . +Grad B: "" O "" +Professor A: Now , don't think about it . +Grad B: Oh , no ! +Professor A: OK . We 're done . +","Professor A, PhD E, Grad B, and Grad C discuss various topics, including systems data, voice activity detection (VAD), and research methods. They consider issues like training data volume, the impact of adaptation on error rates, different ways of saying digits (zero vs. O), and the limitations of their equipment. The conversation also covers ideas for extending existing work, such as improving reverberation handling, and they plan to record more digits before finishing their meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right well . Welcome to the {disfmarker} what should be the last of these meetings and uh it looks like we've uh done a good job here and uh we'll just go through the the final uh the final details . Um okay , oh the um th the the minutes of the last meeting uh I think we'll take those as read , um {disfmarker} Okay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the um th the the next uh thing we we we'll have a look at the uh th have a look at the prototypes and uh look at the uh evaluation criteria and finance and then uh uh just tidy up with production and um and then we can close . Um So f if if you'd like to uh present your your proposals . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay we basically have the same kinda lay-out here it's just um you hold it like this and it gets kinda moulded to the to the shape of your hand , basically . Um on the left we've got the scroll for the volume , on the right we have buttons for the channels up and down and that kinda {disfmarker} so you can hold it and scroll , or you can hold it and and push . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is the power key , um it's kinda like the biggest so you know how to turn on . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's the little menu key . This is the infra-red section so you g it'll be sending rays and if you're you know pointing it like that it can send it , +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: or if you hold it up like that it'll send it . +Project Manager: yeah , good , good . +Industrial Designer: Uh we got a microphone there which for all the voice commands +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so you can you know talk to it like that +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: and it'll still understand . +Project Manager: right . +Industrial Designer: Um the logo is down down there um +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {gap} has the cover on it +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: and you can see like it just kinda goes {disfmarker} the red bit's the cover and it kinda goes over everything +Project Manager: Yep , yep , +Industrial Designer: and then there's holes for the buttons to come through . Um . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And so we figured it would be kind of you know a light weight plastic , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: just kind of a light {vocalsound} non-descript grey +Project Manager: Yep yep . +User Interface: so that people'll wanna buy the covers +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: and then the covers will be that sort of rubbery material like they make iPod covers , +Project Manager: {gap} showing me age , +User Interface: so they kinda just stretch over . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know what i c iPod covers are like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah . +User Interface: I I didn't know that but yeah they're kind of {disfmarker} it's just kind of a rubbery {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and that way {disfmarker} you know +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: spongy like is something that people wanted +Project Manager: yep , right . +User Interface: and it just sort of stretches over +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and that way I think probably helps protect it a little bit too as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also e e easier to put on versus like mobile covers +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you actually have to screw them on and stuff and you kinda sometimes have to get someone to do that for you . This is very much you should be able to stretch it over yourself +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: just kinda stretch it over +Industrial Designer: and it'll be fine . +Project Manager: Okay , good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it'll just stay on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then the buttons come through and so {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} each one of 'em on the very end will have the logo with the yellow circle and the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Yep , right . +Industrial Designer: Li that'll be {gap} the covers as well , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean tha it's it's a detailed point , I just wondered {disfmarker} I mean h how will people put these down I wonder ? +User Interface: Like that . +Project Manager: Right . Okay {gap} for some strange re reason I had it in my mind that they'd put them down vertically +Industrial Designer: Yeah it could stand , yeah . +Project Manager: but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well we could broaden the {disfmarker} broaden it out a bit +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh no +Industrial Designer: so it would stand like that . +Project Manager: because {gap} particularly if they've dif if they're gonna have it as a you know as a fashion item +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} standing . +Project Manager: uh I mean it it's uh it it's just I mean it's just a minor detailed point , but um as you say you can just make the base a little bit bigger and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could just widen it out uh +Project Manager: Yeah and uh it just needs another uh another logo somewhere is is is is all it gives gives people the option and if if say if they've got them um {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because {gap} actually have several {gap} upon the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Could have one for your stereo , one for your {gap} D_V_ player . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Have to {disfmarker} if we just lengthen it I guess +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Industrial Designer: so it comes down to the base of the hand +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: but that that's uh {disfmarker} but uh +User Interface: just kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then flatten it out +Project Manager: no +Industrial Designer: and could sit there . +Project Manager: the the the overall uh the overall concept is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} mm . +User Interface: Or just make it little . +Project Manager: yeah yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Somewhere like that +Project Manager: no no , I mean that's {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it just sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We might {gap} have to lengthen it +Marketing: Yeah I kinda had a a kinda {disfmarker} a natural kind of a idea +Industrial Designer: so it kinda {disfmarker} your hand still holds it and have it there , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , yeah like that , like that {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: where it's like more of a kind of {disfmarker} like a kinda maybe slightly like thinner , +User Interface: Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , kinda like that kinda {gap} like a flower or a plant +Project Manager: But uh yeah {disfmarker} but no th but the {disfmarker} yeah the the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: for the more natural kinda {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The final product would actually stand up , yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I mean it it's uh {disfmarker} wouldn't +User Interface: {gap} fall over . +Project Manager: wouldn't do that , indeed yeah . But th th but th yeah th b the +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these were all minor minor uh minor details , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the uh the basic concept i i is is absolutely bang on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . 'S a little longer . +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} i +Industrial Designer: Wee {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it certainly meets our criteria of being uh {disfmarker} of you know looking different . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: good that's that that's excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right let us um What's on the next one ? Oh right yes , let's have a look at the um f finance . Um , now we're given a a clear design brief , uh if I {gap} get the uh spreadsheet up . Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {vocalsound} just click there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh the the maximise button . +Project Manager: Oh right . Ah . Good , this is why we need to make these things simple so that the uh the the the boss can understand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I've um {vocalsound} this is the company's uh uh costing for for various uh uh aspects of design and I I I've treated some of these slightly uh liberally given the constraints placed on us , um I wouldn't know for in for instance if if they require us to have it in the corporate colours , then that is not a special colour , that's a that's a standard colour . Uh , so we're just simply on batteries , the the one th the one decision I've had to make is that um we're {vocalsound} we will have to find a s a regular standard chip to to do this with and I I um I'm I'm I'm certain that they they are around so , um that I don't think is a a serious problem . The uh the the voice sensor is is expensive but we we made a a basic decision that that was absolutely fundamental to the to the design so that that has to stay . Um then again the the the the shape of the case means that it's it's expensive to uh um l to make 'cause of the the th the double curves but on the other hand because of our overall fashion concept um we we should exceed the the sales targets . Um it's simply made of plastic so th that's uh that's no problem and uh um just because the whole {gap} the colour of the the whole thing that's uh uh there's some cost there . Um and uh we haven't actually got a scroll wheel we we we got push buttons and and a simple uh um {vocalsound} slider so um and the and the the buttons are uh uh well I do don't know that they're special colour . Anyway the the costings uh come in at {disfmarker} exactly on target at twelve point five uh but I thi I think we have a a very strong case to argue that uh what what we've got is is so in innovative and uh and different that um {vocalsound} any any slight compromise we have to make on on cost is is offset by the uh you know the uh you know the the the the concept of it being a a fashion accessory and and having the the interchangeable covers +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh um you know the {disfmarker} if if if the management expect us to be techno {gap} again {gap} fail again {disfmarker} technologically innovative um that they they have to accept that we we can't operate absolutely within uh the constraints that they give , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh we we we present this as the uh the company's uh the the company's way forward and uh uh I I think we can argue that we we have uh come in on on budget . Um . Okay , uh . So um . Does anybody want to uh {disfmarker} uh Andrew do you want {disfmarker} what do you want to say about um the uh yeah the evaluation +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: where where you know well where where we're where where we're at ? +Marketing: The {vocalsound} the product or the project ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the well the {disfmarker} I meant the product . +Marketing: Um , well well my presentation just now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , uh can I get the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh sorry yeah um , mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . More loud clicks in the microphone . +Marketing: Cheers . {vocalsound} There we go , oh . Method of evaluation {vocalsound} testing the product was to just {gap} if it met all the criteria {disfmarker} all the conditions that we set out to set out to solve , from the point of view of the the consumer and the management . So what I've been asked to do is , on the whiteboard +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um gauge our team response to these questions . So , on a scale of one to seven , one being true and seven being being false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Seven being a nice round number to work to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And then at the end just take an average +Project Manager: Tr On for true and seven for flase . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh . {vocalsound} So , look at these questions . Is the device f flashy and fashionable ? +Project Manager: Well I think most definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'd say definitely a one yeah . +User Interface: I think it is yeah . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} and also uh technologically innovative ? +Project Manager: Yes the voice technology indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , defi yeah , yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: I don't see we could've made it any easier . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh suitable for the consumer ? That was um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah I think it made {disfmarker} we met all of the consumer +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: wants . +Marketing: Uh is it complicated ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Doing pretty well so far aren't we ? {vocalsound} Uh functional ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} Where are we ? +Project Manager: {gap} found easily . {gap} yeah +Marketing: We've b built in the the speech , where are you , function . +Project Manager: I mean that's that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Does it take long to learn to use ? Shouldn't . +Industrial Designer: No , not at all . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And uh , what else ? {vocalsound} The R_S_I_ compares to the current standards , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less buttons so it must be . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: well . We we +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: uh yeah it was our {disfmarker} it was a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} it is sorta the the handle more ergonomically correct as well . +Marketing: we made an actual effort to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yeah , um um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um will device appeal to all age groups ? +Project Manager: I think it will because I mean uh old older people who can't manage the buttons anyway will actually probably like the like like the voice bit so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: uh that's a good call , yeah . Well we had the we had the data {gap} saying that old people will be less likely to pay extra money but the funct the increased functionality , {vocalsound} the e ease of use of the device might make up for that . +Project Manager: And it's it's it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: well I don't think we're actually charging a particular premium anyway , in the end , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I I think it will tend to appeal more to younger aged groups +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just 'cause we have gone with the fashion focus +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the younger people tend to {disfmarker} would be more conscious of that aspect of it , but um I think it should still appeal on a certain level to everybody , yeah . +Project Manager: It will appeal f for dif for different reasons but it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think just the simplicity of it +Project Manager: yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and +Project Manager: so I I {disfmarker} yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: not having to learn to programme +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: and not having you know a million buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , so I think we can reasonably say it's another another one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh can you just click the my mouse to move onto next page ? Uh , yeah and what h did we make the management's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} in in in in my interpretation of management's instructions uh is that yes it it meets the requirement +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is t it's television only , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: it's it's simple to use , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um it's it's it's within budget , +User Interface: Under the cost . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: um I {disfmarker} it's uh {disfmarker} yes an an any minor points we we we argue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: So uh I I think we've done an amazing job +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: in uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well done us {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} coming up with what {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So uh one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven . Eleven divided by {vocalsound} eleven's one so {vocalsound} equals average of one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Need a need a calculator for that . +Marketing: And that roughly concludes my evaluation of the of the product . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excellent . +Project Manager: {gap} nick the cable back then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh no +User Interface: I mixed up the colours a little bit . +Industrial Designer: that's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think I {gap} all wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ooh . Right do um either of you want to uh say anything ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Before I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ps I don't think so , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I think we worked well together +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and looked really at what the consumers wanted and what we were trying to make +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you know , seemed to discuss things pretty well +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and come to group consensus and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's right , I mean th this this slide here I mean the satisfaction with uh room for creativity , I mean +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: I think we've allowed ourselves uh as much creativity as the uh the the the product uh allows . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I won't comment on leadership , uh teamwork I think we've uh {disfmarker} I think everybody's uh worked pretty well together . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we've just about coped with the whiteboard and digital pens , uh I think the results speak for itself +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and new ideas found , um , again gi no given relatively everyday product , I think we've v very uh very effectively come up with a a new uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: uh a new approach . Um are the costs within budget ? Yes . Is the project evaluated ? We're we're all happy that it it meets all the criteria , um +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Thank you very much indeed , I think that {disfmarker} I think that's uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool , thank you {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I think we can go f for an early bath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I call the meeting closed . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Not sure how far ahead of schedule we were there . +","In a recent project meeting, which appears to be the final in a series, team members gathered to hash out the remaining details of an innovative new product. The project manager, representing the leadership of the team, welcomed everyone and suggested they forgo reading out the minutes from the last gathering, instead moving directly to the current agenda. Topics on the docket included reviewing the prototypes, discussing evaluation criteria and finances, and addressing the last touches on production before wrapping up the project. + +The industrial designer presented the prototype of a remote control device designed to fit comfortably in the user's hand, with thoughtful placement of various features for optimal usability: a scroll for volume control on the left, channel buttons on the right, a prominently sized power key, and a small menu key. The design also incorporated an infra-red section for signal transmission, which could operate in various orientations, and a microphone for voice commands, indicating a focus on both traditional and modern control methods. + +The team discussed the materials and aesthetics of the product, deciding on lightweight plastic in a non-descript grey color to encourage the sale of additional protective covers made from a rubbery, iPod-cover-like material. The design intention behind these interchangeable covers was twofold: they would add a fashion element, appealing to users' desire for customization, and they would offer extra protection for the device. Moreover, the covers were designed to be user-friendly, able to be stretched over the device by the owners themselves without the need for tools, a choice that adds to the overall simplicity and usability of the product. + +The team also reviewed the financial aspects of the project. The project manager displayed an awareness of the costing across various elements, such as the expensive voice sensor deemed essential for the product vision, and the shape of the case which, despite adding production costs, aligned with the perceived value of the 'fashion concept.' The project manager then brought up components that could affect cost such as battery choice and the color scheme, ultimately suggesting that the innovative features justified any minor cost overruns given the product's alignment with company goals of offering a fashionable, distinct accessory. + +An evaluation criteria exercise was conducted where team members rated various aspects of the product on a scale, addressing its flashiness, technological innovation, ease of use, consumer suitability, and appeal across different age groups, among other factors. The consensus highlighted that the device met or exceeded expectations in all categories, thereby cementing the project team's confidence in their product. + +Throughout the meeting, there was a strong sense of teamwork, with each member actively contributing to the discussions, evaluations, and decisions. The project manager complimented the group on their effective collaboration and creative problem-solving, considering the constraints and objectives set by the company. Notably, the project team had effectively stayed within budget while still achieving an inventive approach to what was otherwise a familiar consumer product category. + +Laudatory comments on the design and function permeated the discussion, with particular praise for the thorough consideration given to the product's usability for all age groups. The project manager noted that minor details regarding how the device would physically sit or stand on a surface could be tweaked without compromising the overall concept. As the product seemed to successfully address the management's directives to be television-specific, simple, unique, and within budget parameters, there was a shared sentiment of accomplishment among the team members. + +In conclusion, the team deemed the project a success, supported by a collective sense that their deliverable was not only technologically innovative and easy to use but also had a strong consumer appeal. Content with their collaborative efforts and the results, the project manager officially closed the meeting, acknowledging that they may have finished ahead of schedule." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi Kate . {vocalsound} Okay , carry on . +Industrial Designer: Just just carry on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright um this is the beginning of the third meeting , the conceptual design meeting . Um our agenda should be um that we're opening the meeting , I have {disfmarker} the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point . Um and we should each have a presentation to make . Um we have certain decisions to make and we have forty minutes total . It's twenty five after two at the moment , so forty minutes is five after three , {vocalsound} um which I'll be keeping an eye on the clock for us . Okay . {vocalsound} Um there are the decisions we have to turn to , but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting . Right um as we remember , I opened the meeting , the four of us were present , the meeting {disfmarker} the first meeting's minutes were reviewed and approved . Um Sarah , you presented a marketing research report um which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds uh it has to be hand-held , power , channel , volume , number keys , possibly a speech recognition . And then Steph did a second presentation um that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use . I think all of us agreed with those things . Kate presented a working design of {disfmarker} going after {disfmarker} going over the basics on the whiteboard um that it should be a simple mass-produced device , because of the twelve and a half Pence cost . Um but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point . Um and the new requirements that it for {disfmarker} be for T_V_ only um and that it include the l so slogan and colour of the uh corporate design be included . Um {vocalsound} the corporate image . So we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense , that were decision makers . Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_ , but it still should meet those parameters . Um and that the function we agreed was volume , power , numbers , enter , channels , a way to move between channels , easy to use and hand-held . {vocalsound} Um at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition , what what do the current ones sell for . Um and Steph was gonna look at ec ergonomics . Kate was gonna look at cost and feasibility of the various possibilities that we discussed . And I was to type up these minutes and work on the final report . Is this a fair presentation of what our last meeting was ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . So we're ready to close that and go back to our {disfmarker} That one . Right . We're up to the point of the {disfmarker} Go back . Um {vocalsound} the three presentations . So we're going to pull the plug on me and turn to Sarah . Is that okay ? Is that alright with everybody else ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Especially since Kate asked to be last . {vocalsound} Sarah , I'm sorry if I misspelled your name , I didn't know whether it was S_A_R_A_ or {vocalsound} S_A_R_H_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I respond to either . +Project Manager: You respond to whatever you get , huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No worries . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did you do your {disfmarker} Hit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} +Project Manager: Ah , there it is . Ta-da . +Marketing: Okay , first thing I want to address is um one of the points that Florence brought up , which was uh current cost of the competition devices , similar to the ones that Stephanie uh showed us and and they're uh twenty to sixty Euros , depending on uh branding . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Some of them that have a higher brand recognition are on the more expensive end . But I think that with the current um price that we're searching for , we're well within , even on the lower end , of the uh of the market . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm going to move on to more interesting um {vocalsound} more vibrant things . {vocalsound} So , I investigated the remote control market in greater detail , and my uh {disfmarker} the theme of what I was to work on was uh trend watch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm glad to see the marketing budget is being so well spent on {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know that you all are a distance from cutting edge marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you know , I'm just gonna try to cloak it in really professional terms here . What's hot , fruit and veg . Spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this is all over the catwalks , Paris , Milan , and I'm talking about clothing , furniture , shoes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is really interesting change from past years , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it is much more organic , um some would say approachable . {vocalsound} And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control , we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset . So . {vocalsound} I also did a little research on um {vocalsound} what again are the most important priorities in uh decision making about uh purchasing . Fancy . Functional is out . And f the fancy , and that's exactly the term , I'm I'm thinking polished , elegant , {vocalsound} you know , kind of innovative , but a cut above . This is twice as important as the next finding , which is technologically innovative . This is interesting , 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important , but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with um with uh technologically {vocalsound} superior fabrics or uh , you know , designed in interesting substances . Ease of use . Again , pretty low , I mean it's the top three , but each of the uh fancy and technologically innovative are far more important . So I think we should cloak the streamlined remote control device in a series of {vocalsound} fruit {vocalsound} fruit themed sleeves . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that's a good idea . Don't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It sounds like the the uh covers that they use for the remote , you know , your t your cell phone . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . I was thinking though that instead of having something uh like patterned , you know , so , you know , something similar to a summer dress . {gap} you know , it would have like fruit and veg , is that we actually make these spongy . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They could be {disfmarker} ini initially I thought we could start with kind of um fruit that would suit kind of uh a long uh hand-held , so banana , pineapple and pear . Um it could actually {disfmarker} the sleeve could {vocalsound} take up a lot of the {vocalsound} development and the remote control , we'd just need to get reductionist on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: They could be interchangeable , they're spongy , that goes back to ergonomic , and the youngsters love 'em , fun for the whole family , everyone can have their own . So what we're talking about is changing . this concept . Everyone has a T_V_ remote , but then we add in the fact that they could each have their own individual fruit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what's hot on the catwalks . {vocalsound} So , this is my {disfmarker} This is what I'm thinking . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh mm . In most families , don't {disfmarker} isn't the remote {disfmarker} is a remote . +Marketing: Y yeah , but I think I think what this would allow is perhaps a person in the family who had the most opinion about it {disfmarker} we all need a remote , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising , I'm thinking the teenager , the {disfmarker} someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So when your dad's sitting there , overriding your decision , going no we're gonna watch this , you can bring out your own remote and be like zap , no we're gonna watch this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . W and {vocalsound} plus I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Well actually some households do have three and four T_V_s +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: and they would have a remote for each one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +Marketing: Yeah . So this is an idea and I I {disfmarker} you know , this is exactly what the research has uh has shown . So I really open this up to uh any other feedback . This {vocalsound} spongy fruit and veg . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Spongy is gonna be difficult , I'm afraid . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} And as for as for um well budgeting as well , if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I just have my ear to the market , guys . {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is this {gap} to the market {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean basically we can make these things out of wood , titanium , plastic or rubber . I suppose rubber is the closest to spongy , +Marketing: Is spongiest , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: That would add {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking titanium myself . +User Interface: I was thinking titanium , I was thinking it's just {disfmarker} I have been influenced by pictures of iPods , and they're also minimalist and shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} They are and they they would fulfil the uh first um priority , which is fancy . I think many of us would associate those with fancy . Something else we could do is uh call it something that's fruit and veg oriented . We could call it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The name . +Project Manager: Are we talking about the device itself or the c or a cover for the device that would be an interchangeable cov cover as a separate product ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well it would be uh a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management +User Interface: Yeah , but it's kind of pointless , isn't it ? +Project Manager: and perhaps go to another group to actually design as a separate product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That , you know , that might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's delegate . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wo would that be agreeable ? +Marketing: And then we could keep it titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} W w would it be helpful if um I described the components a bit , because I think it would give you um {disfmarker} maybe bring this discussion back to Earth of what we can actually physically do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna be next or you want Kate to go next ? +User Interface: I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll move the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can even have them in different flavours as well . {vocalsound} So that if you just wanna sit there and chew on the remote , it could be like pear flavour , +Marketing: Yeah . Or s or smelly . Scratchy +User Interface: yeah . Scratch and sniff . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well I was really thinking a lot about the I_ uh the iMac kind of gel gem tone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , well +Marketing: It's hot on the streets , guys . +Industrial Designer: I I I think some of this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you , but I'm afraid this is the real world . {vocalsound} So um I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate , and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division , who have told me what's actually available , you know , what the current state of the art in components is , and some of the exciting new things they've got , but I'm not sure that it's quite what you want um . Now this isn't a very good overhead , but this is just to show you , this is the innards of a remote control um . I really need a pen or something but uh {disfmarker} does my mouse work ? No . Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , can you see my little mouse pointer ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . This is this is the a a {vocalsound} a remote that's been opened up +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and that's the the back of the interface . And this is a push-button one , so you see these little little buttons here , they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here . Um {vocalsound} and we {disfmarker} that's the basic construction that we've got to got to accommodate . We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that um talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver . So um I wan I wanna go through not not just addressing the um {vocalsound} uh the the points that you made , Sarah , but um {vocalsound} doing my presentation in the order I wrote it . {vocalsound} So first of all um I wanna talk about what possibilities we've got for the energy source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable um little compartment . We can have a hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A wind-up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: a wind-up , yeah , {vocalsound} which I think is quite an interesting concept for a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} for a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but i it maybe is {disfmarker} doesn't quite go with the um the fruit and veg . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remember , we only have forty minutes +Industrial Designer: where um {vocalsound} you you actually get the energy by moving the device , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which is quite a ni a nice and neat one . You have to {disfmarker} it means that if it's sitting there for a long time it probably won't work , but you have to sort of throw it between your hands every now and then , it'll work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or we we had talked about solar power , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I thing that we agreed that that's not so good in the dark . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case . It can be made of plastic , rubber , wood o if you like , {vocalsound} or titanium . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber , but um {vocalsound} I'm gonna come back to the advantages of titanium , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and basically it can have a flat surface , a curved surface or a double curved surface , but I think if we wanna use standard components , we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what does the interface look like ? Um well push button , that's that's the one we're all familiar with . {vocalsound} Um we can have scroll buttons and the the scroll button can incorporate a push , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down , change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something . {vocalsound} Um you can have multiple scroll buttons , um this is maybe getting a little bit complicated , but um it's it {disfmarker} the technology is there . And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote , but this will increase the cost . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um the electronics that actually makes the device work , we've basically got three , simple , regular , advanced , and the price goes up as we choose each of this . If we want the nice cheap one , the simple , then we can only have push buttons . All the other fancy interface designs go out the window , I'm afraid . Um pay a little bit more for a regular chip and you can have scroll buttons . If you want the advanced chip it obviously costs more , but it {disfmarker} that's what you need if you want the L_C_D_ display . And the manufacturing devision tell me that they have recently developed um sample sensor sample speaker devices . Now I don't know what that is , but I think they think it's quite important and we might want to incorporate it somewhere . Um ou our real expertise is in push buttons , I have to say , but maybe you think that's old technology . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} well I I think we've got two options . We can either go for a really cheap model , keep all of the costs down , um which {vocalsound} means a flat plastic case with an ordinary battery and simple push buttons . Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer , I think it , um won't necessarily l uh look like a pineapple , but um that {vocalsound} may or may not be a good thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons , and it could have the the company's new development of the um sample sensor and speaker . {vocalsound} So , thank you . +Marketing: That sounds good . Any idea {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you you mentioned that there would be a cost difference . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Um do you have any idea if if this could {disfmarker} if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty ? +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I don't have that information available . Um manufacturing didn't actually give {disfmarker} attach any prices to any of this , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . Because , you know what , I'm being quite serious when I say that that um the things I mentioned are hot . But I think the important thing might be to choose one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah mm-hmm . +Marketing: You know , if if what you're telling me is is um some of these things aren't just f aren't feasible , maybe we could something about naming , we could call it , you know , Blackberry . +User Interface: Bear bear in mind it has to be the colours and styles of the company , +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Banana ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , well let's see then . +User Interface: But um I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's just what I'd understood we'd be doing . That's before I heard about all this hot tips about the future , fruit-wise . +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: We we could we could do um a double curved rubber one , +Marketing: I'm trying to streamline mine a little bit . +Industrial Designer: which would allow um say a banana , but um unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that , we have to have a push button as the interface , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we can't do anything fancier . +User Interface: Shall we wait 'til I've 'til I've showed you what {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} my extensive presentation {vocalsound} on what sort of interfaces are available . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . Thank you , Kate . +Project Manager: Thank you , Kate . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You did seem to include just in more detail what I've got though . So {vocalsound} so mine's a bit pointless . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: F_N_ and F_ eight , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yes . There we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have it on mine though . +Marketing: Oh I think um Florence resolved it by +Industrial Designer: I If you do F_ uh F_N_ F_ eight again , it's {disfmarker} it'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do it again . +Marketing: F_ eight again . +Project Manager: Keep doing it until you get it in both {disfmarker} you get it there , you get it yours without that one , +Industrial Designer: I think it {disfmarker} yeah , you you will do an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you get it with both . +User Interface: Should I do it again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This time it should come up both . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right then . I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: just that my method was to look at the , well , my my inspirations , which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing , including M_P_ three players , uh like you know , hi-fi remotes , not just television and these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones , um what functions we actually need , and then how to group and arrange these on the actual the actual plastic or rubber hand-held piece . {vocalsound} Uh I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel , which {disfmarker} Well , I couldn't find a {disfmarker} the picture of the iPod w only linked to a web browser , so I couldn't copy and paste it , but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right . It has uh scroll wheels without without a display , but they they scroll like a computer mouse . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I was thinking that uh {vocalsound} um a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it um and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen . Like I guess an existing Sky or cable one does . Like , you know , you press enter and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment , and you can do {disfmarker} you can scroll along and it'll show you what's on in the next half hour , and you scroll up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen . Uh but I'm also equally taken with this chunky plastic kiddie remote , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice , big , easy buttons to press , but still quite simple and quite cost effective . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple , uh not fancy but not totally minimalist , I mean just pretty simple plastic , probably , I was thinking , yellow and black , just because that's the company's colours , with very very few buttons , but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen , like , you know , {vocalsound} just small along the bottom instead of instead of having the iPod style display screen on the actual remotes , which is far too expensive . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And when you've got a screen sitting there in front of you , you might as well have it appearing uh on the screen in front of you , it doesn't obscure much of the actual picture you're watching . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And so on that you can , just much in the same way as an existing Sky remote , scroll along , scroll up and down . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd I'd certainly support that idea . +User Interface: And uh and I definitely support uh the use of plastic and or rubber . I mean titanium would be great , but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey . If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic , then I think titanium's too futuristic . +Industrial Designer: It's difficult to make fancy shapes in it as well , we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately . +User Interface: Yeah . Whereas a plastic's so cheap and easy and mouldable and everything else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea , 'cause um {vocalsound} otherwise we're we're putting up the price not only for putting {disfmarker} building the L_C_D_ in , but for the electronics as well . +User Interface: And it's a little bit pointless as well I think . +Industrial Designer: There is that . +User Interface: Like when when when you've got when you've got the screen there , it doesn't have to be anything fancy , +Marketing: It's a duplication . +User Interface: just a little menu showing {disfmarker} yeah , a menu , you go into one menu and then it can have your different options , whether you wanna change the settings or the you know , your information about programme that's on at the moment . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think that's to taxing to uh s engineer . {vocalsound} Um . But as for actually arranging them {disfmarker} let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one . And I quite like it , 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons that quite nicely uh spaced out , so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle . Up , down , left , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want scroll buttons in that as well ? +User Interface: I I was thinking not actually scroll , like a like mouse scroll , but you know , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I can't quite d uh describe it . {gap} you see on the one on the right , down at the bottom , is the mouse . Yeah , see where the mouse is , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like this s style thing where you c have up , down , left and right . And enter in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: so you pick your menu and then {disfmarker} your different options and when when you click on each one , it {disfmarker} you can go into a new menu for that . I'm getting a bit uh specific here . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Really we'd have to use something to show you , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think I think that's a g nice clean design , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's playing to our strengths which are in push button technology . +Marketing: {vocalsound} To uh m make it . +User Interface: If {disfmarker} I don't think I can get it up on the screen . Ah here we go . Right . +Marketing: Oh nice . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: the iPod spinning wheel is uh really complicated . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does scroll , but it is hugely complicated . What else have we got ? +Marketing: Mm . Wow . +User Interface: Them , they're terrible . But they all have this this feature of this uh {disfmarker} It's not quite a scroll wheel , but it's a kind of selection in this circle , +Project Manager: It's a selection wheel . +User Interface: which I think is a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: But we can implement it with simple push buttons , which is much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah , like up , down , left and right . Which is good . And then and then {disfmarker} Yeah , so I mean either a channel up and down , volume up and down , next appearing programmes up and down , {vocalsound} uh and then also {vocalsound} when you get into the different menus on the screen , it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So all you really need is these four buttons with the enter in the middle . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Industrial Designer: In fact {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Look at look at this one . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's really nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost impossible to misplace or l or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do you think with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Might take up your whole living room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It seems that that uh you guys are quite keen on the plastic , perhaps the {disfmarker} something reminiscent of the child's remote . Do you think we could put it in a in a fruit colour ? And have it abstract . You know , +User Interface: Possibly . +Marketing: we could call {vocalsound} like a fruit name , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it would be a little more abstract . +Industrial Designer: Mm . We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather {disfmarker} if you feel {disfmarker} if you like the spongy {disfmarker} +User Interface: That also is possible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm just just throwing out ideas . +Project Manager: Or call it a or call it a banana and have it in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just something else I need to bring to your attention is have you have you seen these on a remote ? This is actually the volume up and down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} they both say V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which , when you first look at it , {vocalsound} you expect that to be the down , because it looks like a downward pointing arrow , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: but it's actually the V_ to indicate that it's the volume , so uh we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Nice . Good point . +User Interface: But we wouldn't have a specific volume up and down . If we're having the scroll wheel , then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: But then , that's complicated . +Project Manager: I wanna thank you all for all your presentations . We have about ten minutes left , in which time we have to make some decisions on the remote control concepts . Um and I think you all have been self-stimulating of working together . Um we need to come up with some specifics of the components , um the materials , things like making the decision on the energy um and the case and the interface type things . So {vocalsound} let's {disfmarker} Mm . Right . They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use , which {disfmarker} the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery , kinetic or solar . Um this is where Kate's expertise comes in , and our decision making will be a little bit guided by Kate at this point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} You were saying that the kinetic would be useful , that is you just have to move it some and you'd be able to use it um as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or um keep replacing the batteries . Um or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day , that it'll die on you , and no way to do it . That's the day you wanna use the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um so what's our pleasure here , what would be the cost consequences of each of the three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh unfortunately I don't have costing information . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I i in terms of workability , I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but I'm sorry I don't figures on the difference in cost . +Project Manager: What's the uh feelings of the group on the kinetic ? +Marketing: I've used kinetic in terms of watches and it's very very uh handy , you don't even notice um that it's there . +User Interface: It sounds great . I've never come across it before , but it sounds fantastic . Sounds like it could be g a really good economical {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it would make the whole thing a lot lighter , more convenient . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: It could tie in with the fanciful design +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: as uh , you know , {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause it's really a quite attractive thought , +Marketing: throw the banana , you know , just gotta keep it moving . +User Interface: isn't it ? It's like {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible . +User Interface: a good selling point . +Marketing: Be +User Interface: But it does depend how much I mean how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs . +Project Manager: It costs . {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: And and how much you do have to keep it moving , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm conscious that watching T_V_ can be quite a sed sedentary activity . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But I could market that as a um as a {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I was thinking actually a a cost saver down the road , in terms of battery , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do your exercises while you're watching the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah , m more more environmentally friendly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . You know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: kind of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thanks for the reminder for five minutes to finish , thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision . +Industrial Designer: I'd {disfmarker} that that's something I maybe should have covered . Um chip on print is just a manufacturing technique +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: um and I would certainly recommend it , I think , because I'm not sure I have an alternative . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What about the ca +Industrial Designer: I i it it's just the way that the the the uh th the way it's ac it's actually built +Project Manager: yeah . Oh , the way we {gap} uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: and you you print onto the circuit board like you might print onto paper . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Um what about the case ? I think they're talking there about do we want wood , plastic , titanium or rubber , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think we've discussed not having titanium . One , it's too expensive , um and second , it won't do this double um curves . Um we've sort of eliminated wood . We said plastic or rubber . What's the pleasure ? +Industrial Designer: Well if if Sarah's keen on a spongy feel , the the rubber that we're talking about is the same as you have in those little stress balls , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's exactly what I was thinking . I'm sold . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: What about you ? +User Interface: Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside , and then a kind of spongy Yeah , s thick spongy cover , +Marketing: Mm . Kind of like an internal egg . +Project Manager: Cover . +User Interface: so it feels like the whole thing's spongy , but actually you're not damaging anything by squeezing it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Plastic inside . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Because I mean you could just get carried away with the with the tac +Industrial Designer: I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible , but I agree , it's uh {disfmarker} sounds like a nice idea if it is . +User Interface: Yeah . Well you do get a bit carried away with things that are tactile , you just wanna stroke them and squeeze them , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And with sports on television . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: You know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the next part they want is the user interface concept . +Industrial Designer: I should I should r {gap} +Marketing: I su +Project Manager: I'm sorry to push you , but we only have a couple minutes to {vocalsound} finish with . +Marketing: Then I'll just say I support either {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that . +Project Manager: Okay , and it says interface . What type and what supplements ? +User Interface: Just copy the one on the left . {vocalsound} No um a scroll {disfmarker} Well , like four buttons , up , down , left and right with enter in the middle , that will correspond to a menu on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Which I think technically is just push button and uh I'd certainly support that that +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: that brings the cost down quite a lot +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} like push buttons with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's something that we're an ex the company's an expert on . +User Interface: So push buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} that's that . Um this is gonna sound weird , but the next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Whew . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they actually want a look and feel design , user interface design , you can look and see this as well as I can . Marketing they want product evaluation . +User Interface: No , it's still it's still plugged in on mine actually . +Marketing: No we can't , actually . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh my , I'm sorry . +Marketing: That's why I was looking over your shoulder +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Sorry about that . missed that one . This ought to be fun trying to get this thing to work . Ah , ta-da . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now it's gone again . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: You know , I think the the company's s next project should to design a better overhead device that switches immediately . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , because I can't even see mine . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +User Interface: Oh yes . +Project Manager: these are {vocalsound} the individual actions . Yeah , right . Um the look and feel design is for Kate , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: uh Steph gets the user interface design , you get product {vocalsound} evaluation . Um the two of you {vocalsound} get to play with a Pla modelling clay um to do a prototype . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Uh and everybody gets individual instructions in the usual way . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else we need to do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Project Manager: Go to it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Play-Doh . +Project Manager: And that's the end of this meeting . That's for her benefit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's really all I got , guys . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","A group of professionals including a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing Specialist gathered for the third conceptual design meeting to discuss the development of a new remote control device. The Project Manager, keeping track of the time constraints, opened the meeting by reviewing the minutes from the previous session, noting that it was the team's job to deliver individual presentations and make key decisions within a 40-minute window. + +During the previous meeting, the team had agreed on certain features for the remote control, targeting a demographic of 15 to 35-year-olds with discretionary income, highlighting the need for the device to be handheld with functionalities such as power, volume control, number keys, and possibly speech recognition. Also, they considered streamlined user-friendly keys, rechargeable batteries, a docking station, targeting T.V. use, incorporating corporate slogans and colors, and ensuring easy navigation between channels. + +Each team member had designated tasks following the last meeting. Sarah was to analyze the competition’s pricing, Steph was looking into ergonomics, Kate was exploring cost and feasibility, and the Project Manager was responsible for drafting minutes and finalizing the report. + +The current meeting commenced with presentations. Sarah, focusing on marketing insights, highlighted the remote control market trends inspired by fashion, suggesting the integration of technologically advanced fabrics with bold colors into a simple handset. She emphasized that polished elegance and technological innovation—over functionality—were key purchasing priorities for consumers. + +Meanwhile, Kate, in her role as an Industrial Designer, provided in-depth knowledge of the components, discussing energy options (battery, kinetic, solar), case materials (plastic, rubber, titanium), and interface types (push buttons, scroll buttons, LCD display). She conveyed the possibilities and limitations of each, emphasizing the need to balance design innovation with practical, manufacturable solutions. + +The User Interface Designer presented an array of interfaces, considering the simplicity and user-friendliness of the designs, proposing a minimalistic approach that could utilize the television screen for notifications instead of incorporating a costly built-in display. + +Following the presentations, the team began formulating decisions, settling on a kinetic energy source for its novelty and environmental friendliness, while avoiding more traditional batteries. There was a consensus to use rubber for a spongy, tactile feel of the case, possibly coupled with a hard plastic interior to protect the device's inner workings. For the user interface, they preferred simple push-button technology corresponding to an on-screen menu, streamlining costs and playing to the company’s manufacturing strengths. + +The Project Manager highlighted the urgency of the situation, as the next meeting was due to start in thirty minutes, where the team was expected to design concepts and interface layouts. Each member was tasked with individual responsibilities, including creating a prototype using modeling clay, with the Project Manager stressing the need for timely and efficient work to move forward with the project. + +The meeting concluded with a brief humorous remark about designing a more efficient overhead device, whereupon tasks were distributed, and members prepared for their subsequent work, marking the end of the session." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: I wanna find our if our remote works . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um here's the agenda for our last meeting . +Marketing: Whoohoo . +Project Manager: Um after the opening we're going to have a prototype presentation , then we're going to discuss the evaluation criteria and the financing of our remote . Then we're going to evaluate the product and I think the whole production process , and then we're gonna close it up , and we have forty minutes , so let's get started . Oh , no , let's have the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay , +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you ready ? +User Interface: Um sure . You or me ? +Industrial Designer: Y you read that stuff , since you wrote it . +User Interface: Okay . Well , since our materials aren't exactly what we were going for , I'm just gonna translate what this all means for you . +Industrial Designer: I'll be the Vanna . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The base is gonna be gunmetal gray , which is what we had decided , and it's gonna be plastic . Um then there's the latex cover , which is what you see as red . Um because it can be replaceable , we just kinda went with the colour . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Um and then the buttons are actually kind of poking through rather than on top . Um and the buttons will be a l much lighter blue , almost see-through . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's just sort of a very pale blue and a light-up yellow . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The whole thing lights up if you press any button , rather than it {disfmarker} just that one button will light up . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Um and then at the bottom we have our logo . Um bright yellow sort of design with the R_R_ {vocalsound} which will actually look like our logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +User Interface: And then on the side you have the buttons . {vocalsound} They're one button , but they kind of push up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I don't think they're scrolling . +Industrial Designer: No . They're just buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right , yeah . And then {disfmarker} yeah , the buttons . +Industrial Designer: On off switch will be here and as you've noticed on our prototype um they've ended up with a curvature kind of , by concave sort of thing , except for , you know , {gap} can't see underneath . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'm hoping that when we get to production we can actually make them like that , because they're very nice to stock {gap} you know , stick your finger in . Um the two squared buttons are are two probably least used , menu , mute , +User Interface: Thumb-shaped . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then these are the numbers , so our channel and our volume will be on either side . +User Interface: Yeah . And then the last thing is just that it'll be black labelling on top , just which we didn't do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And did you determine um the curvature of the bottom part of it for the hand , is it gonna be a single or a double ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a single . +Project Manager: Single . Single sounds good , +User Interface: Single . +Project Manager: 'cause it's not big enough to really constitute a double . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's only actually the size of my hand . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Great . Great . I think you did an awesome job . +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's a beautiful {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is beautiful , and it's everything that we discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Good job , you guys . +Project Manager: Good job . +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . +User Interface: Oh thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Those are really good . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: what's next in our agenda ? Um we're gonna discuss the evaluation criteria , and that's with Courtney . +Marketing: Okay , it's a PowerPoint presentation . I don't really know exactly what we should uh talk about . It's under evaluation . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Alright . Um so these are the criteria we're gonna ask , is it easy to use , is it fashionable uh {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we should write these down so we can reference them . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Feel good meaning what ? +Marketing: Like does it feel good , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Physically , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: yeah , physically . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Sqi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's just for current trend . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It doesn't really count , you guys . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was a little difficult to incorporate the cover with the cherry fruit on it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But it's {disfmarker} so we do have removable covers , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , well then that's covered . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: And so we n k everybody have that ? +Project Manager: I'll wait . +Marketing: Yeah , she's got it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's good . Yeah . Okay so , we're using the criteria uh for a seven point scale , and so we need to discuss how we feel . It falls within this range , so for easy to use , do we feel it's very easy to use ? +Project Manager: Are we going to indi +User Interface: True or false , easy to use . +Project Manager: I say we individually rate {disfmarker} what do you say ? +Marketing: You guys {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just orally . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Why not ? We have {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um easy to use . I vote six . +Marketing: Oh wait , that's false . +Project Manager: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: two . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd say two as well . +User Interface: Yeah , two . +Marketing: Two . That's what I say . +Project Manager: Uh hello , we're great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um one . +Industrial Designer: At the moment , no . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No . I mean like no , I think it's very fashionable . +Project Manager: Me too , very chic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I would give it a one . +Project Manager: One , I give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give it a two , because at the moment it's not looking that way . +Project Manager: Oh , and ma it's a prototype , +Marketing: Well , that's that's just like {disfmarker} that's a clay , it's a prototype . +Project Manager: right . +User Interface: Mm I don't think it's that fashionable . +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: I'd give it like three or four . +Project Manager: Well , now I'm {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , the average is about a two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then I'm not fashionable , so +Marketing: Yeah , it's a two . +Project Manager: Two or three . Two point five . +User Interface: don't use my opinion . +Marketing: That's okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Neither are all o all the customers we have , either . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: does it feel good ? +Project Manager: Imagine , since we obviously don't have that . +User Interface: Does it feel good ? +Marketing: I feel like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh the shape of it actually does uh . +Project Manager: And it's i it is very ergonomically designed . It's gonna be curved . +User Interface: Yeah , it's gonna be thicker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Depth . +Marketing: I think it feels good . +Project Manager: I think so too . +Marketing: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll give it a one . +Marketing: What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: I'd say a two . +Project Manager: Alright , average is two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is it technologically innovative ? Oh sorry I'm taking over your job here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh no , it's fine , +Project Manager: Go right ahead . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're {disfmarker} I mean you're Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um yeah , I mean and it {disfmarker} does it have voice {disfmarker} I mean the phrase recognition on it ? +Project Manager: Yes . Right ? We were able to do it with that kind of chip . +User Interface: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could do it with the chip , yes . It wasn't {disfmarker} we have no reflection of it on the prototype , +Marketing: And there's no way you can represent it on here . Y +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: but that's because it's only two dimensions , really . +Project Manager: That was {disfmarker} 'kay . And we discussed that being included . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Then yes , then I would {disfmarker} well it isn't {disfmarker} what else would it need for it to be technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we don' have the {disfmarker} you know , we can't say channel , and it changes the channel , channel eight . +Marketing: And it doesn't cover anything other then T_V_ , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: so I'd probably give it a three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even though it is {disfmarker} for just a T_V_ remote it's uh very advanced . But it is just a T_V_ remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd go for a three or four on that one , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I go four . +Project Manager: okay , let's go for a three point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three and an half . +Project Manager: Alright , and the last criteria {disfmarker} is it is it um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Squishy and fruity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well yeah , so I'd give it a two . +Project Manager: Well , we've covered that with the +User Interface: It's just trendy , basically . +Project Manager: trendy . Sure . Capable . Very capable . +Industrial Designer: It's capable of being squishy and fruity . +Marketing: Oh , it's very capable of being squishy and fruity . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} it's very important . 'Kay , there we go . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: Okay , next . +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um our re model slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie appears to be a winner , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh hopefully we'll sell millions . Good job , team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did you get that in there ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What ? +Industrial Designer: The {vocalsound} slightly resembling a giant delicious cookie . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It does . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It {vocalsound} it does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good . +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go back to this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , that's it . Hmm . Oops . Okay , so now uh we're moving on to finance , okay . I'm gonna show you an Excel spreadsheet and we're going to fill it in together based on what components we're including in our remote and see if it's under twelve fifty Euro . If so , we can proceed , if not , we need to go back to the drawing board a little bit . 'Kay ? So let me bring that up . Here we go . Alright . Um it's not hand dynamo , it's powered by battery , so we give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Number of components you plan to use . Do I just put quantity being one battery , or {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: But if it's a {disfmarker} do you wanna go for {disfmarker} this is where we need to make a final call on if it's a lithium or do we wanna go triple A_s , 'cause triple A_s we're gonna have t do more than one battery . Oh , let's just go for a lithium . What do you say ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , let's let's do a lithium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh I think the people who purchase this are gonna be technologically +Industrial Designer: it's {gap} . +Marketing: We're gon that's gon Nologically advanced , +Project Manager: {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , down to the electronics um section . We're gonna need this kind , correct , if we do the voice sensor , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so one of those . It is a single-curved , so one of those . +Marketing: Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . What's that ? Yeah , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , down here , case material . +User Interface: It's plastic . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Plastic . +Marketing: plastic . +User Interface: And special colour . +Marketing: And special colour . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Down here , interface type . We're gonna have the integrated scroll scroll wheel . +User Interface: No , we don't have the scroll . +Project Manager: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh those are just regular buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's the push-button too , right there . +User Interface: Buttons . +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: This ? +Marketing: but i so i +Industrial Designer: Integrated scroll-wheel or push-button . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're really having just push-button interface . +Project Manager: Okay , so we can just go {disfmarker} um . +Marketing: But will we w actually we'll need two , won't we ? One for the top and then one for the s one e for each side . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} that just covers the type of button we're having . Because we're not doing a scroll on the side , it's still push-button . +User Interface: Oh like the {disfmarker} twenty nine means like you have both scrolls and +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Project Manager: Right I think she's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we just have push +User Interface: push-buttons . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But we don't have any scrolls . +Project Manager: I think what Courtney's talking about is do we need to put two here ? +Marketing: Like because there's like one interface right here and then {disfmarker} because it's not gonna be on the same plane when you press the button . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: There's gonna have to be additional signals on the sides . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So is that gonna be an extra one on each side ? +Project Manager: I don't know , they might put us {disfmarker} well , let's just . +User Interface: Two interfaces , is that what w should we s say ? +Project Manager: Two or would it be three ? +Industrial Designer: Let's call it th +Marketing: Or three , because of one on each side and one on top . +User Interface: Okay , fine . Yeah . +Marketing: I mean it's fine 'cause it comes out the same as twenty nine . Well less than twenty nine even . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and we're gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: button supplements {disfmarker} the buttons are no uh okay . +Marketing: They're a special colour . Um they're uh they're a special form , 'cause they're indented . +Project Manager: Are they ? Oh , right . +User Interface: And then s +Marketing: And , they're a special material . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Well , we're under cost then . Alright . +User Interface: We're over ? +Project Manager: No , we're under . +Industrial Designer: Grand . +Marketing: We're under . +Project Manager: Twelve point five is our limit . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got eleven point two . +User Interface: Oh , I see . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So we can go to production . +Project Manager: We can go to {disfmarker} I dunno what I just did . {vocalsound} Okay . Now we're gonna talk about the project process um and whether or not we're satisfied with the whole process and the result . Um did we have a lot of room for creativity ? Did we have a lot of room for individual leadership , um teamwork , and the means , meaning the technology that we used to produce our little guy there , and if we found any new ideas . Now , question is , how do we do this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Go back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we just discuss it . +Project Manager: Discuss , sure . +Industrial Designer: Previous . +Project Manager: Alright . Who want who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: We think we got stifled for cri {vocalsound} creativity by the company itself , in restricting us only to using a T_V_ remote , initially . +User Interface: We didn't have a whiteboard . +Project Manager: Hmm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh that's true . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} No , yeah , that's a good point . 'Cause I'd forgotten that that wasn't our decision , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And how did you feel about the whole the whole process though ? +Marketing: Oh , overall I mean I thought we did a good job like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We got to choose {disfmarker} basically we had control over {disfmarker} minus it being just merely a T_V_ remote we got to choose what we wanted to do with it . +Project Manager: Right , and we got say over what {disfmarker} how technologically advanced it should be and also how fashionable , which I kind of like {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we're a fashion forward technology company . +Project Manager: we {disfmarker} yep . You know it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} right . +Project Manager: Um what about um the teamwork aspect ? How did you guys enjoy making the model , the prototype ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: I think we did well . +Project Manager: I think ya' did . Did you work well together in there , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , no , there was there was scratching and fighting , but {disfmarker} no {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Minus that one fight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Gouges . +Project Manager: Oh my God , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've all been a pretty congenial team here , I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We hadn't had any ma fallings out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . I mean minus you guys being wha what is it , the survey , annoying or what is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Irritating . +Industrial Designer: Irritating . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Irritating . +Marketing: Irritating , yeah . Wow that's a {disfmarker} it's definitely a strong one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The means , the whiteboard didn't work . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And no internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to knock that one down a couple notches . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A and our friend here really feels strongly about the internet . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and no internet . +User Interface: Misses . I do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There's so much available . +Marketing: And the digital the digital pens +User Interface: Like it's information +Project Manager: Yeah , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I really appreciated those , yeah . +Marketing: were {disfmarker} they were pretty cool . +Project Manager: They were fine . +Marketing: Yeah they were fun , even though I'm not really sure what I could do with them , but they are awesome . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The use of the laptops for receiving everything . +Project Manager: Right , laptops are extremely handy , +Industrial Designer: It was wireless too , so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: wireless . And that we have a shared network where we can put all of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And these things whoa . +Industrial Designer: And let's not forget the sexy dual microphones everyone gets to wear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And Big Brother . +Project Manager: Big brother . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , have we found any new ideas through this process ? +Marketing: Um we are really gonna sell this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ta-da . +Project Manager: For something that looks cool and also has what I want it to b do technologically . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's your right brain taking over , w wanting the artistic , the fashionable , the hip , you know . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If we all just went out and bought useful things , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean that's not what technology . +User Interface: Well , that's why I don't like uh Macs or Apples , just 'cause I look at it , and I know it's probably a very good computer , but I look at it , and I'm taken back to elementary school , 'cause they look the same . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: They look like they did when I was in elementary school , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and that's so old-fashioned to me . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause they're pretty and just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The Toronto district school would only use his Macs with their kids . +User Interface: Exactly , so I associate them with like really low-tech , really cheap , bad {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Just the Mac font bothers me even . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: But I do like iPods , go figure . +Marketing: Yeah , no , iPods {vocalsound} {disfmarker} They want all those words for presentation , even the plugs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , i iPods are now quite trendy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they come in different colours . +Project Manager: Colours . Exactly . I mean how many people went out and bough a Nokia phone , back when we were like in high school , just so they could get the changeable face plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah , everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , so that is definitely at work . +Industrial Designer: Not me . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mine is amber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't have a phone 'til university . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} but my one issue is just like the whole it's for T_V_ only . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: I was like who's gonna buy a remote just for the T_V_ unless they've lost theirs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look at it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fashionable chic people will . +User Interface: You're kidding . +Marketing: That is a piece of work . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . Marketing Director says yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , marketing has to actually create the desire for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fashionable people will buy it . Oh , I will create desire . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's okay . We can create a commercial where they think that all their needs will be met . This will help them find the one . +User Interface: Ri {vocalsound} They'll be sexy with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: We could have like an Adam and Eve type commercial , and that's the fig-leaf . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That'll sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And so the serpent says , use our remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There you go , marketing {gap} . +User Interface: Let you loose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , no . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , we're gonna wrap this up now . Um the costs are within the budget , we evaluated the project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and now we're gonna complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary , and then we're going to have a big giant party , apparently , according to this , so . Alright , thank you team , +Industrial Designer: Whoohoo . Margaritas for everyone . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you did a great job , it was lovely working with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good . +Marketing: You too . +Industrial Designer: Yay . Thanks to the Project Leader . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now we know w +","In the conversation, team members from various departments, including Marketing, Project Management, Industrial Design, and User Interface, gather to discuss the development and evaluation of a new TV remote prototype. The Project Manager starts with an agenda, including a prototype presentation, evaluation criteria discussions, and financial considerations for the remote's production. The User Interface representative presents their part, describing the color scheme, materials, button design, logo placement, and overall look of the prototype. The team expresses appreciation and satisfaction with the design. + +The Project Manager leads the next part, evaluating the prototype with specific criteria: ease of use, fashionability, physical feel, technological innovation, and trendiness. Each criterion is given a rating on a seven-point scale during a group discussion. The Project Manager then moves to discuss financials, using an Excel spreadsheet to ensure the cost of components is within a set budget of 1250 euros. After confirming they are under budget, the team transitions to discuss the project process's satisfaction, covering aspects such as creativity, leadership, teamwork, and new ideas. + +In the end, they note some constraints, such as only being allowed to design a TV remote and lacking tools like a whiteboard and Internet access. However, the team recognizes the successful aspects, including control over design and technological choices. They wrap up the meeting by acknowledging that costs are within budget, appreciating each other's work, planning to fill out a final questionnaire and meeting summary, and looking forward to a celebratory party." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Hello . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good afternoon . Sorry I'm a little late . +Project Manager: No problem . +Marketing: Got stuck in the traffic . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's possible on uh this time of day . Starts at three o'clock . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , let me see . Our fourth and last meeting . There he is . Yes . Okay this our last meeting . In this meeting we will discuss our final design . And we will do some evaluation about the , not only the product , but also the project . And then we're going to close the project today as well . So after this you will be uh free to go and uh spend all your money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And this uh design , detailed design meeting uh we will discuss uh the look-and-feel of the design , the usability interface design , and we will do the product evaluation . Um , in order to do that we have this agenda . We'll have the prototype presentation first . Then we will set up some evaluation cri um criteria . {vocalsound} Then we will look at the finance . Uh we will have to see if everything we wanna do is also possible within our budget . Because everything costs money , and the more functions you wanna have the more money it will cost . So we have to see if it fits within the twelve and a half Euro per remote . But we will see that later . Then we will do the project uh evaluation , and the closing after that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got forty minutes . So we will be finished at half past three . But first um we will do the {disfmarker} this is prototype presentation . So , if some yeah if somebody wants step forward . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well this is what me and Richard came up with . The default spot for the on-off button . The mute button just below that . Then there's the volume and channel selectors . Simple plus-minus button . Uh we thought of a help button . If you hold it and you press another button , uh the help goes to the L_C_D_ screen . Then there's the zero to {disfmarker} one to zero buttons . A button for teletext . A button for the subtitles . And the company logo . So it's rather simple prototype . And uh we'll have to see from testing uh how the users take it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , {vocalsound} is this the moment where we ask or can ask questions about the functionality ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure uh just pop in at any time . +Marketing: Um , when you're in teletext there usually are buttons where you just you just press it and you g go to the next teletext page . +User Interface: Uh , that's just uh the normal uh as th as the normal uh remote controls uh {disfmarker} So um {disfmarker} You put it uh {disfmarker} you um came in uh page uh one hundred . Now you can use the normal uh one to zero buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And you {disfmarker} But you can also uh use the um button th for uh changing the the channel . S so uh the shifting uh button . Uh for uh yeah shif shifting up in uh on t on t uh teletext , and shifting uh down . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh but um I thought in a few meetings earlier we uh uh tried to keep it uh simple . Uh just a few buttons and large buttons . +User Interface: Oh yeah ? +Project Manager: But uh I think these are altogether quite a quite a few buttons . So I'm wondering if we if we neely {disfmarker} really need all of those buttons . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you look at most controls , they've got more buttons than this . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And well the on-off button , it's it's a necessity . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can't drop that one . The volume and channel buttons , you need you obviously need those those . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The mute button could be replaced uh by pressing the volume-down button twice . So we could cancel that one . I think the help button really is necessary +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: because there's no other way to know when someone wants to know what a button does . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh , or you can build in uh when you press uh one button uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Long time . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you put {disfmarker} +User Interface: But m Yeah . We disc discuss that already . But uh we think uh old people uh don't know that uh option . So uh they just put in uh put {vocalsound} press uh the button and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} you can't leave out the number buttons I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh teletext and subtitles are yeah necessary . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's rather basic already . +Marketing: Yeah . Think so . That's what I pointed out earlier . If you just make a control for just the T_V_ there's just not much to gain here . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So we had somebody about th interfa Something about the design of the buttons there ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just n normal plain buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's rather hard to draw on the white-board . +User Interface: it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But they're supposed to be equal sized , round , with a with a little logo on it for the for the volume , the the triangle and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Just to recognise it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just for recognition . +User Interface: Uh yeah and now we don't need uh LEDs or um {disfmarker} Y uh +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: s some uh remote controls uh do it also , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but um uh because we use the little display we don't uh have to use it . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So and for the materials we've just chosen for rubber buttons . With a a different colour than the case . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: So they jump out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh that's about it . +Project Manager: That's nice . Then because we only have thirty minutes left , I will move on to the finance part , which is pretty exciting , to see if it's all possible what we wanna do . And I can tell you that we're going to have a pretty hard time producing this for twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If we see {disfmarker} I don't know if I've filled in correctly , so just correct me if you see uh something wrong . I counted two batteries . But maybe we can also use one . I don't know if it's possible . +Marketing: Since it rechargeable . +Project Manager: It's rechargeable . That's right . +User Interface: Yeah we can u just uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . That's two Euros off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We need the advanced chip . So there's not much to uh {vocalsound} to save there . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here we have the single curves . Uh we can see that the difference between uncurved and the single curved is one Euro . Um , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know , but I think the single curved is good for design , and also for the display to have a prominent place on the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we have to keep that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then we have the case material supplements . It's plastic . It's the cheapest one we need . So that's uh not much to save either . But then the biggest costs are the buttons . So maybe we really should try to discard some buttons to uh keep our costs low . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Because you have to {disfmarker} we will have to get the twelve and a half Euros at the end . Um , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so if we {disfmarker} Let's fir first count the buttons we have now . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Sixteen , I believe so . +Project Manager: Because I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Sixteen . Nah , that will be even more then . Eighteen Euros . So , +User Interface: Uh seventeen . Uh with the help button . +Project Manager: seventeen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , including the help ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Damn . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh seventeen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we can uh discard the help and the mute button uh by pressing down volume long , or pressing down a a number long . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: That saves us uh one Euro already . 'Cause then we have got fifteen I think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Wouldn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . No . That wouldn't be an option . +Project Manager: And this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , d I assume you'd count the volume and channel thingies for two buttons each , right ? +Project Manager: No those are one , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . Where did uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , think actually there're two buttons , +User Interface: Uh , it's just one button . +Marketing: aren't they ? +User Interface: But , um {disfmarker} Yeah . There were uh two uh for one big button . But they are uh more expensive than the small ones . Uh , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but th it's not stated in this files . +User Interface: It's just a {gap} . +Project Manager: So maybe we can we can even make one button with the volume and the channel in one , by pressing +Marketing: Well I was thinking , maybe you could just integrate three of those numbers to one button . +Project Manager: That's possibility as well . +Marketing: That would cut the cost . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} And it's good for the design as well . So you can make {disfmarker} Uh let's see . If you make this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Looks a bit like uh a cross . {vocalsound} Plus . Min . +User Interface: But I don't don't know if if it's cheaper . +Project Manager: Uh s yeah channel . +User Interface: So uh , +Project Manager: Yeah w +User Interface: we've still got four buttons , but just um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah th I think they count uh the materials . +User Interface: You got uh not not a butt button itself , but uh on the um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah on the chip there . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . On the chip you've got still uh four uh four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think because we have the advanced chip +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we can just count this as one button . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , I think this really is four buttons anyhow . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} No but I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe it is , but then it seems to me that it's impossible to get the twelve and a half Euros . Also the L_C_ display , I think it's , I think it's too expensive for the display we use . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's a big cost . +Project Manager: I think they uh try t +Industrial Designer: If we leave out the display we can also save money on the chip . +Project Manager: That's right , but what's the big advantage of our remote then ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Only the docking station , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Which isn't the {disfmarker} the docking station isn't even in this c s schematic . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: So it's not even taken into the price . +Project Manager: That's extra . {vocalsound} That's extra . That's right . +Marketing: Maybe we should to a different supplier . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's an option . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Poland . Something . {vocalsound} Polish supplier . Don't you think we can , if we can count this as v as one button , and integrate th uh these buttons in three , then we save a lot of money as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We we could save money on it . But would it make the remote more usable for elderly people ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , that's what I'm wondering . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My mother can't even send send an S_M_S_ message . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we gonna buy a um a remote control uh when you can uh use it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Yeah . We m uh we must um stay below the um below um twelve uh fifty or {disfmarker} Can't uh go um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well , since the market research indicated that older people spend their money easier , more easy , maybe it's feasible to just put the price of the remote up a little . Especially since we have those nice features . +User Interface: Nay . +Project Manager: Yeah but uh we have to stick to the twelve and a half Euros . We don't have any more budget to develop it . +User Interface: Is it impossible to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The margin will get too small . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it is possible to make one uh for uh twelve fifty . +Project Manager: It is . If you leave out the L_C_ display . And if you use less buttons . Say {disfmarker} Or you can take the single chip . +User Interface: I don't think so . +Marketing: It would be a be a pretty rigid one . +User Interface: S Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , you can't use uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ten . +Project Manager: There it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But then w Good looking . +User Interface: Uh , wi with n Oh , with uh attractive uh o options . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So uh , you can stay uh below uh twelve fifty . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's uh difficult as well , +Marketing: Or b +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Basically becoming a choice between like either a good remote and a higher production cost , or just any other remote control . +Industrial Designer: No remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or we can leave out the ten buttons and take one scroll wheel for the programme numbers . Then w +User Interface: Scroll-wheel's one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because then we save ten buttons . +User Interface: No , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then we have five and one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and see . If we have this one and we've got the advanced {disfmarker} W uh , we're getting close . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We're getting closer . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But how does scroll-wheel work here ? +Project Manager: Then you will {disfmarker} Or maybe you can um scroll . If you scroll you will see the numbers on the L_C_D_ display . Until you've got the right number , then you push it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That would bring up the price of the scroll-wheel also . Integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Alright . It's gotta scroll and push . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay but then you you can push uh some other button as well . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just not scroll for a half a second . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . So if you scroll to a number and then you wait a half second , then it g turns to that channel . +Industrial Designer: So you won't need a button . +Marketing: I think that would be like the end of our usability . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it would definitely crop cost , a lot . +User Interface: D yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we need the battery . {vocalsound} And the regular chip is not possible ? It has to be advanced ? +Industrial Designer: If you want to use an L_C_D_ screen you you need an advanced chip , yes . +Project Manager: It has to be advanced . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And we can save a Euro by a flat design . That's an option we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ja ja . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Then we're almost there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you v could just leave out one more button . +Project Manager: Yeah . So if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , or we have to uh skip the subtitle uh button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think that's {disfmarker} That is a big advantage , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a big advantage . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can we use {disfmarker} can't we integrate the teletext and the subtitles in one button ? +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think so . Yeah . +Project Manager: If you push it three times ? +Marketing: Well , think it's pretty much the teletext subtitles are +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right now you just push the teletext button , go to page eight eight eight , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and teletext disappears . But the subtitles stay there . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} But if you push the teletext button twice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you have to scroll to page eighty eight ? Eight hundred eighty eight . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that's the case on most {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} One m uh one b uh , a few buttons . +Project Manager: Ah that's not really that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , that could be just uh like the scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click , scroll to eight , click . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: But then again that would be d j just pretty much not an option for older people , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: who don't even know what a scroll-wheel is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Holding a remote with {vocalsound} which they expect to have like ten buttons for the numbers one to zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: With only five buttons on it . And a scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: I think if you make a good advertisement uh on television and in the in the guide , you can explain to the people how to use the scroll wheel . If you just make it real simple . Because it saves it saves a lot of money . And we can keep our L_C_D_ screen , which can provide extra information . How to use the scroll wheel . How to use the other bu buttons as subtitles . +Marketing: True . True . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And it's good for the innovative design as well . If you would erase these . Mm eraser ? And we put uh {disfmarker} Looks a bit odd maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a pretty big scroll wheel . +Project Manager: That is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Something like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then , yeah . We've got the scroll-wheel . One , two , three , four , five buttons , if we erase this one . And these are two buttons then . +Industrial Designer: We could make two buttons out of that . And just um {disfmarker} If you press the volume button you can control the volume with the scroll-wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would save two buttons . If you do the same for the channel . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's really a good good idea , I think . And it will make the use of the scroll wheel uh more obvious indeed . +Industrial Designer: More obvious . +Project Manager: So we make one for the volume , one for the channel . Plus scroll . That's right . +Industrial Designer: So if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we've got one , two , three . Yeah , we can leave the teletext in if we want . That's m that's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So this is five buttons . +Industrial Designer: If we leave out all those buttons , perhaps you can go with the flat flat case . And make it smaller overall . +Project Manager: Y yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you put the the volume and channel buttons on the same height as the on-off button , the screen right behi under that , than the scroll button +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Uh yeah , and then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you get a a much smaller remote . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it sh +Project Manager: So we can decrease this one to four buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right now we have five . +User Interface: But uh , you can make a f quite a big uh remote remote control for uh just the same price as a small one . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's no problem . +User Interface: Just uh you only have to pay for the double curved or single curved . It uh it's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . It's uh it's more the moulds in which they are being made , I think . Single curved is really easy to just fill in . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And cases come right out of the machine . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And single curved you have to have a different uh different machine , than a flat one . I think this is a really easy one . Um , what does everybody think about a flat or a single curved design ? Freek , what do you think ? +Marketing: Well , I still think we should go for the single curve design . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then again , {gap} all these changes are not really okay with me . +Industrial Designer: Richard's argument was very good . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But since we just have to . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to cut costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I'm ag +Marketing: I'd rather just go to the board and get us to spend {vocalsound} eighteen dollars a a remote . +Project Manager: Ask for more money . Yeah . Yeah . I am agreeing with the usability . Yeah . +Marketing: Or do some market research and see what the options are . +Project Manager: Yeah . But th um I think we can then keep the single curved one . Just to express our L_C_D_ screen a bit more . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So people will use it more , and especially for the help functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it will be good if we have scroll bar , scroll button . It will be necessary to have good help function , as well . So this is scroll . I think it was better to have this price list a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Before we went on to the to the whole design . +Marketing: Yes . Definitely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The th +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} I'm glad we could make a bit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's pretty different , if you saw the last one than {vocalsound} this one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's pretty different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But this is not really like for the group we were making our remote . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: This will really require a lot of marketing to get this to sell . +Project Manager: Yeah . It will . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause if older people like familiar forms and familiar stuff . This is not familiar for them . +Project Manager: No , but I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we're gonna have to do a lotta convincing them . +Project Manager: I think the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: But they know the scroll-buttons from uh old radios . Uh they cal also uh buttons like that for uh changing uh channels . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can let l +User Interface: So maybe it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can stick it out , a bit . Like a old old buttons . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe that's recognisable for them as well . Yeah . That's a good one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , I'm afraid we have to move on . And it's uh it's b uh less frightening , I think . If they see this design they think oh , there are only five buttons , and uh {disfmarker} But we will see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . Might uh {disfmarker} might be confusing too . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's definitely right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They'd be like , what ? Only five buttons ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But very special , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But you're not sixty . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's right . I would buy it if I was six . {vocalsound} No I don't know . What it costs under twelve and a half Euros ? No ? Uh , yes they are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . But we can go on with the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . I can sit down I think . We still have fifteen minutes left , so we're nice on schedule . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , the project process . +Marketing: So um , I like set up all these criteria . And evaluation of the thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Evaluation criteria . That's right . That was the the point I forgot . I should {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There we are . Evaluation criteria . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes I think for those criteria . +Marketing: Five more minutes ? +Project Manager: No we've got fifteen minutes but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yes . What ? +Marketing: 'Kay so I did some literature study study , and analysis of the requirements we set up earlier . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Translated it into criteria , which would be these . Um , is the remote fancy ? The shape , look and feel . Innovative ? What new functions are there ? Uh , easy to use ? Uh , learnability is a very important factor here . Uh , is it functional ? Are there not too many functions uh among the functions ? And are the those functions that are there , are they useful ? And the cost . The target group . Is the remote really for the group we're making it for ? And recognability . If our company is {disfmarker} If it is easily recognisable that our company made it ? And {disfmarker} So we're supposed to evaluate it right now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Let's see . Oh I have to say this was a little hard , because the minutes of our last meeting were not here . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's because my pen failed to upload his data . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I tried to +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: but it's uh it's giving errors by downloading the software . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . 'Kay . +Marketing: Is the design fancy , on a scale of one to seven ? +Project Manager: I think it's fancy . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: Yeah . Six . +User Interface: Uh six . Yeah . +Marketing: We all go for six ? Good . Um , is the design innovative ? +Project Manager: Very . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Sh +Marketing: I think so , with our L_C_D_ screen , docking station , scroll-buttons . +Project Manager: Subtitles , buttons . Yeah . Seven . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've got twenty cents for our docking station , huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should be do-able . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: Is the design easy to use ? +User Interface: Mm . Not really . +Project Manager: That's a bit dodgy . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} Would be for us . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: For old people I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say four . Four or five between . Between four or five . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: Four or five . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: I'd go for four , too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it functional ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is the design functional ? Um , do we have all functions that we want to include ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: N Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we do . Do we have too many functions ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I don't think so . It's pretty slim . +Project Manager: Think it's uh seven . +Marketing: Seven . Oh , and do we um take care of the biggest frustrations of the remote control ? Like it getting lost and {disfmarker} R_S_I_ influences ? +User Interface: Mm m +Industrial Designer: Mm , we haven't thought of that one . +Project Manager: It was . +Marketing: Think we do . +Project Manager: I had them worked out . Mm . They are ugly , not very functional , and getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are the production costs within the preset limits ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well they are now . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does the design fit the group of focus ? +User Interface: Mm , th yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a three . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I think with our new radio button , I think it's uh I think it's better . +Marketing: I think it doesn't . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} We have to test it s But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I still {disfmarker} I think it's too m too fancy . Too too flashy . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think a radio button is not exactly what older people expect to have a remote control . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a four . +Marketing: I'm not sure . I think I'd go for two . +User Interface: I go for three . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have to do the three . It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . Is the company company recognisable ? +Project Manager: Yes it is . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Well , we have the logo there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And they wanna put fashion in their products . Uh in the slogan of the company . And we have the removable front cases . So , I think it's very recognisable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: So that will be this . I was also supposed to calculate the score , but thought we would have another private thingy after this . +Project Manager: We've got a calculate it . Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Twendag sieven an twendag . +Marketing: Is this {disfmarker} Like after this , are we done ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N We've gonna {disfmarker} We're going to evaluate it . +Marketing: We're gonna go to our other room again . Well , anyhow . These are seven factors times seven is forty something . Two ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} Forty nine . +Marketing: Nine ? Uh , minus one . Minus three , minus four . {vocalsound} Minus four . So that would be minus eight . Forty one out of forty nine . +Project Manager: Forty one . That's {disfmarker} Around eighty percent . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What is it ? +Marketing: Guess I'll just type that in on the bottom here . +Project Manager: That's eighty four percent . I think that's a pretty nice score . +User Interface: Hmm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . 'Kay . So that will be the evaluation . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , that brings us to the project evaluation . Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project process . Did we move through the right phases , you think ? {vocalsound} Along the process ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think we should have a should have had the finance thingy a lot earlier . In the design phase . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . So lack of information about prices . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Satisfaction . Was there room for creativity ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not too much . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's because of the finance sheet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , there w there was enough room , but the finance uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , true . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The room was {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And I would've liked to go for the younger users also . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: And just to be able to access internet and get something of your own . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Restrictions . Internet access . 'Kay . Leadership . Was it clear what everybody had to do uh according to their roles and functions ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teamwork ? Did it work out ? Working together ? Also , you {disfmarker} two of you with the uh last phase ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , was okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: The tasks are very structured , so you can just do step by step and it's very easy . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} tasks . Okay . Were the means sufficient for the tasks uh we had to do ? Or were they too much ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well , the smart-board , the d d drawing is just a pain in the ass , but {disfmarker} The digital the digital pen is very nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Smart-board . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it wants to download its uh data . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Failed download . Smart-board was irritating . {vocalsound} So you rather wanted to have a flip-over ? Or something else ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: A flip-over or a more precise uh digit +User Interface: A flipper's uh easier , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Faster as well , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . Flip-over . +User Interface: But if you want to share uh of uh when you make um a picture like this uh on the presentation , it's easier to uh share it with uh other people . Uh so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you can sh save it uh and uh put it on the internet , or uh uh in shared f uh folder or uh sh uh shared directory . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I tried to open the file on my laptop , +User Interface: Yeah ? No ? +Industrial Designer: No . Didn't work . +Marketing: but {vocalsound} not possible . +Project Manager: Uh you need a smart board uh application I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I think you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: T can uh can you export it uh like a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Should be possible . Yeah you can export it as image . +Marketing: {gap} no . +Project Manager: Must {disfmarker} Yeah must be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should've done that then . +Project Manager: So the sharing of the information was uh was okay ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Pen is here . +Project Manager: Uh , network . +User Interface: Uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , pen is here on the table . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . So you can {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} It's possible . +User Interface: It's possible . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: That's nice . Have we found new ideas for having this kind of meetings ? Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , yeah maybe um uh when we n uh just uh give the numbers of of uh {disfmarker} Uh uh o one of uh out of s uh sev {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's uh easier to uh to do the th things that are like that on a computer . Uh , so uh just l uh like uh at u university uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So everybody puts his own score . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then {vocalsound} it mediates the score , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can get one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's better . So that's uh {disfmarker} How do we call ? Evaluation criteria . Okay . Mm , any more ideas ? Or questions about the project ? Or about the product ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Because I think then that we get to our last sheet . Are the costs within the budget ? +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They are . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Considering we are not going to make a docking station . +Project Manager: Do we {disfmarker} Docking station . That's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: But maybe because of the docking station the price of the remote can also be a little bit higher ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh and I think you can compensate that as well . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I think that shouldn't be the biggest problem , because it's very cheap to make as well . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do we think we gonna get the twelve and a half million ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or what was it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fifty grand . +Project Manager: Fifteen fifteen million . I think we will . {vocalsound} If we gonna export this product . It's innovative . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially in America . People are pretty decadent . Sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , still I think {disfmarker} I mean if we're n gonna make a scroll-button anyway it'd be more for the younger people than for the older people . +Project Manager: You can do more . Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: So maybe we should just re-focus . +Project Manager: Just put it on the market for everybody . You can you can change markets where by changing the front covers . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Or specifically for younger people . +Project Manager: That's one thing you can change it with . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: So you can also try to uh reach the younger people by uh putting fancy covers on on the market . Just as a test . See how it works . That's I think a good advantage . +Marketing: Yeah , I think then it would be way more uh popular with younger people than it is , than would be with older people . Even if it were their covers . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , uh then I think we can have our little celebration , right now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Party party . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we still have to fit in one more questionnaire . I think . +User Interface: Where's the champagne ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I didn't get a message from the from ending of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , I believe y uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I think I have one now . +Marketing: Oh you did . +Project Manager: Five more minutes ? Oh that's nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we still have some questions . If somebody has some questions they can ask them now . Or we can put these in the project folder as well . Maybe that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Export as picture , I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . This is another network , I guess . Does somebody see the project folder ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't . Hmm . My Documents . +User Interface: Uh maybe uh they will save it . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I'll just put it in My Documents +Marketing: Yeah , it probably will . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} That's okay . Okay . {vocalsound} I think I'm going to make our final presentation now . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you're supposed to make a final {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then I will be back in about ten minutes to show you the final presentation . Summary of the project . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Are we supposed to go into our own rooms again ? +User Interface: Uh maybe we have to fill uh another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Yeah . Questionnaire . I think you all get a questionnaire in in your room . +User Interface: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then I'll meet you in I think about ten minutes , or something . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Hopefully my pen will download its software . Oh . Or data . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That'd be nice . +","A meeting takes place between the Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer to discuss the final design of a remote control, set evaluation criteria, and ensure the project stays within the budget of twelve and a half Euros per unit. They finalize the prototype, discuss button functionality, cost reduction strategies like removing or integrating buttons, and the potential use of a scroll wheel to replace number buttons. Budget constraints lead to design compromises. The team evaluates the project and product based on criteria such as innovativeness, usability, and target group fit, making decisions to meet financial targets and reconsider the target market. Market research suggests that older people are willing to spend more, which could justify a price increase, but the budget limitation remains. The meeting concludes with plans to finish the project presentation and complete additional questionnaires." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Um welcome to our second meeting . This is the functional design meeting . And I hope you all had a good individual working time . Okay , let's get started . Okay , here's the agenda for the meeting . After the opening um I am going to fulfil the role of secretary , take the meeting minutes . And we're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you . Then we're gonna discuss some new project requirements . Um gonna come to a decision on the functions of the remote control . And then we're gonna close up the meeting . And we're gonna do this all in about forty minutes . {gap} Okay . First I want to discuss the goals of this meeting . First we need to determine the user requirements and the question that we can ask ourselves is what needs and desires are to be fulfilled by this remote control . And then we're going to determine the technical functions , what is the effect of the apparatus , what actually is it supposed to do , what do people pick up the remote and use it for . And then lastly we're going to determine its working design , how exactly will it perform its functions , that's the whole technical side of {disfmarker} 'Kay I'll just give you a minute , 'cause it looks like you're making some notes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Oh , well let's go ahead and , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} back , previous . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what I wanna do right now is hear from all three of you , on your research that you just did . Who would like to start us off ? 'Kay . +User Interface: I don't mind going first . +Project Manager: Okay . Um do you have a PowerPoint or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the {disfmarker} should be in the m Project . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you want us to do our PowerPoints now or {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know you could you could do it yourself actually . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you send it ? +Project Manager: Save it in the project documents . +User Interface: Put it in Project Documents , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm . This one ? +User Interface: Sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Great . +User Interface: Okay . Um well , the function {vocalsound} of a remote control , as what uh we've been informed , is basically to send messages to the television set , for example , switch it on , switch it off , go to this channel , go to channel nine , turn the volume up , etcetera . Um some of the considerations is just um for example the what it needs to include it's the numbers , you know , zero to nine , so you can move to a channel , the power button on slash off , the channel going up and down , volume going up and down , and then mute , a mute function . And then functions for V_H_S_ , D_V_D_ , for example , play , rewind , fast-forward , stop , pause , enter . And enter would be for like , you know , the menus . {vocalsound} And then other menus for D_V_ as well as T_V_ , whether that means like um we can go and decide the brightness of the screen , things like that , all the more complicated functions of menus . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And we can decide if that's what we want , {gap} , um if we want to include that on the remote , if that's something that would stay on the T_V_ itself , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: These are two examples . Um and you can see on the left , it's got a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't know if you can read it , but it says , step , go to , freeze , um slow , repeat , program , mute , and so those are some of the buttons and so it gives you an idea of s one example . And then on the right , it's a lot more simpler , it's got volume , it's got the play the like circle set , which is play , rewind , but it's also what is {disfmarker} fast-forward is also like next on a menu . So you have functions that are d uh duplicating . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And you have a mute button and then the numbers and the eject , and the power button . So that gives you two different kinds , a more complex and more simple version . Okay . +Project Manager: Ready . +User Interface: And then lastly , it's just the questions that we want to consider like what functions do we want it to include , and how simple , complex it should be ? And what functions it needs to complete . Uh , what are needed to complete insulation process , 'cause , you know , that's something that also has to be considered and it's gonna be hopefully a one-time thing , when you set it up it should be set to go , but we have to include the functions that can allow it to set up i in the first place . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's it . +Project Manager: Alright . Very good presentation . Thank you . You speak with such authority on the matter . +User Interface: Mm . Left . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Who would like to um follow that one up ? Now , that we've discussed {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can go . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you want me to run it or you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you should run it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Functional requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Alright . Now we have Courtney with the functional requirements . +Marketing: Yes , okay so we tested a hundred subjects in our lab , and we just we watched them and we also made them fill out a questionnaire , and we found that the {vocalsound} users are not typically happy with current remote controls . Seventy five percent think they're ugly . Eighty percent want {disfmarker} they've {disfmarker} are willing to spend more , which is good news for us um if we make it look fancier , and basically w we just need something that really I mean there's some other points up there , but they {disfmarker} it needs to be snazzy and it {disfmarker} but yet simple . +User Interface: {gap} Wait . +Marketing: So that's really what we need to do . And we need we need it to be simple , yet it needs to be high-tech looking . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And that meaning what ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} They like I guess use the buttons a lot . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I don't know . It's from my uh research . +Project Manager: Okay , what do you m +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: My team wasn't very clear . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: What do you mean by um the current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user , like they have to press the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's okay . I I think it's like the engineering versus user , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: whereas like the engineering she showed that the engineering ones are more complex +Project Manager: Oh , right . +Marketing: and users don't really need all of the buttons that are contained on there , because they only use ten percent of the buttons really . +Project Manager: The buttons . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: We only use ten per cent of our brains . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good point . +Project Manager: It works . +Marketing: It's a necessary evil . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And so people say that they typically lose it , as you yourself know , because you probably lose your remote control all the time , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: much like any small appliance like a cellphone , +User Interface: Lost . +Marketing: and they {disfmarker} we need something simple , because most people , well thirty four percent say that it's just too much time to learn how to use a new one , and we don't want to go {disfmarker} we don't want to vary too far from the normal standard remote , +User Interface: S +Marketing: but I mean they do need to be able to identify it , and R_S_I_ , I'm not very sure what that is . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's very important . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , it is important for the remote control world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wait , is that like your {disfmarker} ergonomics like your hand movements or something ? +Marketing: Sh +Project Manager: Could be , yeah . +Marketing: Uh possibly . +Industrial Designer: Do we really need t to provide more information on what R_S_I_ is ? +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , that's what my web site said , I +User Interface: Channel , volume , power . +Project Manager: I think that's a pretty good guess though . +Marketing: don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I would assume so . +User Interface: It's like if you're holding it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we're supposed to know it as remote control experts . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But also s so the channel , the volume and the power buttons are the most important on our company website you can find like the specific statistics concerning to how much each button is used , but those are the definitely the top ones . +Project Manager: Okay . Next slide ? +Marketing: Yes . And so personally I think that we need a modern eye-catching design , but it it really needs to be simple . So saying from y your slide , your presentation , the engineering versus the user-specified remotes , I think that we should go with something that's more user-friendly . +Project Manager: User-friendly . +Marketing: Where the engineering ones , the boxes , tend to make it look more complicated than it really is . Um the functionality of the product really needs to be considered as to like what type of buttons do we really need on it . And it needs to be open to a wide range of consumers , so even though we need a small number of buttons , we also need to take in {disfmarker} like are most people going to be using it for a D_V_D_ player , a TiVo , what what exactly are we using it for , as well as the age range . So we need a hip , but not a corny marketing scheme for promoting our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And also we found {disfmarker} our team found that speech recognition is {disfmarker} it's like an up-and-coming thing they really {disfmarker} consumers are really interested in it , and since our findings found that people are willing to pay more money for a remote for it to be more high-class we could consider it . +Project Manager: And so just to {disfmarker} just to clarify by speech recognition you mean they would say , channel five , and the thing would go to channel five ? +Marketing: I guess so , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} to just say , where are you , and thing beeps , you know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that'd be lovely . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess we can interpret it like , we can just try out different types of speech recognition within our remote programme . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Didn't they {disfmarker} um didn't our rival companies manufacture a remote that you would press the button on the T_V_ and it would {disfmarker} the remote would beep so if you have lost it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kinda like what the remote phone used to do . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: You know like go to the base . +Project Manager: We could definitely include that if we wanted to . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's within our price . Okay . Are we ready for our last presentation , Amber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm just trying to move it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . I think it should be there , working design . +User Interface: Working design . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Uh I didn't get a chance to complete this one , 'cause some of the tools that I was given were frustrating . +Project Manager: Oh my bad . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so method method of our design , I think I just start listing th some of the things that we actually need to put into this . +User Interface: Help me . +Industrial Designer: We need a power source , we're gonna need a smart chip if we're gonna make it multi-functional . Um extra functions will probably need an additional chip . Either that or the smart chip will have to be extremely smart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What exactly is a smart chip ? +Industrial Designer: Usually a smart chip is just a chip that's been programmed and designed so that it can complete a fair range of functions . +User Interface: Well , how much extra would the additional chip be ? Is that gonna push us over our production costs ? +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't think so , 'cause we could probably get it from like , in bulk , from a a newer company . And they tend to sell their chips pretty cheap . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Um yep , nothing here . +Project Manager: That's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um power source , I figured , batteries , 'cause they're easily available . Typically a remote has either two double A_s or four triple A_s , sometimes three . Uh it really kinda depends on the size of the actual remote itself . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um a large on-off button , {vocalsound} demographically we're moving towards an older generation of people , so a large on-off button would probably be good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Selection button for various entertainment devices , so you want something that will permit you to select the D_V_D_ player or the T_V_ or the stereo system . Um smart chip that perverts {disfmarker} uh that permits , sorry , universal application again , something that'll allow us to skip over between devices , and that's kinda it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is my fifty second design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Power source over here . We're gonna have a switch obviously between the power source and the rest of it , and you're gonna need the switch . Um extra bulb could just be for flashiness , um subcomponent which would be like a way of diverting the power to different parts of the the device . Um the chip and of course the infra-red bulb , so it can communicate with the various devices that it needs to talk to . +Marketing: So what exactly we are looking at , is this like the front of the remote ? +Industrial Designer: This is just like a rough schematic . +Project Manager: So this would be the front ? +Industrial Designer: So this is the internal workings . +Project Manager: So the red would be the front of the remote though , right ? +Marketing: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's gonna be what's communicating with the T_V_ , but the other bulb , I think , is good to just to indicate , I'm doing something , it's sort of like a reassurance . +Project Manager: The l {vocalsound} the light up kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you don't have to stare at that infra-red , +Marketing: Like that we know the battery's working . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you know when the battery starts dying in your remote currently , you have to actually stare at that bulb and go , okay , when I push this button , is it working ? +Project Manager: Hmm . It'd probably be lighting up the key too , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We can skip that whole thing . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can put it in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and that's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We should make it glow in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , definitely . 'Kay nex R Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay , any p 'Kay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Anything you wanna add for personal preferences though , you f you said already that we needed a large on-off button , you think . Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: I think that that's a good idea , because you know that's one of the most important buttons . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , should it be larger buttons in general , you know like uh the examples that I had , they were swi quite small . So should we try and go for something that has l larger buttons ? +Marketing: I think we should . Like I think that would be in a as in {disfmarker} like in {disfmarker} for the design , sorry , um . I think we should definitely go with buttons that don't look like a normal remote , 'cause most remotes have small square buttons , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should do something like maybe bigger and round like bubbles . +User Interface: Ovals . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , let's talk about all of our {disfmarker} We'll come to decision later about all the components that we need to include , let's um wrap up this one , and {vocalsound} I'm gonna go back to my PowerPoint , 'cause we need to discuss the new project requirements which you might've already seen flashed up on the screen a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Wait , come back . Alright . Sorry , let's go through this . Alright . Here we go . New product requirements . First it's only going to be a T_V_ remote . We're trying not to over-complicate things . So no D_V_D_ , no TiVo , no stereo . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: It's not gonna be multi-functional . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Hey . And we th need to promote our company more , so we need to somehow include our colour and our company slogan on the remote . We're trying to get our name out there in the world . Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: And you know what teletext is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} in States we don't have it , but um it's like they just have this channel where just has news and weather , kind of sports , +User Interface: I know . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's very um bland looking , it's just text on the screen , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's like black , black and white kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just black with just text . +Marketing: Like running along the bottom ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can also get the kind of the T_V_ guide so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It'll give you the sports . +Marketing: Wait , is it like the Weather Channel where it's got like the ticker running on the bottom or something ? +Project Manager: Kind of . +User Interface: Except the entire screen . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the whole screen . +Industrial Designer: It's the entire screen is just running information at random . +Project Manager: So anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can pick sports , you can pick the news , you entertainment , +Industrial Designer: Seemingly . +User Interface: you know it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: So it's like a separate channel from like what you're watching ? +Project Manager: Right . But it's becoming out-dated now , because of the Internet . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nobody needs to go to the teletext channel to check the news , {vocalsound} and we have twenty four hour news channels now too , so {disfmarker} Those are our new product requirements . Alright . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , do we have to include the company colour within that ? +Project Manager: Yes . It's part of the logo . Okay . +User Interface: Company colour being yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we're going to do right now is come to some decisions , definitive that we can all agree on , about um the target group and the functions and just definite things that we need to do and then we'll close up the meeting . So . Alright . {gap} Whatever . Okay . So our target group is {disfmarker} You mentioned um older people ? Would it just be universal for everyone , you think ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because I think even if something has large buttons , as long as they are not childishly large , like even technically {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's gonna make it nicer . Yeah . +Project Manager: non-technically challenged people are gonna use it . I mean they want something user-friendly , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm well , even if we kept the regular standard size of remote , if we reduced the buttons down to the ones that people are saying that they use the most often and a couple extra , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they're saying they only use ten per cent of them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then we should be able to accommodate fairly decent sized buttons . +Project Manager: Okay , so we want um for our target group would we say , I mean , young and old , all age ranges , all um , not kids obviously , right ? Or kids ? +Marketing: No , kids need to know how to use a remote , I would think . +Industrial Designer: Most of them will intuitively pick it up though . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: They gotta change between Disney Channel , Cartoon Network . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're going to go anywhere from kids to adult in the age range {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think we need it all . +Project Manager: Um what about technic technical um specifications , like how how technically literate are these people who are going to be using our remote ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um I would say we should say dumber than the average person . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We should go for the lowest denominator . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So so they need no technical experience to operate {disfmarker} +User Interface: High school educated . +Industrial Designer: {gap} how 'bout little to no , because there is no way that you are gonna be able to make it no . +Project Manager: Okay . And we also need to determine the specific functions of this , just to get it all out on paper . So we said it needs to send messages to the T_V_ , needs to change the channel , turn on and off , just basic simple stuff like this . So if you have something just say it and we'll add it to my meeting minutes . +User Interface: Well it's channel , on-off button , volume , mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , volume . +Marketing: And channel . Yeah . Those are the most important ones . +Project Manager: Right . And we wanna keep um {disfmarker} I'll make a note here that we wanna keep the number of buttons down . Correct , because people only use ten percent . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hey , what else ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Do we want this thing to be able to be found easily ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think so . What do you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: A finding kind of device or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And +Marketing: I need {disfmarker} we we need a like homing device . +Project Manager: Yeah , ho homing device . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if this is gonna get lost underneath the coach , how are we going to accommodate the quick ability to find it ? +User Interface: Oh right yeah okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Tracking . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Because people really are looking for a remote that's more high-tech . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: What if we gave it a charger ? And on the charger , just like a phone , like you get a portable phone and it's got a charger , and if you d leave your phone somewhere , you push the button to find it , and it finds th the phone beeps for you . +User Interface: But you got a base . +Marketing: Do you think people'll really go for that though ? +Industrial Designer: It's useful for the remote phone . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Would that add to our costs at all , I wonder ? +Marketing: I would think so , because you'd have to develop a base . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Well , if you have the base , you could start putting in a charger and then you have a different kind of battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable batteries are cheaper usually . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . I I think we can make a decision about that later . Uh we'll still put that as a point that we need to discuss . So that would include battery source {disfmarker} Power source rather . Is it going to have a charger , or is it going to be run strictly off batteries ? And we also need to deal with the issue you mentioned of speech recognition , if we want that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Well , then we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do w +User Interface: If we have the speech recognition then we can start aiming at a like another kind of more handicapped disabled uh demo demographic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , th there's the people who desire speech recognition , there's the different demog demographics have different desires , I don't know if you guys ge +Project Manager: You could um {disfmarker} we could hook it up . +Marketing: It wouldn't copy onto the the thing 'cause it's black , +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: but all the different age groups have different desires for speech recognition . So {vocalsound} basically older people don't really care . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: It's really the people twenty five to thirty five . I feel those are the people that really watch a lot of T_V_ though . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're the ones that get addicted to soap operas and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if and if we introduced it when they're this age , they're going to probably always buy a remote that has {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: just sitcoms and stuff . Right . +User Interface: Well , then then do you put the voice recognition {disfmarker} do you put the r like receiver on the actual television , in the base , or in the actual remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause then you've already got remote in your hand , why you just gonna speak to the remote , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: whereas if you just speak in general and you don't have to have the remote in your hand and like talk at it . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} and the speech recognition could be part of the lost and found device , too . If we said , find remote , locate remote , or something . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: A certain phrase then it could beep . I dunno . Just throwing it out there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Still {gap} fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , anything else we wanna discuss ? +User Interface: Um . Well , do we wanna include the numbers like zero through nine ? Can we conceive of leaving them out ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Wait , on the remote itself ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like you have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , zero . +Project Manager: How how , +Marketing: Well , we definitely need those . +Project Manager: yeah , how would you leave those out ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I don't know , I mean , if you can {gap} like well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unless you could say the channel . +User Interface: I don't know , if there's just a way of leaving them out ? +Industrial Designer: I think people would find that too foreign . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also remember that in this day in age we need , you know , like a hundred button , too . +Marketing: You definitely need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I used to have a remote that did not even go up past like fifty . {vocalsound} So I couldn't {disfmarker} whenever I got cable , I had to get a new T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: It's when we get satellite . +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} get your own remote , or digital cable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . I guess , we're gonna discuss the project financing later , making sure that we can fit all of the stuff that we want to on our budget . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause I don't have any material pricing information available to me at the moment , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . And don't forget we need to include the colour of our company and the logo . +User Interface: The colour being yellow ? +Marketing: Wait . +Project Manager: I'm guessing . And the R_R_ . +User Interface: And how do we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I feel like a ye I feel like a yellow one would be too garish . +Industrial Designer: R_ the double R_ . +Project Manager: We could just have the logo in yellow , +User Interface: Can't make it entirely {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or maybe a yellow light for the keys . +Industrial Designer: Or is the l +Marketing: Or put like stripes , oh yeah , yellow lights . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} yellow could be and it could {disfmarker} doesn't have to be huge . +User Interface: Well if you have like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hang on . If you have this sort of strip kind of down at the bottom {gap} the base of it , just like yellow with the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Right . So we've simplified , we don't need all those um play , fast-forward , rewind , +User Interface: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: or no menu buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've pretty much pared it down to on-off , volume , mute , channel up and down , um the numbers {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um can we go back to {disfmarker} I'm gonna look really quickly back at those +User Interface: Two examples . +Project Manager: examples and see if there is anything . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which one is yours , technical functions or functional requirement ? +User Interface: Oh , it's a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , audi audio settings and screen settings , we need those like audio settings mono , stereo , pitch , screen settings like brightness , colour , or do we just want that accessed accessed from the television itself ? +Project Manager: The T_V_ . I think that that's fine just for the T_V_ . I mean how often does the average user need to do that kind of stuff ? +User Interface: Well , the other option is sort of like down at the bottom , like farther away , you just have this sort of box inset where it's like the buttons that you don't use as much , but occasionally you will use . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and so it's like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to {disfmarker} we definitely need to have buttons for like sub-titles and things like that . It's 'cause the foreign film market is expanding and stuff , and like on television like I know f k living in Los Angeles it's tons of Spanish network television if it has English sub-titles it's definitely helpful . +Project Manager: Couldn't we do that all through one button , something , a menu button , that pops up with a menu on the T_V_ that says , you know , audio , video , whatever , language , +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} well , I don't know . +Project Manager: you know ? +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we need up , down , and side-to-side buttons . +Project Manager: For the menus . +User Interface: Well , that could be {disfmarker} No you could just double up with like the channel or the volume buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's true . +User Interface: Channel is just up and down . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And then add a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that looks mayb you know . +Marketing: Such as , yeah , the one the one over there on the left the engineering centred one . +Project Manager: Y right , right right right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That one ? +User Interface: So we just have it like {disfmarker} add a menu button then for the various things needed , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: including v voice recognition if we have any like settings for voice recognition now +Project Manager: In the middle perhaps . +User Interface: included in the menu . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Ooh , I just got an idea for a design . +Project Manager: {gap} good . Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up in this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I had something , but I forgot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} get out of here . Let's go back to the meeting closure then and see what we need to do next . Mm . Alright . After this meeting we're gonna be sent a questionnaire and summary again which we need to reply to that e-mail . And then we're gonna have lunch break . And after lunch thirty minutes of individual work time . Um I'm gonna put the minutes {disfmarker} I put the minutes for the first meeting already in the project documents folder , if you'd like to review them . And I'm gonna type up the minutes for this one as well . Um here's what we're each going to do . The I_D_ is going to work on the components concept , um U_I_D_ the user interface concept , and you're going to do some trend watching . 'Kay . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . And if anybody has anything they would like to add ? No ? Okay , well , this meeting is officially over . Thank you all . +","In the second meeting of the team working on the remote control project, the Project Manager kicked off the functional design meeting with a clear agenda and hoped everyone had a productive individual work time. As part of the opening formalities, the Project Manager assumed the dual role of leading the session and recording the minutes. The meeting aimed to be time-efficient, with the intention of wrapping up within forty minutes. + +The team was to engage in a series of presentations delivered by three of its key members: the User Interface designer, the Marketing specialist, and the Industrial Designer. Following these, discussions were planned around new project requirements, decision-making on the remote control functions, and meeting closure, abiding by the structured agenda. + +The meeting's primary goals were to ascertain user requirements for the remote control, like what user needs and desires should be fulfilled, to establish the technical functions it must perform, and to decide on its working design—essentially the technical implementation. The Project Manager encouraged note-taking as they moved through these topics. + +The User Interface designer presented first, highlighting the basic functions a remote control must have like powering the TV on and off, channel changing, and volume adjustment. They considered whether advanced functions should be included on the remote or remain as TV settings. Examples of simple versus complex remote designs were discussed, with attention to button functions that could perform dual purposes. + +Next, the Marketing specialist described insights from user testing, revealing dissatisfaction with current remote controls, a preference for aesthetically pleasing designs, and a willingness to pay for high-end features. This feedback underscored the need for a balance between sophistication and simplicity in the remote's design. + +The Industrial Designer discussed the internal components necessary for the remote's functionality, such as a power source, smart chips for multi-functionality, and emphasizing customer demographic considerations like the importance of a large on-off button for an aging population. + +The Project Manager then introduced new project requirements. The remote was to be exclusively for TV operation to avoid complexity, incorporate the company's color and slogan for branding, and omit outdated features like teletext functionality. + +As the meeting progressed, the team exchanged ideas on various design aspects, such as button sizes and the feasibility of including a homing device – a feature that aids in finding a misplaced remote. + +Discussions also touched on the potential of speech recognition technology and its appeal to certain demographics. The complexities of integrating such functions were explored, including the impact on costs and usability for diverse user groups, from tech-savvy millennials to disabled individuals. + +The team debated the necessity of traditional numeric buttons and considered innovative ways to navigate channels without them. However, the consensus was that numeric buttons were essential due to user familiarity and the broad range of channels available on modern televisions. + +In closing, specific tasks were assigned to each member: the Industrial Designer was to focus on developing a components concept, the User Interface designer on crafting user interface concepts, and the Marketing specialist on trend watching. The Project Manager reminded everyone about the follow-up actions, including replying to an upcoming questionnaire and summary email, and outlined the schedule for the lunch break and subsequent individual work time. + +The meeting successfully concluded with an acknowledgment of the next steps, establishing a clear path forward to refining the remote control design in line with the new user insights and project goals." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Je croix que c'est dommage de le {disfmarker} it will be sad to destroy this prototype . It really looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is a banana . +Project Manager: It is a banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is the essence of bananas . I would be confused with this thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How is everyone ? +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: So we are here for the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we will uh {disfmarker} I will first present what we are going to do in this meeting . Then uh I've {disfmarker} I will also take notes during this meeting and I will send you uh a summary then as usual . We will then look at the evaluation criteria of the prototype presented by uh our two colleagues that make good work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh then we will see the financial aspects and the cost of the product . Then we will uh evaluate the product . And uh end with the conclusion of this project and see whether it fits with {disfmarker} it fulf if it fulfil the requirement or not . So +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: d let's start with the cost aspect so so I look at the aspect discussed last time , that is to say uh to have a standard battery , {vocalsound} to have a yellow banana shaped uh case with uh a rubber material around it +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: to be uh to feel spongy , +User Interface: Like a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh also at the different aspect like having a wheel etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the cost ended to be ten point seven Euros . So which is uh good , because we had a price gap of twelve point five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So for the financial aspect it's okay , we can uh {disfmarker} we can continue with this product uh as if , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and we are now going to see the project evaluation with uh our marketing expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . So uh you can have my project in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You have a presentation ? +Marketing: Uh yeah just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Participant four , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four . Evaluation . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So you can go . We can go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I made an evaluation and the the evaluation criteria is made according to {vocalsound} the users' requirements and the market trends we talked about uh during the previous uh meetings . So you can go through and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: okay so uh we have uh six points . We we talked about before . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we we want to have a product fancy look and feel , technologically innovative , easy to use , fashion , {vocalsound} easy to find in a room , and robust , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh and uh uh I have a scale of uh seven points . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So I go through all the uh all the points here , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and uh according to what you think about the this project you can uh mm make a one point , two point or seven point . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And after we ha we have an an average , and uh we see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} okay ? {vocalsound} Uh so uh fancy look and feel , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe you can presen {vocalsound} +Marketing: F between o one and seven . +Project Manager: okay . Maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hold it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think it's uh very uh very nice . What do you think ? +User Interface: I give it a {disfmarker} I give it a five . +Project Manager: Yeah . So it's between one and seven ? Seven is the highest uh ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Seven is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I will give a six . +Industrial Designer: I will give a a five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And you ? +Marketing: {gap} sorry . +User Interface: Do you vote uh Christine ? +Marketing: {gap} eh ? +User Interface: Do you also vote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just want to see something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we all have to agree on a common {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we can {gap} very easily {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I think uh {gap} {vocalsound} and need to {gap} as well {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No problem . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is your {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh I don't know if you {disfmarker} we ha we have to put uh one uh f If it's better or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One is most {gap} . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Well , we can choose what we want . +Marketing: Um . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's say that seven is the best . +Marketing: Or maybe we can say s seven is the best mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so do note the grade we have five , six for me , +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: five . And what what's your choice ? +Marketing: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How much would you give on the fancy aspect , on the fashionable aspect ? +Marketing: Six {disfmarker} Uh s you can {disfmarker} how much what ? +Project Manager: How much would you {disfmarker} you don't answer to this uh questionnaire ? +Marketing: Oh yes I mm I dunno mm , I think six , it's a good uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it will have five point five average . +Project Manager: Five point five average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Wa can {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . So after , the technological aspect ? +Project Manager: Okay , techne technological aspect . +Marketing: So we we said uh we have uh a new technological uh thing with a wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have the wheel . We also have the rubber material , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which make it uh like new also . I think I would give a five . +User Interface: It's {gap} four . +Project Manager: Four ? +Industrial Designer: A four also , because , except for the wheel , we don't have so much innovation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The rubber is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a four . I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: D are we including the voice {disfmarker} are you glu are we including the voice in the end or not ? Huh ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: what's your uh grade ? +Marketing: Four . +Project Manager: Four ? So we have four , four f and five ? +Marketing: We can put four ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , four . Four , yeah , let's put four . +User Interface: For twenty five . +Marketing: Everyone is okay or {disfmarker} four poin Four . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Doesn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very easy to use . Do you think it's easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I give a seven , I think . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: I would give a {disfmarker} I would give a seven as well . It's very easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Mm , six for me also . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Six point five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: six point five . +Industrial Designer: Six six six point five . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Is it fashion ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: its its f its fruit fruit shape . +Marketing: Seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say seven . And is very very nice design . +Marketing: Yeah it's fashion , because it's a fruit , +User Interface: Yeah , we can we can put a seven here . +Marketing: and we say that the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , seven . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , we hope . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to find . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh easy to find in a room ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I lost my banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can't miss it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's cool . I think we can put a six here . +Marketing: We have the lightning , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we have {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} +Marketing: The lighting . +Project Manager: we don't sesh especially have the lightning +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you'll make the material transparent +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that it uh lights up completely , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's yellow . It's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I think it's very easy to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: I would say seven . It's hard to miss it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Six . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} is it robust ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's rubber , made of rubber , +Industrial Designer: Uh f yeah , it's ru it's rubber . +Project Manager: I think it's m it's uh more rubber than uh other remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah the only problem there might be {disfmarker} which {gap} know , i if it's very sensitive , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: they will , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it is uh {disfmarker} it is surrounded by rubber material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can put a six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Everybody is okay , six . +Industrial Designer: Six or five . Five {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Six is okay ? +User Interface: Six , yeah , for me . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: S now {vocalsound} um so . +Project Manager: Tadada . We have to sum up everything . +User Interface: Twenty . +Marketing: Thirteen uh , twenty , twenty six point five , uh seven , thirty two , thirty six {gap} . +User Interface: Thirty . Thir +Marketing: That's that's okay ? Six . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six is a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . Uh if we say that seven it's uh it's the better , +Project Manager: Yeah , the be . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , the top {disfmarker} +Marketing: and when uh s six sit six are good {disfmarker} it's a good uh p product , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , so six is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . So will become eight soon ? +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation , I think . It's very promising . +User Interface: Yeah , well it's a bit biased . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: We have a good price and uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this prototype is quite nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Because I saw uh some phones that were banana shaped , uh wireless phones not mobile ones , wireless for the house , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: uh quite big also , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they were selling {gap} something like a hundred Euros , two hundred Euros . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just a {vocalsound} just a phone , wireless . +Project Manager: So having this at twenty five Euros is uh quite attractive , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But almo also the complexity between a phone and a remote control is not {disfmarker} cannot compare . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's much more complex , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , I think , we can summarise . So we have seen the prototype . It's very nice according to the work of our two designer . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the financial aspect were okay . We we have the cost below uh our threshold and so we could sell at twenty five Euros and make i make profit . The the evaluation give satisfying result as well . So I think we can move to the last part of the meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the cost is in the budget , the evaluation is okay , so I th I think we can now uh open champagne and make a huge party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Start to eat banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if it's provided by uh by the meeting staff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so congratulation . {vocalsound} Nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Congratulations to the team . Uh very well , we worked together fantastically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it was a good collaboration uh . Aspect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what does the management say ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: What does the management say ? +Project Manager: I think we will have um much bigger project next time and a much bigger salary as well . +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: All it depends on who watch this meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: good guys {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so see you for next uh successful project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Fruits . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Mm . +","At a detailed design meeting, the team discusses a banana-shaped prototype that initially amuses them due to its resemblance to an actual banana. The project manager leads the meeting, outlining the agenda which includes presenting the prototype evaluation criteria and financial aspects, along with a product evaluation. The prototype cost is deemed favorable at 10.7 Euros, below the maximum limit of 12.5 Euros. + +During the evaluation, criteria such as fancy look and feel, technological innovation, ease of use, fashionability, visibility in a room, and robustness are rated on a seven-point scale, with the product scoring well across the board. The team expresses satisfaction with both the evaluation results and cost implications, suggesting the product has potential for profit at a sale price of 25 Euros. They conclude the meeting on a positive note, hinting at a celebration and looking forward to potential future success and rewards for their collaboration." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Good afternoon . Hope you have good lunch . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Afternoon . Yeah , we had falafel . +Project Manager: Oh . Nice . And you ? +User Interface: Uh , yes , I had something similar but non-vegetarian . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So today is um our third meeting . It will be about the conceptual design {vocalsound} uh . If I come back to uh the minutes of the last meetings um . We decided not to go for speech recognition technologies because of some reasons and we are not decided about u the use of L_C_D_ screen on on the remote control because of costs . So maybe we cou wi will be able to clarify this this question to today . Uh at the end of the meeting we should take decision on that point . So I hope uh that your respective pr presentations uh will help us . So each of you have some presentatio presentation to perform um who starts ? +Marketing: Okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: So marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you are {disfmarker} you saved your y your presentation somewhere ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you're four ? +Marketing: Four , yeah . +Project Manager: Which is trend watch . {vocalsound} Okay . Mr Marketing Experts . +Marketing: Yeah that's me . +Project Manager: So {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . Well I investigate the preference more d I investigate deeper the preference of the users . Uh so the the current investigation th uh th uh sorry the current the n current trends ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} Well wha {vocalsound} what I found {disfmarker} um can you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Next slide ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Thank you . What I found in order of importance from less to more important is that people want an easy to use device . After they they want something new technologic technologically speaking , but the most {disfmarker} what they what they find more more interesting , more {disfmarker} or more important it's uh a fancy look and feel instead of uh instead of the current the current trend which was f the functional look and feel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now more more cool aspect , ma more {disfmarker} a cooler aspect uh rather than a device with many functions and many buttons with {disfmarker} instead of i instead of ha of a device which can do many things , a device which is pleasant to to watch , to see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh also {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} in in Euro in in Paris and and {vocalsound} Milan the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: in Paris and in Paris and Milan the the current trend of {gap} uh of clothes , furniture and all this all this fashion it's {vocalsound} it's fruit and the the the theme is fruit and vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And also {vocalsound} in the in the U_S_A_ the the current {disfmarker} the mor the most popular feeling it's it's a spongy . Spongy means eponge ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe we should we should think in in this direction , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: What what do you mean by {vocalsound} fruit and vegetables and spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What {disfmarker} you mean clothe +Industrial Designer: Spongy means it it's like sp +Marketing: Fruit vegetables is the the new {disfmarker} have you seen the last exposition of clothes in Milan ? +User Interface: No , I missed that one . +Marketing: Yeah , I I didn't miss an {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I didn't miss and I saw that the fruit , there are many fr pictures of fruits and vegetables in the clothes . +User Interface: Oh , they're {disfmarker} okay so they're not like dressed as a carrot they just have like pictures of fruit on , okay . +Marketing: No no , not not yet , not yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we're not gonna have a remote control in the shape of of a banana , +Marketing: So te textu textures , yeah . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Vegetable textures and all this kind . +Project Manager: Drawings of bananas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But what's your suggestion how we can have some shape like that on the remote ? +Project Manager: Well so this is in the next slide certainly . +Marketing: Uh no no , it's not . +Project Manager: It's not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which fruit are you thinking of ? +Marketing: And {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I ha I haven't thought of any particular fruit , but the general aspect of the of the remote control may may {disfmarker} could remind some kind of vegetable , some kind of instead of vegetable , some natur mm uh natural object or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But yeah it it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So maybe you maybe you can display a banana on the L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , so you want the remote control to be the shape of a fruit , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you want just some kind of like fruit logo on the {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Means buttons are in the shape of fruits , +Marketing: Yeah maybe the shape the shape {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: buttons are in the frape {disfmarker} shape of fruits or something , apple , banana , something like that . +Marketing: No , not n not not too much focus , not too much focu not n not too s not too similar to a fruit because next year the ten the trend the trend will be different . +Project Manager: Apple for channel one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we shouldn't be at re really attached to to the trend +User Interface: So something that looks half like a fruit and half like an elephant . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} For instance , yeah . African or as an elephant ? +Industrial Designer: That we can discuss afterwards {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm not , I'm not really sure if uh that would really appeal to everyone though , maybe just to fashion gurus , like maybe just like a little bit n a little fruit picture somewhere in the corner , but I don't know about uh I dunno how ergonomic a , an orange is . +Marketing: Well ma maybe we we should further specify what target are we focusing . I think in my opinion we should focus on on young people because they are more open to new devi new devices +User Interface: To fruit ? +Marketing: and also yeah according to the marketing report ninety p ninety five percent of young people was {vocalsound} was was able to to buy a a n a cooler remote control . +User Interface: But is it uh is fruit cool ? +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: That's a question . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Is fruit cool ? +Marketing: Yeah ? Uh {disfmarker} Is the new trend of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I guess , you know , Apple has the iPod so , {vocalsound} imagi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just 'cause they have an apple on their on their product , doesn't mean fruit is cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think we we should think about a a shape with it {disfmarker} a device with a shape of some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but it has to be easy to uh to use though and to hold you know , you don't wanna pear or a watermelon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Don don't you think we can find uh the shape of a fruit which is handy to use ? +User Interface: Well , probably the only thing is a banana that I can think of , +Industrial Designer: Banana . +User Interface: a cucumber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe too long . +User Interface: I dunno . +Marketing: Or m +User Interface: Maybe . Too green . +Marketing: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , but I mean you also have to {disfmarker} you have to also have , fit r all the buttons and {disfmarker} you know . +Project Manager: A banana . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's , it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The thing is you have t normally with um with buttons , they have to be at some point attached to a circuit board so if you're gonna have things like {gap} on a cylindrical kind of device it may be difficult to kind of to build . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't th it will be rolling a lot . +Marketing: Yeah but I li I like your idea that we shouldn't have a lot of buttons b buttons so +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah and you you you will not have pla enough {disfmarker} a lot of place to put a L_C_D_ on a banana also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh do you want a an L_C_D_ with twenty five Euros ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you're the Marketing Expert you should tell us if it is too much or not . +User Interface: Well , this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} Well , according to the to the report people are more interested in in a fa fancy look and feel and in a technological inno in innovation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so , I will give more importance to the look and feel than {disfmarker} rather than the +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So you you you suggest to go f +Marketing: new inputs and also it's {disfmarker} I'm not convinced about this L_C_D_ because you need uh internet connection , you need more things , it's not just buying a new control re remote , you need {disfmarker} buying control remote , buying uh +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} S so you're simply +Marketing: more things . It's not so simple . +Project Manager: you're simply looking s to a remote control that looks like a banana with few buttons {disfmarker} with only a few buttons . +Marketing: For instance , yeah . Yeah for for for {disfmarker} given an an example yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay good . So maybe you can go ahead ? +Marketing: Yeah no , it's what I already said . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Thanks . Um . Okay , I'll give the floor . So you are User Interface guy . So you're three ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's this one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Go for it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . Okay . So . S next uh slide . Okay . So I received an email um around lunchtime letting me know that the brilliant minds at our technology division had developed an integrated programmable sample sensor sample speaker unit , um which is a way for you to have a conversation with your coffee machine and or remote control {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But it's just a speaker right ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} no , what it is , it's it's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not a microphone . +User Interface: It has a has a microphone , has a speaker , it's got a little chip and it allows you t +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Actually I'm not reading microphone there , so that's why you can all have conversation , it {gap} just to speak to you . +User Interface: Well , it's a sample sensor sample speaker . Sample sensor sample speaker . It means that it can recognize , it can do like a match on a on a certain phrase that you speak and then can play back a phrase in response to that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh there's no kind of um understanding of the phrase . So , I mean , you know , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I guess you could build that in , you could you could link the the recognition of a certain phrase to some function on on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But basically the thing is , we have this technology available +Industrial Designer: In-house . +User Interface: in-house . So , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but the thing is obviously there's still gonna be a cost if you decided to integrate that because you still have to pay for the c production of the components , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um it it {disfmarker} but it basically means we c we can kind of consider this from uh you know uh a theoretical or usability kind of viewpoint without worrying too much about you know how to develop it because we have this already done . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Whilst you know , some people might get annoyed if we uh if we just dump it , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} there's something that I {disfmarker} unclear really understanding . Is this a technology that recognize keywords {disfmarker} speech keywords ? +User Interface: It's it it's no , well , it's it'll recognize uh I guess keywords , but you know keywords in a certain order like a phrase . You train it for a certain uh , for a certain phrase , you say {disfmarker} the the example they said that they have uh up and running with their prototype is um {disfmarker} well they've actually integrated into the into the the coffee machine that uh that we're producing is , you can say good morning to the coffee machine and it can recognize that phrase and it'll playback good morning , how would you like your coffee ? +Project Manager: And it's just to , it's just to playback something ? +User Interface: Yeah . So actually that was a bad example , 'cause it doesn't actually ask how do you want your coffee because it can't really understand the response , so . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is not s really to do to to do control . +User Interface: Only , like , only in the sense that it it can recognize a set a set target kind of word an +Project Manager: Yeah . This is just more like a poi pois yeah . +User Interface: It's designed it's designed as a fun kind of thing , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: but I guess you could use it as uh as a way to implement uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it it's c uh it it +Marketing: Yeah but you can u +Project Manager: it is a uh uh easy uh a fancy thing that you you can bring to {disfmarker} we can bring to the remote control that will not have any uh +User Interface: Completely pointless yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah comp {vocalsound} completely pointless {vocalsound} for the inter for {disfmarker} from the interaction point of v point of view {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , unless you know , you like having conversation with your remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} can we use it for saying okay , channel fifty , channel twenty ? +User Interface: Well yeah , that's the thing , if {disfmarker} you can but {vocalsound} you have to pro though I think it's a fairly simple design so you would have to record into the device every possible combination , you have to s tr train it to l to learn channel fifteen , that whole thing , not just the word channel and the word fifteen , it doesn't have that kind of logic in it . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is so this is this is much more than tak taking this technology , bringing it to the remote control and using it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , that would be some development work . +Project Manager: So this is out of discussion . So if if if it is something that you can {disfmarker} we can bring easily and to put it into the banana remote control {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: M Mando . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-mando . +Project Manager: No this is mm banana-bando , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-man {vocalsound} +Marketing: Banana-mando yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then it could be cool yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , let's go ahead . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I uh I I I don't think it's worth it though , I think it doesn't really add much to the functional design and it's it's it's not mature enough to use as a speech recognition engine , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . So if we can just move on to the next slide , I've just done a quick mock-up of uh uh some of the features of our {vocalsound} potential funky-looking uh remote control {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't look like a banana at all . +User Interface: Well , you see , I was I was unaware at this point of th of the fruit focus , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: um , so at the moment it's more of a box focus . +Project Manager: But you you can fit i you're saying now you can fit it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks like a tr look likes a a tro a tropical fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , this is actu this could be a genetically engineered fruit that's designed to be you know square so that it packs tighter in the boxes . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I've just indicated here , we could have actually two scroll wheels , 'cause I think the scroll wheel is a fairly um key part of , you know , +Industrial Designer: Stable thing , that's right . To have {gap} , +User Interface: I think everyone has has agreed that it's {disfmarker} that it could be quite a useful um thing , so . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think it's important , you know , to have two scroll wheels because , you know , you want one for for the channel , but you also want one for for the volume , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because it's it's {disfmarker} the volume i it's , you know it's very handy for it to have uh instant kind of uh feedback uh and response , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um , I've also included this turbo button because I think , you know , every design should have a turbo button , and {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's a turbo button ? +User Interface: so this is you know , a unique problem with with televisions is that if you have this scro this scroll wheel for the television , the uh the tuner on the T_V_ is not gonna be able to to switch between stations as fast as you can scroll , so you know , the th the person might want to have a uh {disfmarker} Might want to be able to scroll past television stations without seeing what's on them , in which case it just waits until you stop scrolling and then , you know , displays that station . Or they might want to scroll and and have a quick glimpse of it , even if it lags behind what they're doing {gap} . +Marketing: It con it controls the speed ? +User Interface: Yeah , so with this turbo button you can , say , skip over t channels if uh , you know , if I'm if I'm going {disfmarker} if I'm scrolling past them and you know , it's um , you could have a little red light that comes up when they press it so they feel you know it's really going fast or whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yeah , that's um , those are the two important uh features I think we need on the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but I mean we can discuss about what other kind of buttons we need , um . You know , i it could be , you know , if we if we wanna have like a very cheap kind of device , I mean , we could either consider that maybe we want to sell this as a very , if it's gonna be a banana , you know that's a pretty gimmicky kind of thing that doesn't have that much functionality , it's just you know a couple of scroll wheels and a button cause it's hard to get so many buttons on a banana +Project Manager: It's enough . +User Interface: and it's still very {disfmarker} it may even be for most {disfmarker} for some people more functional than their current remote , but if they have these scroll wheels , so , um {vocalsound} you know , what other buttons do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean we could have {disfmarker} well , I guess you need an on and off switch , +Project Manager: Switch on . Yeah . +User Interface: but you could you could o you could turn it turn it on by taking the top off the banana maybe , you know , it's kind of like a spy kind of flick thing . +Marketing: Yeah . So sounds crazy . I like crazy ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's why you're a marketing guru . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So i it looks like we're going completely to forget about the L_C_D_ thing . +User Interface: Well , that's the thing , as {disfmarker} have we decided that we can only spend , uh , twenty five Euro ? +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well not spend , but you know , charge twenty five Euro . +Marketing: I I think we could use somehow the s coffee machine dialogue interface or so . +Project Manager: No we can we can't use that . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} we can ? We can't . +Project Manager: We can't use that to to comman co communicate , +Industrial Designer: Communicate . +Project Manager: it's just a thing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but we can say channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: It's one way . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: But then you have to have a template for every channel , for a hundred channels , you have to be able to to recognize {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's not a lot one hundred templates , +User Interface: Mm . Well , I f I think it's probably more than , than our {gap} can handle because it's designed for a coffee machine , you know , to say hello in the morning . +Marketing: it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , it's designed for a cof {vocalsound} okay . Is it design for a coffee machine ? +User Interface: Well that's its current application , I would presume that it's kind of , they wouldn't design it to handle a hundred things th so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe you could ask your {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you could ask the engineering department if we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . A good good good thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to g to move to your slides ? +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Project Manager: You're finished ? +User Interface: Well I just I just made the point , I don't I don't know if that speech recognition is , you know , even if we can do it , I think it's not really appropriate for uh television environment . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so . +User Interface: But um I did have one thing from a previous meeting , you were talking about um being able to find the remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and I was talking about extendin being able to extend the remote control by having you know , a base station that can control other things as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might be useful to have some kind of base station , even if it's just you press on a button on it and uh and the remote control starts beeping , you know , this is a way of finding the remote . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Y in that case maybe the maybe the speech recognition {disfmarker} the speech thing could be useful just to say I'm here +Project Manager: Exactly yeah . +User Interface: but uh it's probably a bit of overkill if you could just have a a beeping {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's a speech synthesis kind of thing , +User Interface: It's speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: something has been uh stored and it's just uh spoken out . +User Interface: It's it's speech synthesis and s it's speech kind of , not really speech recognition , but kind of pattern matching , yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's move on . So you're two ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is going to be about the component design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So first thing is we need power source for the remote control . So I was of the idea that we can have two kind of power supplies , one is the usual batteries which are there , they could be chargeable batteries if there's a basis station kind of thing and on top of that we can have solar cells , when the lighting conditions are good they can be used so it'll be pretty uh innovative kind . Then uh we need plastic with some elasticity so that if your {disfmarker} if the remote control falls it's not broken directly into pieces , there should be some flexibility in t +User Interface: I guess that fits in with the spongy kind of design philosophy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there should {disfmarker} we should think of something like that and then it should be double curve . The s science for the ease of handling and there are some other issues why we need double curve . Then controls for the traditionals u traditional users we can have the push buttons so that they don't feel that it's an alien thing for them . +User Interface: So , just one second , when you say double curve , what do you actually mean ? You reckon you could like draw us a thing on the , on the whiteboard 'cause I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Double curve is , you have curves on both the sides if I'm right . So it's symmetrical kind of thing , whatever it is . +User Interface: Okay , but like , kind of convex or concave ? +Industrial Designer: So , it could be curve , so it could be convex , conve concave , depending on what what we want . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So there are flats , there are single curve and there are double curves . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: These are the three things , and there are different materials , with plastic you can have double curve but with uh certain other materials we cannot have double curve . So there there was uh there were many other materials like wood , titanium and all those things , but plastic is I think is the most appropriate one , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it'll bring the cost down +User Interface: Although , you know , wood could be uh quite a stylish uh option , +Industrial Designer: and anyway it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: if you take like , nice quality kind of wood that's got a nice grain and you kind of put some , some varnish on . +Project Manager: Mm but i but there is no elasticity which could be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wooden cases {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends , I mean , you have the outs the wood itself is not gonna break so you don't have to worry too much about the case being broken , +Project Manager: Yeah but the components inside . +User Interface: it's the inside . Yeah but inside you know you could have {disfmarker} you can still have some kind of cushioning that's not visible to the to the user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very {disfmarker} too expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I mean you could also , you can have just a very thin veneer of wood as well . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's more easier to do a banana in plastic than uh in wood . +User Interface: That's true , but are we set on the banana idea ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually +Project Manager: it looks like you are all targeting that +Marketing: I was thinking that the +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah ? +Marketing: the shape of a banana is not it's not really handy . +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh I don't know the name o o in English uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it an e apple which has {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not a fruit it's a vegetable . +User Interface: It's like a pumpkin or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? Pumpkin . +Marketing: Green . +Project Manager: Green . +User Interface: Green . +Project Manager: Um um um , yes I see . +User Interface: What does it taste like ? +Marketing: And you put in the salad . +Project Manager: Pep pepperoni . +User Interface: Ah yeah , +Marketing: Um +User Interface: is it {disfmarker} what's it in French ? +Project Manager: Poivron . +Marketing: Oui c'est ca +User Interface: Yeah , okay , so capsicum or pepper . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh pepper . +Marketing: Pepper . +Project Manager: But um they do d +Marketing: And it's al it also suits with the double curve for easy of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know , it seems a little bit kind of bulky to me , like +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I mean in a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not re it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} like with a banana you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you you think it's really fancy and fun ? You think that young people that are {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure it's fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . More than a banana ? +Marketing: But banana is not so handy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Banana is more handier as compared to this I think , and to capsicum . +Marketing: I think that's handier . +User Interface: But {gap} like a banana you can you can be holding like this and have the scroll wheel kind of on top +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and just roll it back and forth like that , +Project Manager: It's kind it's kind of {disfmarker} it's more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but with uh {disfmarker} I don't know how you would hold a capsicum and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's really ergonomic , it's fit in the hand and you've a lot of surface to {vocalsound} to put the controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay let's move on . +Marketing: Yeah you're right . +Project Manager: So time is running , let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so push buttons for the traditional users so that they don't feel they are alienated , just {disfmarker} and a scroll button with push technology for channel selection , volume control and teletext browsing . These are the three scroll buttons which are already available with us in the company and we we can go ahead with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can go to the next slide . Then uh there are different kind of chips , one one is the basic chip and the regular chip and one an adva advanced chip . So we can have regular chip for control . Pricing is a factor for us , that's why we'll go for the regular chip . And uh regular chip supports speaker support , so this functionality could be used for tracing the mobile phone which has been misplaced . +User Interface: So is that , when you say speaker support , you mean it just has some output pinned which which which kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It could be a beep kind of thing . +User Interface: Okay , but the speaker is actually attached to the to the chip in some way , or is just the the signal ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , that's right , it's it's onto the chip , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: most most probably , not not hundred per cent sure about that . +User Interface: Okay . So are there any issues where we place this this chip to make sure you can actually hear the the speaker from the outside of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: That will be the volume control I think which which a user shou it it should be already pre-defined . It should be {disfmarker} whatever will be the case , the chip is always going to be sitting inside . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , but the speaker , if the speaker is actually on the chip , then if it's too far away from the the casing , or if the casing is too thick , then you may not hear the the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh , so we can have it at one of the boundaries so that things are slightly better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As {disfmarker} or as hearing is concerned , we can have some gap at some place , +User Interface: Yeah . So that's something we have to keep in mind with the actual physical design is to keep the the speaker close enough to the outside . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} That's right . Okay . Yeah . So these these were the component selection and these things . We can go to the next slide . And uh these were the findings which I I saw with the web web , that user wants to have control more than one device {disfmarker} wants to control more than one device from the same remote control , so our T_V_ remote can have little extra things to support additional devices like V_C_R_ D_V_D_ players which are usually attached with the T_V_ , because users are like this and they don't want to have one remote control for everything , so with this additional little , we might be having slightly better market for us . +User Interface: Although , if {disfmarker} It depends , if we like , if we are concentrating on like a fruit design , then maybe maybe we wanna sell a collection of fruit , you know , like a different fruit for each device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Of fruits . +User Interface: Cause that , you know , that {disfmarker} sometimes people like to collect um you know things that {disfmarker} of a similar type . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: S objects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Remotes {disfmarker} objects , okay . +Project Manager: Crazy objects . +Marketing: I think that would be funny at the beginning but after one month you will be tired of be surrounded of fruits . +User Interface: Well , {vocalsound} you're the one who wanted to do fruit in the first place . +Marketing: No but I think just one fruit to control everything . +User Interface: Like a power fruit . +Marketing: A power fr a power M a Mando , a Supermando fruit {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh as well as I could see on the web the scroll button is becoming really uh hot thing s +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should have it on the remote . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually I I didn't understand very well this trace speaker lost control . +Industrial Designer: So you're having a basis station . Okay . Your {disfmarker} usually your remote sits on that . So you {disfmarker} and it's {disfmarker} that's why it can have chargeable batteries . Now let's say {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you have to buy two things , the banana and the basis station . +Project Manager: Bu it's it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Basis station is with the thing . +Project Manager: You s you you {gap} thing . +Industrial Designer: It's like a telephone handset is there and the basis station for the telephone hand set is there . So now what user gets additionally he doesn't have to buy batteries , they're rechargeable batteries , so over the period of cor time he'll recover the cost . So you're having the basis station and there is a button , if you press that button wherever the remote it'll start beeping so you know where the remote is . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think that's a pretty handy feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's kind of {disfmarker} people would find that worth it even if it wasn't uh a recharging station , even if they didn't have to buy extra batteries , you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but I'm a bit worried about the budget . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is {disfmarker} basis station is nothing more , just it's a wire which is coming from the main cable and uh you're having one socket on which the thing sits . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Although you do need to include R_F_ kind of circuitry in the remote . +Industrial Designer: That's right . But all these things are usually in-house so we don't have much problems . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So component cost is going to be the least . Anyway , we are not using really advanced technology , L_C_D_ has already been ruled out , A_S_R_ has been ruled out . So it's the basic thing but very trendy and very user-friendly . +User Interface: Okay . I'm just wondering actually , 'cause , you know , I {disfmarker} this whole fruit thing with the banana , it's um it seemed like {disfmarker} it first seems a bit kind of uh niche , like only a few people would really want a banana , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: but what if it was kind of uh a stylised banana ? You know , rather than having it kind of you know yellow and really looking exactly like a banana , you could make it kind of silver . And um , you know to give you kind of the idea of a banana but without it looking you know completely kitsch . {vocalsound} For better {disfmarker} want of a better word +Project Manager: You think that yellow it's kitsch . +User Interface: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , you know , I don I don't know how many peop +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you make something that looks like a banana it should have the colour of a banana . +Marketing: Yeah . No , I I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A {disfmarker} yeah , otherwise it'll be mis means you don't get b any feeling then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O otherwise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe li like that . +Industrial Designer: It's neither a banana nor a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like this colour this colour {disfmarker} Maybe , you know , maybe {disfmarker} like still in the shape of a banana . +Project Manager: Roughly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , but you know , just maybe maybe not exactly the same texture as a banana and just kind of , you know {disfmarker} because the thing is it's gonna be a little bit difficult to make {disfmarker} um to give like the texture of a banana anyway and to k to have the exact shape . I think if you're gonna not be able to do it properly you may as well do it in a stylised way that just looks a bit more kind of , you know , twenty first century rather than sixties or seventies . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Let's move on . +Industrial Designer: And uh going to the last slide . +Project Manager: Uh uh {disfmarker} yeah . Before before st before ending the meeting I'd like to to draw some sketch about the pro future prot prototype . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Go for it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well no , not not you , you can finish your slides before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , so . Anyway , users'll be {disfmarker} so the findings is users'll be very interested in our locator device to find their misplaced remotes . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that was very {disfmarker} I thought it's a very good suggestion by everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: That's all ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , so mm {vocalsound} so well done for the presentations . So we need to take some de decisions about um {vocalsound} about what we're going to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I I propose that you go to the whiteboard +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we're going to report all the ideas we had we had during this these presentations just to draw some sketch about what will be the prod final product +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and uh where Superman go banana and uh {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh extra func functionalities such as wheels , um the speaker unit um well not in order {disfmarker} not to lost the um the device , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I do I don't remember you call it ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . The basis station . That's right . +Project Manager: Basis station , yeah . Uh so um {vocalsound} so we're going for a stylish banana shape . +User Interface: Yeah , so , I guess you wanna hold {disfmarker} like the way {disfmarker} the end of the banana you wanna kind of hold as ma you maybe wanna kinda hold like a gun rather than {disfmarker} 'cause you don't want it to point kind of towards the floor . +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +User Interface: So you know , so if you have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about what about this shape ? More or less . +Project Manager: We +Industrial Designer: There's less space on this to put with the buttons . +Project Manager: I if it i if it has really the model shape of a bana you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but how many buttons do we need ? +Project Manager: the the starting is good but it could {disfmarker} it should have more the shape of a banana if you want to point really a at the thing . If you don't want to to to do that movement which is which is difficult {disfmarker} if you don't have to do it in fact , it's better . So ti time is running , +Industrial Designer: Uh what about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to we have to we have to to move forward . So let's skip to uh this uh this this this idea . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have this . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have a a basis um , how do you call it {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: The base station . +Project Manager: A base station . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have a base station extra uh on the side . +User Interface: {gap} okay , so I guess we need , you know , something that can fit a banana shaped object . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , we have a R_F_ for um for beeping for beeping . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , we need that , yeah . +Project Manager: We need b R_F_ to beep . +User Interface: Okay , so it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} that means we need a button on th on the on the basis . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Basis station . +Project Manager: Basis station , thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Alright , so we need uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go quickly please ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So we are going to add uh also um you {disfmarker} as you suggested the whee some wheels to control the volumes and channels and your tur turbo turbo uh button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , which {disfmarker} I think it's it's probably best actually on the on the underneath of the the device , +Industrial Designer: Turbo button . +Project Manager: Yeah , on the th yeah , maybe here . +User Interface: so you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the and the wheel a a at the level of the thumb for instance . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah , so you have the thumb kind of here . +Project Manager: And and you have two wheels . +User Interface: So yeah , you need one one here and one on on the other side , so you got volume an and channel . +Project Manager: Okay right . Good . So no L_C_D_ . +User Interface: And , uh {disfmarker} No L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Okay great . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Very good . +User Interface: Oh we need a we need a power um on off switch as well . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , just the switch , +Industrial Designer: Remotes don't have power on off switch . +Project Manager: no f not for the T_V_ for the T_V_ . Uh so you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . S no , that'll be controlled by the {disfmarker} those buttons'll be there already , yeah . +Marketing: What a +User Interface: Where ? +Industrial Designer: Means on the remote . +Project Manager: On the side . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because remote is going to have both the interfaces , scroll as well as buttons . They are not going to cost you much , everything is in-house and now you don't want the traditional users to be apprehensive of this . +User Interface: Well , I dunno if the traditional user is gonna buy a a banana remote in the first place , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . That's that's another issue which I didn't think of . +User Interface: Y I mean you need to kind of keep it um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you know our targets are very high , means fifty million Euros is the profit which we want make . +Marketing: What about {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how many of these did we wanna sell ? I can't remember , +Industrial Designer: Twenty five . +Project Manager: Twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five is the profit on one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but how many units did we need to to sell {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Uh forty th four . Point point four million ? +Marketing: Four millions ? +User Interface: Four point four million . +Industrial Designer: Point four million . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's a lot of fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So . Well . No . Time is running , we have to close the meeting in a few minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , okay , the next step , you can come back to your seat . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The next step is to go for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to f is to go to uh to building a prototype , based on this , okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting you guys have to prepare the followi things . You have to uh work on the look and feel uh design and you have to work on the user interface , in fact you two you have to work together to model the first uh f first prototype . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh Marketing Expert uh have to go to product evaluation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: I wo what about adding the {disfmarker} this word spotting , keyword spotting recognition saying {gap} volume up volume down ? +Project Manager: It's too difficult . +Marketing: It's too difficult but people like innovation and that's really uh innovative and I don't know if it would cost a lot , just a few {disfmarker} five words . +Project Manager: It's not a possi it will not be possible to implement it for the next prototype , so t it's {disfmarker} in the next prototype so let's skip it . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: For the future prototypes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe , for the n if if if it it works well , we'll go for uh an orange one . +User Interface: That can be the t That can be like the turbo banana plus plus commando . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , honour the fruit . +Marketing: Plus plus , okay . Maybe objective banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks very much . We'll see n next meeting . Bye . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So meeting's over ? +User Interface: Yep . We have to go design the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: The problem is after all this meeting there is {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","In the third meeting, the team discussed conceptual design decisions for a remote control, specifically the aesthetics and functional features. Speech recognition was previously ruled out, and the LCD screen was under debate due to cost concerns. Market preferences showed a trend toward a cool-looking, easy-to-use device over a functionally complex one. A fruit and vegetable theme emerged from fashion trends, and this inspired the possibility of a banana-shaped remote, simplifying the design to limited essential buttons such as volume and channel controls, possibly including a turbo button. The idea of an LCD was dismissed to maintain cost efficiency. Other discussed features included a speaker unit for sound feedback and a base station for charging and locating the remote. The team decided to move forward with designing a prototype based on the banana shape concept with considered features." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh 'kay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So so so . +User Interface: Put on your mic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you forgot how this works again ? +User Interface: Boss . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Boss . +Marketing: Maybe . Maybe maybe maybe . +Project Manager: Okay so we're here to talk about the detailed design of the product , 'kay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And here's the agenda for this meeting . Uh I'm just gonna open , say a few boring words to start with again , and start taking minutes afterwards . You guys are gonna give us a presentation of our wonder product that I can see some demonstrations of over there . Looks cool . And then we're gonna evaluate it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bra +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we're gonna talk about finance , and I've got a lovely Excel spreadsheet that I knocked up in the last five minutes for this . And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hmm you knocked it up ? +Project Manager: yep . And {vocalsound} we're gonna evaluate the product and close . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Got forty minutes to do this in . We should be fine . Let's try and keep this one on schedule . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your thing is in {disfmarker} where is it ? Is it in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Three , three . +Industrial Designer: Thi third third third . The end product thingy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants it ? +User Interface: Pedro can have it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I'll help talk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah so what we ended up with . Production costs estimated by our manufacturing department and um the research department , which is us , is uh fifteen point eight Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: someone forgot the {vocalsound} units there +User Interface: Unit price . +Industrial Designer: yeah , uh unit price {disfmarker} unit production price cost thing . Um we implemented the basic functions , which is just T_V_ functions plus the locator , which was one of the marketing things , cradle , scroll wheel for uh the {vocalsound} the channels , and uh we implemented the f the the way of putting the new and revolutionary zapping , your favourite channels functionality , in the scroll . +Project Manager: Zapping your favourite channels , eh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Scrolling through your favourites list . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Zapping you know zapping . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay okay , that's favourites . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's just a Portuguese thing {vocalsound} . And um yeah that was the result . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay . I like the the the the logo on there as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's very prominent {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is very prominent . So this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} here I'll give you the {disfmarker} so this is the cradle unit , and this is the actual remote itself . Um so the scroll bar is {disfmarker} or the scroll wheel is this this green little scrolly guy here , um and then the volume controls are here and here . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh you've got the keypad which is the numbers uh f from zero to nine and then ten . This is the power button . Uh we have our um {vocalsound} we have the enter button and uh what was the other button here ? This is the teletext . +Industrial Designer: Start s the the start uh to to to +User Interface: The programme button , +Industrial Designer: programme yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay I see . +User Interface: yeah the programme button . So this bl this button will be used both for the favourites and for programming {vocalsound} your uh the um the type of television you wanna use . So um the plastic is the white area of this {disfmarker} of the model here , and the red area is like a rubber covering . +Project Manager: It's pretty cool . +User Interface: So you can see that when it lays like this or like this {disfmarker} and the buttons are all gonna be rubber , so it's pretty hard to actually damage it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that {disfmarker} could that be easy to {disfmarker} for the scroll wheel to be rotated if it lands on it ? +User Interface: Yeah that might be a possible a mi uh possible problem , but if you drop it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not helping {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh well I guess it depends on the stiffness a little of it . +User Interface: Yeah and it depends on if it's sliding , but I think it's pretty ergonomic . You can feel it . +Project Manager: Mm . Feels good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take it that this is gonna be slightly lighter in the final design as well . +User Interface: Yeah of course . Well this is clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it's kinda cool . You have to reach a little bit don't you . +User Interface: Yeah the the power button is a bit of a reach , but I think we might scale down the final model a bit . +Project Manager: Ah yeah that wouldn't make sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} These {disfmarker} this is a bit larger than it would be , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: Don't have no one to handle that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And hold it so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wh what's the marketing perspective ? +Marketing: oh that's {disfmarker} oh I like it . I mean you guys gave me more than I was asking for , so I'm happy because we've got some really marketable features in this . Yeah I think it's good . Good good good job . +User Interface: Mm Pedro can demonstrate the the paging ability . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So you ha you have like the the base station with um the little button for the where's my remote . +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh pla +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The locator function . +Marketing: I'm ha +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's great . That's great . It's a great feature . +User Interface: Um beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm it's impressing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wicked isn't it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let me get it , +User Interface: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if I press this button {disfmarker} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see . That's pretty cool . Hang on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} be shut up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can take this ho take this home with you tonight and you can push that and he'll be across town {disfmarker} +User Interface: Beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I plan to do that as well . +User Interface: okay . Um no no no tha that's alri +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So the the two blue {disfmarker} are are those for the the it to charge off of {disfmarker} in ? +User Interface: Exactly that's exactly what those are for . +Project Manager: Ah okay okay . +User Interface: And um there's one other feature that we were debating , but we decided to go against it , is um {disfmarker} you could +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we were thinking that it might be interesting to have a trigger button here because you have this finger {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} it's the right shape isn't it ? +User Interface: it it's it kinda feels like there should be something there , but we couldn't figure out what button is important enough to put there . And we we don't wanna accidentally be hitting the power button like that so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe if you had a trigger plus the scroll then that would get past the the problem of it landing and scrolling , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: 'cause then it would need to be hit on both sides {gap} . +User Interface: Right . So maybe in a final design phase we might tweak that a little bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I can see that . +Project Manager: But it's definitely got options for like different types of models and things as well based on that , hasn't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep I like . Good job . +Project Manager: So is that the the final colour scheme as well or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no . +User Interface: Oh no this is {vocalsound} just what we had to work with at the time . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So we'll leave the colour scheme up to the marketing people . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Careful . +Project Manager: It came off . The scroll wheels , {gap} a problem with them not being sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think the user interface guy wants to touch it anymore . +Marketing: Well I mean of course , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My my s my suggestion is we're gonna go go to the silvers and blacks like most of the televisions . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: You know some blend of silvers and blacks . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Beep beep beep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay enough of that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well i it's cool guys . 'Kay so are we done with the this presentation ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you're not gonna find my uh my folder up there I gotta do mine up at the board . +Project Manager: Have you ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can I not get your get at stuff from your shared folder now ? +Marketing: No it's not in there because I had the computer problem and I I I cou I couldn't create it . +Project Manager: Oh I see I see . +Marketing: I couldn't create it in the PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I think I've got this really strange cable . So what I had , basically going from the PowerPoint format , is that uh yeah yeah I like this a lot . Is this one of the tests is to see how we can adapt to s changing situations in the in the meeting room ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So what we had is we had the method . That's not how you spell method , is it ? +User Interface: No way . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No A_ {vocalsound} . {gap} . {vocalsound} So this doesn't go so fast this way . And when I speak about method I speak about the marketing of the product huh . And uh to me with this product we got uh {disfmarker} we got {vocalsound} basically three things to market . We've got the features , we have the uh characteristics , and we have the {vocalsound} I I don't know what we would call the other part {disfmarker} what we call you know the the {vocalsound} the corp corporate {disfmarker} Help me . The the corporation stands behind the product , okay . So the features I think {vocalsound} we got the scroll , we've got the uh the locator , we've got the durability , we've got the dependability , +Industrial Designer: It fell off . +Marketing: we've got you know the features that make this a unique product . Um +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} the characteristics I talk about , we have reliability , we have comfort , we have ergonomics , we have environmentally s sensitive . Uh and the corporation , we're talking about {disfmarker} we're we're a new we're a new company . We're wanting to make a name for ourself . We're wanting you to uh find our product so we're gonna give you a good product at a fair price . One thing I would want to to see is uh is can we can we get a lifetime uh guarantee on this product , a normal use guarantee , which means that this product , for the for the life of of {disfmarker} the life use , if it should have a technical problem , that we could re replace it at no cost ? That was something I would be interested in . Um so {vocalsound} yeah without uh going into great details , we have a we have a product , it has the features and the characteristics , and the background , I believe , to make it marketable I believe at a cost of of of thirty thirty five to to fifty Euros . We're gonna be competitive , and we're gonna we're gonna have a market niche . Um w +Project Manager: Do you {disfmarker} would you a argue that that we're better going for the higher cost than bringing it down into twenty f five as we probably could , but lowering our profit margins ? +Marketing: That that would be uh that would be I think a decision best made by corporate um I I m for my evaluation , based on what our competition is , I th I think that that we can go after this and and and go after more of the uh exclusivity sense than the mass market sense . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm sh I'm sure open to to market this in either direction . But you guys came up with a great product , and at that cost I think it uh {disfmarker} there's nobody else that's putting this this combination of of ingredients together . The only limitations I see to this is that we're focused on television only . Uh that's the only that's the only drawback I see to this . But with all of these other features I think people c {vocalsound} one thing I'm I'm hoping for is people are not gonna even notice . There's gonna be somebody going home and say oh sh this thing doesn't work for my D_V_D_ and my {disfmarker} but I like these other things , so they keep it , they don't take it back . +Project Manager: And we're actually quite open to be able to expand the product for a later version with those features quite simply anyway , aren't we ? Th there's no fundamentally different technology to do that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well one of one of the thoughts that I had is can can this unit be be produced in a way that makes it upgradable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: You know uh like like a um a sim card in a in a um in a telephone . You know is there a card in th can we make a card and so after {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we need we need we need s some more buttons if it would to work on some other stuff , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , but you follow what I'm s I'm s +Industrial Designer: We we w yeah we could get another version of it that actually works . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause if if we can make this unit upgradable then we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah but then we talk about changing the warranty concept and everything , but that's that was just an idea I had . Uh to me the only additions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the plus there's the the risk of making it unusable as well , or making it less {disfmarker} b because at the moment it's actually very straightforward to look at all the buttons , you know what they do , it's very simple , and it just works . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm there's a risk of that . +Marketing: Yep . But anyway that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so we can talk about finance now . So I have a little spreadsheet for us where {disfmarker} I I was wondering , you {disfmarker} when you talked about the fifteen point eight Euros , I was wondering how you came up with that figure ? +User Interface: Well , that was just just our technical team added up the um production costs of the individual units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so I have bit of a spreadsheet here for this . {vocalsound} Now +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Very co very colf colourful . +Project Manager: I've made a f few assumptions here in that I'm assuming that our power adaptor we can make for a cost of four Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Project Manager: equivalent to solar cells , which I think is probably fair considering that we have in-house manufacturing of power adaptors already . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} and I'm assuming that the locator beacon , the you know the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: beep beep beep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can be made for {disfmarker} it sounded different that time {disfmarker} uh can be made for a similar price to uh an L_C_ display , +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh an uh {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh do you think that's fair coming from a {disfmarker} m the manufacturing ? +User Interface: Yeah um I do think we that we we {vocalsound} uh don't need the events chip on print , we only need the uh the regular chip on print , +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: so there may have been a m miscalculation in there . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . So we're down to sixteen point four , yeah . +User Interface: And we and we have a single-curved uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a single-curved rather than a double-curved ? +User Interface: Uh I think that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not entirely sure what single-curve versus double-cur +Marketing: {vocalsound} We've got a we've got a curve and a droop . I don't know whether that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's single-curved , +Project Manager: You think ? Okay +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm {gap} convinced . But we save one Euro that way , yeah ? So we come {disfmarker} bring it down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifteen point four . +User Interface: See it's a little bit more than f single-curved . So yeah it's fifteen point eight , that's where we came up with it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well hang on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do don't speak so {disfmarker} it's in here , in that {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: w do we have any {disfmarker} we have special form don't we ? +User Interface: Yeah we do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Ah . What do you know {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: But the the the {disfmarker} we haven't talked about any special colour though uh I don't th +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh it's {vocalsound} a that's not very special , it's pretty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're going for greys and silvers then I don't think we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} O okay so we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} If th {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Push-button , scroll wheel , we're {disfmarker} basically we have uh th +Industrial Designer: We don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is this intended to be a button as well or just a scroll ? +User Interface: That's a scroll . +Industrial Designer: It's a scroll . +Project Manager: Just a scroll ? It's not one of the scrolls where , for example , with this one you could push it down to be a button ? +User Interface: Uh no we just use it as a scroll . +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: Okay then we have fifteen point eight Euros . +User Interface: It was a pretty accurate estimate I would say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It wasn't bad . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: We're wicked . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay so we're on to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: S 's kind of s frighteningly accurate {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're on to the pat-on-the-back part of the presentation , where we have a look at the criterias th that Paul {vocalsound} the criterion criteria that Paul has has given us {vocalsound} , and we can use that to tell {disfmarker} How's it going ? {vocalsound} Anyone got any thoughts ? +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: How how have we done today ? +User Interface: I think we did pretty well . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That looks pretty spectacular . +Marketing: No , I think we come up with a with a attractive marketable um product and and concept . +Project Manager: Any other chang uh thoughts ? Okay so th th what about um room for creativity ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That was mm-hmm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sh I think there was plenty of room . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we we ended up being quite creative there . +User Interface: We got a couple innovative i +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Couple innovative ideas . +Marketing: well we we we kinda broke {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we kinda at least adjusted every every criteria they gave us +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: because we d we still have the the teletext capability in this thing right , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: we raised the price of it , we've added two t new technology to it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you know you know if this thing flies then we've we've adjusted or broken every every idea they gave us . +Project Manager: Not every idea necessarily , +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Project Manager: it's still a remote control {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Uh no yeah but {disfmarker} we did we did break with the specs a little bit I guess , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I like {disfmarker} I mean when I say we have we had {disfmarker} I believe we have room for creativity 'cause w this is {disfmarker} we did it . +Project Manager: 'Kay leadership , what do we report back to the bosses ? No th th I think they were r reasonably flexible with us over the whole changing the specs thing . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: It was more of a teamwork thing then really leadership based project was +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: Teamwork . +Marketing: Cohesive yeah . +Project Manager: Synergy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} There was a lot of synergy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes synergistic yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Teamwork , yeah he is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What did we think of the meeting room , I guess is an important thing here . Mm . +User Interface: These cables suck {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , this falls off +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the white board worked really well without any pro +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: D you must have very long shirts . That's way far down lapel mic . +Project Manager: Mm-mm , lapel . Wha okay , oh , alright {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Lapel lapel lapel {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Lapel . +Industrial Designer: That's almost a crotch {vocalsound} mi cr {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it's down , it's quite close . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know you know what they're gonna have on the recording in there from that microphone is your lunch digesting you know th {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Keep it , keep it calm . {vocalsound} Oh dear {vocalsound} . No more pizza for me {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh dear oh dear {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So yeah the the pen came in alright and it's a little uncomfortable to use but I guess it works . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this is {disfmarker} you were using it o upside down . Still that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's our boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nah , I'm I'm not convinced of that at all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I've been wor I've been wondering about that all day , but see these look like they're {disfmarker} that looks the oth that looks like it would be that way around , +Industrial Designer: Use them like that . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: but it feels more comfortable , wh what you call upside-down . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: I don't care . Uh okay so that data might be slightly invalid . What new ideas have we found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh wel +Marketing: New ideas f uh for the product or for the the the the environment or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well let's do both then . +Marketing: what are we ta +Project Manager: Uh for the product ? +User Interface: Well we had the favourites list , and the scroll bar , and we have the cradle , and the r uh remote call feature . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah we came up with quite a bit . +Industrial Designer: Bunch of new ideas . +Project Manager: And for the meeting room , Has anyone got any more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah comfortable headsets would be nice . +Project Manager: Yeah less sore on the ears . +Marketing: Well I I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: clearly remote control microphones would be the would be a nice solution to all these cables , but I'm sure that there's there's some justification for these things that I don't know about . And of course I did not have so much fun with my computer this afternoon . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not been uh it's not been cooperating so well , but {vocalsound} I don't think that's the that's avoidable . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} Are the costs within the budget ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm n {vocalsound} no . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh hang on it really {disfmarker} that's something we {disfmarker} that the costs were under twelve fifty Euros . No requirements are changed . We're still under twenty Euros to build , so we're good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And the costs within the budget ? Not the original budget , but they are now . Is the project evaluated ? Mm I think so yeah , then celebration as it says . +Industrial Designer: Hooray . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Free coke provided at the cafeteria . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know how that got there . +User Interface: All right . +Project Manager: Uh anyway . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who wrote that one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: So we need to close this meeting , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah bravo . Congratulations . +User Interface: Good job guys . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: S I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on so let's close this and come back and {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on too . Oh . +","A team consisting of a Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer discusses the detailed design for a new product. They review the agenda, with the Project Manager leading the meeting and taking minutes. The team evaluates the product's features, such as a scroll wheel, ""zapping"" favorite channels functionality, and durability. They also consider its aesthetic design, including logo placement and color schemes, with the Marketing department weighing in on marketable features. + +Finance is discussed, with a focus on production costs, estimated at 15.8 Euros per unit. The team considers the retail price, debating whether to target a higher-end market or to reduce profit margins for a wider market share. + +Technical aspects like the inclusion of locator beacons, buttons, and the possibility of product upgrades are debated, alongside marketing strategies for product features, characteristics, and corporate reputation. The conversation touches upon potential future expansions of the product's capabilities. The team wraps up by reviewing their performance against goals, discussing new ideas for both the product and meeting environment, and confirming the project is within budget. They conclude the meeting planning to address paperwork tasks." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you that, when speaking, you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. I understand we don't have any ministerial announcements today, so we'll proceed to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition will be presented by Ms.May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise in meeting number 22 of the COVID-19 committee, otherwise known as something like the House of Commons. I'm here to present two petitions containing hundreds of signatures on the issue of the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the People's Republic of China, particularly the practice that's alleged of involuntary organ harvesting. The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to condemn this practice and to publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China. The second petition is from residents throughout SaanichGulf Islands concerned about what was, at the time this petition was submitted, a future problem. It remains an issue, and I present it on behalf of petitioners who wish the Government of Canada not to put public funds into purchasing or maintaining the Trans Mountain pipeline or towards any expansion of the pipeline. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise to table two petitions. The first petition deals with the COVID-19 situation. The petitioners note the pandemic is having a devastating impact on many Canadians nationwide, especially those who have low to modest income, small business gig workers, freelancers, artists, film industry workers, non-salaried workers and individuals on fixed incomes such as seniors and those on disability. It further notes that rent, mortgage and utility payments are due at the end of each month, putting countless Canadians at risk of losing their housing. It is paramount there be safe self-isolation opportunities for all individuals in this country. To that end, the petitioners are calling for the government to immediately enact a nationwide rent freeze, eviction freeze, mortgage freeze and utility freeze, enforce mortgage deferrals for homeowners without penalty or interest charges from financial institutions and provide direct assistance in the form of a monthly, universal, direct payment of $2,000 per month for all, with an additional $250 per child immediately. The second petition deals with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. These petitioners join the hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to the expansion. Trans Mountain, in building the pipeline, brings massive environmental and economic risk with no substantial benefit to British Columbia or to local residents. Approximately 40,000 barrels of oil have already leaked from existing Kinder Morgan pipelines, including two major spills in Burnaby since 2007. I might note, Mr. Chair, that just this past weekend there was yet another spill to the tune of 1,195 barrels here in British Columbia. There is no known scientific technology to clean up the bitumen when there is a spill, and the number of tankers would go from eight to 34 per month into the Burrard Inlet. It puts at risk many residential neighbourhoods and the traditional territories of at least 15 first nations. +The Chair: May I interrupt for a moment, Ms. Kwan. I want to remind all members in the House that when presenting a petition, the idea is to be as concise as possible. Ms. Kwan, I'll let you wrap up, please. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The petitioners are calling for the government to immediately act to prevent this new oil pipeline from proceeding through British Columbia. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I have four petitions to present today. The first petition reflects the outrage of my constituents at the ever-expanding order in council from the government banning more and more firearms. In particular, the petitioners highlight the failure of the government to act on the issue of illegal guns. The petitioners note that virtually all violent crimes committed in Canada, including the recent shooting in Nova Scotia, involve illegal firearms in the hands of those who are already not permitted to possess them. The petition has two asks. First of all, it asks that we reverse the order in council banning certain firearms, but also that we propose measures that will effectively address the illegal use of firearms by criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. It also asks that we ensure that substantial changes to firearms laws in future actually be made by Parliament, not by the government acting in an unaccountable manner. The second petition deals with Bill C-8, which is the government's bill around conversion therapy. The petitioners support efforts to ban conversion therapy. They express concern about problems in the wording of the definition used in the legislation. They're asking the government to support amendments to fix the definition to address the issue of conversion therapy and ensure that the definition is correct and doesn't criminalize certain forms of counselling that individuals may voluntarily enter into. The third petition is regarding Bill S-204, a bill in the Senate that seeks to make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad to receive an organ without consent, dealing especially with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in China. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and want to see it move forward. The final petition is with respect to Bill C-7. There's been much discussion in this House about the need to do better in terms of long-term care. Rather than working to do better in long-term care, unfortunately we've seen the government removing vital safeguards in the area of euthanasia. I think our focus should be on assisting life rather than removing safeguards that are required in association with the euthanasia regime. The petitioners are particularly concerned about the government's plan to remove a 10-day reflection period that normally takes place. That period can already be waived under certain circumstances, but Bill C-7 proposes to remove it entirely as well as reduce the number of witnesses involved. The petitioners are quite concerned about what's going on in Bill C-7 and call for it to be stopped or amended. +The Chair: Presenting petitions. We'll proceed to statements by members. We'll start off with Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and an economic shock. Recent events have ripped open the wound of systemic racism in our country. Racialized and marginalized communities have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Thousands of seniors in long-term care facilities have died. It is clear that we need system change. In the past, governments have bailed out banks and corporations because they were too big to fail. It is time to bail out humanity and the planet. No one will be immune from the threat of climate change and mass extinction. Both are the result of the exploitation of the natural world in the name of the economy. Humans created the economy. We can choose to change it. We must protect our environment or perish. COVID-19 has demonstrated that together we can take courageous action for the common good. We need to do the same for the climate crisis, because humanity and our planet are too big to fail. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Spengemann. +Mr. Sven Spengemann (MississaugaLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today marks World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Underestimated and under-reported, elder abuse exists across the world. At risk of neglect and assault, many of the most vulnerable older persons reside in our long-term care facilities. They are the seniors who have built our country and shaped our communities, who have shown us resilience, courage and selflessness, who have made us stronger, and whose work and teachings continue to inspire us. They are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends and mentors. We have not been there for them in the same way they've been there for us throughout their lives. The Canadian Forces report, alongside the climbing disproportionate death toll in our long-term care facilities, has reconfirmed the ugly, indefensible reality of elder abuse and neglect in Canada. In my community, we mourn the deaths of 68 seniors from one long-term care facility alone, Camilla Care. We must make the same unwavering commitment to older persons as they have shown to us. We must protect and uphold their human rights. We must do better. +The Chair: Before proceeding, I just want to bring up to the members in the background that we want to keep it as simple and as parliamentary as possible in keeping it neutral. We'll now move to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett (LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC): During these trying times, the residents of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes have risen to the challenge. They've made sacrifices and gone above and beyond to make the lives of their neighbours better and to keep our communities safe. It would be impossible to list everyone who has emerged as a community hero, but I'd like to highlight a few, like Lily, an eight-year-old from Elgin who raised funds for her local food bank by building and selling squirrel picnic tables, and Louise Boardman from Spencerville who's making masks for long-term care facilities and selling others in support of the Breast Cancer Action centre. The Knights of Columbus in Prescott raised funds and are distributing some $27,000 in support of charitable groups throughout the region. The Knights of Columbus in Kemptville are working overtime operating the local food bank. Who can forget our top-notch health care workers like Hannah and Mary at the Brockville COVID-19 testing centre? It is the people of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes that make it so great. To everyone working to make a difference and to all of our essential workers, thank you. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, the Indian Act enshrined racism into Canadian law in 1876, and, through residential schools, the child welfare system, our legal system and our police, we criminalized and tore apart indigenous peoples. The deaths of Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi and the assault on Chief Allan Adam are recent examples of systemic racism within the RCMP. Sadly, the RCMP leadership has failed to acknowledge this reality and its root causes. These same systems negatively impact black Canadians. Anti-black racism has resulted in more young black men being jailed, children being streamed or excluded from schools and negative police interaction due to profiling. Black lives matter. No single Canadian is responsible for the prevalence of systemic racism; we all are. Collectively we build institutions that discriminate based on race. It is now time to reimagine and rework our institutions, starting with our police, to ensure that all Canadians can achieve their truest potential. +The Chair: Ms.Larouche, you have the floor. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. June15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. I want to remind members of the link between abuse and the problems of economic dependency among seniors. Improving their purchasing power means reducing the risk of them falling victim to abusive people. That's why the increase in the old age security benefit and the guaranteed income supplement must be extended beyond the pandemic. In three weeks, our seniors will receive their first cheque, when they should be receiving their second. A date must also be announced for the new horizons for seniors program, which helps several groups develop projects to break the isolation of seniors. In closing, I would like to mention the organization Justice alternative et mdiation that during the pandemic, along with other organizations in Shefford, has set up the project Une histoire pour la tienne, which also serves to mark this day. It's a virtual meeting between young people and seniors, allowing them to exchange some inspiring life experiences. Since age prejudice is very much present, I applaud this project, which aims to make us understand each other better and judge each other less. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Sangha. +Mr. Ramesh Sangha (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in the time of this terrible crisis affecting all Canadians, when we are all thinking about how best to deal with it, let's all think about the people around us. Let's show our representation not only to those in the sector of sanctioned workers, but also to all those Canadians who day by day stand up and make a difference. Every day I am proud of the reactions of Canadians to this crisis. I want to acknowledge and celebrate all the contributions made by the people of Brampton Centre, all religious institutions, civil society and community organizations like Knights Table in my riding. We are all standing together to fight COVID-19. Let's continue working hard with that same spirit to get positive results out. Thank you very much. +The Chair: I will proceed to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Mr. Chair, whether graduating from elementary school, high school, Georgian College or graduating from colleges or universities across the country, I am proud of the accomplishments of all the graduates across BruceGreyOwen Sound. I would also like to congratulate and thank all the teachers and parents who have adapted to teaching online or from home and who have supported these graduates over the course of their academic careers. I'd like to extend special congratulations to Cameron Lovell, who just graduated from grade eight, as well as to Neebeesh and Neebin Elliott, originally from the Nawash unceded first nation on the Bruce Peninsula, who will be headed to Michigan State University, and to Jared Lumley from Owen Sound, who just graduated from my alma mater, the Royal Military College of Canada. The college motto of Truth, Duty, Valour is something all Canadians should aspire to live by. I wish all the best to these graduates on their next adventures. I and Canada cannot wait to see how their dreams and goals impact and change the world. I congratulate BruceGreyOwen Sound graduates. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Cormier. +Mr. Serge Cormier (AcadieBathurst, Lib.): Today I pay tribute to RichardLosier, an entrepreneur, visionary and builder who died on June9, 2020, surrounded by his family. Mr.Losier is a giant in the Acadian Peninsula business community. In1968, he co-founded St.Isidore Asphalte, a company that now has more than 200employees. He also launched many other businesses over the years. He was unifying and generous, a philanthropist who cared about young people and never missed an opportunity to improve their lives. I met Mr.Losier when I was 14years old, and I can say that he has been a positive influence in my life. Every time I met him, he gave me a lot of advice and encouragement, which I've never forgotten. Mr.Losier's legacy to his community is invaluable. His commitment remains an example for all of us to follow. Mr.Losier now joins his wife, Nolla. I offer my most sincere condolences to his children, Richard Jr., Ronald, Nathalie, Caroline and Stphane, and to his family and friends. Rest in peace, Mr.Losier. You will be greatly missed. Thank you for everything you've done for our region. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Dabrusin. +Ms. Julie Dabrusin (TorontoDanforth, Lib.): Hello from my community in east end Toronto. People talk about how a city the size of Toronto can be cold, but that's far from the truth in my community. I want to give a shout-out to our teachers, like Mr. Wong of Earl Grey Senior Public School, who delivered home-baked cookies and handwritten notes to all of his students, or Monsieur Steve, who's offering online French classes, or the teachers of Riverdale Collegiate, who paraded through our streets to celebrate our graduates. Our local Michael Garron Hospital put out a call for community members to sew masks and received over 60,000 masks, including those made by Lisa Tancre of Chartwell Avondale Retirement Residence. Michelle Beaton organized a front window scavenger hunt to entertain children and their families. Restaurants, even while facing adversity, have been generously donating food, like the members of the Leslieville BIA or Mezes. There are so many more stories of generosity that I could share, but I'm out of time. I thank everyone who has stepped up. We all appreciate all of their hard work. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, on Saturday night, Calgarians, particularly those in the northeast, in my riding of Calgary Skyview, witnessed a devastating storm, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime. Homes, vehicles, community buildings and structures suffered significant damage due to large hail, floods and high winds. People acted quickly to seek shelter. I'm so grateful that there have been no reports of personal injury or loss of life. I went around the community yesterday to survey the damage. It is extensive. My heart aches for those who have been impacted by the storm in an already incredibly difficult time, but we are resilient. We know that in the coming weeks there will be a lot of cleanup required, both to personal property and in the community. I know my constituents, and we will help one another get through this together. I will work hard to do everything I can to help rebuild this community. +The Chair: Mr.Serr, you have the floor. +Mr. Marc Serr (Nickel Belt, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the people of West Nippissing who organized Pride activities to celebrate the LGBTQ community in June. This week, we are also celebrating National Public Service Week. I thank the public servants for their dedication to the Nickel Belt community and the Valley East and Rayside-Balfour areas. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Mr. Chair, when COVID-19 began spreading across Ontario, Markham, like many other communities, was unprepared. Our front-line health care workers did not have enough personal protective equipment to do their jobs safely. When Markham residents heard about these shortages, my office was flooded with calls from people who had PPE and wanted to donate. Since then my office has been able to deliver tens of thousands of PPE supplies to front-line health care workers and five masks to each family in need. This pandemic has shown that no matter what the challenge is, the Markham community will overcome it. Today, I would like to thank the front-line health care workers who are doing incredible work. I would also like to thank all those who have helped in Markham's hour of need. +The Chair: I understand we had a bit of a glitch there. I'm sorry. With the pause, we thought that was the end of it. Mr.Serr, I would ask you to continue. I understand you started to switch languages. Please continue. You have 30seconds. +Mr. Marc Serr: Thank you. I'm switching to English now. Thank you to our nurses, doctors, pharmacists, cashiers, janitors. Thank you to various retail workers and first responders dealing with COVID-19. You keep our communities safe and healthy, and you feed us. Your dedication and sacrifice are greatly appreciated. As we start to see local businesses reopen, it is important for all of us to remember to follow best practices outlined by local public health. Our front-line workers deserve our respect. It is important for all of us to respect social distancing, to protect all workers and their families. Together we can remain strong and united as we continue to face this challenge together. +The Chair: Again, my apologies for skipping over there, but now we'll to to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, in commemoration of Italian Heritage Month, I would like to pay tribute to the Colombo Lodge and Italian Cultural Centre in Kamloops, British Columbia. The Colombo Lodge was founded in 1914 and is an integral part of our community. Recently they began Colombo Cares take-home dinners with proceeds distributed to different non-profit organizations throughout the region. Last month they very generously gave away hundreds of dinners to Royal Inland Hospital staff and paramedics for their tireless work throughout the pandemic. In their own words they say, Colombo Lodge is very proud of the Italians that have made Kamloops their home. Community members of Italian ancestrypast and presenthave helped and continue to help Kamloops prosper as a giving, welcoming and inclusive community. Personally, I want to thank all members for their friendship and generosity over the years. Our community is forever grateful for their kindness. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Harris. +Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East, NDP): Mr. Chair, many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are facing a serious financial crisis. Most people with disabilities are waiting to be included in the Liberals' promised program. Fish plant workers will need support to avoid a disastrous year. Many small businesses don't qualify for programs. Municipalities need emergency help to meet the crisis. People are worried about what will happen when the CERB runs out in two weeks' time, and the coming tourism season looks very grim. The province itself is in serious financial crisis due to the pandemic and the decline in oil prices. The federal government must overhaul and enhance the fiscal stabilization program to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and other oil-producing provinces through this crisis. Both the province and the oil and gas industry players have committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This is a challenge and an opportunity to transition to a sustainable energy future, but it will require significant investment and support by government to keep the industry strong and make this a just transition for workers. Much has been done. Much more needs to be done. +The Chair: Ms.Gaudreau, you have the floor. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Mr.Chair, all 44elected municipal officials in the riding of LaurentidesLabelle and I have sent a letter to the government asking that cellular and high-speed Internet networks be made available to all. The crisis has accelerated the demonstration of the need for these networks in daily life. The territorial complexity of the Laurentians means that there are areas where the signal is weak, unstable or non-existent. There is an urgent and essential need to change the infrastructure of the current networks. Also, because of the lockdown, Internet failures are being felt, and they prevent distance learning, telemedicine and teleworking, among other things. How can our municipalities develop economically if they can't provide their community with adequate communication tools? We are therefore calling on the government to put the interests of its people first by investing massively right now in the construction of high-speed Internet and cellular infrastructure. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): I rise today to pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Great Britain and one of the greatest leaders history has ever known. In what can only be called a lifetime of service, Churchill's contributions to the Commonwealth and to the world are without equal. During the Second World War he led the allied forces in Europe against the tyranny and fascism of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi regime. When our world was in its darkest hour, Churchill's leadership was a beacon of hope and freedom. I am reminded of something he once said, All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. Sir Winston Churchill himself embodied all of these great things and will forever be a symbol of freedom, democracy and hope. +The Chair: Mr. Gerretsen. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to add my voice to the recognition and celebration of Pride Month, which is celebrated annually during June. Pride Month is important for Canadians because we can be proud of who we are and celebrate our diversity. This June is different from previous years as we cannot celebrate in person all together. However, I know the ongoing pandemic will not stop us from showing our love and support for the LGBTQ+ community. To celebrate Pride Month this year, my office distributed 3,000 pride maple leaf pins across the country; whoever asked received one. Although the majority was sent to constituents in my riding, over 500 pins were sent to the neighbouring ridings of LanarkFrontenacKingston, LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, and HastingsLennox and Addington. It warms my heart to see so many Canadians showing their support. Happy Pride, everyone. +The Chair: We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to take part in today's meeting of this parliamentary committee. Canada has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for three months now. The situation now seems to be improving, although we must remain vigilant. Economically, business people and the entire Canadian economy depend on government decisions. My question is very simple: when will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for his question. I agree with him that Canada and Canadians are doing an excellent and difficult job in the fight against coronavirus. As for the economy, our government is there for Canadians, for workers and for businesses, and it will continue to be. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians, business people and businesses want to know where the government is headed. When will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, Canadians know that the government is there to support them. Eight +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians and Quebeckers also know that the Government of Quebec will table its economic update this week. Why isn't the federal government doing the same? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to explain to hon. members and to Canadians what the government is doing for the economy +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, it is a real pleasure for me to explain to the minister and everybody in the House of Commons that today the Saskatchewan government will table its economic update. Why can't Ottawa do that? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to share with Canadians what our government is doing to support workers, businesses and the economy. Eight million Canadians have received the CERB, essential support for Canadian workers and their families. +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, 11 days ago the Newfoundland government tabled its own economic update. We see governments acting correctly for their people, except for the Liberal government, which cannot table an economic update. When will the Liberal government table an economic update, which Canadians would like to see? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I am delighted to share with the member opposite and with Canadians what we are doing practically that has meaning for Canadians. Let me talk about what we are doing for Canadian businesses. Nearly 670,000 Canadian businesses have received support +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: In Canada, the Quebec government will table its economic update this week. The Saskatchewan government tabled its economic update today. The Newfoundland government has tabled its economic update. Everybody is working hard in Canada, and the business community would like to know where the Liberal government is going. The question is crystal clear. When will the Liberal government table an economic update? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, Canadian workers and Canadian businesses want to know that our government is here to support them. I have shared with this House our support for Canadian workers through the CERB. I've spoken about the CEBA, and let me point out that more than $26 billion of support has been given through that essential program. Let me talk about the wage subsidy. More than 2.6 million +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, this is starting to get interesting; the minister is revealing some of these expenses. Could the minister tell us how much the government has spent in the last three months? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I will continue in French by explaining what our government is doing for Canadians and workers +The Chair: Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, this is a little bit concerning for all Canadians, because this government cannot say when they will table the economic update, cannot identify how much money they have spent in the last three months and cannot say what is the deficit of Canada. Is somebody in this government running this country correctly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, absolutely we are running this country, and we are supporting our economy. In fact, we appreciate that Canada currently is experiencing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. That is why we have devoted nearly 11% of GDP to support Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms.Normandin. Ms.Normandin, you have the floor. +Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, there are times when Quebec and the provinces are not just two solitudes, but they get along and speak as one, such as when the time comes to tell the government to mind its own business. On reading section91 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which sets out the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, nowhere do I find that the federal government must meddle by attaching conditions to health transfers. It is Quebec and the provinces that hire the medical personnel, doctors, nurses and caretakers. It is Quebec and the provinces that are responsible for purchasing the necessary equipment. It is Quebec and the provinces that know what is happening on the ground and what their needs are. Will the government do the only thing within its authority, which is to take the cheque, sign it and put it in the mail? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for her question. We fully understand the importance of federal support for the provinces, especially in our national fight against the coronavirus. I agree with the hon. member that we must give financial support to the provinces, including Quebec absolutely. I would also like to point out the importance of the support of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are doing an important and excellent job in Quebec and Ontario today, right now. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I am glad to see that there is recognition of the importance of transferring this money. My question is whether it can be transferred unconditionally; that's what I'm asking. There's a state of emergency. In the past, we have seen that it takes a long time to negotiate conditions with the federal government. We saw it in the case of the Quebec City tramway, and we are still seeing it now in the case of transfers for housing in Quebec, for which there is no agreement and, therefore, no transfer of money. Will the federal government send the money free of conditions? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the hon. member said in her first question that the only thing the federal government had to do on health care was to sign the cheques. I can't agree because, today, at this time, at the request of the Premier of Quebec, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today; they're there to save the lives of seniors +The Chair: We now return to Ms.Normandin. +Ms. Christine Normandin: It was indeed at Quebec's request. What I'm saying is that, at present, the provinces are unanimously asking that there be no conditions. It's urgent that the money be transferred. The federal government's job here is to sign the cheque and send it to the provinces. The government's job is also to make Parliament work. This is where there should be negotiations so that we can work, among other things, to send money to people living with disabilities, to make sure we fight CERB fraud and to make sure that court time limits are effective in the current crisis. Can the government focus on the issue in order to respect the provinces and transfer money for health care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question, Mr.Chair. I agree with the hon. member that the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today at the request of the Province of Quebec. That said, I hope that the hon. member will agree with me that being there for Quebec's seniors, that saving the lives of Quebec's seniors, is much more than simply signing cheques. I am very proud of the work the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are doing. I think we all should thank these people who are working for Canada, for Quebec, and who are doing an important and excellent job. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I think the Deputy Prime Minister misunderstood me when I was talking about the importance of acting quickly. Negotiations between the government and the provinces take an awfully long time because the federal government decides to place conditions where there shouldn't be any. Right now, the only important thing is to transfer the money quickly so that it can be used in our hospitals and our long-term care facilities, where the need is desperate. Quebec and the provinces know exactly what their needs are. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to point out the extent to which the federal government is there to support the provinces, including Quebec. We have increased funding to the provinces and territories by $500million to help them prepare for COVID-19 outbreaks. This funding is in addition to the $40billion that we already provide annually to the provinces and territories. That's a lot of money. It is strong endorsement +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr. Chair, systemic racism is killing people. It's killing black people and it's killing indigenous people. Recently, Rodney Levi was another victim of systemic racism. He was killed in New Brunswick by the RCMP. To deal with systemic racism, we need systemic change. Will the Liberal government commit to systemic change so that not another life is ever taken again? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I thank the member opposite for the extremely important question, and I'll take this opportunity to acknowledge the work that he has done for many years fighting racism in Canada. Our government absolutely acknowledges that systemic racism exists in Canada. It exists in all of our institutions, including the police and the RCMP. I agree with the member opposite that now is the moment to fight this +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister very much for the response, but there are some specific actions we need to take. There are movements. Black Lives Matter, as a movement, is calling for the defunding of police. What they're saying is we need to make better choices with how money is being spent. When someone is in need of a wellness check or a mental health check, money, financing and support should go to mental health workers and health care workers, not the police. Is the government prepared to fund and prioritize health care workers over the police? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the member quite rightly began his questions by speaking about systemic racism against indigenous people in Canada, and I would like to speak about that for a moment. I spoke to Perry Bellegarde this morning, because it is such a crucial issue. We can describe it as the original sin of our country. I absolutely agree that we need root and branch reform, including in how policing is done in Canada. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the Liberal government commit to a review of the use of force as outlined for the RCMP? Will the Liberals commit to that change? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety had many conversations last week with the RCMP. We all accept that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the government commit to ensuring that de-escalation receives priority? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me continue, Mr. Chair. Systemic racism exists in all of our federal institutions, including the RCMP. It's time to put an end to it. Let me just say +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I'm not getting an answer. Will the Prime Minister or the Liberal government commit to something simple and ensure that at the federal level, racial profiling, street checks and carding are expressly prohibited? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, sadly, I can't agree that rooting out systemic racism is going to be simple, but I can agree that racial profiling is absolutely inappropriate. It is not something that we should +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Well, I'm going to try to get another commitment from the government, because they don't seem able to commit to something as clear as ending racial profiling. We know that millions of Canadians in a couple of weeks are going to be faced with the reality of their CERB ending. These families are worried about how they're going to put food on the table, because they can't return to a job. Will the Liberal government commit today so that those families will have some concrete support, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me be clear, as I was in my previous answer, that our government clearly is opposed to racial profiling. This is a wrong practice and we're very clear about our position there. Now when it comes to the CERB, I absolutely share the concern of the member opposite. The Canadian economy is in its direst state since the Great Depression. We know that all the jobs have not yet come back. We know that Canadian workers, Canadian families, continue to need +The Chair: We'll now pause for a short time to allow staff to change within the safety parameters for the COVID-19 virus, and as we resume, we will go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has mandated his ministers, and I quote, to govern in a positive, open and collaborative way. Ironically, as it stands, Parliament is currently closed for business. Opposition parties have little opportunity to hold the ruling party to account, private members' bills cannot be tabled and legislation cannot be debated. Can the Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau himself, help us understand how all of this fits into his definition of so-called open government? +The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Well, Mr. Chair, we're here, right? We're here, and the opposition is asking questions. They have the equivalent of eight question periods instead of five to ask questions. They have more time than before, so I don't know why they're not happy about it. +Ms. Rachael Harder: That's like when I'm asking for a full meal and your handing me a few jellybeans and saying, Why aren't you happy with that? Mr. Chair, here's the thing. It's like switching a light on and off when it's convenient for the Prime Minister and for the Liberal Party. That's what they want to do here. That's not Parliament. That's not democracy. When will Mr. Trudeau do the right thing, turn the lights on and get back to work for Canadians? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I'm really sorry to hear that my colleague's not working. I can assure you, Mr. Chair, on this side of the House, we're all actually working very hard and we're answering the questions from the opposition. Why? It's because it's extremely important. I sat there for seven years asking questions. I understand important +Ms. Rachael Harder: The member opposite knows very well that he is misleading the Canadian public. This is not true Parliament. This is simply a special committee. Here's the thing. On the Liberal Party website, under the platform commitment, it says that Parliament works best when its members are free to do what they have been elected to do, and that is be the voice for their communities and hold the government to account. This is a Liberal document. Did the Prime Minister forget that strengthening Parliament was part of his 2019 platform commitment? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for quoting our excellent platform. That was a very very good document. The thing is, I think we've reached a balance whereby MPs can come from different places, mostly around Ottawa, and ask questions; but also we can have colleagues from across the country asking questions. Why does my colleague think it is better to have only 35 MPs participating instead of 338? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Does the Prime Minister value democracy, or does he still look up to China's basic dictatorship? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we're answering all the questions from the opposition, not only from the people in this room, but we're answering +The Chair: It's back to Ms. Harder now. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'll ask the question again. Does the Prime Minister still value the basic dictatorship of China over Canada's democracy? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't know where the colleague wants to go from here, Mr. Chair. I'd like to know from her why it is not important to her that her colleagues participate directly. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Mr. Trudeau wrote to his ministers and said to them that they continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency. He went on to explain that This means...government that is open by default. We now have a parliament that is currently shut down. Mr. Trudeau has shut it down and has prevented us from being able to do to the good work that Canadians expect us to do. Is this Mr. Trudeau's idea of open by default? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, do they want to talk about shutting down Parliament? How about the time they prorogued Parliament twicenot only once, but twice? The Conservative government shut down Parliament twice. I was here. I was sitting on the other side of the aisle. It's quite the opposite now. We're taking all the questions. This place is open, and we're answering questions. +The Chair: One moment, please. I haven't acknowledged you yet, Ms. Harder. We've stopped the time there. I want to remind honourable members that questions and answers are being given, and we want to hear both sides. Please keep the heckling down. Ms. Harder, please proceed. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In 2014, the leader of the Liberal Party developed a policy resolution entitled Restoring Trust in Canada's Democracy. That's ironic, because right now, again, Parliament is currently shut down. We are prevented from being able to do the good work that we are expected to do. At the time, the Prime Minister said, Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces in their communities for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful prime minister that he once believed should not exist. Why did he change his mind? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I'd like to know why my colleague wants to shut down the voices of her colleagues who could not speak and could not participate in this room. Mr. Chair, how would we vote on private members' bills, for example? As you know, it is not a government vote or a party vote; it's per row. You want to come back? Are you going to acceptMr. Chair, through youthat we have electronic voting, yes or no? +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, we know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has champagne tastes and London flats, but it's his champagne mortgages that Canadians are concerned about. Specifically, why did the minister only disclose the complete extent of his personal debt to the Chinese government on June 4 of this year? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, as you know, since the minister entered politics, his two mortgages and other liabilities and assets have been fully disclosed to the Ethics Commissioner and placed on the online public registry. It's public, Mr. Chair. It's public. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Now it's public and it's terrible. When will the foreign affairs minister be here to answer these questions himself? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, it's always been public. We're in the middle of a pandemic here, trying to help Canadians, and the best they can do is ask questions about +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: When the minister owes over a million dollars to the Chinese government, people have a right to ask him questions. When will the Minister of Foreign Affairs show up? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The minister shows up every day, Mr. Chair. He shows up and works for Canadians. Once again, those are public documents. Everything the minister did is public. I still don't know why they ask +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, he doesn't even have to come to the House. All he has to do is appear on the screen. Where is the minister? Why is he hiding? Why won't he answer questions about his personal debt to the Chinese government? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, if he goes online he's going to get the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the minister is hiding. Let's ask some specific questions about their China policy. What is the impact on the decision-making? Three-quarters of Canadians don't want Huawei involved in our 5G network. Will the minister put the interests of Canadians ahead of the interests of his creditors and say no to Huawei? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, when it comes to 5G deployment, we are right now currently undergoing a comprehensive review. We have been absolutely clear with allies and with Canadians that we never have and never will compromise Canadians' national interests. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, that is not an answer, and it is completely out of step with what our allies have already recognized. Reports are emerging of multiple deadly viruses exported from Winnipeg's microbiology laboratory to the Wuhan Institute of Virology right before scientists were expelled for policy breaches. In spite of that, scientific co-operation between Canadian institutions and the military-affiliated Wuhan Institute of Virology is continuing. Why hasn't the government put in place new guidelines to prevent the export of sensitive pathogens and information to China? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, he's right that in 2019 the National Microbiology Laboratory shared lab samples with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The National Microbiology Laboratory routinely shares samples with other labs to help advance the international community's understanding of viruses and the research that is ongoing around those viruses. There are strict protocols in place for these transfers, and these samples were transported according to Canadian laws and regulations. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, I think Canadians would be concerned to hear that it's routine to transport viruses to Chinese military-affiliated labs. When Champagne was the parliamentary secretary for finance, the government decided to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, bankrolling Chinese state-controlled development projects in Asia with weak standards in labour, human rights and environment. Will the minister put Canadian taxpayers ahead of his personal creditors and support a pullout from the Communist Party-controlled development bank? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Once again, Mr. Chair, my colleague is trying to connect the dots, and I don't know exactly where he is going from here, but everything is public. There's a thing called Google. He can go on it and check the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the public can listen to this. I'm sure this exchange will also be available on Google, and the public can draw their own conclusions. We have failures on 5G, failures when it comes to the transport of deadly viruses and failures when it comes to giving over $400 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It's clear that the Bank of China's investment in Minister Champagne is paying off. It's time for the minister to settle his debt with the Communist government and not settle it on the backs of Canadians. When will the minister be here in the House and answer questions about this mortgage? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: My colleague should be cautious with what he is saying in the House, Mr. Chair. This is serious stuff. He should be careful about what he says. The minister is actually working extremely hard for all Canadians and is doing his job correctly, Mr. Chair. We're talking about public information. Once again, let him go to Google and google it. That's it. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Canada's ambassador to the United Nations sent a letter last week to all member states of the UN promising that Canada would consider providing more funding for UNRRA, the same UNRRA that is a front for Hamas, which allows weapons of terror to be stored in schools and provides textbooks that call for the destruction of Israel. Do these Liberals have no shame when it comes to their quest for a seat on the UN Security Council? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that question. We know that at this time Canada must show leadership in the face of global challenges. More than ever, Canada is playing a positive role by being a champion in diversity and inclusion, supporting the global fight against COVID-19, addressing climate change, leading peace and security efforts and helping the most vulnerable. A seat on the Security Council will allow Canada to be a strong voice for a fairer, more inclusive and prosperous +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Mr. Chair, I received a letter from Bob Anderson this week, who's advocating for his neighbours like Jean Grevelding, who owns a cottage at Butternut Bay. Like many people, Jean is an American who owns a property on our side of the border. These people are taxpaying members of our communities. These folks have plans in place to follow all Canadian quarantine rules. They're concerned about leaving their properties uncared for over the summer. Will folks like Jean be allowed to cross the border to check on their properties this summer? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Of course, our priority is and always has been and always must be the protection of the health and safety of Canadians. That's why we put in place these restrictions for non-essential travel and have required, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, a 14-day quarantine. I don't know the specifics of the person for whom you advocate, but we want to make sure that if they come into Canada, it is for an essential purpose and that they do it safely and respect the quarantine that has been put in place. +Mr. Michael Barrett: With nine branches throughout my riding, the Royal Canadian Legion offers a great deal to veterans and rural communities alike. They have been experiencing hardship and a loss of revenue, to the point where they may be forced to shut their doors. The Zone G2 commander and local mayors such as Roger Haley have reached out to me expressing their dire need. Will the government offer support to Legions across the country so they can continue to carry out their vital work for our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Yes, we have done a lot to help support groups like the Legions. There is a $350-million emergency community support fund. If they're supplying any help to people regarding COVID, this fund is there. Indeed, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we help the Legions and other groups that do so much to help veterans right across the country. +Mr. Michael Barrett: On May 21, the minister stated that her team was working as quickly as it could to fill the gaps in CEBA. It has now been three weeks, and many business owners, such as mortgage broker Corinna Smith-Gatcke, are still left in the lurch amid the delays, which are pushing businesses closer to shutting their doors for good. Will these businesses have access to CEBA before it's too late for them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the honourable member for that really important question on our Canadian small businesses. Those businesses can absolutely have access to the loan at their financial institution this Friday, and I would encourage them to go and see their bank or credit union. I want businesses to know that nothing is more important for us than making sure they get the support they need during this difficult time. +Mr. Michael Barrett: The County Road 43 expansion project is critical for my riding and the region as a whole. This project will widen the road, increasing safety for the 18,000 motorists who travel the road every day. It's been 334 days since the provincial and local governments announced funding, but there has been nothing from this Liberal government. It's been 181 days since Minister McKenna told me her staff were reviewing the project. Today, there is still nothing, and for the last month the minister's team has not even found the time to respond to my request for an update. Will Minister McKenna finally stop with the delays and commit to funding this project today? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, we work with provinces and territories to advance our infrastructure investments. We're making investments across the country. They are making a real difference in people's lives. We're always happy to work with members of Parliament, but they must also work with provinces and territories so that projects are advanced by them to our office. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Through you, has Mr. MacAulay read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I apologize, but I'll have to ask my honourable colleague to repeat the question. +The Chair: Mrs. Wagantall, we'll freeze the time so that there's no extra time taken. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. My question was whether Mr. MacAulay has read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate my honourable colleague's question. Of course, I appreciate Mr. Dalton's input and all that he has done for veterans. We've discussed it many times. I've done everything and worked with him in order to make sure that we bring the proper compensation to veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: As a result of that study, are the financial outcomes Canada seeks to provide for ill and injured veterans now clearly defined within the Department of Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as the member would know, I am to bring a report to the veterans affairs committee, and there are a number of things done in order to make sure that report is +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Then I would suggest that we get our committee up and going as it should be. Where are these financial directions published? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, of course, lockdown, but just under $90 million that the government put in supplementary estimates to make sure we address the backlog for Veterans Affairs. It's a major help +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Minister, are Canadian Armed Forces members provided with a copy of this document? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague would have to ask the Canadian Armed Forces that question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: There are three different providing lifetime benefits for ill and injured veterans. In Ombudsman Dalton's recent report, did any one of these three provide the best compensation in all nine scenarios that were studied? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Of course, as she knows, there's been a lot of work done in order to make sure that we provide the proper compensation to veterans. We're working very hard, with a lot of help from Mr. Dalton, to make sure that the appropriate +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: In the undisclosed settlement of Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says ...Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure you that anybody is welcome to enter any discussion on compensation of veterans. We're always open to what we can do in order to make sure that we provide appropriate compensation. I don't think the term would be appropriate, but it would provide some compensation to veterans who truly deserve it. They defend our democracy +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. Oh, I'm sorry +Ms. Andranne Larouche: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The interpretation hasn't worked for a few interventions. It's difficult to follow the exchange between the hon. member and the minister. +The Chair: We're having a problem with the interpretation. Minister and Ms. Wagantall, you are joining us virtually. I'm wondering if you have the right language on at the bottom of your screen. We'll start with that for troubleshooting. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: I have English. +The Chair: Very good. Minister MacAulay, what do you have? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I have English, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Very good. Then we'll check on our side. Ms.Larouche, did I understand correctly that the interpretation didn't work for both speakers? +Ms. Andranne Larouche: The sound didn't allow the interpreters to do their job. It seemed to be a problem with the sound. +The Chair: In that case, I would ask both members to maybe put their mike a little bit close to their mouth. We'll see how that works. I'm looking at the screen, and I notice the mike is a little bit far. Could we bend it in a little bit more? I appreciate that. Thank you for your patience. We'll give it another try. Ms. Wagantall, please go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On a point of order, quite often while I'm trying to speak, there are lots of other voices in the background. +The Chair: I would ask everyone to please be on mute, as well as for anyone in the chamber to please refrain from speaking loudly. Just whisper among yourselves if you have something to say. We'll take this one from the top. We have a minute and 45 seconds left. Ms. Wagantall, please proceed with your next question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: You said next question, so we're not going backwards, Chair? +The Chair: Did we have an answer from Minister MacAulay? No? We'll go to Minister MacAulay to finish up the answer. We'll start at 27 seconds, freeze the clock and hear his answer. Then, because of all of the confusion, we'll start at one minute and 45 seconds when we get going again. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Should I repeat the question, sir? +The Chair: Please do. The clock is frozen. After we go through the question and the answer, we'll start the clock again. Mr. Wagantall, please repeat the question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. In the undisclosed settlement to Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says, Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question and concern. Of course I agree. Anybody is quite open to indicate whatever they wish in order to make sure we provide as appropriate a compensation as possible. You can never totally compensate veterans truly for what they deserve, but we want to make sure we provide the best compensation possible. That's what we will do and want to do. +The Chair: Ms. Wagantall, we will start the clock again. You have one minute and 45 seconds remaining. Please proceed. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: If that's the case, is Minister MacAulay aware of the practice of red-flagging veterans' files? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I'm not aware. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Since the deputy minister has indicated that he runs the department, will the minister ask him for the names of veterans and the dates and the reasons that they are, or have been, red-flagged by VAC? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I would certainly ask any veteran or anybody who has a concern to contact my office. I will do anything I can to make sure that the veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Do the most ill and injured still receive from the pension up to $300,000 less for life? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as you know and as the Prime Minister indicated when the pension for life was put in place, it was stated that if anybody receives lessthe Prime Minister himself indicated it quite clearlythat must be adjusted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: For veterans in similar circumstances, should the date of their application for compensation be a factor in determining whether they're treated equitably? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Yes, of course, the date is when the compensation would start. Of course, it's very important and very appropriate. +The Chair: Now we will proceed to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Retired Major Mark Campbell in my riding of Sturgeon RiverParkland lost both legs in the line of duty in Afghanistan. He is an avid sport shooter, but understandably, due to his disability, he is very limited in the kinds of firearms he can use, and all of these firearms have now been banned under the Liberal OIC. My question to the Minister of Public Safety is this: Did their department do a legal analysis and consider the section 15 charter rights of disabled Canadians not to be discriminated against when they passed their OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, there was a very thorough analysis done by the justice department to ensure that the prohibitions we put in place were, in fact, charter compliant. Let me also say, Mr. Chair, how important it was that we prohibited weapons that were not designed for sporting purposes at all. In fact, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat. They have no place in a civil society. We have prohibited them, and we believeand this has been echoed by many people across the countrythat this will make Canadians safer. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that the AR-15 is the most popular sporting rifle in Canada, and is he aware that disabled veterans like Major Mark Campbell are unable to participate in the sport of sport shooting because of his OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: I can assure the member that what I am aware of is that the AR-15 and other weapons like them have been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions, such as at cole Polytechnique, at Dawson College, again at the Quebec mosque and in Moncton. The AR-15s in particular were also used at the terrible tragedy in places like Sandy Hook, where a bunch of kids were killed, so there is no place for +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, it has been months since the Liberals shut down this Parliament and months since the Minister of Finance should have presented a budget or at least an economic update to Canadians. Since then we have seen billions spent with little oversight and no plan. The minister says that he needs certainty before he can table a budget. Well, that didn't stop Stephen Harper and the Conservatives from tabling a budget in the depth of the last great recession. When are these Liberals finally going to take their job seriously and table an economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we're taking this very seriously. We're working for Canadians and bringing forward supports to make sure that businesses, workers and Canadians can put food on the table and pay their rent. We will continue to support Canadians, and when we have a clear projection to present, we will do that. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, the results are in, and businesses aren't happy with the so-called support programs from these Liberals. In fact, the oil and gas industry has been shut out of many of these economic programs. When is the government going to recognize that their business support plans have been an absolute failure with only a fraction of the billions promised being accessible to businesses? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, our government has taken swift and immediate action to support our sector throughout this challenging time. We had the BCAP, which is critically important to providing liquidity to support the SMEs that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. It has taken an enormous team effort. People are working around the clock to get money where it needs to be. We are helping hard-working Canadians, small businesses and large businesses right across the country, but in particular in our energy sector. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to see the Minister of Natural Resources online. He tweeted recently to praise the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and the North West Redwater Partnership refinery in my riding. Can the minister tell us what, if any, support they have given to the innovative carbon capture and sequestration technology in this country? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we see carbon capture and sequestration as an integral part of lowering emissions, making emissions more competitive and making our oil and gas industry more competitive. We're seeing where the investment dollars are going. They are going to jurisdictions that are committed to lowering emissions. Obviously, this government is committing to net zero. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: I note that the minister couldn't name a single example of government support for carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technology. We have spent a lot of time talking about the COVID-19 pandemic, but Canadians are living with another horrific reality, that being the intensifying opioid overdose epidemic. Reports indicate that in the past four years, 14,000 Canadians have died, and the numbers during COVID-19 have been skyrocketing, with British Columbia seeing a 39% increase this year alone. I know this because I've lost a family member to a fentanyl overdose. When is the government going to take this scourge seriously and take action to save the lives of Canadians? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I share the member's deep sadness about the number of lives we've lost to opioid overdose. Our government has been steadily making it easier for people who live with substance use to access medications to treat substance use, such as prescription Suboxone and methadone. We have made it easier to rapidly establish safe injection sites in communities and have supported community-based projects that work with people who are using substances. We need to understand that this is a complex issue, and we need to support people to get the help they need. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes (AlgomaManitoulinKapuskasing, NDP)): The hon. member for Thrse-DeBlainville. +Ms. Louise Chabot (Thrse-De Blainville, BQ): MadamChair, I will come back to the bill introduced last week. As parliamentarians, we felt like we were watching a very bad play, as I imagine the public did. I say that it was theatre, even though it shouldn't be in this place. The government decided to stage a play and act alone and, unfortunately, there were several acts missing. A very important part of this bill was about supporting people with disabilities in this time of crisis. However, the government did not see fit to negotiate with the opposition parties, even though it is in a minority position. Despite this arrogance, the Bloc Qubcois proposed solutions. One of the things we proposed was to split the bill so that we could give this support to people with disabilities, but the Conservatives did not want to do that. We came back and asked for time to negotiate and give support to people with disabilities, but the government defeated the motion. We asked that the House be recalled today so that we could pass this part of the bill concerning support for people with disabilities, but we are still in the dark. Why are we abandoning people with disabilities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): I thank the hon. member for her question. We know this pandemic has deeply affected the lives and health of all Canadians and has disproportionately affected Canadians with disabilities in particular. From the very beginning, we've taken a disability-inclusive approach to our emergency response to ensure that Canadians with disabilities get the support they need. That is why we announced a one-time payment of $600 for persons with disabilities to address these expenses. This will go a long way toward helping Canadians with disabilities. We encourage and urge all parties in the opposition to support this measure. We're confident that this measure, along with other investments, will benefit Canadians with disabilities, and we hope to get the support of the other parties very soon. +Ms. Louise Chabot: MadamChair, I remind you that this measure wasn't passed because we weren't allowed to do so. A measure to help people with disabilities has been put in an omnibus bill. We've tried here, in the House, to provide the means to give that support, so I ask again, can the government be counted on to give a response to people with disabilities? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, it was absolutely not an omnibus bill. It contained assistance for the disabled, of course, but it also contained assistance for our seasonal workers, as well as a number of other measures that the Bloc Qubcois opposed. They refused to debate and, when the question of splitting the bill came up, the Conservatives refused to do that. That is why there is no bill at the moment, and that is very unfortunate. +Ms. Louise Chabot: It was a Bloc Qubcois proposal to split the bill. The government had not thought of it, but they found that it was a good idea. Let me return to the attack. This bill proposed changes to the wage subsidy program, it was supposed to make the CERB more flexible, it proposed fines for fraudsters and, since there was a little section about a benefit for the disabled, the government took it for granted that we would support it without any negotiations with the parties. However, we set one very important condition: that the Liberal Party must get its hands out of taxpayers' pockets in terms of the wage subsidy. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, as we listen to the Bloc Qubcois members, we might think that they invented peanut butter and apple pie. This bill contained a number of measures that all Quebeckers and all Canadians needed, but the Bloc Qubcois refused to debate it. No, we did not follow the Bloc Qubcois' example in splitting the bill; we had thought of it a long time previously. We have not been able to do that because of the Conservatives. Because of them, we cannot help those living with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms.Chabot, you have 45seconds left. +Ms. Louise Chabot: We asked on a number of occasions for the House to be able to sit starting today to pass the part of the bill dealing with those with disabilities. What is the status of that, MadamChair? We have not heard about it since. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, my colleague knows very well that things are not as simple as that. There are procedural mechanisms unique to the House. I hope that, one day, we will be able to pass this bill and be able to provide assistance for those living with disabilities. I hope that the Conservatives will change their minds and give us their support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Surrey Centre. Since 2015 our government has been focused on ensuring its policies mitigate the effects of climate change. Several measures have been implemented for phasing out coal, making polluters pay, providing climate incentives, investing in green technologies and much more, which all together have created a climate plan that is doing more to cut pollution than any other in Canada's history. In my riding of Don Valley East, many innovative businesses have benefited from these investments and initiatives. One area of particular interest is our government's work to protect 25% of Canada's land and 25% of its oceans by 2025. Our natural environment is something that Canadians and my constituents care about deeply. Could the minister update this House on the new conservation projects announced on June 5, World Environment Day, and on how our government is protecting our environment? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, protecting nature is an important part of how we will address climate change and the very real challenges it presents. That's why on June 5, World Environment Day, our government announced over 60 conservation projects under development across Canada. These projects are funded through the Canada Nature Fund's target 1 challenge initiative. They'll conserve Canadian nature and biodiversity and protect species at risk, enhance ecological integrity and connectivity, and enhance the size of Canada's vast network of protected areas. Nearly half of these projects are indigenous-led, with the aim of creating indigenous-protected conserved areas. Madam Chair, projects like these move us closer to our goal of protecting 25% of Canada's lands and oceans by 2025. By working together in partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, indigenous peoples and Canadians, together we can protect our natural environment for generations to come. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms. Ratansi, since you have 25 seconds left, we will go to the honourable member for Surrey Centre. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Madam Chair, there are many small and medium-sized businesses in my riding of Surrey Centre. Many have been impacted by COVID-19. They saw a decrease in business or needed to close their doors completely in order to adhere to public safety measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. These measures helped keep our most vulnerable citizens safe and ensured that our hospital and health care providers did not become overwhelmed with a sharp spike in cases. Thanks to our government's COVID-19 emergency response, many of these businesses have been able to keep their employees and access important liquidity through the Canada emergency business account, which provides loans to small businesses and non-profits, and the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which is helping businesses to keep and rehire their employees while their revenues are down by providing up to 75% of wages for up to 24 weeks. As we begin to reopen the economy and Canadians across the country return to the job market, those benefits will be even more important to help businesses and industries rehire their staff and make important adjustments to align with public health guidelines to gradually increase their operations. Can the minister please update the committee on how many Canadian businesses have taken advantage of CEBA and CEWS since applications for each have been opened? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, I want to begin by thanking the member for Surrey Centre for all the work he does to support his constituents and small businesses. Canadians across the country need to know our government has been working tirelessly and will continue to work tirelessly on their behalf. This is why we put in place the important programs to help them get through this crisis during this difficult time, programs such as the wage subsidy program. We know that in so many businesses the employees are often like extended family members. The wage subsidy has helped these businesses keep their employees on the payroll and are now helping in their rehiring as they slowly and safely restart. There are 348,000 businesses being helped with the wage subsidy program, and this means that 2.6 million workers are being helped. Businesses are also being helped through the interest-free $40,000 loan they can access through CEBA to help stay afloat and pay their expenses during this crisis. I'm pleased to inform this House that to date more than 669,000 +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for St. John's East. +Mr. Jack Harris: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for LondonFanshawe. Madam Chair, with so many recent reports and videos of police using force, sometimes deadly force, and violence against indigenous and black people in Canada, I've called for the public safety committee to reconvene. If the members agree, will the minister come to the committee and provide concrete answers as to how the government intends to address racism inherent in Canada's law enforcement, and in particular the RCMP? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank my colleague for the question. It's perhaps the most important one facing Canada today. Madam Chair, indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes within the entire criminal justice system. In order to respond appropriately, I think it's necessary to begin by acknowledging the lived experience of people who've known bias and discrimination at the hands of the police and our courts and within our prisons. We remain committed to working with all racialized people and all of the members of this House to ensure that we work toward social justice for all Canadians, and I look forward to discussing the member's motion further with him. +Mr. Jack Harris: Will the minister and the government commit to facilitating such a meeting of this committee virtually? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the decisions of the committee are the committee's, so I'm sure that this will be a discussion within the committee, but if called, I will certainly be pleased to come with my officials to provide the committee with whatever support and information it needs to contribute to this very important discussion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Harris, you have 40 seconds. +Mr. Jack Harris: In light of what we've seen with Chief Adam in Fort McMurray and the RCMP accepting that the actions were reasonable, will the minister commit to a full review of the use of force by the RCMP, in particular the philosophy, tactics and training that is given to RCMP officers in dealing with the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member and I want to assure him, first of all, that this is work that is ongoing, not just in the RCMP but throughout the police community. May I also take this opportunity, Madam Chair, to say that I think all police training has to begin with one very important principle, and that's the preservation of all life and the respect for all Canadians. We also know the importance of de-escalation training. We're committed to continuing to work with indigenous communities, racialized communities and with police services and all participants in the criminal justice system to make sure that it is fair for all Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for LondonFanshawe, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Madam Chair, we need more justice for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. They can't be asked to keep waiting. This government recognizes that systemic racism exists but refuses to collect race-based data that would allow us to quantify and truly address this injustice. We need data to protect Canadians. When will this government do the right thing and start collecting race-based data? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, our government agrees that it's important that we collect data, and that's exactly why, in the anti-racism secretariat and the anti-racism strategy, there is a commitment to have money go to Statistics Canada to collect race-based data. We look forward to working with all members to ensure it happens. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Madam Chair, we know that Statistics Canada will start to collect job numbers based on race. This will allow us to identify systemic racism where it is and where we need to ensure a fair and more equal job market for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. Why is this government refusing to follow suit so we can tackle systemic racism everywhere, in every sector? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for her question. She's absolutely correct in her assessment that we need to collect more data, reliable data, data that will help us deal with some of the challenges we're seeing with systemic discrimination, but, more broadly, we want to make sure that we continue to engage with an anti-racism strategy that will allow us to collect that disaggregated data. That is why we allocated $6.2 million to that initiative through Statistics Canada, but we know we must do more and we will do more. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: We know that all people are susceptible to catching COVID-19, but health authorities are clear that parts of cities like Montreal and Toronto have been more impacted than others. For black and racialized people living in these cities, this data is a matter of life and death. Will the government collect and share disaggregated data so we can identify and erase systemic racism, yes or no? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Madam Chair, making decisions based on science and evidence is essential for our government. We took that practice from day one. It is exactly the step we will take moving forward and that's why we are making those investments to ensure that data exists. We are working across all departments. My mandate letter is public. I look forward to continuing to work not only with all ministers, departments and agencies, but all allies and all parties to get this work done. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney, the honourable member for BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. Last week, my plumber told me that, each time Justin Trudeau comes down the steps to make announcements totalling several billion dollars, he feels like someone is rifling through his pockets. My question is simple and goes to the Minister of Finance: where is this money coming from? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, I would like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. Currently, the health and safety of Canadians are our top priorities. We have implemented an emergency economic plan to support Canadians, workers and companies. We will continue to support them during this crisis. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The answer I would have liked is simple: we are borrowing the money and we are going to have to pay it back one day. That is another Liberal craze: they borrow money, they make campaign promises, and off they go. Under the Conservative government, the Chantier Davie in Lvis had 1,700workers for the supply ship Asterix. In the election campaign, the Liberals promised icebreakers. When are the Liberals going to award the icebreaker contracts to the Chantier Davie? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): MadamChair, we are very proud of the Chantier Davie and we completely understand its role in the system. We are currently assessing those requests. We are going to establish the process for the polar ice-breaker, which is essential for the work of the Coast Guard in northern communities, and we are going to make sure that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers do not need words; they need contracts and jobs. The same is true for young people who want to work. There is money in the Canada summer jobs program: in my constituency alone, $150,000has been approved. Companies want young people to work and want to hire them. What is the minister waiting for in order to confirm those positions? In my constituency, and everywhere else in the country, our young people want to work. What is the government waiting for in order to send some cash to the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are proud of the Canada summer jobs program. We are introducing flexibilities into the system to enable employers to be able to hire summer students. We recognize the importance of this program to provide both financial resources and necessary experience for young people. We believe in continuing to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers, the young people and the employers have been waiting for weeks. The money is available; where is the announcement? MadamChair, our young people are not the only ones who want to work. There are also the temporary foreign workers. Let me use Jessie Gito as an example; he has been working at Plate2000 in Saint-Anselme for years. When the time came to renew his work permit, he found out that he has to have some biometric tests. But he cannot get them because the offices are closed. Is the minister going to allow Jessie Gito and the thousands of other temporary foreign workers who want to work to be able to do so until the government biometric testing centres reopen? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, it is important for the honourable member to recognize that we are in the early recovery stage of the pandemic. Employers are slowly reopening businesses. We will ensure that we support both our students and our temporary foreign workers to make sure we get the recovery right. We will continue to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that employers are able to take advantage of the program and give opportunities to young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: It is very simple. Jessie Gito is a foreign worker, who is in a company that provides an essential service. He needs a decision that will let him go to work, rather than staying home and doing nothing. Then, when the government's biometric testing centres are open again, he will gladly go to one. Young people want to work in agriculture as well, and the minister has told us that the government wants young people working and that their files will be processed as quickly as possible. She wants to create 700positions and she knows that people can fill in an application on a first-come first-served basis. Of those 700positions, how many have been confirmed to date? The good weather has arrived, the corn is starting to grow, and this is the time when farmers need the young workers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): MadamChair, the program for young workers in agriculture is open. I also encourage agricultural producers to register for it. This is a program that is not only intended to provide summer jobs, but also to interest young people in making a career in agriculture. As I have said before, the department is processing files as quickly as possible. Each employer will have an answer very shortly. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will now take a short break. Okay, we are ready to start again. We will go to the honourable member for BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Over the course of the pandemic, has the government been using all avenues possible to source much-needed PPE in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, we have been very clear that we have a made-in-Canada initiative that has engaged companies across the country. Over 700 companies have retooled and scaled up their operations for personal protective equipment to help front-line health care workers. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Madam Chair, I need to ask very quickly which ministry and minister are responsible for the sourcing of PPE in Canada. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, this is a collective effort. I work with the Minister of Health and the minister for procurement , and we coordinate with the provinces and territories to make sure there are appropriate levels of PPE to help front-line health care workers and essential workers across the country. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that clarification. That will make this question all the more pertinent. My riding of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte is the home of Southmedic Inc. Southmedic is a renowned medical supply business. For over 37 years, it has provided front-line health care workers with an extensive line of PPE and other essential products required when dealing with respiratory illnesses. This company specializes in respiratory illness equipment. Southmedic currently employs over 700 people, and it has been recognized as one of Canada's best-managed companies by Deloitte on numerous occasions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, both I and the member for BarrieInnisfil have been attempting to obtain some assistance for Southmedic from the federal government. Calls and emails were falling on deaf ears. In early May, I wrote a letter to Minister Anand outlining the situation. I received a letter back from the minister dated May 27 indicating that this issue of Southmedic falls under the mandate of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. I have heard nothing more. When will the federal government reach out and help this great Canadian company and therefore ensure that all front-line workers will have the proper PPE they require? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He knows full well that this is a very challenging time. That is why we had a call to action to engage Canadians right across the country. Since then, we've seen over 6,000 companies step up to offer solutions and ideas, and over 700 companies have retooled their efforts. I acknowledge that some companies are still engaging with the government, and we'll continue to explore all possible options to make sure we continue to procure the necessary levels of personal protective equipment to protect Canadians and to protect front-line health care workers. That has always been our priority. I want to thank the outstanding Canadian companies that have come forward and have helped us in this endeavour. We continue to look forward to working with them. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that answer. Just to follow up, there's no retooling required at this company. They could have been up and going very quickly. They just needed a little assistance at the beginning. Moving on to a different issue, while walking to my office this morning, I stopped at my local small family-run coffee shop and was discussing the current economic situation with the two owners of the establishment. They indicated they are having a very tough time surviving this economic downturn. The only thing keeping them hopeful is that soon the public service will start returning to work, and therefore their business will begin to return. Could the government please give us some indication as to what the plans are for returning the civil service back to work safely, and when? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to answer this question. This is a very important topic, but I'd like to take the opportunity first to thank our public servants, who have worked very hard in the last few weeks, both personally and professionally. In fact, today is a wonderful day to say that, because today is the start of National Public Service Week. That's one more reason to thank them for their dedicated work. They are not going to go back to work. They've been at work for the last few monthsin different circumstances, but they have been working very hard to deliver the services and the support Canadians need and deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Next we'll go to the honourable member for SelkirkInterlakeEastman, Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Defence. First of all, I want to thank the great men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces for the fantastic job they're doing in Operation LASER, serving on the front lines battling COVID-19. Can the Minister of National Defence give the House an update on exactly where we are at with the number of Canadian Armed Forces members who have been infected with COVID-19? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Madam Chair, I want to echo the member opposite's comments in thanking our Canadian Armed Forces members. Currently, we have 13 active cases in the Canadian Armed Forces, but in the long-term care facilities we currently have 50 cases. No member has been currently hospitalized. We have also conducted very thorough reviews of our protection protocols as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Through you, Chair, Minister Sajjan, does that number of active cases include the active cases that are in long-term care facilities right now in Operation LASER? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, as I stated, the 50 cases are strictly from the long-term care facilities. The 13 cases I mentioned are not in the long-term care facilities. Just to give the actual clarification, no member has been currently hospitalized. +Mr. James Bezan: In those numbers, Madam Chair, can Mr. Sajjan say how many of those cases in long-term care facilities are active and how many are recovered? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I don't have the exact number. What I can say to break it down further is that in Quebec we currently have 36 and in Ontario we have 14. As well, 36 of the members have been out of isolation. I'll get more details and pass them on directly to the member, Madam Chair. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Minister. Madam Chair, I have a quick question while we're still talking about Operation LASER. The President of the Treasury Board has said, The Canadian Armed Forces will be present as long as their presence is needed in Quebec. This contradicts what Prime Minister Trudeau is saying, which is that we have a hard deadline of June 26 for the withdrawal of our troops for Operation LASER. That means taking our troops out of our long-term care facilities. Minister, is June 26 the hard date for the winding down of Operation LASER? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to clarify for the House. We've been in very extensive discussions with the Province of Quebec, with my counterpart Minister Guilbault, and we are working very diligently to ensure we have a sustained, appropriate response to the request from Quebec for assistance. That response will result in a transition from the currently deployed Canadian Armed Forces to the deployment of paid volunteers, trained personnel who will take on the important role of providing services to those Canadians who need our help in Quebec. +Mr. James Bezan: I'll go back to the Minister of National Defence. The Department of National Defence auditors have called out the Liberal government for mismanagement over the $553-billion investment in our Canadian military through the defence policy. Only three people have been assigned to oversee the rollout of this money. This is a $553-billion investment in our armed forces, and only three people are managing it. Could the minister tell us how that is even possible? Is this the reason that over 100 projects are currently behind schedule? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, first of all, I want to highlight the unprecedented investment that we're making in defence. We have conducted internal reviews of our procurement. The report the member opposite is talking about is from the previous year. This is the ongoing work we're doing to make sure that we make procurement better. When it comes to the management of this, it's conducted by me and the minister of procurement . We are working toward making our procurement even better. We have already streamlined some aspects of our procurement and we'll continue to do more as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, you've had this report since November of 2019. You've been rolling out this plan since 2017. Only three people are overseeing an expenditure of $553 billion. This is taxpayers' money. Are we going to see more cuts because you have been unable to actually roll out these dollars? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I can assure you we're not going to be cutting. We'll be investing in our defence. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before I go to the next speaker, I want to remind members that they are to address their questions and comments directly through the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for Fort McMurrayCold Lake, Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Madam Chair, the Canada summer jobs program has many challenges. I've seen many indigenous communities in my riding rejected for funding even though they had received funding in previous years. Here are a few examples of communities that were rejected: Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Buffalo Lake Mtis Settlement and the Mtis Nation of Alberta, Region 1. The list goes on. Could the Prime Minister explain why so many indigenous communities have been denied funding from the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in our community across the country every year. We're working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and are supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We are introducing increased flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth, while also providing more supports to employers that deliver essential services to Canadians. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, that didn't really answer my question. Why are so many indigenous communities left out of the Canada summer jobs program? This is very important to my community and to communities throughout the province. Will the government investigate why these communities were rejected? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we, of course, value the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in all communities, including indigenous communities in Canada. I will certainly have an off-line conversation with the honourable member, if he so wishes, about a particular issue, but I can assure him that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had to assist employers to introduce flexibilities +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, in my riding, the City of Cold Lake has been in dispute with the federal government for many years over payment in lieu of taxes. My office has sent many letters over the years regarding the PILT dispute. Could the Minister of Public Services and Procurement give me a rough estimate of when I will receive a response from the minister's office to my first letter, from 2017, and my letters from 2018, 2019 and 2020? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will go to the minister, and we will come back with an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: How much longer does the minister intend to perpetuate the ongoing PILT dispute, which is in excess of $11 million, with the City of Cold Lake? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, once again, I can assure the honourable member that I will speak with the minister and get an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Well, do you know what? I've been writing letters to the department for many years. When you say you're going to get back to me, I really have a hard time believing that. Will the minister agree to follow the prior recommendations of the dispute advisory panel that were accepted by the minister? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will check with the minister and that she will return to the member in due course. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, the drug Trikafta has been proven to increase the quality of life for 90% of cystic fibrosis patients. Two weeks ago, my office sent a letter to the Minister of Health about the boy in my riding named Cael, who through the special access program is able to get Trikafta in Canada. I requested that the minister use her powers to fast-track Trikafta for commercial use, but I have yet to receive a response back. When will the minister make a decision on Trikafta? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I'm glad to hear that Cael was able to access Trikafta through the special access program. In fact, that program is very helpful for people who are seeking access to medication that's not currently marketed in Canada. As the member opposite knows, Vertex has not applied to market Trikafta in Canada, but we look forward to their application, and I encourage him to write a letter to the manufacturer to also encourage them. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Vancouver Granville, Ms. Wilson-Raybould. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Chair. I was very troubled to hear that a CBC radio host in the Yukon felt compelled to resign because, as an indigenous person, she could not speak her truth. While we know the Broadcasting Act states that the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of indigenous peoples, it would seem there are some challenges. Therefore, does the Minister of Heritage share the concern of some journalists that problems of systemic racism in Canada are still existing within the institution of the CBC, and will the government now acknowledge the need to recognize the jurisdiction of indigenous governments? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair; and I thank the member for this important question. As stated by the Prime Minister on numerous occasions, our government recognizes that systemic racism exists in Canada, and we have made a commitment to do everything we can to combat it in whichever organization of the Canadian government. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you. When I was in the government, and as a minister, I learned the term red meat issues. I understand these issues to be ones that challenge societal norms, that are not politically expedient to address because they can lose you votes, even though addressing them is morally right and a smart thing to do. Mostly these are issues addressing inequality and the most marginalized in our society. In the justice system, examples include mandatory minimum penalties, defunding police, and even investing in restorative justice. Red-meat issues often become defining issues for society and for governments as the world changes. Surely now these issues are politically less of a consideration than the tragic reality of even more slain indigenous Canadians at the hands of police, or thousands of indigenous people still incarcerated or living in poverty. Will this government please finally commit to the necessary work originally promised in 2015 and repeal in the justice system the vast majority of mandatory minimum penalties, assuring the necessary discretion for judges, and meaningfully invest in restorative justice measures? +Hon. David Lametti: Madame Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question, as well as for her work as Minister of Justice, and indeed my predecessor. This is an important time. This is a time when we recognize systemic racism. This is a time when we recognize systemic over-incarceration of indigenous peoples, of black peoples, in our criminal justice system. This is a time when we need to look at all potential options to reduce what is a shameful overrepresentation in our criminal justice system. Too often racialized peoples and indigenous peoples have experienced prejudice and systemic discrimination in our justice system, and that has to change. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I'll go on to another red meat issue. In British Columbia we are in the fifth year of the opioid overdose public health emergency crisis. Sadly, May marks the deadliest month of overdose-related deaths. We are halfway into the year and have currently passed 500 deaths caused by overdose. Many of the deaths are related to COVID-19 measures that have prevented people from accessing supervised consumption sites, so they are overdosing alone. While the provinces welcomed the federal backing of safe supply exemption back in March, it is to expire in September of 2020. Echoing the call of the chief coroner of B.C. and Dr. Henry, more is needed from the federal government, more action. Will the government provide the necessary supports to the province and help support safe supply initiatives in the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: It's been a pleasure to work with the Province of British Columbia on innovative ways to work on the tragic situation of opioid overdose. I remain committed to working with the province and in fact any province that wants to work towards solutions that treat people who use substances with the dignity they deserve. Madam Chair, this is a complex issue. We're working closely with our partners to make sure that we can prevent more lives from being lost. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for South OkanaganWest Kootenay, Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. In my riding, Theo's in Penticton is a beloved restaurant. They've been serving great food for 40 years, but now they're struggling, because they don't qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Why is that? The original owners retired last year and sold it to another operator. The new owner can't use a year-to-year comparison to apply for the wage subsidy because he didn't own the restaurant last spring. He is forced to use receipts from January and February, the darkest doldrums of the restaurant year, to compare with the results from May, traditionally one of their best months. Now he has to compete with other local restaurants that can access the subsidy. When will the government fix this inequity and let Theo's compete and survive? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency wage subsidy is supporting over 2.5 million workers across the country. To help even more businesses support their workers and rehire people as they reopen, our government is extending the CEWS, and we will continue to extend the CEWS for an additional 12 weeks to August 29 to ensure that Canadian workers continue to have the support they need during these very difficult times. By extending eligibility, our government is ensuring that more Canadian workers in more sectors have the support they need. +Mr. Richard Cannings: The owner just wants to be able to apply for the wage subsidy, and right now he cannot, and he will not be able to. Thousands of other businesses are hit that way as well. I'd like to move on to forestry. Canada's forest sector has been declared essential during this pandemic, but it's been hit hard after a very difficult 2019. Despite soft markets and thousands out of work, government support programs have left many Canadian forest product companies behind. In my riding, the pulp mill in Castlegar is closing for the month of July because local sawmills aren't producing enough wood chips. What is the government going to do to finally support Canadian forestry workers and communities? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The time is almost up, but I will allow for the answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Thank you, Madam Chair. We have supported and we will continue to support the forestry sector, including through regional development programs. In fact, in Quebec, partnering with Les Bois Francs DV Inc., we have widened market access to our products and updated technology systems. In North Bay we've partnered with the Canadian Wood Council to promote the sector. In Vancouver we're working with FPInnovations to create the indigenous forest sector technical support program. We are supporting the forestry sector and its different needs region by region. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we go to the honourable member for SkeenaBulkley Valley, Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to pick up where my colleague left off, with B.C.'s forest industry. What we've seen in B.C. are multiple rounds of mill shutdowns and start-ups, and in some cases this has made it difficult for forestry workers to qualify for EI. My question to the minister is this: Will the minister work to make the EI program more flexible for forestry workers, similar to what this government has done for oil and gas workers? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, in the oil and gas sector we have focused on workers. That has been key in the inactive and orphan well program, which we are working on with the provincial governments of Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta. The focus on workers has assured that success, and we will continue to focus on workers in all the industries, particularly our natural resource industry, as they go through this extraordinarily difficult time. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Madam Chair, reforestation is a very important part of the forest industry in the riding I represent, and people were keenly interested to hear this government's plan to plant two billion trees in the next 10 years. That's a lot of trees. I'm wondering if the minister could tell us how many trees are going to be planted under this program by the end of this season. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, this government is committed to two billion trees. We are working with forestry associations, the industry and with individual companies to ensure this tree-planting season will be one of the largest the country has ever seen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The floor goes to the honourable member for Rivire-du-Nord. +Mr. Rhal Fortin (Rivire-du-Nord, BQ): MadamChair, last week, the government introduced BillC-17 and the Minister of Justice sent us briefing notes in which he said that it was important to suspend a number of time limits and to extend others, and that the failure to do so could have important repercussions on Canadians, their families, their situations, their finances and their ability to exercise their rights. We in the Bloc Qubcois agree with that. When are we going to talk about it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, the contents of BillC-17 are clearly very important. We have addressed the mandatory time limits in federal legislation as well as certain time limits that courts may not be able to handle. It is very important that we address this issue. That is why the law +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Fortin, you have the floor. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we agree that it is important. I concur. The minister's briefing notes say that, among other things, when it comes to divorcewhich means children are involved people are waiting on custody rights, child support and visitation rights. The minister pointed out that the national security review would require consultations if no decision is made in the prescribed time frame. It could pose a national security risk. It is really a big deal. When are we going to debate it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, I completely agree with my honourable colleague. The issue needs to be addressed. That is why it is in the bill. That is another reason to debate the bill. I beseech my colleagues opposite to debate it with us. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, what a coincidence, because I beseech my colleague opposite to debate it with us. That is what we are asking. Last week, the leader of the Bloc Qubcois asked the Liberal government to debate BillC-17 today. He did not get an answer. It does not seem to matter. Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is hardly a dimwit or greenhorn, told us that the justice system needs to be modernized. As recently as this past Saturday in LaPresse, Justice Wagner said that it is essential that the Criminal Code be amended to address the backlog of court proceedings. When will the Liberal government opposite pull up its socks, do its job, govern the federation, sit down with the opposition and discuss the vital matters in BillC-17? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, if I were my colleague, I would be a little embarrassed, because the bill was sent to the Bloc Qubcois several days in advance. They received a technical note several days in advance. We were all available to take questions. When we asked for the support of the Bloc Qubcois and the other parties to debate itwe were not even asking them to vote in favour of the billthey refused. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we never refused to debate it. Actually, we were the ones who asked to debate it. What exactly does debate it mean? We set some conditions. For example, we asked the Liberals to put the money back into the wage subsidy fund and to commit to dip into it no longer. Are we asking too much of our colleagues opposite? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Can my colleague explain to me what the emergency wage subsidy has to do with a bill about justice? This is an absolutely fundamental piece of legislation. We wanted to debate it, but they refused to do so. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, I would like nothing better than to explain it to him, but I must remind him that he is the leader of the party in power, the party that is supposed to govern the country. So I do not know why he is asking me that. My party proposed that we debate this today but we did not get an answer. Meanwhile, court time limits are running out and people are losing rights. I am thinking of families, child support, child custody, labour law disputes in Federal Court, marine transportation, interprovincial transportation, aviation, banks, and those with grievances waiting for a Federal Court ruling. The whole system, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, everything is on hold because nobody in the government wants to do their job. We want to discuss BillC-17. When can we talk about it? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, we have done our job. We have introduced the bill. We informed them in advance. We told them they could ask us any questions they wanted. We asked for a debate in the House. However, when we asked the Bloc Qubcois if they wanted to debate the bill, they said no, instead of doing what they usually do and saying yes. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Essex, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis (Essex, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When the CERB runs out, many workers in my riding of Essex will not have sufficient hours to collect their EI benefits. In early July, the midnight shift at Chrysler will be eliminated. Because of the shutdown, a mom-to-be who had just returned to work in January, and several hundred of her fellow employees, may not have the 600 hours required for regular or EI parental benefits. Immediate action is needed. What is the government doing now to backstop these workers? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency response benefit has been providing much-needed help to Canadian workers across the country who have stopped working due to COVID-19. We know that there is still a lot of uncertainty for many Canadian workers, and we know that many will be exhausting their benefits in the weeks to come. We will have more to share soon, as early as this week, on our continuing efforts to support Canadian workers and make sure that help is available during this +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Go ahead, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Minister, for the answer. The EI system needs to be fixed. Even before the shutdown, the system was deeply flawed. Will this government commit to a complete review and overhaul of the EI system? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we have been there for Canadian workers. We will continue to make sure that we make the necessary investments in the EI delivery system and modernize it to continue to meet +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Small businesses have been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 shutdown. Many have already been forced into bankruptcy. Much uncertainty lies ahead. As the economy reopens, what is the government doing to help small businesses recover? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, today we are seeing small businesses that have been helped, whether it is getting access to the small business loan, which some are also using in the restart as they are safely restarting, or getting help with their payroll, helping them keep their employees +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Employees are key to a small business's success. How will the government incentivize workers to return to their jobs when recalled? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister can give a brief answer. +Hon. Mary Ng: The Canada emergency wage subsidy is an excellent program to help those employees stay employed and for those employers who are looking at rehiring them right now during this restart process. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, many of my constituents are in a committed cross-border relationship and have not been able to see their partners in quite some time. The current restrictions are arbitrary. Denmark has found a fair resolution. Will Canada adopt the Danish model, and if not, why not? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, as we said from the outset, we've implemented restrictions at the U.S. border on non-essential travel with a single purpose in mind: to protect the health and safety of Canadians. As the member is aware, just last week we introduced new measures that allow people in family relationships to stay together as long as they commit to the necessary 14-day period of quarantine. We'll continue to work with families. Our intention is to keep people together, but mostly to keep people safe. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, with regard to child care, as our economy continues to open, parents are facing a stark choice: Who will care for their children? What's the plan to provide access to child care so parents can confidently return to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are of course committed to continuing to make the record investments that we've been making in child care. Since 2015 we've created over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We're committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. We will continue to invest in this sector because we understand that without investment +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. It sounds as though this government has a desire to force parents to choose between their job and care for their child. Can the government please respond to that quote? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, nothing could be further from the truth. We are committed to the child care sector. Our investments and our results prove the opposite of what the member is asserting. Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I'm sorry. We're out of time. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The meeting was adjourned until the following day at noon, after a series of questions and responses between members of Parliament and various ministers. Topics discussed included support for Canadians with disabilities, concerns over systemic racism, the economic impact of COVID-19 on businesses, the role of the Canadian Armed Forces during the pandemic, the sourcing and management of personal protective equipment (PPE), the return of the civil service to work, support for the forest industry, and issues related to child care and border restrictions. + +Members of different parties raised questions about the government's economic update, support measures for different industries and populations, and specific regional concerns. There was also a debate on the bill C-17, which included discussions on justice system deadlines, support for families, and national security review consultations. + +The ministers provided answers on current support measures, government actions, and intentions regarding the raised issues. The discussions included a focus on transparency, investment in defense, assistance for small businesses, and the importance of protecting the health and safety of Canadians. + +The session showcased the range of concerns from different parts of the country and the ongoing dialogue between the government and opposition members to address the multifaceted challenges posed by the pandemic and other societal issues." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: {gap} . {gap} . +Marketing: Yes , I made it . English from now on {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just testing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm ? English . +Industrial Designer: Just kidding . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So annoying . +Project Manager: Break is over . +Marketing: Ooh it works . +Project Manager: Whoo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Marketing: Where are are all the other presentations ? +Industrial Designer: I just put it in the in the shared folder so it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: The conceptual or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think so . Yeah , conceptual design . What or whatever does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . Because I see only my own presentation {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no , can you go back one ? +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh 'cause it has to be PowerPoint pre yeah components design , that's it . +Marketing: This ? {gap} I'll just put it in there . +Project Manager: So , he's coming . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} I did get a bit more done than the last time , +Marketing: Or not . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I knew that I didn't have time so I just copy and paste everything into the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , +Project Manager: Ah . She {gap} . +Marketing: I can't cut and paste it into the other folder but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can look at the final report , 'cause I have to record everything we are deciding and such , so I'm trying to write it down between everything else . +Marketing: Move to meeting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sometimes I have these pop-ups or these sounds and there's nothing there , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: and also with {disfmarker} I don't know how to use PowerPoint , so it takes me forever to get something done with it . +Marketing: Yeah me too , {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I've got the same problem as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Here we go again . Welcome . Uh we have again three presentations and then we have to decide on what concepts the mobile phone has to uh {disfmarker} f the remote control has to support . +Industrial Designer: Thi +Project Manager: So who wants go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Who wants to start ? +Marketing: Me first again or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah sure . Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Oh . No . Yeah . No problem +Marketing: yeah . Alright . Did you open it already or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: no . Ah . Ah . Yes . So welcome to the marketing presentation once again . Um this time about trendwatching . {vocalsound} Uh well there has been inv investigation again , in the in the remote control market . Uh it shows a number of developments . Uh I will address them uh in a moment . Um fashion watch watchers uh have detected the trends for young public , because that's our public . Um well fruit and vegetables will be will be the most important theme for clothing , uh shoes and furniture . And the feel of the material is expected to be spongey . So um the developments I will address them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh yeah well this is the fruit and vegetables looks of fresh bright colours . So to give you an idea . Um well the developments ? Uh development one . {vocalsound} Uh well most important aspect for remote control happens to be a fancy look-and-feel . Instead of the current uh functional look-and-feel . Um well fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and the interface . And the second most important aspect is that a remote control should be technological uh innovative . Um well it stands for the use of technical features that do not exist in current remote controls . I think we pretty much covered that with our screen and um and speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Sound . Yeah yeah uh uh . +Marketing: so I don't expect that to be a problem . And the third development um is that the remote control should be easy to use . Um {disfmarker} Well the first aspect uh was twice as important as the second aspect,w which was twice as important as the third aspect . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So um that kind of gets you this ratios . So fancy look-and-feel uh is the most important uh point of attention . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh so the fruits and vegetables in combination with the spongey material . Um well technolog technological innovation , we've covered that pretty much I guess . Um and easy to use , I don't think that will be problem . So my point of attention is especially this part . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That this will be a crux . So that was the marketing uh presentation . I had only one document left . +Industrial Designer: And shall I go first ? +User Interface: Yeah . No . I I don't mi I don't mind . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah sure . No . +Marketing: So kind of this {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you want to go first ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} So a k a small example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Kind of this this look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh nothing about the buttons but just sponge kind of thing , and and some fruit and colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Just made a quick design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} Yeah you're just the user interface hmm ? +User Interface: It's better than than my uh drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay but I have to design the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh components . +Project Manager: Yeah layout . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh no . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . +Project Manager: You probably opened it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Alright . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm dealing with the components design . Um let's see . I uh used some design examples we had uh from similar products . And I used uh possibilities from our manufacturing department about current components which will have to be implemented in the design . That's why I had to , wanted to go first . Well they gave me um an idea about what people want . We're f mainly focusing on this group , but I want to make the distinction clear . Uh I could not drag the pictures into the the slides so s so I don't have examples of how it looks like . But it comes down to what you uh what you think we should do with the spongey and the fruity looking uh type . If you , the young dynamic people want soft primary colours uh , which looks like fruits you know , you can {disfmarker} and shapes that are curved and not uh solid straight lines anymore . So this basically um yeah goes on to what you were mentioning earlier . There is a lot of um {vocalsound} factors involved in choosing the components . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's a lot of options that we have to discuss . Uh for example the energy source . we have four types . The basic battery . Uh we have a hand dynamo , which we yeah we Dutch refer to it as the kneipgatt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh the kinetic provision of energy which means if you move the thing , if you shake it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which will be fun for toddlers right , if they wanna use the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh of course solar cells . But I dunno how we would use that into the design of the actual product . +Marketing: Wi an indoors . +Industrial Designer: So uh my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Calculator's can do it . +Industrial Designer: yeah also also in you know countries where there's n isn't much light like in Scandinavia , they wouldn't be y able to use it half of the year you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that's not cool either . So um {vocalsound} for the uh a case , there's uh the traditional uncurved flat hard case . Single curved , which means that it has uh curves in one dimension . Or the double curved . Um {vocalsound} I wasn't able to finish my uh personal preferences sheet , but well you know that we will have to go for the double curved 'cause it's daring and different from what we have now . Uh the case materials . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have all kinds of hard uh materials like the the hard plastic , the wood and the titanium . I would definitely go for rubber 'cause it fits most in what people wanna see nowadays . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um poo , this is a lot of text . I wasn't able to organise this yet . We have yeah several uh interface designs . Uh we can use a scroll buttons for the menus , but we already kind of decided to go for the f for the pushbuttons , for the the arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Pushbuttons . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's not really interesting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Electronics ? Yeah , {vocalsound} maybe we wanna decide on what electronics to use {gap} the advanced chip I think is easiest to implement uh for the production , 'cause they they can print it better . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think this is about it . Yeah I was working on some per personal preferences . I first uh chose for the battery , 'cause yeah I'm traditional and that's the most obvious , easiest choice to go to . But I really think that we should maybe uh think about the kinetic energy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have to move the thing to be able to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: As an optional uh feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or combine uh both with a with one uh +Project Manager: Uh I think you can only fit one uh source of energy on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess we can only choose one . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I can imagine that the kinetic uh type energy source would be more expensive to make . But it is more longlasting , that the people don't have to ever buy batteries again . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . And it's more fun . +Project Manager: I didn't receive any info uh . +Industrial Designer: And it's also more fun yeah . I always chuck my uh remote control around , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , just playing with it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} especially when the material's rubber . It can be done , I mean , you can't harm it , +Project Manager: S yeah it's safe . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And throw it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y exactly . +Marketing: so it's a perfect combination I guess . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to be scared about bouncing it off the g floor and breaking it or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's the end of it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay next . +Industrial Designer: Uh go ahead . +Marketing: So double curved is like this , this , this , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No it means curved in two dimensions . So uh w single curved ? Uh let's say would be a b square box , but then with curves on one dimension . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And double curved would means that it would have curves curves in every direction . Like three D_ . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Also in in height ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Can we uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . One one uh very important thing I was uh yeah thinking about is the speech uh option . We were going to use that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah um yeah that's one thing uh which I'm not sure uh of how to implement it uh into the remote control . +Project Manager: Well the visual representation is not there with speech +Industrial Designer: Design ? +User Interface: No okay but it has to be combined with with the menu uh for functions and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you can {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So okay . +Project Manager: I think you can just uh match the speech commands with the functions that are already present . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I don't think you have to design anything else for that . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah with the programme . +User Interface: But do uh j do we uh do the speech just for the basic options , for the simple buttons ? +Project Manager: Both . +User Interface: For for everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: also for the advanced options ? Okay . Uh we have this {gap} very uh basic uh trendy design . Everybody says it so that's what's uh {disfmarker} yeah um {disfmarker} Yeah in the in the last uh meeting we uh we were yeah putting the the simple and the advanced options separated . That's yeah obvious . Um yeah . Pressing the the menu option uh will disable uh all other options on your uh remote control . And only the the L_C_D_ panel will uh light up and then you can only uh change the yeah the options . +Marketing: And and the and the buttons that you need to control it , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um yeah design has to be very attractive but that's your your op your {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} you have to uh delete this but this is the the the simple uh layout . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh display on the upper side with the the menu button and maybe a some sort of cancel button or save button . +Project Manager: That would be the back . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} The back . +Project Manager: Back and okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Back and okay yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Back and okay . +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: What ? A little bit I think but not not everything w +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay 'cause I pretty much summed up all the buttons there were . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Oh {vocalsound} I uh didn't read that . +Project Manager: I hate doing work for nothing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But this is the the basic uh design uh for the for the m yeah for the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I wanted to to categorise everything . Uh with a speech display uh yeah , sound , everything you you noted in your uh minutes . Um every pushbutton has uh has its own uh LED light . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you can uh yeah change uh m make it more trendy for for younger people . And uh if there are older people they wanted more uh yeah more uh luxurous {disfmarker} so that's an a also an option . Um that was it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} again . Ugh . {vocalsound} Okay so what we have to decide is what kind of components do we use ? Uh energy source , chip type , case type . And user interface . But I didn't see a clear distinction between these so I think what we have is okay . So we only , we already decided that kinetic would be the choice for energy . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Uh the case would be doubly curved . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And rubber . Rubber material . +Marketing: Rubber material . +Project Manager: Rubber material . And that's the only thing we have left . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need the the chip on print to be able to support the the screen and uh and f audio function . +Project Manager: Oh okay . No it's easy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's uh {disfmarker} is that is that the advanced chip ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise you would have a simple chip , just for pressing buttons . But we need more . +Marketing: Wow . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking , this is not my department , but I I'm not sure what this is gonna cost , +Marketing: Kinetic . Double curved . +Project Manager: Too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: to be able to m +Project Manager: Uh I didn't get any info on this . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So 'cause we need to sell it for twenty five Euro a piece . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's gonna be difficult huh ? +Marketing: The cost of making it should be twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: I have total here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't get any information about that so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . We're going to produce it in uh China so it's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Child labour man , we love it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's cheap . +Project Manager: Who doesn't . Uh let's see . Is there a new thing ? +Marketing: Um well the interface type supplements . +Project Manager: Yeah the interface , maybe can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's it's quite difficult because we we haven't got all the options uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . No . Uh do you have a picture of doubly curved case ? And could you put that in the group folder ? Of the project folder . +Industrial Designer: Um let me see . Wait a sec . +Marketing: If you go to your homepage or something , you should +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm going there now . +Marketing: get your own information . +Industrial Designer: Inspiration . +Marketing: I got my fresh and fyoo fruity uh picture uh also uh over there , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah you didn't draw it yourself . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too less time . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} yeah maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that that w +User Interface: This is the the menu I was uh looking uh at . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I was thinking of that also , with with a with a uh arrow . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Arrow . +User Interface: Arrow yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that indicates that there's an menu under that menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah perfect . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . 'S the target group . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier if you guys come over here . +User Interface: S yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: S see this is the the the standard traditional type , where the form uh yeah serves the function , you know . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like really basic . But this m is more appealing to old people and we don't want that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is what we're looking for . And th that means curved in both dire dire uh dimensions . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: Not only like this but it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah also like this . So you can hold it . +Industrial Designer: exactly . It has to be kind of instead of the PlayStation , the module . It has to be like the the Game Cube , you know , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where your thumbs would be laying in the instrument and it has to be nice to hold . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it has also to {disfmarker} it it has also to be uh luxurous uh for for yeah rich people . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Th this looks a little bit like like for only for children . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It ha +Project Manager: The children's story . Yeah I've got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that's that's the the problem uh yeah the dilemma actually , +Project Manager: Distinction . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause we wanna appeal to the to the young public with fancy with flashy colours , and with a lot of shape . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and the and the rubber , it it will look cheap always , +User Interface: The colour {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay but the the colours , you you can make it uh make the colours with {gap} LEDs uh beneath the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: you know , with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you press a button and you can disable the the colour LEDs for for people that don't like it . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: There is mobile phones , in which you can change the colour also of the lights . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should consider this function . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To customise it and so {disfmarker} I mean kids can make it look more flashy with different kinds of colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and people who want something , you know , different , or more uh design , they can go for one colour +Project Manager: Different . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like uh for example this uh photo th camera . +Project Manager: Camera . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Cool . S underwater uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah submarine . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Personally I think it's really ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just give me the thing that it's inside there {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah but this this the {gap} is for the {gap} . +User Interface: Very cheap uh cheap look . +Industrial Designer: maybe I'm too old for this stuff . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So those I think are all my {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: oh . +Project Manager: Ah yeah bright colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Also a kind of rubber uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And this is , this is with the curved that I mean . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's singly curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That should be nice . +Project Manager: Well we could make a compromise between that . But I don't know if it's worth the effort . +Industrial Designer: A compromise between what ? +Project Manager: Uh instead of doubly curved we take a single curved . So to appeal a little more to the all the public . +Marketing: So s +Industrial Designer: This , this would be uh single curved uh ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah there's only in in this dimension . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like this . So curvy or not {gap} . +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah so we keep it singly c single curved then ? +Project Manager: Yeah that would be an option . I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean our aim is to make something different right ? To make something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I would go for the double curved . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah I'd agree . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm I'm thinking uh you know uh a drawing palette , where you have the shape for your thumb . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it kind of holds nicely , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah but if you if you make it more curved we we can make more and more options for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well this is really your decision but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh it have it in your hand , you you you are not only um yeah you don't need one dimension but you can use other dimensions for pressing the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As well . You can make a trigger button or something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Something to shoot at your television {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or that that is the confirmation button or something , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that you scroll with your thumb , with the arrows , and then confirm . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That would be a nice way to use it but {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I'm thinking big already , and we need something that well that {gap} that you can able to use in one hand I think . +Project Manager: Different . Stands out . Or {disfmarker} Oh yeah a one hand uh solution . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So from top view it looks kinda like this . But from the side you you can have it also in a kind of shape . +Project Manager: {gap} can turn it maybe . +Marketing: Maybe because the the screen is on top you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To switch from buttons to interface hmm . If you turn it a little . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Maybe you can c have this kind of shape . A little upwards . So that the screen is more +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Least you can easily see it . +Marketing: towards yourself , so you can easily see your screen . +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well well you have it in your hand so it's a kind of an angle from your eyes to the screen . So then you have double double curved in some way . So this this is so the screen is positioned over here . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . Something like that . And the buttons are more , well it's very thick now but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . +Marketing: That's uh that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about we do a uh a pop-up screen , like the laptop . +Project Manager: If you can uh flip . +Industrial Designer: So that the only the simple functions will be visible at first . +Marketing: Yeah ? That that you can press it and then it comes up ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh so you have a the the side view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Something like that . +Marketing: But then the side view can be straight . If you have a pop-up screen . But I dunno if that's too expensive . +Project Manager: So and you want to be able to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's too much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: make this +Industrial Designer: No uh like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I would draw it like this . Let's say this is the side view . That you have a a screen that will come up here , and can go down that way . If you know what I mean . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that it would come up like that . +Project Manager: Okay so the buttons are on top here , and you flip it over that way . +Industrial Designer: Yeah or {vocalsound} preferably even keep the simple buttons here , and then under the screen even you could put more more advanced buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . Yeah yeah yeah yeah . Right . Yeah that's good idea . +Marketing: Oh the advanced buttons . Right . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} the the more advanced options were uh for the for the menu . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But you you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: F for the L_C_D_ menu right ? +User Interface: okay . You just want to hide them all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So w w +Project Manager: No not all because you need most of them , the arrow buttons . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you can hide the okay and the back uh button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: And the menu button also because when you flip it open {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can maybe even drop the menu button because maybe if you flip it open it will auto activate amauto uh uh automatically . +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Activate and th the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} okay b but you have t you need some button to flip this open . +Project Manager: Why ? You could just make it mechanical . +Industrial Designer: True . True . But you can make a , yeah , you can make a trigger here . You know a simple uh {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah and it says menu and it flips open and then you have the buttons to control it , in combination with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but it's it's not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: it's not very uh very strong uh {disfmarker} yeah if you drop it one time {gap} . +Marketing: True . It uh c it can go open . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah the the idea of it was , is that because you close it , you cover the L_C_D_ screen and it won't be vulnerable to scratches or whatever . +Project Manager: If you cover it with rubber . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: An adv an adv and it will be covered in some kind of uh thin rubber layer or something like that . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So it can bounce . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . Exactly . We just have to make sure that the closing mechanism won't break . +Marketing: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} It's very no it's very strong . +Industrial Designer: Th it's very solid yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay so that that may work . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That actually will offer some extra protection for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay but then we still have the the the thing of the the the shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking , if if you have your hand , it this is your th +Project Manager: Harder . +Marketing: Yeah the lower part doesn't work I guess , so maybe you should try it over there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . If this is your thumb , and this is your hand like that . With your uh wrist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That you , that it would be kind of shape like this , you know . So it's easier to hold in your hand , to y f +User Interface: But when you are left-handed , that's that's a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah of course . +Project Manager: Maybe can design two versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah then w then you would have to to make it like this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that's that's very expensive uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like you drew here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe th then make this thicker also than the centre . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Give it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And ergonomical shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a female shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh yeah . Anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The female shape yeah . With two uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Obviously . {vocalsound} Make it more appealing to guys . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We we could make some some rubber uh some rubber uh yeah mouse , with which you can change uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Some uh k esk uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and so if you {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but but that's optional for later I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I mean , we have to make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we have hardware inside , which is {disfmarker} so it has to have some sort of basic shape . +User Interface: Some {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we we better so choose one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the screen , you cannot mould it . +User Interface: No no no no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah so okay we should better choose one sh one shape . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that's the kind of the idea , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it lays good in the hand , and then on on the side with with your thumb , +Industrial Designer: You can place the screen here , which can come {gap} . +Marketing: you you can you can use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , you can use the button option {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the keywords are primary co colours , spongey ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} but then I w I would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongey . +Industrial Designer: I would do the arrows here , kind of thing . +Marketing: Spongey can be reached by means of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Those buttons ? And the simple buttons here , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And and the and the control thngs in the middle ? The the the arrows ? +Industrial Designer: I Uh y eah that's what I mean . +User Interface: No the arrow's over here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The arrows over here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here the s simple uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and then numbers . +Project Manager: Buttons . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: I think that uh it's a nice design . +Marketing: Uh pretty nice design . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it looks uh pretty fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} or do we wanna make its shape look like a banana or something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh bananas {gap} wierd shape and other fruits also , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so it's better to have um some sort of basic print and then a fruit print in some primary uh colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we could make {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what what colours should the basic print be like ? Like some soft {vocalsound} green or something ? +Project Manager: Orange or something . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or blue ? Dark blue or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah yeah , dark blue +Industrial Designer: We should use {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then and then very bright , uh a yellow banana , {vocalsound} an orange , uh a green apple , stuff like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: with very uh bright tones I guess . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w we need very primary colours , like bright red , bright yellow . +Marketing: So you have something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but the primary colours w we can uh create with the with the LEDs on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah okay yeah . +User Interface: If you we uh {disfmarker} yeah . If you make it uh just a yeah bl give it a blue colour , then it's just a neutral colour , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: also for the for the more uh yeah for the {gap} people . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Huh cool . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That doesn't really work . To draw , I guess . +Project Manager: No it's {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . What's this ? +Project Manager: Yeah it's text . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: N no you have to exit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You could also make line with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Two hours further . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} thickness . Oh . +User Interface: So that's blue . +Marketing: Oh . Wh why not go for the twenty ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That's what I call painting . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's that's a dark blue basic colour I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah and then on top of that . +Marketing: It's pretty nice . And then uh {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some yellow . +Marketing: Yeah with some some yellow banana {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Banana colour . +Industrial Designer: And how about some uh some flashing standby lights ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like you have on the Samsung , well I don't like to call brands phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the you know that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'cause I remember from one of our first meetings that uh people lose their uh remote controls often . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So it {disfmarker} not not only in in the colours {vocalsound} of the LEDs , that we want something to keep it visible at all times , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah if you if flashing colour so you can't lose it , basically . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Some some {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a bit too much but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah an orange . Well alright well this is more like purple I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} it's should be more real dark blue , so the contrast with the with the fruit objects is uh pretty high . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So uh yeah . That would be a nice uh nice device I guess . +User Interface: And which which colour should uh should I give the the display ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who ? +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , the the colour of the background of the display ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah well I don't guess it s has to be a sixty uh sixty six {vocalsound} five thousand uh colour , so yeah too expensive . +Project Manager: And then you can use yellow or semething . Why not ? {vocalsound} Aye . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So just just a {vocalsound} a blue blue backlight or something like that . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Green is too old-fashioned . But blue , blue's okay . J +Industrial Designer: As long as you loo {vocalsound} use uh high contrast between the the background and the foreground colour . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Like this . +User Interface: maybe a maybe a white a white backlight ? +Industrial Designer: So that people with uh with +Marketing: White backlight , and dark . +User Interface: Dark uh letters , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Whatever which is visible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know you sh you should test it under uh under a light conditions . I mean it's hard to tell uh I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And also for people who are a bit colourblind . +Project Manager: Colourblind yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: No so that's mostly red and green I believe . +Marketing: Which which uh colour should the buttons be ? +User Interface: That's adjustable . +Project Manager: Woah . All all buttons ? +Marketing: Why adjustable ? +User Interface: Yeah ? Or not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's how we are going to make it uh more trendy . Or is it uh too expensive ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {vocalsound} maybe I mean they have to they have to have some colour right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's difficult . +Marketing: And if the background is very dark blue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . Maybe green . +Industrial Designer: But don't we wanna make the background the the bright colo colours ? So th the total of the thing is very bright ? +Project Manager: Yeah you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like the pictures I showed you guys . Those things were all like like bright red , bright red , flashy . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm flashy . +Marketing: So more like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm bzz . +Marketing: Doesn't work very well . Uh . More like this colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that , something that stands out more . +Marketing: And then then yellow and orange and red objects on it or something . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then then again , which colour should the buttons be ? The the press buttons . Should they be white or black or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red maybe . +User Interface: And it it looks quite cheap , that colour I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Black . +User Interface: It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The green ? +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah but it's pretty fresh , on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's actually a pretty trendy colour at the moment . +User Interface: It's it's trendy okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: My couch is in that colour . +Project Manager: Ooh . {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well it works pretty well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then time was up . +Project Manager: Uh not yet . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you get a pop-up if we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah within five minutes yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That you have five minutes left or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Y left yeah left and then uh I have to kick you out . +Marketing: So something like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That should be pretty nice colour . But maybe the buttons , all buttons in red is maybe a bad contrast for colourblind people . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: No that's actu +Marketing: Because the {gap} of the green . +User Interface: But the but the buttons have their own LEDs or not ? +Project Manager: They have LEDs but they have a colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Red and green are actually the b the easiest to discriminate . Even for colourblind . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: They will see one of each as grey . But if you use uh green on blue , those kind of colours will look the same . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: So red buttons are okay ? +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: You can make them red . +User Interface: Okay . That that's a default uh setting . The the red buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . But I think you need to keep in mind that the LEDs are just extra light . {vocalsound} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh they they don't determine the colour that much , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah I I was think about a red uh red LEDs and blue LEDs and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause you have to print on them {disfmarker} you have a background +Marketing: No that's that's too busy I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Each number is transparent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh partly but you have to print on the number . Or the the sign . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you can't {gap} change the colour so {disfmarker} +Marketing: You better bet better better keep the LED and the button itself in the same colour I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So just an extra +Project Manager: Bit of light . +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: bit of light and attention . +Project Manager: Bit of feedback . +Industrial Designer: what we should do I think is is make kind of a see-through plastic button , with uh one coloured LED behind it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that the whole button will shine +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: as the colour the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And if you think about easy to use buttons , we have to , well we have to make it the shape so that it's easy to hold f for both hands , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but also that you can reach the buttons with your thumb , if you hold the machine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay with {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Don't mean to discourage you but {disfmarker} uh basically you two are going to work on the smartboard . Next thirty minutes to design something so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , right . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} You will do the evaluation . +Marketing: Of the product ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which we don't have yet . +Project Manager: Yeah uh about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So wh how should I do that ? +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} You probably get a mail . +Marketing: Oh okay . Or you you or you send it to me . Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Once they are finished . Yeah . +Marketing: because you are going to design it on this board right ? +Project Manager: Yeah but maybe you can do the evaluation {disfmarker} you don't have to evaluate yet but you can make a procedure which to follow . I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . I I probably get instruction on that , how to do that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so I make another presentation I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I kn I know what's gonna happen in in yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About . Yeah . You have the basic idea . +Marketing: I've a basic idea . +Project Manager: And you two uh are going to do this . Look-and-feel and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we're gonna work here ? On this sketchboard ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good luck . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Thanks . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright so that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I {gap} uh make new page and uh be creative . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But we have to do it at this moment , after th this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah you have uh +Industrial Designer: Thirty minutes . +Project Manager: thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we have to uh see something which we can uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: show to the management . +User Interface: Ah so this is basically the what what we are thinking about ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would yeah . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh make a new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah l let's just uh delete all these uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I just {vocalsound} make a new one . +User Interface: Oh , next {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and save this uh board . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Just save it . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah I'll just I'll just keep it there . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but just press save and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It'll be fine . +Marketing: On the left . S so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can also include clip-art . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you'll rather draw in paint or something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Current colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shall we make some outline sketches of the basic shape first ? +User Interface: Yeah . And then after that we can make the user uh inter interface . +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} then look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause I have to uh focus on the on the basic look-and-feel design . +Marketing: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So how it's gonna look . And you have to think uh how we're gonna put the screen in it and those kind of things . +Marketing: Uh pretty accurate . +Industrial Designer: So if I'm drawing and you think okay I'm not gonna be able to put a screen in there , you have to correct . +Marketing: Oh we skip this I guess . Sound {gap} button press . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh do you mind if I draw in black then ? For normal sketches . +Project Manager: You can also include it . It's not much work . +User Interface: Oh no it's it's okay . +Marketing: Light only button user ca user interaction . +Industrial Designer: {gap} so we kind of want the girlish +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's included . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: figure . +Marketing: So the pl the plastic plastic buttons also help uh because of um they are only lit during interaction . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not so good at drawing . Excuse me ? +Marketing: Well it's a good thing that the buttons aren't um , well that they are plastic , because then you can light up the light on {gap} when when they are usable . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No uh uh . +Marketing: Maybe you should draw it very large {vocalsound} like this . +User Interface: Yeah but this part isn't uh functioning properly . +Project Manager: Yeah . Sensitive . +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: How do we uh uh +Marketing: Erase ? +Industrial Designer: or insert text ? +Project Manager: I dunno . Maybe just start typing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a bit uh large . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh that's a bit big . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You also do the other sides . Not only on the front si uh the top side but also the the side view . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ex exactly . +User Interface: L let's make first the the the all the views . The the front view , side view and the back view . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I thought for the side view , that the w the basic section would be rather uh a bit thicker than the middle , where you're holding it with your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jesus . What do I write down ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I work here ? This is much easier . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Much easier , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause your fingers have to fit underneath and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The middle has to be very small so you can have it in your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't see a sign that the meeting is over yet but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly but the uh but the upper side has to be a bit more like that I think . +Project Manager: No so I just work here a few minutes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah the display , +Industrial Designer: Uh don't you think ? +User Interface: we yeah we can put a display . +Industrial Designer: So the display we will put in here , the basic uh functions in here , where it's most reachable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: The the arrow functions . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The th Exactly . Oh . This is hard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do {disfmarker} {gap} don't have to draw it exactly do we ? +User Interface: No it's it's uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait . Let me try it one more time . Maybe I've uh {disfmarker} it's easier if I draw it in once . Okay , of course it will become way more ugly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can make it m larger . Maybe it's easier to to draw uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . This'll take forever . It's fun to work with this pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so , larger . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's the basic idea . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrong one . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So side . +Project Manager: Five minutes left before the meeting ends . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Um other views ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah only if you are going to put buttons on the side of the unit . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's fill i fill in the buttons later . +Marketing: But we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this is gonna be from the +Marketing: I is it {disfmarker} if if this is from the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh from {vocalsound} +User Interface: From the {disfmarker} +Marketing: woah . Steady . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . Sorry . +Marketing: Because there the screen goes up like that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So then it's like this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: or {disfmarker} that's not convenient because then you have the screen like this and look like the {disfmarker} it's better to have it somewhat like this . Or does it flip all the way ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the idea is that it has to flip up to here . +User Interface: May maybe it's it's easier to to integrate the the the L_C_D_ screen just into this this bubble . Because it do doesn't have to flip then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Because we have en enough space for for making a an L_C_D . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Because here {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's better to to have this like this I guess , and then flip it like this . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: But why why do we need uh the flipping uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you can adjust the angle to which it flips . So it can also from this angle , it can flip all the way up to there . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can flip it up to there if you want . +Marketing: Yeah . So w yeah . But we still keep the flipping mechanism . +Project Manager: Yeah we keep the flip ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Think so . +Project Manager: Keep the flip live . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because I think it will feel weird if you would make this smaller and this bigger or something that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the the shape is okay but {disfmarker} yeah ? I don't see the the yeah why why we should use the the flipping uh mechanism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought it would be cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Because we {disfmarker} Okay yeah . It's it's for for for more trendy uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but maybe {disfmarker} Yeah but maybe we we should then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because we have enough space . H here we got uh the basic functions , the the arrow uh yeah button . +Marketing: Yeah there the middle {disfmarker} Sh sh shouldn't we integrate it ? +User Interface: Yeah and then h we sh mm . +Marketing: And then like i oh th {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: doh . Come on . So this is the shape . Oh . It hasn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . It doesn't aim so well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay but the screen is a bit lower because if it falls on the other side , it doesn't fall on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah , then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's a layer of rubber on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So no flipping but just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No flipping or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No flipping ? +Marketing: no . +User Interface: {gap} you wanted the flipping so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess but uh I mean most votes count right ? +User Interface: But if you if you {disfmarker} If you drop it it it just breaks . And it has to be very strong because of the {gap} . Yeah kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's shaking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Throwing and the kinetics . Oh . We better make we better make it like this . Eventually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true true . +Project Manager: Yeah just light on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And it's also for the for the children , it's yeah for people not sixteen years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you if you're going for the kinetics {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Safer . Mm . Yeah okay that {gap} the target group . +User Interface: But there are more {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh they are responsible enough to have a mobile phone , so also to to deal with their uh remote uh control . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's true . Okay . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Well . I just uh ended the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm just thinking totally different designs also . +Project Manager: You two go design . +User Interface: Okay wi +Industrial Designer: Remember that the weird pocketphone thingy which looked like kind of a Gameboy . +Project Manager: Oh . By the way . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should try something like that . But yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh thought up a name for our product . Yeah . It's called uh the Real Remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With a copyright sign after Real . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The Real Remote . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like it . +Project Manager: So maybe you can include that somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Okay . This can go . +Marketing: Good . Yeah . We should work in our own room right ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah we have to f uh include that in our design as well . +Project Manager: I don't see any power cables here so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes . +Industrial Designer: What the hell's that ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think uh it's the sensors . +Marketing: See you two in half an hour uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Okay that's the side . Ah it's it's okay . But do we want uh options on the on the side with the with the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think we do . +User Interface: Or just leave it ? Uh could make an uh a volume button uh scroll , volume button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or j or also scrolling for the m yeah . +User Interface: For menu . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? I dunno . We w kind of wanted to stick with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm just thinking , {vocalsound} if we i we wanna make something different +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? So the with the scroll is is more futuristic than the standard arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah you are going to design it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +","The transcript provided presents a collaborative conversation between members of a product design team, comprising individuals from marketing, project management, user interface, and industrial design departments. The discussion is centered around the development of a new remote control branded as ""The Real Remote"". The team is engaged in a brainstorming session to determine key design elements, functionality, and aesthetic appeal of the remote control, keeping in mind the latest market trends and the target audience's preferences. + +The marketing department initiates the conversation, stressing the importance of trend watching and the latest developments in the remote control market that are crucial for designing a product that'll resonate with consumers. It's mentioned that fancy look-and-feel, technological innovation, and ease of use are critical developments. Bright colors and spongey textures are identified as upcoming trends, likely to appeal to the younger demographic which is the focus of their marketing efforts. It's indicated that these market insights will shape the remote's design, particularly the outer casing's look-and-feel. + +Throughout the conversation, several ideas are floated and explored. There is talk of incorporating spongey materials and vibrant fruit-like colors into the design, which aligns with fashion trends for a youthful audience. Moreover, the team debates various technical aspects, such as the type of energy source—kinetics, solar, or battery-operated—and the practicality of incorporating these into the product. The industrial designer brings to the table options for case materials and interface designs, emphasizing the desire for a rubber material which fits current trends and customer preferences while mapping out a vision for a double-curved design that's practical and ergonomic. + +The user interface representative contributes by discussing the integration of the LCD screen, button layouts—including the possibility of using LEDs for trendier button illumination—and the speech recognition function. The project manager guides the conversation, making sure that decisions align with overarching project goals, and driving towards actionable outcomes. The team navigates a balance between innovative features, like a pop-up LCD screen, and practical considerations of manufacturing costs and retail pricing. + +As the dynamic exchange progresses, the team considers the remote's look-and-feel, how it will support complex functions and the ease with which it can be used. They debate over the kinetic energy source, which offers a unique selling point as it can eliminate the need for traditional batteries, fitting with an environmentally-conscious positioning while enhancing the product's usability for all age groups. The design conversation touches upon the importance of durability and user-friendliness, as well as the need to delight users with a design that's both intuitive and playful. + +There are hints at frustrations and challenges encountered during the design process—allusions to the annoyance with PowerPoint, difficulty organizing thoughts, and managing pop-ups. Nevertheless, they remain focused on inclusion and accessibility, ensuring that the design is not just innovative but practical for a varied audience. + +In conclusion, through this cooperative dialogue, the team outlines a vision for the ""The Real Remote""—a technologically advanced, aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-use remote control that embodies the latest market trends. It is a flexible and energetic discussion, representative of the multifaceted product development process that embraces creativity, practicality, and diversity of thought to foster innovation. The overarching theme is the strive to develop a product that not only meets the functional demands of users but also delivers an emotional experience aligned with contemporary lifestyle trends." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody found his place again ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: That's nice . Okay so this is our second meeting . And uh still failing ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh now we're going um into the functional design . Um important thing of this phase is that we're going to uh try to get an agreement about the user requirements , technical function design , and the working design . So that we can move onto the second uh phase . But first this phase . Um first an announcement . There's a little adaptation in the air conditioning system . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There's our {vocalsound} ghost mouse again . That that means that you can have a little trouble with , little trouble with the air conditioning , that's because of this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's in wing C_ and E_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be over in a in a while , couple of days . But it's going to be cold anyway , so {vocalsound} I don't think you're gonna need it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Then our agenda . Now first the opening . Uh this time I will take the minutes . Uh you're going to have a presentation . All of you . Um and we've got forty minutes for the whole uh prese for the whole uh presentations . So uh I suggest we take about seven minutes per presentation , and then we can have a little discussion about the new project requirements uh which have been sent to me . And then the decision on the control functions uh which we wanna include and those which we don't wanna include . So we've got forty minutes for all of it . So I suggest um let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Um who wants to be first ? +Marketing: Think I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just maybe it's easier if you um {disfmarker} Yeah I think you will tell {gap} your presentation as well . Just which function you have and what you're gonna talk about . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . My name is Freek Van Ponnen . I'm the Market Expert . But you already knew that . Um I've done some research . We have we uh have been doing research in a usability lab where we observed um users operating remote controls . Uh we let them fill out a questionnaire . We had one hundred of these uh test subjects . Uh in addition we did some market research . Uh see what the market consists of . What ages are involved . Well these are three quite astonishing results , I thought . Um remotes are being considered ugly . F uh seventy five percent of the um people questioned uh indicated that they thought their remote were was ugly . Um and an additional eighty percent indicated that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control . So {disfmarker} Um in addition remotes were not very functional . Fifty percent of the people indicated they only loo used about ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . And fifty percent of the people indicated that their remote tended to get lost in their room . So +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: some things . Then we did some research to the most relevant functions . Channel selection and volume selection um both got a ten on a scale of one to ten for relevancy . The power button got a nine . And teletext got a six and a half . So these are the most most uh important functions on a remote control . Then there are some one-time use function . That's what I like to call them . That uh audio settings , video settings , and channel settings buttons . Which are not really used very frequently , but are still considered to be of some importance . Um channel selection was also indicated to be used very frequently . One hundred and sixty eight times per hour . Then these are the {disfmarker} This is the market . Um sixty percent of the market consists of users between the ages sixteen and forty f six . Um {disfmarker} Main characteristic of this group is that they're very critical on the remote control . Um they like to use new f new functions . But they also are very critical . They won't spend their money very easily . So {disfmarker} Um the users of forty six to sixty five years cons The make up forty percent of the market . They are not really very interested in features . But they do tend to spend their money a lot easier . What I think this indicates for our um design . I think we should make a remote for the future . And this means we would um have to focus on the age ages sixteen to forty five . Uh this also makes up most the biggest part of the market , so that will also be where our main profit would be gettable . Um this would mean we would have to make a fancy design . Um {disfmarker} The results also indicated that um about one quarter of the people questioned thought that the remote control caused R_S_ R_S_I_ . Um this is certainly something to take into account . And thirty four percent thought that it was hard to learn a n how to operate a new control , remote control . So these are two factors that I think should be included in the design . Besides of course that the remote must look very nice . And the functionality {disfmarker} As a lot of people indicated , they only use about ten percent of the buttons , I think we should make very few buttons . Uh this will also be uh beneficial to the design of the remote . Uh I think the most frequently used buttons should be emphasised . Especially the channel selection and audio uh selection buttons . 'Cause they're used most and so they should be robust . They shouldn't break down easily . Um {disfmarker} Then as mo as a lot of people indicated that their um remote got lost in the room , it might be and I say might be because it would um certainly boost the uh production costs a lot . But it might be a good idea to make a docking station . And this would , could get a button in it which would send a signal to the remote which would then beep . So you'd know where it is in the room . And in addition to this it could um recharge the batteries in the remote if you put it in . Then um a surprisingly great deal of people w indicated that um an L_C_D_ screen in the remote control would be preferred . This was um mostly people in the age of sixteen to twenty five . But up till forty five it remains feasible . This would also greatly increase the production costs but I think these are just some small factors we could consider . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That would be all . +Project Manager: Thank you . So anybody have um any questions until now ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: About functional requirements ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: that's clear . {gap} Now to the second . +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh okay . Um I've been looking at uh the user interface of it . Um f for the techno f functions uh of of it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah you can take your time . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got uh plenty of time , +User Interface: Mm ? +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: you should go to the top thingy . Slide show . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . There it is . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Um yeah . I think uh we uh must use the general functions uh of the uh remote control . Uh uh I've do I've uh done a little uh research on the internet and {gap} not much information about it , {gap} {disfmarker} Um about uh interface but uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah I I've been thinking about a simple manner uh to put a lot of functions uh uh in one um in one uh remote control . Uh so uh you've got a lot of devi uh devices like uh D_V_D_ uh uh television , uh stereo . So um {disfmarker} But uh it must be uh user-friendly . So um uh you c you can't put a a lot of uh functions uh in one uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . In one um remote control . +Project Manager: One remote . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um yeah . Got uh many functions in one uh remote control , um but um yeah you can see , this is uh quite simple uh remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um few uh buttons but uh {disfmarker} This uh re uh remote control got a a lot of uh buttons . Um uh people uh don't like it , uh so um {disfmarker} Well what uh I was uh thinking about was um uh keep the general functions uh like they are . So uh like uh the on-off uh button . Uh keep it uh yeah l like a red button . Uh everybody everybody knows it so uh uh you don't have to change that . Um {disfmarker} My personal uh preferences um . Use a display for uh specific uh functions of the different uh device . So um {disfmarker} Wh what I was th uh thinking about was um you've got um {disfmarker} Uh this the remote control uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh you got here the general functions , uh like uh the on-off button uh sound uh {vocalsound} I dunno um {disfmarker} And um here you've got a s kind of a display . It's a touchscreen . So um yeah you got a general f uh f the functions of the device uh for a D_V_D_ player or uh so um the pl yeah um f for uh playing uh reverse uh {gap} . And um you got here uh real buttons for uh selecting uh a device . So um this button is for a D_V_D_ or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} So um for every um device you've got a uh a f a b a part uh display of a part buttons . So uh you you never got uh all the buttons uh on w one device . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh that's uh my uh idea about it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh let's see . Uh yeah . So a touchscreen . Uh and um th the buttons uh the real buttons uh we have to use um . We better c um uh use uh quite uh large buttons uh for um yeah . Everybody uh have to use it so {disfmarker} Uh ol even even old people um young people . So uh we must keep uh buttons uh quite s uh simple and quite large . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah . That was uh my uh part of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anybody has questions about the technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I think if we are gonna use a touchscreen uh we're gonna go way above the twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: N I I don't think so . Uh you got uh quite a cheap uh touchscreen . S um it's uh not uh in colour or something . +Project Manager: Touchscreen . +User Interface: Uh it's just uh um one colo Uh yeah . Uh I seen uh w uh something on the internet uh not today but uh a few uh weeks ago . Uh you got uh yeah quite an uh a kind of uh touchscreen um and it's uh {vocalsound} for uh twenty uh Euros or uh less uh . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So it's possible . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . That's nice . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it would certainly make a fancy design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} It wouldn't be very robust . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fragile and you can get scratches on it . +Marketing: That is true . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Uh maybe we can first um listen to your presentation ? +Marketing: We would have to look into that . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} And then we {gap} have a little discussion about the requirements and uh design . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: That's {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's going to {disfmarker} Uh it's not too much . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay I've got a presentation about the working design . Um first about how it works . It's really simple of course . Everybody knows how a remote works . The user presses a button . The remote determines what button it is , uses the infrared to send a signal to the T_V_ . The T_V_ switches to the frequency , or what function it is . So we've got um the the plate . It gots conductive disks for every button . When the user presses a button , a signal got sent , goes to the LED and transmits tranmi transmits its to the T_V_ . It's a very simple device , technically speaking . So this is a schematic overview . You've got the buttons . The power source . And uh when a button gets pressed , its goes to the chip . The chip uh controls the infrared bulb and perf perhaps a normal bulb . When you press a button you can actually see your pressed button . Well um I think we should use default materials , simple plastics . Keep the inner workings simple , so it's robust . Uh I think we should focus on aesthetics , the design and the user interface , because if you're going to use high-tech materials the price is going to go sky-high . And uh you only have to design a remote once , and if you use high-tech materials it come back in every product . So it's , in my idea , it's uh it's gonna be smart to invest in di in design and not in uh in the product itself . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay now I hope everybody has a little bit more insight in the functions we all have and what we are doing right now . Um I'm the Project Manager so I'm here to mess things up and uh tell you some new uh requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um that's , we've uh got to design a um remote which is only suitable for T_V_ . Um that's because {vocalsound} uh it will be too complex +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and the time to market will be too big , if we wanna have it uh for more functions . So it has to be simple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh another point is we have to skip the teletext , because in the world of uh upcoming internet uh we think teletext is going to be uh a thing of the past . And uh it's a function we don't need in our remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um internet is also mentioned {gap} in a function we can use . Uh maybe also on televisions it will be available as well . Another one is uh the customer is uh forty plus . Uh that's the the market we have to to to target , because we are going to develop a new product which is specially designed for the younger customers . Um this is uh a bit pity for the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because he was uh aiming on the the younger persons . So we have to find a market which is above forty plus uh but which will suit our uh remote control , and the other way round . And we have to be very uh attent in uh putting the corporate image uh in our product . So it has to be visible in our design , in the way our device works . And uh we have to be uh very clear on this point as well . So I suggest let's have a discussion on the control functions . Yeah . +Marketing: So is there any discussion possible about the new product requirement ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we can see if we can find a way uh between the functions we wanna use and the market we wanna reach with our product . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause you're you're saying that teletext is gonna be an old feature and it's not gonna be used anymore anyway pretty soon . And new T_V_s will have internet access on them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I think if you're targeting people of forty plus , the chance that they will have a T_V_ with internet access within the next like twenty years is very slim . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: In addition people indicated that teletext simply was an important feature for the remote control . So I think it's pretty dumb to put no teletext feature on it . I'm pretty much against it . +Project Manager: Against the no teletext ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides that , I think the market for forty plus is like pretty small . But I mean if I s if I see this , it's {disfmarker} I think we're just gonna go for another +Project Manager: Yeah it's it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} forty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Standard remote . +Marketing: pretty +Project Manager: No I think we can +Marketing: and not innovative +Project Manager: I think we can do a lot with the design and the simple buttons +Marketing: remote control . +Project Manager: which were also mentioned . Uh if we put a lot of effort in those , we can make a remote control with uh just two or three buttons . Or just a remote which is suitable for the market we wanna reach because it is forty percent of the market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um if you look in Holland at the whole generation of forty plus , fifty plus , it it's the the biggest share of the of the whole population now . +Marketing: Yes but it's not the biggest part of the market . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And besides that , they're not very critical so {disfmarker} I mean they don't really care what the remote control is like . They'll just pretty much take the first thing they see and which looks acceptable . +Project Manager: But don't you think that if we make a remote which is uh typically made for this market , that people think {gap} {disfmarker} the people think that's the the device I've looked for although I didn't realise it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's try it . +Marketing: No . I think that would be the case in the sixteen to forty five age category . because they are critical and they they want to have a fancy remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: People of forty plus , I mean they want it to work , but as soo as soon as it works it's okay with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I think that if we're {disfmarker} If we put our marketing right um we can sell this just like um {disfmarker} I don't know if you've heard about it in the news , the the elderly mobile phone ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a big success . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we if we make a remote control just l with that idea in mind , we could make tons of money , I think . +Project Manager: Very big success . +Marketing: I haven't heard of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh . I think so as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We don't have to focus on on on the on the design then but on functionality . We just change our focus on the project , and I think we can uh we can sell this . +Project Manager: Uh I simply think um +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: uh that the new products we are gonna make , uh spef specifically design , are designed for uh younger people , uh so maybe we can focus ourself on the elderly people . And I think we have to um see what requirements we need for those um remote controls . {vocalsound} 'Cause what you told is the channel selection is important . Volume selection , power and teletext . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . But obviously the board tends to disagree . +Project Manager: No we we haven't voted yet , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think teletext can be uh um can be a function as well . But only if uh if it won't higher the the cost , because I don't know if it will be a lot more money to implement teletext as well , but I don't think it will be a problem . Or is teletext a {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um deaf people need uh teletext for uh for subtitles . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So I suggest uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it'd definitely be a bad idea not to include teletext . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is anybody um really against teletext ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Just that , that we just keep the teletext . I think that's a good idea as well , especially for the subtitles . Maybe we can make that um another point of advantage in our remote control , if we uh make a k a button ex for example for big subtitles , which is instantly on the remote control . For elderly people they can think , oh I wanna have subtitles , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and they push the button and they get the big subtitles . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Um so I think teletext can v can be very useful in our advantage . Um {disfmarker} Functionality should be few buttons , you said . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I think uh that's very important we have a few buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So to keep it simple . +Marketing: But I don't think that's really an issue any more 'cause {disfmarker} Well might be . +User Interface: If it's only for televi +Marketing: But I mean it , if it's only for T_V_ you're not gonna need a lot of buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: You need a one to zero button , next channel , previous channel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: volume up , volume down , and some teletext buttons but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But do you need {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we can s we can skip the display , +Marketing: I think if you if you only l +User Interface: so uh we don't need it . +Project Manager: But do you need the buttons for one to zero . +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: Maybe c we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think if you're gonna include teletext you do . I think many people like to use that . +Project Manager: Maybe we can use uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you should , if you want to switch from channel one to like thirty five , you don't wanna push the next channel button thirty five times . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , maybe we can implement the scroll button ? Or a joystick like ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: There are other ways too . Just look if you look at telephones . The Sony telephone has a scroll button which is very useful in searching names or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: That's true but um I don't think there are many T_V_s that can switch channels that fast . And so you would need like the T_V_ would need an a function where you can actually view all channels and scroll through it . And I dunno if many channels would do have that . If many T_V_s have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And besides that it's um {disfmarker} If we're gonna focus on elderly people they'll have to adapt . They're not used to using scroll buttons . +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should s stick to the basic layout . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the numbers yeah . Yeah they can see how much buttons there are going to be on on the display , and if it's too much we can uh reconsider it . But I think there won't be very much buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or there don't have to be a lot . +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} I think if you're gonna make a remote control only to operate a T_V_ , you there's not much you can gain on um having as few buttons as possible . 'Cause I think there are pretty many remote controls that can only operate a T_V_ , which already only have the minimum number of buttons . I don't think there's much to be gained in that area . +Project Manager: The number of buttons ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's very important in the in the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can make a very fancy design uh with putting the buttons on the right places . And if you have less buttons you can do a lot more with {disfmarker} +Marketing: That is true but I think there's simply not much to gain on the competition when you when you're making a remote control only for to operate only the T_V_ . +Project Manager: To operate only the T_V_ yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you have a a remote control only to operate a T_V_ there's simply not a lot of buttons required . There's not a lot of functions required so most existing remote controls simply don't have a lot of buttons either . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: So I think it would be very hard to actually gain on the competition here . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would that would cost a a big marketing expedition +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: which was one of the arguments to make it only for the T_V_ because we didn't have the time to market a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . So you suggest we could better um focus on for example the docking station . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh like other functions . Instead of f of less buttons . +Marketing: Maybe . Well yeah I think , mean we obviously need a good way to position all the buttons and {disfmarker} But I don't think we should spend very much time in that . +Project Manager: Mm . No . Do you think the docking station will uh is allowed in the budget we have ? +Industrial Designer: It should be possible yes . If it's not too fancy . +Project Manager: 'Cause it can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: And if the remote stays rather small , it should be possible +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Because I think that's uh {disfmarker} That's a good advantage point as well . If we have a fancy-looking docking station +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: or very {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: That's a nice requirement . Docking station . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we're just gonna focus on the extras ? +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah I think maybe we should do some research into what elderly people like to have in a +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like to have extra in a new remote control . +Project Manager: That's a good point . Um {disfmarker} You said they easily get lost as well . +Marketing: Yes well fifty percent of the people indicated that remote control tended to get lost . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe we should implement the audio sign , or something . +Marketing: Yeah that was what I suggested . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like with your key-chain , if you whistle it goes uh it makes a sound . +Marketing: You have it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Hm . +Marketing: you have it's on some phones too , which have a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And you just press a button and the phone goes ringing . +Project Manager: Yeah . So +Marketing: So you know where it is . +Project Manager: audio signal should be possible as well . I think it's not too expensive . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh another point is the L_C_D_ screen . Um I don't know if that will rise the cost too much , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y i um I think we'll have to choose between the docking station or the screen , 'cause +Project Manager: Yeah . It will be too much as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: I think since a lot of people indicated that a new remote control is hard to learn , and we're focusing on elderly people here which tend to have a hard time understanding new devices , it might be a good idea to have just a little screen on it , which would explain a button if you press it . Which would tell you what it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And it wouldn't have to be touchscreen or a very expensive screen , +Project Manager: Based . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just the L_C_D_ . Oh just the normal screen . +Marketing: Just a small screen +Project Manager: That's a good idea . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: with two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some extra info . Feedback . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a good idea as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I dunno if that would +Project Manager: As the small screen . +Marketing: that would fit into the costs . +Project Manager: Extra button info . I think that should be possible as well . Um {vocalsound} let's see what did we say . Mm . More . Should be fancy to , fancy design , easy to learn . Few buttons , we talked about that . Docking station , L_C_D_ . Um general functions {disfmarker} Yeah . 'Kay . And default materials . I think that's a good idea as well , because um elderly people don't mind if it's a titanium cover or just a plastic one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: So I think we nee +Marketing: I think probably elderly people would be a little bit more careful with their remote controls than youngsters . +Project Manager: Uh let's um specify the target group . Because are we talking about elderly elderly people or people from forty to eighty . Because I think what we're going to design now is for people above sixty , maybe . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh what do we want ? If we want um a {gap} with uh for example the the telephone for elderly people , we can +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: target the real elderly people . +Marketing: I think that would be a {disfmarker} If we should do something like that it would be a , I think it would be really good for uh for the image of the company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And I think , I think there would be a good market for it . +Project Manager: So that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we're able to really bring an innovative product . +Project Manager: {gap} Now you're talking about sixty to eighty for example . +Marketing: Yeah the really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Sixty . +Marketing: But I'd have to look into that a little more . +Project Manager: Okay . And different cultures . Are we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't think they have different television sets uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in uh every country . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes left {vocalsound} just now . +User Interface: So 'Kay . +Project Manager: Small warning . +Marketing: 'Kay . And with uh the little screen in it , {gap} which explains the buttons . You could {disfmarker} I think we n it would be a lot easier to +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} +Marketing: adapt it to different cultures . +Project Manager: Yeah . In different languages , you know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you have to put a language button in it , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but that will be a bit unnecessary I think . +User Interface: No . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better to put it on different markets with it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the the target . Uh then a few small things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . I will put the minutes in the project uh project document folder . {vocalsound} Um what we're going to do for the next meeting is the Industrial Designer will do the components concept , User Interface Designer the user interface concept , and the trend-watching . So just keep in mind the things we've said about the target group , {vocalsound} uh requirements , and the trends which are uh going on . And uh specific instructions will be sent to you by uh the personal coach . So um +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I thank you for this meeting . And I think we have a lunch-break now . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: So that's a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +In the second meeting, the project team discussed moving into the functional design phase of their project, focusing on user requirements and technical function design. The Project Manager provided an update about a temporary issue with the air conditioning in wings C and E of the building. The Marketing Expert, named Freek Van Ponnen, presented the findings from their research which included feedback on remote control aesthetics, functionality, and user preferences. Key points included a preference for simple designs with fewer buttons, ease of use, and the potential for a fancy-looking remote to attract buyers. The User Interface Designer proposed a remote with a more straightforward design with fewer buttons and potentially integrating a simple touchscreen for improved functionality. + +The Industrial Designer suggested focusing on aesthetics, the user interface, and using cheap but robust materials, believing that investments should be in design rather than materials. The Project Manager then shifted the conversation to the main topic of designing a TV-only remote, omitting teletext due to its predicted obsolescence with the rise of internet-enabled TVs. Despite this, there was a debate about catering to people over 40, a contradiction to the initial market research aiming for a younger demographic. The Marketing Expert suggested that excluding teletext would be a misstep, as it's still considered important by many users, especially among the 40-plus market segment. + +After further discussion, the team agreed that keeping teletext might be beneficial, and also considered the possibility of adding a docking station with an audio signal to help locate the remote. They debated between a docking station and an LCD screen, citing cost concerns. By the end of the meeting, there was an inclination to focus on additional features such as ease of locating the remote and user-friendliness, with the aim to cater to an elderly demographic. They planned to further research what additional functionalities might be attractive to this group. + +For the next meeting, the Industrial Designer will present the components concept, the User Interface Designer will bring the user interface concept, and they will consider the current trends along with the requested focus on an elderly market segment. The Project Manager concluded the meeting by informing the team about the next steps and inviting them to a lunch break." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Hey , you 're not supposed to be drinking in here dude . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Do we have to read them that slowly ? OK . Sounded like a robot . Um , this is t +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: When you read the numbers it kind of reminded me of beat poetry . +Grad D: I tried to go for the EE Cummings sort of feeling , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Three three six zero zero . Four two zero zero one seven . That 's what I think of when I think of beat poetry . +Grad C: Beat poetry . +Grad A: You ever seen "" So I married an axe murderer "" ? +Grad C: Uh parts of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: There 's a part wh there 's parts when he 's doing beat poetry . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad A: And he talks like that . That 's why I thi That uh probably is why I think of it that way . +Grad D: Hmm . No , I didn't see that movie . Who did {disfmarker} who made that ? +Grad A: Mike Meyers is the guy . +Grad D: Oh . OK . +Grad A: It - it 's his uh {disfmarker} it 's his cute romantic comedy . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That 's his cute romantic comedy , yeah . The other thing that 's real funny , I 'll spoil it for you . is when he 's {disfmarker} he works in a coffee shop , in San Francisco , and uh he 's sitting there on this couch and they bring him this massive cup of espresso , and he 's like "" excuse me I ordered the large espresso ? "" +Grad D: Uh . We 're having , {vocalsound} a tiramisu tasting contest this weekend . +Grad A: Wait {disfmarker} do are y So you 're trying to decide who 's the best taster of tiramisu ? +Grad D: No ? Um . There was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fierce argument that broke out over whose tiramisu might be the best and so we decided to have a contest where those people who claim to make good tiramisu make them , +Grad A: Ah . +Grad D: and then we got a panel of impartial judges that will taste {disfmarker} do a blind taste {vocalsound} and then vote . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad D: Should be fun . +Grad A: Seems like {disfmarker} Seems like you could put a s magic special ingredient in , so that everyone know which one was yours . Then , if you were to bribe them , you could uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , I was thinking if um {disfmarker} y you guys have plans for Sunday ? We 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} it 's probably going to be this Sunday , but um we 're sort of working with the weather here because we also want to combine it with some barbecue activity where we just fire it up and what {disfmarker} whoever brings whatever you know , can throw it on there . So only the tiramisu is free , nothing else . +Grad A: Well , I 'm going back to visit my parents this weekend , so , I 'll be out of town . +Grad D: So you 're going to the west Bay then ? No , +Grad A: No , the South Bay , +Grad D: south Bay ? +Grad A: yeah . +Grad D: South Bay . +Grad C: Well , I should be free , so . +Grad D: OK , I 'll let you know . +Grad C: OK . +Grad A: We are . Is Nancy s uh gonna show up ? Mmm . Wonder if these things ever emit a very , like , piercing screech right in your ear ? +Grad D: They are gonna get more comfortable headsets . They already ordered them . OK . +Grad C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Let 's get started . The uh {disfmarker} Should I go first , with the uh , um , data . Can I have the remote {vocalsound} control . Thank you . OK . So . On Friday we had our wizard test data test and um {vocalsound} these are some of the results . This was the introduction . I actually uh , even though Liz was uh kind enough to offer to be the first subject , I sort of felt that she knew too much , so I asked uh Litonya . just on the spur of the moment , and she was uh kind enough to uh serve as the first subject . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , this is what she saw as part of {disfmarker} as uh for instr introduction , this is what she had to read {pause} aloud . Uh , that was really difficult for her and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Because of l all the names , you mean ? +Grad D: The names and um this was the uh first three tasks she had to {disfmarker} to master after she called the system , and um then of course the system broke down , and those were the l uh uh I should say the system was supposed to break down and then um these were the remaining three tasks that she was going to solve , with a human {disfmarker} Um . There are {disfmarker} here are uh the results . Mmm . And I will not {disfmarker} We will skip the reading now . D Um . And um . The reading was five minutes , exactly . And now comes the {disfmarker} This is the phone - in phase of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wait , can I {disfmarker} I have a question . So . So there 's no system , right ? Like , there was a wizard for both uh {disfmarker} both parts , is this right ? +Grad D: Yeah . It was bo it both times the same person . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: One time , pretending to be a system , one time , to {disfmarker} pretending to be a human , which is actually not pretending . +Grad C: OK . And she didn't {disfmarker} +Grad D: I should {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean . Well . Isn't this kind of obvious when it says "" OK now you 're talking to a human "" and then the human has the same voice ? +Grad D: No no no . We u Wait . OK , good question , but uh you {disfmarker} you just wait and see . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} You 're gonna l learn . And um the wizard sometimes will not be audible , Because she was actually {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} there was some uh lapse in the um wireless , we have to move her closer . +Grad A: Is she mispronouncing "" Anlage "" ? Is it "" Anlaga "" or "" Anlunga "" +Grad D: They 're mispronouncing everything , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: but it 's {disfmarker} This is the system breaking down , actually . "" Did I call Europe ? "" So , this is it . Well , if we {disfmarker} we um +Professor B: So , are {disfmarker} are you trying to record this meeting ? +Grad D: There was a strange reflex . I have a headache . I 'm really sort of out of it . OK , the uh lessons learned . The reading needs to be shorter . Five minutes is just too long . Um , that was already anticipated by some people suggested that if we just have bullets here , they 're gonna not {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} subjects are probably not gonna {disfmarker} going to follow the order . And uh she did not . +Grad C: Really ? +Grad D: She {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: Oh , it 's surprising . +Grad D: She {disfmarker} she jumped around quite a bit . +Professor B: S so if you just number them "" one "" , "" two "" , "" three "" it 's +Grad D: Yeah , and make it sort of clear in the uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . Right . +Grad D: Um . We need to {disfmarker} So that 's one thing . And we need a better introduction for the wizard . That is something that Fey actually thought of a {disfmarker} in the last second that sh the system should introduce itself , when it 's called . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: And um , um , another suggestion , by Liz , was that we uh , through subjects , switch the tasks . So when {disfmarker} when they have task - one with the computer , the next person should have task - one with a human , and so forth . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So we get nice um data for that . Um , we have to refine the tasks more and more , which of course we haven't done at all , so far , in order to avoid this rephrasing , so where , even though w we don't tell the person "" ask {pause} blah - blah - blah - blah - blah "" they still try , or at least Litonya tried to um repeat as much of that text as possible . +Grad C: Say exactly what 's on there ? Yeah . +Grad D: And uh my suggestion is of course we {disfmarker} we keep the wizard , because I think she did a wonderful job , +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: in the sense that she responded quite nicely to things that were not asked for , "" How much is a t a bus ticket and a transfer "" so this is gonna happen all the time , we d you can never be sure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . Johno pointed out that uh we have maybe a grammatical gender problem there with wizard . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad D: So um . +Grad A: I wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't sure whether wizard was the correct term for {pause} uh "" not a man "" . +Grad C: There 's no female equivalent of {disfmarker} +Grad D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are you sure ? +Grad C: No , I don't know . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Not that I know of . +Grad D: Well , there is witch and warlock , +Grad A: Yeah , that 's so @ @ . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: and uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Uh . +Grad D: OK . And um {disfmarker} So , some {disfmarker} some work needs to be done , but I think we can uh {disfmarker} And this , and {disfmarker} in case no {disfmarker} you hadn't seen it , this is what Litonya looked at during the uh {disfmarker} um while taking the {disfmarker} while partaking in the data collection . +Grad C: Ah . +Professor B: OK , great . So {pause} first of all , I agree that um we should hire Fey , and start paying her . Probably pay for the time she 's put in as well . Um , do you know exactly how to do that , or is uh Lila {disfmarker} I mean , you know what exactly do we do to {disfmarker} to put her on the payroll in some way ? +Grad D: I 'm completely clueless , but I 'm willing to learn . +Professor B: OK . Well , you 'll have to . Right . So anyway , um +Grad D: N +Professor B: So why don't you uh ask Lila and see what she says about you know exactly what we do for someone in th +Grad D: Student - type worker , +Professor B: Well , yeah she 's un she 's not a {disfmarker} a student , +Grad D: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: she just graduated but anyway . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor B: So i if {disfmarker} Yeah , I agree , she sounded fine , she a actually was {pause} uh , more uh , present and stuff than {disfmarker} than she was in conversation , so she did a better job than I would have guessed from just talking to her . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So I think that 's great . +Grad D: This is sort of what I gave her , so this is for example h how to get to the student prison , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: and I didn't even spell it out here and in some cases I {disfmarker} I spelled it out a little bit um more thoroughly , +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: this is the information on {disfmarker} on the low sunken castle , and the amphitheater that never came up , and um , so i if we give her even more um , instruments to work with I think the results are gonna be even better . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , and then of course as she does it she 'll {disfmarker} she 'll learn @ @ . So that 's great . Um {pause} And also if she 's willing to take on the job of organizing all those subjects and stuff that would be wonderful . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh she 's {disfmarker} actually she 's going to graduate school in a kind of an experimental paradigm , so I think this is all just fine in terms of h her learning things she 's gonna need to know uh , to do her career . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I {disfmarker} my guess is she 'll be r r quite happy to take on that job . And , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yep . Yeah she {disfmarker} she didn't explicitly state that so . +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: And um I told her that we gonna um figure out a meeting time in the near future to refine the tasks and s look for the potential sources to find people . She also agrees that you know if it 's all just gonna be students the data is gonna be less valuable because of that so . +Professor B: Well , as I say there is this s set of people next door , it 's not hard to +Grad D: We 're already {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: However , we may run into a problem with a reading task there . And um , we 'll see . +Professor B: Yeah . We could talk to the people who run it and um see if they have a way that they could easily uh tell people that there 's a task , pays ten bucks or something , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but um you have to be comfortable reading relatively complicated stuff . And {disfmarker} and there 'll probably be self - selection to some extent . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor B: Uh , so that 's good . Um . Now , {pause} I signed us up for the Wednesday slot , and part of what we should do is this . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So , my idea on that was {pause} uh , partly we 'll talk about system stuff for the computer scientists , but partly I did want it to get the linguists involved in some of this issue about what the task is and all {disfmarker} um you know , what the dialogue is , and what 's going on linguistically , because to the extent that we can get them contributing , that will be good . So this issue about you know re - formulating things , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: maybe we can get some of the linguists sufficiently interested that they 'll help us with it , uh , other linguists , if you 're a linguist , but in any case , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um , the linguistics students and stuff . So my idea on {disfmarker} on Wednesday is partly to uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean , what you did today would {disfmarker} i is just fine . You just uh do "" this is what we did , and here 's the {pause} thing , and here 's s some of the dialogue and {disfmarker} and so forth . "" But then , the other thing of course is we should um give the computer scientists some idea of {disfmarker} of what 's going on with the system design , and where we think the belief - nets fit in and where the pieces are and stuff like that . Is {disfmarker} is this {pause} make sense to everybody ? +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it 's worth a lot of work , particularly on your part , to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to make a big presentation . I don't think you should {disfmarker} you don't have to make any new {pause} uh PowerPoint or anything . I think we got plenty of stuff to talk about . And , then um just see how a discussion goes . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Sounds good . The uh other two things is um we 've {disfmarker} can have Johno tell us a little about this +Professor B: Great . +Grad D: and we also have a l little bit on the interface , M - three - L enhancement , and then um that was it , I think . +Grad A: So , what I did for this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} uh , a pedagogical belief - net because I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I took {disfmarker} I tried to conceptually do what you were talking about with the nodes that you could expand out {disfmarker} so what I did was I took {disfmarker} I made these dummy nodes called Trajector - In and Trajector - Out that would isolate the things related to the trajector . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And then there were the things with the source and the path and the goal . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad A: And I separated them out . And then I um did similar things for our {disfmarker} our net to {disfmarker} uh with the context and the discourse and whatnot , um , so we could sort of isolate them or whatever in terms of the {disfmarker} the top layer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then the bottom layer is just the Mode . So . +Professor B: So , let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't understand it . Let 's go {disfmarker} Slide all the way up so we see what the p the p very bottom looks like , or is that it ? +Grad A: Yeah , there 's just one more node and it says "" Mode "" which is the decision between the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , great . Alright . +Grad A: So basically all I did was I took the last {pause} belief - net +Professor B: So {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and I grouped things according to what {disfmarker} how I thought they would fit in to uh image schemas that would be related . And the two that I came up with were Trajector - landmark and then Source - path - goal as initial ones . +Professor B: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then I said well , uh the trajector would be the person in this case probably . +Professor B: Right , yep . +Grad A: Um , you know , we have {disfmarker} we have the concept of what their intention was , whether they were trying to tour or do business or whatever , +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: or they were hurried . That 's kind of related to that . And then um in terms of the source , the things {disfmarker} uh the only things that we had on there I believe were whether {disfmarker} Oh actually , I kind of , {disfmarker} I might have added these cuz I don't think we talked too much about the source in the old one but uh whether the {disfmarker} where I 'm currently at is a landmark might have a bearing on whether {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: or the "" landmark - iness "" of where I 'm currently at . And "" usefulness "" is basi basically means is that an institutional facility like a town hall or something like that that 's not {disfmarker} something that you 'd visit for tourist 's {disfmarker} tourism 's sake or whatever . "" Travel constraints "" would be something like you know , maybe they said they can {disfmarker} they only wanna take a bus or something like that , right ? And then those are somewhat related to the path , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: so that would determine whether we 'd {disfmarker} could take {disfmarker} we would be telling them to go to the bus stop or versus walking there directly . Um , "" Goal "" . Similar things as the source except they also added whether the entity was closed and whether they have somehow marked that is was the final destination . Um , and then if you go up , Robert , Yeah , so {disfmarker} um , in terms of Context , what we had currently said was whether they were a businessman or a tourist of some other person . Um , Discourse was related to whether they had asked about open hours or whether they asked about where the entrance was or the admission fee , or something along those lines . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Uh , Prosody I don't really {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure what prosody means , in this context , so I just made up you know whether {disfmarker} whether what they say is {disfmarker} or h how they say it is {disfmarker} is that . +Professor B: Right , OK . +Grad A: Um , the Parse would be what verb they chose , and then maybe how they modified it , in the sense of whether they said "" I need to get there quickly "" or whatever . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um , in terms of World Knowledge , this would just basically be like opening and closing times of things , the time of day it is , and whatnot . +Grad D: What 's "" tourbook "" ? +Grad A: Tourbook ? That would be , I don't know , the "" landmark - iness "" of things , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: whether it 's in the tourbook or not . +Professor B: Ch - ch - ch - ch . Now . Alright , so I understand what 's {disfmarker} what you got . I don't yet understand {pause} how you would use it . So let me see if I can ask +Grad A: Well , this is not a working Bayes - net . +Professor B: a s Right . No , I understand that , but {disfmarker} but um So , what {disfmarker} Let 's slide back up again and see {disfmarker} start at the {disfmarker} at the bottom and Oop - bo - doop - boop - boop . Yeah . So , you could imagine w Uh , go ahead , you were about to go up there and point to something . +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} OK , I just {disfmarker} Say what you were gonna say . +Professor B: Good , do it ! +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: No no , go do it . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} No , I was gonna wait until {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . So , so if you {disfmarker} if we made {disfmarker} if we wanted to make it into a {disfmarker} a real uh Bayes - net , that is , you know , with fill {disfmarker} you know , actually f uh , fill it @ @ in , then uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: So we 'd have to get rid of this and connect these things directly to the Mode . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} That 's an issue . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cuz I don't understand how it would work otherwise . +Professor B: Well , here 's the problem . And {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} Bhaskara and I was talking about this a little earlier today {disfmarker} is , if we just do this , we could wind up with a huge uh , combinatoric input to the Mode thing . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} oh yeah , I unders I understand that , I just {disfmarker} uh it 's hard for me to imagine how he could get around that . +Professor B: Well , i But that 's what we have to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: OK , so , so , uh . There {disfmarker} there are a variety of ways of doing it . Uh . Let me just mention something that I don't want to pursue today which is there are technical ways of doing it , uh I I slipped a paper to Bhaskara and {disfmarker} about Noisy - OR 's and Noisy - MAXes and there 're ways to uh sort of back off on the purity of your Bayes - net - edness . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so . If you co you could ima and I now I don't know that any of those actually apply in this case , but there is some technology you could try to apply . +Grad A: So it 's possible that we could do something like a summary node of some sort that {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And , um So . +Grad A: So in that case , the sum we 'd have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} I mean , these wouldn't be the summary nodes . We 'd have the summary nodes like where the things were {disfmarker} I guess maybe if thi if things were related to business or some other {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: So what I was gonna say is {disfmarker} is maybe a good at this point is to try to informally {disfmarker} I mean , not necessarily in th in this meeting , but to try to informally think about what the decision variables are . So , if you have some bottom line uh decision about which mode , you know , what are the most relevant things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And the other trick , which is not a technical trick , it 's kind of a knowledge engineering trick , is to make the n {pause} each node sufficiently narrow that you don't get this combinatorics . So that if you decided that you could characterize the decision as a trade - off between three factors , whatever they may be , OK ? then you could say "" Aha , let 's have these three factors "" , OK ? and maybe a binary version f for each , or some relatively compact decision node just above the final one . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: And then the question would be if {disfmarker} if those are the things that you care about , uh can you make a relatively compact way of getting from the various inputs to the things you care about . So that y so that , you know , you can sort of try to do a knowledge engineering thing +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: given that we 're not gonna screw with the technology and just always use uh sort of orthodox Bayes - nets , then we have a knowledge engineering little problem of how do we do that . Um and +Grad A: So what I kind of need to do is to take this one and the old one and merge them together ? +Professor B: "" Eh - eh - eh . "" Yeah . +Grad A: So that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , mmm , something . I mean , so uh , Robert has thought about this problem f for a long time , cuz he 's had these examples kicking around , so he may have some good intuition about you know , what are the crucial things . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: and , um , I understand where this {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} this is a way of playing with this abs Source - path - goal trajector exp uh uh abstraction and {disfmarker} and sort of sh displaying it in a particular way . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I don't think our friends uh on Wednesday are going to be able to {disfmarker} Well , maybe they will . Well , let me think about whether {disfmarker} whether I think we can present this to them or not . Um , Uh , +Grad D: Well , I think this is still , I mean , ad - hoc . This is sort of th the second {vocalsound} version and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} look at this maybe just as a , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} whatever , UML diagram or , you know , as just a uh screen shot , not really as a Bayes - net as John {disfmarker} Johno said . +Grad A: We could actually , y yeah draw it in a different way , in the sense that it would make it more abstract . +Grad D: Yeah . But the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the nice thing is that you know , it just is a {disfmarker} is a visual aid for thinking about these things which has comple clearly have to be specified m more carefully +Professor B: Alright , well , le let me think about this some more , +Grad D: and uh +Professor B: and uh see if we can find a way to present this to this linguists group that {disfmarker} that is helpful to them . +Grad D: I mean , ultimately we {disfmarker} we may w w we regard this as sort of an exercise in {disfmarker} in thinking about the problem and maybe a first version of uh a module , if you wanna call it that , that you can ask , that you can give input and it it 'll uh throw the dice for you , uh throw the die for you , because um I integrated this into the existing SmartKom system in {disfmarker} in the same way as much the same way we can um sort of have this uh {disfmarker} this thing . Close this down . So if this is what M - three - L um will look like and what it 'll give us , um {disfmarker} And a very simple thing . We have an action that he wants to go from somewhere , which is some type of object , to someplace . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And this {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} this changed now only um , um {disfmarker} It 's doing it twice now because it already did it once . Um , we 'll add some action type , which in this case is "" Approach "" and could be , you know , more refined uh in many ways . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Good . +Grad D: Or we can uh have something where the uh goal is a public place and it will give us then of course an action type of the type "" Enter "" . So this is just based on this one {disfmarker} um , on this one feature , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's about all you can do . And so in the f if this pla if the object type um here is {disfmarker} is a m is a landmark , of course it 'll be um "" Vista "" . And um this is about as much as we can do if we don't w if we want to avoid uh uh a huge combinatorial explosion where we specify "" OK , if it 's this and this but that is not the case "" , and so forth , it just gets really really messy . +Professor B: OK , I 'm sorry . You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: It was much too quick for me . OK , so let me see if I understand what you 're saying . So , I {disfmarker} I do understand that uh you can take the M - three - L and add not {disfmarker} and it w and you need to do this , for sure , we have to add , you know , not too much about um object types and stuff , and what I think you did is add some rules of the style that are already there that say "" If it 's of type "" Landmark "" , then you take {disfmarker} you 're gonna take a picture of it . "" +Grad D: Exactly . +Professor B: F full stop , I mean , that 's what you do . Ev - every landmark you take a picture of , +Grad D: Every public place you enter , and statue you want to go as near as possible . +Professor B: you enter {disfmarker} You approach . OK . Uh , and certainly you can add rules like that to the existing SmartKom system . And you just did , right ? OK . +Grad D: Yeah . And it {disfmarker} it would do us no good . +Professor B: Ah . +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Ultimately . +Professor B: Well . So , s well , and let 's think about this . +Grad D: W +Professor B: Um , that 's a {disfmarker} that 's another kind of baseline case , that 's another sort of thing "" OK , here 's a {disfmarker} another kind of minimal uh way of tackling this "" . Add extra properties , a deterministic rule for every property you have an action , "" pppt ! "" You do that . Um , then the question would be Uh Now , if that 's all you 're doing , then you can get the types from the ontology , OK ? because that 's all {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} all you 're using is this type {disfmarker} the types in the ontology and you 're done . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Professor B: Right ? So we don't {disfmarker} we don't use the discourse , we don't use the context , we don't do any of those things . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Alright , but that 's {disfmarker} but that 's OK , and I mean it it 's again a kind of one minimal extension of the existing things . And that 's something the uh SmartKom people themselves would {disfmarker} they 'd say "" Sure , that 's no problem {disfmarker} you know , no problem to add types to the ont "" Right ? +Grad D: Yeah . No . And this is {disfmarker} just in order to exemplify what {disfmarker} what we can do very , very easily is , um we have this {disfmarker} this silly uh interface and we have the rules that are as banal as of we just saw , and we have our content . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad D: Now , the content {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} whi which is sort of what {disfmarker} what we see here , which is sort of the Vista , Schema , Source , Path , Goal , whatever . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: This will um be um a job to find ways of writing down Image schema , X - schema , constructions , in some {disfmarker} some form , and have this be in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in the content , loosely called "" Constructicon "" . And the rules we want to throw away completely . And um {disfmarker} and here is exactly where what 's gonna be replaced with our Bayes - net , which is exactly getting the input feeding into here . This decides whether it 's an whether action {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Enter , the Vista , or the whatever +Professor B: Uh , "" approach "" , you called it , I think this time . +Grad D: uh Approach um construction should be activated , IE just pasted in . +Professor B: That 's what you said {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's fine . Yeah , but {disfmarker} Right . But it 's not construction there , it 's action . Construction is a d is a different story . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . This is uh {disfmarker} so what we 'd be generating would be a reference to a semantic uh like parameters for the {disfmarker} for the X - schema ? +Professor B: For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} that uh i if you had the generalized "" Go "" X - schema and you wanted to specialize it to these three ones , then you would have to supply the parameters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: And then uh , although we haven't worried about this yet , you might wanna worry about something that would go to the GIS and use that to actually get you know , detailed route planning . So , you know , where do you do take a picture of it and stuff like that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that 's not {disfmarker} It 's not the immediate problem . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But , presumably that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that functionality 's there when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker} +Grad A: So the immediate problem is just deciding w which {disfmarker} +Grad D: Aspects of the X - schema to add . +Professor B: Yeah , so the pro The immediate problem is {disfmarker} is back t t to what you were {disfmarker} what you are doing with the belief - net . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , uh what are we going to use to make this decision {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right and then , once we 've made the decision , how do we put that into the content ? +Professor B: Yeah . Right . Right . Well , that {disfmarker} that actually is relatively easy in this case . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: The harder problem is we decide what we want to use , how are we gonna get it ? And that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the hardest problem . So , the hardest problem is how are you going to get this information from some combination of the {disfmarker} what the person says and the context and the ontology . The h So , I think that 's the hardest problem at the moment is {disfmarker} is +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: where are you gonna {disfmarker} how are you gonna g get this information . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} so , getting back to here , uh , we have a d a technical problem with the belief - nets that we {disfmarker} we don't want all the com +Grad A: There 's just too many factors right now . +Professor B: too many factors if we {disfmarker} if we allow them to just go combinatorially . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: So we wanna think about which ones we really care about and what they really most depend on , and can we c you know , clean this {disfmarker} this up to the point where it {disfmarker} +Grad A: So what we really wanna do i cuz this is really just the three layer net , we wanna b make it {disfmarker} expand it out into more layers basically ? +Professor B: Right . We might . Uh , I mean that {disfmarker} that 's certainly one thing we can do . Uh , it 's true that the way you have this , a lot of the times you have {disfmarker} what you 're having is the values rather than the variable . So uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . So instead of in instead it should really be {disfmarker} just be "" intention "" as a node instead of "" intention business "" or "" intention tour "" . +Professor B: OK ? So you {disfmarker} Yeah , right , and then it would have values , uh , "" Tour "" , "" Business "" , or uh "" Hurried "" . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: But then {disfmarker} but i it still some knowledge design to do , about i how do you wanna break this up , what really matters . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean , it 's fine . You know , we have to {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's iterative . We 're gonna have to work with it some . +Grad A: I think what was going through my mind when I did it was someone could both have a business intention and a touring intention and the probabilities of both of them happening at the same time {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , you {disfmarker} you could do that . And it 's perfectly OK {pause} to uh insist that {disfmarker} that , you know , th um , they add up to one , but that there 's uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it doesn't have to be one zero zero . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Professor B: OK . So you could have the conditional p So the {disfmarker} each of these things is gonna be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a probability . So whenever there 's a choice , uh {disfmarker} so like landmark - ness and usefulness , +Grad A: Well , see I don't think those would be mutually {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK {disfmarker} +Grad A: it seems like something could both be {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And so that you might want to then have those b Th - Then they may have to be separate . They may not be able to be values of the same variable . +Grad D: Object type , mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} but again , this is {disfmarker} this is the sort of knowledge design you have to go through . Right . It 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's great {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is , you know , as one step toward uh {disfmarker} toward where we wanna go . +Grad D: Also it strikes me that we {disfmarker} we m may want to approach the point where we can sort of try to find a {disfmarker} uh , a specification for some interface , here that um takes the normal M - three - L , looks at it . Then we discussed in our pre - edu {disfmarker} EDU meeting um how to ask the ontology , what to ask the ontology um the fact that we can pretend we have one , make a dummy until we get the real one , and so um we {disfmarker} we may wanna decide we can do this from here , but we also could do it um you know if we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a belief - net interface . So the belief - net takes as input , a vector , right ? of stuff . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And um it Output is whatever , as well . But this information is just M - three - L , and then we want to look up some more stuff in the ontology and we want to look up some more stuff in the {disfmarker} maybe we want to ask the real world , maybe you want to look something up in the GRS , but also we definitely want to look up in the dialogue history um some s some stuff . Based on we {disfmarker} we have uh {disfmarker} I was just made some examples from the ontology and so we have for example some information there that the town hall is both a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a building and it has doors and stuff like this , but it is also an institution , so it has a mayor and so forth and so forth and we get relations out of it and once we have them , we can use that information to look in the dialogue history , "" were any of these things that {disfmarker} that are part of the town hall as an institution mentioned ? "" , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: "" were any of these that make the town hall a building mentioned ? "" , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: and so forth , and maybe draw some inferences on that . So this may be a {disfmarker} a sort of a process of two to three steps before we get our vector , that we feed into the belief - net , +Professor B: Yeah . I think that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's exactly right . +Grad D: and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: There will be rules , but they aren't rules that come to final decisions , they 're rules that gather information for a decision process . Yeah , +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: no I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's just fine . Uh , yeah . So they 'll {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} presumably there 'll be a thread or process or something that "" Agent "" , yeah , "" Agent "" , whatever you wan wanna say , yeah , that uh is rule - driven , and can {disfmarker} can uh {disfmarker} can do things like that . And um there 's an issue about whether there will be {disfmarker} that 'll be the same agent and the one that then goes off and uh carries out the decision , so it probably will . My guess is it 'll be the same basic agent that um can go off and get information , run it through a {disfmarker} a c this belief - net that {disfmarker} turn a crank in the belief - net , that 'll come out with s uh more {disfmarker} another vector , OK , which can then be uh applied at what we would call the simulation or action end . So you now know what you 're gonna do and that may actually involve getting more information . So on once you pull that out , it could be that that says "" Ah ! Now that we know that we gonna go ask the ontology something else . "" OK ? Now that we know that it 's a bus trip , OK ? we didn't {disfmarker} We didn't need to know beforehand , uh how long the bus trip takes or whatever , but {disfmarker} but now that we know that 's the way it 's coming out then we gotta go find out more . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I think that 's OK . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . So this is actually , s if {disfmarker} if we were to build something that is um , and , uh , I had one more thing , the {disfmarker} it needs to do {disfmarker} Yeah . I think we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can come up with a {disfmarker} a code for a module that we call the "" cognitive dispatcher "" , which does nothing , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: but it looks of complect object trees and decides how {disfmarker} are there parts missing that need to be filled out , there 's {disfmarker} this is maybe something that this module can do , something that this module can do and then collect uh sub - objects and then recombine them and put them together . So maybe this is actually some {disfmarker} some useful tool that we can use to rewrite it , and uh get this part , +Professor B: Oh , OK . Uh . +Grad D: then . Yeah . +Professor B: I confess , I 'm still not completely comfortable with the overall story . Um . I i This {disfmarker} this is not a complaint , this is a promise to do more work . So I 'm gonna hafta think about it some more . Um . In particular {disfmarker} see what we 'd like to do , and {disfmarker} and this has been implicit in the discussion , is to do this in such a way that you get a lot of re - use . So . What you 're trying to get out of this deep co cognitive linguistics is the fact that w if you know about source {disfmarker} source , paths and goals , and nnn {comment} all this sort of stuff , that a lot of this is the same , for different tasks . And that {disfmarker} uh there 's {disfmarker} there 's some {disfmarker} some important generalities that you 're getting , so that you don't take each and every one of these tasks and hafta re - do it . And I don't yet see how that goes . Alright . +Grad D: There 're no primitives upon which {pause} uh +Professor B: u u What are the primitives , and how do you break this {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah . +Professor B: So I y I 'm just {disfmarker} just there saying eee {comment} well you {disfmarker} I know how to do any individual case , right ? but I don't yet {disfmarker} see what 's the really interesting question is can you use uh deep uh cognitive linguistics to {pause} get powerful generalizations . And +Grad D: Yep . +Professor B: um +Grad D: Maybe we sho should we a add then the "" what 's this ? "" domain ? N I mean , we have to "" how do I get to X "" . Then we also have the "" what 's this ? "" domain , where we get some slightly different {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could . Uh . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Um Johno , actually , does not allow us to call them "" intentions "" anymore . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So he {disfmarker} he dislikes the term . +Professor B: Well , I {disfmarker} I don't like the term either , so I have n i uh i i y w i i It uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: But um , I 'm sure the "" what 's this ? "" questions also create some interesting X - schema aspects . +Professor B: Could be . I 'm not a {disfmarker} I 'm not op particularly opposed to adding that or any other task , +Grad D: So . +Professor B: I mean , eventually we 're gonna want a whole range of them . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor B: I 'm just saying that I 'm gonna hafta do some sort of first principles thinking about this . I just at the moment don't know . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: H No . Well , no the Bayes {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets {disfmarker} The Bayes - nets will be dec specific for each decision . But what I 'd like to be able to do is to have the way that you extract properties , that will go into different Bayes - nets , be the {disfmarker} uh general . So that if you have sources , you have trajectors and stuff like that , and there 's a language for talking about trajectors , you shouldn't have to do that differently for uh uh going to something , than for circling it , for uh telling someone else how to go there , +Grad D: Getting out of {disfmarker} +Professor B: whatever it is . So that {disfmarker} that , the {disfmarker} the decision processes are gonna be different What you 'd really like of course is the same thing you 'd always like which is that you have um a kind of intermediate representation which looks the same o over a bunch of inputs and a bunch of outputs . So all sorts of different tasks {pause} and all sorts of different ways of expressing them use a lot of the same mechanism for pulling out what are the fundamental things going on . And that 's {disfmarker} that would be the really pretty result . And pushing it one step further , when you get to construction grammar and stuff , what you 'd like to be able to do is say you have this parser which is much fancier than the parser that comes with uh SmartKom , i that {disfmarker} that actually uses constructions and is able to tell from this construction that there 's uh something about the intent {disfmarker} you know , the actual what people wanna do or what they 're referring to and stuff , in independent of whether it {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} what is this or where is it or something , that you could tell from the construction , you could pull out deep semantic information which you 're gonna use in a general way . So that 's the {disfmarker} You might . You might . You might be able to {disfmarker} to uh say that this i this is the kind of construction in which the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Let 's say there 's a uh cont there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the land the construction implies the there 's a con this thing is being viewed as a container . OK . So just from this local construction you know that you 're gonna hafta treat it as a container you might as well go off and get that information . And that may effect the way you process everything else . So if you say "" how do I get into the castle "" OK , then um {disfmarker} Or , you know , "" what is there in the castle "" or {disfmarker} so there 's all sorts of things you might ask that involve the castle as a container and you 'd like to have this orthogonal so that anytime the castle 's referred to as a container , you crank up the appropriate stuff . Independent of what the goal is , and independent of what the surrounding language is . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Alright , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the thesis level +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's unfortunate also that English has sort of got rid of most of its spatial adverbs because they 're really fancy then , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for these kinds of analysis . But uh . +Professor B: Well , you have prepositional phrases that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , but they 're {disfmarker} they 're easier for parsers . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: Parsers can pick those up but {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} with the spatial adverbs , they have a tough time . Because the {disfmarker} mean the semantics are very complex in that . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: OK , yeah ? I had one more {pause} thing . I don't remember . I just forgot it again . No . Oh yeah , b But an architecture like this would also enable us maybe to {disfmarker} to throw this away and {disfmarker} and replace it with something else , or whatever , so that we have {disfmarker} so that this is sort of the representational formats we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're talking about that are independent of the problem , that generalize over those problems , and are oh , t of a higher quality than an any actual whatever um belief - net , or "" X "" that we may use for the decision making , ultimately . Should be decoupled , yeah . OK . +Professor B: Right . So , are we gonna be meeting here from now on ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm happy to do that . We {disfmarker} we had talked about it , cuz you have th th the display and everything , that seems fine . +Grad D: Yeah , um , Liz also asks whether we 're gonna have presentations every time . I don't think we will need to do that but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: so far I think it was nice as a visual aid for some things and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh yeah . No I {disfmarker} I think it 's worth it to ass to meet here to bring this , and assume that something may come up that we wanna look at . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . Why not . +Grad D: And um . Yeah , that was my {disfmarker} +Professor B: She was good . Litonya was good . +Grad D: Yeah ? The uh {disfmarker} um , she w she was definitely good in the sense that she {disfmarker} she showed us some of the weaknesses +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: and um also the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the fact that she was a real subject you know , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . Yeah , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah and {disfmarker} and she took it seriously and stuff l No , it was great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: So I think that um {disfmarker} I mean , w Looking {disfmarker} just looking at this data , listening to it , what can we get out of it in terms of our problem , for example , is , you know , she actually m said {disfmarker} you know , she never s just spoke about entering , she just wanted to get someplace , and she said for buying stuff . Nuh ? So this is definitely interesting , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , right . +Grad D: Um , and in the other case , where she wanted to look at the stuff at the graffiti , also , of course , not in the sentence "" How do you get there ? "" was pretty standard . Nuh ? except that there was a nice anaphora , you know , for pointing at what she talked about before , and there she was talking about looking at pictures that are painted inside a wall on walls , so +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Actually , you 'd need a lot of world knowledge . This would have been a classical um uh "" Tango "" , actually . Um , because graffiti is usually found on the outside and not on the inside , +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: but OK . So the mistake {comment} would have make a mistake {disfmarker} the system would have made a mistake here . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Click ? Alright . +","Summary: + +During a group meeting, Grad A, Grad C, Grad D, and Professor B discuss various aspects of a project involving cognitive linguistics, dialogue systems, and decision-making using Bayes nets. They debate technical difficulties, such as avoiding combinatorial explosions in belief-nets and extracting decision-relevant information from context, dialogue history, and an ontology. They also touch on elements of the SmartKom system, actions like ""approach"" and ""enter,"" and how they could integrate a more advanced parser that pulls out deep semantic information to be used in a variety of tasks. The team aims to generalize components of their system to apply across different tasks and inputs. Grad D mentions a ""cognitive dispatcher"" module to help with object trees, and the discussion covers the desire for architecture that allows components to be replaced or modified flexibly. They conclude with considering the value of data from a user test and mention a need for further analysis. The meeting is held in a room where they can use visual aids, and they plan to continue meeting there." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: So , I mean , everyone who 's on the wireless check that they 're on . +PhD F: C we {disfmarker} +Grad G: Alright . +Postdoc C: I see . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , our agenda was quite short . +Professor B: Oh , could you {pause} close the door , maybe ? Yeah . +Grad E: Sure . Two items , which was , uh , digits and possibly stuff on {disfmarker} on , uh , forced alignment , which Jane said that Liz and Andreas had in information on , +Professor B: +Grad E: but they didn't , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I guess the only other thing , uh , for which I {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +PhD F: We should do that second , because Liz might join us in time for that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Um . OK , so there 's digits , alignments , and , um , I guess the other thing , {vocalsound} which I came unprepared for , uh , {vocalsound} is , uh , to dis s s see if there 's anything anybody wants to discuss about the Saturday meeting . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: So . Any {disfmarker} I mean , maybe not . +Grad E: Digits and alignments . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD F: Talk about aligning people 's schedules . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Right . Yeah , I mean , it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's forced alignment of people 's schedules . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Forced align . +PhD F: If we 're very {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: With {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} whatever it was , a month and a half or something ahead of time , the only time we could find in common {disfmarker} roughly in common , was on a Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Ugh . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: It 's pretty sad . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Have {disfmarker} Have we thought about having a conference call to include him in more of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in more of the meeting ? I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , if we had the {disfmarker} if we had the telephone on the table {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . But , h I mean , he probably has to go do something . +PhD F: No , actually I {disfmarker} I have to {disfmarker} I have to shuttle {pause} kids from various places to various other places . +Professor B: Right ? +Postdoc C: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So . And I don't have {disfmarker} and I don't , um , have a cell phone +PhD D: A cell phone ? +PhD F: so I can't be having a conference call while driving . +Professor B: R r right . +Postdoc C: No . {comment} It 's not good . +Professor B: So we have to {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's not good . +PhD F: Plus , it would make for interesting noise {disfmarker} background noise . +Professor B: +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So we have to equip him with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with a head - mounted , uh , cell phone +Grad E: Ye - we and we 'd have to force you to read lots and lots of digits , +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it could get real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} real car noise . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Take advantage . +PhD D: And with the kids in the background . +PhD F: I 'll let {disfmarker} I 'd let {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: I let , uh , my five - year - old have a try at the digits , eh . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So , anyway , I can talk about digits . Um , did everyone get the results or shall I go over them again ? I mean that it was basically {disfmarker} the only thing that was even slightly surprising was that the lapel did so well . Um , and in retrospect that 's not as surprising as maybe i it shouldn't have been as surprising as I {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I felt it was . The lapel mike is a very high - quality microphone . And as Morgan pointed out , that there are actually some advantages to it in terms of breath noises and clothes rustling {pause} if no one else is talking . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Exactly . +Grad E: Um , so , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of the bre the breath noises and the mouth clicks and so forth like that , the lapel 's gonna be better on . +Grad G: It 's g it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or the cross - talk . Yeah . +Professor B: The lapel is typically worse on the {disfmarker} on clothes rustling , but if no one 's rustling their clothes , +Grad E: Right . I mean , a lot of people are just sort of leaning over and reading the digits , +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a very different task than sort of the natural . +PhD D: Yeah . You don't move much during reading digits , I think . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Probably the fact that it picks up other people 's speakers {disfmarker} other people 's talking is an indication of that it {disfmarker} the fact it is a good microphone . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So in the digits , in most {disfmarker} most cases , there weren't other people talking . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Grad G: So . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: D do the lapel mikes have any directionality to them ? +Professor B: There typically don't , no . +PhD F: Because I {disfmarker} I suppose you could make some that have sort of {disfmarker} that you have to orient towards your mouth , +Grad E: They have a little bit , +PhD F: and then it would {disfmarker} +Grad E: but they 're not noise - cancelling . So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're intended to be omni - directional . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: And th it 's {disfmarker} and because you don't know how people are gonna put them on , you know . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , also , Andreas , on that one the {disfmarker} the back part of it should be right against your head . And that will he keep it from flopping aro up and down as much . +PhD F: It is against my head . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah , we actually talked about this in the , uh , front - end meeting this morning , too . Much the same thing , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} uh , I mean , there the point of interest to the group was primarily that , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the system that we had that was based on H T K , that 's used by , you know , {pause} all the participants in Aurora , {vocalsound} was so much worse {vocalsound} than the {disfmarker} than the S R +Grad E: Everybody . +Professor B: And the interesting thing is that even though , {vocalsound} yes , it 's a digits task and that 's a relatively small number of words and there 's a bunch of digits that you train on , {vocalsound} it 's just not as good as having a {disfmarker} a l very large amount of data and training up a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a nice good big {vocalsound} HMM . Um , also you had the adaptation in the SRI system , which we didn't have in this . Um . So . Um . +PhD F: And we know {disfmarker} Di - did I send you some results without adaptation ? +Grad E: No . +Professor B: I s I think Stephane , uh , had seen them . +Grad E: Or if you did , I didn't include them , cuz it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , I think I did , actually . So there was a significant loss from not doing the adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple percent or some I mean {disfmarker} Well , I don't know it {disfmarker} Overall {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember , but there was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} there was a significant , um , loss or win {comment} from adaptation {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with adaptation . And , um , that was the phone - loop adaptation . And then there was a very small {disfmarker} like point one percent on the natives {disfmarker} uh , win from doing , um , you know , adaptation to {pause} the recognition hypotheses . And {pause} I tried both means adaptation and means and variances , and the variances added another {disfmarker} or subtracted another point one percent . So , {vocalsound} it 's , um {disfmarker} that 's the number there . Point six , I believe , is what you get with both , uh , means and variance adaptation . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But I think one thing is that , uh , I would presume {disfmarker} Hav - Have you ever t {vocalsound} Have you ever tried this exact same recognizer out on the actual TI - digits test set ? +PhD F: This exact same recognizer ? No . +Professor B: It might be interesting to do that . Cuz my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} cuz my sense , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but , I have {disfmarker} I mean , people {disfmarker} people at SRI are actually working on digits . +Grad E: I bet it would do even slightly better . +PhD F: I could {disfmarker} and they are using a system that 's , um {disfmarker} you know , h is actually trained on digits , um , but h h otherwise uses the same , you know , decoder , the same , uh , training methods , and so forth , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and I could ask them what they get {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah , bu although I 'd be {disfmarker} I think it 'd be interesting to just take this exact actual system so that these numbers were comparable +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and try it out on TI - digits . +PhD F: Well , Adam knows how to run it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +PhD F: so you just make a f +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Cuz our sense from the other {disfmarker} from the Aurora , uh , task is that {disfmarker} +Grad E: And try it with TI - digits ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , cuz we were getting sub one percent {vocalsound} numbers on TI - digits also with the tandem thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} so there were a number of things we noted from this . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: One is , yeah , the SRI system is a lot better than the HTK {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: this , you know , very limited training HTK system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , but the other is that , um , the digits {vocalsound} recorded here in this room with these close mikes , i uh , are actually a lot harder than the {pause} studio - recording TI - digits . I think , you know , one reason for that , uh , might be that there 's still {disfmarker} even though it 's close - talking , there still is some noise and some room acoustics . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And another might be that , uh , I 'd {disfmarker} I would presume that in the studio , uh , uh , situation recording read speech that if somebody did something a little funny or n pronounced something a little funny or made a little {disfmarker} that they didn't include it , +Grad E: They didn't include it . +Professor B: they made them do it again . +Grad E: Whereas , I took out {pause} the ones that I noticed that were blatant {disfmarker} that were correctable . +Professor B: Mmm . Yeah . +Grad E: So that , if someone just read the wrong digit , I corrected it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And then there was another one where Jose couldn't tell whether {disfmarker} I couldn't tell whether he was saying zero or six . And I asked him and he couldn't tell either . +Grad I: Hmm . +Grad E: So I just cut it out . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: You know , so I just e edited out the first , i uh , word of the utterance . Um , so there 's a little bit of correction but it 's definitely not as clean as TI - digits . So my expectations is TI - digits would , especially {disfmarker} I think TI - digits is all {pause} American English . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? So it would probably do even a little better still on the SRI system , but we could give it a try . +PhD F: Well . But {pause} remember , we 're using a telephone bandwidth front - end here , uh , on this , uh {disfmarker} on this SRI system , so , {vocalsound} um , I was {disfmarker} I thought that maybe that 's actually a good thing because it {disfmarker} it gets rid of some of the {disfmarker} uh , the noises , um , you know , in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} below and above the {disfmarker} um , the , you know , speech bandwidth +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and , um , I suspect that to get sort of the last bit out of these higher - quality recordings you would have to in fact , uh , use models that , uh , were trained on wider - band data . And of course we can't do that or {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wha - what 's TI - digits ? I thought t +Professor B: It 's wide - band , yeah . It 's {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in fact , we looked it up +Grad E: It is wide - band . OK . +Professor B: and it was actually twenty kilohertz sampling . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . I {disfmarker} I did look that up . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I couldn't remember whether that was TI - digits or one of the other digit tasks . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . But {disfmarker} but , I would {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy enough to try , just run it on {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: See w +Grad E: So , Morgan , you 're getting a little breath noise . +PhD F: Now , eh , does {disfmarker} +Grad E: You might wanna move the mike down a little bit . +PhD F: one {disfmarker} one issue {disfmarker} one issue with {disfmarker} with that is that {vocalsound} um , the system has this , uh , notion of a speaker to {disfmarker} which is used in adaptation , variance norm uh , you know , both in , uh , mean and variance normalization and also in the VTL {pause} estimation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I noticed the script that extracted it . +PhD F: Do y ? Is {disfmarker} ? So does {disfmarker} so th so does {disfmarker} does , um , {vocalsound} the TI - digits database have speakers that are known ? +Grad E: Yep . Yep . +PhD F: And is there {disfmarker} is there enough data or a comparable {disfmarker} comparable amount of data to {disfmarker} to what we have in our recordings here ? +Grad E: That I don't know . I don't know . I don't know how many speakers there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} and how many speakers per utterance . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Well , the other thing would be to do it without the adaptation and compare to these numbers without the adaptation . That would {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Uh , but I 'm not so much worried about the adaptation , actually , than {disfmarker} than the , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} the , uh , VTL estimation . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: If you have only one utterance per speaker you might actually screw up on estimating the {disfmarker} the warping , uh , factor . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: I strongly suspect that they have more speakers than we do . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it 's not the amount of speakers , it 's the num it 's the amount of data per speaker . +Grad E: Right . So we {disfmarker} we could probably do an extraction that was roughly equivalent . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad E: Um . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , although I {disfmarker} I sort of know how to run it , there are a little {disfmarker} a f few details here and there that I 'll have to {pause} dig out . +PhD F: OK . The key {disfmarker} So th the system actually extracts the speaker ID from the waveform names . +Grad E: Right . I saw that . +PhD F: And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a script {disfmarker} and that is actually all in one script . So there 's this one script that parses waveform names and extracts things like the , um , speaker , uh , ID or something that can stand in as a speaker ID . So , we might have to modify that script to recognize the , um , speakers , {vocalsound} um , in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits {pause} database . +Grad E: Right . Right . And that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or you can fake {disfmarker} you can fake {pause} names for these waveforms that resemble the names that we use here for the {disfmarker} for the meetings . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: That would be the , sort of {disfmarker} probably the safest way to do {disfmarker} +Grad E: I might have to do that anyway to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} because we may have to do an extract to get the {pause} amount of data per speaker about right . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: The other thing is , isn't TI - digits isolated digits ? +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Or is that another one ? I 'm {disfmarker} I looked through a bunch of the digits t corp corpora , and now they 're all blurring . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cuz one of them was literally people reading a single digit . And then others were connected digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Most of TI - digits is connected digits , I think . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , we had a Bellcore corpus that we were using . It was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that was isolated digits . +Grad E: Maybe it 's the Bell Gram . Bell Digits . Alright . +Professor B: Um . +PhD F: By the way , I think we can improve these numbers if we care to compr improve them {vocalsound} by , um , {vocalsound} not starting with the Switchboard models but by taking the Switchboard models and doing supervised adaptation on a small amount of digit data collected in this setting . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Because that would adapt your models to the room acoustics and f for the far - field microphones , you know , to the noise . And that should really improve things , um , further . And then you use those adapted models , which are not speaker adapted but sort of acous you know , channel adapted {disfmarker} +Grad E: Channel adapted . +PhD F: use that as the starting models for your speaker adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the thing is , uh {disfmarker} I mean , w when you {disfmarker} it depends whether you 're ju were just using this as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a starter task for {disfmarker} you know , to get things going for conversational or if we 're really interested i in connected digits . And I {disfmarker} I think the answer is both . And for {disfmarker} for connected digits over the telephone you don't actually want to put a whole lot of effort into adaptation +PhD F: Well , I don't know . +Professor B: because {vocalsound} somebody {pause} gets on the phone and says a number and then you just want it . You don't {disfmarker} don't , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that one 's better . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , but , you know , I {disfmarker} uh , my impression was that you were actually interested in the far - field microphone , uh , problem , I mean . So , you want to {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} That 's the obvious thing to try . +Postdoc C: Oh . Oh . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Right ? Then , eh {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you don't have any {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's where the most m acoustic mismatch is between the currently used models and the {disfmarker} the r the set up here . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 'd be anoth another interesting data point . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm saying I don't know if we 'd want to do that as the {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Other way . +Grad E: Other way . Liz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Now you 're all watching me . +Grad E: It f it clips over your ears . +PhD A: Alright . This way . +Grad E: There you go . +Postdoc C: If you have a strong fe if you have a strong preference , you could use this . +PhD A: You 're all watching . This is terrible . +Postdoc C: It 's just we {disfmarker} we think it has some spikes . So , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't use that one . +PhD A: I 'll get it . +Postdoc C: But you could if you want . +Professor B: Yeah . At any rate , I don't know if w +Postdoc C: I don't know . And Andre - Andreas , your {disfmarker} your microphone 's a little bit low . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It is ? +Professor B: I don't know if we wanna use that as the {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh , it pivots . +PhD F: Uh . +Postdoc C: So if you see the picture +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like this . +PhD F: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and then you have to scr +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I already adjusted this a number of times . +Grad E: Eh . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I +Grad E: Yeah , I think these mikes are not working as well as I would like . +PhD F: can't quite seem to {disfmarker} Yeah , I think this contraption around your head is not {pause} working so well . +Professor B: Too many adju too many adjustments . Yeah . Anyway , what I was saying is that I {disfmarker} I think I probably wouldn't want to see that as sort of like the norm , that we compared all things to . +Postdoc C: That looks good . Yeah . +Professor B: To , uh , the {disfmarker} to have {disfmarker} have all this ad all this , uh , adaptation . But I think it 's an important data point , if you 're {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Um . The other thing that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} of course , what Barry was looking at was {disfmarker} was just that , the near versus far . And , yeah , the adaptation would get {vocalsound} th some of that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , I think even {disfmarker} even if there was , uh , only a factor of two or something , like I was saying in the email , I think that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's a big factor . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: N +Grad E: Liz , you could also just use the other mike if you 're having problems with that one . +Postdoc C: Well . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . This would be OK . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we think that this has spikes on it , +PhD A: It 's this thing 's {disfmarker} This is too big for my head . +Postdoc C: so it 's not as good acoustically , +PhD F: Yeah , basically your ears are too big . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , mine are too . E th everybody 's ears are too big for these things . +PhD A: No , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} But this is too big for my head . So , I mean , {comment} {comment} it doesn't {disfmarker} you know , it 's sit +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , if you 'd rather have this one then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , well . +Professor B: It 's {pause} great . +Grad E: So the {disfmarker} To get that , uh , pivoted this way , it pivots like this . +PhD A: No this way . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . There you go . +Postdoc C: And there 's a screw that you can tighten . +Grad E: And then it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: I already {pause} tried to get it close . +Postdoc C: Good . +Grad E: So if it doesn't bounce around too much , that 's actually good placement . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: That looks good . +Grad E: But it looks like it 's gonna bounce a lot . +Professor B: So , where were we ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Digits . Adaptation . +Professor B: Uh , adaptation , non - adaptation , um , factor of two , um {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . I know what I was go w +PhD F: What k u By the way , wh what factor of two did you {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Oh , no , no . +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's tha that {disfmarker} that we were saying , you know , well is {disfmarker} how much worse is far than near , you know . +PhD F: Oh , th OK . +Professor B: And I mean it depends on which one you 're looking at , +PhD F: That factor of two . +Professor B: but for the everybody , it 's {vocalsound} little under a factor or two . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I know what I was thinking was that maybe , uh , i i we could actually t t try at least looking at , uh , some of the {disfmarker} the large vocabulary speech from a far microphone , at least from the good one . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , before I thought we 'd get , you know , a hundred and fifty percent error or something , but if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if , uh {disfmarker} if we 're getting thirty - five , forty percent or something , {vocalsound} u um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Actually if you run , though , on a close - talking mike over the whole meeting , during all those silences , you get , like , four hundred percent word error . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . I understand . But doing the same kind of limited thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} or some high number . +Professor B: Yeah , sure . Get all these insertions . But I 'm saying if you do the same kind of limited thing {vocalsound} as people have done in Switchboard evaluations or as {disfmarker} a +PhD A: Yeah . Where you know who the speaker is and there 's no overlap ? And you do just the far - field for those regions ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . The same sort of numbers that we got those graphs from . Right ? +Grad E: Could we do exactly the same thing that we 're doing now , but do it with a far - field mike ? +Professor B: Yeah , do it with one of {disfmarker} on +Grad E: Cuz we extract the times from the near - field mike , but you use the acoustics from the far - field mike . +PhD A: Right . I understand that . I just meant that {disfmarker} so you have {pause} three choices . There 's , um {disfmarker} You can use times where that person is talking only from the transcripts but the segmentations were {disfmarker} were synchronized . Or you can do a forced alignment on the close - talking to determine that , the you know , within this segment , these really were the times that this person was talking and elsewhere in the segment other people are overlapping and just front - end those pieces . Or you can run it on the whole data , which is {disfmarker} which is , you know , a {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but how did we get the {disfmarker} how did we determine the links , uh , that we 're testing on in the stuff we reported ? +PhD A: In the H L T paper we took {pause} segments that are channel {disfmarker} time - aligned , which is now h being changed in the transcription process , which is good , and we took cases where the transcribers said there was only one person talking here , because no one else had time {disfmarker} any words in that segment and called that "" non - overlap "" . +Professor B: And tha And that 's what we were getting those numbers from . +PhD A: Yes . Tho - good {disfmarker} the good numbers . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: The bad numbers were from {pause} the segments where there was overlap . +Professor B: Well , we could start with the good ones . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But anyway {disfmarker} so I think that we should try it once with {vocalsound} the same conditions that were used to create those , and in those same segments just use one of the P Z +PhD A: Right . So we {disfmarker} we can do that . Yeah . +Professor B: And then , you know , I mean , the thing is if we were getting , uh {disfmarker} what , thirty - five , forty percent , something like that on {disfmarker} on that particular set , uh , does it go to seventy or eighty ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Or , does it use up so much memory we can't decode it ? +PhD A: It might also depend on which speaker th it is and how close they are to the PZM ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know how different they are from each other . +PhD F: You want to probably choose the PZM channel that is closest to the speaker . +PhD A: To be best {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: For this particular digit ones , I just picked that one . +PhD A: f +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . So we would then use that one , too , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: This is kind of central . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} so i but I would {disfmarker} I 'd pick that one . It 'll be less good for some people than for other , but I {disfmarker} I 'd like to see it on the same {disfmarker} exact same data set that {disfmarker} that we did the other thing on . +Grad E: Actually {disfmarker} I sh actually should 've picked a different one , +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: because {pause} that could be why the PDA is worse . Because it 's further away from most of the people reading digits . +PhD D: It 's further away . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's probably one of the reasons . +Postdoc C: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Well , yeah . You could look at , I guess , that PZM or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: But the other is , it 's very , uh {disfmarker} I mean , even though there 's {disfmarker} I 'm sure the f f the {disfmarker} the SRI , uh , front - end has some kind of pre - emphasis , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} still , th it 's picking up lots of low - frequency energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , even discriminating against it , I 'm sure some of it 's getting through . Um . But , yeah , you 're right . Prob - a part of it is just the distance . +PhD A: And aren't these pretty bad microphones ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , they 're bad . But , I mean , if you listen to it , it sounds OK . You know ? u Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . When you listen to it , uh , the PZM and the PDA {disfmarker} Yeah , th the PDA has higher sound floor but not by a lot . It 's really pretty {disfmarker} uh , pretty much the same . +PhD A: I just remember you saying you got them to be cheap on purpose . Cheap in terms of their quality . So . +Professor B: Well , they 're {pause} twenty - five cents or so . +Grad E: Th - we wanted them to be {disfmarker} to be typical of what would be in a PDA . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So they are {disfmarker} they 're not the PZM three hundred dollar type . They 're the twenty - five cent , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: buy them in packs of thousand type . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: But , I mean , the thing is people use those little mikes for everything because they 're really not bad . +Grad E: Everything . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're not {vocalsound} doing something ridiculous like feeding it to a speech recognizer , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} you know , you can hear the sou hear the sounds just fine . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} I mean , i it 's more or less the same principles as these other mikes are built under , it 's just that {pause} there 's less quality control . They just , you know , churn them out and don't check them . Um . So . So that was {disfmarker} Yeah . So that was i interesting result . So like I said , the front - end guys are very much interested in {disfmarker} in this is as {disfmarker} as well and +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so , but where is this now ? I mean , what 's {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad E: Yeah . That was gonna be my question . +PhD F: I mean , we {disfmarker} so we have a {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} a system that works pretty well but it 's not , you know , the system that people here are used to using {disfmarker} to working with . +Professor B: Well , I think what we wanna do is we want to {disfmarker} eh , +PhD F: So what {disfmarker} what do we do now ? +Professor B: and we 've talked about this in other {pause} contexts {disfmarker} we want to {vocalsound} have the ability to feed it different features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , um , {vocalsound} from the point of view of the front - end research , it would be s uh , substituting for HTK . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Professor B: I think that 's the key thing . And then if we can feed it different features , then we can try all the different things that we 're trying there . +PhD F: OK . Alright . +Professor B: And then , um , uh , also Dave is {disfmarker} is thinking about using the data in different ways , uh , to {vocalsound} um , uh , explicitly work on reverberation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: starting with some techniques that some other people have {pause} found somewhat useful , and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} so the key {pause} thing that 's missing here is basically the ability to feed , you know , other features {vocalsound} i into the recognizer +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: and also then to train the system . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: OK . And , uh , es I don't know when Chuck will be back but that 's exactly what he {disfmarker} he 's gonna {disfmarker} +Professor B: H h He 's {disfmarker} he 's sort of back , but he drove for fourteen hours an and wasn't gonna make it in today . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So , I think that 's one of the things that he said he would be working on . Um . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Just sort of t to make sure that {pause} we can do that +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} uh , I mean , the {disfmarker} the front - end is f i tha that 's in the SRI recognizer is very nice in that it does a lot of things on the fly but it unfortunately {pause} is not {pause} designed and , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like the , uh , ICSI system is , where you can feed it from a pipeline of {disfmarker} of the command . So , the {disfmarker} what that means probably for the foreseeable future is that you have to , uh , dump out , um {disfmarker} you know , if you want to use some new features , you have to dump them into individual files and {pause} give those files to the recognizer . +Grad E: We do {disfmarker} we tend to do that anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: Oh . So , although you {disfmarker} you can pipe it as well , we tend to do it that way because that way you can concentrate on one block and not keep re - doing it over and over . +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So tha that 's exactly what the P - file {pause} is for . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the cumbersome thing is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} is that you actually have to dump out little {disfmarker} little files . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So for each segment that you want to recognize {vocalsound} you have to {pause} dump out {pause} a separate file . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Just like i th like th as if there were these waveform segments , but instead you have sort of feature file segments . But , you know {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Cool . OK . So the s the {disfmarker} the next thing we had on the agenda was something about alignments ? +PhD A: Oh . Yes , we have {disfmarker} I don't know , did you wanna talk about it , or {disfmarker} ? I can give a {disfmarker} I was just telling this to Jane and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} W we {disfmarker} we were able to get some definite improvement on the forced alignments by looking at them first and then realizing the kinds of errors {pause} that were occurring and um , some of the errors occurring very frequently are just things like the first word being moved to as early as possible in the recognition , which is a um , I think was both a {disfmarker} a pruning {pause} problem and possibly a problem with needing constraints on word locations . And so we tried both of these st things . We tried saying {disfmarker} I don't know , I got this {vocalsound} whacky idea that {disfmarker} just from looking at the data , that when people talk {pause} their words are usually chunked together . It 's not that they say one word and then there 's a bunch of words together . They 're {comment} might say one word and then another word far away if they were doing just backchannels ? But in general , if there 's , like , five or six words and one word 's far away from it , that 's probably wrong on average . So , um {disfmarker} And then also , ca the pruning , of course , was too {disfmarker} too severe . +PhD F: So that 's actually interesting . The pruning was the same value that we used for recognition . And we had lowered that {disfmarker} we had used tighter pruning after Liz ran some experiments showing that , you know , it runs slower and there 's no real difference in {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually it was better with {disfmarker} slightly better or about th +Grad E: No gain . +PhD A: it was the same with tighter pruning . +PhD F: Right . So for free recognition , this {disfmarker} the lower pruning value is better . +PhD A: It 's probably cuz the recognition 's just bad en at a point where it 's bad enough that {disfmarker} that you don't lose anything . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} Correct . Right . Um , but it turned out for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to get accurate alignments it was really important to open up the pruning significantly . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD F: Um {pause} because otherwise it would sort of do greedy alignment , um , in regions where there was no real speech yet from the foreground speaker . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , {vocalsound} so that was one big factor that helped improve things and then the other thing was that , you know , as Liz said the {disfmarker} we f enforce the fact that , uh , the foreground speech has to be continuous . It cannot be {disfmarker} you cannot have a background speech hypothesis in the middle of the foreground speech . You can only have background speech at the beginning and the end . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , yeah , it isn't always true , and I think what we really want is some clever way to do this , where , um , you know , from the data or from maybe some hand - corrected alignments from transcribers that things like words that do occur just by themselves {pause} a alone , like backchannels or something that we did allow to have background speech around it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: those would be able to do that , +Postdoc C: Sorry . +PhD A: but the rest would be constrained . So , I think we have a version that 's pretty good for the native speakers . I don't know yet about the non - native speakers . And , um , we basically also made noise models for the different {disfmarker} sort of grouped some of the {pause} mouth noises together . Um , so , and then there 's a background speech model . And we also {disfmarker} There was some neat {disfmarker} or , interesting cases , like there 's one meeting where , {vocalsound} um , Jose 's giving a presentation and he 's talking about , um , the word "" mixed {pause} signal "" and someone didn't understand , uh , that you were saying "" mixed "" {disfmarker} I think , Morgan . And so your speech - ch was s saying something about mixed signal . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And the next turn was a lot of people saying "" mixed "" , like "" he means mixed signal "" or "" I think it 's mixed "" . And the word "" mixed "" in this segment occurs , like , a bunch of times . +PhD H: Sh +PhD A: And Chuck 's on the lapel here , and he also says "" mixed "" but it 's at the last one , and of course the aligner th aligns it everywhere else to everybody else 's "" mixed "" , +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: cuz there 's no adaptation yet . So there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think there 's some issues about {disfmarker} u We probably want to adapt at least the foreground speaker . But , I guess Andreas tried adapting both the foreground and a background generic speaker , and that 's actually a little bit of a f funky model . Like , it gives you some weird alignments , just because often the background speakers match better to the foreground than the foreground speaker . +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So there 's some things there , +PhD H: Oh . +PhD A: especially when you get lots of the same words , uh , occurring in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you can do better by {vocalsound} uh , cloning {disfmarker} so we have a reject phone . And you {disfmarker} and what we wanted to try with {disfmarker} you know , once we have this paper written and have a little more time , {vocalsound} uh , t cloning that reject model and then one copy of it would be adapted to the foreground speaker to capture the rejects in the foreground , like fragments and stuff , and the other copy would be adapted to the background speaker . +PhD A: Right . I mean , in general we actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now the words like {pause} partial words are {pause} reject models and you normally allow those to match to any word . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But then the background speech was also a reject model , and so this constraint of not allowing rejects in between {disfmarker} you know , it needs to differentiate between the two . So just sort of working through a bunch of debugging kinds of issues . +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: And another one is turns , like people starting with {vocalsound} "" well I think "" and someone else is {pause} "" well how about "" . So the word "" well "" is in this {disfmarker} in this {pause} segment multiple times , and as soon as it occurs usually the aligner will try to align it to the first person who says it . But then that constraint of sort of {disfmarker} uh , proximity constraint will push it over to the person who really said it in general . +Grad E: Is the proximity constraint a hard constraint , or did you do some sort of probabilistic weighting distance , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: We {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now it 's a kluge . +PhD F: No . We {disfmarker} w OK . We {disfmarker} it 's straightforward to actually just have a {disfmarker} a penalty that doesn't completely disallows it but discourages it . But , um , we just didn't have time to play with , you know , tuning yet another {disfmarker} yet another parameter . +Grad E: The ve level . Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: And really the reason we can't do it is just that we don't have a {disfmarker} we don't have ground truth for these . So , {vocalsound} we would need a hand - marked , um , {vocalsound} word - level alignments or at least sort of the boundaries of the speech betw you know , between the speakers . Um , and then use that as a reference and tune the parameters of the {disfmarker} of the model , uh , to op to get the best {pause} performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: G given {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I wa I wa I was gonna ask you anyway , uh , how you assessed that things were better . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I looked at them . I spent two days {disfmarker} um , in Waves {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Oh , it was painful because {vocalsound} the thing is , you know the alignments share a lot in common , so {disfmarker} And you 're {disfmarker} yo you 're looking at these segments where there 's a lot of speech . I mean , a lot of them have a lot of words . Not by every speaker +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but by some speaker there 's a lot of words . No , not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean that if you look at the individual segments from just one person you don't see a lot of words , +PhD H: Ju +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but altogether you 'll see a lot of words up there . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And so the reject is also mapping and pauses {disfmarker} So I looked at them all in Waves and just lined up all the alignments , and , at first it sort of looked like a mess and then the more I looked at it , I thought "" OK , well it 's moving these words leftward and {disfmarker} "" You know , it wasn't that bad . It was just doing certain things wrong . So {disfmarker} But , I don't , you know , have time to l {comment} to look at all of them and it would be really useful to have , like , a {disfmarker} a transcriber who could use Waves , um , just mark , like , the beginning and end of the foreground speaker 's real words {disfmarker} like , the beginning of the first word , the end of the last word {disfmarker} and then we could , you know , do some adjustments . +Postdoc C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} OK . I have to ask you something , is i does it have to be Waves ? Because if we could benefit from what you did , incorporate that into the present transcripts , {comment} that would help . +PhD F: No . +Postdoc C: And then , um , the other thing is , I believe that I did hand So . One of these transcripts was gone over by a transcriber and then I hand - marked it myself so that we do have , uh , the beginning and ending of individual utterances . Um , I didn't do it word level , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but in terms {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So I {disfmarker} so for {disfmarker} for one of the N S A groups . And also I went back to the original one that I first transcribed and {disfmarker} and did it w uh , w uh , utterance by utterance for that particular one . So I think you do have {disfmarker} if that 's a sufficient unit , I think that you do have hand - marking for that . But it 'd be wonderful to be able to {vocalsound} benefit from your Waves stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: We don't care what {disfmarker} what tool you use . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , if {disfmarker} if you can , um {disfmarker} if you wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . I used it in Transcriber +PhD F: U uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: well , Jane and I were {disfmarker} just in terms of the tool , talking about this . I guess Sue had had some {pause} reactions . You know , interface - wise if you 're looking at speech , you wanna be able to know really where the words are . And so , {vocalsound} we can give you some examples of sort of what this output looks like , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . Middle of the word , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: um , and see if you can in maybe incorporate it into the Transcriber tool some way , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , I th I 'm thinking just ch e e incorporating it into the representation . +PhD A: Um . +Postdoc C: I mean , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: You mean like {disfmarker} Yeah , word start insights . +Postdoc C: if you have start points , if you have , like , time tags , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which is what I assume . Isn't that what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} ? Well , see , Adam would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , whatever you use . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , we convert it to this format that the , um , NIST scoring tool unders uh , CTM . Conversation Time - Marked file . And {disfmarker} and then that 's the {disfmarker} that 's what the {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think Transcriber , uh , outputs CTM . +Postdoc C: If it {disfmarker} ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: So you would know this more than I would . +Grad E: I think so . +PhD A: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It seems like she {disfmarker} if she 's g if she 's moving time marks around , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: since our representation in Transcriber uses time marks , it seems like there should be some way of {disfmarker} of using that {disfmarker} benefitting from that . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Yeah , it wou the advantage would just be that when you brought up a bin you would be able {disfmarker} if you were zoomed in enough in Transcriber to see all the words , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: you would be able to , like , have the words sort of located in time , if you wanted to do that . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if we e e even just had a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} It sounds like w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we almost do . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: Uh , if we {disfmarker} We have two . +Postdoc C: We have two . +Professor B: Yeah . Just ha uh , trying out {pause} the alignment {vocalsound} procedure that you have on that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you could actually get something , um {disfmarker} uh , uh , get an objective measure . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You mean on {disfmarker} on the hand - marked , um {disfmarker} So we {disfmarker} we only r hav I only looked at actually alignments from one meeting that we chose , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I think MR four , just randomly , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually , not randomly . +PhD A: Not randomly {disfmarker} +PhD F: We knew {disfmarker} we knew that it had these insertion errors from {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had sort of {pause} average recognition performance in a bunch of speakers +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and it was a Meeting Recorder meeting . Um . But , yeah , we should try to use what you have . I did re - run recognition on your new version of MR one . +Postdoc C: Oh , good . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the one with Dan {pause} Ellis in it {vocalsound} and Eric . +Postdoc C: Good ! Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: I don't think that was the new version . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} Yeah , actually it wasn't the new new , it was the medium new . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but we would {disfmarker} we should do the {disfmarker} the latest version . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: It was the one from last week . +Grad G: You {disfmarker} did you adjust the {disfmarker} the utterance times , um , for each channel ? +Postdoc C: Yes . Yes , I did . And furthermore , I found that there were a certain number where {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not {disfmarker} not a lot , but several times I actually {vocalsound} moved an utterance from {vocalsound} Adam 's channel to Dan 's or from Dan 's to Adam 's . So there was some speaker identif And the reason was because {vocalsound} I transcribed that at a point before {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , before we had the multiple audio available f so I couldn't switch between the audio . I {disfmarker} I transcribed it off of the mixed channel entirely , which meant in overlaps , I was at a {disfmarker} at a terrific disadvantage . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Postdoc C: In addition it was before the channelized , uh , possibility was there . And finally I did it using the speakers of my , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , off the CPU on my {disfmarker} on my machine cuz I didn't have a headphone . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: So it @ @ , like , I mean {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , i in retrospect {vocalsound} it would 've been good to ha {vocalsound} have got I should 've gotten a headphone . But in any case , um , thi this is {disfmarker} this was transcribed in a {disfmarker} in a , {vocalsound} uh , less optimal way than {disfmarker} than the ones that came after it , and I was able to {disfmarker} you know , an and this meant that there were some speaker identif identifications which were changes . +Grad G: Well , I know there were some speaker labelling problems , um , after interruptions . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Fixed that . +Grad G: Is that what you 're referring to ? I mean , cuz there 's this one instance when , for example , you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Oh , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: I remember this meeting really well . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Don {disfmarker} Don has had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He knows {disfmarker} he can just read it like a play . +Grad G: Right . It 's a {disfmarker} Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 'm very well acquainted with this meeting . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I can s +PhD A: "" And then she said , and then he said . "" +Grad G: Yeah , I know it by heart . So , um , {vocalsound} there 's one point when you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Uh - oh . +Grad G: Right ? And , like , there 's an interruption . You interrupt somebody , but then there 's no line after that . For example , there 's no speaker identification after that line . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Is that what you 're talking about ? Or were there mislabellings as far as , like , the a Adam was {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: That was fixed , um , before {disfmarker} i i i I think I I think I understood that pretty {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Cuz I thought I let you know about that . +Postdoc C: Thank you for mentioning . Yeah , no , tha that {disfmarker} That I think went away a couple of versions ago , +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Postdoc C: but it 's good to know . +Grad G: But you 're actually saying that certain , uh , speakers were mis mis - identified . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So , with {disfmarker} under {disfmarker} um , uh , listening to the mixed channel , there were times when , as surprising as that is , I got Adam 's voice confused with Dan 's and vice versa {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Postdoc C: not for long utterances , +Grad G: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: but jus just a couple of places , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and embedde embedded in overlaps . The other thing that was w interesting to me was that I picked up a lot of , um , backchannels which were hidden in the mixed signal , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which , you know , I mean , you c not {disfmarker} not too surprising . But the other thing that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hadn't thought about this , but I thou I wanted to raise this when you were {disfmarker} uh , with respect to also a strategy which might help with the alignments potentially , but that 's {disfmarker} When I was looking at these backchannels , they were turning up usually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very often in {disfmarker} w well , I won't say "" usually "" {disfmarker} but anyway , very often , I picked them up in a channel {vocalsound} w which was the person who had asked a question . S so , like , someone says "" an and have you done the so - and - so ? "" And then there would be backchannels , but it would be the person who asked the question . Other people weren't really doing much backchannelling . And , you know , sometimes you have the {disfmarker} Yeah , uh - huh . +PhD A: Well , that 's interesting . Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean , i it wouldn't be perfect , but {disfmarker} but it does seem more natural to give a backchannel when {disfmarker} when you 're somehow involved in the topic , +PhD A: No , that 's really interesting . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and the most natural way is for you to have initiated the topic by asking a question . +PhD F: Well , +PhD A: That 's interesting . +PhD F: I think {disfmarker} No . I think it 's {disfmarker} actually I think what 's going on is backchannelling is something that happens in two - party conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And if you ask someone a question , you essentially initiating a little two - party conversation . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , actu Yeah , when we looked at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD F: So then you 're {disfmarker} so and then you 're expected to backchannel because the person is addressing you directly and not everybody . +Postdoc C: Exactly . Exactly my point . An - and so this is the expectation thing that {disfmarker} uh , uh , +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: just the dyadic {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: But in addition , you know , if someone has done this analysis himself and isn't involved in the dyad , but they might also give backchannels to verify what {disfmarker} what the answer is that this {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the answerer 's given {disfmarker} +Professor B: H +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: I tell you , I say {disfmarker} I say "" uh - huh "" a lot , +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: There you go . +PhD A: Well , but it 's interesting cuz , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: while people are talking to each other . +PhD A: But there are fewer {disfmarker} I think there are fewer "" uh - huhs "" . +Postdoc C: There you go . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , just from {disfmarker} We were looking at word frequency lists to try to find the cases that we would allow to have the reject words in between in doing the alignment . You know the ones we wouldn't constrain to be next to the other words . +Postdoc C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: And "" uh - huh "" is not as frequent as it sort of would be in Switchboard , if you looked at just a word frequency list of one - word short utterances . And "" yeah "" is way up there , but not "" uh - huh "" . And so I was thinking thi it 's not like {pause} you 're being encouraged by everybody else to keep {pause} talking in the meeting . And uh , that 's all , I I 'll stop there , cuz I I think what you say makes a lot of sense . +Postdoc C: Well , that 's right . And that would {disfmarker} +PhD A: But it was sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , an And what you say is the {disfmarker} is the re uh , o other side of this , which is that , you know , so th there are lots of channels where you don't have these backchannels , w when a question has been asked and {disfmarker} and these {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . There 's just probably less backchannelling in general , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . So that 's good news , really . +PhD A: even if you consider every other person altogether one person in the meeting , but we 'll find out anyway . We were {disfmarker} I guess the other thing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} I should say is that we 're gonna , um try {disfmarker} compare this type of overlap analysis to Switchboard , where {disfmarker} +PhD F: And +PhD A: and CallHome , where we have both sides , so that we can try to answer this question of , you know , {vocalsound} is there really more overlap in meetings or is it just because we don't have the other channel in Switchboard +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and we don't know what people are doing . Try to create a paper out of that . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , y y you folks have probably {pause} already told me , but were {disfmarker} were you intending to do a Eurospeech submission , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , you mean the one due tomorrow ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , we 're still , like , writing the scripts for doing the research , and we will {disfmarker} Yes , we 're gonna try . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I was telling Don , do not {pause} take this as an example of how people should work . +Professor B: Do as I say , +Grad G: That 's r +PhD A: So , {comment} we will try . +Professor B: don't do as I do . Yeah . +PhD A: It 'll probably be a little late , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm gonna try it . +Grad E: It is different . In previous years , Eurospeech only had the abstract due by now , not the full paper . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: And so all our timing was off . I 've given up on trying to do digits . I just don't think that what I have so far makes a Eurospeech paper . +PhD A: Well , I 'm no We may be in the same position , and I figured {vocalsound} we 'll try , because that 'll at least get us to the point where we have {disfmarker} We have this really nice database format that Andreas and I were working out that {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's not very fancy . It 's just a ASCII line by line format , but it does give you information {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's the spurt format . +PhD A: It {disfmarker} Yeah , we 're calling these "" spurts "" after Chafe . I was trying to find what 's a word for {pause} a continuous region with {pause} pauses around it ? +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I know that th the Telecom people use {disfmarker} use "" spurt "" for that . +Postdoc C: Good . +PhD A: They do ? Oh ! +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: And that 's {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was using that for a while when I was doing the rate of speech stuff , +PhD A: I would jus +Professor B: because I {disfmarker} because I looked up in some books and I found {disfmarker} OK , I wanna find a spurt {vocalsound} in which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , right ! It 's just , like , defined by the acoustics . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} an because {disfmarker} cuz it 's another question about how {pause} many pauses they put in between them . +Grad E: Horrible . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But how fast do they do {pause} the words within the spurt ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , that 's what we were calling spurt , +Grad E: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: you know "" Burst "" also ? +Grad E: Burst . +Grad G: Isn't "" burst "" is used also ? +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: Spurt has the horrible name overloading with other {disfmarker} with hardware at ICSI . +Professor B: Here . Just very locally , yeah . +PhD A: Well , well , Chafe had this wor I think it was Chafe , or somebody had a {disfmarker} the word "" spurt "" originally , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but that just {disfmarker} +PhD H: Here @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD A: and so I {disfmarker} But tha that 's good to know . +Postdoc C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: Was thi it 's Chafe ? +Postdoc C: Well , see , I know S Sue wrote about spurts of development . +PhD F: So maybe we should talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe it was Sue {disfmarker} ? Y +Postdoc C: But , in any case , I think it 's a good term , +PhD A: So we have spurts and we have spurt - ify dot shell and spurt - ify +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: And ma maybe {disfmarker} maybe Chafe did . +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: And then it 's got all {disfmarker} it 's a verb now . +Postdoc C: I know {disfmarker} I know Ch - Chafe dealt with {disfmarker} +PhD F: So s +Grad G: That 's cool . +PhD F: W uh , w +Postdoc C: Chafe speaks about intonation units . +PhD A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc C: But maybe he speaks about spurts as well +PhD F: We +Postdoc C: and I just don't know . Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: I 've heard "" burst "" also . +PhD F: So what we 're doing {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} maybe someone has s some {disfmarker} some ideas about how to do it better , +Grad G: Mmm . +PhD F: but we {disfmarker} So we 're taking these , uh , alignments from the individual channels . We 're {disfmarker} from each alignment we 're producing , uh , one of these CTM files , +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD F: which essentially has {disfmarker} it 's just a linear sequence of words with the begin times for every word and the duration . +PhD A: It looks like a Waves label file almost . Right ? +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and of course {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it has {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} the first column has the meeting name , so it could actually contain several meetings . Um . And the second column is the channel . Third column is the , um , start times of the words and the fourth column is the duration of the words . And then we 're , um {disfmarker} OK . Then we have a messy alignment process where we actually insert into the sequence of words the , uh , tags for , like , where {disfmarker} where sentence {disfmarker} ends of sentence , question marks , um , {vocalsound} various other things . +PhD A: Yeah . These are things that we had Don {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: So , Don sort of , um , propagated the punctuation from the original transcriber {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: so whether it was , like , question mark or period or , {vocalsound} um , you know , comma and things like that , and we kept the {disfmarker} and disfluency dashes {disfmarker} uh , kept those in because we sort of wanna know where those are relative to the spurt overlaps {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: sp overlaps , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so those are actually sort of retro - fitted into the time alignment . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: And then we merge all the alignments from the various channels and we sort them by time . And then there 's a {disfmarker} then there 's a process where you now determine the spurts . That is {disfmarker} Actually , no , you do that before you merge the various channels . So you {disfmarker} you id identify by some criterion , which is pause length {disfmarker} you identify the beginnings and ends of these spurts , and you put another set of tags in there to keep those straight . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And then you merge everything in terms of , you know , linearizing the sequence based on the time marks . And then {vocalsound} you extract the individual channels again , but this time you know where the other people start and end talking {disfmarker} you know , where their spurts start and end . And so you extract the individual channels , uh , one sp spurt by spurt as it were . Um , and inside the words or between the words you now have begin and end {pause} tags for overlaps . So , you {disfmarker} you basically have everything sort of lined up and in a form where you can look at the individual speakers and how their speech relates to the other speakers ' speech . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Uh , I mean , I think that 's actually really u useful also +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: because even if you weren't studying overlaps , if you wanna get a transcription for the far - field mikes , how are you gonna know which words from which speakers occurred at which times relative to each other ? You have to be able to {pause} get a transcript like {disfmarker} like this anyway , just for doing far - field recognition . So , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: I thi it 's just an issue we haven't dealt with before , how you time - align things that are overlapping anyway . +Postdoc C: That 's wonderful . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , i I never thought about it before , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Y yes . +PhD F: In {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , s when I came up with the original data {disfmarker} suggested data format based on the transcription graph , there 's capability of doing that sort of thing in there . +PhD A: Right . But you can't get it directly from the transcription . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: Right . Well , this is {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , this is like a poor man 's ver formatting version . But it 's , you know {disfmarker} It 's clean , it 's just not fancy . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Um . +PhD F: Well , there 's lots of little things . It 's like there 're twelve different scripts which you run and then at the end you have what you want . But , um , at the very last stage we throw away the actual time information . All we care about is whether {disfmarker} that there 's a certain word was overlapped by someone else 's word . So you sort of {disfmarker} at that point , you discretize things into just having overlap or no overlap . Because we figure that 's about the level of analysis that we want to do for this paper . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But if you wanted to do a more fine - grained analysis and say , you know , how far into the word is the overlap , you could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just {disfmarker} it 'll just require more {disfmarker} +PhD A: Just {pause} sort of huge . +PhD F: you know , slightly different {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: What 's interesting is it 's exactly what , um , i in discussing with , um , Sue about this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: um , she , um , i i i indicated that that {disfmarker} you know , that 's very important for overlap analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to know , +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: and also I think as a human , like , I don't always hear these in the actual order that they occur . So I can have two foreground speakers , you know , Morgan an and {vocalsound} um , Adam and Jane could all be talking , and I could align each of them to be starting their utterance at the correct time , and then look where they are relative to each other , and that 's not really what I heard . +Postdoc C: And that 's another thing she said . +PhD A: Cuz it 's just hard to do . +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} This is Bever 's {disfmarker} Bever 's effect , +PhD A: Y Yeah . +Postdoc C: when {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} In psy ps psycho - linguistics you have these experiments where people have perceptual biases a as to what they hear , +PhD A: It 's sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , you sort of move things around until you get to a {pause} low information point +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Not the best {disfmarker} +PhD A: and yo then you can bring in the other person . So it 's {vocalsound} actually not even possible , I think , for any person to listen to a mixed signal , even equalize , and make sure that they have all the words in the right order . So , I guess , we 'll try to write this Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Superb . +PhD A: I mean , we will write it . Whether they accept it {pause} late or not , I don't know . Um , and the good thing is that we have {disfmarker} It 's sort of a beginning of what Don can use to link the prosodic features from each file to each other . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's the good thing about these pape +PhD A: So . i You know , might as well . +PhD F: Plus , mayb +PhD H: Hmm ? +PhD A: We - I ju Otherwise we won't get the work done {comment} {vocalsound} on our deadline . +PhD F: I don't know , m +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , u u Jane likes to look at data . Maybe , you know , you could {disfmarker} you could look at this format and see if you find anything interesting . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} that 's the good thing about these pape paper deadlines and , uh , you know , class projects , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and things like that , +Postdoc C: Well , what I 'm thinking is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , my {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well th th the other thing that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that yo that you usually don't tell your graduate students is that these deadlines are actually not that , um , you know , strictly enforced , +Professor B: because you {disfmarker} you really get g +PhD A: Forces you to do the work . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad E: Strict . +PhD F: because {pause} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , now it 's out in the public , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this secret information . +PhD F: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I think we can ha +PhD F: bec b {vocalsound} Nah {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: No . +Professor B: No . +Postdoc C: Nah . +PhD F: i Because these {disfmarker} the conference organizers actually have an interest in getting lots of submissions . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: I mean , a {disfmarker} a monetary interest . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um . +Professor B: Th - that 's {disfmarker} that 's true . +Postdoc C: And good ones , good ones , which sometimes means {pause} a little extra time . +PhD F: And good submission +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD F: Well {disfmarker} That 's another issue , +Professor B: By th by the way , this is totally unfair , you may {disfmarker} you may feel , +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the morning meeting folks actually have an {disfmarker} an extra month or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad E: Yep . The Aurora {disfmarker} there 's a special Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: When {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's a special Aurora session +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: and the Aurora pe people involved in Aurora have till Ma - uh , early May {pause} or something to turn in their paper . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh , well maybe we 'll submit to s {comment} {vocalsound} Actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , then you can just {disfmarker} Maybe you can submit the digits paper on e for the Aurora session . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I could ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I if it w +Grad E: I could submit that to Aurora . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: That would be pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: i it has {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: +Grad E: S That wouldn't work . +Professor B: No , it wouldn't work . +Grad E: It 's not Aurora . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the Aurora {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the Aurora task . +PhD A: Maybe they 'll get s +Grad E: Aurora 's very specific . +Professor B: It +PhD A: Well , maybe it won't be after this {vocalsound} deadline {pause} extension . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but the people {disfmarker} I mean , a {disfmarker} a paper that is not on Aurora would probably be more interesting at that point +PhD A: Maybe they 'll {disfmarker} +PhD F: because everybody 's so sick and tired of the Aurora task . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I thought you meant this was just the digits section . I didn't know you meant it was Aurora digits . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , no . If you {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} it 's to {disfmarker} if you discuss some relation to the Aurora task , like if you use the same {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is not the Aurora task . So they just do a little grep for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do {disfmarker} uh , d d Do not {disfmarker} do not {disfmarker} we are not setting a good example . +PhD F: Um . Well , a relation other than negation , maybe , +PhD A: This is not a {disfmarker} +PhD F: um . So . +PhD A: Anyway . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: But the good thing is this does {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I I don't know . I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do a paper on {pause} what 's wrong with the Aurora task by comparing it to {pause} other ways of doing it . +PhD F: How well does an Aurora system do on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} you know , on digits collected in a {disfmarker} in this environment ? +PhD H: +Grad E: Different way . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Maybe . +PhD F: Maybe . +Grad E: Pretty hokey . +Professor B: I think it 's a littl little far - fetched . Nah , I mean , the thing is Aurora 's pretty closed community . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: I mean , you know , the people who were involved in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the only people who are allowed to test on that are people who {disfmarker} who made it above a certain threshold in the first round , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's very specific . +Professor B: uh {vocalsound} w in ninety - nine and it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not like a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , that 's maybe why they don't f know that they have a crummy system . I mean , a crummy back - end . No , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , seriously , if you {disfmarker} if you have a very {disfmarker} No , I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} "" beep "" {vocalsound} "" bee "" +Grad E: I mean , th +PhD F: No . I didn't mean anybody {disfmarker} any particular system . I meant this H T K back - end . +Professor B: Oh , you don't like HTK ? +PhD F: If they {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't h I don't have any stock in HTK or Entropic or anything . +Professor B: No . I mean , this {disfmarker} it it 's the HTK {pause} that is trained on a very limited amount of data . +Grad E: It 's d it 's very specific . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But so , if you {disfmarker} But maybe you should , you know , consider more {disfmarker} using more data , or {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I really think that that 's true . And they i i +PhD F: If yo if you sort of hermetically stay within one task and don't look left and right , then you 're gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: But they {disfmarker} they had {disfmarker} +Professor B: i But {disfmarker} +Grad E: They had something very specific in mind when they designed it . Right ? +Professor B: Well , u i +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} you can argue about maybe that wasn't the right thing to do , but , you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they had something specific . +Professor B: But , one of the reasons I have Chuck 's messing around with {disfmarker} with the back - end that you 're not supposed to touch {disfmarker} I mean , for the evaluations , yes , we 'll run a version that hasn't been touched . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , one of the reasons I have him messing around with that , because I think it 's sort of an open question that we don't know the answer to . People always say very glibly {vocalsound} that i if you s show improvement on a bad system , that doesn't mean anything , cuz it may not be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} show {disfmarker} uh , because , you know , it doesn't tell you anything about the good system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I {disfmarker} I 've always sort of felt that that depends . You know , that if some peopl If you 're actually are getting at something that has some {pause} conceptual substance to it , it will port . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And in fact , most methods that people now use were originally tried with something that was not their absolute {pause} best system at some level . But of course , sometimes it doesn't , uh , port . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting question . If we 're getting {pause} three percent error on , uh , u uh , English , uh , nati native speakers , {vocalsound} um , using the Aurora system , and we do some improvements and bring it from three to two , {vocalsound} do those same improvements bring , uh , th you know , the SRI system from one point three to {disfmarker} you know , to {vocalsound} point eight ? +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Zero . +Professor B: Well . You know , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's something we can test . +PhD F: Mmm . Right . +Professor B: So . Anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think we 've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 've covered that one up extremely well . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Whew ! +Professor B: OK . So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . So tha so we 'll {disfmarker} you know , maybe you guys 'll have {disfmarker} have one . Uh , you {disfmarker} you and , uh {disfmarker} and Dan have {disfmarker} have a paper that {disfmarker} that 's going in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty solid , on the segmentation {pause} stuff . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . I will send you the {disfmarker} the final version , +Professor B: Yeah . And the Aurora folks here will {disfmarker} will definitely get something in on Aurora , +PhD D: which is not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually this {disfmarker} this , um {disfmarker} So , there 's another paper . +Professor B: so . +PhD F: It 's a Eurospeech paper but not related to meetings . But it 's on digits . So , um , uh , a colleague at SRI developed a improved version of MMIE training . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And he tested it mostly on digits because it 's sort of a {disfmarker} you know , it doesn't take weeks to train it . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Um . And got some very impressive results , um , with , you know , discriminative , uh , Gaussian training . Um , you know , like , um , error rates {pause} go from {disfmarker} I don't know , in very noisy environment , like from , uh , uh {disfmarker} I for now I {disfmarker} OK , now I have the order of magnit I 'm not sure about the order of magnitude . Was it like from ten percent to {vocalsound} eight percent or from e e you know , point {disfmarker} you know , from one percent to point eight percent ? +Professor B: H i it got {disfmarker} it got better . +PhD F: I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: It got better . That 's the important thing . +Grad E: Hey , that 's the same percent relative , +PhD F: Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's , uh , something in {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Twenty percent relative gain . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} let 's see . I think the only thing we had left was {disfmarker} unless somebody else {disfmarker} Well , there 's a couple things . Uh , one is {pause} anything that , um , {vocalsound} anybody has to say about Saturday ? Anything we should do in prep for Saturday ? Um {disfmarker} I guess everybody knows about {disfmarker} I mean , u um , Mari was asking {disfmarker} was trying to come up with something like an agenda and we 're sort of fitting around people 's times a bit . But , um , {vocalsound} clearly when we actually get here we 'll {pause} move things around this , as we need to , but {disfmarker} so you can't absolutely count on it . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Are we meeting in here probably or {disfmarker} ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That was my thought . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think this is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are we recording it ? +PhD A: We won't have enough microphones , +Professor B: +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: u No . I {disfmarker} I hadn't in intended to . +PhD A: There 's no way . +Professor B: We won we wanna {disfmarker} I mean , they 're {disfmarker} there 's gonna be , uh , Jeff , Katrin , Mari and two students . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: So there 's five {pause} from there . +Grad E: And Brian . +Professor B: And Brian 's coming , +PhD F: But you know th +Professor B: so that 's six . +Grad E: And plus all of us . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Can use the Oprah mike . +PhD A: Depends how fast you can {pause} throw it . +Grad E: It seems like too many {disfmarker} too much coming and going . +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We don't even have enough channel {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because it would be a different kind of meeting , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: I hadn't {pause} really thought of it , +PhD F: Maybe just {disfmarker} maybe not the whole day +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: but just , you know , maybe some {disfmarker} I mean , +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +PhD F: part of it ? +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +Grad E: Make everyone read digits . +Professor B: At the same time . +PhD A: At the same time . +Grad E: At the same time . +PhD F: Please . +PhD H: +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: We c +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD A: That 's their initiation into our +Professor B: Any +PhD A: w +Grad E: Into our {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our cult . +PhD A: Yeah , our {disfmarker} Yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD F: Maybe the sections that are not right afte you know , after lunch when everybody 's still munching and {disfmarker} +PhD A: So can you send out a schedule once you know it , jus ? +Professor B: OK . Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is there a r ? +Professor B: OK . Yeah . I guess I sent it around a little bit . +PhD A: There 's a res Is it changed now , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: But {disfmarker} I hadn't heard back from Mari after I {disfmarker} I u u uh , brought up the point abou about Andreas 's schedule . So , {vocalsound} um , maybe when I get back there 'll be {pause} some {disfmarker} some mail from her . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: So , I 'll make a {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'm looking forward to seeing your representation . That 'd be , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: And w we should get {pause} the two meetings from y +Postdoc C: I 'd like to see that . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , I know about the first meeting , um , but the other one that you did , the NSA one , which we {pause} hadn't done cuz we weren't running recognition on it , because the non - native speaker {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: there were five non - native speakers . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . I see . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But , it would be useful for the {disfmarker} to see what we get {pause} with that one . So . +Postdoc C: Great . OK . It 's , uh , two thousand eleven twenty - one one thousand . +PhD A: Yeah , three . Right . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Great . I sent email when I finished the {disfmarker} that one . +PhD A: N S A three , I think . +Postdoc C: That was sort of son Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . That 's much simpler . +PhD A: I don't know what they said but I know the number . +Professor B: Th - that part 's definitely gonna confuse somebody who looks at these later . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I mean , this is {disfmarker} we we 're recording secret NSA meetings ? +PhD F: Um . Not the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Not that NSA . +PhD F: Uh . The {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} +PhD A: They are hard to understand . +Professor B: It 's network services and applications . +PhD F: Wait . +PhD A: They 're very , uh , out there . +PhD F: The {disfmarker} +PhD A: I have no idea what they 're talking about . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: The , um {disfmarker} th the other good thing about the alignments is that , um , it 's not always the machine 's fault if it doesn't work . So , you can actually find , um , +PhD A: It 's the person 's fault . +PhD F: problem {disfmarker} uh , proble +PhD A: It 's Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's always Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find , uh , problems with {disfmarker} with the transcripts , um , you know , +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: and go back and fix them . +PhD A: Tha - There are some cases like where the {disfmarker} the wrong speaker {disfmarker} uh , these ca Not a lot , but where the {disfmarker} the wrong person {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech is addre attached to the wrong speaker +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: and you can tell that when you run it . Or at least you can get {pause} clues to it . +Postdoc C: Interesting . +PhD A: So these are from the early transcriptions that people did on the mixed signals , like what you have . +Postdoc C: I guess it does w Mm - hmm . It also raises the possibility of , um , using that kind of representation {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , this 'd be something we 'd wanna check , {comment} but maybe using that representation for data entry and then displaying it on the channelized , uh , representation , cuz it {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} I mean , my {disfmarker} my preference in terms of , like , looking at the data is to see it {pause} in this kind of musical score format . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And also , s you know , Sue 's preference as well . +PhD A: Yeah , if you can get it to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but , I mean , this {disfmarker} if this is a better interface for making these kinds of , uh , you know , lo clos local changes , then that 'd be fine , too . I don't {disfmarker} I have no idea . I think this is something that would need to be checked . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Th - the other thing I had actually was , I {disfmarker} I didn't realize this till today , but , uh , this is , uh , Jose 's last day . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD H: Is my last {disfmarker} my last day . +PhD A: Oh ! +Postdoc C: Oh . +PhD F: Oh ! +Grad E: You 're not gonna be here tomorrow ? +PhD H: My {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my last meeting {pause} about meetings . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . Tomorrow {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: The last meeting meeting ? +PhD H: Because , eh , I leave , eh , the next Sunday . +Grad E: It 's off . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: I will come back to home {disfmarker} to Spain . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I d so I {disfmarker} I jus +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: And I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to say thank you very much , eh , to all people {pause} in the group and at ICSI , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . It was good having you . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD H: because I {disfmarker} I enjoyed @ @ very much , +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD H: uh . And I 'm sorry by the result of overlapping , because , eh , {vocalsound} I haven't good results , eh , yet but , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to continuing out to Spain , eh , during the {disfmarker} the following months , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD H: eh , because I have , eh , another ideas but , eh , I haven't enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with six months it 's not enough to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to research , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: eh , and e i I mean , if , eh , the topic is , eh , so difficult , uh , in my opinion , there isn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe somebody else will come along and will be , uh , interested in working on it and could start off from where you are also , you know . They 'd make use of {disfmarker} of what you 've done . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . But , eh , I {disfmarker} I will try to recommend , eh , at , eh , {vocalsound} the Spanish government but , eh , the following @ @ scholarship , eh , eh , {vocalsound} eh , will be here {pause} more time , because eh , i in my opinion is {disfmarker} is better , {vocalsound} eh , for us {pause} to {disfmarker} to spend more time here and to work more time i i in a topic . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's a very short time . +PhD H: No ? But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , six months is hard . +PhD H: Yeah . It is . +Grad E: I think a year is a lot better . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: It 's difficult . You {disfmarker} e you have , eh {disfmarker} you are lucky , and you {disfmarker} you find a solution {comment} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some few tim uh , months , eh ? OK . But , eh , I think it 's not , eh , common . But , eh , anyway , thank you . Thank you very much . Eh , I {disfmarker} I bring the chocolate , eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to tear , uh , with {disfmarker} with you , +PhD A: Oh . +Postdoc C: Ah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: uh . I {disfmarker} I hope if you need , eh , something , eh , from us in the future , I {disfmarker} I will be at Spain , {vocalsound} to you help , uh . +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Great . +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Thank you , Jose . +Postdoc C: Thank you . +PhD H: And , thank you very much . +PhD F: Have a good trip . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Keep in touch . +PhD H: Thank you . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . I guess , uh , unless somebody has something else , we 'll read {disfmarker} read our digits +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: and we 'll get our {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: get our last bit of , uh , Jose 's {disfmarker} Jose {disfmarker} Jose 's digit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oops . +Grad E: Are we gonna do them simultaneously or {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: You {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I 'm sorry ? +PhD H: Ye - ye you prefer , eh , to eat , eh , chocolate , eh , at the coffee break , eh , at the {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Or you prefer now , before after {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Well , we have a time {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , we prefer to keep it for ourselves . +PhD D: During {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , we have a s a time {disfmarker} time constraint . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: during digits . +Professor B: So keep it away from that end of the table . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Why is it that I can read your mind ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 've gotta wait until after di after we take the mikes off . +PhD D: No , no . +Grad E: So are we gonna do digits simultaneously +PhD A: You {disfmarker} This is our reward if we {pause} do our digi +Professor B: Well ? Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: or what ? +PhD D: Simultaneous digit chocolate task . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I think , eh , it 's enough , eh , for more peopl for more people {pause} after . +Professor B: We 're gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna do digits at the same {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm ! +Postdoc C: That 's nice . +PhD H: But , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , thanks , Jose . +Professor B: Um . +Postdoc C: Wow . +PhD H: To Andreas , the idea is {disfmarker} is good . {vocalsound} s To eat here . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Wow . Very nice . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh , wow . +Professor B: Tha - that 's {disfmarker} that looks great . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . Th - it doesn't {disfmarker} it won't leave this room . +Professor B: Alright , so in the interest of getting to the {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could do digits while other people eat . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's background crunching . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: We don't have background chewing . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: Is , eh , a {disfmarker} another acoustic event . +PhD D: Background crunch . Yeah . +PhD A: No , we don't have any data with background eating . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm serious . You +Professor B: She 's {disfmarker} she 's serious . +PhD A: I am serious . +Grad E: It 's just the rest of the digits {disfmarker} the rest of the digits are very clean , +Professor B: She is serious . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: Are you {disfmarker} ? Oh , they 're clean . +PhD D: Yeah ! +Grad E: um , without a lot of background noise , +PhD A: And it {disfmarker} You have to write down , like , while y what you 're {disfmarker} what ch chocolate you 're eating +Grad E: so I 'm just not sure {disfmarker} +PhD A: cuz they might make different sounds , like n nuts {disfmarker} chocolate with nuts , chocolate without nuts . +Postdoc C: Oh . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Crunchy frogs . +PhD F: Chocolate adaptation . +Professor B: Actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} actually kind of careful cuz I have a strong allergy to nuts , so I have to sort of figure out one without th +PhD A: That w Oh , yeah , they {disfmarker} they might . +Professor B: It 's hard to {disfmarker} hard to say . +PhD A: Maybe those ? They 're so {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} You know , this is a different kind of speech , +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD H: Take {disfmarker} take several . +PhD A: looking at chocolates , deciding {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: you know , it 's another style . +Professor B: Yeah . I may {disfmarker} I may hold off . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: But if I was {disfmarker} eh , but maybe I 'll get some later . Thanks . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} well , why don't we {disfmarker} ? He {disfmarker} he 's worried about a ticket . Why don't we do a simultaneous one ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Simultaneous one ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: And you laughed at me , too , f the first time I said that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Remember to read the transcript number , please . +PhD F: Right . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: I have to what ? +PhD D: Oops . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: You laughed at me , too , the first time I sa said {disfmarker} +Professor B: I did , +PhD A: You really shouldn't , uh , te +Professor B: and now I love it so much . +Grad E: OK , everyone ready ? +PhD A: You have to sort of , um {disfmarker} Jose , if you haven't done this , you have to plug your ears while you 're t talking +Professor B: W wait {disfmarker} wait a minute {disfmarker} wait a minute . W we want {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that you don't get confused , I guess . +Professor B: we want it synchronized . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , you 've done this one before ? +Postdoc C: Hey , you 've done this before . Haven't you ? +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Together ? +Postdoc C: You 've read {pause} digits together with us , haven't you {disfmarker} I mean , at the same time ? +PhD A: I 'm not {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Oh , and you haven't done this either . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc C: Oh , you haven't ! +PhD H: No . +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: I the first time is {pause} traumatic , +Professor B: We +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y {vocalsound} Yeah , bu +Postdoc C: Oh , and the groupings are important , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc C: so yo you 're supposed to pause between the groupings . +PhD H: The grouping . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: You mean that the {disfmarker} the grouping is supposed to be synchronized ? +Professor B: No , no . +Postdoc C: No . +Grad E: Yeah , sure . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: That 'd be good . +Professor B: Synchronized digits . +Postdoc C: No . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: We - we 'll give everybody the same sheet +PhD F: It 's like a {disfmarker} like a Greek {disfmarker} like a Greek choir ? +PhD A: but they say different {disfmarker} +PhD F: You know ? +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Hey , what a good idea . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We could do the same sheet for everyone . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: Have them all read them at once . +PhD A: Well , different digits +PhD D: Eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but same groupings . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} or just same digits . +PhD A: So they would all be {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 'd be good . +Grad E: See if anyone notices . +Professor B: There 's so many possibilities . +Postdoc C: And then {disfmarker} then we can sing them next time . +Professor B: Uh . OK , why don't we go ? Uh , one two three {disfmarker} Go ! +Postdoc C: OK . Mmm ! +Professor B: And Andreas has the last word . +Grad E: Did you read it twice or what ? +PhD A: He 's try No , he 's trying to get good recognition performance . +Postdoc C: He had the h +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc C: He had the {disfmarker} the long form . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: And we 're off . +PhD F: No . +","In the conversation, the participants, comprising of graduate students, a professor, and postdoctoral researchers, discuss several topics related to their research and meeting arrangements. They consider technical aspects of their work, including wireless connections, agendas, and research on digits and forced alignment. They also consider the practicalities of organizing their schedules for a Saturday meeting, with particular challenges due to conflicting personal commitments. + +The conversation displays some disfluencies as participants struggle to articulate ideas or are interrupted by others. They discuss potential improvements and issues with an HTK-based recognizer for digits recognition and forced alignment. The group considers including background noises like chewing during digit readings for robustness testing of their speech recognition algorithms. They also debate the pros and cons of adapting models to background speech and the difficulties in ground truth alignments for improving recognition systems. + +Additionally, they touch on the possible submission of their research for the Eurospeech conference, although recognizing that their work may not be ready or appropriate for submission by the tight deadline. The possibility of attending an Aurora session at the conference is also discussed, although it might not be directly related to their research. + +The conversation concludes with a farewell to Jose, a member of the team who is returning to Spain, and the group plans to perform a synchronized digit reading task. There are also mentions of eating chocolate during the break as a reward for their efforts. + +Overall, the conversation captures the group's dynamic problem-solving and the complexities of collaborative research in the field of automated speech recognition." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um almost , there's one more thing I have to get out of the {disfmarker} I have to make sure that this attachment will open . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I keep forgetting whether I've done this . {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah-ha . Okay . We'll open that when the time is right . In the meantime {disfmarker} Closing things down , okay . Let's see what this thing does . Does it come up together or disappear one of them or what ? Ah , we came up together , we're good . Okay . Are we ready to start ? Okay . It's now quarter of four . This is a f another forty minute one so it will end at four twenty five . Okay . Right . Our agenda is , as before , for me to open the meeting , for us to go over the previous minutes , then for the two of you to present your prototype and for you to g um Sarah present the evaluation criteria . We then have a finance aspect , which is a spreadsheet , an Excel spreadsheet . And I know what you're all thinking of , oh my , um because we're only given a forty minute time period to get it all in , including the production evaluation . So we're going to make a very fast track . Okay . Um and as you can see that's what we do next on this thing . So the first thing I have to do is close this so that I can get to {disfmarker} Where is it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . +Project Manager: I need to open mine . Not the agenda . +Marketing: Agenda three . +Project Manager: No that th I want the minutes from the previous {disfmarker} minutes . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That should be there , minutes . Yeah . Okay . Uh from meeting three , is it alright with you if I don't switch it to show , just use it as is ? 'Cause this way I can more easily flip it . Okay , um obviously all of us were here for the last meeting , we reviewed the previous minutes before that , um each of you made your presentations . {vocalsound} Um we discussed the various possibilities based on what was presented in those presentations . The market trend of fruit and veg , mm spongy , uh fancy and elegant more than technologically innovative and that more than easy . Um we decided chip on print would be used . Um we would use plastic with a rubber casing , I think was the consensus , powered by kinetic energy . There was no decision made on the curvatures or double curvature or straight . Um perhaps the prototype will give us an inkling of that . Um looking like a scroll , but it's really a push button technology , excuse my spelling um that was actually in use , that is uh behind the scenes is push button which we uh according to Kate have a very good uh grasp on doing that in production . Um we decided that separate fashionable covers covering your fruit and veg might be a separate product that could be suggested to management . Um and as suggested um yellow with black buttons with the company logo , a slogan and image might be a good idea based on the requirements that have been provided to us . Um we did have a few production issues and coordination of the various bits and we had some conflict of ideas and cost constraints and we ran out of time . Um we had to follow that up and prepare for the last one . And uh we closed as it ran out of time . Is that a fair presentation of what happened ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , back to this meeting . Um we're down to the prototype presentation . +Industrial Designer: Ta-da . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Over to you . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Well . +Project Manager: Ooh , two . +User Interface: Yeah , well you see , each made one , we didn't have enough yellow dough . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the one that I made . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: It is uh curved , easy to hold , hand-held , nice and small with big easy buttons . This is like a scroll , but they are push buttons and they enter {disfmarker} takes you into the different menus . Of course we need someone who's experienced with the television {gap} . I mean this is the infrared thing that's gonna zap at the television . Uh I'm not quite sure how to make that , but I'm sure it will work . Uh this is on off switch , 'cause I think we do need that , and I think it gives it a nice balance . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And it's gonna have the logo imprinted on it uh in there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um as for what it's actually made of {disfmarker} well the function of these buttons is up , down , left and right {vocalsound} in the different menus . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh position , I presume that just means right right on it , easy to see . The main feature of it is just a simple design , simple , lack of uh buttons all over the place . Right ? {vocalsound} Form curved , kind of smooth , hand-held , makes it feel nice to hold . Uh material , I think Kate's gonna tackle that quite a bit , but I think we have two different options , because we did make a another one , which wa uh is in the shape of banana , it's just {disfmarker} if you can imagine this as yellow with black buttons , like just like this but in the shape of a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which is also nice and easy to hold and feels good and has a similar sort of scroll push button technology , just a slightly different design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Also with on off switch and infrared {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh I had envisioned it in hard smooth plastic . So like uh {disfmarker} well , I dunno , what's it like ? I guess like an existing remote control , but molded and smooth . Whereas otherwise we'd thought , like with this one {disfmarker} or mix and match , just we were gonna see what you thought , the {disfmarker} uh a more spongy rubber cover with spongy buttons . So we have the two options we can follow , either the smooth hard plastic or the spongy rubber , depending on cost restraints . And what we well , what conclusion we reach when we discuss it . {vocalsound} Uh material {disfmarker} yeah , that's what I have to say about material . Can I scroll down on there and see what else {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well colour , I think {disfmarker} I definitely have a preference towards bright yellow with black buttons , because that's the company colours , but if anybody's got any other suggestions , I'm quite willing to consider them as well . {vocalsound} So , it just depends what you think about these ideas and if I'm {disfmarker} yeah , maybe , Kate , you better say what you think about them . +Industrial Designer: Um well I don't have very much to add . Um the the case {disfmarker} oops , that's the uh on off button just come off our prototype . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the case can be either um spongy rubber or hard plastic . We're not absolutely sure about a combination of the two , but it can be either of those . We have the technology to do that . Um and as for the the actual components um , uh Steph just said this is a {disfmarker} quite a cheap device to manufacture . We have simple rubber push buttons um which provide all the functionality we need . Um the um {vocalsound} the diode that actually does the um infrared is at the end , it's the stalk of the banana , or it's just the thing at the end of this version . Um so that's for material . Colour , well uh Steph's the expert on colour . Um we we don't have any particular restrictions on that . Yeah , I think that's all we've got to say really . +User Interface: I thin as for as for the fruit or organic theme , I guess this one is obviously fruit shaped . +Industrial Designer: A banana . +User Interface: This one has n banana , yeah . This one has no obvious connections to fruit , but because it's round and molded , it kinda makes you think sort of organic , touchy-feely , kiddie , it's more like {disfmarker} yeah , you'd expect it to be like a child's sorta toy remote control instead of a real one , which I quite like that sort of image . 'Cause it's very big and chunky and child-friendly and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Would you care to examine the prototypes , see how they feel in the hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hold them , you see , you know . Curvature , is it to your liking ? +Project Manager: Oh I see , the on-off's in the back . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's so that your index finger automatically goes straight to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you don't wanna tire out your thumbs after all . +Project Manager: And then you can use your thumb . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it was partly we thought the design looked better , +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I could see this thing , unless it's reinforced , having a problem with the you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Breaking , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: oh right . {vocalsound} Well you see , that's why hard plastic would be quite a good thing for it , because then it'd just be rigid . +Marketing: I like the fact that on both of them the keys play such a prominent role . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} we really like we really like that design , +Marketing: It's really kind of a {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean it looks just like a logo , that arrangement of the keys . Like a c like a compass point , you know , +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +User Interface: just up , down , left and right , and we think we could make that quite a good feature . And it's like the the iPod scroll wheel , {vocalsound} but better . +Marketing: Yeah . But it's also like texting , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it {disfmarker} that's what it makes me think of , mobile phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was try I was thinking , moving your thumb like this , what does that remind me of ? +Industrial Designer: And it's a very simple design , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's texting . +Industrial Designer: there's not a lot to wrong , the components are cheap to make . +Marketing: It's also in terms of um being lost it's it's quite {disfmarker} it looks quite different . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: You know , I I d I have several {disfmarker} four remotes , and they all look the same until you get up close and you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , this is really identifiable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean the thing is we do need to develop our technology of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean actually how to program the menus and what sort of , you know , text box is gonna appear at the bottom of the screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but we do definitely think that it's a viable option . +Project Manager: Okay . The next item is evaluation . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Uh if that's {disfmarker} if you're finished . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , we're finished . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: shall I take your uh power ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Try again . +Marketing: Okay . This is going to be a heavily interactive evaluation , and the method here is to evaluate the new remote control in terms of the user requirements and the hot trends introduced by the marketing department . So , this means we're going to go over the priorities that were raised by uh the consumers a as well as incorporate all of our insight into this uh evaluation exercise . So I'm going to go and use the whiteboard , and I've made a list of criteria to look at , and so I'm gonna I'm gonna leave this up as the last thing , but for the evaluation it's going to be one is true and seven is false , going over these different criteria , so one true seven false and I'm gonna now use the um the board . Okay . So um fancy , technologically innovative , easy to use , trendy , buttons , excess buttons , good buttons , ugly , sellable , and other . And in fact I hope that uh you all introduce some additional terms , because these are things that um have been brought up , some of them seem rather close , +User Interface: Yeah , what about price , is that gonna go on there as well ? Price of materials . +Marketing: like they overlap . Mm , yeah , price . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: We'll put price up at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that we actually know anything about it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we can we can pretend . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we will soon , unfortunately . +Marketing: Um Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . +Marketing: Did you say {gap} ? +Project Manager: No , {gap} . +Marketing: Uh okay , so wha how do we feel in terms of is this fancy ? +User Interface: It depends what what you mean by fancy really , 'cause when I think of fancy , I think of it's got lots of extra sort of fripperies and , you know , like baroque curliness and {disfmarker} which +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'd call these quite uh minimalist , +Industrial Designer: Yes , a plain , simple , clean design . +User Interface: simple and plain , but I mean I do see what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it is heavily reliant on appearance instead of pure functionality , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so in that respect it is quite fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} yeah , so in that respect {disfmarker} I think we'll go with that respect . +User Interface: I think just maybe we need a different word other than fancy , I'd say maybe aesthetic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well we have got s trendy further down , +Project Manager: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Elegant . +Marketing: Elegant . +Industrial Designer: Elegant , I don't know if I'd call them elegant . +Marketing: Yeah , no these aren't the exact terms that the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} like stylish or aesthetic . +Industrial Designer: Stylish , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Elegant . We're gon let's use elegant , although the the the people , the word on the street is is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fancy . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} N that {disfmarker} um +User Interface: Did you just break the pen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} is fancy . So let's let's take it to the next level . +User Interface: Well d we'll just call it fancy then . +Marketing: Well okay , so in terms of elegant , fancy . we'll call it E_F_ um , do we do we think that perhaps {disfmarker} and maybe we should say the yellow ? Should we go with the yellow in terms of {disfmarker} I think that's a really superior {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think we n we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: they're both {disfmarker} +User Interface: they're both yellow with black buttons , it's just that we didn't have any more dough to represent uh that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but if you can just imagine banana shape with these bits as black . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So what we re really need to decide is whether we want the actual banana shape or just a a purely blob or some sort of abstraction in between the two +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that isn't {disfmarker} that is more curved , like a banana , but that isn't actually recognisable as a banana , you know , with the grooves and the stalk and stuff , +Marketing: As a banana . +User Interface: so . +Marketing: I think that many of us are abstract enough to look at the yellow one and say we'll call it the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And of the two I really like I m I like the banana , +Project Manager: The chunk . +Marketing: but I I do like the chunk . +User Interface: So that's maybe not something we have to decide just right now , is it . +Marketing: No , +User Interface: Just somewhere a long the scale of in between these two . +Marketing: but I mean in terms {disfmarker} we have to evaluate one of them . Unless {disfmarker} do you guys wanna evaluate both ? +Project Manager: I think between the two , somewhere between the two is true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'd {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more true than false , about a two . +Marketing: Okay . So we say true . {vocalsound} technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I d I don't think that's what we're aiming at with this concept . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we're using simple components that are gonna be robust but not particularly innovative . +Marketing: So we'll say {disfmarker} we'll say uh false . Easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Very . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is that inappropriate ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Oh , pardon me . Um +Project Manager: Trendy . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: trendy , s {vocalsound} and I say specifically spongy fruity . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , maybe only a two or a three then , 'cause it's no we still haven't decided about specific sponginess or specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have the worry about how robust it will be if it's it's curved as a banana but spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't really think that's gonna work , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so two ? Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excess buttons . +Marketing: are there excess buttons ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That is false . +Industrial Designer: So that's false . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} good , well designed buttons , intuitive buttons . +Project Manager: Better , more intuitive buttons , yes . +Marketing: True . Ugly . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: People don't respond well to ugly . Sellable , uh quirky , you know , something people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think they're different , aren't they ? +User Interface: Well it is quite it is quite quirky I think . +Marketing: like oh , +Project Manager: I like it . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah , I do too . +User Interface: It could be quite a good brand , like a good little object . +Marketing: Oh yeah . And I was I was thinking of other things um in terms of uh could we say it's cost saving ? With the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , we also need tho think about the energy . Is it the kinetic energy ? +Marketing: Yeah , with the energy . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it's {disfmarker} it is gonna be environmentally friendly with the kinetic energy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It is going to be kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we'll c we'll say it's a cost saving enviro . Yeah , Uh so yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but we haven't completely developed that side of it yet , so we're not completely sure about that , +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: but yeah . +Marketing: you're still in the Play-Doh stage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Anything else ? Including price , do you have any idea about price or other features ? +Industrial Designer: Well I think our instinct is that it should be pretty cheap to develop . We haven't got a lot of expensive components in there . +Project Manager: Yes , the instinct says true . +Marketing: Okay . So true one or should I go to two or three ? +Industrial Designer: I'd put it at one I think , but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would say maybe a two , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: 'cause we still {disfmarker} we need to uh get somebody in who is good with the programming for the menus and things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , true , +User Interface: I mean it's not just like {disfmarker} I mean it's not like ev you know , on a normal chunky remote every button res I mean means something different , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's not a cheap thing to get . +Industrial Designer: it might be the {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , true . True . +User Interface: whereas this one has only got the four buttons and they all {disfmarker} they mean everything , depending on what menu you're in . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: {gap} uh we need somebody to develop that . +Marketing: Um other ? Anything else you guys can thing of ? And I'm gonna actually change a couple of these so then I'm gonna {disfmarker} instead of ugly I'm gonna say it's attractive and then make that true , so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I have to do an average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: And then um excess buttons . +User Interface: Just putting no excess buttons . +Marketing: Exactly . Wow we're doing really well . Yeah , be you know , +User Interface: As for {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it doesn't ruin the polarity . +User Interface: see if we're technologically innovative , I'd say it is quite innovative , because there aren't really many that have this menu idea instead of all the extra buttons . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean I know we're not doing anything involving internet or speech recognition but but we are at the upper end of the push button market . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or L_C_D_ . Yeah . Well if you g uh let me know if if any of these {disfmarker} um if you if you all can think of any other um thing to change here {disfmarker} if you th if you think I should change the innovative or add other features . If not I'll average those . +Project Manager: I think we're good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . We're a little over halfway through the meeting +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the next big thing is the finance . Okay . +Marketing: Um okay , how about if I uh pass this back to you +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I'll uh figure out the average here . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Thank you for everyone's help with that . +Project Manager: Right . And as you can see it says the same thing , it had not lost itself , thank Goodness . And we're going to raise what's called a sp a spreadsheet that they provided to me . Um and it says fill in the number of components you plan to use in your device . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hand dynamo , battery , kinetic , solar cells . Okay . +User Interface: Well , just kinetic then , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um what's a hand dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: That was the crank , wind-up crank on the side . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the wind-up . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: shoot , forget that . Kinetic is um {disfmarker} and how many of those will we need per {disfmarker} we only need one . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: Okay . Electronic simple chip on print , and we'll need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh yeah , I think we can do it all with simple {disfmarker} Just checking that . Yeah , simple , 'cause we've just got push buttons , so we can do it all with simple which is the ch should be the cheapest . +Project Manager: Okay , and we only need one of those . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , the case will be uncurved and flat or a single curve or a double curve . It looks like it {gap} single curve , 'cause of th the chunkiness . It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that one is single curve , +Project Manager: that's uh uh one . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? Um do we have +Project Manager: And that's +User Interface: What does double curved mean , I don't understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think you {disfmarker} it means you reverse the curve . +Project Manager: uh that's the the one that goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I do I don't think we need that for either of them , +User Interface: Oh no , we don't need that . No . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: you can do a banana in single curve , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: Single-curved , I'd say . +Project Manager: single curve . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , case material supplements . Plastic , wood , rubber , titanium , special colour . +User Interface: I +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I just wanna say plastic . +Project Manager: We had the special colour . And did we say plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can we do some what ifs , 'cause it may {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I I still quite like the idea of combining plastic and rubber myself , +Marketing: One , two , three , four , five , six . +Industrial Designer: but it depends on the cost , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . We'll come back , if we can , to the rubber being added at the moment , that's where we are . Interface button {disfmarker} push button interface . That's what we're using , +User Interface: It's just button . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we need to say how many buttons , or +Project Manager: Whoops , don't want that , not yet . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or d is it just one ? +Project Manager: No , it just says push button interface . Button supplements , they'll be in a special colour of black . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And the buttons {disfmarker} Wha what is the buttons made of , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Uh they'll be rubber , yep . +Project Manager: So we need one of them . And are they any special form ? +User Interface: Well yeah , like the compass point one . +Industrial Designer: Actually , does tha does special material mean that plastic is not a special material ? 'Cause I think they can be plastic . +Project Manager: 'Cause the rate we're going we can put the rubber on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . They could be plastic , we don't have to have rubber buttons , +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: because we haven't got a double curved case . +User Interface: Yeah , they could be plastic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um let's put that rubber in then , of the case material supplement . +Industrial Designer: It's just one , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Uh we only need one of them . Um and the total cost has been calculated as nine Pounds twenty out of the twelve and a half we were allowed . +Industrial Designer: What , we're in . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're in . {vocalsound} That's us . +Industrial Designer: More profit . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Okay , I'm going to save this into our {vocalsound} desktop , project documents . Okay . As our project document bit . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you need to double click on that to open it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . There we are . That's the only Excel document that will be in there , so it's there for all of us . Okay , so , are they under twelve fifty ? Yes , go to the project evaluation , next slide . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Right . Um the project process , satisfaction with , for example , the room for creativity . Yeah , leadership , teamwork , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure . Yes . +Project Manager: means , of having whiteboard , the digital pens and all that kind of good things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , the Play-Doh was best , I thought . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well , 'cause I mean it's so hard to describe what you mean just with words and pointing at photographs and saying , well we quite want this , but imagine it rounder . So much better just to go and , you know , this is it , this is what we want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So , we went over all those things and we're satisfied with all the above . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Um did we find any new ideas ? +Marketing: I think with the marketing element of uh fruit shaped I I mean I {disfmarker} that really opened my eyes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I I only speak for myself though . +User Interface: And I'd never heard of the kinetic energy before , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so . Good work as a design team , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I think we're a good team actually . +User Interface: because we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure all the wires are really great though . +Project Manager: So we actually worked well as a group . +Industrial Designer: I thought so . +Project Manager: Right . Are the costs within the budget ? Yes . +User Interface: Oh yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: I can give you a number , +Industrial Designer: hang on , Oh we haven't heard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: um it's uh {disfmarker} the average evaluation score is one point eight eight , so it means w you know , I can I can spell it out . There were six true or ones , four um pardon me , two s almost true or close to true , so that was four points , and then uh one false , seven points , so seventeen divided by nine {disfmarker} we're between one and two . I would say that's ex excellent in terms of uh ho how much we adhere to the ideals of the uh market place . +User Interface: Yeah . And the the only false one is because we've chosen to keep a simple old technology , +Marketing: To maintain old technology , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which if it works perfectly well I see no point in improving on if it works , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely , and it's kept us within budget . +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we do count as I think excellent or one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And we've therefore {disfmarker} we have to do the final questionnaire and do the meeting summary , I have a final report to present , um and then we're done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We done good , and we're finished in time . +User Interface: Bring on the ice sculptures . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: And then we get the product launch party . +Marketing: So we might have to wait . +Industrial Designer: Product launch party ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's what I said , ice sculptures . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I {disfmarker} one thing I want to do is {disfmarker} oh , I think the meeting's done . +Project Manager: I believe that is the end of our meeting . Thank you , Melissa . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um one thing I wa I wanna do is save everything in the right files , because I don't think everything is saved . The right files . Final meeting market +","A project team consisting of an Industrial Designer, Project Manager, User Interface specialist, and Marketing specialist reviewed the progress of a prototype remote control design. They discussed aesthetics, design choices like the banana shape, materials (kinetic energy, rubber vs. hard plastic), and user-friendliness. The team evaluated the prototype using a set of criteria, considered cost, and confirmed the design is within budget. The remote control was evaluated favorably overall, and the team completed their session with plans for a product launch party." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We’re very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it’s important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it’s really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs. +Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development? +Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time. +Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it’s probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do. +Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government’s approach 'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.' And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it’s absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it’s grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it’s eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things. +Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said: 'We can't say yet what we're going to do'? +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had—. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon. +Hefin David AM: Before Christmas? +Julie Morgan AM: I hope so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually—. We need to—. +Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Siân. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work? +Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder—? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in 'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire—and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven—who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded. +Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in—I think it was—February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter.] +Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter.] +Julie Morgan AM: Very significant. +Hefin David AM: In your report, the 'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that 'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about £81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within 'Prosperity for All' and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change. +Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and,for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities' role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase? +Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so,in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that—we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources—the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group? +Julie Morgan AM: It is demand— +Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible.]—because the offer is targeted at working parents— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes. +Nicola Edwards: —obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Nicola Edwards: Right, okay. +Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Môn was nearly 90 per cent or something— +Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding. +Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand. +Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower—in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that? +Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured? +Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to— +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any  case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities' Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on? +Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic. +Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps—we see this quite a lot in the office—quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only? +Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes—. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful. +Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information. +Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture. +Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody—so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare. +Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to—. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand? +Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of £50 million to £55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of £40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Môn, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots. +Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about 'on the cusp' of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what 'on the cusp' of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what 'on the cusp of returning to work' is—what that means from your perspective—and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments—that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the— +Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said—the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education—and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies—who are—the letters may have come in from some of your constituents—not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on 'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently—those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the—? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression 'on the cusp of work' we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly— +Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question— +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Siân. Sorry, Dawn. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work? +Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that? +Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think 'secured' is probably a slightly premature phrase. +Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years. +Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful. +Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process— +Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously. +Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents? +Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about? +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families. +Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference? +Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of £5.6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another—. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place. +Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022. +Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know—. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of— +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that— +Dawn Bowden AM: —what would happen beyond that. +Julie Morgan AM: —funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath. +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money—£1 million, I understand—has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC? +Julie Morgan AM: +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation. +Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was— +Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know—. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of—. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail—going through HMRC would put limits on that. +Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties— +Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good. +Julie Morgan AM: But there are—. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this? +Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called 'special characters' in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there— +Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was—. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that. +Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it—. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC—if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that—and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this—the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that—that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option—and this is only going back a few months—because it will remove—and this is quoting them— 'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'— blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know—. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence—we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases—I certainly have—where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local—. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose. +Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag? +Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about £2.5 million. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure—that's fine. +Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things? +Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân, do you want to ask about the Welsh language? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've—. I'm happy with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really—? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened. +Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem. +Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems. +Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning? +Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers' standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea? +Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment? +Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area. +Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great—very successful. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that: 'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government’s work on the Early Years system.' That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension— +Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system— +Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more—. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it. +Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that—unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children—on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five—that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas—I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that—? Do you know the actual percentage? +Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but— +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty.FootnoteLink +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is—basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter.] +Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second—oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course—in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can’t prove it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we’ve been working with the SAIL—secure anonymised information linkage—and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children’s progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions. +Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we’re thinking of doing with Flying Start—. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we’re looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities—we talked about that earlier—so, that’s where we’re going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that’s what we’re looking at. And we’re looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no—we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected? +Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we’ve taken to evaluation in Flying Start—. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you’re familiar with the work that, as I say, we’ve been doing with SAIL. We’re currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We’ve been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child’s chances have improved primarily because they’re getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There’s got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference. +Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky—in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so— +Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do. +Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me—yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition—taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire? +Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year— +Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you? +Julie Morgan AM: —and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to—well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that— +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago. +Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that. +Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for—. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries—it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided? +Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course—we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really. +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment. +Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting—again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful. +Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3. +Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure. +Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","This meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee began with the Chair, Lynne Neagle AM, welcoming attendees and confirming no apologies for absence. The primary agenda item was a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, featuring Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, and accompanying Welsh Government officials Jo-Anne Daniels and Nicola Edwards. The session focused on the dual objectives of supporting child development and assisting parents into the workforce. It also tackled the complexity of the early childhood education and care system, efforts to simplify access and funding, and the potential integration of various programs and services. + +Hefin David AM questioned the Deputy Minister, Julie Morgan, about the Welsh Government's approach to early childhood education, the possible conflation of aiding child development with facilitating parental employment, and the required policy challenges to deliver on these objectives. Morgan acknowledged the significance of both aspects and stressed the importance of simplifying the complex system while highlighting ongoing pilot projects that aim to unify and streamline services and funding mechanisms. + +Discussion touched on various Welsh Government programs that support young children and their families, such as the Childcare Offer for Wales and Flying Start. Notably, the Deputy Minister indicated an intention to widen the Childcare Offer to include parents in education and training, which would represent a policy expansion beyond the original focus on working parents. The committee members, including Janet Finch-Saunders AM and Siân Gwenllian AM, posed questions and follow-ups regarding the disparities in childcare provision across Wales, the integration of Welsh language skills into the early years workforce, and the overall costs and effectiveness of existing programs. + +Throughout the discussion, the Deputy Minister reiterated the Welsh Government's commitment to providing high-quality early childhood education and care, while recognizing budgetary constraints and the need for targeted support in some instances. The meeting highlighted the Welsh Government's ongoing assessments of early years services, the impact of these services on children's development, and the desire to adapt and improve initiatives based on changing circumstances and evolving policy objectives." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK So uh today we 're looking at a number of uh things we 're trying and uh fortunately for listeners to this uh we lost some of it 's visual but um got tables in front of us . Um what is {disfmarker} what does combo mean ? +PhD C: So combo is um a system where we have these features that go through a network and then this same string of features but low - pass filtered with the low - pass filter used in the MSG features . And so these low - pass filtered goes through M eh {disfmarker} another MLP and then the linear output of these two MLP 's are combined just by adding the values and then there is this KLT . Um the output is used as uh features as well . +Professor B: Um so let me try to restate this and see if I have it right . There is uh {disfmarker} there is the features uh there 's the OGI features and then um those features um go through a contextual {disfmarker} uh l l let 's take this bottom arr one pointed to by the bottom arrow . Um those features go through a contextualized KLT . Then these features also uh get um low - pass filtered +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah so yeah I could perhaps draw this on the blackboard +Professor B: Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The graph , yeah another one . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's good . +PhD C: +Professor B: So +PhD C: So we have these features from OGI that goes through the three paths . +Professor B: Yeah . Three , OK . +PhD C: The first is a KLT using several frames of the features . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: The second path is uh MLP also using nine frames {disfmarker} several frames of features +Professor B: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD C: The third path is this low - pass filter . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh , MLP +Professor B: Aha ! aha ! +PhD C: Adding the outputs just like in the second propose the {disfmarker} the proposal from {disfmarker} for the first evaluation . +Professor B: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And then the KLT and then the two together again . +Professor B: No , the KLT . And those two together . That 's it . +PhD D: Two HTK . +Professor B: OK so that 's {disfmarker} that 's this bottom one . +PhD C: Um . So this is {disfmarker} yeah +Professor B: And so uh and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the one at the top {disfmarker} and I presume these things that uh are in yellow are in yellow because overall they 're the best ? +PhD C: Yeah that 's the reason , yeah . +Professor B: Oh let 's focus on them then so what 's the block diagram for the one above it ? +PhD C: For the f the f first yellow line you mean ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah so it 's uh basically s the same except that we don't have this uh low - pass filtering so we have only two streams . +PhD D: Step . +PhD C: Well . There 's {disfmarker} there 's no low {disfmarker} low - pass processing used as additional feature stream . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Do you e um they mentioned {disfmarker} made some {disfmarker} uh when I was on the phone with Sunil they {disfmarker} they mentioned some weighting scheme that was used to evaluate all of these numbers . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh actually the way things seems to um well it 's uh forty percent for TI - digit , sixty for all the SpeechDat - Cars , well all these languages . Ehm the well match is forty , medium thirty five and high mismatch twenty - five . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and we don't have the TI - digits part yet ? +PhD C: Uh , no . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: But yeah . Generally what you observe with TI - digits is that the result are very close whatever the {disfmarker} the system . +Professor B: OK . And so have you put all these numbers together into a single number representing that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh not yet . +Professor B: OK so that should be pretty easy to do and that would be good {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . Mmm yeah , yeah . +Professor B: then we could compare the two and say what was better . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and how does this compare to the numbers {disfmarker} oh so OGI two is just the top {disfmarker} top row ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So yeah to {disfmarker} actually OGI two is the {disfmarker} the baseline with the OGI features but this is not exactly the result that they have because they 've {disfmarker} they 're still made some changes in the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} well but uh actually our results are better than their results . Um I don't know by how much because they did not send us the new results +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Uh OK so the one {disfmarker} one place where it looks like we 're messing things up a bit is in the highly mismatched Italian . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: An +PhD C: Yeah there is something funny happening here because {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But there are thirty - six and then sometimes we are {disfmarker} we are {disfmarker} we are around forty - two and +Professor B: Now up +PhD C: but +Professor B: Uh so one of the ideas that you had mentioned last time was having a {disfmarker} a second um silence detection . +PhD C: Yeah . So there are some results here +PhD D: For the Italian . +PhD C: uh so the third and the fifth line of the table +PhD D: For this one . +Professor B: So filt is what that is ? +PhD C: Filt , yeah +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Um yeah so it seems f for the {disfmarker} the well match and mismatched condition it 's uh it brings something . Uh but uh actually apparently there are {disfmarker} there 's no room left for any silence detector at the server side because of the delay . Uh well +Professor B: Oh we can't do it . Oh OK . +PhD C: No . +PhD D: For that {disfmarker} for that we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Too bad . Good idea , but can't do it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Except I don't know because they {disfmarker} I think they are still working well . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh t two days ago they were still working on this trying to reduce the delay of the silence detector so but yeah if we had time perhaps we could try to find uh some kind of compromise between the delay that 's on the handset and on the server side . Perhaps try to reduce the delay on the handset and {disfmarker} but well hmm For the moment they have this large delay on the {disfmarker} the feature computation and so we don't +Professor B: OK . So Alright so for now at least that 's not there you have some results with low - pass filter cepstrum doesn't have a huge effect but it {disfmarker} but it looks like it you know maybe could help in a couple places . +PhD C: I th +Professor B: Uh little bit . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um and um um Yeah and uh let 's see What else did we have in there ? Uh I guess it makes a l um at this point this is I {disfmarker} I guess I should probably look at these others a little bit uh And you {disfmarker} you yellowed these out uh but uh uh Oh I see yeah that {disfmarker} that one you can't use because of the delay . Those look pretty good . Um let 's see that one Well even the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the second row doesn't look that bad right ? That 's just uh yeah ? +PhD C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and that looks like an interesting one too . +PhD D: Mmm yeah . +Professor B: Uh +PhD C: Actually the {disfmarker} yeah the second line is uh pretty much like the first line in yellow except that we don't have this KLT on the first {disfmarker} on the left part of the diagram . We just have the features as they are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so when we do this weighted measure we should compare the two cuz it might even come out better . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little {disfmarker} slightly simpler . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would put that one also as a {disfmarker} as a maybe . Uh and it {disfmarker} yeah and it 's actually {vocalsound} does {disfmarker} does significantly better on the uh uh highly mismatched Italian , so s and little worse on the mis on the MM case , but uh Well yeah it 's worse than a few things +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so uh let 's see how that c that c c see how that comes out on their {disfmarker} their measure and {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are we running this uh for TI - digits or uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Now is TI di {disfmarker} is is that part of the result that they get for the uh development {disfmarker} th the results that they 're supposed to get at the end of {disfmarker} end of the month , the TI - digits are there also ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . It 's included , yeah . +Professor B: Oh OK . OK . And see what else there is here . Um Oh I see {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} I was looking down here at the {disfmarker} the o the row below the lower yellowed one . Uh that 's uh that 's with the reduced uh KLT size {disfmarker} reduced dimensionality . +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: What happens there is it 's around the same and so you could reduce the dimension as you were saying before a bit perhaps . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's significantly worse well but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's significantly worse {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh it 's {disfmarker} it 's mostly worse . +PhD C: Exc - except for the HM +PhD D: For many a mismatch it 's worse . +PhD C: but +Professor B: Yeah . But it is little . I mean not {disfmarker} not by a huge amount , I don't know . What are {disfmarker} what are the sizes of any of these sets , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you told me before , but I 've forgotten . So {disfmarker} you know how many words are in uh one of these test sets ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor B: About ? +PhD C: Um it 's {disfmarker} it depends {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} the well matched is generally larger than the other sets and I think it 's around two thousand or three thousand words perhaps , at least . +PhD D: Ye But words {disfmarker} well word {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: Hmm ? The words , yeah . S sentences . +PhD D: Sentences . +PhD C: Some sets have five hundred sentences , so . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So the {disfmarker} so the sets {disfmarker} so the test sets are between five hundred and two thousand sentences , let 's say +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and each sentence on the average has four or five digits or is it {disfmarker} most of them longer or +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah for the Italian even seven digits y more or less +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it d Seven digits . +PhD D: but sometime the sentence have only one digit and sometime uh like uh the number of uh credit cards , something like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so between one and sixteen . See the {disfmarker} I mean the reason I 'm asking is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is we have all these small differences and I don't know how seriously to take them , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? +Professor B: So uh i if {disfmarker} if you had uh just you know {disfmarker} to give an example , if you had uh um if you had a thousand words then uh a {disfmarker} a tenth of a percent would just be one word , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so it wouldn't mean anything . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: um so um yeah it be kind of {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to know what the sizes of these test sets were actually . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The size that we have ? +PhD C: We could {disfmarker} we could run {disfmarker} run some kind of significance tests +Professor B: Yeah since these {disfmarker} well also just to know the numbers , +PhD C: or +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right . So these {disfmarker} these are word error rates +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so this is on how many words . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah we have the result that the output of the HTK +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: The number of {disfmarker} of sentences , no it 's the number isn't . +PhD C: Yeah sure {disfmarker} sure . Yeah sure . +Professor B: Yeah so anyway if you could just mail out what those numbers are and then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that be great . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um {vocalsound} what else is there here ? Um see the second {disfmarker} second from the bottom it says SIL , but this is some different kind of silence or thing or {disfmarker} what was that ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: It the {disfmarker} the output silence of the MLP . +PhD C: Oh yeah I see . +PhD D: It 's only one small experiment to know what happened . To apply also to in include also the {disfmarker} the silence of the MLP we have the fifty - six form and the silence to pick up the silence and we include those . +Professor B: Yes . Uh - huh , uh - huh . The silence plus the KLT output ? Oh so you 're only using the silence . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , because when we apply the KLT +PhD C: No they 're {disfmarker} I think there is this silence in addition to the um KLT outputs +Professor B: No . +PhD D: in addition , yes . +PhD C: it is because we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we just keep uh we don't keep all the dimensions after the KLT +PhD D: In addition t +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: and we not s we are not sure if we pick {disfmarker} we have the silence . +PhD C: So we try to add the silence also in addition to the {disfmarker} these twenty - eight dimensions . +Professor B: I see . OK . And what {disfmarker} and what 's OGI forty - five ? The bottom one there ? +PhD C: Uh it 's o it 's OGI two , it 's {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th it 's the features from the first line +PhD D: It 's in fact OGI two . +Professor B: S +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Right , but I mean what 's the {disfmarker} what does the last row mean ? +PhD C: So it 's uh basically this but without the KLT on the {disfmarker} from the left path . +Professor B: I thought that was the one {disfmarker} I thought that was the second row . So what 's the difference between the second +PhD C: Uh the second line you don't have this combo stuff so you just +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: uh +Professor B: So this is like the second line but with {disfmarker} with the combo stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And with the {disfmarker} all the output of the combo . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh +Professor B: OK , so {disfmarker} alright so it looks to me {disfmarker} I guess the same {disfmarker} given that we have to take the filt ones out of the {disfmarker} the running because of this delay problem {disfmarker} so it looks to me like the ones you said I agree are {disfmarker} are the ones to look at +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I just would add the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the second row one +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and then um if we can um +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: oh yeah also when {disfmarker} when they 're using this weighting scheme of forty , thirty - five , twenty - five is that on the percentages or on the raw errors ? I guess it 's probably on the percentages right ? +PhD C: Uh {vocalsound} I guess , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah OK . +PhD C: I guess , yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD C: It 's not clear here . +Professor B: OK . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they 'll argue about it . Um OK so if we can know what {disfmarker} how many words are in each and then um Dave uh Dave promised to get us something tomorrow which will be there as far as they 've gotten {vocalsound} Friday +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll operate with that +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and uh how long did it I guess if we 're not doing all these things {disfmarker} if we 're only doing um um I guess since this is development data it 's legitimate to do more than one , right ? I mean ordinarily if {disfmarker} in final test data you don't want to do several and {disfmarker} and take the best +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's not proper but if this is development data we could still look at a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . We can {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . But we have to decide {disfmarker} I mean we have to fix the system on this d on this data , to choose the best +Professor B: Yeah . I Right . +PhD C: and these +Professor B: But the question is when {disfmarker} when do we fix the system , +PhD C: But we could +Professor B: do we fix the system uh tomorrow or do we fix the system on Tuesday ? +PhD C: it d +Professor B: I {disfmarker} Yeah , OK except that we do have to write it up . +PhD C: I think we fixed on Tuesday , yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Also , so +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um +PhD C: Uh yeah well . Well basically it 's this with perhaps some kind of printing and some {disfmarker} some other @ @ . +Professor B: Right so maybe what we do is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we uh as soon as we get the data from them we start the training and so forth +PhD C: Yeah but Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but we start the write - up right away because as you say there {disfmarker} there 's only minor differences between these . +PhD C: I think you {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} we could start soon , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Write up something . +Professor B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} you know , I would {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to see it +PhD C: Um yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe I can {disfmarker} I can edit it a bit uh sure . The {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} what in this si i in this situation is my forte which is English . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh so +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: uh H yeah . Have y have you seen alt d do they have a format for how they want the system descriptions or anything ? +PhD C: Uh not really . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Um There is the format of the table which is {vocalsound} quite impressive . +Professor B: Yeah ? Uh I see . Yes , for those who are listening to this and not looking at it uh it 's not really that impressive , it 's just tiny . It 's all these little categories set a , set b , set c , multi - condition , clean . Uh No mitigation . Wow . Do you know what no {disfmarker} what no mitigation means here ? +PhD C: Um it should be the the problem with the error {disfmarker} channel error +Professor B: Oh that 's probably the {disfmarker} +PhD C: or +Professor B: this is probably channel error stuff +PhD C: well , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: huh ? Oh this is i right , it says right above here channel {disfmarker} channel error resilience , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . So recognition performance is just the top part , actually . Uh and they have {disfmarker} yes , split between seen databases and non - seen so basically between development and {disfmarker} and evaluation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} right , it 's presumed there 's all sorts of tuning that 's gone on on the see what they call seen databases and there won't be tuning for the uh unseen . Multi - condition {disfmarker} multi - condition . So they have {disfmarker} looks like they have uh uh +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so they splitting up between the TI - digits and everything else , I see . So the everything else is the SpeechDat - Car , that 's the multi multilingual +PhD C: Yeah , so it 's not divided between languages you mean or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , it is . +PhD C: it just +Professor B: It is , but there 's also {disfmarker} there 's these tables over here for the {disfmarker} for the TI - digits and these tables over here for the car data which is {disfmarker} which is I guess all the multilingual stuff +PhD C: Oh yeah . +Professor B: and then uh there 's {disfmarker} they also split up between multi - condition and clean only . +PhD C: Yeah . For TI - digits . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah , actually yeah . For the TI - digits they want to train on clean and on noisy +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: So we 're doing that also , I guess . +PhD C: Uh yeah . But uh we actually {disfmarker} do we have the features ? Yeah . For the clean TI - digits but we did not test it yet . Uh the clean training stuff . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Well anyway , sounds like there 'll be a lot to do just to {vocalsound} work with our partners to fill out the tables {vocalsound} over the next uh next few days +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yes . +Professor B: I guess they have to send it out {disfmarker} let 's see the thirty - first is uh uh Wednesday and I think the {disfmarker} it has to be there by some hour uh European time on Wednesday +PhD C: Hmm - hmm . +Professor B: so {vocalsound} I think basically +PhD D: We lost time uh Wednesday maybe because {vocalsound} that the difference in the time may be {disfmarker} is a long different of the time . +Professor B: E excuse me ? +PhD D: Maybe the Thursday the twelfth of the night of the Thurs - thirty - one is {disfmarker} is not valid in Europe . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: We don't know is happening . +Professor B: Yes , so I mean {disfmarker} I think we have to actually get it done Tuesday +PhD D: Tuesday . +Professor B: right because I {disfmarker} I think +PhD C: Yeah , well . +Professor B: uh Uh +PhD C: Except if {disfmarker} if it 's the thirty - one at midnight or I don't know {disfmarker} we can {vocalsound} still do some work on Wednesday morning . +Professor B: yeah well . W i is but is {disfmarker} is it midni I thought it was actually something like five PM on {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , well . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: was like {disfmarker} I thought it was five PM or something , I didn't think it was midnight . I thought they said they wanted everything by +PhD D: Yeah , five PM . +Professor B: well , so five PM their time is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if +PhD D: Not five PM , three PM . +Professor B: three PM . +PhD D: Three PM . +Professor B: Alright , that 's six in the morning here . +PhD C: It 's d no . +PhD D: Uh no three {disfmarker} three A - three PM ? +PhD C: No , we are wondering about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hour that we have to eh I don't know if it 's three PM {disfmarker} it 's +PhD D: Oh yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Three PM here is in Europe midnight . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's midnight but +Professor B: Yes , yes , but I didn't think it was midnight that it was due , I thought it was due at some hour during the day like five PM or something . +PhD D: Oh OK . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Professor B: In which case +PhD D: maybe . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh well we should look but my assumption is that we basically have to be done Tuesday . Um so then next Thursday we can sort of have a little aftermath +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but then {disfmarker} then we 'll actually have the new data which is the German and the Danish +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but that really will be much less work because uh the system will be fixed +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so all we 'll do is take whatever {vocalsound} they have and {disfmarker} and uh and run it through the process . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh we won't be changing the training on anything +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there 'll be no new training , there 'll just be new HTK runs , so that 's means in some sense we can kind of relax from this after {disfmarker} after Tuesday and {disfmarker} and uh maybe next meeting we can start talking a little bit about where we want to go from here uh in terms of uh the research . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um you know what things uh did you think of when you were uh doing this process that uh you just didn't really have time to adequately work on uh uh so +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: What ? +Grad A: Oh , Stephane always has these great ideas and {disfmarker} oh , but uh we don't have time . +PhD C: Sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I 'm not sure these are great ideas . +Professor B: But they 're ideas . Yeah ? Oh , that was good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh also it 's still true that uh I think it 's true that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we at least got fairly consistent i improved results by running uh the uh neural net transformation in parallel with the features +PhD C: But +Professor B: rather than uh in sequence which was {disfmarker} was your suggestion and that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems to have been borne out . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The fact that none of these are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} you know , enormous is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not too surprising {disfmarker} most improvements aren't enormous and {vocalsound} uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: some of them are but uh I mean you have something really really wrong {vocalsound} and you fix it {vocalsound} you can get big and really enormous improvements +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} um Cuz our best improvements over the years that we 've gotten from finding bugs , but Anyway OK well I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I see where we are and everybody knows what they 're doing and is there {disfmarker} is there anything else we should talk about or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} are we done ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I think it 's OK um . We so basically we will {disfmarker} I think we 'll try to {disfmarker} to focus on these three architectures and {disfmarker} and perhaps I was thinking also a fourth one with just {disfmarker} just a single KLT because we did not really test that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: removing all these KLT 's and putting one single KLT at the end . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean that would be pretty low maintenance to try it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh if you can fit it in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh I have {disfmarker} yeah I do have one other piece of information which uh I should tell people outside of this group too uh I don't know if we 're gonna need it uh but uh Jeff up at the uh University of Washington has uh gotten a hold of a uh uh some kind of server farm of uh of ten uh uh multiprocessor uh IBM machines RS six thousands +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh so I think each one is four processors or something or {disfmarker} I don't know , eight hundred megahertz or something and there 's four processors in a box and there 's ten boxes and there 's some kind of ti so if {disfmarker} you know he 's got a lot of processing power and um we 'd have to schedule it but if we have some big jobs and we wanna {disfmarker} wanna {disfmarker} wanna run them he 's {disfmarker} he 's offering it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . It 's uh when he was here eh uh he {disfmarker} he used i not only every machine here but every machine on campus as far as I could tell , so {disfmarker} so in some ways he just got his payback , but uh again I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll end up with {disfmarker} if we 're gonna be CPU limited on anything that we 're doing in this group +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but if {disfmarker} if we are that 's an offer . OK well uh you guys doing great stuff so that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's really neat and uh we 'll uh uh g don't think we need to uh um Oh well the other thing I guess that I will say is that uh the digits that we 're gonna record momentarily is starting to get {disfmarker} are starting to get into a pretty good size collection and um in addition to the SpeechDat stuff we will have those to work with really pretty soon now so that 's {disfmarker} that 's another source of data . Um which is s under somewhat better control and that we can {disfmarker} we can make measurements of the room the {disfmarker} uh that {disfmarker} you know if we feel there 's other measurements we don't have that we 'd like to have we can make them and uh Dave and I were just talking about that a little while ago so uh that 's another {disfmarker} another possibility for this {disfmarker} this kind of work . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: K , uh if nobody has anything else maybe we should go around do {disfmarker} do our digits {disfmarker} do our digits duty . OK . OK I 'll start . Uh , let me say that again . OK . I guess we 're done . +","Professor B and PhD C discuss a system involving the combination of features that pass through multiple pathways and are processed through Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) and low-pass filters, and are then combined by adding the values. KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform) is used as well. They are focusing on three main architectures, considering adding a fourth with just a single KLT. They acknowledge the loss of visual aid for listeners, discuss the significance of the differences in results, and the upcoming need to fill out tables for a project. They mention time constraints leading up to a deadline, a potential new source of processing power from a server farm, and the availability of new data to work with. Towards the end, they prepare to record some digits as part of their project work." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I have received apologies for absence from Jack Sargeant, and I'm very pleased to welcome Vikki Howells, who is substituting for Jack this morning. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our last evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, and I'm really pleased to welcome back Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, who is deputy director of the children and families division; and Emma Gammon, who is the lawyer working on the Bill. So, thank you all for coming. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions because we've got lots of ground that we want to cover, and the first questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Deputy Minister. Of those individuals who responded to our written consultation in a personal capacity, nearly 70 per cent do not support this Bill. We also heard a clear message from the parents we met last week who oppose this Bill that, as parents, they understand clearly the difference between child abuse and a light smack from a loving parent. How would you like to respond to that? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Janet, for that question. I think I'd like to start by saying that child abuse is not the issue that the Bill is trying to address. What the Bill is trying to do is prohibit all forms of physical punishment, and that is in order to protect children's rights and to ensure that children have the same protection from physical punishment as adults. But I do understand that people have different views, and that's why this process has been so important—for us to hear what your views are and what parents' views are. I know that, often, people use different euphemisms really to make light of physical punishment. I've heard expressions used such as a 'light smack' or a 'loving smack' or a 'tap', and really there can be different interpretations of what is a 'light smack', what is a 'loving smack', and that doesn't really cover the issue of the frequency of such actions being taken. But I would say that, however mild it seems to be, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognises that any physical punishment of children, however minor, is incompatible with their human rights, and why should a big person hit a little person? That's been the sort of mantra, really, that has taken me through supporting this legislation—that it just seems wrong to me that there is something in the law that could mean that there could be an excuse for that happening. I believe we shouldn't have anything in the law that defends the physical punishment of children, and I don't think we should be defining acceptable ways of hitting or punishing children, because I think it does send a confused message to children. It says, 'It's okay for me to hit you, but don't you hit anybody else.' I think it causes confusion. So, I'm confident that updating the law will make it much clearer for parents and people working with children—and, of course, I'm sure, as you'll have heard from the evidence you've taken, that people who work with children are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation, and the representative surveys that we've carried out show support for the Bill's principles. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Last week, during the workshop, a few parents—predominantly all of them, actually—said that they use a gentle tap or smacking as part of a toolkit of ways to deal with challenging behaviour or, sometimes, for the safety of the child or, indeed, to carry out the parenting of a child. How do you intend to work with parents going forward, given the finite resources that social care and social services have? I know from the responses we've received to the consultation that parents themselves who have to parent 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they are really, on the scale of things, very upset about this. How do you intend to try and get your message across to those parents on removing what they consider to be part of their toolkit when raising children? How do you intend to deal with that aspect? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, I want to say, as I've said in most evidence sessions, that I completely accept that bringing up children is hard. It's very difficult; many of us have done it and we know how tough it can be. But we don't think that there is any place for physical punishment in bringing up children. There's a whole range of other ways that you can help parents bring up children, and advice you can give them of different methods to use. But, the clear message of this Bill is that we don't want any physical punishment; we don't think it's the right thing to do, and we believe that we are supported by many people in that view. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got other questions, Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Oh, yes. Several consultation responses refer to statistics from Sweden, which they say show that child-on-child violence actually increased by 1,791 per cent between 1984 and 2010, following the ban on physical punishment in 1979. What is your view on these figures and how can we be certain that this Bill won't lead to other long-term negative outcomes in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I'm aware of the debate surrounding the interpretation of the different statistics from Sweden. What's happened, really, in the academic research is that different academics are focused on different figures to support their views, and the methodological ways of doing it makes it quite difficult to have causation. I was very encouraged that a recent study of 88 countries concluded that if a country prohibits corporal punishment, the result is association with less youth violence, and this is one of the largest cross-national analyses of youth violence, with more than 400,000 participants. So, there is other evidence, very widespread evidence, which looks at a whole range of people, that is in contrast to the Swedish evidence. But, evidence in this field is mixed and we have considered a wide range of research and reviews, but ultimately the decision is one that is based on our commitment to children's rights. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Do you want question 3? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I can do it, yes. The Bill's explanatory memorandum says that 'there is no definitive evidence that ""reasonable"" physical punishment causes negative outcomes for children'. However, we have heard from Equal Protection Network Cymru that international evidence could not be clearer and that they found the Wales Centre for Public Policy's report, on which the explanatory memorandum is based, very confusing and very frustrating, and that it didn't tie in with what they knew. How would you respond to those viewpoints? +Julie Morgan AM: We were very keen to get as balanced research as we possibly could, and we didn't want to just put forward views that we thought agreed with our point of view. So, we were trying to give a balanced point of view, but we did commission the Wales Centre for Public Policy to do an independent literature review and we're honestly reporting to you what they said. But they did make it clear, again, which I think I've said in previous evidence sessions, that all physical punishment, under all conditions, is potentially harmful to children. And certainly, there is no peer-reviewed research that says that physically punishing a child is going to improve things, has favourable outcomes. So, I understand what Equal Protection Network Cymru are saying, because there is a lot of very strong evidence, but we're giving you the evidence that we had from the research that we commissioned. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Suzy on implementation. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I've just got a couple of questions on this balance between the steps that will be needed to implement this Bill and the impact that it'll actually have. You've probably heard in evidence that we've received that there are still some concerns out there about how agencies might address malicious reporting; some detail about how the public interest test might be applied further along the line; what's going to happen with out-of-hours provision from social services, and so on. There are still, from our perspective, quite a few things that are unknown about the effect on our public services in particular of the implementation of this Bill. Would you agree that perhaps we should know a little bit more about that before we proceed with supporting the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's very difficult, bringing in this legislation that hasn't been done before. It's very difficult to gauge the impact, and we've covered that, I know, in previous discussions. But I think it's very important to say that we are not creating a new offence. The Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault. And I think it's an interesting point to make that, in Ireland, they introduced similar legislation through an amendment to a Bill, and had no detailed preparation for bringing in the Bill, and in fact there's no evidence that this has caused any difficulties, and no significant negative impacts or increase in workload. But in any case, we have our implementation group, which is going to address many of these issues. This met on 14 May. That was the first meeting. You see, I think we do have to take a balance between assuming this Bill is going to go through and what we can actually do. We can't presume that the Assembly will accept this Bill, so we have to be staged in what we do. But we had the first strategic implementation group on 14 May, and we had representatives from the police, the police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, the legal profession and the third sector. They're all there, and they're all very keen to make this legislation work and to look at the implications of it. I'd just like to say how grateful I am for all those organisations giving their time and commitment. They've set up four work streams, looking at parenting advice and support; data collection, evaluation and monitoring; operations, procedures and processes; and out-of-court disposals and diversions. These groups will be taking forward this work and will be looking at many of those issues that you've mentioned, and will also be updated on the progress of the awareness strategy that we will be bringing in. I'm really confident that the legislation will be implemented in a very practical and workable way, because we do have the commitment of all these agencies, and there's been a huge amount of preparation done in the Welsh Government to prepare for this in a way that, I have to say, hasn't been done in some of the other countries—as I mentioned, in Ireland. So, as much preparation as could be done is being done and has been done, but we really now see that the implementation group is taking forward all these issues, and obviously those agencies that are taking part in the implementation group are, on the whole, in support of the principles of this Bill. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, thank you for that, Minister, but the way I look at this is that you've already said that, if this Bill passes—and it will pass; it's in enough manifestos to pass, so the question is what type of Bill is going to pass—and if there is a gap of, let's say, two years before anything is implemented, and the implementation group is doing the work that you've described—and we're very relieved to hear that—why is this Bill being introduced now when that implementation group hasn't really come up with a strategy that could help persuade people about what implementing this Bill would look like in real life? You're asking the Welsh public to take a bit of a chance on this. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have, as far as possible, looked at international evidence where this legislation has been introduced. It's different for different countries, so I know it's difficult to get anything that's absolutely linked. But I don't agree that it's a bit of a chance, really. I think we are preparing very well and very carefully. As the team who have been working on this have worked through the preparation for the Bill, lots of issues have arisen as they've done that, and so you have to do that, I think, alongside the actual practical implications with the groups that are coming together, and I think the point at which we've done that is probably just about right, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. I hope this isn't going on to somebody else's questions, but accepting what you say, would you then be open to accepting amendments to the face of the Bill that would clarify the position for the Welsh public on certain things that may be of concern to them, which have been fed through to us? I'm not suggesting anything specific, but—. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. I mean, the position is that it is a very simple, one-clause Bill. We want to keep it as simple as possible, but I'm certainly prepared to consider any issues that come up, and I think that's been the case all along. Although our preference is to keep it simple. +Suzy Davies AM: I understand that. It's just what's going to work as a bit of law here, isn't it? And then just finally from me, and you've made the point to a degree, that, of course, not all countries are like Wales. If we look at Ireland, and New Zealand's the one we've been looking at an awful lot, which are the most similar, their work hasn't really been in place for that long, and one of the things that, I think, you're going to need to be able persuade us of is that if the culture change to which we've already referred is going in one way anyway, and if it continues to go in that direction, that this Bill will have had a causal effect. I'm trying to establish whether the culture change is going to happen anyway, whether or not we pass this legislation. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it does look as if a culture change is happening in any case, but the culture change will never really move, I think, as most of us want it, if there is legislation that does appear to condone the use of physical punishment, and having this reasonable punishment in law means that happens. So, I think, passing the legislation by itself will certainly not do everything— +Suzy Davies AM: No. And you'll be aware that this is to go with it. I get that, but— +Julie Morgan AM: You've got to have—. And I think the research has all shown you've got to have an awareness campaign running along with it. That is shown. And in the other countries we've looked at, I don't think an awareness campaign was actually carried out because we are planning a really big awareness campaign because we think it's absolutely fair to the Welsh public, as you said, that they absolutely know what we're doing and everybody's aware of it. So, I think it is—. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, can I just finish—? +Julie Morgan AM: I know the point you're making. You're saying that this would happen in any case, maybe. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm suggesting it. +Julie Morgan AM: But if you've got a bit of legislation there on the Bill, it will always mean that for a very minority group of parents, they will feel that they have got the right to use physical punishment against their child, and I just think it's something we should get rid of. I think it's an anachronism and it's something we should—. And I think Wales has been very strong on children's rights. We've got rid of physical punishment in schools, child minders, regulated care settings. And, of course, the other point that I don't think we say enough about is that it's not just parents; it's people in loco parentis who are working in leisure centres or religious establishments or any of those unregulated settings who also have this defence. So, it's last bit in the jigsaw, really, to have it quite clear that we want to treat our children with respect and dignity and I think this will move us towards that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's the argument you've made before. I think what I was trying to get to is: how are we going to prove that this piece of legislation has worked effectively? It's about the data capture, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What are you going to do to make sure that you acquire evidence in the future to show that this has worked, or potentially not worked? I'd be surprised if that was the case, but—. Because, of course, that has an implication then on the resources for the various people you'll be asking to collect the data. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think that's very important because we need to know what is the effect of the legislation we'll be bringing in. So, we will be having ongoing evaluation, we will be bringing in an independent body to evaluate. We have got ongoing monitoring and we've got ongoing monitoring surveys looking at what are the views of the public. So, yes— +Suzy Davies AM: It'll be directly linked to the Bill, then, rather than that broad culture change. +Julie Morgan AM: The monitoring, asking the views of the public, is generally about issues related to the Bill. The views of parents about whether this legislation— +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, I don't want to labour this point. +Julie Morgan AM: And awareness. How aware they are. +Suzy Davies AM: Basically, we need a question, 'Has this Bill stopped you smacking your child?' That's the core question. So, phrase it differently, yes? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Well, we are in the surveys asking how many people feel that they do smack their child, but this is any physical punishment, actually, not just smacking— +Suzy Davies AM: And it's for the future, not for now. +Julie Morgan AM: —and how many, actually, are doing that. And it is consistently going down, as you said. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I don't want to take it any further. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to explore some of the issues around social services now with questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, Minister. When the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru came in, they were saying to us that they would encourage people to report any instances, anything that they see around somebody smacking a child. That leads on to the question about whether in fact social services, then, would change their thresholds for intervention if there were more cases being referred to them. Are you fairly confident, are you certain, that that wouldn't happen, or do you think there is a danger that social services might actually say, 'Well, actually, if we're getting all these referrals, we need to think again about when and if we intervene', and the thresholds could become a bit lower? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, as you know, social services already receive and investigate reports of children being physically punished—any sort of range of physical punishment—and they use standard procedures to determine how to proceed, but that's done on a case-by-case basis; it's made on the individual case element. And, of course, there is a distinction between reasonable punishment and child neglect or abuse. And if this legislation is enacted, a significant proportion of the incidents of physical punishment will not require any response under the child protection procedures, and we do not expect the threshold of significant harm to change. And I know you took evidence from the ADSS, and I know Sally Jenkins gave evidence, who is one of the lead practitioners, and I understood she said: 'In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen.' So, I think— +Dawn Bowden AM: So, it's the threshold for intervention that's the key, really, isn't it, rather than—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, they don't see that changing. +Julie Morgan AM: No, no. And we don't see that changing. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. The police, when they came in to give evidence, talked about the need for the multi-agency safeguarding hubs. And what we also heard is that it's a bit inconsistent across the country. And I think you acknowledged that as well. Do you think the implementation of the Bill, and its effectiveness, is going to be dependent on us having consistently effective multi-agency safeguarding hubs right the way across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: No. The effective implementation of the Bill does not depend on MASHs, as we call them for short, because bodies, social services, already work closely with the police on a day-to-day basis, really, and they have indicated their willingness to do so, and there are already well-established mechanisms in place that enable this joint working to take place. I know that the MASHs are only in certain areas, and I know that it's—. I think they're probably very good to have, actually, and very good to help the work, but it's certainly not dependent on them. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, but it would be something that you would be wanting to see developed, that eventually we would have these MASHs right across the country? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, there are three MASHs in the south Wales police force, and one pilot MASH in the Gwent police force, but they don't operate in exactly the same way. And I know that other areas have considered having MASHs, but haven't actually brought any in. And a multi-agency strategic group, which is led by South Wales Police, has been set up, and it will consider the effectiveness of MASH arrangements in Wales, so it's very possible there will be more MASHs, but I want to reiterate that we're not dependent on MASHs in order to have the close working. But they're welcome—very welcome. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because the key point from the police's point of view, I think, was that they provide a single point of contact, so it's very simple, isn't it? It's a single point of contact, and I think they were quite concerned that having that single point of contact might actually reduce the level of unnecessary police prosecutions—well, the police don't prosecute, but charges and so on. So, it was just a point that they were raising. +Julie Morgan AM: I think they are very effective and very much to be welcomed, but it's certainly not essential. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Karen. +Karen Cornish: I was just going to say that it's probably worth saying that looking at how agencies work together will be one of the things, again, that will be looked at very carefully on the task and finish group, looking at processes and procedures. We're very alert to the fact that there are different organisations, different services, and that bringing them together, working in as consistent a way as possible, is really, really important. As the Minister has said, social services, the police and others are already committed to working together, and, actually, we just want to make sure that we develop those working practices in the best way possible, recognising that not every area will have a MASH, and reiterating, again, what the Deputy Minister has said—that the effectiveness of the Bill is not predicated on a MASH in every area, but it is important that all those organisations do work together in a consistent and appropriate way. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much. The other response that we've received is from social workers. And they've talked about the fact that the social worker's workload is already very stretched, and you'll be aware of that, Minister. And I think they were getting a little bit concerned about whether a whole raft of new cases are going to land on what is an already extremely heavy workload, and how effectively they could deal with that. Would you say that those concerns, in terms of the impact of this Bill, are unfounded, or are we just saying that this is an unknown quantity at this stage, and we're going to have to wait and see? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, first of all, if I can just pay tribute to the work that social workers do. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, absolutely. +Julie Morgan AM: Because, obviously, they’re going to be essential to the successful implementation of this Bill. I was a social worker myself, so I’m very happy to pay tribute to them. [Laughter.] But they do do a hard job, which isn’t always recognised, I think, by the public. So, I do take this point very seriously, but, obviously, the professionals who have given evidence—many of them have said they don’t see there being a big rise of referrals. Jane Randall, National Independent Safeguarding Board—I think she came to you—said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals…I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' I mean, there may be an increase in reporting of incidents, initially, maybe from individuals in the community and organisations such as schools. And I think it could have an impact on the initial stages of social services activity, which I think others—I think Sally Jenkins said that maybe there’d be an increase, a small increase, at the beginning. But as we expect the awareness raising and the ongoing support that we’ll be giving to parents—we do feel that the incidents of physical punishment will be falling over time. And we don’t really see that there will be an increase. But I know that social workers are stretched, and are hard-pressed—and I think that was some of the evidence given to you by the British Association of Social Workers. But I think it’s important to remember that they are also very strongly in support of us carrying out this legislation. But it is important to look at the realities and the practicalities. So, we’re going to work very closely with social services—obviously, key members of our implementation group—and we will collect relevant data for a period before the actual implementation, in order to get a baseline. We want a baseline, and we are working with a small number of social services to try to get the baseline of where it is, and to see what happens when the Bill is implemented. The evidence from other countries is that they certainly have not been overwhelmed. There have been reports in New Zealand that they have not been overwhelmed, and I mentioned Ireland earlier. So, I don’t think, really, we have to fear that social services would be overwhelmed, but we must be prepared, and we must get this data and monitor it closely. +Dawn Bowden AM: Keep it monitored. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I guess things will level out in due course. And social services clearly having to make judgments every day—they will be making those judgments quite quickly and turning them around. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, when they spoke to us, also had—there was a similar kind of concern raised. They did say that they felt that they probably did have adequate resources to support the Bill. But do you think there is any danger at all that it could divert CAFCASS staff, if we have a high volume of reporting, particularly given that we’ve got a 26-week limit in which to deal with those cases? Is that something that causes you any concern at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, CAFCASS are confident that they can deal with the cases that they have. As you know, there's been a big increase in the numbers that CAFCASS is dealing with already, and they have managed to very successfully cope with the demand. So, I've got every confidence that they will be able to cope with it. +Dawn Bowden AM: Because they were basically just saying that it's unpredictable at this stage, weren't they, so—? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. It is unpredictable. Our best views are that it will not—. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, because they were talking about the fact that no assessment had been made about the risk of malicious reporting. We talked about that in a number of sessions with the police and so on. So, I think their biggest concern was more about the rise in looked-after children and the impact on that in terms of their workload, and it was just a question of whether this would potentially divert any resources, I guess. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, in terms of the malicious reporting, obviously that is something that happens a lot now and it is is likely that, perhaps—. I think they felt that, in existing cases, this might be another element that should be brought in, but they seemed, in my discussions, fairly confident. I know they appeared before the committee, and they are coping very well. But, obviously, another area we are very concerned about is the rise in the number of looked-after children, and that's somewhere we want to try to do what we can to bring that down. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before Suzy comes in with a supplementary—CAFCASS didn't come to the committee, they've submitted— +Julie Morgan AM: They sent a letter—that's right. Yes, sorry about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Just very quickly, because I don't want to spend a lot of time on this: isn't it going to be true that any increase in workload for social services or schools or whoever is going to depend on reporting rising? Where do you see the likely rise in reporting taking place? Will it be members of the public or is it going to be professionals who feel that this is something that they can't ignore from now on? +Julie Morgan AM: well, I think it would be mixed. I don't have any view or where it particularly would come from, because if there are any reports that go into agencies now about children being physically punished in any way—I think they investigate those already now. But I suppose members of the public might report if they see any physical punishment going on. They would be made much more aware, we hope, by the legislation—so, that may happen. But I think, in schools, if there is physical punishment reported by a child, the schools would report it in any case. But I think it's likely that there will be a small rise. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just curious about where you thought the main source would be— +Julie Morgan AM: I can't really be definitive about that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The Bill, in essence, is a simple one, of course, is it not? But what it does is  provide a useful discussion on what good parenting is and what discipline methods are the most effective—that is, discipline methods that parents can use rather than physical punishment. Do you think, therefore, that there's a need to invest much more in programmes to do with parenting and in support services for families in terms of parenting, and that as part of an early intervention strategy that's more co-ordinated and robust than what we have at present? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we are developing the Bill as part of a much wider package of support for children and their parents, which, of course, is already in place. This obviously includes the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, which aims to help parents do the best job that they can by providing positive tips on parenting and information. And we're already preparing now to update that, because, of course, that only goes up to age 7 and deals with issues about how you cope with your kids if they're difficult at meal times and if they have tantrums. It is very well used by parents. But, of course, this legislation will go up to 18 years old, and so the issues may be very different. So, we're already starting to prepare to update that 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign. And then, obviously, there's the universal services that give access to help and to promote positive parenting, delivered by local government, health, education, social services, social justice and the third sector. We will be encouraging all those agencies that provide that universal service to help support parents and to pass on this information. Then, there will be the more targeted supports, such as Flying Start and Families First, which offer help and advice. But what I've done is I've asked the officials to carry out a mapping exercise to see where the support is and where the gaps are or opportunities to do more, particularly around information and advice on positive alternatives to physical punishment, but also more widely. So, we are looking to see where the gaps are. I think parents do tend to use information and try to get help in many different ways. A very large number, actually, do use the internet. I was surprised, actually, that so many used the internet to get information. Others ask their mothers, their families, their friends, and go to agencies. It's such a wide range that we need that mapping exercise and we need to see where we need to put in more support. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm pleased that you're going to conduct that exercise, because the evidence that we've received from a number of different directions is that there isn't enough investment in reality in the support services in the early years, and that there is a real need for the focus within Government go back to early intervention and to have a much more co-ordinated strategy. You've mentioned a number of agencies working on different elements, perhaps, but perhaps there's a need to bring them all together. You talk about the 'Parenting. Give it time' campaign, but I think it's an online campaign effectively, and Flying Start—yes, people who attend those courses find them useful, but, of course, it's not available across Wales and it's not available to every parent. There is a scheme that is available through schools in Gwynedd—perhaps you are aware of it—Incredible Years, with Professor Judy Hutchings, who has been working on this for a number of years now, very successfully, where schools, parents and the children work together on parenting methods that are positive. I wonder if it's time to think about expanding that as part of an early intervention strategy across Wales. Perhaps you can't give a specific answer today, but may I ask you to take a look at that? What concerns me is that the Bill is going through but there's not enough work relating to education and having people's support for different methods, more positive methods, in my opinion, of parenting. There's a real need to move and to invest in that area and perhaps move money towards that work. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, certainly, I think that is the purpose of the mapping exercise, to see what is successful, where things need to be expanded, and that's what we're going to consider. Incredible Years—I know it's very successful; I am aware of that programme. I think there are patches all over Wales of really good progress, but, certainly, I'm sure we need to give more support to parents in the early years, and I think they're only too glad to have it as well. Children are very receptive at that age and early intervention is the key to many of the issues that we have to deal with later on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to return to some of the parenting issues later, but in the meantime we've got questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Just to take it on the next step from what Siân Gwenllian was asking about—in schools, are teachers ready for this legislation? +Julie Morgan AM: On our implementation group, the education sector is represented. They've come to the first meeting of the implementation group. So, they're going to be fully involved in the preparation. Obviously, corporal punishment was banned in schools a long time ago, and I think the education sector is very supportive of this move. But in terms of the awareness for teachers to be ready for it—obviously, the awareness campaign has got to be aimed at professionals in every field and certainly aimed at teachers. +Hefin David AM: So, if I was a teacher in an individual school, what kind of preparation do you think I should expect? +Julie Morgan AM: You know this better than me, having been more in the education field than me, but I think teachers are updated on different parts of childcare legislation now, and have in-service training days and training courses. And, certainly, perhaps this would be part of that—part of the training that teachers get. This would have to be incorporated into that. +Hefin David AM: One of the things that the National Association of Head Teachers told us was that they wouldn't want the cost of that kind of training to come from core budgets. Would you agree with that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would have thought this sort of measure would be incorporated into the training they were using already, actually. I wouldn't have seen it would need something completely separate. +Hefin David AM: So, you think it should come from the core budget that they use for training? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it could be incorporated in what they're already doing. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And do you think that would be a significant additional cost or do you think that that would be minimal? +Julie Morgan AM: I would have thought it would be minimal. They already have training courses about childcare issues, and this would be something that would be absorbed into that. +Hefin David AM: You mentioned the implementation group and the fact that educators are represented on it. Can you just be a bit clearer about how they are represented again? I'm not sure I caught that. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to, Karen, because you were at the group? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, education are represented on it through the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, and they have a representative on the strategic implementation group, and we are working with them to understand who else will be on the task and finish groups that we're setting up that the Minister's already talked about. And we've also had conversations with all of the trade unions. I personally went and spoke to them earlier in the year when the Bill was being introduced, received their feedback and have said that I will go back and speak with them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The things that are being raised so far—would you say they're reflective of the concerns that the NAHT rose about, for example, funding of training? Are those kinds of issues raised? The practical implications of introducing this Bill—are they raised? If not, what other issues might be raised? +Karen Cornish: So, I think that the main concerns that you've already heard as a committee are similar concerns to those that have been raised previously. So, there's not anything in addition to the things that we have discussed, either with the trade unions or through the implementation group, or during the consultation period. And, as the Minister said, for the majority of these sort of things, teachers, education and other workforces already have procedures in place, because this comes under a safeguarding issue at one level. There are procedures and processes that are already there that they all follow. The ask will be based around those safeguarding procedures and, therefore, education and other services update their processes and procedures on a regular basis as a matter of course when any issues like this are addressed. There's a wider context here. Minister, I don't know whether you wanted to say anything about the well-being and the— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. One of the things that I think this committee has been involved in is we want to have a whole-school approach. We want mental health and well-being to be part of the way that the whole school operates, and the culture and how schools engage with pupils and parents. And we want to create that atmosphere where there's no wrong door, where children can bring up any of the concerns that they have with any member of the school staff that they trust. And, obviously, the school staff is wider than the teachers. And so, I think the creation of that sort of atmosphere is very important in taking forward this issue. +Hefin David AM: I appreciate that. I think the Bill, though, introduces a very specific set of changes that— +Julie Morgan AM: It removes the defence; that's all the Bill does. +Hefin David AM: But should a parent witness, now, smacking, then it will require a different kind of approach—sorry, if a teacher were to witness smacking, it would require a different kind of approach, perhaps, to existing approaches. There shouldn't, therefore, be any surprise amongst teachers in how to deal with these things when the Bill comes in. I suppose the question I'm asking is: can we be assured that nothing you've said today in this meeting, in this committee, should be a surprise to teachers and trade unions, because that would already have been communicated through the Bill implementation group? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, well, Karen has already said about the meetings that she's had with the unions and they are present on the implementation group, but a lot of these things happen already. They already have to make decisions about physical punishment they may be told about by children, for example—probably more likely than actually witnessing anything. And they already have to make decisions on those sorts of issues, so I see this as being incorporated in with that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. With regard to health and the communication of this to parents, we've heard about the Healthy Child Wales programme, and the fact that it has the opportunity to play a role in raising parents' awareness. Do you think that's the case? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the Healthy Child Wales programme and the role of the health visitor is absolutely crucial, because, obviously, the health visitor is there right at the beginning. It's a universal service, and so there will be great opportunity for them to promote positive parenting in a much stronger way than they're able to do at the moment, because the fact that you have this defence does mean that the professionals aren't able to make it as clear as they want to make it that positive parenting is the way that they'd like families to go. So, I think this will be a great advantage to health visitors, and, obviously, they support it strongly, because they're trying to encourage parents not to use physical punishment now, but with their hands slightly tied behind their back, because the defence does exist. +Hefin David AM: That's great, that's a good thing, but the concern we've got is that half the parents across Wales are not accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme, and in my community, within the Aneurin Bevan health board area, 80 per cent of parents aren't accessing the Healthy Child Wales programme. So, are there concerns that, if you rely too much on that process for communication, then parents, particularly in the early years, will be left out? +Julie Morgan AM: We've got to rely on a range of ways of reaching parents, and I think that there are other times when there is a much higher ratio of children and families seen. But I think we've had that discussion with the mapping exercise that we've already mentioned, that we're going to identify where there are gaps or where we can do more, and that's where we will identify this. +Karen Cornish: I think as well that that figure relates to one contact point across the whole of the Healthy Child Wales programme, not the Healthy Child Wales programme as a whole. Maybe we could come back with some further information about the contacts, because I'm—. That figure— +Lynne Neagle AM: The percentage relates to the contact at age three and a half, but that is exactly the kind of age when you'd expect more children to—. If they were going to be smacked, it would be at that sort of age, wouldn't it, really? So, that is a concern for the committee, really, in terms of coverage. +Karen Cornish: I can appreciate that, although I would—. Midwives, health visitors and others working with families would actually be giving those messages, core messages, about setting boundaries, managing behaviour, discipline, positive parenting, right from the very beginning. So, reliance on that single point of contact at that one age point is not necessarily the most appropriate, because I think there's a period from birth through to, actually, later as well, when those key health messages, those key messages around positive parenting, are and can be given. As the Minister said, we will be mapping a lot of this, but we can give you some more advice on that, if that would be helpful, about the types of messages that are given during that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I think that would be helpful. I've got some supplementaries on this, because I think the committee is concerned that at a key opportunity at age three and a half, a big chunk of families aren't having that contact that they should expect with their health visitor, really. Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. It's also a time in their child's life when they're likely to be spending time not with their parents, in school or early years. And I just wanted a bit of clarification from you, Minister, on what you were saying to Hefin David about training here. I got the sense you thought this could just be slipped in as a paragraph in existing guidance, but I'm not clear about what happens to a teacher who is told by a child that they've been smacked, and they decide that they're not going to report that—will they get into trouble over that? If it's part of a bigger picture that a teacher should have picked up, that's different, but, if a child tells a teacher, 'Oh, Mammy smacked me because I did such and such', is that teacher going to get into trouble if they don't report that to the police? +Julie Morgan AM: If that happens now, the teacher is expected to report that now. I think they usually call in social services. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, it goes to social services. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: But that clarity is needed as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. That is what happens now, so would you expect a teacher to do it, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I'm just interested to hear a bit more about the mapping exercise that you've referred to, which I think is really important, but it is going to show up a lot of gaps geographically, but also in service provision for different groups of families. It's all very well doing a mapping exercise, but what is the purpose of that, and how are you going to ensure that those gaps don't exist in future? Maybe we could have a note about what the timetable is for this exercise, and more in-depth understanding perhaps about what your intentions are, and how you intend to take it forward once you've done the mapping exercise. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We absolutely acknowledge that there is a lot more work to be done, and we know that we have to work hard at this to reach every family. Obviously, the information that we've had about the Healthy Child Wales, the health boards will be monitoring that information and will be—. I think they're going to establish a project board to consider the themes that are coming out from the Healthy Child Wales, and so that will be certainly addressed there. And we will absolutely acknowledge that we expect that there will be work to be done. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And there will be investment needed, obviously, to fill in those gaps, which means a significant shift in the way Government now looks at its budget, and a shift towards that early prevention. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we all agree that early prevention is the key for happy, healthy children, and so we'll certainly consider everything that arises. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. You've said repeatedly that the intention of this Bill isn't to criminalise parents, and I believe that that's not your intention. So, what I'm interested in hearing about is how you—or the work that you've done to satisfy yourself that the huge majority of parents that are going to be caught up in the change of this Act won't result in parents getting anywhere near the CPS, for example. Obviously, there are going to be occasions where there are recidivists who keep smacking despite perhaps earlier warnings, or families get identified as doing something far more serious with their children than this, and I'm not talking about those—I'm talking about the people who are currently protected, if I can put it like that. I'm very interested in hearing what you've got to say about out-of-court disposals and pre being charged activity. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the assessment and work that you've done in that area. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, there are a number of out-of-court disposals that the police can use, because the police want to respond in a positive and proportionate way. The use of out-of-court disposals is actually a non-devolved responsibility, but we'll be working— +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I wanted to ask you about. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, they are non-devolved, but we will be working with the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the CPS, the police and the police and crime commissioners to consider suitable interventions. And one of the main areas of focus of the National Police Chiefs' Council's national strategy is to reduce the current six disposal options to just two. And that's going to be conditional caution and community resolution, and the four Welsh police forces are going to be moving towards this two-tier approach, which they believe will make for greater consistency. So, what we're doing is we are exploring, with the police liaison unit, how we can develop a suitable diversion scheme, with a focus on advice and support on positive alternatives to physical punishment, and how we can tie that into the wider activity. And, obviously, it all depends on the individual circumstances of the case, because the other thing we're going to look at is the individual. But it's possible then we could get a diversion scheme provided through a community resolution order; it could be potentially be given instead of a caution. And so that would be—you know, parents could be referred to a scheme. So, that's what we're discussing with the police liaison unit at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for confirming that, but even that is quite far down the process from the day that a smack is reported, and, as you know, particularly as soon as the police get involved, and even social services, if a record is made of even a complaint—even if that complaint goes no further, even if you don't get anywhere near an arrest, shall we say, that is logged in certain parts of the system and will need to be revealed in certain circumstances. I'm thinking of the enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check in particular, but there are other instances as well. Have you done any impact assessment on that, because that is a—we're talking about a situation where there's a massive impact, potentially, on an adult, when there have been no grounds at all to worry that a child's rights have been infringed, for example? It will happen in malicious reporting, but it could happen in reporting where an apparent battery has taken place, but it turns out to have been something completely different—you know, pushing a child's hand away, that sort of thing. The police are not going to want to take that any further at all, but it's on their records. How are you going to protect parents in those circumstances, within our legislative competence? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the issue of non-conviction data obviously doesn't just apply to this Bill we're bringing in; it applies to everything. So, it's something that you can look at in a general sense—that the police can visit and there's no further action, but that could be for anything— +Suzy Davies AM: But this is very sensitive, this area. +Julie Morgan AM: —and it's still logged. But, obviously, this does have an issue in terms of, particularly, the DBS checks and if you needed an enhanced certificate, if you wanted to be a teacher, a childcare worker, or those sorts of occupations. But, when disclosing information held locally, the police follow the quality assurance framework, and information must pass certain tests, which are related to considerations of relevance, substantiality and proportionality, and considerations of the safety aspects as well of disclosing information. And the police must record their thought process, their rationale, explaining how and why they reached all of their conclusions and their decisions. And this information is then assessed by the chief officer to determine whether it's reasonable to believe that it's relevant, and whether, in their opinion, it ought to be disclosed. Information should only be disclosed if it meets both of those requirements. So— +Suzy Davies AM: Is that in all jobs, though, because my understanding is that there are certain professions where that exemption doesn’t apply, and they’re likely to be the ones that are really relevant to the removal of the defence? So, I’m not talking about, I don't know, people who might work as volunteers; I’m literally talking about teachers and doctors, maybe dentists. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we have done some work on this, haven’t we? Do you want to say about that, Karen? +Karen Cornish: Yes. So, it does apply across all professions, and we have been in discussion with the DBS about when and how and why information would be released, and also how often. And our understanding at this moment in time is that this type of information is released only in a very, very small number of cases. I think we’re talking less than 1 per cent of cases— +Suzy Davies AM: One per cent of what figure though? +Karen Cornish: —in the last year. It’s about 1 per cent of 2,500, something like that. I haven’t got the exact figures with me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but it helps us to understand the general amount— +Karen Cornish: So, it’s about two, three, four cases in a year where this type of information is disclosed. It’s information that, obviously, we have got, but I think it’s really important to understand that this is a really rigorous process that the police and the DBS have in place. They consider everything in the round before they would even consider actually releasing any information that's non-conviction information in relation to employment. +Suzy Davies AM: But this is a new consideration for them. They haven't tested their ability to get their judgment right on this one yet. Are you concerned that, in order to be on the safe side, if I can put it like that, there's an increased likelihood of disclosure—which actually might disappear over time, because there's an opportunity to exercise judgment more frequently and get the balance right? +Karen Cornish: I think they do have to consider non-conviction information now and some of that non-conviction information may be in relation to physical punishment of a child. I think you've received evidence from the police saying that there are 18,000 or so incidents in one police force area alone, where information is potentially on their records, and yet we understand that a very, very small proportion of non-conviction information is released to an employer during a recruitment process. So, our expectation, based on that information, would be that it would remain at a very low level. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish off on this one: we don't have legislative competence in this particular area, so we are relying on goodwill and the conversations that you have, which I'm sure are very productive. What will happen if we start getting instances where perhaps that judgment hasn't been exercised correctly? There's nothing, as a Government, you can do to challenge that particularly. +Julie Morgan AM: I can only emphasise the very close working relationships we've got and I think will continue to build as we introduce this legislation. We've got it all set up and it's been very productive so far. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Suzy. Just before we move on, could I ask, then—? Maybe the committee would be grateful for a note providing an update on the latest work that the Government has done on out-of-court disposals, including estimated costs. We'd also appreciate a note on the Welsh Government's discussions with the DBS and the figures that Karen just referred to, if that's okay, please. Thank you. The next questions are from Hefin on resources. +Hefin David AM: When you first appeared before the committee at the beginning of Stage 1, I wasn't hugely reassured by the evidence you gave on the resource implications of the Bill. It seems to be relying, to a great extent, on the limited number of reporting of cases that's likely to happen, as we've seen in the evidence we've received. That's largely been recognised by the stakeholders who've given evidence, but isn't there still the potential for a degree of unknown costs to come into this, and what planning have you done for those unknown costs—those unforeseen costs—that might occur? +Julie Morgan AM: I feel that—. You're right that there always could be unknown costs, but we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate. For example, I've committed to fund the high-intensity awareness-raising campaign, and committed to carry out a mapping exercise to establish whether there are any gaps in the parenting support. We know that evidence from other countries does show that, if we bring in this legislation and raise awareness, it does change people's attitudes, so there may, in the long term, be a saving if we do that. But we are committed to working with organisations to put in place arrangements so that we're able to collect the data so that we know what the impact is. But I just have to repeat that all our evidence, looking at other countries, is that there isn't a huge increase in the workload. +Hefin David AM: No. I think you can make the argument for precedent elsewhere, but you can also say that every country has a different culture and approach to how it raises children, and therefore there'll be a number of differences as well. The explanatory memorandum raises some specific cases. It talks about unknown costs in relation to social services as a result of a potential increasing referrals; family courts and CAFCASS Cymru as a result of a potential increase in allegations, which we talked about; the CPS and a higher volume of requests for charging advice from the police; and the review of training and guidance offered by organisations involved in the safeguarding of children. All those things we've talked around, but what would be reassuring for the committee is, perhaps, if you could give us a broad figure, which the Government would say, 'We'll need to set this number aside in order to be prepared for the implementation of this Bill.' Would you be willing to present that at some point during the passage of the Bill? +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us. Certainly, the CPS say that they can cope. CAFCASS say that they can cope. And it is very difficult to anticipate what impact there would be on social services. The people who are managing social services say they don't anticipate a big impact. I think the other important thing to recognise is that this area of work is already dealt with by all these people. So, the CPS is already involved in changing its guidance all the time, so it's not going to be much of an impact for them to actually have to do that over this issue. Social services are already dealing with calls and referrals about the physical punishment of children already, including reasonable punishment. And so it's not a new category of work. I accept that we're working in a situation where there's a general pressure on public services, but I think this area that we're legislating on here is part of what everybody's doing already. And so I don't see it as such a big thing in terms of impact. +Hefin David AM: That's a perfectly reasonable answer, but then what about providing a ballpark figure for a kind unforeseen fund that you might set aside? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't think it's possible to do that. We have to measure it as we go along. We've got to get the data. The data will show—. We've got to have baseline data to begin with, and that's what's so difficult to get, because we can't get that from other countries. Only New Zealand recorded any incidents before they actually brought in the legislation, and they did that for three months beforehand. That's why we've been looking at New Zealand a lot of the time, just to make predictions. But we've got to rely on the data. One of these sub-groups is looking at data, so that sub-group should be very productive, I think. And then we will be actually able to see what happens. But I don't think we can respond to that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. And the last question, with regard to resourcing, just to understand the process of how this ties into the wider budgeting—did you and your officials sit down with the Finance Minister and the First Minister's officials to discuss the costing of this? I imagine so. What was the nature of that kind of discussion? +Julie Morgan AM: Some of the costings are decided. For example, the advertising, the awareness-raising campaign—that's £2.2 million over six years. So the decision has been made about that. I don't know if there were further discussions right at the beginning of this process. +Karen Cornish: There have been discussions. The discussions tend to be positive. We can't really say any more beyond that at this moment in time. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And who were the discussions with? +Karen Cornish: There has been an in-the-round discussion before the Bill was introduced, at which the First Minister and the finance Minister and others were present. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And I imagine it's gone to Cabinet for discussion. +Karen Cornish: The consultation and then the Bill going forward has been discussed by Cabinet, and gone through Cabinet processes, as you would expect. +Hefin David AM: So, are we able to say that the Government as a whole is satisfied that there isn't going to be a huge impact on resource as a result of the introduction of this Bill? +Karen Cornish: I think what you can say is that the Government are satisfied that they are supportive of the Bill and have put the Bill forward. I think you can say that. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Did you want to come in? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. Are you satisfied that that amount of money—£2.5 million over five years [correction: £2.2 million over six years]—is going to be enough? From memory, with the organ donation Bill, the amount was something in the region of around £7 million that was set aside, I think. Or maybe I'm misremembering that, but— +Karen Cornish: I think it was about £4 million— +Lynne Neagle AM: £4 million— +Karen Cornish: Something like that. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, there's a disparity, then. That was a few years ago. You've got to reach a lot of people, haven't you, with this, including some pretty hard-to-reach groups as well. Are you confident that amount of money is going to be enough? +Karen Cornish: We are as confident as we can be at this moment in time. We are obviously going to be working with focus groups and others to look at what sorts of messaging there will need to be. But in terms of the initial stages of the awareness campaign, we are, as I say, as confident as we can be, based on what we know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Hefin, on human rights. +Hefin David AM: I just wanted to ask a very specific question on human rights, because, you know, when it comes to appeals, there are a variety of articles under the European Convention on Human Rights that might be used with regard to a challenge to the law as enacted. So, I'll ask you the question very directly. For the purpose of the record, can you outline to us the assessment you've made in preparation for this Bill in relation to the balancing of relevant articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including but not limited to article 8 on the respect for private life; article 9, freedom of conscience and religion; article 3, the right to protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment; and article 14, protection from discrimination? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. We have given a great deal of thought, as you can imagine, to the human rights considerations as set out in our impact assessments, and it's ultimately a question how we find a balance between the rights of children as well as parents, who both enjoy rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. So, article 3 is the prohibition of torture: 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.' In ensuring that children are protected from physical punishment in the same way as adults, the Bill is following that requirement of article 3, and the positive obligations on states to protect individuals from ill treatment or punishment that is contrary to article 3. And then, in terms of article 8, right to respect for private and family life, 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.' Some of those who are opposed to the prohibition of physical punishment have cited article 8, private and family life, and also cited article 9, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as potentially protecting the right for parents to decide how best to punish their children, including the use of physical punishment. That is used as an argument by those who are opposed to stopping physical punishment. But these rights are not absolute, and action can therefore be taken that interferes with them, provided the interference is justified. It's the Government's view that the Bill's provisions are necessary in order to protect the rights and freedom of children. We are looking here from the point of view of children. The Bill's provisions are regarded as proportionate measures, and given the fundamental importance of protecting children from inhumane or degrading punishment or other ill treatment, we do consider that we have balanced the rights in a proportionate way. And then, article 10, freedom of expression, and article 14, prohibition of discrimination—these rights are not absolute and action can be taken, therefore, that interferes with them, providing the interference is justified. We don't think it's clear that article 10 and 14 rights are being interfered with, but even if they are, we consider we can justify the interference in order to protect the rights and freedoms of children. I don't know, Emma, whether you wanted to add anything to any of that. +Emma Gammon: Only that we set out—. I think it's the equality impact assessment that sets out the positive and negative impacts of the proposal and the balancing of the rights enjoyed by both parents and children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. There are some questions from Vikki on awareness raising. Can I ask for concise questions please? +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, Chair. So, last week, the Welsh Government published its baseline survey of public attitudes to physical punishment of children, and that showed us that 58 per cent of the public already thought the law did not allow parents to smack their children. You could look at this two ways. You could think glass half full, which suggests that we don't have many people to try and convince of that. But on the flipside of that, would you suggest, perhaps, that that data shows there is a challenge faced by the Welsh Government to make sure the public understand the proposed legislation, given that more than half of the population, according to those statistics, have a complete misunderstanding of the current law? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, I think that finding is reflected in people I speak to who do think that the law does not allow parents to hit their children. I mean, I'm personally very reassured that 58 per cent of the public think the law doesn't allow that to happen because I think, well, they're not hitting their children, so we're over 50 per cent of where we want to get. So, I think that is a good thing, but it does highlight the fact that the legislation, as it is, is confused. I think it makes a very good case for saying that we do need to simplify this legislation. We need much greater clarity in the law for professionals who are working and trying to help parents, and for parents themselves. So, I think that this is a case for saying that it's very important that we carry out this legislation to make it all much clearer. But I am pleased that 58 per cent of the public think the law has already changed. +Vikki Howells AM: One of the most consistent messages that this committee has heard is that the proposed law won't work unless there's a significant campaign to raise awareness with members of the public. We know that Sweden went to considerable lengths to publicise the change in the law there, and I can remember attending a cross-party group, chaired by yourself, Deputy Minister, where we heard evidence from Ireland to the same effect, as well—the necessity of the public awareness campaign. You already said that a duty on the face of the Bill to raise awareness is not necessary, but then, in your answer to Suzy Davies, you said you would consider putting some things on the face of the Bill. So, can you explain to us your key arguments surrounding this issue? +Julie Morgan AM: I absolutely agree that it's essential that we do have a big awareness campaign, because all the research we've had shows, in fact, that if you don't have the awareness campaign, the legislation won't be as effective. So, we need a joint effort; I'm totally committed to doing that. I've said it publicly here, and I'm saying it again. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have it on the face of the Bill, but as I said to Suzy, I'm prepared to consider anything the committee is bringing forward because I'm very keen for this Bill to progress through this process and to learn from it. So, I'm saying that I'm prepared to consider it. +Vikki Howells AM: Thank you, that's very useful. And finally, New Zealand is an oft-cited example, mentioned in the explanatory memorandum as well. So, we know New Zealand prohibited physical punishment in 2007, but yet in a non-binding referendum two years later, 87.5 per cent of voters voted 'no' in response to the question, 'Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand?' On what basis, then, are you confident that this sort of polarisation won't happen in Wales, especially considering the current political climate there is out there? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, what we trying to do is we're trying to take this forward in as consensual a way as we possibly can. We're very keen that we listen to the views of everybody. All those people who don't agree with us, who are a minority, it seems, we want to hear what they've got to say, taking very seriously all the points that are raised here by the committee. I haven't seen any sign of any polarisation in any way that I would be concerned about, because, certainly, the people who do oppose the Bill, I've met with them, I know they've given evidence to your committee and the views of parents have been taken into account. We completely accept that we want to listen to the views of people who don't agree. I hope that they then, if the Bill does become law, will then accept and respect the democratic process. So, I don't feel concerned, really, about that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, a brief supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I started at the very beginning, Deputy Minister, with the fact that there's an overwhelming majority of parents—those who are naturally charged with raising their children—against this Bill. So, there is a polarisation. We've gone out to survey on it and the overwhelming response from parents is that they do not support this Bill. And I think that needs to be put on the record. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that our representative surveys that we've carried out do show considerable support for the Bill— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But not from parents. +Julie Morgan AM: —particularly from parents with young children under seven. That's where the support does lie. And it's older people who are much less likely to support the legislation, and I think it's all linked to what many of us were used to, what happened in our childhoods, when it was accepted and it was part of the time that this was what you did. But we have moved on now and we're in a different era. So, I think many older people, because they smacked their children or were smacked themselves, have felt a degree of resistance, perhaps, to the Bill. But as I say, I think times have changed. We want to respect children's rights and what happened in the past is in the past now, and we want to have a new era for respecting children's human rights and dignity. And I think I'll go back to what I said: I don't see that children's rights to dignity is going to happen if a big person is able to hit a small person. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just to clarify, Janet's referring to the committee's consultation and the percentage of responses that we've had. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, we had a specific section, but because time is moving quite fast, perhaps you could give us a note in response. Some witnesses saw a risk that the Bill could have a disproportionate impact on specific groups—women, because they are the main carers, minority ethnic groups and very young children. So, if it would be possible for us to receive a note as to whether you agree that this will have a disproportionate impact upon them, and if so, what would be the mitigating measures you would take. But, specifically, we have heard from several witnesses and the equality impact assessment of the Bill does acknowledge that a low income is a risk factor in the use of physical punishment and that this could have a negative impact specifically on this group of parents. Now, we know that Flying Start is available to try to mitigate that to some degree, but of course not all low-income families live within a Flying Start area, so what mitigating work will you be undertaking in that regard? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. We are aware of the issue of reaching out to certain groups. We are running focus groups where we will be taking the different groups into account, and we will work with different groups, communities and organisations to make sure that they are aware of the change in the law, and we will—I know you want to move on—but we will write to you about anything more specific. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred to the mapping exercise, which is very welcomed by the committee. Should that mapping exercise identify gaps? Will the Welsh Government be making a commitment to provide funding to plug those gaps so that there is a universal offer of parenting support for families in Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We will certainly consider it at that point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time. We've covered a great deal of ground. Thank you, all, for attending and for answering such a diverse range of questions. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much to the three of you for your time this morning. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, and thank you for all the questions and the wide range that we covered. Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, providing additional information following the evidence session on 2 May for this Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services in response to the committee's letter, which requested information on CAFCASS Cymru's response on specific points of interest in relation to the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services making the committee aware of research undertaken in relation to public attitudes to physical punishment. Can I ask if Members are happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make one observation? I think it's on the first of the letters, which is the difficulty that there's been in trying to disaggregate the evidence of smacking as isolated incidents as compared to smacking as part of a bigger pattern of behaviour. I think that's worth noting on the record. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","The transcript is from a meeting of the Children, Young People, and Education Committee discussing the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. The Committee's Chair, Lynne Neagle AM, presides over the meeting which involves a range of questions directed to Julie Morgan AM, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, as well as Karen Cornish, deputy director of the children and families division, and Emma Gammon, the lawyer working on the Bill. + +The discussion begins with Janet Finch-Saunders AM questioning the Deputy Minister about the large proportion of individuals who, through written consultation, expressed opposition to the Bill. The question raised the issue of distinguishing between child abuse and physical punishment, with Julie Morgan responding that the Bill's intention is to protect children's rights, not to address child abuse, and to ensure children have protection from physical punishment as adults do. + +The Deputy Minister notes the differences in interpreting terms like 'light smack' and 'loving smack,' but emphasizes that any physical punishment of children is incompatible with their human rights, citing the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. The dialogue also touches upon concerns about increased child-on-child violence, the representation of data from other countries, the role of legislation in effecting change, and the possible implications of the Bill, including how it might influence parenting and disciplinary methods. + +The Committee inquiry moves on to examine the implementation of the Bill, the potential impact on social services, data collection for evaluating the outcomes, the responsibilities and preparedness of teachers and health workers, issues surrounding out-of-court disposals and disclosure of non-conviction data, human rights considerations related to the European Convention on Human Rights, and strategies for public awareness campaigns. + +The Committee covers a great deal of ground, exploring concerns about unknown costs and whether existing and planned resources will sufficiently support the Bill's objectives. A particular focus is given to the necessity of public awareness and clarity about the law to ensure understanding among the general population. + +The dialogue also examines the potential for the Bill to have a disproportionate impact on specific demographic groups, including those with low income who might not have access to initiatives like Flying Start. The transcript concludes with the Committee's consideration of additional letters and research on public attitudes towards physical punishment before moving to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Is it starting now ? +PhD E: Yep . +Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hello ? +Professor B: Whatever we say from now on , it can be held against us , right ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor B: and uh +Grad A: It 's your right to remain silent . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held , if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what 's going on +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD E: Yeah , that 's usually what we do . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what 's going on , what 's the latest uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . OK . So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what 's happening in Aurora in general , at least what from my perspective . +PhD E: Yeah . That would be great . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so , I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting , +PhD D: Uh o +Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really , but we are competitors . Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . It seemed like there were still some issues , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: right ? that they were trying to decide ? +Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there 're plenty of issues . +PhD E: Like the voice activity detector , +Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals , which was French Telecom Alcatel , and us both had uh voice activity detector . And I said "" well big surprise , I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago , except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either , cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because that 's buying us the most uh thing . And everybody said "" Well but this is not fair . We didn't know that . "" And of course uh the {disfmarker} it 's not working on features really . And be I agreed . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: I said "" well yeah , you are absolutely right , I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer , uh to account for these long silences , because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing . "" And so then ev ev everybody else says "" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector , or we have to do something about it "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We said uh "" yeah "" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case , uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data , we probably will use a different set of tricks . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done , because French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , now everybody has access to our code , so everybody is going to copy what we did . "" Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code , and everybody always had access to our code . We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that . We thought that people are honest , that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate , or something , +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: right ? I mean , if you find our technique useful , we are very happy . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them , "" which probably is also true . I mean , you know , it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that . But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad , as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run , because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code . So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say "" well listen this is what you stole from me "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know ? +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: "" so let 's deal with that "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So I don't see the problem . The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims "" well we fulfilled the conditions . We are the best . Uh . We are the standard . "" And e and other people don't feel that , because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data , essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech , because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Ah . +Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms , but I assume so . Because uh we would fight for that , really . uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up . And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} +PhD E: But wait a minute , I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases . +Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , but you still have that with the MFCC . +Professor B: Y yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And so , so now they want to say "" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition , and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed . And so last time uh during the meeting , I just uh brought up the issue , I said "" well you know uh quite frankly I 'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision . For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying "" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less "" , but maybe we should discuss that . And everybody said "" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there "" and I said "" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things . "" Then they said "" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited . "" However , there is only ten or fifteen lines , so people can't even con you know participate . So eh they agreed , and so they said "" OK , we will discuss that . "" Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said "" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So now officially , Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support , uh I think QualComm is uh saying , too "" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet . We should at least try once again , one more round . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is where we are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call , so we 'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes . +PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems , the well - matched , and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's a g very good uh point , because David says "" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways . "" So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh yeah , if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition , or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: And they 're the {disfmarker} staying the same ? +Professor B: Well , of course people will not like it . Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have solution . Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen . But it 's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I don't think we did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Basically , I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made , and {disfmarker} and everything . So , so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is . So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected , like noise separation . Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically , which would be a l uh , f more robust to noise , and so far not much uh success . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested , instead of using Fourier spectrum , from Fourier transform , use the spectrum from LPC model . Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum , so it may be m naturally more robust in noise . And I thought "" well , that makes sense , "" but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} +PhD E: You haven't tried that yet ? +Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much . Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So . {comment} I mean , uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: right ? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And it was working at the time . It was kind of like one of these things , you know , but if you think about it , it 's actually pretty ingenious . So well , you know , just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant , C , to every {disfmarker} every value . +PhD E: Well you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically y Yeah . So you 're making all your training data more uniform . +Professor B: Exactly . And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy , it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you 'll s then you 're clean recognition goes down , but I mean it 's yet to be seen how much , it 's a very simple technique . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes indeed it 's a very simple technique , you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT , {pause} add constant , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: you know ? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum , what you can s start doing , you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum . Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero . That 's what we want to try . I have a visitor from Brno . He 's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty . pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he 's {disfmarker} so he 's looking into that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition . This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns . +PhD E: Hmm ! What is that ? +Professor B: Ah , you don't know about TRAPS ! +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar , I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name , but , what it is , is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC , mel cepstrum , uh , everything starts with a spectral slice . Uh so if you s So , given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing , and you have a spectrogram . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can say "" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency "" , and what you get is then , that you get a p {pause} vector . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme . Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector . And you can try to classify based on that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it 's a very different vector , very different properties , we don't know much about it , but the truth is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . But you have many of those vectors per phoneme , +Professor B: Well , so you get many decisions . +PhD E: right ? Uh - huh . +Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions . Exactly , that 's what {disfmarker} yeah , that 's what it is . +PhD E: Hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition , you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct . You know , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis , so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it 's much better than chance . +PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands ? +Professor B: That 's another thing . Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum . For various reasons . But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time . +Grad A: Are they adjacent , or are they s +Professor B: Adjacent , adjacent . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that . Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about , will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands , and also experiments with release of masking , which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands , across bands . And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers ? +Professor B: It 's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number , {pause} time t +PhD E: Yeah but what 's the number ? Is it just the {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's a spectral energy , logarithmic spectral energy , +PhD E: it 's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval . +Professor B: yeah . Yes , yes . Yes , yes . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm saying then , so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector . It 's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum , or something . But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: for instance a question is like "" how correlated are the elements of this vector ? "" Turns out they are quite correlated , because I mean , especially the neighboring ones , right ? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So there 's a very high correlation . So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it . So we 're thinking about de - correlating them . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Then the question is uh "" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions "" , or to what extent ? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on . So we are learning quite a lot about that . And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension ? So we somehow made arbitrary decision , "" yes "" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that 's what 's happening in recognition . Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands , but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands . That 's what masking experiments tell you . But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions , you compare what 's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what 's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands . And that 's how you make uh decisions . That 's why the articulatory events , which uh F F Fletcher talks about , they are about two critical bands . You need at least two , basically . You need some relative , relative relation . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else , what 's happening but it 's what 's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood . So if you are making decision what 's happening at one kilohertz , you want to know what 's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz , but you don't much care what 's happening at three kilohertz . +PhD E: So it 's really w It 's sort of like saying that what 's happening at one kilohertz depends on what 's happening around it . It 's sort of relative to it . +Professor B: To some extent , it {disfmarker} that is also true . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance , {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands , recognition can discard it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is what 's happening {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Hey ! +Professor B: Hey ! OK , we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here . +PhD E: Hey Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah , I think so . Yeah ? +PhD E: Yep . Sure . Go ahead . +Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band , that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you 're making about a signal within a critical band . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated . If the noise is modulated , with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band , the amount of masking is less . The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So the s m masking curve , normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here , so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band , so the amount of maching is increasing . And when you e hit a certain point , which is a critical band , then the amount of masking is the same . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's the famous experiment of Fletcher , a long time ago . Like that 's where people started thinking "" wow this is interesting ! "" So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But , if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise , the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band , the masking goes down . So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that 's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what 's happening in the neighboring bands . But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad , you are not increasing much more , so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is , then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it 's not helping you much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program . +PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate , +Professor B: Probably not . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: Well , maybe , most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules . +PhD E: Yeah . Ah . +Professor B: like because uh uh +PhD E: Latency and things . +Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because uh we don't know any better , yet , than to use the neural net classifiers , uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors , so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that , and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So this is uh what 's happening . Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month 's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years , I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no . So he 's in India . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is he getting married or something ? +Professor B: Uh well , he may be looking for a girl , for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask . I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged . +PhD E: Right . Well , I mean , I 've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month , they come back married , +Professor B: Yeah . I know . I know , I know , +PhD E: you know , huh . +Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife . And she 's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} +PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish , +Professor B: Oh yeah . We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition , the technology , and he was involved there . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me . +PhD E: When he knew you were happy , +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I said "" well , yeah , OK "" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that , though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he 's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served , though one year he was getting masters . So . So . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation ? June or something ? +Professor B: Which ? Speaker recognition ? +PhD E: No , for uh Aurora ? +Professor B: Uh there , we don't know about evaluation , next meeting is in June . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together . +PhD E: Oh , OK . Are people supposed to rerun their systems , +Professor B: Nobody said that yet . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I assume so . Uh yes , uh , but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data . +PhD E: Hmm . Wow . +Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff . But I uh , yeah , what I think would be of course extremely useful , if we can come to our next meeting and say "" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement . If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how "" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it 's impossible . +PhD E: Hmm . Do you know what the new baseline is ? Oh , I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} +Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline . +PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector ? +Professor B: u Yes . Yes . But I assume that it will be similar , I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be . +PhD E: Similar , yeah . +Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz if it is worse , then we will raise the objection , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: we say "" well you know how come ? "" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector , which we don't claim even that it 's wonderful , it 's just like one of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: We get this sort of improvement , how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it could be even better , +Professor B: I think so . +PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating , it 's using the alignment of the speech recognition system , +Professor B: Yeah . C yeah uh +PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel , and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel . +Professor B: and on clean speech data . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines ? So they must have run already something . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . And Harry said "" Yeah . But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet , that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So there 's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion . Because Nokia was objecting , with uh QualComm 's {disfmarker} we basically supported that , we said "" yes "" . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now everybody else is saying "" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind . "" uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: Ericsson 's laying off twenty percent of people . +Grad A: Wow . +PhD E: Where 's uh Guenter going ? +Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule , the technical college not too far from Aachen . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So it 's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , not quite a university , not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it 's not Aachen University , but it 's a good school and he {disfmarker} he 's happy . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm ! +Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well , he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis , but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They think about survival . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So . But this is being now discussed right now , and it 's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through , that we will still stick to fifty percent . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement . yet , wi with the current system . Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent , from the new baseline . +Professor B: Uh , but not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline , which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yes . Yes . We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there , right . +PhD C: Well . We are around fifty , fifty - five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number ? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines , it 's just a quick c comp co computation ? +PhD C: Yeah . I don't know exactly if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . I think it 's about right . +PhD C: Yeah , because it de it depends on the weightings +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah . But . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . How 's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week ? +PhD C: Yeah , finally we {disfmarker} we 've not finished with this . We stopped . +PhD D: More or less it 's finished . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English , and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail , something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: but it 's more or less ready . +PhD C: Yeah . Well , we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments , +PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography . +PhD C: but +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it 's not , yeah , finished yet . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments ? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Right . We 've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters , and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all . You can remove it from the vector , it doesn't hurt . +PhD E: Really ? ! That has no effect ? +PhD C: Um . +PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline ? or in uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No , in the proposal . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh , uh - huh . +Professor B: So we were just discussing , since you mentioned that , in {disfmarker} it w +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning , we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which is , like , "" imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient , which you are using in your vector , in some general power . +PhD E: In some what ? +Professor B: General pow power . Like sort of you take a s power of two , or take a square root , or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root , that effectively makes your model half as efficient . Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model , right ? computes the mean . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it 's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function . +PhD E: You 're compressing the range , +Professor B: So you 're compressing the range of this coefficient , so it 's becoming less efficient . +PhD E: right ? of that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . So . Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor , you know , uh in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: you know , just compress the whole vector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I said "" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements , like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances , we were doing this liftering of parameters , right ? +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition . And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody , but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter , or triangle lifter , basic number of lifters . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And . But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f +PhD E: Insertions . +Professor B: Insertions , deletions , or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The only of course problem is that there 's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y +PhD E: Oh . Uh - huh . You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , you need a lot of graduate students , and a lot of computing power . +PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm , that basically tries random permutations of these things . +Professor B: I know . Exactly . Oh . If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike , right ? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM , that 's what {disfmarker} maybe that 's what somebody would be doing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh , I mean , I mean the places which have a lot of computing power , so because it is really it 's a p it 's a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants . +PhD E: You know actually , I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad . I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once , +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: right ? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely . And hev everything is fixed . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Everything is fixed . Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} +PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training ? or only recognition ? +Professor B: For both , you would have to do . Yeah . +PhD E: You would do it on both . +Professor B: You have to do bo both . +PhD E: So you 'd actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because essentially you are saying "" uh this feature is not important "" . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Or less important , so that 's {disfmarker} th that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a painful one , yeah . +PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try , it would require a training and a recognition ? +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but wait a minute . You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model . You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature . You don't have to retrain it . +PhD E: Oh . So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves , you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models . +Professor B: You just multiply . Yeah . Yep . You modify the Gaussian in the model , but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power , but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model , all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But why {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're multi if you 're altering the model , why w in the test data , why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients ? +Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model . You have uh only data . But in a {disfmarker} in a tr +PhD E: No . But you 're running your data through that same model . +Professor B: That is true , but w I mean , so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes , that C - one is not important , you can do two things . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer , in the model , you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one , you put them to zero . +Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it . But what I 'm proposing now , if it is important but not as important , you multiply it by point one in a model . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: But what are you multiplying ? Cuz those are means , right ? +Grad A: You 're multiplying the standard deviation ? +PhD E: I mean you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math , I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , I think you 'd have to modify the standard deviation or something , so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower . +Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively , that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . That 's what you do . That 's what you do , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively you , you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model , you put a constant . S yeah effectively what you 're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation . Right ? +Grad A: The spread , +PhD E: Oop . +Grad A: right . +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: Yeah , the spread . +Grad A: It 's the same {disfmarker} same mean , +PhD E: So . +Grad A: right ? +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower , {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: unless it 's exactly right on the mean . +Professor B: Your als No . By making it narrower , +PhD E: Right ? +Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean there 's {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're allowing for less variance . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes , so you making this particular dimension less important . Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions , or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important , uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful , less important , what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model . But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes , but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it . That becomes uh th gets less variance , subsequently becomes less important . +PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data ? +Professor B: That would be very bad , because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh , that wouldn't work . Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important . After you train the model , you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially , that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model , you don't have to retrain the model . You train it on the original vector . But after , you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model , and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data . s by the same amount . +PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say , C - one , couldn't you , in your test data , uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model ? So that effectively , the C - one never really contributes to the score ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , that would be a severe mismatch , +PhD E: Do you know what I 'm say +Professor B: right ? what you are proposing ? N no you don't want that . +PhD E: Yeah , someth +Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely . Your likelihood would be low , right ? Because you would be providing severe mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But what if you set if to the mean of the model , then ? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data , you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had . +Professor B: No that would be very good match , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well , yeah , but we have several means . So . +Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying , +PhD C: Right ? +Grad A: Saying . +Professor B: but uh , {vocalsound} no , no I don't think that it would be the same . I mean , no , the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean , that would {disfmarker} No , you can't do that . Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck , you can't do that . +PhD E: Oh , that 's true , right , yeah , because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: you can't do that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But what you can do , I 'm confident you ca +PhD E: +Professor B: well , I 'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record , right ? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now , is {pause} what you can do , is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is . So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one , you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two . And you will compress your test data by square root . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match . Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square , f fourth root . Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is , based on training , then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 're talking about the standard deviation ? +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one . Then it becomes more important . In the overall score , I believe . +PhD C: Yeah , but , at the {disfmarker} +PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean , also ? +Professor B: No . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: But I think it 's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation . So . I think it 's maybe it 's the contrary . If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter , you have to increase it 's variance . +Professor B: Yes . Right . Yes . +PhD D: Multiply . +Professor B: Exactly . Yeah . So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around , +PhD C: Hmm . That 's right . OK . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And now you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're changing that by squaring it . Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four . But your model still has a mean of two . So even though you 've expended the range , your mean doesn't match anymore . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Let 's see . +PhD E: Do you see what I mean ? +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features , which are computed once for all , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: but you just tune the model . So . You have your features . You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . You would have to modify the mean in the model . I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you . Yeah . Yeah , but I mean , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's i it 's do - able , +PhD C: Well . +PhD E: Yeah , so y +Professor B: right ? I mean , it 's predictable . Uh . Yeah . +PhD E: It 's predictable , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's predictable . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . But as a simple thing , you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance . +PhD C: Just adjust the model , yeah . +PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you 're talking about , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: It might be . +PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , because if you had a huge variance , you 're dividing by a large number , {comment} you get a very small contribution . +Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , it becomes more flat +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , the sharper the variance , the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , you know actually , this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN . We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing , was spitting out zeros . So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering , we were getting groups uh of features +Professor B: p Pretty new outliers , interesting outliers , right ? +PhD E: yeah , with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance . +Professor B: Variance . +PhD E: So , when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it , we got a great score . I mean it was just , {nonvocalsound} you know , incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score , and so that was throwing everything off . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So . {vocalsound} So that 's a way , yeah , yeah {disfmarker} That 's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah , n That 's interesting . So in fact , that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining . +Professor B: Yeah . No . No . +PhD C: No , that 's right . So it 's +PhD E: So that means it 's just +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: just tuning the models and testing , actually . +PhD E: recognitions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: It would be quick . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models , make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make , and rerun recognition . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think , and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble . +PhD E: That 's an interesting idea , actually . For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh ! +Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK 's set up on the new Linux boxes ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Hey ! +PhD E: In fact , and {disfmarker} and they 're just t right now they 're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box . +Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Absinthe . +Professor B: Well , you know , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Absinthe . We 've got five processors on that . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's a good thing +Grad A: That 's right . +Professor B: because then y you just write the "" do "" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing . +PhD E: And two gigs of memory . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Pretend , yeah . +PhD E: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD D: Go fishing . +PhD E: See how many cycles we used ? +Professor B: Yeah . Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , since it is on the record , I can't say uh which company it was , but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion , there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said "" wh why are you hitting this carriage return ? "" And he said "" well you know , we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract . And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use . "" It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing . +PhD E: Oh , my gosh ! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project . +PhD E: Yeah . How {disfmarker} Idle time . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out . +PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's this thing that 's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water ? +Professor B: Yeah , I know , right . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: That 's an interesting experiment . +Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia , right ? so we were watching for American airplanes , coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower , pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right ? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village +PhD E: Ugh ! +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above , and so that was the only work which they had . They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o ' clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call , "" this plane is uh uh passing "" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub . And they were calling from the pub . And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made , and when they screwed up , they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore . And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane . At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there , right ? And the pub owner says "" oh my {disfmarker} four o ' clock , OK , quickly p pick up the phone , call that there 's a plane flying . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: There was no plane for some reason , +PhD E: And there wasn't ? +Professor B: it was downed , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble . But . {vocalsound} But uh . +PhD E: Huh ! Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a really i +Professor B: So . So . Yeah . +PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe I could set that up . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And we 'll just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with . But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures . It might be that uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one . +Professor B: Because you see , I mean , what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it 's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable , +PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? How do we {disfmarker} +PhD E: Wh - yeah , when the data matches that , then you get really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: How do we know , especially when it comes to noise ? +PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like , I 've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients , the numbers seem to get smaller , right ? So d +PhD C: They {disfmarker} t +PhD E: I mean , just naturally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: They have smaller means , also . Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Exactly . And so it seems like they 're already sort of compressed . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: The range {pause} of values . +Professor B: Yeah that 's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance . Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast , I believe , as the index of the cepstral coefficients . I think you can show that uh uh analytically . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients . +PhD E: Hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: +Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah . When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center . Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley . I 'm sure that it 's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here , like , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know , nowadays , yeah . It 's actually do - able , almost . +PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to "" Aurora - inhouse "" , does that go up to you guys also ? +Professor B: I don't think so . No . +PhD C: No . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So we should do that . +PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh no . We don't have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh ! Maybe we should set that up . That would make it much easier . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , that would make it easier . +PhD E: So maybe just call it "" Aurora "" or something that would {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right , and it goes to everybody +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . Maybe we can set that up . +Professor B: Because what 's happening naturally in research , I know , is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered , right ? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this , is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution , but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , there 's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report . Lucash , I think , uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system . reasonably uh good one , because he 's doing it for Intel , but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything . Cuz Intel 's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use . Just uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because Morgan 's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy . He says "" well you know it 's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing , in quotes , except which is not s is not the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles , another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles . So . And {disfmarker} And then it 's difficult to c compare . +PhD C: What about Harry ? Uh . We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments . +Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software . Yeah . They sent the release . +PhD C: And use this Intel version . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone ? uh some amount of money , not much . Not much I can say on a microphone . Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work . And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it , which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries , but in the process , Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing , including MLP , trained MLP is one piece of uh software . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Wow ! +Professor B: Is it useful ? +Grad A: Ye - Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad A: I mean , I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission . +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That 's what he was saying , right . He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when , and {disfmarker} and so that 's where he started and that 's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well , the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries , +Professor B: uh e ev +PhD C: because if it 's the case , it 's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture . +Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} +PhD C: Ah yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries , I think they are available free of f freely . But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe . +Professor B: Yeah , on Intel architecture , may not run in SUN . +PhD C: I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible . That 's why Intel of course is distributing it , +PhD C: Well . +Professor B: right ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I don't know . I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in . Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC 's now , with Intel . In that way Intel succeeded with us , because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . So . So we run everything on Intel . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Does anybody have anything else ? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} +PhD E: So . Hynek , I don't know if you 've ever done this . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn , {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits , the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So you don't say "" eight hundred and fifty "" , you say "" eight five oh "" , and so forth . +Professor B: OK . OK . So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then ? +PhD E: Um . Sure . +","The discussion involves a group of academic and research professionals, including Professor B and PhD E, engaged in a variety of technical dialogues regarding a collaborative project called ""Aurora."" The meeting appears to start with some uncertainty about the formalities of the discussion, and there is a lighthearted reference to the Miranda rights related to remaining silent, which Grad A jokes about. + +Professor B clarifies his unfamiliarity with the structure of the meetings and whether they are informal. PhD E reassures him that they typically share updates on their work. They agree on a suggestion by Professor B to report on the general status of the Aurora project. He also mentions a past meeting in Amsterdam where it became evident that their group was not just a friendly gathering but rather a collection of competitors, a revelation derived from discussions about voice activity detectors proposed by French Telecom Alcatel and their own team. + +A detailed technical exchange follows about various issues faced during the implementation and development of voice activity detectors. Professor B highlights the competitive nature of their work and touches on the proprietary aspects, mentioning patents, negotiation, and intellectual honesty in using others' techniques. There's a sense of amicable conflict with French Telecom Alcatel, who is protective of their solutions, whereas Professor B's team is open to sharing their code. + +The conversation continues to delve into the specifics of voice detectors and how they impact evaluations and outcomes. There are proposed changes to evaluation methods, criteria for improvements, and a tense discussion about setting the new standard for voice recognition improvement. Professor B recounts an Aurora meeting where there was significant debate about modifying existing criteria for success in the voice recognition systems. Nokia and Qualcomm are mentioned as companies interested in addressing the evaluation metrics, insisting on adhering to the 50% improvement criterion. + +The group addresses the practical challenges they face with the voice recognition data and endpoints. There is specific mention of the SpeechDat-Car database and the complexities in improving performance on mismatched data. They speculate on the relative improvement rates required under new conditions. + +The discussion continues with Professor B outlining some of the strategies and research avenues his team at OGI is pursuing, including noise separation techniques, temporal pattern recognition (TRAPS), and speech processing in critical bands of frequency. They ponder how elements of speech are weighted and consider the possibility of altering the significance of specific coefficients to determine their impact on speech recognition performance. + +Towards the end of the conversation, they express an interest in improved collaboration tools like mailing lists and possibly set up a webcam for better interaction. There are also hints at the involvement of companies like Intel in the Aurora project, and there is mention of streamlined software that could come from this collaboration. The dialogue then shifts toward a lighter topic of using computing resources to simulate work activity, humorously suggesting that a bobbing bird toy could be employed to hit keyboard keys repeatedly. + +The meeting concludes with the group preparing to read digits as part of a transcript verification process, emphasizing the need to read numbers as a sequence of individual digits rather than as whole numbers." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Wait for the marketing director actually , so . Anyways . Uh . See , shall we wait ? I'm not sure if he's late or delayed or whatever , so I'm gonna start soon , we have now {disfmarker} don't have much time anyway . +User Interface: Oh , there he is . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: There you are , +Industrial Designer: we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: a little bit of pl little problem with computer . +Project Manager: Uh no problem . We're about to start , so have a seat . Okay , welcome again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Today , functional design phase . I'll take you over the minutes of last last meeting . Okay , that was just to get to know each other , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: have a little thoughts on what your vision is and {disfmarker} on this project , so {disfmarker} I put the minutes on the {disfmarker} I made on the on the p the the project share , so if you wanna review them , they're there . I will do so after every meeting , so if you have some information you wanna take back you can find it there . Anyways , um today three presentations , from every one of you . Um after that I got some new project requirements from project board , so we're gonna go af go after {disfmarker} over this later . But I wanna start with uh stuff you did first , so we can see what everybody came up with . And after that we can have the new requirements and share some thoughts , so . Who would like {disfmarker} wanna go first ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure , no problem . +Project Manager: Take it . +User Interface: Go ahead . +Marketing: Um there was a little problem with my computer so not uh the whole uh presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , let's see what you have . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Uh it's still a bit open . +Marketing: I want to open the my s oh no . +Project Manager: You should close it on your own notebook , I guess . Yeah . So there ? +Marketing: Oh no , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: that's okay . Uh slide show . Yes . The functional requirements , it's uh {vocalsound} uh very important for uh the user , he he wants to {disfmarker} yeah . The the method we used uh it it's not m not a slide , because it went wrong , but the method we use uh , um {vocalsound} we tested it w uh with uh a hundred uh men , and we asked them to w uh what the remote uh f feel uh like and uh what what's uh important . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If I can cut in , is it people or men ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: People , +Project Manager: Is it people , okay . +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: 'Cause I thought it was only men , +Marketing: Both women and men , +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . Uh the findings um uh {vocalsound} seventy five percent of the users find most remote controls ugly . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's pretty shocking uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to s we have to do something about that . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} yeah , most th th they want to spend money for a better system , for better remote control , so we can do uh a l a little uh nice things with it , and um they use {disfmarker} yeah , they use zap a lot , um uh fifty percent say they only {disfmarker} So that's the most important things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , not all of it is it on mine on my PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: Okay , just talk ahead . +Marketing: but um uh the relevant buttons are the power , the channel selection and the volume selection . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh the most basic buttons that a user wants uh {vocalsound} to use . Uh less important is tel teletext , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh um they use it , but it's not uh very uh important uh on the scale of zero to ten they six and a half uh +Project Manager: Okay , that's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} but not important is the channel selection , the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} hmm ? +Project Manager: That's a little weird . +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which channel selection ? +Marketing: the the {disfmarker} no no no no no , that's very important , but uh w and not important in the audio settings , display settings +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can we can hide those under a menu or something , +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um new preferences preferences . Uh um um beep to find your control , was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's like a button on your T_V_ ? +Marketing: that was {gap} in the test , the the most people uh f find it uh irritating uh when they cannot find a rem their remote control , +Project Manager: Remote , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so uh I think it's a bee beep to sound it and uh you can find it . And another thing uh they want was uh speech recognition um so they can say uh what they want to {disfmarker} let's go to channel one and uh that's uh kind of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And they want maybe an uh L_C_D_ screen um to to look it um wh what's on every channel uh and uh what do I want with it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We wanna have a little preview on the remote control . Preview what's on the channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is that manageable ? 'Cause it sounds pretty expensive too . +Project Manager: That sounds too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's possible , but uh I think it's expensive , but do continue . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Uh my personal preferences is uh a button for my favourite channel , so I can uh I dunno , so I can zap to my uh f uh quick uh to my favourite channel wh what I uh {disfmarker} so , the remote mu must see or um must um {vocalsound} see wha what mine preferences are for which channel , +Project Manager: Okay , you don't set it yourself , +Marketing: so I can zap t to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it just remembers the channel that you are on most , for example . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: You want the {disfmarker} you want it to be programmed , for example y programmed f +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you want it to recognise your favourite channel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see , you you spend twenty minutes each day on that channel , +Marketing: Recognise {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it recognises your favourite channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's uh what my personal preference like . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's it it does {disfmarker} it recognise itself , you don't have to set it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: itself . Maybe it's easier to {vocalsound} to sell it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I don't know it's manageable , but we will uh we will see . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a little bit uh it's the end of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's a little bit uh I lost it , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the computer uh crashed , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem , it's it's okay , +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} Yeah , go ahead . +User Interface: Shall I go ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So , some technical functions . +Marketing: Darn computer . +User Interface: Basically I have some issues which you discussed earlier . Uh let's just start with the method . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It sounds really easy , what does the user do , what does the th remote control do , but there are quite some issues . So the things I'm going to concentrate on are the user aspect , because the technical aspect , that's pretty much covered . We can do that . What goes wrong {vocalsound} at the user . Gets the remote control . Where is the remote control ? We've all had it once , I want to watch some television , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: where's the remote control ? That was one of your ideas which you posted in the network folder , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That seems very good . +User Interface: a really good idea . Uh these are just the issues . I come to some uh personal experience , findings , possible solutions later . Searches for the button . There are many buttons on a remote control which are not clear . Uh so either we lose those or we try to make it a little bit more clear . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh also symbols tend to fade after a while . +Marketing: Mm uh . +User Interface: There's nothing more annoying than faded symbols , because you don't know which channel is this button , so possibly we could find uh something for that , +Project Manager: Okay , so have it more {disfmarker} make it more durable actually . Okay . +User Interface: yes . Uh covered that . Oh yes , user presses the button . Um usually when you have a lot of buttons , buttons are small . So you press more once remote control goes kablouey or something like that , +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: so we have to pay attention not to put too mun too many buttons on uh the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And possibly also the size , so more important buttons , bigger +Project Manager: Wow . The s Yeah . Make it {disfmarker} make them bigger . +User Interface: si +Project Manager: Even more durable uh . +User Interface: So this is basically what I h had in mind in the {disfmarker} fade-proof symbols , locator , a sound , uh so clear we should stick to existing symbols , but maybe we could do a little uh investigation to see whether some symbols are uh {disfmarker} need to be replaced by others . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: This I pretty much covered . {vocalsound} So what we want to go to is not this one , +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +User Interface: but more {disfmarker} less buttons , easy , some bigger buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that's basically uh what I had in mind . So +Project Manager: Yeah , that's clear . +User Interface: This is not the final design , +Project Manager: No , of course uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is just a general idea of how I'd like to see uh basically the general idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . I must say that it {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that was it . +Project Manager: That was it . Okay , that was good . So we agree on the the part that we need to get something on the on the remote to find it somewhere and increase it {disfmarker} the durability of of the thing , +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's a really good idea . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The other aspects , we'll just see how {disfmarker} what you came up with and what's possible for that budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's fine . Um . Okay , now work a little with me . Okay . Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: let's start it as it is . Okay , uh the method . There are a few questions that need to be answered , uh you already uh talked about it a little bit . Which buttons are wanted , uh is our remote control universal or should it be programmable . Uh if it should be programmeab grammeale then we need um something like a mode that you can switch it . Because then the buttons have to send out a different signal then they would normally do . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh how big is the remote control uh going to be ? I'll tell you why that's important to me . Um there are a lot of technical parts in the remote control , so uh uh that's {vocalsound} why I also would like to say uh go a little bit easy on the designs , uh I heard ab uh you talking about beeps and about uh video screens , but uh the material inside and the technical aspects are quite complex already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So keep in mind that everything that you keep uh {disfmarker} think of , it has to b to be built . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Of course , hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} that's not as easy as it s might look like . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh material study , I'm working on that um for the the costs . I have to check out how far I can go with that . Normally , a circuit board is made of fibreglass uh and the wires are made of copper . Uh that is how it is done and all the remote controls work that way , I think we can just go on with that . Um then I've read more integration of materials means less cost for the production . The more we can make uh at once uh in one piece , uh that is cheaper . +Project Manager: You mean integrate them all into the circuit board . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , so if we make a circuit board with the the connections already on it , then that's cheaper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} make something that's not too difficult in design again . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is what look like uh looks like if you press one button , so this is not the entire thing . You have the the power coming in , then you have like a switch . The switch uh uh {vocalsound} uh if you p press it then some electrical charge goes into the processor , that thinks over a Morse code , that's how you should see it . The Morse code goes to the amplifier , then uh the signal is sent to two uh light bulbs . You have infrared and an interv um {vocalsound} uh how to say it ? Uh a light in indication , light that you know that it's functioning . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh here again , that's my story about the different modes , if you do want to make remote uh universal , then the processor has to uh make up a different Morse code when some button is pressed . That makes it much more complex , so we really need to have a look , do we want that or not . Uh I don't have any personal p uh preferences uh so far , except for uh the materials to be used uh light , that they are light . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . That was it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was it . +Project Manager: I'll get back to my thing then . Uh {disfmarker} Okay , back this up {disfmarker} to the screen . So I got some new information on the project specifications are changing a little . Like you said uh teletext is not not very popular anymore because the uh the internet , nowadays people don't use the teletext anymore or hardly , so it can either {disfmarker} Well , I don't think we should remove the button , because there are always people who are using it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think it should be {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} it should be one of the big buttons for example . Just put it somewhere or under second option or whatever . It's not important anymore . Um we're targeting young people now , because our um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This is a new product and with this new product we want to appeal to younger people , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which are {disfmarker} um the younger people were defined under forty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I so I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's also good with the fashion and everything , +Marketing: B +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and they want to pay for it +Project Manager: They want to pay for it , people are willing to spend money actually to buy a um remote that they like . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If they like the way it looks , the way it functions , so they're actually gonna spend uh spend money on it . +Marketing: With more {disfmarker} Where {disfmarker} with more technical specifications +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} see how far we can go with it anyway , so +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} And one thing that should be important is that the corporate l colour and slogan are recognisable , which is apparently {vocalsound} black and yellow , but {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we {disfmarker} I think we should keep the the logo in mind , because with colours you can uh have a lot of uh fashionable colours and everything on it , which suits everybody's taste . So {disfmarker} With that concept I started thinking , so why not just steal Nokia's idea and just make changeable covers for your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean those cost hardly anything I think , and people could even spend extra money on buying a cover +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and so have an entire new remote control that they like to see . Or we can sh for example we can make a different {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a basic design . And sell the covers separately , for example . That's just a little marketing idea that could be applied , so you can p it appeals to really everyone . So you don't have to {disfmarker} I think you don't have to make entire remote controls . We make a basic one and manufacture this cover separately . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So that was that was my idea on what we could do to appeal this product to everyone . So +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} I'm not sure if you came up with anything in the meantime , after making a presentation . Would you like to share ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I think this is a good idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} oh ? +User Interface: Is it manageable ? Is it easy ? +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah , with with an L_C_D_ screen you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I think we should lose the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Y Yes , I think so too . +Project Manager: like you said . I think for example it's it's huge {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ is huge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Why ? Nokia w +Project Manager: it consumes batteries like hell . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I think it takes up a lot of a lot of power . +User Interface: And it costs too much to fabricate , +Project Manager: It costs a lot , I think . +User Interface: so we're on a tight budget here . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What we could do , what could be possible , is maybe not an L_C_D_ screen but with a preview , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y I'm not sure if it's even possible {vocalsound} . For example , a little T_V_ guide . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Like you have a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just just a text only , not colour , just a little text thing +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you can use your remote as a T_V_ guide . I'm not sure it's even possible , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I have to check that out , +Project Manager: but maybe okay , make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: Yeah , find a little compromise in that , but {disfmarker} What did I write down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the p yeah , the beep is a very simple thing to imple implement , just make a button on your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: That must be possible . +Project Manager: and just hit the button , it beeps somewhere . I think it's easy to implement , +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: we should go for that . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: whe where do you wanna hit the T_ {disfmarker} you wanna {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we want a button on the television . {gap} +Project Manager: I thin {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean where else should you put it ? +Industrial Designer: In th okay , but that rules out a universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Because that's not possible uh . +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} how are you gonna use that if your {disfmarker} I mean if your remote control is lost , how are you gonna press {disfmarker} where are you gonna press the button ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: Maybe just a slap-on sticker with a button which sends out a small signal . +Project Manager: A slap-on sticker . Oh , you mean as like a separate thing you can attach to your T_V_ . +Marketing: Mm uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , that could be possible . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: A little little box you can attach to your T_V_ is fine then , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then uh I'd I'd like to know now if we want the uh universal remote control or not , because that's uh determines everything I'm gonna do . +Project Manager: I think it's universal . I think we should go for universal , +Industrial Designer: If not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because apparently we're a separate company making separate c remote controls to sell to a lot of diverse people . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think universal remote control should be possible . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , then I go for that . +Marketing: Everyone uh wants to buy it , so we w +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we're targeting everyone , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so remote {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . No , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's fine with me , but then I know what to look for . +Project Manager: Okay , universal is good . Speech recognition , I think it's very hard , because we're selling across multiple countries . So I think implementing speech recognition is such a small um apparatus , it's very hard to do . +Marketing: Yeah . Or one . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or when you say one two uh i it uh it's enough , +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't see Arabian people speaking one , two uh whatever . +Marketing: right ? But {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +User Interface: Besides that , the technology isn't really super yet , so that {vocalsound} is a problem in implementing this . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's not a mature technology , I think it takes a lot of memory and everything in in a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a good idea , but it's just not {disfmarker} I don't think the market's ripe for that yet . +Project Manager: I don't think it should be implemented in a remote control yet uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: What else do we have ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um well you should you should look into the in into the materials that are real durable . So the the the symbols won't fade , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe a little harder plastic +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: or especially li we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I already noted that . +Project Manager: maybe we don't have have to do all the buttons , but especially the ones that are um the popular buttons , so those always fade first . +Industrial Designer: Mm , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm the thing is the most important things that we have now . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . +Industrial Designer: If we uh make a remote control with changeable covers , then we can also make uh a cover for every language area . +Project Manager: For example ? +Industrial Designer: That's fo {vocalsound} is uh especially for older people , that they can read it read it in their own language . +Project Manager: Well , we're not we're not targeting older people , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we should remember that . Everything we target is under forty , +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: okay , okay . +Project Manager: You assume that that they read correctly and I think they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: The most important thing about young people is that they're really sensitive to to trends that are passing through the world , +Marketing: But b +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +User Interface: But should the exchangeable covers include the buttons themselves or just the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , of course . No , I think it's just something you you put over them , because {disfmarker} Yeah we c Yeah , you ca Well , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: tha that's not a that's not a bad {disfmarker} that's not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: C +Marketing: But every {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's a problem with the with the text then . +Project Manager: it's not even a bad idea . I mean , for example , if you're if you're into the durability issue you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: For example , if your buttons are faded , after {disfmarker} I mean if you make a durable remote , they are faded , you can just buy a new cover . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure it's it's hard to make . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So it's a good and a bad idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh but I know that the buttons are like a Nokia telephone on uh one sleeve , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you don't have to change your whole cover . Uh we can make something that you can only remove the sleeve . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I know what you mean . +Industrial Designer: Know what I mean ? +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It works the same as a Nokia telephone , it's it's in my uh {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , it's just just a one one piece of rubber for example , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: that's what I {disfmarker} something I have to look into . Either either change both the buttons and and the cover or just the cover , I'm not sure which which is easier , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um anyway , yeah , this is what we're gonna do afterwards , just lunch break and have more individual work after that , so let's see what we {disfmarker} let's see we {disfmarker} So you have to come up with a components concept , yeah . I want some {disfmarker} you should do some trend-watching , because even if we're if we're gonna do those covers and everything , what people really want , that's what we need to know in this phase , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's gonna be the essential final design that we're gonna come up with . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I think user interface is fairly obvious . I mean it should be very intuitive , +User Interface: Pretty straightforward . +Project Manager: s Yeah , it should speak for itself . Uh for example I bought a remote control last week with a new T_V_ , it was it l it's like all buttons and you have no idea what it does at first , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {gap} total T_V_ new , anyway . So I think it should be {disfmarker} have less or l very little buttons and maybe a second {vocalsound} second level menu for the advanced things . Or maybe just stick 'em under a menu , like you said the um {vocalsound} the sound options and the surround and whatever , they're more complicated , just stick 'em under one menu and uh give it a {disfmarker} just put it in in s in a software piece , you can menu and you can uh select everything you want to to set on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Is it techni technically possible to uh {vocalsound} send a signal to a television and then pops up a menu , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because we're working with different types of television , so we're going to work with that ? +Project Manager: That is true . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Project Manager: No , that's true . +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . Because the television needs to respond to the signal , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: It's an in-built menu , +Industrial Designer: and if it doesn't know how , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: isn't it ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , that's not possible . +User Interface: So basically +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it's impossible , +User Interface: we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but uh there's a chance it's not , so . +User Interface: Or we could use a double-sided {disfmarker} for {vocalsound} less used functions +Project Manager: A double-sided remote control ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's useful . +User Interface: Yeah , with the cover . {vocalsound} I it's basically an idea to overcome these issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you're gonna have a lot of wasted buttons . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For example you have a Sony T_V_ and the half of the buttons won't function if you have a {disfmarker} for a Sony that won't {disfmarker} for a Philips T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: No , but basic functions {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but functions which are not frequently used . +Project Manager: I don't think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because if we use a universal remote control , we're going to have to have most buttons on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , for exam +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not s +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , for ex you have to make it a little decision between the part if you want a universal remote control that {disfmarker} it should do what people usually do with their T_V_s , not not the very complicated settings +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that you can usually do that with uh either a old old remote control if they really hate that thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you can't you cannot take into consideration all the different brands of T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: But that might be broken . +Project Manager: I think there's I think there is a standard for example between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Hmm . +Project Manager: because usually the the menu is {disfmarker} the menu button is is usable between different brands . Especially the big ones , the big brands , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: so . 'Cause everybody {disfmarker} I have a universal remote control and it can use the menu button , so I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , if you can put some research into that , if it's possible . Uh I think just a b +Industrial Designer: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and the navigation is very basic , it's usually the same thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But I think there must be a way uh to invoke the more complicated functions of a television . For instance , if your old remote control is broken and you buy ours , then uh you should be able to get everything out of the television that's in it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . I think so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because otherwise you'll lose functions by buying our {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we need to put some research into that if if we can open the menu , I think it's possible , just the way how to . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I thi I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , then then you could do everything I suppose , because usually the T_V_s have tha that inside in this other little piece of software , so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that our r remote control should not look like uh any other . For instance uh Sony makes all their remote controls exactly the same for all their devices , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you always grab the wrong one because formatting of the buttons is exactly the same , only the labels are different . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I think it should be a little distinct from everything else , +Industrial Designer: We should not do that . +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} either it's both {gap} mayb +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: maybe the shape can be a little different . +User Interface: I have some ideas . I have some ideas . +Project Manager: Maybe it's a little more curves or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Mm that's your uh division . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} yeah . And uh with different colours uh . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll put some on paper and present them next time uh the ideas that I have . +Project Manager: Yeah , this {gap} . Not sure what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because we have forty minutes , I'm not sure how much time we have left for the meeting anyway , so . +User Interface: I heard a beep go . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it wasn't me , it was him closing something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So anyway , yeah , we could do some i do some work now on on the design for example . I mean what do you want , do you want {gap} , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but we like some some curves or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , may maybe something like this . But though smooth inside . So you have the transmitter here for example . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see that you {disfmarker} what would be handy . I think that the {vocalsound} the buttons should be {disfmarker} the channel buttons should be {vocalsound} uh on their own . +Marketing: Uh . And a light uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see one , two {disfmarker} God damn it . +User Interface: Oh , we get the general ideas , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Another one here . Let's see what {disfmarker} I think this should {disfmarker} these are always on top of the of the control , so they should be here . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and since you're holding it like this , I suggest you put the channel up channel down and volume {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Think it's like this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Volume . +Project Manager: Withi within the {disfmarker} Yeah , just take it . +User Interface: yeah yeah . So you have the up channel {vocalsound} the down channel {disfmarker} the volume , do we want that horizontal or vertical ? +Project Manager: Do you take triangles or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's it's fine , I think . +Project Manager: Um I think it should be I think it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is basically what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Maybe we should make 'em bigger or whatever . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but this is just a g general idea . +Marketing: Oh d {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh maybe the menu button can go i in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah , in the middle . It's it's usually uh there , but {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Whoa . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should also make uh something like a flash on it , if you {disfmarker} if it's lost , for people that are deaf . They they won't hear the the beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for example if it's lost in your armchair , we'll not see the flash . +User Interface: You won't be able to find it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And flash takes up a lot of batteries again . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah , it's true , but it's it's only has to do so when you press the button that it's lost . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We could make a combination that it goes beep and that you {disfmarker} that some light lights up . +Industrial Designer: So . {gap} deaf people ? +Marketing: And L_E_D_ uh on it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought about for deaf people for example , so . We could do that . Uh let's see . +Marketing: Just a light on it or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have the basic channels we've got here , uh the power button somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , it's true . Um that thing should be central . +Marketing: Very important . +Project Manager: You shouldn't be {disfmarker} you uh shouldn't press it by accident , but it shouldn't be stacked away somewhere . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: I usually press it on top . +Marketing: that's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: At least that's what I'm accustomed to . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I have another idea , +Project Manager: Yeah , like that's gonna work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure if it's possible . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: What would you like to {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought maybe we should move the buttons down +Marketing: But you r +Project Manager: and put it here for example +Marketing: And you are reading from the t +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: you always read from the top to the the bottom of it . +Project Manager: From top to bottom . Yeah , that's true , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: you should {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the bu the power button should be on top , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the first thing you do {vocalsound} , turn it on . So power button on top . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , mute button . Is that somewhere here ? +Project Manager: Mute . Do we hardly {disfmarker} I think it should be at the bottom somewhere . +User Interface: Is that used often ? +Marketing: So i it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: The mute button ? Do people use that often ? +Marketing: sorry ? +Project Manager: Mute . Turn the sound off . +Marketing: No , it's {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause uh I'm pretty much accustomed to it {vocalsound} right over here , at least in general , +Marketing: Uh . Hmm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think it's important , {gap} but I think it I think it should be {disfmarker} you c +User Interface: It's not that important , no . +Project Manager: you could put it somewhere here . +Marketing: Or or with the volume selection . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , because it {disfmarker} Yeah , people are accustomed to that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Around uh not uh not at top at the {disfmarker} around the volume selection . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Can I have that ? That's j +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: I don't know where exactly , +Project Manager: Take this out and here see {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh are we gonna take triangles anyway ? I'm drawing triangles , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's pretty much what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: aren't they ? +Project Manager: it's maybe a bigger lesser than thing . So anyway , I think this is {disfmarker} should be the channels and {disfmarker} or sh +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I'm accustomed to the channels being on top . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: should we chan +Marketing: On the right . +Project Manager: okay , {vocalsound} this two , channel up and down . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh also look if it's possible to make a rechargeable remote ? That you don't have to buy new batteries if every {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: for {disfmarker} that is it's on one part it's um it's a good thing to recharge it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe it's more ex expensive . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we should {disfmarker} what what could be possible is one with rechargeable batteries for example . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} just put Penlite batteries that are rechargeable , because it's an it's it's it's very annoying . +User Interface: But isn't that expensive in the entire package ? +Industrial Designer: But that's already possible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure y {vocalsound} I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} if it's expensive , but just take a look at it , because it might be a very good idea . Because if {disfmarker} it's it's uh useful to have it rechargeable , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: but at the same time , if you don't want recha if you forgot to recharge it and you wanna watch T_V_ now , you wanna be able to put different batteries in it , use it now and not in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . Okay . Uh you could make a device , but I'm not sure how that uh is possible with the costs , that you can put in normal batteries , rechargeable , +Project Manager: I think I have a nice idea . +Industrial Designer: but it {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} the remote also can act as a recharger . So then you can choose , you have every decision . Know what I mean ? +Project Manager: Not exactly uh . +Industrial Designer: You can uh put in normal Penlites , rechargeable Penlites , but they can also be recharged with the remote , with a wire . +Marketing: Hmm . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's uh it's a pretty good idea to have uh like sort of a {disfmarker} maybe a base station that you put on the T_V_ . Could be flat , you could insert your uh remote into it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's g +Industrial Designer: But I think that will cost a lot . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Uh a normal wire would be better . +Project Manager: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Like a like a P_D_A_ , a hand-held . You can uh just put it in the electricity and it charges itself , +Project Manager: Well , we were talking about the fact that we wanted to insert either a beep or a flash into the thing with a little separate signal +Industrial Designer: you don't need basic station . Yes . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} So you could put that on a T_V_ for example . +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that's true . +Project Manager: It could be very flat , could be very small . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a very small {disfmarker} Yeah , I'm drawing it big now , but {disfmarker} So you can put your remote on flat for example . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And at the backside of remote just just just a little hole +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: for example um you just {vocalsound} put it down , it recharges for example . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive . +User Interface: But again , isn't that too expensive ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that means that we have to implement rechargeable batteries , a docking station {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it costs a lot , that that's what he r +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's that you {disfmarker} that's what you buy yourself . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I'm going to try to find that out . I'm not sure if there's information available on this , +Project Manager: It's just an idea , we have to find out if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: And do people actually want that ? To pay extra {disfmarker} they want to pay for rechargeable ? +Marketing: Yeah , they want to pay for it . +Project Manager: Do they want {disfmarker} but they want a rechargeable one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , you should find out if it's {disfmarker} if rechargeable is important . +Marketing: Th uh there was not a el ask esque {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . These are uh comfort issues . So I think people will pay {disfmarker} they wanted to pay for comfort . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They want to pay for comfort , +Industrial Designer: Well , this is comfort . +Project Manager: we just assu we we could either make a separate station which just sends a signal to the remote control to either beep or flash to find it , +Marketing: But f hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: um and {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} either that or make it integrated with a with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . Exactly . I think this is a brilliant product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it would be good actually . +Industrial Designer: I would buy it myself . +Project Manager: I like the beep part {vocalsound} anyway . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's go through the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I like the covers . That's a brilliant idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can can we save this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Covers is covers is good . +Industrial Designer: I never thought {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Oh we can save this . Up and saved . We even saved the ant . {gap} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what we have is {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} I think you have {vocalsound} to do a lot of work on if it's possible for the cost . +Industrial Designer: I hope if I have information about that , +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {vocalsound} maybe you can find out i what people are willing to pay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We are going for twenty five Euros sales price , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but just try to find out what they're willing to pay for it , because if they're willing to pay more , we could lose a little profit and maybe attract more customers , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we just have to see what it looks like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would like to make a decision {gap} . What it costs and what kind of materials that we can uh choose what we want in it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you have some financial information that that'd be nice , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} exactly , I need it . +Project Manager: so . Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could you post some {vocalsound} other essentials of what people want , so that I can work with some buttons , where to put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You seem to have information on that , I'd like to uh see some of it . +Industrial Designer: Was it not possible to uh send emails around the office ? +Project Manager: No , it wasn't wasn't allo +User Interface: No , it's not . No . +Project Manager: it was possible , +Industrial Designer: Not {gap} . +Project Manager: not allowed , so . So that's um why I'm not sure that {vocalsound} you're allowed to share documents on the on the draft . +Marketing: Yeah . My computer crashed , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: so uh +Project Manager: I don't care . I haven't heard any complaints yet , +User Interface: Oh , your computer . Okay . +Marketing: I lost my uh presentation , +Project Manager: so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I have the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I have your PowerPoint presentation , I can get some inf information out of that . +Marketing: Yeah , but I Here I have the the s the homepage of uh our internet , +User Interface: Let's see . +Project Manager: Yeah , the oh , they inc uh +Marketing: and here is my +Project Manager: they include the new one . {vocalsound} Or just for you . +User Interface: Oh , where would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: here is my marketing report , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Marketing: maybe you ca you can look at uh {vocalsound} that +Project Manager: no , I didn't have that . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where would we want the uh teletext button ? +Marketing: Ah yeah . +User Interface: Because we decided that it's n not that important . +Project Manager: All it tells {gap} just {disfmarker} let's make make a new {disfmarker} +Marketing: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we put it somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: tick the new one . {vocalsound} Um other side . Yeah , let's increase it a little because {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh wha what people want , I've uh +User Interface: Or maybe this is something for the next meeting , I can draw out some ideas . +Project Manager: Yeah , draw us up some some designs of of possible {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have another thing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just keep in mind that the important buttons should be on top and either big , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so the more {disfmarker} less important {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we have decided {vocalsound} more or less the basic structure . +Project Manager: More or less . +User Interface: I can put the other buttons in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just play a little with this , put l shift a little up or down and we'll see what looks best . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what did you wanna say ? +Project Manager: Or just po post your designs from time to time on the product share . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh what I al already said is the the uh the remote controls are always lost , +User Interface: Maybe another idea uh . +Marketing: but it it's also for people , {vocalsound} they want to learn it fast , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: not uh {disfmarker} they want to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so we don't want {gap} we want very little buttons , just the buttons you use a lot . +Marketing: No +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} yeah , it's easy to learn +User Interface: Yes , but it should cover all the functions , +Marketing: wi and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +User Interface: so possibly , just an idea that popped in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: what {disfmarker} we had function that what people do , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . People change channels , people {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they change the volume and they they change channel , they turn T_V_ off and on , for example . That's the basic fu that's what you do {disfmarker} I'm not sure who present that again , but those are the basic function that people use it for , so those should be very well represented . +User Interface: Yeah , but we could go a step further , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +User Interface: because some T_V_s have the uh possibility to adjust brightness , that kind of menus . +Project Manager: That's true , but that's what we stick under the menu button . Everything is {disfmarker} you say in every T_V_ that's configured under the menu . +User Interface: Yes , but it {disfmarker} Because we're making {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's the question , is it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it needs to be configured in the television under the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it isn't , then we cannot reach it . +User Interface: We need to adjust to the {vocalsound} technology . +Project Manager: But I think most modern T_V_s have it in their menu . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . I think so too . +User Interface: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh isn't there a possibility to do research on that , so we know that for sure ? If you rule out functions , then uh {disfmarker} and that gets known , then people are not gonna buy it . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , I thi +Industrial Designer: Then the consumer bond or something says uh you cannot do this and that with it . That's a bad bad com {vocalsound} commercial +Marketing: If um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh we'll we'll see what we can come up with . +Industrial Designer: for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Another thing I want to say is that uh we are looking at the market for the age uh {vocalsound} younger than forty . +Project Manager: Under forty . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Um on my report , {vocalsound} I didn't uh {vocalsound} ish I didn't show it in my uh presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because my computer crashed . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Um they want to pay for an L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: The want to pay for {disfmarker} +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did they really said it like that ? Those two things . +Marketing: i yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh shall we ? +Industrial Designer: Do they realise how much that costs ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's almost undoable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Younger , age sixteen and forty five . +User Interface: Oh , we're not going to be able to sell it for twenty-five then , with an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's all here , here it says {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's that's {gap} . Even if i if we have this lost unit , then we cannot do it for that price . +Project Manager: Yeah , age sixteen forty fi interest in main features more critical . +Marketing: If if they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we're not focusing on this . Um {disfmarker} All the interest in features , not really the L_C_ {disfmarker} oh here . Would you pay for uh speech recognition in a remote control . Hmm , okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: So uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can +Project Manager: Speech recognition is quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can look at the possibilities for an uh L_C_D_ and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just look at the possibilities then , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: because if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: apparently it's what people want , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's supposed to be a luxurious remote , +Marketing: How much it will cost +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe it's not even that expensive . Or find a compromise , maybe just a black and white or {disfmarker} for some extra information on it , on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I doubt it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I really need finance information . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} I mean we all do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It will come uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We all do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . I think it's something we should put into consideration . Apparently it's what people want , so . We should see if {disfmarker} what it costs , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we should do a little thing about design , because it looks boring really to me . Even if you put it {disfmarker} even if you put a different cover on it , it looks {disfmarker} still looks boring , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Different colours maybe . +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . And the design , it should differ . +Marketing: But all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is Philips , huh ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . +Industrial Designer: Philips has this . +Project Manager: I just drew something what {disfmarker} which would fit into your hand easily . +User Interface: Well , I had basically {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Hmm . Uh . +User Interface: Something like this . To make it kind of futuristic . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh , I realise if we make it small , then it needs to be a little thicker , +Project Manager: I think it's a very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I need to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: If we make it s uh smaller , uh less wide , then we need to m make it a little thicker , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: because I have to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah , but you have to j just keep in mind it shouldn't be too heavy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean we can stick it in in there , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Huh even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: So +Project Manager: in the worst case we can even {disfmarker} +User Interface: what kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Could you give me the pen back ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: So let's say that people would want an L_C_D_ thing . Let's take take the basic design again , what we {disfmarker} oh , crap {disfmarker} uh came up with . I'll just make it a little bigger now . So a transmitter here . Anyway . We could {disfmarker} let's say we have an L_C_D_ screen , people want an L_C_D_ screen . So then we should probably put it here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be really big , but just just have to be {disfmarker} has to be there . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Think it's a good place , people don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you're reading from top to bottom , I think it's better to put it uh at the top . +Project Manager: No ? It's not that uh {disfmarker} it's not the most important function , +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Marketing: It's j {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just an extra thing , +Industrial Designer: Ah +Project Manager: it just {disfmarker} you press the buttons on top , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . But i if you if you are going to uh put the L_C_D_ on it , {vocalsound} I think it's very important to use it , +Industrial Designer: but {gap} . +Project Manager: because your finger is on top . +Marketing: uh because it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} use it uh +Project Manager: How can you use an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: But nee the function of it . {vocalsound} So you can use it maximum , because uh it's a lot {disfmarker} it costs a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah , but why +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Now it's pretty much tucked away in your hand . +Project Manager: Uh if you t if you press a button , you can see it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . No . +Project Manager: ri I'm not sure wha I'm trying to imagine myself what it would look like . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M I personally would prefer it on the top . +Project Manager: You would prefer it n Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have three people saying it should be on top . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , but then you would would s have to stack away your buttons somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Hmm . +Project Manager: Anyways . +Marketing: It's expensive to build it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so +Project Manager: Uh this looks a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm still not convinced of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: you must use the maximum of it . +Project Manager: About the L_C_D_s thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if it if it's +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: if it's possible wi if it's not too expensive , we should include it , +Industrial Designer: They want it uh . +Project Manager: because it's it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We should just try to make that if it's possible . If it is possible we should really do it , but we need that information . +Marketing: Huh . Uh . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Also keep in mind again , the L_C_D_ screen is very flat , but it needs transistors , resistors , I don't know what more and that needs space . So I have to look if that's possible . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh . +User Interface: So basically +Industrial Designer: But if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} can I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we have green now uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: what we have to decide now is uh what goes on top . Do we put the volume control and the channel control here , or do we put it on he Would we like to press it in the middle ? +Project Manager: Or maybe we should m we could uh draw draw something a bit {disfmarker} that has it on on on the bottom . +Marketing: In middle of it . In the middle . +Project Manager: Maybe in a circle for example , like we {disfmarker} like in this example . I think this is not good , but for {disfmarker} we could make circular buttons for example . For up and down , ma make it a circle on it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes , but we do agree that we {vocalsound} keep this at the centre , +Project Manager: because it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: because it's basically the most important function . +Project Manager: I think the channel button should be in the centre . +Marketing: It's the most import yeah . +Project Manager: Channel button should be st stick together , for example here in this section . Because it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that would make them quite small . +Project Manager: We're not sure about the size anyway , +User Interface: So maybe you'd put them here . +Project Manager: just a general design . You can make it as big as you want . For example if you take uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but a big remote control probably not something which people would like . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: let's see . For example just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we have a a space issue , we can also lose one battery . It is rechargeable , so we can stick with one instead of two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't think if we if we even use an L_C_D_ screen , we need to , definitely . +Industrial Designer: That might be an option . Yeah , but if we need two batteries and an L_C_D_ screen , that means a lot of space that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have to see what the si what the size is . +Industrial Designer: But it has to be a little bit heavier . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ doesn't have to nee doesn't need to be very big . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but the things behind it . {gap} space . +Project Manager: Mm let's see . +Industrial Designer: Like a process uh . +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . +Marketing: It's on your computer . +Project Manager: Okay , we will . So either {disfmarker} +User Interface: So would we like this or would we like the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We either we have to decide what what people want . +Industrial Designer: I like this one more . +Project Manager: Either this one , this this could be the luxurious one . So we have channel buttons here . I'm just drawing something uh . Uh {disfmarker} I think this would this would look cool . You could have it for example {disfmarker} small buttons here for some extra functions , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: so if your basic function's here , we should {disfmarker} like we decided before , programmes up and down , and volume here . +User Interface: Let's see what we have here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} And uh what about speech recognition uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well you can just {disfmarker} no , I'm not sure if we can do that , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: but we could put a microphone in here for example . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} or or an L_C_D_ or an uh speech . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} L_C_D_ is better now . +Project Manager: Just to do research into both , w what it costs and what it takes for space . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll try to . +Project Manager: But let's cut the meeting for now yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more uh thing I'd like to say , uh let's give this uh a name , and not like some vague serial number that no one understands , like with cars . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Shall we all try uh to think about a name ? +User Interface: So I think of a name . +Marketing: that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's think of a name , okay . +Marketing: yeah , that's okay . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Oh , good . +Project Manager: Okay , at anyways , the the minutes will be on the on the web shortly , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so there we go uh . +User Interface: Yes , go and finish up and I'll see you at lunch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , to all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Same . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've {disfmarker} Do we uh save the {gap} ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} . +","In a professional setting, a project manager begins a meeting during which participants, including a marketing representative, a user interface specialist, and an industrial designer, discuss the development of a new remote control. Initially, there's a brief moment of delay due to the marketing director's late arrival, attributed to computer issues. + +Following brief introductions and a recap of prior meeting minutes, the project manager outlines the agenda for the day. Each member is expected to present their findings and contributions to the product’s functional design. New project requirements from the project board are also to be reviewed later in the meeting. + +The marketing director proceeds first despite technical hurdles with the presentation material. The focus is on the functional requirements for the remote control, derived from tests conducted with a sample of men and women. Key findings indicate that the aesthetics of remote controls matter to consumers, with a significant portion willing to pay for a better-looking, functional device. Essential features like power, channel, and volume buttons are discussed, whereas teletext is identified as of diminishing importance. + +The user interface specialist adds to the conversation, highlighting the significance of making the remote easy to find and suggesting features like a locator beep and durable symbols to prevent fading. The conversation then moves to the industrial designer, who brings up technical considerations related to the existing circuitry of remote controls and the challenges of integrating new features like beeps or video screens. + +Amid the discourse about product features, the project manager interjects with updates about the project's shifting specifications. A strategic shift towards targeting a younger audience under the age of forty is noted, and the importance of incorporating the corporate colors and slogan into the design is stressed. + +Innovative ideas such as exchangeable covers for the remote control to cater to trendy young customers are proposed. Discussions around this touch upon the feasibility and practicality of such additions. + +As the meeting progresses, more nuanced issues emerge like the possibility of rechargeable batteries and a rechargeable dock, speech recognition, and an LCD screen. Each idea is weighed against cost, complexity, and target consumer preferences. + +Throughout, there are collaborative efforts to sketch and brainstorm the remote control's design, with attention to the size of buttons, placement of the LCD screen, and other ergonomic considerations. The idea of changeable covers is also revisited with the additional suggestion of making them language-specific. + +As the meeting approaches its end, there is a clear sense of direction: conduct thorough research to gauge consumer willingness to pay for advanced features like an LCD screen or speech recognition. The meeting concludes with a reminder to document suggestions via meeting minutes on the project share and with an open call to brainstorm an appealing name for the remote control, underscoring the importance of branding and product identity. + +Overall, the discussion encapsulates the evolution of a remote control product’s design from its aesthetic appeal to functional ergonomics, balancing innovative ideas with technical limitations and market demands. It demonstrates a typical dynamic in product development teams where varying disciplines contribute to a cohesive outcome." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: Channel one . +PhD G: Test . +PhD E: Hello . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD G: Test . +PhD A: Uh - oh . +Professor F: So you think we 're going now , yes ? OK , good . Alright Going again Uh {disfmarker} So we 're gonna go around as before , and uh do {disfmarker} do our digits . Uh transcript one three one one dash one three three zero . {comment} three two three {comment} four seven six five {comment} five three one six two four one {comment} six seven {comment} seven {comment} eight {comment} nine zero nine four zero zero three {comment} zero one five eight {comment} one seven three five three {comment} two six eight zero {comment} three six two four three zero seven {comment} four {comment} five zero six nine four {comment} seven four {comment} eight five seven {comment} nine six one five {comment} O seven eight O two {comment} zero nine six zero four zero zero {comment} one {comment} two {comment} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you don't actually n need to say the name . +Grad C: OK , {vocalsound} this is Barry Chen and I am reading transcript +Professor F: That 'll probably be bleeped out . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: So . That 's if these are anonymized , but {vocalsound} Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . {comment} OK . +Professor F: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} not that there 's anything defamatory about uh {disfmarker} eight five seven or {vocalsound} or anything , but +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , anyway . Uh {disfmarker} so here 's what I have for {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was just jotting down things I think th w that we should do today . Uh {disfmarker} This is what I have for an agenda so far Um , We should talk a little bit about the plans for the uh {disfmarker} the field trip next week . Uh {disfmarker} a number of us are doing a field trip to uh Uh {disfmarker} OGI And uh {disfmarker} mostly uh First though about the logistics for it . Then maybe later on in the meeting we should talk about what we actually you know , might accomplish . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , in and {pause} kind of go around {disfmarker} see what people have been doing {disfmarker} talk about that , {pause} a r progress report . Um , Essentially . Um {disfmarker} And then uh {disfmarker} Another topic I had was that uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Dave here had uh said uh "" Give me something to do . "" And I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I have uh {disfmarker} failed so far in doing that . And so maybe we can discuss that a little bit . If we find some holes in some things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} someone could use some help with , he 's {disfmarker} he 's volunteering to help . +PhD A: I 've got to move a bunch of furniture . +Professor F: OK , always count on a {vocalsound} serious comment from that corner . So , um , uh , and uh , then uh , talk a little bit about {disfmarker} about disks and resource {disfmarker} resource issues that {disfmarker} that 's starting to get worked out . And then , anything else anybody has that isn't in that list ? Uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just wondering , does this mean the battery 's dying and I should change it ? +Professor F: Uh I think that means the battery 's O K . {disfmarker} +PhD A: Let me see . +Professor F: d {disfmarker} do you +Grad D: Oh OK , so th +PhD A: Yeah , that 's good . You 're alright ? +Grad D: Cuz it 's full . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Alright . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . It looks full of electrons . OK . Plenty of electrons left there . OK , so , um , uh . OK , so , uh , I wanted to start this with this mundane thing . Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was kind of my bright idea to have us take a plane that leaves at seven twenty in the morning . +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Um . Uh {vocalsound} this is uh {disfmarker} The reason I did it uh was because otherwise for those of us who have to come back the same day it is really not much of a {disfmarker} of a visit . Uh {disfmarker} So um the issue is how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how would we ever accomplish that ? Uh {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what part of town do you live in ? +Grad C: Um , I live in , um , the corner of campus . The , um , southeast corner . +Professor F: OK . OK , so would it be easier {disfmarker} those of you who are not , you know , used to this area , it can be very tricky to get to the airport at {disfmarker} at uh , you know , six thirty . Um . So . Would it be easier for you if you came here and I drove you ? Yeah ? Yeah , yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , so if {disfmarker} if everybody can get here at six . +PhD E: At six . +Professor F: Yeah , I 'm afraid we need to do that to get there on time . +Grad C: Six , OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so . Oh boy . Anyway , so . +PhD A: Will that {pause} be enough time ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so I 'll just pull up in front at six and just be out front . And , uh , and yeah , that 'll be plenty of time . It 'll take {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it won't be bad traffic that time of day and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD A: I guess once you get past the bridge {pause} that that would be the worst . +PhD B: Yeah , Oakland . +Professor F: Going to Oakland . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Oakland . +PhD A: Once you get past the turnoff to the {pause} Bay Bridge . +Professor F: Bridge oh , the turnoff to the bridge +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Won't even do that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: I mean , just go down Martin Luther King . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then Martin Luther King to nine - eighty to eight - eighty , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: and it 's {disfmarker} it 'd take us , tops uh thirty minutes to get there . +PhD A: Oh , I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that leaves us fifty minutes before the plane {disfmarker} it 'll just {disfmarker} yeah . So Great , OK so that 'll It 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's still not going to be really easy but {disfmarker} well Particularly for {disfmarker} for uh {disfmarker} for Barry and me , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not staying overnight so we don't need to bring anything particularly except for {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} a pad of paper and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , and , uh you , two have to bring a little bit +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but uh {disfmarker} you know , don't {disfmarker} don't bring a footlocker and we 'll be OK So . +Grad C: s So just {disfmarker} +Professor F: W you 're staying overnight . I figured you wouldn't need a great big suitcase , yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: That 's sort of {pause} {vocalsound} one night . So . Anyway . OK . +Grad C: So , s six AM , in front . +Professor F: Six AM in front . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , I 'll be here . Uh {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll give you my phone number , If I 'm not here for a few m after a few minutes then +Grad C: Wake you up . +Professor F: Nah , I 'll be fine . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} for me it just means getting up a half an hour earlier than I usually do . Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not a lot , +Grad C: OK . Wednesday . +Professor F: so OK , that was the real real important stuff . Um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I figured maybe wait on the potential goals for the meeting uh {disfmarker} until we talk about wh what 's been going on . So , uh , what 's been going on ? Why don't we start {disfmarker} start over here . +PhD G: Um . {vocalsound} Well , preparation of the French test data actually . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , {vocalsound} it means that um , well , it is , uh , a digit French database of microphone speech , downsampled to eight kilohertz and I 've added noise to one part , with the {disfmarker} actually the Aurora - two noises . And , @ @ so this is a training part . And then {pause} the remaining part , I use for testing and {disfmarker} with other kind of noises . So we can {disfmarker} So this is almost ready . I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the HTK baseline for this task . And , yeah . +Professor F: OK Uh , So the HTK base lines {disfmarker} so this is using mel cepstra and so on , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: And again , I guess the p the plan is , uh , to uh {disfmarker} then given this {disfmarker} What 's the plan again ? +PhD G: The plan with {pause} these data ? +Professor F: With {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Does i Just remind me of what {disfmarker} what you were going to do with the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} y You just described what you 've been doing . So if you could remind me of what you 're going to be doing . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh , this is {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Grad C: Tell him about the cube . +PhD G: Well . The cube ? I should tell him about the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Oh ! Cube . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Fill in the cube . +PhD G: Uh we {disfmarker} actually we want to , mmm , Uh , {vocalsound} uh , analyze three dimensions , the feature dimension , the {pause} training data dimension , and the test data dimension . Um . Well , what we want to do is first we have number for each {pause} uh task . So we have the um , TI - digit task , the Italian task , the French task {pause} and the Finnish task . +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD G: So we have numbers with {pause} uh {disfmarker} systems {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} I mean neural networks trained on the task data . And then to have systems with neural networks trained on , {vocalsound} uh , data from the same language , if possible , with , well , using a more generic database , which is phonetically {disfmarker} phonetically balanced , and . Um . +Professor F: So - so we had talked {disfmarker} I guess we had talked at one point about maybe , the language ID corpus ? +PhD G: Yeah . So . +Professor F: Is that a possibility for that ? +PhD G: Ye - uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , but , uh these corpus , w w there is a CallHome and a CallFriend also , The CallFriend is for language ind identification . Well , anyway , these corpus are all telephone speech . So , um . {vocalsound} This could be a {disfmarker} {pause} a problem for {disfmarker} Why ? Because uh , uh , the {disfmarker} the SpeechDat databases are not telephone speech . They are downsampled to eight kilohertz but {disfmarker} but they are not {vocalsound} uh with telephone bandwidth . +Professor F: Yeah . That 's really funny isn't it ? I mean cuz th this whole thing is for {pause} developing new standards for the telephone . +Grad C: Telephone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the idea is to compute the feature before {pause} the {disfmarker} before sending them to the {disfmarker} Well , {pause} you don't {disfmarker} do not send speech , you send features , computed on th the {disfmarker} {pause} the device , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I know , but the reason {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well . +Professor F: Oh I see , so your point is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} the features are computed locally , and so they aren't necessarily telephone bandwidth , uh or telephone distortions . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you {pause} happen to find out anything about the OGI multilingual database ? +Professor F: Yeah , that 's wh that 's wh that 's what I meant . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I said {disfmarker} @ @ , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's an OGI language ID , not the {disfmarker} not the , uh {disfmarker} the CallFriend is a {disfmarker} is a , uh , LDC w thing , right ? +PhD G: Yea - Yeah , there are also two other databases . One they call the multi - language database , and another one is a twenty - two language , something like that . But it 's also telephone speech . +PhD A: Oh , they are ? OK . +PhD G: Uh . Well , nnn . +Professor F: But I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , we ' r e e The bandwidth shouldn't be such an issue right ? Because e e this is downsampled and {disfmarker} and filtered , right ? So it 's just the fact that it 's not telephone . And there are so many other differences between these different databases . I mean some of this stuff 's recorded in the car , and some of it 's {disfmarker} I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's many different acoustic differences . So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} . I mean , unless we 're going to include a bunch of car recordings in the {disfmarker} in the training database , I 'm not sure if it 's {disfmarker} completely rules it out +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: if our {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if our major goal is to have phonetic context and you figure that there 's gonna be a mismatch in acoustic conditions does it make it much worse f to sort of add another mismatch , if you will . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , i i I {disfmarker} I guess the question is how important is it to {disfmarker} for us to get multiple languages uh , in there . +PhD G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah . Well , actually , for the moment if we w do not want to use these phone databases , we {disfmarker} we already have uh {disfmarker} English , Spanish and French uh , with microphone speech . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: So that 's what you 're thinking of using is sort of the multi the equivalent of the multiple ? +PhD G: Well . Yeah , for the multilingual part we were thinking of using these three databases . +Professor F: And for the difference in phonetic context {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? Provide that . +PhD G: Well , this {disfmarker} Uh , actually , these three databases are um generic databases . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So w f for {disfmarker} for uh Italian , which is close to Spanish , French and , i i uh , TI - digits we have both uh , digits {pause} training data and also {pause} more general training data . So . Mmm . +Professor F: Well , we also have this Broadcast News that we were talking about taking off the disk , which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is microphone data for {disfmarker} for English . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , perhaps {disfmarker} yeah , there is also TIMIT . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: We could use TIMIT . +Professor F: Right . Yeah , so there 's plenty of stuff around . OK , so anyway , th the basic plan is to , uh , test this cube . Yes . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: To fill in the cube . +Professor F: To fill i fill it in , yeah . OK . +PhD G: Yeah , and perhaps , um {disfmarker} {pause} We were thinking that perhaps the cross - language issue is not , uh , so big of a issue . Well , w w we {disfmarker} perhaps we should not focus too much on that cross - language stuff . I mean , uh , training {disfmarker} training a net on a language and testing a for another language . +Professor F: Uh - huh . But that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mmm . Perhaps the most important is to have neural networks trained on the target languages . But , uh , with a general database {disfmarker} general databases . u So that th Well , the {disfmarker} the guy who has to develop an application with one language can use the net trained o on that language , or a generic net , +Professor F: Uh , depen it depen it depends how you mean "" using the net "" . +PhD G: but not trained on a {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , if you 're talking about for producing these discriminative features {pause} that we 're talking about {pause} you can't do that . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Because {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} what they 're asking for is {disfmarker} is a feature set . Right ? And so , uh , we 're the ones who have been weird by {disfmarker} by doing this training . But if we say , "" No , you have to have a different feature set for each language , "" I think this is ver gonna be very bad . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Oh . +PhD G: You think so . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . I mean , in principle , I mean conceptually , it 's sort of like they want a re @ @ {comment} well , they want a replacement for mel cepstra . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So , we say "" OK , this is the year two thousand , we 've got something much better than mel cepstra . It 's , you know , gobbledy - gook . "" OK ? And so {vocalsound} we give them these gobbledy - gook features but these gobbledy - gook features are supposed to be good for any language . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Cuz you don't know who 's gonna call , and you know , I mean so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} how do you know what language it is ? Somebody picks up the phone . So thi this is their image . Someone picks up the phone , right ? +PhD G: Well , I {comment} chh {disfmarker} +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and he {disfmarker} he picks up the ph +PhD G: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} the application is {disfmarker} there is a target language for the application . +Professor F: Yeah . y y y +PhD G: So , if a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well . But , no but , y you {disfmarker} you pick up the phone , +PhD G: Well . +Professor F: you talk on the phone , +PhD G: Yeah ? +Professor F: and it sends features out . OK , so the phone doesn't know what a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what your language is . +PhD G: Yeah , if {disfmarker} Yeah . If it 's th in the phone , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: But that 's the image that they have . +PhD G: well , it {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that could be th at the server 's side , +Professor F: It could be , +PhD G: and , well . Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: but that 's the image they have , right ? So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one could argue all over the place about how things really will be in ten years . But the particular image that the cellular industry has right now is that it 's distributed speech recognition , where the , uh , uh , probabilistic part , and {disfmarker} and s semantics and so forth are all on the servers , and you compute features of the {disfmarker} uh , on the phone . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we 're involved in . We might {disfmarker} might or might not agree that that 's the way it will be in ten years , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what they 're asking for . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} th th it is an important issue whether it works cross - language . Now , it 's the OGI , uh , folks ' perspective right now that probably that 's not the biggest deal . And that the biggest deal is the , um envir acoustic - environment mismatch . And they may very well be right , but I {disfmarker} I was hoping we could just do a test and determine if that was true . If that 's true , we don't need to worry so much . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe we have a couple languages in the training set and that gives us enough breadth uh , uh , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the rest doesn't matter . Um , the other thing is , uh , this notion of training to uh {disfmarker} which I {disfmarker} I guess they 're starting to look at up there , {comment} training to something more like articulatory features . Uh , and if you have something that 's just good for distinguishing different articulatory features that should just be good across , you know , a wide range of languages . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so I don't th I know {disfmarker} unfortunately I don't {disfmarker} I see what you 're comi where you 're coming from , I think , but I don't think we can ignore it . +PhD G: So we {disfmarker} we really have to do test with a real cross - language . I mean , tr for instance training on English and testing on Italian , or {disfmarker} Or we can train {disfmarker} or else , uh , can we train a net on , uh , a range of languages and {disfmarker} which can include the test {disfmarker} the test @ @ the target language , +Grad C: Test on an unseen . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , so , um , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} This is complex . So , ultimately , uh , as I was saying , I think it doesn't fit within their image that you switch nets based on language . Now , can you include , uh , the {disfmarker} the target language ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Um , from a purist 's standpoint it 'd be nice not to because then you can say when {disfmarker} because surely someone is going to say at some point , "" OK , so you put in the German and the Finnish . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , now , what do you do , uh , when somebody has Portuguese ? "" you know ? Um , and {disfmarker} Uh , however , you aren't {disfmarker} it isn't actually a constraint in this evaluation . So I would say if it looks like there 's a big difference to put it in , then we 'd make note of it , and then we probably put in the other , because we have so many other problems in trying to get things to work well here that {disfmarker} that , you know , it 's not so bad as long as we {disfmarker} we note it and say , "" Look , we did do this "" . +PhD G: Mmm ? +PhD A: And so , ideally , what you 'd wanna do is you 'd wanna run it with and without the target language and the training set for a wide range of languages . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , perhaps . Yeah . +PhD A: And that way you can say , "" Well , "" you know , "" we 're gonna build it for what we think are {pause} the most common ones "" , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: but if that {disfmarker} somebody uses it with a different language , you know , "" here 's what 's you 're l here 's what 's likely to happen . "" +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the truth is , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like there are {disfmarker} I mean , al although there are thousands of languages , uh , from uh , uh , the point of view of cellular companies , there aren't . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: There 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , there 's fifty or something , you know ? So , uh , an and they aren't {disfmarker} you know , with the exception of Finnish , which I guess it 's pretty different from most {disfmarker} most things . uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} most of them are like at least some of the others . And so , our guess that Spanish is like Italian , and {disfmarker} and so on . I guess Finnish is a {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a little bit like Hungarian , supposedly , right ? +PhD A: I don't know anything about Finnish . +Professor F: Or is {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} well , I kn oh , well I know that H uh , H I mean , I 'm not a linguist , but I guess Hungarian and Finnish and one of the {disfmarker} one of the languages from the former Soviet Union are in this sort of same family . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: But they 're just these , you know , uh {disfmarker} countries that are pretty far apart from one another , have {disfmarker} I guess , people rode in on horses and brought their {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Oh , my turn . +Professor F: Your turn . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Um , Let 's see , I {disfmarker} I spent the last week , uh , looking over Stephane 's shoulder . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and understanding some of the data . I re - installed , um , um , HTK , the free version , so , um , everybody 's now using three point O , which is the same version that , uh , OGI is using . +Professor F: Oh , good . +Grad C: Yeah . So , without {disfmarker} without any licensing big deals , or anything like that . And , um , so we 've been talking about this {disfmarker} this , uh , cube thing , and it 's beginning more and more looking like the , uh , the Borge cube thing . It 's really gargantuan . Um , but I I 'm {disfmarker} Am I {disfmarker} +Professor F: So are {disfmarker} are you going to be assimilated ? +PhD A: Resistance is futile . +Grad C: Exactly . Um , yeah , so I I 've been looking at , uh , uh , TIMIT stuff . Um , the {disfmarker} the stuff that we 've been working on with TIMIT , trying to get a , um {disfmarker} a labels file so we can , uh , train up a {disfmarker} train up a net on TIMIT and test , um , the difference between this net trained on TIMIT and a net trained on digits alone . Um , and seeing if {disfmarker} if it hurts or helps . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Anyway . +Professor F: And again , when y just to clarify , when you 're talking about training up a net , you 're talking about training up a net for a tandem approach ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Um . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and the inputs are PLP and delta and that sort of thing , +Grad C: Well , the inputs are one dimension of the cube , +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: which , um , we 've talked about it being , uh , PLP , um , M F C Cs , um , J - JRASTA , JRASTA - LDA {disfmarker} +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah , but your initial things you 're making one choice there , +Grad C: Yeah , +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: right . +Professor F: Which is PLP , or something ? +Grad C: Um , I {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't decided on {disfmarker} on the initial thing . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Probably {disfmarker} probably something like PLP . Yeah . +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Um , so {disfmarker} so you take PLP and you {disfmarker} you , uh , do it {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you , uh , use HTK with it with the transformed features using a neural net that 's trained . And the training could either be from Digits itself or from TIMIT . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: And that 's the {disfmarker} and , and th and then the testing would be these other things which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which might be foreign language . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor F: I see . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I get in the picture about the cube . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: OK . Uh - huh . +Professor F: OK . Um , I mean , those listening to this will not have a picture either , so , um , I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not any worse off . But but at some point {disfmarker} somebody should just show me the cube . It sounds s I {disfmarker} I get {disfmarker} I think I get the general idea of it , +Grad C: Yeah , yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: So , when you said that you were getting the labels for TIMIT , {comment} um , are y what do you mean by that ? +Grad C: b May Mm - hmm . Oh , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just , uh , transforming them from the , um , the standard TIMIT transcriptions into {disfmarker} into a nice long huge P - file to do training . +PhD A: Mmm . Were the digits , um , hand - labeled for phones ? +Grad C: Um , the {disfmarker} the digits {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or were they {disfmarker} those labels automatically derived ? +Grad C: Oh yeah , those were {disfmarker} those were automatically derived by {disfmarker} by Dan using , um , embedded {disfmarker} embedded training and alignment . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor F: Ah , but which Dan ? +Grad C: Uh , Ellis . Right ? +Professor F: OK . OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So . +PhD A: I was just wondering because that test you 're t +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think you 're doing this test because you want to determine whether or not , uh , having s general speech performs as well as having specific {pause} speech . +Grad C: That 's right . +Professor F: Well , especially when you go over the different languages again , because you 'd {disfmarker} the different languages have different words for the different digits , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . And I was {disfmarker} +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah , so I was just wondering if the fact that TIMIT {disfmarker} you 're using the hand - labeled stuff from TIMIT might be {disfmarker} confuse the results that you get . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I think it would , but {disfmarker} but on the other hand it might be better . +PhD A: Right , but if it 's better , it may be better because {pause} it was hand - labeled . +Professor F: Oh yeah , but still @ @ probably use it . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +Professor F: I mean , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm sounding cavalier , but I mean , I think the point is you have , uh , a bunch of labels and {disfmarker} and they 're han hand uh {disfmarker} hand - marked . Uh , I guess , actually , TIMIT was not entirely hand - marked . It was automatically first , and then hand {disfmarker} hand - corrected . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but , um , uh , it {disfmarker} it , um , it might be a better source . So , i it 's {disfmarker} you 're right . It would be another interesting scientific question to ask , "" Is it because it 's a broad source or because it was , you know , carefully ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh . And that 's something you could ask , but given limited time , I think the main thing is if it 's a better thing for going across languages on this training tandem system , +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor F: then it 's probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: What about the differences in the phone sets ? +Grad C: Uh , between languages ? +PhD A: No , between TIMIT and the {disfmarker} the digits . +Grad C: Oh , um , right . Well , there 's a mapping from the sixty - one phonemes in TIMIT to {disfmarker} to fifty - six , the ICSI fifty - six . +PhD E: Sixty - one . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +Grad C: And then the digits phonemes , um , there 's about twenty twenty - two or twenty - four of them ? Is that right ? +PhD A: Out of that fifty - six ? +PhD G: Yep . +Grad C: Out of that fifty - six . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely broader , yeah . +PhD G: But , actually , the issue of phoneti phon uh phone phoneme mappings will arise when we will do severa use several languages +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: because you {disfmarker} Well , some phonemes are not , uh , in every languages , and {disfmarker} So we plan to develop a subset of the phonemes , uh , that includes , uh , all the phonemes of our training languages , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and use a network with kind of one hundred outputs or something like that . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . You mean a superset , sort of . +PhD G: Uh , yeah , +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD G: superset , +PhD E: Yeah . I th I looks the SAMPA SAMPA phone . +PhD G: yeah . +PhD E: SAMPA phone ? For English {disfmarker} uh American English , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the language who have more phone are the English . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD E: Of the {disfmarker} these language . But n for example , in Spain , the Spanish have several phone that d doesn't appear in the E English and we thought to complete . But for that , it needs {disfmarker} we must r h do a lot of work {vocalsound} because we need to generate new tran transcription for the database that we have . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Other than the language , is there a reason not to use the TIMIT phone set ? Cuz it 's larger ? As opposed to the ICSI {pause} phone set ? +Grad C: Oh , you mean why map the sixty - one to the fifty - six ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . I have {disfmarker} +Professor F: Um , I forget if that happened starting with you , or was it {disfmarker} o or if it was Eric , afterwards who did that . But I think , basically , there were several of the phones that were just hardly ever there . +PhD A: Yeah , and I think some of them , they were making distinctions between silence at the end and silence at the beginning , when really they 're {pause} both silence . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: I th I think it was things like that that got it mapped down to fifty - six . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Yeah , especially in a system like ours , which is a discriminative system . You know , you 're really asking this net to learn . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: It 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of hard . +PhD A: There 's not much difference , really . And {pause} the ones that are gone , I think are {disfmarker} I think there was {disfmarker} they also in TIMIT had like a glottal stop , which was basically a short period of silence , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so . +PhD B: Well , we have that now , too , right ? +PhD A: I don't know . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor F: i It 's actually pretty common that a lot of the recognition systems people use have things like {disfmarker} like , say thirty - nine , phone symbols , right ? Uh , and then they get the variety by {disfmarker} by bringing in the context , the phonetic context . Uh . So we actually have an unusually large number in {disfmarker} in what we tend to use here . Um . So , a a actually {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} now you 've got me sort of intrigued . What {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} Can you describe what {disfmarker} what 's on the cube ? +Grad C: Yeah , w I th I think that 's a good idea +Professor F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: to {disfmarker} to talk about the whole cube +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: and maybe we could sections in the cube for people to work on . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Um , OK . Uh , do you wanna do it ? +Professor F: OK , so even {disfmarker} even though the meeting recorder doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't , uh {disfmarker} and since you 're not running a video camera we won't get this , but if you use a board it 'll help us anyway . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Uh , point out one of the limitations of this {vocalsound} medium , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: but you 've got the wireless on , +Grad C: Yeah , I have the wireless . +Professor F: right ? Yeah , so you can walk around . +Grad C: OK . Can y can you walk around too ? No . OK , well , um , +Professor F: Uh , he can't , actually , but {disfmarker} +Grad C: s basically , the {disfmarker} the cube will have three dimensions . +Professor F: He 's tethered . +Grad C: The first dimension is the {disfmarker} the features that we 're going to use . And the second dimension , um , is the training corpus . And that 's the training on the discriminant neural net . Um and the last dimension happens to be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah and again {disfmarker} Yeah . So the {disfmarker} the training for HTK is always {disfmarker} that 's always set up for the individual test , right ? That there 's some training data and some test data . So that 's different than this . +Grad C: Right , right . This is {disfmarker} this is for {disfmarker} for ANN only . And , yeah , the training for the HTK models is always , uh , fixed for whatever language you 're testing on . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: And then , there 's the testing corpus . So , then I think it 's probably instructive to go and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and show you the features that we were talking about . Um , so , let 's see . Help me out with {disfmarker} +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: With what ? +PhD G: PLP . +Grad C: PLP ? OK . +PhD G: MSG . +Grad C: MSG . +PhD G: Uh , JRASTA . +Grad C: JRASTA . +PhD G: And JRASTA - LDA . +Grad C: JRASTA - LDA . +PhD G: Um , multi - band . +Grad C: Multi - band . +PhD G: So there would be multi - band before , um {disfmarker} before our network , I mean . +Grad C: Yeah , just the multi - band features , right ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh - huh . Ah . Ah . +PhD G: So , something like , uh , s TCT within bands and {disfmarker} Well . And then multi - band after networks . Meaning that we would have , uh , neural networks , uh , discriminant neural networks for each band . Uh , yeah . And using the {disfmarker} the outputs of these networks or the linear outputs or something like that . Uh , yeah . +PhD A: What about mel cepstrum ? Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: you don't include that because it 's part of the base or something ? +PhD E: Yeah databases . +Professor F: Well , y you do have a baseline system that 's m that 's mel cepstra , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: But , uh , well , not for the {disfmarker} the ANN . I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: So , yeah , we could {disfmarker} we could add {pause} MFCC also . +Grad C: We could add {disfmarker} +Professor F: Probably should . I mean at least {disfmarker} at least conceptually , you know , it doesn't meant you actually have to do it , +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: but conceptually it makes sense as a {disfmarker} as a base line . +PhD A: It 'd be an interesting test just to have {disfmarker} just to do MFCC with the neural net +PhD E: Without the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and everything else the same . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Compare that with just M - MFCC without the {disfmarker} the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think Dan did some of that . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Um , in his previous Aurora experiments . And with the net it 's {disfmarker} it 's wonderful . Without the net it 's just baseline . +Professor F: Um , I think OGI folks have been doing that , too . D Because I think that for a bunch of their experiments they used , uh , mel cepstra , actually . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Um , of course that 's there and this is here and so on . OK ? +Grad C: OK . Um , for the training corpus {disfmarker} corpus , um , we have , um , the {disfmarker} the d {pause} digits {nonvocalsound} from the various languages . Um , English Spanish um , French What else do we have ? +PhD G: And the {pause} Finnish . +Grad C: Finnish . +PhD A: Where did th where did that come from ? +PhD E: And Italian . +PhD A: Digits ? +PhD E: Uh , no , Italian no . Italian no . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad C: Oh . Italian . +PhD E: I Italian yes . Italian ? +Professor F: Italian . +PhD A: Is that {disfmarker} Was that distributed with Aurora , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: One L or two L 's ? +PhD A: Where did that {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: The newer one . +PhD G: So English , uh , Finnish and Italian are Aurora . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And Spanish and French is something that we can use in addition to Aurora . Uh , well . +Professor F: Yeah , so Carmen brought the Spanish , and Stephane brought the French . +Grad C: OK . And , um , oh yeah , and {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is it French French or Belgian French ? There 's a {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's , uh , French French . +Grad C: French French . +PhD E: Like Mexican Spain and Spain . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Or Swiss . +PhD E: I think that is more important , +PhD B: Swiss - German . +PhD E: Mexican Spain . Because more people {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , probably so . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , Herve always insists that Belgian is {disfmarker} i is absolutely pure French , has nothing to do with {disfmarker} but he says those {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those Parisians talk funny . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . They have an accent . +Professor F: Yeah they {disfmarker} they do , yeah . Yeah . {pause} But then he likes Belgian fries too , so . OK . +Grad C: And then we have , uh , um , broader {disfmarker} broader corpus , um , like TIMIT . TIMIT so far , +PhD E: And Spanish too . +Grad C: right ? Spanish {disfmarker} Oh , Spanish stories ? +PhD E: Albayzin is the name . +PhD A: What about TI - digits ? +Grad C: Um , TI - digits {disfmarker} uh all these Aurora f d data p data is from {disfmarker} is derived from TI - digits . +PhD A: Uh - huh . Oh . Oh OK . +Grad C: Um , basically , they {disfmarker} they corrupted it with , uh , different kinds of noises at different SNR levels . +PhD A: Ah . I see . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: y And I think Stephane was saying there 's {disfmarker} there 's some broader s material in the French also ? +PhD G: Yeah , we cou we could use {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . The French data . +PhD E: Spanish stories ? +Grad C: No . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Sp - Not Spanish stories ? +PhD E: No . No . Albayz +Professor F: Spanish {disfmarker} +Grad C: Spanish something . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: Did the Aurora people actually corrupt it themselves , or just specify the signal and the signal - t +Grad C: They {disfmarker} they corrupted it , um , themselves , +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: but they also included the {disfmarker} the noise files for us , right ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: so we can go ahead and corrupt other things . +Professor F: I 'm just curious , Carmen {disfmarker} I mean , I couldn't tell if you were joking or {disfmarker} i Is it {disfmarker} is it Mexican Spanish , +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: or is it {disfmarker} +PhD E: No no no no . +Professor F: Oh , no , no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's Spanish from Spain , Spanish . +PhD E: Spanish from Spain . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: From Spain . +Professor F: Alright . Spanish from Spain . Yeah , we 're really covered there now . OK . +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: And the French from France . +PhD G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} No , the French is f yeah , from , uh , Paris , +Grad C: Oh , from Paris , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: And TIMIT 's from {pause} lots of different places . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: From TI . From {disfmarker} i It 's from Texas . So may maybe it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: From the deep South . +Professor F: So - s so it 's not really from the US either . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . +Grad C: Yeah . OK . And , um , with within the training corporas um , we 're , uh , thinking about , um , training with noise . So , incorporating the same kinds of noises that , um , Aurora is in incorporating in their , um {disfmarker} in their training corpus . Um , I don't think we we 're given the , uh {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions , though , right ? +Professor F: I think what they were saying was that , um , for this next test there 's gonna be some of the cases where they have the same type of noise as you were given before hand and some cases where you 're not . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , presumably , that 'll be part of the topic of analysis of the {disfmarker} the test results , is how well you do when it 's matching noise and how well you do where it 's not . +Grad C: Right . +Professor F: I think that 's right . +Grad C: So , I guess we can't train on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the unseen noise conditions . +Professor F: Well , not if it 's not seen , +Grad C: Right . If {disfmarker} Not if it 's unseen . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . I mean , i i i i it does seem to me that a lot of times when you train with something that 's at least a little bit noisy it can {disfmarker} it can help you out in other kinds of noise even if it 's not matching just because there 's some more variance that you 've built into things . But , but , uh , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , exactly how well it will work will depend on how near it is to what you had ahead of time . So . OK , so that 's your training corpus , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and then your testing corpus {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Um , the testing corporas are , um , just , um , the same ones as Aurora testing . And , that includes , um , the English Spa - um , Italian . Finnish . +PhD E: Finnish . +Grad C: Uh , we ' r we 're gonna get German , right ? Ge - {comment} At the final test will have German . +Professor F: Well , so , yeah , the final test , on a guess , is supposed to be German and Danish , +PhD G: Uh , yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: The s yeah , the Spanish , perhaps , +Grad C: Spanish . Oh yeah , we can {disfmarker} we can test on s Spanish . +PhD G: we will have . Yeah . But the {disfmarker} the Aurora Spanish , I mean . +Grad C: Oh yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Oh , there 's a {disfmarker} there 's Spanish testing in the Aurora ? +PhD G: Uh , not yet , but , uh , yeah , uh , e +PhD E: Yeah , it 's preparing . +PhD G: pre they are preparing it , +PhD E: They are preparing . +PhD G: and , well , according to Hynek it will be {disfmarker} we will have this at the end of November , or {disfmarker} Um . +Professor F: OK , so , uh , something like seven things in each , uh {disfmarker} each column . +PhD G: Yeah {disfmarker} +Professor F: So that 's , uh , three hundred and forty - three , uh , {vocalsound} different systems that are going to be developed . There 's three of you . +Grad C: Yeah . One hundred each , about . +Professor F: Uh , so that 's hundred and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hundred and fourteen each . +Grad D: What a what about noise conditions ? +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: w Don't we need to put in the column for noise conditions ? +Professor F: Are you just trying to be difficult ? +Grad D: No , I just don't understand . +Grad C: Well , th uh , when {disfmarker} when I put these testings on there , I 'm assumi +Professor F: I 'm just kidding . Yeah . +Grad C: There - there 's three {disfmarker} three tests . Um , type - A , type - B , and type - C . And they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all gonna be test tested , um , with one training of the HTK system . Um , there 's a script that tests all three different types of noise conditions . Test - A is like a matched noise . Test - B is a {disfmarker} is a slightly mismatched . And test - C is a , um , mismatched channel . +Grad D: And do we do all our {pause} training on clean data ? +Grad C: Um , no , no , +PhD E: Also , we can clean that . +Grad C: we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be , um , training on the noise files that we do have . +PhD G: No . +Professor F: So , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I guess the question is how long does it take to do a {disfmarker} a training ? I mean , it 's not totally crazy t I mean , these are {disfmarker} a lot of these are built - in things and we know {disfmarker} we have programs that compute PLP , we have MSG , we have JRA you know , a lot of these things will just kind of happen , won't take uh a huge amount of development , it 's just trying it out . So , we actually can do quite a few experiments . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But how {disfmarker} how long does it take , do we think , for one of these {pause} {comment} trainings ? +Grad C: That 's a good question . +PhD A: What about combinations of things ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , that 's right . I mean , cuz , so , for instance , I think the major advantage of MSG {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh ! +Professor F: Yeah , +Grad C: Och ! +Professor F: good point . A major advantage of MSG , I see , th that we 've seen in the past is combined with PLP . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: Um . +Grad C: Now , this is turning into a four - dimensional cube ? +PhD A: Well , you just select multiple things on the one dimension . +PhD B: Or you just add it to the features . +PhD E: No . +Grad C: Just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Here . +Grad C: Oh , yeah . OK . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I mean , you don't wanna , uh {disfmarker} Let 's see , seven choose two would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} be , uh , twenty - one different combinations . Um . +PhD B: It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: Probably {disfmarker} +PhD B: right ? It 's not a complete set of combinations , though , +Professor F: What ? +PhD B: right ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , I hope not . Yeah , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: That would be {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , yeah , so PLP and MSG I think we definitely wanna try cuz we 've had a lot of good experience with putting those together . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . Yeah . +PhD A: When you do that , you 're increasing the size of the inputs to the net . Do you have to reduce the hidden layer , or something ? +Professor F: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean , so i it doesn't increase the number of trainings . +PhD A: No , no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering about number of parameters in the net . Do you have to worry about keeping that the same , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , I don't think so . +PhD B: There 's a computation limit , though , isn't there ? +Professor F: Yeah , I mean , it 's just more compu Excuse me ? +PhD B: Isn't there like a limit {pause} on the computation load , or d latency , or something like that for Aurora task ? +Professor F: Oh yeah , we haven't talked about any of that at all , have we ? +Grad C: No . +Professor F: Yeah , so , there 's not really a limit . What it is is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's just penalty , you know ? That {disfmarker} that if you 're using , uh , a megabyte , then they 'll say that 's very nice , but , of course , it will never go on a cheap cell phone . +PhD B: OK . +Professor F: Um . And , u uh , I think the computation isn't so much of a problem . I think it 's more the memory . Uh , and , expensive cell phones , exa expensive hand - helds , and so forth , are gonna have lots of memory . So it 's just that , uh , these people see the {disfmarker} the cheap cell phones as being still the biggest market , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . But , yeah , I was just realizing that , actually , it doesn't explode out , um {disfmarker} It 's not really two to the seventh . But it 's {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} i i it doesn't really explode out the number of trainings cuz these were all trained individually . Right ? So , uh , if you have all of these nets trained some place , then , uh , you can combine their outputs and do the KL transformation and so forth +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So , what it {disfmarker} it blows out is the number of uh testings . And , you know {disfmarker} and the number of times you do that last part . But that last part , I think , is so {disfmarker} has gotta be pretty quick , so . Uh . Right ? I mean , it 's just running the data through {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh . +PhD A: But wh what about a net that 's trained on multiple languages , though ? +Professor F: Well , you gotta do the KL transformation , +PhD G: Eight {disfmarker} y +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is that just separate nets for each language then combined , or is that actually one net trained on ? +PhD E: Necessary to put in . +Professor F: Good question . +PhD G: Uh , probably one net . Well . Uh . +Professor F: One would think one net , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: but we 've {disfmarker} I don't think we 've tested that . Right ? +PhD G: So , in the broader training corpus we can {disfmarker} we can use , uh , the three , or , a combination of {disfmarker} of two {disfmarker} two languages . +PhD E: Database three . +PhD A: In one net . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , so , I guess the first thing is if w if we know how much a {disfmarker} how long a {disfmarker} a training takes , if we can train up all these {disfmarker} these combinations , uh , then we can start working on testing of them individually , and in combination . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Because the putting them in combination , I think , is not as much computationally as the r training of the nets in the first place . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So y you do have to compute the KL transformation . Uh , which is a little bit , but it 's not too much . +PhD G: It 's not too much , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: no . +Professor F: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But there is the testing also , which implies training , uh , the HTK models +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the model {disfmarker} the HTK model . +PhD G: and , well , +Professor F: Uh , right . +PhD G: it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . So if you do have lots of combinations , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not so long . It @ @ {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: How long does it take for an , uh , HTK training ? +PhD G: It 's around six hours , I think . +PhD E: It depends on the {disfmarker} +PhD G: For training and testing , yeah . +PhD E: More than six hours . +PhD G: More . +PhD E: For the Italian , yes . Maybe one day . +PhD G: One day ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: For HTK ? +PhD E: Well . +Professor F: Really ? Running on what ? +PhD E: Uh , M {disfmarker} MFCC . +Professor F: No , I 'm sorry , ru running on what machine ? +PhD E: Uh , Ravioli . +Professor F: Uh , I don't know what Ravioli is . Is it {disfmarker} is it an Ultra - five , or is it a {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: mmm Um . Who is that ? +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD E: I don't know . +PhD B: I don't know what a Ravioli is . +PhD E: I don't know . +Grad C: I don't know . +PhD B: We can check really quickly , I guess . +PhD G: Yeah , I I think it 's - it 's - it 's not so long because , well , the TI - digits test data is about , uh how many hours ? Uh , th uh , thirty hours of speech , I think , +Professor F: It 's a few hours . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Right , +PhD G: something like that . And it p Well . +Professor F: so , I mean , clearly , there {disfmarker} there 's no way we can even begin to do an any significant amount here unless we use multiple machines . +PhD G: It 's six hours . +Professor F: Right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} w we {disfmarker} I mean there 's plenty of machines here and they 're n they 're often not in {disfmarker} in a great {disfmarker} great deal of use . So , I mean , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's key that {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} that you look at , uh , you know , what machines are fast , what machines are used a lot {disfmarker} Uh , are we still using P - make ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , I don't know how w how we would P - make this , though . Um . +Professor F: Well , you have a {disfmarker} I mean , once you get the basic thing set up , you have just all the {disfmarker} uh , a all these combinations , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Um . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} let 's say it 's six hours or eight hours , or something for the training of HTK . How long is it for training of {disfmarker} of , uh , the neural net ? +Grad C: The neural net ? Um . +PhD G: I would say two days . +PhD A: Depends on the corpuses , right ? +PhD E: It depends . +PhD B: It s also depends on the net . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: Depends on the corpus . +PhD B: How big is the net ? +PhD E: For Albayzin I trained on neural network , uh , was , um , one day also . +Professor F: Uh , but on what machine ? +Grad C: On a SPERT board . +PhD E: Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the neural net SPERT . +Grad C: Y you did a {disfmarker} you did it on a SPERT board . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: OK , again , we do have a bunch of SPERT boards . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: And I think there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} I think you folks are probably go the ones using them right now . +PhD A: Is it faster to do it on the SPERT , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Uh , don't know . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's still a little faster on the +Professor F: Used to be . +PhD A: Is it ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . Ad - Adam {disfmarker} Adam did some testing . Or either Adam or {disfmarker} or Dan did some testing and they found that the SPERT board 's still {disfmarker} still faster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the benefits is that , you know , you run out of SPERT and then you can do other things on your {disfmarker} your computer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you don't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . So you could be {disfmarker} we have quite a few SPERT boards . You could set up , uh , you know , ten different jobs , or something , to run on SPERT {disfmarker} different SPERT boards and {disfmarker} and have ten other jobs running on different computers . So , it 's got to take that sort of thing , or {disfmarker} or we 're not going to get through any significant number of these . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , I kind of like this because what it {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: uh , no , what I like about it is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we do have a problem that we have very limited time . You know , so , with very limited time , we actually have really quite a {disfmarker} quite a bit of computational resource available if you , you know , get a look across the institute and how little things are being used . And uh , on the other hand , almost anything that really i you know , is {disfmarker} is new , where we 're saying , "" Well , let 's look at , like we were talking before about , uh , uh , voiced - unvoiced - silence detection features and all those sort {disfmarker} "" that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: I think it 's a great thing to go to . But if it 's new , then we have this development and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and learning process t to {disfmarker} to go through on top of {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the work . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how we 'd do it . So what I like about this is you basically have listed all the things that we already know how to do . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} and all the kinds of data that we , at this point , already have . And , uh , you 're just saying let 's look at the outer product of all of these things and see if we can calculate them . a a Am I {disfmarker} am I interpreting this correctly ? Is this sort of what {disfmarker} what you 're thinking of doing in the short term ? +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so then I think it 's just the {disfmarker} the missing piece is that you need to , uh , you know {disfmarker} you know , talk to {disfmarker} talk to , uh , Chuck , talk to , uh , Adam , uh , sort out about , uh , what 's the best way to really , you know , attack this as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a mass problem in terms of using many machines . Uh , and uh , then , you know , set it up in terms of scripts and so forth , and {disfmarker} uh , in {disfmarker} in kind o some kind of structured way . Uh . Um , and , you know , when we go to , uh , OGI next week , uh , we can then present to them , you know , what it is that we 're doing . And , uh , we can pull things out of this list that we think they are doing sufficiently , +Grad C: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: that , you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we won't be contributing that much . Um . And , uh {disfmarker} Then , uh , like , we 're there . +PhD B: How big are the nets you 're using ? +Grad C: Um , for the {disfmarker} for nets trained on digits , {comment} um , we have been using , uh , four hundred order hidden units . And , um , for the broader class nets we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to increase that because the , um , the digits nets only correspond to about twenty phonemes . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So . +Professor F: Broader class ? +Grad C: Um , the broader {disfmarker} broader training corpus nets like TIMIT . Um , w we 're gonna {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , it 's not actually broader class , it 's actually finer class , but you mean {disfmarker} y You mean {vocalsound} more classes . +Grad C: Right . Right . Yeah . More classes . Right , right . More classes . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's what I mean . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . And . Yeah . +Professor F: Carmen , did you {disfmarker} do you have something else to add ? We {disfmarker} you haven't talked too much , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: D I begin to work with the Italian database to {disfmarker} nnn , to {disfmarker} with the f front - end and with the HTK program and the @ @ . And I trained eh , with the Spanish two neural network with PLP and with LogRASTA PLP . I don't know exactly what is better if {disfmarker} if LogRASTA or JRASTA . +Professor F: Well , um , JRASTA has the potential to do better , but it doesn't always . It 's {disfmarker} i i JRASTA is more complicated . It 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} instead of doing RASTA with a log , you 're doing RASTA with a log - like function that varies depending on a J parameter , uh , which is supposed to be sensitive to the amount of noise there is . So , it 's sort of like the right transformation to do the filtering in , is dependent on how much noise there is . +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: And so in JRASTA you attempt to do that . It 's a little complicated because once you do that , you end up in some funny domain and you end up having to do a transformation afterwards , which requires some tables . And , uh , +PhD E: Hm - hmm . +Professor F: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little messier , uh , there 's more ways that it can go wrong , uh , but if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you 're careful with it , it can do better . +PhD E: It 's a bit {disfmarker} I 'll do better . +Professor F: So , it 's {disfmarker} So . +PhD E: Um , and I think to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to recognize the Italian digits with the neural netw Spanish neural network , and also to train another neural network with the Spanish digits , the database of Spanish digits . And I working that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD E: But prepa to prepare the {disfmarker} the database are difficult . Was for me , n it was a difficult work last week with the labels because the {disfmarker} the program with the label obtained that I have , the Albayzin , is different w to the label to train the neural network . And {pause} {vocalsound} that is another work that we must to do , to {disfmarker} to change . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I didn't understand . +PhD E: Uh , for example Albayzin database was labeled automatically with HTK . It 's not hand {disfmarker} it 's not labels by hand . +Professor F: Oh , "" l labeled "" . +PhD E: Labels . +Professor F: I 'm sorry , +PhD E: I 'm sorry , +Professor F: I have a p I had a problem with {vocalsound} the pronunciation . +PhD E: I 'm sorry . The labels . I 'm sorry . The labels . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Oh , also that {disfmarker} +Professor F: So , OK , so let 's start over . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor F: So , TI TIMI TIMIT 's hand - labeled , and {disfmarker} and you 're saying about the Spanish ? +PhD E: The Spanish labels ? That was in different format , that the format for the em {disfmarker} the program to train the neural network . +Professor F: Oh , I see . +PhD E: I necessary to convert . And someti well {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're just having a problem converting the labels . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but n yes , because they have one program , Feacalc , but no , l LabeCut , l LabeCut , but don't {disfmarker} doesn't , eh , include the HTK format to convert . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD E: And , I don't know what . I ask {disfmarker} e even I ask to Dan Ellis what I can do that , and h they {disfmarker} he say me that h he does doesn't any {disfmarker} any s any form to {disfmarker} to do that . And at the end , I think that with LabeCut I can transfer to ASCII format , and HTK is an ASCII format . And I m do another , uh , one program to put ASCII format of HTK to ase ay ac ASCII format to Exceed +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and they used LabCut to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to pass . +Professor F: OK , yeah . +PhD E: Actually that was complicated , +Professor F: So you +PhD E: but well , I know how we can did that {disfmarker} do that . +Professor F: Sure . So it 's just usual kind of uh {disfmarker} sometimes say housekeeping , right ? To get these {disfmarker} get these things sorted out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So it seems like there 's {disfmarker} there 's some peculiarities of the , uh {disfmarker} of each of these dimensions that are getting sorted out . And then , um , if {disfmarker} if you work on getting the , uh , assembly lines together , and then the {disfmarker} the pieces sort of get ready to go into the assembly line and gradually can start , you know , start turning the crank , more or less . And , uh , uh , we have a lot more computational capability here than they do at OGI , so I think that i if {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} what 's great about this is it sets it up in a very systematic way , so that , uh , once these {disfmarker} all of these , you know , mundane but real problems get sorted out , we can just start turning the crank +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} and push all of us through , and then finally figure out what 's best . +Grad C: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I was thinking two things . Uh , the first thing was , um {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we actually had thought of this as sort of like , um {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not in stages , {comment} but more along the {disfmarker} the time axis . Just kind of like one stream at a time , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: je - je - je - je - je {comment} check out the results and {disfmarker} and go that way . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah , sure . No , I 'm just saying , I 'm just thinking of it like loops , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor F: right ? And so , y y y if you had three nested loops , that you have a choice for this , a choice for this , and a choice for that , +Grad C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: right ? And you 're going through them all . That {disfmarker} that 's what I meant . +Grad C: Right , right . +Professor F: And , uh , the thing is that once you get a better handle on how much you can realistically do , uh , um , {vocalsound} concurrently on different machines , different SPERTs , and so forth , uh , and you see how long it takes on what machine and so forth , you can stand back from it and say , "" OK , if we look at all these combinations we 're talking about , and combinations of combinations , and so forth , "" you 'll probably find you can't do it all . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor F: OK , so then at that point , uh , we should sort out which ones do we throw away . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Which of the combinations across {disfmarker} you know , what are the most likely ones , and {disfmarker} And , uh , I still think we could do a lot of them . I mean , it wouldn't surprise me if we could do a hundred of them or something . But , probably when you include all the combinations , you 're actually talking about a thousand of them or something , and that 's probably more than we can do . Uh , but a hundred is a lot . And {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , and the {disfmarker} the second thing was about scratch space . And I think you sent an email about , um , e scratch space for {disfmarker} for people to work on . And I know that , uh , Stephane 's working from an NT machine , so his {disfmarker} his home directory exists somewhere else . +Professor F: His {disfmarker} his stuff is somewhere else , yeah . Yeah , I mean , my point I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} Yeah , thanks for bring it back to that . My {disfmarker} th I want to clarify my point about that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Chuck repeated in his note . Um . We 're {disfmarker} over the next year or two , we 're gonna be upgrading the networks in this place , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: but right now they 're still all te pretty much all ten megabit lines . And we have reached the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the machines are getting faster and faster . So , it actually has reached the point where it 's a significant drag on the time for something to move the data from one place to another . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , you {disfmarker} you don't w especially in something with repetitive computation where you 're going over it multiple times , you do {disfmarker} don't want to have the {disfmarker} the data that you 're working on distant from where it 's being {disfmarker} where the computation 's being done if you can help it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh . Now , we are getting more disk for the central file server , which , since it 's not a computational server , would seem to be a contradiction to what I just said . But the idea is that , uh , suppose you 're working with , uh , this big bunch of multi multilingual databases . Um , you put them all in the central ser at the cen central file server . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Then , when you 're working with something and accessing it many times , you copy the piece of it that you 're working with over to some place that 's close to where the computation is and then do all the work there . And then that way you {disfmarker} you won't have the {disfmarker} the network {disfmarker} you won't be clogging the network for yourself and others . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's the idea . So , uh , it 's gonna take us {disfmarker} It may be too late for this , uh , p precise crunch we 're in now , but , uh , we 're , uh {disfmarker} It 's gonna take us a couple weeks at least to get the , uh , uh , the amount of disk we 're gonna be getting . We 're actually gonna get , uh , I think four more , uh , thirty - six gigabyte drives and , uh , put them on another {disfmarker} another disk rack . We ran out of space on the disk rack that we had , so we 're getting another disk rack and {vocalsound} four more drives to share between , uh {disfmarker} primarily between this project and the Meetings {disfmarker} Meetings Project . Um . But , uh , we 've put another {disfmarker} I guess there 's another eighteen gigabytes that 's {disfmarker} that 's in there now to help us with the immediate crunch . But , uh , are you saying {disfmarker} So I don't know where {pause} you 're {disfmarker} Stephane , where you 're doing your computations . If {disfmarker} i so , you 're on an NT machine , so you 're using some external machine +PhD G: Yeah , it , uh {disfmarker} Well , to {disfmarker} It 's Nutmeg and Mustard , I think , +Professor F: Do you know these yet ? +PhD G: I don't know what kind . +PhD A: Nuh - uh . +Professor F: Yeah , OK . Uh , are these {disfmarker} are these , uh , computational servers , or something ? I 'm {disfmarker} I 've been kind of out of it . +PhD G: Yeah , I think , yeah . I think so . +Professor F: Unfortunately , these days my idea of running comput of computa doing computation is running a spread sheet . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: So . +PhD G: Mmm . +Professor F: Uh , haven't been {disfmarker} haven't been doing much computing personally , so . Um . Yeah , so those are computational servers . So I guess the other question is what disk there i space there is there on the computational servers . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , I 'm not sure what 's available on {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} you said Nutmeg and what was the other one ? +PhD G: Mustard . +PhD A: Mustard . OK . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor F: Yeah , Well , you 're the {disfmarker} you 're the disk czar now . +PhD A: Right , right . +Professor F: So +PhD A: Well , I 'll check on that . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , so basically , uh , Chuck will be the one who will be sorting out what disk needs to be where , and so on , and I 'll be the one who says , "" OK , spend the money . "" So . {vocalsound} Which , I mean , n these days , uh , if you 're talking about scratch space , it doesn't increase the , uh , need for backup , and , uh , I think it 's not that big a d and the {disfmarker} the disks themselves are not that expensive . Right now it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: What you can do , when you 're on that machine , is , uh , just go to the slash - scratch directory , and do a DF minus K , and it 'll tell you if there 's space available . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , and if there is then , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: But wasn't it , uh {disfmarker} I think Dave was saying that he preferred that people didn't put stuff in slash - scratch . It 's more putting in d s XA or XB or , +PhD A: Well , there 's different {disfmarker} there , um , there 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: right ? +PhD A: Right . So there 's the slash - X - whatever disks , and then there 's slash - scratch . And both of those two kinds are not backed up . And if it 's called "" slash - scratch "" , it means it 's probably an internal disk to the machine . Um . And so that 's the kind of thing where , like if {disfmarker} um , OK , if you don't have an NT , but you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Unix workstation , and they attach an external disk , {comment} it 'll be called "" slash - X - something "" uh , if it 's not backed up and it 'll be "" slash - D - something "" if it is backed up . And if it 's inside the machine on the desk , it 's called "" slash - scratch "" . But the problem is , if you ever get a new machine , they take your machine away . It 's easy to unhook the external disks , put them back on the new machine , but then your slash - scratch is gone . So , you don't wanna put anything in slash - scratch that you wanna keep around for a long period of time . But if it 's a copy of , say , some data that 's on a server , you can put it on slash - scratch because , um , first of all it 's not backed up , and second it doesn't matter if that machine disappears and you get a new machine because you just recopy it to slash - scratch . So tha that 's why I was saying you could check slash - scratch on those {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , um , Mustard and {disfmarker} and Nutmeg to see if {disfmarker} if there 's space that you could use there . +Professor F: I see . +PhD A: You could also use slash - X - whatever disks on Mustard and Nutmeg . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , and we do have {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , so {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's better to have things local if you 're gonna run over them lots of times so you don't have to go to the network . +Professor F: Right , so es so especially if you 're {disfmarker} right , if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're taking some piece of the training corpus , which usually resides in where Chuck is putting it all on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , file server , uh , then , yeah , it 's fine if it 's not backed up because if it g g gets wiped out or something , y I mean it is backed up on the other disk . So , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so , {vocalsound} one of the things that I need to {disfmarker} I 've started looking at {disfmarker} Uh , is this the appropriate time to talk about the disk space stuff ? +Professor F: Sure . +PhD A: I 've started looking at , um , disk space . Dan {disfmarker} David , um , put a new , um , drive onto Abbott , that 's an X disk , which means it 's not backed up . So , um , I 've been going through and copying data that is , you know , some kind of corpus stuff usually , that {disfmarker} that we 've got on a CD - ROM or something , onto that new disk to free up space {pause} on other disks . And , um , so far , um , I 've copied a couple of Carmen 's , um , databases over there . We haven't deleted them off of the slash - DC disk that they 're on right now in Abbott , um , uh , but we {disfmarker} I would like to go through {disfmarker} sit down with you about some of these other ones and see if we can move them onto , um , this new disk also . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot more space there , +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: and it 'll free up more space for doing the experiments and things . So , anything that {disfmarker} that you don't need backed up , we can put on this new disk . Um , but if it 's experiments and you 're creating files and things that you 're gonna need , you probably wanna have those on a disk that 's backed up , just in case something {comment} goes wrong . So . Um So far I 've {disfmarker} I 've copied a couple of things , but I haven't deleted anything off of the old disk to make room yet . Um , and I haven't looked at the {disfmarker} any of the Aurora stuff , except for the Spanish . So I {disfmarker} I guess I 'll need to get together with you and see what data we can move onto the new disk . +PhD G: Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Um , yeah , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} an another question occurred to me is {disfmarker} is what were you folks planning to do about normalization ? +PhD G: Um . Well , we were thinking about using this systematically for all the experiments . Um . +Professor F: This being {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: So , but {disfmarker} Uh . So that this could be another dimension , but we think perhaps we can use the {disfmarker} the best , uh , um , uh , normalization scheme as OGI is using , so , with parameters that they use there , +Professor F: Yeah , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD G: u {vocalsound} u +Professor F: I mean it 's i i we {disfmarker} we seem to have enough dimensions as it is . So probably if we {vocalsound} sort of take their {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor F: probably the on - line {disfmarker} line normalization because then it {disfmarker} {comment} it 's {disfmarker} if we do anything else , we 're gonna end up having to do on - line normalization too , so we may as well just do on - line normalization . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So . Um . So that it 's plausible for the final thing . Good . Um . So , I guess , yeah , th the other topic {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} maybe we 're already there , or almost there , is goals for the {disfmarker} for next week 's meeting . Uh . i i i it seems to me that we wanna do is flush out what you put on the board here . Uh . You know , maybe , have it be somewhat visual , a little bit . +Grad C: OK . Like a s like a slide ? +Professor F: Uh , so w we can say what we 're doing , +Grad C: OK . +Professor F: yeah . And , um , also , if you have {pause} sorted out , um , this information about how long i roughly how long it takes to do on what and , you know , what we can {disfmarker} how many of these trainings , uh , uh , and testings and so forth that we can realistically do , uh , then one of the big goals of going there next week would be to {disfmarker} to actually settle on which of them we 're gonna do . And , uh , when we come back we can charge in and do it . Um . Anything else that {disfmarker} I a a Actually {disfmarker} started out this {disfmarker} this field trip started off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Stephane talking to Hynek , so you may have {disfmarker} you may have had other goals , uh , for going up , and any anything else you can think of would be {disfmarker} we should think about {pause} accomplishing ? I mean , I 'm just saying this because {pause} maybe there 's things we need to do in preparation . +PhD G: Oh , I think basically , this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , yeah . +Professor F: OK . OK . Uh . Alright . And uh {disfmarker} and the other {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last topic I had here was , um , uh d Dave 's fine offer to {disfmarker} to , uh , do something {pause} {vocalsound} on this . I mean he 's doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} he 's working on other things , but to {disfmarker} to do something on this project . So the question is , "" Where {disfmarker} where could we , uh , uh , most use Dave 's help ? "" +PhD G: Um , yeah , I was thinking perhaps if , um , additionally to all these experiments , which is not really research , well I mean it 's , uh , running programs +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um , {vocalsound} trying to have a closer look at the {disfmarker} perhaps the , um , {vocalsound} speech , uh , noise detection or , uh , voiced - sound - unvoiced - sound detection and {disfmarker} Which could be important in {disfmarker} i for noise {disfmarker} noise {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think that would be a {disfmarker} I think that 's a big {disfmarker} big deal . Because the {disfmarker} you know , the thing that Sunil was talking about , uh , with the labels , uh , labeling the database when it got to the noisy stuff ? The {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} that really throws things off . You know , having the noise all of a sudden , your {disfmarker} your , um , speech detector , I mean the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} What was it ? What was happening with his thing ? +Professor F: +PhD A: He was running through these models very quickly . He was getting lots of , uh , uh insertions , is what it was , in his recognitions . +Professor F: The only problem {disfmarker} I mean , maybe that 's the right thing {disfmarker} the only problem I have with it is exactly the same reason why you thought it 'd be a good thing to do . Um , I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} Let 's fall back to that . But I think the first responsibility is sort of to figure out if there 's something {pause} that , uh , an {disfmarker} an additional {disfmarker} Uh , that 's a good thing you {disfmarker} remove the mike . Go ahead , good . Uh , uh . What an additional clever person could help with when we 're really in a crunch for time . Right ? Cuz Dave 's gonna be around for a long time , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? He 's {disfmarker} he 's gonna be here for years . And so , um , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: over years , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's interested in , you know , voiced - unvoiced - silence , he could do a lot . But if there {disfmarker} if in fact there 's something else {pause} that he could be doing , that would help us when we 're {disfmarker} we 're sort of uh strapped for time {disfmarker} We have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 've , you know , only , {pause} uh , another {disfmarker} another month or two {pause} to {disfmarker} you know , with the holidays in the middle of it , um , to {disfmarker} to get a lot done . If we can think of something {disfmarker} some piece of this that 's going to be {disfmarker} The very fact that it is sort of just work , and i and it 's running programs and so forth , is exactly why {pause} it 's possible that it {disfmarker} some piece of could be handed to someone to do , because it 's not {disfmarker} Uh , yeah , so that {disfmarker} that 's the question . And we don't have to solve it right this s second , but if we could think of some {disfmarker} some piece that 's {disfmarker} that 's well defined , that he could help with , he 's expressing a will willingness to do that . +PhD A: What about training up a , um , a multilingual net ? +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yes , maybe to , mmm , put together the {disfmarker} the label {disfmarker} the labels between TIMIT and Spanish or something like that . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , so defining the superset , +PhD E: Yes . +PhD G: and , uh , joining the data and {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Uh . Yeah , that 's something that needs to be done in any event . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor F: So what we were just saying is that {disfmarker} that , um {disfmarker} I was arguing for , {pause} if possible , coming up with something that {disfmarker} that really was development and wasn't research because we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we have a time crunch . And so , uh , if there 's something that would {disfmarker} would save some time that someone else could do on some other piece , then we should think of that first . See the thing with voiced - unvoiced - silence is I really think that {disfmarker} that it 's {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} to do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a poor job is {disfmarker} is pretty quick , uh , or , you know , a so - so job . You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can throw in a couple fea we know what {disfmarker} what kinds of features help with it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor F: You can throw something in . You can do pretty well . But I remember , in fact , when you were working on that , and you worked on for few months , as I recall , and you got to , say ninety - three percent , and getting to ninety - four {pause} {vocalsound} really really hard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Another year . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . So , um {disfmarker} And th th the other tricky thing is , since we are , uh , even though we 're not {disfmarker} we don't have a strict prohibition on memory size , and {disfmarker} and computational complexity , uh , clearly there 's some limitation to it . So if we have to {disfmarker} if we say we have to have a pitch detector , say , if we {disfmarker} if we 're trying to incorporate pitch information , or at least some kind of harmonic {disfmarker} harmonicity , or something , this is another whole thing , take a while to develop . Anyway , it 's a very very interesting topic . I mean , one {disfmarker} I think one of the {disfmarker} a lot of people would say , and I think Dan would also , uh , that one of the things wrong with current speech recognition is that we {disfmarker} we really do throw away all the harmonicity information . Uh , we try to get spectral envelopes . Reason for doing that is that most of the information about the phonetic identity is in the spectral envelopes are not in the harmonic detail . But the harmonic detail does tell you something . Like the fact that there is harmonic detail is {disfmarker} is real important . So . Um . So , uh . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} wh that {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the other suggestion that just came up was , well what about having him {pause} work on the , uh , {pause} multilingual super f superset {pause} kind of thing . Uh , coming up with that and then , you know , training it {disfmarker} training a net on that , say , um , from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from TIMIT or something . Is that {disfmarker} or uh , for multiple databases . What {disfmarker} what would you {disfmarker} what would you think it would {disfmarker} wh what would this task consist of ? +PhD G: Yeah , it would consist in , uh , well , um , creating the {disfmarker} the superset , and , uh , modifying the lab labels for matching the superset . Uh . +Professor F: Uh , creating a superset from looking at the multiple languages , +PhD G: Well , creating the mappings , actually . +Professor F: and then creating i m changing labels on TIMIT ? +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: Or on {disfmarker} or on multiple language {disfmarker} {vocalsound} multiple languages ? +PhD E: No . The multiple language . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah , with the @ @ three languages , +PhD E: Maybe for the other language because TIMIT have more phone . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: So you 'd have to create a mapping from each language to the superset . +Professor F: Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: From each language to the superset , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad C: There 's , um {disfmarker} Carmen was talking about this SAMPA thing , and it 's , um , {vocalsound} it 's an effort by linguists to come up with , um , a machine readable IPA , um , sort of thing , right ? And , um , they {disfmarker} they have a web site that Stephane was showing us that has , um {disfmarker} has all the English phonemes and their SAMPA correspondent , um , phoneme , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: and then , um , they have Spanish , they have German , they have all {disfmarker} all sorts of languages , um , mapping {disfmarker} mapping to the SAMPA phonemes , which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , the tr the transcription , though , for Albayzin is n the transcription are of SAMPA the same , uh , how you say , symbol that SAMPA appear . +PhD B: SAMPA ? What does "" SAMPA "" mean ? +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD E: But I don't know if TIMIT o how is TIMIT . +PhD B: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor F: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Professor F: Go ahead . +PhD B: I was gonna say , does that mean IPA is not really international ? +Grad C: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's saying {disfmarker} +PhD A: It uses special diacritics and stuff , which you can't do with ASCII characters . +Grad C: y can't print on ASCII . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: So the SAMPA 's just mapping those . +PhD B: Oh , I see . Got it . +Professor F: What , uh {disfmarker} Has OGI done anything about this issue ? Do they have {disfmarker} Do they have any kind of superset that they already have ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 're going actually the {disfmarker} the other way , defining uh , phoneme clusters , apparently . Well . +Professor F: Aha . That 's right . Uh , and that 's an interesting {pause} way to go too . +PhD A: So they just throw the speech from all different languages together , then cluster it into sixty or fifty or whatever clusters ? +PhD G: I think they 've not done it , uh , doing , uh , multiple language yet , but what they did is to training , uh , English nets with all the phonemes , and then training it in English nets with , uh , kind of seventeen , I think it was {disfmarker} seventeen , uh , broad classes . +PhD A: Automatically derived {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Automatically derived broad classes , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD G: Uh , and , yeah . And the result was that apparently , when testing on cross - language it was better . I think so . But Hynek didn't add {disfmarker} didn't have all the results when he showed me that , so , well . +Professor F: So that does make an interesting question , though . +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is there 's some way that we should tie into that with this . Um . Right ? I mean , if {disfmarker} if in fact that is a better thing to do , {pause} should we leverage that , rather than doing , {pause} um , our own . Right ? So , if i if {disfmarker} if they s I mean , we have {disfmarker} {pause} i we have the {disfmarker} the trainings with our own categories . And now we 're saying , "" Well , how do we handle cross - language ? "" And one way is to come up with a superset , but they are als they 're trying coming up with clustered , and do we think there 's something wrong with that ? +PhD G: I think that there 's something wrong +Professor F: OK . What w +PhD G: or {disfmarker} Well , because {disfmarker} Well , for the moment we are testing on digits , and e i perhaps u using broad phoneme classes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK for um , uh classifying the digits , but as soon as you will have more words , well , words can differ with only a single phoneme , and {disfmarker} which could be the same , uh , class . +Professor F: I see . +PhD G: Well . So . +Professor F: Right . Although , you are not using this for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So , I 'm +Professor F: You 're using this for the feature generation , though , not the {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , but you will ask the net to put one for th th the phoneme class +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So you 're saying that there may not be enough information coming out of the net to help you discriminate the words ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well . Yeah , yeah . Mmm . +PhD B: Fact , most confusions are within the phone {disfmarker} phone classes , right ? I think , uh , Larry was saying like obstruents are only confused with other obstruents , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah , this is another p yeah , another point . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so , maybe we could look at articulatory type stuff , +Professor F: But that 's what I thought they were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? +Professor F: Did they not do that , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: I don't think so . Well , +Professor F: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: they were talking about , perhaps , but they d +Professor F: They 're talking about it , +PhD G: I d +Professor F: but that 's sort of a question whether they did +PhD G: w Yeah . +Professor F: because that 's {disfmarker} that 's the other route to go . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Instead of this , you know {disfmarker} +Grad C: Superclass . +Professor F: Instead of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the superclass thing , which is to take {disfmarker} So suppose y you don't really mark arti To really mark articulatory features , you really wanna look at the acoustics and {disfmarker} and see where everything is , and we 're not gonna do that . So , uh , the second class way of doing it is {pause} to look at the , uh , phones that are labeled and translate them into acoustic {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} articulatory , uh , uh , features . So it won't really be right . You won't really have these overlapping {pause} things and so forth , +PhD A: So the targets of the net {disfmarker} are these {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Articulatory features . +Professor F: Articulatory feature . +PhD A: But that implies that you can have more than one on at a time ? +Professor F: Right . That 's right . +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor F: You either do that or you have multiple nets . +PhD A: I see . +Professor F: Um . And , um I don't know if our software {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} if the qu versions of the Quicknet that we 're using allows for that . Do you know ? +Grad C: Allows for {disfmarker} ? +Professor F: Multiple targets being one ? +Grad C: Oh , um , we have gotten soft targets to {disfmarker} to work . +Professor F: OK . So that {disfmarker} that 'll work , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: OK . So , um , that 's another thing that could be done {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor F: is that we could {disfmarker} we could , uh , just translate {disfmarker} instead of translating to a superset , {pause} just translate to articulatory features , some set of articulatory features and train with that . Now the fact {disfmarker} even though it 's a smaller number , {pause} it 's still fine because you have the {disfmarker} the , uh , combinations . So , in fact , it has every , you know {disfmarker} it had {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has every distinction in it that you would have the other way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: But it should go across languages better . +PhD A: We could do an interesting cheating experiment with that too . We could {disfmarker} I don't know , if you had uh the phone labels , you could replace them by their articulatory features and then feed in a vector with those uh , things turned on based on what they 're supposed to be for each phone to see if it {disfmarker} if you get a big win . Do you know what I 'm saying ? +Professor F: No . +PhD A: So , um , I mean , if your net is gonna be outputting , uh , a vector of {disfmarker} basically of {disfmarker} well , it 's gonna have probabilities , but let 's say that they were ones and zeros , then y and you know for each , um , I don't know if you know this for your testing data , but if you know for your test data , you know , what the string of phones is and {disfmarker} and you have them aligned , then you can just {disfmarker} instead of going through the net , just create the vector for each phone and feed that in to see if that data helps . Eh , eh , what made me think about this is , I was talking with Hynek and he said that there was a guy at A T - andT who spent eighteen months working on a single feature . And because they had done some cheating experiments {disfmarker} +Professor F: This was the guy that we were just talking a that we saw on campus . So , this was Larry Saul who did this {disfmarker} did this . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: He used sonorants . +PhD A: Right , OK , +Professor F: Was what he was doing . +PhD A: right . And they {disfmarker} they had done a cheating experiment or something , right ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: and determined that {disfmarker} +Professor F: He {disfmarker} he di he didn't mention that part . +PhD A: Well , Hynek said that {disfmarker} that , I guess before they had him work on this , they had done some experiment where if they could get that one feature right , it dramatically improved the result . +Professor F: But . I see . OK . +PhD A: So I was thinking , you know {disfmarker} it made me think about this , that if {disfmarker} it 'd be an interesting experiment just to see , you know , if you did get all of those right . +Professor F: Should be . Because if you get all of them in there , that defines all of the phones . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's equivalent to saying that you 've got {disfmarker} {vocalsound} got all the phones right . +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: So , if that doesn't help , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Although , yeah , it would be {disfmarker} make an interesting cheating experiment because we are using it in this funny way , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: where we 're converting it into features . +PhD A: And then you also don't know what error they 've got on the HTK side . You know ? It sort of gives you your {disfmarker} the best you could hope for , kind of . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm , I see . +PhD B: The soft training of the nets still requires the vector to sum to one , though , right ? +Grad C: To sum up to one . +PhD B: So you can't really feed it , like , two articulatory features that are on at the same time with ones cuz it 'll kind of normalize them down to one half or something like that , for instance . +PhD G: But perhaps you have the choice of the {pause} final nonl +Grad C: Right . Nonlinearity ? +PhD G: uh , nonlinearity , +Grad C: Um , +PhD G: yeah . Is it always softmax +Grad C: it 's sig No , it 's actually sigmoid - X +PhD G: or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad C: for the {disfmarker} +PhD G: So if you choose sigmoid it 's o it 's OK ? +Grad C: You , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Did we just run out of disk , +Grad C: I think {disfmarker} I think apparently , the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Why don't you just choose linear ? Right ? +Grad C: What 's that ? +PhD B: Linear outputs ? +Grad C: Linear outputs ? +PhD B: Isn't that what you 'll want ? +Grad C: Um . +PhD B: If you 're gonna do a KL Transform on it . +Grad C: Right , right . Right , but during the training , we would train on sigmoid - X +PhD B: Oh , you {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Grad C: and then at the end just chop off the final nonlinearity . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor F: So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're off the air , or {disfmarker} ? About to be off the air . +","In the conversation, various individuals, including PhD students, a graduate student, and a professor, discuss the logistics and planning for a series of speech recognition experiments relevant to the Aurora project. They are attempting to determine the best approach to handling training data in multiple languages and whether to use a superset of phonemes or articulatory features for cross-language training with neural networks. + +The team talks about the use of computational resources, disk space, and how to best manage the data and processing for the experiments, including the potential collaboration with Dave, who offered to help with the project. They also plan to present their approach at an upcoming field trip to OGI and work out further details there. + +Some technical difficulties, such as label formatting and disk space allocation, are raised and discussed as needing resolution. The concept of conducting ""cheating experiments,"" in which the test data is fed directly into the model to see the potential improvement without actual feature extraction, is also mentioned. Articulatory features are considered and discussed relative to phoneme clusters. + +Summary: The conversation focused on coordinating a multilingual speech recognition project, dealing with practical computational and data handling aspects, and considering various scientific approaches to handling multilingual training data for neural network-based speech recognition systems." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right uh . So um . So where's the PowerPoint presentation ? Sorry ? Microsoft PowerPoint , right . Right , okay . So . Right . Okay , so we've got uh so we've got new project requirements . Um . So basically we've got three things , and we've got forty minutes in which to uh {disfmarker} for this meeting to uh to discuss the various options . Um . Three presentations . +Industrial Designer: We have a {disfmarker} I guess we have a presentation each , 'cause I've got one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I see , right . +Marketing: I've got one too . +Project Manager: That's nice to know , one from each of you . Um new project requirements . Um so do we want to do the presentation first , or do we want to um {disfmarker} W I I got um {gap} or or three things basically , um relating to the remote being only for T_V_ . We discussed that last time +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and in actual fact that was pr pretty well what we came up with anyway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled {vocalsound} in a sense . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um we've got uh teletext outdated . Um did you get any information on that ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we didn't , no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Right and the corporate image was the uh final thing . +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't personally . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I I got that in email form . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Right okay . So I guess if we go ahead with the uh with the three presentations . So we'll start with yourself on the basis that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's fine . I'll just um I'll grab the wire out the back of this one . +Project Manager: Sorry , yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What is it ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not quite sure how it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think you've got to do um control F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Control {gap} {disfmarker} Doesn't seem to be quite working at the moment . +User Interface: Shift F_ eight . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Alt function F_ eight . {vocalsound} Again not doing anything . +Marketing: {vocalsound} There's usually a little thing in the top right for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Ah there , +Marketing: Oh hang on , +User Interface: it's doing something . +Marketing: it's just coming on . +Industrial Designer: {gap} pressed about five times now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's me {gap} . Okay , um I have to go {gap} again . +Project Manager: {gap} it going ? +Industrial Designer: Hopefully that should be it this time . Okay , I think we're there . That's good . Okay , um {disfmarker} Okay I'm gonna be looking at the working design . Um {vocalsound} of the of the remote control . Um I've just got three sections , first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself um . And then that involves the components required in it and the systems uh design of the actual the actual remote . Um so having researched the existing models within the market , um I found my research off the internet . Um I've established what the components required for the remote control to function , actually are . And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television . Um the basic components are an energy source which I guess um in most existing models would be a battery supply . Whether that'll be sort of two batteries , four batteries , um it may vary . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We then have the user interface , which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote . Um the various functions used for changing channel , uh channel up and down , volume , things like that . Um there's also a chip inside the remote which does all the computer type things . And then the sender , which um is usually , I've found , an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television . Um and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself , because that's obviously found in the television . {gap} . Um I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because uh it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working , so . I'll just go through there . S um um do we have a cloth to wipe this down with , or ? Oh I'll j +Project Manager: Uh there's the rubber on the right , I think . +User Interface: I think it's that little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I see . Oh okay . I'll get rid of the bear.$ +Project Manager: {gap} it's magic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's great . Okay , so we start off with a um battery suppl Uh no , a power supply which we'd probably get {disfmarker} it's probably gonna be the battery . Um we then have a particular button , which may be {disfmarker} {gap} that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons . Um but this is how the basic system works . Um that sends {gap} after you press that that sends the message to the chip , which um then sends {disfmarker} It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender . {vocalsound} Um . So that's {gap} . That's the remote in itself , that's the components of the remote and how they work together . So this is the uh user interface . Um this is the chip itself , which then {gap} , and that's the that's the infra-red sender . And then on the separate thing we have on the on the television we have a a receiver . And the sender sends a message to the receiver . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So the the top bit's the power source , yes ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah yes , that's the power source . Um . {gap} going on to personal preferences , I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote , just because of the size . You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote . Um and then the sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and infra-red um has been used quite successfully . If the battery's on reasonable power , they always seem to work fairly well . You don't have to be point directly at the television itself . +Project Manager: So the battery is the {disfmarker} in the sender . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Yes . 'Kay and that's it for the moment . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . So , now more design . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Thank you . Mine's not quite as complicated as all that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what we like to hear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I press function ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh , th there you go . +User Interface: Oh . Um . Okay so I'm gonna talk a bit about the technical functions design . I'm Louisa , the User Interface Designer , as you know . {vocalsound} Um so the m basic method of this is to send a signal from the remote to the television set , so that a desired function is performed . Um an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down , uh so obviously you need two different buttons for that . Um to change the channel , either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down . Um to switch the television on or off , maybe a standby button . Um here are two example remotes . Um by the look of it they both have um kind of play and fast forward , rewind functions , so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about . Uh but as you can see , the left remote is quite um quite busy looking , quite complicated . Um whereas the right remote is much simpler , it looks much more user friendly . Um so my personal preference would be the right remote . So , {vocalsound} it's got nice big buttons , it's got a very limited number of buttons . Um they're nice , kinda clearly labelled . Um I like the use of the kind of um symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the um kind of play functions and all that . So it's very very user friendly , and it's got a little splash of colour . Could maybe do with some more colour . Um . +Project Manager: Well there's a couple of things there . Um we have to remember that we have our own um logo and colour scheme . So basically we'd have to uh we'd have to be putting that on um the the product . +User Interface: Hmm . Do we get to see that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I haven't as yet , no . +User Interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But uh I got uh I got an email that basically said to uh make sure that uh whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate um the corporate colour and slogan . So uh I'm guessing that uh uh I notice on the bottom there it's got uh what's that ? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme , although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here , the the sort of circular section , because that seems to be for a video as well . So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume . Possibly ? +User Interface: What do you mean by the circular section ? +Industrial Designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah +User Interface: Like all of that bottom bit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that {disfmarker} I think that's still um a video remote part , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we could get rid of that as well . +User Interface: Yeah . And I don't really think that you need nine numbers . +Project Manager: Well b uh w +User Interface: I mean how often do you use seven , eight and nine ? I think just one to six and then channel up and down should be enough . +Project Manager: Well th the on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like how often do you hit nine ? +Project Manager: Well uh for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we'd have to have some room for uh future such channels . But but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just people are used to seeing that , so if we didn't have them then they might think it's {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: But , well possibly but the the other thing is that with um the current expansion of uh channels uh in the process of taking place , certainly the button up and down , but uh I mean {vocalsound} how many channels do we have to um {disfmarker} actual television channels do we have to uh prepare for ? I would have thought that uh {gap} it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got {disfmarker} although you've onl you've got the five standard , you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh there's uh I don't know exactly how many channels there are on uh when you take into account uh Sky and various other um various others . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't , you know , rather {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , if the time of flicking from one to other , but presumably it'll take a second +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause you have to be able to stop it . Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise . Y you'd want you'd want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six , um if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , I s I suppose in a sense you could have um if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting {disfmarker} rather than having to go one to a hundred , you could go one to one to ten , ten to twenty +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and that would cut down your time . +User Interface: Mm . Um . +Project Manager: Anyway . +User Interface: But I think a lot of um like Cable and Sky and stuff , that would be tuned to one channel , and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whatever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Limit the number of buttons , user friendly . +User Interface: But I suppose nine's not really excessive . +Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you {disfmarker} uh it's like uh multiples you can put them together so you can make any number . +User Interface: I suppose it does make a good pattern . +Industrial Designer: So with that we'd kind of by-pass any problems with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah Well that's true , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever , that that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Um I think that's just for a video , so we wouldn't need any of that at all . +Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what ? +Project Manager: If it's just for T_V_ , which is what it is at the moment . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we get to {disfmarker} How many buttons have we got ? We've just got ten , eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need . I guess . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um which isn't really too many . That'll be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well we've we've got um that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with uh which would endanger the time to market {vocalsound} was one of the considerations . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm {disfmarker} I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or was I meant to give you that information ? +Marketing: Um I'm not sure . I had I've had some market information , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: but not from the company , no . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so basically time to market seems to be important , therefore speed of delivery . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We've only got about another four hours left . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so is everyone happy with that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes , that seems good . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Right well that's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . I'm gonna pull this off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you just give it a second to maybe catch up . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think she said twenty seconds to um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll have by the end of today . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll give it another go . Yeah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Right , we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control . And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and um how do people use it ? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them . Um how d how does a remote control look and feel for them , and what improvements would would they like to remote control . And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers . And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s uh a fancier remote control And that of all the buttons on the remote control , the sort of setting buttons for sort of the picture picture and brightness and the audio settings , um they weren't used very often at all . People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons . Uh we also asked them about speech recognition uh for remote control . And young people were quite receptive to this , but as soon as we got sort of over about into a thirty five to forty age {disfmarker} forty five age group and older , people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition . There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well . Um we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it . And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control , it was difficult to learn um all the buttons and all the functions , and to find your way around it . {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some {vocalsound} sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech {disfmarker} A design which looks high-tech , basically . Um and that we should come up with fewer buttons than most of the controls on the market , and we should sort of concentrate on the channels and sort of power , and also volume and that sort of thing , as as Louisa said . Um we could maybe come up with a menu , a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control . That's worth thinking about . Um and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well , because um sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design . That that might be the market that we're we're looking for . And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room , rather than sort of um having it to {vocalsound} speech recognition to change the channels . 'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise , so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um , and that's the end of the slide show . That's it . Cool . +Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? +User Interface: Do {gap} a lot of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um about speech recognition ? +Project Manager: Speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that was only for young people that preferred it , older people didn't . +Marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah , they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups , people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to , so . +Industrial Designer: No what I maybe think is um it seems the technology would be quite advanced for that and they might end up costing more than our twelve fifty budget for for the speech recognition . Um . +Project Manager: Well that's right . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have {disfmarker} You know with your mobile phone , you lose that and you can ring it . Maybe we can have some kind of sensor which is kept somewhere where you can {disfmarker} {gap} some kind of buzzer system between the two . So you can press a button which is always kept in one place +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else , wherever the remote actually is . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah . Yeah , we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well , +Industrial Designer: That is true , yes . +Marketing: which which again would probably be a bit expensive , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: There's key rings um that you kind of whistle at or clap at , I can't remember , and then they whistle back , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . +User Interface: That'd probably be really simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: they're cheap . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the {disfmarker} or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote . +Project Manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product 'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing , you know without sound recognition . But if you {disfmarker} I know . Um I was gonna say a sharp noise , you know a clapping of hand or whatever . {vocalsound} You'd want to try and av just have the one product that if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I dunno um talking about vo I mean obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command , a set command whatever that happened to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with uh voice recognition then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you could have an option to turn it off . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps , um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {vocalsound} Any sugges Well , any conclusions ? +Marketing: Um would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if it does then we can't . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Considering {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's that simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because we've got uh th th three um primary um uh requisites from uh from and email uh that was sent to me whereby we had {disfmarker} The design logo was one , which we've already mentioned . We've got um the remote was only for the television and not for {disfmarker} because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the uh third thing was that um teletext uh as far as uh the management is concerned , um is becoming dated uh due to the popularity of the internet . So that means that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so these are the sort of three um extra parameters that have been put on this uh project . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is uh wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: So anything that uh is to be added , such as voice recognition et cetera has to be very simple and has to be very quick +Industrial Designer: Has to be simple enough to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because time to market is is critical . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It would . But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Added extras would be nice , but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within uh this short time window , which effectively now is sort of four hours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} and if {disfmarker} and we've gotta get to the end . Uh d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with um added extras if possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Right okay , uh so I need to {disfmarker} Right . So I don't know how long we have left of our uh time . But we have to make the decisions on uh the remote control functions +Marketing: About five minutes . +Project Manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next uh meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll also know w when the next meeting is +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I um {disfmarker} so we'll know how long we've got to complete that task . And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes , we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this , this is how far we've progressed . Does that make reasonable sense ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes that seems right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing . And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting , if you get any additional information that uh only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making um process , then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do it via the email +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: so that rather than coming you know {disfmarker} If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine . Come along with it in the next meeting , we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting , let everybody else know 'cause that might have an impact on their uh {disfmarker} on what they come up with {vocalsound} effectively at the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , is there {disfmarker} +Marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now ? S +Project Manager: I would guess so . +User Interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of um kind of whistle back kind of function . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause that'll solve kind of the frustration of losing it . +Marketing: Yeah and {disfmarker} Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said , so . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that , so . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't really know about the voice recognition thing . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} w well uh i +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment , +Project Manager: Something simple . Uh if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time , time's short , +Industrial Designer: and if something comes back {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: something that's quick and simple . So , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: sounds good . +User Interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either , 'cause everyone can whistle or clap , and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology . +Project Manager: Well , so maybe a clap rather than a whistle would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: On the basis that if we've got {disfmarker} if we're catering to the whole age range , you want something that's easy to do , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: now something that doesn't like whis uh +Marketing: No not everyone can whistle , can they , though ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I I don't know . Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine , then go for that option , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle , +Marketing: No , +Industrial Designer: I'd go more {disfmarker} +Marketing: clapping , I think clapping , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , f more for clap . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so uh so clap option . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button , haven't we ? +Project Manager: Uh . Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying , +User Interface: Is that one of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that uh if uh if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so so take out teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking out teletext , okay . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide on having the ten um the ten numbers +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so , so zero to nine . +Marketing: Mm . I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you can press any two and it'll sort of put them together . +Industrial Designer: Okay , ten numbers +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then some kind of device to allow uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll put delay to allow um multiple numbers . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or multiple digits . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide anything about um the other functions ? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that ? You had an had an idea about the menu ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} we could possibly put an L_ {disfmarker} a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in , but that again is probably an expense that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But just thinking um people probably {disfmarker} I mean you don't have {disfmarker} you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once , but you have to be able to tune it that once . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks , you get a new one , you're gonna have to be able to tune it . You can't really avoid that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Except the new digital markets which do it by themselves . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic +Industrial Designer: So that'll be in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and if it is at the moment , that's fine . But at the moment it's not , so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters , 'cause otherwise it would make it {disfmarker} uh your device would become inoperable , or only operable in certain circumstances +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and the idea is to have an international market +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale , so we're not really going for something that's uh terribly high-tech . +Marketing: Yeah . I s I suppose um if people are buying remotes , then they're probably buying it to replace another remote +Project Manager: Possibly . +Marketing: 'cause all most tellies come with remotes , so . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: I mean we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions , so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So how would this menu function work ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button , then you'd use the other buttons , maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: like the volume or something . +Marketing: that would be a good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you do need um kind of brightness and contrast and everything as well . My dad was watching a film the other week +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and it was too dark , so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} we're gonna have the the individual numbers +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced um instruction booklet to come with it , to guide {disfmarker} Presu uh I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp um just off like the menu {gap} use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet 'cause one {disfmarker} the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right , okay um . +Marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons , you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it , so you're basically pressing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two , and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +User Interface: Well , if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well , have you seen those remotes where kind of um the bottom bit slides down , so there's kind of um everything else revealed ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So y Ah That's a very good idea . +User Interface: So you don't use it that much , you don't have to see it all the time . But it's all there if you need it . +Industrial Designer: That is that is a good idea actually . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sor sort of a second . +Project Manager: So you keep um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a hidden panel . +Project Manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting , so I've been told . I don't know if you've got the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh not quite , but I guess {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so keep um keep detailed functions um hidden at the back . +Industrial Designer: Keep the other buttons but hide them away . +User Interface: Hmm . And that'll be better for the older generation as well 'cause , well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu , +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: but he can pretty much read a button if it's displayed properly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well . So we're gonna have like two separate two separate lists , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} data functions hidden at back . Can bring out when needed . +Marketing: So th the {disfmarker} The detailed ones would be sort of brightness , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh sorta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back . We have to decide . +Industrial Designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So on front , +Industrial Designer: {gap} about the number {gap} . +Project Manager: numbers , +Industrial Designer: Um the volume up and down . +User Interface: And the volume ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} volume . +Industrial Designer: Shall we have a mute button as well ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A mute button as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're handy . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And probably a power one as well . {vocalsound} Dunno . +User Interface: I know it's probably like um not an issue to raise here , but um the whole thing about not using your standby uh because of the like waste of electricity {gap} . Have you seen the adverts ? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like we should maybe try to discourage people from standby . +Industrial Designer: But then they might not buy it if they haven't got one . 'Cause people might just be too fickle and not want to change . +User Interface: Yeah , it's maybe too much of a big issue for here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so are you having the stand-by on the front , then ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-oh danger sign . +Industrial Designer: I think you probably should . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but a little bit smaller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Compromise . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons ? +Marketing: Um 'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'll have um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there ? +Project Manager: Channel up and down . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: What else have we got ? What was that , sixteen ? +Marketing: Numbers is ten , volume is twelve , +Project Manager: Volume button . How many volumes ? +Marketing: th Yeah si One up , one down . +Project Manager: Right okay . +User Interface: On mute . +Marketing: And a mute , yeah . That's sixteen isn't it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is there anything else ? Um . +Marketing: I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: Power button , stand-by , channel , up and down . So is that it ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} so . +Project Manager: Okay . That's sixteen buttons , you reckon . And then at the back ? +Marketing: You've got brightness and contrast . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time , one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So on the back it'll have brightness , contrast , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: anything else ? You're also gonna have the channel tuner {gap} , as it were . +User Interface: Uh there's audio functions . +Industrial Designer: So tuner up and down , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Tuner , would that have up and down ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um up {disfmarker} Tune one way , tune the o +User Interface: I think they normally do . +Project Manager: {gap} okay {gap} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I dunno I dunno possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know , saying that you want that particular thing tuned in . So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah and th and a enter button just to select . Yeah , okay . Um I guess we're keeping s it simple . We don't really need any other audio funct uh functions because it's just volume up , volume down . +Project Manager: Um up volume , yeah , I would have thought so . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think um there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio , surround sort of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do they have their own {disfmarker} do they have their own controls on their actual products , then , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um maybe for the younger market . +Industrial Designer: or do you have to do it via the remote ? +User Interface: Um I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their {disfmarker} if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Oh no , I mean um like there's kind of individual buttons for them , like on the T_V_ remote . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: But I don't really know what they're for , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I've never used them . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: I just know they're something to do with Dolby . +Industrial Designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you might get some research . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well shall we look into that and just get back together . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right so I'll do the minutes of uh this meeting . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we'll meet back at I'm not sure . Um forty minutes , I believe is the time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +","The discussion is between a project manager, an industrial designer, a user interface designer, and a marketing representative. They are reviewing the progress of a remote control project and discussing various features and requirements. + +The group talks about three presentations and divides the time to cover the new project specifics. The industrial designer begins by explaining the design and components of the remote control, including sourcing components, an energy source (likely batteries), user interface buttons, internal chip for computing, and an infrared sender. + +The user interface designer then presents and compares two example remote controls, advocating for a simpler, user-friendly design that can be branded with the company's logo and colors. Consideration is given to limiting the number of buttons and creating a sleek design. + +Marketing presents market research findings, indicating that consumers find many remotes unattractive and would pay more for a fancier design. They emphasize focusing on the most used functions, like channel and volume controls, and potentially incorporating a smart LCD menu for other functions into the design. + +Additional ideas discussed include developing speech recognition technology, particularly interesting to young consumers, and creating a find-my-remote feature due to the common frustration of misplacing remotes. + +The project manager stresses the importance of a quick-to-market strategy, simplicity in design, the potential redundancy of teletext due to internet use, and a warning against adding complex features like voice recognition that could delay the product’s release. + +By the end of the conversation, they prioritize the top features to be included in the remote, determine which can be hidden for a cleaner look, and plan to continue the discussion about functions like audio settings and surround sound in the future. + +A follow-up meeting is suggested to finalize decisions, and the project manager agrees to send out minutes and schedule the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh , making a profit of fifty million Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright so twenty five . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: So , it's go gonna have to be be pretty damn trendy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I've {disfmarker} The only the only remote controls I've used usually come with the television , and they're fairly basic . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I was thinking that as well , I think the the only ones that I've seen that you buy are the sort of one for all type things where they're , +User Interface: Yeah the universal ones . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: yeah . So presumably that might be an idea to put into . +Industrial Designer: But but to sell it for twenty five you need a lot of neat features . For sure . +Marketing: Slim . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh 'cause I mean , what {disfmarker} uh twenty five Euros , that's about I dunno , fifteen Pounds or so ? And that's quite a lot for a remote control . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , it's about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well my first thoughts would be most remote controls are grey or black . As you said they come with the T_V_ so it's normally just your basic grey black remote control {gap} functions , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so maybe we could think about colour ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Make {disfmarker} that might make it a bit different from the rest at least . Um , and as you say , we need to have some kind of gimmick , so um I thought maybe something like if you lose it and you can whistle , +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} The the keyrings , yeah yeah . +User Interface: you know those things ? Because we always lose our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah uh , +Project Manager: Okay , that's cool . +Marketing: being as a Marketing Exper Expert I will like to say like before deciding the cost of this remote control or any other things we must see the market potential for this product like what is the competition in the market ? What are the available prices of the other remote controls in the prices ? +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: What speciality other remote controls are having and how complicated it is to use these remote controls as compared to other remote controls available in the market . So before deciding or before finalising this project , we must discuss all these things , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and apart from this , it should be having a good look also , because people really li uh like to play with it when they are watching movies or playing with {gap} or playing with their C_D_ player , M_P_ three player like any electronic devices . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They really want to have something good , having a good design in their hands , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so , yes , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: all this . +Industrial Designer: Uh , what do we think a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , we're looking for {disfmarker} {gap} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: What do we think a good size would be for this ? {gap} +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I I know as you add more buttons to the remote it sometimes gets so big and clunky +Project Manager: Sorry , carry on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and there's just like a hundred buttons on it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you could have a really small slim one but then you could lose it easily . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Then you lose it , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Kind of um , maybe more like a P_D_A_ kind of , just hand held , like , +Project Manager: For for uh +User Interface: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: remember we're trying to make it for twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No , I wasn't , no sorry I wasn't thinking of the screen of like a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay well right we'll have to um {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Project Manager: we're k having another meeting in half an hour so um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: we should all look into a bit uh , oh actually , no , we'll allocate . So you do the looking around at other remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , if you could maybe come up with sort of shapes and suggested shades or whatever , and you could look into um {vocalsound} basically how how it's made I_E_ like how you make it all in one , how {disfmarker} what sort of materials are available to you whatever . And obviously , other instructions will come from the personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Which will probably just usurp what I said so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you want me to look at shapes and everything you said ? +Project Manager: Shapes and colours and {disfmarker} um basically how to make it attractive . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: And you look at competition and design . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wait for emails ? +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , groovy . And no doubt we'll get um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh no , {gap} . +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: We'll get um warnings for next meetings as well . +User Interface: it's okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I shall {disfmarker} I can't imagine these {gap} are worth much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Fashion into electronic . Okay . +","A project team discusses developing a trendy new remote control aiming for a €25 price point, considering market competition and the cost of existing remote controls. They discuss unique features like color options and a find-by-whistle function. Assignments are distributed to research competition, design, and material options. They agree to follow up with further meetings and instructions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Hmm . Testing channel two . +Grad E: Two , two . +Grad C: Two . +Grad E: Two . Oh . +Grad D: Hello ? +Grad B: Hmm ? Yeah Thank You . OK Well , so Ralf and Tilman are here . +Professor F: OK . Great . Great . +Grad B: Made it safely . +Professor F: So the {disfmarker} what w we h have been doing i they would like us all to read these digits . But we don't all read them but a couple people read them . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Uh , wanna give them all with German accents today or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Sure . +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: OK and the way you do it is you just read the numbers not as uh each single , so just like I do it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . First you read the transcript number . Turn . +Grad D: OK , uh {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Let 's be done with this . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: OK . this is Ami , who {disfmarker} And this is Tilman and Ralf . +PhD A: Hi . Uh - huh . Nice to meet you . +Grad D: Hi . +Professor F: Hi . OK . So we 're gonna try to finish by five so people who want to can go hear Nancy Chang 's talk , uh downstairs . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: And you guys are g giving talks on tomorrow and Wednesday lunch times , +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: right ? That 's great . OK so , do y do you know what we 're gonna do ? +Grad B: I thought two things uh we 'll introduce ourselves and what we do . And um we already talked with Andreas , Thilo and David and some lines of code were already written today and almost tested and just gonna say we have um again the recognizer to parser thing where we 're working on and that should be no problem and then that can be sort of developed uh as needed when we get {disfmarker} enter the tourism domain . em we have talked this morning with the {disfmarker} with Tilman about the generator . +PhD A: S +Grad B: and um There one of our diligent workers has to sort of volunteer to look over Tilman 's shoulder while he is changing the grammars to English +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because w we have {disfmarker} we face two ways . Either we do a syllable concatenating um grammar for the English generation which is sort of starting from scratch and doing it the easy way , or we simply adopt the ah um more in - depth um style that is implemented in the German system and um are then able not only to produce strings but also the syntactic parse uh not parse not the syntactic tree that is underneath in the syntactic structure which is the way we decided we were gonna go because A , it 's easier in the beginning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and um it does require some {disfmarker} some knowledge of {disfmarker} of those grammars and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some ling linguistic background . But um it shouldn't be a problem for anyone . +Professor F: OK So That sounds good . Johno , are you gonna have some time t to do that uh w with these guys ? +Grad E: Sure . +Professor F: cuz y you 're the grammar maven . +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: I mean it makes sense , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor F: doesn't it ? Yeah Good . OK . So , I think that 's probably the {disfmarker} the right way to do that . And an Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I actually wanna f to find out about it too , but I may not have time to get in . +Grad B: the {disfmarker} the ultimate goal is that before they leave we {disfmarker} we can run through the entire system input through output on at least one or two sample things . And um and by virtue of doing that then in this case Johno will have acquired the knowledge of how to extend it . Ad infinitum . When needed , if needed , when wanted and so forth . +Professor F: OK that sounds great . +Grad B: And um also um Ralf has hooked up with David and you 're gonna continue either all through tonight or tomorrow on whatever to get the er parser interface working . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: They are thinning out and thickening out lattices and doing this kind of stuff to see what works best . +Grad D: Mmm , yep . +Professor F: Great . So , you guys enjoy your weekend ? +PhD A: Yes , very much so . +Grad D: Yeah , very much +Professor F: OK , before {disfmarker} before you got put to work ? +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Great . OK , so that 's {disfmarker} Sort of one branch is to get us caught up on what 's going on . Also of course it would be really nice to know what the plans are , in addition to what 's sort of already in code . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: and we can d I dunno w w was there uh a time when we were set up to do that ? It probably will work better if we do it later in the week , after {pause} we actually understand uh better what 's going on . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So when do you guys leave ? +PhD A: Um we 're here through Sunday , +Grad D: Oh +PhD A: so All through Friday would be fine . +Professor F: Oh , OK , so {disfmarker} OK , So {disfmarker} so anyt we 'll find a time later in the week to uh get together and talk about {pause} your understanding of what SmartKom plans are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and how we can change them . +PhD A: Yes . Sure . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: Should we already set a date for that ? Might be beneficial while we 're all here . +Professor F: OK ? um What {disfmarker} what does not work for me is Thursday afternoon . I can do earlier in the day on Thursday , or {pause} um {pause} most of the time on Friday , not all . +Grad B: Thursday morning sounds fine ? +Professor F: Wha - but , Johno , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: what are your constraints ? +Grad E: um Thursday afternoon doesn't work for me , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Neither does Thursday morning , no ? +Grad E: Uh Thursday morning should be fine . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Eleven ? Eleven on Thursday ? +Grad E: I was just thinking I w I will {pause} have {pause} leavened by eleven . +Professor F: Right . Right . This is then out of deference to our non - morning people . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . So at eleven ? +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Thursday around eleven ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . And actually we can invite um Andreas as well . +Grad B: Uh he will be in Washington , though . +Professor F: Oh that 's true . He 's off {disfmarker} off on his trip already . +Grad B: but um David is here and he 's actually knows everything about the SmartKom recognizer . +Professor F: Thilo . OK well yeah maybe we 'll see if David could make it . That would be good . +Grad B: OK so facing to {disfmarker} to what we 've sort of been doing here um well for one thing we 're also using this room to collect data . +PhD A: Yeah obviously . +Grad B: um um Not this type of data , +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: no not meeting data but sort of {disfmarker} sort ah our version of a wizard experiment such not like the ones in Munich but pretty close to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: The major difference to the Munich ones is that we do it via the telephone +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: even though all the recording is done here and so it 's a {disfmarker} sort of a computer call system that gives you tourist information +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: tells you how to get places . And it breaks halfway through the experiment and a human operator comes on . and part of that is sort of trying to find out whether people change their linguistic verbal behavior when first thinking they speak to a machine and then to a human . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and we 're setting it up so that we can {disfmarker} we hope to implant certain intentions in people . For example um we have first looked at a simple sentence that "" How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? "" OK so you have the {disfmarker} castle of Heidelberg +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: and there is a tower and it 's called Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Oh , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: and um so What will you parse out of that sentence ? Probably something that we specified in M - three - L , that is @ @ {comment} "" action go to whatever domain , object whatever Powder - Tower "" . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: And maybe some model will tell us , some GPS module , in the mobile scenario where the person is at the moment . And um we 've sort of gone through that once before in the Deep Mail project and we noticed that first of all what are {disfmarker} I should 've brought some slides , but what our {disfmarker} So here 's the tower . Think of this as a two - dimensional representation of the tower . And our system led people here , to a point where they were facing a wall in front of the tower . There is no entrance there , but it just happens to be the closest point of the road network to the geometric center Because that 's how the algorithm works . So we took out that part of the road network as a hack and then it found actually the way to the entrance . which was now the closest point of the road network to +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , geometric center . But what we actually observed in Heidelberg is that most people when they want to go there they actually don't want to enter , because it 's not really interesting . They wanna go to a completely different point where they can look at it and take a picture . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And so what uh uh a s you s let 's say a simple parse from a s from an utterance won't really give us is what the person actually wants . Does he wanna go there to see it ? Does he wanna go there now ? Later ? How does the person wanna go there ? Is that person more likely to want to walk there ? Walk a scenic route ? and so forth . There are all kinds of decisions that we have identified in terms of getting to places and in terms of finding information about things . And we are constructing {disfmarker} and then we 've identified more or less the extra - linguistic parameters that may f play a role . Information related to the user and information related to the situation . And we also want to look closely on the linguistic information that what we can get from the utterance . That 's part of why we implant these intentions in the data collection to see whether people actually phrase things differently whether they want to enter in order to buy something or whether they just wanna go there to look at it . And um so the idea is to construct uh um suitable interfaces and a belief - net for a module that actually tries to guess what the underlying intention {pause} was . And then enrich or augment the M - three - L structures with what it thought what more it sort of got out of that utterance . So if it can make a good suggestion , "" Hey ! "" you know , "" that person doesn't wanna enter . That person just wants to take a picture , "" cuz he just bought film , or "" that person wants to enter because he discussed the admission fee before "" . Or "" that person wants to enter because he wants to buy something and that you usually do inside of buildings "" and so forth . These ah these types of uh these bits of additional information are going to be embedded into the M - three - L structure in an {disfmarker} sort of subfield that we have reserved . And if the action planner does something with it , great . If not you know , then that 's also something um that we can't really {disfmarker} at least we {comment} want to offer the extra information . We don't really {disfmarker} um we 're not too worried . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} t s Ultimately if you have {disfmarker} if you can offer that information , somebody 's gonna s do something with it sooner or later . That 's sort of part of our belief . +Grad E: What was he saying ? +Grad B: Um , for example , right now I know the GIS from email is not able to calculate these viewpoints . So that 's a functionality that doesn't exist yet to do that dynamically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but if we can offer it that distinction , maybe somebody will go ahead and implement it . Surely nobody 's gonna go ahead and implement it if it 's never gonna be used , so . What have I forgotten about ? Oh yeah , how we do it , +Professor F: Well th uh +Grad B: yeah that 's the +Professor F: No no . It 's a good time to pause . I s I see {pause} questions on peoples ' faces , so why don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Let 's hear {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well the obvious one would be if {disfmarker} if you envision this as a module within SmartKom , where exactly would that Sit ? That 's the d +Grad B: um {disfmarker} so far I 've thought of it as sort of adding it onto the modeler knowledge module . +PhD A: OK , yeah . +Grad B: So this is one that already adds additional information to the +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Makes perfect sense . Yes . +Grad D: Hmm , ah . +Grad B: but it could sit anywhere in the attention - recognition I mean basically this is what attention - recognition literally sort of can {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it 's supposed to do . Yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's what it should do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Right , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: Huh . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well f from my understanding of what the people at Phillips were originally trying to do doesn't seem to quite fit into SmartKom currently so what they 're really doing right now is only selecting among the alternatives , the hypotheses that they 're given enriched by the domain knowledge and the um discourse modeler and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if this is additional information that could be merged in by them . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then it would be available to action planning and {disfmarker} and others . +Grad B: Yeah . the {disfmarker} +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's That w OK that was one question . Is there other {disfmarker} other things that cuz {pause} we wanna not Pa - pass over any {pause} you know , questions or concerns that you have . +PhD A: Well there 're {disfmarker} there 're two levels of {disfmarker} of giving an answer and I guess on both levels I don't have any um further questions . +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: uh the {disfmarker} the two levels will be as far as I 'm concerned as {pause} uh standing here for the generation module +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and the other is {disfmarker} is my understanding of what SmartKom uh is supposed to be +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I think that fits in perfectly +Professor F: So {disfmarker} well , let me {disfmarker} Let me s {pause} expand on that a little bit from the point of view of the generation . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So the idea is that we 've actually got this all laid out an and we could show it to you ig um Robert didn't bring it today but there 's a {disfmarker} a belief - net which is {disfmarker} There 's a first cut at a belief - net that {disfmarker} that doesn't {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} isn't fully uh instantiated , and in particular some of the {disfmarker} the combination rules and ways of getting the {disfmarker} the conditional probabilities aren't there . But we believe that we have laid out the fundamental decisions in this little space +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the things that influence them . So one of the decisions is what we call this AVE thing . Do you want to um access , view or enter a thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: So that 's a a discrete decision . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There are only three possibilities and the uh {disfmarker} what one would like is for this uh , knowledge modeling module to add which of those it is and give it to the planner . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , uh th the current design suggests that if it seems to be an important decision and if the belief - net is equivocal so that it doesn't say that one of these is much more probable than the other , then an option is to go back and ask for the information you want . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Alright ? Now there are two ways one can go {disfmarker} a imagine doing that . For the debugging we 'll probably just have a {disfmarker} a drop - down menu and the {disfmarker} while you 're debugging you will just {disfmarker} OK . But for a full system , then one might very well formulate a query , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: give it to the dialogue planner and say this , you know ar are you know you {disfmarker} are you planning to enter ? Or whatever it {disfmarker} whatever that might be . So that 's {disfmarker} under that model then , There would be a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} um a loop in which this thing would formulate a query , +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: presumably give it to you . That would get expressed and then hopefully you know , you 'd get an answer {pause} back . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: And that would of course {disfmarker} the answer would have to be parsed . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor F: right and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: OK so , {pause} th {pause} that uh , We probably won't do this early on , because the current focus is more on the decision making and stuff like that . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: But While we 're on the subject I just wanted to give you a sort of head 's up that it could be that some months from now we said "" OK we 're now ready to try to close that loop "" in terms of querying about some of these decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yep . So {disfmarker} my suggestion then is that you um look into the currently ongoing discussion about how the action plans are supposed to look like . And they 're currently um Agreeing or {disfmarker} or in the process of agreeing on an X M L - ification of um something like a state - transition network of how dialogues would proceed . and {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} these um transition networks uh will be what the action planner interprets in a sense . +Professor F: Hmm . D did you know this Robert ? +Grad B: uh Michael is doing that , right ? +PhD A: Well uh Marcus Lerkult is actually implementing that stuff and Marcus and Michael together are um leading the discussion there , yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor F: So we ha we have to get in on that . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: because um partly those are like X - schemas . +PhD A: Definitely . +Professor F: the transition diagrams . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor F: And it may be that {disfmarker} that um we should early on make sure that they have the flexibility that we need . +Grad B: Hmm . But they uh Have I understood this right ? They {disfmarker} they govern more or less the {disfmarker} the dialogue behavior or the action {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It 's not really what you do with the content of the dialogue but it 's So , I mean there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this nice interf +Grad D: uh , No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's also a quantrant uh uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: i Is it {disfmarker} +Professor F: So there 's ac so there {disfmarker} th the word "" action "" , OK , is {disfmarker} is what 's ambiguous here . +Grad D: I think . Hmm . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: So , um one thing is there 's an actual planner that tells the person in the tourist domain now , +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: per tells the person how to go , "" First go here , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: first go there uh , you know , take a bus "" , whatever it is . So that 's that form of planning , and action , and a route planner and GIS , all sort of stuff . uh But I think that isn't what you mean . +PhD A: No . No , in SmartKom terminology that 's um called a function that 's modeled by a function modeler . And it 's th that 's completely um encapsulated from th the dialogue system . That 's simply a functionality that you give data as in a query and then you get back from that mmm , a functioning model um which might be a planner or a VCR or whatever . um some result and that 's then {disfmarker} then used . +Professor F: Well , OK , so that 's what I thought . So action he action here means dia uh speech ac uh you know dialogue act . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , in that {disfmarker} in that sense +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD A: yes , dialogue act , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor F: Um , I think tha I think it 's not going to {disfmarker} I think that 's not going to be good enough . I I don what uh {disfmarker} what I meant by that . So I think the idea of having a , you know , transition diagram for the grammar of conversations is a good idea . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK ? And I think that we do hav definitely have to get in on it and find out {disfmarker} OK . But I think that um when {disfmarker} so , when you get to the tourist domain it 's not just an information retrieval system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Clearly . Yes . +Professor F: Right ? So this i this is where I think this {disfmarker} people are gonna have to think this through a bit more carefully . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , if it 's only like in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the film and T V thing , OK , you can do this . And you just get information and give it to people . But what happens when you actually get them moving and so forth and so on +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Uh , y y your {disfmarker} I d I think the notion of this as a self contained uh module you know th the functional module that {disfmarker} that interacts with {disfmarker} with where the tourism g stuff is going {comment} probably is too restrictive . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Now I dunno how much people have thought ahead to the tourist domain in this +PhD A: Probably not enough , I mean an {disfmarker} another uh more basic point there is that the current um tasks and therefore th the concepts in this ac what 's called the action plan and what 's really the dialogue manager . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD A: um is based on slots that have to be filled and the um kind of values in these slots would be fixed things like the a time or a movie title or something like this +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: whereas in the a um tourist domain it might be an entire route . Set - based , or even very complex structured information in these slots +Professor F: Indeed . Right . +PhD A: and I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if complex slots of that type are really um being taken into consideration . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really something we +Professor F: Could you {disfmarker} could you put a message into the right place to see if we can at least ask that question ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: I mean nothing 's being completely settled there +Grad B: rea yep +PhD A: so this is really an ongoing discussion +Grad B: Mm - hmm +PhD A: and that 's +Grad B: yeah and um it might actually OK ah also {disfmarker} because um again in in Deep Map we have faced and implemented those problems once already +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: maybe we can even shuffle some know how from there to to Markus and Michael . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: And um mmm You don't know {disfmarker} OK th I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to Michael it 's what I do anyway . Who {disfmarker} How far is the uh the {disfmarker} the M - three - L specification for {disfmarker} for the la natural language input gone on the {disfmarker} the uh I haven't seen anything for the uh tourist path domain . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not defined yet . +Grad B: And um you are probably also involved in that , +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: right ? uh together with the usual gang , um Petra and Jan +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah , there 's a meeting next next week I think +Grad B: OK because That 's {disfmarker} Those are the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the true key issues is how does the whatever comes out of the language input pipeline look like and then what the action planner does with it {disfmarker} and how that is uh specified . I didn't think of the internal working of the uh the action planner and the language {disfmarker} uh the function model as sort of relevant . Because what {disfmarker} what they take is sort of this {disfmarker} this fixed representation of a {disfmarker} of an intention . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And that can be as detailed or as crude as you want it to be . But um the internal workings of of the {disfmarker} whether you know there 're dialogue {disfmarker} action planners that work with belief - nets that are action planners that work with you know state automata . So that shouldn't really matter too much . I mean it does matter because it does have to keep track of you {disfmarker} we are on part six of r a route that consists of eight steps and so forth +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: Yeah , th there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are a lot of reasons why it matters . OK , so that uh , for example , the i it 's the action planner is going to take some spec and s make some suggestions about what the user should do . What the user says after that is going to be very much caught up with what the action planner told it . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: If the {disfmarker} If the parser and the language end doesn't know what the person 's been told OK th it 's you 're making your life much more difficult than it has to be . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right ? So if someone says the best t to uh go there is by taxi , let 's say . Now the planner comes out and says you wanna get there fast , take a taxi . OK . And the language end doesn't know that . OK , there 's all sorts of dialogues that won't make any sense which would be just fine . +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: uh +PhD A: That would b but that {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that uh point has been realized and it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really um been defined yet but there 's gonna be some kind of feedback and input from uh the action planner into all the analysis modules , telling them what to expect and what the current state of the discourse is . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Beyond what 's currently being implemented which is just word lists . +Professor F: Yeah , but this is not the st this is not just the state of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of special interest . +Professor F: This is actually the state of the plan . That 's why +PhD A: Yes , Yes , Mm - hmm yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK so it {disfmarker} z and s uh , It 's great if people are already taking that into account . But One would have t have to see {disfmarker} see the details . +PhD A: The specifics aren't really there yet . Yes . So , there 's work to do there . +Professor F: Yeah . So anyway , Robert , that 's why I was thinking that +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: um I think you 're gonna need {disfmarker} We talked about this several times that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the input end is gonna need a fair amount of feedback from the planning end . +PhD A: hmm +Professor F: In {disfmarker} in one of these things which are {disfmarker} are much more continuous than the {disfmarker} just the dialogue over movies and stuff . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: And even on {disfmarker} on a more basic level the {disfmarker} the action planner actually needs to be able to have um an expressive power that can deal with these structures . And not just um say um {disfmarker} um the dialogue um will consist of ten possible states and th these states really are fixed in {disfmarker} in a certain sense . +Professor F: Hmm ? +PhD A: You have to {disfmarker} +Professor F: Would there be any chance of getting the terminology changed so that the dialogue planner was called a "" dialogue planner "" ? Because there 's this other thing The o There 's this other thing in {disfmarker} in the tourist domain which is gonna be a route planner +PhD A: That 'd be nice . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} It 's really gonna be an action planner . And {comment} i it {disfmarker} +PhD A: It oughta be called a {disfmarker} a dialogue manager . cuz that 's what everybody else calls it . +Professor F: I would think , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Huh ? So , s So what would happen if we sent a note saying "" Gee we 've talked about this and couldn't we change this uh th the whole word ? "" I have no idea how complicated these things are . +Grad B: Probably close to impossible . +PhD A: Depends on who you talk to how . We 'll see . I 'll go check , cause I completely agree . Yeah , +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and I think this is just for historical reasons within uh , the preparation phase of the project and not because somebody actually believes it ought to be action planner . So if there is resistance against changing it , that 's just because "" Oh , We don't want to change things . "" That {disfmarker} that not deep reason +Professor F: OK , anyway . I if {disfmarker} if that c in persists then we 're gonna need another term . for the thing that actually does the planning of the uh routes and whatever we are doing for the tourist . +Grad B: That 's external services . +Professor F: Yeah , but that 's not g eh tha That ha has all the wrong connotations . it 's {disfmarker} it sounds like it 's you know stand alone . It doesn't interact , it doesn't That 's why I 'm saying . I think you can't {disfmarker} it 's fine for looking up when T you know when the show 's on TV . You go to th but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's really {disfmarker} really wrong headed for something that you {disfmarker} that has a lot of state , it 's gonna interact co in a complicated way with the uh understanding parts . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah I think just the {disfmarker} the spatial planner and the route planner I showed you once the interac action between them among them in the deep map system +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: so {disfmarker} a printout of the communication between those two fills up I don't know how many pages +PhD A: Hmm +Grad B: and that 's just part of how do I get to one place . It 's really insane . and uh but um so this is um definitely a good point to get uh Michael into the discussion . Or to enter his discussion , actually . +PhD A: Yeah , Marcus . +Grad B: That 's the way around . Markus +PhD A: Wh - where 's ? +Grad B: Is he new in the {disfmarker} in the ? +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he started um I think January . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD A: And he 's gonna be responsible for the implementation of this action planner . Dialogue manager . +Grad B: Is he gonna continue with the old {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} thing ? +PhD A: No , no he 's completely gonna rewrite everything . In Java . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: OK so that 's interesting . +Grad B: Yes I was just {disfmarker} that 's my next question +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: whether we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna stick to Prolog or not . +PhD A: No . No , that 's gonna be phased out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK But I do think the {disfmarker} the function modeling concept has a certain {disfmarker} makes sense in a {disfmarker} in a certain light +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: because the action planner should not be {disfmarker} or the dialogue manager in that case should not um w have to worry about whether it 's interfacing with um something that does route planning in this way or that way +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: I I totally agree . +Grad B: huh , +Professor F: Sure . +Grad B: it j +Professor F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I agree . There is {disfmarker} there 's a logic to dialogue which {disfmarker} which is {disfmarker} is separable . I Yeah . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} cant {disfmarker} sort of formulate its what it wants in a {disfmarker} in a rather a abstract uh way , you know f "" Find me a good route for this . "" +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It doesn't really have to worry ab how route planner A or how route planner B actually wants it . So this is {disfmarker} seemed like a good idea . In the beginning . +Professor F: It 's tricky . It 's tricky because one could well imagine {disfmarker} I think it will turn out to be the case that uh , this thing we 're talking about , th the extended n uh knowledge modeler will fill in some parameters about what the person wants . One could well imagine that the next thing that 's trying to fill out the detailed uh , route planning , let 's say , will also have questions that it would like to ask the user . You could well imagine you get to a point where it 's got a {disfmarker} a choice to make and it just doesn't know something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so y you would like it t also be able to uh formulate a query . And to run that back through uh . the dialogue manager and to the output module and back around . +Grad B: hmm +Professor F: And a I a a good design would {disfmarker} would allow that to happen . +Grad B: a lot of , yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: If {disfmarker} if you know if {disfmarker} if you can't make it happen then you {disfmarker} you do your best . +PhD A: Yeah but that doesn't necessarily contradict um an architecture where there really is a pers a def well - defined interface . and {disfmarker} and +Professor F: I totally agree . But {disfmarker} but what it nee but th what the point is the in that case the dialogue manager is sort of event driven . So the dialogue manager may think it 's in a dialogue state of one sort , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and this {disfmarker} one of these planning modules comes along and says "" hey , right now we need to ask a question "" . So that forces the dialogue manager to change state . +PhD A: Yes +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: Sure , +Professor F: It could be y +PhD A: ye yeah I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the um concept that people have , +Professor F: Yeah , yeah it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD A: yep . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the underlying idea of course is that there is something like kernel modules with kernel functionality that you can plug uh certain applications like tourist information or um the home scenario with uh controlling a VCR and so on . And then extend it to an arbitrary number of applications eventually . So {disfmarker} wouldn't That 's an additional reason to have this well - defined interface and keep these things like uh tourist information external . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And then call it external services . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: But of course the {disfmarker} the more complex {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , there is another philosophical issue that I think you know you can {disfmarker} evade +PhD A: yep . +Grad B: but , at at least it makes sense to me that sooner or later uh {disfmarker} a service is gonna come and describe itself to you . and that 's sort of what Srini is working on in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the DAML uh project where um you {disfmarker} you find a GIS about {disfmarker} that gives you information on Berkeley , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be there and tell you what it can do and how it wants to do things . and so you can actually interface to such a system without ever having met it before and the function modeler and a self - description of the um external service haggle it out +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: and you can use the same language core , understanding core to interface with planner - A , planner - B , planner - C and so forth . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Which is , you know , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} utopian {disfmarker} completely utopian at the moment , but slowly , you know , getting into the realm of the uh contingent . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: But we are facing of course much more um realistic problems . And language input for example , is of course uh crucial you know also when you do the sort of deep understanding analysis that we envision . um Then of course , the uh um , you know what is it {disfmarker} poverty of the stimulus , yet the m uh the less we get of that the better . and um so we {disfmarker} we 're thinking , for example how much syntactic analysis actually happens already in the parser . and whether one could interface to that potentially +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , are there currently is uh no syntactic analysis but in the next release there will be some . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: unless +Professor F: How 's it {disfmarker} +Grad D: and it 's um uh you can access this +Professor F: S so uh y we {disfmarker} we looked at the e current pattern matching thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: And as you say it 's just a surface pattern matcher . Uh , So what are {disfmarker} what are the plans roughly ? +Grad D: um it 's to {disfmarker} to integrate and syntactic analysis . and um add some more features like segmentation . So then an utter more than one utterance is {disfmarker} There um there 's often uh pause between it and a segmentation occurs . um +Professor F: So , the um {disfmarker} So the idea is to uh {disfmarker} have a pa y y a particular {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah +Professor F: Do you have a particular parser in mind ? Is it uh {disfmarker} partic d I mean have you thought through {disfmarker} ? Is it an HPSG parser ? Is it a whatever ? +Grad D: No {disfmarker} no it 's {disfmarker} uh I think it 's it 's totally complicated for it 's just one {disfmarker} one person +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: and so I have to keep the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , you have to do it . You have to do it , +Grad D: Yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: ah and so {vocalsound} things must be simpler +Professor F: I see , +Grad D: but uh , Miel syntactic analysis with um finite state transducers . +Professor F: so But the people at D F Yeah . People at DFKI have written a fair number of parsers . Other {disfmarker} you know , people over the years . uh have written various parsers at DFKI . None of them are suitable ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I 'm asking . I don't know . +Grad D: Yeah , uh the problem is th that it has to be very fast because um if you want to for more than one path anywhere +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: what 's in the latches from the speech recognizer +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it 's speed is crucial . uh And they are not fast enough . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And they also have to be very robust . cuz of um speech recognition errors and +Professor F: OK . So , um {disfmarker} So there was a chunk parser in Verbmobil , that was one of the uh branchers . You know they {disfmarker} d th I c There were these various uh , competing uh syntax modules . And I know one of them was a chunk parser and I don't remember {pause} who did that . +Grad B: A Alan ? +Grad D: I think it 's that might , at Tuebingen I thought . +Professor F: Yeah I d I don't remember . +Grad D: was {disfmarker} Do you know something about that ? +PhD A: Tubingen was at least involved in putting the chunks together +Grad D: In Tub - at {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} can't quite recall whether they actually produced the chunks in the first place . +Grad D: oh +Professor F: Uh . I see . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Or wh +Grad D: Oh from {disfmarker} from Stuttgart , +Professor F: There w That 's right . They w They had {disfmarker} There were {disfmarker} This was done with a two phase thing , where {comment} the chunk parser itself was pretty stupid +Grad D: yeah , also +Professor F: and then there was a kind of trying to fit them together that h used more context . +PhD A: Right . Yeah +Professor F: Right ? +PhD A: Well you s and {disfmarker} and especially you did some {disfmarker} some um , l um was a learning - based approach which learned from a big corpus of {disfmarker} of trees . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: And yes the {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the chunk parser was a finite - state machine that um Mark Light originally w worked on in {disfmarker} while he was in Tuebingen +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and then somebody else in Tuebingen picked that up . So it was done in Tuebingen , yeah . Definitely . +Professor F: But is that the kind of thing y It sounds like the kind of thing that you were thinking of . +PhD A: Yeah I guess it 's similar . +Grad D: yeah . yeah that 's In this direction , yes +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's in {disfmarker} in this direction . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} +Professor F: Hmm . +Grad B: From Michael Strube , I 've heard very good stuff about the chunk parser that is done by FORWISS , uh , which is in embassy doing the parsing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So this is sort of {disfmarker} came as a surprise to me that you know , embassy s {comment} is featuring a nice parser but it 's {pause} what I hear . One could also look at that and see whether there is some synergy possible . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , yeah , it would be very interesting , Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad B: And they 're doing chunk parsing and it 's uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can give you the names of the people who do it there . But um . Then there is of course more ways of parsing things . +Professor F: Of course . But {disfmarker} But uh given th the constraints , that you want it to be small and fast and so forth , my guess is you 're probably into some kind of chunk parsing . And uh I 'm not a big believer in this um statistical you know , cleaning up uh It {disfmarker} That seems to me kind of a last resort if uh you can't do it any other way . uh but I dunno . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: It may {disfmarker} i i may be that 's what you guys finally decide do . Uh . And have you looked {disfmarker} uh just {disfmarker} again for context {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There is this {disfmarker} this one that they did at SRI some years ago {disfmarker} Fastus ? +Grad D: um +Professor F: a {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at it but {disfmarker} but it 's no {disfmarker} not much uh information available . I found , +Professor F: ah ! +Grad D: but it 's also finite - state transducers , I thought . +Professor F: It is . Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was pretty ambitious . +Grad D: and +Professor F: And of course it was English oriented , +Grad D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and Purely finite - state transducers are not so good for German since there 's um +Professor F: um w Right . +Grad D: The word order is {disfmarker} is uh not fixed +Professor F: Yeah , I guess that 's the point is {disfmarker} is all the morphology and stuff . And English is all th all word order . And it makes a lot more sense . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} e Yeah , OK . Good point . So in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in German you 've got uh most of this done with +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Also it 's uh {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} Yes , uh the um choice between uh this processing and that processing and my template matcher . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad D: +Professor F: So what about Um Did y like Morfix ? a a e y you 've got stemmers ? Or is that something that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , yeah but it 's all in the {disfmarker} in the lexicon . So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: But did you have that ? +Grad D: Yeah th the information is available . +Professor F: OK . I see . So , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: So y you just connect to the lexicon +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: and uh at least for German you have all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} uh the stemming information . +Grad D: Yeah , we can , oh yeah . We have knowledge bases from {disfmarker} from Verbmobil system we can use +Professor F: Yep . +Grad D: and so . +Professor F: Right . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't look like i you 're using it . I didn't n see it being used in the current template uh parser . I {disfmarker} I didn't see any Uh {disfmarker} of course we l actually only looked at the English . +Grad D: It {disfmarker} um +Professor F: Did we look at the German ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but it 's used for {disfmarker} for stem forms . +Professor F: So w wha +PhD A: n Well I think {disfmarker} I think there 's some misunderstanding here +Professor F: i +PhD A: it 's {disfmarker} Morphix is not used on - line . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: s so the lexicon might be derived by Morphix +Grad D: What ? +PhD A: but What {disfmarker} what 's happening on - line is just um um a {disfmarker} a retrieval from the lexicon which would give all the stemming information +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: so it would be a full foreign lexicon . +Professor F: And that 's what you have . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: We threw out all the forms . +Professor F: What {disfmarker} uh I didn't reme +Grad B: We threw out all the forms +Professor F: Huh ? +Grad B: because , you know , English , well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh OK , so it {disfmarker} yeah , s s I thought I 'd {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So in German then you actually do case matching and things like in the {disfmarker} in the pattern matcher or not ? +Grad D: um Not yet but it 's planned to do that . +Professor F: OK . Cuz I r I didn't reme I didn't think I saw it . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Have we looked at the German ? Oh , I haven yeah that 's {disfmarker} getting it from the lexicon is just fine . +PhD A: Sure , right . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . No problem with that . um Yeah and here 's the case where the English and the German might really be significantly different . In terms of if you 're trying to build some fast parser and so forth and {disfmarker} You really might wanna do it in a significantly different way . I don't know . So you 've {disfmarker} you guys have looked at this ? also ? in terms of You know , w if you 're doing this for English as well as German Um Do you think now that it would be this {disfmarker} doing it similarly ? +Grad D: um Yeah , it 's um I think it 's um yes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um possible to {disfmarker} to do list processing . and Maybe this is um more adequate for English and in German um set processing is used . +Professor F: Set . +Grad D: Maybe yeah . Some extensions uh have to be made . For {disfmarker} for a English version +Professor F: Mmm . OK . Interesting . Not easy . +Grad B: Well there 's m I 'm sure there 's gonna be more discussion on that after your talk . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , +Grad B: We 're just gonna foreshadow what we saw that +Grad D: yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad B: and um +Professor F: Now actually , um Are you guys free at five ? Or {disfmarker} Do you have to go somewhere at five o ' clock tonight ? W in ten minutes ? +Grad D: Ah {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think we 're expect {disfmarker} +Grad D: mmm . No . Oder there was an {disfmarker} talk ? +PhD A: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there 's the um practice talk . +Grad D: uh Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: Great . So you 're going to that . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what we were planning to do . +Professor F: That 's good , because that will uh tell you a fair amount about The form of semantic construction grammar that we 're using . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so {disfmarker} So I th I think that probably as good an introduction as you 'll get . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor F: Uh to the form of {disfmarker} of uh {disfmarker} conceptual grammar that {disfmarker} that w we have in mind for this . +Grad D: Mmm , ah . +Professor F: It won't talk particularly about how that relates to what uh Robert was saying at the beginning . But let me give you a very short version of this . So we talked about the fact that There 're going to be a certain number of decisions That you want the knowledge modeler to make , that will be then fed to the function module , that does uh , route planning . It 's called the "" route planner "" or something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So there are these decisions . And then one half of this we talked about at little bit is how if you had the right information , if you knew something about what was said and about th the something about was the agent a tourist or a native or a business person or uh young or old , whatever . That information , and also about the Uh , what we 're calling "" the entity "" , Is it a castle , is it a bank ? Is it a s town square , is it a statue ? Whatever . So all that kind of information could be combined into decision networks and give you decisions . But the other half of the problem is How would you get that kind of information from the parsed input ? So , um So what you might try to do is just build more templates , saying uh we 're trying to build a templ you know build a template that w uh somehow would capture the fact that he wants to take a picture . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK ? And {disfmarker} and we could {disfmarker} you could do this . And it 's a small enough domain that probably you , you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . You could do this . But uh from our point of view this is also a research project and there are a couple of people not here for various reasons who are doing doctoral dissertations on this , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the idea that we 're really after is a very deep semantics based on cognitive linguistics and the notion that there are a relatively small number of primitive conceptual schemas that characterize a lot of activity . So a typical one in this formulation is a container . So this is a static thing . And the notion is that all sorts of physical situations are characterized in terms of containers . Going in and out the portals and con +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . But also , importantly for Lakoff and these guys is all sorts of metaphorical things are also characterized this way . You get in trouble and you know et cetera +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: and so {disfmarker} s So , what we 're really trying to do is to map from the discourse to the conceptual semantics level . And from there to the appropriate decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So another one of these primitive , what are called "" image schemas "" , is uh goal seeking . So this a notion of a source , path , goal , trajector , possibly obstacles . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea is this is another conceptual primitive . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And that all sorts of things , particularly in the tourist domain , can be represented in terms of uh source , path and goal . So the idea would be could we build an analyser that would take an utterance and say "" Aha ! th this utterance is talking about an attempt to reach a goal . The goal is this , the pers the , uh traveller is that , uh the sor w where we are at now is is this , they 've mentioned possible obstacles , et cetera . "" So th the {disfmarker} and this is an {disfmarker} again attempt to get very wide coverage . So if you can do this , then the notion would be that across a very large range of domains , you could use this deep conceptual basis as the interface . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then , uh The processing of that , both on the input end , recognizing that certain words in a language talk about containers or goals , et cetera , and on the output end , given this kind of information , you can then uh make decisions about what actions to take . Provides , they claim , a very powerful , general notion of deep semantics . So that 's what we 're really doing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And Nancy is going to {disfmarker} Her talk is going to be not about using this in applications , but about modeling how children might learn this kind of uh deep semantic grammar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yep , yep . And how do you envision um the {disfmarker} the um this deep semantic to be worked with . Would it be highly ambiguous if and then there would be another module that takes that um highly underspecified deep semantic construction and map it onto the current context to find out what the person really was talking about in that context . or {disfmarker} or a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the belief - net comes in . So th the idea is , let 's take this business about going to the Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So part of what you 'll get out of this will be the fact tha w if it works right , OK , that this is an agent that wants to go to this place and that 's their goal +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and there will be additional situational information . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Uh , OK , +PhD A: th +Professor F: part of it comes from the ontology . The tower is this kind of object . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Part of it comes from the user model . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea of the belief - net is it combines the information from the dialogue which comes across in this general way , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: you know this is a {disfmarker} this is a goal seeking behavior , along with specific information from the ontology about the kinds of objects involved +PhD A: Yeah OK , Yeah , yep yep yep yep +Professor F: and about the situation about "" Is it raining ? "" I don't know . Whatever it is . And so that 's the belief - net that we 've laid out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so th the coupling to the situation comes in this model from , at th at th at the belief - net , combining evidence from the dialogue with the ontology with the situation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: But Nancy isn't gonna talk about that , +PhD A: Yeah , oh yeah , I see , +Professor F: just about the um +PhD A: yeah yeah , really . +Grad B: First steps . +Professor F: Right . The {disfmarker} the construction grammar . +Grad B: And she 's gonna start in a minute . +Professor F: In a minute . +Grad D: Ah , OK . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Is it i in , then , your place , in five {disfmarker} five - A ? +PhD A: Alright . +","The conversation revolves around a collaborative research project that involves various participants, including professors, graduate students, and PhDs. They discuss the technical aspects of their project related to language processing, parsing, and the integration of a deep semantic analysis based on cognitive linguistics principles. They touch on topics such as route planning in tourism applications and the goal to infer user intentions from linguistic input for generating user-specific guidance. They plan to utilize a knowledge modeler and belief nets to combine dialogue information with situational and user model data. + +A thorough discussion on the potential parsing methodologies, robustness, and speed considerations takes place. The team also contemplates the differences in constructing parsers for English and German due to morphological and word order differences. They consider using chunk parsing and finite state transducers for German and talk about possibly using resources like the lexicon derived from the Verbmobil system. + +There's anticipation for a talk by Nancy Chang on how children learn deep semantic grammar, which is relevant to the team's project. The team seeks to understand this so they can apply it in building a system that can interpret users' utterances in terms of primitive conceptual schemas, like container and goal-seeking schemas. + +The end-of-week plan includes formalizing a dialogue to further discuss SmartKom plans, understanding the implications for their project, and setting a meeting for Thursday at eleven. The team must also consider interfacing their work with external services or planning modules, ensuring flexibility for future applications. They express a need to be integrated into ongoing discussions about the architecture and design of the action planner or dialogue manager and the XML-ification of dialogue structure, which will ultimately impact the expressiveness and functionality of the system. + +In summary, the conversation deals with technical discourse on the progress and future steps of a computational linguistics project, considering the interplay between linguistic analysis, user modeling, and intelligent system design within a collaborative research environment." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian, and I'm very pleased to welcome Helen Mary Jones, who is substituting for Siân today. Can I ask whether Members want to declare any interests, please? Can I just, then, place on record that I have got a son who was about to do A-levels, so is affected by the exam decision? We'll move on, then, to our substantive item today, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government around the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Minister for Education; Steve Davies, who is director of the education directorate; Huw Morris, who is the group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning; and Rob Orford, who is the chief scientific adviser for health. Thank you all for coming. We know that this is a really difficult and pressurised time for everyone, and we appreciate your attendance. Minister, I understand you wanted to make an opening statement today. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, if that's okay, Chair. As you know, it's not usually my practice to do that, but I think it is important today. COVID-19 coronavirus is one of the most significant issues that the Welsh Government and the people of Wales have dealt with in recent times. Dealing with the impacts of this pandemic is extremely challenging. Things are changing on an hourly basis, and we have to make decisions quickly to ensure public safety. But I would like to assure you that our aim, and my aim, and my main concern as the education Minister is to protect all staff and pupils in our schools and other educational settings. But we also have a duty to ensure continuing and continuity of education. Public health is clearly the priority here, but that does not change our belief that no child should miss out on any education, unless absolutely necessary. So, the decision to close all schools from tomorrow for statutory education provision was not taken lightly, but I believe it was necessary, given the advice and recommendations that we had received from a public health perspective and the situation that was developing on the ground. From next week, schools will have a new purpose. They will help support those most in need, including people involved in the immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak, and I'm working with my colleagues in the Cabinet, with Government officials and our partners in local government to develop and finalise these plans. The key areas that we're looking at are supporting and safeguarding the vulnerable and ensuring continuity of learning. This includes all of those who benefit from free school meals and children with additional learning needs. I can confirm that all maintained schools in Wales already have access to a range of digital tools that can support distance learning through the world-class Hwb digital learning platform, including virtual classrooms and video-conferencing facilities. A guide on what tools are available and how schools can use them has been developed and is being promoted widely. Yesterday, I announced that, whilst there are no easy choices, we have agreed that the best way forward is not to proceed with the summer exam series. Learners due to sit these exams will be awarded a fair grade to recognise their work, drawing on a range of information that is available, and I will announce further details shortly, but I felt it necessary to give early certainty to students and to staff. I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone working in education settings for the hard work that they have put in over the last few months in dealing with the virus and ensuring that pupils have been able to continue to learn. We need to continue to do this work together, as we face the continuing challenges posed by the coronavirus. Diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister, for that statement. We'll go to questions from Members now, and I've got some questions from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I thank you, Kirsty, for your statement and the really difficult decisions that you've been having to make? You've already indicated in your statement this morning that these decisions are not taken lightly, and we understand that that is the case across Government. So, thank you for what you've been doing. You've outlined a little bit further there in your statement to us this morning about the new purpose. I take from what you're saying that you haven't really developed that yet in terms of exactly what that is going to look like. You've talked about the children of key workers, free school meals, additional learning needs. Is there anything else you can tell us about that at the moment and how you might staff the schools in those particular areas? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. So, you're absolutely right, our priority now is to operationalise, with colleagues in local government and schools, a practical response. And I have to say, we're working to timescales that I would have hoped to have avoided, but given the fact that we're having to make these decisions quite quickly, I hope that you will understand that perhaps where we start on Monday might change when we have more time and more opportunities to develop programmes going forward. Steve will be able to give you more details of the practical work that has already been going on, but our expectation will be that schools will be playing an important part in providing safe and secure places for children of those on the front-line response to dealing with the coronavirus to attend, and work is already under way with local authorities and individual schools on what that will look like for the emergency situation on Monday. Our other priority is indeed free school meals, and, again, where we eventually end up might be a different place to where we are on Monday. Again, we're responding to the emergency situation that there will be families that were expecting a free school meal on Monday, and, again, individual schools and local authorities are developing those plans at pace to be able to provide an emergency response as we work out a longer term plan to deal with the situation. The same thing also goes for additional learning needs, and attending to the needs of that particular group of learners. So, those conversations began a few days ago. I had the opportunity to meet with the First Minister and Andrew Morgan, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, yesterday to talk about what local government could do, and what they were already doing. Those plans in some places are already quite developed, and are now working at pace, but I hope you will understand that where we start on Monday is the emergency response, and that work will develop as we go forward. But, Steve, perhaps you could—? Because Steve was the one making all those phone calls and doing the practical operational stuff, rather than me. Steve. +Steve Davies: In short, the new purpose is to meet the needs of particular groups of children and young people. In some cases, some of the response to supporting free school meals, in the short term in particular, we may use the schools as part of that, and I'm certain that will happen in some cases. The second area is looking at how we support the children of key workers. Now, there is still work to be done on identifying exactly the categories of key workers, but I think it's really encouraging that in my discussions yesterday—I spoke with all 22 directors of education, and the examples we're picking up in their work with schools is they're already ahead of the curve in working with schools. So, schools have identified the number of children with health workers. It will grow, and we will need to look at that range. Then, the third area is vulnerable children. They're vulnerable sometimes in terms of education other than at school, vulnerable in terms of mental health, and for those children, as well as having an experience that we want to be planned, some have compared it to a snow day, particularly on Monday, when you're putting something together in the short term, but it will not be a formal curriculum that those children would normally go through. So, the range of activities—some will be focused on educational activities, some will be cultural, some will be sporting, and that plan will be developed on the basis of the age range of children, which in some cases may go from extremely young children up to those at the age of 16 in our all-through schools, but there will be a planned set of activities to cater for those children. What we are doing currently—I have staff back at Cathays Park who are in touch and working with directors of education to ensure that schools over the next two days will have been able to identify, at least at the earlier stage, in terms of health workers, the type and numbers of people. There are already schools who have informed us, and local authorities, of their plans for these activities to be starting next week, which is quite amazing, actually, given where we are. But we are expecting, and we're writing to schools today, that during the course of next week, headteachers to be in schools, and with their staff, taking into consideration the health guidance as to which staff should or should not be in, and in that period from next Monday through the two-week period, to Easter, we expect staff to be both planning for delivery post Easter, but also, as I said, building on and reflecting the good practice that's already in place for schools that have engaged in activities, and I'm sure a number of them will be inviting and enabling those children to come in on Monday. So, Monday will be a challenge for some, and not all will be delivering it, but we will be working so that we can get as much as possible delivered for those groups over the next two weeks, and particularly to have resilient programmes post Easter for the groups of children in those three categories that I said. +Dawn Bowden AM: Those that have been identified. Can I just clarify one thing? One of the identified vulnerable groups would clearly be children on the at-risk register. They would be included. +Steve Davies: Yes, definitely. Vulnerable children, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: In our discussions, we have asked local government to be working with the social services departments and individual schools to identify those children who may be in that situation. We know that, for some children, being at school is part of their safeguarding arrangements, and obviously we will need to be able to respond to those needs. +Steve Davies: I wrote specifically yesterday to all directors of education to be assured that, for those children, the register is up to date and the plans are in place. I'm working with Albert Heaney my colleague, the director for social services, who is meeting with the 22 directors of social services today to look to ensure that we are joined up in ensuring none of these children fall through the gap. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Hefin, and then Suzy. +Hefin David AM: A very quick and simple question: how are you going to communicate this to parents? There's a bigger picture and it's changing all the time, as you said. The Welsh Government have a route to communication. The most helpful thing I've seen is that Public Health Wales have a single website with information regarding the wider issue of the virus. How will this then be cascaded to schools, because there's obviously a time lag? So, have you considered how this is going to be communicated directly to parents? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using all of our platforms of communication to get these messages across. So, we're using the more informal methods of communication, but are relying on a systematic approach via individual directors and through to individual schools. Welsh Government already has a dedicated website page with all of the relevant information about coronavirus. We're looking, as quickly as we can, to have a frequently asked education questions page that we can update. Understandably, people are communicating to us on Twitter asking questions. It is impossible for the communications team here to be able to respond individually to every single person that is sending Facebook messages and sending tweets, so the best way we can do that is to collate the types of questions people are asking and then to be able to have a frequently updated question and answer page to try to respond to that. With regard to parents, for instance, we're aware of schools that have already sent a questionnaire out last night to parents saying, 'Do you consider yourself to be a key worker? Do you work in the NHS? Please let us know by tomorrow so we can put arrangements in place for your children.' So, schools are already taking the initiative and having those conversations with parents about what their needs will be. And, as I said, Hefin, will it be perfect on Monday? No. It won't be perfect by Monday, because we're working to such constrained timescales. But we will continue to build that resilience. We also have to think about systems that look at what might the epidemic do and have systems of resilience that may work next week, given the situation we find ourselves in with public health advice at the moment. But that public health advice may change. Therefore, have we got a system that will be resilient in those circumstances? These are some of the challenges that we're having to grapple with. So, as I said, what happens on Monday might look very different to where we are if schools are still off in May. So, I hope people will understand that we are working in those kinds of scenarios. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just on this question of vulnerable children, I'm just wondering how much discretion teachers are going to have in including individual children who may not be obviously under social services' care or on a risk register or whatever. Teachers know their pupils and, very sensitively, they could include people who may not be obviously in need. +Kirsty Williams AM: We would absolutely respect the professional judgment of individual headteachers to be able to have those conversations with their directors. As you said, quite rightly, they are the individuals who know their children best and know which children, perhaps, will need this extra support. We will put no constraints on those teachers trying to do that work. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. The second part of my question is: there were going to be Easter holidays anyway, weren't there? What was going to happen about free-school-meal children during that period? Has that gone out of the window now, the normal holiday provision for children? Because that's not there normally, is it, except in separate— +Kirsty Williams AM: We do find ourselves in a strange situation. My understanding is what we're trying to work to is that we would have ongoing provision and not to make some strange, 'You get this for two weeks, then you don't get it for two weeks, and then you're back in.' My understanding is, in England, that is what they're going to do. We're trying to create a system where it will be seamless and it will not necessarily matter that two of those weeks were formally holidays. It won't matter to those nurses and doctors who will need to be in work during those weeks. We're trying to create a system that will run uniformly. That's our policy goal at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just briefly, building on Suzy's question, one particular group of children and young people that I hope will be eligible to be included in the potentially vulnerable category is young carers. For some of them, they may not be able to come into school because the people they're caring for may have to be excluded because of their conditions. But I think that, for other young carers, coming to school is an absolute lifeline, because they're working at home. So, I don't know if it's appropriate for you to specifically mention those in discussions with local authorities, but it's a group of young people who, again, may not be vulnerable in other ways, but because of their caring responsibilities they may need school. And the other group—and this, I suppose, goes back to Suzy's point about teachers knowing their young people—is the children who may be living in situations where they're at risk of witnessing domestic abuse. Again, these may very well not be children who are in any formal contact with social services, but being at home may be really not a good place for them to be. So, again, I'd put in an appeal for that to be something that perhaps can be raised with schools. If a teacher is worried about what a child's circumstances are like at home, whether they can be, as you said, Kirsty, included as one of the—. They may not be formally identified, but if the teacher knows that they're at risk, or there is an instinct that they're at risk, they might be able to be included in children who are allowed to take advantage of this special provision you're making at this difficult time. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will certainly raise those issues. We have to do that in the context of what is deliverable, and we also have to do that in the context of the public health advice that we are receiving as well. One of the reasons why schools are closing is to help manage this disease. We know that the ability for school closures to make a contribution to that diminishes if we have significant children in school still. So, we will take these issues into consideration, but remembering this is part of an epidemic mitigation plan. Rob is the expert on that, not me. +Rob Orford: Yes, absolutely. This is a rapidly-evolving problem and the scale is something that we haven't seen in 100 years, and so we're having to evolve and iterate things as we go. Next week, I think, will look different to this week. So, it kind of is what it is. We've all got a role to play, and schools certainly have a significant role to play in breaking those chains of transmission. Areas that we're worried about are displacement activities. If we close the schools, then people collect at others' houses. We need to send a really clear message that you're all part of the solution, and the things that you do by distancing yourselves from your friends and your family are really important for us to get on top of this outbreak. The more that we can do that, the easier it will be when we go forward. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I'm sure that that's true, but I'm sure that we wouldn't be wanting a child who's in a very pressured environment with perhaps a very difficult relationship between mum and dad—. It may be very important for those children to be out of that for some of the time. Hopefully, we're talking about relatively small numbers, but I just—. +Kirsty Williams AM: We will look at vulnerability in a holistic way. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, you had a supplementary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Minister, and your team. Can I just put on record my thanks for all that you're having to endure at this moment? I think it's fair to say you have the support of Assembly Members and, indeed, our communities. Now, the question I have: if Cylch Meithrin have to close, where will they get money from to pay their staff? Because, currently, thankfully, there's support for businesses. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, we're not doing Cylch Meithrin at the moment; we are sticking with schools, as we discussed in advance. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Can I just get some clarity, Steve, around what you were saying in terms of next week? Because I think the practical applications of this—and I understand that you don't know all of this yet, I understand that—the practical applications are what is coming to us, obviously, with constituents saying, 'Well, what's going to happen to that?' Just so that I can be clear, are you saying that, at this stage, every headteacher will be in school on Monday, as will all their staff? +Steve Davies: Within the scope of the guidance in terms of their health, the expectation—and this will be conveyed in letters by the Minister today, to be made clear—is that they are closing for the majority of pupils, but our expectation within the guidance is that the headteacher with their staff will be coming in; for some to start the delivery of what we just described, but that will probably be small numbers, but more importantly to plan to ensure that, after the formal Easter period, which is school holidays, the schools are geared to cater for the range of pupils that we've been discussing. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, would you anticipate—again, I know this is all a bit 'if and when', and it depends on the changing nature of the advice, but from what you're saying, I think we can probably anticipate that, as we go forward, there will probably be fewer schools opening and operable—that we may be moving those children on to fewer sites. Would that possibly—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is a potential. So, we already know that one of our local authorities already has identified a strategic pattern of schools that they will want to operate in this way. That local authority has already chosen those locations, and is already having communications with how they will then staff those centres. So, that could well—. That, I expect, in the longer term, will be the nature of the provision that we will get to. But that's not for us to dictate. The local authorities are best placed to understand what is the best, pragmatic use of the resources that they have available; and of course those resources, primarily, are human beings. So, we've talked a lot this morning in the context of teaching staff, teaching assistants, but we're also having discussions with local authorities, and I met with the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services this week, to look at deploying youth workers, to look to be deploying other staff that the local authority may employ, like sports development officers. There may be cultural officers that can have something to offer. Welsh Government will be talking with a range of our partners who perhaps their normal activities can't continue at the moment, but actually have personnel who want to add to this effort, who want to be able to be part of a provision going forward in the longer term, to be able to provide a great place for children to be. We want to give parents, who we are asking—. Let's think about it, in these worst of times, we're asking parents to leave their children so that they can go and do essential work, and some of that essential work is putting themselves at risk, potentially. And we want to give those parents confidence that, when they leave their child with us, that child will receive something really worthwhile, and they can direct all of their attention to doing their job. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before you—. Janet, have you got a supplementary on schools now, not on early years settings? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I lost the signal before, so it's a little bit confusing at this end, so bear with me. Just in terms of the closure of schools, I have been asked by teachers what does new purpose—you may have covered it, but bear in mind [Inaudible.]—mean in practice. And also, they're already asking what will next—? I know you said earlier that next week could look and probably will look significantly different than this week, but what can they expect to be happening next week in terms of this new purpose work? +Lynne Neagle AM: We've covered that, Janet. +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, Janet, I just want to say thank you very much for your kind comments. That's really, really kind of you. We will be sending a letter today to clarify those positions. So, each school will receive letters today about the expectations of schools next week. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think you're having trouble hearing us, aren't you, so I think—? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No, I heard that loud and clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: But I think you missed the earlier comments, when we went into some detail on the new purpose of schools. So, I'm sorry about that; we are having some problems with the connection. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, we couldn't get a signal. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just in relation to special schools and how they will fit into this new purpose arrangement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, they're absolutely central to that planning. We know, again, that some of these children are our most vulnerable and they are some of our most pressurised families. Therefore, the same situation that we've just described for maintained schools also applies to special schools. We'll be having discussions about what arrangements can be made for those children within their own usual settings. In some cases, that may not be possible. So, again, already local authorities are making different provision. Can I give a shout out to the work of Rhondda Cynon Taf in this regard, who are already doing some excellent work with regard to how they can keep in touch with their children who usually would attend their special schools. But, again, Steve can give more detail. +Steve Davies: I think special schools have already been hit by this challenge, because a significant proportion of their children, because of their conditions, have not been coming to school, they've been isolated. But the principle we've used there is, actually, even if it's a minority of children who go to those schools and are vulnerable, they deserve and need that support through the school. So, we would expect that to function with the focus on vulnerable children. But similarly, even in special schools, there will be children whose parents will be key workers, so we would expect them to apply that same principle. Just quickly in response to the earlier question, while we may bring some groups of children into separate schools, we’ll have to continue with the principle of keeping social distance and any provision for a child in a special school in a different setting would be unlikely, given the nature of the special school, so we would look to cater for that within the original school. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just a couple more questions from me. It’s likely, because I know it has already happened, that some schools might actually close before Monday. Some schools have already partially closed. Are you quite happy that headteachers still have the discretion to do that, if they feel that’s the right thing to do? +Kirsty Williams AM: In this situation, the discretion of the head still remains. As I said, we will be communicating with all schools today about our expectations, if at all possible, to have schools open for staff to do some of this planning and to be able to respond to these priority needs that we've just talked about. +Steve Davies: The rationale of headteachers for closing schools up to now has been that they can't cope with the safety of the children. I think, moving forward, it's unlikely that that would be a rationale that headteachers would want to use for not engaging and planning for the future. +Dawn Bowden AM: We're only talking about one more day, now, anyway, aren't we? So, just in terms of confirmed cases in schools, is your view at this stage that, if there is a confirmed case in a school, once that school has been deep-cleaned, it can reopen again? +Kirsty Williams AM: If we had a confirmed case in a school, then all the usual mechanisms arranged by Public Health Wales would kick in at that point. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. And my final question is in relation to the position of early years and childcare settings. I know that kind of crosses over into somebody else's portfolio as well, but I think we know that. Certainly what I've seen, and I'm sure this is true elsewhere as well, we've seen nurseries closing down because the parents are actually taking the children out of those nurseries. I've got one in particular, there are kids from the ages of 6 to 12 years in there, and the parents are taking them out. They've got 30 staff there, catering for 200 children and no children to care for and the organisation, at this stage, is unable to claim on their insurance for the ongoing payment of those staff wages. Is there any advice that we can give to people in that situation at this stage? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. As you say, many of these settings are businesses—people's businesses and they play a hugely important role and it's a very worrying time for them. We have said that we will continue to pay for childcare, delivered under the childcare offer even when a child is unable, or a parent is unwilling, to take up that place. So, if that setting is receiving a childcare payment from the Welsh Government as part of our childcare offer, that will be paid, regardless of whether that child attends or not. And I know that we're also working with local authorities to ensure a similar position on Flying Start childcare and early education. So, that payment will be made, regardless of whether a child is attending. It's also important that childcare settings will be able to apply for the various packages of support that are being made available by my colleague, Ken Skates. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, then Janet. +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'd just like to turn that around from the parents' point of view. With schools closing, there are a lot of parents then losing 10 hours of free childcare, but from a settings point of view, they'll continue to be able to receive, for the time being, the nursery care. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, so the decision that has been taken by my colleague, Julie Morgan, is that settings should stay open at the moment unless public health changes. That's being kept under constant review on public health. Again, the issue is that we know that that childcare is vital to many families, especially—and we're particularly concerned about those individuals who are trying to help us overcome and solve these problems. If you have any specific questions about that, we'll be happy to take them back to Julie Morgan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Is this the Cylch question? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Sorry, thank you. Yes, just basically, Cylch Meithrin, there are concerns—[Interruption.] +Lynne Neagle AM: We've lost Janet. We'll come back to her. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if the issue is about funding for Cylch Meithrin, these are not normal circumstances. As a Welsh Government, we will take every step to provide continuity of funding, if at all possible. We will overcome this, and when we overcome this situation we find ourselves in, we will need those childcare settings, we will need those private businesses and we will need our Cylch Meithrin to be there to respond and to be able to go on doing the job that they usually do for us. And if there is any way that we can, as a Government, ensure that that happens by carrying on funding things, even if they are not able to run, all usual—[Inaudible.]— around service-level agreements are off. I'm not setting the precedent—let me make that absolutely clear. [Laughter.] But, you know, we will not undermine businesses and voluntary provision like Cylch by withdrawing Welsh Government funding. I hope I've been clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you for that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: If we can move on to talk about exams, obviously you made the announcement yesterday. I completely understand that everything is a very fast-moving situation, but, as you know, there are a lot of questions that people have about young people who've put a lot of work in. Are you able to tell us any more today? In particular, have you got any idea about timescales now for setting out what the approach will be to handling the lack of summer exams? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, it is a devastating decision to have to have been taken, but I have done so on the very, very clear and unambiguous advice from Qualifications Wales. I met with Qualifications Wales and the WJEC yesterday. What was most important to them was that I made an early decision and I did not equivocate on what would happen for the exams. I was able to make an informal decision at that meeting, and then, of course, there is a formal process that we have to go through. That, now, allows Qualifications Wales and the exam board to operationalise that decision, and they will be communicating with schools as quickly as possible about what schools will need to do to ensure that the systems that they will now put in place can work. We are trying, as far as we can, as I understand it, to be able to mirror as closely as possible the usual results day, for instance. It might not be possible, because, of course, we're dealing with a situation that requires human beings to be involved in it, and those human beings could find themselves unwell. So, our best attempts will be to maintain the normal rhythm of an exams day in August, but that has to be caveated by the fact that we're dealing with difficult circumstances. But, the WJEC and Qualifications Wales will be making urgent communications to exam centres to explain what will need to happen next. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, you had a question on this. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I think I raised it yesterday, Kirsty, but you were receiving loads of questions. I'd just ask for some further clarification about coursework, because only 30 per cent of that is done. Years 11 and 13, typically, in my case they're what's been raised with me—do you have any advice for them? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, so, all exams are cancelled, but year 11 and year 13 will be given a grade—I think that's a distinction that people need to be aware of. That is because those years and those grades are gateway qualifications, and they are points of movement in the education system. So, it's really important for those students that they are not disadvantaged in any way by not being able to receive a grade that helps them to make a decision as a qualifying step into what they will do next, whether that be university, whether that be a degree apprenticeship or whether that be going into sixth form, into a college, into an apprenticeship or into some work-based learning opportunities. That's why we have to focus on those children, because for them, it is absolutely critical that we do. We are at an advantage in Wales, can I say? Because of the nature of our examination system, those students already have a lot of externally assessed work that we can use as a basis to move forward on. Because we've kept our AS-levels, we have got that data. Because we have a GCSE system—. Our year 11s, if they're doing triple science, they've already done 40 per cent of their paper, so we're very fortunate. Because of the structures that we have got in our qualification system, there is already lots and lots of externally-verified work that we can use, alongside, potentially, teacher evaluation of students as well. And I think that's really important. We’re starting from a better base than simply having none of that externally-verified data. What will also be important is that these children have confidence in those qualifications, and so we will be looking at a modulated arrangement within Wales, and I know that Qualifications Wales are discussing with their counterparts across the UK a modulated system across the UK. So, actually, we can make sure that our standards are maintained by actually having that modulation across the UK. So, we know that those children never have to worry about the rigour that has gone into determining that grade. So, they can have real confidence. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Helen Mary. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. A supplementary question that might feed into that moderation. You'll know that the National Union of Students has suggested that black and minority ethnic children and children from the working class, on the whole, don't do as well, in terms of their assessment by their own teachers. I don't know what their evidence is for that. We also know, of course, that boys tend to do better in exams, and girls tend to do better at coursework, for whatever reason that is. So, just to ask you at this early stage to build in those considerations around potential unconscious bias into that overall system that you're talking about. And, of course, you are right to say that, because we have got some elements of external moderation here, those factors may be less for us in Wales than they might for colleagues in England. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are starting at a different base, thank goodness. So, you're quite right. As I said, students will have done unit 1 papers last year if they're GCSE students. Dare I say it, some might even have done early entry. So, we still have elements of coursework that are externally verified. So, children might well have done lots of oral exams in their English and in their Welsh language. So, we have lots of pieces of work that will have been externally verified. I certainly will ensure that these concerns are passed on. I'm sure that Qualifications Wales are thinking about it. I have every confidence that they and the WJEC will come up with a very comprehensive way of establishing those grades, but I have to say, in some ways, I have to step back now, because you would not expect me, in normal circumstances, to dictate to the WJEC how much percentage goes for that, and how much percentage is allocated for that; that would not be appropriate for a Minister. My job is to make the decision on the examinations on the basis of having confidence that what can be put in place is fair and is equitable, and I have confidence that that will be the case. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: A few things from me. One is, obviously, pupils are being asked to work at home as well now, some of whom will be doing GCSE and A-level courses. So, there's just a question, generally, from me— because we're encouraging these kids to carry on working—how that will be accommodated by Qualifications Wales, I guess, in this modulation process. It may be that your at-home work will be of a higher standard or a lower standard than a teacher would be expecting. Secondly, you mentioned the AS-levels, of course, as being of value at the moment, but we've got people in Year 12 who now won't be doing their ASs. Is there any steer at this stage about what they will be expected to do? Will they be doing two sets of exams next year, for example? Or is AS just off the table? In which case, how are the A2s going to be calculated in due course? And then, finally from me, we do have some vocational qualifications that are up for examination as well—your BTECs, and I think it's the Association of Accounting Technicians, which is a lot of computer-based learning—which is due to be examined within three weeks. Those aren’t A-levels or GCSEs. I appreciate that you may not have the answer just at the moment, but are they off as well is the question, I guess? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to AS-levels—no final decision has been made for exactly how those students will be treated. There are a range of options that could be used, but again, we will want to be thinking about student well-being, fairness and equity in that regard, and I will update Members as soon as I have received definitive advice from Qualifications Wales around that, and that hasn't happened yet. With regard to other types of qualifications, as you will be aware, the vast majority of BTECs is a modular, continually-assessed piece of work, and we would have every expectation that BTECs will be able to be awarded, but clearly, those conversations are with awarding bodies—they tend to be UK awarding bodies, rather then necessarily our WJEC exam board—and those conversations are ongoing. But I have every expectation that those qualifications will be awarded and, of course, because of their nature there's even more evidence of continued assessment. Huw, I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add about those types of qualifications. +Huw Morris: No. I think you've covered most of it. I don't have a definitive answer for the ATT qualification, but we can look into that and come back to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've just had a constituent ask, so that would be very helpful. And homeworking— +Kirsty Williams AM: Homeworking, right. +Suzy Davies AM: —is that going to count towards the assessments, overall assessments? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, potentially, as I said. I don't know the exact elements. What will be absolutely necessary is that Qualifications Wales and the WJEC will be able to give absolute clarity and simplicity around how those grades will be arrived at, because parents, teachers and students will want to know that, and my expectation is on them to be able to clearly communicate what elements will and will not be taken into consideration when awarding those grades. +Suzy Davies AM: That's great. At least we covered it. Thank you, Minister—thank you, Kirsty. +Lynne Neagle AM: And, just before we move on, have the universities across the UK indicated that they are content with this approach going forward—content to accept students on this basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly. There have been discussions with universities and UCAS, of course, that this also has a bearing on. One of the—. And the views of university and how university terms might be impacted is one of the ways and one of the reasons that we've factored in to making these decisions. Those discussions with universities are ongoing, aren't they, Huw? +Huw Morris: Yes. So, we've been in regular conversation with Universities Wales and through them with Universities UK and we've received every indication that the approach that's been adopted here has been welcomed by the institutions. Those conversations will continue as we work through the practicalities of how the gradings that are awarded are going to feed through into university admissions decisions and enrolment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Well, we've got some questions now from Suzy on the potential closures of colleges and universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, it's a very general question, really. I appreciate you've already indicated there are lots of ongoing conversations, but my understanding is whether colleges or universities close is pretty much still at their own discretion. We're going to be asking some questions on emergency legislation shortly, which may impact on the answer you can give today, but what sort of conversations are you having with FE and HE at the moment about how they decide? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're absolutely right. As we often say in this committee, universities are autonomous institutions—a status that they guard jealously and we would never want to question. Universities have been making the decision to move as much of their learning online as they possibly can and we continue to have conversations with them. Colleges are in a similar position, looking to do as much as they can to be able to provide continuity of learning via distance learning methods, and the Bill, potentially, does give us more powers of intervention in both the FE and the HE sector. +Suzy Davies AM: I might ask you about that in a minute, because I don't even know what the Bill says yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Huw, I don't know if there's anything you want to add. +Huw Morris: No—just to confirm what's been said and also to add in that independent training providers, similarly autonomous, like colleges and universities, have been moving in the same direction. We've been very impressed with the maturity and forward-planning that's been adopted by all of those institutions and their representative bodies. We've got consistency in the approach and a common desire, and investment in moving towards online support for students. +Suzy Davies AM: And there's still this safety net idea. Certainly, colleges have indicated, as with schools, that, for the most vulnerable learners, they'll have something in place that might permit attendance on an individual basis. +Huw Morris: That's my understanding, yes, and, again, we've been in regular conversation with them about that. My understanding is that they're going to spend the next week working through the detail of how that will work for the institutions. +Suzy Davies AM: That's fair enough. And, presumably, education maintenance allowance will still be paid. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Arrangements have been made to ensure that EMA continues to be paid to all students who are entitled. +Suzy Davies AM: That's right. You indicated that any Welsh Government support's going to stay, whatever the circumstances are—in your portfolio. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I'm doing my best, but it's an absolute yes on the EMA. There will be no disruption to EMA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. You might get some further questions on HE and FE. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got some further questions, indeed, from Helen Mary and then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Now or in a bit? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Just further to EMA, of course, at the moment, that has an attendance qualification, doesn't it? And you don't get your EMA if you don't turn up. Should we take from your last answer that that attendance qualification doesn't apply anymore? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. They can't turn up if the institution is not open, and that's not their fault. +Helen Mary Jones AM: No, but that is something that's been a worry, so that's really encouraging to hear. Thinking about students in higher education, can you give an assurance that student maintenance payments will continue as normal? Is that the intention? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really good to hear. And have you given any special ministerial instruction to Student Finance Wales on processing applications for support or changes of circumstances, or is that something that's kind of ongoing at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Those conversations are ongoing with the Student Loans Company. As I said, we anticipate no disruption to—. We don't anticipate any change in the approach to students as a result of this. Individual student circumstances could well change and our expectation would be that the Student Loans Company would respond to that. All I would say is, just to remind people: people who work for the Student Loans Company are no more able to resist this disease than anybody else. There will undoubtedly in some cases be really practical challenges to service delivery, simply because organisations could be losing staff because of illness or the need to self-isolate or because they are reacting to social-distancing messages from the Government. So, I think we just need to bear that in mind: that these organisations are doing their best, but, if they are badly affected by staff numbers being off because of the virus, then I hope people will give them due consideration. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Yes, that makes sense, of course, because we've been told that universities won't be able to entirely close, because there will be students who can't go home— +Kirsty Williams AM: It is their home. +Helen Mary Jones AM: —overseas students, for example. What discussions have you been having with the sector to make sure that those students' basic needs are met, that there's still food, shelter, whatever they need? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, obviously, universities have a duty of care to those students that find themselves in those circumstances, and every conversation that Huw's been having would suggest that universities are well aware of their need to do that. +Huw Morris: We instituted a monitoring process very early on in the onset of the disease, not least because a number of institutions have campuses and activities in China and other parts of south-east Asia. And so, as the disease has progressed, we've seen lessons being learned from the support for students who are in isolation coming from there to the UK, and I am assured that the universities here in Wales have got processes in place that support those learners. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That's really helpful. And on this specifically—last question from me— have you considered whether students might need to be refunded some of their tuition fees, should the academic year not be completed? +Huw Morris: So, as the institutions move more and more of their material and some of their assessment online, clearly, there are lessons that will need to be taken on board. There are established quality assurance and enhancement procedures in institutions to enable the tutors and other supporters to make sure that that material meets their needs. The intention in all of these institutions is that they will complete their course of study. There are appeals mechanisms and feedback mechanisms through the students union and through course committees and other things within institutions to make sure that any concerns or incomplete work are addressed. Failing those institutional mechanisms, there is a UK-wide system through the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for students to take forward any concerns that they have. So, we're confident that that system will be robust and will make sure that the students are getting a course of learning that meets their needs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: No, Mr Morris has answered my question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got a couple more questions now on vulnerable learners. I've got Helen Mary, then Hefin. +Helen Mary Jones AM: I think, Chair, the Minister has already answered what the—. But thinking just a little bit more broadly about the mental health and well-being of staff and learners across a range of educational settings, or, indeed, young people who can't access educational settings, what considerations are you giving to how that mental health and well-being might be supported through what is an incredibly difficult time for everyone? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that is correct. So, our expectation would be that during a prolonged period of closure—which I think, if we're honest, we have to acknowledge is what we're looking at—we would expect school staff—well-being staff, for instance in school—to be doing check-ins—phone check-ins, potentially, or FaceTime check-ins, with students, just to keep in touch with them as we go forward. We'll be looking to promote amongst young people a range of online facilities that are available—so, for instance, Meic website—so, looking to use a variety of platforms. We do, of course, have the formal NHS counselling services. I'm concerned, of course, that for some children their access to their counsellor is via their school. We know that, and we're just double checking the capacity of online counselling that already exists—online counselling tools that children already use because they don't want to go to the counsellor in the school and be seen in the school corridor going to the counsellor. They're already using those online methods and we expect to be able to continue, as far as possible, those kinds of mechanisms where children can have their mental health needs and their questions answered, and their worries. I think we have to remember that this is a really worrying time for children and young people. One of the reasons, again, that we wanted to keep schools going as long as possible—and teachers have been working so hard to do that—is because that routine of going into school and that normality is one that we've needed and wanted to maintain. Children will have worries about their own health; they'll have worries about the health of their parents and their grandparents; they will be consuming potentially media and news stories that have empty supermarket shelves. So, we need to understand, and I think we will also have to recognise, that this support will have to be ongoing once we're back to normal, and we will have to continue to look to support children in the longer term who will have lived through this experience. They are incredibly resilient, and they have been the champions of some of our public health messages. They are so much better and so much more compliant on the whole 'washing your hands' and things like that than even adults have been. So, they are incredibly resilient, but we also have to recognise that it can be a really worrying time for them. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Can I just—? Just a supplementary to that—you've mentioned already, Kirsty, the importance of youth services, and, particularly thinking voluntarily youth services, you've given the commitment, when were talking about Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin earlier, that services that are part-funded by grants through the Welsh Government, for example, thinking of the national youth voluntary service—will those be able to be maintained even if settings have had to be shut as well? Obviously, local authorities will have to make their own decisions about whether youth settings are kept open, but, in terms of the direct support from Welsh Government, can organisations that receive it rely on that through this time? +Kirsty Williams AM: No formal decision has been made, but if people are in receipt of a Government grant from my department to run a service and that service can no longer run because of the public— +Helen Mary Jones AM: Because it's not safe. +Kirsty Williams AM: —because it's not safe to do so, I do not foresee that we will be turning around and saying, 'We'll have our money back, thank you very much.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Helen Mary Jones AM: That will make a lot of people happy, thank you. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, we are facing unprecedented circumstances. The normal rules of engagement have to change and, those organisations, we'll need them to be providing youth services for children when we are back to normal, and we wouldn't want to do anything that would undermine their ability to do that. Our call to the youth service is a call to arms, though. When we're trying to maintain services for vulnerable children and for front-line staff children, they have a valuable role to play and I know that local government and the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services are already in discussion about how youth services—. Many of our youth services work on an outreach basis. Those traditional youth clubs, because of austerity, are not necessarily there anymore, so they are well used to being out and about and doing outreach work, and they will have an important part to play in the services that we talked about earlier. +Helen Mary Jones AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, briefly, and then we're going to take one final question from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Hefin David AM: All right. I'll declare an interest as a parent of a child with additional learning needs, although the question I'm about to ask doesn't reflect her interests. Additional learning needs pupils who are waiting outcomes of referrals—if they're currently waiting an outcome of a referral, will that process will be suspended or will it continue as normal? And, if it is suspended, will it pick up where it left off from this point? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the ability to deliver business as usual has been massively compromised. I'm sure people will try and continue to do their normal activities and their normal jobs, but that might not be possible. I will have to check that, Hefin, to be honest. I don't want to give you any false assurance if, actually, the intelligence on the ground is that that simply will not be able to happen. But we don't— +Hefin David AM: Can we have a clear line on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't want to jeopardise anybody, but as I said, some of the normal services are simply not available as everybody turns their attention to trying to respond to the pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Final question—because I know that the Minister's got a lot of things that she needs to get on with—from Suzy on emergency legislation. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not going to ask you if you'll use any powers you get under the emergency legislation, but are you able to give us some indication of what they might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. For instance, the Bill will provide Welsh Ministers with powers to temporarily close schools or other educational institutions, childcare premises; powers to give temporary continuity direction—so, actually, the other way around, force things to be open—and to be able to direct resources. So, that includes, as I said, I could direct something to stay open if that institution was trying to close down. The powers also give flexibility to maybe be able to direct staff to other institutions that they would not normally work in, if that was part of our resilience needs. We'd also be looking at, for instance, relaxing requirements around ratios in childcare settings, or we might be wanting to do things around food. So, obviously, we have rules around the level of nutrition that schools should be giving their children. If there is a continuing role for schools in providing food, we might have to be a bit more flexible about what that might look like. So, those kinds of flexibilities—to be able to suspend things, direct things—that we would not normally have in normal circumstances. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And just to finish this one off—you may not be able to answer this one, in all fairness—in those situations where it's the Government who says 'no' to various things, does that then help people in the situation of Dawn's nursery, and insurance claims suddenly become more likely? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not an expert on insurance, and I don't know if anybody here can help me. But what my understanding is, is that even where Government has given a direction that does not necessarily mean that you will be covered by your insurance. What we're finding in the private sector is that insurance companies are not paying out, because even when a Government has directed it, they do not regard this as a disruption to business. So, the insurance industry is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I accept that. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not my area of expertise, but from what I understand from discussions around the Cabinet table, this is particularly problematic. Let me give you an example about how we've been trying to overcome some of this—it feels like an awfully long time ago now— you'll be aware that we gave directions earlier around cancellation of school trips abroad. Trying to make sure that that direction came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, rather than the Department for Education was a real battle, because again there were fears that, unless that advice came from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, insurance would not kick in, and that was a two-day discussion. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. This is helpful to know, actually. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, these are the kinds of things that we're grappling with. But, as I said, thinking about it, that was only last week, but it feels like an aeon ago. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not holding you to that, but it helps us manage the questions we get asked. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but as I said, insurance is not my area of expertise. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but thank you for answering. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank you for attending this morning, and your officials? We do recognise what an incredibly challenging time this is, and we'd like to place on record our thanks to all of you for the work that you're doing to try and see us through this crisis. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you again, all of you, for your attendance. Item 3, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The Children, Young People, and Education Committee met to discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education in Wales. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting and Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, made a statement affirming the priority to protect staff and pupils, and to ensure continuity of education. Schools would support those most in need, including frontline workers in the coronavirus response, and safeguard vulnerable groups like children benefitting from free school meals and those with additional learning needs. Digital tools on the Hwb digital learning platform were mentioned for distance learning. The summer exam series was canceled, but a fair system for awarding grades to students was promised. + +Discussion included how schools would function to support key workers' children, provide free school meals, and address additional learning needs. Plans could evolve as the situation progressed. Special schools were also considered in planning. Communication with parents about arrangements was being devised. + +Questions about continued provision during planned Easter holidays were raised, ensuring services would be seamless. The challenges existing and emerging due to staff illness, public health guidance, and emergency responses were addressed, including for childcare settings like Cylch Meithrin. + +Further discussions touched on the status of exams, preparations by colleges and universities, financial considerations like EMA and tuition fees, and mental health and well-being support for staff and learners. The emergency legislation powers for educational settings and support for youth services and children with additional learning needs were discussed. Assurance was given for continued Welsh Government financial support to educational and youth services despite disruptions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh first of all I'll start with the costs , +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: because that's going to influence our design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: Oh , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Don't know if you al already had a look or not ? +User Interface: No n I I already did it . +Industrial Designer: Did you do your questionnaire already ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: It's not much . It's just one question . +Project Manager: Because we have a problem . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you look closely , you can see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It wants {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um I already took the liberty to make some suggestions . {gap} . {gap} . {vocalsound} At the moment we have fifteen buttons , one L_C_D_ screen , one advanced chip-on-print . We use a uh sensor , that's for the speech . Uh we use kinetic energy . And we wanted uh the buttons in a special colour . Okay . What's the first thing we should drop ? The special colour of the buttons ? +User Interface: No that's that's for the trendy uh feel and look . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but everything is . +Project Manager: Should we switch to a hand dynamo ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh that's the still the same idea as the kinetic energy because you have to use it and do things . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Yeah , b but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but young people like that . +Project Manager: Batteries ? +Marketing: So just do normal battery . +Project Manager: Batteries . +User Interface: I think the battery option . +Industrial Designer: Just a normal battery then , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It has to be twelve and a half . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Or not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh my goodness . +Project Manager: You're going to redesign something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're at twenty five . +Marketing: Uh , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Do we keep the shape doubly curved or g do we go for single curved ? +Industrial Designer: Well I guess i we'll have to go for single curve then . I mean we have to drop on everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can keep it single curved with uh top view still curved , but from the side it's it's flat , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and the screen screen is just {disfmarker} Well you just have to hold it like this then . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} Sorry . +Project Manager: Uh another option I saw was to drop the buttons one through nine , so you can't directly access a channel , but instead use only the up and down arrows . That would skip nine buttons and four and a half Euros . +Industrial Designer: That's what I was thinking . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: A a +Marketing: Let's do it then . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then we have left {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we don't have any basic options any more . +Marketing: {gap} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: And uh 'cause then they don't have to n They don't need special colour as well . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Project Manager: They don't need special colours . Fine . That's more like it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You were saying something . +Industrial Designer: That was exactly my point . Like let's drop all the buttons , and just make one +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean we're gonna use the L_C_D_ screen anyway . So we'll just have to use it for everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then you can make an overview of channels in the screen , and select a channel , click {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , some more menu options . Yeah . Okay so maybe we can drop few more buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Now let's look . +User Interface: Yeah we c could {disfmarker} We only need the the the the the menu arrow arrow button uh thing . Everything you can do with with the menu . So {disfmarker} With the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need one integrated button for everything then . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The joystick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Kind of . I was {disfmarker} Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , scroll-wheel , push-button uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you if you go to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Integrated scroll-wheel push-button , yeah . +Industrial Designer: If you go to our uh view , like you {disfmarker} if you are in the sound system there , uh and you wanna adjust the treble for instance , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: this is just uh an example , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: y y you wanna see a bar on which you can adjust it from zero to ten for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But you want a sound preview of how it's gonna sound , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? So you wanna click on it , activate it , whe and when you move it , hear the difference of the treble coming out or going into the sound . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you'll you'll need a a kind of a joystick uh button . +Marketing: Yeah or or the integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's kind of on your mouse and then you can click it , adjust it , click again and then you're out of it . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: But you still {disfmarker} But you then still need to have {disfmarker} Well you can use the scroll-wheel as well for um maybe for the channels . But you still um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's r Yeah . +Marketing: You still have to have some some button in the menu to go back . +User Interface: So you do one inte You can do one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And then just drop all the other buttons . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: Well not all . +User Interface: But but th the cost of one integrated button is far more than a few extra push-buttons . +Marketing: Not s not sound I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} One integrated button is five times the cost of a normal button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have to to make it s uh more uh {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You could also drop j three more of these , without losing much functionality . You just drop the Okay and the Back . +Marketing: Yeah . Wh wh what what what is the what is the uh sample sensor sample speaker ? +Project Manager: Oh , that's for the speech . +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Could drop the speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: S s Drop speech recognition ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's possible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We we d +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's expensive , but uh we never considered the possibilities of uh speech recognition . 'Cause it can take the function of a lot of uh uh buttons . +Project Manager: Buttons . +Marketing: Buttons . +Project Manager: That's not very easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: No , it can be disturbed by by noise and +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but lets just say that the speech recognition works . +Marketing: stuff like that . Let let let me see what's more what's more popular . I guess the the screen was more popular than um than the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I have to look on that . Let me see . {vocalsound} Uh well no I was wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There are more people who like speech recognition than an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . Because if you d lose the L_C_D_ screen , we {vocalsound} need a lot of {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it it {disfmarker} it's a it's a both a hypers +User Interface: We lose our whole concept . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} No we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We need a lot of extra buttons . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We keep the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Well we Yeah we keep the screen . I mean it's it's about the same . Eight one to ninety one percent , uh sixty six to seventy six . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: We uh we we haven't really integrated this {disfmarker} the speech into the system , +Project Manager: so we drop the speech . +Industrial Designer: so we can might as well s drop that . {gap} +Project Manager: And drop it yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Let's drop the speech . +Project Manager: Okay . S Fo Four less Euros . So we still have three and a half Euro to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sixteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to lose some buttons . +Marketing: But y y +Project Manager: Yeah if you lose the the Back , the Okay button {disfmarker} Uh v let's say we only have the four arrows , and the Menu button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you're {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then and then use um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh and the power button we have also . +Marketing: The the {disfmarker} Okay . And the menu button does also does the okay function then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And then when you in the menu {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's one Euro . +Marketing: S so so you activate the menu . +User Interface: If we do uh two integrated scroll-wheel push-buttons , we can drop all the the push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah ? And {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: With with one uh integrated button we can uh do the whole menu thing . With the other , we can do the the channel , the volume , et cetera . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: That would save zero point two Euros compared to {disfmarker} No . +User Interface: No it's three Euros . No ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . To This together is more expensive than {disfmarker} Oof , it's almost the same as t keeping this . +User Interface: No it's it's n Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we can drop these two . +Marketing: Well okay . +User Interface: It's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: For example if you have f f four buttons , {vocalsound} channel up and down , uh volume left right {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: Okay , I've {disfmarker} I think we have to keep that . +Project Manager: And the power button . +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} and the power button . So that's five . +Project Manager: That's the basic . +Marketing: That's basic . That that's what you need anyway . And then for the menu , um you can have a button that activates menu . Or d or do we just integrate an an an scroll-wheel with a push-button . And then if the moment you use the scroll-wheel , the the the menu gets activated , and then you can scroll , choose an option , click on it , it goes into an feature . Click on it again , selects features , scroll , adjust it . Click again , it's okay . Then you only need one button to move back . Or or under each option , you set a {disfmarker} you set an a screen thing what says back , and you select that one , click again , and you go one step back . And in that menu , scroll , click , one step back . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that then you need five buttons , and one integrated scroll-wheel push-button . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay th that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we can't drop three buttons . +Industrial Designer: Which {gap} {disfmarker} That's even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I see that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's one Euro more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's not a good idea . +Project Manager: That's not an option . +Marketing: Because which buttons do we have now ? Those five which I mentioned , and then menu , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Menu , power . +Marketing: Yeah . F of the four things ? +Project Manager: Four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah , th power . +Project Manager: Power . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you if you go to eight {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which more ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . So four arrows ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh power I believe ? +Marketing: Power . Th Yeah that's five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} We have a Back and a Okay button . +Marketing: Yeah , okay that's seven , +Project Manager: And the Menu . +Marketing: and one to activate the menu , yeah . So okay that's eight . Well we can't reduce that . We we keep the display . +Project Manager: Yeah , and even if we drop three buttons from here , we still have to make some adjustments around here . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , well okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we need the chip for the for the L_C_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ ? Yeah . +User Interface: Let's make the {disfmarker} Let's make the case plastic . +Marketing: Yeah well we need the advanced {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then I rather make it wood . +Marketing: Instead of r +Project Manager: Because then also it's good in the market with the forty five plus uh people . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah but but that's not our market . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that {disfmarker} maybe not . But maybe it's better than plastic anyway . +Marketing: Ah no , hard plastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Plastic with a with a special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: A woo wood uh wood uh wood colour . +Marketing: Yeah , plastic with special colour . +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No but I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because we have to use the special colour anyway . You forgot that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we do one one s +Marketing: {vocalsound} So let's go for the plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Plastic . +Marketing: And since it's not kinetic , it doesn't have to flip around that much ? +Project Manager: Uh that's easy because plastic is free . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: We still have problem of two Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh if we dropped uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No the buttons , those are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah th th it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we can't drop them . +User Interface: An advanced chip-on-print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You still need that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we really need that advanced chip for an L_C_D_ display ? +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So the other option would be to go for the the sample speaker , and {disfmarker} Which can use a regular chip , wh which is six Euros in total . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: That doesn't matter . +Marketing: Oh . I rather keep I rather keep the display . +Project Manager: No , I keep the re Yeah . Yeah . Because we already designed for it . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . +Marketing: So the only option is an hand dynamo . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and something else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no tha Oh that's one Euro , right . +Industrial Designer: uh can't we f uh fit all the buttons in an intreg integrated scroll push-button ? 'Cause that will save us one and a half Euro already . And then if w +Marketing: And then integrated s Yeah but that would make it not so easy to use . +Project Manager: No y you would rec +Marketing: I mean it's not that important , easy to use , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then we have to scroll through a lot of menus to be able to get where you want , huh ? +Project Manager: Then you still need two additional buttons I believe . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d at l Yeah . At least one for power . +Project Manager: You can use those {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah and power . That's three buttons and this would cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah it's just as expensive as what we have now . +User Interface: But the integrated uh button ? How many func functions can it uh have ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Three . Up , down , Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah endlessly . I mean it can be a power button as soon as it powered on . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You can go into you in you main menu , +Marketing: You you press it for like three seconds . +Industrial Designer: you can choose uh flip channel , uh you can choose sound options , any options . +Marketing: Then then then you should do everything in the menu . On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . It would save enough {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe we should . 'Cause we don't have money and w we want the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you can choose this , drop these , then we have a half Euro left . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can maybe still use power button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we have to . +Marketing: It s it saves us four Euros and it costs us two and a half . So let's see , we we drop the price by one and a half . +Project Manager: Yeah . You see ? +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll be on {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we still have thirteen left . +Project Manager: Oh still {disfmarker} Yeah ? Oh then I miscalculated . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Thirteen . So still half . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shit . Drop the special colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There goes the special co {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That would make it less appealing . So that's no option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . What else ? Uncurved ? +User Interface: No no , it has to be um curved . +Marketing: We sure about the advanced chip we need for the display ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it says right here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They made it very easy for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} yeah . We made it hard for ourselves with the display , but it's a cool feature . +Project Manager: Ah , I don't think I can s uh persuade the management to say , this is better for the market so you sell more than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Wh what we could do is um {disfmarker} drop the the special colour , and uh do the special colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . That's {disfmarker} Oh yeah since we only have one button . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but I mean what is meant by special colour ? +Project Manager: I just m I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just something else than than black or white I think . +Project Manager: Uh yeah it's {disfmarker} I think it's grey , regular . +Marketing: S yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Grey and rubber . +Industrial Designer: But we definitely want the thing to be a special colour though . +Project Manager: Of plastic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Damn . +Marketing: So I rather have an hand dynamo {vocalsound} than than drop the colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: You can still play with it then I guess . I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but a hand dynamo costs a lot of energy to keep the screen working . So I guess that isn't an option . +User Interface: The display {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , you only have to power it up when you wanna use it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} But if you have to power the for ten minutes , {vocalsound} then the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No I don't think the current status of uh chips are pretty uh energy conserving , no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Let's let's go for the hand dynamo then . +Project Manager: Yeah hand dynamo ? Do you want an extra button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or or do we {disfmarker} Or do we do uncurved and flat ? Instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no it has to be curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it has to be curved and has to have that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . Just put a special special colour of the buttons , or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And a screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's the most import +Project Manager: Yep ? Instead of an additional power button ? +User Interface: Yeah or spe special form ? +Marketing: Yeah . S what what is special f Oh yeah , special form . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Maybe that's nicer . +Project Manager: It's for scroll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we don't have any buttons . +Industrial Designer: We only have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So do {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But it's it's for the integrated button , I think also . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: d Uh make it a special colour then . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ma make it a special colour then . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's just a scroll-wheel which you can push down . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Make it a special colour and then it look fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah ? So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Woah we're within budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a miracle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's let's save it . +User Interface: oh ma make it two special colours , but we only have one button . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Let's do it like this , I mean , because it does not lose our identity of the product as we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well {disfmarker} {gap} . 'Kay , this was old . +Industrial Designer: Well we come back to the drawing board then , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah all your designs are uh pretty much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah back to work . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did I save it ? +Industrial Designer: It's silly 'cause we we should have had this meeting before we start drawing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but that but that's the fun part of it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I wanted to go , but I wasn't allowed . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah ? {gap} okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh I just forgot to save this . Just a minute . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah what's the next uh phase ? +Project Manager: Yeah , this the last phase of course , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the agenda . By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh f {vocalsound} Frustrated . {vocalsound} Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well we first should have had a uh prototype presentation . But well as you saw that hadn't made no sense , because we had to drop it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Drop everything . Yeah . +Marketing: Drop , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We went straight into finance ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it was more important , so I just +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: pushed up the agenda . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , evaluation criteria . You have t produced something about that ? +Marketing: Yeah that that's {disfmarker} Yeah . I uh I sure did . And it combines with product evaluation . Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you put it in the {gap} . +Marketing: We all have to keep in mind what has changed now . So what we have left on the {disfmarker} Because evaluation is based on the initial uh user requirements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's make it big . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well we evaluate uh the design with a seven point scale , as following . Well the remote controls according criteria blah blah blah . True or false , and then on a scale of seven points , a {gap} scale , as we all know it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Well the criteria are based on the user requirements , uh the trends from the marketing research , and the marketing strategy of the company itself . Um well they are in a Word document , which I will open now . +Project Manager: Alt up +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . I don't know it's open yet . No . And we all have to uh agree on a certain level . What's this ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Freaky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . I don't know . Um {disfmarker} Well the first point is the remote control matches the operating behaviour of the young user . So that means the operating behaviour was using quite a lot of functions . How do you think about that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it does . Because the operating {gap} behaviour of the young user was also defined in colour and shape and the use of L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Uh , of course we dropped a little bit of those uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah the us u It it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's it's mainly con mainly concentrating on a lot of functions , in this question . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So do you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , we have extended menus , on the on the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You can you can ma +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah , you can make a lot of extended menus . That's true . I mean the the possibilities are almost unlimited , to to build in menus in the screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {gap} No . +Marketing: So on a scale from one to seven , what do you think ? +User Interface: Two or three . Two or three . +Marketing: Huh ? Two or three ? Something like that ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well we have to choose one . So uh what do you say ? +Project Manager: Uh y we should fill this in now . +Marketing: I agree on two . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I uh I say two , personally . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah in the new design I s would say it's three . But now , in original design I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah well we have to evaluate I guess what we have now . +Project Manager: Okay then I say three . +Marketing: Yeah ? You say three , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you you said al also three ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? Okay well I say still two , but it has to be three then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you're marketing , eh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I know . So it's made bold . But it's {disfmarker} nah , it's not very clear on the sc +Project Manager: Hmm . M maybe underline . +User Interface: Or give it a colour . +Marketing: Maybe other colour , yeah . That's better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright . Oh , it doesn't have to be bold anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah very true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well the remote control has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Wha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} He types everything . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Definitely one . It has to be . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control has irrelevant or less used functions . For example audio settings and screen settings . +User Interface: It hides uh basic functions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Everything . {vocalsound} You don't use anything else . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Well , yeah . So it it's a very true point . I mean it hides all those function . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're not gonna find them . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah true . +Marketing: But , I mean uh they're hidden in the screen . If you don't want to use them , you don't s you s just scroll over them . And you place them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} F I don't know where . So that's very true , I guess , for our case . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the next {disfmarker} Not so much so . +Marketing: Uh the second point . It shows the relevant and most used functions . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Power button . Do we ha still have a power button ? +Project Manager: Uh check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Well yeah the button's integrated , huh ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah it's uh it's integrated . +Marketing: Yeah we dropped it . You j you just push it in for {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's in {disfmarker} Oh yeah it was integrateds . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah integrate it . +Marketing: Yeah just just push it in for th for three seconds or something , and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: E exactly just like a m mobile . +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just go scrolling and it will activate . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Um it shows the relevant and most used functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah uh on the other {disfmarker} uh on one side I would say yes , and the other side I would say no . So it's {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: It shows the most used functions and they are relevant , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can you uh change channels directly with with just one button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , you have to scroll through the menu , before +Marketing: With the scroll butt Yeah and then say channel . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh we should b build it so that if you don't kind of push into the menu or something , if {disfmarker} When it's on , yeah , it's turned on , +Project Manager: You say you double click on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: It automatically has the the programme and the volume function , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but as soon as you click it you go into the menu or some {gap} {disfmarker} Of you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or you double click it . +Marketing: But but how do you change from volume to channel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No because it has four arrows , right ? +Project Manager: No , not anymore . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because he's {gap} now have a scroll-wheel that you can push in . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like on the the mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking still about our uh integrated joystick . +Marketing: No we have n we have no buttons left . So {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Say . +Marketing: the joystick was not an option . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is a bummer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so you hav {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you have to double-click , I mean , for , I mean , uh volume , +Project Manager: To get into menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and three double click for the menu , or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or hold it ten seconds . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll make it a Morse code . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But but ease of use was not very important , may I remind you . +Project Manager: No no no . Uh it should be trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that that's not a question . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control shows the relevant and most used functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well I think it's pretty much in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Four . +Marketing: You have to search for them in in the in the s in the screen , in the menu . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , im {disfmarker} in the menu . +User Interface: Seven . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe it's more like a f a five . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I would go for five or six , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Five or six ? +Project Manager: Five . +User Interface: Five . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay five . +Marketing: Five ? Alright . +Industrial Designer: Let's not diss our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's the weirdest remote control I've ever seen . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Just one button . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's different . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . Uh the the remote control makes use of technolog technological innovation like L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Uh yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well yeah but we dropped the speech recognition . But it has at least one innovation . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still {disfmarker} Yeah , I say two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We still have the fruit and vegetable print . +Marketing: I say two then . +Project Manager: Oh , that's the next . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that that's not that's not this question . Uh thi uh that's the other question . +Industrial Designer: Fr Oh I mean the {disfmarker} Oh never mind . I'm a bit lost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This one . +User Interface: I think a two . No . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: I think L_C_D_'s more useful than speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: What ? Oh not the bold one . +Industrial Designer: It's way more practical , yeah . +Marketing: Right . Okay , it has a fancy look and feel by using fruit and vegetable prints , primary colours and sponge-like material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It should have been two questions . {vocalsound} I realise now , because {vocalsound} sponge-like material is dropped . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But the look and feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You still have rubber d Or no . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we still uh we still have the primary colours . But only on the on the outside , not on the button . +User Interface: No you got a plastic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The button has also colour . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The one button we have . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . The one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah still we we dropped also on the the double uh curve . +Project Manager: Yeah you could check with the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . You only have one {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we have single curve now , +Industrial Designer: And and colour . +Marketing: and no and no material +Industrial Designer: Yeah . S +Marketing: . So maybe in the middle or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Four . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's +Project Manager: Yeah or three . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: worth the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: We have something . +Industrial Designer: Actually we d we didn't do so well on this one . Because it's basically an old one , uh with little curve on the side , and in a different colour . Still , it's still hard . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean the sponge-like and the three D_ shape , that would give it something young and fresh . +Project Manager: New . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But then we would have to drop the screen . +User Interface: Red . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh red . Yeah . +Project Manager: You like both . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I like bold . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh the remote control displays the corporate logo . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um oh yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You just have to draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , just one minute . +User Interface: It's the white part uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it {disfmarker} be because uh we couldn't hardly draw on the b s on the lower half of the screen , we could not make it big enough to actually draw in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have a we have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I mean I wanted to put digits on the buttons as well . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But there's uh enough space for the corporate logo . I mean , {vocalsound} if there's only one thing . +Industrial Designer: Hell yeah . If we have only one button . +Marketing: Yeah . So I will say that is very true . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And even the shape we have now uh simulates kind of an R_ and the reversed R_ , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is easy to use . Well I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Skill , uh I would say six , or something . I don't think it's easy to use , or not so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The only e the only thing easy about it is that you don't have to move your fingers . 'Cause it has only one button . +User Interface: Ah i +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And that you only have to control one button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . It it it has a nice screen . But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: It gives visual feedback . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I I would say a five or a six . +User Interface: I think a five . Five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would say six . +Marketing: What do you say ? Easy to use ? Five or a six ? +Industrial Designer: It's really not easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No not anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you're putting everything {disfmarker} +Marketing: So a six , more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh I would go for the six too . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most votes count . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um well , another question , +User Interface: Yeah that looks uh great . +Marketing: uh the remote control is durable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know if that's the correct word . +User Interface: Yeah . Nah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Definitely in casing , 'cause we have a hard plastic +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} In use , both battery as casing ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah because the the batteries , those thingies last forever . +Marketing: Yeah ? True , true . +Industrial Designer: And the the casing , hard plastic also lasts forever . +Marketing: And the casing is plastic , {gap} ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . If you don't drop it too much , it's uh should last pretty long . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I would go for one . +Marketing: Yeah ? But uh I think rubber compared is better . So I think a two is more appropriate +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay yeah . +Marketing: than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Logo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I will go {disfmarker} go for two . {vocalsound} Uh the last one ? The remote control's a good example for company's motto , we put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . No m +User Interface: No we put the electronics into the fashion . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would g +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} uh {disfmarker} {gap} turn around . Yeah . But um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I would go for four . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Because we kind of tried to but we kind of failed with the budget that we have . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , true . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: So a four . It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it g it g goes , it's not the best we could do , I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it all has to do with the budget , because it's it's not the bad idea we had , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , four is okay . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Marketing: So if I understood it right , we have to count these numbers . +Project Manager: Ooh . And {disfmarker} Yeah ? What ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} Alright . Word document , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to count them . +Project Manager: Count them . Add them ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah just add them and then uh divide them . +Project Manager: Could somebody start calculator ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah we can do the math . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I all made it po I I all made it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I all made it possible uh for a positive questions , so we can count it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean if you have reversed question , you have to reverse the scale , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So four and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Did you make this questionnaire or what ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice work . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Three plus ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wouldn't be able to do it that fast . +Project Manager: O one . +User Interface: Plus one . +Project Manager: Plus five . +User Interface: Plus five ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} Easy . +Project Manager: Bo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Question number four , yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh two . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: Oh . Wait a second . Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's it's gone wrong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How hard is it ? +User Interface: Okay . It's your turn . +Industrial Designer: Pretty difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah just use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Start over ? +User Interface: No it's if you press twice on the plus button , then you get s s +Marketing: Oh there tho uh there's no n There's no num pads . +Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . That's why it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a it's a bit uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just type in the digits . They're all one digit numbers right ? And then you can count them together . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you can just count them by a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just count it to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um let's move over . +Project Manager: Okay . Three , four , nine . +Marketing: Three , plus one , four . Nine . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , yeah . Are you here ? +Industrial Designer: Eleven . +Marketing: Eleven . +Project Manager: Eleven , +Industrial Designer: Fifteen . +Marketing: Fifteen . +Project Manager: fifteen . +User Interface: Sixteen . +Industrial Designer: Sixteen . +Marketing: Sixteen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Seventeen . +Project Manager: Seventeen . +Marketing: No sixteen . Uh sixteen plus six . +Industrial Designer: Oh what ? +User Interface: Twenty two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How hard is this ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty two . Twenty two , yeah ? +User Interface: Twenty four . Twenty six . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Twenty four . Twenty eight . +Marketing: Tw +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {gap} . +Marketing: Twenty {disfmarker} Twenty eight . +Project Manager: That was the last one . That was that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my . +Industrial Designer: Twenty eight . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Twenty eight . +Project Manager: So divided by nine . +Marketing: Twen Uh okay . By nine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: That's uh three uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Or le less than a three . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the lower the {disfmarker} The lower the score the better , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Twenty eight +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Divided by nine . +Marketing: di divided by nine +Project Manager: So thr t two . +Marketing: makes three point one one one one one one one . +Project Manager: So we're better than average . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I Are you sure we {disfmarker} this number actually tells us somethings ? +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so because some questions are related to positive issues and some to negative . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some questions are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So if you give a true to a positive , it actually means that the low {disfmarker} the lower the better . But if you give true to a negative question {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but there are no negative questions I guess . +Industrial Designer: No ? +Marketing: Good example . Durable use . +Industrial Designer: Durable , that's good . +Marketing: Easy to use . This {gap} is good . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fancy look and feel , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +Marketing: Technology innovation was good , because of a marketing uh requirement . +Industrial Designer: Also good . Yeah okay . +Marketing: Re relevant most used function . +Industrial Designer: I guess you did do it . +Marketing: And hides these functions . {vocalsound} That was also a good thing . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah . No {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then matches the opera of the {gap} user was also a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So it were all positive questions , by uh by purpose . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . +Marketing: Yes , so the {disfmarker} It tells us something , yes . Becau But the picture would be a lot different if we didn't have to drop those uh those things , I guess . +User Interface: Oh great . +Project Manager: Things , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because now it's just an average {disfmarker} It's remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah it it's it's better than average , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay because of the L_C_D_ screen . But uh it looks and stuff , it still uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So th +Project Manager: It's still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Has some shortcomings . +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's not really eye-catching , except for the colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The colour and the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this we had , this we had . We have to do a product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Product evaluation . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh prototype presentation we dropped . So {disfmarker} Uh the finance we looked . We have redesigned . Uh not on that , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we we have to maybe if we have to redesign it on this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you can just make one big L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay it's your turn now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we try ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} With some casing around it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Black . Okay uh we're still gonna go for the fancy colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But are we gonna stick with the green or are we gonna do blue ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah we we can just uh use this one . And then uh over-paint it with uh uh the green uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The the button has a special colour , the frame has a special colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: he only needs one button . +Industrial Designer: One scroll button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's plastic . {vocalsound} And single curved . +User Interface: Yeah . Or we have to delete this one or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and you might want to add a uh infrared LED . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Otherwise it uh doesn't function uh so well . +Industrial Designer: For what ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have to do other things ? +Project Manager: Well I have to um um make an uh report of every decision we made so far . +Marketing: Or just redesign ? {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: And I try to get chip just before uh I uh receive the Excel sheet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you made a start , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah I'm I'm somewhere , but maybe you can help me . +Industrial Designer: Should give it some time ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but how do we make the the scroll uh button ? +Project Manager: I was here . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's just one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Have to take this away also . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that's the infrared uh {vocalsound} thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , of course . +Marketing: The the target group has a weak spot for fruit and vegetables , like primary colours , spongy shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um pen yeah ? Format . Current colour red . +Marketing: The playfulness , we decided to use kinetic energy as a power sour +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} Yeah we did our special colour for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Line widths , now that's a ten . +Marketing: That's conceptual , yes . +Project Manager: That's enough to get started with , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Um , uh it's just a scroll {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be one str scroll . +User Interface: Yeah , is it's horizontal or vertical ? +Marketing: How many pages ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I just took one for every step and then a conclusion . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . Y you have you have done the first two . +Industrial Designer: Horizontal's easier too , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , and and the look and feel is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it more natural than this ? +Project Manager: Well I think I have to make a p an issue called finance . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So let's say {disfmarker} Whoops . 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Basically . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't look like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The items we had to drop . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh it {disfmarker} it's it's not {disfmarker} Yeah . It's not very fashionable anymore . But uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: It's really ugly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Where did we start with price ? +User Interface: Maybe m make it bigger ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty six and a half . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or not ? Or twenty six ? Something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . That looks little bit more uh {disfmarker} Maybe that's a s a special colour for it . So we can make it uh special ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: This ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean ? Like a other colour than this one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or or speckles in it ? I dunno . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speckles ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah can we do it uh {disfmarker} uh can we do a print ? +User Interface: ..$ I'm not sure . +Project Manager: ... . I don't think so , if you see the options . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to choose , yeah ? +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay special colour . We do have special colour . +User Interface: Yeah red is already a special colour , I think . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it mean uh that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not very special , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shall we just give it some dots to make it look pretty ? +User Interface: Yeah . Just uh put the purple uh purple on it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Purdy . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some big dots . +Industrial Designer: Purple ? +User Interface: That's trendy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh no my remote has acne . +Marketing: ... . We have the original balance sheet , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Woah . +Industrial Designer: No . That's why we have that button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's so cute . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh what ? +Industrial Designer: Doh . +Marketing: Woah . +User Interface: {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just cut . Control Z_ . +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: No no . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How the {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} did we do that ? +User Interface: Oh it's it's just one computer ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just dual screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . But can we delete it , just with delete ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can try . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't respond also to the undo . It looks like it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Crashed . {vocalsound} Oh , no . +Industrial Designer: No , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Where do you want some more dots ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , over here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can't even draw anymore . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Y y you you {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's this ? +Project Manager: Even children can draw . {vocalsound} +Marketing: you push the button or something . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you just push pen and then keep on {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Oh that's the select button . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's not the prettiest , I know . +User Interface: No , it looks {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not so random huh ? +Marketing: Lot of options . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's okay . Specially the the R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the R_ and another R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: It's called the Real Remote , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe it c it can say that . The Real Remote . +Project Manager: Yeah just on the the m um the L_C_D_ display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Welcome . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is your Real Remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can make a l a logo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {gap} put it like the shape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D designed by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something like that . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's not too uh {disfmarker} That's not their logo , is it ? +User Interface: No . Do they have a lo {disfmarker} Oh , the {disfmarker} here . This i this is the logo . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Two R_s and a one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You can just reuse that , because the name is the same . Initials . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can copy and paste the picture if you want . +Industrial Designer: How {gap} {disfmarker} Shall we do the logo in black or not ? +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} What is that ? Look more {disfmarker} Looks more like a campfire . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you dissing my drawing ? {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like a ribbon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So who wants to draw ? This is actually quite fun . Do we need to do anything ? +User Interface: Are we uh ready ? Uh {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I hear you people are typing . +Marketing: Type in your report . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Marketing: I don't see any new messages . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luckily . +Marketing: Hmm ? Luckily , yeah . +User Interface: Is this uh the last assignment ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh +User Interface: Final {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's almost four . +Marketing: What time do we have to deliver the report ? Four o'clock or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} At four , yeah , {gap} ? +Marketing: Or before that ? +Project Manager: Okay . And copy this . +Marketing: Just compare uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just a minute . +Industrial Designer: This is really bizarre . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like there's a {disfmarker} It looks like a butterfly . +User Interface: Um bug . Bug . +Project Manager: It's somewhere {disfmarker} I d It isn't inside . +User Interface: No it's in inside the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and don't know how it's {disfmarker} or eject it . +Marketing: No it's on the on the beamer I guess . +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: From up there ? +Industrial Designer: No , but it i It's not a bu a beamer . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: B It's a normal T_V_ screen , kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah it's somewhere in here . +User Interface: Hey , you've got it uh read only . So you have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Save copy . +Marketing: Yeah . Strange . This something what's projection from behind , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: It's too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah there is some kind of projection I think . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah it it's a beamer , but then with a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With a with a mirror , huh ? Or something . +Marketing: within a mirror , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it looks like a big screen , but {gap} {disfmarker} in fact it isn't . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna change anything to this ? +User Interface: It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean is it gonna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's it's single single curved . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's now single curved . So {disfmarker} It's flat . Oh no . +Industrial Designer: This is gonna be flat . Yeah exactly . +Marketing: Th this is flat . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . It doesn't matter . It's it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it's it's better to have in the front , this kind of shape , because it looks nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean you see more of this than of that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , more like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And this is also gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not very uh ideal . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Marketing: Do like this . +Industrial Designer: But sometimes then uh all of a sudden it does work . +Marketing: Yeah . What's this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the detector uh for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ooh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I don't see a detector over there . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} I think you only need two points . Or not . No , you sh +Marketing: I thought it was a kind of thing to put it on , and then draw right lines or something . +User Interface: Maybe that's why it's it's not working , because it's more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Slanted yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Or just messed it up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well maybe . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it matters for the aim of this thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but it wasn't good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You've to make it s uh ninety degrees . +Marketing: Yeah it it has to touch the corners , I guess . But th this one wasn't good , because if I was drawing here , I drew a line and then it came over here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um now you probably have to recalibrate . +User Interface: You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes to the end of the meeting . +User Interface: Oh we're always long . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the recalibration is done using this icon here . +User Interface: Yeah , can we t can we get to that @ i +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh it's not working anymore . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well I just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah , it's it's okay . It's working again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah , it's it's working , it's working . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It's better than before . +User Interface: We're improving uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's improved uh pretty much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's only a bit like to that side , but that is that one by the way . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah but it's better , it's better {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this one makes the angle either like this . So i if I change this , it will go there , if I change that , will go there . +Marketing: Mm . No . It's better than it was I guess . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I will take this away 'cause it looks messy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Silly . Yeah . Works pretty well . Five minutes before the meeting's over . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And then ? +Project Manager: Then I have to uh uh write this , +Marketing: We have to present {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and I don't know if you have to present , because I didn't receive any information about that so far . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we will . +Project Manager: Maybe we get a a final mail . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} after the {disfmarker} after after these five minutes , you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , I have still ten minutes to finish the report . +Industrial Designer: What's this anyway ? +User Interface: So cake . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . After after that five minutes , you have ten minutes to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It looks like candle wax . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . And we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh just uh relax and uh have cup of coffee or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Chill . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: oh no , they don't have beer here so you can't celebrate . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: You can just if you ma finish my presentation please . Uh over there . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah ? +Project Manager: The presentation is still open . So if you finish that then you'll see uh {disfmarker} Yeah next . +Marketing: Next slide . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , we have to do the project uh evaluation . Just uh do that quickly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you do it ? +Project Manager: Uh well basically what that says , we discuss it and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: So how were {disfmarker} did the project process uh go ? Did you , were you all pleased with the process as it was ? Or are there uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh th uh do you mean the the interaction between us ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah the interaction and the steps we followed , and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well at first I was really stressed . Because it went a bit fast . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But then as I knew the tempo that I had to be on , the second time I think I did a bit better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the third time yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: And we move more to to working together as team , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because at first you you make your individual contribution , and then come here , and you have no idea what the others have to make . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: And then finally you have some idea , okay this is gonna w this is what we gonna make together and okay I will arrange this and you will arrange that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and you have a k a kind of idea what you can expect on the next half hour when you have to work on your own . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we {disfmarker} +Marketing: The process , I mean , the interaction between us became better and better I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Especially after the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , especially if f f if you see {disfmarker} uh you se you saw the largest difference from the first to the second meeting I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay and was that due to my leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you did become more assertive the the second time round , so that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . You were more in charge kind of thing . +Project Manager: That okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Um was there uh enough room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but only the the financial parts uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Li Limiteded afterwards , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If if you don't take that into account , there's plenty of room for creativ creativity . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Also not only the drawing and the the making of the thing itself , but also in explaining it to the other people , by means of uh +Industrial Designer: We were pretty democratic . +Marketing: the the board and uh PowerPoint and Word and stuff like that . +Project Manager: So and the {disfmarker} uh about the board {gap} digital pen ? Uh was that helpful or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Mm uh I think in in essence +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the digital pen is better than the SMARTboard . Because it it it just works better . +Project Manager: Yeah it works . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean uh uh I've made {disfmarker} yeah , uh I've made several notes just to test it , and and just put the pen in into it , and then it came onto my screen and it looked perfectly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it it's better a better device than uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: than the screen . But the screen is useful , in essence , but it doesn't work that well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's uh it's {disfmarker} The the pen is more intuitive , 'cause we're all used to writing with pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Use the pen . +Industrial Designer: And uh as I said , uh I uh have no idea how PowerPoint works , so will take me half a day to be able to make a normal PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But once I get to know the program probably , I mean , it looks better , you know . Or uh something like that . You can give it a kind of a home style , like we have i the the logo and everything . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Blink . Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Warning . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Finish meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , are are there {vocalsound} any new ideas about this ? All I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I didn't really receive , yeah . +Marketing: It's use especially useful , I guess , to to evaluate designs and graph graphical stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh uh w uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and +Project Manager: S sorry uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: the {gap} screen and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think the PowerPoint is is too limited . You can't uh draw easy in in PowerPoint . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah . The drawing board has to be integrated into PowerPoint , so that you can just easily {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the problem with PowerPoint for me is that you have to i put in the pre-made chunks c as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know , you can draw something on the sketch-board and then take it there , or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . But it it's useful to to show something to to an {disfmarker} a small audience , and then to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah just for text , for text it's uh it's okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . These these kind of screens this size are useful to discuss things . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . Check your email . +Project Manager: Uh we should uh enter our questionnaire . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} You also . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Woah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes boss . +Industrial Designer: Well , s see you in a second huh ? {gap} . +Project Manager: That's the management . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well see you soon . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Hope so . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} we have to pull it this way , huh ? Wait . +","Summary: + +The group, composed of a Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer, are trying to work together to design a remote control. During their discussion, they face various constraints and decisions regarding design features, costs, and technology. They initially have several design features like a color LCD screen, speech recognition, kinetic energy for power, and a trendy look, which are influenced by budget constraints and user requirements. They debate on maintaining the trendy feel by keeping the special color for the buttons, even as they consider cheaper battery options. + +Throughout the conversation, they continuously fine-tune the design by considering alternatives like removing speech recognition or using a hand dynamo to save cost. They ultimately have to make sacrifices in design for budget reasons, like dropping the speech recognition. After recalibrating their digital drawing tool, they get back to redesigning the remote within the revised requirements. + +They also discuss the collaboration process and tools they are using, expressing some frustration with the technology but ultimately finding it useful. The Project Manager ensures all tasks are on track and ends the meeting by reminding the team to fill out a questionnaire. The conversation reflects the typical dynamics in a project meeting, juggling between creativity, practical constraints, and team coordination." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Conceptual design meeting . Right . Okay , so {disfmarker} Right well um from the last meeting {vocalsound} I was trying to send you the minutes , but uh it didn't work out too well , so maybe in sort of um quick summary of the last uh meeting , I can quickly give you what we what we had . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh right , so {disfmarker} Wishing I hadn't closed the damn {disfmarker} Right so we had the fact that we're gonna have the the logo uh the company logo in its uh colour scheme incorporated onto the the device the remote device . We had uh made our decisions about uh made our decisions about uh the device itself , that it was gonna be simple to make it uh enable us to complete the project in time . We're gonna have uh effectively two pages , a front page which had the uh features that the uh the customers most wanted , and then the uh the backup features on the second page so that it could uh meet the technical requirements . And the customers wouldn't have to look at them too often , only as and when required . So . So basically what decisions uh have we uh made ? Uh have there been any uh changes ? +Industrial Designer: I think we all have a presentation again , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so if we go through those and then um +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three presentation , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Shall I go first again ? {gap} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , fine . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I see {gap} this a little more smoothly than the last one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay right , let's get started . Um basically the uh for the {disfmarker} Um I'll {gap} back actually . For the components design , um next step is basically the the way the remote's gonna work is still the same idea as before . We still have the user interface which is all the buttons we're gonna incorporate . Then there is a chip and still the sender . So um yes {gap} including the power s supply as well . Um I'll go on to my findings in each of these areas . Uh first in the power supply , we have the option of just the standard battery , um . {vocalsound} There's a dynamo . Any of you think of kind of like the the old torches which you wind up {gap} um . There's a kinetic option , which if any of you've seen those new watches which you kind of you power up by waving around , um it just requires a small amount of movement which would mean the batteries wouldn't have to be replaced . Um that's one option , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I think that was gonna cost a little more . And then there's solar cells . Um as a final option . For the buttons , we have um an integrated push button , which is {disfmarker} Oh just to say all all these are um supplied by Real Reaction . So I guess for the ease of for quickness and ease we should take them from at least like one of these options . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so for the buttons there's an integrated push button , which I guess is just the same as the standard ones . This says it's uh similar to uh the button on the mouse for a normal {disfmarker} for like uh like modern computer . Um there's a scroll wheel which is {disfmarker} you know the new mouse has just got like the centre section which you can scroll up and down , which may be for the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You could do do that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one issue for the buttons is , depending on which material we use , if we use rubber buttons then it requires a rubber case , so we have to take that into consideration . Um moving on to the printed s +Project Manager: What would be the cost do do we know ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's on the next {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I th I think the there wasn't too much difference in the cost , that that related to the actual buttons , but it does affect the printed circuit board . Um which is the next section . Basically for the circuit board which is the middle , it's just {disfmarker} see it down there the chips like the like the workings of the actual um of the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The firm supplies a simple , a regular and an advanced um circuit board . And there's different prices according to each . So if we've got the scroll wheel for one of the buttons , that would require a slightly more advanced circuit board than if we just had a standard um push button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one final thing we came up with was some information on the speech recognition . There's a small unit available through the company um which obviously would be an extra cost , but it wouldn't affect the size of the remote too much . Um and I guess that would require a more advanced circuit board , so there is an extra price in that sense . There is th sorry an extra cost in that sense . Um going to my personal preferences , um I thought possibly for power we could use kinetic um which is the idea of the watches um that you move you move the remote around to power it up . And this would avoid batteries running out , having to replace batteries and such like . Um for the buttons , I thought we'd probably get away with just having the standard um push buttons rather than the scroll wheel . Um and for the circuit board , again depends on which features we want in the actual in the remote . So if we wanted the scroll wheel and wanted the voice recognition , um then we'd have to get a a more costly circuit board . And that's it . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} with the printed circuit boards you were going for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um i it kind of depends um if we're gonna have the speech recognition , we'd have to probably get an advanced one . I'm guessing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I don't know , so that is something I'll have to look into . +Project Manager: But are we going f R right . +Industrial Designer: Um that's a that's a decision for all of us . Um . +Project Manager: So are we able to make that decision now in a sense that this is the point at which we're discussing that issue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . We decide . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so would it not be best to {disfmarker} rather than {disfmarker} I mean one way is to do each of the presentations and then make decisions going back to the various presentations as they were . The other way would be to do the presentation +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then make the decision at that point in time . +Industrial Designer: Um . Maybe w +User Interface: Yeah , that's probably a better one , to discuss it straight away . +Project Manager: 'Cause at that point then you've got the details up there , so if we wanted to know for instance that the scroll wheel required the regular {gap} and what required advance . Then if we were able to see that down then we could make the decision at that point in time +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and then that would be the end of that issue . Does that make sense ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I have a lot of the information there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might not be very clear . +Industrial Designer: Is there {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unless you want to plug it back in to yours . +Industrial Designer: Um . We could do , yeah . Um yeah we should {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As I say it only specified that we need a more advanced circuit board for the scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it didn't {disfmarker} The voice recognition came as a separate piece of information . Um . +Project Manager: No the scroll wheel required the regular , so the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah if if you {gap} down um . It's just this bit at the bottom which I've highlighted , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the scroll wheel requires a mini m minimally a regular chip , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is in the higher price range . +Project Manager: Okay . The display requires an advanced chip +User Interface: I think the scroll wheel um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the display requires an advanced chip which in turn is more expense . +Industrial Designer: Also the display's for something else which we decided against . Um but that bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And note that the push button just requires a simple chip , so that would keep the price down . +Project Manager: Down . +User Interface: Yeah , and if we're going for sleek and sexy , I think a scroll wheel is maybe a bit kinda bulky ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I I've got um pictures well I've seen pictures with it kind of sticking off the side of it , +Project Manager: Right . Okay . +User Interface: and they don't really look great . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . So maybe just a simple push button , and that would cut costs on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So . So we're going for p Okay . So {gap} is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we going for the w are we going for the simple one , are we ? +User Interface: Yeah , a simple pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Simple push button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Did everyone get this on the speech recognition ? The um it was basically what we said before , the idea that you record in a set message , and then it picks up that message um and replies to you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it is basically the concept we discussed before . Um but then we don't know for sure whether it would require a more complicated circuit board . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing it would , but {gap} got like the definite information . Maybe we should go on what we're certain of rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if we go for the simple push button , so effectively we're going for the simple printed circuit board are we ? Or are we going for the regular ? +Industrial Designer: Um if it's just the push button then it just needs the simple circuit board . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . But is there any other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean okay , that's true for the {disfmarker} for for that element , but we have to take all {gap} el elements into consideration . And so if there is one element that requires the more expensive one , or say the regular one , or the more advanced , then that would have to be the same for all of them . S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: I suppose we need we need to find out what circuit board that requires , maybe before we {gap} m make a decision . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But the way that I interpret that um it doesn't seem to send out a signal to the telly , it just {disfmarker} it's like a parrot just rep reply replying to your message . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , I suppose so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that would be something separate , yeah . +User Interface: So I don't think it would effect our circuit board . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'd have a simple circuit board +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and that would be an extra that would be in addition to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that makes sense . +User Interface: And I don't think you could really perform any of the remote functions with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause the example that they've given there is good morning coffee machine , good morning Jo . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: It might be useful to say like where are you remote . Here I am , Jo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think that's maybe as far as that one could go ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that makes sense , so we'd stick with the simple circuit board and then think of the speech recognition as an extra an extra possibility . +User Interface: Yeah , just as a fun way to find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Simple circuit board . Simple push button . Okay . W w kinetic . +User Interface: And it says that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You were you were wanting to go for the kinetic power supply . +User Interface: I think it said the cost of that isn't too much . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah I I thought so just for {disfmarker} just for ease of not having to replace the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: And how does it get uh charged up ? +Industrial Designer: It's um I think it works on the basis they have some kind of ball bearings inside . It's um it's some on watches which you you kind of you shake to power it up . Somehow the mechanism inside powers up through movement . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd you'd move the remote around a little bit and then that powers it up to use it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the speech recognition was {disfmarker} Are we going for speech recognition ? No ? 'Cause that required the advanced {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I think it would be helpful to find it , but I don't think it'd um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I think {disfmarker} did we decide it didn't affect the circuit board , it just affected {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Just just for the call and find thing . +Industrial Designer: It was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I had speech recognition requires advanced req require +Industrial Designer: Oh no th that's what that's what I thought , but maybe maybe it doesn't {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Um I think I might have got that wrong . +Project Manager: So okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it's s it's separate isn't it , +Project Manager: Speech recognition you reckon then is s simple . +Marketing: it's not part of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's it's just an addition thing it's um yeah . +Project Manager: And so we would want it in as an extra because it doesn't appear to cost too much . Would that be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay shall I pass on to you now ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In fact , it wouldn't really cost anymore , would it ? +User Interface: I'll just just check what it said . Actually I don't think it really says anything about the cost , but it says that it's already in the coffee machines , so like it's already kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I assume it would cost extra , but {disfmarker} Maybe we maybe we'll find out how much that does cost and have to decide slightly later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then have to change all {vocalsound} change {gap} everything at the last minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} Oh , that was quick . Um okay , so very brief presentation , um . From looking at the remotes that are out there at the minute , none of them are particularly um sleek and sexy . Um I haven't actually got the examples of the scroll button there , um but there's some curved cases that you can see , uh a range of sizes uh . All of them have a lot of buttons there um they seem to just have the rubber buttons . Does that move it ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: It just seems to be skipping on without us doing anything . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've found that {gap} try and get it back . +Industrial Designer: If you right click and then go onto a previous slide . +User Interface: Ah it's alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , right . +User Interface: Um . There wasn't much more to say about that , just rambling . {vocalsound} Um some of the uh remotes that I looked at , one of the models da did actually have voice recognition where you could um where it was connected to the remote control functions . And uh it was quite uh a swish model , where it can control uh four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , video , D_V_D_ , audio . Um so that's a bit of competition there . So I mean maybe it's better not to try and compete with that sort of thing and just to market it as a completely different um like different viewpoint as a kind of finding your lost control +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: rather than trying to compete with the functions . Um the scroll buttons , as you've already mentioned , um there's examples of those , but they don't look as sleek as other models . And there's no real advantage and {disfmarker} because it impacts on other {disfmarker} on the materials and the price it's not great . +Industrial Designer: On the price , yeah . +Project Manager: So you were saying the scroll buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th there was a specialist type of remote that we could think about , um . There was children's remote , where um they just had a very limited range of buttons and they were b uh bright and colourful and um you you could program them so that they could only look at certain channels . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um but I don't know if that's really in our field ? +Industrial Designer: I guess I guess we're going for the biggest market , {gap} maybe not , +User Interface: But that's something that's out there . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Was it was it specified that we went for the biggest ? +Project Manager: Well we're to go for the international market rather than a local market but that that wouldn't necessarily preclude {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: The one thing that you can often do with products is you can uh make small modifications . So you have your basic model which you would sell at whatever , and then you could have additional features in you know like a {disfmarker} You'd have model one , model two and model three , and therefore you can sub-divide your market up . But that's really where your field is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So maybe the children's remote should be like a a next step , but maybe I dunno for ours , maybe we should {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyway you could add on for an extra package , but on this basic one I'm reckoning that we're going for the basic model to be discussed here and that uh you would have for future reference the possibility of adding in extra features at extra cost to take care of specialist market segments . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that +User Interface: Right well that's something that we can be aware of . +Project Manager: So so what are we deciding to do here ? +User Interface: Um . I think because there's already um very good voice recognition technology out there , and because ours might not cover the same functions that the leading brands do , it might be a good idea to market it as a um finder function . +Project Manager: Right . Mm-hmm . Uh the fi Yeah , the finder function rather than as a speech function to find your remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you also said for going for the international market um that some some maybe older people might not like the speech recognition . S s so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Different languages might not be compatible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It w it would make it quite complicated , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: where um ours at least keeps it fairly simple and then the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause I think you program um this one yourself , like to say like whatever you want to your question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and ours is quite a cheap device , so I don't know how much we'll be able to put into it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you'd have a finder feature rather than a voice recognition feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And you were talking +User Interface: Maybe unless something else comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . And you were talking about scroll buttons ? +User Interface: Um yeah I think um I think we've decided that it's gonna increase the cost +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and give no real kinda extra benefit +Project Manager: {gap} b +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's gonna decrease from the sleekness of it . +Project Manager: Alright , so we're just gonna have the the rubber buttons , was that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: Hmm um and just to be aware that there are kind of specialist functions and specialist remotes but we probably don't want to focus on those like such as the children's remote . +Project Manager: Okay . So not to be focused on . +User Interface: Yeah . Um there was a mention just as kind of a warning about button design . Um just to avoid ambiguity . So it gave the example of say your volume buttons for up and down , they might both have a V_ on for volume , {disfmarker} Um let's think how they did this . +Project Manager: Good in in {disfmarker} Flip it round in ninety degree a hundred and eighty degrees and have it up and down . +User Interface: I'm just gonna check so I do this right . +Project Manager: An upside-down V_ . So that would show that volume was going up , whereas the one underneath would see the volume going down . +User Interface: Um . What did they say ? Um I think the thing was that if you decide to do this , to have triangular buttons , um somebody might look at this one and say oh well this triangular button is pointing up , and that's the first thing that they see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Actually that can't be right , can it ? Oh well , no , they might see yeah , they might see this pointing down and think right that's gonna turn the volume down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: whereas the actual button's pointing up , so the function is to turn the button up . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , be careful what you put on the buttons +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could have like {disfmarker} +User Interface: and be careful of the shape that you make them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because they might be kind of two um contradicting kind of shapes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean . So maybe we could have volume written on the side and then up and down on the on the buttons themselves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You could have volume up and volume {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possible . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Volume up , down and {disfmarker} Like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And 'cause the idea was to have limited um {disfmarker} it was to have sizable amount of information on it . Limited number of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: 'Cause it was sixteen buttons , wasn't it that were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah we got it down to not too many . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and I think that's all I had to say for that . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Um so what was the decision on the um design of the volume button ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Are we are we gonna go through the design of all the buttons at the moment , or are we gonna t +Marketing: I've I've got some things to say about possible design things from trend watching . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we should see yours first . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: Cool . Right , um I've been looking at some trends in in sort of basically fashion on top of doing the um research into the remote control market the the one {disfmarker} that's the one I talked about last time , that we'd sort of asked people about remote controls and what what was good about them , what was bad , what they used . And we've also been looking at sort of fa sort of fashions and what people are wanting out of consumer goods at the moment . So we've had people in Paris and Milan watching the uh fashion trends . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You know {gap} yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So just to summarise the most important things which came out of the remote control market investigation . The most important thing was that the thing sort of look and felt fancy rather than just functional . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: And second , there should be some technological innovation . And then third and l less important than the other two , there should be an ease of use as well . And apparently , the fashion trends {vocalsound} are that people want sort of clothes and shoes and things with a fruit and vegetables theme . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um but um the feel of the material should be spongy , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is contrary to last year , apparently . I presume it must have been not not spongy last year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we need to emphasise the fancy design with on on our remote control above all else . And then also try and add in technological informat innovation which could be our sort of find the thing with a hand clap . And then we need to ma sort of make it easy to use that's as a third priority , so perhaps um fewer fewer buttons and functions as we've as we've discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then maybe find a way to incorporate these trends so that we sort of capture people's imaginations . So maybe we could make the buttons shaped like fruit and veg , or the the buttons could be spongy , uh somehow . Maybe we could make them out of rubber rather than sort of hard plastic . And then sort of even wackier than that , we could maybe have a fruit or vegetable shaped remote , say in the shape of a banana or something like that . {vocalsound} Right , so that'll be it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe a banana or courgette or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: How how far we actually want to go along and sort of follow the trends , do we think the trends are particularly important for this type of gadget , or or you know , do they not matter that much ? +User Interface: I think if you start making the buttons fruit shaped , it might make it more complicated to use . +Project Manager: Well you were just talking about you've got to be careful how you shape your buttons , 'cause you're can mis-direct people . And I would've thought the functionality {disfmarker} 'cause the people get cheesed off by things {disfmarker} by having to read instructions et cetera , so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: .. . +User Interface: Maybe just one button , say the standby button is quite kinda separate from all the other functions . Maybe that could be a little apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Now ? Yeah . +User Interface: And then that wouldn't get in the way of like kinda one to nine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it wouldn't confuse the numbers . +Project Manager: Stand-by button . No th that that incorporates the trend whilst at the same time not confusing people , if you're looking for functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno I I guess maybe fruit and vegetables may be popular at the moment , but as we know how fickle the fashion markets are , +Project Manager: But what are they gonna be next {disfmarker} Yeah . What are they gonna be next year . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . S +Project Manager: But but th but okay but you you can incorporate the tr If y if you change all the buttons then you've got the problem that this year's fruit and veg , next year's uh {vocalsound} I was gonna say animals or elephants or w whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Project Manager: That means you're constantly changing your production schedule , +Marketing: I'm not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you've gotta make different moulds and everything else , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so that's not a good idea I would I would suggest . +Marketing: I'm not I'm not sure what what what the sort of timescale we're thinking of selling the product over is . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I mean it just seems realistic that the remote control market isn't the kind of thing which takes in those kinds of fashion trends . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to something which is maybe more universal . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I suppose as long as it's quite a subtle design , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um even if the design kind of changes , {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c maybe can imply a fruit shape possibly . +Project Manager: Ah d d But if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the spongy feel is something we could think about , um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Maybe still with a rubber design we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Was that in the sort of fashion sense that this {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} the spongy feel was that uh sort of fashion ? It was , wasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It seems like you're gonna have rubber cases , as well as buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that you can make them curved or double-curved and that would be the kind of sleek and sexy look . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah one of the things were if you had rubber buttons then you had to have a rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um oh no no no +User Interface: Oh right , that fits , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: sorry it's if you use the uh rubber double curved case then you must use rubber buttons . That's the way round . If you have the rubber case then you have to have the rubber buttons to go with it . Which makes sense . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Rubber buttons require rubber case . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that would fit in with what we want , wouldn't it , for the spongy feel , to have everything rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh so , yeah . The m the main problem is how f how frequently do the fashions change ? 'Cause in essence in the production you want things to stay {disfmarker} you want to basically mint them out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause if you've got fashion changes and that you're incorporating , then it means that your stock is um is last year's stock +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and therefore you're selling it or having to sell it at a discounted rate which you wouldn't want to do . Whereas if you kept the product the same but you could have a difference from year to year , uh it seems to me that you could incorporate a fashion statement if you like , rather than changing the whole kit and caboodle . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: You're just changing one aspect like like the standby button or something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and especially 'cause then you could make it something that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we maybe are limited in the fact that we still have to put the logo on the actual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , you might be limited in space , that {vocalsound} yes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} would or not . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you two are obviously gonna find that out fairly quickly when you move over to your kit modelling stage as to uh how much pl how much how much how pliable is Plasticine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could think of the the cases like changing with the fashions +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like the Nokia phones where you could take the casing off the outside . But whether that would be too much to incorporate in production , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether that would just increase the costs , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: make it more complicated . +Project Manager: So you're talking there about uh changing changing the casing . +Marketing: That's possibly it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the a the actual the sort of the look from the outside , so where the buttons would stay the same , and the general function of the remote would stay the same , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could change the the way it looked . +User Interface: Yeah and then you could have {disfmarker} Oh but you still would have to have the logo on every new case , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: but you could have like pink cases for girls and red ones and things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah you you could do a colour change , so therefore you would yeah yeah {disfmarker} I mean that's effectively what they did with the with the mobile phones , was to have some in blue , some in red , some in {disfmarker} rather than all in black +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or , you know , which four do you want , as long as it's black ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But uh so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it is a possibility , um . +User Interface: But we are supposed to use the um company colour scheme , aren't we ? +Project Manager: Yes oh that's true +User Interface: We haven't really seen that yet +Industrial Designer: Oh okay yes +Project Manager: uh that might no +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that is {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might {disfmarker} and we might be able to do both but it might clash with certain things . +Project Manager: Well not necessarily , because you could have your company uh {disfmarker} We're we're meant to be finishing up . You could have your company badge and logo . I mean a lot of um computers for instance like like on the one you've got there , it actually has a sort of um stick on badge +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so what you would al all you would really need , whether it , you know , whether the casing be w any colour , could be any colour , but that badge would then have to stick out on top of it so that uh in a sense , with a with a logo like that , because it's on a white background , the only colour that it might not stick out so well on would be a white casing . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause you you know you're sort of you're badging it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact a lot of companies get somebody else to make them and literally just badge them themselves with their own uh badge over the top . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact the way they've got that there even if you had that on a white , which is the predominant colour of the uh the Windows badge , you'd still be able to see it clearly from you know a white casing uh product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: And whether we'd have a big enough market to have this kind of like secondary market of selling the cases might be something to consider . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well if it's for young people , um like the phone generation , that sort of thing'd probably go down well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and the market research has been on that side of things , hasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's people say that it's the look , they want the fancy looking thing but I'm {disfmarker} Yeah . I'm not convinced on whether having changeable covers would be something that people would buy into . I think with the mobiles , it's the , you know it's a communication device , people see you with it all about and +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: where you you keep the remote hidden under the sofa most of the time . +Marketing: i if it +Project Manager: It's uh in in the house , isn't it , I suppose . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so if we just went for one colour of a rubber case {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So don't change case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Change case colour . And we're sort of saying no to that . +User Interface: Did we decide on the rubber case ? The spongy feel , or did we think that that might go as a trend ? +Marketing: Well , it was different last year . The trend was different last year apparently . It was not not spongy feel . But {disfmarker} I don't know whether the trend will change . I don't know whether it's one of those things that like sort of having all fruit shaped keys , that that probably would go out of fashion very quickly , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: whereas just the fact that it was a rubber case is probably less less of something that y you're gonna end up hating in a year , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , less likely to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . {vocalsound} {gap} If you're going for fashion trends like that they'll need t you'd have to have interchangeable cases +Industrial Designer: So then th th that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so that you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or 'cause otherwise someone's gonna have to buy a complete new remote rather than just a case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it seems to make sense that we we'd just maybe stick with the standard rubber case , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then have the standard rubber buttons as well . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Uh we haven't really talked about uh the curvature of the case . There's flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: there's single-curved and there's double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Um . Mayb +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what these things look like . +Industrial Designer: Maybe curves give it like the slightly more aesthetic feel ? But the double curve wouldn't require us to perform miracles with the Plasticine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it says that {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you say d when you say double-curved , what what exactly does that mean ? +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure . {vocalsound} Um I'll show you the remotes that I've got . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: See how uh {disfmarker} Let's just get that bigger . See how uh the one {disfmarker} Oh I'm not plugged in , am I ? +Marketing: No you're not connected to me anymore . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That doesn't help . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One one thing to cons +User Interface: Shall I just turn it round for time ? +Project Manager: one thing to consider is that in some ways you want um {disfmarker} by having a fairly standard case it means they can all fit together on top of each other +Marketing: {gap} That should come up . +Project Manager: therefore for storage purposes in shops and the like and it makes it easier that you can {disfmarker} if you can store them up on top of each other . +Marketing: Mm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Whereas if you do um fancy things with it , you then gotta put it in a ca a a packaging box that that does that . And the cost of packaging could be quite important vis-a-vis the total cost of the product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So shall we go through quickly and just work out what we've decide on , if we have to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's not very clear up there , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but you can see some of them have got kind of bulges , like the second one and the end one uh where there's a curve there . +Project Manager: Mm yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm not exactl I don't know if a double curve is maybe it comes up slightly , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what I was trying to work out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um it is a kinda sleeker look if you've got curves in there . +Project Manager: Oh right . S so do you wanna go for curves , more curves ? +Marketing: Shall we +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: We're meant to be f we're meant to be finishing this meeting in about a minute or so . +User Interface: Definitely a single , maybe a double . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , so shall we quickly {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we go for single curve , just to compromise ? +Industrial Designer: We'll go for single curve , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Single curve . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: curved or double curved ? So it's single curved . +Industrial Designer: So did we did we decide on the kinetic power supply ? The one you move around ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I think that think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And the rubber push buttons , rubber case . +Marketing: Rubber {disfmarker} Rubber buttons and case . +User Interface: Um and we don't really know much about the colour scheme or logo yet do we , +Industrial Designer: Oh we ca +User Interface: but possibly a sticker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , we'll still have the {disfmarker} Are we gonna go for the simple circuit board just to keep the cost down ? I th I think we can by by not having anything too complicated {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and and the voice recognition , we can use that can't we , just to find it . Without affecting the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And see we could always decide against it if something comes up that's just something to {disfmarker} that we seemed to leave out . +Marketing: Okay . And then are we going for sort of one button shaped like a fruit . {vocalsound} Or veg . +User Interface: Yeah that sounds like it wouldn't do too much harm in a couple of years . Uh what sort of shape do we want ? +Project Manager: So we've got spongy feel buttons as well , have we ? +Marketing: Don't know , maybe just +Project Manager: As well as {disfmarker} or w or was that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . That's ru rubber buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: So it's rubber buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it's not really spongy feel buttons , it's just rubber buttons . With a rubber case right ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , so it's not too wacky . +Marketing: Reasonably spongy I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: And the standby button is gonna be different . +Marketing: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Um I think an apple would be a good recognisable shape . If you start getting into kinda aubergines and things , it gets a bit weird . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so what what shape are we making the standby button ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . Apple ? +Project Manager: A apple . +User Interface: Vote ? +Project Manager: Oh oh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we vote on it ? +Industrial Designer: We will go for the a a a apples apples . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Anyone got any suggestions ? +Marketing: Apple apple a a qu Quite a big one , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A big apple . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it could be red . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Could be a red apple , yeah . Either , don't mind . +Project Manager: A red apple ? Is it ? +User Interface: Yeah 'cause we wanna incorporate a bit of colour if we can , once we find out um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . And then we're gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna work on keeping the button design quite simple ? Just like the {disfmarker} Just working out what we're gonna do for the next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that seems pretty straight forward . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause most of them will just be kind of mainly circular or like very plain . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry what was that last thing again there ? +User Interface: Uh just to keep the shape of the buttons simple . +Project Manager: Right {gap} much option on that . I thought you were going for a single curve and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah just the uh shape of the buttons . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And j yeah , just keeping the sort of the labelling them labelling of them fairly simple as well . Fairly sort of self explanatory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , so shape of buttons simple . Okay . So that's that , I guess . We should now go away and get these things sorted out . {gap} I guess you two are on plasticine duty or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so um . +Industrial Designer: Is that the end ? Okay . +Marketing: Looks like it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +","Summary of Conversation: + +The project team discussed various aspects of the design for a remote control device, focusing on incorporating the company logo and color scheme, ensuring simplicity for manufacturing, and addressing customer desires for most-wanted and technical features distributed on two pages. Difficulties in sending the minutes from the last meeting were noted. + +Several power supply options were considered, including standard batteries, a dynamo system, kinetic energy, and solar cells. The industrial designer provided options for button designs (integrated pushbutton, scroll wheel) and indicated that material choice for buttons could affect the case design. For the printed circuit board, the team debated among a simple, regular, or advanced circuit board, factoring in cost and the potential inclusion of speech recognition technology. + +The user interface aspect discussed the remote's appearance as sleek and sexy, and contemplated competing with existing voice recognition technology. The marketing angle focused on aligning the product with current fashion trends, including potentially spongy material and fruit and vegetable themes without compromising functionality or ease of use. + +The consensus was to aim for a simple, cost-effective design with a kinetic power supply to avoid battery replacement, a simple circuit board to keep costs down, and rubber buttons with a rubber case for a spongy feel. They agreed on a single-curved case for aesthetics, a fruit-shaped standby button for a touch of trendiness, and to keep the shapes of the buttons simple for user-friendliness. The team also briefly discussed the practicability of interchangeable cases and incorporating the company's brand in the design. + +The meeting concluded with the decision to focus on actionable items, such as creating a single-curved case design with a specific fruit shape for the standby button and maintaining simplicity in the button design. The project manager urged the team to progress with these design elements for their next steps." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: We 're , I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor D: We 're on again ? OK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . That is really great . +Grad H: Yeah , so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form , please do so . +PhD A: That 's terrific . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Professor D: OK +Grad H: The new consent form . The new and improved consent form . +PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike , huh ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Uh . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: And uh , shall I go ahead and do some digits ? +Professor D: Uh , we were gonna do that at the end , remember ? +Grad H: OK , whatever you want . +Professor D: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent , from here on in at least , that {disfmarker} {pause} that we 'll do it at the end . +PhD B: The new consent form . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , it doesn't matter . OK . +Professor D: OK Um Well , it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go , +Postdoc F: Testing , one , two , three . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right ? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point . So , uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did . So , +Grad H: So we all forgot . +Professor D: Uh , +Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time . +Professor D: Right , s OK , so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about , research issues . Um {pause} and {pause} Uh , Adam has some short research issues . +Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues . +Professor D: Um , I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off , uh {pause} and , um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I 'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it 's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient . +PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who ? +Professor D: Uh , to uh uh , IBM . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: OK . They 're , you know {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor D: So . Um , So , uh {pause} so , I 'll go through that . Um , {pause} And , Anything else ? {pause} anyone wants to talk about ? +PhD A: What about the , um {disfmarker} your trip , yesterday ? +Professor D: No . OK . Um . Sort of off - topic I guess . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Cuz that 's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line . That 's another thing . Um , And , Anything else ? Nothing else ? Uh , there 's a {disfmarker} I mean , there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a , um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow , {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal . Um , we 'll talk {disfmarker} we 'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} +Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that ? I noticed you C C ' ed me , but I wasn't actually a recipient . I didn't quite know what to make of that . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting . OK . +Grad H: OK . +Professor D: Uh , OK . So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are , uh this list , uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items , and , other than that , anything , {pause} as usual , {pause} anything goes beyond that . OK , uh , Jane , since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours , make sure we get to it . +Postdoc F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it 's {pause} very brief , I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out . Oops . +Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different ? +PhD C: Thanks . +Postdoc F: It 's slightly different . I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same . +Grad H: OK . +PhD A: Same idea ? +Postdoc F: But , same idea . So , if you 've looked at this you 've seen it before , so {pause} Basically , {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know , uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap . It 's not indicated {pause} with , um {pause} uh , tight precision , it 's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK , so , It 's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear , versus being overlapped by others . So , I {pause} used this mark and , um {pause} and , uh {pause} uh , {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes , {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five , and a little bit . And , uh {pause} you know , minute zero , of course , is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc F: And , um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right , {pause} whether they involve two speakers , three speakers , or more than three speakers . And , {pause} um {pause} and , what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they 're distributed evenly throughout or whether they 're {pause} bursts of them . Um . And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh , you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh , this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified , {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout , rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region . The part down there , where there 's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of , um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress , {pause} uh , sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of , uh {pause} information retrieval . So it 's like , {pause} you know , rather , {pause} lively discussion there . +Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says , like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight ? +Postdoc F: Oh , th {vocalsound} {pause} That 's the per cent . +Professor D: Mmm . +Postdoc F: So , six is , uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: At the very end , this is when people were , {pause} you know , packing up to go basically , there 's {pause} this final stuff , I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell . I 'd have to look at that . But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all . And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So , i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but , um {pause} that 's kind of it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Now , {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you 're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others . And , again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting , and also there 's been no statistical testing of it all , but {pause} I , um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I , you know , my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out , um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker , who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap , I didn't look at the ones involving three or more . And , um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else , and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals , which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom , you get {pause} the totals for an individual . So , {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom , those are the , um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , but you 're o alphabetical , that 's why I 'm choosing you And then if you look across the right , {pause} then {pause} that 's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And , {pause} then if you look down in the summary table , {pause} then you see that , um {pause} th they 're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by . +Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Raw counts . +Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah +Postdoc F: Yes , very true {disfmarker} very true +Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that . Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward , uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting , {pause} uh {pause} percentages . So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke , {pause} what percentage {pause} eh , w so . Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee ? And there , it looks like you see some differences , um , {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they 're overlapped , but , of course , uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting , {pause} uh {pause} there 's no statistical testing involved , and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability . +Professor D: S so , i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something . +Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually , that would be actually statistically correct , +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: No , no , no . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: but +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . Excuse me . +Postdoc F: That 's right . And I 'm {pause} you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out , +Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it , but {disfmarker} but this +Postdoc F: now , this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} +PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves . +PhD E: He 's {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , {vocalsound} you know , it 's like {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse +Grad H: Yes , that 's right , so you don't nee OK . +Professor D: Sure . +Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it 's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know , and {disfmarker} and th here 's a case where of course , human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results , {pause} and {disfmarker} and , so , might as well do this . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first , is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data . +Postdoc F: Well , fair enough . Fair enough . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And actually , {pause} you know , the point is not about an individual , it 's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know , different styles , different speaker styles . +Professor D: Oh sure . +Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be , you know {pause} of course , {pause} there 's also the question of what type of overlap was this , and w what were they , and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and , probably more , I mean , the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh , the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking , and {pause} and you know , I mean , {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they 've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time , that {pause} that that 's {disfmarker} that 's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing , I mean , {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying . And +Grad H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Exactly ! +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly ! +PhD E: Yeah +Postdoc F: Well , there you go . Fine , that 's alright , that 's OK . And {disfmarker} and , {pause} you know , in contrast , so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen 's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types , {pause} that they 're just different styles , and it 's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps , and {pause} you know , conversational analysts also agree with that , so it 's {pause} now , universally {pause} a ag agreed with . And {disfmarker} and , als I mean , I can't say universally , but anyway , the people who used to say it was strict , {pause} um {pause} now , uh {pause} don't . I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know , uh {pause} uh , ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things . So , um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved , I have at the bottom several that I noticed . So , {pause} {vocalsound} uh , there are backchannels , like what Adam just did now and , um {pause} {vocalsound} um , anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier , and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: because we 're {pause} people who 've talked to each other , um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is , what the possibilities are and w and we 've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person 's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early . No problem . And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting , where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know , the {disfmarker} basically , {pause} you know everyone 's saying "" yes "" or {disfmarker} you know , or ev even more sp specific than that . So , uh , the point is that , um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap 's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved . And that 's all I wanted to say on that , {pause} unless people have questions . +Professor D: Well , of course th the biggest , {pause} um {pause} result here , which is one we 've {disfmarker} {pause} we 've talked about many times and isn't new to us , but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right ? {pause} that {disfmarker} that , um +PhD E: Yes , yes ! +Postdoc F: Oh , OK {disfmarker} interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: here 's a relatively short meeting , it 's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting , and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but , {pause} uh I think there 's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap ? +Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven . +Professor D: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing ? +PhD A: It 'd be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , at the bottom , you have the bottom three . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none . +PhD A: But it w +Professor D: Oh , so the bottom three did have s stuff going on ? There was speech ? +Postdoc F: Yes , uh - huh . Yeah . But just no overlaps . +Professor D: OK , so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps , versus {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly and that 's {disfmarker} that 's where Jose 's pro project comes in . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , I h I have this that infor I have th that information now . +PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: Oh , about how much is it ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps . +Professor D: O oh , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the average {pause} length ? +PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will , uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh , the different , uh {pause} the , nnn , {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps . +Professor D: You don't know ? OK , you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is ? Yeah . +PhD E: mmm , {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh , @ @ is @ @ . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: The duration is , uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh , very big on the dat +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ , {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved . +PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief +PhD E: Because , on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh , overlapped and another very very short . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i probably it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is , uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final "" S "" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the , um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , I considered {pause} that 's an overlap but it 's very short , it 's an "" X "" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably , eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh , we studied th th that zone , eh {pause} {pause} eh , we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds , but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u +PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} +Professor D: go ahead . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: You split this by minute , um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes , that counts towards both of those minutes . +Postdoc F: Yes . Mm - hmm . Actually , um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not . Uh , so {pause} le let 's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A , {pause} and then the minute boundary happens . And let 's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary , {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking , {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B , that would be a new overlap . But otherwise {pause} um , let 's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her , in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute . +PhD G: No , but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two . +Postdoc F: OK . In that case , um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't , {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam 's , uh {pause} coding of overlap yets , the coding of Yeah , "" yets "" is not a word . Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam 's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks . It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because , um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far . +Professor D: I I +Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know , {pause} second to second coding of when they occur . +Professor D: I I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused now . So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Let 's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute , {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds . +Postdoc F: Yep . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another , {pause} and it 's just {disfmarker} in each case , it 's just sort of one {pause} interval . Right ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: So , um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary . Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes , the way you have done this . +Postdoc F: No , it wouldn't . It would be considered as an overlap in the first one . +Professor D: OK , so that 's {pause} good , i I think , in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's good , yeah , cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} +PhD C: +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Statistical . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . They 're not double counted . +PhD G: Other - otherwise you 'd get double counts , here and there . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD B: Ah but , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying , uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again , I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap , I counted that as a two - person overlap , {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions , didn't happen very often , there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing . +Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps , it was because everyone was talking at once , {vocalsound} but uh apparently not . +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . That 's interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad H: That 's really neat . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , there 's a lot of backchannel , a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data . +Postdoc F: Yeah , it is . +PhD B: I think what 's really interesting though , it is {pause} before d {pause} saying "" yes , meetings have a lot of overlaps "" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party . +Postdoc F: I think so too , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations , like Switchboard , there 's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels , if you consider those overlaps ? it 's also ver it 's huge . It 's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they 've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So , the question is , you know , how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of , say the two - person type , by adding more people . to a meeting , and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be . +Professor D: Well , but see , I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more , +PhD B: So . +Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice , +PhD B: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not really {pause} "" nice "" . It depends what you 're doing . So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having , uh {disfmarker} depends what you 're doing , if {disfmarker} Right now we 're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting . So the question is , you know {disfmarker} "" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I 'm saying cuz I don't think I 'm getting it across . What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like "" nice "" because maybe that 's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise . But what I mean is {vocalsound} that , um in Switchboard , {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have , one problem that we 're not considering is overlap . And what we 're doing now is , {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task , we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we 're considering it , {pause} you know , one of them not all of them , one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least , {pause} you know I 'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which , uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible , {vocalsound} and from a single microphone . And so , {pause} in that case , it does get mixed in , {vocalsound} and it 's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it , to just do processing on one and not on the other . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it 's an issue here {pause} but it 's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone , which I think , you know , this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call . And , just the question is , {pause} y you know , in Switchboard {pause} you would think that 's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I 'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present . So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be . +Professor D: That 's an important question to ask . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: I think what I 'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I 'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard . +PhD B: Not you , me . But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but +Professor D: Were you ? +Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design . +Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it ? I mean , w w were {disfmarker} +PhD B: There {disfmarker} there 's actually to tell you the truth , the reason why it 's hard to measure is because of so , from the point of view of studying dialogue , I mean , which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on , you want to know the sequence of turns . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So what happens is if you 're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn , and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: So , for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} We know that that 's wrong in real time . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: But , because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing , people couldn't study it , but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way . So , it 's {disfmarker} um +Professor D: Yeah , I wasn't saying that . Right ? I was just saying that w now we 're looking at it . +PhD B: Well , we 've als +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but , for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't . +PhD B: Right . We 're looking at it here . +Professor D: So that 's why it 's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know , if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: Right ? {disfmarker} if it 's the null poth {comment} hypothesis , and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person , {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that . The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , all I meant is that if you 're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what 's different about a meeting , studying meetings of , say , more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: It 's important to distinguish {pause} that , you know , this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too , but we just couldn't study them . And and so uh +Professor D: May have been . May have been . Right ? +PhD B: Well , there is a high rate , +Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers . +PhD B: So . It 's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high , in fact +PhD A: Well , here I have a question . +PhD B: that would be interesting to know . +Professor D: See , I mean , i i le let me t I mean , my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody , "" what have we learned about overlaps here ? "" just never mind comparison with something else , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: what we 've learned about is overlaps in this situation , is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there 's a lot of them . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that . +Professor D: In a way , I guess what I 'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap . Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when , uh , Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before , that didn't have any overlaps , and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go , "" well , I can see why he was having such a hard time "" . +PhD B: Right . That 's also true of Switchboard . +Professor D: It 's happening a lot . +PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} +Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't . +PhD B: Right . So it 's just , um +Professor D: Right ? I was commenting about this . +PhD B: OK . All I 'm saying is that from the +Professor D: I 'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I 'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me , {vocalsound} and we sh which , {pause} you know we 're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data , But {disfmarker} Then , if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here , about , you know , the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I 'd say , "" Well , the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps "" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it 's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it 's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point , {vocalsound} but that there 's overlaps , uh throughout the thing . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Right . No , I {disfmarker} I agree with that . +Professor D: And that 's interesting . That 's all . +PhD B: I 'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +PhD B: And that 's all . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I wasn't making any statement about that . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard , which isn't exactly the same kind of context , I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth , But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person , or something like that . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , that would be good to know , +PhD A: What {disfmarker} +Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , now . +Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way . +Postdoc F: Wh - yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam . +PhD B: But yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there 's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there 's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have , simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility . When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause} "" can {disfmarker} "" you know , as adults . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , children don't adjust so well , I mean , if a truck goes rolling past , {vocalsound} adults will well , depending , but mostly , adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that , {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: And partly it 's related to rhythmic structure in conversation , so , {vocalsound} you know , you {disfmarker} you t Yeah , this is d also um , people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their , um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic , {pause} uh uh , ambient thing . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting . And {disfmarker} and , just to finish this , that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have , simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray . But I {disfmarker} you know , of certain types . Now if it 's just backchannels , {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard , {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels , in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels , which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard , {pause} uh , don't play as big a role here , because it 's very unnatural I think , to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know , in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience . +PhD B: If you can see them , actually . It 's interesting , so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right , like this here , +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them . +Professor D: u +PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but , it 's sort of odd if one person 's speaking and everybody 's listening , and it 's unusual to have everybody going "" uh - huh , uh - huh "" +Professor D: Actually , I think I 've done it {pause} a fair number of times today . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: But . +PhD B: There 's a lot of head - nodding , in this +Grad H: Um . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep , we need to put trackers on it . +PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: He could , he could . +PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} so actually , um That 's in part because the nodding , if you have visual contact , {pause} the nodding has the same function , but on the phone , in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work . So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel . +Grad H: Yeah , you don't have it . Your mike is {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , in the two - person conversations , {pause} when there 's backchannel , is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech ? +Grad H: That is an earphone , so if you just put it {pause} so it 's on your ear . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there 's a pause , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad H: There you go . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: E for example . +Grad H: Thank you . +PhD A: you know , like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel , when somebody 's pausing +PhD B: Yes . Right . +Postdoc F: She 's doing that . +PhD B: Sorry , what were you saying ? +PhD A: It 's hard to do both , huh ? Um {pause} no , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there 's backchannel , I mean , just {disfmarker} I was just listening , and {disfmarker} and when there 's two people talking and there 's backchannel it seems like , {pause} um the backchannel happens when , you know , the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: and a lot of times , the first person actually stops talking and then there 's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again , and so I 'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is . Is there a lot ? +PhD B: I think there 's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about , where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , this is called "" precision timing "" in {pause} conversation analysis , where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping , {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete . So all you 're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So technically , it 's an overlap . +PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap ? +PhD B: But {pause} you know , from information flow point of view it 's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information . +PhD E: More , yeah . +Grad H: It 'd be interesting if we could do prediction . +PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment , alignment overlap . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap , that would be really interesting . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , that 's exactly , exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: say , because there 's a lot of that . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a first interesting {pause} labeling task . Uh , to distinguish between , say , backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know , benevolent overlaps , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of , um {pause} I don't know , hostile overlaps , where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Let 's pick a different word . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Uh , that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting , um {pause} problem to look at . +PhD A: Hostile takeovers . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean you could do that . I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening , that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type . These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types , as people {pause} finishing each other 's sentences , and {pause} stuff . +PhD G: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um , I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there 's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where , and this is sort of , not {pause} really hostile , but sort of competitive , where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have , like , two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to , uh grab the next turn . +Grad H: Trying to get the floor . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: And so it 's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we 're all waiting for that person to finish . But they all want to {pause} be next . +Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are , uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor ? +Professor D: But . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , there are various things , you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida . +Grad H: It 's been studied a lot . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody 's laughing and you get a chance to g break in . +PhD G: Seniority . +Professor D: But . But . Um . You know , the other thing I was thinking was that , {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are , of course , pretty hard to answer with , uh u {pause} you know , a small amount of data . +Grad H: Ach . +Professor D: So , um {pause} I wonder if what you 're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have , um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with , uh a smaller number of people . Right ? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh , meetings currently with say five , six , seven , eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings , {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that ? +Postdoc F: That 's a control . Well , {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there , I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it 's not {pause} really , y like a meeting , w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample . It depends on what you 're after , of course , but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition , compared to , uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition , with more than two . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it 's the number {disfmarker} there 's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you 'd still have the visuals . You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say , in Switchboard data . Uh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I 'm just thinking that 'd be more like a c control condition . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , but from the acoustic point of view , it 's all good . +PhD E: Is the same . +Professor D: Yeah , acoustic is fine , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words . +PhD B: Well , I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics , on the close - talking mikes , +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report , +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc F: You 've been working on that . +PhD B: Right , I mean Adam was {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we 're done with this stuff discussing , +PhD B: right . I mean , not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean , you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology , obviously , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but you 'd get some rough statistics . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that ? Do you think that would be useful ? I 'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something . +PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was , um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings , but maybe that 's obvious , maybe everybody knew that , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there 's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap , and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned , that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn , but pretty quickly there 're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , I don't know . To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's crucial to have controls but I think it 's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can . +Grad H: Can . +PhD B: So , um {pause} you know . +Professor D: Well , {vocalsound} OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea . +PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we , um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to , um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition , {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap , when you don't have visual contact . +Grad H: Yeah , we talked about this repeatedly . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Can we actually record ? +Grad H: It just seems like that 's a very different {pause} thing than what we 're doing . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll have to set up for it . +PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Well , we 're not really set up for it {pause} to do that . But . +PhD G: Or , this is getting a little extravagant , we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove , uh {pause} visual contact . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Barriers ! +PhD B: That 's what they did on Map Task , you know , this Map Task corpus ? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it 's quite interesting . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange . +Grad H: OK , we can record , but no one can look at each other . +PhD B: Well , we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f +Grad H: Close your eyes . +Postdoc F: Blindf +PhD G: Yeah , Yeah . +Grad H: Turn off the lights . +PhD B: and we 'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds . That would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , th that was the other thing , weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings ? +Grad H: Um , what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards . rather than take pictures of the meeting . +Postdoc F: Well , linguistic {disfmarker} +Grad H: And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting . +Professor D: There 's a head nodding here vigorously , yeah . +PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting ? +PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean , transc {pause} no {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers . +PhD E: Yeah Yeah . +Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be +PhD G: Well , you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Seat number , that 's a good idea . I 'll do that . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: I 'll do that on the next set of forms . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So you 'd number them somehow . +PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge , eh {pause} uh , files . +Grad H: I finally remembered to put , uh put native language on the newer forms . +PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number ? +Grad H: No . +PhD A: OK . +Grad H: The wireless ones . And even the jacks , I mean , I 'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: But probably from these you could 've {comment} infer it . +PhD G: Yeah , but It 's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} +Grad H: It would be another task . +PhD B: It would be a research task . +Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice , so {pause} seat number would be good . +PhD A: You know where you could get it ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I 'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: That 's a good idea . +PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here . +PhD G: Not the chairs . The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable . +Grad H: But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like , {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} +PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: But you know , they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway , +PhD A: Just remembered a joke . +Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture . Posture , and we could like , {pause} you know , {pause} block out the person 's face or whatever +PhD G: What people were wearing . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD B: The fashion statement . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , you know , these are important cues , +PhD G: Oh , Andreas was {disfmarker} +PhD A: How big their heads are . +Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} +Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture , I don't know that you really get that . +PhD G: Yeah . Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again . +Professor D: Right ? You 'd want a video for that , I think . +Postdoc F: It 'd be better than nothing , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects . +PhD E: A video , yeah . +Professor D: Think so ? +Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean , if I if I 'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again . +Postdoc F: Yeah . {comment} Well , I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But it 's just , you know , the {disfmarker} the body +PhD A: He agreed . +Postdoc F: you know ? +Grad H: Of course , the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table , I find is very interesting , that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: and it 's somewhat coincidental . I 'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts , you know , catching fire or something . +PhD G: Oh , no , you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge , that 's why you 're sitting {disfmarker} +Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Take control . +Professor D: Speaking of taking control , you said you had some research to talk about . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , I 've been playing with , um uh , using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who 's speaking . So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering , that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago , and so I played with that a little bit , and {vocalsound} it works O K , {pause} except that {pause} it 's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold . So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone 's talking and when they 're not . But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker , it doesn't work anymore , even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness . +PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting ? +Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting . Um Pretty well . +PhD A: How did you do it Adam ? +Grad H: Pretty well . How did I do it ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad H: What do you mean ? +PhD A: I mean , wh what was the {disfmarker} +Grad H: The algorithm was , uh take o every frame that 's over the threshold , and then median - filter it , {vocalsound} and then look for runs . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So there was a minimum run length , +PhD A: Every frame that 's over what threshold ? +Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick . +PhD A: In terms of energy ? Ah ! +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc F: Say that again ? Frame over fres threshold . +Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame , and you compute the energy and if it 's over the threshold you set it to one , and if it 's under the threshold you set it to zero , {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones . +Postdoc F: Hmm . OK . +Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using , um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length . Uh {pause} well , actually I guess depends on what you mean by long , you know , tenth of a second sorts of numbers . Um and that 's to average out you know , pitch , you know , the pitch contours , and things like that . And then , uh looked for long runs . +Postdoc F: OK +Grad H: And that works O K , if you fil if you tune the filter parameters , if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you 're looking for your thresholds . +PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold ? +Grad H: No . I certainly could though . But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do . OK and then the other thing I did , was I took {vocalsound} Javier 's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector , and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes , and {pause} unfortunately that 's not working real well , and it looks like it 's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes , the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break . And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the , uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence . And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends . And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model . Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places . And what looks like it 's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier 's doing a really bad job . +PhD A: Who was it trained on ? +Grad H: Uh , I have no idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad H: I don't remember . Does an do you remember , Morgan , was it Broadcast News ? +Professor D: I think so , yeah . +Grad H: Um {pause} So , at any rate , my next attempt , {pause} which I 'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh , thresholding as the way of generating the candidates . Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks . All of which are definitely acoustic events . They 're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking . But , like , it could be someone who isn't the person here , but the person over there or it can be the person breathing . And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector . And so I think that might work . But , I haven't gotten very far on that . But all of this is close - talking mike , so it 's , uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth . +PhD E: Only with eh uh , but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh when {disfmarker} when , y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and , eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker . I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal . +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . +PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find , uh {pause} zone with , eh {pause} great different , eh {pause} level of energy . +Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth . not {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for , eh {pause} algorithm based on energy , {pause} eh , that um h mmm , {disfmarker} more or less , eh , like eh {pause} eh , mmm , first sound energy detector . +Grad H: Say it again ? +PhD E: eh nnn . When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of , ehm princ um . What is the {disfmarker} the name in English ? the {disfmarker} the , mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of , ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That , uh +Grad H: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you 're saying , can you try {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use , eh {pause} eh {pause} any +PhD A: I think he 's saying the onset detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Onset detector , OK . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably to work well eh , because , eh {pause} you have eh , in the mixed files a great level of energy . eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker . And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA , eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is , eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that , eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is , eh {pause} more similar . between the different eh , speaker , {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh , it will {pause} i is my opinion . +Grad H: Right . But different speakers . +PhD E: It will be , eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy . the {disfmarker} the change . I think that , um +Grad H: Ah , in the clo in the P D A , you mean ? +PhD E: In the PDA . +Grad H: Absolutely . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , no question . It 'll be much harder . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Much harder . +PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question , that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier . I think the , nnn , the , nnn , {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic , eh {pause} from , eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal . If you have , eh {vocalsound} uh , I 'm considering , only because Javier , eh {pause} only consider , eh {pause} like candidate , the , nnn , eh {pause} the silence , because it is the {disfmarker} the only model , eh {disfmarker} eh , he used that , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn , to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker , +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing , different groups , eh {pause} working , eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to , eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Yeah , when a {pause} phone changes . +PhD E: Because , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's more realistic that , uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker . Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between , eh {pause} a speaker . is {disfmarker} is , eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic , eh {pause} event , important to {disfmarker} to consider . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the , eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but , eh {pause} when you have , eh {pause} eh , two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them , eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or , mmm , BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the {disfmarker} you know , the reason that he , uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better , it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: So , he was trying to get something going , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: and , uh e e you know , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case , if you 're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal , +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Do something . +Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But , eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the , eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change , {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker , without , uh {pause} with , uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping , uh , I think like {disfmarker} like , eh {pause} eh a general , eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In a first step , I mean . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: An - and then , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector , eh . +Grad H: Right . Absolutely . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea . And if , if you do that , eh {pause} eh , with a BIC uh criterion for example , or with another kind of , eh {pause} of distance in a first step , {vocalsound} and then you , eh {pause} you get the , eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic , {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Because , eh {pause} eh , probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than , {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm , another approach like , eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene , eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that , eh {vocalsound} that , eh {pause} zone . of s a small silence between speaker , or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process , {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I think is , eh {pause} nnn , it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use , eh {pause} a neural net or another , eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class , because , in my opinion eh {pause} it 's in my opinion , {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech , I mean , if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to , eh {vocalsound} to , eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net , eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: uh With a m mixed file , +Grad H: With the what file ? +PhD A: "" Mixed "" . +PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix , mix . +Postdoc F: "" Mixed . "" +Grad H: "" Mixed ? "" +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Sorry . And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you , eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that , eh , eh , eh , speech recognizer to that signal , to the PDA , eh {pause} speech file , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do . +Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look , I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} I used to work , like , on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection , you know , and this is this {pause} kind of thing . +PhD E: Really ? Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing , and they work on it for a couple months , {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily . Then you say , "" OK , I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate . "" Then it gets really hard no matter what you do . So , the p the problem is is that if you say , "" Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here , {vocalsound} that I learn things from , either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things . You say you have looked for acoustic change . Well , what does that mean ? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: From something that you looked at . So {vocalsound} you always have this problem , you 're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data ? {vocalsound} Uh , if it 's gonna be different from old data that you have ? And I think that 's a problem {pause} with this . +Grad H: Well , also what I 'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes . What I 'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works . +PhD E: Yeah ! +PhD A: You have candidates . +PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the candidate . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: to make marking easier . Yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I 'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it . +PhD G: OK . I {disfmarker} um , I , unfortunately , have to run , +Grad H: So . +PhD G: but , um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually , not just the close - talking mike for that speaker , but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers . +Grad H: Yep . Everyone else . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else 's microphone , as well as on that , {vocalsound} and you build , um {disfmarker} basically I think you 'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations +Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} +Grad H: It 's a little big . +PhD G: It 's not that big actually , um +Grad H: Two to the N . Two to the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually , Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you 're saying , +Grad H: Anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I was just realizing , I used to know this guy who used to build , uh {vocalsound} um , mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where , you know , t in order to able to turn up the gain , you know , uh {vocalsound} as much as you can , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking , +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh , what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones . +Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who 's the loudest , and that person is certainly talking . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh , excuse me , mol overlap . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: So , not just {disfmarker} just the loudest . +PhD E: But , eh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry . I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the , {pause} eh {pause} mike , eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone , eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy . +PhD G: Sorry , I have to go . +Grad H: OK . Could you fill that out anyway ? Just , {pause} put your name in . Are y you want me to do it ? I 'll do it . +PhD A: But he 's not gonna even read that . Oh . +Grad H: I know . +PhD E: including overlap zone . including . because , eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to , eh , to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal . and then , {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in , uh , and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals . The mixed signals , eh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult , um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh , eh , overlapping zone Eh , if you process only the the energy of the , of each frame . +Professor D: Well , it 's probably harder , but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that , was that there 's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: because if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know , this doesn't cover , say , three , but if most of the overlaps , say , are two , {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there 's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And everyone else is low , yeah . +Professor D: you know , what I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: there 's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , by the way , I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things , is that we can all wear little bells on our heads , {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you 'd know that {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Ding , ding , ding , ding . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: "" Ding "" . That 's cute ! +PhD B: I think that 'd be really interesting too , with blindfolds . Then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds , +PhD B: Yeah . The question is , {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} +Grad H: "" what are you nodding about ? "" +PhD B: Well , trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without , yeah . +Grad H: "" Sorry , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just going to sleep . "" +PhD B: But then there 's just one @ @ , like . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Actually , I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who , um , was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese , and was bowing . you know , profusely . +PhD B: Oh , yeah , that 's really common . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD A: Just , kept {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Ah . +Professor D: Wow . +PhD B: It 's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you 're trying , say , to convince somebody on the phone it 's difficult not to move your hands . Not {disfmarker} You know , if you watch people they 'll actually do these things . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So . I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds , at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , maybe for part of the meeting , we don't have to do it the whole meeting . +Professor D: Yeah , I think th I think it 's a great idea . +PhD B: That could be fun . It 'll be too hard to make barriers , I was thinking because they have to go all the way +Professor D: W Yeah . +PhD B: you know , I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here . +Grad H: Well , we could just turn out the lights . +Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used , um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board . +PhD B: Y Yeah ? +Postdoc F: R really inexpensive . You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together , these are {pause} you know , pretty l large partitions . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But then we also have these mikes , is the other thing I was thinking , so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound , +Postdoc F: It 's true , it would disturb the , um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} +Grad H: The acoustics . +PhD B: um +Professor D: Blindfolds would be good . +Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} +Grad H: I think , blindfolds . +PhD B: I mean , it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's cheap and , uh Be interesting to have the camera going . +Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam 's set up the mikes , But . +Postdoc F: OK . I think we 're going to have to work on the , uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form . +PhD A: I 'll be peeking . +Grad H: Yeah , that 's right , we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: "" Do you mind being blindfolded while you 're interviewed ? "" +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's the one that we videotape . So . Um , I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along . Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is , uh @ @ {disfmarker} it 's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks , but um I wanted to get broader input on it , So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person , you know , what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on . Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh , one , uh , ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded , something like that , you know from {disfmarker} from , uh {pause} three months ago . Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM . Um , pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription , uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM , +Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet , but {disfmarker} It 's getting ready . +Professor D: But yeah , that 's why I phrased it that way , yeah OK . Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus , uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech . Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested . Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed , and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence , that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did . +Postdoc F: What was that called ? +Professor D: I {disfmarker} well , I I 'm probably saying this wrong , but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence . +Postdoc F: The , uh {pause} say again ? +Professor D: Something like that . Um {pause} so , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from , you know , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you , and you know , please mail me , you know , the corrections or suggestions for changing +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it 's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know , just im improve it . Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits . +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff for s "" OK , maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that 's a little thought through about that . +Grad H: So , {pause} OK , I 'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say "" a bunch of "" ? +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff "" , yeah , "" stuff "" is probably bad too , +Grad H: Yep . "" Stuff "" {pause} is not very technical . +Professor D: Yeah , well . +Grad H: I 'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +PhD A: Technical stuff . +Professor D: "" range of things "" , yeah . Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know , I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the , uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps . Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo , can you tell us about all the work you 've done on this project in the last , uh {pause} last three months ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um . Not really . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's too complicated . +PhD C: Um , {pause} I didn't get it . Wh - what is "" audio pixelization "" ? +Professor D: Uh , audio pix wh he did it , so why don't you explain it quickly ? +Grad H: It 's just , uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so , you know you can say things like , "" Well , this should probably not be on the record , but beep "" +PhD C: OK , OK . I got that . +Professor D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized , "" well , people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later "" , and , how do you get around that +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: so in the consent form it says , well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there 's something that you 're {pause} unhappy with , yeah . +PhD C: OK , and you can say {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh , well you have to be careful about excising it , how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we 're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it . +PhD C: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , you can either beep or it can be silence . I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide . which was the right way to do it . +PhD E: Ah , yeah . +Grad H: Beep is good auditorily , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: if someone is listening to it , there 's no mistake that it 's been beeped out , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: but for software it 's probably better for it to be silence . +PhD A: No , no . You can {disfmarker} you know , you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep , people could make a model of that beep , +Postdoc F: Hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I like that idea . +Grad H: Yep . And I use {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {pause} it 's an A below middle C beep , +PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 's very clear . Then you don't think it 's a long pause . +PhD B: Also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , it 's more obvious that there was something there than if there 's just silence . +Grad H: so +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's removing the old {pause} thing +PhD E: Yeah +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: Yea - right . Right . But I mean if you just replaced it with silence , {pause} it 's not clear whether that 's really silence or {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question . Do you do it on all channels ? +Grad H: Of course . +Postdoc F: Interesting . I like that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I like that . +Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it 's , uh {pause} audible . +Postdoc F: Very clear . Very clear . +Grad H: Uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's potentially audible , you could potentially recover it . +Professor D: Ke - keep a back door . +Postdoc F: Well , the other thing that {disfmarker} you know , I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s +Grad H: Yeah . Well , I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped . Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then , uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting . +PhD B: Notice how quiet I am . +Grad H: Sorry , and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so it 's in a private directory . +PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's great . Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: They 're easy to find , then . +Professor D: Alright , so , uh {pause} I think we should , uh {pause} uh , go on to the digits ? +Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say , which is that I think it 's nice that you 're preserving the time relations , +Grad H: OK . +Postdoc F: s so you 're {disfmarker} you 're not just cutting {disfmarker} you 're not doing scissor snips . You 're {disfmarker} you 're keeping the , uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK , good , digits . +Grad H: Yeah , since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well . Oh , I should have done that . +Postdoc F: It 's great . +Grad H: Shoot . Oh well . +PhD B: So I guess if there 's an overlap , {pause} like , if I 'm saying something that 's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped , too ? +Professor D: Yeah . Oh +Grad H: You 'll lose it . There 's no way around that . +Professor D: Yeah . Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits , I did also wanna remind people , uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me , you know , uh thoughts for an agenda , +Grad H: Agenda ? +Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that 'd be good . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor D: Eh So that , uh , people 's ideas don't get +Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week . +Professor D: yeah , well it does creep up , doesn't it ? +PhD B: And , I wanted to say , I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: It 's cool stuff , definitely . +PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: I was gonna say "" can you do that for the other meetings , +PhD B: It 's neat . +Grad H: can you do it for them ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: And , no actually , you can't . +PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that 's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like , "" Oh , OK ! "" +PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Thank you . Yeah . +Grad H: "" Ooo , cool ! "" +Postdoc F: Aw , thanks . +PhD B: How long does it {pause} take , just briefly , like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK . {pause} to label the , +Postdoc F: No . I have the script now , so , I mean , it can work off the , uh {pause} other thing , +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels , yep . +PhD B: OK . +PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first ? +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh , well , yeah . Because , uh {pause} well , I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way . +Grad H: If it works well enough . Right now it 's not . Not quite to the point where it works . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my +PhD B: It 's really neat . +Professor D: OK , go ahead +Postdoc F: Thanks . Appreciate that . I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has , uh , caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further . I 'm gonna take a look at the , uh {pause} backchannels , how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time . +PhD A: That 'd be interesting . +Grad H: Yeah , my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these , but when you wear it like that or with the uh , lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face , that 's when it starts {pause} failing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD B: Well , I can wear it , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Grad H: It doesn't matter . +PhD B: OK . +Grad H: I mean , we want it to work , +PhD A: It 's too late now . +Grad H: right ? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting . +PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so , it was just a comment on the software , not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's do digits . +Grad H: Get the bolts , "" whh whh "" +Postdoc F: Let 's do it . OK . +Grad H: OK . +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Grad H: OK , thank you . +Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they 've actually been read , or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known , so we don't do it . OK . +","The conversation is between various academics discussing their project progress and planning. They touched upon the following points: + +- Reminding participants who haven't signed consent forms to do so. +- Discussion about a new consent form which was improved with a sense of humor on not being able to walk or ride a bike. +- Clarification on whether to collect digital data during the meeting or at the end, with a decision to stay consistent and collect it at the end. +- Mention of a list Professor D has to send off to IBM and a request for agenda items from everyone for future meetings. +- Postdoc F presents an analysis on the overlap of speech in their recorded meetings and the distribution of overlaps. +- The analysis showed bursts of overlap throughout the meetings, not localized to any specific part. This was particularly intense during a lively discussion about coding sentence stress for information retrieval. +- Postdoc F also discussed individual differences in the likelihood of overlapping or being overlapped in speech, although noting this was an informal observation from one meeting without statistical testing. +- They debated whether overlaps indicate a speaker talks too much, and the cultural implications of overlaps indicating interest. +- Professor D found it interesting to show someone unfamiliar with their research the sheer number of overlaps in a short meeting duration. +- Grad H and PhD E discussed the possibility of a future study looking at the duration of speech overlaps. +- PhD G inquired about how overlaps spanning minute boundaries are counted, to which Postdoc F clarified the method used might underestimate overlaps without second-by-second coding. +- There was discussion of analyzing silence between speakers as an event. +- A reminder was given by Professor D to everyone about contributing ideas for an agenda. +- Plans for future research and methodological approaches were hinted, like studying with and without visual cues (e.g., blindfolds) and comparing meetings with different numbers of participants. + +Overall, the group discussed project-specific technical issues, including how to address privacy concerns in their recordings by potentially using sound pixelization and consent forms, effectively managing the recording of speech and overlaps for analytic purposes, and brainstorming for future research avenues." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll call this meeting to order. Welcome to the fifth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pursuant to the order passed on Monday, April20, the committee is meeting today to consider ministerial announcements, to allow members of the committee to present petitions, and to question ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, May8, Dr.AndreaMcCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will give a special recital to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Victory in Europe Day, VE Day, commemorates the formal acceptance of Germany's surrender by allied forces at the end of the Second World War. While the pandemic prevents us from gathering to celebrate in person, tomorrow at noon the voice of our nation will ring out in remembrance of this milestone in our history. Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee. I would like to remind members that, as in the House of Commons or committee, they should not take photos of their colleagues or film the proceedings. In order to facilitate the work of the interpreters and to allow the meeting to proceed smoothly, I would ask you to follow some instructions. The video conference will be interpreted as in normal meetings of committees and in the House. In the lower part of your screen, you can choose the language: floor, English or French. Please wait until I call on you by name before you begin to speak. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, or hold the space bar down while you are speaking. If you release the bar, your microphone will revert to mute, just like a walkie-talkie. Honourable members, I would like to remind you that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Please direct your remarks through the chair. Should you need to request the floor outside of your designated speaking time, you should activate your mike and state that you have a point of order. If a member of the committee wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another person, you should use the raised hand function to indicate to the chair that you wish to speak. To do this, click on the participant button at the bottom of your screen. When the list appears, you will see the raised hand option beside your name. Speak slowly and clearly at all times. When you are not speaking, leave your microphone on mute. It is highly recommended that you use a headset with a microphone. You have to remember to switch languages. Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation, please advise the chair immediately by raising a point of order, and the technical team will work on resolving them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times in order to correct a problem. I want to remind the honourable members to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. If you get accidentally disconnected, please try to rejoin the meeting with the information you used to join initially. If you are unable to rejoin, please contact our technical support team. Before we get started, please note that in the top right-hand corner of your screen is a button that you can use to change views. Speaker view allows you to focus on the person currently speaking; gallery view allows you to see a larger number of participants. You can click through the multiple pages in the gallery view to see who is on and how many more participants there are. I understand there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during the meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. In addition, to ensure a petition is considered properly presented, the certificate of the petition and each page of the petition for a petition certified in a previous Parliament should be mailed to the committee no later than 6 p.m. the day before. Now we'll go to presenting petitions. Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, five years ago when Parliament passed Bill C-14, then justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said that it represented a finely tuned balance between access and safeguards. It also included a five-year review. Petitioners on the first petition I'm presenting are very concerned to see Bill C-7 before Parliament, which removes safeguards ahead of that five-year review. Petitioners specifically mention their concerns about the removal of the mandatory 10-day reflection period, which can already be waived in certain circumstances. They are concerned about reducing the number of witnesses required to oversee it and ensure that a request has been properly made. I commend that petition to the consideration of the House. The second and final petition that I will be presenting today is with respect to Senate Bill S-204. This would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who did not consent. This responds specifically to concerns about organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China involving Falun Gong practitioners and increasing concerns that this is being or about to be applied to Uighurs as well. Canada can and should take action on this. Petitioners are noting that in the previous Parliament there were bills on this, Bill C-350 and Bill S-240. Now, in this Parliament there is a bill, Bill S-204, and the petitioners hope that this 43rd Parliament will be the one that gets it passed. +The Chair: We will go to Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's an honour. This is my first occasion to present a petition in our virtual format of the COVID-19 committee. Thank you to you and your staff, Mr. Chair, for developing a system that allows us to present petitions electronically. The petition I am presenting today, which was previously approved, is from a number of constituents who are concerned that we pursue the Paris Agreement to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5C. The Paris Agreement itself embeds in it the concept of Just Transition with a capital J and a capital T, the concept of just transition ensuring fairness and support for all workers in the fossil fuel sector. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to move forward with an act to ensure just transition and to ensure adequate funding so that workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel sector receive meaningful support to ensure security in their lives in the transition to more sustainable energy use. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. +The Chair: Those are all the petitions for today. I want to thank the honourable members for their usual collaboration and now we'll go on to +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): On a point of order, Mr. Chair, on Tuesday, at our COVID-19 committee of the whole meeting, I was asking a question which started at 12:56:06 and was cut off at 1:00:32, so I still have 34 seconds of time remaining in my question time of five minutes. You said it could be no more than five minutes but that I had up to five minutes. Thirty-four seconds leaves a lot of time to have a quick question and a quick response. If you believe that my time was unjustly cut off and that it was unfair treatment of the official opposition when we were raising our points of order, I would ask that the 34 seconds be tacked on to the opening round for the opposition and credited to Rosemarie Falk, who will be leading off for the Conservatives. +The Chair: Normally what happens is the chair uses judgment, and with 35 seconds, there isn't enough time obviously for a full question or answer, most of the time. I'll take it under advisement. I can't allot it. I want everyone to know that I do have a timer next to me and I am timing the questions, and I will be treating the answers the same way. If it's a 25-second question, it will be a 25-second answer. Thank you for bringing that up. I believe that issue has been remedied. We've taken a little bit of the chair's ability to give judgment on it, but it will be from now on. Thank you. +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, 34 seconds is a considerable amount of time to do a short question and a short answer. +The Chair: I appreciate the advice. Thank you, Mr. Bezan. We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind the honourable members that no member will be recognized for more than five minutes at a time and that members may split their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair. Ministers responding to the questions should do so by simply turning on their microphone and speaking. Our first questioner is Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday, Elizabeth May and the leader of the separatists declared oil to be dead. It's certainly not dead, but it's dying under the Trudeau government. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canada's energy workers, or does he agree with the fringe left and those who want to destroy our country? +Ms. Elizabeth May: I have a point of order. +The Chair: Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, I believe that the language that the honourable member just used is unparliamentary +Mr. Garnett Genuis: That's not a point of order. +Ms. Elizabeth May: We can have differences of opinion, but it is absolutely Some hon. members: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: unacceptable and violates my privileges to An hon member: Debate. Ms. Elizabeth May: No, it's not debate. I would ask the chair to rule on that, not the member from the Conservative Party. It is unacceptable to assert that anyone who wants to make a point about our economy is trying to destroy the country. This allegation is a violation of my privilege. An hon. member: She was also named by the +The Chair: Order. I didn't recognize anyone. I don't know who is speaking, so I'll just start talking myself. I want to remind honourable members to have respect in their questions and in their answers. When you refer to someone, please refer to them respectfully. This is a committee of the House, and I would expect no less of the honourable members. We'll go to the right honourable Prime Minister. You have 16 seconds. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As I pointed out this morning in my press conference, we cannot move forward on a transformation of our energy sector without supporting the workers in that energy sector. We need their innovation and we need their hard work if we are going to lower our emissions, if we are going to reach our +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Falk again. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, it has been 43 days since the finance minister promised Canada's energy sector liquidity through the Business Development Bank of Canada. For 43 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on that promise. These delays cost jobs and they are costing us Canadian businesses. If the government doesn't step up to support our energy sector, they are in effect doubling down on their support for foreign, unethically sourced oil. Mr. Chair, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium energy firms? +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that we do have interpreters who are listening and translating. In consideration to them, please speak at a reasonable pace so that they can understand and then translate. The right honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, our priority through this pandemic and this crisis has been to support workers across the country. We have sent billions of dollars to workers right across the country, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., and Newfoundland and Labrador in the energy sector for them to be able to support their families through this difficult time. We are also working on sectoral supports right across the country. Those will be announced in due course. Our focus from the get-go has been +The Chair: We'll move to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, another group that has been ignored by the Liberals is our farmers. The announcements to date fall well short of what is needed to maintain a steady supply of affordable and healthy food. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has asked the government for a $2.6-billion emergency fund. Instead of responding to specific COVID-19 challenges, our farmers are facing the Liberals' reannounced $125 million that was already budgeted in the AgriRecovery program. Will the Prime Minister finally step up and take our food supply chain seriously, or is agriculture just an afterthought for him? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: On the contrary, Mr. Chair, we take agriculture and our agricultural sector extremely seriously, which is why we announced hundreds of millions of dollars a couple of days ago to respond to pressing needs. We will continue to make investments to ensure both the safety of workers in our agricultural sector and the safety of our communities, as well as the continued flow of high-quality Canadian food onto our tables right across the country. Supporting the people who produce our food is a priority for this government and will continue to be. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Well, Mr. Chair, recycled program announcements do not respond to the immediate needs facing our farmers. This is absolutely unacceptable. Our farmers are faced with rising operational costs, a disrupted service industry, labour shortages and a reduced capacity at processing plants. The government has a responsibility to take domestic food security seriously. When will the Prime Minister deliver adequate support to address the critical changes facing our ag industry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I would suggest respectfully that the honourable member take a look once again at the announcement we made, which actually highlights significant new investments to support our agricultural industry. I certainly agree that there is more to do. Every step of the way in this unprecedented situation, we've been moving forward on doing more, on adjusting and on investing more. We need to support our agricultural sector and the people who work so hard to put food on Canadians' tables right across the country and we will continue to. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Mr. Chair, Canadians expect to find healthy and affordable food at their grocery stores, but if the government does not take action now, that's not a given. Our farmers are trying to keep Canadians fed while keeping their heads above water. The Liberal government's own failed federal carbon tax is weighing them down. It is an enormous hit to their bottom line, and the recent carbon tax hike is taking even more money out of the pockets of farmers at a time when they can afford it the least. Will the Prime Minister exempt all farm operations from the carbon tax and reimburse the money that they have already taken from them? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, it's a shame to hear the member opposite accidentallyunintentionally, I'm certainmislead the House and Canadians. The price on pollution actually puts more money into Canadians' pockets, and that includes farm families. People who pay the cost of the price on pollution on average receive more money back. This is the way of creating a better future for our kids and grandkids, which I know people in communities right across the country, including our farm communities, want to see happen. We are moving forward in a responsible way to put a price on pollution and put more money in average Canadians' pockets. +The Chair: We now continue with Mrs.Gill. Mrs.Gill, you have the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As you know, all sectors of the economy are fragile at the moment, specifically the fisheries. I am thinking about the lobster fishery in the Magdalen Islands, the crab fishery on the Cte-Nord or those fishing for herring in the south of the Gasp. Because imports have ceased, because the domestic market is weak and in decline because of the interruption of the tourism and restaurant industries, the fishing industry and its fishers must be supported. I would like to know what the government has done to support our fishers since the crisis began. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Our fishers do exceptional work that is extremely important in feeding Canadians and in contributing to our economic success through their exports around the world. This crisis has struck them very hard. That is why we have established measures in the tens of millions of dollars to support our processors. We have also announced help for the fishers. We know that these are difficult and unprecedented times, and we are going to +Mrs. Marilne Gill: My thanks to the Prime Minister. I am actually talking about help for the fishers. I know about the processing industry and the $62.5million to be used essentially for freezing products, but I am talking about the fishers themselves. Given the economic situation, most of our fishers are getting ready to leave. First, there are health risks. We know very well that it is impossible for them to observe all the social distancing measures. They have to incur additional expenses in order to conduct their normal fishing activities. In addition, they feel that they will be losing money, because of the drop in the price of their resource. They are just as essential as farmers, but they are going to have to work at a loss and they are not going to have workers to assist them. Workers in the seasonal industry do not know what tomorrow will bring. They do not even know whether they will be able to put food on the table next year. Are you going to do anything else, in addition to the assistance of $62.5million? Time is of the essence. Our fishers have lacked certainty for weeks and they are very concerned. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Yes, indeed, we are going to do other things. Other investments will be made in various sectors in order to support Canadians. We recognize the challenges that fishers must face in terms of social distancing and of work that is often seasonal. We are going to continue working with the industry, with the fishers, and with the coastal communities in order to ensure that people have confidence in their abilities and in their future. In times of crisis, it is important for the government to be there to support people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do. This is an unprecedented crisis, but we can see once more that Canadians are there for each other. Our government will continue to be there for the fishers and the fishing industry. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I would have preferred us to be there from the start. Clearly, this is a difficult crisis. But, given the cyclical nature of the industry, some sectors have had to postpone for several weeks the preparations they need for fishing activities. The current program could be modified in a number of ways, to accommodate the cycle, the dates, and the size of the companies. They would really like to take advantage of the $40,000loan, but they cannot because of their payroll. Given the dates, they are also ineligible for the 75%salary subsidy. I can already suggest a number of solutions to the government and to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, that would bring help to those businesses very quickly. The fishers carry on, because it is a duty for them, because they want to help us and to be part of the effort at this time of crisis. At the same time, they have no guarantee that they will be supported. I would really like to hear a guarantee that they will be supported, that they will be able to put food on the table this year, and that they will be able to support the communities that often depend on the fishing industry, a major industry in those communities. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Minister Jordan has been working with the fishers, the fishing industry and the communities affected by the crisis since the crisis began. We are assessing a number of solutions. We have proposed various solutions to support the communities, the workers and the families. This is an unprecedented situation. From the outset, our priority has been to support the millions of Canadians from coast to coast who have lost their jobs. We have been able to do so, but we are going to continue to work for those who must now face difficulties. We are going to be there for each other. That is what people are expecting from our government and from other Canadians. +The Chair: Before we move to the next question, I would like to remind members of the committee to speak slowly, and to address their remarks to the chair and not directly to each other. Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Chair, municipalities across Canada are facing a financial crisis. They've seen revenues plummet, and at the same time the cost of delivering municipal services has risen. As the Prime Minister knows, municipalities are unable to run deficits and so they are facing the reality of cutbacks and serious cuts to the services that Canadians depend on. We know that municipalities are vital during this time to provide services to Canadians. They're going to be even more important during the recovery, especially when it comes to delivering on the infrastructure programs before us. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and mayors across Canada have called for emergency financial relief for the municipal sector. My question for the Prime Minister is, when can they expect federal financial support to arrive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, no government in Canada's history has done more to work with our municipalities, with our cities, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to respond to the challenges they're facing and to partner with them. Things from infrastructure to investments have made a huge difference right across the country in the quality of life of Canadians in towns, large and small, from coast to coast to coast. As I'm sure the member well knows, our Constitution requires that most of the funding for municipalities flow through the provinces. We are working with the provinces, as we continue to work with the cities, to ensure that we're able to support this order of government that delivers the vast majority of services to Canadians with very little financial means. We know how difficult it is for our cities. We will continue +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, it would seem that the federal government has the fiscal capacity and the responsibility to help municipalities weather this crisis. Transit systems have been hit particularly hard and have seen the bulk of the layoffs in the municipal sector. These transit services carry essential workers to work, whether they are health care workers, grocery store workers, janitors or others. The risk is that we will see higher fares to deal with this financial crisis. We will see service cutbacks precisely at a time when we want to be expanding transit and improving transit in our communities. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the federal government needs to step in to safeguard and protect Canada's transit services? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this federal government recognizes how important it is to support all Canadians, which is why we put forward unprecedented measures to help millions upon millions of Canadians with the CERB and with the wage subsidy. We will continue to work with the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the municipalities. I'll be having a conversation with all other first ministers tonight to talk about a broad range of issues. I can highlight that the issue of transit funding has come up. We have continued to engage with them, but again, it is important to respect the Constitution and understand that funding for municipalities and cities does go through the provinces. The federal government is happy to be there to support, but it must be +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Bachrach again. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I am wondering how the Prime Minister could explain to a bus driver in Vancouver who has been laid off that as a public sector worker, she can't access the federal wage subsidy, while an equivalent worker in the airline industry gets to keep her job with the federal help of that program. Could the Prime Minister explain how that is fair? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I'm happy to explain to the member and to all Canadians that our Constitution creates federal areas of jurisdiction and provincial areas of jurisdiction. The airline industry, like banking, like telecommunications, is a federal area of jurisdiction that we have been able to move forward on. More than that, we brought the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy to all industries across this country, because we knew that as the federal government, it was something that we needed to step up on +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Mr. Chair, I'd like to shift gears a little bit. Faced with minimal health care capacity, remote indigenous communities in my riding are taking matters into their own hands. The Nuxalk have put up a checkpoint on Highway 20 to protect community members and prevent non-essential travel. In particular, it is to protect the three remaining fluent speakers of the Nuxalk language, these cherished elders in their community. The Haida on Haida Gwaii have set up a similar checkpoint, as have communities throughout British Columbia, yet federal support for indigenous communities amounts to only $39 million for all of the indigenous communities in B.C. Does the Prime Minister not agree that more support is warranted to help indigenous communities in my riding and across the country? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the very beginning, we made funds available to Canadians right across the country, particularly people in indigenous remote or northern communities who we knew would be facing more difficult challenges because of the existing vulnerabilities in their health care system and socio-economic circumstances. We have made unprecedented investments and we will continue to make the necessary investments, because we need to make sure that indigenous Canadians, and indeed all Canadians, have the supports they need to make it through this crisis. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Berthold. Mr.Berthold, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. I am going to keep talking about the area of jurisdiction that the Prime Minister likes to talk about, except that I want to point out the incompetence of the Liberals in keeping their commitments on infrastructure projects. My question is very simple. As the provinces gradually restart their economies, can the Prime Minister tell us how many projects that the provinces have submitted are waiting for approval from his government? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I hope that the length of the pause will not be taken out of my time. +The Chair: No, I stopped the clock for your time. Ms.McKenna, you have the floor. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): I'm sorry, Mr.Chair, I was on mute. I'm very pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. I have spoken with all of my provincial and territorial counterparts over the last couple of weeks. Work on our historic infrastructure program is progressing well. My department has worked very hard to approve projects, and we will continue to do so. It is very important to build projects that will create good jobs +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We still haven't had a response. How many projects are currently awaiting government approval? I know that the minister has been meeting virtually with the provinces over the last few days. However, there are still hundreds of projects waiting for approval from the Liberal government. Rather than wait for the right political opportunity to approve these files, will the minister commit today to respecting the provinces and approving by next week all the projects that are sitting on her desk? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased with how we are working with the provinces and territories. We are approving projects. If the hon. member speaks to the provinces and territories, he will see how well we are working together. We will announce the approval of projects because it's very important for our economy, our communities and creating good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Does the minister understand that she hasn't told us how many projects are still pending? The construction season is very short. Approval of a project in July means that work can't begin until next year, which won't help revive our economy. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: I want to make it clear that we have approved hundreds of projects in the last few weeks. We will work with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement these projects. These projects are important for the economy and the environment, as well as for jobs +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, while the minister is calling for a green recovery of the country's economy, public transit is at risk. Physical distancing measures will cause public transit use to drop for several months. The Union des municipalits du Qubec estimates that the monthly losses are between $75million and $100million. Other countries have included public transit in pandemic relief programs. Why isn't Canada? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, we recognize the importance of public transit for our economy, since some essential workers use public transit. We are working very closely with our counterparts and are listening to the municipalities. As the Prime Minister said, it's the provinces that must help because the money +The Chair: We return now to Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, once again, what we're hearing is that the government is passing the buck to the provinces. Unfortunately, the minister was unable to answer a single question about the number of infrastructure projects still on the federal government's desk, which is very important. Several large municipalities are waiting for the approval of projects. Moreover, public transit systems are facing an extremely serious financial crisis. Ridership in most systems is down 85%to90%. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is asking for help for small communities, as well as large municipalities. Why is the federal government ignoring the municipalities in the Canadian Federation of Municipalities at this time? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I can reassure the hon. member that we are working very closely with the municipalities. We are listening to the municipalities to find out what their issues are and how we can support them. Of course, we need the help of the provinces and territories. In terms of the number of projects that we've approved, I would be happy to inform the hon. member of the exact number of all the approved projects that my department has been working very hard on over the past few months to approve projects to go forward. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, do I have any time left? +The Chair: No, your time is up. We'll now go on to Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. On March 28, the minister personally tweeted out a thank you to the People's Republic of China for donating PPE to Canada. This tweet happened within three hours of China's announcement of that gift. As it turned out, much of the PPE was defective and could not be used. More recently, Taiwan donated half a million surgical masks to Canada, yet here we are, two weeks later, and the minister has yet to personally thank Taiwan for its generosity. Will the minister now thank this free and democratic country for its generous gift to Canadians? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Indeed, we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada. This is a global pandemic that knows no borders. We have been expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed. We will continue to do so. It is important in a time of pandemic, Mr. Chair, that we not play politics and that humanity comes together. I can say, after my COVID foreign ministers call, that the world community has come together to make sure that supply chains will remain intact and that we will have transit hubs and air bridges. We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health. This is a public good. We want to work together with everyone. +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Fast now. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, I didn't hear a thank you there, so I'm going to try again. On May 4, the Government of Taiwan delivered 25,000 surgical masks to the Government of British Columbia. On hand were B.C. Minister of Citizens' Services Anne Kang and Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen, who, as ministers, officially thanked the Government of Taiwan for its donation. Again, will the minister now do the right thing and, on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, as I said to you before, Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada. This is a common endeavour. We are thankful. We are grateful to every nation and we will continue to be. As I said, when it comes to global health, when it comes to helping each other, I think it is a duty for all to come together. We are grateful and thankful for all those who have agreed to help Canada and Canadians from coast to coast to coast in times of need. I've repeated that and have said many times in many forums that we are grateful and thankful to all of those who are helping Canada. +Hon. Ed Fast: Well, Mr. Chair, again there was no specific thank you to Taiwan. The Government of Taiwan has been the world leader in successfully fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot to learn from them and their response. Sadly, the People's Republic of China continues to oppose Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization. Will the minister now do the right thing and assure Canadians that he will fully support efforts to grant Taiwan membership in the World Health Organization? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member. As a former trade minister, he's very well aware of Canada's one China policy. That said, we support Taiwan to continue meaningful participation in international multilateral forums, particularly when it comes to health. This is a global good, and we want to support every nation. We recognize that Taiwan and others have been doing very well in fighting this pandemic. We also believe that Taiwan's role as an observer in the World Health Assembly meeting is of interest to the international health community and we have been supportive of that. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I'm going to pivot to repatriation flights. The minister has publicly said that over 20,000 stranded Canadians have been repatriated from abroad. Can he tell us exactly how many Canadians remain abroad who have expressed a desire to be repatriated? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: Yes, Mr. Chair, I am very happy to update members. As of today, we have repatriated more than 20,000 Canadians on 232 flights from 87 countries. I would say that this is team Canada, and it knows no parties. Many members have written to me to make sure that we take care. It's not an exact science. We have, as I said, repatriated thousands and thousands. We continue, because we know there are still pockets of Canadian travellers who are stranded abroad. As the Prime Minister and I have said from the beginning, we will make our best effort to repatriate everyone who wants to come back home during the crisis. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Moore now. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canadians need to have faith in their justice system, even in a time of crisis. My office has received correspondence from Canadians concerned that trial delays due to COVID-19 may result in criminals walking free. As this government has been working overtime to criminalize law-abiding citizens with new and useless gun laws, will the Minister of Justice ensure that real criminals will not walk free as a result of delays in the justice system? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We have been working with my provincial counterparts across Canada, as well as with the various federal courts and also, through my provincial counterparts, with the superior courts and courts of appeal across Canada. Each particular jurisdiction has taken measures to ensure that basic essential services within the court system are maintained, through a variety of means, and we believe that we will be able to solve these various challenges. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, the regional relief and recovery fund was announced weeks ago as a way to help small and medium-sized businesses in rural communities, like those in my riding. In Atlantic Canada, these funds were to be distributed to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. This is yet another announcement with no details from this Liberal government. Can the minister clarify whether we are days away or weeks away from this support flowing to the businesses that need it so desperately? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I had the chance to talk with many of the chambers of commerce and business owners throughout Atlantic Canada, and we hear their anxiety. That's why ACOA's doing great work on the ground to make sure we can help them through this very difficult period. The member is right. We have increased the budget of ACOAgood newsand I'll be coming up with the details very soon. It will be a pleasure to collaborate with him to make sure that we can help many businesses and business owners across the Atlantic region. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, my office has heard from many small business owners who have reached out to me. I know many have reached out to many of my colleagues and probably to all of us here today. They are frustrated by the eligibility requirements for some of the federal programs. In particular, they are unable to access the emergency business account, because they do not have a payroll. This could be the hair salon in my riding that subcontracts out its chairs. There are hundreds and thousands of small businesses in this very situation, vital small businesses in our communities, but they do not meet this requirement. These businesses, many of them, are weeks away from shutting down permanently. What does the Minister of Finance have to say to these small businesses that are suffering right now? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for that really important question. I want all the businesses that he is talking about and all of them throughout the country to know that we continue to work very hard to make sure they're supported through this difficult period. More work needs to be done, and we will continue to do that work. We know that businesses are being supported through getting access to the wage subsidy to keep their employees together, and they're getting help, whether it's with rent or to defray costs by deferring GST and HST or customs duty payments. We're going to continue to work with all our businesses across the country. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Moore for a brief question. You have less than 20 seconds, please. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, it's a very specific issue. There are small businesses, thousands of them, that do not have a payroll. Some have a personal account that they've dealt with over the years rather than a business account, and that makes them ineligible. These businesses need help right now. +Hon. Mary Ng: I agree with the honourable member. Those businesses absolutely need support from us. We are going to keep working to ensure they are supported. +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Cumming next. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses are concerned about their ability to survive, and no amount of deferrals, loans or subsidies can substitute for their need to be open and servicing their customers. Can the government confirm that a sectoral risk analysis has taken place to assist the provinces in reopening the economy? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we've been very clear in terms of our strategy around reopening the economy. We need to make sure that we follow the advice of the experts and the health authorities to do so in a manner that does not compromise the health and well-being of Canadians. We of course will have a sectoral lens, and as you can see by some of the initiatives and the support packages we've put forward +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Cumming now. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, thousands of business owners make a living and utilize dividends as their salary. They also use independent contractors. Can the government confirm that the programs currently in place will be expanded to these hard-working Canadians? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we continue to work with all of our small businesses and I want to thank him for raising this very important issue. I want to assure our Canadian small businesses that we are going to continue to do this work to make sure they are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a date when she will be able to announce to these businesses that they will be eligible? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure our Canadian small businesses of their importance and of the importance of their contributions to all of our communities. I want them to know that we continue to listen and that we will ensure that they are supported and continue to be supported during this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: Minister, they need more than assurance. Can you give me a date when I can tell these thousands of businesses they will be supported if they pay dividends or if they use contractors within their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these businesses are absolutely important and are getting support through a range of means. We will continue to work with these businesses to make sure they are supported through this difficult period. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, I spoke to a Second Cup owner whose landlord is not offering any kind of rent relief. The landlord says that he doesn't have the 25% needed to be eligible for the program because he's already paying for common area costs and deferrals on utilities, which he will have to pay on his mortgage. Will the government reform the rent relief program to focus on tenants and not just the landlords? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, I want to let the member know that we are working to make sure that the details of the emergency program for rent are out there so that both tenants and landlords can understand the situation. We're seeing a significant number of both landlords and tenants coming forward to register for this program, and we are convinced that it will be in the best interests of landlords to move forward and give tenants this relief. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, we've been hearing, however, from small business owners that their landlords don't find the government's rent relief program appealing enough. Can the government confirm, given the program's low eligibility rate, that the program will be expanded and be more efficient in helping tenants? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we recognize that it's critically important that all of the details of this program be out there for landlords and tenants to understand. Those details are being worked on right now. This is a program that we've put out within the last week, and we are confident that it's in the best interests of tenants and landlords. +Mr. James Cumming: Mr. Chair, during these trying times for small businesses, small businesses need all the help they can get. One easy way to do that would be to expand the Canada summer jobs program to businesses with over 50 employees. Will the government consider doing so to allow students to gain that very valuable work experience over the coming months? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, we are very excited about the uptake of the Canada summer jobs program this year. The second uptake provided employers across the country with the ability to add their needs for students to the mix. I'm looking forward to announcing a possible expansion of this program in the coming days. +The Chair: The next question session will go to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall (SimcoeGrey, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. During this pandemic, the government has consistently called for a team Canada, non-partisan approach, and I was glad to hear that said a little earlier today. In fact, the public has called for that approach as well. However, at the same time, the current government has used a parliamentary back door to launch a poorly thought out gun ban. We have a government that didn't win the popular vote, and I'm just wondering how I explain to my residents, because I'm getting so many calls, that this is not a bloated response because, quite frankly, it is. +Hon. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): First of all, Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member can explain to his constituents that the forming of regulations through order in council is actually the process prescribed in law in Canada under section 117.15 of the Criminal Code. I would also invite the member to advise his constituents that way back in 1991, when there were some Conservatives who called themselves Progressive, the Mulroney government brought forward, in Bill C-17, the authority under that section for an order in council to prescribe specific makes, models and variants of military firearms as prohibited or restricted. The Harper government used the same tool +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, that I'll get an honest answer on this question from the minister, who has everything from rocket launchers to basically toy guns on the ban list. When will we get the cost of this buyback program? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to please be careful in their language when they are referring to others. I won't comment on this one particularly, but I want all of you to be very, very careful when referring to other members. The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Blair: It's a good opportunity, Mr. Chair, to respond to some of the obfuscations and deceptions that have been put out there. We're not banning any toys and we're not banning shotguns. That's all misinformation that's being put out. I think it's very clear, and I invite the member to look at the list of weapons that are +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Dowdall. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Thank you. What will be the cost of the buyback program, please? +Hon. Bill Blair: Actually, I'm very much looking forward to bringing forward legislation as soon as the House resumes. We will have a vigorous debate in Parliament about the form a buyback will take and we will bring forward a budget at that time. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Will those with illegal weapons be eligible for the buyback program? +Hon. Bill Blair: If people are illegally in possession of the weapons and they're committing a crime, they will be dealt with for the crimes they commit. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay. I'm going to switch it over. Canadians in my riding who suffer from cystic fibrosis are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. While these Canadians with existing lung conditions are incredibly worried about a virus that attacks the ability to breathe, the good news is that there are life-saving medicines for those with CF. The problem is with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and its restrictive guidelines. I am wondering if and when the government will correct these guidelines and give access to life-saving medicines for our most vulnerable. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, as you know, the government has been very committed to improving access and affordability for prescription medications for all Canadians. The PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians be able to afford their prescriptions, and Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower medicine prices gained access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada frame, or even faster, so we are excited to do this work. +Mr. Terry Dowdall: Mr. Chair, our seniors are being particularly hard hit right now during this pandemic, yet seniors have not been given any direct support. It's one of the number one calls I'm getting in my office. Funding to charities like the United Way is being labelled as support for seniors, but most won't see any of this support. Seniors in my riding have asked for an increase in their CPP and OAS, and to be able to make untaxed bulk withdrawals from their RRSPs while they still have some value. Can the minister confirm when these real and direct supports for seniors will be forthcoming? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. He mentioned . I'm not quite sure what's happening with my machine. I apologize. +The Chair: You might want to try your space bar and keep it down while you're speaking. That might solve the problem. +Hon. Deb Schulte: Okay, I'll try that. Thank you very much. I want to assure the honourable member and Canadians that our government has been working extremely hard on how best to support and serve seniors during this pandemic. We have introduced a supplementary GST payment for low- and modest-income seniors. We've reduced the minimum RRIF withdrawal by 25%, and we've made the CERB available to working seniors who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic. We know there's more work to do, and we'll have more to say in the future. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that if there are issues, we are taking note of them, and we'll hopefully resolve them by the next meeting. We are getting much better, and we're all new at this. Thank you for your patience. We'll now go to Ms.Gaudreau. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My first question is for the Prime Minister. We've heard a lot about contact tracing apps. Several provinces have already made announcements on this, and others want to follow suit. Today, I'd like to know where the government stands on this. We've been talking about a national strategy for some time. Where are we now? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, contact tracing is an important part of managing any outbreak. In fact, we have been looking at a number of ways to support increased contact tracing across the country, including working with provinces and territories to boost their capacity through human resources and volunteer organizations. We are working very closely with them to make sure we have the capacity. The member is right that many other countries have used digital contact tracing apps. Anything we put forward as a digital tool to assist with contact tracing would be thoroughly considerate of Canadians' privacy rights. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Let me clarify my question a little. Yes, we are talking about public health, and we are currently experiencing a crisis. But you know as well as I do that the Privacy Commissioner has been calling us to task for a very long time now, because there is also a crisis of confidence. You know as well as I do that for 90%of Canadians, the misuse of their personal data is a cause for concern, whether it be for profiling or business development purposes. This is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The commissioner is indeed calling for a focus on reform of the Privacy Act. I'd like to know whether this commitment will be implemented quickly so that legislation can be passed on this issue, in this case the Privacy Act. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Particular attention must be paid to transparency, privacy and ethical concerns. Naturally, Canadians are concerned about how their data is used. New technologies are subject to the Privacy Act. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: We're talking about public health. The provinces are currently in the process of legislating. We're talking about what is going on in Quebec, among other places, and I would like to make sure that the federal government commits to respecting the proposals regarding geolocation and contact tracing possibilities, with full respect for the right to privacy. Can we commit to respecting the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have worked very closely with provinces and territories for a long time before the outbreak, but certainly ever since the outbreak. We respect the rights of jurisdictional authorities to use tools that have been properly vetted through their own provincial and territorial legislation. Nothing we would ever do at the federal level would put Canadians' privacy in jeopardy. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau: Concerning privacy, there are 30million Quebeckers and Canadians who have had their personal data leaked. Why is it that our laws don't allow us to apply financial penalties so that we can then go further? The very basis is to be concerned about our fundamental rights. The commissioner has been making this request for several years now. As the critic for access to information and privacy, I'd like a commitment that the federal government will deal not with what the provinces are doing, but with the Privacy Act. +The Chair: Your time is up, but I'll give the floor to the minister for 30seconds. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you for the question. Our government will ensure the privacy of Canadians is respected, support responsible innovation and take reasonable steps to strengthen enforcement powers. That's why we created a digital charter. We are strengthening Canada's privacy laws in response to the digital age. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Baker. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Malpeque. Mr. Chair, my question is for the Minister of Seniors. Minister, in my riding of Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 40 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville long-term care centre. Over 143 residents and 88 staff members have now tested positive for the virus. This tragedy is not only taking place in Etobicoke Centre but across Canada. Of all Canadians who have died from COVID-19, 79% were living in long-term care homes. That's over 2,000 seniors. This is a catastrophe, and it's frankly unacceptable. Our seniors and their families deserve better. I understand that long-term care homes fall within the jurisdiction of provincial governments in Canada, but this is a crisis. What is the federal government doing right now to help protect our seniors who are living in long-term care homes from COVID-19? What will we do to reform our long-term care homes in the future to ensure that our seniors in Etobicoke Centre and across Canada get the care they deserve? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague from Etobicoke Centre for his very thoughtful question. We are deeply concerned by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, and our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one. It's a very difficult time. As my colleague mentioned, while these facilities are regulated by provinces and territories, we have been focused on protecting the health and safety of long-term care residents and staff while working with our partners in a team Canada approach. We've released guidelines to prevent and control COVID-19 infections. We're working with the provinces and territories to cost-share a temporary salary top-up for long-term care workers. We are working through investing $2 billion to secure personal protective equipment for the health of workers, including those in the long-term care homes, and we've deployed the Canadian Armed Forces to assist 25 long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario. We all have a role to play to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect our seniors and caregivers. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Easter. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the finance committee, we've heard a lot of concerns from all sectors of the economy as a result of COVID-19 and we've been presented with quite a number of possible solutions as well, several of which the government has acted upon. My question is on the support offered to the agri-food sector announced on Tuesday. It is very welcome support, but I sincerely believe the farm sector will be taking the Prime Minister up on the suggestion that $250 million should be seen as an initial investment. Potatoes are the number one commodity in Prince Edward Island. However, as a result of reduced processor contracts for next year, plus cancelled seed contracts, millions of dollars of seed and process potatoes have no home. To make matters worse, farmers have high fixed costs that they now have to spread over fewer acres. How does the minister see Tuesday's announcement addressing potato farmers' concerns? Second, in 2013, long-term financial safety nets were gutted by the Harper government. Will the minister be coming forward with improved business risk management programs as a result? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Easter, the member for the riding of Malpeque on Prince Edward Island. It's a beautiful rural riding with lots of agricultural production. I want to recognize the hard work of farmers throughout the crisis. On Tuesday, I was proud to announce one more step for supporting our producers and processors. We know the importance of our potato farmers, and that's why we are launching a first-ever surplus food purchase program, a $50-million fund designed to help redistribute existing inventories, such as potatoes, to local food organizations. On the financial safety net that we have in place for our farmers, called the business risk management program, we announced up to $125 million in funding through AgriRecovery and made changes to AgriStability that will help producers quickly. I will continue to discuss with my provincial counterparts toenhance and improve the BRM programs. In the meantime, I want to reiterate that BRM programs, including AgriInvest, are there to help farmers in difficult times. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Johns now. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, small businesses across Canada closed their doors to stop the spread and for public health. Now they're currently hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for financial help. Robyn, who has owned Arbutus Health in Tofino for over 13 years, can't apply for the Canada emergency business account loan, simply because she doesn't have a payroll of over $20,000. All of her practitioners are paid contractors, so she is ineligible. With no business income and without emergency financing, it is virtually impossible for her to pay her bills or come up with the 25% needed for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. The government promised to be flexible and willing to adjust its COVID response rollout so that nobody falls through the cracks, but Robyn, like tens of thousands of proprietors who are the economic job creators of our communities, urgently needs the government's help now. Will the government amend its programs to help more business owners so that people like Robyn don't lose their businesses? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his really good question. I know he and I have talked about this, and I appreciate the input and the feedback that he is providing from business directly. I want to assure Robyn and her businesses, and many businesses across the country, that we are absolutely listening, and we will continue to make sure we are supporting those businesses during this period. We know that many businesses are being helped through the Canada emergency business account. There are well over 550,000 businesses that are getting support through this emergency business account. We also know that more has to be done, and we will continue to work with you and businesses across the country so that we can indeed give them that necessary support to weather this difficult period of COVID-19. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, that's not going to help Robyn feel comfort. I was talking to Heather last night, who also owns a business in Tofino, Basic Goodness Pizzeria, with her partner Marco. Like many proprietors of family businesses who aren't on payroll, they don't qualify for the business loans. They don't qualify for the wage subsidy because they're a seasonal business. Now with the new rollout of the rent support, they're not sure if their landlord is willing to play ball and even apply. That's three separate programs that leave them out. Heather was in tears last night as she told me that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being excluded from these emergency programs. I agree. Will the government fix the rent support program so that tenants can apply, instead of leaving it up to landlords, and so businesses can get the help they desperately need? +Hon. Mona Fortier (OttawaVanier, Lib.): Mr. Chair, we've been working on this program since the beginning. We've been working on offering a response for small businesses and charities and non-profit organizations, and we are continuing to listen on the ground to how we can better assist the businesses that fall through the cracks. We will continue to do that as we go along in this emergency situation. Thank you very much to the honourable member for sharing the realities of his constituents. +Mr. Gord Johns: Mr. Chair, when the government rolled out its commercial rent support program, why didn't it negotiate an eviction moratorium with the provinces, as Australia and other countries did, to protect business owners? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as we know, Canadians are taking action and fighting against COVID-19. We know that many small businesses are worried about being able to pay rent. We've recognized it and we've been working with the provinces and territories to implement the Canada emergency commercial rent +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Johns. +Mr. Gord Johns: To qualify for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, a 30% drop in revenue has to be shown. Anyone who's owned a business knows that even with this program, it's going to be hard to survive. Why is the government using a 70% measurement drop to qualify for the rent support program, but a 30% drop for the wage subsidy? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for sharing his views on this program. We've been working with provinces and territories to provide forgivable loans to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rents for their tenants by 75%. We're hoping that tenants and landlords will be working together so we can support businesses during this very difficult crisis. +The Chair: Before we move on to the next question, Mr.Berthold, did you have a question or a point of order? +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. I checked the clock from the first round of five minutes, and as you may recall, it took a very long time for me to get an answer from the government. I went back and forth with MinisterMcKenna for four minutes and 14seconds. +The Chair: Just a moment. The interpretation isn't coming through. It's working now. Go ahead, Mr.Berthold. +Mr. Luc Berthold: I'll start over. During my first turn, it took 50seconds before a government minister deigned to answer my questions. After checking my time, I realized that the discussion between Ms.McKenna and I went on for four minutes and 14seconds, so I wasn't able to ask the minister one final question, a very important one. I would ask you to take that into account and allow me to ask MinisterMcKenna one last question, please. +The Chair: The person chairing the meeting uses their judgment and does their best to keep an eye on what's going on. They try to be as fair as possible. I'll try to do a better job. I think it's more or less equal for all the members, but I apologize if the honourable member feels that he was denied a few seconds. Our next question goes to Mr. Doherty. +Mr. Todd Doherty (CaribooPrince George, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Canada-U.S. border agreement is set to expire on May 20. Will the two governments renew the current agreement, or will it be modified? +Hon. Bill Blair: The decision to close the border was made in Canada by Canadians in the best interest of Canadians. We're continuing to monitor the situation carefully. +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government be in a position to inform Canadians of any changes to the agreement? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'm pleased to advise the member that we're continuing to monitor the situation, but I'm strongly of the opinion that the circumstances on both sides of our border do not indicate that this is the right time to make a change in the restrictions. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the government confirm whether there are any discussions about reopening the border to certain modes of transportation and restricting others? +The Chair: Before I go to the minister, I want to remind the honourable members that we do have translators, and they are trying to translate. With respect to them, I know we're trying to get as many questions in as possible, but they do have to translate them, so please be considerate of our interpreters. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Let me please inform the honourable member that we are, of course, aware that the current agreement expires. I had a long conversation yesterday with the Prime Minister +Mr. Todd Doherty: When will the government announce a relief package for Canada's aviation industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: We are engaged with the industry, and we are working with them on a solution, Mr. Chair. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, will this relief package include funding for airline ticket refunds similar to what other countries around the world have done? Yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: It's early to say anything at this moment. We're taking a sectoral approach. This is about making sure that we restart the economy and have a strong recovery. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the Minister of Transport confirm that temperature screening is taking place at Canadian airports. Yes or no? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that Air Canada has now adopted a policy of checking temperatures for passengers boarding Air Canada flights. +Mr. Todd Doherty: At which airports is that, and when did this practice start? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the announcement was made recently by Air Canada. It will start shortly and will apply to all places and destinations where Air Canada flies. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, this is for the Minister of Transport. Last week I asked the Minister of Labour if they were aware of a letter written on April 6 by CUPE to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Minister, were you aware of that letter? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I didn't understand the reference to a letter from CUPE. Could my colleague please clarify? +Mr. Todd Doherty: On April 6, CUPE wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of that letter? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, could my colleague clarify what CUPE is referring to? +Mr. Todd Doherty: CUPE is the labour organization that represents thousands of flight attendants across our country. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I do understand. Yes, I will confirm that CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, did write to us. Before that I had conversations with CUPE with respect to flight attendants and the use of personal protective equipment. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Can the minister confirm whether or not they have provided PPE to the flight attendants and/or training for front-line staff for airlines and airports? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, the airlines are providing PPE to flight attendants and flight crews. This has become a policy to ensure the safety not only of passengers on board but also of the flight attendants and flight crew. +Mr. Todd Doherty: Mr. Chair, a business owner from Quesnel wrote to my office recently. He stated that he couldn't give his small business tenants a break on rent because the government is penalizing him for paying off his mortgage. When will the government change the CECRA rules to help more businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, as you know, we laid out the CECRA program just last week, and we are encouraging landlords to take that opportunity to support the renters. We will continue to look at how we can provide some relief to small businesses with rents. +Mr. Todd Doherty: With all due respect, Mr. Chair, any landlord who does not have a mortgage on their business is ineligible for CECRA. Is the minister aware of this, and are they trying to revise the CECRA program? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with provinces and territories to present that program. Of course, we will continue to monitor how this program works for landlords and tenants. We are asking, actually encouraging, landlords to do their part and help tenants, like the one you mentioned, go through this. +The Chair: We'll go to the next questioner. Go ahead, Ms. Dancho. +Ms. Raquel Dancho (KildonanSt. Paul, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Small businesses in Manitoba employ 73% of Manitobans. That's over 286,000 Manitobans. I've been speaking with many small business owners in my riding. It's been heartbreaking, frankly, to hear that everything they've built and sacrificed for is in serious jeopardy, and through no fault of their own. Your government has created programs that are supposed to help them, but many legitimate businesses aren't able to apply. That could mean bankruptcy and cost thousands of Manitobans jobs. This is wrong. I'm hoping to hear specifics, not just nice words, on what you're going to do to help them. There are three issues regarding access to the $40,000 CEBA loan. First, businesses that recently incorporatedfor example, in late 2019are unable to apply their entire 2019 payroll. As a result, many are falling short of the $20,000 payroll threshold required to qualify for this loan. Second, many businesses contract their employees rather than have them on payroll. They also are unable to qualify for this loan. Third, many businesses use personal rather than business banking accounts. They aren't able to qualify for this loan either. What is your government going to do about these three scenarios? +The Chair: I just want to remind honourable members to place their questions through the Chair and not directly to the minister. As well, please take into consideration the interpreters, who have to listen and translate, so that we can have this conversation. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for that question. Right from the very beginning, we've always said that we will listen and that we will work to make sure that measures go out to help our Canadian small businesses. She's absolutely right: 98% of all our businesses in this country are small businesses, so they absolutely contribute enormously to our communities and are job creators. That is why we have put out significant measures. For the Canada emergency business account, over 550,000 small businesses have been approved and are getting that support. I absolutely acknowledge that there is more work to do. I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do this work so that businesses, all businesses, are supported, whether it is helping keep your employees together, helping with rent support, helping to keep your business's expenses low, or of course helping with the capital that is needed so that you can pay your operating expenses and your bills through this difficult time. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, I didn't hear any answers from the minister's remarks, unfortunately. Moving on, there are two issues regarding the 50% commercial rent assistance subsidy, where landlords pay 25%, the government pays 50%, and the tenant is responsible for 25%. First, many of the small landlords aren't able to take a 25% hit to their income, and are unable to provide the subsidy to their tenants. Second, with the 70% decline in revenue threshold for small businesses to even be eligible for the rent assist, many restaurants are at 65% or 67% decline. They desperately need this subsidy but aren't able to qualify. This is not about problems with the program details. What is the government planning to do to streamline this program for small businesses that can't access but desperately need the rent subsidy? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr. Chair, as the Minister of Official Languages, I just want to raise the fact that interpretation is very complicated right now. In order to make sure that we can continue to uphold bilingualism within the House, I would love it if my colleagues could take down the pace a bit. That would help the interpreters a whole lot. They are working very hard and trying to keep up. +The Chair: That's a reasonable request. I just want to remind everyone again that when you're asking a question, make sure you are doing it at a pace at which you're considering the people who are interpreting +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, this is how fast I speak when we're in the House of Commons. It's just how I talk. +The Chair: I understand. I have a lot of friends who speak very quickly. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Right. I understand. Perhaps we could get back to my question about the rent subsidy. +The Chair: We stopped the time. You're not losing any time on this one. +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Okay. I will try to speak more slowly. +The Chair: I appreciate it. Thank you. The interpreters appreciate it. Now we'll go to the minister, please. +Hon. Mona Fortier: As you know, we've been working with the provinces and territories to provide this forgivable loan to commercial property owners, who in turn lower the rent of their tenants by 75%. We will continue to monitor how this program is delivered, as we announced it last week. It will be offered pretty soon. It will be very important that we understand what happens across the country, and we will monitor and adapt the program as we +Ms. Raquel Dancho: Mr. Chair, it has been in the media quite a bit that this rent subsidy is not helping many, many, many small business owners. It's falling short of everything that was announced, so I think it needs to be taken a bit more seriously than that. There are two issues regarding the 75% wage subsidy. First, employers who pay themselves and their employees dividends rather than wages are unable to qualify. Second, there is also a 30% threshold revenue decline needed in order to apply. Many of the businesses in my riding are at 27% or 29%. They desperately need these funds but are unable to qualify. What is the government planning to do for these small businesses? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Again, thank you to the hon. member for sharing the realities she's hearing from small business owners. We are providing help and support for businesses through these very difficult times. The wage subsidy has been taken up and is working for many businesses. We know that some still fall through the cracks and we will look at how we can continue to support businesses across the country. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends (BrossardSaint-Lambert, Lib.)): We are now going to Mr. Kevin Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. Three weeks ago, on April 17, the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced funding of $500 million to assist Canada's arts, sports and cultural sectors. We are still waiting to hear who is eligible and when they can expect to receive this funding. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Madam Chair, we will be releasing the details of that announcement, and how the money is going to be spent, in the coming days. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: We all know that many media organizations, large and small, in Canada are struggling right now. Allegations have arisen that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, is currently engaging in predatory behaviour and taking advantage of the current situation to harm its competitors using rate cuts. We've seen this from the province of Quebec. Many journalists have talked about this. What is the government going to do to address these allegations against the CBC? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have not been informed of these allegations. We will look into this, and we will get back to the hon. colleague if we do find any valuable information. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Local community and ethnic media outlets and papers have strong ties to their communities that often go much deeper than the major media outlets. Is the government currently using any local or ethnic media outlets to provide crucial coronavirus information through advertising? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague. We need to get the information to Canadians on COVID-19, which is why we have started an ad-buy campaign of $30 million, which is being distributed in more than 900 local, regional and national newspapers across the country and 500 radio and TV stations in 12 different languages, including Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian and many more. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Mr. Minister, I talked to the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. It has received two ads from an ad agency in connection with the $30 million the government is doling out to help media outlets. They had one ad on March 27. The second ad was on April 11. That is two ads in the Winnipeg Free Press in the last eight weeks. Is this the kind of money you're attempting to dole out to help media: two ads in eight weeks? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Madam Chair, we have been doing a number of things for our media in Canada over the last few months and will continue to do so. On top of that $30 million ad-buy campaign, we have been investing $50 million in local journalism. Just this year, it means that 200 journalists will be hired in areas across the country where journalism is more poorly defined. The federal government has paid part I licence fees of our broadcasters to the CRTC. That means $30 million is staying in the pockets of our broadcasters. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week, as the minister would know, 15 community newspapers, including eight in Manitoba and seven in the province of Ontario, closed their doors for good. Is the government currently planning any further measures aimed at assisting community or ethnic media organizations? We understand that many more will close their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: We are planning a number of other measures, some of which will be included in the $500 million. I will be announcing the details of that in the coming days. Of the $595 million that the media will receive, we have a tax credit that has now entered into force, and the cheques should be in the mail by the end of the summer. So there are a number of things we've done and a number of things we will be doing in the coming months as well. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. Waugh, you may have a short question. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, finally, you have the five members associated with that committee to dole out the $595 million. They haven't even met yet. When will they meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I would like to remind my hon. colleague that in order for us to provide tax breaks for the 2019 period, media outlets had to file their tax returns so we could go ahead. This will now be able to proceed, Madam Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We now move on to Mr.Godin. Mr.Godin, you may go ahead. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. This being the first time I've had the floor during a virtual sitting of Parliament, I'd like to take this opportunity to greet my fellow members, all 259participants. I hope they are taking care of themselves. I'd like to talk about the Prime Minister's appearance on the show Tout le monde en parle. This is what he had to say about his economic recovery plan: We are going to remain focused on the economy as a wholeinnovationresearch and science, the green economy and a fairer economyThere are things we are all reflecting on right now that reflection is going to continue. That was a weak answer. It didn't inspire much confidence. Can the government assure Canadians that it is being proactive and working on a plan to get the economy moving again? It must act now. Things are starting to reopen gradually. Is the government going to take concrete action to revive the economy? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Yes, absolutely. Our government is wholly committed to restarting the economy, and we are working closely with the provinces to do just that. Last week, our government, together with the provincial and territorial premiers, released the principles that will guide efforts to restore economic activity across the country. That is key. The discussion between the Prime Minister and the premiers is continuing today. +Mr. Jol Godin: MadamChair, before we go any further, since it took a while for the minister, or the government, to answer the question, can I have that time back to ask questions? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I stopped the clock, Mr.Godin. +Mr. Jol Godin: Thank you. The Prime Minister's answer during his appearance on Tout le monde en parle didn't inspire much confidence and doesn't line up with the Deputy Prime Minister's comments. How can the government be proud of announcing $252million in assistance for the agri-food sector, when that is less than 1% of all the program funding the government has committed to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 crisis? Clearly, the government doesn't see the food supply chain as a priority and has no regard for farmers and pork and beef producers. Does the government realize that eating is vital to Canadians? When is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food going to adjust the program and show respect for Canadian farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I have the utmost respect for farmers. We are going step by step. We've already confirmed various supports for the agricultural sector. This week, we focused on beef and pork producers and processors, as well as sectors with product surpluses that can be redirected to food banks. I can assure my fellow member that this is an additional step and that more supports are on the way in the weeks ahead. Bear in mind that a number of programs are already available to farmers. +Mr. Jol Godin: I'd like to switch topics now. PortneufJacques-Cartier is home to a company that is already licensed by Health Canada and that, for 20years, has been manufacturing medical equipment including masks, face shields and thermometers. This is equipment our health workers need. The company has a licence from the federal government. In mid-March, Health Canada reached out to the company to find out how much equipment it could manufacture to help fight COVID-19. The company confirmed that it could immediately start producing 200,000masks a week, ramping up to a million masks over the next few weeks. Forty-five days later, it is still waiting on its first order from the Canadian government. We are managing a crisis with a limited supply of medical equipment. Can the health minister tell us why, 45days later, this company licensed by Health Canada hasn't received an order? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Thank you for the question. Industry and suppliers have enthusiastically answered our call to equip Canada with products and goods during the crisis. Many of those suppliers have already received contracts. We have reached out to all the others and will negotiate contracts as needed. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): I would now like to invite hon. member Jenica Atwin to speak. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. Seniors living alone are most at risk of economic insecurity, particularly single senior women, as gender inequality in the job market has translated all too often into inadequate retirement income. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a poverty reduction plan that addresses the unique challenges faced by older women? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to assure the member that we are quite aware that this pandemic has typically affected single seniors, and many of those, given that they live longer, are single senior women. I want to assure her that we are working on this issue, and we have provided some supports already through measures such as the GST supplementary payment. That is on average almost $400 for single seniors. There's more work to do. We know that, so stay tuned. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, older women represent a high proportion of residents in long-term care facilities. Having spent their lives caring for parents, children and often their partners, they find themselves needing care in nursing homes. Multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Canada have highlighted systemic gaps that senior and elderly women may face in such facilities, as well as the working conditions of the female-dominated ranks of nurses and personal support workers. Madam Chair, can the minister commit to implementing a federal strategy for long-term care homes that recognizes quality of life for residents and working conditions for the employees, ideally one that goes hand in hand with a poverty reduction plan and enhanced home and community care investments across the country? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I do want to thank the hon. member for her question. It's an important one. We are obviously deeply saddened by the outbreaks that have been going on in long-term care facilities and those who have lost their lives. We do recognize that the administration of long-term care and palliative care is the responsibility of provinces and territories; however, we have been taking a team Canada approach, and as you already know, we've been doing tremendous work with them to try to ensure that those who live in those facilities can be well cared for and safe. We are doing that with guidelines +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Ms. Atwin has the floor. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, from May 4 to May 10, we are observing Mental Health Week. We know that our essential workers right now are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety, on top of putting their own physical safety and health on the line. Most of these workers work in precarious jobs with no access to paid sick leave or vacation, and without any benefits to access mental health services. Apart from the very welcome investments in online resources, can the minister explain how the government will support these workers now and once the crisis is behind us? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, thank you very much to the member for the question. I'm so glad that she's raising the issue of mental health and in particular how poor mental health is oftentimes connected to our socio-economic status. I appreciate the nuance in that question. She's right. We do have new resources that are available to all Canadians free of charge through the Wellness Together portal, but there is more to do. I think the announcement of top-up wages, for example, which the Prime Minister spoke about today, is another example of how we're taking the health and wellness of all low-income Canadians very seriously. We know that mental health is not divorced from socio-economic status, and I look forward to working with her more on other measures that we can take together. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Madam Chair, we're all very aware of the importance of temporary foreign workers and their role in ensuring our food sovereignty across this country. The pandemic has highlighted how we depend on their work. How are we protecting them? Madam Chair, will the government take action to strengthen legislation and ensure Canadians have access to the food they need while the workers who help bring it to our tables have safe working conditions, regardless of where they are working in this country? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Thank you, Madam Chair. We are very concerned, as are countries around the world, that we support and create the environment for the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers and we value their contribution to our food supply chain here in Canada. We have issued guidelines to employers and are working very closely with local public health authorities in the provinces and territories to make sure workers are protected, that physical distancing and other recommendations are adhered to and that there are severe consequences if employers don't take care of their workers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): We are now going to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is this: Will the Liberal government prevent federal bailout funds from going to companies that use tax havens and avoid paying their fair share here in Canada, yes or no? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): We are working to make sure that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules faces serious consequences. We are asking businesses to designate a representative to attest their claims. Any employer receiving the subsidy who is deemed ineligible will have to repay the full amount. Anyone who abuses the program could face fines of up to 225% of the subsidy amount as well as five years in prison. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, I didn't really hear a yes to that question, so I'll repeat it. Does the government really think it's appropriate for tax-avoiding corporations to receive funding provided for by taxpayers? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: We will keep going after companies that engage in tax evasion. I want to be clear. We will target those who are responsible, not innocent workers. An employee is an employee, regardless of who they work for. The wage subsidy program does not hand a blank cheque over to employers. It is meant to help Canadians pay their bills, keep their jobs and get through the crisis. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, the agriculture funding announced by the government earlier this week amounts to less than 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates will be required to help farmers weather this crisis. Why has the Minister of Agriculture shortchanged our farmers? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, this is one more step. This was one more step. We have already committed significant support to our farmers through different programs, and we will do more. I have to remind my colleague that we have put in $5 billion through FCC, $50 million for the temporary foreign workers, two times $50 million for pork and beef producers this week, and $77 million for food processing. This is only the beginning, and we should not forget that the business risk management programs are still there to offer support. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Yes, Madam Chair, but we're nearly two months into this pandemic and this announcement only came this week. Farmers need certainty. When can farmers expect further updates on funding, and how much will the government be providing? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, we are working closely with the farmers and their representatives to identify where the gaps are, but once again, we have made improvements to the AgriStability program. They can get, depending on the province, either 50% or 75% in advance payments, and they can also, right now, access their AgriInvest program. There is more than $2 billion ready to access today, if they have +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mends): Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, federal disability recipients and seniors on fixed incomes have been hardest hit by cost of living increases from COVID-19. If we acknowledge that $2,000 per month is the minimum needed to get through this time, why are they being asked to survive on far less? When can they expect assistance, and how much will they receive? +Hon. Deb Schulte: Madam Chair, I want to make sure people realize that we have provided some assistance through the GST supplementary benefit. We are also providing support to those who are still working, and we have done that by allowing them to access the CERB. There is more work to be done, so you'll be hearing more in the near future. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Madam Chair, as I think we've heard through today's question period, there are countless example of this government designing programs to exclude many small businesses that desperately need help. Whether it's the payroll requirements or other eligibility, we still, to this day, almost two months into the pandemic, have too many small businesses falling through the cracks. Madam Chair, why has the government taken this approach and when can we finally expect fixes to the whole system? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, right from the get-go, we have been committed to making sure that Canadians are helped through this crisis, and that small businesses get the support that they need, so that we are saving businesses and jobs in this country. That is what we have done with many of our programs. You're seeing that we are also listening, so that we can modify them as we need. I want to assure the member that the work is not done. We continue to do this. +The Chair: Thank you. It is now over to Mr.Perron. Mr.Perron, you may go ahead. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question will come as no surprise, since it has to do with agriculture. I hear the questions my fellow members are asking, and to be frank, I don't find the answers satisfactory. It is well and good to talk about existing programs, but they aren't working, so enough with that refrain. That's what people are telling us. It's not just members of the opposition saying it. This morning, both farmers and processors came together for a press conference at the Union des producteurs agricoles's head office in Longueuil. Six stakeholders from different sectors sounded the alarm. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food therefore tell us when she will announce significant supports for the industry? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We have already announced significant amounts of support, and more is on the way. I'd like to correct my fellow member. It's not that the programs aren't working; it's that they aren't generous enough in farmers' eyes. That's why I'm working with my provincial counterparts to make improvements to programming, including AgriStability. Here's an example. After using the online AgriStability benefit estimator, a pork producer found out that he would get $11 per head, as they say in the industry. Pork producers are calling for $20 per head, so it's a good start, even though it's not enough and it isn't what they are asking for. We want to keep working together, but farmers have to access the money available to them through AgriStability. +Mr. Yves Perron: Now it's my turn to correct the minister. Even before the crisis, we were hearing from people in the industry that the programs were neither suitable nor sufficient. We are in a crisis, and this is an exceptional situation. In the case of mad cow disease, farmers received direct assistance. That's the kind of assistance we are calling for. We don't want to hear about growing levels of debt. Of course, this is a first step, but farms are already deep in debt. A few days ago, the government announced $50million in funding for pork producers, even though they are asking for $20per hog for 27million hogs. The government's support covers just 2.5million hogs. When I call the measure insufficient, I mean it is grossly insufficient. It's high time the government put forth more support. It has to stop saying that it's working hard and examining the situation. The government has to listen to the people in the industry. Again, this morning, they had some interesting proposals. When is the government going to announce a whole lot more in funding support? What's been announced so far is only 10% of what farmers are asking for. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are going step by step. The programs are already in place. We are trying to make them better, and we are committed to doing that. These programs are cost-shared with the provinces. However, I would point out to the member that, when it comes to AgriRecovery, we made an exception to the rule. We are moving forward in every province to help pork and beef producers. That's two funding envelopes of $50million each to help cover the additional costs from the decrease in plant processing capacity. That's new money that was not yet available, money we introduced this week. As the Prime Minister said, we are going to do more, and we are moving forward step by step. +Mr. Yves Perron: What we concluded in committee this week is that the $125million is not new money. It was already earmarked for the programs. The government can't say that programs already exist and, at the same time, claim that they are new programs. Something doesn't add up there. What's more, there are different ways to make money available. I'd like to talk compensation. Everyone knows that the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement came into force a month earlier than planned, despite the promises that had been made. That resulted in additional losses, once again. An easy way to make money available without committing new spending is to provide compensation and announce programs for supply-managed sectors that got nothing. It seems to me that a time of crisis is a time for the government to practise some judo and announce measures. I am reaching out to the government, as I always do, but it has to come forward with announcements. Can we expect the government to announce measures in the coming days? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our commitment to farmers in supply-managed sectorsmeaning, egg, poultry and dairy farmersis as strong as it always was. I repeat, our commitment is clear. Dairy producers received their first payment at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. Support for poultry and egg farmers is in the form of investment programs, which aligns well with the recovery. At this time, we are focusing on emergency programs to help farmers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When it comes to the dairy sector, I hope I can count on your support. As you know, legislative changes are needed to grant the Canadian Dairy Commission's request and increase its borrowing limit by $200million so it can buy more butter and cheese. +The Chair: Our next question will go to Mr. Lake. +Hon. Mike Lake (EdmontonWetaskiwin, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're all inundated, as we've heard during this entire question period, with Canadians' concerns about the economic restrictions and the social restrictions that they're under. Over the last couple of months, the WHO has given one very consistent message in terms of coming out of those economic and social restrictions. On March 16, Dr. Tedros said in his briefing, We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. On March 25, 44 days ago, he said, Aggressive measures to find, isolate, test, treat and trace are not only the best and fastest way out of extreme social and economic restrictionstheyre also the best way to prevent them. Does the minister agree with the WHO that relentless testing and tracing are critical to a successful economic and social relaunch strategy in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thanks to the member for the very astute observation and question. Absolutely, we agree that testing and contact tracing will form an important part of our response to living with COVID. We've been investing heavily in ensuring that we have the lab capacity, the collaboration across provinces and territories, and the variety of testing options to help us increase our capacity to test. We are aiming right now for a high volume of tests, but I will also say that in Canada we have one of the highest testing rates in the world. Although we're doing well, I can assure him that I am with him and I believe we need to do more. +Hon. Mike Lake: I have some really quick questions for follow-up. First, what is Canada's current testing capability? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to his colleagues yesterday, we have currently the capacity to do approximately 60,000 tests per day across the country. +Hon. Mike Lake: How many tests were conducted each day on average in Canada last week? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's hard for me to get that exact number, but I will get back to him with the exact number. +Hon. Mike Lake: I'll save you the time. The exact number was 28,851, on average, every day last week. That's a gap of 30,000 from what your stated testing capability is. I'll give another quote from Dr. Tam, back on April 22, 15 days ago. She said, As a first tranche, roughly close to 60,000 is where the provinces can potentially expand to as a target already. Does the minister happen to know, ballpark, what the average number of daily tests in Canada has been since that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Your estimate was slightly higher than what my estimate was going to be, so that's a great piece of news. Listen, I will just say that I think if the premise here is that we could be doing more testing. I would agree, but I will also say that the provinces and territories are working incredibly hard on testing strategies that meet their own specific needs. I'm happy to have a conversation with the member later about that testing strategy. Dr. Tam works with all the chief public health officers across the country to ensure that their testing strategy is going to be applicable and appropriate for their particular jurisdictions. We, as the federal government, provide the capacity for them to conduct those tests. +Hon. Mike Lake: Following up on that, is there a jurisdiction in Canada where relentless testing is not the appropriate strategy as provinces consider relaunching? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Each province and territory has its own outbreak and its own epidemic. For example, in British Columbia, where there are relatively fewer cases in general and less disease activity, they may have a different testing strategy than a province like Ontario, which is currently struggling with more outbreaks. +Hon. Mike Lake: Given your comment that our current testing capability is 60,000, and acknowledging that only at one point in the entire history of our COVID response, over several months, has our weekly average been over 30,000it was about 31,000 for one day on a rolling basisMinister, are you satisfied with our current testing amounts right now, given that we're testing 50% of what the public health officer advises would be best? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I'm so amazed by the work the provinces and territories have done in a very short time to increase their capacity. We are supporting them with the tools that they need to get more testing done, but also to have other components in place that will allow them to do the rapid tracing of positive cases. I think it's very important to remember that testing strategies will be different across the provinces, based on the outbreak disease epidemiology. Having said that, I know that we can all do better, and I'm certain that my counterparts feel the same. +The Chair: I'm going to have to cut the minister off at that one. I want to thank everyone for the session today, I think it went rather well. I'm very proud of you and proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish. The committee stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 12, at noon. +","The Chair of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hon. Anthony Rota, convened the meeting and outlined the day's agenda, which included ministerial announcements, the presentation of petitions, and questioning ministers and the Prime Minister regarding COVID-19. The Chair explained procedural guidelines for the video conference, emphasizing the importance of language channel selection for speaking in either English or French and reminding members not to take photos or film proceedings. Members presented petitions on topics such as Bill C-7, organ harvesting in China, just transition, and the Paris Agreement. Discussions were raised concerning the delay in credit options for the energy sector and the need for further agricultural support. The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and other ministers addressed various questions, including those about assistance for farmers, sectors affected by COVID-19, municipal financial relief, and the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB). Additional topics included the upcoming 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day and the impact of the pandemic on celebrations, the importance of supporting workers in the energy sector, the threat to Canadian food supply chain, agriculture as an afterthought, the role of Taiwan in the World Health Organization, and repatriation flights. The ministers' responses reiterated the ongoing support for workers and Canadians facing economic challenges due to the pandemic." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the second meeting of this uh design group . Um {vocalsound} I'll briefly go through the uh notes of the of the last meeting uh just done in in note form and I haven't attributed anything to individuals , because we're working strictly as a team here and uh n nobody's working equally , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: so uh . Um we we s we saw that the the problems with existing remote controls were the uh b a boring shape and boring colour . Um and and we s we saw that the um what we needed to do was to to make sure the device um controls several items , that switching was easy , that you shouldn't need to point the thing at uh anything in particular , um that it need to be contoured to make it interesting , that the keys might be concave , simply because that hasn't been done before that we know of . Um should have interchangeable fascias so people can personalise it , um illuminated so that people can see it in dark rooms . Um and that people might want it as as {disfmarker} in addition to their existing remote controls . Um {vocalsound} and that it sh it should just always work , whenever you uh um mm uh use it . And that it shouldn't be too small , mm that it it gets lost . Um . {gap} Now uh uh I'll shortly ask for for three three presentations . Uh before I do that , however , I will go through some new project requirements that um {disfmarker} the the management have placed on us and uh will be challenging in terms of what we discussed at the first meeting . Um the uh the ma the management has had it's own thoughts on this and uh the they don't necessarily agree with with what we uh we thought . Um and and then we'll {disfmarker} as a result of that we will then talk through the the functions that we see the the device um actually b carrying out , and we have uh forty minutes to do this in and I uh {disfmarker} Anyway . Okay . Now , the n the new requirements are um the the management team see that um teletext is no longer of any importance given the uh the rise of the internet . Um and and they want it only to cover televisions . Um now , what is not q quite clear from their directive is whether they mean th they don't want it to cover teletext or whether they don't want it to cover , you know , videos , D_V_D_s , um satellite boxes , which uh {disfmarker} I mean we saw as being fundamental to the uh to the exercise . The um the actual wording of the directive is that it should cover television only . Um and on that basis um I I think we we need to bear that in mind , um but possibly uh keep at the backs of our minds that the reality that people even when they uh no longer {disfmarker} they don't look at teletext anymore , they certainly do look at other things . Um {vocalsound} the device has to incorporate the company logo and colours . Um the the logo uh being at b the bottom of the screen there , the the the two R_s in grey against uh a yellow background . Um now this doesn't {vocalsound} necessarily mean that we have to give up some of our ideas about making it attractive to the t to the market . But uh do do introduce some some constraints as to how we might do that . Um it also has to be simple , which to some extent goes along w with the first one , and that {disfmarker} we've already said that it must be simple 'cause that's what people want anyway . Um but they also want it to be simple to get it to the market quickly , which um mm {vocalsound} uh is is is their choice , but uh um we we need to talk that through . Um okay , so uh after the meeting it'll be summarised and uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um notes sent out and uh etcetera . Okay , so {vocalsound} we'll first of all mm have individual reports from everybody . Um again I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there is no order of precedence here um so I I I'll leave it up to you to {disfmarker} who who who thinks they would like to go go first ? +Marketing: Uh I don't mind . {gap} +Project Manager: P fine . +Marketing: Uh can I steal the cable ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry , you can indeed . +Marketing: Cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got a {disfmarker} how do I start there ? +Project Manager: Oh , if you click on the um uh the one that that looks like a projection screen , no the one to the right of that . That one . +Marketing: That one . Cool . Well these are functionality requirements from the {disfmarker} our our guys down in the the research lab . Took hundred people and covered all the aspects of what um is needed by people and what they want to see . Um {vocalsound} everything kinda from functionality and how individual functions are {disfmarker} how mu how how often they're used and how much their necessary and stuff . And general opinions about current current remotes . See that , as we kinda noticed , seventy five percent of people find their remote controls ugly . So some kind of a new style should be incorporated that's less ugly {vocalsound} . Uh along with um looking less ugly , if it looks better , eighty percent of people said they'd spend more money on it . Which is a a plus for us , if we can make it look better , it'd be uh more cost effective and we can put the price up . Current remote controls do not match the operating behaviour of the user . I can empl I kinda take that to mean as um {vocalsound} they they don't uh {disfmarker} they , yeah , they only use {disfmarker} they only work for the television or yeah like as in in my flat I've got six remote controls for a stereo system , a digital box , a D_V_D_ player , a video player and T_V_ . If it was uh {disfmarker} I mean th my behaviour is to use multiple things at the same time and multiple remotes aren't really matched well to my behaviour . {vocalsound} Uh again , seventy five percent is {disfmarker} seventy five percent of users say they zap a lot . I took to mean that they just {disfmarker} they use it a lot , they use it regularly rather than standing up and manually change channels or volume {gap} . {vocalsound} And uh yeah , uh I think the big issue is fifty percent users only use ten percent of the buttons , 'cause uh wh if we got a remote that like {disfmarker} well we'll have some buttons taken off by the lack of teletext , but uh oh and we're going to see uh on the {disfmarker} uh that some of the functions like audio settings aren't h hardly ever used and used very {disfmarker} aren't considered relevant by the user . So I think maybe fewer buttons , which also make the design look sleeker , I dunno . Uh um yeah and uh frustrations of like people losing remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I dunno maybe some kind of system of you press a button on the T_V_ or maybe that's b it would have to incorporate {gap} , but like some kind of system where you can f use something else to find the remote control . Maybe like it'll beep or something . And um , yep , the uh time taken to learn new remote controls is {disfmarker} Uh don't want to make it too complicated , easy to use for uh new {disfmarker} like first time users and stuff . And uh repetitive strain injury , I suppose we should make it more comfortable and make ma possibly even use {disfmarker} have to make it , yeah , fewer buttons , like I was saying about the whole mice {disfmarker} the mouse idea of it feels more comfortable . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Maybe don't even have to hold it as such . +Project Manager: Gosh , must be some telly addicts out there if they get R_S_I_ from their television remote , is all I can say . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh yeah . It also asked um if we would {disfmarker} if people would pay more for speech recognition +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: and younger people say they would . And uh there was another section on our {disfmarker} on the report for uh L_C_D_ displays , but the data wasn't there , so . I don't actually know what the results for that were , +Project Manager: Mm . Right . Mm . +Marketing: so . {vocalsound} May be incrementally emitting , but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I must say that um the uh {disfmarker} I c can't remember what {vocalsound} um f you know phone service I was using the other day , but that had sorta speech recognition which worked uh remarkably well , so that is indeed a uh um a thought +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it would cut out the R_S_I_ as well if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it it cuts out uh {disfmarker} I was was gonna say , you can't get a lot of R_S_I_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: j just get jaw ache . Okay , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , um {disfmarker} oh yeah , so possibly the speech recognition is possibly something could add into the design . Oh , I've got some other things I couldn't fit onto this presentation . Um . You see this okay ? Almost {disfmarker} no ? It's {disfmarker} sorry it's a bit {gap} . I'll read out to you . Uh functionality , uh like people's opinions on functionality , the relevance to the remote and how often they're used . So um like the power . Using the using the d swi the power switch to switch on T_V_ is a high relevance of nine , but it's not frequently used . You see what I mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whereas channel selection , which is very high relevance +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is used the most . So m we can maybe even start to cut down on {disfmarker} or I was possibly even thinking of a design that maybe some of the buttons are hidden from everyday use . Maybe like uh a folding ledge or something . So that we can maybe go into the channel settings and the audio settings , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: which are low relevance +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: and rarely used . And keep the v volume selection and channel selection very easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be {disfmarker} oh uh I was just gonna say uh maybe like the flip phones that they use ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Have you seen the new mo mobile phones +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: that flip out and they have the like texting , and then the numbers on one side , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: so +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: you could have the most {vocalsound} used buttons on top and flip it out or something . +Project Manager: Hmm , hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , like the one that like slides back +Project Manager: Uh . Should we actually bite the bullet here ? +Marketing: and the buttons are concealed underneath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: If people really don't use those buttons to any extent at all um {vocalsound} remove them altogether . +Marketing: Just remove them completely ? +Project Manager: We we could actually have we could actually have a remote control with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That might be the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I wonder whether we could get the remote control with no buttons at all if we went for voice recognition , given that um the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um now the the age structure we were looking at {disfmarker} um I mean w we had usage by age structure , what we didn't have was what proportion of people using remotes were in those particular age groups . Now do we know whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Forty {disfmarker} no sorry {disfmarker} for forty five to fifty five age group , uh to put myself right in the middle of it , um u use remote controls to a great extent . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um no this is for {disfmarker} pay more for speech recognition . +Project Manager: That would 've speech recogn right . So , we're looking at {disfmarker} um well again , we don't know the relative proportion {disfmarker} the relative numbers in the age groups . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: If we wanted something different , truly different , then the buttonless remote control w would be it . +Industrial Designer: P Well the only problem I can think of with that is if you've got a lot of people that don't wanna be bothered learning how to use new rem remote controls . If you just kind of take away everything that they're used to knowing , that's gonna be quite a change . +Project Manager: But if you just lift it up and say , channel one or B_B_C_ {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or even {disfmarker} I mean you could even just have it left on . +User Interface: Maybe i +Marketing: You could just put it down once on top your T_V_ and never have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , have a big kind of like the satellite box or the cable box +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and have it just go on the T_V_ and then it doesn't matter where in the room you are , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you won't lose it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It c well it {disfmarker} I can I can see technical problems with that in terms of the , you know , the sound from the television , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: because if somebody actually on the television says uh uh , you know , I_T_V_ and you're watching B_B_C_ then then it might um change itself , +Marketing: {vocalsound} B_B_C_ one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it probably needs to be um {disfmarker} possibly actually need a button on it +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: just to activate it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Or or something just to identify that you've lifted it up and it's use . And and then just say , oh I don't know , a thought and and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh I mean that that would certainly be uh truly different . {vocalsound} Um 'cause uh you know audio settings , nought point eight percent . I mean if they weren't there , {vocalsound} would people miss them ? +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: But look at the importance of them . The volume settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Relevance of two out of ten , +Project Manager: Vol volume , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes um +Industrial Designer: They're not used often +Project Manager: th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but they are quite important when they're used . +Project Manager: w we need to s identify things that {vocalsound} people actually need +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and it's a function of frequency and relevance . And um I would say ignoring ig ignoring power for the moment , um the channel and volume +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and th w w given given that we've been told to ignore teletext . Uh channel and volume are the only ones that +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh would appear to be essential . +Marketing: Stand out . +Project Manager: Um . So {disfmarker} if we can design something that that looks interesting , know , or looks different , um incorporates the the logo and and the colours and um we can still have our interchangeable fascias even if it's {gap} the yellow and grey , um and uh I dunno , buttons or or buttons as an option . +Marketing: Uh I just had a thought actually , sorry to interrupt . +Project Manager: Do , please . +Marketing: Uh you were saying about um it could {disfmarker} technical problems of like uh someone on the television saying a channel number and it changed {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we could maybe have like an activation word . +Project Manager: You cer certainly could . +Marketing: 'Cause I've seen I've seen this used on computers before , where you just {disfmarker} you address the remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depe uh i depends whether um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you address the computer , and then give it a command . +Project Manager: if we want to make this so simple that anybody can walk into the room and lift it up and say +Marketing: Oh I see . Oh yeah , I see . +Project Manager: B_B_C_ one . Um okay , I mean you could print {disfmarker} actually print it on the uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: device itself . Um . +Marketing: I mean I'm just thinking of the point of view of peop you could still like lose this remote . +Project Manager: S th this I th {vocalsound} that's always gonna be a problem I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um and I I I s so I suppose one um {disfmarker} could make it so desirable that if people lose it they immediately go out and buy another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , sorry , carry on . Do you want to just carry on with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I interrupted you , +Project Manager: no no , no uh b I was in the middle of in the middle of your report there . {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . Oh okay . Um well , I was just kinda wrapping up there . Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I was thinking um , yeah , maybe such things are relevant . We could make things much more f I think the the eighty percent of people would spend more on uh a remote uh that looks better , combined with uh decrease the {disfmarker} or take out the limited functio functions that we don't really use much . {gap} alright take out teletext , but as for channel settings and stuff it might it might um turn people somewhe peop some people that want the whole functionality away . But , since {disfmarker} if we're marketing a more kind of fashionable approach then it'd {disfmarker} it would be fashion and fashion over practicality . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . S s we could {disfmarker} we could make it dual function {gap} voice recognition and {gap} still have buttons on it um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , we could , yeah . We c yeah , +Project Manager: 'cause we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: we could even have it as like a {disfmarker} yeah the buttons control this and the voice functions control the f things that you would do all the time , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Certainly could . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So uh yeah , if we could uh {disfmarker} power on and channel selection and and volume selection , wouldn't have to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} The {disfmarker} I mean the the advantage of doing away the buttons altogether is it makes the thing cheaper . +Marketing: Yeah and probably it would look better as well . +Project Manager: No , it cou certainly opens up the possibility for making it uh , you know , visually very distinctive . +Marketing: Yeah . yeah . +Project Manager: Um 'cause you know , it does not have to be a oblong box . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Lined with numbered buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . Okay , who {disfmarker} sorry , have you have you finished there Andy ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah , that's everything . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Um {vocalsound} given that we've already had a extensive discussion uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay well , I can do mine . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Do you want the cable ? +User Interface: Yeah , let's see if I can make this work . Um . +Industrial Designer: Oh , you have to hit like function and F_ something . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ eight . +User Interface: Is it doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Marketing: Uh , give it about twenty seconds , or so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Ah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's going . +User Interface: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so this is just about the technical functions . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: So the method , I looked online for examples of other similar products and then just kind of was trying to brainstorm some possible design ideas and um identify what the necessary things are , what people are {disfmarker} what you really wanna have a remote control do . Um and then there are two different kinds that I found . There's a user centred one and an engineering centred one which I will have pictures of and then we kinda have to decide which one this should be . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So these are the two different ones . This one um {disfmarker} this is the user centred , it has uh quite a few mm uh um fewer buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then this is the engineering centred , which has a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and probably this is one that people complain about , about having too many buttons that you don't use . So basically , what a remote control is is you {disfmarker} it's to send messages to the television set , you know , turn on , off , switch the channels and the volume and things such as that . And so for this product it's gonna be television only , and then it has to have the uh logos for the company and the colours . And so , for my personal preferences , I think this one is easier to use and has quite a {disfmarker} you know , fewer buttons . Um we want something that sends messages easily to the television and I was kind of wondering about this example that they have . It looks kind of narrow at the top , and I was thinking maybe if it were wider at the top , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: then that would be easier . Um {vocalsound} and so we have to decide what's gonna make our product different . E the unique style , maybe have it light up so it's visible in the dark , um the changeable face-plates , and the lighting up and visible I was {disfmarker} when we were talking about havi losing it , maybe to have a button on the television that you press and it {disfmarker} maybe if it makes a noise or lights up or something like that , so it's easier to find if someone has hidden under the couch or something like that . So that's my presentation . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , can I um {disfmarker} I'm actually gonna use the um {disfmarker} it's gonna cause great technical problems over here . I'm actually gonna use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: F they probably clip to you . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they might be movable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they're all {disfmarker} they're not connected to anything on the table , you just leave 'em on and walk around with 'em . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , rather than the uh the the traditional {disfmarker} in fact , um I won't even go that far . Um something like this shape , you know , sort of something that you can {disfmarker} that's sort of a more vertical shape , um that you you sort of hold in your hand , um , well I'm trying to think uh uh uh l uh l such as {disfmarker} I mean um something you hold up like that , possibly with a couple of buttons like that , but with the the entire top with the , you know , the uh the infrared or whatever source . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh so that you know , it's flying off in all directions , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so that uh um uh {vocalsound} again the {disfmarker} n need to look at the the the technicalities of um actually achieving that in terms of whether the , you know , the power requirements of the uh {disfmarker} such a source , um you know , compromise the {disfmarker} our our need for uh you know , it it being um mm permanently uh you know , available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh whether whether different technology {disfmarker} um I mean th all all these remotes are presumably infrared , and like they have been for a long time . Uh we we possibly need to be looking at at at something different , um you know , short range , not like the old uh radio remote controls where you'd change next door's telly when you change yours . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but uh uh I think basically i if we're going for {disfmarker} i if minimum number of buttons is our priority , then we should , as I say , r know , really bite the bullets and and reduce the buttons to absolute minimum , you know , possibly with backup channel and volume buttons and on off . Um and nothing else . {vocalsound} Um so that it can al it could uh almost end up like that , but again , except that um {disfmarker} you know the risk of losing it . Um anyway okay um so Kate , wh what are your uh your thoughts on this ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , mm . {gap} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Which one does this plug into ? +User Interface: Hmm I think it's all there . +Industrial Designer: That one . +User Interface: H +Industrial Designer: I can't {disfmarker} did you {gap} {disfmarker} could you see it on you screen when it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's kind of strange . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Anyways . Um alright , yeah , so um I'll just do my presentation on the working design uh . {vocalsound} Oh there we go . Okay um just at the m yeah the whole sort of method of how the remote control works . Uh the basic function of the remote control is to send messages to another sh system , the the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ player or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and it does this uh by {disfmarker} well , you need {disfmarker} to start off you need an energy source {vocalsound} and this energy source will feed into an integrated circuit chip and the circuit chip is the part that actually composes the different messages uh within the remote um which will then be sent to the uh the television , the D_V_D_ to tell that what to do . Um and you need a user interface , which controls the chip and thus the messages and uh the user interface is {disfmarker} that's basically just you kn the s sorta design of the actual remote which you hold in your hands and what buttons will be on it . Um {disfmarker} Oh shoot . Okay . Uh just general findings . Uh what we need uh technically speaking for the remote control is some sort of energy source , {vocalsound} uh some sort of user interface , which I think we've mostly been talking about the user interface and the design of that . Um a circuit chip within that to uh control and send the messages and um a sender and receiver . And um {disfmarker} oops . Uh-huh . This is just sort of a little schematic diagram of what we're looking for . Uh this just kinda represents the energy source +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which feeds into the circuit chip uh which maybe then we could have that feed into a switch which would send signals f to um {vocalsound} a subcomponent and on to a light bulb between {disfmarker} so it'll light up once we start {disfmarker} once you start pressing buttons . Um also send signals to the um infrared bulb , which will be the part that actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what ? Sends signals to the the television . And then you've got your happy little T_V_ watcher there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so my personal preferences {disfmarker} I I just think we need sorta big uh energy source that won't die out , uh perhaps some sort of rechargeable battery or a battery dock you could place it in , so it'd constantly be charged , so you wouldn't have to uh be worrying about it running out of batteries and not changing channels for you . Uh a wide range uh sender-receiver , so that you can hit the buttons from basically anywhere in the room , and the channel'll still be changed . Uh also definitely a user-friendly interface {vocalsound} um and I think we've all sort of mentioned adding a a locating device on it , so when it does get stuck under the couch cushions , as they inevitably do , you can find them easily . And that's pretty much it . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh it seems seems to me there are a number of fundamental decisions to make before we um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: I think your point about the the big energy source is uh a very valid one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I don't suppose we've got any statistics on the the life expectancy of uh remote controls , particularly sort of independent ones . Um given you know , the number of things you buy these days , which you know , have a a a lithium whatever battery in , that's uh , you know never needs replacing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um perhaps we should have the the disposable remote control , uh um you know , one {disfmarker} some sort of typical usage . You know , the the the battery will last know , five , ten years . By which time {disfmarker} I mean when all's said and done , the digital television {vocalsound} will be taking over in that time scale . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh uh p perhaps we should , know , reduce the uh , you know , the sort of moving parts even more by not even having a battery compartment and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just having one that's guaranteed to last five to ten years ? +Project Manager: Yeah , and if if anybody manages to run it down , we'll we'll give 'em a new one . +Industrial Designer: Oh , cool . {vocalsound} Yeah , fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um it's , you know , it's {disfmarker} what it saves in cost and you know there there's a {disfmarker} well , it's actually a marketing gimmick . I mean it's hardly a gimmick , it's uh it's totally practical . Uh so I th think you know the idea of a rechargeable one is um uh unless you're really high tech and it sort of just recharges itself if it's n by , you know , magnetic waves or whatever , if if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could have like uh {disfmarker} know like a cordless phone in your house it s got like a base that sits there all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: Are are people really gonna use it though ? Um . +User Interface: Yeah , people are pro +Marketing: {vocalsound} I suppose , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would think that people might forget {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean people forget to put their cordless phones back on there , +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +User Interface: so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} I mean I know that somei times my my wife goes out in the morning and says oh I should have put the phone on to charge +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and then then she's had those for so long that if she hasn't worked that out by now . Um . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I only remember to charge my cell phone uh when battery dies . {vocalsound} And that's pretty much {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When it {disfmarker} yeah , wh when it's died is a problem . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , when it turns itself off , that's when I plug it in , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , {gap} so uh um +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what so wh what what do we think about the um the the permanent mm battery ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think that's a good idea . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Uh . That sounds pretty good , yeah . +Project Manager: Is the uh {disfmarker} you know , we we we are really going for the ultimate in ex uh external simplicity here . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um you know , cut cost within the manufacturing and uh you know , if we have a high tech interior , then then that that sh may well be cost effective . +User Interface: Do they make batteries that last that long ? +Project Manager: I mean th th certainly . Um I can't think of anything off the s top of my head , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They usually have the little light uh {vocalsound} source , +Project Manager: but there are certainly things that you buy . I mean calculators for example . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the heck they're called , +User Interface: Yeah , they have that little solar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the {disfmarker} but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Som well some do , +Industrial Designer: yeah , the little cells that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean th th but there are battery ones +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that um are you know , sort of permanently sealed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: In in fact I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most of them , don't they have sort of a combination of the two , like when there is light , they'll work off the light , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and if there isn't , they'll kick into this battery , +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so we can maybe do something like that whereas there is a battery , but if there's enough light , then it's using the light , so that it's not actually draining the battery all the time , but you will have the battery there for when you need it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I mean th th this needs going t into the technology a bit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean the the actual time that a remote control is actually operating +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I would think is i is is probably , you know , no more than minutes in its entire life . Um . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it depend if it's {disfmarker} uh depends who who's using it , who's just sitting there clicking clicking clicking clicking , +User Interface: Yeah , some people are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If , but I say if if people are getting R_S_I_ from it then uh then uh then then perhaps we're looking at the wrong market +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , {vocalsound} then they're clicking a lot , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} W +Project Manager: n +Marketing: like like this um this uh market research thing says number of times per hour that it's used , channel selection a hundred and sixty eight +User Interface: {vocalsound} Per hour ? +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: times per hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} That's a lot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , I must admit I hadn't um {disfmarker} I'd I'd missed that . That does sound excessive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: But then again , if you think it {disfmarker} of the amount of , you know amount of use it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less than a second , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , and and I I don't I don't even know whether the I don't even know whether the s the signal lasts as long as you actually keep the button pressed , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: or whether it's just a +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: sorta tenth of a second , no matter how long you press it for , I don't know I don't actually know . Um . +User Interface: Though I think with digital T_V_ , like I know on my cable box , you're not supposed to do that because the channel can't keep up with it if you just press it like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so you're supposed to use the menu and go through the different +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: channels that way instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , so I've got a message to say five minutes , I dunno how long ago that appeared . Um 'cause we're we're getting +User Interface: Uh-oh . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} right , so I'd {disfmarker} I need to sum up very quickly here um . {vocalsound} We're looking at extreme simplicity . We're looking at a radically different shape . Possibly no buttons at all um , but if you can incorporate um channel change and volume buttons um in into the design , then then that's fine . Um in the {disfmarker} I mean the the role of the of the um the user interface des designer becomes b you know more important here , because , you know , shape is no longer an a uh um a serious constraint . But we clearly only need th the main buttons , although , uh if {disfmarker} clearly only need the main functions . Um I don't see why we shouldn't go for voice recognition um and the the only buttons that I think we need are channel control , volume control and on off . Um it needs to incorporate the corporate logo , uh the the grey and yellow colour scheme and {vocalsound} there's no reason why we can't introduce um interchangeable uh covers . {vocalsound} Um uh d so does that accurately summarise what we've discussed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . We are doing just the television . +User Interface: Oh I just have one question . So are we doing just the television or are we doing {disfmarker} so not D_V_D_ players , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: we okay , okay . +Project Manager: I think that's quite clear from the the information that we've been given , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: no ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , like in the email of television only . In fact they're {gap} in the constraints email that I got . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Didn't you mention the teletext , just television only ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah well th that's one I s that's one I sent you , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which which was my interpretation of uh of the uh {disfmarker} what came down from from head office . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's {vocalsound} that that that that's their uh their view . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh we can all give some thought to that uh for for the next meeting , thank you very much indeed . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +At the second meeting of a design group, the Project Manager summarizes the previous session's findings for the new remote control without attributing them to individuals, emphasizing teamwork and equal contribution. The identified issues with existing remotes include their uninteresting shape and color. The remote control needs to control multiple devices, switch easily without pointing directly, have a contoured design, concave keys (a new idea), interchangeable faceplates for personalization, illumination for dark rooms, and remain reliable and not too small. + +The Project Manager announces new management-imposed project requirements that may challenge the group's plans. Management has determined teletext is no longer relevant due to the rise of the internet and wants the remote to control only televisions. The remote must include the company logo and colors and be simple to bring to market quickly. There's a concern that these requirements could constrain the group's creativity and design. + +Marketing presents research findings: 75% of users find their remotes ugly, and a better-looking remote could justify a higher price. Most users only use 10% of the buttons and often lose their remotes, suggesting a need for a sleek design with fewer buttons and a locating feature. Younger users would pay more for speech recognition. + +User Interface suggests two design approaches: user-centered with fewer buttons and engineering-centered with more buttons. They propose making the remote visually unique with lights or changeable faceplates and easier to find when lost. + +Industrial Designer discusses the technical workings of a remote, emphasizing the need for a potent energy source, wide-range receiver, and user-friendly interface. They suggest a locating feature and a big energy source like a rechargeable battery for a constantly charged remote. + +The group debates various features, such as incorporating an activation word, removable buttons, and voice recognition. There's also a discussion on whether to include a rechargeable battery or a long-lasting permanent one. They consider various shapes and contemplate technology changes. + +In conclusion, the group has decided on a simple and radically different shape for the remote, potentially with few to no buttons, and voice recognition for essential functions. It will incorporate the corporate colors and logo and may have interchangeable covers. The remote will control only television and not other devices like DVD players, as directed by management. They plan to give these ideas more thought for the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Right first time this time . Nu There we go . It's not that complicated , but I get it wrong every time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap} . +Marketing: For Matthew , yep . +Project Manager: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason . {vocalsound} Good . Um . Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design . I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap} . Uh I will take some minutes uh again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members , +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented . So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready ? +Marketing: I have a presentation , I'm just making this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here +Project Manager: Okay . Ah +Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team +Project Manager: there is Matthew . +Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file , my presentation . +Project Manager: So . Good . Do {gap} presentation ready ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides , you didn't see them ? +Project Manager: Oh yes I see him , good yes . +User Interface: Okay . {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment . Um can I just put this on ? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it . Um . This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone . {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time , the main results of that , and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really . The most important by far was the look and feel of it . It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there . It needs to stand out {vocalsound} . It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment . Most people find remote controls boring at the moment , we need to have something that looks interesting , that looks exciting , that will stand out . People will wanna buy it . Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else , apart from just the look of it . People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want . That's a really cool feature , and it has to make them wanna buy it again . Third on the list , and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect , it has to be easy to use . So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um . Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment , uh fruit and vegetables um . This is basically talking about just the the feel of it , so probably not the smell of it , but the bright colours , um eye-catching , really bold designs , and a spongy feel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this , but having a remote that's tactile , that feels different , that would be really cool . That would make it stand out . Um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said ? +Project Manager: Spongy feel ? +Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo +Marketing: Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing . Spongy is the current texture , but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all , so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something , that'll be something that sets it apart , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So as far as the design goes , the very most important aspect was the design , to the customers . So going with the fruit and vegetable idea , we've got the bright colours , so makes it stand out , the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours , part of the fruit and vegetables um . Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones , they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers , so they can choose what colour the outside is . That's one way of looking at it um . Textured feel we just talked about . Maybe it's another way of doing that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture , a spongy one or a soft one or something like that . So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room , or just what they like , their sports team or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um and yeah , still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality , the way the mobile phones work , the way the keypad looks . Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment . They're big selling items . People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that , and we can start using some of their ideas . Um back to technological in in innovation , not quite as important , but still a big issue . Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost , uh that's one thing we could look at . There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think , in my personal opinion , gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them . I think we're better doing something basic like this +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in . And {disfmarker} {gap} use . I had no real specific ideas for this , maybe we just , the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe , by themselves , +Project Manager: Mm . Yes well +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation . +User Interface: Voila . +Project Manager: Okay good , that's very clear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that ? I think you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To let the people choose , {gap} you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this . This is gonna be a mass marketed product , we can afford to have two or three different designs at least . +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah , a set of three , four different aspects . +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three , five Euro {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: s +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} +User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together . +Project Manager: Together indeed uh , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It should be easier with that . +Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: what you were already mentioning . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside . +User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures , different forms , and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other , and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button . So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_ , V_C_R_ , music system operated ones actually , and they are very specific to each other , but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information , names , like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality , say T_V_ , V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_ , and you can programme the keys if you want to , certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_ , rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it , you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Yeah I really like that idea . +Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that ? For facing this problem ? +User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one . In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing , eighty word , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement , like eighty to hundred word . Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel . +Marketing: Maybe ten channels , yeah at the most . +User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information . You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie , and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now , so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it , it could be like , for example I can use a simple toggle switch , and a display , so I press it so the display says , okay , I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is , instead of having three keys separately for four keys , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh yeah yeah yeah mm . +User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them . You can't . And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them , and you can operate them . So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote , is uh um is a good idea , like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having , um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm b +User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine , it say hi Joe , or something like that , you know , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But a coffee machine , there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it , so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing , and very isolated word +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting , and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys , on the display for the browsing +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing , like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote , the blinking . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: At the same time , if it's a dark room , it can be used to locate the remote also +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point +Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish . +Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys ? Some of them ? +User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that . +Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise . +User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way , so if you want to give the full freedom to the user +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . I think you can do it both ways . +User Interface: So it de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it , +Industrial Designer: A standard . +Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it . S so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition , I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys , you said , uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system , uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this +User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented , +User Interface: yeah yeah +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost , maybe with a f cheap chip . +User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them , and we can come with that , +Project Manager: Mm mm . +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display , you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery , so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also . +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something . +User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um , it can be for two purposes , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote , +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_ . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It may need more actually , so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that , some functionality to indicate the battery limit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated , if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something +Industrial Designer: It's true . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery , well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You know . +Project Manager: 'Kay good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have time some more ? Yep . +Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still . We have time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control , and how is it manufactured h what is the process , just to explain you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap} , and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously , and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end . So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control . +Project Manager: Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver . And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons , infrared {vocalsound} , led , etcetera , for the components um . So you {gap} finding , just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed , and then it translate to the key , to a sequence , something like morse code , as you know , uh with a different sequence for each key , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's , with the components we will use , we will have different uh messages , different sequences , and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um . So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble . And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology , +User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is important , and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use . If it's plastic +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit , veg or {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well well +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but , with the changeable covers to fancy it up . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in , for instance , a wooden case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think . Yeah inside the car +Marketing: Just the veneer on it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons , a scroll wheels , integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse . And uh very cheap L_C_D_s , so liquid crystal displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering , I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_ . And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip , but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright . And the display requires an advanced chip , which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip , but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items , then I think w we could be able to handle that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account . And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert +User Interface: Sorry . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh . So +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement , +Project Manager: No of course . +User Interface: Yeah so +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device , and we have to insert . +User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions +User Interface: Okay so +Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} +User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah , for customizing and yeah . +User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually . How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah good idea . +Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip , but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip , so can we use same chip , so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle , uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip , that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget , uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip , so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible ? +User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible . +User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking , I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros , it will be okay , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then . Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better . +Project Manager: Mm yes +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea . +Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea . +Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that . +Project Manager: Good good . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also , like what will be the each individually the cost of it . For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh {gap} 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I agree on that . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition , and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: which which come with a with another price . +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them , but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do do you agree ? +Marketing: Mm yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user , and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that . +Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design . Uh so drawing it on the board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh . So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs , one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure . Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh , how do you call them , these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah customized . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap} . We can give them smooth keys , you know . Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen , the keys is that it's small , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys , then you can merge them together +Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly +User Interface: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: or is this just ideas ? +User Interface: Oh you can actually , for example , if you see , they are they are they are quite small over here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can , for example , as I was {gap} if you make them big , it may change the look of the thing also to the people . +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: At the same time , it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think . +User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You see ? +Industrial Designer: I agree yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah . +Marketing: Mm well +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: one I've had before , a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so the bottom bit is just , covers half the keys most of the time , and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: which you don't use . So maybe it's possible uh , I don't know whether you can can indicate this , that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Um yeah I've seen that before too . Anoth another like b +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah so it's something like this , the model here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well . +Industrial Designer: That's what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book . +Marketing: I like this one . I like the shape of this one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one , so with not just the straight little box +Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one . +Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something . +User Interface: Yeah , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm mm 'kay . Is this for the next meeting though ? +User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ju just make two designs , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea . So +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no . I don't have . +Marketing: No . So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting ? +Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices , if you're using speech recognition or something like that . +Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh , I don't know whether that's possible , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow . +Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but a as far as possible . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email . +Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes ? +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them , +Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: yeah that's how it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: So we are done for now . {gap} . +","In a professional context involving team members with expertise in marketing, industrial design, user interface (UI), and project management, there was a discussion about the conceptual design of a remote control product. The initial conversation started with the Marketing team member trying to remember the meeting's opening phrase, followed by an acknowledgment of Matthew's absence. The Project Manager then decided that the meeting should commence without him as he was running late. + +The focus of the meeting is a conceptual design discussion, with the Project Manager setting the agenda. They would review team presentations and try to reach a consensus on the different concepts proposed. Presentations included detailed discussions of product design, desirable features, and market trends. + +The Marketing member highlighted feedback from focus group surveys and research into current design trends. The goal was to make a remote control that stands out in the marketplace through distinctive design features. The highest priorities for the design were an appealing look and feel, technological innovation, and ease of use. The Marketing representative suggests bright, bold colors influenced by fruit and vegetables along with a tactile surface, such as spongy or soft textures. + +The User Interface expert proposed the integration of advanced features like speech recognition for channel selection, LCD screens, and potential child safety locking mechanisms. They discussed the need to design for various functionalities such as TV, VCR, and music systems, and how to store favorite channels or have secondary keys for less-used functions. + +The Industrial Designer brought insights into the manufacturing and component assembly for the remote control, suggesting affordable, mass-producible options with interchangeable, customizable covers like mobile phone cases. They recommended that the remote contain fewer, larger buttons and elaborated on the costs and logistics of incorporating more sophisticated components like scrolling wheels and advanced chips for features such as an LCD display. + +Cost was a recurring theme, with the Project Manager expressing concern about staying within a twelve Euro budget, which could be a limiting factor for creativity and implementation of desired features. They discussed the feasibility and expense of using high-tech chips, such as FPGA, for incorporating advanced functionalities within budget constraints. + +Towards the end of the meeting, the Project Manager requested the team prepare two designs for the next session—a basic one and a more advanced version, clarifying costs for comparison. The team would need to align on key factors such as size, number of buttons, and additional functionalities to determine the final product design. They also discussed the potential for function and button layout prototypes, with emphasis on user-friendly design accessible even in the dark. + +The Marketing team was tasked with starting to evaluate the work from an end-user perspective and potentially setting up test groups. The team agreed to keep in touch over email for further coordination. + +The meeting concluded with the planning for the next steps, where the Industrial Designer and User Interface expert would work together on two design prototypes for the remote control. The Project Manager would send further instructions via email, aiming to reach a decision on the optimal product design that balances innovation, ease of use, aesthetics, and cost-effectiveness." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I have a declaration of interest, Chair. I understand that my daughter features in one of the videos that is going to be used to contribute evidence to this inquiry. And, in addition, I'm a governor of one of the schools that features in the video. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Darren. So, item 2, then, today is our first session on the provision of textbooks and learning resources for pupils, which is a video of interviews with young people and teachers. The committee team has been out to take video evidence around Wales, and we're now going to watch the results of that on the screen. Okay. Well, I'm sure that the committee would want me to place on record our thanks to the young people and the teachers who took part in that very helpful and informative video. We'll move on now then to our evidence session, and I'm very pleased to welcome Gareth Pierce, chief executive of the WJEC, Mike Ebbsworth, assistant director educational support, WJEC, Philip Blaker, chief executive of Qualifications Wales, and Emyr George, associate director general qualifications at Qualifications Wales. So, thank you all of you for attending and thank you for the papers that you provided in advance as well. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions now, and if I can just start by asking you to outline what you see as your role in ensuring that students and teachers in Wales have the resources that they need to pass general qualifications and what you think the role of commercial publishers and Welsh Government is. +Philip Blaker: Shall I start? So, Qualifications Wales is the regulator of the awarding bodies, so we regulate awarding bodies. Our powers are structured around the regulating of awarding bodies. We don't regulate commercial publishers nor the provision of textbooks within that. In regulating the awarding body, our primary focus is also on the design of the qualifications and then the delivery of the assessment. So, it's much more around the assessment side than teaching resources. That said, when we are going through the design of the qualifications, we go through an approval process, so we develop approval criteria and we ask WJEC to submit their specifications against those approval criteria and sample assessment materials as well. So, our focus is very much on making sure that teachers are able, through the sample assessment materials and the specifications, to have a good understanding of what is going to be expected of them in the examinations and of their pupils in the examinations. So, that's setting out the knowledge, skills and understandings that will be assessed by WJEC when those exams are sat. We have in the past pulled together groups of people to look at issues like resources. So, during the last round of approvals, we pulled together interested parties in Welsh Government, regional consortia and WJEC to look at resources that would be available with a view to facilitating the discussion about who would be best placed to fill the gaps where there may be perceived to be gaps in resources. Our other primary role is in maintaining standards. So, as the regulator of qualifications, what we want to do is we want to make that the awards of qualifications—so, the grades that people get—are fair. One of the things we do is set out the way in which the awarding bodies will set grades—so, the awarding process, the methods that will be used—and then we monitor WJEC's award of grades against those processes. During a period of change, we prescribe the use of comparable outcomes as the primary approach, largely because comparable outcomes are designed for circumstances like this, where there's a change in a specification particularly, because there are any number of reasons, including resources, why performance may be different from one year to the next, but comparable outcomes is there to ensure that, all things being equal, if the cohorts have the same ability, the same grade should be awarded from one year to the next. We do recognise that there have been delays in textbooks. Much of that has been related to the timelines that we've all had to deliver new specifications against, which have been far from ideal for everybody involved. We think that particularly our role moving forward will be looking at the timelines for reforms that will be necessary for the new curriculum to make sure that this situation isn't repeated and that there is sufficient time in future reforms to allow for greater system readiness. In terms of the roles of others, Welsh Government have a role at the moment in terms of grant funding of translation of materials into Welsh medium. And there is, through the common model at the moment—and this is a model that is common between England and Wales—a reliance on commercial publishers to provide textbooks. Now, that's something that probably needs to be looked at in the future in terms of potential different models for how that might be achieved and also, potentially, around a paradigm shift in what's expected of those materials. So, I think that sets out Qualification Wales's position in particular. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. The WJEC does provide what's required in a regulatory sense, and there are two things there—the specification, which tends to be very comprehensive in providing guidance in terms of drawing up a programme of teaching, and also exemplar assessments, which include marking, and those go to the regulator before they are published. So, those samples go to the regulator. The WJEC also do invest a great deal in resources that we produce digitally in both languages simultaneously. Each new course has substantial teaching guidance, which includes a great deal of useful information for teachers and pupils. And we run a professional development programme for teachers that is free of charge when courses are new, and then annually there is some charge for those events. They are face-to-face events, or, increasingly, they are webinars. The WJEC also encourages publishers to take an interest in providing textbooks. We don't have a commercial agreement with publishers. Indeed, the regulations as they stand in Wales, Northern Ireland and England preclude examination bodies from having commercial links with providers of textbooks, but that is something that emerges from the three-nation regime that existed in terms of qualifications. So, that is one point that we noted as something that needs to be considered for Wales as we move forward, whether it would be possible—. As we are not talking about examination boards competing with each other in Wales for GCSE and A-levels, in passing, that is something that I would want to suggest may deserve review. We encourage publishers to take an interest. At the moment, these tend to be England-based—Hodder Education and Illuminate Education, for example—and then the Welsh Government does provide funding to the WJEC to support the process of providing Welsh-language versions for those textbooks. So, we use that funding to provide editorial support to the process, and also to pay for translation costs, and we give significant guidance in terms of terminology. We have a language services team including excellent editors and translators within the WJEC, and we work closely with external translators too, and we use translation technology increasingly, which facilitates a great many things. Beyond that, I think the WJEC does see the need for flexibility, particularly when difficulties arise, and you heard there of some of the methods used by Mike and others to get digital resources available earlier than the print versions. And I should also note perhaps that, as the WJEC is very much involved with stakeholders, we feel that we do have a contribution to make in terms of ideas for the future. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We heard in the video that teachers are spending a lot of their time actually translating materials. What is your view on that as a good use of teachers' time in Wales? +Gareth Pierce: I think the question of translation is an interesting one. There was talk about pupils translating and teachers translating. I think perhaps we need to understand what causes the need for that because, as I mentioned earlier, there are so many resources available digitally in both languages at the same time. Perhaps an interesting question is: is that source useful for teachers, being able to draw resources from two sources? Another interesting question, I think, is—. The Welsh language, of course, is a language that is used in an educational context, but we are in a big world that's an English language world. I'm very aware that many of the websites we refer to in our resources and many of the case studies, as was mentioned in that video—they are available in English only. Therefore, I think another interesting question is: can we discover what those additional resources are that are worth translating? And, certainly, it would be very unfortunate if there were a dozen Welsh-medium schools, for example, translating material from the same website independently of each other. If there are a few websites, or a few case studies, in this big external digital world that are worth translating, shouldn't we able to source those early? Because I don't think it's a good use of teachers' time. But I also think that the use of both languages is an interesting one. What is the vision in terms of teaching in a Welsh-medium class, in particular, perhaps, in the A-level classes? I'm sure that some teachers feel that there is a way of enriching the teaching by referring to terms in both languages, as well as explaining those terms in their own language. But the impression I got from the video was that there was quite a lot of mechanical translating happening, and perhaps there is a need to understand more of the context. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just to pick up on your point on the additional materials, whose role would it be to asses this or to take that overview, and then to respond to the demand? +Gareth Pierce: Mike, in the WJEC, has conversations about resources in the team he's part of. +Mike Ebbsworth: Yes. That is extremely important—to identify, as Gareth has just said, those materials that need to be translated, and not everything needs to. We've made a lot of use recently of speaking with teachers and the consortia, and ensuring then that we are focusing on those things that need that attention. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But would you—? The question I'm asking is: would you still see that as a core part of your work, although it's not necessarily essential in terms of the provision that you're required to provide? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, we invest substantially from the WJEC budget into digital resources. So, through the types of conversations that Mike mentioned, in terms of identifying needs, deciding on priorities with teachers in individual subject areas, that can provide very useful information for us in terms of prioritisation. Of course, the digital packages that we create are already based on conversations with teachers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, it's already happening to a certain extent. +Gareth Pierce: Well, yes, but we could always go a step further. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do we need further resources for that? +Gareth Pierce: Well, it's an interesting question. The WJEC is doing as much as we can— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Why isn't it happening to the extent that it needs to happen, then? +Gareth Pierce: One can always do more, of course. The WJEC is trying to use its budget prudently, and most of our funding comes from payments made by schools and colleges in terms of taking assessments. So, we do have a budget, but it's not a bottomless pit. So, we do need to make choices within the substantial budget we have in terms of the work that Mike is undertaking. +Mike Ebbsworth: There is a need to be careful as well in identifying resources and needs, and that those are suited towards the requirements. Quite often a teacher—and I've been a teacher myself—has this idea that there is a need to have everything. But, certainly, that's not always the case. Quite often, the focus is on different things. There has been a move towards different means of assessment over recent years, and we've moved our resources towards that to meet the needs of teachers on how to undertake that sort of assessment. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in on any of this? +Philip Blaker: I'm just going to say one thing. Teachers will want to be creative in the use of resources, and, in doing that, they'll potentially want to adapt resources from either language. I think one of the things that we would be quite keen to try and establish moving forward is what is the common core that should by default be available bilingually, and then what sits around that that would be for schools to use creatively and adapt. And what I wouldn't want to see is a default position where all materials were bilingual—a wide range of resources that might be created from all sorts of diverse, different channels—because that may inhibit the creation of some of those materials that may be more creative, which could then be used by teachers as they see appropriate. But I think it is reasonable to expect for that core, common body of knowledge to be available bilingually by default, and for teachers not to have to spend time translating that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. A final question from me, then. The £500,000 funding for Welsh-medium educational resource that's in the budget for 2018-19—are you able to share any information with the committee as to how that's going to be spent? +Gareth Pierce: Tthe WJEC has some information in terms of that budget. It is a Welsh Government budget, and they have annual discussions with us as to what resources we are likely to be working on along with publishers, and where we would like to make a claim against that grant to pay for the editorial and translation costs that we will have incurred. Now, there have been conversations recently about possible support from that grant for some research work into the use of various materials and resources, and also, although this would be a very small part, a contribution towards seminars for publishers. But that isn't a full picture of the £500,000; I think you would have to ask the Welsh Government about the exact allocation of that total fund. But there may be some flexibility. We've just started this financial year; I'm sure there is some flexibility in their thinking in terms of the use of some of this resource. Do you want to add anything, Mike? +Mike Ebbsworth: Certainly. We have contributed a list of publications, for example, that are ongoing, and they're aware of that, and a percentage of that funding then will go towards ensuring that those are there through the medium of Welsh. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Darren Millar. +Darren Millar AM: This is a huge mess, isn't it? It's a huge mess, which is causing lots of pressure and extra work for teachers, lots of pressure and extra work for learners, and is affecting the well-being of students, at a time when they need to be mentally fit, in order to go through the general stress that learners face when they have exams coming up. We know that the problems are not confined to Welsh-medium resources; they're also being experienced in English language resources as well, particularly in terms of the availability of textbooks. You've both mentioned—both of your organisations have mentioned that there needs to be some sort of common core of resources available for learners and teachers, and I would agree with you on that front. But isn't a textbook a pretty basic element of anybody's toolkit for supporting a child getting through the information that they need to learn, and swot up on, in advance of exams? +Gareth Pierce: I think that the evidence is that different learners see their requirements differently. And I agree that a textbook is part of the picture that should be available. But I think the evidence also shows that not every young person will use them; perhaps the teacher uses them. There is an emphasis, for example, from one pupil there, on that traditional model of revision, namely class notes and his own revision notes, but that he personally also wanted a textbook. So, certainly, the content of a textbook is going to be important, and that that's available in some form or other. It was very interesting to know, for example, that when he was describing the traditional model of revision, he felt that he'd had quite a lot of the content of the textbook through the classroom notes. Much of that digital content, of course, corresponds to the content areas of a textbook, but it's just in a different form. But, in general, there should be a textbook. And some of our frustration as well is that the timetables of some individual publishers don't always get us to the point where there is a textbook available in time. That doesn't happen so often in English medium, but we know about that gap in time in the Welsh provision. +Darren Millar AM: Well, it's happened fairly regularly in the English-medium textbook world, hasn't it? My daughter—she featured in that video—has got her RS qualifications coming up, and she only had a textbook over the Easter period. I mean, it's completely unacceptable. And many others in that video are also being affected. You mentioned digital resources; not everybody's got access to digital resources in their own homes, even, in Wales. So, aren't we giving a significant disadvantage to those learners who might need the traditional 'swotting up from a textbook' method of revision and benefit from that? +Mike Ebbsworth: We do ensure that those digital resources include things that the teachers can also print. Most of these are resources for teachers so that the teachers can adapt them for their own use, to suit the learners who are in front of them at any given time. But certainly there are materials there. If there are activities, then those activities can be printed off and handed to pupils so that they can take them home. So, I would be sceptical about that comment. We are thinking of the totality, ultimately. +Gareth Pierce: I think you're right that the availability of technology is an important part of this big picture. The young people talk about websites and blogs, and we're talking about digital resources, so being able to reach those resources, I think, is vital in Wales. It's interesting to note two contradictory remarks from the teaching associations in the letters. One praises what's available digitally, whereas another teaching organisation sees this as more work for teachers. As Mike said, we've created those resources that can be adapted. One teaching organisation says that it just creates more work, while another organisation says that the digital resource is something that's very valuable. Of course, the headteacher at the end was praising the fact that, in a situation of crisis or unacceptable timetables, we have succeeded in creating some resources that will be in the textbook later, but available digitally at an early stage. But I agree with your core comment that technology is vital, and access to that, and also the content of a textbook in some form is vital as well. +Darren Millar AM: Mr Blaker, you would agree that a textbook should be an essential core piece of the resource pack available for each qualification. +Philip Blaker: I think we wouldn't want to underplay the desirability of textbooks, recognising that different learners have different learning styles and may look to different resources. I think what I'd like to raise is a wider concern about textbooks in their current model, which is very much around the fact that every time there's a change in a specification, there's a new textbook, which is designed around that specification and is endorsed by an awarding body, which is a nice model for a publisher, because every time there's a change, there's an opportunity for a new textbook. There are two concerns that I'd like to raise on that. First, the focus on teaching and learning. Ofsted and also Estyn have raised concerns about the focus in teaching on teaching to the test as a common concern in both nations. I have a concern that having a textbook that is endorsed by the awarding body and is designed specifically around that specification may lead to some of that tendency. And also, there's the sustainability of the model. We know that we're about to go into another round of reforms associated with the curriculum change. That's going to lead to another round of textbooks that may need to be focused on qualifications. I think I'd much rather see that textbooks are seen as a curriculum resource that are broader than, perhaps, the model of endorsement and the current model of publication suggest. +Darren Millar AM: So, you don't think that a textbook for each subject should be a core resource for pupils who are learning in advance of examinations. +Emyr George: I'd just like to pick you up on that. I think a textbook for each subject is absolutely an essential part of the broad range of resources that you'd want to see available for people to choose what they prefer, but on a subject, perhaps, rather than a specific specification, because I think there's a tendency to conflate the two, and much of the underlying content that is assessed in one specification, or a new updated specification, will remain unchanged. It is true that there may be a different focus or emphasis, or a different style of questioning, but that can be picked up more nimbly through supplementary digital resources, for example, which can highlight that change, particularly to a teacher, so that they can shape their lesson planning around that. What we are looking at here are reformed GCSEs and reformed A-levels in subjects that are well-established, traditional subjects, and so whilst it is not necessarily the ideal, I think it's important to remember that there is already a good deal of pre-existing resources, including textbooks, out there in schools already. We're not for a moment saying that that is the situation that we would want everybody to be in. I think it might be preferable if the textbook was perfectly bespoke to the course and didn't contain any extraneous material, but that perhaps is an ideal picture and I think we do need to remember that there are already many resources out there that are available to teachers and to students. +Darren Millar AM: But of course, unlike their peers in perhaps other parts of the UK, we have teachers who are having to go meticulously through some of these other resources that might be available to determine whether they're appropriate for use in the classroom, given that the specification is different in terms of the new qualifications. Can I just ask you about the disadvantage that some learners might face as a result of the lack of textbooks? Mr Blaker, I note that you sought to reassure the committee in some of your opening remarks about the fact that equivalent outcomes are what you aim to achieve in discussion with the WJEC in terms of the outcome of assessments, and I think that that's a very positive thing. But, how do you differentiate between the different learning styles of individual students who are in that cohort to ensure that the disadvantage that one faces because they're somebody who relies particularly heavily on textbook-type learning, traditional sort of swotting up for examinations, versus someone who is much more digitally aware and able to use digital resources—? How do you make sure that it's fair to the cohort as a whole, while still enabling some of these individuals for whom textbooks are important not to face disadvantage within that cohort? +Philip Blaker: The systems that are in place are very much around making sure that awarding is fair across the whole cohort. It's very difficult—in fact, it would be impossible—to unpick all of the different factors that might affect performance, because you could well have a textbook that's been available for some time, it may be somebody's preferred leaning style to use a textbook, but did they use that textbook effectively? You know, did they open it in revision or did they not open it in revision? So, there are so many different factors that can affect individual performance. I think it's impossible to unpick a particular aspect like the availability of resources. Motivation would be one thing, an individual learner's motivation in the subject. The biggest input would be the quality of teaching. I think evidence has been provided to you by the regional consortia, which we saw yesterday. They particularly wanted to stress this point I think; that the quality of teaching is probably the most dominant and the most important factor in relation to a learner's ultimate performance in the examination. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but you also understand that someone who doesn't have the resources that they feel are best suited to them face some element of a greater disadvantage than others for whom, perhaps, textbooks are less important. +Gareth Pierce: I think also, perhaps, related to that, it is important to mention digital literacy here. Every young person in Wales, I would hope, taking GCSE or A-level, should have that digital literacy in order to source the valuable materials available—that they should have those skills. Then, they have the choice whether they go down the digital route, or do they do as Mike suggested—much of the digital material can be printed—or do they then turn to textbooks, in the hope that those would be available? That would then allow for a pupil's personal learning choice to be reflected. It's also important for teachers to confirm that their ways of teaching do support these alternative approaches taken by pupils. Not every pupil will choose to learn or revise in exactly the same way. So, the flexibility for the pupil is very important, I think. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but I've got people in my constituency who haven't even got a broadband link at home, so there's a digital disadvantage as well. Can I just ask you about the reason why this has taking so long to sort out? It was back in 2015 that concerns were first raised about the availability of textbooks in both English and Welsh for the new qualifications. We're three years on, what on earth has been happening in the interim and why is it taking so long? If you've got these resources digitally, why can't they just be compounded into textbooks pretty straightforwardly? +Gareth Pierce: I think the main reason for that is that there are three series of reforms of qualifications that have happened. There were some in 2015, other subjects in 2016, and other subjects in 2017. Those three cycles of reform have all suffered from the short timetable that was between approving a qualification and publishers being able to start the work. Perhaps an interesting comparison would be a subject being taught for the first time in 2015—where that subject has reached now in terms of resources. I would hope that each one of those subjects have more available now in terms of resources, and therefore we are adding each year—not textbooks but digital resources. There are more past papers available, of course. We are working on sample work at the request of teachers. So, every subject is moving on over a period of time of five to six years while that specification is being studied. But those same difficulties have, unfortunately, affected 2015 subjects and 2017 subjects, and that's why we're discussing the same thing in 2018. +Darren Millar AM: So, it's the scale of the challenge and the volume of the work? +Gareth Pierce: Yes. +Philip Blaker: I think Gareth, in the evidence that he has provided to the committee previously, has said about the timeline, the schedule, for reforms. Now, that's a schedule that we inherited and was largely dominated by the schedule for reforms in England. Now that we've reached a point of divergence in GCSEs and A-levels, between England and Wales, it gives us much more agency in the future to establish a timeline that doesn't place the pressures on the system. So, Gareth has quite rightly pointed out that there are three waves of reforms, but the pressures that build up in the first wave are consequential onto the next wave and the wave after that. So, the whole system has been pressured both from a regulatory perspective of the approval process, the awarding body preparing its submissions to use, and then system readiness thereafter. +Darren Millar AM: That timeline was obviously set by the Welsh Government. I assume that advice was given by WJEC and Qualifications Wales and your predecessor organisation to the Welsh Government at that time protesting about the timescale that you were being expected to abide by. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and similarly in England, the examination boards working in England would have provided the same advice to the Government there. And, of course, the Welsh Government programme was associated with the reform programme in England, in particularly for those A-level subjects, where there was a strong influence from the universities across the UK in terms of what they wanted to see differently in the A-level subjects. So, England and Wales have run on a very short timetable common to both countries, and I would say that every exam board and every publisher has seen this very challenging in Wales and England. But our advice is that there is a real need for between 18 months and two years from completing a specification that has been approved, then being able to work with teachers on what their needs and requirements will be, thinking about what the teaching programme will be, and then starting to work with publishers and get resources available—ideally, with a year of preparation then for the teacher before they start teaching. So, as they will know what resources will be available, we'll be able to discuss the use of those resources in our professional development programmes, and then that timeline is convenient for everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Darren, I've got to bring Llyr in now. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Estyn, NAHT, UCAC, NASUWT, WJEC and Qualifications Wales have pointed to the way in which the Government has managed the reforms that have been happening over the past few years as one of the things that has led to some of these difficulties. You mentioned the fact that they come wave upon wave. Well, what about the tsunami of curriculum reform that we're currently facing? That is, how confident can we be that the situation won't deteriorate as the new curriculum is introduced—rather than improve? +Gareth Pierce: That is a very key question, isn't it? We have started to discuss this, specifically in particular in a forum that includes publishers in Wales, with the Welsh Government around the table and Qualifications Wales around the table. I think one of the very interesting questions and important questions is: what will the nature of the information available in April 2019 be in terms of the new curriculum? At what level of detail will it be? To what extent will it be adapted again after April 2019? Is it detailed enough, really, for teachers to start discussing their programmes of teaching, and that we then still have a role with publishers, even though this is for this curriculum and not for qualifications? WJEC has a tradition of publishing resources over the key stages and other key stages as well. I think there is a need to discuss the implications of the timetable as it starts to appear, because there is a need to start teaching the new curriculum in September 2022. If we're talking about a year of preparation, that brings us back to September 2021. If we're talking about working on resources available for that preparation year, we're talking about September 2020. So, the timetable does appear already tight, particularly if there's something that's not quite certain about that curriculum statement in 2019, and that there is a lot of work to turn that into teaching programmes. So, I think it is a key question, and I can't be confident at the moment that this is going to work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in, Philip? +Philip Blaker: I think one of the big differences is it's a tsunami we can see coming. So, young people will be assessed for the first time, assuming linear exams, in the summer 2027, which is some way away, and, actually, given the reform process historically, this is probably the most foresight we've seen of a big change like this. There is a big dependency on the curriculum and the curriculum being described in such a way that we can relate qualifications to that curriculum, because qualifications should relate to the curriculum rather than drive the curriculum, so we do need to see something coming out of that. I think, for us, once we've seen the curriculum, and we've got better sight of it, we'll be able to plan things out. We've already started engagement with awarding bodies over the possible supply chain for these new qualifications, and, ultimately, there'll be a go/no-go decision that would need to be made, probably in 2023, which would be that if the conditions don't appear right for safe implementation, then we would make a recommendation to Welsh Government that these reforms are delayed in terms of the qualification, not in terms of the curriculum, for a year to allow the system to be able to catch up. So, we're starting to plan out not only the whole of the process, but also thinking about where we might have to make key decisions. +Gareth Pierce: Just one very brief comment in that context: I think that the comment of the consortia jointly is important there. They emphasise, in the context of the curriculum, the importance of the autonomy of teachers in interpreting and providing, therefore I think we truly need to discuss that. Does that suggest that there won't be so much need for national resources, or are those resources required to support that autonomy in any case? We need to discuss that at an early stage and in detail, I think. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, certainly, and one is concerned that that conversation isn't already happening, but, yes, okay, you've made that point clearly. If I could return, therefore, to the commercial issue—clearly, there is a shortage of providers in Wales, and we are reliant on others. You suggested that the WJEC may be interested in stepping up and taking some sort of role if regulations were changed. I assume that that would be something that you would be eager to see happening in terms of the change to regulation in that context. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we've been part of starting that discussion amongst publishers in Wales. Certainly, there is interest. I think that I haven't described correctly the purpose of a seminar to encourage interest: the interest is there, but there needs to be an understanding of what the implications are of working towards that kind of timetable, what the implications are of working in two languages, what kind of business model, perhaps, would be suitable for the publishers in Wales, how much certainty could be given to them that there is a period of work, because they would want to build their teams, and develop skills within those teams, and to have enough certainty that this is worth doing. And therefore, those are the sort of issues that we're starting a discussion on, in the hope of having a discussion in June to move that forward. Of course, Welsh Government, Qualifications Wales and other stakeholders are part of this discussion, not only WJEC, but we've been part of initiating that discussion. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is this developing at the pace that you would like to see it developing? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I think, and there is some enthusiasm. For example, a number of publishers in Wales are within an association describing itself as Cwlwm Cyhoeddwyr Cymru. Myrddin ap Dafydd is chair of Cwlwm at the moment, and there is enthusiasm and vision, certainly. So, there's a wonderful opportunity, I think, for Wales to interpret these possibilities swiftly and then hopefully take action on them. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we're talking here not just about translating but developing resources, and the point, I think, is an important one around some of the evidence that we've received about the importance of developing resources naturally bilingually from the very beginning, rather than having to translate something. Because there have been comments that translations are clunky, difficult to follow and not—I'm not saying that they're not fit for purpose, but certainly don't facilitate teaching, perhaps, as easily as one would wish. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I would agee, and that begins with the authors, doesn't it? We must have the authors— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, the expertise, and the same capacty with the publishers as well. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we do want to nurture authors within Wales, particularly given that the new curriculum has to do justice to a Welsh dimension within the curriculum in so many different subjects. So, we need authors who can be developed, and authors who would be willing to work with the publishers. That's a very specific theme within one of the ideas of the seminars with publishers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would that market be viable without any sort of subsidy, if it were to develop bilingually? Or do we have to accept that they have to have an element of public subsidy? +Gareth Pierce: Our view in the WJEC is that subsidy will be necessary. But we could rethink the model for the subsidy, perhaps. At the moment, the subsidy is described as a subsidy for the Welsh-medium version. Why not rethink that and think of a subsidy for producing resources in two languages for the Welsh curriculum? And perhaps we would need a little more funding for that. But there will be organisations such as the WJEC who will still be interested in contributing, because we are a charity, and within our mission is investment in various things that supports education in Wales. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But in terms of where we are now, resources have to be translated. I struggle at times to understand why it takes so much time to translate a resource. I would like to know better, perhaps, what the main barriers are in that sense. But also, how long is acceptable to wait for a translation, in your view? +Mike Ebbsworth: We've done a great deal of work recently, over recent years, to ensure that that delay between having an English version and a Welsh version is reduced. We are highly aware of the fact that the best-case scenario is that the Welsh and the English are available simultaneously. In those terms, we've taken huge steps forward with the publishers that we've named this morning, so that we have discussed translation as the textbook is being produced. There is a risk there, of course. The nature of books is that the author may change his or her mind, or edit as he or she is writing. Well, with that model, we would have to ensure that we approved as we moved forward, chapter by chapter perhaps, so that there would be no changes to be made from then on. At the end of the process, then, the publishers in England have agreed to hold the English version back for a period of time until the Welsh version is available, and then to publish both simultaneously. Unless that timetable is followed throughout the process, there are inherent risks in that process, of course, as I've mentioned in terms of translation as we author materials, and in ensuring that that timetable is stuck to. +Gareth Pierce: And perhaps there is a need to emphasise that the process is translation and editing as a package, and that sometimes the same amount of time goes on the editing, how the Welsh works in terms of diagrams and things that aren't text necessarily—pictures and so forth. So, eight weeks, I think, is the time that we've succeeded in agreeing with the publishers so that we can turn around the Welsh version in that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: I just want to ask about this eight-week delay. So, you’re telling us, Mr Ebbsworth, that the WJEC has agreed with Hodder and Illuminate that, in future, even if an English textbook is available for publication, and it’s already late, you will further delay the availability of that textbook so that it can be published on the same day as the Welsh-medium textbook? +Mike Ebbsworth: We can only work on those books that are in the process of being developed. Naturally, if something is late in English, then that timetable would be affected in terms of a decision that will ultimately have to be taken. But that's the hope: that when new textbooks are produced in English and authored in English, we would look at that eight-week period as a turnaround. +Darren Millar AM: I understand the point that you made earlier about the chapter-by-chapter approach, which seems much more equitable. But to suggest that you will delay books that could be available for students and could be available for teachers to be able to access by two months because you haven't got the systems in place to be able to produce them on the same day, seems to be wholly inappropriate. Can I ask, also, why on earth it isn't possible to produce Welsh-medium textbooks first and then translate them to English on occasions? +Mike Ebbsworth: We're entirely open to that and to that sort of model. +Darren Millar AM: So, why has that never ever been done? +Gareth Pierce: Well, of course, it would happen with subjects that stem from Wales, but I think the problem is that we work with publishers and those publishers and their authors, therefore, tend to work through the medium of English. But, just to be clear, this idea of delaying an English version is something that the Welsh Government is eager for us to experiment with, but not with textbooks that are already late. They are within the new programme of textbooks that are contained within the grant that you mentioned of £500,000. So, in a way, this is an experiment and the Welsh Government wants to look at this as one way of responding to the complaint that there are different timetables available. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're being forced to do this by the Welsh Government, rather than— +Gareth Pierce: Well, we've agreed to do it in discussion with them. +Darren Millar AM: So, are you happy with that approach? +Gareth Pierce: Well, as long as the textbook isn't late in the first place, then yes; it's worth trying. There is a challenge on the eight weeks, there is a challenge in the publisher sticking to the timetable in terms of the English version first of all, but we are willing to use this as a test bed, and we're working on two specific textbooks on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the committee is struggling with this idea, so what do you understand to be the rationale behind that, then? Is it that both sets of pupils should be equally disadvantaged? +Gareth Pierce: Well, no, in a way, it uses the same principle as we have regarding our use of digital resources. With the digital materials, the intention is that things are available in time and that they're available in both languages at the same time. So, trying to imitate that with printed text is what we're trying to do, but not with texts that are already late. So, if these books keep to the timetable, then they will be available in time in both languages, but that the English version has stayed before going out on the shelves. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that's to say that the English version will be completed eight weeks beforehand so that you have eight weeks for translation. +Mike Ebbsworth: Well, ultimately, I may have used the wrong words in saying that we're holding the English back. The English version would still be in the process, just as the Welsh version would be, and then they would catch up as they approach the date for publication and printing. There is an element of editing the English as well as the Welsh and that would happen in that eight-week period. So, a draft form might be available, and we do ensure that our draft versions are available on our secure website as soon as possible, but then that has to be held up before publication. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. John. +John Griffiths AM: Just on that, Chair, it's nonetheless the case, as we've heard, I think, and as the letter to the committee from Kirsty Williams has made clear, that there might be a situation where the English-language version of a textbook could be made available, but it isn't made available because there isn't a Welsh-language version. And, as the Chair said, is that about putting those students in Wales on the same footing, and if so, how does that relate to the fact that these students, including those who could have had earlier access to the English-language version, are competing with students over the border, as we heard on the video earlier, for those precious university places? Doesn't it place the English-language student using the English-language version at a potential disadvantage, compared to students over the border? +Gareth Pierce: I think this is a point for Qualifications Wales to a certain extent, but applicants for qualifications in Wales are assessed as a national cohort, if truth be told, so, each piece of information we have on the standards is evaluated for that national cohort. The standards stem from the three-nation system. So, in discussion with Qualifications Wales, we ensure that there is no disadvantage to any cohort in Wales in any subject, be that because of a textbook being unavailable or for any other reason. +Philip Blaker: Certainly, from a comparable outcomes perspective, the fewer differences that there are that are differential—. So, the idea of textbooks being available in English and Welsh at different times could potentially create another dimension in terms of disparity. So, if we're looking at it strictly speaking from a comparable outcomes perspective, it makes the awarding easier if everybody's on a common playing field. It's worth remembering—we provided some evidence in our original letter particularly looking at religious studies on the basis that religious studies was a subject that had been mentioned. This subject has already been awarded at AS-level last year, so it has gone through an award and will go through the full A-level award this year. The comparable outcomes approach did protect those learners last year, in the absence of a textbook, and we saw stability in the results that came out of the cohort level. Similarly, with other subjects that have gone through reforms, we've seen it with the GCSEs that were awarded last year, ASs that were awarded last year and A-levels that were awarded last year: we saw good comparability year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then, Darren. Is that okay, John? +Darren Millar AM: Just a very brief follow-up on that, at the cohort level, yes, you suggest that there is some evidence that students were protected, but what you don't know and can't tell, because you're not able to drill down to the individual student level, is whether children, young people, were disadvantaged as a result of their learning style being more textbook orientated than that of their peers. +Philip Blaker: I guess we're in a situation where there's no evidence either way that that— +Darren Millar AM: The absence of evidence doesn't mean that it didn't happen. +Philip Blaker: No, but there is no evidence to suggest that. We have no positive evidence to suggest that. +Darren Millar AM: Well, I think you've seen plenty of evidence about the stress that it's causing, and the concern that learners have about their outcomes. I think it would be very interesting, actually, to take some teacher assessments and expected grades and compare those to the actual grade outcomes. Is that something that Qualifications Wales could do on a sample basis? +Philip Blaker: Historically, that sort of evidence has been very unreliable. Gareth would probably have a stronger view on that than me. Predicted grades used to be provided. Certainly, back in my day at an awarding body they were provided, and there tended to be a very low correlation between the predicted grade and the actual achieved grade. I don't know if you've got anything on that, Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: No, we agree with you that the comparisons are not that reliable, because there are so many factors. But I think, at the end of the day, what we see is, yes, I agree there is evidence of stress, but I think there's also evidence of young people and their teachers really using the available resources and the available skills in approaching revision and preparation, and tending to do that very well. That's the evidence that we've got, for example, in the AS religious studies last year, that the cohort did extremely well in fact. We can't disagree that there's evidence of stress, but I think we can also point towards resilience and excellent approaches to drawing together the various sources that they've got: classroom notes, revision notes, as they mentioned, and the various other materials that they referred to. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. John. +John Griffiths AM: Coming back to the effect of the lack of resources, we heard on the video, as you've just mentioned, Gareth, that pupils were experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, and it affected their well-being in terms of their perception that they might be disadvantaged by the lack of resources, as we discussed. We know exam time is very, very stressful—I'm sure all of us would agree with that—in general, without any additional problems or perceptions of problems. So, with that sort of background, would you accept then that some students have been negatively affected by the lack of suitable support materials for general qualifications? I know we've discussed this in terms of it being difficult, perhaps, to show cause and effect, but I think most people watching that video would clearly come to the view that some students have been negatively impacted. Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: I'd have to agree. There is evidence of their concern, isn't there? But as Philip said, what we don't have is evidence that that anxiety then has an impact on their attainment, because there are so many factors, there are so many different kinds of resources that they've referred to—even those who want to see textbooks, they're also talking about so many other materials that are available to them. Of course, it's also clear that they are conscientious young people who have worked hard, so you have a picture there of young people who are concerned, yes, and as you've said, examinations are a stressful time in general, but they are also young people who are doing their level best, and usually do get the results that they have worked for. That's the evidence that we have: the results tend to be achieved. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Coming back again to matters that we've already discussed, but just to put to you in a fairly focused way, would you accept that it isn't fair that some pupils are not having the support material that others are having, depending on whether their particular subject is involved and the language that they're studying through? Would you accept that that is a basic unfairness in the system as it currently exists? +Gareth Pierce: Ideally, resources, digital accessibility and digital literacy should be available for every pupil on an equal basis. But I think perhaps if we analysed this in much detail, different individuals would be able to say, 'There are different types of unfairness.' You referred earlier to the digital inequalities. Is there an economic inequality? There is some evidence from the teaching unions that suggests that not every school is in the same situation as each other in terms of buying the resources that are available. So, I think your question drives at a very important point: what sort of inequality could be having an impact on young people in terms of their achievement during their school time? Ideally, each one of those elements of potential inequality should be levelled. So, I don't think I can go any further than acknowledging that any inequality is unfair, but there are so many different kinds and the textbook is not the only one, and therefore we're not going to be able to analyse the impact of that on its own. +John Griffiths AM: Could I put to you, finally then, what Estyn have said about reported delays in the production and distribution of educational resources such as textbooks, marking criteria and specimen papers, that that delay has impeded the ability of teachers to plan adequately, and that this effect on their ability to plan adequately is very likely to have had an impact on pupils' achievement? Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: It's interesting—they link three quite different things there, don't they? We've discussed the textbooks in some detail. When they refer to sample assessments, we have to provide those within the regulatory time frame, and they have to be approved. So, in every subject there are sample assessments and marking schemes, and they are statutorily available, in a way. When they talk about exemplars, there are different interpretations of that. One request that we receive often from schools is for exemplars in terms of the work of pupils that has been assessed and marked by us. Of course, they're not available until the young people have taken those exams for the very first time. We can make them available digitally, and through various other methods. But in some subjects the demand has been so strong that we have worked with schools in order to ensure that work is produced by pupils before that first examination, is marked by us, and is then made available. So, we can respond to that demand when it arises. I would like to have a conversation with Estyn, indeed, to interpret on a more detailed level some of the things that they refer to. +Emyr George: May I offer a comment on that quote from Estyn? They talk about a reduction in attainment and that, to some extent, brings us back to the point in terms of the comparable outcomes method that we're talking about. That method is based on research and evidence that says that in a period of change to an exam or qualification, we know that performance in an exam can fall, and that is due to a number of different factors. Teachers aren't as familiar with the specification and the requirements of the exam. There are fewer past assessment resources available; there aren't any past papers, for example. Certainly, knowing that you're the first to sit that exam perhaps raises your concerns about that examination, and examinations are a matter of concern already. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between those factors, but what we know on the whole is that they come together to have an impact on pupils' performance in an exam, and that's why, when it comes to awarding qualifications for the first time and looking at the grades, we look very carefully at what that the mark means in terms of the grade in order to try as best as we can, on the level of the whole national cohort, to eliminate as much unfairness as possible because they are the first cohort to sit the exam. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just make a brief comment on the sample assessments? Now, interestingly, when the English, Welsh, maths, and maths and numeracy GCSEs were new, the Welsh Government were very eager that we invest in more sample assessment materials. We had to produce one for the regulator, but they wanted to see us produce far more, and we did that. But there are risks inherent in that, too. If we create more and more sample assessments, then does that create more risk of teaching to the test? And every time we produce one of these, of course, we are using robust assessment ideas, and they're out there to be used for test purposes. So, we need to be careful that we don't weaken the real assessment by providing too many of the examiners' good ideas in the sample material. So, it's an interesting theme, but it would be interesting to have a further conversation with Estyn on that. +Philip Blaker: I just wanted to say, looking towards—. Reforms always throw up issues like this. It's almost an inevitability of any change that there will be impact. I think what we need to do is we need to think about the future reforms, particularly knowing that we've got some on the radar already, and to think about what this paradigm is and how we can isolate some of these factors in the future. So, if we look at resources and if we look particularly at textbooks as being a curriculum resource, rather than a qualification resource, I think we can change the timeline to which some of those materials are produced. So, going back to when I studied my A-levels in the 1980s, there was this common body of knowledge that was an A-level textbook in biology that wasn't focused around an individual awarding body. When we talked to unions about this on Monday, they said, 'Yes, when we used to teach many years ago, there were curriculum resources like that, and then when a particular topic or a particular area of content dropped out of the qualification, we either did or didn't teach it according to whether it was in the curriculum'. That's a little bit worrying by virtue of the fact there might have been a component of that subject that didn't get taught because it was no longer in the text, despite the fact that it was in the common body of knowledge. But I think if we can shift this paradigm—and I would really like to a shift in the paradigm for resources particularly, away from the focus on the qualification and into more of a focus on the curriculum—then that provides an opportunity for, I would suggest, a much healthier model in the future. There are various ways of doing that. In the United States, for example, there are some states within the United States that produce a state textbook. Now, that can have issues, particularly if it's politically orientated—so, if politicians are seen to have a strong influence in the content that's taught. But if there is independence in that state model, then I think that can be quite strong model. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, they've actually tried to de-emphasise textbooks. So, Hong Kong, which is a very high-performing jurisdiction, is trying to move away from that model in the future. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just add very, very briefly— +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, because I want to bring Hefin in. +Gareth Pierce: I know that, in our letter to you, we emphasised that this is not just to do with the body of knowledge. The assessment objectives have shifted in many subjects towards analysis and evaluation. So, therefore, we really do need resources that support that way of working, and I'm sure that lots of the young people we've heard from—what they're really doing in their revision is actually not just studying the content, but thinking about how they respond analytically and evaluatively. In fact, an interesting question for us as an awarding body to debate with the qualifications regulator, maybe, is whether some of the content should actually be able to be taken into the assessment hall. Do young people need to remember all these terms and their precise definitions, sometimes in both languages if they've learnt it in that way? Shouldn't some of the reference material be more and more available in the assessment arena? And then you are really getting towards analysis and interpretation and evaluation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I want to welcome these particular comments, because having come from a higher education background, what I've tried to deliver in my courses are textbook-free modules, where you're relying on academic journal articles and you're piecing together the story yourself, based on the curriculum you develop yourself. So, curriculum-focused resources are very welcome. I fear that students who are nurtured on a textbook diet, when they go to university, they are not expected to repeat what's in the textbook; they're expected to do exactly as Gareth says and analyse and combine information into a discursive argument. So, therefore, I'm interested to know how you've worked with higher education to develop that approach. I also welcome what you've just said too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I ask for brief answers, please? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, well some of the people who provide ideas into our digital resources certainly are either teachers who are very well aware of that progression to HE and therefore what their learners want or, in some cases, they are HE people themselves. We do draw on a body of expertise, and we are more than willing to emphasise the importance of that approach to the support resources we provide. +Hefin David AM: I think the difficulty and the difference is that, at HE level, the kind of journal articles that are available are probably not consumable at GCSE level. That's part of the problem you have with that approach. +Gareth Pierce: Yes. And I think, interestingly—I know we've pointed towards some of our religious studies resources as examples—I think some of the websites we point to are quite ambitious. They would be described as scholarly, and I think some of the young people on the video made that point, didn't they—that they need to engage with that material to understand some themes? But we need to assist them in doing so. We need to almost make those scholarly items that are worth including in their curriculum accessible and user friendly for them at their point of learning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Philip. +Philip Blaker: It was just one point. We recently published a report on the Welsh baccalaureate and skills challenge certificate, and I think it's relevant to pull in at this point that the independent study that pupils would be expected to do through the skills challenge certificate in doing their project work is really designed to try and draw out some of those skills that would be relevant in higher education. Through the reforms that we are starting to think about for the skills challenge certificate, there's a real opportunity to start honing some of those skills, particularly at the advanced level bacc, to make people really HE-ready so that they're better able to engage with that different style of learning. So, I think there's a huge opportunity that shouldn't be diminished within the advanced Welsh bacc. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Last questions from Mark then. +Mark Reckless AM: Gareth, can I just put to you—? On the Estyn criticism, I think you've answered one aspect of their criticism that WJEC did not make as many sample assessment materials available as schools would have liked early on in the reform process, and I understand your position there, but they went on and said, 'At times the sample assessment materials were provided with incorrect mark schemes' and also, 'It would be helpful if the WJEC ensure that all necessary resources were made available before the start date of each qualification.' Do you have a response to those points? +Gareth Pierce: Again, probably, I'd like a conversation with them about any problems with the specimen assessments and their mark schemes, because if they are the statutory regulatory ones they would have gone through Philip's team as well or his Welsh Government predecessors as regulators, depending on which qualifications they were. Obviously, we need to be spot-on with those. Very occasionally, somebody will identify an error, and obviously we then correct them, because these are available digitally online. So, if there is a problem, we want to hear about it and then we can correct it. But, yes, I agree with their fundamental premise, that ideally the whole package of resources should be available before teaching starts, including, as we mentioned earlier, so we can draw on that set of resources in the events we run as WJEC free of charge for teachers leading up to the first teaching. We need that information ourselves as well so we can talk about the use of these valuable resources in an appropriate pedagogical context in that preparatory year. So, the ideal is that everything is there 12 months ahead. +Mark Reckless AM: So, what mechanism do you have for picking up on this type of criticisms from Estyn and having that conversation with them? Has that not happened? +Gareth Pierce: We have met with Estyn a couple of times recently, actually—once when they were beginning their review of the key stage 4 qualifications that had been in place for two years and a bit, and also when they were planning a review of some of the A-level work. Because we do have regular meetings with them, we will have an opportunity to explore their comments here I'm sure. +Mark Reckless AM: Looking at the structure and the relationship between Qualifications Wales and the WJEC—. I understand in the model in England—you've got Ofqual, the regulator, and you have various competing exam boards, some I think with for-profit motivation. We don't have that in Wales; there is a sole regulator and a single, dominant examination board. Does that mean that there's significant overlap and potentially cost duplication between the work of the two bodies, particularly given WJEC is a charity and seems to have many of the same objectives as you in Qualifications Wales have? +Philip Blaker: The roles are very distinct, so I'd tell you there's no overlap. What we try and do is try and make sure that there's a good connection between the work that we do. WJEC has very clear responsibilities around the delivery of qualifications. We have a role in monitoring to ensure that those qualifications are delivered securely and fairly. I would say a strength of the Welsh model is that there is an independent regulator and a single awarding body largely, because much of the work that Ofqual would need to do in terms of its maintenance of standards is about ensuring that the competition between awarding bodies doesn't lead to what's been termed in the past as a race to the bottom in terms of standards. Now, the opportunity that we have in Wales is, where we have a single awarding body, we can have a close and good working relationship with WJEC, but guarding very strongly to make sure that we keep that regulatory distance to make sure that we preserve our role as the regulator and look at WJEC as one of our regulated bodies. +Gareth Pierce: Can I make a general point? Perhaps the important opportunity in Wales is to look anew at how national and regional organisations, such as the consortia, can collaborate to make a success of the broad range of resources and CPD that will be required to support the new curriculum, and also the next set of qualifications that will be reformed. We've referred to many organisations today, but there are others. The Welsh Books Council, for example, is part of this discussion. The Learned Society of Wales is a player that wants to introduce ideas into the Welsh dimension of the curriculum. There was mention of the HE sector earlier. Teachers' associations have very specific comments to make on some of these areas. There is a great opportunity for us to come together and to have a national approach. There will be a need for some financial resource from the Welsh Government—yes, certainly—and the WJEC can provide some resources, but I think we all want to collaborate in order to ensure the success of the next round of resources. +Mark Reckless AM: But doesn't that national approach and collaboration preclude the model that Philip was talking about earlier, where we had textbooks based on the curriculum, and there's that core, but that was separate from what the exam body decided to do and the textbook wasn't there for the particular exam approach? If you have a single, dominant exam board, and you have a Welsh curriculum that's developed with that board, how do you then have this separation between textbook and exam? +Philip Blaker: So, if we look at qualification, a qualification should be based on the curriculum that's being offered, because learning should be based around the curriculum, and the role of the qualification is to measure attainment against knowledge of that curriculum—knowledge, skills and understanding, the dispositions that that curriculum is trying to develop. So, I think there are two very distinct things. Now, of course, what will inevitably happen is once the curriculum is known and developed, there will be a level of detail that comes across from what the qualification is looking for. I think what we're trying to say is, from an educational perspective, what we'd like to see is a broader focus on the curriculum and less of a narrow focus on the qualification and some of the problems that that can drive, so that, if a learner is well-versed in the curriculum and has been taught well and has acquired the knowledge, skills and dispositions that the curriculum is trying to create, they should succeed in the qualification. +Mark Reckless AM: And you suggested earlier that, if need be, the qualification could be pushed back a year, but not the curriculum. Does that mean that it would be possible to teach the new curriculum while keeping the old qualification? +Philip Blaker: It would be possible. +Mark Reckless AM: But satisfactory? +Philip Blaker: Because, if we're looking at qualifications predominantly being 14 to 16, what Professor Donaldson said at the very beginning, with 'Successful Futures', was, actually, if the curriculum is preparing people better for that qualification stage, so that they're better versed as learners and better able to perform in those qualifications and we see a rise of attainment—. Ideally, you'd be in a position where you've got GCSEs that have been reformed to marry up to any change, but I don't see there being a huge problem in itself of a delay if we think that is the right thing to do. Clearly, we consider that to be a sub-optimal thing. We would much rather be in a position of having reforms, but, equally, I'd want to see any reforms delivered safely, and I wouldn't want to compromise fairness and safety of delivery of those qualifications on the basis of a timeline. But I think all too often the case is that a timeline dominates over doing what is the right thing and I think as we get further into this we'll have to really assess and keep a grip of what's the right thing to do. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just on this issue of shaping the curriculum and making sure that we've got textbooks that can be used to support the delivery of the curriculum—. So, obviously, the WJEC's interested in the examinations and the qualifications. That's your role as well in terms of Qualifications Wales. So, who should be responsible for developing these curriculum resources? +Philip Blaker: I think, for a new model, that needs to be determined. Welsh Government has a role in curriculum at the moment. They have responsibility for curriclum and they've already started work with the seminar last year, and then drawing people together now to look at a new model for the future. I think we need to evolve that approach, and I think Welsh Government taking a lead on some of this thinking about how things might be prepared for the future is probably a good position to be in at the moment. +Darren Millar AM: Are there any other models that you can point us to in terms of how these things are done elsewhere? +Philip Blaker: Yes, there are models where you can have—. For example, in Northern Ireland, you have the regulator, the awarding body and the curriculum body all under one roof. So, you can have a position where everything is tied together as it is in Northern Ireland with the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, you have very distinct bodies that are looking after each individual component. So, there are lots of different models that can be developed. But, of course, in Wales, and also previously in England, the qualifications regulator has also had a responsibility for curriculum. So, there has been that model in the past in Wales. +Gareth Pierce: Just very briefly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really quickly, please. +Gareth Pierce: Just one thing very briefly, in terms of the WJEC. I mentioned earlier that, in the past, the WJEC has produced a fair few resources in collaboration with publishers in key stage 3 and even at primary stages. Certainly, key stage 3 is closely linked to GCSE, and, therefore, if the WJEC continues to be a player—as I hope it will—in the area of resources for GCSE and A-level, then the WJEC is also well positioned in terms of our investment in editing, translating and the use of technology to contribute to key stage 3 most certainly and perhaps even the primary stages. So, I'm sure that the WJEC would want to offer itself as a national organisation that wants to contribute as best we can in this area. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. Well, we're out of time, so can I thank you very much for attending this morning and for answering all our questions? I think it's been a very useful and informative session. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, following the meeting. But thank you very much, again, for your attendance. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4 is papers to note. In view of the time, can I ask whether Members are happy to note all those papers in a block? Can I just flag that I would like to return to paper to note 3, which is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on minority ethnic, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller learners, when we go into private, if that's okay with Members? Item 5, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","In a comprehensive session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, there was a multifaceted discussion primarily focused on the provision of textbooks and learning resources for pupils in Wales. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting, with notable participation from Darren Millar AM who disclosed a personal interest due to his daughter's involvement in a video used as evidence, and his position as a school governor featured in the same video. + +The committee delved into a video presentation that encapsulated interviews with young people and teachers regarding educational resources. The video was deemed insightful and led to the committee expressing gratitude towards the participants. + +Subsequent to the video, Gareth Pierce, chief executive of WJEC, along with representatives from Qualifications Wales, were welcomed to provide their insight and discuss their roles in ensuring adequate resources for students and teachers in Wales. It was highlighted that, while Qualifications Wales regulates awarding bodies and focuses on assessment rather than teaching resources, the approval process for qualifications does play a part in setting expectations for examinations. + +There was an acknowledgment of delays in textbook provision. Gareth Pierce explained that WJEC provides necessary regulatory specifications and sample assessments but emphasized that WJEC also encourages publishers to engage in providing textbooks—independently—as commercial agreements between publishers and examination bodies are currently not allowed in Wales. + +Questions arose about the role of teachers translating materials, with the suggestion that identifying key materials worth translating could prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts across Welsh-medium schools. Discussions also touched upon digital resources, their timely availability, and how these align with teaching methods and assessment objectives that are increasingly shifting towards analysis and evaluation. + +The session exposed concerns regarding resource delays and their impact on students' well-being and fairness in the examination system. Qualifications Wales assured the committee that the application of comparable outcomes during the grading process mitigates potential unfairness caused by the delays in resource availability. + +The committee also discussed the future, especially in light of the upcoming curriculum reform, and how resources and collaborative models could evolve. There was an endorsement for a shift away from textbook-focused learning towards a broader curriculum resource model. Lastly, the WJEC showed willingness to contribute to the development of resources for the Welsh curriculum, reflecting on its past involvement in creating educational materials for various key stages. + +In conclusion, the committee agreed to meet in private for further discussions, evidencing a proactive response to the complex challenges faced in ensuring equitable and effective learning resources for the children and young people of Wales." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: That should hopefully do the trick , um . 'Kay . Sorry about the small delay . Falling a little bit behind schedule . And that's uh fifteen twenty five . Okay . So just to try and roughly go over what we agreed in the last one , um we're gonna go for something uh uh how was it ? Uh The new black , I believe . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um something that looks good 'cause that seems to be in preference to actual functionality in the end , though we should never avoid functionality , of course . Uh many of our components are gonna be standard , off the shelf , but it seemed like we were gonna require at least an advanced chip and we were still very much for the idea of using an L_C_D_ display . Um other things were we were hoping to use rubber , most likely gonna be double curved , etcetera . Okay . So um due to your hard work , we might as well let the uh two designers go first , and uh show us the prototype . +User Interface: Okay , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Quite how the best way to do this is , I'm not sure , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I think if we both step up +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh outline our ideas . Okay . Now do {disfmarker} uh doing the prototype gave us a bit more insight into the ergonomics of the design . Um for one thing , it turned out that the only point at which it needs to be articulated for handedness is um is h i is down here for the uh L_E_D_ . As it turned out , the whole thing transfers from the right to left hand fairly well from the point of view of operating the uh function buttons and joystick , though it might be an idea to be able to a adjust the positions for the base of the joystick just a little bit for uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} ju just a thought . You could simply have a slightly ovoid shaped joystick that could then just be turn uh twisted round , so that the uh sticky uh so that the bit that sticks out a bit more is on one side or the other . But as you as you see with the uh {vocalsound} with holding it in the left hand , the L_ uh the L_C_D_ is nowhere useful , so that would need to be articulated uh if we're going to retain {gap} ergonomic design . Um now I I got your note about uh keeping the cost down . +Project Manager: I'm afraid yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll go into that a bit more , +User Interface: {gap} this design could be done with um with uh plastic casing . +Project Manager: but please go on . +User Interface: Though I would recommend around the grip part here in the middle , having maybe just a rubber grip over that which would allow for a slightly more sort of bio-morphic form , and a bit more ergonomic as well . As for the um as for the single curve , um well this edge and this edge , like I say it would be nice to have some curvature to it , but it's not absolutely necessary . Really the curve that's most needed is the underside so that the jo so that the joystick rests over the the edge of the hand like this . Um and you have the uh transmitter here and a wee speaker for the uh for the uh for the uh fi uh for the remote control finder . So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any further comments ? +Industrial Designer: Um obviously it's gonna be bulkier than how it looks , because it's gonna be flat on one side , so the L_C_D_ will be s sticking down like this , won't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it {disfmarker} you can't get it curved . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean the +Industrial Designer: Uh because of costs . +User Interface: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's plastic as well , so it won't be as comfortable on the hand . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean with the with the rubber design it could i you know it could pretty much mould very much to the to the user's hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: One nice wee feature if we could if we could still do the rubber , I though of was to have {gap} the uh rubber extend beyond the end of the uh {vocalsound} of the rigid substructure . So it has a wee sort of tail that you just drape over your wrist so it stays in position nicely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Lovely . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . Great . Um . +Marketing: Right . Yeah I've got a {disfmarker} if you load up my evaluation document . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent work . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Uh evaluation . {vocalsound} Basic point uh have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by . {vocalsound} Um then we will {disfmarker} it's a seven s um seven seven step kinda evaluation process . So um not seven steps , seven scale . So after we've finished doing all the ratings for each criteria , we average that and that will give us some type of uh confidence in our prototype . And uh the criteria {gap} based on Real Reactions' kinda goals and policies , marketing strategies , and also those I put together from the user requirements phase . 'Kay . Um if you flip the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , those are the criteria . And uh perhaps I could have put 'em a bit better , but you notice a few things that we've totally abandoned , which means {vocalsound} that uh the product will score very badly on some of those points . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Put it mildly . So we have um true ? One , t Seven , eight , oh . Fourth . Okay , so we have to go through each point . If we imagine it's actually straight , and just give it a a score . So um how well would you say the prototype is uh how well have we realised the dream of being able to stop remotes from from being lost , or to be able to find them once they are lost . I mean , uh is the homing thing still {disfmarker} the locator , is that still {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's still part of the design . +Marketing: Sure . And Adam , we can keep that in ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I believe so . So I mean I don't think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause that would mean doing something about the human element , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: but I'd like to think that we've done something about finding the damn thing once we have . +Marketing: T +User Interface: Mm . Mm . And making it a bright colour helps +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: with the {disfmarker} personally I would have gone for purple {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Bright colour . So we still have that noise thing , yeah ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Os on a scale of one to seven , how would you guys rate it for finding {gap} finding it once it's lost ? +User Interface: I'd say number one . +Marketing: Number one ? +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Number number one for the first criteria . +User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th {gap} I mean something I've found with uh w w with say tr trying to find uh a cordless phone or a m mobile , you can hear it , but you can't quite pin it dow pin down where it is . +Marketing: Yeah you can tell what room the mobile is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bu +Industrial Designer: What about {disfmarker} what if the the volume on the T_V_'s turned up massively and uh you just wanna turn down the volume {gap} can't find remote . Suppose you have to go to the T_V_ and do it manually . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Um +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like y you wouldn't hear the speaker {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here , um well what we'll do is +Marketing: You wanna say something ? +Project Manager: um if we can look at the criteria you're gonna evaluate , and then we'll come back to the product evaluation if that's alright . +Marketing: That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Um so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you've covered ? And then we'll come back pretty much promptly to this . +Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I is there any of these criteria that need any explaining ? Or is there anything that yous thought tha really would stand out compared to the others ? +Marketing: Um , a few . {vocalsound} Something I neglected from my initial research is that Real Reactions has a a goal strategy that all of the products be inspired by material fashion , and clothing fashion . That is why fruit and veg being popular in the home and in clothing was important and they want all their products to be somehow inspired by current trends in fashion . So they say we put the fashion in electronics , well they really mean it they they're very big on fashion , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so . That's this bit right here . And uh this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody ? I guess it's just the same as saying easy to use interface , so it's kinda condensed into one . And we can come back to it , you said . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly . Um . Okay . Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do . Um most of it stems from the use of the L_C_D_ which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well . Um the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a L_C_D_ , at which point we've removed a large part of how we were gonna interface , {gap} require more buttons , etcetera . Or what we did was that we um we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure . Um changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the um proposed costs and we're just scraping it in , we've got point two of a Euro left over there . So we're just managing it really . Even then as well , um there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I've used what I think's appropriate . With any luck that won't mean that we've incurred more cost than we can actually afford to . It blows a lot of our really good ideas kind of slightly to one side , for example the possibility of having a U_S_B_ connection is definitely not viable now . Um . +Marketing: Different languages ? +Project Manager: That should still be viable . We've got an advanced chip , we've got the use of the L_C_D_ . So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but what's something we need to decide on is how we're gonna go from here . {vocalsound} We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be . Um . We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and uh show you if you wish um . I really think as m much as it pains me is that we might have to go with plastic and some kind of solid design , possibly meaning that the L_C_D_ wouldn't be in this perfect place . It might be s stuck like slightly between what would be good for left handed and what would be good for a right handed person . +User Interface: Mm-hmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h {vocalsound} is have it um circular and have it s {vocalsound} so that the uh the pink {gap} actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So that uh th +Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions , unfortunately . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you have any data on how much um different prints cost ? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design um ? +Project Manager: Um b b b da is {disfmarker} you mean on the plastic , or ? +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Let's have a look . You now have as much information as I do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So as you can see here , for example , the battery really not very little choice in that one . We've gone for one of the cheaper options as well . Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we're gonna do what we're needing to . I've said single curved . We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it . Um plastic for some reason incurs no cost , which I've had to very much make advantage of , despite the fact that rubber's only got a value of two Euros per unit . Problem comes here as you can see in the interface . Um if I've read this thing correctly , then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it's not per push button . That might make sense , because then a numeric keypad would come in at um what , four point five Euros , which is an awful lot , so that could well be wrong . Even if we save point five there , it would just mean that we're most likely placing it in actually just gaining a colour for the unit , which has had to be put to one side . As you can see , the use of an L_C_ display um advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it's an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that wasn't quite what I think they had in mind with a joystick . +Marketing: Why would why would that be more expensive than an individual push button and scroll wheel together ? That's quite significantly expensive . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} that's something you'll have to take up with the bean counters . Um +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: as you can see I mean that's taken up well over half of the price . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um I'm very much open to suggestions of where we go , but because we need to shed what was four Euros off of the um the price of for what we really desired , this one comes in under price as you can see , but this was the one that sacrificed the material for the case and for the actual case design . +Marketing: We don't even have uh speakers here . The {disfmarker} like uh we uh {disfmarker} what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that ? Have we factored that in ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no , we haven't , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter , receiver , speakers . Plus the extra device itself that's gonna be on a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is that gonna be a button , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That'll {gap} it literally would just be a button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We might have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's too expensive {gap} isn't it ? +Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing {disfmarker} Mm . Oh good call , I missed that . +Marketing: I I mean it's not on here , but um . +Project Manager: {gap} that's a very valid point . +Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: So if we're gonna go with the L_C_ display , then that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's a hand dyna dynamo ? You have to wind it up ? +Project Manager: I believe so , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the um the fashion statement and such , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technology . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the L_C_D_ on the remote now . +Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and joystick , yeah . +Project Manager: Which I'm defining as scroll wheel . Um . +Marketing: And we couldn't replace the joystick , right ? Because we would need four extra buttons to replace it , up down left and right , and that would be more expensive than a {disfmarker} but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah it's just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be , that that's what I've labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ basically is the big selling point of +Project Manager: If we remove the L_C_ display , we could save ourselves +Industrial Designer: the remote . +Project Manager: a fair amount . Which you could {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's what makes it uh original though , +User Interface: Mm . I think {gap} if we remove the the L_C_ display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: and we just {gap} we could just put our branding on any other remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Um . Uh k +Project Manager: It's a shame . We should possibly have {disfmarker} If we could've increased the price we could've manufactured that and we could've got something far closer to what we were hoping to . +Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that {disfmarker} I mean it's a bit ridiculous that they're gonna charge us what is it , like this much money for three million if we're gonna buy three million components , +Project Manager: Again , you'll have to argue with the accountants on that one . +Marketing: you know . +Project Manager: Um but for the purposes of this meeting , I'm {disfmarker} we're gonna have to stick with these figures . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we're gonna keep the L_C_ display 'cause it's about what really separates us , {vocalsound} despite the cost it's gonna incur . Um +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: are people maybe not happy with , but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case , to keep the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Um yeah {gap} I mean one thing , I mean ho uh how much extra would it be to to keep I mean {vocalsound} keep the um the articulation ? +Project Manager: It's hard to tell . Um I would say that you're at least gonna take double curved , +User Interface: This is what I'm wondering . +Project Manager: and even then I'm not quite sure if that's incorporating the idea of articulation . +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: no , I think I I it d that it needn't require it to be double curved . +Industrial Designer: It can be s yeah , it can still be single curved , +User Interface: It's uh it's just {vocalsound} it's just {vocalsound} it's just that the case would come in t {vocalsound} would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Single curved with articulation ? +Industrial Designer: You just {gap} . +Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface ? 'Cause like we {disfmarker} do we have re restrictions on software ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we need for the joystick I think though . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , I mean +Marketing: Oh but there has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: and {vocalsound} I mean the uh I mean if you look uh if you look closer at the uh at the prototype here , the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight . Um I mean {gap} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the curves all o over {gap} hand , +User Interface: on the {gap} on the L_C_D_ I mean although we've done it with a curve it +Project Manager: is it ? +User Interface: could just as easily be done um without curves . The curve that's really needed is up here , +Marketing: {gap} joystick . +User Interface: to put uh to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand . +Marketing: Okay . Sure . Okay , my bad . +Project Manager: We wouldn't actually save a lot by reducing it anyway , so I mean for the purposes of this meeting maybe we can state that single curve still allows articulation . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal . +Marketing: So I think the product is not gonna perform so well for my criteria . +Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now . As long as {disfmarker} so are we gonna say {disfmarker} {gap} w we have to keep an eye on the time as well , but we're gonna say um single curved design {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait a minute . Sample speaker ? What is a sample speaker ? Is that somewhat similar to what we want ? +Project Manager: It could well be , +User Interface: Mm no +Project Manager: but at a cost of {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's that voice response thing that we got the email about . +Industrial Designer: Costs four . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But I thought it was just completely pointless . +Marketing: You got a email about voice response ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I did not , +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: so . +User Interface: B i basically it was {gap} saying that our labs had come up with a chip that you could , you know , say hello to , and it would say hello back in a friendly female voice {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah we'll definitely won't go with that one . +Marketing: We won't go with that one , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's voice recognition , so . +Marketing: I mean I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Um . So , okay yeah , battery definitely , {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it looks like we're gonna get rid of the whole loca {vocalsound} locator thing . +Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even slight well oh yeah , pretty much point two Euros , I'd say . So we'll leave that one for now . {gap} we'll just have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all ? +Project Manager: It's uh a case of um I'm uh slightly unsure . One {disfmarker} point five of a Euro for one push button doesn't sound quite right . So maybe it's a case of a push button is maybe one or more . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: At which point if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was {gap} for a case . Or had you already incorporated that ? +Marketing: Oh , special colour for the case . +Project Manager: Well you got point five there . It's literally a case of whether or not this is correct . I'm not quite sure if they're {disfmarker} I don't think they mean point five Euros per button . +User Interface: Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: l let's say that and then we can have our special coloured case +Project Manager: So +User Interface: and then we at least have {disfmarker} make it a little harder to lose . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: Because most m most remotes are a fairly dingy colour that gets camouflaged under any pile of crap in a living room . +Marketing: W what's the default colour ? White or black ? +Project Manager: Black's probably the normal colour you'd say , +User Interface: Or grey . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: I quite like that colour that you're fetching there , +User Interface: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh definitely for make it glow in the dark even better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So will we go with that then ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's not and we can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'll come back to uh your evaluation +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: which you're probably now going to pan us but there we go . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just to give you an idea , um you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well , I'm not sure how much time . We've not hit the five minute mark warning yet , +Marketing: Right okay . Okay . +Project Manager: but . +Industrial Designer: Think it's ten minutes left . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ten . +Marketing: 'Kay . Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost . Um . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Special colour . +Marketing: Special colour . +Project Manager: Mm mm four ? +Marketing: Uh uh four . +Project Manager: Three ? Mm . +User Interface: Three . I think we can do three . +Marketing: Three if we're being generous , I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th the special colour doesn't {disfmarker} would I think make a difference . +Marketing: Think we're being generous here with three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: It makes it stand out from {disfmarker} you know it's lost in a big pile of crap , it stands out from the rest of the crap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons . We're down to t two buttons , is it ? +User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick . +Project Manager: Two buttons . +Marketing: Okay , so that's a one . You know , +User Interface: Totally . +Marketing: where that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say we're doing well there . +Marketing: Okay , that was good . Easy to use interface , buttons menu , menus {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's yeah that's good . {vocalsound} 'Kay that's {disfmarker} we're not doing so badly . Um {vocalsound} easy to use {disfmarker} oh okay , let's forget that one . Fancy looking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As he models the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't get much fancier . +Marketing: Sure . And we could do whatever we like with the L_ L_C_D_ . Yeah let's just assume it's a good L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe I was panicking for no reason . +Industrial Designer: Are we going one on {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'd say we go two , 'cause like f the fanciest would be the double curved . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wouldn't it ? +Marketing: w maybe you'd be a bit too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . There we go . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: With the articulators . With bells on it . +Marketing: that's m that's that's better too . More accurate numbers . Technologically innovative . Well , we're getting rid of the locator thing +Project Manager: Which is a shame . +Marketing: which which +User Interface: Mm . I'd give it a three for this {disfmarker} for that . +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No need for teletext . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean the menus thing is something you don't normally see on um on a remote , +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} you see it in a lot of other places . +Marketing: Yeah , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And y what you're doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You say three ? I might go as far as two on that . Three . +User Interface: I'd give it a three . +Project Manager: I'd be tempted with three , yeah . +Marketing: Three . Okay . +Project Manager: We'll get panned on the next one , anyway . +Marketing: Okay . Materials that people find pleasing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , w +Marketing: Sponginess is what they really would have wanted , apparently . +Project Manager: It is , yeah . Don't blame them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um because of the way that we've minimalised the number of buttons and such . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic , it sucks . But it's no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have . +Marketing: That's true . It's not a step backwards . +Industrial Designer: {gap} five ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I'd s I I'd give it a six , to be honest . +Industrial Designer: Six ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay let's give it a six . +Industrial Designer: Six , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , that's totally thrown everything off balance . Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion . W we could . What colour were we gonna make it ? +Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , +User Interface: Um we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause we had yellow . If I were buying one , I'd go for purple . Leopard print would be cool . +Marketing: But um by this I think it's more a case of fruit and veg , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we gotta {gap} . I'd say the colour of the border there world {disfmarker} you'd find that , {gap} that's that'd stand out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Like yellow , yeah . It would also help keep the the product placement s +Industrial Designer: Logo , brand . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Is it inspired by {gap} clothing fashion ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Th th they're referring to the fruit and veg thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Is this like a banana type colour ? Could we stretch {disfmarker} no still , it's not shaped like a banana is {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's kinda {disfmarker} {gap} i +Project Manager: It's kind o it +User Interface: it won't be when it's been +Project Manager: probably {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh is that 'cause it's flat ? +User Interface: budgeted . +Marketing: What is {disfmarker} what fruit or veg is flat ? +User Interface: I I think s I I think this isn't {disfmarker} not particularly fruit and veggie . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow courgette . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean it's probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg , so , {vocalsound} what , four ? +Marketing: Four ? Oh that's it's very ambitious , +Project Manager: Is that being too generous ? +User Interface: Mm . I'd {vocalsound} I'd I don't think fruit and veg is the sole criterion . {vocalsound} Is the sole criterion for being um fashion {gap} fashionable or inspired by current fashions . +Marketing: yeah , um . +Project Manager: Oh dear , {gap} . +Marketing: Sure . Inspired by {gap} . +User Interface: Um I'd g I'd rate I'd rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually . +Industrial Designer: Well this this what we're gonna t this is their motto , like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we're we're not doing well on it . +Marketing: This is their strategy . I m imagine we actually had some money invested in this and the amount that we invest is gonna be proportional to the marks . Might {disfmarker} we might wanna be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one . +Project Manager: What would you think yourself ? +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} I mean it's it's not at all , right ? {vocalsound} In any way or shape or form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it's kind of curved +Marketing: We didn't m +Project Manager: and we can make it yellow , and that's pretty much banana like . +Marketing: Okay , the the yellow banana like thing is I think is okay . +Project Manager: Si it's got a curve to it . +Marketing: Right five . Is that {vocalsound} sound reasonable ? +Project Manager: Am I {disfmarker} do you think I'm stretching the uh the use of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll go with five . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} Yeah . 'Kay , so we have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven . So five , seven , ten , sixteen , twenty one . Which gives us an average of three . It's {disfmarker} well this would be in the middle . So we it's it's not bad . It's in the good section . +Project Manager: It's not bad and considering the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} don't pick the pen . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oops . Sorry . {vocalsound} I'm I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Y oh and you've knocked batteries out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um right okay it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S bad design , that thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in , to have a positive {disfmarker} you know , even based on the four of us being heavily biased , um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it was gonna be quite hard to get anything standing out I'd say possibly , based on um the the cost features . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Marketing: Even if we were to increase this entire thing by by seven , we were to go down a grade to to four , we would have to do {disfmarker} I mean we didn't we weren't that kinda optimistic too optim overly optimistic . You know like we didn't we didn't add we didn't subtract a whole seven points from these things , so I think we're definitely on the good bit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven , that's still only three extra points over seven . You know , it's {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Mm . Personally , I think given that the product um only replaces a single remote control +Marketing: we did it w it was okay . It was good . +User Interface: that you've already got , are people really gonna shell out twenty five Euros for something that's only marginally good ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it depends who your {disfmarker} who's {disfmarker} what the target people are , like you'd say maybe the fashion conscious +Project Manager: Maybe it's been targeted {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: women would be going , oh look at that , 's cool , it looks like a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's yellow , looks like a banana , it's cool it's gotta {disfmarker} look good in the sitting room . +Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket . +Industrial Designer: Rather than the L_C_D_ whereas uh more technical like like more uh people in with the latest technology {gap} it's good , it's got an L_C_D_ screen 's only got two buttons and a joystick . So , which which kind of people would be more likely to buy it ? +Project Manager: Probably the people technologically . They're usually the ones that buy pointless stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone , and she's had it for a long time , you know . She uses it to make phone calls and that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick , I mean that'll probably be the first one she decides not to buy , you know . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: She'd be like is this a remote control , I don't {disfmarker} how do you use it , and stuff like that . So even if it is really user friendly to us , but we're used to using menus all the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I s {vocalsound} I suppose one thing is that b because it's technically innovative , um for someone who's sort of technophobic , the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Um . +Marketing: I think it's totally uh radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But like radical good , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um don't know how lo much longer we've got . At least five minutes I think . Um quickly we'll pop onto project evaluation . Um . So , we've got these uh four criteria here for uh satisfaction . Does anybody want to um um do you have any opinions on any of them ? For example um {disfmarker} we'll work backwards I suppose . The ability to work on this project using the technology we've been presented with . Um {gap} people made good use of the uh pen and paper ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: I would say {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: got notes and doodles . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrote nearly a page , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but not {gap} . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure what the advantage for us using a digital pen might be . +User Interface: Well I think this is a {disfmarker} I think the digital pen's mostly for the benefit of the uh +Marketing: I think tracking . +User Interface: of the researchers studying this . It's all p goes into their corpus . +Project Manager: It must {disfmarker} +User Interface: Though it would have been nice to be able to transfer the um transfer our n our paper notes onto the uh computer ourselves . +Marketing: Yeah , that woulda been pretty good . +Project Manager: It does seem like the paper's still a heavy consideration for taking notes . So maybe this is literally just a way around it . Um I dunno . How are people satisfied with the teamwork we've managed to display today ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Good . +Marketing: yeah I liked it , yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership . As much as can be leadered in this uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: I li yeah , top marks . +Project Manager: Um last one we've got is room for creativity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Unti uh uh until uh until accounts came along , +Project Manager: Now , I think we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} squish . +Industrial Designer: We're burs bursting with creativity . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: We we're not lacking in ideas , you know it's {disfmarker} that was not the problem . +Project Manager: I think of {disfmarker} in the end , ideas that can be used {gap} sadly {gap} . Not so much that we weren't full of ideas , but of ones that are gonna allow us to actually build the thing . It's a bit of a pity . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I would have to agree on that . I think we needed a larger budget . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you're going to aim your a um product maybe at the technological kind of sector , then you can afford to maybe jack the price up slightly from what it is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because they will pay outrageous cash to {gap} +User Interface: Mm . I mean I th {vocalsound} I mean I think to r retaining the s the more sort of bio-morphic form in the articulation would gain more in s uh would gain more profit in sales than it would lose in uh +Project Manager: first on the market . +User Interface: in added expense . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the price was like {disfmarker} it was twice the w assembly cost . And would it have to be twice that ? It could be like coulda had the assembly {gap} like maybe fifteen Euro . +Project Manager: It could even {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll still settle for twenty five {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I suppose these are all that will have to be taken up with a at a different group at I guess . As to a {gap} the costs involved . But I mean we've got a a prototype . +User Interface: Such as it is . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I dunno , I I think it's gone okay today , considering the information that we've had at our disposal , and um such . +Marketing: Maybe the counts wou woulda been better if we had a list or more {disfmarker} Yeah , to begin with . +Industrial Designer: In the beginning , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably would have {disfmarker} mean we could have come up with a lot more solid design in the end , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would have to agree . It is very much a pity to um get so far into the stage and then find out that maybe some of your ideas are just a bit too expensive . Always hard to tell until you know the costs . Um . Okay . Are the costs within budget ? Well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they are now that we have our slightly less than capable product . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We've evaluated it , and we can say that we came out with a value of three . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Actually I want th one thing I would say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean something that could perhaps be part of the product mm the um m product testing market research process would be to uh produce mock-ups of both versions and see just how much of a difference the over {gap} going over-budget um m would make to sales . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: And like response from consumers {gap} . +User Interface: And we could even you know , market two versions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wee cheapie version with the nice bio-morphic rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the final one where you get to call it Hal . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: But we'll go into that later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: Right um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is there anything else that anybody would like to to add , um {gap} anything they think that's not been covered , before I quickly write up a final report . Um I dunno , I mean we've got a product . We maybe aren't as happy with it as we'd like to be , but we've got something we think we can maybe stick onto the the market and sell . And of course something we have been avoiding talking about 'cause of we've no information is selling them directly to the manufacturers . There is a huge market . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we've briefly touched on it but we've no more knowledge then there's little we can say on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So um unless anybody's got anything they'd like to add , we can maybe round this up slightly earlier than we'd need to and then we can finish up the writing and such . +User Interface: And I can get my bus . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh thank you for your participation . +Marketing: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was actually kind of upset you know at the budget , and that we had to cut a lot of stuff . It's like man , we we can't have the locator thing . And s yeah that's just bad . Do you think maybe {gap} the prices were were made ? +Project Manager: That {gap} a question we can ask {gap} . {vocalsound} +","The conversation revolves around a project team comprising a Project Manager, Marketing representative, User Interface designer, and Industrial Designer. They are discussing a prototype design of a new remote control which emphasizes aesthetics, often referred to as ""the new black,"" indicating a trend in fashion. The team acknowledges a slight delay and addresses minor budget issues, indicating they are behind schedule. + +The Project Manager expresses a desire to balance aesthetics with functionality, mentioning the use of standard components along with an advanced chip and an LCD display. Rubber and a double-curved form were also desired for the design. + +The User Interface designer presents a prototype, suggesting ergonomic considerations, such as a joystick that's comfortable for either hand, and possibly articulating the LCD for better visibility. The idea of having a simple ovoid-shaped joystick that could be reoriented for left or right-handed users is discussed. + +They face constraints such as keeping costs down and potentially using a plastic casing instead of rubber grips. They also discuss the possibility of incorporating a remote control finder feature. Cost-saving changes, such as utilizing plastic and forgoing a USB connection, are considered out of necessity. They consider the importance of the product being multilingual and whether additional functions could be included without exceeding their tight budget. + +Marketing introduces an evaluation document focusing on seven criteria that reflect the company's goals, marketing strategies, and user requirements. Despite the constraints, the team aims to maintain features like the locator functionality and a bright color to help locate the remote. + +It becomes evident that they need to cut costs, notably by reducing the LCD vision and possibly using less expensive material for the casing. Discussions of product design also include potentially using only a single curve design and incorporating unique design elements such as extendable rubber for a wrist grip. + +Discussions continue on various cost-related matters, the utility of an LCD screen, and accommodating different languages. The team considers the aesthetic aspect within the context of Real Reactions' branding strategy, which aims to align with current fashion trends. + +Towards the end, they evaluate their prototype based on the mentioned criteria and seem disappointed with some of the compromises they had to make but recognize their creative effort. They end up with an average score of three (out of seven) for the prototype, indicating that while it wasn't ideal, it was still in the ""good"" range. The team briefly evaluates their own teamwork, creativity, and the technology used in the project, reflecting on their level of satisfaction and constraints placed by the budget. + +Overall, the central themes of the conversation are the challenges of balancing aesthetics and functionality in product design, being constrained by a limited budget, and the struggle to innovate within these confines. The team works collaboratively to address these issues though they are forced to make significant compromises on their ideal vision for the product." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright , that did nothing . Okay . Welcome to the meeting everyone . Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show . Sorry guys . +Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing . +Project Manager: I did . Twice . +Marketing: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This'll just take a moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or it won't . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . Um . This is the first meeting uh for developing our , our new product . {gap} I'm Heather , I'm your Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Hello . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um . So that was the opening . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another . If everyone could go around and explain their role and um , and their name . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . My name's Poppy . I'm the Industrial Designer for this project . Um , I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase . Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product . +Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase , the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Hi , I'm Genevieve . I'm the Marketing Expert . I'm an expert at marketing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product . Um , I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design , and product evaluation for the design phase . +Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager , um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing . But um um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today , um um as well as planning the project , how we're going to , uh , create this product , and , um , discuss , um , our aims and objects of this , Which brings us to our next subject , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is , um , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control . Um , we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy , um , a completely new style , so that , um , can really appeal to a , to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of , uh , channel-changer . And , um , it needs to be user-friendly for , um , maybe , for an example , for people that , um , can't see the numbers as well , or , um , perhaps an ergonomic design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is a television remote control ? +Project Manager: Yes , it's a television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now . So , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Um , the way that we're going to go about this is , um , we'll have a time where we can , um come up with new ideas alone , and , and work on the project and then , um , after we've brainstormed and , and thought about , we can come together in a meeting and , and discuss what , what um , what kind of functional design we want to use . Same with conceptual design and detailed design . So , um , making sure that it , it's usable , that as a , um {disfmarker} and that it's , it's feasible to create , and uh , to come up with a concept of it want , what we want it to look like . Um , tool training . Is , is everyone , um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Got those notes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Great . Great . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Um One thing that , uh , we're going to do is become more acquainted with the , the tools that we have access to for our project . Um , one of them is our whiteboard . And , um , as a sort of team-building moment , um , I , I'd like us to , um , try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , why that , why that should be your favourite animal . So , um , I , I'm assuming that we should do that now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Gosh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , what's my favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do come up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first . {vocalsound} Oh , +Project Manager: This is a team-building time +Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: where , um , {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay cool , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My favourite animal , which changes all the time , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right now it is an elk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: An elk ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: alright , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . Looks kinda like , like it has holly growing out of its head . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You do . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: We have moose too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have sheep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep . Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: cows . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a great elk . +Marketing: Uh-oh , we have a good artist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That is really good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , very shapely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Brilliant . +Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk , and it , it is my favourite animal right now , 'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um , that um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward , because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain , and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous , because it has um strong antlers , and uh it can really combat its enemies , even like it it's a it's an herbivore but , uh , it can really defend itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I'm gonna take minutes while , um , you guys express your favourite animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll go next . I am a big animal lover . like all sorts of animals , but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat , in memory of my poor cat that died recently . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing , but never mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent , and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing . Um , but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable , 'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well , and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and , um , running around outside as well as being inside , and enjoying their food , and generally just , they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of , they got it sorted . They know what they want . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically , that's why I like cats . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out . There you go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think my favourite animal would be a dog , but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: I , I've never drawn a dog , I don't think . I'm tempted to draw a snail 'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Project Manager: I forget her name . +User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog , 'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog . +Marketing: Tara +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or Tara . +Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs , so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh , oh well . {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog . That {disfmarker} This , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that does not look like a dog . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog ? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god . Right . Yous know what it's supposed to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog . {vocalsound} . Um , I like dogs because , um , they're so good to humans , like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs , and they're just such friendly animals . And , like they're more of a companion than cats . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats . Cats don't really like me , so I can't like them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty . I feel like a robot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well I guess I had the most time to think about it . I'm going to draw a butterfly , because I saw a butterfly yesterday , that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving . And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild , and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland . It was like , well it was a little pointier than that . At first I thought it was a dead leaf . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me . But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this . And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green , I think it was a green ring , and there was like red going out like this . +Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it kinda was actually , 'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull , and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever , and I'm like , wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool . And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes . I wish I'd had my camera . So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , what do we {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that ? +Marketing: Yes I do . {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , now that we know how to use the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um , the next , um , thing we need to address is our financial department , to meet our our budget , um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more , um , like what kind of , uh , selling range we'll be looking at , um , wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros . And so we have to , um , come up with a way to , to create a , a uh remote control , where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less . Um , we'd like to , um to , uh , make fifty million Euro . I'm assuming that's what the M_ means . Um , and make it for an international market . Um , one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of , um , like different kinds of , uh , V_C_R_s . Things like that , depending on which country you are . Another thing for the design team to think about . Um , we want it to cost , uh , absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Marketing: Okay , so we'll have a hundred percent profit then ? Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I'm bad at math . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so now that , um , that is underway , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it is discussion time . So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas , any um suggestions that you may have so far , a um your personal experiences with remote controls , and um , um , areas you see that , uh , could be improved in your experience with them . Does anyone have any initial thoughts ? +Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So what's something we could , uh , do to remedy that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's always , where is the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , some kind of alarm . You can press a button on your wall , {gap} signal , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a great idea . It's a great idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it always gets lost . +User Interface: Do yous not find that , um , {vocalsound} like , there's a lot of , um , buttons on your remote control , and you don't know what half of them do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that you don't use half of them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know what they do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel , so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is . Yeah . +Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons , power button , T_V_ video button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Anything about , um , the look of the , uh , remote control that you might have ideas about . Maybe it could be , instead of like a standard rectangular shape , it could be , um , something more interesting like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you know . Be like a shell-shaped remote . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here . Like , I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original , um , aspect we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , you're the designers , you c , you can um decide what kind of , um , direction you wanna go in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but at this point in the , in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose , if we're he heading to have it , like make a huge profit out of this , it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing . Like , a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than , like , a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring , 'cause that wouldn't sell either . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , hmm . +Project Manager: And the key issue here is , is being trendy and original . Um , that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Okay we have five minutes left . So , just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing . Um , like you can go over your ideas , of course , in your own personal times . Um , our next meeting will be in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have half an hour to , uh , think about what you want to present . Or not present but bring to the meeting . Um , I_D_ , whatever that stands for . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Interface ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: That's me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , industrial . +Project Manager: I have to remember these things . Um . You'll be beginning your , your working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , U_I_D_ the technical functions design will , will be worked on the next thirty minutes . Um , {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved , and , um , we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , you will get specific instructions , um , of what to do in the next half an hour . And I'll see you in half an hour , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {gap} +","In the meeting, the project team introduces themselves and discusses initial thoughts on designing a trendy and marketable new television remote control. The Project Manager, Heather, expresses difficulty with the presentation technology but leads the conversation, introducing the product concept and discussing team roles and tasks. Poppy, the Industrial Designer, will handle the functional, conceptual, and detailed design phases of the physical product, while Tara, the User Interface Designer, will do the same for the interface design. Genevieve, the Marketing Expert, will focus on user requirement specifications, trend watching, and product evaluation. + +The team outlines the financial goal of creating the remote control for a manufacturing cost of twelve Euros and fifty cents to sell at the retail price of twenty-five Euros, aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros for an international market. + +During the conversation, the team suggests various features to improve the remote control, such as a back-lit panel to assist in low light conditions, a tracking feature for when the remote goes missing, fewer and simplified buttons, and the idea of making it trendy and original. + +As part of team building, the team members also share their favorite animals by drawing them on the whiteboard, revealing their personal affinities: Heather's favorite is an elk, Poppy likes cats, Tara is fond of dogs, and Genevieve admires butterflies. + +The meeting concludes with a plan to meet again in half an hour to discuss further development, and tasks are distributed among the Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing Expert to prepare for the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , yeah . {gap} crack on {gap} . Okay so we'll start off with a quick overview of the minutes . I think to sum up the last meeting , would be to say um the requirements that we've um set out . Those are we were going to go for what seemed to be a fairly minimal design based on uh a small joystick , {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and a couple of other buttons for navigation um with power being I suppose one of the main single purpose buttons . Um we were also going to use {gap} novelty of being able to locate the remote control again via a small transmitter with any luck , the idea to try and separate us and also because of the minimal design um looks like we'll be able to be fairly adventurous in the actual physical shape of our remote control with any luck . Um that pretty much sums up the last one . So we'll just crack on , um like to maybe start with the Industrial Designer if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh uh okay . +Project Manager: Um uh the con today is the concep today . +Industrial Designer: I'll just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This uh meeting is the conceptual design phase and is um {disfmarker} Sorry about this . {gap} . And is to cover things like um what the parts might be made of , um , can we uh outsource these from elsewhere , um will we have to construct any items ourselves ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I have a presentation {gap} I just saved it in the uh the folder . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay well I'll just uh I'll load it up then . Um {vocalsound} . Which one do y +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Oh , interface concept ? +User Interface: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: That's you . We've got trend watching , that's you . +Industrial Designer: It's uh {disfmarker} Components design . +Project Manager: Components design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . The case uh le that's what I wrote first of all , could be plastic our plastic . Uh but later on {gap} we found out that um it can be rubber as well , or titanium or even wood . So uh we decide what it's gonna be . Probably plastic . Uh we need the infra-red transmitter . Get that off the shelf . Uh joystick we'll probably if we're gonna use it , um could be plastic w or rubber even as well . Um {vocalsound} if you go on to the next slide . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you go on to f uh findings , it's like two or three slides down . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , this is what I found we can use . Uh three different types of batteries . Um can either use a hand dynamo , or the kinetic type ones , you know that they use in watches , or else uh a solar powered one . +Project Manager: Okay . Now , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: the kinetic one , we've {disfmarker} 'cause that's the ones where like you {disfmarker} the movement causes it . +Marketing: Cost is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the bat uh the battery for a a watch wouldn't require a lot of power , would be my one query . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is a kinetic one going to be able to supply enough power ? +User Interface: There's also a watch moves around a great deal more . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think it would . Um . And solar cells , I dunno about that . +Marketing: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . We should probably just use conventional batteries . Um , just like in usual remote controls . +Project Manager: Which I suppose as well would allow us to go off the shelf again , you'd say ? +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . Um . {vocalsound} And these are three different types of {disfmarker} or two different types {disfmarker} three different types of shapes you can have . Uh one is a flat one , and then more original ones are single curved one or one with a double curved . Um {vocalsound} the materials are tha there as you can see , but uh you can't have a titanium one for a double curved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Titanium , the really strong metal , titanium ? +Industrial Designer: uh which would be {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: Is it not also it's expensive ? +Industrial Designer: and light . Uh , i think so as well , yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Um . +Industrial Designer: They make mountain bikes out of that , don't they . So it's really light as well . +Project Manager: Curious . Um , I don't know if you'd be able to off the top of your head or not , the single curved and double curved , would you be able to give an example ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} T yeah . +Project Manager: Um could you maybe draw something ? I you don't doesn't have to be perfect , it's just 'cause I'm not quite sure if I understand the difference between the two . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Well for a curved , well I was thinking to {disfmarker} f for to sit in your {disfmarker} the palm of your hand . Uh maybe like this , with the uh joy pad here . Joystick here . And maybe um an okay button around here , so that the thumb can uh use it quite easily . Um I don't exactly {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Double curved . It probably means {disfmarker} this is probably double curved . Uh whereas a single curved would be like that . I guess . Or not necessarily . +Project Manager: So it might literally just be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two curves {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like that . Whereas this is two curves . Um {vocalsound} so I guess that's what they mean by uh double curve . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Um which obviously {disfmarker} it looks better than the single curve , but uh you can't have it in titanium , which is uh a nice material . {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and for the buttons , um it can have the scroll wheel which they use in mouses for com P_C_s . Uh but um it requires a more expensive chip to use , and if you wanna use L_C_D_ it's even more expensive . So you have to decide , there's trade-offs there . Um {vocalsound} if you want the buttons to be {disfmarker} oh yeah , if you have a double curve uh control and it's rubber , then you have these rubber buttons as well . But {vocalsound} you're gonna ha I reckon you're gonna have to have uh key a number keypad anyway for the amount of channels these days . You wouldn't want to just have to scroll through all the channels to get to the one you want . You wanna enter just the number of it , if you know it . So um I reckon we're gonna have to have a number keypad anyway . Do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay , that was definitely something we can talk about . Um so you've got a little bit about the the chip that we might require as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , depends where gonna spend the money if you want the f fancy L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Um , do you have any idea so far , like when we're saying that we'd need an advanced chip for an L_C_D_ , does that in shoot the cost up by a drastic amount ? Or ? +Marketing: Need an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ . Is that {disfmarker} did I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think compared to say just pressing {gap} buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Advanced , like three eight six advance . +Project Manager: {gap} if you press a button that sends a certain transmission through the infra-red , whereas I think if we're controlling the L_C_D_ we definitely require a much more powerful chip . Just compared to the chip you would use for pushing buttons I think is the the point being made . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , sure . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If I've not over-stepped . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah i +Project Manager: Okay , um should I go on , or go back ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , if we only have twelve Pounds fifty , twelve Euros , not even twelve Pounds . Twelve Euros , what's that , like eight pounds or something like that , nine Pounds ? +Project Manager: Well we'd also be relying on the um the bulk buying in producement and such . I assume . +Marketing: Okay , that's good point . +Project Manager: We have to look into the costs of those . So , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh the previous slides just explain what's in the internal components of the uh remote control . If you go to the one before that uh so it just says what it does , translate the key press into an infra-red signal and this is received by the T_V_ . Uh the chip just needs to detect the signal or detect the key press and then uh it'll send it to the tr the amplifier . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh then the next slide just shows how the uh copper wires uh interact with the buttons , the rubber buttons , uh to uh get sent to the chip . So that's just how the control works inside . Um we have to decide on what buttons we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . {gap} . So in the information that you've been supplied , how feasible would you say that the idea of using an L_C_D_ looks ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} I think we can do it if {vocalsound} uh we use conventional batteries and not have solar cells or kinetic . Um and then maybe use single curved uh case . Because we might need it to be curved for the uh thumb to use the joyst joystick easily . Um and then you'll need the advanced chip obviously for the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Um I mean that sounds like quite a good requirement to me . Um conventional battery would seem to make sense . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure if there's any cost differences between single and double curved and I'm {disfmarker} I don't know about anybody else , but plastic or rubber as a traditional form of casing would seem to be a good way forward ? {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . Um I'm actually gonna be bold and go oo go straight for rubber um for reasons I'll go into uh in more detail . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I also have a preference for rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Based on my research . +Project Manager: Yeah , well will we move on to user interface , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um sorry , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: as long as {disfmarker} were you ? Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm finished . +Project Manager: Um {gap} and d d d interface concept . +User Interface: Yep . Now I'm gonna have to work between the uh the slides and the uh {vocalsound} and the white board +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause I actually I have some fairly concrete things this time . Uh um I was given a an H_T_M_L_ file giving um various ideas from uh from other previous remote control designs , and pretty much decided to just dump them all . I wasn't very impressed by them and they didn't seem to re uh nothing I saw seemed to meet the sorts of design specifications that we're going for today . Um so what I ra rather than looking at other remotes , uh ra oomp be better to simply look at the human hand . Um and try and f um and try and figure out a way of laying out the elements we've already decided on , um so that if r a if {vocalsound} so that the finger is e each finger or thumb is wherever it needs to be already . Um so uh next slide , if you please . Um and what we've basically decided on was the the um the joy uh the joystick , two function buttons and the L_C_D_ , just keep it paired down to the absolute minimum . I don't actually think we need the um the numeric keypad because if you m because one of the menus that we could have available um {vocalsound} v via via the L_C_D_ is one where you scroll through channels , so if there's something f {vocalsound} and be bear in mind since this isn't meant to work for um +Marketing: {gap} digital . +User Interface: f f f {vocalsound} for di for digital or um or for {vocalsound} or for cable , whatever , +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: you're basically looking at four or five terrestrial channels , and then um your V_C_ uh and then the channel through your V_C_R_ and or D_V_D_ player . And or um {gap} box . So it's not {vocalsound} I'm not really excessively concerned about that . You must have two two modes , basic mode , where um the joystick's uh left right {vocalsound} left right for channels , up down for volume , um and the uh uh and the menu mode for uh further functions . Um now the reason I was particularly interested in using rubber for this is that if we're going to have a highly ergonomic design , um it needs to be ergonomic for left or right handed people . Um , so you +Project Manager: Can I just jump in slightly there ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That would suggest the double curved design's probably going to be most appropriate , then . +User Interface: Yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: {gap} okay . +User Interface: Um , basi {vocalsound} basically what I {vocalsound} basically what the {vocalsound} what {gap} be having um , I would say , the the whole thing articulated at two points , so that if you if you're handing it from a lef uh left or right handed user you can adjust it so that the um the L_C_ {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ and the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The joystick would be in the right place . And {vocalsound} also this is {gap} a rather nicer de uh design gimmick that the {vocalsound} the um you know the whole thing you know {vocalsound} it should have sort of organic feel to it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that it should be , you know , soft to touch and can be moved around all nice . Um okay +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: on to {vocalsound} on to the next uh to the next slide . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Just to let you know we'll probably be quite tight for time as well , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: because I think you've probably got a lot you'd like to say , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , 'kay basically um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can add pretty pictures to this . The um {disfmarker} Assuming the hand {vocalsound} the hand to be in about sort of this position , um {gap} hol uh holding the remote , the um the joystick unit should rest over the uh the joint of the f of the uh four finger so that it's directly accessible for the thumb . Um and it would need t there would need to be a {disfmarker} it would need to be articulated just below that so that it could be switched around for uh left or right handed users . So . You then have a grip section that can be more or less the same irrespective of handedness . You just have big {vocalsound} two big buttons that cover most of the area so it can {vocalsound} in the upper part , one for the four finger , one for the middle finger . Um , and that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this the joystick ? +User Interface: Th {vocalsound} this part here is the joystick . This would be the actual grip . Probably where you'd want to have the battery as well . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: That would be probably the bulkiest part . And you then have , at the uh at the bottom , the L_C_D_ , and this would need to be articulated as well . And basically I'd want this to rest here , right at the base of the wrist . So it would fit just nicely in the hand . And again , this part could be rotated , so it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} so so that it can be adjusted to either left or right handed user . Um {disfmarker} So the t uh the top function button in basic mode would be the on off switch and menu mode would be the enter button . And then the bottom function buttons switches between between modes . Um now programming it {vocalsound} actually thi this is one thing I've found with um the replacement remote control . Programming them can be a right pain . So I thought th the simplest way around that would be to have um a cable to connect it to the computer some {vocalsound} some fair iv {gap} fairly fairly simple software on the computer just so that you {disfmarker} on your {gap} computer just so that you could um pr {vocalsound} program it at a rather {vocalsound} in a rather more comfortable interface . And you could download programs for it from uh for uh T_V_s from all sort of main manufacturers . Um though you {disfmarker} i it would be necessary to have uh have a m uh have a {vocalsound} ha have a mode for programming it without the computer , uh just in case there are there are still people left out there who don't have them yet . Um . But uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That's that's my idea . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Excellent , right . Um {vocalsound} uh . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: File open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We go . +Project Manager: Trend watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So uh to gather my research , two basic methods . We compared uh whether people want the remote control to do a lot of stuff or they want it to look cool . And then we we research uh fashion trends in Europe , what's what's the new black , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: you know , as it goes . {vocalsound} Next slide please . Uh we found , in order of importance , people want the remote control to look cool more than they want it to to be cool . As in they want it to do a lot of good s they want it to look like it does a lot , and if it does do a lot that's a bonus , but they don't care so much , you know . {vocalsound} They want it to be {disfmarker} that's sounds a bit like a contradiction . Technology technical {disfmarker} technologically innovative . People want it to be that , but s still they care more about the way it looks than what it does . So like the interface is really important . {vocalsound} And easy to use , it it just so happens that uh from the second point to the third point is twice as important {disfmarker} I mean the second point is twice as important as the third point . People want it {disfmarker} I is it has to be cooler than easy to use , you know , if it has the newest features , even if it's difficult to use , {gap} prefer it to have the newest features . And if it's easy to use that's a bonus . {vocalsound} The fashion , now this is seems a bit odd to me , but fruit and veg is the new is the new black for furniture , for clothes , for shoes . How that relates to a remote control I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I I see {vocalsound} I come on to that in the next in the next slide . Spongy . I've als I've been saying everything's the new black . Well spongy's the new black as well . So we have the choice between rubber and plastic . If it's the type of rubber that you can squeeze , you know , it's spongy , then {disfmarker} can I skip the rest ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I forgot to mention that . The uh rubber material is the type of stress ball material , not just normal rubber . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Forgot to say that . +Marketing: kinda spongy material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So um so my personal opinion ? {vocalsound} Um we want something fancy and techni technologically innovative , obviously . But what we what we need is something that looks like it's from the future that looks cool , that's that's different , you know , that's {disfmarker} everyone has a white remote control , black remote control , you need something cool . Like , titanium is cool but it's expensive . And maybe it's a bit of overkill for a remote control . Um now the fruit and veg options , either we we go in that direction or we stay totally away from it . Um {vocalsound} I mean the research did come up with fruit and veg , so maybe it is important for {disfmarker} it's the up to the interface guy . So if we stay away from it , s you know stay away from it , but if we're gonna go along with it then it doesn't necessarily have to be like an apple or something like that , or a kiwi fruit . It could be something like , I say potato peeler but I'm sure you guys have a have a much cooler idea than I do . So I think cool is the key . {vocalsound} Few questions about a spongy remote control . I've never seen one before . I've seen plastic remote controls . I think maybe they were {disfmarker} I don't know , back in the day when they first came up with remote controls , they had a reason for it being +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: sturdy , you know . For being strong and sturdy . So um if we want something strong and sturdy , I say stay with plastic or titanium , but if we go with spongy , we can stress that you can drop this as many times as you want , it doesn't matter , it's spongy material , it's not gonna break , you know . I just don't know how the L_E_D_ and the lights are gonna fit into a spongy material because it's not gonna be completely squeezable . So how do things fit it ? And if we are gonna use spongy , we can say it's long lasting , you know it's damage resistant and stuff like that , so . So just to summarise , people want stuff that's cool , that's that looks like it's cool , and if it is cool then that's a bonus {gap} doesn't have to be um people like fruit and veg . We can either go down that alley or stay totally away from it . People like spongy material . If we're gonna use spongy material we have to think of how practical it is , and how we can further promote that idea . And also , this was this year . So , things change all the time , every year you know they they always talk about this year , this is the new black . Well next year something else is gonna be the new black +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we're stuck with last year's fruit and veg type stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's me . +Project Manager: Well , um I would say that the most you could probably hope for is gaining a year's lead on most people anyway . You always have to bring out new designs , so if we can get next year then that's possibly a good place to start anyway . Um . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems like a a lot of the components could be off the shelf , so {disfmarker} I don't exactly what cost would be incurred . Um I can see your point about the number keypad , but I've {disfmarker} I would say that we can probably incorporate it into the menu system if you need to do traversal of a large number of channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My feeling would be that even if at a later date this was to be taking control of um {gap} boxes as well um having the use of the L_C_D_ and the joystick would probably allow you to manipulate enough channel numbers for you to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , actually {gap} if you've got a lot of channels , the number keypad can be quite annoying as well , becau {vocalsound} {gap} it's you know if you're trying to remember what uh , you know , what number's the discovery channel or whatever . It's just irritating . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a good point . +User Interface: But if you h {vocalsound} but but but if you have a me but if you have a menu structure , then you can sub-group them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You can incorporate names into the menu . Okay . +User Interface: So you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even news , music . Like they do on uh sky digital kinda . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what it looks like to me is we'll use a large number of standard components , um , say something like um lithium ion battery , the kind that you find in most um small hand held devices now . Um {disfmarker} Looks like we {gap} going for a double curved design . Um I don't know what cost implications there are in that . Um , looks like we're pretty much decided on some kind of flexible rubber . Though I'd have to say {vocalsound} depending on how flexible it is , we might need to have some kind of inner frame . +User Interface: Yeah , I I would say definitely , I mean {vocalsound} I mean I mean the the idea of having it sort of articulated i th there would be basically two points of articulation . W um one below and one above the m the uh the main sort of grip . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think there's any way we could maybe remove the articulation ? I can see why it looks appealing , but it could be a weak point in um the structure , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm {gap} . +Project Manager: That would be a worry of mine . +Industrial Designer: If you're going with the fruit and veg thing , {vocalsound} looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I d I don't thi I don't think that it would be a {vocalsound} a structural weakness , +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F if you wanna design it that way . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean if you have a firm s sub-structure , you can then incorporate articulation into that . If you then have a sort of outer skin of mm flexible , spongy rubber then you have something that is you know very much you know organic , and I think would look rather co I mean {vocalsound} mi {vocalsound} rather cool . I mean my drawing there doesn't doesn't do it justice , it makes it {vocalsound} makes it look more a little bit more like a vibrator than a than a uh than a remote control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , we won't add that functionality . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Course not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , one interesting point is , I don't know how serious you were there , but we {disfmarker} if we take some of the ideas {gap} why don't we make the damn thing yellow to incorporate the des the colour of the logo ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's an {disfmarker} certainly a different colour from your average um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it harder to lose , as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Was there anything in your research {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The noise for when you lose the banana , um f yeah , for when you lose the remote control , {vocalsound} it could be like a a monkey noise or something like that , rather than a standard beep beep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y you know , you lose the monkey {disfmarker} the banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} monkey {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: y {vocalsound} you lose the banana , you press a button , and you hear like monkey screams or something like that to direct you towards the banana . +User Interface: I th uh I mean if it {disfmarker} I think that's something that could perhaps be programmable , though maybe have monkey as default . Um . +Marketing: S oh , I was gonna talk about the programmable remote control . Now I think it'd be cool if you had one remote control that could work with all T_V_s , you know you s you click a button and it finds the frequency that works with your particular television . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But why you'd need to program it like as as a standard feature , I I don't know . +User Interface: Well basi {vocalsound} basically the um for {vocalsound} f for uh {disfmarker} I mean e each manufacturer will have a partic {vocalsound} will have a particular command set that uh the T_V_ responds to . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's not simply a matter of frequency . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So um {vocalsound} usually what's done is you have this big booklet full of different possi {vocalsound} you'll have all of them sort of programmed in to the uh remote , and you'll have this little booklet of codes you then find your um ma uh find your manufacturer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and try the different codes that +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: come under that manufacturer's name 'til you find the right one . +Marketing: That's because televisions , they don't give the remote control any type of feedback when you send it {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So that's that's quite annoying and we probably would still have to do that . But if we had um some sort of hook-up to your computer as an option , then if you've got a computer you can avoid that rather irritating thing . +Project Manager: An interesting point is that if the person doesn't have the computer , we can still make the process easier because instead of having to look up codes , maybe we can have it that one of the options they have is that they look up the name of the company on the L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then they maybe look up different names of um {vocalsound} different actual units that have been produced . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we have the remote control just go through them until it's like does this do the correct function , and such . +Marketing: Is it is it actually a book of names to digits , or is it like a few pages ? +User Interface: Um booklet . {vocalsound} Some pages . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was just thinking , if we were to store this information , some type of mapping . This person probably need to use this feature like once , you know , when you first buy the remote control , or whenever they buy a new television , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Doesn't have to be used very often +Marketing: once every s +Project Manager: that's right , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . But it's a but it's a nuisance . +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's a nuisance very close to the to um to actually purchasing it , so it's something that you're likely to be thinking about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you {disfmarker} if there's w i if there's one in the shop that's {vocalsound} that says it can avoid much of that nuisance , you might be favourably inclined towards it . Um mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , this {disfmarker} {gap} just to give us a rough idea of what we're meant to be doing for the next stage . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that you got that anyway . This is the conceptual one . Um . I think we've come up {disfmarker} I think we've covered everything we need to here . Um I think we've decided on what , you know , decided on standard items for most of um rubber and such , so we're now looking at the detailed design and what we need to be doing for the next meeting . Um {disfmarker} So for example , um I'll just start at the top , you've got yourself and the Industrial Designer gonna be working quite closely at this stage 'cause it'll be hard not to , obviously . Um looking from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} prototyping of some des description using clay . Um I suppose you'll be told a lot more about that as uh {vocalsound} progress . Um {disfmarker} The user interface design , They're kind of {disfmarker} it looks they're {disfmarker} the idea I've pushed forward so far is maybe more of a physical one there , whereas {vocalsound} possibly be more interested in maybe how the L_C_D_'s going to incorporate , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or do you s perceive that most the design design decisions still need to be based on the physical layout ? +User Interface: Um well I I think other than ge getting a sort of more aesthetically pleasing form for it , um mo most of the sort of layout design decisions are {vocalsound} are made , I would say . Um but then again , the um the menu structure to to a considerable extent that's gonna vary according to the model of television , and also any customisations that the user might wish to incorporate . So um and one of the nice things about having an L_C_D_ and a menu structure is that there is that flexibility to it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's very true . {vocalsound} Um . Okay . Um got product evaluation as well . Um . +Marketing: Yeah , you see I don't {disfmarker} some of these things kinda logically follow the others . How can {disfmarker} t product evaluation , doesn't that come after actually seen a product prototype . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I think we'd be {disfmarker} yeah , no , it'd be more a case of how do we envisage us performing the product evaluation once we have a model to test with . +Marketing: Oh , that's the {disfmarker} okay , sure sure sure . +Project Manager: Um so it'd be a case of do you think that just bringing users in to have them test it out , uh maybe putting a certain number of products into the field in certain places which I suppose is quite similar . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or just kind of hitting the streets and you know saying this is a new remote control , what do you think of the look of it ? Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , sure . At this stage we still have no no target audience or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the target audience is pretty much anybody under the age of say maybe sixty or something ludicrous . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the reason I'm saying that is we're just looking at a a replacement remote control , something that's stylish , so maybe you're even just maybe you're narrowing down your target audience simply by saying +Marketing: And it's stylish . +Project Manager: if they're buying it that often or they're maybe looking to replace something then , they've got a bit of free cash , so that puts them potentially in the younger age bracket . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even single , just for the reasons of um uh excess cash flow . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Although of course I mean at twenty five Euros , I don't think we're looking at charging the earth for the uh device . +Marketing: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Think that's well within the normal bracket . Um your idea of the U_S_B_ would I think would largely depend on the cost . U_S_B_'s definitely one of the cheapest interfaces out there , but it might push the cost of the overall unit up 'cause it would require not just the connection but the chip for communicating with the rest of the system . That one might have to be based on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Programmable memory as well . +Industrial Designer: The U_S_B_ for which ? +Marketing: For the remote control . +Project Manager: The the idea was that maybe it could connect up for um allowing a software interface on the P_C_ for a larger programming +Industrial Designer: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: due to the fact that we've gone for such a nice , easy minimal design , normally . Um . +Marketing: We've w definitely talking some type of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But didn't they just say it's just for T_V_ , or are we gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for T_V_ , but for +Marketing: Different . +Project Manager: programming it to use your T_V_ , you might hook it up to the P_C_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , but I'm thinking maybe that the additional cost of the U_S_B_ might be prohibitive . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: We don't know unless {disfmarker} it would make sense to . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: But you're gonna need some type of flash memory or something . +User Interface: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well something that doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you wouldn't have to redo the whole thing once the batteries are changed , you know , once you turn off the power . +User Interface: Yeah . The other thing I mean it I mean it would need to ha {vocalsound} it would need to have um some sort of on board memory anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um f {vocalsound} for one {vocalsound} for one thing because I do think that the menu system should be um uh I mean although you know , it's not going to be terribly complicated if it's just controlling one device , the menu system ought to be um o ought to be customisable and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Different languages , uh different skins and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . W +User Interface: Mm-hmm . How uh how uh how you want say the um the the menu structure for flicking through channels if you've got lots of channels . That sort of thing . +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} I if it was customisable as in different languages and stuff , that does open {disfmarker} it is supposed to be international , right ? So . +Project Manager: It would make sense to . I would say to . +Marketing: It would make sense if you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and we'd better be careful about the time as well . We've already had the five minute warning , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so . Um . I would say yeah . International would make sense . Um you're gonna look at product evaluation . I'm I'd better start writing up a hell of a lot of crap . Um you're gonna look a bit more at the kind of the physical make up you say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um looks like we're gonna need a maybe a kind of prototype in clay . {vocalsound} Uh we'll see how that goes . Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we going to be supplied with the clay is what I want to know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um +User Interface: Where is the clay ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do {disfmarker} I think we've got an idea of where we need to go for the next meeting , would you say ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} they're going with the fashion thing , like the design , spongy rubber . +Marketing: The fruit and veg . This one . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th I think I would largely want to actually steer clear of the whole sort of fruit and veg thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I would s that would be my my feeling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bu {vocalsound} but um but the spongy idea I like . I like it a lot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We seem to have quite a general consensus that the idea of the the r rubber could be quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I {gap} having it i having it sort of br bright yellow I think that's quite a good idea , though maybe we could have options for colours as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} and again this has the advantage of being harder to lose . +Marketing: Sure . I mean we are trying to promote a remote control , but we wanna keep the company brand as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So we always need to remember that somewhere we're meant to be getting the slogan on . Possibly I'm think I'm not sure but I'm seeing a little bit of space around maybe the joystick area which could be used . Um . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . I was {vocalsound} like like I said before I I think we should have the R_R_ on the uh on the top function button . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think that says it all really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so too . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Sa +Project Manager: See everybody in a half hour . +","In the recorded discussion, the team, led by the Project Manager, aimed to converge on various design aspects of the new remote control project they were undertaking. The conversation began by rehashing the previous meeting's consensus, which included a minimalist design philosophy incorporating a small joystick, an LCD screen, and several navigation buttons. A key feature was the single-purpose power button, along with a unique selling proposition (USP) of a built-in transmitter to locate the lost remote. The meeting proceeded with the understanding that the remote's minimalistic design could offer flexibility in physical shape, which could be adventurous and distinct. + +As part of the conceptual design phase, the team discussed materials and construction details. The Industrial Designer suggested the housing could be made of plastic, rubber, titanium, or even wood, but they leaned toward plastic because of its practicality and cost-effectiveness. There was also a proposal to source off-the-shelf components like the infrared transmitter and joystick. The discussion about power sources included hand dynamos, kinetic batteries (like those in watches), solar power, and conventional batteries, where the latter was favored for simplicity and reliability. + +The form factor of the remote generated some debate, with suggestions including a flat design, a single curved design, and a double curved design. The Industrial Designer elaborated on the differences between single and double curved designs, suggesting a double curved device would be ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing but would not be compatible with titanium. + +When the conversation turned to user interfaces, it was revealed that the team had considered simplifying the design by eliminating the number keypad since the LCD screen could facilitate a menu-based navigation system. The notion of a spongy rubber material for the casing was proposed to add a tactile, comfortable feel and ensure durability. The team further discussed the possibility of using rubber, with Marketing emphasizing recent trends favoring such materials and tying into customer preferences for looking cool and innovative, even more so than actual functionality. + +The team also considered the practicalities of including a USB for computer-based programming, though they recognized the implications of added cost, complexity, and the need for on-board memory. The project manager suggested the remote could facilitate direct programming via the LCD without a computer. Furthermore, the team debated the color for the remote, gravitating towards yellow to align with company branding and enhance visibility. + +Given their short timeframe, the team decided to pursue standard components where possible for cost and convenience. They agreed on the need for a detailed design phase, incorporating prototyping and possibly user testing. The marketing member was tasked with considering product evaluation strategies, and the importance of incorporating the company slogan into the final design was also discussed. + +Overall, the team's productive dialogue in this conceptual design meeting crystallized around the intended minimal design, with decisions on materials, technology, and ergonomics central to the project's next stages. Despite some unresolved issues like the integration of a USB connection, the team was generally in consensus about the direction and made plans to regroup in a half-hour to presumably cement these concepts into a more concrete design plan." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences—and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked—that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Siân. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll be aware that there were four main reasons for the introduction of the Bill: around regulation of institutions in Wales; safeguarding the contribution made to public good arising from Welsh Government's financial support for the sector; maintaining a focus on fair access; and preserving and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy. I think the evidence that has been received by the committee to date shows that there are different views about the effectiveness of whether all four strategic aims have been achieved. I think those strategic aims are still really, really important and certainly will underpin our thought process going forward, but we have to recognise the higher education and research Bill across the border in England, the implementation of new student support measures in Wales, as well as the report that was done by Ellen Hazelkorn, I think, means it is appropriate that we move forward with different proposals, not just regulation of the HE sector but the post-compulsory sector as a whole. We will look to see what we can do to strengthen or whether there is more that we need to do to achieve those four objectives, because I think those four objectives are still very, very relevant. But we have to have legislation now that is fit for the circumstances we currently find ourselves in and, hopefully, futureproofs us for how we want to see the sector develop in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't been strong enough, and that you then have had to drive some of these objectives through the annual remit letter, rather than through legislation, and that's why the strengthening is required? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, I see the remit letter as a really, really important way in which national priorities and the priorities of an elected Government can be clearly stated, communicated to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and then HEFCW use their powers to ensure that that happens. So, certainly, I see the remit letter as being a very important mechanism for ensuring, as I said, that those national priorities are clearly articulated, and then change happens. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has the current legislation been framed around institutional autonomy so that it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any national outcomes, and is that going to be an element of the new Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly, the 2015 Act contains numerous provisions that protect universities' privileges and autonomy. And that's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll certainly be looking to see how we can carry those protections into the forthcoming Bill, but, at the same time, we do have to ensure appropriate regulation and accountability of institutions for their public funding and the privileges that they enjoy. And I think there are a number of ways in which that can happen. We have a very positive working relationship with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and I am very fortunate to have a very positive working relationship with the sector. The remit letters are a really important way in which we can lay out those national priorities. I don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't there be a discussion looking to move in a direction where there are national outcomes being set through legislation, because there is public money going into that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know whether we need national outcomes through legislation, because those national priorities, potentially, will change over time. What is really important, and what we will be seeking to do in the new legislation, is look to move to a system of outcome agreements. So, there is a very clear expectation that the commission will have, in regulating the sector, and co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's clear enough. What about private providers? The Act, or the Act as it stands, makes it a requirement for a regulated institution to be a charity, and that means it's not possible to regulate alternative private providers under the Act, even though they can provide higher education in Wales. What is your view on this, and will the new legislation continue with the requirement of being a charity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's important to make the distinction between the scale of private providers, and what could be termed as 'unregulated providers' in the Welsh system, as opposed to the English system. And I think that's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case basis. So, we do have a circumstance where—and a process in place, to manage this. So, we have a specific designation policy, which is operated on our behalf by HEFCW. Only six organisations were designated on a case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 academic year, so the scale here is small. Three of those were further education colleges. So, when we talk about a private provider, perhaps people would have a view of a private university, but, actually, three of those were FE colleges, which we would all be familiar with. And the three private providers were the Centre for Alternative Technology, the training arm of the Church in Wales and the Newport and District Group Training Association. All three of those are actual charities. So, in order for their courses to be specifically designated, the three crucial questions that those providers have to answer are: quality—is what they’re providing to students of a good quality; the financial viability of the institution, again, to try to protect the interests of the students who may find themselves embarking on a course in an institution that isn’t viable; as well as their contribution to private—sorry, not to private good—public good. And we are considering how that part of the sector will be regulated in the forthcoming legislation. But, Huw, I don't know if there's anything else to add? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that there are a very small number of private providers, as the Minister has outlined, and, in comparison with England, where I think the last figures said that there were between 300 and 400 private providers in England, you get a sense of the differences that exist there. And, if you look at what happened over recent years, it has been those small private providers across the UK who have been most financially challenged and a number of them have stopped their operations, with consequences for the students. So, we’ve been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they’re enrolling with are strong and have good quality. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not— +Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —or are you still thinking about it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act—the 2015 Act—does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government’s policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, the Act was introduced as a direct result of the changing scenario around finance and the different ways in which, because of the reduction in HEFCW's budget, the level of influence that HEFCW would be able to exert over institutions through the imposition of terms and conditions of funding—. So, the Act was introduced in part to address that shift in influence and the Act also has provided HEFCW with a range of new powers of intervention and sanctions in the case of non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm determined that any legislation that I bring forward and any commission that I establish will be empowered to enable that to happen through its regulatory and funding powers. Of course, the funding situation has shifted again now because of the introduction of what is commonly known as the Diamond reforms, but our new system of student finance does again shift the parameters of influence that HEFCW or any new tertiary commission could have. But, as I said earlier, it's not to say that institutions have had a free reign. We have been able to use the remit letter and our relationship with HEFCW to progress agendas that we would want to see. So, for instance, you'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've had no influence, but there are opportunities now, because of the change in financial circumstances once again, to look at that in any forthcoming legislation. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders' pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've been able to use the remit letter and some funding to be able to drive change and some improvements in mental health in the higher education sector. These are national priorities and we're acting upon them and we're using the multiple levers we have at the moment to engage in universities. And, I have to say, universities have risen to that challenge, and I'm very grateful to them for doing that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms—to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you—that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use—I think HEFCW called them 'threatening'—saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight. +Dawn Bowden AM: I think they were saying it was difficult to use for swift interventions—they found it a bit cumbersome. They explained to us that they often take informal measures or actions in their role as regulator, and they've explained that the small size of the sector enables good relationships to be developed. How can such measures work in the tertiary education body when there clearly will be many more than the 10 providers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, looking ahead to the new Bill, I would want to see and be very keen to ensure that there are sufficiently flexible—did you use the word soft—and soft regulatory powers that the commission could exercise. Those powers, for instance, could include the ability to offer advice and guidance, rather than, maybe, punitive interventions, and powers to undertake enhanced monitoring of institutions to ensure compliance with regulatory conditions. So, I would expect the commission to be able to have a series of abilities to intervene, from the soft, flexible type, which is non-punitive but actually allows people to go in and support institutions, through to something that would be, as I said, more punitive, if they felt that an institution was in danger of not providing quality or financial failure. +Hefin David AM: Can I just come in there, on the point that was made? The issue that seemed to me to come from HEFCW and from the universities is that the dial seems to have only three steps. So, rather than having a graduated series of actions that they can take, it seems to step from—what did he call it—a 'meeting without coffee' to— +Kirsty Williams AM: That's a very HEFCW thing to say. +Hefin David AM: —potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative scrutiny is useful, because we can reflect on that feedback. As I said, I would expect to be able to ensure that the commission had a range of powers that could address—from that soft power and those early conversations to being able to, as I said, issue, perhaps, advice and guidance to an institution, so there would be a more graduated escalation. Huw, is there anything else that I've missed out? +Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's a range of ways in which we interact with all institutions that are going to be in the tertiary sector, and some of that is about providing information. So, HEFCW provides information—it sends around circulars, it produces reports and it holds events. There's staff, management and leadership development activity, which can create a culture amongst the leaders of institutions, but also amongst their governing bodies, to help them move in a particular direction. We would hope that's in the direction of the civic university approach that the Minister has outlined. We use those mechanisms and informal interactions with FE college principals, with the work-based learning provider network, with sixth forms and others, and we would want to see, I hope, in the tertiary sector some alignment of those things. When things go badly wrong, there are a range of mechanisms. I think what stands behind HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances— +Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those. +Huw Morris: So, in—. Shall I carry on? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes. +Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's quite a lot of focus on that and looking to learn from other national systems where outcome agreements provide a broader measure of the range of things the institutions do and a mechanism for tracking how things are done through the provision of information back to the institution to help them know how they're doing. And potentially, in some of these other institutions, funding is linked to some of those things. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, what always has to be—. What we have to strike the balance of as well is at what point those powers seem to be—and the ability to direct—interfering with the principle of autonomy within an institution. So, there's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's really, really important, but also a regulatory regime, the ability to influence and to develop and to deliver national outcomes and the power to intervene in that sector, which you know, better than probably anybody else in this room, guards that institutional autonomy very, very, very dear indeed. And that's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures—and I understand what you're saying—but I think what HEFCW were saying was that they try as far as possible to use informal measures and they are able to do that because of the size of the sector—just 10 institutions to work with. The post-16 sector, however many we're talking—50 plus providers—it's probably going to be less likely that they would be able to have that sort of relationship with the leaders in those institutions. So, the informal measures might not be as prevalent as they are currently, possibly. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but also, what's incumbent upon me as the Minister is to ensure that the commission is set up in a way where it can have that relationship with the sector, because what's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll be creating a commission that will be structured in such a way that it can have those relationships. Because, of course, whilst HEFCW will face changes, our relationship with and how we manage the FE sector and the apprenticeship sector will also shift. So, the point is that we need to create a commission that will still be able to be close to the sector, close enough to be able to provide that soft regulation, those really important relationships in a way—. So, it has to be created in such a way and resourced in such a way that it allows that to happen, and that's my intention. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Well, then, of course, the University of Wales said to us that they felt that there was the potential for HEFCW to issue directions enforceable by injunction to remedy minor matters. So, I think, from what you're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's important to recognise when HEFCW can enforce its directions by way of an injunction. If they were to do that because a university was breaking fee limits or because there were real questions about the quality of the provision or whether a university was not complying with the financial management code—personally, I wouldn't describe those as minor matters, as a Minister, if we had an institution that was significantly falling down on quality and HEFCW were using these powers to intervene. I wouldn't describe that as a minor matter. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't yet used their powers of intervention. Do you find that surprising? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what they have done in these circumstances is, perhaps, used their ability to support those institutions through what, undoubtedly, have been challenging times. Given the fact that there are ongoing legal processes attached to Swansea University, I think it would not be appropriate for me to comment any further, because there are still matters in train with regard to that institution. But clearly, our expectation on HEFCW is to ensure that they are using their powers to support those universities, and I would expect them, if they felt necessary, to use the full remit of their powers if they felt that that was what they needed to do. Now, I have to trust their professional judgment that that has not been necessary to date, but our expectation is that they would do that if they felt it was necessary. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation. +Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd like to think about outputs and outcomes, more importantly—what are the outcomes of the fee and access plan, not necessarily just how much money has been spent on them. I think, certainly, to really understand the success of the fee and access plan, you have to question whether an annual basis is an appropriate timescale for a university to be working to, and whether we could have something that was focused over a longer period of time. Because, when you think about it, you write the plan and then you're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's an opportunity there to look to restructure. So, do I see a place for fee and access plans going forward, as part of our outcome agreements? Yes, I do. Can we do them differently to make them more effective? Yes, I think we can. +Hefin David AM: So, why would introducing outcome agreements make them work any better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think they're going to be a part of an outcome agreement—part of that wider expectation. So, fee and access plans are there to address an issue around, primarily, changing the nature of people who go to university and making sure that nobody is put off from pursuing that. So, that's part of a wider piece of work that I'd want to see as an outcome agreement. But, as I said, I think looking at outcomes for students and outcomes of that activity, rather than the inputs of the activity, over a longer period of time, is probably a more effective way of doing it. I think it's still—. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't think we can necessarily point to the fee and access plans as being the driver for some of those improvements. +Hefin David AM: No, I appreciate that, and some of the things you're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying—can I just pin down what you're saying—is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle—I'd like to think we can all agree around the principle of what a fee and access plan is hoping to achieve, but I think there are better ways of doing it, and I think we should take the opportunity of reform to look at how we can do it better. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, I think we're talking about the future of the Bill, the consultation on the PCET reforms closed in summer 2018—with these important issues in mind and things that are currently ongoing, have you had further dialogue since then with key stakeholders like, for example, Universities Wales and others? +Kirsty Williams AM: On the Bill or on fee and access plans in particular? +Hefin David AM: I'm thinking about fee and access plans as an issue that suggests that there is a need for deep consultation, so with that in mind, with things like that, have you had further discussion? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh my goodness me, civil servants in the department are constantly in discussion with a range of stakeholders as we continue to develop legislative proposals. I meet on a regular basis with both HEFCW—I meet separately with the vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll come on to issues of governance later. So, we are constantly discussing with stakeholders all options for change— +Hefin David AM: I suppose the message I'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received. +Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's outlined that there is very extensive, ongoing communication both ways with the sector, but the challenge of preparing a Bill is the balancing act between gathering in information—and there's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process—and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't been discussed with anybody else before it comes to be considered by the Senedd. So, the broad principles have been discussed, but specific details of what goes into a Bill or policy instructions that inform a Bill haven't been the subject of consultation— +Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1. +Huw Morris: Indeed, yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item? +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section. +Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific— +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view—. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest—they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin—carry on. +Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. The feedback from Universities Wales suggests that, with the outcome of the 2015 Act, institutions with the strongest track records are more highly regulated than the riskier private alternative providers. Do you think that Act has struck the right balance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the Act has created a system where the level of regulation is proportional to the amount and the nature of public moneys received by institutions. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales— +Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm not disagreeing. My view is: I believe that the Act has struck that proportionality. When you look at public moneys going into institutions, I think that the Act is proportionate, myself. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think it's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions—? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand—they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're less regulated. +Huw Morris: Can I just chip in? I think that the category 'private' covers quite a wide range of things, and many private institutions are also charities. We don't have the presence of some of the large private charities that are present in other countries, but Stanford and Harvard would count as private universities. So, I think we need to be careful in focusing on the inherent quality of things. We've made charitable status a key reference point in the operation of things at the moment. I think there has been attention drawn to some private providers, particularly in England, but I wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily. +Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith—if they're not charitable providers running validated courses, for example, they fall outwith the strength of regulation that is currently in place on the universities in Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we would regulate them on a course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course basis to validate alternative providers. And as Huw said, I think we should recognise the nature of that is very, very, very small in Wales, and there is a process to ensure quality provision. If there were concerns about the quality of that provision, that course could be deregulated. +Hefin David AM: And I'm aware that there are a small number of private institutions in Wales, but are you concerned that in the future the landscape may change, particularly with the opportunity to recruit more part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. We had some evidence from the University and College Union that were concerned about the governance of universities, actually, as being a bigger problem than the regulatory framework in many ways. Can you tell us, perhaps, how the HE Act addresses the issue of poor governance, or is it really just limited to responding to the symptoms rather than the poor governance itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance—we've talked briefly about some recent history within the sector that I think has certainly brought the issue of governance to the fore once again, and I think there are two important things that we're trying to do about that in the current time, prior to any legislative changes. The first is, as I just said to Hefin, I have sought to have a more direct relationship with chairs of universities and have that one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively—and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're more likely to get some success and change—Universities Wales and HEFCW have worked together to undertake an independent review of governance. And I think it's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd have more resistance. So, there is an independent review going on at the moment— +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that the risk review process in—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's chaired by Gillian Camm, who is the chair of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and she is doing an independent review to advise on changes to governance. And I welcome that, I'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's been recognition from within the sector themselves that they need to make sure, and they need to give confidence, that governance arrangements are what they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, is that something that you're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition in respect of good governance, and a commission would be able to set expectations with regard to good governance. I think one of the concerns for me—and I know that this is a concern that is shared by the UCU—is the diversity of governance and who finds themselves in these really important positions. HEFCW don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've asked officials to do for me, currently in the universities that we have, I would say that men make up around 56 per cent of membership of universities' governing bodies; women—44 per cent; BME—as low as 4 per cent. Of course, in individual institutions, it does vary, but I think there is some way to go to making sure that our governing bodies are diverse and that there's an opportunity to look at the student voice in governance going forward, the staff voice in governance going forward, and these are things that we hope to have discussions on whilst we bring the legislation forward. +Dawn Bowden AM: But also, I guess—sorry, Chair—a greater understanding, that anybody going in to become a governor of one of these institutions has a greater understanding of what is expected of them. Do you think that that's a gap that needs to be plugged? +Huw Morris: One of the things that HEFCW have led on with AdvanceHE, the body that encompasses the leadership foundation, is a development programme for governing bodies, and that started earlier—well, it's been going on for some time, but it was recommenced earlier this year, with a session for all of the chairs of universities in Wales. And I believe—I'll need to check this—that there are plans to engage with each of the governing bodies, because, as you rightly say, and this lies behind a lot of what we've been discussing, the activities of these institutions have become much more complex over recent years, and so there is a need for that training and development and understanding also of the fast-changing nature of that activity. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Siân on quality assurance. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure all the provision in two further education colleges. That sounds to me like some kind of an anomaly or an unintended consequence of the Act. Could you clarify that and explain the situation in that instance? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding—and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't put myself into the thought process of the Minister at the time and what his expectation was. But, certainly, my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, it was an expectation built into the Act that HEFCW and Estyn would work together on these matters. The Act built on what were the quality assessment arrangements in the 1992 Act, which required HEFCW to secure arrangements for the assessment of the quality of education provided by funding institutions. So, as a consequence of that approach, HEFCW's quality assessment duty currently encompasses all the education provided by or on behalf of a regulated institution. So, it is complicated, and Huw can help me out here if I get it wrong, but my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, that was the expectation of what would happen when the legislation was passed. Huw. +Huw Morris: I would completely agree with what the Minister has said. +Kirsty Williams AM: As always. [Laughter.] At least in public, Huw. +Huw Morris: There is the expectation that they will work together in concert. There's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges. +Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice? +Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've listened to stakeholders' concerns regarding proposals to introduce a single quality assessment body. As I said, we recognise that stakeholders are broadly content with the current situation with regard to Estyn and QAA. So, we've been listening to that, following the technical consultation, and policy officials are working through options in regard to ensuring what quality assurance will look like in the commission. As I said, I don't want to pre-empt bringing forward the legislation, but the principles underlying any assurance regime would need to be coherent, need to be effective and need to be comprehensive. What we're also very clear about, and I think it is important to say, is that any quality framework covering higher education will be compatible with ENQA, which I think is really, really important going forward. And by an extension of that, it would be compatible with current UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't want to create specific problems for the HE sector in Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, you have touched on this, there is substantial concern in the sector about this offer to move to one assurance body for the tertiary sector. One vice-chancellor has told us: +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of, 'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?' And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're not going to do anything in the quality assurance regime that would risk what is the very high reputation and standards that Welsh universities currently comply with or would set them apart from institutions across the border or in a European context. Huw. +Huw Morris: I agree, obviously. I think the fear is misplaced, but coming back to another theme in the conversation so far about futureproofing, what we're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time is the desire of a greater number of people at different ages to engage in higher and tertiary education, and quite often that will be in a workplace or it will be in a non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's an issue not just in Wales. The Augar report, which was published earlier this year in England, drew attention to this as being a major problem in the relationship over the border between Ofsted and the QAA. So, I think we're not looking to impose one institution on anybody, but we are looking to encourage greater synergy in the ways in which quality assurance and enhancement is undertaken in those different areas of activity. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this. +Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. +","The session commenced with Lynne Neagle AM, the chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, acknowledging apologies from Suzy Davies and noting Janet Finch-Saunders’s participation via video conference from Colwyn Bay. The committee proceeded with no declarations of interest and began its post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015, welcoming Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, Director of Skills, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning Group in the Welsh Government. The committee sought to understand future legislative plans concerning the Act, including whether it would be repealed or amended by the post-compulsory education and training (PCET) Bill. + +Kirsty Williams appreciated the chance to participate, emphasizing the value of reflecting on the 2015 Act’s implementation as the Government progresses with tertiary education reforms, including introducing a new commission. The Act, which a prior Minister in a different administration spearheaded, targeted four goals: institution regulation, public good safeguarding from financial support, fair access focus, and preservation of institutional autonomy. She indicated that while experiences showed mixed effectiveness in achieving these aims, they remained essential for the future planning and legislative framing. + +Siân Gwenllian AM inquired about the Act’s effectiveness in meeting Government's objectives and pinpointed possible weaknesses. Williams acknowledged varying perspectives on the Act's success in its strategic objectives, which continue to underlie future considerations. She highlighted the need for adaptable legislation that responds to changing contexts, such as the research bill in England and student support measures in Wales. The dialogue evolved towards aligning institutions with national outcomes, private provider regulation, part-time and postgraduate fee regulations, and maintaining charitable status requirements. + +Janet Finch-Saunders AM questioned the extent to which the university funding system and HE Act influenced policy leverage over the sector, with Williams asserting that tertiary education providers must contribute to national outcomes as part of their ‘civic mission’. Discussion continued around the Bill providing more effective policy levers to align with Wales's social, economic, and civic needs. Williams stated an intention to formalize outcome agreements in the new legislation to express expected contributions to national priorities. + +Dawn Bowden AM raised concerns about the HEFCW's powers of intervention, seeming inflexible for swift action. Williams argued those powers had focused on supporting institutions through challenges and addressed the distinct steps HEFCW could take to escalate intervention levels. + +On fee and access plans, the committee addressed its bureaucratic nature and slow evaluation, with Williams favoring a shift towards longer-term, outcome-focused plans. Ongoing consultations with stakeholders aim to rectify these issues. + +HEFCW and Universities Wales suggested that institutions with the strongest track records faced stricter regulations than riskier private alternative providers, sparking a conversation on legislative balance. + +Dawn Bowden followed up on governance concerns raised by the University and College Union. Williams conveyed her engagement with university chairs and mentioned the Gillian Camm-led independent governance review undertaken jointly by Universities Wales and HEFCW. + +The quality assurance framework was explored, with Siân Gwenllian AM highlighting concerns about HEFCW's legal duty to quality-assure all the provision in FE colleges, the possibility of a single quality assurance body, and the regulation of overseas providers. + +The dialogue concluded with the committee agreeing to meet in private for the remainder of the session and subsequently for the item on 2 October." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi Team . Hope you had a good lunch . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay we're back for the conceptual design meeting . Um let's get started . 'Kay , here is the agenda for today's meeting . Um we're gonna open it and I'm gonna keep the minutes as Project Manager . We're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you again . And then we are going to come to decision on the remote control concepts and then we're gonna close it up . And we have forty minutes again . 'Kay , and just to reiterate um after this meeting the team will reach a decision on the concepts of the remote control . Okay . Let's go ahead and start off with your presentations . Who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Just trying to move mine right now . +Project Manager: Okay . Um Courtney would you mind starting us off ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Trend watching ? 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , so trend watching . Uh since we do put the fashion in electronics , it is kind of important how our product looks . So I guess we can go ahead and go to the next . So what they want . Right now customers want fancy versus functional . Um basically about fifty eight percent of what they {disfmarker} like of the product that they want , describing like the {disfmarker} in order of how much they want , fifty eight per cent of the decision of what it should look like , fancy versus functional , and then it has to also be technologically innovative , and yet easy to use . So the customer basically is confused . They don't know exactly what they want . They want us to tell them . {gap} +Industrial Designer: They want everything , but simply . +Marketing: Yes . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So we can go to next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay . So in Milan and Paris recently the trends have been showing that clothing , shoes and furniture are basically just covered with fruits and vegetable patterns . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't know if we want to go with that um and also the spongy feel is in in contrast to last year . I don't know really , I mean I guess the spongy could relate to the buttons if we want to +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: rather than like a hard clicky button that you find on like some mobiles and stuff , you'd want like a softer touch . I mean do you guys know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah th +Marketing: Yeah . Um . But as for the fruits and vegetable patterns , I don't know if we really want to go with that , because it is just a trend , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: and our product we want to stay around for much longer than just a few months , +Project Manager: Right . People don't buy a new remote every so often . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I can {disfmarker} +Marketing: because {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean that could just be a Spring thing right now . +Industrial Designer: I can address some of that issue , I think , with uh my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so design preferences , um we need easy to read like large buttons , clearly labelled so that , I mean 'cause we talked about that being a problem . Um and then also buttons illuminating upon touch , you said that in your design , with the bulb . Um and that could also tie in with the colour scheme . Uh we need the Real Reaction logo and colour scheme obviously . That's one of our key goals , we wanna promote our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And I was thinking about different types of designs and I came up with something . Actually right here . So what we could do is something like an old-fashioned telephone like this , where we put the buttons around , like we'd put a big on-off button or something else in the middle , I mean it could be the arrows or whatever for channel up and down , and then put the numbers around in like an old-fashioned dial shape . 'Cause then it'll appeal to older generation and like said retro's cool . So it's classically retro . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: So I mean that's just an idea if you guys like it . +Project Manager: Very good . I like it . {vocalsound} Okay , ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , yep . And that's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Op mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Great . Great presentation . Ready ? +User Interface: Okay hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: See if it's there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Which one is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . Hang on . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Interface concepts , no ? +Project Manager: Interface concepts new . +User Interface: Either refresh it , or it sh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Oh wait , maybe I didn't put it there . Hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mine will always read copy of something or other . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I copied mine before I sent it over . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Sorry , hang on . Don't know {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh there we go . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay , um {vocalsound} looking at the interface concept , it's gonna be mostly examples of possibilities of where we can go with this . Uh if you wanna start the next slide . +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: Um uh can't really see , but there's two possible ways , on the r left , if you see on th on the sides of of the remote , you have the sort of scroll down , so you have that option right there . And then also there's the idea of the base . That's sort of like an idea there . And then on the right , we have what's really big trend right now , it's the iPod . It's becoming really {gap} and so you have this sort of very very simplistic menu section uh with the round buttons , and it's sort of like you have the both {gap} kind of trendy and hip , but also very sleek and um and very simple , but technologically advanced . So if you wanted to do that th if we could find a way of sort of like {vocalsound} using that idea in a remote control then sort of look into it , but {disfmarker} Anyway , next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um there's the idea of like being able to do it by feel as well as by um by sight . You'd you know you're in the dark , you don't wanna be looking at the remote control . And the picture particularly is pointing out if you look at the top volume button it's a V_ , and so yo you're kind of feeling a V_ like volume up . What it really is is a V_ and what it you think it is is down , because the down arrow . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so it's like a sort of a criticism you'd probably turn that o the other way up . Um but then you have {disfmarker} you could either do it by raised type , which could be you know , iffy , um sort of old-fashioned in a way . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Either that or just have it by shape , for example you have a specific triangular shape that you know you're looking at the up and down arrow . And then the round ones you sort of feel by , you know , that's the second one down , that sort of thing . So it's sort of looking into how we wanted t to do it by feel . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . Um this is sort of an example of going for a s certain demographic . Um this is particularly geared towards children . +Marketing: That's cute . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um it's very cute , and we could probably change it to yellow , bright yellow for like a the for the company logo . Um and you have the shapes and it's very simplistic and friendly looking . Um and then the other thing that it would be able to do is just to pro be ab you program certain {disfmarker} {vocalsound} channels that only these children would watch , so it's like they ch watch , you know , the C_ Beebies or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh keep them away from other channels . So that's like another ar Um , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean , these are three examples sort of looking at it . You have the wider section for the main controls there . Uh you could see how many buttons there are . And then on the left you have an example of the round buttons , and a simpler design . On the bottom we probably wouldn't need that , because it's more for like a D_V_D_ {vocalsound} function which we are not gonna be using . Um . So again it's sort of like just give you ideas and then down at the bottom you have the logos and that's where you could put the R_R_ , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And then finally these are like the sort of same examples , but also some more , just possibilities that we could go with . None of them I'm particularly keen on by the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But it's sort of like just taking aspects out of that and saying , well out of this one we like , you know the round section of um , b or we'd like the the button size on this . +Project Manager: Mm . Or I like , you know , the black finish or the silver finish or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I have four of those remotes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good lord . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Ready ? Oh , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Great job . +Industrial Designer: Okay , my turn . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Whoo . +Project Manager: What's the title ? +Industrial Designer: It'll be copy of component design . +Project Manager: Got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Th that looks like it . 'Kay . So basic remote operation runs as follows , press button makes connection with the power source and the rest of the circuit , chip senses the connection , chip produces a morse code infra-red signal , specific to that button . So you press the button , it produces uh a signal that's encoded specifically for that button . Transistors amplify that signal and it goes to the T_V_'s centre , which interprets the signal response accordingly , changes channel etcetera . So that being said {disfmarker} Next slide , please . Findings oh which were the required materials for the basic internal construction , so all the really simplistic functions that we just discussed , we need rubber for buttons , aluminium for battery y contacts , integrated circuit which consists of a diode , transistor , resonator , resistors , and a capacitator , all those basic things that make a circuit function . Um fibreglass and thin copper wire to create the actual circuit board itself . An L_E_D_ , which is a light emitting diode , um contact discs for the buttons , plastic for the casing , and a power-source , whatever power-source we've actually determined we want . Next slide , please . Thank you . Uh personal preferences , uh to save money for the components , the remote should be mass-produced and basic materials should be bought en masse . Um if we find another company who can produce the required chips , casing , L_E_D_ , any additional materials we decide we require at a less expensive rate than we ourselves are producing , we should go for it . {vocalsound} Next slide , please . Um just talking to the um manufacturing division . They suggested power options , solar cells , hand dynamo , and kinetic power , so you shake it and it increases the power . Um I'm not sure how the hand dynamo works , they have yet to get back to me on that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So next slide , please . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Suggested casing options . Okay . We can offer options for casing such as straight , curved , double-curved , you know , very specific to the customer . Options for materials , plastic , rubber , titanium , wood . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I don't think anyone's gonna go for a wood one , because splinters {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be amazing , though , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No , splinters would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um certain restrictions do apply here though . Uh latex , you can't do solar power with a latex one . So , if they want some a soft squishy rubber , they can't have the solar powered option . Double-curved , you can't do titanium . +Marketing: What is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um that would be two curvatures , so it would actually , if you {disfmarker} the shape of your hand , you curve here and you curve here , so you could have two curves that match the shape of your hand to make it more comfortable to hold . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now if you wanted that , you can't do titanium . And uh so you {gap} functions what {disfmarker} for the buttons , scrolling function could be very beneficial to us instead of actual buttons themselves . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think I have one more slide . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: No , I didn't . Um the manufacturing division also has said that um {vocalsound} they have several types of chips and they've just developed a sample sensor or sample speaker chip , which we could utilise . Um push button requires a simple chip and scroll requires more complicated chip . So depends on what we decide we wanna do . In addition to that if we're offering all those different options to the customer for producing their remote , we're going to have to have multiples of each type , like a double-curved in rubber , um you know , each option should have a certain select number produced with all those options . So we'll have to mix it up , make sure we produce enough of everyone . But that could also drive up the price of the actual remote itself if they know that we only produced five thousand , you know , double-curved wooden remotes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright , +Industrial Designer: And that's all I got . +Project Manager: well thank you for those informative presentations . Let's go back to um {disfmarker} Now we have to make some decisions . Where were we ? +User Interface: Let me just add one more thing that I couldn't say before , +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: and that's just that there's the new technology that they've developed on the voice recognition . Um . +Marketing: Oh this {disfmarker} the thing we were talking about earlier . +User Interface: Right except that it's sort of odd , and I'm no not exactly sure why they are explaining it in the way they are , um there's a sample sensor and there's a sample speaker unit for {disfmarker} So , you would say like , good morning , coffeemaker , and it would respond , good morning , Jill , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I'm not sure exactly how it's gonna work , 'cause do you programme {disfmarker} do we program the responses and the questions . So does that mean that the user then has to ask the specific question , and can't change it in order for it to be recognised , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: or can it be altered in a certain way , or does the actually user program it , to say a channel means this . +Project Manager: Right . Right . +Marketing: Yeah , like using the menu to be like , enter your name into the screen like on the menu options . +User Interface: Right , +Marketing: So that way the remote reads it . +User Interface: so it's got like a limited memory and {gap} programme it . So it's sort of iffy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but that's kind of what you'd say . +Marketing: I feel like voice recognition would be , I don't know , w it would be too hard to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . Programme . +Marketing: I mean we could do it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If it's within our price to get that kind of chip that would , you know , technology {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , we are making the chip . +Marketing: Technology . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , I mean {disfmarker} But , I guess , we have to look at w what {vocalsound} our production cost is for the chip itself anyway . +Marketing: And it is a growing trend , the higher technological , like +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the , I mean just like the more advanced it is , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the better it'll sell . +Industrial Designer: I I thought {vocalsound} offering some of those options for different materials that it could be made of different , you know {disfmarker} I think we'd have to decide on the power options , maybe . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that we could reduce cost . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to know how big it's gonna be and how heavy . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that kind of brings us to this , let's let's see if we can decide what kind of energy source we want to have first and foremost . Um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do we wanna go for batteries or a stand like the one that we saw illustrated earlier ? +Marketing: Oh the base , yeah . +Project Manager: The base , the charging base with rechargeable batteries ? +Industrial Designer: I think the p +User Interface: I always feel like first I wanna know what it looks like , before {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause if it's something really really small , then it's sort of harder to imagine a base for it , that was p quite a s substantial size sort of standing up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and we don't have multiple things that it has to control , it just has to control the T_V_ . +Marketing: W +Project Manager: It's not gonna be a huge universal remote . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: We need to decide , well so we can figure how big it's gonna be , like exactly what buttons we want +Project Manager: What size battery and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , the other thing is like even if it's got a few buttons , so we want it to be bigger than this , +Marketing: and exactly {disfmarker} It could be like this . Yes . +User Interface: 'cause it still fits in your hand , so you still wanted something that's comfortable and substantial , but not necessarily full of buttons . +Marketing: I'd , well uh {disfmarker} This one is really comfortable , like I like the sides whatever , +User Interface: Are you gonna lose it easier ? +Marketing: because {disfmarker} But if we have the um , the locator , then we don't have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: So we can make it small if we have a l locating device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If we do a voice-activated locator , though , we're gonna be looking at a more substantial chip . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So i That's the other thing , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: it's like {disfmarker} You know {gap} Are we gonna have certain chips that are gonna require bigger size {vocalsound} period ? +Marketing: Two double A_s , for this size . +User Interface: But like , you know , if we get more complicated then it's gonna v be {disfmarker} have to be bigger to just accommodate the chip size . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Honestly , I think the customer would be kind of irritated by the fact that it has a base if we did do a nice small , compact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I agree , it's either gonna be bigger with a base or smaller with just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we sh +Marketing: Smaller , without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A battery like this guy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright , so what direction do you want to go in ? You wanna vote ? +Marketing: I think if we had a a locating device with the small one , I think that seems way more advanced . +Project Manager: I'm kind of I'm kind of leaning in the direction of this kind of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'm a away from the base . +Project Manager: bigger and the base . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That just seems so clunky and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , because I mean if even looking at cellphones right now , those trends the smaller the hotter it is , +User Interface: Smaller and smaller , yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only problem with that is if you forget to take it out of your pocket and it goes in wash . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You know it happens . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've had three watches go that way too . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh watches I've {disfmarker} but I've never washed a cell phone . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ouch . A phone , whoa , that would {disfmarker} wow , that would hurt . +Project Manager: Okay , so what kind of material do we want to be made out of ? +Industrial Designer: Pieces everywhere . Well , we have lots of options . I don't think wood is a viable option . +Marketing: Yeah wood . +Project Manager: No . Oh what did you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , titanium s +Project Manager: Oh sorry , go ahead . +User Interface: I was saying that titanium , if we're being restricted then I would probably {vocalsound} lean away from that . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause if it's gonna cost us more to produce a chip , titanium will be more expensive . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: However , +Project Manager: What would you recommend ? +Industrial Designer: well , we only wanna sell it for twenty five Euro +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? 'Cause I was thinking if we wanted to get the high in market then you could produce a few in titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . That'll {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: make them a rarity so to speak . +User Interface: The selling point , yeah . +Marketing: We could do that , because all our research shows that people are definitely willing to spend more if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we restricted by this ? +Project Manager: I I think we should just focus on one design and one concept right now.I'm +Industrial Designer: Well the original {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros +Project Manager: not sure that we'll have the time and money to {vocalsound} produce a whole array of +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: remotes . If this was a successful remote , we might then produce a higher end version of it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good plan . +Marketing: Good plan . +Project Manager: Okay , so we wanna go for plastic , or what would you recommend for materials ? +Industrial Designer: Honestly I'd recommend like um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh since we're going with batteries instead of solar power , I'd recommend maybe a uh soft like latex , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because we could produce , you know how cellphones have those overlays that you can change the colour . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We could do uh one that fits in with the trends of the year so , +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because this year is all fruit , God only knows why , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , who knows . +Industrial Designer: um we could do f a cherry cover for this year and then i if next year is stripes or solids , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So you're talking about like when it leaves our salesroom then it's all gonna be cherry-coloured or is it gonna be the kinda thing where people come back and swap it ? +Marketing: O or we could like take off this . +Project Manager: They could buy cases , maybe , +Industrial Designer: They could come back . And buy the extra case . +Project Manager: if they wanted . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's good to sell a basic thing and then sell options . +Industrial Designer: So we could do like a b a hard base plastic , and then we could {vocalsound} give two latex covers to start . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} what the top face , right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the soft latex definitely is squishy . That's in . Well I mean squishier than like , yeah , just a hard plastic . +Project Manager: Right . Right . Okay , and what kind of chip would we need for this guy ? +Industrial Designer: How complicated {disfmarker} Are we gonna go with the voice activated {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do voice , I think we should just do um the recognition for when it's lost , you know . {gap} could we {disfmarker} +User Interface: A tracker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause that uh {disfmarker} what it type of , yeah , for voice activation would it be like a certain term what we would say like , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: because people could just be talking and we don't want it going off all the time . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could give it a specific code , you know , remote missing . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh see I'm uh I'm strangely attracted to it , because I know that's {disfmarker} it's definitely gonna be big , because it's , I don't know , it's just so high-tech . +User Interface: Well , my little sister got {disfmarker} for Christmas she got one of those key finders that's like a key-ring , and you have to whistle in a certain frequency for it to work . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see that would just irritate me . +User Interface: And then she would laugh and it would start going off in her purse , and you couldn't turn it off . +Project Manager: Oh dear . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: So it became highly irritating . +Marketing: then maybe voice +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think having a key-phrase is much better . +Marketing: maybe voice activation won't be good . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . But it's not gonna be voice activated in the fact that you would say , channel up , and it would work , right ? +Marketing: Yeah , n n no , we just want it to be a finder . +Project Manager: Just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: But then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Hmm . Okay . +Marketing: But do {disfmarker} can your {disfmarker} can the department make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That would be like a mid-class um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , brilliant then . +Industrial Designer: So we don't actually have to go for {disfmarker} Well , if they've just developed the sample sensor , sample speaker , it's a brand new chip . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Why not introduce it in this way ? +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Uh and what size batteries , double A_ , triple A_ ? +Marketing: I think triple A_ , it'll be lighter . +Project Manager: Two ? Could it run off of two {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean more more come in a package . +User Interface: Well , that depends on what the energy is needed . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think , well , we could d r do two or we could do one small lithium , 'cause you know the lithium batteries are doing quite well in most other electronic products , right ? So they're more widely available now . And they also have a longer battery life than most batteries . +Project Manager: They're more expensive though , too . +Industrial Designer: But if you only have to replace it every five years . +Project Manager: Mm . Thoughts anybody ? +Marketing: That's a good point . +User Interface: As long as we sell it with it . +Industrial Designer: Well , how about a initial , you get one battery when you buy it , +User Interface: Right , that's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm pretty sure we can get them pretty cheap on bulk . +Marketing: We could think about it and come back to it next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We still have one more meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . So we've covered that first category , User Interface Concept , meaning design . +User Interface: What's it gonna {disfmarker} Yeah , what's it gonna look like . +Project Manager: Okay . I ki I kind of {vocalsound} like your idea about the retro phone dial , +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and that {disfmarker} the central button could have , maybe our logo on it ? It might be the four way scroll , too . I mean if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be whatever , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: as long as there's something big in the middle , because like the old phones , there's like that just like piece of metal or like a picture or something in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , my issue with that is if it got too big though , 'cause if you have the circle and the button in the middle , then is it gonna get wider than your your hands are , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . +User Interface: because w And then would the buttons be too small if it was enough to fit on it ? +Marketing: Good point . +Industrial Designer: In the sample ones that you showed us there was one that had the scroll buttons on the side , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which I think if we make it curved like a hand like a hand-shape like if we put the the scroll-button on the side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , I see what you mean . +Industrial Designer: that could be particularly useful . +Project Manager: I think so . +Marketing: So scroll buttons on the side and then buttons on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that . 'Kay . +Marketing: But we definitely {disfmarker} If we have scroll things on the side , we definitely have to have 'em labelled . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , if it's just up and down {disfmarker} +Marketing: like on the side of it . Oh if it's just up and down . +User Interface: But is that for {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Volume or channel . +User Interface: Which ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , you could do some on both sides . +User Interface: Do we have both sides ? +Project Manager: Can we ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . We should probably make it that you have to depress it to activate it then , +Project Manager: So that you're just not holding it and it changes the chan +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause oth {vocalsound} otherwise you're not just holding it and going like this , you know . +Marketing: That's squishy . That's squishy . +User Interface: Well , the other option is in instead of a scroll you just have the buttons up on the side which are on the side . +Marketing: {gap} have buttons . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} that . +Project Manager: Hmm . 'Kay any other ideas ? +User Interface: Um what colour ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Latex covers . W +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have to make sure that logo always sticks out when we put the latex covers on , so we'll have to like have a little square or something , so that the our logo's available . +User Interface: Well I sort of like having the a yellow strip at the bottom with the R_R_ like that . And that's at the bottom of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe we should do it on a b button itself though , because if people are able to change the covers , +User Interface: Which button ? +Project Manager: I don't know , maybe the on-off button , something , some {disfmarker} the menu button , I don't know , but you know if we're gonna put our company logo on there and somebody could just get another one . Are they all gonna have our company logo on them ? Every cover ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think we should do that , because that would just be icky . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think maybe putting it on a button is probably a good idea . +Project Manager: If we want it to be visible and {disfmarker} Um are all those {disfmarker} those one that you showed where they were um s met silver-metallic looking ? But those are plastic , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not titanium . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I kind of like that look . Uh but , or if it was really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For our base one ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , for the base or if we're going for the retro look , I think , like a really shiny black would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What are your thoughts ? +Marketing: or like a gun-metal grey , +Project Manager: Gun-metal gray . +Marketing: 'cause then it combines the silver and the black . +Project Manager: There you go , gun-metal gray . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm just really wary of the putting anything on a button . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It'll wear off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's the button {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons wear off . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well , w w then what's the button do , and how do you know that that is what the button does ? I guess . Just looking at examples , y you just don't ever see the logo on a button , it's always on the actual casing . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing saying that we have to put the logo on the front of the actual {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On the back ? +User Interface: But you don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we want it to be seen . +Project Manager: It d visible {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh , yeah , you don't see it . +Project Manager: Visibility though {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need it to be seen . +Project Manager: 'Cause if it was only on the back really the only time you're gonna see it is when you drop it or when you're changing the battery . +User Interface: Well , hang on . The other option is {vocalsound} , I don't know if you can see it but it's like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can find it again . +User Interface: Yeah , it's like the second to last slide . +Project Manager: Okay . And yours was called Interface Concept ? +User Interface: Interface , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Well , for some reason I can't get it to just go to that slide directly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , it's the very right one . You see at the bottom , it's kind of difficult to see , but you have like a d sort of s division between the bottom like , where the logo is , and if we have the replaceable section , it's like the top . It doesn't necessarily replace the entire top . +Project Manager: Mm +User Interface: And so you have that one piece that stays and the rest just sort of clips in . +Project Manager: Okay , yes +User Interface: If c you envisioning it ? +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: And so that stays the same when you have the logo , and then you have this s slip that kinda clips in and that's the bit that changes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The only problem is we're using a latex overlay so {gap} it actually would go over top of everything and have holes for the buttons , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I was thinking maybe instead of doing that what we could do is leave a space for where the logo should be . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Like a little cut-out kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's like , you know , {gap} a a cellphone it's like the the screen is always just left opened . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: And so , what we are gonna do it like bright yellow with the R_R_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anybody see anything that they liked in these ones ? +Marketing: Some of tho Well , some of those buttons though are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um well , a lot of those buttons are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , kind of . Um and then if v we do have them illuminate upon contact , they could illuminate yellow . +User Interface: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yellow , I like that idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like if we {vocalsound} like the one all the way on the left , uh you ca you can see it on your computer better . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um where the button is actually blue , but the number itself is clear or white or whatever so if you pressed it would illuminate yellow . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So we'd have blue and yellow for the touch buttons . +User Interface: Oh , that one . +Project Manager: I like the yellow illumination idea , very good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Any other ideas or thoughts ? We all seem to be fairly in agreement about what we wanna do with this project so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . Ha hang on {gap} {vocalsound} Let me catch up . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Did we finalise what buttons we're including or we {gap} just everything that we said before ? +Project Manager: I think there will be time for that later . I'm guessing . 'Kay , well we're gonna wrap this up . Um next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes , and here's what we're each of us going to do . The I_D_ is going to do the look and feel design , the U_I_D_ the user interface design . I think you're going to get a lot of , I mean , the final say on what buttons get put {disfmarker} We'll all talk about it , but I think , that's pretty much what you're gonna do , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess . 'Kay . And you're gonna do some product evaluation . Okay , and right now , the I_D_ and U_I_D_ , you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Great . Play Doh . +User Interface: Fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , and you should all be getting an email pretty soon . Alright . Well , thank you for a very productive meeting . +Industrial Designer: Wonderful Ooh . +","In this detailed story of an internal project meeting, the team, guided by the Project Manager, reconvenes for a conceptual design meeting after a lunch break. As the meeting commences, the Project Manager outlines the agenda, highlighting that they will be discussing the remote control concepts and making decisions accordingly within a forty-minute window. + +The marketing representative begins with a presentation emphasizing the importance of trend watching for the product's aesthetics. They note the current consumer demand for products that balance fanciness with functionality, technological innovation, and ease of use—highlighting a degree of consumer confusion over exact preferences. They also observe that recent trends in Milan and Paris show patterns of fruits and vegetables on clothing, shoes, and furniture. There is a suggestion that this trend could potentially influence design elements such as textures for the remote's buttons. + +As the conversation evolves, the marketing representative proposes incorporating elements that appeal to different demographics – such as a retro-style reminiscent of old-fashioned telephones, potentially attracting older customers and tapping into the stylish aspect of retro. They also emphasize the requirement for easy-to-read buttons and the possibility of integrating the company's logo and color scheme into the design. + +The User Interface (UI) expert elaborates on different interface concepts such as side scroll buttons and the prevailing simplicity of designs, like those found on modern devices like the iPod. They illustrate potential button layouts and tactile elements designed to operate the remote control by feel in low-light conditions or for visually impaired users. Options for child-friendly remotes with simplified and secure functionality are discussed. + +The Industrial Designer then discusses component design, including the internal construction materials necessary for basic remote operation and cost-saving strategies such as mass production and sourcing from external suppliers. They also present various power options like solar cells, hand dynamos, or kinetic power. For casings, they suggest offering custom options that cater to consumer preferences in terms of shape and material, with caveats about certain combinations, like solar power not being compatible with latex. + +Throughout the meeting, the project team debates over different ideas such as energy sources, location-tracking features, and the question of incorporating voice recognition technology. They weigh the pros and cons of charging bases versus battery power (with a preference for compact size without a base), material options, button designs, and the visibility of the company logo on the remote. + +To wrap up the discussion, the Project Manager assigns tasks to each team member – the Industrial Designer (I.D.) will focus on the look and feel design, the User Interface Designer (U.I.D.) will finalize button inclusion, and the marketing representative will conduct product evaluation. The team agrees to develop a prototype using modeling clay, demonstrating a collaborative effort to integrate functionality, design preferences, technological trends, and company branding into a cohesive product concept. After reaching a consensus on the major design elements and identifying their next steps, the group anticipates an email communication and schedules another meeting to continue refining the product design." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is that alright now ? {vocalsound} Okay . Sorry ? Okay , everybody all set to start the meeting ? Okay , we've got half an hour for this one um to uh discuss the um functional design . +Marketing: Could you plug me in ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: All ready to go ? Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so hopefully you've all been working away , and I've put the minutes of the last meeting in the project folder . Um so I guess just to to recap on uh what we did last time . Um kind of uh got to know each other a little bit and uh got familiar with all the equipment and started to discuss um a bit about the project , you know , cost-wise how much how much money we had to s Um just want to tell you that you have three new requirements , which is the {disfmarker} The first one {vocalsound} is that um uh the company's decided that teletext is outdated uh because of how popular the internet is . Nobody uses teletext very much anymore , so we don't really need to consider that in the functionality of the {disfmarker} of the remote control . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um they've also suggested that we um we only use the remote control to control the television , not the V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ or anything else . I think the worry is that if the project becomes too complex then it'll affect um how long it takes us to get it into into production , the time to market . So um , we're just gonna keep it simple and it'll just control the T_V_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And the other thing was that the company want the corporate colour and slogan to be implemented in the new design . Um I'm not entirely sure what the corporate colour is . It might be yellow , because there seems to be a lot of yellow everywhere . +Marketing: And the slogan , like the actual written slogan , or just to embody the idea of the slogan ? +Project Manager: Well that's the thing , I'm I'm not sure um {vocalsound} uh th because on the the company website , uh what does it say {disfmarker} Uh something {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Bout putting the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean do they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is that something they want actually written on it , 'cause it's quite long . Um or yeah , just the idea , but I'm not sure . So that's something we can discuss as well . So those are the three things , just not to worry about teletext , uh only control the T_V_ , and um and uh incorporate the uh colour and slogan of the company . Um so is everybody okay with any of that , or do you want me to recap at all ? +Industrial Designer: Nope , we're all set . +Project Manager: Right um , time for presentations then . Who would like to go first ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Alright um , can I st steal this from the back of your laptop ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , of course , yeah . G go on ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} so this is the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Right {gap} to do the um {vocalsound} the design I have I've had a look online , I've had a look at the homepage , which has given us um some insp inspiration from previous products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um I've had a look at the previous products to see what they offer and um I would like to ask you guys for um {vocalsound} your ideas about the design at the end of the meeting . Um unfortunately we're not allowed to talk outside the meeting room , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um , having a look at the existing products , I found out that um it tends to come in sort of two extremes , there's either um a very complicated one that's got lots of buttons , lots of colours , very confusing , you don't know what you're doing . {vocalsound} Um in that case the the labelling tends to be very bad . Um there's an example I'll show you at the end , um {gap} sh show you now . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} here um the button there and there . This one's prog . Sorry . That one's perg and that one's prog , and it doesn't really tell you what it does . Um , not sure if you had a a look at the other um control in that example . Um it's a very simple one . It's got only the basic functions mm but um {vocalsound} it's the same size as the the hard to use one . +Project Manager: Oop . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it looked a bit clunky . They're very big and not very much use for {gap} buttons . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} and it's just very hard to access the advanced functions . There's there's nothing for instance for a slow motion button . Um , my own preferences , I prefer the the clunky one . Um it's very easy to use . Um but unfortunately it does lack the advanced functions which I I quite like having on the controls . {vocalsound} Um so I believe the the advanced functions should maybe be hidden in a drawer , or something like tha {gap} from the bottom of it . So , {vocalsound} now I'd like to ask for your preferences . Um not sure of how long we've got , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . Well we can chat away for uh for five minutes or so I think at at most . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Just a couple of minutes anyway . +Marketing: M yeah , like a lot of a lot of what I've um read and prepared for this meeting fits in really closely with what with what Craig's just gone over . So in part I could I could give you some of my personal preferences but I could also th add some to this which is just about sort of um sort of market research . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But anyway , +Project Manager: Shall we sh well we'll stick to kind of your area for now . +Marketing: um we might come to that later . +Industrial Designer: Which which is the clunky one , the one on left or on the right?. . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , the clunky one is the one on the right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um clunky in what sense , like um h heavier ? Larger ? +User Interface: Um I think it's supposed to be the same size , but um it's got much fewer buttons . It's , you know , it's very spread out +Marketing: I see , so it's more just basic . +Project Manager: Looks kind of {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: and kind of {disfmarker} you know +Marketing: Right , okay . +User Interface: , I get the idea it'd be sort of about this size . {vocalsound} {gap} got very few buttons on it and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a valid point . I mean like the one on the left looks quite um quite complicated , and that P_R_T_ p P_R_O_T_ thing is incredibly confusing . Um so I see I see why yo you know you might prefer the simpler design , but yeah you don't want to lose out on , you know , what it does , so maybe you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know you get a lot of remote controls where you kind of flip the thing open , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think that's a good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} do we have any functions that um we'd want on it ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean so far I've got um on and off , um switch the channel up and down , and put the volume up and down . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh . +User Interface: Um they're just the the very basics you could use for a T_V_ . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , and then actual numbers for channels as well , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Um , you say that's a h a required one or a requested one ? Would you like +Marketing: Which was that ? +User Interface: um the channels like the the numbers on thing , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Up {disfmarker} the numbers , or the up down ? +Project Manager: God , I wou I would say that's required , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean there's no way anybody's gonna buy a remote control these days when if you can't actually individually select channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean would anybody disagree with that ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , what else , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So don't need to worry about teletext , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: don't need to worry about V_C_R_ , uh any kind of like display controls at all do you think we need to worry about , +Marketing: We don't ? No ? +Project Manager: you know like brightness and contrast ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well I think I think es essentially what we're doing right now is we're categorising . We're saying well we want this to be a product that offers all the sort of more tricky features but we want them to be in another area ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is that what we're we're doing ? +User Interface: Um , yeah . +Marketing: We're kind of like sorting them an Or are we actually eliminating things we just don't want the product to have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} are you are you maybe kind of thinking what we absolutely have to have and what would be nice ? +User Interface: Uh , to start with um sort of a bit both , um we need to find out exactly what we have to have +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um and after that we can add things if they're possible . +Project Manager: Okay , right . Well , do you wanna maybe just , at this point decide on what we absolutely must have as a p as a function of this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so so far , just to recap you've got volume and channel control and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: There's um on and off , um volume and channel , and skip to certain channels with the numbers . +Project Manager: Right okay . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one one way I would look at this um would be that we a approach the different controls in terms of um like control types , so that for the user it's very clear what they want to do where they go . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm yeah . +Marketing: Uh and also think maybe a little bit about sorta w w what would just wanna be acc easily accessible . +Project Manager: Oka +Marketing: For example if we had audio controls , those could be something people set up very rarely . Maybe they're un they're they're they're in a little area but covered up um , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: things like channel and volume um are used all the time , so we just have them right out on top , um very just very sort of self-explanatory . Um so maybe we need to think about having three or more groupings of controls , you know like one which are just the the habitual ones that should be right within your natural grip . And others that are uh also available +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then others that are concealed . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Uh well , just to to wrap up quickly on this this little section {disfmarker} Have I just lost {disfmarker} Oh no . Um , uh do you think maybe that's the only kind of uh essential requirements , and then maybe just things that would be nice if it could do would be things like audio set up and display set up and things like that , maybe like a mute button , that sort of thing . Any of {disfmarker} you anything to add to that at all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: I'll add it later , I guess {gap} the presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if we can move on to next presentation then please . Um +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Do you wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you want to switch places ? +Marketing: Can this can this pl reach ? Can this plug come across ? +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Project Manager: Probably not , actually . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So why don't I just pick up and move then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Here , I'll just {vocalsound} Why don't I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just just switch them . +Marketing: Mm er , can you go up behind me ? Kinda {disfmarker} This is so {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} bit complicated . It'd be nice if everything was wireless , wouldn't it ? +Marketing: I'm all in a knot now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . So I can I can say already , I dunno whether this is for good or for bad but there'll be a lot of kind of uh redundancy in the in the the issues and the the uh {vocalsound} the things . +Project Manager: Oh , like overlap between what you said ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh well , for all you know that {disfmarker} that'll happen . +Marketing: Which is ma not necessarily a bad thing , but may what I've already started doing is cr I created a slide in in my presentation here so um so that we kind of think well what's the cumulative effect of what we've taken from your ideas and and mine , because certainly I I have a hard time separating separating things completely . +Project Manager: Mm hard to know what {disfmarker} where your role ends , yeah . +Marketing: Obviously obviously what you've just told me what you've just told me impacts a lot on what um like market research mm that that I've been {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So how do I how do I get this up ? +Industrial Designer: Um function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Uh pr yeah , press function and F_ eight , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Alright . So {disfmarker} F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: Function , the blue button . Next to the control on the left . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , and F_ eight . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to push it together . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , I think that that's doing it now . +Industrial Designer: Nope . Try that again . +Marketing: Uh , again ? +Industrial Designer: Wait . +User Interface: Think maybe the the wire in the back might be loose . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} Oh oh here we go . +Marketing: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yep , there we go . +Project Manager: There you go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} okay great . Okay . Just um {disfmarker} Before I bring this up what I'll just say is um what I've what I've done is tried to collect some information so that I can then relay this to to you guys so that it's {disfmarker} now becomes a collective thing . And then kind of lead us in the direction of deciding , 'kay what what are our options , what should we decide and do you know what I mean , so . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Increase that 'cause we can't see the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's much better . +Project Manager: Right . Can you um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . That would be {disfmarker} Okay . So um does that make sense ? So what I basically got is I just looked into some information and sort of th tried to think about how how we could review it and how we could {disfmarker} and what kind of decisions we could take away from it and then maybe by the end of just looking at some of these things we can think about what are our priorities . 'Cause certainly there's lots of different information to go through . So um I'm thinking here about uh primarily about customer needs , that we start with the customer , and w you know , what they want and what are issues with with um existing products . Uh to think about trends and also about {disfmarker} try and connect that as you see with the company vision which is about fashion in electronics . Um and then , as I say uh w we'd like to prioritise our design features from this and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bouncing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dunno . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So this is what I've found here , um a lot of this is new to me , so we'll just read through together . Um , users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls . So they find them ugly . Most people find them ugly . Um {vocalsound} the vast majority would spend more money for it to look fancy as well , we'll see later , the vast majority would spend more money for um slightly more intuitive control , such as voice recognition . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay I'm gonna {disfmarker} we'll look at that in a second . Um most people use only a f a very slim portion of all the controls . So I guess what we're looking at here is people want this h technology , they tend to use the most simple controls and overall they find remote controls to be something they don't {disfmarker} doesn't really appeal to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think what we're doing is we're trying to take like {disfmarker} if for me this is sorta like three different different um inspirations , you know , one is that we want uh something that's high-tech but we want it to seem easy . And in spite of the primitive side of it and the very high-tech side , we want it to just be an appealing piece of equipment in people's hands . Um , {vocalsound} frustrations . They get lost a lot , s as it came up in our last meeting . Um , takes time to learn how to use them . This is uh why I mention when Craig was uh showing us some ideas that we actually try and group controls , so d it doesn't just look like a big panel , kinda like when you you look at , you know , a new computer keyboard , or something that is quite explanatory . If you want audio , if you want visual , then you have those . Um and I will admit I don't know what R_S_I_ stands for . +Project Manager: Repetitive strain injury . +Industrial Designer: Is installing a new remote control something that people {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , no , that did not come up at all . Um so here here is another um sort of a a review here of the main things . I also found that most people would uh adults at least would pay more for voice recognition . Now apparently we do have access to all the tech cutting edge technology in remote control . So I dunno if that's possible we might consider getting into it . Um . {vocalsound} And and again here as we sort of move m sort of thin start thinking about how we wanna sell and market this , I think a recurring theme here is the company wants it to be {disfmarker} wants us to make something that's fashionable and sleek and trendy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um people {vocalsound} uh additionally aren't aren't liking the appearance of their products , so we wanna think about as we take all the sort of the techie features how we can um put that into a unit which is which people like . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You know , they like the aesthetics and the ergonomics . +Project Manager: So want something that looks good and is easy to use , big priorities . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , so you know just c looking at what what Craig um Craig's i uh ideas are s sorta tell me that maybe what we wanna do is try and um separate the different things that we wanna include in this . So if we do say well we want there to be all the technology will we try and make that almost be like optional technology . You know , it's like like I find a lot of T_V_s these days , something really like about 'em is if you wanna just turn 'em on and off you can , but they have little panels where you click and there's just like tons of features you go through . +Project Manager: Mm . So it {disfmarker} you wanna group all the different kind of types of functions together , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . That's s that's sort of the um {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} my hope here is that I'm putting out this information so that we can then say okay , well how do we collectively move on with it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Um I I haven't brought out one specific marketing idea , although my sense is that what we should try and think about is what are the current trends in materials and shapes and styles , and then use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But not let that confine us technologically . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Marketing: So Alright ? Any um comments on all of that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , um one of the things that we have to decide on by the end of the meeting is who we're gonna be um {disfmarker} who's our our target audience , our target market . +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , so if we want something that that looks good and is easy to use , but has y is fairly powerful product , whatever , who do we really want to aim that at ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: I mean {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where's the money , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah , who wou who would have the money to spend . Well i if if like twenty five Euro is our is our selling price then you can imagine , +Marketing: Yeah . And who watches T_V_ . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well I don't {disfmarker} I'm not really sure how much that will retail at . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But you want {disfmarker} it's somebody who's not gonna just use the remote that comes with their telly , I suppose , they're gonna actually go out and buy one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , who do you think we're aiming this at ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think it'll be the mid range to the high end market , in terms of people . 'Cause twenty five Euros for a remote , how much is that lo locally in pounds ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's about sixteen , seventeen pounds , I think . +Industrial Designer: Is that too {disfmarker} is that a lot of money to buy an extra remote or a replacement remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so maybe not the high end range , but maybe middle , middle up-ish . Kind of . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know how much ? I dunno I guess you pay , what , ten ten quid for a remote ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like a simple replacement , right . I mean if you lost your remote and the first thing you just wanna go out and get , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: would you {disfmarker} how much would you pay ? +Marketing: This this kinda touches on your comments there , David . These are the age groups which we have information on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and these are {disfmarker} this is a table of h what people would pay more for a certain feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay +Marketing: Just gives us a rough idea of where the w the will to spend money on T_V_ equipment is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mostly focused around the twenty five age group . +Project Manager: Yeah , so do you think we're we're aiming at a fairly young market then ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Sort of young professional , kind of . Mm-hmm +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um do you think then uh voice recognition is something we should really seriously consider ? What what do you think , Craig ? +User Interface: Well , did you not say it was the the adults that were going for the the voice recognition ? Sort of the the older group . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , it's the {disfmarker} Yep . +User Interface: Uh f +Marketing: It does it does fit with the market that we're sort of identifying , +Project Manager: N yeah . +Marketing: in terms of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we are gonna have to narrow it down , to say let's target these people and give them what they want +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and 'cause you know , there needs to be some kind of selling point to it . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: So um anybody {disfmarker} anything there to add {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just kind of young professionals , uh th like {vocalsound} if we are going to include speech recognition , it's kind of between fifteen and thirty five seems to be like a really high response to that . So we could say that was our target . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I I think twenty five to thirty five is is is fair to add that in as a group as well +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because that's more than half your group of people who are willing to at least try and use your technology . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so fifteen to thirty five , look fairly young . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , they have bit of expendable income to spend on this sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think perhaps that age group is significant as well because those are people who use the computer , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: who are familiar with their {disfmarker} with computers in in their everyday work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think people who are maybe about {disfmarker} I wouldn't say thirty five , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but people who are about forty-ish and above now would not be so dependent and reliant on a computer or a mobile phone or something like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: So these are people who are gadgety , right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: People who are u growing up used to , you know in schools and in universities , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: when you go on to their working lives , people who would you know regular +Project Manager: Yeah . So they'll not sh not shy away from something quite high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: That that's that's a good point . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so shall we make the decision uh to include speech recognition +Marketing: If we can . +Industrial Designer: I I think one thing we should try not to avoid is not to say we have to use speech recognition right now , +Project Manager: if we can . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because um , based on what you've go y everybody's saying , right , you want something simple . +Project Manager: Okay . Why is that ? +Industrial Designer: You want basic stuff and you want something that's easy to use . Speech recognition might not be the simplest thing for somebody to use . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Could it be an on off thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um , +Marketing: Like if you want it on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but what I'm saying is that we're we're trying to lock ourselves into a s particular kind of technology , +Project Manager: Where you can activate it and deactivate it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: rather than focusing on on exactly what are the features that we're gonna say , and then , you know , say speech recognition is good for this , speech recognition is not good for this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +Industrial Designer: So maybe we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I suggest that we think about speech recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: anyway it's a {disfmarker} it's something that can be used to fulfil a function , but at end of the day we don't look at the technology , but we look at the function first . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Sure . Yep . +Project Manager: Uh okay , well do you wanna um give us your presentation +Industrial Designer: Okay , sure . +Project Manager: and then then we can {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: um might have been a good idea to all deliver our presentations and then discuss , but this is this is how we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's good {disfmarker} well it's good to get ideas out while they're fresh in mind . +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh it's something that's just occurred to me as well is if we make it um speech reco if we incorporate speech recognition , that's appealing to people um maybe with a physical disability as well . +Marketing: Not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . And not losing . And also it helps in terms of people not losing this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know they {disfmarker} they're saying oh it's {disfmarker} I lose it in the couch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} like we're kind of what we're b sort of getting in into here is mating different uh design features together +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that they {disfmarker} +User Interface: I reckon one problem with speech recognition is um I've actually seen one of them used and uh the technology that was in that one wasn't particularly amazing , so you end up yelling at the control for hours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Really ? +User Interface: Channel up . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really , you've seen one before . +Project Manager: Do you think maybe we need like further advances in that kind of area until it's worthwhile incorporating it though ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it'd probably quite expensive to put in . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , do you mind passing me my notepad . +Project Manager: Mm . Course not . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . Cool , +Project Manager: There you go . +Industrial Designer: um . Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just the working design um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well this is just what {disfmarker} how I would go about it . Um I guess I try to define like what we're doing now , try to define what we're trying to get done . Um I think in a practical way , we kind of know what it is . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: We've used it , we're familiar with it , but we're {disfmarker} we can't n we haven't narrowed down um exactly what the things we're trying to fulfil , like {disfmarker} Besides the basics , I think back {disfmarker} in the back of our minds we know what the basics are . Has to change channels , has to change volume , but in like specifics , right , which one of the basics are you trying to target . Um are there certain parts of the basics that are more important or less important than the basics ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and I just {disfmarker} the idea is just to get everybody to um {disfmarker} I usually {vocalsound} have a have have a design that's there as a basic , so , you know , things that {disfmarker} to start everything going . But I guess everybody does have some idea , so I don't think um there's a need for that . Um okay this finding things is a little bit confusing , so I'll go into the diagram first . It just explains how the process goes through , from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: from the basic technology point of view , the basic steps that you need um in the diagram and in this slide probably works better . Um okay , you need some power source . 'Kay , a battery or something , to keep it going . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and that power source is important because it ties you down to um how long the device will last . Um it ties you down perhaps a bit later on in terms of the technologies +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um how far you can transmit the signal or the complexity of the functions that you want . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like for example , voice recognition , right . That might be constrained because that {disfmarker} you might need to power a microphone , you might need to power other things , so that's one perhaps constraint there . Um {vocalsound} Th Okay , the basic thing is there's a user interface where people punch a button or talk into it or smile to it or blink their eyes , whatever . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know , and that um picks up an input from a user , um uh a logic {disfmarker} a series of logic has to decide what the user is telling the device , and the device has to r you know , based on you push button A_ , so I will do something with button A_ . So maybe button A_ is the power button , okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and then it needs to be able to send the signal out to the device itself which is the receiver here . Um and I think that's about it in terms of my design um . It's fairly general , um and I guess the purpose of this is also not to restrict you in in the way you're thinking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like um voice recognition , right , um , if it's something which is important then we just add more power rather than having a thing that we don't have enough power . So it's not really a constraint in that sense , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I mean these are functionally , you know , the base , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what the technology has to do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so I guess the rest of it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think we should maybe you you wanna go back to what the functions are ? I think that's more relevant to a discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Well , do you wan do you wanna finish up your your whole presentation then ? +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w I'm done . +Project Manager: Are you are you all done ? +Industrial Designer: More or less . Yeah . Ps Oh , it's just putting the rest of it into words , but it's essentially the same thing . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um you have a transmitter , an input device , logic chip , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you know , stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: And like on the {disfmarker} means {disfmarker} b +Industrial Designer: I guess this would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Since we're on the topic of the technology , uh are there any like {disfmarker} what are our options ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Alright , what's what i in {disfmarker} Is this the only way that we go about it , or are there other thin +Industrial Designer: Um , these these aren't technology options in that sense . This is just um +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: a basic principles and basic components that are needed . +Marketing: The basic principle of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: For example , if you needed um if you needed to add uh a voice recognition , right , then your user interface would be split , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: broken down into more components , right , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which you have a microphone , the V_R_ and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Oh . So this just show how we're kind of modularising the whole thing . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh Yep . Yep . So each component represents one function , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but I think the basic functions are the logic , the transmitter , um and the receiver , okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the power are things that you won't have to care about . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and those are things that based on what your user interface requires then we'll add more functionality to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um there might be one other consideration which would be that the the transmission between the remote control and the T_V_ for example . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um are we gonna restrict ourselves to using the traditional technologies of infra-red thing ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because that's something you need to actually be physically be pointing to . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well well a worry that was was expressed in the new requirements was that if we made this too complex it would e it would effect um how long how long it took us to get this to market , so I th suspect it might be a good idea just to restrict our kind of our creative influence on this on the user interface and not worry so much about uh how we transmit it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: um because I mean it it's tried and tested intra-red , so we could stay with tha +Industrial Designer: There might be one other problem with the transmission , um in particular right now , since we're talking about voice recognition . Um if somebody's gonna h talk to the device , you ideally want them to hold it to them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +Industrial Designer: I it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you may not require that , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but you know , um it's it's +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: it's something very natural , I guess , you know , to hold it , to signal to the user , +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and push a button maybe to start s talking about it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then you need to send the signal out , so because if you're using infra-red , the line of sight um say the T_V_'s at that chair , and I'm standing in front of here and the transmitter is here , it blocks it . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So in that sense , there's not really a restriction +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but it's something which you may have to think about later on in the process . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not so much further down . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And um just a clarification before we finish this . Uh does c is our controller is it have the option of being um on a standard uh frequency as all of the other equipment , so that the one controller can control several pieces of equipment ? +Industrial Designer: There's there's not much specific specific information , +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: but I think that um one indication of infra-red mean that you're just targeting traditional devices . Because infra-red is something which everybody has . +Project Manager: Yeah . W Well well we've um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: In the new requirement spec they said just to focus on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just to T_V_ , okay . +Project Manager: so that's what we should do for now I think . Something I was wondering about was the power . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , is it worth considering like having like a charging unit as opposed to just regular batteries ? I mean is that something we really want to go into , do you think , +Industrial Designer: There's a there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or should we just consider running on regular batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , from from a from a component point of view there's added complexity , and you add cost to it , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um and then there's probably the fact that you need another physical component . You need a docking cradle , for example , for you to put it in to charge . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or you need to get the user to plug it in . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um and most users are very f use already used to the idea of buying batteries and putting it into the controller . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But unless the controller's gonna consume a lot of batteries , like he's gonna run through like twenty batteries a month , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then I don't think rechargeable is something we should {disfmarker} you know , we really need to care about . +Project Manager: Okay , so just stick to to regular {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , right . So basically the um {disfmarker} I'm just gonna just recap uh what I said at the start , was that um the the whole point of this meeting was to f absolutely finalise who we're gonna aim this at , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and what exactly the product's gonna do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um just to recap on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Are we all happy about the idea of um aiming the product at um the fifteen to thirty five bracket ? Um and also the funct the the actual functions of what it's gonna do . +Marketing: Yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: Do you wanna recap on that , Craig ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we just say that it was gonna be the the most basic stuff possible . Um on off , up and down channels , up and down volume and uh skip to a channel . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +User Interface: Ta . +Marketing: And is it going to include any of the uh the more advanced features , or are we gonna eliminate those ? +User Interface: Um I think we include mute , but apart from that um I think we just {disfmarker} we'll go for the simpleness . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I think +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . R is it is it is it s is it not an option still that we include some things just as a sort of under {disfmarker} like sort of under a door or some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's as optional functions . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause what what I'm {disfmarker} I'd be a bit worried about is if someone was h had previously developed habits of expecting to control surround sound or this and that with their controller and then and then they , you know , w they get ours and w it's doesn't have that . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if that'd be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Another thing that you were saying about categorising the controls ? Um maybe I could suggest we we break them down into three simple categories . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One would be audio controls , +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: one would be video controls , and the other one would be a device . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this may not map very well to advanced functionality especially , but I think that um from a manufacturer's point of view , from a person designing the device , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think from a point of view of a person using the device , you know a T_V_ is something they see and something they hear , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um it's something they do other things to like turn it on and turn it off . I mean like so what we could have is like three buckets , right , where we could throw things into , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if we want this feature , let's throw it into there , and then from there decide whether it's basic , or it's non-basic . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean it might help with the visualisation . +Marketing: 'Kay , okay . Like that . Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it would actually help with the component build as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , right . +Marketing: Mm okay , great . +Project Manager: Um , okay well I gotta kind of {disfmarker} got five minutes to wrap up now . Um next thing we're doing is having lunch . Whoohoo . Um and then we're gonna have thirty minutes of working on the next stage . Um so I'll be putting the minutes of this uh this meeting into the project documents folder . Um so uh I guess just to just to confirm that we know what we're doing in the next {disfmarker} well in the thirty minutes after lunch anyway , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um for uh our Industrial Designer , you're gonna be thinking about the components concept . Um User Interface Designer gonna be thinking about our user interface , and marketing you're gonna be thinking about trend watching . Um and you'll all get specific instructions as well . So um I dunno , just just to to ask now if you've got anything else you've thought about while we've been talking . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , do you wanna start with David . Anything else to say at all ? +Industrial Designer: Mm no , not really . +Project Manager: No , okay . {vocalsound} Andrew ? +Marketing: Um yeah , just {disfmarker} I just wanted to ask then before we wrap up , shall we agree for sake of um sort of clarity and when we when we r resume that we'll u use this idea David's proposed , where we think of these three sort of buckets and anything anything we discuss about them is sort of , okay , we're talking about this . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I think that's definitely a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Shall we do that , then ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , great . +User Interface: Um just about the three buckets , um what would go in the the device functions one ? +Industrial Designer: Um things like on off . Because they don't have anything to do with what you see . I me mean in terms of picture and the entertainment value , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know , um so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And and channel . +Industrial Designer: And channel . Because the on off also goes , you know , like on off like power , not on off sound . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Not on off video . Although you don't turn off the video on your T_V_ , but um you might wanna you know turn off the sound , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: say you wanna pick up the phone , there's a mute button , right , so you you have you have a choice of putting it on to um others or a device . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Device is basically anything which we can't categorise , right . We put it out . +Project Manager: Okay , so you're gonna have um audio which is gonna be like you know your bass settings and actual volume {disfmarker} hi +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , anything to do with what you hear , right . You you put that into audio . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then video is anything that you can see . +Project Manager: Okay , and then visual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so brightness , contrast , things like that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yep . +Project Manager: and then just actual device things , +Marketing: Colour , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: like what channel you're watching , turning on an off , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: stuff like that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then k I suppose quite likely what would happen is in the d device category there might be some which are just like the habitual standard and then others which are maybe a bit more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like random which we have no other place to put , but we need it somewhere there . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Sure , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um even even if it doesn't map very clearly what happens is that people at least have some in their mind . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to use , I think that's one thing that um {disfmarker} and I guess from the component point of view it's easy to build as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause things are like fixed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um so yeah , I guess just things to think about are you know like the fact it's gotta look good , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of who we're we're , you know , targeting this at . Um something maybe kind of quirky in design maybe . Make it kind of ergonomic kind of to hold , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: you know , things like that . Um , {vocalsound} so I guess I guess that's it . That's the meeting over . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Whoohoo . +Marketing: Then we get to go find out what was picked up for lunch for us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","Project Manager led a meeting to finalize the functional design of a TV remote control, with a focus on simplicity and market appeal for the 15-35 age group. New requirements included eliminating teletext support, solely controlling the TV (not other devices like VCR or DVD), and incorporating the company's corporate color and slogan into the design. Key considerations were made for basic functions (on/off, channel up/down, volume up/down, and possibly mute) and whether to include advanced features hidden away or made optional. Speech recognition was debated as a potential feature, considering technological constraints and target market preferences. The team aimed to group functions into three categories: audio, video, and device controls. The project will proceed with the Industrial Designer considering component concepts, the User Interface Designer developing the user interface, and Marketing researching trends." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Yeah , I think I got my mike on . OK . Let 's see . +Professor B: OK . Ami , do yours then we 'll open it and I think it 'll be enough . +Grad A: Mmm {disfmarker} Doesn't , uh {disfmarker} It should be the other way . Yeah , now it 's on . +PhD F: Right . OK . +Professor B: OK . So , we all switched on ? +Grad A: We are all switched on , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . Anyway . So , uh , before we get started with the , uh , technical part , I just want to review what I think is happening with the {disfmarker} our data collection . +PhD F: We are all switched on . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , probably after today , {vocalsound} that shouldn't come up in this meeting . Th - this {disfmarker} this is s should be im it isn't {disfmarker} There 's another thing going on of gathering data , and that 's pretty much independent of this . But , uh , I just want to make sure we 're all together on this . What we think is gonna happen is that , uh , in parallel starting about now {vocalsound} we 're gonna get Fey {vocalsound} to , where you 're working with me and Robert , draft a note that we 're gonna send out to various CogSci c and other classes saying , "" here 's an opportunity to be a subject . Contact Fey . "" And then there 'll be a certain number of um , hours during the week which she will be available and we 'll bring in people . Uh , roughly how many , Robert ? We d Do we know ? +Grad C: Um , fifty was our {disfmarker} sort of our first {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . So , we 're looking for a total of fifty people , not necessarily by any means all students but we 'll s we 'll start with {disfmarker} with that . In parallel with that , we 're gonna need to actually do the script . And , so , I guess there 's a plan to have a meeting Friday afternoon Uh , with {disfmarker} uh , Jane , and maybe Liz and whoever , on actually getting the script worked out . But what I 'd like to do , if it 's O K , {vocalsound} is to s to , as I say , start the recruiting in parallel and possibly start running subjects next week . The week after that 's Spring Break , and maybe we 'll look for them {disfmarker} some subjects next door +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {pause} i +Grad C: Yeah . Also , Fey will not be here during spring break . +Professor B: Oh , OK , then we won't do it . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: OK . So that 's easy . Um . So , is {disfmarker} Is that make sense to everybody ? +Grad C: Yeah . Also , um , F {vocalsound} both Fey and I will , um , {vocalsound} do something of which I may , eh {disfmarker} kindly ask you to {disfmarker} to do the same thing , which is we gonna check out our social infrastructures for possible subjects . Meaning , {vocalsound} um , kid children 's gymnastic classes , pre - school parents and so forth . They also sometimes have flexible schedules . So , if you happen to be sort of in a non - student social setting , and you know people who may be interested in being subjects {disfmarker} We also considered using the Berkeley High School and their teachers , maybe , and get them interested in stuff . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +Grad C: And , um . So that 's as far as our brainstorming was concerned . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . The high school 's a great idea . +Grad C: So . But I {disfmarker} I will just make a first draft of the , uh , note , the "" write - up "" note , send it to you and Fey and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: And why don't you also copy Jane on it ? +Grad C: And , um , Are we {disfmarker} Have we concurred that , uh , these {disfmarker} these forms are sufficient for us , and necessary ? +Professor B: Uh , th I think they 're necessary . This {disfmarker} The permission form . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , there has to be one , +Grad C: Nuh . N . +Professor B: and I think we 're just gonna use it as it is , and {pause} Um +Grad C: N . You happy with that ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . There 's one tricky part about , um , they have the right um I The last paragraph {comment} "" if you agree to participate you have the opportunity to have anything excised which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" OK ? Now that , we had to be included for this other one which might have , uh , meetings , you know , about something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In this case , it doesn't really make sense . Um , so what I 'd like to do is also have our subjects sign a waiver saying "" I don't want to see the final transcript "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And if they don't {disfmarker} If they say "" no , I 'm not willing to sign that "" , then we 'll show them the final transcript . But , um . +Grad C: Yep . Makes sense . +Professor B: That , uh {disfmarker} yeah , so we might actually , um S i Jane may say that , "" you know , you can't do this "" , uh , "" on the same form , we need a separate form . "" But anyway . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to , e e um , add an a little thi eh {disfmarker} a thing for them to initial , saying "" nah , do I don't want to see the final transcript . "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But other than that , that 's one 's been approved , this really is the same project , uh , rec you know . And so forth . So I think we just go with it . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So much for the data , except that with Munich everything is fine now . They 're gonna {vocalsound} transcribe . They 're also gonna translate the , uh , German data from the TV and cinema stuff for Andreas . So . They 're {disfmarker} they all seem to be happy now , {vocalsound} with that . So . w c sh should we move on to the technical sides ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: Well I guess the good {disfmarker} good news of last week was the parser . So , um Bhaskara and I started working on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser . Then Bhaskara went to class and once he came back , um , {vocalsound} it was finished . So . It , uh {disfmarker} I didn't measure it , but it was about an hour and ten minutes . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} and now it 's {disfmarker} We have a complete English parser that does everything the German parser does . +Grad D: Something like that . +Professor B: Which is {vocalsound} not a lot . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: That 's the , uh , point . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} uh , that 's not a lot . +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Yes . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad E: What did you end up having to do ? I mean , wha Was there anything {pause} interesting about it at all ? +Grad C: Well , if you , eh {disfmarker} +Grad D: We 'll show you . +Professor B: Yeah , we can show us , +Grad E: or are we gonna see that ? +Professor B: right ? +Grad C: Well , w w We d The first we did is we {disfmarker} we tried to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} change the {disfmarker} the "" laufen "" into "" run "" , {vocalsound} or "" running "" , {vocalsound} or "" runs "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: And we noticed that whatever we tried to do , it no effect . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we were puzzled . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: And , uh , the reason was that the parser i c completely ignores the verb . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So this sentence {disfmarker} sentence is {disfmarker} parses the p the same output , +Grad E: Hmm . Interesting parser property . +Grad C: um , even if you leave out , um , all {disfmarker} all of this . +Grad E: I see . Yeah . +Grad C: So it 's basically feature film and TV . +Grad E: Today +Grad C: That 's what you need . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: If {disfmarker} if you 'd add {disfmarker} add Today and Evening , it 'll add Time or not . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} t and the time , right ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} i it does look at that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But all the rest is p simply frosting on the cake , and it 's optional for that parser . +Grad E: True . +Professor B: So , you can sho You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are you gonna show us the little templates ? +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Grad C: Yeah . We ar we can sh er {disfmarker} I can show you the templates . I {disfmarker} I also have it running here , +Grad E: The former end g "" Oh , I see . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so if I {vocalsound} do this now , um , {vocalsound} you can see that it parsed the wonderful English sentence , "" Which films are on the cinema today {pause} evening ? "" But , um . +Professor B: Well , that sounds {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh do don't worry about it . +Professor B: No i +Grad C: It could be "" this evening , which {disfmarker} which films are on the cinema "" , or "" running in the cinema , which {disfmarker} "" uh , "" today evening "" , uh i "" Is anything happening in the cinema this evening ? "" +Grad E: OK . OK . Key words , e basically . +Professor B: Well +Grad C: Ge - elaborate , or , more or less , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , it 's a little tricky , in that there 's some allowable German orders which aren't allowable English orders and so forth . And it is order - based . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Isn't it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Oh . So it {disfmarker} it doe I it {disfmarker} These {disfmarker} u these optional elements , +Grad C: It is not {disfmarker} +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually a set , not a sequence ? +Grad C: Yeah . We were {disfmarker} I was afraid that , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh ! +Grad E: So it really is key word matching , basically . +Professor B: Really a se +Grad C: Um . +PhD F: e yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , wow . +Grad C: Um , I mean , these sentences are just silly . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: I mean , uh , d these were not the ones we {disfmarker} we actually did it . Um . What 's an idiomatic of phrasing this ? Which films are {pause} showing ? +Grad D: Are pl playing at the cinema ? +Grad C: playing ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Tonight ? +Grad D: I changed that file , actually , where it 's on my account . +Grad E: This {disfmarker} this evening ? +PhD F: Actually , you would say , "" which films are on tonight ? "" +Grad D: You want to get it ? Or {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} di was it easy to get it ? +Grad C: Um . I have no net here . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Do I ? +Grad C: OK . So . Wonderful parse , same thing . Um . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Except that we d w we don't have this , uh , time information here now , which is , um {disfmarker} Oh . This {disfmarker} are the reserve . Anyways . {vocalsound} So . Um . These are the {disfmarker} sort of the ten different sentence types that the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser was able to do . And it still is , now in English . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} Sorry . And , um you have already to make it a little bit more elaborate , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , I mean I changed those sentences to make it , uh , more , uh , idiomatic . And , of course , you can have i many variations in those sentences , they will still parse fine . So , in a sense it 's pretty broad . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: OK . So , if you want to look at the templates , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} they 're conveniently located in a file , "" template "" . Um , and this is what I had to do . I had to change , @ @ {comment} "" Spielfilm "" to "" film "" , uh , "" Film "" to "" movie "" , cinem "" Kino "" to "" cinema "" {disfmarker} to "" today "" {disfmarker} heu "" heute "" to "" today "" , +Grad E: Huh . +Grad C: evening {disfmarker} "" Abend "" to "" evening "" +Professor B: Capitalized as well +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: And , um . +Professor B: Y i +Grad D: One thing I was wondering , was , those functions there , are those things that modify the M - three - L basically ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the next step , +Professor B: p +Grad C: but we 'll get to that in a second . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: And so this means , um , "" this "" and "" see "" are not optional . "" Want I like "" is all maybe in there , but may also not be in there . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , the point is , if it says "" this "" and "" see "" , it also will work in "" see "" and "" this "" ? +Grad E: S +Professor B: In the other order ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: with those two key words ? +Grad C: Should we try it ? +Professor B: "" This is the one I want to see "" or whatever . +Grad C: OK . "" Action watch "" , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad C: whatever . Nothing was specialfi specified . except that it has some references to audio - visual media here . +Grad D: AV medium . +Grad C: Where it gets that from {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: It 's correct , but I don't know where it gets it from . +Grad D: "" See "" . +Grad C: Oh , "" see "" . Yeah . Yeah . Yep . OK . +Grad D: I mean it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: And "" see this "" {comment} is exactly the same thing . +Professor B: OK , so it is set - based . Alright . +Grad D: One thing I was wondering was , {vocalsound} those percentage signs , right ? So , I mean , why do we even have them ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} if you didn't have them {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , I 'll tell you why . Because it gives a {disfmarker} you a score . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the value of the score is , v I assume , I guess , the more of these optional things that are actually in there , the higher the r score {vocalsound} it is . +Grad D: Oh . OK . So that 's the main purpose . Alright . +Grad E: It 's a match . +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: So we {disfmarker} we shouldn't belittle it too much . It 's doing something , some things , and it 's very flexible . I 've just tried to +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: be nice . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: No , no . Fine . +Grad E: Right {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , flexible it is . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . {vocalsound} Um , let 's hope that the generation will not be more difficult , even though the generator is a little bit more complex . Uh but we 'll {disfmarker} Mmm , that means we may need two hours and twenty minutes rather than an hour ten minutes , +Professor B: Alright . +Grad C: I hope . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: And the next thing I would like to be able to do , and it seems like this would not be too difficult either , is {vocalsound} to say , "" OK let 's now pretend we actually wanted to not only change the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the mapping of {disfmarker} of , uh , words to the M - three - L but we also wanted to change {disfmarker} add a new sentence type and and make up some {disfmarker} some new M - three - L {disfmarker} s "" +Professor B: Yep . So That 'd be great . It would be a good exercise to just see {vocalsound} whether one can get that to run . +Grad C: See th Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yep . And , um , +Grad D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: that 's {disfmarker} shouldn't be too tough . +Grad D: Fine , yeah . Yeah , so where are those {disfmarker} those functions "" Action "" , "" Goodbye "" , and so on , right ? Are they actually , um , {vocalsound} Are they going to be called ? Um , are they present in the code for the parser ? +Grad C: Yeah . I think what it does , it i i it does something sort of fancy . It loads um {disfmarker} It has these style sheets and also the , um , schemata . So what it probably does , is it takes the , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Is this where it is ? This is already the XML stuff ? This is where it takes its own , um , syntax , and converts it somehow . Um . Where is the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: What are you looking for ? +Grad C: Um , where it actually produces the {disfmarker} the XML out of the , uh , parsed {pause} stuff . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad C: No , this is not it . Uh . I can't find it now . You mean , where the {disfmarker} where the act how the action "" Goodbye "" maps into something {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , where are those constructors defined ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: Nope . +Grad D: No , that 's not it . +Grad C: Yeah . This is sort of what happens . This is what you would need to {disfmarker} to change {disfmarker} to get the , uh , XML changed . So when it encounts encounters "" Day "" , {vocalsound} it will , uh , activate those h classes in the {disfmarker} in the XML stuff But , um {disfmarker} I saw those actions {disfmarker} uh , the "" Goodbye "" stuff somewhere . Hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm . +Grad A: Grep for it ? +Grad C: Yeah . Let 's do that . Oh . +Grad D: Mmm . M - three - L dot DTD ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: That 's just a {pause} specification for the XML format . +Grad C: Yep . Well , we 'll find that out . So whatever {disfmarker} n this does {disfmarker} I mean this is , basically , looks l to me like a function call , right ? +Professor B: Hmm ? Oh , yeah . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} So , whenever it {disfmarker} it encounters "" Goodbye "" , which we can make it do in a second , here +Grad A: That function automatically generates an initialized XML structure ? +Grad C: I +Grad D: I think each of those functions act on the current XML structure , and change it in some way , for example , by adding a {disfmarker} a l a field to it , or something . +Professor B: y Yeah . They also seem to affect state , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cause some of them {disfmarker} there were other actions uh , that {disfmarker} that s seemed to step {disfmarker} state variables somewhere , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: like the n s "" Discourse Status Confirm "" . OK . So that 's going to be a call on the discourse +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: and {vocalsound} confirm that it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: W we Mm - hmm +Grad D: Oh , you mean that 's not going to actually modify the tree , +Professor B: I think that 's right . +Grad C: e +Grad D: but it 's going to change the event . +Professor B: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} That looks like it 's state modification . +Grad D: Oh . Oh . +Grad C: e mmm Um , well i There is a feature called "" Discourse - Status "" , +Grad D: When there 's a feature . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: And so whenever I just say , "" Write "" , it will {disfmarker} it will put this in here . +Professor B: Oh , so it always just {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} Well , go back , then , cuz it may be that all those th things , while they look like function calls , are just a way of adding exactly that to the XML . +Grad C: h Yep . +Professor B: Uh - huh ! I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad C: So , this {disfmarker} +Professor B: e I 'm not sure {disfmarker} e that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we 'll see , when we say , let 's test something , "" Goodbye "" , causes it to c to create basically an "" Action Goodbye - End - Action "" . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Which is a means of telling the system to shut down . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Now , if we know that "" Write "" produces a "" Feature Discourse - Status Confirm Discourse - Status "" . So if I now say "" Write , Goodbye , "" it should do that . It sho it creates this , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: "" Confirm Goodbye "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: Right there . But there is some kind of function call , because how does it know to put Goodbye in Content , but , uh , Confirm in Features ? +Grad C: Oh . It d it {disfmarker} n That 's because {disfmarker} +Grad D: So So , it 's not just that it 's adding that field . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: It 's +Professor B: Absolutely . Good point . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's under what sub - type you 're doing it . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: It 's mystery functions . +Grad C: Well , sometimes it m Sometimes , i +Grad D: Well , they 're defined somewhere , presumably . +Professor B: Yeah , each is {disfmarker} S so that 's funny . +Grad C: When it {disfmarker} +Professor B: You bury the s the state in the function Alright . +Grad C: it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it just automatically initializes things that are common , right ? +Professor B: Uh +Grad A: So it 's just a shorthand . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: For example {disfmarker} Oh , this is German . Sorry . e So , now , this , it cannot do anymore . Nothing comes out of here . +Grad A: A "" not a number "" is a value . Awesome . +Grad C: So , it doesn't speak German anymore , but it does speak English . And there is , here , a reference {disfmarker} So , this tells us that whatever is {disfmarker} has the ID "" zero "" is referenced here {disfmarker} by @ @ {comment} the restriction seed and this is exa "" I want {disfmarker} "" What was the sentence ? +Professor B: "" I want two seats here . "" +Grad C: "" need two seats here . "" Nuh . "" And where is it playing ? "" There should also be a reference to something , maybe . Our d This is re um Mmm . Here , we change {disfmarker} and so , we {disfmarker} Here we add something to the Discourse - Status , that the user wants to change something that was sort of done before And , uh {disfmarker} and that , whatever is being changed has something to do with the cinema . +Grad A: So then , whatever takes this M - three - L is what actually changes the state , not the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +Professor B: No , right , the Discourse Maintainer , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . I see . And it {disfmarker} and it runs around looking for Discourse Status tags , and doing whatever it does with them . And other people ignore those tags . Alright . So , yeah . I definitely think it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's worth the exercise of trying to actually add something that isn't there . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Professor B: Uh Disc +Grad C: Sort of get a complete understanding of the whole thing . +Professor B: Yeah , a kid understanding what 's going on . Then the next thing we talked about is actually , {vocalsound} um , figuring out how to add our own tags , and stuff like that . +Grad C: OK . Point number two . I got the , uh , M - three - L for the routes today . Uh , so I got some more . This is sort of the uh , {vocalsound} um , Hmm . Interesting . It 's just going up , it 's not going back down . So , this is {disfmarker} um , what I got today is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the new {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} M - three - L for um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the Maps , +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: uh , and with some examples {disfmarker} So , this is the XML and this is sort of what it will look like later on , even though it {disfmarker} you can't see it on {disfmarker} on this resolution . And this is what it {disfmarker} sort of is the {disfmarker} the structure of Map requests , um also not very interesting , and here is the more interesting stuff for us , is the routes , route elements , and , again , as we thought it 's really simple . This is sort of the , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} parameters . We have @ @ {comment} simple "" from objects "" and "" to objects "" and so forth , points of interest along the way {disfmarker} And , um , I asked them whether or not we could , um {disfmarker} First of all , I was little bit {disfmarker} It seemed to me that this m way of doing it is sort of a stack a step backwards from the way we 've done it before . t It seems to me that some notions were missing . +Professor B: S +Grad C: So these are {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} +Professor B: So these are {disfmarker} these are your friends back at EML . +Grad C: Yep . Who are doing this . +Professor B: So this is not a complicated negotiation . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not seven committees , or anything , right ? +Grad C: No . No , this is very straightforward . +Professor B: Great . So this is just trying to {disfmarker} It 's a design thing , not a political thing . Once we 've {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} We can just sort of agree on what oughta be done . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Good . +Grad C: Exactly . And , um {disfmarker} And , uh {disfmarker} However , the , uh {disfmarker} e So that you understand , it is really simple . Uh {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you have a route , and you cut it up in different pieces . And every {disfmarker} every element of that e r r f of that {disfmarker} Every segment we call a "" route element "" . And so , from A to B we cut up in three different steps , and every step has a "" from object "" where you start , a "" to object "" where y where {pause} you sort of end , and some points of interest along the way . What w I was sort of missing here , and uh , maybe it was just me being too stupid , is , {vocalsound} I didn't sort of get the {disfmarker} the notion of the global goal of the whole route . Really , s was not straightforward visibly for me . And some other stuff . And I {vocalsound} suggested that they should n be {disfmarker} k uh , kind enough to do s two things for us , is one , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Also allocating , uh , some tags for our Action Schema Enter - Vista - Approach , and {disfmarker} And also , um , since you had suggested that {disfmarker} that , um , we figure out if we ever , for a demo reason , wanted to shortcut directly to the g GIS and the Planner , of how we can do it . Now , what 's the state of the art of getting to entrances , um , what 's the syntax for that , how get getting to {vocalsound} vista points and calculating those on the spot . And the Approach mode , anyhow , is the default . That 's all they do it these days . Wherever you 'll find a route planner it n does nothing but get to the closest point where the street network is {vocalsound} at minimal distance to the geometric center . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: So , well , let {disfmarker} Now , this is important . Let , uh {disfmarker} I want a a Again , outside of m almost managerial point , um {disfmarker} You 're in the midst of this , so you know better . But it seems to me it 's probably a good idea to li uh {disfmarker} minimize the number of uh , change requests we make of them . So it seemed to me , what we ought to do is get our story together . OK ? And think about it some , internally , before asking them to make changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh . Does this {disfmarker} does this make sense to you guys ? It {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing the {disfmarker} the interaction but it seemed to me that {vocalsound} what we ought to do is come up with a {disfmarker} uh , something where you , um {disfmarker} And I {disfmarker} I don't know who 's mok working most closely on it . Probably Johno . OK . Uh , take what they have , send it to everybody saying "" this is what they have , this is what we think we should add "" , OK ? and then have a d a {disfmarker} an iteration within our group saying "" Hmm , well {disfmarker} "" OK ? And get our best idea of what we should add . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then go back to them . Is i or , I don't know does this make sense to you ? Or +Grad C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Especially if we want {disfmarker} Sort of , what I {disfmarker} my feeling was eh we {disfmarker} we sort of reserved something that has a r eh an OK label . That 's {disfmarker} th that was my th first sort of step . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I w No matter how we want to call it , {vocalsound} this is sort of our playground . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And if we get something in there that is a structure elaborate and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and complex enough to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to maybe enable a whole simulation , one of these days , that would be {disfmarker} u the {disfmarker} the perfect goal . +Professor B: Right . That 's right . So . So , Yeah . The problem isn't the short ra range optimization . It 's the sort of {disfmarker} o one or two year kind of thing . OK . What are the thl class of things we think we might try to do in a year or two ? How {disfmarker} how would we try to characterize those and what do we want to request now {vocalsound} that 's leave enough space to do all that stuff ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And that re that requires some thought . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} so that sounds like a great thing to do {vocalsound} as the priority item um , as soon as we can do it . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: So y so you guys will {vocalsound} send to the rest of us um {pause} {vocalsound} a version of um , this , and {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh , description {disfmarker} +Grad A: With sugge yeah , suggested improvements and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well b Yeah . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Not everyone uh , reads German , so if you 'd um +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: tu uh , tur change the description to , uh , English +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: and , um , Then {disfmarker} then , yeah . Then , with some sug s suggestions about where {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , this {disfmarker} and this , of course , was just the {vocalsound} {vocalsound} action end . Uh , at some point we 're going to have to worry about the language end . But for the moment just {vocalsound} uh , t for this class of {disfmarker} of things , we might want to try to encompass . And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Then the scope of this is beyond {pause} Approach and Vis - or Vista . Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . This is {disfmarker} this is everything that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} {vocalsound} you know , um {pause} we might want to do in the next couple years . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So what would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: We don't {disfmarker} I mean , that 's an issue . We don't know what , entirely . +Grad A: Uh , yeah . but I 'm just {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . So I just {disfmarker} this XML stuff here just has to do with Source - Path - Goal type stuff , in terms of traveling through Heidelberg . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Or travel , specifically . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So , but this O Is the domain greater than that ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I think the i the idea is {pause} that {disfmarker} Oh . It 's beyond Source - Path - Goal , but I think we don't need to get beyond it @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} tourists in Heidelberg . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: It seems to me we can get {vocalsound} all the complexity we want in actions and in language without going outside of tourists in Heidelberg . OK ? But you know , i depending on what people are interested in , one could have , {vocalsound} uh , tours , one could have {vocalsound} um , explanations of why something is {disfmarker} is , you know , why {disfmarker} why was this done , or {disfmarker} I mean , no {disfmarker} there 's no end to the complexity you can build into the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , what a tourist in Heidelberg might ask . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , at least {disfmarker} unless somebody else wants t to suggest otherwise I think {vocalsound} the general domain we don't have t to uh , broaden . That is , tourists in Heidelberg . And if there 's something somebody comes up with that can't be done that way , then , sure . W we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at that , but {vocalsound} uh I 'd be s I I 'd be surprised at {disfmarker} if there 's any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} important issue that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} And , um {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} if you want to {pause} uh , push us into reference problems , that would be great . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK , so this is {disfmarker} his specialty is {disfmarker} reference , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what are these things referring to ? Not only {vocalsound} anaphora , but , uh , more generally the , uh {disfmarker} this whole issue of , uh , referring expressions , and , what is it that they 're actually dealing with in the world ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , again , this is li in the databa this is also pretty well formed because there is an ontology , and the database , and stuff . So it isn't like , {vocalsound} um , you know , the Evening Star or stuff like that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I i it {disfmarker} All the entities do have concrete reference . Although th the {vocalsound} To get at them from a language may not be trivial . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: There aren't really deep mysteries about um , what w what things the system knows about . +PhD F: Right . Right . And you have both proper names and descriptions +Professor B: All those things . +PhD F: and y and you can ask for it . +Professor B: Yeah . You have proper names , and descriptions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And a l and a lot {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and anaphora , and pronouns , +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Professor B: and {pause} all those things . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Now , we hav the {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} Unfortunately , the whole database is , uh , {vocalsound} in German . We have just commissioned someone to translate some bits of it , IE the e the shortest k the {disfmarker} the more general descriptions of all the objects and , um , persons and events . So , it 's a relational database with persons , events , {vocalsound} and , um , objects . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite , um , {vocalsound} there . But did y I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think there will be great because the reference problem really is not trivial , even if you have such a g well - defined world . +Professor B: He knows . +Grad C: Ah - he you are not , uh , throwing uh , uh , carrying owls to Athens . +Grad A: Could you give me an example of a reference problem ? so {disfmarker} so l I can make it more concrete ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? We sort of t think that our bit in this problem is interesting , but , just to get from Powder - Tower to an object I ID in a database is also not really trivial . +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} or if you take something even more scary , um , "" how do I get to the third building after the Tower ? the Ple - Powder - Tower ? "" +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: Uh , you need some mechanism for +Professor B: Yeah . Or , you know , the church across from City Hall , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or the re the restaurant where they wear lederhosen ? +Grad C: Or the +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Or is that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that would be fine . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: O or {disfmarker} or tower , or this tower , or that building , or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Uniquely . +Grad C: hmm ? +Grad A: OK . Trying to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or you can say "" how {disfmarker} "" you know , "" how do I get back ? "" +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And , again , it 's just a question of which of these things , uh , people want to {vocalsound} dive into . What , uh , I think I 'm gonna try to do , and I guess , pwww ! let 's say that by the end of spring break , I 'll try to come up with some {vocalsound} general story about , um , construction grammar , and what constructions we 'd use and how all this might fit together . There 's this whole framework problem that I 'm feeling really uncomfortable about . And I haven't had a chance to {vocalsound} think about it seriously . But I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} I want to do that early , rather than late . And you and I will probably have to talk about this some . +Grad C: u u u u That 's what strikes me , that we sort of {disfmarker} the de g uh , small {disfmarker} Something , uh , maybe we should address one of these days , is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That most of the work people actually always do is look at some statements , and {disfmarker} and analyze those . Whether it 's abstracts or newspapers and stuff like this . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad C: But the whole {disfmarker} i is it {disfmarker} is it really relevant that we are dealing mostly with , sort of , questions ? +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +Grad C: Uh , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean yeah , I d +Grad C: And this is {disfmarker} It seems to me that we should maybe at least spend a session or {disfmarker} or brainstorm a little bit about whether that l this is special case in that sense . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , I don't know . You know {disfmarker} Did we ever find m metaphorical use in {disfmarker} in questions in {disfmarker} in that sense , really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: +Professor B: You will . +Grad C: And how soon , +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . +Professor B: I mean , uh , we could take all the standard metaphor examples and make question versions of them . OK . +Grad C: "" Who got kicked out of France ? "" +PhD F: Muh +Professor B: Yeah , or , you know . "" Wh - why is he {disfmarker} why is he pushing for promotion ? "" +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: or , "" who 's pushing proof "" +Grad C: Nuh . +Professor B: er , just pick {disfmarker} pick any of them and just {vocalsound} do the {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I don't {disfmarker} I don't think , {vocalsound} uh , it 's at all difficult {disfmarker} Uh , to convert them to question forms that really exist and people say all the time , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} we don't know how to handle them , too . Right ? I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I d It {disfmarker} We don't know how to handle the declarative forms , @ @ {comment} really , and , then , the interrogative forms , ah - oh . Uh . Yeah . +Grad D: Ooo ! +Professor B: Nancy , it looked like you were s +Grad E: Oh . it 's just that {disfmarker} that the goals are g very different to cases {disfmarker} So we had this problem last year when we first thought about this domain , actually , was that {vocalsound} most of the things we talked about are our story understanding . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: Uh , we 're gonna have a short discourse and {vocalsound} the person talking is trying to , I don't know , give you a statement and tell you something . And here , {vocalsound} it 's th +Grad C: Help you create a mental model , blah - blah - blah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yea - eh {disfmarker} y Yeah , I guess so . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: And then here , y you are j uh , the person is getting information and they or may not be following some larger plan , {vocalsound} you know , that we have to recognize or , you know , infer . And th th the {disfmarker} their discourse patterns probably {nonvocalsound} don't follo follow quite as many {vocalsound} logical connec +Professor B: Right . No , I think that 's one of things that 's interesting , is {disfmarker} is in this sort of over - arching story we {disfmarker} we worked it out for th as you say , this {disfmarker} the storytelling scenario . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I think it 's really worth thinking through {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what it looks like . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What is the simspec mean , et cetera . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . M Right . Cuz for a while we were thinking , "" well , how can we change the , {vocalsound} um , data to sort of illicit tha {vocalsound} illicit , um , actions that are more like what we are used to ? "" But obviously we would rather , you know , try to figure out what 's {disfmarker} what 's , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe that 's what we 'll do is {disfmarker} is s u e We can do anything we want with it . I mean , once we have fulfilled these requirements , +Grad E: Yep . Mmm {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , and the one for next uh , summer is just half done and then the other half is this , um , "" generation thing "" which we think isn't much different . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So once that 's done , then all the rest of it is , uh , sort of , you know , what we want to do for the research . And we can {disfmarker} w we can do all sorts of things that don't fit into their framework at all . Th - there 's no reason why we 're c we 're constrained to do that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we can use all the , uh , execution engines , then we can , {vocalsound} you know , really {nonvocalsound} try things that would be too {disfmarker} too much pain to do ourselves . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 's no obligation on any of this . So , if we want to turn it into u understan standing stories about Heidelberg , we can do that . I mean , that would just be a t a um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or , as a matter of fact , we need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and if we if we ' r eh {disfmarker} take a ten year perspective , we need to do that , because w e w a Assuming we have this , um , we we ta in that case we actually do have these wonderful stories , and historical anecdotes , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and knights jumping out of windows , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad C: and - and - and {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} tons of stuff . So , th the database is huge , and if we want to answer a question on that , we actually have to go one step before that , and understand that . In order to e do sensible information extraction . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You might , yeah . +Grad C: And so , um , this has been a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Deep Map research issue that was {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is part of the unresolved , and to - do 's , and something for the future , is {vocalsound} how can we sort of run our our text , our content , through a machine {vocalsound} that will enable us , later , to retrieve or answer e questions more sensibly ? +PhD F: Mwa Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Right . Anyway . S Who 's going ? +PhD F: So , uh {disfmarker} So , uh , I was just going to ask , um , {vocalsound} so , what is the {disfmarker} the basic thing that {disfmarker} that you are , um , obligated to do , um , uh , by the summer before w uh y c we can move {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ah ! OK . So {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , what happened is , there 's this , eh , uh {disfmarker} Robert was describing the {disfmarker} There 's two packages there 's a , uh , quote parser , there 's a particular piece {vocalsound} of this big system , which , in German , uh , takes these t sentence templates and produces XML structures . And one of our jobs was to make the English equivalent of that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That , these guys did in a {disfmarker} in a day . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor B: The other thing is , at the other end , roughly at the same level , there 's something that takes , uh , X M L structures , produces an output XML structure which is instructions for the generator . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? And then there 's a language generator , and then after that a s a synthesizer that goes from an XML structure to , uh , language generation , to actual specifications for a synthesizer . Eh , but again , there 's one module in which there 's one piece {vocalsound} that we have to convert to English . +PhD F: Right . Right . Got it . +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} OK . And that {disfmarker} But as I say , this is {disfmarker} all along was viewed as a kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a m a minor thing , necessary , but {disfmarker} but not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And much more interesting is the fact that , {vocalsound} as part of doing this , we {disfmarker} we are , you know , inheriting this system that does all sort of these other {vocalsound} things . +PhD F: That 's great ! Right . +Professor B: Not precisely what we want , and that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's wh where it {disfmarker} it gets difficult . And I {disfmarker} I don't pretend to understand yet what I think we really ought to do . +Grad C: OK . So , e enough of that , but I , uh , um , mmm , the e sort of , Johno and I will take up that responsibility , and , um , get a first draft of that . Now , we have um just , I think two more short things . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: Um , y you guys sort of started fighting , uh , on the Bayes - net "" Noisy - OR "" front ? +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , I thought I should , um , talk a little bit about that , because that might be a good , uh , sort of architecture to have , in general for , uh , problems with , {vocalsound} you know , multiple inputs to a node . +Professor B: Good ! OK . Good . And what 's the other one ? so that {disfmarker} just we know what the d agenda is ? +Grad C: Um , the Wu paper , I think maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I 've got a couple new Wu papers as well . Uh , so I {disfmarker} I 've been in contact with Wu , so , probably let 's put that off till I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} till I understand better , {vocalsound} uh , what he 's doing . It 's just a little embarrassing cause all this was in his thesis and I was on his thesis committee , and , so , {vocalsound} I r really knew this at one time . +PhD F: Ugh . +Professor B: But , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It 's not only uh Is {disfmarker} Part of what I haven't figured out yet is {disfmarker} is how all this goes together . So I 'll dig up some more stuff from Dekai . And {disfmarker} so why don't we just do the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So {disfmarker} should I {disfmarker} Is there a white board here that I can use ? +Professor B: Yeah . You could {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: squealing sound ? +Grad D: Or shall I just use this ? +Professor B: It 's probably just as easy . I +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: You can put the microphone in your pocket . +Grad D: Hey ! +Grad A: I was envying you and your pocket cause I don't have one . +Grad E: It was a quick one , huh ? +Professor B: That 's why they invented "" pocket T 's "" . +Grad A: exactly +Grad E: They have clips ! +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: So , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Recall that , uh , we want to have this kind of structure in our Bayes - nets . Namely , that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You have these nodes that have several bands , right ? So {disfmarker} Does I mean , they sort of {disfmarker} the typical example is that , um , these are all a bunch of cues for something , and this is a certain effect that we 'd like to conclude . So , uh {disfmarker} Like , let 's just look at the case when , um , this is actually the {disfmarker} the final action , right ? So this is like , uh , {vocalsound} you know , touch , +Grad C: Y +Grad D: or {disfmarker} +Grad C: E - EVA +Grad D: Sorry . Uh +Grad C: +Grad D: Yeah , E - {vocalsound} EVA , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Enter , V View , Approach , right ? +PhD F: W what was this ? It {disfmarker} i i i ehhh , {comment} i ehhh . +Professor B: Wri - write it out for for {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , this is {disfmarker} Yeah . Enter , +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: View , Approach . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Grad D: Right . So , I mean , we 'd like to {disfmarker} take all these various cues , right ? +PhD F: Like the army . +Grad D: So this one might be , say , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: New terminology ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: Well , let me pick a random one +Grad E: I haven't heard that before . +Grad D: and say , uh {disfmarker} I don't know , it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This isn't the way it really is , but let me say {disfmarker} that , suppose someone mentioned , uh , admission fees Ah , it takes too long . Try {disfmarker} let me just say "" Landmark "" . If the thing is a landmark , you know , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} then there 's another thing that says if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} if it 's closed or not , at the moment . Alright , so you have nodes . Right ? And the , uh , problem that we were having was that , you know , given N - nodes , there 's "" two to the N "" Given N - nodes , and furthermore , the fact that there 's three things here , we need to specify "" three times "" , uh , "" two to the N "" probabilities . Right ? That 's assuming these are all binary , which f they may not be . For example , they could be "" time of day "" , in which case we could , uh , say , you know , "" Morning , afternoon , evening , night "" . So , this could be more So , it 's a lot , anyway . And , that 's a lot of probabilities to put here , which is kind of a pain . So {pause} Noisy - ORs are a way to , uh , {vocalsound} sort of deal with this . Um Where should I put this ? So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} Let 's call these , uh , C - one , C - two , C - three , and C - four , and E , for Cause and Effect , I guess . The idea is to have these intermediate nodes . Right . Well , actually , the idea , first of all , is that each of these things has a {disfmarker} quote - unquote distinguished state , which means that this is {vocalsound} the state in which we don't really know anything about it . So {disfmarker} right ? So , for example , if we don't really know {vocalsound} if the thing is a landmark or not , Or , i if that just doesn't seem relevant , then that would be th sort of the Disting - the Distinguish state . It 's a really , you know , {vocalsound} if there is something for the person talking about the admission fee , you know , if they didn't talk about it , that would be the Distinguish state . +Grad C: S so , this is a fanciful way of saying "" default "" ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: That 's just what they {disfmarker} the word they used in that paper . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} you have these intermediate nodes , right ? E - one , E - two , E - three and E - four ? +Professor B: So , this is the Heckerman paper you 're working with ? Good . +Grad D: Yeah . So {pause} The idea is that , each of these EI {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} represents what this would be {disfmarker} if all the other ones were in the distinguish state . Right ? So , for example , suppose that the person {disfmarker} I mean , suppose the thing that they talked about is a landmark . But none of the other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sort of cues really apply . Then , {vocalsound} this would be {disfmarker} W The {vocalsound} this would just represent the probability distribution of this , assuming that this cue is turned on and the other ones just didn't apply ? So , you know , if it is a landmark , and no none of the other things really ap applicable , then {disfmarker} this would represent the probability distribution . So maybe in this case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we just t k Maybe we decide that , if the thing 's a landmark and we don't know anything else , then we 're gonna conclude that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They want to view it with probability , you know , point four . They want to enter it with probability , uh {disfmarker} with probability point five and they want to approach it probability point one , say {disfmarker} Right ? So we come up with these l little tables for each of those OK . And the final thing is that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is a deterministic function of these , so we don't need to specify any probabilities . We just have to , um , say what function this is , right ? So we can let this be , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G of E - one comma E - two . E - three , E - four . Right ? and our example G would be , um , {vocalsound} a majority vote ? Right ? +Professor B: Well . OK , so th so the important point {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} W not what the G function is . The important point is {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a general kind of idea of shortcutting the full CPT . Th - c the full conditional probability table {disfmarker} with some function . OK ? Which y w you choose appropriately for each case . So , depending on {vocalsound} what your situation is , there are different functions which are most appropriate . And {disfmarker} So I gave {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Bhaskara a copy of this , eh {disfmarker} sort of "" ninety - two "" {comment} paper . D and you got one , Robert . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't know who else has seen it . +Grad D: There 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} yeah . it 's Heckerman and Breese . +Professor B: It 's short . It 's short . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , I u w Um , yo uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Have you read it yet ? +Grad D: Uh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , you should take a look at it , I guess . +Grad A: OK +Professor B: OK , so you should take a look . Nancy , I 'm sure you read it at some point in life . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} yeah . I {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And {disfmarker} so , you other guys can decide how interested {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , @ @ . +Professor B: Anyway . So the paper isn't th isn't real hard . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} One of the questions just come at Bhaskara is , "" How much of this does JavaBayes support ? "" +Grad D: Yeah , it 's a good question . Um {pause} {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} The {disfmarker} so what we want , is basically JavaBayes to support deterministic , uh , functions . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} In a sense it sup we can make it supported by , um , {vocalsound} manually , uh , entering , you know , probabilities that are one and zeros , right ? +Professor B: Right . So the little handout that {disfmarker} The little thing that I sent {disfmarker} I sent a message saying , uh , here is a way to take {disfmarker} One thing you could do , which is kind of s in a way , stupid , is take this deterministic function , and use it to build the CPT . So , if Ba - JavaBayes won't do it for you , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: that you can convert all that into what the CPT would be . Um {disfmarker} and , what I sent out about a week ago , was an idea of how to do that , for , um , evidence combination . So one of {disfmarker} one function that you could use as your "" G function "" is an e e Evidence - Combining . So you just take {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} uh , if each of th if each of the ones has its own little table like that , {vocalsound} then you could take the , uh , strength of each of those , times its little table , and you 'd add up the total evidence for "" V "" , "" E "" , and "" A "" . +Grad D: Mmm . I don't think you can do this , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G is a function from {pause} that {vocalsound} to that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yep . Right . +Grad D: Right ? So there 's no numbers . There 's just {disfmarker} quadruplets of {disfmarker} well , N - duplets of , uh , E Vs . +Professor B: I i i No , no {disfmarker} But I 'm saying is {disfmarker} There {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is a w I mean , if y if {disfmarker} if you decide what 's {disfmarker} what is appropriate , is probablistic evidence combination , you can write a function that does it . It 's a pui it 's actually one of the examples he 's got in there . But , anyway , s skipping {disfmarker} skipping the question of exactly which functions {disfmarker} now is it clear that you might like to be able to shortcut the whole conditional probability table . +Grad C: I mean , in some {disfmarker} it seems very plausible in some sense , where we will be likely to not be {disfmarker} observe some of the stuff . Cuz we don't have the a access to the information . +Grad D: Oops , {comment} sorry . +Professor B: Right . That 's one of the problems , is , W Is {disfmarker} is , Where would th Where would it all come from ? +Grad C: Yeah . So . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} Oh , right . W would not be ab able to observe +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: I if it 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discar Discourse Initial Phrase , we will have nothing in the discourse history . So , if {disfmarker} if we ever want to wonder what was mention +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh . A are you saying that we 'll not be able to observe certain nodes ? That 's fine . That is sort of orthogonal thing . +Professor B: Yeah , so there 's {disfmarker} there 's two separate things , Robert . The f the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets in general are quite good at saying , "" if you have no current information about this variable just take the prior for that . "" OK ? Th - that 's what they 're real good at . So , if you don't have any information about the discourse , you just use your priors of {disfmarker} of whatever {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} discourse {disfmarker} uh , eh , basically whatever w it 's {disfmarker} Probabilistically , whatever it would be . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of not a great estimate , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} it 's the best one you have , and , so forth . So that , they 're good at . But the other problem is , how do you fill in all these numbers ? And I think that 's the one he was getting at . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So , specifically in this case you have to {disfmarker} f have this many numbers , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: whereas in this case you just have to have three for this , three for this , three for this . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So you have to have just three N ? So , this is much smaller than that . +Grad A: Asymptotically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , pretty quickly . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: U yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , you don't need da data enough to cover {disfmarker} uh , nearly as much stuff . +Grad D: I don't know . +Grad A: So , really , i What a {disfmarker} A Noisy - OR seems to kind of {pause} "" neural - net - acize "" these Bayes - nets ? +Professor B: Eh {disfmarker} well to some No , no . So , "" Noisy - OR "" is a funny way of referring to this , because {vocalsound} the Noisy - OR is only one instance . +Grad D: Yeah . This isn't a Noisy - OR anymore . +Professor B: That one actually isn't a Noisy - OR . So we 'll have to think of {vocalsound} of a way t t +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: it 's a Noisy - arg - max or a Noisy - whatever . +Professor B: Yeah , whatever . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Eh {disfmarker} {comment} Um +Grad A: Well , my point was more that we just {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} With the neural net , right , eh , things come in , you have a function that combines them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Tha - that 's true . It is a is also more neural - net - like , although {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , it isn't necessarily sum {disfmarker} uh , s you know , sum of weights or anything like that . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean i You could have , uh , like the Noisy - OR function , really is one that 's essentially says , uh , take the max . +Grad D: Well , the "" OR "" . +Professor B: Same . +Grad D: Right . I guess you 're right . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh But anyway . So {disfmarker} And , I thi I think that 's the standard way people get around the {disfmarker} uh There are a couple other ones . There are ways of breaking this up into s to {disfmarker} to subnets and stuff like that . But , um The I think we definitely {disfmarker} I think it 's a great idea tha to {disfmarker} to pursue that . +Grad D: Yep . So +Grad C: Wha - still sort of leaves one question . It {disfmarker} I mean you {disfmarker} you can always uh {disfmarker} see easily that {disfmarker} that I 'm not grasping everything correctly , but {vocalsound} what seemed attractive to me in im uh in the last discussion we had , was {vocalsound} that we find out a means of {disfmarker} of getting these point four , point five , point one , of C - four , not because , you know , A is a Landmark or not , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we label this whatever object type , and if it 's a garden , it 's point three , point four , point two . If it 's a castle , it 's point eight , point one , point one . If it 's , {vocalsound} uh , a town hall , it 's point two , point three , point five . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And so forth . And we don't want to write this down {disfmarker} necessarily every time for something but , uh {disfmarker} let 's see . +Grad D: It 'll be students {disfmarker} Where else would it be stored ? That 's the question . +Grad C: Well , in the beginning , we 'll write up a flat file . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: We know we have twenty object types +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and we 'll write it down in a flat file . +Professor B: No . So , i is Well , let me say something , guys , cuz there 's not {disfmarker} There 's a pretty point about this we might as well get in right now . Which is {disfmarker} The hierarchy that s comes with the ontology is just what you want for this . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , if you know about it {disfmarker} let 's say , a particular town hall {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , it 's one that is a monument , {vocalsound} then , that would be stored there . If you don't , you look up the hierarchy , Eh {disfmarker} so , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you may or {disfmarker} So , then you 'd have this little vector of , um , you know , Approach Mode or EVA Mode . Let 's {disfmarker} OK , so we have {vocalsound} the EVA vector for {disfmarker} for various kinds of landmarks . If you know it for a specific landmark you put it there . If you don't , you just go up the hierarchy to the first place you find one . +Grad D: OK . So , is the idea to put it in the ontology ? +Professor B: Absolutely . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: Uh , or , link to {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but in any case {disfmarker} i View it logically as being in the ontology . It 's part of what you know about {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an object , {vocalsound} is its EVA vector . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: And , if yo As I say , if you know about a specific object , you put it there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: This is part of what Dekai was doing . So , when we get to Wu , The - e We 'll see w what he says about that . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: And , then if you {disfmarker} If it isn't there , it 's higher , and if you don't know anything except that it 's a b it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} building , then up at the highest thing , you have the pr what amounts to a prior . If you don't know anything else about a building , {vocalsound} uh , you just take whatever your crude approximation is up at that level , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: which might be equal , or whatever it is . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 's a very pretty relationship between these local vectors and the ontology . And it seems to me the obvious thing to do , unless {vocalsound} we find a reason to do something different . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Does this make sense to you ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Bhask - ? +Grad D: Yeah . So , we are {disfmarker} but we {disfmarker} we 're not doing the ontology , so we have to get to whoever is doing the {disfmarker} u ultimately , +Professor B: Indeed . So , that 's another thing we 're gonna need to do , is {disfmarker} is , to , either {disfmarker} +Grad D: we have to get them to {disfmarker} +Professor B: We 're gonna need some way to either get a p tag in the ontology , or add fields , or {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} some way to associate {disfmarker} Or , w It may be that all we can do is , um , some of our own hash tables that it {disfmarker} Th - the {disfmarker} th you know , there 's always a way to do that . It 's a just a question of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , hash on object name to , you know , uh , the probabilities or whatever . +Professor B: i th Yeah . e Right . And , so , i uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , it strikes me as a What For If we get the mechanism , that will be sort of the wonderful part . And then , {vocalsound} how to make it work is {disfmarker} is the second part , in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , m the guy who was doing the ontology {disfmarker} eh , eh , s ap apologized that i it will take him another through {disfmarker} two to three days because they 're having really trouble getting the upper level straight , and right now . The reason is , {vocalsound} given the craw bet uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the projects that all carry their own taxonomy and , on all history , {vocalsound} they 're really trying to build one top level ontology ft that covers all the EML projects , and that 's , uh , uh , sort of a tough cookie , a little bit tougher than they {vocalsound} figured . I could have told them s so . +Professor B: Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh . But , nevertheless , it 's going to be there by n by , uh , next Monday and I will show you what 's {disfmarker} what some examples {vocalsound} from that for towers , and stuff . And , um , what I don't think is ever going to be in the ontology , is sort of , you know , the likelihood of , eh , people entering r town halls , and looking at town halls , and approaching town halls , especially since we are b dealing with a case - based , not an instance - based ontology . So , there will be nothing on {disfmarker} on that town hall , or on the Berkeley town hall , or on the {vocalsound} Heidelberg town hall , it 'll just be information on town halls . +Professor B: Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} How ar What are they gonna do with instances ? +Grad C: But what {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , you {disfmarker} y +Grad C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Hhh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's al different question . I mean , th the {disfmarker} first , they had to make a design question , {vocalsound} "" do we take ontologies that have instances ? or just one that does not , that just has the types ? "" +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: And , so , since the d decision was on types , on a d simply type - based , {vocalsound} we now have to hook it up to instances . I mean this is +Professor B: But what i What is SmartKom gonna do about that ? +Grad C: one {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz , they have instances all the time . +Grad C: Yeah , but the ontology is really not a SmartKom thing , in {disfmarker} in and of itself . That 's more something that {vocalsound} I kicked loose in {disfmarker} in EML . So it 's a completely EML thing . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} SmartKom 's gonna need an ontology . +Grad C: Yes , u a w a lot of people are aware of that . +Professor B: I understand , {vocalsound} but is anybody doing anything about it ? +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . It 's a political problem . We won't worry about it . +Grad C: No , but {disfmarker} th the r eh {disfmarker} I th I still think that there is enough information in there . For example , whether {disfmarker} OK . So , th it will know about the twenty object types there are in the world . Let 's assume there are only twenty object types in this world . And it will know if any of those have institutional meanings . So , in a sense , "" I "" used as Institutions for some s in some sense or the other . Which makes them {disfmarker} enterable . Right ? In a sense . +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . So we may have to {disfmarker} +Grad C: You know . +Professor B: This is with the whole thing , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: we may have to build another data stru +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Conceptually , we know what should be done . When we see what people have done , it may turn out that the easiest thing to do {vocalsound} is to build a {disfmarker} a separate thing that {disfmarker} that just pools i i Like , i i it {disfmarker} it may be , that , the {disfmarker} the instance {disfmarker} w That we have to build our own instance , uh , things , that , with their types , +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Right , we can just assume {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then it goes off to the ontology once you have its type . So we build a little data structure And so what we would do in that case , is , in our instance gadget have {vocalsound} our E V And if we d there isn't one we 'd get the type and then have the E V As for the type . So we 'd have our own little , {vocalsound} uh , EVA tree . And then , for other , uh , vectors that we need . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: So , we 'd have our own little {vocalsound} things so that whenever we needed one , we 'd just use the ontology to get the type , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then would hash or whatever we do to say , "" ah ! +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it 's that type of thing , and we want its EVA vector , pppt - pppt ! {comment} it 's that . "" So , I I think we can handle that . And then {disfmarker} But , the combination functions , and whether we can put those in Java Bayes , and all that sort of stuff , is , uh {disfmarker} is the bigger deal . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that 's where we have to get technically clever . +Grad A: We could just steal the classes in JavaBayes and then interface to them with our own code . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I me ye {nonvocalsound} eh , yeah , the {disfmarker} +Grad D: That requires understanding the classes in JavaBayes , I guess . @ @ . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it 's , uh , e e e e e cute . I mean , you 've been around enough to {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Just ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , there 's this huge package which {disfmarker} which may or may not be consistent and {disfmarker} you know . But , yeah , we could look at it . +Grad A: Well , I was j OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's b It {disfmarker} It 's an inter sort of a kind of a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The thing is , it 's kind of an interpreter and i i it expects its data structures to be in a given form , and if you say , "" hey , we 're gonna {vocalsound} make a different kind of data structure to stick in there {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Well , no , but that just means there 's a protocol , right ? That you could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It may or may not . I don't know . That 's the question is "" to what extent does it allow us to put in these G functions ? "" And I don't know . +Grad A: Well , no , but {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} What I uh the {disfmarker} So you could have four different Bayes - nets that you 're running , and then run your own {disfmarker} write your own function that would take the output of those four , and make your own "" G function "" , is what I was saying . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's fine if it 's {disfmarker} if it comes only at the end . But suppose you want it embedded ? +Grad A: Well , then you 'd have to break all of your Bayes - nets into smaller Bayes - nets , with all the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's a truly horrible way to do d it . One would hope {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , you bet . But , at that point you may say , "" hey , Java Bayes isn't the only package in town . Let 's see if there 's another package that 's , eh , more civilized about this . "" +Grad D: +Professor B: Now , Srini is worth talking to on this , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: cuz he said that he actually did hack some combining functions into But he doesn't remember {disfmarker} at least when I talked to him , he didn't remember {vocalsound} whether it was an e an easy thing , a natural thing , or whether he had to do some violence to it to make it work . +Grad D: Ah ! +Professor B: Uh . But he did do it . +Grad D: Yeah . I don't see why the , uh , combining f functions have to be directly hacked into I mean , they 're used to create tables so we can just make our own little functions that create tables in XML . +Professor B: Well , I say that 's one way to do it , is {disfmarker} is to just convert it int into a {disfmarker} into a C P T that you zip {disfmarker} It 's blown up , and is a {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's huge , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it doesn't require any data fitting or complication . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , the fact that it blown u blows up is a huge issue in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , OK . So say it blows up , right ? So there 's , like , the you know , ten , f ten , fifteen , uh , things . It 's gonna be like , two to the {disfmarker} that , which isn't so bad . +Professor B: I I understand . I 'm just saying tha that w That was wi that was my note . The little note I sent said that . It said , "" Here 's the way you 'd take the logical f G function and turn it into a CPT . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean that {disfmarker} the Max - the Evidence - Combining function . So we could do that . And maybe that 's what we 'll do . But , um don't know . So , I will , e {vocalsound} e before next week , uh , @ @ {comment} p push {disfmarker} push some more on {disfmarker} on this stuff that Dekai Wu did , and try to understand it . Uh , you 'll make a couple of more copies of the Heckerman paper to give to people ? +Grad D: p Sure . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would like a copy , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: OK . +PhD F: y y yeah . +Professor B: And , um +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . And I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think s through this , uh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} getting EVA vectors dynamically out of ontologies one more time because I s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure whether we all think of the same thing or not , here . +Professor B: Well , you and I should talk about it . +Grad C: Yeah , uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Alright , great ! And , Robert , thank you for {vocalsound} coming in under {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he 's been sick , Robert . +Grad C: Und . +Grad A: I was thinking maybe we should just cough into the microphone and see if they can't {disfmarker} th see if they can handle it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad E: Sure . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} is this , uh {disfmarker} +","The summarized dialogue transpires in an academic setting, where individuals referred to as Grad A, Professor B, PhD F, and other participants engage in a discussion involving technical and organizational aspects of their research project. The participants appear to be a mix of graduate students and professors working on complex problems related to data collection, scripting, and the development of various components for a project associated with EML or SmartKom, which seem to involve ontology and Bayesian networks. + +The conversation begins with Grad A and Professor B checking if their microphones are switched on, indicating a need to record the meeting. Professor B starts the meeting by expressing the need to reevaluate data collection processes. They then proceed to discuss the recruitment of study subjects, the planning of scripts, subject availability during spring break, and social outreach for potential subjects. + +Grad C elaborates on their brainstorming process for recruiting subjects, including reaching out to non-student social settings like children's gymnastic classes, pre-school parents, and possibly Berkeley High School. There are also mentions of creating a draft of a ""write-up"" note and the sufficiency and necessity of consent forms for research. + +In terms of the technical discussion, Grad C and PhD F discuss the progress of the parser for the project, describing the effort of adapting it from German to English and the use of certain sentence types. The conversation moves into the specifics of the parser's functionality and its flexibility with parsing sentences and its dependency on key vocabulary rather than syntactic order, showcasing techniques like mapping words to actions and generating XML output. + +Towards the end of the meeting, participants discuss ontology and Bayes-nets, particularly focusing on simplifying the full conditional probability table for Bayes-nets and incorporating functions appropriately. The possibility of interfacing JavaBayes with custom-built functions is contemplated, and the group acknowledges they may need to look at other packages if JavaBayes cannot be straightforwardly adapted. + +Professor B talks about plans to map out a story about construction grammar and its possible implementations, indicating an ongoing struggle to comprehend how the frameworks fit together. There is a distinct undertone of the need to collaborate closely with ontology developers and to extract EVA vectors from it dynamically. + +The meeting wraps up with plans to distribute a Heckerman paper for further reading, a discussion led by Robert on the Noisy-OR front of Bayes-nets, and promises from participants to delve deeper into the methods of managing EVA vectors and interacting with the ontology. + +Overall, the dialogue indicates a working session where researchers dealing with complex computational models and data structures aim to align their objectives, overcome technical hurdles, and establish concrete steps for the advancement of their collaborative project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're on . +Professor C: OK , what are we talking about today ? +PhD B: I don't know . Do you have news from the conference talk ? Uh , that was programmed for yesterday {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yesterday morning on video conference . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: Well +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry . +Grad E: Oh . Conference call . +Professor C: I know {disfmarker} now I know what you 're talking about . No , nobody 's told me anything . +PhD B: Alright . +PhD A: Oh , this was the , uh , talk where they were supposed to try to decide {disfmarker} +PhD B: To {disfmarker} to decide what to do , +PhD A: Ah , right . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , that would have been a good thing to find out before this meeting , that 's . No , I have no {disfmarker} I have no idea . Um , Uh , so I mean , let 's {disfmarker} let 's assume for right now that we 're just kind of plugging on ahead , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: because even if they tell us that , uh , the rules are different , uh , we 're still interested in doing what we 're doing . So what are you doing ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , well , we 've {disfmarker} a little bit worked on trying to see , uh , what were the bugs and the problem with the latencies . +PhD D: To improve {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , We took {disfmarker} first we took the LDA filters and , {vocalsound} uh , we designed new filters , using uh recursive filters actually . +Professor C: So when you say "" we "" , is that something Sunil is doing or is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor C: Who is doing that ? +PhD B: Uh , us . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , oh . Oh , OK . +PhD B: So we took the filters {disfmarker} the FIR filters {vocalsound} and we {comment} designed , uh , IIR filters that have the same frequency response . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Well , similar , but that have shorter delays . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they had two filters , one for the low frequency bands and another for the high frequency bands . And so we redesigned two filters . And the low frequency band has sixty - four milliseconds of delay , and the high frequency band filter has something like eleven milliseconds compared to the two hundred milliseconds of the IIR filters . But it 's not yet test . So we have the filters but we still have to implement a routine that does recursive filtering +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: You {disfmarker} you had a discussion with Sunil about this though ? +PhD B: No . No . +Professor C: Uh - huh . Yeah , you should talk with him . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I mean , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole problem that happened before was coordination , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so you need to discuss with him what we 're doing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , cuz they could be doing the same thing and {disfmarker} or something . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Uh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know if th that 's what they were trying to {disfmarker} They were trying to do something different like taking , uh {disfmarker} well , using filter that takes only a past +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: and this is just a little bit different . But I will I will send him an email and tell him exactly what we are doing , so . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . Um , +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} We just {disfmarker} we just have to be in contact more . I think that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fact that we {disfmarker} we did that with {disfmarker} had that thing with the latencies was indicative of the fact that there wasn't enough communication . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD B: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Um , Yeah . Well , there is w one , um , remark about these filters , that they don't have a linear phase . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: Well , I don't know , perhaps it {disfmarker} perhaps it doesn't hurt because the phase is almost linear but . Um , and so , yeah , for the delay I gave you here , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , computed on the five hertz modulation frequency , which is the {disfmarker} mmm , well , the most important for speech so . Uh , this is the first thing . +Professor C: So that would be , uh , a reduction of a hundred and thirty - six milliseconds , +PhD D: The low f f +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: which , uh {disfmarker} What was the total we ended up with through the whole system ? +PhD B: Three hundred and thirty . +Professor C: So that would be within {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , but there are other points actually , uh , which will perhaps add some more delay . Is that some other {disfmarker} other stuff in the process were perhaps not very {disfmarker} um perf well , not very correct , like the downsampling which w was simply dropping frames . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , so we will try also to add a nice downsampling having a filter that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: well , a low - pass filter at {disfmarker} at twenty - five hertz . Uh , because wh when {disfmarker} when we look at the LDA filters , well , they are basically low - pass but they leave a lot of what 's above twenty - five hertz . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , and so , yeah , this will be another filter which would add ten milliseconds again . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Um , yeah , and then there 's a third thing , is that , um , basically the way on - line normalization was done uh , is just using this recursion on {disfmarker} on the um , um , on the feature stream , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} but this is a filter , so it has also a delay . Uh , and when we look at this filter actually it has a delay of eighty - five milliseconds . So if we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Eighty - five . +PhD B: Yeah . If we want to be very correct , so if we want to {disfmarker} the estimation of the mean t t to {disfmarker} to be {disfmarker} well , the right estimation of the mean , we have to t to take eighty - five milliseconds in the future . Mmm . +Professor C: Hmm ! That 's a little bit of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . Um , But , well , when we add up everything it 's {disfmarker} it will be alright . We would be at six so , sixty - five , plus ten , plus {disfmarker} for the downsampling , plus eighty - five for the on - line normalization . So it 's +Professor C: Uh , +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus eighty for the neural net and PCA . +Professor C: yeah , but then there 's {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD B: So it would be around two hundred and forty {disfmarker} so , well , +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just barely in there . +PhD B: plus {disfmarker} plus the frames , but it 's OK . +PhD A: What 's the allowable ? +Professor C: Two - fifty , unless they changed the rules . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which there is {disfmarker} there 's some discussion of . +PhD A: What were they thinking of changing it to ? +Professor C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , well the people who had very low latency want it to be low {disfmarker} uh , very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very very narrow , uh , latency bound . And the people who have longer latency don't . So . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD B: So , yeah . +Professor C: Unfortunately we 're the main ones with long latency , but +PhD A: Ah ! +Professor C: But , uh , +PhD B: Yeah , and basically the best proposal had something like thirty or forty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: you know , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: So . Well . +Professor C: Yeah , so they were basically {disfmarker} I mean , they were more or less trading computation for performance and we were , uh , trading latency for performance . And they were dealing with noise explicitly and we weren't , and so I think of it as complementary , that if we can put the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Think of it as what ? +Professor C: Complementary . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I think the best systems {disfmarker} so , uh , everything that we did in in a way it was {disfmarker} it was just adamantly insisting on going in with a brain damaged system , which is something {disfmarker} actually , we 've done a lot over the last thirteen years . Uh , {vocalsound} which is we say , well this is the way we should do it . And then we do it . And then someone else does something that 's straight forward . So , w th w this was a test that largely had additive noise and we did {disfmarker} we adde did absolutely nothing explicitly to handle ad additive noise . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: We just , uh , you know , trained up systems to be more discriminant . And , uh , we did this , uh , RASTA - like filtering which was done in the log domain and was tending to handle convolutional noise . We did {disfmarker} we actually did nothing about additive noise . So , um , the , uh , spectral sub subtraction schemes a couple places did seem to seem to do a nice job . And so , uh , we 're talking about putting {disfmarker} putting some of that in while still keeping some of our stuff . I think you should be able to end up with a system that 's better than both but clearly the way that we 're operating for this other stuff does involved some latency to {disfmarker} to get rid of most of that latency . To get down to forty or fifty milliseconds we 'd have to throw out most of what we 're doing . And {disfmarker} and , uh , I don't think there 's any good reason for it in the application actually . I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're speaking to a recognizer on a remote server and , uh , having a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a quarter second for some processing to clean it up . It doesn't seem like it 's that big a deal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: These aren't large vocabulary things so the decoder shouldn't take a really long time , and . +PhD A: And I don't think anybody 's gonna notice the difference between a quarter of a second of latency and thirty milliseconds of latency . +Professor C: So . No . What {disfmarker} what does {disfmarker} wa was your experience when you were doing this stuff with , uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the surgical , uh , uh , microscopes and so forth . Um , how long was it from when somebody , uh , finished an utterance to when , uh , something started happening ? +PhD A: Um , we had a silence detector , so we would look for the end of an utterance based on the silence detector . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I {disfmarker} I can't remember now off the top of my head how many frames of silence we had to detect before we would declare it to be the end of an utterance . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , but it was , uh , I would say it was probably around the order of two hundred and fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's when you 'd start doing things . +PhD A: Yeah , we did the back trace at that point to get the answer . +Professor C: Yeah . Of course that didn't take too long at that point . +PhD A: No , no it was pretty quick . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} so you had a +PhD A: this w +Professor C: so you had a {disfmarker} a quarter second delay before , uh , plus some little processing time , +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: and then the {disfmarker} the microscope would start moving or something . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: And there 's physical inertia there , so probably the {disfmarker} the motion itself was all {disfmarker} +PhD A: And it felt to , uh , the users that it was instantaneous . I mean , as fast as talking to a person . It {disfmarker} th I don't think anybody ever complained about the delay . +Professor C: Yeah , so you would think as long as it 's under half a second or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I 'm not an expert on that +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: but . +PhD A: I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I don't think you can really tell . A person {disfmarker} I don't think a person can tell the difference between , uh , you know , a quarter of a second and a hundred milliseconds , and {disfmarker} I 'm not even sure if we can tell the difference between a quarter of a second and half a second . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean it just {disfmarker} it feels so quick . +Professor C: Yeah . I mean , basically if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you said , uh , um , "" what 's the , uh , uh {disfmarker} what 's the shortest route to the opera ? "" and it took half a second to get back to you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , {vocalsound} it would be f I mean , it might even be too abrupt . You might have to put in a s a s {vocalsound} a delay . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , it may feel different than talking to a person +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: because when we talk to each other we tend to step on each other 's utterances . So like if I 'm asking you a question , you may start answering before I 'm even done . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So it {disfmarker} it would probably feel different +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: but I don't think it would feel slow . +Professor C: Right . Well , anyway , I mean , I think {disfmarker} we could cut {disfmarker} we know what else , we could cut down on the neural net time by {disfmarker} by , uh , playing around a little bit , going more into the past , or something like that . We t we talked about that . +PhD A: So is the latency from the neural net caused by how far ahead you 're looking ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And there 's also {disfmarker} well , there 's the neural net and there 's also this , uh , uh , multi - frame , uh , uh , KLT . +PhD A: Wasn't there {disfmarker} Was it in the , uh , recurrent neural nets where they weren't looking ahead at all ? +Professor C: They weren't looking ahead much . They p they looked ahead a little bit . +PhD A: A little bit . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , I mean , you could do this with a recurrent net . And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} But you also could just , um , I mean , we haven't experimented with this but I imagine you could , um , uh , predict a , uh {disfmarker} um , a label , uh , from more in the past than in {disfmarker} than {disfmarker} than in the future . I mean , we 've d we 've done some stuff with that before . I think it {disfmarker} it works OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We 've always had {disfmarker} usually we used the symmetric windows +Professor C: So . +PhD A: but I don't think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} but we played a little bit with {disfmarker} with asymmetric , guys . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: You can do it . So . So , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what you 're busy with , s messing around with this , +PhD B: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: yeah . And , uh , +PhD D: Also we were thinking to {disfmarker} to , uh , apply the eh , spectral subtraction from Ericsson +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and to {disfmarker} to change the contextual KLT for LDA . +PhD A: Change the what ? +PhD D: The contextual KLT . +PhD A: I 'm missing that last word . Context +Professor C: K {disfmarker} KLT . +PhD A: KLT . +PhD D: KLT {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . KLT . +PhD A: Oh , KLT . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: KLT , I 'm sorry . Uh , to change and use LDA discriminative . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Uh , +PhD A: What is the advantage of that ? +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's that by the for the moment we have , uh , something that 's discriminant and nonlinear . And the other is linear but it 's not discriminant at all . Well , it 's it 's a linear transformation , that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So at least just to understand maybe what the difference was between how much you were getting from just putting the frames together and how much you 're getting from the discriminative , what the nonlinearity does for you or doesn't do for you . Just to understand it a little better I guess . +PhD B: Mmm . Well {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} yeah . Actually what we want to do , perhaps it 's to replace {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to have something that 's discriminant but linear , also . And to see if it {disfmarker} if it improves ov over {disfmarker} over the non - discriminant linear transformation . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: And if the neural net is better than this or , well . So . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's what I meant , is to see whether {disfmarker} whether it {disfmarker} having the neural net really buys you anything . +PhD B: Ye Mmm . +Professor C: Uh , I mean , it doe did look like it buys you something over just the KLT . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: But maybe it 's just the discrimination and {disfmarker} and maybe {disfmarker} yeah , maybe the nonlinear discrimination isn't necessary . +PhD D: S maybe . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD D: Maybe . +Professor C: Good {disfmarker} good to know . But the other part you were saying was the spectral subtraction , so you just kind of , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: At what stage do you do that ? Do you {disfmarker} you 're doing that , um {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: So it would be on the um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the mel frequency bands , +PhD D: We was think +PhD B: so . Yeah , be before everything . +Professor C: OK , +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: so just do that on the mel f +PhD D: we {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} nnn We {disfmarker} we was thinking to do before after VAD or +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD D: Oh , {comment} we don't know exactly when it 's better . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Before after VAD or {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that the way that they 're {disfmarker} +PhD D: and then +PhD B: Um . +Professor C: uh , one thing that would be no {disfmarker} good to find out about from this conference call is that what they were talking about , what they 're proposing doing , was having a third party , um , run a good VAD , and {disfmarker} and determine boundaries . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And then given those boundaries , then have everybody do the recognition . +PhD D: Begin to work . +Professor C: The reason for that was that , um , uh {disfmarker} if some one p one group put in the VAD and another didn't , uh , or one had a better VAD than the other since that {disfmarker} they 're not viewing that as being part of the {disfmarker} the task , and that any {disfmarker} any manufacturer would put a bunch of effort into having some s kind of good speech - silence detection . It still wouldn't be perfect but I mean , e the argument was "" let 's not have that be part of this test . "" "" Let 's {disfmarker} let 's separate that out . "" And so , uh , I guess they argued about that yesterday and , yeah , I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} don't know the answer but we should find out . I 'm sure we 'll find out soon what they , uh {disfmarker} what they decided . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there 's the question of the VAD but otherwise it 's {disfmarker} it 's on the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the mel fil filter bank , uh , energies I guess ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: You do {disfmarker} doing the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And you 're {disfmarker} you 're subtracting in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} I guess it 's power {disfmarker} power domain , uh , or {disfmarker} or magnitude domain . Probably power domain , right ? +PhD B: I guess it 's power domain , yeah . +Professor C: why +PhD B: I don't remember exactly . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: I don't remember . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} yeah , so it 's before everything else , +Professor C: yep . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , if you look at the theory , it 's {disfmarker} it should be in the power domain but {disfmarker} but , uh , I 've seen implementations where people do it in the magnitude domain +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: I have asked people why and they shrug their shoulders and say , "" oh , it works . "" So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , and there 's this {disfmarker} I guess there 's this mysterious {disfmarker} I mean people who do this a lot I guess have developed little tricks of the trade . I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's this , um {disfmarker} you don't just subtract the {disfmarker} the estimate of the noise spectrum . You subtract th that times {disfmarker} +PhD B: A little bit more and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} or less , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: Really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And generated this {disfmarker} this , +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: um , so you have the estimation of the power spectra of the noise , and you multiply this by a factor which is depend dependent on the SNR . So . Well . +PhD D: Hmm , maybe . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: When the speech lev when the signal level is more important , compared to this noise level , the coefficient is small , and around one . But when the power le the s signal level is uh small compared to the noise level , the coefficient is more important . And this reduce actually the music musical noise , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD B: uh which is more important during silence portions , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: when the s the energy 's small . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD B: So there are tricks like this but , mmm . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So . +PhD A: Is the estimate of the noise spectrum a running estimate ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that 's what differs from different {disfmarker} different tasks and different s uh , spectral subtraction methods . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have , uh , fair assurance that , uh , the noise is {disfmarker} is quite stationary , then the smartest thing to do is use as much data as possible to estimate the noise , get a much better estimate , and subtract it off . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But if it 's varying at all , which is gonna be the case for almost any real situation , you have to do it on - line , uh , with some forgetting factor or something . +PhD A: So do you {disfmarker} is there some long window that extends into the past over which you calculate the average ? +Professor C: Well , there 's a lot of different ways of computing the noise spectrum . So one of the things that , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch did , uh {disfmarker} and pas and other people {disfmarker} actually , he 's {disfmarker} he wasn't the only one I guess , was to , uh , take some period of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of speech and in each band , uh , develop a histogram . So , to get a decent histogram of these energies takes at least a few seconds really . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean you can do it with a smaller amount but it 's pretty rough . And , um , in fact I think the NIST standard method of determining signal - to - noise ratio is based on this . +PhD A: A couple seconds ? +Professor C: So {disfmarker} No , no , it 's based on this kind of method , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: this histogram method . So you have a histogram . Now , if you have signal and you have noise , you basically have these two bumps in the histogram , which you could approximate as two Gaussians . +PhD A: But wh don't they overlap sometimes ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: So you have a mixture of two Gaussians . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right ? And you can use EM to figure out what it is . You know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so basically now you have this mixture of two Gaussians , you {disfmarker} you n know what they are , and , uh {disfmarker} I mean , sorry , you estimate what they are , and , uh , so this gives you what the signal is and what the noise e energy is in that band in the spectrum . And then you look over the whole thing and now you have a noise spectrum . So , uh , Hans - Guenter Hirsch and others have used that kind of method . And the other thing to do is {disfmarker} which is sort of more trivial and obvious {comment} {disfmarker} is to , uh , uh , determine through magical means that {disfmarker} that , uh , there 's no speech in some period , and then see what the spectrum is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , but , you know , it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's tricky to do . It has mistakes . Uh , and if you 've got enough time , uh , this other method appears to be somewhat more reliable . Uh , a variant on that for just determining signal - to - noise ratio is to just , uh {disfmarker} you can do a w a uh {disfmarker} an iterative thing , EM - like thing , to determine means only . I guess it is EM still , but just {disfmarker} just determine the means only . Don't worry about the variances . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then you just use those mean values as being the {disfmarker} the , uh uh signal - to - noise ratio in that band . +PhD A: But what is the {disfmarker} it seems like this kind of thing could add to the latency . I mean , depending on where the window was that you used to calculate {pause} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD B: Yeah , sure . But {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor C: Not necessarily . Cuz if you don't look into the future , right ? +PhD A: OK , well that {disfmarker} I guess that was my question , +Professor C: if you just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , if you just {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} you , uh {disfmarker} a at the beginning you have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: Guess . +Professor C: esti some guess and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's an interesting question . I wonder how they did do it ? +PhD B: Actually , it 's a mmm {disfmarker} If - if you want to have a good estimation on non - stationary noise you have to look in the {disfmarker} in the future . I mean , if you take your window and build your histogram in this window , um , what you can expect is to have an estimation of th of the noise in {disfmarker} in the middle of the window , not at the end . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , yeah , +PhD B: the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but people {disfmarker} +Professor C: but what does {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what does Alcatel do ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and France Telecom . +PhD B: The They just look in the past . I guess it works because the noise are , uh pret uh , almost stationary +Professor C: Pretty stationary . +Grad E: Pretty stationary , +PhD B: but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , the thing , e e e e +Grad E: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , y I mean , you 're talking about non - stationary noise but I think that spectral subtraction is rarely {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not gonna work really well for {disfmarker} for non - stationary noise , +PhD B: Well , if y if you have a good estimation of the noise , +Professor C: you know ? +PhD B: yeah , because well it it has to work . +Professor C: But it 's hard to {disfmarker} +PhD B: i +Professor C: but that 's hard to do . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's hard to do . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so I think that {disfmarker} that what {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} wh what 's more common is that you 're going to be helped with r slowly varying or stationary noise . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's what spectral subtraction will help with , practically speaking . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: If it varies a lot , to get a If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} to get a good estimate you need a few seconds of speech , even if it 's centered , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you need a few seconds to get a decent estimate but it 's changed a lot in a few seconds , then it , you know , i it 's kind of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , imagine e five hertz is the middle of the {disfmarker} of the speech modulation spectrum , +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: right ? So imagine a jack hammer going at five hertz . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , good {disfmarker} good luck . So , +PhD B: So in this case , yeah , sure , you cannot {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But I think y um , Hirsch does experiment with windows of like between five hundred milliseconds and one second . And well , five hundred wa was not so bad . I mean and he worked on non - stationary noises , like noise modulated with well , wi with amplitude modulations and things like that , +PhD A: Were his , uh , windows centered around the {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Um , yeah . Well , I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Well , in {disfmarker} in the paper he showed that actually the estimation of the noise is {disfmarker} is delayed . Well , it 's {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you have to center the window , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: No , I understand it 's better to do but I just think that {disfmarker} that , uh , for real noises wh what {disfmarker} what 's most likely to happen is that there 'll be some things that are relatively stationary +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: where you can use one or another spectral subtraction thing +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: and other things where it 's not so stationary and {disfmarker} I mean , you can always pick something that {disfmarker} that falls between your methods , +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: uh , uh , but I don't know if , you know , if sinusoidally , uh , modul amplitude modulated noise is {disfmarker} is sort of a big problem in {disfmarker} in in {disfmarker} practice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I think that {vocalsound} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could probably get a really good estimate of the noise if we just went to the noise files , and built the averages from them . +Professor C: Yeah . Well . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} What do you mean ? +Professor C: Just cheat {disfmarker} You 're saying , cheat . +PhD B: But if the {disfmarker} if the noise is stationary perhaps you don't even need some kind of noise estimation algorithm . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: We just take th th th the beginning of the utterance and +Professor C: Oh , yeah , sure . +PhD B: I I know p I don't know if people tried this for Aurora . +PhD D: It 's the same . +PhD B: Well , everybody seems to use some kind of adaptive , well , scheme +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: but , +PhD D: A dictionary . +PhD B: is it very useful +Professor C: you know , stationary {disfmarker} +PhD A: Very slow adaptation . +PhD B: and is the c +PhD A: th +Professor C: Right , the word "" stationary "" is {disfmarker} has a very precise statistical meaning . But , you know , in {disfmarker} in signal - processing really what we 're talking about I think is things that change slowly , uh , compared with our {disfmarker} our processing techniques . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if you 're driving along in a car I {disfmarker} I would think that most of the time the nature of the noise is going to change relatively slowly . It 's not gonna stay absolute the same . If you {disfmarker} if you check it out , uh , five minutes later you may be in a different part of the road +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or whatever . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} i i i using the local characteristics in time , is probably going to work pretty well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But you could get hurt a lot if you just took some something from the beginning of all the speech , of , you know , an hour of speech and then later {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so they may be {disfmarker} you know , may be overly , uh , complicated for {disfmarker} for this test but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , I don't know . But what you 're saying , you know , makes sense , though . I mean , if possible you shouldn't {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} you should make it , uh , the center of the {disfmarker} center of the window . But {disfmarker} uh , we 're already having problems with these delay , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} delay issues . +PhD B: Yeah , so . +Professor C: So , uh , we 'll have to figure ways without it . Um , +PhD A: If they 're going to provide a , uh , voice activity detector that will tell you the boundaries of the speech , then , couldn't you just go outside those boundaries and do your estimate there ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . You bet . Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I imagine that 's what they 're doing , right ? Is they 're {disfmarker} they 're probably looking in nonspeech sections and getting some , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , they have some kind of threshold on {disfmarker} on the previous estimate , and {disfmarker} So . Yeah . I think . Yeah , I think Ericsson used this kind of threshold . Yeah , so , they h they have an estimate of the noise level and they put a threshold like six or ten DB above , and what 's under this threshold is used to update the estimate . Is {disfmarker} is that right +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think so . +PhD B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have not here the proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like saying what 's under the threshold is silence , +Professor C: Does France Telecom do this {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: Does France Telecom do th do the same thing ? More or less ? +PhD B: I d I {disfmarker} Y you know , perhaps ? +PhD D: No . I do I have not here the proposal . +Professor C: OK . Um , OK , if we 're {disfmarker} we 're done {disfmarker} done with that , uh , let 's see . Uh , maybe we can talk about a couple other things briefly , just , uh , things that {disfmarker} that we 've been chatting about but haven't made it into these meetings yet . So you 're coming up with your quals proposal , and , uh {disfmarker} Wanna just give a two three minute summary of what you 're planning on doing ? +Grad E: Oh , um , two , three , it can be shorter than that . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've talked to some of you already . Um , but I 'm , uh , looking into extending the work done by Larry Saul and John Allen and uh Mazin Rahim . Um , they {disfmarker} they have a system that 's , uh , a multi - band , um , system but their multi - band is {disfmarker} is a little different than the way that we 've been doing multi - band in the past , where um {disfmarker} Where we 've been @ @ {comment} uh taking {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} sub - band features and i training up these neural nets and {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on phonetic targets , and then combining them some somehow down the line , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're taking sub - band features and , um , training up a detector that detects for , um , these phonetic features for example , um , he presents um , uh , a detector to detect sonorance . And so what {disfmarker} what it basically is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} at the lowest level , there {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR ga I mean , it 's an AND gate . So , uh , on each sub - band you have several independent tests , to test whether um , there 's the existence of sonorance in a sub - band . And then , um , it c it 's combined by a soft AND gate . And at the {disfmarker} at the higher level , for every {disfmarker} if , um {disfmarker} The higher level there 's a soft OR gate . Uh , so if {disfmarker} if this detector detects um , the presence of {disfmarker} of sonorance in any of the sub - bands , then the detect uh , the OR gate at the top says , "" OK , well this frame has evidence of sonorance . "" +PhD A: What are {disfmarker} what are some of the low level detectors that they use ? +Grad E: And these are all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . Well , the low level detectors are logistic regressions . Um , and the , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that , by the way , basically is a {disfmarker} is one of the units in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} our neural network . +Grad E: the one o +Professor C: So that 's all it is . It 's a sig it 's a sigmoid , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh , with weighted sum at the input , +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: which you train by gradient {pause} descent . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , so he uses , um , an EM algorithm to {disfmarker} to um train up these um parameters for the logistic regression . +Professor C: Well , actually , yeah , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: so I was using EM to get the targets . So {disfmarker} so you have this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this AND gate {disfmarker} what we were calling an AND gate , but it 's a product {disfmarker} product rule thing at the output . And then he uses , uh , i u and then feeding into that are {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , there 's {disfmarker} it 's an OR at the output , isn't it ? Yeah , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so that 's the product . And then , um , then he has each of these AND things . And , um , but {disfmarker} so they 're little neural {disfmarker} neural units . Um , and , um , they have to have targets . And so the targets come from EM . +PhD A: And so are each of these , low level detectors {comment} {disfmarker} are they , uh {disfmarker} are these something that you decide ahead of time , like "" I 'm going to look for this particular feature or I 'm going to look at this frequency , "" or {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at ? +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: What are their inputs ? +Grad E: Uh Right , so the {disfmarker} OK , so at each for each sub - band {comment} there are basically , uh , several measures of SNR and {disfmarker} and correlation . +PhD A: Ah , OK , OK . +Grad E: Um , um and he said there 's like twenty of these per {disfmarker} per sub - band . Um , and for {disfmarker} for every s every sub - band , e you {disfmarker} you just pick ahead of time , um , "" I 'm going to have like five {pause} i independent logistic tests . "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And you initialize these parameters , um , in some {disfmarker} some way and use EM to come up with your training targets for a {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} the low - level detectors . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , once you get that done , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you train the whole {disfmarker} whole thing on maximum likelihood . Um , and h he shows that using this {disfmarker} this method to detect sonorance is it 's very robust compared to , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to typical , uh , full - band Gaussian mixtures um estimations of {disfmarker} of sonorance . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh so {disfmarker} so that 's just {disfmarker} that 's just one detector . So you can imagine building many of these detectors on different features . You get enough of these detectors together , um , then you have enough information to do , um , higher level discrimination , for example , discriminating between phones +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and then you keep working your way up until you {disfmarker} you build a full recognizer . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So , um , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the direction which I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about going in my quals . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: You know , it has a number of properties that I really liked . I mean , one is the going towards , um , using narrow band information for , uh , ph phonetic features of some sort rather than just , uh , immediately going for the {disfmarker} the typical sound units . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Another thing I like about it is that you t this thing is going to be trained {disfmarker} explicitly trained for a product of errors rule , which is what , uh , Allen keeps pointing out that Fletcher observed in the twenties , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , for people listening to narrow band stuff . That 's Friday 's talk , by the way . And then , um , Uh , the third thing I like about it is , uh , and we 've played around with this in a different kind of way a little bit but it hasn't been our dominant way of {disfmarker} of operating anything , um , this issue of where the targets come from . So in our case when we 've been training it multi - band things , the way we get the targets for the individual bands is , uh , that we get the phonetic label {disfmarker} for the sound there +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and we say , "" OK , we train every {disfmarker} "" What this is saying is , OK , that 's maybe what our ultimate goal is {disfmarker} or not ultimate but penultimate {vocalsound} goal is getting these {disfmarker} these small sound units . But {disfmarker} but , um , along the way how much should we , uh {disfmarker} uh , what should we be training these intermediate things for ? I mean , because , uh , we don't know uh , that this is a particularly good feature . I mean , there 's no way , uh {disfmarker} someone in the audience yesterday was asking , "" well couldn't you have people go through and mark the individual bands and say where the {disfmarker} where it was sonorant or not ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , you know , I think having a bunch of people listening to critical band wide , {vocalsound} uh , chunks of speech trying to determine whether {disfmarker} {comment} I think it 'd be impossible . +Grad E: Ouch . +Professor C: It 's all gonna sound like {disfmarker} like sine waves to you , more or less . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean {disfmarker} Well not I mean , it 's g all g narrow band uh , i I m I think it 's very hard for someone to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} a person to make that determination . So , um , um , we don't really know how those should be labeled . It could sh be that you should , um , not be paying that much attention to , uh , certain bands for certain sounds , uh , in order to get the best result . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , what we have been doing there , just sort of mixing it all together , is certainly much {disfmarker} much cruder than that . We trained these things up on the {disfmarker} on the , uh the final label . Now we have I guess done experiments {disfmarker} you 've probably done stuff where you have , um , done separate , uh , Viterbis on the different {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Forced alignment on the sub - band labels ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: You 've done that . Did {disfmarker} did that help at all ? +Grad E: Um , it helps for one or t one iteration but um , anything after that it doesn't help . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so that may or may t it {disfmarker} that aspect of what he 's doing may or may not be helpful because in a sense that 's the same sort of thing . You 're taking global information and determining what you {disfmarker} how you should {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} this is , uh , I th I think a little more direct . +PhD A: How did they measure the performance of their detector ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} Well , he 's look he 's just actually looking at , uh , the confusions between sonorant and non - sonorant . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he hasn't applied it to recognition or if he did he didn't talk about it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} And one of the concerns in the audience , actually , was that {disfmarker} that , um , the , uh , uh {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he did a comparison to , uh , you know , our old foil , the {disfmarker} the nasty old standard recognizer with {vocalsound} mel {disfmarker} mel filter bank at the front , and H M Ms , and {disfmarker} and so forth . And , um , it didn't do nearly as well , especially in {disfmarker} in noise . But the {disfmarker} one of the good questions in the audience was , well , yeah , but that wasn't trained for that . I mean , this use of a very smooth , uh , spectral envelope is something that , you know , has evolved as being generally a good thing for speech recognition but if you knew that what you were gonna do is detect sonorants or not {disfmarker} So sonorants and non - sonorants is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is almost like voiced - unvoiced , except I guess that the voiced stops are {disfmarker} are also called "" obstruents "" . Uh , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} uh , but with the exception of the stops I guess it 's pretty much the same as voiced - unvoiced , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Um . So , um , if you knew you were doing that , if you were doing something say for a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Vocoder , you wouldn't use the same kind of features . You would use something that was sensitive to the periodicity and {disfmarker} and not just the envelope . Uh , and so in that sense it was an unfair test . Um , so I think that the questioner was right . It {disfmarker} it was in that sense an unfair test . Nonetheless , it was one that was interesting because , uh , this is what we are actually using for speech recognition , these smooth envelopes . And this says that perhaps even , you know , trying to use them in the best way that we can , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we ordinarily do , with , you know , Gaussian mixtures and H M Ms {comment} and so forth , you {disfmarker} you don't , uh , actually do that well on determining whether something is sonorant or not . +PhD A: Didn't they {disfmarker} +Professor C: Which means you 're gonna make errors between similar sounds that are son sonorant or obstruent . +PhD A: Didn't they also do some kind of an oracle experiment where they said "" if we {pause} could detect the sonorants perfectly {pause} and then show how it would improve speech recognition ? I thought I remember hearing about an experiment like that . +Professor C: The - these same people ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I don't remember that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: That would {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's exactly the question to follow up this discussion , is suppose you did that , uh , got that right . Um , Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: What could be the other low level detectors , I mean , for {disfmarker} {comment} Other kind of features , or {disfmarker} ? in addition to detecting sonorants or {disfmarker} ? Th - that 's what you want to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to go for also +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: What t Oh , build other {disfmarker} other detectors on different {pause} phonetic features ? +PhD B: Other low level detectors ? Yeah . +Grad E: Um , uh Let 's see , um , Yeah , I d I don't know . e Um , um , I mean , w easiest thing would be to go {disfmarker} go do some voicing stuff but that 's very similar to sonorance . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , +PhD A: When we {disfmarker} when we talked with John Ohala the other day we made a list of some of the things that w +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: like frication , +Grad E: Oh ! OK . +PhD A: abrupt closure , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: R - coloring , nasality , voicing {disfmarker} Uh . +Professor C: Yeah , so there 's a half dozen like that that are {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , nasality . +Professor C: Now this was coming at it from a different angle but maybe it 's a good way to start . Uh , these are things which , uh , John felt that a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a human annotator would be able to reliably mark . So the sort of things he felt would be difficult for a human annotator to reliably mark would be tongue position kinds of things . +Grad E: Oh , OK . Placing stuff , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . +PhD A: There 's also things like stress . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can look at stress . +Professor C: But stress doesn't , uh , fit in this thing of coming up with features that will distinguish words from one another , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to mark and will probably help us ultimate with recognition +PhD A: Yeah , there 's a few cases where it can like permit {comment} and permit . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} that 's not very common in English . In other languages it 's more uh , important . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but i either case you 'd write PERMIT , right ? So you 'd get the word right . +PhD A: No , I 'm saying , i i e I thought you were saying that stress doesn't help you distinguish between words . +Professor C: Um , +PhD A: Oh , I see what you 're saying . As long as you get {disfmarker} The sequence , +Professor C: We 're g if we 're doing {disfmarker} if we 're talking about transcription as opposed to something else {disfmarker} +PhD A: right ? Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So where it could help is maybe at a higher level . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Like a understanding application . +PhD A: Understanding , yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But that 's this afternoon 's meeting . Yeah . We don't understand anything in this meeting . Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's , you know , a neat {disfmarker} neat thing and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} So . +Grad E: S so , um , Ohala 's going to help do these , uh {pause} transcriptions of the meeting data ? +PhD A: Uh , well I don't know . We d we sort of didn't get that far . Um , we just talked about some possible features that could be marked by humans and , um , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: because of having maybe some extra transcriber time we thought we could go through and mark some portion of the data for that . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , that 's not an immediate problem , that we don't immediately have a lot of extra transcriber time . +PhD A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but , uh , in the long term I guess Chuck is gonna continue the dialogue with John and {disfmarker} and , uh , and , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll end up doing some I think . +PhD A: I 'm definitely interested in this area , too , f uh , acoustic feature stuff . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I think it 's an interesting {disfmarker} interesting way to go . +Grad E: Cool . +Professor C: Um , I say it like "" said - int "" . I think it has a number of good things . Um , so , uh , y you want to talk maybe a c two or three minutes about what we 've been talking about today and other days ? +Grad F: Ri Yeah , OK , so , um , we 're interested in , um , methods for far mike speech recognition , um , {pause} mainly , uh , methods that deal with the reverberation {pause} in the far mike signal . So , um , one approach would be , um , say MSG and PLP , like was used in Aurora one and , um , there are other approaches which actually attempt to {pause} remove the reverberation , instead of being robust to it like MSG . And so we 're interested in , um , comparing the performance of {pause} um , a robust approach like MSG with these , um , speech enhancement or de - reverber de - reverberation approaches . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , {vocalsound} it looks like we 're gonna use the Meeting Recorder digits data for that . +PhD B: And the de - reverberation algorithm , do you have {disfmarker} can you give some more details on this or {disfmarker} ? Does it use one microphone ? +Grad F: o o +PhD B: Several microphones ? Does it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: OK , well , um , there was something that was done by , um , a guy named Carlos , I forget his last name , {comment} who worked with Hynek , who , um , +Professor C: Avendano . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Who , um , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um , it was like RASTA in the sense that of it was , um , de - convolution by filtering um , except he used a longer time window , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like a second maybe . And the reason for that is RASTA 's time window is too short to , um include the whole , um , reverberation {disfmarker} um , I don't know what you call it the reverberation response . I if you see wh if you see what I mean . The reverberation filter from my mouth to that mike is like {disfmarker} it 's t got it 's too long in the {disfmarker} in the time domain for the um {disfmarker} for the RASTA filtering to take care of it . And , um , then there are a couple of other speech enhancement approaches which haven't been tried for speech recognition yet but have just been tried for enhancement , which , um , have the assumption that um , you can do LPC um analysis of th of the signal you get at the far microphone and the , um , all pole filter that you get out of that should be good . It 's just the , um , excitation signal {comment} that is going to be distorted by the reverberation and so you can try and reconstruct a better excitation signal and , um , feed that through the i um , all pole filter and get enhanced speech with reverberation reduced . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's also this , uh , um , uh , echo cancellation stuff that we 've sort of been chasing , so , uh we have , uh {disfmarker} and when we 're saying these digits now we do have a close microphone signal and then there 's the distant microphone signal . And you could as a kind of baseline say , "" OK , given that we have both of these , uh , we should be able to do , uh , a cancellation . "" So that , uh , um , we {disfmarker} we , uh , essentially identify the system in between {disfmarker} the linear time invariant system between the microphones and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and re and invert it , uh , or {disfmarker} or cancel it out to {disfmarker} to some {disfmarker} some reasonable approximation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: through one method or another . Uh , that 's not a practical thing , uh , if you have a distant mike , you don't have a close mike ordinarily , but we thought that might make {disfmarker} also might make a good baseline . Uh , it still won't be perfect because there 's noise . Uh , but {disfmarker} And then there are s uh , there are single microphone methods that I think people have done for , uh {disfmarker} for this kind of de - reverberation . Do y do you know any references to any ? Cuz I {disfmarker} I w I was {disfmarker} w w I {disfmarker} I lead him down a {disfmarker} a bad path on that . +PhD B: Uh , I g I guess {disfmarker} I guess when people are working with single microphones , they are more trying to do {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . +PhD B: well , not {disfmarker} not very {disfmarker} Well , there is the Avendano work , +Professor C: Right . +PhD B: but also trying to mmm , uh {disfmarker} trying to f t find the de - convolution filter but in the um {disfmarker} not in the time domain but in the uh the stream of features uh I guess . Well , @ @ {comment} there {disfmarker} there 's someone working on this on i in Mons +Professor C: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: So perhaps , yeah , we should try t to {disfmarker} He 's working on this , on trying to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: on re reverberation , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: The first paper on this is gonna have great references , I can tell already . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: It 's always good to have references , especially when reviewers read it or {disfmarker} or one of the authors and , {vocalsound} feel they 'll "" You 're OK , you 've r You cited me . "" +PhD B: So , yeah . Well , he did echo cancellation and he did some fancier things like , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , training different network on different reverberation conditions and then trying to find the best one , but . Well . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: The oth the other thing , uh , that Dave was talking about earlier was , uh , uh , multiple mike things , uh , where they 're all distant . So , um , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this work on arrays , but the other thing is , uh , {pause} what can we do that 's cleverer that can take some advantage of only two mikes , uh , particularly if there 's an obstruction between them , as we {disfmarker} as we have over there . +PhD B: If there is {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: An obstruction between them . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: It creates a shadow which is {disfmarker} is helpful . It 's part of why you have such good directionality with , {vocalsound} with two ears +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: even though they 're not several feet apart . For most {disfmarker} for most people 's heads . +PhD A: That could help though . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} Yeah , the {disfmarker} the head , in the way , is really {disfmarker} that 's what it 's for . It 's basically , +PhD A: That 's what the head 's for ? To separate the ears ? +Professor C: Yeah , it 's to separate the ears . That 's right , yeah . Yeah . Uh , so . Anyway , O K . Uh , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's all we have this week . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor C: And , uh , I think it 's digit time . +PhD A: Actually the , um {disfmarker} For some reason the digit forms are blank . +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD A: Uh , I think th that may be due to the fact that {comment} Adam ran out of digits , {comment} uh , and didn't have time to regenerate any . +Professor C: Oh ! Oh ! I guess it 's {disfmarker} Well there 's no real reason to write our names on here then , +PhD A: Yeah , if you want to put your credit card numbers and , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: is there ? +Grad E: Oh , no {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Or do {disfmarker} did any {disfmarker} do we need the names for the other stuff , +PhD A: Uh , yeah , I do need your names and {disfmarker} and the time , and all that , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} ? Oh , OK . +PhD A: cuz we put that into the "" key "" files . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: Um . But w +Professor C: OK . +PhD A: That 's why we have the forms , uh , even if there are no digits . +Professor C: OK , yeah , I didn't notice this . I 'm sitting here and I was {disfmarker} I was about to read them too . It 's a , uh , blank sheet of paper . +PhD A: So I guess we 're {disfmarker} we 're done . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , I 'll do my credit card number later . OK . +","Summary of the conversation: + +The group, composed of PhD students and a professor, discussed various topics related to speech processing research. + +They briefly touched on a conference talk that was supposed to provide updates on rule changes but none of the group members had received any news about it. + +PhD B shared progress on designing new filters to address latency issues in their current system. The team created IIR filters that have similar frequency responses to the FIR filters they initially used but with shorter delays. + +Professor C emphasized the importance of coordination with another team member named Sunil and suggested discussing their work to avoid duplicative efforts. + +Grad E is working on a proposal for qualifying exams, which aims to extend the work of previous researchers in multi-band speech recognition systems. This involves detecting phonetic features such as sonorance, using a combination of low-level logistic regressions and higher-level decision gates. + +Grad F introduced a project focused on far-field speech recognition and reverberation reduction. Various methods were discussed, from robust feature extraction like MSG and PLP to de-reverberation techniques that attempt to remove reverberation. They planned to use the Meeting Recorder digits data for the research and explore methods including echo cancellation, and single and multiple distant microphone techniques. + +Lastly, there was a brief mention that the digit forms used in their meetings for some administrative purpose were left blank, likely due to the previous person responsible for them running out of digits and not having time to generate more. + +Overall, the conversation showcases the complexity and collaborative nature of research in speech processing, covering technical aspects of sound filter design, coordination among team members, and planning for upcoming research proposals and experiments." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the first virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I determine that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Friday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video conference. A record of the proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation relating to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind all participants that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Can I just then, again, note for the record that, if, for any reason, I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Item 2, then, this afternoon is an evidence session with the Welsh Government on the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, Steve Davies, director of the education directorate, and Huw Morris, who is group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Can I welcome you all and thank you for attending? Minister, I understand you'd like to make a short opening statement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Lynne. And indeed, if I could just begin by, once again, putting on the record my gratitude to everyone who is helping us get through this pandemic. There are a vast number of people who are keeping our school hubs open, looking after vulnerable children, and the children of key workers. Because of them, and their efforts, those key workers are able to carry on their critical roles in responding to COVID-19. I am extremely proud of the way that members of the school community have gone above and beyond. They have kept their schools open out of hours, over the weekends, on bank holidays, and Easter. And it is really heartening and humbling to see the way that they have responded to this crisis. And there are teachers, teaching assistants, and many others, who are helping our children and their parents to keep learning at home. I know that home schooling isn't easy, so I want to say also thank you to parents and carers for their efforts at this time. By keeping their children at home, they are helping us to keep people safe, and reducing pressure on our education system, and on our NHS. Be in no doubt, we are facing many challenges because of this pandemic. My primary concern is, and always will be, the health and well-being of our children, of our young people, and of all the staff in our education settings. And I am very grateful to everyone who is supporting us in these endeavours. Thank you very much—diolch yn fawr. And I'm now happy to answer questions that members of the committee may have this afternoon. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister. I'm sure that the committee echoes the heartfelt thanks you have just given then. The first questions we've got this afternoon are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good afternoon, Minister. With regard to your five principles, which you've set out today, regarding when schools will reopen, they're very clear that they require a judgment from you. So could you outline when you think that schools might reopen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Hefin. I am very clear that schools will move to a new phase—because, already, schools are open in many settings; we will move to a new phase when it is safe to do so and when I have advice from the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer that it is safe to do so. I have made very clear in my statement that that is not imminent. I know that in some cases there has been speculation that a return to normal could be with us quite shortly. I'm clear that a return to normal is not imminent, and therefore I'm not in a position to give a date as to when we will see more schools opening up to more children. +Hefin David AM: Have you been given any indication at all by the chief medical officer as to when, in the longer term, it might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I have not been given a date. What I have done today is publish the principles that will aid me in, as you said, me making a decision. So, clearly, we will be relying on the advice of our medical and scientific advisers, but the principles are very clear. Firstly, we will need to consider any decision to have more children returning to school in the context of the safety and the physical and the emotional well-being of children and young people and the staff. Obviously, I can't make a decision regarding education in isolation. It will have to be taken in the context of the wider Welsh Government response to dealing with this pandemic. Thirdly, it is absolutely crucial in making any decisions that we have clearly communicated that to parents and to staff, on the information that we have used to reach any decisions, to build confidence for parents and professionals, but also to give them time to plan. It will be impossible to move quickly to new ways of working. And we also have to look at—and it's been paraphrased quite a lot today—if we are looking at certain groups of children accessing more education within a school setting, which groups they should be. And, finally, how do we operationalise that? How do we make those settings as safe as they possibly can be, and how do we tackle some of the difficult challenges of everything from ensuring that we have adequate numbers of workforce available, to the very real questions about how you would do social distancing in the context of education, school transport issues, how you would avoid people gathering at the school gate, for instance? So, there are very practical issues that would need to be considered and thought through very, very carefully before we could return, before what we could see is a move from where we are now to the next phase of education, and new approaches to what schooling may look like. But, again, I must be absolutely clear to you, members of the committee, and to people watching: it is not feasible, in this sense, that we would move from where we are now to what all of us would regard as normal education and what the operation of schools looked like before the start of this pandemic. +Hefin David AM: So, what is clear from what you've said is that it's going to be phased return. I would assume that would be the most vulnerable—perhaps additional learning needs pupils would return first. Just reading some of the things that you've said today, can you answer that question? And can I also ask: you said that guiding principle No. 3 will be having the confidence of parents, staff and students, based on evidence and information, so they can plan ahead. What will that evidence and information be, and how will you know that you've got the confidence of parents to return? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, primarily, we will need to take a lead from our scientific and medical advisers. I want to also say that we are obviously working on a four-nation basis and keeping in very close contact with my counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. But we're also looking beyond the United Kingdom to approaches to education in the face of this pandemic. Members are aware that we as a nation are a member of the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory. So, recently I was able to talk to educationalists and Ministers in Iceland, other parts of Europe, North America, South America and Australia. So, we're also looking at best international evidence in this regard. And, clearly, we will need to be very clear, as today is an attempt to be very clear with parents and our teaching professionals, and the unions that represent them, about the basis of that evidence. +Hefin David AM: And could I just ask, with regard to the principles, do they then apply to further education and universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, when we are discussing these challenges, we are doing that with our colleagues in both the school sector but also our colleagues in the FE sector, and we're in close contact with colleagues in higher education to share thinking on these matters. +Hefin David AM: But these principles don't apply in those circumstances; these are principles for schools only. +Kirsty Williams AM: These principles are applying to both, and our work in this area is applying to both schools and FE colleges. Clearly, universities, as independent institutions, we wouldn't be able to dictate to. But I want to be absolutely clear: we are working with representatives of the HE sector to include them in this work. And I have received, not assurances, but from discussions that I've had with Universities Wales and vice-chancellors, they are very keen to be kept apprised of these approaches, because they may well wish to implement something similar within their own institutions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a couple of supplementaries now; firstly, from Suzy Davies, and then I'm going to go to Siân Gwenllian. Suzy. No, we can't hear Suzy. Suzy? No. I'll go to Siân, then, and then I'll come back to Suzy. Siân. +Hefin David AM: Chair, I don't think my microphone is muted. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'll move on to my question to Kirsty Williams. Now, it is clear that any decisions that need to be taken on reopening schools would have to be made in the context of all of the other issues that the Welsh Government has to take into account. And it is entirely clear that the approach of Government towards testing hasn't been sufficiently developed for us to even start to think about removing restrictions. So, wouldn't it be dangerous, if truth be told, to start to discuss reopening schools when we haven't had the necessary testing in place for the majority of the population? And doesn't it convey a mixed message that we're starting to relax some of these restrictions when, in reality, the restrictions are still in place and still need to be in place robustly? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, thank you very much, Siân, for that important question. Can I be absolutely clear, and I thought I had been pretty clear in answering Hefin David, that we are not relaxing any of the restrictions with regard to education? As I said to Hefin, it is not imminent that we would see a further phase in the next stage of education here in Wales. What I have done today is to provide clarity on the nature of the principles that I would use when coming to any discussion. It is the responsibility of me, as the Minister, and indeed of the wider Government, to begin to think about planning for the future. But I have been absolutely clear: we are not moving to an imminent change in how education is operating at the moment. And I'm also very, very clear that should we be given the opportunity to see more children in our schools, I will only do that when it is safe for me to do so, when I've been advised by the CMO that I am able to do that, and we have given sufficient time and planning to the sector to respond. It is not going to be easy, and we will need to give them, as a sector, time to be able to address. But if I have not been clear enough, let me say it again: we are not relaxing any issues around schools at present, nor is that imminent. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, I think we can try going to you again now. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Minister, in your consideration of introducing a phased return to school, in due course, have you taken into consideration how things like school absences are going to be managed? Because, regardless of the amount of good work you do on messaging, there will still be some families that don't realise that going back to school is for their particular family. Will there be a relaxation of, effectively, what we would call truancy rules? Or is that something that schools will be getting guidance on much up-front? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. As I said in my statement earlier today, returning to school will not be a return to normal, and in recognition of this, I've already made it clear that I will seek, in all opportunities, to reduce the burdens on school. That includes various data collection, the suspension of performance measures and removing the requirement to undertake literacy and numeracy testing, and, clearly, school attendance will want to be an important factor of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I'm keen to go on now to talk about the current situation as being faced by our children and young people in schools with some questions from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Since yesterday, the Welsh Government has started publishing data on the number of schools that are open, the number of children attending those schools, and the number of staff involved, and they have been making this information available as per capita of the population. On average, I think it's 1 per cent of the children of Wales that actually attend these locations, and some 5 per cent of the staff. So, can you analyse those figures a little further? Can you tell us how many children, according to this data, are children of key workers, and how many are vulnerable children? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Siân. As you quite rightly say, on average, we have 518 school hubs open each day, with up to 4,200 children attending. We have seen an increase in the number of attendances since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. We have approximately 5.6 per cent of the teaching population working in those hubs, and at present, 85 per cent of the children who are attending are the children of key workers, the remainder being vulnerable children. So, we are now averaging 600 vulnerable children per day. These are small numbers, but we have seen an increase in those numbers since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'm sure we'll return to that point a little later on. How much confidence do you therefore have that the arrangements are effective in terms of the safety of staff and children at these locations? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you once again for that. The smooth operation of the hubs, with regard to health and safety, is, of course, of paramount importance. What we have seen since schools closed for traditional statutory purposes and moving to their repurposed function—we have seen a change of pattern over time. So, following my announcement on, I believe, 18 March, the week after, we saw a large number of settings open and operating. As local authorities have been able to understand the demand for those places—from critical workers and vulnerable children—we have seen more local authorities move to a hub model, and we have been able to publish guidance to local authorities on how issues around safe working in those hubs should be followed, and we've been able to give guidance in that regard. Local authorities are asked by us to report any incidents where they are concerned about operation issues on the ground. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As I mentioned earlier, testing is crucially important in dealing with this crisis. So, how many school staff have been tested for COVID because they may have experienced symptoms and so on? And how many of those have tested positive? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding from Public Health Wales is that 15 teachers have been tested for COVID-19, and I believe two of those results have come back as positive. Can I make it absolutely clear, the week before last, Welsh Government issued new guidance around who should be tested? I want to make it absolutely clear to those professionals working in our hubs, if they or a member of their family are exhibiting any of the symptoms, however mild, of COVID-19, they can and they should be tested. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the final question from me on this: how important is testing going to be in this next phase, as you start to think about relaxing restrictions? +Kirsty Williams AM: Obviously, the ability to be able to test, to trace and to quarantine will be critical to the next phase and will be a very, very important and significant building block in all aspects of the Government's work to respond to this pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Siân. We've got some questions now on the impact on particular groups of children, from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Just following on from your answer to Siân Gwenllian earlier about the number of vulnerable children in school, what's being done specifically to facilitate more of those children coming into a school setting or hub at the moment? I'm thinking about the 600 you've talked about, and I know, in one of my local authority areas of Merthyr, which is a very small authority, we're talking about the number of children identified as vulnerable running into thousands, not hundreds, and that's just in one authority. So, this is a particularly difficult issue to address, I appreciate, but how are we going to get more of these children into the hubs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, Dawn. The first thing to say is that the issue of vulnerable children attending settings is one that is a challenge to not just Wales, but also to my colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. I'm pleased to say that we are working across Government departments—myself, obviously, and colleagues in education—with colleagues in social services to have a cross-Government approach to these issues. I think the first thing to say is that these are complex messages, because the overriding public health message from our Government has been to stay at home and children should be kept at home as much as possible, and to make sure that our hubs run smoothly, safely and effectively, we do need to limit the number of children who are attending those hubs. So, firstly, the fact that numbers are small is in some ways a success of our public health messages, because parents have been heeding those messages, but, of course, all of us will have concerns for some children who remain at home. So, I'm pleased to say that we have seen a doubling in the last week of the number of children. So, although numbers are small, they have doubled over the course of the last week. We're working with local authorities and they have assured us that children and young people with a social worker have been risk assessed on a multi-agency basis and are receiving support in a number of ways, and that includes having conversations about some of those children attending the hubs. They're also looking to support in other ways. Of course, some of our children who would be classed as vulnerable—and our definition of 'vulnerable' is one that is shared between the systems in England and Wales—could be children with a statement of special educational needs. For some of those children who, perhaps, have very intense health needs, actually, staying at home is the appropriate thing for that child and that family to do, and we're looking to support families, and local authorities and local education systems are looking to support families, in a number of ways. We also know that just because you don't have a social worker or a statement of special educational needs does not mean that a child may not be vulnerable, and schools are very aware of the needs of those children and have been carrying out regular telephone check-ins where they can—if the age of the child is appropriate—just to keep in touch with those families and those individual children. But we will continue to work across Government to encourage, where it is appropriate, children to attend settings, and, if it is not appropriate for children to be in a setting, that there is contact with those children and young people to ensure that they remain, and their families remain, supported. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Minister. It's encouraging to hear you talk about the ongoing safeguarding of children that are at home and I assume, within that, appropriate referral mechanisms are still in place if teachers or anybody has any particular concern about a child. Similarly, with special educational needs, whereas some of those children benefit clearly from a one-to-one provision in a school, and they may not respond as well to remote working, or remote contact, with an SEN advisor, are you considering in any way any relaxation of the lockdown rule in particular for those children in terms of them being able to access the support that they need for their particular educational needs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, Dawn, you're absolutely right: my expectation is that schools should remain in contact with children and continue to identify vulnerable children, and schools should continue to refer children to children's services if they have any concerns, and that would also, of course, be the case for youth workers who may be keeping in contact with children. So, there is a professional expectation on all those that are working with our children and young people that, despite the circumstances they find themselves in, they should continue to report and refer cases if they see anything or hear or are told anything that makes them concerned about a child's welfare and safety. With regard to children with additional learning needs, I am aware that that can present a number of challenges to families and children, and perhaps Steve Davies could give some further details. We have been keen to work with local authorities to ensure specialist provision, where that is appropriate—so, if I could give you an example of my own local authority in Powys, they have two specialist centres available for children with more profound additional learning needs, and those centres are available—recognising, however, that, even with the provision of specialist hubs, it can be a challenge for some children with additional learning needs to find themselves outside of a routine. Hubs are often staffed on a rota basis and therefore children could be faced with staff that they are unfamiliar with. So, even when local authorities—and the vast, vast majority of them do—have specialist services in place, sometimes that might not be the best thing for a child's health and well-being. But perhaps Steve can give us further details of the conversations that have been taking place with directors of education to ensure that children with additional learning needs have access to the hubs and specialist support. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes, myself and colleague Albert Heaney—colleague-director—have been in regular touch with directors of education and directors of social services to make sure that these children and young people's needs are catered for. We are very aware of all of the special schools—profound and multiple learning difficulties, EBD schools and pupil referral units—that have been kept open in their own way, but also, in some cases, as hubs, to deliver those services for those children's needs, and we're pleased that the directors and the local authorities have responded so constructively. So, we have the details of every school that's open, the pupils who are attending, and we are clear that the risk assessments that the Minister referred to for children with special needs, as well as wider vulnerable groups—they are having risk assessments to make sure that, where there is a need identified for a pupil that is not currently attending a hub, then the local authority can be working with that child and with the parents. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Steve. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Just two more questions. One is around emotional and mental health difficulties being experienced by children and young people at the moment. Now, there was a very welcome announcement of £1.25 million pounds for school counselling. How is that, in practical terms, being applied if those children are not actually in school? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, Dawn: we have to consider how we can support children not only in their learning during this time, but also to recognise the very real impact that the pandemic will have on all of our mental health and well-being—recognising, of course, it is absolutely natural for all of us, including children and young people, to have fears and anxieties at this time. That's a natural reaction to the situation that we find ourselves in. But, of course, there are issues around those children that would have currently been receiving school counselling, and also being able to be in a position to respond to a potential growth in the number of children that are receiving support. So, the additional money will be made available to local authorities to be able to increase and ramp up services to support children and families. In the immediacy, of course, that will have to be done in different ways than perhaps we've traditionally delivered services in the past, because of social distancing and lockdown rules, but we want to get some of these systems in place now, rather than waiting for everything to go back to normal. We need to be able to plan to offer services in the here and now, but also be able to plan for what potentially could be an increase in the demand of those services. So, we've been in close touch with local authorities, asking them what they believe that they will need and how they can use additional financial resources, and we've been very pleased to be able to secure that for them. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, that would include things like telephone and video support as well, I guess, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, that would include remote counselling as in a fashion that we're doing now, but also, as and when some of the restrictions are perhaps removed, looking at an enhanced family therapy, or a therapy approach. So, when we talk about counselling, I think it's important to recognise that there will be some flexibility around this money and it does not necessarily mean that local authorities have to use it on a one-to-one basis. That might not be appropriate for some children, especially our younger children and their families, and they can use that money to provide counselling or therapy—in the widest possible terms—that is the best method to support individual children and their families. But, clearly, we're having to do that in the confines of lockdown and social distancing at the moment. Some of that money can also be used to support the professional learning and the professional development of counsellors, because, of course, they may be being asked to work in a different way and we need to make sure that they have the appropriate skills and abilities to do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Minister. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn, before you ask your final question, I've got a couple of supplementaries—firstly from Suzy, and then from Hefin. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, thank you. My question goes back to the comment you made earlier, Minister, about the number of children doubling—sorry, vulnerable children doubling—after the Easter break, if we can call it that. So, what I'm after is a sense of churn in these establishments. So, was that figure a recovery of a number of children that had been there before the Easter break, and are the people who are there still the same people as were there right at the beginning of the crisis and the lockdown? +Kirsty Williams AM: Suzy, what I believe that we're seeing in our schools is new pupils coming into school. So, there has been, I know, a real effort on behalf of educationalists and social services staff to really reach out to families and to make sure that they're aware of the support that is available out there for them and their children, and to be able to give them the confidence that there are—that the hubs are available for them. So, we have seen an increase in children. Those numbers are still small and, I believe, potentially, there is an opportunity to build on that and to have further conversations with families about the support that is available for vulnerable children, whether that—. That vulnerability, of course, can cover a whole range of issues. As I said when we last met, this is a constantly evolving situation. The initial response—local authorities and schools worked incredibly fast and incredibly quickly to set up these hubs. We've seen an evolution in the weeks since that time and I am sure that we will continue to see some evolution in approaches. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, you had a supplementary—briefly, please. +Hefin David AM: Yes, very quickly. I've been listening to the answers with regard to vulnerable children, following on from that answer. I'm at home with a vulnerable child—a child who has got additional learning needs. She's got autism; she's four. I imagine there are many, many parents in exactly the same position—I've heard from them. I haven't heard anything from the school or from the local authority. Should I have heard something or should I be proactive in pursuing it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to comment on personal cases— +Hefin David AM: But there are many others in this position. +Kirsty Williams AM: —but what I would say is that if parents have concerns and want to have a conversation about what support is available to them and their children, they should contact their local education authority to have a conversation as to what support is available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn, final question, please. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my last question is really about the potential for the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers. Is that a concern for you? I'm thinking particularly in relation to those less affluent families in having access to technology and so on. What kind of concerns do you have about that and what are we looking to do to try to ensure that that doesn't actually play out? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. All of the statistics would tell us that learning loss and the gap, potentially, will affect those more vulnerable children the most. Clearly, we will want to consider that as we think about what the new normal for education may look like, or as we develop into future phases. Depending on where that child is in their educational journey, of course, the needs and the potential for loss are slightly different. So, for instance, when we're thinking about very young children, we could be thinking about a lack of social interaction and the development of oracy skills. Of course, that, potentially, then will have a knock-on to their ability to learn to read and then to write, for instance. For other children who are, perhaps, older and heading towards formal examinations, the challenge when they return to school will be a slightly different one. I'm not sure, Chair, whether you want me to give some further details about our continuity-of-learning plan and how we are looking to address digital disadvantage now, or whether there are questions later. +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, I've got a question on that coming up, so, if it's okay, Dawn, we'll go on to that now. Before we do that, I was just going to ask how the Welsh Government is paying due regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and, obviously, the right children and young people have to an education. I was going to ask you about the risk of inequality due to varying access to digital resources, which are so important in ensuring continuity of learning. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're absolutely correct, Chair. Officials are very aware of our responsibilities towards children's rights in this regard and we are doing whatever we can to ensure that children have an equal opportunity and have equal access to learning at this time. We are fortunate in the regard that, because of previous decisions and investments, we have a strong base on which to build because we have our Hwb digital learning platform and because we have invested heavily in the national purchasing of Microsoft Office and Google for Education tools, which are available to all families. We have become the first, I think—we're certainly the first in the UK, and I'm not sure whether we're the first across the world, but I think we probably are—to deploy, for instance, Adobe Spark nationally. But, obviously, access to hardware and connectivity is crucial at this time. Officials are working with local authorities to ensure that all children have access to both the hardware and the connectivity they need to be able to participate in digital learning at this particular time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just a final question from me: how exactly are we communicating to parents what the expectations are of them in terms of delivering this education at home now? Are there, for example, guidelines on recommended hours of home learning per day of the week or volume of work to be completed? How are we ensuring that parents know how best to lead their children through this at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I recognise what a challenge this is? We've just heard from Hefin who is carrying on his day job as the Assembly Member, but is obviously trying to do that as well as care for and provide learning for his children, and I know, Chair, that you're doing the same, and I'm certainly trying to do the same, and it's a real challenge, it's not easy. As part of our 'Stay Safe. Stay Learning' policy statement, advice is available to parents and carers on the Hwb platform as to what they best can do to support their children. I think the really important message that I've been trying to give to parents is not to be too hard on ourselves. I know that everybody is doing the best that they can in really challenging circumstances. And if they have concerns, they should be in contact with their child's school, but we do have specific advice and guidance to parents on the Hwb platform. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now to some questions on examinations from Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet, we can't hear you. I tell you what, we'll—. Janet, do you want to try again? No. Okay, we'll go on then to questions on higher education and post 16, and we'll come back to examinations, if that's okay. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair. Before we leave continuity of learning, do you mind if I just ask this one question? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, that's fine. Yes, go on. +Suzy Davies AM: Your comment, Minister, on working with local authorities to make sure that individuals have hardware: can you just give us a bit of detail on what working with local authorities actually means? In the process of that, is there any data gathering going on for those pupils who are being educated at home and the levels at which they're engaging? You know, are they sticking with it, or how many are dropping out? Because I think the two of those perhaps go together. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, I'm hoping to make an announcement tomorrow, if not later on this week, about some specific details around support for hardware and connectivity. We're working closely with local authorities to understand just that: to understand from the schools the number of schools that—and a number of them have already done this—have been lending Chromebooks, iPads and laptops to children, and also identifying children who are not perhaps engaging in the activities that have been made available. And we'll be doing two things to support local authorities. The first is to use the stock of equipment that they already have to be able to provide hardware to students. So, we have purchased on a national basis software that, when applied to an old piece of kit, essentially turns it into an out-of-the-box Chromebook. Because, as you can imagine, just like other things during a pandemic, there has been a rush to buy new stuff on the market and then there is a scramble and nobody can get what they need. So, we're utilisng kit that is already available in schools and local authorities, and we will look to backfill that to schools at a later point out of our EdTech investment programme. The other issue is, once a child has a Chromebook or a laptop or a device, issues around connectivity. So, we're also looking to purchase on a national level and distribute Mi-Fi connectivity, so students will be able to have access to Wi-Fi where they don't have that already. That's why we need to work closely with local authorities and schools to identify the level of that need and to make sure the stuff gets to the right children. One of the ways in which we are able to do that is to look at engagement in education. So, if a child hasn't been engaging, is that because they just don't want to and they're voting with their feet—but clearly teachers need to have a conversation about that—or is that because the child simply does not have the ability to do that, and therefore we need to get that stuff out to those children? So, rather than just simply leaving it to local authorities to scramble around in a very crowded market to get the stuff that they will need, we're trying to do that on a national basis and deploy that to local authorities. So, our officials have been having conversations with each of our local authorities to ascertain what's already happened, and there is very good practice out there—schools have been proactive—but where there are gaps, what can we do as a national Government to be able to assist them to do that? We are repurposing some of the resources that we had previously identified for our EdTech investment, using those resources to fill this particular gap. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We're going to go back to Janet now. I believe we've got sound again, so Janet can ask her questions on examinations. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I thought it was something at this end; I'm glad to hear it wasn't. When will vocational learners know what is happening with their assessments, and how will those who have no choice but to wait for a vocational assessment be supported? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. That's a very good question, Janet, because I know that there has been some concern and anxiety around vocational qualification students and how quickly we've been able to provide certainty for them. You'll be aware that Qualifications Wales have been able, in the last week, to be able to give that greater clarity. So, they have announced that learners due to complete their Essential Skills Wales qualifications will receive results. They have also published their approach to how health and social care qualifications will be managed, because, of course, those are part of the first set of reformed quals that we have done on a Wales basis. You are right, there are a group of students who fall into the category where there are technical qualifications that require a certificate of competency to be industry ready—I hope I've explained that correctly—and, therefore, we are working to understand how we can accommodate those students in these particular circumstances. But, at this stage, there may be some delay for that element of their qualification being delayed to a further date. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. What are your expectations for how A-level and GCSE qualifications will be awarded this summer, following the ministerial direction that you have issued to Qualifications Wales? For example, how is an appropriate balance being taken between recognising the progress of pupils in their coursework, mock examinations, and other work to date, and also, the potential of pupils who might have performed particularly well in their examinations this summer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Janet, I understand—and today is a day where some students would have been undertaking practical examinations—I understand how devastating it has been to both students and teachers alike for the decision I had to take to cancel this summer's exam series. But I'm absolutely clear that was the only decision that could have been reached. Qualifications Wales has made it very clear—and for people who would like more information, I would urge them to look at Qualifications Wales's website—how they will go about giving, allocating, and awarding a grade to our A-level and GCSE students. Firstly, teachers will be asked to submit a grade they believe that student would have obtained, should they have taken an exam. And, of course, teachers will have a range of data and their own professional judgment that they will use in awarding that grade. Teachers will also be asked to rank students in order. Once that information has been submitted to Qualifications Wales, there will be a process by which that data will be moderated; moderated from centre to centre and across the nation, thus giving us the chance to award a student a fair grade whilst being, and remaining, true to ensuring that we have a robust qualifications system, and allowing those students who find themselves at a critical stage of their education, where they are looking to move on to the next stages—that they will have the grades that will allow them to make decisions about their future. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. We're going to go on now, then, to the questions on higher and further education from Suzy Davies. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I suppose my first question just goes back to the 16-year-olds at the moment and those who are looking forward to either going to college, the older ones going to university, there'll be apprenticeships, all kinds of future pathways for post 16. What's happening at school level, or even at college level, to get those students ready for the next steps, because, obviously, they're not in their usual environments and getting their usual programme of teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, that's quite right, Suzy, and I should have said in answer to Janet's question, as well—I'm sure people already know, but just to get the point across—that A-level results day and GCSE day will run as normal across not just Wales, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is really important. You're right, Suzy—for those people that are coming to the end of one part of their education this is a particularly challenging time. You'll be aware that, last week, on Hwb, we were able to launch a programme for year 13 students to help them get ready for university. I'm very grateful to the HE sector in Wales, who've worked really hard with us on that. So, for instance, if you were a year 13 student or even a year 12 student that was thinking about or interested in areas around social policy, you could have tuned into a social policy lecturer at Swansea University. If you go to the Hwb website, you will be able to see that there are subject listings, everything from animal science through to law, politics, history and science, with links through to higher education and further education courses that students can avail themselves of. There's also a section on preparation for essential study skills, whether that is report writing or academic writing. So, there is a range of activities and courses available for year 13, so that children—'children'; they're all children to me—young people can get themselves—. They don't have to stop learning, and they can get themselves ready for the next stage of their education. Again, for those children, perhaps, who are coming to the end of their GCSEs, there is a range of information, either within their own schools or within their local colleges about things that can keep them learning. So, for instance, I'm aware of one school where you can go onto the website and there are recommendations of, for instance, what you could be reading over the summer if you're interested in doing this particular A-level in September. I know that there are also moves in schools and in colleges to be able to make sure that those children don't miss out on really important careers advice at this time, as well, and information, so they can make informed decisions. I know that people are working hard to link up children to advice services that are available so that they can make those really important future decisions with the advice of either a teacher or other professional so that they've got those options. So, there is material out there and it's growing all the time. This week, we were able to launch our virtual Seren network. You'll be aware that, for the last couple of years, we've been able to send Welsh children to the Yale global summer school. Clearly, that can't happen this year. That's devastating for those year 12s who had worked so hard and had won a place on that programme. They will now be able to attend the Yale global scholars programme virtually and remotely, because Yale have moved that programme online. So, we're developing materials and resources all of the time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. Before I move on to my next question, can you give me some sort of sense of how that Hwb domain is being populated? Where is all this information being sourced from? Presumably, they'll be working with partners, but what does that look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, my goodness. Yes, absolutely— +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, we're working very hard. So, everything from our work with the BBC, for instance, and BBC Bitesize through to our FE colleges and our HE institutions, as well as other organisations in the third sector who are looking to provide those opportunities. Can I just say that, last week, we were looking at, every day, in the region of well over 150,000 logins a day into Hwb? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's great. So there's proactive populating of Hwb. That's what I was after. That's great. Just going back to some of Janet's questions and the assessed grades, I want to talk to you about the unconditional offers and where we are with that at the moment for entry to universities, because there's going to be a scramble now of the available students for further education, but primarily higher education institutions, across the UK. Is the moratorium on unconditional offers still standing? Are there conversations going on to extend that moratorium? Otherwise, this scramble is going to potentially negatively affect our universities quite considerably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you'll be aware that a moratorium does exist. It exists in this current context to 1 May. We continue to keep in close touch with colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and in the Westminster Government around these issues. Officials are also in touch with UCAS, and in the last couple of days I've had at least three meetings with representatives of the Welsh higher education sector to discuss these matters. +Suzy Davies AM: I just want to ask you now about students and their maintenance loan grants. I think they're getting, around now, the money going into their bank account that they would normally have expected at this time of year. That's right, yes? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's correct, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What's happening to those students who would normally be living in digs somewhere but are now living at home? Are they likely to be asked to reimburse part of the cost, because obviously it's not as expensive to live at home as away, and what's likely to be happening with the maintenance loans over the summer holiday period, potentially? Because we've had a period now where students can't top up their maintenance loans by going out and working on weekends or working in the evenings, or whatever, so their income has been impacted. Just in the round, what kind of conversations are happening around that? Again, it's probably a four-nation approach, I would imagine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. You are correct to say that our student support regime does allow for a lower payment to be made to those students that stay at home during their studies, but I want to reassure students that there will be no change to their student support payments just because they have left their universities and have decided to go home. There should be no change. Also, we are continuing, it should be important to say, to pay education maintenance allowance at this time for our FE students that are eligible for that, even though, obviously, for EMA there is an attendance requirement, but clearly that is not appropriate to enforce at the moment. You are correct—this is a worrying time for many students in higher education, especially for those who are looking to graduate at this time and are going out into an economy that has been tremendously badly hit by the pandemic. At this time, we continue to have conversations with NUS Wales about what can be done within a Welsh context, but, as you quite rightly say, also within a UK context, to support students who may have been affected. We are continuing—on our webpage we have a frequently asked questions section that advises students in the first instance, especially when it comes, for instance, to the cost of accommodation—to have those discussions, and I'm very grateful that, in some cases, some of our institutions have been able to waive or partially waive accommodation fees where students have vacated their accommodation and have returned to their usual home address. But we will continue to have dialogue with NUS Wales and with our counterparts across the country to look to see what more we can do to support students at this time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer, and, yes, I was pleased to see that announcement through the NUS as well, so well done to those accommodation providers who have a heart. I think we'll all have seen the Universities UK document that explains some of the difficulties that they're going to be running into if this proceeds much further. My understanding is that the main emphasis at the moment is to try and get all the universities across the UK through this initial period of difficulty by releasing as much money as possible. I can see that your figure to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales was a little bit down on last year's letter—not that there's been a remit letter yet, but an indication. Are you releasing that money earlier so that they can use it more swiftly, or does that not matter? +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you come in, Minister, that is going to have to be the last question, just to make you aware of that, because we are coming up to the end of our time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, Suzy, we are working closely with Universities Wales and have a lot of sympathy for the proposals that have come forward from Universities UK, which Wales's universities have been a part of forming. Stability in the first instance is really important to us, which is why we've been able to give an indication to HEFCW about resources that are available, and we've been very clear to HEFCW that we want to be as flexible as possible in how they use those resources to support institutions. That potentially would mean reprofiling the way in which money gets out to institutions, but clearly we will need to have an ongoing discussion about how we respond to the immediacy of the issues facing HE, how we can get stability for the next academic year, and how we then can support the sector through what is a really challenging time for them. We will do that in a Welsh context and we will continue to do that also in a UK context, because you will have seen the scale of some of the figures that have been talked about in terms of the impact on the HE sector at this time. Clearly, a four-nation approach to that will be crucial. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Well, we have come to the end of our time, and, as to anything that we didn't ask, we will have to write to the Minister. Can I just thank the Minister and her officials for your attendance today? We know how busy you are dealing with the pandemic and we very much welcome this opportunity to have this discussion with you. So, thank you, Minister and officials for your time. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. I see that Members are content, so we will now proceed to meet in private. +","**Summary:** + +Lynne Neagle, Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, convened the first virtual meeting to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in Wales. Public access to the session was restricted to safeguard health, and participants joined via video conference. The meeting was broadcast on Senedd.tv, and a record would be published as usual. + +Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams AM expressed gratitude to those enabling children's learning to continue remotely and maintaining hubs for vulnerable children and those of key workers. She emphasized her primary concern for the health and well-being of children, young people, and educational staff. + +AMs raised questions on matters including the principles dictating school re-opening, support for vulnerable children, mental health provisions, and addressing the digital divide affecting home learning. Hefin David AM questioned about the timing for reopening schools and received clarification that no date was set and a return to normality wasn't imminent, but would be based on safety and scientific advice. Kirsty Williams highlighted ongoing multination collaboration for decision-making and monitoring of international education responses. + +Dawn Bowden AM probed into provisions for facilitating vulnerable children's access to education hubs, safeguarding during lockdown, and managing education’s contribution to the mental health of children. Plans to bolster remote counselling support using allocated funds were mentioned. + +On the topic of educational continuity, concerns about maintaining educational progression for exam-year students and preventing widening educational inequality due to remote learning means were addressed. The Minister explained that despite the cancellation of formal exams, grades would be awarded based on teacher assessments, standardizations, and ensuring the robustness of the qualifications system. Additionally, an overarching emphasis was placed on preventative measures to impede the educational achievement gap from expanding during the pandemic. + +Questions surrounding the post-16 education and higher education pathways touched on support for A-level and GCSE students transitioning to further stages in their education, amid cancellations and changes to exams. The Minister unveiled online programs and advised students to continue engaging via resources like the Hwb digital learning platform, which provided subject material, courses, and skills development opportunities to prepare for higher education. + +Attention was drawn to the financial impact on university students, those dependent on maintenance loans, and the challenges ahead for universities. The Welsh Government was undertaking cross-nation dialogues to explore solutions and was working with Universities Wales, releasing funds and exhibiting flexibility in resource allocation responding to the crisis. + +In conclusion, Lynne Neagle AM thanked the Minister and officials, with a commitment for further committee discussions to occur privately post the public online session. + +(Note: The long summary above closely follows the provided transcript but excludes some lines for conciseness. It captures the key points discussed with a focus on addressing the educational challenges and responses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales.)" +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad G: How about channel +Professor C: Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: We 're recording . +Grad G: Alright . +Professor C: Alright , and no crash . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Grad E: I pre - crashed it . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Pre - crashed ! +PhD D: It never crashes on me . +Grad E: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is {disfmarker} what is that ? +Grad E: it depends on if the temp files are there or not , that {disfmarker} at least that 's my current working hypothesis , +PhD D: Ah . +Grad E: that I think what happens is it tries to clear the temp files and if they 're too big , it crashes . +PhD D: Ah . +PhD B: When the power went out the other day and I restarted it , it crashed the first time . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +PhD B: After the power out +PhD D: So then there would be no temp files . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . {comment} Hmm . +Grad E: Uh , no , it doesn't {disfmarker} it doesn't clear those necessarily , +PhD D: Oh wait {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it doesn't clear them , OK . +Grad E: so . +Professor C: Hmm , no connection . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} i they 're called temp files , but they 're not actually in the temp directory they 're in the scratch , so . They 're not backed up , but they 're not erased either on power failure . +PhD D: But that 's usually the meeting that I recorded , and it neve it doesn't crash on me . +PhD B: Well this wasn't {disfmarker} Actually , this wasn't a before your meeting , this was , um , Tuesday afternoon when , um , uh , Robert just wanted to do a little recording , +Grad E: Oh well . +PhD D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh , right . +PhD B: and the power had gone out earlier in the day . +PhD D: OK . Huh , OK . +Professor C: I don't know when would be a good excuse for it , but I just can't wait to be giving a talk t and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and use the example from last week with everybody t doing the digits at once . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +Professor C: I 'd love to play somebody that . +Postdoc A: That was fun . +PhD D: It was quick . +Professor C: It was . It was really efficient . +PhD B: Talk about a good noise shield . You know ? You wanted to pe keep people from listening in , you could like have that playing outside the room . Nobody could listen in . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , I had this idea we could make our whole meeting faster that way . +Professor C: Yeah . Everybody give the reports about what they were doing at exactly the same time , +PhD D: And we 'll just all leave , +PhD B: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back later and review the individual channels , +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep , and then everyone can listen to it later . +PhD B: right ? +Grad E: Yes . Absolutely . +PhD B: If you wanna know what {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually isn't that what we have been doing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's what it sounds like . +PhD B: Practically , huh . With all the overlaps . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: What are we doing ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Since I 've been gone all week , I didn't send out a reminder for an agenda , so . +Professor C: Yeah , and I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do we have anything to talk about or should we just read digits and go ? +PhD B: I wouldn't mind hearing how the conference was . +Professor C: What conference ? +PhD D: Uh , I had one question about {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , really . It 's all a blur . +PhD D: Aren't the UW folks coming this weekend ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: No . The next , +PhD D: Next weekend ? +Grad E: Next weekend , week from {disfmarker} +PhD F: right ? +Professor C: That is right . The next weekend . +PhD D: Sorry , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not the days coming up , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's like the {disfmarker} +Grad E: A week from Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: That 's when they 're coming . +PhD D: within ten days . +Professor C: That 's correct . +PhD D: So , are we {disfmarker} do we have like an agenda or anything that we should be {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but that would be a good idea . +PhD D: OK . +Professor C: Why don't we w +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so the deal is that I can , um , {vocalsound} uh , I can be available after , uh , like ten thirty or something . I don't know how s how early you wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor C: They 're not even gonna be here until eleven or so . +Grad E: That 's good . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: Cuz they 're flying up that day . +PhD D: Wait , this is on {disfmarker} on Sunday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD D: Or Saturday ? +Professor C: Saturday . +PhD F: Saturday . +Professor C: S Saturday . +PhD D: OK . +Grad E: Well , y +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Eurospeech is due on Friday and then I 'm going down to San {disfmarker} uh , San Jose Friday night , so , if {disfmarker} you know , if we start nice and late Saturday that 's a good thing . +Professor C: No , I mean , they 're flying up from {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} +Grad E: Seattle . +Professor C: down from Seattle . +Grad E: They 're flying from somewhere to somewhere , +Professor C: Yeah , and they 'll end up here . So b and also Brian Kingsbury is actually flying from , uh , the east coast on that {disfmarker} that morning . +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Professor C: So , i I {disfmarker} I will be {disfmarker} I mean , he 's taking a very early flight +PhD F: Oh . +Professor C: and we do have the time work difference running the right way , but I still think that there 's no way we could start before eleven . It might end up really being twelve . So when we get closer we 'll find people 's plane schedules , and let everybody know . Uh , So . That 's good . +Grad E: But , uh , yeah maybe an agenda , or at least some things to talk about would be a good idea . +Professor C: Well we can start gathering those {disfmarker} those ideas , but then we {disfmarker} we should firm it up by next {disfmarker} next Thursday 's meeting . +Postdoc A: Will we have time to , um , to prepare something that we {disfmarker} in the format we were planning for the IBM transcribers by then , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Oh yeah . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad E: So have you heard back from Brian about that , Chuck ? +PhD B: Yes , um , he 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I should have forwarded that along . Uh , {vocalsound} oh I {disfmarker} I think I mentioned at the last meeting , he said that , um , he talked to them and it was fine {disfmarker} with the beeps they would be {disfmarker} That 's easy for them to do . +Grad E: Great . OK . So , uh , oh , though Thi - Thilo isn't here , um , but , uh , I {disfmarker} I have the program to insert the beeps . What I don't have is something to parse the output of the channelized transcripts to find out where to put the beeps , but that should be really easy to do . So do we have a meeting that that 's been done with , +Postdoc A: He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: that we 've tightened it up to the point where we can actually give it to IBM and have them try it out ? +Postdoc A: He generated , um , a channel - wise presegmented version of a meeting , but it was Robustness rather than EDU so I guess depends on whether we 're willing to use Robustness ? +PhD B: Well for this experiment I think we can use pre pretty much anything . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: This experiment of just {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we had {disfmarker} we had talked about doing maybe EDU as a good choice , though . Well , {vocalsound} whatever we have . +PhD B: Well we 've talked about that as being the next ones we wanted to transcribe . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: But for the purpose of sending him a sample one to {disfmarker} f +Grad E: Yeah , maybe it doesn't matter . +Postdoc A: Great . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't think it matte +Postdoc A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , um , get {disfmarker} make that available . +Grad E: OK , and has it been corrected ? +Postdoc A: Oh , well , wait . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hand - checked ? Cuz that was one of the {vocalsound} processes we were talking about as well . +PhD B: Right , so we need to run Thilo 's thing on it , +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD B: and then we go in and adjust the boundaries . +Postdoc A: Yeah that 's right . Yeah , we haven't done that . I {disfmarker} I could set someone on that tomorrow . +PhD B: Right . +Grad E: And time how long it takes . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc A: I think they 're coming {disfmarker} +PhD B: And we probably don't have to do necessarily a whole meeting for that if we just wanna send them a sample to try . +Postdoc A: OK . What would be a good number of minutes ? +PhD B: I don't know , maybe we can figure out how long it 'll take @ @ to {disfmarker} to do . +Grad E: Um , I don't know , it seems to me w we probably should go ahead and do a whole meeting because we 'll have to transcribe the whole meeting anyway sometime . +Professor C: Yes except that if they had {disfmarker} if there was a choice between having fifteen minutes that was fully the way you wanted it , and having a whole meeting that didn't get at what you wanted for them {disfmarker} It 's just dependent of how much {disfmarker} +Grad E: Like I {disfmarker} I mean I guess if we have to do it again anyway , but , uh +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I guess , the only thing I 'm not sure about is , um , how quickly can the transcribers scan over and fix the boundaries , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean , is it pretty easy ? +Grad E: I think it 's gonna be one or two times real time at {disfmarker} Wow , excuse me , two or more times real time , right ? Cuz they have to at least listen to it . +Professor C: Can we pipeline it so that say there 's , uh , the transcriber gets done with a quarter of the meeting and then we {disfmarker} you run it through this other {disfmarker} other stuff ? Uh , +Grad E: Well the other stuff is I B I 'm just thinking that from a data {disfmarker} keeping - track - of - the - data point of view , it may be best to send them whole meetings at a time and not try to send them bits and pieces . +Professor C: OK , so . Oh , that 's right . So the first thing is the automatic thing , and then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} then it 's the transcribers tightening stuff up , +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and then it 's IBM . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: OK , so you might as well ha run the automatic thing over the entire meeting , and then {disfmarker} and then , uh , you would give IBM whatever was fixed . +Postdoc A: And have them fix it over the entire meeting too ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Well , yeah , but start from the beginning and go to the end , right ? So if they were only half way through then that 's what you 'd give IBM . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD B: As of what point ? I mean . The {disfmarker} I guess the question on my mind is do we wait for the transcribers to adjust the marks for the whole meeting before we give anything to IBM , or do we go ahead and send them a sample ? Let their {disfmarker} +Professor C: Why wouldn't we s @ @ w i if they were going sequentially through it , why wouldn't we give them {disfmarker} I mean i are we trying to get something done by the time Brian comes ? +PhD B: Well I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . +Grad E: That was the question . Though . +Professor C: So if we {disfmarker} if we were , then it seems like giving them something , whatever they had gotten up to , would be better than nothing . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh . That {disfmarker} I agree . I agree . +Grad E: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , h they {disfmarker} they typically work for what , four hours , something like that ? +Postdoc A: Hmm , I gue hmm . +Grad E: I think the they should be able to get through a whole meeting in one sitting . I would think , unless it 's a lot harder than we think it is , which it could be , certainly . +Postdoc A: If it 's got like for speakers then I guess {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 're just doing the individual channels , +Grad E: Or seven or eight . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc A: Individual channels . Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's gonna be , depending on the number of people in the meeting , um , +Postdoc A: I guess there is this issue of , you know , if {disfmarker} if the segmenter thought there was no speech on {disfmarker} on a particular stretch , on a particular channel , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and there really was , then , if it didn't show up in a mixed signal to verify , then it might be overlooked , so , I mean , the question is "" should {disfmarker} should a transcriber listen to the entire thing or can it g can it be based on the mixed signal ? "" And I th eh so far as I 'm concerned it 's fine to base it on the mixed signal at this point , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's what it seems to me too , in that if they need to , just like in the other cases , they can listen to the individual , if they need to . +Postdoc A: And that cuts down the time . Yeah . +Grad E: But they don't have to for most of it . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . So . Yeah . Good , good , good . +PhD B: I don't see how that will work , though . +Postdoc A: What {disfmarker} what aspect ? +Professor C: So you 're talking about tightening up time boundaries ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: So how do you {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , they have the normal channeltrans interface where they have each individual speaker has their own line , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: but you 're listening to the mixed signal and you 're tightening the boundaries , correcting the boundaries . You shouldn't have to tighten them too much because Thilo 's program does that . +Postdoc A: Should be pretty good , yeah . +PhD D: Except for {vocalsound} it doesn't do well on short things , remember . +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so you 'll have to I {disfmarker} +PhD D: It will miss them . It will miss most of the really short things . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Like that . +Postdoc A: But those would be {disfmarker} those would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . It will {disfmarker} it will miss {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh ! +PhD D: Yeah , you have to say "" uh - huh "" more slowly to {disfmarker} to get c +Grad E: Sorry . +PhD D: No , I 'm s I 'm actually serious . +Grad E: I 'll work on that . +PhD D: So it will miss stuff like that which {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , so {disfmarker} so that 's something that the transcribers will have to {disfmarker} have to do . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but presumably , most of those they should be able to hear from the mixed signal unless they 're embedded in the heavil heavy overlap section when {disfmarker} in which case they 'd be listening to the channels anyway . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm concerned about the part . +PhD D: Right , and that 's what I 'm not sure about . +Postdoc A: Yeah , I am too . And I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD B: Can't we {disfmarker} uh couldn't we just have , um , I don't know , maybe this just doesn't fit with the software , but I guess if I didn't know anything about Transcriber and I was gonna make something to let them adjust boundaries , I would just show them one channel at a time , with the marks , and let them adju +Postdoc A: Oh they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , but then they have to do {disfmarker} but then they {disfmarker} for this meeting they would have to do seven times real time , and it would probably be more than that . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . Yeah . +Grad E: Right ? Because they 'd have to at least listen to each channel all the way through . +Postdoc A: And if {disfmarker} +PhD B: But i but it 's very quick , +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: right ? I mean , you scan {disfmarker} I mean , if you have a display of the waveform . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , you 're talking about visually . +Postdoc A: w Well , the other problem is the breaths +Grad E: I just don't think {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: cuz you also see the breaths on the waveform . I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at the int uh , s I 've tried to do that with a single channel , and {disfmarker} and you do see all sorts of other stuff besides just the voice . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I think that they 're going much more on acoustics than they are on visuals . +Postdoc A: Well that {disfmarker} that I 'm not sure . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: What you {disfmarker} the digital {disfmarker} what the digital task that you had your interface ? Um , I know for a fact that one of those {disfmarker} sh she could really well {disfmarker} she could judge what th what the number was based on the {disfmarker} on the waveform . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's actually true . Yeah , you 're right . You 're absolutely right . Yeah , I found the same thing that when I was scanning through the wave form {vocalsound} I could see when someone started to read digits just by the shapes . +Postdoc A: Yeah , she could tell which one was seven . +Grad E: Um , maybe . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I don't {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm now entirely confused about what they do . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're looking at a mixed signal , or they 're looking {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are they looking at visually ? +Postdoc A: Well , they have a choice . They could choose any signal to look at . I 've tried lookin but usually they look at the mixed . But I 've {disfmarker} I 've tried looking at the single signal and {disfmarker} and in order to judge when it {disfmarker} when it was speech and when it wasn't , +Grad E: Oh . +Postdoc A: but the problem is then you have breaths which {disfmarker} which show up on the signal . +Professor C: But the procedure that you 're imagining , I mean , people vary from this , is that they have the mixed signal wave form in front of them , +Postdoc A: Yes . +PhD F: +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: and they have multiple , uh , well , let 's see , there isn't {disfmarker} we don't have transcription yet . So {disfmarker} but there 's markers of some sort that have been happening automatically , +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: and those show up on the mixed signal ? +Postdoc A: Oh , +Professor C: There 's a @ @ clicks ? +Grad E: N the t +Postdoc A: they show up on the separate ribbons . So you have a separate ribbon for each channel , +Professor C: There 're separate ribbons . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc A: and {disfmarker} and i i it 'll be {disfmarker} because it 's being segmented as channel at a time with his {disfmarker} with Thilo 's new procedure , then you don't have the correspondence of the times across the bins {disfmarker} uh across the ribbons uh you could have {disfmarker} +Professor C: And is there a line moving across the waveform as it goes ? +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Professor C: OK , so The way you 're imaging is they kind of play it , and they see oh this happened , then this happened , then {disfmarker} and if it 's about right , they just sort of let it slide , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Professor C: and if it {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} there 's a question on something , they stop and maybe look at the individual wave form . +Postdoc A: Oh , well not {disfmarker} not "" look "" . +Grad E: Right . Well , they wouldn't look at it {pause} at this point . They would just listen . +Professor C: They {disfmarker} they might look at it , right ? +Grad E: Well , the problem is that the {disfmarker} the interface doesn't really allow you to switch visuals . +Postdoc A: Not very quickly . +Grad E: The problem is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the Tcl - TK interface with the visuals , it 's very slow to load waveforms . +Postdoc A: You can but it takes time . That 's it . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so when I tried {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that was the first thing I tried when I first started it , +Postdoc A: Oh , oh . Visually . You can {disfmarker} you can switch quickly between the audio , +Grad E: right ? +Postdoc A: but you just can't get the visual display to show quickly . So you have to {disfmarker} It takes , I don't know , three , four minutes to {disfmarker} Well , I mean , it takes {disfmarker} it takes long enough {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , it 's very slow to do that . +Postdoc A: It takes long enough cuz it has to reload the I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly what it 's doing frankly cuz {disfmarker} but it t it takes long enough that it 's just not a practical alternative . +PhD D: That w +Grad E: Well it {disfmarker} it does some sort of shape pre - computation so that it can then scroll it quickly , +Grad G: But you can cancel that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: yeah . But then you can't change the resolution or scroll quickly . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Postdoc A: Now you could set up multiple windows , each one with a different signal showing , and then look between the windows . +Grad E: So . +Grad G: Huh ! +Postdoc A: Maybe that 's the solution . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could do different interfaces , +Grad G: What if you preload them all ? +Grad E: right ? I mean , so {disfmarker} so we could use like X Waves instead of Transcriber , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and it loads faster , certainly . +Grad G: What if you were to preload all the channels or {disfmarker} or initially {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well that 's what I tried originally . +Grad G: like doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I actually before , uh , Dave Gelbart did this , I did an interface which showed each waveform and ea a ribbon for each waveform , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: but the problem with it is even with just three waveforms it was just painfully slow to scroll . So you just scroll a screen and it would , you know go "" kur - chunk ! "" +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so it just was not doable with the current interface . +Postdoc A: You know , I am thinking if we have a meeting with only four speakers and , you know , you could fire up a Transcriber interface for , y you know , in different windows , multiple ones , one for each channel . And it 's sort of a {disfmarker} a hack but I mean it would be one way of seeing the visual form . +Grad E: I think that if we decide that we need {disfmarker} that they need to see the visuals , we need to change the interface so that they can do that . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: That 's actually what I thought of , loading the chopped up waveforms , I mean , you know , that {disfmarker} that would make it faster {disfmarker} +Grad E: An But isn't {disfmarker} +Grad G: Hmm . +Grad E: The chopped up waveforms . +PhD B: The problem is if {disfmarker} if anything 's cut off , you can't expand it from the chopped up {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Grad E: Isn't that {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Right , but if you a at some point {disfmarker} +Grad E: And wouldn't that be the same {comment} as the mixed signal ? +PhD D: No , I mean the individual channels that were chopped up that {disfmarker} it 'd be nice to be able to go back and forth between those short segments . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Cuz you don't really nee like nine tenths of the time you 're throwing most of them out , but what you need are tho that particular channel , or that particular location , +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD D: um , might be nice , cuz we save those out already , {comment} um , to be able to do that . But it won't work for IBM of course , it only works here cuz they 're not saving out the individual channels . +Postdoc A: Well , I {disfmarker} I do think that this {disfmarker} this will be a doable procedure , +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and have them starting with mixed +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc A: and , um , then when they get into overlaps , just have them systematically check all the channels to be sure that there isn't something hidden from {disfmarker} from audio view . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , hopefully , I mean {disfmarker} The mixed signal , the overlaps are pretty audible because it is volume equalized . So I think they should be able to hear . The only problem is {disfmarker} is , you know , counting how many and if they 're really correct or not . So , I don't know . +PhD D: I don't know that you can locate them very well from the mixed signal , +Grad E: Right but {disfmarker} but once {disfmarker} once you know that they happen , you can at least listen to the close talking , +PhD D: but you would know that they were there , and then you would switch . Right . And then you would switch into the other {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +Professor C: But right now , to do this limitation , the switching is going to be switching of the audio ? Is what she 's saying . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , so {disfmarker} so +Professor C: so they 're using their ears to do these markings anyway . +Grad E: did Dave {disfmarker} Did Dave do that change where you can actually just click rather than having to go up to the menu to listen to the individual channels ? +Postdoc A: Yes . Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Click {disfmarker} Um , +Grad E: I had suggested it before . I just don't know whether he did it or not . +Postdoc A: I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} click what {disfmarker} click on the ribbon ? Yeah , you can get that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: oh , oh , get {disfmarker} you can get the , uh {disfmarker} you can get it to switch audio ? Uh , not last I tried , +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but , um , maybe he 's changed it again . +Grad E: We should get him to do that because , uh , I think that would be much , much faster than going to the menu . +Postdoc A: I disagree . There 's a reason I disagree , and that is that , uh , you {disfmarker} it 's very good to have a dissociation between the visual and the audio . There 're times when I wanna hear the mixed signal , bu but I want to transcribe on the single channel . So right now {disfmarker} +Grad E: Then maybe just buttons down at the bottom next to it . +Postdoc A: Maybe , I just don't {disfmarker} I don't see that it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Just something so that it 's not in the menu option so that you can do it much faster . +Postdoc A: Well , I mean , that 's the i I {disfmarker} I think that might be a personal style thing . I find it really convenient the way {disfmarker} the way it 's set up right now . +Grad E: Well it just seems to me that if you wanna quickly {disfmarker} "" well was that Jane , no , was that Chuck , no , was that Morgan "" , right now , you have to go up to the menu , and each time , go up to the menu , select it , listen to that channel then click below , and then go back to the menu , select the next one , and then click below . +Postdoc A: That 's fine . Yeah , it 's true . +Grad E: So you can definitely streamline that with the i with the interface . +Postdoc A: Yeah , it could be faster , but , you know , I mean , th in the ideal world {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: What ? +Postdoc A: No I {disfmarker} I agree that 'd be nice . Yeah . OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , um , Done with that ? Does any {disfmarker} I forget , does anybody , uh , working on any {disfmarker} any Eurospeech submission related to this ? +Grad E: I would like to try to do something on digits but I just don't know if we have time . I mean , it 's due next Friday so we have to do the experiments and write the paper . So , I 'm gonna try , but , uh , we 'll just have to see . So actually I wanna get together with both Andreas and , uh , uh , Stephane with their respective systems . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah there was that {disfmarker} we that 's right , we had that one conversation about , uh , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what did it mean for , uh , one of those speakers to be pathological , was it a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , and I haven't had s chance to sit down and listen . +PhD F: Oh , I haven't {disfmarker} I haven't listened to them either , +Grad E: I was going to do that this afternoon . +PhD F: but there must be something wrong , I mean , +Grad E: Well , Morgan and I were {disfmarker} were having a debate {comment} about that . +PhD F: unless our {disfmarker} +Grad E: Whereas I think it it 's probably something pathologic and actually Stephane 's results , I think confirm that . He s he did the Aurora system also got very lousy average error , like fifteen or {disfmarker} or , uh , fifteen to twenty percent average ? But then he ran it just on the lapel , and got about five or six percent word error ? So that {disfmarker} that means to me that somewhere in the other recordings there are some pathological cases . But , you know , we {disfmarker} th that may not be true . It may be just some of the segments they 're just doing a lousy job on . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll listen to it and find out since you 'd actually split it up by segment . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So I can actually listen to it . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Did you run the {disfmarker} Andreas {disfmarker} the r SRI recognizer on the digits ? +Grad E: Oh , I thought he had sent that around to everyone , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: did you just sent that to me ? +PhD F: No , I d I didn't . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD F: Since I considered those preliminary , I didn't . +PhD B: I it wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , yeah , if you take {disfmarker} +Grad E: It was bimodal . +PhD F: So if you {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's actually , um , it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it was trimodal , actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , was it trimodal , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: trimodal , so +Professor C: There 's zero , a little bit , and a lot . +PhD F: there were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} t there was {disfmarker} there was one h one bump at ze around zero , which were the native speakers , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Zero percent error ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: the non - pathological native speakers . +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD F: Then there was another bump at , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} oh , like fifteen or something . +PhD B: This is error you 're talking about ? +Professor C: Oh was it fifteen ? +PhD F: whe +PhD B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Those were the non - natives . And then there was another distinct bump at , like , a hundred , {vocalsound} which must have been some problem . +Postdoc A: Oh , wow ! Oh , OK . +PhD F: I can't imagine that {disfmarker} +Grad G: What is patho what do you mean by pathological ? +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} just something really wrong with {disfmarker} +Grad G: I 'm sorry , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: A bug is what I mean , +PhD F: In the recording +Grad G: Oh . +Grad E: so that it 's like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , OK . +PhD F: And there was this one meeting , I forget which one it was , where like , uh , six out of the eight channels were all , like {disfmarker} had a hundred percent error . +Grad G: I see . +Grad E: Which probably means like there was a {disfmarker} th the recording interface crashed , +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: or there was a short {disfmarker} you know , someone was jiggling with a cord +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: or , uh , I extracted it incorrectly , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad E: it was labeled {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it was transcribed incorrectly , something really bad happened , and I just haven't listened to it yet to find out what it was . +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: So , if I excluded the pathological ones , {vocalsound} by definition , those that had like over ninety - five percent error rate , {vocalsound} and the non - natives , then the average error rate was like one point four or something , +Professor C: What we 're calling . +Postdoc A: Oh . Oh . +PhD F: which {disfmarker} which seemed reasonable given that , you know , the models weren't tuned for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for it . +Grad G: Hmm ! +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD F: And the grammar wasn't tuned either . +PhD B: And it didn't matter whether it was the lapel or whether it was the {disfmarker} +PhD F: It was just a @ @ . I haven't split it up that way , +PhD D: But there 's no overlap during the digit readings , so it shouldn't really matter . +PhD F: but it would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: No , but there 's a little difference , +PhD F: So it should {disfmarker} +Grad E: There 's a lot . +Professor C: and we haven't looked at it for digits , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah , so I was curious about that . +Professor C: And so , cuz {disfmarker} because what he was {disfmarker} what I was saying when I looked at those things is it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I was almost gonna call it quadrimodal because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} because there was a whole lot of cases where it was zero percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: They just plain got it all right . And then there {disfmarker} and then there was another bunch that were couple percent or something . +PhD F: Yeah . But if you p if you actually histogrammed it , and {disfmarker} it was a nice {disfmarker} uh , you know , it {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} zero was the most of them , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: A normal . Yeah . +PhD F: but then there were {disfmarker} the others were sort of decaying from there . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD F: And then there was the bump for the non - natives and then the pathological ones , +Professor C: I see . I see . +PhD F: so . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz some of our non - natives are pretty non - native . So . +Postdoc A: You {disfmarker} did you have , uh , something in the report about , uh , {disfmarker} about , uh , for f uh , forced alignment ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Have you {disfmarker} have you started on that ? +PhD F: Oh , well , yeah , so I 've been struggling with the forced alignments . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the scheme that I drew on the board last time where we tried to , um {vocalsound} allow reject models for the s speech from other speakers , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} most of the time it doesn't work very well . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} I haven't done {disfmarker} I mean , the only way to check this right now was for me to actually {vocalsound} load these into X Waves and , you know , plus the alignments , and s play them and see where the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD F: And it looks {disfmarker} And so I looked at all of the utterances from you , Chuck , in that one conversation , I don't know which {disfmarker} You probably know which one I mean , it 's where you were on the lapel {vocalsound} and Morgan was sitting next to you and we can hear everything Morgan says . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some of what you {disfmarker} I mean , you also appear quite a bit in that cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} I actually went through all of those , there were I think fifty - five segments , {vocalsound} um , in {disfmarker} in X Waves , and {disfmarker} and sort of did a crude check , and {vocalsound} more often than not , it {disfmarker} it gets it wrong . So there 's either the beginning , mostly the beginning word , {vocalsound} where th you , um , you know , Chuck talks somewhere into the segment , but the first , um , word of what he says , often "" I "" but it 's very reduced "" I , "" that 's just aligned {vocalsound} to the beginning of someone else 's speech , uh in that segment , which is cross - talk . So , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} I 'm still tinkering with it , but it might well be that we can't get clean alignments out of this {disfmarker} out of those , uh , {vocalsound} channels , so . +Professor C: Unless maybe we do this , uh , um , cancellation business . +PhD D: Right , but that 's {disfmarker} I mean , that was our plan , +PhD F: Yeah , right . +PhD D: but it 's clear from Dan that this is not something you can do in a short amount of time . +Professor C: Oh , the short amount of time thing , right . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so we {disfmarker} you know , we had spent a lot of time , um , writing up the HLT paper and we wanted to use that , uh , kind of analysis , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but the HLT paper has , you know , it 's a very crude measure of overlap . It 's not really something you could scientifically say is overlap , it 's just whether or not the , um , the segments that were all synchronized , whether there was some overlap somewhere . +Grad E: c High correlation . +PhD D: And , you know , that pointed out some differences , so he thought well if we can do something quick and dirty because Dan said the cross - cancellation , it 's not straight - forward . If it were straight - forward then we would try it , but {disfmarker} so , it 's sort of good to hear that it was not straight - forward , thinking if we can get decent forced alignments , then at least we can do sort of a overall report of what happens with actual overlap in time , but , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: I didn't think that his message said it wasn't straight - forward . +Grad E: Well if we 'd just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well +PhD B: I thought he 's just saying you have to look over a longer time window when you do it . +Grad E: Um - hmm . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} but there are some issues of this timing , um , in the recordings +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you just have to look over longer time when you 're trying to align the things , you can't {disfmarker} you can't just look {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well . are you talking about the fact that the recording software doesn't do time - synchronous ? Is that what you 're referring to ? +Professor C: +Grad E: That seems to me you can do that over the entire file and get a very accurate {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't thi I d I don't think that was the issue . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} yeah , that was sort of a side issue . +Grad E: I didn't think so either . +PhD F: The issue was that you have {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} you have have {disfmarker} you first have to have a pretty good speech detection on the individual channels . +PhD D: And it 's dynamic , so I guess it was more dynamic than some simple models would be able t to {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so there are some things available , and I don't know too much about this area where if people aren't moving around much than you could apply them , and it should work pretty well if you took care of this recording time difference . +Grad E: Right , which should be pretty straight forward . +PhD D: Which a at least is well defined , and +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD D: um , but then if you add the dynamic aspect of adapting distances , then it wasn't {disfmarker} I guess it just wasn't something that he could do quickly {pause} and not {disfmarker} in time for us to be able to do something by two weeks from now , so . Well less than a week . So {disfmarker} um , so I don't know what we can do if anything , that 's sort of worth , you know , a Eurospeech paper at this point . +PhD B: Well , Andreas , how well did it work on the non - lapel stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's what I was gonna say . +PhD F: I haven't checked those yet . +Grad E: C +PhD F: It 's very tedious to check these . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD F: Um , we would really need , ideally , a transcriber {vocalsound} to time mark the {disfmarker} you know , the be at least the beginning and s ends {comment} of contiguous speech . Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and , you know , then with the time marks , you can do an automatic comparison of your {disfmarker} of your forced alignments . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} really the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at least in terms of how we were gonna use this in our system was to get an ideal {disfmarker} an idea , uh , for each channel about the start and end boundaries . +Grad E: Oh , MNCM . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We don't really care about like intermediate word boundaries , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , that 's how I 've been looking at it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: I mean , I don't care that the individual words are aligned correctly , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: but {vocalsound} you don't wanna , uh , infer from the alignment that someone spoke who didn't . +PhD B: Right , exactly . So that 's why I was wondering if it {disfmarker} +PhD F: so , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , maybe if it doesn't work for lapel stuff , we can just not use that +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I haven't {disfmarker} I ha just haven't had the time to , um , do the same procedure on one of the {disfmarker} so I would need a k I would need a channel that has {vocalsound} a speaker whose {disfmarker} who has a lot of overlap but s you know , is a non - lapel mike . And , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} where preferably , also there 's someone sitting next to them who talks a lot . +Grad E: Hmm ! +PhD F: So , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So a meeting with me in it . +PhD F: maybe someone can help me find a good candidate and then I would be willing to +PhD B: We c you know what ? Maybe the best way to find that would be to look through these . +PhD F: you know , hand +PhD B: Cuz you can see the seat numbers , and then you can see what type of mike they were using . And so we just look for , you know , somebody sitting next to Adam at one of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually y we can tell from the data that we have , +PhD F: From the insertions , maybe ? +PhD D: um , yeah , there 's a way to tell . +PhD F: fr fr from the {disfmarker} +PhD D: It might not be a single person who 's always overlapping that person but any number of people , +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: and , um , if you align the two hypothesis files across the channels , you know , just word alignment , you 'd be able to find that . So {disfmarker} so I guess that 's sort of a last {disfmarker} ther there 're sort of a few things we could do . One is just do like non - lapels if we can get good enough alignments . Another one was to try to get {disfmarker} somehow align Thilo 's energy segmentations with what we have . But then you have the problem of not knowing where the words are because these meetings were done before that segmentation . But maybe there 's something that could be done . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} why do you need the , um , the forced alignment for the HLT {disfmarker} I mean for the Eurospeech paper ? +PhD D: Well , I guess I {disfmarker} I wanted to just do something not on recognition experiments because that 's ju way too early , but to be able to report , you know , actual numbers . Like if we {disfmarker} if we had hand - transcribed pe good alignments or hand - checked alignments , then we could do this paper . It 's not that we need it to be automatic . But without knowing where the real words are , in time {disfmarker} +PhD B: So it was to get {disfmarker} it was to get more data and better {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to squeeze the boundaries in . +PhD D: To {disfmarker} to know what an overlap really {disfmarker} if it 's really an overlap , or if it 's just a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a segment correlated with an overlap , +PhD B: Ah , OK . Yeah . +PhD D: and I guess that 's the difference to me between like a real paper and a sort of , promissory paper . So , um , if we d it might be possible to take Thilo 's output and like if you have , um , like right now these meetings are all , +Grad E: Ugh ! I forgot the digital camera again . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: Every meeting ! +PhD D: you know , they 're time - aligned , so if these are two different channels and somebody 's talking here and somebody else is talking here , just that word , if Thilo can tell us that there 're boundaries here , we should be able to figure that out +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: because the only thing transcribed in this channel is this word . But , um , you know , if there are things {disfmarker} +Grad E: Two words . +PhD D: Yeah , if you have two and they 're at the edges , it 's like here and here , and there 's speech here , then it doesn't really help you , so , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Thilo 's won't put down two separate marks in that case {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it w it would , but , um , we don't know exactly where the words are because the transcriber gave us two words in this time bin +Grad E: Thilo 's will . But . +PhD D: and we don't really know , I mean , +Postdoc A: Well it 's a merging problem . If you had a {disfmarker} if you had a s if you had a script which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I 've thought about this , um , and I 've discussed {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo , +PhD D: I mean , if you have any ideas . I would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , the , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} in principle I could imagine writing a script which would approximate it to some degree , but there is this problem of slippage , +Grad E: Well maybe {disfmarker} Maybe that will get enough of the cases to be useful . +Postdoc A: yeah . +PhD D: Right . I mean , that {disfmarker} that would be really helpful . That was sort of another possibility . +Grad E: You know s cuz it seemed like most of the cases are in fact the single word sorts , or at least a single phrase +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} they can be stretched . +Grad E: in most of the bins . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc A: I wouldn't make that generalization cuz sometimes people will say , "" And then I "" and there 's a long pause +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: and finish the sentence and {disfmarker} and sometimes it looks coherent and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a simple problem . But it 's really {disfmarker} And then it 's coupled with the problem that sometimes , you know , with {disfmarker} with a fricative you might get the beginning of the word cut off and so it 's coupled with the problem that Thilo 's isn't perfect either . I mean , we 've i th it 's like you have a merging problem plus {disfmarker} so merging plus this problem of , uh , not {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . Hmm ! +Postdoc A: y i i if the speech - nonspeech were perfect to begin with , the detector , that would already be an improvement , but that 's impossible , you know , i that 's too much to ask . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yes . +Postdoc A: And so i and may you know , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I think that there always {disfmarker} th there would have to be some hand - tweaking , but it 's possible that a script could be written to merge those two types of things . I 've {disfmarker} I 've discussed it with Thilo and I mean {disfmarker} in terms of not him doing it , but we {disfmarker} we discussed some of the parameters of that and how hard it would be to {disfmarker} in principle {disfmarker} to write something that would do that . +PhD D: I mean , I guess in the future it won't be as much as an issue if transcribers are using the tightened boundaries to start with , then we have a good idea of where the forced alignment is constrained to . +Postdoc A: Well , it 's just , you know , a matter of we had the revolution {disfmarker} we had the revolution of improved , uh , interface , um , one month too late , +PhD D: So I 'm no I don't know if this +Grad E: Oh . Tools . +Postdoc A: but it 's like , you know , it 's wonderful to have the revolution , +PhD D: Oh it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: so it 's just a matter of {disfmarker} of , you know , from now on we 'll be able to have things channelized to begin with . +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Right . And we 'll just have to see how hard that is . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so whether the corrections take too much time . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Grad E: I was just thinking about the fact that if Thilo 's missed these short segments , that might be quite time - consuming for them to insert them . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Good point . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} he also can adjust this minimum time duration constraint and then what you get is noises mostly , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Spurious . +PhD D: but that might be OK , an +Grad E: It might be easier to delete something that 's wrong than to insert something that 's missing . +PhD D: Right . And you can also see in the waveform {disfmarker} exac +Grad E: What do you think , Jane ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: If you can feel confident that what the {disfmarker} yeah , that there 's actually something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: that you 're not gonna miss something , +Grad E: Yeah . Cuz then {disfmarker} then you just delete it , and you don't have to pick a time . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well the problem is I {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a really good question , and I really find it a pain in the neck to delete things because you have to get the mouse up there on the t on the text line and i and otherwise you just use an arrow to get down {disfmarker} I mean , i it depends on how lar th there 's so many extra things that would make it one of them harder than the other , or {disfmarker} or vice versa . It 's not a simple question . But , you know , I mean , in principle , like , you know , if one of them is easier then to bias it towards whichever one 's easier . +Grad E: Yeah , I guess the semantics aren't clear when you delete a segment , right ? Because you would say {disfmarker} You would have to determine what the surroundings were . +PhD D: You could just say it 's a noise , though , and write , you know , a post - processor will just {disfmarker} all you have to do is just {disfmarker} +Grad E: If it 's really a noise . +PhD D: or just say it 's {disfmarker} just put "" X , "" you know , like "" not speech "" or something , +Postdoc A: I think it 's easier to add than delete , frankly , +PhD D: and then you can get {disfmarker} Yeah , or +Postdoc A: because you have to , uh , maneuver around on the {disfmarker} on both windows then . +Grad E: To add or to delete ? +Postdoc A: To delete . +PhD D: Anyways , so I {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . That {disfmarker} Maybe that 's an interface issue that might be addressable . +Postdoc A: It 's possible . +Grad E: But I think it 's the semantics that are {disfmarker} that are questionable to me , that you delete something {disfmarker} So let 's say someone is talking to here , and then you have a little segment here . Well , is that part of the speech ? Is it part of the nonspeech ? I mean , w what do you embed it in ? +PhD D: There 's something nice , though , about keeping , and this is probably another discussion , keeping the stuff that Thilo 's detector detected as possible speech and just marking it as not speech than deleting it . Because then when you align it , then the alignment can {disfmarker} you can put a reject model or whatever , +Grad E: Oh , I see . So then they could just like put {disfmarker} Oh that 's what you meant by just put an "" X "" there . +PhD D: and you 're consistent with th the automatic system , +Grad E: Uh , that 's an interesting idea . +PhD D: whereas if you delete it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so all they {disfmarker} So that all they would have to do is put like an "" X "" there . +PhD D: Yeah , or some , you know , dummy reject mod +Grad E: So blank for {disfmarker} blank for silence , "" S "" "" S "" for speech , "" X "" "" X "" for something else . +PhD D: whatever , yeah . That 's actually a better way to do it cuz the a the forced alignment will probably be more consistent than {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , like , I think there 's a complication which is that {disfmarker} that you can have speech and noise in s +PhD D: I mean if it 's just as easy , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: uh , you know , on the same channel , the same speaker , so now sometimes you get a ni microphone pop and , uh , I mean , there 're these fuzzy hybrid cases , and then the problem with the boundaries that have to be shifted around . It 's not a simple {disfmarker} not a simple problem . +PhD D: Anyway , quick question , though , at a high level do people think , let 's just say that we 're moving to this new era of like using the , um , pre - segmented t you know , non - synchronous conversations , does it make sense to try to take what we have now , which are the ones that , you know , we have recognition on which are synchronous and not time - tightened , and try to get something out of those for sort of purposes of illustrating the structure and the nature of the meetings , or is it better to just , you know , forget that and tr I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I think we 'll have to , eventually . And my hope was that we would be able to use the forced alignment to get it . +PhD D: Right . That was everybody 's hope . +Grad E: But if we can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: And maybe we can for the non - lapel , but +Grad E: But if we can't , then maybe we just have to {disfmarker} +PhD D: is it worth {disfmarker} if we can't then we can fake it even if we 're {disfmarker} we report , you know , we 're wrong twenty percent of the time or ten percent of the time . +Grad E: Well , I 'm thinking {disfmarker} are you talking about for a paper , or are talking about for the corpus . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's a good question actually . +Grad E: I mean cuz for the corpus it would be nice if everything were {disfmarker} +PhD D: Actually that 's a good question because we 'd have to completely redo those meetings , and we have like ten of them now . +Grad E: We wouldn't have to re - do them , we would just have to edit them . +Postdoc A: Well , and also , I mean , I still haven't {disfmarker} I still haven't given up on forced alignment . +PhD D: No , you 're right , actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think that when Brian comes , this 'll be uh an interesting aspect to ask him as well b +Grad E: When {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: when Brian Kingsbury comes . +Grad E: Oh , Brian . You s I thought you said Ryan . And it 's like , "" Who 's Ryan ? "" +Postdoc A: Yeah , good question . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc A: Well , Ryan could come . +PhD D: Uh , no , that 's a good point , though , because for feature extraction like for prosody or something , I mean , the meetings we have now , it 's a good chunk of data {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: we need to get a decent f OK . +Postdoc A: That 's what my hope has been , +PhD D: So we should at least try it even if we can't , +Postdoc A: and that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} you know , ever since the {disfmarker} the February meeting that I transcribed from last year , forced alignment has been on the {disfmarker} on the table as a way of cleaning them up later . +PhD D: right ? +Grad E: On the table , right ? +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and so I 'm hopeful that that 's possible . I know that there 's complication in the overlap sections and with the lapel mikes , +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I mean , we might be able , at the very worst , we can get transcribers to correct the cases where {disfmarker} I mean , you sort of have a good estimate where these places are because the recognition 's so poor . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , we were never just gonna go with these as the final alignments . +PhD D: And so you 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I agree . I agree . +PhD B: We were always gonna run them past somebody . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Absolutely . +PhD D: So we need some way to push these first chunk of meetings into a state where we get good alignments . +PhD F: I 'm probably going to spend another day or so trying to improve things by , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} by using , um , acoustic adaptation . Um , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Right now I 'm using the unadapted models for the forced alignments , and it 's possible that you get considerably better results if you , uh , manage to adapt the , {vocalsound} uh , phone models to the speaker and the reject model to the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to all the other speech . Um , so +PhD B: Could you {disfmarker} could you at the same time adapt the reject model to the speech from all the other channels ? +Professor C: That 's what he just said . +Grad E: That 's what he was saying . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's what I just said . +PhD B: Oh , not just the speech from that {disfmarker} of the other people from that channel , +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: but the speech from the a actual other channels . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Oh , oh , I see . Um , +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I don't think so . I don't think that would work , +PhD F: No , it {disfmarker} +Grad E: right ? Because you 'd {disfmarker} A lot of it 's dominated by channel properties . +PhD F: th Exactly . +PhD D: But what you do wanna do is take the , even if it 's klugey , take the segments {disfmarker} the synchronous segments , the ones from the HLT paper , where only that speaker was talking . +PhD F: So you want to u +PhD D: Use those for adaptation , cuz if you {disfmarker} if you use everything , then you get all the cross - talk in the adaptation , and it 's just sort of blurred . +PhD F: That 's a good point . +PhD B: If you {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yep . +PhD D: And that we know , I mean , we have that . And it 's about roughly two - thirds , I mean , very roughly averaged . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's not completely negligible . Like a third of it is bad for adaptation or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cool . I thought it was higher than that , that 's pr +PhD D: It really {disfmarker} it depends a lot . This is just sort of an overall {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +Professor C: Well I know what we 're not turning in to Eurospeech , a redo of the HLT paper . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: That {disfmarker} I don't wanna do that , +Grad E: Yeah , I 'm doing that for AVIOS . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: Yeah . But I think we 're {disfmarker} oh , Morgan 's talk went very well , I think . +Professor C: Bleep . +Grad E: Uh , "" bleep "" . Yeah , really . +PhD D: I think Morgan 's talk went very well it woke {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD D: you know , it was really a well presented {disfmarker} and got people laughing {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD F: Some good jokes in it ? +Grad E: Especially the batteried meter popping up , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was hilarious . Right when you were talking about that . +Professor C: You know , that wa that was the battery meter saying that it was fully charged , +Grad E: It 's full . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Postdoc A: You said , "" Speaking about energy "" , or {vocalsound} something . +Grad E: But that was funny . +Postdoc A: That was very nice . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was onto the bullet points about talking about the {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} the little hand - held , and trying to get lower power and so on , +PhD F: Po - low power +Grad E: and Microsoft pops up a little window saying "" Your batteries are now fully charged . "" +Postdoc A: That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: I 'm thinking about scripting that for my talk , you know , put {disfmarker} put a little script in there to say "" Your batteries are low "" right when I 'm saying that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . No I mean , i in {disfmarker} in your case , I mean , you were joking about it , but , I mean , your case the fact that your talking about similar things at a couple of conferences , it 's not {disfmarker} these are conferences that have d really different emphases . Whereas HLT and {disfmarker} and Eurospeech , pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} pretty similar , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't see really just putting in the same thing , +Grad E: Are too close , yeah . +PhD D: No , I d I don't think that paper is really {disfmarker} +Professor C: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: the HLT paper is really more of a introduction - to - the - project paper , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for Eurospeech we want some results if we can get them . +PhD D: Well , yeah , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} probably wouldn't make sense , +Professor C: Or some {disfmarker} or some {disfmarker} I mean , I would see Eurospeech {disfmarker} if we have some Eurospeech papers , these will be paper p p uh , submissions . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: These will be things that are particular things , aspects of it that we 're looking at , rather than , you know , attempt at a global paper about it . +PhD D: Right , right . +Grad E: Detail , yeah . Overall . +Postdoc A: I did go through one of these meetings . I had , uh , one of the transcribers go through and tighten up the bins on one of the , uh , NSA meetings , and then I went through afterwards and double - checked it so that one is really very {disfmarker} very accurate . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc A: I men I mentioned the link . I sent {disfmarker} You know that one ? +PhD D: Oh , so {disfmarker} +Grad G: The {disfmarker} which one ? I 'm sorry . +Postdoc A: Um , I 'm trying to remember {disfmarker} I don't remember the number off hand . +Grad E: Those are all {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's one of the NSA 's . I sent email before the conference , before last week . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Bef - What I mean is Wednesday , Thursday . +PhD D: That might {disfmarker} might have been the one {disfmarker} one of the ones that we did . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that that one 's accurate , I 've been through it {vocalsound} myself . +PhD D: So that might actually be useful but they 're all non - native speakers . +PhD F: So we could compare before and after +Grad G: OK . +PhD F: and see {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that 's what I was gonna say . The problem with those , they 're all German . +PhD F: oh , Darn ! +Grad G: Yeah , that 's the problem with the NSA speakers . +PhD D: And e and e and extremely hard to follow , like word - wise , +Grad E: So . +PhD D: I bet the transcri I mean , I have no idea what they 're talking about , +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I corrected it for a number of the words . +PhD D: so , +Postdoc A: I 'm sure that , um , they 're {disfmarker} they 're accurate now . +PhD D: um , +PhD F: Uh , actually I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to go . +PhD D: I mean , this is tough for a language model probably {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but that might be useful just for speech . +Professor C: Well . +Grad E: OK , Andreas is leaving {disfmarker} leaving the building . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: See ya . +Professor C: See ya . I don't think we 'll go much longer . +Grad E: Um , oh , before you l go {disfmarker} I guess it 's alright for you to talk a little without the mike {disfmarker} I noticed you adjusting the mike a lot , did it not fit you well ? Oh . +Postdoc A: Well I won I noticed when you turned your head , it would {disfmarker} it would tilt . +Grad E: Maybe it wasn't just tightened enough , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe the {disfmarker} yeah , the s thing that you have tightened @ @ , +PhD B: Actually if {disfmarker} if you have a larger head , that mike 's gotta go farther away which means the {disfmarker} the balance is gonna make it wanna tip down . +PhD D: oh . +Grad E: OK . Anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . OK , see ya . +Grad E: Cuz , I 'm just thinking , you know , we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 've been talking about changing the mikes , uh , for a while , +Grad G: +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: and if these aren't {disfmarker} acoustically they seem really good , but if they 're not comfortable , we have the same problems we have with these stupid things . +Postdoc A: I think it 's com This is the first time I 've worn this , I find it very comfortable . +Grad E: I find it very comfortable too , but , uh , it looked like Andreas was having problems , and I think Morgan was saying it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , but I had it on {disfmarker} I had it on this morning and it was fine . +PhD B: Can I see that ? +Grad E: Oh , oh you did wear it this morning ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , it 's off , so you can put it on . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} yeah , I don't want it on , I just {disfmarker} I just want to , um , say what I think is a problem with this . If you are wearing this over your ears and you 've got it all the way out here , then the balance is gonna want to pull it this way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Where as if somebody with a smaller head has it back here , +Grad E: It 's more balanced . +PhD B: right ? Yeah . +Postdoc A: Oh ! +PhD B: Then it {disfmarker} then it falls back this way so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So we have to +Grad E: Well wh what it 's supposed to do is the backstrap is supposed to be under your crown , and so that should be {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Ah . +Grad E: if it 's right against your head there , which is what it 's supposed to be , that balances it so it doesn't slide up . +PhD B: So this is supposed to be under that little protuberance . +Grad E: Yep , right {disfmarker} right below {disfmarker} if you feel the back of your head , you feel a little lump , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: um , and so it 's supposed to be right under that . +PhD B: So it 's really supposed to go more like this than like this . +Grad E: Yes , exactly . +PhD B: But then isn't that going to {disfmarker} Well , I guess you can control that . +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that tilts , right ? In lots and lots of different ways . +PhD D: So I 'm not saying anything about bias towards small headsize , +Grad E: About heads ? +PhD D: but does seem , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: It would be an advantage . +Postdoc A: Well , wonder if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if he was wearing it over his hair instead of under his hair . +Professor C: Well , we should {disfmarker} We shou we should work on compressing the heads , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think probably it was {disfmarker} Yeah . It probably just wasn't tight enough to the back of his head . I mean , so the directions do talk about bending it to your size , which is not really what we want . +PhD B: The other thing that would do it would be to hang a five pound weight off the back . +Professor C: Yeah +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: that 's good ! +Postdoc A: What did you say ? +PhD D: A little , +Grad E: wh +Professor C: Hang a five pound weight off the {disfmarker} off the back . +PhD B: Hang a five pound weight off the back . +PhD D: um , +Grad E: We did that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Weight . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} at Boeing I used {disfmarker} I was doing augmented reality so they had head - mounts on , and we {disfmarker} we had a little jury - rigged one with a welder 's helmet , +PhD B: Counter - balance . +Grad E: and we had just a bag with a bunch of marbles in it {vocalsound} as a counter - balance . +Professor C: Or maybe this could be helpful just for evening the conversation between people . If people {disfmarker} those who talk a lot have to wear heavier weights or something , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah ! +Professor C: and {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: um , so , uh , what was I gonna say ? Oh , yeah , I was gonna say , uh , I had these , uh , conversations with NIST folks also while I was there and {disfmarker} and , uh , um , so they {disfmarker} they have their {disfmarker} their plan for a room , uh , with , um , mikes in the middle of the table , and , uh , close - mounted mikes , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and they 're talking about close - mounted and lapels , just cuz +PhD D: And arrays , +Professor C: sort of {disfmarker} and the array . +Grad E: And arrays , +Professor C: Yeah , so they were {disfmarker} +PhD D: which is the i interesting {disfmarker} +Grad E: yep . And cameras . +Professor C: And yeah , like multiple {disfmarker} multiple video cameras coverin covering every {disfmarker} everybody {disfmarker} every place in the room , +PhD D: and video , right . +Professor C: uh , the {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mikes in the middle , the head - mounted mikes , the lapel mikes , the array , uh , with {disfmarker} well , there 's some discussion of fifty - nine , +Grad E: Fifty - nine elements . +Professor C: they might go down to fifty - seven Because , uh , there is , uh , some pressure from a couple people at the meeting for them to use a KEMAR head . I forget what KEMAR , uh , stands for , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but what it is is it 's dummy head that is very specially designed , +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , so what they 're actually doing is they 're really {disfmarker} there 's really two recording systems . +PhD D: Right . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: That 's a great idea . +Professor C: So they may not be precisely synchronous , but the but there 's two {disfmarker} two recording systems , one with , I think , twenty - four channels , and one with sixty - four channels . And the sixty - four channel one is for the array , but they 've got some empty channels there , and anyway they {disfmarker} like they 're saying they may give up a couple or something if {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the KEMAR head if they go {disfmarker} go with that . +Grad E: Right . Yeah , it is a good idea . +Professor C: So . +Grad E: Yeah , h uh , J Jonathan Fiscus did say that , uh , they have lots of software for doing calibration for skew and offset between channels +PhD D: Mm - hmm +Grad E: and that they 've found that 's just not a big deal . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , I 'm not {pause} too worried about that . I was thinking {disfmarker} +PhD D: But they 're still planning to do like fake {disfmarker} +Grad E: Scenario - based . +PhD D: they have to do something like that , +Grad E: Y right . +PhD D: right . +Grad E: Their {disfmarker} their legal issues won't allow them to do otherwise . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But it sounded like they were {pause} pretty well thought out +PhD D: Yeah , th that 's true . +Grad E: and they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna be real meetings , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: it 's just that they 're with str with people who would not be meeting otherwise . +PhD B: Did {disfmarker} did they give a talk on this or was this informal ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So . +PhD D: No . +Grad E: No . +Professor C: No , we just had some discussions , various discussions with them . +Grad E: It 's just informal . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , I also sat and chatted with several of the NIST folks . They seemed like a good group . +PhD B: What was the , um {disfmarker} the paper by , um , Lori Lamel that you mentioned ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , we sh we should just have you {disfmarker} have you read it , but , I mea ba i i uh , we 've all got these little proceedings , +Postdoc A: Mmm , yeah . +Professor C: but , um , basically , it was about , um , uh , going to a new task where you have insufficient data and using {disfmarker} using data from something else , and adapting , and how well that works . Uh , so in {disfmarker} in fact it was pretty related to what Liz and Andreas did , uh , except that this was not with meeting stuff , it was with +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: uh , like I think they s didn't they start off with Broadcast News system ? And then they went to {disfmarker} +Grad E: The - their Broadcast News was their acoustic models and then all the other tasks were much simpler . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So they were command and control and that sort of thing . +Professor C: TI - digits was one of them , and , uh , Wall Street Journal . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD B: What was their rough {disfmarker} what was their conclusion ? +Grad E: Yeah , read Wall Street Journal . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good paper , I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , that was one of the ones that I liked . +PhD D: Bring the {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} It not only works , in some cases it was better , which I thought was pretty interesting , but that 's cuz they didn't control for parameters . So . +Professor C: Probably . +Grad E: You know , the Broadcast News nets were {disfmarker} not nets , +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Did they ever try going {disfmarker} going the other direction from simpler task to more complicated tasks , +Grad E: acoustic models {comment} were a lot more complex . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: n Not in that paper . +Professor C: That might be hard . +Grad E: Yeah , well , one of the big problems with that is {disfmarker} is often the simpler task isn't fully {disfmarker} doesn't have all the phones in it , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: and that {disfmarker} that makes it very hard . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: But I 've done the same thing . I 've been using Broadcast News nets for digits , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: like for the spr speech proxy thing that I did ? That 's what I did . +Professor C: Yeah , sure . +Grad E: So . It works . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , and they have {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} they have better adaptation than we had than that {disfmarker} that system , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: so they {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You mean they have some . +Professor C: yeah , we should probably what would {disfmarker} actually what we should do , uh , I haven't said anything about this , but probably the five of us should pick out a paper or two that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , got our interest , and we should go around the room at one of the Tuesday lunch meetings and say , you know , what {disfmarker} what was good about the conference , +Grad E: Present . Yep . Do a trip report . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Well , the summarization stuff was interesting , I mean , I don't know anything about that field , but for this proposal on meeting summarization , um , I mean , it 's sort of a far cry because they weren't working with meeting type data , but he got sort of an overview on some of the different approaches , +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: Do you remember who the groups were that we 're doing ? +PhD D: so . Well there 're {disfmarker} this was the last day , +Grad E: A lot of different ones . +Postdoc A: R I think {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but , I mean , there 's {disfmarker} that 's a huge field and probably the groups there may not be representative of the field , I {disfmarker} I don't know exactly that everyone submits to this particular conference , +PhD B: Was {disfmarker} were there folks from BBN presenting ? +PhD D: but yet there was , let 's see , this was on the last day , Mitre , BBN , and , um , Prager {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mitre , BBN , IBM . Uh , +Postdoc A: Maryland . +PhD D: um , I wo it was {disfmarker} +Professor C: Columbia have anything ? No . +PhD D: no it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wasn't {disfmarker} Who {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who did the order one ? +PhD D: this was Wednesday morning . The sentence ordering one , was that Barselou , and these guys ? +Grad E: Ugh ! {comment} I 'm just so bad at that . +Postdoc A: Oh . +PhD D: Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's in the program , I should have read it to remind myself , but that 's sort of useful and I think like when Mari and Katrin and Jeff are here it 'd be good to figure out some kinds of things that we can start doing maybe just on the transcripts cuz we already have {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah , we do have word transcripts . +PhD D: you know , yeah . +Grad E: So . +Postdoc A: Well , I like the idea that Adam had of {disfmarker} of , um , z maybe generating minutes based on some of these things that we have because it would be easy to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do that just , you know , and {disfmarker} and +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc A: it has to be , though , someone from this group because of the technical nature of the thing . +Grad E: Someone who actually does take notes , um , {vocalsound} I 'm very bad at note - taking . +PhD D: But I think what 's interesting is there 's all these different evaluations , like {disfmarker} just , you know , how do you evaluate whether the summary is good or not , +Grad E: I always write down the wrong things . +Postdoc A: I do take notes . +PhD D: and that 's what 's {disfmarker} was sort of interesting to me is that there 's different ways to do it , +Grad E: A judge . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Was SRA one of the groups talking about summarization , no ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: Hm - umm . No . +Postdoc A: It was an interesting session . One of those w +Grad E: And as I said , I like the Microsoft talk on {pause} scaling issues in , uh , word sense disambiguation , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: that was interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , that was an interesting discussion , +Grad E: The {disfmarker} +Professor C: uh , I +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was the only one {disfmarker} It was the only one that had any sort of real disagreement about . +PhD D: The data issue comes up all the ti +Professor C: Well , I didn't have as much disagreement as I would have liked , +Grad E: So . +Professor C: but I didn't wanna {disfmarker} I wouldn I didn't wanna get into it because , uh , you know , it was the application was one I didn't know anything about , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: uh , it just would have been , you know , me getting up to be argumentative , but {disfmarker} but , uh , I mean , the missing thi so {disfmarker} so what they were saying {disfmarker} it 's one of these things {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} you know , all you need is more data , sort of {disfmarker} But I mea i wh it {disfmarker} @ @ that 's {disfmarker} that 's dissing it , uh , improperly , I mean , it was a nice study . Uh , they were doing this {disfmarker} it wasn't word - sense disambiguation , it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , it sort of was . +Professor C: was it w was it word - sense ? Yes . +Grad E: But it was {disfmarker} it was a very simple case of "" to "" versus "" too "" versus "" two "" and "" there "" , "" their "" , "" they 're "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: And there and their and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . OK . +PhD D: and that you could do better with more data , I mean , that 's clearly statistically {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And so , what they did was they had these different kinds of learning machines , and they had different amounts of data , and so they did like , you know , eight different methods that everybody , you know , uh , argues about {disfmarker} about , "" Oh my {disfmarker} my kind of learning machine is better than your kind of learning machine . "" And , uh , they were {disfmarker} started off with a million words that they used , which was evidently a number that a lot of people doing that particular kind of task had been using . So they went up , being Microsoft , they went up to a billion . And then they had this log scale showing a {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and naturally everything gets {disfmarker} +Grad E: Them being beep , {comment} they went off to a billion . +Professor C: they {disfmarker} well , it 's a big company , I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't mean it as a ne anything negative , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but i i i +PhD D: You mean the bigger the company the more words they use for training ? +Grad E: Well , I think the reason they can do that , is that they assumed that text that they get off the web , like from Wall Street Journal , is correct , and edit it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So that 's what they used as training data . It 's just saying if it 's in this corpus it 's correct . +Professor C: OK . But , I mean , yes . Of course there was the kind of effect that , you know , one would expect that {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} that you got better and better performance with more and more data . Um , but the {disfmarker} the real point was that the {disfmarker} the different learning machines are sort of all over the place , and {disfmarker} and by {disfmarker} by going up significantly in data you can have much bigger effect then by switching learning machines and furthermore which learning machine was on top kind of depended on where you were in this picture , so , +PhD B: This was my concern about the recognizer in Aurora . +Professor C: uh , That {disfmarker} +PhD B: That the differences we 're seeing in the front - end is b +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Are irrelevant . +PhD B: are irrelevant once you get a real recognizer at the back - end . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: If you add more data ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: You know ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Professor C: Yeah , could well be . So {disfmarker} so , I mean , that was {disfmarker} that was kind of , you know , it 's a good point , but the problem I had with it was that the implications out of this was that , uh , the kind of choices you make about learning machines were therefore irrelevant which is not at {disfmarker} n t as for as I know in {disfmarker} in tasks I 'm more familiar with @ @ is not at all true . What i what is {disfmarker} is true is that different learning machines have different properties , and you wanna know what those properties are . And someone else sort of implied that well we s you know , a all the study of learning machine we still don't know what those properties are . We don't know them perfectly , but we know that some kinds use more memory and {disfmarker} and some other kinds use more computation and some are {disfmarker} are hav have limited kind of discrimination , but are just easy to use , and others are {disfmarker} +PhD B: But doesn't their conclusion just sort of {disfmarker} you could have guessed that before they even started ? Because if you assume that these learning things get better and better and better , +Professor C: You would guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: then as you approach {disfmarker} there 's a point where you can't get any better , right ? You get everything right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just no {disfmarker} +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: So they 're all approaching . +Grad E: No , but there was still a spread . They weren't all up They weren't converging . +PhD B: But what I 'm saying is that th they have to , as they all get better , they have to get closer together . +Professor C: It w +Grad E: They were all still spread . But they {disfmarker} Right , right . Sure . But they hadn't even come close to that point . All the tasks were still improving when they hit a billion . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: But they 're all going the same way , right ? So you have to get closer . +Professor C: Eventually . O one would +Grad E: But they didn't get closer . +PhD B: Oh they didn't ? +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: They just switched position . +Professor C: well that 's getting cl I mean , yeah , the spread was still pretty wide that 's th that 's true , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but , uh , I think it would be irntu intu intuition that this would be the case , but , uh , to really see it and to have the intuition is quite different , I mean , I think somebody w w let 's see who was talking about earlier that the effect of having a lot more data is quite different in Switchboard than it is in {disfmarker} in Broadcast News , +PhD D: Well it 's different for different tasks . +Grad E: Yeah . It was Liz . Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: So it depends a lot on whether , you know , it {disfmarker} disambiguation is exactly the case where more data is better , right ? You 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you can assume similar distributions , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: but if you wanted to do disambiguation on a different type of , uh , test data then your training data , then that extra data wouldn't generalize , +Grad E: Right . +PhD D: so . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , I think one of their p They {disfmarker} they had a couple points . w {comment} Uh , I think one of them was that "" Well , maybe simpler algorithms and more data are {disfmarker} is better "" . Less memory , faster operation , simpler . Right ? Because their simplest , most brain - dead algorithm did pretty darn well +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: when you got {disfmarker} gave it a lot more data . And then also they were saying , "" Well , m You have access to a lot more data . Why are you sticking with a million words ? "" I mean , their point was that this million - word corpus that everyone uses is apparently ten or fifteen years old . And everyone is still using it , so . +Professor C: Yeah . But anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the {disfmarker} the i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really the conclusion they came to so much , as the conclusion that some of the , uh , uh , commenters in the crowd {vocalsound} came up with +Grad E: But we could talk about this stuff , I think this would be fun to do . Right . +Professor C: that , uh , you know , this therefore is further evidence that , you know , more data is really all you should care about , and that I thought was just kind of going too far the other way , +Grad E: Machine - learning . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the , uh , one {disfmarker} one person ga g g got up and made a {disfmarker} a brief defense , uh , but it was a different kind of grounds , it was that {disfmarker} that , uh , i w the reason people were not using so much data before was not because they were stupid or didn't realize data was important , but in fact th they didn't have it available . Um , but the other point to make a again is that , uh , machine learning still does matter , but it {disfmarker} it matters more in some situations than in others , and it {disfmarker} and also there 's {disfmarker} there 's not just mattering or not mattering , but there 's mattering in different ways . I mean , you might be in some situation where you care how much memory you 're using , or you care , you know , what recall time is , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: or you care , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Or you only have a million words {pause} for your {disfmarker} some new task . +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or done another language , or {disfmarker} I mean , you {disfmarker} so there 's papers on portability and rapid prototyping and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: and then there 's people saying , "" Oh , just add more data . "" +Professor C: And there 's cost ! +PhD D: So , these are like two different religions , basically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Cost . +Professor C: There 's just plain cost , +Grad E: Yeah . That 's a big one . +Professor C: you know , so {disfmarker} so these , I mean th the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the speech side , the thing that @ @ always occurs to me is that if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} one person has a system that requires ten thousand hours to train on , and the other only requires a hundred , and they both do about the same because the hundred hour one was smarter , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be better . because people , I mean , there isn't gonna be just one system that people train on +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: and then that 's it for the r for all of time . I mean , people are gonna be doing other different things , and so it {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these things matters {disfmarker} matter . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's it . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's one of the slides they put up . +Postdoc A: So , I mean , this was a very provocative slide . She put this up , and it was like this is {disfmarker} this p people kept saying , "" Can I see that slide again ? "" +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , +Postdoc A: and then they 'd make a comment , and one person said , well - known person said , um , you know , "" Before you dismiss forty - five years including my work {disfmarker} "" +PhD D: yeah . +Grad E: Forty - five years of research . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD D: But th you know , the same thing has happened in computational linguistics , right ? You look at the ACL papers coming out , and now there 's sort of a turn back towards , OK we 've learned statistic {disfmarker} you know , we 're basically getting what we expect out of some statistical methods , and , you know , the there 's arguments on both sides , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think the matters is the thing that {disfmarker} that was misleading . +Postdoc A: That was very offending , very offending . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Is that {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of them are based on all the others , right ? Just , you {disfmarker} you can't say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe they should have said "" focus "" or something . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , so . {disfmarker} And I 'm saying the same thing happened with speech recognition , right ? For a long time people were hand - c coding linguistic rules and then they discovered machine - learning worked better . And now they 're throwing more and more data and worrying {disfmarker} perhaps worrying less and less about , uh , the exact details of the algorithms . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and then you hit this {disfmarker} +Grad E: Except when they have a Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . +Professor C: Anyway , tea is {disfmarker} tea is , uh , starting . +Grad E: Shall we read some digits ? Are we gonna do one at a time ? Or should we read them all agai at once again . +Professor C: Let 's do it all at once . +Postdoc A: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} @ @ {disfmarker} let 's try that again . +PhD D: Yes ! So , and maybe we won't laugh this time also . +Grad E: OK . So remember to read the transcript number so that , uh , everyone knows that {disfmarker} what it is . And ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad E: Three , two , one . +Professor C: Boy , is that ever efficient . +Grad E: Yep . That 's really fast . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +","Summary: + +A group, including a postdoc, a professor, and graduate students, are engaged in a technical discussion about issues related to recording and analyzing speech for their project. They discuss a variety of topics including software crashes, file handling, meeting recordings, audio equipment, and some events from a recent conference they attended, including presentations on machine learning and data quantity. Towards the end, they joke about simultaneously reading digits to make meetings more efficient, playfully mimicking the speech recording process for their project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: Sorry . Mental {disfmarker} mental Palm Pilot . Right . Hence {pause} no problem . +Grad F: Let 's see . So . What ? I 'm supposed to be on channel five ? Her . Nope . Doesn't seem to be , +Grad B: Hello {pause} I 'm channel one . +Grad F: yeah . +Grad D: +Grad E: What does your thing say on the back ? +Grad D: Testing . +Grad F: Nnn , five . Alright , I 'm five . +Grad D: Sibilance . Sibilance . {comment} {pause} Three , three . I am three . +Grad B: Eh . +Grad D: See , that matches the seat up there . So . +Grad F: Yeah , well , I g guess {pause} it 's coming up then , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} That starts counting from zero and these start counting from one . Ergo , the classic off - by - one error . +Grad B: But mine is correct . +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad E: No . +Grad B: It 's one . Channel one . +Grad D: Your mike {pause} number {pause} is what we 're t +Grad E: Look at the back . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh ! Oh . +Grad D: Ho ! +Grad B: So {disfmarker} +Grad D: I 've bested you again , Nancy . +Grad B: But your p No , but the paper 's correct . +Grad D: The paper is correct . +Grad B: Look at the paper . +Grad D: I didn't det I was saying the microphone , not the paper . +Professor C: Nnn , +Grad B: Oh . +Professor C: it 's n +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It 's always offset . Yeah . +Grad B: Yes , you 've bested me again . That 's how I think of our continuing interaction . Damn ! Foiled again ! +Grad D: So is Keith showing up ? He 's talking with George right now . Uh , is he gonna get a rip {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} rip himself away from {disfmarker} from that ? +Grad B: He 'll probably come later . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} He - he he 's probably not , is my guess . +Grad D: Oh , then it 's just gonna be the five of us ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , he {disfmarker} he was very affirmative in his way of saying he will be here at four . But {pause} you know , that was before he knew about that George lecture probably . +Professor C: Right . This {disfmarker} this is not {disfmarker} It 's not bad for the project if Keith is talking to George . OK . So my suggestion is we just +Grad B: Forge ahead . +Professor C: Forge ahead , yeah . +Grad E: Cool . +Grad B: Are you in charge ? +Grad E: Sure . Um . Well , I sort of had informal talks with most of you . So , Eva just reported she 's really happy about the {pause} CBT 's being in the same order in the XML as in the um {disfmarker} be Java declaration format +Grad F: Yeah . The e +Grad E: so you don't have to do too much in the style sheet transversion . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , so . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} uh , Java {disfmarker} the embedded Bayes {pause} wants to take input {disfmarker} uh , uh , a Bayes - net {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some Java notation and Eva is using the Xalan style sheet processor to convert the XML that 's output by the Java Bayes for the {disfmarker} into the , uh , E Bayes input . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad F: Actually , maybe I could try , like , emailing the guy and see if he has any something already . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad F: That 'd be weird , that he has both the Java Bayes and the embedded Bayes in {disfmarker} +Grad D: But that 's some sort of conversion program ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . And put them into different {pause} formats . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think you should demand things from him . +Grad F: Yep , he could do that , too . +Professor C: He charges so much . Right . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor C: No , I think it 's a good idea that you may as well ask . Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: And , um , well {pause} pretty mu pretty much on t on the top of my list , I would have asked Keith how the "" where is X ? "" {pause} hand parse is standing . Um . {pause} But we 'll skip that . Uh , there 's good news from Johno . The generation templates are done . +Grad D: So the trees {pause} for {disfmarker} the XML trees for the {disfmarker} for the gene for the synthesizer are written . So I just need to {pause} do the , uh {disfmarker} write a new set of {pause} tree combining rules . But I think those 'll be pretty similar to the old ones . So . Just gonna be {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh ! You were gonna send me a note about hiring {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yes . +Professor C: I didn't finish the sentence but he understood it . +Grad D: I know what he 's talking about . +Professor C: OK . But Nancy doesn't . +Grad B: Hiring somebody . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} w um {disfmarker} +Grad D: The guy . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} natural language generation {pause} produces not a {disfmarker} just a surface string that is fed into a text - to - speech but , a {pause} surface string with a syntax tree that 's fed into a concept - to - speech . +Professor C: No . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Better . +Grad E: Now and this concept - to - speech module has {pause} certain rules on how {pause} if you get the following syntactic structure , how to map this onto prosodic rules . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And Fey has foolheartedly agreed to rewrite uh , the German concept uh syntax - to - prosody rules {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't know she spoke German . +Grad E: No , she doesn't . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: But she speaks English . +Grad B: Oh . Rewrite the German ones into English . OK , got it . +Grad E: Into English . And um therefore {pause} the , uh {disfmarker} if it 's OK that we give her a couple of more hours per week , then {pause} she 'll do that . +Grad B: OK , got it . +Grad D: What {pause} language is that {pause} written i Is that that Scheme thing that you showed me ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's the LISP - type scheme . +Grad D: She knows how to program in Scheme ? I hope ? +Grad E: No , I {disfmarker} My guess is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I asked for a commented version of that file ? If we get that , then it 's {pause} doable , even without getting into it , even though the Scheme li uh , stuff is really well documented in the {pause} Festival . +Grad D: Well , I guess if you 're not used to functional programming , Scheme can be completely incomprehensible . Cuz , there 's no {disfmarker} Like {pause} there 's lots of unnamed functions +Professor C: Syntax . Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You know ? +Professor C: Anyway , it {disfmarker} We 'll sort this out . Um . But anyway , send me the note and then I 'll - I 'll check with , uh , Morgan on the money . I {disfmarker} I don't anticipate any problem but we have to {pause} ask . Oh , so this was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} You know , on the generation thing , um if {comment} sh y she 's really going to do that , then we should be able to get prosody as well . So it 'll say it 's nonsense with perfect intonation . +Grad D: Are we gonna {disfmarker} Can we change the voice of the {disfmarker} of the thing , because right now the voice sounds like a murderer . +Grad E: Yep . We ha we have to change the voice . +Grad B: Wh - Which one ? +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the little Smarticus {disfmarker} Smarticus sounds like a murderer . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad A: That 's good to know . +Grad D: "" I have your reservations . "" +Grad A: But I will not give them to you unless you come into my lair . +Grad E: It is {disfmarker} Uh , we have the choice between the , uh , usual Festival voices , which I already told the SmartKom people we aren't gonna use because they 're really bad . +Grad B: Festival ? +Professor C: It 's the name of some program , +Grad B: Oh , oh . Got it . OK . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} the synthesizer . +Grad A: You know , the usual party voices . +Grad E: But , um +Grad B: Yeah , I know . That doesn't sound , {vocalsound} exactly right either . +Grad E: OGI has , uh , crafted a couple of diphone type voices that are really nice and we 're going to use {pause} that . We can still , um , d agree on a gender , if we want . So we still have male or female . +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} Well , let 's just pick whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad B: Whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Uh . +Grad B: Unfortunately , probably male voices , a bit more research on . +Grad D: Does OGI stand for {disfmarker} ? {comment} Original German Institute ? +Professor C: Orego +Grad B: So . +Professor C: Or +Grad E: Oregon . +Grad B: Oregon Graduate Insti +Professor C: Oregon @ @ {comment} Graduate Institute +Grad D: Oh . +Grad E: Try Oregon . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor C: It turns out there 's the long - standing links with these guys in the speech group . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Professor C: Very long . +Grad D: Hmm ! +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: In fact , there 's this guy who 's basically got a joint appointment , Hynek {pause} Hermansky . He 's - spends a fair amount of time here . Anyway . Leave it . Won't be a problem . +Grad E: OK . And it 's probably also absolutely uninteresting for all of you to , um learn that as of twenty minutes ago , David and I , per accident , uh managed to get the whole SmartKom system running on the {disfmarker} uh , ICSI Linux machines with the ICSI NT machines thereby increasing the number of running SmartKom systems in this house from {pause} one on my laptop to three . +Grad B: Mmm , that 's good . +Grad D: How was this by accident ? +Grad B: Yeah , I know . Tha - that 's the part I didn't understand . +Grad E: Um , I suggested to try something that was really kind of {disfmarker} even though against better knowledge shouldn't have worked , but it worked . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Grad E: Intuition . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Will it work again , +Grad E: Maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe a bit for the AI i intuition thing . +Grad B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . And , um , we 'll never found out why . It - it 's just like why {disfmarker} why the generation ma the presentation manager is now working ? +Grad A: Hmm ! This is something you ha you get used to as a programmer , right ? +Grad E: Which +Grad A: You know , {comment} and it 's cool , it works out that way . +Grad E: Hmm . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the people at Saarbruecken and I decided not to touch it ever again . Yeah , that would work . OK . Um {disfmarker} I was gonna ask you where something is and what we know about that . +Grad A: Where {disfmarker} OK . +Grad B: Where the "" where is "" construction is . +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what thing is this ? +Grad E: Where is X ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Oh , but by {disfmarker} Uh , we can ask , uh , did you get to read all four hundred words ? +Professor C: I did . +Grad E: Was it OK ? Was it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I wa I was looking at it . It doesn't follow logically . It doesn't {disfmarker} The first paragraph doesn't seem to have any link to the second paragraph . +Grad A: And so on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . That {disfmarker} +Professor C: You know , i Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Grad D: Each paragraph is good , though . I li +Professor C: I i Yeah . Well , it it 's fine . +Grad A: It was written by committee . +Professor C: Anyway . Um . But c the meeting looks like it 's , it 's gonna be good . So . I think it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I didn't know about it until {pause} Robert told me , like , +Professor C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I ra I ran across it in {disfmarker} I don't even know where , you know {disfmarker} some just {disfmarker} some weird place . And , uh , yeah , I I 'm surprised I didn't know about it +Grad B: Y yeah . Well , yeah . I was like , why didn't Dan tell me ? +Professor C: since we know all the invited speakers , an +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Right , or some Anyway . So {disfmarker} But anyway , yeah . I so I {disfmarker} I did see that . Oh wha Yeah . Before we get started on this st so I also had a nice email correspondence with Daphne Kohler , who said yes indeed she would love to work with us on the , um , {disfmarker} you know , using these structured belief - nets and stuff but {pause} starting in August , that she 's also got a new student working on this and that we should get in touch with them again in August and then we 'll figure out a way for you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} you to get seriously connected with , um their group . So that 's , uh {disfmarker} looks pretty good . And um {disfmarker} Yeah , I 'll say it now . So , um {disfmarker} And it looks to me like {comment} we 're now at a good point to do something {disfmarker} start working on something really hard . We 've been so far working on things that are easy . +Grad A: Oh ! +Professor C: Uh , w Which is {comment} mental spaces and uh {disfmarker} and - or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: It 's hard . Yeah , it 's hard . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It 's a hard puzzle . But the other part of it is the way they connect to these , uh , probabilistic relational models . So {pause} there 's all the problems that the linguists know about , about mental spaces , and the cognitive linguists know about , but then there 's this problem of the belief - net people have only done a moderately good job of dealing with temporal belief - nets . Uh , which they call dynamic {disfmarker} they incorrectly call dynamic belief - nets . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: So there 's a term "" dynamic belief - net "" , doesn't mean that . It means time slices . And Srini used those and people use them . Uh . But one of the things I w would like to do over the next , uh , month , it may take more , {comment} is to st understand to what extent we can not only figure out the constructions for them for multiple worlds and uh sort of what the formalism will look like and where the slots and fillers will be , but also what that would translate into in terms of belief - net and the inferences . So the story is that if you have these probabilistic relational models , they 're set up , in principle , so that you can make new instances and instances connect to each other , and all that sort of stuff , so it should be feasible to set them up in such a way that if you 've got the past tense and the present tense and each of those is a separate {pause} uh , belief structure that they do their inferences with just the couplings that are appropriate . But that 's g that 's , as far as I can tell , it 's {disfmarker} it 's putting together two real hard problems . One is the linguistic part of what are the couplings and {disfmarker} and when you have a certain , uh , construction , that implies certain couplings and other couplings , you know , between let 's say between the past and the present , or any other one of these things and then we have this inference problem of exactly technically how does the belief - net work if it 's got um , let 's say one in {disfmarker} in , you know , different tenses or my beliefs and your beliefs , or any of these other ones of {disfmarker} of multiple models . So um you know , in the long run we need to solve both of those and my suggestion is that we start digging into them both , uh , in a way we that , you know , th hopefully turns out to be consistent , so that the {disfmarker} Um . And sometimes it 's actually easier to solve two hard problems than one +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: because they constrain each other . I mean if you 've got huge ra huge range of possible choices um {disfmarker} We 'll see . But anyway , so that 's , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh yeah , like uh , I solved the {disfmarker} the problem of um {disfmarker} we were talking about how do you {disfmarker} various issues of how come a plural noun gets to quote "" count as a noun phrase "" , you know , occur as an argument of a higher construction , but a bare singular stem doesn't get to act that way . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , and it would take a really long time to explain it now , but I 'm about to write it up this evening . I solved that at the same time as "" how do we keep adjectives from floating to the left of determiners and how do we keep all of that from floating outside the noun phrase "" to get something like "" I the kicked dog "" . Um . Did it {disfmarker} did it at once . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad A: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 'll be a similar thing . +Grad B: Cool . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I know , I th I I think that is gonna be sort of the key to this wh to th the big project of the summer of {disfmarker} of getting the constructions right is that people do manage to do this so there probably are some , uh , relatively clean rules , they 're just not context - free trees . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: And if we {disfmarker} if the formalism is {disfmarker} is good , then we should be able to have , you know , sort of moderate scale thing . And that by the way is {disfmarker} is , Keith , what I encouraged George to be talking with you about . Not the formalism yet +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but the phenomena . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: The p And {disfmarker} Oh , another thing , um there was this , uh thing that Nancy agreed to in a {disfmarker} in a weak moment this morning that +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: I was really strong . +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , sorry . In a {disfmarker} in a friendly moment . +Grad A: Same thing . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , that we were {disfmarker} that we 're gonna try to get a uh , first cut at the revised formalism by the end of next week . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK ? Probably skipping the mental spaces part . +Grad B: Seems {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . I do . +Professor C: Uh , just trying to write up essentially what {disfmarker} what you guys have worked out so that everybody has something to look at . We 've talked about it , but only the innermost inner group currently , uh , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Knows . +Professor C: knows , uh +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and not even all of them really do . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} The group as a whole knows but no individual member kno +Professor C: Well that that {disfmarker} yeah th there 's one of the advantages of a document , right ? , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is that it actually transfers from head to head . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So anyway . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ah , communication ! +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: Communication . +Grad A: Hunh ! +Professor C: Communication , documentation and stuff . Anyway , so , uh , with a little luck {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} l let 's , let 's have that as a goal anyway . +Grad A: So , uh , what was the date there ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Monday or {disfmarker} ? It 's a Friday . +Professor C: No , no , no . No , w uh {disfmarker} we 're talking about a week fr e end of next week . +Grad A: End of next week . +Grad B: But , uh , but {disfmarker} but the two of us will probably talk to you at well before th +Grad A: I thought you said beginning of n Yeah . +Grad B: I mean . Anyway , w let 's talk separately about how t +Grad A: Yeah , I have a busy weekend but after that {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Yeah , gung - ho . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so someti sometime next week . +Grad A: Great , +Professor C: Now if it turns out that that effort leads us into some big hole that 's fine . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: You know , if you say we 're {disfmarker} we 're dump {disfmarker} dump {disfmarker} dump . There 's a really hard problem we haven't solved yet {disfmarker} that , that 's just fine . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But at {disfmarker} at least sort of try and work out what the state of the art is right now . +Professor C: Right , t t if {disfmarker} to the extent that we have it , let 's write it +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: and to the extent we don't , let 's find out what we need to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So , uh +Grad E: Can we {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Is it worth {pause} thinking of an example out of our tourism thing domain , that involves a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a decent mental {pause} space shift {pause} or setting up {disfmarker} +Professor C: I think it is , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but I interrupted before Keith got to tell us what happened with "" where is the Powder - Tower ? "" or whatever +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Well . Uh , what was supposed to happen ? I 've sort of been actually caught up in some other ones , so , um , you know , I don't have a write - up of {disfmarker} or I haven't elaborated on the ideas that we were already talking about which were {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm , yeah . I think {disfmarker} I think we already came to the conclusion that we have two alternative {pause} paths that we {disfmarker} two alternative ways of representing it . One is sort of a {disfmarker} has a um +Grad A: It 's gone . +Grad E: um +Grad A: The question of whether the polysemy is sort of like in the construction or pragmatic . +Grad B: One of them was th Right . +Grad E: or comes {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: is resolved later . Yeah . +Grad A: I think it has to be the {disfmarker} the second case . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um , so d ' you {disfmarker} Is it clear what we 're talking about here ? +Grad B: I agree . +Grad A: The question is whether the construction is semantic or like ambiguous between asking for location and asking for path . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: So you might be {disfmarker} yeah , y And asking for directions . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um or {disfmarker} or whether the construction semantically , uh , is clearly only asking for location +Grad E: Should we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: but pragmatically that 's construed as meaning "" tell me how to get there "" . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad E: So {pause} assume these are two , uh , nodes we can observe in the Bayes - net . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So these are either true or false and it 's also just true {pause} or false . If we encounter a phrase such as "" where is X ? "" , should that set this to true and this to true , and the Bayes - net figures out which under the c situation in general is more likely ? Um , or should it just activate this , have this be false , and the Bayes - net figures out whether this actually now means {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh w that 's a s +Grad B: Slightly different . +Professor C: OK , so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a separate issue . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So I a I I th I agree with you that , um , it 's a disaster to try to make separate constructions for every uh , pragmatic reading , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although there are some that will need to be there . +Grad B: Good . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: I mean , there there 's some that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or have every construction list all the possible pragmatic implications of the same one . +Professor C: You can't do that either . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But , you know , c um {disfmarker} almost certainly "" can you pass the salt "" is a construction worth noting that there is this th this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Request . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Very yeah . +Grad A: So right , this one is maybe in the gray area . Is it {disfmarker} is it like that or is it just sort of obvious from world knowledge that no one {disfmarker} you wouldn't want to know the location without wanting to know how to get there or whatever . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: Ri Yeah . +Grad E: One Or in some cases , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite definitely +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: s so that you just know {disfmarker} wanna know where it is . +Grad A: Yeah . Well the question is basically , is this conventional or conversational implicature ? +Professor C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad B: Might be , yeah . +Professor C: And I guess , see , the more important thing at this stage is that we should be able to know how we would handle it in ei f in the short run it 's more important to know how we would treat {disfmarker} technically what we would do if we decided A and what we would do if we decided B , than it is t to decide A or B r right now . +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad B: Right . Right . +Grad A: Which of that is . {comment} Yeah , OK +Grad B: Which one it is . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Cuz there will be other k examples that are one way or the other . Right . +Professor C: W we know for sure that we have to be able to do both . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I guess {vocalsound} In the short run , let 's {disfmarker} let 's be real clear on h what the two alternatives would be . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: And then the {vocalsound} we had another idea floating around um , which we wanted to , uh , get your input on , and that concerns the {disfmarker} But the nice thing is w we would have a person that would like to work on it , and that 's Ir - Irina Gurevich from EML {pause} who is going to be visiting us , uh , the week before , uh , August and a little bit into August . And she would like to {vocalsound} apply the {pause} ontology that is , um {vocalsound} being crafted at EML . That 's not the one I sent you . The one I sent you was from GMD , out of a European CRUMPET . +Professor C: It was terrible . +Grad E: Agreed . Um , and one of the reas one of the {disfmarker} those ideas was , so , back to the old Johno observation that if y if you have a dialogue history {pause} and it said the word "" admission fee "" was uh , mentioned um , it 's more likely that the person actually wants to enter {pause} than just take a picture of it from the outside . Now what could imagine {disfmarker} to , you know , have a list for each construction of things that one should look up in the discourse history , yeah ? That 's the really stupid way . Then there is the {pause} really clever way that was suggested by Keith and then there is the , uh , middle way that I 'm suggesting and that is you {disfmarker} you get X , which is whatever , the castle . The ontology will tell us that castles have opening hours , that they have admission fees , they have whatever . And then , this is {disfmarker} We go via a thesaurus and look up {pause} certain linguistic surface structures {pause} that are related to these concepts and feed those through the dialogue history and check dynamically for each e entity . We look it up check whether any of these were mentioned and then activate the corresponding nodes on the discourse side . But Keith suggested that a {disfmarker} a much cleaner way would be {disfmarker} is , you know , to keep track of the discourse in such a way that you {disfmarker} if you know that something like that ha has been mentioned before , this just a continues to add up , you know , in th in a {disfmarker} +Grad A: So if someone mentions admission f fees , that activates an Enter schema which sticks around for a little while in your rep in the representation of what 's being talked about . And then when someone asks "" where is X ? "" you 've already got the {disfmarker} the Enter schema activated +Grad B: Kind of a priming +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and you 're able to {disfmarker} to conclude on it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: priming a spreading activation +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . So that 's certainly {pause} more {pause} realistic . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: I m I mean psychologically . Now technically +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um +Grad D: Well , uh , is it {disfmarker} doesn't it seem like if you just managed the dialogue history with a {disfmarker} a thread , that you know , kept track of ho of the activity of {disfmarker} I mean , cuz it would {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thread would know what nodes {pause} like , needed to be activated , so it could just keep track of {pause} how long it 's been since {pause} something 's been mentioned , and {pause} automatically load it in . +Professor C: Yeah . You could do that . Um . But here 's {disfmarker} here 's a way {disfmarker} in th in the bl Bayes - net you could {disfmarker} you could think about it this way , that if um {pause} at the time "" admissions fee "" was mentioned {pause} you could increase the probability {pause} that someone wanted to enter . +Grad B: Turn prior on . +Grad D: We - yeah {disfmarker} th th that 's what I wa I wasn't {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I wasn't thinking in terms of Enter schemas . I was just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Fair enough , OK , but , but , in terms of the c c the current implementation {disfmarker} right ? so that um +Grad B: It would already be higher in the {pause} context . +Professor C: th that th the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the conditional probability that someone {disfmarker} So at the time you mentioned it {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} this is essentially the Bayes - net equivalent of the spreading activation . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} In some ways it 's not as good but it 's {pause} the implementation we got . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . No , I mean +Professor C: We don't have a connectionist implementation . Now {disfmarker} Now my guess is that it 's not a question of time but it is a question of whether another {pause} intervening object has been mentioned . +Grad B: Yeah , relevance . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , we could look at dialo this is {disfmarker} Of course the other thing we ha we do is , is we have this data coming +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: which probably will blow all our theories , +Grad A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but skipping that {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but my guess is what {disfmarker} what 'll probably will happen , Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a proposed design . {comment} is that there 're certain constructions which , uh , for our purposes do change the probabilities of EVA decisions and various other kinds and th that the , uh , standard way that {disfmarker} that the these contexts work is sort of stack - like or whatever , but that 's sort of the most recent thing . And so it could be that {pause} when another uh , en tourist entity gets mentioned , you +Grad B: Renew +Professor C: re re essentially re - initiali you know , re - i essentially re - initialize the {pause} state . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And of course i if we had a fancier one with multiple worlds you could have {disfmarker} uh , you could keep track of what someone was {pause} uh saying about this and that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , "" I wanna go {disfmarker} in the morning +Grad A: "" Here 's my plan for today . +Professor C: I wanna {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Here 's my plan for tomorrow . "" +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} Yeah , in the morning morning I I 'm planning t to go shopping , +Grad A: hypothetically . +Professor C: in the afternoon to the Powder - Tower {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , tal so I 'm talking about shopping and then you say , uh , you know , well , um "" What 's it cost ? "" or something . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} Anyway . So one could well imagine , but not yet . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But I do th think that the {disfmarker} {comment} It 'll turn out that it 's gonna be {disfmarker} depend pretty much on whether there 's been an override . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , if {disfmarker} if you ask "" how much does a train ride and {disfmarker} and cinema around the vineyards cost ? "" and then somebody tells you it 's sixty dollars and then you say "" OK How much is , uh {disfmarker} I would like to {pause} visit the {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} whatever , something completely different , "" then I go to , you know , Point Reyes "" , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} it 's not more likely that you want to enter anything , but it 's , as a matter of fact , a complete rejection of entering by doing that . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So when you admit have admission fee and it changes something , it 's only for that particular {disfmarker} It 's relational , right ? It 's only for that particular object . +Professor C: Yeah , I th th Yeah . Well , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the simple idea is that it 's on it 's only for m for the current uh , tourist e entity of instre interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} I mean this {disfmarker} this function , so , has the current object been mentioned in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} with a question about {disfmarker} concerning its {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} It goes the other d it goes in the other direction . Is {disfmarker} When th When the {disfmarker} this is mentioned , {pause} the uh probability of {disfmarker} of , let 's say , entering changes +Grad B: Of that object . For {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor C: changes . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: You could just hav uh , just basically , ob it {disfmarker} It observes an {disfmarker} er , it sets the {disfmarker} a node for "" entered "" or "" true "" or something , +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Now , uh {disfmarker} But I think Ro - Robert 's right , that to determine that , OK ? you may well want to go through a th thesaurus +Grad D: "" discourse enter "" . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} So , if the issue is , if {disfmarker} so now th this construction has been matched and you say "" OK . Does this actually have any implications for our decisions ? "" Then there 's another piece of code {vocalsound} that presumably {pause} does that computation . +Grad B: So , sort of forward chaining in a way , rather than {pause} backward . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but what 's Robert 's saying is {disfmarker} is , and I think he 's right , {comment} is you don't want to try to build into the construction itself all the synonyms and all {disfmarker} you know , all the wo Uh maybe . I 'll have to think about that . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: I don't know . I mean it {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} I can thi I can think of arguments in either direction on that . But somehow you want to do it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Well , it 's just another , sort of , construction side is how to get at the possible inferences we can draw from the discourse history or changing of the {pause} probabilities , and - or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Guess it 's like {disfmarker} I g The other thing is , whether you have a m m user model that has , you know , whatever , a current plan , whatever , plans that had been discussed , and I don't know , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: What {disfmarker} uh , what 's the argument for putting it in the construction ? Is it just that {pause} the s synonym selection is better , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Oh , wel Well , the ar the {disfmarker} The argument is that you 're gonna have the {disfmarker} If you 've recognized the word , you 've recognized the word , which means you have a lexical construction for it , so you could just as well tag the lexical construction with the fact that it 's a uh , you know , thirty percent increase in probability of entering . You {disfmarker} So you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could invert {disfmarker} invert the whole thing , so you s you tag that information on to {pause} the lexicon +Grad D: Mmm . Oh , I see . +Professor C: since you had to recognize it anyway . That {disfmarker} that 's the argument in the other direction . at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} Yeah , and this is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Even though uh the lexical construction itself {disfmarker} out {disfmarker} out of context , uh , won't do it . I mean , y you have to keep track whether the person says +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: "" But I but I 'm not interested in the opening times "" is sort of a more a V type . +Professor C: Yeah there 's , yeah ther there 's that as well . +Grad E: Yep . Hmm . So . But , we 'll {disfmarker} uh , we have time to {disfmarker} This is a s just a sidetrack , but uh I think it 's also something that people have not done before , is um , sort of abuse an ontology for these kinds of , uh , inferences , on whether anything relevant to the current something has been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , has crept up in the dialogue history already , or not . And , um I have the , uh {disfmarker} If we wanted to have that function in the dialogue hi dialogue module of SmartKom , I have the written consent of Jan to put it in there . +Professor C: Good . OK . {comment} {vocalsound} Well , this {disfmarker} this is highly relevant to someone 's thesis . +Grad E: Yes , um . That 's {disfmarker} uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm keeping on good terms with Jan . +Professor C: You 've noticed that . OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So the point is , it 's very likely that Robert 's thesis is going to be along these lines , +Grad B: Oh , s +Professor C: and the local rules are if it 's your thesis , you get to decide how it 's done . OK . So if , you know {disfmarker} if this is {disfmarker} seriously , if this becomes part of your thesis , you can say , hey we 're gonna do it this way , that 's the way it 's done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yay , it 's not me . It 's always me when it 's someone 's thesis . +Professor C: No , no , no ! No , no . We 've got a lot {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of theses going . +Grad A: There 's a few of us around now . +Grad B: Now it 's not . Yay ! I know it is . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: Well , let 's {disfmarker} let 's talk after Friday the twenty - ninth . Then we 'll see how f f +Professor C: Right . So h he 's got a th he 's got a meet meeting in Germany with his thesis advisor . +Grad B: Yeah , he said he 's gonna f finish his thesis by then . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . I should try to finish it by then . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , right . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Um . Yeah . So I think {pause} in fact , That 's the other thing . uh , this is {disfmarker} this is , speaking of hard problems , {comment} this is a very good time um , to start trying to make explicit where construal comes in and {disfmarker} you know , where c where the construction per - se ends {pause} and where construal comes in , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've {disfmarker} we 've done quite a bit of that . +Professor C: cuz this is clearly part of th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: We 've been doing quite a bit of that . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well I said . But that 's part of what the f +Grad B: We have many jobs for you , Ro - Robert . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , he 's gonna need this . +Grad A: Yeah , it seems to always land in your category . +Grad B: The conclusion . +Grad A: You 're lucky . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So . {vocalsound} Right . So thing {disfmarker} That 's part of why we want the formalism , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is because th it is gonna have implicit in it +Grad E: Was I ? In the room ? +Grad B: No , you weren't there {pause} on purpose . Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Made it much easier to make these decisions . +Grad B: Obviously . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Well I {disfmarker} That 's tentative . +Grad A: Yeah . Right , right , right . +Professor C: They aren't decisions , they 're ju they 're just proposals . +Grad A: Yes . {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Grad B: No , they 're decisions . OK . +Professor C: Yeah , that {disfmarker} That 's the point , is {disfmarker} is th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Constraints . Let 's call them constraints , around which one has to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually , yeah . {vocalsound} There 's a problem with that word , too , though . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Anyway . But so that 's that 's w Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} he the decisions I made wer had to do with my thesis . So consequently don't I get to decide then that it 's Robert 's job ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: Anyhow . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad B: Well , I 'll just pick a piece of the problem and then just push the hard stuff into the center {pause} and say it 's Robert 's . Like . +Grad E: I 've always been {pause} completely in favor of consensus decisions , +Grad B: I can {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll find a way . +Professor C: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will , but um +Grad B: I haven't . {comment} OK . +Professor C: not {disfmarker} +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it might even be {pause} interesting then to {pause} say that I should be forced to um , sort of pull some of the ideas that have been floating in my head out of the , uh {disfmarker} out of the top hat +Professor C: Yes . +Grad E: and , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Always good . +Professor C: Right . So +Grad E: That metaphor is not going anywhere , you know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Ri - No . Absolutely . So , uh , wh you had {disfmarker} you know you ha You had done one draft . +Grad E: Yes , and , um , it 's {disfmarker} Ha - None of that is basically still around , +Grad B: I didn't get +Professor C: And a another draft OK . +Grad E: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: D i +Grad A: That 's normal . +Professor C: I i +Grad B: Oh , I guess it 's good I didn't read it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I 'm shocked . This is the first time I 've seen a thesis proposal change . Right . Anyway , uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad B: Really ? +Professor C: But , yeah , a second {disfmarker} that would be great . So , uh , a sec I mean you 're gonna need it anyway . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: and +Grad E: Yeah , and I would like to d discuss it and , you know , get you guys 's input +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: and make it sort of bomb - proof . +Grad B: Bomb proof ! +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: Good . +Grad E: Bullet - proof . +Grad B: Oh ! Oh , OK . +Grad E: That 's the word I was looking for . +Professor C: Both proof . +Grad A: Either way . +Grad B: Both . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Good luck . {vocalsound} Really . +Professor C: Uh So that , so th thi this {disfmarker} I mean , so this is the point , is we {disfmarker} we 're going to have to cycle through this , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but th the draft of the p proposal on the constructions is {disfmarker} is going to tell us a lot about {pause} what {pause} we think needs to be done by construal . And , um , we oughta be doing it . +Grad E: OK . Yeah , we need {disfmarker} we need some {disfmarker} Then we need to make some dates . Um . +Grad B: +Grad E: Meeting {disfmarker} regular meeting time for the summer , we really haven't found one . We did {pause} Thursdays one for a while . I just talked to Ami . It 's - it 's a coincidence that he can't do {disfmarker} couldn't do it today {pause} here . +Grad B: Usually , he can . +Grad E: Usually he has no real constraints . +Professor C: And the NTL meeting moved to Wednesday , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz of {disfmarker} of , uh +Grad E: Yeah , it was just an exception . +Professor C: Yeah , you weren't here , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} s uh , {disfmarker} And so , if that 's OK with you , +Grad A: It 's i Is it staying basically at the Wednesday noon ? +Professor C: you would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . It was th off this week , +Grad B: Yeah . I always thought it was staying . +Professor C: Yeah , it was th +Grad A: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought it was just this week that we were changing it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mmm . {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: And , um . How do we feel about doing it Wednesdays ? Because it seems to me that this is sort of a time where when we {pause} have things to discuss with other people , there {disfmarker} they seem to be s tons of people around . +Professor C: The only disadvantage {pause} is that it may interfere with other +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} subgroup meetings +Professor C: s you know , other {disfmarker} other {disfmarker} No , you {disfmarker} Uh , people in this group connecting with {disfmarker} with +Grad B: Those people who {pause} happen to be around . +Professor C: those people {pause} who {disfmarker} who might not be around so much . Uh , I don't care . I I uh you know I have no fixed {disfmarker} +Grad A: To tell you the truth , I 'd rath I 'd , I 'd {disfmarker} would like to avoid more than one ICSI meeting per day , if possible . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean . I don't know . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Whatever . +Professor C: No , that 's fine . I mean that {disfmarker} +Grad E: The {disfmarker} I 'd like to have them all in one day , +Grad A: Yeah , I can understand that . +Professor C: Well p +Grad E: so package them up and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: people {disfmarker} people differ in their tastes in this matter . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I 'm neutral . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . {pause} I 'm always here anyway , +Grad E: It 's OK , that {disfmarker} +Grad B: so {disfmarker} It doesn't matter . +Professor C: Yeah . @ @ That 's {disfmarker} Me too . I 'm basically {disfmarker} I 'm here . So . +Grad E: Well , if {disfmarker} one {pause} sort of thing is , this room is taken at {disfmarker} after three - thirty pr pretty much every day by the data collection . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: So we have subjects anyway {disfmarker} Except for this week , we have subjects in here . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: That 's why it was one . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So we just knew i +Grad B: So did you just say that Ami can't make one o ' +Grad E: No , he can . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So let 's say Thursday one . But for next week , this is a bit late . So {pause} I would suggest that we need to {disfmarker} to talk {disfmarker} +Grad B: Oh , oh , OK . +Grad E: OK . About the c the {disfmarker} th +Grad B: Could we do Thursday at one - thirty ? Would that {disfmarker} that be horrible ? +Grad E: No . Yes . +Grad B: Oh really ? +Grad E: Because , uh , this room is again taken at two - thirty by Morgan . +Grad B: Oh , OK . OK . You didn't tell me that . OK , that 's fine . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} s meeting recorder meeting meeting meeting recording on meeting meetings {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , OK , OK . OK . {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: Interesting . So you 're proposing that we meet Tuesday . +Grad E: How about that ? +Grad A: Next week . +Grad B: Well , we 're meeting Tuesday . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I could +Grad B: I mean we usually meet Tuesday {disfmarker} or l like , linguists {pause} um , at two . +Grad D: Would it {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . +Grad B: So . Do you want to meet again here bef +Grad D: And the s Is the Speech - Gen meeting still at {disfmarker} on Tuesdays ? +Grad E: I mean w Well , actually we w we we did scrap our Monday time just because Bhaskara couldn't come Monday . +Grad B: Hhh . {comment} Maybe I do need a Palm Pilot . +Grad E: So there 's {disfmarker} Nothing 's impeding Monday anymore {pause} either . +Grad A: That doesn't apply to a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Although I thought you wanted to go camping on Monday {disfmarker} er , take off Mondays a lot so you could go camping . +Grad E: Get a fresh start {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's another s thing . Yeah . But , um . I mean , there are also usually then holidays anyways . I mean {pause} like {disfmarker} {comment} Sometimes {pause} it works out that way . +Grad B: Usually ? +Grad E: So . Hmm ! +Grad B: Well , I mean , the linguists ' meeting {pause} i happens to be at two , but I think that 's {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad A: That should be relatively flexible be +Grad B: pretty flexible , I think . +Grad A: Yeah . There 's just {pause} sort of the two to four of us . +Grad B: So . The multiple meetings +Grad A: Right ? Yeah . So . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: And , you know , of course Nancy and I are just sort of always talking anyway and sometimes we do it in that room . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: So , you know , I mean . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} l forget about the b the camping thing . So let 's {disfmarker} eh , any other problems w w w ? But , I suggested Monday . If that 's a problem for me then I shouldn't {pause} suggest it . +Grad D: Ha - ha - ha . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Um , all of the proposed times sound fine with me . +Grad B: Same here . +Grad E: Monday ? +Professor C: OK , whate I mean {disfmarker} What I think Robert 's saying is that +Grad A: Earlier in the week +Professor C: earlier we {disfmarker} At least for next week , there 's a lot of stuff we want to get done , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: so why don't we plan to meet Monday +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: and {pause} we 'll see if we want to meet any more than that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: What time ? +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: At o o o o one , two , three {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: One , two , three ? Three 's too late . +Professor C: Oh , I i {pause} Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} Two is the earliest I can meet on Monday . +Grad E: Two - thirty ? OK , two . +Professor C: Here I 'm blissfully agreeing to things and realizing that I actually do have some stuff scheduled on Monday . +Grad A: Sure . Sounds great . Uh , so that 's the eighteenth . +Grad B: You guys will still remind me , right ? +Grad D: No way ! +Grad B: Y you 'll come and take all the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the headph the good headphones first and then remind me . +Grad E: W why do you {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . Sorry , two PM . +Grad E: And +Grad B: Why do I have this unless I 'm gonna write ? +Grad E: do I get to see th uh , your formalism before {pause} that ? +Grad B: Fine . Yes . Uh . Would you like to ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . I was actually gonna work on it for tomorrow {disfmarker} like this {disfmarker} this weekend . +Grad E: I wo I would like {disfmarker} I would sort of {pause} get a {disfmarker} get a notion of what {disfmarker} what you guys have in store for me . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well m @ @ you know , w maybe Mond - Maybe we can put {disfmarker} This is part of what we can do Monday , if we want . +Grad B: Yeah . I OK . +Grad A: Alright . +Grad B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is some {disfmarker} some version +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , so there was like , you know , m m in my head the goal to have like an intermediate version , like , everything I know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And then , w I would talk to you and figure out everything you know , that {disfmarker} you know , see if they 're consistent . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . Why don't w Maybe you and I should meet sort of more or less first thing Monday morning and then we can work on this . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . That 's f fine with me . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . I might {disfmarker} I might {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You - y +Grad B: s You said you 're busy {pause} over th until the weekend , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , sort of through the weekend because Kate has a photography show . +Grad B: That 's fine . So we might continue our email thing +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and that might be fine , too . So , maybe I 'll send you some {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , if you have time after this I 'll show you the noun phrase thing . +Grad B: OK . That would be cool . So . OK , and we 'll {disfmarker} You wanna m +Grad E: So the idea is on Monday at two we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see an intermediate version of the formalism for the constructions , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So that 's OK for you {disfmarker} +Grad E: and do an on - line merging with my construal {pause} ideas . +Grad B: Sure , sure . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: That 's OK . +Grad E: So it won't be , like , a for semi - formal presentation of my {pause} proposal . It 'll be more like towards {pause} finalizing that proposal . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz then you 'll find out more of what we 're making you do . +Grad E: OK , that 's fine . Yep , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm , hmm . +Grad E: Yikes . +Grad A: Oy , {comment} deadlines . +Grad B: We 'll make a presentation of your propo {comment} of your proposal . +Grad E: Perfect . Can you also write it up ? +Grad B: It 's like , "" this is what we 're doing . +Professor C: Abso +Grad B: And the complement is Robert . "" +Grad E: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you a style file , right ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: You just {disfmarker} +Grad B: I already sent you my fi {comment} my bib file . So . +Grad E: OK . And , um . Sounds good . +Grad A: Someday we also have to {disfmarker} we should probably talk about the other side of the "" where is X "" construction , which is the issue of , um , how do you simulate questions ? What does the simspec look like for a question ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Because {pause} it 's a little different . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , now , we we w +Grad A: We had to {disfmarker} we had an idea for this which seemed like it would probably work . +Professor C: Great . OK . Yeah . Simspec may need {disfmarker} we may n need to re - name that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So let 's think of a name for {disfmarker} for whatever the {disfmarker} this intermediate structure is . Oh , we talked about semspec , for "" semantic spec specification "" +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: and that seems {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: It 's more general +Professor C: You know , so it 's a m minimal change . +Grad B: Only have to change one vowel . That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} +Grad B: All the old like {vocalsound} graphs , +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: just change the {disfmarker} just , like , mark out the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cool . +Professor C: Right , a little substi substi You know , that 's what text substitution uh macros are for . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's good for you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's for the moment call it that until we think of something better . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: And , yeah , we absolutely need to find {disfmarker} Part of what was missing were markings of all sorts that weren't in there , incl including the questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: We didn't {disfmarker} we never did figure out how we were gonna do emphasis in {disfmarker} in uh , the semspec . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've talked a little bit about {pause} that , too , which {disfmarker} uh , uh , it 's hard for me to figure out with sort of our general linguistic issues , how they map onto this particular one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} OK , yeah , understood . +Professor C: But that 's part of the formalism {disfmarker} is got to be uh , how things like that get marked . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: W do you have data , like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You have preliminary {pause} data ? Cuz I know , you know , we 've been using this one easy sentence and I 'm sure you guys have {disfmarker} uh , maybe you are the one who 've been looking at {pause} the rest of it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , I +Grad B: it 'd {disfmarker} it 'd be useful for me , if we want to {pause} have it a little bit more data oriented . +Grad A: To tell you the truth , what I 've been looking at has not been the data so far , +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm {pause} mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just sort of said "" alright let 's see if I can get noun phrases and , uh , major verb co uh , constructions out of the way first . "" And I have not gotten them out of the way yet . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Surprise . So , um . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I have not really approached a lot of the data , but I mean obviously like these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the question one , since we have this idea about the indefinite pronoun thing and all that , you know , I ca can try and , um run with that , you know , try and do some of the sentence constructions now . It would make sense . +Grad E: OK . Do you wanna run the indefinite pronoun idea past Jerry ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Oh yeah , the basic idea is that um , uh {pause} you know {disfmarker} Uh , {vocalsound} let 's see {pause} if I can {pause} formulate this . +Grad E: So {pause} Mary fixed the car with a wrench . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So you perform the mental sum and then , you know , "" who fixed the car with a wrench ? "" You {pause} basically are told , to {disfmarker} to do this In the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} analogously to the way you would do "" someone fixed the car with a wrench "" . And then you hand it back to your hippocampus and find out {pause} what that , you know , +Grad A: Means . +Grad E: means , and then {pause} come up with that {disfmarker} so who that someone was . +Grad A: The WH question has this as sort of extra thing which says "" and when you 're done , tell me who fills that slot "" or w you know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , um . And , you know , this is sort of a nice way to do it , the idea of sort of saying that you treat {disfmarker} from the simulation point of view or whatever {disfmarker} you treat , uh , WH constructions similarly to uh , indefinite pronouns like "" someone fixed the car "" because {pause} lots of languages , um , have WH questions with an indefinite pronoun in situ or whatever , +Grad B: Use actually the same one . +Grad A: and you just get intonation to tell you that it 's a question . So it makes sense +Professor C: Alright , which is +Grad A: um +Professor C: Skolemization . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: In {disfmarker} in logic , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's actual Huh ? +Grad B: Right . {vocalsound} Let 's put a Skolem {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Skolem constant in , +Grad A: Yeah . shko +Professor C: What ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: yeah . Yeah . {pause} Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: That - that 's not {disfmarker} that 's not saying it 's bad , +Grad A: Right . Right . No . Of course . +Professor C: it 's just that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the logicians have {disfmarker} have , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . It makes sense from that point of view , too , which is actually better . +Grad E: come up with this +Grad A: So yeah , um . Anyway , but just that kind of thing and we 'll figure out exactly how to write that up and so on , but +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Uh , no , all the focus stuff . We sort of just dropped that cuz it was too weird and we didn't even know , like , what we were talking about {comment} exactly , what the object of study was . +Grad B: Um - mmm . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I mean , i part of {disfmarker} of what the exercise is , t by the end of next week , is to say what are the things that we just don't have answers for yet . +Grad A: Yeah . Yep . +Professor C: That 's fine . I mean +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you do wanna discuss focus {pause} background and then get me into that because {disfmarker} I mean , I wo I w scientifically worked on that for {disfmarker} for almost two years . +Grad A: Yeah . OK , then certainly we will . Good . +Grad B: Yeah , you should definitely , um be on on that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe by {disfmarker} after Monday we 'll {disfmarker} y you can see what things we are and aren't {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . w We should figure out what our questions are , for example , {vocalsound} to ask you . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Wel - then t Hans . Has {disfmarker} I haven't seen Hans Boas ? +Grad B: He 's been around . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Just maybe not today . +Professor C: OK . So has he been {disfmarker} been involved with this , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Eh . with us ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: I would say that tha that those discussions have been primarily , um , Keith and {disfmarker} Keith and me , but um like in th the meeting {disfmarker} I mean , he sort of {disfmarker} I thin like the last meeting we had , I think we were all very much part of it +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {pause} um +Grad A: Sometimes Hans has been sort of coming in there as sort of like a {pause} devil 's advocate type role or something , +Grad B: but different perspec Yeah . +Grad A: like {pause} "" This make {disfmarker} you know , I 'm going to pretend I 'm a linguist who has nothing to do with this . This makes no sense . "" And he 'll just go off on parts of it which {pause} definitely need fixing +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: but aren't where we 're at right now , so it 's +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} like what you call certain things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: which we decided long ago we don't care that much right now . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But in a sense , it 's good to know that he {pause} of all people {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: you know , like maybe a lot of people would have m much stronger reactions , so , you know , he 's like a relatively friendly linguist +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and yet a word like "" constraint "" causes a lot of problems . And , so . {pause} Right . So . +Professor C: OK . This is consistent with um the role I had suggested that he {disfmarker} he play , +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK , which was {pause} that o one of the things I would like to see happen is a paper that was tentatively called "" Towards a formal cognitive semantics "" which was addressed to these linguists {pause} uh {pause} who haven't been following {pause} this stuff at all . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {pause} it could be that he 's actually , at some level , thinking about how am I going to {pause} communicate this story {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , internally , we should just do {pause} whatever works , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: cuz it 's hard enough . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But {pause} if he g if he turns {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is really gonna turn around and help t to write this version that does {pause} connect with as many as possible of the {pause} other linguists in the world um {comment} then {disfmarker} then it becomes important to {pause} use terminology that doesn't make it hard {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Sure . +Professor C: I mean , it 's gonna be plenty hard for {disfmarker} for people to understand it as it is , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but y y you don't want to make it worse . +Grad A: Yeah . No , right . I mean , tha that role is {disfmarker} is , uh , indispensable +Professor C: So . +Grad A: but that 's not where sort of our heads were at in these meetings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: It was a little strange . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I just wanted t to I have to catch up with him , and I wanted t to get a feeling for that . OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I don't know what his take will be on these meetings exactly , you know . +Professor C: OK . Good . +Grad A: Cuz sometimes he sort of sounds like we 're talking a bunch of goobledy - gook from his point of view . +Grad B: I think it 's good when we 're {disfmarker} when we 're into data and looking at the {disfmarker} some specific linguistic phenomenon {pause} in {disfmarker} in English or in German , in particular , whatever , that 's great , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and Ben and {disfmarker} and Hans are , if {disfmarker} if anything , more {disfmarker} you know , they have more to say than , let 's say , I would about some of these things . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But when it 's like , well , w how do we capture these things , you know , I think it 's definitely been Keith and I who have d you know , who have worried more about the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well , that 's good . That 's {disfmarker} I I I think that should be the {disfmarker} the core group +Grad B: s Which is fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and {pause} um that 's , you know , I think {pause} very close to the maximum number of people working together that can get something done . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . We actually have {disfmarker} I think we have been making progress , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and its sort of surprising . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I definitely get that impression . Yeah . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad B: Yeah . So anyone else would like uh {comment} ruin the balance of {disfmarker} Anyway . +Professor C: Well , but {disfmarker} Well . But th th then w then we have to come back to the bigger group . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Great . And then we 're gon we 're gonna {disfmarker} because of this other big thing we haven't talked about is {pause} actually implementing this stuff ? So that I guess the three of us are gonna connect tomorrow about that . +Grad B: Yeah , we could talk tomorrow . I was just gonna say , though , that , for instance , there was {disfmarker} you know , out of a meeting with Johno {pause} came the suggestion that "" oh , could it be that the {pause} meaning {pause} constraints really aren't used for selection ? "" which has sort of been implicit {pause} in the parsing {pause} strategy we talked about . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: In which case we w we can just say that they 're the effects or the bindings . Which {pause} uh , so far , in terms of like putting up all the constraints as , you know , pushing them into type constraints , the {disfmarker} when I 've , you know , propo then proposed it to linguists who haven't yet given me {disfmarker} you know , we haven't yet thought of a reason that that wouldn't work . Right ? As long as we allow our type constraints to be reasonably {pause} complex . +Professor C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad B: So {disfmarker} Anyway , to be {disfmarker} to talk about later . +Professor C: Yeah , it has to in the sense that you 're gonna use them eventu it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's sort of a , um , generate and test kind of thing , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and if you over - generate then you 'll have to do more . I mean , if there are some constraints that you hold back and don't use uh , in your initial matching then you 'll match some things {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I d I don't think there 's any way that it could completely fail . It {disfmarker} it could be that uh , you wind up {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} The original bad idea of purely context - free grammars died because {pause} there were just vastly too many parses . You know , exponentially num num many parses . And so th the concern might be that {disfmarker} not that it would totally fail , but that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . That it would still generate too many . {comment} Right ? So by just having semantic even bringing semantics in for matching just in the form of j semantic types , right ? +Professor C: it would still genera +Grad B: Like "" conceptually these have to be construed as this , this , and this "" might still give us quite a few possibilities +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: that , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and it certainly helps a lot . +Professor C: We don't know , but , yeah . +Grad B: I mean , le let 's put it that way . So . +Professor C: No question . Yeah . And I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a perfectly fine place to start . You know , and say , let let 's see how far we can go this way . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well it definitely makes the problem easier . +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in favor of that . Uh , cuz I think i I think it 's {disfmarker} As you know , I think it 's real hard and if w if we {disfmarker} Right . +Grad B: So {pause} Friday , Monday +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Monday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So . OK , that 's {disfmarker} Tuesday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} {comment} th that 's the conclusion . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , you your dance card is {pause} completely filled now ? +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , and I have nothing to do this weekend but work . +Grad E: Why don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , that 's not really true , +Grad A: Bummer . +Grad B: but like {disfmarker} +Grad D: What about {disfmarker} What about DDR ? +Grad B: It 's almost true . +Grad F: +Grad B: Oh , I don't have it this weekend , so , tsk {comment} don't have to worry about that . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor C: DDR , he asked ? +Grad B: Speaking of dance , Dance Dance Revolution I can't believe I 'm {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} it 's like a game , but it 's for , like , dancing . Hard to {disfmarker} It 's like karaoke , but for dancing , and they tell you what {disfmarker} It 's amazing . It 's so much fun . Yeah , it 's so good . My friend has a home version and he brought it over , and we are so into it . It 's so amazing . Well , y you know of it ? I i i it 's one of your hobbies ? It 's great exercise , I must say . I can't wait to hear this . Uh - huh . Oh , definitely . They have , like , places {disfmarker} instead of like {disfmarker} Yeah , instead of karaoke bars now that have , like , DDR , like {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , I didn't until I started hanging out with this friend , who 's like "" Oh , well , I can bring over the DDR if you want . "" Oh , oh , Dance Dance Revolution {disfmarker} OK . He actually brought a clone called Stepping Selection , but it 's just as good . So . Anyw +","In a conversational setting between several graduate students, a professor, and other participants (referred to as Grad A, Grad B, Grad D, Grad E, Grad F, and Professor C), a range of topics related to an academic project are discussed. Each participant contributes various ideas, questions, and comments regarding the direction and execution of the project, with a particular focus on channel allocations, technical difficulties with microphones, and intricacies of their research work. + +Initially, there's some confusion about channel assignments, with Grads B, D, and F sorting out their designated channels for communication, followed by identifying the cause of a programming error related to the ""off-by-one"" mistake commonly encountered in computer science. + +A major aspect of their conversation is the development and manipulation of various types of data, such as XML output, Java declarations, and the use of the Xalan style sheet processor. They discuss the possibility of contacting external experts to assist with the specifics of their technological needs. + +Grad E introduces the topic of natural language generation, emphasizing the implementation of syntax trees and prosody conversion for English and German languages. The team seeks to hire someone for the project to help with these tasks. They face technical issues involving software called ""Scheme"" and acknowledge the importance of having a commented version of their files to facilitate understanding. + +Professor C recommends focusing on the construction and construal aspects of their formalism. The group debates the distinctions between semantic and pragmatic ambiguity, with a specific example being different interpretations of the phrase ""where is X?"" They consider how dialogue history could inform probabilistic models to make inferences about user intentions. + +The professor advises tackling two hard problems simultaneously as they may constrain each other and help codify the project’s direction. A significant part of the conversation revolves around how past tense, present tense, and beliefs are connected within probabilistic relational models and how these connections affect belief-net inferences. + +Grad E informs the team of progress in running the SmartKom system on their Linux and NT machines, expanding their resources. The discussion takes a turn into more practical considerations as they plan scheduling and accommodating participant availability for future meetings, aiming to ensure everyone is on the same page and that deadlines for various parts of their research, including thesis proposals and paper drafts, are met. + +Additionally, they mention the importance of engaging with other linguists and how their research findings could be communicated to a broader audience, particularly considering terminology that may be challenging for outsiders to grasp. + +In summary, the conversation reflects the multidisciplinary nature of their work, incorporating computer science, linguistics, cognitive semantics, and project management. They navigate several technical, theoretical, and logistical challenges while making efforts to create a cohesive and collaborative research environment." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 14thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using their earpiece at their desk. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We'll now proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are none. Now we'll proceed to the tabling of documents. Mr.LeBlanc has a document he wants to table. Go ahead, Mr.LeBlanc. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr. Chair, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a report entitled ""Democracy Matters, Debates Count: A report on the 2019 Leaders' Debates Commission and the future of debates in Canada. Mr. Chair, on behalf of all of us, I want to thank the Right Honourable David Johnston for his continued service. +The Chair: Good. We'll now proceed to the presenting of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that you please come to the front and drop off your certificate at the table once the petition has been presented. In presenting petitions, the first presenter today is Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting a petition in support of Bill S-204. This is a bill in the Senate, put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan. It would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent by the donor. It also creates a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill is designed to confront and address the horrific practice by which, in certain casesfor instance, inside Chinaminority communities or dissidents may be targeted and have their organs removed as they're killed and used for transplantation. Petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204, and they want to see it passed as soon as possible. +The Chair: Our next petition will go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am presenting a petition today signed by Canadians who are concerned that Bill C-7 removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime, including the mandatory 10-day waiting period. Mr. Chair, these people who are signing this petition would like to see an improvement in assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to present an e-petition signed by over 40 people. It asks that the Government of Canada recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an autonomous state that may result in foreign investments, direct access of development aid, foreign aid for disaster relief and infrastructure development investment loans. +The Chair: Now we'll proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. Each statement will be for a maximum of one minute. I remind members that if they exceed that time limit, they will be interrupted. Our first statement goes to Monsieur El-Khoury. +Mr. Fayal El-Khoury (LavalLes les, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I thank the government for the way it has managed this global crisis and its impact on Canadians. It has acted in a robust, rapid and very effective way. Our Prime Minister has been awarded the medal of honour, courage and humanity worldwide. Canada is one of the few countries that has acted in the best interests of its citizens and maintained their dignity in these uncertain times. While addressing Canadians, our right honourable Prime Minister showed us leadership, the importance of transparency, and integrity. He kept us united. His top priority was saving lives, along with finding realistic solutions regarding the economic impact on our daily life. Because of his outstanding leadership, we're admired across the world, which is another distinguished privilege of being Canadian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-KentLeamington, CPC): COVID-19 has emptied food banks across Canada, even in an agricultural community like Chatham-Kent, so Wes Thompson and James Rasmussen, along with Alysson Storey, Randi Bokor, Maureen Geddes, Chris and Terry Johnston, Jason King, Fannie Vavoulis and Brent Wilken, grew an idea into the community's largest-ever food drive. Project manager Morna McDonald estimates that over 3,000 volunteers ended up helping in the May 16 Miracle. Residents put non-perishable foodstuffs on their doorsteps, with drop-off centres organized for rural areas. Volunteer groups travelled predetermined routes while maintaining physical distancing. The community collected an amazing 678,000 pounds of food. They accidentally exceeded by over 20% the record in the Guinness World Records book for collected food in a single day. Chatham-Kent has restocked their food banks and reaffirmed their community pride. It's an honour to represent such a community. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Sarai. We have a point of order from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): As much as I like seeing my friends on the big screens, there are no big screens yet, so we don't know who's on and who's not on. I was wondering if there was going to be a TV coming up soon here, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: There is a technical issue, and it is being worked on. We're working on it as we go through. The other alternative is that we suspend until we fix it. If it's okay, we'll just continue. I think we can all hear the members who are speaking. This is one of the realities of a virtual or hybrid system. Our next statement will go to Mr. Sarai. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and mabuhay to all the Filipino Canadians across this country. In June across Canada we recognize Filipino Heritage Month to raise awareness and celebrate the Filipino community. Here in Surrey Centre, and across Canada, the Filipino community makes important contributions to our cities and has helped shape Canada into the vibrant multicultural society that we all know and love today. Now more than ever, during these challenging times we must come together as Canadians to celebrate the rich heritage and history of our Filipino neighbours. Throughout June, please join me in celebrating our fellow citizens of Filipino descent by recognizing all the incredible ways in which they have contributed to making Canada a better place for all of us. Happy Filipino Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Perron. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. Today is World Milk Day, and I would like to recognize the exceptional work and dedication shown by everyone in the industry. They ensure we have a nutritious, high quality product every day. Let's take part in the local consumption movement and rediscover the exceptional products of our dairy producers and processors. Enjoy the yogurts, cheeses and other products because it's true that milk is good. I would also like to thank BrunoLetendre, outgoing chair of the Producteurs de lait du Qubec, and I congratulate the new chair, DanielGobeil. The dairy industry has been sacrificed several times in trade agreements. The government's broken promises are piling up. The payment of compensation is still uncertain. Action must be taken. The first step must be the direct allocation of import quotas to processors, and the second must be the full payment of the promised compensation. We demand a formal commitment from the government. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Iacono. +Mr. Angelo Iacono (Alfred-Pellan, Lib.): Mr.Chair, June is Italian Heritage Month. The situation is special this year, since Italy has been hard hit by COVID-19, with more than 30,000deaths. Like me, many Italian Canadians still have family and friends in Italy, and the news has sometimes been very difficult to take, yet that has not detracted from the great co-operation that exists between Canada and Italy. Today I would like to highlight the solidariet italiana in our community. During the pandemic, Canadians of Italian descent have been united to support anziani, our famiglie and our amici in Italy by participating in the fundraising campaign COVID-19 AiutiAMO lItalia to support the Italian Red Cross response activities. I send a special salute to to my cugino Giuseppe, who is still on the road to recovery from COVID-19. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I would like to acknowledge all of the organizations in Saskatchewan and across Canada that are working hard to help small businesses adapt to the challenges of the current pandemic. In particular, I would like to thank the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District, or RDBID. As soon as the pandemic hit, RDBID launched a daily electronic newsletter to keep their members informed of support programs, local initiatives and local success stories. They have used their social media channels on a daily basis to promote takeout and delivery services, online and curbside services offered by restaurants and retailers. They have also launched a number of their own initiatives to help businesses access e-commerce. Through persistent communication and a lot of long hours, RDBID has helped businesses in downtown Regina to weather the storm. Because of their hard work, downtown Regina will come through this pandemic better than ever. +The Chair: Mr.Lauzon now has the floor. +Mr. Stphane Lauzon (ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation, Lib.): Mr.Chair, high-speed Internet will be to the 21stcentury what electricity was to the 20th: an essential service. We are currently experiencing a drastic change in our morals, our consumption patterns and our socialization habits. We are turning to the Internet to read the news, contact our friends and complete our purchases. Isolation associated with COVID-19 has only accelerated this trend. Unfortunately, not all regions of Canada have reliable, affordable, high-speed access. I would like to reassure the citizens of my riding about the efforts that we are making as a government, but also about the work I've been doing as a member of Parliament since2015 to connect the 41municipalities of ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation. Aside from this essential service, our students, seniors, entrepreneurs and telework are very important to the regions. We have heard you, and I will continue to fight for you, so that you can have access to affordable high-speed Internet. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, a few days ago, we all watched with horror and outrage the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. For many of us, these images may seem shocking, but it's an all too familiar tale to millions of black people not only in the United States but also here in Canada, in my city of Gatineau and around the world, who must at times live with the scourge of anti-black racism. Mr.Chair, I can't know what it's like to be black in our society. What I do know, however, is that you and I, and everyone in this House, have the power and the responsibility to make our country more just. Let us all recommit ourselves to that endeavour. Black Canadians and all those who have to endure racism and discrimination are watching us, and they expect more from us. +The Chair: Mr. Duncan is next. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Without a doubt, these past few months have been challenging, to say the least, from both a health and economic perspective, but, Mr. Chair, I have to say how proud I am of my community of StormontDundasSouth Glengarry. We continue to successfully flatten the curve in our region and, just as importantly, we are making sure that we are here for each other, whether it is the Cornwall Optimists' GoFeedMe campaign, the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club delivering groceries to those who are quarantined in their households or the local United Way, the Social Development Council or the Carefor seniors support centre co-leading an effort to deliver 1,500 baskets to seniors in need. There have been many examples of kindness and generosity from our community. I rise today in the House of Commons to say thank you to my constituents and to all Canadians; to our essential front-line workers, our service clubs and our businesses that have stepped up to help out; and to everybody playing their part to get us through this challenge. I couldn't be more proud of my community and my residents, and it is an honour to serve as their member of Parliament. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Yip. +Ms. Jean Yip (ScarboroughAgincourt, Lib.): Mr. Chair, although Asian Heritage Month has just passed, we recognize the tremendous effort of all Asian Canadians on the front lines of this pandemic, as health care providers or as essential workers. I want to thank the many Asian organizations for donating to ScarboroughAgincourt's hospital, long-term care homes and food banks. As a Canadian born and raised in Scarborough, I'm offended by the reports of violence and vandalism targeting Asian-Canadian communities across this country. In budget 2019 we invested $45 million to launch a new anti-racism strategy, which included the establishment of the anti-racism secretariat, because these efforts are unfortunately clearly still needed. As events continue to unfold in the United States, it is important to recognize that we have work to do here as well. Whether it is anti-black or anti-Asian, racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in Canadafull stop. Now more than ever, we must stand united in diversity. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the last few months, Canadians throughout New Brunswick and across the country have stepped up to support their community. Health care workers, truckers, farmers, business owners, pharmacists, grocery store staff, faith-based and non-profit organizations and so many others have all answered the call to do their part. Today, Mr. Chair, I would like to specifically highlight the work of those who support and take care of our seniors, who are among some of our most at-risk citizens. It has been said that the character of a nation and its people is revealed most in how they treat their most vulnerable. Our seniors have made immense contributions to our society. Many have put their lives on the line to protect Canada and the democratic freedoms we enjoy as Canadians. They have worked hard and made many sacrifices throughout their lives to make Canada the greatest nation on earth. Taking care of our seniors is the right thing to do. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who are supporting and caring for our seniors. Whether they be long-term care staff, personal care workers, health care professionals, family members or volunteers, thank you for all you are doing in support of our seniors. Together we shall overcome. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin (Port MoodyCoquitlam, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Although we've come to the end of Asian Heritage Month, I'd like to acknowledge some unsung Chinese Canadian heroes who shed their blood as patriots for our nation. I commemorate the 6,500 Chinese Canadians of the 9,000 railway workers who helped build and unite Canada. I pay respect to the many Chinese Canadians who died while building the CP Railway on the most dangerous terrains in the B.C. segment. I honour the Chinese Canadians who served and died in World War II. Sadly, Asian communities in Canada face racist incidents today. No one should be afraid of walking in their own neighbourhood. Adult children should not have to call their elderly parents to tell them to stay home because they might be attacked by racists. There's no justification for racial slurs, physical violence or vandalism against any individual or community. I will continue to work together with other elected officials, the police and the RCMP to mitigate these issues toward justice and restoration. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Angus. Mr. Angus, please proceed. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Ten years ago today, Cree youth leader Shannen Koostachin was killed in a horrific car accident. She was only 15 years old, yet in her short life she became the voice of a generation of first nation youth who were no longer willing to put up with systemic discrimination. Shannen had never seen a real school. Children in Attawapiskat were being educated in squalid conditions. Her fight for their dignity and rights launched the largest youth-driven civil rights movement in Canadian history. At 14 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. Shannen never lived to see the school that was built in her community, but her work carries on through the Shannen's Dream movement. She is a role model for youth activists across this country. A movie, two books and a statue are dedicated to her. She's been recognized as one of the 150 most influential women in Canadian history. I had the honour to know Shannen. In fact, I think of her every single day. She truly did come from the angels, and one day she returned. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you now have the floor. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Mr.Chair, for months now, thousands of consumers who need money to pay their bills have been fighting against airlines and the government to have their rights respected: three class action suits, a unanimous motion by the National Assembly and over 30,000signatures on a petition calling for reimbursement for cancelled flights. It isn't a whim to enforce the law. Air Canada, which confiscated $2.6billion from its customers, received more than $800million from Ottawa without any conditions. Yet, the company has a year's worth of cash in reserve, $6billion in its coffers, and is in the process of raising more than $1.4billion in the financial markets. Air Canada has the means to reimburse citizens. It has the money it needs. We're tired of the Minister of Transport's crocodile tears. I consulted the bankruptcy directory this morning and didn't see any airlines listed. Now is the time to work for the people. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes now has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, I want to pay tribute to a great man who represented the public here, in the House, for close to 15years: MichelGauthier. Michel, in life, we meet a lot of people, but some of them leave their mark on us forever. From the first time I spoke with you two years ago, I immediately understood that I was talking with a man with heart, a passionate man, a man who had Quebec imprinted on his heart. Because of your decision to join the Conservative Party of Canada, I got to know you personally, and I am most grateful. I will remember our discussions on the best ways to communicate our Conservative vision to Quebeckers. I will remember our heated discussions on Quebec-Canada relations. I will remember all the passion and energy you had in the lead-up to a speech to our supporters. Michel, Canadians, Quebeckers and I will remember you forever, the great man you were, the outstanding speaker, a formidable parliamentarian, with integrity, passion, commitment and love for Quebec. I offer my sincere condolences to Anne, and to your family and friends. Rest in peace. +The Chair: Mr.Dubourg, you now have the floor. +Mr. Emmanuel Dubourg (Bourassa, Lib.): Mr.Chair, the murder of GeorgeFloyd in Minneapolis resonated strongly within black communities in Canada and also in the heart of Montreal North. At a time of pandemic uncertainty when members of our community find themselves on the front lines as essential workers, an event like this rekindles feelings of fear, powerlessness and injustice. It has happened once again in the UnitedStates, but we are not immune to such behaviour here, in Canada. Dear constituents of Bourassa, I know our stories, I feel with you the pain as a parent and as a black person. I know this constant fear for our children. As elected officials, we have the duty to protect your rights and to ensure harmony. We must be vigilant and work to deconstruct prejudice and discrimination. +The Chair: Before continuing, I'd like to give a reminder. To avoid sound problems, members participating in person shouldn't connect to the video conference. There seems to be some interference when you watch the video conference in the chamber and it's being transmitted, so let us make things run more smoothly. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. When the government first starting rolling out programs to help Canadians get through this pandemic, we raised points about some flaws and gaps in the program. The government assured Canadians that it would fix these programs as time went on. Well, Canadians are suffering through both the health and the economic consequences of the lockdown related to the coronavirus. Here we are the first day of June and the government still has yet to address the flaws in its programs; it is still letting so many Canadians down. I have a series of very straightforward and specific questions. On April 20 we raised with the Minister of Finance the issue of companies that had purchased another company not being able to demonstrate revenue loss, and therefore not being eligible for the wage subsidy, even though both companies separately would have been able to do just that. We have raised it several times now. I would like to ask the government when it will be fixing this unnecessarily rigid aspect of the wage subsidy program. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, I believe that a company with a fantastic Canadian history in the member's riding, Brandt Tractor, which pioneered the manufacturing of augers in Canada, is particularly affected by this. It is very important for us that the wage subsidy be available to as many Canadian companies as possible. It helps to keep employees connected to their businesses. Now, there are always some specific issues that can make it challenging for particular companies. I know that in the case of Brandt Tractor, for example, officials from the Ministry of Finance are directly in touch with the company to work on its issues. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, that's the same answer we got last week. It's the same answer we got two weeks before that, and it's the same answer we have been getting from day one. This is a very simple question. The government has indicated that it will change this program to allow for amalgamations. The solution is very simple. It is to also allow for those companies that have undergone acquisitions. This is a very specific question: Will the government fix this program and allow for companies that have acquired another company to still access the wage subsidy program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just point out that the wage subsidy program is working extremely well for many, many Canadian companies and for many, many Canadians who are able to keep their jobs thanks to the program. More than two million Canadian workers are today benefiting from the wage subsidy program. By any measure that is a successful program. Now, for sure there are always going to be companies which, because of specifics in their history, need specific attention, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, reports indicate that up to half of the money allocated for the wage subsidy is going unspent, precisely because this government has left in unnecessarily rigid barriers for companies to be able to access it. It's a yes-or-no question, and the minister still can't answer it. Along the same lines, we asked on April 8 to allow businesses applying for the wage subsidy to demonstrate their 30% revenue loss using other metrics, such as loss of earnings, subscriptions and orders, in order to qualify. They still can't do that today, the first day of June. Why hasn't the government addressed this part of the program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are very proud of the wage subsidy program and proud of the role it is playing to keep Canadian businesses going and, crucially, to keep Canadian workers connected to their jobs, but I have a question for the member opposite. Half of the questions we hear from the Conservatives in question period are concerns that we're spending too much money, that the deficit is too high. The other half of the time they complain about specific companies not getting access to our programs. We know which side we're on as a government. I'd like the Conservatives to let Canadians know what they believe in. +The Chair: Mr. Scheer, you may have a short question. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's quite clear what Conservatives believe in. We believe that when times were good, this government should have paid down debt instead of wasting money like $50 million to Mastercard and $12 million to Loblaws. The fact of the matter is that the government left Canadians in a vulnerable position as we were entering this pandemic precisely because of its fiscal irresponsibility, and now they have designed programs that have unnecessary barriers in them that prevent more and more Canadians from getting the help they need. Again, on April 26, Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account can qualify. Why hasn't the Prime Minister made that change either? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm really grateful for that question because it allows me to set the record straight for Canadians. Canadians need to know that our country has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We had that before the crisis began, and we still do. Canada has the fiscal firepower to support Canadians during this unprecedented crisis, and that is what we are going to continue to do. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, the wage subsidy was put in place to support businesses and SMEs, to avoid closures and bankruptcy. Have I missed something? Is the Liberal Party on the verge of bankruptcy? Is it about to shut down? Does the Prime Minister consider that the Liberal Party is getting ready to close its doors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for the question. I want to point out that, as the hon. member said, the wage subsidy was really put in place to protect workers across Canada. We are proud of that. More than 2million Canadians have benefited from this +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, the Liberal Party made $3million between January and March of this year. That's $3million in political donations. We're told that the emergency subsidy is being used to protect the jobs of Liberal Party employees. I'm not an accountant, but I can count. I'm wondering why the Liberal Party doesn't use its own money to pay its own employees instead of using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I would like to point out again that the purpose of the Canada emergency wage subsidy is to support workers across Canada and Quebec, to help them keep their jobs and allow them to stay connected to their workplace. That is what we've done. More than 2million Canadians are benefiting from this important and truly essential program for our country. We are proud of it. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is moral, fair and honest that employees who have lost their jobs are subsidizing an emergency wage subsidy for the Liberal Party of Canada out of their taxes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers. The hon. member talked about businesses and sectors that need more help. We agree. There is still a lot to do, but we want to work with all the +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, many struggling businesses in Quebec don't have access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy because they don't meet the eligibility criteria. Many tourism and municipal organizations, among others, don't have access to this wage subsidy. However, it's very clear that the Liberal Party qualifies according to the program criteria. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really think it's moral for her party to benefit from the emergency wage subsidy when it has the financial means to pay its own employees? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I agree that there is still a lot to do. We are ready, and we are taking action. However, it's important to point out that our government has already done a lot to support Canadians. We've spent $152billion in direct support measures to Canadians. More than eightmillion people are benefiting from the CERB, and more than twomillion +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, what I understand is not really complicated to understand. I understand that the Liberal Party has money, that it has money to pay its employees, but that it doesn't want to cut the booty it has amassed for the next election. It's as if it were telling us that it's indirectly financing itself for the next election. Will the Deputy Prime Minister show some leadership and convince her own party to give up the emergency wage subsidy and even commit to paying back the money it has already received? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out that our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers across the country, and I want to point out to what extent our programs do that. Eight million people are currently benefiting from the CERB, and two million are supported by the emergency wage subsidy. Our programs are also helping 380,000students and 639,000businesses +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Canadians and people across the world are reeling after seeing the images of George Floyd being brutally killed in a callous and casual manner. We're struggling with the impacts of anti-black racism. Anti-black racism hasn't just appeared or increased. It's now simply being captured by video. Canada is also no different. Anti-black racism also impacts Canada, and people here are feeling the frustration of black lives being neglected and ignored. Will the government commit to tracking race-based data in terms of COVID-19's impact on communities, particularly black Canadians, and track race-based data so that we can have a better response based on the evidence? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to start by thanking the member opposite for his very important question and the very important work he has done throughout his career in drawing attention to racism in Canada and in fighting against it. Thank you. I agree strongly with the member opposite that we, as Canadians, must be the opposite of complacent. We have to acknowledge that anti-black racism is real in our country, that unconscious bias is real in our country and that systemic discrimination is real. It happens here. We have to commit today to working hard to fight it. I have more to say about disaggregated data and the coronavirus, and I hope I'll have a chance to do that in my next answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you for that openness on the part of the government. I want more and clear commitments. We also know that race-based or discriminatory police practices still exist across Canada. Will the government commit to working with provinces to ensure there are no such practices allowed to exist in Canada, particularly related to discriminatory police practices like carding? Will the federal government work and use its powers to end those discriminatory practices where federal regulation applies, and work with the provinces to ensure this happens across the country? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Thank you again for that very important question. First of all, on coronavirus, our government believes that disaggregated data, including when it comes to race, is extremely important. We're working with our provincial partners on that. On policing, racial profiling is unacceptable and unlawful. We will always work to uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to ensure the human rights of everyone in Canada are protected. At the federal level, RCMP members are guided by bias-free policing based on equality and non-discrimination. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I want to change tracks, Mr. Chair, and talk about long-term care. How many times did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government meet with lobbyists from for-profit long-term care homes from March 25 to April 22, during the worst impacts of COVID-19 in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, at this moment I can only speak for myself, and I have not met with any such lobbyists during that period or at other times. I share the member opposite's concerns about long-term care facilities in Canada. We have to do better, and we will. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: It was 12 times during the worst impacts of COVID-19. While seniors were dying in long-term care homes, the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government met with private, for-profit long-term care home lobbyists 12 times. Why did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government choose to meet with these for-profit long-term care home lobbyists instead of meeting with those to solve the problem? Instead of making excuses about the federal government not playing a role, why didn't the Prime Minister and the Liberal government show leadership in calling for an end to profit in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me very clear about one thing, speaking on behalf of our government and on behalf of the Prime Minister. Our government sees as a matter of utmost concern and utmost urgency what has been happening in long-term care homes in our country, and the reports we have received from the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces about facilities in Ontario and Quebec need to be treated as historic documents that +The Chair: Now it's Mr.Rayes's turn. Mr.Rayes, you have the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, why is it that employers from industry, businesses and community organizations that have been approved in the Canada summer jobs program still haven't received the money they're entitled to? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): We are ensuring that the Canada summer jobs program is strengthened and enforced. We are making it more available to more students. We have lengthened the time period that the program +The Chair: Mr.Rayes has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Every day, the Prime Minister makes announcements in front of his residence. I'll repeat my question. Given the importance of the program for our youth who are looking to work, how is it that the organizations haven't yet received the money they need to hire students? As we know, there have been some problems with the CESB. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Our government is working hard to help employers adapt to the realities of COVID-19. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in communities across the country every year. That is why we have introduced flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth while providing more supports to employers. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The minister can say whatever he wants. Last year, there was no crisis and, as of April, all employers who had been admitted to the program had received the money. We are currently in a crisis. The government is trying to respond quickly to the needs. Right now, community organizations are not receiving the money to which they are entitled to hire students, to put them to work and to give them an employment opportunity. Why? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have managed to introduce flexibilities to take into consideration the difficult environment of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the flexibilities we've introduced into the Canada summer jobs program will help with more hiring of youth and more supports to employers, including non-profits and businesses that deliver essential services to Canadians. These changes will help small businesses hire and keep the workers that they need in the Canada summer jobs program. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The young people and employers listening to us must be very surprised by what the minister is saying. He mentioned that the rules are now more flexible. However, it is taking a month and a half longer than last year. The money has not yet been given out. I have done my homework. I went to see what was happening in my riding and in about 10other ridings. Last year, in my riding, all the money had been deposited before April. Right now, there is a $240,000shortfall for about 60student jobs, and the minister has the nerve to tell us that the government has provided more flexibility. Why is the money not available if the government wants to act quickly, to help the economy recover and to help young people? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, indeed we are acting quickly. We are listening to the needs of the employers to make sure that this program works not only for them but also for youth, and that it gives them the experiences they need. It is adapted better for the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that youth have the experience they need to gain life and work skills from the program. It's a great program, and we're making it work not just for businesses but also for non-profits. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Here is the reality. Last week, the owner of a hardware store in a village in my riding had to close his business because he was unable to hire students and had no one to work. This morning, an employer called me to tell me that his request to hire a student had been accepted, but that the delay meant that he could not proceed with the hiring. This means that one more young person will not have a job. That young person will therefore have to receive the CESB. There is the reality. When is the government going to release the money required for young people to be able to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I join the honourable member in recognizing that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic there are some difficulties in terms of structuring the program and making sure that employers are able to access it. That is why we've introduced flexibilities to ensure that employers are able to access the program and that youth are also able to take advantage of the program to gain important work skills, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and especially in providing essential services that serve their fellow Canadians. It's a great program. We're doing everything that we can to work through some of those obstacles. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. By its own numbers, PSPC has had to cut the number of N95 masks the government has on order after cancelling contracts with companies that were not able to meet Canadian standards. We know that companies right here in Canada were willing to step up and fill in the gap. Will the minister commit to making domestic production of PPE, including N95 masks, a priority? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, our priority is to make sure that we get safe and effective equipment and supplies into the hands of front-line health care workers. We've been running multiple complementary supply chains at the same time. Building up domestic capacity is indeed a priority. We have a contract with Medicom in Montreal for the production of N95 masks and we will continue to work hard to ensure +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, Novo Textiles, a company in my riding, has retooled its factory to produce surgical masks in response to the shortage of PPE in Canada. Additionally, it will soon be producing quality made-in-Canada N95 masks using Canadian designs and Canadian-made machinery. My constituent has invested his own capital and is in active production supplying front-line workers right now, not just talking about it. However, the company's application to NGen was recently rejected. Canada needs masks now, masks that meet Canadian standards. Is the government serious about growing domestic production capacity, or is it all talk and no action? +Hon. Anita Anand: In reality, we have received 101.3 million surgical masks that are being distributed out to provinces and territories. We have signed 24 contracts with domestic companies for the production of PPE right here at home. We are working very hard, Mr. Chair, to make sure Canadian front-line health care workers have exactly what they need to fight this pandemic. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, how many of these have received financial support from the government? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'm not quite sure what the member is referring to by how many of these, but as I said, we have signed 24 contracts with domestic +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Where are these manufacturers located? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have surgical masks being produced right here at home, as well as abroad, being brought into Canada +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: What provinces are they in? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as I said, we have a contract with General Motors for the production of surgical masks +The Chair: Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Are there any in any provinces besides Ontario and Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have contracts with multiple provinces throughout this country for the production of personal protective equipment. We are committed +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: How many of these domestic manufacturers rely on supply chains in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a situation of very high global demand for the same product. As a result, we +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Will the Minister commit to providing my office with answers to these questions? Thank you. +Hon. Anita Anand: I will commit, Mr. Chair, to continuing to work hard for Canadians to supply the personal protective equipment that they need. We have been giving updated numbers on our website +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: I'm going to assume that answer is no. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister introduced the Canada student service grant on April 22. Students were told details would arrive in a matter of weeks. It's been over a month, the I Want To Help platform has no details yet about eligibility, levels of funding, or how to apply. Post-secondary students are already one-quarter into their summer break. When can students expect to start applying for the CSSG so they can receive their grants? Thank you. +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to share that students can anticipate more programs coming out as soon as possible. The I Want to Help website will be launched. Students can already apply for Canada summer jobs if they go to jobbank.gc.ca. By visiting Canada.ca/coronavirus, you'll see a suite of programs to ensure that students and young people are able to succeed. The coronavirus will not win, and our government will continue investing in our leaders of today and tomorrow. +The Chair: The next set of questions goes to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard (BarrieInnisfil, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week the President of the Treasury Board wrote a letter to his cabinet colleagues in which he said that, as the federal minister responsible for public access to government information, he has advised his cabinet colleagues of the need for transparency and accountability, even in times of crisis. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Does she agree with the President of the Treasury Board's directive? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Mr. Chair, the government remains committed to maintaining the openness and transparency of our government during this challenging time. The Government of Canada, along with provincial and territorial governments, have implemented exceptional workplace measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, and to protect the health and safety of federal employees. These measures have had an impact on institutions' abilities to respond to access to information and personal information requests, since most employees are now working from their homes. +Mr. John Brassard: Frankly, I'm surprised that the answer is coming from that minister when the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities is in the House, but I will ask this question. Can the minister tell Canadians who Pierre Lavalle is? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Treasury Board Secretariat has provided guidance to institutions to continue to make the best efforts to respond to Access to Information Act and Privacy Act requests and to provide published content +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities tell us who Pierre Lavalle is? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, of course. Pierre Lavalle was the former CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are very proud that we now have Michael Sabia as the new chair of the Infrastructure Bank. He did a fabulous job in Montreal at +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the minister tell me how long Mr. Lavalle was the CEO of the Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can't give you the exact months. He was the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank since the beginning, but let's be clear: Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government and must have +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can I ask the minister how well she knows her file: 50%, 75% or 100%? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, that's quite a condescending little comment. I'd like to say that I know my file very well. What I know is that Canadians want infrastructure built, they want it built across the country, in the member opposite's riding and in ridings across the country. They want cleaner, healthier, more connected Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: How much of the $35 billion of infrastructure money that was allocated to that bank has been spent so far? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, the Infrastructure Bank is a new, more flexible financing model for infrastructure investments. It was set up; it is now in its new phase. We're very excited that it's going to be moving forwardand stay tuned. +Mr. John Brassard: In the context of Mr. Duclos' advice to his cabinet colleagues about openness and transparency, I'd like to ask the minister how much Mr. Lavalle was paid annually. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, as I said, Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation, but remuneration ranges are publicly available. I'd note that this information for the bank's CEOs has been in the public domain +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, I'm asking the minister how much Mr. Lavalle made. There was no answer to that. If it is in the public realm, she should know that. She said she knows her file very well. How much of a bonus was Mr. Lavalle paid recently when he left on April 2? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am not involved in HR discussions when it comes to the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Mr. Lavalle. Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. They need to have flexibility to meet their commercial mandates. As I say, the information about salary ranges is publicly available, but personal HR +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, could you stop my...? I'm hearing.... +The Chair: I would ask those of us virtually to mute. Mr. Brassard, there is about 15 seconds left. I'll cue you for a very short question. +Mr. John Brassard: Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to a table, Mr. Lavalle could have received a bonus after year one of zero to 75% of his base salary, which was $510,000 to $600,000 per year; or in year two, which he was in, zero to 120% of his base salary. How much of a bonus did he receive? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The rate of any remuneration paid to the chief executive officer is based on the recommendations of the board. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation. Let me say this: We're very excited about the new phase of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have Michael Sabia there as the new board chair. We need to move forward on +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Parliament's now been suspended for three months, since Friday, March 13. Will the government commit to reopening the House of Commons with its full powers, with social distancing, on Monday, September 21? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, as my colleague knows, we're meeting here four days a week, with questions on any topic for an hour and 35 minutes instead of 45 minutes a day. Democracy is as important for us as it is for the opposition. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, this committee is neutered. It has no powers to introduce supply day motions, no powers to test government confidence, no powers to do the usual things that Parliament does. At times of crisis, the bedrock principles of rule of law and democracy are tested, and our democratic principles are buckling under the pressure from this government. They came to office promising greater transparency, but they broke almost every one of their promises. They broke their promise on electoral reform. They appointed an anti-Conservative organization, Unifor, to the media bailout fund. In the last parliament, they tried to give the PMO control over this legislature in Motion No. 6, and in the last election, they rigged the leaders' debates in their favour, and now they have suspended Parliament. Instead of this neutered committee that meets for only a few days with a few members, will the government commit to the full re-opening of this House with all its powers with social distancing on Monday, September 21? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, the government's objective is always to try to resume Parliament as it was before. Today, we have to live with this pandemic, but we will do everything we can to return to a normal situation as quickly as possible. That is clear and precise. The opposition asked for more time, especially to ask questions, and that is what it got. I would like my colleague to tell me one thing. Over the past few weeks, we have sent suggestions to opposition members about the operation of Parliament and they have never responded. I would like to know why. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, the full parliament with its full powers sat through two world wars, previous pandemics and the October crisis in 1970. The governments of those days did not seek the suspension of the House. The government is not only failing to defend democracy here but also abroad. It can't utter the word Taiwan. It is failing to be strong and clear on Hong Kong and, while the situation today is not that of decades past, it is clear that Canada in the past stood for the rights of people in Hong Kong. Canada needs to take much stronger diplomatic action on Hong Kong. There are some 300,000 Canadians living there, and they are looking for the government's support. When will this government act? When will it threaten economic sanctions like the U.S. administration has? When will it provide asylum and a clear path to citizenship like the U.K. government has? When will it speak up against the Communist Party of China's United Front workers operating here in this country? When will it do like Australia did in calling for an international investigation of COVID-19, and organize an international coalition of like-minded democracies to defend Hong Kongers and the violation of the Sino-British treaty? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'll remind the member to look at our statement of May 28. It's already done. Canada has spoken to the world; Canada has spoken up. We've made a first declaration with our colleagues in Australia and the U.K. to say that we have deep concerns. We all know that the one country, two systemsthe high degree of liberty and freedom enjoyed by the people in Hong Konghas made Hong Kong what it is today, a beacon when it comes to trade and financing. We know that and have expressed deep concern. Again, on May 28, with the United States, with the United Kingdom and with Australia, Canada was front and centre in saying that we have deep concerns that the imposition of a national security law by Beijing would undermine the very foundation, the very principles that have made Hong Kong so successful. We said that we and our international partners would look at the implications and the ramifications that this might have on our arrangement. I've called for a meeting of our Five Eyes partners tonight. I'll be chairing a meeting of our Five Eyes partners with the foreign ministers. We will be discussing it and will continue to raise our voices to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, and we will do it with our allies. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, farmers have contacted my office about the massive delays with processing the advance payment program loans. Some put their applications in almost two months ago, and not a dollar has flowed. What's the point of having an advance payment program if there's no payment? Can the Minister of Agriculture tell us when these delays will end? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I can assure you that we are working with all the independent operators. This program is not administered by their officials, but by partners. I can assure you that, under the circumstances, they are doing their best to make the advance payments +Mr. Larry Maguire: Farmers understand that some of the delays were caused by staff having to work remotely. However, did the minister approve a policy change on April 1 that made the eligibility for these loans more difficult during the middle of a pandemic, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, a number of changes and improvements have been made to the program. To make things easier for our administrators, we have postponed some of the changes that could have been problematic. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Yes, so some of the changes made it more problematic for the producers. The minister must take responsibility for these delays. Farmers deserve an answer on why she changed the program. Who advised her that it would be a good idea to make it more difficult for the farmers to access the advance payment program in the middle of a pandemic? Or did she just go ahead and do this on her own? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we are constantly working with the administrators of the program. We are fully prepared to respond to their requests so that the advance payments program can best serve our producers across the country. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers are telling me that the premiums for the western livestock insurance program are too high. I told the Minister of Agriculture over two weeks ago that this was a problem, and yet she went out and said that farmers needed to make better use of existing support. When will the Minister of Agriculture listen to what the farmers are saying so they can actually use the existing programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would like to remind everyone that we have put in place certain measures to improve access to AgriStability. We have also significantly improved the AgriRecovery program. Over the past few years, this program amounted to about $15million. It is now $100million for pork and beef producers alone, not counting the $77.5million for food processors. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers in my riding and several across Canada are still waiting for the Minister of Agriculture's promise for an AgriRecovery program. When will the Minister of Agriculture stop rubbing salt in the farmers' wounds and provide the rest of the story she has been saying is on its way for over a month now in her AgriRecovery promise? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have committed $50million to beef producers and $50million to pork producers through the AgriRecovery program. Here is how the program works: the federal government contributes up to60% and then the provinces implement it how they see fit. +Mr. Larry Maguire: The funding announced by the Minister of Agriculture for the livestock industry was insufficient, and what was promised has not been delivered. This has caused hogs to be euthanized and over 100,000 feeder cattle to become overweight. The industry is in a crisis. How many livestock producers need to go bankrupt before they get the help they deserve? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have significantly increased the amounts available through AgriRecovery. It is $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. These programs are administered by the provinces. There is also $77.5million for processors. +The Chair: Ms.Chabot, you have the floor. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr.Chair, we know that not everyone experiences economic recovery in the same way. In some sectors, such as tourism, fishery, hotels and restaurants, we do not know when activity will resume or whether it will resume slowly. This is a major concern for workers, because they do not know what will happen tomorrow. They do not know how much they will be able to earn this summer. Given that the CERB lasts 16weeks, they are all afraid that they will be left with nothing. Without a job, they have no income. Will the Minister of Finance announce now that he is extending the CERB? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly at the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to support workersthose who have lost their jobs, who were laid off, or those whose jobs simply disappearedthrough the Canada emergency response benefit. It has provided immense support to the over eight million Canadian workers who have applied to the CERB. We will continue to support those workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, my question was clear. We know why the CERB was put in place. It does not need to be explained to us again. For some workers, the CERB will end tomorrow morning. There will be no recovery in their sector. Examples include bars, sports training, arts and culture. They don't know when they will start up again. Is the government prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit now? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, the workers that the honourable member identified, including those who were not eligible for the EI, were also covered by the Canada emergency response benefit. We moved quickly. We recognized the urgency of the situation, which is why we took action to support workers and their families through the Canada emergency response benefit. We have processed over eight million applications through that benefit. We will continue to support Canadian workers at this very difficult time. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, are we going to continue to help workers in these difficult times? The answer is simple. Some don't know what they are going to do tomorrow morning. They do not know whether they will have an income to pay their bills. They have families, they have other needs. The CERB is going to end. This is the last period for some people. Can you do anything about it? Can I walk out of the House today and tell all those people that the CERB is going to be extended? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the honourable member for her question. We will clearly maintain our approach. We will look at how we can improve and change our programs, such as the wage subsidy. Of course, we are looking at how we can gradually reopen our economy by continuing to help people to be in a good position. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, we are making progress. Yes, the decision is to extend the wage subsidy. I think we must do the same with the CERB, which is about to end. Another important commitment is the employment incentives. I don't know about you, but we see it in our ridings. People are scared because the economy is reopening in certain sectors. People are afraid to go back to work. People are afraid to go back to full-time jobs because they are afraid of losing all their emergency benefits. This affects workers and students alike. Are you prepared to take action on this issue? You have also promised to implement employment incentives. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that, with a responsible reopening of the economy, we have to look at our programs to make sure that we are keeping and protecting people. That continues to be our approach. We will look at changes and improvements. In that way, we will continue our responsible reopening of the economy. +The Chair: We are going to take a break so that our employees can change shifts without jeopardizing their health. While we have a few seconds, I would also like to remind members to address their questions to the chair, not directly to the ministers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We'll now carry on. We'll go to Mr. Easter in Malpeque. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Brampton North. Today, June 1, under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization, we celebrate World Milk Day. World Milk Day allows us to emphasize the importance of milk as a global food, its benefits for our health as well as our nutrition; and to celebrate the dairy sector, from the primary producers to the processors who ensure that our many high-quality dairy products get to the marketplace. Canadians are fortunate to have a thriving dairy sector that, under supply management, provides high-quality products at reasonable prices to consumers. Even under supply management though, dairy farmers have found themselves facing difficult challenges as a result of recent trade agreements and sudden market shocks as a result of the pandemic. Mr. Chair, to acknowledge World Milk Day, I'd love to be able to raise a glass of wholesome white or chocolate milk, but we can't do that. On the other hand, I must ask the Minister of Agriculture what the government is doing to support the dairy sector in these times so we can celebrate World Milk Day next year with more vim and vigour. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank Mr. Easter, from the great riding of Malpeque in Prince Edward Island. Today it is particularly important to thank families working on the 11,000 dairy farms across the country, caring for 1.4 million cows to produce each year more than 9.3 billion litres of milk of the highest quality. The dairy sector in Canada is made up of more than 220,000 Canadians and foreign workers who dedicate their lives to feed us. While our society lives through unprecedented changes, the dairy sector demonstrates its resilience and proves more than ever the value of the supply management system. It is why we increased by $200 million the borrowing capacity of the Canadian Dairy Commission to improve its butter and cheese storage programs, giving the flexibility to manage the surplus of milk and support its mandate. Over the past few years, we have invested in dairy farms and given direct compensation to dairy farmers through trade agreements with Europe and Asia. We will do the same for the new NAFTA. Raise a glass for World Milk Day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sahota in Brampton North. +Ms. Ruby Sahota (Brampton North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, last week a horrific video surfaced showing the killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of the Minneapolis police. George Floyd's death was the latest in a series of unwarranted deaths of black men and women at the hands of police. Since his death, solidarity protests have erupted across cities in the United States and all over the world asking for justice and a stop to systemic dehumanization of black people. I wish I could say we are, but sadly we are not immune to the reality of what is happening south of the border. The same protests taking place in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris and London are also taking place in our own backyard. In cities like Montreal and Toronto, thousands of people have already taken to the streets, not only to decry anti-black racism but also to ask for tangible solutions to effectively combat anti-black racism. We don't have to wait for pain, suffering and outrage to boil to the surface to act. There's nothing we know today that we didn't already know. As Canadians are demonstrating and calling on their society and governments to do better, can the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth tell us what this government is doing to address anti-black racism in Canada and to ensure we are evening the playing field for black Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the MP for Brampton North is correct. Anti-black racism, racism and discrimination are present in Canada. With COVID-19, we have even seen a rise in anti-Asian racism. We all must speak out against racism and discrimination. Keeping silent is to condone these horrific acts. These acts don't have to be violent or result in the loss of life to be wrong. In fact, the actions of Amy Cooper shone a light on the stealth racism that exists. We must acknowledge inequities in our institutions and in people's lived experiences. If we as Canadians truly desire an inclusive Canada, every single one of us must step up, be an ally and do what we can to make workplaces, communities and public spaces safer. Our government has started this work. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in decision-making tables better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN International Decade for People of African Descent; the applications for capacity building in black Canadian communities are being assessed; the anti-racism secretariat is set up for Canadians but also for government departments to improve their systems, including advancement opportunities; and the recently announced immunity task force will provide disaggregated data to decision-makers because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. This work is by no means finished. Although our government is moving in the right decision, there is clearly a lot more work to do and we are committed to doing that work with communities as allies, as partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Duvall from Hamilton Mountain. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for ElmwoodTranscona. Mr. Chair, workers' unions, business leaders and analysts across the country are raising a huge alarm over potential bankruptcies due to COVID-19. Thousands of Canadian workers are exposed and vulnerable. For years the government has promised to change the laws to protect workers from corporate bankruptcy, but has failed to deliver. Will this government fix the law before more Canadian workers lose their hard-earned pensions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi (Minister of Labour): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for that question and for his advocacy on this file. I remind the member that since 2015 one of our first initiatives was the repealing of Bills C-525 and C-377, which were anti-union legislation. Since then, we've implemented a number of measures to protect workers. We've increased the wage earner protection program by extending it from four weeks to seven weeks. The member is well aware that in 2019 +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go back to Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, the changes the government made last year to bankruptcy insolvency laws were largely cosmetic and won't protect workers' and pensioners' livelihoods once bankruptcy hits. The government can protect severance, termination pay, pensions and benefits from corporate theft, but will they do it, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we made a number of significant changes in budget 2019, including that the process for the CCAA be more open and transparent. We mandated that those who are coming to the process have to be honest and truthful. One thing we heard in the consultations was the ability for courts to set aside executive bonuses, and we implemented all those changes because we want to continue to protect pensioners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for a short question, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thanks, Mr. Chair. The minister isn't answering the question. Canadian workers are worried. This is about their livelihoods. Will the government fix the lawsyes or noto protect workers' and pensioners' rights? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we have made amendments, and we are going to continue to make amendments. We want to absolutely ensure that pensions are protected. I look forward to working collaboratively with the member. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie, ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Twice, following negotiations with the NDP, the government has committed to provide direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities. I'm wondering when those people can expect the government to announce the details of that assistance. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we are committed to advancing on the issues that have been identified by Canadians with disabilities. We are continuing that engagement, and we will have more to say on that very soon. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: I think that answer is entirely inadequate. I have a lot of sympathy for people across the country who are living with disabilities and are getting impatient with the fact that alongside its initial commitment to seniors, for instance, the government made a commitment to helping people living with disabilities with the same kind of direct financial assistance, and it hasn't come. Why has it taken so long for the government to get around to helping people who are in a crisis right now? I want to know the reason why this hasn't been announced yet. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have established the COVID-19 disability advisory group, comprising experts in disability inclusion. We're moving forward with the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide $2,000 per month for eligible students with permanent disabilities. We are doubling the Canada student grants for students with disabilities in the coming academic year. We have done a lot, but we will continue to do more, and we will have more to share on our continuing efforts to support persons with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie. You have time for one short question. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Their commitment was not around an advisory commitment. Their commitment was for direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities who are facing additional costs because of the pandemic. They have committed twice and they have done nothing. When are they going to get around to it? Why should people living with disabilities have to wait any longer than they already have? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, that is precisely why we are listening closely to the COVID-19 disability advisory group to get expert advice. We will have more to share. There is more work to come, and there will be results to be announced very soon. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. McLean, Calgary Centre. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to La Presse, federal cabinet ministers Steven Guilbeault , Catherine McKenna and Jonathan Wilkinson have been handed responsibility for crafting an economic recovery plan that aims to accelerate the green shift. True to form, this cabal around the Prime Minister has declared let's not let a good crisis go to waste. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his ministers have been working with environmental lobby groups for further financial support to engineer Canada's economy post COVID? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, our most urgent priority is COVID-19 and the health and safety of Canadians. As we support Canadians through this time, we will also ensure our long-term economic, environmental and physical well-being. Our government remains committed to building a stronger and more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable, prosperous future for our kids and grandkids. Just like science is guiding us in our response to COVID-19, science will continue to guide us toward reduced pollution and in fighting climate change. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force for a resilient recovery was quoted as saying last week that they would have recommendations for government action available within eight weeks, notably eight weeks when Parliament is, by this government's design, absent. Can the Prime Minister disclose to this committee how many meetings his 61 environmental activist advisers have had with the task force or its members? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, our most urgent priority with respect to COVID-19 is the health and safety of Canadians. While supporting Canadians during this period, we must also ensure our economic, environmental and physical well-being in the long term. Our government remains committed to building a stronger, more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable future for our grandchildren and children. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force is a who's who of academics and bureaucrats, but surprisingly, includes no one from the productive part of the Canadian economy. So much for pan-Canadian input. The task force is reviewing work produced by Smart Prosperity, a government-funded institute whose membership overlaps with both the task force and the government's own Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. This is a bureaucratic environmental Ponzi scheme, with overlapping personnel and mandates. The only thing not overlapping is their funding. How many organizations does this government need to fund to recycle work produced by other redundant government-funded entities? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, our priority right now is the health and safety of Canadians. Just as science guides us in our response to COVID-19, it will continue to guide us in reducing pollution and fighting climate change. Our priority is to support Canadians during this period and we must also ensure our environmental, economic and physical well-being in the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: A notable member of the task force in question is one Gerald Butts. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but can the Prime Minister confirm if this is the same Gerald Butts who was forced to resign as his principal secretary for his role in attempting to force Canada's then justice minister into breaking the law? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of this crisis, our priority has been to support Canadians and their health and safety. We will continue to do so, because it is important that we get through this crisis by supporting Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who was paid $360,000 U.S. by an American-funded organization after he started working with the Prime Minister? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, Mr.Chair, it is important to talk to Canadians right now to tell them that we are putting their health and safety first. We will continue to do so. We are going through a crisis right now and we will support Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who, in his role as the principal secretary in the office of Ontario's then premier, advanced policies that now saddle Ontarians with the highest energy costs in North America? Is this is the same Gerald Butts who weighed down Ontario with the world's highest subnational debt burden, all for the benefit of new green jobs that, notably, have never arrived? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, for the past two and a half months, we have been supporting Canadians. We have put forward an economic program to help businesses, workers and Canadians across the country. We will continue to make the health and safety of Canadians a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the MP for West Nova, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Yesterday, the Minister responsible for tourism, ACOA and official languages was happy to close our national Tourism Week by announcing investments of $70 million to offset financial losses in the tourism industry across Canada. Where's the big clap? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! Mr. Chris d'Entremont: There you go, give her a clap. More than $70 million will be invested to support this sector and promote Canadian destinations. Southern Ontario received $30 million, northern Ontario received $7 million and western Canada received $3.5 million. There's nothing for Atlantic Canada yet. Knowing that we just had an announcement from the Minister of Transport that there will be no cruise ships in Atlantic Canada or anywhere in Canada this year, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, where is the program for Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I commend my colleague for his important question. I know he's a very strong advocate for the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada, so I want to reassure him. Obviously, we want to support the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada. ACOA has a clear direction to do just that. If he has any good ideas, please let him come forward and let's have a conversation. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada will also be supported through Destination Canada. Rather than doing marketing internationally, we will be supporting destination marketing organizations across the country, including in Atlantic Canada, to make sure that we launch this new movement to visit local. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: That would be all great if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic and you can't even cross the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border without having to self-isolate for two weeks. It's going to make travelling, through the Maritimes at least, very difficult. In Saint John, New Brunswick, 79 cruise ships and more than 270,000 passengers will not be giving back to that local community. At home in Nova Scotia, it's about 118 or 130 vessels. In terms of a minimum financial loss, $165 million will not be generated. There will be job losses and permanent closures of restaurants and boardwalk shops. Prince Edward Island, which was expected to have a record attendance year, will lose visits of 97 ships and 154,000 passengers, and $60 million to the province's economy will be lost. Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is this: Who is ACOA going to be working with, and what kinds of programs are going to be available to help them through this very difficult year? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I agree with my colleague. The sector is really impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. It is a bit like the canary in the coal mine; it was the first impacted, and definitely it is still impacted. That's why we are in close contact with tourism leaders and operators across the country. Again, recently I had good conversations with the chambers of commerce all across Atlantic Canada, including Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador for the tourism sector. There is money for the tourism sector and tourism operators. They can have access to the wage subsidy. They wanted to have access to it until later in the summer, and it has been extended to the end of August. They have access to the rent relief program, the CEBA and ACOA funding. As mentioned many times in this chamber, Mr. Chair, if my colleague has clear examples to provide me, let's work together. Let's make sure the money flows to these people, because they need it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have only about a minute left, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, like the minister, last week, I spoke with Simon-Pierre Poulin, the director of Le Franco newspaper in Alberta, about the Sauvons Saint-Jean movement. He asked me why we could not continue to work on official languages and on modernizing the act even though Parliament is sitting in a different configuration. Unfortunately, I had to explain to him that many restrictions were associated with the current format of this fake Parliament. The pandemic is also threatening the protection of French in minority communities. The Liberal government made a commitment to modernize the Official Languages Act in the first six months of its mandate. How will it proceed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that our two official languages are important and that, when it comes to language rights, we must always be on guard and protect what we have achieved. As for Campus Saint-Jean, I am very aware of the issue. I had the opportunity to speak with my two counterparts in Alberta late Friday afternoon to tell them about our concerns and the need to protect the institution from drastic cuts. That was the first point. The second point is the modernization of the Official Languages Act. I have the same concerns as my colleague. Clearly, we must continue the conversations and find the right solutions. Finally, we must be there to protect our language rights. If the member has good ideas, he can come to me to discuss them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for ChicoutimiLe Fjord has the floor. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): Mr.Chair, some people for whom the 15weeks of sickness benefits were not enough before the COVID-19crisis now have to exhaust their regular employment insurance benefits before they are entitled to the CERB. Today, I would like to know whether they will be able to exhaust their weeks of eligibility for the CERB after October3. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we ensured that those who switched over to the Canada emergency response benefit would be covered by it, whether they were EI eligible or not. We are committed to supporting all of the workers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. +Mr. Richard Martel: According to a survey conducted by the Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires' research institute on small and medium size businesses, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region would be the most affected by the economic effects of COVID-19. This is not surprising. In fact, in our region, the tourism industry generates more than $300million in economic activity, including $58million for the cruise industry alone. The $70million that you announced yesterday is a very modest start. What does the government intend to do for the tourism industry in the regions? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that the tourism industry is indeed very much affected. That is why we are responding to their concerns and worries. We have therefore extended the emergency wage subsidy until the end of August. We are also providing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, as well as the $40,000loans from the Canada emergency business account. We have also just announced $70million in support for Canada's tourism sector. I am having good talks with various stakeholders in Quebec, including Martin Soucy from the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Qubec. In addition, we are going to do our part to support the tourism sector through Economic Development Canada. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, the tourism industry in the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is the sum of all its stakeholders. Many of these businesses are too small to receive the assistance announced by the federal government. Overly restrictive standards will prevent some tourist accommodation from welcoming guests this year, even though they will have to pay their bills every month. What does the government plan to do to help the regions most affected economically? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for his important question. What he is describing is the reason we are currently working on a game plan. We really want to be able to reach these small businesses, of which there are many in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean, in Quebec and across the country. That is why the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have committed an additional $1billion to help those businesses that fall through the cracks. We need to respond now, and I will have more to say about it in the next few days. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, I was very disappointed to see that we had lost asparagus crops due to a labour shortage. When I spoke with the blueberry growers in my area, they told me they were concerned that the same thing could happen to them. Some employers to whom we granted summer positions are not finding students to fill them. When will there be incentives to encourage people to work rather than disincentives? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we believe that the flexibilities we have introduced to the Canada summer jobs program will enable more employers to use it, including more businesses, as well as help young people to acquire the necessary skills and benefits from this really important program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Martel, you have about a minute left. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, on May19, the government said that it was studying several solutions to help business owners and entrepreneurs who operate their business using a personal bank account. When will the Canada emergency business account be available to them? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, small businesses are the heart of all of our communities, and we've been working really hard to help them. Almost 650,000 small businesses have received the loan, which is really helping with those costs. We have more work to do to make sure that those other businesses also get access to this support. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Epp, the member for Chatham-KentLeamington. +Mr. Dave Epp: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish to congratulate my colleague, Cathy McLeod. On Tuesday, May 26, she gained a new resident when Brinnley Lisette Huby was born to parents Adam and Carina Huby. Carina is my daughter, and that makes Brinnley my first grandchild and presently my favourite newest Canadian. All are healthy, and I thank God for Brinnley's healthy arrival. Some honourable members: Hear, hear! Mr. Dave Epp: Minister Jordan, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation is allowed access to the seafood stabilization fund, while you deny its competitor, our Ontario fisheries that fish on the Great Lakes, the similar right to apply. Minister, why? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague for the very good question. The Ontario inland fishers and the people in Ontario are eligible for other programs that are offered through the regional development agencies. We are going to make sure that no industry is left behind when it comes to our fisheries. We're making sure that we're addressing the concerns of inland fisheries as well as coastal fisheries. Those programs will be available to anyone who needs to apply through the RDAs. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, will you then direct these regional agencies to provide equitable funding equivalent to the seafood stabilization fund? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we're making sure that they have the same access to programs through the regional development agencies as there is through the seafood stabilization fund. We're making sure that everyone who is in need of support through the programs will be able to access it. +Mr. Dave Epp: According to Stats Canada, before my granddaughter turns one year old, her share of the federal debt will be over $39,000. What is Minister Morneau's fiscal plan for Canada so that the interest on this debt doesn't cripple Canada with higher taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we realize that it's always important to be responsible from a fiscal standpoint. We believe that the responsible approach today is to make investments to support Canadians and to support businesses. In that way we can have jobs and we can get through this pandemic and have a strong economy and be able to continue with our approach to managing our economy in a responsible +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, when can Parliament, or this semblance of it, see that plan for economic prosperity? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been quite clear that we need to be transparent on a daily basis by giving Canadians an understanding of the investments that we're making through this pandemic. Once the situation is more stable economically, we will certainly be coming forward with a broader plan. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said three months before the pandemic that this current government's level of spending and incurring of debt is untenable and that future generations, like my granddaughter, will have to pay for it. How much more debt is the minister planning to incur? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, coming into this pandemic in a strong fiscal position with the lowest amount of debt among the G7 countries is a function of our economy that's afforded us the opportunity to invest on behalf of Canadians. We will continue to take that approach. We believe that's the responsible thing to do through the course of this challenge. +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for stopping illegal American guns from getting through our borders? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question. I can tell you that we have invested considerable amounts of money and have earmarked ongoing monies to ensure that we address the issue of illegal guns passing across the border. We realize +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: What's the budget, then, to fight government-trained and licensed Canadians in the court challenge that's now been triggered? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go to the honourable minister. We're not getting any audio. +Mr. Dave Epp: I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Could I have some more time, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Yes. We're just going to hold time here momentarily, Mr. Epp. +Hon. Marc Garneau: I apologize, Mr. Chair. Could I ask for the question to be repeated, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Epp, what is your question again? +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for fighting the government-trained and licensed people who are now triggering a lawsuit against your order in council? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I don't have the answer to that question, but obviously the government will defend its position. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem of this government's policy of spending the cupboards bare in good times instead of planning for a rainy dayand folks, we're in a storm. Unlike this government, municipalities cannot by law say put it on the tab for the next generation. The balanced budget requirements force them to choose between slashed services and drastic tax hikes. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says they need $10 billion in targeted emergency operating funding, so do municipalities slash services, do they raise taxes, or will we be there for the municipalities? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our government absolutely understands the crucial role municipalities play as the engine of our economy at all times, and particularly today, as in many parts of the country we are looking to restart the economy. That is why the Prime Minister announced just this morning that we will be accelerating payments under the gas tax fund. Municipalities will receive the full amount of their 2020-21 payment on June 10. This will help them with some of their near-term liquidity issues. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Mr. Manly, the member for NanaimoLadysmith. Mr. Manly, go ahead. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is not helping enough small businesses. Many landlords do not want to take part in the program. Small businesses are requesting that they be able to apply without the landlord's participation. Many small businesses do not meet the 70% income-loss threshold. Many did their best to keep employees engaged and tried hard to not lose clients, as the government urged them to do. They are, in fact, being penalized for that effort. Thousands of business owners across the country will not be able to pay their rent today and risk closing permanently. Will the government push the provinces to include an eviction moratorium during the pandemic and make this commercial rent assistance program more flexible to ensure small businesses can survive? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for the question, which recognizes the very serious challenge that many small businesses are facing during the course of this pandemic. We know that the programs we've put forward, programs like the emergency business account, are supporting businesses, but the emergency rent approach, on which we've worked together with provinces, can also help significantly. We are seeing a significant number of landlords and tenants coming forward with this and taking this up. I would encourage landlords to use this program, which is supporting them. Of course, the suggestion from the member that provinces take action in restricting evictions is one that I've been speaking about to ministers of finance from the provinces over the course of the last couple of months. This is an area of provincial jurisdiction. We are supportive and working hard to make sure this program works. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, this week marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and we are currently seeing repression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. We know that Communist China oppresses minority groups and does not respect human rights. In spite of this knowledge, the Harper Conservative government signed a lopsided and anti-democratic investment treaty with China in 2012, the Canada-China FIPA. This Conservative deal gave Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers to challenge our democratic decisions through a secretive private tribunal system. In the years since the FIPA was signed, with no vote in Parliament, Chinese state-owned corporations have been purchasing Canadian assets and resources. These corporations can seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers for the loss of potential profit when our laws and policies get in the way of their profit-taking. Can the government tell us whether any of these Chinese corporations has threatened to use the anti-democratic investor-state provisions of the FIPA to seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: As I'm sure the member will know, Canada is setting up with its allies around the world to protect the freedom and democracy that has been enjoyed by the people in Hong Kong. As he knows, we have issued a declaration with a number of allies we have called upon to make sure that measures remain in place to protect the freedom and liberty of the people of Hong Kong. We know that the one country, two systems treaty system has provided the framework under which the people of Hong Kong have been able to create an economy that is resilient and has made Hong Kong a place where people want to do business, commerce and trade. Mr. Chair, we have expressed our deep concern. I would refer the member to the joint statement we have issued with the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. We have spoken with one voice and we have said we have deep concerns that the actions by Beijing, if they were to proceed with this national security law unilaterally, would undermine the bedrock of what has made Hong Kong, and that we will review the impact that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Manly, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead; there's time for a short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: That was a trick question, because this anti-democratic agreement states that we wouldn't be able to have permission to disclose that information if there was, in fact, an investor-state dispute. Unlike NAFTA, which had a six-month period for renegotiation, the Harper Conservatives locked us into a 15-year agreement with the FIPA and this anti-democratic agreement. Will the government re-engage the special committee on Canada-China relations so we can do a thorough investigation of this Conservative sellout of Canadian democracy +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We are out of time, Mr. Manly. We'll go to the minister for a response. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada will always pursue trade in the interest of Canadians, and we are in the process of reviewing our FIPA agreements so those agreements can provide the right framework for Canadians to trade, with the interests of Canadians always top of mind. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Ashton in ChurchillKeewatinook Aski. Ms. Ashton, go ahead with your question. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. My question is to the Minister of Fisheries. This pandemic has hit Canadians hard. Import markets for our fish have dried up. This is devastating for inland fisheries. The season opened last week, and fishers are desperate for support. For indigenous fishers, fishing sustains their communities. It is their way of life. Will the government work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and inland fishers to develop and facilitate the delivery of an emergency package that works for them and find ways to redirect product to domestic markets, including communities facing food insecurity now? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we've recognized how hard the pandemic has hit our fishers and our fishing sector. We've made available a number of different measures. One of the things we're doing primarily is the harvesters' benefit, which allows all harvesters to take advantage of a benefit as well as a grant contribution to help them get through. We're also changing EI so they can now qualify for their EI benefits based on previous seasons, not this one, recognizing they're going to face challenges this year. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Board is a Crown corporation. We know it's been a very difficult time for them. We are continuing to look at ways we can address the challenges within the industry and we'll continue to work with them to make sure we are addressing those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Ashton, we have about one minute left. There's time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question is to the Minister of Transport. Canadians are being ripped off by airlines that are refusing to give passengers their money back. Airlines are profiting off Canadians during a very desperate time. This government has sat by while the Canadian Transportation Agency issued a statement to back up the airlines' appalling actions. What is this government doing to fix this? Why aren't they ensuring that public funds involve reimbursing passengers and an equity stake for Canadians? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I certainly recognize the very difficult situation and the frustration of Canadians who would have preferred a refund. At the same time, at this point if airlines were required to immediately reimburse all the cancelled tickets, it would have a devastating effect on the airlines. That is why the Canadian Transportation Agency, which is an independent body, recommended that vouchers be issued and that they have a reasonable time to be usedtwo years. It is also very important to bear in mind that as we begin to exit this pandemic, we must still have an airline industry in this country. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we're going to the honourable member for Victoria, Ms. Collins. Please go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, in Victoria housing and homelessness were at a crisis point long before the pandemic hit, but now people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. If you don't have a place to live, you don't have the luxury of following public health advice and staying home. As part of the recovery, will this government be increasing funding to build or buy the housing needed to address homelessness? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, very early in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our government provided $157.5 million directly to 51 community entities to respond directly to the needs of homeless Canadians. We also provided $50 million in additional money to women's shelters. We are continuing with the national housing strategy. We are providing supports to communities and NGOs, as well as municipalities that are moving projects forward. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the federal government allocated just $1.3 million in Reaching Home funds to my region. While the province has stepped up, it cost them $18.5 million to purchase just one hotel in Victoria. The federal funding is clearly inadequate. Is the government going to show some leadership and at least match the provincial funds? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly. The $157.5 million, I must note, was additional money on top of the base funding that we provide every year to address the needs of Canada's most vulnerable. In addition to that, our projects under the national housing strategy are continuing. We are providing leadership. We are trusting the community entities to make the decisions on where the funding goes and to respond in a way that meets the +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Collins, you have about 40 seconds left, which is time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins: The minister mentioned the national housing strategy. This government's national housing strategy reduces the level of targeted funding for lower-income households, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. My question is simple: Coming out of the pandemic in the coming months, is the government going to increase housing funding to address the immediate need, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I disagree with the honourable member. Our money is targeted to communities. They have community advisory boards that decide how to spend the money. If the NDP does not trust local communities to make decisions, they should say so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for Joliette, Mr.Ste-Marie, to take the floor. Go ahead, Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last time I checked, we still had a democratic system and the government had to remain accountable. The government needs to present a picture of the economic situation and a picture of its overall emergency measures. Does the government intend to extend the measures over the summer? If so, how will it do so? The government must also present its working scenarios for the economic recovery. The government needs to be transparent. When will the government provide its economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his questions. I agree, it is very important to be transparent and to provide the necessary information to Canadians. Every day, we announce measures, of course, but also the cost of the measures and the amount of the investments. It is very important. The challenge at the moment is the economic situation, which is very fluid. When the situation is more stable, we will have the opportunity to give an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: In my opinion, Mr.Chair, it will really be too late to do the economic update when things are more stable. We have been asking for an economic update for the past month. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been urging the government to table an economic update in a timely manner. With only three weeks left in the House before the summer, the clock is ticking. The Quebec government will table its economic update later this month. Will the federal government follow suit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, let me confirm that we will continue to be transparent about the investments; it is very important. Of course, each day we work to make sure we have a solid grasp of the economic situation. As I said, when the situation is a little more stable, we will have the opportunity to explain our situation with an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Once again, Mr.Chair, when the situation is more stable, it will be too late to do an economic update; instead we will have to table a budget with the recovery in mind. Speaking of the recovery, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is surprised that the government is calling on the private sector for ideas for its recovery plan. Mr.Giroux points out that this government has thousands of public servants with very good ideas, and he adds that the government can also ask for the opposition parties' views. That would be a very good idea. Why is the government contracting out the development of its recovery plan to the private sector? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to tell the hon. member that it is important to listen to what we are trying to do, and to listen to people's ideas and opinions, not only in Parliament, but also from our society. So we keep listening. Of course, with our approach, we will address the economic recovery in a way that will ensure we can maintain our very strong position. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we are still surprised that the government has contracted out its recovery plan to the private sector. The sooner the government tables its recovery plan, the better. Businesses and individuals would start gaining confidence in the economy again. It would help them to loosen the purse strings and be assured that there will be economic life after the pandemic. Again, that is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer says. Can the government tell us when it will table its recovery plan? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we feel it is very important to consider what we need to do in each phase of our recovery. At this time, it is necessary to consider the public health situation and the gradual reopening of our economy. That is why we feel our approach aims for a safe recovery. Obviously, by gathering more information in Phase3, we will be able to consider more than one approach to recovery. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you. I understand that the exact date for tabling the recovery plan may be difficult to determine at this time. Can the minister tell us whether he currently intends to table the recovery plan in a month ending in ber? If not, will it be before or after that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work with the provinces on an approach to determine the timing of the recovery, and we are also listening to our colleagues in Parliament, of course. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to the honourable member for Abbotsford, Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister continues to pander to the Communist regime in China. We were shocked to hear that his own Minister of Digital Government used WeChat, a Chinese social media site, to raise funds to sue a Global News reporterfor what? It was for daring to expose China's attempt to hoard PPE during the COVID crisis. Is it the practice of the government to support lawsuits against Canadian reporters who challenge the hostile actions of the regime in China, and will the Prime Minister now condemn the actions of the digital government minister? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media across the country and the world. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is not acceptable. As many members on all sides of the House know, WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with the Chinese-Canadian community. Participation in this group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted guidelines and a disclaimer. In this case, the individual who violated the guidelines of the group is no longer a part of that group. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, Canadians have no reason to trust the Prime Minister on anything to do with China, especially when it comes to trade policy. Two and a half years ago, the Prime Minister travelled to China to commence free trade negotiations, and the talks ended up in complete failure and embarrassment. Still the Prime Minister continues to cozy up to the Chinese regime, refusing to ban Huawei from our 5G network or to speak out convincingly against China's oppression in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the two Michaels are continuing to languish in Chinese jails. This is the kind of partner the Prime Minister wants to negotiate a trade agreement with. Can the minister tell us whether at any time during the last six months the Prime Minister or anyone else in his government has had discussions with China about a free trade agreement? A simple yes or no will do. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as you know, Canada has a complex and multi-dimensional relationship with China. Canada will continue to engage with China with eyes wide open. Any work that we do on trade and on all matters will always be in the interests of Canadians first. +Hon. Ed Fast: I think Canadians will see that the minister didn't even answer a simple yes-or-no question, so I'll ask her a simpler yes-or-no question. Is she or anyone else in her government presently discussing or negotiating a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we will always do our work, including any discussions on trade and indeed all of our work, with the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses as our absolute top priority. +Hon. Ed Fast: Again, there was no answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister now assure Canadians that she and the Prime Minister's government will not negotiate a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Any work that we do will always be guided by the best interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I am just flabbergasted. This minister has been asked three times if the government is negotiating a trade agreement. She refuses to answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister tell us why she thinks negotiating a trade agreement with a hostile country like China is in Canada's best interests? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for the question. The answer is no. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure. Free trade is a good thing when it takes place between like-minded countries that embrace free market principles and apply the rule of law. China is not such a country. In fact, China repeatedly flouts international trade rules, illegally dumps underpriced goods into Canada, and prevents Canadian canola, beef and pork from entering China. Is has also jailed Canadians without due process. Will the minister now assure us that our government will not negotiate any free trade agreements with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: We are not in discussions with China on a free trade agreement, and as my colleagues, including the Prime Minister and the foreign minister, have said many times in this House and outside of this House, our priority continues to be the immediate release of Canadians detained in China. We will always work in the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. That is what we will always do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This will conclude today's sitting of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore this committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The summary of the proceedings describes a meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. The session was a hybrid meeting with attendance both in-person and via video conference, where various topics were addressed, including ministerial announcements, the tabling of documents, presenting of petitions, and statements by members. + +Hon. Anthony Rota, the Chair, opened the meeting by laying out the procedures and reminding participants of the guidelines for participation via video conference and in-person. The meeting then proceeded with no ministerial announcements. Hon. Dominic LeBlanc tabled a report titled ""Democracy Matters, Debates Count,"" acknowledging the service of the Right Honourable David Johnston. + +The session continued with petition presentations by members, including Mr. Garnett Genuis advocating for Bill S-204 against organ harvesting and trafficking, and Mr. Arnold Viersen presenting a petition concerned about the removal of safeguards in the euthanasia regime. + +Members also took the opportunity to present statements, ranging from Mr. Fayal El-Khoury praising the government's handling of the global crisis, to Mr. Dave Epp sharing a community initiative for a food bank in his community, and others highlighting the importance of recognizing Filipino Heritage Month and World Milk Day. + +During the session, technical issues with the screens set up for video conference participants were addressed, with an option to suspend until resolved, but the meeting continued while the problem was worked on. + +A point of order was raised by Mr. Chris d'Entremont regarding the visibility of participants joining via video conference. The Chair acknowledged there were technical issues and stated they were being addressed. + +Questions were posed to various ministers by the leaders and representatives of the main opposition parties, covering topics such as the wage subsidy program, the emergency business account, and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses and specific industries. + +Notably, there were questions about the moral implications and appropriateness of the Liberal Party using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. Additional concerns were raised regarding the lack of financial support provided to segments like the tourism industry in Atlantic Canada and the ongoing housing crisis exacerbated by the pandemic. + +The session also touched upon international issues, like anti-black racism and the Canadian government's stance on trade negotiations with China amidst concerns over human rights abuses and the detention of Canadians in China. + +The session concluded without final answers to some questions posed, and the committee was then adjourned until the following day." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK . We seem to be recording . +Professor G: Alright ! +Grad A: So , sorry about not {disfmarker} +Professor G: We 're not crashing . +PhD D: Number four . +Grad A: not pre - doing everything . The lunch went a little later than I was expecting , Chuck . +PhD E: Hmm ? +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Chuck was telling too many jokes , or something ? +Grad A: Yep . Pretty much . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . {vocalsound} Does anybody have an agenda ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I sent a couple of items . They 're {disfmarker} they 're sort of practical . +Professor G: I thought {pause} somebody had . +Postdoc F: I don't know if you 're {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , that 's right . +Postdoc F: if {disfmarker} if that 's too practical for what we 're {pause} focused on . +Grad A: I mean , we don't want anything too practical . +Professor G: Yeah , we only want th useless things . +Grad A: Yeah , that would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . No , why don't we talk about practical things ? +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Sure . +Postdoc F: Well , um , I can {pause} give you an update on the {pause} transcription effort . +Professor G: Great . +Postdoc F: Uh , maybe {nonvocalsound} raise the issue of microphone , uh , um procedures with reference to the {pause} cleanliness of the recordings . +Professor G: OK , transcription , uh , microphone issues {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And then maybe {nonvocalsound} ask , th uh , these guys . The {disfmarker} we have great {disfmarker} great , uh , p steps forward in terms of the nonspeech - speech pre - segmenting of the signal . +Professor G: OK . +Grad A: Well , we have steps forward . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a big improvement . +PhD C: I would prefer this . +Professor G: Yes . Yeah , well . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: We talk about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the results of +Professor G: You have some {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: I have a little bit of IRAM stuff +Professor G: OK . +PhD D: use {disfmarker} +Grad A: but {pause} I 'm not sure if that 's of general interest or not . +Professor G: Uh , bigram ? +Grad A: IRAM . +PhD D: IRAM . +Professor G: IRAM . +Grad A: IRAM , bigram , +Professor G: Well , m maybe . +PhD D: Bi - Bigram . +Grad A: you know . +Professor G: Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} let 's see where we are at three - thirty . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Since , uh {disfmarker} since I have to leave as usual at three - thirty , can we do the interesting stuff first ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +Professor G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which is {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: What 's the interesting stuff ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . Th - now you get to tell us what 's the interesting part . +PhD E: Please specify . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , uh , I guess the work that 's been {pause} done on segmentation would be most {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I think that would be a good thing to start with . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . Um , and , um , {vocalsound} the other thing , uh , which I 'll just say very briefly that maybe relates to that a little bit , which is that , um , uh , one of the suggestions that came up in a brief meeting I had the other day when I was in Spain with , uh , Manolo Pardo and {vocalsound} Javier , uh , Ferreiros , who was {pause} here before , was , um , why not start with what they had before but add in the non - silence boundaries . So , in what Javier did before when they were doing , um {disfmarker} h he was looking for , uh , speaker change {pause} points . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Um . As a simplification , he originally did this only using {pause} silence as , uh , a {pause} putative , uh , speaker change point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , he did not , say , look at points where you were changing broad sp uh , phonetic class , for instance . And for Broadcast News , that was fine . Here obviously it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , um , so one of the things that they were pushing in d in discussing with me is , um , w why are you spending so much time , uh , on the , uh , feature issue , uh , when perhaps if you sort of deal with what you were using before +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: and then just broadened it a bit , instead of just ta using silence as putative change point also {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Professor G: So then you 've got {disfmarker} you already have the super - structure with Gaussians and H - you know , simple H M Ms and so forth . And you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} So there was a {disfmarker} there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a difference of opinion because I {disfmarker} I thought that it was {disfmarker} it 's interesting to look at what features are useful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But , uh , on the other hand I saw that the {disfmarker} they had a good point that , uh , if we had something that worked for many cases before , maybe starting from there a little bit {disfmarker} Because ultimately we 're gonna end up {vocalsound} with some s su kind of structure like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: where you have some kind of simple HMM and you 're testing the hypothesis that , {vocalsound} uh , there is a change . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so anyway , I just {disfmarker} reporting that . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: But , uh , uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah , why don't we do the speech - nonspeech discussion ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . Do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hear {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you didn't {disfmarker} +PhD C: Speech - nonspeech ? OK . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , so , uh , what we basically did so far was using the mixed file to {disfmarker} to detect s speech or nonspeech {pause} portions in that . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And what I did so far is I just used our old Munich system , which is an HMM - ba based system with Gaussian mixtures for s speech and nonspeech . And it was a system which used only one Gaussian for silence and one Gaussian for speech . And now I added , uh , multi - mixture possibility for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for speech and nonspeech . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I did some training on {disfmarker} on one dialogue , which was transcribed by {disfmarker} Yeah . We {disfmarker} we did a nons s speech - nonspeech transcription . +PhD D: Jose . +PhD C: Adam , Dave , and I , we did , for that dialogue and I trained it on that . And I did some pre - segmentations for {disfmarker} for Jane . And I 'm not sure how good they are or what {disfmarker} what the transcribers say . They {disfmarker} they can use it or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Uh , they {disfmarker} they think it 's a terrific improvement . And , um , it real it just makes a {disfmarker} a world of difference . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And , um , y you also did some something in addition which was , um , for those in which there {nonvocalsound} was , uh , quiet speakers in the mix . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . That {disfmarker} that was one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one thing , uh , why I added more mixtures for {disfmarker} for the speech . So I saw that there were loud {disfmarker} loudly speaking speakers and quietly speaking speakers . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so I did two mixtures , one for the loud speakers and one for the quiet speakers . +Grad A: And did you hand - label who was loud and who was quiet , or did you just {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I did that for {disfmarker} for five minutes of one dialogue +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and that was enough to {disfmarker} to train the system . +PhD B: W What {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: And so it {disfmarker} it adapts , uh , on {disfmarker} while running . So . +PhD B: What kind of , uh , front - end processing did you do ? +PhD C: Hopefully . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: It 's just our {disfmarker} our old Munich , uh , loudness - based spectrum on mel scale twenty {disfmarker} twenty critical bands and then loudness . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And four additional features , which is energy , loudness , modified loudness , and zero crossing rate . So it 's twenty - four {disfmarker} twenty - four features . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And you also provided me with several different versions , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: which I compared . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And so you change {nonvocalsound} parameters . What {disfmarker} do you wanna say something about the parameters {nonvocalsound} that you change ? +PhD C: Yeah . You can specify {vocalsound} the minimum length of speech or {disfmarker} and silence portions which you want . And so I did some {disfmarker} some modifications in those parameters , basically changing the minimum {disfmarker} minimum {pause} length for s for silence to have , er to have , um {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} to have more or less , uh , silence portions in inserted . So . +Grad A: Right . So this would work well for , uh , pauses and utterance boundaries and things like that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: But for overlap I imagine that doesn't work at all , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that you 'll have plenty of s sections that are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's it . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . But {nonvocalsound} it {disfmarker} it saves so much time {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcribers +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: just enormous , enormous savings . Fantastic . +Professor G: That 's great . Um , just qu one quickly , uh , still on the features . So {vocalsound} you have these twenty - four features . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh , a lot of them are spectral features . Is there a {disfmarker} a transformation , uh , like principal components transformation or something ? +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . It was IS two . +PhD C: No . W w we {disfmarker} originally we did that +Professor G: Just {disfmarker} +PhD C: but we saw , uh , when we used it , uh , f for our close - talking microphone , which {disfmarker} yeah , for our {disfmarker} for our recognizer in Munich {disfmarker} we saw that w it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not so necessary . It {disfmarker} it works as well f with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} without , uh , a LDA or something . +Professor G: OK . OK . No , I was j {pause} curious . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I don't think it 's a big deal for this application , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . But then there 's another thing that also Thilo 's involved with , which is , um {disfmarker} OK , and {disfmarker} and also Da - Dave Gelbart . So there 's this {disfmarker} this problem of {disfmarker} and w and {disfmarker} so we had this meeting . Th - the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} also Adam , before the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} before you went away . Uh we , um {disfmarker} regarding the representation {nonvocalsound} of overlaps , because at present , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} um , because {nonvocalsound} of the limitations of {vocalsound} th the interface we 're using , overlaps are , uh , not being {nonvocalsound} encoded by {nonvocalsound} the transcribers in as complete {nonvocalsound} and , uh , detailed a way as it might be , and as might be desired {disfmarker} I think would be desired in the corpus ultimately . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So we don't have start and end points {nonvocalsound} at each point where there 's an overlap . We just have the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} overlaps {nonvocalsound} encoded in a simple bin . Well , OK . So {nonvocalsound} @ @ the limits of the {nonvocalsound} over of {disfmarker} of the interface are {vocalsound} such that we were {disfmarker} at this meeting we were entertaining how we might either expand {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} interface or find other tools which already {pause} do what would be useful . Because what would ultimately be , um , ideal in my {disfmarker} my view and I think {disfmarker} I mean , I had the sense that it was consensus , is that , um , a thorough - going musical score notation would be {nonvocalsound} the best way to go . Because {nonvocalsound} you can have multiple channels , there 's a single time - line , it 's very clear , flexible , and all those nice things . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . So , um , um , I spoke {disfmarker} I had a meeting with Dave Gelbart on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} and he had , uh , excellent ideas on how {pause} the interface could be {pause} modified to {disfmarker} to do this kind of representation . But , um , he {disfmarker} in the meantime you were checking into the existence of already , um , existing interfaces which might already have these properties . So , do you wanna say something about that ? +PhD C: Yes . Um , I {vocalsound} talked with , uh , Munich guys from {disfmarker} from Ludwi - Ludwig Maximilians University , who do a lot of transcribing and transliterations . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And they basically said they have {disfmarker} they have , uh , a tool they developed {pause} themselves and they can't give away , uh , f it 's too error - prone , and had {disfmarker} it 's not supported , a a a and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD C: But , um , Susanne Bur - Burger , who is at se CMU , he wa who was formally at {disfmarker} in Munich and w and is now at {disfmarker} with CMU , she said she has something which she uses to do eight channels , uh , trans transliterations , eight channels simultaneously , +Professor G: Excuse me . +PhD C: but it 's running under Windows . +Postdoc F: Under Windows . +PhD C: So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we can use it . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: She said she would give it to us . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: It wouldn't be a problem . And I 've got some {disfmarker} some kind of manual {pause} down in my office . +Grad A: Well , maybe we should get it and if it 's good enough we 'll arrange Windows machines to be available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . We could {disfmarker} uh , potentially {nonvocalsound} so . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: I also wanted to be sure {disfmarker} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is called Praat , PRAAT , {nonvocalsound} which I guess means spee speech in Dutch or something . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah , but then I 'm not sure {pause} that 's the right thing for us . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} In terms {nonvocalsound} of it being {nonvocalsound} Windows {nonvocalsound} versus {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: No , no . Praat isn't {disfmarker} Praat 's multi - platform . +Postdoc F: But I 'm just wondering , is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No . No , Praat {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh ! I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , I see . So Praat may not be {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's not Praat . It 's called "" trans transedit "" {pause} I think . +Postdoc F: It 's a different one . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the tool from {disfmarker} from Susanne . +Postdoc F: I see . Oh , I see . OK . OK . Alright . +Professor G: The other thing , uh , to keep in mind , uh {disfmarker} I mean , we 've been very concerned to get all this rolling so that we would actually have data , +Postdoc F: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: but , um , I think our outside sponsor is actually gonna kick in +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and ultimately that path will be smoothed out . So I don't know if we have a long - term need to do lots and lots of transcribing . I think we had a very quick need to get something out and we 'd like to be able to do some later because just it 's inter it 's interesting . But as far a you know , uh , with {disfmarker} with any luck we 'll be able to wind down the larger project . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD B: But you s +Grad A: What our decision was is that {pause} we 'll go ahead with what we have with a not very fine time scale on the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and do what we can later {pause} to clean that up if we need to . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I was just thinking that , um , {vocalsound} if it were possible to bring that in , like , {vocalsound} you know , this week , then {nonvocalsound} when they 're encoding the overlaps {nonvocalsound} it would be nice for them to be able to specify when {disfmarker} you know , the start points and end points of overlaps . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: uh Th - they 're {nonvocalsound} making really quick progress . +Professor G: Yeah . That 's great . +Postdoc F: And , um , so my {disfmarker} my goal was {disfmarker} w m my charge was to get eleven hours by the end of the month . And it 'll be {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm clear that we 'll be able to do that . +Professor G: That 's great . +Grad A: And did you , uh , forward Morgan Brian 's {pause} thing ? +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I sent {nonvocalsound} it to , um {disfmarker} who did I send that to ? I sent it to a list and I thought {nonvocalsound} I sent it to {nonvocalsound} the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} e to the local list . +PhD E: Meeting Recorder . +Grad A: Oh , you did ? OK . So you probably did get that . +Postdoc F: You saw that ? So Brian did tell {nonvocalsound} me that {nonvocalsound} in fact what you said , that , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} our {disfmarker} that they are {pause} making progress and that he 's going {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} they 're {nonvocalsound} going {disfmarker} he 's gonna check the f the output of the first transcription and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor G: I mean , basically it 's {disfmarker} it 's all the difference in the world . I mean , basically he 's {disfmarker} he 's on it now . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} this is a new development . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so i it 'll happen . +Postdoc F: OK . Super . Super . OK . Great . +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , basically it 's just saying that one of our {disfmarker} one of our best people is on it , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: you know , who just doesn't happen to be here anymore . Someone else pays him . So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But about the need for transcription , +Postdoc F: Isn't that great ? +PhD B: I mean , don't we {disfmarker} didn't we previously {vocalsound} decide that the {pause} IBM {pause} transcripts would have to be {pause} checked anyway and possibly augmented ? +Professor G: So . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . That 's true . +PhD B: So , I think having a good tool is worth something no matter what . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . S OK . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point . +Grad A: Yeah , and Dave Gelbart did volunteer , +Postdoc F: Good . +Grad A: and since he 's not here , I 'll repeat it {disfmarker} to at least modify Transcriber , which , if we don't have something else that works , I think that 's a pretty good way of going . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we discussed on some methods to do it . My approach originally , and I 've already hacked on it a little bit {disfmarker} it was too slow because I was trying to display all the waveforms . But he pointed out that you don't really have to . I think that 's a good point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: That if you just display the mix waveform and then have a user interface for editing the different channels , that 's perfectly sufficient . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly . And just keep those {nonvocalsound} things separate . And {disfmarker} and , um , Dan Ellis 's hack already allows them to be {nonvocalsound} able to display {vocalsound} different {nonvocalsound} waveforms to clarify overlaps and things , +Grad A: No . They can only display one , +Postdoc F: so that 's already {disfmarker} +Grad A: but they can listen to different ones . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes , but {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} uh , yes , but {nonvocalsound} what I mean is {pause} that , uh , from the transcriber 's {nonvocalsound} perspective , uh , those {nonvocalsound} two functions are separate . And Dan Ellis 's hack handles the , {vocalsound} um , choice {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the ability to choose different waveforms {vocalsound} from moment to moment . +Grad A: But only to listen to , not to look at . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: The waveform you 're looking at doesn't change . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , but {nonvocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's OK , cuz they 're {disfmarker} they 're , you know , they 're focused on the ear anyway . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: And then {disfmarker} and then +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: the hack to {vocalsound} preserve the overlaps {nonvocalsound} better would be one which creates different output files for each channel , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: which then {nonvocalsound} would also serve Liz 's request {pause} of having , you know , a single channel , separable , uh , cleanly , easily separable , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: uh , transcript tied to a single channel , uh , audio . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Have , uh , folks from NIST been in contact with you ? +Postdoc F: Not directly . I 'm trying to think if {disfmarker} if I could have gotten it over a list . +Professor G: OK . +Postdoc F: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think so . +Professor G: OK . Well , holidays may have interrupted things , cuz in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} They {vocalsound} seem to want to {pause} get absolutely clear on standards for {disfmarker} transcription standards and so forth with {disfmarker} with us . +Postdoc F: Oh ! This was from before December . Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Because they 're {disfmarker} they 're presumably going to start recording next month . +Postdoc F: OK . OK . +Grad A: Oh , we should definitely get with them then , +Professor G: So . +Grad A: and agree upon a format . Though I don't remember email on that . So was I not in the loop on that ? +Professor G: Um . Yeah , I don't think I mailed anybody . I just think I told them to contact Jane {disfmarker} that , uh , if they had a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: That 's right . +Professor G: if , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , as the point person on it . +Grad A: Yeah , I think that 's right . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: So , yeah . Maybe I 'll , uh , ping them a little bit about it to {vocalsound} get that straight . +Postdoc F: OK . I 'm keeping the conventions {pause} absolutely {pause} as simple {nonvocalsound} as possible . +Professor G: Yeah . So is it {disfmarker} cuz with any luck there 'll actually be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} there 'll be collections at Columbia , collections at {disfmarker} at UW {disfmarker} I mean Dan {disfmarker} Dan is very interested in doing some other things , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I think it 's important both for the notation and the machine representation to be the same . +Professor G: and collections at NIST . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: N there was also this , {nonvocalsound} uh , email from Dan regarding the {pause} speech - non nonspeech segmentation thing . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know if , uh , uh , we wanna , uh {disfmarker} and Dan Gel - and Dave Gelbart is interested in pursuing the aspect {nonvocalsound} of using amplitude {nonvocalsound} as a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} as a basis for the separation . +Grad A: Cross - correlation . +Professor G: Oh , yeah . He was talking {disfmarker} he was talking {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} he had {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Cross +Professor G: Yeah , cross - correlation . +PhD C: Cross +Professor G: I had mentioned this a couple times before , the c the commercial devices that do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , voice , uh {disfmarker} you know , active miking , +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor G: basically look at the amp at the energy at each of the mikes . And {disfmarker} and you basically compare the energy here to {vocalsound} some function of all of the mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So , by doing that , you know , rather than setting any , uh , absolute threshold , you actually can do pretty good , uh , selection of who {disfmarker} who 's talking . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} And those {disfmarker} those systems work very well , by the way , I mean , so people use them in {vocalsound} panel discussions and so forth with sound reinforcement differing in {disfmarker} in sort of , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: uh {disfmarker} and , uh , those {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Boy , the guy I knew who built them , built them like twenty {disfmarker} twenty years ago , +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor G: so they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the techniques work pretty well . +Postdoc F: Fantastic . Cuz there is one thing that we don't have right now and that is the automatic , um , channel identifier . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: That {disfmarker} that , you know , that would g help in terms of encoding of overlaps . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the transcribers would have less , uh , disentangling to do {pause} if that were available . +Professor G: Yeah . So I think , you know , basically you can look at some {disfmarker} p you have to play around a little bit , uh , to figure out what the right statistic is , +Postdoc F: But . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: but you compare each microphone to some statistic based on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh , and we also have these {disfmarker} we have the advantage of having {pause} distant mikes too . So that , you cou yo +Grad A: Yeah , although the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} using the close - talking I think would be much better . Wouldn't it ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: I just {disfmarker} it 'd be {disfmarker} If I was actually working on it , I 'd sit there and {disfmarker} and play around with it , and {disfmarker} and get a feeling for it . I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} But , uh , you certainly wanna use the close - talking , as a {disfmarker} at least . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: I don't know if the other would {disfmarker} would add some other helpful dimension or not . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . What {disfmarker} what are the different , uh , classes to {disfmarker} to code , uh , the {disfmarker} the overlap , you will use ? +Postdoc F: Um , to code d +PhD D: What you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: so types of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um , so {nonvocalsound} at a meeting that wasn't transcribed , we worked up a {disfmarker} a typology . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Look like , uh , you t you explaining in the blackboard ? The {disfmarker} ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly . That hasn't changed . So it {nonvocalsound} i the {disfmarker} it 's basically a two - tiered structure where the first one is whether {nonvocalsound} the person who 's interrupted continues or not . And then below that there 're {nonvocalsound} subcategories , uh , that have more to do with , {nonvocalsound} you know , is it , {vocalsound} uh , simply {nonvocalsound} backchannel +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: or is {nonvocalsound} it , um , someone completing someone else 's thought , or is it someone in introducing a new thought . +Grad A: Right . And I hope that if we do a forced alignment with the close - talking mike , that will be enough to recover at least some of the time the time information of when the overlap occurred . +PhD D: Huh . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Well , {vocalsound} one would {disfmarker} +PhD D: We hope . +Grad A: Yeah . Who knows ? +Postdoc F: That 'd be {disfmarker} that 'd be nice . I mean , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: So who 's gonna do that ? Who 's gonna do forced alignment ? +Grad A: Well , u uh , IBM was going to . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: and I imagine they still plan to but {disfmarker} but , you know , I haven't spoken with them about that recently . +PhD B: OK . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Well , uh , my suggestion now is {disfmarker} is on all of these things to , uh , contact Brian . +Grad A: OK . I 'll do that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: This is wonderful {nonvocalsound} to have a direct contact like that . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: uh Well , th lemme ask {nonvocalsound} you this . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It occurs to me {disfmarker} {vocalsound} one of my transcribers t {nonvocalsound} told {nonvocalsound} me today that she 'll {nonvocalsound} be finished with one meeting , {vocalsound} um , by {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: well , she said tomorrow but then she said {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , but {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the , you know {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's just , uh , say +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: maybe the day after just to be s on the safe side . I could send Brian the , {nonvocalsound} um {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcript . I know these {nonvocalsound} are {disfmarker} er , uh , I could send him that {nonvocalsound} if {nonvocalsound} it would be possible , {nonvocalsound} or a good idea or not , to {nonvocalsound} try {nonvocalsound} to do a s forced alignment on what we 're {disfmarker} on the way we 're encoding overlaps now . +Professor G: Well , just talk to him about it . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: I mean , you know , basically he 's {disfmarker} he just studies , he 's a colleague , a friend , and , +Postdoc F: Yeah ! +Professor G: uh , they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , the {disfmarker} the organization always did wanna help us . +Postdoc F: Super . Super . +Professor G: It was just a question of getting , you know , the right people connected in , who had the time . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: So , um , eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is he on the mailing list ? The Meeting Recorder mailing li ? +Postdoc F: Oh ! +Grad A: We should add him . +Postdoc F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know for sure . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Did something happen , Morgan , that he got put on this , or was he already on it , +Grad A: Add him . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: No , I , eh , eh , p It {disfmarker} it oc I {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , something happened . I don't know what . +PhD B: He asked for more work . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor G: But he 's on it now . +Postdoc F: That would be {nonvocalsound} like {disfmarker} that 'd be like him . He 's great . +Professor G: Right . So , uh , where are we ? Maybe , uh , uh , brief {disfmarker} Well , let 's {disfmarker} why don't we talk about microphone issues ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That 'd be great . +Professor G: That was {disfmarker} that was a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , so one thing is that I did look on Sony 's for a replacement for the mikes {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the head m head - worn ones cuz they 're so uncomfortable . But I think I need someone who knows more about mikes than I do , because I couldn't find a single other model that seemed like it would fit the connector , which seems really unlikely to me . Does anyone , like , know stores or {vocalsound} know about mikes who {disfmarker} who would know the right questions to ask ? +Professor G: Oh , I probably would . I mean , my knowledge is twenty years out of date but some of it 's still the same . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} Uh , so maybe we c we can take a look at that . +PhD E: You couldn't {disfmarker} you couldn't find the right connector to go into these things ? +Grad A: Yep . When I looked , i they listed one microphone and that 's it +PhD E: Huh ! +Grad A: as having that type of connector . But my guess is that Sony maybe uses a different number for their connector than everyone else does . And {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Well , let 's look at it together +Grad A: it seems {disfmarker} it seems really unlikely to me that there 's only one . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And there 's no adaptor for it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Seems like there 'd be a {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: As I said , who knows ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Who {disfmarker} who are we buying these from ? +Grad A: Um , +Professor G: That 'd be +Grad A: I have it downstairs . I don't remember off the top of my head . +Professor G: Yeah . OK . Yeah . We {disfmarker} we can try and look at that together . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} just in terms of how you wear them {disfmarker} I mean , I had thought about this before . I mean , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you use a product like DragonDictate , they have a very extensive description about how to wear the microphone and so on . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Grad A: But I felt that in a real situation we were very seldom gonna get people to really do it and maybe it wasn't worth concentrating on . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , I think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good back - off position . That 's what I was saying {vocalsound} earlier , th that , you know , we are gonna get some {vocalsound} recordings that are imperfect and , hey , that 's life . But I {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt , uh , the naturalness of the situation to try to have people {pause} wear the microphones properly , if possible , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: because , {vocalsound} um , the natural situation is really what we have with the microphones on the table . +Grad A: Oh . That 's true . +Professor G: I mean , I think , {vocalsound} you know , in the target applications that we 're talking about , people aren't gonna be wearing head - mounted mikes anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So this is just for u these head - mounted mikes are just for use with research . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , it 's gonna make {disfmarker} You know , if {disfmarker} if An - Andreas plays around with language modeling , he 's not gonna be m wanna be messed up by people breathing into the microphone . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , I 'll dig through the documentation to DragonDictate and ste s see if they still have the little {pause} form . +Professor G: But it does happen . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , and any {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting , uh , I talked to some IBM guys , uh , last January , I think , I was there . And {disfmarker} so people who were working on the {disfmarker} on their ViaVoice dictation product . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: And they said , uh , the breathing is really a {disfmarker} a terrible problem {pause} for them , to {disfmarker} to not recognize breathing as speech . +Postdoc F: Wow . +PhD B: So , anything to reduce breathing is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good thing . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Well , that 's the {disfmarker} It seemed to me when I was using Dragon that it was really microphone placement helped an {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} an enormous amount . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you want it enough to the side so that when you exhale through your nose , it doesn't {disfmarker} the wind doesn't hit the mike . +PhD B: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} Everyone 's adjusting their microphones , of course . And then just close enough so that you get good volume . So you know , wearing it right about here seems to be about the right way to do it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Is {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Professor G: I remember when I was {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used , uh , um , {vocalsound} a prominent laboratory 's , uh , uh , speech recognizer about , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} This was , boy , this was a while ago , this was about twelve {disfmarker} twelve years ago or something . And , um , they were {disfmarker} they were perturbed with me because I was breathing in instead of breathing out . And they had models for {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had Markov models for br breathing out but they didn't have them for breathing in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . Well , what I wondered is whether it 's possible to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to maybe use the display at the beginning +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: to be able to {disfmarker} to judge how {disfmarker} how correctly {disfmarker} I mean , have someone do some routine whatever , and {disfmarker} and then see if when they 're breathing it 's showing . +Grad A: I mean , when {disfmarker} when it 's on , you can see it . +Postdoc F: I don't know if the {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Grad A: You can definitely see it . +Postdoc F: Can you see the breathing ? +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Cuz I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , you know , I 've {disfmarker} I 've sat here and watched sometimes the breathing , +Professor G: I +Grad A: and the bar going up and down , and I 'm thinking , I could say something , but +Professor G: I mean , I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: I don't want to make people self - conscious . Stop breathing ! +Professor G: It {disfmarker} it 's going to be imperfect . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor G: You 're not gonna get it perfect . And you can do some , uh , you know , first - order thing about it , which is to have people move it , uh , uh , a away from being just directly in front of the middle +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: but not too far away . +Postdoc F: Yeah , i +Professor G: And then , you know , I think there 's not much {disfmarker} Because you can't al you know , interfere w you can't fine tune the meeting that much , I think . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It 's sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . It just seems like i if something l simple like that can be tweaked {vocalsound} and the quality goes , you know , uh , dramatically up , then it might be worth {pause} doing . +Grad A: Yep . And then also {disfmarker} the position of the mike also . If it 's more directly , you 'll get better volume . So {disfmarker} so , like , yours is pretty far down {pause} below your mouth . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . My {disfmarker} my feedback from the transcribers is he is always close to crystal clear and {disfmarker} and just fan fantastic to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I don't know why that is . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you {disfmarker} Yeah , of course . You 're {disfmarker} you 're also {disfmarker} uh , your volume is {disfmarker} is greater . But {disfmarker} but still , I mean , they {disfmarker} they say {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 've been eating a lot . +Postdoc F: I it makes their {disfmarker} their job extremely easy . +Professor G: Uh . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's mass . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Anyway . +Postdoc F: I could say something about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} Well , I don't know what you wanna do . Yeah . +Professor G: About what ? +Postdoc F: About the transcribers or anything or {disfmarker} ? I don't know . +Professor G: Well , the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , uh , just to {disfmarker} to , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: why don't we do that ? +PhD B: One more remark , uh , concerning the SRI recognizer . Um . It is useful to transcribe and then ultimately train models for things like breath , and also laughter is very , very frequent and important to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to model . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Grad A: So , +PhD B: if you can in your transcripts mark {disfmarker} +Grad A: mark them ? +PhD B: mark very audible breaths and laughter especially , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: They are . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: They 're putting {disfmarker} Eh , so in curly brackets they put "" inhale "" or "" breath "" . +Grad A: Oh , great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: It {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} and then in curly brackets they say "" laughter "" . Now they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they 're not being {pause} awfully precise , uh , m So they 're two types of laughter that are not being distinguished . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: One is {vocalsound} when sometimes s someone will start laughing when they 're in the middle of a sentence . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and then the other one is when they finish the sentence and then they laugh . So , um , I {disfmarker} I did s I did some double checking to look through {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you 'd need to have extra e extra complications , like time tags indicating the beginning and ending of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the laughing through the utterance . +PhD B: It 's not so {disfmarker} I don't think it 's , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And that {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is in both cases just saying "" curly brackets laughing "" a after the unit . +PhD B: As {disfmarker} as long as there is an indication that there was laughter somewhere between {pause} two words {vocalsound} I think that 's sufficient , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . Oh ! +Grad A: Against {disfmarker} they could do forced alignment . +Postdoc F: OK . +PhD B: because actually the recognition of laughter once you kn um {disfmarker} you know , is pretty good . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: So as long as you can stick a {disfmarker} you know , a t a tag in there that {disfmarker} that indicates that there was laughter , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know that . +PhD B: that would probably be , uh , sufficient to train models . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: That would be a really interesting {pause} prosodic feature , +Postdoc F: Then {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And let me ask y and I gotta ask you one thing about that . +Grad A: when {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: So , um , if they laugh between two words , you {disfmarker} you 'd get it in between the two words . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc F: But if they laugh across three or four words you {disfmarker} you get it after those four words . Does that matter ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , the thing that you {disfmarker} is hard to deal with is whe {vocalsound} when they speak while laughing . Um , and that 's , uh {disfmarker} I don't think that we can do very well with that . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But , um , that 's not as frequent as just laughing between speaking , +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: So are {disfmarker} do you treat breath and laughter as phonetically , or as word models , or what ? +PhD B: so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh is it ? +PhD D: Huh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's frequent in {disfmarker} in the meeting . +Postdoc F: I think he 's right . Yeah . +PhD B: We tried both . Uh , currently , um , we use special words . There was a {disfmarker} there 's actually a word for {disfmarker} uh , it 's not just breathing but all kinds of mouth {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mouth stuff ? +PhD B: uh , mouth {disfmarker} mouth stuff . And then laughter is a {disfmarker} is a special word . +Grad A: How would we do that with the hybrid system ? +Professor G: Same thing . +Grad A: So train a phone {pause} in the neural net ? +PhD B: Same thing ? Yeah . Yeah . You ha Oh . And each of these words has a dedicated phone . +Professor G: No {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it does ? +PhD B: So the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the mouth noise , uh , word has just a single phone , um , that is for that . +Grad A: Right . So in the hybrid system we could train the net with a laughter phone and a breath sound phone . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always the same thing . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could say well , let {disfmarker} we now think that laughter should have three sub sub {vocalsound} sub - units in the {disfmarker} the three states , uh {disfmarker} different states . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then you would have three {disfmarker} I mean , you know , eh , eh , it 's u +Grad A: Do whatever you want . +PhD B: And the {disfmarker} the pronun the pronunciations {disfmarker} the pronunciations are l are somewhat non - standard . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: No . +PhD B: They actually are {disfmarker} uh , it 's just a single , s uh , you know , a single phone in the pronunciation , but it has a self - loop on it , so it can {disfmarker} +Grad A: To {pause} go on forever ? +PhD B: r can go on forever . +Grad A: And how do you handle it in the language model ? +PhD B: It 's just a {disfmarker} it 's just a word . +Grad A: It 's just a word in the language model . +PhD B: We train it like any other word . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD B: Yeah . We also tried , {vocalsound} um , absorbing these {disfmarker} uh , both laughter and {disfmarker} and actually also noise , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yes . OK . Anyway . We also tried absorbing that into the pause model {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the model that {disfmarker} that matches the stuff between words . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , um , it didn't work as well . So . +Grad A: Huh . OK . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Can you hand me your digit form ? +PhD B: Sorry . +Grad A: I just wanna mark that you did not read digits . +Professor G: OK . Say hi for me . +Postdoc F: Good . You {disfmarker} you did get me to thinking about {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure which is more frequent , whether f f laughing {disfmarker} I think it may be an individual thing . Some people are more prone to laughing when they 're speaking . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: I was noticing that with Dan in the one that we , uh {disfmarker} we hand tran hand - segmented , +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that {disfmarker} th he has these little chuckles as he talks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . OK . +Professor G: I 'm sure it 's very individual . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} one thing that c that we 're not doing , of course , is we 're not claiming to , uh , get {disfmarker} be getting a representation of mankind in these recordings . We have {vocalsound} this very , very tiny sample of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Speech researchers ? +Professor G: Uh , yeah . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , r right . +PhD D: Speech research . +Professor G: So , uh , who knows . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Why don why don't we just {disfmarker} since we 're on this vein , why don't we just continue with , uh , what you were gonna say about the transcriptions +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Um , um , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm really very for I 'm extremely fortunate with the people who , uh , applied and who are transcribing for us . They {vocalsound} are , um , um , uh really perceptive and very , um {disfmarker} and I 'm not just saying that cuz they might be hearing this . +Grad A: Cuz they 're gonna be transcribing it in a few days . +Postdoc F: No , they 're super . They 're {disfmarker} the they {disfmarker} very quick . +PhD E: OK . Turn the mikes off and let 's talk . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I know . I am {disfmarker} I 'm serious . They 're just super . So I , um , e you know , I {disfmarker} I brought them in and , um , trained them in pairs because I think people can raise questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc F: you know , i i the they think about different things and they think of different {disfmarker} and um , I trained them to , uh , f on about a minute or two of the one that was already transcribed . This also gives me a sense of {disfmarker} You know , I can {disfmarker} I can use that later , with reference to inter - coder reliability kind of issues . But the main thing was to get them used to the conventions and , {vocalsound} you know , the idea of the {disfmarker} th th the size of the unit versus how long it takes to play it back so these {disfmarker} th sort of calibration issues . And then , um , I just set them loose and they 're {disfmarker} they all have e a already background in using computers . They 're , um {disfmarker} they 're trained in linguistics . +Grad A: Good . Oh , no . Is that good or bad ? +Postdoc F: They got {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: Well , they they 're very perce they 'll {disfmarker} So one of them said "" well , you know , he really said "" n "" , not really "" and "" , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: so what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what should I do with that ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And I said , "" well for our purposes , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I do have a convention . If it 's an {disfmarker} a noncanonical p "" That one , I think we {disfmarker} you know , with Eric 's work , I sort of figure we {disfmarker} we can just treat that as a variant . But I told them if {disfmarker} if there 's an obvious speech error , uh , like I said in one thing , +Professor G: OK . Yes . +Postdoc F: and I gave my {disfmarker} my example , like I said , "" microfon "" {pause} in instead of "" microphone "" . Didn't bother {disfmarker} I knew it when I said it . I remember s thinking "" oh , that 's not correctly pronounced "" . But it {disfmarker} but I thought {vocalsound} it 's not worth fixing cuz often when you 're speaking everybody knows what {disfmarker} what you mean . +Grad A: You 'll self - repair . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But I have a convention that if it 's obviously a noncanonical pronunciation {disfmarker} a speech error with {disfmarker} you know , wi within the realm of resolution that you can tell in this native English {disfmarker} American English speaker , you know that I didn't mean to say "" microfon . "" Then you 'd put a little tick at the beginning of the word , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and that just signals that , um , this is not standard , and then in curly brackets "" pron {nonvocalsound} error "" . And , um , and other than that , it 's w word level . But , you know , the fact that they noticed , you know , the "" nnn "" . "" He said "" nnn "" , not "" and "" . What shall I do with that ? "" I mean , they 're very perceptive . And {disfmarker} and s several of them are trained in IPA . C they really could do phonetic transcription if {disfmarker} if we wanted them to . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , you know , it might be something we 'd wanna do with some , uh , s small subset {pause} of the whole thing . +Grad A: Hmm . Where were they when {pause} we needed them ? +Postdoc F: I think {disfmarker} +Professor G: We certainly wouldn't wanna do it with everything . +Postdoc F: And I 'm also thinking these people are a terrific pool . I mean , if , uh {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I told them that , um , we don't know if this will continue past the end of the month +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: and I also {disfmarker} m I think they know that the data p source is limited and I may not be able to keep them employed till the end of the month even , although I hope to . +Professor G: The other thing we could do , actually , uh , is , uh , use them for a more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} Oh , that 'd be so super . They would be so {disfmarker} s so terrific . +Grad A: I mean , this was something that we were talking about . +Professor G: Right ? +Grad A: We could get a very detailed overlap if they were willing to transcribe each meeting four or five times . Right ? One for each participant . So they could by hand {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , that 's one way to do it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: But I 've been saying the other thing is just go through it for the overlaps . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Professor G: Right ? +Postdoc F: And with the right in interface {disfmarker} +Professor G: Given that y and {disfmarker} and do {disfmarker} so instead of doing phonetic , uh , uh , transcription for the whole thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which {vocalsound} we know from the {disfmarker} Steve 's experience with the Switchboard transcription is , you know , very , very time - consuming . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you know , it took them I don't know how many months to do {disfmarker} to get four hours . And so {vocalsound} that hasn't been really our focus . Uh , we can consider it . But , I mean , the other thing is since we 've been spending so much time thinking about overlaps is {disfmarker} is maybe get a much more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But anyway , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to c our consideration . +Postdoc F: That 'd be great . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I don't wanna say that by fiat . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: I 'm open to every consideration of {vocalsound} what are some other kinds of detailed analysis that would be most useful . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , uh , uh , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} this year we {disfmarker} we actually , uh , can do it . +Postdoc F: Oh , wonderful . +Professor G: It 's a {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} due to @ @ {comment} variations in funding we have {disfmarker} we seem to be doing , uh , very well on m money for this {disfmarker} this year , and {vocalsound} next year we may have {disfmarker} have much less . +Grad A: Is {disfmarker} you mean two thousand one ? +Professor G: So I don't wanna hire a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Calendar year or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Uh , I mean , calendar year two thousand one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} we don't wanna hire a bunch of people , a long - term staff , +Grad A: Full - time . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor G: because {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the funding that we 've gotten is sort of a big chunk for this year . But {vocalsound} having {pause} temporary people doing some specific thing that we need is actually a perfect match to that kind of , uh , funding . +Postdoc F: Wonderful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And then school will start in {disfmarker} in the sixt on the sixteenth . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: Some of them will have to cut back their hours at that point . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Are they working full - time now , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} Some of them are . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Well , why do I wouldn't say forty - hour weeks . No . But what I mean is {disfmarker} Oh , I shouldn't say it that way because {nonvocalsound} that does sound like forty - hour weeks . No . I th I {disfmarker} I would say they 're probably {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} they don't have o they don't have other things that are taking away their time . +Grad A: I don't see how someone could do forty hours a week on transcription . +PhD E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But {nonvocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} you can't . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: No . You 're right . It 's {disfmarker} i it would be too taxing . But , um , they 're putting {nonvocalsound} in a lot of {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I checked them over . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't checked them all , but {pause} just spot - checking . They 're fantastic . +Grad A: I think it would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: I remember when we were transcribing BeRP , uh , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Ron Kay , uh , volunteered to {disfmarker} to do some of that . And , he was {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} first stuff he did was transcribing Chuck . And he 's saying "" You {disfmarker} you know , I always thought Chuck spoke really well . "" +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you know , and I also thought , y Liz has this , eh , you know , and I do also , this {disfmarker} this interest in the types of overlaps that are involved . These people would be {nonvocalsound} great choices for doing coding of that type if we wanted , +Grad A: We 'd have to mark them . +Postdoc F: or whatever . So , um . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think it would also be interesting to have , uh , a couple of the meetings have more than one transcriber do , +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: cuz I 'm curious about inter - annotator agreement . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . Yeah . Th - that 'd be {disfmarker} I think that 's a {disfmarker} a good idea . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You know , there 's also , the e In my mind , I think A An - Andreas was {pause} leading to this topic , the idea that , um , {vocalsound} we haven't yet seen the {disfmarker} the type of transcript that we get from IBM , and it may just be , you know , pristine . But on the other hand , given the lesser interface {disfmarker} Cuz this is , you know {disfmarker} we 've got a good interface , we 've got great headphones , m um {disfmarker} +Professor G: It could be that they will uh {disfmarker} theirs will end up being a kind of fir first pass or something . +Postdoc F: Something like that . +Professor G: Maybe an elaborate one , cuz again they probably are gonna do these alignments , which will also clear things up . +Postdoc F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's true . Al - although you have to s Don't you have to start with a close enough approximation {nonvocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the verbal part {nonvocalsound} to be able to {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Well , tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's debatable . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , so the {disfmarker} so the argument is that if your statistical system is good {vocalsound} it will in fact , uh , clean things up . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? So it it 's got its own objective criterion . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , so in principle you could start up with something that was kind of rough {disfmarker} I mean , to give an example of , um , something we used to do , uh , at one point , uh , back {disfmarker} back when Chuck was here in early times , is we would take , um , {vocalsound} da take a word and , uh , have a canonical pronunciation and , uh , if there was five phones in a word , {vocalsound} you 'd break up the word , {vocalsound} uh , into five equal - length pieces which is completely gross . +Grad A: Wrong . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , th the timing is off {pause} all over the place in just about any word . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor G: But it 's O K . You start off with that and the statistical system then aligns things , and eventually you get something that doesn't really look too bad . +Postdoc F: Oh , excellent . OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I think using a {disfmarker} a good {pause} aligner , um , actually can {disfmarker} can help a lot . Um . {vocalsound} But , uh , you know , they both help each other . If you have a {disfmarker} if you have a better starting point , then it helps the aligner . If you have a good alignment , it helps the , uh , th the human in {disfmarker} in taking less time to correct things . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Excellent . I guess there 's another aspect , too , and I don't know {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} very possibly a different , uh , topic . But , {nonvocalsound} uh , just let me say {pause} with reference to this idea of , um , {vocalsound} higher - order organization within meetings . So like in a {disfmarker} you know , the topics that are covered during a meeting with reference to the other , uh , uses of the data , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so being able to {pause} find where so - and - so talked about such - and - such , then , um , um {disfmarker} e I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did sort of a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a rough {pause} pass {nonvocalsound} on encoding , like , episode - like level things on the , uh , transcribed meeting {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: already transcribed meeting . And I don't know if , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: where {nonvocalsound} that {disfmarker} i if that 's something that we wanna do with each meeting , sort of like a , um {disfmarker} it 's like a manifest , when you get a box full of stuff , or {disfmarker} or if that 's , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , i I {disfmarker} I don't know what uh , level of detail would be most useful . I don't know i if that 's something that {pause} I should do when I look over it , or if we want someone else to do , or whatever . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: But this issue of the contents of the meeting in an outline form . OK . +Professor G: Yeah . Meaning really isn't my thing . Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think it just {disfmarker} whoever is interested can do that . I mean , so if someone wants to use that data {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: We 're running a little short here . +Postdoc F: That 's fine . +Professor G: We , uh , uh , cou trying to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I 'm finished . +Professor G: eh , was {disfmarker} p Well , you know , the thing I 'm concerned about is we wanted to do these digits +Postdoc F: Oh , yeah . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and I haven't heard , uh , from Jose yet . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . +PhD D: OK . What do you want ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: We could skip the digits . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We don't have to read digits each time . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} you know , another {disfmarker} another bunch of digits . More data is good . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I 'd like to do that . But I think , do you , maybe , eh {disfmarker} ? Did you prepare some whole thing you wanted us just to see ? +PhD D: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's prepared . +Professor G: Or what was that ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , k Sorry . +Professor G: Uh , how long a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's fast , because , uh , I have the results , eh , of the study of different energy without the law length . Eh , um , eh , in the {disfmarker} in the measurement , uh , the average , uh , dividing by the {disfmarker} by the , um , variance . Um , I {disfmarker} th i +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: the other , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last w uh , meeting {disfmarker} eh , I don't know if you remain we have problem to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with the parameter {disfmarker} with the representations of parameter , because the {disfmarker} the valleys and the peaks in the signal , eh , look like , eh , it doesn't follow to the {disfmarker} to the energy in the signal . +Professor G: Yes . Right . +PhD D: And it was a problem , uh , with the scale . +Grad A: With what ? +PhD D: Eh , the scale . +Postdoc F: Scale . +Grad A: Scale . +PhD D: Eh , and I {disfmarker} I change the scale and we can see the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor G: OK . But the bottom line is it 's still not , uh , separating out very well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? +PhD D: The distribution {disfmarker} the distribution is {disfmarker} is similar . +Professor G: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's enough then . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: No , I mean , that there 's no point in going through all of that if that 's the bottom line , really . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So , I {disfmarker} I think we have to start {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , there there 's two suggestions , really , which is , uh {disfmarker} what we said before is that , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: um , it looks like , at least that you haven't found an obvious way to normalize so that the energy is anything like a reliable , uh , indicator of the overlap . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Um , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still {pause} a little f think that 's a little funny . These things l @ @ seems like there should be , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you don't want to keep , uh {disfmarker} keep knocking at it if it 's {disfmarker} if you 're not getting any {disfmarker} any result with that . But , I mean , the other things that we talked about is , uh , {vocalsound} pitch - related things and harmonicity - related things , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} which we thought also should be some kind of a reasonable indicator . Um {disfmarker} But , uh , a completely different tack on it wou is the one that was suggested , uh , by your colleagues in Spain , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which is to say , don't worry so much about the , uh , features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: That is to say , use , you know , as {disfmarker} as you 're doing with the speech , uh , nonspeech , use some very general features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , then , uh , look at it more from the aspect of modeling . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: You know , have a {disfmarker} have a couple Markov models and {disfmarker} and , uh , try to indi try to determine , you know , w when is th when are you in an overlap , when are you not in an overlap . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: And let the , uh , uh , statistical system {pause} determine what 's the right way to look at the data . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I , um , I think it would be interesting to find individual features and put them together . I think that you 'd end up with a better system overall . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But given the limitation in time {vocalsound} and given the fact that Javier 's system already exists {pause} doing this sort of thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , but , uh , its main limitation is that , again , it 's only looking at silences which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: maybe that 's a better place to go . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , eh , the possibility , eh , can be that , eh , Thilo , eh , working , eh , with a new class , not only , eh , nonspeech and speech , but , eh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the speech class , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: dividing , eh , speech , eh , of {disfmarker} from a speaker and overlapping , to try {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do , eh , eh , a fast {disfmarker} a fast , eh , {vocalsound} experiment to {disfmarker} to prove that , nnn , this fea eh , general feature , {vocalsound} eh , can solve the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem , +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: and wh what {disfmarker} nnn , how far is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD D: And , I {disfmarker} I have prepared the {disfmarker} the pitch tracker now . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And I hope the {disfmarker} the next week I will have , eh , some results and we {disfmarker} we will show {disfmarker} we will see , eh , the {disfmarker} the parameter {disfmarker} the pitch , {vocalsound} eh , tracking in {disfmarker} with the program . +Professor G: I see . +PhD D: And , nnn , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ha - h have you ever looked at the , uh , uh {disfmarker} Javier 's , uh , speech segmenter ? +PhD C: No . No . +PhD D: No . +Professor G: Oh . Maybe m you could , you kn uh show Thilo that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Cuz again the idea is there {disfmarker} the limitation there again was that he was {disfmarker} he was only using it to look at silence as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a p putative split point between speakers . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you included , uh , broadened classes then {pause} in principle maybe you can {pause} cover the overlap cases . +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , but I 'm not too sure if {disfmarker} if we can {pause} really represent {vocalsound} overlap with {disfmarker} with the s {pause} detector I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used up to now , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think with {disfmarker} +PhD C: the {disfmarker} to speech - nonspeech as {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . But I think Javier 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: it 's only speech or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's nonspeech . +PhD D: Ah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think Javier 's might be able to . +PhD C: So . +Professor G: N n +Grad A: It doesn't have the same Gaus - uh , H M M modeling , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: which is I think a drawback . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , it 's {disfmarker} sort of has a simple one . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Grad A: Does it ? +Professor G: Right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} isn't it just a Gaussian +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: for each {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . And then {pause} he ch you choose optimal splitting . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . Oh , it doesn't have {disfmarker} it doesn't have any temporal , uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Maybe I 'm misremembering , but I did not think it had a Markov {disfmarker} +Professor G: I thought it {disfmarker} Yeah . I gues I guess I don't remember either . Uh . It 's been a while . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , I could have a look at it . +PhD D: Javier {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: You mean Ja - eh , eh , Javier program ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , Javier di doesn't worked with , uh , a Markov {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I didn't think so . +PhD D: He on only train {disfmarker} +Professor G: Oh , OK . So he 's just {disfmarker} he just computes a Gaussian over potential {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . It was only Gaussian . +Professor G: Oh , I see . I see . +Grad A: And so I {disfmarker} I think it would work fine for detecting overlap . +PhD D: This is the idea . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just , uh , that i it {disfmarker} he has the two - pass issue that {disfmarker} What he does is , as a first pass he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} p he does , um , a guess at where the divisions might be and he overestimates . And that 's just a data reduction step , so that you 're not trying at every time interval . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: And so those are the putative {pause} places where he tries . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . OK . +Grad A: And right now he 's doing that with silence and that doesn't work with the Meeting Recorder . So if we used another method to get the first pass , I think it would probably work . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Sure . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: It 's a good method . As long as the len as long the segments are long enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's the other problem . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor G: O - k OK . So let me go back to what you had , though . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: The other thing one could do is {disfmarker} Couldn't {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} So you have two categories +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and you have Markov models for each . Couldn't you have a third category ? So you have , uh {disfmarker} you have , {vocalsound} uh , nonspeech , single - person speech , and multiple - person speech ? +Postdoc F: He has this on his board actually . Don't you have , like those {disfmarker} those several different {vocalsound} categories on the board ? +Professor G: Right ? And then you have a Markov model for each ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . I {disfmarker} I thought about , uh , adding , uh , uh , another class too . But it 's not too easy , I think , the {disfmarker} the transition between the different class , to model them in {disfmarker} in the system I have now . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it could be possible , I think , +Professor G: I see . I see . +PhD C: in principle . +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} This is all pretty gross . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , the {disfmarker} th the reason why , uh , I was suggesting originally that we look at features is because I thought , well , we 're doing something we haven't done before , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: we should at least look at the space and understand {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It seems like if two people {disfmarker} two or more people talk at once , it should get louder , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , and , uh , uh , there should be some discontinuity in pitch contours , +PhD C: I had the impression . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and , uh , there should overall be a , um , smaller proportion of the total energy that is explained by any particular harmonic {pause} sequence in the spectrum . +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: So those are all things that should be there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So far , um , uh , Jose has {disfmarker} has been {disfmarker} By the way , I was told I should be calling you Pepe , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: by your friends , but Anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: um , uh , the {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has , uh , been exploring , uh , e largely the energy issue and , um , as with a lot of things , it is not {disfmarker} uh , like this , it 's not as simple as it sounds . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's , you know {disfmarker} Is it energy ? Is it log energy ? Is it LPC residual energy ? Is it {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is it , uh , delta of those things ? Uh , what is it no Obviously , just a simple number {disfmarker} {vocalsound} absolute number isn't gonna work . So {vocalsound} it should be with {disfmarker} compared to what ? Should there be a long window for the {vocalsound} normalizing factor and a short window for what you 're looking at ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Or , you know , how b short should they be ? So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: th he 's been playing around with a lot of these different things and {disfmarker} and so far at least has not come up with {vocalsound} any combination that really gave you an indicator . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So I {disfmarker} I still have a hunch that there 's {disfmarker} it 's in there some place , but it may be {disfmarker} given that you have a limited time here , it {disfmarker} it just may not be the best thing to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to focus on for the remaining of it . +PhD D: Yeah . To overrule , yeah . +Professor G: So pitch - related and harmonic - related , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {pause} somewhat more hopeful for it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: But it seems like if we just wanna get something to work , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: that , uh , their suggestion of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Th - they were suggesting going to Markov models , uh , but in addition there 's an expansion of what Javier did . And one of those things , looking at the statistical component , +PhD D: One . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: even if the features that you give it are maybe not ideal for it , it 's just sort of this general filter bank +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or cepstrum or something , um {disfmarker} Eee {vocalsound} it 's in there somewhere probably . +PhD D: But , eh , what did you think about the possibility of using the Javier software ? Eh , I mean , the , uh {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the BIC criterion , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to train the {disfmarker} the Gaussian , eh , using the {disfmarker} the mark , eh , by hand , eh , eh , to distinguish be mmm , to train overlapping zone and speech zone . I mean , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that an interesting , eh , experiment , eh , could be , th eh , to prove that , mmm , if s we suppose that , eh , the {disfmarker} the first step {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , the {disfmarker} the classifier what were the classifier from Javier or classifier from Thilo ? W What happen with the second step ? I {disfmarker} I mean , what {disfmarker} what happen with the , eh {disfmarker} the , uh , clu the , uh {disfmarker} the clu the clustering process ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Using the {disfmarker} the Gaussian . +Grad A: You mean Javier 's ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: What do you mean ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I mean , that is {disfmarker} is enough {disfmarker} is enough , eh , to work well , eh , to , eh , separate or to distinguish , eh , between overlapping zone and , eh , speaker zone ? Because th {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if we , eh , nnn , develop an classifier {disfmarker} and the second step doesn't work {pause} well , eh , we have {pause} another problem . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I had tried doing it by hand at one point with a very short sample , +PhD D: N +Grad A: and it worked pretty well , but I haven't worked with it a lot . So what I d I d I took a hand - segmented sample +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Grad A: and I added ten times the amount of numbers at random , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and it did pick out pretty good boundaries . +PhD D: Oh . Yeah . But is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad A: But this was just very anecdotal sort of thing . +PhD D: But it 's possible with my segmentation by hand {pause} that we have information about the {disfmarker} the overlapping , +Grad A: Right . So if we {disfmarker} if we fed the hand - segmentation to Javier 's and it doesn't work , then we know something 's wrong . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} N n Yeah . No . The demonstration by hand . Segmentation by hand I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the fast experiment . +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's probably worthwhile doing . +PhD D: Uh , we can prove that the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Whether it 'll work or not . +PhD D: this kind o emph emphasises parameter and Gaussian {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Y do you know where his software is ? Have you used it at all ? +PhD D: I yeah have . I have . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I have as well , so if you need {disfmarker} need help let me know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: Let 's read some digits . +Grad A: OK . uuh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we are {disfmarker} +","Summary: + +In the conversation, participants discuss various topics related to their ongoing research and transcription efforts. Graduate A apologizes for not being fully prepared as their lunch ran long due to Chuck (possibly a colleague) telling too many jokes. They discuss the lack of an agenda and practical items to discuss, with Postdoc F highlighting transcription efforts and the cleanliness of recordings as topics to cover. + +Grad A, PhD C, and Postdoc F mention there has been progress in the pre-segmenting of speech and non-speech signals, which has significantly improved transcription accuracy. Professor G raises the discussion about practical issues worth addressing, and Grad A mentions IRAM (likely a topic or tool related to their research). PhD B requests that interesting topics be discussed first due to a time constraint. + +The group debates how to handle overlaps in transcriptions and the usefulness of different representations, with Postdoc F mentioning the idea of a musical score notation for clarity. PhD C talks about using a Munich system with Gaussian mixtures for speech and non-speech detection and how it's been trained and adjusted to account for quiet and loud speakers. + +They discuss the challenges of transcription, including the difficulty of manually identifying overlapping speech. Grad A suggests using Windows software from CMU for transcribing multi-party conversations, and there's a consideration to adapt the Transcriber tool for this purpose. + +PhD B advocates for the importance of transcribing breaths and laughter as they are frequent and can impact speech recognition systems. Postdoc F notes that transcribers are currently marking these speech-related phenomena. + +Professor G talks about potentially using a pool of perceptive linguistics-trained transcribers for more detailed analyses, and Grad A expresses interest in inter-annotator agreement studies. They discuss Javier's system for segmenting speech which relies on silence detection and considering expanding to Markov models for better overlap detection. + +Grad A and PhD D talk about experimenting with hand segmentation and feeding it to Javier's system to test effectiveness. The conversation ends with them agreeing to read some digits, possibly for a part of their project or research." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , welcome everyone to our next meeting . I'm busy writing and busy leading the meeting , but um I've prepared a little presentation once again um or at least an agenda I think uh the biggest part of the presentation will be uh on your side . Um we are here at the conceptual design meeting , which is hereby opened . Um once again I will try to uh write some minutes which I just from the previous meeting uh placed inside our project folder , which was quite some typing . Um today we once again have uh three presentations , if I'm right , and after that we will take a decision on the remote control concepts . And just as the last time we have forty minutes to accomplish that . Okay , well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'd say let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um in the same order as last time ? +Industrial Designer: W sure . +User Interface: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , take it away . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay uh welcome you all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Components design , um {vocalsound} uh first of all uh I would like to uh uh accommodate some of those uh things I uh uh {disfmarker} elaborate some of the things I did . I I elaborated on the concept . What should be um uh said about uh the components , uh its properties and what kind of materials should we use to uh to make uh one of those r remote controls . Uh well first of all I've uh d subtracted some of the components that is that are used uh are w w um {vocalsound} you know from what uh the remote control's formed . Uh first of all , the case , the case , the surrounding of the of the the remote control . {vocalsound} I would like to uh give you an idea of uh how I thought about . +Marketing: Don't destroy my giraffe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Giraffe's gone now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay um the case was is made from rubber , I suppose . There's one of the {disfmarker} because when you use a remote control a lot of people uh will uh will uh drop their remote control +Marketing: Drop it . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they break uh becau the uh titanium was also an option . But uh it's a very expensive material . Uh rubber is , I think , uh the best suitable uh material uh to use uh for our uh for our remote control . Um it's poss it's also possible to uh create fancy colours with rubber . Uh rubber l makes it easy to uh to to {disfmarker} it lets lets itself colour . Uh titanium uh you have to paint it and with that uh it's possible to scratch it or uh yeah make it ugly . Uh rubber uh the total uh piece of rubber that's sor uh that's that's used uh to make the case is uh the same colour , so if you scratch it it's still the same colour , perhaps uh it's a little bit damaged . But it's a very strong material . Um {vocalsound} I h I had an idea single covered uh curved , sorry , single curved . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so it's t two dimensional . I think it's uh it's best to draw oh +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: green . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bright colour . Fancy colour . Forward . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} New . Blank . Okay . +Marketing: You have to go t +Industrial Designer: Let's make it uh black . Okay . I thought of an idea like this . Oh {gap} that . {vocalsound} Um delete . Blank . Okay . So it also looks nice when it's on your table . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you get uh it doesn't lay flat down on the table , but it's c it's stands . +Marketing: Oh it's a side view . +Industrial Designer: Side view yes it's side view so uh I I'm not technically good at th three D_ modelling , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh it's just an idea I had so it's uh it's very uh so its also looks nice when it's on the table . Um the graphical user interface and the buttons , uh we also thought about that already . Uh I thought about uh the L_C_D_ touch screen , which is uh is easy to clean too . One of the great uh advantages of the L_C_D_ screen you just use some {gap} or uh another uh cleaning uh uh cl some cleaning stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And um it should be made of strong plastic and it should be bright . Well I already uh s uh explained some properties of that material and I think uh well we also we almost concluded about that uh this should uh be uh our uh button component . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh that's all about uh the buttons . Uh the batteries , uh we also thought about that already , uh will be chargeable with uh uh an option for a mount station so you can uh put the uh {vocalsound} the remote control in a mount station so its charges itself up instead of uh plugging it in or something like that . Questions , {gap} ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no no no no . Just looking . +Industrial Designer: And they should be long lasting , not uh not be empty uh in about uh two minutes or uh thirty minutes or forty minutes of use . And next step is the chip uh th the component that's uh makes or transmits the signal to the television . Uh there was an option to use s a rather simple chip but I think uh because uh of our uh highly uh requiring uh requirements , there should be an advanced chip in it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: with uh also the ability to uh facilitate speaker speech recognition uh which unfortunately is still in a test phase , so uh there should be some more uh investigation on that side . Uh my personal preferences uh I also overheard in the last meeting that there shou we should use uh our own business colours . That was correct , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think they are rather boring for um for use with rubber . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , business colours I thought it was the the slogan and uh the corporate image , so yeah , it needs colour , +Industrial Designer: Okay they should be m sh they should be in mind , +Project Manager: but I don't think you have to make the entire thing in the corporate colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wasn't it ? Okay so it d it doesn't says uh to uh have the slogan ? +Project Manager: It must be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay okay . Well that's possible of course . +User Interface: You can put the R_ and R_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could make a little R_ and R_ {gap} on the top of the machine . Uh so they are {vocalsound} pretty boring , I suggest , because just the availability with rubber to make fantastic colours uh and also in a lot of possible colours , so it's possible to make very uh fancy uh remote controls which peopl uh who people in which people will find they're uh interesting . And uh will buy uh {vocalsound} them faster when they look at the same old grey or black uh colours . Uh s as I said uh before rubber is uh is impossible to damage severely imp instead of uh of course you can break it when you you when you break it in s for example with a pair of scissors or something like that , but i if you drop it it's not uh broken uh right away s instead of using uh plastic , hard plastic or uh titanium . And I personally liked uh the single curved uh remote control , because it yeah it makes sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's all about my uh my findings . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: I will go next . +Marketing: Mm mm mm . Next . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Alright so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought a little bit about the interface . Uh how it should look . And uh {vocalsound} uh we uh determined that will not be no buttons , but only an L_C_D_ screen , so I had to uh look on that . And the design is therefore based on what we just uh uh thought of . Uh first there are some new findings and new technology for speech recognition . And this is that uh um uh uh you you ask you give a question through through the device and it answers you . And they already uh put this in an in a coffee maker . And so that it you say uh good morning , uh coffee maker , and it says t says to you back good morning Joe or what's your name . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: This uh and there's an easy way to uh program that uh you say record into the device into the speaker and then you say the question and three seconds later you say the answer and then when you say the question it gives you the answer . Um perhaps it's useful , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: perhaps for because people um lose the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: they can yell uh remote where are you and {gap} calls or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's true . +User Interface: And perhaps we could uh implement that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then I have to go out of the presentation because I tried to make some kind of a a idea of how it should look like +Industrial Designer: Oh my God . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I can't draw , so uh don't {vocalsound} make too much of it {vocalsound} . I tried to uh the L_C_D_ screen I tried to sort of to draw {gap} . I thought uh at least uh the icon for the volume . I don't know if there is an icon for the program , but +Industrial Designer: Not just a P_ . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: P_ yeah , just a P_ . +User Interface: So uh +Industrial Designer: .. . {gap} +User Interface: and then the buttons above and uh below +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the and the and the mute button also recognisable as an icon . Um . +Marketing: Where's where's the button for two {gap} ? +User Interface: I forgot that one . {vocalsound} I thought I forgot something , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh and uh the numbers , that should be a bit larger I think it's not really on scale and and so forth . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Um an options button . And I thought the the button for teletext apar uh apart because it's not really options , I think . It's uh options is the settings of the remote and of the T_V_ and that kind of uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So could call it settings or something . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: But this is a bit uh how I thought it . And uh the L_C_D_ uh somewhere on the remote . Perhaps we could be more curvy the remote perhaps should , so that it's better in your hand or something uh . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , +User Interface: But uh and and uh a microph microphone for the speech uh recognition if we want to implement that . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Uh and then uh if you press the op options button , now we have an example of and then you should get the other options with what what you could do and that you could do with something like this this . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , {gap} . +User Interface: And uh it's also uh I thought think we discussed uh earlier that uh older people don't really want to use uh these extra settings . And older people a also don't really want to use this uh th this kind of option menus . So they want to u use one button and then something happens , and not choose with uh this kind of uh {disfmarker} And you could put in a an a really s little scrolling device on the side of your uh remote , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you could scroll scroll uh across these uh things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +User Interface: That's an option . And that was my uh finding dinge . +Project Manager: Thanks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now our third +Industrial Designer: Go Danny , go Danny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: team member with his presentation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I'm going to tell you something about a trend watching . The trends from the past years , what the people like , what the youngsters like , what the elderly people liked about shapes , colours , material and stuff . 'Kay . The method I used was {disfmarker} Like I told I watched the trends from the past years about colours , shapes , material they wanted uh from elderly and young people . So we can keep that in mind for designing f uh the device itself . Findings I made . The most important thing people liked last year was that the remote control should be look look fancy . The second important thing that w should be if inv in innov innovative , okay , like the L_C_D_ screen that's {vocalsound} quite innovative so that should be great meeting for this . And the third thing is it should be easy to use . I think with only one menu , four button , channel , volume , it should also be enough for easy to use . The personal preferences for the young people , they liked fruity colours like uh banana yellow , uh strawberry red and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Fruity ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Grass green . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Like that . The round shapes , and soft material m materials like the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: It should be soft uh i it should feeling spongy or s Sponge Bob like things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's build it into a sponge . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Th Elderly people like au colours which y are being seen in autumn like um woods um dark brown , red , deep reds and stuff . They liked square shapes with round edges . And hard materials like wood , um titanium . They those kind of materials they liked . This is a bit like the young peoples like the fruity colours , innovative , all the colours you see , the blue , the red , the white , the yellow , that stuff . And then I th I I personally thought the front side of the shape should be something for the youngsters like like +Project Manager: Oh y {vocalsound} +Marketing: this or something . It's it's a bit like a banana . And the colour should be yellow , or something . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And for the elderly people just plain old . Because we decided to have two kind of remotes , two designs , or was it two colours ? +User Interface: It was one remote , I think , +Marketing: Different colours , yeah . +User Interface: different colours . +Marketing: We should decide whether it's going to be with round shapes . I think like my colleague , you said , is that's e better , or for the elderly people something like like the iPod or something , with round squares . Simple but +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So that's it . +Project Manager: So for the older people , a more traditional uh form . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That is my {disfmarker} Yeah , like the older o older colours I can maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could you could uh change the colours , that was also the idea . I don't know which shape you should should take , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Colours th the elderly people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess changing colours will be easier than changing uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Changing just the shape of the uh remote control ? +Project Manager: the shape of it . +User Interface: Perhaps you could find something in the middle . Round but square . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: round corners , but s but square , yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe then both groups won't buy it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh i i if you do it uh uh square , with round corners but a little uh in the middle of it uh i Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you mean , kind of like a {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} wait , like {vocalsound} like this {vocalsound} uh a bit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's a bit square , but it's also a bit uh round . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like a beer glass . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: So but then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know what you mean . +User Interface: Same sides . {vocalsound} But that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's also easy to to have {vocalsound} to to put in your hand . +User Interface: Yeah but that's also how other remotes are shaped , so that's uh {disfmarker} But perhaps that's a good thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so that's easy to use . People know the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will recognise that's as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Look something like that {gap} . Autumn colours like red , brown . +Industrial Designer: Uh when I saw your d Oh . +Marketing: They liked the wood a lot . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we could give it like wooden loo look look or something in that colour . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , kinda like old cars , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a bit bit old school style renaissance , medieval kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Swords . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let's put it all together . +Marketing: Those kind of {disfmarker} Yeah , those kind of things . So you see the big difference between the young people ? Fresh , exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: And the old people , old and boring . +User Interface: But that's easily to do with the colour , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: That's easy to do with the colours , I think . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easier to do in colour than in shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah we think so too . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: Because otherwise we have to {gap} get different shapes , and colour {gap} way easier than yeah the shapes . In material yeah rubber , rubber is , like I said , young people like more soft materials and spongy ones +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and the old people like {vocalsound} plain wood . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we have to decide if we're going to use real hard rubber , or soft rubber . Or something something between that . +User Interface: Yeah think uh {disfmarker} Also in between . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Soft rubber . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} soft rubber +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: which you can you can feel in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I know what you {disfmarker} Um . +User Interface: I don't think you should be able to mould it , +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It should shouldn't be {gap} . +Marketing: No . Or or wh what's something harder . No no no but but you have to like like like a a eraser or something . That's the bit you can press it in , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or something harder . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Bit like this kind of rubber . This uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , something like this , yeah . +User Interface: But it's quite hard , this . +Marketing: Yeah it's quite hard but you can press it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's feels kind s spongy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Spongy . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think it's rubber . +Marketing: No . N n n +Project Manager: So we need a spongy feeling . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh did you have something about uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are you going to invite Sponge Bob , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we should first decide about shape , I think . +Industrial Designer: Ding ding . +User Interface: Which uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I think that's the better thing to do . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Then you can fit the L_C_D_ screen in it , +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: and can decide uh . +Industrial Designer: Um I also s uh can't help but notice {vocalsound} that you uh used an {disfmarker} you had a remote control {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the L_C_D_ screen was uh rather small . Um . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: w I think that L_C_D_ screen should be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: it it's supposed to be bit s bit s bit +Industrial Designer: .. . This was your size , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think it should be larger . +Marketing: Yeah three quarter of the of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , three quarters . So uh so you don't have to put your {disfmarker} {vocalsound} oh . +Marketing: Yeah the buttons won't get that small when the L_C_D_ screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh new , blank . So uh when you get {vocalsound} this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh kinda like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or should it be larger ? +Marketing: Larger I think . +Industrial Designer: Larger ? Because you want to put your hands {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you pu +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Now you can put your hand there and then you won't touch the screen . +Industrial Designer: You want +Marketing: becau because you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Perhaps that's best . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , true , true , true true . +Industrial Designer: Your thumb here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But not on the screen because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: that's uh that's an idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Looks a bit like a Game Boy now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because when you put your f Yeah but if yo if you make the the L_C_D_ screen as large as the remote control itself , uh you'll {vocalsound} you'll always get some {disfmarker} +User Interface: You always touch it , +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Going to be very greasy and stuff . +Marketing: But it won't get that small because you have how much ? Nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen buttons on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One to zero , the two digit , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah you don't want it too small . How yeah how large {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to you have to {disfmarker} Because some fat people with d thick fingers will press three buttons at same time . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah they have thick fingers {gap} . But if you wanna make it in international , Japanese uh people got uh rather small hands +Marketing: Yeah true , +Industrial Designer: and we got these large {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} Yeah , we have we have the zoom option , right ? +Industrial Designer: Zoom opt Ah yeah of course , yeah . You can make it larger to to uh to uh with accompanying uh greater fields to push the button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And we won't include a a pen , or something to point , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: hey , we we want to do it with our fingers , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Your fingers , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Y you could include a pen +Industrial Designer: You don't want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because if you lose the pen uh if you lose the pen uh you can't use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Use a pen You you c you can lose the pen . +Project Manager: Yeah but I think people want to use a remote with with their fingers because th they're used to that +Marketing: Yeah {gap} the fingers , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah o yeah {gap} , if they think it's handy to use a pen . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah I think this uh this is a good size for the screen . I don't know how how large the actual remote should be but a little bit like this , or something . +Project Manager: And maybe we have to add a tissue to remove the grease from all the fingers , huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} You can do {gap} whatever uh any uh cloth . +Marketing: Yeah but that that can be {gap} with plain soft tissue . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay well +Marketing: you can buy those at {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe , if I can interrupt you , maybe I should uh should show some points on which we uh should take a decision . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can discuss these points . {gap} those points um energy question mark . How how should we uh supply the thing with energy and how {disfmarker} are we going to do it with separate docking station and then put {gap} in it . Uh chip on print and case . Those are points my uh coach advised me to discuss here , but I hope you have ideas about them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think energy were batteries and then uh and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So that's the the the first point . +Marketing: Maybe it's better to to include rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: We already decided that on the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: which you can recharge through the docking station . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Just like with the telephone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if the badg the batteries are dead +Industrial Designer: I kinda like your {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you can re you can uh change them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you got some uh some of those uh uh wireless uh mice ? Mouse . Computer mouse . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah like those . +Industrial Designer: Kinda like those kind of batteries . +User Interface: {vocalsound} but it should be th I think normal batteries , +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: not not like two or two uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , normal plain you {disfmarker} No normal plain batteries you can buy at the supermarket or retail shop . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Simple rechargeable uh batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um what was with the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: The chip on print ? Um {disfmarker} Uh you gotta f Yeah . I think so . Chip on print with a with a {vocalsound} simple uh a sim not a simple but a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Print plate . +Industrial Designer: We also discussed that . Didn't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but how did this how does that with a L_C_D_ screen ? You still have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . You always have a print plate . +Industrial Designer: Beg your pardon ? +Marketing: You always have a print plate , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course , yeah . +Marketing: right ? Always , so {disfmarker} I dunno what w what we have to decide about that . +Project Manager: Yeah well it's a good question . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It just was in there +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well uh +Project Manager: and I didn't have any information about it , +Industrial Designer: chip on print , I think what they mean uh with the regular rubber buttons that you got , uh it's always clear for the remote control when you press uh a certain button . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But when you got a L_C_D_ screen , with no uh with not {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the buttons are not always on the same place , +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: for example if you enlarge a button , or if you got several options uh appearing on your screen , uh the co-ordinations aren't always the same . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you got a regular button , th the button of stand-by is always on the same place and you got on the and on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but the p print plate of L_ L_C_D_ screen is more advanced than a normal print plate , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so that that's not of any discussion , I think . +Project Manager: Well you need some kind of C_P_U_ , I guess . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I suppose so . +Marketing: Mm , I don't I dunno I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is a simple C_P_U_ but it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah okay but I d I I don't know if nor o s it's quite a simple L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because it has to uh b +Marketing: Yeah , it's quite a simple L_C_D_ screen . I think they don't need that big of C_P_U_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it the the remote control has to know whether you're in a settings menu or just uh you just want to turn up the volume . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , true true . True . +Industrial Designer: So it has to have some kind of a calculation unit or C_P_U_ +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: to know uh in which state you are and uh which button you are pressing in at the right moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Because we're projecting projecting the buttons on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And a touch screen makes it uh possible to uh to get the co-ordination of your finger on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the case , yeah we already discussed the case , +User Interface: It's rubber . +Industrial Designer: we wanted to make it from rubber +User Interface: Yeah but but a hard rubber like this ? +Industrial Designer: and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or softer rubber or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh hard rubber I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's the easy to ha uh to to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It bounces back from the floor where you {vocalsound} throw it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah sure , look {vocalsound} . +Marketing: We have different colours . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah this in different colours ? +Industrial Designer: D +Marketing: So the shapes is something between the square shapes with round colo corners and a round shapes ? No I don't think , I think it's more round than square . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's a bit . But I think it should be a bit longer , perhaps . +Marketing: So it meets I think it meets more the young people than the older people . +Project Manager: Yeah . But that's what we want , {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , that's our target . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's our main target . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lower than forty years , I think +Industrial Designer: {gap} Well and how about my idea uh of making it um with one single curve ? +Marketing: it was . +Industrial Designer: So i +Marketing: Oh yeah that that {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I thought that was a quite good +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because it's a gadget and you want to show it off , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah you have a fancy design , then , right away . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it +Marketing: You can put it on your table with the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you don't have to put it {disfmarker} get it in your hand , you can put it next to you +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then dive it in +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: and {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a lot easier . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So , so +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you got uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Did you write that down ? Uh got a single curved uh rubber f uh fancy coloured {vocalsound} remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can't you You can't oh , you c you can draw it on your paper and then load it on the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but I wrote it down . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's pretty easy but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And load it on the the user the server . +Project Manager: What about the user interface , there are also some some questions uh about the concepts I think you have some ideas on that {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: You you showed your drawing . +User Interface: I had what I just uh I should {gap} again . I miss a few buttons , but . Well . At least uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what we should also have on , I just remembered , um a menu to go back through the first uh {gap} if if you touch options , you can't go back to this uh right away now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , you have to go back . Yeah uh uh . +User Interface: This {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Isn't it better to have the sound and the general buttons horizontal ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Marketing: With the minus and the plus . +User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's easier than {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I I thought it was uh easier to handle this way , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but I don't know what they think . +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Would you like the the buttons horizontal or v vertical ? +Marketing: For sound and channel . +User Interface: Th +Industrial Designer: Depends on the screen . If you make the screen vertical it doesn't matter . If you make it uh in a rectangle {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right well if we make it like this , I think if you +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I so it's it's it's it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: put it like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Square . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's it's easier to have it something like {disfmarker} Oh a button uh minus here , plus over here . A minus here , plus over here . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh , okay . +Marketing: And on here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The other buttons and on here {vocalsound} the top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The options and then you have something like uh the P_ over here , +User Interface: But I think I wou +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: and the sound . +User Interface: I think that's a matter of what you're used to . +Marketing: Something uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think I would put a plus and a min uh here . And then the P_ in the mid in the middle and the sound uh in the middle . +Industrial Designer: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: Something like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Take your time . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Plus minus plus uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: minus . +User Interface: but I think when you are holding it , you could press the minus and the plus and with the other finger the minus and the plus . +Marketing: Yeah I think you're going to s you're going to use it with one thumb . +User Interface: Yeah but I think {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} Perhaps I have some examples . +Industrial Designer: W +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll leave that to the usability engineering then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who's the usability engineering ? +User Interface: That's me . +Marketing: She is . {gap} +User Interface: But I'm going to look if I've got some examples +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause perhaps you should choose what's most often used . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} 'Cause they can use that better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Consistency . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh {gap} {disfmarker} I have that those s numbers . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} Here is our {disfmarker} here are uh +Marketing: Or a good watch . +User Interface: I don't really know . +Marketing: B +Project Manager: Everybody's searching in his data . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Channel selection . Per hour one hundred and sixty eight . Volume selection four times an hour +User Interface: Yeah but {gap} {disfmarker} But I mean if it's usually plus or min above each other or next to each other on a normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So not how much {disfmarker} n not how often it's used , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: W what's what's usual or normal . +Marketing: Yeah , that depends on on on the remote . +User Interface: Yes I'm looking here . But here's it's below , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: here also , and now here's here's next to each other . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: I think it's {gap} it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {gap} because I have two televisions at home . One is horizontal , one is vertical , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it does it doesn't really matter , +Marketing: so it depends . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Depends . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: I think the the the volume was usually uh above each other , because you go higher and down . +Marketing: Yeah , lower . +User Interface: And the the pay the the the program is next to each other , because you would go further and back . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: That's how it's is usually {gap} when I look here +Marketing: True . +User Interface: that's what I see . +Industrial Designer: Okay , um . Let's cut to the chase . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got to change . +Project Manager: Yeah well I think we have we don't have to decide about that now how where we will put the buttons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: just the +Marketing: Yeah is it is user interface . +Project Manager: concepts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Component . +User Interface: This concept is in the actual design , but you should know where you would place a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well le Yeah . Interface , yeah . +User Interface: And the speech uh shall we implement that ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we just heard about the new uh technology , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Technologies , uh . +Marketing: Yeah I think it's it's easy for that , where are you , but then it says I'm here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But then you should also find a place {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Makes it possible to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could if you do it like this you could put it in a corner or something . You can talk into the corner . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , a microphone , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Not even necessary , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because a lotta {disfmarker} you can make a very sensitive microphone , so it makes it possible to uh {vocalsound} just put it arou uh underneath it or on the on the bottom of the uh remote . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe at the bottom where you can can hel hold it with you hand that there's also a microphone uh +User Interface: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , that's also {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: over there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: So , in the middle or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's not import I think that's not im very important +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because yeah , it doesn't matter where the microphone is . +User Interface: {gap} but you should uh decide where you want to put it . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , sure , okay , +User Interface: Right ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: well tha +Marketing: Um I think where it isn't seen +Industrial Designer: Underneath ? {gap} Indeed . It shouldn't be uh very uh visible . +Marketing: the most . +User Interface: You could p you could put it in a logo of the company . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Inside . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , why no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe just in the the spot you just pointed out +Marketing: I i between the round of the R_ . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think it should be in a in an important position where people can see it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because it is the the unique uh idea of our remote , huh , the the speech control . +User Interface: Yeah . So where do you want to put it ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Well maybe where the one hand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it doesn't makes it uh any more fancy because you get to see uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah actually it does {vocalsound} because it you can you can find it better if you use it . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah +User Interface: It's a way for you to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: So it makes more sense just 'cause other remotes don't have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But are we talking about the button , or about the microphone ? +User Interface: About a microphone , +Project Manager: Yeah because a microphone is very small thing , +User Interface: there is no button . +Project Manager: but you can make it look like it's big so as its its really an important function of the remote . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think the left s under corner should be the best . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Where isn't {disfmarker} i it isn't most in sight . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well put it there . I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't doesn't really matter . +Marketing: No . Actually doesn't . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So ? +User Interface: Alright . Any more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So well uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Interface type . +Project Manager: type , supplements , anything . Yeah , well we already s discussed that , huh , the the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ yeah , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh supplements well the supplement is to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} I think {disfmarker} I thought the , like you said , like scroll {vocalsound} next to the remote isn't that handy . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: I think it's better to just {gap} up what you'd like to do on the screen . If you want to go back you have to back button go back , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: if you want to choose audio settings you press audio settings and it goes to that s sub-menu . +Industrial Designer: Hey , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: the the young people do like uh scroll uh +Industrial Designer: Use the scroll . Yeah I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah ? You do like it ? +Industrial Designer: So why not , on on side . +User Interface: Or at least {disfmarker} Yeah I don't know if it's really the scroll , but the menu {gap} they like most , and I think you can never get through a menu great with a scroll uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fast , yeah . So if you've got a settings , if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think it is is faster . Becau I think the scroll's easier if you have a lot of options , +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but if you don't have a lot of option then {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} it's f uh +Industrial Designer: You have a lot of options , +User Interface: we have five or four or something . +Industrial Designer: because when you use {disfmarker} Yeah you get w when you use uh the settings menu for example to look up some uh uh some channels on your uh on your television , you should scroll scroll down uh on a menu which probably does not fit on your screen . +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah , okay , true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So then it's uh very handy to to scroll down , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: you make just a rubber just like uh on your mouse or . Just put it on the side and it's very easy to use . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , no problem . +Project Manager: And I think I would it would make even more fancy because you have another interesting thing on the side +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: which you can touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's also different . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Well there's our five minutes uh warning . Um any more uh questions about about the design or the user interface or different components , everyone ? +Marketing: Um . No , colours are clear , +Project Manager: Everybody think they can can +Marketing: shape is clear , material is clear . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what's the standard colour ? +Project Manager: work for that ? +Marketing: And a standard , +Project Manager: Is there a standard colour ? +Marketing: yeah we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I +Marketing: no we have different colour . +Industrial Designer: You got you got different colours , +Marketing: How many colours are we going to {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should you should have a black one +Industrial Designer: but you should have a standard colour . +User Interface: because uh I think black is standard . +Marketing: Black . Yeah , black I think is is the standard . +Industrial Designer: Black ? With the with the yellow uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if you want to be different , then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Dark grey , something like this this colour or something . +Industrial Designer: Just a regular uh remote colour . +Marketing: Yeah like like yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then have uh different covers uh to use . +Marketing: Or or silver . I think it's better to have silver nowadays . +User Interface: Silver . +Industrial Designer: Silver , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think you see more silver than black . +Industrial Designer: You see a lot of t uh silver televisions . +Project Manager: But still silver and black are {disfmarker} well +User Interface: Silver rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah the the silver black are our main colours . Yeah . +Project Manager: silver is new but also traditional , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we have silver , black and between those {vocalsound} is like I dunno s five colours between them or something . +Project Manager: Yeah w what about a yellow thing , I mean it +Industrial Designer: Yeah y I think it's better to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah it'll be a banana yellow , we have . +Project Manager: could be ugly , but it's definitely fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But +Marketing: R red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah th yeah . That's right . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you use uh silver , uh rubber s silver rubber isn't fancy . +Marketing: Green , wood , brown . Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: When you use titanium , silver is fancy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but when you use silver rubber , it isn't fancy . Silver has to shine , and rubber doesn't shine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Especially when it's made of soft rubber like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You understand ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand . +Project Manager: Yeah I would think about colours like uh red , yellow , green , blue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah o of course . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Marketing: The fruity colours and the autumn colours , like red and brown , {gap} dark red and brown . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all kind of colour . +Industrial Designer: Fruity . Fruity loops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Maroon . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: And and do we have to have a normal black one , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who's pinging ? +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You are pingin +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I thought we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You ping . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that wraps it up ? Everybody knows uh what to do ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I wrote it down here . I wrote it down here what to do um . +User Interface: Well I don't know what to do , +Industrial Designer: Well not what to do . Not what to do . +User Interface: but . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next meeting is once again in thirty minutes . Um here are the individual actions , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and especially notice that uh the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer are going to work together on a prototype drawing on a smart board , +User Interface: Ooh . {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: and of course to all four of us uh specific instructions will be emailed by our personal coach . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: tough . We'll be available . +User Interface: But do we have to {disfmarker} We'll work together , but do we have to stay here , or do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I'd say just wait uh for email and uh find out . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thin I think we should work {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay well that was what I had to say , uh , +User Interface: Yeah I think {gap} . +Project Manager: final thoughts from anyone , or ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: We're finished . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you very much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Finished . +User Interface: So we have to keep talking English now ? {vocalsound} +","The meeting commenced with the Project Manager opening the conceptual design meeting and indicating that minutes from the previous meeting had been added to the project folder. The agenda included three presentations and a decision regarding remote control concepts, all to be accomplished in forty minutes. + +The presentations began with the Industrial Designer discussing component design, specifically the choice of rubber for the case of the remote control due to its durability and color retention, even when scratched. He proposed a single-curved design for aesthetics and functionality. The conversation moved through various ideas, including potential color choices, the idea of a touch screen for ease of cleaning, rechargeable batteries, and advanced chips to handle complex functions like speech recognition. The usage of company colors and branding was also discussed. + +Marketing then presented observations on trend watching, noting that the remote should look fancy and be innovative and easy to use. He pointed out that young people prefer fruity colors and round shapes, while older users like autumn colors, square shapes with round edges, and hard materials such as wood or titanium. + +The User Interface presenter then spoke about designing the remote to have no buttons, just an LCD screen, incorporating new speech recognition technology. The team also considered different ways users could interact with the remote, like using a scroll mechanism or touch. + +Following the presentations, the team discussed specifics such as button placement, LCD screen size, and the use of rubber as a material for the case. Additionally, they contemplated including a microphone for speech commands and decided on keeping a clean, sleek look with the option to incorporate company branding discreetly. They agreed that the remote should cater to younger target markets while still maintaining some traditional aspects for broader appeal. Options for various color choices were also mentioned. + +The Project Manager summarized the points made during the meeting and outlined the direction for the project. He confirmed that information regarding specific tasks and further instructions would be sent out via email by the project coach, and the team agreed to collaborate on a prototype drawing using a smart board. + +As the meeting was wrapping up, no further thoughts were shared and the participants agreed on the points discussed. The next meeting was scheduled, and the team was advised to await further instructions by email." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . Ooh . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So we're 'kay ? On the {gap} or {disfmarker} No . I dunno where to put it 'cause the {disfmarker} Okay . Could you s take it off ? {gap} . +Marketing: Is that alright ? {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Keeps coming off . 'S fiddly . +Project Manager: Hmm . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: How do we sta wa how do we start ? Does anybody know ? +Marketing: Oh , another one . +Project Manager: So that's this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Are we free to take notes uh {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . Hmm . Okay , just hang on a second everybody . I haven't actually looked at this yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Very nice . +Project Manager: I haven't looked at it , but let's just start it off and we'll see what happens . If you're all ready . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} is the agenda ? Opening , acquaintance , tool training and project plan , discussion and then closing . Project aim is a new remote control . It's original , uh trendy and it's user-friendly . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Project method , functional design , individual work , another meeting , conceptual design , individual work , and a meeting of details design , individual work and a meeting . Tool training . Try out the whiteboard , every participant should draw their favourite animal and sum up their favourite characteristics of that animal . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Uh Miss Industrial Designer , would you like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So are we supposed to bring the little things for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why don't you just c , I think just clip on {disfmarker} clip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} do you have a belt ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Clip {gap} . +Project Manager: Or put 'em in your pocket , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} okay . So my favourite animal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what's your favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Is it rude ? +Marketing: It's an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a very good elephant . +User Interface: The back end of an elephant . +Marketing: Oh my gosh , I'm never gonna be able to draw that well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , and you want to write up on there , it says you've gotta sum up your f f your favourite characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , it's big , it's got a great memory . +Marketing: Does it ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: Supposed to have a great memory , we say an elephant never forgets . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh dunno know why but {vocalsound} looks like nice to me . +Project Manager: Okay . Wonderful , well done . +Industrial Designer: Nice animal . +Project Manager: Do you want to use the wipe {disfmarker} the m the wiper and wipe it off ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And Mister aesthetics designer do you wanna go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aesthetic yep , sure . +Marketing: I have no idea what my favourite animal is . +User Interface: 'Kay , my favourite animal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh let's see . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Dunno if any of you have seen Napoleon Dynamite before . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a liger {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: A what ? +User Interface: a combination of a lion and tiger {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Have you not seen Napoleon Dynamite ? +Marketing: How {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh it's a hilarious movie . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: You have to see it . And and it's best characteristic is it's pretty much the awesomest animal . But you have to see the movie to fully appreciate it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well done . +Marketing: Great . Me ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Miss mar Miss Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . Not quite sure how this is gonna work . +User Interface: There {gap} go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} well I'll try my best {vocalsound} to draw . Can I just draw the face ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , I think you can just draw the face , but then you'll have to describe in writing how the rest of it looks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . It's a cat . +Project Manager: That's a very pr pretty cat . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which also has what ? A big fat body and big {disfmarker} and a long tail . +Project Manager: Okay , do y do you wanna do some {disfmarker} write {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: you wanna just write some words about it ? +Marketing: Because um cuddly . And usually cats are very friendly . Usually . And they're healing as well . They heal . And they can feel when a human's got problems so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Wow , so they're kinda spiritual . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , that's why I like cats . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: There we are , that's me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , I don't actually have a favourite animal , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but for the for th for this meeting I'll s draw a little {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh . I honestly can't draw for toffee . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} no +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A prairie dog ? +Project Manager: {gap} no {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh a squirrel ? +Project Manager: That's exactly what it is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh not a very good one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not bad I would say . +User Interface: Yeah , that's pretty good . +Project Manager: Okay , well , you got it's a s It's a squirrel , and I like them , because they're cute and stupid . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Right . Okay , so , I guess that was the test to see if this equipment is all working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Let's move on to the next page . Okay , project finance , selling price twenty five Euros , profit aim fifty million Euros . +Marketing: Market range internationally sold . +Project Manager: Yeah . Production cost , ah right it's gotta be {disfmarker} can't cost any more than twelve fifty to make . +Marketing: Ah right okay . +Project Manager: {gap} experience with with remote control , so talk about who who's used what . Any ideas ? Stuff like that . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . {vocalsound} At quarter to twelve . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So I think before we close uh , we are expected {disfmarker} I mean the last slide wanted us to maybe discuss longer what our what our ideas where . I mean if you wanna go back to the last slide . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: S +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we're {disfmarker} I mean before we close the meeting , we're supposed to come up with some ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh k so we're actually supposed to be doing this discussion like right now are we or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I thought this was just t giving us instructions for the re to do next , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think this is just the preliminary , get some rough ideas for what our experiences with remote controls have been and and what we would {disfmarker} roughly what we would incorporate into a new one maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , who's got experiences with remote controls then ? Pretty much everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we've all got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Is this a T_V_ one we are supposed to make ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it's a T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay um . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: A new remote control for T_V_ . What would I like ? {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: W what {disfmarker} You want it big do you want it small . Are we are we going for like like telephones are going little teeny tiny things or we are going for something that's that's big and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Medium . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah it seems like there's like {disfmarker} there's sort of a tension between two ideas , I mean , you want you want one remote that maybe can work uh all all of the functions of T_V_ and if you have whatever associated with T_V_ the D_V_D_ player , or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Video and ts hi-fi and stuff . +User Interface: but like at the same time you don't wanna really busy remote with a thousand buttons on it or something . +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: now th that's the other thing is it's gotta be cheap . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I mean I was thinking something that's got different like maybe a a an L_C_D_ display on it that's got different pages for different devices , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but that would p that would probably be quite expensive . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But how do we know how much uh , I mean , how much do we have per {disfmarker} how much ? +Marketing: Twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It g can't be more than twelve fifty per unit . +Marketing: Each . +Project Manager: Per unit , yeah . +User Interface: Cost . +Industrial Designer: So do we have to be realistic within the budget or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well at the moment we could , wa I mean we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Close pr I don't know how much it would cost . Yeah . +Marketing: Guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause we this is what we th what we're doing at the moment is just saying what what we'd like , and then after we after we've found out what we can like , some different ideas , we can then go and do the research to find out if these {disfmarker} any of these ideas are feasible or not . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So would be nice to have something that that controls lots of different things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Couldn't we have like one that comes out ? {vocalsound} Like so you have one in like {disfmarker} mm +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it doesn't have to be really thick . I mean remote controls can be thin bits . And then you have one for your D_V_D_ and you sort of slide it out , and then you have another one , you slide it out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} have slides . And then it all comes compact +Project Manager: Okay , that's {gap} . +Marketing: into one . So it's not {disfmarker} you actually just putting three or four different remotes together but making them thinner , and um into one basically . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's an idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you just flip them out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} have uh one very complicated one on one side with {vocalsound} all the D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ access and stuff , and then on the other side o {vocalsound} one uh a remote control that would be very very simple with just the channel , program plus and {vocalsound} minus , and the just the mute button , for example . I can real keep it really really simple on one side and the other side be very complicated . +Project Manager: One side for kids , one side for adults . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if that's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or grandma as well , you know it's like {vocalsound} what is the mute button . +User Interface: I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have a two sided remote though , 'cause it would be very hard to use in the way that you mani manipulate it . +Industrial Designer: No , but you would slide it into uh someth like something on the back would hold {disfmarker} like you wouldn't be able to press the buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Like it {gap} +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: or something like a flip telephone , something like that maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: That would be cool . +Project Manager: F flip it open and you've got all the buttons , or you flip it closed and you've just got the basic buttons on the outside maybe . +Marketing: I was thinking that like a flip . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , oh we've got five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Start breaking up . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Well we've got a k we've got a few ideas there . +User Interface: Yeah , we should uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: I guess by the end of this meeting we should have at least a a rough conception {disfmarker} you know {gap} stage one was technical functions design , what effect the apparatus should have . Okay . Um so I mean we still have time in our next meeting to come up with the actual concept for the user interface , but the the functions that we're sure that we want are that it can control the T_V_ , but also devices connected to the to the T_V_ , I mean , be able to operate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D_V_D_ players , things like that . +Project Manager: I have got {disfmarker} I think we should also have a back-up plan of {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I I I just think that it might be expensive to make something that {disfmarker} I mean we don't , we haven't been told it has to be something that will control everything . We should have a back-up plan of just a really good television remote control , that just {disfmarker} that is just for a T_V_ , but it's just a really good , nice one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: What do you reckon ? See 'cause , {gap} I'm just thinking {disfmarker} bearing in mind th we've gotta {disfmarker} we have to have something that's cheap to make . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean {gap} . Yeah , that's true , maybe we should just concentrate on having a a good T_V_ remote , and have it be um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we'll be able to come up with ideas and stuff a lot quicker . +User Interface: have it be like ergonomic so it's comfortable to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh simple to use , and looks decent and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: May w you know , maybe even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But what'll make it what'll make it interesting for people to buy though ? +Project Manager: Or maybe even so something that's for disabled people +Marketing: I mean if it's if it's just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or so people that uh b don't see very well or {disfmarker} big buttons for {disfmarker} touchy buttons for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorta find a niche for our remote , like market it to a certain kind of p kind of people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just one that looks really fucking cool . +User Interface: certain certain demographic {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Could be really light or , I dunno , something special . +User Interface: Yeah , no I think you're right . Yeah , rathe rather than focus on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Otherwise we'll be we'll be here all day talking about {gap} do this let's do that n I think we sh I think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause at the end of the day if it says just T_V_ remote , doesn't say com combination with all all the r {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean obviously everyone {disfmarker} we're uh you know uh sounds like we're all a bit sort of gadget heads and we like things that do everything at once , but you know , that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remotes spinning out from other remotes and having little nested remotes inside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . I mean I'd like one that makes tea as well , but {vocalsound} that's not gonna happen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think a flip up thing , 'cause you always have this problem of like if it's on this {disfmarker} well I did anyway , like we had five or six remotes and they would be lying on the c on the coach , and you'd come and sit down and {disfmarker} ooh , the telephone's {disfmarker} the television switched on or something . So maybe something that like does have a lid or closes , so you don't accidentally press a button or record button for something . +Project Manager: Okay , like a lock f like a lock functs function on it like you have on your telephones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But make it like really snazzy and cool {gap} people will want it . So make it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's gotta be sellable . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true what you were saying , I mean it doesn't have to have a flip function , it can just have a lock function , so that it's not uh not usable when you don't want it to be usable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And even for kids as well . It's um it's safer for them , I guess . Like they don't flick onto channels and all that sl flick onto . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No porn channel for children . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um alright , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we've got some ideas , we've got um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess that's good good for now . +Project Manager: Let's move on . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oops , let's close that . Next meeting , uh okay . +Marketing: W What does I_D_V_I_D_N_M_E_ stand for ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer um which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah ri okay . {gap} these are requirement specification . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: And I'm marketing . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . {vocalsound} So {gap} {disfmarker} User Interface Designer , that's that's +User Interface: That's me . Okay . +Project Manager: that's you , so you gotta {gap} you go , you're you're gonna be the one that's working out what what buttons we need . Um . +User Interface: Right . Right . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , you are the one {gap} , you know , you're gonna be working out kind of box it goes in , I guess so , um whether it's {gap} what goes into the box , somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Har how it works an +Project Manager: And in marketing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: {vocalsound} These are requirement specification . +Project Manager: User requirements specifications . +Marketing: So what the user requires +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think our two kind of overlap , because {disfmarker} +Marketing: in a remote . +Project Manager: Right , okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it does seem like our our responsibilities have some overlap . +Marketing: I guess that's what it says . +Project Manager: You two {vocalsound} you two are gonna be just , I think , you just double up , you know , you {disfmarker} working together . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You're the one that's gotta go and find out {disfmarker} do th do the research , see what people want in a remote , what buttons are used more often , and s stuff like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , we've been warned to finish the meeting now . Okay . Okay everyone , well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good meeting . +User Interface: Alright , see you in thirty minutes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} , do we take these off ? +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} +","A project management team comprising a Project Manager, a User Interface Designer, an Industrial Designer, and a Marketing specialist is conducting a meeting to kick-start the development of a new remote control. The meeting commences with short exchanges between the team members, revealing some gaps in the conversation and some indecision regarding the placement and utility of items potentially pertaining to the remote control's design. This is evident from the frequent use of placeholders such as “{gap}” and “{disfmarker}” that indicate uncertainty and interruptions in the dialogue. + +The Project Manager seeks to establish the agenda, which includes an opening, acquaintance with the team, tool training, project planning, discussion, and closing. The ultimate goal is to develop an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The Project Manager outlines the project method that incorporates functional design, individual work, and recurrent meetings throughout the different stages, from conceptual to details design. + +To test the equipment, specifically a whiteboard, the team members are encouraged to contribute to a light-hearted exercise where they draw their favorite animals and discuss the animal’s attributes. This activity also serves to break the ice and create a collaborative atmosphere amongst the participants. The Industrial Designer describes the elephant as large with a great memory, while the User Interface Designer chooses the fictional ""liger"" from the movie ""Napoleon Dynamite,"" known for its awesomeness. The Marketing specialist draws a cat, emphasizing its friendly and healing nature, and the Project Manager draws a squirrel, which is deemed cute and stupid. + +As the meeting progresses, the focus shifts to the project’s financial aspect, aiming for a selling price of twenty-five Euros and a whopping fifty million Euros in profit, with an international market in mind. Production cost targets are set not to exceed twelve fifty per unit. There follows a brainstorming session on the features of remote controls and sharing personal experiences with them. + +The team delves into a vigorous discussion on the envisioned remote control, debating whether to aim for a multifunctional device controlling several types of electronic equipment or to focus on a dedicated and sophisticated TV remote control to keep production costs low. Various ideas for the remote control's design are tossed around, such as a model with sliding components for different devices, a two-sided remote with simple and complex functionalities, and even one targeting special user groups like children and the elderly. They also consider the practicality of a remote with a locking mechanism to prevent accidental button presses. + +The meeting concludes with a rough consensus to focus on creating an aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic, user-friendly, and cost-effective TV remote with outstanding features to make it attractive to consumers. The team members must now begin their individual work according to their roles, with the User Interface Designer focusing on button configuration, the Industrial Designer considering the housing, and the Marketing specialist gauging customer needs. + +The meeting wraps up with the participants removing any equipment they had on, likely as a part of the tool training session. The Project Manager announces that the next meeting will start in thirty minutes, shifting the work forward to further define and conceptualize the product by understanding technical functions and user requirements. Despite some initial disorganization and playful divergences, the team aligns with the project objectives and begins paving the way towards creating their new remote control." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL—skills, higher education and lifelong learning—and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that—I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now—Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the—well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper, 'Securing Wales' Future'. There has been ongoing work being done—as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions—so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success—and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects—the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a 'no deal' or in a 'deal' scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further. +Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the 'no deal' scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 'no deal'? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one. +Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a 'no deal' scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses. +Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined. +Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a 'no deal' has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a 'no deal' scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a 'no deal' on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it— +Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got— +Suzy Davies AM: —particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it? +Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges—I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education. +Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored—the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked. +Eluned Morgan AM: —the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see—just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit—then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about £15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this? +Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera. +Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about. +Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee—those kinds of ministerial arrangements. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU—it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a 'no deal' Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a 'no deal' Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a 'no deal' Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding—ESF funding—which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care—obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers, 'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?' and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a £10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time—we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector. +Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a 'no deal' would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year—that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates—we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that. +Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK. +Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring. +Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions. +Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University—if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible. +Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea? +Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important—and this is not about any one institution—what I think is really important is that we look to—. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right—so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want. +Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector. +Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor—but the others, not. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme. +Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: The additional £6.4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending? +Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of £5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and £5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level. +Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent. +Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able. +Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of £3.5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment. +Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam. +Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions—should they have a desire to participate—will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12? +Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee—there are so many committees these days—have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push? +Kirsty Williams AM: No—gosh—Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running—but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it—it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths. +John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need. +John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews—the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the 'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit? +Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships—it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges—we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and—? I'll stop there for the moment. +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to—. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying, 'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'—I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about £15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that—I don't think we should be—because they made some promises. +John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually—the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with—well, both your sectors, really? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's—. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today—the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get—that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment. +Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well—we mustn't forget that. +Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to—[Inaudible.] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF—the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a 'no deal' scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them—for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements—that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course—. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put £10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back—? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about— +Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: —fees—. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a 'no deal' scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement— +Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal— +Lynne Neagle AM: —then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","The Committee for Children, Young People and Education received an apology from Janet Finch-Saunders for her absence. Lynne Neagle AM welcomed new committee member Suzy Davies and thanked former members Mark Reckless and Darren Millar for their service. The committee discussed the impact of Brexit on higher and further education with Cabinet Secretary for Education Kirsty Williams AM and Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning Eluned Morgan AM, who were accompanied by officials Huw Morris and Marie Knox. They addressed preparedness for Brexit, particularly in higher education and apprenticeships funding, potential 'no deal' scenarios, student recruitment, and the sustainability of the sectors. The committee also considered papers to note and resolved to meet privately for the remainder of the meeting and the whole meeting next week." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: And we 're on . +Professor D: OK . Might wanna {vocalsound} close the door so that {disfmarker} Uh , Stephane will {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'll get it . +Professor D: Yeah +PhD F: Hey Dave ? Could you go ahead and turn on , uh , Stephane 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So that 's the virtual Stephane over there . +PhD F: OK . +Professor G: Do you use a PC for recording ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , yeah , a Linux box . Yeah . It 's got , uh , like sixteen channels going into it . +Professor G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . The quality is quite good ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so far , it 's been pretty good . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . So , uh , yeah {disfmarker} the suggestion was to have these guys start to {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . Why don't you go ahead , Dave ? +Grad C: OK . Um , so , yeah , the {disfmarker} this past week I 've been main mainly occupied with , um , getting some results , u from the SRI system trained on this short Hub - five training set for the mean subtraction method . And , um , I ran some tests last night . But , um , c the results are suspicious . Um , it 's , um , {vocalsound} cuz they 're {disfmarker} the baseline results are worse than , um , Andreas {disfmarker} than results Andreas got previously . And {vocalsound} it could have something to do with , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's on digits ? +Grad C: That 's on digits . It c it {disfmarker} it could h it could have something to do with , um , downsampling . +PhD F: Hmm . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's worth looking into . Um , d and , um , ap ap apart from that , I guess the {disfmarker} the main thing I have t ta I have to talk is , um , where I 'm planning to go over the next week . Um . So I 've been working on integrating this mean subtraction approach into the SmartKom system . And there 's this question of , well , so , um , in my tests before with HTK I found it worked {disfmarker} it worked the best with about twelve seconds of data used to estimate the mean , but , we 'll often have less {comment} in the SmartKom system . Um . So I think we 'll use as much data as we have {pause} at a particular time , and we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll concatenate utterances together , um , to get as much data as we possibly can from the user . But , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} there 's a question of how to set up the models . So um , we could train the models . If we think twelve seconds is ideal we could train the models using twelve seconds to calculate the mean , to mean subtract the training data . Or we could , um , use some other amount . So {disfmarker} like I did an experiment where I , um , was using six seconds in test , um , but , for {disfmarker} I tried twelve seconds in train . And I tried , um , um , the same in train {disfmarker} I 'm a I tried six seconds in train . And six seconds in train {vocalsound} was about point three percent better . Um , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , it 's not clear to me yet whether that 's {vocalsound} something significant . So I wanna do some tests and , um , {vocalsound} actually make some plots of , um {disfmarker} for a particular amount of data and test what happens if you vary the amount of data in train . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Uh , Guenter , I don't know if you t {vocalsound} followed this stuff but this is , uh , {vocalsound} a uh , uh , long - term {disfmarker} long - term window F F Yeah . Yeah , he {disfmarker} you talked about it . +Professor G: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we spoke about it already , +Professor D: Oh , OK . So you know what he 's doing . +Professor G: yeah . +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: y s so I was {disfmarker} I actually ran the experiments mostly and I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was hoping to have the plots with me today . I just didn't get to it . But , um {disfmarker} yeah , I wou I would be curious about people 's feedback on this cuz I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I p I think there are some I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of like a {disfmarker} a bit of a tricky engineering problem . I 'm trying to figure out what 's the optimal way to set this up . So , um , {vocalsound} I 'll try to make the plots and then put some postscript up on my {disfmarker} on my web page . And I 'll mention it in my status report if people wanna take a look . +Professor D: You could clarify something for me . You 're saying point three percent , you take a point three percent hit , {vocalsound} when the training and testing links are {disfmarker} don't match or something ? +PhD E: Hello . +Professor D: Is that what it is ? +Grad C: w Well , it c +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} just for any mismatch {vocalsound} you take a hit . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: i In some cases it might be u better to have a mismatch . Like I think I saw something like {disfmarker} like if you only have two seconds in test , or , um , maybe it was something like four seconds , you actually do a little better if you , um , {vocalsound} train on six seconds than if you train on four seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . +Grad C: Um , but the case , uh {disfmarker} with the point three percent hit was {vocalsound} using six seconds in test , um , comparing train on twelve seconds {comment} versus train on six seconds . +Professor D: And which was worse ? +Grad C: The train on twelve seconds . +Professor D: OK . But point three percent , uh , w from what to what ? That 's point three percent {disfmarker} +Grad C: On {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the accuracies {vocalsound} w went from {disfmarker} it was something vaguely like ninety - five point six accuracy , um , improved to ninety - five point nine wh when I {disfmarker} +Professor D: So four point four to four point one . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} yeah . So about a {disfmarker} about an eight percent , uh , seven or eight percent relative ? +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , Yeah . Well , I think in a p You know , if {disfmarker} if you were going for an evaluation system you 'd care . But if you were doing a live system that people were actually using nobody would notice . It 's {disfmarker} uh , I think the thing is to get something that 's practical , that {disfmarker} that you could really use . +Grad C: Huh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Alright , the e uh , I see your point . I guess I was thinking of it as , um , {vocalsound} an interesting research problem . The {disfmarker} how to g I was thinking that for the ASRU paper we could have a section saying , {vocalsound} "" For SmartKom , we {disfmarker} we d in {disfmarker} we tried this approach in , uh , {vocalsound} interactive system "" , which I don't think has been done before . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and then there was two research questions from that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And one is the k does it still work if you just use the past history ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Alright , and the other was this question of , um what I was just talking about now . So I guess that 's why I thought it was interesting . +Professor D: I mean , a short - time FFT {disfmarker} short - time cepstrum calculation , uh , mean {disfmarker} u mean calculation work that people have in commercial systems , they do this all the time . They {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} they calculate it from previous utterances and then use it , you know . +Grad C: Yeah , um . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but , uh , as you say , there hasn't been that much with this long {disfmarker} long - time , uh , spectra work . +Grad C: Oh , o Oh , OK . +Professor D: Uh , +Grad C: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's standard . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Pretty common . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , but , u uh , yes . No , it is interesting . And the other thing is , I mean , there 's two sides to these really small , uh , gradations in performance . Um , I mean , on the one hand in a practical system if something is , uh , four point four percent error , four point one percent error , people won't really tell {disfmarker} be able to tell the difference . On the other hand , when you 're doing , uh , research , you may , eh {disfmarker} you might find that the way that you build up a change from a ninety - five percent accurate system to a ninety - eight percent accurate system is through ten or twelve little things that you do that each are point three percent . So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't mean to say that they 're {disfmarker} they 're irrelevant . Uh , they are relevant . But , um , {vocalsound} i for a demo , you won't see it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: And , um , Let 's {disfmarker} l let 's see . Um , OK . And then there 's um , another thing I wanna start looking at , um , {vocalsound} wi is , um , the choice of the analysis window length . So I 've just been using two seconds just because that 's what Carlos did before . Uh , I wrote to him asking about he chose the two seconds . And it seemed like he chose it a bit informally . So , um , with the {disfmarker} with the HTK set - up I should be able to do some experiments , on just varying that length , say between one and three seconds , in a few different reverberation conditions , um , say this room and also a few of the artificial impulse responses we have for reverberation , just , um , making some plots and seeing how they look . And , um , so , with the {disfmarker} the sampling rate I was using , one second or two seconds or four seconds is at a power of two um , number of samples and , um , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll jus f for the ones in between I guess I 'll just zero - pad . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . I guess one thing that might also be an issue , uh , cuz part of what you 're doing is you 're getting a {disfmarker} a spectrum over a bunch of different kinds of speech sounds . Um , and so it might matter how fast someone was talking for instance . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: You know , if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there 's a lot of phones in one second maybe you 'll get a {disfmarker} a really good sampling of all these different things , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , on the other hand if someone 's talking slowly maybe you 'd need more . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: I don't know if you have some samples of faster or slower speech but it might make a difference . I don't know . +Grad C: Uh , yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think the TI - digits data that I have , um , {vocalsound} i is {disfmarker} would be appropriate for that . +Professor D: Yeah , probably not . Yeah . +Grad C: But what do you {disfmarker} What about if I w I fed it through some kind of , um , speech processing algorithm that changed the speech rate ? +Professor D: Yeah , but then you 'll have the degradation of {disfmarker} of , uh , whatever you do uh , added onto that . But maybe . Yeah , maybe if you get something that sounds {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} does a pretty job at that . +Grad C: Yeah . Well , uh , just if you think it 's worth looking into . +Professor D: You could imagine that . +Grad C: I mean , it {disfmarker} it is getting a little away from reverberation . +Professor D: Um , yeah . It 's just that you 're making a choice {disfmarker} uh , I was thinking more from the system aspect , if you 're making a choice for SmartKom , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it might be that it 's {disfmarker} it c the optimal number could be different , depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Could be . I don't know . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and th the third thing , um , uh , is , um , Barry explained LDA filtering to me yesterday . And so , um , Mike Shire in his thesis um , {vocalsound} did a {disfmarker} a series of experiments , um , training LDA filters in d on different conditions . And you were interested in having me repeat this for {disfmarker} for this mean subtraction approach ? Is {disfmarker} is that right ? Or for these long analysis windows , I guess , is the right way to put it . +Professor D: I guess , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue I was {disfmarker} the general issue I was bringing up was that if you 're {disfmarker} have a moving {disfmarker} {vocalsound} moving window , uh , a wa a {disfmarker} a set of weights times things that , uh , move along , shift along in time , that you have in fact a linear time invariant filter . And you just happened to have picked a particular one by setting all the weights to be equal . And so the issue is what are some other filters that you could use , uh , in that sense of "" filter "" ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , as I was saying , I think the simplest thing to do is not to train anything , but just to do some sort of , uh , uh , hamming or Hanning , uh , kind of window , kind of thing , +Grad C: Right . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: just sort of to de - emphasize the jarring . So I think that would sort of be the first thing to do . But then , yeah , the LDA i uh , is interesting because it would sort of say well , suppose you actually trained this up to do the best you could by some criterion , what would the filter look like then ? +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Uh , and , um , that 's sort of what we 're doing in this Aur - Aurora stuff . And , uh , it 's still not clear to me in the long run whether the best thing to do would be to do that or to have some stylized version of the filter that looks like these things you 've trained up , because you always have the problem that it 's trained up for one condition and it isn't quite right for another . So . uh {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why RASTA filter has actually ended up lasting a long time , people still using it quite a bit , because y you don't change it . So doesn't get any worse . Uh , +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: Anyway . +Grad C: o OK . So , um , a actually I was just thinking about what I was asking about earlier , wi which is about having {vocalsound} less than say twelve seconds in the SmartKom system to do the mean subtraction . You said in {vocalsound} systems where you use cepstral mean subtraction , they concatenate utterances and , {vocalsound} do you know how they address this issue of , um , testing versus training ? Can {disfmarker} +Professor D: Go ahead . +Professor G: I think what they do is they do it always on - line , I mean , that you just take what you have from the past , that you calculate the mean of this and subtract the mean . +Grad C: OK . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And then you can {disfmarker} yeah , you {disfmarker} you can increase your window whi while you get {disfmarker} while you are getting more samples . +Grad C: OK , um , and , um , so {disfmarker} so in tha in that case , wh what do they do when they 're t um , performing the cepstral mean subtraction on the training data ? So {disfmarker} because you 'd have hours and hours of training data . So do they cut it off and start over ? At intervals ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: So do you have {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you mean you have files which are hours of hours long ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , well , no . I guess not . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , usually you have in the training set you have similar conditions , I mean , file lengths are , I guess the same order or in the same size as for test data , or aren't they ? +Grad C: OK . But it 's {disfmarker} OK . So if someone 's interacting with the system , though , uh , Morgan {disfmarker} uh , Morgan said that you would {vocalsound} tend to , um , {vocalsound} chain utterances together um , r +Professor D: Well , I think what I was s I thought what I was saying was that , um , at any given point you are gonna start off with what you had from before . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: From {disfmarker} and so if you 're splitting things up into utterances {disfmarker} So , for instance , in a dialogue system , {comment} where you 're gonna be asking , uh , you know , th for some information , there 's some initial th something . And , you know , the first time out you {disfmarker} you might have some general average . But you {disfmarker} you d you don't have very much information yet . But at {disfmarker} after they 've given one utterance you 've got something . You can compute your mean cepstra from that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then can use it for the next thing that they say , uh , so that , you know , the performance should be better that second time . Um , and I think the heuristics of exactly how people handle that and how they handle their training I 'm sure vary from place to place . But I think the {disfmarker} ideally , it seems to me anyway , that you {disfmarker} you would wanna do the same thing in training as you do in test . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's just , uh , a prejudice . And I think anybody working on this with some particular task would experiment . +Grad C: Right . I g I guess the question I had was , um , amount of data e u was the amount of data that you 'd give it to , um {vocalsound} update this estimate . Because say you {disfmarker} if you have say five thousand utterances in your training set , {vocalsound} um , and you {disfmarker} you keep the mean from the last utterance , by the time it gets to the five thousandth utterance {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but those are all different people with different {disfmarker} I mean , i in y So for instance , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in a telephone task , these are different phone calls . So you don't wanna @ @ {comment} chain it together from a {disfmarker} from a different phone call . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so they would {disfmarker} g s +Professor D: So it 's within speaker , within phone call , +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: if it 's a dialogue system , it 's within whatever this characteristic you 're trying to get rid of is expected to be consistent over , +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: r and it {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: right . OK , so you 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} and so in training you would start over at {disfmarker} at every new phone call or at every {vocalsound} new speaker . Yeah , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Now , {vocalsound} you know , maybe you 'd use something from the others just because at the beginning of a call you don't know anything , and so you might have some kind of general thing that 's your best guess to start with . But {disfmarker} So , s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , a lot of these things are proprietary so we 're doing a little bit of guesswork here . I mean , what do comp what do people do who really face these problems in the field ? Well , they have companies and they don't tell other people exactly what they do . +Grad C: R right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but I mean , when you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hints that you get from what they {disfmarker} when they talk about it are that they do {disfmarker} they all do something like this . +Grad C: Right , OK . I see . Bec - because I {disfmarker} so this SmartKom task first off , it 's this TV and movie information system . +Professor D: Yeah , but you might have somebody who 's using it +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: and then later you might have somebody else who 's using it . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . Right . I {disfmarker} I see . +Professor D: And so you 'd wanna set some {disfmarker} +Grad C: I was {disfmarker} I was about to say . So if {disfmarker} if you ask it "" What {disfmarker} what movies are on TV tonight ? "" , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: if I look at my wristwatch when I say that it 's about two seconds . The way I currently have the mean subtraction , um , set up , the {disfmarker} the analysis window is two seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So what you just said , about what do you start with , raises a question of {vocalsound} what do I start with then ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess it {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , w OK , so in that situation , though , th maybe what 's a little different there , is I think you 're talking about {disfmarker} there 's only one {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also depends {disfmarker} we 're getting a little off track here . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor D: r But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Uh , there 's been some discussion about whether the work we 're doing in that project is gonna be for the kiosk or for the mobile or for both . And I think for this kind of discussion it matters . If it 's in the kiosk , then the physical situation is the same . It 's gonna {disfmarker} you know , the exact interaction of the microphone 's gonna differ depending on the person and so forth . But at least the basic acoustics are gonna be the same . So f if it 's really in one kiosk , then I think that you could just chain together and {disfmarker} and you know , as much {disfmarker} as much speech as possible to {disfmarker} because what you 're really trying to get at is the {disfmarker} is the reverberation characteristic . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} in the case of the mobile , uh , {comment} presumably the acoustic 's changing all over the place . +Grad C: Right . +Professor D: And in that case you probably don't wanna have it be endless because you wanna have some sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a question of how long do you think it 's {disfmarker} you can get an approximation to a stationary something , given that it 's not really stationary . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor D: So . +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I g I guess I s just started thinking of another question , which is , {vocalsound} for {disfmarker} for the very first frame , w what {disfmarker} what do I do if I 'm {disfmarker} if I take {disfmarker} if I use that frame to calculate the mean , then I 'm just gonna get n nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: so I should probably have some kind of default {vocalsound} mean for the first f couple of frames ? +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Or subtract nothing . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or subtract nothing . And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I guess that 's something that 's p people have figured out how to deal with in cepstral mean subtraction as well ? +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , people do something . They {disfmarker} they , uh , they have some , um , uh , in {disfmarker} in cepstral mean subtraction , for short - term window {disfmarker} analysis windows , as is usually done , you 're trying to get rid of some very general characteristic . And so , uh , if you have any other information about what a general kind of characteristic would be , then you {disfmarker} you can do it there . +PhD F: You can also {disfmarker} you can also reflect the data . So you take , uh {disfmarker} you know , I 'm not sure how many frames you need . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: But you take that many from the front and flip it around to {disfmarker} a as the negative value . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: So you can always {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing is that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I remember B B N doing this , is that if you have a multi - pass system , um , if the first pass ta it takes most of the computation , the second and the third pass could be very , very quick , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor D: just looking at a relatively small n small , uh , space of hypotheses . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Then you can do your first pass {vocalsound} without any subtraction at all . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: And then your second pass , uh , uh , eliminates those {disfmarker} most of those hypotheses by , uh {disfmarker} by having an improved {disfmarker} improved version o of the analysis . +Grad C: OK . OK . +Professor D: So . +Grad C: OK . So that was all I had , for now . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Do you wanna go , Barry ? +Grad A: Yeah , OK . Um , so for the past , {vocalsound} uh , week an or two , I 've been just writing my , uh , formal thesis proposal . Um , so I 'm taking {vocalsound} this qualifier exam that 's coming up in two weeks . And I {disfmarker} I finish writing a proposal and submit it to the committee . Um . And uh , should I {disfmarker} should I explain , uh , more about what {disfmarker} what I 'm proposing to do , and s and stuff ? +Professor D: Yes , briefly . +PhD F: Yeah briefly . +Grad A: OK . Um , so briefly , {vocalsound} I 'm proposing to do a n a new p approach to speech recognition using um , a combination of , uh , multi - band ideas and ideas , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {comment} about the uh , acoustic phonec phonetic approach to speech recognition . Um , so I will be using {vocalsound} these graphical models that {disfmarker} um , that implement the multi - band approach {vocalsound} to recognize a set of intermediate categories that might involve , uh , things like phonetic features {vocalsound} or other {disfmarker} other f feature things that are more closely related to the acoustic signal itself . Um , and the hope in all of this is that by going multi - band and by going into these , {vocalsound} um intermediate classifications , {vocalsound} that we can get a system that 's more robust to {disfmarker} to unseen noises , and situations like that . Um , and so , some of the research issues involved in this are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {comment} one , what kind of intermediate categories do we need to classify ? Um , another one is {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what other types of structures in these multi - band graphical models should we consider in order to um , combine evidence from {vocalsound} the sub - bands ? And , uh , the third one is how do we {disfmarker} how do we merge all the , uh , information from the individual uh , multi - band classifiers to come up with word {disfmarker} word recognition or {disfmarker} or phone recognition things . Um , so basically that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 've been doing . And , +PhD F: So you 've got two weeks , huh ? +Grad A: I got two weeks to brush up on d um , presentation stuff and , um , +Professor D: Oh , I thought you were finishing your thesis in two weeks . +Grad A: But . Oh , that too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Are you gonna do any dry runs for your thing , +Grad A: Yes . +PhD F: or are you just gonna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yes . I , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna do some . Would you be interested ? To help out ? +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: Thanks . Yeah . +PhD F: Is that it ? +Grad A: That 's it . +PhD F: Hhh . OK . Uh . Hhh . Let 's see . So we 've got forty minutes left , and it seems like there 's a lot of material . An - any suggestions about where we {disfmarker} where we should go next ? +PhD B: Mmm , @ @ . +PhD F: Uh . Do you wanna go , Sunil ? Maybe we 'll just start with you . +PhD B: Yeah . But I actually stuck most of this in our m last meeting with Guenter . Um , but I 'll just {disfmarker} Um , so the last week , uh , I showed some results with only SpeechDat - Car which was like some fifty - six percent . And , uh , I didn't h I mean , I {disfmarker} I found that the results {disfmarker} I mean , I wasn't getting that r results on the TI - digit . So I was like looking into "" why , what is wrong with the TI - digits ? "" . Why {disfmarker} why I was not getting it . And I found that , the noise estimation is a reason for the TI - digits to perform worse than the baseline . So , uh , I actually , picked th I mean , the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate by a factor which is less than one to see if that {disfmarker} because I found there are a lot of zeros in the spectrogram for the TI - digits when I used this approach . So the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate . And I found {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the results that I 've shown here are the complete results using the new {disfmarker} Well , the n the new technique is nothing but the noise estimate scaled by a factor of point five . So it 's just an ad - hoc {disfmarker} I mean , some intermediate result , because it 's not optimized for anything . So the results {disfmarker} The trend {disfmarker} the only trend I could see from those results was like the {disfmarker} the p the current noise estimation or the , uh , noise composition scheme is working good for like the car noise type of thing . Because I 've {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} p very good result in the TI - digits is the noise {disfmarker} car noise condition for their test - A , which is like the best I could see that uh , for any non - stationary noise like "" Babble "" or "" Subway "" or any {disfmarker} "" Street "" , some "" Restaurant "" noise , it 's like {disfmarker} it 's not performing w very well . So , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So that {disfmarker} that 's the first thing I c uh , I could make out from this stuff . And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what is important to see is that there is a big difference between the training modes . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh - huh . If you have clean training , you get also a fifty percent improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you have muddy condition training you get only twenty percent . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , and in that twenty percent @ @ it 's very inconsistent across different noise conditions . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: So I have like a forty - five {vocalsound} percent for "" Car noise "" and then there 's a minus five percent for the "" Babble "" , +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: and there 's this thirty - three for the "" Station "" . And so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually very consistent across . So . The only correlation between the SpeechDat - Car and this performance is the c stationarity of the noise that is there in these conditions and the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , uh {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so the overall result is like in the last page , which is like forty - seven , which is still very imbalanced because there are like fifty - six percent on the SpeechDat - Car and thirty - five percent on the TI - digits . And {disfmarker} uh , ps the fifty - six percent is like comparable to what the French Telecom gets , but the thirty - five percent is way off . +Professor D: I 'm sort of confused but {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} I 'm looking on the second page , +PhD B: Oh , yep . +Professor D: and it says "" fifty percent "" {disfmarker} looking in the lower right - hand corner , "" fifty percent relative performance "" . +Professor G: For the clean training . +Professor D: Is that {disfmarker} +Professor G: u And if you {disfmarker} if you look {disfmarker} +Professor D: is that fifty percent improvement ? +PhD B: Yeah . For {disfmarker} that 's for the clean training and the noisy testing for the TI - digits . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's improvement over the baseline mel cepstrum ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But the baseline mel cepstrum under those training doesn't do as well I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to understand why it 's {disfmarker} it 's eighty percent {disfmarker} That 's an accuracy number , I guess , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: right ? So that 's not as good as the one up above . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: But the fifty is better than the one up above , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: so I 'm confused . +PhD B: Uh , actually the noise compensation whatever , uh , we are put in it works very well for the high mismatch condition . I mean , it 's consistent in the SpeechDat - Car and in the clean training also it gives it {disfmarker} But this fifty percent is {disfmarker} is that the {disfmarker} the high mismatch performance {disfmarker} equivalent to the high mismatch performance in the speech . +PhD F: So n s So since the high mismatch performance is much worse to begin with , it 's easier to get a better relative improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . I do . Yeah , yeah . So by putting this noise {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , if we look at the figures on the right , we see that the reference system is very bad . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: Yeah . The reference drops like a very fast {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , oh , oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD E: Like for clean {disfmarker} clean training condition . +Professor D: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} this is TI digits {comment} we 're looking at ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Oh {disfmarker} +Professor D: This whole page is TI - digits +PhD B: Oh . Yeah . +Professor D: or this is {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: It 's not written anywhere . Yeah , it 's TI - digits . The first r spreadsheet is TI - digits . +Professor D: Mmm . How does clean training do for the , uh , "" Car "" +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: The "" Car "" ? +Professor D: stuff ? +PhD B: Oh . Still {disfmarker} it still , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's still consistent . I mean , I get the best performance in the case of "" Car "" , which is the third column in the A condition . +Professor D: No . I mean , this is added noise . I mean , this is TI - digits . I 'm sorry . I meant {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , multi - language , uh , uh , Finnish and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: This is next {disfmarker} next page . +PhD B: That 's the next {disfmarker} next spreadsheet , is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: So that is the performance for Italian , Finnish and Spanish . +Professor D: "" Training condition "" {disfmarker} Oh , right . So "" clean "" corresponds to "" high mismatch "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And "" increase "" , That 's increase e +Professor G: Improvement . +PhD B: Improvement . That 's {disfmarker} "" Percentage increase "" is the percentage improvement over the baseline . +Professor G: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: Which means decrease in word error rate ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so "" percentage increase "" means decrease ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the w there was a very long discussion about this on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , Amsterdam meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: How to {disfmarker} how to calculate it then . +PhD B: Yeah . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess you are using finally this {disfmarker} the scheme which they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Which is there in the spreadsheet . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: I 'm not changing anything in there . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD B: So . Uh , yeah . So all the hi H M numbers are w very good , in the sense , they are better than what the French Telecom gets . So . But the {disfmarker} the only number that 's still {disfmarker} I mean , which Stephane also got in his result was that medium mismatch of the Finnish , which is very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} which is a very strange situation where we used the {disfmarker} we changed the proto for initializing the HMM {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this is basically because it gets stuck in some local minimum in the training . That seventy - five point seven nine in the Finnish mismatch which is that {disfmarker} the eleven point nine six what we see . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So we have to jiggle it somehow ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so we start with that different proto and it becomes eighty - eight , which is like some fifty percent improvement . +Professor D: S Wait a minute . Start with a different what ? +PhD B: Different prototype , which is like a different initialization for the , uh , s transition probabilities . It 's just that right now , the initialization is to stay more in the current state , which is point four point six , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: And if it changes to point five point five , which is equal @ @ for transition and self loop where it becomes eighty - eight percent . +PhD F: Well , but that involves mucking with the back - end , +PhD B: Yeah . We can't do it . +PhD F: which is not allowed . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor G: I mean , it uh , like , i i i It is well known , this {disfmarker} this medium match condition of the Finnish data has some strange effects . +PhD B: Very s +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: It has a very few at {disfmarker} uh , actually , c uh , tran I mean , words also . +Professor G: I mean , that is {disfmarker} Yeah , +PhD B: It 's a very , very small set , actually . +Professor G: that too . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD B: So there is {disfmarker} +Professor G: There is a l a {disfmarker} There is a lot of {disfmarker} Uh , there are a lot of utterances with music in {disfmarker} with music in the background . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . It has some music also . I mean , very horrible music like like I know . +Professor D: So maybe for that one you need a much smarter VAD ? Mmm , +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: if it 's music . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's about the results . And , uh , the summary is like {disfmarker} OK . So there are {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was , which I explained in the last meeting , is using the channel zero for , uh , for both dropping and estimating the noise . And that 's like just to f n get a feel of how good it is . I guess the fifty - six percent improvement in the SpeechDat - Car becomes like sixty - seven percent . Like ten percent better . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a {disfmarker} that 's a cheating experiment . So . That 's just {disfmarker} So , m w +Professor G: But the {disfmarker} but the , uh , forty - seven point nine percent which you have now , that 's already a remarkable improvement in comparison to the first proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . So we had forty - four percent in the first proposal . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We have f a big im So {vocalsound} the major improvement that we got was in all the high mismatch cases , because all those numbers were in sixties and seventies because we never had any noise compensations . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: So that 's where the biggest improvement came up . Not much in the well match and the medium match and TI - digits also right now . So this is still at three or four percent improvement over the first proposal . +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's good . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor D: Then if we can improve the noise estimation , then it should get better . +Professor G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I started thinking about also {disfmarker} I mean yeah , uh , {vocalsound} I discovered the same problem when I started working on {disfmarker} uh , on this Aurora task {vocalsound} almost two years ago , that you have the problem with this mulit a at the beginning we had only this multi condition training of the TI - digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , I {disfmarker} I found the same problem . Just taking um , what we were used to u {vocalsound} use , I mean , uh , some type of spectral subtraction , {comment} y {vocalsound} you get even worse results than {vocalsound} the basis +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor G: and uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I tried to find an explanation for it , +Professor D: Mmm . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yes . Stephane also has the same experience of using the spectral subtraction right ? +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So here {disfmarker} here I mean , I found that it 's {disfmarker} if I changed the noise estimate I could get an improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} so it 's something which I can actually pursue , is the noise estimate . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what you do is in {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this multi - condition training mode , um then you have {disfmarker} then you can train models for the speech , for the words , as well as for the pauses where you really have all information about the noise available . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And it was surprising {disfmarker} At the beginning it was not surprising to me that you get really the best results on doing it this way , I mean , in comparison to any type of training on clean data and any type of processing . But it was {disfmarker} So , u u it {disfmarker} it seems to be the best what {disfmarker} wh wh what {disfmarker} what we can do in this moment is multi - condition training . And every when we now start introducing some {disfmarker} some noise reduction technique we {disfmarker} we introduce also somehow artificial distortions . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And these artificial distortions {disfmarker} uh , I have the feeling that they are the reason why {disfmarker} why we have the problems in this multi - condition training . That means the H M Ms we trained , they are {disfmarker} they are based on Gaussians , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: and on modeling Gaussians . And if you {disfmarker} Can I move a little bit with this ? Yeah . And if we introduce now this {disfmarker} this u spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering stuff {disfmarker} So , usually what you have is maybe , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm showing now an envelope um maybe you 'll {disfmarker} f for this time . So usually you have {disfmarker} maybe in clean condition you have something which looks like this . And if it is noisy it is somewhere here . And then you try to subtract it or Wiener filter or whatever . And what you get is you have always these problems , that you have this {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these zeros in there . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And you have to do something if you get these negative values . I mean , this is your noise estimate and you somehow subtract it or do whatever . Uh , and then you have {disfmarker} And then I think what you do is you introduce some {disfmarker} some artificial distribution in this uh in {disfmarker} in the models . I mean , i you {disfmarker} you train it also this way but , i somehow there is {disfmarker} u u there is no longer a {disfmarker} a Gaussian distribution . It is somehow a strange distribution which we introduce with these {vocalsound} artificial distortions . And {disfmarker} and I was thinking that {disfmarker} that might be the reason why you get these problems in the {disfmarker} especially in the multi - condition training mode . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Th - That 's true . Yeah {disfmarker} the c the models are not complex enough to absorb that additional variability that you 're introducing . +Professor G: s +PhD F: Thanks Adam . +Professor G: Yeah . Yes . +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: I also have the feeling that um , the reason ye why it doesn't work is {disfmarker} yeah , that the models are much {disfmarker} are t um , not complex enough . Because I {disfmarker} actually I als always had a good experience with spectral subtraction , just a straight spectral subtraction algorithm when I was using neural networks , big neural networks , which maybe are more able to model strange distributions and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I tried the same {disfmarker} exactly the same spectral subtraction algorithm on these Aurora tasks and it simply doesn't work . It 's even {disfmarker} it , uh , hurts even . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: So . +Professor D: We probably should at some point here try the tandem {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the system - two kind of stuff with this , with the spectral subtraction for that reason . +Professor G: Hmm . +Professor D: Cuz {vocalsound} again , it should do a transformation to a domain where it maybe {disfmarker} looks more Gaussian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Hmm . Yeah , y I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} whe w w just yesterday when I was thinking about it {vocalsound} um w what {disfmarker} what we could try to do , or do about it {disfmarker} I mean , if you {disfmarker} if you get at this {disfmarker} in this situation that you get this {disfmarker} this negative values and you simply set it to zero or to a constant or whatever {vocalsound} if we {disfmarker} if we would use there a somehow , um {disfmarker} a random generator which {disfmarker} which has a certain distribution , u not a certain {disfmarker} {comment} yeah , a special distribution we should see {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have to think about it . +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: And that we , so , introduce again some natural behavior in this trajectory . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Very different from speech . Still , I mean , it shouldn't confuse the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , similar to what {disfmarker} what you see really u in {disfmarker} in the real um noisy situation . +PhD B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Or i in the clean situation . But {disfmarker} but somehow a {disfmarker} a natural distribution . +Professor D: But isn't that s again sort of the idea of the additive thing , if it {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as we had in the J stuff ? I mean , basically if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have random data , um , in {disfmarker} in the time domain , then when you look at the s spectrum it 's gonna be pretty flat . And {disfmarker} and , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , so just add something everywhere rather than just in those places . It 's just a constant , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} e yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just especially in these segments , I mean , you introduce , um , very artificial behavior . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , see if you add something everywhere , it has almost no effect up {disfmarker} up {disfmarker} up on {disfmarker} on top . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} and it has significant effect down there . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was , sort of the idea . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . Yeah the {disfmarker} that 's true . That {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those regions are the cause for this @ @ {disfmarker} those negative values or whatever you get . +Professor G: I Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could trit uh , we {disfmarker} we could think how w what {disfmarker} what we could try . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: I mean , {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it was just an idea . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think when it 's noisy people should just speak up . +Professor G: to {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we look at the France Telecom proposal , they use some kind of noise addition . They have a random number generator , right ? And they add noise on the trajectory of , uh , the log energy only , right ? +Professor D: Oh , they do ! +PhD B: Yep . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: C - z C - zero and log energy also , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Um , But I don't know how much effect it {disfmarker} this have , but they do that . +PhD B: Now ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it is l somehow similar to what {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think because they have th log energy , yeah , and then just generate random number . They have some kind of mean and variance , and they add this number to {disfmarker} to the log energy simply . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log energy , the {disfmarker} after the clean {disfmarker} cleaning up . +Professor D: To the l +PhD B: So they add a random {disfmarker} random noise to it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: To the {disfmarker} just the energy , or to the mel {disfmarker} uh , to the mel filter ? +PhD B: No . On - only to the log energy . +PhD E: Only {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} Cuz I mean , I think this is most interesting for the mel filters . Right ? +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} or F F one or the other . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but they do not apply filtering of the log energy or what {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like , uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor G: like {disfmarker} like a spectral subtraction or {disfmarker} +PhD B: No {disfmarker} their filter is not M domain . S so they did filter their time signal +Professor G: Yeah . I kn +PhD B: and then what @ @ {disfmarker} u +Professor G: And then they calculate from this , the log energy +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} then after that it is s almost the same as the baseline prop system . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then the final log energy that they {disfmarker} that they get , that {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to that they add some random noise . +Professor D: Yeah , but again , that 's just log energy as opposed to {vocalsound} filter bank energy . +PhD B: Yeah . So it 's not the mel . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: You know , it 's not the mel filter bank output . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: These are log energy computed from the time s domain signal , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: not from the mel filter banks . So {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: Maybe it 's just a way to decrease the importance of this particular parameter in the {disfmarker} in the world feature vector cu if you add noise to one of the parameters , you widen the distributions +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: Becomes flat . The variance , yeah , reduces , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: so . Hmm , yeah . +PhD E: Eee - sss - uh . +Professor D: So it could reduce the dependence on the amplitude and so on . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Although {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So is , uh {disfmarker} Is that about it ? +PhD B: Uh , so the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the other thing is the {disfmarker} I 'm just looking at a little bit on the delay issue where the delay of the system is like a hundred and eighty millisecond . So {vocalsound} I just {disfmarker} just tried another sk system {disfmarker} I mean , another filter which I 've like shown at the end . Which is very similar to the existing uh , filter . Only {disfmarker} Uh , only thing is that the phase is {disfmarker} is like a totally nonlinear phase because it 's a {disfmarker} it 's not a symmetric filter anymore . +PhD F: This is for the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this {disfmarker} this is like {disfmarker} So this makes the delay like zero for LDA because it 's completely causal . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So I got actually just the results for the Italian for that and that 's like {disfmarker} So the fifty - one point O nine has become forty - eight point O six , which is like three percent relative degradation . So I have like the fifty - one point O nine +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} So . I don't know it f fares for the other conditions . So it 's just like {disfmarker} it 's like a three percent relative degradation , with the {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but is there {disfmarker} is there a problem with the one hundred eighty milliseconds ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: u Uh , may +Professor D: Th - Well , this is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I talked to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , I ta Uh , I talked , uh , about it with {disfmarker} with Hynek . I mean , there is {disfmarker} +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , basically our {disfmarker} our position is {vocalsound} that , um , we shouldn't be unduly constraining the latency at this point because we 're all still experimenting with trying to make the performance better in the presence of noise . Uh , there is a minority in that group who is a arguing {disfmarker} who are arguing for {vocalsound} um , uh , having a further constraining of the latency . So we 're s just continuing to keep aware of what the trade - offs are and , you know , what {disfmarker} what do we gain from having longer or shorter latencies ? +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: But since we always seem to at least get something out of longer latencies not being so constrained , we 're tending to go with that if we 're not told we can't do it . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} where was the , um {disfmarker} the smallest latency of all the systems last time ? +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: The French Telecom . +Professor D: Well , France Telecom was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was very short latency +Professor G: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: and they had a very good result . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what was it ? +Professor D: It was thirty - five . +Professor G: It was in the order of thirty milliseconds +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Thirteen ? +Professor D: th th +Professor G: Thirty . +PhD F: Thirty . +PhD B: Thirty - four . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so it 's possible to get very short latency . +Professor G: +Professor D: But , again , we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the approaches that we 're using are ones that {vocalsound} take advantage of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I was just curious about where we are compared to , you know , the shortest that people have done . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but I think this thirty milliseconds {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they did {disfmarker} it did not include the {disfmarker} the delta calculation . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And this is included now , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: you know ? +PhD B: So if they include the delta , it will be an additional forty millisecond . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the {disfmarker} i th They were not using the HTK delta ? +PhD B: No , they 're using a nine - point window , which is like a four on either side , +Professor G: Nine - point . +PhD B: which is like {disfmarker} +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: f so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: they didn't include that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Where does the comprish compression in decoding delay comes from ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD E: +PhD B: That 's the way the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the frames are packed , like you have to wait for one more frame to pack . Because it 's {disfmarker} the CRC is computed for two frames always . +Professor D: Well , that {disfmarker} the they would need that forty milliseconds also . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: No . They actually changed the compression scheme altogether . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they have their own compression and decoding scheme and they {disfmarker} I don't know what they have . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: But they have coded zero delay for that . Because they ch I know they changed it , their compression . They have their own CRC , their {disfmarker} their own {vocalsound} error correction mechanism . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: So they don't have to wait more than one more frame to know whether the current frame is in error . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So they changed the whole thing so that there 's no delay for that compression and {disfmarker} part also . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even you have reported actually zero delay for the {pause} compression . I thought maybe you also have some different {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . No , I think I {disfmarker} I used this scheme as it was before . +PhD B: OK . Ah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: OK , we 've got twenty minutes so we should {vocalsound} probably try to move along . Uh , did you wanna go next , Stephane ? +PhD E: I can go next . Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Oh . Wait a minute . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to take {disfmarker} +Professor D: Wait a minute . I think {vocalsound} I 'm confused . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: So you have w w one sheet ? This one is {disfmarker} you don't need it , alright . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you have to take the whole {disfmarker} the five . There should be five sheets . +Professor D: OK , +PhD E: +Professor D: I have four now because I left one with Dave because I thought I was dropping one off and passing the others on . So , no , we 're not . OK . +PhD B: Thanks . +PhD H: Please give me one . +Professor D: Ah , we need one more over here . +PhD E: OK , maybe there 's not enough for everybody . +PhD F: I can share with Barry . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Can we look at this ? +Professor G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: So , yeah , there are two figures showing actually the , mmm , um , performance of the current VAD . So it 's a n neural network based on PLP parameters , uh , which estimate silence probabilities , and then I just put a median filtering on this to smooth the probabilities , right ? Um {disfmarker} I didn't use the {disfmarker} the scheme that 's currently in the proposal because {vocalsound} I don't want to {disfmarker} In the proposal {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in the system we want to add like speech frame before every word and a little bit of {disfmarker} of , uh , s a couple of frames after also . Uh , but to estimate the performance of the VAD , we don't want to do that , because it would artificially increase the um {disfmarker} the false alarm rate of speech detection . Right ? Um , so , there is u normally a figure for the Finnish and one for Italian . And maybe someone has two for the Italian because I 'm missing one figure here . +PhD B: No . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} Well , whatever . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so one surprising thing that we can notice first is that apparently the speech miss rate is uh , higher than the false alarm rate . So . It means {disfmarker} +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so what is the lower curve and the upper curve ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , there are two curves . One curve 's for the close - talking microphone , which is the lower curve . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And the other one is for the distant microphone +Professor G: Ah , OK . +PhD E: which has more noise so , it 's logical that {vocalsound} it performs worse . So as I was saying , the miss rate is quite important uh , which means that we tend to label speech as {disfmarker} as a silence . And , uh , I didn't analyze further yet , but {vocalsound} I think it 's {disfmarker} it may be due to the fricative sounds which may be {disfmarker} in noisy condition maybe label {disfmarker} labelled as silence . And it may also be due to the alignment because {disfmarker} well , the reference alignment . Because right now I just use an alignment obtained from {disfmarker} from a system trained on channel zero . And I checked it a little bit but there might be alignment errors . Um , yeah , e like the fact that {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the models tend to align their first state on silence and their last state o on silence also . So the reference {disfmarker} reference alignment would label as speech some silence frame before speech and after speech . This is something that we already noticed before when {disfmarker} mmm , So this cus this could also explain , uh , the high miss rate maybe . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this curves are the average over the whole database , so . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the different points of the curves are for five uh , thresholds on the probability {comment} uh from point three to point seven . +PhD B: So that threshold {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD B: OK . S OK {disfmarker} so d the detection threshold is very {disfmarker} +PhD E: So the v +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: The VAD ? Yeah . There first , a threshold on the probability {comment} @ @ {comment} That puts all the values to zero or one . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: And then the median filtering . +PhD B: Yeah , so the median filtering is fixed . You just change the threshold ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . Mm - hmm . So , going from channel zero to channel one , uh , almost double the error rate . Um , Yeah . Well , so it 's a reference performance that we can {disfmarker} you know , if we want to {disfmarker} to work on the VAD , {comment} we can work on this basis +PhD H: +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Is this {disfmarker} is this VAD a MLP ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . How {disfmarker} how big is it ? +PhD E: It 's a very big one . I don't remember . +PhD B: So three {disfmarker} three hundred and fifty inputs , +PhD E: m +PhD B: uh , six thousand hidden nodes and two outputs . t t +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Middle - sized one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: +PhD E: Yeah . Uh , ppp . I don't know , you have questions about that , or suggestions ? +PhD B: Mmm . S so {disfmarker} +PhD E: It seems {disfmarker} the performance seems worse in Finnish , which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not trained on Finnish . +PhD E: uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's worse . +PhD E: It 's not trained on Finnish , yeah . +Professor D: What 's it trained on ? +PhD B: I mean , the MLP 's not trained on Finnish . +Professor D: Right , what 's it trained on ? +PhD B: Oh {disfmarker} oh . Sorry . Uh , it 's Italian TI - digits . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , it 's trained on Italian ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's right . +Professor D: OK . +PhD E: And also there are like funny noises on Finnish more than on Italian . I mean , like music +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , the {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So , yeah , we were looking at this . But for most of the noises , noises are {disfmarker} um , I don't know if we want to talk about that . But , well , the {disfmarker} the "" Car "" noises are below like five hundred hertz . And we were looking at the "" Music "" utterances and in this case the noise is more about two thousand hertz . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Well , the music energy 's very low apparently . Uh , uh , from zero to two {disfmarker} two thousand hertz . So maybe just looking at this frequency range for {disfmarker} from five hundred to two thousand would improve somewhat the VAD +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm {disfmarker} +PhD B: So there are like some {disfmarker} some s some parameters you wanted to use or something ? +PhD E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , the next , um {disfmarker} Oh , it 's there . +Professor G: So is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the training {disfmarker} is the training based on these labels files which you take as reference here ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Wh - when you train the neural net y y you {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . It 's not . It 's {disfmarker} it was trained on some alignment obtained um , uh {disfmarker} For the Italian data , I think we trained the neural network on {disfmarker} with embedded training . So re - estimation of the alignment using the neural network , I guess . That 's right ? +PhD B: Yeah . We actually trained , uh , the {disfmarker} on the Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we had another {vocalsound} system with u +PhD E: So it was a f f a phonetic classification system for the Italian Aurora data . +PhD B: Yeah . It must be somewhere . Yeah . +PhD E: For the Aurora data that it was trained on , it was different . Like , for TI - digits you used a {disfmarker} a previous system that you had , I guess . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} No it {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . That 's true . +PhD E: So the alignments from the different database that are used for training came from different system . +PhD B: Syste Yeah . +PhD E: Then we put them tog together . Well , you put them together and trained the VAD on them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , But did you use channel {disfmarker} did you align channel one also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: I just took their entire Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was both channel zero plus channel one . +PhD E: So di Yeah . So the alignments might be wrong then on channel one , right ? +PhD B: On one . Possible . +PhD E: So we might , +PhD B: We can do a realignment . +PhD E: yeah , +PhD B: That 's true . +PhD E: at least want to retrain on these alignments , which should be better because they come from close - talking microphone . +Professor G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that was my idea . I mean , if {disfmarker} if it ha if it is not the same labeling which is taking the spaces . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: Yeah , possible . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} so the system {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: so the VAD was trained on maybe different set of labels for channel zero and channel one +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: was the alignments were w were different for {disfmarker} s certainly different because they were independently trained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We didn't copy the channel zero alignments to channel one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: But for the new alignments what you generated , you just copied the channel zero to channel one , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Right . Yeah . Um . And eh , hhh actually when we look at {disfmarker} at the VAD , {vocalsound} for some utterances it 's almost perfect , I mean , it just dropped one frame , the first frame of speech or {disfmarker} So there are some utterances where it 's almost one hundred percent VAD performance . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm {disfmarker} Yep . So the next thing is um , I have the spreadsheet for three different system . But for this you only have to look right now on the SpeechDat - Car performance uh , because I didn't test {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I didn't test the spectral subtraction on TI - digits yet . Uh , so you have three she sheets . One is the um proposal - one system . Actually , it 's not exe exactly proposal - one . It 's the system that Sunil just described . Um , but with uh , Wiener filtering from um , France Telecom included . Um , so this gives like fifty - seven point seven percent , uh , s uh , error rate reduction on the SpeechDat - Car data . Mmm , and then I have two sheets where it 's for a system where {disfmarker} uh , so it 's again the same system . But in this case we have spectral subtraction with a maximum overestimation factor of two point five . Uh , there is smoothing of the gain trajectory with some kind of uh , low - pass filter , which has forty milliseconds latency . And then , after subtraction um , I add a constant to the energies and I have two cases d where {disfmarker} The first case is where the constant is twenty - five DB below the mean speech energy and the other is thirty DB below . Um , and for these s two system we have like fifty - five point , uh , five - percent improvement , and fifty - eight point one . So again , it 's around fifty - six , fifty - seven . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz I notice the TI - digits number is exactly the same for these last two ? +PhD E: Yeah , because I didn't {disfmarker} For the France Telecom uh , spectral subtraction included in the {disfmarker} our system , the TI - digits number are the right one , but not for the other system because I didn't test it yet {disfmarker} this system , including {disfmarker} with spectral subtraction on the TI - digits data . I just tested it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor D: Ah ! So {disfmarker} so that means the only thing {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so these numbers are simply {disfmarker} +PhD E: This , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: But this number . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So you {disfmarker} so you just should look at that fifty - eight perc point O nine percent and so on . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor D: OK . Good . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um , Yeah . +PhD B: So this {disfmarker} So by {disfmarker} uh , by {disfmarker} by reducing the noise a {disfmarker} a decent threshold like minus thirty DB , it 's like {disfmarker} Uh , you are like r r reducing the floor of the noisy regions , right ? +Professor G: s +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . The floor is lower . Um , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: mm - hmm . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . So when you say minus twenty - five or minus thirty DB , with respect to what ? +PhD E: To the average um , speech energy which is estimated on the world database . +Professor D: OK , so basically you 're creating a signal - to - noise ratio of twenty - five or thirty DB ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: uh r +PhD E: But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think what you do is this . +PhD E: it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: i When {disfmarker} when you have this , {vocalsound} after you subtracted it , I mean , then you get something w w with this , uh , where you set the values to zero and then you simply add an additive constant again . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: So you shift it somehow . This {disfmarker} this whole curve is shifted again . +Professor D: But did you do that before the thresholding to zero , +PhD E: Right . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: But , it 's after the thresholding . +Professor G: +Professor D: Oh , +PhD E: So , +Professor D: so you 'd really want to do it before , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD E: maybe we might do it before , +Professor D: Yeah , because then the {disfmarker} then you would have less of that phenomenon . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: I think . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: E Hhh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: c +PhD E: But still , when you do this and you take the log after that , it {disfmarker} it reduce the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mmm , +Professor D: Yeah , that will reduce the variance . That 'll help . But maybe if you does {disfmarker} do it before you get less of these funny - looking things he 's drawing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , +PhD B: So before it 's like adding this , col to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} o exi original {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: We would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right at the point where you 've done the subtraction . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Um , essentially you 're adding a constant into everything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But the way Stephane did it , it is exactly the way I have implemented in the phone , so . +Professor D: Oh , yeah , better do it different , then . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor D: Just you {disfmarker} you just ta you just set it for a particular signal - to - noise ratio that you want ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I made s similar investigations like Stephane did here , just uh , adding this constant and {disfmarker} and looking how dependent is it on the value of the constant +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and then , must choose them somehow {vocalsound} to give on average the best results for a certain range of the signal - to - noise ratios . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , it 's clear . I should have gi given other results . Also it 's clear when you don't add noise , it 's much worse . Like , around five percent worse I guess . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And if you add too much noise it get worse also . And it seems that {vocalsound} right now this {disfmarker} this is c a constant that does not depend on {disfmarker} {comment} on anything that you can learn from the utterance . It 's just a constant noise addition . Um . And I {disfmarker} I think w w +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . Then {disfmarker} then I 'm confused . +PhD E: I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought {disfmarker} you 're saying it doesn't depend on the utterance but I thought you were adding an amount that was twenty - five DB down from the signal energy . +PhD E: Yeah , so the way I did that , {comment} i I just measured the average speech energy of the {disfmarker} all the Italian data . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD E: And then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I used this as mean speech energy . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Oh , it 's just a constant amount over all . +PhD E: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD E: wha what I observed is that for Italian and Spanish , {comment} when you go to thirty and twenty - five DB , {comment} uh it {disfmarker} it 's good . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD E: It stays {disfmarker} In this range , it 's , uh , the p u well , the performance of the {disfmarker} this algorithm is quite good . But for Finnish , {vocalsound} you have a degradation already when you go from thirty - five to thirty and then from thirty to twenty - five . And {disfmarker} I have the feeling that maybe it 's because just Finnish has a mean energy that 's lower than {disfmarker} than the other databases . And due to this the thresholds should be {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: the {disfmarker} the a the noise addition should be lower +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} I mean , in the real thing you 're not gonna be able to measure what people are doing over half an hour or an hour , or anything , right ? +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you have to come up with this number from something else . +PhD E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh , but you are not doing it now language dependent ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It 's not . It 's just something that 's fixed . +Professor G: No . It 's overall . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: But what he is doing language dependent is measuring what that number i reference is that he comes down twenty - five down from . +PhD E: Yeah , so I g No . It {disfmarker} No . +Professor D: No ? +PhD E: Because I did it {disfmarker} I started working on Italian . I obtained this average energy +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: and then I used this one . +PhD B: For all the languages . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's sort of arbitrary . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , so if y if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Um , yeah , so the next thing is to use this as {disfmarker} as maybe initialization +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and then use something on - line . +Professor D: Something more adaptive , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I expect improvement at least in Finnish because eh {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} +Professor D: yeah . OK . +PhD E: Well , um , for Italian and Spanish it 's {disfmarker} th this value works good but not necessarily for Finnish . Mmm . But unfortunately there is , like , this forty millisecond latency and , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I would try to somewhat reduce this @ @ . I already know that if I completely remove this latency , so . {vocalsound} um , {comment} it {disfmarker} um there is a three percent hit on Italian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: d Does latency {disfmarker} +Professor G: i +PhD B: Sorry . Go ahead . +Professor G: Yeah . Your {disfmarker} your smoothing was @ @ {comment} uh , over this s so to say , the {disfmarker} the factor of the Wiener . And then it 's , uh {disfmarker} What was it ? This {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: this smoothing , it was over the subtraction factor , so to say . +PhD E: It 's a smoothing over the {disfmarker} the gain of the subtraction algorithm . +Professor G: Was this done {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and you are looking into the future , into the past . +PhD E: Right . +Professor G: And smoothing . +PhD E: So , to smooth this {pause} thing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And did {disfmarker} did you try simply to smooth um to smooth the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to smooth stronger the {disfmarker} the envelope ? +PhD E: Um , no , I did not . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor G: Because I mean , it should have a similar effect if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , you {disfmarker} you have now several stages of smoothing , so to say . You start up . As far as I remember you {disfmarker} you smooth somehow the envelope , you smooth somehow the noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and later on you smooth also this subtraction factor . +PhD E: Uh , no , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the gain that 's smoothed actually +PhD B: Uh , actually I d I do all the smoothing . +PhD E: but it 's smoothed {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ah . Oh , it w it was you . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No , in this case it 's just the gain . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But the way it 's done is that um , for low gain , there is this non nonlinear smoothing actually . For low gains um , I use the smoothed sm uh , smoothed version but {disfmarker} for high gain @ @ {comment} it 's {disfmarker} I don't smooth . +Professor G: Uh . Mm - hmm . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Experience shows you , if {disfmarker} if you do the {disfmarker} The best is to do the smoo smoothing as early as possible . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor G: So w when you start up . I mean , you start up with the {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} somehow with the noisy envelope . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , best is to smooth this somehow . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah , I could try this . Um . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , before estimating the SNR , @ @ smooth the envelope . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I {disfmarker} I would need to find a way to like smooth less also when there is high energy . Cuz I noticed that it {disfmarker} it helps a little bit to s like smooth more during low energy portions and less during speech , +Professor G: Yes , y +PhD E: because if you smooth then y you kind of distort the speech . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor G: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I think when w you {disfmarker} you could do it in this way that you say , if you {disfmarker} if I 'm {disfmarker} you have somehow a noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and , if you say I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} with my envelope I 'm close to this noise estimate , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: then you have a bad signal - to - noise ratio and then you {disfmarker} you would like to have a stronger smoothing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So you could {disfmarker} you could base it on your estimation of the signal - to - noise ratio on your actual {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah , or some silence probability from the VAD if you have {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um , yeah , but I don't trust {vocalsound} the current VAD . So . +PhD B: Yeah , uh , so not {disfmarker} not right now maybe . +PhD E: Well , maybe . +Professor D: The VAD later will be much better . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor D: Yeah . So . I see . +PhD F: So is {pause} that it ? +PhD E: Uh , fff {comment} I think that 's it . Yeah . Uh . +Professor G: s So to summarize the performance of these , SpeechDat - Car results is similar than {disfmarker} than yours so to say . +PhD B: Yeah , so the fifty - eight is like the be some fifty - six point {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Y you have {disfmarker} you have fifty - six point four +PhD B: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and dependent on this additive constant , it is s better or {disfmarker} or worse . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly better . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And , {vocalsound} yeah , i i i the condition where it 's better than your approach , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} just because maybe it 's better on well matched and that the weight on well matched is {disfmarker} is bigger , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , you {disfmarker} you caught up . +PhD E: because {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: if you don't weigh differently the different condition , you can see that your {disfmarker} well , the win the two - stage Wiener filtering is maybe better or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's better for high mismatch , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , it 's better for high mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But a little bit worse for well matched . +PhD B: So over all it gets , yeah , worse for the well matched condition , so y +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So we need to combine these two . +PhD B: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best thing , is like the French Telecom system is optimized for the well matched condition . They c +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So they know that the weighting is good for the well matched , and so there 's {disfmarker} everywhere the well matched 's s s performance is very good for the French Telecom . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: T we are {disfmarker} we may also have to do something similar @ @ . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , our tradition here has always been to focus on the mismatched . +PhD B: Um the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz it 's more interesting . +Professor G: Mu - my {disfmarker} mine was it too , I mean . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Before I started working on this Aurora . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: so . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD F: Carmen ? Do you , uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , I only say that the {disfmarker} this is , a summary of the {disfmarker} of all the VTS experiments and say that the result in the last {comment} um , for Italian {disfmarker} the last experiment for Italian , {vocalsound} are bad . I make a mistake when I write . Up at D I copy {vocalsound} one of the bad result . +PhD B: So you {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} There . {vocalsound} You know , this . Um , well . If we put everything , we improve a lot u the spectral use of the VTS but the final result {vocalsound} are not still mmm , good {vocalsound} like the Wiener filter for example . I don't know . Maybe it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's possible to {disfmarker} to have the same result . +PhD B: That 's somewhere {disfmarker} +PhD H: I don't know exactly . Mmm . Because I have , {vocalsound} mmm , {comment} worse result in medium mismatch and high mismatch . +PhD B: You s you have a better r Yeah . You have some results that are good for the high mismatch . +PhD H: And {disfmarker} Yeah . I someti are more or less similar but {disfmarker} but are worse . And still I don't have the result for TI - digits . The program is training . Maybe for this weekend I will have result TI - digits and I can complete that s like this . Well . +Professor D: Uh . Right . +PhD H: One thing that I {comment} note are not here in this result {vocalsound} but are speak {disfmarker} are spoken before with Sunil I {disfmarker} I improve my result using clean LDA filter . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: If I use , {vocalsound} eh , the LDA filter that are training with the noisy speech , {vocalsound} that hurts the res my results . +Professor D: So what are these numbers here ? Are these with the clean or with the noisy ? +PhD H: This is with the clean . +Professor D: OK . +PhD H: With the noise I have worse result , that if I doesn't use it . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD H: But m that may be because {vocalsound} with this technique {vocalsound} we are using really {disfmarker} really clean speech . The speech {disfmarker} the {comment} representation that go to the HTK is really clean speech because it 's from the dictionary , the code book and maybe from that . I don't know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Because I think that you {disfmarker} did some experiments using the two {disfmarker} the two LDA filter , clean and noi and noise , +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD H: and it doesn't matter too much . +PhD E: Um , yeah , I did that but it doesn't matter on SpeechDat - Car , but , it matters , uh , a lot on TI - digits . +PhD B: Using the clean filter . +PhD H: It 's better to use clean . +PhD E: Yeah , d uh , it 's much better when you {disfmarker} we used the clean derived LDA filter . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . Maybe you can do d also this . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD H: To use clean speech . +PhD B: Yeah , I 'll try . +PhD E: Uh , but , yeah , Sunil in {disfmarker} in your result it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'll try the cle No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} my result is with the noisy {disfmarker} noisy LDA . +PhD E: It 's with the noisy one . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD B: It 's with the noisy . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the clean LDA . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} in the front sheet , I have like {disfmarker} like the summary . Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and your result {comment} is with the {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's with the clean LDA . +PhD B: Oh . This is {disfmarker} Your results are all with the clean LDA result ? +PhD H: Yeah , with the clean LDA . +PhD B: OK . @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD E: And in your case it 's all {disfmarker} all noisy , +PhD H: Is that the reason ? +PhD B: All noisy , yeah . +PhD E: yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: But I observe my case it 's in , uh , uh , at least on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't matter but TI - digits it 's like two or three percent absolute , uh , {comment} better . +PhD B: On TI - digits this matters . Absolute . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you really might wanna try the clean I think . +PhD E: So if {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will have to look at it . Yeah , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , that could be sizeable right there . +PhD H: And this is everything . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Maybe you {disfmarker} you are leaving in {disfmarker} in about two weeks Carmen . No ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . So I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I would put it {disfmarker} put on the head of a project mana manager {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I I would say , uh , um {disfmarker} I mean there is not so much time left now . +Professor D: Be my guest . +Professor G: I mean , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what I would do is I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would pick @ @ {comment} the best consolation , which you think , and {vocalsound} c create {disfmarker} create all the results for the whole database that you get to the final number as {disfmarker} as Sunil did it +PhD H: And prepare at the s +Professor G: and {vocalsound} um and maybe also to {disfmarker} to write somehow a document where you describe your approach , and what you have done . +PhD H: Yeah , I was thinking to do that next week . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll borrow the head back and {disfmarker} and agree . Yeah , +PhD H: Yeah , I wi I {disfmarker} I will do that next week . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Right . In fact , actually I g I guess the , uh {disfmarker} the Spanish government , uh , requires that anyway . They want some kind of report from everybody who 's in the program . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . And of course I 'd {disfmarker} we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd like to see it too . So , +PhD H: OK . +Professor D: yeah . +PhD F: So , um , what 's {disfmarker} Do you think we , uh , should do the digits or skip it ? Or what are {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Professor D: Uh , we have them now ? +PhD F: Yeah , got them . +Professor D: Uh , why don why don't we do it ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Just {comment} {disfmarker} just take a minute . +PhD H: I can send yet . +PhD F: Would you pass those down ? +Professor D: Oh ! Sorry . +PhD F: OK , um , so I guess I 'll go ahead . Um , +Professor D: Seat ? +PhD E: Dave ? Is it the channel , or the mike ? I don't remember . It 's the mike ? +Professor D: Mike ? +PhD E: It 's not four . +PhD H: This is date and time . No . On the channel , channel . +Professor G: What is this ? +PhD B: t +PhD F: OK , if you could just leave , um , your mike on top of your , uh , digit form I can fill in any information that 's missing . +Professor G: OK . +PhD F: That 's uh {disfmarker} I didn't get a chance to fill them out ahead of time . Yeah , we 're gonna have to fix that . Uh , let 's see , it starts with one here , and then goes around and ends with nine here . +Grad A: Seven . So I {disfmarker} I 'm eight , +PhD F: So he 's eight , +Grad A: you 're seven . +PhD F: you 're seven , +Grad A: Yeah . +","This lengthy discussion revolves around a technical meeting among PhD students and professors who are analyzing various speech recognition systems and methods under different noise conditions. The main focus of the conversation is the evaluation and comparison of several noise compensation techniques, including Vector Taylor Series (VTS) and Wiener Filtering. + +PhD student F initiates the meeting and sets the tone for a technical review session. Various strategies for microphone setup and audio recording are mentioned, including the use of a Linux system for capturing multi-channel audio. + +Graduate student C discusses suspicious results obtained from SRI system tests on a short Hub-5 training set, using mean subtraction for noise compensation. He points out discrepancies with baseline results and proposes to investigate the impact of downsampling. Further, he plans to integrate mean subtraction into the SmartKom system and contemplates the optimal amount of data required for mean estimation in different conditions. + +Professor D and Professor G engage in the technical discourse, clarifying certain points about the experimental setup and the implications of the tests on speech recognition systems. The discussion delves into the ideal window length for capturing speech data and how the speech rate might affect the system's performance. Fricatives and the impact of reverberation are also mentioned as factors to consider. + +PhD student E unexpectedly joins the conversation, and a brief interjection on compression schemes leads to a discussion about latency considerations in the systems. Grad C admits certain shortcomings in his experimental results and expresses an interest in input on the engineering dilemma he's facing. + +Professor G postulates that the unexpected variations in the experimental results might pertain to the filtering technique used and suggests that different forms of filtering could be employed to deal with artifacts introduced by noise suppression methods. + +PhD student B suggests that due to the high variability in the data due to different noise conditions, the systems seem to struggle with inconsistency across different noise scenarios, particularly with multi-condition training. There's a consensus that Gaussian models might not be sophisticated enough to effectively handle the distortions introduced by noise reduction techniques. + +PhD student A, less central to the main discussion, briefly outlines his work on a thesis proposal related to multitasking in speech recognition as the meeting transitions to the next topic. + +The meeting continues with detailed discussions on various approaches to noise reduction, signal processing, and adaptive algorithms. It's clear that the team is steadily working towards optimizing speech recognition systems to function robustly in diverse and challenging acoustic environments. There is a sense of urgency to finalize the best configurations and document methodologies as deadlines approach." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh welcome back after lunch , I hope uh you had a good lunch together . For uh this meeting the main agenda okay uh to discuss about the conceptual design meeting . Okay and the agenda will be the opening and uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} the product manager or secretary that's me and uh the presentations from the Christine and uh Agnes and from Mister Ed . And finally in this meeting we have to decide +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we are to take a decision on the remote control concept and uh the functional design So we have forty minutes , I think it's uh little bit uh low , but I I hope we can finish it up {vocalsound} so I'll handle to the the functional team , to the Christine , okay , to discuss about uh the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh , if you could open the PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +Project Manager: You're number two . 'Kay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Components design , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can we put it in slide show mode ? Yeah . +Project Manager: The next one . +Industrial Designer: Right here , is that little {disfmarker} that one , yes please . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll take the mouse . {vocalsound} So uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we were looking he specifically at the components uh {disfmarker} the following components , uh the case , the power supply , uh the means of communications with the television set . In instance we had talked about using some sort of speech recognition , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you have to have microphone {disfmarker} well no you don't actually I haven't {disfmarker} have to have microphone in the device , but um maybe you do have it a a way {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it has to it has to hear the speaker +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um , so it could be in the television set , could be in the device , but somewhere you have to put the microphone , um and a w a way of making beeps or sounds so you can find it when it's gets lost . Um so the other w thing that we {disfmarker} So . Our method for going about this is we've looked at uh the histo hi historical record , what's worked , what hasn't and then we also um {disfmarker} we wanted to evaluate some new materials +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we contacted manufacturing for their input because , course , we m might {vocalsound} come up and choose the material that then manufacturing didn't have the technologies or capabilities to offer us , so uh this is the approach that we took during our um {disfmarker} our research . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um for the case , um we told we were making a specifica specific assumption that it would be curved in design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Course , you know , I wanted it to be expandable and shrinkable , but um that uh doesn't seem to b be one of the choic non-option we can uh {disfmarker} we can really seriously explore , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so then we were thinking about um rubber , but um unfortunately that's been eliminated because of the heat uh factor +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and th um there might be some {vocalsound} problems with the m uh how it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh goes with the board . {vocalsound} Uh and uh then th plastic also has this problem of melting and it's brittle {disfmarker} it gets brittle after a while , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um we still had titanium and and wood available , but um unfortunately uh uh titanium's also been eliminated uh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the m people in manufacturing said that you couldn't make d curved cases out of titanium , although how {vocalsound} Apple did it with th PowerBook I'm not su quite sure but uh nevertheless um they've eliminated all of our options except wood . +User Interface: {vocalsound} At least it's environmentally friendly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , {vocalsound} this is our finding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And a as she said , it's an environmentally friendly uh material , so we're {disfmarker} we're {vocalsound} currently uh proposing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh we'll get to all my personal preferences in just a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So then there's this other matter of the chips and um well we could use a simple design on the board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} uh these simple chips , but that's only works for the bu you don't get very much um intelligence with this simple one . And um then there was the regular which {vocalsound} I regret that I've forgotten exactly why I'm eliminating that one . Uh the other option was this advanced chip on print , {vocalsound} and uh we liked th we we found that it it includes this infrared sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which w 'member the beam was {disfmarker} that was an important component of finding the right chip . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh manufacturing has told us that they've um uh recently developed a uh a sensor and a speaker that would uh be integrated into this advanced chip on print , so uh we we uh now jumping right to our personal preferences um I I'd really think we should , you know , use some of uh some really exotic woods , like um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know uh , well you guys come from tropical countries so you can kinda think of some trees and some nice woods . I think that people will might really want to design their own cases , you see , they could do sort of a {disfmarker} this um three-dimensional design on the internet , and then they could submit their orders , kinda like you submit a custom car order , you know , and you can choose the colour and the size of the wheels and the colours of the leather and things like that , and then I uh think we should go with the solar cells as well as the um microphone and speaker on the advanced chip . So this is the findings of our research +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and my recommendations um for the new remote control w um would be to have um have it be made out of wood . Do you have any problems with that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back uh one slide ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure , how do I {disfmarker} Oh , I know , let's see . +User Interface: Thank you . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's go back up here . +Project Manager: Yes , uh {gap} question , uh , what's mean exactly , advanced chip on print ? What's the meaning of that ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's um um a multiple uh chip design um {vocalsound} and it's uh maybe printed on to the circuit board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I could find out more about that uh before the next fi next meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , is it means it's on the {disfmarker} yeah is it on a micro-proc micro-processor based or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know , but I'll find out more at our next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , tha that would be great , so if you find out from the technology background , okay , so that would be good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +User Interface: Why was the plastic eliminated as a possible material ? +Industrial Designer: Because um it gets brittle , cracks {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um We want {disfmarker} we expect these um {vocalsound} uh these remote controls to be around for several hundred years . So . {vocalsound} Good ex {vocalsound} {gap} Good expression . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Whic +Marketing: Wow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} good expression . Well after us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know , speak for yourself , I'm planning to be around for a while . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Although I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think with wood though you'd run into the same types of problems , wouldn't you , I mean it chips , it if you drop it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh it's {disfmarker} I'm not su {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {gap} so you're not convinced about the the wood , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} you're what ? +Marketing: Actually , I'm ready to sell it . +User Interface: I think {vocalsound} if you re if you use really good quality wood , then it might work , +Marketing: I'm ready to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You think ? {vocalsound} And you could {disfmarker} you could sell oils with it , to take care of it . +User Interface: but you can't just use {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y {vocalsound} no no no , the o the only w the only wood you can use are the ones that are hard , extremely hard wood , +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: but there are some very pretty woods out there {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I'm glad you {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's actually very innovative idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorr having a hard time keeping wi control over my face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's actually a very innovative n different idea that uh you know you can choose your colour of wood , your type of wood . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The stain . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean it's {disfmarker} each person is gonna have their own personalised , individualised speech recognition remote control in wood , that's not on the market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it it's looks good the the design the functional design uh , what about yo you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , in terms of comments on this or in terms of my own {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , in t yes , in term in terms of comments first {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In turns of wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: She works in the cubicle next to me so she's uh she was already a little bit prepared for this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Y yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Luckily Ed was not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wood ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can get the quality materials then {vocalsound} it shouldn't influence the design principles too much , which you'll see with my presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: One thing we'd have to check though is what the users {disfmarker} whether {disfmarker} how quickly the novelty wears off of having uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Yeah , you wouldn't wanna have to have splinters in your hand while you're using your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah , for example . {vocalsound} So , have to see how kid-friendly it is and and all that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really good if your dog gets ahold of it , they can use it {vocalsound} {gap} for teething . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They do that anyway with the rubber and plastic , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they do it with other materials as well , yeah . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} , and chew 'em up . And chew 'em up . +Project Manager: Okay then , uh , let's move to Agnes . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm sorry . +Project Manager: S you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are in participant three . +User Interface: One point three , yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: I think so , yeah . Yeah , that's the one . So , it's a very short presentation , 'cause I'm actually gonna draw you the layout on the board so if you want to just go straight to the second slide , um , which basically shows , sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I took the ideas that we were talking about last time um and tried to put that into the remote control so the things that y you can actually see on it are the on off switch , volume and channel control , the menu access button , ergonomic shape , which I completely agree with Christine's idea to have it sort of molded , so it's slightly more ergonomic and comfortable to hold than the r standard very straight remote controls . And actually the other thing with the wood if we take your customising idea , is that people can actually do sort of quasi-measurements on their hand size , so if someone has larger hands , you have a wider remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , my hand is uh different size than yours for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So , that's actually a really good idea for customi customisability . Um , one thing I thought might be kind of interesting is to put a flip screen on it , just like you have on flip phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that you don't have this case where someone sits on the remote control or accidentally puts their hand on it , especially if you have little kids around , they're not pressing the buttons while you're trying to watch a T_V_ show and accidentally change the channel or turn it off . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And also {vocalsound} um you had issues with the batteries running out , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I thought maybe we could put a little battery life-light on it that kind of goes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as your battery is {disfmarker} starts to die . And in terms of invisible features , audio and um tactile feedback on button presses and , like you said , speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , in terms of what this thing would actually look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Despite working in interface design , I'm not the greatest artist in the world , so you'll have to forgive me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You'd have something like this with an on-off switch fairly big , sort of in the corner and by itself , so you don't accidentally turn your T_V_ off while you're trying to manoeuvre other buttons . And then you have sort of one of those toggle displays for , oops , channels and volume , sort of for surfing channels and then volume , so the volume would be the up and down , 'cause volume goes up and down and then channels left to right . And then here you'd have your sort of standard , telephonish number pad . {vocalsound} And then on one side you would have an access to the menu on your T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and on the other side a way to turn off the voice control . So that if the user doesn't want to use their voice , they can just turn it off and you don't have the remote control accidentally changing things on you . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , so again you can have a little L_C_D_ light somewhere , the flip {vocalsound} thing and {disfmarker} Have I forgotten anything ? I don't think so . So , as you can see , it's a very very simple design , +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: which is one of the things I really wanted to keep , is keep it simple , not have too many buttons , not have too many functionalities thrown into it . Think the design can pretty much carry over to everything , although with the wood the flip screen might have to do something slightly different . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A hinge . Be like a copper hinge or you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But you also have to d start watching out for the weight , 'cause depending on how much the the flip screen will add to the weight of the remote control , you don't want it to start getting too heavy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: But that's the general layout with the general functionalities , if we come up with something else . As you can see , there's still lots of space on the actual remote control and if you do it customisably , {vocalsound} you can make this thing fairly small or fairly o large , depending on personal preferences . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So , that's pretty much {vocalsound} all I had to say , I mean , everything else in terms of design issues . Um the centering of the key pad and {vocalsound} the channel is just depending on where your thumb is and you tend to use the the volume control and uh the browsing more than the actual number pad , so that would be sort of in direct line of where your thumb goes when you are holding the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the number pad a little bit lower 'cause it's used less frequently . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So once we decide exactly what we want , then we can figure out the exact positioning , but more or less I think it should go along those lines . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's your , uh , the comments or uh s +Marketing: Simple design . It's what consumers want . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: It's almost like , Houston , we have a product here . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Problem is obviously gonna be cost . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , I also have a f {vocalsound} very simple presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because for the marketing point you have to see what the consumers want . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I also have uh copied a different type of remote . If you can find me , where I'm at . {vocalsound} There should only be one in here . {gap} trend watch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: It's being modified . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're stealing our product . {vocalsound} We've been giving simple {vocalsound} questionnaires in different areas because th {gap} obviously we have to see what the com consumers are looking for today , 'cause uh trends change very very quickly . In six months maybe this idea is already gone out the window , so it's gonna be a question how fast we can act . Uh they already erased the rest of mine , huh . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , no . +Industrial Designer: f go to findings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no , no no . {vocalsound} 'Cause I had another comment there . Uh the market trend . This is what we know from the last uh {disfmarker} from the {vocalsound} questionnaires from the the {disfmarker} all the p surveys we've done , fancy and feel-good , that's what we've been looking for , something that feels good in the hand , that's easy to use . Looking for next generation of innovation , because all the remotes out there now , they're all very similar , they all do the same thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we have to have something completely different . Okay ? Easy to use , has always has become {disfmarker} has become another major interest that uh , with the whiteboard we can see that it's a remote that's easy to use . And I think this is another thing that's interesting is the consumers actually willing to pay the price for exciting tel technology . So even if we have a product that may be more expensive , if it comes out right , if they {gap} look {disfmarker} it looks and feels good and has technology . The second two , you can see the last one is a very easy simple design . {vocalsound} The second one , there is about uh forty-five thousand different buttons on it , which makes it fairly hard to read , uh very hard to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The first one , I see {vocalsound} that they put in a display . Now there's something else uh with the little flip-up , now we're adding all kinds of things in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but with the little flip-up , if you have a little display on the flip-up that when you close it everything is locked . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe the display also makes it easier to use , because sometimes when you're looking for buttons , maybe if you see a display {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Context-sensitive instructions , depending on what the tel what mode the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ or something else is in . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay Because I've seen {disfmarker} mostly the standard ones , +User Interface: Especially you might need something like that for training the speech recognition and +Marketing: yeah . Now you have it {disfmarker} now you have one with the very simple also . The idea is simple , but with a display , so you can see what you're doing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe if we can incorporate the easiness of use , trendy , fancy , feels good , {vocalsound} uh with a display , wood , designer wood , designer colours +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , maybe what you could do is when somebody orders the device id you could send them like um {vocalsound} a uh {vocalsound} uh b some sort of a foam rubber um ball , +Marketing: , we might've {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they would squeeze it , and it would take the shape of their hand . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's really molded to to your specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To t {vocalsound} an and then you would know like {vocalsound} um what the geometry of their hands would be and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: How hard they squeeze ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes {vocalsound} you'd know what kind of wood to get . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Resistance resistance , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But th for that you'd also have to do sort of an average across families and things like that if {disfmarker} unless everyone has their own personal remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right , that's right , you wouldn't wanna go too far down that . Oh that {disfmarker} that actually would uh increase the um {disfmarker} the revenues we could expect , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The sales , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} Yeah . I hope so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , but incorporating the three uh obviously it'd be something totally new on the market , totally different +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and from {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , already the customisability is a really good sort of new gimmick . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although , what it {disfmarker} was it uh {disfmarker} it was uh Nokia that came out with this changeable colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right , you take it apart , and put on another face , take it off and put on another face +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , mm . +User Interface: And that took off , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then they sold millions , millions . So . So say with the f with the findings , with the research , easy to use something totally new . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We have to come up with something totally new that is not on the market . +Industrial Designer: We'd also have to wor um consider that uh who we were gonna get to make these custom cases in terms of manufacturing processes , we might wanna um learn about um {vocalsound} labour laws . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know in different countries and stuff wher so we can do it cheap , but you don't wanna exploit uh labour in um third world countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So actually you could turn it y turn around and say that you're uh par the reason the cost is high for the device is because um you're paying a a working wage to the person who made the device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we can get a production in , uh {vocalsound} , countries like , uh , India +Industrial Designer: Cost of living is low . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yes , yes , countries like India or China or Malaysia , so you can go a better features and better price and you can sell more . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good , well th that'd be something that manufacturing would have to um explore more +Project Manager: Yeah , {vocalsound} yeah , so Yes . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: and to where {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where w Where it would be manufactured is is another step . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: We're here to design , come up with a nice product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes uh , but uh that that we can that we can talk about the production later , okay , depends on the the quantity , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we don't need to have our own uh fabric factory or something , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we can have a tie-up with who the do the fabric , okay , for the different uh electronics items , then we can have a business tie-up and to get {disfmarker} to cut the cost , okay , to sell more . So , but uh le let's decide first about the components concept and uh interface concept , okay , if is acceptable for both of you , what uh Ed was talking . And your design {vocalsound} whether you want with the display or without display or just a simple , so +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I think it depends , I mean I think it's a good idea , but we need to really think about how useful it's gonna be because theoretically with the T_V_ you already have a big display {vocalsound} right in front of you . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So , if we're trying to keep costs down , then maybe sacrificing the display is a way to go . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it depends on how much putting a display costs and what it would be used for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: very specifically what it would be used for , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'cause if it's only used for one little thing , then putting in a big display case or a big display that's probably expensive just to do the training on the chip for the speech recognition or whatever , may not be the most cost-efficient way to go , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's just sort of speculation , I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What do you think Ed ? Do you {disfmarker} he liked the display in one of the concepts that you showed , um , do you know how much it costs , um , to to add a little display like this uh ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . No +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you wanna take an action item to go find out ? +Marketing: {gap} no p spec {vocalsound} It's 'cause we have to find out cost on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Marketing: Um , no that's no problem . I'm here for the {vocalsound} pushing it after it's made . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I will market it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Once we get a price on it then we can market it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the {vocalsound} the advanced chip on print is what um what we've {vocalsound} we've deci we've determined +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the uh engineering industrial design is the recommendation , and um I think we've kinda come to some agreement regarding um this concept of a wooden case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A customisable and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice beautiful mahogany red wooden case . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the buttons , would {disfmarker} Would the buttons be wood too , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I don't think so , no , +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: I think they could be rubber like they are now , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: so you have that tactile experience of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Don't looks nice uh . Yeah , so uh what we'll do is , uh , we will stick with the the simple design for time being until uh th Ed find outs about the how much it's cost to the extra , in case we go for the display . Okay . So +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe what you can do is uh , both of you , you can come up with the the prototype , okay , the model . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um are we done with this meeting ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I hope , if {disfmarker} is it okay if uh they will come up with the prototype design , okay . Then they can show you how it looks like , and then we can uh submit to the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I will submit to the management . Okay ? Then meantime you can come up with the price , how much it's cost as extra for uh the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: An and the marketing strategy , that's very important , okay . +Industrial Designer: And a marketing strategy . +Marketing: And marketing strategy , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . How much you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: how mu how much how much you can sell extra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course you'll make money too , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it it's not only pay-out , you make money too , your commission . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , any questions ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So , by next meeting , so , please come up with the the prototype , okay , then uh , then we can proceed from there . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So thanks for all your uh efforts and coming for the meeting again , and see you soon then . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . +","Summary: + +In the post-lunch meeting, the team discussed the conceptual design for a new remote control. The Project Manager laid out the agenda, which included presentations from Christine, Agnes, and Mr. Ed. The team aimed to decide on the remote control concept and the functional design within a limited time of forty minutes. + +Christine, the Industrial Designer, presented first, focusing on the components of the remote control, such as the case, power supply, and communication method with the TV. She mentioned considering speech recognition technology and the need to incorporate a microphone and speaker. The team also evaluated materials for the case, contacting manufacturing for input, and eventually settled on wood as an option due to constraints with other materials like rubber and titanium. + +The User Interface presenter discussed ergonomic design and functionalities like an on-off switch, volume and channel control, and a flip screen to prevent accidental button presses by children. Suggestions were made for a display that shows battery life and incorporates audio feedback. + +Marketing brought up consumer trends and preferences, emphasizing easy-to-use designs and willingness to pay for innovative, feel-good technology. They suggested that a simple design with a fascinating, customizable wood material might be appealing and differentiated. The idea of personalizing the remote by selecting wood types and designing it online to fit hand sizes was also discussed. + +The team considered various manufacturing and marketing strategies such as cost-effective production in countries with lower labor costs while maintaining ethical standards. They debated the utility of a display and decided to keep the design simple until more information on display costs was available. The action items included developing a prototype and a marketing strategy, as well as looking into pricing for adding a display. + +The meeting concluded with the Project Manager requesting the prototype for the next session and assigning tasks for pricing and marketing strategy development to be discussed in the upcoming meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Is this okay ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . Fine now . Oh , it's not liking us , it went that-a-way . Computer adjusting . Oh . Uh . Okay . {vocalsound} So . Right . You ready back there ? {vocalsound} Uh okay . Welcome everyone . Um this is the kick-off meeting for the day . Um we're the new group uh to create a new remote control for Real Reaction . As you can see our agenda is to open up the meeting , um become acquainted with each other , um have a little training on tools , uh create a plan , discuss things and and we only have twenty minut twenty five minutes total . Okay . The new remote control is to be original , trendy and user-friendly . That , Steph , is your part , is the user-friendliness . The originality um is gonna take all of us . Um the trendiness we'll probably go look at {disfmarker} for some marketing research information from you , Sarah . Um and we'll get on with it . Okay , so we'll have a functional design individual work um with meeting and then conceptual design t and then detailed design . Okay ? Right . Everybody's supposed to try out the whiteboard . Kate , why don't you try it first , if you can either bring your things with you , I guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if I can pick up with all these bits and pieces , hang on . +Project Manager: And while you're doing that we'll try and figure out how to hook these things on as well , 'cause we're all gonna have to be able to walk around . +Industrial Designer: Uh right , so you want an animal and the characteristics of that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have to be able to recognise what animal it is ? {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I do not think so , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Are we all gonna draw a cat ? +Project Manager: I think it's just to try out the whiteboard . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Only animal I could thin I could draw {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Its a sort of bunny rabbit cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can tell it's not a bunny rabbit by the ears . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um I suppose it should have a mouth as well , sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: Great . And the characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um the favourite characteristics of the cat um {disfmarker} the whiskers I think , um because they're the easiest to draw . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: In fact , I'll give it some more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , and the tail +Project Manager: Fantastic . Since you're handy as well , why don't you do yours next , Steph . I think it's to get us used to using the pen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . Um sure it's not to test our artistic {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no . {vocalsound} A mouse-y ? +Industrial Designer: It's a mouse . +User Interface: That's not a mouse-y , no . +Industrial Designer: No it's not a mouse . It's a wombat . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's a ratty . +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: A what ? +Project Manager: Rat . +User Interface: A ratty . +Project Manager: Not a mouse , a rat . +Industrial Designer: A webbed foot . Webbed f {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's clothes . That's it's clothes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a ratty with a with a with a very long tail . +Project Manager: And your favourite characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: I love whiskers . Uh they're intelligent and they're cheeky {vocalsound} and uh fantastic pets +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: and very friendly . +Project Manager: Okay . Kate ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And they sit on your shoulder and whisper the answers to your homework in your ear when you're doing your homework . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Oh , a fish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Gosh , +User Interface: A shark ? +Industrial Designer: why didn't I think of fish ? That's even easier to draw than cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} this is very representational fish . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fine . +Marketing: Um I like them because they're sleek +Project Manager: Favourite characteristics ? +Marketing: and they have a lot of freedom but they also do n uh swim in groups , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So they have team elements . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you have a favourite one ? +Project Manager: I'm afraid I'm with Steph . And I think your pen's running out of whatever . But I'm afraid I take the coward's way out , and the cat's looking the other way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's hiding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um cats are sometimes very independent . My parents had cats . Uh and they can mm decide for themselves what is best . Okay . Now um {vocalsound} we have to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to make this and this remote control has to be sold {disfmarker} um we're to sell it for twenty five Euros , with a profit aim ultimately of fifty million Euros . That tells you something about how many um we have to sell on an international scale . Um would be an awful lot of these , would be like what , a hundred million of them um to make twenty five Euros on each one and to make a total profit of fifty million . Um the production is to only cost twelve and a half Euros per item . Now if they cost twelve and a half , you're selling it for twenty five , you're making twelve and a half Euros each . Um and we're to make a profit of fifty million , that's t uh {disfmarker} can you do the maths and how many are we selling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if that's the um {disfmarker} If fifty percent is normal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mark-up ? +Marketing: B yeah . Um I would think would be more like sixty percent . But um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I have two thoughts . One hundred , fifty percent . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And and your question is how many do we have to sell ? +Project Manager: Yes , 'cause our market um is international and your problem is {disfmarker} has to do with marketing of {disfmarker} you know , you gotta know how many we're going to be selling to know how big a market you have to target and who is that . +Marketing: At twenty five . Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To give you a pretty good idea of where you're looking . +Marketing: So that's four million of them ? +Project Manager: Something like that ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's fifty million Euros . In order to make fifty million Euros , and you're only getting twelve and a half each {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if we make {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a lot of selling . Two four {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Four million . +Project Manager: To be fifty , be four million . You'd have to sell four million . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right . Experience with a remote control . Any of you use of remote control for a television or D_V_D_ or something ? You're both nodding , +Industrial Designer: That that that's the sorta product we're talking about , one that will work for a {disfmarker} in a home environment , for a T_V_s and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: all three . Well I've seen some remote controls that are for more than one device at a time , but I also have heard about them not working well or not well co-ordinated and you wind up working with this one for thi this three and then this one over here for another . +User Interface: It is true that you always sit around {disfmarker} you know , you're sitting on your sofa and you wanna change something , there's five different remotes , and one for the D_V_D_ and one for the video and one for cable and one for whatever else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Y yeah . +Project Manager: And they don't always talk to each other . +User Interface: But I presume this is t I presume this is just for television . +Project Manager: Don't know . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are there any um ideas for the remote ? What would it be for and what group would be be for ? We have to think about that one . +Marketing: We could make a Hello Kitty +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: themed remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think one in b bright colours would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think one that works would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could totally go for the Japan-a-mation . Well I mean there's also the cachet that um uh the Japanese make great {vocalsound} products . Electrical {disfmarker} their industrial design is very good . +User Interface: I think one that doesn't have lots of superfluous functions . Like I've got one at home that has well , apart from the obvious , channels , channel up , channel down , volume , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: you know , subtitles , mute , there's a lotta buttons that I've got no idea what they do , like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's a really good point , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because I think one of the things that {disfmarker} being somewhat computer literate , we tend to um go to menus and then make choices , you know , so if it's like an uh volume button , you know , you can go in and say mute or or volume . We don't need to have like the l the numbers if we also have uh uh channel up channel down . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Mm . We can make it smart like an iPod , you know , make everything menus . +User Interface: Ooh , closing the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I know this sounds like it was very quick , +User Interface: That was quick . +Project Manager: but the I think that's the industrial design is the first one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that's Kate , for the working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And user , that's you S Steph , for the technical functions design , and for marketing the user requirements specification . I think there's going to be a lot of {disfmarker} we have to help each other and work through this as a group , and I think we all , you know , {vocalsound} we like our kitty-cat and our rat and our fish , but I think we all have to like each other um to get this done . Uh as it says , we're gonna get individual instructions , but uh I don't think they allowed a lot of extra time , so I think a little bit of less of this and more at do will set us in good stead . Do you all agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright . Um then I don't see any reason to prolong it and f we should finish this meeting at ni right now and go into other things . Alright , so this is the end of the first meeting . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you all . +","The conversation is a kick-off meeting of a project team tasked with creating a new remote control for ""Real Reaction."" The Project Manager leads the meeting, outlining the agenda, which includes getting acquainted, training on tools, and planning. The remote control must be original, trendy, and user-friendly, with Steph being responsible for user-friendliness, Sarah from marketing handling trendiness research, and the whole team working on originality. + +The Project Manager instructs the team to test out the whiteboard, starting with the Industrial Designer who sketches a cat-like drawing. The team members playfully engage with each other while testing the whiteboard, each drawing an animal and discussing its characteristics. The conversation steers to the business side as the team considers the product's profitability: they aim to sell the remote control for 25 Euros each, with production costs at 12.5 Euros, and they plan to make a total profit of 50 million Euros, which means they would need to sell around four million units. + +The team discusses their experiences with remote controls, noting the frustration with multiple remotes for different devices and emphasizing the need for a remote that is both functional and user-friendly. Marketing suggests a Hello Kitty-themed remote, while the User Interface team member advocates for a design without superfluous functions and in bright colors. The group generally agrees that functionality and simplicity, similar to an iPod's menu system, are key features for the remote. + +The Project Manager wraps up the meeting quickly, emphasizing the need for collaboration and efficient work due to tight timelines. The team agrees, and the meeting ends with the expectation that they will move on to other tasks and receive individual instructions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Now what . +Project Manager: 'Kay , hello everybody . Uh , I guess you all know what is it about , you all received the email , I guess . Uh , we are actually doing this meeting to start a new project which is about designing a remote control . So I'm going to be the project manager of this uh project . And uh so I'm {disfmarker} present myself . I'm Fabien Cardinaux and uh I I guess you can present yourself . So I dunno , you can starts . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so my name is Petre {gap} . You can call me Petre {gap} , or Peter if you like . I don't care {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh my name's Bob Mor . +Project Manager: And you are ? In the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in the project I'm supposed to be the technic . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: 'Kay . So my name's Bob Morris . I'm the Marketing Expert for this project . +Industrial Designer: Bob , +Marketing: Bob yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: My name is Hamed Getabdar , and uh I'm going to be Interface Designer in this project . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh , so today we are doing a short meeting to present the project , so um We are gooding we are going to present the tool we are {vocalsound} we are going to use during all this project . We are talking about the project plan , and we are going to to discuss about st our first ideas and so on , and , yeah . So we have around twenty five minutes to do this meeting . Um . So what is the goal of this project ? Is to design a new remote control . So it should be , of course , new and original , and um it should be trendy , and user friendly . That mean it's a very challenging project , and uh uh . So w it's {disfmarker} we will try to do our best , and hopefully come with something very new and that people want to buy . So , um {disfmarker} So what's uh what are we going to do during this all this project ? So it's more like we are going to do inv individual work all in o in o our specialities and we are going to meet each other quite often to discuss and to find a good way . Um . Yeah and everything is {disfmarker} will be like this . Um so now we are going to to get used t to to the tools we are going to use all {disfmarker} during all this project . So we can try to use uh the whiteboard here . So {gap} uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: For example we can try to write what is our our favourite animal and write the f our favourite characteristics about it . Mm . Uh {vocalsound} . So uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I will ask you all to do the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Just to get used to the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: So probably I would try to try to draw the animal . Well sh should I draw the picture of the animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , you can draw the picture , of course {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I I th I think I should . +Marketing: Yeah go ahead . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so . Um {vocalsound} . Okay , American , um . Um . I would use the bird . So I tried to sketch it out . I had to first uh write it down because I am not absolutely sure if I can draw it , but ah . Can you recognise it {vocalsound} as a bird ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay {vocalsound} it's your turn to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , okay . {vocalsound} So I think my favourite animal would be a c a cat . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: That's its head . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um I probably like cats the most because they're cuddly and furry and uh playful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if I should go with this {gap} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh it's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it is enough line . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe put it up +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Put it a Maybe put it on the desk or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I should get used to the tool , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh just wait {gap} a little bit . C could we put it here , to make it as straight as possible ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah probably not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} They should be remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it {disfmarker} it works like this . +Marketing: Uh , that's better . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Your lapel microphone's fallen off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you left-handed ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , pity {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . Should I clean ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , I think like horses uh because they are strong and beautiful , so if I want to write it here , I think I can . {vocalsound} Oh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah , it's maybe better if you leave it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Maybe we should just continue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , don't worry about it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} , no worry . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You won't draw them , or ? +Project Manager: You can draw it , if you want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno if I can . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just try . I would like to see how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It may be like a cow or I dunno , whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not good very good in drawing . Okay , so this is very {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's a bird , I think . I dunno what is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , I think it's clear . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Four . Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I'm shameful {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh that's good , it's good . +Industrial Designer: It's okay . It's in it's indeed beautiful . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Yeah , and strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bob . Have to remember it . Bob . +Project Manager: So good um {disfmarker} So , let's talk about money . Uh we are going to to sell {disfmarker} we want to sell uh this remote control for twenty five Euro Euro . And uh our expected profit will be around fifty million Euro . And uh we are trying to to have a market all around the world . So {gap} n not only for Switzerland , but for the world . Uh . So , um . The {disfmarker} We expect a production cost of maximum uh twelve point fifty Euro . +Industrial Designer: Per unit , I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Y oh okay . +Project Manager: Um , so we can start today to have a first idea of what we want to do what are our experiments with remote control , and any idea ? So , if you have some experience , good or bad , with remote controls you can share it and say what you f what is your idea . Anything . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Well , from experience , um I've had remote controls in the past that have had very {disfmarker} they've had lots and lots of buttons and they've been very small , and it's been very hard to to to use , because there's so many buttons , and you know it's very hard to see which buttons do what , and the buttons are very small and very hard to press . Um and and normally you only every use , you know , on a T_V_ remote you only ever use , mostly , you know , f four or f six buttons . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So it's frustrated me in the past , th that . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I have also some points uh . Maybe two points . Uh first would be that in current remote controls there is no back light {vocalsound} , so if you are if you are uh playing with this in the dark room it's it's probably worth to to have something like uh back light . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe it could be also dependant on the the amount of of light in the room , so that if if it's in the day it doesn't need to be back lighted because it works on the battery , so . So something like this . And the second thing , f second point from me would be that in a normal remote control there is uh {disfmarker} there are two buttons for volume control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I prefer like a potential-meter or something like . +Marketing: Ah , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know , some slider or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not just two discrete buttons for volume , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , n {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but something which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Is that because the {disfmarker} of the discrete volume levels , or is that +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I can reach {disfmarker} In uh one second I can mute it down , or or make a high volume . +Project Manager: {gap} Are you not afraid that if you take your remote control you can move the slide and it could {gap} {disfmarker} the the volume can go up very quickly +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah , n . +Project Manager: and it can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it drops to the floor then it starts to scream {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , also if y when you take the the remote control , for example on the table , you take it and you push the button and everything is very loud , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f It depends what what you feel about that . +Project Manager: you have a heart attack {vocalsound} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we can we can think of these things afterwards , but if {gap} you have some more notes on that . +Project Manager: Yeah so you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Do you have something ? +User Interface: just a simple experience . I uh I prefer um remote control working with radio waves , because remote control working with infra-red rays you should you should you should keep it in a specific direction and then try it hard to tune {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . Yeah without obstacles and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's continue . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: I have a meeting in five minutes , so maybe we should hurry . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . So we will close uh this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just a second . {gap} +Project Manager: So we will have a next meeting in uh thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Uh . The {disfmarker} So I will ask you to do some work . Uh the the interface interface developer will work on the on the design of the remote control , start to to have new idea and +Industrial Designer: Which i which is Hamed , {gap} ? +Project Manager: read about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: He's the Industrial Designer ? No , you're the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh I am the Technical Designer , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I dunno which one , uh v . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Industry and {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: I think that's the first . I_D_ . Industrial Designer . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And the second one is the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: User Interf Okay . +Marketing: And then last one's marketing , which is me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'm the first one . +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: For the User Interface Designer , which is Hamed um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh , you are going to work on the technical functions of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: I see . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And for the Marketing uh Manager , I dunno , okay , which is Bob , uh you are going to try to to find the user requirements f uh for the remote control . Um , you will receive by email uh the specific instructions and uh by your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} Sign . +Project Manager: Yep finished . So I see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Great , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Marketing: Thanks guys . Bye . +User Interface: Bye . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh . {gap} +","The meeting initiated by Project Manager Fabien Cardinaux is to kick off a new project focused on designing a remote control. Besides Fabien, the team includes Petre, the Industrial Designer; Bob Morris, the Marketing Expert; and Hamed Getabdar, the Interface Designer. The goal of the project is to create a trendy, user-friendly, new, and original remote control. They aim to sell it globally for 25 Euros, with a production cost of up to 12.50 Euros per unit, and target a profit of 50 million Euros. + +The meeting also served as an exercise in using the whiteboard tool, where team members described their favorite animals as a way to get accustomed to the whiteboard. They discussed the challenges with existing remote controls, such as too many buttons, lack of backlighting for visibility in the dark, and preferences for volume control mechanisms. The team acknowledged that future meetings would involve collaborative discussions in their respective specialties. + +The meeting concluded with Fabien asking the team to start working on the remote control, with specific tasks assigned. Hamed will focus on new ideas for the remote's design, while Bob will gather user requirements for the remote control. The meeting ended with the intention to reconvene in thirty minutes for further discussion." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: headphones that aren't so uncomfortable . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} Well , this should be off the record , +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: but I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , OK . +Professor A: We 're not recording yet , are we ? +Grad G: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , uh , that {disfmarker} that wasn't recorded . +Grad G: No . Um , I don't think they 're designed to be over your ears . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . It just {disfmarker} it really hurts . It gives you a headache , like if you {disfmarker} On your temple {disfmarker} +PhD F: Temple squeezers . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I definitely {pause} haven't figured it out . +Professor A: Um , Meeting Recorder meeting . +PhD F: I guess I have to d stop doing this sigh of contentment , you know , after sipping cappuccino or something . +PhD B: Yeah , with the {disfmarker} We kno I know . +Grad G: "" Sip , sigh . "" +PhD B: We know exactly how much you have left in your cup . +PhD F: I was just noticing a big s +Professor D: So are we recording now ? Is this {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! We 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're live . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So , uh , {vocalsound} what were we gonna talk about again ? So we said {disfmarker} we said data collection , which we 're doing . +PhD B: Were we gonna do digits ? +Professor A: OK . Do we do th do you go around the room {pause} and do names or anything ? +Grad G: I think that {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's a good idea . +Grad G: u usually we 've done that and also we 've s done digits as well , but I forgot to print any out . So . Besides with this big a group , +PhD B: You can write them on the board , if you want . +Professor D: No . I it 'd be even better with this big {disfmarker} +Grad G: it would take too much time . +PhD E: Which way is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , but it takes too much time . +PhD E: Mari ? +Postdoc H: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: What ? +Professor D: It 's not that long . +PhD E: Y I think your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your thing {nonvocalsound} may be pointing in a funny direction . Sort of it 's {disfmarker} it helps if it points sort of upwards . +Professor A: Whoops . +PhD E: Sort of it {disfmarker} you know . +Professor A: Would it {disfmarker} m +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: w u +PhD E: So that thing {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} th that part should be pointing upwards . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} Oh , this thing . +PhD E: That 's it . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Otherwise you just get a heartbeats . +Professor A: It 's kind of {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , yeah , the element , yeah , n should be as close to you {disfmarker} your mouth as possible . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . +PhD E: That 's good . That kind of thing is good . +Postdoc H: It 's a {disfmarker} +Professor A: This w Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: How 's that working ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . It 's a {disfmarker} It 's working . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Alright . So what we had {pause} was that we were gonna talk about data collection , and , um , uh , you {disfmarker} you put up there data format , +Professor A: Um . +Professor D: and other tasks during data collection , +Professor A: So , I think the goal {disfmarker} the goal was what can we do {disfmarker} how can you do the data collection differently to get {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: what can you add to it to get , um , some information that would be helpful for the user - interface design ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , especially for querying . +Professor A: Especially for querying . So , getting people to do queries afterwards , getting people to do summaries afterwards . Um . +Postdoc H: Well , one thing that came up in the morning {disfmarker} in the morning was the , um , i uh , if he {disfmarker} I , um {disfmarker} if he has {disfmarker} s I {disfmarker} I don't remember , Mister Lan - Doctor Landry ? +Grad G: Landay . James . +Postdoc H: La - Landay ? So he has , um , these , uh , um , tsk {comment} note - taking things , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: then that would sort of be a summary which you wouldn't have to solicit . y if {disfmarker} if we were able to {disfmarker} to do that . +Professor A: Well , if {disfmarker} if you actually take notes as a summary as opposed to n take notes in the sense of taking advantage of the time - stamps . So action item or uh , reminder to send this to so - and - so , blah - blah - blah . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that wouldn't be a summary . That would just be {disfmarker} that would b relate to the query side . +Grad G: But if we had the CrossPads , we could ask people , you know , if {disfmarker} if something comes up {vocalsound} write it down and mark it {vocalsound} {pause} somehow , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . I mean , we {disfmarker} because you 'd have several people with these pads , you could collect different things . +Grad G: you know . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: I mean , cuz I tend to take notes which are summaries . And so , you know {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , the down - side to that is that he sort of indicated that the , uh , quality of {vocalsound} the handwriting recognition was quite poor . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that 's alright . I don't think there 'd be so many that you couldn't have someone clean it up +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: pretty easily . +Professor A: Yeah . We also could come up with some code for things that people want to do so that {disfmarker} for frequent things . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And the other things , people can write whatever they want . I mean , it 's to some extent , uh , for his benefit . So , if that {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} if we just keep it simple then maybe it 's still useful . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor D: I just realized we skipped the part that we were saying we were gonna do at the front where we each said who we were . +Postdoc H: The roll call . +Professor A: Right . I thought you did that on purpose . +Professor D: Roll call . +Professor A: But anyway , shall we do the roll call ? +Professor D: No , not a No , I just {disfmarker} My mind went elsewhere . So , uh , yeah , I 'm Morgan , and where am I ? I 'm on channel three . +Grad G: And I 'm Adam Janin on channel A . +Postdoc H: I 'm Jane Edwards , I think on channel B . +PhD E: I 'm Dan Ellis . +PhD F: Eric on channel nine . +PhD B: Liz , on channel one . +Professor A: Mari on channel zero . +Professor C: Katrin on channel two . +Postdoc H: Should we have used pseudo - names ? Should we do it a second time with pseudo No . {vocalsound} No . +Professor D: I 'm Rocky Raccoon {vocalsound} on channel {disfmarker} +PhD E: Let me , uh , turn that off . +Grad G: And , uh , do you want to do the P D As and the {pause} P Z +PhD E: Oh . PZM nearest , nearest , next nearest . Next one . +Postdoc H: Next nearest . +PhD E: Furthest . +Grad G: Far . +PhD E: PDM - right , PZA - right {disfmarker} PDA - right , PDA - left . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: Thanks . +Grad G: Yeah , and eventually once this room gets a little more organized , the Jimlets {comment} will be mounted under the table , and these guys will be permanently mounted somehow . You know , probably with double - sided tape , but {disfmarker} So . You {disfmarker} So we won't have to go through that . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: I have a question on protocol in these meetings , which is when you say "" Jimlet "" and the person listening won't know what that is , sh shou How {disfmarker} how do we get {disfmarker} Is that important information ? You know , the Jimlet {disfmarker} I mean , the box that contains the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , I mean , suppose we broaden out and go to a range of meetings besides just these internal ones . There 's gonna be lots of things that any group of people who know each other have in column {disfmarker} common {comment} that we will not know . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: So the there will be jargon that we he There 'll be transcription errors . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we were originally gonna do this with VLSI design , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the reason we didn't go straight to that was because immediately ninety percent of what we heard would be {vocalsound} jargon to {disfmarker} to us . So . +Grad G: Well , that was just one of the reasons . But , yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . Good . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's right . There were others of course . Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK , so we were on the data collection {pause} {comment} and the summary issue . +Professor D: Right . We can go back . +Professor A: So , uh , u u So , actually there 's kind of three issues . There 's the CrossPad issue . Should we do it and , if so , what 'll we have them do ? Um , do we have s people write summaries ? Everybody or one person ? And then , do we ask people for how they would query things ? Is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} there 're sub - problems in that , in that where {disfmarker} or when do you actually ask them about that ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I mean , that was {disfmarker} One thing I was thinking about was is that Dan said earlier that , you know , maybe two weeks later , which is when you would want to query these things , you might ask them then . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But there 's a problem with that in that if {pause} you 're not {disfmarker} If you don't have an interactive system , it 's gonna be hard to go beyond sort of the first level of question . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . And furth id explore the data further . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's another problem +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: which is , um , we certainly do want to branch out beyond , uh , uh , recording meetings about Meeting Recorder . And , uh , once we get out beyond our little group , the people 's motivation factor , uh , reduces enormously . And if we start giving them a bunch of other things to do , how {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we did n you know another meeting here for another group and {disfmarker} and , uh , they were fine with it . But if we 'd said , "" OK , now all eight of you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have to come up with , uh , the summar "" +Grad G: Well , I asked them to and none of them did . +Professor D: t See ? There we go . +Grad G: So , I {disfmarker} I asked them to send me ideas for queries after the meeting +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: They {disfmarker} +Grad G: and no one ever did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I didn't follow up either . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: So I didn't track them down and say "" please do th do it now "" . But , uh , no one spontaneously provided anything . +Professor D: I I 'm worried that if you did {disfmarker} even if you did push them into it , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it might be semi - random , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: uh , as opposed to what you 'd really want to know if you were gonna use this thing . +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: I just don't know how else to generate the queries other than getting an expert to actually listen to the meeting and say "" that 's important , that might be a query "" . +Postdoc H: Tsk . Well , there is this other thing which y which you were alluding to earlier , which is , um , there are certain key words like , you know , "" action item "" and things like that , which could be used in , uh , t to some degree finding the structure . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Although {disfmarker} +Professor A: W +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and I also , um , was thinking , with reference to the n uh , note - taking , the advantage there is that you get structure without the person having to do something artificial later . And the fir third thing I wanted to say is the summaries afterwards , um , I think they should be recorded instead of written because I think that , um , it would take so long for people to write that I think you wouldn't get as good a summary . +Professor A: How about this idea ? That normally at most meetings somebody is delegated to be a note - taker . +Postdoc H: Yeah , good . Good point . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} So why don't we just use the notes that somebody takes ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , that gives you a summary but it doesn't really {disfmarker} How do you generate queries from that ? +PhD E: Well . But , I mean , maybe a summary is one of the things we 'd want from the output of the system . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Right ? I mean , they 're something . It 's a {disfmarker} a kind of output you 'd like . +PhD B: Actually {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , James and I were talking about this during one of the breaks . And the problem with that is , I 'm definitely going to do something with information retrieval even if it 's sort of not full full - bore what I 'm gonna do for my thesis . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: I 'm gonna do something . I 'm not gonna do anything with summarization . And so if someone wants to do that , that 's fine , but it 's not gonna be me . +Professor D: Well , I think that we {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the f the core thing is that you know once we get some of these issues nailed down , we need to do a bunch of recordings +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: and send them off to IBM and get a bunch of transcriptions even if they 're slightly flawed +Grad G: Yep . +Professor D: or need some other {disfmarker} And then we 'll have some data there . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , i i we can start l looking and thinking , what do we want to know about these things and {disfmarker} at the very least . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually want to say something about the note pad . So , if you could sense just when people are writing , and you tell them not to doodle , or try not to {pause} be using that for other purposes , {comment} and each person has a note pad . They just get it when they come in the room . Then you c you can just have a fff {comment} plot of wh you know , who 's writing when . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: That 's all you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Activity . Yeah . +PhD B: And , you can also have notes of the meeting . But I bet that 's {disfmarker} that will allow you to go into the {disfmarker} sort of the hot places where people are writing things down . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Oh , I see . +PhD B: I mean , you can tell when you 're in a meeting when everybody stops to write something down that something was just said . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It may not be kept in the later summary , but at that point in time is was something that was important . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that wouldn't take any extra {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a nice idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or someone could just pu you could just put your hand on the pad +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and go like that if you want to . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's a good idea but that doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe I 'm missing something , but that doesn't get to the question of how we come up with queries , right ? +Professor A: Well , what it does {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , then you can go to the points where the {disfmarker} you could actually go to those points in time and find out what they were talking about . And you r +Professor A: Well , what it does is provide a different {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , y +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's an interesting thing . I don't think it gets at the {disfmarker} the queries per - se , but it does give us an information fusion sort of thing that , you know , you wanna i say "" what were the hot - points of the meeting ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's what I mean , is that I think it gets at something interesting but if we were asking the question , which I thought we were , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of , um , "" how do we figure out what 's the nature of the queries that people are gonna want to ask of such a system ? "" , knowing what 's important doesn't tell you what people are going to be asking . +PhD B: But I bet it 's a good {pause} superset of it . +Professor D: Does it ? +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: Well , see , there are th +Professor A: I think you could say they 're gonna ask about , uh , when {disfmarker} uh , when did so - and - so s talk about blah . And at least that gives you the word {pause} that they might run a query on . +PhD B: At least you can find the locations where there are maybe keywords +Professor D: Maybe . +Grad G: I mean , i this would tell you what the hit is , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: not what the query is . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Right , right . +Grad G: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 'll tell you the hit but not the query . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think thinking about queries is a little bit dangerous right now . +Grad G: And so you could {disfmarker} you can generate a query from the hits , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: We don't even know what {disfmarker} I mean , if you want to find out what any user will use , that might be true for one domain and one user , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but I mean a different domain and a different user {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , but we 're just looking for a place to start with that +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: because , you know , th what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what James is gonna be doing is looking at the user - interface and he 's looking at the query in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} i We {disfmarker} we have five hours of pilot data of the other stuff but we have zero hours of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of queries . So he 's just sort of going "" where {disfmarker} where do I {disfmarker} where do I start ? "" +Professor A: w Well , th you could do {disfmarker} I think the summaries actually may help get us there , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: for a couple reasons . One , if you have a summary {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of summaries , you can do a word frequency count and see what words come up in different types of meetings . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So "" action item "" is gonna come up whether it 's a VLSI meeting , or speech meeting , or whatever . So words that come up in different types of meetings may be something that you would want to query about . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , the second thing you could possibly do with it is just run a little pilot experiment with somebody saying "" here 's a summary of a meeting , what questions might you want to ask about it to go back ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , I think that 's difficult because then they 're not gonna ask the questions that are in the summary . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , I think it would give {disfmarker} +Professor A: That 's one possi one possible scenario , though , is you have the summary , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and you want to ask questions to get more detail . +Grad G: th Yeah , I think it has to be a participant . Well , it doesn't have to be . OK . So that {disfmarker} that is another use of Meeting Recorder that we haven't really talked about , which is for someone else , as opposed to as a {pause} remembrance agent , which is what had been my primary thought in the information retrieval part of it would be . But , uh , I guess if you had a meeting participant , they could use the summary to refresh themselves about the meeting and then make up queries . But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I don't know how to do it if {disfmarker} until you have a system . +PhD B: The summary is actually gonna drive the queries then . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , your research is going to be very circular . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what I was saying . +PhD E: But th there is this , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is this class of queries , which are the things that you didn't realize were important at the time but some in retrospect you think "" oh , hang on , didn't we talk about that ? "" And it 's something that didn't appear in the summary but you {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And that 's kind of what this kind of , uh , complete data capture is kind of nicest for . +Professor A: Right . Right . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Cuz it 's the things that you wouldn't have bothered to make an effort to record but they get recorded . So , I mean {disfmarker} And th there 's no way of generating those , u u until we just {disfmarker} until they actually occur . +PhD B: But you could always post - hoc label them . +PhD E: You know , it 's like {disfmarker} Right , right . Exactly . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: But I mean , it 's difficult to sort of say "" and if I was gonna ask four questions about this , what would they be ? "" Those aren't the kind of things that come up . +Grad G: But at least it would get us started . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Yeah , sure . +Postdoc H: I also think that w if {disfmarker} if you can use the summaries as an indication of the important points of the {disfmarker} of the meeting , then you might get something like {disfmarker} y So if th if the obscure item you want to know more about was some form of data collection , you know , maybe the summary would say , you know , "" we discussed types of na data collection "" . And , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and maybe you could get to it by that . If you {disfmarker} if you had the {disfmarker} the larger structure of the {disfmarker} of the discourse , then if you can categorize what it is that you 're looking for with reference to those l those larger headings , then you can find it even if you don't have a direct route to that . +Grad G: Mmm . Although it seems like that 's , um , a high burden on the note - taker . +Postdoc H: I think that {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's a pretty fine grain that the note - taker will have to take . +PhD B: Maybe Landay can put a student in to be a note - taker . +Professor A: I th No . I think you got to have somebody who knows the pro knows the topic or {disfmarker} you know , whose job it is delegated to be the note - taker . +PhD B: No ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Somebody who 's part of the meeting . +PhD B: No , I mean , but someone who can come sit in on the meetings and then takes the notes with them that the real note - taker {disfmarker} +Grad G: But they {disfmarker} +PhD B: And that way that one student has , you know , a rough idea of what was going on , and they can use it for their research . I mean , this isn't really necessarily what you would do in a real system , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because that that 's a lot of trouble +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and maybe it 's not the best way to do it . But if he has some students that want to study that then they should sort of get to know the people and attend those meetings , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and get the notes from the note - taker or something . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad G: Well , I think that 's a little bit of a problem . Their sort of note - taking application stuff they 've been doing for the last couple of years , and I don't think anyone is still working on it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think they 're done . Um , so I 'm not sure that they have anyone currently working on notes . So what we 'd have to interest someone in is the combination of note and speech . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: And so the question is "" is there such a person ? "" And I think right now , the answer is "" no "" . +Professor A: Well +Professor D: I 've b been thinking {disfmarker} +Grad G: We 'll just have to see . +Professor D: I 've been thinking about it a little bit here {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} uh , th this , e um {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} now I 'm thinking that the summary {disfmarker} a summary , uh , is actually a reasonable , uh , bootstrap into this {disfmarker} into what we 'd like to get at . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not ideal , but we {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we have to get started someplace . So I was {disfmarker} I was just thinking about , um , suppose we wanted to get {disfmarker} w We have this collection of meeting . We have five hours of stuff . Uh , we get that transcribed . So now we have five hours of meetings and , uh , you ask me , uh , uh , "" Morgan , what d you know , what kind of questions do you want to ask ? "" Uh , I wouldn't have any idea what kind of questions I want to ask . I 'd have to get started someplace . So in fact if I looked at summary of it , I 'd go "" oh , yeah , I was in that meeting , I remember that , um , what was the part that {disfmarker} "" And {disfmarker} and th I think that might then help me to think of things {disfmarker} even things that aren't listed in the summary , but just as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a refresh of what the general thing was going on in the meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think it serves two purpo purposes . One , as sort of a refresh to help bootstrap queries , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: but also , I mean , maybe we do want to generate summaries . And then it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's kind of a key . +Professor D: Well , yeah . That 's true too . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , absolutely . Then you want to have it . +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how does the summary get generated ? +Professor A: Well , i i {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm not against the idea of a summary , +Grad G: By hand . +PhD B: but I wanted to think carefully about who 's generating it +Professor A: Or , d o +PhD B: and how {disfmarker} because the summary will drive the queries . +Professor A: What I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in most meetings , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor A: this one being {pause} different , but in most meetings that I attend , there 's somebody t explicitly taking notes , frequently on a laptop {disfmarker} Um , you can just make it be on a laptop , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: so then yo you 're dealing with ASCII and not somebody {disfmarker} you don't have to go through handwriting recognition . Um , and then they post - edit it into , uh , a summary and they email it out for minutes . I mean , that happens in most meetings . +Postdoc H: I I {disfmarker} I think that , um , there 's {disfmarker} we 're using "" summary "" in two different ways . So what you just described I would describe as "" minutes "" . +Grad G: Minutes . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: And what I originally thought was , um , if you asked someone "" what was the meeting about ? "" +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And then they would say "" well , we talked about this and then we talked about that , and so - and - so talked about {disfmarker} "" And then you 'd have , like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} e My thought was to have multiple people summarize it , on recording rather than writing because writing takes time and you get irrelevant other things that u take time , that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Whereas if you just say it immediately after the meeting , you know , a two - minute summary of what the meeting was about , I think you would get , uh , with mult See , I {disfmarker} I also worry about having a single note - taker because that 's just one person 's perception . And , um , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's releva it 's relative to what you 're focus was on that meeting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and people have different {comment} major topics that they 're interested in . +Professor D: A +Postdoc H: So , my proposal would be that it may be worth considering both of those types , you know , the note - taking and a spontaneous oral summary afterwards , +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: no longer than two minutes , +Professor D: Adam , you can {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: from multiple people . +Professor D: you can correct me on this , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but , uh , my impression was that , uh , pretty much , uh , true that the meetings here , nobody sits with a w uh , with a laptop +Grad G: Never . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Never . I 've never seen it at ICSI . Does anyone {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Dan ? +Professor D: I +Grad G: I mean , Dan is the one who {disfmarker} who most frequently would take notes , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've d When we {disfmarker} when we have other meetings . When I have meetings on the European projects , we have someone taking notes . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Professor D: Yeah , but those are bigger deal things . +PhD E: In fact , I often do it . +Professor D: Right ? Where you 've got fifteen peo +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , most {disfmarker} th this is one of the larger meetings . Most of the meetings we have are four or five people +Grad G: That 's true {disfmarker} are four or five people . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: and you 're not {disfmarker} you don't have somebody sitting and taking minutes for it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: You just {vocalsound} get together and talk about where you are . +Professor A: So , I think it depends on whether it 's a business meeting or a technical discussion . +Grad G: Culture . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: And I agree , +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: technical discussions you don't usually have somebody taking notes . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: The IRAM meeting , they {disfmarker} they take notes every {disfmarker} +Professor D: Do they ? +Grad G: There 's uh a person with a laptop {pause} at each meeting . +PhD E: How many people are those meetings ? +Grad G: There are more . I mean , there are ten - ish . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Y you should also have a record of what 's on the board . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: They 're very sparse . +PhD B: I mean , I find it very {pause} hard to reconstruct what 's going on . I {disfmarker} I don't know how {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . This is something early in the project we talked a lot about . +PhD B: I don't know how , but for instance , I mean , the outline is sort of up here and that 's what people are seeing . And if you have a {disfmarker} Or you shou could tell people not to {disfmarker} to use the boards . But there 's sort of this missing information otherwise . +PhD E: We sh we should {disfmarker} +Grad G: I agree , but {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} you just {disfmarker} you g end up with video , +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD E: Well , I don't know . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and instrumented rooms . And {pause} that 's a different project , I think . +PhD E: f u I think for this data capture , it would be nice to have a digital camera +Grad G: Yeah , different {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , y +PhD E: just to take pictures of who 's there , where the microphones are , and then we could also put in what 's on the board . You know , like three or four snaps for every {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD B: Yeah . People who were never at the meeting will have a very hard time understanding it otherwise . +PhD E: for every meeting . +Postdoc H: That 's wonderful . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But don't you think that 's {disfmarker} Don't you think that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even people who were at the meeting . +PhD E: Well , no . I mean , I {disfmarker} I just think {disfmarker} I mean , I think that right now we don't make a record of where people are sitting on the tables . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: Huh . +PhD E: And that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at some point that might be awfully useful . +Grad G: Right . But I think adding photographs adds a whole nother level of problems . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . We n uh , +Postdoc H: It 's just a digital record . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} not as part of the {disfmarker} not as a part of the data that you have to recover . +PhD B: I don't mean that you model it . +PhD E: Just {disfmarker} just in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD B: We should just {disfmarker} Like archiving it or storing it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yes , I agree . I agree . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's i because discourse is about things , +PhD B: Because someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: and then you have the things that are about , and it 's recoverable . +PhD B: someone later might be able to take these and say "" OK , they , you know {disfmarker} at least these are the people who were there +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: and here 's sort of what they started talking about , and {disfmarker} "" and just {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yes . And it 's so simple . +Professor D: Li +Postdoc H: Like you said , three snapshots +Professor D: uh , L L L +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Liz , you {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Just to archive . +Professor D: u uh , Liz , you sa you sat in on the , uh , {vocalsound} subcommittee meeting or whatever {disfmarker} +PhD E: Actually {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh , on {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} on the subcommittee meeting for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} at the , uh {disfmarker} that workshop we were at that , uh , uh , Mark Liberman was {disfmarker} was having . So I {disfmarker} I wasn't there . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they h must have had some discussion about video and the visual aspect , and all that . +PhD B: Big , big interest . Huge . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} personally , I don't {disfmarker} I would never want to deal with it . But I 'm just saying first of all there 's a whole bunch of fusion issues that DARPA 's interested in . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: You know , fusing gesture and face recognition , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even lip movement and things like that , for this kind of task . And there 's also I think a personal interest on the part of Mark Liberman in this kind of {disfmarker} in storing these images in any data we collect +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so that later we can do other things with it . +Professor D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so to address what {disfmarker} what Adam 's saying , +Postdoc H: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , I think you {disfmarker} uh , that the key thing there is that this is a description of database collection effort that they 're talking about doing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And if the database exists and includes some visual information that doesn't mean that an individual researcher is going to make any use of it . Right ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a lot of effort on our part to create it , and store it , and get all the standards , and to do anything with it . +Professor D: Right . So we 're gonna {disfmarker} So we 're gonna do what we 're gonna do , whatever 's reasonable for us . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I think even doing something very crude {disfmarker} +Professor D: But having {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like I know with ATIS , we just had a tape recorder running all the time . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And later on it turned out it was really good that you had a tape recorder of what was happening , even though you w you just got the speech from the machine . So if you can find some really , you know , low , uh , perplexity , +Grad G: Low fidelity . +PhD B: yeah , {comment} way of {disfmarker} of doing that , I think it would be worthwhile . +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc H: I agree . And if it 's simple as {disfmarker} I mean , as simple as just the digital {disfmarker} +PhD B: Otherwise you 'd {disfmarker} you lose it . +Professor D: Well , minimally , I mean , what {disfmarker} what Dan is referring to at least having some representation of the p the spatial position of the people , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: cuz we are interested in some spatial processing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: so , um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , once the room is a little more fixed that 's a little easier +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: cuz you 'll {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , the wireless . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Also CMU has been doing this and they were the most vocal at this meeting , Alex Waibel 's group . And they have {pause} said , I talked to the student who had done this , {comment} that with two fairly inexpensive cameras they {disfmarker} they just recorded all the time +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and were able to get all the information from {disfmarker} or maybe it was three {disfmarker} from all the parts of the room . So I think we would be {disfmarker} we might lose the chance to use this data for somebody later who wants to do some kind of processing on it if we don't collect it {comment} at all . +Grad G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't disagree . I think that if you have that , then people who are interested in vision can use this database . The problem with it is you 'll have more people who don't want to be filmed than who don't want to be recorded . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad G: So that there 's going to be another group of people who are gonna say "" I won't participate "" . +Postdoc H: Well , she 's not {pause} making {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's true . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or you could put a paper bag over everybody 's head +Grad G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: and not look at each other and not look at boards , and just all be sitting {vocalsound} talking . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: That would be an interes {vocalsound} Bu +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Great idea . +Postdoc H: Well , there 's {disfmarker} that 'd be the {disfmarker} the parallel , yeah . But I think y she 's {disfmarker} we 're just proposing {pause} a minimal preservation of things on boards , +PhD B: Yeah . I definitely won't participate if there 's a camera . +Postdoc H: sp spatial organization {disfmarker} And you could anonymize the faces for that matter . You know , I mean , this is {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , you know , that 's a lot of infrastructure and work . +Postdoc H: We can talk about the {disfmarker} +Grad G: To set it up and then anonymize it ? +Postdoc H: It 's just one snapshot . +PhD B: No , it wa n not , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: No , no , no , no . +Postdoc H: We 're not talking about a movie . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Not for {disfmarker} not for CMU . +Postdoc H: We 're talking about a snapshot . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: They have a pretty crude set - up . And they had {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: they just turn on these cameras . They were {disfmarker} they were not moving or anything . +Grad G: Couldn't find it ? +PhD B: And stored it on analog media . +Grad G: Hmm ? +Postdoc H: Hmm . +PhD B: And they {disfmarker} they didn't actually align it or anything . They just {disfmarker} they have it , though . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , it 's worth considering . Maybe we don't want to {disfmarker} spend that much more time discussing it , +PhD F: Did they store it digitally , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm - mm . I think they just {disfmarker} +PhD F: or just put it on videotape ? +PhD B: I think they just had the videotapes with a c you know , a counter or something . Um , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Well , I think for {disfmarker} I mean , for our purposes we probably will d +PhD B: I 'm not sure . +Professor D: we {disfmarker} we might try that some and {disfmarker} and we certainly already have some recordings that don't have that , uh , which , you know , we we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get other value out of , I think . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Th The thing is , if it 's easy to collect it {disfmarker} it th then I think it 's a wise thing to do because once it 's gone it 's gone . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm just {disfmarker} The community {disfmarker} If LDC collects this data {disfmarker} u I mean , and L - if Mark Liberman is a strong proponent of how they collect it and what they collect , there will probably be some video data in there . +Professor D: There you go . +PhD B: And so that could argue for us not doing it or it could argue for us doing it . The only place where it sort of overlaps is when some of the summarization issues are {disfmarker} actually could be , um , easier {disfmarker} made easier if you had {pause} the video . +Professor D: I think at the moment we should be determining this on the basis of our own , uh , interests and needs rather than hypothetical ones from a community thing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: As you say , if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if they decide it 's really critical then they will collect a lot more data than we can afford to , uh , and {disfmarker} and will include all that . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , +Professor A: e +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not worried about the cost of setting it up . I 'm worried about the cost of people looking at it . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 'd be kind of silly to collect it all and not look at it at all . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that we do have to do some picking and choosing of the stuff that we 're doing . But I {disfmarker} I am int I do think that we m minimally want {disfmarker} something {disfmarker} we might want to look at {disfmarker} at some {disfmarker} some , uh , subsets of that . Like for a meeting like this , at least , uh , take a Polaroid of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the boards , +PhD B: Of the board . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Or at least make sure that the note - taker takes a sh you know , a snapshot of the board . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor D: a and know the position of the people {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 'll make it a lot easier for meetings that are structured . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , otherwise later on if nobody wrote this stuff on the board down we 'd have a harder time summarizing it or agreeing on a summary . +Postdoc H: We {disfmarker} And it {disfmarker} Especially since this is common knowledge . I mean , this is shared knowledge among all the participants , and it 's a shame to keep it off the recording . +Grad G: Uh , except in {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: s +Grad G: er , if we weren't recording this , this {disfmarker} this would get lost . Right ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well , I don't understand that point . I mean , I just think that the {disfmarker} +Grad G: The point is that we 're not saving it anyway . Right ? In {disfmarker} in {pause} our real - life setting . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: What do you mean we 're not saving it anyway ? I 've written all of this down and it 's getting emailed to you . +Professor C: And you 're gonna send it out by email , too . +Grad G: Well , uh , in that case we don't need to take pictures of it . +PhD B: Right . That would be the other alternative , to make sure that anything that was on the board , um , is in the record . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why I 'm saying that I think the note - taking would be {disfmarker} I think in many {disfmarker} for many meetings there will be some sort of note - taking , in which case , that 's a useful thing to have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} uh , we don't need to require it . Just like the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I think it would be great if we try to get a picture with every meeting . Um , +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor A: so {disfmarker} so we won't worry about requiring these things , but the more things that we can get it for , the more useful it will be for various applications . So . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} So , I mean , departing for the moment from the data collection question but actually talking about , you know , this group and what we actually want to do , uh , so I guess that 's th the way {disfmarker} what you were figuring on doing was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was , uh , putting together some notes and sending them to {disfmarker} to everybody from {disfmarker} from today ? OK . So . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's great . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the question {comment} that {disfmarker} that we started with was whether there was anything else we should do during {disfmarker} during th during the collection . +PhD B: Ow . +Professor D: And I guess the CrossPads was certainly one idea , uh , and we 'll get them from him and we 'll just do that . Right ? And then the next thing we talked about was the {disfmarker} was the summaries and are we gonna do anything about that . +Professor A: Well , before we leave the CrossPads and {disfmarker} and call it done . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: So , if I 'm collecting data then there is this question of do I use CrossPads ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: So , I think that if we really seriously have me collect data and I can't use CrossPads , it 's probably less useful for you guys to go to the trouble of using it , um , unless you think that the CrossPads are gonna {disfmarker} n I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what they 're gonna do . But {disfmarker} but having a small percentage of the data with it , I 'm not sure whether that 's useful or not . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's no big deal . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: Maybe we just do it and see what happens . +Professor D: I guess the point was to try {disfmarker} again , to try to collect more information that could be useful later for {disfmarker} for the UI stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So it 's sort of Landay supplying it so that Landay 's stuff can be easier to do . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right now he 's g operating from zero , +Professor A: Nothing . +Professor D: and so even if we didn't get it done from UW , it seems like that would {disfmarker} could still {disfmarker} You shou +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: I mean , at least try it . +PhD B: I think it 'd be useful to have a small amount of it just as a proof of concept . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: It will {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD B: You know , what you can do with things . +Grad G: And {disfmarker} and they seem to {pause} not be able to give enough of them away , so we could probably get more as well . +PhD B: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not to rely on them for {pause} basic modeling . +Professor A: That 's true . So if it {disfmarker} if it seems to be really useful to you guys , we could probably get a donation to me . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm not sure . I think it it {disfmarker} it will again depend on Landay , and if he has a student who 's interested , and how much infrastructure we 'll need . I mean , if it 's easy , we can just do it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , but if it requires a lot of our time , we probably won't do it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: I guess a lot of the stuff we 're doing now really is pilot in one sense or another . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah , we have to sort of figure out what we 're gonna do . +Professor D: And so we try it out and see how it works . +Grad G: Right . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: I just wouldn't base any of the modeling on having those . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . I ag I think I agree with that . +PhD B: It 's just {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +Grad G: I think , though , the importance marking is a {pause} good idea , though . That if {disfmarker} if people have something in front of them {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'd be sort of cool . I mean , it would {disfmarker} Yeah . That w shouldn't be hard for {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Do it on pilots or laptops or something . OK , if something 's important everyone clap . +Professor A: OK . So CrossPads , we 're just gonna try it and see what happens . +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . Um , I think that 's right . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: The note - taking {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I think that this is gonna be useful . So if we record data I will definitely ask for it . So , I j I think we should just say this is not {disfmarker} we don't want to put any extra burden on people , but if they happen to generate minutes , could {disfmarker} could they send it to us ? +Grad G: Yeah . Oh , OK . That 's fine . Absolutely . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . What I was gonna say is that I don't want to ask people to do something they wouldn't normally do in a meeting . It 's ver I just want to keep away from the artificiality . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I think it {pause} definitely if they exist . And then Jane 's idea of summarization afterward I think is not a bad one . Um , picking out {disfmarker} basically to let you pick out keywords , um , and , uh , construct queries . +Professor D: So who {disfmarker} who does this summarization ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'm thinking that {disfmarker} +Grad G: People in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: You know , just at {disfmarker} at the end of the meeting , before you go , +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Without hearing each other though , probably . +Grad G: go around the table . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: Or even just have one or two people stay behind . +Grad G: Yeah . Ugh . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: People with radio mikes can go into separate rooms and continue recording without hearing each other . That 's the nice thing . +PhD B: Well , then you should try them a few weeks later +Postdoc H: How fascinating . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} They have all these memory experiments about how little you actually retain +Grad G: And see {disfmarker} score them ? +PhD E: That 's right . Well , that 's the interesting thing , though . +PhD B: and wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we do {disfmarker} if we collect four different summaries , you know , we 're gonna get all this weird data about how people perceive things differently . +Grad G: Oh . +PhD E: It 's like {comment} this is not what we meant to research . +Grad G: Hmm . +PhD B: Right , right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +Postdoc H: That could be very interesting . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but again , like the CrossPads , I don't think I would base a lot of stuff on it , +Professor D: Ru +Grad G: I d yeah , I don't know how you would do it , though . +Professor A: because I think {disfmarker} I know when I see the {disfmarker} the clock coming near the end of the meeting , I 'm like inching towards the door . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Running to {disfmarker} Yeah , +Professor A: So , +Grad G: fff ! +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor A: you 're probably not gonna get {pause} a lot of people wanting to do this . +Grad G: Maybe e Is email easier ? +Postdoc H: Well , I think if {disfmarker} +Grad G: I mean , I {disfmarker} when you first said do {disfmarker} do it , um , spoken , what I was thinking is , oh then people have to come up +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and you have to hook them up to the recorder . So , if they 're already here I think that 's good , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but if they 're not already here for {disfmarker} I 'd rather do email . I 'm much faster typing than anything else . +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'd just try {disfmarker} Well , however the least intrusive and {disfmarker} and quickest way is , and th and closest to the meeting time too , cuz people will start to forget it as soon as they l leave . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I think that {disfmarker} I think doing it orally at the end of the meeting is the best time . +Grad G: I don't know . At {disfmarker} +Professor A: I just don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: because they 're kind of a captive audience . Once they leave , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , forget it . But {disfmarker} but i +Grad G: Yeah , read the digits , do the summary . +Professor A: Right . But , uh , I don't think that they 'll necessarily {disfmarker} you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get many people willing to stay . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: But , you know , if you get even one {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: w +Professor D: Well , I think it 's like the note - taking thing , +Postdoc H: I would s Yeah . +Professor D: that {disfmarker} that y that you can't {disfmarker} certainly can't require it or people aren't gonna want to do this . But {disfmarker} but if there 's some cases where they will , then it would be helpful . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And I 'm also wondering , couldn't that be included in the data sample so that you could increase the num you know , the words that are , uh , recognized by a particular individual ? If you could include the person 's meeting stuff and also the person 's summary stuff , maybe that would be uh , +PhD E: Yeah . It 's kind of nice . +Postdoc H: an ad addition to their database . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Under the same acoustic circumstance , cuz if they just walk next door with their set - up , nothing 's changed , +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc H: just {disfmarker} +PhD F: So I have a question about queries , +Grad G: God , that 's bugging me . +PhD F: which is , um , +Grad G: Can we turn that light off ? +Postdoc H: You turn {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: If {disfmarker} can we turn that just {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that let {disfmarker} +Professor D: The fl the fluorescent light is flickering . +Postdoc H: Uh , let the record show the light is flickering . +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , there 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , it is {disfmarker} it is like {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Very annoying . +PhD F: There you go . OK . +Grad G: Oh , much better . +Professor A: For a little while I thought it was just that I was really tired . +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's better . +PhD F: Good . +Professor A: That and y {comment} Too much caffeine and really tired , +Grad G: Too much caffeine . +Professor A: but then I thought "" no , maybe that 's real "" . +Professor D: OK . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: I thought it was the projector for a moment . It was like , "" what 's going on ? "" +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the question I had about queries was , um , so what we 're planning to do is have people look at the summaries and then generate queries ? Are {disfmarker} are we gonna try and o +Grad G: We {disfmarker} we 've just been talking , how do we generate queries ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well , I mean , +Grad G: And so that was one suggestion . +PhD F: so , the question I had is is have we given any thought to how we would generate queries automatically given a summary ? I mean , I think that 's a whole research topic un unto itself , +Professor D: Mmm . +PhD F: so that it may not be a feasible thing . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hello . Dan here . +PhD F: n +PhD B: Shouldn't Landay and his group be in charge of figuring out how to do this ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , this is an issue that goes a little bit beyond where {pause} we are right now . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: They 're the expert +PhD E: Mari ? +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD E: Someone wants to know when you 're getting picked up . Is someone picking you up ? +Professor A: Um , {vocalsound} what 's our schedule ? +Professor D: Well , you still wanted to talk with Liz . +Professor A: Let 's see , you and I need dis Uh , no , we did the Liz talk . +Professor D: And you and I need to Oh , oh . You already did the Liz talk . +Professor A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so that was the prosody thing . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: We - {vocalsound} I don't remember it . +Professor A: Um , we need to finish the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: It 's already four - fifteen . +PhD B: I have like no recall memory . +Professor A: Uh , after . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: We need to {pause} finish this discussion , and you and I need a little time for wrap - up and quad chart . So , +Grad G: And what ? +Professor A: um {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm at your disposal . So , up to you . +Professor A: Um , what {disfmarker} what 's the plan for this discussion ? We should {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , I think we should be able to wind up in another half - hour or something , you think ? +Grad G: At least . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , less . +Grad G: m i Even if that much ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: Less ? +Grad G: Less . +Professor A: So , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting that he 's got , like , {pause} this discussion free +Professor D: Well , I mean , we still haven't talked about the action items from here and so on . +Professor A: Action {disfmarker} Yeah . So , +PhD B: yet it 's separate . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: e e why don't you say five - thirty ? I don't {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , five - thirty . +Professor A: Is that OK ? We 'll probably hit horrible traffic . +PhD E: Sounds {disfmarker} OK . h Thanks , bye . +Professor A: That 's not a lot of time , +PhD E: That 's that . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , in answer to "" is it Landay 's problem ? "" , um , he doesn't have a student who 's interested right now in doing anything . So he has very little manpower . Um , there 's very little allocated for him and also he 's pretty focused on user interface . So I don't think he wants to do information retrieval , query generation , that sort of stuff . +Professor D: Yeah , well there 's gonna be these student projects that can do some things but it can't be , yeah , very deep . u I {disfmarker} I actually think that {disfmarker} that , uh , again , just as a bootstrap , {comment} if we do have something like summaries , then having the people who are involved in the meetings themselves , who are cooperative and willing to do yet more , come up with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with queries , uh , could at least give {disfmarker} give Landay an idea of the kind of things that people might want to know . I mean , ye Right ? If he doesn't know anything about the area , and {disfmarker} the people are talking about and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the people will just look at the summaries or the minutes and re and sort of back - generate the queries . That 's what I 'm worried about . So you might as well just give him the summaries . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD F: Well , I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that 's a solved problem . +Grad G: y Well , but I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD F: Right ? Of how to {disfmarker} how to generate queries from a {disfmarker} +PhD B: How to do this from the summary . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: That was sort of what my {pause} question was {pause} aimed towards . +PhD B: So what you want to h to do is , people who were there , who later see , uh , minutes and s put in summary form , which is not gonna be at the same time as the meeting . There 's no way that can happen . Are we gonna later go over it +Professor A: Hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad G: Right . +PhD B: and , like , make up some stuff to which these notes would be an answer , or {disfmarker} or a deeper {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} or just a memory refresher . +PhD B: But that 's done off {disfmarker} they have to do that off - line . +Grad G: Yep . I agree . +PhD B: You +Postdoc H: I 'm also wondering if we could ask the {disfmarker} the people a {disfmarker} a question which would be "" what was the most interesting thing you got out of this meeting ? "" Becau - in terms of like informativeness , +PhD B: That 's a good one . +Postdoc H: it might be , you know , that the summary would {disfmarker} would not in even include what the person thought was the most interesting fact . +Professor D: I would think that would be the most likely thing . +PhD B: Dan doesn't know what sex he is . +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor A: But actually I would say that 's a better thing to ask than have them summarize the meeting . +Postdoc H: I think you get two different types of information . +Professor A: You get two {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Because you get , like , the general structure of important points and what the {disfmarker} what the meeting was about . +Professor D: Hey . +PhD B: Ah +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: We 're still here . +Postdoc H: So you get the general structure , the important points of what the meeting was about {pause} with the summary . But with the "" what 's the most interesting thing you learned ? "" {disfmarker} Uh , so the fact that , uh , I know that Transcriber uses Snack is something that I thought was interesting +PhD B: Going to see the kids . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you can keep it on . +Postdoc H: and that {disfmarker} and that Dan worked on {disfmarker} on that . So I thought that was really {disfmarker} you know . So , I mean , you could ge pick up some of the micro items that wouldn't even occur as major headings +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: but could be very informative . +Professor A: Yeah , that 's actually a really good idea . +Postdoc H: I think it wouldn't be too , uh , uh , cost - intensive either . You know , I mean , it 's like something someone can do pretty easily on the spur of the moment . +Professor C: Are you thinking about just asking one participant or all of them ? +Grad G: As many are willing to do it . +Professor C: Make it a voluntary thing , +PhD E: Yeah . Cuz you 'll get {disfmarker} cuz you 'll get very different answers from everybody , right ? +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's why I was wondering . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , maybe one thing we could do is for the meetings we 've already done {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} we didn't take minutes and we don't have summaries . But , uh , people could , like , listen to them a little bit and {pause} generate some queries . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Of course Jane doesn't need to . I 'm sure you have that meeting memorized by now . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: But actually it would be an easy thing to just go around the room and say {pause} what was the most interesting thing you learned , +Grad G: Mmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: for those pe people willing to stay . +Postdoc H: And that {disfmarker} I think it would pick up the micro - structure , the {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some of the little things that would be hidden . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and that might be something people are willing to stay for . +Professor D: Boy , I {disfmarker} I don't know how we get at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That would be interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , but when you go around the room you might just get the effect that somebody says something +Grad G: Or want to get up and leave . +Professor C: and then you go around the room and they say "" yeah , me too , I agree . "" +Grad G: Me too , me too , me too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: That 's fine . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: On the other hand people might try and come up with different ones , right ? +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: They might say "" oh , I was gonna say that one but now I have to think of something else "" . +Grad G: Well , you have the other thing , that {disfmarker} that they know why we 're doing it . We 'll {disfmarker} I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be telling them that the reason we 're trying to do this is {disfmarker} is to d generate queries in the future , so try to pick things that other people didn't say . +Professor D: It 's gonna take some thought . I mean , It seemed {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The kind of , uh , interest that I had in this thing initially was , uh , that i basically the form that you 're doing something else {pause} later , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and you want to pick up something from this meeting related to the something else . So it 's really the imp the {disfmarker} the list of what 's important 's in the something else +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor D: And it might be something minor {disfmarker} of minor importance to the meeting . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Uh , in fact if {disfmarker} if it was really major , if it 's the thing that really stuck in your head , then you might not need to go back and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and check on it even . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's that you 're trying to find {disfmarker} {comment} You 're {disfmarker} you 've now {disfmarker} You weren't interested {disfmarker} Say I {disfmarker} I said "" well , I wasn't that much interested in dialogue , I 'm more of an acoustics person "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but thr three months from now if for some reason I get really interested in dialogue , and I 'm "" well what is {disfmarker} what was that part that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , Mari was saying ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , like Jim Bass says "" add a few lines on dialogue in your next perf "" +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then I 'm trying to fi I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's when I look {disfmarker} in general when I look things up most , is when it 's something that {vocalsound} didn't really stick in my head the first time around and {disfmarker} but for some {comment} new reason I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old stuff . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} that 's gonna be very hard to generate . +Professor A: Well , I {disfmarker} That 's hard to generate +Professor D: So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Do we {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and I think that 's half of what i I would use it for . But I also a lot of times um , make {disfmarker} you know , think to myself "" this is interesting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I 've gotta come back and follow up on it "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , things that I think are interesting , um , I would be , uh , wanting to do a query about . And also , I like the idea of going around the room , because if somebody else thought something was interesting , I 'd kind of want to know about it and then I 'd want to follow up on it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . That {disfmarker} that might get at some of what I was {disfmarker} I was concerned about , uh , being interested in something later that w uh , I didn't consider to be important the first time , which for me is actually the dominant thing , because if I thought it was really important it tends to stick more than if I didn't , but some new {pause} task comes along that makes me want to look up . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} But what 's interesting to me may not b have been interesting to you . +Professor D: Yeah . So having multiple people might get at some of that . +Grad G: By {disfmarker} so by going around {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you can't get at all of it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? W we just need to start somewhere . +Professor D: Yeah , and this is a starting point . +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD F: The question {disfmarker} the question then is h h how much bias do we introduce by {disfmarker} you know , introduce by saying , you know , this was important now and , you know , maybe tha something else is important later ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I mean , does it {disfmarker} does the bias matter ? I {disfmarker} I don't know . I mean , uh , that 's , I guess , a question for you guys . But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and one thing , we {disfmarker} we 're saying "" important "" and we 're saying "" interesting "" . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} those can be two different things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Sure , sure . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess that 's the question , really , is that {disfmarker} I mean , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: W +PhD F: does building queries based on what 's important now introduce an irreversible bias on being able to do what Morgan wants to do later ? +Professor D: Well , irreversible . +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I guess what I what I {disfmarker} I keep coming back to in my own mind is that , um , the soonest we can do it , we need to get up some kind of system +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: so that people who 've been involved in the meeting can go back later , even if it 's a poor system in some ways , and , uh {disfmarker} and ask the questions that they actually want to know . If {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} uh , as soon as we can get that going at any kind of level , then I think we 'll have a much better handle on what kind of questions people want to ask than in any {disfmarker} anything we do before that . But obviously we have to bootstrap somehow , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sure . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I agree . +Postdoc H: I will say that {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} I chose "" interesting "" because I think it includes also "" important "" in some cases . But , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I feel like the summary gets {pause} at a different type of information . +PhD F: I think "" important "" can often be uninteresting . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . And "" interesting "" is more interesting than "" important "" . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} i it puts a lot of burden on the person to {disfmarker} to evaluate . You know , I think inter "" interesting "" is {disfmarker} is non - threatening in {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: In the interest of , um , +Grad G: Importance ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: generati {comment} generating an interesting summary , {comment} um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: No , i in the interest of generating some minutes here , uh , and also moving on to action items and other things , let me just go through the things that I wrote down as being important , um , that we at least decided on . CrossPads we were going to try , um , if Landay can get the , uh {disfmarker} get them to {disfmarker} to you guys , um , and see if they 're interesting . And if they are , then we 'll try to get m do it more . Um , getting electronic summary from a note - taking person if they happen to do it anyway . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , getting {pause} just , uh , digital pictures {disfmarker} a couple digital pictures of the {disfmarker} the table and boards to set the context of the meeting . Uh , and then going around the room at the end to just say {disfmarker} qu ask people to mention something interesting that they learned . So rather than say the most interesting thing , something interesting , +Postdoc H: k +Professor A: and that way you 'll get more variety . +Postdoc H: Sure . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I wouldn't even say that "" that they learned "" . +Postdoc H: That 's good . I like that . I like that . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Uh , you might want to mention something that {disfmarker} that you brought up . +Professor A: "" Thing {pause} that was {pause} discussed . "" And then the last thing c would be for those people who are willing to stay afterwards and give an oral summary . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? Does that pretty much cover everything we talked about ? That {disfmarker} well , that we want to do ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . A And one {disfmarker} and one qualification on {disfmarker} on the oral summaries . They 'd be s they 'd be separate . They wouldn't be hearing each other 's summaries . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Yeah , that 's like {disfmarker} n I think that 's gonna predominantly end up being whoever {pause} takes down the equipment then . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and that would also be that the data would be included in the database . +Grad G: Yeah , that would be , let 's see , me . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I mean , there is still this hope that people might actually think of real queries they really want to ask at some point . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: And that if {disfmarker} if that ever should happen , then we should try and write them down . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Give them a reward , a dollar a query ? +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: If they 're real queries . +Professor A: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , and again , if we can figure out a way to jimmy a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a very rough system , say in a year , then {disfmarker} uh , so that in the second and third years we {disfmarker} we actually have something to {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Play with and generate real queries from . +Professor D: ask queries . +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: So . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I just wanted to say one thing about queries . I mean , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the level of the query could be , you know , very low - level or very high - level . And it gets fuzzier and fuzzier as you go up , right ? +Grad G: Well , we 're gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you need to have some sort of {disfmarker} if you start working with queries , some way of identifying what the {disfmarker} you know , if this is something that requires a {disfmarker} a one - word answer or it 's one place in the recording versus was there general agreement on this issue of all the people who ha +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD B: You know , you can gen you can ask queries that are meaningful for people . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: In fact , they 're very meaningful cuz they 're very high - level . But they won't exist anywhere in the {pause} a you know {disfmarker} +Grad G: Absolutely . So I think we 're gonna have to start with keywords +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and if someone becomes more interested we could work our way up . +Professor D: I I 'm {disfmarker} I I 'm not so sure I agree with that . +PhD B: It {disfmarker} But it may well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Because {disfmarker} uh , b because it depends on , uh , what our goal is . +Grad G: Really ? +Professor D: If our goal is Wizard of Oz - ish , we might want to know what is it that people would really like to know about this data . +Grad G: Oh , that 's true . +Professor D: And if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that we don't know how to do yet , th great , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: that 's , you know , research project for year four or something . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Research , yeah . +Professor D: You know ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , I was thinking about Wizard of Oz , but it requires the wizard to know all about the meetings . +PhD E: We 'd have to listen to all the data . +Professor D: Um , well , not {disfmarker} maybe not true Wizard of Oz +Grad G: So . +Professor D: because people are too +Grad G: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I understand . +Professor D: uh , aware of what 's going on . +PhD E: Well just imagine if {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Get people to ask questions that they def the machine definitely can't answer at the moment , +Professor D: Yeah . w Just "" what would you like to know ? "" +PhD E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} neither could anyone else , though , is what , uh , my point is . +PhD E: Yes . +Postdoc H: I I was wondering if {disfmarker} if there might be one s more source of queries which is indicator phrases like "" action item "" , +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc H: which could be obtained from the text {disfmarker} from the transcript . +Grad G: Right . Since we have the transcript . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Dates maybe . I don't know . That 's something I always forget . +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's something to be determined , something to be specified , +PhD B: Well , probably if you have to sit there at the end of a meeting and say one thing you remember , it 's probably whatever action item was assigned to you . +Postdoc H: but text - oriented . +PhD B: I mean , in gen that 's all I remember from most meetings . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Postdoc H: I think you 'd remember that , yeah . +PhD B: So , in general , I mean , that could be something you could say , right ? I 'm supposed to {pause} do this . It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's true . Well , but then you could {disfmarker} you could prompt them to say , you know , "" other than your action item "" , you know , whatever . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: But {disfmarker} but the action item would be a way to get , uh , maybe an additional query . +PhD B: I mean , that 's realistically what people might {pause} well be remembering . +Postdoc H: So . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , but {disfmarker} you know , but you could get again @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , we 're piloting . We 'll just do it and see what happens . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: I usually don't remember my action items . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . Speaking of action items , can we move on to action items ? +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Sure . Can you hand me my note pad ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . yeah . +Professor A: Um , or maybe we should wait until the summary of this {disfmarker} until this meeting is transcribed and then we will hav +Professor D: We {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . Then we 'll know . +Grad G: Thanks . +Professor D: somewhere up there we had milestones , but I guess {disfmarker} Did y did you get enough milestone , uh , from the description things ? +Professor A: I got {disfmarker} Yeah . In fact , why don't you hand me those transparencies so that I remember to take them . eee , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: And , you know , there 's obviously {pause} detail behind each of those , as much as is needed . So , you just have to {pause} let us know . +Professor A: OK . What I have down for action items is we 're supposed to find out about our human subject , um , {vocalsound} requirements . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor A: Uh , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor A: people are supposed to send me U R for their {disfmarker} for web pages , to c and I 'll put together an overall cover . And you 're s +PhD E: Right . We {disfmarker} +Professor A: Hmm ? +PhD E: we need to look at our web page +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and you also need to look at your web page +PhD E: and make one that 's {disfmarker} that 's p +Professor A: and clean it up by mid - July . +PhD E: PDA - free . +Grad G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Professor A: let 's see . Choo - choo - choo . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mailing lists . +Professor A: Mailing list ? Uh , you need to put together a mailing list . +Professor D: Three of them . +Professor A: Uh , I think w +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: mostly together . +Professor A: uh , I need to email Adam or Jane , um , about getting the data . Who should I email ? +Grad G: Uh , how quickly do you want it ? +Professor A: Um . +Grad G: My July is really very crowded . And so , uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: How about if I just c Uh , Right now all I want {disfmarker} I personally only want text data . I think the only thing Jeff would do anything with right now {disfmarker} But I 'm just speaking fr based on a conversation with him two weeks ago I had in Turkey . But I think all he would want is the digits . Um , but I 'll just speak for myself . I 'm interested in getting the language model data . Eh , so I 'm just interested in getting transcriptions . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So then just email you ? +Postdoc H: OK . So y Sure , sure , sure . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Wh +Postdoc H: You could email to both of us , uh , just {disfmarker} I mean , if you wanted to . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: I mean , I don't think either of us would mind recei +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: i +Grad G: That 's right . +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} but in any case I 'd be happy to send you the {disfmarker} +Professor A: And your email is ? +Professor D: i +Postdoc H: Edwards at ICSI . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: w +Grad G: Dot Berkeley dot EDU , of course . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in our phone call , uh , before , we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} It turns out the way we 're gonna send the data is by , uh , And , uh {disfmarker} and then what they 're gonna do is take the CD - ROM and transfer it to analog tape and {vocalsound} give it to a transcription service , uh , that will {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , is this IBM ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah , using foot pedals +Professor D: Yeah , foot {disfmarker} foot pedals +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , so do they {disfmarker} How are they gonna do the multi - channel ? +Professor D: See , that 's a good question . +Postdoc H: Yeah . They {disfmarker} they don't have a way . +Grad G: I thought so . +Professor D: No , I mean , it 'll be +Postdoc H: But they have a verification . +Professor D: probably about like you did , +Grad G: Mix ? +Professor D: and then there will be some things {disfmarker} you know , many things that don't work out well . And that 'll go back to IBM and they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll , uh {disfmarker} they run their aligner on it and it kicks out things that don't work well , which {disfmarker} you know , the overlaps will certainly be examples of that . And , uh {disfmarker} I mean , what w we will give them all of it . Right ? +Grad G: OK . That 's , uh , my question . +Professor D: We 'll give them all the {disfmarker} the multi - channel stuff +Grad G: So we 'll give them all sixteen channels +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: and they 'll do whatever they want with it . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But you also should probably give them the mixed {disfmarker} You know , equal sound - level {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Good idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , they 're not gonna easily be able to do that , probably . +Grad G: It 's not hard . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Grad G: So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's also won't be adding much to the data to give them the mixed . +PhD F: But w +PhD B: I +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . It doesn't {disfmarker} it isn't difficult for us to do , +Grad G: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD B: i You should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: so we might as well just do it . +PhD B: You should {disfmarker} that may be all that they want to send off to their {pause} transcribers . +Grad G: Absolutely . So , sure . +Professor A: OK . Related to {disfmarker} to the conversation with Picheny , I need to email him , uh , my shipping address and you need to email them something which you already did . +Postdoc H: I did . I {disfmarker} I m emailed them the Transcriber URL , um , the on - line , uh , data that Adam set up , The URL so they can click on an utterance and hear it . and I emailed them the str streamlined conventions which you got a copy of today . +Professor D: Right . And I was gonna m email them the {disfmarker} which I haven't yet , a pointer to {disfmarker} to the web pages that we {disfmarker} that we currently have , cuz in particular they want to see the one with the {disfmarker} the way the recording room is set up +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: and so on , your {disfmarker} your page on that . +Postdoc H: Oh , excellent . Good . +Grad G: And then p possibly {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I C - I CC ' ed Morgan . I should have sent {disfmarker} I should have CC ' ed you as well . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Not an immediate action item but something we do have to worry about is data formats for {disfmarker} for higher - level information . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Oh , yeah . We were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , or d or not even higher level , different level , prosody and all that sort of stuff . We 're gonna have to figure out how we 're gonna annotate that . +Professor A: Yeah . We never had our data format discussion . +Professor D: Yeah , we w Right . +Postdoc H: Oh , I thought we did . We discussed , uh , musi musical score notation +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad G: But that 's not {disfmarker} That 's display . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and its XML {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's different than format . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: W My {disfmarker} my u feeling right now on format is you guys have been doing all the work +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Professor A: and whatever you want , we 're happy to live with . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Postdoc H: OK , excellent . +Professor A: other people may not agree with that , +Professor D: OK . So , what n important thing {disfmarker} +Professor A: but {disfmarker} Cuz I 'm not actually touching the data , +Postdoc H: Well , it c +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: so I shouldn't be the one to talk . But {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I think that 's fine . +Professor D: So a key thing will be that you {disfmarker} we tell you +Postdoc H: Great . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: what it is . Uh , we also had {disfmarker} +PhD F: "" Here 's a mysterious file +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} "" +Professor D: We also had the , uh , uh {disfmarker} that we were s uh , that you were gonna get us the eight - hundred number +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: and we 're all gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna call up your Communicator thing and {disfmarker} and we 're gonna be good slash bad , depending on how you define it , uh , users . +Professor C: Now , something that I mentioned earlier to Mari and Liz is that it 's probably important to get as many non - technical and non - speech people as possible in order to get some realistic users . So if you could ask other people to call and use our system , that 'd be good . Cuz we don't want people who already know how to deal with dialogue systems , +Professor A: Yeah . Or , {vocalsound} like if you have a {disfmarker} +Professor C: who know that you shouldn't hyper - articulate , for instance , and things like that . +Professor A: Or , like if you have somebody who makes your {disfmarker} your plane reservations for you , +Professor C: So . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: um , which is +Professor D: Yeah , we can do that . +Professor A: the n +Grad G: Get my parents to do it . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Seriously . +Professor C: Yeah , for instance . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: Your grandmother . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . e You know , it could {pause} result in some good bloopers , which is always good for presentations . So {disfmarker} Um , anyway {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think my father would last through the second prompt before he hang {disfmarker} hung up . +Professor A: Mmm . +Professor D: My mother would have a very interesting conversation with it +Grad G: He would never use it . +Professor D: but it wouldn't have anything to do with the travel . +Professor A: OK . Um , other {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: Let 's see , other action items . So I have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: We talked about that we 're getting the recording equipment running at UW . And so it depends , w e e e they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're p m If that comes together within the next month , there at least will be , uh , uh , major communications between Dan and {vocalsound} UW folks +PhD E: Yeah . I mean , +Professor A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm shooting to try to get it done {disfmarker} get it put together by {pause} the beginning of August . +Professor D: as to {disfmarker} +PhD E: we should talk about it , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mmm . +Professor A: So , um , you know , if +Professor D: But we have {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} We don't know . I mean , he {disfmarker} he s uh , he said that it was sitting in some room collecting dust +Professor A: We don't know . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and so we don't know , +Professor A: i It 's probably unlikely that we 'll pull this off , +Professor D: i e +Professor A: but a at least it 's worth trying . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . What is it ? +Professor D: We don't know . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Professor D: "" Recording equipment . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: It 's a tape recorder . +Professor D: W We know it 's eight channels . Uh , we know it 's digital . +Grad G: It 's eight tape recorders . +Professor D: We don't even know if there 're microphones . So , we 'll find out . +Professor A: OK . Um , and I will email these notes {disfmarker} Um , I 'm not sure what to do about action items for the data stuff , although , then somebody {disfmarker} I guess somebody needs to tell Landay that you want the pads . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . I 'll do that . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Um , and he also said something about outside {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} that came up about the outside text sources , that he {disfmarker} he may have +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh ! +Professor D: some text sources that are close enough to the sort of thing that we can play with them for a language model . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , that was {disfmarker} uh , that was {disfmarker} What he was saying was this {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} this thing that , uh , Jason had been working on finds web pages that are thematically related to what you 're talking about . Well , that 's the idea . So that that {disfmarker} that would be a source of text which is {disfmarker} supposedly got the right vocabulary . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: But it 's obviously very different material . It 's not spoken material , for instance , +Professor D: Yeah . But it 's p it might be {disfmarker} +PhD E: so {disfmarker} +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but that 's actually what I wanna do . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I wanna work with , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: is {disfmarker} is things that s the wrong material but the right da the right source . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Un - unfortunately Landay told me that Jason is not gonna be working on that anymore . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: He 's switching to other stuff again . +Professor A: Yeah . He seemed {disfmarker} when I asked him if he could actually supply data , he seemed a little bit more reluctant . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send him email . I 'll put it in an action item that I send him email about it . And if I get something , great . If I don't get something {disfmarker} +Grad G: Who ? Landay or Jason ? +Professor A: Landay . And , uh , um , +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Professor A: you know , otherwise , if you guys have any papers or {disfmarker} I could {disfmarker} I could use , uh {disfmarker} I could use your web pages . That 's what we could do . You 've got all the web pages on the Meeting Recor +Professor D: Yeah , why search for them ? +Professor A: Yeah ! +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} we know where they are . +Grad G: True . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad G: Absolutely . +Professor A: Oh , forget this ! +PhD E: Sure . +Grad G: Well , but that 's not very much . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} One less action item . I can use what web pages there are out there on meeting recorders . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Right . +Grad G: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Basically what his software does is h it picks out keywords and does a Google - like search . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can do better than that . +PhD E: We can do that . Yeah . +Grad G: So you could {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , Carnegie Mellon stuff , right ? On {disfmarker} on meeting recording , +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: And Xerox . +Professor A: So , there 's {disfmarker} there 's ICSI , Xerox , +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} You should l look under , like , intelligent environments , +Professor D: And Xerox . Yeah . +PhD B: smart rooms , +Grad G: Um , the "" Georgia Tech Classroom Two Thousand "" is a good one . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Professor A: CMU , +PhD B: Right . And then {disfmarker} Right . J There 's {disfmarker} th That 's where I thought you would want to eventually be able to have a board or a camera , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because of all these classroom {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , Georgia Tech did a very elaborate instrumented room . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: And I want to try to stay away from that . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . Great . That solves that problem . One less action item . Um {disfmarker} OK . I think that 's good enou that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much all I can think of . +Postdoc H: Can I ask , uh , one thing ? It relates to data {disfmarker} data collection and I {disfmarker} and I 'd {disfmarker} and we mentioned earlier today , this question of {disfmarker} um , so , um , I s I know that from {disfmarker} with the near - field mikes some of the problems that come with overlapping speech , uh , are lessened . But I wonder if {disfmarker} Uh , is that sufficient or should we consider maybe getting some data gathered in such a way that , um , u w we would c uh , p have a meeting with less overlap than would otherwise be the case ? So either by rules of participation , or whatever . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Postdoc H: Now , I mean , you know , it 's true , I mean , we were discussing this earlier , that depending on the task {disfmarker} so if you 've got someone giving a report you 're not gonna have as much overlap . +PhD F: Adam ! +Postdoc H: But , um , i i uh , so we 're gonna have s you know , non - overlapping samples anyway . But , um , in a meeting which would otherwise be highly overlapping , is the near - field mike enough or should we have some rules of participation for some of our samples to lessen the overlap ? +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: turn off +Professor A: I don't think we should have rules of participation , but I think we should try to {pause} get a variety of meetings . That 's something that if we get the {disfmarker} the meeting stuff going at UW , that I probably can do more than you guys , +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: cuz you guys are probably mostly going to get ICSI people here . But we can get anybody in EE , uh , over {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and possibly also some CS people , uh , over at UW . So , I think that {disfmarker} that there 's a good chance we could get more variety . +Postdoc H: OK . Just want to be sure there 's enough data to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Um , +PhD B: They 're still gonna overlap , +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} Mark and others have said that there 's quite a lot of found data {comment} from the discourse community that has this characteristic and also the political {disfmarker} Y you know , anything that was televised for a third party has the characteristic of not very much overlap . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Wasn - but w I think we were saying before also that the natural language group here had less overlap . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: So it also depends on the style of the group of people . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Like the , um , dominance relations of the people in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . On the task , and the task . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's just {disfmarker} I just wanted to {disfmarker} uh , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: because you know , it is true people can modify the amount of overlap that they do if {disfmarker} if they 're asked to . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Not {disfmarker} not entirely modify it , but lessen it if {disfmarker} if it 's desired . But if {disfmarker} if that 's sufficient data {disfmarker} I just wanted to be sure that we will not be having a lot of data which can't be processed . +Professor A: OK . So I 'm just writing here , we 're not gonna try to specify rules of interaction but we 're gonna try to get more variety by i using different {pause} groups of people +Postdoc H: Time . +Professor A: and different sizes . +Postdoc H: Fine . And I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I know that the near f near - field mikes will take care of also the problems to s to a certain degree . +Professor A: e e Yeah . And then the other thing might be , um , uh , technical versus administrative . +Postdoc H: I just wanted to be sure . +Professor A: Cuz if I recorded some administrative meetings then that may have less overlap , because you might have more overlap when you 're doing something technical and disagreeing or whatever . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Well , I {disfmarker} just as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as a contributary {disfmarker} eh , so I {disfmarker} I know that in l in legal depositions people are pr are prevented from overlapping . They 'll just say , you know {disfmarker} you know , "" wait till each person is finished before you say something "" . So it is possible to lessen if we wanted to . But {disfmarker} but these other factors are fine . I just wanted to raise the issue . +Professor A: Well , the reason why I didn't want to is be why I personally didn't want to {comment} is because I wanted it to be {pause} as , uh , unintrusive as possi +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: as you could be with these things hanging on you . +Postdoc H: Oh , yeah . Yeah , I think that 's always desired . I just want to be sure we don't {disfmarker} that we 're able to process , i u uh , you know , as much data as we can . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Did they discuss any of that in the {disfmarker} the meeting they had with L Liberman ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there was a big division , +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} +PhD B: so Liberman and others {pause} were interested in a lot of found data . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So there 's lots of recordings that {disfmarker} They 're not close - talk mike , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and there 's lots of television , you know , stuff on , um , political debates and things like that , congre congressional hearings . Boring stuff like that . Um , and then the CMU folks and I were sort of on the other side in {disfmarker} cuz they had collected a lot of meetings that were sort of like this and said that those are nothing like these meetings . Um , so there 're really two different kinds of data . And , I guess we just left it as {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that {pause} if there 's found data that can be transformed for use in speech recognition easily , then of course we would do it , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but newly collected data would {disfmarker} would be natural meetings . So . +Professor D: Actually , th @ @ {comment} the CMU folk have collected a lot of data . Is that {disfmarker} is that going to be publicly available , +PhD B: As far as I know , they h have not . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Um , but e +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: It 's also {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not near - far , right ? +PhD B: I 'm not sure . Um , if people were interested they could talk to them , but I {disfmarker} I got the feeling there was some politics involved . +Grad G: I think @ @ gonna add that to one of my action items . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: Just to check . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . W we should know what 's out there certainly . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz I had thought they 'd only done far - field , +PhD B: I think you need to talk to Waibel and {disfmarker} +Grad G: intelligent - room sorts of things . +PhD E: Oh , really ? It 's those guys . +Grad G: I hadn't known that then {disfmarker} they 'd done any more than that . +Professor D: Oh , they only did the far - field ? I see . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: But they had multiple mikes and they did do recognition , and they did do real conversations . But as far as I know they didn't offer that data to the community at this meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But that could change cuz Mark {disfmarker} you know , Mark 's really into this . We should keep in touch with him . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , once we send out {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , we still haven't sent out the first note saying "" hey , this list exists "" . But {disfmarker} but , uh , once we do that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is that an action item ? +Professor D: Yeah . It 's on {disfmarker} I already added that one on my board to do that . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , hopefully everybody here is on that list . We should at least check that everybody here {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: I think everyone here is on the list . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: I 'm not . +Postdoc H: u e e +Grad G: I think you are . +Professor D: We haven't sent anything to the list yet . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: We 're just compiling the list . +PhD F: I see . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I added a few people who didn't {disfmarker} who I knew had to be on it even though they didn't tell me . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Who specifically ask not to be . +Grad G: Like Jane , for example . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: You are on it , aren't you ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I am . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: So , I w uh , just {disfmarker} just for clarification . So "" found data "" , they mean like established corpora of linguistics and {disfmarker} and other fields , right ? +PhD B: What they mean is stuff they don't have to fund to collect , +Postdoc H: It sounds like such a t +PhD B: and especially good {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: Well , I mean , "" found "" has , uh , also the meaning that 's it very natural . It 's things occur without any {disfmarker} You know , the pe these people weren't wearing close - talking mikes , but they were recorded anyway , like the congressional hearings and , you know , for legal purposes or whatever . +Postdoc H: OK . But it includes like standard corpora that have been used for years in linguistics and {pause} other fields . +PhD B: Mark 's aware of those , too . +PhD E: "" Hey , look what we found ! "" +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD B: That would be found data because they found it {vocalsound} and it exists . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +PhD E: "" I found this great corpora . "" Yeah . +PhD B: They didn't have to collect it . Of course it 's not "" found "" in the sense that at the time it was collected for the purpose . +Grad G: "" Psst . {comment} Want to buy a corpora ? "" +Postdoc H: Yeah . OK , OK . +PhD B: But what he means is that {disfmarker} You know , Mark was really a fan of getting as much data as possible from {disfmarker} you know , reams and reams of stuff , of broadcast stuff , +Postdoc H: That 's interesting . +PhD B: web stuff , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: TV stuff , radio stuff . But he well understands that that 's very different than these {disfmarker} this type of meeting . +Grad G: It 's not the same . +PhD B: But , so what ? It 's still {disfmarker} it 's interesting for other reasons . +Postdoc H: OK . Yeah . Just wanted to know . +Professor D: So , seems like we 're winding down . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Many {pause} ways . +PhD B: You can {pause} tell {pause} by the {pause} prosody . +PhD E: So we should go {disfmarker} go around and s +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We should go around and say something interesting that happened at the meeting ? +Professor A: Oh . Yes , we should do that . +PhD B: Rrrh ! +Grad G: Now , I was already thinking about it , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! Good man . +PhD B: This is painful task . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad G: So , um , I really liked the idea of {disfmarker} what I thought was interesting was the combination of the CrossPad and the speech . Especially , um , the interaction of them rather than just note - taking . So , can you {pause} determine the interesting points by who 's writing ? Can you do special gestures and so on that {disfmarker} that have , uh , special meaning to the corpora ? I really liked that . +Postdoc H: Well , I {disfmarker} I just realized there 's another category of interesting things which is that , um , I {disfmarker} I found this discussion very , uh , i this {disfmarker} this question of how you get at queries really interesting . And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and the fact that it 's sort of , uh , nebulous , what {disfmarker} what that {disfmarker} what kind of query it would be because it depends on what your purpose is . So I actually found that whole process of {disfmarker} of trying to think of what that would involve to be interesting . But that 's not really a specific fact . I just sort of thought we {disfmarker} we went around a nice discussion of the factors involved there , which I thought was worthwhile . +PhD E: I had a real revelation about taking pictures . I don't know why I didn't do this before and I regret it . So that was very interesting for me . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Did you take pictures of the boards ? +PhD E: Not that I {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD E: The boards aren't really related to this meeting . I mean , I will take pictures of them , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a good point . +Professor A: They 're related to this morning 's meeting . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: To the pre previous meeting . That 's right . +PhD E: OK . Well , that 's why I 'll take pictures of them , then . +PhD F: I 'm gonna pass because I can't {disfmarker} I mean , of the {disfmarker} Jane took my answer . +Grad G: Ah ! +PhD F: So . +Postdoc H: Oh . +PhD F: Um , so I 'm gonna pass for the moment but y come {disfmarker} come back to me . +PhD E: For the moment . +PhD B: Pass . +Professor A: I think {disfmarker} I think "" pass "" is socially acceptable . But I will say {disfmarker} uh , I will actually {disfmarker} uh , a spin on different {disfmarker} slightly different spin on what you said , this issue of , uh , realizing that we could take minutes , and that actually may be a goal . So that {disfmarker} that may be kind of the test {disfmarker} in a sense , test data , uh , the {disfmarker} the template of what we want to test against , generating a summary . So that 's an interesting new twist on what we can do with this data . +Professor C: I agree with Jane and Eric . I think the question of how to generate queries automatically was the most interesting question that came up , and it 's something that , as you said , is a whole research topic in itself , so I don't think we 'll be able to do anything on it because we don't have funding on it , uh , in this project . But , um , {vocalsound} it 's definitely something I would {pause} want to do something on . +Grad G: I wonder if work 's already been done on it . +Postdoc H: Like e expert systems and stuff , +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: or {disfmarker} ? Uh - huh . +Professor D: Well , being more management lately than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} than research , I think the thing that impressed me most was the people dynamics and not any of the facts . That is , I {disfmarker} I really enjoyed hanging out with this group of people today . So that 's what really impressed me . +PhD E: How are we gonna find that in the data ? +Grad G: Well , if we had people wearing the wireless mikes all the time {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I mean , one thing you could search for is were people laughing a lot . +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: Right ? So . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: How happy were they ? +Professor D: I 'd probably search for something like that . +Grad G: That actually has come up a couple times in queries . I was talking to Landay +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that was one of his examples . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: When {disfmarker} when did people laugh ? +PhD E: That 's great . +Professor D: Find me a funny thing that Jeff said . Yeah . +Grad G: So we need a laugh detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Perfect . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz that seems to be pretty common . Not in the congressional hearings . +PhD F: No . +Grad G: Quiet sobbing . +Professor D: So I think we 're done . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: Great . +PhD E: Great . +PhD F: OK . +Grad G: I think we 're done . +Professor D: Great . +Postdoc H: h Do we need {disfmarker} do I need to turn something off here , or I do unplug this , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Now these we turn off . Right ? +","Summary: + +The conversation begins with discussions about the discomfort of headphones, lighthearted comments regarding sipping cappuccinos, and teasing PhD B about their consumption habits being known. Grad G mentions not yet understanding something, followed by talk of starting the recording and capturing meeting data, including whether to introduce participants and use written digits for activities. They consider technical aspects of mic positioning and room setup for accurate audio capture. + +The group shifts to discussing how to better record meeting data, the applicability of the CrossPad tech for note-taking, and challenges with generating query data for the project. They joke about roll-call with pseudo-names and organizing the room technology. There's also concern about recording protocols for things like ""Jimlets,"" which outsiders may not understand, and the necessity for clear jargon transcription. They further discuss the importance of capturing interactions, such as notes taken during meetings, both digitally and physically, for richer data collection. + +Action items and tasks are deliberated, such as the feasibility of using video data capture alongside audio. Some attendees show reservations about being videotaped. The conversation ends with attendees discussing action items, future planning for the collection of data, equipment setups, and human subject requirements. They plan on sending data to IBM for transcription and analyzing various sources for linguistics data. They mention creating a variety of meetings to capture diverse data and contemplate the methods to elicit natural and useful queries from the meetings. Finally, they reflect on personal takeaways from the meeting and conclude their session." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh it fell off . One , two , three , four , yeah , we're ready . Okay . Welcome to this second meeting . Um it's now quarter after twelve and we're given forty minutes um for this meeting . This is a meeting on functional design . Um and I wanna welcome you all and thank you all for doing some research in between . Um I did {disfmarker} took the minutes from the first meeting and I'll show them to you in a moment . Um I know each of you have a presentation and um in thinking about the forty minutes , I thought it would take only like three minutes for the previous minutes , um each of you having about seven minutes or maybe a little more , maybe a little less for your pre presentations and a little discussion , because there's {disfmarker} I happen to have been told there were some new project requirements and we have to make some uh decision on what functions it will have . Okay ? Is this ap everybody agree with this ? +Industrial Designer: Oops . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and after the meeting there'll be things to be done and as you can see it says we get to get lunch , um and then some more individual work and then putting minutes away and individual actions . {vocalsound} Um but uh now for the minutes of the first meeting . And go to that one . Um as you can see it was this earlier today . Um Kate , Steph , Sarah and myself in our four capacities were present . I opened the meeting , the product was developed uh and reviewed , and we talked about the financial end of it . Um and it had some implications , um the four million sales target and new ideas of not too many buttons , bright colours and some of the influence of the Japanese . And we closed early so you could then proceed with your research and getting your reports together for tod this meeting {vocalsound} Anybody have any questions on those minutes ? Are they complete , did they discuss everything that we covered last time ? 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think so , +Project Manager: Did I miss something ? +Industrial Designer: we we we talked about the the individual roles that we each had as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm afraid I incorporated {vocalsound} that when I said who was present , but {disfmarker} yes , we did , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: and we did a little bit of uh team building of uh of making the pictures , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I accept the minutes . +Project Manager: but I didn't think those were appropriate to the minutes necessarily . So um as a group I think we've {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} they're accepting the minutes . And uh {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Is that what we're supposed to say ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I do . +Project Manager: Good . Um , then we'll move to the three presentations . Okay ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm we need to move this . Who wants to go f first ? {vocalsound} That's as far as it goes . +User Interface: Uh not really meant to touch those microphones . Oh it doesn't have any on , does it ? That's fine . +Marketing: Excellent , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Oy , big loop under the table . +Project Manager: She said we didn't need to screw it in . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , that looks good . +Project Manager: It's doing its thing . There we are . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you very much . Um . One of the the biggest issues I found about um from last meeting was the fact that we need to sell four million of these um remote controls and I think that this is an opportunity to really take Real Reaction in the direction of of similar {disfmarker} of handheld tools that have been used and are used by many of us and to kind of bring the remote control into the si same realm as an accessible um useful electronic device , as opposed to something that is lost in the couch and what have you . So um my main goal here is to re-envision the remote control in in this context and to think about menu functionality and current technology and the fact that it could be interactive with other tools . Um some of the research uh in the market has shown that people really are not happy with remote controls as they are now , and um that means we do need to make some decisions about what what keys or or buttons on the on the remote control to perhaps keep and and what ones to discard . And if we devote some energy into this , I think the um recent productions of Real Reaction , the I go everywhere power and the high definition D_V_D_ players {disfmarker} although it makes immediate sense to {vocalsound} have our remote control interact with these , I think we can also use this as a platform to make it interact with other tools . And um in fact I think the high definition D_V_D_ players and all of this will come along in the uh {disfmarker} will only benefit from the positive feedback {vocalsound} from our well designed tool . So again , most uh users really dislike the current look and feel of remote controls . Um {vocalsound} fifty percent {disfmarker} I think of all these uh numbers the most important is fifty percent of user say they only use ten percent of the buttons . And eighty percent of users , and if we think about this {vocalsound} there are a lot of uh television , D_V_D_ , stereo remote control users out there , eighty percent would spend more money on a remote control that looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} can I ask where these figures come from , is this market research we've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um it was market research and there were a hundred people in the room , so eighty out of a hundred said they would spend more money . +Project Manager: Now in between , as the Project Manager , they sent me an email from the powers that be +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um that teletext is outdated um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the internet is coming in as important , but that they want this remote control to only be for T_V_ um with incorporating the corporate image , colour and slogan . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Well I think we can {disfmarker} I I think we can really focus on this remote and and again bring the Real Reaction um brand in in and and get some positive marketing for our other tools , even if we directly don't um advertise {vocalsound} for the I go everywhere line . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So an interesting um element was the would you pay more for speech recognition question . So these market research uh uh questionnaires {vocalsound} looked into your your uh concern about technology +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and s specifically wanted to find out information about speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now the early adopters , those of us who grew up with technology and uh luck lucky for us have the uh cash to to pay for it , the young age group without the mortgages and responsibilities , ninety one percent of them {vocalsound} would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Very interesting , I I leave this up to the group to decide if we wanna use this uh if {disfmarker} and you know , the the designers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but ninety one percent , fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a large enough target market to target it ? +Marketing: Well , I I I think {disfmarker} especially in terms of growth , I think this would be a very smart group to target . I mean s three quarters of the next age group , twenty five to thirty five are interested , and uh with the technologies improving , if we can get these uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In real numbers , does the ninety one percent and the seventy six percent translate to ex in excess of the four million ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . To {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um yes . +Project Manager: Or eight million . +Marketing: Yes . But would you pay more and does it work and is it approachable and and did I know that it was it was an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: that's a that's a very good question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if speech recognition should be um should be included , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but I think it's an interesting {disfmarker} I think that maybe shows more about uh being open to technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it definitely needs uh a lot more research +Marketing: Shall I go back ? +User Interface: on like how much more it would be and any , you know , existing examples , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and what reactions to them have been , and that sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How d I'm wondering how how ou how our target price compares with the the typical price of these things . I expect an Industrial Designer should know that , but if we're aiming to to build this thing for twelve Euros fifty , um is that a lot or a little ? +Marketing: Exactly . I mean I I I uh did not receive any information on that , but I think the competition , sussing out what other people are doing and what's in the pipeline is very very important , because um there is a question about do you want an L_C_D_ screen and and that wasn't responded to , but uh some of the larger remotes do have screens where you can navigate , you know , so it turns into something {disfmarker} uh perhaps you all have seen uh the Osbournes where Ozzy Osbourne is is attempting to manage his super entertainment system with something that looks like a uh a small tray . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh surely he's in the wrong age group . +Marketing: You know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} I a and I think , you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He must be w one of a s small population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you {disfmarker} Kate , you're exactly right there . {vocalsound} But I think the key is to get the early adopters , people who are familiar with technology and and uh they'll be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we're not looking at whether they're early adopters on that screen , +Marketing: Uh , mm . +Project Manager: that's looking at age groups . +Marketing: Exactly . I {vocalsound} yes , and I'm making and I'm making the the uh uh leap that people who are familiar {disfmarker} younger people are l are more familiar with technology than than older people . Or comfortable , +Project Manager: Leap . {vocalsound} Hmm . Mm . +Marketing: you know , um so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , you had the other power channel . +Marketing: I think the most important thing is an attractive streamlined remote control and to be extraordinarily reductionist , power , channel , volume and everything else is is uh up to the designers . {vocalsound} And this is this is also supported by the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . That's my contribution . +Project Manager: Alright . And we'll turn to the next presentation . I think she said we don't need to screw it in , just stick it in . And then press , what ? F F_N_ and F_ eight . Next to the control button on the bottom , and then F_ eight at the top . +User Interface: Yeah , press them . +Project Manager: And then w be patient . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , here we go . +Project Manager: Tada . +Industrial Designer: And if you want it to go into slide show mode , it's that little button there . +User Interface: Can I not just uh do each one in order ? +Industrial Designer: I you can if you like , it it {disfmarker} that that just sets it up to do a p a p +Project Manager: There we are . Yay . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: no that one , that one there . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: Left , left a bit , left a bit , that one , yep . +User Interface: That ? Right , technical functions design . Uh well I think first off , basically I do agree with what Sarah has defined as as uh your personal preferences,yeah . I think we need uh a more streamlined volume with no extraneous functions . So my method was to look at the existing remotes and what functions they have . And what we all need to discuss is whether we want these functions uh pretty much the same as what existing remotes have . If we can build on this with the speech recognition , that's not something I'd thought about at all , but it's also something we can discuss . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and and I presume we can miss out the functions really to to a video or D_V_D_ remote control , if this is only gonna be a , you know , satellite , cable , T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: T_V_ only . +User Interface: So these are two models of existing remote controls . Uh the one on the left seems to be a fairly uh standard universal remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ugh . +User Interface: It has fast-forward , stop , play , all relating to movies . It also has {disfmarker} seems to have channel up and channel down , which is which is more what you'd expect from a , you know , like a Sky or cable remote control +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: where you've got hundreds of channels instead of a merely terrestrial one . Uh but I think we should be looking more along the lines of the one on the right , which has {disfmarker} it also has play , stop and pause and everything , I don't think we need them at all . I think we just need channel selection , volume up , volume down and I think an an enter function where you can access {disfmarker} it's not like teletext , but along the same lines , access things on the screen . Uh not related to the internet one that you mentioned , because that'd be far outside our budget and what we want this to do . +Project Manager: Mm . And exceed the requirements they're expecting of us . +User Interface: So it really exceed the requirements , 'cause the requirements really are just {disfmarker} want to be able to change channels and functions , which is more a text on the screen thing than uh than actual buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: o I was thinking something {disfmarker} some smooth , sleek , little remote control with big user-friendly buttons and uh a menu that you can access . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Uh but then I do think we need to discuss the speech um recognition possibility . +Project Manager: Okay . Any uh thing else you wanna add ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But we could go back to the pictures of the {disfmarker} uh , what're they called ? The pictures of the remote controls and possibly discuss what we think about them , +Marketing: Or if {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} maybe should hear what Kate has to say first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's hear what Kate has to say . +User Interface: Okay then . +Marketing: Maybe afterwards we could do a uh whiteboard with that {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the one on the right as a as a basis . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Whiteboard session . +Project Manager: I think the white {disfmarker} that one on the right is , as well as less cluttered , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Definitely less cluttered and {disfmarker} I mean but still it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's there +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: I was just {disfmarker} I'll just uh resume something else I was gonna say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The the style of these is terrible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I I really think we need to uh not only possibly even materials , like the type of plastic used , but everything including size and shape of buttons , positioning of buttons , the actual shape of the hand-held device , colours , just every e yeah , everything to do with this has to be revolutionised . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The ergonomics , the way it fits in your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's that for now . +Industrial Designer: Cheers . Mm , I haven't actually got a display on my screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Still , I'll do without that . Okay um , now I wanna bring us down to earth again I'm afraid and talk about the actual practicalities of how the thing needs to work . {vocalsound} Um oh and this is the methodology I used in preparing for this meeting . Um basically I've been doing a little bit of web-based research , {vocalsound} and if I had a design team , I would've been discussing my ideas with 'em . But the the net result is that I've come up with a first cut for the working design that I'd like to discuss with you . So , let's go back to what the basic function of a remote control is . It's for sending a message , um typically um via infrared . {vocalsound} And the the basic components we've got to build in for our twelve Euros fifty are um an energy source , the user interface and {disfmarker} which will um in incorporate um an integrated circuit that actually composes the message um based on what the {disfmarker} which buttons the user presses , we turn that into a message , um and then we need a sending mechanism to send it to the receiver . Now I would have hoped {disfmarker} I think that's my only slide actually , yeah . I would have have hoped to um do you a pretty PowerPoint slide of um my first cut design , but unfortunately the technology defeated me , so if you'll bear with me I'll do it on the whiteboard . {vocalsound} So we want an energy source which is there . And we've got to think about what that might be . +Project Manager: Hmm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh we obviously don't want wires on this thing . Uh typically it would be a battery , but I'm open to suggestions . {vocalsound} Um and then we have the the user interface . Oops . And the main components in there are the the th the chip that actually has the intelligence of the machine that translates button presses into a message , which it then transfers to some sending mechanism , which encodes it and sends the message to the receiver . So those are the basic things that we've got to get in for our twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Right . But those things {disfmarker} as long as we can get those components , the block , that that rectangle for the user interface , is where the user comes in of {disfmarker} what what does it look like ? What do the buttons look like ? Uh what does it feel like ? That's where the user interface is really coming into its own . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The technical end is what's actually gonna be in there , but also it has to be easy enough to change or repair if something goes wrong . For example the battery energy source or um what if the chip , for whatever reason , breaks down after a certain amount of time , do you just replace it ? Um is there any um {disfmarker} because it may be in the same area with several other user interfaces , like for D_V_D_s , movies , whatever . Um does it have to have a a way of being segregated from the others , in a different frequency or something ? +Industrial Designer: Well I may be wrong here , but I'd been thinking of this device as being a a cheap mass-produced device . We're trying to sell four million of 'em , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: um that's that's , you know , that's almost one in every tenth household or whatever it is . Um and I hadn't thought of it as being a reparable thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: you just {disfmarker} if it goes wrong you chuck it out , and that's why I'm a bit concerned . I like the idea of speech recognition , that's a great idea , but I'm not convinced we can put it into this box for the price that we need {disfmarker} gonna need to hit . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Whoop . +Marketing: Do we have um ki some idea of how much it would cost to create a device that has these basic elements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Isn't that your job ? +Marketing: Because then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: the chip composer marketing . Oh no , the chip composer sender . +Project Manager: Mm . What they cost . +Industrial Designer: Um , I'm I'm I'm hoping that my personal coach is gonna {vocalsound} give me some advice on that , if you're asking me , +Marketing: I I don't believe I know , um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Be because then we would ha ha figure out how much we had to play with in terms of user interface and this look and feel idea . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does it does seem as if we're just to do something really simple and mass-produced , the {disfmarker} which is pretty much the same as these existing models , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: just maybe a little bit more inspired , +Marketing: Inspired ? +User Interface: but basically just the same . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Although what what uh suddenly came into my head is , you know how they always take two A_A_ batteries which which is really not very efficient at all . Could it be possible to have uh , you know , like a rechargeable internal battery , like , well , like an M_P_ three player does ? With that you could jus or a mobile phone or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could {disfmarker} you know , you just plug into a power source for a couple of hours , and then it's recharged for ages and ages and ages , and you don't have to worry with replacing A_A_ batteries , +Marketing: Well +User Interface: which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: that has another element , which is if every time you're done using the remote you put it on a charger , then you {disfmarker} then it has a place . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You'd never need uh batteries would y uh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but it also has a place , +User Interface: And it's not stuck down the back of the sofa . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then again I d I don't know if this is within our price range or not . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh think that's a very interesting idea , but um I'm not a very good industrial designer and I don't know much about what these things cost . {vocalsound} I'll do some research for the next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's better than my idea about solar , probably . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well solar may not be so good when you're watching T_V_ in the night , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well it is just so annoying how {disfmarker} +Marketing: Depen +Project Manager: It would have to sor store up the energy +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess . +Project Manager: and then use it . Solar can do that . +Industrial Designer: We may be talking quite heavy then . +Project Manager: M yeah , that would be too heavy +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'd cost too much . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , but just a rechargeable internal battery would probably {disfmarker} I mean it might cost more to {disfmarker} at first to develop and to install , +Marketing: Mm-hmm +User Interface: but for long-term use it'll be so much more convenient and economic than fiddling around trying to replace chunky A_A_ batteries and not having any in your kitchen drawer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and +Industrial Designer: So do you think we might make that a selling point if it was something that we found we could afford to develop ? +User Interface: you know f +Marketing: Definitely , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause I'm thinking in terms of um uh {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} loss and breakage of um remotes , how much of that is is to do with it not really having a uh a home , a um a nest , a place to live , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Sort of have its little dock that you could put it in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if you can dock it , um you know , you could s argue that this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the dock could look very fancy and that could be your inspiration of having it looking decent . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Still I don't know if it's quite within our price range . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause you are talking about another component , like another piece of hardware . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are we agreed as to what our target group is though ? Pretty much , so that we'd be looking for the younger end . +Marketing: Well I I brought up some {disfmarker} exactly , but I think you raised some good questions about are there enough of these people out there , or are they making purchasing decisions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: You know , +Industrial Designer: I was wondering that , +Marketing: these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I ag I agree that there there're people with uh how can I put it , more money than sense and who are liable to buy {vocalsound} something new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I s usually put more money than brains . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Bu but what I was gonna say was , although they they may be buying um , you know , personal music devices and all that , +Marketing: Oh oh oh I'll make a note of that , Kate . Good , good comment . +Industrial Designer: are they necessarily buying T_V_ remote controls ? Because they probably live in a household that has a T_V_ if they're at the lower end of the age range , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It might be good to know um uh who , you know , who's actually buying televisions and are we in a uh uh s region where people have more than one television in a home ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think we've got a big hill to climb here , haven't we ? I mean we've gotta persuade people who've got a remote control 'cause it came with the telly that they should buy our product instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or do we s make sure that it goes to the man through the manufacturer ? We sell to the manufacturer as the remote that goes with it . +Industrial Designer: Right , good point . Yeah , yeah okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , good point . +User Interface: That's probably more what it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What would be a more efficient way of doing it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , and and some of our D_V_D_ players incidentally have them , because we have the relationship with our own department , but moreover we need to to go for the the manufacturers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not gonna get any resolutions by the end of the day , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably not . +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um the other thing that we're supposed to do is make decision on our functions . Our functions , we've so far decided , I think , that power , channel , volume make it attractive . Um it has to have an enter key and of course the number keys . It has to have big user-friendly buttons and sh n {vocalsound} definitely we wanna be inspired that the current {vocalsound} styles are just plain awful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do we need {disfmarker} um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that agreeable to everyone ? +Marketing: Br actually , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: the enter key {disfmarker} I have a chart here that I didn't include . Um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want the gizmo ? +Marketing: yeah , which might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Throw some light on that . +Marketing: Th yeah , th those are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} felt like had a lot of charts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um actually we're , you know , we are almost a half hour out of the forty minutes , so we have to get close to finishing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , I I {disfmarker} my only comment is I think maybe um we could somehow include an enter key in like a power key if power power was enter and pow that was my only {disfmarker} just really in terms of streamlining . +Project Manager: Ah . Mm-hmm . Okay . Enter , power as a s oh um a sum simultaneous key . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Exactly . Again , you know , +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Marketing: thinking of menus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry , +Project Manager: Would that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: H how does that work ? +User Interface: I was miles away . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} so so how does that work , +User Interface: I was re I was reading the chart to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um well +Project Manager: uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: how do you avoid switching the thing off when you actually wanna press enter ? +Marketing: if you're pressing enter , the the thing would already be on , and so maybe um when you press power , initially it turns it on , press power again and use that as an enter um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you'd have to have an off te off key . +Marketing: so you press power after you've um {disfmarker} well I was thinking maybe you {disfmarker} to turn it off you'd have to press power twice in succession , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and maybe power follows something like a channel up channel down power , and then that would make that choice . +Industrial Designer: It's not getting a bit complicated ? Could granny do this , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or are we just not aiming at granny ? +Marketing: Or y yeah . Or something that has a a turning dial , where at the far end is on or off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's got an iPod then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} um I wish . Anyway , uh {vocalsound} that was the only comment about um some of the the decisions people have made , what's most important . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It's definitely channel , volume , power . +User Interface: Yeah , things like screen settings and audio settings , I would generally do them on the actual television itself , +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: like here you have a you know , a little flap th with a little control panel on the actual box itself . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: I I wouldn't know how to do it using a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so um I would say that they are definitely less relevant . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay , well . Thanks for looking at that . +Project Manager: I guess easy to use is the other thing that we want 'em to be able to do . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: As you said , you know , don't make it too hard for the granny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We don't wanna outsmart {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just joined that set last week . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} first grandchild arrived . +Marketing: Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so are we agreed then of those things ? And let's go back to agenda +Marketing: D +Project Manager: and hook me up . Mm . This oughta be fun . It probably won't go the first time , it'll probably be like a g mess . Come on . Uh it lost it off here . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh you're fine . It's fine . +Project Manager: No , it was up there , but I couldn't see it down here . Mm . This time it should be both . There we go . +Industrial Designer: How do you do that ? How do you make it do both ? +Project Manager: Um you have to keep doing the financi the the F_N_ and F_ eight to {disfmarker} five minutes to finish , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , it toggles through , +Project Manager: thank you a lot for telling me . +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right , +Marketing: I think you have to cycle through . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're ready to close . Um {gap} will be completed q questionnaire , um then we'll have some time for individual work to continue our research um and I'll put some minutes of this meeting together . Um your individual assignments are for um Kate to do the components , for you , Steph , to do the user interface and for you the trend-watching . Um and each of us will get help from our coach . Are we agreed to get ourselves together and then have lunch ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds good . +Project Manager: Then that's the end of this meeting . And I hope that's good enough for her {vocalsound} to tell her that's the end . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We didn't come to any sort of decision on the functions though . +Project Manager: Well I think I went over the functions and wrote them down and marked them . +User Interface: Alright , well that's fine then . +Project Manager: Um that's what I went over and nobody was objecting to them . +Marketing: Okay . Um and you'd mentioned {disfmarker} I I was just gonna say , could you reiterate the new project requirements , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because it {disfmarker} they were {disfmarker} it has to be for a T_V_ , just to keep myself {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um the teletext is outdated , +Industrial Designer: So we're still in meeting , aren't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the internet is important , +Marketing: Yeah , I think I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's only to be for a T_V_ and it must include the corporate image , colour and slogan um +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: which I think is more in the user uh range , with Steph . +User Interface: Mm . Sorry , what what actually are these {disfmarker} is that the yellow and black ? +Project Manager: It doesn't tell me . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: From their {disfmarker} I'll just use it from their website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . Thank you . +","In the second meeting on functional design for a new remote control project, the Project Manager organized a 40-minute session with the Industrial Designer, User Interface specialist, and the Marketing team member. The meeting started with a review of notes from the previous meeting, discussing sales targets, design simplicity, and the influence of Japanese design. After everyone confirmed the accuracy of the minutes, the Project Manager outlined new project requirements received by email, including focusing the remote on TV-only functionality and incorporating the corporate image, color, and slogan. + +The Marketing team member presented data indicating that 80% of users would pay more for a fancy-looking remote control and that early adopters showed a significant interest in speech recognition technology. The Industrial Designer discussed the practicalities and components necessary for the remote, operating on a budget of €12.50, and questioned if advanced features like speech recognition could fit within the cost constraints. + +User Interface discussed existing remote control designs and proposed a streamlined model eliminating extraneous functions. The potential for rechargeable internal batteries and streamlining the design were also discussed, with an emphasis on user-friendliness and simplicity. + +As the meeting wrapped up, the Project Manager recapped the key function decisions: power, channel, volume, an enter key, number keys, and big user-friendly buttons. The team agreed on targeting a younger demographic that is tech-savvy and would value the functionality and design of the remote. Individual assignments were distributed to the team members as they wrapped up the meeting, emphasizing the importance of incorporating the new project requirements into their work. The team concluded by planning follow-up actions, research, and subsequent discussions for the next meeting. + +The Project Manager would compile meeting minutes and work with the team on research and individual assignments, with each member receiving support from their respective coach." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So is {disfmarker} Why not save that . +Marketing: No , you'll ha have to open it up from elsewhere . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} Do you want to replace existing file , no . {vocalsound} I actually tried to transfer it to My Documents , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you have to you have to close that window . 'Cause that's the save one isn't it , so {disfmarker} And then find it . +Project Manager: {gap} spreadsheet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but I've ta uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right , I'll just re-do it . That's the easiest way . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Well we've made our prototype anyway . We can have a good look at that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You pass it round to have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Y no , it's a slightly curved around the sides . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm very nice . +User Interface: Um , it's almost curved like up to the main display as well . And the little line at the bottom indicates the bit {disfmarker} the panel that you pull down . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And the extra function buttons are below that panel on the little line . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we've got the stick on the button with the company logo on . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We also have a apple slash cherry design at the top . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So it is , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cherry would be alright actually . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's a bit more fun , isn't it ? And it's kinda not really at a kind of {disfmarker} you think apple , you think computers , like Apple Mac . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we might get a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Copyright , yeah . What's this this one ? +User Interface: Yeah , and cherries are fun , summery . +Marketing: What's that one there ? +User Interface: Ah , that's the mute . +Industrial Designer: For the M_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} it'd probably have to be labelled mute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're thinking {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um , we didn't have anything small enough to write . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: For the first time , well it was hard to get the h um the actual labelling on the individual buttons . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , we just chose simple shapes for all them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , the important ones are the volume ones . So we made them a bit bigger . The mute could possibly be a bit smaller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hum , you separate off in colour the volume related buttons from the channel related buttons , so you've got the volume in orange on design there , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the the channel is in blue . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: R right . Um , +User Interface: Yeah , and we chose a V_ plus and V_ minus . +Project Manager: all these things have cost implications . And so when I done my thing on cost {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I had assumed that the only uh button that would be a different colour would be the uh the red apple button . So {disfmarker} However , I've now {gap} . {vocalsound} But um , {vocalsound} yeah so uh but there would be a cost implication on that , +Marketing: I'll see if I can find them . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} as I suppose that {vocalsound} so whether {vocalsound} wanted to put in all these colours , would be uh open to debate , I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sis +User Interface: Well the colours wouldn't {disfmarker} like that's {disfmarker} they wouldn't be too important , +Marketing: Have {disfmarker} +User Interface: but we didn't have any white Play-Doh . {vocalsound} So that's where the colour buttons came from . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} An important consideration . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , okay so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the second one underneath would be the idea for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , we'll have the slide-away . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So we've got um detail design meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} So , we've got {vocalsound} prototype presentation , which we've just done , evaluation criteria , um and finance , so I guess w we have to evaluate if that meets the various uh aspects that we're looking for uh from um our previous meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So other than the fact that it doesn't have the second layer , but um obviously obviously it would . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But other than that , we got the red apple . We got the buttons and the only thing that has really changed is the is the colouration of the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes . +Project Manager: and {vocalsound} the bit after the evaluation criteria is uh is the finance . {vocalsound} And the {vocalsound} and the cost implication . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The only snag about this is that uh {vocalsound} the cost is probably kind of important . So um , and then the production evaluation , as to how easy that would be to uh to manufacture . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and whether it would uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So if you had to do a presentation or {disfmarker} will you just work it on the prototype ? +Industrial Designer: This this is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yes , this is our presentation of the prototype . +Marketing: That's the pr +Project Manager: Right , so uh as far as the the finance of it would be concern would be to make sure that the cost {disfmarker} aye the production cost 'cause you may remember that was one of the first uh considerations was to be in d under um uh twelve fifty or two and a half {disfmarker} uh twelve and a half Euros . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , there's no redesign . So that should uh {disfmarker} Right , so , seems to me that the thing that I have to do is is quickly find that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could we get this on the board just so we can see {disfmarker} or do you mean do you have the figures there ? +Marketing: {gap} we should {gap} plug it in . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Do you wanna plu do you wanna plug it in into the the back of that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , Alice . So , sh +Marketing: We could do it as we d go along , the production costs , looking at the prototype . +Project Manager: Right . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay this should be then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , by the fact that we've got uh the simple chip and the uh kinetic energy source , we've got a single curved case . We've got a rubber uh case materials supplements . So , we had decided that we're having rubber buttons and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Have a push button interface . +Project Manager: Okay . W the button supplements . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , originally , I thought there would just be uh one in there because it was the one red apple . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the so the real w the real question then would come in . Do you make all the buttons {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well do we'll do it on the prototype , +Project Manager: O +Marketing: so do two , see how much it is . +Project Manager: Well , so we've got one special button form , which was the apple . Everything else is gonna be a standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We've got special material , rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera and that , +Industrial Designer: And then we'd have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so , I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} originally , I was thinking {gap} rubber wasn't special , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but according to this , maybe it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And the r I mean effectively we've got sixteen buttons that we're gonna have on there . +Marketing: Yeah . I think you just do one , don't you , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} I don't know {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is the sort of answer , is that meant to be all sixteen buttons , and therefore {disfmarker} I mean , what's the op The option was maybe not to have rubber buttons , but just to have the one that was soft and spongy , and therefore {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think it's just it's just a one . Else {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whereas it would be {disfmarker} the special colour would be for the {disfmarker} So you would only have the one special button that was rubber , whereas the rest would be hard plastic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thi I think I think the button supplement i is just a supplement for all the buttons {gap} made in a different material , rather than per button . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know though . +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Every design change is uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound] I dunno , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , um , if we just had all the buttons as standard , except for the one red apple , then that would take care of that , I guess . We'd have one special colour and one special button form . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And when I plugged that in last time {disfmarker} {gap} remember it has to be under twelve and a half . As far as I know , that um {vocalsound} that took care of the uh of the various supplements . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And if {disfmarker} What happened ? +Marketing: You've just gone off the window into another one . It's on the bottom row . +User Interface: Maybe if you just minimise that one in the top right-hand corner of the little box . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , but the point would be that if we uh if we just did special {disfmarker} Sorry , you were saying that it would be that one , that you would put in one there . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's nine point one there so we've got some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it {disfmarker} Well , is it s is {disfmarker} no , it's nine point seven I've got . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Just give us a bit of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , that would {vocalsound} that would work out fine if uh uh as assuming your correction are are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} assuming that that one change covers all the buttons , then that would be fine . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And there's nothing else as far as I can see that we we had uh planned to put on {gap} . +User Interface: S +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {gap} switching around those th um on the electronics we got the sample sensor . At the moment we've just got the simple chip , which costs one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um , I guess the sample sens sample speaker would be the voice recognition thing , which puts up to four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should be slightly over our budget but if we gather something else down to slightly lower standard , and maybe go with the one the special form buttons , then we could have the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , hold on . Um , if we Okay , that gives us twelve point seven +Industrial Designer: So uh maybe if we got rid of like the maybe one of the special colours , kept them all the same colour , then we could have the voice recognition +Project Manager: But remember that the idea was to keep it the colour of the {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , I see , so just take out the special colour for the apple and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Um , {gap} . D wouldn't you have to keep the simple chip there as well ? You know how you turn that one to a zero , wouldn't the chip and the sample speaker be separate things , +Marketing: Yeah , we have to have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh possibly , yeah , yeah maybe . +User Interface: so you need both of them ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe um we'd be giving up on the kinetic . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And go for battery instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would give you one less . +Industrial Designer: We should {disfmarker} Yeah , that would save us one , though we'd still be slightly ov +Project Manager: But you reckon that i I mean the thing is that you wanted to a appeal to people and not have to replace batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Well , since it's the {disfmarker} through the whole technology type thing , um , you were saying in the market research that people like kind of interesting gadgets in them . Um , whether they would figure the {vocalsound} the s uh sample senor and the sample speaker , voice recognition be sort of a worthwhile thing to have . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then still have the batteries , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or whatever they would prefer not uh {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? The the problem was the battery's running out and losing the um losing the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you gotta decide which of those is more important to them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But which do you think {disfmarker} or which do we think is the more important of the options ? In a sense , at the moment , we've got a total which we need to reduce down by one point two . +User Interface: I think the voice recognition . +Project Manager: At least . Remember that was a minimum requirement . The other option if we're planning on just going for something cheap and cheerful , would be to um make it {gap} originally , we're gonna make it a simple product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Shall we shall we evaluate the prototype as we've got it now first , and then sort of make decisions about what needs to be changed after ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Marketing: Okay . Right um , I have a little thing . So , we've all got a note of {disfmarker} it's thirteen point seven , isn't it , with everything we want on . +Project Manager: {gap} . Sorry , do you want that back up ? +Marketing: Yeah , I just had a presentation to do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But I do think uh the v uh voice recognition thing would be more impressive than the fact that it's got no battery . +Project Manager: Okay , but remember the main {disfmarker} the only reason we were planning on having the voice recognition was so that they could find the remote if it got lost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Right okay um , This is about the evaluation criteria that we use for the the prototype we've got here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And so the method is that the design team makes a prototype , and we evaluate the prototype against some criteria that we've formulated . And those ones are gonna be in response to sort of market research , and also finance , I guess . {vocalsound} And do that on a scale from say true being one and false being seven , so if it's neither true nor false , then that's four . So , I got a set of criteria just based on the marketing that we need to add in a financial one as well , at the end . Um so , We have to say whether it's true or false that the product looks and feels fancy . Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} whether the product demonstrates technical innovation . Whether it's easy to use . Whether it's incorporating sort of the fashion element to attract the buyer . And whether it's a sort of recognisable Real Reaction product . And I have to go up onto the whiteboard and do this apparently , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} I'll go over here . {vocalsound} Right . So the first one is um , does the product look and feel fancy . So if we do a sort of a one {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we have a single curve , which was {gap} maybe like the feel of the product's quite good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um , then we have the rubber kinda spongy feel , which was in at the time . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} sorry that'd be considered fancy . +User Interface: Yeah , I'd maybe give it a a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of {disfmarker} but I think {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Is one false , or is t one true ? +User Interface: One's true . +Marketing: I forgot . One's true , and okay . Seven's fal +User Interface: And a four is neutral . +Marketing: Four is neutral , okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So maybe {gap} maybe a two . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we haven't got the double curve , so we can't like say it's completely true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go for one . {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it's pretty close . We've got almost everything we can . +Marketing: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I gonna put underneath so I've got some more space . So , false is seven , true is one , and {disfmarker} So uh say about a two for fancy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , why not not , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: m m maybe nearer three . +Marketing: Okay , well d you do an average at the end , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two three . Well , it's just that uh saying something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remember that when you look down , we've got solar power , we've got uh various other things you could have , and we're not going for these options . +Marketing: Uh-huh . This this is just this is just for like the look . Does it sort of look fancy rather than functional . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose that might be in the technical innovation bit . +Marketing: Yeah , so that {disfmarker} so sh should we go for a a two on that ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . And I mean , how much does the product demonstrate technical innovation do you reckon ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {gap} deciding between the kinetic power or um the speech recognition , and if we had either of those for our budget , they both show a reasonable amount of speech recognition . +Marketing: D yeah . Okay . So , what about the pr The prototype as it is , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: we've got we've got the speech recognition on it , haven't we . +Industrial Designer: But not the kinetic . +Marketing: But not the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Like the power . +Project Manager: No . 'Cause you can't afford that {disfmarker} w we took that out too . +Industrial Designer: No , we c ca yeah , we can't afford both . +Marketing: Alright , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Didn't you ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it doesn't {disfmarker} It's pretty {disfmarker} The prototype as it is isn't sort of um fulfilling the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No may is {disfmarker} maybe about neutral +User Interface: Maybe a three . +Industrial Designer: plus it it it's got something , but it hasn't got {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , wait a minute . In thirteen point seven we do have kinetic . +User Interface: I would give it more than a four . +Project Manager: The problem is we have to reduce down from there to get it down to twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And one way of doing that would be to take out the kinetic . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So , it's very much dependant on what you do with your options . And if you're definitely going for the sample sensor and sample speaker , then {disfmarker} because that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: the other functions we've got in are are more at the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} The special material , the rubber , wood , titanium , et cetera , if you go for that , th that's at the high end 'cause that's point six , whereas down at uh just special colours uh is point two . Now you're trying to lose one point two , so it seems to me that if you're going for the sample sensors {disfmarker} speaker , you're basically then having to go for the cheaper options on everything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And and the simple way to do it would be to have a battery , to have your uh sample sensor speaker , +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you're looking to uh take out uh point two , +Marketing: S I'm just gonna check my email . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which would be {disfmarker} come from the button supplements category . +Marketing: I'm just gonna check exactly what it said in the email for um the product . +User Interface: How much of a difference would it make if we made the case in plastic ? Because we did say that we don't wanna follow the fashion too much . If the buttons are rubber that might be spongy enough . +Project Manager: Um , interface type um , +User Interface: And then it stand the test of time better . +Project Manager: well plastic rather than rubber . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . But I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That that that would make the significant difference . You could either {vocalsound} you could have it {disfmarker} If you have a in plastic rather than rubber , then that would uh enable you to get {disfmarker} you could keep kinetic then , you could keep your sample sensor , and you'd be looking to take out point two . So you could uh fiddle that down your special form at the bottom , or your special colour at the bottom . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And that would enable you to to do it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it says if we make a slightly more fancy , then we lose points innovation , and if we make it more innovative innovative , then we lose points on it being fancy , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} , I just read the email again and it sort of says it's evaluate the design sort of as it is , I think , so I think we need to think about finance after we've sort of evaluated that design . I don't know whether we're doing it in the wrong order or something or . +Project Manager: Well , okay , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I suppose it's rubber as it is , isn't it . +Project Manager: It's rubber as it is , yes . +Marketing: So , I mean does this need to go up a bit or something , 'cause we've got both the both the um the speech {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We got {disfmarker} we've we've got thirteen point seven +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we've got it in at the moment and if {disfmarker} and basically , we're going to reduce down from that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But the current one , you'd say would be fancy , would be too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , for for innovation , so we've got the speech the speech thing , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I would've said about a two as well . +Marketing: Do you reckon a two ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . I'd be happy with a two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Two . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: And the next one is {disfmarker} I'll have to get it back up now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The next on Well , I can just sing about . Easy to use . I would've said yes . I would go for a one on that at this point in time . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I would say so as well . +Project Manager: Um , incorporates elements of fashion to attract buyer . Well , yeah it certainly has some . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , it's got the cherry and the sponginess . +Industrial Designer: It does , yeah . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Say about a three maybe ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe two ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just doing it quite well . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think we're gonna have to lose some of these , but the moment , as it stands , it's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I woulda said two would seem reasonable . +Marketing: It's a two . +Project Manager: The product is a recognisable real {disfmarker} r uh {disfmarker} reaction product ? +Marketing: Yeah , this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} the sensor using all of its all of its products , all of its buttons , +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's got a fairly big label on the bottom saying where it comes from . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a bit rough at the minute . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} So this is about sort of the corporate image of like new sort of sleek technology and all that sort of thing , as well as having the logo on and all that . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So {gap} sort of {disfmarker} Is it sort of a recognisable product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does it fit in with our other other products , which uh are sort of coffee makers and spacecraft . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well it's got the same um speech feature as the coffee machine . +Marketing: What do y +Industrial Designer: Also it's kind of {gap} spongy rubberiness is maybe bit more kinda comfortable than {disfmarker} kinda sleek and new age . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , it depends which way you look at it . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're going for a two , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a kind of three ? Uh d +Project Manager: {gap} three ? +User Interface: Yeah , two or three . +Marketing: Two or three ? +User Interface: Well , the logo would be more um recognisable on the actual thing . It's just that the pen wouldn't really write on that paper . +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I think the logo would definitely be recognisable . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it does have attributes that other products do . Two ? Aye . Go for it . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +Marketing: Two or three . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , come on . That's that decided . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So we're now on to changing it to get it to fit in with the budget requirements , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: What does {disfmarker} what do all them numbers mean then ? Do we add them up and rate {gap} or anything ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah we s yeah , I think we sort of add them up so sort of at an average is gonna be {disfmarker} I'm just gonna do this in my head . +Project Manager: About a two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: One point eight isn't it or something . {vocalsound} I think , anyway . So yeah , pretty close to a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I mean it's pretty good at the moment , but it's gonna get worse , isn't it . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: But we've gotta try and make sure it doesn't get too bad . +Project Manager: Two b two b two {gap} , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should we get {disfmarker} So are {gap} definite {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} thirteen point seven was the definite price rule if {gap} has . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we need to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , you can lose one point two and still meet the requirements . +Marketing: Do you wanna plug it into yours so we can get up the the finances {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well I put it back on . +Industrial Designer: So I guess this {disfmarker} Is this the last stage once we sort out the finances part of it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} we'll probably have to re-rate it . +Project Manager: Yes , I would've thought so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah we'll make the adjustments +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then see how are rates are going . +Project Manager: Okay , so what was it , control uh F_ eight , wasn't it ? +User Interface: Ah it's on . +Marketing: {gap} it's come on already . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh . How kind . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . So , you can see there that the {disfmarker} If you want to keep kinetic , right , you've got a choice there of going down to battery , which would save you one . You've got the sample sensor and and sample speaker , which is your big item . +Industrial Designer: Oh actually we just have a plastic case , then we lose two points , +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: which gets us um {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} right within the budget range . +Project Manager: Which gets you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that'd be fine . Because that was just a trend , and we do have rubber buttons anyway . +Industrial Designer: So that's eleven point seven , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we could make sure we definitely had all the button supplements . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Different different colours , yeah . Yeah , I was I was thinking that because maybe maybe the sort of rubber case is a bit less in sort of the corporate identity than the sort of you know sleeker plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Possibly , yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that would allow us to have all the technical innovations . So we'd lose a little bit on the {disfmarker} maybe kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're going for plastic , yes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lose a little bit on the fashion , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , and that would now be {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's within the budget . Um {disfmarker} Do we actually have {disfmarker} Do we just have one special {disfmarker} uh {gap} special forms down here ? +Project Manager: Well , uh w uh there was debate as to how you would count them . You got special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well originally I was assuming we had the red apple , and therefore , that was the special colour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we we've we've got {disfmarker} we've got enough for another +User Interface: Yeah , I think we should just imagine white buttons . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we've got nought point eight left , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we've got enough for another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we've got special form . Now that would be one button , and the question was was that all buttons or is that just one button . 'Cause our plan really was to have one button only with a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So so no matter how you look at that , that would be the same . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but but the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The other thing would then be special material , rubber , wood , titanium . +Industrial Designer: I think maybe the special colour , we've got three now just because {gap} the volume buttons are different , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I guess we'd have the ones which are blue at the moment would would just be the standard colour . +Project Manager: Alright . So , special colour , you want three in there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which I think we should {disfmarker} Yeah , they'll still be fine for the for the price . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well I thin I think you you you just need two for the special colour 'cause it's just two supplements , you know . One original colour and then sort of two supplements , I think maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh that's probably it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we only ne we only need two for that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause I mean these these are moulded . The one colour's gonna be moulded out of a piece of plas uh of rubber , isn't it . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , I would agree with that , I think . And we've got special form {vocalsound} is the one apple . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: The rest are all standard , although you could argue that should maybe be {disfmarker} You were making these buttons down the bottom , I was presuming , bigger than the other ones , or were you ? Was that the idea ? +Industrial Designer: Ne uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the volume ones should stand out a bit . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that'll be a second supplement . Then there's a spe a second special form . +Marketing: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . I would have thought that's probably about r {vocalsound} well . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Well you got you got twelve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , so tha +Industrial Designer: So I think that should still be okay . Yeah , that's twelve point three , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so we're still within budget on that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} decide we've lost a little bit on the fashion and lost a bit on the fancy kinda side of it , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: but generally speaking , we've kept the other attributes to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I woulda said so . Yeah . So you'd maybe put fash fan uh fashion at three rather than two . +Industrial Designer: That's without {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So shall we do a {disfmarker} Well , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And specially it definitely could fits the the real product {disfmarker} What was the {disfmarker} what's the company name ? +Project Manager: Real Reaction produ +User Interface: Real Reactions ? +Industrial Designer: R yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure , what does that mean ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean it still seems definitely fit that p so that's like if that's the new age kind of um inno innovative c type company , then um having the kinetic feature and the voice recognition is p quite high up on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep {vocalsound} I would s +Marketing: So it's w if we've if we've put in for another special form on a button , then maybe they could be {vocalsound} a different shape . Like we got a cherry one . Maybe other ones could be something else shaped . {vocalsound} I don't know . That would be poss seeing as seeing as it's cheaper to make them a different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} seeing as we've got , you know , we've made it a a special form , so +Project Manager: You mean of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {disfmarker} And that would sort of maybe keep us close on the sort of the fashion type one . And it would sort of , you know , keep it quite fancy as well , +Project Manager: Well you could argue you might do it once a year , you would change , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: because at the moment you're making a red apple . So next year you could make {disfmarker} next year's model the same , but have it as a a yeah whate whatever , a lemon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it's a {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well you could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever fruit was in fashion next year . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , l a lemon lemon or something . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean the volume buttons could be lemons or something , maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: amount {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So , we've {disfmarker} what have we what have we rid of . We got rid of the plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah , we've {disfmarker} the main thing we've changed really is the casing isn't it ? +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} yeah , that was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: The rubber . +Industrial Designer: that was just about all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we've saved quite a bit because we've just got the push-button interface , which is by far the cheapest . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} So maybe in a sense not having that , maybe we've lost some {disfmarker} maybe lost something on the innovation side ? +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . And {gap} that is like the most standard type of button . +Marketing: So I mean , we've got {disfmarker} we got rid of the rubber case , but we've now s we now sort of got an extra form , and an extra colour for the buttons . So maybe in terms of sort of fanciness and fashionability , we're pretty much the same , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I mean we could maybe put two again on them . +Industrial Designer: And everything else has stayed pretty much the same , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , ease has certainly stayed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , plus if anything that is special forms makes it slightly easier to to use . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And what about the sort of innovation ? +Industrial Designer: Um , well we've still got the kinetic energy . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: And the speech feature . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the speech feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then , the corporate identity . +Industrial Designer: I think we've cut just about the same . We've maybe lost {disfmarker} Hasn't it {disfmarker} It's hard to tell how the rubber the rubber casing would really affect {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How it would play out , yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . Whether whether that's considered to be sort of part of the corporate identity , I don't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , it's maybe not . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I think more the the features of the actual control will be more important than maybe than the the actual aesthetics , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But either way , I think we've made it fairly close to what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , well I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't see how we could make it any more . Um , apart from maybe doing the whole thing in the kinda light shade of blue , like the casing . +Marketing: We cou Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then what colour would you make the R_s ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} just the the company logo . So maybe there's like a set design which we get printed off . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but you've got the company logo on there , which would effectively be a stick-on badge . So you're {disfmarker} in a sense , you're comparing the product without the company logo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then y but you've got the space for it to stick it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Hey , what what what's the company colour ? Did you get told what the company colour is or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm still not quite sure we've established that . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: Don't think so . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But but i but in the sense that , as you saw with um the Windows logo badge , it doesn't really matter . +User Interface: We got the logo off the web browser . +Marketing: Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's virtually n The way that you frame , you know , the Windows badge on there , it really doesn't matter what colour it is , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} so long as our company's logo is framed w in the same way as that with a like a black outline . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Fact , they've got black and white or black and silver . So basically , even if you had a silver {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the same colour of silver on your display , because you've got effectively a double edging on the uh on the logo , it means that it splits off what your logo is from the from the product . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's actually quite a sneaky way of doing it . +Marketing: Okay . Uh-huh . 'Cause you've got sort of {disfmarker} we've got point two to play with if you really wanted to . +Project Manager: You could put in another {disfmarker} +Marketing: Another colour . +Project Manager: Well , in this one , you've actually got three colours of buttons . +Marketing: Or would that be t +Project Manager: Well , we decided that the blue ones were the um the standard colour . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you were talking about uh um {disfmarker} We're assuming that all the buttons on the second panel , the hidden away panel , would all be standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which m may or may not be the case . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Shall we save the point two for profitability then ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . Bu but but uh was the was there not a button that you were thinking of on the um on the other opt you know , on the second page , as it were , that uh you were thinking of maybe having as a different colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't think they would really need to be . I think if they were just all small round blue buttons , it'd be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we've m {vocalsound} +User Interface: Needs to be an enter button , but could just be the same as well . +Industrial Designer: Maybe for the the one they're gonna see all the time , we make it look good , and um , fit the kind of idea of what they want . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then for the more functional buttons , we don't worry too much about that and just have that as like a {disfmarker} plus it's hidden away anyway , you're not gonna see it at the start . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean it's the sort of thing that , I mean , you wanna pick up the controller and just hit a button quickly to change the channel or volume . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if it's dead obvious , then that's fine . But if you're opening the panel and you're looking and you're tuning , then you're paying a bit more attention . So it may be sort of different colour buttons isn't so important . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we just add that to profitability in effect . {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I mean so we've dropped the cost , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , so we're meant to finish up in five minutes . +Marketing: Same sort of function ? The criteria ? It's alright . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just made a load of money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Shouldn't we maybe lose a point on fashion , go to a three ? 'Cause we've lost the overall spongy feel . 'Cause it doesn't seem right that it just hasn't changed at all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , but I think we said that w Because you got rid of the rubber , we put an extra an extra sort of fruit um shape on one of the buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} le lemon sh +User Interface: Did we decide what that was , which button it was ? On the volume ones ? +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well , we could have lemon shaped ones with the volume ones or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , {gap} . That's good . +Marketing: Or something like that . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Definitely lemon shaped . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did {disfmarker} did you have to have a rubber case , though , for rubber buttons ? Or was it the other way around ? +Industrial Designer: You had to have rubber buttons if you had the rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I think we can {disfmarker} we're okay . +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: So we're okay this way around . +Marketing: Yeah . So that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Until the design team comes in and says , get off . +Marketing: so we've saved {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But you are the design team . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then we say it's fine , so it's all good . +Marketing: Saved two Euros on that . +Project Manager: So what bit are we on to ? +User Interface: Um , can I just check if that's a cherry or an apple ? Did we decide against the apple because of Apple Mac ? And did we make it a cherry officially ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I th I th {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Just in case we need that point two for lawsuits and such like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh drats , I've botched that , haven't I . +User Interface: So were we aiming for a certain target on that scale ? +Marketing: Well , we're aiming for um one for all of them . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: M but it really has to fit into the budget , so {disfmarker} I guess we just have to adjust things to get it i in the {disfmarker} Which is fair enough . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we seem to have {gap} least something in each criteria . We haven't completely left anything out , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I think +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} As an overall product which has to be quite cheap , we've just about achieved everything . +Marketing: most {disfmarker} Yeah . Yep . +User Interface: So do we have anything else to discuss ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . What's on the agenda ? +Project Manager: Right , okay um {disfmarker} What's happened here ? Right , okay um {disfmarker} Mm {vocalsound} . Right , okay um , {gap} {disfmarker} Right . So we got {disfmarker} So we've done the the finance bit and the Excel project and the {disfmarker} We've done the redesign . +Industrial Designer: We've got the closing . +Project Manager: So we're now on to project process . Now satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , et cetera , whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . So , we're actually now uh , in a sense , on to the evaluation of the course rather than the evaluation of the project is m my understanding of it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So what did you {disfmarker} and remembering that nobody's just over the curtain . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Finish your meeting now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We should just go through this quickly and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I suppose the easiest way of doing it is to put some notes down , which I will do . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , uh I think I have to finish that page . Right , okay , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Project evaluation . So , um {disfmarker} Creativity . Did you feel you got a chance to express yourselves {vocalsound} well enough ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I thought some of the divisions though between sort of the individual meetings were a bit arbitrary . +Project Manager: Individual meetings . How do you mean ? +Marketing: Yeah . Well , we were finding out various things in {vocalsound} in be in-between the meetings , +Project Manager: In you on your own . +Marketing: and they didn't {disfmarker} the one meeting didn't always follow on for the other one , you know , sort of {disfmarker} we had things thrown in at the second meeting where , you know , you'd looked at the remote controls and seen the curviness , but in the first one you'd also looked at some remote controls and looked at the buttons , +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I don't understand why it would be in separate meetings that you'd do that . You know , you'd sort of {disfmarker} you'd probably present it at one or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} The only thing you find is in a manufacturing process , you would {disfmarker} normally , you go to a meeting , you decide , right , you do this , you do that , you do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then you go away . You find out information . You then come back . You then discuss it . You then go and change things around , +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and then go back . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I suppose and then {gap} be going out and finding more information each time +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whereas , this time , you're really getting it from a database source , +Industrial Designer: and then diff things will be relevant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not uh well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anyway , so , what do you want to put down ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I've put , seemed okay . Creativity , seemed okay . Um um flow of information on on any given subject {disfmarker} given subject um sometimes disjointed . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it maybe could have been a slightly more creative project . I mean a remote control isn't the most um kind of fancy thing that you could imagine designing . +Marketing: Yeah , the thing itself . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can't think of a better example at the minute . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Have {disfmarker} could have used a different example {disfmarker} pel to increase {disfmarker} create {disfmarker} Creativity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is this go {disfmarker} It kinda kis fits the purpose that it was something everyone knows about and then something we can at least look at and think how we can improve on . +Project Manager: You have to do it within a set time frame is the other thing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . But {gap} think like it was a bit restrictive just to say that you have to design a television remote control , in a way . I mean it depends what sort of business you're in , I guess . I mean this one seems {gap} . From the website it looks {gap} it's quite innovative , but we're coming up with some bucket shop product aren't we +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's , you know , fifteen quid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} one of those things . Like uh , companies can have like a range of products and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I uh d +Industrial Designer: {gap} I don't know how it works but I guess that something got sent out and {gap} have like a brief to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the other thing is that uh they're {disfmarker} I'm guessing that they're trying to use this um software to to demonstrate how you could uh do a project . I mean , m my wife at the moment , for instance , is uh acting as a computer +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} for um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} normally , you got a problem , so you go to your tutor and find out information to see how to get it fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So what she's doing is she's {vocalsound} having to spend a day at the computer terminal at one end so that any student that comes along can uh ask whatever question . And then you {disfmarker} or the idea is that the {disfmarker} whichever uh person's at the other end can point them in the right direction , show them where to {disfmarker} either give them directly {disfmarker} give them help , or secondly , point them in the right direction , either at the library , or uh or or come back , or go and see Joe Bloggs , or whatever . So uh , and that was a project I suspect similar to this , because they they were actually trying to debug the uh computer software to enable um {disfmarker} to enable it to work . And of course , you had the machine crashing +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and various things going wrong . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , sh {gap} we look at the last slide , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: see if it's got anything else . +Project Manager: Alright , +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think there's one one more to go . +Project Manager: so we've got uh +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} I mean if you look at their products on their website here , Real Reaction , I mean it's all pretty high-tech and cutting edge . +Project Manager: New ideas found , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: did we find any , no . +Industrial Designer: It was quite good with this um {disfmarker} the white board , having that and the digital pens . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Like , that's something that made it a little easier . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership , teamwork . +Marketing: {gap} we did find a new idea , I mean sort of a kinetic remote control . I've never seen one of them before . {gap} batteries , I think . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} voice recognition , especially not {gap} could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You've got voice recognition computers , +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: that's not remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well it's a different application of it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so it's just like the same products , but just put together in a different way . +Project Manager: so how do you reckon teamwork went ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That went okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we all had separate ideas and then discussed them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To uh go uh reasonably well . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think sort of the budget um allowed us to do anything {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bit {disfmarker} bit arbitrary . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , I mean I don't think it {disfmarker} I just don't think it fitted in with the rest of their products . I mean , they've got all these sort of , you know , high definition D_V_D_ and portable seven inch d um lightweight computer screens , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh I'm thinking , do you know , one cheap remote control doesn't really fit in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , we're m we're meant to comment on leadership and the means , E_ G_ whiteboard , digital pens , et cetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Surely they they should produ +Project Manager: And and new i new ideas found was the the other thing . +User Interface: Well leadership's a bit of a funny one , isn't it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But we can't really all fairly comment on leadership because you are the Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You were the leader . {vocalsound} So our experience of leadership wasn't really as much as yours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now , I'd much rather be in marketing {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I certainly didn't get this uh computer to work as well as I would have liked . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , um {disfmarker} Alright uh means , so whiteboard um {disfmarker} so really , it's uh equipment . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . It worked . +User Interface: Yeah , very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Comput computers could be a bit difficult at times but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I mean , I d I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure I see the value in these . I mean , they record what you're writing , and then what do you do with it ? Where do you get the recording ? Do you plug {gap} the computer or something ? +Marketing: I think there's a little there's a little um chi +Industrial Designer: So it's not just for us , it's for the experiment as a whole , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a little there's a little chip , I think you must plug it into something +Industrial Designer: Should we quickly look at the last slide ? +Marketing: and it produces a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sh {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . I think you watch a video of it kind of . +Marketing: I don't know . Whether it just produces a big image of sort of everything you've written or something , and {disfmarker} Page after page . +Project Manager: Right . New ideas found , so one or two . +Marketing: Yeah . Kinetic powered remote control . Um , what was the other one ? +User Interface: Voice um recognition thing . +Marketing: Vo yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} um and uh voice +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , was it voice activated um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Voice recognition , yeah . S +Project Manager: recognition . +Marketing: Almost . +User Interface: Pretty much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} To fill in these fill in these questionnaires +Project Manager: Right , so , uh are the costs within budget , +Marketing: Oh no . +Project Manager: yes . Is the project evaluated , yes . Uh , don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . Then celebration . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Is that everything ? +Marketing: Hmm ? I think that we've got two questionnaires and a report on the last meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh , so we don't re So really {disfmarker} I tried to save this the last time at twelve point three , and it didn't seem to have saved anywhere . Mind you , the the figure last was was different , but it should be poss +","The team, consisting of a project manager, marketing, user interface, and industrial designer, encountered difficulties with file saving and debated the design and features of a prototype remote control. They aimed to incorporate elements like a curved design, fruit-themed buttons, and technical innovations within budget constraints. The team discussed using kinetic power versus battery and voice recognition for ease of location. They considered the financial implications and manufacturing feasibility of various colors and materials for buttons, ultimately seeking to balance innovation, design, and cost. The team needed to decide on final product features that met a target price point while maintaining the brand identity of Real Reaction and assessing the prototype against evaluation criteria related to appearance, innovation, usability, fashion, and company image. The transcript also mentions the use of technology, such as whiteboards and digital pens, during the project and ends with reminders to finish evaluations and celebrate the project's completion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: headphones that aren't so uncomfortable . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} Well , this should be off the record , +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: but I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , OK . +Professor A: We 're not recording yet , are we ? +Grad G: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , uh , that {disfmarker} that wasn't recorded . +Grad G: No . Um , I don't think they 're designed to be over your ears . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . It just {disfmarker} it really hurts . It gives you a headache , like if you {disfmarker} On your temple {disfmarker} +PhD F: Temple squeezers . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I definitely {pause} haven't figured it out . +Professor A: Um , Meeting Recorder meeting . +PhD F: I guess I have to d stop doing this sigh of contentment , you know , after sipping cappuccino or something . +PhD B: Yeah , with the {disfmarker} We kno I know . +Grad G: "" Sip , sigh . "" +PhD B: We know exactly how much you have left in your cup . +PhD F: I was just noticing a big s +Professor D: So are we recording now ? Is this {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! We 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're live . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So , uh , {vocalsound} what were we gonna talk about again ? So we said {disfmarker} we said data collection , which we 're doing . +PhD B: Were we gonna do digits ? +Professor A: OK . Do we do th do you go around the room {pause} and do names or anything ? +Grad G: I think that {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's a good idea . +Grad G: u usually we 've done that and also we 've s done digits as well , but I forgot to print any out . So . Besides with this big a group , +PhD B: You can write them on the board , if you want . +Professor D: No . I it 'd be even better with this big {disfmarker} +Grad G: it would take too much time . +PhD E: Which way is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , but it takes too much time . +PhD E: Mari ? +Postdoc H: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: What ? +Professor D: It 's not that long . +PhD E: Y I think your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your thing {nonvocalsound} may be pointing in a funny direction . Sort of it 's {disfmarker} it helps if it points sort of upwards . +Professor A: Whoops . +PhD E: Sort of it {disfmarker} you know . +Professor A: Would it {disfmarker} m +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: w u +PhD E: So that thing {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} th that part should be pointing upwards . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} Oh , this thing . +PhD E: That 's it . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Otherwise you just get a heartbeats . +Professor A: It 's kind of {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , yeah , the element , yeah , n should be as close to you {disfmarker} your mouth as possible . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . +PhD E: That 's good . That kind of thing is good . +Postdoc H: It 's a {disfmarker} +Professor A: This w Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: How 's that working ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . It 's a {disfmarker} It 's working . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Alright . So what we had {pause} was that we were gonna talk about data collection , and , um , uh , you {disfmarker} you put up there data format , +Professor A: Um . +Professor D: and other tasks during data collection , +Professor A: So , I think the goal {disfmarker} the goal was what can we do {disfmarker} how can you do the data collection differently to get {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: what can you add to it to get , um , some information that would be helpful for the user - interface design ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , especially for querying . +Professor A: Especially for querying . So , getting people to do queries afterwards , getting people to do summaries afterwards . Um . +Postdoc H: Well , one thing that came up in the morning {disfmarker} in the morning was the , um , i uh , if he {disfmarker} I , um {disfmarker} if he has {disfmarker} s I {disfmarker} I don't remember , Mister Lan - Doctor Landry ? +Grad G: Landay . James . +Postdoc H: La - Landay ? So he has , um , these , uh , um , tsk {comment} note - taking things , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: then that would sort of be a summary which you wouldn't have to solicit . y if {disfmarker} if we were able to {disfmarker} to do that . +Professor A: Well , if {disfmarker} if you actually take notes as a summary as opposed to n take notes in the sense of taking advantage of the time - stamps . So action item or uh , reminder to send this to so - and - so , blah - blah - blah . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that wouldn't be a summary . That would just be {disfmarker} that would b relate to the query side . +Grad G: But if we had the CrossPads , we could ask people , you know , if {disfmarker} if something comes up {vocalsound} write it down and mark it {vocalsound} {pause} somehow , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . I mean , we {disfmarker} because you 'd have several people with these pads , you could collect different things . +Grad G: you know . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: I mean , cuz I tend to take notes which are summaries . And so , you know {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , the down - side to that is that he sort of indicated that the , uh , quality of {vocalsound} the handwriting recognition was quite poor . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that 's alright . I don't think there 'd be so many that you couldn't have someone clean it up +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: pretty easily . +Professor A: Yeah . We also could come up with some code for things that people want to do so that {disfmarker} for frequent things . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And the other things , people can write whatever they want . I mean , it 's to some extent , uh , for his benefit . So , if that {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} if we just keep it simple then maybe it 's still useful . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor D: I just realized we skipped the part that we were saying we were gonna do at the front where we each said who we were . +Postdoc H: The roll call . +Professor A: Right . I thought you did that on purpose . +Professor D: Roll call . +Professor A: But anyway , shall we do the roll call ? +Professor D: No , not a No , I just {disfmarker} My mind went elsewhere . So , uh , yeah , I 'm Morgan , and where am I ? I 'm on channel three . +Grad G: And I 'm Adam Janin on channel A . +Postdoc H: I 'm Jane Edwards , I think on channel B . +PhD E: I 'm Dan Ellis . +PhD F: Eric on channel nine . +PhD B: Liz , on channel one . +Professor A: Mari on channel zero . +Professor C: Katrin on channel two . +Postdoc H: Should we have used pseudo - names ? Should we do it a second time with pseudo No . {vocalsound} No . +Professor D: I 'm Rocky Raccoon {vocalsound} on channel {disfmarker} +PhD E: Let me , uh , turn that off . +Grad G: And , uh , do you want to do the P D As and the {pause} P Z +PhD E: Oh . PZM nearest , nearest , next nearest . Next one . +Postdoc H: Next nearest . +PhD E: Furthest . +Grad G: Far . +PhD E: PDM - right , PZA - right {disfmarker} PDA - right , PDA - left . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: Thanks . +Grad G: Yeah , and eventually once this room gets a little more organized , the Jimlets {comment} will be mounted under the table , and these guys will be permanently mounted somehow . You know , probably with double - sided tape , but {disfmarker} So . You {disfmarker} So we won't have to go through that . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: I have a question on protocol in these meetings , which is when you say "" Jimlet "" and the person listening won't know what that is , sh shou How {disfmarker} how do we get {disfmarker} Is that important information ? You know , the Jimlet {disfmarker} I mean , the box that contains the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , I mean , suppose we broaden out and go to a range of meetings besides just these internal ones . There 's gonna be lots of things that any group of people who know each other have in column {disfmarker} common {comment} that we will not know . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: So the there will be jargon that we he There 'll be transcription errors . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we were originally gonna do this with VLSI design , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the reason we didn't go straight to that was because immediately ninety percent of what we heard would be {vocalsound} jargon to {disfmarker} to us . So . +Grad G: Well , that was just one of the reasons . But , yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . Good . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's right . There were others of course . Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK , so we were on the data collection {pause} {comment} and the summary issue . +Professor D: Right . We can go back . +Professor A: So , uh , u u So , actually there 's kind of three issues . There 's the CrossPad issue . Should we do it and , if so , what 'll we have them do ? Um , do we have s people write summaries ? Everybody or one person ? And then , do we ask people for how they would query things ? Is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} there 're sub - problems in that , in that where {disfmarker} or when do you actually ask them about that ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I mean , that was {disfmarker} One thing I was thinking about was is that Dan said earlier that , you know , maybe two weeks later , which is when you would want to query these things , you might ask them then . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But there 's a problem with that in that if {pause} you 're not {disfmarker} If you don't have an interactive system , it 's gonna be hard to go beyond sort of the first level of question . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . And furth id explore the data further . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's another problem +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: which is , um , we certainly do want to branch out beyond , uh , uh , recording meetings about Meeting Recorder . And , uh , once we get out beyond our little group , the people 's motivation factor , uh , reduces enormously . And if we start giving them a bunch of other things to do , how {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we did n you know another meeting here for another group and {disfmarker} and , uh , they were fine with it . But if we 'd said , "" OK , now all eight of you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have to come up with , uh , the summar "" +Grad G: Well , I asked them to and none of them did . +Professor D: t See ? There we go . +Grad G: So , I {disfmarker} I asked them to send me ideas for queries after the meeting +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: They {disfmarker} +Grad G: and no one ever did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I didn't follow up either . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: So I didn't track them down and say "" please do th do it now "" . But , uh , no one spontaneously provided anything . +Professor D: I I 'm worried that if you did {disfmarker} even if you did push them into it , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it might be semi - random , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: uh , as opposed to what you 'd really want to know if you were gonna use this thing . +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: I just don't know how else to generate the queries other than getting an expert to actually listen to the meeting and say "" that 's important , that might be a query "" . +Postdoc H: Tsk . Well , there is this other thing which y which you were alluding to earlier , which is , um , there are certain key words like , you know , "" action item "" and things like that , which could be used in , uh , t to some degree finding the structure . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Although {disfmarker} +Professor A: W +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and I also , um , was thinking , with reference to the n uh , note - taking , the advantage there is that you get structure without the person having to do something artificial later . And the fir third thing I wanted to say is the summaries afterwards , um , I think they should be recorded instead of written because I think that , um , it would take so long for people to write that I think you wouldn't get as good a summary . +Professor A: How about this idea ? That normally at most meetings somebody is delegated to be a note - taker . +Postdoc H: Yeah , good . Good point . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} So why don't we just use the notes that somebody takes ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , that gives you a summary but it doesn't really {disfmarker} How do you generate queries from that ? +PhD E: Well . But , I mean , maybe a summary is one of the things we 'd want from the output of the system . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Right ? I mean , they 're something . It 's a {disfmarker} a kind of output you 'd like . +PhD B: Actually {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , James and I were talking about this during one of the breaks . And the problem with that is , I 'm definitely going to do something with information retrieval even if it 's sort of not full full - bore what I 'm gonna do for my thesis . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: I 'm gonna do something . I 'm not gonna do anything with summarization . And so if someone wants to do that , that 's fine , but it 's not gonna be me . +Professor D: Well , I think that we {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the f the core thing is that you know once we get some of these issues nailed down , we need to do a bunch of recordings +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: and send them off to IBM and get a bunch of transcriptions even if they 're slightly flawed +Grad G: Yep . +Professor D: or need some other {disfmarker} And then we 'll have some data there . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , i i we can start l looking and thinking , what do we want to know about these things and {disfmarker} at the very least . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually want to say something about the note pad . So , if you could sense just when people are writing , and you tell them not to doodle , or try not to {pause} be using that for other purposes , {comment} and each person has a note pad . They just get it when they come in the room . Then you c you can just have a fff {comment} plot of wh you know , who 's writing when . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: That 's all you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Activity . Yeah . +PhD B: And , you can also have notes of the meeting . But I bet that 's {disfmarker} that will allow you to go into the {disfmarker} sort of the hot places where people are writing things down . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Oh , I see . +PhD B: I mean , you can tell when you 're in a meeting when everybody stops to write something down that something was just said . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It may not be kept in the later summary , but at that point in time is was something that was important . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that wouldn't take any extra {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a nice idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or someone could just pu you could just put your hand on the pad +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and go like that if you want to . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's a good idea but that doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe I 'm missing something , but that doesn't get to the question of how we come up with queries , right ? +Professor A: Well , what it does {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , then you can go to the points where the {disfmarker} you could actually go to those points in time and find out what they were talking about . And you r +Professor A: Well , what it does is provide a different {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , y +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's an interesting thing . I don't think it gets at the {disfmarker} the queries per - se , but it does give us an information fusion sort of thing that , you know , you wanna i say "" what were the hot - points of the meeting ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's what I mean , is that I think it gets at something interesting but if we were asking the question , which I thought we were , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of , um , "" how do we figure out what 's the nature of the queries that people are gonna want to ask of such a system ? "" , knowing what 's important doesn't tell you what people are going to be asking . +PhD B: But I bet it 's a good {pause} superset of it . +Professor D: Does it ? +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: Well , see , there are th +Professor A: I think you could say they 're gonna ask about , uh , when {disfmarker} uh , when did so - and - so s talk about blah . And at least that gives you the word {pause} that they might run a query on . +PhD B: At least you can find the locations where there are maybe keywords +Professor D: Maybe . +Grad G: I mean , i this would tell you what the hit is , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: not what the query is . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Right , right . +Grad G: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 'll tell you the hit but not the query . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think thinking about queries is a little bit dangerous right now . +Grad G: And so you could {disfmarker} you can generate a query from the hits , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: We don't even know what {disfmarker} I mean , if you want to find out what any user will use , that might be true for one domain and one user , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but I mean a different domain and a different user {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , but we 're just looking for a place to start with that +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: because , you know , th what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what James is gonna be doing is looking at the user - interface and he 's looking at the query in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} i We {disfmarker} we have five hours of pilot data of the other stuff but we have zero hours of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of queries . So he 's just sort of going "" where {disfmarker} where do I {disfmarker} where do I start ? "" +Professor A: w Well , th you could do {disfmarker} I think the summaries actually may help get us there , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: for a couple reasons . One , if you have a summary {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of summaries , you can do a word frequency count and see what words come up in different types of meetings . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So "" action item "" is gonna come up whether it 's a VLSI meeting , or speech meeting , or whatever . So words that come up in different types of meetings may be something that you would want to query about . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , the second thing you could possibly do with it is just run a little pilot experiment with somebody saying "" here 's a summary of a meeting , what questions might you want to ask about it to go back ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , I think that 's difficult because then they 're not gonna ask the questions that are in the summary . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , I think it would give {disfmarker} +Professor A: That 's one possi one possible scenario , though , is you have the summary , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and you want to ask questions to get more detail . +Grad G: th Yeah , I think it has to be a participant . Well , it doesn't have to be . OK . So that {disfmarker} that is another use of Meeting Recorder that we haven't really talked about , which is for someone else , as opposed to as a {pause} remembrance agent , which is what had been my primary thought in the information retrieval part of it would be . But , uh , I guess if you had a meeting participant , they could use the summary to refresh themselves about the meeting and then make up queries . But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I don't know how to do it if {disfmarker} until you have a system . +PhD B: The summary is actually gonna drive the queries then . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , your research is going to be very circular . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what I was saying . +PhD E: But th there is this , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is this class of queries , which are the things that you didn't realize were important at the time but some in retrospect you think "" oh , hang on , didn't we talk about that ? "" And it 's something that didn't appear in the summary but you {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And that 's kind of what this kind of , uh , complete data capture is kind of nicest for . +Professor A: Right . Right . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Cuz it 's the things that you wouldn't have bothered to make an effort to record but they get recorded . So , I mean {disfmarker} And th there 's no way of generating those , u u until we just {disfmarker} until they actually occur . +PhD B: But you could always post - hoc label them . +PhD E: You know , it 's like {disfmarker} Right , right . Exactly . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: But I mean , it 's difficult to sort of say "" and if I was gonna ask four questions about this , what would they be ? "" Those aren't the kind of things that come up . +Grad G: But at least it would get us started . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Yeah , sure . +Postdoc H: I also think that w if {disfmarker} if you can use the summaries as an indication of the important points of the {disfmarker} of the meeting , then you might get something like {disfmarker} y So if th if the obscure item you want to know more about was some form of data collection , you know , maybe the summary would say , you know , "" we discussed types of na data collection "" . And , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and maybe you could get to it by that . If you {disfmarker} if you had the {disfmarker} the larger structure of the {disfmarker} of the discourse , then if you can categorize what it is that you 're looking for with reference to those l those larger headings , then you can find it even if you don't have a direct route to that . +Grad G: Mmm . Although it seems like that 's , um , a high burden on the note - taker . +Postdoc H: I think that {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's a pretty fine grain that the note - taker will have to take . +PhD B: Maybe Landay can put a student in to be a note - taker . +Professor A: I th No . I think you got to have somebody who knows the pro knows the topic or {disfmarker} you know , whose job it is delegated to be the note - taker . +PhD B: No ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Somebody who 's part of the meeting . +PhD B: No , I mean , but someone who can come sit in on the meetings and then takes the notes with them that the real note - taker {disfmarker} +Grad G: But they {disfmarker} +PhD B: And that way that one student has , you know , a rough idea of what was going on , and they can use it for their research . I mean , this isn't really necessarily what you would do in a real system , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because that that 's a lot of trouble +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and maybe it 's not the best way to do it . But if he has some students that want to study that then they should sort of get to know the people and attend those meetings , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and get the notes from the note - taker or something . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad G: Well , I think that 's a little bit of a problem . Their sort of note - taking application stuff they 've been doing for the last couple of years , and I don't think anyone is still working on it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think they 're done . Um , so I 'm not sure that they have anyone currently working on notes . So what we 'd have to interest someone in is the combination of note and speech . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: And so the question is "" is there such a person ? "" And I think right now , the answer is "" no "" . +Professor A: Well +Professor D: I 've b been thinking {disfmarker} +Grad G: We 'll just have to see . +Professor D: I 've been thinking about it a little bit here {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} uh , th this , e um {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} now I 'm thinking that the summary {disfmarker} a summary , uh , is actually a reasonable , uh , bootstrap into this {disfmarker} into what we 'd like to get at . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not ideal , but we {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we have to get started someplace . So I was {disfmarker} I was just thinking about , um , suppose we wanted to get {disfmarker} w We have this collection of meeting . We have five hours of stuff . Uh , we get that transcribed . So now we have five hours of meetings and , uh , you ask me , uh , uh , "" Morgan , what d you know , what kind of questions do you want to ask ? "" Uh , I wouldn't have any idea what kind of questions I want to ask . I 'd have to get started someplace . So in fact if I looked at summary of it , I 'd go "" oh , yeah , I was in that meeting , I remember that , um , what was the part that {disfmarker} "" And {disfmarker} and th I think that might then help me to think of things {disfmarker} even things that aren't listed in the summary , but just as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a refresh of what the general thing was going on in the meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think it serves two purpo purposes . One , as sort of a refresh to help bootstrap queries , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: but also , I mean , maybe we do want to generate summaries . And then it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's kind of a key . +Professor D: Well , yeah . That 's true too . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , absolutely . Then you want to have it . +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how does the summary get generated ? +Professor A: Well , i i {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm not against the idea of a summary , +Grad G: By hand . +PhD B: but I wanted to think carefully about who 's generating it +Professor A: Or , d o +PhD B: and how {disfmarker} because the summary will drive the queries . +Professor A: What I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in most meetings , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor A: this one being {pause} different , but in most meetings that I attend , there 's somebody t explicitly taking notes , frequently on a laptop {disfmarker} Um , you can just make it be on a laptop , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: so then yo you 're dealing with ASCII and not somebody {disfmarker} you don't have to go through handwriting recognition . Um , and then they post - edit it into , uh , a summary and they email it out for minutes . I mean , that happens in most meetings . +Postdoc H: I I {disfmarker} I think that , um , there 's {disfmarker} we 're using "" summary "" in two different ways . So what you just described I would describe as "" minutes "" . +Grad G: Minutes . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: And what I originally thought was , um , if you asked someone "" what was the meeting about ? "" +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And then they would say "" well , we talked about this and then we talked about that , and so - and - so talked about {disfmarker} "" And then you 'd have , like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} e My thought was to have multiple people summarize it , on recording rather than writing because writing takes time and you get irrelevant other things that u take time , that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Whereas if you just say it immediately after the meeting , you know , a two - minute summary of what the meeting was about , I think you would get , uh , with mult See , I {disfmarker} I also worry about having a single note - taker because that 's just one person 's perception . And , um , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's releva it 's relative to what you 're focus was on that meeting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and people have different {comment} major topics that they 're interested in . +Professor D: A +Postdoc H: So , my proposal would be that it may be worth considering both of those types , you know , the note - taking and a spontaneous oral summary afterwards , +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: no longer than two minutes , +Professor D: Adam , you can {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: from multiple people . +Professor D: you can correct me on this , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but , uh , my impression was that , uh , pretty much , uh , true that the meetings here , nobody sits with a w uh , with a laptop +Grad G: Never . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Never . I 've never seen it at ICSI . Does anyone {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Dan ? +Professor D: I +Grad G: I mean , Dan is the one who {disfmarker} who most frequently would take notes , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've d When we {disfmarker} when we have other meetings . When I have meetings on the European projects , we have someone taking notes . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Professor D: Yeah , but those are bigger deal things . +PhD E: In fact , I often do it . +Professor D: Right ? Where you 've got fifteen peo +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , most {disfmarker} th this is one of the larger meetings . Most of the meetings we have are four or five people +Grad G: That 's true {disfmarker} are four or five people . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: and you 're not {disfmarker} you don't have somebody sitting and taking minutes for it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: You just {vocalsound} get together and talk about where you are . +Professor A: So , I think it depends on whether it 's a business meeting or a technical discussion . +Grad G: Culture . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: And I agree , +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: technical discussions you don't usually have somebody taking notes . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: The IRAM meeting , they {disfmarker} they take notes every {disfmarker} +Professor D: Do they ? +Grad G: There 's uh a person with a laptop {pause} at each meeting . +PhD E: How many people are those meetings ? +Grad G: There are more . I mean , there are ten - ish . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Y you should also have a record of what 's on the board . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: They 're very sparse . +PhD B: I mean , I find it very {pause} hard to reconstruct what 's going on . I {disfmarker} I don't know how {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . This is something early in the project we talked a lot about . +PhD B: I don't know how , but for instance , I mean , the outline is sort of up here and that 's what people are seeing . And if you have a {disfmarker} Or you shou could tell people not to {disfmarker} to use the boards . But there 's sort of this missing information otherwise . +PhD E: We sh we should {disfmarker} +Grad G: I agree , but {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} you just {disfmarker} you g end up with video , +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD E: Well , I don't know . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and instrumented rooms . And {pause} that 's a different project , I think . +PhD E: f u I think for this data capture , it would be nice to have a digital camera +Grad G: Yeah , different {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , y +PhD E: just to take pictures of who 's there , where the microphones are , and then we could also put in what 's on the board . You know , like three or four snaps for every {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD B: Yeah . People who were never at the meeting will have a very hard time understanding it otherwise . +PhD E: for every meeting . +Postdoc H: That 's wonderful . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But don't you think that 's {disfmarker} Don't you think that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even people who were at the meeting . +PhD E: Well , no . I mean , I {disfmarker} I just think {disfmarker} I mean , I think that right now we don't make a record of where people are sitting on the tables . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: Huh . +PhD E: And that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at some point that might be awfully useful . +Grad G: Right . But I think adding photographs adds a whole nother level of problems . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . We n uh , +Postdoc H: It 's just a digital record . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} not as part of the {disfmarker} not as a part of the data that you have to recover . +PhD B: I don't mean that you model it . +PhD E: Just {disfmarker} just in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD B: We should just {disfmarker} Like archiving it or storing it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yes , I agree . I agree . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's i because discourse is about things , +PhD B: Because someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: and then you have the things that are about , and it 's recoverable . +PhD B: someone later might be able to take these and say "" OK , they , you know {disfmarker} at least these are the people who were there +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: and here 's sort of what they started talking about , and {disfmarker} "" and just {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yes . And it 's so simple . +Professor D: Li +Postdoc H: Like you said , three snapshots +Professor D: uh , L L L +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Liz , you {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Just to archive . +Professor D: u uh , Liz , you sa you sat in on the , uh , {vocalsound} subcommittee meeting or whatever {disfmarker} +PhD E: Actually {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh , on {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} on the subcommittee meeting for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} at the , uh {disfmarker} that workshop we were at that , uh , uh , Mark Liberman was {disfmarker} was having . So I {disfmarker} I wasn't there . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they h must have had some discussion about video and the visual aspect , and all that . +PhD B: Big , big interest . Huge . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} personally , I don't {disfmarker} I would never want to deal with it . But I 'm just saying first of all there 's a whole bunch of fusion issues that DARPA 's interested in . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: You know , fusing gesture and face recognition , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even lip movement and things like that , for this kind of task . And there 's also I think a personal interest on the part of Mark Liberman in this kind of {disfmarker} in storing these images in any data we collect +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so that later we can do other things with it . +Professor D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so to address what {disfmarker} what Adam 's saying , +Postdoc H: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , I think you {disfmarker} uh , that the key thing there is that this is a description of database collection effort that they 're talking about doing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And if the database exists and includes some visual information that doesn't mean that an individual researcher is going to make any use of it . Right ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a lot of effort on our part to create it , and store it , and get all the standards , and to do anything with it . +Professor D: Right . So we 're gonna {disfmarker} So we 're gonna do what we 're gonna do , whatever 's reasonable for us . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I think even doing something very crude {disfmarker} +Professor D: But having {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like I know with ATIS , we just had a tape recorder running all the time . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And later on it turned out it was really good that you had a tape recorder of what was happening , even though you w you just got the speech from the machine . So if you can find some really , you know , low , uh , perplexity , +Grad G: Low fidelity . +PhD B: yeah , {comment} way of {disfmarker} of doing that , I think it would be worthwhile . +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc H: I agree . And if it 's simple as {disfmarker} I mean , as simple as just the digital {disfmarker} +PhD B: Otherwise you 'd {disfmarker} you lose it . +Professor D: Well , minimally , I mean , what {disfmarker} what Dan is referring to at least having some representation of the p the spatial position of the people , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: cuz we are interested in some spatial processing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: so , um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , once the room is a little more fixed that 's a little easier +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: cuz you 'll {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , the wireless . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Also CMU has been doing this and they were the most vocal at this meeting , Alex Waibel 's group . And they have {pause} said , I talked to the student who had done this , {comment} that with two fairly inexpensive cameras they {disfmarker} they just recorded all the time +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and were able to get all the information from {disfmarker} or maybe it was three {disfmarker} from all the parts of the room . So I think we would be {disfmarker} we might lose the chance to use this data for somebody later who wants to do some kind of processing on it if we don't collect it {comment} at all . +Grad G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't disagree . I think that if you have that , then people who are interested in vision can use this database . The problem with it is you 'll have more people who don't want to be filmed than who don't want to be recorded . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad G: So that there 's going to be another group of people who are gonna say "" I won't participate "" . +Postdoc H: Well , she 's not {pause} making {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's true . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or you could put a paper bag over everybody 's head +Grad G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: and not look at each other and not look at boards , and just all be sitting {vocalsound} talking . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: That would be an interes {vocalsound} Bu +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Great idea . +Postdoc H: Well , there 's {disfmarker} that 'd be the {disfmarker} the parallel , yeah . But I think y she 's {disfmarker} we 're just proposing {pause} a minimal preservation of things on boards , +PhD B: Yeah . I definitely won't participate if there 's a camera . +Postdoc H: sp spatial organization {disfmarker} And you could anonymize the faces for that matter . You know , I mean , this is {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , you know , that 's a lot of infrastructure and work . +Postdoc H: We can talk about the {disfmarker} +Grad G: To set it up and then anonymize it ? +Postdoc H: It 's just one snapshot . +PhD B: No , it wa n not , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: No , no , no , no . +Postdoc H: We 're not talking about a movie . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Not for {disfmarker} not for CMU . +Postdoc H: We 're talking about a snapshot . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: They have a pretty crude set - up . And they had {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: they just turn on these cameras . They were {disfmarker} they were not moving or anything . +Grad G: Couldn't find it ? +PhD B: And stored it on analog media . +Grad G: Hmm ? +Postdoc H: Hmm . +PhD B: And they {disfmarker} they didn't actually align it or anything . They just {disfmarker} they have it , though . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , it 's worth considering . Maybe we don't want to {disfmarker} spend that much more time discussing it , +PhD F: Did they store it digitally , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm - mm . I think they just {disfmarker} +PhD F: or just put it on videotape ? +PhD B: I think they just had the videotapes with a c you know , a counter or something . Um , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Well , I think for {disfmarker} I mean , for our purposes we probably will d +PhD B: I 'm not sure . +Professor D: we {disfmarker} we might try that some and {disfmarker} and we certainly already have some recordings that don't have that , uh , which , you know , we we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get other value out of , I think . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Th The thing is , if it 's easy to collect it {disfmarker} it th then I think it 's a wise thing to do because once it 's gone it 's gone . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm just {disfmarker} The community {disfmarker} If LDC collects this data {disfmarker} u I mean , and L - if Mark Liberman is a strong proponent of how they collect it and what they collect , there will probably be some video data in there . +Professor D: There you go . +PhD B: And so that could argue for us not doing it or it could argue for us doing it . The only place where it sort of overlaps is when some of the summarization issues are {disfmarker} actually could be , um , easier {disfmarker} made easier if you had {pause} the video . +Professor D: I think at the moment we should be determining this on the basis of our own , uh , interests and needs rather than hypothetical ones from a community thing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: As you say , if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if they decide it 's really critical then they will collect a lot more data than we can afford to , uh , and {disfmarker} and will include all that . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , +Professor A: e +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not worried about the cost of setting it up . I 'm worried about the cost of people looking at it . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 'd be kind of silly to collect it all and not look at it at all . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that we do have to do some picking and choosing of the stuff that we 're doing . But I {disfmarker} I am int I do think that we m minimally want {disfmarker} something {disfmarker} we might want to look at {disfmarker} at some {disfmarker} some , uh , subsets of that . Like for a meeting like this , at least , uh , take a Polaroid of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the boards , +PhD B: Of the board . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Or at least make sure that the note - taker takes a sh you know , a snapshot of the board . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor D: a and know the position of the people {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 'll make it a lot easier for meetings that are structured . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , otherwise later on if nobody wrote this stuff on the board down we 'd have a harder time summarizing it or agreeing on a summary . +Postdoc H: We {disfmarker} And it {disfmarker} Especially since this is common knowledge . I mean , this is shared knowledge among all the participants , and it 's a shame to keep it off the recording . +Grad G: Uh , except in {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: s +Grad G: er , if we weren't recording this , this {disfmarker} this would get lost . Right ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well , I don't understand that point . I mean , I just think that the {disfmarker} +Grad G: The point is that we 're not saving it anyway . Right ? In {disfmarker} in {pause} our real - life setting . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: What do you mean we 're not saving it anyway ? I 've written all of this down and it 's getting emailed to you . +Professor C: And you 're gonna send it out by email , too . +Grad G: Well , uh , in that case we don't need to take pictures of it . +PhD B: Right . That would be the other alternative , to make sure that anything that was on the board , um , is in the record . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why I 'm saying that I think the note - taking would be {disfmarker} I think in many {disfmarker} for many meetings there will be some sort of note - taking , in which case , that 's a useful thing to have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} uh , we don't need to require it . Just like the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I think it would be great if we try to get a picture with every meeting . Um , +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor A: so {disfmarker} so we won't worry about requiring these things , but the more things that we can get it for , the more useful it will be for various applications . So . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} So , I mean , departing for the moment from the data collection question but actually talking about , you know , this group and what we actually want to do , uh , so I guess that 's th the way {disfmarker} what you were figuring on doing was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was , uh , putting together some notes and sending them to {disfmarker} to everybody from {disfmarker} from today ? OK . So . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's great . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the question {comment} that {disfmarker} that we started with was whether there was anything else we should do during {disfmarker} during th during the collection . +PhD B: Ow . +Professor D: And I guess the CrossPads was certainly one idea , uh , and we 'll get them from him and we 'll just do that . Right ? And then the next thing we talked about was the {disfmarker} was the summaries and are we gonna do anything about that . +Professor A: Well , before we leave the CrossPads and {disfmarker} and call it done . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: So , if I 'm collecting data then there is this question of do I use CrossPads ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: So , I think that if we really seriously have me collect data and I can't use CrossPads , it 's probably less useful for you guys to go to the trouble of using it , um , unless you think that the CrossPads are gonna {disfmarker} n I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what they 're gonna do . But {disfmarker} but having a small percentage of the data with it , I 'm not sure whether that 's useful or not . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's no big deal . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: Maybe we just do it and see what happens . +Professor D: I guess the point was to try {disfmarker} again , to try to collect more information that could be useful later for {disfmarker} for the UI stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So it 's sort of Landay supplying it so that Landay 's stuff can be easier to do . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right now he 's g operating from zero , +Professor A: Nothing . +Professor D: and so even if we didn't get it done from UW , it seems like that would {disfmarker} could still {disfmarker} You shou +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: I mean , at least try it . +PhD B: I think it 'd be useful to have a small amount of it just as a proof of concept . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: It will {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD B: You know , what you can do with things . +Grad G: And {disfmarker} and they seem to {pause} not be able to give enough of them away , so we could probably get more as well . +PhD B: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not to rely on them for {pause} basic modeling . +Professor A: That 's true . So if it {disfmarker} if it seems to be really useful to you guys , we could probably get a donation to me . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm not sure . I think it it {disfmarker} it will again depend on Landay , and if he has a student who 's interested , and how much infrastructure we 'll need . I mean , if it 's easy , we can just do it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , but if it requires a lot of our time , we probably won't do it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: I guess a lot of the stuff we 're doing now really is pilot in one sense or another . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah , we have to sort of figure out what we 're gonna do . +Professor D: And so we try it out and see how it works . +Grad G: Right . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: I just wouldn't base any of the modeling on having those . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . I ag I think I agree with that . +PhD B: It 's just {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +Grad G: I think , though , the importance marking is a {pause} good idea , though . That if {disfmarker} if people have something in front of them {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'd be sort of cool . I mean , it would {disfmarker} Yeah . That w shouldn't be hard for {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Do it on pilots or laptops or something . OK , if something 's important everyone clap . +Professor A: OK . So CrossPads , we 're just gonna try it and see what happens . +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . Um , I think that 's right . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: The note - taking {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I think that this is gonna be useful . So if we record data I will definitely ask for it . So , I j I think we should just say this is not {disfmarker} we don't want to put any extra burden on people , but if they happen to generate minutes , could {disfmarker} could they send it to us ? +Grad G: Yeah . Oh , OK . That 's fine . Absolutely . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . What I was gonna say is that I don't want to ask people to do something they wouldn't normally do in a meeting . It 's ver I just want to keep away from the artificiality . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I think it {pause} definitely if they exist . And then Jane 's idea of summarization afterward I think is not a bad one . Um , picking out {disfmarker} basically to let you pick out keywords , um , and , uh , construct queries . +Professor D: So who {disfmarker} who does this summarization ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'm thinking that {disfmarker} +Grad G: People in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: You know , just at {disfmarker} at the end of the meeting , before you go , +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Without hearing each other though , probably . +Grad G: go around the table . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: Or even just have one or two people stay behind . +Grad G: Yeah . Ugh . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: People with radio mikes can go into separate rooms and continue recording without hearing each other . That 's the nice thing . +PhD B: Well , then you should try them a few weeks later +Postdoc H: How fascinating . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} They have all these memory experiments about how little you actually retain +Grad G: And see {disfmarker} score them ? +PhD E: That 's right . Well , that 's the interesting thing , though . +PhD B: and wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we do {disfmarker} if we collect four different summaries , you know , we 're gonna get all this weird data about how people perceive things differently . +Grad G: Oh . +PhD E: It 's like {comment} this is not what we meant to research . +Grad G: Hmm . +PhD B: Right , right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +Postdoc H: That could be very interesting . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but again , like the CrossPads , I don't think I would base a lot of stuff on it , +Professor D: Ru +Grad G: I d yeah , I don't know how you would do it , though . +Professor A: because I think {disfmarker} I know when I see the {disfmarker} the clock coming near the end of the meeting , I 'm like inching towards the door . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Running to {disfmarker} Yeah , +Professor A: So , +Grad G: fff ! +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor A: you 're probably not gonna get {pause} a lot of people wanting to do this . +Grad G: Maybe e Is email easier ? +Postdoc H: Well , I think if {disfmarker} +Grad G: I mean , I {disfmarker} when you first said do {disfmarker} do it , um , spoken , what I was thinking is , oh then people have to come up +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and you have to hook them up to the recorder . So , if they 're already here I think that 's good , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but if they 're not already here for {disfmarker} I 'd rather do email . I 'm much faster typing than anything else . +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'd just try {disfmarker} Well , however the least intrusive and {disfmarker} and quickest way is , and th and closest to the meeting time too , cuz people will start to forget it as soon as they l leave . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I think that {disfmarker} I think doing it orally at the end of the meeting is the best time . +Grad G: I don't know . At {disfmarker} +Professor A: I just don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: because they 're kind of a captive audience . Once they leave , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , forget it . But {disfmarker} but i +Grad G: Yeah , read the digits , do the summary . +Professor A: Right . But , uh , I don't think that they 'll necessarily {disfmarker} you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get many people willing to stay . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: But , you know , if you get even one {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: w +Professor D: Well , I think it 's like the note - taking thing , +Postdoc H: I would s Yeah . +Professor D: that {disfmarker} that y that you can't {disfmarker} certainly can't require it or people aren't gonna want to do this . But {disfmarker} but if there 's some cases where they will , then it would be helpful . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And I 'm also wondering , couldn't that be included in the data sample so that you could increase the num you know , the words that are , uh , recognized by a particular individual ? If you could include the person 's meeting stuff and also the person 's summary stuff , maybe that would be uh , +PhD E: Yeah . It 's kind of nice . +Postdoc H: an ad addition to their database . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Under the same acoustic circumstance , cuz if they just walk next door with their set - up , nothing 's changed , +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc H: just {disfmarker} +PhD F: So I have a question about queries , +Grad G: God , that 's bugging me . +PhD F: which is , um , +Grad G: Can we turn that light off ? +Postdoc H: You turn {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: If {disfmarker} can we turn that just {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that let {disfmarker} +Professor D: The fl the fluorescent light is flickering . +Postdoc H: Uh , let the record show the light is flickering . +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , there 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , it is {disfmarker} it is like {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Very annoying . +PhD F: There you go . OK . +Grad G: Oh , much better . +Professor A: For a little while I thought it was just that I was really tired . +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's better . +PhD F: Good . +Professor A: That and y {comment} Too much caffeine and really tired , +Grad G: Too much caffeine . +Professor A: but then I thought "" no , maybe that 's real "" . +Professor D: OK . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: I thought it was the projector for a moment . It was like , "" what 's going on ? "" +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the question I had about queries was , um , so what we 're planning to do is have people look at the summaries and then generate queries ? Are {disfmarker} are we gonna try and o +Grad G: We {disfmarker} we 've just been talking , how do we generate queries ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well , I mean , +Grad G: And so that was one suggestion . +PhD F: so , the question I had is is have we given any thought to how we would generate queries automatically given a summary ? I mean , I think that 's a whole research topic un unto itself , +Professor D: Mmm . +PhD F: so that it may not be a feasible thing . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hello . Dan here . +PhD F: n +PhD B: Shouldn't Landay and his group be in charge of figuring out how to do this ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , this is an issue that goes a little bit beyond where {pause} we are right now . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: They 're the expert +PhD E: Mari ? +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD E: Someone wants to know when you 're getting picked up . Is someone picking you up ? +Professor A: Um , {vocalsound} what 's our schedule ? +Professor D: Well , you still wanted to talk with Liz . +Professor A: Let 's see , you and I need dis Uh , no , we did the Liz talk . +Professor D: And you and I need to Oh , oh . You already did the Liz talk . +Professor A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so that was the prosody thing . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: We - {vocalsound} I don't remember it . +Professor A: Um , we need to finish the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: It 's already four - fifteen . +PhD B: I have like no recall memory . +Professor A: Uh , after . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: We need to {pause} finish this discussion , and you and I need a little time for wrap - up and quad chart . So , +Grad G: And what ? +Professor A: um {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm at your disposal . So , up to you . +Professor A: Um , what {disfmarker} what 's the plan for this discussion ? We should {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , I think we should be able to wind up in another half - hour or something , you think ? +Grad G: At least . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , less . +Grad G: m i Even if that much ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: Less ? +Grad G: Less . +Professor A: So , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting that he 's got , like , {pause} this discussion free +Professor D: Well , I mean , we still haven't talked about the action items from here and so on . +Professor A: Action {disfmarker} Yeah . So , +PhD B: yet it 's separate . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: e e why don't you say five - thirty ? I don't {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , five - thirty . +Professor A: Is that OK ? We 'll probably hit horrible traffic . +PhD E: Sounds {disfmarker} OK . h Thanks , bye . +Professor A: That 's not a lot of time , +PhD E: That 's that . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , in answer to "" is it Landay 's problem ? "" , um , he doesn't have a student who 's interested right now in doing anything . So he has very little manpower . Um , there 's very little allocated for him and also he 's pretty focused on user interface . So I don't think he wants to do information retrieval , query generation , that sort of stuff . +Professor D: Yeah , well there 's gonna be these student projects that can do some things but it can't be , yeah , very deep . u I {disfmarker} I actually think that {disfmarker} that , uh , again , just as a bootstrap , {comment} if we do have something like summaries , then having the people who are involved in the meetings themselves , who are cooperative and willing to do yet more , come up with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with queries , uh , could at least give {disfmarker} give Landay an idea of the kind of things that people might want to know . I mean , ye Right ? If he doesn't know anything about the area , and {disfmarker} the people are talking about and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the people will just look at the summaries or the minutes and re and sort of back - generate the queries . That 's what I 'm worried about . So you might as well just give him the summaries . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD F: Well , I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that 's a solved problem . +Grad G: y Well , but I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD F: Right ? Of how to {disfmarker} how to generate queries from a {disfmarker} +PhD B: How to do this from the summary . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: That was sort of what my {pause} question was {pause} aimed towards . +PhD B: So what you want to h to do is , people who were there , who later see , uh , minutes and s put in summary form , which is not gonna be at the same time as the meeting . There 's no way that can happen . Are we gonna later go over it +Professor A: Hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad G: Right . +PhD B: and , like , make up some stuff to which these notes would be an answer , or {disfmarker} or a deeper {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} or just a memory refresher . +PhD B: But that 's done off {disfmarker} they have to do that off - line . +Grad G: Yep . I agree . +PhD B: You +Postdoc H: I 'm also wondering if we could ask the {disfmarker} the people a {disfmarker} a question which would be "" what was the most interesting thing you got out of this meeting ? "" Becau - in terms of like informativeness , +PhD B: That 's a good one . +Postdoc H: it might be , you know , that the summary would {disfmarker} would not in even include what the person thought was the most interesting fact . +Professor D: I would think that would be the most likely thing . +PhD B: Dan doesn't know what sex he is . +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor A: But actually I would say that 's a better thing to ask than have them summarize the meeting . +Postdoc H: I think you get two different types of information . +Professor A: You get two {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Because you get , like , the general structure of important points and what the {disfmarker} what the meeting was about . +Professor D: Hey . +PhD B: Ah +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: We 're still here . +Postdoc H: So you get the general structure , the important points of what the meeting was about {pause} with the summary . But with the "" what 's the most interesting thing you learned ? "" {disfmarker} Uh , so the fact that , uh , I know that Transcriber uses Snack is something that I thought was interesting +PhD B: Going to see the kids . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you can keep it on . +Postdoc H: and that {disfmarker} and that Dan worked on {disfmarker} on that . So I thought that was really {disfmarker} you know . So , I mean , you could ge pick up some of the micro items that wouldn't even occur as major headings +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: but could be very informative . +Professor A: Yeah , that 's actually a really good idea . +Postdoc H: I think it wouldn't be too , uh , uh , cost - intensive either . You know , I mean , it 's like something someone can do pretty easily on the spur of the moment . +Professor C: Are you thinking about just asking one participant or all of them ? +Grad G: As many are willing to do it . +Professor C: Make it a voluntary thing , +PhD E: Yeah . Cuz you 'll get {disfmarker} cuz you 'll get very different answers from everybody , right ? +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's why I was wondering . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , maybe one thing we could do is for the meetings we 've already done {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} we didn't take minutes and we don't have summaries . But , uh , people could , like , listen to them a little bit and {pause} generate some queries . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Of course Jane doesn't need to . I 'm sure you have that meeting memorized by now . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: But actually it would be an easy thing to just go around the room and say {pause} what was the most interesting thing you learned , +Grad G: Mmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: for those pe people willing to stay . +Postdoc H: And that {disfmarker} I think it would pick up the micro - structure , the {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some of the little things that would be hidden . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and that might be something people are willing to stay for . +Professor D: Boy , I {disfmarker} I don't know how we get at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That would be interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , but when you go around the room you might just get the effect that somebody says something +Grad G: Or want to get up and leave . +Professor C: and then you go around the room and they say "" yeah , me too , I agree . "" +Grad G: Me too , me too , me too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: That 's fine . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: On the other hand people might try and come up with different ones , right ? +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: They might say "" oh , I was gonna say that one but now I have to think of something else "" . +Grad G: Well , you have the other thing , that {disfmarker} that they know why we 're doing it . We 'll {disfmarker} I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be telling them that the reason we 're trying to do this is {disfmarker} is to d generate queries in the future , so try to pick things that other people didn't say . +Professor D: It 's gonna take some thought . I mean , It seemed {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The kind of , uh , interest that I had in this thing initially was , uh , that i basically the form that you 're doing something else {pause} later , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and you want to pick up something from this meeting related to the something else . So it 's really the imp the {disfmarker} the list of what 's important 's in the something else +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor D: And it might be something minor {disfmarker} of minor importance to the meeting . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Uh , in fact if {disfmarker} if it was really major , if it 's the thing that really stuck in your head , then you might not need to go back and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and check on it even . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's that you 're trying to find {disfmarker} {comment} You 're {disfmarker} you 've now {disfmarker} You weren't interested {disfmarker} Say I {disfmarker} I said "" well , I wasn't that much interested in dialogue , I 'm more of an acoustics person "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but thr three months from now if for some reason I get really interested in dialogue , and I 'm "" well what is {disfmarker} what was that part that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , Mari was saying ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , like Jim Bass says "" add a few lines on dialogue in your next perf "" +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then I 'm trying to fi I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's when I look {disfmarker} in general when I look things up most , is when it 's something that {vocalsound} didn't really stick in my head the first time around and {disfmarker} but for some {comment} new reason I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old stuff . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} that 's gonna be very hard to generate . +Professor A: Well , I {disfmarker} That 's hard to generate +Professor D: So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Do we {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and I think that 's half of what i I would use it for . But I also a lot of times um , make {disfmarker} you know , think to myself "" this is interesting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I 've gotta come back and follow up on it "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , things that I think are interesting , um , I would be , uh , wanting to do a query about . And also , I like the idea of going around the room , because if somebody else thought something was interesting , I 'd kind of want to know about it and then I 'd want to follow up on it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . That {disfmarker} that might get at some of what I was {disfmarker} I was concerned about , uh , being interested in something later that w uh , I didn't consider to be important the first time , which for me is actually the dominant thing , because if I thought it was really important it tends to stick more than if I didn't , but some new {pause} task comes along that makes me want to look up . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} But what 's interesting to me may not b have been interesting to you . +Professor D: Yeah . So having multiple people might get at some of that . +Grad G: By {disfmarker} so by going around {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you can't get at all of it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? W we just need to start somewhere . +Professor D: Yeah , and this is a starting point . +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD F: The question {disfmarker} the question then is h h how much bias do we introduce by {disfmarker} you know , introduce by saying , you know , this was important now and , you know , maybe tha something else is important later ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I mean , does it {disfmarker} does the bias matter ? I {disfmarker} I don't know . I mean , uh , that 's , I guess , a question for you guys . But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and one thing , we {disfmarker} we 're saying "" important "" and we 're saying "" interesting "" . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} those can be two different things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Sure , sure . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess that 's the question , really , is that {disfmarker} I mean , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: W +PhD F: does building queries based on what 's important now introduce an irreversible bias on being able to do what Morgan wants to do later ? +Professor D: Well , irreversible . +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I guess what I what I {disfmarker} I keep coming back to in my own mind is that , um , the soonest we can do it , we need to get up some kind of system +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: so that people who 've been involved in the meeting can go back later , even if it 's a poor system in some ways , and , uh {disfmarker} and ask the questions that they actually want to know . If {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} uh , as soon as we can get that going at any kind of level , then I think we 'll have a much better handle on what kind of questions people want to ask than in any {disfmarker} anything we do before that . But obviously we have to bootstrap somehow , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sure . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I agree . +Postdoc H: I will say that {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} I chose "" interesting "" because I think it includes also "" important "" in some cases . But , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I feel like the summary gets {pause} at a different type of information . +PhD F: I think "" important "" can often be uninteresting . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . And "" interesting "" is more interesting than "" important "" . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} i it puts a lot of burden on the person to {disfmarker} to evaluate . You know , I think inter "" interesting "" is {disfmarker} is non - threatening in {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: In the interest of , um , +Grad G: Importance ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: generati {comment} generating an interesting summary , {comment} um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: No , i in the interest of generating some minutes here , uh , and also moving on to action items and other things , let me just go through the things that I wrote down as being important , um , that we at least decided on . CrossPads we were going to try , um , if Landay can get the , uh {disfmarker} get them to {disfmarker} to you guys , um , and see if they 're interesting . And if they are , then we 'll try to get m do it more . Um , getting electronic summary from a note - taking person if they happen to do it anyway . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , getting {pause} just , uh , digital pictures {disfmarker} a couple digital pictures of the {disfmarker} the table and boards to set the context of the meeting . Uh , and then going around the room at the end to just say {disfmarker} qu ask people to mention something interesting that they learned . So rather than say the most interesting thing , something interesting , +Postdoc H: k +Professor A: and that way you 'll get more variety . +Postdoc H: Sure . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I wouldn't even say that "" that they learned "" . +Postdoc H: That 's good . I like that . I like that . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Uh , you might want to mention something that {disfmarker} that you brought up . +Professor A: "" Thing {pause} that was {pause} discussed . "" And then the last thing c would be for those people who are willing to stay afterwards and give an oral summary . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? Does that pretty much cover everything we talked about ? That {disfmarker} well , that we want to do ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . A And one {disfmarker} and one qualification on {disfmarker} on the oral summaries . They 'd be s they 'd be separate . They wouldn't be hearing each other 's summaries . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Yeah , that 's like {disfmarker} n I think that 's gonna predominantly end up being whoever {pause} takes down the equipment then . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and that would also be that the data would be included in the database . +Grad G: Yeah , that would be , let 's see , me . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I mean , there is still this hope that people might actually think of real queries they really want to ask at some point . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: And that if {disfmarker} if that ever should happen , then we should try and write them down . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Give them a reward , a dollar a query ? +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: If they 're real queries . +Professor A: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , and again , if we can figure out a way to jimmy a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a very rough system , say in a year , then {disfmarker} uh , so that in the second and third years we {disfmarker} we actually have something to {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Play with and generate real queries from . +Professor D: ask queries . +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: So . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I just wanted to say one thing about queries . I mean , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the level of the query could be , you know , very low - level or very high - level . And it gets fuzzier and fuzzier as you go up , right ? +Grad G: Well , we 're gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you need to have some sort of {disfmarker} if you start working with queries , some way of identifying what the {disfmarker} you know , if this is something that requires a {disfmarker} a one - word answer or it 's one place in the recording versus was there general agreement on this issue of all the people who ha +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD B: You know , you can gen you can ask queries that are meaningful for people . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: In fact , they 're very meaningful cuz they 're very high - level . But they won't exist anywhere in the {pause} a you know {disfmarker} +Grad G: Absolutely . So I think we 're gonna have to start with keywords +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and if someone becomes more interested we could work our way up . +Professor D: I I 'm {disfmarker} I I 'm not so sure I agree with that . +PhD B: It {disfmarker} But it may well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Because {disfmarker} uh , b because it depends on , uh , what our goal is . +Grad G: Really ? +Professor D: If our goal is Wizard of Oz - ish , we might want to know what is it that people would really like to know about this data . +Grad G: Oh , that 's true . +Professor D: And if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that we don't know how to do yet , th great , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: that 's , you know , research project for year four or something . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Research , yeah . +Professor D: You know ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , I was thinking about Wizard of Oz , but it requires the wizard to know all about the meetings . +PhD E: We 'd have to listen to all the data . +Professor D: Um , well , not {disfmarker} maybe not true Wizard of Oz +Grad G: So . +Professor D: because people are too +Grad G: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I understand . +Professor D: uh , aware of what 's going on . +PhD E: Well just imagine if {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Get people to ask questions that they def the machine definitely can't answer at the moment , +Professor D: Yeah . w Just "" what would you like to know ? "" +PhD E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} neither could anyone else , though , is what , uh , my point is . +PhD E: Yes . +Postdoc H: I I was wondering if {disfmarker} if there might be one s more source of queries which is indicator phrases like "" action item "" , +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc H: which could be obtained from the text {disfmarker} from the transcript . +Grad G: Right . Since we have the transcript . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Dates maybe . I don't know . That 's something I always forget . +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's something to be determined , something to be specified , +PhD B: Well , probably if you have to sit there at the end of a meeting and say one thing you remember , it 's probably whatever action item was assigned to you . +Postdoc H: but text - oriented . +PhD B: I mean , in gen that 's all I remember from most meetings . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Postdoc H: I think you 'd remember that , yeah . +PhD B: So , in general , I mean , that could be something you could say , right ? I 'm supposed to {pause} do this . It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's true . Well , but then you could {disfmarker} you could prompt them to say , you know , "" other than your action item "" , you know , whatever . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: But {disfmarker} but the action item would be a way to get , uh , maybe an additional query . +PhD B: I mean , that 's realistically what people might {pause} well be remembering . +Postdoc H: So . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , but {disfmarker} you know , but you could get again @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , we 're piloting . We 'll just do it and see what happens . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: I usually don't remember my action items . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . Speaking of action items , can we move on to action items ? +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Sure . Can you hand me my note pad ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . yeah . +Professor A: Um , or maybe we should wait until the summary of this {disfmarker} until this meeting is transcribed and then we will hav +Professor D: We {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . Then we 'll know . +Grad G: Thanks . +Professor D: somewhere up there we had milestones , but I guess {disfmarker} Did y did you get enough milestone , uh , from the description things ? +Professor A: I got {disfmarker} Yeah . In fact , why don't you hand me those transparencies so that I remember to take them . eee , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: And , you know , there 's obviously {pause} detail behind each of those , as much as is needed . So , you just have to {pause} let us know . +Professor A: OK . What I have down for action items is we 're supposed to find out about our human subject , um , {vocalsound} requirements . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor A: Uh , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor A: people are supposed to send me U R for their {disfmarker} for web pages , to c and I 'll put together an overall cover . And you 're s +PhD E: Right . We {disfmarker} +Professor A: Hmm ? +PhD E: we need to look at our web page +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and you also need to look at your web page +PhD E: and make one that 's {disfmarker} that 's p +Professor A: and clean it up by mid - July . +PhD E: PDA - free . +Grad G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Professor A: let 's see . Choo - choo - choo . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mailing lists . +Professor A: Mailing list ? Uh , you need to put together a mailing list . +Professor D: Three of them . +Professor A: Uh , I think w +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: mostly together . +Professor A: uh , I need to email Adam or Jane , um , about getting the data . Who should I email ? +Grad G: Uh , how quickly do you want it ? +Professor A: Um . +Grad G: My July is really very crowded . And so , uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: How about if I just c Uh , Right now all I want {disfmarker} I personally only want text data . I think the only thing Jeff would do anything with right now {disfmarker} But I 'm just speaking fr based on a conversation with him two weeks ago I had in Turkey . But I think all he would want is the digits . Um , but I 'll just speak for myself . I 'm interested in getting the language model data . Eh , so I 'm just interested in getting transcriptions . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So then just email you ? +Postdoc H: OK . So y Sure , sure , sure . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Wh +Postdoc H: You could email to both of us , uh , just {disfmarker} I mean , if you wanted to . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: I mean , I don't think either of us would mind recei +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: i +Grad G: That 's right . +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} but in any case I 'd be happy to send you the {disfmarker} +Professor A: And your email is ? +Professor D: i +Postdoc H: Edwards at ICSI . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: w +Grad G: Dot Berkeley dot EDU , of course . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in our phone call , uh , before , we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} It turns out the way we 're gonna send the data is by , uh , And , uh {disfmarker} and then what they 're gonna do is take the CD - ROM and transfer it to analog tape and {vocalsound} give it to a transcription service , uh , that will {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , is this IBM ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah , using foot pedals +Professor D: Yeah , foot {disfmarker} foot pedals +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , so do they {disfmarker} How are they gonna do the multi - channel ? +Professor D: See , that 's a good question . +Postdoc H: Yeah . They {disfmarker} they don't have a way . +Grad G: I thought so . +Professor D: No , I mean , it 'll be +Postdoc H: But they have a verification . +Professor D: probably about like you did , +Grad G: Mix ? +Professor D: and then there will be some things {disfmarker} you know , many things that don't work out well . And that 'll go back to IBM and they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll , uh {disfmarker} they run their aligner on it and it kicks out things that don't work well , which {disfmarker} you know , the overlaps will certainly be examples of that . And , uh {disfmarker} I mean , what w we will give them all of it . Right ? +Grad G: OK . That 's , uh , my question . +Professor D: We 'll give them all the {disfmarker} the multi - channel stuff +Grad G: So we 'll give them all sixteen channels +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: and they 'll do whatever they want with it . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But you also should probably give them the mixed {disfmarker} You know , equal sound - level {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Good idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , they 're not gonna easily be able to do that , probably . +Grad G: It 's not hard . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Grad G: So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's also won't be adding much to the data to give them the mixed . +PhD F: But w +PhD B: I +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . It doesn't {disfmarker} it isn't difficult for us to do , +Grad G: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD B: i You should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: so we might as well just do it . +PhD B: You should {disfmarker} that may be all that they want to send off to their {pause} transcribers . +Grad G: Absolutely . So , sure . +Professor A: OK . Related to {disfmarker} to the conversation with Picheny , I need to email him , uh , my shipping address and you need to email them something which you already did . +Postdoc H: I did . I {disfmarker} I m emailed them the Transcriber URL , um , the on - line , uh , data that Adam set up , The URL so they can click on an utterance and hear it . and I emailed them the str streamlined conventions which you got a copy of today . +Professor D: Right . And I was gonna m email them the {disfmarker} which I haven't yet , a pointer to {disfmarker} to the web pages that we {disfmarker} that we currently have , cuz in particular they want to see the one with the {disfmarker} the way the recording room is set up +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: and so on , your {disfmarker} your page on that . +Postdoc H: Oh , excellent . Good . +Grad G: And then p possibly {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I C - I CC ' ed Morgan . I should have sent {disfmarker} I should have CC ' ed you as well . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Not an immediate action item but something we do have to worry about is data formats for {disfmarker} for higher - level information . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Oh , yeah . We were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , or d or not even higher level , different level , prosody and all that sort of stuff . We 're gonna have to figure out how we 're gonna annotate that . +Professor A: Yeah . We never had our data format discussion . +Professor D: Yeah , we w Right . +Postdoc H: Oh , I thought we did . We discussed , uh , musi musical score notation +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad G: But that 's not {disfmarker} That 's display . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and its XML {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's different than format . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: W My {disfmarker} my u feeling right now on format is you guys have been doing all the work +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Professor A: and whatever you want , we 're happy to live with . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Postdoc H: OK , excellent . +Professor A: other people may not agree with that , +Professor D: OK . So , what n important thing {disfmarker} +Professor A: but {disfmarker} Cuz I 'm not actually touching the data , +Postdoc H: Well , it c +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: so I shouldn't be the one to talk . But {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I think that 's fine . +Professor D: So a key thing will be that you {disfmarker} we tell you +Postdoc H: Great . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: what it is . Uh , we also had {disfmarker} +PhD F: "" Here 's a mysterious file +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} "" +Professor D: We also had the , uh , uh {disfmarker} that we were s uh , that you were gonna get us the eight - hundred number +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: and we 're all gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna call up your Communicator thing and {disfmarker} and we 're gonna be good slash bad , depending on how you define it , uh , users . +Professor C: Now , something that I mentioned earlier to Mari and Liz is that it 's probably important to get as many non - technical and non - speech people as possible in order to get some realistic users . So if you could ask other people to call and use our system , that 'd be good . Cuz we don't want people who already know how to deal with dialogue systems , +Professor A: Yeah . Or , {vocalsound} like if you have a {disfmarker} +Professor C: who know that you shouldn't hyper - articulate , for instance , and things like that . +Professor A: Or , like if you have somebody who makes your {disfmarker} your plane reservations for you , +Professor C: So . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: um , which is +Professor D: Yeah , we can do that . +Professor A: the n +Grad G: Get my parents to do it . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Seriously . +Professor C: Yeah , for instance . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: Your grandmother . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . e You know , it could {pause} result in some good bloopers , which is always good for presentations . So {disfmarker} Um , anyway {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think my father would last through the second prompt before he hang {disfmarker} hung up . +Professor A: Mmm . +Professor D: My mother would have a very interesting conversation with it +Grad G: He would never use it . +Professor D: but it wouldn't have anything to do with the travel . +Professor A: OK . Um , other {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: Let 's see , other action items . So I have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: We talked about that we 're getting the recording equipment running at UW . And so it depends , w e e e they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're p m If that comes together within the next month , there at least will be , uh , uh , major communications between Dan and {vocalsound} UW folks +PhD E: Yeah . I mean , +Professor A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm shooting to try to get it done {disfmarker} get it put together by {pause} the beginning of August . +Professor D: as to {disfmarker} +PhD E: we should talk about it , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mmm . +Professor A: So , um , you know , if +Professor D: But we have {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} We don't know . I mean , he {disfmarker} he s uh , he said that it was sitting in some room collecting dust +Professor A: We don't know . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and so we don't know , +Professor A: i It 's probably unlikely that we 'll pull this off , +Professor D: i e +Professor A: but a at least it 's worth trying . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . What is it ? +Professor D: We don't know . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Professor D: "" Recording equipment . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: It 's a tape recorder . +Professor D: W We know it 's eight channels . Uh , we know it 's digital . +Grad G: It 's eight tape recorders . +Professor D: We don't even know if there 're microphones . So , we 'll find out . +Professor A: OK . Um , and I will email these notes {disfmarker} Um , I 'm not sure what to do about action items for the data stuff , although , then somebody {disfmarker} I guess somebody needs to tell Landay that you want the pads . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . I 'll do that . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Um , and he also said something about outside {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} that came up about the outside text sources , that he {disfmarker} he may have +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh ! +Professor D: some text sources that are close enough to the sort of thing that we can play with them for a language model . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , that was {disfmarker} uh , that was {disfmarker} What he was saying was this {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} this thing that , uh , Jason had been working on finds web pages that are thematically related to what you 're talking about . Well , that 's the idea . So that that {disfmarker} that would be a source of text which is {disfmarker} supposedly got the right vocabulary . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: But it 's obviously very different material . It 's not spoken material , for instance , +Professor D: Yeah . But it 's p it might be {disfmarker} +PhD E: so {disfmarker} +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but that 's actually what I wanna do . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I wanna work with , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: is {disfmarker} is things that s the wrong material but the right da the right source . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Un - unfortunately Landay told me that Jason is not gonna be working on that anymore . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: He 's switching to other stuff again . +Professor A: Yeah . He seemed {disfmarker} when I asked him if he could actually supply data , he seemed a little bit more reluctant . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send him email . I 'll put it in an action item that I send him email about it . And if I get something , great . If I don't get something {disfmarker} +Grad G: Who ? Landay or Jason ? +Professor A: Landay . And , uh , um , +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Professor A: you know , otherwise , if you guys have any papers or {disfmarker} I could {disfmarker} I could use , uh {disfmarker} I could use your web pages . That 's what we could do . You 've got all the web pages on the Meeting Recor +Professor D: Yeah , why search for them ? +Professor A: Yeah ! +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} we know where they are . +Grad G: True . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad G: Absolutely . +Professor A: Oh , forget this ! +PhD E: Sure . +Grad G: Well , but that 's not very much . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} One less action item . I can use what web pages there are out there on meeting recorders . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Right . +Grad G: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Basically what his software does is h it picks out keywords and does a Google - like search . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can do better than that . +PhD E: We can do that . Yeah . +Grad G: So you could {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , Carnegie Mellon stuff , right ? On {disfmarker} on meeting recording , +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: And Xerox . +Professor A: So , there 's {disfmarker} there 's ICSI , Xerox , +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} You should l look under , like , intelligent environments , +Professor D: And Xerox . Yeah . +PhD B: smart rooms , +Grad G: Um , the "" Georgia Tech Classroom Two Thousand "" is a good one . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Professor A: CMU , +PhD B: Right . And then {disfmarker} Right . J There 's {disfmarker} th That 's where I thought you would want to eventually be able to have a board or a camera , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because of all these classroom {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , Georgia Tech did a very elaborate instrumented room . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: And I want to try to stay away from that . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . Great . That solves that problem . One less action item . Um {disfmarker} OK . I think that 's good enou that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much all I can think of . +Postdoc H: Can I ask , uh , one thing ? It relates to data {disfmarker} data collection and I {disfmarker} and I 'd {disfmarker} and we mentioned earlier today , this question of {disfmarker} um , so , um , I s I know that from {disfmarker} with the near - field mikes some of the problems that come with overlapping speech , uh , are lessened . But I wonder if {disfmarker} Uh , is that sufficient or should we consider maybe getting some data gathered in such a way that , um , u w we would c uh , p have a meeting with less overlap than would otherwise be the case ? So either by rules of participation , or whatever . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Postdoc H: Now , I mean , you know , it 's true , I mean , we were discussing this earlier , that depending on the task {disfmarker} so if you 've got someone giving a report you 're not gonna have as much overlap . +PhD F: Adam ! +Postdoc H: But , um , i i uh , so we 're gonna have s you know , non - overlapping samples anyway . But , um , in a meeting which would otherwise be highly overlapping , is the near - field mike enough or should we have some rules of participation for some of our samples to lessen the overlap ? +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: turn off +Professor A: I don't think we should have rules of participation , but I think we should try to {pause} get a variety of meetings . That 's something that if we get the {disfmarker} the meeting stuff going at UW , that I probably can do more than you guys , +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: cuz you guys are probably mostly going to get ICSI people here . But we can get anybody in EE , uh , over {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and possibly also some CS people , uh , over at UW . So , I think that {disfmarker} that there 's a good chance we could get more variety . +Postdoc H: OK . Just want to be sure there 's enough data to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Um , +PhD B: They 're still gonna overlap , +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} Mark and others have said that there 's quite a lot of found data {comment} from the discourse community that has this characteristic and also the political {disfmarker} Y you know , anything that was televised for a third party has the characteristic of not very much overlap . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Wasn - but w I think we were saying before also that the natural language group here had less overlap . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: So it also depends on the style of the group of people . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Like the , um , dominance relations of the people in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . On the task , and the task . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's just {disfmarker} I just wanted to {disfmarker} uh , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: because you know , it is true people can modify the amount of overlap that they do if {disfmarker} if they 're asked to . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Not {disfmarker} not entirely modify it , but lessen it if {disfmarker} if it 's desired . But if {disfmarker} if that 's sufficient data {disfmarker} I just wanted to be sure that we will not be having a lot of data which can't be processed . +Professor A: OK . So I 'm just writing here , we 're not gonna try to specify rules of interaction but we 're gonna try to get more variety by i using different {pause} groups of people +Postdoc H: Time . +Professor A: and different sizes . +Postdoc H: Fine . And I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I know that the near f near - field mikes will take care of also the problems to s to a certain degree . +Professor A: e e Yeah . And then the other thing might be , um , uh , technical versus administrative . +Postdoc H: I just wanted to be sure . +Professor A: Cuz if I recorded some administrative meetings then that may have less overlap , because you might have more overlap when you 're doing something technical and disagreeing or whatever . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Well , I {disfmarker} just as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as a contributary {disfmarker} eh , so I {disfmarker} I know that in l in legal depositions people are pr are prevented from overlapping . They 'll just say , you know {disfmarker} you know , "" wait till each person is finished before you say something "" . So it is possible to lessen if we wanted to . But {disfmarker} but these other factors are fine . I just wanted to raise the issue . +Professor A: Well , the reason why I didn't want to is be why I personally didn't want to {comment} is because I wanted it to be {pause} as , uh , unintrusive as possi +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: as you could be with these things hanging on you . +Postdoc H: Oh , yeah . Yeah , I think that 's always desired . I just want to be sure we don't {disfmarker} that we 're able to process , i u uh , you know , as much data as we can . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Did they discuss any of that in the {disfmarker} the meeting they had with L Liberman ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there was a big division , +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} +PhD B: so Liberman and others {pause} were interested in a lot of found data . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So there 's lots of recordings that {disfmarker} They 're not close - talk mike , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and there 's lots of television , you know , stuff on , um , political debates and things like that , congre congressional hearings . Boring stuff like that . Um , and then the CMU folks and I were sort of on the other side in {disfmarker} cuz they had collected a lot of meetings that were sort of like this and said that those are nothing like these meetings . Um , so there 're really two different kinds of data . And , I guess we just left it as {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that {pause} if there 's found data that can be transformed for use in speech recognition easily , then of course we would do it , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but newly collected data would {disfmarker} would be natural meetings . So . +Professor D: Actually , th @ @ {comment} the CMU folk have collected a lot of data . Is that {disfmarker} is that going to be publicly available , +PhD B: As far as I know , they h have not . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Um , but e +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: It 's also {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not near - far , right ? +PhD B: I 'm not sure . Um , if people were interested they could talk to them , but I {disfmarker} I got the feeling there was some politics involved . +Grad G: I think @ @ gonna add that to one of my action items . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: Just to check . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . W we should know what 's out there certainly . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz I had thought they 'd only done far - field , +PhD B: I think you need to talk to Waibel and {disfmarker} +Grad G: intelligent - room sorts of things . +PhD E: Oh , really ? It 's those guys . +Grad G: I hadn't known that then {disfmarker} they 'd done any more than that . +Professor D: Oh , they only did the far - field ? I see . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: But they had multiple mikes and they did do recognition , and they did do real conversations . But as far as I know they didn't offer that data to the community at this meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But that could change cuz Mark {disfmarker} you know , Mark 's really into this . We should keep in touch with him . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , once we send out {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , we still haven't sent out the first note saying "" hey , this list exists "" . But {disfmarker} but , uh , once we do that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is that an action item ? +Professor D: Yeah . It 's on {disfmarker} I already added that one on my board to do that . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , hopefully everybody here is on that list . We should at least check that everybody here {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: I think everyone here is on the list . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: I 'm not . +Postdoc H: u e e +Grad G: I think you are . +Professor D: We haven't sent anything to the list yet . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: We 're just compiling the list . +PhD F: I see . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I added a few people who didn't {disfmarker} who I knew had to be on it even though they didn't tell me . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Who specifically ask not to be . +Grad G: Like Jane , for example . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: You are on it , aren't you ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I am . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: So , I w uh , just {disfmarker} just for clarification . So "" found data "" , they mean like established corpora of linguistics and {disfmarker} and other fields , right ? +PhD B: What they mean is stuff they don't have to fund to collect , +Postdoc H: It sounds like such a t +PhD B: and especially good {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: Well , I mean , "" found "" has , uh , also the meaning that 's it very natural . It 's things occur without any {disfmarker} You know , the pe these people weren't wearing close - talking mikes , but they were recorded anyway , like the congressional hearings and , you know , for legal purposes or whatever . +Postdoc H: OK . But it includes like standard corpora that have been used for years in linguistics and {pause} other fields . +PhD B: Mark 's aware of those , too . +PhD E: "" Hey , look what we found ! "" +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD B: That would be found data because they found it {vocalsound} and it exists . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +PhD E: "" I found this great corpora . "" Yeah . +PhD B: They didn't have to collect it . Of course it 's not "" found "" in the sense that at the time it was collected for the purpose . +Grad G: "" Psst . {comment} Want to buy a corpora ? "" +Postdoc H: Yeah . OK , OK . +PhD B: But what he means is that {disfmarker} You know , Mark was really a fan of getting as much data as possible from {disfmarker} you know , reams and reams of stuff , of broadcast stuff , +Postdoc H: That 's interesting . +PhD B: web stuff , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: TV stuff , radio stuff . But he well understands that that 's very different than these {disfmarker} this type of meeting . +Grad G: It 's not the same . +PhD B: But , so what ? It 's still {disfmarker} it 's interesting for other reasons . +Postdoc H: OK . Yeah . Just wanted to know . +Professor D: So , seems like we 're winding down . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Many {pause} ways . +PhD B: You can {pause} tell {pause} by the {pause} prosody . +PhD E: So we should go {disfmarker} go around and s +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We should go around and say something interesting that happened at the meeting ? +Professor A: Oh . Yes , we should do that . +PhD B: Rrrh ! +Grad G: Now , I was already thinking about it , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! Good man . +PhD B: This is painful task . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad G: So , um , I really liked the idea of {disfmarker} what I thought was interesting was the combination of the CrossPad and the speech . Especially , um , the interaction of them rather than just note - taking . So , can you {pause} determine the interesting points by who 's writing ? Can you do special gestures and so on that {disfmarker} that have , uh , special meaning to the corpora ? I really liked that . +Postdoc H: Well , I {disfmarker} I just realized there 's another category of interesting things which is that , um , I {disfmarker} I found this discussion very , uh , i this {disfmarker} this question of how you get at queries really interesting . And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and the fact that it 's sort of , uh , nebulous , what {disfmarker} what that {disfmarker} what kind of query it would be because it depends on what your purpose is . So I actually found that whole process of {disfmarker} of trying to think of what that would involve to be interesting . But that 's not really a specific fact . I just sort of thought we {disfmarker} we went around a nice discussion of the factors involved there , which I thought was worthwhile . +PhD E: I had a real revelation about taking pictures . I don't know why I didn't do this before and I regret it . So that was very interesting for me . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Did you take pictures of the boards ? +PhD E: Not that I {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD E: The boards aren't really related to this meeting . I mean , I will take pictures of them , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a good point . +Professor A: They 're related to this morning 's meeting . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: To the pre previous meeting . That 's right . +PhD E: OK . Well , that 's why I 'll take pictures of them , then . +PhD F: I 'm gonna pass because I can't {disfmarker} I mean , of the {disfmarker} Jane took my answer . +Grad G: Ah ! +PhD F: So . +Postdoc H: Oh . +PhD F: Um , so I 'm gonna pass for the moment but y come {disfmarker} come back to me . +PhD E: For the moment . +PhD B: Pass . +Professor A: I think {disfmarker} I think "" pass "" is socially acceptable . But I will say {disfmarker} uh , I will actually {disfmarker} uh , a spin on different {disfmarker} slightly different spin on what you said , this issue of , uh , realizing that we could take minutes , and that actually may be a goal . So that {disfmarker} that may be kind of the test {disfmarker} in a sense , test data , uh , the {disfmarker} the template of what we want to test against , generating a summary . So that 's an interesting new twist on what we can do with this data . +Professor C: I agree with Jane and Eric . I think the question of how to generate queries automatically was the most interesting question that came up , and it 's something that , as you said , is a whole research topic in itself , so I don't think we 'll be able to do anything on it because we don't have funding on it , uh , in this project . But , um , {vocalsound} it 's definitely something I would {pause} want to do something on . +Grad G: I wonder if work 's already been done on it . +Postdoc H: Like e expert systems and stuff , +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: or {disfmarker} ? Uh - huh . +Professor D: Well , being more management lately than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} than research , I think the thing that impressed me most was the people dynamics and not any of the facts . That is , I {disfmarker} I really enjoyed hanging out with this group of people today . So that 's what really impressed me . +PhD E: How are we gonna find that in the data ? +Grad G: Well , if we had people wearing the wireless mikes all the time {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I mean , one thing you could search for is were people laughing a lot . +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: Right ? So . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: How happy were they ? +Professor D: I 'd probably search for something like that . +Grad G: That actually has come up a couple times in queries . I was talking to Landay +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that was one of his examples . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: When {disfmarker} when did people laugh ? +PhD E: That 's great . +Professor D: Find me a funny thing that Jeff said . Yeah . +Grad G: So we need a laugh detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Perfect . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz that seems to be pretty common . Not in the congressional hearings . +PhD F: No . +Grad G: Quiet sobbing . +Professor D: So I think we 're done . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: Great . +PhD E: Great . +PhD F: OK . +Grad G: I think we 're done . +Professor D: Great . +Postdoc H: h Do we need {disfmarker} do I need to turn something off here , or I do unplug this , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Now these we turn off . Right ? +","Summary: + +The meeting participants discuss various topics related to data collection and processing for a Meeting Recorder project. They consider the comfort of the recording equipment, such as headphones, and the practicalities of transcription and annotation. The group contemplates how to generate queries automatically from summaries or minutes of meetings, debating if setting rules for interactions to avoid overlap is appropriate, and decide it's better to record a variety of meetings instead. They also discuss supplementing speech data with notes taken using CrossPads, provided by a colleague, Professor Landay. Other key points include taking pictures for contextual information, deciding on action items, and brainstorming on how to elicit the most interesting points from meetings per participant's perspective, which may later guide query generation. Additionally, they touch upon the richness of ""found data"" like broadcast materials for research but recognize its differences from natural meetings. The meeting concludes with individual participants sharing their interesting takeaways, mainly focusing on the challenges around query generation and the potential for using existing web pages to aid language model development." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody ready ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I think the first thing we do is introduce ourselves +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: and everybody's name and what your function is ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good plan . +Project Manager: So maybe we start with you ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , my name is Francina . And I'm uh an user interface {disfmarker} my role is uh {disfmarker} the main responsibility is user interface . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And my role is to design uh a television remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: And I'm a marketing person . I wanna figure out how to sell them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And your name is ? +Marketing: My name is Eileen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I'm Jeanne-Oui . Um uh my role is industrial designer and my responsibilities are uh uh um deal with the {vocalsound} technical-functional designs and specifications of user interface and dealing with user interface design . +Project Manager: Very good . And as you already know I am Betty . I am the project manager for today . So why don't we look at the presentation {vocalsound} to see what we really are supposed to do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes y opening , acquaintance , tool training {disfmarker} well , the tools are , I think , we already {disfmarker} I guess the tool is really our {disfmarker} the computer , as far as I can see . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we get ins each of us will get instructions and we'll take it from there . Project plan , that falls under the same heading pretty much . Um , I don't think we have any great discussion at this point . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Um . Here is what this thing should be . This thing we are gonna um uh design is a new remote control . Uh should be original {vocalsound} , trendy , and , of course , user friendly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe you wanna make some notes of that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: All right . {vocalsound} Here is what the functional design is supposed to achieve . Um . That is it's gonna be individual work and then at the meeting we'll discuss what uh we have come up with . The same goes for the conceptual design , there will be individual work whic and then discussion afterwards . Detailed design , same thing basically . +Marketing: Mm 'kay so {disfmarker} Three different types of design that we're gonna be concerned with okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Functional , conception and detailed . +Project Manager: I can't write with this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe we should redesign it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: After we've finished the remote control we'll get to that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . All right ? Then , tool training try out the white board , participant can draw their favourite animal . Does anybody want to go and see how the white board works ? So that in case we have to , in the next meeting , present something on the white board . You wanna go Eileen and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , I'll see what I can do . +Project Manager: Whether you {disfmarker} without hanging yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: See if I r See if I remember how to draw a kitty cat or a rabbit or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And remember you have to press so it works . +Marketing: So that it will record okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um uh um traditional kitty cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fat , a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've a very fat cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And it likes to sit like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you're Francine , right ? Would you like s like just to see um how it feels , so that you have a little idea ? +User Interface: Yes , I'm Francina . Yes , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In {disfmarker} +Marketing: Am I supposed to wipe off that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , no . No , that's okay . +User Interface: No , Okay . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: I don't know , we'll get to that later . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: What should I draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Snake . +User Interface: I'm going to draw a snake . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: How does it look like ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I hope the kitty cat is hungry 'cause I don't like snakes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here's the project finance uh which , of course , we all have to think about when we design this thing . Um selling price is supposed to be twenty five Euro . Uh profit aim for the company is fifty million Euro , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the market range unlimited meaning international +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and the production cost should not exceed {disfmarker} hopefully should be less than twelve fifty Euro . +Marketing: Mm 'kay that should keep everybody on their toes and challenged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Profit . Um is fifty mm . +Project Manager: So these are all things , of course , to remember with the budget and when you design {vocalsound} to materials , cost , etcetera . Now , uh the discussion I guess is um does anyone of you have experience with remote control ? +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: I exp I s 'cause we we use 'em {disfmarker} we use 'em , right , everyday . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , using remote control . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um now having used a remote control for years does anybody already have like an idea like things you didn't like with it , things you would like to change , things you would like to improve with this thing ye any first ideas ? Would you like it to be smaller , bigger , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: have more have more buttons on it or maybe clearly {disfmarker} better marked buttons , you know , things like that ? +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , I I feel that all the remote should be very compact . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Small , right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , those which we get here nowadays it's very long . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um and it should have multi-purpose . Like uh the remote control which we use for T_V_ , it shou uh it should be used f uh for some other purpose also , like controlling the uh temperature inside the house or for air-conditioners , or for heating system . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Audio player . Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be a multi-functional uh gadget that would um control all your household uh uh machines basically . +User Interface: Yes , exactly Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Divides us {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} At um twelve fifty Euros per {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Well who knows if we get a really good designer maybe we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We certainly can try to {disfmarker} I agree with her that to market something successfully it should do some more things . +Project Manager: It should be something new {disfmarker} it should be s it it should do something different than than just what we have . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Now , of course , the other thing to think there is maybe the design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: Yeah , design should be , yeah {disfmarker} it should be different . All the {disfmarker} almost all the remotes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like trendy no like f for earlier we saw maybe it should be something trendy you know . Maybe it should {disfmarker} different colours or materials or you know . +User Interface: Yes , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe ten {disfmarker} I do yeah , colours +User Interface: Are different shapes . +Industrial Designer: and al shapes also . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Um so yeah shapes right , you know , like kidney shape feels better in your hand or something , you know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , friendly shape , that would help . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think another thing that would help is um if it beeps when you clap , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: because I think one of the big things that happens is people lose them . They can't find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That is true , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because they put a newspaper or they put it behind a plant or , we you know , whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and they {disfmarker} suddenly the phone rings and they want to turn the T_V_ off and they say , where the hell is my {vocalsound} my remote control yeah ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well or yeah or if it's really , if it's really in a dark spot that it gives out a a sound or a signal . +Marketing: So some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , some beep or something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Or a b +Marketing: Uh so , so it's really the beep or , or a light should blink . +Industrial Designer: so that we can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if lost {disfmarker} If lost uh signal with b throw signal , you know . +User Interface: Should ha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A fluorescent signal , yeah . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it should have a light so that we can , we can just recognise where it is . +Project Manager: Exactly , I mean just {vocalsound} that's what I'm saying . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . May not be beep . +Project Manager: I'm just saying throw signal meaning just whether it's a beep or whether a light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Beep or uh it's a light , maybe it's a light . +Marketing: And do you think a good c c um clue for that is that it would respond to a clap or it would respond to your voice or it would respond {disfmarker} what what should you have to do to make it beep or blink ? +Project Manager: Okay , my {disfmarker} my idea is maybe that the minute it's really hidden , in in other words if it's like in a dark spot , uh meaning you know like a newspaper is on top , a sweater is on top or it it's behind a plant , at that moment it's it's like , it's like um , what you call it {disfmarker} a light s sensors , you know ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In in that moment it has a sensor , i it it gets a certain darkness , it ge has a sensor and it gives out a signal whether that be a light signal or a beep , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , that we can discuss that later , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , probably it's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the light sensor would activate the signal . +Project Manager: That's right . You know there would be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: right you have to have some kind of sensor and I I think uh voice or clapping it's not specific enough . Uh I know there are the lamps and stuff , you know , you can clap on and off , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: but I think they only work to certain degree and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it could be someplace really obvious and you still wouldn't be able to find it . +Project Manager: What with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , that didn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Then , in that case {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , because you're s because you're silly . Because people are silly . +Industrial Designer: I i we can't do it . +Project Manager: Oh yeah well , but then those people {disfmarker} we can't help everybody . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it could be on {disfmarker} well , i if it were like on top of your bookcase and you usually kept it on the coffee table +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Okay we have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: you know , well {disfmarker} maybe we have to move along , okay . +Project Manager: yeah , we have to move along , but I think we have some good good points to start with here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Okay , the next meeting will be in thirty minutes . I think you all {disfmarker} did you get uh notices on your computer for this ? Okay so well , you got the notice um +Industrial Designer: Me yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} uh . The working design , I guess that's the function I_D_ {disfmarker} uh who is this ? The industrial designer {disfmarker} That's you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's functional de yeah , exactly , technical . +Project Manager: Okay . So , we looking for a working design when we come back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh working design , yeah , it's it's uh mainly technical-functional design . +Project Manager: Then {disfmarker} And then the technical funct you are the technical function , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , functional design , +Project Manager: so so you are the working design . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have a working design and then a functional design . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And the marketing manager is coming up with some user requirement specification , like friendliness , and what we just discussed in general . That would be your idea . And , of course , price . That it , that it , that the price is a good price . I mean , the price is given , but , that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . We have to justify that price by having sufficient features to make it sell at that price . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , you know , specifi you you will get specific um instructions for that . I think that's the end of the show . Yeah . So um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} well , we have a twen two two two three minutes . Um any questions at this point ? Or uh suggestions ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} basically basically you will get instructions to work with and if you have any questions uh , uh I guess , you can uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I think I have enough to think about 'til our next meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have . +Marketing: How about you people ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have , I think , yeah . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so let's see . +Marketing: Alright , well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then uh we see you in about thirty minutes . And see what we can come up with . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , very good . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +","The project team, led by project manager Betty, is beginning discussions about designing a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control. Francina (user interface designer) will focus on the interface aspect, Eileen (marketing) will strategize on how to sell the product, and Jeanne-Oui (industrial designer) will handle the technical-functional aspects. The goal is to create a multi-functional, compact remote with innovative features such as location tracking through sound or light signals, catering to a budget constraint of €12.50 production cost per unit and targeting an international market. The team will individually work on various design aspects—functional, conceptual, and detailed—then reconvene to discuss their findings, keeping in mind the €25 selling price and the company's €50 million profit target." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come again for the the second meeting . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh for the aim of this meeting now is to to make presentation about uh the work for each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {gap} take the the decision about the the design and the functionality of the the remote control . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we have {disfmarker} think I got a new project requirement . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So I think uh teletext becomes outdated . So the popularity of the {disfmarker} since the popularity of the internet , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I think we don't need lighting adaptive , so the remote control should be only used for the the television . And of course we should have our image {gap} in the in the design . So , let's start with the the industrial designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Or y you can use the whiteboard if you want . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} Well I have a PowerPoint pr presentation stored in my in my personal folder +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: so I I I think you can reach it from here . +Marketing: Just go to explorer . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Or open . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Project Manager: This one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Open uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want to open {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because it's open you mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so um I will talk about the the w working design and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Marketing: Slide show , view slide show , {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: And um well I I will present my my first idea on how to build the {disfmarker} our new remote control for television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can you go one page down , please . So I think the first things to do is to define the hardware components neededs to achieve uh what we want to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh mm I'm thin uh {vocalsound} I think uh I I'll do a survey about what is uh what is available on the market and what what is the the cheapest possible {vocalsound} things we hav we can use . Then uh I will try with the technical team to to build a prototype and to see uh with uh h how this little box {vocalsound} would uh look look like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And how an and we can uh start troubleshooting first uh com communication problems or things like that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And when we are ready with this first prototype I I think we can add some software functionalities on a programmable chip like browsing by content or um things like that . Okay so can you go down uh {disfmarker} So , wha what I think {vocalsound} for now {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} we don't want to have a remote control w which is wired +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh I think we u we can use a battery for the {gap} . Then two programmable chips for both software functionalities and communication . And the communication with the T_V_ set is uh made through uh infrared communication So uh this is the {vocalsound} the schema of the {vocalsound} o of the future uh remote controls +User Interface: Did you draw it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh you can you can see the components , uh battery and uh the two chips goes to the infrared uh connection to the T_V_ set . +User Interface: This {gap} . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: What is the other chip for ? The one on top . +Industrial Designer: The one on top is for the um {disfmarker} well the functionali the functionalities +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: One is a communication . +Industrial Designer: and the the th red um {disfmarker} sorry the green one is is to {disfmarker} well , putting things together , um f transform the data into uh qu into the format to to {gap} uh to communicate with the T_V_ set . +User Interface: For men . To the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And , that's it . I think we should use a F_P_G_A_ for {vocalsound} for the functionalities which is easy to to t +User Interface: Mm . What is F_P_G_A_ ? +Industrial Designer: It's field programmable uh something array . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Gateway arrays . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: It's a field programmable gateway arrays . +User Interface: So why's it {disfmarker} how is it different from the Bluetooth ? +Industrial Designer: Well , uh a F_P_G_A_ is just a chip you can uh you can {gap} pr programme it uh wi with wh whatever you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Programme it . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh well the Bluetooth chip is just responsible to uh make the communication uh between uh the two devices . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} So this are the {disfmarker} they have to work together ? Or ? Do they have to work together or two separate choice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . Well , th the F_P_G_A_ will produce the the data to send . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or it's something like {disfmarker} isn't hardware the first one ? And the second one is for the software . +User Interface: Is the is the software par alri okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah to run th to make it run . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: That's it . +User Interface: So you can control {gap} if you want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright and that's it for the working design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So if you have any questions ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , and how about the battery power ? Uh you mean that battery would be somewhere there and the remote contro the power to the battery comes through infrared ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no no no no , I think uh we have uh to to uh have uh embedded uh b batteries in in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Into the {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah into the t . +Marketing: more compact and uh {disfmarker} okay , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh I I don't think it will need um {vocalsound} very uh much power to make it run , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . You can put it on the charger when uh you when you don't need to use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Having a charger rather than putting the battery cells always . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: People don't like it to have to buy the batteries when they run out . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . Uh {disfmarker} mm . +Marketing: We just make a small charger +User Interface: Y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can i yeah . +User Interface: Because you are using because you are using Bluetooth , if some people have P_D_A_ they can use their P_D_A_ to control the T_V_ if they want to , right ? +Industrial Designer: That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ma +Industrial Designer: Also , but but {vocalsound} I I I think uh the the goal is to sell our remote {vocalsound} control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we can change the b {gap} . +Marketing: Our remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: we do not want to make it P_D_A_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} okay , so charger for {gap} is the {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So is mine . +Project Manager: It's mine . Participant one , no ? +User Interface: Oh . Yeah , this your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Oh we have {gap} so let's move to to user interface design {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can open uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant {disfmarker} +User Interface: three . Yeah . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So I'm working on the technical functions design . {gap} can you show the next slide . So the the purpose is to to find uh the important questions to ask is what effect should the apparatus have . So {vocalsound} so I found on a webs on the internet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} During the weekend . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} I spent a lot of time searching {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh and I found that uh the function of remote control is to send messages to television set . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} For example switch on , switch off , switch the next channel and so on and so on . +Marketing: G +User Interface: So I found two very good prototypes for {vocalsound} for this interface from our competitors +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so can you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This are usual functionality {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Ours is a bit uh different . So these are two example . One is from {vocalsound} {gap} the other one is from , yeah , uh engineering centr yeah . +Project Manager: Tasks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the most competing prototypes I've found {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But then uh loo but then I found if you look at {disfmarker} you see on the left one there are too many buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they are small {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . O on the right I tried to play with {vocalsound} the problem is that uh if I have hundred channels I have uh I have to choo press the other button to choose the hundred channels and I have to compose the number +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so it's very lousy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} so you move to the next the next one . +Industrial Designer: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , so I talk about the problem . And then I I look at the user manual they are a hundred pages thick , so we don't want that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I propose the easy to use uh prototype . You can navigate on T_V_ screen and we can {gap} the user's preference and we need to have the T_V_ connected to internet so we end {disfmarker} in order to access the T_V_ programmes by X_M_L_ and we need some {disfmarker} to do some preprocessing . From the technical aspect , the processing should be done on the T_V_ set than on the {vocalsound} on the remote controller , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And then we {disfmarker} the speech recognition as uh Harry says we may just put in {disfmarker} we may K_I_V_ . +Project Manager: What do you mean by the pa pa processing will be done on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah , all the processing is done {disfmarker} the T_V_ is a compu has some processing power the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: than the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So we have to t +Project Manager: So we should have specific T_V_ ? Or ? We can use this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have to sell a T_V_ with the remote control too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are you just wondering what controller {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . J j just the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , not the T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: I think there there is there is al there there is a a technology like show view who is already available on most of the T_V_ set on recorders or thing like that +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we can try t to get this information on to the remote control to to do the processing on the remote control because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So i the processing on on the remote controller {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: so it can u be used in any T_V_ , any conventional T_V_ sets ? +Project Manager: we {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speech recognition . +User Interface: N yeah , that's all . The next one ? So I come up with a simple design , just keep the v navigation buttons . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's a good idea , I think . +Project Manager: Keep the navigation +Industrial Designer: We d we don't we we don't need really much buttons to {disfmarker} i if we have a screen to navigate on on the T_V_ so uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , f four five buttons , it's sufficient . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to build , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it does not consume much power . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's all . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but you have a catch there , um assume that um if you want to go to {disfmarker} if you are watching channel two and if you want to go to channel ninety nine , then {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , then y you you go to the main menu and uh you have uh go to channel +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then uh you {gap} can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . No , because you choose by channel , so {disfmarker} you choose by T_V_ program +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you {disfmarker} +User Interface: so you don't have hundred channels to choose from . If you go by channel , you don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} but uh I I think i i {gap} if you if you want to to make uh {disfmarker} well a a big jump {vocalsound} {gap} but uh well you you have to to have a a a device when you could you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah . Ah , a big jump . +Marketing: Yeah then yeah that's right . +User Interface: A mouse or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , not a mouse but uh something that that says more clearly that uh right , left , up , down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , the to have the ability to to to write something to the navigator , maybe directly , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can think of buttons like in the telephone to send messages or things like that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: How the {gap} this remote ? +Industrial Designer: But we'll see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's gonna be small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} small . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So it'll beep if you wanna find it +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} too small that it goes under the sofa and we can't find it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you just uh shout {disfmarker} y h just {disfmarker} it just has to re respond to you when you look for the device . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno how bu {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} just {gap} give it a name and we call him . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {gap} responds to you , and {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh next presentation {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant four . So Harry . +Marketing: Okay , after having the inputs from {vocalsound} industrial design and user interface , I think most of the points which I want to are already covered here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And to find the most interesting features what the users would be interested , then what we have done is we have put a feedback forms in all the magazines , and the users send the feedbacks , and based on that {disfmarker} These are the findings which we got and {disfmarker} yeah adding of a speech interface is always good for a T_V_ remote but the technology {disfmarker} We already know that {disfmarker} as discussed earlier {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I I think it will be a , yes , a bit complicated to um make a speech recognisers runs on the small uh ts +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An {vocalsound} it does {gap} how feasible it is . +User Interface: I- {vocalsound} mm . But I think if you {gap} to recognise numbers it's a well-studied problem . I if you just recognise uh numbers is a limited {disfmarker} you have limited vocabulary {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh we can put an limited vocabulary as in the mobile phones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We just have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And this can allow to choose the the program , for instance without uh adding uh buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a good idea . +Marketing: {gap} it's not going to take much space also . It's going to be very slim . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And next one was the size of the remote control . It has to be of course a very slim and small one . And of course most of the people are interested in if it's less expensive , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so this is an important criteria here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But do you think what they sug suggested s possibility {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: I mean we have to look for a trade-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The features and the cost . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I no {disfmarker} I I think that uh i if we go for quality people may tolerate for high quality and of course comes with uh reasonable cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe not less , but they may be willing to pay little bit more for comfort , +Marketing: Little bit more if it's with extra features . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah , extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s s speech is a important extra feature I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: But is it useful or not u I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is {gap} in the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for a lazy guys they could say nine and the nine channel comes . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or they say movie name {disfmarker} or I don't go for movie names but only for the numbers on the channel , or volume up , volume down , brightness , contrast . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So , I think this should be a good idea , to put this features . And the fourth one was the teletext in various languages . +Industrial Designer: we we just have to find a mean how to to add a m a a a microphone or uh well {disfmarker} yes a microphone into the the remote control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it will be alright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it's necessary can {disfmarker} you can do that . +User Interface: What is the teletext ? Mm . +Project Manager: We can integrate small microphone in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not really a problem . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What about lighting adaptive options ? +Marketing: Yeah as discussed in the earlier meeting , but {vocalsound} I think uh not much people are really interested in this point if it's not really required . +Project Manager: According to the re to the new requirements I think we don't need that . Yeah . +User Interface: It is interesting but we are only concerned with the remote controller . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you need s special T_V_ sets to do that ? Or it's it's done via this remote controller ? It's very complex . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's a bit complex too {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} yeah , it's for the um industrial design and users interface designers to decide if it's going to be working or not . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: For our next product , our new T_V_ set with uh automatical uh sound adjustment {vocalsound} light {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , then we can conclude that . Yeah . Yeah , but it's quite possible but maybe not in this project . +Project Manager: So we have {disfmarker} I think we have s still we have couple of minutes . Mm-mm . {vocalsound} So any things to to discuss ? Or any suggestions ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think as I discussed th that four points would be good for um marketing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The speech interface and uh less uh reasonable uh cost . +Project Manager: Expensive . Price . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And the lighting adaptation +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and the teletext . And regarding the teletext uh these are the subtitl these are the text information which you got on the televisions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: If you are watching an foreign movie , you get {gap} subtitles sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: And uh if you are a French guy watching an English movie you would like to have it in French . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And if I am a German then I would like to have the {disfmarker} my options in German . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , the remote {disfmarker} it should have some {disfmarker} it should give me some flexibility of choosing the ch languages . +Industrial Designer: Function . +Marketing: That should be a good uh point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but well what about the the new project's requirement ? I I I think we should give up with teletext , no ? +Project Manager: I think we we can we {disfmarker} {gap} is the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , so maybe we we can j we can already think uh {vocalsound} about a way to to access the internet via the television . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Using the T_V_ to access the internet ? Or what ? I didn't quite understand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we can think that in a few years there will be T_V_ set that can access the internet . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a good idea if i i if we i if if we uh think about how to to to build up our remote uh control w with this functionality in a {disfmarker} w which will c which will come in a few years . +Marketing: We already have some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So if we already have it in our remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have to anticipate the the future ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} The future demand , market demand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to desi +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: well , not not to implement it , but to {disfmarker} well , to find a way to to add to add this functionality in a {disfmarker} yeah , in an in an easy manner , if is possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: The functionality in the future . +Project Manager: In future . +User Interface: Alright . Yeah . Because all the T_V_ sets will be digital , right . All the programmes , everything will be in digital than analog . Th the system will change and we have to anticipate for those change . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's go for the the lunch break , and we will meet after . +Industrial Designer: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . +","Summary: + +In the second meeting, the project team discussed the design and functionality of a new television remote control. The project manager highlighted the removal of outdated features like teletext, due to the rise of the internet, and lighting adaptation, focusing only on TV use. The key points included the presentation of an industrial designer's working design, which involved defining hardware components, prototyping, and consideration of communication methods like infrared. + +A simplified user interface was proposed to enhance navigability and reduce button count, with the addition of internet connectivity and possibly processing done on the TV set. Incorporation of speech recognition technology was discussed, with the idea of keeping it to a limited vocabulary for ease of use. They also wanted to ensure that the new remote was compact, less costly, and didn't require additional hardware features related to teletext. + +Further, the idea of remote control with internet capabilities was proposed, anticipating future TV sets that would come with internet access. Battery power was also discussed, with the idea of an embedded battery plus a charger being favored over frequent battery replacements. + +They agreed to focus on a high-quality product that may cost a bit more but provides additional, comfortable functionalities. The team decided to discuss these plans further after their lunch break." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody is not ready . +User Interface: Uh almost . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Ready . +Project Manager: Okay , let's go . So , we're here today to to have our first kick-off meeting about uh this new project we're going to tak to talk about in a few minutes . Um so I will be uh Sebastian the Project Manager . Um you are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm uh Michael . I'm the user interface designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hi I'm Guillermo {gap} . I'm the Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: And I am Hemant , the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay , very good . Thanks for being here . Um so let's have a look to the the agenda . So , we are going to go through this agenda uh and mainly first to uh {vocalsound} to make {disfmarker} to to be used to the tools uh available in this nice and smart meeting room we have here . Um then we'll go to uh the plans for project and have general discussions about it . So , the goal of this project is to uh developed a new remote control . Um it should be original , trendy , and also user friendly . As usual we will follow the the project method um {vocalsound} that we are using in the {disfmarker} in our company . It is in three step as you know . First the functional design . The second's a conceptual design , and then the detailed design . During each step uh of each design we wi you will work uh s separately , individually on uh your specific tasks and will m we will meet to um to discuss and take decisions about uh what you've you've you did and what uh we will do next . So first , we have to to train ourself with all the um the tools availables in the in this nice meeting room and uh particularly the the white board so uh we are going to go through the white board and take some um s some notes or do some drawings . So who want to start ? Mister {gap} . +User Interface: Ah well if no one else wants to , yeah . Okay so , want me to draw my favourite animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . Well , I don't really have a favourite animal , but um +Project Manager: You have one in mind ? +User Interface: uh I think I have one in mind , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm gonna {vocalsound} {gap} about the uh spider because you can actually draw it pretty well in the corner of a white board . The spider has a {disfmarker} spider lives in a web {vocalsound} and uh it has eight legs , and uh it can move all about the web in two dimensions . Unless it's a three dimensional web which y they have sometimes . There are some spiders that live in like {disfmarker} that have like uh kind of a a big ball of a of a web . And uh the other thing is some spiders can actually uh fly like uh they have uh they let out like uh a stream of like the web building material but it's it acts like a parachute so they can actually kind of go and find new uh {disfmarker} build a new web somewhere else . So I think they did this in uh in Charlotte's Web that movie that little uh {disfmarker} well it's actually a book first but uh um at the end all the the spiders kinda flew away . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , that's my animal . +Project Manager: Th thank you . Very interesting . {vocalsound} Guillermo you want to ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'kay {vocalsound} I dunno why , but {vocalsound} when I was a child I I wanted to be a a panther +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} not a pink panther , +Industrial Designer: But don't you think it's very difficult to draw a panther ? +Marketing: or maybe yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It would be very funny for us . +Marketing: Uh yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bad I don't like it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay it's a friendly panther . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe it's happy 'cause it just ate someone . +Marketing: Yeah maybe {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . Actually , honestly I I I dunno what's what's his it's be behaviour , I dunno if if it's the male who who hunts or it's the female uh , I I I have watched that lions di didn't hunt it's the the female lions who who hunt , so {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} I like it because it's fast , and it's black as well , so it can he {disfmarker} it can hide itself very easily and it's it's {disfmarker} it looks like um {vocalsound} powerful , strong , uh I dunno . I I watch a a film about a black panther when I was a child and {vocalsound} I was in that age when everything was shocking me a lot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hemant . +Industrial Designer: Um sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you don't like pink panthers ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Thanks . This lapel is coming out once in a while . It's not very strong . Okay . So , not the favourite animal , but I think I'll draw elephant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll try to draw elephant {vocalsound} . It's a problem . Okay , thanks . Okay so , elephant goes like this , {gap} and then it has four feet {vocalsound} . I don't know whether there's any dist there should be any distance or not , but I think this is the easiest . And then we have it's trunk . And yep something like this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An eye , cute {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Poor elephant {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} and sometimes they have a hump . It seems that uh elephants are pretty friendly and they they have one very important way {disfmarker} a different way of walking . So when they walk , wherever they are going to put their first feet , the second feet will always be . When they'll come to that position the second , the third feet will be there . That's the way they walk . And that's very peculiar about them . None of the other animals walk like this . And they are very useful to human beings . At least few few hundred years ago when there was no means of transportations or something , or when they had to carry huge um loads from one place to another , elephants were very useful . And they are found in um usually the warm countries . And um they are the biggest terrestrial animal . That's what I know about them . So , that's what I wanted to tell about elephants . +User Interface: So is this uh an Indian or an African elephant , 'cause you haven't drawn the ears ? +Industrial Designer: There are two kind of uh yeah , they are very different , Indian and African elephants . So Indian elephant is having one bump , I think , and the African have two . And then there's a difference in the trunk of the animals , these elephants who are Indian and {disfmarker} So at some {disfmarker} for some elephants it's {disfmarker} the trunk is having one {disfmarker} Do we have some message there ? +Project Manager: Yes . We have to {disfmarker} I have to catch you , +Industrial Designer: Wind up +Project Manager: sorry . We have to to go through the meeting . +Industrial Designer: ? Okay , some other time . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you {vocalsound} . +User Interface: We can discuss that off-line . +Project Manager: Yeah we'll discuss a f a fly or do {disfmarker} we'll do another meeting abo on elephants . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so another important part of the project is about money , uh and about {disfmarker} so about finances . So {vocalsound} we should target selling price of twenty-five Euro for this remote control and uh we have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} which which would generate a profit of of um {vocalsound} fifty million Euros , okay . And we should target the inter an international market . +User Interface: So could I just ask one question , um is this a stand-alone unit that we're gonna be selling ? So it's gonna be you already have a T_V_ but you're buying an extra remote control for it or something ? +Project Manager: O this is the {vocalsound} next topic we have to discuss exactly , +User Interface: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: so let's go to it . So um we should decide which kind of remote control we want to uh we want to uh we want to go . Should be should should it be um specific remote control to some specific device ? Should it be a universal one ? And uh etcetera . So um {vocalsound} so I'm waiting for your for your inputs very quickly because we have only three three minutes to go . +User Interface: Okay well , so , it seems the the first thing that they've kinda specified is the price like based on how much profit we wanna make , which seems to {disfmarker} a kind of a little strange if we don't know what the the product is yet , but I guess if that's {disfmarker} if that's the requirement that we need to to design the the product to actually fit that that price bracket so , I guess we're gonna need to find out what's actually {disfmarker} you know , what people ar are willing to pay for {disfmarker} um what kind of product they're expecting for twenty-five Euro +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because it seems quite a lot for a remote control , +Project Manager: Okay I think this is more a job to our +User Interface: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: market person yeah . +Industrial Designer: Marketing person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it should be the topic of maybe of the next meeting just to to have an overview of this and uh in which direction we should go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we need to close the meeting . Uh we'll have a new meeting soon and uh so {gap} the work every every of you ha have t d to do . So um you have to work on the on the working design , you have to uh work on the technical functions , and uh you have to work on us user requirements specs , alright ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um you will receive some information by emails , i as usual . Thanks for coming today . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: Alright . +","The transcript presents a snapshot of the initial kick-off meeting for a new project, convened by a Project Manager named Sebastian, with the involvement of team members from user interface design, industrial design, and marketing. As the team assembles in a well-equipped and smart meeting room, they encounter some readiness and technical issues with the tools provided for the meeting. + +Sebastian, as the project's orchestrator, sets the stage by outlining the meeting's agenda and the phases of the project. The goal is to develop an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control, adhering to a three-step project methodology—functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. He clarifies that each member will work individually on specific tasks between collaborative sessions where decisions will be made based on each member's progress. + +Before diving deep into project specifics, Sebastian wishes to ensure that the team is comfortable with the technological amenities of the meeting room, notably the interactive whiteboard. It is decided that team members will demonstrate their familiarity with the whiteboard by sketching their favorite animals. + +Michael, the user interface designer, chooses to draw a spider, expounding on its characteristics and behavior, including its ability to move in two dimensions across its web and its unique ability to 'fly' using webbing. In a lighter moment, Michael references the dispersal of spiderlings as portrayed in the story ""Charlotte's Web."" + +Guillermo, the Marketing Expert, humorously attempts to draw a panther, his childhood fascination, despite its complexity as a subject for drawing. He admires the panther for its speed, its striking black color which allows it to camouflage, and shares a personal anecdote about being impacted by a film featuring the animal as a child. + +The Industrial Designer Hemant, despite initial hesitation, draws an elephant, and provides some interesting facts, such as their distinctive way of walking, their historical importance as carriers of heavy loads, and their status as the largest terrestrial animals. A brief discussion ensues about the differences between African and Indian elephants, although it's cut short as they need to proceed with the meeting's agenda. + +Transitioning back to the project at hand, Sebastian brings attention to the financial aspect, setting a targeted selling price for the remote control at twenty-five euros with an intended profit of fifty million euros. The team debates the suitability of the price point for the market and the type of remote control they aim to create—be it universal or device-specific. + +Due to time constraints, the discussion remains incomplete, and Sebastian assigns tasks to each team member. He instructs them to work respectively on the working design, the technical functions, and user requirement specifications, with the assurance that further information will be communicated via email. + +The meeting ends with the understanding that the team will convene again soon to continue their discussions, particularly to gain marketing insights necessary for steering the project in the right direction. Despite the playful and informal tone at times, characterized by sharing personal preferences and humor, the team has laid the initial groundwork for what appears to be a significant and structured project endeavor." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: And we already got the crash out of the way . It did crash , so I feel much better , earlier . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Will you get the door , and {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: OK , so um . +Professor F: OK . You collected an agenda , huh ? +Grad D: I did collect an agenda . So I 'm gonna go first . Mwa - ha - ha ! It shouldn't take too long . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , so we 're pretty much out of digits . We 've gone once through the set . Um , so the only thing I have to do +Professor F: No there 's only ten . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's right . so I {disfmarker} I just have to go through them +Professor F: Well , OK . +Grad D: and uh pick out the ones that have problems , and either correct them or have them re - read . So we probably have like four or five more forms to be read , to be once through the set . I 've also extracted out about an hour 's worth . We have about two hours worth . I extracted out about an hour 's worth which are the f digits with {disfmarker} for which whose speaker have speaker forms , have filled out speaker forms . Not everyone 's filled out a speaker form . So I extracted one for speakers who have speaker forms and for meetings in which the "" key "" file and the transcript files are parsable . Some of the early key files , it looks like , were done by hand , and so they 're not automatically parsable and I have to go back and fix those . So what that means is we have about an hour of transcribed digits that we can play with . Um , Liz {disfmarker} +Professor F: So you think two {disfmarker} you think two hours is the {disfmarker} is the total that we have ? +Grad D: Yep , yeah . +Professor F: And you think we th uh , I {disfmarker} I didn't quite catch all these different things that are not quite right , but you think we 'll be able to retrieve the other hour , reasonably ? +Grad D: Yes , absolutely . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: So it 's just a question of a little hand - editing of some files and then waiting for more people to turn in their speaker forms . I have this web - based speaker form , and I sent mail to everyone who hadn't filled out a speaker form , and they 're slowly s trickling in . +Professor F: So the relevance of the speaker form here , s +Grad D: It 's for labeling the extracted audio files . +Professor F: Oh , OK . +Grad D: By speaker ID and microphone type . +Professor F: Wasn't like whether they were giving us permission to use their digits or something . +Grad D: No , I spoke with Jane about that and we sort of decided that it 's probably not an issue that {disfmarker} We edit out any of the errors anyway . Right ? So the there are no errors in the digits , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: you 'll always read the string correctly . So I can't imagine why anyone would care . So the other topic with digits is uh , Liz would like to elicit different prosodics , and so we tried last week with them written out in English . And it just didn't work at all because no one grouped them together . So it just sounded like many many more lines instead of anything else . So in conversations with Liz and uh Jane we decided that if you wrote them out as numbers instead of words it would elicit more phone number , social security number - like readings . The problem with that is it becomes numbers instead of digits . When I look at this , that first line is "" sixty one , sixty two , eighteen , eighty six , ten . "" Um , and so the question is does anyone care ? Um , I 've already spoken with Liz and she feels that , correct me if I 'm wrong , that for her , connected numbers is fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: as opposed to connected digits . Um , I think two hours is probably fine for a test set , but it may be a little short if we actually wanna do training and adaptation and all that other stuff . +Professor F: Yeah Um , do um you want different prosodics , so if you always had the same groupings you wouldn't like that ? Is that correct ? +PhD G: Well , we actually figured out a way to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD G: the {disfmarker} the groupings are randomly generated . +Professor F: No but , I was asking if that was something you really cared about because if it wasn't , it seems to me if you made it really specifically telephone groupings that maybe people wouldn't , uh , go and do numbers so much . You know if it if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I think they may still do it , um , +Professor F: Maybe some , but I probably not so much . +PhD B: What about putting a hyphen between the numbers in the group ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right ? So if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have uh +Grad D: Six dash one , you mean ? +Professor F: if you go six six six uh dash uh two nine three one . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} well OK {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it might help , I would like to g get away from having only one specific grouping . +Professor F: That 's what I was asking , yeah . +PhD G: Um , so if that 's your question , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but I mean it seems to me that , at least for us , we can learn to read them as digits +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: if that 's what people want . I {disfmarker} I 'm +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: don't think that 'd be that hard to read them as single digits . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Um , and it seems like that might be better for you guys since then you 'll have just more digit data , +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: and that 's always a good thing . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: It 's a little bit better for me too because the digits are easier to recognize . They 're better trained than the numbers . +Grad D: So we could just , uh , put in the instructions "" read them as digits "" . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Right . Right , read them as single digits , so sixty - one w is read as six one , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and if people make a mistake we {disfmarker} +Grad D: How about "" O "" versus "" zero "" ? +Professor F: I mean , the other thing is we could just bag it because it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's - I 'm not worrying about it I mean , because we do have digits training data that we have from uh from OGI . I 'm sorry , digits {disfmarker} numbers training that we have from OGI , we 've done lots and lots of studies with that . And um . +PhD G: But it 's nice to get it in this room with the acous +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , no , I guess what I 'm saying is that +Grad D: Just let them read it how they read it . +Professor F: to some extent maybe we could just read them {disfmarker} have them read how {disfmarker} how they read it and it just means that we have to expand our {disfmarker} our vocabulary out to stuff that we already have . +PhD G: Right . Well that 's fine with me as long as {disfmarker} It 's just that I didn't want to cause the people who would have been collecting digits the other way to not have the digits . +Professor F: Yeah . We can go back to the other thing later . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean we s we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} We can do this for awhile +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: and then go back to digits for awhile , or um . Do yo I mean , do you want {disfmarker} do you want this {disfmarker} Do you need training data or adaptation data out of this ? +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: How much of this do you need ? with uh the {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's actually unclear right now . I just thought well we 're {disfmarker} if we 're collec collecting digits , and Adam had said we were running out of the TI forms , I thought it 'd be nice to have them in groups , and probably , all else being equal , it 'd be better for me to just have single digits +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: since it 's , you know , a recognizer 's gonna do better on those anyway , um , and it 's more predictable . So we can know from the transcript what the person said and the transcriber , in general . +Professor F: OK , well if you pre +PhD G: But if they make mistakes , it 's no big deal if the people say a hundred instead of "" one OO "" . and also w maybe we can just let them choose "" zero "" versus "" O "" as they {disfmarker} as they like because even the same person c sometimes says "" O "" and sometimes says "" zero "" in different context , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and that 's sort of interesting . So I don't have a Specific need cuz if I did I 'd probably try to collect it , you know , without bothering this group , but If we can try it {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK so {disfmarker} so I can just add to the instructions to read it as digits not as connected numbers . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right , and you can give an example like , you know , "" six {disfmarker} sixty - one would be read as six one "" . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . And i actually it 's no more artificial than what we 've been doing with words . +PhD G: And I think people will get it . +Postdoc E: I 'm sure people can adapt to this , read it single . +PhD G: Right , right . +Postdoc E: The spaces already bias it toward being separated . +PhD G: It 's just easier to read . +Postdoc E: And I know I 'm gonna find this easier than words . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: Oh yeah , absolutely , cognitively it 's much easier . +PhD G: OK I also had a hard {disfmarker} hard time with the words , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but then we went back and forth on that . OK , so let 's give that a try +Grad D: OK . And is the spacing alright or do you think there should be more space between digits and groups ? +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or is that alright ? +PhD G: I mean what do other people think cuz you guys are reading {comment} them . +Postdoc E: I think that i it 's fine . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: I it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to me it looks like you 've got the func the idea of grouping and you have the grou the idea of separation +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: and , you know , it 's just a matter of u i the instructions , that 's all . +PhD G: Great . OK . +Grad D: And I think there are about ten different gouping patterns +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: Well let 's give it a try . +Grad D: isn't that right , Liz ? That we did . +PhD G: Righ - right , and you just {disfmarker} they 're randomly {nonvocalsound} generated and randomly assigned to digits . +Postdoc E: I did {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So we have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Go ahead . +Professor F: Sorry , I {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , so we have in the vicinity of forty hours of {disfmarker} of recordings now . And you 're saying two hours , uh , is digits , so that 's roughly the ratio then , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: something like twenty {disfmarker} twenty to one . Which I guess makes {disfmarker} makes sense . So if we did another forty hours of recordings then we could get another couple hours of this . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Um , yeah like you say , I think a couple hours for a {disfmarker} for a {disfmarker} for a test {disfmarker} test set 's OK . It 'd be nice to get , you know , more later because we 'll {disfmarker} we might use {disfmarker} use this up , uh , in some sense , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , I also would like to argue for that cuz it {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , there 's a real strength in having the same test replicated in {disfmarker} a whole bunch of times and adding to that basic test bank . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Hmm ? Cuz then you have , you know , more and more , u chances to get away from random errors . And I think , um , the other thing too is that right now we have sort of a stratified sample with reference to dialect groups , and it might be {disfmarker} there might be an argument to be made for having uh f for replicating all of the digits that we 've done , which were done by non - native speakers so that we have a core that totally replicates the original data set , which is totally American speakers , and then we have these stratified additional language groups overlapping certain aspects of the database . +Grad D: Right . I think that uh trying to duplicate , spending too much effort trying to duplicate the existing TI - digits probably isn't too worthwhile because the recording situation is so different . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's gonna be very hard to be comparable . +Postdoc E: Except that if you have the stimuli {pause} comparable , then it says something about the {disfmarker} the contribution of setting +Professor F: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the same . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: A little bit , but the other differences are so major . +Grad D: Yeah I mean read versus not . +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: They 're such major sources of variance that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: What 's an example of a {disfmarker} of m some of the other differences ? Any other a difference ? +Professor F: Well i i individual human glottis {vocalsound} is going to be different for each one , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: you know , it 's just {disfmarker} There 's so many things . +Grad D: Well , and not just that , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and enunciation . +Grad D: I mean the uh the corpus itself . I mean , we 're collecting it in a read digit in a particular list , and I 'm sure that they 're doing more specific stuff . I mean if I remember correctly it was like postman reading zipcodes and things like that . +Professor F: TI - digits was ? +Grad D: I thought so . +Professor F: I thought {disfmarker} I thought it was read . +Grad D: Was it read ? +Professor F: Yeah , I think the reading zipcode stuff you 're thinking of would be OGI . +Grad D: Oh , I may well be . +Professor F: Yeah , no TI - digits was read in th in read in the studio I believe . +Grad D: I haven't ever listened to TI - digits . So I don't really know how it compares . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} but regardless it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's hard to compare cross - corpus . +Professor F: But it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} It - it 's different people {pause} is the {disfmarker} is the core thing . +Grad D: So . +Postdoc E: OK , fine . +Professor F: And they 're different circumstances with different recording environment and so forth , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really pretty different . But I think the idea of using a set thing was just to give you some sort of framework , so that even though you couldn't do exact comparisons , it wouldn't be s valid scientifically at least it 'd give you some kind of uh frame of reference . Uh , you know it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Liz , What {disfmarker} what do the groupings represent ? +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: You said there 's like ten different groupings ? +PhD G: Right , just groupings in terms of number of groups in a line , and number of digits in a group , and the pattern of groupings . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Are the patterns {disfmarker} like are they based on anything or +PhD G: Um , I {disfmarker} I just roughly looked at what kinds of digit strings are out there , and they 're usually grouped into either two , three , or four , four digits at a time . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD G: And they can have , I mean , actually , things are getting longer and longer . In the old days you probably only had three sequences , and telephone numbers were less , and so forth . So , there 's between , um {disfmarker} Well if you look at it , there are between like three and five groups , and each one has between two and four groupings and {disfmarker} I purposely didn't want them to look like they were in any kind of pattern . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD G: So +Grad D: And which group appears is picked randomly , and what the numbers are are picked randomly . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So unlike the previous one , which I d simply replicated TI - digits , this is generated randomly . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Oh OK . +PhD B: Mmm , oh , OK . +PhD G: But I think it 'd be great i to be able to compare digits , whether it 's these digits or TI - digits , to speakers , um , and compare that to their spontaneous speech , and then we do need you know a fair amount of {disfmarker} of digit data because you might be wearing a different microphone +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and , I mean {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the digits you know , replicated many times . Especially for speakers that don't talk a lot . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: So {vocalsound} um , for adaptation . No , I 'm serious , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah all we have for some people is digits . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: so we have a problem with acoustic adaptation , and we 're not using the digit data now , but you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , you 're not . +PhD G: Not for adaptation , nope . v W we 're not {disfmarker} we were running adaptation only on the data that we ran recognition on and I 'd {disfmarker} As soon as someone started to read transcript number , that 's read speech and I thought "" well , we 're gonna do better on that , +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: that 's not fair to use "" . +Grad D: Oh yeah that 's true , absolutely . +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: But , it might be fair to use the data for adaptation , so . So those speakers who are very quiet , {comment} shy {disfmarker} +Grad D: That would be interesting to see whether that helps . +PhD G: r Right {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like Adam ? +Grad D: Do you think that would help adapting on {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , I have a real problem with that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , it sh I mean it 's the same micropho see the nice thing is we have that in the {disfmarker} in the same meeting , +Grad D: Right . Same {disfmarker} same acoustics , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and so you don't get {disfmarker} +Grad D: same microphone , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: same channel . +PhD G: Right , and so I still like the idea of having some kind of {pause} digit data . +Grad D: OK . Good . +Professor F: Yeah I mean , for the {disfmarker} for the um acoustic research , for the signal - processing , farfield stuff , I see it as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as the place that we start . But , th I mean , it 'd be nice to have twenty hours of digits data , but {disfmarker} but uh the truth is I 'm hoping that we {disfmarker} we through the {disfmarker} the stuff that {disfmarker} that you guys have been doing as you continue that , we get , uh , the best we can do on the spontaneous stuff uh , uh nearfield , and then um , we do a lot of the testing of the algorithms on the digits for the farfield , and at some point when we feel it 's mature and we understand what 's going on with it then we {disfmarker} we have to move on to the spontaneous data with the farfield . So . +Postdoc E: Great . +PhD G: The only thing that we don't have , I know this sounds weird , and maybe it 's completely stupid , but we don't have any overlapping digits . +Grad D: Yeah , we talked about that a couple times . +PhD G: An - yea I know it 's weird , but um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Overlapping digits ! +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the problem I see with trying to do overlapping digits is the cognitive load . +PhD G: Alright everybody 's laughing . OK . +Grad C: Dueling digits . +Grad D: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not stupid , it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , try to do it . +PhD G: I 'm just talkin for the stuff that like Dan Ellis is gonna try , +Grad D: I mean , here , let 's try it . +PhD G: you know , cross - talk cancellation . +Grad D: You read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD G: Wait {disfmarker} oh it {disfmarker} these are all the same forms . +Professor F: Sixty - one . +PhD G: OK {comment} So but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so you read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: No , I 'll p +PhD G: So you plu you plug your ears . +Grad D: Oh I guess if you plug you 're ears you could do it , but then you don't get the {disfmarker} the same effects . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , what I mean is actually no not the overlaps that are well - governed linguistically , but the actual fact that there is speech coming from two people +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: and the beam - forming stuf all the acoustic stuff that like Dan Ellis and {disfmarker} and company want to do . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: Digits are nice and well behaved , I mean +Grad D: I guess we could try . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Grad D: We could try doing some . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it would go faster . +PhD B: Parallel . +PhD G: It would take one around {comment} amount of ti +PhD B: It 's the P - make of digit reading . +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} Well OK . Well let 's try it . +PhD G: That 's right . I {disfmarker} I mea I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of serious , but I really , I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't feel strongly enough that it 's a good idea , +Professor F: See , y +Grad D: You do the last line , I 'll do the first line . +PhD G: so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: O . {comment} That 's not bad . +Professor F: No , I can do it . +PhD B: I couldn't understand a single thing you guys were saying . +PhD G: A and that prosody was great , by the way . +Postdoc E: I think it was numbers , but I 'm not sure . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it sort of sounded like a duet , or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Performance art . +Professor F: Alright , let 's try three at once you {disfmarker} you pick one in the middle . +PhD A: The Aurora theater . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Go . +PhD G: I 'm sorry . I 'm mean I think it 's doable , +Grad D: The poor transcribers +PhD G: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: they 're gonna hate us . +PhD G: So , we {disfmarker} we could have a round like where you do two at a time , and then the next person picks up when the first guy 's done , or something . +PhD A: So pairwise . +Professor F: Oh like a round , yeah , like in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD G: Like a , +PhD A: Yeah , just pairwise , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: what do you call it ? +PhD A: or yeah . +Grad C: Round . +Grad D: A round . +Professor F: Row , row , row your boat . +PhD G: Li - a r like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah , like that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD B: It 's gonna require some coordination . +PhD G: Then it would go like h twice as fast , or {pause} a third as fast . +Postdoc E: You have to have a similar pace . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm actually sort of serious if it would help people do that kind o but the people who wanna work on it we should talk to them . +Professor F: I don't think we 're gonna collect vast amounts of data that way , +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: but I think having a little bit might at least be fun for somebody like Dan to play around with , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I think maybe if we wanted to do that we would do it as a separate session , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: something like that rather than doing it during a real meeting and you know , do two people at a time then three people at a time and things like that . So . +PhD G: Can try it out . +Grad D: See {disfmarker} see what Dan thinks . +PhD G: If we have nothing {disfmarker} if we have no agenda we could do it some week . +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . Spend the whole time reading digits with different qu quantities . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I thought this was gonna be fast . +Postdoc E: c c Can I can I have an another {disfmarker} another question w about this ? +Grad D: Oh well . +Postdoc E: So , um , there are these digits , which are detached digits , but there are other words that contain the same general phon phoneme sequences . Like "" wonderful "" has "" one "" in it and {disfmarker} and Victor Borge had a {disfmarker} had a piece on this where he inflated the digits . Well , I wonder if there 's , um , an if there would be a value in having digits that are in essence embedded in real words to compare in terms of like the articulation of "" one "" in "" wonderful "" versus "" one "" as a digit being read . +Professor F: That 's "" two "" bad . Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm all "" four "" it . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad D: Not after I "" eight "" though . +Professor F: Uh , they don't all work as well , do they ? Hmm . What does nine work in ? +Grad C: Nein ! +Grad D: Uh . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad C: You scream it . +Grad D: Nein ! You have to be German , +Professor F: Oh . In German , +PhD A: That 's German , yeah . +PhD B: It 's great for the Germans . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: Oh , oh ! +Postdoc E: Nein . +Professor F: That 's right ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh ! +Grad C: It only sounds w good when you scream it , though . So . +Professor F: I think everybody 's a little punchy here {vocalsound} today . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , I just wanted to offer that as a possible task +Professor F: Yes . +Postdoc E: because , you know , if we were to each read his embedded numbers words in sent in sentences cuz it 's like an entire sketch he does and I wouldn't take the inflated version . So he talks about the woman being "" two - derful "" , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a But , you know , if it were to be deflated , just the normal word , it would be like a little story that we could read . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I don't know if it would be useful for comparison , but it 's embedded numbers . +Grad D: I think for something like that we 'd be better off doing like uh TIMIT . +Professor F: Well I don't know . Well I think the question is what the research is , so I mean , I presume that the reason that you wanted to have these digits this way is because you wanted to actually do some research looking at the prosodic form here . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah OK . +PhD G: Right , yeah . +Professor F: So if somebody wanted to do that , if they wanted to look at the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the difference of the uh phones in the digits in the context of a word versus uh the digits {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non - digit word versus in digit word , uh that would be a good thing to do , but I think someone would have to express interest in that . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Professor F: I think , to {disfmarker} I mean if you were interested in it then we could do it , for instance . +Postdoc E: OK , thank you . +Grad D: OK , are we done with digits ? +Postdoc E: Huh . +Grad D: Um , We have ASR results from Liz , transcript status from Jane , and disk space and storage formats from Don . Does {disfmarker} do we have any prefer preference on which way we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna go ? +PhD G: Well I was actually gonna skip the ASR results part , in favor of getting the transcription stuff talked about +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: since I think that 's more important to moving forward , but I mean Morgan has this paper copy and if people have questions , um , it 's pretty preliminary in terms of ASR results because we didn't do anything fancy , but I think e just having the results there , and pointing out some main conclusions like it 's not the speaking style that differs , it 's the fact that there 's overlap that causes recognition errors . And then , the fact that it 's almost all insertion errors , which you would expect but you might also think that in the overlapped regions you would get substitutions and so forth , um , leads us to believe that doing a better segmentation , like your channel - based segmentation , or some kind of uh , echo cancellation to get basically back down to the individual speaker utterances would be probably all that we would need to be able to do good recognition on the {disfmarker} on the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: So these {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , why don't you , if you have a hard copy , why don't you email it to the list . +PhD G: So , that 's about the summary {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} Morgan has this paper . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: Oh it 's in the paper . +Professor F: Yeah , so it 's the same thing ? +PhD G: I mean he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} +Professor F: It 's the same thing I mailed to every everybody that w where it was , +PhD G: it {disfmarker} it 's that paper . +Grad D: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: OK then , it 's already been mailed . +PhD G: So , we basically , um , did a lot of work on that +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} Let 's see , th I guess the other neat thing is it shows for sure w that the lapel , you know within speaker is bad . +Grad D: Horrible ? +PhD G: And it 's bad because it picks up the overlapping speech . +PhD A: So , your {disfmarker} your ASR results were run on the channels synchronized , +PhD G: Yes , cuz that 's all that w had been transcribed at the time , +PhD A: OK . OK . OK . +PhD G: um but as we {disfmarker} I mean I wanted to here more about the transcription . If we can get the channel asynchronous or the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: the closer t that would be very interesting for us +PhD B: So if {disfmarker} +PhD G: because we {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's why I only used the part from use +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: which we had uh about uh about the alt over all the channels +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah sure . Yeah . +Professor F: or mixed channel +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: rather mixed signal . +PhD B: So if there was a segment of speech this long +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: and oh and someone said "" oh , "" the whole thing was passed to the recognizer ? +Grad D: And someone said "" oh "" in the front {disfmarker} in the middle . +PhD A: There were several speakers in it , yeah . +PhD G: That 's right . In fact I {disfmarker} I pulled out a couple classic examples in case you wanna u use them in your talk of +PhD B: That 's why there 's so many insertion errors ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Chuck on the lapel , so Chuck wore the lapel three out of four times . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: I noticed that Chuck was wearing the lapel a lot . +PhD B: Early on , yeah . +PhD G: Um , yeah , and I wore the lapel once , and for me the lapel was OK . I mean I still {disfmarker} and I don't know why . I 'm {disfmarker} But um , +Grad D: Probably how you wear it {disfmarker} wore it I would guess . +PhD G: for you it was {disfmarker} Or who was next to me or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah , where you were sitting probably affected it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right , but when Chuck wore the lapel and Morgan was talking there 're a couple really long utterances where Chuck is saying a few things inside , and it 's picking up all of Morgan 's words pretty well and so the rec you know , there 're error rates because of insertion {disfmarker} Insertions aren't bounded , so with a one - word utterance and ten insertions you know you got huge error rate . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the problems come in . So I this is sort of what we expected , but it 's nice to be able to {disfmarker} to show it . +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: And also I just wanted to mention briefly that , um , uh Andreas and I called up Dan Ellis who 's still stuck in Switzerland , and we were gonna ask him if {disfmarker} if there 're {disfmarker} you know , what 's out there in terms of echo cancellation and things like that . Not that we were gonna do it , but we wanted to know what would need to be done . +Grad D: And he said , "" Lots lots lots lots . "" +PhD G: And he {disfmarker} We 've given him the data we have so far , so these sychronous cases where there are overlap . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD G: And he 's gonna look into trying to run some things that are out there and see how well it can do +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: because right now we 're not able to actually report on recognition in a real paper , like a Eurospeech paper , because it would look sort of premature . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So the idea is that you would take this big hunk where somebody 's only speaking a small amount in it , and then try to figure out where they 're speaking {comment} based on the other peopl +PhD G: Right . Or who 's {disfmarker} At any point in time who 's the foreground speaker , who 's the background speaker . +PhD A: So yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I thought we were just gonna move the boundaries in . +PhD A: Yeah , should it {disfmarker} +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Well that 's with the hand stuff . +PhD G: So there 's like {disfmarker} +Grad D: But how would you do that automatically ? +PhD G: Well ther there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , I 've actually done some experiments with cross - correlation +PhD B: Right . +PhD A: and it seems to work pretty well to {disfmarker} to get rid of those {disfmarker} those overlaps , +Grad D: I mean that that 's the sort of thing that you would do . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad D: So . +PhD G: Yeah . Exactly , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So why do you want to do echo cancellation ? +PhD G: Um , it would be techniques used from adaptive {disfmarker} adaptive echo cancellation which I don't know enough about to talk about . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Professor F: It {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} it just to r to remove cross - talk . +PhD G: Um . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: But , right , um , and that would be similar to what you 're also trying to do , but using um , you know , more than energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I don't know what exactly would go into it . +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +PhD B: So it would be {disfmarker} +PhD G: So the idea is to basically run this on the whole meeting . and get the locations , which gives you also the time boundaries of the individual speak +PhD B: OK . So do sort of what he 's already {disfmarker} what he 's trying to do . +PhD G: Right . Except that there are many techniques for the kinds of cues , um , that you can use to do that . +PhD A: Yeah , in another way , +PhD B: OK , I s I see . +PhD A: yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Professor F: Yeah , Dave {disfmarker} Dave uh is , um , also gonna be doin usin playing around with echo cancellation for the nearfield farfield stuff , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: so we 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I guess Espen ? This {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} is he here too ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: May also be working {disfmarker} So it would just be ver that 's really the next step because we can't do too much , you know , on term in terms of recognition results knowing that this is a big problem +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , until we can do that kind of processing . And so , once we have some {disfmarker} some of yours , +PhD A: OK . Yeah I 'm working on it . +PhD G: and @ @ we 'll move on . +PhD B: I think this also ties into one of the things that Jane is gonna talk about too . +Grad D: Um , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I also wanted to say I have done all this chopping up of digits , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I have some naming conventions that we should try to agree on . So let 's do that off - line , +PhD G: Oh right . +Grad D: we don't need to do it during the meeting . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Right . Definitely {disfmarker} +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and I have scripts that will extract it out from "" key "" files +PhD G: Uh , and Don should {disfmarker} +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and do all the naming automatically , +PhD G: OK . +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: so you don't have to do it by hand . +PhD G: Great . +Grad C: You 've compiled the list of , uh , speaker names ? +PhD G: So that that 's it for the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Speakers and {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Not names , but I Ds . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah , names {disfmarker} names in the {disfmarker} names to I Ds , +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: so you +PhD G: Great . +Grad D: and it does all sorts of matches because the way people filled out names is different on every single file so it does a very fuzzy sort of match . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD G: So at this point we can sort of finalize the naming , and so forth , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: and we 're gonna basically re rewrite out these waveforms that we did because as you notice in the paper your "" M O in one meeting and "" M O - two "" in another meeting and it 's {disfmarker} we just need to standardize the +Grad C: Yeah . That was my fault . +PhD G: um , no it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , I didn't notice that actually . +PhD G: um , that 's why those comments are s {vocalsound} are in there . +Grad C: Yeah . Then disregard it then . +Grad D: Yep . So th I now have a script that you can just say basically look up Morgan , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . OK . +Grad D: and it will give you his ID . +PhD G: Great , great . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Um , +PhD G: Terrific . +Grad D: alright . Do we {disfmarker} Don , you had disk space and storage formats . Is that something we need to talk about at the meeting , or should you just talk with Chuck at some other time ? +Grad C: Um , I had some general questions just about the compression algorithms of shortening waveforms and I don't know exactly who to ask . I thought that maybe you would be the {disfmarker} the person to talk to . So , is it a lossless compression {comment} when you compress , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Entropy coding . +Grad C: It just uses entropy coding ? +Grad D: So . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess my question would be is I just got this new eighteen gig drive installed . Um , yeah , which is {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I assume half of it is scratch and half of it is {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I 'm not exactly sure how they partitioned it . +Grad D: Probably , yeah . +Grad C: But um , +Professor F: That 's typical , huh . +Grad C: yeah , I don't know what 's typical here , but um , it 's local though , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: That doesn't matter . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can access it from anywhere in ICSI . N {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Alright . How do you do that ? +Professor F: In fact , this is an eighteen gig drive , {comment} or is it a thirty six gig drive with eighteen {disfmarker} +Grad D: N {disfmarker} +Grad C: Eighteen . +PhD G: Eigh - eighteen . It was a spare that Dave had around {disfmarker} +Grad D: Slash N slash machine name , slash X A in all likelihood . +Professor F: Oh OK . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . Alright , I did know that . +Grad D: Um , so the {disfmarker} the only question is how much of it {disfmarker} The distinction between scratch and non - scratch is whether it 's backed up or not . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad D: So what you wanna do is use the scratch for stuff that you can regenerate . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So , the stuff that isn't backed up is not a big deal because disks don't crash very frequently , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: as long as you can regenerate it . +Grad C: Right . I mean all of this stuff can be regenerated , +PhD G: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: it 's just a question {disfmarker} +Grad D: Then put it all on scratch +PhD G: Well the {disfmarker} +Grad D: because we 're {disfmarker} ICSI is {disfmarker} is bottlenecked by backup . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , very good point . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So we wanna put {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I 'd leave all the {disfmarker} All the transcript stuff shouldn't {disfmarker} should be backed up , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but all the waveform {disfmarker} {comment} Sound files should not be backed up , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: the ones that you write out . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess th the other question was then , should we shorten them , downsample them , or keep them in their original form ? Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: It just depends on your tools . I mean , because it 's not backed up and it 's just on scratch , if your sc tools can't take shortened format , I would leave them expanded , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so you don't have to unshorten them every single time you wanna do anything . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: We can downsample them , +Grad C: Do you think that 'd be OK ? +PhD G: so . +Grad C: To downsample them ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , we get the same performance . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: I mean the r the front - end on the SRI recognizer just downsamples them on the fly , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess the only argument against downsampling is to preserve just the original files in case we want to experiment with different filtering techniques . +PhD G: so {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , if +Professor F: Yeah , l I mean over all our data , we {disfmarker} we want to not downsample . +PhD G: fe You 'd {disfmarker} you wanna not . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So we 're {disfmarker} what we 're doing is we 're writing out {disfmarker} I mean , this is just a question . We 're writing out these individual segments , that wherever there 's a time boundary from Thilo , or {disfmarker} or Jane 's transcribers , you know , we {disfmarker} we chop it {pause} there . +Professor F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And the reason is so that we can feed it to the recognizer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and throw out ones that we 're not using and so forth . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And those are the ones that we 're storing . +Grad D: Yeah , as I said , since that 's {disfmarker} it 's regeneratable , what I would do is take {disfmarker} downsample it , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: and compress it however you 're e the SRI recognizer wants to take it in . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: ye +PhD G: So we can't shorten them , +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: but we can downsample them . +Professor F: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I 'm sorry . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: As {disfmarker} yeah , as long as there is a {disfmarker} a form that we can come from again , that is not downsampled , {comment} then , +Grad C: r Yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah th +Grad C: Yeah those are gonna be kept . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's why we need more disk space +Professor F: uuu +PhD G: cuz we 're basically duplicating the originals , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Then it 's fine . But for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} fu future research we 'll be doing it with different microphone positions and so on +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: No . We always have the original long ones . +Professor F: we would like to {disfmarker} +PhD B: So the SRI front - end won't take a uh {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a large audio file name and then a {disfmarker} a list of segments to chop out {comment} from that large audio file ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: They actually have to be chopped out already ? +PhD G: Um , it 's better if they 're chopped out , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it will be {disfmarker} yeah , y we could probably write something to do that , but it 's actually convenient to have them chopped out cuz you can run them , you know , in different orders . You c you can actually move them around . +Grad D: And that 's the whole point about the naming conventions +PhD G: Uh , you can get rid of +Grad D: is that you could run all the English speaking , +PhD G: Yeah , it it 's a lot faster . +Grad D: all the native speakers , and all the non - native speakers , +PhD G: Right . You can grab everything with the word "" the "" in it , +Grad D: and all the men , and all the women . Yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} That 's a lot quicker than actually trying to access the wavefile each time , find the time boundaries and {disfmarker} So in principle , yeah , you could do that , +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's really right . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} but it 's um {disfmarker} +Grad D: "" That 's just not right , man . "" The {disfmarker} the point {disfmarker} +PhD G: These are long {disfmarker} These are long {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so s For example , what if you wanted to run {disfmarker} run all the native speakers . +PhD G: You know . This is an hour of speech . +Grad D: Right , so if {disfmarker} if you did it that way you would have to generate a program that looks in the database somewhere , extracts out the language , finds the time - marks for that particular one , do it that way . The way they 're doing it , you have that already extracted and it 's embedded in the file name . And so , you know , you just say {disfmarker} +PhD G: We - yeah that 's {disfmarker} so that 's part of it +Grad D: y so you just say you know "" asterisk E asterisk dot wave "" , and you get what you want . +PhD G: is {disfmarker} Right . And the other part is just that once they 're written out it {disfmarker} it is a lot faster to {disfmarker} to process them . +Grad D: Rather than doing seeks through the file . +PhD G: So . Otherwise , you 're just accessing {disfmarker} +Grad D: This is all just temporary access , so I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} it 's all just {disfmarker} It 's fine . You know . Fine to do it however is convenient . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: I mean it just depends how big the file is . If the file sits in memory you can do extremely fast seeks +PhD G: Right . The other thing is that , believe it or not {disfmarker} I mean , we have some {disfmarker} +Professor F: but . +Grad D: Yeah and they don't . Two gig ? +PhD G: So we 're also looking at these in Waves like for the alignments and so forth . You can't load an hour of speech into X Waves . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: You need to s have these small files , and in fact , even for the Transcriber program Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yes you can . +PhD B: Yeah , you {disfmarker} you can give Waves a start and an end time . And middle . +PhD G: Yeah , if you try to load s really long waveform into X Waves , you 'll be waiting there for {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I {disfmarker} I 'm not suggesting you load a long wave file , +PhD G: Oh +PhD B: I 'm just saying you give it a start and an end time . And it 'll just go and pull out that section . +Grad D: I th w The transcribers didn't have any problem with that did they Jane ? +Postdoc E: What 's th u w in what respect ? +PhD G: Loading the long {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , with the Transcriber tool , it 's no problem . +Grad D: They loaded {disfmarker} they loaded the long long files into X Waves . +PhD G: It takes a very long ti +PhD A: Yeah just to load a transcription +Postdoc E: In the {disfmarker} in Mm - hmm . +PhD A: +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: takes a long time , +PhD G: It takes a l very long time . +PhD A: but not for the wavefile . The wavefile is there immediately . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: Are you talking about Transcriber or X Waves ? +PhD G: Huh . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , I 'm tr talking about Transcriber . +PhD G: Actually , you 're talking about Transcriber , right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} because i we used X Waves to do the digits . +Postdoc E: It was also true of the digits task which was X Waves . +Grad D: And they were loading the full mixed files then , +Postdoc E: Yeah . Very quickly . +Grad D: and it didn't seem to be any problem . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Huh . Well we {disfmarker} we have a problem with that , you know , time - wise on a {disfmarker} It - it 's a lot slower to load in a long file , +Grad D: Hmm . Seemed really fast . +PhD G: and also to check the file , so if you have a transcript , um , +Grad D: Well regardless , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think overall you could get everything to work by accessing the same waveform and trying to find two {disfmarker} you know , the begin and end times . Um , but I think it 's more efficient , if we have the storage space , to have the small ones . +Grad D: and , it 's no problem , right ? +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Because it 's not backed up . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: So we just {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad D: If we don't have a spare disk sitting around we go out and we buy ourselves an eighty gigabyte drive and make it all scratch space . You know , it 's not a big deal . +Postdoc E: You 're right about the backup being {pause} a bottleneck . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's good to think towards scratch . +PhD G: Yeah , so these wouldn't be backed up , the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: So remind me afterward +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad D: and I 'll {disfmarker} and we 'll look at your disk and see where to put stuff . +Grad C: OK . Alright . I mean , I could just u do a DU on it right ? And just see which {disfmarker} how much is on each {disfmarker} So . +Grad D: Yep . Each partition . And you wanna use , either XA or scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Well X question mark , anything starting with X is scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: With two {disfmarker} two digits . +Grad D: Two digits , right , XA , XB , XC . OK ? +Professor F: So , @ @ . +Grad D: Jane ? +Postdoc E: OK . So I got a little print - out here . So three on this side , three on this side . And I stapled them . OK . Alright so , first of all , um , there was a {disfmarker} an interest in the transcribe transcription , uh , checking procedures and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I can {vocalsound} tell you first , uh , to go through the steps although you 've probably seen them . Um , as you might imagine , when you 're dealing with , um , r really c a fair number of words , and uh , @ @ {comment} natural speech which means s self - repairs and all these other factors , that there 're lots of things to be , um , s standardized and streamlined and checked on . And , um , so , I did a bunch of checks , and the first thing I did was obviously a spell - check . And at that point I discovered certain things like , um , "" accommodate "" with one "" M "" , that kind of thing . And then , in addition to that , I did an exhaustive listing of the forms in the data file , which included n detecting things like f faulty punctuation and things {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry to interrupt +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD B: you could {disfmarker} could I just back up a little bit +Postdoc E: Sure , please , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: yeah , please , please . +PhD B: So you 're doing these {disfmarker} So {pause} the whole process is that the transcribers get the conversation +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD B: and they do their pass over it . +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD B: And then when they 're finished with it , it comes to you , +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD B: and you begin these sanit these quality checks . +Postdoc E: Exactly . I do these checks . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Exactly . Yeah . Thank you . And so , uh , I do a {disfmarker} an exhaustive listing of the forms {disfmarker} Actually , I will go through this in {disfmarker} in order , so if {disfmarker} if we could maybe wait and stick keep that for a second cuz we 're not ready for that . +Grad D: So on the fifth page , seven down {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Exactly ! Exactly ! Alright so , {vocalsound} a spelling check first then an exhaustive listing of the , uh {disfmarker} all the forms in the data with the punctuation attached and at that point I pick up things like , oh , you know , word followed by two commas . And th and then another check involves , uh , being sure that every utterance has an identifiable speaker . And if not , then that gets checked . Then there 's this issue of glossing s w so - called "" spoken - forms "" . So there {disfmarker} mo for the most part , we 're keeping it standard wo word level transcription . But there 's {disfmarker} w And that that 's done with the assumption that {pause} pronunciation variants can be handled . So for things like "" and "" , the fact that someone doesn't say the "" D "" , uh that 's not important enough to capture in the transcription because a {disfmarker} a good pronunciation , uh , you know , model would be able to handle that . However , things like "" cuz "" where you 're lacking an entire very prominent first syllable , and furthermore , it 's a form that 's specific to spoken language , those are r reasons {disfmarker} f for those reasons I {disfmarker} I kept that separate , and used the convention of using "" CUZ "" for that form , however , glossing it so that it 's possible with the script to plug in the full orthographic form for that one , and a couple of others , not many . So "" wanna "" is another one , "" going {disfmarker} "" uh , "" gonna "" is another one , with just the assumption , again , that this {disfmarker} th these are things which it 's not really fair to a c consider {disfmarker} expect that {disfmarker} a pronunciation model , to handle . And Chuck , you in you indicated that "" cuz "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that 's handled in a different way also , didn't you ? Did I {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't remember . +Postdoc E: OK . So {disfmarker} so it might not have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It might not have been you , +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: but someone told me that in fact "" cuz "" is treated differently in , um , i u in this context because of that r reason that , um , it 's a little bit farther than a pronunciation variant . OK , so after that , let 's see , +PhD B: So that was part of the spell - check , {comment} or was that {disfmarker} that was after the spell - check ? +Postdoc E: um . Well so when I get the exhau So the spell - check picks up those words because they 're not in the dictionary . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So it gets "" cuz "" and "" wanna "" and that {disfmarker} +Grad D: And then you gloss them ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , mm - hmm . Run it through {disfmarker} I have a sed {disfmarker} You know , so I do sed script saying whenever you see "" gonna "" you know , "" convert it to gonna "" , you know , "" gloss equals quote going - to quote "" , you know . And with all these things being in curly brackets +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: so they 're always distinctive . OK , I also wrote a script which will , um , retrieve anything in curly brackets , {vocalsound} or anything which I 've classified as an acronym , and {disfmarker} a pronounced acronym . And the way I tag ac pronounced acronyms is that I have underscores between the components . So if it 's "" ACL "" then it 's "" A "" underscore "" C "" underscore "" L "" . +Grad D: And so {disfmarker} so your list here , are these ones that actually occurred in the meetings ? +Postdoc E: And the th Yes . Uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Whew ! +Postdoc E: OK , so now . Uh and {disfmarker} a +Grad D: We are acronym - loaded . +PhD G: Um , can I ask a question about the glossing , uh before we go on ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: So , for a word like "" because "" is it that it 's always predictably "" because "" ? I mean , is "" CUZ "" always meaning "" because "" ? +Postdoc E: Yes , but not the reverse . So sometimes people will say "" because "" in the meeting , and if {disfmarker} if they actually said "" because "" , then it 's written as "" because "" with no {disfmarker} w "" cuz "" doesn't even figure into the equation . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but in our meetings people don't say "" hey cuz how you doing ? "" +PhD G: Beca - because {disfmarker} Right . {comment} {vocalsound} Right . +Grad D: Except right there . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , so , I guess {disfmarker} So , from the point of view of {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's a good point . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} the only problem is that with {disfmarker} for the recognition we {disfmarker} we map it to "" because "" , +Grad D: Well , +PhD G: and so if we know that "" CUZ "" {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's fine . +Grad D: but they have the gloss . +Postdoc E: Well Don has a script . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: but , we don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: You have the gloss form so you always replace it . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Grad D: If that 's how {disfmarker} what you wanna do . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . And Don knows this , +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and he 's bee he has a glo he has a script that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I replace the "" cuz "" with "" because "" if it 's glossed . +PhD G: S Right . But , if it 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: But then there are other glosses that we don't replace , right ? Because {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . And that 's why there 're different tags on the glosses , +PhD G: OK . So , then it 's fine . +Postdoc E: on the different {disfmarker} on the different types of comments , which we 'll {disfmarker} which we 'll see in just a second . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: So the pronounceable acronyms get underscores , the things in curly brackets are viewed as comments . There 're comments of four types . So this is a good time to introduce that . The four types . w And maybe we 'll expand that +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: but the {disfmarker} but the comments are , um , of four types mainly right now . One of them is , um , the gloss type we just mentioned . +Grad D: Can {disfmarker} ca +Postdoc E: Another type is , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So a are we done with acronyms ? Cuz I had a question on what {disfmarker} what this meant . +Postdoc E: I 'm still doing the overview . I haven't actually gotten here yet . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sorry . +Postdoc E: OK so , gloss is things like replacing the full form u with the , um , more abbreviated one to the left . Uh , then you have if it 's {disfmarker} uh , there 're a couple different types of elements that can happen that aren't really properly words , and wo some of them are laughs and breathes , so we have {disfmarker} uh that 's prepended with a v a tag of "" VOC "" . +PhD A: Whew ! +Postdoc E: And the non - vocal ones are like door - slams and tappings , and that 's prepended with a no non - vocalization . +PhD B: So then it {disfmarker} just an ending curly brace there , or is there something else in there . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah , so i e this would {disfmarker} +Grad D: A comment , basically . +Postdoc E: Let 's just take one example . +PhD B: Oh , oh , oh . +Postdoc E: And then the no non - vocalization would be something like a door - slam . They always end . So it 's like they 're paired curly brackets . And then the third type right now , {vocalsound} uh , is {pause} m things that fall in the category of comments about what 's happening . So it could be something like , you know , "" referring to so - and - so "" , "" talking about such - and - such "" , uh , you know , "" looking at so - and - so "" . +PhD B: So on the m +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: on the middle t So , in the first case that gloss applies to the word to the left . But in the middle two {disfmarker} Th - it 's not applying to anything , right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and this gets substituted here . +Grad D: They 're impulsive . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Huh - uh . No , they 're events . +PhD B: OK . +Grad D: Well the "" QUAL "" can be {disfmarker} The "" QUAL "" is applying to the left . +Postdoc E: They 're actually {disfmarker} They have the status of events . +PhD B: Right , I just meant the middle two ones , yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Well , and actually , um , it is true that , with respect to "" laugh "" , there 's another one which is "" while laughing "" , +Grad D: "" While laughing "" . +Postdoc E: and that is , uh , i i An argument could be made for this {disfmarker} tur turning that into a qualitative statement because it 's talking about the thing that preceded it , but at present we haven't been , um , uh , coding the exact scope of laughing , you know , and so to have "" while laughing "" , you know that it happened somewhere in there which could well mean that it occurred separately and following , or , you know , including some of the utterances to the left . Haven't been awfully precise about that , but I have here , now we 're about to get to the {disfmarker} to this now , I have frequencies . So you 'll see how often these different things occur . But , um , uh , the very front page deals with this , uh , final c pa uh , uh , aspect of the standardization which has to do with the spoken forms like "" mm - hmm "" and "" mm - hmm "" and "" ha "" and "" uh - uh "" and all these different types . And , um , uh , someone pointed out to me , this might have been Chuck , {comment} about , um {disfmarker} about how a recognizer , if it 's looking for "" mm - hmmm "" with three M 's , {vocalsound} and it 's transcribed with two M 's , {vocalsound} that it might {disfmarker} uh , that it might increase the error rate which is {disfmarker} which would really be a shame because um , I p I personally w would not be able to make a claim that those are dr dramatically different items . So , right now I 've standardized across all the existing data with these spoken forms . +Grad D: Oh good . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I should say +Grad D: So it 's a small list . +Postdoc E: all existing data except thirty minutes which got found today . So , I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna check {disfmarker} +Grad D: That {disfmarker} that 's known as "" found data "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah . Acsu - actually yeah . I got {disfmarker} It was stored in a place I didn't expect , +Grad C: It 's like the z Zapruder Film . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and um , w we , uh , sh yea reconstructed how that happened . +Professor F: I wanna work with lost data . +Grad D: Yeah . It 's much easier . +Postdoc E: And this is {disfmarker} this 'll be great . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll be able to get through that tonight , and then everyth i well , actually later today probably . +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And so then we 'll have everything following these conventions . But you notice it 's really rather a small set of these kinds of things . +Grad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And I made it so that these are , um , with a couple exceptions but , things that you wouldn't find in the spell - checker so that they 'll show up really easily . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Jane , can I ask you a question ? What 's that very last one correspond to ? +Postdoc E: Sure . +Grad C: I don't even know how to pronounce that . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . Now that {disfmarker} that s only occurs once , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and I 'm thinking of changing that . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Uh , is that like someone 's like burning or some such thing ? +Postdoc E: So - c I haven't listened to it so I don't know . +Grad C: Like their hair 's on fire ? +Postdoc E: I haven't heard it actually . I n I need to listen to that one . +Grad D: Ah ! +PhD A: It 's the Castle of Ah ! +PhD G: Actually we {disfmarker} we gave this to our pronunciation person , +Grad C: Uh , it looks like that . +PhD G: she 's like , "" I don't know what that is either "" . So . +Postdoc E: Did she hear the th did she actually hear it ? Cuz I haven't heard it . +PhD G: No , we just gave her a list of words that , you know , weren't in our dictionary and so of course it picked up stuff like this , and she just didn't listen so she didn't know . We just {disfmarker} we 're waiting on that {pause} just to do the alignments . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah I 'm curious to se hear what it is , but I didn't know {disfmarker} wanna change it to something else until I knew . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: Maybe it 's "" argh "" ? +Postdoc E: Well , sss , {comment} you know {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Grad C: But that 's not really like {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Hhh . +Grad C: No one really says "" argh , "" you know , +Postdoc E: +PhD G: Yeah . Right , no one say +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , you just did . +PhD B: Except for now ! +Grad C: Well , there 's another {disfmarker} there 's another word error . +Grad D: +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's right . +Grad D: Yes , that 's right . We 're gonna have a big problem when we talk about that . +Grad C: Cha - ching . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD B: We 're gonna never recognize this meeting . +Grad D: In Monty Python you say "" argh "" a lot . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad D: So . Well , or if you 're a C programmer . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: You say arg - C and arg - V all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad C: That 's true . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: But it has a different prosody . +Professor F: Arg . +Grad D: It does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Arg {disfmarker} arg - max , arg - min , yeah . +Grad D: Ah ! +Postdoc E: Uh , +PhD G: So , Jane , what 's the {disfmarker} d +Grad D: Maybe he died while dictating . +Postdoc E: so . +PhD G: I have one question about the the "" EH "" versus like the "" AH "" and the "" UH "" . +Postdoc E: That 's partly a nonnative - native thing , +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: but I have found "" EH "" in native speakers too . +PhD G: +Postdoc E: But it 's mostly non - native {disfmarker} +PhD A: H +PhD B: That 's "" eh "" versus "" ah "" ? +PhD G: S OK . +Postdoc E: Eh . +Grad D: Eh ? +PhD G: "" Eh , "" yeah right , cuz there were {disfmarker} were some speakers that did definite "" eh 's "" +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but right now we {disfmarker} +PhD B: They were the Canadians , right ? +Professor F: Canadians , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD G: So , it {disfmarker} it 's actually probably good for us to know the difference between the real "" eh "" and the one that 's just like "" uh "" or transcribed "" aaa "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . +PhD G: cuz in {disfmarker} like in Switchboard , you would see e all of these forms , but they all were like "" uh "" . +Grad D: You mean just the single letter "" a "" {comment} as in the particle ? +PhD A: The transcription or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Article . +PhD G: No , no , I mean like the {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , +Postdoc E: "" UH "" . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , "" EH "" , "" AH "" were all the same . And then , we have this additional non - native version of {disfmarker} uh , like "" eeh "" . +Grad C: All the "" EH "" 's I 've seen have been like that . They 've been like "" eh "" like that have bee has been transcribed to "" EH "" . And sometimes it 's stronger , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Grad C: like "" eeh "" {comment} which is like closer to "" EH "" . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: But . +Grad D: I 'm just {disfmarker} these poor transcribers , they 're gonna hate this meeting . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: I know . We should go off - line . +Postdoc E: Well , {vocalsound} we 're not doing {disfmarker} We 're not doing length . +Professor F: Quick Thilo , do a {disfmarker} do a filled pause for us . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Ooo {comment} no . +PhD G: But you 're a native German speaker so it 's not a {disfmarker} not a issue for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's only {disfmarker} +Grad D: Them Canadians . +PhD G: Onl yeah . No , only if you don't have lax vowels , I guess . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: This makes sense . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} like Japanese and Spanish +Postdoc E: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think you 've {disfmarker} uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: I didn't get that , +Postdoc E: That makes sense . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and so , you know , I mean , th th I have {disfmarker} there are some , um , Americans who {disfmarker} who are using this "" eh "" too , and I haven't listened to it systematically , maybe with some of them , uh , they 'd end up being "" uh 's "" but , uh , I my spot - checking has made me think that we do have "" eh "" in also , um , American e e data represented here . But any case , that 's the {disfmarker} this is reduced down from really quite a long a much longer list , +PhD G: Yeah this is great . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's good , +Postdoc E: and this is +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: This is really really helpful . +Postdoc E: functionally pretty , you know , also {disfmarker} It was fascinating , I was listening to some of these , uh , I guess two nights ago , and it 's just hilarious to liste to {disfmarker} to do a search for the "" mm - hmm 's "" . And you get "" mm - hmm "" and diff everybody 's doing it . +Grad D: And just listen to them ? Yeah . +Postdoc E: Just {disfmarker} I wanted to say {disfmarker} I w think it would be fun to make a montage of it because there 's a "" Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Performance art , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . "" +Grad D: just extract them all . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's really {disfmarker} it 's really fun to listen to . +PhD B: Morgan can make a song out of it . +Postdoc E: All these different vocal tracts , you know , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same item . It 's very interesting . OK . Uh , then the acronyms y and the ones in parentheses are ones which the transcriber wasn't sure of , +Grad D: Oh I see . +Postdoc E: and I haven't been able to listen to to {disfmarker} to clarify , but you can see that the parenthesis convention makes it very easy to find them +Grad D: o How about question mark ? +Postdoc E: cuz it 's the only place where {disfmarker} where they 're used . +PhD A: The question marks , yeah . What are those ? +Postdoc E: Question mark is punctuation . So it {disfmarker} they said that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Oh . +Postdoc E: um , "" DC ? "" +PhD A: Ah . +Grad D: So they {disfmarker} so it 's "" PLP ? "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . Exactly . Yeah , so the only {disfmarker} Well , and I do have a stress marker here . Sometimes the contrastive stress is showing up , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I 'm sorry , I {disfmarker} I got lost here . What - w what 's the difference between the parenthesized acronym and the non - parenthesized ? +Postdoc E: The parenthesized is something that the transcriber thought was ANN , but wasn't entirely sure . So I 'd need to go back or someone needs to go back , and say , you know , yes or no , +Professor F: Ah . +Postdoc E: and then get rid of the parentheses . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: But the parentheses are used only in that context in the transcripts , of of noti noticing that there 's something uncertain . +Grad D: Yeah , P - make is {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I mean cuz they {disfmarker} they have no idea , +Grad D: That 's a good one . That 's correct . +PhD G: right . If you hear CTPD , I mean , they do pretty well +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I don't recognize a lot of these . +PhD G: you know how are {disfmarker} how are they gonna know ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I know ! I {disfmarker} I was saying that I think a lot of them are the Networks meeting . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I think that 's true . +Professor F: Maybe . +Postdoc E: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad D: I see a few . +Postdoc E: NSA , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: a lot of these are {disfmarker} are coming from them . I listened to some of that . +Grad C: Yeah , we don't have that many acronyms comparatively in this meeting . +Grad D: Although I see {disfmarker} I see plenty of uh +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Grad C: It 's not so bad . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And Robustness has a fair amount , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: but the NSA group is just very very many . +PhD G: The recognizer , it is funny . Kept getting PTA for PDA . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's pretty close . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: This is close , right , +Grad C: That 's not bad . +PhD G: and the PTA was in these , uh , topics about children , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: so , anyway . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD G: Is the P - PTA working ? +Postdoc E: Right and sometimes , I mean , you see a couple of these that are actually "" OK 's "" so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} may be that they got to the point where {disfmarker} I mean it was low enough understandable {disfmarker} understandability that they weren't entirely sure the person said "" OK . "" You know , so it isn't really necessarily a an undecipherable acronym , +Grad C: There 's a lot of "" OK 's "" . +Postdoc E: but just n needs to be double checked . Now we get to the comments . This {disfmarker} +Professor F: The number to the left is the number of incidences ? +Grad D: Count . Yep . +Postdoc E: Number of times out of the entire database , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: w except for that last thirty minutes I haven't checked yet . +Professor F: So CTS is really big here , +Grad D: Yeah , I wonder what it is . +Professor F: yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: So what is the difference between "" papers rustling "" and "" rustling papers "" ? +Professor F: IP , I know what IP is . +Postdoc E: I 'd have to listen . I {disfmarker} I I agree . I w I 'd like to standardize these down farther but , um , uh , uh , to me that sounds equivalent . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But , I {disfmarker} I 'm a little hesitant to {disfmarker} to collapse across categories unless I actually listen to them . +PhD A: Seems so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sure we 've said XML more than five times . +Postdoc E: Well , then , at least now . +PhD A: Now it 's at least six times , yeah . +Professor F: S s six now , yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Six . OK well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Wh - the self - referential aspect of these {disfmarker} these p +PhD G: I 'm wai +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yes , it 's very bad . +PhD G: Well this is exactly how people will prove that these meetings do differ because we 're recording , right ? +Grad D: Yes . +PhD G: Y no normally you don't go around saying , "" Now you 've said it six times . +Grad D: Yeah {comment} that 's right . +PhD G: Now you 've said "" +Postdoc E: But did you notice that there were seven hundred and eighty five instances of "" OK "" ? +PhD A: Seven hundred eighty - five instances . +Postdoc E: And that 's just without the {disfmarker} without punc punctuation . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: No , I didn't . Yeah . +Grad D: And that 's an underestimate +Postdoc E: Extra forty one if it 's questioned . +PhD B: Where 's that ? +Grad D: cuz they 're Yep . +Professor F: So th +Postdoc E: On the page two of acronyms . +Grad C: Is this after {disfmarker} like did you do some uh replacements for all the different form of "" OK "" to this ? +Professor F: Yeah . Seven hundred eighty . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Of "" OK "" , yes . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . So that 's the single existing convention for "" OK "" . +PhD B: Wait a minute , w s +Professor F: So now we 're up to seven hundred and eighty eight . +Postdoc E: Yeah that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Although , what 's {disfmarker} there 's one with a slash after it . That 's kind of disturbing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , we 'll have to look at it you know . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I looked for that one . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Anyway . +Postdoc E: I actually explicitly looked for that one , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think that , um , I {disfmarker} I 'm not exactly sure about that . +PhD B: Was that somewhere where they were gonna say "" new speaker "" or something ? +Postdoc E: No , I looked for that , but that doesn't actually exist . And it may be , I don't {disfmarker} I can't explain that . +Grad C: That 's alright . I 'm just pointing that out . +Postdoc E: I i it 's the only {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: it 's the only pattern that has a slash after it , and I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's an epiphenomenon . +PhD G: Well there 's not @ @ . +Grad D: So I 'll just {disfmarker} I was just looking at the bottom of page three there , is that "" to be "" or "" not to be "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: There 's no tilde in front of it , +Postdoc E: Oh that 's cute . +PhD B: so . +Postdoc E: That 's funny . Yeah . +Grad D: OK anyways , sorry . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad D: "" Try to stay on topic , Adam . "" +Postdoc E: There is th one {disfmarker} Y well , no , that 's r that 's legitimate . So now , uh , comments , you can see they 're listed again , same deal , with exhaustive listing of everything found in everything except for these final th thirty minutes . +Grad D: OK so , um , on some of these QUALs , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: are they really QUALs , or are they glosses ? So like there 's a "" QUAL TCL "" . +Postdoc E: "" TCL "" . Where do you see that ? +Grad D: Uh +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . The reason is because w it was said "" tickle "" . +Professor F: What 's a QUAL ? +Grad D: Oh I see , I see . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: So it 's not gloss . OK , I see . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad C: Sh - shouldn't it be "" QUAL TICKLE "" or something ? +Grad D: It wasn't said "" TCL "" . Of course . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: On the {disfmarker} in the actual script {disfmarker} in the actual transcript , I s I {disfmarker} So this {disfmarker} this happens in the very first one . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I actually wrote it as "" tickle "" . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Because we {disfmarker} they didn't say "" TCL "" , they said "" tickle "" . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And then , following that is "" QUAL TCL "" . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . +Professor F: I f I forget , what 's QUAL ? +Postdoc E: Qual - qualifier . +PhD B: It 's just comment about what they said . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Comment . +Grad C: It 's not something you wanna replace {pause} with +Postdoc E: Comment or contextual comment . +PhD B: So they didn't mean "" tickle "" as in Elmo , +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Tickle ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: they meant "" tickle "" as in {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: Huh . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: But at some point {disfmarker} I mean , we probably shoul +Grad D: We 'll probably add it to the language model . +PhD G: But we should add it to the dictionar +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: No , to the pronunciation model . +Grad D: What did I say ? +PhD A: To the language model {disfmarker} model . +PhD G: Language , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well both . +PhD B: Add what , Liz ? +Grad D: We can go on lan lan add it to both dictionary and language model . +PhD G: Oh lan Oh OK - we OK +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's in the language model , w yeah , but it so it 's the pronunciation model that has to have a pronunciation of "" tickle "" . +Grad D: Well "" tickle "" was pronounced "" tickle "" . Right ? +PhD A: "" tickle "" is pronounced "" tickle "" ? +PhD B: What are you saying ? +Grad D: It 's pronounced the same {disfmarker} it 's pronounced the same as the verb . +PhD G: I 'm sorry ! +Grad D: So I think it 's the language model that makes it different . +PhD G: Oh , sorry . What I meant is that there should be a pronunciation "" tickle "" for TCL as a word . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: And that word in the {disfmarker} in , you know , it stays in the language model wherever it was . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Yeah you never would put "" tickle "" in the language model in that form , +Postdoc E: +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: yeah . Right . There 's actually a bunch of cases like this with people 's names and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how w there 'd be a problem for doing the language modeling then with our transcripts the way they are . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . Yeah so th th there there 's a few cases like that where the um , the word needs to be spelled out in {disfmarker} in a consistent way as it would appear in the language , but there 's not very many of these . Tcl 's one of them . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and you 'll ha you 'll have to do it sychronously . +PhD G: Um , y yeah . +Grad D: Right , so y so , whoever 's creating the new models , will have to also go through the transcripts and change them synchronously . +Grad C: It 's just disturbing . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD G: Right . We have this {disfmarker} there is this thing I was gonna talk to you about at some point about , you know , what do we do with the dictionary as we 're up updating the dictionary , these changes have to be consistent with what 's in the {disfmarker} Like spelling people 's names and so forth . If we make a spelling correction to their name , like someone had Deborah Tannen 's name mispelled , and since we know who that is , you know , we could correct it , +Grad D: You can correct it . Yeah . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but we need to make sure we have the mispel If it doesn't get corrected we have to have a pronunciation as a mispelled word in the dictionary . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Things like that . +Grad D: These are so funny to read . +Postdoc E: Well , of course now the {disfmarker} the Tannen corre the spelling c change . +PhD G: So . +Postdoc E: Uh , that 's what gets {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I picked those up in the frequency check . +PhD G: Right . Right . So if there 's things that get corrected before we get them , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not an issue , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but if there 's things that um , we change later , then we always have to keep our {disfmarker} the dictionary up to date . And then , yeah , in the case of "" tickle "" I guess we would just have a , you know , word "" TCL "" which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You add it to the dictionary . +PhD G: which normally would be an acronym , you know , "" TCL "" +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: but just has another pronunciation . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: "" ICSI "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that sometimes people pronounce and sometimes they say "" ICSI . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: So , those that are l are listed in the acronyms , I actually know +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: they were said as letters . The others , um , e those really do need to be listened to cuz I haven't been able to go to all the IC ICSI things , +PhD G: Right , exactly . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} {comment} and until they 've been listened to they stay as "" ICSI "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Don and I were just noticing , love this one over on page three , "" vocal {disfmarker} vocal gesture mimicking sound of screwing something into head to hold mike in place . "" +Grad C: That 's great . +Grad D: It 's this , "" rrre - rrre - rrre "" . It was me . +Postdoc E: It was ! In fact , it was ! Yeah ! +Grad D: A lot of these are me the {disfmarker} the "" beep is said with a high pit high pitch and lengthening . "" +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} he s he said {disfmarker} he said get {disfmarker} +PhD A: To head . +Grad D: That was the {disfmarker} I was imitating uh , beeping out {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor F: Beep . +Postdoc E: Perfect . Yeah that 's it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh there is something spelled out "" BEEEEEEP "" +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been changed . +PhD G: in the old {disfmarker} Thank you . Because he was saying , "" How many E 's do I have to allow for ? "" +Grad C: You need a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: What I meant was "" beep "" . +Grad C: You need a lot of qualification Adam . +Grad D: I guess so . +Postdoc E: That 's been changed . So , exactly , that 's where the lengthening comment c came in . +Grad C: Subtext . +Grad D: Anyway . +Postdoc E: s chan brought it down . +PhD G: Right , thanks , yeah . +Grad D: So they 're vocalization , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And those of course get {disfmarker} get picked up in the frequency check +Grad D: glosses . +Postdoc E: because you see "" beep "" +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: and you know {disfmarker} I mean it gets kicked out in the spelling , and it also gets kicked out in the , uh , freq frequency listing . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Postdoc E: I have the {disfmarker} there 're various things like "" breathe "" versus "" breath "" versus "" inhale "" and , hhh , you know , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think they don't have any implications for anything else so it 's like I 'm tempted to leave them for now an and {disfmarker} It 's easy enough to find them when they 're in curly brackets . We can always get an exhaustive listing of these things and find them and change them . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: "" Sings finale - type song "" +Grad C: Yeah , that was in the first meeting . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , +Postdoc E: Yeah , but I don't actually remember what it was . But that was {disfmarker} Eric did that . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: So on {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Tah - dah ! I don't know . +Postdoc E: I think maybe something like that . +Professor F: Something like that maybe , yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , that 'd qualify . +Grad D: On the glosses for numbers , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: it seems like there are lots of different ways it 's being done . +Postdoc E: OK . Interesting question . +Grad D: There 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . OK , now first of all {disfmarker} Ooo - ooo ! Very important . +Grad D: "" Ooo - ooo . "" +Postdoc E: Uh Chuck {disfmarker} Chuck led to a refinement here which is to add "" NUMS "" if these are parts of the read numbers . Now you already know i that I had , uh , in places where they hadn't transcribed numbers , I put "" numbers "" in place of any kind of numbers , but there are places where they , um , it {disfmarker} th this convention came later an and at the very first digits task in some transcripts they actually transcribed numbers . And , um , d Chuck pointed out that this is read speech , and it 's nice to have the option of ignoring it for certain other prob uh p uh , things . And that 's why there 's this other tag here which occurs a hundred and five {disfmarker} or three hundred and five times right now which is just {disfmarker} well n n "" NUMS "" by itself +Grad D: "" NUMS "" , yeah . +Postdoc E: which means this is part of the numbers task . I may change it to "" digits "" . I mean , i with the sed command you can really just change it however you want because it 's systematically encoded , you know ? +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Have to think about what 's the best for {disfmarker} for the overall purposes , but in any case , um , "" numbers "" and "" NUMS "" are a part of this digits task thing . Um , now th Then I have these numbers that have quotation marks around them . Um , I didn't want to put them in as gloss comments because then you get the substitution . And actually , th um , {vocalsound} the reason I b did it this way was because I initially started out with the other version , you have the numbers and you have the full form and the parentheses , however sometimes people stumble over these numbers they 're saying . So you say , "" Seve - seventy eight point two "" , or whatever . And there 's no way of capturing that if you 're putting the numbers off to the side . You can't have the seven and {disfmarker} +Grad D: So what 's to the left of these ? +Postdoc E: The left is i so example the very first one , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: it would be , spelled out in words , "" point five "" . +Grad D: OK , that 's what I was asking . Right . +Postdoc E: Only it 's spelled out in words . +Grad D: Point FIVE , yeah . +Postdoc E: So i this is also spelled out in {disfmarker} in words . "" Point five . "" +Grad D: Good . +Postdoc E: And then , in here , "" NUMS "" , so it 's not going to be mistaken as a gloss . It comes out as "" NUMS quote dot five "" . +Grad D: OK now , the other example is , in the glosses right there , +Postdoc E: Thank you . +Grad D: "" gloss one one one dash one three zero "" . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: What {disfmarker} what 's to the left of that ? +Postdoc E: Well now {disfmarker} In that case it 's people saying things like "" one one one dash so - and - so "" or they 're saying uh "" two {disfmarker} I mean zero "" whatever . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: And in that case , it 's part of the numbers task , and it 's not gonna be included in the read digits anyway , +PhD B: So there will be a "" NUMS "" tag on those lines ? +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} I m in the uh {disfmarker} There is . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . I 've added that all now too . +Grad C: There 's a "" numbers "" tag {disfmarker} +Grad D: Good . +Grad C: I 'm sorry I 'm {disfmarker} I didn't follow that last thing . +PhD G: Wait . +Postdoc E: So , so gloss {disfmarker} in the same line that would have "" gloss quote one one one dash one thirty "" , you 'd have a gloss at the end of the line saying , uh , "" curly bracket NUMS curly bracket "" . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So if you {disfmarker} if you did a , uh , a "" grep minus V nums "" +PhD G: Oh , so you could do "" grep minus V nums "" . +Postdoc E: and you get rid of anything that was read . +PhD G: So that 's the {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: So there wouldn't be something like i if somebody said something like , "" Boy , I 'm really tired , OK . "" and then started reading that would be on a separate line ? +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD G: OK great . Cuz I was doing the "" grep minus V "" quick and dirty and looked like that was working OK , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Good . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD G: Great . Now why do we {disfmarker} what 's the reason for having like the point five have the "" NUMS "" on it ? Is that just like when they 're talking about their data or something ? +Postdoc E: This is more because {disfmarker} +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Oh these are all these , the "" NUMS point "" , this all where they 're saying "" point "" something or other . +PhD G: These are all like inside the spontaneous {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is for readability of the transcript . I mean if you 're trying to follow this while you 're reading it it 's really hard to read , you know {disfmarker} eh , "" so in the data column five has "" , you know , "" one point five compared to seventy nine point six "" , it 's like when you see the words it 's really hard to follow the argument . And this is just really a {disfmarker} a way of someone who would handle th the data in a more discourse - y way to be able to follow what 's being said . +Grad D: Label it . +PhD G: Oh OK . +Postdoc E: So this is where Chuck 's , um , overall h architecture comes in , +PhD G: I see . +Postdoc E: where we 're gonna have a master file of the channelized data . Um , there will be scripts that are written to convert it into these t these main two uses and th some scripts will take it down th e into a f a for ta take it to a format that 's usable for the recognizer an uh , other scripts will take it to a form that 's usable for the {disfmarker} for linguistics an and discourse analysis . And , um , the implication that {disfmarker} that I have is that th the master copy will stay unchanged . These will just be things that are generated , +Grad D: Right +Postdoc E: and e by using scripts . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: Master copies of superset . +Postdoc E: When things change then the {disfmarker} the script will cham change but the {disfmarker} but there won't be stored copies of {disfmarker} in different versions of things . +Grad D: Good . +PhD G: So , I guess I 'd have one request here which is just , um , maybe to make it more robust , th that the tag , whatever you would choose for this type of "" NUMS "" {comment} where it 's inside the spontaneous speech , is different than the tag that you use for the read speech . +PhD B: Right . Right . That would argue for changing the other ones to be "" digits "" or something . +PhD G: Um , that way w if we make a mistake parsing , or something , we don't see the "" point five "" , or {disfmarker} or it 's not there , then we +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: a Just {disfmarker} an And actually for things like "" seven eighths "" , or people do fractions too I guess , you {disfmarker} maybe you want one overall tag for sort of that would be similar to that , +Postdoc E: Except {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} As long as they 're sep as they 're different strings that we {disfmarker} that 'll make our p sort of processing more robust . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz we really will get rid of everything that has the "" NUMS "" string in it . +PhD B: I suppose what you could do is just make sure that you get rid of everything that has "" curly brace NUMS curly brace "" . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} Ex - exactly . +PhD B: I mean that would be the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Exactly . That was {disfmarker} that was my motivation . And i these can be changed , like I said . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know , I mean , as I said I was considering changing it to "" digits "" . And , it just {disfmarker} i you know , it 's just a matter of deciding on whatever it is , and being sure the scripts know . +PhD B: Right . +PhD G: It would probably be safer , if you 're willing , to have a separate tag just because um , then we know for sure . And we can also do counts on them without having to do the processing . But you 're right , we could do it this way , it {disfmarker} it should work . Um , +PhD B: Yeah , and it makes it {disfmarker} I guess the thing about {disfmarker} +PhD G: but it it 's probably not hard for a person to tell the difference +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: because one 's in the context of a {disfmarker} you know , a transcribed word string , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: The other thing is you can get really so minute with these things +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: and increase the size of the files and the re and decrease the readability to such an extent by simply something like "" percent "" . Now I {disfmarker} I could have adopted a similar convention for "" percent "" , but somehow percent is not so hard , you know ? +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: i It 's just when you have these points and you 're trying to figure out where the decimal places are {disfmarker} And we could always add it later . Percent 's easy to detect . Point however is {disfmarker} is uh a word that has a couple different meanings . And you 'll find both of those in one of these meetings , where he 's saying "" well the first point I wanna make is so - and - so "" and he goes through four points , and also has all these decimals . +PhD B: So Liz , what does the recognizer do , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD B: uh , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD B: what does the SRI recognizer output for things like that ? "" seven point five "" . Does it output the word {disfmarker} +PhD G: "" Seven point five "" . +PhD B: Right , the word "" seven "" ? +Grad D: Well , the numbers ? +PhD B: The number "" seven "" ? +PhD G: The word . +PhD B: The word "" seven "" , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So I 'd {disfmarker} so "" I 'd like {disfmarker} I 'd like to talk about point five "" . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and actually , you know the language {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's the same point , actually , the {disfmarker} the p you know , the word "" to "" and the word y th "" going to "" and "" to go to "" those are two different "" to 's "" and so there 's no distinction there . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's just {disfmarker} just the word "" point "" has {disfmarker} Yeah , every word has only one , yeah e one version even if {disfmarker} even if it 's {disfmarker} A actually even like the word "" read "" {comment} and "" read "" Those are two different words . They 're spelled the same way , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And they 're still gonna be transcribed as READ . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: So , yeah , I {disfmarker} I like the idea of having this in there , I just {disfmarker} I was a little bit worried that , um , the tag for removing the read speech {disfmarker} because i What if we have like "" read letters "" or , I don't know , +Grad D: We might wanna {disfmarker} just a separate tag that says it 's read . +PhD G: like "" read something "" like "" read "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: yeah , basically . But other than that I it sounds great . +Grad D: Yeah . OK ? Are we done ? +Postdoc E: Well I wanted to say also regarding the channelized data , +Grad D: Oh , I guess we 're not done . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: that , um , Thilo requested , um , that we ge get some segments done by hand to e e s reduce the size of the time bins wh like was Chuc - Chuck was mentioning earlier that , um , that , um , if you {disfmarker} if you said , "" Oh "" and it was in part of a really long , s complex , overlapping segment , that the same start and end times would be held for that one +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: as for the longer utterances , +Grad D: We did that for one meeting , right , +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: so you have that data don't you ? +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the training data . +Postdoc E: And he requested that there be , uh , similar , uh , samples done for five minute stretches c involving a variety of speakers and overlapping secti sections . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: He gave me {disfmarker} he did the {disfmarker} very nice , he {disfmarker} he did some shopping through the data and found segments that would be useful . And at this point , all four of the ones that he specified have been done . In addition the I 've {disfmarker} I have the transcribers expanding the amount that they 're doing actually . +PhD A: Oh great . +Postdoc E: So right now , um , I know that as of today we got an extra fifteen minutes of that type , and I 'm having them expand the realm on either side of these places where they 've already started . +PhD A: Oh great . OK . +Postdoc E: But if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , and I {disfmarker} and he 's gonna give me some more sections that {disfmarker} that he thinks would be useful for this purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Because it 's true , I mean , if we could do the {disfmarker} the more fine grained tuning of this , uh , using an algorithm , that would be so much more efficient . And , um . So this is gonna be {pause} useful to expand this . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I thought we {disfmarker} we sh we sh perhaps we should try to {disfmarker} to start with those channelized versions just to {disfmarker} just to try it . Give it {disfmarker} Give one tr transcriber the {disfmarker} the channelized version of {disfmarker} of my speech - nonspeech detection and look if {disfmarker} if that 's helpful for them , or just let them try if {disfmarker} if that 's better or If they {disfmarker} if they can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: You mean to start from scratch f in a brand new transcript ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 'd be excellent . Yeah , that 'd be really great . As it stands we 're still in the phase of sort of , um , cleaning up the existing data getting things , uh , in i m more tight tightly time {disfmarker} uh , aligned . I also wanna tell {disfmarker} um , I also wanted to r raise the issue that {disfmarker} OK so , there 's this idea we 're gonna have this master copy of the transcript , it 's gonna be modified by scripts t into these two different functions . And actually the master {disfmarker} +PhD B: Two or more . Two or more different functions . +Postdoc E: Two {disfmarker} two or more . And that the master is gonna be the channelized version . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: So right now we 've taken this i initial one , it was a single channel basically the way it was input . And now , uh , thanks to the advances made in the interface , we can from now on use the channelized part , and , um , any changes that are made get made in the channelized version kind of thing . But I wanted to get all the finished {disfmarker} all the checks {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , so that has implications for your script . +Grad C: Yeah . So , uh , have those {disfmarker} e e the vis the ten hours that have been transcribed already , have those been channelized ? And I know {disfmarker} I 've seen @ @ {disfmarker} I 've seen they 've been channelized , +Postdoc E: Yes , they have . +Grad D: All ten hours ? +Grad C: but +Postdoc E: Except for the missing thirty minutes . +Grad C: have they uh {disfmarker} have they been {disfmarker} has the time {disfmarker} have the time markings been adjusted , uh , p on a per channel {disfmarker} +Grad D: Great . +Postdoc E: Uh , for {disfmarker} for a total of like twenty m f for a total of {disfmarker} Let 's see , four times {disfmarker} total of about an {disfmarker} {pause} thirty minutes . That 's {disfmarker} that 's been the case . +Grad C: So , +Postdoc E: And plus the training , whatever you have . +Grad C: I guess , I mean , I don't know if we should talk about this now , or not , but I +Grad D: Well it 's just we 're {pause} missing tea . +Grad C: Yeah , I know . +Grad D: So . +Grad C: No , but I mean my question is like should I wait until all of those are processed , and channelized , like the time markings are adjusted before I do all the processing , and we start like branching off into the {disfmarker} into the {disfmarker} our layer of uh transcripts . +Postdoc E: Well , you know the problem {disfmarker} the problem is that some {disfmarker} some of the adjustments that they 're making are to bring {disfmarker} are to combine bins that were {disfmarker} time bins which were previously separate . And the reason they do that is sometimes there 's a word that 's cut off . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: And so , i i i it 's true that it 's likely to be adjusted in the way that the words are more complete . And , +Grad C: OK . No I know {disfmarker} I know that adjusting those things are gonna {disfmarker} is gonna make it better . +Postdoc E: so I {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a more reliable thing and I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean I 'm sure about that , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: but do you have like a time frame when you can expect like all of it to be done , or when you expect them to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well partly it depends on how {disfmarker} um , how e effective it will be to apply an algorithm because i this takes time , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: you know , it takes a couple hours t to do , uh , ten minutes . +Grad C: Yeah , I don't doubt it . Um , so . +PhD B: So right now the {disfmarker} what you 're doing is you 're taking the {disfmarker} uh , the o original version and you 're sort of channelizing yourself , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . I 'm doing it myself . I mean i if the time markings aren't different across channels , like the channelized version really doesn't have any more information . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , I was just {disfmarker} I mean , originally I had done before like the channelized versions were coming out . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I th I think probably the way it 'll go is that , you know , when we make this first general version and then start working on the script , that script @ @ that will be ma you know primarily come from what you 've done , um , we 'll need to work on a channelized version of those originals . +Grad C: and so it 's a question of like what {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so it should be pretty much identical to what you have t except for the one that they 've already tightened the boundaries on . +Postdoc E: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: Um , So +Postdoc E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD B: uh , and then probably what will happen is as the transcribers finish tightening more and more , you know , that original version will get updated +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD B: and then we 'll rerun the script and produce better uh versions . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: But the {disfmarker} I guess the ef the effect for you guys , because you 're pulling out the little wave forms into separate ones , that would mean these boundaries are constantly changing you 'd have to constantly re rerun that , +Grad C: I know . +PhD B: so , maybe {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: But that {disfmarker} +PhD G: But that {disfmarker} that 's not hard . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No . +PhD G: I I think the harder part is making sure that the transc the transcription {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: So if you b merge two things , then you know that it 's the sum of the transcripts , but if you split inside something , you don't where the word {disfmarker} which words moved . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And that 's wh that 's where it becomes a little bit {disfmarker} uh , having to rerun the processing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: The cutting of the waveforms is pretty trivial . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean as long as it can all be done automatically , I mean , then that 's not a concern . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: You know , if I just have to run three scripts to extract it all and let it run on my computer for an hour and a half , or however long it takes to parse and create all the reference file , that 's not a problem . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , so yeah . As long as we 're at that point . And I know exactly like what the steps will work {disfmarker} what 's going on , in the editing process , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: so . OK . +Postdoc E: So that 's {disfmarker} I I mean I could {disfmarker} there were other checks that I did , but it 's {disfmarker} I think that we 've {disfmarker} unless you think there 's anything else , I think that I 've covered it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: I can't think of any of the {disfmarker} other ones . +Postdoc E: OK . Great . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oop ! Man ! +","Graduate student D mentioned a crash that already occurred, making them feel better about the situation. Professor F acknowledged this, as did Postdoc E. Professor F asked Grad D to collect the agenda and lead the meeting, to which Grad D confirmed they had one and jokingly indicated that it would be brief. + +Grad D reported that they are almost out of ""digits"" as they've gone through the set once already. They discussed the need to correct or reread specific data forms, noting that roughly four or five forms need to be reread to be once through the entire set. + +Grad D extracted about an hour's worth of transcribed digits from a two-hour batch. They only chose digits from speakers with completed speaker forms and from meetings with parsable ""key"" and transcript files. Grad D noted that not everyone had completed speaker forms and that some early key files, done by hand, were not automatically parsable. This resulted in about an hour of usable digit transcriptions. + +Regarding labeling the audio files, Grad D mentioned using a web-based form and contacting those who hadn't filled out a speaker form. Professor F and Grad D discussed the relevance of speaker forms, labeling audio files by speaker ID, and microphone type. They also talked about the use of the data, speaker permissions, and the goal of eliciting different prosody for the digits. + +A discussion about the prosody of read digits vs. numbers ensued, with suggestions to elicit more natural-sounding number sequences like phone numbers or social security numbers, as opposed to single digits. They considered different ways to group digits to promote various prosodics for the test set. They discussed using hyphens and random groupings to achieve a more natural reading. + +Grad D mentioned a plan to instruct participants to read sequences as single digits instead of connected numbers. This was debated as potentially leading to either more comprehensive data for the test set or needing adaptation data for quieter speakers or different microphone conditions. + +The team discussed possibilities for overlapping digit sequences and how to handle potential ""dueling digits"" situations. Recognizing the challenges with transcription and the cognitive load, they concluded that it might be better to conduct such recordings in a separate session rather than during a standard meeting. + +There was a brief mention of comparing the recognition of digits in spontaneous speech to those in a structured setup like the TI-digits. + +Finally, Grad D sought clarification on disk space and storage formats for waveform data, suggesting using scratch space for regeneratable data to avoid backup bottlenecks. + +The meeting concluded with considerations for naming conventions and further standardizing transcription. A plan for transcribers to use channelized data for more accurate time aligning and boundaries was proposed, with discussions on how to execute this and the potential impact on transcription and recognition processing." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , all set ? Welcome to the conceptual design meeting . +User Interface: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: The agenda . The opening . I'll again be the secretary and make minutes , take minutes , uh and it will be three presentations , just like the last meeting . So um , {vocalsound} who wants to start off ? Technical uh designer again ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Again . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . Uh , before we begin it , I want to say I've I've put the minutes of the uh second meeting in the shared folder , but they're still not uh quite okay . It uh it uh still some technical difficulties so the the first part of the minutes are very hard to read , because there are two documents that uh were layered over each other . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But uh , from now on I won't use my pen anymore , so will be p just {vocalsound} ordinary keyboard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , may be better , yeah . +Marketing: Keyboard work . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it {gap} will will be more uh easy for you to read the minutes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , when we talk about uh components design , um it's really about the material and the {disfmarker} and uh uh really the stuff we build uh the remote controls of . Um , a remote control consist of uh components and the components of a remote control consist of uh properties and material . We have to choose th uh these uh wisely and it could affect uh uh a kind of grow of {disfmarker} in uh in buying uh the remote controls . Um , the components of a remote control are of course uh the case . Uh the properties of the case , um it has to be solid uh in hard material like uh hard plastic uh with soft rubber for uh falling and and uh uh {disfmarker} yeah , it feels uh good in your hand . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm the buttons has to be uh solid too , and the material is soft rubber . Uh I've got a uh email from the possibilities of Real Reaction . Um uh they're telling me that um when we build uh a remote control of um of plastic or rubber , the uh buttons have to be uh rubber too . Mm {disfmarker} It's okay . Yeah . I when we use a rubbled {disfmarker} a doubled curved case , we must use a rubber push-buttons to {disfmarker} uh the the rubber double-curved case is a is a t uh three-dimensional uh curve in the in the design , which is uh necessary when we want to be trendy . Uh {disfmarker} Um +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: the energy source , uh I've got a lot of possibilities for that too . Um , uh the basic battery , which I thi prefer because of its uh its non uh non-depending of of of uh um {disfmarker} Uh here you have to have a hand uh {disfmarker} yeah , kinetic uh energy . Also in uh this one , like in the watches , but a remote control can lie on a table for a day , and then you push uh a button and {disfmarker} so you don't have to uh walk with it all the all the time . Mm , solar cells are also uh a bit weird for uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh also the case material , uh I think that plastic is the is the best with rubber , because uh wood or titanium would also be a bit weird . +User Interface: Oh titanium is probably trendy , I think . {gap} . +Marketing: That's true , I guess . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , maybe a little bit expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh , they don't tell anything about the cost of uh titanium . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um the chip {disfmarker} uh the chip set uh and the board is uh all off the shelf . Also , the speaker in the remote control , when we want to retrieve it . Um , the base station is also off the shelf , all the materials and the components are uh just available in uh in our uh factory . Mm , I've told about uh the three first points . Mm , the simple electronical chip uh is is available uh with the LED transmitter uh transmitter . Uh , it's all uh off the shelf and even the speaker and the wireless retriever are all uh available in our company . Um , another possibility . I uh yeah , I looked up on was uh the L_C_D_ displays . Could be uh something special to our uh remote control , and it's possible , but it only cost a bit more , but maybe it can be uh within the limits of twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Twelve and a half . Actually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , production cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I th I got an email with uh some examples and it {disfmarker} these were were the most trendiest one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You see uh a covers , which can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What are those , t tooth uh brushes , or so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's actually kind of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: well , it resembles the design I had in mind for this proj +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You know the the cartoonish {vocalsound} Alessi kind of design . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can uh bri uh bring a couple of uh couple of types of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And we can we can steal their ideas . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe a kind of uh whole uh um a whole set of uh different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring a whole line uh with uh with a {gap} huge variety of uh +Project Manager: Well , it's a possibility , too . +Industrial Designer: uh house uh stuff . +User Interface: Different colours also . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {vocalsound} maybe radios and uh television also uh in this in this {disfmarker} in the same style , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that'll be for the future , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next time we're here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because we have to uh {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have to bring the logo and all the stuff uh back into it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I shall go to the next slide . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , I still don't have any information about user requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking about just uh the basic functions and I got uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , we decided upon that in the last meeting . Didn't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , but but then wh I don't know when there are new user requirements . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , tha I didn't receive any new requirements or somethi +User Interface: I ha I ha I have the I have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: nothing . +Project Manager: no , but we decided to use only b basic functions only . +User Interface: Well , I have here a couple of basic functions I could think of . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if they're {disfmarker} maybe a little bit more , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we {disfmarker} maybe we can think of that later . W just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these are the ones you already summed up in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I uh {vocalsound} well , I pointed them out here , just to make it a little bit easier . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um Another function uh is {disfmarker} of course we already discuss it on the side . Um , I don't know what costs of it . Uh , I've no idea about it . Uh , I was also looking for what you said , for {disfmarker} I got an email uh uh about uh L_C_D_ in in in front of the remote control . I don't know if that's a good idea , or maybe it's a little bit too much for twelve and a half . Production . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If we got already uh something like a base . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That might get redundant also maybe . I don't know what kind of information it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know . I d I uh ju I was just thinking about it . Then I got a pop-ups to go to the meeting . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring t uh uh teletext to the t {vocalsound} to the remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} a little uh too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} A little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then you've got a flag s {vocalsound} Very big R_C_ . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} That's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was not a good idea . +User Interface: A little bit too big , I think . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . Well , the functions are are not more to discuss , I think . +Project Manager: No . No . +User Interface: It's it's just the base things we already discussed that the {disfmarker} no V_C_R_ or that kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: uh , so that's very easy . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you do mention the next and previous uh button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well , that's next channel . I mean {gap} next channel . +Marketing: Next channel , previous channel . +Project Manager: Oh , okay , o okay okay . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} oh , I I got an email with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with an uh a remote control with a base . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So , it's uh just an idea . And I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh thinked of the button sizes and I'm not sure uh if they have to be big or uh just small {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you're the expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it depends on the function . +User Interface: Well , I'm not a e I'm the expert for user-friendly , but not for trendiness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , if you save uh {disfmarker} Perhaps uh s tiny buttons aren't user-friendly , then we wouldn't im implement that of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , that's your point . Um , yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've nothing to {vocalsound} s +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , w when we only use basic functions , we have the possibility to make the buttons larger . +Marketing: Oh , that's right . +User Interface: Uh , with a little bit larger , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I thought so , but maybe with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I think we already agreed upon the fact that the the the skip buttons and the cha and the volume buttons , th th those two have {disfmarker} yeah , they have to be large . +User Interface: Yeah , that groups . +Project Manager: Uh , I mean th th the the two two basic buttons , you know , the {disfmarker} to skip channels and to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Large ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know why , but I think that is {disfmarker} that's t trendy too , +User Interface: Most {disfmarker} the most used uh buttons . +Marketing: Those are probably the the th +Project Manager: because that's the mo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you know , it's uh acc acc um accentu uh , how do you say it ? It puts an extra accent on the the on the simplicity of our remotes to j to make these two most basic functions extra big , like t +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Marketing: Those are probably the b four most most used buttons on the th in the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . And you want to acc accentuate that , you know . +Industrial Designer: You did the research . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's from your research . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry ? Yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh , that was all y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh personal preference I didn't have . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I didn't had any time left . +Project Manager: No uh , that's coo it's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You don't care . No , {vocalsound} sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . Go away . +User Interface: It's there . +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , click on it . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Couple time . +Marketing: Oh , great . Well , I've done some research again about trends on the internet . Um I've done some investigation , and uh well I uh got some information from fashion watchers from Paris and uh Milan . {vocalsound} Some uh some findings {disfmarker} the most important thing is fancy look and feel of the remote control . Uh , well , we were going to imply that , so that's nice . The second important thing is uh innovative technology in the R_C_ . Uh , our market really likes really likes that . And uh the third point there in this uh order if {disfmarker} of importance , the third point , is a high ease of use . And uh , well , for the idea , I've put some trends uh for the market of elderly people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dark colours , simple recognisable shapes . So we probably won't do that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The younger market likes uh {disfmarker} Well , {gap} the {gap} themes of of this year are uh surprisingly fruits and vegetables and spongy material . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found this image , which is uh {disfmarker} Well , it symbolises the idea of fruits and vegetables . I don't see the spongy part in it . But with a little bit of fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe c {vocalsound} then we have to do something with Sponge Bob then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Exactly . I got some ideas {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , yeah , pictures isn't really good word , but um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: some symbols of fruits or vegetables maybe . Uh , catchy colours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit is uh yellow , green , red , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , remote controls in in catchy colours . +Project Manager: It doesn't stroke with the with the dark colours . +Marketing: Uh , no , we don't want dark colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not the dark colours ? Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just put them there to uh , yeah , uh for general idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh , the docking st +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh I think the spongy material is is very irritating for the uh remote control itself . But to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} To implement some spongy thing , maybe we can do it in the in the docking station . At the bottom of the docking station or whatever . And uh , we could bring one line with a dark colour uh to um uh p uh yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh uh v how do you say ? +Project Manager: For diversity or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also a bit for elderly people who are a little bit crazy and want {vocalsound} maybe want a little younger design but still the dark colour . +User Interface: Well , how uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it it it reaches a different market uh , but it it it doesn't cost really much effort to b to uh bring uh like a black R_C_ on the market or whatever . Yes . +User Interface: But how do we use uh fruits and vegetables in Christ's {vocalsound} sake with {vocalsound} remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , but I I I think that uh our design already resembles so a piece of fruit . +Marketing: Yeah , there's there's always a +User Interface: Uh , make it a banana ? +Project Manager: It's like a pear or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well there there's always empty space of course on a remote control . I mean I think this part of the R_C_ uh well {vocalsound} the upper the upper part or whatever is uh is not not used with buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: No , I don't think you have to do it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you can put some fruity things {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it that doesn't have to remind you , you know , like explicitly of s our f of a of a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like the the the the round curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course not . +Project Manager: And so y I I think this {disfmarker} y it already sem resembles uh something like a pear to me or something . +Marketing: Especially i +User Interface: Yeah , but th {vocalsound} yeah , but that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we make it little bit greenish . +Project Manager: You do get the idea , eh ? The fruity kind of round {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: A {vocalsound} and we could use {vocalsound} one of these for the uh w what is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Grapes . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , this is a b yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} Wha whatever . +User Interface: But d don't we need a creative artist or something like that to m make it to feel like a a a a vegetable or fruit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Of course we have uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: we have a very big uh the s +Marketing: Yeah . Well , w we can uh {disfmarker} w we can we can produce multiple uh multiple things . +Industrial Designer: For a big team of artists . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of d design team , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is then the uh pear . I don't know the English word , so forget it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's pear , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , maybe , yeah , a b a banana is uh is n {vocalsound} not easy for a remote control , but m yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I think we don't have to make +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: we can't make all uh ten designs . We have to make one design I th I I think . +Project Manager: No , but I think it's it's already what we were were up to . +Marketing: Mayb maybe two or three . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , it's {disfmarker} it doesn't have to resemble uh what I already said , a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like a fruity thing going on . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . No sure , but but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} it looks fruity to me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B but that's great , and and and what I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , but I do like the {disfmarker} +Marketing: what what I was saying , the catchy colours {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , I do like uh the f uh to {disfmarker} the idea of making a a y uh , a catchy colour design and a d because I do {disfmarker} I think a dark colour would be nice too . +Industrial Designer: But pictures of fruit , vegetables vegetables {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe it's too much , you know . +User Interface: But , we we have to um {disfmarker} There have to be the the the the firm colours , our own uh colours has to be in it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh not really . Pictures was a was a bad word , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but what are the {disfmarker} This is yellow . +Marketing: Well we c yeah . +User Interface: Yellow , a Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put a logo on top of it . +Project Manager: But I don't think our our company colours are this fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe we can if if we got our docking station over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We uh f +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's really fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't draw with this thing , but I'll try . +User Interface: A yellow do +Marketing: If this is our docking station , we can make our logo over here . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: It doesn't work . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the button then . +Industrial Designer: With a strawberry on top . +Project Manager: Yeah , on uh n uh on the bottom of the remote you can do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the button button over here or whatever , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . On the front , of course , because else you can't find it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well , that were my ideas a little bit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll close 'em down . Um , go away . +Project Manager: Okay , you {disfmarker} can you open the conceptual design presentation ? +Marketing: Conceptual design , yes . +Project Manager: See what was on the agenda . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Lazy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The agenda . +Project Manager: This is his own remote . Because um , maybe we can start with the technical uh functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't think it's there {disfmarker} uh , yeah um , do we want to um use an L_C_D_ display , for example ? +Marketing: Well , it's nice , of course . But I don't I don't know what to display on it . +Industrial Designer: Only if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Me neither . +Industrial Designer: Maybe maybe we can make a T_V_ guide on it , for the channel you're on . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but it should be li like this big , and I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , no , only the T_V_ channel with the {disfmarker} with uh with {vocalsound} uh four programmes . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do it . +Industrial Designer: You can uh zap through them with the page up page down button . +Marketing: Yes sure , but it it has to to show an entire title of a programme or at least a q a quite quite large part of it and then you get a very large L_C_D_ screen , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it can {disfmarker} On your {disfmarker} No , on your mobile phone you can y you can read text also . So why not on your remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} no . I do I think it's a bit redundant , actually . +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . +Project Manager: And it's also not {disfmarker} I don't th even think it it looks s like sexy or something , +User Interface: Well well what would you display on it then ? +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , programme uh information or or or or g or a guide +Marketing: Programme information . +User Interface: But is it {disfmarker} isn't that a already on T_V_ , a lot of new T_V_s ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: on t on teletext , yes . Also on the internet . +Marketing: Well a lot a lot of T_V_s indeed show uh when you uh zap to a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you're already watching the T_V_ , you're not gonna watch your remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you also want to know what's next . +Marketing: But then we also uh w need to bring out a line of T_V_s which we were planning to , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we also have to {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: but whatever . Because the T_V_ has to send information back to the R_C_ , and I don't know if that's possible . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh really possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , yes , o of course it's possible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you gotta uh implement it in the T_V_s , and I don't think everyone's gonna buy a Real Reaction T_V_ within a month after the release of our uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I really understand you want to make your job more exciting {vocalsound} by putting an L_C_D_ in it , +User Interface: And I also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I I really don't think it's a good n goo because it also doesn't stroke with {disfmarker} we wanted uh c When we talk about the materials , uh it's a good idea to use these plastic materials with soft rubber stuff on it . It was our idea , you know , to give it a more sturdy look and that you ca like you can throw with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think a L_C_D_ display fits in that image . You know , it's like more vulnerable , and it adds nothing really , you know . +Marketing: That's true , that's true , it breaks f yeah , it it it's not very solid , it's uh frag fragile . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You could make it , but it's just {disfmarker} it it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it's coherent with the design we're after . +Marketing: No . No . I don't think so ei either . +Project Manager: But that's my opinion . Well , you you y Okay , we can vote for it . You want the L_C_D_ display . I don't want to and {vocalsound} he doesn't , so it's up to him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} . Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've read somewhere that I've got some kind of veto veto uh rights . +User Interface: {vocalsound} . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bastard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I can also say {disfmarker} +User Interface: We can {gap} you away . +Project Manager: But did we skip the {disfmarker} Yeah , you could do {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m but what what i so what i but do you think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know . Uh , uh I {disfmarker} i if it's it's a simple p +Project Manager: We're not even sure what what information we want to display on it . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that that's right , +Industrial Designer: No uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh I also have to think about new functions , maybe buttons or something like that to control it . Kind of L_C_D_ or something or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yes , you can use uh buttons uh uh w that are already uh on the remote control for double functions . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess . +User Interface: But how does it display then ? W when I go to the second channel , what what does it show me ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you push a button . The title and the information about the programme . +User Interface: About that programme ? +Industrial Designer: But but uh {disfmarker} yeah , what he said was right , about the televisions , they have to be uh customised to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , that's not gonna work . +Industrial Designer: But maybe in future it will be a giant hit , and when you are the first +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , well uh I've seen it done before . +Industrial Designer: you have the biggest uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you know th like the the bigger rem uh universal remotes , they have d L_C_D_ displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it's very functional to indicate which {disfmarker} what uh uh device you are controlling . So it's {disfmarker} that that's what I've seen . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put uh a little L_C_D_ display on it with uh with lots of information . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , if you uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: But it just {disfmarker} it j it doesn't doesn't match with the {gap} our whole basic concept . +Industrial Designer: But uh I haven't thought about it . But whe but when you put a a a transparent uh plastic uh uh screen on top of it , it i it isn't vulnerable . +Project Manager: Well yeah , yeah , okay . That's maybe not the most important , +Industrial Designer: You can throw with it and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it fashion ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: When when you put uh maybe a colour L_C_D_ t uh screen on it , it's very special and very trendy to have uh a remote control from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . That's not up to you . That's up to market if i if it's trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah , well do you ha do you have to {disfmarker} {gap} You haven't looked after the trendiness of L_C_D_ displays , have you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Because our our motto is we put fashion {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I think it's uh I think it's pretty trendy , to be honest , uh but um I don't know if if if {disfmarker} well , I'm coming back to the costs again , but I think uh we gotta build a b pretty cheap design to to stay within our limits . And I think uh especially colour L_C_D_ , which is indeed pretty trendy . But I don't think {disfmarker} Uh , I think it will be too expensive . +Industrial Designer: But uh I've got a {disfmarker} the email with uh with the possibilities . {vocalsound} And L_C_D_ was a possibility for the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So why don't we use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're gonna {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , did it say a price also uh for for uh monogramme uh L_C_D_ or uh coloured L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , if you want to be trendy you have to be coloured . Coloured {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah really , +User Interface: If you have black and white or something , or grey , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: if y if you c i +Project Manager: Then uh then you better don't {disfmarker} yeah , d +Marketing: I in in two thousand and four you can't uh put something on the market which is a monogramme . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but it doesn't sa say anything about a colour or {disfmarker} But , mm , I alf I also got a possibility to put uh a scroll button on it . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh I really don't feel the whole idea of an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: I didn't think that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm sorry . It can't co you cannot convince me . I don't know how {disfmarker} well how to {disfmarker} with you guys , but {disfmarker} I don't really feel it . We already {disfmarker} we're uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's too much uh maybe uh with with the L_C_D_ and the docking station and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we already have the the th th th base station gadgets , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and want {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} uh uh , do {disfmarker} it has to be a simple design , which sturdy , which soft {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but o on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we've we've gotta find a balance , of course . +User Interface: With one thing special . +Marketing: And I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not a whole package of specialty . +Project Manager: I don't think {disfmarker} I j uh , and really , I don't see how the the L_C_D_ display is gonna add anything , you know , on a design level . Uh , I think it's slicker to have no L_ CEDs . +Industrial Designer: No , when y +Project Manager: Y we want to {disfmarker} it's simplicity , w you have two big buttons and you can do whatever you want with these two buttons , so you don't need an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: But it look {disfmarker} Yes , but that remote controls are already on the market . The simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It doesn't fit in our philosophy uh behind the whole remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but when you want to have something special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we already have the docking station , which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , but you had a picture of it from another company . +User Interface: And uh the {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have a pear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} It has to be developed , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} no , but it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's our that's our killer feature . +User Interface: It's just an it's just an idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's our {disfmarker} what makes it special . +User Interface: It's a it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it was already made . Tha the remote control on the docking station . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're gonna develop our own r n docking station . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Is that so ? Was it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it wasn't just a prototype ? +User Interface: Well uh I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , he have a picture of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Exactly , I've never seen it in a store . +Project Manager: Uh , but re we really have to cut this off , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I re I know you {disfmarker} I I I I {vocalsound} I get the idea you really like it , you know , the the L_C_D_ thing , but I I think it's it's not a good idea , and we have already mentioned all the arguments . I don't {disfmarker} uh , do you guys agre How do you guys think ? I d +User Interface: No , it's too much . +Marketing: I think it's a little too much , yeah . +User Interface: It's overdone . +Project Manager: Okay , we s skip the {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , maybe you can do something if we are at your own place , or make it make it make it happen in your basement or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Democratically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mayb {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will rule the world with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . But for the technical part . The m material , I think uh it was a good idea to use the plastic and uh the rubber . Uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe a bit of a cushion is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah , p Exactly . This is what it w Yeah , but it it was already what we're uh we're after , you know , to give it uh , you know , the soft touch in your hands +Marketing: Yeah , for the spongy uh feel . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: With a spongy Bob feel . +Project Manager: and also to , know , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that is y the b airbag kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Like a b yes . +Project Manager: You can st throw it at your little brother's head . +User Interface: Yeah , you just can drop it . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , airbag . If you drop it if you drop it the airbag comes out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . No no no , not that comfy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but then we have to look that it uh w uh will not um be too childish to see . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Yeah . Okay , that's a that's a good point . And that's why I like the dark t col dark colour bit , you know , because it may be {disfmarker} the design uh , it's uh maybe it is a bit of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But not black I think . +Project Manager: it's a bit nineties maybe , what we're what we're up to rat fun to this point . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Well if if it's fruit and vegetables , it have to be colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's true , but but it has to be a little big solid . +Marketing: Yeah , b yeah , that's what w I I was pointing at . +User Interface: But can we ge uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It mustn't be too , n you know , th too overwhelming , then when you put it on your {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we combine it or something ? Uh with uh yellow and black ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , maybe so . +User Interface: Make it a bee ? {vocalsound} A bee . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh , a bee . Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , uh I don't like the yellow and black combination {gap} . But it is our company colours . Apparently . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} it's our {disfmarker} yeah . We we have to use yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yes , real real good colours . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I don't like yellow , and uh maybe {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , we can as as I +Industrial Designer: But that's not really fruity . +Marketing: draw really nicely over there . {vocalsound} We can put the logo on our uh on our base station . Uh , yeah . And maybe very very tiny on the remote control itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , i +Project Manager: Okay , but what {disfmarker} uh , what are other tef technical things we have to discuss ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh fronts of the {disfmarker} We can have uh different uh uh fronts of the +Project Manager: Should we do that ? +Industrial Designer: telephone . +Project Manager: I don't think you {disfmarker} we should do that . Maybe just bring it out in different colours , +User Interface: Different fronts . +Project Manager: but not af that you can switch fronts afterwards , that's also too much . +Marketing: Yeah . I guess that's that's enough . +Project Manager: People don't wanna spend more money on their remote {vocalsound} control , I guess . +Marketing: That's way too Nokia . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , you can you can l uh let choose the customer which colour he wants , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are these designs ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . Just bring more designs on the market . +User Interface: Yeah , Three three or four uh four uh colours , or something like that . +Project Manager: But uh , without {disfmarker} gon uh +Marketing: Why not , yeah . +Project Manager: okay . So , are we through the technical part then ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . So we uh agreed upon uh n uh well , not u unanimously or how you call it , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , yeah , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} this a real uh young young and dynamic uh uh styles . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Three to one . {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The materials you uh mentioned in your your personal preferences were all {disfmarker} were quite okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yes . +Project Manager: O o only only the last point your {disfmarker} +User Interface: And tita uh titanium , is {disfmarker} uh is is it a no ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no titanium's not not out of question , I guess . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} It's just like that , th this titanium . +Industrial Designer: But also w Yes , b bu but when we use s soft +Project Manager: But is it possible to use both the the plastic and so uh soft things and t p titanium , as well ? +Industrial Designer: mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Makes it in a homogeneous uh design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No , not all , not all of them . +Industrial Designer: But it it {disfmarker} then it uh {disfmarker} you can't throw it it . It will uh make a huge noise or break other stuff +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It will it will break other stuff w {vocalsound} when it's plastic , as well . +Industrial Designer: when you throw with uh titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with your remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium is a bit uh it's a bit harder . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: No , but uh uh , you should ma Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But also on the colours , the young {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , think of the possibilities and make it in {disfmarker} completely titanium . Well would it be more trendy ? More chic ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it I think it does . +User Interface: Uh , I think titanium nowadays is way more often used than plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but a titanium remote control , when you're uh watching T_V_ uh or your hands are a little bit sweaty , and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: In trendy things . +Marketing: Yeah , o On the other hand , if you want to make fruit {disfmarker} fruity stuff with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's cold in the winter . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I I really like the idea of the the the plastic and the big kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the question is i then it's , you know , is is {disfmarker} it fits in our s philosophy to make it uh sturdy and simple and uh , know , like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Sports and gaming . Define +Project Manager: When you make it titanium , it becomes more like some kind of gadget you actually don't need . And when it's big and plastic , it's like some fun stuff you can always have around . It's always fun to have something big and plastic around . +User Interface: You have that uh M_P_ three player of Nike , I saw . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't that titanium with a little bit of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's w but it is uh plastic . +User Interface: Isn't it {disfmarker} Is plastic ? Well , it's titanium looking . +Industrial Designer: Yes , w we can do that on the on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Yeah , he is . Here he is . Uh , the {disfmarker} I don't know if you know the M_P_ three player of Nike . 'Kay , uh that that's very uh with rubber , so it's very +Marketing: Oh , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , that's beautiful . +Marketing: Yeah , I see . +Industrial Designer: We can make this as a style too . +Marketing: Yeah , but but but {disfmarker} +User Interface: rough . +Industrial Designer: Uh , this is uh just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , maybe th maybe this is an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I th I think that's difficult , because uh that's different material , and then you gotta have like uh uh uh two material lines of of of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we c we can make it from the same kind of plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's just a colour uh which you uh which you change then , I guess it's it's nice to have one of these . +Project Manager: No , I do like the idea of maybe a t titanium kind {disfmarker} type of body w and then with s plastic colouration {gap} around it . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , like the the soft stuff , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't know if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: I don't have the information . Uh , I I didn't got it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you can't make the plastic give uh the ti titanium look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But make it just like shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , true . +Project Manager: Maybe we should uh shou +Industrial Designer: Like the M_P_ three player . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's good idea , yeah . But if you want to la uh yeah , last longer than two weeks or something like that , you can maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh and +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe we sh should we t {gap} I don't know if we should talk about {disfmarker} uh , how how much time have we got left ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in a lot of other uh +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +User Interface: What time does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: in a lot of other product uh categories like uh even in b in bags industry . Uh , they began with uh t typical uh leather bags , but then they became stylish , with all all si all sort of colours , and w kind of fon {disfmarker} of uh of fronts , like we can use on the telephone and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like Eastpack uh began a revolution with it with all this uh kind of bags and and colours and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} You putting in different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yes , and and styles . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They have uh also uh a kind of uh um uh roses on it , a and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but w yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it is . It's a possibility . But , let's think about the bas +Industrial Designer: Then we can always uh use the same design for a greater resemblance , but with new uh with new colours , new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . New prints on it . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: But wha th our basic idea {disfmarker} y I mean , you gonna {disfmarker} we're probably gonna have like two type of materials , like the d d b the plastic uh enclosure and then the the pads that surround it . And and pro and lights . We have to incorporate the lights too . But , uh do w gonna {gap} gonna {disfmarker} are we going to give it a two-tone colour look , like the the plastic mould is in in one colour and the s the cushion pads around it are in another colour ? Is that the idea ? Is that a good idea ? +Marketing: How do you mean ? Th th the uh base in a in another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many colours are we {disfmarker} how many colours are we gonna {disfmarker} we're uh uh f uh f +User Interface: The rubber . +Project Manager: Only five minutes left , by the way . How many colours are we gonna give it ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Like two-tone colour ? T +Industrial Designer: There there are three uh components three components type . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh no , not too much I think . +Industrial Designer: You have the buttons , the the case uh itself , and the rubber and th +Marketing: How the buttons {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe the case itself should be in one colour and then the rubber of the buttons , {vocalsound} and the cushions as well should be in another colour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Or you just make uh one colour , uh maybe with a a z a kind of like a big wave or something like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but not more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: In in another colour . +Project Manager: Well , yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not more than two colours I think . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: It's a g a little bit too flashy . +Marketing: No , definitely not . +Project Manager: Maybe we should talk about it on a l in a later meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or when you use the buttons as black , it {disfmarker} you can use two colours as well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . But we have to uh think of some other uh important things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , the the functionalities of the the buttons . +User Interface: The funct yeah , I was I was thinking about th the st do we still want a joystick idea . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I think that's too vulnerable . +Project Manager: I think this is okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} so we have the basic . Then we have the numbers . We have the power button . We have we have a teletext button . +User Interface: The volume , teletext and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And maybe want to access a a menu or something . Most T_V_s have a menu . +Marketing: Yeah , but that's that's {disfmarker} I was thinking that's gotta be on the television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think you ha I really need a menu button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah yeah , b +Project Manager: That's just i the only button {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but wha what kind of menu ? +Project Manager: You know , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is uh {disfmarker} isn't that different from every television ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , I think most T_V_s have an uh a menu nowadays to access the uh uh screen settings . And so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah , if it's c if {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it's okay to to add a menu button for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But that that covers all the all the other settings . It covers everything then . +Marketing: and if the T_V_ doesn't have a menu , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then you have to put uh up and down and uh left and right {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , you can use the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can put that on the two eight four and six or whatever . +Project Manager: And you al can also use the normal skip buttons for that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Th in that way we have like only the numbers , the power button , skip and volume , and then uh uh ten uh rem +Marketing: Mm , yeah . A mute and a teletext and a menu . +Project Manager: uh yeah , mute . A teletext and a menu , and then then i that's it . +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: It's all we need . +Marketing: That's all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , uh another stuf some stuff {vocalsound} about the the the design of the docking station . +Marketing: Great . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , that's not mu not much functions . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something important about a s uh , no , uh which sh uh should remind us of the remote itself , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , in one colour . +Marketing: Are we gonna do something with the uh spongy thing there ? +Project Manager: Just use {disfmarker} I think the spongy thing already um comes forward in the in the in the cushions , pads and things on the s uh side . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Project Manager: And we will make it spongy and {disfmarker} and uh and uh well , the fruity thing is just the shape should be fru i did {disfmarker} I think this is kind of fruity , you know . Just round shapes with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it's kinda fruity , and with th with catchy colours uh uh w +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we're gonna have to {disfmarker} we really have to think {disfmarker} I think colours is very important , because it has to be flashy , but {disfmarker} and but it d it doesn't have to be annoying , that when you uh , know , some things is just over the top , and when you have it on your table for more than two weeks , you {disfmarker} {gap} it just gets annoying , because it's so big and flashy . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , it has to be some level of subtlety , but we have to {disfmarker} still have to think of how we manage to uh to get to that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Guess we're through then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I guess so . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} I think also we just {disfmarker} so we have to do something with colour but also , I I think we have to keep the dark colour thing in mind . I think that's uh adds to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: too much colour maybe m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too much colour , i it uh {disfmarker} when you got it in a living room , it's too much maybe +Project Manager: But our des design experts will uh work that out . +Marketing: Yea yeah . +User Interface: . It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well I think the meeting will be over within a minute . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So we will wrap up . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Or is there anything we'd like to discuss ? That's right . +Marketing: I guess not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you , guys ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Okay . Well , you will read the minutes uh in the {disfmarker} you can find them in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , okay , yeah . +Marketing: In the shared folder . +Project Manager: pro probably . Yeah {disfmarker} uh no , for su for sure because I'm will now type them out . +Industrial Designer: What are we going to do now ? +Project Manager: Uh , y yeah . +Marketing: You'll see in you email , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope so . And the other thing is that you don't have kind of prototype or something like that . You see a kinda prototype you can {disfmarker} a little bit more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I will make one in the next uh twenty minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Construct one , yeah . +Project Manager: But {gap} toilet paper roll and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: With you laptop ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh my God . +Marketing: Alright , shall we get back to work ? +Project Manager: Yep . I was waiting for the l last message , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: Well you are . We're not . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Bastard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Back to the pen . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You lazy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +The project team gathered for a conceptual design meeting regarding a new remote control. During the meeting, the Project Manager mentioned encountering difficulties with the meeting minutes due to a technical error. There was a decision to switch from handwritten notes to typed minutes for clarity. The Industrial Designer discussed material choices for the remote control, emphasizing durability and the need for a trendy yet functional design. He suggested various energy sources, including basic batteries, kinetic energy, and solar cells, but highlighted some practical limitations. + +The User Interface designer had questions about user requirements and basic functions, which were previously discussed. Marketing provided input on trends, including the importance of a fancy look, innovative technology, and ease of use. Additionally, the idea of targeting specific markets with different color themes, such as fruits and vegetables, was explored. + +The materials discussion included using plastics with rubber for a sturdy feel and considering incorporating titanium or titanium-like material for a trendier look. Budget constraints were a concern, particularly when discussing the possibility of adding an LCD display to the remote control. There was debate about the feasibility and trendiness of an LCD screen, with some team members feeling it was unnecessary and could push the product over budget. + +The idea of having a joystick was rejected for being too vulnerable. The team discussed essential button functionalities like power, volume, teletext, channel skip, mute, and a menu button. They talked about the docking station design and how the remote's appearance should be cohesive with it, considering catchy but not overwhelming colors. + +The meeting concluded with plans to finalize decisions on materials and color schemes at a later date, and the Project Manager committed to typing up and sharing the meeting minutes for clarity." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Let 's see . Test ? Test ? Yeah . OK . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD B: Channel one . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD C: Test . +Professor E: I was saying Hynek 'll be here next week , uh , Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh , through Saturday , and , um , I won't be here Thursday and Friday . But my suggestion is that , uh , at least for this meeting , people should go ahead , uh , cuz Hynek will be here , and , you know , we don't have any Czech accent yet , uh , {vocalsound} as far as I know , so {disfmarker} There we go . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . So other than reading digits , what 's our agenda ? +PhD F: I don't really have , uh , anything new . Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff . So . +Professor E: OK . Um . Do you think that would be the case for next week also ? Or is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} ? What 's your projection on {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Um . +Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try , if you hadn't tried it before , because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is , um , adjusting the , uh , sca the scaling and , uh , insertion penalty sorta stuff . +PhD F: I did play with that , actually , a little bit . Um . What happens is , uh , {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff , you start getting lots of insertions . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: And , um , so I 've tried playing around a little bit with , um , the insertion penalties and things like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . I mean , it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference . Like for the well - matched case , it seemed like it was pretty good . Um . {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that , though . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum . +PhD F: and see . Yes . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: Oh , you 're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features . +Professor E: Right . So , I mean , i it it 's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what 's the {disfmarker} uh , what 's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum . But , they raised a very valid point , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor E: which , I guess {disfmarker} So , to first order {disfmarker} I mean , you have other things you were gonna do , but to first order , I would say that the conclusion is that if you , um , do , uh , some monkeying around with , uh , the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with , uh , you know , how many states and so forth , that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance . In other words , that even though it sounds pretty dumb , just applying the same number of states to everything , more or less , no matter what language , isn't so bad . Right ? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: but , um , let 's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far , we 'd say something like that . Right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , so the next question to ask , which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting , is , um , we 're not supposed to adjust the back - end , but anybody using the system would . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: So , if you were just adjusting the back - end , how much better would you do , uh , in noise ? Uh , because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , um , they 're probably not at all set right for these things , particularly these things that look over , uh , larger time windows , in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things . In the fa past we 've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things . So , I think that 's , uh , @ @ {comment} that 's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try . +PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to , um , run our front - end like normal , with the default , uh , insertion penalties and so forth , and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes +Professor E: So by "" our front - end "" I mean take , you know , the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is , you know , our current best version of something . +PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . I mean , y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they 've tried but , you know , for some version that you say is a good one . You know ? Um . How {disfmarker} how much , uh , does it improve if you actually adjust that ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: But it is interesting . You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions ? Have you {disfmarker} ? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum , did it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head . Um . Yeah . I didn't even write them down . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember . I would need to {disfmarker} Well , I did write down , um {disfmarker} So , when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions , substitutions , and insertions were , uh , for different numbers of states per phone . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , but , uh , that {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Professor E: OK . +PhD F: So . I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah . I would need to do that . +Professor E: OK . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I can do that for next week . +Professor E: Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} Yeah . Also , eh , eh , sometimes if you run behind on some of these things , maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something . But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it 'd be good to know that . +PhD F: OK . I just need to get , um , {vocalsound} front - end , uh , stuff from you +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you 've already calculated . +PhD B: Yeah . Alright . +Professor E: OK . Uh . +PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Cuz , I mean , the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That , in fact , might have been part of what , uh , the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing . Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized , +PhD F: Is there {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I wonder if there 's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yes . I think you can . +PhD F: What could you do ? +Professor E: Well , um {disfmarker} uh , part of what 's going on , um , is the , uh , the range of values . So , if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range , and taking the appropriate root . +PhD F: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together , you can take a root of some sort . If it 's like seven probabilities together , you can take the seventh root of it or something , or if it 's in the log domain , divide it by seven . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but , um , that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model +PhD F: Oh , right . +Professor E: as opposed to what 's coming from the language model . +PhD F: So that w Right . So , in effect , that 's changing the value of your insertion penalty . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , it 's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the , uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling , +PhD F: That 's interesting . +Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: anyway . They 're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is , then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in , +Professor E: I think so . +PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . So that 's why I think that 's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we 're way off . I mean , the other thing is , are aren't we seeing {disfmarker} ? Y y +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I 'm sure you 've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases , are {disfmarker} ? We are seeing lots of insertions . Right ? The insertion number is quite high ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 've seen that with the mel cepstrum . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end , but {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think it 's much more balanced with , uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust . Yeah . I could look at it {disfmarker} at this . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Wha - what 's a typical number ? +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor E: Do we {disfmarker} ? Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you don't know . +PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} +Professor E: OK . I 'm sure it 's more balanced , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there 's still {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions , as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to , uh , substitutions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think , um , we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying , well we should have a , uh , uh , voice activity detector {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: that , because all that stuff {comment} that we 're getting thr the silence that 's getting through is causing insertions . So . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: I 'll bet you there 's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . And it may be less of a critical thing . I mean , the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you , uh , get things in the right range . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I mean , the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom . It 's a symptom that there 's something , uh , wrong with the range . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: But there 's {disfmarker} uh , your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: uh , the most obvious thing is just the insertions , @ @ . But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um . If you 're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean , that 's why just in general , if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are , you reach some point that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a minimum . So . Um . Um . We do have to do well over a range of different conditions , some of which are noisier than others . Um . But , um , I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um , I mean we ca it 's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features , it , um , uh , could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end , and it 's ar artificial here that we 're not adjusting those , you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time . And if you have a nice front - end that 's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built , that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level , and we would rarely adjust them again , even though you could get a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit . But , once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was , it was pretty stable , and {disfmarker} Uh , we might just not even be in the right operating range . +PhD F: So , would the {disfmarker} ? Uh , would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case ? So , if we computed what the range was in well - matched , and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . You don't wanna change it for different conditions . No . No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I 'm saying {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions . I was just saying that when we pick a range , we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case . Otherwise , I mean , what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into ? +Professor E: Well . It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean , i if he it {disfmarker} to me , actually , even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side , it can be kinda tricky . So , I mean , what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors , uh , so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and so on . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: Um . So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space . Just take a look at it a little bit . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we 're way off . +PhD F: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe we 're not . You know ? As for these other things , it may turn out that , uh , {vocalsound} it 's kind of reasonable . But then {disfmarker} I mean , Andreas gave a very reasonable response , and he 's probably not gonna be the only one who 's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of , you know , people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting , uh , more or less , that these are the rules . But , people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say "" Well , wait a minute . You 're doing all this standing on your head , uh , on the front - end , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob . "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And so we have to at least , I think , determine that that 's not true , which would be OK , or determine that it is true , in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we 're doing . And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So . OK . So , uh {disfmarker} What 's new with you ? +PhD B: Uh . So there 's nothing {pause} new . Um . +Professor E: Uh , what 's old with you that 's developed ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK . What 's old with you that has developed over the last week or two ? +PhD B: Mmm . Well , so we 've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mainly working on what ? +PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: Um . Mm - hmm . That 's all . +PhD F: How about that {disfmarker} ? Any - anything new on the thing that , uh , you were working on with the , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I don't have results yet . +PhD F: No results ? Yeah . +Professor E: What was that ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} the , uh , +Grad A: Voicing thing . +PhD F: voicing detector . +Professor E: I mean , what what 's {disfmarker} what 's going on now ? What are you {pause} doing ? +PhD C: Uh , to try to found , nnn , robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice . And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . So , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what you were describing , I guess , a week or two ago . +PhD C: Yeah . But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: We need to train the neural network +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: So you 're training neural networks now ? +PhD C: No , not yet . +Professor E: So , what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what 's going on ? +PhD C: Well , we work in the report , too , because we have a lot of result , +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: they are very dispersed , and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure . +PhD B: Yea +Professor E: So . B So {disfmarker} Yeah . I if I can summarize , basically what 's going on is that you 're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion , f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens . +PhD C: Hm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , y yeah . Basically we we 've stopped , uh , experimenting , +Professor E: Yes ? +PhD B: I mean . We 're just writing some kind of technical report . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Is this a report that 's for Aurora ? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI , +PhD C: No . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: For ICSI . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? Ah . I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . So , my suggestion , though , is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that . But that you put it all together so that it 's {disfmarker} you 've got {disfmarker} you 've got a clearer structure to it . You know what things are , you have things documented , you 've looked things up that you needed to look up . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So that , you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written . And , um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again ? +PhD C: Uh , in July . First of July . +Professor E: First of July ? OK . And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June . Because , you know , you 're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And right now it 's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments . +PhD C: It 's not . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so , I {disfmarker} I think it 's good to pause , and to gather everything together and make sure it 's in good shape , so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June . But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing , I {disfmarker} I {pause} think . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well , we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report , not {disfmarker} no more , anyway . Um . +Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because you {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's more to go ? +PhD B: Yeah . Well , so I don't know . There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are you discovering anything , uh , that makes you scratch your head as you write this report , like why did we do that , or why didn't we do this , +PhD B: Uh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} Actually , there were some tables that were also with partial results . We just noticed that , wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: But anyway . Um . Yeah , yeah . We have , yeah , extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car . And so , we can train neural network with speech and these noises . Um . It 's difficult to say what it will give , because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments , um , they have these three conditions that have different noises , and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises . But , I think this is something we have to try anyway . So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car . Um . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} that 's permitted ? +PhD B: Uh . Well , OGI does {disfmarker} did that . Um . At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector . +PhD C: Uh , for a v VAD . +PhD B: Right ? Um . +PhD F: Could you say it again ? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do ? +PhD B: They used some parts of the , um , Italian database to train the voice activity detector , I think . It {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah . I guess that 's a matter of interpretation . The rules as I understand it , is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no , Italian and the Finnish and the English ? {disfmarker} were development data +PhD B: Yeah . And Spanish , yeah . +Professor E: on which you could adjust things . And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's right . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh , and it is true that the performance , uh , on the German was {disfmarker} I mean , even though the improvement wasn't so good , the pre the raw performance was really pretty good . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} And , uh , it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there 's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages , that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you . And the noises were not exactly the same . Right ? Because it was taken from a different , uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives . +PhD B: Different cars . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: So . Um , it 's somewhat tuned . It 's tuned more than , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You 'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all , maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But that 's not really what this contest is . So . Um , I guess it 's OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That 's something I 'd like to understand before we actually use something from it , +PhD F: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} +PhD F: it 's probably something that , mmm , the {disfmarker} you know , the , uh , experiment designers didn't really think about , because I think most people aren't doing trained systems , or , you know , uh , systems that are like ours , where you actually use the data to build models . I mean , they just {pause} doing signal - processing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 's true , +PhD F: So . +Professor E: except that , uh , that 's what we used in Aurora one , and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: Um . +PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right ? {disfmarker} to build models on the data ? +Professor E: No . But , I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if , say , we trained on Italian , uh , data and then , uh , we tested on Danish data and it did terribly , uh , that {disfmarker} that it would look bad . And I think someone would notice and would say "" Well , look . This is not generalizing . "" I would hope tha I would hope they would . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . But , uh , it 's true . You know , maybe there 's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know , th that they have tuned in some way for other things . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that 's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I 'm not here , that 's a topic you should discuss with Hynek +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to , you know , double check it 's OK . +PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the , uh , training utterances ? +PhD B: What do you mean ? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Do you have speaker information ? +Professor E: Social security number +PhD F: That would be good . +PhD B: Like , we have {pause} male , female , +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD F: Bank PIN . +PhD B: at least . +PhD F: Just male f female ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: What kind of information do you mean ? +PhD F: Well , I was thinking about things like , you know , gender , uh {disfmarker} you know , gender - specific nets and , uh , vocal tract length normalization . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Things like that . I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Uh . Right . I mean , again , i if you had the whole system you were optimizing , that would be easy to see . But if you 're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you 're just coming up with a feature vector , w w I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean , having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male , it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , you could put them both in as separate streams or something . Uh . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe . +PhD F: I don't know . I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Yeah , it 's an interesting thought . Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean , you can't really do vocal tract normalization . But something that had some of that effect +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: being applied to the data in some way . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . +PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean , vocal tract length normalization ? +PhD F: Uh no . I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it , really . It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization . You know , you have some sort of a , uh , general speech model , you know , maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against , and then you see where each , you know , utterance {disfmarker} like , the likelihood of each utterance . You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin 's got some knob {disfmarker} uh , setting . +Professor E: Yeah . But just listen to yourself . I mean , that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds , uh , latency that {disfmarker} and where you 're not adjusting the statistical engine at all . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: You know , that just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Could be expensive . +Professor E: No . Well not just expensive . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it . You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything . You know , you can only {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD F: Oh , +Professor E: Each frame comes in and it 's gotta go out the other end . +PhD F: right . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . So whatever it was , it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , you can do , um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: But as far as , I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization a ways back . Maybe other people did too . With {disfmarker} with , uh , uh , l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor E: So . You know , third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with , uh , changing vocal tract is that , uh , the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before , if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter , then it would be out at seven fifty hertz , and so on . So , that 's a move of two hundred fifty hertz . Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz , you know , might be out to thirty - seven fifty , you know so it 's at {disfmarker} So , although , you frequently get less distinct higher formants , it 's still {disfmarker} third formant 's kind of a reasonable compromise , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I think , eh , if I recall correctly , they did something like that . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um , that doesn't work for just having one frame or something . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? That 's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: Um . So . But on the other hand , male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to , uh , squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , um . Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean , just like we 're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh , male female is good to know also . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , you 'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to , uh , incorporate it on the fly . Uh , I mean , I guess , as you say , one thing you could do is simply , uh , have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know , tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or , uh , you know . But {disfmarker} Um . I don't know if that would really help , because you already have males and females and it 's mm - hmm putting into one net . So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Is it balanced , um , in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Do you know ? +PhD B: Almost , yeah . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . OK . Y you 're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Uh . Yeah . So , this noise , um {disfmarker} Yeah . The MSG {disfmarker} Um . Mmm . There is something {disfmarker} perhaps , I could spend some days to look at this thing , cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let 's say , on TIMIT with MSG features , they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP . But , um , when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data , it 's not the case {disfmarker} oh , well . The MSG features are much worse , and so maybe they 're , um , less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions , or {disfmarker} Shou +Professor E: Shouldn't be . They should be less so . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: R right ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Wh - ? But let me ask you this . What {disfmarker} what 's the , um {disfmarker} ? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG ? +PhD B: I don't know . I cannot tell . But {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher . So , I don +Professor E: Yeah . But you should always look at insertions , deletions , and substitutions . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so , uh {disfmarker} MSG is very , very dif Eh , PLP is very much like mel cepstrum . MSG is very different from both of them . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if it 's very different , then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I 'm really glad Andreas brought this point up . I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it . Um . You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh , these adjustments , uh , affect things . And even though we 're not allowed to do that , again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact , uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And you might wanna change that . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , it 's d it 's after {disfmarker} Well , it 's tandem features , so {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: so I don Well . I don't know . +Professor E: That means they 're between zero and one . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know , they could be , um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right ? Cuz if you 're taking the log of these things , it could be , uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are , doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should look at the likelihood , or {disfmarker} or what ? Or {disfmarker} well , at the log , perhaps , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know , what you 're uh {disfmarker} the thing you 're actually looking at . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: What do they look like ? +PhD F: No And so th the , uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system , the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid . Right ? They 're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values ? +PhD B: Yes . +Professor E: Right . So they 're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying . +PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK . And tho that 's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK ? +Professor E: Uh , almost . But then you actually do a KLT on them . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . They aren't normalized after that , are they ? +PhD B: Mmm . No , they are not {disfmarker} no . +Professor E: No . OK . So , um . Right . So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah . Whatever they are at that point , um , are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing ? So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , and that 's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh , things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh , you know , subtract things from it , scale it from it , but nothing will have that same effect . Um . So . Um . Anyway , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big , the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect +Professor E: Well , the {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: compared to , you know , a smaller set of log probs . +Professor E: Yeah . No . Again you don't really {pause} look at that . It 's something {disfmarker} that , and then it 's going through this transformation that 's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It 's , eh , whatever the KLT is doing . But it 's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: But still it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things . I would think . And , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP . So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I 'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the , uh , substitutions , insertions , and deletions . And if the {disfmarker} if the , uh {disfmarker} i if there 's a fairly large effect of the difference , say , uh , uh , the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be , uh , an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , +Professor E: Anything else ? +PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor E: Well . +PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well . +Professor E: But , you know , some problems are harder than others , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} And , uh , sometimes , you know , there 's enough evidence for something to work and then it 's harder , it breaks . You know , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but , um , i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better , even in TI - digits . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , sure . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Uh . +Professor E: Hmm ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Well , there is also the spectral subtraction , which , um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should , uh , try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: But , +Professor E: O +PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson . Because he has spectral subtraction , then it 's followed by , {vocalsound} um , other kind of processing that 's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh , if it 's speech or noi or silence . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it 's silence , and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it 's important , um , {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions . So . Well . This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network . Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Well , this 'll be , I think , something for discussion with Hynek next week . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . OK . Right . So . How are , uh , uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you 're doing ? +Grad D: Oh . Well , um , I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet . Um , i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek , I think , when he 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like ? +Professor E: Uh , he 'll be around for three days . +Grad D: OK . So , y +Professor E: Uh , we 'll have a lot of time . +Grad D: OK . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} Um . I 'll , uh {disfmarker} You know , he 's {disfmarker} he 'll {disfmarker} he 'll be talking with everybody in this room So . +PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday ? +Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday . Yeah . Cuz I will be at faculty retreat . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: So . I 'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday . But {disfmarker} Um . Oh , how 'd taxes go ? Taxes go OK ? +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , good . Yeah . Yeah . That 's just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier . Yeah . +PhD F: Unless you 're getting money in two countries . +Professor E: I think you are . Aren't you ? +PhD F: They both want their cut . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD F: Right ? +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Huh . Canada w Canada wants a cut ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns ? +Grad D: Mmm . W uh , for two thousand I did . Yeah . +Professor E: Oh , oh . Yeah . For tw That 's right , ju +PhD F: But not for this next year ? +Professor E: Two thousand . Yeah . Probably not this next year , I guess . +Grad D: Ye +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it 'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore , so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return . +Professor E: OK . Alright . Uh . Barry , do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here ? +Grad A: Oh , um . Right . I {pause} just , um , continuing looking at , uh , ph uh , phonetic events , and , uh , this Tuesday gonna be , uh , meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these , uh , ph um , phonetic events . Um , came up with , uh , a plan of attack , uh , gonna execute , and um {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much it . +Professor E: Oh , well . No Um , why don't you say something about what it is ? +Grad A: Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you want {disfmarker} you want details . Hmm . OK . +Professor E: Well , we 're all gathered here together . I thought we 'd , you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands . Um . So , um . So , once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um , to be able to distinguish between , uh , phones and words and stuff . And {vocalsound} um , once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be , you know , um , hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived , uh , from h the hand - labeled phone targets . Um , we could take these events and , um , {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments , um , where we feed , um , these events into {pause} an SRI system , um , eh , and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task . Uh , yeah . +Grad D: Hey , Barry ? Can you give an example of an event ? +Grad A: Yeah . Sure . Um , I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events . Um {disfmarker} So , he In this paper , um , it 's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events . So , things like frication or , uh , nasality . +Professor E: Whose paper is it ? +Grad A: Um , this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen . +Professor E: Yeah . Huh . From , uh , University of Hamburg and Bielefeld . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: Um . +PhD F: Yeah . I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: There 's , um {disfmarker} in my mind , anyways , there 's a difference between , um , acoustic features and acoustic events . And I think of acoustic features as being , um , things that linguists talk about , like , um {disfmarker} +Professor E: So , stuff that 's not based on data . +PhD F: Stuff that 's not based on data , necessarily . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +PhD F: Right . That 's not based on , you know , acoustic data . So they talk about features for phones , like , uh , its height , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: its tenseness , laxness , things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal . Versus an acoustic event , which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure . Um . So it 's , um {disfmarker} it 's a little different , in {disfmarker} at least in my mind . +Professor E: I mean , when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean , there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an , uh , auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event . +Grad A: Good . That 's great . +Professor E: And , uh , um , called them "" avents "" , uh , uh , uh , with an A at the front . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere . So . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this . I mean , there 's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened . That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there . But there 's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know , phonetic features as being top - down . You know , you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know , have this feature , this feature , and this feature . Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant . Whereas , an acoustic event goes the other way . Here 's the signal . Here 's some event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} ? And then that {disfmarker} you know , that may map to this phone sometimes , and sometimes it may not . It just depen maybe depends on the context , things like that . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so it 's sort of a different way of looking . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events , um , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these , uh , cheating experiments . See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are , um , in , um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition . And , um {disfmarker} and then from that point on , I would , uh , s design robust event detectors , um , in a similar , um , wa spirit that Saul has done w uh , with his graphical models , and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses . Um , eh , try to extend it to , um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like , um , CMR co - modulation release . And , um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models , um , in a data - driven way , uh , similar to the way that , uh , Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff , uh , Bilmes did his work . Um , and while I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm doing these , um , event detectors , you know , I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing , um , the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like , uh , neural nets . Um , and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , once we have these {disfmarker} these , uh , event detectors , um , we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI , um , HMM {disfmarker} HMM system , and , um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or , um , maybe even Aurora stuff . And , that 's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um , the plan . +Professor E: By the way , um , there 's , uh , a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this , but , a couple people who are gonna be here for six months . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh , there 's a Professor Kollmeier , uh , from Germany who 's , uh , uh , quite big in the , uh , hearing - aid signal - processing area and , um , Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's worked with him , who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various , uh , brain function things . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: So , um , um , I think they 'll be interesting to talk to , in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are , uh , developing . +Grad A: Hmm . OK . +Professor E: So , he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out . So . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK . Well , short meeting , but that 's OK . And , uh , we might as well do our digits . And like I say , I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet , uh , next week with , uh , uh , Hynek . Alright , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start . It 's , uh , one thirty - five . seventeen OK +","Professor E announces that Hynek will visit from next Wednesday through Saturday and that he himself won't be present on Thursday and Friday. Discussions revolve around adjusting scaling and insertion penalties, particularly concerning how they affect performance in noisy conditions and for mismatched cases. PhD F has been working on Meeting Recorder tasks without much new to report but may explore how tweaks in insertion penalties affect results. Professor E suggests delving into how backend adjustments could improve performance in noise since these settings are likely not optimized for all feature types. PhD F agrees to investigate how front-end default settings affect performance and consider adjustments for next week's meeting when Hynek is present. PhD B discusses ongoing work on a report and potential experiments with spectral subtraction and noise training. Grad A and Professor E shed light on the concept of acoustic events as markers in the speech signal that are distinct from linguistic features, proposing experiments and the development of robust event detectors. Professor E mentions that a couple of experts in the field of hearing-aid signal processing will soon visit, which could provide additional insights into the development of these detectors. The meeting concludes with a routine reading of digits." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: OK , we 're going . +PhD D: Damn . +Professor C: And uh Hans - uh , Hans - Guenter will be here , um , I think by next {disfmarker} next Tuesday or so . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to be here for about three weeks , +PhD B: Oh ! That 's nice . +PhD A: Just for a visit ? +Professor C: and , uh {disfmarker} Uh , we 'll see . +PhD A: Huh . +Professor C: We might {disfmarker} might end up with some longer collaboration or something . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: So he 's gonna look in on everything we 're doing +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and give us his {disfmarker} his thoughts . And so it 'll be another {disfmarker} another good person looking at things . +PhD B: Oh . Hmm . +Grad E: Th - that 's his spectral subtraction group ? +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad E: Is that right ? +Professor C: yeah . +Grad E: Oh , OK . So I guess I should probably talk to him a bit too ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Yeah . No , he 'll be around for three weeks . He 's , uh , um , very , very , easygoing , easy to talk to , and , uh , very interested in everything . +PhD A: Really nice guy . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , we met him in Amsterdam . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah , he 's been here before . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Wh - Back when I was a grad student he was here for a , uh , uh {disfmarker} a year or {comment} n six months . +PhD B: I haven't noticed him . +Professor C: N nine months . +PhD A: Something like that . +Professor C: Something like that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . He 's {disfmarker} he 's done a couple stays here . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , um , {vocalsound} {comment} I guess we got lots to catch up on . And we haven't met for a couple of weeks . We didn't meet last week , Morgan . Um , I went around and talked to everybody , and it seemed like they {disfmarker} they had some new results but rather than them coming up and telling me I figured we should just wait a week and they can tell both {disfmarker} you know , all of us . So , um , why don't we {disfmarker} why don't we start with you , Dave , and then , um , we can go on . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad E: So , um , since we 're looking at putting this , um {disfmarker} mean log m magnitude spectral subtraction , um , into the SmartKom system , I I did a test seeing if , um , it would work using past only {comment} and plus the present to calculate the mean . So , I did a test , um , {vocalsound} where I used twelve seconds from the past and the present frame to , um , calculate the mean . And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Twelve seconds {disfmarker} Twelve {disfmarker} twelve seconds back from the current {pause} frame , is that what you mean ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Twelve seconds , um , counting back from the end of the current frame , +PhD A: OK , OK . +Grad E: yeah . So it was , um , twen I think it was twenty - one frames and that worked out to about twelve seconds . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And compared to , um , do using a twelve second centered window , I think there was a drop in performance but it was just a slight drop . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Is {disfmarker} is that right ? +Professor C: Um , yeah , I mean , it was pretty {disfmarker} it was pretty tiny . Yeah . +Grad E: Uh - huh . So that was encouraging . And , um , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , that 's encouraging for {disfmarker} for the idea of using it in an interactive system like And , um , another issue I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm thinking about is in the SmartKom system . So say twe twelve seconds in the earlier test seemed like a good length of time , but what happens if you have less than twelve seconds ? And , um {disfmarker} So I w bef before , um {disfmarker} Back in May , I did some experiments using , say , two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . In those I trained the models using mean subtraction with the means calculated over two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um , here , I was curious , what if I trained the models using twelve seconds but I f I gave it a situation where the test set I was {disfmarker} subtracted using two seconds , or four seconds , or six seconds . And , um {disfmarker} So I did that for about three different conditions . And , um {disfmarker} I mean , I th I think it was , um , four se I think {disfmarker} I think it was , um , something like four seconds and , um , six seconds , and eight seconds . Something like that . And it seems like it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it hurts compared to if you actually train the models {comment} using th that same length of time but it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt that much . Um , u usually less than point five percent , although I think I did see one where it was a point eight percent or so rise in word error rate . But this is , um , w where , um , even if I train on the , uh , model , and mean subtracted it with the same length of time as in the test , it {disfmarker} the word error rate is around , um , ten percent or nine percent . So it doesn't seem like that big a d a difference . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} but looking at it the other way , isn't it {disfmarker} what you 're saying that it didn't help you to have the longer time for training , if you were going to have a short time for {disfmarker} +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's true . Um , +Professor C: I mean , why would you do it , if you knew that you were going to have short windows in testing . +Grad E: Wa +PhD A: Yeah , it seems like for your {disfmarker} I mean , in normal situations you would never get twelve seconds of speech , right ? I 'm not {disfmarker} e u +PhD B: You need twelve seconds in the past to estimate , right ? Or l or you 're looking at six sec {disfmarker} seconds in future and six in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , t twelve s +Professor C: No , total . +Grad E: N n uh {disfmarker} For the test it 's just twelve seconds in the past . +PhD B: No , it 's all {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: Is this twelve seconds of {disfmarker} uh , regardless of speech or silence ? Or twelve seconds of speech ? +Grad E: Of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD A: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The other thing , um , which maybe relates a little bit to something else we 've talked about in terms of windowing and so on is , that , um , I wonder if you trained with twelve seconds , and then when you were two seconds in you used two seconds , and when you were four seconds in , you used four seconds , and when you were six {disfmarker} and you basically build up to the twelve seconds . So that if you have very long utterances you have the best , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: but if you have shorter utterances you use what you can . +Grad E: Right . And that 's actually what we 're planning to do in +Professor C: OK . Yeah . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} s so I g So I guess the que the question I was trying to get at with those experiments is , "" does it matter what models you use ? Does it matter how much time y you use to calculate the mean when you were , um , tra doing the training data ? "" +Professor C: Right . But I mean the other thing is that that 's {disfmarker} I mean , the other way of looking at this , going back to , uh , mean cepstral subtraction versus RASTA kind of things , is that you could look at mean cepstral subtraction , especially the way you 're doing it , uh , as being a kind of filter . And so , the other thing is just to design a filter . You know , basically you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing a high - pass filter or a band - pass filter of some sort and {disfmarker} and just design a filter . And then , you know , a filter will have a certain behavior and you loo can look at the start up behavior when you start up with nothing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , you know , it will , uh , if you have an IIR filter for instance , it will , um , uh , not behave in the steady - state way that you would like it to behave until you get a long enough period , but , um , uh , by just constraining yourself to have your filter be only a subtraction of the mean , you 're kind of , you know , tying your hands behind your back because there 's {disfmarker} filters have all sorts of be temporal and spectral behaviors . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the only thing , you know , consistent that we know about is that you want to get rid of the very low frequency component . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: But do you really want to calculate the mean ? And you neglect all the silence regions {comment} or you just use everything that 's twelve seconds , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , you {disfmarker} do you mean in my tests so far ? +PhD B: Ye - yeah . +Grad E: Most of the silence has been cut out . +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} There 's just inter - word silences . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And they are , like , pretty short . Shor +Grad E: Pretty short . +PhD B: Yeah , OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . So you really need a lot of speech to estimate the mean of it . +Grad E: Well , if I only use six seconds , it still works pretty well . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +Grad E: I saw in my test before . I was trying twelve seconds cuz that was the best {pause} in my test before +PhD B: OK . +Grad E: and that increasing past twelve seconds didn't seem to help . +PhD B: Hmm . Huh . +Grad E: th um , yeah , I guess it 's something I need to play with more to decide how to set that up for the SmartKom system . Like , may maybe if I trained on six seconds it would work better when I only had two seconds or four seconds , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , and again , if you take this filtering perspective and if you essentially have it build up over time . I mean , if you computed means over two and then over four , and over six , essentially what you 're getting at is a kind of , uh , ramp up of a filter anyway . And so you may {disfmarker} may just want to think of it as a filter . But , uh , if you do that , then , um , in practice somebody using the SmartKom system , one would think {comment} {disfmarker} if they 're using it for a while , it means that their first utterance , instead of , you know , getting , uh , a forty percent error rate reduction , they 'll get a {disfmarker} uh , over what , uh , you 'd get without this , uh , um , policy , uh , you get thirty percent . And then the second utterance that you give , they get the full {disfmarker} you know , uh , full benefit of it if it 's this ongoing thing . +PhD A: Oh , so you {disfmarker} you cache the utterances ? That 's how you get your , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'm saying in practice , yeah , +Grad E: M +PhD A: Ah . OK . +Professor C: that 's {disfmarker} If somebody 's using a system to ask for directions or something , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: you know , they 'll say something first . And {disfmarker} and to begin with if it doesn't get them quite right , ma m maybe they 'll come back and say , "" excuse me ? "" +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , or some {disfmarker} I mean it should have some policy like that anyway . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and , uh , uh , in any event they might ask a second question . And it 's not like what he 's doing doesn't , uh , improve things . It does improve things , just not as much as he would like . And so , uh , there 's a higher probability of it making an error , uh , in the first utterance . +PhD A: What would be really cool is if you could have {disfmarker} uh , this probably {disfmarker} users would never like this {disfmarker} but if you had {disfmarker} could have a system where , {vocalsound} before they began to use it they had to introduce themselves , verbally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know . "" Hi , my name is so - and - so , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm from blah - blah - blah . "" And you could use that initial speech to do all these adaptations and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh , the other thing I guess which {disfmarker} which , uh , I don't know much about {disfmarker} as much as I should about the rest of the system but {disfmarker} but , um , couldn't you , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you sort of did a first pass I don't know what kind of , uh , uh , capability we have at the moment for {disfmarker} for doing second passes on {disfmarker} on , uh , uh , some kind of little {disfmarker} small lattice , or a graph , or confusion network , or something . But if you did first pass with , um , the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} either without the mean sub subtraction or with a {disfmarker} a very short time one , and then , um , once you , uh , actually had the whole utterance in , if you did , um , the , uh , uh , longer time version then , based on everything that you had , um , and then at that point only used it to distinguish between , you know , top N , um , possible utterances or something , you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} it might not take very much time . I mean , I know in the large vocabulary stu uh , uh , systems , people were evaluating on in the past , some people really pushed everything in to make it in one pass but other people didn't and had multiple passes . And , um , the argument , um , against multiple passes was u u has often been "" but we want to this to be r you know {disfmarker} have a nice interactive response "" . And the counterargument to that which , say , uh , BBN I think had , {comment} was "" yeah , but our second responses are {disfmarker} second , uh , passes and third passes are really , really fast "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , if {disfmarker} if your second pass takes a millisecond who cares ? Um . +Grad E: S so , um , the {disfmarker} the idea of the second pass would be waiting till you have more recorded speech ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , so if it turned out to be a problem , that you didn't have enough speech because you need a longer {disfmarker} longer window to do this processing , then , uh , one tactic is {disfmarker} you know , looking at the larger system and not just at the front - end stuff {comment} {disfmarker} is to take in , um , the speech with some simpler mechanism or shorter time mechanism , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um , do the best you can , and come up with some al possible alternates of what might have been said . And , uh , either in the form of an N - best list or in the form of a lattice , or {disfmarker} or confusion network , or whatever . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then the decoding of that is much , much faster or can be much , much faster if it isn't a big bushy network . And you can decode that now with speech that you 've actually processed using this longer time , uh , subtraction . +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: So I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's common that people do this sort of thing where they do more things that are more complex or require looking over more time , whatever , in some kind of second pass . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: um , and again , if the second pass is really , really fast {disfmarker} Uh , another one I 've heard of is {disfmarker} is in {disfmarker} in connected digit stuff , um , going back and l and through backtrace and finding regions that are considered to be a d a digit , but , uh , which have very low energy . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of things you can do in second passes , at all sorts of levels . Anyway , I 'm throwing too many things out . But . +PhD A: So is that , uh {disfmarker} that it ? +Grad E: I guess that 's it . +PhD A: OK , uh , do you wanna go , Sunil ? +PhD B: Yep . Um , so , the last two weeks was , like {disfmarker} So I 've been working on that Wiener filtering . And , uh , found that , uh , s single {disfmarker} like , I just do a s normal Wiener filtering , like the standard method of Wiener filtering . And that doesn't actually give me any improvement over like {disfmarker} I mean , uh , b it actually improves over the baseline but it 's not like {disfmarker} it doesn't meet something like fifty percent or something . So , I 've been playing with the v +PhD A: Improves over the base line MFCC system ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} The improvement is somewhere around , like , thirty percent over the baseline . +Professor C: Is that using {disfmarker} in combination with something else ? +PhD B: No , just {disfmarker} just one stage Wiener filter +Professor C: With {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is a standard Wiener filter . +Professor C: No , no , but I mean in combination with our on - line normalization or with the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So I just plug in the Wiener filtering . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I mean , in the s in our system , where {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So , I di i di +Professor C: So , does it g does that mean it gets worse ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: No . It actually improves over the baseline of not having a Wiener filter in the whole system . Like I have an LDA f LDA plus on - line normalization , and then I plug in the Wiener filter in that , +Professor C: Yeah ? +PhD B: so it improves over not having the Wiener filter . So it improves but it {disfmarker} it doesn't take it like be beyond like thirty percent over the baseline . So {disfmarker} +Professor C: But that 's what I 'm confused about , cuz I think {disfmarker} I thought that our system was more like forty percent without the Wiener filtering . +PhD B: No , it 's like , uh , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Is this with the v new VAD ? +PhD B: well , these are not {disfmarker} No , it 's the old VAD . So my baseline was , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} nine {disfmarker} This is like {disfmarker} w the baseline is ninety - five point six eight , and eighty - nine , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: So I mean , if you can do all these in word errors it 's a lot {disfmarker} a lot easier actually . +PhD B: What was that ? Sorry ? +Professor C: If you do all these in word error rates it 's a lot easier , right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK , OK , OK . Errors , right , I don't have . +Professor C: OK , cuz then you can figure out the percentages . +PhD B: It 's all accuracies . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is something similar to a w I mean , the t the {disfmarker} the baseline that you are talking about is the MFCC baseline , right ? +PhD B: The t yeah , there are two baselines . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the baseline {disfmarker} One baseline is MFCC baseline that {disfmarker} When I said thirty percent improvement it 's like MFCC baseline . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so what 's it start on ? The MFCC baseline is {disfmarker} is what ? Is at what level ? +PhD B: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's just the mel frequency and that 's it . +Professor C: No , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the number ? +PhD B: Uh , so I I don't have that number here . OK , OK , OK , I have it here . Uh , it 's the VAD plus the baseline actually . I 'm talking about the {disfmarker} the MFCC plus I do a frame dropping on it . So that 's like {disfmarker} the word error rate is like four point three . Like {disfmarker} Ten point seven . +Professor C: Four point three . What 's ten point seven ? +PhD B: It 's a medium misma OK , sorry . There 's a well ma well matched , medium mismatched , and a high matched . +Professor C: Ah . +PhD B: So I don't have the {disfmarker} like the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , four point three , ten point seven , +PhD B: And forty forty . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Forty percent is the high mismatch . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And that becomes like four point three {disfmarker} +Professor C: Not changed . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's like ten point one . Still the same . And the high mismatch is like eighteen point five . +Professor C: Eighteen point five . +PhD B: Five . +Professor C: And what were you just describing ? +PhD B: Oh , the one is {disfmarker} this one is just the baseline plus the , uh , Wiener filter plugged into it . +Professor C: But where 's the , uh , on - line normalization and so on ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Sorry . So , with the {disfmarker} with the on - line normalization , the performance was , um , ten {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like four point three . Uh , and again , that 's the ba the ten point , uh , four and twenty point one . That was with on - line normalization and LDA . So the h well matched has like literally not changed by adding on - line or LDA on it . But the {disfmarker} I mean , even the medium mismatch is pretty much the same . And the high mismatch was improved by twenty percent absolute . +Professor C: OK , and what kind of number {disfmarker} an and what are we talking about here ? +PhD B: It 's the It - it 's Italian . +Professor C: Is this TI - digits +PhD B: I 'm talking about Italian , +Professor C: or {disfmarker} Italian ? +PhD B: yeah . +Professor C: And what did {disfmarker} So , what was the , um , uh , corresponding number , say , for , um , uh , the Alcatel system for instance ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor C: Do you know ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it looks to be , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: You have it ? +PhD D: Yep , it 's three point four , uh , eight point , uh , seven , and , uh , thirteen point seven . +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} Thanks . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , uh , this is the single stage Wiener filter , with {disfmarker} The noise estimation was based on first ten frames . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Actually I started with {disfmarker} using the VAD to estimate the noise and then I found that it works {disfmarker} it doesn't work for Finnish and Spanish because the VAD endpoints are not good to estimate the noise because it cuts into the speech sometimes , so I end up overestimating the noise and getting a worse result . So it works only for Italian by u for {disfmarker} using a VAD to estimate noise . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It works for Italian because the VAD was trained on Italian . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , uh {disfmarker} so this was , uh {disfmarker} And so this was giving {disfmarker} um , this {disfmarker} this was like not improving a lot on this baseline of not having the Wiener filter on it . And , so , uh , I ran this stuff with one more stage of Wiener filtering on it but the second time , what I did was I {disfmarker} estimated the new Wiener filter based on the cleaned up speech , and did , uh , smoothing in the frequency to {disfmarker} to reduce the variance {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , I have {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've observed there are , like , a lot of bumps in the frequency when I do this Wiener filtering which is more like a musical noise or something . And so by adding another stage of Wiener filtering , the results on the SpeechDat - Car was like , um {disfmarker} So , I still don't have the word error rate . I 'm sorry about it . But the overall improvement was like fifty - six point four six . This was again using ten frames of noise estimate and two stage of Wiener filtering . And the rest is like the LDA plu and the on - line normalization all remaining the same . Uh , so this was , like , compared to , uh , uh {disfmarker} Fifty - seven is what you got by using the French Telecom system , right ? +PhD D: No , I don't think so . +PhD B: Y i +PhD D: Is it on Italian ? +PhD B: No , this is over the whole SpeechDat - Car . So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah , fifty - seven {disfmarker} +PhD B: point {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , so the new {disfmarker} the new Wiener filtering schema is like {disfmarker} some fifty - six point four six which is like one percent still less than what you got using the French Telecom system . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it 's a pretty similar number in any event . +PhD B: It 's very similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But again , you 're {disfmarker} you 're more or less doing what they were doing , right ? +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's different in a sense like I 'm actually cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum which they 're not doing . They 're d what they 're doing is , they have two stage {disfmarker} stages of estimating the Wiener filter , but {disfmarker} the final filter , what they do is they {disfmarker} they take it to their time domain by doing an inverse Fourier transform . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And they filter the original signal using that fil filter , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD B: which is like final filter is acting on the input noisy speech rather than on the cleaned up . So this is more like I 'm doing Wiener filter twice , but the only thing is that the second time I 'm actually smoothing the filter and then cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum first level . And so that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what the difference is . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: And actually I tried it on s the original clean {disfmarker} I mean , the original spectrum where , like , I {disfmarker} the second time I estimate the filter but actually clean up the noisy speech rather the c s first {disfmarker} output of the first stage and that doesn't {disfmarker} seems to be a {disfmarker} giving , I mean , that much improvement . I {disfmarker} I didn didn't run it for the whole case . And {disfmarker} and what I t what I tried was , by using the same thing but {disfmarker} Uh , so we actually found that the VAD is very , like , crucial . I mean , just by changing the VAD itself gives you the {disfmarker} a lot of improvement +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: by instead of using the current VAD , if you just take up the VAD output from the channel zero , {comment} when {disfmarker} instead of using channel zero and channel one , because that was the p that was the reason why I was not getting a lot of improvement for estimating {comment} the noise . So I just used the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise so that it gives me some reliable mar markers for this noise estimation . +Professor C: What 's a channel zero VAD ? +PhD B: Um , +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused about that . +PhD B: so , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD D: So it 's the close - talking microphone . +PhD B: Yeah , the close - talking without {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD B: So because the channel zero and channel one are like the same speech , but only w I mean , the same endpoints . +Professor C: +PhD B: But the only thing is that the speech is very noisy for channel one , so you can actually use the output of the channel zero for channel one for the VAD . I mean , that 's like a cheating method . +Professor C: Right . I mean , so a are they going to pro What are they doing to do , do we know yet ? about {disfmarker} as far as what they 're {disfmarker} what the rules are going to be and what we can use ? +PhD D: Yeah , so actually I received a {disfmarker} a new document , describing this . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And what they did finally is to , mmm , uh , not to align the utterances but to perform recognition , um , only on the close - talking microphone , +PhD B: Which is the channel zero . +PhD D: and to take the result of the recognition to get the boundaries uh , of speech . +Professor C: So it 's not like that 's being done in one place or one time . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's just a rule and we 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you were permitted to do that . Is {disfmarker} is that it ? +PhD D: Uh , I think they will send , um , files but we {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} Well , apparently {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , so they will send files so everybody will have the same boundaries to work with ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: But actually their alignment actually is not seems to be improving in like on all cases . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Oh , i Yeah , so what happened here is that , um , the overall improvement that they have with this method {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well , to be more precise , what they have is , they have these alignments and then they drop the beginning silence and {disfmarker} and the end silence but they keep , uh , two hundred milliseconds before speech and two hundred after speech . And they keep the speech pauses also . Um , and the overall improvement over the MFCC baseline So , when they just , uh , add this frame dropping in addition it 's r uh , forty percent , right ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Fourteen percent , I mean . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um , which is , um , t which is the overall improvement . But in some cases it doesn't improve at all . Like , uh , y do you remember which case ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It gives like negative {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in like some Italian and TI - digits , +PhD D: Yeah , some @ @ . +PhD B: right ? +PhD D: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . So by using the endpointed speech , actually it 's worse than the baseline in some instances , which could be due to the word pattern . +PhD D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Yeah , the other thing also is that fourteen percent is less than what you obtain using a real VAD . +PhD B: Yeah , our neural net {disfmarker} +PhD D: So with without cheating like this . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So I think this shows that there is still work {disfmarker} Uh , well , working on the VAD is still {disfmarker} still important I think . +Professor C: Yeah , c +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can I ask just a {disfmarker} a high level question ? Can you just say like one or two sentences about Wiener filtering and why {disfmarker} why are people doing that ? +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD A: What 's {disfmarker} what 's the deal with that ? +PhD B: OK , so the Wiener filter , it 's {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like you try to minimize {disfmarker} I mean , so the basic principle of Wiener filter is like you try to minimize the , uh , d uh , difference between the noisy signal and the clean signal if you have two channels . Like let 's say you have a clean t signal and you have an additional channel where you know what is the noisy signal . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you try to minimize the error between these two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's the basic principle . And you get {disfmarker} you can do that {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} if you have only a c noisy signal , at a level which you , you w try to estimate the noise from the w assuming that the first few frames are noise or if you have a w voice activity detector , uh , you estimate the noise spectrum . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do you assume the noise is the same ? +PhD B: Yeah . in {disfmarker} yeah , after the speech starts . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but that 's not the case in , uh , many {disfmarker} many of our cases but it works reasonably well . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and then you What you do is you , uh b fff . So again , I can write down some of these eq Oh , OK . Yeah . And then you do this {disfmarker} uh , this is the transfer function of the Wiener filter , so "" SF "" is a clean speech spectrum , power spectrum +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And "" N "" is the noisy power spectrum . And so this is the transfer function . +Professor C: Right +PhD B: And , +Professor C: actually , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: And then you multiply your noisy power spectrum with this . You get an estimate of the clean power spectrum . +PhD A: I see . OK . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} but the thing is that you have to estimate the SF from the noisy spectrum , what you have . So you estimate the NF from the initial noise portions and then you subtract that from the current noisy spectrum to get an estimate of the SF . So sometimes that becomes zero because you do you don't have a true estimate of the noise . So the f filter will have like sometimes zeros in it +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because some frequency values will be zeroed out because of that . And that creates a lot of discontinuities across the spectrum because @ @ the filter . So , uh , so {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that was just the first stage of Wiener filtering that I tried . +PhD A: So is this , um , basically s uh , similar to just regular spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's all pretty related , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there 's a di there 's a whole class of techniques where you try in some sense to minimize the noise . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And it 's typically a mean square sense , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , i in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some way . And , uh {disfmarker} uh , spectral subtraction is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} uh , one approach to it . +PhD A: Do people use the Wiener filtering in combination with the spectral subtraction typically , or is i are they sort of competing techniques ? +PhD B: Not seen . They are very s similar techniques . +PhD A: Yeah . O oh , OK . +PhD B: So it 's like I haven't seen anybody using s Wiener filter with spectral subtraction . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see , I see . +Professor C: I mean , in the long run you 're doing the same thing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: but y but there you make different approximations , and {disfmarker} in spectral subtraction , for instance , there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an estimation factor . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: You sometimes will figure out what the noise is and you 'll multiply that noise spectrum times some constant and subtract that rather than {disfmarker} and sometimes people {disfmarker} even though this really should be in the power domain , sometimes people s work in the magnitude domain because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it works better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh , uh , you know . +PhD A: So why did you choose , uh , Wiener filtering over some other {disfmarker} one of these other techniques ? +PhD B: Uh , the reason was , like , we had this choice of using spectral subtraction , Wiener filtering , and there was one more thing which I which I 'm trying , is this sub space approach . So , Stephane is working on spectral subtraction . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So I picked up {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're sort of trying @ @ them all . +PhD B: Y Yeah , +PhD A: Ah , +PhD B: we just wanted to have a few noise production {disfmarker} compensation techniques +PhD A: I see . Oh , OK . +PhD B: and then pick some from that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: pick one . +Professor C: I m I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I mean , there 's Car - Carmen 's working on another , on the vector Taylor series . +PhD B: VA Yeah , VAD . w Yeah . +Professor C: So they were just kind of trying to cover a bunch of different things with this task and see , you know , what are {disfmarker} what are the issues for each of them . +PhD A: Ah , OK . That makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD A: Cool , thanks . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} so one of {disfmarker} one of the things that I tried , like I said , was to remove those zeros in the fri filter by doing some smoothing of the filter . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Like , you estimate the edge of square and then you do a f smoothing across the frequency so that those zeros get , like , flattened out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that doesn't seems to be improving by trying it on the first time . So what I did was like I p did this and then you {disfmarker} I plugged in the {disfmarker} one more {disfmarker} the same thing but with the smoothed filter the second time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that seems to be working . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So that 's where I got like fifty - six point five percent improvement on SpeechDat - Car with that . And {disfmarker} So the other thing what I tried was I used still the ten frames of noise estimate but I used this channel zero VAD to drop the frames . So I 'm not {disfmarker} still not estimating . And that has taken the performance to like sixty - seven percent in SpeechDat - Car , which is {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which like sort of shows that by using a proper VAD you can just take it to further , better levels . And {disfmarker} So . +PhD A: So that 's sort of like , you know , best - case performance ? +PhD B: Yeah , so far I 've seen sixty - seven {disfmarker} I mean , no , I haven't seen s like sixty - seven percent . And , uh , using the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise also seems to be improving but I don't have the results for all the cases with that . So I used channel zero VAD to estimate noise as a lesser 2 x frame , which is like , {vocalsound} everywhere I use the channel zero VAD . And that seems to be the best combination , uh , rather than using a few frames to estimate and then drop a channel . +Professor C: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still a little confused . Is that channel zero information going to be accessible during this test . +PhD B: Nnn , no . This is just to test whether we can really improve by using a better VAD . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} So this is like the noise compensation f is fixed +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but you make a better decision on the endpoints . That 's , like {disfmarker} seems to be {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so we c so I mean , which {disfmarker} which means , like , by using this technique what we improve just the VAD +Professor C: Yes . +PhD B: we can just take the performance by another ten percent or better . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that was just the , uh , reason for doing that experiment . And , w um {disfmarker} Yeah , but this {disfmarker} all these things , I have to still try it on the TI - digits , which is like I 'm just running . And there seems to be not improving a {disfmarker} a lot on the TI - digits , so I 'm like investigating that , why it 's not . And , um , um {disfmarker} Well after that . So , uh {disfmarker} so the other {disfmarker} the other thing is {disfmarker} like I 've been {disfmarker} I 'm doing all this stuff on the power spectrum . So {disfmarker} Tried this stuff on the mel as well {disfmarker} mel and the magnitude , and mel magnitude , and all those things . But it seems to be the power spectrum seems to be getting the best result . So , one of {disfmarker} one of reasons I thought like doing the averaging , after the filtering using the mel filter bank , that seems to be maybe helping rather than trying it on the mel filter ba filtered outputs . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So just th +Professor C: Ma Makes sense . +PhD B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} that 's the only thing that I could think of why {disfmarker} why it 's giving improvement on the mel . And , yep . So that 's it . +Professor C: Uh , how about the subspace stuff ? +PhD B: Subspace , {comment} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm like {disfmarker} that 's still in {disfmarker} a little bit in the back burner because I 've been p putting a lot effort on this to make it work , on tuning things and other stuff . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I was like going parallely but not much of improvement . I 'm just {disfmarker} have some skeletons ready , need some more time for it . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: Tha - that it ? +PhD B: Yep . Yep . +PhD A: Cool . Do you wanna go , Stephane ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . So , {vocalsound} I 've been , uh , working still on the spectral subtraction . Um , So to r to remind you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a little bit of {disfmarker} of what I did before , is just {vocalsound} to apply some spectral subtraction with an overestimation factor also to get , um , an estimate of the noise , uh , spectrum , and subtract this estimation of the noise spectrum from the , uh , signal spectrum , {comment} but subtracting more when the SNR is {disfmarker} is , uh , low , which is a technique that it 's often used . +PhD A: "" Subtracting more "" , meaning {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: So you overestimate the noise spectrum . You multiply the noise spectrum by a factor , uh , which depends on the SNR . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD D: So , above twenty DB , it 's one , so you just subtract the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then it 's b Generally {disfmarker} Well , I use , actually , a linear , uh , function of the SNR , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is bounded to , like , two or three , {comment} when the SNR is below zero DB . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , doing just this , uh , either on the FFT bins or on the mel bands , um , t doesn't yield any improvement +Professor C: Oh ! Um , uh , what are you doing with negative , uh , powers ? +PhD D: o Yeah . So there is also a threshold , of course , because after subtraction you can have negative energies , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So what I {disfmarker} I just do is to put , uh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to add {disfmarker} to put the threshold first and then to add a small amount of noise , which right now is speech - shaped . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Speech - shaped ? +PhD D: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} a it has the overall {disfmarker} overall energy , uh {disfmarker} pow it has the overall power spectrum of speech . So with a bump around one kilohertz . +PhD A: So when y when you talk about there being something less than zero after subtracting the noise , is that at a particular frequency bin ? +PhD D: i Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: There can be frequency bins with negative values . +PhD A: And so when you say you 're adding something that has the overall shape of speech , is that in a {disfmarker} in a particular frequency bin ? Or you 're adding something across all the frequencies when you get these negatives ? +PhD D: For each frequencies I a I 'm adding some , uh , noise , but the a the amount of {disfmarker} the amount of noise I add is not the same for all the frequency bins . +PhD A: Ah ! OK . I gotcha . Right . +PhD D: Uh . Right now I don't think if it makes sense to add something that 's speech - shaped , because then you have silence portion that have some spectra similar to the sp the overall speech spectra . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah . So this is something I can still work on , +PhD A: So what does that mean ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} Hmm . +PhD A: I 'm trying to understand what it means when you do the spectral subtraction and you get a negative . It means that at that particular frequency range you subtracted more energy than there was actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: That means that {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . So {disfmarker} so yeah , you have an {disfmarker} an estimation of the noise spectrum , but sometimes , of course , it 's {disfmarker} as the noise is not perfectly stationary , sometimes this estimation can be , uh , too small , so you don't subtract enough . But sometimes it can be too large also . If {disfmarker} if the noise , uh , energy in this particular frequency band drops for some reason . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: So in {disfmarker} in an ideal word i world {comment} if the noise were always the same , then , when you subtracted it the worst that i you would get would be a zero . I mean , the lowest you would get would be a zero , cuz i if there was no other energy there you 're just subtracting exactly the noise . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm , +Professor C: Yep , there 's all {disfmarker} there 's all sorts of , uh , deviations from the ideal here . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about the signal and noise , um , at a particular point . And even if something is sort of stationary in ster terms of statistics , there 's no guarantee that any particular instantiation or piece of it is exactly a particular number or bounded by a particular range . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , you 're figuring out from some chunk of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the signal what you think the noise is . Then you 're subtracting that from another chunk , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and there 's absolutely no reason to think that you 'd know that it wouldn't , uh , be negative in some places . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , on the other hand that just means that in some sense you 've made a mistake because you certainly have stra subtracted a bigger number than is due to the noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} Also , we speak {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} where all this stuff comes from is from an assumption that signal and noise are uncorrelated . And that certainly makes sense in s in {disfmarker} in a statistical interpretation , that , you know , over , um , all possible realizations that they 're uncorrelated +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or assuming , uh , ergodicity that i that i um , across time , uh , it 's uncorrelated . But if you just look at {disfmarker} a quarter second , uh , and you cross - multiply the two things , uh , you could very well , uh , end up with something that sums to something that 's not zero . So in fact , the two signals could have some relation to one another . And so there 's all sorts of deviations from ideal in this . And {disfmarker} and given all that , you could definitely end up with something that 's negative . But if down the road you 're making use of something as if it is a power spectrum , um , then it can be bad to have something negative . Now , the other thing I wonder about actually is , what if you left it negative ? What happens ? +PhD B: Is that the log ? +Professor C: I mean , because {disfmarker} Um , are you taking the log before you add them up to the mel ? +PhD B: After that . No , after . +Professor C: Right . So the thing is , I wonder how {disfmarker} if you put your thresholds after that , I wonder how often you would end up with , uh {disfmarker} with negative values . +PhD B: But you will {disfmarker} But you end up reducing some neighboring frequency bins {disfmarker} @ @ in the average , right ? When you add the negative to the positive value which is the true estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . But nonetheless , uh , you know , these are {disfmarker} it 's another f kind of smoothing , right ? that you 're doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So , you 've done your best shot at figuring out what the noise should be , and now i then you 've subtracted it off . And then after that , instead of {disfmarker} instead of , uh , uh , leaving it as is and adding things {disfmarker} adding up some neighbors , you artificially push it up . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor C: Which is , you know , it 's {disfmarker} there 's no particular reason that that 's the right thing to do either , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: So , um , uh , i in fact , what you 'd be doing is saying , "" well , we 're d we 're {disfmarker} we 're going to definitely diminish the effect of this frequency in this little frequency bin in the {disfmarker} in the overall mel summation "" . It 's just a thought . I d I don't know if it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sort of the opposite of that would be if {disfmarker} if you find out you 're going to get a negative number , you don't do the subtraction for that bin . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . That is true . +Professor C: Nnn , yeah , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although {disfmarker} +PhD A: That would be almost the opposite , right ? Instead of leaving it negative , you don't do it . If your {disfmarker} if your subtraction 's going to result in a negative number , you {disfmarker} you don't do subtraction in that . +Professor C: Yeah , but that means that in a situation where you thought that {disfmarker} that the bin was almost entirely noise , you left it . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm just saying that 's like the opposite . +PhD B: We just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's the opposite , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: And , yeah , some people also {disfmarker} if it 's a negative value they , uh , re - compute it using inter interpolation from the edges and bins . +PhD B: For frames , frequency bins . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , there are different things that you can do . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: People can also , uh , reflect it back up and essentially do a full wave rectification instead of a {disfmarker} instead of half wave . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor C: But it was just a thought that {disfmarker} that it might be something to try . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yep . Well , actually I tried , {vocalsound} something else based on this , um , is to {disfmarker} to put some smoothing , um , because it seems to {disfmarker} to help or it seems to help the Wiener filtering +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and , mmm {disfmarker} So what I did is , uh , some kind of nonlinear smoothing . Actually I have a recursion that computes {disfmarker} Yeah , let me go back a little bit . Actually , when you do spectral subtraction you can , uh , find this {disfmarker} this equivalent in the s in the spectral domain . You can uh compute , y you can say that d your spectral subtraction is a filter , um , and the gain of this filter is the , um , {vocalsound} signal energy minus what you subtract , divided by the signal energy . And this is a gain that varies over time , and , you know , of course , uh , depending on the s on the noise spectrum and on the speech spectrum . And {disfmarker} what happen actually is that during low SNR values , the gain is close to zero but it varies a lot . Mmm , and this {disfmarker} this is the cause of musical noise and all these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {comment} the fact you {disfmarker} we go below zero one frame and then you can have an energy that 's above zero . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Mmm . So the smoothing is {disfmarker} I did a smoothing actually on this gain , uh , trajectory . But it 's {disfmarker} the smoothing is nonlinear in the sense that I tried to not smooth if the gain is high , because in this case we know that , uh , the estimate of the gain is correct because we {disfmarker} we are not close to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to zero , um , and to do more smoothing if the gain is low . Mmm . Um . Yeah . So , well , basically that 's this idea , and it seems to give pretty good results , uh , although I 've just {disfmarker} just tested on Italian and Finnish . And on Italian it seems {disfmarker} my result seems to be a little bit better than the Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the one you showed yesterday . +PhD D: right ? +PhD B: Right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , I don't know if you have these improvement the detailed improvements for Italian , Finnish , and Spanish there +PhD B: Fff . No , I don't have , for each , +PhD D: or you have {disfmarker} just have your own . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} just have the final number here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So these numbers he was giving before with the four point three , and the ten point one , and so forth , those were Italian , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . So {disfmarker} so , no , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually didn't give you the number which is the final one , +PhD D: uh , no , we 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: which is , after two stages of Wiener filtering . I mean , that was I just {disfmarker} well , like the overall improvement is like fifty - six point five . So , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , his number is still better than what I got in the two stages of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: On Italian . But on Finnish it 's a little bit worse , apparently . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: But do you have numbers in terms of word error rates on {disfmarker} on Italian ? So just so you have some sense of reference ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , so , it 's , uh , three point , uh , eight . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Am I right ? +PhD B: Oh , OK . Yeah , right , OK . +PhD D: And then , uh , d uh , nine point , uh , one . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And finally , uh , sixteen point five . +Professor C: And this is , um , spectral subtraction plus what ? +PhD D: Plus {disfmarker} plus nonlinear smoothing . Well , it 's {disfmarker} the system {disfmarker} it 's exactly the sys the same system as Sunil tried , +Professor C: On - line normalization and LDA ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But instead of double stage Wiener filtering , it 's {disfmarker} it 's this smoothed spectral subtraction . Um , yeah . +PhD A: What is it the , um , France Telecom system uses +Professor C: Right . +PhD A: for {disfmarker} Do they use spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: They use spectral subtraction , right . +PhD D: For what ? +PhD B: French Telecom . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering , +PhD B: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's Wiener filtering . +PhD D: am I right ? +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD D: Well , it 's some kind of Wiener filtering {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , filtering . Yeah , it 's not exactly Wiener filtering but some variant of Wiener filtering . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , plus , uh , I guess they have some sort of cepstral normalization , as well . +PhD B: s They have like {disfmarker} yeah , th the {disfmarker} just noise compensation technique is a variant of Wiener filtering , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: plus they do some {disfmarker} some smoothing techniques on the final filter . The {disfmarker} th they actually do the filtering in the time domain . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD B: So they would take this HF squared back , taking inverse Fourier transform . And they convolve the time domain signal with that . +PhD A: Oh , I see . +PhD B: And they do some smoothing on that final filter , impulse response . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: But they also have two {disfmarker} two different smoothing @ @ . +PhD B: I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm @ @ . +PhD D: One in the time domain and one in the frequency domain by just taking the first , um , coefficients of the impulse response . +PhD B: But . +PhD D: So , basically it 's similar . I mean , what you did , it 's similar +PhD B: It 's similar in the smoothing and {disfmarker} +PhD D: because you have also two {disfmarker} two kind of smoothing . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: One in the time domain , and one in the frequency domain , +PhD B: Yeah . The frequency domain . +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help {disfmarker} +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , do you get this musical noise stuff with Wiener filtering or is that only with , uh , spectral subtraction ? +PhD B: No , you get it with Wiener filtering also . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help with that ? Or some other smoothing ? +PhD B: Oh , no , you still end up with zeros in the s spectrum . Sometimes . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: I mean , it 's not clear that these musical noises hurt us in recognition . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: We don't know if they do . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , they {disfmarker} they sound bad . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . +Professor C: But we 're not listening to it , usually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , actually the {disfmarker} the smoothing that I did {disfmarker} do here reduced the musical noise . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , yeah , +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , I cannot {disfmarker} you cannot hear beca well , actually what I d did not say is that this is not in the FFT bins . This is in the mel frequency bands . Um {disfmarker} So , it could be seen as a f a {disfmarker} a smoothing in the frequency domain because I used , in ad mel bands in addition and then the other phase of smoothing in the time domain . Mmm . But , when you look at the spectrogram , if you don't have an any smoothing , you clearly see , like {disfmarker} in silence portions , and at the beginning and end of speech , you see spots of high energy randomly distributed over the {disfmarker} the spectrogram . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's the musical noise ? +PhD D: Which is musical noise , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: yeah , if {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} If you listen to it {disfmarker} uh , if you do this in the FFT bins , then you have spots of energy randomly distributing . And if you f if you re - synthesize these spot sounds as , like , sounds , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , none of these systems , by the way , have {disfmarker} I mean , y you both are {disfmarker} are working with , um , our system that does not have the neural net , +PhD D: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep . +Professor C: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . So one would hope , presumably , that the neural net part of it would {disfmarker} would improve things further as {disfmarker} as they did before . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , although if {disfmarker} if we , um , look at the result from the proposals , {comment} one of the reason , uh , the n system with the neural net was , um , more than {disfmarker} well , around five percent better , is that it was much better on highly mismatched condition . I 'm thinking , for instance , on the TI - digits trained on clean speech and tested on noisy speech . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh , for this case , the system with the neural net was much better . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But not much on the {disfmarker} in the other cases . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And if we have no , uh , spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , i the system is {disfmarker} Uh , we thought the neural {disfmarker} neural network is much better than before , even in these cases of high mismatch . So , maybe the neural net will help less but , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Maybe . +PhD A: Could you train a neural net to do spectral subtraction ? +Professor C: Yeah , it could do a nonlinear spectral subtraction +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but I don't know if it {disfmarker} I mean , you have to figure out what your targets are . +PhD A: Yeah , I was thinking if you had a clean version of the signal and {disfmarker} and a noisy version , and your targets were the M F - uh , you know , whatever , frequency bins {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , well , that 's not so much spectral subtraction then , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} but at any rate , yeah , people , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: People do that ? +Professor C: y yeah , in fact , we had visitors here who did that I think when you were here ba way back when . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , people {disfmarker} d done lots of experimentation over the years with training neural nets . And it 's not a bad thing to do . It 's another approach . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: M I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The objection everyone always raises , which has some truth to it is that , um , it 's good for mapping from a particular noise to clean but then you get a different noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And the experiments we saw that visitors did here showed that it {disfmarker} there was at least some , um , {vocalsound} {comment} gentleness to the degradation when you switched to different noises . It did seem to help . So that {disfmarker} you 're right , that 's another {disfmarker} another way to go . +PhD A: How did it compare on {disfmarker} I mean , for {disfmarker} for good cases where it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh , stuff that it was trained on ? Did it do pretty well ? +Professor C: Oh , yeah , it did very well . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: Um , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but to some extent that 's kind of what we 're doing . I mean , we 're not doing exactly that , we 're not trying to generate good examples but by trying to do the best classifier you possibly can , for these little phonetic categories , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . You could say it 's sort of built in . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's kind of built into that . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and that 's why we have found that it {disfmarker} it does help . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} so , um , yeah , I mean , we 'll just have to try it . But I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine that it will help some . I mean , it {disfmarker} we 'll just have to see whether it helps more or less the same , but I would imagine it would help some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So in any event , all of this {disfmarker} I was just confirming that all of this was with a simpler system . +PhD D: Yeah , +Professor C: OK ? +PhD D: yeah . Um , Yeah , so this is th the , um {disfmarker} Well , actually , this was kind of the first try with this spectral subtraction plus smoothing , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was kind of excited by the result . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , then I started to optimize the different parameters . And , uh , the first thing I tried to optimize is the , um , time constant of the smoothing . And it seems that the one that I chose for the first experiment was the optimal one , so {vocalsound} uh , +Professor C: It 's amazing how often that happens . +PhD D: Um , so this is the first thing . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , another thing that I {disfmarker} it 's important to mention is , um , that this has a this has some additional latency . Um . Because when I do the smoothing , uh , it 's a recursion that estimated the means , so {disfmarker} of the g of the gain curve . And this is a filter that has some latency . And I noticed that it 's better if we take into account this latency . So , instead o of using the current estimated mean to , uh , subtract the current frame , it 's better to use an estimate that 's some somewhere in the future . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: And that 's what causes the latency ? OK . +PhD B: You mean , the m the mean is computed o based on some frames in the future also ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} or no ? +PhD D: It 's the recursion , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's the center recursion , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} and the latency of this recursion is around fifty milliseconds . +Professor C: One five ? +PhD D: +Professor C: One five ? Five zero ? +PhD D: Five zero , +Professor C: Five zero . +PhD D: yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: I 'm sorry , +PhD D: mmm . +PhD B: why {disfmarker} why is that delay coming ? Like , you estimate the mean ? +PhD D: Yeah , the mean estimation has some delay , right ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: I mean , the {disfmarker} the filter that {disfmarker} that estimates the mean has a time constant . +PhD B: It isn't {disfmarker} OK , so it 's like it looks into the future also . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: What if you just look into the past ? +PhD D: It 's , uh , not as good . It 's not bad . +Professor C: How m by how much ? +PhD D: Um , it helps a lot over the ba the baseline but , mmm {disfmarker} +Professor C: By how much ? +PhD D: it {disfmarker} It 's around three percent , um , relative . +Professor C: Worse . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Um , +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: It 's depending on how all this stuff comes out we may or may not be able to add any latency . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . So , yeah , it depends . Uh , y actually , it 's {disfmarker} it 's l it 's three percent . Right . Mmm . Yeah , b but I don't think we have to worry too much on that right now while {disfmarker} you kno . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , s Yeah , I mean , I think the only thing is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: I would worry about it a little . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Because if we completely ignore latency , and then we discover that we really have to do something about it , we 're going to be {disfmarker} find ourselves in a bind . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So , um , you know , maybe you could make it twenty - five . You know what I mean ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , just , you know , just be {disfmarker} be a little conservative +PhD D: Oh yes . +Professor C: because we may end up with this crunch where all of a sudden we have to cut the latency in half or something . +PhD D: s Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Um . So , yeah , there are other things in the , um , algorithm that I didn't , uh , @ @ a lot yet , +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD D: which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry . A quick question just about the latency thing . If {disfmarker} if there 's another part of the system that causes a latency of a hundred milliseconds , is this an additive thing ? Or c or is yours hidden in that ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's added . +PhD A: It 's additive . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} OK . We can do something in parallel also , in some like {disfmarker} some cases like , if you wanted to do voice activity detection . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: And we can do that in parallel with some other filtering you can do . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD B: So you can make a decision on that voice activity detection and then you decide whether you want to filter or not . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But by then you already have the sufficient samples to do the filtering . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So , sometimes you can do it anyway . +PhD A: I mean , couldn't , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Couldn't you just also {disfmarker} I mean , i if you know that the l the largest latency in the system is two hundred milliseconds , don't you {disfmarker} couldn't you just buffer up that number of frames and then everything uses that buffer ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: And that way it 's not additive ? +Professor C: Well , in fact , everything is sent over in buffers cuz of {disfmarker} isn't it the TCP buffer some {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: You mean , the {disfmarker} the data , the super frame or something ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , but that has a variable latency because the last frame doesn't have any latency +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and first frame has a twenty framed latency . So you can't r rely on that latency all the time . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: Because {disfmarker} I mean the transmission over {disfmarker} over the air interface is like a buffer . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Twenty frame {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: twenty four frames . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} But the only thing is that the first frame in that twenty - four frame buffer has a twenty - four frame latency . And the last frame doesn't have any latency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Because it just goes as {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , I wasn't thinking of that one in particular +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: but more of , you know , if {disfmarker} if there is some part of your system that has to buffer twenty frames , uh , can't the other parts of the system draw out of that buffer and therefore not add to the latency ? +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} and that 's sort of one of the {disfmarker} all of that sort of stuff is things that they 're debating in their standards committee . +PhD A: Oh ! Hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , um , there is uh , {comment} these parameters that I still have to {disfmarker} to look at . Like , I played a little bit with this overestimation factor , uh , but I still have to {disfmarker} to look more at this , um , at the level of noise I add after . Uh , I know that adding noise helped , um , the system just using spectral subtraction without smoothing , but I don't know right now if it 's still important or not , and if the level I choose before is still the right one . Same thing for the shape of the {disfmarker} the noise . Maybe it would be better to add just white noise instead of speech shaped noise . +Professor C: That 'd be more like the JRASTA thing in a sense . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um , yep . Uh , and another thing is to {disfmarker} Yeah , for this I just use as noise estimate the mean , uh , spectrum of the first twenty frames of each utterance . I don't remember for this experiment what did you use for these two stage {disfmarker} +PhD B: I used ten {disfmarker} just ten frames . Yeah , because {disfmarker} +PhD D: The ten frames ? +PhD B: I mean , the reason was like in TI - digits I don't have a lot . I had twenty frames most of the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . But , so what 's this result you told me about , the fact that if you use more than ten frames you can {disfmarker} improve by t +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's using the channel zero . If I use a channel zero VAD to estimate the noise . +PhD D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: Which {disfmarker} +PhD D: But this is ten frames plus {disfmarker} plus +PhD B: Channel zero dropping . +PhD D: channel {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD D: Uh , no , these results with two stage Wiener filtering is ten frames +PhD B: t Oh , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: but possibly more . I mean , if channel one VAD gives you {disfmarker} +PhD B: f Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . OK . Yeah , but in this experiment I did {disfmarker} I didn't use any VAD . I just used the twenty first frame to estimate the noise . And {disfmarker} So I expected it to be a little bit better , {vocalsound} if , uh , I use more {disfmarker} more frames . Um . OK , that 's it for spectral subtraction . The second thing I was working on is to , um , try to look at noise estimation , {comment} mmm , and using some technique that doesn't need voice activity detection . Um , and for this I u simply used some code that , uh , {vocalsound} I had from {disfmarker} from Belgium , which is technique that , um , takes a bunch of frame , um , and for each frequency bands of this frame , takes a look at the minima of the energy . And then average these minima and take this as an {disfmarker} an energy estimate of the noise for this particular frequency band . And there is something more to this actually . What is done is that , {vocalsound} uh , these minima are computed , um , based on , um , high resolution spectra . So , I compute an FFT based on the long , uh , signal frame which is sixty - four millisecond {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you have one minimum for each frequency ? +PhD D: What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what I d uh , I do actually , is to take a bunch of {disfmarker} to take a tile on the spectrogram and this tile is five hundred milliseconds long and two hundred hertz wide . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: And this tile {disfmarker} Uh , in this tile appears , like , the harmonics if you have a voiced sound , because it 's {disfmarker} it 's the FTT bins . And when you take the m the minima of {disfmarker} of these {disfmarker} this tile , when you don't have speech , these minima will give you some noise level estimate , If you have voiced speech , these minima will still give you some noise estimate because the minima are between the harmonics . And {disfmarker} If you have other {disfmarker} other kind of speech sounds then it 's not the case , but if the time frame is long enough , uh , like s five hundred milliseconds seems to be long enough , {comment} you still have portions which , uh , are very close {disfmarker} whi which minima are very close to the noise energy . +Professor C: I 'm confused . You said five hundred milliseconds +PhD D: Mmm ? +Professor C: but you said sixty - four milliseconds . Which is which ? What ? +PhD D: Sixty - four milliseconds is to compute the FFT , uh , bins . +Professor C: Yeah , +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the FFT . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD D: Um , actually it 's better to use sixty - four milliseconds because , um , if you use thirty milliseconds , then , uh , because of the {disfmarker} this short windowing and at low pitch , uh , sounds , {vocalsound} the harmonics are not , wha uh , correctly separated . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So if you take these minima , it {disfmarker} b {vocalsound} they will overestimate the noise a lot . +Professor C: So you take sixty - four millisecond F F Ts and then you average them {comment} over five hundred ? Or {disfmarker} ? Uh , what do you do over five hundred ? +PhD D: So I take {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I take a bunch of these sixty - four millisecond frame to cover five hundred milliseconds , +Professor C: Ah . OK . +PhD D: and then I look for the minima , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the bunch of uh fifty frames , right ? +Professor C: I see . +PhD D: Mmm . So the interest of this is that , as y with this technique you can estimate u some reasonable noise spectra with only five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of signal , so if the {disfmarker} the n the noise varies a lot , uh , you can track {disfmarker} better track the noise , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is not the case if you rely on the voice activity detector . So even if there are no no speech pauses , you can track the noise level . The only requirement is that you must have , in these five hundred milliseconds segment , {comment} you must have voiced sound at least . Cuz this {disfmarker} these will help you to {disfmarker} to track the {disfmarker} the noise level . Um . So what I did is just to simply replace the VAD - based , uh , noise estimate by this estimate , first on SpeechDat - Car {disfmarker} Well , only on SpeechDat - Car actually . And it 's , uh , slightly worse , like one percent relative compared to the VAD - based {pause} estimates . Um , I think the reason why it 's not better , is that the SpeechDat - Car noises are all stationary . Um . So , u y y there really is no need to have something that 's adaptive +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Uh , well , they are mainly stationary . Um . But , I expect s maybe some improvement on TI - digits because , nnn , in this case the noises are all sometimes very variable . Uh , so I have to test it . Mmm . +Professor C: But are you comparing with something {disfmarker} e I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} p s a little confused again , i it {disfmarker} Uh , when you compare it with the V A D - based , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: VAD - Is this {disfmarker} is this the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} It 's the France - Telecom - based spectra , s uh , Wiener filtering and VAD . So it 's their system but just I replace their noise estimate by this one . +Professor C: Oh , you 're not doing this with our system ? +PhD D: In i I 'm not {disfmarker} No , no . Yeah , it 's our system but with just the Wiener filtering from their system . Right ? Mmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Actually , th the best system that we still have is , uh , our system but with their noise compensation scheme , right ? +Professor C: Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: So I 'm trying to improve on this , and {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by replacing their noise estimate by , uh , something that might be better . +Professor C: OK . But the spectral subtraction scheme that you reported on also re requires a {disfmarker} a noise estimate . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Couldn't you try this for that ? +PhD D: But I di +Professor C: Do you think it might help ? +PhD D: Not yet , because I did this in parallel , +Professor C: I see , +PhD D: and I was working on one and the other . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . +PhD D: Um , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , for {disfmarker} for sure I will . I can try also , mmm , the spectral subtraction . +PhD B: So I 'm also using that n new noise estimate technique on this Wiener filtering what I 'm trying . +Professor C: OK . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I have , like , some experiments running , I don't have the results . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD B: I don't estimate the f noise on the ten frames but use his estimate . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . I , um , also implemented a sp um {disfmarker} spectral whitening idea which is in the , um , Ericsson proposal . Uh , the idea is just to {vocalsound} um , flatten the log , uh , spectrum , um , and to flatten it more if the {disfmarker} the probability of silence is higher . So in this way , you can also reduce {disfmarker} somewhat reduce the musical noise and you reduce the variability if you have different noise shapes , because the {disfmarker} the spectrum becomes more flat in the silence portions . Um . Yeah . With this , no improvement , uh , but there are a lot of parameters that we can play with and , um {disfmarker} Actually , this {disfmarker} this could be seen as a soft version of the frame dropping because , um , you could just put the threshold and say that "" below the threshold , I will flatten {disfmarker} comp completely flatten the {disfmarker} the spectrum "" . And above this threshold , uh , keep the same spectrum . So it would be like frame dropping , because during the silence portions which are below the threshold of voice activity probability , {comment} uh , w you would have some kind of dummy frame which is a perfectly flat spectrum . And this , uh , whitening is something that 's more soft because , um , you whiten {disfmarker} you just , uh , have a function {disfmarker} the whitening is a function of the speech probability , so it 's not a hard decision . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so I think maybe it can be used together with frame dropping and when we are not sure about if it 's speech or silence , well , maybe it has something do with this . +Professor C: It 's interesting . I mean , um , you know , in {disfmarker} in JRASTA we were essentially adding in , uh , white {disfmarker} uh , white noise dependent on our estimate of the noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: On the overall estimate of the noise . Uh , I think it never occurred to us to use a probability in there . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You could imagine one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that made use of where {disfmarker} where the amount that you added in was , uh , a function of the probability of it being s speech or noise . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah , w Yeah , right now it 's a constant that just depending on the {disfmarker} the noise spectrum . +PhD B: There 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz that {disfmarker} that brings in sort of powers of classifiers that we don't really have in , uh , this other estimate . So it could be {disfmarker} it could be interesting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what point does the , uh , system stop recording ? How much {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'll keep going till {disfmarker} I guess when they run out of disk space , +Professor C: It went a little long ? I mean , disk {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} I think we 're OK . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so there are {disfmarker} with this technique there are some {disfmarker} I just did something exactly the same as {disfmarker} as the Ericsson proposal but , um , {vocalsound} the probability of speech is not computed the same way . And I think , i for {disfmarker} yeah , for a lot of things , actually a g a good speech probability is important . Like for frame dropping you improve , like {disfmarker} you can improve from ten percent as Sunil showed , if you use the channel zero speech probabilities . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: For this it might help , um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: S so , yeah . Uh , so yeah , the next thing I started to do is to , {vocalsound} uh , try to develop a better voice activity detector . And , um {disfmarker} I d um {disfmarker} yeah , for this I think we can maybe try to train the neural network for voice activity detection on all the data that we have , including all the SpeechDat - Car data . Um {disfmarker} And so I 'm starting to obtain alignments on these databases . Um , and the way I mi I do that is that I just use the HTK system but I train it only on the close - talking microphone . And then I aligned {disfmarker} I obtained the Viterbi alignment of the training utterances . Um {disfmarker} It seems to be , uh i Actually what I observed is that for Italian it doesn't seem {disfmarker} Th - there seems to be a problem . +PhD B: No . So , it doesn't seems to help by their use of channel zero or channel one . +PhD D: Well . Because {disfmarker} What ? +PhD B: Uh , you mean their d the frame dropping , right ? Yeah , it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So , u but actually the VAD was trained on Italian also , +PhD B: Italian . +PhD D: so {disfmarker} Um , the c the current VAD that we have was trained on , uh , t SPINE , right ? +PhD B: TI - digits . +PhD D: Italian , and TI - digits with noise and {disfmarker} +PhD B: +PhD D: Uh , yeah . And it seems to work on Italian but not on the Finnish and Spanish data . So , maybe one reason is that s s Finnish and Spanish noise are different . And actually we observed {disfmarker} we listened to some of the utterances and sometimes for Finnish there is music in the recordings and strange things , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so the idea was to train all the databases and obtain an alignment to train on these databases , and , um , also to , um , try different kind of features , {vocalsound} uh , as input to the VAD network . And we came up with a bunch of features that we want to try like , um , the spectral slope , the , um , the degree o degree of voicing with the features that , uh , we started to develop with Carmen , um , e with , uh , the correlation between bands and different kind of features , +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: The energy also . +PhD D: The energy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Well , Hans - Guenter will be here next week so I think he 'll be interested in all {disfmarker} all of these things . And , so . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mmm . +PhD A: OK , shall we , uh , do digits ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor C: Sure . +PhD A: OK . +","In the conversation, several participants discuss their ongoing research, focusing mostly on methods for signal processing and noise reduction in speech recognition systems. They explore techniques like spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering, and voice activity detection (VAD), comparing different approaches and discussing results from various experiments. + +PhD A and PhD B talk about their experiences with noise estimation and filtering, particularly using Wiener filtering, and PhD B mentions having favourable results when using a proper VAD. Grad E is integrating spectral subtraction into the SmartKom system and discusses the idea of using adaptive filter lengths for improving system performance in varying noise conditions. + +Professor C raises questions about the effects of latency from the buffer and filter processing on the overall system, and he also queries about the potential for using neural networks for spectral subtraction. There is a discussion on whether the musical noises resulting from noise reduction techniques affect recognition accuracy. Additionally, they talked about the upcoming visit of Hans-Guenter and the possible impact on their work. + +PhD D discusses his work on spectral subtraction, mentioning improvements in the Italian dataset over Wiener filtering but not as much in Finnish. He also notes his work on a noise estimation technique that doesn't require VAD and is working on a better VAD using features like spectral slope and degree of voicing. + +Towards the end, there's a brief discussion about using a more comprehensive dataset for VAD neural network training and trying various features as network inputs. Professor C wraps up the discussion by looking forward to Hans-Guenter's input on their projects next week." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh it fell off . One , two , three , four , yeah , we're ready . Okay . Welcome to this second meeting . Um it's now quarter after twelve and we're given forty minutes um for this meeting . This is a meeting on functional design . Um and I wanna welcome you all and thank you all for doing some research in between . Um I did {disfmarker} took the minutes from the first meeting and I'll show them to you in a moment . Um I know each of you have a presentation and um in thinking about the forty minutes , I thought it would take only like three minutes for the previous minutes , um each of you having about seven minutes or maybe a little more , maybe a little less for your pre presentations and a little discussion , because there's {disfmarker} I happen to have been told there were some new project requirements and we have to make some uh decision on what functions it will have . Okay ? Is this ap everybody agree with this ? +Industrial Designer: Oops . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and after the meeting there'll be things to be done and as you can see it says we get to get lunch , um and then some more individual work and then putting minutes away and individual actions . {vocalsound} Um but uh now for the minutes of the first meeting . And go to that one . Um as you can see it was this earlier today . Um Kate , Steph , Sarah and myself in our four capacities were present . I opened the meeting , the product was developed uh and reviewed , and we talked about the financial end of it . Um and it had some implications , um the four million sales target and new ideas of not too many buttons , bright colours and some of the influence of the Japanese . And we closed early so you could then proceed with your research and getting your reports together for tod this meeting {vocalsound} Anybody have any questions on those minutes ? Are they complete , did they discuss everything that we covered last time ? 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think so , +Project Manager: Did I miss something ? +Industrial Designer: we we we talked about the the individual roles that we each had as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm afraid I incorporated {vocalsound} that when I said who was present , but {disfmarker} yes , we did , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: and we did a little bit of uh team building of uh of making the pictures , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I accept the minutes . +Project Manager: but I didn't think those were appropriate to the minutes necessarily . So um as a group I think we've {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} they're accepting the minutes . And uh {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Is that what we're supposed to say ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I do . +Project Manager: Good . Um , then we'll move to the three presentations . Okay ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm we need to move this . Who wants to go f first ? {vocalsound} That's as far as it goes . +User Interface: Uh not really meant to touch those microphones . Oh it doesn't have any on , does it ? That's fine . +Marketing: Excellent , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Oy , big loop under the table . +Project Manager: She said we didn't need to screw it in . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , that looks good . +Project Manager: It's doing its thing . There we are . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you very much . Um . One of the the biggest issues I found about um from last meeting was the fact that we need to sell four million of these um remote controls and I think that this is an opportunity to really take Real Reaction in the direction of of similar {disfmarker} of handheld tools that have been used and are used by many of us and to kind of bring the remote control into the si same realm as an accessible um useful electronic device , as opposed to something that is lost in the couch and what have you . So um my main goal here is to re-envision the remote control in in this context and to think about menu functionality and current technology and the fact that it could be interactive with other tools . Um some of the research uh in the market has shown that people really are not happy with remote controls as they are now , and um that means we do need to make some decisions about what what keys or or buttons on the on the remote control to perhaps keep and and what ones to discard . And if we devote some energy into this , I think the um recent productions of Real Reaction , the I go everywhere power and the high definition D_V_D_ players {disfmarker} although it makes immediate sense to {vocalsound} have our remote control interact with these , I think we can also use this as a platform to make it interact with other tools . And um in fact I think the high definition D_V_D_ players and all of this will come along in the uh {disfmarker} will only benefit from the positive feedback {vocalsound} from our well designed tool . So again , most uh users really dislike the current look and feel of remote controls . Um {vocalsound} fifty percent {disfmarker} I think of all these uh numbers the most important is fifty percent of user say they only use ten percent of the buttons . And eighty percent of users , and if we think about this {vocalsound} there are a lot of uh television , D_V_D_ , stereo remote control users out there , eighty percent would spend more money on a remote control that looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} can I ask where these figures come from , is this market research we've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um it was market research and there were a hundred people in the room , so eighty out of a hundred said they would spend more money . +Project Manager: Now in between , as the Project Manager , they sent me an email from the powers that be +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um that teletext is outdated um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the internet is coming in as important , but that they want this remote control to only be for T_V_ um with incorporating the corporate image , colour and slogan . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Well I think we can {disfmarker} I I think we can really focus on this remote and and again bring the Real Reaction um brand in in and and get some positive marketing for our other tools , even if we directly don't um advertise {vocalsound} for the I go everywhere line . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So an interesting um element was the would you pay more for speech recognition question . So these market research uh uh questionnaires {vocalsound} looked into your your uh concern about technology +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and s specifically wanted to find out information about speech recognition . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now the early adopters , those of us who grew up with technology and uh luck lucky for us have the uh cash to to pay for it , the young age group without the mortgages and responsibilities , ninety one percent of them {vocalsound} would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Very interesting , I I leave this up to the group to decide if we wanna use this uh if {disfmarker} and you know , the the designers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but ninety one percent , fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a large enough target market to target it ? +Marketing: Well , I I I think {disfmarker} especially in terms of growth , I think this would be a very smart group to target . I mean s three quarters of the next age group , twenty five to thirty five are interested , and uh with the technologies improving , if we can get these uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In real numbers , does the ninety one percent and the seventy six percent translate to ex in excess of the four million ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . To {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um yes . +Project Manager: Or eight million . +Marketing: Yes . But would you pay more and does it work and is it approachable and and did I know that it was it was an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: that's a that's a very good question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know if speech recognition should be um should be included , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but I think it's an interesting {disfmarker} I think that maybe shows more about uh being open to technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it definitely needs uh a lot more research +Marketing: Shall I go back ? +User Interface: on like how much more it would be and any , you know , existing examples , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and what reactions to them have been , and that sort of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How d I'm wondering how how ou how our target price compares with the the typical price of these things . I expect an Industrial Designer should know that , but if we're aiming to to build this thing for twelve Euros fifty , um is that a lot or a little ? +Marketing: Exactly . I mean I I I uh did not receive any information on that , but I think the competition , sussing out what other people are doing and what's in the pipeline is very very important , because um there is a question about do you want an L_C_D_ screen and and that wasn't responded to , but uh some of the larger remotes do have screens where you can navigate , you know , so it turns into something {disfmarker} uh perhaps you all have seen uh the Osbournes where Ozzy Osbourne is is attempting to manage his super entertainment system with something that looks like a uh a small tray . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sh surely he's in the wrong age group . +Marketing: You know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} I a and I think , you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: He must be w one of a s small population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you {disfmarker} Kate , you're exactly right there . {vocalsound} But I think the key is to get the early adopters , people who are familiar with technology and and uh they'll be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we're not looking at whether they're early adopters on that screen , +Marketing: Uh , mm . +Project Manager: that's looking at age groups . +Marketing: Exactly . I {vocalsound} yes , and I'm making and I'm making the the uh uh leap that people who are familiar {disfmarker} younger people are l are more familiar with technology than than older people . Or comfortable , +Project Manager: Leap . {vocalsound} Hmm . Mm . +Marketing: you know , um so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , you had the other power channel . +Marketing: I think the most important thing is an attractive streamlined remote control and to be extraordinarily reductionist , power , channel , volume and everything else is is uh up to the designers . {vocalsound} And this is this is also supported by the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you . That's my contribution . +Project Manager: Alright . And we'll turn to the next presentation . I think she said we don't need to screw it in , just stick it in . And then press , what ? F F_N_ and F_ eight . Next to the control button on the bottom , and then F_ eight at the top . +User Interface: Yeah , press them . +Project Manager: And then w be patient . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , here we go . +Project Manager: Tada . +Industrial Designer: And if you want it to go into slide show mode , it's that little button there . +User Interface: Can I not just uh do each one in order ? +Industrial Designer: I you can if you like , it it {disfmarker} that that just sets it up to do a p a p +Project Manager: There we are . Yay . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: no that one , that one there . +User Interface: That ? +Industrial Designer: Left , left a bit , left a bit , that one , yep . +User Interface: That ? Right , technical functions design . Uh well I think first off , basically I do agree with what Sarah has defined as as uh your personal preferences,yeah . I think we need uh a more streamlined volume with no extraneous functions . So my method was to look at the existing remotes and what functions they have . And what we all need to discuss is whether we want these functions uh pretty much the same as what existing remotes have . If we can build on this with the speech recognition , that's not something I'd thought about at all , but it's also something we can discuss . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and and I presume we can miss out the functions really to to a video or D_V_D_ remote control , if this is only gonna be a , you know , satellite , cable , T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: T_V_ only . +User Interface: So these are two models of existing remote controls . Uh the one on the left seems to be a fairly uh standard universal remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ugh . +User Interface: It has fast-forward , stop , play , all relating to movies . It also has {disfmarker} seems to have channel up and channel down , which is which is more what you'd expect from a , you know , like a Sky or cable remote control +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: where you've got hundreds of channels instead of a merely terrestrial one . Uh but I think we should be looking more along the lines of the one on the right , which has {disfmarker} it also has play , stop and pause and everything , I don't think we need them at all . I think we just need channel selection , volume up , volume down and I think an an enter function where you can access {disfmarker} it's not like teletext , but along the same lines , access things on the screen . Uh not related to the internet one that you mentioned , because that'd be far outside our budget and what we want this to do . +Project Manager: Mm . And exceed the requirements they're expecting of us . +User Interface: So it really exceed the requirements , 'cause the requirements really are just {disfmarker} want to be able to change channels and functions , which is more a text on the screen thing than uh than actual buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: o I was thinking something {disfmarker} some smooth , sleek , little remote control with big user-friendly buttons and uh a menu that you can access . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Uh but then I do think we need to discuss the speech um recognition possibility . +Project Manager: Okay . Any uh thing else you wanna add ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But we could go back to the pictures of the {disfmarker} uh , what're they called ? The pictures of the remote controls and possibly discuss what we think about them , +Marketing: Or if {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {vocalsound} maybe should hear what Kate has to say first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's hear what Kate has to say . +User Interface: Okay then . +Marketing: Maybe afterwards we could do a uh whiteboard with that {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the one on the right as a as a basis . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Whiteboard session . +Project Manager: I think the white {disfmarker} that one on the right is , as well as less cluttered , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Definitely less cluttered and {disfmarker} I mean but still it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's there +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: I was just {disfmarker} I'll just uh resume something else I was gonna say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The the style of these is terrible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I I really think we need to uh not only possibly even materials , like the type of plastic used , but everything including size and shape of buttons , positioning of buttons , the actual shape of the hand-held device , colours , just every e yeah , everything to do with this has to be revolutionised . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The ergonomics , the way it fits in your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's that for now . +Industrial Designer: Cheers . Mm , I haven't actually got a display on my screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Still , I'll do without that . Okay um , now I wanna bring us down to earth again I'm afraid and talk about the actual practicalities of how the thing needs to work . {vocalsound} Um oh and this is the methodology I used in preparing for this meeting . Um basically I've been doing a little bit of web-based research , {vocalsound} and if I had a design team , I would've been discussing my ideas with 'em . But the the net result is that I've come up with a first cut for the working design that I'd like to discuss with you . So , let's go back to what the basic function of a remote control is . It's for sending a message , um typically um via infrared . {vocalsound} And the the basic components we've got to build in for our twelve Euros fifty are um an energy source , the user interface and {disfmarker} which will um in incorporate um an integrated circuit that actually composes the message um based on what the {disfmarker} which buttons the user presses , we turn that into a message , um and then we need a sending mechanism to send it to the receiver . Now I would have hoped {disfmarker} I think that's my only slide actually , yeah . I would have have hoped to um do you a pretty PowerPoint slide of um my first cut design , but unfortunately the technology defeated me , so if you'll bear with me I'll do it on the whiteboard . {vocalsound} So we want an energy source which is there . And we've got to think about what that might be . +Project Manager: Hmm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh we obviously don't want wires on this thing . Uh typically it would be a battery , but I'm open to suggestions . {vocalsound} Um and then we have the the user interface . Oops . And the main components in there are the the th the chip that actually has the intelligence of the machine that translates button presses into a message , which it then transfers to some sending mechanism , which encodes it and sends the message to the receiver . So those are the basic things that we've got to get in for our twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Right . But those things {disfmarker} as long as we can get those components , the block , that that rectangle for the user interface , is where the user comes in of {disfmarker} what what does it look like ? What do the buttons look like ? Uh what does it feel like ? That's where the user interface is really coming into its own . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The technical end is what's actually gonna be in there , but also it has to be easy enough to change or repair if something goes wrong . For example the battery energy source or um what if the chip , for whatever reason , breaks down after a certain amount of time , do you just replace it ? Um is there any um {disfmarker} because it may be in the same area with several other user interfaces , like for D_V_D_s , movies , whatever . Um does it have to have a a way of being segregated from the others , in a different frequency or something ? +Industrial Designer: Well I may be wrong here , but I'd been thinking of this device as being a a cheap mass-produced device . We're trying to sell four million of 'em , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: um that's that's , you know , that's almost one in every tenth household or whatever it is . Um and I hadn't thought of it as being a reparable thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: you just {disfmarker} if it goes wrong you chuck it out , and that's why I'm a bit concerned . I like the idea of speech recognition , that's a great idea , but I'm not convinced we can put it into this box for the price that we need {disfmarker} gonna need to hit . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Whoop . +Marketing: Do we have um ki some idea of how much it would cost to create a device that has these basic elements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Isn't that your job ? +Marketing: Because then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Marketing: the chip composer marketing . Oh no , the chip composer sender . +Project Manager: Mm . What they cost . +Industrial Designer: Um , I'm I'm I'm hoping that my personal coach is gonna {vocalsound} give me some advice on that , if you're asking me , +Marketing: I I don't believe I know , um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Be because then we would ha ha figure out how much we had to play with in terms of user interface and this look and feel idea . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does it does seem as if we're just to do something really simple and mass-produced , the {disfmarker} which is pretty much the same as these existing models , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: just maybe a little bit more inspired , +Marketing: Inspired ? +User Interface: but basically just the same . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Although what what uh suddenly came into my head is , you know how they always take two A_A_ batteries which which is really not very efficient at all . Could it be possible to have uh , you know , like a rechargeable internal battery , like , well , like an M_P_ three player does ? With that you could jus or a mobile phone or whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You could {disfmarker} you know , you just plug into a power source for a couple of hours , and then it's recharged for ages and ages and ages , and you don't have to worry with replacing A_A_ batteries , +Marketing: Well +User Interface: which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: that has another element , which is if every time you're done using the remote you put it on a charger , then you {disfmarker} then it has a place . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You'd never need uh batteries would y uh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but it also has a place , +User Interface: And it's not stuck down the back of the sofa . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then again I d I don't know if this is within our price range or not . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh think that's a very interesting idea , but um I'm not a very good industrial designer and I don't know much about what these things cost . {vocalsound} I'll do some research for the next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's better than my idea about solar , probably . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well solar may not be so good when you're watching T_V_ in the night , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well it is just so annoying how {disfmarker} +Marketing: Depen +Project Manager: It would have to sor store up the energy +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess . +Project Manager: and then use it . Solar can do that . +Industrial Designer: We may be talking quite heavy then . +Project Manager: M yeah , that would be too heavy +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'd cost too much . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , but just a rechargeable internal battery would probably {disfmarker} I mean it might cost more to {disfmarker} at first to develop and to install , +Marketing: Mm-hmm +User Interface: but for long-term use it'll be so much more convenient and economic than fiddling around trying to replace chunky A_A_ batteries and not having any in your kitchen drawer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and +Industrial Designer: So do you think we might make that a selling point if it was something that we found we could afford to develop ? +User Interface: you know f +Marketing: Definitely , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause I'm thinking in terms of um uh {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} loss and breakage of um remotes , how much of that is is to do with it not really having a uh a home , a um a nest , a place to live , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Sort of have its little dock that you could put it in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if you can dock it , um you know , you could s argue that this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the dock could look very fancy and that could be your inspiration of having it looking decent . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Still I don't know if it's quite within our price range . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . 'Cause you are talking about another component , like another piece of hardware . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are we agreed as to what our target group is though ? Pretty much , so that we'd be looking for the younger end . +Marketing: Well I I brought up some {disfmarker} exactly , but I think you raised some good questions about are there enough of these people out there , or are they making purchasing decisions ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: You know , +Industrial Designer: I was wondering that , +Marketing: these are the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I ag I agree that there there're people with uh how can I put it , more money than sense and who are liable to buy {vocalsound} something new , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I s usually put more money than brains . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Bu but what I was gonna say was , although they they may be buying um , you know , personal music devices and all that , +Marketing: Oh oh oh I'll make a note of that , Kate . Good , good comment . +Industrial Designer: are they necessarily buying T_V_ remote controls ? Because they probably live in a household that has a T_V_ if they're at the lower end of the age range , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It might be good to know um uh who , you know , who's actually buying televisions and are we in a uh uh s region where people have more than one television in a home ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think we've got a big hill to climb here , haven't we ? I mean we've gotta persuade people who've got a remote control 'cause it came with the telly that they should buy our product instead . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or do we s make sure that it goes to the man through the manufacturer ? We sell to the manufacturer as the remote that goes with it . +Industrial Designer: Right , good point . Yeah , yeah okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , good point . +User Interface: That's probably more what it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What would be a more efficient way of doing it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , and and some of our D_V_D_ players incidentally have them , because we have the relationship with our own department , but moreover we need to to go for the the manufacturers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not gonna get any resolutions by the end of the day , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably not . +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um the other thing that we're supposed to do is make decision on our functions . Our functions , we've so far decided , I think , that power , channel , volume make it attractive . Um it has to have an enter key and of course the number keys . It has to have big user-friendly buttons and sh n {vocalsound} definitely we wanna be inspired that the current {vocalsound} styles are just plain awful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do we need {disfmarker} um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that agreeable to everyone ? +Marketing: Br actually , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: the enter key {disfmarker} I have a chart here that I didn't include . Um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want the gizmo ? +Marketing: yeah , which might {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Throw some light on that . +Marketing: Th yeah , th those are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} felt like had a lot of charts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um actually we're , you know , we are almost a half hour out of the forty minutes , so we have to get close to finishing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , I I {disfmarker} my only comment is I think maybe um we could somehow include an enter key in like a power key if power power was enter and pow that was my only {disfmarker} just really in terms of streamlining . +Project Manager: Ah . Mm-hmm . Okay . Enter , power as a s oh um a sum simultaneous key . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Exactly . Again , you know , +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Marketing: thinking of menus or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry , +Project Manager: Would that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: H how does that work ? +User Interface: I was miles away . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} so so how does that work , +User Interface: I was re I was reading the chart to be honest . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um well +Project Manager: uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: how do you avoid switching the thing off when you actually wanna press enter ? +Marketing: if you're pressing enter , the the thing would already be on , and so maybe um when you press power , initially it turns it on , press power again and use that as an enter um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you'd have to have an off te off key . +Marketing: so you press power after you've um {disfmarker} well I was thinking maybe you {disfmarker} to turn it off you'd have to press power twice in succession , +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and maybe power follows something like a channel up channel down power , and then that would make that choice . +Industrial Designer: It's not getting a bit complicated ? Could granny do this , +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or are we just not aiming at granny ? +Marketing: Or y yeah . Or something that has a a turning dial , where at the far end is on or off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Who's got an iPod then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} um I wish . Anyway , uh {vocalsound} that was the only comment about um some of the the decisions people have made , what's most important . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It's definitely channel , volume , power . +User Interface: Yeah , things like screen settings and audio settings , I would generally do them on the actual television itself , +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: like here you have a you know , a little flap th with a little control panel on the actual box itself . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: I I wouldn't know how to do it using a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so um I would say that they are definitely less relevant . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay , well . Thanks for looking at that . +Project Manager: I guess easy to use is the other thing that we want 'em to be able to do . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: As you said , you know , don't make it too hard for the granny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We don't wanna outsmart {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just joined that set last week . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} first grandchild arrived . +Marketing: Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so are we agreed then of those things ? And let's go back to agenda +Marketing: D +Project Manager: and hook me up . Mm . This oughta be fun . It probably won't go the first time , it'll probably be like a g mess . Come on . Uh it lost it off here . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh you're fine . It's fine . +Project Manager: No , it was up there , but I couldn't see it down here . Mm . This time it should be both . There we go . +Industrial Designer: How do you do that ? How do you make it do both ? +Project Manager: Um you have to keep doing the financi the the F_N_ and F_ eight to {disfmarker} five minutes to finish , +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , it toggles through , +Project Manager: thank you a lot for telling me . +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right , +Marketing: I think you have to cycle through . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: we're ready to close . Um {gap} will be completed q questionnaire , um then we'll have some time for individual work to continue our research um and I'll put some minutes of this meeting together . Um your individual assignments are for um Kate to do the components , for you , Steph , to do the user interface and for you the trend-watching . Um and each of us will get help from our coach . Are we agreed to get ourselves together and then have lunch ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds good . +Project Manager: Then that's the end of this meeting . And I hope that's good enough for her {vocalsound} to tell her that's the end . Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We didn't come to any sort of decision on the functions though . +Project Manager: Well I think I went over the functions and wrote them down and marked them . +User Interface: Alright , well that's fine then . +Project Manager: Um that's what I went over and nobody was objecting to them . +Marketing: Okay . Um and you'd mentioned {disfmarker} I I was just gonna say , could you reiterate the new project requirements , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because it {disfmarker} they were {disfmarker} it has to be for a T_V_ , just to keep myself {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um the teletext is outdated , +Industrial Designer: So we're still in meeting , aren't we ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the internet is important , +Marketing: Yeah , I think I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's only to be for a T_V_ and it must include the corporate image , colour and slogan um +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: which I think is more in the user uh range , with Steph . +User Interface: Mm . Sorry , what what actually are these {disfmarker} is that the yellow and black ? +Project Manager: It doesn't tell me . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: From their {disfmarker} I'll just use it from their website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Right . Thank you . +","The detailed summary of the conversation revolves around a project meeting, focused on the functional design of a new product. The Project Manager initiates the meeting by recapitulating the minutes from a previous session before proceeding to allocate time for presentations by the team members. The meeting's agenda also covers updates on new project requirements; and post-meeting tasks are outlined which include individual work and compiling minutes. + +During the meeting, it becomes apparent that the team must address the significant task of selling four million units of the remote controls, emphasizing the importance of the product's design and user interface. Attention is brought to market research findings, indicating customer dissatisfaction with current remote controls, especially concerning unused features. The data suggests that customers would prefer a remote control that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. + +As the discussion unfolds, Marketing presents findings that highlight consumer preferences such as minimal buttons and bright colors. They also suggest incorporating interactive features with other devices and leveraging the brand to improve other product lines. + +The Project Manager shares new information from higher-ups, indicating a shift away from teletext towards internet functionality, with a focus on TV-only remote controls that must incorporate corporate branding. Marketing considers this in the strategic vision, suggesting that the remote control could strengthen the brand despite any direct advertising limitations. New technology like speech recognition is weighed as a feature, with the team contemplating its appeal to younger, technology-comfortable demographics. + +The Industrial Designer shares insights into the component costs and manufacturing considerations. A debate emerges about the feasibility of innovative features like speech recognition within the product's budget constraints. The potential for a rechargeable internal battery is also discussed, although concerns about cost and feasibility arise. + +The User Interface designer emphasizes the need for a streamlined design with user-friendly buttons. They also point out the redundancy of some traditional remote control features, suggesting the elimination of anything not related to core TV functionality. + +As the meeting progresses, the team grapples with targeting the right customer segment, considering whether market trends and research support targeting younger consumers and early adopters. The realities of mass production, repairability, and differentiation from existing remote controls provided by TV manufacturers are other key topics. + +Other points raised include the design's aesthetics, ergonomics, and user interface – all needing significant improvement compared to current market offerings. Ideas for an integrated 'enter' and 'power' button, inspired by products like the iPod, are suggested to enhance user experience further. + +Towards the end of the meeting, the team acknowledges that they have a challenging task ahead. They must create a remote control that stands out in a saturated market and persuade consumers to choose their product over the ones included with televisions. They close with specific action items for each member, including researching components, user interface design, and trend-watching. + +The Project Manager makes sure that everyone is aware of their tasks before concluding the meeting. Some concerns remain unresolved, such as the final decision on the product's functions, highlighting a necessary refinement of ideas in subsequent meetings." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Professor F: We can say the word "" zero "" all we want , +PhD G: I 'm doing some +Professor F: but just {disfmarker} +PhD G: square brackets , coffee sipping , square brackets . +PhD B: That 's not allowed , I think . +Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets . +Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced ? +Grad A: Curly brackets . +PhD B: Curly brackets . +Professor F: Curly brackets . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Well , correction for transcribers . +PhD G: Mmm ! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn ! +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Channel two . +Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: These poor transcribers . +Professor F: u +Postdoc C: Not ri not right now . I mean {disfmarker} No . +PhD D: There 's gonna be some zeros from this morning 's meeting because I noticed that +Professor F: u +PhD D: Barry , I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh , was it during digits ? Oh , so it doesn't matter . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: It 's still not a good idea . +PhD B: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that bad if it 's at the end , but it 's {disfmarker} in the beginning , it 's {pause} bad . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors , through the whole meeting . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Uh , I probably just should have left it on . Yeah I did have to run , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software ? +Grad A: Change what in the software ? +Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros , like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card , or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel , you just add some {vocalsound} random , @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor . +Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that , but I don't think that 's a good idea . We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Manual post - processing . +Professor F: Well , I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we 're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end , +Grad A: As an argument . +Professor F: but um , there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA , which , um , {vocalsound} in when I first put it in , uh , back in the days when I actually wrote things , uh , {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it , +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum . So then I just started doing that +Grad E: Mmm . OK . +Professor F: instead of calling "" rand "" {comment} or something , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: so . So it d it does that . Gee ! Here we all are ! +Grad A: Uh , so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process . +Professor F: There 's an agenda ? +Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that . And then just {disfmarker} I only have like , this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days . So if there 's anything that n absolutely , desperately needs to be done , you should let me know now . +Professor F: Uh , and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper , so . +PhD G: Right . I hope they accept it . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: I mean , I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , as a paper . Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well yeah , you sent it in {pause} late . +Professor F: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day , so . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something ? +PhD G: Well yeah . Liz had sent them a note saying "" could we please {pause} have another "" {comment} {pause} I don't know , "" three days "" or something , and they said yes . +PhD D: And then she said "" Did I say three ? +Grad A: Oh , +PhD D: I meant four . "" +Grad A: that was the other thing uh , +PhD G: But u +Grad A: uh , Dave Gelbart sent me email , I think he sent it to you too , {comment} that um , there 's a special topic , section in si in Eurospeech on new , corp corpors corpora . And it 's not due until like May fifteenth . +Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one ? +Grad A: No . +Professor F: It 's another one ? +Grad A: It 's a different one . +PhD B: No it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh ! +Grad A: And uh , +Professor F: Oh ! +PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} +Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person . Um {disfmarker} So , I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . I think so too . Um , I haven't gotten over to there yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday , I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one . +PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message ? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this , +Postdoc C: Yeah . And , you offered to {disfmarker} to join me , if you want me to . +Grad A: I 'll help , +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: but obviously I can't , really do , most of it , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this , +Grad A: so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide . +Professor F: Well , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper , though . For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh , accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what ? In term +PhD G: Number of words . +Postdoc C: One ? Wow ! OK . +Grad A: That 's just cuz he talks really fast . +Postdoc C: Do you mean , +Professor F: n No . +Grad A: I know +PhD B: Oh . Short words . +Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly , eh , c correctly identified words ? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume ? +PhD G: No . Well , according to the transcripts . +Grad A: But re well regardless . I think it 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's in all of them , +Postdoc C: Oh . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , we didn't mention Morgan by name +Grad A: and he talks a lot . +PhD G: we just {disfmarker} +Grad A: One participant . +Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member ? +PhD G: No , we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation . +Professor F: Well . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things , but I 'm not se really senior yet , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right +Professor F: Um , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: but uh , other than that delightful result , what was the rest of the paper about ? +PhD G: Um , well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections +Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results , if you will . Uh , the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap +Grad A: The good , the bad , and the ugly . +PhD G: um , s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a "" spurt "" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh , no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds . Um , and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were . {vocalsound} Um , for four different {pause} corpora , the Meeting Recorder meetings , the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome , and , found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers . Um , and found that the , uh , you know , as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh , but next were Switchboard and CallHome , which both had roughly the same , almost identical in fact , and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least , so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap , +Grad A: I 'm surprised . +PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as , uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} +Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides ! +PhD G: Yeah . Also , I {disfmarker} in the Levinson , the pragmatics book , {comment} in you know , uh , textbook , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know , how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they 're so good that {vocalsound} generally , u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent . +Postdoc C: Oh , that 's interesting . Yeah . +PhD G: So , this is way more than five percent . +Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Well , in real conversations , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: everyday conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , of course , no , it doesn't necessarily go against what he said , cuz he said "" generally speaking "" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you 'd have to big canvassing . +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD B: And in f +PhD G: Well , he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here . +PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what ? +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna ask that too . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD G: Well it 's time . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It 's {disfmarker} i it 's not against his conclusion , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u +Postdoc C: it just says that it 's a bi bell curve , and that , {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range , in your sampling . +PhD G: Yeah . So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it , but still it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings , which is more like , {vocalsound} you know , close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these , uh {disfmarker} you know , close to twenty percent . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But what was it like , say , in the Robustness meeting , for instance ? +PhD G: That {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Robustness meeting ? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So , {vocalsound} in terms of number of words , it 's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for , {vocalsound} uh , the Robustness . +Professor F: Maybe ten percent ? +Grad A: But I don't know if that 's really a fair way of comparing between , multi - party , conversations and two - party conversations . Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's just something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah , then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's a good point . +PhD G: Well , we didn't get to look at that , +PhD B: yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there 's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants . +Postdoc C: Good idea . +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there 's a weak dependence . I 'm sure it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a real strong one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad A: Right ? Because you +PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party , subsets within the meeting . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it 's an interesting result regardless . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right . +Postdoc C: Yes , that 's right . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they 're essentially just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh - huh . So , did {disfmarker} we all said "" uh - huh "" and nodded at the same time , +PhD G: R right . +Grad A: so . +PhD G: But , even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech , as pauses , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: you still have significant overlap . You know , it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know , eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a dramatic change , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so it 's {disfmarker} Anyway , so it 's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results , and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance . +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: Nope . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And we rescored things um , a little bit more carefully . We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways . Uh , but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number , which was what if you {pause} uh , basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech . So , we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results , {vocalsound} uh , in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh by the way , who 's on channel four ? You 're getting a lot of breath . +PhD B: Yeah . I j was just wondering . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's me . +PhD G: uh , well Don 's been working hard . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD G: OK , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here , and then there 's some background speech , may be overlapping it somehow , um , and this is the time bin that we used , then of course you 're gonna get insertion errors here and here . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right ? So we scored everything , and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this , where you just basically ignore everything outside of the , {vocalsound} uh , region that was deemed to be foreground speech . And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment , uh , results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That 's somewhat {disfmarker} that 's somewhat subject to error , but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that , we think that the results are you know , valid , although of course , some error is gonna be in there . But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech , {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh , the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech . So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech , if you can somehow separate out or find where it is , {vocalsound} uh , the recognizer does a good job , +Grad A: That 's great . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: even though there is this back +Grad A: Yeah , I guess that doesn't surprise me , because , with the close - talking mikes , the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Um , +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do ? +PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh , well , we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know , vit +Grad A: I mean in you recognizer , in the SRI recognizer . +PhD G: Well , we do uh , VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization , w and we uh {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we uh , {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance . +Grad A: Over an entire utterance ? +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or windowed ? +PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel . +PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} +PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD G: but you know . Um , now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this . We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: right ? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently . So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start +Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this ? +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Um , it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions ? +PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean , not completely , but yes , +Professor F: Less so . +PhD G: dramatically . So we have to um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , you still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results . Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday . +Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yes . It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . +Professor F: Cuz again , looking forward to the non - close miked case , I think that we s still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I 'm not looking forward to it . +Professor F: i it 's the high signal - to - noise ratio +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you . +PhD G: u s Right . So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh , the second section . And then , {vocalsound} the third thing was , we looked at , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , what we call "" interrupts "" , although that 's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer , but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh , so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences . So , you know {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also , or not ? +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no ? +PhD G: Hmm ? +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: No , we only used , you know , uh periods , uh , question marks and {pause} exclamation . And we know that there 's th that 's not a very g I mean , we miss a lot of them , +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 's OK but {disfmarker} +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it 's f i i +Postdoc C: Comma also or not ? +PhD G: No commas . No . And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where , uh , if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence , you know , where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really , but you know , sentences , +PhD B: Ah . +PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later . +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end ? +PhD G: OK ? And so what {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: Sorry ? +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground ? +PhD G: Yes . Uh , so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: So , the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually , several second speakers , {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause} "" interrupts "" , as we call them . +PhD D: Three words from the end . +Grad A: At pause boundaries . +PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} +Grad A: On T - closures , only . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis , we tagged the word sequences , and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them . Um , and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word , we basically {disfmarker} you know , considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word . So that , {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped , it was considered an interrupted {pause} word . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the , {vocalsound} um , you know , the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings , {comment} {vocalsound} um , that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh , interrupt locations . +PhD B: Tag by uh +PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag , which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry . End of spurt . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here , because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know , five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses , and then we had things like discourse markers , uh , backchannels , uh , disfluencies . um , uh , filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D 's are for , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency , so , where you hesitate , or where you start the repair there . Uh , what else do we had . Uh , repeated {disfmarker} you know , repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth . So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so , the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker . And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things . We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words , and so every {vocalsound} "" so yeah "" , and "" OK "" , uh , and "" uh - huh "" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound} "" wow "" and "" so "" and {vocalsound} uh "" right "" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not "" right "" . "" Right "" is a backchannel . But so , we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , identity of the words , we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things . And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts . So , and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags , overall uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points . And uh , we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause , you 're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before . OK ? And also of course after spurt ends , which means basically in p inside pauses . So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and , {vocalsound} um , +PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} +PhD G: you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} No big surprises , but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's nice to actually measure it though . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there . In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you 're g being interrupted . +PhD G: Well we 're ne +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . There 's no statement about cause and effect . +PhD D: Yeah , right . No , no , no . +PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation , +PhD D: Right , I {disfmarker} I see . Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he 's right , y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds , +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: but then Chuck came in +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second +PhD G: Right . Anyway . {comment} So , +Professor F: or more . +PhD G: uh , and that was basically it . And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then , {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages , and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously +PhD B: Oops . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again , and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer . +PhD G: uh , and {disfmarker} until it fi +PhD B: Font smaller , yeah . +PhD G: No , no . W well , d you couldn't really make everything smaller +PhD B: Put the abstract end . +PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Took out white space . +PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some . And stuff like that . +PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result , Andreas {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh , backchannels +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops . You know you get a falling pitch . And so that 's when people tend to backchannel . +PhD G: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem +PhD G: y We didn't talk about , uh , prosodic , uh , properties at all , +PhD D: Right . Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD G: although that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that 's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at +Grad E: Yeah , we 're gonna be looking at that . +PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment , so . This is purely based on you know the words +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though . Uh - huh . +PhD D: Oh you do . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: So am I recalling correctly ? +PhD G: Anyway , so . +Postdoc C: Well , I didn't know about Liz 's finding on that , +PhD D: About {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: I 'd like to see that reference too . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk . And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel . And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off +Grad A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do , +PhD G: Oh yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy . +PhD G: There 's actually {disfmarker} uh there 's this a former student of here from Berkeley , Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Sure . +PhD G: Do you know him ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: He did a system uh , in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now , and he did this backchanneling , automatic backchanneling system . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's a very {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh ! +PhD G: So , exactly what you describe , +PhD D: Huh . +PhD G: but for Japanese . And it 's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it 's really important that you backchannel . It 's really impolite if you don't , and {disfmarker} So . +Professor F: Huh . Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine . +PhD D: It wouldn't matter ? Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . That 's w That 's what I do . +PhD D: Random intervals . +Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that . Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds , and saying "" uh - huh "" , "" yeah "" , "" how about them sports teams ? "" +PhD G: Anyway . So the paper 's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC ' ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Printed it out , haven't read it yet . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , uh one more thing . So I {disfmarker} I 'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment , so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up , like I can't type anything . Uh b so if there 's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested ? +PhD G: I made a directory . I called it um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here , you know . +PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: He does ? +Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder , I guess , +PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD G: and also , um , the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um , you know , the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far , +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach . So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing . Uh , so it 's "" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub +Grad A: Pub real . +PhD G: real "" {disfmarker} Exactly . MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again ? CR {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis . +Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR , yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . Right ? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list , +Professor F: Yeah , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels . +PhD G: Yeah . Um , +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory , {vocalsound} is not readable . It 's only uh , accessible . So , {vocalsound} in other words , to access anything under there , you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: So that 's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , and the directory for this I call it I "" ASR zero point one "" because it 's sort of meant for recognition . +Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Beta ? +PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files , so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them . If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there ? +PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} +Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say . +PhD G: Dash . Anyway . So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring , because that 's what he cares about , and {disfmarker} um , and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented . I mean , just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there . +Grad A: I uh , put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory , +PhD G: And so . +Grad A: but I 'll probably move them there as well . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request ? +PhD G: OK . Yeah . March O - one . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh ! +PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh she wanted that also ? +PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah . She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set , so that when they did experiments they could compare . +PhD G: Right , but they don't have a recognizer even . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I +PhD G: But yeah , we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So , for the thing that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's good . +PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can put it in the same place . Just put in another directory . +PhD D: Yeah , it I 'll make another directory . +PhD G: Well , make ano make another directory . +PhD D: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD G: You don't n m +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: And , Andreas , um , sampled ? +PhD G: Yeah . They are ? +Grad E: I think so . Yeah . Um , so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions , {comment} {pause} or um , we should just make a note of it . +PhD G: OK . Oh . Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK , because in one directory there 's two versions . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's the first meeting I cut both versions . Just to check which w if there is a significant difference . +PhD G: OK . And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it 's the downsampled version that you have . +Grad E: They 're all downsampled , yeah . +PhD G: Oh , OK . Oh that 's th important to know , OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions . +Grad E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . Alright , then I 'll hold off on that and I 'll wait for you um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably by tomorrow +PhD G: gen +Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I 'll send you an email . +PhD G: OK . Alright . OK . Yeah , definitely they should have the full bandwidth version , +Grad E: Yeah , because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like , r significant difference . +PhD G: yeah . OK . Well , it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space , for one thing . +Grad E: It does take up less disk space , and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions , +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: which you know , is just , probably random . +PhD G: Right . Yeah , it was a small difference +Grad E: But , um {pause} they probably w want the originals . +PhD G: but yeah . Yeah . OK . OK , good . Good that {disfmarker} Well , it 's a good thing that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , I think we 're losing , Don and Andreas at three - thirty , right ? OK . +Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , that 's why it was good to have Andreas , say these things but {disfmarker} So , we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . So , um you know that Adam created um , a b a script to generate the beep file ? +Professor F: Hmm . +Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM . And , um , you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that . But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that 's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this . And uh , my understanding was that , um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today , before this meeting . +Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it . Um , just so that while I 'm gone , you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way . So uh , Chuck and Thilo should , now more or less know how to generate the file +Postdoc C: Excellent . OK . +Grad A: and , {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that , um , {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked , {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries . Right ? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking , there 's breaks . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Whereas Thilo 's won't have that . So what {disfmarker} what we 're probably gonna do is just write a script , that if two , chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we 'll just merge them . +Postdoc C: Oh ! OK . Ah , interesting . Yeah . Yeah . Oh , sure . Yeah , sure . Makes sense . +Grad A: So , uh , and that will get around the problem of , the , {vocalsound} you know "" one word beep , one word beep , one word beep , one word beep "" . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Ah ! Clever . Yes . Clever . Yeah . Excellent . +PhD D: Yeah , in fact after our meeting uh , this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um , there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process . +Postdoc C: And that 's the purpose . Yeah . +PhD D: So tomorrow , {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh , chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM , we 're going to actually compare the two . So he 's gonna run his process on that same meeting , +Postdoc C: Great idea ! +PhD D: and then we 're gonna do the beep - ify on both , and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences . +PhD G: Beep - ify ! +Postdoc C: OK , now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly . The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting . OK . +PhD D: Yeah , w and we know that . Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there 're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . Oh , interesting . Ah ! +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc C: OK . Interesting idea . Great . +PhD G: So this training meeting , uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um , {vocalsound} you know , accurate {pause} time marks ? for {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins , I ment I mentioned that last week . +PhD G: OK , yeah . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there 's {disfmarker} yeah , but there is this one issue with them in that there 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech . +PhD G: Because {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had , it 's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence . +Grad A: That 's on the other channel . That 's because of channel overlap . +PhD D: Well , and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} i +PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker . That 'll only be if it 's the background speaker . +PhD D: Right . So you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll have a chunk of , you know , channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten , and then the same channel starting at eleven , ending at fifteen , and then again , starting at sixteen , ending at twenty . Right , so that 's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A , zero , twenty . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's what I just said , +Postdoc C: Sure . Sure . +Grad A: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear . +Postdoc C: Yeah , I thought that was {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these , you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh ! I mean it {disfmarker} Right , I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker . +Grad A: Well , that 's definitely a problem . +PhD G: Uh , because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process +Grad A: Battery . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: to make it more accurate . +PhD B: Battery ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know , there 's actually abutting segments that we have to join together . That 's fine . +PhD D: OK . +PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that +PhD D: Yeah , I think Jane tightened these up by hand . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK , so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they ? +Professor F: Uh , it looks much better . +PhD B: Yeah . Looks good . +Postdoc C: They were , um , reasonably tight , but not excruciatingly tight . +PhD G: Oh . +Postdoc C: That would 've taken more time . I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like "" yeah "" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin , then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: No , no ! I don +Grad A: Let me make a note on yours . +PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} it 's f That 's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that 's perfectly fine . In fact it 's good . You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech , say for recognition purposes . Uh , but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation . +Postdoc C: I can't answer that , +PhD G: So . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um , in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves "" yeah "" , {vocalsound} and it 's swimming in this huge bin , {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Right . But are we talking about , I don't know , {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second ? a {disfmarker} ? You know ? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary , {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal . It 's as if the person could 've stopped there . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know , it 's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time . And so , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: I mean some cases , there 're some people {pause} um , who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where , {vocalsound} you know , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll breath {pause} and then I put a break . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But other than that , it 's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next , one sentence into the next , um , w without really stopping . I mean {disfmarker} i they , i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: you know . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and , you know , I mean , a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we 're going to say next . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: But uh , in which case , the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units , {vocalsound} um , which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin . I mean , because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know , from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit , it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either , cuz of the memory . +PhD G: Well , yeah . That 's fine . +Postdoc C: So , that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context , but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space , room , pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as . You know , Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} in producing narratives , the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be , {vocalsound} uh , that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds . +PhD G: Mmm . +Postdoc C: And um , that would be , you know one speaker . The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh , {vocalsound} you know um , {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that 's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics . Yeah . +PhD G: Well we chose um , you know , half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger , you have a {disfmarker} y you know , your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less , {vocalsound} um , precise , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech . Um , so , it 's sort of a compromise , +PhD B: Yeah . {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} +PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD B: for the minimum silence length . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . I see . +PhD B: So . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: In any case , this {disfmarker} this uh , meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email , +PhD G: OK , +Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment +Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path . +PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know , what you would do is you would play with different parameters . And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech . And that 's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have . So , I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh , for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation , {vocalsound} uh , n having these {pause} joined together , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense . And in terms of transcription , it would be easy to do it that way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time . +PhD B: Yeah . Whi - which could have one drawback . If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three . +Postdoc C: Yes . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now , {vocalsound} there , the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere , so . +Postdoc C: I see . +PhD B: That would be more natural +Postdoc C: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: that 's {disfmarker} that 's right , but you know , thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um , w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data . I discussed this with you too . Um , the tr so the idea initially was , we would get {vocalsound} uh , for the new meetings , so the e EDU meetings , that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us , on a channel by channel basis . And um , so , I 've assigned {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've assigned them to our transcribers and um , so far I 've discussed it with one , with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday , we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one , at some extent . And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file , we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um , {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio , or a mixed channel audio . And um , {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way , by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it , it 's like a stagal staggered mixed channel . And um , {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um , um , the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain , it 's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people , may be in long stretches of connected speech . So it 's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do , because of the continuity within that person 's turn . So , what I 'm thinking , and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this , {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I 'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings , they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers . And , if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} then , when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM , we can add the backchannels . It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um , you know , the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard , but then there 's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , marking , and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I 'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels . And , so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words , {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred , {vocalsound} that would be hard . So , m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I 'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting , and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker , endpoi end time for each dominant speaker , and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels . +Grad A: Yeah the only , um , disadvantage of that is , then it 's hard to use an automatic method to do that . The advantage is that it 's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it . So . +Postdoc C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 'll just have to see . +Postdoc C: OK . I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um , you know , the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries , and all that for all the channels but , {vocalsound} you know , that is so time - consuming , and since we have a bottleneck here , we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible , then this seemed to me it 'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data , which would be useful when it comes back to us . And um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh also , at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this , she 'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there 's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause , but really has something transcribable in it , {vocalsound} then she 's going to {vocalsound} uh , make a mark {disfmarker} w uh , so you know , so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she 'll just add an S . And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case , if it 's marked as speech , {vocalsound} and really there 's nothing transcribable in it , then she 's going to put a s dash , and I 'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um , you know , with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command , get it so that it 's clear that those are the other category . I 'll just , you know , recode them . But um , {vocalsound} um , the transcribable events {pause} that um , I 'm considering in this , {vocalsound} uh , continue to be {vocalsound} laugh , as well as speech , and cough and things like that , so I 'm not stripping out anything , just {disfmarker} just you know , being very lenient in what 's considered speech . Yeah ? +PhD D: Jane ? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you 're suggesting , {vocalsound} um , u what is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not that different . +PhD D: So I 'm a little confused , because how do we know where to put beeps ? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Transcriber will do it . +Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh , {vocalsound} uh , the original pr procedure , but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh , a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data . +Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically , +Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand . +Postdoc C: You got it . +Grad A: And because {disfmarker} +PhD D: But after we 've done Thilo 's thing . +Grad A: No . +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: Oh , after . Oh , OK , +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah ! +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: So , I 'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I 'm confused . +Postdoc C: OK . We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK , and I 'm leaving . +Grad E: Yeah , I have to go as well . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , leave the mikes on , and just put them on the table . +Grad E: OK . Thanks . +Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits . +PhD B: You start with the presegmentation , r {vocalsound} yeah ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . And then um , {vocalsound} the transcriber , {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around , and deciding if it 's speech or not , but not transcribing anything . OK ? Instead of doing that , which was our original plan , {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So what they do is they identify who 's the di dominant speaker , and when the speaker starts . +PhD D: OK . +PhD B: Yeah ? OK . +Postdoc C: So I mean , you 're still gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So we 're {disfmarker} It 's based on your se presegmentation , that 's the basic {pause} thing . +PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then ? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD D: So , now Jane , my question is {vocalsound} when they 're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker , {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Uh No . No , no . Huh - uh . S +PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's why she 's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers . So , on a {disfmarker} you know , so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one , i as far as I listened to it , you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry . So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so , and goes until minute so - and - so . And then Mark Paskin comes in . And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such , and goes on till minute so - and - so . OK . And then {vocalsound} meanwhile , she 's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys ' channels , determining if there 're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing , and nothing as speech , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens . +PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys ? +Postdoc C: But you know , I wanted to say , his segmentation is so good , that {vocalsound} um , the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins . +PhD B: On that meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So far we haven't . So this is not gonna be a major part of the process , at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} +PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins , why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM ? +Postdoc C: Well there 's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well , OK . She i It 's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she 's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So if it 's only inserting "" mm - hmm ""s here and there , then , wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end , instead of having it go through I B M , then be patched together , then be double checked here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector , and do the beeping on it , and send it to I B +PhD D: Without having her check anything . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . +Postdoc C: Well , I guess {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are . +PhD B: For some meetings , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure it {disfmarker} i n +Postdoc C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to that , it was {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , if it 's working well , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it 's good . +Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well yea OK , good . I mean the detector , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Now , you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well , +Postdoc C: But EDU is great . +PhD B: and just use , {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and , do the other ones . +Grad A: Release to begin with . +Postdoc C: How interesting . You know {disfmarker} +Professor F: What 's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget . Is the problem the lapel , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , it really depends . Um , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it 's better for meetings with fewer speakers , and it 's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing . +Professor F: Oh , +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor F: the dead meetings . +PhD B: get {disfmarker} That 's it . +PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things . +Grad A: No , the undead meeting , yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah ? +PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo 's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah ? +PhD D: and we send it to IBM . The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: There 's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his , and we generate the beeps file , then we have somebody listen beeps file . +PhD B: Yeah . And erase {disfmarker} +PhD D: And they listen to each section and say "" yes , no "" whether that section is +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Is intelligible . +PhD D: i i intelligible or not . And it just {disfmarker} You know , there 's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the "" yes "" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Blech . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting ! Cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's directly related to the e end task . +Grad A: Stress test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: Yeah . I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there , hear it , beep , yes or no . +PhD B: Nope . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: But it would be quick . +Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they 're still listening to everything . +PhD D: But there 's no adjusting . And that 's what 's slow . There 's no adjusting of time boundaries . +Postdoc C: Well , {vocalsound} eh , listening does take time too . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . I don't know , I {disfmarker} I think I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really tending towards {disfmarker} +Grad A: One and a half times real time . +Professor F: I mean , {vocalsound} what 's the worst that happens ? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there 's {disfmarker} there 's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say "" huh ? "" +PhD D: Yeah . Right . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Professor F: and then we can flag those later . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i +PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Well maybe that 's the best way to go , +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: just {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: Sorry , go ahead . +PhD B: u u u +Postdoc C: So I was gonna say , EDU - one is good enough , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh , this stuff we send . +PhD B: Yeah there 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It 's possible like this . +Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think , we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically , listen to them and see how bad they are . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing , +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm . Oh , OK . +PhD D: because there 's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients . +Postdoc C: Oh , I see . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a +Grad A: That 's not hard to do . Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know , it just takes five minutes rather than , taking a second . +PhD D: OK +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So . I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it . +PhD D: Right , except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory , right ? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener +Grad A: No , but it 's easy enough to do . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} +Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Doing the gain ? It 's no problem . Adjusting the gain ? +PhD D: n Doing th No , getting the coefficients , for each channel . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's no problem . +Postdoc C: Know what numbers . +PhD D: OK . So we just run that one {disfmarker} +Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it . +PhD B: We can do that . +Grad A: I have one program that 'll do it . You can find other programs . +PhD B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I used it , so . +PhD D: We just run that +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: J - sound - stat ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Minus D , capital D . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that , which is , {vocalsound} since , really what this is , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large , send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step , um , why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right ? In other words , rather than , um , uh , saying we 're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} +Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything , I meant , just see if they 're any good . +Professor F: Yeah . So y you do a bunch of meetings , you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: if it sounds like it 's almost always right and there 's not any big problem you send it to them . +PhD D: Send it to them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Professor F: And , you know , then they 'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us , +Postdoc C: Oh , that 'd be great . +Professor F: and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others . +Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD D: OK . When they {disfmarker} when there 's either no speech in there , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: things like that . +Grad A: Yeah , cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they 'll have to mark , when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent . But if we send them without editing , then we 're also gonna hafta have m uh , notations for words that are cut off , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and other sorts of , uh , acoustic problems . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: They do already . +PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are , +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: but w I mean we 're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} +Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they 're sure . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check . +PhD B: Mark it . Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And actually they have one also , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} +Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it 's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Certainty . +Professor F: Uh , an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting , how often uh , do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth , and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often ? +PhD B: Uh . +Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t +Professor F: Well he 's saying , you know , that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting , +Postdoc C: In a good meeting , what ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Postdoc C: Oh I see , +Professor F: Uh , and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing . +Postdoc C: the characteristics . +Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant . And then , uh in a bad meeting , {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he 's had some problems , what does that mean ? +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent ? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word , +Postdoc C: Just +PhD B: Yeah th +Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute , or {disfmarker} You know . +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the problem is that , nnn , the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh , some frame error rate . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers , is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah , in in they have to insure that that 's a real s spurt or something . And {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm ! +PhD B: Let me think . So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector , for a good meeting , I th is around {pause} or under one percent , I would say . But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah . For {disfmarker} yeah , but there can be more {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} There 's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh , more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well , the detector says there is speech , but there is none . So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it 's really a breathy channel . +Professor F: But I think that 's less of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: They 'll just listen . It 's just wasted time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: And th and that 's for a good meeting . Now what about in a meeting that you said we 've {disfmarker} you 've had some more trouble with ? +PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} {pause} Tsk . {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers , I think . That 's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so , {vocalsound} it 's not {disfmarker} not that representative , but , it 's perhaps , Fff . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's perhaps then {disfmarker} it 's perhaps five percent of something , which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed , but um , I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell . +Professor F: Right . So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime , we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , interrupted ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Something like that ? +Postdoc C: The other problem is , that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones , where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing , uh , inti indicated as speech . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file . +Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you 're {disfmarker} if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split , then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it . +Postdoc C: OK . OK . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there 's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they 'd probably just listen to it once . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: So there 'd {disfmarker} you 'd think there 'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in , uh , cost function , +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: you know , between them or something . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I think that 's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not normal . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you 're saying is that nearly always what happens when there 's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh , there 's {vocalsound} some uh , uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech . +PhD B: That is marked as speech . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Well then , we really should just send the stuff . +Postdoc C: That would be great . +Professor F: Right ? Because that doesn't do any harm . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: You know , if they {disfmarker} they hear you know , a dog bark and they say what was the word , they {comment} you know , they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I als I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Ruff ruff ! +PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um , only bre breathing in it . And to {disfmarker} to re - run 's +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD B: Eh , um . Yeah . I 've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike , and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So , I could run this on those breathy channels , and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc C: Wow , that 's a great idea . +Professor F: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} I th Again , I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and what that 'll do is just cut the time a little further . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh , uh , explicit markings . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Excellent . Oh , I 'd be delighted with that , I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting , and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , interesting . +Professor F: you know , how are you gonna handle it . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah . +Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , I pr I much prefer this , +Professor F: is {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps . +Professor F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well good . That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: And we can just , you know , get the meeting , process it , put the beeps file , send it off to IBM . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side . +PhD B: Process it , hear into it . I would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Do what ? +PhD B: Um , {pause} listen to it , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or at least sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Sample it . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of "" bzzz "" {comment} or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: No . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: That won't be good . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah that would be very good . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going . +Postdoc C: Oh , I 'd be delighted . Yeah . +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} there 's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings , +Professor F: Great . +PhD B: and that 's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop . +Grad A: Uh - huh +PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels , so . Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before , +Grad A: What can you do ? +PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this ? +Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting . +Grad A: Yep . Mmm . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking , and , {vocalsound} that 's really a little bit confusing , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's a little bit confusing . +Professor F: That 's life . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean , {comment} what 're we gonna do ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that . +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: So . +PhD B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a second question , "" what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound ? "" +Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} +Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound ? +Postdoc C: Yeah , go ahead . +Professor F: I mean was it speech , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's speech . +Professor F: Great . +Postdoc C: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it 's not someone close - miked , then , they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels . They end up on a different channel . And we have any number of channels available , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean it 's an infinite number of channels . +PhD B: But , +Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel . +PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh , I B M transcribers , I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that 's really {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , they have a convention , in their own procedures , {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound . +Grad A: Right , but , uh , in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background , cuz that would be too much work . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections , then they 'll +PhD D: Well I don't think Jane 's saying they 're gonna transcribe it , but they 'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there 's some background stuff there , +Grad A: But that 's gonna be all over the place . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? +Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I think {disfmarker} I think it 'd be easy to to say "" background laptop "" . +Grad A: How would they know that ? +PhD D: But wait a minute , why would they treat them differently ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because otherwise it 's gonna be too much work for them to mark it . They 'll be marking it all over the place . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I s background laptop or , background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time . +Grad A: Sure , but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time ? +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , you can tell . Acoustically , can't you tell ? +PhD B: It 's really good sound , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh is it ? Oh ! +Professor F: Well , I mean , isn't there a category something like uh , "" sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike "" ? +PhD B: Yeah that would be very important , +Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: How can they tell that ? +PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here . +Grad A: Yes , that 's my opinion as well . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +Grad A: And they 'll just mark it however they mark it , +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and we 'll correct it when it comes back . +PhD B: So th +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , the default . +Postdoc C: Yeah , s a +Grad A: No , not default . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Well , as it comes back , we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it , then it 'll be easy for us to handle . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context , they can't tell if it 's a channeled speak uh , you know , a close - miked speaker or not , {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them . +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: I don't know , I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me , I don't really care . +Professor F: Yeah . So . Shall we uh , do digits and get out of here ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc C: I have o I have one question . Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it ? +Professor F: Yes ma ' +Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh , what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh , beep file that we send to IBM for that one , or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send . +Professor F: Which part ? +PhD B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So , the part where they 're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops . +PhD B: with the laptop sound , or {disfmarker} ? just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh , excise that from what we send to IBM , or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can ? +PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think . +Postdoc C: OK , that 'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure . +PhD D: Yeah , I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them . you know . +Grad A: Worry about it when we get back . +Postdoc C: Good . And see how well they do . +PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah , worry about it when we get back in . +Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it 's just not workable . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK , +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: excellent . +Professor F: Cuz , I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed , if they did it . +Grad A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , e +Grad A: As I say , we 'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is . +Postdoc C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Sample it , rather . +Postdoc C: OK . Alright . +PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's great . +PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels , I think . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , and {disfmarker} and they 're very {disfmarker} it 's very audible ? on the close - talking channels ? +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: Oh well . I mean , it 's the same problem as the lapel mike . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , interesting . +PhD B: Comparable , yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: OK , alright . Digits . +Professor F: Let 's do digits . +Postdoc C: OK , so we read the transcript number first , right ? +Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately ? +PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it ? +Professor F: Uh , {vocalsound} why don't we do it together , +Postdoc C: Uh , quarter to four . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a nice fast way to do it . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: One , two , three , go ! +Postdoc C: It 's kind of interesting if there 're any more errors in these , {vocalsound} than we had the first set . +Grad A: Nnn , yeah , I think there probably will be . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it ? +Grad A: I do . +PhD B: No . +Postdoc C: I usually do . +PhD D: I do . +PhD B: I don't . +Postdoc C: I didn't this time . +PhD D: You don't ? +PhD B: No . +Professor F: I haven't been , +PhD D: How can you do that ? +Professor F: no . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , concentration . +PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it +PhD D: Gah ! +Grad A: Total concentration . Are you guys ready ? +PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Really ? +","Participants at a meeting discuss the use of a speech detector and how to manage background noises like a laptop's sounds during transcriptions. They consider sending unedited meetings to IBM for transcription and then correcting the returned data, rather than pre-processing everything. There's a focus on dominant speakers for transcription efficiency and a suggestion to only send intelligible segments to IBM. They decide to listen to samples to gauge the speech detector's accuracy and then send all segments to IBM. At the end, they plan to read digits together." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here , 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: And we can start meeting . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um as you can see here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you . I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also . +Project Manager: Yes . Indeed . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um . W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them . Um , we will see in which order we will handle them of . Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager , I try to work them out , they were quite abstract , and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it . Uh Um about the functions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target ? +Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh the customers , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: the customers , indeed yes . Think that's that's important matter . +Marketing: That's the big question yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch . Good . Um . Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations ? +Marketing: No , I don't . +Project Manager: You don't have presentation ? +Marketing: I wasn't . No . +Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh +Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything . +Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so , a hundred people , just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control . Um . It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you , I've just got a web page with some data on it . Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls . Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Um . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot , so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television . Uh . Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons , so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said ? +Marketing: I have an a web page yes . +Project Manager: Yes , mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh . Uh about this . +Marketing: Yep . Yep , sure . Mm-hmm . So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control . Um , power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour . Um , channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings , audio settings , which are only used very infrequently . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour , so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room , so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users . Um . +Project Manager: Yes yes , I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control , they want something that's easier to use straight away , more intuitive perhaps . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn . Okay . +Marketing: Um . And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap} +Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that . +User Interface: {gap} . What do you mean there ? +Marketing: For R_S_I_ ? Respet Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . They think that or do their doctor the doctor says ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . That's what the report says yeah . +Project Manager: So mm . +Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually , if I email it to you now . +User Interface: You can disconnect it there +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker} +User Interface: no ? +Marketing: Oh no , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: Um , s hang on . +Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah . You can connect this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: All to your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well . +Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this . It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you . It's just a web link . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about , which is interesting , is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute . +Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker} +Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful . +Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yes , I'll just get this up . +Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well potentially yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech . +Marketing: I think even for interesti +Industrial Designer: Okay . Interesting idea . +Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well . You wanna have both options . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is , my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound , so say where it is . But the these are all quite fancy features +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well it would be f +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No you can't . +Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is , maybe you know ? +User Interface: Oh . Well , {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on , off , one , two , twenty three , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: It's it's going to be li +Project Manager: that that that that's mm . +User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case +Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control , who would pay more for it , um . Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more , it goes down from there , seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five , thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five , um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Okay it's uh decline . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: But we sh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Decline with age , mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product , um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . We will talk about it later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you get the email ? +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep , that one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just follow that link . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us +Marketing: It'll be in a different window , yep . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay perfect . .. . +Marketing: Mm . So that's the figure that I was just talking about there , with the different demographics . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm I okay +Project Manager: Oh , +Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , y y you can move , uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair ? +Project Manager: Yes . You can you can sa take my chair . +Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a channel selection , a module {gap} , this and this function , +Marketing: Sorry ? Oh . +User Interface: go to the {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer . And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control . Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction , how does it work , so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit , the chip , that can compose messages , usually uh through a um infrared bit +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages , alright . So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product . I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design . So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound} . Uh we want an on off button , it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important , and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right . So the components I quickly draw here , is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver . This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design , uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me +Marketing: You drew it a long time ago ? +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: Is huh +Marketing: Ninety one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that +Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component ? +Industrial Designer: So . So +Project Manager: I mean , are they cheap , or are they uh reliable ? What were your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design , uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components +Project Manager: Yes . It it it's more clear now I think . +Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma +Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver , I mean can you can you get back to it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh , the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it . So we we must adapt to the to the receiver . +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah . +Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . Yes . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Thank you . +User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies . +Industrial Designer: The frequencies ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Of course yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful , +Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah . +User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem , like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound} , so basically {gap} through all the things . +Industrial Designer: That can control o other things . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account +Marketing: That's handy . +Project Manager: Yeah yes +Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud , you can just turn it off . +Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . I like that idea . +Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay so voila . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay , voila , mm so mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . I {disfmarker} Uh , sorry ? I know where it is . +User Interface: It's on the desktop . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Technical function . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well . So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do , I think my last presented what is going inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it . So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set , as Mael has pointed , and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver . So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys , people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone , and it sends a message to the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household , actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on , off button and play , uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option . And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine , but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows , but uh uh . Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option , it can without any , it's a very simple thing , um which which you can vouch {vocalsound} . And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and , but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market . And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people . And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . How would that work ? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_ , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use ? +User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster , browse slow , you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities . +User Interface: It's the next generation thing , +Project Manager: Mm yes , +User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there , +User Interface: It's goi +Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop . +User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . That's fair enough . Mm . But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here . That's , +User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario , I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me . +Marketing: Mm . Because y +Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mean , you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . So {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation . +Project Manager: Mm . Very well . +User Interface: Well . So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand , video over-demand or what we call it as , it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies , you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies , and then you select those list . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: basically you go off , it downloads the movie , it gives for you +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: And thi this is going to come . +Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it , it's streamed uh online uh yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Um , so u um +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we should think about it um . Do we include it , and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used , well very much , but it's it is still used . Um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: further yes we must think , uh do we stay uh to to television only , the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh , or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s ? +Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders . Um , furthermore , uh , w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh which well +Industrial Designer: Fourteen +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty . +Industrial Designer: or for O okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um therefore , {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs , so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image , so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys , you know right now if you take it you have like zero , one , two , three like a keys separately , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you press on the top , it takes one number , you press on the bottom it takes another number , and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually +Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting , especially if we're going after a younger market , +User Interface: Yeah so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Yes yes +Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things , +Project Manager: mo +Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that , you know , product . +Marketing: that's , +Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones , not too many pretty remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . .. . +User Interface: Okay , it works . Fine . So , for example you have uh presently uh keys like one , two , three like this , actually , and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that +Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: Uh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way ? +Project Manager: Mm well +Marketing: 'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all +Project Manager: I think fi five min +User Interface: Forty minutes ? +Marketing: and it's a very important issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so . {vocalsound} too sorry , so we basically don't change the uh original order of them +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing , so if you press on the top it takes the one , it takes the three , uh four , sorry four here uh five and six , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for you don't have too many keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Which I think is quite tricky . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course they have already one . So our our our remote control has to be better . +Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause it's only a low market , it's a cheap-end remote control , we can't beat modern functionality , we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it , th the design of it but that's not a big seller , if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just 'cause it looks pretty , they have to actually need it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing . +Project Manager: Mm . I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . But why are they buying one in the first place ? +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed . So that will be about functionality {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote . I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote , otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product , because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality . +Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , we can't , with the price range . We We're not building a universal remote , we're not building a high end product . +Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_ +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} But yeah +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . If we're getting into universal remote territory , we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot . +Project Manager: I don't know . I don't know whether that's necessary . +Industrial Designer: Ye +Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker} +Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well , th for long term . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive . +Marketing: And quite complicated to use , +Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between , +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Not as flexible maybe , yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on . +Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group . +Marketing: Okay . So they're {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes . Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yep . I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is . Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range , or are we kind of middle to bottom ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So d Do you agree ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin +Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control . +User Interface: Uh yeah , that's that's what we needed basically . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: Uh that's needed right now . And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market , we really need that . +Marketing: Yeah . So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices , being able to switch between them , there may be stereo , V_C_R_ and T_V_ . +User Interface: Actu +Industrial Designer: Yes . Exactly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote , but not at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know , where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them . +Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm yep . +User Interface: Voila {vocalsound} . Hmm . +Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in +User Interface: So . Well . +Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now . We can we'll we'll go +Industrial Designer: Oh +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then . +User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W yes , +User Interface: for the {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh +User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting . But you will be informed via the computer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Cool . So see you later . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect . +","In a project meeting, the Project Manager (PM) leads the discussion with the User Interface (UI) expert, Marketing, and Industrial Designer present. Marketing shares findings that users find most remote controls ugly, with a demand for aesthetically pleasing designs. Many users report using only a fraction of remote control buttons, suggesting a desire for simpler interfaces. Marketing also notes a demand for features like remote locators and easy-to-use designs. + +The Industrial Designer focuses on functional components and technical design principles, avoiding unnecessary features. UI follows up by proposing user-friendly, intuitive interfaces that align with current technology trends, looking towards future features such as integrated hard disk recorders. + +The PM discusses considering teletext's dwindling use and needing to captivate younger customers with a trendy but reliable-looking remote control design, suggesting a universal remote control that is affordable and user-friendly. + +The team debates targeting the demographic of 20-40-year-olds who seek functionality and affordability, aiming to create a quasi-universal remote control with a balance of simplicity, functionality, and modern aesthetics for the budget of €12.50. They conclude to investigate further into components, interfaces, and market trends to decide on the next steps. The meeting ends with a plan to reconvene after lunch." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} minutes from the last meeting which were essentially that we uh had decided on roles for each of you , however , um there are some changes that I've got from on high +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um are a bit uh {disfmarker} well w what I didn't actually realise it was that the uh {vocalsound} this is for a specific television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the all in one idea goes out the window . And {vocalsound} they require that the uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: actually I'll get to that at the end {gap} point number four , um we'll get what you've got and then we can see what we can adapt from it . So um , presentations , were you {disfmarker} anybody got , raring to go ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Raring to go ? Okay . Good stuff . Mm . +Marketing: Um . So how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I need to plug you in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S {gap} +Project Manager: Just about . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a inspired design . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sh do you want me to hold it ? +Project Manager: Uh there we go , just screw 'em on in . Gonna have to swap them round so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , after that ? +Project Manager: now , it was function F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight . {vocalsound} f oh sorry F_ eight . +Project Manager: That's the wee blue one . Blue one F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Should do it , good one . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , me again , Rajan the Marketing Expert . Uh , as we have decided in the last meeting that I have to find out , sorry , yeah sure . +Project Manager: Hold on , sorry . {gap} and if you just click that it'll go ahead , one at a time . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Uh actually , sorry I have to see the other {gap} , sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , uh . +Marketing: Yeah , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , yes , I have to look at the uh market potential for this product , uh , like consumer likings and everything , what is the potential for this product and are we able to achieve our a net profit or our aims or not ? Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: P press F_ five to start it first . +Marketing: Sorry . Okay . Yeah , I can , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Jesus . +Marketing: Uh then uh the methodology I adopted to find out all this was market survey . A a detailed market survey on consumers was done to find out their likings and dislikings , what they prefer what they not prefer , w what problems they do encounter in all this type of things . And what we got was , we found that {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh , what they th what problems they are having with different uh remote controls available in the market . Seventy five percent of users they do find it that the remote controls available in the market are ugly . They are not so good looking . So , we have to put stress on this , uh we have to take care of this fact also like our design , uh should be appropriate , should be good looking for the consumers . And yes that's wi uh this will definitely , this can definitely put uh uh enhance our sales . Uh and even uh the good thing about this is that eighty percent of users they are willing to pay high uh pay more for this uh good looking remote controls also . So even if the available market goes for the available {disfmarker} uh even if the market goes for the available remote control is less even then we can sell it at twenty five Euros , which maybe which may seem quite high but if our looks are are if the re remote control we design have a good better uh better look uh designs , then we can hope that consumers will prefer these g remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} {gap} And the second thing , some some companies they think that they should have more and more functions of the users uh or in their remote controls , but rather than those having more functions in the remote controls we should emphasise what actually consumer want , what they operate , rather than making it too complicated . Because mostly it has been found that fifty percent of the users they use only ten percent of the buttons , so there is no point of having ninety percent buttons making the remote controls too bulky , too complicated too expensive a because I think I believe that technology is useful only if uh the consumers they want to use it . Otherwise there is no point of having all this type of things . So this will not only reduce the cost of our remote controls but it will increase our profit also . So we have to take care of this fact also . Then . Uh it was function I want to go to . +Project Manager: Oh you wanna go back ? Just escape . +Marketing: Uh , escape , okay thank you . Then if we look at this slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: uh these are in your shared documents , you can see , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} Uh , sorry . +User Interface: So , sorry {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , what was the question for this ? Or is {disfmarker} are you coming on to that ? +Marketing: Ah t look all the market potential , what uh how we should design consu our remote controls , what they should be there so as to en enhance our profit , enhance our sales . +User Interface: Okay . So these percentages are are what ? +Marketing: Yeah , these are different age group persons like uh sorry , I can open it in another way . +Project Manager: Okay . Speech recognition . +Marketing: Uh , yes . If we look at the costs whether the consumers they are willing to uh pay more for speech recognition in a remote control or not , we can find that they up to a thirty five years age group we have a very good disliking for this uh this uh point , like for speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we can emphasise on this point also like , because it will definitely enhance our sales in this ag in this particular age group from uh fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: and I uh and I think that most of the users of the rem uh T_V_ are belong to this age group . So we should look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . We're als we we're looking at who buys it as well . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . We can look at that that factor also , so yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , which I think the twenty five to thirty five is uh usual , sort of . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , mm . +Marketing: So , and {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen to twe +Marketing: Yes . I think so . Uh if we look at this data how how uh h how what are the problems the consumers are facing with the existing remote controls in the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They find that thirt uh thirty five percent uh thirty four percent of the consumers they find too difficult to operate a remote control . So it should be in such a way that it should be easy to learn how to operate these remote controls and we should provide pl uh spe uh proper manuals for its use also so as that people {disfmarker} consumers could easily learn . They need not to have any , much technical knowledge to see uh to know how to operate these remote controls . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also a very goo uh major factor to loo uh take into consideration to enhance our profits and sales . So um this is all about +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh market potential by me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , yes , th thank you . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . Um , {vocalsound} follow on with Helen ? Yeah please . +User Interface: Yep , sure , that's cool , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to take that {gap} out . +Project Manager: Oh , so we do yeah . +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fun and games . +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Don't know if the cable's gonna be long enough . +Marketing: Uh sorry , I have {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think I just kicked over whatever it runs on underneath as well . +Marketing: Brian , this one also I {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you very much Brian . +User Interface: I can turn my computer quickly if that's okay . +Marketing: If you want me to help , yeah . +User Interface: Um , yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and then what do I press , F_ eight ? +Marketing: Uh F_ eight . Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm s . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: It's not coming . Function F_ eight , okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . No signal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Computer . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Computer adjusting , yeah . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay and then how do I press the the big one , to get it on to the big {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five and I press that again to get it off as well do I ? +Marketing: Escape . +Project Manager: Um , F_ five and escape'll bring it back and just uh the left button for advancing . +User Interface: Okay , so um I'm the interface design designer , User Interface Designer sorry , uh I'm concerned with um w what effect the apparatus should have on the user and um I'm I'm also {disfmarker} I want to point out that our motto , put the fashion in electronics , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so obviously we as a company we want to make our products trendy and fashionable , it's a big concern of ours . Okay , and how do I press n just the next button ? +Project Manager: Uh just a left uh +User Interface: The arrow ? Okay . +Project Manager: left mouse button . +User Interface: So um I looked at existing designs and also um the information that Raj gave us was very useful about what people like , what people dislike . Um and what people {disfmarker} fashionable , because we said people between twenty five and thirty five were the main um buyers of of our T_V_ I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: So um what they like and what they find fashionable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And ergonomics , we said um , I don't know I haven't actually been able to do any of this myself , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but um maybe that comes up , I don't know . +Project Manager: That can come under Arlo as well . +User Interface: And the findings , well the basic {disfmarker} that was the basic function to send messages to the television set . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: That's what people want to do . Um , so they need to be included , um , but I've got some pictures here of some leading ones . I don't know how to get to them , +Project Manager: Uh if you if you escape then you can see your bar . +User Interface: {vocalsound} do I press F_ five is it ? {gap} escape ? Oh okay , cool . I haven't got my glasses on so I hope it's this one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +User Interface: These are two leading um remote controls at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: You know they're grey , they've I mean this one's got loads of buttons , it's hard to tell from here what they actually do , +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they don't look very exciting at all . Um , personally I prefer this one just because it's looks easier use , it's a bit more sleek with more of this silver stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um , but there you go , that's what we're up against , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we can do much better than that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We hope so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um hang on . F_ five , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , sorry . Personal preferences . Um , well I think we need to l I think the ergonomics is quite um important , um +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , particularly if we've uh there was a bit in Raj's about R_S_I_ and things as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . And um I thought not too edgy and like a box , more kind of hand-held more um {vocalsound} not as uh computery and +Project Manager: Organic {vocalsound} . +User Interface: or organic , yeah , more organic shape I think . {vocalsound} Um simple designs , like the last one we just saw , not too many buttons and as Raj pointed out , only ten percent {disfmarker} fifty percent of people only use ten percent of the buttons , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so I think what we can miss out on the buttons we can make up for in design and and how nice it looks . +Project Manager: Sales , {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: Um , hand-held and portable I think is portamint is important because T_F_T_ have just um released um I think is it a a remote control for presentations or uh and a big seven inch big screen , anyway , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's like a , yeah . {vocalsound} It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , no seven inches isn't that big but um anyway um so hand-held and portable and uh m I thought about other functions for T_V_ but as you pointed out people don't actually want that , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the company want to keep it stuck to the T_V_ for uh to keep down the production time . +User Interface: so maybe we forget about that . It's for one T_V_ oh right okay , sure . And so the last thing I thought w which I quickly mentioned in the other one was maybe a bit of a gimmick to set us apart from other people , like glow-in-the-dark +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: um which {vocalsound} does already e exist but it's not very widely used I don't think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Easy finder with the a whistle function or something , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or rechargeable station because it's a pain when you run out of batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And I think that , yep , that's it . +Project Manager: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: So uh , I noticed your talk about speech recognition and whistling , +User Interface: Okay ? Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh I was just curious to know , have we done any research into how many people can whistle ? Um , or if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is that a function we want in the remote ? +Project Manager: Um , do you have trouble whistling ? +User Interface: Um , I haven't been able to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't , but I I know a lot of people do right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah it just +Project Manager: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean it has to be a certain kind of whistle too , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I suppose that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah +Project Manager: Well I suppo uh you could y you could have the +User Interface: or some sort of voice {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you could have the basically um instead of a whistle if it's got the voice recognition you could have it just , you know , where are you ? {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's costly though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um a much easier thing is just any loud noise like clapping um , shouting , you know , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh and then , what would the response be ? It beeps back at you or something ? +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: Yeah , something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , uh let me set this up . So I plug it in , press F_ five ? Function F_ five ? +Project Manager: Function F_ eight for the um the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or function F_ eight ? Okay . +User Interface: Oh you need to twiddle the thingamibobsy thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think it's {vocalsound} uh just to lock it in . It's got it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} So as the Industrial Designer my job is to take an input from you guys , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um so it's good you went first , +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: and I jotted down some notes as to what are the b needs and uh what kind of novel features we can add to differentiate our product from the others . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's remember that . +Industrial Designer: Um so Raj told us that uh consumers are willing to spend more for fancy products , and um he also mentioned that uh the current products don't always match users' operating behaviour . Um , a lot of the buttons aren't used , and uh {vocalsound} he mentioned that they're not fun to use . And uh a novel feature which uh we just brought up was this this automatic speech recognition feature or noise detection feature for when you lose the remote , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: there could be a little microphone on it , and any noise over a certain threshold um it'll pick up as a a distress signal um from you and it'll beep back and say you know oh here I am or something of this sort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But sure surely that would have to be um sort of specific rather than above a threshold 'cause if you had a loud movie on you're likely to get it beeping back at you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe you could have a um hmm {vocalsound} tha that would be a consideration to take into account yes . Um . +Project Manager: Sorry I didn't mean to derail you there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well tha that's uh for later down the road um , and then as for the user interface it should be trendy , um {vocalsound} and not computery , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , so more low tech and not too many buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I took these all into consideration and also I have some limitations from the boss . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right um , and practical limitations which I kinda threw out the window . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so I did a little research and unfortunately all I had to work on was our uh our corporate archives of the great products we've made before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which include , you know , um space craft , coffee makers , and bullet trains {disfmarker} Or uh or a high speed train . +Project Manager: Ah is that what that is ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right and having personally worked with all these products uh I have a great deal of experience with uh with industrial design of these . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well that's cool . If you if you can build space craft you'll have no problem with a remote control , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , +User Interface: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: I figured , just put 'em all together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You got a a caffeine powered space shuttle train transport to your T_V_ , and um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: as for the user interface problem , you know , too many buttons . Give it one button +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and and it's a {disfmarker} you know , for the the cowboy in all of us {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I I'm not quite sure what the the function is there but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I like that design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's a g I mean you could have a you know a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that just switches on the speech recognition and it's entirely speech operated , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right . So I think I I missed the budget thing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it was fifty million Euros ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we gotta sell twenty five of them ? Right . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , not a problem . +Marketing: Fifty million was uh prof +Project Manager: Ah now it's fif fifty million Euros we've gotta uh we've g {vocalsound} +Marketing: As a profit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , so I I mixed those numbers . +Project Manager: gotta make profit , so we're making that at twelve and a half Euros a time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well I guess more realistically then , we need a product that's got some kinda nifty outer casing , cheap plastic uh , you know , um that should be just like uh a tenth of the price maybe or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: An energy source which'd probably just be uh your regular batteries {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: um , we don't wanna have it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Would it be possible to have the rechargeable idea ? Is that is that gonna mark up a lot ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Or a little base station or something , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we could do that too . Um , I hadn't thought of that . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That might cost more though , 'cause obviously with batteries we don't need to provide , well we provide the first batteries , but it's more , it's {disfmarker} that's cheaper to just provide batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: I mean if you think about these base stations now it's essentially just a a lead with a sort of self connecting brake in it , +User Interface: A battery in it , kinda . +Project Manager: so I don't think it'd up up the price that much . +Industrial Designer: Right , so so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: the unirs the user interface +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: uh the canonical user interface for these would be just a bunch of buttons , but since we're a cutting edge company , we uh of course will have alternatives like uh speech recognition , whistling recognition and rocket power +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: behind our product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and lastly the transmission interface is uh , just some engineering thing you don't have to worry about . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so here's you know , a great schematic that my uh apprentice designer gave me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um as you can see the the remote control have parts and those parts look like that and um {vocalsound} you know it's got a little operating procedure that looks something like that . {vocalsound} And I suppose you all know how it works because we've all used it and we wouldn't be in a company designing remote controls if we didn't know what they were so {disfmarker} uh personal preferences , I think uh programmable options which um just require a small amount of memory , uh non volatile memory , just um so the user can put in their favourite channels and maybe their preferred volume settings so that when they turn it on it's not blasting . +User Interface: Mm . Mm that's a good idea actually I like the programmable options . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . And the uh , the bells and whistles that we mentioned you know , they take more budgeting , um more technical uh expenditure of effort +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's also much more likely to not work if if we add these bells and whistles . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's all I got . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you very much , um I'll take that back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh that's tight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , also so um a notice I got not very long before the meeting , so didn't manage to forward it on to you , it is {disfmarker} let's see , I'll find it myself , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ta +Industrial Designer: Okay , I don't think we need to screw it in . +Project Manager: nah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just push it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had that um to dis-include teletext um because it's become outdated , and everybody uses the internet anyway . Um , {vocalsound} dunno what Oracle would have to say with that but never mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um it's only for the television , which I'm presuming means it's for a specific television , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and um instead of colours and sorta colour options , they want corporate colour and slogan somehow implemented in the new design . +User Interface: Corporate colour . +Project Manager: Yellow . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I presume . Um , everything , all their sort of uh you know the uh corporate website and everything's yellow . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the logo uh the sort of slogan we put the fa fashion in electronics uh {disfmarker} I don't know exactly how sort of incorpor I mean , I guess if you're going for a sort of globular shape you could kind of have it working its way round it or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , where am I ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , we have to decide on which functions we're going to actually have . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh , {vocalsound} now , we had as listed options we had +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: speech recognition potentially , flat screen interface , L_C_D_ interface um we also want to limit the number of buttons so we'll pretty much take that one as read . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll use the the basic functions for a television . No teletext . Um {vocalsound} okay hold on . +User Interface: Although the the danger with that is , it could look a bit cheap . +Project Manager: Not enough buttons you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So sorta strike a balance between a a few and a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or it looks like we're just cutting on the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . On the number of buttons , kind of functions and stuff . +Project Manager: I do however have this from over my head , that they don't want teletext on it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh maybe Raj you could find out what people would think about that , or maybe they'll send +Marketing: About cost . +Project Manager: some information about that , about um what people , whether people would require um teletext in a remote {disfmarker} teletext option in a remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay um {gap} . So uh I take it your position Arlo is that the bells and whistles we've gotta come up with the {disfmarker} a gimmick but not too complicated a gimmick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Um so I mean a a the sort of inkling I'm getting from little bits of um web chatter that I'm getting sent is that they're quite interested in a T_F_T_ display , interactive display . However that does sound a bit like the more complicated design that rav uh sorry Raj um {vocalsound} said people didn't like . Although I guess if there's a sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If you think about standard interfaces that people use already , sort of Windows-style drop down menus or whatever , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think maybe that's a bit , going a bit far +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but you know like in a basic sense that you could have your basic selection of buttons , and if you hit a sort of menu at the top you have um {vocalsound} it goes to a different selection of buttons , so it sorta keeps it simple . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um glow in the dark , is that sort of with a light inside it or is it sort of glow in the dark material ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Glow in the dark material I was thinking . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , so I I guess that would be cheaper than a light I think . +Marketing: Uh may I say something about {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh actually I think it's really really very important point uh as if we look at the market because people mor fifty percent people they find that the remote controls are often lost somewhere in the remote , in the room . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Often lost s was that , +Marketing: yeah are lost +Project Manager: Lost , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: and means they forget where they have kept the remote control last time . But if we add speech recognition as well as glow in the dark then both these factors will help their locating the remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like if they come and speak something at the remote control uh replies to something something and it glows in the dark . Both these factors uh both these points will help them to locate the where they have kept this remote control , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: and this will definitely enhance our uh market sales , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Marketing: so we should take it into consideration also . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: Well hmm . +Project Manager: Um speech recognition I take it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't , I've {disfmarker} I know of no products um that use speech recognition well . +Industrial Designer: They're act there there was a remote control that came out two years ago that had a {disfmarker} some basic speech recognition on it . You could programme it with your channels and then you say you know like uh B_B_C_ one and it goes to that channel . +Project Manager: Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it didn't work very well though because of this noise interference problem . They mentioned you know if the television says you are listening to B_B_C_ one {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , or a yeah an advert an advert for B_B_C_ two on B_B_C_ one'll switch the channel for you kinda thing . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right , right , and so there was a lot of this , you'd be watching the T_V_ and then all of a sudden it'd it'd pick up a noise and turn it off or you know or turn the volume off or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but if you can work around that that noise problem {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Well what about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: this might get a bit too expensive actually , but what about um something that's built into the T_V_ um that you can press and it'll send out a little signal you know like the ones that we can't hear or {vocalsound} something +Project Manager: Ah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: um that that will activate the remote control starts to beep . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So like a kind of backwards remote from the telly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you find if y +Industrial Designer: Right and then it would do just you know , uh subtractive kind of cancellation of the noise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What you could do then would be you have uh {vocalsound} a remote controlled by the T_V_ speaker , or not a remo I'm sorry , a microphone by the T_V_ speaker and a transmitter there that sends back to your remote , 'cause you can't um expect uh the the television manufacturers to to put that feature into their T_V_s . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , that's the only thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah , then you have like the little se separate module by the T_V_ speaker +Project Manager: That we should just stick on , yeah . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} +User Interface: That comes with our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right , and then the remote control would know um what's being produced by the television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's a sort of basic R_F_ kind of frequency so it'll be cheap . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah that's certainly possible then an another thing was about this losing the remote and trying to find it again . If you do have this sorta speech interface to it , you don't even need to find it . You just say you know , um whatever you whatever you want the remote for , you know to change the channel or to uh turn the T_V_ on and off , you just shout your command to it and it would do it for you if it's within you know , within hearing range . And uh you know it could be somewhere in the room y that you've no idea where it is and it would still do its job . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: That could also be built into the T_V_ though , which might make our remote control a bit obsolete . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , hopefully we're uh we're ahead of the curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It might do us out of a job . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} I like the whole sort of remote feedback thing . Um so I think rather than {disfmarker} and that also kind of takes out the speech recognition in terms of the interference of it not working very well and things like that , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so I th +User Interface: And the expense . +Project Manager: yeah and expense and the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think if we're going to go {disfmarker} well I mean like the thing about the {disfmarker} there's the problem with the T_F_T_ or the L_C_D_ kind of thing is if you're also wanting the the kind of uh organic globby sort of feeling to it then you might have trouble incorporating the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , but I guess not I thin we'll just we'll just pretend that's not a problem . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} and how are you about the glow in the dark material ? Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Maybe not even all of it 'cause we said um colours and fashion w were important so maybe um just like a little l line that's kind of around the outside and then you can make the rest a different colour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Contrast contra well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no th the material's cheap but it's just uh the the glow in the dark material needs some light to charge it you know , and then uh if you're , if you're sitting in the dark for too long it uh it won't glow any more . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if it's dow it's d uh yeah . Or if it's down under the couch cushions +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um which is where I usually find mine . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay , well we can use {disfmarker} we can still use the glow in the dark as a gimmick essentially , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: um if we're gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause what I thought , main {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're gonna have the logo on as well , bright yellow logo in our our um slogan . +User Interface: Slogan , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then you know they're gonna be fairly brightly coloured anyway , and we can have sort of a a a trimming as well , of the glow in the dark material , just as gimmickyness . +User Interface: Right . Mm-hmm . 'Cause yeah , that w more than finding it , that was more like you know if you're watching a film in the dark , you can um still see the remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright , so n sorta if if if we're gon if we're gonna go with the idea of um {vocalsound} uh of feedback , sort of remote finder , then that kinda stuffs that one out then . +User Interface: That was more of a a gimmick . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh it makes it fairly unnecessary then . +User Interface: Yeah , unnecessary . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , okay so scratch that . Uh so we've got do we want to go with the T_F_T_ idea or the {disfmarker} is that far too expensive ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah we're getting a lot of features now , I I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I mean I think I think the sort of find the finder things I mean it's uh I could probably write the circuit diagram for that myself . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think a consideration too is that these uh remotes get abused a lot , you know they get thrown around , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's a good chance the the T_F_T_ screen would break or uh get damaged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty fragile . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So is that one of our definite requirements that they wa that it needs a T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: Um no , I mean {gap} that was going on ravs uh Raj's sort of um marketing research I guess . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So we'll stick with sort of programmability um for the buttons that we do have . Um . {gap} So that's sort of included in your sub-module kind of stuff , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} you were finding out about teletext . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you could find out that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Totally , it takes cheap speech recognition , she {disfmarker} they wi +Project Manager: Um I think we're gonna scratch the speech recognition as a bit of a +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: um expensive , +User Interface: Yeah you think so ? +Industrial Designer: Oh no it's it's much cheaper than the T_F_T_ , it's just a microphone and some some integrated circuits . +Project Manager: no ? Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: And it'd it'd be a small vocabulary speech recognition system , +Project Manager: Is it not the circuits that cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh well that kind of takes back the R_F_ {vocalsound} the R_F_ remote sort of idea as well . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Five minutes . Okay . Decisions . Uh , votes , let's vote . Who wants T_F_T_ ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No-one does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , so we'll go with speech recognition , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , that's cool . +Project Manager: Um , speech recognition , limited buttons , organic design . And what else was I thinking of that I haven't written down and therefore fallen out my head , +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: programmability . +Marketing: Glow in dark . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: if it's not too expensive s I think it's a good gimmick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh o okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: And also , integrating the , remember to integrate the logo and the s slogan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so . Um can you put all these reports in the project documents folder if they're not already in there as well . So , it just helps me summarize them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Here ? Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um I'll put any {disfmarker} {gap} I'm I'm putting anything I do in there anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And where is it sorry ? +Project Manager: Uh pro uh project documents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it should be when you save +Project Manager: On A_M_I_ scenario controller . +Industrial Designer: on your desktop , so it goes save as , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . +Marketing: Uh it is in shared documents ? +Industrial Designer: And then uh hit that little folder up thing again . +Project Manager: Where am I ? +Marketing: Projoct uh projector . +Industrial Designer: Again . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah , it's on your desktop as well . +Industrial Designer: All the way to the top , yeah that's up to desktop . Right and then project documents . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Hmm . It is not giving anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shared documents . +Project Manager: And I will tr {gap} getting strings of um information , I'll try and forward any specific to anybody in particular , as soon as I get them now , rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I was about to sort of tell you about the changes before the meeting , and then the meeting turned up , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Did you get my email ? Okay . +Project Manager: I did {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just making sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What I thought as well about the material is um maybe not this kind of material , but maybe more like um this kind of rubbery material , it's a bit more bouncy , like you said they get chucked around a lot . Um , a bit more {vocalsound} durable and that can also be ergonomic +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and it kind of feels a bit different from all the other remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The rubber rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: More sort of um flesh-like than plasticky sort of . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: Um but we have to take care like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we have to take care of our children also if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} means if children catch hold of your or if they chew it it shouldn't be too harmful . So , whatever material we use it should be {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh no , ethics , {vocalsound} that's gonna cost us money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we have to safety point of view also , we have to take care . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , safety . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Oh I think wi with the more organic shape of it it won't be as {disfmarker} it won't as have many sharp corners as that , so that's something good , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could go comp yeah . +Project Manager: It sme {vocalsound} smells good for children . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could go completely out of the box and make the thing a big red ball foam ball . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's got the thing on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there's no buttons at all , it's always on , and just yell at it , and it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That sounds , +User Interface: That's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: And then ch children will love it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah it's gonna have to be it's gonna be have a big yellow foam ball , yeah , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Oh yellow , yellow ball . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , d with the colour , um does it have to be all yellow , do you know ? +Project Manager: Please God no . Um . Well , I wouldn't th I mean , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: my reaction to an all-yellow remote control wouldn't be anything other than horror , so I think just having it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Small logo with the like a small yellow strip or y yellow {gap} with the logo in it . +Project Manager: surrounding the logo . +User Interface: Having a little bit . Okay cool . Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: And I'll see if I can argue with boss about putting the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: what was it ? We put {vocalsound} we put fashion into {disfmarker} Whoops , it's not working . Can't believe I've forgotten it {gap} . We put the fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} I bet that'll catch on well . +User Interface: Oh yeah , that's a good one that . Yeah so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , any last +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Twelve thirty . +Project Manager: worries , queries ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S s {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I know what you're thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay then , lunchtime , yay . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Okay , that felt a bit more like a {disfmarker} something with order and and reason to it than the last one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is quite fun actually . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Has anybo oh . +Project Manager: I really don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Has anybody pressed okay , it vibrates . It's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Check here . +Project Manager: Wow you've {gap} your first page . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I've been using up the pages . +Project Manager: I was just writing really big . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , got small writing . I don't wanna waste it . +Project Manager: I've finished the meeting now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody needs k questionnaire . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","In the meeting, the project manager informs the team about changes from higher management regarding the design of a television remote control. The initial all-in-one concept is scrapped in favor of a design specific to a television model. The User Interface Designer and Marketing Expert discuss their respective research findings. Marketing found that most users think existing remotes are ugly and would pay more for aesthetically pleasing designs. They also emphasize that users generally only utilize a fraction of the buttons, suggesting simplicity in design. + +The Industrial Designer introduces ideas from previous company projects, suggesting a remote with fewer buttons and potentially integrating features like speech recognition. There is a debate over including features like speech recognition, glow-in-the-dark materials, and the possibility of a remote finder feature that reacts to noise, as well as the integration of the company's corporate yellow color and slogan into the design. The team also discusses material choices for durability and child safety. + +The conversation includes troubleshooting technical difficulties during presentations and ends with the group consensus on a speech recognition feature, limiting the number of buttons on the remote, and ensuring organic design and programmability. Some gimmicks like glow-in-the-dark materials are considered but ultimately deemed unnecessary. The team agrees to include the corporate color and slogan into the design and to integrate safety features considering children. They plan to store all documents in a shared folder and keep communicating updates. The meeting concludes with the project manager feeling it was ordered and productive, and the participants looking forward to lunch." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees—pupils who are eligible for free school meals. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to—in challenge advisers' discussions in schools—we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that, 'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.' Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school—it's an ethos for the whole school—but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an 'Ever 2' concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional £40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional £40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the £40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that £40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over £90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done—because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say, 'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.' Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying, 'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,' because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say, 'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.' +Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have? +Kirsty Williams AM: We've— +Ruth Conway: Sorry—I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that 'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions' on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it—that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been—. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been—well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next. +Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said, 'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step—we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children. +Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the—. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: There is also another very good example—and I take what you say about where there are small numbers—but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions. +Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it—with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer—on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it—. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus—one in five—by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's— +Hefin David AM: Why, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject. +Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability? +Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children. +Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is—while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic—we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city—so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium—you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils. +Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years' time, when we will be looking back in two years' time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the— +Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance. +Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours—not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning— +Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then. +Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey—only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder—can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators—they're in their second year this year—to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have—not concerns. 'Concerns' isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail. +Steve Davies: I think the challenge that—. One of the rationales for shifting—not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support—was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools—the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents—historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically, 'How do I need to support them?' So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely. +Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation— +Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what— +Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017. +Mark Reckless AM: November 2017. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move. +Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because— +Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle. +Lynne Neagle AM: —both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for. +Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of, 'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family, 'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need. +Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others—. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions. +Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support—even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas—. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying, 'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget' is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying, 'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them, 'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go, 'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.' So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school—when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think, 'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?' If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection—how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to. +Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again—and I've said this a lot—after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well—this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do— +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good. +Julie Morgan AM: —in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they? +Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all. +Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training. +Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions? +Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well. +Steve Davies: And investment in well-being— +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission—to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay— +Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because— +Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive. +Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality—how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity—again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools—but that expertise is available to all our schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering— +Kirsty Williams AM: In what way? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would—not that I want to argue with Estyn— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you— +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again—gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress—how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of—well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have. +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over £10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to—. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about—Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon—I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take—. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this. +Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations— +Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year—not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum. +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out—not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board. +Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off—not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over—so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then—that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry. +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by 'the figurehead' you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme? +Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations. +Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow—with Professor Ainscow himself. +Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings— +Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year. +Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions. +Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us, 'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he? +Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you—and I'm absolutely confident—is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia—. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer. +Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all—in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can—like Mark talked about, the expertise—how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers. +John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute—. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial. +John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people—in some cases, it has been reported to me—it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence—that there sometimes was a conflict: 'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.' Or, a local education authority said to me, 'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.' Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one. +Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting—[Inaudible.]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them—and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this—it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions—I can't remember which ones—so he's established relationships—[Interruption.] Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Central south. +Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working. +Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes—for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report. +John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members—you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG—because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record—can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3—another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5—a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The Children, Young People and Education Committee met to discuss targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the session and welcomed Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. + +Questions were raised about the pupil development grant (PDG), especially concerning the targeting and eligibility criteria, with concerns about its use beyond the intended free school meals beneficiaries and its focus on low-attaining students. The Cabinet Secretary emphasized interventions should only target eligible children but could sometimes be a universal approach if disproportionately beneficial to those target students. Examples such as the 'growth mindset' initiative were discussed. + +Discussions also covered the PDG's use for more able and talented students and the adequacy of guidance for schools in applying PDG. Consideration of the Ever 6 concept, which identifies additional funding needs, was mentioned but deemed financially unfeasible for Wales. + +Transition plans were examined for when students' circumstances change within the academic year, affecting eligibility for free school meals. + +The impact of PDG on key measures like attendance and exclusion rates was scrutinized, acknowledging positive improvement but recognizing the need for a comprehensive approach, including school counseling, nurse support, and cross-government collaboration. + +Concerning PDG's influence on attainment, particularly for free-school-meal students, the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged the gap widened in 2017 and committed to studying underlying causes. A shift from the Level 2 indicator to more nuanced performance measures was indicated. + +For looked-after children, the PDG's results were disappointing, provoking reviews and evaluations of the grant's regional management and usage. Possibilities for adjusting PDG eligibility to include historically adopted or looked-after children were discussed, considering family privacy concerns. + +Estyn's reporting on regional consortia's effectiveness in targeting vulnerable learners was covered, with improvements noted in recent monitoring visits. + +Finally, the sunset of Schools Challenge Cymru was debated in terms of its short-term nature versus potential benefits of a longer-term program, with regional consortia expected to sustain improvement strategies." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: And we 're on . +Professor D: OK . Might wanna {vocalsound} close the door so that {disfmarker} Uh , Stephane will {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'll get it . +Professor D: Yeah +PhD F: Hey Dave ? Could you go ahead and turn on , uh , Stephane 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So that 's the virtual Stephane over there . +PhD F: OK . +Professor G: Do you use a PC for recording ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , yeah , a Linux box . Yeah . It 's got , uh , like sixteen channels going into it . +Professor G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . The quality is quite good ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so far , it 's been pretty good . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . So , uh , yeah {disfmarker} the suggestion was to have these guys start to {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . Why don't you go ahead , Dave ? +Grad C: OK . Um , so , yeah , the {disfmarker} this past week I 've been main mainly occupied with , um , getting some results , u from the SRI system trained on this short Hub - five training set for the mean subtraction method . And , um , I ran some tests last night . But , um , c the results are suspicious . Um , it 's , um , {vocalsound} cuz they 're {disfmarker} the baseline results are worse than , um , Andreas {disfmarker} than results Andreas got previously . And {vocalsound} it could have something to do with , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's on digits ? +Grad C: That 's on digits . It c it {disfmarker} it could h it could have something to do with , um , downsampling . +PhD F: Hmm . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's worth looking into . Um , d and , um , ap ap apart from that , I guess the {disfmarker} the main thing I have t ta I have to talk is , um , where I 'm planning to go over the next week . Um . So I 've been working on integrating this mean subtraction approach into the SmartKom system . And there 's this question of , well , so , um , in my tests before with HTK I found it worked {disfmarker} it worked the best with about twelve seconds of data used to estimate the mean , but , we 'll often have less {comment} in the SmartKom system . Um . So I think we 'll use as much data as we have {pause} at a particular time , and we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll concatenate utterances together , um , to get as much data as we possibly can from the user . But , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} there 's a question of how to set up the models . So um , we could train the models . If we think twelve seconds is ideal we could train the models using twelve seconds to calculate the mean , to mean subtract the training data . Or we could , um , use some other amount . So {disfmarker} like I did an experiment where I , um , was using six seconds in test , um , but , for {disfmarker} I tried twelve seconds in train . And I tried , um , um , the same in train {disfmarker} I 'm a I tried six seconds in train . And six seconds in train {vocalsound} was about point three percent better . Um , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , it 's not clear to me yet whether that 's {vocalsound} something significant . So I wanna do some tests and , um , {vocalsound} actually make some plots of , um {disfmarker} for a particular amount of data and test what happens if you vary the amount of data in train . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Uh , Guenter , I don't know if you t {vocalsound} followed this stuff but this is , uh , {vocalsound} a uh , uh , long - term {disfmarker} long - term window F F Yeah . Yeah , he {disfmarker} you talked about it . +Professor G: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we spoke about it already , +Professor D: Oh , OK . So you know what he 's doing . +Professor G: yeah . +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: y s so I was {disfmarker} I actually ran the experiments mostly and I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was hoping to have the plots with me today . I just didn't get to it . But , um {disfmarker} yeah , I wou I would be curious about people 's feedback on this cuz I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I p I think there are some I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of like a {disfmarker} a bit of a tricky engineering problem . I 'm trying to figure out what 's the optimal way to set this up . So , um , {vocalsound} I 'll try to make the plots and then put some postscript up on my {disfmarker} on my web page . And I 'll mention it in my status report if people wanna take a look . +Professor D: You could clarify something for me . You 're saying point three percent , you take a point three percent hit , {vocalsound} when the training and testing links are {disfmarker} don't match or something ? +PhD E: Hello . +Professor D: Is that what it is ? +Grad C: w Well , it c +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} just for any mismatch {vocalsound} you take a hit . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: i In some cases it might be u better to have a mismatch . Like I think I saw something like {disfmarker} like if you only have two seconds in test , or , um , maybe it was something like four seconds , you actually do a little better if you , um , {vocalsound} train on six seconds than if you train on four seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . +Grad C: Um , but the case , uh {disfmarker} with the point three percent hit was {vocalsound} using six seconds in test , um , comparing train on twelve seconds {comment} versus train on six seconds . +Professor D: And which was worse ? +Grad C: The train on twelve seconds . +Professor D: OK . But point three percent , uh , w from what to what ? That 's point three percent {disfmarker} +Grad C: On {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the accuracies {vocalsound} w went from {disfmarker} it was something vaguely like ninety - five point six accuracy , um , improved to ninety - five point nine wh when I {disfmarker} +Professor D: So four point four to four point one . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} yeah . So about a {disfmarker} about an eight percent , uh , seven or eight percent relative ? +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , Yeah . Well , I think in a p You know , if {disfmarker} if you were going for an evaluation system you 'd care . But if you were doing a live system that people were actually using nobody would notice . It 's {disfmarker} uh , I think the thing is to get something that 's practical , that {disfmarker} that you could really use . +Grad C: Huh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Alright , the e uh , I see your point . I guess I was thinking of it as , um , {vocalsound} an interesting research problem . The {disfmarker} how to g I was thinking that for the ASRU paper we could have a section saying , {vocalsound} "" For SmartKom , we {disfmarker} we d in {disfmarker} we tried this approach in , uh , {vocalsound} interactive system "" , which I don't think has been done before . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and then there was two research questions from that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And one is the k does it still work if you just use the past history ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Alright , and the other was this question of , um what I was just talking about now . So I guess that 's why I thought it was interesting . +Professor D: I mean , a short - time FFT {disfmarker} short - time cepstrum calculation , uh , mean {disfmarker} u mean calculation work that people have in commercial systems , they do this all the time . They {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} they calculate it from previous utterances and then use it , you know . +Grad C: Yeah , um . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but , uh , as you say , there hasn't been that much with this long {disfmarker} long - time , uh , spectra work . +Grad C: Oh , o Oh , OK . +Professor D: Uh , +Grad C: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's standard . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Pretty common . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , but , u uh , yes . No , it is interesting . And the other thing is , I mean , there 's two sides to these really small , uh , gradations in performance . Um , I mean , on the one hand in a practical system if something is , uh , four point four percent error , four point one percent error , people won't really tell {disfmarker} be able to tell the difference . On the other hand , when you 're doing , uh , research , you may , eh {disfmarker} you might find that the way that you build up a change from a ninety - five percent accurate system to a ninety - eight percent accurate system is through ten or twelve little things that you do that each are point three percent . So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't mean to say that they 're {disfmarker} they 're irrelevant . Uh , they are relevant . But , um , {vocalsound} i for a demo , you won't see it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: And , um , Let 's {disfmarker} l let 's see . Um , OK . And then there 's um , another thing I wanna start looking at , um , {vocalsound} wi is , um , the choice of the analysis window length . So I 've just been using two seconds just because that 's what Carlos did before . Uh , I wrote to him asking about he chose the two seconds . And it seemed like he chose it a bit informally . So , um , with the {disfmarker} with the HTK set - up I should be able to do some experiments , on just varying that length , say between one and three seconds , in a few different reverberation conditions , um , say this room and also a few of the artificial impulse responses we have for reverberation , just , um , making some plots and seeing how they look . And , um , so , with the {disfmarker} the sampling rate I was using , one second or two seconds or four seconds is at a power of two um , number of samples and , um , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll jus f for the ones in between I guess I 'll just zero - pad . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . I guess one thing that might also be an issue , uh , cuz part of what you 're doing is you 're getting a {disfmarker} a spectrum over a bunch of different kinds of speech sounds . Um , and so it might matter how fast someone was talking for instance . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: You know , if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there 's a lot of phones in one second maybe you 'll get a {disfmarker} a really good sampling of all these different things , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , on the other hand if someone 's talking slowly maybe you 'd need more . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: I don't know if you have some samples of faster or slower speech but it might make a difference . I don't know . +Grad C: Uh , yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think the TI - digits data that I have , um , {vocalsound} i is {disfmarker} would be appropriate for that . +Professor D: Yeah , probably not . Yeah . +Grad C: But what do you {disfmarker} What about if I w I fed it through some kind of , um , speech processing algorithm that changed the speech rate ? +Professor D: Yeah , but then you 'll have the degradation of {disfmarker} of , uh , whatever you do uh , added onto that . But maybe . Yeah , maybe if you get something that sounds {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} does a pretty job at that . +Grad C: Yeah . Well , uh , just if you think it 's worth looking into . +Professor D: You could imagine that . +Grad C: I mean , it {disfmarker} it is getting a little away from reverberation . +Professor D: Um , yeah . It 's just that you 're making a choice {disfmarker} uh , I was thinking more from the system aspect , if you 're making a choice for SmartKom , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it might be that it 's {disfmarker} it c the optimal number could be different , depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Could be . I don't know . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and th the third thing , um , uh , is , um , Barry explained LDA filtering to me yesterday . And so , um , Mike Shire in his thesis um , {vocalsound} did a {disfmarker} a series of experiments , um , training LDA filters in d on different conditions . And you were interested in having me repeat this for {disfmarker} for this mean subtraction approach ? Is {disfmarker} is that right ? Or for these long analysis windows , I guess , is the right way to put it . +Professor D: I guess , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue I was {disfmarker} the general issue I was bringing up was that if you 're {disfmarker} have a moving {disfmarker} {vocalsound} moving window , uh , a wa a {disfmarker} a set of weights times things that , uh , move along , shift along in time , that you have in fact a linear time invariant filter . And you just happened to have picked a particular one by setting all the weights to be equal . And so the issue is what are some other filters that you could use , uh , in that sense of "" filter "" ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , as I was saying , I think the simplest thing to do is not to train anything , but just to do some sort of , uh , uh , hamming or Hanning , uh , kind of window , kind of thing , +Grad C: Right . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: just sort of to de - emphasize the jarring . So I think that would sort of be the first thing to do . But then , yeah , the LDA i uh , is interesting because it would sort of say well , suppose you actually trained this up to do the best you could by some criterion , what would the filter look like then ? +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Uh , and , um , that 's sort of what we 're doing in this Aur - Aurora stuff . And , uh , it 's still not clear to me in the long run whether the best thing to do would be to do that or to have some stylized version of the filter that looks like these things you 've trained up , because you always have the problem that it 's trained up for one condition and it isn't quite right for another . So . uh {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why RASTA filter has actually ended up lasting a long time , people still using it quite a bit , because y you don't change it . So doesn't get any worse . Uh , +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: Anyway . +Grad C: o OK . So , um , a actually I was just thinking about what I was asking about earlier , wi which is about having {vocalsound} less than say twelve seconds in the SmartKom system to do the mean subtraction . You said in {vocalsound} systems where you use cepstral mean subtraction , they concatenate utterances and , {vocalsound} do you know how they address this issue of , um , testing versus training ? Can {disfmarker} +Professor D: Go ahead . +Professor G: I think what they do is they do it always on - line , I mean , that you just take what you have from the past , that you calculate the mean of this and subtract the mean . +Grad C: OK . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And then you can {disfmarker} yeah , you {disfmarker} you can increase your window whi while you get {disfmarker} while you are getting more samples . +Grad C: OK , um , and , um , so {disfmarker} so in tha in that case , wh what do they do when they 're t um , performing the cepstral mean subtraction on the training data ? So {disfmarker} because you 'd have hours and hours of training data . So do they cut it off and start over ? At intervals ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: So do you have {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you mean you have files which are hours of hours long ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , well , no . I guess not . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , usually you have in the training set you have similar conditions , I mean , file lengths are , I guess the same order or in the same size as for test data , or aren't they ? +Grad C: OK . But it 's {disfmarker} OK . So if someone 's interacting with the system , though , uh , Morgan {disfmarker} uh , Morgan said that you would {vocalsound} tend to , um , {vocalsound} chain utterances together um , r +Professor D: Well , I think what I was s I thought what I was saying was that , um , at any given point you are gonna start off with what you had from before . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: From {disfmarker} and so if you 're splitting things up into utterances {disfmarker} So , for instance , in a dialogue system , {comment} where you 're gonna be asking , uh , you know , th for some information , there 's some initial th something . And , you know , the first time out you {disfmarker} you might have some general average . But you {disfmarker} you d you don't have very much information yet . But at {disfmarker} after they 've given one utterance you 've got something . You can compute your mean cepstra from that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then can use it for the next thing that they say , uh , so that , you know , the performance should be better that second time . Um , and I think the heuristics of exactly how people handle that and how they handle their training I 'm sure vary from place to place . But I think the {disfmarker} ideally , it seems to me anyway , that you {disfmarker} you would wanna do the same thing in training as you do in test . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's just , uh , a prejudice . And I think anybody working on this with some particular task would experiment . +Grad C: Right . I g I guess the question I had was , um , amount of data e u was the amount of data that you 'd give it to , um {vocalsound} update this estimate . Because say you {disfmarker} if you have say five thousand utterances in your training set , {vocalsound} um , and you {disfmarker} you keep the mean from the last utterance , by the time it gets to the five thousandth utterance {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but those are all different people with different {disfmarker} I mean , i in y So for instance , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in a telephone task , these are different phone calls . So you don't wanna @ @ {comment} chain it together from a {disfmarker} from a different phone call . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so they would {disfmarker} g s +Professor D: So it 's within speaker , within phone call , +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: if it 's a dialogue system , it 's within whatever this characteristic you 're trying to get rid of is expected to be consistent over , +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: r and it {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: right . OK , so you 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} and so in training you would start over at {disfmarker} at every new phone call or at every {vocalsound} new speaker . Yeah , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Now , {vocalsound} you know , maybe you 'd use something from the others just because at the beginning of a call you don't know anything , and so you might have some kind of general thing that 's your best guess to start with . But {disfmarker} So , s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , a lot of these things are proprietary so we 're doing a little bit of guesswork here . I mean , what do comp what do people do who really face these problems in the field ? Well , they have companies and they don't tell other people exactly what they do . +Grad C: R right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but I mean , when you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hints that you get from what they {disfmarker} when they talk about it are that they do {disfmarker} they all do something like this . +Grad C: Right , OK . I see . Bec - because I {disfmarker} so this SmartKom task first off , it 's this TV and movie information system . +Professor D: Yeah , but you might have somebody who 's using it +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: and then later you might have somebody else who 's using it . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . Right . I {disfmarker} I see . +Professor D: And so you 'd wanna set some {disfmarker} +Grad C: I was {disfmarker} I was about to say . So if {disfmarker} if you ask it "" What {disfmarker} what movies are on TV tonight ? "" , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: if I look at my wristwatch when I say that it 's about two seconds . The way I currently have the mean subtraction , um , set up , the {disfmarker} the analysis window is two seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So what you just said , about what do you start with , raises a question of {vocalsound} what do I start with then ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess it {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , w OK , so in that situation , though , th maybe what 's a little different there , is I think you 're talking about {disfmarker} there 's only one {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also depends {disfmarker} we 're getting a little off track here . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor D: r But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Uh , there 's been some discussion about whether the work we 're doing in that project is gonna be for the kiosk or for the mobile or for both . And I think for this kind of discussion it matters . If it 's in the kiosk , then the physical situation is the same . It 's gonna {disfmarker} you know , the exact interaction of the microphone 's gonna differ depending on the person and so forth . But at least the basic acoustics are gonna be the same . So f if it 's really in one kiosk , then I think that you could just chain together and {disfmarker} and you know , as much {disfmarker} as much speech as possible to {disfmarker} because what you 're really trying to get at is the {disfmarker} is the reverberation characteristic . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} in the case of the mobile , uh , {comment} presumably the acoustic 's changing all over the place . +Grad C: Right . +Professor D: And in that case you probably don't wanna have it be endless because you wanna have some sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a question of how long do you think it 's {disfmarker} you can get an approximation to a stationary something , given that it 's not really stationary . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor D: So . +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I g I guess I s just started thinking of another question , which is , {vocalsound} for {disfmarker} for the very first frame , w what {disfmarker} what do I do if I 'm {disfmarker} if I take {disfmarker} if I use that frame to calculate the mean , then I 'm just gonna get n nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: so I should probably have some kind of default {vocalsound} mean for the first f couple of frames ? +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Or subtract nothing . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or subtract nothing . And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I guess that 's something that 's p people have figured out how to deal with in cepstral mean subtraction as well ? +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , people do something . They {disfmarker} they , uh , they have some , um , uh , in {disfmarker} in cepstral mean subtraction , for short - term window {disfmarker} analysis windows , as is usually done , you 're trying to get rid of some very general characteristic . And so , uh , if you have any other information about what a general kind of characteristic would be , then you {disfmarker} you can do it there . +PhD F: You can also {disfmarker} you can also reflect the data . So you take , uh {disfmarker} you know , I 'm not sure how many frames you need . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: But you take that many from the front and flip it around to {disfmarker} a as the negative value . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: So you can always {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing is that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I remember B B N doing this , is that if you have a multi - pass system , um , if the first pass ta it takes most of the computation , the second and the third pass could be very , very quick , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor D: just looking at a relatively small n small , uh , space of hypotheses . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Then you can do your first pass {vocalsound} without any subtraction at all . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: And then your second pass , uh , uh , eliminates those {disfmarker} most of those hypotheses by , uh {disfmarker} by having an improved {disfmarker} improved version o of the analysis . +Grad C: OK . OK . +Professor D: So . +Grad C: OK . So that was all I had , for now . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Do you wanna go , Barry ? +Grad A: Yeah , OK . Um , so for the past , {vocalsound} uh , week an or two , I 've been just writing my , uh , formal thesis proposal . Um , so I 'm taking {vocalsound} this qualifier exam that 's coming up in two weeks . And I {disfmarker} I finish writing a proposal and submit it to the committee . Um . And uh , should I {disfmarker} should I explain , uh , more about what {disfmarker} what I 'm proposing to do , and s and stuff ? +Professor D: Yes , briefly . +PhD F: Yeah briefly . +Grad A: OK . Um , so briefly , {vocalsound} I 'm proposing to do a n a new p approach to speech recognition using um , a combination of , uh , multi - band ideas and ideas , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {comment} about the uh , acoustic phonec phonetic approach to speech recognition . Um , so I will be using {vocalsound} these graphical models that {disfmarker} um , that implement the multi - band approach {vocalsound} to recognize a set of intermediate categories that might involve , uh , things like phonetic features {vocalsound} or other {disfmarker} other f feature things that are more closely related to the acoustic signal itself . Um , and the hope in all of this is that by going multi - band and by going into these , {vocalsound} um intermediate classifications , {vocalsound} that we can get a system that 's more robust to {disfmarker} to unseen noises , and situations like that . Um , and so , some of the research issues involved in this are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {comment} one , what kind of intermediate categories do we need to classify ? Um , another one is {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what other types of structures in these multi - band graphical models should we consider in order to um , combine evidence from {vocalsound} the sub - bands ? And , uh , the third one is how do we {disfmarker} how do we merge all the , uh , information from the individual uh , multi - band classifiers to come up with word {disfmarker} word recognition or {disfmarker} or phone recognition things . Um , so basically that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 've been doing . And , +PhD F: So you 've got two weeks , huh ? +Grad A: I got two weeks to brush up on d um , presentation stuff and , um , +Professor D: Oh , I thought you were finishing your thesis in two weeks . +Grad A: But . Oh , that too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Are you gonna do any dry runs for your thing , +Grad A: Yes . +PhD F: or are you just gonna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yes . I , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna do some . Would you be interested ? To help out ? +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: Thanks . Yeah . +PhD F: Is that it ? +Grad A: That 's it . +PhD F: Hhh . OK . Uh . Hhh . Let 's see . So we 've got forty minutes left , and it seems like there 's a lot of material . An - any suggestions about where we {disfmarker} where we should go next ? +PhD B: Mmm , @ @ . +PhD F: Uh . Do you wanna go , Sunil ? Maybe we 'll just start with you . +PhD B: Yeah . But I actually stuck most of this in our m last meeting with Guenter . Um , but I 'll just {disfmarker} Um , so the last week , uh , I showed some results with only SpeechDat - Car which was like some fifty - six percent . And , uh , I didn't h I mean , I {disfmarker} I found that the results {disfmarker} I mean , I wasn't getting that r results on the TI - digit . So I was like looking into "" why , what is wrong with the TI - digits ? "" . Why {disfmarker} why I was not getting it . And I found that , the noise estimation is a reason for the TI - digits to perform worse than the baseline . So , uh , I actually , picked th I mean , the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate by a factor which is less than one to see if that {disfmarker} because I found there are a lot of zeros in the spectrogram for the TI - digits when I used this approach . So the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate . And I found {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the results that I 've shown here are the complete results using the new {disfmarker} Well , the n the new technique is nothing but the noise estimate scaled by a factor of point five . So it 's just an ad - hoc {disfmarker} I mean , some intermediate result , because it 's not optimized for anything . So the results {disfmarker} The trend {disfmarker} the only trend I could see from those results was like the {disfmarker} the p the current noise estimation or the , uh , noise composition scheme is working good for like the car noise type of thing . Because I 've {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} p very good result in the TI - digits is the noise {disfmarker} car noise condition for their test - A , which is like the best I could see that uh , for any non - stationary noise like "" Babble "" or "" Subway "" or any {disfmarker} "" Street "" , some "" Restaurant "" noise , it 's like {disfmarker} it 's not performing w very well . So , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So that {disfmarker} that 's the first thing I c uh , I could make out from this stuff . And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what is important to see is that there is a big difference between the training modes . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh - huh . If you have clean training , you get also a fifty percent improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you have muddy condition training you get only twenty percent . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , and in that twenty percent @ @ it 's very inconsistent across different noise conditions . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: So I have like a forty - five {vocalsound} percent for "" Car noise "" and then there 's a minus five percent for the "" Babble "" , +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: and there 's this thirty - three for the "" Station "" . And so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually very consistent across . So . The only correlation between the SpeechDat - Car and this performance is the c stationarity of the noise that is there in these conditions and the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , uh {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so the overall result is like in the last page , which is like forty - seven , which is still very imbalanced because there are like fifty - six percent on the SpeechDat - Car and thirty - five percent on the TI - digits . And {disfmarker} uh , ps the fifty - six percent is like comparable to what the French Telecom gets , but the thirty - five percent is way off . +Professor D: I 'm sort of confused but {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} I 'm looking on the second page , +PhD B: Oh , yep . +Professor D: and it says "" fifty percent "" {disfmarker} looking in the lower right - hand corner , "" fifty percent relative performance "" . +Professor G: For the clean training . +Professor D: Is that {disfmarker} +Professor G: u And if you {disfmarker} if you look {disfmarker} +Professor D: is that fifty percent improvement ? +PhD B: Yeah . For {disfmarker} that 's for the clean training and the noisy testing for the TI - digits . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's improvement over the baseline mel cepstrum ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But the baseline mel cepstrum under those training doesn't do as well I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to understand why it 's {disfmarker} it 's eighty percent {disfmarker} That 's an accuracy number , I guess , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: right ? So that 's not as good as the one up above . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: But the fifty is better than the one up above , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: so I 'm confused . +PhD B: Uh , actually the noise compensation whatever , uh , we are put in it works very well for the high mismatch condition . I mean , it 's consistent in the SpeechDat - Car and in the clean training also it gives it {disfmarker} But this fifty percent is {disfmarker} is that the {disfmarker} the high mismatch performance {disfmarker} equivalent to the high mismatch performance in the speech . +PhD F: So n s So since the high mismatch performance is much worse to begin with , it 's easier to get a better relative improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . I do . Yeah , yeah . So by putting this noise {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , if we look at the figures on the right , we see that the reference system is very bad . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: Yeah . The reference drops like a very fast {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , oh , oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD E: Like for clean {disfmarker} clean training condition . +Professor D: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} this is TI digits {comment} we 're looking at ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Oh {disfmarker} +Professor D: This whole page is TI - digits +PhD B: Oh . Yeah . +Professor D: or this is {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: It 's not written anywhere . Yeah , it 's TI - digits . The first r spreadsheet is TI - digits . +Professor D: Mmm . How does clean training do for the , uh , "" Car "" +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: The "" Car "" ? +Professor D: stuff ? +PhD B: Oh . Still {disfmarker} it still , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's still consistent . I mean , I get the best performance in the case of "" Car "" , which is the third column in the A condition . +Professor D: No . I mean , this is added noise . I mean , this is TI - digits . I 'm sorry . I meant {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , multi - language , uh , uh , Finnish and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: This is next {disfmarker} next page . +PhD B: That 's the next {disfmarker} next spreadsheet , is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: So that is the performance for Italian , Finnish and Spanish . +Professor D: "" Training condition "" {disfmarker} Oh , right . So "" clean "" corresponds to "" high mismatch "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And "" increase "" , That 's increase e +Professor G: Improvement . +PhD B: Improvement . That 's {disfmarker} "" Percentage increase "" is the percentage improvement over the baseline . +Professor G: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: Which means decrease in word error rate ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so "" percentage increase "" means decrease ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the w there was a very long discussion about this on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , Amsterdam meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: How to {disfmarker} how to calculate it then . +PhD B: Yeah . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess you are using finally this {disfmarker} the scheme which they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Which is there in the spreadsheet . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: I 'm not changing anything in there . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD B: So . Uh , yeah . So all the hi H M numbers are w very good , in the sense , they are better than what the French Telecom gets . So . But the {disfmarker} the only number that 's still {disfmarker} I mean , which Stephane also got in his result was that medium mismatch of the Finnish , which is very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} which is a very strange situation where we used the {disfmarker} we changed the proto for initializing the HMM {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this is basically because it gets stuck in some local minimum in the training . That seventy - five point seven nine in the Finnish mismatch which is that {disfmarker} the eleven point nine six what we see . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So we have to jiggle it somehow ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so we start with that different proto and it becomes eighty - eight , which is like some fifty percent improvement . +Professor D: S Wait a minute . Start with a different what ? +PhD B: Different prototype , which is like a different initialization for the , uh , s transition probabilities . It 's just that right now , the initialization is to stay more in the current state , which is point four point six , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: And if it changes to point five point five , which is equal @ @ for transition and self loop where it becomes eighty - eight percent . +PhD F: Well , but that involves mucking with the back - end , +PhD B: Yeah . We can't do it . +PhD F: which is not allowed . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor G: I mean , it uh , like , i i i It is well known , this {disfmarker} this medium match condition of the Finnish data has some strange effects . +PhD B: Very s +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: It has a very few at {disfmarker} uh , actually , c uh , tran I mean , words also . +Professor G: I mean , that is {disfmarker} Yeah , +PhD B: It 's a very , very small set , actually . +Professor G: that too . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD B: So there is {disfmarker} +Professor G: There is a l a {disfmarker} There is a lot of {disfmarker} Uh , there are a lot of utterances with music in {disfmarker} with music in the background . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . It has some music also . I mean , very horrible music like like I know . +Professor D: So maybe for that one you need a much smarter VAD ? Mmm , +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: if it 's music . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's about the results . And , uh , the summary is like {disfmarker} OK . So there are {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was , which I explained in the last meeting , is using the channel zero for , uh , for both dropping and estimating the noise . And that 's like just to f n get a feel of how good it is . I guess the fifty - six percent improvement in the SpeechDat - Car becomes like sixty - seven percent . Like ten percent better . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a {disfmarker} that 's a cheating experiment . So . That 's just {disfmarker} So , m w +Professor G: But the {disfmarker} but the , uh , forty - seven point nine percent which you have now , that 's already a remarkable improvement in comparison to the first proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . So we had forty - four percent in the first proposal . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We have f a big im So {vocalsound} the major improvement that we got was in all the high mismatch cases , because all those numbers were in sixties and seventies because we never had any noise compensations . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: So that 's where the biggest improvement came up . Not much in the well match and the medium match and TI - digits also right now . So this is still at three or four percent improvement over the first proposal . +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's good . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor D: Then if we can improve the noise estimation , then it should get better . +Professor G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I started thinking about also {disfmarker} I mean yeah , uh , {vocalsound} I discovered the same problem when I started working on {disfmarker} uh , on this Aurora task {vocalsound} almost two years ago , that you have the problem with this mulit a at the beginning we had only this multi condition training of the TI - digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , I {disfmarker} I found the same problem . Just taking um , what we were used to u {vocalsound} use , I mean , uh , some type of spectral subtraction , {comment} y {vocalsound} you get even worse results than {vocalsound} the basis +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor G: and uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I tried to find an explanation for it , +Professor D: Mmm . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yes . Stephane also has the same experience of using the spectral subtraction right ? +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So here {disfmarker} here I mean , I found that it 's {disfmarker} if I changed the noise estimate I could get an improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} so it 's something which I can actually pursue , is the noise estimate . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what you do is in {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this multi - condition training mode , um then you have {disfmarker} then you can train models for the speech , for the words , as well as for the pauses where you really have all information about the noise available . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And it was surprising {disfmarker} At the beginning it was not surprising to me that you get really the best results on doing it this way , I mean , in comparison to any type of training on clean data and any type of processing . But it was {disfmarker} So , u u it {disfmarker} it seems to be the best what {disfmarker} wh wh what {disfmarker} what we can do in this moment is multi - condition training . And every when we now start introducing some {disfmarker} some noise reduction technique we {disfmarker} we introduce also somehow artificial distortions . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And these artificial distortions {disfmarker} uh , I have the feeling that they are the reason why {disfmarker} why we have the problems in this multi - condition training . That means the H M Ms we trained , they are {disfmarker} they are based on Gaussians , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: and on modeling Gaussians . And if you {disfmarker} Can I move a little bit with this ? Yeah . And if we introduce now this {disfmarker} this u spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering stuff {disfmarker} So , usually what you have is maybe , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm showing now an envelope um maybe you 'll {disfmarker} f for this time . So usually you have {disfmarker} maybe in clean condition you have something which looks like this . And if it is noisy it is somewhere here . And then you try to subtract it or Wiener filter or whatever . And what you get is you have always these problems , that you have this {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these zeros in there . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And you have to do something if you get these negative values . I mean , this is your noise estimate and you somehow subtract it or do whatever . Uh , and then you have {disfmarker} And then I think what you do is you introduce some {disfmarker} some artificial distribution in this uh in {disfmarker} in the models . I mean , i you {disfmarker} you train it also this way but , i somehow there is {disfmarker} u u there is no longer a {disfmarker} a Gaussian distribution . It is somehow a strange distribution which we introduce with these {vocalsound} artificial distortions . And {disfmarker} and I was thinking that {disfmarker} that might be the reason why you get these problems in the {disfmarker} especially in the multi - condition training mode . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Th - That 's true . Yeah {disfmarker} the c the models are not complex enough to absorb that additional variability that you 're introducing . +Professor G: s +PhD F: Thanks Adam . +Professor G: Yeah . Yes . +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: I also have the feeling that um , the reason ye why it doesn't work is {disfmarker} yeah , that the models are much {disfmarker} are t um , not complex enough . Because I {disfmarker} actually I als always had a good experience with spectral subtraction , just a straight spectral subtraction algorithm when I was using neural networks , big neural networks , which maybe are more able to model strange distributions and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I tried the same {disfmarker} exactly the same spectral subtraction algorithm on these Aurora tasks and it simply doesn't work . It 's even {disfmarker} it , uh , hurts even . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: So . +Professor D: We probably should at some point here try the tandem {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the system - two kind of stuff with this , with the spectral subtraction for that reason . +Professor G: Hmm . +Professor D: Cuz {vocalsound} again , it should do a transformation to a domain where it maybe {disfmarker} looks more Gaussian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Hmm . Yeah , y I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} whe w w just yesterday when I was thinking about it {vocalsound} um w what {disfmarker} what we could try to do , or do about it {disfmarker} I mean , if you {disfmarker} if you get at this {disfmarker} in this situation that you get this {disfmarker} this negative values and you simply set it to zero or to a constant or whatever {vocalsound} if we {disfmarker} if we would use there a somehow , um {disfmarker} a random generator which {disfmarker} which has a certain distribution , u not a certain {disfmarker} {comment} yeah , a special distribution we should see {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have to think about it . +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: And that we , so , introduce again some natural behavior in this trajectory . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Very different from speech . Still , I mean , it shouldn't confuse the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , similar to what {disfmarker} what you see really u in {disfmarker} in the real um noisy situation . +PhD B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Or i in the clean situation . But {disfmarker} but somehow a {disfmarker} a natural distribution . +Professor D: But isn't that s again sort of the idea of the additive thing , if it {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as we had in the J stuff ? I mean , basically if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have random data , um , in {disfmarker} in the time domain , then when you look at the s spectrum it 's gonna be pretty flat . And {disfmarker} and , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , so just add something everywhere rather than just in those places . It 's just a constant , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} e yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just especially in these segments , I mean , you introduce , um , very artificial behavior . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , see if you add something everywhere , it has almost no effect up {disfmarker} up {disfmarker} up on {disfmarker} on top . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} and it has significant effect down there . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was , sort of the idea . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . Yeah the {disfmarker} that 's true . That {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those regions are the cause for this @ @ {disfmarker} those negative values or whatever you get . +Professor G: I Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could trit uh , we {disfmarker} we could think how w what {disfmarker} what we could try . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: I mean , {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it was just an idea . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think when it 's noisy people should just speak up . +Professor G: to {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we look at the France Telecom proposal , they use some kind of noise addition . They have a random number generator , right ? And they add noise on the trajectory of , uh , the log energy only , right ? +Professor D: Oh , they do ! +PhD B: Yep . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: C - z C - zero and log energy also , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Um , But I don't know how much effect it {disfmarker} this have , but they do that . +PhD B: Now ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it is l somehow similar to what {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think because they have th log energy , yeah , and then just generate random number . They have some kind of mean and variance , and they add this number to {disfmarker} to the log energy simply . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log energy , the {disfmarker} after the clean {disfmarker} cleaning up . +Professor D: To the l +PhD B: So they add a random {disfmarker} random noise to it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: To the {disfmarker} just the energy , or to the mel {disfmarker} uh , to the mel filter ? +PhD B: No . On - only to the log energy . +PhD E: Only {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} Cuz I mean , I think this is most interesting for the mel filters . Right ? +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} or F F one or the other . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but they do not apply filtering of the log energy or what {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like , uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor G: like {disfmarker} like a spectral subtraction or {disfmarker} +PhD B: No {disfmarker} their filter is not M domain . S so they did filter their time signal +Professor G: Yeah . I kn +PhD B: and then what @ @ {disfmarker} u +Professor G: And then they calculate from this , the log energy +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} then after that it is s almost the same as the baseline prop system . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then the final log energy that they {disfmarker} that they get , that {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to that they add some random noise . +Professor D: Yeah , but again , that 's just log energy as opposed to {vocalsound} filter bank energy . +PhD B: Yeah . So it 's not the mel . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: You know , it 's not the mel filter bank output . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: These are log energy computed from the time s domain signal , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: not from the mel filter banks . So {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: Maybe it 's just a way to decrease the importance of this particular parameter in the {disfmarker} in the world feature vector cu if you add noise to one of the parameters , you widen the distributions +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: Becomes flat . The variance , yeah , reduces , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: so . Hmm , yeah . +PhD E: Eee - sss - uh . +Professor D: So it could reduce the dependence on the amplitude and so on . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Although {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So is , uh {disfmarker} Is that about it ? +PhD B: Uh , so the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the other thing is the {disfmarker} I 'm just looking at a little bit on the delay issue where the delay of the system is like a hundred and eighty millisecond . So {vocalsound} I just {disfmarker} just tried another sk system {disfmarker} I mean , another filter which I 've like shown at the end . Which is very similar to the existing uh , filter . Only {disfmarker} Uh , only thing is that the phase is {disfmarker} is like a totally nonlinear phase because it 's a {disfmarker} it 's not a symmetric filter anymore . +PhD F: This is for the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this {disfmarker} this is like {disfmarker} So this makes the delay like zero for LDA because it 's completely causal . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So I got actually just the results for the Italian for that and that 's like {disfmarker} So the fifty - one point O nine has become forty - eight point O six , which is like three percent relative degradation . So I have like the fifty - one point O nine +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} So . I don't know it f fares for the other conditions . So it 's just like {disfmarker} it 's like a three percent relative degradation , with the {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but is there {disfmarker} is there a problem with the one hundred eighty milliseconds ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: u Uh , may +Professor D: Th - Well , this is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I talked to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , I ta Uh , I talked , uh , about it with {disfmarker} with Hynek . I mean , there is {disfmarker} +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , basically our {disfmarker} our position is {vocalsound} that , um , we shouldn't be unduly constraining the latency at this point because we 're all still experimenting with trying to make the performance better in the presence of noise . Uh , there is a minority in that group who is a arguing {disfmarker} who are arguing for {vocalsound} um , uh , having a further constraining of the latency . So we 're s just continuing to keep aware of what the trade - offs are and , you know , what {disfmarker} what do we gain from having longer or shorter latencies ? +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: But since we always seem to at least get something out of longer latencies not being so constrained , we 're tending to go with that if we 're not told we can't do it . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} where was the , um {disfmarker} the smallest latency of all the systems last time ? +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: The French Telecom . +Professor D: Well , France Telecom was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was very short latency +Professor G: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: and they had a very good result . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what was it ? +Professor D: It was thirty - five . +Professor G: It was in the order of thirty milliseconds +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Thirteen ? +Professor D: th th +Professor G: Thirty . +PhD F: Thirty . +PhD B: Thirty - four . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so it 's possible to get very short latency . +Professor G: +Professor D: But , again , we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the approaches that we 're using are ones that {vocalsound} take advantage of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I was just curious about where we are compared to , you know , the shortest that people have done . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but I think this thirty milliseconds {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they did {disfmarker} it did not include the {disfmarker} the delta calculation . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And this is included now , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: you know ? +PhD B: So if they include the delta , it will be an additional forty millisecond . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the {disfmarker} i th They were not using the HTK delta ? +PhD B: No , they 're using a nine - point window , which is like a four on either side , +Professor G: Nine - point . +PhD B: which is like {disfmarker} +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: f so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: they didn't include that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Where does the comprish compression in decoding delay comes from ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD E: +PhD B: That 's the way the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the frames are packed , like you have to wait for one more frame to pack . Because it 's {disfmarker} the CRC is computed for two frames always . +Professor D: Well , that {disfmarker} the they would need that forty milliseconds also . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: No . They actually changed the compression scheme altogether . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they have their own compression and decoding scheme and they {disfmarker} I don't know what they have . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: But they have coded zero delay for that . Because they ch I know they changed it , their compression . They have their own CRC , their {disfmarker} their own {vocalsound} error correction mechanism . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: So they don't have to wait more than one more frame to know whether the current frame is in error . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So they changed the whole thing so that there 's no delay for that compression and {disfmarker} part also . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even you have reported actually zero delay for the {pause} compression . I thought maybe you also have some different {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . No , I think I {disfmarker} I used this scheme as it was before . +PhD B: OK . Ah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: OK , we 've got twenty minutes so we should {vocalsound} probably try to move along . Uh , did you wanna go next , Stephane ? +PhD E: I can go next . Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Oh . Wait a minute . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to take {disfmarker} +Professor D: Wait a minute . I think {vocalsound} I 'm confused . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: So you have w w one sheet ? This one is {disfmarker} you don't need it , alright . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you have to take the whole {disfmarker} the five . There should be five sheets . +Professor D: OK , +PhD E: +Professor D: I have four now because I left one with Dave because I thought I was dropping one off and passing the others on . So , no , we 're not . OK . +PhD B: Thanks . +PhD H: Please give me one . +Professor D: Ah , we need one more over here . +PhD E: OK , maybe there 's not enough for everybody . +PhD F: I can share with Barry . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Can we look at this ? +Professor G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: So , yeah , there are two figures showing actually the , mmm , um , performance of the current VAD . So it 's a n neural network based on PLP parameters , uh , which estimate silence probabilities , and then I just put a median filtering on this to smooth the probabilities , right ? Um {disfmarker} I didn't use the {disfmarker} the scheme that 's currently in the proposal because {vocalsound} I don't want to {disfmarker} In the proposal {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in the system we want to add like speech frame before every word and a little bit of {disfmarker} of , uh , s a couple of frames after also . Uh , but to estimate the performance of the VAD , we don't want to do that , because it would artificially increase the um {disfmarker} the false alarm rate of speech detection . Right ? Um , so , there is u normally a figure for the Finnish and one for Italian . And maybe someone has two for the Italian because I 'm missing one figure here . +PhD B: No . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} Well , whatever . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so one surprising thing that we can notice first is that apparently the speech miss rate is uh , higher than the false alarm rate . So . It means {disfmarker} +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so what is the lower curve and the upper curve ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , there are two curves . One curve 's for the close - talking microphone , which is the lower curve . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And the other one is for the distant microphone +Professor G: Ah , OK . +PhD E: which has more noise so , it 's logical that {vocalsound} it performs worse . So as I was saying , the miss rate is quite important uh , which means that we tend to label speech as {disfmarker} as a silence . And , uh , I didn't analyze further yet , but {vocalsound} I think it 's {disfmarker} it may be due to the fricative sounds which may be {disfmarker} in noisy condition maybe label {disfmarker} labelled as silence . And it may also be due to the alignment because {disfmarker} well , the reference alignment . Because right now I just use an alignment obtained from {disfmarker} from a system trained on channel zero . And I checked it a little bit but there might be alignment errors . Um , yeah , e like the fact that {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the models tend to align their first state on silence and their last state o on silence also . So the reference {disfmarker} reference alignment would label as speech some silence frame before speech and after speech . This is something that we already noticed before when {disfmarker} mmm , So this cus this could also explain , uh , the high miss rate maybe . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this curves are the average over the whole database , so . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the different points of the curves are for five uh , thresholds on the probability {comment} uh from point three to point seven . +PhD B: So that threshold {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD B: OK . S OK {disfmarker} so d the detection threshold is very {disfmarker} +PhD E: So the v +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: The VAD ? Yeah . There first , a threshold on the probability {comment} @ @ {comment} That puts all the values to zero or one . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: And then the median filtering . +PhD B: Yeah , so the median filtering is fixed . You just change the threshold ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . Mm - hmm . So , going from channel zero to channel one , uh , almost double the error rate . Um , Yeah . Well , so it 's a reference performance that we can {disfmarker} you know , if we want to {disfmarker} to work on the VAD , {comment} we can work on this basis +PhD H: +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Is this {disfmarker} is this VAD a MLP ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . How {disfmarker} how big is it ? +PhD E: It 's a very big one . I don't remember . +PhD B: So three {disfmarker} three hundred and fifty inputs , +PhD E: m +PhD B: uh , six thousand hidden nodes and two outputs . t t +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Middle - sized one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: +PhD E: Yeah . Uh , ppp . I don't know , you have questions about that , or suggestions ? +PhD B: Mmm . S so {disfmarker} +PhD E: It seems {disfmarker} the performance seems worse in Finnish , which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not trained on Finnish . +PhD E: uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's worse . +PhD E: It 's not trained on Finnish , yeah . +Professor D: What 's it trained on ? +PhD B: I mean , the MLP 's not trained on Finnish . +Professor D: Right , what 's it trained on ? +PhD B: Oh {disfmarker} oh . Sorry . Uh , it 's Italian TI - digits . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , it 's trained on Italian ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's right . +Professor D: OK . +PhD E: And also there are like funny noises on Finnish more than on Italian . I mean , like music +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , the {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So , yeah , we were looking at this . But for most of the noises , noises are {disfmarker} um , I don't know if we want to talk about that . But , well , the {disfmarker} the "" Car "" noises are below like five hundred hertz . And we were looking at the "" Music "" utterances and in this case the noise is more about two thousand hertz . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Well , the music energy 's very low apparently . Uh , uh , from zero to two {disfmarker} two thousand hertz . So maybe just looking at this frequency range for {disfmarker} from five hundred to two thousand would improve somewhat the VAD +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm {disfmarker} +PhD B: So there are like some {disfmarker} some s some parameters you wanted to use or something ? +PhD E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , the next , um {disfmarker} Oh , it 's there . +Professor G: So is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the training {disfmarker} is the training based on these labels files which you take as reference here ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Wh - when you train the neural net y y you {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . It 's not . It 's {disfmarker} it was trained on some alignment obtained um , uh {disfmarker} For the Italian data , I think we trained the neural network on {disfmarker} with embedded training . So re - estimation of the alignment using the neural network , I guess . That 's right ? +PhD B: Yeah . We actually trained , uh , the {disfmarker} on the Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we had another {vocalsound} system with u +PhD E: So it was a f f a phonetic classification system for the Italian Aurora data . +PhD B: Yeah . It must be somewhere . Yeah . +PhD E: For the Aurora data that it was trained on , it was different . Like , for TI - digits you used a {disfmarker} a previous system that you had , I guess . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} No it {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . That 's true . +PhD E: So the alignments from the different database that are used for training came from different system . +PhD B: Syste Yeah . +PhD E: Then we put them tog together . Well , you put them together and trained the VAD on them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , But did you use channel {disfmarker} did you align channel one also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: I just took their entire Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was both channel zero plus channel one . +PhD E: So di Yeah . So the alignments might be wrong then on channel one , right ? +PhD B: On one . Possible . +PhD E: So we might , +PhD B: We can do a realignment . +PhD E: yeah , +PhD B: That 's true . +PhD E: at least want to retrain on these alignments , which should be better because they come from close - talking microphone . +Professor G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that was my idea . I mean , if {disfmarker} if it ha if it is not the same labeling which is taking the spaces . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: Yeah , possible . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} so the system {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: so the VAD was trained on maybe different set of labels for channel zero and channel one +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: was the alignments were w were different for {disfmarker} s certainly different because they were independently trained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We didn't copy the channel zero alignments to channel one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: But for the new alignments what you generated , you just copied the channel zero to channel one , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Right . Yeah . Um . And eh , hhh actually when we look at {disfmarker} at the VAD , {vocalsound} for some utterances it 's almost perfect , I mean , it just dropped one frame , the first frame of speech or {disfmarker} So there are some utterances where it 's almost one hundred percent VAD performance . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm {disfmarker} Yep . So the next thing is um , I have the spreadsheet for three different system . But for this you only have to look right now on the SpeechDat - Car performance uh , because I didn't test {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I didn't test the spectral subtraction on TI - digits yet . Uh , so you have three she sheets . One is the um proposal - one system . Actually , it 's not exe exactly proposal - one . It 's the system that Sunil just described . Um , but with uh , Wiener filtering from um , France Telecom included . Um , so this gives like fifty - seven point seven percent , uh , s uh , error rate reduction on the SpeechDat - Car data . Mmm , and then I have two sheets where it 's for a system where {disfmarker} uh , so it 's again the same system . But in this case we have spectral subtraction with a maximum overestimation factor of two point five . Uh , there is smoothing of the gain trajectory with some kind of uh , low - pass filter , which has forty milliseconds latency . And then , after subtraction um , I add a constant to the energies and I have two cases d where {disfmarker} The first case is where the constant is twenty - five DB below the mean speech energy and the other is thirty DB below . Um , and for these s two system we have like fifty - five point , uh , five - percent improvement , and fifty - eight point one . So again , it 's around fifty - six , fifty - seven . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz I notice the TI - digits number is exactly the same for these last two ? +PhD E: Yeah , because I didn't {disfmarker} For the France Telecom uh , spectral subtraction included in the {disfmarker} our system , the TI - digits number are the right one , but not for the other system because I didn't test it yet {disfmarker} this system , including {disfmarker} with spectral subtraction on the TI - digits data . I just tested it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor D: Ah ! So {disfmarker} so that means the only thing {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so these numbers are simply {disfmarker} +PhD E: This , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: But this number . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So you {disfmarker} so you just should look at that fifty - eight perc point O nine percent and so on . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor D: OK . Good . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um , Yeah . +PhD B: So this {disfmarker} So by {disfmarker} uh , by {disfmarker} by reducing the noise a {disfmarker} a decent threshold like minus thirty DB , it 's like {disfmarker} Uh , you are like r r reducing the floor of the noisy regions , right ? +Professor G: s +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . The floor is lower . Um , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: mm - hmm . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . So when you say minus twenty - five or minus thirty DB , with respect to what ? +PhD E: To the average um , speech energy which is estimated on the world database . +Professor D: OK , so basically you 're creating a signal - to - noise ratio of twenty - five or thirty DB ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: uh r +PhD E: But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think what you do is this . +PhD E: it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: i When {disfmarker} when you have this , {vocalsound} after you subtracted it , I mean , then you get something w w with this , uh , where you set the values to zero and then you simply add an additive constant again . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: So you shift it somehow . This {disfmarker} this whole curve is shifted again . +Professor D: But did you do that before the thresholding to zero , +PhD E: Right . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: But , it 's after the thresholding . +Professor G: +Professor D: Oh , +PhD E: So , +Professor D: so you 'd really want to do it before , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD E: maybe we might do it before , +Professor D: Yeah , because then the {disfmarker} then you would have less of that phenomenon . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: I think . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: E Hhh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: c +PhD E: But still , when you do this and you take the log after that , it {disfmarker} it reduce the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mmm , +Professor D: Yeah , that will reduce the variance . That 'll help . But maybe if you does {disfmarker} do it before you get less of these funny - looking things he 's drawing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , +PhD B: So before it 's like adding this , col to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} o exi original {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: We would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right at the point where you 've done the subtraction . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Um , essentially you 're adding a constant into everything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But the way Stephane did it , it is exactly the way I have implemented in the phone , so . +Professor D: Oh , yeah , better do it different , then . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor D: Just you {disfmarker} you just ta you just set it for a particular signal - to - noise ratio that you want ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I made s similar investigations like Stephane did here , just uh , adding this constant and {disfmarker} and looking how dependent is it on the value of the constant +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and then , must choose them somehow {vocalsound} to give on average the best results for a certain range of the signal - to - noise ratios . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , it 's clear . I should have gi given other results . Also it 's clear when you don't add noise , it 's much worse . Like , around five percent worse I guess . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And if you add too much noise it get worse also . And it seems that {vocalsound} right now this {disfmarker} this is c a constant that does not depend on {disfmarker} {comment} on anything that you can learn from the utterance . It 's just a constant noise addition . Um . And I {disfmarker} I think w w +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . Then {disfmarker} then I 'm confused . +PhD E: I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought {disfmarker} you 're saying it doesn't depend on the utterance but I thought you were adding an amount that was twenty - five DB down from the signal energy . +PhD E: Yeah , so the way I did that , {comment} i I just measured the average speech energy of the {disfmarker} all the Italian data . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD E: And then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I used this as mean speech energy . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Oh , it 's just a constant amount over all . +PhD E: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD E: wha what I observed is that for Italian and Spanish , {comment} when you go to thirty and twenty - five DB , {comment} uh it {disfmarker} it 's good . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD E: It stays {disfmarker} In this range , it 's , uh , the p u well , the performance of the {disfmarker} this algorithm is quite good . But for Finnish , {vocalsound} you have a degradation already when you go from thirty - five to thirty and then from thirty to twenty - five . And {disfmarker} I have the feeling that maybe it 's because just Finnish has a mean energy that 's lower than {disfmarker} than the other databases . And due to this the thresholds should be {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: the {disfmarker} the a the noise addition should be lower +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} I mean , in the real thing you 're not gonna be able to measure what people are doing over half an hour or an hour , or anything , right ? +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you have to come up with this number from something else . +PhD E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh , but you are not doing it now language dependent ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It 's not . It 's just something that 's fixed . +Professor G: No . It 's overall . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: But what he is doing language dependent is measuring what that number i reference is that he comes down twenty - five down from . +PhD E: Yeah , so I g No . It {disfmarker} No . +Professor D: No ? +PhD E: Because I did it {disfmarker} I started working on Italian . I obtained this average energy +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: and then I used this one . +PhD B: For all the languages . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's sort of arbitrary . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , so if y if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Um , yeah , so the next thing is to use this as {disfmarker} as maybe initialization +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and then use something on - line . +Professor D: Something more adaptive , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I expect improvement at least in Finnish because eh {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} +Professor D: yeah . OK . +PhD E: Well , um , for Italian and Spanish it 's {disfmarker} th this value works good but not necessarily for Finnish . Mmm . But unfortunately there is , like , this forty millisecond latency and , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I would try to somewhat reduce this @ @ . I already know that if I completely remove this latency , so . {vocalsound} um , {comment} it {disfmarker} um there is a three percent hit on Italian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: d Does latency {disfmarker} +Professor G: i +PhD B: Sorry . Go ahead . +Professor G: Yeah . Your {disfmarker} your smoothing was @ @ {comment} uh , over this s so to say , the {disfmarker} the factor of the Wiener . And then it 's , uh {disfmarker} What was it ? This {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: this smoothing , it was over the subtraction factor , so to say . +PhD E: It 's a smoothing over the {disfmarker} the gain of the subtraction algorithm . +Professor G: Was this done {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and you are looking into the future , into the past . +PhD E: Right . +Professor G: And smoothing . +PhD E: So , to smooth this {pause} thing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And did {disfmarker} did you try simply to smooth um to smooth the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to smooth stronger the {disfmarker} the envelope ? +PhD E: Um , no , I did not . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor G: Because I mean , it should have a similar effect if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , you {disfmarker} you have now several stages of smoothing , so to say . You start up . As far as I remember you {disfmarker} you smooth somehow the envelope , you smooth somehow the noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and later on you smooth also this subtraction factor . +PhD E: Uh , no , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the gain that 's smoothed actually +PhD B: Uh , actually I d I do all the smoothing . +PhD E: but it 's smoothed {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ah . Oh , it w it was you . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No , in this case it 's just the gain . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But the way it 's done is that um , for low gain , there is this non nonlinear smoothing actually . For low gains um , I use the smoothed sm uh , smoothed version but {disfmarker} for high gain @ @ {comment} it 's {disfmarker} I don't smooth . +Professor G: Uh . Mm - hmm . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Experience shows you , if {disfmarker} if you do the {disfmarker} The best is to do the smoo smoothing as early as possible . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor G: So w when you start up . I mean , you start up with the {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} somehow with the noisy envelope . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , best is to smooth this somehow . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah , I could try this . Um . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , before estimating the SNR , @ @ smooth the envelope . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I {disfmarker} I would need to find a way to like smooth less also when there is high energy . Cuz I noticed that it {disfmarker} it helps a little bit to s like smooth more during low energy portions and less during speech , +Professor G: Yes , y +PhD E: because if you smooth then y you kind of distort the speech . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor G: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I think when w you {disfmarker} you could do it in this way that you say , if you {disfmarker} if I 'm {disfmarker} you have somehow a noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and , if you say I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} with my envelope I 'm close to this noise estimate , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: then you have a bad signal - to - noise ratio and then you {disfmarker} you would like to have a stronger smoothing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So you could {disfmarker} you could base it on your estimation of the signal - to - noise ratio on your actual {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah , or some silence probability from the VAD if you have {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um , yeah , but I don't trust {vocalsound} the current VAD . So . +PhD B: Yeah , uh , so not {disfmarker} not right now maybe . +PhD E: Well , maybe . +Professor D: The VAD later will be much better . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor D: Yeah . So . I see . +PhD F: So is {pause} that it ? +PhD E: Uh , fff {comment} I think that 's it . Yeah . Uh . +Professor G: s So to summarize the performance of these , SpeechDat - Car results is similar than {disfmarker} than yours so to say . +PhD B: Yeah , so the fifty - eight is like the be some fifty - six point {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Y you have {disfmarker} you have fifty - six point four +PhD B: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and dependent on this additive constant , it is s better or {disfmarker} or worse . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly better . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And , {vocalsound} yeah , i i i the condition where it 's better than your approach , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} just because maybe it 's better on well matched and that the weight on well matched is {disfmarker} is bigger , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , you {disfmarker} you caught up . +PhD E: because {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: if you don't weigh differently the different condition , you can see that your {disfmarker} well , the win the two - stage Wiener filtering is maybe better or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's better for high mismatch , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , it 's better for high mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But a little bit worse for well matched . +PhD B: So over all it gets , yeah , worse for the well matched condition , so y +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So we need to combine these two . +PhD B: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best thing , is like the French Telecom system is optimized for the well matched condition . They c +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So they know that the weighting is good for the well matched , and so there 's {disfmarker} everywhere the well matched 's s s performance is very good for the French Telecom . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: T we are {disfmarker} we may also have to do something similar @ @ . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , our tradition here has always been to focus on the mismatched . +PhD B: Um the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz it 's more interesting . +Professor G: Mu - my {disfmarker} mine was it too , I mean . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Before I started working on this Aurora . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: so . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD F: Carmen ? Do you , uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , I only say that the {disfmarker} this is , a summary of the {disfmarker} of all the VTS experiments and say that the result in the last {comment} um , for Italian {disfmarker} the last experiment for Italian , {vocalsound} are bad . I make a mistake when I write . Up at D I copy {vocalsound} one of the bad result . +PhD B: So you {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} There . {vocalsound} You know , this . Um , well . If we put everything , we improve a lot u the spectral use of the VTS but the final result {vocalsound} are not still mmm , good {vocalsound} like the Wiener filter for example . I don't know . Maybe it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's possible to {disfmarker} to have the same result . +PhD B: That 's somewhere {disfmarker} +PhD H: I don't know exactly . Mmm . Because I have , {vocalsound} mmm , {comment} worse result in medium mismatch and high mismatch . +PhD B: You s you have a better r Yeah . You have some results that are good for the high mismatch . +PhD H: And {disfmarker} Yeah . I someti are more or less similar but {disfmarker} but are worse . And still I don't have the result for TI - digits . The program is training . Maybe for this weekend I will have result TI - digits and I can complete that s like this . Well . +Professor D: Uh . Right . +PhD H: One thing that I {comment} note are not here in this result {vocalsound} but are speak {disfmarker} are spoken before with Sunil I {disfmarker} I improve my result using clean LDA filter . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: If I use , {vocalsound} eh , the LDA filter that are training with the noisy speech , {vocalsound} that hurts the res my results . +Professor D: So what are these numbers here ? Are these with the clean or with the noisy ? +PhD H: This is with the clean . +Professor D: OK . +PhD H: With the noise I have worse result , that if I doesn't use it . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD H: But m that may be because {vocalsound} with this technique {vocalsound} we are using really {disfmarker} really clean speech . The speech {disfmarker} the {comment} representation that go to the HTK is really clean speech because it 's from the dictionary , the code book and maybe from that . I don't know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Because I think that you {disfmarker} did some experiments using the two {disfmarker} the two LDA filter , clean and noi and noise , +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD H: and it doesn't matter too much . +PhD E: Um , yeah , I did that but it doesn't matter on SpeechDat - Car , but , it matters , uh , a lot on TI - digits . +PhD B: Using the clean filter . +PhD H: It 's better to use clean . +PhD E: Yeah , d uh , it 's much better when you {disfmarker} we used the clean derived LDA filter . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . Maybe you can do d also this . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD H: To use clean speech . +PhD B: Yeah , I 'll try . +PhD E: Uh , but , yeah , Sunil in {disfmarker} in your result it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'll try the cle No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} my result is with the noisy {disfmarker} noisy LDA . +PhD E: It 's with the noisy one . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD B: It 's with the noisy . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the clean LDA . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} in the front sheet , I have like {disfmarker} like the summary . Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and your result {comment} is with the {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's with the clean LDA . +PhD B: Oh . This is {disfmarker} Your results are all with the clean LDA result ? +PhD H: Yeah , with the clean LDA . +PhD B: OK . @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD E: And in your case it 's all {disfmarker} all noisy , +PhD H: Is that the reason ? +PhD B: All noisy , yeah . +PhD E: yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: But I observe my case it 's in , uh , uh , at least on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't matter but TI - digits it 's like two or three percent absolute , uh , {comment} better . +PhD B: On TI - digits this matters . Absolute . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you really might wanna try the clean I think . +PhD E: So if {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will have to look at it . Yeah , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , that could be sizeable right there . +PhD H: And this is everything . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Maybe you {disfmarker} you are leaving in {disfmarker} in about two weeks Carmen . No ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . So I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I would put it {disfmarker} put on the head of a project mana manager {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I I would say , uh , um {disfmarker} I mean there is not so much time left now . +Professor D: Be my guest . +Professor G: I mean , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what I would do is I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would pick @ @ {comment} the best consolation , which you think , and {vocalsound} c create {disfmarker} create all the results for the whole database that you get to the final number as {disfmarker} as Sunil did it +PhD H: And prepare at the s +Professor G: and {vocalsound} um and maybe also to {disfmarker} to write somehow a document where you describe your approach , and what you have done . +PhD H: Yeah , I was thinking to do that next week . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll borrow the head back and {disfmarker} and agree . Yeah , +PhD H: Yeah , I wi I {disfmarker} I will do that next week . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Right . In fact , actually I g I guess the , uh {disfmarker} the Spanish government , uh , requires that anyway . They want some kind of report from everybody who 's in the program . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . And of course I 'd {disfmarker} we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd like to see it too . So , +PhD H: OK . +Professor D: yeah . +PhD F: So , um , what 's {disfmarker} Do you think we , uh , should do the digits or skip it ? Or what are {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Professor D: Uh , we have them now ? +PhD F: Yeah , got them . +Professor D: Uh , why don why don't we do it ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Just {comment} {disfmarker} just take a minute . +PhD H: I can send yet . +PhD F: Would you pass those down ? +Professor D: Oh ! Sorry . +PhD F: OK , um , so I guess I 'll go ahead . Um , +Professor D: Seat ? +PhD E: Dave ? Is it the channel , or the mike ? I don't remember . It 's the mike ? +Professor D: Mike ? +PhD E: It 's not four . +PhD H: This is date and time . No . On the channel , channel . +Professor G: What is this ? +PhD B: t +PhD F: OK , if you could just leave , um , your mike on top of your , uh , digit form I can fill in any information that 's missing . +Professor G: OK . +PhD F: That 's uh {disfmarker} I didn't get a chance to fill them out ahead of time . Yeah , we 're gonna have to fix that . Uh , let 's see , it starts with one here , and then goes around and ends with nine here . +Grad A: Seven . So I {disfmarker} I 'm eight , +PhD F: So he 's eight , +Grad A: you 're seven . +PhD F: you 're seven , +Grad A: Yeah . +","In the conversation, multiple participants discuss various topics related to speech recognition and voice activity detection (VAD) system performance. PhD F, Professor D, PhD E, Professor G, Grad C, and others are present in the conversation. + +PhD F starts by addressing some logistics about the meeting space. Grad C talks about his main occupation last week with the SRI system's mean subtraction method and his concerns about results lesser than previously achieved by Andreas. Grad C also mentions plans about incorporating the mean subtraction approach into the SmartKom system, where the amount of data to estimate the mean and setting up of models are addressed. He intends to integrate utterances to get as much data as possible and ponders whether to use different amounts of data in training than in testing. + +Professor D points out to Professor G about the long-term window features Grad C is working on. They discuss the oddities in some results, with specific mention of the impact of a mismatch in training and testing data lengths and the negligible real-world impact of small performance gains in live systems, although they could contribute to research. + +Grad C talks about the importance of the amount of data available for mean subtraction, how it interfaces with the models, and the need to chain utterances to maintain a stable environment for mean subtraction. Different train-testing considerations are discussed, as well as potential problems with initial silence frames in VAD, which might affect mean subtraction in the first frames of speech data. + +Grad A briefly talks about his work on his formal thesis proposal and upcoming qualifier exam, focusing on a multi-band phonetic approach to speech recognition, including adoption of graphical models in classifying intermediate categories and the combination of evidence from sub-bands to achieve robust speech recognition in noisy environments. + +PhD B shares results of noise compensation schemes and their inconsistencies across different noise conditions, highlighting the disparity in improvements seen in high mismatch cases vs. medium mismatch or well-matched cases. Several approaches to improve noise estimation are discussed, including the use of clean LDA filters for better results. + +PhD E presents data on the performance of the current VAD based on PLP parameters and the impact of different thresholds on miss and false alarm rates. He points out that alignment errors could be contributing to high miss rates, and how it is more affected in the Finnish language dataset because of different background noises compared to Italian. He also discusses his experiments with spectral subtraction, which involve adding artificial noise to the signal after subtraction and the effects of varying the added noise levels. The importance of latency in these algorithms is also mentioned, with a goal to reduce it as much as possible. + +Finally, PhD H summarizes her experiments with the VTS technique, noting that despite improvements, the final results are not as good as those achieved with Wiener filtering. She plans to compile final results, create a document describing her approach, and analyze the impact of using clean LDA filters in her experiments. + +The group acknowledges the nearing end of Carmen's (PhD H) project and the need to decide on the best configuration for her experiments and compile a full report before she leaves." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: So , I mean , everyone who 's on the wireless check that they 're on . +PhD F: C we {disfmarker} +Grad G: Alright . +Postdoc C: I see . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: OK , our agenda was quite short . +Professor B: Oh , could you {pause} close the door , maybe ? Yeah . +Grad E: Sure . Two items , which was , uh , digits and possibly stuff on {disfmarker} on , uh , forced alignment , which Jane said that Liz and Andreas had in information on , +Professor B: +Grad E: but they didn't , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I guess the only other thing , uh , for which I {disfmarker} +Grad E: so . +PhD F: We should do that second , because Liz might join us in time for that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Um . OK , so there 's digits , alignments , and , um , I guess the other thing , {vocalsound} which I came unprepared for , uh , {vocalsound} is , uh , to dis s s see if there 's anything anybody wants to discuss about the Saturday meeting . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: So . Any {disfmarker} I mean , maybe not . +Grad E: Digits and alignments . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh . +PhD F: Talk about aligning people 's schedules . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Right . Yeah , I mean , it was {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's forced alignment of people 's schedules . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Forced align . +PhD F: If we 're very {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: With {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} whatever it was , a month and a half or something ahead of time , the only time we could find in common {disfmarker} roughly in common , was on a Saturday . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Ugh . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: It 's pretty sad . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Have {disfmarker} Have we thought about having a conference call to include him in more of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in more of the meeting ? I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , if we had the {disfmarker} if we had the telephone on the table {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . But , h I mean , he probably has to go do something . +PhD F: No , actually I {disfmarker} I have to {disfmarker} I have to shuttle {pause} kids from various places to various other places . +Professor B: Right ? +Postdoc C: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So . And I don't have {disfmarker} and I don't , um , have a cell phone +PhD D: A cell phone ? +PhD F: so I can't be having a conference call while driving . +Professor B: R r right . +Postdoc C: No . {comment} It 's not good . +Professor B: So we have to {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's not good . +PhD F: Plus , it would make for interesting noise {disfmarker} background noise . +Professor B: +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So we have to equip him with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with a head - mounted , uh , cell phone +Grad E: Ye - we and we 'd have to force you to read lots and lots of digits , +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it could get real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} real car noise . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Take advantage . +PhD D: And with the kids in the background . +PhD F: I 'll let {disfmarker} I 'd let {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: I let , uh , my five - year - old have a try at the digits , eh . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So , anyway , I can talk about digits . Um , did everyone get the results or shall I go over them again ? I mean that it was basically {disfmarker} the only thing that was even slightly surprising was that the lapel did so well . Um , and in retrospect that 's not as surprising as maybe i it shouldn't have been as surprising as I {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as I felt it was . The lapel mike is a very high - quality microphone . And as Morgan pointed out , that there are actually some advantages to it in terms of breath noises and clothes rustling {pause} if no one else is talking . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Exactly . +Grad E: Um , so , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of the bre the breath noises and the mouth clicks and so forth like that , the lapel 's gonna be better on . +Grad G: It 's g it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or the cross - talk . Yeah . +Professor B: The lapel is typically worse on the {disfmarker} on clothes rustling , but if no one 's rustling their clothes , +Grad E: Right . I mean , a lot of people are just sort of leaning over and reading the digits , +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a very different task than sort of the natural . +PhD D: Yeah . You don't move much during reading digits , I think . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Grad G: Probably the fact that it picks up other people 's speakers {disfmarker} other people 's talking is an indication of that it {disfmarker} the fact it is a good microphone . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So in the digits , in most {disfmarker} most cases , there weren't other people talking . +Grad E: Right . Right . +Grad G: So . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: D do the lapel mikes have any directionality to them ? +Professor B: There typically don't , no . +PhD F: Because I {disfmarker} I suppose you could make some that have sort of {disfmarker} that you have to orient towards your mouth , +Grad E: They have a little bit , +PhD F: and then it would {disfmarker} +Grad E: but they 're not noise - cancelling . So , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're intended to be omni - directional . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: And th it 's {disfmarker} and because you don't know how people are gonna put them on , you know . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right . So , also , Andreas , on that one the {disfmarker} the back part of it should be right against your head . And that will he keep it from flopping aro up and down as much . +PhD F: It is against my head . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah , we actually talked about this in the , uh , front - end meeting this morning , too . Much the same thing , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and it was {disfmarker} uh , I mean , there the point of interest to the group was primarily that , um , {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the system that we had that was based on H T K , that 's used by , you know , {pause} all the participants in Aurora , {vocalsound} was so much worse {vocalsound} than the {disfmarker} than the S R +Grad E: Everybody . +Professor B: And the interesting thing is that even though , {vocalsound} yes , it 's a digits task and that 's a relatively small number of words and there 's a bunch of digits that you train on , {vocalsound} it 's just not as good as having a {disfmarker} a l very large amount of data and training up a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a nice good big {vocalsound} HMM . Um , also you had the adaptation in the SRI system , which we didn't have in this . Um . So . Um . +PhD F: And we know {disfmarker} Di - did I send you some results without adaptation ? +Grad E: No . +Professor B: I s I think Stephane , uh , had seen them . +Grad E: Or if you did , I didn't include them , cuz it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , I think I did , actually . So there was a significant loss from not doing the adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple percent or some I mean {disfmarker} Well , I don't know it {disfmarker} Overall {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember , but there was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} there was a significant , um , loss or win {comment} from adaptation {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with adaptation . And , um , that was the phone - loop adaptation . And then there was a very small {disfmarker} like point one percent on the natives {disfmarker} uh , win from doing , um , you know , adaptation to {pause} the recognition hypotheses . And {pause} I tried both means adaptation and means and variances , and the variances added another {disfmarker} or subtracted another point one percent . So , {vocalsound} it 's , um {disfmarker} that 's the number there . Point six , I believe , is what you get with both , uh , means and variance adaptation . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But I think one thing is that , uh , I would presume {disfmarker} Hav - Have you ever t {vocalsound} Have you ever tried this exact same recognizer out on the actual TI - digits test set ? +PhD F: This exact same recognizer ? No . +Professor B: It might be interesting to do that . Cuz my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} cuz my sense , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but , I have {disfmarker} I mean , people {disfmarker} people at SRI are actually working on digits . +Grad E: I bet it would do even slightly better . +PhD F: I could {disfmarker} and they are using a system that 's , um {disfmarker} you know , h is actually trained on digits , um , but h h otherwise uses the same , you know , decoder , the same , uh , training methods , and so forth , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and I could ask them what they get {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah , bu although I 'd be {disfmarker} I think it 'd be interesting to just take this exact actual system so that these numbers were comparable +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and try it out on TI - digits . +PhD F: Well , Adam knows how to run it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +PhD F: so you just make a f +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Cuz our sense from the other {disfmarker} from the Aurora , uh , task is that {disfmarker} +Grad E: And try it with TI - digits ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , cuz we were getting sub one percent {vocalsound} numbers on TI - digits also with the tandem thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} so there were a number of things we noted from this . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: One is , yeah , the SRI system is a lot better than the HTK {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor B: this , you know , very limited training HTK system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , but the other is that , um , the digits {vocalsound} recorded here in this room with these close mikes , i uh , are actually a lot harder than the {pause} studio - recording TI - digits . I think , you know , one reason for that , uh , might be that there 's still {disfmarker} even though it 's close - talking , there still is some noise and some room acoustics . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And another might be that , uh , I 'd {disfmarker} I would presume that in the studio , uh , uh , situation recording read speech that if somebody did something a little funny or n pronounced something a little funny or made a little {disfmarker} that they didn't include it , +Grad E: They didn't include it . +Professor B: they made them do it again . +Grad E: Whereas , I took out {pause} the ones that I noticed that were blatant {disfmarker} that were correctable . +Professor B: Mmm . Yeah . +Grad E: So that , if someone just read the wrong digit , I corrected it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And then there was another one where Jose couldn't tell whether {disfmarker} I couldn't tell whether he was saying zero or six . And I asked him and he couldn't tell either . +Grad I: Hmm . +Grad E: So I just cut it out . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: You know , so I just e edited out the first , i uh , word of the utterance . Um , so there 's a little bit of correction but it 's definitely not as clean as TI - digits . So my expectations is TI - digits would , especially {disfmarker} I think TI - digits is all {pause} American English . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? So it would probably do even a little better still on the SRI system , but we could give it a try . +PhD F: Well . But {pause} remember , we 're using a telephone bandwidth front - end here , uh , on this , uh {disfmarker} on this SRI system , so , {vocalsound} um , I was {disfmarker} I thought that maybe that 's actually a good thing because it {disfmarker} it gets rid of some of the {disfmarker} uh , the noises , um , you know , in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} below and above the {disfmarker} um , the , you know , speech bandwidth +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and , um , I suspect that to get sort of the last bit out of these higher - quality recordings you would have to in fact , uh , use models that , uh , were trained on wider - band data . And of course we can't do that or {disfmarker} +Grad E: Wha - what 's TI - digits ? I thought t +Professor B: It 's wide - band , yeah . It 's {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in fact , we looked it up +Grad E: It is wide - band . OK . +Professor B: and it was actually twenty kilohertz sampling . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . I {disfmarker} I did look that up . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I couldn't remember whether that was TI - digits or one of the other digit tasks . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . But {disfmarker} but , I would {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy enough to try , just run it on {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: See w +Grad E: So , Morgan , you 're getting a little breath noise . +PhD F: Now , eh , does {disfmarker} +Grad E: You might wanna move the mike down a little bit . +PhD F: one {disfmarker} one issue {disfmarker} one issue with {disfmarker} with that is that {vocalsound} um , the system has this , uh , notion of a speaker to {disfmarker} which is used in adaptation , variance norm uh , you know , both in , uh , mean and variance normalization and also in the VTL {pause} estimation . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I noticed the script that extracted it . +PhD F: Do y ? Is {disfmarker} ? So does {disfmarker} so th so does {disfmarker} does , um , {vocalsound} the TI - digits database have speakers that are known ? +Grad E: Yep . Yep . +PhD F: And is there {disfmarker} is there enough data or a comparable {disfmarker} comparable amount of data to {disfmarker} to what we have in our recordings here ? +Grad E: That I don't know . I don't know . I don't know how many speakers there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} and how many speakers per utterance . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Well , the other thing would be to do it without the adaptation and compare to these numbers without the adaptation . That would {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Uh , but I 'm not so much worried about the adaptation , actually , than {disfmarker} than the , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} the , uh , VTL estimation . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: If you have only one utterance per speaker you might actually screw up on estimating the {disfmarker} the warping , uh , factor . So , um {disfmarker} +Grad E: I strongly suspect that they have more speakers than we do . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it 's not the amount of speakers , it 's the num it 's the amount of data per speaker . +Grad E: Right . So we {disfmarker} we could probably do an extraction that was roughly equivalent . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad E: Um . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , although I {disfmarker} I sort of know how to run it , there are a little {disfmarker} a f few details here and there that I 'll have to {pause} dig out . +PhD F: OK . The key {disfmarker} So th the system actually extracts the speaker ID from the waveform names . +Grad E: Right . I saw that . +PhD F: And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a script {disfmarker} and that is actually all in one script . So there 's this one script that parses waveform names and extracts things like the , um , speaker , uh , ID or something that can stand in as a speaker ID . So , we might have to modify that script to recognize the , um , speakers , {vocalsound} um , in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , um , {vocalsound} TI - digits {pause} database . +Grad E: Right . Right . And that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or you can fake {disfmarker} you can fake {pause} names for these waveforms that resemble the names that we use here for the {disfmarker} for the meetings . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: That would be the , sort of {disfmarker} probably the safest way to do {disfmarker} +Grad E: I might have to do that anyway to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} because we may have to do an extract to get the {pause} amount of data per speaker about right . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: The other thing is , isn't TI - digits isolated digits ? +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Or is that another one ? I 'm {disfmarker} I looked through a bunch of the digits t corp corpora , and now they 're all blurring . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Cuz one of them was literally people reading a single digit . And then others were connected digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Most of TI - digits is connected digits , I think . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} I mean , we had a Bellcore corpus that we were using . It was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that was isolated digits . +Grad E: Maybe it 's the Bell Gram . Bell Digits . Alright . +Professor B: Um . +PhD F: By the way , I think we can improve these numbers if we care to compr improve them {vocalsound} by , um , {vocalsound} not starting with the Switchboard models but by taking the Switchboard models and doing supervised adaptation on a small amount of digit data collected in this setting . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD F: Because that would adapt your models to the room acoustics and f for the far - field microphones , you know , to the noise . And that should really improve things , um , further . And then you use those adapted models , which are not speaker adapted but sort of acous you know , channel adapted {disfmarker} +Grad E: Channel adapted . +PhD F: use that as the starting models for your speaker adaptation . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the thing is , uh {disfmarker} I mean , w when you {disfmarker} it depends whether you 're ju were just using this as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a starter task for {disfmarker} you know , to get things going for conversational or if we 're really interested i in connected digits . And I {disfmarker} I think the answer is both . And for {disfmarker} for connected digits over the telephone you don't actually want to put a whole lot of effort into adaptation +PhD F: Well , I don't know . +Professor B: because {vocalsound} somebody {pause} gets on the phone and says a number and then you just want it . You don't {disfmarker} don't , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} that one 's better . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , but , you know , I {disfmarker} uh , my impression was that you were actually interested in the far - field microphone , uh , problem , I mean . So , you want to {disfmarker} you want to {disfmarker} That 's the obvious thing to try . +Postdoc C: Oh . Oh . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Right ? Then , eh {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you don't have any {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: That 's where the most m acoustic mismatch is between the currently used models and the {disfmarker} the r the set up here . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Yeah . So that 'd be anoth another interesting data point . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm saying I don't know if we 'd want to do that as the {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} +PhD D: Other way . +Grad E: Other way . Liz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Now you 're all watching me . +Grad E: It f it clips over your ears . +PhD A: Alright . This way . +Grad E: There you go . +Postdoc C: If you have a strong fe if you have a strong preference , you could use this . +PhD A: You 're all watching . This is terrible . +Postdoc C: It 's just we {disfmarker} we think it has some spikes . So , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't use that one . +PhD A: I 'll get it . +Postdoc C: But you could if you want . +Professor B: Yeah . At any rate , I don't know if w +Postdoc C: I don't know . And Andre - Andreas , your {disfmarker} your microphone 's a little bit low . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It is ? +Professor B: I don't know if we wanna use that as the {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh , it pivots . +PhD F: Uh . +Postdoc C: So if you see the picture +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like this . +PhD F: I I {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and then you have to scr +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I already adjusted this a number of times . +Grad E: Eh . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I +Grad E: Yeah , I think these mikes are not working as well as I would like . +PhD F: can't quite seem to {disfmarker} Yeah , I think this contraption around your head is not {pause} working so well . +Professor B: Too many adju too many adjustments . Yeah . Anyway , what I was saying is that I {disfmarker} I think I probably wouldn't want to see that as sort of like the norm , that we compared all things to . +Postdoc C: That looks good . Yeah . +Professor B: To , uh , the {disfmarker} to have {disfmarker} have all this ad all this , uh , adaptation . But I think it 's an important data point , if you 're {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Um . The other thing that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} of course , what Barry was looking at was {disfmarker} was just that , the near versus far . And , yeah , the adaptation would get {vocalsound} th some of that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , I think even {disfmarker} even if there was , uh , only a factor of two or something , like I was saying in the email , I think that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's a big factor . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: N +Grad E: Liz , you could also just use the other mike if you 're having problems with that one . +Postdoc C: Well . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . This would be OK . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we think that this has spikes on it , +PhD A: It 's this thing 's {disfmarker} This is too big for my head . +Postdoc C: so it 's not as good acoustically , +PhD F: Yeah , basically your ears are too big . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , mine are too . E th everybody 's ears are too big for these things . +PhD A: No , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} But this is too big for my head . So , I mean , {comment} {comment} it doesn't {disfmarker} you know , it 's sit +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , if you 'd rather have this one then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , well . +Professor B: It 's {pause} great . +Grad E: So the {disfmarker} To get that , uh , pivoted this way , it pivots like this . +PhD A: No this way . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . There you go . +Postdoc C: And there 's a screw that you can tighten . +Grad E: And then it {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: I already {pause} tried to get it close . +Postdoc C: Good . +Grad E: So if it doesn't bounce around too much , that 's actually good placement . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc C: That looks good . +Grad E: But it looks like it 's gonna bounce a lot . +Professor B: So , where were we ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Digits . Adaptation . +Professor B: Uh , adaptation , non - adaptation , um , factor of two , um {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . I know what I was go w +PhD F: What k u By the way , wh what factor of two did you {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Oh , no , no . +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's tha that {disfmarker} that we were saying , you know , well is {disfmarker} how much worse is far than near , you know . +PhD F: Oh , th OK . +Professor B: And I mean it depends on which one you 're looking at , +PhD F: That factor of two . +Professor B: but for the everybody , it 's {vocalsound} little under a factor or two . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I know what I was thinking was that maybe , uh , i i we could actually t t try at least looking at , uh , some of the {disfmarker} the large vocabulary speech from a far microphone , at least from the good one . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , before I thought we 'd get , you know , a hundred and fifty percent error or something , but if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if , uh {disfmarker} if we 're getting thirty - five , forty percent or something , {vocalsound} u um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Actually if you run , though , on a close - talking mike over the whole meeting , during all those silences , you get , like , four hundred percent word error . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . I understand . But doing the same kind of limited thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} or some high number . +Professor B: Yeah , sure . Get all these insertions . But I 'm saying if you do the same kind of limited thing {vocalsound} as people have done in Switchboard evaluations or as {disfmarker} a +PhD A: Yeah . Where you know who the speaker is and there 's no overlap ? And you do just the far - field for those regions ? +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . The same sort of numbers that we got those graphs from . Right ? +Grad E: Could we do exactly the same thing that we 're doing now , but do it with a far - field mike ? +Professor B: Yeah , do it with one of {disfmarker} on +Grad E: Cuz we extract the times from the near - field mike , but you use the acoustics from the far - field mike . +PhD A: Right . I understand that . I just meant that {disfmarker} so you have {pause} three choices . There 's , um {disfmarker} You can use times where that person is talking only from the transcripts but the segmentations were {disfmarker} were synchronized . Or you can do a forced alignment on the close - talking to determine that , the you know , within this segment , these really were the times that this person was talking and elsewhere in the segment other people are overlapping and just front - end those pieces . Or you can run it on the whole data , which is {disfmarker} which is , you know , a {disfmarker} +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but how did we get the {disfmarker} how did we determine the links , uh , that we 're testing on in the stuff we reported ? +PhD A: In the H L T paper we took {pause} segments that are channel {disfmarker} time - aligned , which is now h being changed in the transcription process , which is good , and we took cases where the transcribers said there was only one person talking here , because no one else had time {disfmarker} any words in that segment and called that "" non - overlap "" . +Professor B: And tha And that 's what we were getting those numbers from . +PhD A: Yes . Tho - good {disfmarker} the good numbers . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: The bad numbers were from {pause} the segments where there was overlap . +Professor B: Well , we could start with the good ones . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: But anyway {disfmarker} so I think that we should try it once with {vocalsound} the same conditions that were used to create those , and in those same segments just use one of the P Z +PhD A: Right . So we {disfmarker} we can do that . Yeah . +Professor B: And then , you know , I mean , the thing is if we were getting , uh {disfmarker} what , thirty - five , forty percent , something like that on {disfmarker} on that particular set , uh , does it go to seventy or eighty ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Or , does it use up so much memory we can't decode it ? +PhD A: It might also depend on which speaker th it is and how close they are to the PZM ? +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know how different they are from each other . +PhD F: You want to probably choose the PZM channel that is closest to the speaker . +PhD A: To be best {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: For this particular digit ones , I just picked that one . +PhD A: f +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . So we would then use that one , too , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: This is kind of central . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} so i but I would {disfmarker} I 'd pick that one . It 'll be less good for some people than for other , but I {disfmarker} I 'd like to see it on the same {disfmarker} exact same data set that {disfmarker} that we did the other thing on . +Grad E: Actually {disfmarker} I sh actually should 've picked a different one , +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: because {pause} that could be why the PDA is worse . Because it 's further away from most of the people reading digits . +PhD D: It 's further away . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: That 's probably one of the reasons . +Postdoc C: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Well , yeah . You could look at , I guess , that PZM or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: But the other is , it 's very , uh {disfmarker} I mean , even though there 's {disfmarker} I 'm sure the f f the {disfmarker} the SRI , uh , front - end has some kind of pre - emphasis , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} still , th it 's picking up lots of low - frequency energy . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , even discriminating against it , I 'm sure some of it 's getting through . Um . But , yeah , you 're right . Prob - a part of it is just the distance . +PhD A: And aren't these pretty bad microphones ? +Grad E: Yep . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , they 're bad . But , I mean , if you listen to it , it sounds OK . You know ? u Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . When you listen to it , uh , the PZM and the PDA {disfmarker} Yeah , th the PDA has higher sound floor but not by a lot . It 's really pretty {disfmarker} uh , pretty much the same . +PhD A: I just remember you saying you got them to be cheap on purpose . Cheap in terms of their quality . So . +Professor B: Well , they 're {pause} twenty - five cents or so . +Grad E: Th - we wanted them to be {disfmarker} to be typical of what would be in a PDA . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So they are {disfmarker} they 're not the PZM three hundred dollar type . They 're the twenty - five cent , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: buy them in packs of thousand type . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: But , I mean , the thing is people use those little mikes for everything because they 're really not bad . +Grad E: Everything . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're not {vocalsound} doing something ridiculous like feeding it to a speech recognizer , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} you know , you can hear the sou hear the sounds just fine . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: You know , it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} I mean , i it 's more or less the same principles as these other mikes are built under , it 's just that {pause} there 's less quality control . They just , you know , churn them out and don't check them . Um . So . So that was {disfmarker} Yeah . So that was i interesting result . So like I said , the front - end guys are very much interested in {disfmarker} in this is as {disfmarker} as well and +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so , but where is this now ? I mean , what 's {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad E: Yeah . That was gonna be my question . +PhD F: I mean , we {disfmarker} so we have a {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} a system that works pretty well but it 's not , you know , the system that people here are used to using {disfmarker} to working with . +Professor B: Well , I think what we wanna do is we want to {disfmarker} eh , +PhD F: So what {disfmarker} what do we do now ? +Professor B: and we 've talked about this in other {pause} contexts {disfmarker} we want to {vocalsound} have the ability to feed it different features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , um , {vocalsound} from the point of view of the front - end research , it would be s uh , substituting for HTK . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Professor B: I think that 's the key thing . And then if we can feed it different features , then we can try all the different things that we 're trying there . +PhD F: OK . Alright . +Professor B: And then , um , uh , also Dave is {disfmarker} is thinking about using the data in different ways , uh , to {vocalsound} um , uh , explicitly work on reverberation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: starting with some techniques that some other people have {pause} found somewhat useful , and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} so the key {pause} thing that 's missing here is basically the ability to feed , you know , other features {vocalsound} i into the recognizer +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: and also then to train the system . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: OK . And , uh , es I don't know when Chuck will be back but that 's exactly what he {disfmarker} he 's gonna {disfmarker} +Professor B: H h He 's {disfmarker} he 's sort of back , but he drove for fourteen hours an and wasn't gonna make it in today . +PhD F: Oh , OK . So , I think that 's one of the things that he said he would be working on . Um . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD F: Just sort of t to make sure that {pause} we can do that +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: It 's {disfmarker} uh , I mean , the {disfmarker} the front - end is f i tha that 's in the SRI recognizer is very nice in that it does a lot of things on the fly but it unfortunately {pause} is not {pause} designed and , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like the , uh , ICSI system is , where you can feed it from a pipeline of {disfmarker} of the command . So , the {disfmarker} what that means probably for the foreseeable future is that you have to , uh , dump out , um {disfmarker} you know , if you want to use some new features , you have to dump them into individual files and {pause} give those files to the recognizer . +Grad E: We do {disfmarker} we tend to do that anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: Oh . So , although you {disfmarker} you can pipe it as well , we tend to do it that way because that way you can concentrate on one block and not keep re - doing it over and over . +PhD F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor B: Yeah . So I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad E: So tha that 's exactly what the P - file {pause} is for . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the cumbersome thing is {disfmarker} is , um {disfmarker} is that you actually have to dump out little {disfmarker} little files . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: So for each segment that you want to recognize {vocalsound} you have to {pause} dump out {pause} a separate file . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Just like i th like th as if there were these waveform segments , but instead you have sort of feature file segments . But , you know {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Cool . OK . So the s the {disfmarker} the next thing we had on the agenda was something about alignments ? +PhD A: Oh . Yes , we have {disfmarker} I don't know , did you wanna talk about it , or {disfmarker} ? I can give a {disfmarker} I was just telling this to Jane and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} W we {disfmarker} we were able to get some definite improvement on the forced alignments by looking at them first and then realizing the kinds of errors {pause} that were occurring and um , some of the errors occurring very frequently are just things like the first word being moved to as early as possible in the recognition , which is a um , I think was both a {disfmarker} a pruning {pause} problem and possibly a problem with needing constraints on word locations . And so we tried both of these st things . We tried saying {disfmarker} I don't know , I got this {vocalsound} whacky idea that {disfmarker} just from looking at the data , that when people talk {pause} their words are usually chunked together . It 's not that they say one word and then there 's a bunch of words together . They 're {comment} might say one word and then another word far away if they were doing just backchannels ? But in general , if there 's , like , five or six words and one word 's far away from it , that 's probably wrong on average . So , um {disfmarker} And then also , ca the pruning , of course , was too {disfmarker} too severe . +PhD F: So that 's actually interesting . The pruning was the same value that we used for recognition . And we had lowered that {disfmarker} we had used tighter pruning after Liz ran some experiments showing that , you know , it runs slower and there 's no real difference in {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually it was better with {disfmarker} slightly better or about th +Grad E: No gain . +PhD A: it was the same with tighter pruning . +PhD F: Right . So for free recognition , this {disfmarker} the lower pruning value is better . +PhD A: It 's probably cuz the recognition 's just bad en at a point where it 's bad enough that {disfmarker} that you don't lose anything . +PhD F: You {disfmarker} Correct . Right . Um , but it turned out for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} to get accurate alignments it was really important to open up the pruning significantly . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD F: Um {pause} because otherwise it would sort of do greedy alignment , um , in regions where there was no real speech yet from the foreground speaker . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um , {vocalsound} so that was one big factor that helped improve things and then the other thing was that , you know , as Liz said the {disfmarker} we f enforce the fact that , uh , the foreground speech has to be continuous . It cannot be {disfmarker} you cannot have a background speech hypothesis in the middle of the foreground speech . You can only have background speech at the beginning and the end . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , yeah , it isn't always true , and I think what we really want is some clever way to do this , where , um , you know , from the data or from maybe some hand - corrected alignments from transcribers that things like words that do occur just by themselves {pause} a alone , like backchannels or something that we did allow to have background speech around it {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: those would be able to do that , +Postdoc C: Sorry . +PhD A: but the rest would be constrained . So , I think we have a version that 's pretty good for the native speakers . I don't know yet about the non - native speakers . And , um , we basically also made noise models for the different {disfmarker} sort of grouped some of the {pause} mouth noises together . Um , so , and then there 's a background speech model . And we also {disfmarker} There was some neat {disfmarker} or , interesting cases , like there 's one meeting where , {vocalsound} um , Jose 's giving a presentation and he 's talking about , um , the word "" mixed {pause} signal "" and someone didn't understand , uh , that you were saying "" mixed "" {disfmarker} I think , Morgan . And so your speech - ch was s saying something about mixed signal . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And the next turn was a lot of people saying "" mixed "" , like "" he means mixed signal "" or "" I think it 's mixed "" . And the word "" mixed "" in this segment occurs , like , a bunch of times . +PhD H: Sh +PhD A: And Chuck 's on the lapel here , and he also says "" mixed "" but it 's at the last one , and of course the aligner th aligns it everywhere else to everybody else 's "" mixed "" , +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: cuz there 's no adaptation yet . So there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think there 's some issues about {disfmarker} u We probably want to adapt at least the foreground speaker . But , I guess Andreas tried adapting both the foreground and a background generic speaker , and that 's actually a little bit of a f funky model . Like , it gives you some weird alignments , just because often the background speakers match better to the foreground than the foreground speaker . +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So there 's some things there , +PhD H: Oh . +PhD A: especially when you get lots of the same words , uh , occurring in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think you can do better by {vocalsound} uh , cloning {disfmarker} so we have a reject phone . And you {disfmarker} and what we wanted to try with {disfmarker} you know , once we have this paper written and have a little more time , {vocalsound} uh , t cloning that reject model and then one copy of it would be adapted to the foreground speaker to capture the rejects in the foreground , like fragments and stuff , and the other copy would be adapted to the background speaker . +PhD A: Right . I mean , in general we actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now the words like {pause} partial words are {pause} reject models and you normally allow those to match to any word . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But then the background speech was also a reject model , and so this constraint of not allowing rejects in between {disfmarker} you know , it needs to differentiate between the two . So just sort of working through a bunch of debugging kinds of issues . +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: And another one is turns , like people starting with {vocalsound} "" well I think "" and someone else is {pause} "" well how about "" . So the word "" well "" is in this {disfmarker} in this {pause} segment multiple times , and as soon as it occurs usually the aligner will try to align it to the first person who says it . But then that constraint of sort of {disfmarker} uh , proximity constraint will push it over to the person who really said it in general . +Grad E: Is the proximity constraint a hard constraint , or did you do some sort of probabilistic weighting distance , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: We {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right now it 's a kluge . +PhD F: No . We {disfmarker} w OK . We {disfmarker} it 's straightforward to actually just have a {disfmarker} a penalty that doesn't completely disallows it but discourages it . But , um , we just didn't have time to play with , you know , tuning yet another {disfmarker} yet another parameter . +Grad E: The ve level . Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: And really the reason we can't do it is just that we don't have a {disfmarker} we don't have ground truth for these . So , {vocalsound} we would need a hand - marked , um , {vocalsound} word - level alignments or at least sort of the boundaries of the speech betw you know , between the speakers . Um , and then use that as a reference and tune the parameters of the {disfmarker} of the model , uh , to op to get the best {pause} performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: G given {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I wa I wa I was gonna ask you anyway , uh , how you assessed that things were better . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I looked at them . I spent two days {disfmarker} um , in Waves {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Oh , it was painful because {vocalsound} the thing is , you know the alignments share a lot in common , so {disfmarker} And you 're {disfmarker} yo you 're looking at these segments where there 's a lot of speech . I mean , a lot of them have a lot of words . Not by every speaker +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but by some speaker there 's a lot of words . No , not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean that if you look at the individual segments from just one person you don't see a lot of words , +PhD H: Ju +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: but altogether you 'll see a lot of words up there . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And so the reject is also mapping and pauses {disfmarker} So I looked at them all in Waves and just lined up all the alignments , and , at first it sort of looked like a mess and then the more I looked at it , I thought "" OK , well it 's moving these words leftward and {disfmarker} "" You know , it wasn't that bad . It was just doing certain things wrong . So {disfmarker} But , I don't , you know , have time to l {comment} to look at all of them and it would be really useful to have , like , a {disfmarker} a transcriber who could use Waves , um , just mark , like , the beginning and end of the foreground speaker 's real words {disfmarker} like , the beginning of the first word , the end of the last word {disfmarker} and then we could , you know , do some adjustments . +Postdoc C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} OK . I have to ask you something , is i does it have to be Waves ? Because if we could benefit from what you did , incorporate that into the present transcripts , {comment} that would help . +PhD F: No . +Postdoc C: And then , um , the other thing is , I believe that I did hand So . One of these transcripts was gone over by a transcriber and then I hand - marked it myself so that we do have , uh , the beginning and ending of individual utterances . Um , I didn't do it word level , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but in terms {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So I {disfmarker} so for {disfmarker} for one of the N S A groups . And also I went back to the original one that I first transcribed and {disfmarker} and did it w uh , w uh , utterance by utterance for that particular one . So I think you do have {disfmarker} if that 's a sufficient unit , I think that you do have hand - marking for that . But it 'd be wonderful to be able to {vocalsound} benefit from your Waves stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: We don't care what {disfmarker} what tool you use . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , if {disfmarker} if you can , um {disfmarker} if you wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . I used it in Transcriber +PhD F: U uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: well , Jane and I were {disfmarker} just in terms of the tool , talking about this . I guess Sue had had some {pause} reactions . You know , interface - wise if you 're looking at speech , you wanna be able to know really where the words are . And so , {vocalsound} we can give you some examples of sort of what this output looks like , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . Middle of the word , or {disfmarker} +PhD A: um , and see if you can in maybe incorporate it into the Transcriber tool some way , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , I th I 'm thinking just ch e e incorporating it into the representation . +PhD A: Um . +Postdoc C: I mean , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: You mean like {disfmarker} Yeah , word start insights . +Postdoc C: if you have start points , if you have , like , time tags , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which is what I assume . Isn't that what {disfmarker} what you {disfmarker} ? Well , see , Adam would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , whatever you use . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , we convert it to this format that the , um , NIST scoring tool unders uh , CTM . Conversation Time - Marked file . And {disfmarker} and then that 's the {disfmarker} that 's what the {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think Transcriber , uh , outputs CTM . +Postdoc C: If it {disfmarker} ? OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: So you would know this more than I would . +Grad E: I think so . +PhD A: So , I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It seems like she {disfmarker} if she 's g if she 's moving time marks around , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: since our representation in Transcriber uses time marks , it seems like there should be some way of {disfmarker} of using that {disfmarker} benefitting from that . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Yeah , it wou the advantage would just be that when you brought up a bin you would be able {disfmarker} if you were zoomed in enough in Transcriber to see all the words , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: you would be able to , like , have the words sort of located in time , if you wanted to do that . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if we e e even just had a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} It sounds like w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we almost do . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: Uh , if we {disfmarker} We have two . +Postdoc C: We have two . +Professor B: Yeah . Just ha uh , trying out {pause} the alignment {vocalsound} procedure that you have on that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you could actually get something , um {disfmarker} uh , uh , get an objective measure . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You mean on {disfmarker} on the hand - marked , um {disfmarker} So we {disfmarker} we only r hav I only looked at actually alignments from one meeting that we chose , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I think MR four , just randomly , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually , not randomly . +PhD A: Not randomly {disfmarker} +PhD F: We knew {disfmarker} we knew that it had these insertion errors from {disfmarker} +PhD A: It had sort of {pause} average recognition performance in a bunch of speakers +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and it was a Meeting Recorder meeting . Um . But , yeah , we should try to use what you have . I did re - run recognition on your new version of MR one . +Postdoc C: Oh , good . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the one with Dan {pause} Ellis in it {vocalsound} and Eric . +Postdoc C: Good ! Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: I don't think that was the new version . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} Yeah , actually it wasn't the new new , it was the medium new . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but we would {disfmarker} we should do the {disfmarker} the latest version . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD A: It was the one from last week . +Grad G: You {disfmarker} did you adjust the {disfmarker} the utterance times , um , for each channel ? +Postdoc C: Yes . Yes , I did . And furthermore , I found that there were a certain number where {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not {disfmarker} not a lot , but several times I actually {vocalsound} moved an utterance from {vocalsound} Adam 's channel to Dan 's or from Dan 's to Adam 's . So there was some speaker identif And the reason was because {vocalsound} I transcribed that at a point before {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , before we had the multiple audio available f so I couldn't switch between the audio . I {disfmarker} I transcribed it off of the mixed channel entirely , which meant in overlaps , I was at a {disfmarker} at a terrific disadvantage . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Postdoc C: In addition it was before the channelized , uh , possibility was there . And finally I did it using the speakers of my , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , off the CPU on my {disfmarker} on my machine cuz I didn't have a headphone . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: So it @ @ , like , I mean {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , i in retrospect {vocalsound} it would 've been good to ha {vocalsound} have got I should 've gotten a headphone . But in any case , um , thi this is {disfmarker} this was transcribed in a {disfmarker} in a , {vocalsound} uh , less optimal way than {disfmarker} than the ones that came after it , and I was able to {disfmarker} you know , an and this meant that there were some speaker identif identifications which were changes . +Grad G: Well , I know there were some speaker labelling problems , um , after interruptions . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Fixed that . +Grad G: Is that what you 're referring to ? I mean , cuz there 's this one instance when , for example , you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Oh , well {disfmarker} +Grad G: I remember this meeting really well . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Don {disfmarker} Don has had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He knows {disfmarker} he can just read it like a play . +Grad G: Right . It 's a {disfmarker} Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 'm very well acquainted with this meeting . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I can s +PhD A: "" And then she said , and then he said . "" +Grad G: Yeah , I know it by heart . So , um , {vocalsound} there 's one point when you 're running down the stairs . +Postdoc C: Uh - oh . +Grad G: Right ? And , like , there 's an interruption . You interrupt somebody , but then there 's no line after that . For example , there 's no speaker identification after that line . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Is that what you 're talking about ? Or were there mislabellings as far as , like , the a Adam was {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: That was fixed , um , before {disfmarker} i i i I think I I think I understood that pretty {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Cuz I thought I let you know about that . +Postdoc C: Thank you for mentioning . Yeah , no , tha that {disfmarker} That I think went away a couple of versions ago , +Grad G: Yeah . OK . +Postdoc C: but it 's good to know . +Grad G: But you 're actually saying that certain , uh , speakers were mis mis - identified . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So , with {disfmarker} under {disfmarker} um , uh , listening to the mixed channel , there were times when , as surprising as that is , I got Adam 's voice confused with Dan 's and vice versa {disfmarker} +Grad G: OK . +Postdoc C: not for long utterances , +Grad G: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: but jus just a couple of places , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and embedde embedded in overlaps . The other thing that was w interesting to me was that I picked up a lot of , um , backchannels which were hidden in the mixed signal , +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc C: which , you know , I mean , you c not {disfmarker} not too surprising . But the other thing that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hadn't thought about this , but I thou I wanted to raise this when you were {disfmarker} uh , with respect to also a strategy which might help with the alignments potentially , but that 's {disfmarker} When I was looking at these backchannels , they were turning up usually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very often in {disfmarker} w well , I won't say "" usually "" {disfmarker} but anyway , very often , I picked them up in a channel {vocalsound} w which was the person who had asked a question . S so , like , someone says "" an and have you done the so - and - so ? "" And then there would be backchannels , but it would be the person who asked the question . Other people weren't really doing much backchannelling . And , you know , sometimes you have the {disfmarker} Yeah , uh - huh . +PhD A: Well , that 's interesting . Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean , i it wouldn't be perfect , but {disfmarker} but it does seem more natural to give a backchannel when {disfmarker} when you 're somehow involved in the topic , +PhD A: No , that 's really interesting . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and the most natural way is for you to have initiated the topic by asking a question . +PhD F: Well , +PhD A: That 's interesting . +PhD F: I think {disfmarker} No . I think it 's {disfmarker} actually I think what 's going on is backchannelling is something that happens in two - party conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And if you ask someone a question , you essentially initiating a little two - party conversation . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , actu Yeah , when we looked at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD F: So then you 're {disfmarker} so and then you 're expected to backchannel because the person is addressing you directly and not everybody . +Postdoc C: Exactly . Exactly my point . An - and so this is the expectation thing that {disfmarker} uh , uh , +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: just the dyadic {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc C: But in addition , you know , if someone has done this analysis himself and isn't involved in the dyad , but they might also give backchannels to verify what {disfmarker} what the answer is that this {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} the answerer 's given {disfmarker} +Professor B: H +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: I tell you , I say {disfmarker} I say "" uh - huh "" a lot , +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: There you go . +PhD A: Well , but it 's interesting cuz , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: while people are talking to each other . +PhD A: But there are fewer {disfmarker} I think there are fewer "" uh - huhs "" . +Postdoc C: There you go . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , just from {disfmarker} We were looking at word frequency lists to try to find the cases that we would allow to have the reject words in between in doing the alignment . You know the ones we wouldn't constrain to be next to the other words . +Postdoc C: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: And "" uh - huh "" is not as frequent as it sort of would be in Switchboard , if you looked at just a word frequency list of one - word short utterances . And "" yeah "" is way up there , but not "" uh - huh "" . And so I was thinking thi it 's not like {pause} you 're being encouraged by everybody else to keep {pause} talking in the meeting . And uh , that 's all , I I 'll stop there , cuz I I think what you say makes a lot of sense . +Postdoc C: Well , that 's right . And that would {disfmarker} +PhD A: But it was sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , an And what you say is the {disfmarker} is the re uh , o other side of this , which is that , you know , so th there are lots of channels where you don't have these backchannels , w when a question has been asked and {disfmarker} and these {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . There 's just probably less backchannelling in general , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . So that 's good news , really . +PhD A: even if you consider every other person altogether one person in the meeting , but we 'll find out anyway . We were {disfmarker} I guess the other thing we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} I should say is that we 're gonna , um try {disfmarker} compare this type of overlap analysis to Switchboard , where {disfmarker} +PhD F: And +PhD A: and CallHome , where we have both sides , so that we can try to answer this question of , you know , {vocalsound} is there really more overlap in meetings or is it just because we don't have the other channel in Switchboard +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and we don't know what people are doing . Try to create a paper out of that . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , y y you folks have probably {pause} already told me , but were {disfmarker} were you intending to do a Eurospeech submission , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , you mean the one due tomorrow ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , we 're still , like , writing the scripts for doing the research , and we will {disfmarker} Yes , we 're gonna try . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And I was telling Don , do not {pause} take this as an example of how people should work . +Professor B: Do as I say , +Grad G: That 's r +PhD A: So , {comment} we will try . +Professor B: don't do as I do . Yeah . +PhD A: It 'll probably be a little late , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm gonna try it . +Grad E: It is different . In previous years , Eurospeech only had the abstract due by now , not the full paper . +PhD A: Right . +Grad G: Right . +Grad E: And so all our timing was off . I 've given up on trying to do digits . I just don't think that what I have so far makes a Eurospeech paper . +PhD A: Well , I 'm no We may be in the same position , and I figured {vocalsound} we 'll try , because that 'll at least get us to the point where we have {disfmarker} We have this really nice database format that Andreas and I were working out that {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's not very fancy . It 's just a ASCII line by line format , but it does give you information {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's the {disfmarker} it 's the spurt format . +PhD A: It {disfmarker} Yeah , we 're calling these "" spurts "" after Chafe . I was trying to find what 's a word for {pause} a continuous region with {pause} pauses around it ? +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I know that th the Telecom people use {disfmarker} use "" spurt "" for that . +Postdoc C: Good . +PhD A: They do ? Oh ! +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: And that 's {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was using that for a while when I was doing the rate of speech stuff , +PhD A: I would jus +Professor B: because I {disfmarker} because I looked up in some books and I found {disfmarker} OK , I wanna find a spurt {vocalsound} in which {disfmarker} +PhD A: Ah , right ! It 's just , like , defined by the acoustics . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} an because {disfmarker} cuz it 's another question about how {pause} many pauses they put in between them . +Grad E: Horrible . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: But how fast do they do {pause} the words within the spurt ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , that 's what we were calling spurt , +Grad E: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: you know "" Burst "" also ? +Grad E: Burst . +Grad G: Isn't "" burst "" is used also ? +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad E: Spurt has the horrible name overloading with other {disfmarker} with hardware at ICSI . +Professor B: Here . Just very locally , yeah . +PhD A: Well , well , Chafe had this wor I think it was Chafe , or somebody had a {disfmarker} the word "" spurt "" originally , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but that just {disfmarker} +PhD H: Here @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD A: and so I {disfmarker} But tha that 's good to know . +Postdoc C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: Was thi it 's Chafe ? +Postdoc C: Well , see , I know S Sue wrote about spurts of development . +PhD F: So maybe we should talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: Maybe it was Sue {disfmarker} ? Y +Postdoc C: But , in any case , I think it 's a good term , +PhD A: So we have spurts and we have spurt - ify dot shell and spurt - ify +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: And ma maybe {disfmarker} maybe Chafe did . +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: And then it 's got all {disfmarker} it 's a verb now . +Postdoc C: I know {disfmarker} I know Ch - Chafe dealt with {disfmarker} +PhD F: So s +Grad G: That 's cool . +PhD F: W uh , w +Postdoc C: Chafe speaks about intonation units . +PhD A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc C: But maybe he speaks about spurts as well +PhD F: We +Postdoc C: and I just don't know . Yeah , go ahead . +Grad E: I 've heard "" burst "" also . +PhD F: So what we 're doing {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} maybe someone has s some {disfmarker} some ideas about how to do it better , +Grad G: Mmm . +PhD F: but we {disfmarker} So we 're taking these , uh , alignments from the individual channels . We 're {disfmarker} from each alignment we 're producing , uh , one of these CTM files , +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD F: which essentially has {disfmarker} it 's just a linear sequence of words with the begin times for every word and the duration . +PhD A: It looks like a Waves label file almost . Right ? +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and of course {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . But it has {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} the first column has the meeting name , so it could actually contain several meetings . Um . And the second column is the channel . Third column is the , um , start times of the words and the fourth column is the duration of the words . And then we 're , um {disfmarker} OK . Then we have a messy alignment process where we actually insert into the sequence of words the , uh , tags for , like , where {disfmarker} where sentence {disfmarker} ends of sentence , question marks , um , {vocalsound} various other things . +PhD A: Yeah . These are things that we had Don {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . +PhD A: So , Don sort of , um , propagated the punctuation from the original transcriber {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: so whether it was , like , question mark or period or , {vocalsound} um , you know , comma and things like that , and we kept the {disfmarker} and disfluency dashes {disfmarker} uh , kept those in because we sort of wanna know where those are relative to the spurt overlaps {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: sp overlaps , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} so those are actually sort of retro - fitted into the time alignment . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: And then we merge all the alignments from the various channels and we sort them by time . And then there 's a {disfmarker} then there 's a process where you now determine the spurts . That is {disfmarker} Actually , no , you do that before you merge the various channels . So you {disfmarker} you id identify by some criterion , which is pause length {disfmarker} you identify the beginnings and ends of these spurts , and you put another set of tags in there to keep those straight . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And then you merge everything in terms of , you know , linearizing the sequence based on the time marks . And then {vocalsound} you extract the individual channels again , but this time you know where the other people start and end talking {disfmarker} you know , where their spurts start and end . And so you extract the individual channels , uh , one sp spurt by spurt as it were . Um , and inside the words or between the words you now have begin and end {pause} tags for overlaps . So , you {disfmarker} you basically have everything sort of lined up and in a form where you can look at the individual speakers and how their speech relates to the other speakers ' speech . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Uh , I mean , I think that 's actually really u useful also +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +PhD A: because even if you weren't studying overlaps , if you wanna get a transcription for the far - field mikes , how are you gonna know which words from which speakers occurred at which times relative to each other ? You have to be able to {pause} get a transcript like {disfmarker} like this anyway , just for doing far - field recognition . So , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: I thi it 's just an issue we haven't dealt with before , how you time - align things that are overlapping anyway . +Postdoc C: That 's wonderful . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , i I never thought about it before , +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Y yes . +PhD F: In {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , s when I came up with the original data {disfmarker} suggested data format based on the transcription graph , there 's capability of doing that sort of thing in there . +PhD A: Right . But you can't get it directly from the transcription . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD F: Right . Well , this is {disfmarker} this is just {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , this is like a poor man 's ver formatting version . But it 's , you know {disfmarker} It 's clean , it 's just not fancy . +Grad E: Right . +PhD A: Um . +PhD F: Well , there 's lots of little things . It 's like there 're twelve different scripts which you run and then at the end you have what you want . But , um , at the very last stage we throw away the actual time information . All we care about is whether {disfmarker} that there 's a certain word was overlapped by someone else 's word . So you sort of {disfmarker} at that point , you discretize things into just having overlap or no overlap . Because we figure that 's about the level of analysis that we want to do for this paper . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But if you wanted to do a more fine - grained analysis and say , you know , how far into the word is the overlap , you could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just {disfmarker} it 'll just require more {disfmarker} +PhD A: Just {pause} sort of huge . +PhD F: you know , slightly different {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: What 's interesting is it 's exactly what , um , i in discussing with , um , Sue about this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: um , she , um , i i i indicated that that {disfmarker} you know , that 's very important for overlap analysis . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to know , +PhD F: Right . +PhD A: and also I think as a human , like , I don't always hear these in the actual order that they occur . So I can have two foreground speakers , you know , Morgan an and {vocalsound} um , Adam and Jane could all be talking , and I could align each of them to be starting their utterance at the correct time , and then look where they are relative to each other , and that 's not really what I heard . +Postdoc C: And that 's another thing she said . +PhD A: Cuz it 's just hard to do . +Postdoc C: This is {disfmarker} This is Bever 's {disfmarker} Bever 's effect , +PhD A: Y Yeah . +Postdoc C: when {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} In psy ps psycho - linguistics you have these experiments where people have perceptual biases a as to what they hear , +PhD A: It 's sort of {disfmarker} Yeah , you sort of move things around until you get to a {pause} low information point +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Not the best {disfmarker} +PhD A: and yo then you can bring in the other person . So it 's {vocalsound} actually not even possible , I think , for any person to listen to a mixed signal , even equalize , and make sure that they have all the words in the right order . So , I guess , we 'll try to write this Eurospeech paper . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Superb . +PhD A: I mean , we will write it . Whether they accept it {pause} late or not , I don't know . Um , and the good thing is that we have {disfmarker} It 's sort of a beginning of what Don can use to link the prosodic features from each file to each other . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's the good thing about these pape +PhD A: So . i You know , might as well . +PhD F: Plus , mayb +PhD H: Hmm ? +PhD A: We - I ju Otherwise we won't get the work done {comment} {vocalsound} on our deadline . +PhD F: I don't know , m +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I mean , u u Jane likes to look at data . Maybe , you know , you could {disfmarker} you could look at this format and see if you find anything interesting . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} that 's the good thing about these pape paper deadlines and , uh , you know , class projects , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and things like that , +Postdoc C: Well , what I 'm thinking is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , my {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well th th the other thing that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that yo that you usually don't tell your graduate students is that these deadlines are actually not that , um , you know , strictly enforced , +Professor B: because you {disfmarker} you really get g +PhD A: Forces you to do the work . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad E: Strict . +PhD F: because {pause} the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , now it 's out in the public , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this secret information . +PhD F: because {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I think we can ha +PhD F: bec b {vocalsound} Nah {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: No . +Professor B: No . +Postdoc C: Nah . +PhD F: i Because these {disfmarker} the conference organizers actually have an interest in getting lots of submissions . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Right . +PhD F: I mean , a {disfmarker} a monetary interest . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um . +Professor B: Th - that 's {disfmarker} that 's true . +Postdoc C: And good ones , good ones , which sometimes means {pause} a little extra time . +PhD F: And good submission +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD F: Well {disfmarker} That 's another issue , +Professor B: By th by the way , this is totally unfair , you may {disfmarker} you may feel , +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the morning meeting folks actually have an {disfmarker} an extra month or so . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad E: Yep . The Aurora {disfmarker} there 's a special Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: When {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's a special Aurora session +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: and the Aurora pe people involved in Aurora have till Ma - uh , early May {pause} or something to turn in their paper . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Oh , well maybe we 'll submit to s {comment} {vocalsound} Actually {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , then you can just {disfmarker} Maybe you can submit the digits paper on e for the Aurora session . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I could ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I if it w +Grad E: I could submit that to Aurora . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: That would be pretty {disfmarker} pretty {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: i it has {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: +Grad E: S That wouldn't work . +Professor B: No , it wouldn't work . +Grad E: It 's not Aurora . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the Aurora {disfmarker} I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually the Aurora task . +PhD A: Maybe they 'll get s +Grad E: Aurora 's very specific . +Professor B: It +PhD A: Well , maybe it won't be after this {vocalsound} deadline {pause} extension . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} but the people {disfmarker} I mean , a {disfmarker} a paper that is not on Aurora would probably be more interesting at that point +PhD A: Maybe they 'll {disfmarker} +PhD F: because everybody 's so sick and tired of the Aurora task . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Oh , I thought you meant this was just the digits section . I didn't know you meant it was Aurora digits . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , no . If you {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} it 's to {disfmarker} if you discuss some relation to the Aurora task , like if you use the same {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is not the Aurora task . So they just do a little grep for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do {disfmarker} uh , d d Do not {disfmarker} do not {disfmarker} we are not setting a good example . +PhD F: Um . Well , a relation other than negation , maybe , +PhD A: This is not a {disfmarker} +PhD F: um . So . +PhD A: Anyway . +PhD F: I don't know . +PhD A: But the good thing is this does {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , I I don't know . I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do a paper on {pause} what 's wrong with the Aurora task by comparing it to {pause} other ways of doing it . +PhD F: How well does an Aurora system do on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} you know , on digits collected in a {disfmarker} in this environment ? +PhD H: +Grad E: Different way . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Maybe . +PhD F: Maybe . +Grad E: Pretty hokey . +Professor B: I think it 's a littl little far - fetched . Nah , I mean , the thing is Aurora 's pretty closed community . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: I mean , you know , the people who were involved in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the only people who are allowed to test on that are people who {disfmarker} who made it above a certain threshold in the first round , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's very specific . +Professor B: uh {vocalsound} w in ninety - nine and it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not like a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , that 's maybe why they don't f know that they have a crummy system . I mean , a crummy back - end . No , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , seriously , if you {disfmarker} if you have a very {disfmarker} No , I 'm sorry . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} "" beep "" {vocalsound} "" bee "" +Grad E: I mean , th +PhD F: No . I didn't mean anybody {disfmarker} any particular system . I meant this H T K back - end . +Professor B: Oh , you don't like HTK ? +PhD F: If they {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: I don't h I don't have any stock in HTK or Entropic or anything . +Professor B: No . I mean , this {disfmarker} it it 's the HTK {pause} that is trained on a very limited amount of data . +Grad E: It 's d it 's very specific . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But so , if you {disfmarker} But maybe you should , you know , consider more {disfmarker} using more data , or {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I really think that that 's true . And they i i +PhD F: If yo if you sort of hermetically stay within one task and don't look left and right , then you 're gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: But they {disfmarker} they had {disfmarker} +Professor B: i But {disfmarker} +Grad E: They had something very specific in mind when they designed it . Right ? +Professor B: Well , u i +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} so you can {disfmarker} you can argue about maybe that wasn't the right thing to do , but , you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they had something specific . +Professor B: But , one of the reasons I have Chuck 's messing around with {disfmarker} with the back - end that you 're not supposed to touch {disfmarker} I mean , for the evaluations , yes , we 'll run a version that hasn't been touched . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , one of the reasons I have him messing around with that , because I think it 's sort of an open question that we don't know the answer to . People always say very glibly {vocalsound} that i if you s show improvement on a bad system , that doesn't mean anything , cuz it may not be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} show {disfmarker} uh , because , you know , it doesn't tell you anything about the good system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I {disfmarker} I 've always sort of felt that that depends . You know , that if some peopl If you 're actually are getting at something that has some {pause} conceptual substance to it , it will port . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And in fact , most methods that people now use were originally tried with something that was not their absolute {pause} best system at some level . But of course , sometimes it doesn't , uh , port . So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's an interesting question . If we 're getting {pause} three percent error on , uh , u uh , English , uh , nati native speakers , {vocalsound} um , using the Aurora system , and we do some improvements and bring it from three to two , {vocalsound} do those same improvements bring , uh , th you know , the SRI system from one point three to {disfmarker} you know , to {vocalsound} point eight ? +PhD F: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Zero . +Professor B: Well . You know , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's something we can test . +PhD F: Mmm . Right . +Professor B: So . Anyway . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think we 've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 've covered that one up extremely well . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Whew ! +Professor B: OK . So , um {disfmarker} Yeah . So tha so we 'll {disfmarker} you know , maybe you guys 'll have {disfmarker} have one . Uh , you {disfmarker} you and , uh {disfmarker} and Dan have {disfmarker} have a paper that {disfmarker} that 's going in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty solid , on the segmentation {pause} stuff . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . I will send you the {disfmarker} the final version , +Professor B: Yeah . And the Aurora folks here will {disfmarker} will definitely get something in on Aurora , +PhD D: which is not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Actually this {disfmarker} this , um {disfmarker} So , there 's another paper . +Professor B: so . +PhD F: It 's a Eurospeech paper but not related to meetings . But it 's on digits . So , um , uh , a colleague at SRI developed a improved version of MMIE training . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And he tested it mostly on digits because it 's sort of a {disfmarker} you know , it doesn't take weeks to train it . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Um . And got some very impressive results , um , with , you know , discriminative , uh , Gaussian training . Um , you know , like , um , error rates {pause} go from {disfmarker} I don't know , in very noisy environment , like from , uh , uh {disfmarker} I for now I {disfmarker} OK , now I have the order of magnit I 'm not sure about the order of magnitude . Was it like from ten percent to {vocalsound} eight percent or from e e you know , point {disfmarker} you know , from one percent to point eight percent ? +Professor B: H i it got {disfmarker} it got better . +PhD F: I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: It got better . That 's the important thing . +Grad E: Hey , that 's the same percent relative , +PhD F: Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's , uh , something in {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Twenty percent relative gain . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} let 's see . I think the only thing we had left was {disfmarker} unless somebody else {disfmarker} Well , there 's a couple things . Uh , one is {pause} anything that , um , {vocalsound} anybody has to say about Saturday ? Anything we should do in prep for Saturday ? Um {disfmarker} I guess everybody knows about {disfmarker} I mean , u um , Mari was asking {disfmarker} was trying to come up with something like an agenda and we 're sort of fitting around people 's times a bit . But , um , {vocalsound} clearly when we actually get here we 'll {pause} move things around this , as we need to , but {disfmarker} so you can't absolutely count on it . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Are we meeting in here probably or {disfmarker} ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That was my thought . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think this is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are we recording it ? +PhD A: We won't have enough microphones , +Professor B: +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: u No . I {disfmarker} I hadn't in intended to . +PhD A: There 's no way . +Professor B: We won we wanna {disfmarker} I mean , they 're {disfmarker} there 's gonna be , uh , Jeff , Katrin , Mari and two students . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: So there 's five {pause} from there . +Grad E: And Brian . +Professor B: And Brian 's coming , +PhD F: But you know th +Professor B: so that 's six . +Grad E: And plus all of us . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Can use the Oprah mike . +PhD A: Depends how fast you can {pause} throw it . +Grad E: It seems like too many {disfmarker} too much coming and going . +PhD A: It 's just {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: We don't even have enough channel {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because it would be a different kind of meeting , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: that 's what I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: I hadn't {pause} really thought of it , +PhD F: Maybe just {disfmarker} maybe not the whole day +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: but just , you know , maybe some {disfmarker} I mean , +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +PhD F: part of it ? +Professor B: Maybe part of it . +Grad E: Make everyone read digits . +Professor B: At the same time . +PhD A: At the same time . +Grad E: At the same time . +PhD F: Please . +PhD H: +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: We c +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD A: That 's their initiation into our +Professor B: Any +PhD A: w +Grad E: Into our {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our cult . +PhD A: Yeah , our {disfmarker} Yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD F: Maybe the sections that are not right afte you know , after lunch when everybody 's still munching and {disfmarker} +PhD A: So can you send out a schedule once you know it , jus ? +Professor B: OK . Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is there a r ? +Professor B: OK . Yeah . I guess I sent it around a little bit . +PhD A: There 's a res Is it changed now , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: But {disfmarker} I hadn't heard back from Mari after I {disfmarker} I u u uh , brought up the point abou about Andreas 's schedule . So , {vocalsound} um , maybe when I get back there 'll be {pause} some {disfmarker} some mail from her . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: So , I 'll make a {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'm looking forward to seeing your representation . That 'd be , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: And w we should get {pause} the two meetings from y +Postdoc C: I 'd like to see that . Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , I know about the first meeting , um , but the other one that you did , the NSA one , which we {pause} hadn't done cuz we weren't running recognition on it , because the non - native speaker {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: there were five non - native speakers . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . I see . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But , it would be useful for the {disfmarker} to see what we get {pause} with that one . So . +Postdoc C: Great . OK . It 's , uh , two thousand eleven twenty - one one thousand . +PhD A: Yeah , three . Right . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Great . I sent email when I finished the {disfmarker} that one . +PhD A: N S A three , I think . +Postdoc C: That was sort of son Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . That 's much simpler . +PhD A: I don't know what they said but I know the number . +Professor B: Th - that part 's definitely gonna confuse somebody who looks at these later . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I mean , this is {disfmarker} we we 're recording secret NSA meetings ? +PhD F: Um . Not the {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Not that NSA . +PhD F: Uh . The {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} +PhD A: They are hard to understand . +Professor B: It 's network services and applications . +PhD F: Wait . +PhD A: They 're very , uh , out there . +PhD F: The {disfmarker} +PhD A: I have no idea what they 're talking about . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: The , um {disfmarker} th the other good thing about the alignments is that , um , it 's not always the machine 's fault if it doesn't work . So , you can actually find , um , +PhD A: It 's the person 's fault . +PhD F: problem {disfmarker} uh , proble +PhD A: It 's Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's always Morgan 's fault . +PhD F: You can find , uh , problems with {disfmarker} with the transcripts , um , you know , +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: and go back and fix them . +PhD A: Tha - There are some cases like where the {disfmarker} the wrong speaker {disfmarker} uh , these ca Not a lot , but where the {disfmarker} the wrong person {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech is addre attached to the wrong speaker +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: and you can tell that when you run it . Or at least you can get {pause} clues to it . +Postdoc C: Interesting . +PhD A: So these are from the early transcriptions that people did on the mixed signals , like what you have . +Postdoc C: I guess it does w Mm - hmm . It also raises the possibility of , um , using that kind of representation {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , this 'd be something we 'd wanna check , {comment} but maybe using that representation for data entry and then displaying it on the channelized , uh , representation , cuz it {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} I mean , my {disfmarker} my preference in terms of , like , looking at the data is to see it {pause} in this kind of musical score format . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And also , s you know , Sue 's preference as well . +PhD A: Yeah , if you can get it to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but , I mean , this {disfmarker} if this is a better interface for making these kinds of , uh , you know , lo clos local changes , then that 'd be fine , too . I don't {disfmarker} I have no idea . I think this is something that would need to be checked . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Th - the other thing I had actually was , I {disfmarker} I didn't realize this till today , but , uh , this is , uh , Jose 's last day . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD H: Is my last {disfmarker} my last day . +PhD A: Oh ! +Postdoc C: Oh . +PhD F: Oh ! +Grad E: You 're not gonna be here tomorrow ? +PhD H: My {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my last meeting {pause} about meetings . +Grad E: Oh , that 's right . Tomorrow {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: The last meeting meeting ? +PhD H: Because , eh , I leave , eh , the next Sunday . +Grad E: It 's off . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: I will come back to home {disfmarker} to Spain . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: I d so I {disfmarker} I jus +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: And I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to say thank you very much , eh , to all people {pause} in the group and at ICSI , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . It was good having you . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD H: because I {disfmarker} I enjoyed @ @ very much , +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD H: uh . And I 'm sorry by the result of overlapping , because , eh , {vocalsound} I haven't good results , eh , yet but , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I pretend {comment} to {disfmarker} to continuing out to Spain , eh , during the {disfmarker} the following months , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD H: eh , because I have , eh , another ideas but , eh , I haven't enough time to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with six months it 's not enough to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to research , +Grad E: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: eh , and e i I mean , if , eh , the topic is , eh , so difficult , uh , in my opinion , there isn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe somebody else will come along and will be , uh , interested in working on it and could start off from where you are also , you know . They 'd make use of {disfmarker} of what you 've done . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . But , eh , I {disfmarker} I will try to recommend , eh , at , eh , {vocalsound} the Spanish government but , eh , the following @ @ scholarship , eh , eh , {vocalsound} eh , will be here {pause} more time , because eh , i in my opinion is {disfmarker} is better , {vocalsound} eh , for us {pause} to {disfmarker} to spend more time here and to work more time i i in a topic . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's a very short time . +PhD H: No ? But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , six months is hard . +PhD H: Yeah . It is . +Grad E: I think a year is a lot better . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: It 's difficult . You {disfmarker} e you have , eh {disfmarker} you are lucky , and you {disfmarker} you find a solution {comment} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some few tim uh , months , eh ? OK . But , eh , I think it 's not , eh , common . But , eh , anyway , thank you . Thank you very much . Eh , I {disfmarker} I bring the chocolate , eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} to tear , uh , with {disfmarker} with you , +PhD A: Oh . +Postdoc C: Ah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: uh . I {disfmarker} I hope if you need , eh , something , eh , from us in the future , I {disfmarker} I will be at Spain , {vocalsound} to you help , uh . +Professor B: Well . +Grad E: Great . +Postdoc C: Great . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Thank you , Jose . +Postdoc C: Thank you . +PhD H: And , thank you very much . +PhD F: Have a good trip . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Keep in touch . +PhD H: Thank you . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . I guess , uh , unless somebody has something else , we 'll read {disfmarker} read our digits +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: and we 'll get our {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: get our last bit of , uh , Jose 's {disfmarker} Jose {disfmarker} Jose 's digit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oops . +Grad E: Are we gonna do them simultaneously or {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: You {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , I 'm sorry ? +PhD H: Ye - ye you prefer , eh , to eat , eh , chocolate , eh , at the coffee break , eh , at the {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Or you prefer now , before after {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Well , we have a time {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , we prefer to keep it for ourselves . +PhD D: During {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , we have a s a time {disfmarker} time constraint . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: during digits . +Professor B: So keep it away from that end of the table . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: Why is it that I can read your mind ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 've gotta wait until after di after we take the mikes off . +PhD D: No , no . +Grad E: So are we gonna do digits simultaneously +PhD A: You {disfmarker} This is our reward if we {pause} do our digi +Professor B: Well ? Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: or what ? +PhD D: Simultaneous digit chocolate task . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I think , eh , it 's enough , eh , for more peopl for more people {pause} after . +Professor B: We 're gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna do digits at the same {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: Mmm ! +Postdoc C: That 's nice . +PhD H: But , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , thanks , Jose . +Professor B: Um . +Postdoc C: Wow . +PhD H: To Andreas , the idea is {disfmarker} is good . {vocalsound} s To eat here . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Postdoc C: Wow . Very nice . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Oh , wow . +Professor B: Tha - that 's {disfmarker} that looks great . +PhD F: Oh , yeah . Th - it doesn't {disfmarker} it won't leave this room . +Professor B: Alright , so in the interest of getting to the {disfmarker} +PhD A: We could do digits while other people eat . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's background crunching . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: We don't have background chewing . +Postdoc C: Nice . +PhD H: Is , eh , a {disfmarker} another acoustic event . +PhD D: Background crunch . Yeah . +PhD A: No , we don't have any data with background eating . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I 'm serious . You +Professor B: She 's {disfmarker} she 's serious . +PhD A: I am serious . +Grad E: It 's just the rest of the digits {disfmarker} the rest of the digits are very clean , +Professor B: She is serious . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} ? +PhD H: Are you {disfmarker} ? Oh , they 're clean . +PhD D: Yeah ! +Grad E: um , without a lot of background noise , +PhD A: And it {disfmarker} You have to write down , like , while y what you 're {disfmarker} what ch chocolate you 're eating +Grad E: so I 'm just not sure {disfmarker} +PhD A: cuz they might make different sounds , like n nuts {disfmarker} chocolate with nuts , chocolate without nuts . +Postdoc C: Oh . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Crunchy frogs . +PhD F: Chocolate adaptation . +Professor B: Actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} actually kind of careful cuz I have a strong allergy to nuts , so I have to sort of figure out one without th +PhD A: That w Oh , yeah , they {disfmarker} they might . +Professor B: It 's hard to {disfmarker} hard to say . +PhD A: Maybe those ? They 're so {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is {disfmarker} You know , this is a different kind of speech , +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD H: Take {disfmarker} take several . +PhD A: looking at chocolates , deciding {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: you know , it 's another style . +Professor B: Yeah . I may {disfmarker} I may hold off . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: But if I was {disfmarker} eh , but maybe I 'll get some later . Thanks . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} well , why don't we {disfmarker} ? He {disfmarker} he 's worried about a ticket . Why don't we do a simultaneous one ? +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Simultaneous one ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD A: And you laughed at me , too , f the first time I said that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: Remember to read the transcript number , please . +PhD F: Right . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: I have to what ? +PhD D: Oops . +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD A: You laughed at me , too , the first time I sa said {disfmarker} +Professor B: I did , +PhD A: You really shouldn't , uh , te +Professor B: and now I love it so much . +Grad E: OK , everyone ready ? +PhD A: You have to sort of , um {disfmarker} Jose , if you haven't done this , you have to plug your ears while you 're t talking +Professor B: W wait {disfmarker} wait a minute {disfmarker} wait a minute . W we want {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +PhD A: so that you don't get confused , I guess . +Professor B: we want it synchronized . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , you 've done this one before ? +Postdoc C: Hey , you 've done this before . Haven't you ? +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Together ? +Postdoc C: You 've read {pause} digits together with us , haven't you {disfmarker} I mean , at the same time ? +PhD A: I 'm not {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Oh , and you haven't done this either . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc C: Oh , you haven't ! +PhD H: No . +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: I the first time is {pause} traumatic , +Professor B: We +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Y {vocalsound} Yeah , bu +Postdoc C: Oh , and the groupings are important , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc C: so yo you 're supposed to pause between the groupings . +PhD H: The grouping . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: You mean that the {disfmarker} the grouping is supposed to be synchronized ? +Professor B: No , no . +Postdoc C: No . +Grad E: Yeah , sure . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: That 'd be good . +Professor B: Synchronized digits . +Postdoc C: No . +PhD F: No ? +PhD A: We - we 'll give everybody the same sheet +PhD F: It 's like a {disfmarker} like a Greek {disfmarker} like a Greek choir ? +PhD A: but they say different {disfmarker} +PhD F: You know ? +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Hey , what a good idea . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We could do the same sheet for everyone . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: Have them all read them at once . +PhD A: Well , different digits +PhD D: Eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but same groupings . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} or just same digits . +PhD A: So they would all be {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 'd be good . +Grad E: See if anyone notices . +Professor B: There 's so many possibilities . +Postdoc C: And then {disfmarker} then we can sing them next time . +Professor B: Uh . OK , why don't we go ? Uh , one two three {disfmarker} Go ! +Postdoc C: OK . Mmm ! +Professor B: And Andreas has the last word . +Grad E: Did you read it twice or what ? +PhD A: He 's try No , he 's trying to get good recognition performance . +Postdoc C: He had the h +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc C: He had the {disfmarker} the long form . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: And we 're off . +PhD F: No . +","During a meeting, various academics including professors, postdocs, PhD students, and a visiting scholar from Spain, discuss various topics related to their research. They check their wireless connections, discuss agenda items including digits and forced alignment, consider conference paper submissions, and touch on issues with speech recognition tasks and alignments. They also address the specific requirements of the Aurora task. The meeting concludes with Jose, a visiting scholar, thanking everyone for his time at ICSI and providing chocolates. The group also plans simultaneous reading of digits from transcripts for data collection." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Good morning everybody . +Industrial Designer: Good morning . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody is not ready . +User Interface: Uh almost . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Ready . +Project Manager: Okay , let's go . So , we're here today to to have our first kick-off meeting about uh this new project we're going to tak to talk about in a few minutes . Um so I will be uh Sebastian the Project Manager . Um you are the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm uh Michael . I'm the user interface designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Hi I'm Guillermo {gap} . I'm the Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: And I am Hemant , the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay , very good . Thanks for being here . Um so let's have a look to the the agenda . So , we are going to go through this agenda uh and mainly first to uh {vocalsound} to make {disfmarker} to to be used to the tools uh available in this nice and smart meeting room we have here . Um then we'll go to uh the plans for project and have general discussions about it . So , the goal of this project is to uh developed a new remote control . Um it should be original , trendy , and also user friendly . As usual we will follow the the project method um {vocalsound} that we are using in the {disfmarker} in our company . It is in three step as you know . First the functional design . The second's a conceptual design , and then the detailed design . During each step uh of each design we wi you will work uh s separately , individually on uh your specific tasks and will m we will meet to um to discuss and take decisions about uh what you've you've you did and what uh we will do next . So first , we have to to train ourself with all the um the tools availables in the in this nice meeting room and uh particularly the the white board so uh we are going to go through the white board and take some um s some notes or do some drawings . So who want to start ? Mister {gap} . +User Interface: Ah well if no one else wants to , yeah . Okay so , want me to draw my favourite animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . Well , I don't really have a favourite animal , but um +Project Manager: You have one in mind ? +User Interface: uh I think I have one in mind , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm gonna {vocalsound} {gap} about the uh spider because you can actually draw it pretty well in the corner of a white board . The spider has a {disfmarker} spider lives in a web {vocalsound} and uh it has eight legs , and uh it can move all about the web in two dimensions . Unless it's a three dimensional web which y they have sometimes . There are some spiders that live in like {disfmarker} that have like uh kind of a a big ball of a of a web . And uh the other thing is some spiders can actually uh fly like uh they have uh they let out like uh a stream of like the web building material but it's it acts like a parachute so they can actually kind of go and find new uh {disfmarker} build a new web somewhere else . So I think they did this in uh in Charlotte's Web that movie that little uh {disfmarker} well it's actually a book first but uh um at the end all the the spiders kinda flew away . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So , that's my animal . +Project Manager: Th thank you . Very interesting . {vocalsound} Guillermo you want to ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'kay {vocalsound} I dunno why , but {vocalsound} when I was a child I I wanted to be a a panther +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} not a pink panther , +Industrial Designer: But don't you think it's very difficult to draw a panther ? +Marketing: or maybe yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It would be very funny for us . +Marketing: Uh yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bad I don't like it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay it's a friendly panther . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe it's happy 'cause it just ate someone . +Marketing: Yeah maybe {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . Actually , honestly I I I dunno what's what's his it's be behaviour , I dunno if if it's the male who who hunts or it's the female uh , I I I have watched that lions di didn't hunt it's the the female lions who who hunt , so {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} I like it because it's fast , and it's black as well , so it can he {disfmarker} it can hide itself very easily and it's it's {disfmarker} it looks like um {vocalsound} powerful , strong , uh I dunno . I I watch a a film about a black panther when I was a child and {vocalsound} I was in that age when everything was shocking me a lot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hemant . +Industrial Designer: Um sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you don't like pink panthers ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Thanks . This lapel is coming out once in a while . It's not very strong . Okay . So , not the favourite animal , but I think I'll draw elephant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll try to draw elephant {vocalsound} . It's a problem . Okay , thanks . Okay so , elephant goes like this , {gap} and then it has four feet {vocalsound} . I don't know whether there's any dist there should be any distance or not , but I think this is the easiest . And then we have it's trunk . And yep something like this {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An eye , cute {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Poor elephant {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} and sometimes they have a hump . It seems that uh elephants are pretty friendly and they they have one very important way {disfmarker} a different way of walking . So when they walk , wherever they are going to put their first feet , the second feet will always be . When they'll come to that position the second , the third feet will be there . That's the way they walk . And that's very peculiar about them . None of the other animals walk like this . And they are very useful to human beings . At least few few hundred years ago when there was no means of transportations or something , or when they had to carry huge um loads from one place to another , elephants were very useful . And they are found in um usually the warm countries . And um they are the biggest terrestrial animal . That's what I know about them . So , that's what I wanted to tell about elephants . +User Interface: So is this uh an Indian or an African elephant , 'cause you haven't drawn the ears ? +Industrial Designer: There are two kind of uh yeah , they are very different , Indian and African elephants . So Indian elephant is having one bump , I think , and the African have two . And then there's a difference in the trunk of the animals , these elephants who are Indian and {disfmarker} So at some {disfmarker} for some elephants it's {disfmarker} the trunk is having one {disfmarker} Do we have some message there ? +Project Manager: Yes . We have to {disfmarker} I have to catch you , +Industrial Designer: Wind up +Project Manager: sorry . We have to to go through the meeting . +Industrial Designer: ? Okay , some other time . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you {vocalsound} . +User Interface: We can discuss that off-line . +Project Manager: Yeah we'll discuss a f a fly or do {disfmarker} we'll do another meeting abo on elephants . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so another important part of the project is about money , uh and about {disfmarker} so about finances . So {vocalsound} we should target selling price of twenty-five Euro for this remote control and uh we have um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} which which would generate a profit of of um {vocalsound} fifty million Euros , okay . And we should target the inter an international market . +User Interface: So could I just ask one question , um is this a stand-alone unit that we're gonna be selling ? So it's gonna be you already have a T_V_ but you're buying an extra remote control for it or something ? +Project Manager: O this is the {vocalsound} next topic we have to discuss exactly , +User Interface: Okay , alright . +Project Manager: so let's go to it . So um we should decide which kind of remote control we want to uh we want to uh we want to go . Should be should should it be um specific remote control to some specific device ? Should it be a universal one ? And uh etcetera . So um {vocalsound} so I'm waiting for your for your inputs very quickly because we have only three three minutes to go . +User Interface: Okay well , so , it seems the the first thing that they've kinda specified is the price like based on how much profit we wanna make , which seems to {disfmarker} a kind of a little strange if we don't know what the the product is yet , but I guess if that's {disfmarker} if that's the requirement that we need to to design the the product to actually fit that that price bracket so , I guess we're gonna need to find out what's actually {disfmarker} you know , what people ar are willing to pay for {disfmarker} um what kind of product they're expecting for twenty-five Euro +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: because it seems quite a lot for a remote control , +Project Manager: Okay I think this is more a job to our +User Interface: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: market person yeah . +Industrial Designer: Marketing person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it should be the topic of maybe of the next meeting just to to have an overview of this and uh in which direction we should go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we need to close the meeting . Uh we'll have a new meeting soon and uh so {gap} the work every every of you ha have t d to do . So um you have to work on the on the working design , you have to uh work on the technical functions , and uh you have to work on us user requirements specs , alright ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um you will receive some information by emails , i as usual . Thanks for coming today . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: Alright . +","Summary: + +The conversation is a kick-off meeting for a new project led by Sebastian, the Project Manager. Michael (User Interface Designer), Guillermo (Marketing Expert), and Hemant (Industrial Designer) are also participants. They begin by familiarizing themselves with the tools in the meeting room, particularly the whiteboard, by drawing their favorite animals. Michael talks about spiders, Guillermo about panthers, and Hemant about elephants. + +The goal of the project is to develop a new remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly. The team will follow a three-step project design method consisting of functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. They will work on their tasks individually and come together to discuss and make decisions. The project's financial targets include a selling price of 25 Euros for the remote control and an aim to generate a profit of fifty million Euros, focusing on the international market. + +The team briefly discusses the nature of the remote control, whether it should be specific to a device or universal. They consider the implications of the set target price on the design and product expectations. Since time is limited, they plan to address the product specifics and marketing strategies in the next meeting. Each team member has specific tasks related to the design, technical functions, and user requirements specifications. The meeting concludes with the promise of subsequent communication by email and further meetings to progress the project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right w welcome to the the first meeting of uh Real Reaction's uh um development meetings for our our new television remote control . Uh this follows our very successful entry into the the consumer market over the last year or so um which we want to to build on , taking advantage of the uh the the latest developments in in technology and the uh the latest uh {vocalsound} uh feelings in in consumer design and and demand and uh we want to make this the the very best product th that's possible for everybody , uh one that everybody wants , uh at a good price for the consumer and at a good price for the company . Uh and to that end we need all to work together uh to do that . Um and uh b in no particular order because ev everybody is uh {vocalsound} just as vital to this project +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: um {vocalsound} I'll just go round th the table , Andrew , marketing , um m Kendra with the uh um {disfmarker} designing the the the User Interface uh uh and Kate with the the industrial design . Um . {vocalsound} What's uh {disfmarker} the the th th project is is here to do , is is to to get this this project up and moving , ev everybody is is free to uh say wh whatever they want , uh everybody has a contribution to make and uh {vocalsound} everybody feel free to interrupt me at any time to to say what you want to say . Um in in terms of the immediate meeting the uh um {gap} everybody knows everybody else , everybody's worked for the the company for a while , if if an anybody feels that they need to say more about themselves please do , if if if anybody wants to b briefly give their their background so that everybody's quite clear what everybody uh {disfmarker} uh everybody's experience is please do so . Uh in fact I'd I'd I'd welcome anybody to uh say something briefly about themselves , in fact we will do that by by going round the table quickly and and saying what what contribution you {disfmarker} you're looking to make . So we'll start with Andrew . +Marketing: Oh my name's Andrew I'm a {disfmarker} I'm the Market Research person for this uh for this meeting and this uh project for creating this new remote control and uh yeah I'll be uh presenting information statistics on what people want to want to uh get from this new design , what people want to {gap} like {disfmarker} and from a fashion point of view and the practicality point of view . +Project Manager: Right {vocalsound} Kendra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm Kendra and I'm the Us User Interface Designer and um {vocalsound} I haven't had a whole lot of experience in this kind of thing before but I'm m so I'll be {vocalsound} working on the design . +Project Manager: Right at least means you haven't got any preconceived ideas so . +User Interface: Right . Yep , I'm just open to being creative . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I'm Katie , +Project Manager: Yep , good . +Industrial Designer: I'm the Industrial Designer and I'll just be I guess presenting about the the inter workings of our little remote control and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , very very quickly , um {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} I don't want to make this meeting too structured because the the whole idea is that it's a um you know a think tank . Everybody says what they {gap} what they want to say , uh and we don't want to be constrained by uh kind of convention or uh uh slides on screens or or anything else um but um briefly um th th this is what we want to do . The the remote control needs to be original , there has to be something about it that uh other remote controls don't have so that as soon as people see it they think um yes that's different , uh I want one , um and that goes along with being trendy , uh uh you know the I want it uh scenario . User-friendly as as we all know , remote controls can be uh uh very user-unfriendly so we want to make ours one that people can pick up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and think oh yes that's {disfmarker} it's obvious how that works , uh and they also want to look at the price and think oh yeah that's something that {disfmarker} I may not need another remote control but uh it's such a nice one I'm gonna have one . And last but not least , or indeed first of all , it it must make the company money , and we make the company money by producing what the consumer wants . The uh the further work to be done is i the um the functional design , uh what it uh what it must actually do , the uh conceptual design , uh how we actually present that to the consumer and th the the detailed design i is uh how we get that into production . Uh now th the main design tool that we have available to us at the moment is is the white board and uh uh {vocalsound} let us very quickly do what i what it says in the in the in the prompt slide here , um {disfmarker} In fact I suggest to avoid everybody untangling themselves from the uh the the wires , that we don't do that , um So I I {disfmarker} everybody knows what whiteboard is so we'll um uh we'll do a virtual drawing on the on on the whiteboard of of your your own uh uh favourite animal , but le let's go round the table , your favourite animal . +Marketing: Um , badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm and why ? +Marketing: Uh it's it's got nice contrast with black {vocalsound} and white and uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I feel they're {gap} underdog kind of status +Project Manager: Oh right +Marketing: and they're , the +Project Manager: uh my my wife says my beard looks like a badger's arse 'cause of the the white streaks in it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um probably a duck +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kendra . +User Interface: I just {disfmarker} I li I like the way they look and they're just nice animals and I like how they can fly or swim or walk around or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh 's horses , no particular reason why {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , {gap} fair enough yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure that I've got any favourite animal to be quite honest , I think homo sapien +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because of their {disfmarker} their uh overall ability to uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Make mobile phones and T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: to make T_V_ remotes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Indeed absolutely yes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: tha that's um {disfmarker} Okay and uh w we need to keep in mind here that the uh {disfmarker} we want to sell this for for twenty five Euro um , we want to m make an overall profit for the the company of fifty million Euros so we're we're looking at selling a lot of these um ag across the the entire planet and and we're looking at a gross profit of fifty percent . {vocalsound} It needs to cost twelve Euros fifty to make . Um so we're not only looking at a a very trendy original product , we're looking at making it at a very good price . Um , okay , um {vocalsound} would anybody like t like to to start by giving their o um sort of quick views of of current remote controls . +User Interface: Well I think {disfmarker} I find a lot of them really complicated to use with all the different buttons and uh it's handiest when you have one that works both the D_V_D_ player or whatever and the T_V_ as well . Um , but that {disfmarker} it's easy to {gap} if you can switch back and forth instead of having to {vocalsound} press a bunch of different buttons +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} so I think it's is best when they're clearly labelled and you can see which buttons you're supposed to use , you know . +Project Manager: Any any thoughts about buttons or any oth other way of approaching the p the uh the problem ? Or anybody else , strong feelings about remote controls ? Are there you know , bad ones they've used or good ones they've used or ones that they've lost and never found again ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's important that you should be able to {disfmarker} when you when you press the buttons it'll actually pick up the signals from kind of anywhere and you shouldn't have to like contort yourself and twist your remote control to get it {disfmarker} the T_V_ to actually pick up the signal . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Think a lot of the time , remotes that come with T_V_ players and {gap} T_V_s and D_V_ players , like they aren't +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: like an area that's put a lot of effort into , they're very boring , very plain . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Like it's very {disfmarker} a very {disfmarker} like um making a a stylish remote control would be a very like {disfmarker} Easily put us one step ahead of the current competition . +Project Manager: Um what so wh what's in in {disfmarker} what particular style features are you thinking about ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . Something that looks looks {disfmarker} doesn't look like remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if you want , {vocalsound} something that looks like uh {disfmarker} something that makes you think oh what's this ? Like this pen doesn't really look like a pen , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: but it makes you think oh . +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , sorry that's a bit vague {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: d no I mean do you think there's a risk if it doesn't look like remote control , {vocalsound} people won't see it as a remote control um and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I suppose suppose that's up to the marketing to to make make people aware of the product . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Any other thoughts about um th the physical appearance of a {disfmarker} of remote controls ? +User Interface: I think something that's comfortable to hold because sometimes you get the remote controls that are just those big , rectangular things +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh they're kind of awkward to hold onto , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so something that's more comfortable that fits in a person's hand better . +Project Manager: I mean th the thing that i immediately comes to mind is computer mouses which um I mean y you get all sorts of shapes in the shops +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and s you know some quite fancy ones um than the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: some from personal experience which look nice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} aren't particularly comfortable . Um {vocalsound} any thoughts about buttons or flat screens or uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well from the mouse idea you could , {gap} remote is a piece of plastic with the big rubber buttons sticking out of it which you press , whereas if you want {gap} {disfmarker} could all be flat and the buttons are very kind of almost subtle that instead of being raised out of the device uh you push into device you see , like a mouse button . +Project Manager: Yes , I mean {vocalsound} the only thing is if if you're watching television in a in a a darkened room um you need to be able to uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I suppose . +Project Manager: fi find the button buttons easily . +Marketing: Easily , yeah yeah . +User Interface: But maybe they could be concave instead of sticking up to have them {disfmarker} be kind of down so you could feel them +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: better . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's uh {disfmarker} must admit I don't think I've ever seen one with concave buttons , that's uh {disfmarker} certainly be different . Um do we need it to uh {disfmarker} I can't think of any re remote controls that I know of that actually light up at all . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Do we do we want uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm that would be good . +User Interface: Like a like a mobile phone ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , yeah that would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . So , Andrew have you had any thoughts yet about how we might market something which there are already millions out there and that we want to uh uh uh t take over the entire um {disfmarker} the planet with ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm , um {vocalsound} especially if we try to sell , what two million of them . Oh sorry , four million of 'em , but uh {disfmarker} I think if w if we market it as as not as not {disfmarker} well this {disfmarker} you c you could either market it as the point of view {disfmarker} we could have the two {disfmarker} we could have parallel marketing s schemes where you've got one where it appeals to people that want to have the new device that looks cool , is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and like you just {disfmarker} it's it's like uh it's one that rather than ra I wan I want rather than a kind of a need relationship with the device , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but that might {disfmarker} considering the act what the device is for and the nature of some people might not like respond to having a device that they just looks nice , therefore they want it so {disfmarker} make it practical at the same time . I think it's {disfmarker} this is gonna have to appeal to people that want device that can enhance their living room +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh but also a device that uh is practically sound . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , yeah , yeah , well +Marketing: So um , I dunno we'll have to decide which which angle we're gonna go to or both . If you {gap} . +Project Manager: I d I think an any uh any facets that we identify w we aim {disfmarker} need to aim for for all of . Um okay well +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: first thoughts on um the the industrial design side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh I think it's it's {disfmarker} remote controls are kind of a unique object 'cause it's {disfmarker} you depend on them so much , but you don't {disfmarker} i i it's {disfmarker} you sort of just assume they're always gonna work , you don't think of them as a comp like a computer can break down and you're kinda like oh well fair enough there's all these complex things going on , it's gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna get messed up eventually . They they just need to be very very dependable because people sort of take them for granted and then if your remote control breaks it's {gap} {disfmarker} God forbid you actually get up and manually change the channel {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it just {disfmarker} it needs to be very effective , very {disfmarker} always dependable . Uh I don't think we should make it too small I {disfmarker} 'cause I think it needs to {gap} it can't be too big like you were saying big an and huge and um awkward , but also if you make it too small kinda like you know how mobile phones are getting smaller and smaller um , it's just gonna end up under a couch cushion somewhere and um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} so yes dependable , and have a {gap} good medium range size . +Project Manager: Okay , and um colours , materials ? Kendra , anyone ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , most {disfmarker} I think most of the remote controls now are either just black or grey , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: so maybe we should go with something different or be able to {disfmarker} I was just thinking of um {vocalsound} what they're doing with mobile phones now how you can get the different um {disfmarker} what are they called ? Like the face-plates +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: that you change so we could have maybe {disfmarker} I don't know if it would be feasible to do something with that , where you can change the face-plates or have kind of a variety +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so people can get different different things . Have it kind of look how they want to , different colours , things like that , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: probably just plastic because that's always the lightest . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay that's uh {disfmarker} Again I don't think that's ever been done before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh the sort of {gap} the sort of thing that would get people uh thinking yes that's something that I haven't got and uh might need so . Uh Andrew , any thoughts about uh how we might market interchangeable fronts on on the remote control ? +Marketing: Um , well we could either market it together by getting control in a set colour or with {disfmarker} like you buy it with several uh like you ge you get the f uh the face-plates with it when you buy or as a separate thing , but uh {vocalsound} maybe thinking of that , it's {disfmarker} considering the nature of the device , maybe a second thing {disfmarker} like a second campaign to market new facials for your {disfmarker} to your {disfmarker} might go a bit astray +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: since it is the kind of thing where y you generally get one and then forget about it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Unless you were trying to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well you could come up with like novelty ones , like they've done with the the mobile phones , you can get like different you know scenes from different movies and stuff on the remote control +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: and sorta stagger the release of them +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} that's a that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and get people like oh I want that cover on it now and that'll keep them spending money . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , okay +Marketing: Yeah true . +Project Manager: I think we've got um a good idea now . We uh {disfmarker} meeting is uh {disfmarker} Needs to be k uh wrapped up fairly quickly . So uh um we've got thirty minutes to start looking at the um at the design in more detail . Um then we'll we will reconvene in in thirty minutes and try to get some of these ideas uh uh more formalised . Uh thank you very much indeed . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +","Project Manager initiated a development meeting for Real Reaction's new television remote control project, aiming to leverage recent technological advancements and consumer demand. Team members, including Andrew from marketing, Kendra in user interface design, and Kate handling industrial design, were encouraged to share freely during this brainstorming session. + +The goal is to create an innovative, user-friendly, trendy, and profitable remote control to excel in the competitive market. Initial ideas discussed include making the remote dependable, aesthetically unique, possibly with interchangeable faceplates for customization, and ensuring it's easy to use even in the dark. The target is a product cost of €12.50 to sell for €25, aiming for a €50 million profit and a 50% gross profit margin. + +The team proposed ideas like sleek, comfortable designs and possibly concave buttons for better feel. Marketing plans involve positioning the remote as both desirable for its aesthetics and practicality. The meeting concluded with plans to reconvene in 30 minutes after further developing the design concepts." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Yeah , we had a long discussion about how much w how easy we want to make it for people to bleep things out . So {disfmarker} Morgan wants to make it hard . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did it {disfmarker} ? I didn't even check yesterday whether it was moving . +PhD D: It didn't move yesterday either when I started it . +Grad C: So . +PhD D: So I don't know if it doesn't like both of us {disfmarker} +Grad C: Channel three ? Channel three ? +PhD D: You know , I discovered something yesterday on these , um , wireless ones . +Grad B: Channel two . +Grad C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: You can tell if it 's picking up {pause} breath noise and stuff . +Grad C: Yeah , it has a little indicator on it {disfmarker} on the AF . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you breathe under {disfmarker} breathe and then you see AF go off , then you know {pause} it 's p picking up your mouth noise . +PhD F: Oh , that 's good . Cuz we have a lot of breath noises . +Grad C: Yep . Test . +PhD F: In fact , if you listen to just the channels of people not talking , it 's like "" @ @ "" . It 's very disgust +Grad C: What ? Did you see Hannibal recently or something ? +PhD F: Sorry . Exactly . It 's very disconcerting . OK . So , um , +Grad C: +PhD F: I was gonna try to get out of here , like , in half an hour , um , cuz I really appreciate people coming , and {vocalsound} the main thing that I was gonna ask people to help with today is {pause} to give input on what kinds of database format we should {pause} use in starting to link up things like word transcripts and annotations of word transcripts , so anything that transcribers or discourse coders or whatever put in the signal , {vocalsound} with time - marks for , like , words and phone boundaries and all the stuff we get out of the forced alignments and the recognizer . So , we have this , um {disfmarker} I think a starting point is clearly the {disfmarker} the channelized {pause} output of Dave Gelbart 's program , which Don brought a copy of , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm familiar with that . I mean , we {disfmarker} I sort of already have developed an XML format for this sort of stuff . +PhD F: um , which {disfmarker} +PhD D: Can I see it ? +Grad C: And so the only question {disfmarker} is it the sort of thing that you want to use or not ? Have you looked at that ? I mean , I had a web page up . +PhD F: Right . So , +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I actually mostly need to be able to link up , or {disfmarker} I it 's {disfmarker} it 's a question both of what the representation is and {disfmarker} +Grad C: You mean , this {disfmarker} I guess I am gonna be standing up and drawing on the board . +PhD F: OK , yeah . So you should , definitely . +Grad C: Um , so {disfmarker} so it definitely had that as a concept . So tha it has a single time - line , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then you can have lots of different sections , each of which have I Ds attached to it , and then you can refer from other sections to those I Ds , if you want to . So that , um {disfmarker} so that you start with {disfmarker} with a time - line tag . "" Time - line "" . And then you have a bunch of times . I don't e I don't remember exactly what my notation was , +PhD A: Oh , I remember seeing an example of this . +Grad C: but it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , "" T equals one point three two "" , uh {disfmarker} And then I {disfmarker} I also had optional things like accuracy , and then "" ID equals T one , uh , one seven "" . And then , {nonvocalsound} I also wanted to {disfmarker} to be i to be able to not specify specifically what the time was and just have a stamp . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , so these are arbitrary , assigned by a program , not {disfmarker} not by a user . So you have a whole bunch of those . And then somewhere la further down you might have something like an utterance tag which has "" start equals T - seventeen , end equals T - eighteen "" . So what that 's saying is , we know it starts at this particular time . We don't know when it ends . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? But it ends at this T - eighteen , which may be somewhere else . We say there 's another utterance . We don't know what the t time actually is but we know that it 's the same time as this end time . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: You know , thirty - eight , whatever you want . +PhD A: So you 're essentially defining a lattice . +Grad C: OK . Yes , exactly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: And then , uh {disfmarker} and then these also have I Ds . Right ? So you could {disfmarker} you could have some sort of other {disfmarker} other tag later in the file that would be something like , um , oh , I don't know , {comment} uh , {nonvocalsound} "" noise - type equals {nonvocalsound} door - slam "" . You know ? And then , uh , {nonvocalsound} you could either say "" time equals a particular time - mark "" or you could do other sorts of references . So {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or you might have a prosody {disfmarker} "" Prosody "" right ? D ? T ? D ? T ? T ? +PhD F: It 's an O instead of an I , but the D is good . +Grad C: You like the D ? That 's a good D . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Um , you know , so you could have some sort of type here , and then you could have , um {disfmarker} the utterance that it 's referring to could be U - seventeen or something like that . +PhD F: OK . So , I mean , that seems {disfmarker} that seems g great for all of the encoding of things with time and , +Grad C: Oh , well . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess my question is more , uh , what d what do you do with , say , a forced alignment ? +PhD A: How - how +PhD F: I mean you 've got all these phone labels , and what do you do if you {disfmarker} just conceptually , if you get , um , transcriptions where the words are staying but the time boundaries are changing , cuz you 've got a new recognition output , or s sort of {disfmarker} what 's the , um , sequence of going from the waveforms that stay the same , the transcripts that may or may not change , and then the utterance which {disfmarker} where the time boundaries that may or may not change {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} That 's actually very nicely handled here because you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} all you 'd have to change is the , {vocalsound} um , time - stamps in the time - line without {disfmarker} without , uh , changing the I Ds . +PhD F: Um . And you 'd be able to propagate all of the {disfmarker} the information ? +Grad C: Right . That 's , the who that 's why you do that extra level of indirection . So that you can just change the time - line . +PhD A: Except the time - line is gonna be huge . If you say {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , +PhD A: suppose you have a phone - level alignment . +PhD F: yeah , especially at the phone - level . +PhD A: You 'd have {disfmarker} you 'd have {disfmarker} +PhD F: The {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have phone - level backtraces . +Grad C: Yeah , this {disfmarker} I don't think I would do this for phone - level . I think for phone - level you want to use some sort of binary representation +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: because it 'll be too dense otherwise . +PhD F: OK . So , if you were doing that and you had this sort of companion , uh , thing that gets called up for phone - level , uh , what would that look like ? +PhD A: Why +Grad C: I would use just an existing {disfmarker} an existing way of doing it . +PhD F: How would you {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm . But {disfmarker} but why not use it for phone - level ? +PhD F: H h +PhD A: It 's just a matter of {disfmarker} it 's just a matter of it being bigger . But if you have {disfmarker} you know , barring memory limitations , or uh {disfmarker} I w I mean this is still the m +Grad C: It 's parsing limitations . I don't want to have this text file that you have to read in the whole thing to do something very simple for . +PhD A: Oh , no . You would use it only {pause} for {pause} purposes where you actually want the phone - level information , I 'd imagine . +PhD F: So you could have some file that configures how much information you want in your {disfmarker} in your XML or something . +Grad C: Right . I mean , you 'd {disfmarker} y +PhD F: Um , +PhD A: You {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I am imagining you 'd have multiple versions of this depending on the information that you want . +PhD F: cuz th it does get very bush with {disfmarker} Right . +Grad C: Um , I 'm just {disfmarker} what I 'm wondering is whether {disfmarker} I think for word - level , this would be OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: For word - level , it 's alright . +PhD F: Yeah . Definitely . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: For lower than word - level , you 're talking about so much data that I just {disfmarker} I don't know . I don't know if that {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , we actually have {disfmarker} So , one thing that Don is doing , is we 're {disfmarker} we 're running {disfmarker} For every frame , you get a pitch value , +PhD D: Lattices are big , too . +PhD F: and not only one pitch value but different kinds of pitch values +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , for something like that I would use P - file +PhD F: depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: or {disfmarker} or any frame - level stuff I would use P - file . +PhD F: Meaning {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Uh , that 's a {disfmarker} well , or something like it . It 's ICS uh , ICSI has a format for frame - level representation of features . Um . +PhD F: OK . That you could call {disfmarker} that you would tie into this representation with like an ID . +Grad C: Right . Right . Or {disfmarker} or there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a particular way in XML to refer to external resources . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: So you would say "" refer to this external file "" . Um , so that external file wouldn't be in {disfmarker} +PhD F: So that might {disfmarker} that might work . +PhD D: But what {disfmarker} what 's the advantage of doing that versus just putting it into this format ? +Grad C: More compact , which I think is {disfmarker} is better . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: I mean , if you did it at this {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean these are long meetings and with {disfmarker} for every frame , +Grad C: You don't want to do it with that {disfmarker} Anything at frame - level you had better encode binary +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: or it 's gonna be really painful . +PhD A: Or you just compre I mean , I like text formats . Um , b you can always , uh , G - zip them , and , um , you know , c decompress them on the fly if y if space is really a concern . +PhD D: Yeah , I was thi I was thinking the advantage is that we can share this with other people . +Grad C: Well , but if you 're talking about one per frame , you 're talking about gigabyte - size files . You 're gonna actually run out of space in your filesystem for one file . +PhD F: These are big files . These are really {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? Because you have a two - gigabyte limit on most O Ss . +PhD A: Right , OK . I would say {disfmarker} OK , so frame - level is probably not a good idea . But for phone - level stuff it 's perfectly {disfmarker} +PhD F: And th it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like phones , or syllables , or anything like that . +PhD F: Phones are every five frames though , so . Or something like that . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but most of the frames are actually not speech . So , you know , people don't {disfmarker} v Look at it , words times the average {disfmarker} The average number of phones in an English word is , I don't know , {comment} five maybe ? +PhD F: Yeah , but we actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , look at it , t number of words times five . That 's not {disfmarker} that not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so you mean pause phones take up a lot of the {disfmarker} long pause phones . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . OK . That 's true . But you do have to keep them in there . Y yeah . +Grad C: So I think it {disfmarker} it 's debatable whether you want to do phone - level in the same thing . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: But I think , a anything at frame - level , even P - file , is too verbose . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: I would use something tighter than P - files . +PhD F: Do you {disfmarker} Are you familiar with it ? +Grad C: So . +PhD F: I haven't seen this particular format , +PhD A: I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've used them . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know what their structure is . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I 've forgot what the str +PhD D: But , wait a minute , P - file for each frame is storing a vector of cepstral or PLP values , +Grad C: It 's whatever you want , actually . +PhD D: right ? Right . +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} what 's nice about the P - file {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} i Built into it is the concept of {pause} frames , utterances , sentences , that sort of thing , that structure . And then also attached to it is an arbitrary vector of values . And it can take different types . +PhD F: Oh . +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} th they don't all have to be floats . You know , you can have integers and you can have doubles , and all that sort of stuff . +PhD F: So that {disfmarker} that sounds {disfmarker} that sounds about what I w +Grad C: Um . Right ? And it has a header {disfmarker} it has a header format that {pause} describes it {pause} to some extent . So , the only problem with it is it 's actually storing the {pause} utterance numbers and the {pause} frame numbers in the file , even though they 're always sequential . And so it does waste a lot of space . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: But it 's still a lot tighter than {disfmarker} than ASCII . And we have a lot of tools already to deal with it . +PhD F: You do ? OK . Is there some documentation on this somewhere ? +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a ton of it . Man - pages and , uh , source code , and me . +PhD F: OK , great . So , I mean , that sounds good . I {disfmarker} I was just looking for something {disfmarker} I 'm not a database person , but something sort of standard enough that , you know , if we start using this we can give it out , other people can work on it , +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not standard . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} {comment} Is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I mean , it 's something that we developed at ICSI . But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's {pause} been used here +Grad C: But it 's been used here +PhD F: and people 've {disfmarker} +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and , you know , we have a {pause} well - configured system that you can distribute for free , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , it must be the equivalent of whatever you guys used to store feat your computed features in , right ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: Yeah , th we have {disfmarker} Actually , we {disfmarker} we use a generalization of the {disfmarker} the Sphere format . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so there is something like that but it 's , um , probably not as sophist +Grad C: Well , what does H T K do for features ? +PhD D: And I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or does it even have a concept of features ? +PhD A: They ha it has its own {disfmarker} I mean , Entropic has their own feature format that 's called , like , S - SD or some so SF or something like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I 'm just wondering , would it be worth while to use that instead ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD F: Yeah . Th - this is exactly the kind of decision {disfmarker} It 's just whatever {disfmarker} +PhD D: But , I mean , people don't typically share this kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: They generate their own . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Actually , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've done this stuff on prosodics and three or four places have asked for those prosodic files , and we just have an ASCII , uh , output of frame - by - frame . +Grad C: Ah , right . +PhD F: Which is fine , but it gets unwieldy to go in and {disfmarker} and query these files with really huge files . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: I mean , we could do it . I was just thinking if there 's something that {disfmarker} where all the frame values are {disfmarker} +Grad C: And a and again , if you have a {disfmarker} if you have a two - hour - long meeting , that 's gonna {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm ? They 're {disfmarker} they 're fair they 're quite large . +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , they 'd be emo enormous . +PhD F: And these are for ten - minute Switchboard conversations , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} So it 's doable , it 's just that you can only store a feature vector at frame - by - frame and it doesn't have any kind of , +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} is the sharing part of this a pretty important {pause} consideration +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: or does that just sort of , uh {disfmarker} a nice thing to have ? +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about what we 're gonna do with the data . But I thought it would be good to get something that we can {disfmarker} that other people can use or adopt for their own kinds of encoding . And just , I mean we have to use some we have to make some decision about what to do . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: And especially for the prosody work , what {disfmarker} what it ends up being is you get features from the signal , and of course those change every time your alignments change . So you re - run a recognizer , you want to recompute your features , um , and then keep the database up to date . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Or you change a word , or you change a {vocalsound} utterance boundary segment , which is gonna happen a lot . And so I wanted something where {pause} all of this can be done in a elegant way and that if somebody wants to try something or compute something else , that it can be done flexibly . Um , it doesn't have to be pretty , it just has to be , you know , easy to use , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the other thing {disfmarker} We should look at ATLAS , the NIST thing , +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: and see if they have anything at that level . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , I 'm not sure what to do about this with ATLAS , because they chose a different route . I chose something that {disfmarker} Th - there are sort of two choices . Your {disfmarker} your file format can know about {disfmarker} know that you 're talking about language {pause} and speech , which is what I chose , and time , or your file format can just be a graph representation . And then the application has to impose the structure on top . So what it looked like ATLAS chose is , they chose the other way , which was their file format is just nodes and links , and you have to interpret what they mean yourself . +PhD F: And why did you not choose that type of approach ? +Grad C: Uh , because I knew that we were doing speech , and I thought it was better if you 're looking at a raw file to be {disfmarker} t for the tags to say "" it 's an utterance "" , as opposed to the tag to say "" it 's a link "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: But other than that , are they compatible ? I mean , you could sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they 're reasonably compatible . +PhD F: I mean , you {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +PhD D: You could probably translate between them . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Yeah , that 's w So , +Grad C: So , well , the other thing is if we choose to use ATLAS , which maybe we should just do , we should just throw this out before we invest a lot of time in it . +PhD F: OK . I don't {disfmarker} So this is what the meeting 's about , +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: just sort of how to {disfmarker} Um , cuz we need to come up with a database like this just to do our work . And I actually don't care , as long as it 's something useful to other people , what we choose . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So maybe it 's {disfmarker} maybe oth you know , if {disfmarker} if you have any idea of how to choose , cuz I don't . +Grad C: The only thing {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Do they already have tools ? +Grad C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I chose this for a couple reasons . One of them is that it 's easy to parse . You don't need a full XML parser . It 's very easy to just write a Perl script {pause} to parse it . +PhD A: As long as uh each tag is on one line . +Grad C: Exactly . Exactly . Which I always do . +PhD F: And you can have as much information in the tag as you want , right ? +Grad C: Well , I have it structured . Right ? So each type tag has only particular items that it can take . +PhD F: Can you {disfmarker} But you can add to those structures if you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Sure . If you have more information . So what {disfmarker} What NIST would say is that instead of doing this , you would say something like "" link {nonvocalsound} start equals , um , you know , some node ID , +PhD F: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: end equals some other node ID "" , and then "" type "" would be "" utterance "" . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , so it 's very similar . +PhD F: So why would it be a {disfmarker} a waste to do it this way if it 's similar enough that we can always translate it ? +PhD D: It probably wouldn't be a waste . It would mean that at some point if we wanted to switch , we 'd just have to translate everything . +Grad C: Write a translator . But it se Since they are developing a big {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it {disfmarker} but that sounds {disfmarker} +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} I don't think that 's a big deal . +PhD F: As long as it is {disfmarker} +Grad C: they 're developing a big infrastructure . And so it seems to me that if {disfmarker} if we want to use that , we might as well go directly to what they 're doing , rather than {disfmarker} +PhD A: If we want to {disfmarker} Do they already have something that 's {disfmarker} that would be useful for us in place ? +PhD D: Yeah . See , that 's the question . I mean , how stable is their {disfmarker} Are they ready to go , +Grad C: The {disfmarker} I looked at it {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: The last time I looked at it was a while ago , probably a year ago , uh , when we first started talking about this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: And at that time at least {vocalsound} it was still not very {pause} complete . And so , specifically they didn't have any external format representation at that time . They just had the sort of conceptual {pause} node {disfmarker} uh , annotated transcription graph , which I really liked . And that 's exactly what this stuff is based on . Since then , they 've developed their own external file format , which is , uh , you know , this sort of s this sort of thing . Um , and apparently they 've also developed a lot of tools , but I haven't looked at them . Maybe I should . +PhD A: We should {disfmarker} we should find out . +PhD F: I mean , would the tools {disfmarker} would the tools run on something like this , if you can translate them anyway ? +Grad C: Um , th what would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} what would worry me is that maybe we might miss a little detail +PhD A: It 's a hassle +PhD F: I mean , that {disfmarker} I guess it 's a question that {disfmarker} +PhD A: if {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh , yeah . +Grad C: that would make it very difficult to translate from one to the other . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think if it 's conceptually close , and they already have or will have tools that everybody else will be using , I mean , {vocalsound} it would be crazy to do something s you know , separate that {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , we might as well . Yep . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take a closer look at it . +PhD F: Actually , so it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that would really be the question , is just what you would feel is in the long run the best thing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: Cuz {vocalsound} once we start , sort of , doing this I don't {disfmarker} we don't actually have enough time to probably have to rehash it out again +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yep . The other thing {disfmarker} the other way that I sort of established this was as easy translation to and from the Transcriber format . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} s Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , I like this . This is sort of intuitively easy to actually r read , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: as easy it could {disfmarker} as it could be . But , I suppose that {pause} as long as they have a type here that specifies "" utt "" , um , +Grad C: It 's almost the same . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} yeah , close enough that {disfmarker} +Grad C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} with this , though , is that you can't really add any supplementary information . Right ? So if you suddenly decide that you want {disfmarker} +PhD F: You have to make a different type . +Grad C: Yeah . You 'd have to make a different type . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Well , if you look at it and {disfmarker} Um , I guess in my mind I don't know enough {disfmarker} Jane would know better , {comment} about the {pause} types of annotations and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} But I imagine that those are things that would {disfmarker} well , you guys mentioned this , {comment} that could span any {disfmarker} it could be in its own channel , it could span time boundaries of any type , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: it could be instantaneous , things like that . Um , and then from the recognition side we have backtraces at the phone - level . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} if it can handle that , it could handle states or whatever . And then at the prosody - level we have frame {disfmarker} sort of like cepstral feature files , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: uh , like these P - files or anything like that . And that 's sort of the world of things that I {disfmarker} And then we have the aligned channels , of course , +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: It seems to me you want to keep the frame - level stuff separate . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: And then {disfmarker} +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I definitely agree and I wanted to find actually a f a nicer format or a {disfmarker} maybe a more compact format than what we used before . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Just cuz you 've got {vocalsound} ten channels or whatever and two hours of a meeting . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huge . +PhD A: Now {disfmarker} now how would you {disfmarker} how would you represent , um , multiple speakers in this framework ? Were {disfmarker} You would just represent them as {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , +PhD A: You would have like a speaker tag or something ? +Grad C: there 's a spea speaker tag up at the top which identifies them and then each utt the way I had it is each turn or each utterance , {comment} I don't even remember now , had a speaker ID tag attached to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And in this format you would have a different tag , which {disfmarker} which would , uh , be linked to the link . So {disfmarker} so somewhere else you would have another thing {pause} that would be , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Let 's see , would it be a node or a link ? Um {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} so this one would have , um , an ID is link {disfmarker} {comment} link seventy - four or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then somewhere up here you would have a link that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , was referencing L - seventy - four and had speaker Adam . +PhD A: Is i ? +Grad C: You know , or something like that . +PhD F: Actually , it 's the channel , I think , that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , channel or speaker or whatever . +PhD F: I mean , w yeah , channel is what the channelized output out +PhD A: It doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: This isn't quite right . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I have to look at it again . +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} so how in the NIST format do we express {vocalsound} a hierarchical relationship between , um , say , an utterance and the words within it ? So how do you {pause} tell {pause} that {pause} these are the words that belong to that utterance ? +Grad C: Um , you would have another structure lower down than this that would be saying they 're all belonging to this ID . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So each thing refers to the {pause} utterance that it belongs to . +Grad C: Right . And then each utterance could refer to a turn , +PhD D: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not hi it 's sort of bottom - up . +Grad C: and each turn could refer to something higher up . +PhD F: And what if you actually have {disfmarker} So right now what you have as utterance , um , the closest thing that comes out of the channelized is the stuff between the segment boundaries that the transcribers put in or that Thilo put in , which may or may not actually be , like , a s it 's usually not {disfmarker} um , the beginning and end of a sentence , say . +Grad C: Well , that 's why I didn't call it "" sentence "" . +PhD F: So , right . Um , so it 's like a segment or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , I mean , I assume this is possible , that if you have {disfmarker} someone annotates the punctuation or whatever when they transcribe , you can say , you know , from {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} from the c beginning of the sentence to the end of the sentence , from the annotations , this is a unit , even though it never actually {disfmarker} i It 's only a unit by virtue of the annotations {pause} at the word - level . +Grad C: Sure . I mean , so you would {disfmarker} you would have yet another tag . +PhD F: And then that would get a tag somehow . +Grad C: You 'd have another tag which says this is of type "" sentence "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: And , what {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's just not overtly in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: Um , cuz this is exactly the kind of {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think that should be {pause} possible as long as the {disfmarker} But , uh , what I don't understand is where the {disfmarker} where in this type of file {pause} that would be expressed . +Grad C: Right . You would have another tag somewhere . It 's {disfmarker} well , there 're two ways of doing it . +PhD F: S so it would just be floating before the sentence or floating after the sentence without a time - mark . +Grad C: You could have some sort of link type {disfmarker} type equals "" sentence "" , and ID is "" S - whatever "" . And then lower down you could have an utterance . So the type is "" utterance "" {disfmarker} equals "" utt "" . And you could either say that {disfmarker} No . I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: So here 's the thing . +Grad C: I take that back . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} can you say that this is part of this , +PhD F: See , cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would just have a r +PhD F: S +Grad C: or do you say this is part of this ? I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would refer up to the sentence . +PhD F: But they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , the thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: they 're actually overlapping each other , sort of . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: the thing is that some something may be a part of one thing for one purpose and another thing of another purpose . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: So f +PhD F: You have to have another type then , I guess . +PhD A: s Um , well , s let 's {disfmarker} let 's ta so let 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I think I 'm {disfmarker} I think w I had better look at it again +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: because I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . OK . +PhD A: y So for instance @ @ {comment} sup +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection that I 'm forgetting . +PhD A: Suppose you have a word sequence and you have two different segmentations of that same word sequence . f Say , one segmentation is in terms of , um , you know , uh , sentences . And another segmentation is in terms of , um , {vocalsound} I don't know , {comment} prosodic phrases . And let 's say that they don't {pause} nest . So , you know , a prosodic phrase may cross two sentences or something . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: I don't know if that 's true or not but {vocalsound} let 's as +PhD F: Well , it 's definitely true with the segment . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: That 's what I {disfmarker} exactly what I meant by the utterances versus the sentence could be sort of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . So , you want to be s you want to say this {disfmarker} this word is part of that sentence and this prosodic phrase . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: But the phrase is not part of the sentence +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and neither is the sentence part of the phrase . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: I I 'm pretty sure that you can do that , but I 'm forgetting the exact level of nesting . +PhD A: So , you would have to have {vocalsound} two different pointers from the word up {disfmarker} one level up , one to the sent +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so what you would end up having is a tag saying "" here 's a word , and it starts here and it ends here "" . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And then lower down you would say "" here 's a prosodic boundary and it has these words in it "" . And lower down you 'd have "" here 's a sentence , +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: An - Right . +Grad C: and it has these words in it "" . +PhD F: So you would be able to go in and say , you know , "" give me all the words in the bound in the prosodic phrase +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: and give me all the words in the {disfmarker} "" Yeah . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that would wor +PhD F: Um , OK . +Grad C: Let me look at it again . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the o the other issue that you had was , how do you actually efficiently extract , um {disfmarker} find and extract information in a structure of this type ? +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: That 's good . +PhD A: So you gave some examples like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , uh , and , I mean , you guys might {disfmarker} I don't know if this is premature because I suppose once you get the representation you can do this , but the kinds of things I was worried about is , +PhD A: No , that 's not clear . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , yeah , you c sure you can do it , +PhD F: Well , OK . So i if it {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can you do it sort of l l you know , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: I I mean , I can't do it , but I can {disfmarker} um , +PhD A: y y you gotta {disfmarker} you gotta do this {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're gonna want to do this very quickly +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: or else you 'll spend all your time sort of searching through very {vocalsound} complex data structures {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . You 'd need a p sort of a paradigm for how to do it . But an example would be "" find all the cases in which Adam started to talk while Andreas was talking and his pitch was rising , Andreas 's pitch "" . That kind of thing . +Grad C: Right . I mean , that 's gonna be {disfmarker} Is the rising pitch a {pause} feature , or is it gonna be in the same file ? +PhD F: Well , the rising pitch will never be {pause} hand - annotated . So the {disfmarker} all the prosodic features are going to be automatically {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} I mean , that 's gonna be hard regardless , +PhD F: So they 're gonna be in those {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? Because you 're gonna have to write a program that goes through your feature file and looks for rising pitches . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Right . So normally what we would do is we would say "" what do we wanna assign rising pitch to ? "" Are we gonna assign it to words ? Are we gonna just assign it to sort of {disfmarker} when it 's rising we have a begin - end rise representation ? But suppose we dump out this file and we say , uh , for every word we just classify it as , w you know , rise or fall or neither ? +Grad C: OK . Well , in that case you would add that to this {pause} format +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: r +PhD F: So we would basically be sort of , um , taking the format and enriching it with things that we wanna query in relation to the words that are already in the file , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and then querying it . +PhD A: You want sort of a grep that 's {disfmarker} that works at the structural {disfmarker} on the structural representation . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: You have that . There 's a {pause} standard again in XML , specifically for searching XML documents {disfmarker} structured X - XML documents , where you can specify both the content and the structural position . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not clear that that 's {disfmarker} That 's relative to the structure of the XML document , +PhD F: If {disfmarker} +PhD A: not to the structure of what you 're representing in the document . +Grad C: You use it as a tool . You use it as a tool , not an end - user . It 's not an end - user thing . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you would use that to build your tool to do that sort of search . +PhD A: Right . Be Because here you 're specifying a lattice . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: So the underlying {disfmarker} that 's the underlying data structure . And you want to be able to search in that lattice . +PhD F: But as long as the {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's a graph , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's different from searching through the text . +PhD F: But it seems like as long as the features that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , no , no , no . The whole point is that the text and the lattice are isomorphic . They {pause} represent each other {pause} completely . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} I mean th +PhD F: That 's true if the features from your acoustics or whatever that are not explicitly in this are at the level of these types . +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: That {disfmarker} that if you can do that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but that 's gonna be the trouble no matter what . Right ? No matter what format you choose , you 're gonna have the trou you 're gonna have the difficulty of relating the {disfmarker} the frame - level features {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's right . That 's true . That 's why I was trying to figure out what 's the best format for this representation . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: And it 's still gonna be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD F: it 's still gonna be , uh , not direct . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: You know , it {disfmarker} Or another example was , you know , uh , where in the language {disfmarker} where in the word sequence are people interrupting ? So , I guess that one 's actually easier . +PhD D: What about {disfmarker} what about , um , the idea of using a relational database to , uh , store the information from the XML ? So you would have {disfmarker} XML basically would {disfmarker} Uh , you {disfmarker} you could use the XML to put the data in , and then when you get data out , you put it back in XML . So use XML as sort of the {disfmarker} the transfer format , +Grad C: Transfer . +PhD D: uh , but then you store the data in the database , which allows you to do all kinds of {pause} good search things in there . +Grad C: The , uh {disfmarker} One of the things that ATLAS is doing is they 're trying to define an API which is independent of the back store , +PhD F: Huh . +Grad C: so that , uh , you could define a single API and the {disfmarker} the storage could be flat XML files or a database . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: My opinion on that is for the s sort of stuff that we 're doing , {comment} I suspect it 's overkill to do a full relational database , that , um , just a flat file and , uh , search tools I bet will be enough . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: But that 's the advantage of ATLAS , is that if we actually take {disfmarker} decide to go that route completely and we program to their API , then if we wanted to add a database later it would be pretty easy . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: It seems like the kind of thing you 'd do if {disfmarker} I don't know , if people start adding all kinds of s bells and whistles to the data . And so that might be {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be good for us to know {disfmarker} to use a format where we know we can easily , um , input that to some database if other people are using it . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Something like that . +Grad C: I guess I 'm just a little hesitant to try to go whole hog on sort of the {disfmarker} the whole framework that {disfmarker} that NIST is talking about , with ATLAS and a database and all that sort of stuff , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: cuz it 's a big learning curve , just to get going . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: Whereas if we just do a flat file format , sure , it may not be as efficient but everyone can program in Perl and {disfmarker} and use it . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? +PhD A: But this is {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , as opposed to {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I 'm still , um , {vocalsound} not convinced that you can do much at all on the text {disfmarker} on the flat file that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} you know , the text representation . e Because the text representation is gonna be , uh , not reflecting the structure of {disfmarker} of your words and annotations . It 's just {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , if it 's not representing it , then how do you recover it ? Of course it 's representing it . +PhD A: No . You {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do is you have to basically {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's the whole point . +PhD A: Y yeah . You can use Perl to read it in and construct a internal representation that is essentially a lattice . But , the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , that was a different point . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: Right ? So what I was saying is that {disfmarker} +PhD A: But that 's what you 'll have to do . Bec - be +Grad C: For Perl {disfmarker} if you want to just do Perl . If you wanted to use the structured XML query language , that 's a different thing . And it 's a set of tools {vocalsound} that let you specify given the D - DDT {disfmarker} DTD of the document , um , what sorts of structural searches you want to do . So you want to say that , you know , you 're looking for , um , a tag within a tag within a particular tag that has this particular text in it , um , and , uh , refers to a particular value . And so the point isn't that an end - user , who is looking for a query like you specified , wouldn't program it in this language . What you would do is , someone would build a tool that used that as a library . So that they {disfmarker} so that you wouldn't have to construct the internal representations yourself . +PhD F: Is a {disfmarker} See , I think the kinds of questions , at least in the next {disfmarker} to the end of this year , are {disfmarker} there may be a lot of different ones , but they 'll all have a similar nature . They 'll be looking at either a word - level prosodic , uh , an {disfmarker} a value , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a continuous value , like the slope of something . But you know , we 'll do something where we {disfmarker} some kind of data reduction where the prosodic features are sort o uh , either at the word - level or at the segment - level , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} or something like that . They 're not gonna be at the phone - level and they 're no not gonna be at the frame - level when we get done with sort of giving them simpler shapes and things . And so the main thing is just being able {disfmarker} Well , I guess , the two goals . Um , one that Chuck mentioned is starting out with something that we don't have to start over , that we don't have to throw away if other people want to extend it for other kinds of questions , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and being able to at least get enough , uh , information out on {disfmarker} where we condition the location of features on information that 's in the kind of file that you {pause} put up there . And that would {disfmarker} that would do it , +Grad C: Yeah . I think that there are quick and dirty solutions , +PhD F: I mean , for me . +Grad C: and then there are long - term , big - infrastructure solutions . And so {vocalsound} we want to try to pick something that lets us do a little bit of both . +PhD F: In the between , right . And especially that the representation doesn't have to be thrown away , +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: even if your tools change . +Grad C: And so it seems to me that {disfmarker} I mean , I have to look at it again to see whether it can really do what we want , but if we use the ATLAS external file representation , um , it seems like it 's rich enough that you could do quick tools just as I said in Perl , and then later on if we choose to go up the learning curve , we can use the whole ATLAS inter infrastructure , +PhD F: Yeah . I mean , that sounds good to me . +Grad C: which has all that built in . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} if you would l look at that and let us know what you think . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: I mean , I think we 're sort of guinea pigs , cuz I {disfmarker} I want to get the prosody work done but I don't want to waste time , you know , getting the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , maybe {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I wouldn't wait for the formats , because anything you pick we 'll be able to translate to another form . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Ma well , maybe you should actually look at it yourself too to get a sense of what it is you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll be dealing with , +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: because , um , you know , Adam might have one opinion but you might have another , so +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , definitely . +PhD A: I think the more eyes look at this the better . +PhD F: Especially if there 's , e um {disfmarker} you know , if someone can help with at least the {disfmarker} the setup of the right {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hi , Jane . +PhD F: Oh , hi . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD F: the right representation , then , i you know , I hope it won't {disfmarker} We don't actually need the whole full - blown thing to be ready , +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} Oh , well . +PhD F: so . Um , so maybe if you guys can look at it and sort of see what , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 're actually just {disfmarker} +Grad C: We 're about done . +PhD F: yeah , +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD F: wrapping up , but , um {disfmarker} Yeah , sorry , it 's a uh short meeting , but , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't know . Is there anything else , like {disfmarker} I mean that helps me a lot , +Grad C: Well , I think the other thing we might want to look at is alternatives to P - file . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , th the reason I like P - file is I 'm already familiar with it , we have expertise here , and so if we pick something else , there 's the learning - curve problem . But , I mean , it is just something we developed at ICSI . +PhD A: Is there an {disfmarker} is there an IP - API ? +Grad C: And so {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: There 's an API for it . And , uh , +PhD A: There used to be a problem that they get too large , +Grad C: a bunch of libraries , P - file utilities . +PhD A: and so {pause} basically the {disfmarker} uh the filesystem wouldn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that 's gonna be a problem no matter what . You have the two - gigabyte limit on the filesystem size . And we definitely hit that with Broadcast News . +PhD A: Maybe you could extend the API to , uh , support , uh , like splitting up , you know , conceptually one file into smaller files on disk so that you can essentially , you know , have arbitrarily long f +Grad C: Yep . Most of the tools can handle that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: So that we didn't do it at the API - level . We did it at the t tool - level . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} many of them can s you can specify several P - files and they 'll just be done sequentially . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: So , I guess , yeah , if {disfmarker} if you and Don can {disfmarker} if you can show him the P - file stuff and see . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: So this would be like for the F - zero {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . +Grad C: I mean , if you do "" man P - file "" or "" apropos P - file "" , you 'll see a lot . +Grad B: I 've used the P - file , I think . I 've looked at it at least , briefly , I think when we were doing s something . +PhD A: What does the P stand for anyway ? +Grad C: I have no idea . +Grad B: Oh , in there . +Grad C: I didn't de I didn't develop it . You know , it was {disfmarker} I think it was Dave Johnson . So it 's all part of the Quicknet library . It has all the utilities for it . +PhD A: No , P - files were around way before Quicknet . P - files were {disfmarker} were around when {disfmarker} w with , um , {vocalsound} RAP . +Grad C: Oh , were they ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right ? +PhD F: It 's like the history of ICSI . +PhD A: You worked with P - files . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +PhD D: No . +PhD A: I worked with P - files . +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD D: I don't remember what the "" P "" is , though . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: But there are ni they 're {disfmarker} The {pause} Quicknet library has a bunch of things in it to handle P - files , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: so it works pretty well . +PhD A: +PhD F: And that isn't really , I guess , as important as the {disfmarker} the main {disfmarker} I don't know what you call it , the {disfmarker} the main sort of word - level {disfmarker} +Grad C: Neither do I . +PhD D: Probably stands for "" Phil "" . Phil Kohn . +Grad C: It 's a Phil file ? +PhD D: Yeah . That 's my guess . +PhD F: Huh . OK . Well , that 's really useful . I mean , this is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to settle . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've been meaning to look at the ATLAS stuff again anyway . +PhD F: Great . +Grad C: So , just keep {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I guess it 's also sort of a political deci I mean , if {disfmarker} if you feel like that 's a community that would be good to tie into anyway , then it 's {disfmarker} sounds like it 's worth doing . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} it w +PhD A: j I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , w uh , as I said , I {disfmarker} what I did with this stuff {disfmarker} I based it on theirs . It 's just they hadn't actually come up with an external format yet . So now that they have come up with a format , it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems pretty reasonable to use it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: But let me look at it again . +PhD F: OK , great . +Grad C: As I said , that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Cuz we actually can start {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection and I 'm just blanking on exactly how it works . I gotta look at it again . +PhD F: I mean , we can start with , um , I guess , this input from Dave 's , which you had printed out , the channelized input . Cuz he has all of the channels , you know , with the channels in the tag and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah , I 've seen it . +PhD F: So that would be i directly , +Grad C: Yep . Easy {disfmarker} easy to map . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so then it would just be a matter of getting {disfmarker} making sure to handle the annotations that are , you know , not at the word - level and , um , t to import the +Grad B: Where are those annotations coming from ? +PhD F: Well , right now , I g Jane would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Are you talking about the overlap a annotations ? +PhD F: Yeah , any kind of annotation {pause} that , like , isn't already there . Uh , you know , anything you can envision . +Postdoc E: Yeah . So what I was imagining was {disfmarker} um , so Dave says we can have unlimited numbers of green ribbons . And so put , uh , a {disfmarker} a green ribbon on for an overlap code . And since we w we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's important to remain flexible regarding the time bins for now . And so it 's nice to have {disfmarker} However , you know , you want to have it , uh , time time uh , located in the discourse . So , um , if we {disfmarker} if we tie the overlap code to the first word in the overlap , then you 'll have a time - marking . It won't {disfmarker} it 'll be independent of the time bins , however these e evolve , shrink , or whatever , increase , or {disfmarker} Also , you could have different time bins for different purposes . And having it tied to the first word in an overlap segment is unique , uh , you know , anchored , clear . And it would just end up on a separate ribbon . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So the overlap coding is gonna be easy with respect to that . You look puzzled . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} I don't quite understand what these things are . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD D: Uh . +Postdoc E: What , the codes themselves ? +PhD D: Well , th overlap codes . +Postdoc E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I 'm not sure what that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: It probably doesn't matter . +Postdoc E: Well , we don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , it doesn't . +PhD D: No , I d +Postdoc E: We don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , that {disfmarker} not for the topic of this meeting . +Postdoc E: But let me just {disfmarker} No . W the idea is just to have a separate green ribbon , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and let 's say that this is a time bin . There 's a word here . This is the first word of an overlapping segment of any length , overlapping with any other , uh , word {disfmarker} uh , i segment of any length . And , um , then you can indicate that this here was perhaps a ch a backchannel , or you can say that it was , um , a usurping of the turn , or you can {disfmarker} you know , any {disfmarker} any number of categories . But the fact is , you have it time - tagged in a way that 's independent of the , uh , sp particular time bin that the word ends up in . If it 's a large unit or a small unit , or +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: we sh change the boundaries of the units , it 's still unique and {disfmarker} and , uh , fits with the format , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: flexible , all that . +PhD A: Um , it would be nice {disfmarker} um , eh , gr this is sort of r regarding {disfmarker} uh , uh it 's related but not directly germane to the topic of discussion , but , when it comes to annotations , um , you often find yourself in the situation where you have {pause} different annotations {pause} of the same , say , word sequence . OK ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: And sometimes the word sequences even differ slightly because they were edited s at one place but not the other . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: So , once this data gets out there , some people might start annotating this for , I don't know , dialogue acts or , um , you know , topics or what the heck . You know , there 's a zillion things that people might annotate this for . And the only thing that is really sort of common among all the versi the various versions of this data is the word sequence , or approximately . +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD F: Or the time . +PhD A: Or the times . But , see , if you 'd annotate dialogue acts , you don't necessarily want to {disfmarker} or topics {disfmarker} you don't really want to be dealing with time - marks . +PhD F: I guess . +PhD A: You 'd {disfmarker} it 's much more efficient for them to just see the word sequence , right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , most people aren't as sophisticated as {disfmarker} as we are here with , you know , uh , time alignments and stuff . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Should {disfmarker} should we mention some names on the people who are n ? +PhD A: Right . So , um , the p my point is that {pause} you 're gonna end up with , uh , word sequences that are differently annotated . And {pause} you want some tool , uh , that is able to sort of merge these different annotations back into a single , uh , version . OK ? Um , and we had this problem very massively , uh , at SRI when we worked , uh , a while back on , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} well , on dialogue acts as well as , uh , you know , um , what was it ? uh , +PhD F: Well , all the Switchboard in it . +PhD A: utterance types . There 's , uh , automatic , uh , punctuation and stuff like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Because we had one set of {pause} annotations that were based on , uh , one version of the transcripts with a particular segmentation , and then we had another version that was based on , uh , a different s slightly edited version of the transcripts with a different segmentation . So , {vocalsound} we had these two different versions which were {disfmarker} you know , you could tell they were from the same source but they weren't identical . So it was extremely hard {vocalsound} to reliably merge these two back together to correlate the information from the different annotations . +Grad C: Yep . I {disfmarker} I don't see any way that file formats are gonna help us with that . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's all a question of semantic . +PhD A: No . But once you have a file format , I can imagine writing {disfmarker} not personally , but someone writing a tool that is essentially an alignment tool , um , that mediates between various versions , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} uh , sort of like th uh , you know , you have this thing in UNIX where you have , uh , diff . +Grad C: Diff . +PhD F: W - diff or diff . +PhD A: There 's the , uh , diff that actually tries to reconcile different {disfmarker} two diffs f {comment} based on the same original . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Is it S - diff ? +Grad C: Yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD A: Something like that , um , but operating on these lattices that are really what 's behind this {disfmarker} uh , this annotation format . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's actually a diff library you can use {pause} to do things like that that {disfmarker} so you have different formats . +PhD F: You could definitely do that with the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So somewhere in the API you would like to have like a merge or some {disfmarker} some function that merges two {disfmarker} two versions . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it 's gonna be very hard . Any sort of structured anything when you try to merge is really , really hard +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: because you ha i The hard part isn't the file format . The hard part is specifying what you mean by "" merge "" . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: And that 's very difficult . +PhD F: But the one thing that would work here actually for i that is more reliable than the utterances is the {disfmarker} the speaker ons and offs . So if you have a good , +Grad C: But this is exactly what I mean , is that {disfmarker} that the problem i +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . You just have to know wha what to tie it to . +Grad C: Yeah , exactly . The problem is saying "" what are the semantics , +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Right . So {disfmarker} so just to let you know what we {disfmarker} where we kluged it by , uh , doing {disfmarker} uh , by doing {disfmarker} Hhh . +Grad C: So . +PhD A: Both were based on words , so , bo we have two versions of the same words intersp you know , sprinkled with {disfmarker} with different tags for annotations . +Grad C: And then you did diff . +PhD A: And we did diff . Exactly ! +Grad C: Yeah , that 's just what I thought . +PhD A: And that 's how {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's just wh how I would have done it . +PhD A: Yeah . But , you know , it had lots of errors and things would end up in the wrong order , and so forth . Uh , so , um , if you had a more {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Uh , it {disfmarker} it was a kluge because it was basically reducing everything to {disfmarker} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , uh , to textual alignment . +Grad C: A textual {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , d isn't that something where whoever {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if the people who are making changes , say in the transcripts , cuz this all happened when the transcripts were different {disfmarker} ye um , if they tie it to something , like if they tied it to the acoustic segment {disfmarker} if they {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? Then {disfmarker} Or if they tied it to an acoustic segment and we had the time - marks , that would help . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: But the problem is exactly as Adam said , that you get , you know , y you don't have that information or it 's lost in the merge somehow , +Postdoc E: Well , can I ask one question ? +PhD F: so {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: It {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , we will have o an official version of the corpus , which will be only one {disfmarker} one version in terms of the words {disfmarker} where the words are concerned . We 'd still have the {disfmarker} the merging issue maybe if coding were done independently of the {disfmarker} +PhD A: And you 're gonna get that +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: because if the data gets out , people will do all kinds of things to it . And , uh , s you know , several years from now you might want to look into , um , the prosody of referring expressions . And someone at the university of who knows where has annotated the referring expressions . So you want to get that annotation and bring it back in line with your data . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: OK ? +Grad C: But unfortunately they 've also hand - edited it . +Postdoc E: OK , then {disfmarker} +PhD F: But they 've also {disfmarker} Exactly . And so that 's exactly what we should {disfmarker} somehow when you distribute the data , say that {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} have some way of knowing how to merge it back in and asking people to try to do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , then the {disfmarker} +PhD D: What 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong with {pause} doing times ? I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I agree . That was what I was wondering . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , time is the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Postdoc E: Time is unique . You were saying that you didn't think we should {disfmarker} +PhD F: Time is passing ! +PhD A: Time {disfmarker} time {disfmarker} times are ephemeral . +Postdoc E: Andreas was saying {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: what if they haven't notated with them , times ? +PhD F: Yeah . He {disfmarker} he 's a language modeling person , though . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so imagine {disfmarker} I think his {disfmarker} his example is a good one . Imagine that this person who developed the corpus of the referring expressions didn't include time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: He included references to words . +Postdoc E: Ach ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: He said that at this word is when {disfmarker} when it happened . +Postdoc E: Well , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or she . +Grad C: Or she . +Postdoc E: But then couldn't you just indirectly figure out the time {pause} tied to the word ? +PhD F: But still they {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: Sure . But what if {disfmarker} what if they change the words ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Not {disfmarker} Well , but you 'd have some anchoring point . He couldn't have changed all the words . +PhD D: But can they change the words without changing the time of the word ? +Grad C: Sure . But they could have changed it a little . The {disfmarker} the point is , that {disfmarker} that they may have annotated it off a word transcript that isn't the same as our word transcript , so how do you merge it back in ? I understand what you 're saying . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I guess the answer is , um , it 's gonna be different every time . It 's j it 's just gonna be {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I it 's exactly what I said before , +PhD F: You only know the boundaries of the {disfmarker} +Grad C: which is that "" what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" So in this case where you have the words and you don't have the times , well , what do you mean by "" merge "" ? If you tell me what you mean , I can write a program to do it . +PhD F: Right . Right . You can merge at the level of the representation that the other person preserved and that 's it . +Grad C: Right . And that 's about all you can do . +PhD F: And beyond that , all you know is {disfmarker} is relative ordering and sometimes even that is wrong . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so in {disfmarker} so in this one you would have to do a best match between the word sequences , +PhD F: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: extract the times f from the best match of theirs to yours , and use that . +PhD F: And then infer that their time - marks are somewhere in between . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc E: But it could be that they just {disfmarker} uh , I mean , it could be that they chunked {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they lost certain utterances and all that stuff , +Grad C: Right , exactly . So it could get very , very ugly . +Postdoc E: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Definitely . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Definitely . Alright . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD F: Well , I guess , w I {disfmarker} I didn't want to keep people too long and Adam wanted t people {disfmarker} I 'll read the digits . If anyone else offers to , that 'd be great . And +PhD A: Ah , well . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: if not , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: For th for the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} for the benefit of science we 'll read the digits . +Grad C: More digits , the better . OK , this is +PhD F: Thanks {disfmarker} thanks a lot . It 's really helpful . I mean , Adam and Don {nonvocalsound} will sort of meet and I think that 's great . Very useful . Go next . +PhD D: Scratch that . +Postdoc E: O three +Grad C: Oh , right . +","Graduate C and PhD D discussed the difficulty of annotating and merging data with variable word sequences and time stamps. They considered using the official corpus as a single version for word consistency, unique time-marked annotations, and potential tools for merging different annotations. The conversation highlighted challenges in defining what ""merge"" means across different formats or when others edit the transcripts. They acknowledged the necessity of flexibility in annotations and the importance of anchoring them to time or words for reliability. They discussed using ATLAS infrastructure and P-files for feature storage, considering the balance between quick solutions and long-term infrastructure. The need for efficient search and merge capabilities in an annotation format to support various research goals was also acknowledged." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Can I close this ? +User Interface: Uh we don't have any changes , do we ? +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: So no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we go . Okay , here we are again . Detailed design {disfmarker} oh , come on . Well {disfmarker} Ah {gap} s Forgot to insert the minutes , but it's about the same thing we discussed before . Uh {disfmarker} Could open that anyway , think . Other design {disfmarker} anyway , we took as {disfmarker} we took w we took rubber as as the material last time . We also {gap} that you're just busy with it . Took the advanced chip to t uh implement the advanced features . Well , we discussed the design , no sharp corners , we rounded it off , like you see on the {gap} other screen , which is fine . Um {gap} we agreed that the colour should be b uh yellow and black . Yellow in the back because it's m trendy , more trendy than black anyway . So {vocalsound} then we ca yeah . We agreed that we would implement both the L_C_D_ and speech recognition , but I'll get to that in a moment . 'Cause some changes in the finances have left us implications anyway . So so , like I said , we had no insight in finances , no prices , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but we have 'em now , and it's bad . Anyway . We are Oh . Prototype presentation , well first you guys built the prototype . So {vocalsound} you could {gap} {disfmarker} could present that . But um let's see what be handy to do . Nee {disfmarker} no , you just go ahead and present the {disfmarker} w we'll scrap it later because {disfmarker} {gap} What ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's more or less the same as we had . +User Interface: It's basically what we agreed upon , +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Oh that's +User Interface: but just a little bit more specified . +Industrial Designer: No much s +Project Manager: hasn't changed that much , huh ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , not at all . +Project Manager: I didn't expect anyway {gap} . You just coloured it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh s Final design . {vocalsound} Basically in {gap} {disfmarker} what we discussed , cover and buttons will be made of rubber , yellow colour , black components , as you can see right over here . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like the menu . +User Interface: We chose a different type of colour for the menu . A bit darker yellow so that it com really shows in this keypad . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you put them all black , it's not really that good a contrast . +Project Manager: And I suppose the the the yellow is not printed on the on the rubber . It's it's part of the rubber , I suppose . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Probab +Project Manager: I think that's more I think that's more durable anyway than printed on to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . That's the be +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} I guess it's more easier to just paint it on the rubber +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: than to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's uh the integration story again . +Marketing: Mm yeah . Okay . +User Interface: So we have it's a bit round shaped , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +User Interface: that's what we had uh {disfmarker} We chose the buttons to be uh teletext , okay button , favourite channel and the mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that's basically what we chose there . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: If you have anything to add , please interrupt me . +Industrial Designer: No , uh this is just a description of what we see there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Speaks for itself . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That's pretty much it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Now it's my time to ruin everything . Well , not ruin everything , but {disfmarker} no , nah . +User Interface: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finances , that's what we have here , what you drew . We have battery power , we have advanced chips and the sam the sensor . The sample sensor and uh {disfmarker} for speak recognition anyway . So which {disfmarker} you see the {disfmarker} which is de o one of the most expensive parts . So {disfmarker} well , we have sin one curve , {vocalsound} a design . Rubber design . And we had a special colour . Suppose yellow is a special colour . So just half a Euro for {gap} {disfmarker} You have pushbuttons and an L_C_D_ display . You have the total of seventeen Euros in production cost , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which is higher than the twelve and a half that we are permitted to use . So , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: easy . What do we scrap . Well think I had the best solution that I came up with is just to s take out the speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: I d +User Interface: I'd say that too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because the L_C_D_ has more support on customer side . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: There are ninety one percent of uh the people , or something like that . But ninety percent who favour an L_C_D_ display , and only sixty percent that favour speech recognition . I think it's also harder to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh we don't really have a extra function with the speech sample , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: which you can't do with a normal remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So I ju +User Interface: which people already do . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I took that out . So {disfmarker} and so it's still stuck with thirteen , so I had to take out the special colour I suppose . And , yeah , I didn't see anything else I could take out . Yeah , I could take out the push-buttons , +Marketing: Pushbut +Project Manager: but we need those . So , generally what I came up with , in order to be cou to to have production cost of twelve and a half Euros , spe scrap speech recognition +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour , yeah . +Project Manager: and the separate covers can account for the {disfmarker} if people want it , we'll just {disfmarker} then we'll do it in black . We'll just deliver it in black , have the {disfmarker} it has all the function that it's supposed to have , and if you want it {disfmarker} if you want the custom design , then you can buy the separate covers . +User Interface: Well , +Project Manager: You make it d orange or whatever you want . +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} I tend to disagree with you on that , because the trend issue was a big issue when we started designing this . +Project Manager: It was a big issue , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: So can't we just basically extend it to thirteen ? +Project Manager: I'll just go back . Uh let's just {disfmarker} let's see what {disfmarker} okay , let's just see what we {disfmarker} no , we we have to be under twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: The p +Project Manager: uh the project is a no-go if we go over twelve and a half , +Industrial Designer: Okay , but there's another problem . +Marketing: And the p +Project Manager: so . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But there's another problem . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we take another cover , for instance black , then we also need another button frame , 'cause black and black doesn't work obviously . +Project Manager: I think you {disfmarker} that's what you were ass assigned to do really , to to see how b th both those work together . +Industrial Designer: Huh . Huh . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think {disfmarker} yeah , it's {disfmarker} I think it's y one of the {disfmarker} it's a good way to um to help people uh to make {disfmarker} to keep the product trendy too . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Just keep {disfmarker} you just make new covers for the {disfmarker} for it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: like we agreed before . +Industrial Designer: Right . I agree . +Project Manager: And everything that's left is is the basic function that uh that we want our product to have . Because the expensive parts are in either the advanced chip . But we need that for the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . We do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then again , we have the L_C_D_ display , which is also expensive . B yeah , but those go together . And yeah , we could take out the curve . +Industrial Designer: Or say let's lose rubber , take plastic . +User Interface: We could take out a curve indeed . +Project Manager: Could {disfmarker} we could take out the curve . Is that an option ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: For you ? +Industrial Designer: Although we are demolishing a little bit the style . +Marketing: But uh the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think the colour is more important than the really the curve , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because if you just end up with an entirely black remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} it it does ruin it , +Marketing: Yeah . The people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the fact that I t took that decision or t +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Took this example actually , not really decision , but the example is because we do offer the um {vocalsound} the possibility of adding your own custom covers . So you can change {gap} any colour you want . So it's just you deliver a basic remote control with a possibility to change you into whatever you want . +Industrial Designer: Can we then not also uh change the material ? We take plastic for the basic cover +Project Manager: You can take plastic , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I d it's something that's stuck into my mind is that {disfmarker} something that really came forward from the marketing research is that people like the the the the squishy feeling of {disfmarker} the spongy feeling of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can put those to the to the other covers . +Project Manager: and it really makes it {disfmarker} also makes it different from the existing remote controls , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because they're all plastic . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So which in in turn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Rubber would increase durability +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it doesn't break . +Industrial Designer: okay . But what do you then suggest we'd lose ? Because we have to lose two things and {disfmarker} I guess . +Project Manager: I al like I said , I lost the speech recognition and I lost the special colour , +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: which would make this black a black and grey . +Industrial Designer: Okay , and that's enough ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that that that's enough , because +User Interface: So black and grey is okay . +Project Manager: I guess those are the basic colours . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which we can fabricate , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think those are basic col They want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: The people want to pay for for it , so why why uh {vocalsound} do we have to keep us uh uh um on the twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: To ensure the profit . That {disfmarker} that's th that's the order . We're just uh {disfmarker} we're the project team and we got our our orders from the pro from the boss of our company +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: which say we don't wanna spend more than twelve fifty for this . +Marketing: But we can take a risk . +Project Manager: But that's not for our {disfmarker} that's not our decision to take . We have a budget of twelve fifty per product . +User Interface: No , we basically {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: We need to stick to that . +Project Manager: Stick that . I don't think it's really bad either . I mean if we we have the the backup of {disfmarker} or the backup design thing +Marketing: I hope the people will like it , +Project Manager: to have {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think they would do . Th I think they do like because yo we {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we agree upon that the that the the the cover thing was a nice idea , +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because p you could have all sort of designs while at the same time just manufacturing one product , one basic product which you could turn into any any taste you want . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it's the best solution to make those cu custom covers for the design aspect +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make m +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and keep the functionality between {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} within the th the boundaries of the your f uh your budget . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: The first sheet . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should make clear to our customer that we had to do this to stay under the cost . And that's {disfmarker} uh they know that this is an option and that we had to drop the option to stay under the cost , that they know that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah . Is it worth {disfmarker} is it is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perhaps they decide tha +User Interface: But they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it mean anything to the customer ? Like , it {disfmarker} like , we don't care {disfmarker} we don't care that you had to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of course . Perhaps {gap} they uh {disfmarker} no , but perhaps they think uh okay , the cover is such a nice idea , uh let's {disfmarker} that that then they uh that allow us to make some more costs . +Project Manager: True , +Industrial Designer: We ca we uh we can at least tell them that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but we did we didn't get that . So I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't know that . +Project Manager: it should either be a pack , maybe we sh that should be sold in in the s in stores with with a standard cover or something . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I'm not uh talking about that cost {gap} but the one that g has given us the order to design this . We could at least m uh make it like this , like you said , +Project Manager: They could , but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then tell them okay , we had to drop this and that , just that you know . It is an {disfmarker} still an option , but {vocalsound} not for this price . +Project Manager: It's an option , but {disfmarker} yeah , it's true . So actually uh it's not that much of an increase , but yeah . We cannot contact them . +User Interface: And if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just the order that we got . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , +Project Manager: So that's what we gotta go with . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's either one fi just just to get it f just to get it through final , it's either {vocalsound} turned into plastic , drop the squishy feel , make it make it more breakable , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: um or turn it yellow . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's uh something we have to decide on . +Industrial Designer: I'd say lose the curve and the colour +Project Manager: I say lose the curve . Oh that's true , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we could lose the c I forgot that , yeah , sorry . Uh the curve . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which curve is that ba +Project Manager: That's just this one just d this is the banana curve . +User Interface: that's basically that curve . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So this would this would be straight . +User Interface: So we could u still have the comfort . +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: No , uh {disfmarker} no , that would be a curve inside the thing , I guess . No , would ju then it would just be a straight remote . Just like {vocalsound} like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Which would , yeah , turn it into something far more ordinary . {gap} we could make it yellow then , +User Interface: I second that . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} You second that , you second that we lose the curve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , that it would turn out to be a pretty straight-forward remote control . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: So that's not really that {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think it would be a good idea to keep the curve {vocalsound} to separate it from the rest of the remote control world , so to speak . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we keep the curve . So the only only solution is either to use the l y lose the yellow or lose the rubber . +User Interface: I would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'm in favour of keeping the rubber , because it has more more advantages than the colour yellow has . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . I agree . +User Interface: Yeah . I would say {disfmarker} I would agree with you on the colour , +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: because that's an extra option , an extra service we can deliver for a little bit of more money . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , um +User Interface: So we can always do that . +Project Manager: I guess people are willing to pay for that . So I think we can take that option and just {disfmarker} with uh with the idea in the back of our head that you can customise your remote control . +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think that would still make it a nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , we're final on that . So {vocalsound} it's too bad we can't make the whole super thing . But anyways we're here . Um yeah . +User Interface: Which is basically what we discussed . +Project Manager: This we discussed just now . That's just now {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} we could just discuss how the project went . I mean , was kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I want to do that . +Project Manager: I sort of expected that everything would turn out this way , but because you {disfmarker} yeah , everything cannot be for free . We didn't {disfmarker} I think it was too bad we didn't have the financial info the last time . Because that was {disfmarker} I th +User Interface: Yes , +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: it was really essential really +User Interface: we could have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: to ma because we spent uh uh entire stage designing a product of which we had no idea what it would cost . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we just put something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's really nor not in stroke with reality actually . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too , I felt a bit blind throughout the project , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because in the beginning I had no list of available materials , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {gap} {disfmarker} would have been . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Materials would be ok +Industrial Designer: and then I d had not list of available c finances . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: at least the last meeting I would have expected had to have that . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I suppose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Let's um {vocalsound} see {gap} um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's see if it sells . I mean I suppose this sells , because it's very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very extended . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I hope it sells . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I suppose it sells , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because it's good . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean it's got everything for the for the reasonable price , because we didn't know what it's gonna cost anyway . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , let's eval evaluate uh the product of us , our design . Um I have some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh a method , a requirements and scale of . I uh will pre present uh some statements and we will decided together wha what {disfmarker} if it's true or false +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and uh then we see uh if the requirements of the user are fulfilled or not . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have been met , okay . +Marketing: And I will uh make a new blank sheet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So so the buttons , the look and feel . I thought it was okay , but the advanced uh settings , um screen , audio and channel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They're stuck under menu . +User Interface: Which are basically accessible through the menu button . +Marketing: We are not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For the menu . I think those are totally met , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: because we we really took them for the {disfmarker} they have the feel they want , +Marketing: Oh the menu button is it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hi Oh , okay . +Project Manager: they have the simplicity they want . +Marketing: Then it's all uh {disfmarker} S +Project Manager: I think it's very uh very well met . Either two or one maybe . +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: it's true . +Project Manager: I think we took that {disfmarker} everything they wanted into consideration . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it could either be a two or a one . +Marketing: So d Oh wait . Uh pen . +Project Manager: One and a half . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which is not an option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The p Oh yeah , +Project Manager: Just create our own option . {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's red , okay , but {disfmarker} Look and feel is everybo it's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Anyone ? And the next one {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} yeah , when it's lost uh you can find it . +Project Manager: It's perfect . Even for deaf people , yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} I don't think it's perfect , but we did everything possible to to get it back . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: To make it that way , yeah . +Project Manager: Because if it's stuck in you couch , you can see the light . Maybe you can hear it . But I mean we tried , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so I think it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that deserves a one . Definitely . +Marketing: And it's and it's {disfmarker} yeah . To {gap} . That's okay then . And the next one . How is that ? Uh w we had {disfmarker} we don't have an uh manual , +Industrial Designer: Manual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the L_C_D_ display could be a little bit more difficult then a normal remote control , +Marketing: But I think that's a part of it . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd use an {gap} remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: but then again , it's for young people . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , an L_C_D_ , it tells a lot about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's pretty straight-forward , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I th +Project Manager: It's pretty straight-forward , uh-huh . +User Interface: you have a navigation {disfmarker} no keys to navigate through the L_C_D_ menus . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . No , that's true . I think it won't be a big problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's a one +User Interface: One I d no , +Marketing: or a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know . +User Interface: actu +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} but we didn't even {disfmarker} +Marketing: For the advanced uh settings . +Project Manager: there was no issue on making a manual actually . We didn't {disfmarker} {gap} really discuss it , +Marketing: No okay , that {disfmarker} uh that's true . +Project Manager: but I don't think it takes {disfmarker} no , it really does doesn't take time to learn , I think . We took it s it's so easy , +User Interface: No , it it is pretty straight-forward . +Marketing: Oh , so it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have so little button , everything speaks for itself really . So I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , we didn't {disfmarker} it's either two or one , I guess . +Marketing: Takes no ti +Project Manager: Maybe it's a two , because d uh the L_C_D_ is a little is a little new and there is {disfmarker} there are some option hidden under the menu button . +Industrial Designer: With the more important functions on . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I might make this a two instead of a one , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ , you have to see it . +Project Manager: So just make that a two . +Marketing: Um mm {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit learning . Okay . Uh yeah {vocalsound} it's uh a little bit same . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But it tells you or not ? +Project Manager: You can use the L_C_D_ in a good way . I think so . I think it's perfect , the w where it is , what it can do , if it useful . I think so . +Marketing: But wha w +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: oh , yeah . What are we uh displaying on the L_C_D_ screen ? Just uh only the channels and {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the menus uh {disfmarker} Things like brightness and uh those kind of things we've put in the menu , +Marketing: What uh ? +Industrial Designer: because we have no buttons for those . +User Interface: Well , basically the menu options indeed . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , in the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: No , y I mean in the L_C_D_ screen , the small screen . What does it display ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: And for a channel selection , uh {gap} {disfmarker} or that's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I thought it was I thought it was {disfmarker} I thought that people wanted previews on their {disfmarker} I'm not sure if that even possible , +Marketing: Yeah , I thought I thought too +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause it's {disfmarker} this requires a quite quite a bit of band-width . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's possible really . But the {disfmarker} they didn't really define in what should be used for . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Maybe a T_V_ guide or something in your L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think in for example like T_V_ guides , I think that's {disfmarker} that th that you can transmit through it and everything . Just for extra information on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , it must be clear then what {disfmarker} what what for we use it . +Project Manager: But also things like like like menus or p how about preferences of your {disfmarker} uh with configuring your remote control for favourite {disfmarker} your favourite channel for example , how do you configure that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that could be done by L_C_D_ display . I think it's good . No , maybe it's not a one because it's {disfmarker} we're not using it perfectly . We didn't give it {disfmarker} I don't thing over-discussing . Now we gave it enough thought though . I think we d should just lower this . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe maybe it's a three though . We could've used it more effectively probably . +Marketing: Yeah , indeed . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So everybody's agree with an uh three on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , we are using it , +User Interface: Yeah . Two or three . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's not +Marketing: W +Project Manager: it's not poorly used , but it's not efficiently used , I think . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could have ev even lost {vocalsound} the selection button and uh done everything via L_C_D_ selection . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} now it's just extra to illustrate im uh extra features , +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but okay . +Marketing: A three . +Industrial Designer: Nah , it's not really {disfmarker} only an extra . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} seven . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No menus . +Marketing: Ah , nothing , that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A seven . Uh that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can you talk to remote control ? +User Interface: Or we could say it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , it can't talk anymore . So we scrap that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or we could say neutral , +Project Manager: Oh yeah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: we {disfmarker} 'cause we scratched the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just to be a prick , +User Interface: C +Project Manager: but of course you can talk to your remote control , it doesn't do anything . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: But you c {vocalsound} you can talk to it . +Marketing: Not with the speech recognition . Uh yeah , all the trends and no colours uh anymore . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we did take everything into consideration of course . Uh the shape i shape is i +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} uh um only in the curves . +Project Manager: I think we {disfmarker} yeah , I think that's okay . +Marketing: But the colours , we don't have special colours on it . +User Interface: No , we don't have the colour . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} special co but we took into consideration the fact that it's customisable +User Interface: So I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: to the fashi +Marketing: but we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but the end product {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: yeah , we don't have it , so d +Project Manager: We don't have it {disfmarker} we do have it , +Marketing: In the end product . +Project Manager: it's just sold as a package . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} M +Project Manager: It does {disfmarker} it's not part of the basic product . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers is also trend that we followed . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} that that's what I call trendy . I mean the shape is trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the sh the the functions are trendy . It's just the colours that are not supporting the basic model . Because you ha +Marketing: Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's just not affordable at the moment . +User Interface: Maybe we should go with a two then , +Marketing: But it's not a one . +User Interface: because it's not perfect , because we can't do it initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's possible , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but you have to pay extra for the for the possibility of having it in a f a different colour . +Marketing: Oh well {disfmarker} Oops . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh it's a two , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: On the last one . Uh that n that's all . +Project Manager: Overall score . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Overall score . +Marketing: Overall . {vocalsound} It's um +Project Manager: One two three . {gap} sixteen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} ten , sixteen three {disfmarker} uh two +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two two point some two point something . +Marketing: two point seven or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't know why . +User Interface: Ten , sixteen , divided by {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: Is two two third . +Project Manager: Two and two thirds . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can say it's it's {disfmarker} the product is {disfmarker} it's okay . +Project Manager: It's okay , but {vocalsound} that's yo m +Marketing: Y not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mostly it's it's influenced by the fact that we didn't have enough resources to implement speech recognition . +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause yeah , that gives you a seven , which ruins your your average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Without that it would be like under {disfmarker} it wouldn't {disfmarker} yeah , it would be under two . So I think we have {disfmarker} even with this it's reasonable . +Marketing: Woah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , if we make it into a four , as in neutral , because we didn't implement it , so we can't say that we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that it's really not well implemented . We come out on a average of two one eighth . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's {disfmarker} two is okay . +User Interface: So which is pretty w good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , two is pretty good . +User Interface: It's at least on the positive side . +Project Manager: Definitely . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} We could definitely have done better if we've had more resources , +Industrial Designer: Hmm , of course . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's probably {disfmarker} {gap} I +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I do admit that we d {vocalsound} did miss a little {disfmarker} or didn't sp didn't talk {gap} {disfmarker} talk enough about the possibility of the L_C_D_ display . We could have used it more efficiently , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we just didn't think of it that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , with {gap} . ..# +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: So {gap} {disfmarker} like I said , {vocalsound} changing channels , everything hidden in your L_C_D_ display , so you just need the navigation buttons to do everything . +Marketing: The scale . +Industrial Designer: But I think for this price , this is {disfmarker} it's really a reasonable product . +Project Manager: I think we div I think we did very well , +Industrial Designer: It's a good product . +Project Manager: uh ev even if you look at this score , we did quite well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: With an L_C_D_ screen {gap} . +Project Manager: It just looking for improvements what what you could have improved . So . {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But if pep people really want speech recognition , then they must be prepared to pu to pay more , because it's cannot be done for this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} They sh they should get kids , and just stick 'em in T_V_ and say change the channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you can make 'em another one . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah but for this price uh you cannot ask that . +Project Manager: I don' think so . Uh it's just not {disfmarker} it it's not affordable . +Industrial Designer: You cannot th think of that {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or your sh you should lose the L_C_D_ screen probably , +Industrial Designer: No , it's not . +Project Manager: but I think that's {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ screen is more worth than speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh It's also more attractive . +Project Manager: Definitely . Okay , that was that . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's the final product without the speakers , I guess . +User Interface: So did you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see , what was left in the the {disfmarker} Another one . {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we evaluate the product . {gap} {disfmarker} General project , what's i in {disfmarker} For example , I thou I thought we were pretty creative in what we created . We took the whole new approach of making exchangeable cover for example , which I thought was pretty creative , because it was never never ever listed somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Favourite channel . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} Anyways . Yeah , leadership is up to you . I mean perhaps I screwed up because I d {vocalsound} put a put a speech recognition into it . But that's not for me to decide . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well as team-work though . Because , yeah was very hard to work with one another if you cannot communicate in the meantime , +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hmm . +Project Manager: because when I got the when I got the input for the financial results , initially of course I wanted to contact you . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , you're working separate . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Say , look , this is {disfmarker} you're doing the wrong thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: you're s you're wasting your time now , because we're implementing stuff that we cannot afford . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: So it would be better if y if there was more communication between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . Direct uh communication with {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: because that's that's what would w you {disfmarker} what you would normally do , either call or email someone . +User Interface: And we could share information which we received . +Project Manager: So that was too bad +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: con was impossible here anyways . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That's the same thing that I had in the beginning . Everybody was using materials that s I didn't have . +Project Manager: It didn't have +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or didn't knew what they costs or whatever . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: There was just too little information about what things actually cost and if you could use them . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So that was a little unclear I suppose . I think a SMARTboard SMARTboard is pretty cool . I think uh s especially for design issues , it's very easy just to give your give your thoughts a little {disfmarker} it's easier to share them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My handwriting is little bit {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Although for actual design I'd say the response time should be a little bit higher , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's a little less {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the response time is le it's very bad . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's good to visualise everything , but I think the response time should {disfmarker} could be a lot better . +User Interface: The digital pen was definitely better to draw my ideas and to further elaborate on that . +Marketing: But th that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Definitely . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But there's uh also one problem with this I noticed . Uh you have to finish a page before going to a n +Project Manager: No , you don't have to . No , you don't . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: I jin I didn't check the finish button . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: You can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I just {disfmarker} you just ditch it and you can copy it or whatever . +Marketing: Done and then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I saw that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh only if you uh check the notes or {vocalsound} press done . Then it um {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} then it exports to Word automatically . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: But it's not necessary to check either one of those two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: You can just preview your p you can just preview your page in the in the programme . +Industrial Designer: but I made {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , but I made three pages +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they were not finished . And when the third one was finished , I wanted to download it and then it was not possible anymore , because you have to close all the pinnits uh the pages before going further . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , before starting a ne a new page . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , that could be b . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . So we cannot work on more than one page at same time . That's not possible . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You have to finish it completely , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Oh can you ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: then download it , it's {disfmarker} then start a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: That's not very uh handy , +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but if you know that , then it's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's understandable , okay . {vocalsound} Any new ideas ? Yeah , more communication between {vocalsound} between uh {disfmarker} that's the thing I noticed , that communication is very um very important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Important to mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because if you get new information , it's essential f for the other team-mates to know that as soon as possible , because you would avoid making {disfmarker} doing extra work , because you were doing extra work now uh m working on the on the speech recognition , you have limitation both on the technical {gap} {disfmarker} on the d on the design side . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think that could have been better . But that's {disfmarker} I think it's more of a a setting here that you cannot communicate than uh {gap} than somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well it could also possibly be {disfmarker} well , is it a more real-time information base , so we can all see {vocalsound} which information is available to one another . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . And l less p less spam probably . I'm not sure i I'm not sure you got spammed as well , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but I get spammed like every t every two minutes there was a {disfmarker} there was another email about master classes or something . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: which were totally useless actually . I thought I should probably look into them , {vocalsound} but they were all useless . So I just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I personally did not have that , +Marketing: Mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} That's probably your l description . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I also didn't {disfmarker} not really . But still , you had that as well . Is that we finished up the design +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: and then we checked the website , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then there was just extra information . +Marketing: Yeah , after {disfmarker} After five minutes , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: There was a little delay in the {disfmarker} {gap} bit of a c crucial delay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't have any uh more information , it's just always the same here . So that's that's kind of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Email uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would change , but not for me . So I'd {disfmarker} I had no extra information to go on that one than what you give me actually . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I couldn't do any research myself +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} I see , that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: yeah , w I could have done a little extra work probably , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But I was busy enough anyway . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Any new ideas found ? Or is that a {gap} 'cause {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh yeah , it's {disfmarker} well , +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: probably is . +User Interface: How much time do we have for this anyway ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . That's like {disfmarker} oh,but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Should i +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: if the project is evaluated and it was it was in b within budget , we should celebrate . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: bring out the beer . +User Interface: Champagne . +Project Manager: Uh okay , think that's about it . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I want one for my own . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure what we should still do though uh t let's see what {disfmarker} all your tasks were finished , right ? What you ha from your assistant . So let's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have no more email . My coach is uh being very silent now . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I should {disfmarker} I think I sh +Marketing: my personal coach i +Project Manager: I still have the the total report to finish up . I think we took very little time now , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , we're in agreement , everything {disfmarker} the design is okay . The one thing we missed though , we don't have a product name . +Marketing: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: How about you cook a {disfmarker} how about you cook up a product name ? +User Interface: Product name . +Industrial Designer: we haven't think above {disfmarker} about that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , name . +Industrial Designer: Huh . It's better than thi I think than a serial number . Sony uh T_R_ something uh f means nothing to me . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or fruit name . +Project Manager: oh , think of a catchy name . I'll be working on this until the beep {disfmarker} until it beeps . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like fruit names . +Marketing: Fruit name or something like that . +Project Manager: What ? Fruit ? +Marketing: The banana remote or something . +Project Manager: You don't want it to resemble a banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , it's the form of it . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anyway . +User Interface: The bana 'cause it's not yellow anymore . +Project Manager: It's not yellow anymore . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} oh , yeah . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It is curved , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh I was going for the R_C_ deluxe , but it's not really a catchy name or anything , +Project Manager: No , +User Interface: it's more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh at least it's not something with numbers . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Numbers are so meaningless to the people . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Something with our {gap} company name , +Marketing: That's true . +User Interface: can we do anything with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Maybe there's something on the website which will help us out . +Marketing: Reaction , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Real Reaction . +User Interface: The reaction deluxe . +Project Manager: Real Reaction future R_C_ . {vocalsound} Step into the future of of remote controlling your T_V_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that a name or a c campaign ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's a that's a catchy slogan . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Control your remote control . +User Interface: Or the {disfmarker} The real reactor . +Industrial Designer: Real react . +Project Manager: I go for future R_C_ probably . Something like {disfmarker} It's short f +Industrial Designer: The Real Reactor , I don't find that uh that bad at all . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Real reactor ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh that that's +User Interface: You should write it down as a {disfmarker} an option . +Industrial Designer: Because our name is Real Reaction . +Project Manager: That makes me think of different {vocalsound} products than a remote control really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure . Real reaction in a real {disfmarker} +Marketing: Zapping . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's one option . +Project Manager: Real reactor . Didn't notice . +Industrial Designer: I'm looking for things in the name . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So that the first three letters are s the same . R_E_A_ R_E_A_ . +User Interface: Should I write the banana down or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take f +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: yeah , take a banana . +User Interface: Sure ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Remote . Banana recei R_C_ . +Industrial Designer: The triple R_ . Real Reaction remotes control . Triple R_ . +Marketing: Remote . +User Interface: Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +User Interface: Uh do you mean it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} ? +Marketing: R_ three C_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: You mean it like this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Real Reaction Remote Control . R_ three C_ . Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {gap} . +Project Manager: No , not like that . It should be it should be longer , because it's not a product name that you f print on a box . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} triple R_ . +Project Manager: Just write out triple , like a word triple R_C_ , triple stripe {disfmarker} Oh . Triple dash R_ dash s s C_ . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't sound {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ah . +Marketing: Triple R_C_ . The triple R_C_ , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: R_ s R_ three C_ . {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} R_ dash C_ . +User Interface: Dash C_ ? +Industrial Designer: I think I like it like this more . +Project Manager: Dash . Triple R_ or triple R_C_ ? +User Interface: Like a C_ right now or a dash in a C_ ? +Marketing: Triple R_ dash . +Project Manager: How about do both ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure if it looks stupid . Uh I think that the the R_C_ together takes away the the the image of {disfmarker} it's a triple {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh the first the first one looks like it's a triple remote control , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's only a single remote control . And it's especially on the triple R_ that's important . The Real Reaction Remote . +Industrial Designer: I would {disfmarker} huh . I would lose the C_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: and just name it triple R_ . +User Interface: Is it triple R_C_s ? No . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It sounds like uh thinking about two different things and combining it . +Marketing: Triple remote . +Industrial Designer: I would just say triple R_s triple R_ +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , triple R_ {gap} yeah , you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that's another option . +Industrial Designer: That's also short , catchy . +Marketing: It's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , triple R_ . +User Interface: Okay , so which ones are we going to scratch definitely ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} The banana . {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Banana remote . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I say this one as well . +Marketing: Yeah , the deluxe . +Project Manager: I think we're all in agreement about the triple R_ . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: I think triple R_ is cool . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Triple R_ ? +Marketing: The r triple R_ . +Project Manager: And it looks cool when you print it in font , looks pretty cool . +User Interface: Triple R_ it is . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} did you do now ? +Project Manager: Just like this {gap} just {disfmarker} and you just print triple R_ , it looks {disfmarker} doesn't look bad , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's short , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So have to write my report now , I guess . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , so we have everything . We have the product , we have the costs , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: we have the possibility of everything . +Marketing: It can't work . That will not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I think it's adjourned . Retire to my lair and finish the report . That was a short meeting . But efficient though . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . The boss is always the last one to go home . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Probably . See . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: goodbye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See you in a minute . +Marketing: Damn . I will write that one in a Word uh document . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Could you guys draw me a picture of the final design to put on the cover of the report ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't we take this one ? +Marketing: Oh sh +Industrial Designer: Otherwise we have to do it all over again . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know whether we can save it as a picture or no . +Industrial Designer: Is it okay if I try ? Is that okay with you ? +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I will ask you when uh I need the information . +Industrial Designer: I'll put it back in a minute . +Marketing: So it's {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it has been saving something , but where to I don't know . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Oh . Merge . +Industrial Designer: Oh , can I say exp yes , I can . +Marketing: Sucks . +Industrial Designer: Export as J_ PEG . {gap} . Okay , can I not put this wherever I wants . My document is the wrong one , huh . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Network places . +Marketing: I don't know . Smart {disfmarker} no . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Ma it's maybe it's not on the network of uh the rest . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Marketing: That one is . {gap} . +User Interface: I wouldn't pick that one , no . +Industrial Designer: Document and settings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a pity . That means that we have to gonna draw it again . Are you gonna do that ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} Yes . Okay . Okay . Okay . Yes , that's correct . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: No . Oh , it's export . +Marketing: Oh yeah , {gap} . {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Can I see scores ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , of course . +Marketing: Uh , {gap} one one , two threes , two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , then we'll {disfmarker} overall , two points . Yes . +User Interface: I see you later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +","In the transcript provided, a team comprising a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing personnel are collaborating on the finalization of a remote control product. The interaction highlights the process of closing the design phase, making critical decisions based on financial constraints, and the importance of teamwork and communication in project management. + +Initially, the Project Manager inquires about finalizing the project, and the User Interface designer responds that there are no changes needed, indicating they are ready to close this phase. However, during the detailed design review, the Project Manager realizes that the meeting minutes have not been inserted and a reevaluation of materials, design criteria, and functionalities such as color choice, LCD implementation, and speech recognition takes place. + +It becomes apparent that financial implications have arisen, prompting a reconsideration of the features discussed. Yellow and black are chosen as the colors for the product due to their trendy appeal, but the budget constraints require a reevaluation of features versus cost. The prototype was presented, albeit with knowledge that some aspects would later be scrapped due to costs. + +The design was planned to include rubber material for a good grip and an advanced chip to support advanced features. The need to avoid sharp corners led to a rounded design. There was agreement to include both an LCD and speech recognition, but changes in finances prompt reconsideration. + +Marketing weighs in, affirming the absence of new changes in the prototype but a need for more specification. The Industrial Designer and User Interface designer discuss the practicality of the current design, focusing on its compliance with what was agreed upon earlier. + +As the Project Manager goes through the different aspects of the product, such as battery power, sensor, color, and materials, it becomes evident that the production cost exceeds the allowed budget, necessitating the identification of features to be eliminated to reduce cost. A decision is made to potentially remove the speech recognition feature due to its lower favorability compared to the LCD. + +An intense discussion ensues among the team over how to reduce costs without significantly compromising the design and functionality of the product. The team contemplates removing certain features, changing materials, and even adjusting the color to meet the budget constraints, with a consensus to potentially offer customizable covers as an additional purchase rather than a standard product feature. + +The dialogue emphasizes the dynamic trade-offs between design, functionality, costs, and market trends. The User Interface designer argues that keeping within the trendy design specifications is essential, while the Project Manager underscores the need to adhere to financial constraints. The Industrial Designer points out that changing the cover color to black creates another issue - a change in button frame color for visibility. + +Ultimately, the Project Manager suggests offering the high-cost design elements, like custom colors, as separate, purchasable covers while providing a basic version of the product within budget constraints. The team agrees on a compromise to keep the design's trendy elements via optional customizable covers while making cost-effective material and feature choices. + +The conversation then shifts to evaluating the product according to criteria such as look and feel, findability when lost, user-friendliness without manuals, and whether the LCD adds value. They use a rating system, and after considering each criterion, they arrive at an average score that leans towards satisfaction with the product's final design, despite recognizing room for improvement. + +Lastly, the discussion pivots to choosing a product name, with various suggestions like ""Real Reactor,"" ""RC Deluxe,"" and others being brainstormed. The team eventually decides on ""Triple R"" as a catchy and brand-cohesive name. They also consider how they will present the final design in their report. The Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer coordinate to provide a suitable image for the report's cover. + +Overall, the transcript reflects a typical project management scenario centered around closing a product design phase, balancing creativity with financial constraints, and arriving at a consensus within a team amid tight timelines and resource limitations." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL—skills, higher education and lifelong learning—and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that—I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now—Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the—well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper, 'Securing Wales' Future'. There has been ongoing work being done—as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions—so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success—and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects—the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a 'no deal' or in a 'deal' scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further. +Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the 'no deal' scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 'no deal'? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one. +Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a 'no deal' scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses. +Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined. +Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a 'no deal' has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a 'no deal' scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a 'no deal' on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it— +Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got— +Suzy Davies AM: —particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it? +Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges—I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education. +Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored—the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked. +Eluned Morgan AM: —the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see—just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit—then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about £15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this? +Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera. +Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about. +Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee—those kinds of ministerial arrangements. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU—it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a 'no deal' Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a 'no deal' Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a 'no deal' Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding—ESF funding—which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care—obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers, 'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?' and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a £10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time—we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector. +Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a 'no deal' would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year—that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates—we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that. +Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK. +Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring. +Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions. +Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University—if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible. +Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea? +Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important—and this is not about any one institution—what I think is really important is that we look to—. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right—so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want. +Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector. +Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor—but the others, not. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme. +Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that? +Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: The additional £6.4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending? +Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of £5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and £5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level. +Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent. +Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able. +Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of £3.5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment. +Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that? +Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam. +Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions—should they have a desire to participate—will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12? +Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee—there are so many committees these days—have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push? +Kirsty Williams AM: No—gosh—Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running—but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it—it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths. +John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need. +John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews—the Diamond and Reid reviews? +Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the 'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit? +Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships—it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges—we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and—? I'll stop there for the moment. +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to—. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying, 'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'—I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about £15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that—I don't think we should be—because they made some promises. +John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually—the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with—well, both your sectors, really? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's—. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today—the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get—that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment. +Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well—we mustn't forget that. +Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees? +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to—[Inaudible.] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF—the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a 'no deal' scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them—for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements—that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course—. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction. +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put £10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back—? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about— +Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: —fees—. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a 'no deal' scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement— +Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal— +Lynne Neagle AM: —then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. +","In the conversation, Lynne Neagle AM opens the session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee and notes apologies from Janet Finch-Saunders. She welcomes Suzy Davies to the committee and thanks former members Mark Reckless and Darren Millar for their service. No declarations of interest are made. The committee moves to discuss the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, with Lynne Neagle welcoming Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. They are joined by officials Huw Morris and Marie Knox. + +Suzy Davies inquires about the preparedness of higher education for Brexit and refers to sector analyses and research by Cardiff University. Kirsty Williams talks about the government's close work with higher and further education and the use of group discussions to understand potential impacts on institutions, which vary regarding EU student numbers and programs like Horizon 2020. Huw Morris adds details on Brexit preparation, including 'no deal' scenarios, and mentions ongoing research. + +Suzy Davies discusses the possibility of Welsh Government sharing formal risk assessments, especially regarding further education, and Eluned Morgan elaborates on the engagement with FE colleges, highlighting that EU student and staff numbers are low, but expresses concerns about European Social Fund (ESF) funding and the reliance of apprenticeships on the local economy. + +Lynne Neagle asks about specific plans in case of a 'no deal' Brexit. Eluned Morgan acknowledges it's challenging to prepare, while Kirsty Williams emphasizes continuing work towards reaching a deal. In case of 'no deal', commitments for funding various education programs are discussed, and both secretaries highlight Welsh Government efforts to mitigate risks and adapt plans as needed. + +The conversation shifts to student recruitment, with discussions about the drop in EU student applications in Wales and the factors contributing to this, including the removal of the tuition fee grant for EU students and the impact on different types of universities within Wales. Kirsty Williams outlines measures like the Global Wales programme to enhance international marketing of Welsh universities. + +The conversation also touches on the sustainability of higher and further education in light of Brexit and European funding concerns. Both Cabinet members emphasize the need for clarity regarding future funding arrangements and the necessity of holding the UK Government to its funding promises post-Brexit. + +Lastly, there's an emphasis on collaborative interdepartmental work within the Welsh Government to safeguard the interests of the education sector and the wider economy in the context of Brexit, including plans for rural skills development and the current status of apprenticeships. + +In conclusion, the committee notes several documents regarding their work and agrees to private meetings for the next agenda items." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: OK . We 're on . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: OK , so uh {vocalsound} had some interesting mail from uh Dan Ellis . Actually , I think he {disfmarker} he {vocalsound} redirected it to everybody also so uh {vocalsound} the PDA mikes uh have a big bunch of energy at {disfmarker} at uh five hertz uh where this came up was that uh I was showing off these wave forms that we have on the web and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} I just sort of hadn't noticed this , but that {disfmarker} the major , major component in the wave {disfmarker} in the second wave form in that pair of wave forms is actually the air conditioner . +Grad C: Huh . +Professor A: So . So . I {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I have to be more careful about using that as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as a good illustration , uh , in fact it 's not , of uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the effects of room reverberation . It is isn't a bad illustration of the effects of uh room noise . {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} on uh some mikes uh but So . And then we had this other discussion about um {vocalsound} whether this affects the dynamic range , cuz I know , although we start off with thirty two bits , you end up with uh sixteen bits and {vocalsound} you know , are we getting hurt there ? But uh Dan is pretty confident that we 're not , that {disfmarker} that quantization error is not {disfmarker} is still not a significant {vocalsound} factor there . So . So there was a question of whether we should change things here , whether we should {vocalsound} change a capacitor on the input box for that or whether we should +PhD B: Yeah , he suggested a smaller capacitor , right ? +Professor A: Right . But then I had some other uh thing discussions with him +PhD B: For the P D +Professor A: and the feeling was {vocalsound} once we start monk monkeying with that , uh , many other problems could ha happen . And additionally we {disfmarker} we already have a lot of data that 's been collected with that , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: A simple thing to do is he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he has a {disfmarker} I forget if it {disfmarker} this was in that mail or in the following mail , but he has a {disfmarker} a simple filter , a digital filter that he suggested . We just run over the data before we deal with it . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um The other thing that I don't know the answer to , but when people are using Feacalc here , uh whether they 're using it with the high - pass filter option or not . And I don't know if anybody knows . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} I could go check . +Professor A: But . Yeah . So when we 're doing all these things using our software there is {disfmarker} um if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's based on the RASTA - PLP program , {vocalsound} which does both PLP and RASTA - PLP {vocalsound} um then {vocalsound} uh there is an option there which then comes up through to Feacalc which {vocalsound} um allows you to do high - pass filtering and in general we like to do that , because of things like this and {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} it 's not a very severe filter . Doesn't affect speech frequencies , even pretty low speech frequencies , at all , but it 's +PhD B: What 's the {pause} cut - off frequency it used ? +Professor A: Oh . I don't know I wrote this a while ago +PhD B: Is it like twenty ? +Professor A: Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean I think there 's some effect above twenty but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's mild . So , I mean it probably {disfmarker} there 's probably some effect up to a hundred hertz or something but it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty mild . I don't know in the {disfmarker} in the STRUT implementation of the stuff is there a high - pass filter or a pre pre - emphasis or something in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . I think we use a pre - emphasis . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we want to go and check that in i for anything that we 're going to use the P D A mike for . {vocalsound} uh He says that there 's a pretty good roll off in the PZM mikes so {vocalsound} we don't need {disfmarker} need to worry about them one way or the other but if we do make use of the cheap mikes , {vocalsound} uh we want to be sure to do that {disfmarker} that filtering before we {vocalsound} process it . And then again if it 's uh depending on the option that the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our software is being run with , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite possible that 's already being taken care of . uh But I also have to pick a different picture to show the effects of reverberation . uh +PhD B: Did somebody notice it during your talk ? +Professor A: uh No . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor A: Well . uh Well . If they made output they were {disfmarker} they were , you know {disfmarker} they were nice . +PhD B: Didn't say anything ? +Professor A: But . {vocalsound} I mean the thing is it was since I was talking about reverberation and showing this thing that was noise , it wasn't a good match , but it certainly was still uh an indication of the fact that you get noise with distant mikes . uh It 's just not a great example because not only isn't it reverberation but it 's a noise that we definitely know what to do . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , I mean , it doesn't take deep {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a new {disfmarker} bold new methods to get rid of uh five hertz noise , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} uh But . So it was {disfmarker} it was a bad example in that way , but it 's {disfmarker} it still is {disfmarker} it 's the real thing that we did get out of the microphone at distance , so it wasn't {vocalsound} it w it w wasn't wrong it was inappropriate . So . {vocalsound} So uh , but uh , Yeah , someone noticed it later pointed it out to me , and I went "" oh , man . Why didn't I notice that ? "" +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: um . So . {vocalsound} um So I think we 'll change our {disfmarker} our picture on the web , when we 're @ @ . One of the things I was {disfmarker} I mean , I was trying to think about what {disfmarker} what 's the best {vocalsound} way to show the difference an and I had a couple of thoughts one was , {vocalsound} that spectrogram that we show {vocalsound} is O K , but the thing is {vocalsound} the eyes uh and the {vocalsound} the brain behind them are so good at picking out patterns {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} from noise {vocalsound} that in first glance you look at them it doesn't seem like it 's that bad uh because there 's many features that are still preserved . So one thing to do might be to just take a piece of the spec uh of the spectrogram where you can see {vocalsound} that something looks different , an and blow it up , and have that be the part that 's {disfmarker} just to show as well . You know . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: i i Some things are going to be hurt . um {vocalsound} Another , I was thinking of was um {vocalsound} taking some spectral slices , like uh {disfmarker} like we look at with the recognizer , and look at the spectrum or cepstrum that you get out of there , and the {disfmarker} the uh , um , {vocalsound} the reverberation uh does make it {disfmarker} does change that . And so maybe {disfmarker} maybe that would be more obvious . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad C: Spectral slices ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: W w what d what do you mean ? +Professor A: Well , I mean um all the recognizers look at frames . So they {disfmarker} they look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: So like one instant in time . +Professor A: Yeah , look at a {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: So it 's , yeah , at one point in time or uh twenty {disfmarker} over twenty milliseconds or something , {vocalsound} you have a spectrum or a cepstrum . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: That 's what I meant by a slice . +Grad C: I see . +Professor A: Yeah . And {vocalsound} if you look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could just {disfmarker} you could just throw up , you know , uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} some MFCC feature vectors . You know , one from one , one from the other , and then , you know , you can look and see how different the numbers are . +Professor A: Right . Well , that 's why I saying either {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , either spectrum or cepstrum +PhD B: I 'm just kidding . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I think the thing is you wanna {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't mean a graph . I mean the actual numbers . +Professor A: Oh . I see . Oh . That would be lovely , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . "" See how different these {vocalsound} sequences of numbers are ? "" +Professor A: Yeah . Or I could just add them up and get a different total . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's not the square . +Professor A: OK . Uh . What else {disfmarker} wh what 's {disfmarker} what else is going on ? +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , at first I had a remark why {disfmarker} I am wondering why the PDA is always so far . I mean we are always meeting at the {vocalsound} beginning of the table and {vocalsound} the PDA 's there . +Professor A: Uh . I guess cuz we haven't wanted to move it . We {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we could move us , +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: and . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD F: Well , anyway . Um . Yeah , so . Uh . Since the last meeting we 've {disfmarker} we 've tried to put together um {vocalsound} the clean low - pass um downsampling , upsampling , I mean , Uh the new filter that 's replacing the LDA filters , and also {vocalsound} the um delay issue so that {disfmarker} We considered th the {disfmarker} the delay issue on the {disfmarker} for the on - line normalization . Mmm . So we 've put together all this and then we have results that are not um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} very impressive . Well , there is no {vocalsound} real improvement . +Professor A: But it 's not wer worse and it 's better {disfmarker} better latency , +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . Well . Actually it 's better . It seems better when we look at the mismatched case but {vocalsound} I think we are like {disfmarker} like cheated here by the {disfmarker} th this problem that {vocalsound} uh in some cases when you modify slight {disfmarker} slightly modify the initial condition you end up {vocalsound} completely somewhere air somewhere else in the {disfmarker} in the space , {vocalsound} the parameters . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . The other system are for instance . For Italian is at seventy - eight {vocalsound} percent recognition rate on the mismatch , and this new system has eighty - nine . But I don't think it indicates something , really . I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it means that the new system is more robust +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} It 's simply the fact that {disfmarker} Well . +Professor A: Well , the test would be if you then tried it on one of the other test sets , if {disfmarker} if it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Y +Professor A: Right . So this was Italian , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So then if you take your changes +PhD F: It 's similar for other test sets +Professor A: and then {disfmarker} +PhD F: but I mean {vocalsound} from this se seventy - eight um percent recognition rate system , {vocalsound} I could change the transition probabilities for the {disfmarker} the first HMM and {pause} it will end up to eighty - nine also . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: By using point five instead of point six , point four {vocalsound} as in the {disfmarker} the HTK script . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah I looked at um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} looked at the results when Stephane did that +PhD F: Well . Eh uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's really wo really happens . +PhD F: This really happens . +PhD B: I mean th the only difference is you change the self - loop transition probability by a tenth of a percent +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: and it causes ten percent difference in the word error rate . +Professor A: A tenth of a per cent . +PhD B: Yeah . From point {disfmarker} +PhD F: Even tenth of a percent ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry +PhD F: Well , we tried {disfmarker} we tried point one , +PhD B: f for point {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} You change at point one +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD B: and n not tenth of a percent , one tenth , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: alright ? Um so from point five {disfmarker} so from point six to point five and you get ten percent better . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it 's what you basically hypothesized in the last meeting {vocalsound} about uh it just being very {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I think you mentioned this in your email too {disfmarker} it 's just very um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm , yeah . +PhD B: you know get stuck in some local minimum and this thing throws you out of it I guess . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well , what 's {disfmarker} what are {disfmarker} according to the rules what {disfmarker} what are we supposed to do about the transition probabilities ? Are they supposed to be point five or point six ? +PhD B: I think you 're not allowed to {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's supposed to be point six , for the self - loop . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Point {disfmarker} It 's supposed to be point six . +PhD B: Yeah . But changing it to point five I think is {disfmarker} which gives you much better results , but that 's {vocalsound} not allowed . +Professor A: But not allowed ? Yeah . OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , but even if you use point five , I 'm not sure it will always give you the better results +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: on other test set or it +PhD B: Right . We only tested it on the {disfmarker} the medium mismatch , +PhD F: on the other training set , I mean . +PhD B: right ? You said on the other cases you didn't notice {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But . I think , yeah . I think the reason is , yeah , I not I {disfmarker} it was in my mail I think also , {vocalsound} is the fact that the mismatch is trained only on the far microphone . Well , in {disfmarker} for the mismatched case everything is um using the far microphone training and testing , whereas for the highly mismatched , training is done on the close microphone so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clean speech basically so you don't have this problem of local minima probably and for the well - match , it 's a mix of close microphone and distant microphone and {disfmarker} Well . +PhD B: I did notice uh something {disfmarker} +PhD F: So th I think the mismatch is the more difficult for the training part . +PhD B: Somebody , I think it was Morgan , suggested at the last meeting that I actually count to see {vocalsound} how many parameters and how many frames . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there are uh almost one point eight million frames of training data and less than forty thousand parameters in the baseline system . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's very , very few parameters compared to how much training data . +Professor A: Well . Yes . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . And that {disfmarker} that says that we could have lots more parameters actually . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I did one quick experiment just to make sure I had everything worked out and I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh f for most of the um {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for all of the digit models , they end up at three mixtures per state . And so I just did a quick experiment , where I changed it so it went to four and um {vocalsound} it it {disfmarker} it didn't have a r any significant effect at the uh medium mismatch and high mismatch cases and it had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was just barely significant for the well - matched better . Uh so I 'm r gonna run that again but {vocalsound} um with many more uh mixtures per state . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz at forty thou I mean you could you could have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , easily four times as many {vocalsound} parameters . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And I think also {vocalsound} just seeing what we saw {vocalsound} uh in terms of the expected duration of the silence model ? when we did this tweaking of the self - loop ? The silence model expected duration was really different . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: And so in the case where {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} it had a better score , the silence model expected duration was much longer . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was a better match . I think {vocalsound} you know if we make a better silence model I think that will help a lot too um for a lot of these cases so but one one thing I {disfmarker} I wanted to check out before I increased the um {vocalsound} number of mixtures per state was {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} default training script they do an initial set of three re - estimations and then they built the silence model and then they do seven iterations then the add mixtures and they do another seven then they add mixtures then they do a final set of seven and they quit . Seven seems like a lot to me and it also makes the experiments go take a really long time I mean to do one turn - around of the well matched case takes like a day . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so {vocalsound} you know in trying to run these experiments I notice , you know , it 's difficult to find machines , you know , compute the run on . And so one of the things I did was I compiled HTK for the Linux {vocalsound} machines +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: cuz we have this one from IBM that 's got like five processors in it ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and so now I 'm {disfmarker} you can run stuff on that and that really helps a lot because now we 've got {vocalsound} you know , extra machines that we can use for compute . And if {disfmarker} I 'm do running an experiment right now where I 'm changing the number of iterations ? {vocalsound} from seven to three ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: just to see how it affects the baseline system . And so if we can get away with just doing three , we can do {vocalsound} many more experiments more quickly . And if it 's not a {disfmarker} a huge difference from running with seven iterations , {vocalsound} um , you know , we should be able to get a lot more experiments done . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: And so . I 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what happens with that . But if we can {vocalsound} you know , run all of these back - ends f with many fewer iterations and {vocalsound} on Linux boxes we should be able to get a lot more experimenting done . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . So I wanted to experiment with cutting down the number of iterations before I {vocalsound} increased the number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . Sorry . So um , how 's it going on the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . You {disfmarker} you did some things . They didn't improve things in a way that convinced you you 'd substantially improved anything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But they 're not making things worse and we have reduced latency , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . But actually {disfmarker} um actually it seems to do a little bit worse for the well - matched case and we just noticed that {disfmarker} Yeah , actually the way the final score is computed is quite funny . It 's not a mean of word error rate . It 's not a weighted mean of word error rate , it 's a weighted mean of improvements . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So . Which means that {vocalsound} actually the weight on the well - matched is {disfmarker} Well I well what what {disfmarker} What happened is that if you have a small improvement or a small if on the well - matched case {vocalsound} it will have uh huge influence on the improvement compared to the reference because the reference system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite good for {disfmarker} for the well - ma well - matched case also . +PhD B: So it {disfmarker} it weights the improvement on the well - matched case really heavily compared to the improvement on the other cases ? +PhD F: No , but it 's the weighting of the {disfmarker} of the improvement not of the error rate . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , and it 's hard to improve on the {disfmarker} on the best case , cuz it 's already so good , right ? +PhD F: Yeah but {pause} what I mean is that you can have a huge improvement on the H {disfmarker} HMK 's , uh like five percent uh absolute , and this will not affect the final score almost {disfmarker} Uh this will almost not affect the final score because {vocalsound} this improvement {disfmarker} because the improvement {vocalsound} uh relative to the {disfmarker} the baseline is small {disfmarker} +Professor A: So they do improvement in terms of uh accuracy ? rather than word error rate ? +PhD F: Uh . Uh improvement ? +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , it 's compared to the word er it 's improvement on the word error rate , +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: yeah . Sorry . +Professor A: So if you have uh ten percent error and you get five percent absolute uh {vocalsound} improvement then that 's fifty percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . So what you 're saying then is that if it 's something that has a small word error rate , {vocalsound} then uh a {disfmarker} even a relatively small improvement on it , in absolute terms , {vocalsound} will show up as quite {disfmarker} quite large in this . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Is that what you 're saying ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . But yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} it 's the notion of relative improvement . Word error rate . +PhD F: Yeah . Sure , but when we think about the weighting , which is point five , point three , point two , {vocalsound} it 's on absolute on {disfmarker} on relative figures , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So when we look at this error rate +Professor A: No . That 's why I 've been saying we should be looking at word error rate uh and {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not at {vocalsound} at accuracies . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Mmm , yeah . Mmm , yeah . +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean uh we probably should have standardized on that all the way through . It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that different , right ? I mean , just subtract the accuracy . +Professor A: Yeah but you 're {disfmarker} but when you look at the numbers , your sense of the relative size of things is quite different . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} Oh . Oh , I see . Yeah . +Professor A: If you had ninety percent uh correct {vocalsound} and five percent , five over ninety doesn't look like it 's a big difference , but {vocalsound} five over ten is {disfmarker} is big . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So just when we were looking at a lot of numbers and {vocalsound} getting sense of what was important . +PhD B: I see . I see . Yeah . That makes sense . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Well anyway uh . So . Yeah . So it hurts a little bit on the well - match and yeah . +Professor A: What 's a little bit ? Like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like , it 's difficult to say because again um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure I have the um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Morgan ? Do you remember that Signif program that we used to use for testing signi ? Is that still valid ? I {disfmarker} I 've been using that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , it was actually updated . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Jeff updated it some years ago +PhD B: Oh , it was . Oh , I shoul +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh cleaned it up made some things better in it . So . +PhD B: OK . I should find that new one . I just use my old one from {vocalsound} ninety - two or whatever +Professor A: Yeah , I 'm sure it 's not that different but {disfmarker} but he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he uh {disfmarker} he was a little more rigorous , as I recall . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Right . So it 's around , like , point five . No , point six {comment} uh percent absolute on Italian {disfmarker} +Professor A: Worse . +PhD F: Worse , yep . +Professor A: Out of what ? I mean . s +PhD F: Uh well we start from ninety - four point sixty - four , and we go to ninety - four point O four . +Professor A: Uh - huh . So that 's six {disfmarker} six point th +PhD F: Uh . +PhD B: Ninety - three point six four , right ? is the baseline . +PhD F: Oh , no , I 've ninety - four . Oh , the baseline , you mean . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not talking about the baseline here . +PhD B: Oh . Oh . I 'm sorry . +PhD F: I uh {disfmarker} My baseline is the submitted system . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Ah , ah . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD F: Oh yeah . For Finnish , we start to ninety - three point eight - four and we go to ninety - three point seventy - four . And for Spanish we are {disfmarker} we were at ninety - five point O five and we go to ninety - three - s point sixty one . +Professor A: OK , so we are getting hurt somewhat . +PhD F: So . +Professor A: And is that wh what {disfmarker} do you know what piece {disfmarker} you 've done several changes here . Uh , do you know what pie +PhD F: Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's the filter . Because nnn , well uh we don't have complete result , but the filter {disfmarker} So the filter with the shorter delay hurts on Italian well - matched , which {disfmarker} And , yeah . And the other things , like um {vocalsound} downsampling , upsampling , don't seem to hurt and {vocalsound} the new on - line normalization , neither . +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: I 'm really confused about something . If we saw that making a small change like , you know , a tenth , to the self - loop had a huge effect , {vocalsound} can we really make any conclusions about differences in this stuff ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah that 's th Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , especially when they 're this small . I mean . +PhD F: I think we can be completely fooled by this thing , but {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD F: So . There is first this thing , and then the {disfmarker} yeah , I computed the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like , the confidence level on the different test sets . And for the well - matched they are around um {vocalsound} point six uh percent . For the mismatched they are around like let 's say one point five percent . And for the well - m uh HM they are also around one point five . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} OK , so you {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these degradations you were talking about were on the well - matched case +PhD F: So . +Professor A: Uh . Do the {disfmarker} does the new filter make things uh better or worse for the other cases ? +PhD F: Yeah . But . Uh . About the same . It doesn't hurt . Yeah . +Professor A: Doesn't hurt , but doesn't get a little better , or something . +PhD F: No . +Professor A: No . OK , so {vocalsound} um I guess the argument one might make is that , "" Yeah , if you looked at one of these cases {vocalsound} and you jiggle something and it changes {vocalsound} then uh you 're not quite sure what to make of it . But when you look across a bunch of these and there 's some {disfmarker} some pattern , um {disfmarker} I mean , so eh h here 's all the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if in all these different cases {vocalsound} it never gets better , and there 's significant number of cases where it gets worse , {vocalsound} then you 're probably {pause} hurting things , {vocalsound} I would say . So um {vocalsound} I mean at the very least that would be a reasonably prediction of what would happen with {disfmarker} with a different test set , that you 're not jiggling things with . So I guess the question is if you can do better than this . If you can {disfmarker} if we can approximate {vocalsound} the old numbers while still keeping the latency down . +PhD F: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , so . Um . What I was asking , though , is uh {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the level of communication with uh {vocalsound} the O G I gang now , about this and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , we are exchanging mail as soon as we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have significant results . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . For the moment , they are working on integrating {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} spectral subtraction apparently from Ericsson . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . And so . Yeah . We are working on our side on other things like {vocalsound} uh also trying a sup spectral subtraction but of {disfmarker} of our own , I mean , another {vocalsound} spectral substraction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . So I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . It 's going {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is there any further discussion about this {disfmarker} this idea of {disfmarker} of having some sort of source code control ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well . For the moment they 're {disfmarker} uh everybody 's quite um {disfmarker} There is this Eurospeech deadline , so . +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: Um . And . Yeah . But yeah . As soon as we have something that 's significant and that 's better than {disfmarker} than what was submitted , we will fix {disfmarker} fix the system and {disfmarker} But we 've not discussed it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} this yet , yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Sounds like a great idea but {disfmarker} but I think that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} he 's saying people are sort of scrambling for a Eurospeech deadline . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: But that 'll be uh , uh done in a week . So , maybe after {vocalsound} this next one . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Wow ! Already a week ! Man ! +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: You 're right . That 's amazing . +Professor A: Yeah . Anybo - anybody in the {disfmarker} in this group do doing anything for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: S +Professor A: Or , is that what {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah we are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We are trying to {disfmarker} to do something with the Meeting Recorder digits , +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} But yeah . Yeah . And the good thing is that {pause} there is this first deadline , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and , well , some people from OGI are working on a paper for this , but there is also the um {vocalsound} special session about th Aurora which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh which has an extended deadline . So . The deadline is in May . +Professor A: For uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: For th Yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD F: So f only for the experiments on Aurora . So it {disfmarker} it 's good , +Professor A: Oh , a special dispensation . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: That 's great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Where is Eurospeech this year ? +PhD F: It 's in Denmark . +Professor A: Aalborg {disfmarker} Aalborg uh +PhD B: Oh . +Professor A: So the deadline {disfmarker} When 's the deadline ? When 's the deadline ? +PhD F: Hmm ? I think it 's the thirteenth of May . +Professor A: That 's great ! It 's great . So we should definitely get something in for that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But on meeting digits , maybe there 's {disfmarker} Maybe . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Maybe . +PhD F: So it would be for the first deadline . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Nnn . +Professor A: Yeah . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that you could certainly start looking at {disfmarker} at the issue uh but {disfmarker} but uh {vocalsound} I think it 's probably , on s from what Stephane is saying , it 's {disfmarker} it 's unlikely to get sort of active participation from the two sides until after they 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well I could at least {disfmarker} Well , I 'm going to be out next week but I could {pause} try to look into like this uh CVS over the web . That seems to be a very popular {vocalsound} way of {pause} people distributing changes and {disfmarker} over , you know , multiple sites and things +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so maybe {vocalsound} if I can figure out how do that easily and then pass the information on to everybody so that it 's {vocalsound} you know , as easy to do as possible and {disfmarker} and people don't {disfmarker} it won't interfere with {comment} their regular work , then maybe that would be good . And I think we could use it for other things around here too . So . +Professor A: Good . +Grad C: That 's cool . And if you 're interested in using CVS , I 've set it up here , +PhD B: Oh great . +Grad C: so . +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: um j +PhD B: I used it a long time ago but it 's been a while so maybe I can ask you some questions . +Grad C: Oh . So . I 'll be away tomorrow and Monday but I 'll be back on Tuesday or Wednesday . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . Dave , the other thing , actually , is {disfmarker} is this business about this wave form . Maybe you and I can talk a little bit at some point about {vocalsound} coming up with a better {vocalsound} uh demonstration of the effects of reverberation for our web page , cuz uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} um I mean , actually the {disfmarker} the uh It made a good {disfmarker} good audio demonstration because when we could play that clip the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the really {vocalsound} obvious difference is that you can hear two voices and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the second one and only hear {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe we could just {pause} like , talk into a cup . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Some good reverb . +Professor A: No , I mean , it sound {disfmarker} it sounds pretty reverberant , but I mean you can't {disfmarker} when you play it back in a room with a {disfmarker} you know a big room , {vocalsound} nobody can hear that difference really . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: They hear that it 's lower amplitude and they hear there 's a second voice , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} but uh that {disfmarker} actually that makes for a perfectly good demo because that 's a real obvious thing , that you hear two voices . +PhD B: But not of reverberation . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: A boom . +Professor A: Well that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's OK . But for the {disfmarker} the visual , just , you know , I 'd like to have uh {vocalsound} uh , you know , the spectrogram again , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: because you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're visual {vocalsound} uh abilities as a human being are so good {vocalsound} you can pick out {disfmarker} you know , you {disfmarker} you look at the good one , you look at the cru the screwed up one , and {disfmarker} and you can see the features in it without trying to @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD B: I noticed that in the pictures . +Professor A: yeah . +PhD B: I thought "" hey , you know th "" I {disfmarker} My initial thought was "" this is not too bad ! "" +Professor A: Right . But you have to {disfmarker} you know , if you look at it closely , you see "" well , here 's a place where this one has a big formant {disfmarker} uh uh formant {disfmarker} maj major formants here are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are moving quite a bit . "" And then you look in the other one and they look practically flat . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I mean you could {disfmarker} that 's why I was thinking , in a section like that , you could take a look {disfmarker} look at just that part of the spectrogram and you could say "" Oh yeah . This {disfmarker} this really distorted it quite a bit . "" +PhD B: Yeah . The main thing that struck me in looking at those two spectrograms was the difference in the high frequencies . It looked like {vocalsound} for the one that was farther away , you know , it really {disfmarker} everything was attenuated +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean that was the main visual thing that I noticed . +Professor A: Right . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} clearly are spectral effects . Since you 're getting all this indirect energy , then a lot of it does have {disfmarker} have uh {vocalsound} reduced high frequencies . But um the other thing is the temporal courses of things really are changed , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh we want to show that , in some obvious way . The reason I put the wave forms in there was because {vocalsound} uh they {disfmarker} they do look quite different . Uh . And so I thought "" Oh , this is good . "" but I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just uh {disfmarker} After {disfmarker} after uh they were put in there I didn't really look at them anymore , cuz I just {disfmarker} they were different . So {vocalsound} I want something that has a {disfmarker} is a more interesting explanation for why they 're different . Um . +Grad C: Oh . So maybe we can just substitute one of these wave forms and um {vocalsound} then do some kind of zoom in on the spectrogram on an interesting area . +Professor A: Something like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: The other thing that we had in there that I didn't like was that um {vocalsound} the most obvious characteristic of the difference uh when you listen to it is that there 's a second voice , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} cuts that we have there actually don't correspond to the full wave form . It 's just the first {disfmarker} I think there was something where he was having some trouble getting so much in , or . I {disfmarker} I forget the reason behind it . But {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's the first six seconds or something {vocalsound} of it and it 's in {vocalsound} the seventh or eighth second or something where @ @ the second voice comes in . So we {disfmarker} we would like to actually see {vocalsound} the voice coming in , too , I think , since that 's the most obvious thing {pause} when you listen to it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . Um . +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah . I brought some {disfmarker} I don't know if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some {vocalsound} figures here . Well . I start {disfmarker} we started to work on spectral subtraction . And {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the preliminary results were very bad . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So the thing that we did is just to add spectral subtraction before this , the Wall uh process , which contains LDA on - line normalization . And it hurts uh a lot . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And so we started to look at {disfmarker} at um things like this , which is , well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So you have the C - zero parameters for one uh Italian utterance . +PhD D: You can @ @ . +PhD F: And I plotted this for two channels . Channel zero is the close mic microphone , and channel one is the distant microphone . And it 's perfectly synchronized , so . And the sentence contain only one word , which is "" Due "" And it can't clearly be seen . Where {disfmarker} where is it ? +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Where is the word ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} this is , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: oh , a plot of C - zero , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: the energy . +PhD F: This is a plot of C - zero , uh when we don't use spectral substraction , and when there is no on - line normalization . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So . There is just some filtering with the LDA and {vocalsound} and some downsampling , upsampling . +PhD B: C - zero is the close talking ? {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: uh the close channel ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: and s channel one is the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . So C - zero is very clean , actually . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh then when we apply mean normalization it looks like the second figure , though it is not . Which is good . Well , the noise part is around zero +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And then the third figure is what happens when we apply mean normalization and variance normalization . So . What we can clearly see is that on the speech portion {vocalsound} the two channel come {disfmarker} becomes very close , but also what happens on the noisy portion is that the variance of the noise is {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: This is still being a plot of C - zero ? OK . +PhD F: Yeah . This is still C - zero . +PhD B: Can I ask um what does variance normalization do ? w What is the effect of that ? +Professor A: Normalizes the variance . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: I mean +PhD F: It normalized th the standard deviation . +PhD B: y Yeah . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand that , +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you get an estimate of the standard deviation . +PhD B: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's +PhD B: No . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand what it is , but I mean , what does it {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what is +PhD F: Yeah but . +PhD B: uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: What 's the rationale ? +PhD B: We Yeah . Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why do it ? +PhD F: Uh . +Professor A: Well , I mean , because {vocalsound} everything uh {disfmarker} If you have a system based on Gaussians , everything is based on means and variances . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So if there 's an overall {vocalsound} reason {disfmarker} You know , it 's like uh if you were doing uh image processing and in some of the pictures you were looking at , uh there was a lot of light uh and {disfmarker} and in some , there was low light , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , you would want to adjust for that in order to compare things . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And the variance is just sort of like the next moment , you know ? So uh {vocalsound} what if um one set of pictures was taken uh so that throughout the course it was {disfmarker} went through daylight and night uh {vocalsound} um um ten times , another time it went thr I mean i is , you know , how {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much vari +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor A: Or no . I guess a better example would be {vocalsound} how much of the light was coming in from outside rather than artificial light . So if it was a lot {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if more was coming from outside , then there 'd be the bigger effect of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the change in the {disfmarker} So every mean {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} the parameters that you have , especially the variances , are going to be affected by the overall variance . +PhD B: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor A: And so , in principle , you {disfmarker} if you remove that source , then , you know , you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: I see . OK . So would {disfmarker} the major effect is {disfmarker} that you 're gonna get is by normalizing the means , +Professor A: That 's the first order but {disfmarker} thing , +PhD B: but it may help {disfmarker} First - order effects . +Professor A: but then the second order is {disfmarker} is the variances +PhD B: And it may help to do the variance . OK . +Professor A: because , again , if you {disfmarker} if you 're trying to distinguish between E and B +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: if it just so happens that the E 's {vocalsound} were a more {disfmarker} you know , were recorded when {disfmarker} when the energy was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was larger or something , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: or the variation in it was larger , {vocalsound} uh than with the B 's , then this will be {disfmarker} give you some {disfmarker} some bias . +PhD B: +Professor A: So the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's removing these sources of variability in the data {vocalsound} that have nothing to do with the linguistic component . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Gotcha . OK . Sorry to interrupt . +Professor A: But the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} but let me as ask {disfmarker} ask you something . +PhD F: Yep . And it {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} +Professor A: i is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If you have a good voice activity detector , isn't {disfmarker} isn't it gonna pull that out ? +PhD F: Yeah . Sure . If they are good . Yeah . Well what it {disfmarker} it shows is that , yeah , perhaps a good voice activity detector is {disfmarker} is good before on - line normalization and that 's what uh {vocalsound} we 've already observed . But uh , yeah , voice activity detection is not {vocalsound} {vocalsound} an easy thing neither . +PhD B: But after you do this , after you do the variance normalization {disfmarker} I mean . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I don't know , it seems like this would be a lot easier than this signal to work with . +PhD F: Yeah . So . What I notice is that , while I prefer to look at the second figure than at the third one , well , because you clearly see where speech is . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: But the problem is that on the speech portion , channel zero and channel one are more different than when you use variance normalization where channel zero and channel one become closer . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: But for the purposes of finding the speech {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} Yeah , but here {disfmarker} +PhD B: You 're more interested in the difference between the speech and the nonspeech , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . So I think , yeah . For I th I think that it {disfmarker} perhaps it shows that {vocalsound} uh the parameters that the voice activity detector should use {disfmarker} uh have to use should be different than the parameter that have to be used for speech recognition . +Professor A: Yeah . So basically you want to reduce this effect . +PhD F: Well , y +Professor A: So you can do that by doing the voi voice activity detection . You also could do it by spect uh spectral subtraction before the {vocalsound} variance normalization , right ? +PhD F: Yeah , but it 's not clear , yeah . +Professor A: So uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: We So . Well . It 's just to +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: the {disfmarker} the number that at that are here are recognition experiments on Italian HM and MM {vocalsound} with these two kinds of parameters . And , {pause} well , it 's better with variance normalization . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So it does get better even though it looks ugly . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . but does this have the voice activity detection in it ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . +Grad E: OK . +PhD B: Where 's th +PhD F: But the fact is that the voice activity detector doesn't work on channel one . So . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Where {disfmarker} at what stage is the voice activity detector applied ? Is it applied here or a after the variance normalization ? +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor A: Spectral subtraction , I guess . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's applied before variance normalization . So it 's a good thing , +PhD B: Oh . +PhD F: because I guess voice activity detection on this should {disfmarker} could be worse . +PhD B: Yeah . Is it applied all the way back here ? +PhD F: It 's applied the um on , yeah , something like this , +PhD B: Maybe that 's why it doesn't work for channel one . +PhD F: yeah . Perhaps , yeah . +Professor A: Can I {disfmarker} +PhD F: So we could perhaps do just mean normalization before VAD . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Can I ask a , I mean {disfmarker} a sort of top - level question , which is {vocalsound} um "" if {disfmarker} if most of what the OGI folk are working with is trying to {vocalsound} integrate this other {disfmarker} other uh spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} why are we worrying about it ? "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . About ? Spectral subtraction ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just uh {disfmarker} Well it 's another {disfmarker} They are trying to u to use the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the Ericsson and we 're trying to use something {disfmarker} something else . And . Yeah , and also to understand what happens because +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: uh fff Well . When we do spectral subtraction , actually , I think {vocalsound} that this is the {disfmarker} the two last figures . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . It seems that after spectral subtraction , speech is more emerging now uh {vocalsound} than {disfmarker} than before . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Speech is more what ? +PhD F: Well , the difference between the energy of the speech and the energy of the n spectral subtrac subtracted noise portion is {disfmarker} is larger . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , if you compare the first figure to this one {disfmarker} Actually the scale is not the same , but if you look at the {disfmarker} the numbers um {vocalsound} you clearly see that the difference between the C - zero of the speech and C - zero of the noise portion is larger . Uh but what happens is that after spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} you also increase the variance of this {disfmarker} of C - zero . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so if you apply variance normalization on this , it completely sc screw everything . Well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Uh . Yeah . So yeah . And what they did at OGI is just {vocalsound} uh they don't use on - line normalization , for the moment , on spectral subtraction and I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think as soon as they will try on - line normalization {vocalsound} there will be a problem . So yeah , we 're working on the same thing but {vocalsound} I think uh with different {disfmarker} different system and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . I mean , i the Intellectually it 's interesting to work on things th uh one way or the other +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the list of things that there are to do , if there are things that we won't do because {vocalsound} we 've got two groups doing the same thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Just {disfmarker} just asking . Uh . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , +PhD B: There also could be {disfmarker} I mean . I can maybe see a reason f for both working on it too +PhD F: uh . +PhD B: if {vocalsound} um you know , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you work on something else and {disfmarker} and you 're waiting for them to give you {vocalsound} spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean it 's hard to know whether {vocalsound} the effects that you get from the other experiments you do will {vocalsound} carry over once you then bring in their spectral subtraction module . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost like everything 's held up waiting for this {vocalsound} one thing . I don't know if that 's true or not , but I could see how {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I don't know . +PhD B: Maybe that 's what you were thinking . +Professor A: I don't know . {vocalsound} I mean , we still evidently have a latency reduction plan which {disfmarker} which isn't quite what you 'd like it to be . That {disfmarker} that seems like one prominent thing . And then uh weren't issues of {disfmarker} of having a {disfmarker} a second stream or something ? That was {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} There was this business that , you know , we {disfmarker} we could use up the full forty - eight hundred bits , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But I think they ' I think we want to work on this . They also want to work on this , so . Uh . {vocalsound} yeah . We {disfmarker} we will try MSG , but um , yeah . And they are t I think they want to work on the second stream also , but more with {vocalsound} some kind of multi - band or , well , what they call TRAP or generalized TRAP . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . So . +Professor A: OK . Do you remember when the next meeting is supposed to be ? the next uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's uh in June . +Professor A: In June . OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Um . Yeah , the other thing is that you saw that {disfmarker} that mail about uh the VAD {disfmarker} V A Ds performing quite differently ? That that uh So um . This {disfmarker} there was this experiment of uh "" what if we just take the baseline ? "" +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: set uh of features , just mel cepstra , and you inc incorporate the different V A And it looks like the {disfmarker} the French VAD is actually uh better {disfmarker} significantly better . +PhD B: Improves the baseline ? +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah but I don't know which VAD they use . Uh . If the use the small VAD I th I think it 's on {disfmarker} I think it 's easy to do better because it doesn't work at all . So . I {disfmarker} I don't know which {disfmarker} which one . It 's Pratibha that {disfmarker} that did this experiment . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . We should ask which VAD she used . +PhD D: I don't @ @ . He {disfmarker} Actually , I think that he say with the good VAD of {disfmarker} from OGI and with the Alcatel VAD . And the experiment was sometime better , sometime worse . +PhD F: Yeah but I {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} I think you were talking about the other mail that used VAD on the reference features . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And on that one , uh the French one is {disfmarker} was better . +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor A: It was just better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean it was enough better that {disfmarker} that it would {vocalsound} uh account for a fair amount of the difference between our performance , actually . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} Uh . So if they have a better one , we should use it . I mean . You know ? it 's {disfmarker} you can't work on everything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , so we should find out if it 's really better . I mean if it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} compared to the small or the big network . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: And perhaps we can easily improve if {disfmarker} if we put like mean normalization before the {disfmarker} before the VAD . Because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} as you 've {pause} mentioned . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: H Hynek will be back in town uh the week after next , back {disfmarker} back in the country . So . And start {disfmarker} start organizing uh {vocalsound} more visits and connections and so forth , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} uh working towards June . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Also is Stephane was thinking that {vocalsound} maybe it was useful to f to think about uh {vocalsound} voiced - unvoiced {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to work uh here in voiced - unvoiced detection . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And we are looking {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the uh signal . +PhD F: Yeah , my feeling is that um actually {vocalsound} when we look at all the proposals , ev everybody is still using some kind of spectral envelope +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and um it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: No use of pitch uh basically . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , well , not pitch , but to look at the um fine {disfmarker} at the {disfmarker} at the high re high resolution spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . We don't necessarily want to find the {disfmarker} the pitch of the {disfmarker} of the sound but uh {disfmarker} Cuz I have a feeling that {vocalsound} when we look {disfmarker} when we look at the {disfmarker} just at the envelope there is no way you can tell if it 's voiced and unvoiced , if there is some {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy in clean speech because voiced sound are more low frequency and . So there would be more , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} there is the first formant , which is the larger and then voiced sound are more high frequencies cuz it 's frication and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But , yeah . When you have noise there is no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you have a low frequency noise it could be taken for {disfmarker} for voiced speech and . +Professor A: Yeah , you can make these mistakes , +PhD F: So . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Isn't there some other +PhD F: S +PhD B: uh d +PhD F: So I think that it {disfmarker} it would be good {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , well , go {disfmarker} go on . +PhD B: Uh , I was just gonna say isn't there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} aren't {disfmarker} aren't there lots of ideas for doing voice activity , or speech - nonspeech rather , {comment} um by looking at {vocalsound} um , you know , uh {vocalsound} I guess harmonics or looking across time {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , I think he was talking about the voiced - unvoiced , though , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: right ? So , not the speech - nonspeech . +PhD B: Yeah . Well even with e +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: uh w ah you know , uh even with the voiced - non {pause} voiced - unvoiced +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} I thought that you or {pause} somebody was talking about {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . Uh yeah . B We should let him finish what he w he was gonna say , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So go ahead . +PhD F: Um yeah , so yeah , I think if we try to develop a second stream well , there would be one stream that is the envelope and the second , it could be interesting to have that 's {disfmarker} something that 's more related to the fine structure of the spectrum . And . Yeah , so I don't know . We were thinking about like using ideas from {disfmarker} from Larry Saul , have a good voice detector , have a good , well , voiced - speech detector , that 's working on {disfmarker} on the FFT and {vocalsound} uh +Professor A: U +PhD F: Larry Saul could be an idea . We were are thinking about just {vocalsound} kind of uh taking the spectrum and computing the variance of {disfmarker} of the high resolution spectrum {vocalsound} and things like this . +Professor A: So u s u OK . So {disfmarker} So many {vocalsound} tell you something about that . Uh we had a guy here some years ago who did some work on {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} making use of voicing information uh to {vocalsound} help in reducing the noise . +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: So what he was doing is basically y you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you do estimate the pitch . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um you {disfmarker} from that you {disfmarker} you estimate {disfmarker} or you estimate fine harmonic structure , whichev ei either way , it 's more or less the same . But {vocalsound} uh the thing is that um you then {vocalsound} can get rid of things that are not {disfmarker} i if there is strong harmonic structure , {vocalsound} you can throw away stuff that 's {disfmarker} that 's non - harmonic . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And that {disfmarker} that is another way of getting rid of part of the noise +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: So um that 's something {vocalsound} that is sort of finer , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: brings in a little more information than just spectral subtraction . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And he had some {disfmarker} I mean , he did that sort of in combination with RASTA . It was kind of like RASTA was taking care of convolutional stuff +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and he was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and got some {disfmarker} some decent results doing that . So that {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} another way . But yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor A: Right . There 's all these cues . We 've actually back when Chuck was here we did some voiced - unvoiced uh {vocalsound} classification using a bunch of these , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh works OK . Obviously it 's not perfect but um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is that you can't {disfmarker} given the constraints of this task , we can't , {vocalsound} in a very nice way , feed {pause} forward to the recognizer the information {disfmarker} the probabilistic information that you might get about whether it 's voiced or unvoiced , where w we can't you know affect the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the uh distributions or anything . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But we {disfmarker} what we uh {disfmarker} I guess we could Yeah . +PhD B: Didn't the head dude send around that message ? Yeah , I think you sent us all a copy of the message , where he was saying that {disfmarker} I I 'm not sure , exactly , what the gist of what he was saying , but something having to do with the voice {vocalsound} activity detector and that it will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that people shouldn't put their own in or something . It was gonna be a {disfmarker} +Professor A: That {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} OK . So that 's voice activity detector as opposed to voicing detector . +PhD F: They didn't . +Professor A: So we 're talking about something a little different . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Oh , I 'm sorry . +Professor A: Right ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I missed that . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I guess what you could do , maybe this would be w useful , if {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} if you view the second stream , yeah , before you {disfmarker} before you do KLT 's and so forth , if you do view it as probabilities , and if it 's an independent {disfmarker} So , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not so much {vocalsound} envelope - based by fine - structure - based , uh looking at harmonicity or something like that , um if you get a probability from that information and then multiply it by {disfmarker} you know , multiply by all the voiced {vocalsound} outputs and all the unvoiced outputs , you know , then {vocalsound} use that as the +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} take the log of that or {vocalsound} uh pre pre uh {disfmarker} pre - nonlinearity , +PhD F: Yeah . i if {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh and do the KLT on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on that , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: then that would {disfmarker} that would I guess be uh a reasonable use of independent information . So maybe that 's what you meant . And then that would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , I was not thinking this {disfmarker} yeah , this could be an yeah So you mean have some kind of probability for the v the voicing +Professor A: R Right . So you have a second neural net . +PhD F: and then use a tandem system +Professor A: It could be pretty small . Yeah . If you have a tandem system and then you have some kind of {disfmarker} it can be pretty small {disfmarker} net {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: we used {disfmarker} we d did some of this stuff . Uh I {disfmarker} I did , some years ago , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: and the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing is to use information primarily that 's different as you say , it 's more fine - structure - based than {disfmarker} than envelope - based +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh so then it you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can pretty much guarantee it 's stuff that you 're not looking at very well with the other one , and uh then you only use for this one distinction . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and so now you 've got a probability of the cases , and you 've got uh the probability of the finer uh categories on the other side . You multiply them where appropriate and uh {vocalsound} um +PhD F: I see , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: if they really are from independent {pause} information sources then {vocalsound} they should have different kinds of errors +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and roughly independent errors , and {vocalsound} it 's a good choice for {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . Yeah , that 's a good idea . +PhD F: Yeah . Because , yeah , well , spectral subtraction is good and we could u we could use the fine structure to {disfmarker} to have a better estimate of the noise but {vocalsound} still there is this issue with spectral subtraction that it seems to increase the variance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: um Well it 's this musical noise which is annoying if you d you do some kind of on - line normalization after . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . Um . Yeah . Well . Spectral subtraction and on - line normalization don't seem to {disfmarker} to go together very well . I +Professor A: Or if you do a spectral subtraction {disfmarker} do some spectral subtraction first and then do some on - line normalization then do some more spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you can do it layers or something so it doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't hurt too much or something . +PhD F: Ah , yeah . +Professor A: But it {disfmarker} but uh , anyway I think I was sort of arguing against myself there by giving that example +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: uh I mean cuz I was already sort of {vocalsound} suggesting that we should be careful about not spending too much time on exactly what they 're doing In fact if you get {disfmarker} if you go into uh {disfmarker} a uh harmonics - related thing {vocalsound} it 's definitely going to be different than what they 're doing and uh uh +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: should have some interesting properties in noise . Um . {vocalsound} I know that when have people have done {pause} um sort of the obvious thing of taking {vocalsound} uh your feature vector and adding {pause} in some variables which are {vocalsound} pitch related or uh that {disfmarker} it hasn't {disfmarker} my impression it hasn't particularly helped . Uh . Has not . +PhD F: It {disfmarker} it i has not , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: But I think uh {pause} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a question for this uh you know extending the feature vector versus having different streams . +PhD F: Oh . Was it nois noisy condition ? the example that you {disfmarker} you just +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and it may not have been noisy conditions . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the example but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was on some DARPA data and some years ago and so it probably wasn't , actually +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But we were thinking , we discussed with Barry about this , and {vocalsound} perhaps {vocalsound} thinking {disfmarker} we were thinking about some kind of sheet cheating experiment where we would use TIMIT +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: and see if giving the d uh , this voicing bit would help in {disfmarker} in terms of uh frame classification . +Professor A: Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you just do it with Aurora ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Just any i in {disfmarker} in each {disfmarker} in each frame +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} B but we cannot do the cheating , this cheating thing . +Grad E: We 're {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: We need labels . +Professor A: Why not ? +PhD F: Well . Cuz we don't have {disfmarker} Well , for Italian perhaps we have , but we don't have this labeling for Aurora . We just have a labeling with word models +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: but not for phonemes . +PhD D: Not for foreigners . +Grad E: we don't have frame {disfmarker} frame level transcriptions . +Professor A: Um . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor A: But you could {disfmarker} I mean you can {disfmarker} you can align so that {disfmarker} It 's not perfect , but if you {disfmarker} if you know what was said and {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the problem is that their models are all word level models . So there 's no phone models {pause} that you get alignments for . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh . +PhD B: You {disfmarker} So you could find out where the word boundaries are but that 's about it . +Professor A: Yeah . I see . +Grad E: S But we could use uh the {disfmarker} the noisy version that TIMIT , which {vocalsound} you know , is similar to the {disfmarker} the noises found in the TI - digits {vocalsound} um portion of Aurora . +PhD F: Yeah . noise , yeah . Yeah , that 's right , yep . Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I guess we can {disfmarker} we can say that it will help , but I don't know . If this voicing bit doesn't help , uh , I think we don't have to {disfmarker} to work more about this because {disfmarker} +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: Uh . It 's just to know if it {disfmarker} how much i it will help +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and to have an idea of how much we can gain . +Professor A: Right . I mean in experiments that we did a long time ago +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and different ta it was probably Resource Management or something , um , I think you were getting {pause} something like still eight or nine percent error on the voicing , as I recall . And um , so um +Grad E: Another person 's voice . +Professor A: what that said is that , sort of , left to its own devices , like without the {disfmarker} a strong language model and so forth , that you would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you would make significant number of errors {vocalsound} just with your uh probabilistic machinery in deciding +PhD B: It also {disfmarker} +Professor A: one oh +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} though I think uh there was one problem with that in that , you know , we used canonical mapping so {vocalsound} our truth may not have really been {pause} true to the acoustics . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: So . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Well back twenty years ago when I did this voiced - unvoiced stuff , we were getting more like {vocalsound} ninety - seven or ninety - eight percent correct in voicing . But that was {vocalsound} speaker - dependent {vocalsound} actually . We were doing training {vocalsound} on a particular announcer +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and getting a {vocalsound} very good handle on the features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we did this complex feature selection thing where we looked at all the different possible features one could have for voicing and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and exhaustively searched {vocalsound} all size subsets and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that particular speaker and you 'd find you know the five or six features which really did well on them . +PhD B: Wow ! +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then doing {disfmarker} doing all of that we could get down to two or three percent error . But that , again , was speaker - dependent with {vocalsound} lots of feature selection +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and a very complex sort of thing . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: So I would {disfmarker} I would believe {vocalsound} that uh it was quite likely that um looking at envelope only , that we 'd be {vocalsound} significantly worse than that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: And the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} the SpeechCorders ? what 's the idea behind ? Cuz they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} Oh , they don't even have to detect voiced spe speech ? +Professor A: The modern ones don't do a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a simple switch . +PhD F: They just work on the code book +Professor A: They work on the code book excitation . +PhD F: and find out the best excitation . +Professor A: Yeah they do {vocalsound} analysis - by - synthesis . They try {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they try every {disfmarker} every possible excitation they have in their code book and find the one that matches best . +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . Alright . Yeah . So it would not help . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor A: Uh . O K . +PhD B: Can I just mention one other interesting thing ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Um . One of the ideas that we {pause} had come up with last week for things to try to {vocalsound} improve the system {disfmarker} Um . Actually I {disfmarker} I s we didn't {disfmarker} I guess I wrote this in after the meeting b but {vocalsound} the thought I had was um looking at the language model that 's used in the HTK recognizer , which is basically just a big {vocalsound} loop , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: right ? So you {disfmarker} it goes "" digit "" +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and then that can be {disfmarker} either go to silence or go to another digit , which {disfmarker} That model would allow for the production of {vocalsound} infinitely long sequences of digits , right ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So . I thought "" well I 'm gonna just look at the {disfmarker} what actual digit strings do occur in the training data . "" +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: And the interesting thing was it turns out that there are no sequences of two - long or three - long digit strings {pause} in any of the Aurora training data . So it 's either one , four , five , six , uh up to eleven , and then it skips and then there 's some at sixteen . +Professor A: But what about the testing data ? +PhD B: Um . I don't know . I didn't look at the test data yet . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean if there 's some testing data that has {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has two or three {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yeah . But I just thought that was a little odd , that there were no two or three long {disfmarker} Sorry . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just for the heck of it , I made a little grammar which um , you know , had it 's separate path {pause} for each length digit string you could get . So there was a one - long path and there was a four - long and a five - long +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I tried that and it got way worse . There were lots of deletions . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't have any weights of these paths or {disfmarker} I didn't have anything like that . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And I played with tweaking the {vocalsound} word transition penalties a bunch , but I couldn't go anywhere . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: But um . I thought "" well if I only allow {disfmarker} "" Yeah , I guess I should have looked at {disfmarker} to see how often there was a mistake where a two - long or a three - long path was actually put out as a hypothesis . Um . But . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: So to do that right you 'd probably want to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} allow for them all but then have weightings and things . So . I just thought that was a interesting {vocalsound} thing about the data . +Professor A: OK . So we 're gonna read some more digit strings I guess ? +PhD B: Yeah . You want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor A: Sure . +","In a discussion between researchers, Professor A addressed issues with PDA microphones showing large energy at 5 Hz due to air conditioner noise, which was unsuitable for illustrating room reverberation effects. Grad C observed the need for careful illustration selection. There was also debate on whether quantization error and the reduction to 16 bits affect dynamic range, but Dan appeared confident it did not. Additionally, some technical details regarding potential filter changes and data processing were discussed. PhD B and Professor A talked about changing a capacitor on the input box and whether digital filtering was a better approach. A digital high-pass filter option in their software was also debated for its effect on noise. The recognition software's transitions probabilities and its impact on results were hashed out. Concerns over the effects of varying transition probabilities on word error rate were raised, implying the possibility of being misled by minor parameter adjustments. Professor A concluded by emphasizing the importance of considering word error rate over accuracy for clarity in predicative modeling." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Good morning . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: Uh before I start with the with the meeting I have a few things to tell you about the the setting we're in , uh because we're uh being watched by uh Big Brother . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: By Big Brother ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This uh {disfmarker} These are cameras , so are these . This thing uh that looks like a pie , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: are actually all microphones . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you must be careful with uh with uh all this . And uh as I can see you uh you have placed your laptops uh exactly on the place where it must be . And that has to do with the camera settings , so we don't have our uh laptops in front of the cameras . +Marketing: Of our faces . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Indeed . So they can see our faces . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome at the kick-off meeting . My name is uh Danny Wolfs . {vocalsound} Uh this is the agenda for today . Uh first a little opening . Uh I will introduce myself , uh and uh I think it's very uh good to introduce uh yourself . Uh then uh a little bit of acquaintance , acquaintance to uh to to ourselves . So uh we get to know each other . Uh that will be done uh with a tool training from the he these two uh smart boards . Then the project plan . What we're going to do , and how we're going to do it . Uh and discussion about that and a little closing at the end . {vocalsound} Okay uh , my name is uh Danny Wolfs . I'm the Project Manager . What's your name ? +User Interface: I'm Juergen Toffs . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: User interface , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hi , my name's uh {gap} . I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial , yes . +Marketing: I'm uh Tim {gap} . Um my function is the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . First a little about the project aim . Uh the the the aim is to make a new remote control . Uh maybe you have read uh read the website . It's a very uh , yeah , very uh ambitious uh company . They uh they wanna do something else . I w Uh there must be a new remote control . Uh first of all uh it must be original , uh and trendy . That's two things really uh close to each other . But at the same time uh user-friendly . And they have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that's uh very important uh for them . Uh there are three stages . There is a functional design . So uh what are we going uh to uh to do ? What are we going to uh uh make f uh kind of functions in the remote ? And why are we going to do it ? Then the conceptual design . How are going to do it ? {vocalsound} And that's uh really global . Uh because at the detailed design , how , part two , uh we go uh to dig in uh really about how the the te the technical of {disfmarker} If it's uh it's possible technical-wise . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh each stage is uh {vocalsound} uh is broken up in two uh two stages , individual work and a meeting . So it's uh it's very straightforward . {vocalsound} Okay , the tool training . We have two smart boards . {vocalsound} This one is for the presentations , the PowerPoint presentations or the Word presentation of whatever you uh you had . Uh and this is uh only for uh drawing . So uh we uh must let it uh stand on this uh this programme . {vocalsound} This is called a smart board +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speaks for itself . +Project Manager: thing uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it speaks for itself . Um and as you uh may have heard , the documents in the shared folder uh can be uh showed on this screen . Not in y the the My Documents . So if you wanna show something , put it in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} This uh is {gap} very straightforward , with the save , the print , the undo , the blank , the select , the pen . Well , I don't uh gonna explain it all , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think you know uh how it works . Um we must not forget uh everything we draw on here , uh all must be saved . We we may not delete anything . So uh if you have uh drawn something , save it . Never delete it . That's a very important uh thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh little uh little {vocalsound} kinda exercise to uh know each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} At uh the white board on the left . Every uh every one of us uh must draw our favourite animal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh tell uh tell us why we uh had uh chosen that animal . Uh important is that we use different colours , {vocalsound} and uh different pen widths . Widths . Widths . +Marketing: I have a question . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Marketing: Um this exercise , um did the company board tell you to do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or uh did you just make it up yourself ? +Project Manager: No no no . It's uh it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I I I must do it . +Marketing: It's part of the introduction , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . 'Cause we uh really don't know each other , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: and uh it's kinda new . So getting used to each other , we can uh have a little fun then , before we uh dig in really to the hard stuff . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That kind of thing . Would you start with drawing your uh favourite animal ? +Marketing: Um , yeah . I don't know really how it works . But maybe you can show us first ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . Yeah , okay . Drawing goes with uh this thing . Do not touch your hand on uh this little uh thingy here . That's uh important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So hold it uh like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You g you get electrocuted or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , kinda . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} You must p p uh push a little uh {disfmarker} Good . Because {disfmarker} And uh wait uh wait a few seconds . It's not uh fully real-time , so uh watch it . +User Interface: Ach . {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Well I'm gonna paint in the red . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Ooph . +Project Manager: That's the background colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , undo . Um {disfmarker} The pen ? No . One minute please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's the one . Well , five . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} My favourite animal huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's like Pictionary ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you can guess what it is . +Marketing: The the one who says it first {vocalsound} gets a raise . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} May uh paint uh next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a pork ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it's not an orc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't see it uh at the ears ? +Marketing: Mm yeah , I have it at home . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an orc at home ? +User Interface: Very artistic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's it called ? +Project Manager: Simba . 'Cause uh we have a cat at home +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: and he's called Simba . 'Cause he looks like the uh the the lion from The Lion King . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Miniature size ? +Project Manager: So we uh found it kinda cool to uh name it after a lion . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's happy with us , so uh he's smiling . +User Interface: Wow . He does have body uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Huh . +Project Manager: No , only the face . Because we have we have twen twenty five minutes . So we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We have to speed up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Remember you use uh different colours , and different pen widths . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , who wants to go next ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So choose a colour , choose a pen width and draw a {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't have to change the colour and the pen width during uh the drawing . +Marketing: Save it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to save it . +Project Manager: Save it , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've done it . New ? 'Kay . +User Interface: You have to draw uh push hard on the pen or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} Not really . +Project Manager: Kind of firm touch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +User Interface: Oh . Uh hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . Open . Which one is it ? Smart board ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . And now ? Okay . Okay , thanks . 'Kay , I've speed up . 'Kay , that's fine . Line width . +Industrial Designer: By the way , why was your cat uh red ? +Project Manager: Because uh my cat is red uh at home . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I have red hair , so uh must be red . +User Interface: It's a very bloody cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah , sure . +User Interface: It's a frog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , it's a turtle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's an apple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not an apple . +Industrial Designer: Must be a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A dog ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . Colour . {vocalsound} Something like this . Smaller . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , it is a turtle . +Project Manager: It is a turtle . Why a turtle ? Why ? Tim ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} 'Cause I liked Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: It's uh inside its shell . You'll be uh finished sooner . +Marketing: No , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a scared turtle . +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} It's coming up . Mm . Uh . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Tim . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something like this . {vocalsound} Okay , you know {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very artistic . +Project Manager: Jurgen , you want to go next ? +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Okay . Wha Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah ? Here you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How did it work ? +Project Manager: Format ? And then you have the the current colour , +User Interface: Performance ? +Project Manager: you can change . So no red or green . +User Interface: And a pen ? +Project Manager: And uh line uh width . I had five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Tim had {disfmarker} Uh Tim , what kinda line width did you have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the big lines were like nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . It's a dog . +User Interface: Well , very good . {vocalsound} I just uh thought I'd pick the easiest one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Why a dog ? You have a dog at home ? +User Interface: Well , we had a dog , a few years ago . +Project Manager: Had a dog ? +Marketing: Uh , it's p +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: And and it , {gap} yeah , when it died we didn't get a new one or something . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's pretty good uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an artistic uh inner middle . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} An artist . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh a Graphical User Designer , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Hey . +Marketing: Think you uh picked the wrong uh function . Wrong job . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . Can work together . Ah colour . +Project Manager: So I think you can see it's real uh really a easy programme to use . Not difficult at all . +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: it's okay {gap} . +Project Manager: thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's enough , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Janus ? The last one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thanks . +Marketing: I wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah . After a cat , a turtle and a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think he's gonna draw an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I figure I should do something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'm gonna do something much more difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Uh-oh . Oh , he is the artistic {gap} design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna design a remote uh {vocalsound} remote control animal . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remote control animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Well with the interface , it might be easier to ha to draw here and display there uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: That that might be easier . But at the other hand , uh a pen like that is easy to hold in your hand , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think it's easier to draw . +Project Manager: Better to draw with a with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . With a pen than with a mouse mouse . +User Interface: Than on the , with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I m I mean like uh like on here , drawing drawing uh . And then displaying on screen , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mouth . Oh , okay . Yeah . W with this paper it's too mu too expensive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But what is he uh ? +User Interface: Too expensive , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have a rabbit at home ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: It's a rabbit with uh broken legs ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it a white rabbit f It's the white rabbit from The Matrix . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , then yeah . +User Interface: There , the g white green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's a little bit stoned there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh I figured this is a pretty b good impression of a rabbit . +Marketing: Yeah . It will do . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} Uh well . +Project Manager: Okay . Finishing touch and then we're going further . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project Manager ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Where does the pen go ? Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have you been uh counting the time ? +Project Manager: Yeah , a little . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's go on then . +Project Manager: Well , I think the dog is the the most uh artistic . +Industrial Designer: Uh I figured the rabbit was actually the most uh impressive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't choose for youself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's selfish . Okay , now we're gonna dig into the to the serious stuff . +Marketing: It's pretty abstract . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the selling price for the remote will be uh twenty five Euro , and the production cost uh may not be more than uh twenty and a half Euro . So uh from my point of view , I don't think it's uh gonna be very uh very high tech , high definition , uh ultra modern uh kinda remote , for twelve uh fift uh twelve and a half Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the profit we must make with uh the new remote is uh fifty million Euro . So that's a lot . We have to sell uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how much is it ? +Marketing: Like how much ? +User Interface: Hundred million uh remotes or something ? +Project Manager: Uh I think uh w when the selling price is twenty five , uh uh you got two million , two million remotes . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twenty million . Two million , oh yeah , two million . Yeah . +Project Manager: But our marketing range is uh , market range is international . So we have uh virtually the whole world we can sell uh we can sell our r remotes to . At least that uh countries which have uh a television . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So now it's time uh for us to uh going uh to discuss a little uh things . You can think about uh experience with a remote control uh yourself , at home . What you think might be uh a useful uh new feature . What uh what can distinguish our new trendy remote control from all the others . Um so uh let's uh let's uh discuss a little . I'm gonna join you at the table . {vocalsound} Well what what's the most uh important thing at a remote control ? +User Interface: Um well I think the most important thing of a remote control is that you can switch channels . And my opinion is you should keep it as basic as possible . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So not a not a remote control who uh uh which can uh can be used for television and a D_V_D_ and radio and {disfmarker} Or just only {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I think so . Uh but I have some points . Can I show them on the on the big screen ? Maybe ? +Project Manager: If you have them on uh {disfmarker} I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I can find {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , in case you want it {disfmarker} This is a dead kind of fly . Between the the the , yeah , the the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Screen ? +Project Manager: Yeah , be The screens . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Is it possible to open pen drawings in this uh on this screen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . Only {disfmarker} All the drawings go there , at the left uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Uh but um which {disfmarker} The ones we made on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that pen drawings . Uh no , I think uh when it is uh in Word and you have saved it in the Shared Documents folder , you can show it there . +User Interface: Oh , only in Word , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Okay , I have some uh points from marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um just the standard thing li things like uh intuitive , uh small , fairly cheap . Uh it's pretty cheap , twenty five Euros . Uh brand independent . Um I think , it doesn't have to matter uh which brand your T_V_ or other thing is . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Five minutes . +Marketing: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I'll wrap it up quickly . Um I personally think it has to be multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh most of the remote c uh remote controls are uh just for one purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And uh by making it multi-purpose , it uh has a new feature , adds a new feature to the market , and distinguish from uh from current products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um maybe some other technology than infrared . Uh I rather find it very annoying um , like when someone is standing in front of the T_V_ then you can't switch it . Um {vocalsound} think about um sending it over radio waves or bluetooth . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: That might be a little bit uh expensive . Um {disfmarker} And something like an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: For what purpose ? +Marketing: Um uh like I said here um {disfmarker} Maybe it's easy . It's nice as an added feature feature , that um , {vocalsound} when you're on a certain channel , you can see on the L_C_D_ screen uh what programmes are coming up or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So it be uh a multi-purpose uh very technically uh high uh +Marketing: From my point of view , yeah . +Project Manager: remote ? Yeah , it must be really uh innovative , technical-wise ? +Marketing: Yeah , it has to be uh {disfmarker} Yeah , our company is very uh good in making new innovative uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah . So yeah , I I agree with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i i i i +Project Manager: So we must focus on things who are really uh really add something to uh to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To the current market . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look , {vocalsound} you got some cheap uh remote controls there . They just uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you got a dozen of 'em . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: But when you enter a new market with a remote control and +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh wanna gain market share +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you have to do something special , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But we have to keep an eye that it's {disfmarker} Uh at the beginning of such a project , it's it's it's very uh cool to talk about , well , this would be cool , that would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh but we must not uh lose uh sight of the the user uh uh friendly uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And and the price . {gap} +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} But but this is just from marketing uh aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: I don't know anything about user interface or {vocalsound} design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} And that's because we have him . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and him . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And him . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , uh next meeting will start in thirty minutes . So uh you uh will have uh individual actions where I presume uh will be some feedback , uh via the m the mail . Um {vocalsound} the the the Industrial uh Designer has to uh look at the working design . {vocalsound} Uh the User Interface Designer has to look at the technical functions . So that's the thing we uh discussed . +User Interface: Yeah . Um one thing uh , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: we must first agree on uh what we're going to m going to make . Do we {disfmarker} Are we going to use um it it for multiple systems ? Or uh {disfmarker} We should have some agreement on that before we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Um wha +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm uh I I don't think we have to be , we have to agree on that . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I figure we could get back to it on the next meeting actually . +Marketing: I think th that's a pha Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: That's a phase further . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ju just uh make some mock-ups , some some general ideas . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: And and then we can plan {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can plan further , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But maybe , because uh you are working on the user requirements , you are working on the technical functions , we uh must uh have a little or kinda uh uh uh {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Consensus on the , what we're gonna do . +Project Manager: Uh a little plan on on what we're going to do . So you don't uh uh come up with the user requirements who don't fit the the the the technical functions at all . Some basic things we co we want to going to do . Uh I think that's well uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Will come in handy . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . You decide . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You're the Project Manager . +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} He says {disfmarker} +User Interface: if the technical functions have to be designed , I I've gotta know for what kind of machines they will be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or do we use it a text screen ? Or uh will it be with uh with bluetooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , th that's that's really a step further . But if you say uh {vocalsound} is it uh uh one way or multi-purpose , that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh tha that's a same step further . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Then looking at individual components , +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: so that's actually a f step further . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like we all have a list of uh things that has to b that have to be in it , or how it has to be like . And then in the next meeting we decide +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can take it from there . +Marketing: w what it's gonna be . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree uh , we can take it from there . +Marketing: A And then you s then you can delete uh +Industrial Designer: Or edit . +Marketing: the o the obsolete uh details . +Project Manager: Okay . So uh +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: each individually i individually uh must think on what's uh at uh his point of view is the most important . And uh then we're going to fit uh all the pieces together the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I must finish off now , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's over . You uh will receive specific specific instructions uh by your personal coach . And I see you in uh thirty minutes . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cheers . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Be careful . +Marketing: Damn . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Success ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No . Come up . +","A project team consisting of a User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, Project Manager, and Marketing Expert gathered for a kickoff meeting overseen by a project manager named Danny Wolfs. The meeting commenced with Danny advising the team to be aware of cameras and microphones in the room, followed by introductions. The project's goal is to create an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control, considering technical feasibility and budget constraints (production cost under €20.5, selling price at €25, aiming for €50 million profit through international sales). + +The team discussed various innovative features such as multi-purpose functionality, alternative technologies like radio waves or Bluetooth instead of infrared, and possibly an LCD screen. They decided to generate individual ideas and requirements and then integrate them in the next meeting. The project manager ended the session by reminding the team to consider the technical functions, user requirements, and to stay aligned with the overall project aim. Further instructions were to be given by personal coaches, and the next meeting was scheduled for thirty minutes later." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders, and also from Dawn Bowden, and I'd like to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, who is substituting for Dawn Bowden. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to our evidence session for our inquiry on school improvement and raising standards. I'd like to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Steve Davies, director of education. Thank you both for attending and for your detailed paper in advance of the meeting. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. If I can just start by asking you: to what extent is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development still involved in the Welsh Government's school improvement journey? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, can I thank the committee for their invitation this morning, and their interest in this particular area? As you will be aware, on coming into office, the director and I agreed to ask the OECD to do a rapid review of the state of Welsh education at the beginning of this Assembly term. They did that, and the feedback from that work informed the publication and content of the national mission. I was very clear in the national mission that I would invite the OECD back to review our progress against that mission, and that has happened in the tail end of last year, and the OECD will publish their latest report on Welsh education next month now, in March. So, the expectation is that the report will be published on 23 March, and my intention is to make a statement to the Chamber on 24 March. The nature of that review is part of our ongoing development of self-evaluation. So, we talk a lot about self-evaluation in the school system. Actually, the continuing relationship with OECD is about self-evaluation of the entirety of the system and Welsh Government. We don't want to accept our own orthodoxy and just be in a bubble where we are constantly listening to ourselves and those people who might want to agree with us or tell us what we want to hear. So, the OECD is our best attempt of having some external verification of where we are. That's a risk for Ministers and for Government, because we want them to give an honest evaluation of where we are, but that's a really important tool for me, to ensure that we're constantly testing ourselves. The nature of that review is that the OECD were able to talk to whoever they felt it was important to talk to, so that included practitioners on the ground, elements of the middle tier, as well as Welsh Government. And I know, Chair—I hope you'll be pleased to hear this—that the reports of this committee have formed parts of their review, looking at how the Senedd itself has contributed to and has held the Government to account. So, as I said, we expect our report to be published towards the end of March. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Minister. Can I ask about the powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, to ask you to tell us about the use of those powers either by Welsh Government or by local authorities, and how effective you feel that legislation has been? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, as you'll be aware, local authorities have quite extensive powers of intervention in schools if they feel that is necessary. If I'm honest, I think there's a mixed picture, with some local authorities using those powers not on a regular basis, but obviously demonstrating a willingness to use those powers. There are other local authorities who don't seem to have used them. Since that legislation came into being, there have been a number of reasons, because of course a local authority has to give a reason for using those powers of intervention. They usually focus on standards, but sometimes they focus on a breakdown in governance arrangements, perhaps, or a failure or a breakdown in financial management. So, sometimes the budgetary issues trigger an intervention power. And the types of interventions that have been used have included, in some cases, appointing additional governors to governing bodies, or suspending a school's delegated budget so the local authority takes on, then, financial control of that particular school, or sometimes applying to the Welsh Government to entirely replace a governing body and establish an intervention board. So, if I can give you an example of where that's been used and has been successful, in Flintshire. They applied to Welsh Government for two interim executive boards, in Sir Richard Gwyn Catholic High School and in Ysgol Trefonnen. They applied to us. Those governing bodies were dissolved. The IEBs were put in place and both of those schools, which had been in special measures, moved quite rapidly, actually, out of special measures. Perhaps the most recent example of this is one that the Chair will know very well in her own constituency of Torfaen, in Cwmbran High School, where Torfaen has intervened in that case. The Welsh Government has not used those powers to date. My expectation always is that local authorities should be the first port of call, and I would encourage—and we always encourage—local authorities to take a proactive approach to intervention and to use those powers. But it's my belief that it is they who are best placed initially to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Minister. Can I ask, then, about the national evaluation and improvement resource and how significant a role that will play in the raising of school standards, and how you feel it's evolved since it was first conceived? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, this brings us back to the principle of self-evaluation and something, if we're honest, we've not been very good at. If you look at a number of chief inspectors' reports into the Welsh education system, self-evaluation has always been identified as something that is missing or underdeveloped in our system to date, hence, then, the work to establish not a new approach, but a more robust approach to self-evaluation. We've done that in conjunction, again, with the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. It's really important, throughout the entirety of our reform journey that that's done in co-construction, because we want this resource to be usable in schools. So, it's all very well having a conceptual idea and people outside the classroom working on it, but if it's of no practical use to a school leadership team, then we won't see the impact. So, it's—. We're in phase 2 at the moment, where we're doing—. So, the initial resource has been developed by the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. We're in the testing phase at the moment and having it evaluated itself, with a view to introducing that resource across the system at the start of the new academic year, in September 2020. I truly believe that, if we're to make progress in Welsh education, we have to develop the skills within our system to have robust self-evaluation. This resource gives us continuity of approach right the way across Wales. So, it's not left to an individual school to come up with a system; it's right the way across the system. My hope would be that those principles could then be applied to local education authorities, to regional school improvement services and Welsh Government as part of a whole-system approach to self-evaluation. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: Just to add that the other critical partners are Estyn themselves. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes, sorry. +Steve Davies: So, they have played a critical role and, as we know, as the Minister has said in the past, she may introduce policy and practice, but if Estyn are part of it then schools, usually, because they recognise that it will be part of the inspection process—it gives it greater push and support around it. So, they've been key players within it. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think, if I just say as well, that the external perception of what that's about is really important. It's not a test of school readiness for reform, it is a genuine attempt for a school to evaluate their strengths, their weaknesses and where they need to go next. It's not an Estyn checklist. And because of the word 'toolkit'—the feedback was that it gave the impression of a checklist, 'Just do this and check list'. So, we're actually going to change the name of that resource. So, it'll be called the national evaluation and improvement resource, rather than the toolkit, because, as I said, the feedback was that 'toolkit' gave the impression of a checklist exercise, and it's got to be about more than that if it's going to be meaningful. So, it'll be changed to an 'improvement resource'. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Before I bring Suzy in, can I just welcome Siân Gwenllian, who is joining us via video-conference in north Wales? Morning, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Can you hear me? +Lynne Neagle AM: We can, yes. We can hear you very nicely, thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Only a very quick one. It's about the development of the— +Kirsty Williams AM: The resource. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, the resource, thank you—about whether there were any conflicting ideas in the process of development that made it quite difficult to zone in on something that school leadership teams, in particular, could rely on. Were there differences of opinion on what this should look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not that I'm aware of from the practitioners that I've spoken to who have been part of that. So, for instance, Suzy, you will know the very small school of Gladestry. The head of Gladestry has been involved in this process, and she said that she'd really enjoyed the process of working alongside Estyn and the OECD as a school leader to be able to shape it. But I'm not aware that there's been conflict in that process. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not suggesting that there has been; I'm just interested as to how it had worked, that's all. +Steve Davies: Chair, I think, inevitably, when you bring stakeholders together, they're not going to be in total agreement as to how it's going to work, and I think initially one of the challenges was having Estyn there as part of the facilitation group. There are always some concerns that, actually, it's coming from a to inspect, oral, judgmental tick box. So, we had some early day challenges where we had to convince—and, ultimately, Estyn convinced them—that they were there to help and support as opposed to to inspect, and that the model that was developed, as the Minister said, was not going to be a tick box, 'You are good at this part of self-evaluation', it was to build the skillsets up. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's got their full confidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and I think again, also, what—. You know, four years into the job, what I've reflected on as well is there is this sometimes a feeling out there that the Minister says all the right stuff, but you're not actually going to do it, so, when you talk about a new approach to doing things, you're not actually serious about it. So, trying to build that confidence that we are serious about developing a new system around self-improvement, which is different from accountability—sometimes, the practitioners are like, 'Oh, yes, we've heard it all before but it never actually happens.' And I think that's been a part of the constant—not pressure, but the responsibility on Welsh Government is in following through. So, we said that we were going to do this in the national mission, and we are going to do it. I'm really proud that there or thereabouts, a few months either way, we've actually kept to the timetable as outlined in the national mission, and that helps build confidence within the sector that we are committed to that programme and we're going to do what we say we're going to do. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: And a final question from me: how effective do you think the investment in school standards has been in this Assembly term, as opposed to the approach taken in the last Assembly term, where there was the protection put in place for core school budgets? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think, first of all, it's important that, whilst this additional resource is specifically targeted at school standards, that is only a part of a much wider education budget, a budget that—you know—is incredibly complex. And so it is really challenging to be able to draw straight lines—you know, 'We did this and it's resulted in that'—given that we're looking at the entirety of school funding here. What's been really important is that, if you drill down into what that money has been spent on, 50 per cent of it has been directed towards professional learning in one form or another to support our teaching professionals. And that's been really important to me. I've said it time and time again: an education system cannot exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out to work with them and teach them. Therefore, that investment in staff and investment in the professional learning of our staff and support for them I think is making a difference already but, importantly, will continue to make a difference. But I think it is really challenging to be able to say, 'Well, we spent this bit of money and it definitely led to that', because it's such a complex picture. But that money, the way it's been spent, has been driven by evidence. And, again, what we do know from international best practice, what do we know that works in driving up standards, and then how can we align the money that we've got to supporting that? And, as I said, 50 per cent of that money has gone directly to simply supporting the professional learning of those who work with our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to talk now a bit about schools causing concern with questions from Huw Irranca-Davies. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If I can, just first of all, zoom in on the way in which we actually decide which schools need what support. So, one of the interesting questions for us is how do we use the different systems out there. So, we've got the school categorisation system, which we're familiar with. We've also got Estyn inspection reports, then we've got other intelligence, including local intelligence on the ground. How do you decide from that? How is it decided what schools need support, need challenge? How do we do that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're right: what we have is a variety of ways in which we can identify schools that need support, or need to be challenged on their practice. But it's important not to confuse them either. So, our primary route to doing this is our school categorisation system. Sometimes, and perhaps this is inevitable—. That system is primarily there as a triage system around identifying where our resource should be spent. So, our school improvement service—it's a risk-based approach, so they can evaluate where they need to put their time, effort and resource. Sometimes, it's used by other people for other things, but that is not its primary purpose; its primary purpose there is not one of accountability, it is one of identifying risk and aligning that then to the support that is available. Estyn—now that is part of that accountability system. That is our method of holding schools and their governing bodies to account for their practice and for the work that they do. Both systems, of course, are evolving. So, how we do categorisation has changed over a period of time. The elements that go into making that judgment around the levels of support have changed, and, of course, the Estyn inspection regime is also changing. At the moment, schools are only inspected once every seven years. We're moving to a system where Estyn will be more regularly in schools. So, they are two systems, but they are different and they look at different things. But our categorisation system is how we look for those ways of identifying support for schools. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: And you've made, with feedback over the last few years, adjustments to the way that the categorisation system works. Are you content with where it is now, or do you see more adjustments being made? Have you got things in front of you that you're getting feedback on saying 'Well, we need to tweak this again a little bit'? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that system has evolved over time. So, when it started, it was just a tool around secondary schools. Now, it covers the breadth of schools. Initially, on coming into office, when I first came in, it was purely driven by data, and it was also done in quartiles. So, there was a certain number of schools that had to be in the bottom, which drove practitioners mad. They were like 'Ah, every year, there's going to be some of us that have to be in the bottom quartile', because of the way in which it was arranged, which seemed very unfair to them. So, we've changed that. It's not just purely driven on data now; there are other judgments—the professional judgments of our challenge advisers are taken into account. And I would expect that situation to continue to evolve to align itself to our curriculum reform, and our changes in self-evaluation. So, it's not a fixed point. I expect that that system will continue to evolve and change, so that it complements and assists in the reform journey as other parts of the system change. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thanks for that. I think, for any impartial reader of the way that the trends have been going on this, there is some good news within that, in that, certainly, those schools that might have been identified as have been okay but coasting along, seem to be moving up the categories, although we still do have that—. Well, it's what the system is there to do, it's to identify those schools that do need that additional support. And I like your analogy of a triage system—'You're fit; keep on doing what you're doing and do it well; you need more support, we'll put the support in.' But, can I turn to those schools that are causing significant concern, and how we identify them? The Estyn chief inspector's conclusions at the end of the 2017-18 report that these schools are not being identified early enough—there's a need to do something urgently about these concerns, particularly in secondary schools. Have we addressed that? Are you content that we've addressed that concern? Was he right? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, the chief inspector is absolutely right—absolutely right. I've got no beef with that statement at all. In some ways, when a school goes into special measures, in a way, that's a failure of the system, because that should have been identified sooner. So I've got no beef, as I said, with the chief inspector saying that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: So just to ask, bearing in mind the earlier discussion we were having, how is it that we don't identify those schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's it—you're quite right. Undoubtedly, what categorisation has done is led to a greater understanding, I think, on behalf of local education authorities' and school improvement services' knowledge about their schools. I think knowledge around schools is greatly enhanced by that process. But we are not there yet in terms of necessarily, then, moving those schools more quickly, once they've been identified as needing the highest level of support to see improvement. And secondary schools is a particular, particular challenge. So you will have seen from the last publication of categorisation data that our primary sector continues to improve—more and more and more of our primary schools are in a green rating, which is very satisfying to me. But we have got more of an issue with secondary schools, and we have a particular issue with the same schools being identified in that level of categorisation. So even though we've identified them as needing that extra help, they are not moving at pace away from that system. So there are two things that we are doing at the moment. The first is, we are, again, looking at different sets of data that can give us even earlier warning systems that things are going wrong in a school—and perhaps Steve will explain later. For instance, staff sickness, and carefully monitoring staff sickness, because there is a direct correlation between high levels of staff sickness in a school and what is going on in the school. And Steve can explain some of this work later. But we're piloting a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. Each local authority has been asked to identify two of their high schools that they are particularly worried about. And we have a new multi-agency approach, working with those schools to try and move them more forward. So it's two from each region, a multi-agency panel, working with the school. And that multi-agency panel includes the school itself, the local authority, the regional consortia school improvement staff, Estyn and Welsh Government—as a multi-agency panel to support improvement in that school. So, for instance, what would normally happen, Estyn would come in, Estyn would make a judgment on the school—requiring special measures or urgent improvement—and Estyn would go away. They'd go away for six months, and then they'd come back in six months, and they'd make another judgment, 'No, still not good enough', and disappear for six months. We're saying—Estyn and the Welsh Government have agreed that's not the best approach; Estyn need to be part of the solution, rather than just coming and making a judgment. The initial feedback from this trial is very, very positive. Actually, we've had local authorities coming to us and saying, 'Can we put more schools in? Rather than just having two of our high schools, can we engage more in this project and this pilot?' It's being evaluated by Cardiff Metropolitan University and Swansea University, so we're having some academic overview to see, actually, does this approach work, can we evidence it—that it actually makes a difference? And it's actually—I'd like to claim all the credit for it, but it's actually not dissimilar to something that's happening in Scotland as well. But we knew that carrying on doing the same old thing clearly wasn't moving these schools, we needed a new approach, and this is what we're doing at the moment. So it's relatively new, but the initial feedback is positive. Steve, I don't know— +Steve Davies: I think your important point is about, 'What about the schools that are sliding in that direction?' And it's bringing together what we know from Estyn, but also, critically, local authorities have knowledge of their schools, and so do consortia. We've got to be better at bringing those together. So, the Minister gave the example of staff sickness—not always a trigger, but it's one of those. If you look at movement of pupils out of a school, you can look at complaints, you can look at, actually, emerging increased use of HR resources that a school pulls on a local authority. None of these have been pushed up into the public domain, but they're important antennae. The point the Minister made about Estyn as well is, historically, when they go into special measures, Estyn, at the end of that week, call in, historically, either the region or the local authority, they will feed back to one of them, and then they go away. So, they are staying with it. So, we are brining together the knowledge. But, as the Minister said, we want to keep a very clear distinction between the accountability and the transparency to the public, to parents, with the very detailed collective work of that multi-agency group to actually make that difference over time. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Okay. So, does that—. I'd love to go further, but time is against us. Does that deal with the issue of the schools that have been identified in those categories of requiring significant improvement and requiring special measures? Are those the ones that will be identified now, or is that above and beyond that again? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those are the ones that are primarily at the forefront of our minds, but this way of sharing data better, to step in earlier, is part of our attempt to address what the chief inspector says about stepping in early—not waiting until a school gets into special measures and a formal judgment from Estyn of that, but actually using that intelligence to get support in there earlier. The three elements that that multi-agency approach look at are: what are the fundamentals that need addressing in this school? What is the capacity of the school itself to be able to address those fundamentals? And, what extra support needs to go into that senior management team and the governing body to get those fundamentals addressed? And actually, what does sustainable improvement look like? Because, again, one of the issues, sometimes, that happens is, a school goes into a category with Estyn, there's a big push and a big, 'We must do something' and the school comes out, but actually, that improvement is not sustainable. It's the low-hanging fruit; it's the easy wins that have been achieved, but actually, perhaps some of the fundamental challenges underlying in that school haven't been addressed in that process. So, this is about what will sustainable improvement look like in six months, what's it going to look like in 12 months and what's it going to look like in 18 months. So, actually, a more strategic, longer term approach to real change in a school rather than, perhaps, some of the easy-to-fix items that make a school as if it's doing better, but we really haven't tackled some of the underlying problems that make that school vulnerable to slipping back. Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a couple of supplementaries on—. Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got a couple of supplementaries on this, first from Suzy and then from Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Chair. Obviously, I'm pleased to hear that this work is being done, but I'm wondering—. What strikes me, in the recent past, at least, particularly as we've got the usual suspects in this category—. I've got to ask myself why it is that councils have been reluctant, perhaps, to step in with these schools earlier, particularly as they've got consortia or middle-tier support as well. Has there been a deficit in that space that has meant that councils don't feel equipped to step in? I just don't really get it why they've been reluctant to step in so far. If they've been nervous about doing it, because they don't feel that they've got the tools to do it, then I think that's pretty important, because as you were saying, we were talking about fundamentals; surely, councils have been able to deal with fundamentals, and more importantly, consortia up until now. Because, obviously, we're asking these players to give us evidence at some point, so perhaps I'd like to challenge them on how come we're here now. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not laying this at your door. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. I guess each local authority will have an explanation for each individual school, I suspect. What's crucial to me is that we have to—. I see our job as corralling the collective effort, and I think, for too long in the system, there has been a lack of co-ordination. So, this is about bringing and corralling a collective effort to address this, going forward, in more sustainable way. And I think it does come back to this issue around self-evaluation and a willingness to be open, honest and upfront about some of the challenges that we've got. It's not easy, is it? It's not easy to accept or to acknowledge sometimes when things are— +Suzy Davies AM: That they don't know how to do this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that they're going badly, or perhaps they don't know exactly how to make the difference. So this approach, as I said, is a new way of trying to coral that collective effort across the board. But, I don't know if Steve—because you've done other roles in the system, so perhaps you've got a different insight. +Steve Davies: I think you're right. The variation across the country, across local authorities—. There are some local authorities that we've worked with and we identify have taken the appropriate action. There are others that we're working with, and yes, at its best, it's done as a joint exercise where they use their regional school improvement service to help in the identification that there is a need for this. They take advice as to what the action is, whether it is, as the Minister said, in the more significant areas, a board, or whether a warning notice comes in terms of standards or finance. So, we're working with them and we're working with the Welsh Local Government Association to share that practice. An example of that work is: we have done a development training session for cabinet members for education, and scrutiny leads for education across Wales, and all 22 local authorities came to that and engaged with that. That was partly about self-improvement, but it was also about where significant issues arise, you have to constructively confront them. And that comes with what the region knows, and increasingly, we're looking to have it consistently across 22 local authorities, so they are collecting all the additional data that we referred to earlier, so they can legitimately hold a mirror up and say, 'This is a real concern that we have. We're not punishing you, but we're registering the seriousness, and we want you to address it.' And we're making progress. I believe it's genuinely more consistent now, but I'd be lying if I said that there was consistency across all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'm conscious of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Siân, then back to Huw. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because you are moving to a more sophisticated approach in terms of identifying problems sooner, and so can offer the support earlier, is it time to think about moving away from the system of categorisation entirely? That is, has the categorisation system reached the end of its usefulness, and is the multi-agency approach, this more sophisticated approach, a better way, ultimately, of being able to assist schools in moving forward? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, Siân, as I said earlier, the categorisation system has evolved over time, and my expectation is that it will continue to evolve, because it has to be consistent with our overall approach to school improvement and raising standards. I expect OECD will have feedback for us on this important part of our system, and we'll wait to see exactly what they say about it, but as I said in answer to Huw Irranca-Davies earlier, I haven't got a closed mind; we've demonstrated over the last four years our willingness to change the system to make it a smarter system, and we will continue to keep that under review, as we move forward. If I could just go back briefly, it doesn't sound like a very exciting thing, does it, when we say we've been doing work with the WLGA, with cabinet members, but also scrutiny, because that's a really important part of the jigsaw as well, is actually local government scrutiny of the performance of your education portfolio holder and the leadership of your council. So this is about trying to up the ante on all sides, so that those issues around 'What are you doing in your local authority to use the powers that you have?' You know, sometimes, making sure that everybody in that authority—those in power and those who are there to hold those in power to account—have the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding to do that appropriately. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Huw, briefly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, briefly. I only have one final question. We've talked a lot about early identification; getting in there and then managing the improvement, this triage approach there, and then getting some grip of it, as well, in doing all of that. But my question now is on what we currently have. I won't touch on the primary schools, but let's just look at secondary schools—11 per cent of secondary schools inspected in the last two academic years judged as unsatisfactory, needing urgent improvement. There will always be secondary schools and primary schools that hit moments of crisis for one reason or another, but 11 per cent to me, and to any layperson, would seem unreasonably high. Are you—? It would be daft to ask you if you're content. What is a level that you would be content with of having schools in red category in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right. Schools will need different levels of support at different points, and sometimes, it's not because of a crisis. So, for instance, in my region, we do have an increase in the number of schools in the amber category. That's because we've seen in that particular region a number of headteachers retire because they've reached retirement age, and there are new headteachers. Well, that is a moment of risk in the school—when senior leadership changes. Nothing else has changed in that school, but the simple fact that you have a new leader, sometimes in those cases it might be their first headship. That means that that school is going to need a little bit of extra support, so it isn't always just a crisis that needs extra support, there are just general things that happen in the life of a school that could lead to it. But you're absolutely right—we have a particular challenge in the secondary sector where we have not been able to move individual schools forward at pace. And 11 per cent is not acceptable to me, Huw, which is why we have introduced this new pilot to address those schools where, persistently, we have concerns about their ability to move forward. If we'd have carried on doing the same thing, I suspect we would have just carried on getting the same result—hence the need for a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. +Steve Davies: Very briefly, the things we talked about earlier was how we measure the performance of schools, particularly at GCSEs, with a narrow focus. As was said earlier, some of these are the same groups—they trip in and then they don't come out. Our belief is, from research, that they concentrate on squeezing the pips to get the grades up in some small areas for a period of time, and you can do that by targeting and immersing them. Estyn can tick the box to say your grades have got better, but we haven't handled the serious underpinning issues—leadership, teaching and learning, and bringing those together. As the Minister said, what does sustainable improvement look like in six, 12, 18 months? It isn't just, as important as they are, getting those exam grades up a bit. They're the fundamental—. And if they're all agreed as the indicators at the outset, we're more likely—. So it's multi-agency; it's not a little activity, it's a major strategy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin David has some questions now on the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to consider the work of the consortia. In 2016, your election manifesto very clearly said that you wanted to abolish regional consortia—three words in it. Why haven't you done it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, given that you're such a keen student of my manifesto, you'll also know that— +Hefin David AM: It was only three words. +Kirsty Williams AM: The Liberal Democrat manifesto also said that we supported major local government reform and a major reduction in the number of local government units. That hasn't happened. I have to say genuinely, my experience over the last four years has proven to me the value of regional working, and in the absence of significant local government reform, I think it's absolutely vital that we have scale in school improvement services—scale that I don't think can be delivered across 22 individual local authorities. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, if there was local government reform, you would abolish the consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if there was significant local government reform and we could demonstrate that those units had such a scale that they could perform the functions of regional consortia, then I think it would be inevitable that any education Minister would look to see whether there was an opportunity to change structures. But in the absence of that, Hefin, I have been absolutely convinced whilst doing this job that you need larger units to be able to carry out successful school improvement work, and I think it would be reckless to advocate the system going back to school improvement being organised in 22 different ways. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Do you think that the work of the four consortia has been consistent and effective? +Kirsty Williams AM: The school improvement services? +Hefin David AM: The four consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as with individual local education authorities, there are some regional consortia services that have performed really highly—and that's not me saying that, that's Estyn, but gives us assurance around that—and there are others that need to improve. I think the consortia themselves would admit that they, since their establishment, have found new ways of working. Initially, they were very separate entities that did things their own way. Increasingly, over recent years, we have seen those consortia working together on a national approach, but delivered on a regional basis. So I think they themselves have evolved over time. But we are constantly looking for optimum delivery from those particular organisations, but as I said, I think it would be absolutely reckless to go back to a situation where school improvement services were being delivered individually on 22 different bases. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm happy to accept that you've changed your opinion there; that's no problem at all. But with regard to the four consortia, and we'll take Education through Regional Working as an example, it does things differently to the other three. Is that a cause for concern, or do you think that's entirely appropriate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, ERW does things differently, but then so does the Education Achievement Service. EAS is constituted in a different way to the Central South Consortium. What I'm interested in is not necessarily how they are constituted and organised, I'm interested in the effectiveness of that organisation to deliver for children and for teachers. ERW has got particular challenges, and we continue to work with those in ERW to address those, but increasingly, as I said, what we are seeing the regional consortia do is develop a national approach to school improvement services but deliver that on a regional basis so that there is greater consistency in terms of delivery. +Hefin David AM: Are you happy that, within the ERW area, local authorities employ their own improvement advisers, rather than doing it in the way that the others do? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have discussed this at length with them. My preference would be for school improvement officers to be employed in the centre, and we continue to have those discussions, but what's really important to understand is that the regional consortia are not a beast of the Government; they are a beast of the local authorities that have worked together to create a school improvement service that meets their needs. So we can't impose that solution, and we continue to discuss with ERW what is the optimal way, and they continue to discuss with their constituent local authorities about how that should be organised. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that Neath Port Talbot have given notice that they want to withdraw from regional working? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's really disappointing that Neath Port Talbot have published that notice. What's important for me is to understand—not for me, it will be important for Estyn. It will be really important for us to understand how Neath Port Talbot intend to support their schools and their teachers if they were to withdraw from ERW, especially at what is a very, very critical time. The regional consortia have a key role to play in supporting systems with the introduction of the curriculum. I would want to know from Neath Port Talbot how they are going to do that without being part of that organisation. And, of course, there's the added complexity that so much of our money is channelled through to schools via the regional consortia. So, I would want to understand from Neath Port Talbot how they're going to safeguard their schools and make sure that the children who are receiving their education in Neath Port Talbot are not disadvantaged if they were to follow through on that decision. +Hefin David AM: Do you feel that it's your role to intervene in that area and instruct Neath Port Talbot and ERW as to how they should resolve this issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I would be seeking assurances— +Hefin David AM: What does that mean, though, 'seeking assurances'? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Neath Port Talbot would need to demonstrate to me how they're going to address these issues. If they're not part of ERW and their schools and their children are not going to be in receipt of the support from ERW, as I said, especially at this critical time, how are they intending to do that? I haven't seen those plans, but if they were to push forward and follow through on the notice, I would want to see them and I suspect Estyn would want to see them also. +Hefin David AM: Okay, just last issue on that: you're just waiting to see what Neath Port Talbot do next, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we have written to Neath Port Talbot to ask them to demonstrate to us, if they were to pull out of ERW, how they're going to meet their functions. I have not heard back from them. +Hefin David AM: Steve, did you want to say something? +Steve Davies: Obviously—[Inaudible.]—that point. We wrote to them last Friday, and we are awaiting their response now. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, that's where we are. Okay. There was the document in 2015—'National model for regional working'. Is that the current document? Are there plans to change or update it, or is that exactly where we stand? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that is the current model. Some work was undertaken in 2017 and 2018 to look to update that model and revise that model. Some specific recommendations were put forward about additional services that could be organised on a regional basis; primarily, that is a specialist human resources resource. We know that, because of austerity in some local authorities, HR departments have been really stretched. Education HR is a specialist service, it's not generic. It's often a service that—. I see that as part of a school improvement service. Support for governors also has been stretched within individual local authorities. So, a proposal was put forward to include specialist HR and governor support as part of the regional model. That was rejected by local government. Our local authorities did not want to include that in the regional model. However, I must say, having presented that evidence, some of our local authorities, even though there wasn't a national agreement to put that into the national model, have pooled their resources, and those services are being delivered and supported on a regional basis. So, for instance, the Education Achievement Service now provide specialist HR resource, and EAS and Central South provide governor support. So, although we weren't successful in persuading local government to adopt a new national model, local authorities in those areas saw the value of moving that way. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, and perhaps I'll put this to Steve Davies, everything the Minister just said, and also the line in the document— 'The implementation of this model will change over time'— is it time to go back to that document and review it from a procedural point of view? +Steve Davies: I don't think it's necessarily timely to go back and have a complete review of it. But, certainly, we are in ongoing discussions with the Welsh Local Government Association, both in terms of work with local authorities, and the type of intervention in schools. So, we keep a constant watch as to which areas that we believe we could develop further. We are not currently intending to do a wholesale review of that. As the Minister touched on earlier, there is some work to get consistency across the current area, particularly, as we just mentioned, in relation to ERW work. So, it's getting a consistent approach at that level, and sharing the practice. I think what is emerging, as the Minister said, is that there are two regions who have already made this shift to pool services. I think the two other regions are seeing and will see the benefits of that, and instead of forcing it through, we'd expect that to evolve. But we're not, at this stage, looking to a wholesale review of the national model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: And Professor Dylan Jones's strategic delivery group seems to have had quite a warm welcome in the sector. Is it fair to say that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I believe so. I'm very grateful to Dylan for his hard work and his skill in chairing that group, and I think it's been welcomed by all, so that we can get that clarity and consistency about the roles and responsibilities of the individual partners and players in the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: And when will the work be completed, and what will the outcomes be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the group is currently engaging with Steve and other officials on agreeing a plan, but also, crucially, that plan is there to support the successful implementation of the curriculum, so that we're very clear about the roles and responsibilities in the middle tier in this crucial phase following the publication. We have to move now from the publication into a relentless focus on implementation. The history of devolution is full of fantastic documents, and, shall I say, patchy implementation. The work that has gone into that curriculum is too important for implementation to be left to chance. It's too important. It's too good to be left to chance. So, everything now is a relentless focus on successful implementation. +Hefin David AM: Yes, but I'm thinking that the strategic delivery is reviewing the role of the middle tier. So, you know, what do we expect to see from it, notwithstanding the kind of softly, softly approach that you've already talked about? +Steve Davies: It was set up, actually, about 18 months ago—just under. It was set up to build collective efficacy, because what people out there are seeing is that there's a confusion of roles, in what the regions are doing, and it was building that collective efficacy so everyone was behind the wheel. So, they've been looking at who is doing what for the last 18 months, and exploring and making some changes themselves. It's not just what they do with Government or what they do with each other; it's just happened that it's timely, because one of the key bits of feedback we believe we will get from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is we have had co-construction, we'd had collective effort, but we need to do more, particularly within the middle tier. This is not controlled by Government, it is arm's length from Government, and it's not their job to get it ready for the new curriculum—that's a key part of it. This group will have an ongoing role; it's not a task and finish group. It does feed back in to the Minister but there's no formal mechanism by which they have to report. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's very clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got supplementaries from Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, please. +Suzy Davies AM: I think this is a really interesting evidence session. What I'm about to say, I say it even though I'm a big localist: it all seems to be heading in one direction of a national service. Is the strategic group even thinking in these terms, obviously building in local accountability? But it'll just make it so much easier in terms of accountability and consistency to monitor what the middle tier does, if it's a national service, like the National Adoption Service. Local delivery, national service—is it heading in that direction? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not the intention of setting the group up. As Steve just said, I receive feedback from Dylan, because I meet Dylan in this particular capacity on a planned basis. He is there to give me advice on the middle tier, and to give me advice on what he thinks Welsh Government needs to do. But I've not had that conversation with him about a national service. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I was going to raise has been answered already, that is that, from what I can see, the work that Professor Dylan Jones is doing has evolved somewhat. I felt that, originally, the idea was to look at the middle tier in terms of any kind of duplication that was happening, and where it was possible to tighten up the people going into schools from different directions. But it appears that it has evolved to be something that's much more than that, and that it is placing a focus on the curriculum and other aspects of the educational system. Is there a risk for them to lose focus in that sense? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. I think they are very, very clear around establishing roles and responsibilities for each of the players and to be very clear about the expectations that each part of the middle tier can have of each other, as to what they can expect from their partners in the middle tier. And absolutely, it is about making sure that there isn't duplication, that people aren't second-guessing each other's work, and there are clear demarcations about who does what in the system, and, as I said, knowing that you can rely on your colleague in the middle tier to do the bit that they are responsible for. So, I don't think there's a question of it losing focus. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a lot of areas to cover so we are going to have to pick up our pace a bit. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thinking about you as a Minister trying to see what the long-term trends are with regard to raising standards and improving educational attainment, is that difficult, because the performance measures have changed, haven't they? We can't compare like-for-like now, because of the changes that have been made in the way that performance is measured. So, to begin with, is that a challenge, to see whether progress has been made? And secondly, what evidence do you as Minister use to look at the long-term trends? +Kirsty Williams AM: The first thing to say, with regard to changes to performance measures—you're right that change to those does make it, in some cases, more difficult to look at trends over a period of time. But those changes are made for really good reasons. If we change a performance measure, it is done to ensure that it is in the best interests of learners. And I think the best interests of learners always trumps the ease of comparison. I understand that, for researchers and for opposition Members, even for Ministers, it would be simpler to have the same set of measures over a period of time. But if we know that those things are driving behaviours that are unhelpful to children, and not in the best interests of children, then we have to change them, even thought that then does create challenges in different areas. With regard to what do we look at, there are a number of ways that we gain data and look at data in the system: everything from the categorisation system we spoke of earlier, and trends in categorisation; we look at Estyn reports; we continue to look at examination results. But we're trying to develop a broader range of data and statistics that give us a whole picture of the education performance, rather than narrowing down on one simple indicator that tells you one thing but doesn't tell you everything. But I don't know, Steve, if there's anything further that you'd like to add. +Steve Davies: It's going back to what the Member raised earlier, in terms of the range of things that you look at—things that can make a difference. So, when Estyn review schools, or we're looking to develop national frameworks for things like mental health and well-being, which look to the practice that enables raising standards, it's collecting that information, both at a national level, through the annual review of Estyn, as well as our engagement with regions and local authorities. So, it's looking at the evidence base that goes beyond, but impacts on data. And, inevitably, we will use the Programme for International Student Assessment, and any other external assessments that come through organisations like the OECD. And even where we've changed the performance measures, we still have, at national level, the ongoing data. So, if you looked at level 2 plus, we believe it is important that children get five good GCSEs—for higher education and for employment. So, we've not lost sight of those at a national level—we're not using them as a narrow set of performance measures for individual schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we look at—level 2 plus is a good example. We know that a relentless focus on that single measure, as a way of judging the system, leads to a set of behaviours in schools. It narrows the focus onto a certain part of the cohort, it narrows the curriculum, when we know that children— +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm not challenging the fact that you've changed the performance measures—I understand that, and having a broader way of looking is better in the long run. I'm just saying, because there's been this change, it makes it more of a challenge—whilst accepting why you've made the changes, but it does present more of a challenge, presumably, because you have to look at more indicators, and take evidence from different places. But I take it that you're confident that the trajectory is going in the right way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are making improvements. But you're right: it does make it more challenging. But those changes are being made for the right reasons, as I said, whether that be at level 2 plus. Look at English literature. I understand why perhaps a performance measure around English was introduced, but the effect of that was that significant numbers of children—and, it must be said, usually children who are entitled to free school meals—were suddenly not sitting English literature GCSE. We've changed that performance measure, and guess what? Last year, we saw a significant increase in the number of children that were sitting English literature GCSE. For standards of literacy and oracy, I think studying literature is really, really important, before we even get into the joy of introducing children to the written word and the love of reading. So, we make changes. Yes, it causes challenges, but we're making those changes because we believe that they are in the best interest of children, and that has to trump ease of comparison. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Why have you decided to ask the consortia, Estyn and so on not to report on local data or regional level data? How do we then come to conclusions about what is working if it isn't presented on a local authority and regional basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the thing to say about the communications from Welsh Government, Estyn, and the WLGA is it's not about not communicating the data, it's about challenging people on how that data should be used. So, the data is still available, but it's a challenge to them about how to use that data. So, for instance, when we're presenting data that compares local authority to local authority, you could have a local authority that says, 'There we go, I'm above the national average. I don't need to worry about the education in my local authority, because I'm above the average, or I'm better than my neighbour.' That doesn't necessarily mean that everything is right in your local education authority. Perhaps your children should be doing even better than what you're presented with. So, actually, it's not about hiding data; it's about how you use the data appropriately. And sometimes, how we were presenting data in the past was lulling some people into a false sense of security about the performance of their system. So, it's about how you use data, and that's what the communication from Welsh Government and the WLGA and Estyn was about: think very carefully about this data and what it's telling you about your system, and don't be lulled into a false sense of security that you may be doing brilliantly. Or, perhaps, looking at your data, you may think, 'Oh, my goodness me, we're not doing very well at all', but, actually, more careful consideration of that might show that your school's impact on those children is really, really a positive one. So, you've got to use that data in the context. So, it's not about less data. If anything, it's about more data and, crucially for me, it's about more intelligent use and interrogation of that data, about truly what it's telling you about your system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But again, the Welsh Government—. You have continued to publish the local and regional level data. So, doesn't that contradict what you've been telling the consortia and everyone else? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. As I said, we're not in the business of trying to hide data—I believe absolutely in full transparency. And in terms of level 2 data, I think I'm not moving away from the point that I think it's really important that more and more children get five really good GCSEs. I think it's important for their life chances. It is about how that data is used, not about hiding data or making that data not available. +Steve Davies: Can I, very briefly—? We didn't just send a letter out collectively. We've now carried out training jointly with WLGA and Estyn on how to use that data. So, it's not just looking where your LA is; it's also not looking at whether your school's better than average for the authority. And it is well received, and it should broaden the approach of scrutiny committees to beyond what historically was, if I'm honest, looking at the league table for their authority or looking at the league table of local authorities. It's not that they shouldn't be looking at that, but they need to dig much, much deeper underneath it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go on now to Suzy. I'm going to appeal for brief questions and brief answers so that we can cover the rest of the questions. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll shorten these questions, okay. We know why you got rid of the old measures. We've got interim measures now. What are they telling you about the success you've had in trying to avoid the bad behaviour? Short answers. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's impossible. [Laughter.] I think it's inevitable: whatever kind of measures we put in place, people will look to maximise their success in those measures, and I don't think we'll ever come up with a system where those measures are absolutely perfect. What's really important to me is that we're really, really, really challenging schools to look at the performance of all of their children, rather than just at a very, very narrow cohort around those C/D boundaries, which we knew was detrimental, potentially, to more able and talented children and really pushing those Bs to As and those As to A*s, and children for whom actually just getting in to school on a daily basis is an achievement, and the school has done well to provide that. So, our new capped 9 makes sure that there is breadth across a range of subjects, rather than just focusing on a narrower and narrower bunch of subject opportunities for children, and our new third-third-third system enables schools to really look at their performance. So if their capped 9 score is high, what's driving that? Is it because the bottom third of the cohort is doing really well, and the impact on those children is above and beyond what could be expected, but actually, you're not doing very well for your more able and talented; you're not pushing them on? Alternatively, maybe your capped 9 score is because your MAT children are doing incredibly well, but actually, you're not really making the progress for the middle tier of those children. It allows us to have a greater focus on the performance of our FSM children—where they really are within that system. So, it's a much more granular—. And crucially for me, it looks at the impact for every child, because every child has to matter in the system, and what we had before was a narrowing of curriculum choice and a narrowing on a certain cohort of children. +Suzy Davies AM: So are the permanent measures likely to be pretty similar to what you've got now? Because the research—I don't know if the research is complete yet. When will you be publishing the new permanent evaluation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sue, you're right: they're interim measures at the moment, and we will need to make sure that the performance measures are aligned to the new curriculum. That, potentially, of course—. Because Wales's review of qualifications potentially has an impact on what those finally will look like, so that work is ongoing at the moment, and unless Steve can tell me off the top of his head when we expect that to be completed by, I will send you a note. But they're interim at the moment, because we need to align them to the new curriculum. +Suzy Davies AM: I think we understand that. [Inaudible.]—date. +Steve Davies: No, no. This is not a quick fix. This is a two to three-year research base. The new qualifications for the new curriculum will not start until 2025. They have to be in place for 2022. There's a three-year roll on. I would expect the broad structure of the interim measures to continue over that time. There will be some tweaks for consistency. It's what's wrapped around those interim measures that I touched on earlier: the other evidence that we bring to bear about the effectiveness of a school, but we do want to say to schools that on the whole, broadly speaking, the interim measures will carry on for two, three years. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and the reason I asked that is right at the beginning of this session, the Minister said to the Chair that this £100 million that's going into school improvements will be going into things that work. We need some evidence that the interim measures are going to work as well, so when are they going to be evaluated? +Steve Davies: Well, we've only just used them for one year. +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I'm asking you. +Steve Davies: We've signalled that they're only going to be in place for three years. We are carrying out our own review of the impact of those and that's been built in, but I expect the OECD report—because it is an extensive report—to give us feedback on how those things are working now, and some steer, as they did with the last report, as to the direction we would want to go into. +Kirsty Williams AM: And what I'm also interested in is those performance management measures around schools. Yes, they're about outcomes for children, but actually are about a broader suite of behaviours within that school, so, yes, qualifications and grades are an important part of a performance measure, but actually, I have other expectations of schools, above and beyond simply qualifications. And so, we would want our permanent set of performance measures to look at a wider set of behaviours within a school, and I think because—. Exams are important—of course they are, qualifications are important—but the way in which those schools achieve those results are also important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Would you anticipate that including well-being, then? +Suzy Davies AM: In a whole-school approach. +Kirsty Williams AM: I absolutely—and we need to find a way of how we can truly measure that. Sometimes, children's well-being is influenced by lots of things outside the control of a school. So, I don't want schools to be held accountable for things that they have no control over, because of the circumstances in which a child may be living. But, absolutely: well-being and how the culture of the school addresses well-being is really important to me. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. Move on to PISA, please. +Suzy Davies AM: How useful is PISA for you in helping school improvement? I know that it's not always the thing that you enjoy watching or looking out for. But, genuinely, how useful is it? +Kirsty Williams AM: It is one of a range of tools that we need to look at. Siân, quite rightly, talked about consistency. PISA is one thing where there is a level of consistency, so it will continue to be, I think, an important part of how we test how our system is doing. +Suzy Davies AM: We know that you are a little bit encouraged, but we are not out of the woods yet. You mentioned this in Plenary when we talked about PISA. How confident are you that we are on track for meeting these targets that were set before your time, or do you think that having those targets is helpful? Is it setting up aspirations that are incapable of being met within a period of time? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those long-term targets of a score around 500 are part of 'Our National Mission', and we have to keep the pressure on to strive. They are testing, but we have to keep the pressure on to strive to reach them. In some cases, I can be quite encouraged. If we look at reading scores for girls, we are almost there, but that just demonstrates what a journey we've got with our boys to address. For me, one of the ways in which we will reach those targets and achieve them is further progress on our more able and talented children. Although we are now performing at an OECD average, I will be the first person to admit that, although we have seen an improvement in the higher level skills of our more able and talented children, we do not perform at an OECD average with regard to those level 6 and level 5 scores. +Suzy Davies AM: Even within the UK, really, we are quite far behind. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, I think that's where we really need to push on. That's one of the reasons why we have introduced a more able and talented budget to support that, and our Seren programme, which is delivering fantastic results post-16. That's why we're introducing the principles of Seren earlier into children's careers, bringing it down from year 9 upwards, to be able to drive improvements. So, I think that that's the area that we are particularly keen to work on: making sure that more of our children perform at the OECD average at level 5 and level 6. Clearly, we've got more work to do on reading. We are working with southern Ireland, who have consistently done well with reading scores, to look to see what lessons we can learn to press on with there with reading. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. My final question on this. You recognise it as a priority, particularly for boys. Does that mean that the focus will then drift slightly from maths, where there has been some success; and drift from science, where the encouragement of more people to take GCSE science has reduced the number of high-level passes? +Kirsty Williams AM: First, we have to have a system that is capable of doing all of those of things at the same time. We can't accept a system that says, 'Well, we can do a bit over here, but that means we have to—.' We have to have a system, Suzy, that can drive improvements at all levels. That's my expectation. +Suzy Davies AM: The balloon needs to be bigger not just squeezing it at one end. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, yes. That's my expectation of this system. You have to deliver across all of these. We have seen some progress. As I've said, it's far from perfect, and we've got more work to do, but we have to deliver across all three domains, as we did last time. And I'm not going to make any apologies for changing the performance indicators around science. It was a travesty that there were children who never had the opportunity to sit a science GCSE. We don't have to make assumptions about the nature of many, many, many of those children. We have seen a significant increase in the number of children who are having the opportunity to sit GCSE science and who are passing GCSE science. So, I'm not going to make any apologies about that. One of the reasons that I suspect we have ended up with poor science scores is because of the previous policy around science entries and science qualifications. Again, one of the reasons that we have changed it isn't just solely because we need to do better in PISA, but I think that by changing it, we will see an impact on PISA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: The final set of questions is from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to discuss an issue that I know is important to you, namely closing the attainment gap between pupils who are eligible for free school meals and those who are not eligible for free school meals. Unfortunately, the problem persists, doesn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. We are not where we need to be in terms of the performance, not only of our children on free school meals, but the performance of our looked-after children, and the performance of some children from some ethnic minority groups. So, we will continue to look to support those learners in a variety of ways, again looking to amend our practice on the basis of evidence that is given to us from our experts who are there to advise us. There is clearly more that we need to do. There has been some progress in some areas, but it is not where I would want it to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, this is despite the fact that there is £475 million that has been invested in the pupil development grant, for this exact purpose of closing the attainment gap. But, the problem persists, and in some places, it's deteriorating. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, I am not shying away from any assumption or declaration that we need to do better. But, I do think that we need to acknowledge where progress has been made. If we go back to look at what PISA has said about our performance, the PISA results show that pupils in Wales are relatively more able to overcome the disadvantage of their background than is the average in OECD countries. So, our children are doing better in that, and that gives me encouragement. That's not me saying that; that's there. If we look at pupils who are eligible for free school meals, they do score below their better-off counterparts in PISA by some 34 points. The gap in England is 40 points. So, again, that gap is smaller here in Wales. If we look at basic levels of qualifications, back in—. It's difficult to make comparisons because of all the reasons we have talked about, but if we look back to 2006 and we look at the very basic level of qualifications, which is a level 1 qualification, we have seen a jump from 9.4 per cent of children in 2006 achieving a level 1 qualification to over 18 per cent. So, there is progress. There is evidence that the resources that we are spending are making a difference. But, clearly, we are not where we would want to be. That's why we will continue to focus those resources on those children, where we need it. But, we need to do that earlier. Sticking plasters in years 10 and 11 aren't going to cut it. We need to get this right for those children, the moment that they come into a nursery and the moment that they start their formal education at the age of 5. That's how we are going to make the difference. Providing catch-up, of course, we need to do for those kids; we can't throw those year 10s and year 11s to the wind. We have to support those children. But, we will see real improvement when we get in there earlier. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But I'm sure that that is a disappointment to you, because it has been a personal priority for you as well. In terms of minority ethnic learners, while there are some groups within that category who are achieving, there is underachievement happening here as well, isn't there? It's not consistent across the minority ethnic group. Is that something that you will be focusing upon? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that's why we have committed to maintaining a ring-fenced grant to local authorities of some £10 million, to support education of our minority ethnic children. But, again, you are right, you are absolutely right, Siân. We need a much more sophisticated conversation about what is really going on in attainment across minority ethnic groups so that we can best target that resource and have a conversation about what the differences are. You are absolutely correct: there is a real mixed picture. If we look at black Welsh girls entitled to free school meals, they perform almost at the national average for all children—not FSM children; the national average for all children. Black Welsh boys don't, but neither do white Welsh boys. So, there is a really complex picture here, and I really welcome a debate about acknowledging the various levels of performance of BAME children, and where the gaps in performance lie. You are quite right: it is a complex picture in the system. I'm committed to continuing to support educational opportunities, and that's why have ring-fenced the minority ethnic achievement grant. There are some interesting data there. Some children are doing very, very well; others, we need to concentrate on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, this will need to be the last question, I'm afraid. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Sorry? +Lynne Neagle AM: This is going to have to be the last question. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. In terms of looked-after children, which is one of the groups where attainment isn't where we would like it to be, there was some improvement in 2016 at key stage 4, but it has been disappointing. Do we know what's been happening in 2019? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 2019 data will be published next month, and there has been significant activity. You are right: in recent years, the data have been poor and not where we would want it to be. That's why we have had a reformed approach to PDG LAC; the employment of PDG LAC co-ordinators across the regions. We've identified new resource in the new financial year to test new approaches, so, for instance, virtual school approaches, where we know, in other systems, that has worked. But, we expect the next set of data around the performance of this particular group of learners in March. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, and you hope to see progress. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to speculate, but I hope so. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We have come to the end of our time, so can I thank you, Minister, and your official for attending this morning? We have had a wide-ranging and very detailed discussion that will be very useful for the committee. As usual, you will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy, but thank you again, both of you, for your attendance this morning. Diolch yn fawr. Okay. Item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from ERW providing additional information following the evidence session on 16 January. Paper to note 2 is a letter from Central South Consortium, similarly providing additional information following the evidence session. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales regarding children's rights in Wales, following up on some additional information there. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales, providing additional information following the annual report scrutiny session in January. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","In the meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle AM welcomed everyone, noted the absence of Janet Finch-Saunders and Dawn Bowden, and introduced Huw Irranca-Davies as a substitute for Dawn Bowden. No declarations of interest were made. + +The committee focused on the inquiry into school improvement and raising standards. Education Minister Kirsty Williams AM and Steve Davies, director of education, were present to provide evidence. There was an emphasis on the involvement of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in reviewing Welsh education. The OECD's report was scheduled for publication in March, and Kirsty Williams intended to make a statement afterward. + +Lynne Neagle asked about the use of powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 by the Welsh Government and local authorities, to which Kirsty Williams acknowledged a mixed picture of usage and effectiveness. There were discussions on intervention powers and instances where local authorities effectively used them to improve schools in special measures. + +The national evaluation and improvement resource was discussed as a significant tool for raising school standards. The resource aimed to improve self-evaluation skills within the education system, emphasizing its importance for continuous development. Kirsty Williams highlighted the need for the resource to be practical for school leadership teams. + +Concerns were raised by Huw Irranca-Davies AM regarding the early identification of schools needing support. The Minister agreed that schools in need were not being identified soon enough, especially secondary schools. A new multi-agency approach was being piloted to address this issue, with a positive initial feedback. + +Hefin David AM inquired about the role and effectiveness of regional consortia in Wales, noting that the Minister had previously expressed a wish to abolish them. The Minister explained that while her views had evolved to see the value in regional working, discussions with Neath Port Talbot about their notice to withdraw from ERW and the potential impact on school support were ongoing. + +Siân Gwenllian AM asked about long-term trends in educational attainment and how performance measures' changes affected trend analysis. The Minister underscored regular performance measure updates were done in the best interests of learners, despite challenges in drawing long-term comparisons. + +The session concluded with questions from Suzy Davies AM on the use of PISA scores for school improvement and discussions on closing the attainment gap for pupils eligible for free school meals, minority ethnic learners, and looked-after children. The Minister acknowledged challenges in these areas and outlined continued efforts to address them. + +Papers relevant to education were noted, including additional information from ERW, Central South Consortium, Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales, and Qualifications Wales. The meeting resolved to continue in private for the remainder of the session." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 14thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using their earpiece at their desk. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We'll now proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are none. Now we'll proceed to the tabling of documents. Mr.LeBlanc has a document he wants to table. Go ahead, Mr.LeBlanc. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr. Chair, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, a report entitled ""Democracy Matters, Debates Count: A report on the 2019 Leaders' Debates Commission and the future of debates in Canada. Mr. Chair, on behalf of all of us, I want to thank the Right Honourable David Johnston for his continued service. +The Chair: Good. We'll now proceed to the presenting of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that you please come to the front and drop off your certificate at the table once the petition has been presented. In presenting petitions, the first presenter today is Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting a petition in support of Bill S-204. This is a bill in the Senate, put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan. It would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ for which there has not been consent by the donor. It also creates a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill is designed to confront and address the horrific practice by which, in certain casesfor instance, inside Chinaminority communities or dissidents may be targeted and have their organs removed as they're killed and used for transplantation. Petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204, and they want to see it passed as soon as possible. +The Chair: Our next petition will go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I am presenting a petition today signed by Canadians who are concerned that Bill C-7 removes safeguards from the current euthanasia regime, including the mandatory 10-day waiting period. Mr. Chair, these people who are signing this petition would like to see an improvement in assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to present an e-petition signed by over 40 people. It asks that the Government of Canada recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an autonomous state that may result in foreign investments, direct access of development aid, foreign aid for disaster relief and infrastructure development investment loans. +The Chair: Now we'll proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. Each statement will be for a maximum of one minute. I remind members that if they exceed that time limit, they will be interrupted. Our first statement goes to Monsieur El-Khoury. +Mr. Fayal El-Khoury (LavalLes les, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I thank the government for the way it has managed this global crisis and its impact on Canadians. It has acted in a robust, rapid and very effective way. Our Prime Minister has been awarded the medal of honour, courage and humanity worldwide. Canada is one of the few countries that has acted in the best interests of its citizens and maintained their dignity in these uncertain times. While addressing Canadians, our right honourable Prime Minister showed us leadership, the importance of transparency, and integrity. He kept us united. His top priority was saving lives, along with finding realistic solutions regarding the economic impact on our daily life. Because of his outstanding leadership, we're admired across the world, which is another distinguished privilege of being Canadian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-KentLeamington, CPC): COVID-19 has emptied food banks across Canada, even in an agricultural community like Chatham-Kent, so Wes Thompson and James Rasmussen, along with Alysson Storey, Randi Bokor, Maureen Geddes, Chris and Terry Johnston, Jason King, Fannie Vavoulis and Brent Wilken, grew an idea into the community's largest-ever food drive. Project manager Morna McDonald estimates that over 3,000 volunteers ended up helping in the May 16 Miracle. Residents put non-perishable foodstuffs on their doorsteps, with drop-off centres organized for rural areas. Volunteer groups travelled predetermined routes while maintaining physical distancing. The community collected an amazing 678,000 pounds of food. They accidentally exceeded by over 20% the record in the Guinness World Records book for collected food in a single day. Chatham-Kent has restocked their food banks and reaffirmed their community pride. It's an honour to represent such a community. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Sarai. We have a point of order from Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): As much as I like seeing my friends on the big screens, there are no big screens yet, so we don't know who's on and who's not on. I was wondering if there was going to be a TV coming up soon here, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: There is a technical issue, and it is being worked on. We're working on it as we go through. The other alternative is that we suspend until we fix it. If it's okay, we'll just continue. I think we can all hear the members who are speaking. This is one of the realities of a virtual or hybrid system. Our next statement will go to Mr. Sarai. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and mabuhay to all the Filipino Canadians across this country. In June across Canada we recognize Filipino Heritage Month to raise awareness and celebrate the Filipino community. Here in Surrey Centre, and across Canada, the Filipino community makes important contributions to our cities and has helped shape Canada into the vibrant multicultural society that we all know and love today. Now more than ever, during these challenging times we must come together as Canadians to celebrate the rich heritage and history of our Filipino neighbours. Throughout June, please join me in celebrating our fellow citizens of Filipino descent by recognizing all the incredible ways in which they have contributed to making Canada a better place for all of us. Happy Filipino Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Perron. +Mr. Yves Perron (BerthierMaskinong, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. Today is World Milk Day, and I would like to recognize the exceptional work and dedication shown by everyone in the industry. They ensure we have a nutritious, high quality product every day. Let's take part in the local consumption movement and rediscover the exceptional products of our dairy producers and processors. Enjoy the yogurts, cheeses and other products because it's true that milk is good. I would also like to thank BrunoLetendre, outgoing chair of the Producteurs de lait du Qubec, and I congratulate the new chair, DanielGobeil. The dairy industry has been sacrificed several times in trade agreements. The government's broken promises are piling up. The payment of compensation is still uncertain. Action must be taken. The first step must be the direct allocation of import quotas to processors, and the second must be the full payment of the promised compensation. We demand a formal commitment from the government. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Iacono. +Mr. Angelo Iacono (Alfred-Pellan, Lib.): Mr.Chair, June is Italian Heritage Month. The situation is special this year, since Italy has been hard hit by COVID-19, with more than 30,000deaths. Like me, many Italian Canadians still have family and friends in Italy, and the news has sometimes been very difficult to take, yet that has not detracted from the great co-operation that exists between Canada and Italy. Today I would like to highlight the solidariet italiana in our community. During the pandemic, Canadians of Italian descent have been united to support anziani, our famiglie and our amici in Italy by participating in the fundraising campaign COVID-19 AiutiAMO lItalia to support the Italian Red Cross response activities. I send a special salute to to my cugino Giuseppe, who is still on the road to recovery from COVID-19. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I would like to acknowledge all of the organizations in Saskatchewan and across Canada that are working hard to help small businesses adapt to the challenges of the current pandemic. In particular, I would like to thank the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District, or RDBID. As soon as the pandemic hit, RDBID launched a daily electronic newsletter to keep their members informed of support programs, local initiatives and local success stories. They have used their social media channels on a daily basis to promote takeout and delivery services, online and curbside services offered by restaurants and retailers. They have also launched a number of their own initiatives to help businesses access e-commerce. Through persistent communication and a lot of long hours, RDBID has helped businesses in downtown Regina to weather the storm. Because of their hard work, downtown Regina will come through this pandemic better than ever. +The Chair: Mr.Lauzon now has the floor. +Mr. Stphane Lauzon (ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation, Lib.): Mr.Chair, high-speed Internet will be to the 21stcentury what electricity was to the 20th: an essential service. We are currently experiencing a drastic change in our morals, our consumption patterns and our socialization habits. We are turning to the Internet to read the news, contact our friends and complete our purchases. Isolation associated with COVID-19 has only accelerated this trend. Unfortunately, not all regions of Canada have reliable, affordable, high-speed access. I would like to reassure the citizens of my riding about the efforts that we are making as a government, but also about the work I've been doing as a member of Parliament since2015 to connect the 41municipalities of ArgenteuilLa Petite-Nation. Aside from this essential service, our students, seniors, entrepreneurs and telework are very important to the regions. We have heard you, and I will continue to fight for you, so that you can have access to affordable high-speed Internet. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. MacKinnon. +Mr. Steven MacKinnon (Gatineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, a few days ago, we all watched with horror and outrage the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. For many of us, these images may seem shocking, but it's an all too familiar tale to millions of black people not only in the United States but also here in Canada, in my city of Gatineau and around the world, who must at times live with the scourge of anti-black racism. Mr.Chair, I can't know what it's like to be black in our society. What I do know, however, is that you and I, and everyone in this House, have the power and the responsibility to make our country more just. Let us all recommit ourselves to that endeavour. Black Canadians and all those who have to endure racism and discrimination are watching us, and they expect more from us. +The Chair: Mr. Duncan is next. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Without a doubt, these past few months have been challenging, to say the least, from both a health and economic perspective, but, Mr. Chair, I have to say how proud I am of my community of StormontDundasSouth Glengarry. We continue to successfully flatten the curve in our region and, just as importantly, we are making sure that we are here for each other, whether it is the Cornwall Optimists' GoFeedMe campaign, the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club delivering groceries to those who are quarantined in their households or the local United Way, the Social Development Council or the Carefor seniors support centre co-leading an effort to deliver 1,500 baskets to seniors in need. There have been many examples of kindness and generosity from our community. I rise today in the House of Commons to say thank you to my constituents and to all Canadians; to our essential front-line workers, our service clubs and our businesses that have stepped up to help out; and to everybody playing their part to get us through this challenge. I couldn't be more proud of my community and my residents, and it is an honour to serve as their member of Parliament. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Yip. +Ms. Jean Yip (ScarboroughAgincourt, Lib.): Mr. Chair, although Asian Heritage Month has just passed, we recognize the tremendous effort of all Asian Canadians on the front lines of this pandemic, as health care providers or as essential workers. I want to thank the many Asian organizations for donating to ScarboroughAgincourt's hospital, long-term care homes and food banks. As a Canadian born and raised in Scarborough, I'm offended by the reports of violence and vandalism targeting Asian-Canadian communities across this country. In budget 2019 we invested $45 million to launch a new anti-racism strategy, which included the establishment of the anti-racism secretariat, because these efforts are unfortunately clearly still needed. As events continue to unfold in the United States, it is important to recognize that we have work to do here as well. Whether it is anti-black or anti-Asian, racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in Canadafull stop. Now more than ever, we must stand united in diversity. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Bragdon. +Mr. Richard Bragdon (TobiqueMactaquac, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over the last few months, Canadians throughout New Brunswick and across the country have stepped up to support their community. Health care workers, truckers, farmers, business owners, pharmacists, grocery store staff, faith-based and non-profit organizations and so many others have all answered the call to do their part. Today, Mr. Chair, I would like to specifically highlight the work of those who support and take care of our seniors, who are among some of our most at-risk citizens. It has been said that the character of a nation and its people is revealed most in how they treat their most vulnerable. Our seniors have made immense contributions to our society. Many have put their lives on the line to protect Canada and the democratic freedoms we enjoy as Canadians. They have worked hard and made many sacrifices throughout their lives to make Canada the greatest nation on earth. Taking care of our seniors is the right thing to do. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who are supporting and caring for our seniors. Whether they be long-term care staff, personal care workers, health care professionals, family members or volunteers, thank you for all you are doing in support of our seniors. Together we shall overcome. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin (Port MoodyCoquitlam, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Although we've come to the end of Asian Heritage Month, I'd like to acknowledge some unsung Chinese Canadian heroes who shed their blood as patriots for our nation. I commemorate the 6,500 Chinese Canadians of the 9,000 railway workers who helped build and unite Canada. I pay respect to the many Chinese Canadians who died while building the CP Railway on the most dangerous terrains in the B.C. segment. I honour the Chinese Canadians who served and died in World War II. Sadly, Asian communities in Canada face racist incidents today. No one should be afraid of walking in their own neighbourhood. Adult children should not have to call their elderly parents to tell them to stay home because they might be attacked by racists. There's no justification for racial slurs, physical violence or vandalism against any individual or community. I will continue to work together with other elected officials, the police and the RCMP to mitigate these issues toward justice and restoration. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Angus. Mr. Angus, please proceed. +Mr. Charlie Angus (TimminsJames Bay, NDP): Ten years ago today, Cree youth leader Shannen Koostachin was killed in a horrific car accident. She was only 15 years old, yet in her short life she became the voice of a generation of first nation youth who were no longer willing to put up with systemic discrimination. Shannen had never seen a real school. Children in Attawapiskat were being educated in squalid conditions. Her fight for their dignity and rights launched the largest youth-driven civil rights movement in Canadian history. At 14 she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. Shannen never lived to see the school that was built in her community, but her work carries on through the Shannen's Dream movement. She is a role model for youth activists across this country. A movie, two books and a statue are dedicated to her. She's been recognized as one of the 150 most influential women in Canadian history. I had the honour to know Shannen. In fact, I think of her every single day. She truly did come from the angels, and one day she returned. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you now have the floor. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Mr.Chair, for months now, thousands of consumers who need money to pay their bills have been fighting against airlines and the government to have their rights respected: three class action suits, a unanimous motion by the National Assembly and over 30,000signatures on a petition calling for reimbursement for cancelled flights. It isn't a whim to enforce the law. Air Canada, which confiscated $2.6billion from its customers, received more than $800million from Ottawa without any conditions. Yet, the company has a year's worth of cash in reserve, $6billion in its coffers, and is in the process of raising more than $1.4billion in the financial markets. Air Canada has the means to reimburse citizens. It has the money it needs. We're tired of the Minister of Transport's crocodile tears. I consulted the bankruptcy directory this morning and didn't see any airlines listed. Now is the time to work for the people. +The Chair: Mr.Rayes now has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes (RichmondArthabaska, CPC): Mr.Chair, I want to pay tribute to a great man who represented the public here, in the House, for close to 15years: MichelGauthier. Michel, in life, we meet a lot of people, but some of them leave their mark on us forever. From the first time I spoke with you two years ago, I immediately understood that I was talking with a man with heart, a passionate man, a man who had Quebec imprinted on his heart. Because of your decision to join the Conservative Party of Canada, I got to know you personally, and I am most grateful. I will remember our discussions on the best ways to communicate our Conservative vision to Quebeckers. I will remember our heated discussions on Quebec-Canada relations. I will remember all the passion and energy you had in the lead-up to a speech to our supporters. Michel, Canadians, Quebeckers and I will remember you forever, the great man you were, the outstanding speaker, a formidable parliamentarian, with integrity, passion, commitment and love for Quebec. I offer my sincere condolences to Anne, and to your family and friends. Rest in peace. +The Chair: Mr.Dubourg, you now have the floor. +Mr. Emmanuel Dubourg (Bourassa, Lib.): Mr.Chair, the murder of GeorgeFloyd in Minneapolis resonated strongly within black communities in Canada and also in the heart of Montreal North. At a time of pandemic uncertainty when members of our community find themselves on the front lines as essential workers, an event like this rekindles feelings of fear, powerlessness and injustice. It has happened once again in the UnitedStates, but we are not immune to such behaviour here, in Canada. Dear constituents of Bourassa, I know our stories, I feel with you the pain as a parent and as a black person. I know this constant fear for our children. As elected officials, we have the duty to protect your rights and to ensure harmony. We must be vigilant and work to deconstruct prejudice and discrimination. +The Chair: Before continuing, I'd like to give a reminder. To avoid sound problems, members participating in person shouldn't connect to the video conference. There seems to be some interference when you watch the video conference in the chamber and it's being transmitted, so let us make things run more smoothly. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. When the government first starting rolling out programs to help Canadians get through this pandemic, we raised points about some flaws and gaps in the program. The government assured Canadians that it would fix these programs as time went on. Well, Canadians are suffering through both the health and the economic consequences of the lockdown related to the coronavirus. Here we are the first day of June and the government still has yet to address the flaws in its programs; it is still letting so many Canadians down. I have a series of very straightforward and specific questions. On April 20 we raised with the Minister of Finance the issue of companies that had purchased another company not being able to demonstrate revenue loss, and therefore not being eligible for the wage subsidy, even though both companies separately would have been able to do just that. We have raised it several times now. I would like to ask the government when it will be fixing this unnecessarily rigid aspect of the wage subsidy program. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, I believe that a company with a fantastic Canadian history in the member's riding, Brandt Tractor, which pioneered the manufacturing of augers in Canada, is particularly affected by this. It is very important for us that the wage subsidy be available to as many Canadian companies as possible. It helps to keep employees connected to their businesses. Now, there are always some specific issues that can make it challenging for particular companies. I know that in the case of Brandt Tractor, for example, officials from the Ministry of Finance are directly in touch with the company to work on its issues. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, that's the same answer we got last week. It's the same answer we got two weeks before that, and it's the same answer we have been getting from day one. This is a very simple question. The government has indicated that it will change this program to allow for amalgamations. The solution is very simple. It is to also allow for those companies that have undergone acquisitions. This is a very specific question: Will the government fix this program and allow for companies that have acquired another company to still access the wage subsidy program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me just point out that the wage subsidy program is working extremely well for many, many Canadian companies and for many, many Canadians who are able to keep their jobs thanks to the program. More than two million Canadian workers are today benefiting from the wage subsidy program. By any measure that is a successful program. Now, for sure there are always going to be companies which, because of specifics in their history, need specific attention, and that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, reports indicate that up to half of the money allocated for the wage subsidy is going unspent, precisely because this government has left in unnecessarily rigid barriers for companies to be able to access it. It's a yes-or-no question, and the minister still can't answer it. Along the same lines, we asked on April 8 to allow businesses applying for the wage subsidy to demonstrate their 30% revenue loss using other metrics, such as loss of earnings, subscriptions and orders, in order to qualify. They still can't do that today, the first day of June. Why hasn't the government addressed this part of the program? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are very proud of the wage subsidy program and proud of the role it is playing to keep Canadian businesses going and, crucially, to keep Canadian workers connected to their jobs, but I have a question for the member opposite. Half of the questions we hear from the Conservatives in question period are concerns that we're spending too much money, that the deficit is too high. The other half of the time they complain about specific companies not getting access to our programs. We know which side we're on as a government. I'd like the Conservatives to let Canadians know what they believe in. +The Chair: Mr. Scheer, you may have a short question. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's quite clear what Conservatives believe in. We believe that when times were good, this government should have paid down debt instead of wasting money like $50 million to Mastercard and $12 million to Loblaws. The fact of the matter is that the government left Canadians in a vulnerable position as we were entering this pandemic precisely because of its fiscal irresponsibility, and now they have designed programs that have unnecessary barriers in them that prevent more and more Canadians from getting the help they need. Again, on April 26, Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account can qualify. Why hasn't the Prime Minister made that change either? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm really grateful for that question because it allows me to set the record straight for Canadians. Canadians need to know that our country has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. We had that before the crisis began, and we still do. Canada has the fiscal firepower to support Canadians during this unprecedented crisis, and that is what we are going to continue to do. +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, the wage subsidy was put in place to support businesses and SMEs, to avoid closures and bankruptcy. Have I missed something? Is the Liberal Party on the verge of bankruptcy? Is it about to shut down? Does the Prime Minister consider that the Liberal Party is getting ready to close its doors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for the question. I want to point out that, as the hon. member said, the wage subsidy was really put in place to protect workers across Canada. We are proud of that. More than 2million Canadians have benefited from this +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, the Liberal Party made $3million between January and March of this year. That's $3million in political donations. We're told that the emergency subsidy is being used to protect the jobs of Liberal Party employees. I'm not an accountant, but I can count. I'm wondering why the Liberal Party doesn't use its own money to pay its own employees instead of using the Canada emergency wage subsidy. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I would like to point out again that the purpose of the Canada emergency wage subsidy is to support workers across Canada and Quebec, to help them keep their jobs and allow them to stay connected to their workplace. That is what we've done. More than 2million Canadians are benefiting from this important and truly essential program for our country. We are proud of it. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, does the Deputy Prime Minister think it is moral, fair and honest that employees who have lost their jobs are subsidizing an emergency wage subsidy for the Liberal Party of Canada out of their taxes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers. The hon. member talked about businesses and sectors that need more help. We agree. There is still a lot to do, but we want to work with all the +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, many struggling businesses in Quebec don't have access to the Canada emergency wage subsidy because they don't meet the eligibility criteria. Many tourism and municipal organizations, among others, don't have access to this wage subsidy. However, it's very clear that the Liberal Party qualifies according to the program criteria. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really think it's moral for her party to benefit from the emergency wage subsidy when it has the financial means to pay its own employees? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question. I agree that there is still a lot to do. We are ready, and we are taking action. However, it's important to point out that our government has already done a lot to support Canadians. We've spent $152billion in direct support measures to Canadians. More than eightmillion people are benefiting from the CERB, and more than twomillion +The Chair: Mrs.DeBellefeuille, you have the floor. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille: Mr.Chair, what I understand is not really complicated to understand. I understand that the Liberal Party has money, that it has money to pay its employees, but that it doesn't want to cut the booty it has amassed for the next election. It's as if it were telling us that it's indirectly financing itself for the next election. Will the Deputy Prime Minister show some leadership and convince her own party to give up the emergency wage subsidy and even commit to paying back the money it has already received? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out that our programs do not discriminate. They are there to help all workers across the country, and I want to point out to what extent our programs do that. Eight million people are currently benefiting from the CERB, and two million are supported by the emergency wage subsidy. Our programs are also helping 380,000students and 639,000businesses +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Canadians and people across the world are reeling after seeing the images of George Floyd being brutally killed in a callous and casual manner. We're struggling with the impacts of anti-black racism. Anti-black racism hasn't just appeared or increased. It's now simply being captured by video. Canada is also no different. Anti-black racism also impacts Canada, and people here are feeling the frustration of black lives being neglected and ignored. Will the government commit to tracking race-based data in terms of COVID-19's impact on communities, particularly black Canadians, and track race-based data so that we can have a better response based on the evidence? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to start by thanking the member opposite for his very important question and the very important work he has done throughout his career in drawing attention to racism in Canada and in fighting against it. Thank you. I agree strongly with the member opposite that we, as Canadians, must be the opposite of complacent. We have to acknowledge that anti-black racism is real in our country, that unconscious bias is real in our country and that systemic discrimination is real. It happens here. We have to commit today to working hard to fight it. I have more to say about disaggregated data and the coronavirus, and I hope I'll have a chance to do that in my next answer. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you for that openness on the part of the government. I want more and clear commitments. We also know that race-based or discriminatory police practices still exist across Canada. Will the government commit to working with provinces to ensure there are no such practices allowed to exist in Canada, particularly related to discriminatory police practices like carding? Will the federal government work and use its powers to end those discriminatory practices where federal regulation applies, and work with the provinces to ensure this happens across the country? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Thank you again for that very important question. First of all, on coronavirus, our government believes that disaggregated data, including when it comes to race, is extremely important. We're working with our provincial partners on that. On policing, racial profiling is unacceptable and unlawful. We will always work to uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to ensure the human rights of everyone in Canada are protected. At the federal level, RCMP members are guided by bias-free policing based on equality and non-discrimination. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I want to change tracks, Mr. Chair, and talk about long-term care. How many times did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government meet with lobbyists from for-profit long-term care homes from March 25 to April 22, during the worst impacts of COVID-19 in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, at this moment I can only speak for myself, and I have not met with any such lobbyists during that period or at other times. I share the member opposite's concerns about long-term care facilities in Canada. We have to do better, and we will. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: It was 12 times during the worst impacts of COVID-19. While seniors were dying in long-term care homes, the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government met with private, for-profit long-term care home lobbyists 12 times. Why did the Prime Minister's Office and the Liberal government choose to meet with these for-profit long-term care home lobbyists instead of meeting with those to solve the problem? Instead of making excuses about the federal government not playing a role, why didn't the Prime Minister and the Liberal government show leadership in calling for an end to profit in long-term care homes? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me very clear about one thing, speaking on behalf of our government and on behalf of the Prime Minister. Our government sees as a matter of utmost concern and utmost urgency what has been happening in long-term care homes in our country, and the reports we have received from the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces about facilities in Ontario and Quebec need to be treated as historic documents that +The Chair: Now it's Mr.Rayes's turn. Mr.Rayes, you have the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Mr.Chair, why is it that employers from industry, businesses and community organizations that have been approved in the Canada summer jobs program still haven't received the money they're entitled to? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): We are ensuring that the Canada summer jobs program is strengthened and enforced. We are making it more available to more students. We have lengthened the time period that the program +The Chair: Mr.Rayes has the floor. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Every day, the Prime Minister makes announcements in front of his residence. I'll repeat my question. Given the importance of the program for our youth who are looking to work, how is it that the organizations haven't yet received the money they need to hire students? As we know, there have been some problems with the CESB. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Our government is working hard to help employers adapt to the realities of COVID-19. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in communities across the country every year. That is why we have introduced flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth while providing more supports to employers. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The minister can say whatever he wants. Last year, there was no crisis and, as of April, all employers who had been admitted to the program had received the money. We are currently in a crisis. The government is trying to respond quickly to the needs. Right now, community organizations are not receiving the money to which they are entitled to hire students, to put them to work and to give them an employment opportunity. Why? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have managed to introduce flexibilities to take into consideration the difficult environment of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the flexibilities we've introduced into the Canada summer jobs program will help with more hiring of youth and more supports to employers, including non-profits and businesses that deliver essential services to Canadians. These changes will help small businesses hire and keep the workers that they need in the Canada summer jobs program. +Mr. Alain Rayes: The young people and employers listening to us must be very surprised by what the minister is saying. He mentioned that the rules are now more flexible. However, it is taking a month and a half longer than last year. The money has not yet been given out. I have done my homework. I went to see what was happening in my riding and in about 10other ridings. Last year, in my riding, all the money had been deposited before April. Right now, there is a $240,000shortfall for about 60student jobs, and the minister has the nerve to tell us that the government has provided more flexibility. Why is the money not available if the government wants to act quickly, to help the economy recover and to help young people? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, indeed we are acting quickly. We are listening to the needs of the employers to make sure that this program works not only for them but also for youth, and that it gives them the experiences they need. It is adapted better for the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that youth have the experience they need to gain life and work skills from the program. It's a great program, and we're making it work not just for businesses but also for non-profits. +Mr. Alain Rayes: Here is the reality. Last week, the owner of a hardware store in a village in my riding had to close his business because he was unable to hire students and had no one to work. This morning, an employer called me to tell me that his request to hire a student had been accepted, but that the delay meant that he could not proceed with the hiring. This means that one more young person will not have a job. That young person will therefore have to receive the CESB. There is the reality. When is the government going to release the money required for young people to be able to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I join the honourable member in recognizing that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic there are some difficulties in terms of structuring the program and making sure that employers are able to access it. That is why we've introduced flexibilities to ensure that employers are able to access the program and that youth are also able to take advantage of the program to gain important work skills, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and especially in providing essential services that serve their fellow Canadians. It's a great program. We're doing everything that we can to work through some of those obstacles. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. By its own numbers, PSPC has had to cut the number of N95 masks the government has on order after cancelling contracts with companies that were not able to meet Canadian standards. We know that companies right here in Canada were willing to step up and fill in the gap. Will the minister commit to making domestic production of PPE, including N95 masks, a priority? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, our priority is to make sure that we get safe and effective equipment and supplies into the hands of front-line health care workers. We've been running multiple complementary supply chains at the same time. Building up domestic capacity is indeed a priority. We have a contract with Medicom in Montreal for the production of N95 masks and we will continue to work hard to ensure +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, Novo Textiles, a company in my riding, has retooled its factory to produce surgical masks in response to the shortage of PPE in Canada. Additionally, it will soon be producing quality made-in-Canada N95 masks using Canadian designs and Canadian-made machinery. My constituent has invested his own capital and is in active production supplying front-line workers right now, not just talking about it. However, the company's application to NGen was recently rejected. Canada needs masks now, masks that meet Canadian standards. Is the government serious about growing domestic production capacity, or is it all talk and no action? +Hon. Anita Anand: In reality, we have received 101.3 million surgical masks that are being distributed out to provinces and territories. We have signed 24 contracts with domestic companies for the production of PPE right here at home. We are working very hard, Mr. Chair, to make sure Canadian front-line health care workers have exactly what they need to fight this pandemic. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Mr. Chair, how many of these have received financial support from the government? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'm not quite sure what the member is referring to by how many of these, but as I said, we have signed 24 contracts with domestic +The Chair: We'll have to go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Where are these manufacturers located? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have surgical masks being produced right here at home, as well as abroad, being brought into Canada +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: What provinces are they in? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as I said, we have a contract with General Motors for the production of surgical masks +The Chair: Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Are there any in any provinces besides Ontario and Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we have contracts with multiple provinces throughout this country for the production of personal protective equipment. We are committed +The Chair: Back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: How many of these domestic manufacturers rely on supply chains in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are dealing with a situation of very high global demand for the same product. As a result, we +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: Will the Minister commit to providing my office with answers to these questions? Thank you. +Hon. Anita Anand: I will commit, Mr. Chair, to continuing to work hard for Canadians to supply the personal protective equipment that they need. We have been giving updated numbers on our website +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Shin. +Ms. Nelly Shin: I'm going to assume that answer is no. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister introduced the Canada student service grant on April 22. Students were told details would arrive in a matter of weeks. It's been over a month, the I Want To Help platform has no details yet about eligibility, levels of funding, or how to apply. Post-secondary students are already one-quarter into their summer break. When can students expect to start applying for the CSSG so they can receive their grants? Thank you. +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to share that students can anticipate more programs coming out as soon as possible. The I Want to Help website will be launched. Students can already apply for Canada summer jobs if they go to jobbank.gc.ca. By visiting Canada.ca/coronavirus, you'll see a suite of programs to ensure that students and young people are able to succeed. The coronavirus will not win, and our government will continue investing in our leaders of today and tomorrow. +The Chair: The next set of questions goes to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard (BarrieInnisfil, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week the President of the Treasury Board wrote a letter to his cabinet colleagues in which he said that, as the federal minister responsible for public access to government information, he has advised his cabinet colleagues of the need for transparency and accountability, even in times of crisis. My question is for the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Does she agree with the President of the Treasury Board's directive? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Mr. Chair, the government remains committed to maintaining the openness and transparency of our government during this challenging time. The Government of Canada, along with provincial and territorial governments, have implemented exceptional workplace measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, and to protect the health and safety of federal employees. These measures have had an impact on institutions' abilities to respond to access to information and personal information requests, since most employees are now working from their homes. +Mr. John Brassard: Frankly, I'm surprised that the answer is coming from that minister when the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities is in the House, but I will ask this question. Can the minister tell Canadians who Pierre Lavalle is? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Treasury Board Secretariat has provided guidance to institutions to continue to make the best efforts to respond to Access to Information Act and Privacy Act requests and to provide published content +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities tell us who Pierre Lavalle is? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, of course. Pierre Lavalle was the former CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are very proud that we now have Michael Sabia as the new chair of the Infrastructure Bank. He did a fabulous job in Montreal at +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can the minister tell me how long Mr. Lavalle was the CEO of the Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I can't give you the exact months. He was the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank since the beginning, but let's be clear: Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government and must have +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Can I ask the minister how well she knows her file: 50%, 75% or 100%? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, that's quite a condescending little comment. I'd like to say that I know my file very well. What I know is that Canadians want infrastructure built, they want it built across the country, in the member opposite's riding and in ridings across the country. They want cleaner, healthier, more connected Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: How much of the $35 billion of infrastructure money that was allocated to that bank has been spent so far? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, the Infrastructure Bank is a new, more flexible financing model for infrastructure investments. It was set up; it is now in its new phase. We're very excited that it's going to be moving forwardand stay tuned. +Mr. John Brassard: In the context of Mr. Duclos' advice to his cabinet colleagues about openness and transparency, I'd like to ask the minister how much Mr. Lavalle was paid annually. +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, as I said, Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation, but remuneration ranges are publicly available. I'd note that this information for the bank's CEOs has been in the public domain +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, I'm asking the minister how much Mr. Lavalle made. There was no answer to that. If it is in the public realm, she should know that. She said she knows her file very well. How much of a bonus was Mr. Lavalle paid recently when he left on April 2? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am not involved in HR discussions when it comes to the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Mr. Lavalle. Crown corporations work at arm's length from the government. They need to have flexibility to meet their commercial mandates. As I say, the information about salary ranges is publicly available, but personal HR +The Chair: Mr. Brassard. +Mr. John Brassard: Mr. Chair, could you stop my...? I'm hearing.... +The Chair: I would ask those of us virtually to mute. Mr. Brassard, there is about 15 seconds left. I'll cue you for a very short question. +Mr. John Brassard: Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to a table, Mr. Lavalle could have received a bonus after year one of zero to 75% of his base salary, which was $510,000 to $600,000 per year; or in year two, which he was in, zero to 120% of his base salary. How much of a bonus did he receive? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The rate of any remuneration paid to the chief executive officer is based on the recommendations of the board. Our government follows the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act when it comes to employee compensation. Let me say this: We're very excited about the new phase of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have Michael Sabia there as the new board chair. We need to move forward on +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Parliament's now been suspended for three months, since Friday, March 13. Will the government commit to reopening the House of Commons with its full powers, with social distancing, on Monday, September 21? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, as my colleague knows, we're meeting here four days a week, with questions on any topic for an hour and 35 minutes instead of 45 minutes a day. Democracy is as important for us as it is for the opposition. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, this committee is neutered. It has no powers to introduce supply day motions, no powers to test government confidence, no powers to do the usual things that Parliament does. At times of crisis, the bedrock principles of rule of law and democracy are tested, and our democratic principles are buckling under the pressure from this government. They came to office promising greater transparency, but they broke almost every one of their promises. They broke their promise on electoral reform. They appointed an anti-Conservative organization, Unifor, to the media bailout fund. In the last parliament, they tried to give the PMO control over this legislature in Motion No. 6, and in the last election, they rigged the leaders' debates in their favour, and now they have suspended Parliament. Instead of this neutered committee that meets for only a few days with a few members, will the government commit to the full re-opening of this House with all its powers with social distancing on Monday, September 21? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, the government's objective is always to try to resume Parliament as it was before. Today, we have to live with this pandemic, but we will do everything we can to return to a normal situation as quickly as possible. That is clear and precise. The opposition asked for more time, especially to ask questions, and that is what it got. I would like my colleague to tell me one thing. Over the past few weeks, we have sent suggestions to opposition members about the operation of Parliament and they have never responded. I would like to know why. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, the full parliament with its full powers sat through two world wars, previous pandemics and the October crisis in 1970. The governments of those days did not seek the suspension of the House. The government is not only failing to defend democracy here but also abroad. It can't utter the word Taiwan. It is failing to be strong and clear on Hong Kong and, while the situation today is not that of decades past, it is clear that Canada in the past stood for the rights of people in Hong Kong. Canada needs to take much stronger diplomatic action on Hong Kong. There are some 300,000 Canadians living there, and they are looking for the government's support. When will this government act? When will it threaten economic sanctions like the U.S. administration has? When will it provide asylum and a clear path to citizenship like the U.K. government has? When will it speak up against the Communist Party of China's United Front workers operating here in this country? When will it do like Australia did in calling for an international investigation of COVID-19, and organize an international coalition of like-minded democracies to defend Hong Kongers and the violation of the Sino-British treaty? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Mr. Chair, I'll remind the member to look at our statement of May 28. It's already done. Canada has spoken to the world; Canada has spoken up. We've made a first declaration with our colleagues in Australia and the U.K. to say that we have deep concerns. We all know that the one country, two systemsthe high degree of liberty and freedom enjoyed by the people in Hong Konghas made Hong Kong what it is today, a beacon when it comes to trade and financing. We know that and have expressed deep concern. Again, on May 28, with the United States, with the United Kingdom and with Australia, Canada was front and centre in saying that we have deep concerns that the imposition of a national security law by Beijing would undermine the very foundation, the very principles that have made Hong Kong so successful. We said that we and our international partners would look at the implications and the ramifications that this might have on our arrangement. I've called for a meeting of our Five Eyes partners tonight. I'll be chairing a meeting of our Five Eyes partners with the foreign ministers. We will be discussing it and will continue to raise our voices to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, and we will do it with our allies. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, farmers have contacted my office about the massive delays with processing the advance payment program loans. Some put their applications in almost two months ago, and not a dollar has flowed. What's the point of having an advance payment program if there's no payment? Can the Minister of Agriculture tell us when these delays will end? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I can assure you that we are working with all the independent operators. This program is not administered by their officials, but by partners. I can assure you that, under the circumstances, they are doing their best to make the advance payments +Mr. Larry Maguire: Farmers understand that some of the delays were caused by staff having to work remotely. However, did the minister approve a policy change on April 1 that made the eligibility for these loans more difficult during the middle of a pandemic, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, a number of changes and improvements have been made to the program. To make things easier for our administrators, we have postponed some of the changes that could have been problematic. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Yes, so some of the changes made it more problematic for the producers. The minister must take responsibility for these delays. Farmers deserve an answer on why she changed the program. Who advised her that it would be a good idea to make it more difficult for the farmers to access the advance payment program in the middle of a pandemic? Or did she just go ahead and do this on her own? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we are constantly working with the administrators of the program. We are fully prepared to respond to their requests so that the advance payments program can best serve our producers across the country. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers are telling me that the premiums for the western livestock insurance program are too high. I told the Minister of Agriculture over two weeks ago that this was a problem, and yet she went out and said that farmers needed to make better use of existing support. When will the Minister of Agriculture listen to what the farmers are saying so they can actually use the existing programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would like to remind everyone that we have put in place certain measures to improve access to AgriStability. We have also significantly improved the AgriRecovery program. Over the past few years, this program amounted to about $15million. It is now $100million for pork and beef producers alone, not counting the $77.5million for food processors. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Livestock producers in my riding and several across Canada are still waiting for the Minister of Agriculture's promise for an AgriRecovery program. When will the Minister of Agriculture stop rubbing salt in the farmers' wounds and provide the rest of the story she has been saying is on its way for over a month now in her AgriRecovery promise? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have committed $50million to beef producers and $50million to pork producers through the AgriRecovery program. Here is how the program works: the federal government contributes up to60% and then the provinces implement it how they see fit. +Mr. Larry Maguire: The funding announced by the Minister of Agriculture for the livestock industry was insufficient, and what was promised has not been delivered. This has caused hogs to be euthanized and over 100,000 feeder cattle to become overweight. The industry is in a crisis. How many livestock producers need to go bankrupt before they get the help they deserve? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have significantly increased the amounts available through AgriRecovery. It is $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. These programs are administered by the provinces. There is also $77.5million for processors. +The Chair: Ms.Chabot, you have the floor. +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc: Mr.Chair, we know that not everyone experiences economic recovery in the same way. In some sectors, such as tourism, fishery, hotels and restaurants, we do not know when activity will resume or whether it will resume slowly. This is a major concern for workers, because they do not know what will happen tomorrow. They do not know how much they will be able to earn this summer. Given that the CERB lasts 16weeks, they are all afraid that they will be left with nothing. Without a job, they have no income. Will the Minister of Finance announce now that he is extending the CERB? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly at the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to support workersthose who have lost their jobs, who were laid off, or those whose jobs simply disappearedthrough the Canada emergency response benefit. It has provided immense support to the over eight million Canadian workers who have applied to the CERB. We will continue to support those workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, my question was clear. We know why the CERB was put in place. It does not need to be explained to us again. For some workers, the CERB will end tomorrow morning. There will be no recovery in their sector. Examples include bars, sports training, arts and culture. They don't know when they will start up again. Is the government prepared to extend the Canada emergency response benefit now? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, the workers that the honourable member identified, including those who were not eligible for the EI, were also covered by the Canada emergency response benefit. We moved quickly. We recognized the urgency of the situation, which is why we took action to support workers and their families through the Canada emergency response benefit. We have processed over eight million applications through that benefit. We will continue to support Canadian workers at this very difficult time. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, are we going to continue to help workers in these difficult times? The answer is simple. Some don't know what they are going to do tomorrow morning. They do not know whether they will have an income to pay their bills. They have families, they have other needs. The CERB is going to end. This is the last period for some people. Can you do anything about it? Can I walk out of the House today and tell all those people that the CERB is going to be extended? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the honourable member for her question. We will clearly maintain our approach. We will look at how we can improve and change our programs, such as the wage subsidy. Of course, we are looking at how we can gradually reopen our economy by continuing to help people to be in a good position. +Ms. Louise Chabot: Mr.Chair, we are making progress. Yes, the decision is to extend the wage subsidy. I think we must do the same with the CERB, which is about to end. Another important commitment is the employment incentives. I don't know about you, but we see it in our ridings. People are scared because the economy is reopening in certain sectors. People are afraid to go back to work. People are afraid to go back to full-time jobs because they are afraid of losing all their emergency benefits. This affects workers and students alike. Are you prepared to take action on this issue? You have also promised to implement employment incentives. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that, with a responsible reopening of the economy, we have to look at our programs to make sure that we are keeping and protecting people. That continues to be our approach. We will look at changes and improvements. In that way, we will continue our responsible reopening of the economy. +The Chair: We are going to take a break so that our employees can change shifts without jeopardizing their health. While we have a few seconds, I would also like to remind members to address their questions to the chair, not directly to the ministers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We'll now carry on. We'll go to Mr. Easter in Malpeque. +Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Brampton North. Today, June 1, under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization, we celebrate World Milk Day. World Milk Day allows us to emphasize the importance of milk as a global food, its benefits for our health as well as our nutrition; and to celebrate the dairy sector, from the primary producers to the processors who ensure that our many high-quality dairy products get to the marketplace. Canadians are fortunate to have a thriving dairy sector that, under supply management, provides high-quality products at reasonable prices to consumers. Even under supply management though, dairy farmers have found themselves facing difficult challenges as a result of recent trade agreements and sudden market shocks as a result of the pandemic. Mr. Chair, to acknowledge World Milk Day, I'd love to be able to raise a glass of wholesome white or chocolate milk, but we can't do that. On the other hand, I must ask the Minister of Agriculture what the government is doing to support the dairy sector in these times so we can celebrate World Milk Day next year with more vim and vigour. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank Mr. Easter, from the great riding of Malpeque in Prince Edward Island. Today it is particularly important to thank families working on the 11,000 dairy farms across the country, caring for 1.4 million cows to produce each year more than 9.3 billion litres of milk of the highest quality. The dairy sector in Canada is made up of more than 220,000 Canadians and foreign workers who dedicate their lives to feed us. While our society lives through unprecedented changes, the dairy sector demonstrates its resilience and proves more than ever the value of the supply management system. It is why we increased by $200 million the borrowing capacity of the Canadian Dairy Commission to improve its butter and cheese storage programs, giving the flexibility to manage the surplus of milk and support its mandate. Over the past few years, we have invested in dairy farms and given direct compensation to dairy farmers through trade agreements with Europe and Asia. We will do the same for the new NAFTA. Raise a glass for World Milk Day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sahota in Brampton North. +Ms. Ruby Sahota (Brampton North, Lib.): Mr. Chair, last week a horrific video surfaced showing the killing of an unarmed black man at the hands of the Minneapolis police. George Floyd's death was the latest in a series of unwarranted deaths of black men and women at the hands of police. Since his death, solidarity protests have erupted across cities in the United States and all over the world asking for justice and a stop to systemic dehumanization of black people. I wish I could say we are, but sadly we are not immune to the reality of what is happening south of the border. The same protests taking place in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris and London are also taking place in our own backyard. In cities like Montreal and Toronto, thousands of people have already taken to the streets, not only to decry anti-black racism but also to ask for tangible solutions to effectively combat anti-black racism. We don't have to wait for pain, suffering and outrage to boil to the surface to act. There's nothing we know today that we didn't already know. As Canadians are demonstrating and calling on their society and governments to do better, can the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth tell us what this government is doing to address anti-black racism in Canada and to ensure we are evening the playing field for black Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the MP for Brampton North is correct. Anti-black racism, racism and discrimination are present in Canada. With COVID-19, we have even seen a rise in anti-Asian racism. We all must speak out against racism and discrimination. Keeping silent is to condone these horrific acts. These acts don't have to be violent or result in the loss of life to be wrong. In fact, the actions of Amy Cooper shone a light on the stealth racism that exists. We must acknowledge inequities in our institutions and in people's lived experiences. If we as Canadians truly desire an inclusive Canada, every single one of us must step up, be an ally and do what we can to make workplaces, communities and public spaces safer. Our government has started this work. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in decision-making tables better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN International Decade for People of African Descent; the applications for capacity building in black Canadian communities are being assessed; the anti-racism secretariat is set up for Canadians but also for government departments to improve their systems, including advancement opportunities; and the recently announced immunity task force will provide disaggregated data to decision-makers because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. This work is by no means finished. Although our government is moving in the right decision, there is clearly a lot more work to do and we are committed to doing that work with communities as allies, as partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Duvall from Hamilton Mountain. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with the member for ElmwoodTranscona. Mr. Chair, workers' unions, business leaders and analysts across the country are raising a huge alarm over potential bankruptcies due to COVID-19. Thousands of Canadian workers are exposed and vulnerable. For years the government has promised to change the laws to protect workers from corporate bankruptcy, but has failed to deliver. Will this government fix the law before more Canadian workers lose their hard-earned pensions? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi (Minister of Labour): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the member for Hamilton Mountain for that question and for his advocacy on this file. I remind the member that since 2015 one of our first initiatives was the repealing of Bills C-525 and C-377, which were anti-union legislation. Since then, we've implemented a number of measures to protect workers. We've increased the wage earner protection program by extending it from four weeks to seven weeks. The member is well aware that in 2019 +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go back to Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, the changes the government made last year to bankruptcy insolvency laws were largely cosmetic and won't protect workers' and pensioners' livelihoods once bankruptcy hits. The government can protect severance, termination pay, pensions and benefits from corporate theft, but will they do it, yes or no? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we made a number of significant changes in budget 2019, including that the process for the CCAA be more open and transparent. We mandated that those who are coming to the process have to be honest and truthful. One thing we heard in the consultations was the ability for courts to set aside executive bonuses, and we implemented all those changes because we want to continue to protect pensioners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for a short question, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thanks, Mr. Chair. The minister isn't answering the question. Canadian workers are worried. This is about their livelihoods. Will the government fix the lawsyes or noto protect workers' and pensioners' rights? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Filomena Tassi: Mr. Chair, we have made amendments, and we are going to continue to make amendments. We want to absolutely ensure that pensions are protected. I look forward to working collaboratively with the member. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie, ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Twice, following negotiations with the NDP, the government has committed to provide direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities. I'm wondering when those people can expect the government to announce the details of that assistance. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we are committed to advancing on the issues that have been identified by Canadians with disabilities. We are continuing that engagement, and we will have more to say on that very soon. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: I think that answer is entirely inadequate. I have a lot of sympathy for people across the country who are living with disabilities and are getting impatient with the fact that alongside its initial commitment to seniors, for instance, the government made a commitment to helping people living with disabilities with the same kind of direct financial assistance, and it hasn't come. Why has it taken so long for the government to get around to helping people who are in a crisis right now? I want to know the reason why this hasn't been announced yet. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we have established the COVID-19 disability advisory group, comprising experts in disability inclusion. We're moving forward with the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide $2,000 per month for eligible students with permanent disabilities. We are doubling the Canada student grants for students with disabilities in the coming academic year. We have done a lot, but we will continue to do more, and we will have more to share on our continuing efforts to support persons with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie. You have time for one short question. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Their commitment was not around an advisory commitment. Their commitment was for direct financial assistance to people living with disabilities who are facing additional costs because of the pandemic. They have committed twice and they have done nothing. When are they going to get around to it? Why should people living with disabilities have to wait any longer than they already have? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, that is precisely why we are listening closely to the COVID-19 disability advisory group to get expert advice. We will have more to share. There is more work to come, and there will be results to be announced very soon. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. McLean, Calgary Centre. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. According to La Presse, federal cabinet ministers Steven Guilbeault , Catherine McKenna and Jonathan Wilkinson have been handed responsibility for crafting an economic recovery plan that aims to accelerate the green shift. True to form, this cabal around the Prime Minister has declared let's not let a good crisis go to waste. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his ministers have been working with environmental lobby groups for further financial support to engineer Canada's economy post COVID? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Middle Class Prosperity. +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, our most urgent priority is COVID-19 and the health and safety of Canadians. As we support Canadians through this time, we will also ensure our long-term economic, environmental and physical well-being. Our government remains committed to building a stronger and more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable, prosperous future for our kids and grandkids. Just like science is guiding us in our response to COVID-19, science will continue to guide us toward reduced pollution and in fighting climate change. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force for a resilient recovery was quoted as saying last week that they would have recommendations for government action available within eight weeks, notably eight weeks when Parliament is, by this government's design, absent. Can the Prime Minister disclose to this committee how many meetings his 61 environmental activist advisers have had with the task force or its members? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, our most urgent priority with respect to COVID-19 is the health and safety of Canadians. While supporting Canadians during this period, we must also ensure our economic, environmental and physical well-being in the long term. Our government remains committed to building a stronger, more resilient economy to ensure a sustainable future for our grandchildren and children. +Mr. Greg McLean: The task force is a who's who of academics and bureaucrats, but surprisingly, includes no one from the productive part of the Canadian economy. So much for pan-Canadian input. The task force is reviewing work produced by Smart Prosperity, a government-funded institute whose membership overlaps with both the task force and the government's own Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. This is a bureaucratic environmental Ponzi scheme, with overlapping personnel and mandates. The only thing not overlapping is their funding. How many organizations does this government need to fund to recycle work produced by other redundant government-funded entities? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, our priority right now is the health and safety of Canadians. Just as science guides us in our response to COVID-19, it will continue to guide us in reducing pollution and fighting climate change. Our priority is to support Canadians during this period and we must also ensure our environmental, economic and physical well-being in the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: A notable member of the task force in question is one Gerald Butts. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but can the Prime Minister confirm if this is the same Gerald Butts who was forced to resign as his principal secretary for his role in attempting to force Canada's then justice minister into breaking the law? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of this crisis, our priority has been to support Canadians and their health and safety. We will continue to do so, because it is important that we get through this crisis by supporting Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who was paid $360,000 U.S. by an American-funded organization after he started working with the Prime Minister? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, Mr.Chair, it is important to talk to Canadians right now to tell them that we are putting their health and safety first. We will continue to do so. We are going through a crisis right now and we will support Canadians. +Mr. Greg McLean: Mr. Chair, is this the same Gerald Butts who, in his role as the principal secretary in the office of Ontario's then premier, advanced policies that now saddle Ontarians with the highest energy costs in North America? Is this is the same Gerald Butts who weighed down Ontario with the world's highest subnational debt burden, all for the benefit of new green jobs that, notably, have never arrived? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, for the past two and a half months, we have been supporting Canadians. We have put forward an economic program to help businesses, workers and Canadians across the country. We will continue to make the health and safety of Canadians a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the MP for West Nova, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Yesterday, the Minister responsible for tourism, ACOA and official languages was happy to close our national Tourism Week by announcing investments of $70 million to offset financial losses in the tourism industry across Canada. Where's the big clap? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! Mr. Chris d'Entremont: There you go, give her a clap. More than $70 million will be invested to support this sector and promote Canadian destinations. Southern Ontario received $30 million, northern Ontario received $7 million and western Canada received $3.5 million. There's nothing for Atlantic Canada yet. Knowing that we just had an announcement from the Minister of Transport that there will be no cruise ships in Atlantic Canada or anywhere in Canada this year, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, where is the program for Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): Mr. Chair, I commend my colleague for his important question. I know he's a very strong advocate for the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada, so I want to reassure him. Obviously, we want to support the tourism sector in Atlantic Canada. ACOA has a clear direction to do just that. If he has any good ideas, please let him come forward and let's have a conversation. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada will also be supported through Destination Canada. Rather than doing marketing internationally, we will be supporting destination marketing organizations across the country, including in Atlantic Canada, to make sure that we launch this new movement to visit local. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: That would be all great if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic and you can't even cross the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border without having to self-isolate for two weeks. It's going to make travelling, through the Maritimes at least, very difficult. In Saint John, New Brunswick, 79 cruise ships and more than 270,000 passengers will not be giving back to that local community. At home in Nova Scotia, it's about 118 or 130 vessels. In terms of a minimum financial loss, $165 million will not be generated. There will be job losses and permanent closures of restaurants and boardwalk shops. Prince Edward Island, which was expected to have a record attendance year, will lose visits of 97 ships and 154,000 passengers, and $60 million to the province's economy will be lost. Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is this: Who is ACOA going to be working with, and what kinds of programs are going to be available to help them through this very difficult year? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I agree with my colleague. The sector is really impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. It is a bit like the canary in the coal mine; it was the first impacted, and definitely it is still impacted. That's why we are in close contact with tourism leaders and operators across the country. Again, recently I had good conversations with the chambers of commerce all across Atlantic Canada, including Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador for the tourism sector. There is money for the tourism sector and tourism operators. They can have access to the wage subsidy. They wanted to have access to it until later in the summer, and it has been extended to the end of August. They have access to the rent relief program, the CEBA and ACOA funding. As mentioned many times in this chamber, Mr. Chair, if my colleague has clear examples to provide me, let's work together. Let's make sure the money flows to these people, because they need it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have only about a minute left, Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, like the minister, last week, I spoke with Simon-Pierre Poulin, the director of Le Franco newspaper in Alberta, about the Sauvons Saint-Jean movement. He asked me why we could not continue to work on official languages and on modernizing the act even though Parliament is sitting in a different configuration. Unfortunately, I had to explain to him that many restrictions were associated with the current format of this fake Parliament. The pandemic is also threatening the protection of French in minority communities. The Liberal government made a commitment to modernize the Official Languages Act in the first six months of its mandate. How will it proceed? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that our two official languages are important and that, when it comes to language rights, we must always be on guard and protect what we have achieved. As for Campus Saint-Jean, I am very aware of the issue. I had the opportunity to speak with my two counterparts in Alberta late Friday afternoon to tell them about our concerns and the need to protect the institution from drastic cuts. That was the first point. The second point is the modernization of the Official Languages Act. I have the same concerns as my colleague. Clearly, we must continue the conversations and find the right solutions. Finally, we must be there to protect our language rights. If the member has good ideas, he can come to me to discuss them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for ChicoutimiLe Fjord has the floor. +Mr. Richard Martel (ChicoutimiLe Fjord, CPC): Mr.Chair, some people for whom the 15weeks of sickness benefits were not enough before the COVID-19crisis now have to exhaust their regular employment insurance benefits before they are entitled to the CERB. Today, I would like to know whether they will be able to exhaust their weeks of eligibility for the CERB after October3. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we ensured that those who switched over to the Canada emergency response benefit would be covered by it, whether they were EI eligible or not. We are committed to supporting all of the workers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. +Mr. Richard Martel: According to a survey conducted by the Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires' research institute on small and medium size businesses, the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region would be the most affected by the economic effects of COVID-19. This is not surprising. In fact, in our region, the tourism industry generates more than $300million in economic activity, including $58million for the cruise industry alone. The $70million that you announced yesterday is a very modest start. What does the government intend to do for the tourism industry in the regions? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Mr.Chair, it goes without saying that the tourism industry is indeed very much affected. That is why we are responding to their concerns and worries. We have therefore extended the emergency wage subsidy until the end of August. We are also providing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, as well as the $40,000loans from the Canada emergency business account. We have also just announced $70million in support for Canada's tourism sector. I am having good talks with various stakeholders in Quebec, including Martin Soucy from the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Qubec. In addition, we are going to do our part to support the tourism sector through Economic Development Canada. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, the tourism industry in the SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean region is the sum of all its stakeholders. Many of these businesses are too small to receive the assistance announced by the federal government. Overly restrictive standards will prevent some tourist accommodation from welcoming guests this year, even though they will have to pay their bills every month. What does the government plan to do to help the regions most affected economically? +Hon. Mlanie Joly: I thank my colleague for his important question. What he is describing is the reason we are currently working on a game plan. We really want to be able to reach these small businesses, of which there are many in SaguenayLac-Saint-Jean, in Quebec and across the country. That is why the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have committed an additional $1billion to help those businesses that fall through the cracks. We need to respond now, and I will have more to say about it in the next few days. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, I was very disappointed to see that we had lost asparagus crops due to a labour shortage. When I spoke with the blueberry growers in my area, they told me they were concerned that the same thing could happen to them. Some employers to whom we granted summer positions are not finding students to fill them. When will there be incentives to encourage people to work rather than disincentives? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we believe that the flexibilities we have introduced to the Canada summer jobs program will enable more employers to use it, including more businesses, as well as help young people to acquire the necessary skills and benefits from this really important program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Martel, you have about a minute left. +Mr. Richard Martel: Mr.Chair, on May19, the government said that it was studying several solutions to help business owners and entrepreneurs who operate their business using a personal bank account. When will the Canada emergency business account be available to them? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, small businesses are the heart of all of our communities, and we've been working really hard to help them. Almost 650,000 small businesses have received the loan, which is really helping with those costs. We have more work to do to make sure that those other businesses also get access to this support. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Epp, the member for Chatham-KentLeamington. +Mr. Dave Epp: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish to congratulate my colleague, Cathy McLeod. On Tuesday, May 26, she gained a new resident when Brinnley Lisette Huby was born to parents Adam and Carina Huby. Carina is my daughter, and that makes Brinnley my first grandchild and presently my favourite newest Canadian. All are healthy, and I thank God for Brinnley's healthy arrival. Some honourable members: Hear, hear! Mr. Dave Epp: Minister Jordan, the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation is allowed access to the seafood stabilization fund, while you deny its competitor, our Ontario fisheries that fish on the Great Lakes, the similar right to apply. Minister, why? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my colleague for the very good question. The Ontario inland fishers and the people in Ontario are eligible for other programs that are offered through the regional development agencies. We are going to make sure that no industry is left behind when it comes to our fisheries. We're making sure that we're addressing the concerns of inland fisheries as well as coastal fisheries. Those programs will be available to anyone who needs to apply through the RDAs. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, will you then direct these regional agencies to provide equitable funding equivalent to the seafood stabilization fund? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we're making sure that they have the same access to programs through the regional development agencies as there is through the seafood stabilization fund. We're making sure that everyone who is in need of support through the programs will be able to access it. +Mr. Dave Epp: According to Stats Canada, before my granddaughter turns one year old, her share of the federal debt will be over $39,000. What is Minister Morneau's fiscal plan for Canada so that the interest on this debt doesn't cripple Canada with higher taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we realize that it's always important to be responsible from a fiscal standpoint. We believe that the responsible approach today is to make investments to support Canadians and to support businesses. In that way we can have jobs and we can get through this pandemic and have a strong economy and be able to continue with our approach to managing our economy in a responsible +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: Minister, when can Parliament, or this semblance of it, see that plan for economic prosperity? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been quite clear that we need to be transparent on a daily basis by giving Canadians an understanding of the investments that we're making through this pandemic. Once the situation is more stable economically, we will certainly be coming forward with a broader plan. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said three months before the pandemic that this current government's level of spending and incurring of debt is untenable and that future generations, like my granddaughter, will have to pay for it. How much more debt is the minister planning to incur? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, coming into this pandemic in a strong fiscal position with the lowest amount of debt among the G7 countries is a function of our economy that's afforded us the opportunity to invest on behalf of Canadians. We will continue to take that approach. We believe that's the responsible thing to do through the course of this challenge. +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for stopping illegal American guns from getting through our borders? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question. I can tell you that we have invested considerable amounts of money and have earmarked ongoing monies to ensure that we address the issue of illegal guns passing across the border. We realize +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Epp. +Mr. Dave Epp: What's the budget, then, to fight government-trained and licensed Canadians in the court challenge that's now been triggered? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go to the honourable minister. We're not getting any audio. +Mr. Dave Epp: I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Could I have some more time, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Yes. We're just going to hold time here momentarily, Mr. Epp. +Hon. Marc Garneau: I apologize, Mr. Chair. Could I ask for the question to be repeated, please? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Epp, what is your question again? +Mr. Dave Epp: What is the budget for fighting the government-trained and licensed people who are now triggering a lawsuit against your order in council? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I don't have the answer to that question, but obviously the government will defend its position. +Mr. Dave Epp: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem of this government's policy of spending the cupboards bare in good times instead of planning for a rainy dayand folks, we're in a storm. Unlike this government, municipalities cannot by law say put it on the tab for the next generation. The balanced budget requirements force them to choose between slashed services and drastic tax hikes. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says they need $10 billion in targeted emergency operating funding, so do municipalities slash services, do they raise taxes, or will we be there for the municipalities? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Our government absolutely understands the crucial role municipalities play as the engine of our economy at all times, and particularly today, as in many parts of the country we are looking to restart the economy. That is why the Prime Minister announced just this morning that we will be accelerating payments under the gas tax fund. Municipalities will receive the full amount of their 2020-21 payment on June 10. This will help them with some of their near-term liquidity issues. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Mr. Manly, the member for NanaimoLadysmith. Mr. Manly, go ahead. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is not helping enough small businesses. Many landlords do not want to take part in the program. Small businesses are requesting that they be able to apply without the landlord's participation. Many small businesses do not meet the 70% income-loss threshold. Many did their best to keep employees engaged and tried hard to not lose clients, as the government urged them to do. They are, in fact, being penalized for that effort. Thousands of business owners across the country will not be able to pay their rent today and risk closing permanently. Will the government push the provinces to include an eviction moratorium during the pandemic and make this commercial rent assistance program more flexible to ensure small businesses can survive? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for the question, which recognizes the very serious challenge that many small businesses are facing during the course of this pandemic. We know that the programs we've put forward, programs like the emergency business account, are supporting businesses, but the emergency rent approach, on which we've worked together with provinces, can also help significantly. We are seeing a significant number of landlords and tenants coming forward with this and taking this up. I would encourage landlords to use this program, which is supporting them. Of course, the suggestion from the member that provinces take action in restricting evictions is one that I've been speaking about to ministers of finance from the provinces over the course of the last couple of months. This is an area of provincial jurisdiction. We are supportive and working hard to make sure this program works. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, this week marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and we are currently seeing repression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong. We know that Communist China oppresses minority groups and does not respect human rights. In spite of this knowledge, the Harper Conservative government signed a lopsided and anti-democratic investment treaty with China in 2012, the Canada-China FIPA. This Conservative deal gave Chinese state-owned corporations extraordinary powers to challenge our democratic decisions through a secretive private tribunal system. In the years since the FIPA was signed, with no vote in Parliament, Chinese state-owned corporations have been purchasing Canadian assets and resources. These corporations can seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers for the loss of potential profit when our laws and policies get in the way of their profit-taking. Can the government tell us whether any of these Chinese corporations has threatened to use the anti-democratic investor-state provisions of the FIPA to seek financial compensation from Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Franois-Philippe Champagne: As I'm sure the member will know, Canada is setting up with its allies around the world to protect the freedom and democracy that has been enjoyed by the people in Hong Kong. As he knows, we have issued a declaration with a number of allies we have called upon to make sure that measures remain in place to protect the freedom and liberty of the people of Hong Kong. We know that the one country, two systems treaty system has provided the framework under which the people of Hong Kong have been able to create an economy that is resilient and has made Hong Kong a place where people want to do business, commerce and trade. Mr. Chair, we have expressed our deep concern. I would refer the member to the joint statement we have issued with the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. We have spoken with one voice and we have said we have deep concerns that the actions by Beijing, if they were to proceed with this national security law unilaterally, would undermine the bedrock of what has made Hong Kong, and that we will review the impact that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Manly, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead; there's time for a short question. +Mr. Paul Manly: That was a trick question, because this anti-democratic agreement states that we wouldn't be able to have permission to disclose that information if there was, in fact, an investor-state dispute. Unlike NAFTA, which had a six-month period for renegotiation, the Harper Conservatives locked us into a 15-year agreement with the FIPA and this anti-democratic agreement. Will the government re-engage the special committee on Canada-China relations so we can do a thorough investigation of this Conservative sellout of Canadian democracy +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We are out of time, Mr. Manly. We'll go to the minister for a response. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada will always pursue trade in the interest of Canadians, and we are in the process of reviewing our FIPA agreements so those agreements can provide the right framework for Canadians to trade, with the interests of Canadians always top of mind. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Ashton in ChurchillKeewatinook Aski. Ms. Ashton, go ahead with your question. +Ms. Niki Ashton (ChurchillKeewatinook Aski, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. My question is to the Minister of Fisheries. This pandemic has hit Canadians hard. Import markets for our fish have dried up. This is devastating for inland fisheries. The season opened last week, and fishers are desperate for support. For indigenous fishers, fishing sustains their communities. It is their way of life. Will the government work with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and inland fishers to develop and facilitate the delivery of an emergency package that works for them and find ways to redirect product to domestic markets, including communities facing food insecurity now? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we've recognized how hard the pandemic has hit our fishers and our fishing sector. We've made available a number of different measures. One of the things we're doing primarily is the harvesters' benefit, which allows all harvesters to take advantage of a benefit as well as a grant contribution to help them get through. We're also changing EI so they can now qualify for their EI benefits based on previous seasons, not this one, recognizing they're going to face challenges this year. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Board is a Crown corporation. We know it's been a very difficult time for them. We are continuing to look at ways we can address the challenges within the industry and we'll continue to work with them to make sure we are addressing those needs. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Ashton, we have about one minute left. There's time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Niki Ashton: My question is to the Minister of Transport. Canadians are being ripped off by airlines that are refusing to give passengers their money back. Airlines are profiting off Canadians during a very desperate time. This government has sat by while the Canadian Transportation Agency issued a statement to back up the airlines' appalling actions. What is this government doing to fix this? Why aren't they ensuring that public funds involve reimbursing passengers and an equity stake for Canadians? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I certainly recognize the very difficult situation and the frustration of Canadians who would have preferred a refund. At the same time, at this point if airlines were required to immediately reimburse all the cancelled tickets, it would have a devastating effect on the airlines. That is why the Canadian Transportation Agency, which is an independent body, recommended that vouchers be issued and that they have a reasonable time to be usedtwo years. It is also very important to bear in mind that as we begin to exit this pandemic, we must still have an airline industry in this country. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we're going to the honourable member for Victoria, Ms. Collins. Please go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, in Victoria housing and homelessness were at a crisis point long before the pandemic hit, but now people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. If you don't have a place to live, you don't have the luxury of following public health advice and staying home. As part of the recovery, will this government be increasing funding to build or buy the housing needed to address homelessness? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, very early in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our government provided $157.5 million directly to 51 community entities to respond directly to the needs of homeless Canadians. We also provided $50 million in additional money to women's shelters. We are continuing with the national housing strategy. We are providing supports to communities and NGOs, as well as municipalities that are moving projects forward. +Ms. Laurel Collins: Mr. Chair, the federal government allocated just $1.3 million in Reaching Home funds to my region. While the province has stepped up, it cost them $18.5 million to purchase just one hotel in Victoria. The federal funding is clearly inadequate. Is the government going to show some leadership and at least match the provincial funds? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we moved very quickly. The $157.5 million, I must note, was additional money on top of the base funding that we provide every year to address the needs of Canada's most vulnerable. In addition to that, our projects under the national housing strategy are continuing. We are providing leadership. We are trusting the community entities to make the decisions on where the funding goes and to respond in a way that meets the +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Collins, you have about 40 seconds left, which is time for a short question. Go ahead. +Ms. Laurel Collins: The minister mentioned the national housing strategy. This government's national housing strategy reduces the level of targeted funding for lower-income households, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. My question is simple: Coming out of the pandemic in the coming months, is the government going to increase housing funding to address the immediate need, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I disagree with the honourable member. Our money is targeted to communities. They have community advisory boards that decide how to spend the money. If the NDP does not trust local communities to make decisions, they should say so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for Joliette, Mr.Ste-Marie, to take the floor. Go ahead, Mr.Ste-Marie. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last time I checked, we still had a democratic system and the government had to remain accountable. The government needs to present a picture of the economic situation and a picture of its overall emergency measures. Does the government intend to extend the measures over the summer? If so, how will it do so? The government must also present its working scenarios for the economic recovery. The government needs to be transparent. When will the government provide its economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the hon. member for his questions. I agree, it is very important to be transparent and to provide the necessary information to Canadians. Every day, we announce measures, of course, but also the cost of the measures and the amount of the investments. It is very important. The challenge at the moment is the economic situation, which is very fluid. When the situation is more stable, we will have the opportunity to give an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: In my opinion, Mr.Chair, it will really be too late to do the economic update when things are more stable. We have been asking for an economic update for the past month. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been urging the government to table an economic update in a timely manner. With only three weeks left in the House before the summer, the clock is ticking. The Quebec government will table its economic update later this month. Will the federal government follow suit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, let me confirm that we will continue to be transparent about the investments; it is very important. Of course, each day we work to make sure we have a solid grasp of the economic situation. As I said, when the situation is a little more stable, we will have the opportunity to explain our situation with an economic update. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Once again, Mr.Chair, when the situation is more stable, it will be too late to do an economic update; instead we will have to table a budget with the recovery in mind. Speaking of the recovery, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is surprised that the government is calling on the private sector for ideas for its recovery plan. Mr.Giroux points out that this government has thousands of public servants with very good ideas, and he adds that the government can also ask for the opposition parties' views. That would be a very good idea. Why is the government contracting out the development of its recovery plan to the private sector? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I would like to tell the hon. member that it is important to listen to what we are trying to do, and to listen to people's ideas and opinions, not only in Parliament, but also from our society. So we keep listening. Of course, with our approach, we will address the economic recovery in a way that will ensure we can maintain our very strong position. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we are still surprised that the government has contracted out its recovery plan to the private sector. The sooner the government tables its recovery plan, the better. Businesses and individuals would start gaining confidence in the economy again. It would help them to loosen the purse strings and be assured that there will be economic life after the pandemic. Again, that is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer says. Can the government tell us when it will table its recovery plan? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we feel it is very important to consider what we need to do in each phase of our recovery. At this time, it is necessary to consider the public health situation and the gradual reopening of our economy. That is why we feel our approach aims for a safe recovery. Obviously, by gathering more information in Phase3, we will be able to consider more than one approach to recovery. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Ste-Marie, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Thank you. I understand that the exact date for tabling the recovery plan may be difficult to determine at this time. Can the minister tell us whether he currently intends to table the recovery plan in a month ending in ber? If not, will it be before or after that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We continue to work with the provinces on an approach to determine the timing of the recovery, and we are also listening to our colleagues in Parliament, of course. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to the honourable member for Abbotsford, Mr. Fast. +Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister continues to pander to the Communist regime in China. We were shocked to hear that his own Minister of Digital Government used WeChat, a Chinese social media site, to raise funds to sue a Global News reporterfor what? It was for daring to expose China's attempt to hoard PPE during the COVID crisis. Is it the practice of the government to support lawsuits against Canadian reporters who challenge the hostile actions of the regime in China, and will the Prime Minister now condemn the actions of the digital government minister? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media across the country and the world. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is not acceptable. As many members on all sides of the House know, WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with the Chinese-Canadian community. Participation in this group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted guidelines and a disclaimer. In this case, the individual who violated the guidelines of the group is no longer a part of that group. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, Canadians have no reason to trust the Prime Minister on anything to do with China, especially when it comes to trade policy. Two and a half years ago, the Prime Minister travelled to China to commence free trade negotiations, and the talks ended up in complete failure and embarrassment. Still the Prime Minister continues to cozy up to the Chinese regime, refusing to ban Huawei from our 5G network or to speak out convincingly against China's oppression in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the two Michaels are continuing to languish in Chinese jails. This is the kind of partner the Prime Minister wants to negotiate a trade agreement with. Can the minister tell us whether at any time during the last six months the Prime Minister or anyone else in his government has had discussions with China about a free trade agreement? A simple yes or no will do. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as you know, Canada has a complex and multi-dimensional relationship with China. Canada will continue to engage with China with eyes wide open. Any work that we do on trade and on all matters will always be in the interests of Canadians first. +Hon. Ed Fast: I think Canadians will see that the minister didn't even answer a simple yes-or-no question, so I'll ask her a simpler yes-or-no question. Is she or anyone else in her government presently discussing or negotiating a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we will always do our work, including any discussions on trade and indeed all of our work, with the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses as our absolute top priority. +Hon. Ed Fast: Again, there was no answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister now assure Canadians that she and the Prime Minister's government will not negotiate a free trade agreement with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: Any work that we do will always be guided by the best interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I am just flabbergasted. This minister has been asked three times if the government is negotiating a trade agreement. She refuses to answer, so I'll try again. Will the minister tell us why she thinks negotiating a trade agreement with a hostile country like China is in Canada's best interests? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for the question. The answer is no. +Hon. Ed Fast: Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure. Free trade is a good thing when it takes place between like-minded countries that embrace free market principles and apply the rule of law. China is not such a country. In fact, China repeatedly flouts international trade rules, illegally dumps underpriced goods into Canada, and prevents Canadian canola, beef and pork from entering China. Is has also jailed Canadians without due process. Will the minister now assure us that our government will not negotiate any free trade agreements with China, yes or no? +Hon. Mary Ng: We are not in discussions with China on a free trade agreement, and as my colleagues, including the Prime Minister and the foreign minister, have said many times in this House and outside of this House, our priority continues to be the immediate release of Canadians detained in China. We will always work in the interests of Canadians and Canadian businesses. That is what we will always do. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This will conclude today's sitting of the special committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore this committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The Chair of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hon. Anthony Rota, called a hybrid meeting to order. The meeting involved discussions of various issues, including the functioning of hybrid sessions, ministerial announcements, tabled documents, and petitions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other matters. + +Specifically, MPs discussed the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), concerns about businesses accessing the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), the morality of the Liberal Party utilizing the emergency wage subsidy, and the government's response to issues faced by the tourism industry and regions heavily affected by the pandemic's economic impact. Additionally, concerns were raised about addressing anti-black racism in Canada, support for seniors, protecting pensions from corporate bankruptcy, and government transparency regarding economic recovery plans. + +Hon. Dominic LeBlanc mentioned that MPs would be updated on various government programs through regular briefings, and the government continues to respond to the emergency and plan for economic recovery. Hon. Ahmed Hussen highlighted the government’s efforts in supporting workers and students, while Hon. Bill Morneau stressed the importance of fiscal responsibility and support measures for Canadians. MPs also questioned the government's stance on housing funding, negotiations with China, and the treatment of Canadian journalists reporting on China. + +The meeting included statements by members on varied topics, such as the support for individuals affected by the cancellation of euthanasia safeguards, the recognition of Somaliland as an autonomous state, communal efforts during the pandemic, celebration of Filipino Heritage Month, the acknowledgment of World Milk Day, and the importance of high-speed Internet access. MPs also discussed the implications of anti-racism protests, the defense of Hong Kong's autonomy, and the impact of COVID-19 on the dairy industry." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hello everyone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hi . +Marketing: Hi . +Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good . +Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting , more or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working , meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given . Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use . Um it's also an item that people lose a lot . So we should address that . And , of course , it should be something s s that is very simple to use . In addition to that to make it sell , of course , uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because , in particular with smaller items , that's a very important fact , 'cause um if they say , well , I go home and think about it , that won't work . Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve . And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip . Therefore , messages uh will be controlled in the same manner . There should be extra features like lid buttons , maybe a beep . If too many buttons are pressed , mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time , you know , what show they want to watch . Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes . So the components of the thing should be button , bulbs , infra infra-red bulbs , battery , chips , wires , and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item . Francino who is our um +User Interface: Interface designer . +Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it , of course , should have an on-off button , and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock . Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable . It should be compact . Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped . And maybe have an anar alarm-clock . And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature . Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves . Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time ? Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think that pretty much is it . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations . And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh , I don't I don't think so , so whoever w wants {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , I can start first . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . Now my slide , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , your slides . Okay . Oh , come on , close already . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's number two , right ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Participant three . Yes . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Now as an interface designer , I would give more emphasis on the interface , how the remote looks like so that it is sellable , it is attractive to customers . Next , please . Okay . Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television . This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel , like you can have the numbers one , two , three , four , up to nine . +Project Manager: Nine what ? Nine channel uh switches ? +User Interface: Pardon me ? +Project Manager: Nine channel switches ? Is {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , nine numbers . And then you have swapping of uh button +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa . Then it should have a next button , and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television . For example , if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English , then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour , colour of the picture , the contrast , sharpness , brightness of the picture . Now there should be a memory switch . There should be a mute button . Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call , and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_ , but he he can reduce the sound , he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_ . Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature . It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit . So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers , you can record your own voice +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television , for example , if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel , uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah , the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have . So this is one one of the interface which can be created . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , please , next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour , but they have many buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that . So you can you can design an interface which is very simple , and which is user-friendly . Even a kid can use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide . Yeah , so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use , it can be used for T_V_ , it can be used for cable-satellite , it can be used for V_C_R_ , D_V_D_s and audio . And this has in-built voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide ? Yeah , now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly , it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it . And this comes with different colours , different shapes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small , compact , attractive child interface . Next slide , please . Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You don't know me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big , you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created . {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Right . +User Interface: Thank you , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , thank you very much . Uh any comments on uh her presentation ? +Marketing: Well , um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more . I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good , the child one is good , the too big to misplace , I think it's just funny . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think the these are her presentations , but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after +Marketing: Yeah mm . Mm-hmm . Have to come back to that later . Okay . +User Interface: We can . +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation . +Marketing: No , I think her presentation was good , and she really explored all the options . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm right . Mm-hmm . Ho who wants to go next um ? Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: and you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the next one , sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one . +Project Manager: The components design . +Industrial Designer: Components . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , can you go on to the next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit , battery , etcetera , etcetera , it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one , hard plastic , so that it can be strong , even if you just uh uh , {vocalsound} you know , if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down , then it doesn't {vocalsound} break . So it should be strong . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that . And it should be recyclable . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound} , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Good point . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours , blue , red , green , so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components . And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller . If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one . And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures . Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside , it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures . And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility . And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery , capacitor . Can you go on to the next slide , please ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh a diode , a transistor , a resonator , these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller . A battery uh , I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery , even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery . Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one , then uh people can use it for a long time , so in that way we can cut cut the cost , but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one . And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller . Can you go to the next slide , please . And how it works , how the remote controller works . +Project Manager: Go away . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Uh when you press a button , when you do that , you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button , and it will send some signals through the wires , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed . Suppose you have pressed channel one button , number one you have pressed , then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button . Every button , every individual button , has its own morse code . Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one , then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button , and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button . That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit . Now , that signal , that morse code , has to be amplified by the transistor . That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller . It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits . The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately , that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal , then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do . Then it will do the appropriate action . So uh this is how the remote controller works . +User Interface: It works . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Yeah , I have few pictures . When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller . And {gap} to the next slide , please . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all . And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor , three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah , and di and a diode transistor . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah , di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor , and a uh uh cylinder shape , uh that one is a capacitor . Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry , ther there is a diode . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board . The green one is a circuit board . Actually , uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive . Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper , because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires , it's it's better to go for printing , because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing , nothing like uh , you know , you don't need to use wires and all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using . It's just printing something on a board . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits . So th that green uh thing is a circuit board , and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons , like when you press a button , the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the , yeah , um integrated circuit . +User Interface: Transmit . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons . Uh can you see the black uh , round marks ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Next , please . And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls . Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it , but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range . Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery , a more ingenious uh hard dynamo , um a kinetic provision of energy , more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy . So that also we can have in a battery , uh or we can use solar sells . Uh . +Marketing: Hmm , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases . Uh usually , the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have more pictures . Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe d uh I have just one more slide , I think . Um . Like we can have a ma material such as plastic , rubber , wood , titanium , but titanium we can't use . Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print , um also infra it includes the infrared se sender . Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker . An Yeah , that's it . It's all for me now , +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you . +Industrial Designer: thank you . +Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , on the scroll and the push-button , um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , th the the the scrolling wheels are different , like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls , uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now , nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons . +Marketing: Um . We'll just go for push buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah , push-buttons . Yeah . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision , and the marketing expert has to present her her thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Um alright , my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing , and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition , so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers . I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing . And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that , I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have , and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it . And I would encourage you all to do the same . Um and my findings from this is that , you know , small is beautiful . Um people like something that really fits in their hand . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Simple is beautiful . They don't want to have to squint at small print um , they want buttons whose functions are obvious , and they want um as few buttons as possible , and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing . They want each button to do something . And eye-catching is important . It's gotta look cute , it's gotta look appealing . Go ahead , I'm trying to finish fast for you . Um {vocalsound} and our preference is , as far as I'm concerned , are we got to get to the market before the competition . Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others , so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item . And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign . If we try to tell people it has too many great features , um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere . So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things , I think , that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product . And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular . And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular . And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal . They are more back into soft feel , spongy feeling things , things with maybe a little cloth on them . So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone . And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: of the remote ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours , and limit yours a bit ? +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes , I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned ? +User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w +Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature . +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that {gap} be really good , yeah , I agree with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work , because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems , issues . +Marketing: Distance problem ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices , so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system , it's a costly thing , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it's it's , uh yeah , it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already , and then you're expecting an answer from th For example , you have a T_V_ system , I'm the user and my family members are the user , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I will already record uh a question like , uh good morning , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on . It will recognise my voice and will switch on . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , before we get too far off here um , the components of the concept is the energy . What kind of energy do we foresee ? Battery . +Marketing: I think I think battery , +Project Manager: Battery . +User Interface: Battery . +Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And the case . And I think we all agree on the case , we wanna have something uh maybe bright , colourful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright , colourful , trendy trendy design , and strong . +User Interface: And compact . +Industrial Designer: And also strong . +User Interface: Trendy design and compact . +Industrial Designer: Trendy , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Trendy design , compact and strong . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: User interface concept , uh {vocalsound} interface type , supplements +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That will be your area I think , right , Jana . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Um like the switches , like we use buttons for user interface . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: yeah . And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons , like can have a f mute button or a swapping button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think that {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement . +Project Manager: Oh . A what ? +Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement . +Project Manager: Right , right , right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Recogniser . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes , and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then , to have the look and feel design , and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: In this phase , the two of you , Jana and Francine , have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay , it says here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um if you have any questions , you know , you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach , I suppose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes , according to our timetable here . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you . +","Summary: + +The project team, consisting of a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing expert, met to discuss the development of a new remote control product. They reviewed the previous meeting's minutes where the marketing manager’s strategy of incorporating suggestions from the team was discussed, emphasizing ease of use, loss-prevention, and attractiveness of the product. + +The User Interface Designer focused on the importance of a sellable, attractive remote design. Key features discussed included channel locks for children, a T-shape design, non-allergic materials, energy-saving features, a timer, and notably, a speech recognition feature. + +The Industrial Designer detailed the technical aspects, covering the components necessary for the remote such as chips, resistors, capacitors, and batteries. Ideas for rechargeable batteries and alternative energy sources such as solar were suggested. The importance of a sturdy, yet recyclable case was also emphasized. + +Marketing provided insights into competitive research, design preferences, and market timing. Small, simple, and eye-catching designs were advised, focusing on a couple of standout features for better marketability. + +The team agreed on using batteries for energy, a chip on print, and a strong, trendy case design. They also discussed having push-buttons for the user interface with additional features like speech recognition if cost-effective. + +Action items before the next meeting include working on look and feel design, user interface design, and product evaluation. The Industrial and User Interface Designers are tasked with creating a prototype using modeling clay, with instructions provided by their coaches. The meeting concluded with plans to reconvene in thirty minutes." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} We {disfmarker} we had a meeting with , uh {disfmarker} with Hynek , um , in {disfmarker} in which , uh , uh , Sunil and Stephane , uh {vocalsound} summarized where they were and {disfmarker} and , uh , talked about where we were gonna go . So that {disfmarker} that happened sort of mid - week . Uh . +PhD E: D did {disfmarker} did you guys get your code pushed together ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was updated yesterday , +PhD E: Cool . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You probably received the mail . +PhD E: Oh , right , I saw {disfmarker} I saw the note . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What was the update ? +PhD A: What was the update ? So there is th then {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the new features that go in . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: The , um , noise suppression , the re - synthesis of speech after suppression . These are the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is the , um {disfmarker} the CVS mechanism working {pause} well ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Are {disfmarker} are people , uh , up at OGI grabbing code uh , via that ? +PhD D: Uh , I don't think {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I don't know if they use it , but . +PhD D: Yeah , I I don't think anybody up there is like {pause} working on it right now . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mmm . +Professor B: I think it more likely that what it means is that when Sunil is up there {vocalsound} he will grab it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So right now nobody 's working on Aurora there . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} Yeah . They 're working on a different task . +PhD E: I see . I see . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: But what 'll happen is {disfmarker} is he 'll go back up there and , uh , Pratibha will come back from {disfmarker} from , uh , the east coast . Uh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I guess actually , uh , after Eurospeech for a little bit , uh , he 'll go up there too . So , actually everybody {vocalsound} who 's working on it {comment} will be up there for at least a little while . So they 'll remotely access it {vocalsound} from there . +PhD E: So has {disfmarker} Has anybody tried remotely accessing the CVS using , uh , uh , SSH ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um , I don't know if Hari did that or {disfmarker} You d +PhD D: I {comment} can actually do it today . I mean , I can just log into {disfmarker} +PhD E: Have you tried it yet ? +PhD D: No , I didn't . So I I 'll try it today . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Good idea . +PhD A: Actually I {disfmarker} I tried wh while {disfmarker} when I installed the {pause} repository , I tried from Belgium . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I logged in there and I tried {pause} to import {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah ? It worked good ? +PhD A: Yeah , it works . +PhD E: Oh , good ! +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} So , right now it 's the mechanism with SSH . +PhD D: Oh . +PhD E: Great ! +PhD A: I don't {pause} s I didn't set up {disfmarker} You can also set up a CVS server {pause} on a new port . It 's like well {pause} uh , a main server , or d You can do a CVS server . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Then that 's using the CVS password mechanism and all that , +PhD A: But . Yeah , right . +PhD E: right ? +PhD A: But I didn't do that because I was not sure about {pause} security problems . I {disfmarker} I would have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: So w when you came in from Belgian {disfmarker} {comment} Belgium , using SSH , uh , was it asking you for your own {pause} password into ICSI ? So if yo you can only do that if you have an account at ICSI ? +PhD A: Right . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Cuz there is an {disfmarker} a way to set up anonymous CVS right ? +PhD A: Yeah , you ha in this way you ca you have to set up a CVS server but then , yeah , you can access it . +PhD E: So that {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: you {disfmarker} you can set up priorities . +PhD E: So the anonymous mechanism {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can access them and mostly if you {disfmarker} if y the set the server is set up like this . +PhD E: OK . Because a lot of the open source stuff works with anonymous CVS and I 'm just wondering {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for our transcripts we may want to do that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , for this stuff I don't think we 're {pause} quite up to that . I mean , we 're still so much in development . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , +Professor B: We want to have just the insiders . +PhD E: yeah , yeah . Oh , I wasn't suggesting for this . I 'm {pause} thinking of the Meeting Recorder {comment} stuff +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: but . Yeah . OK . Cool . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What 's new ? +Professor B: Well , I mean , I think maybe the thing to me might be {disfmarker} I me I 'm sure you 've just been working on {disfmarker} on , uh , details of that since the meeting , right ? And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm , since the meeting , well , I {disfmarker} I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been train training a new VAD and a new {pause} feature net . +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} that was Tuesday . OK . +PhD A: So they should be ready . Um . +Professor B: But I guess maybe the thing {disfmarker} since you weren't {disfmarker} yo you guys weren't at that {disfmarker} that meeting , might be just {disfmarker} just to , um , sort of recap , uh , the {disfmarker} the conclusions of the meeting . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oh , great . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: You 're talking about the meeting with Hynek ? +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz that was sort of , uh {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 'd sort of been working up to that , that {disfmarker} that , uh , he would come here this week and {disfmarker} and we would sort of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Since he 's going out of town like now , and I 'm going out town in a couple weeks , uh , and time is marching , sort of , given all the mu many wonderful things we could be working on , what {disfmarker} what will we actually focus on ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and what do we freeze ? And , you know , what do we {disfmarker} ? So , um . I mean , this {pause} software that these guys created was certainly a {disfmarker} a key part . So then there 's something central and there aren't at least a bunch of different versions going off in {disfmarker} in ways that {pause} differ {pause} trivially . Uh , um , and , um , +PhD E: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's nice . +Professor B: and then within that , I guess the idea was to freeze a certain set of options for now , to run it , uh , a particular way , and decide on what things are gonna be experimented with , as opposed to just experimenting with everything . So keep a certain set of things constant . So , um . Uh , maybe describe roughly what {disfmarker} what we are keeping constant for now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Well . So we 've been working like six weeks on {disfmarker} on the noise compensation and we end up with something that seems reasonable . Um . +PhD E: Are you gonna use {disfmarker} which of the two techniques ? +PhD A: So finally it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um , Wiener filtering on FFT bins . And it uses , uh , two steps , smoothing of the transfer function , the first step , that 's along time , which use recursion . And {vocalsound} after this step there is a further smoothing along frequency , which use a sliding window of twenty FFT bins . Mmm . And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this is on the {disfmarker} uh , before any mel scaling has been done ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was {disfmarker} +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this smoothing is done on the estimate , um , of what you 're going to subtract ? Or on the thing that has already had something subtracted ? +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , {vocalsound} it 's on the transfer function . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , it 's on the transfer function for the Wiener filter . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so basically we tried {vocalsound} different configuration within this idea . We tried u u applying this on mel bands , having spectral subtraction instead of wiener filtering . Um . Well , finally we end up with {pause} this configuration that works , uh , quite well . So we are going to fix this for the moment and work on the other aspects of {vocalsound} the whole system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , let me int eh , Dave isn't here to talk about it , but let me just interject . This module , in principle , i I mean , you would know whether it 's {vocalsound} true in fact , is somewhat independent from the rest of it . I mean , because you {disfmarker} you re - synthesize speech , right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Uh , well you don't {disfmarker} I guess you don't re - synthesize speech , but you could {disfmarker} +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we do not fo +Professor B: Uh , but you could . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well , we do , but we don't {disfmarker} don't re - synthesize . In {disfmarker} in the program we don't re - synthesize and then re - analyze once again . We just use the clean FFT bins . +Professor B: But you have a re - synthesized thing that you {disfmarker} that 's an {disfmarker} an option here . +PhD A: This is an option that {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I gu I guess my point is that , um , i in some of the work he 's doing in reverberation , one of the things that we 're finding is that , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for an artificial situation , we can just deal with the reverberation and his techniques work really well . But for the real situation uh , problem is , is that you don't just have reverberation , you have reverberation in noise . And if you don't include that in the model , it doesn't work very well . So in fact it might be a very nice thing to do , to just take the noise removal part of it and put that in front of what he 's looking at . And , uh , generate new files or whatever , and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} and then do the reverberation part . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Anyway . +PhD E: So Dave hasn't {pause} tried that yet ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} I mean , e +PhD E: I guess he 's busy with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , prelims , right . +Grad C: Pre - prelim hell . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but {disfmarker} but , you know , that 'll {disfmarker} uh , it 's clear that we , uh {disfmarker} we are not {disfmarker} with the real case that we 're looking at , we can't just look at reverberation in isolation because the interaction between that and noise is {disfmarker} is considerable . And that 's I mean , in the past we 've looked at , uh , and this is hard enough , the interaction between channel effects and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} and additive noise , uh , so convolutional effects and {disfmarker} and additive effects . And that 's hard enough . I mean , I don't think we really {disfmarker} I mean , we 're trying to deal with that . In a sense that 's what we 're trying to deal with in this Aurora task . And we have , uh , the , uh , uh , LDA stuff that in principle is doing something about convolutional effects . And we have the noise suppression that 's doing something about noise . Uh , even that 's hard enough . And {disfmarker} and the on - line normalization as well , in that s category . i i There 's all these interactions between these two and that 's part of why these guys had to work so hard on {disfmarker} on juggling everything around . But now when you throw in the reverberation , it 's even worse , because not only do you have these effects , but you also have some long time effects . And , um , so Dave has something which , uh , is doing some nice things under some conditions with {disfmarker} with long time effects but when it 's {disfmarker} when there 's noise there too , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty hard . So we have to start {disfmarker} Since any {disfmarker} almost any real situation is gonna have {disfmarker} uh , where you have the microphone distant , is going to have both things , we {disfmarker} we actually have to think about both at the same time . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um {disfmarker} So there 's this noise suppression thing , which is sort of worked out and then , uh , maybe you should just continue telling what {disfmarker} what else is in the {disfmarker} the form we have . +PhD A: Yeah , well , {vocalsound} the , um , the other parts of the system are the {disfmarker} the blocks that were already present before and that we did not modify a lot . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} again , that {disfmarker} that 's the Wiener filtering , followed by , uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's done at the FFT level . Then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , th then the mel filter bank , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: then the log operation , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the filtering is done in the frequency domain ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . And then the mel and then the log , and then the +PhD A: Then the LDA filter , +Professor B: LDA filter . +PhD A: mmm , then the downsampling , +Professor B: And then uh downsample , +PhD A: DCT , +Professor B: DCT , +PhD A: then , um , on - line normalization , +Professor B: on - line norm , +PhD A: followed by {pause} upsampling . Then finally , we compute delta and we put the neural network also . +Professor B: Right , and then in parallel with {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a neural net . And then following neural net , some {disfmarker} probably some orthogonalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Um . +PhD A: And finally frame dropping , which um , {vocalsound} would be a neural network also , used for estimated silence probabilities . And the input of this neural network would be somewhere between log {pause} mel bands or one of the earlier stages of the processing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . So that 's sort of {disfmarker} most of this stuff is {disfmarker} yeah , is operating parallel with this other stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So the things that we , um , uh , I guess we sort of {disfmarker} uh , There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , neat ideas for {vocalsound} V A So , I mean , in {disfmarker} I think there 's sort of like {disfmarker} There 's a bunch of tuning things to improve stuff . There 's questions about {pause} various places where there 's an exponent , if it 's the right exponent , or {pause} ways that we 're estimating noise , that we can improve estimating noise . And there 's gonna be a host of those . But structurally it seemed like the things {disfmarker} the main things that {disfmarker} that we brought up that , uh , are {disfmarker} are gonna need to get worked on seriously are , uh , uh , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a significantly better VAD , uh , putting the neural net on , um , which , you know , we haven't been doing anything with , the , uh , neural net at the end there , and , uh , the , uh , {vocalsound} opening up the second front . Uh . +PhD E: The other half of the channel ? +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , I mean , cuz we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have , uh , uh , half the {disfmarker} the , uh , data rate that they allow . +PhD E: That what you mean ? +Professor B: And , uh , so the initial thing which came from , uh , the meeting that we had down south was , uh , that , um , we 'll initially just put in a mel spectrum as the second one . It 's , you know , {pause} cheap , easy . Uh . There 's a question about exactly how we do it . We probably will go to something better later , but the initial thing is that cepstra and spectra behave differently , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so . Um , {comment} I think Tony Robinson used to do {disfmarker} I was saying this before . I think he used to do mel , uh , spectra and mel cepstra . He used them as alternate features . Put them together . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: So if you took the system the way it is now , the way it 's fro you 're gonna freeze it , and it ran it on the last evaluation , where it would it be ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . It , uh , +PhD E: In terms of ranking ? +PhD A: Ri - right now it 's second . +PhD D: Second . +PhD A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Although you {disfmarker} you know , you haven't tested it actually on the German and Danish , have you ? +PhD A: No , we didn't . No , um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So on the ones that you did test it on it would have been second ? +Professor B: Yeah . Would it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} When you 're saying second , you 're comparing to the numbers that the , uh {disfmarker} that the best system before got on , uh {disfmarker} also without German and Danish ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD D: And th the ranking actually didn't change after the German and Danish . So , yeah . +Professor B: Well ranking didn't before , but I 'm just asking where this is to where theirs was without the German and Danish , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where were we actually on the last test ? +Professor B: Oh , we were also esp essentially second , although there were {disfmarker} there were {disfmarker} I mean , we had a couple systems and they had a couple systems . And so , I guess by that {pause} we were third , but I mean , there were two systems that were pretty close , that came from the same place . +PhD E: Uh - huh . I see . OK . +Professor B: Uh , so institutionally we were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we were second , with , uh , the third {disfmarker} third system . +PhD E: We 're {disfmarker} so this second that you 're saying now is system - wide second ? +Professor B: See {disfmarker} Uh , no I think it 's also institutional , isn't it ? +PhD E: Still institutionally second ? +Professor B: Right ? I mean , I think both of their systems probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , we are between their two systems . So +Professor B: Oh , are we ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} It is a triumph . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is it ? +PhD D: Their {disfmarker} their first system is fifty - four point something . And , uh , we are fifty - three point something . +PhD A: But everything is {pause} within the range of one {disfmarker} one percent . +PhD D: And their second system is also fifty - three point something . Yeah , one percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so basically they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all pretty close . +PhD E: Oh , wow ! +PhD A: So . +PhD E: That 's very close . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , {vocalsound} um , you know , in some sense we 're all doing fairly similar things . Uh , I mean , one could argue about the LDA and so forth but I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in a lot of ways we 're doing very similar things . But what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +PhD E: So how did they fill up this {disfmarker} all these {disfmarker} these bits ? I mean , if we 're u +Professor B: Um , why are we using half ? Well , so you could {disfmarker} you c +PhD E: Yeah . Or how are they using more than half , I guess maybe is what I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} uh , you guys are closer to it than me , so correct me if I 'm wrong , but I {disfmarker} I think that what 's going on is that in {disfmarker} in both cases , some kind of normalization is done to deal with convola convolutional effects . Uh , they have some cepstral {pause} modification , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? In our case we have a couple things . We have the on - line normalization and then we have the LDA RASTA . And {pause} they seem to comple complement each other enough and be different enough that they both seem to help {disfmarker} help us . But in any event , they 're both doing the same sort of thing . But there 's one difference . The LDA RASTA , uh , throws away high modulation frequencies . And they 're not doing that . +PhD E: So th So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that if you throw away high modulation frequencies , then you can downsample . +Grad C: Get down . +PhD E: I see . I see . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what if you didn't {disfmarker} So do you explicitly downsample then ? Do we explicitly downsample ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: And what if we didn't do that ? Would we get worse performance ? +PhD A: Um {pause} Yeah , not better , not worse . +Professor B: I think it doesn't affect it , does it ? +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So I think the thing is , since we 're not evidently throwing away useful information , let 's try to put in some useful information . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so I {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've found in a lot of ways for quite a while that having a second stream uh , helps a lot . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's put in , and you know , it may even end up with mel spectrum even though I 'm saying I think we could do much better , just because it 's simple . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . And you know , in the long run having something everybody will look at and say , "" oh , yeah , I understand "" , is {disfmarker} is very helpful . +PhD E: So you would {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} You 're thinking to put the , uh , mel spectrum in before any of the noise removal stuff ? or after ? +Professor B: Well , that 's a question . I mean , we were talking about that . It looks like it 'd be straightforward to {disfmarker} to , uh , remove the noise , um , and , uh , +PhD E: Cuz that happens before the mel conversion , right ? +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , to do it after the mel conversion {disfmarker} uh , after the noise removal , after the mel conversion . There 's even a question in my mind anyhow of whether th you should take the log or not . Uh . I sort of think you should , but I don't know . +PhD A: What about norm normalizing also ? +Professor B: Right . Uh . Well , but normalizing spectra instead of cepstra ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , probably . Some kind would be good . You know ? I would think . +PhD D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} so it actually makes it dependent on the overall energy of the {disfmarker} uh , the frame . +Professor B: If you do or don't normalize ? +PhD D: If yo if you don't normalize and {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you don't normalize . +Professor B: Right . Yes , so I mean , one would think that you would want to normalize . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w w My thought is , uh , particularly if you take the log , try it . And then if {disfmarker} if normalization helps , then y you have something to compare against , and say , "" OK , this much effect "" {disfmarker} I mean , you don't want to change six things and then see what happens . You want to change them one at a time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So adding this other stream in , that 's simple in some way . And then {pause} saying , oh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} particularly because we 've found in the past there 's all these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these different results you get with slight modifications of how you do normalization . Normalization 's a very tricky , sensitive thing and {pause} you learn a lot . So , I would think you would wanna {pause} have some baseline that says , "" OK , we don't normalize , this is what we get "" , when we do this normalization , when we do that normalization . But {disfmarker} but the other question is {disfmarker} So I think ultimately we 'll wind up doing some normalization . I agree . +PhD E: So this second stream , will it add latency to the system +Professor B: No , it 's in parallel . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Para +Professor B: We 're not talking about computation time here . +PhD E: S +Professor B: We 're ta I think we 're pretty far out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's just in terms of what data it 's depending on . It 's depending on the same data as the other . +PhD E: Same data . +Professor B: So it 's in parallel . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So with this , uh , new stream would you train up a VAD on both {disfmarker} both features , somehow ? +PhD D: No , I guess the VAD has its own set of features . +Grad C: OK . that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , which could be this {disfmarker} one of these streams , or it can be something derived from {pause} these streams . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: And there is also the idea of using TRAPS , maybe , for the VAD , which , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , that 's also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , Pratibha apparently showed , when , she was at IBM , that it 's a good idea . So . +Grad C: Would {disfmarker} would that fit on the handset , or {disfmarker} ? Oh ! +PhD A: I have no idea . +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Well , it has t I mean the {disfmarker} th +PhD A: It would have to fit but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , if it has to fit the delays and all this stuff . +Professor B: Well , there 's the delays and the storage , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: yeah . But I don't think the storage is so big for that . +Grad C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think th the biggest we 've run into for storage is the neural net . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . And so I guess the issue there is , are we {disfmarker} are we using neural - net - based TRAPS , and {disfmarker} and how big are they ? So that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll be , you know , an issue . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor B: Maybe they can be little ones . +Grad C: Yeah . Cuz sh Right . +Professor B: Mini - TRAPS . +Grad C: Cuz she also does the , uh {disfmarker} the correlation - based , uh , TRAPS , with without the neural net , just looking at the correlation between {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . And maybe for VAD they would be OK . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Or a simple neural net , right ? I mean , the thing is , if you 're doing correlation , you 're just doing a simple {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} uh , dot product , you know , with some weights which you happened to learn from this {disfmarker} learn from the data . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , putting a nonlinearity on it is , {pause} you know , not that big a deal . It certainly doesn't take much space . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So , uh , the question is , how complex a function do you need ? Do you need to have an added layer or something ? In which case , uh , potentially , you know , it could be big . So . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , uh {disfmarker} So what 's next ? Maybe s s remind us . +PhD E: So the meeting with Hynek that you guys just had was to decide exactly what you were gonna freeze in this system ? Is that {disfmarker} ? Or was there {disfmarker} ? Were you talking about what t new stuff , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: What to freeze and then what to do after we froze . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And like I was saying , I think the {disfmarker} you know , the basic directions are , uh , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of little things , such as improve the noise estimator but the bigger things are adding on the neural net and , uh , the second stream . And then , uh , improving the VAD . Uh . So . +PhD D: So , I 'll , um {disfmarker} I 'll actually {disfmarker} after the meeting I 'll add the second stream to the VAD and maybe I 'll start with the feature net in that case . It 's like , you 're looking at the VAD , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . I I 've a new feature net ready also . +PhD D: I 'll {disfmarker} For the VAD ? +PhD A: No , uh . Well p two network , one VAD and one {pause} feature net . +PhD D: Oh , you already have it ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK , so just figure how to take the features from the final {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD A: Um . But , yeah , I think there are plenty of issues to work on for the feature net @ @ . +Grad C: Feature net . +PhD E: What about the , um {disfmarker} uh , the new part of the evaluation , the , uh , Wall Street Journal part ? +Professor B: Right . Right . Um . Have you ever {disfmarker} ? Very good question . Have you ever worked with the Mississippi State h uh , software ? +PhD A: Sorry . +PhD E: No . Not yet . +Professor B: Oh . Well you {disfmarker} you may be called upon to help , uh , uh , on account of , uh , all the work in this stuff here has been , uh , with small vocabulary . +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . So what {disfmarker} how is the , uh , interaction supposed to happen ? Uh , I remember the last time we talked about this , it was sort of up in the air whether they were going to be taking , uh , people 's features and then running them or they were gonna give the system out or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're gonna just deliver a system basically . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Do we already have it ? +PhD D: Yeah , th I {disfmarker} I guess it 's almost ready . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} That 's what {disfmarker} So they have released their , uh , document , describing the system . +Professor B: Maybe you could , uh , point it {pause} at Chuck , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: because , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD D: Sure . +PhD E: So we 'll have to grab this over CVS or something ? +PhD D: It - no , it 's just downloadable from their {disfmarker} from their web site . +PhD E: Is that how they do it ? OK . +Professor B: Cuz one of the things that might be helpful , if you 've {disfmarker} if you 've got time in all of this is , is if {disfmarker} if these guys are really focusing on improving , uh , all the digit stuff , uh , maybe {disfmarker} and you got the front - end from them , maybe you could do the runs for the {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , you know , iron out hassles that {disfmarker} that you have to , uh , tweak Joe about or whatever , +PhD E: Sure . +Professor B: because you 're more experienced with running the large vocabulary stuff . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: S +PhD D: So I 'll point you to the web site and the mails corresponding . So I +PhD E: And it {disfmarker} but it 's not ready yet , the system ? +PhD D: Uh , I {disfmarker} I think they are still , uh , tuning something on that . So they 're like , d they 're varying different parameters like the insertion penalty and other stuff , and then seeing what 's the performance . +PhD E: Are those going to be parameters that are frozen , nobody can change ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , w I guess there is , uh , time during which people are gonna make suggestions . +PhD E: Oh , but everybody 's gonna have to use the same values . +PhD D: After that . +PhD E: Oh ! Interesting . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So these sugges these {disfmarker} this , uh , period during which people are gonna make suggestions is to know whether it is actually biased towards any set of features or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I th th certainly the thing that I would want to know about is whether we get really hurt , uh , on in insertion penalty , language model , scaling , sorts of things . +PhD E: Using our features . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , in which case , um , H Hari or Hynek will need to , you know , push the case {pause} more about {disfmarker} about this . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD E: And we may be able to revisit this idea about , you know , somehow modifying our features to work with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . In this case , that 's right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's right . Um , some of that may be , uh , a last minute rush thing because if the {disfmarker} if our features are changing {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . But , um . Yeah , the other thing is that even though it 's months away , uh , it 's starting to seem to me now like November fifteenth is right around the corner . And , um , if they haven't decided things like this , like what the parameters are gonna be for this , uh , when "" deciding "" is not just somebody deciding . I mean , in fact there should be some understanding behind the , uh , {vocalsound} deciding , which means some experiments and {disfmarker} and so forth . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it seems pretty tight to me . +PhD E: So wha what 's the significance of November fifteenth ? +Professor B: That 's when the evaluation is . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So , yeah , so after {disfmarker} But , you know , they may even decide in the end to push it off . It wouldn't , you know , entirely surprise me . But , uh , due to other reasons , like some people are going away , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping it 's not pushed off for {vocalsound} a l a long while . That would be , uh {disfmarker} put us in an awkward position . But {disfmarker} Anyway . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Great . Yeah , I think that 'll be helpful . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not anybody OGI currently who 's {disfmarker} who 's , uh , working with this and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} is this part of the evaluation just a small part , or ho how important is this to the overall {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um {disfmarker} it depends how badly {vocalsound} you do . I mean , I think that it {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD D: b +PhD E: This is one of those things that will be debated afterwards ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Conceptually , it {disfmarker} my impression , again , you guys correct me if I 'm wrong , but {pause} my impression is that , um , they want it as a double check . That you haven't come across {disfmarker} you haven't invented features which are actually gonna do badly for a {disfmarker} a significantly different task , particularly one with larger vocabulary . And , um , but it 's not the main emphasis . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: I mean , the truth is , most of the applications they 're looking at are pretty small vocabulary . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a double check . So they 'll probably assign it some sort of low weight . +PhD E: Seems to me that if it 's a double check , they should give you a one or a zero . Y you passed the threshold or you didn't pass the threshold , and they shouldn't even care about what the score is . +Professor B: Yeah . But , I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see what they come up with . Uh , but in {disfmarker} in the current thing , for instance , where you have this well - matched , moderately - matched , and {disfmarker} and mis highly - mismatched , uh , the emphasis is somewhat on the {disfmarker} on the well - matched , but it 's only a {disfmarker} a marginal , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? It 's like forty , thirty - five , twenty - five , or something like that . So you still {disfmarker} if you were way , way off on the highly - mismatched , it would have a big effect . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , it wouldn't surprise me if they did something like that with this . So again , if you 're {disfmarker} if you get {disfmarker} If it doesn't help you much , uh , for noisy versions of this {disfmarker} of large vocabulary data , then , uh , you know , it may not hurt you that much . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: But if it {disfmarker} if you don't {disfmarker} if it doesn't help you much at all , um , or to put it another way , if it helps some people a lot more than it helps other people , uh , if their strategies do , then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . So is this , uh {disfmarker} ? Uh , Guenter was putting a bunch of Wall Street Journal data on our disks . +Professor B: That 's it . +PhD E: So that 's the data that we 'll be running on ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So {pause} we have the data , just not the recognizer . OK . +PhD E: So this test may take quite a while to run , then . May - judging by the amount of data that he was putting on . +Professor B: Uh , well there 's training and test , right ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I guess , I 'm not sure . +Professor B: No , I mean , if it 's like the other things , there 's {disfmarker} there 's data for training the H M Ms and {disfmarker} and data for testing it . +PhD E: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So I wouldn't {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . So there 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , training the recognizer , but , um Um . But I think it 's trained on clean and {disfmarker} Is it trained on clean and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: The Wall Street ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Apparently , no . It 's training on a range between ten and twenty DB , I think , and testing between five and fifteen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I got {pause} on {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's , uh {disfmarker} It 's like a medium {disfmarker} medium - mismatch condition , sort of . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So the noise is {disfmarker} There is a range of different noises also {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} which are selected randomly and added randomly , uh , to the files . And there are noises that are different from the noises used {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I wouldn't imagine that the amount of testing data was that huge . They probably put training {disfmarker} uh , almost certain they put training data there too . Maybe not . So . That 's that . Anybody have anything else ? +PhD E: Uh , one {disfmarker} one last question on that . When did they estimate that they would have that system available for download ? +PhD D: Um , I guess {disfmarker} I guess one {disfmarker} some preliminary version is already there . +PhD E: Oh , so there 's w something you can download to just learn ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's already there . Yeah . +PhD E: OK , +PhD D: But they 're actually parallel - y doing some modifications also , I think . +PhD E: good . +PhD D: So I guess the f final system will be frozen by middle of , like , one more week maybe . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , well that 's pretty soon . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's just one more . +Grad C: Is this their , um , SVM recognizer ? +PhD D: No , it 's just a straightforward HMM . +Professor B: You know , their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} They have a lot of options {pause} in their recognizer and {disfmarker} and the SVM is one of the things they 've done with it , but it 's not their more standard thing . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor B: For the most part it 's {disfmarker} it 's Gaussian mixtures . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just a HMM , Gaussian mixture model . +Grad C: Gaussian mixture HMM . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , the SVM thing was an HMM also . It was just a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was like a hybrid , like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , this is a g yeah , this i +Professor B: what ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So , just so that I understand , they 're providing scripts and everything so that basically , uh , you {disfmarker} you push a button and it does training , and then it does test , and everything ? Is that {pause} the idea ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} yeah , I {disfmarker} I guess something like that . It 's like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} as painless as possible , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: is what {disfmarker} Do they provide all the scripts , everything , and then {disfmarker} Just , +PhD E: I see . Hmm . Somehow yo there 's hooks to put your features in and {disfmarker} +PhD D: ju Yeah , I th I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah , um . In fact , I mean , if you look into it a little bit , it might be reasonable {disfmarker} You know Joe , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just to sort of ask him about the issue of , um , different features having different kinds of , uh , scaling characteristics and so on . So that , you know , w w possibly having entirely different optimal values for {disfmarker} for the usual twiddle factors and what 's {disfmarker} what 's the plan about that ? +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So sh shall we , like , add Chuck also to the mailing lists ? It may be better , I mean , in that case if he 's going to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because there 's a mailing list for this . +Professor B: Is that OK ? +PhD E: Yeah , that 'd be great . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess maybe Hari or Hynek , one of them , has to {pause} send a mail to Joe . Or maybe if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I could send him an email . +PhD D: Well , yeah , to add or maybe wh +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I know him really well . +PhD D: Yeah , so that 's just fine . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I was just talking with him on email the other day actually . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , yeah , and just , um , se maybe see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: About other things , but . +Professor B: Do you have Hari 's , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: I have Hari 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so maybe just CC Hari and say that you 've just been asked to handle the large vocabulary part here , and , uh , you know , +PhD E: OK . Would it be better if I asked Hari to ask Joe ? +Professor B: Uh . Why don't you just ask Joe but CC Hari , and then in the note say , "" Hari , hopefully this is OK with you "" . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And then if Joe feels like he needs a confirmation , Hari can answer it . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: That way you can get started asking {comment} Joe quickly while he 's {disfmarker} while he 's maybe still , you know , putting in nails and screws and Yeah . +PhD D: And there is an , uh , archive of all the mails that has been {vocalsound} gon that has gone , uh , between these people {disfmarker} among these people . So just you can see all this {pause} mails in the ISIP web site {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Mississippi web site . +PhD E: OK . Is that a password controlled {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's password protected . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So , like {disfmarker} like , it 's , like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Have you thought about {pause} how long {pause} would be uh , most useful for you to go up to OGI ? +PhD A: I don't know , uh . We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} For September , we can set up a work schedule and we can maybe work independently . And then at some point it maybe be better to work together again . +Professor B: Oh , so you 're {disfmarker} you 're imagining more that you would come back here first for a while and then {disfmarker} and then go up there ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's to you . +PhD A: Maybe , yeah . +Professor B: I ju you guys are Well , y anyway , you don't have to decide this second but thi think about it {disfmarker} about what {disfmarker} what you would think would be the {disfmarker} the best way to work it . I 'll +PhD A: But , uh {pause} Huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: support it either way , so . +PhD A: Mm - hmm Right . +Professor B: OK . Uh . Got anything to tell us ? +Grad C: Um . Well , I 've been reading some literature about clustering of data . Just , um , I guess , let me put it in context . OK , so we 're talking about discovering intermediate categories to , um {disfmarker} to classify . And , uh , I was looking at some of the work that , uh , Sangita was doing on these TRAPS things . So she has , um {disfmarker} she has temporal patterns for , um , a certain set of phonemes , from {disfmarker} from TIMIT , right ? the most common phonemes . And each one of them has {disfmarker} has a {disfmarker} a nice pattern over time , a one {disfmarker} one second window . And it has {disfmarker} has these patterns . Um , so she has , um a TRAP for each one of the phonemes , um , times fifteen , for each of the fifteen critical bands . And , um , {vocalsound} she does this agglomerative hierarchical clustering which {disfmarker} which basically , um , is a clustering algorithm that , uh , starts with many , many , many different points {disfmarker} many different clusters {disfmarker} uh , corresponding to the number of data , uh , patterns that you have in the data . And then you have this distance mej metric which , uh , measures how {disfmarker} how closely related they are . And you start , um {vocalsound} by merging the patterns that are most closely related . +PhD E: And you create a tree . +Grad C: And y yeah , yeah , a dendrogram tree . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um . +PhD E: And then you can pick , uh , values anywhere along that tree to fix your set of clusters . +Grad C: Right , usually it 's when , um {disfmarker} when the sol similarity measures , um , don't go down as much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And so , uh {disfmarker} so you stop at that point . And what she found was , sh um , was there were five broad , um {disfmarker} broad categories , uh , corresponding to , uh , things like , uh , fricatives and , uh , vocalic , um , and , uh , stops . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , uh , one for silence and {disfmarker} and another one for schwa {disfmarker} schwa sounds . Um , and , um , I was thinking about ways to {disfmarker} to generalize this because w you 're {disfmarker} it 's sort of like a {disfmarker} it 's not a completely automatic way of clustering , because yo beforehand you have these {disfmarker} these TRAPS and you 're saying that {disfmarker} that these frames correspond to this particular phoneme . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's constraining your {disfmarker} your clustering to {disfmarker} to the set of phonemes that you already have . Um , whereas maybe we want to just take {disfmarker} take a look at , um , arbitrary windows in time , um , of varying length , um , and cluster those . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I 'm thinking if we {disfmarker} if we do that , then we would probably , um , at some point in the clustering algorithm find that we 've clustered things like , OK , thi this is a transition , um , this is a relatively stable {disfmarker} stable point . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , and I 'm hoping to find other things of {disfmarker} of similarity and maybe use these things as the intermediate , um {disfmarker} intermediate categories that , uh , um , I 'll later classify . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Are you looking at these in narrow bands ? +Grad C: Um , right . F um , I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz that 's what you 're gonna be using , right ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I haven't exactly figured out , um , the exact details for that but , uh , the {disfmarker} the representation of the data that I was thinking of , was using , um , critical band , um , energies , {vocalsound} um , over different lengths of time . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it seems somehow that needs th uh , there 's a couple things that I wonder about with this . I mean , so one is {disfmarker} is , {pause} again , looking at the same representation , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're going for this sort of thing where you have {pause} uh , little detectors that are looking at narrow bands , then what you 're going to be looking for should be some category that you can find with the narrow bands . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that seems to be kind of fundamental to it . Um , and then the other thing , uh , is {disfmarker} that I wonder about with it , and {disfmarker} and don't take this in the wrong way , like I {disfmarker} I know what I 'm doing or anything , +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: but , I mean . {vocalsound} Um , just wondering really . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , the sort of standard answer about this sort of thing is that if you 're trying to find {pause} the right system in some sense , whether you 're trying by categories or {disfmarker} or parameters {pause} um , and your goal is discrimination , then having choices based on discrimination as opposed to , um , unsupervised nearness of things , um , is actually better . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , and I don't know if that {disfmarker} I mean , since you 're dealing with issues of robustness , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe this isn't right , but it 'd be something I 'd be concerned about . Because , for instance , you can imagine , uh , uh , i i if you remember from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from your {disfmarker} your quals , John Ohala saying that , uh , "" buh "" {comment} and "" puh "" {comment} differed , uh , not really cuz of voicing but because of aspiration . I mean , in as far as wha what 's really there in the acoustics . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , if you looked {disfmarker} if you were doing some coarse clustering , you probably would put those two sounds together . And yet , I would gue I would guess that many of your recognition errors were coming from , uh , um , pfft , {comment} screwing up on this distinction . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , in fact , it 's a little hard because recognizers , to first order , sort of work . And the reasons we 're doing the things we 're doing is because they don't work as well as we 'd like . And since they sort of work , uh , it means that they are already doing {disfmarker} if you go and take any recognizer that 's already out there and you say , "" how well is it distinguishing between {pause} schwas and stops ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Boy , I bet they 're all doing nearly perfectly on this , right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So these {disfmarker} these big categories that differ in huge obvious ways , we already know how to do . So , what are we bringing to the party ? I mean , in fact what we wanna do is have something that , particularly in the presence of noise , uh , is better at distinguishing between , uh , categories that are actually close to one another , and hence , would probably be clustered together . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's th that 's the hard thing . I mean , I understand that there 's this other constraint that you 're considering , is that you wanna have categories that , uh {disfmarker} that would be straightforward for , say , a human being to mark if you had manual annotation . And it 's something that you really think you can pick up . But I think it 's also essential that you wanna look at what are the {vocalsound} confusions that you 're making and how can you come up with , uh , categories that , uh , can clarify these confusions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , the standard sort of way of doing that is take a look at the algorithms you 're looking at , but then throw in some discriminative aspect to it . Y y this is more like , you know , how does LDA differ from PCA ? I mean , they 're the same sort of thing . They 're both orthogonalizing . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: But , you know {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , um , this is a little harder because you 're not just trying to find parameters . You 're actually trying to find the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the categories themselves . Uh , so a little more like brain surgery , I think on yourself . Uh . So , uh +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anyway . That 's my {pause} thought . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: You 've been thinking about this problem for a long time actually . I mean , well {disfmarker} W actually , you stopped thinking about it for a long time , but you used to think about it {vocalsound} a lot . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And you 've been thinking about it more now , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: these categories . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} um , it 's not clear to me how to reconcile , you know , what you 're saying , which I think is right , with {pause} the way I 've been looking at it . That it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's all not very clear to me . But it seems to me that the desire {disfmarker} the desirable feature to have is something that , um , is bottom - up . You know , however we do that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And and so I guess what I don't understand is how to do that and still be discriminative , because to be discriminative you have to have categories and the only categories that we know of to use are sort of these human {disfmarker} human sig significant {disfmarker} categories that are significant to humans , like phonemes , things like that . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: But that 's sort of what you want to avoid . And so that feels {disfmarker} I don't know how to get out of this . +Professor B: Well , here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a , uh , uh Here 's a generic and possibly useless thought , which is , {vocalsound} um , what do you really {disfmarker} I mean , in a sense the only s s systems that make sense , uh , are ones that {disfmarker} that have something from top - down in th in them . Right ? Because if e even the smallest organism that 's trying to learn to do anything , if it doesn't have any kind of reward for doing {disfmarker} or penal penalty for doing anything , then it 's just going to behave randomly . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So whether you 're talking about something being learned through evolution or being learned through experience , it 's gotta have something come down to it that gives its reward or , you know , at least some reinforcement learning , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: So the question is , how far down ? +Professor B: And +PhD E: We could stop at words , but we don't , right ? We go all the way down to phonemes . +Professor B: Right , but I me I {disfmarker} I think that maybe in some ways part of the difficulty is {disfmarker} is trying to deal with the {disfmarker} with these phonemes . You know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and i it 's almost like you want categories if {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our , uh , um , {vocalsound} metric of {disfmarker} of goodness , uh , i if our {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: correction {disfmarker} if our metric of badness {vocalsound} is word error rate then , um , maybe we should be looking at words . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for very nice , uh , reasons we 've looked for a while at syllables , and they have a lot of good properties , but i i i if you go all the way to words , I mean , that 's really {disfmarker} I mean , d w In many applications you wanna go further . You wanna go to concepts or something , or have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} have concepts , actions , this sort of thing . +PhD E: Yeah . But words would be a nice {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , words aren't bad , yeah . And {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Yeah , so the common {disfmarker} right , the common wisdom is you can't do words because there 's too many of them , right ? So you have to have some smaller set that you can use , uh , and {disfmarker} and so everybody goes to phonemes . But the problem is that we {disfmarker} we build models of words in terms of phonemes and these models are {disfmarker} are really cartoon - ish , right ? So when you look at conversational speech , for example , you don't see the phonemes that you {disfmarker} that you have in your word models . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but we 're not trying for models of words here . See , so her here 's maybe where {disfmarker} If the issue is that we 're trying to come up with , um , some sort of intermediate categories which will then be useful for later stuff , uh , then {pause} maybe it doesn't matter that we can't have enough {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , what you wanna do is {disfmarker} is build up these categories that are {disfmarker} that are best for word recognition . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and somehow if that 's built into the loop of what the categories {disfmarker} I mean , we do this every day in this very gross way of {disfmarker} of running o a thousand experiments +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because we have fast computers and picking the thing that has the best word error rate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: In some way {disfmarker} I mean , we derive that all the time . In some ways it 's really not {comment} a bad {disfmarker} bad thing to do because it tells you in fact how your adjustments at the very low level affect the {disfmarker} the final goal . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so maybe there 's a way to even put that in in a much more automatic way , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: where you take , you know , something about the error at the level of the word or some other {disfmarker} it could be syllable {disfmarker} but in some large unit , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: uh , and uh {disfmarker} yeah , you may not have word models , you have phone models , whatever , but you sort of {pause} don't worry about that , and just somehow feed it back through . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so that 's , uh , wh what I called a useless comments because I 'm not really telling you how to do it . But I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know {disfmarker} it +PhD E: No , but I think the important part in there is that , you know , if you want to be discriminative , you have to have uh , you know , categories . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And I think this {disfmarker} the important categories are the words , and {pause} not the phones . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe . And so {disfmarker} Right . If you can put the words in to the loop somehow for determining goodness of your sets of clusters {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Now , that being said , I think that {disfmarker} that if you have something that is , um {disfmarker} i Once you start dealing with spontaneous speech , all the things you 're saying are {disfmarker} are really true . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you {pause} have read speech that 's been manually annotated , like TIMIT , then , you know , i i you the phones are gonna be right , actually , {vocalsound} for the most part . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , uh , it doesn't really hurt them to {disfmarker} to do that , to put in discrimination at that level . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you go to spontaneous speech then it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the phones are {disfmarker} uh , you know , it 's gonna be based on bad pronunciation models that you have of {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor B: and , um {disfmarker} And it won't allow for the overlapping phenomenon +PhD E: Mmm . So it 's almost like there 's this mechanism that we have that , you know , when {disfmarker} when we 're hearing read speech and all the phonemes are there you know , we {disfmarker} we deal with that , but {disfmarker} but when we go to conversational , and then all of a sudden not all the phonemes are there , it doesn't really matter that much to us as humans because we have some kind of mechanism that allows for these word models , whatever those models are , to be {pause} munged , you know , and {disfmarker} and it doesn't really hurt , and I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how to build that in . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , I guess the other thing i is {disfmarker} is to think of a little bit {disfmarker} I mean , we when y when you start looking at these kind of results I think it usually is {disfmarker} is pretty intuitive , but start looking at um , what are the kinds of confusions that you do make , uh , you know , between words if you want or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or , uh , even phones in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in read speech , say , uh , when there is noise . You know , so is it more across place or more across manner ? Or is it cor you know , is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I know one thing that happens is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , uh , you lose the , um , uh , low energy phones . I mean , if there 's added noise then low energy phones {vocalsound} sometimes don't get heard . And if that {disfmarker} if that is {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} uh , if that turns it into another word or {disfmarker} or different {disfmarker} you know , or another pair of words or something , then it 's more likely to happen . But , um , I don't know , I w I would {disfmarker} I would guess that you 'd {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: W I don't know . Anyway , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think part of the difficulty is that a l a lot of the robustness that we have is probably coming from a much higher level . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , we understand the context of the situation when we 're having a conversation . And so if there 's noise in there , you know , our brain fills in and imagines what {disfmarker} what should be there . +Professor B: Well that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing some sort of prediction of what {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , exactly . +Professor B: Oh , sure , that 's really big . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but I mean , even if you do um , uh , diagnostic rhyme test kind of things , you know , where there really isn't an any information like that , uh , people are still better in noise than they {disfmarker} than they are in {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} uh , than the machines are . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} i Right . We can't {disfmarker} we can't get it at all without any language models . Language models are there and important but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh . If we 're not working on that then {vocalsound} we should work on something else and improve it , but {disfmarker} especially if it looks like the potential is there . So {disfmarker} Should we do some digits ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Since we 're here ? +PhD E: Go ahead , Morgan . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: That 's all folks . +","The conversation involves several participants, mainly PhD students and a Professor, discussing various topics related to their research work. They begin by recapping a mid-week meeting with someone named Hynek during which Sunil and Stephane presented updates on their project. + +PhD E inquired if the group had integrated their code, to which PhD D confirmed that they updated it yesterday. PhD A mentions the addition of new features such as noise suppression and re-synthesis of speech after suppression. They then discuss the CVS (Concurrent Versions System) and the use of SSH (Secure Shell) for accessing it remotely. Professor B describes a scenario where Sunil and Pratibha, who are away, would grab the code remotely when they return. + +The conversation shifts toward detailed technical aspects of their project. They discuss recent updates to their system, such as Wiener filtering on FFT bins, and steps for smoothing the transfer function. They also touch on experiments with mel bands, the re-synthesis of speech, noise suppression, and how these features tie into their studies on reverberation and noise. + +Later, the group deliberates on the direction of their work post-freezing certain features of their system. They talk about new efforts like improving the Voice Activity Detector (VAD), adding a neural net, and implementing a second feature stream in their system to enhance overall performance. + +Professor B highlights the upcoming evaluation on November 15th and mentions challenges related to parameter settings for testing with larger vocabulary sizes, using Mississippi State's software for Wall Street Journal data. + +There's a technical discussion about clustering data, with Grad C describing the use of agglomerative hierarchical clustering for finding intermediate categories for classification, building upon work by Sangita with TRAPS. Concerns are raised about how to effectively choose categories that are discriminatively useful when the data is noisy, and whether these should be guided by word discrimination as opposed to phoneme distinctions. + +The group debates how to incorporate words into the classification loop when it's typically phonemes that are used in smaller sets due to the high number of words being impractical. They discuss the importance of higher-level context and how humans can understand and predict speech in noisy environments better than machines, despite current technological limitations. + +The conversation concludes with the participants agreeing to review some digits, presumably related to their research data or experiments." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay everybody is ready ? {vocalsound} Good morning again . So , today we are going to have a f second meeting . Oh Michael , hi . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: You're late . You have a good reason for that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Okay , let's have a look to the agenda today . {vocalsound} So , we are going to have a meeting about the functional design . Um so first before starting I w just going to uh to go quickly to {disfmarker} through the minutes of previous meeting . So uh {vocalsound} basically we we are not decided if w we should go for a universal or specific uh uh remote control , but I have new um new i inputs for {disfmarker} about that topics . I goin I'm going to share with you . {vocalsound} And uh basically we decided to um to uh go to individual actions for each of you uh so um Industrial Designer should wor was supposed to work on th on th on the working design . You showed us {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: you ar you you prepare something for us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: The U_I_ guy also uh work on that , yeah , and for the mar our Marketing Expert should deliver some specs . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} so we are going to go through three of your individual presentations . But first I would like quickly to uh to decide of {disfmarker} to give a name to the project . So , I just put d quickly Remo , but if you have any o other names that we co could decide for just to to keep something fun for our project we we should {disfmarker} we could discuss quickly . Any ideas ? +User Interface: Uh the Powerstick . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Powerstick , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What else ? What else ? +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe a Spanish name would work well . +Marketing: Mm I was thinking of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Especially if we're selling into the U_S_ market becasue there's a lot of Spanish speakers there . Maybe something that sounds cool in English but sounds funny in Spanish . +Marketing: Mando . +User Interface: Mando . +Project Manager: Mango ? Mango ? +User Interface: What is that ? +Marketing: Mando . +Project Manager: Mando . M_A_ ? M_A_ ? +Marketing: A*_N_ yeah D_O . +Project Manager: M_ D_O_ . Mm , okay . +Marketing: It doesn't it doesn't sound cool for me , +Project Manager: What does it mean ? Oh . +Marketing: but maybe for a Spanish {disfmarker} for I {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +User Interface: What does it mean in Spanish ? +Marketing: Control . +User Interface: Control . +Project Manager: Hmm . Nice . +User Interface: Okay . 'Cause it also {disfmarker} like in English it sounds like you know the man's tool you know because you know men like to have control of the remote +Marketing: But {disfmarker} mm , yeah . +User Interface: so it might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mando sounds Latino . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The Mando . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's go for Mando ? Yeah ? No objection ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And we could have some like you d you could have the fonts you know special , so you have man in like in in uh in one o in one font and then the O_ as like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Although you don't wanna cut uh cut women out of the uh potential buyers though , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: do you ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are the most T_V_ watcher . So we should be careful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is more a question of of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Marketing . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah +Project Manager: I I think this is more a question of of look and feel . +Marketing: it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that should be addressed later We should we should go to other {disfmarker} for the other topics . +Marketing: Yeah because if the product will be international {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's the thing . We need to know who we're selling it to before we can really decide on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay , so let's stick f to Man Mando for the name +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and we'll see for the for the look and feel later . So let's go for the three presentations right now . So , who want to start ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe we could start with the market , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe I should uh start . Yeah . Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so I have your slides somewhere ? +Marketing: Yeah . Should be in participant four . +Project Manager: Participant four . {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: S that's coming . Uh {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay so yeah I will I will give a brief outline about what I what I prepared for this meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: For the functional requirements and especially for the for the user requirements . I prepare a marketing report and we have to find the weaknesses and and the the improvements we could do to the current remote controls . And also I di I did a study with {disfmarker} for the incorporation of new technologies it seems that the remote controls have been {disfmarker} have remained the same for the last five , ten years . There is no no significant difference between the the b the first new controls and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Sh next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} more {disfmarker} most of the people think that remote controls are ugly , thoroughly . So and they they admit that the the they should uh s they would uh spend more money in a fancier remote control , which is which is good and it's interesting point . Also the people are worried about about the R*_S_I_ disease , which is if you repeat the sa the same movement , which is not a {disfmarker} with a not very appropriate device , you you will have problems whe when you will get old . So s people are uh are worried about the the shape of the of the remote control . They are also {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they get angry very often because they lost the remote control very often , so I think it would be a good point to to l to to find a a solution to {disfmarker} any beep any alarm or something incorporated to {disfmarker} with the remote control every time it it get lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And also I found that young people {disfmarker} the the younger people are the more interested they are in incorporating new technologies in the in the remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in my opinion the Mando {disfmarker} this Mando shouldn't be very small because the smaller it is , the more like {disfmarker} the the liklier it is to get lost . Liklier or more likely ? +User Interface: More likely . {gap} +Marketing: {gap} likely . Okay . Uh {vocalsound} people also complain because they they they all have the same size of the buttons for buttons who w which are not very use like f uh memorising channels or or this kind of actions which are not very often but {vocalsound} they they shouldn't they shouldn't have the same importance in the in the uh in the remote cont in the remote control . Also the z the design should fit the hand shape . So it may be interesting to to think in a {disfmarker} in both prototypes , for right and left handed people . +User Interface: Well th the on the thing is though , most remote controls are used by more than one person . So unless you're kind of targeting single people you know you're gonna maybe +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: cut out some {disfmarker} a lot of your market . +Marketing: I dunno I th Anyway I think it could be int interesting to to release some {disfmarker} a a small fraction of of this remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe it could be a universal design . +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A universal design , which is which is good for both the hands . +User Interface: Still shaped for yeah for your hand but not for a particular hand , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? That's right , whether it's left hand or right hand , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but {vocalsound} don't you think that the two points are clashing , one thing you are saying design should fit the hand shape and it should not be very small ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: The first and the third point , they are clashing . +User Interface: Well it can still be a {gap} , you can still extend past the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Like uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So fitting the hand doesn't mean much then . +User Interface: Well it means {disfmarker} like , this remote here is kind of {disfmarker} is very thin and long so instead of having {disfmarker} you know you might have it kind of {disfmarker} a bit bigger +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: or , you know , with maybe some some finger molds or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it means design should be similar to the traditional ones ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Little sleek , longer ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And it should fit the hand . +Marketing: No no I was thinking of so like something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something with the shape of the palm ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: Some finger grips maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could even have some buttons like you know on the sides and everything , +Project Manager: On the sides . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It sh it shouldn't it shouldn't be symmetric symmetrical . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not anymore . That's what {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: And then finally {disfmarker} +Marketing: And finally , the incorporation of a L_C_D_ or a speech recognition system in the remote control could also be interesting , but I don't know if the budget would be large enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . First I'm just wondering about the L_C_D_ stuff because uh because {disfmarker} +Marketing: But most of {disfmarker} yeah most of the young people to thirty to thirty years old were really interested in this kind of technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , so maybe it's a good time for me to uh {vocalsound} to bring you to some new uh new informations . We had the new requirements from the {disfmarker} so uh from the head offices of the company , and so they wanted {disfmarker} so they want to um {disfmarker} they would like to be restricted to T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I dunno if you had this information already . No , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: so they want us to restrict the remote control to T_V_ only because of time limitations . Um they want also uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually this marketing report is restricted to T_V_ remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . So we have also to focus more on the internet aspects because well well te teletext is outdated now and uh finally , {vocalsound} it should be clear that the corporate image , that means colours and logos of the co our company should be clearly inde identified in the product . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was still uh I was still working on this uh twenty five Euro price point because I think actually having looked at some of the remotes out there , this is quite a low uh price if if we're {disfmarker} maybe I can get to this in my presentation though , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Sure sure . +User Interface: but um yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can jump to your presentations , right now . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so let's keep in mind about tha that that {disfmarker} this last point about L_C_D_ and speech uh reco +User Interface: Yeah . I think even even if it was within budget do a speech reco rec system it might be a bit difficult because if you think {disfmarker} if you're watching T_V_ you're gonna have a lot of this uh background noise from the T_V_ which might interfere with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , what is your {gap} ? +User Interface: Uh participant three . You might have some background noise from the T_V_ which will make the speech recognition much uh harder , so . +Marketing: Yeah but you should be able to activate or disactivate , so {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh you press a press a button to talk , and the the T_V_ the T_V_ {vocalsound} sound turns off . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah uh channel fifty . +Industrial Designer: No it could be command control kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It requir recognises particular sequence and then it gets activated . Means you say {disfmarker} you should say like does that , remote control being on or be on kind of thing , and then remote control comes in the picture for the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because this kind of thing means speech is there from the T_V_ also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there should be something command controlled , you start and then you stop . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like V_I_ editor , you are having two modes similarly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's just lying idle . +Project Manager: Okay Michael . +User Interface: Okay , so , could I describe the mouse maybe {gap} be easier to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: could I use the mouse , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Thanks . Okay . +Project Manager: The wheel doesn't work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay so um while uh researching this this topic I first of all just thought of a couple of things that I would like to see in a remote , and just uh looked to see if they're actually available in any current remotes , and then also searched for which are the top-rated uh remote controls on Epinions dot com , which is a a you know a a customer um written basically review site . So um there's a pretty wide range of uh remote controls these days and and uh this remote control on the right here is is one of the more extravagant , but it's not really {disfmarker} it's by no means uh mm you know {vocalsound} on it's own in being so expensive . There are a lot of expensive remote controls out there . +Project Manager: {gap} Looks like a P_D_A_ {gap} ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah it doe it's {disfmarker} well basically all the functions uh are controlled through through the L_C_D_ screen except for the really really kind of main functions , which have a couple of of their own buttons . Um and if you look at a lot of the universal remotes out um on the market , I know we're working on television remote , but a lot of the universal remotes out there have uh have these L_C_D_ screens which kind of helps when you're using multiple uh devices I suppose because you can have multiple kind of functions {disfmarker} d different functions on the screen at different times . But um the thing that I find most interesting about this remote control , and it's kind of difficult to uh to see in the slide , but it has a scroll wheel on it , which is kind of like uh a mouse scroll wheel , which I think is {disfmarker} it's a really kind of important design aspect um is {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} 'Cause the thing is what a {vocalsound} what we {disfmarker} the presen this presentation we had is what we want the remote control to actually do . And obviously the the simplest thing that a remote control does is it just change the change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Change the channels . +User Interface: Now um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh the {disfmarker} I think that a scroll wheel is actually pretty a pretty handy way of of changing the channel . 'Cause I know when I um when I use the remote to change the channel I very rarely use the numbers on the on the pad . I usually use the up and down +Industrial Designer: Mmm-hmm mm-hmm . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because most channels are you know two digit numbers and you have to press you know a special button to enter a two-digit number , and then two numbers , so that's just uh {disfmarker} it's annoying . So I think a scroll wheel is is quite handy . Now um the the scroll wheel is is much more useful if you have an L_C_D_ screen , and this brings us to the the point you were mentioning before about the internet uh capability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: One possibility , if we {disfmarker} now we need to still talk about the price point because obviously a lot of this stuff can't be done for twenty five Eu uh Euro , but one possibility is to download program information into the L_C_D_ screen so that instead of actually saying I want to I want to go to channel thirty seven because I know this programme's on , you know , often you don't know what ch what channel it's on , or you don't know what's on . If you have a list of of programs on your L_C_D_ screen you just scroll to that program rather than to a channel . So if you think about {disfmarker} it's kind of like a {disfmarker} you know in mobile phones now you don't use {disfmarker} you don't remember people's phone number , you remember their name and you go find that name and ring it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this would be pretty {disfmarker} kind of a handy thing to have , but um we we really need t to discuss the price . So , I mean there are {vocalsound} there are uh cheaper {disfmarker} this is another multi kinda purpose remote control where it's it's it's very simple , there's only a few buttons , but al each of those buttons does something different in a different context . So this is something else we might wanna consider , is really kind of limiting the number of buttons , because this is the top rating uh universal remote control on on Epinions . It it's really uh maybe worth thinking about limiting the number of buttons as much as as possible um because really I think people want to be able to find the button they're looking for without even looking at the remote control . And {gap} was saying before about having different size buttons for different you know frequently used uh tasks , but I think also you know the location and and shape of the buttons is important , but also the number of buttons . So if you have too many buttons it it it increases the the difficulty of finding the one you want . +Industrial Designer: But there is one problem {gap} then the user has to understand each of that functionality . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah well we w +Industrial Designer: Because the same button is doing too many things . +User Interface: Yeah well we will have a bit of a simpler uh task in that we're only doing uh a television remote control . Um I think maybe one option is to have you know a little flip-open um door that uh that you have hidden most of the time , but contains the extra buttons like , say , the number buttons for instance . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I would {disfmarker} if I had my perfect remote control , I'd probably just have no numbers at all on it because they're just in the way . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: They don't really do anything . Maybe you know I {disfmarker} although I do also find flip-open doors a bit of a pain because sometimes they can break off or or whatever , but maybe a door that you can you can permanantly remove or permanantly have on would be good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} but I think definitely you need to to keep the buttons down to a minimum , but not not let that kind of interfere with the functionality of of the device . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: H I think I think that the tr the transition to this to this new remote control shouldn't be very very abrupt very hard because w if people see a remo see the {disfmarker} see a remote control without numbers mm they will think it's very difficult to learn very difficult to {disfmarker} very different build {disfmarker} very different to the traditional {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It does sampling out of the {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I guess that depends on how you market it . If you {vocalsound} if you have the right advertisement showing how how how easy it is and how you can , you know , navigate to a program without the numbers , then people might say that looks pretty easy . +Marketing: If y +Project Manager: Okay , can you continue , please Mi ? +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: yep . Um okay , so , I think um one of the really kind of useful things you can do with with internet connectivity would be to have this {disfmarker} a programme driven interface rather than the channel number . So if we can have a higher priced uh remote control I think that would really be worth uh {disfmarker} something that would be worth implementing . Um mm there's the L_C_D_ screen , um which maybe maybe is too expensive , um but I think also at the scroll wheel , I haven't mentioned it here , the scroll wheel could be used without an L_C_D_ screen , just for changing channel numbers easily . I think even that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean , that would be a fairly cheap thing , compared to an L_C_D_ screen , to implement , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um but I think that would be quite useful as well . And the other thing , you say we need to we need to keep it just television , but I think one {disfmarker} maybe one option , since this is supposed to be a kind of a fashionable device , is you know there's a certain kind of cool or wow factor that you can kind of {disfmarker} you can have with technology , and maybe we wanna make it something that's {vocalsound} extensible to do other tasks . Say you have like um {vocalsound} a little another little kind of base unit that can also receive signals as well as the television where you can , say uh , change the lighting in the room . You know that would be something maybe you could sell as an extra , so that it doesn't have to be part of the initial development , but , you know , later on you could you can you know you {disfmarker} also , selling the potential of the device . Then you say potentially you can then do other cool stuff like change the lights , I dunno , close the windows , whatever , turn the heating on , and um , I think that's something we may need to have as as {disfmarker} at least as an optional extra to to kinda make our product cool , since we say we're putting the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} {gap} you want to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So most of the things which we are discussing about is speech recognition uh , that means on my own I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , it should be . +Project Manager: Great . No , not that one . {gap} you are two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so the working design is uh user i interface could be of two types , one is the usual press buttons which are there so that the user feels that he is knoing {disfmarker} doing some he is knowing about that technology . So he is pretty comfortable if he wants to get this , and on top of that there there could be a speech recognition technology also being {disfmarker} sitting on the on the remote . So the old kind of users who don't want to have any changes , it can it can be useful for them , and the new users , as uh our Marketing Expert was saying , they can use the new gizmo which is speech recognition kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay , sorry to interrupt you , but we have seen before that there is a new way of interacting that use wheel . +Industrial Designer: That's right . So anyway , that didn't come into my mind , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so th that is a possibility . These could be other kind of interfaces . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Means we can have , depending on the cost , how much we can afford , we can have different kind of interfaces . So spe buttons are something which is very {disfmarker} everybody is familiar with . So if you go to the market and you say that buttons are there the people know what it is , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and on top of that if we are having extra functionality people are willing to shell that twenty-five Euros money which we are thinking . Otherwise we are just like others in the market . So anyway that is the first , user interface could be of more than one type , and uh yeah that means we can do the on-line changes which which cannot be done now actually . So apart from the speech , we can have the scroll kind of thing with the buttons . Now for buttons , normal requirements like bit coding and all those things are required . And for voice , limited vocabulary automatic speech recognition system is required and we require a microphone also to be sitting there on the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . That increases the the cost also . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's right . But uh means we have to see how much {disfmarker} what kind of microphones and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Do you think that performance of such systems are enough to to target well {disfmarker} of such technologies is enough ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , if it is limited vocabulary usually it's enough . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we we can uh target , means we can target ninety five percent accuracy or somewhere ninety seven perc +Project Manager: Well wh uh I imagine also that the microphone will be an ambiance um a um an ambience microphones +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: because you are not going to speak into into th into the remote control . +Industrial Designer: That's right . No it it could be little d yeah it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it could be s a few centimetres . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well one one other thing that that speech recognition could really blow out the price for is uh when you want to sell into other markets , though , +Industrial Designer: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: because , I'm not sure exactly where we're gonna sell this , but I presume it's not gonna just be English speaking countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So then you have to s you know , you have to train models for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . Uh it's more like , means there are different speech technologies which are existing so D_T_W_ could be kind of which is the easiest . So you have to store some templates on the on the on the chip itself , and {vocalsound} it's just dynamic time warping where you try to find out what it is , instead of having a model which has to be trained and being a micro-controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay we shou we should discuss this la later after after after this this uh slide . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Project Manager: This is a this is a this is a a very important uh issue in discussion . +Industrial Designer: So we can That's right . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , next . Uh that finished ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: No ? +Industrial Designer: No no . Components . +Project Manager: Components ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , will you go to the next slide ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah so this is the design which we are thinking so . We are having a power button and the switch {vocalsound} , which is not much , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we are having the {gap} which is to indicate whether the power is on or not . And then there are two kind of things which can be {disfmarker} so one is the button interface which has not been shown because because of lack of time {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we could not put that . So now where the A_S_R_ decoder is sitting , similarly there are different kind of interfaces which could be there . So there is A_S_R_ decoder which could be there , and then there could be another scroll button scroll scroller , and then there could be buttons , and all of them they will just do the decoding and put it in the math put it in the proper message format . And then there is there is the chip which is sitting , the green one , and it converts it into bit codes , and that bit codes are sent by the infrared device to the receiver . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is the easiest design the there could be . So th an A_S_R_ decoder we can have things in {gap} . To have different technologies . So this was the {disfmarker} my personal preference was that we can have A_S_R_ sitting there on the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know I guess you could actually train the remote control as you're using it by saying you know {vocalsound} turn volume up , and you press the uh press the button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh s people teach sign language to kids f well , by speaking and doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as soon as you try to put the microchip kind of thing or something the price will go up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So these are the slight problems . +Project Manager: So your your opinion is that we should go for special condition technologies ? +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} yeah the reason is that if we go into the market means {disfmarker} though I don't have much idea , but as he {disfmarker} the uh Marketing Expert presentation was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure if you can sell a a speech recognition remote control for twenty five Euros everyo {vocalsound} everyone will s will buy it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Actually I'm not so sure +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So if we go with just the {disfmarker} +User Interface: because I'm the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure . +User Interface: you know if I was using a remote control to , say , turn the volume up because I can't hear it very well , I don't really want to you know drown out what people are saying by talking you know when I'm when I'm {disfmarker} instead of pressing up on on a remote control . You know if there's some there's some dialogue all of a sudden that I can't hear , I'm trying to actually find out what's being said , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so maybe speech recognition gets in the way more than it helps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but you know the the average frequency of pushing buttons , it's about {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends if it's a remote control th +Marketing: it's about eighty eighty eighty pushes per hour , or something like that . +User Interface: Maybe if the remote control is something that y you don't actually have to pick up anymore , that would be a a useful feature of the speech recogntion . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you can leave it sitting on the table and you don't actually have to find it , then that could be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay gentlemens , we have to take some deci decisions right now . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um so if I if I kind of summarise everything we've de we we said . We are targeting T_V_ . {vocalsound} We need {vocalsound} we need to have um um remote control which is fanc fancy , which is uh which is easy to to hand not too small , not too big . Um we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: With a good shape for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or good shape , yes . We should bring new technologies for young peoples , and uh as we have uh also requirements to to use uh to to push thr toward the internet . Maybe this is something we can stick to it . And um {vocalsound} also , a very interesting things I I I've seen on on on the {disfmarker} one of the comp o our competitor is this wheel that we can use to navigate . So so my feeling is that re regarding costs budget we have an an an target price , it's not possible to go s to go to L_C_D_ {vocalsound} and also to go to automatic speech recognition technologies . Uh first m m why not to go to L_C_D_ . Because um in fact as we are targeting uh T_V_ {disfmarker} in fact we can use T_V_ screen as a screen to feedback {disfmarker} to to give some feedback informations about what we could have . +User Interface: Well it depends though {disfmarker} well it depends . If we we don't {disfmarker} unless we have some input some video input to the T_V_ or we have control over the T_V_ then we can't actually display that . Like if we if we produce the T_V_s then then yeah we can put you know menus up up there , but otherwise we need to actually have some kind of {disfmarker} something sitting in between the video signal and the and the T_V_ to superimpose those those menus . So that's an extra +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right . Don don't you ha +User Interface: cost . +Project Manager: don't we have contacts with uh people on T_V_ or or {gap} well systems that exist that we can use ? +User Interface: Well this is this is another que we still haven't really defined the remote . Are we still {disfmarker} you say we're focusing on T_V_ , but is it still a kind of like a universal remote in that it's a replacement remote control , or is this something for our own line of of televisions ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that really makes a big difference . 'Cause {vocalsound} even if we have contacts we can't really produce a remote control that can bring up menus on other other companies' T_V_s . It's just there are too many T_V_s out there . It's it's not really gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's good point . What's what cou what could be the cost of uh {disfmarker} well , could we fit the the targets uh in terms of cost uh if we go s to L_C_D_ on the remote control ? +User Interface: For twenty five Euro ? {vocalsound} I think it's impossible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not possible . It's impossible . +User Interface: But but I dunno , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think um it would be good to know if there is any leverage in that {disfmarker} any leeway in that um that twenty five Euro because for twenty five Euro I think all we can really do is provide a very basic remote control , and that seems to be kind of against the philosophy of our company which is you know putting the fashion into electronics . So I would I would like to know if there's any chance of of increasing the uh +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: of increasing the unit price . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you mean yo you mean we we should target something maybe which is {disfmarker} which would be more expensive but re really fancy in terms to um {disfmarker} in terms to had {disfmarker} to have really an added value ? +Marketing: What would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: so regarding the automatic speech recognition , I think this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wha but what would be {disfmarker} one question , what would be the goal of putting an L_C_D_ in a remote control ? +User Interface: Well th +Marketing: What what kind of information ? +User Interface: 'Cause you can have things like the programme name instead of the channel numbers , like an interactive programme guide . +Marketing: Yeah but mo most of the T_V_s nowadays show the show the +Project Manager: They have tele teletext . Well , because they have teletext on it . +Marketing: the n +Project Manager: Th th you have a teletext sin signal that you can that you can uh that you can get thr through the channel . +Marketing: Yeah but yeah most of the T_V_s have teletext nowadays . +Project Manager: They have t most of them have teletext , but we want to get rid {disfmarker} well one of our requirements is to uh to move to teletext to uh to the use of internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So to to uh +User Interface: You can get a lot more information on it . +Project Manager: to browse more easily the teletext . For instance through uh through your remote control . +Marketing: So what would what would appear in the in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: So you could have the name of the programme , you could have um the start time you know where it's up to . +Project Manager: The ti the start time , all the p all the programmes you could have uh {disfmarker} o +User Interface: You could have a l even a little image of you know the c you know the the m the main actors or something +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: so you can quickly just kind of {disfmarker} even without reading {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I don't know if this information is available from teletext , also . +User Interface: Well no , but there are the electronic programme guides out there . They may not have pictures , but maybe they do . +Industrial Designer: Are {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} dependi it also depends on the country . +Project Manager: Well because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the same reason that we cannot uh {gap} informations on the T_V_ {gap} . We c we couldn't grab information information which is not there . +User Interface: No but I mean with the internet you have flexibility of where you get your information from . So it may be possible that there are people out there providing that . Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so that mean w w we need an in an extra internet connection to use the remote control , if you want to browse , in addition to the T_V_ , or uh or it should be a special T_V_ connected to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well I I think if we're gonna {disfmarker} I think we would definitely need the internet connection because even with y I don't think you could even get teletext information from the T_V_ onto the remote control , especially if we don't control the T_V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno . We need to find that out . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} We need to close the meeting . Um {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} just a small thing , +Project Manager: Very quickly . +Industrial Designer: what kind of market we are targeting ? Is it that we are targeting the replacement remote market , or what ? So the remote has gone bad and the person wants to buy a new remote or {disfmarker} because the cost of L_C_D_ thing could be as high as the T_V_ itself . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That is very important . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , well people go to buy another remote control when they broke n broke their {gap} , +User Interface: If it's a really small T_V_ maybe {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Broke . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and they want to go t for universal one , and they take the fanciest they can have . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So this is {disfmarker} that we z that that we should target . So the com the um {vocalsound} the uh {vocalsound} the committment is the following , we don't go for speech recognition technology . The L_C_D_ is still on disc is still open to discussion . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It is up to you to go through this um {vocalsound} uh this way and to to report report me back next meeting . So +Marketing: I think that the speech recognition technology would be cheaper the {disfmarker} than the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: It's it's cheaper as compared to the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not sure . Maybe it's cheaper , but we have no {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because with the L_C_D_ you need more requirements . You need a internet connection . You need m more things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But +User Interface: Well the thing is I think I think the type of peop +Marketing: for the speech recognition you you don't need anything . You just say channel fifty , and that's it . +User Interface: I think the type of people that are gonna want to buy a very stylish rem r remote control with lots of new technologies are the kinda people that are gonna have you know a wireless internet connection maybe , or a {disfmarker} you know . +Marketing: But then we should move to another target b because at twenty five Dollars , +Industrial Designer: Means th yeah twenty five Euros is {disfmarker} yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Well this is what we need to find out . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we can we increase the the price point of this remote control ? 'Cause otherwise we need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay this is {gap} {disfmarker} this is an open question for you . Yeah . This is uh up to you to tell us . But I'm definitely not keen on to to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To move to another target ? +Project Manager: no no no , I'm no I'm definit definitely not keen on going to speech recognition technologies . I'm not confident enough . I'm not sure that that we'll have a product really that work . I uh that work {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kind of hard to guarantee that you're gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's real yeah . How to guarantee such performances is really hard . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the expert uh said ninety five percent {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well this is still {disfmarker} is is very bad . +User Interface: Ninety five percent is not good enough though . {gap} +Project Manager: So , this is the end of this discussion . Next meeting uh here are the task you have to work on . Um {vocalsound} so you have to work on the component uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh you have to work on user interface , and you have to go through a trend watching . Okay . So the question is still open about the L_C_D_ thing . Um uh we {disfmarker} I hope that next meeting we will uh we'll take some um decision that direction . Thanks . Bye . +User Interface: Yep . +","The project team, led by the Project Manager, gathered for a second meeting to discuss the functional design of a remote control project. The meeting started with addressing lateness and reviewing the agenda. The team debated whether to create a universal or specific remote, with new input on the topic to be shared. Each team member had individual tasks from the previous meeting to report on: the Industrial Designer on working design, the User Interface (UI) expert on related tasks, and the Marketing Expert was to deliver specs. + +The team also needed to decide on a name for the project, with ""Remo"" being a placeholder. Suggestions included ""Powerstick"" and ""Mando,"" with the latter being chosen even though it means ""Control"" in Spanish and might have implications for marketing. The Design team expressed concerns about ensuring the product catered to the primary TV viewers, including women. + +Marketing's report highlighted needs for a fancier remote that could prevent RSI disease, include a find-me feature through an audible alarm, embrace new technologies, and appeal to young people. The optimal remote shouldn't be tiny, should have varying button sizes based on frequency of use, possibly accommodate different hand sizes, and consider an LCD or speech recognition system. + +The UI expert discussed the benefits of an LCD screen and a simplified button layout, suggesting internet connectivity for programming information and a scroll wheel for channel selection. However, cost constraints were a concern, especially the targeted 25 Euro price point, which seemed low given the company's desire to combine fashion with technology. + +The Industrial Designer discussed different interfaces, including standard buttons and speech recognition — albeit with potential cost concerns. Compatibility with various market requirements and user familiarity were also topics of discussion. + +Throughout the conversation, the feasibility of incorporating an LCD screen versus speech recognition technology for the remote was debated, considering costs and what would offer real added value. Integrating internet capabilities, keeping to TV-only functionality due to corporate head office requirements, and maintaining corporate branding were other considerations raised. The Project Manager expressed doubt that the speech recognition technology could meet performance expectations and highlighted the challenges of guaranteeing functionality. + +The team ended the meeting with action items focused on components, user interface, and market trend analysis. The Project Manager emphasized the need for further discussion and decision-making around the LCD feature and confirmed the next meeting's objectives." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences—and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked—that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Siân. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll be aware that there were four main reasons for the introduction of the Bill: around regulation of institutions in Wales; safeguarding the contribution made to public good arising from Welsh Government's financial support for the sector; maintaining a focus on fair access; and preserving and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy. I think the evidence that has been received by the committee to date shows that there are different views about the effectiveness of whether all four strategic aims have been achieved. I think those strategic aims are still really, really important and certainly will underpin our thought process going forward, but we have to recognise the higher education and research Bill across the border in England, the implementation of new student support measures in Wales, as well as the report that was done by Ellen Hazelkorn, I think, means it is appropriate that we move forward with different proposals, not just regulation of the HE sector but the post-compulsory sector as a whole. We will look to see what we can do to strengthen or whether there is more that we need to do to achieve those four objectives, because I think those four objectives are still very, very relevant. But we have to have legislation now that is fit for the circumstances we currently find ourselves in and, hopefully, futureproofs us for how we want to see the sector develop in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't been strong enough, and that you then have had to drive some of these objectives through the annual remit letter, rather than through legislation, and that's why the strengthening is required? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, I see the remit letter as a really, really important way in which national priorities and the priorities of an elected Government can be clearly stated, communicated to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and then HEFCW use their powers to ensure that that happens. So, certainly, I see the remit letter as being a very important mechanism for ensuring, as I said, that those national priorities are clearly articulated, and then change happens. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has the current legislation been framed around institutional autonomy so that it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any national outcomes, and is that going to be an element of the new Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly, the 2015 Act contains numerous provisions that protect universities' privileges and autonomy. And that's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll certainly be looking to see how we can carry those protections into the forthcoming Bill, but, at the same time, we do have to ensure appropriate regulation and accountability of institutions for their public funding and the privileges that they enjoy. And I think there are a number of ways in which that can happen. We have a very positive working relationship with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and I am very fortunate to have a very positive working relationship with the sector. The remit letters are a really important way in which we can lay out those national priorities. I don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't there be a discussion looking to move in a direction where there are national outcomes being set through legislation, because there is public money going into that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know whether we need national outcomes through legislation, because those national priorities, potentially, will change over time. What is really important, and what we will be seeking to do in the new legislation, is look to move to a system of outcome agreements. So, there is a very clear expectation that the commission will have, in regulating the sector, and co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's clear enough. What about private providers? The Act, or the Act as it stands, makes it a requirement for a regulated institution to be a charity, and that means it's not possible to regulate alternative private providers under the Act, even though they can provide higher education in Wales. What is your view on this, and will the new legislation continue with the requirement of being a charity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's important to make the distinction between the scale of private providers, and what could be termed as 'unregulated providers' in the Welsh system, as opposed to the English system. And I think that's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case basis. So, we do have a circumstance where—and a process in place, to manage this. So, we have a specific designation policy, which is operated on our behalf by HEFCW. Only six organisations were designated on a case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 academic year, so the scale here is small. Three of those were further education colleges. So, when we talk about a private provider, perhaps people would have a view of a private university, but, actually, three of those were FE colleges, which we would all be familiar with. And the three private providers were the Centre for Alternative Technology, the training arm of the Church in Wales and the Newport and District Group Training Association. All three of those are actual charities. So, in order for their courses to be specifically designated, the three crucial questions that those providers have to answer are: quality—is what they’re providing to students of a good quality; the financial viability of the institution, again, to try to protect the interests of the students who may find themselves embarking on a course in an institution that isn’t viable; as well as their contribution to private—sorry, not to private good—public good. And we are considering how that part of the sector will be regulated in the forthcoming legislation. But, Huw, I don't know if there's anything else to add? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that there are a very small number of private providers, as the Minister has outlined, and, in comparison with England, where I think the last figures said that there were between 300 and 400 private providers in England, you get a sense of the differences that exist there. And, if you look at what happened over recent years, it has been those small private providers across the UK who have been most financially challenged and a number of them have stopped their operations, with consequences for the students. So, we’ve been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they’re enrolling with are strong and have good quality. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not— +Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —or are you still thinking about it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act—the 2015 Act—does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government’s policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, the Act was introduced as a direct result of the changing scenario around finance and the different ways in which, because of the reduction in HEFCW's budget, the level of influence that HEFCW would be able to exert over institutions through the imposition of terms and conditions of funding—. So, the Act was introduced in part to address that shift in influence and the Act also has provided HEFCW with a range of new powers of intervention and sanctions in the case of non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm determined that any legislation that I bring forward and any commission that I establish will be empowered to enable that to happen through its regulatory and funding powers. Of course, the funding situation has shifted again now because of the introduction of what is commonly known as the Diamond reforms, but our new system of student finance does again shift the parameters of influence that HEFCW or any new tertiary commission could have. But, as I said earlier, it's not to say that institutions have had a free reign. We have been able to use the remit letter and our relationship with HEFCW to progress agendas that we would want to see. So, for instance, you'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've had no influence, but there are opportunities now, because of the change in financial circumstances once again, to look at that in any forthcoming legislation. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders' pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've been able to use the remit letter and some funding to be able to drive change and some improvements in mental health in the higher education sector. These are national priorities and we're acting upon them and we're using the multiple levers we have at the moment to engage in universities. And, I have to say, universities have risen to that challenge, and I'm very grateful to them for doing that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms—to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you—that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use—I think HEFCW called them 'threatening'—saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight. +Dawn Bowden AM: I think they were saying it was difficult to use for swift interventions—they found it a bit cumbersome. They explained to us that they often take informal measures or actions in their role as regulator, and they've explained that the small size of the sector enables good relationships to be developed. How can such measures work in the tertiary education body when there clearly will be many more than the 10 providers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, looking ahead to the new Bill, I would want to see and be very keen to ensure that there are sufficiently flexible—did you use the word soft—and soft regulatory powers that the commission could exercise. Those powers, for instance, could include the ability to offer advice and guidance, rather than, maybe, punitive interventions, and powers to undertake enhanced monitoring of institutions to ensure compliance with regulatory conditions. So, I would expect the commission to be able to have a series of abilities to intervene, from the soft, flexible type, which is non-punitive but actually allows people to go in and support institutions, through to something that would be, as I said, more punitive, if they felt that an institution was in danger of not providing quality or financial failure. +Hefin David AM: Can I just come in there, on the point that was made? The issue that seemed to me to come from HEFCW and from the universities is that the dial seems to have only three steps. So, rather than having a graduated series of actions that they can take, it seems to step from—what did he call it—a 'meeting without coffee' to— +Kirsty Williams AM: That's a very HEFCW thing to say. +Hefin David AM: —potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative scrutiny is useful, because we can reflect on that feedback. As I said, I would expect to be able to ensure that the commission had a range of powers that could address—from that soft power and those early conversations to being able to, as I said, issue, perhaps, advice and guidance to an institution, so there would be a more graduated escalation. Huw, is there anything else that I've missed out? +Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's a range of ways in which we interact with all institutions that are going to be in the tertiary sector, and some of that is about providing information. So, HEFCW provides information—it sends around circulars, it produces reports and it holds events. There's staff, management and leadership development activity, which can create a culture amongst the leaders of institutions, but also amongst their governing bodies, to help them move in a particular direction. We would hope that's in the direction of the civic university approach that the Minister has outlined. We use those mechanisms and informal interactions with FE college principals, with the work-based learning provider network, with sixth forms and others, and we would want to see, I hope, in the tertiary sector some alignment of those things. When things go badly wrong, there are a range of mechanisms. I think what stands behind HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances— +Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those. +Huw Morris: So, in—. Shall I carry on? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes. +Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's quite a lot of focus on that and looking to learn from other national systems where outcome agreements provide a broader measure of the range of things the institutions do and a mechanism for tracking how things are done through the provision of information back to the institution to help them know how they're doing. And potentially, in some of these other institutions, funding is linked to some of those things. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, what always has to be—. What we have to strike the balance of as well is at what point those powers seem to be—and the ability to direct—interfering with the principle of autonomy within an institution. So, there's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's really, really important, but also a regulatory regime, the ability to influence and to develop and to deliver national outcomes and the power to intervene in that sector, which you know, better than probably anybody else in this room, guards that institutional autonomy very, very, very dear indeed. And that's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures—and I understand what you're saying—but I think what HEFCW were saying was that they try as far as possible to use informal measures and they are able to do that because of the size of the sector—just 10 institutions to work with. The post-16 sector, however many we're talking—50 plus providers—it's probably going to be less likely that they would be able to have that sort of relationship with the leaders in those institutions. So, the informal measures might not be as prevalent as they are currently, possibly. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but also, what's incumbent upon me as the Minister is to ensure that the commission is set up in a way where it can have that relationship with the sector, because what's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll be creating a commission that will be structured in such a way that it can have those relationships. Because, of course, whilst HEFCW will face changes, our relationship with and how we manage the FE sector and the apprenticeship sector will also shift. So, the point is that we need to create a commission that will still be able to be close to the sector, close enough to be able to provide that soft regulation, those really important relationships in a way—. So, it has to be created in such a way and resourced in such a way that it allows that to happen, and that's my intention. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Well, then, of course, the University of Wales said to us that they felt that there was the potential for HEFCW to issue directions enforceable by injunction to remedy minor matters. So, I think, from what you're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's important to recognise when HEFCW can enforce its directions by way of an injunction. If they were to do that because a university was breaking fee limits or because there were real questions about the quality of the provision or whether a university was not complying with the financial management code—personally, I wouldn't describe those as minor matters, as a Minister, if we had an institution that was significantly falling down on quality and HEFCW were using these powers to intervene. I wouldn't describe that as a minor matter. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't yet used their powers of intervention. Do you find that surprising? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what they have done in these circumstances is, perhaps, used their ability to support those institutions through what, undoubtedly, have been challenging times. Given the fact that there are ongoing legal processes attached to Swansea University, I think it would not be appropriate for me to comment any further, because there are still matters in train with regard to that institution. But clearly, our expectation on HEFCW is to ensure that they are using their powers to support those universities, and I would expect them, if they felt necessary, to use the full remit of their powers if they felt that that was what they needed to do. Now, I have to trust their professional judgment that that has not been necessary to date, but our expectation is that they would do that if they felt it was necessary. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation. +Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd like to think about outputs and outcomes, more importantly—what are the outcomes of the fee and access plan, not necessarily just how much money has been spent on them. I think, certainly, to really understand the success of the fee and access plan, you have to question whether an annual basis is an appropriate timescale for a university to be working to, and whether we could have something that was focused over a longer period of time. Because, when you think about it, you write the plan and then you're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's an opportunity there to look to restructure. So, do I see a place for fee and access plans going forward, as part of our outcome agreements? Yes, I do. Can we do them differently to make them more effective? Yes, I think we can. +Hefin David AM: So, why would introducing outcome agreements make them work any better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think they're going to be a part of an outcome agreement—part of that wider expectation. So, fee and access plans are there to address an issue around, primarily, changing the nature of people who go to university and making sure that nobody is put off from pursuing that. So, that's part of a wider piece of work that I'd want to see as an outcome agreement. But, as I said, I think looking at outcomes for students and outcomes of that activity, rather than the inputs of the activity, over a longer period of time, is probably a more effective way of doing it. I think it's still—. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't think we can necessarily point to the fee and access plans as being the driver for some of those improvements. +Hefin David AM: No, I appreciate that, and some of the things you're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying—can I just pin down what you're saying—is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle—I'd like to think we can all agree around the principle of what a fee and access plan is hoping to achieve, but I think there are better ways of doing it, and I think we should take the opportunity of reform to look at how we can do it better. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, I think we're talking about the future of the Bill, the consultation on the PCET reforms closed in summer 2018—with these important issues in mind and things that are currently ongoing, have you had further dialogue since then with key stakeholders like, for example, Universities Wales and others? +Kirsty Williams AM: On the Bill or on fee and access plans in particular? +Hefin David AM: I'm thinking about fee and access plans as an issue that suggests that there is a need for deep consultation, so with that in mind, with things like that, have you had further discussion? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh my goodness me, civil servants in the department are constantly in discussion with a range of stakeholders as we continue to develop legislative proposals. I meet on a regular basis with both HEFCW—I meet separately with the vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll come on to issues of governance later. So, we are constantly discussing with stakeholders all options for change— +Hefin David AM: I suppose the message I'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received. +Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's outlined that there is very extensive, ongoing communication both ways with the sector, but the challenge of preparing a Bill is the balancing act between gathering in information—and there's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process—and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't been discussed with anybody else before it comes to be considered by the Senedd. So, the broad principles have been discussed, but specific details of what goes into a Bill or policy instructions that inform a Bill haven't been the subject of consultation— +Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1. +Huw Morris: Indeed, yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item? +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section. +Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific— +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view—. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest—they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin—carry on. +Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. The feedback from Universities Wales suggests that, with the outcome of the 2015 Act, institutions with the strongest track records are more highly regulated than the riskier private alternative providers. Do you think that Act has struck the right balance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the Act has created a system where the level of regulation is proportional to the amount and the nature of public moneys received by institutions. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales— +Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm not disagreeing. My view is: I believe that the Act has struck that proportionality. When you look at public moneys going into institutions, I think that the Act is proportionate, myself. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think it's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions—? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand—they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're less regulated. +Huw Morris: Can I just chip in? I think that the category 'private' covers quite a wide range of things, and many private institutions are also charities. We don't have the presence of some of the large private charities that are present in other countries, but Stanford and Harvard would count as private universities. So, I think we need to be careful in focusing on the inherent quality of things. We've made charitable status a key reference point in the operation of things at the moment. I think there has been attention drawn to some private providers, particularly in England, but I wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily. +Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith—if they're not charitable providers running validated courses, for example, they fall outwith the strength of regulation that is currently in place on the universities in Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we would regulate them on a course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course basis to validate alternative providers. And as Huw said, I think we should recognise the nature of that is very, very, very small in Wales, and there is a process to ensure quality provision. If there were concerns about the quality of that provision, that course could be deregulated. +Hefin David AM: And I'm aware that there are a small number of private institutions in Wales, but are you concerned that in the future the landscape may change, particularly with the opportunity to recruit more part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. We had some evidence from the University and College Union that were concerned about the governance of universities, actually, as being a bigger problem than the regulatory framework in many ways. Can you tell us, perhaps, how the HE Act addresses the issue of poor governance, or is it really just limited to responding to the symptoms rather than the poor governance itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance—we've talked briefly about some recent history within the sector that I think has certainly brought the issue of governance to the fore once again, and I think there are two important things that we're trying to do about that in the current time, prior to any legislative changes. The first is, as I just said to Hefin, I have sought to have a more direct relationship with chairs of universities and have that one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively—and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're more likely to get some success and change—Universities Wales and HEFCW have worked together to undertake an independent review of governance. And I think it's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd have more resistance. So, there is an independent review going on at the moment— +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that the risk review process in—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's chaired by Gillian Camm, who is the chair of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and she is doing an independent review to advise on changes to governance. And I welcome that, I'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's been recognition from within the sector themselves that they need to make sure, and they need to give confidence, that governance arrangements are what they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, is that something that you're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition in respect of good governance, and a commission would be able to set expectations with regard to good governance. I think one of the concerns for me—and I know that this is a concern that is shared by the UCU—is the diversity of governance and who finds themselves in these really important positions. HEFCW don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've asked officials to do for me, currently in the universities that we have, I would say that men make up around 56 per cent of membership of universities' governing bodies; women—44 per cent; BME—as low as 4 per cent. Of course, in individual institutions, it does vary, but I think there is some way to go to making sure that our governing bodies are diverse and that there's an opportunity to look at the student voice in governance going forward, the staff voice in governance going forward, and these are things that we hope to have discussions on whilst we bring the legislation forward. +Dawn Bowden AM: But also, I guess—sorry, Chair—a greater understanding, that anybody going in to become a governor of one of these institutions has a greater understanding of what is expected of them. Do you think that that's a gap that needs to be plugged? +Huw Morris: One of the things that HEFCW have led on with AdvanceHE, the body that encompasses the leadership foundation, is a development programme for governing bodies, and that started earlier—well, it's been going on for some time, but it was recommenced earlier this year, with a session for all of the chairs of universities in Wales. And I believe—I'll need to check this—that there are plans to engage with each of the governing bodies, because, as you rightly say, and this lies behind a lot of what we've been discussing, the activities of these institutions have become much more complex over recent years, and so there is a need for that training and development and understanding also of the fast-changing nature of that activity. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Siân on quality assurance. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure all the provision in two further education colleges. That sounds to me like some kind of an anomaly or an unintended consequence of the Act. Could you clarify that and explain the situation in that instance? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding—and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't put myself into the thought process of the Minister at the time and what his expectation was. But, certainly, my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, it was an expectation built into the Act that HEFCW and Estyn would work together on these matters. The Act built on what were the quality assessment arrangements in the 1992 Act, which required HEFCW to secure arrangements for the assessment of the quality of education provided by funding institutions. So, as a consequence of that approach, HEFCW's quality assessment duty currently encompasses all the education provided by or on behalf of a regulated institution. So, it is complicated, and Huw can help me out here if I get it wrong, but my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, that was the expectation of what would happen when the legislation was passed. Huw. +Huw Morris: I would completely agree with what the Minister has said. +Kirsty Williams AM: As always. [Laughter.] At least in public, Huw. +Huw Morris: There is the expectation that they will work together in concert. There's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges. +Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice? +Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've listened to stakeholders' concerns regarding proposals to introduce a single quality assessment body. As I said, we recognise that stakeholders are broadly content with the current situation with regard to Estyn and QAA. So, we've been listening to that, following the technical consultation, and policy officials are working through options in regard to ensuring what quality assurance will look like in the commission. As I said, I don't want to pre-empt bringing forward the legislation, but the principles underlying any assurance regime would need to be coherent, need to be effective and need to be comprehensive. What we're also very clear about, and I think it is important to say, is that any quality framework covering higher education will be compatible with ENQA, which I think is really, really important going forward. And by an extension of that, it would be compatible with current UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't want to create specific problems for the HE sector in Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, you have touched on this, there is substantial concern in the sector about this offer to move to one assurance body for the tertiary sector. One vice-chancellor has told us: +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of, 'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?' And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're not going to do anything in the quality assurance regime that would risk what is the very high reputation and standards that Welsh universities currently comply with or would set them apart from institutions across the border or in a European context. Huw. +Huw Morris: I agree, obviously. I think the fear is misplaced, but coming back to another theme in the conversation so far about futureproofing, what we're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time is the desire of a greater number of people at different ages to engage in higher and tertiary education, and quite often that will be in a workplace or it will be in a non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's an issue not just in Wales. The Augar report, which was published earlier this year in England, drew attention to this as being a major problem in the relationship over the border between Ofsted and the QAA. So, I think we're not looking to impose one institution on anybody, but we are looking to encourage greater synergy in the ways in which quality assurance and enhancement is undertaken in those different areas of activity. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this. +Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. +","The Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting, chaired by Lynne Neagle AM, focused on the post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, along with Huw Morris, director of skills, higher education, and lifelong learning at the Welsh Government, provided insights into the effectiveness and potential amendments to the Act. The Act's strategic aims were discussed, including regulation, public good contributions, fair access, and institutional autonomy. There was recognition that while the Act had achieved some objectives, there were differing opinions on its effectiveness for all strategic aims. + +There were discussions about the limitations of the Act in regulating private providers and the need for charitable status. The conversation addressed fee and access plans, part-time and postgraduate fees, and the challenges they posed. Kirsty Williams emphasized the importance of outcome agreements reflecting national priorities instead of legislating specific national outcomes. The committee also discussed the need for the upcoming post-compulsory education and training (PCET) Bill to have more effective policy levers and to foster collaboration within the sector. + +Concerns were raised regarding HEFCW's powers of intervention, which were described as inflexible and limiting swift action. Kirsty Williams expressed a desire for the upcoming PCET Bill to include a range of both soft and hard regulatory powers to address issues effectively. They also touched upon the governance of universities, with Kirsty Williams acknowledging the necessity of reviewing governance quality and considering regulatory conditions for good governance in the new Bill. + +The committee delved into the challenges of one-size-fits-all quality assurance, the differences between HEFCW and Estyn's roles, and the potential for a single quality body or framework. The discussion highlighted the importance of maintaining high quality standards in Welsh universities, particularly in transnational education contexts. + +The meeting concluded with Lynne Neagle AM confirming that the committee would meet in private for further discussions and adjourning the open session. The committee noted several papers, including a letter from the Minister for Education concerning the revised additional learning needs implementation plan and additional information from HEFCW following a previous meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad G: headphones that aren't so uncomfortable . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} Well , this should be off the record , +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: but I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh , OK . +Professor A: We 're not recording yet , are we ? +Grad G: Well , I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , uh , that {disfmarker} that wasn't recorded . +Grad G: No . Um , I don't think they 're designed to be over your ears . +PhD B: Yeah , I know . It just {disfmarker} it really hurts . It gives you a headache , like if you {disfmarker} On your temple {disfmarker} +PhD F: Temple squeezers . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I definitely {pause} haven't figured it out . +Professor A: Um , Meeting Recorder meeting . +PhD F: I guess I have to d stop doing this sigh of contentment , you know , after sipping cappuccino or something . +PhD B: Yeah , with the {disfmarker} We kno I know . +Grad G: "" Sip , sigh . "" +PhD B: We know exactly how much you have left in your cup . +PhD F: I was just noticing a big s +Professor D: So are we recording now ? Is this {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! We 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're live . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So , uh , {vocalsound} what were we gonna talk about again ? So we said {disfmarker} we said data collection , which we 're doing . +PhD B: Were we gonna do digits ? +Professor A: OK . Do we do th do you go around the room {pause} and do names or anything ? +Grad G: I think that {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's a good idea . +Grad G: u usually we 've done that and also we 've s done digits as well , but I forgot to print any out . So . Besides with this big a group , +PhD B: You can write them on the board , if you want . +Professor D: No . I it 'd be even better with this big {disfmarker} +Grad G: it would take too much time . +PhD E: Which way is {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , but it takes too much time . +PhD E: Mari ? +Postdoc H: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: What ? +Professor D: It 's not that long . +PhD E: Y I think your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your thing {nonvocalsound} may be pointing in a funny direction . Sort of it 's {disfmarker} it helps if it points sort of upwards . +Professor A: Whoops . +PhD E: Sort of it {disfmarker} you know . +Professor A: Would it {disfmarker} m +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: w u +PhD E: So that thing {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} th that part should be pointing upwards . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} Oh , this thing . +PhD E: That 's it . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Otherwise you just get a heartbeats . +Professor A: It 's kind of {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , yeah , the element , yeah , n should be as close to you {disfmarker} your mouth as possible . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . +PhD E: That 's good . That kind of thing is good . +Postdoc H: It 's a {disfmarker} +Professor A: This w Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: How 's that working ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . It 's a {disfmarker} It 's working . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Alright . So what we had {pause} was that we were gonna talk about data collection , and , um , uh , you {disfmarker} you put up there data format , +Professor A: Um . +Professor D: and other tasks during data collection , +Professor A: So , I think the goal {disfmarker} the goal was what can we do {disfmarker} how can you do the data collection differently to get {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: what can you add to it to get , um , some information that would be helpful for the user - interface design ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , especially for querying . +Professor A: Especially for querying . So , getting people to do queries afterwards , getting people to do summaries afterwards . Um . +Postdoc H: Well , one thing that came up in the morning {disfmarker} in the morning was the , um , i uh , if he {disfmarker} I , um {disfmarker} if he has {disfmarker} s I {disfmarker} I don't remember , Mister Lan - Doctor Landry ? +Grad G: Landay . James . +Postdoc H: La - Landay ? So he has , um , these , uh , um , tsk {comment} note - taking things , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: then that would sort of be a summary which you wouldn't have to solicit . y if {disfmarker} if we were able to {disfmarker} to do that . +Professor A: Well , if {disfmarker} if you actually take notes as a summary as opposed to n take notes in the sense of taking advantage of the time - stamps . So action item or uh , reminder to send this to so - and - so , blah - blah - blah . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that wouldn't be a summary . That would just be {disfmarker} that would b relate to the query side . +Grad G: But if we had the CrossPads , we could ask people , you know , if {disfmarker} if something comes up {vocalsound} write it down and mark it {vocalsound} {pause} somehow , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . I mean , we {disfmarker} because you 'd have several people with these pads , you could collect different things . +Grad G: you know . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: I mean , cuz I tend to take notes which are summaries . And so , you know {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , the down - side to that is that he sort of indicated that the , uh , quality of {vocalsound} the handwriting recognition was quite poor . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that 's alright . I don't think there 'd be so many that you couldn't have someone clean it up +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: pretty easily . +Professor A: Yeah . We also could come up with some code for things that people want to do so that {disfmarker} for frequent things . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And the other things , people can write whatever they want . I mean , it 's to some extent , uh , for his benefit . So , if that {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} if we just keep it simple then maybe it 's still useful . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor D: I just realized we skipped the part that we were saying we were gonna do at the front where we each said who we were . +Postdoc H: The roll call . +Professor A: Right . I thought you did that on purpose . +Professor D: Roll call . +Professor A: But anyway , shall we do the roll call ? +Professor D: No , not a No , I just {disfmarker} My mind went elsewhere . So , uh , yeah , I 'm Morgan , and where am I ? I 'm on channel three . +Grad G: And I 'm Adam Janin on channel A . +Postdoc H: I 'm Jane Edwards , I think on channel B . +PhD E: I 'm Dan Ellis . +PhD F: Eric on channel nine . +PhD B: Liz , on channel one . +Professor A: Mari on channel zero . +Professor C: Katrin on channel two . +Postdoc H: Should we have used pseudo - names ? Should we do it a second time with pseudo No . {vocalsound} No . +Professor D: I 'm Rocky Raccoon {vocalsound} on channel {disfmarker} +PhD E: Let me , uh , turn that off . +Grad G: And , uh , do you want to do the P D As and the {pause} P Z +PhD E: Oh . PZM nearest , nearest , next nearest . Next one . +Postdoc H: Next nearest . +PhD E: Furthest . +Grad G: Far . +PhD E: PDM - right , PZA - right {disfmarker} PDA - right , PDA - left . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: Thanks . +Grad G: Yeah , and eventually once this room gets a little more organized , the Jimlets {comment} will be mounted under the table , and these guys will be permanently mounted somehow . You know , probably with double - sided tape , but {disfmarker} So . You {disfmarker} So we won't have to go through that . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: I have a question on protocol in these meetings , which is when you say "" Jimlet "" and the person listening won't know what that is , sh shou How {disfmarker} how do we get {disfmarker} Is that important information ? You know , the Jimlet {disfmarker} I mean , the box that contains the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , I mean , suppose we broaden out and go to a range of meetings besides just these internal ones . There 's gonna be lots of things that any group of people who know each other have in column {disfmarker} common {comment} that we will not know . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: So the there will be jargon that we he There 'll be transcription errors . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor D: I mean , we {disfmarker} we were originally gonna do this with VLSI design , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the reason we didn't go straight to that was because immediately ninety percent of what we heard would be {vocalsound} jargon to {disfmarker} to us . So . +Grad G: Well , that was just one of the reasons . But , yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK . Good . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's right . There were others of course . Yeah . +Postdoc H: OK , so we were on the data collection {pause} {comment} and the summary issue . +Professor D: Right . We can go back . +Professor A: So , uh , u u So , actually there 's kind of three issues . There 's the CrossPad issue . Should we do it and , if so , what 'll we have them do ? Um , do we have s people write summaries ? Everybody or one person ? And then , do we ask people for how they would query things ? Is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: There 's {disfmarker} there 're sub - problems in that , in that where {disfmarker} or when do you actually ask them about that ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I mean , that was {disfmarker} One thing I was thinking about was is that Dan said earlier that , you know , maybe two weeks later , which is when you would want to query these things , you might ask them then . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But there 's a problem with that in that if {pause} you 're not {disfmarker} If you don't have an interactive system , it 's gonna be hard to go beyond sort of the first level of question . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . And furth id explore the data further . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's another problem +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: which is , um , we certainly do want to branch out beyond , uh , uh , recording meetings about Meeting Recorder . And , uh , once we get out beyond our little group , the people 's motivation factor , uh , reduces enormously . And if we start giving them a bunch of other things to do , how {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we did n you know another meeting here for another group and {disfmarker} and , uh , they were fine with it . But if we 'd said , "" OK , now all eight of you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have to come up with , uh , the summar "" +Grad G: Well , I asked them to and none of them did . +Professor D: t See ? There we go . +Grad G: So , I {disfmarker} I asked them to send me ideas for queries after the meeting +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: They {disfmarker} +Grad G: and no one ever did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I didn't follow up either . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: So I didn't track them down and say "" please do th do it now "" . But , uh , no one spontaneously provided anything . +Professor D: I I 'm worried that if you did {disfmarker} even if you did push them into it , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it might be semi - random , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: uh , as opposed to what you 'd really want to know if you were gonna use this thing . +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: I just don't know how else to generate the queries other than getting an expert to actually listen to the meeting and say "" that 's important , that might be a query "" . +Postdoc H: Tsk . Well , there is this other thing which y which you were alluding to earlier , which is , um , there are certain key words like , you know , "" action item "" and things like that , which could be used in , uh , t to some degree finding the structure . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Although {disfmarker} +Professor A: W +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and I also , um , was thinking , with reference to the n uh , note - taking , the advantage there is that you get structure without the person having to do something artificial later . And the fir third thing I wanted to say is the summaries afterwards , um , I think they should be recorded instead of written because I think that , um , it would take so long for people to write that I think you wouldn't get as good a summary . +Professor A: How about this idea ? That normally at most meetings somebody is delegated to be a note - taker . +Postdoc H: Yeah , good . Good point . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} So why don't we just use the notes that somebody takes ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , that gives you a summary but it doesn't really {disfmarker} How do you generate queries from that ? +PhD E: Well . But , I mean , maybe a summary is one of the things we 'd want from the output of the system . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Right ? I mean , they 're something . It 's a {disfmarker} a kind of output you 'd like . +PhD B: Actually {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , James and I were talking about this during one of the breaks . And the problem with that is , I 'm definitely going to do something with information retrieval even if it 's sort of not full full - bore what I 'm gonna do for my thesis . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: I 'm gonna do something . I 'm not gonna do anything with summarization . And so if someone wants to do that , that 's fine , but it 's not gonna be me . +Professor D: Well , I think that we {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the f the core thing is that you know once we get some of these issues nailed down , we need to do a bunch of recordings +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: and send them off to IBM and get a bunch of transcriptions even if they 're slightly flawed +Grad G: Yep . +Professor D: or need some other {disfmarker} And then we 'll have some data there . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then , i i we can start l looking and thinking , what do we want to know about these things and {disfmarker} at the very least . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I actually want to say something about the note pad . So , if you could sense just when people are writing , and you tell them not to doodle , or try not to {pause} be using that for other purposes , {comment} and each person has a note pad . They just get it when they come in the room . Then you c you can just have a fff {comment} plot of wh you know , who 's writing when . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: That 's all you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Activity . Yeah . +PhD B: And , you can also have notes of the meeting . But I bet that 's {disfmarker} that will allow you to go into the {disfmarker} sort of the hot places where people are writing things down . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Oh , I see . +PhD B: I mean , you can tell when you 're in a meeting when everybody stops to write something down that something was just said . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: It may not be kept in the later summary , but at that point in time is was something that was important . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And that wouldn't take any extra {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a nice idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or someone could just pu you could just put your hand on the pad +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and go like that if you want to . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's a good idea but that doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe I 'm missing something , but that doesn't get to the question of how we come up with queries , right ? +Professor A: Well , what it does {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , then you can go to the points where the {disfmarker} you could actually go to those points in time and find out what they were talking about . And you r +Professor A: Well , what it does is provide a different {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , y +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's an interesting thing . I don't think it gets at the {disfmarker} the queries per - se , but it does give us an information fusion sort of thing that , you know , you wanna i say "" what were the hot - points of the meeting ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that 's what I mean , is that I think it gets at something interesting but if we were asking the question , which I thought we were , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of , um , "" how do we figure out what 's the nature of the queries that people are gonna want to ask of such a system ? "" , knowing what 's important doesn't tell you what people are going to be asking . +PhD B: But I bet it 's a good {pause} superset of it . +Professor D: Does it ? +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: Well , see , there are th +Professor A: I think you could say they 're gonna ask about , uh , when {disfmarker} uh , when did so - and - so s talk about blah . And at least that gives you the word {pause} that they might run a query on . +PhD B: At least you can find the locations where there are maybe keywords +Professor D: Maybe . +Grad G: I mean , i this would tell you what the hit is , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: not what the query is . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Right , right . +Grad G: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 'll tell you the hit but not the query . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think thinking about queries is a little bit dangerous right now . +Grad G: And so you could {disfmarker} you can generate a query from the hits , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: We don't even know what {disfmarker} I mean , if you want to find out what any user will use , that might be true for one domain and one user , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but I mean a different domain and a different user {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , but we 're just looking for a place to start with that +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: because , you know , th what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what James is gonna be doing is looking at the user - interface and he 's looking at the query in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} i We {disfmarker} we have five hours of pilot data of the other stuff but we have zero hours of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of queries . So he 's just sort of going "" where {disfmarker} where do I {disfmarker} where do I start ? "" +Professor A: w Well , th you could do {disfmarker} I think the summaries actually may help get us there , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: for a couple reasons . One , if you have a summary {disfmarker} if you have a bunch of summaries , you can do a word frequency count and see what words come up in different types of meetings . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So "" action item "" is gonna come up whether it 's a VLSI meeting , or speech meeting , or whatever . So words that come up in different types of meetings may be something that you would want to query about . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , the second thing you could possibly do with it is just run a little pilot experiment with somebody saying "" here 's a summary of a meeting , what questions might you want to ask about it to go back ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , I think that 's difficult because then they 're not gonna ask the questions that are in the summary . +Professor A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , I think it would give {disfmarker} +Professor A: That 's one possi one possible scenario , though , is you have the summary , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and you want to ask questions to get more detail . +Grad G: th Yeah , I think it has to be a participant . Well , it doesn't have to be . OK . So that {disfmarker} that is another use of Meeting Recorder that we haven't really talked about , which is for someone else , as opposed to as a {pause} remembrance agent , which is what had been my primary thought in the information retrieval part of it would be . But , uh , I guess if you had a meeting participant , they could use the summary to refresh themselves about the meeting and then make up queries . But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I don't know how to do it if {disfmarker} until you have a system . +PhD B: The summary is actually gonna drive the queries then . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , your research is going to be very circular . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what I was saying . +PhD E: But th there is this , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is this class of queries , which are the things that you didn't realize were important at the time but some in retrospect you think "" oh , hang on , didn't we talk about that ? "" And it 's something that didn't appear in the summary but you {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And that 's kind of what this kind of , uh , complete data capture is kind of nicest for . +Professor A: Right . Right . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Cuz it 's the things that you wouldn't have bothered to make an effort to record but they get recorded . So , I mean {disfmarker} And th there 's no way of generating those , u u until we just {disfmarker} until they actually occur . +PhD B: But you could always post - hoc label them . +PhD E: You know , it 's like {disfmarker} Right , right . Exactly . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: But I mean , it 's difficult to sort of say "" and if I was gonna ask four questions about this , what would they be ? "" Those aren't the kind of things that come up . +Grad G: But at least it would get us started . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Yeah , sure . +Postdoc H: I also think that w if {disfmarker} if you can use the summaries as an indication of the important points of the {disfmarker} of the meeting , then you might get something like {disfmarker} y So if th if the obscure item you want to know more about was some form of data collection , you know , maybe the summary would say , you know , "" we discussed types of na data collection "" . And , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and maybe you could get to it by that . If you {disfmarker} if you had the {disfmarker} the larger structure of the {disfmarker} of the discourse , then if you can categorize what it is that you 're looking for with reference to those l those larger headings , then you can find it even if you don't have a direct route to that . +Grad G: Mmm . Although it seems like that 's , um , a high burden on the note - taker . +Postdoc H: I think that {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's a pretty fine grain that the note - taker will have to take . +PhD B: Maybe Landay can put a student in to be a note - taker . +Professor A: I th No . I think you got to have somebody who knows the pro knows the topic or {disfmarker} you know , whose job it is delegated to be the note - taker . +PhD B: No ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Somebody who 's part of the meeting . +PhD B: No , I mean , but someone who can come sit in on the meetings and then takes the notes with them that the real note - taker {disfmarker} +Grad G: But they {disfmarker} +PhD B: And that way that one student has , you know , a rough idea of what was going on , and they can use it for their research . I mean , this isn't really necessarily what you would do in a real system , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because that that 's a lot of trouble +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and maybe it 's not the best way to do it . But if he has some students that want to study that then they should sort of get to know the people and attend those meetings , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and get the notes from the note - taker or something . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Hmm . +Grad G: Well , I think that 's a little bit of a problem . Their sort of note - taking application stuff they 've been doing for the last couple of years , and I don't think anyone is still working on it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think they 're done . Um , so I 'm not sure that they have anyone currently working on notes . So what we 'd have to interest someone in is the combination of note and speech . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: And so the question is "" is there such a person ? "" And I think right now , the answer is "" no "" . +Professor A: Well +Professor D: I 've b been thinking {disfmarker} +Grad G: We 'll just have to see . +Professor D: I 've been thinking about it a little bit here {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} uh , th this , e um {disfmarker} I think that the {disfmarker} now I 'm thinking that the summary {disfmarker} a summary , uh , is actually a reasonable , uh , bootstrap into this {disfmarker} into what we 'd like to get at . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not ideal , but we {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we have to get started someplace . So I was {disfmarker} I was just thinking about , um , suppose we wanted to get {disfmarker} w We have this collection of meeting . We have five hours of stuff . Uh , we get that transcribed . So now we have five hours of meetings and , uh , you ask me , uh , uh , "" Morgan , what d you know , what kind of questions do you want to ask ? "" Uh , I wouldn't have any idea what kind of questions I want to ask . I 'd have to get started someplace . So in fact if I looked at summary of it , I 'd go "" oh , yeah , I was in that meeting , I remember that , um , what was the part that {disfmarker} "" And {disfmarker} and th I think that might then help me to think of things {disfmarker} even things that aren't listed in the summary , but just as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a refresh of what the general thing was going on in the meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think it serves two purpo purposes . One , as sort of a refresh to help bootstrap queries , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: but also , I mean , maybe we do want to generate summaries . And then it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's kind of a key . +Professor D: Well , yeah . That 's true too . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , absolutely . Then you want to have it . +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how does the summary get generated ? +Professor A: Well , i i {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I 'm not against the idea of a summary , +Grad G: By hand . +PhD B: but I wanted to think carefully about who 's generating it +Professor A: Or , d o +PhD B: and how {disfmarker} because the summary will drive the queries . +Professor A: What I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in most meetings , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor A: this one being {pause} different , but in most meetings that I attend , there 's somebody t explicitly taking notes , frequently on a laptop {disfmarker} Um , you can just make it be on a laptop , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: so then yo you 're dealing with ASCII and not somebody {disfmarker} you don't have to go through handwriting recognition . Um , and then they post - edit it into , uh , a summary and they email it out for minutes . I mean , that happens in most meetings . +Postdoc H: I I {disfmarker} I think that , um , there 's {disfmarker} we 're using "" summary "" in two different ways . So what you just described I would describe as "" minutes "" . +Grad G: Minutes . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: And what I originally thought was , um , if you asked someone "" what was the meeting about ? "" +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And then they would say "" well , we talked about this and then we talked about that , and so - and - so talked about {disfmarker} "" And then you 'd have , like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} e My thought was to have multiple people summarize it , on recording rather than writing because writing takes time and you get irrelevant other things that u take time , that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Whereas if you just say it immediately after the meeting , you know , a two - minute summary of what the meeting was about , I think you would get , uh , with mult See , I {disfmarker} I also worry about having a single note - taker because that 's just one person 's perception . And , um , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's releva it 's relative to what you 're focus was on that meeting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and people have different {comment} major topics that they 're interested in . +Professor D: A +Postdoc H: So , my proposal would be that it may be worth considering both of those types , you know , the note - taking and a spontaneous oral summary afterwards , +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: no longer than two minutes , +Professor D: Adam , you can {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: from multiple people . +Professor D: you can correct me on this , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but , uh , my impression was that , uh , pretty much , uh , true that the meetings here , nobody sits with a w uh , with a laptop +Grad G: Never . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Never . I 've never seen it at ICSI . Does anyone {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Dan ? +Professor D: I +Grad G: I mean , Dan is the one who {disfmarker} who most frequently would take notes , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've d When we {disfmarker} when we have other meetings . When I have meetings on the European projects , we have someone taking notes . +Grad G: Oh , really ? +Professor D: Yeah , but those are bigger deal things . +PhD E: In fact , I often do it . +Professor D: Right ? Where you 've got fifteen peo +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , most {disfmarker} th this is one of the larger meetings . Most of the meetings we have are four or five people +Grad G: That 's true {disfmarker} are four or five people . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: and you 're not {disfmarker} you don't have somebody sitting and taking minutes for it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: You just {vocalsound} get together and talk about where you are . +Professor A: So , I think it depends on whether it 's a business meeting or a technical discussion . +Grad G: Culture . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: And I agree , +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: technical discussions you don't usually have somebody taking notes . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: The IRAM meeting , they {disfmarker} they take notes every {disfmarker} +Professor D: Do they ? +Grad G: There 's uh a person with a laptop {pause} at each meeting . +PhD E: How many people are those meetings ? +Grad G: There are more . I mean , there are ten - ish . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Y you should also have a record of what 's on the board . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: They 're very sparse . +PhD B: I mean , I find it very {pause} hard to reconstruct what 's going on . I {disfmarker} I don't know how {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . This is something early in the project we talked a lot about . +PhD B: I don't know how , but for instance , I mean , the outline is sort of up here and that 's what people are seeing . And if you have a {disfmarker} Or you shou could tell people not to {disfmarker} to use the boards . But there 's sort of this missing information otherwise . +PhD E: We sh we should {disfmarker} +Grad G: I agree , but {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} you just {disfmarker} you g end up with video , +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD E: Well , I don't know . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and instrumented rooms . And {pause} that 's a different project , I think . +PhD E: f u I think for this data capture , it would be nice to have a digital camera +Grad G: Yeah , different {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , y +PhD E: just to take pictures of who 's there , where the microphones are , and then we could also put in what 's on the board . You know , like three or four snaps for every {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc H: I agree . +PhD B: Yeah . People who were never at the meeting will have a very hard time understanding it otherwise . +PhD E: for every meeting . +Postdoc H: That 's wonderful . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But don't you think that 's {disfmarker} Don't you think that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even people who were at the meeting . +PhD E: Well , no . I mean , I {disfmarker} I just think {disfmarker} I mean , I think that right now we don't make a record of where people are sitting on the tables . +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: Huh . +PhD E: And that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} at some point that might be awfully useful . +Grad G: Right . But I think adding photographs adds a whole nother level of problems . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . We n uh , +Postdoc H: It 's just a digital record . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} not as part of the {disfmarker} not as a part of the data that you have to recover . +PhD B: I don't mean that you model it . +PhD E: Just {disfmarker} just in terms of {disfmarker} +PhD B: We should just {disfmarker} Like archiving it or storing it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yes , I agree . I agree . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's i because discourse is about things , +PhD B: Because someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: and then you have the things that are about , and it 's recoverable . +PhD B: someone later might be able to take these and say "" OK , they , you know {disfmarker} at least these are the people who were there +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: and here 's sort of what they started talking about , and {disfmarker} "" and just {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yes . And it 's so simple . +Professor D: Li +Postdoc H: Like you said , three snapshots +Professor D: uh , L L L +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Liz , you {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Just to archive . +Professor D: u uh , Liz , you sa you sat in on the , uh , {vocalsound} subcommittee meeting or whatever {disfmarker} +PhD E: Actually {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh , on {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} on the subcommittee meeting for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} at the , uh {disfmarker} that workshop we were at that , uh , uh , Mark Liberman was {disfmarker} was having . So I {disfmarker} I wasn't there . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they h must have had some discussion about video and the visual aspect , and all that . +PhD B: Big , big interest . Huge . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} personally , I don't {disfmarker} I would never want to deal with it . But I 'm just saying first of all there 's a whole bunch of fusion issues that DARPA 's interested in . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: You know , fusing gesture and face recognition , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even lip movement and things like that , for this kind of task . And there 's also I think a personal interest on the part of Mark Liberman in this kind of {disfmarker} in storing these images in any data we collect +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so that later we can do other things with it . +Professor D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so to address what {disfmarker} what Adam 's saying , +Postdoc H: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , I think you {disfmarker} uh , that the key thing there is that this is a description of database collection effort that they 're talking about doing . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And if the database exists and includes some visual information that doesn't mean that an individual researcher is going to make any use of it . Right ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a lot of effort on our part to create it , and store it , and get all the standards , and to do anything with it . +Professor D: Right . So we 're gonna {disfmarker} So we 're gonna do what we 're gonna do , whatever 's reasonable for us . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I think even doing something very crude {disfmarker} +Professor D: But having {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like I know with ATIS , we just had a tape recorder running all the time . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And later on it turned out it was really good that you had a tape recorder of what was happening , even though you w you just got the speech from the machine . So if you can find some really , you know , low , uh , perplexity , +Grad G: Low fidelity . +PhD B: yeah , {comment} way of {disfmarker} of doing that , I think it would be worthwhile . +Grad G: Yeah . +Postdoc H: I agree . And if it 's simple as {disfmarker} I mean , as simple as just the digital {disfmarker} +PhD B: Otherwise you 'd {disfmarker} you lose it . +Professor D: Well , minimally , I mean , what {disfmarker} what Dan is referring to at least having some representation of the p the spatial position of the people , +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: cuz we are interested in some spatial processing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: so , um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , once the room is a little more fixed that 's a little easier +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: cuz you 'll {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , the wireless . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Also CMU has been doing this and they were the most vocal at this meeting , Alex Waibel 's group . And they have {pause} said , I talked to the student who had done this , {comment} that with two fairly inexpensive cameras they {disfmarker} they just recorded all the time +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and were able to get all the information from {disfmarker} or maybe it was three {disfmarker} from all the parts of the room . So I think we would be {disfmarker} we might lose the chance to use this data for somebody later who wants to do some kind of processing on it if we don't collect it {comment} at all . +Grad G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't disagree . I think that if you have that , then people who are interested in vision can use this database . The problem with it is you 'll have more people who don't want to be filmed than who don't want to be recorded . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad G: So that there 's going to be another group of people who are gonna say "" I won't participate "" . +Postdoc H: Well , she 's not {pause} making {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's true . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Or you could put a paper bag over everybody 's head +Grad G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: and not look at each other and not look at boards , and just all be sitting {vocalsound} talking . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: That would be an interes {vocalsound} Bu +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor D: Great idea . +Postdoc H: Well , there 's {disfmarker} that 'd be the {disfmarker} the parallel , yeah . But I think y she 's {disfmarker} we 're just proposing {pause} a minimal preservation of things on boards , +PhD B: Yeah . I definitely won't participate if there 's a camera . +Postdoc H: sp spatial organization {disfmarker} And you could anonymize the faces for that matter . You know , I mean , this is {disfmarker} +Grad G: But , you know , that 's a lot of infrastructure and work . +Postdoc H: We can talk about the {disfmarker} +Grad G: To set it up and then anonymize it ? +Postdoc H: It 's just one snapshot . +PhD B: No , it wa n not , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: No , no , no , no . +Postdoc H: We 're not talking about a movie . +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Not for {disfmarker} not for CMU . +Postdoc H: We 're talking about a snapshot . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: They have a pretty crude set - up . And they had {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: they just turn on these cameras . They were {disfmarker} they were not moving or anything . +Grad G: Couldn't find it ? +PhD B: And stored it on analog media . +Grad G: Hmm ? +Postdoc H: Hmm . +PhD B: And they {disfmarker} they didn't actually align it or anything . They just {disfmarker} they have it , though . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , it 's worth considering . Maybe we don't want to {disfmarker} spend that much more time discussing it , +PhD F: Did they store it digitally , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm - mm . I think they just {disfmarker} +PhD F: or just put it on videotape ? +PhD B: I think they just had the videotapes with a c you know , a counter or something . Um , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Well , I think for {disfmarker} I mean , for our purposes we probably will d +PhD B: I 'm not sure . +Professor D: we {disfmarker} we might try that some and {disfmarker} and we certainly already have some recordings that don't have that , uh , which , you know , we we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get other value out of , I think . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Th The thing is , if it 's easy to collect it {disfmarker} it th then I think it 's a wise thing to do because once it 's gone it 's gone . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm just {disfmarker} The community {disfmarker} If LDC collects this data {disfmarker} u I mean , and L - if Mark Liberman is a strong proponent of how they collect it and what they collect , there will probably be some video data in there . +Professor D: There you go . +PhD B: And so that could argue for us not doing it or it could argue for us doing it . The only place where it sort of overlaps is when some of the summarization issues are {disfmarker} actually could be , um , easier {disfmarker} made easier if you had {pause} the video . +Professor D: I think at the moment we should be determining this on the basis of our own , uh , interests and needs rather than hypothetical ones from a community thing . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: As you say , if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if they decide it 's really critical then they will collect a lot more data than we can afford to , uh , and {disfmarker} and will include all that . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , +Professor A: e +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not worried about the cost of setting it up . I 'm worried about the cost of people looking at it . In other words , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 'd be kind of silly to collect it all and not look at it at all . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that we do have to do some picking and choosing of the stuff that we 're doing . But I {disfmarker} I am int I do think that we m minimally want {disfmarker} something {disfmarker} we might want to look at {disfmarker} at some {disfmarker} some , uh , subsets of that . Like for a meeting like this , at least , uh , take a Polaroid of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the boards , +PhD B: Of the board . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD B: Or at least make sure that the note - taker takes a sh you know , a snapshot of the board . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor D: a and know the position of the people {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 'll make it a lot easier for meetings that are structured . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , otherwise later on if nobody wrote this stuff on the board down we 'd have a harder time summarizing it or agreeing on a summary . +Postdoc H: We {disfmarker} And it {disfmarker} Especially since this is common knowledge . I mean , this is shared knowledge among all the participants , and it 's a shame to keep it off the recording . +Grad G: Uh , except in {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: s +Grad G: er , if we weren't recording this , this {disfmarker} this would get lost . Right ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well , I don't understand that point . I mean , I just think that the {disfmarker} +Grad G: The point is that we 're not saving it anyway . Right ? In {disfmarker} in {pause} our real - life setting . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: What do you mean we 're not saving it anyway ? I 've written all of this down and it 's getting emailed to you . +Professor C: And you 're gonna send it out by email , too . +Grad G: Well , uh , in that case we don't need to take pictures of it . +PhD B: Right . That would be the other alternative , to make sure that anything that was on the board , um , is in the record . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why I 'm saying that I think the note - taking would be {disfmarker} I think in many {disfmarker} for many meetings there will be some sort of note - taking , in which case , that 's a useful thing to have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} uh , we don't need to require it . Just like the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I think it would be great if we try to get a picture with every meeting . Um , +Postdoc H: I agree . +Professor A: so {disfmarker} so we won't worry about requiring these things , but the more things that we can get it for , the more useful it will be for various applications . So . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} So , I mean , departing for the moment from the data collection question but actually talking about , you know , this group and what we actually want to do , uh , so I guess that 's th the way {disfmarker} what you were figuring on doing was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was , uh , putting together some notes and sending them to {disfmarker} to everybody from {disfmarker} from today ? OK . So . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's great . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the question {comment} that {disfmarker} that we started with was whether there was anything else we should do during {disfmarker} during th during the collection . +PhD B: Ow . +Professor D: And I guess the CrossPads was certainly one idea , uh , and we 'll get them from him and we 'll just do that . Right ? And then the next thing we talked about was the {disfmarker} was the summaries and are we gonna do anything about that . +Professor A: Well , before we leave the CrossPads and {disfmarker} and call it done . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: So , if I 'm collecting data then there is this question of do I use CrossPads ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: So , I think that if we really seriously have me collect data and I can't use CrossPads , it 's probably less useful for you guys to go to the trouble of using it , um , unless you think that the CrossPads are gonna {disfmarker} n I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what they 're gonna do . But {disfmarker} but having a small percentage of the data with it , I 'm not sure whether that 's useful or not . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's no big deal . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +Professor A: Maybe we just do it and see what happens . +Professor D: I guess the point was to try {disfmarker} again , to try to collect more information that could be useful later for {disfmarker} for the UI stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So it 's sort of Landay supplying it so that Landay 's stuff can be easier to do . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right now he 's g operating from zero , +Professor A: Nothing . +Professor D: and so even if we didn't get it done from UW , it seems like that would {disfmarker} could still {disfmarker} You shou +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: I mean , at least try it . +PhD B: I think it 'd be useful to have a small amount of it just as a proof of concept . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: It will {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD B: You know , what you can do with things . +Grad G: And {disfmarker} and they seem to {pause} not be able to give enough of them away , so we could probably get more as well . +PhD B: Yeah . But not {disfmarker} not to rely on them for {pause} basic modeling . +Professor A: That 's true . So if it {disfmarker} if it seems to be really useful to you guys , we could probably get a donation to me . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm not sure . I think it it {disfmarker} it will again depend on Landay , and if he has a student who 's interested , and how much infrastructure we 'll need . I mean , if it 's easy , we can just do it . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Um , but if it requires a lot of our time , we probably won't do it . +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: I guess a lot of the stuff we 're doing now really is pilot in one sense or another . +Grad G: Yeah . Yeah , we have to sort of figure out what we 're gonna do . +Professor D: And so we try it out and see how it works . +Grad G: Right . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: I just wouldn't base any of the modeling on having those . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . I ag I think I agree with that . +PhD B: It 's just {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . OK . +Grad G: I think , though , the importance marking is a {pause} good idea , though . That if {disfmarker} if people have something in front of them {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'd be sort of cool . I mean , it would {disfmarker} Yeah . That w shouldn't be hard for {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . Do it on pilots or laptops or something . OK , if something 's important everyone clap . +Professor A: OK . So CrossPads , we 're just gonna try it and see what happens . +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: Yeah . Um , I think that 's right . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: The note - taking {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I think that this is gonna be useful . So if we record data I will definitely ask for it . So , I j I think we should just say this is not {disfmarker} we don't want to put any extra burden on people , but if they happen to generate minutes , could {disfmarker} could they send it to us ? +Grad G: Yeah . Oh , OK . That 's fine . Absolutely . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . What I was gonna say is that I don't want to ask people to do something they wouldn't normally do in a meeting . It 's ver I just want to keep away from the artificiality . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: But I think it {pause} definitely if they exist . And then Jane 's idea of summarization afterward I think is not a bad one . Um , picking out {disfmarker} basically to let you pick out keywords , um , and , uh , construct queries . +Professor D: So who {disfmarker} who does this summarization ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'm thinking that {disfmarker} +Grad G: People in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: You know , just at {disfmarker} at the end of the meeting , before you go , +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Without hearing each other though , probably . +Grad G: go around the table . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: Or even just have one or two people stay behind . +Grad G: Yeah . Ugh . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: People with radio mikes can go into separate rooms and continue recording without hearing each other . That 's the nice thing . +PhD B: Well , then you should try them a few weeks later +Postdoc H: How fascinating . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} They have all these memory experiments about how little you actually retain +Grad G: And see {disfmarker} score them ? +PhD E: That 's right . Well , that 's the interesting thing , though . +PhD B: and wasn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we do {disfmarker} if we collect four different summaries , you know , we 're gonna get all this weird data about how people perceive things differently . +Grad G: Oh . +PhD E: It 's like {comment} this is not what we meant to research . +Grad G: Hmm . +PhD B: Right , right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +Postdoc H: That could be very interesting . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but again , like the CrossPads , I don't think I would base a lot of stuff on it , +Professor D: Ru +Grad G: I d yeah , I don't know how you would do it , though . +Professor A: because I think {disfmarker} I know when I see the {disfmarker} the clock coming near the end of the meeting , I 'm like inching towards the door . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Running to {disfmarker} Yeah , +Professor A: So , +Grad G: fff ! +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor A: you 're probably not gonna get {pause} a lot of people wanting to do this . +Grad G: Maybe e Is email easier ? +Postdoc H: Well , I think if {disfmarker} +Grad G: I mean , I {disfmarker} when you first said do {disfmarker} do it , um , spoken , what I was thinking is , oh then people have to come up +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and you have to hook them up to the recorder . So , if they 're already here I think that 's good , +Professor A: Right . +Grad G: but if they 're not already here for {disfmarker} I 'd rather do email . I 'm much faster typing than anything else . +Postdoc H: Yeah , I 'd just try {disfmarker} Well , however the least intrusive and {disfmarker} and quickest way is , and th and closest to the meeting time too , cuz people will start to forget it as soon as they l leave . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I think that {disfmarker} I think doing it orally at the end of the meeting is the best time . +Grad G: I don't know . At {disfmarker} +Professor A: I just don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: because they 're kind of a captive audience . Once they leave , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , forget it . But {disfmarker} but i +Grad G: Yeah , read the digits , do the summary . +Professor A: Right . But , uh , I don't think that they 'll necessarily {disfmarker} you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll get many people willing to stay . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: But , you know , if you get even one {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: w +Professor D: Well , I think it 's like the note - taking thing , +Postdoc H: I would s Yeah . +Professor D: that {disfmarker} that y that you can't {disfmarker} certainly can't require it or people aren't gonna want to do this . But {disfmarker} but if there 's some cases where they will , then it would be helpful . +PhD F: Hmm . +Postdoc H: And I 'm also wondering , couldn't that be included in the data sample so that you could increase the num you know , the words that are , uh , recognized by a particular individual ? If you could include the person 's meeting stuff and also the person 's summary stuff , maybe that would be uh , +PhD E: Yeah . It 's kind of nice . +Postdoc H: an ad addition to their database . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Under the same acoustic circumstance , cuz if they just walk next door with their set - up , nothing 's changed , +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc H: just {disfmarker} +PhD F: So I have a question about queries , +Grad G: God , that 's bugging me . +PhD F: which is , um , +Grad G: Can we turn that light off ? +Postdoc H: You turn {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +Grad G: If {disfmarker} can we turn that just {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that let {disfmarker} +Professor D: The fl the fluorescent light is flickering . +Postdoc H: Uh , let the record show the light is flickering . +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , there 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , it is {disfmarker} it is like {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: Very annoying . +PhD F: There you go . OK . +Grad G: Oh , much better . +Professor A: For a little while I thought it was just that I was really tired . +Professor C: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's better . +PhD F: Good . +Professor A: That and y {comment} Too much caffeine and really tired , +Grad G: Too much caffeine . +Professor A: but then I thought "" no , maybe that 's real "" . +Professor D: OK . +PhD F: So , +Grad G: I thought it was the projector for a moment . It was like , "" what 's going on ? "" +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: the question I had about queries was , um , so what we 're planning to do is have people look at the summaries and then generate queries ? Are {disfmarker} are we gonna try and o +Grad G: We {disfmarker} we 've just been talking , how do we generate queries ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well , I mean , +Grad G: And so that was one suggestion . +PhD F: so , the question I had is is have we given any thought to how we would generate queries automatically given a summary ? I mean , I think that 's a whole research topic un unto itself , +Professor D: Mmm . +PhD F: so that it may not be a feasible thing . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hello . Dan here . +PhD F: n +PhD B: Shouldn't Landay and his group be in charge of figuring out how to do this ? +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , this is an issue that goes a little bit beyond where {pause} we are right now . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: They 're the expert +PhD E: Mari ? +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD E: Someone wants to know when you 're getting picked up . Is someone picking you up ? +Professor A: Um , {vocalsound} what 's our schedule ? +Professor D: Well , you still wanted to talk with Liz . +Professor A: Let 's see , you and I need dis Uh , no , we did the Liz talk . +Professor D: And you and I need to Oh , oh . You already did the Liz talk . +Professor A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so that was the prosody thing . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: We - {vocalsound} I don't remember it . +Professor A: Um , we need to finish the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , OK . +Professor A: It 's already four - fifteen . +PhD B: I have like no recall memory . +Professor A: Uh , after . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: We need to {pause} finish this discussion , and you and I need a little time for wrap - up and quad chart . So , +Grad G: And what ? +Professor A: um {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm at your disposal . So , up to you . +Professor A: Um , what {disfmarker} what 's the plan for this discussion ? We should {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , I think we should be able to wind up in another half - hour or something , you think ? +Grad G: At least . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , less . +Grad G: m i Even if that much ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: Less ? +Grad G: Less . +Professor A: So , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting that he 's got , like , {pause} this discussion free +Professor D: Well , I mean , we still haven't talked about the action items from here and so on . +Professor A: Action {disfmarker} Yeah . So , +PhD B: yet it 's separate . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: e e why don't you say five - thirty ? I don't {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , five - thirty . +Professor A: Is that OK ? We 'll probably hit horrible traffic . +PhD E: Sounds {disfmarker} OK . h Thanks , bye . +Professor A: That 's not a lot of time , +PhD E: That 's that . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , in answer to "" is it Landay 's problem ? "" , um , he doesn't have a student who 's interested right now in doing anything . So he has very little manpower . Um , there 's very little allocated for him and also he 's pretty focused on user interface . So I don't think he wants to do information retrieval , query generation , that sort of stuff . +Professor D: Yeah , well there 's gonna be these student projects that can do some things but it can't be , yeah , very deep . u I {disfmarker} I actually think that {disfmarker} that , uh , again , just as a bootstrap , {comment} if we do have something like summaries , then having the people who are involved in the meetings themselves , who are cooperative and willing to do yet more , come up with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with queries , uh , could at least give {disfmarker} give Landay an idea of the kind of things that people might want to know . I mean , ye Right ? If he doesn't know anything about the area , and {disfmarker} the people are talking about and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the people will just look at the summaries or the minutes and re and sort of back - generate the queries . That 's what I 'm worried about . So you might as well just give him the summaries . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD F: Well , I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that 's a solved problem . +Grad G: y Well , but I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD F: Right ? Of how to {disfmarker} how to generate queries from a {disfmarker} +PhD B: How to do this from the summary . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: That was sort of what my {pause} question was {pause} aimed towards . +PhD B: So what you want to h to do is , people who were there , who later see , uh , minutes and s put in summary form , which is not gonna be at the same time as the meeting . There 's no way that can happen . Are we gonna later go over it +Professor A: Hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad G: Right . +PhD B: and , like , make up some stuff to which these notes would be an answer , or {disfmarker} or a deeper {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: Or {disfmarker} or just a memory refresher . +PhD B: But that 's done off {disfmarker} they have to do that off - line . +Grad G: Yep . I agree . +PhD B: You +Postdoc H: I 'm also wondering if we could ask the {disfmarker} the people a {disfmarker} a question which would be "" what was the most interesting thing you got out of this meeting ? "" Becau - in terms of like informativeness , +PhD B: That 's a good one . +Postdoc H: it might be , you know , that the summary would {disfmarker} would not in even include what the person thought was the most interesting fact . +Professor D: I would think that would be the most likely thing . +PhD B: Dan doesn't know what sex he is . +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor A: But actually I would say that 's a better thing to ask than have them summarize the meeting . +Postdoc H: I think you get two different types of information . +Professor A: You get two {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Because you get , like , the general structure of important points and what the {disfmarker} what the meeting was about . +Professor D: Hey . +PhD B: Ah +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: We 're still here . +Postdoc H: So you get the general structure , the important points of what the meeting was about {pause} with the summary . But with the "" what 's the most interesting thing you learned ? "" {disfmarker} Uh , so the fact that , uh , I know that Transcriber uses Snack is something that I thought was interesting +PhD B: Going to see the kids . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you can keep it on . +Postdoc H: and that {disfmarker} and that Dan worked on {disfmarker} on that . So I thought that was really {disfmarker} you know . So , I mean , you could ge pick up some of the micro items that wouldn't even occur as major headings +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: but could be very informative . +Professor A: Yeah , that 's actually a really good idea . +Postdoc H: I think it wouldn't be too , uh , uh , cost - intensive either . You know , I mean , it 's like something someone can do pretty easily on the spur of the moment . +Professor C: Are you thinking about just asking one participant or all of them ? +Grad G: As many are willing to do it . +Professor C: Make it a voluntary thing , +PhD E: Yeah . Cuz you 'll get {disfmarker} cuz you 'll get very different answers from everybody , right ? +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's why I was wondering . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , maybe one thing we could do is for the meetings we 've already done {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} we didn't take minutes and we don't have summaries . But , uh , people could , like , listen to them a little bit and {pause} generate some queries . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Of course Jane doesn't need to . I 'm sure you have that meeting memorized by now . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: But actually it would be an easy thing to just go around the room and say {pause} what was the most interesting thing you learned , +Grad G: Mmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: for those pe people willing to stay . +Postdoc H: And that {disfmarker} I think it would pick up the micro - structure , the {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some of the little things that would be hidden . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and that might be something people are willing to stay for . +Professor D: Boy , I {disfmarker} I don't know how we get at this {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That would be interesting . +Professor C: Yeah , but when you go around the room you might just get the effect that somebody says something +Grad G: Or want to get up and leave . +Professor C: and then you go around the room and they say "" yeah , me too , I agree . "" +Grad G: Me too , me too , me too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: That 's fine . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: On the other hand people might try and come up with different ones , right ? +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: They might say "" oh , I was gonna say that one but now I have to think of something else "" . +Grad G: Well , you have the other thing , that {disfmarker} that they know why we 're doing it . We 'll {disfmarker} I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be telling them that the reason we 're trying to do this is {disfmarker} is to d generate queries in the future , so try to pick things that other people didn't say . +Professor D: It 's gonna take some thought . I mean , It seemed {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The kind of , uh , interest that I had in this thing initially was , uh , that i basically the form that you 're doing something else {pause} later , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and you want to pick up something from this meeting related to the something else . So it 's really the imp the {disfmarker} the list of what 's important 's in the something else +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor D: And it might be something minor {disfmarker} of minor importance to the meeting . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +Professor D: Uh , in fact if {disfmarker} if it was really major , if it 's the thing that really stuck in your head , then you might not need to go back and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and check on it even . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's that you 're trying to find {disfmarker} {comment} You 're {disfmarker} you 've now {disfmarker} You weren't interested {disfmarker} Say I {disfmarker} I said "" well , I wasn't that much interested in dialogue , I 'm more of an acoustics person "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but thr three months from now if for some reason I get really interested in dialogue , and I 'm "" well what is {disfmarker} what was that part that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , Mari was saying ? "" +Grad G: Yeah , like Jim Bass says "" add a few lines on dialogue in your next perf "" +Professor A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: And then I 'm trying to fi I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's when I look {disfmarker} in general when I look things up most , is when it 's something that {vocalsound} didn't really stick in my head the first time around and {disfmarker} but for some {comment} new reason I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the old stuff . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} that 's gonna be very hard to generate . +Professor A: Well , I {disfmarker} That 's hard to generate +Professor D: So , I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Do we {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and I think that 's half of what i I would use it for . But I also a lot of times um , make {disfmarker} you know , think to myself "" this is interesting , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I 've gotta come back and follow up on it "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , things that I think are interesting , um , I would be , uh , wanting to do a query about . And also , I like the idea of going around the room , because if somebody else thought something was interesting , I 'd kind of want to know about it and then I 'd want to follow up on it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . That {disfmarker} that might get at some of what I was {disfmarker} I was concerned about , uh , being interested in something later that w uh , I didn't consider to be important the first time , which for me is actually the dominant thing , because if I thought it was really important it tends to stick more than if I didn't , but some new {pause} task comes along that makes me want to look up . +Grad G: But {disfmarker} But what 's interesting to me may not b have been interesting to you . +Professor D: Yeah . So having multiple people might get at some of that . +Grad G: By {disfmarker} so by going around {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think {pause} you can't get at all of it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: right ? W we just need to start somewhere . +Professor D: Yeah , and this is a starting point . +Postdoc H: Uh - huh . +PhD F: The question {disfmarker} the question then is h h how much bias do we introduce by {disfmarker} you know , introduce by saying , you know , this was important now and , you know , maybe tha something else is important later ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I mean , does it {disfmarker} does the bias matter ? I {disfmarker} I don't know . I mean , uh , that 's , I guess , a question for you guys . But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and one thing , we {disfmarker} we 're saying "" important "" and we 're saying "" interesting "" . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} those can be two different things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Sure , sure . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess that 's the question , really , is that {disfmarker} I mean , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: W +PhD F: does building queries based on what 's important now introduce an irreversible bias on being able to do what Morgan wants to do later ? +Professor D: Well , irreversible . +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I guess what I what I {disfmarker} I keep coming back to in my own mind is that , um , the soonest we can do it , we need to get up some kind of system +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: so that people who 've been involved in the meeting can go back later , even if it 's a poor system in some ways , and , uh {disfmarker} and ask the questions that they actually want to know . If {disfmarker} you know , if {disfmarker} uh , as soon as we can get that going at any kind of level , then I think we 'll have a much better handle on what kind of questions people want to ask than in any {disfmarker} anything we do before that . But obviously we have to bootstrap somehow , +Professor A: Right . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Sure . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: I agree . +Postdoc H: I will say that {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} I chose "" interesting "" because I think it includes also "" important "" in some cases . But , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I feel like the summary gets {pause} at a different type of information . +PhD F: I think "" important "" can often be uninteresting . +Professor A: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . And "" interesting "" is more interesting than "" important "" . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Well , and {disfmarker} and also {disfmarker} i it puts a lot of burden on the person to {disfmarker} to evaluate . You know , I think inter "" interesting "" is {disfmarker} is non - threatening in {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: In the interest of , um , +Grad G: Importance ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: generati {comment} generating an interesting summary , {comment} um {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: No , i in the interest of generating some minutes here , uh , and also moving on to action items and other things , let me just go through the things that I wrote down as being important , um , that we at least decided on . CrossPads we were going to try , um , if Landay can get the , uh {disfmarker} get them to {disfmarker} to you guys , um , and see if they 're interesting . And if they are , then we 'll try to get m do it more . Um , getting electronic summary from a note - taking person if they happen to do it anyway . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um , getting {pause} just , uh , digital pictures {disfmarker} a couple digital pictures of the {disfmarker} the table and boards to set the context of the meeting . Uh , and then going around the room at the end to just say {disfmarker} qu ask people to mention something interesting that they learned . So rather than say the most interesting thing , something interesting , +Postdoc H: k +Professor A: and that way you 'll get more variety . +Postdoc H: Sure . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: I wouldn't even say that "" that they learned "" . +Postdoc H: That 's good . I like that . I like that . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Uh , you might want to mention something that {disfmarker} that you brought up . +Professor A: "" Thing {pause} that was {pause} discussed . "" And then the last thing c would be for those people who are willing to stay afterwards and give an oral summary . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? Does that pretty much cover everything we talked about ? That {disfmarker} well , that we want to do ? +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . A And one {disfmarker} and one qualification on {disfmarker} on the oral summaries . They 'd be s they 'd be separate . They wouldn't be hearing each other 's summaries . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Yeah , that 's like {disfmarker} n I think that 's gonna predominantly end up being whoever {pause} takes down the equipment then . +Postdoc H: And {disfmarker} and that would also be that the data would be included in the database . +Grad G: Yeah , that would be , let 's see , me . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I mean , there is still this hope that people might actually think of real queries they really want to ask at some point . +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD E: And that if {disfmarker} if that ever should happen , then we should try and write them down . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Give them a reward , a dollar a query ? +PhD E: Yeah , really . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: If they 're real queries . +Professor A: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , and again , if we can figure out a way to jimmy a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a very rough system , say in a year , then {disfmarker} uh , so that in the second and third years we {disfmarker} we actually have something to {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: Play with and generate real queries from . +Professor D: ask queries . +Professor A: Right . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor A: So . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I just wanted to say one thing about queries . I mean , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the level of the query could be , you know , very low - level or very high - level . And it gets fuzzier and fuzzier as you go up , right ? +Grad G: Well , we 're gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: So you need to have some sort of {disfmarker} if you start working with queries , some way of identifying what the {disfmarker} you know , if this is something that requires a {disfmarker} a one - word answer or it 's one place in the recording versus was there general agreement on this issue of all the people who ha +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD B: You know , you can gen you can ask queries that are meaningful for people . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: In fact , they 're very meaningful cuz they 're very high - level . But they won't exist anywhere in the {pause} a you know {disfmarker} +Grad G: Absolutely . So I think we 're gonna have to start with keywords +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} and if someone becomes more interested we could work our way up . +Professor D: I I 'm {disfmarker} I I 'm not so sure I agree with that . +PhD B: It {disfmarker} But it may well {disfmarker} +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Because {disfmarker} uh , b because it depends on , uh , what our goal is . +Grad G: Really ? +Professor D: If our goal is Wizard of Oz - ish , we might want to know what is it that people would really like to know about this data . +Grad G: Oh , that 's true . +Professor D: And if it 's {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it 's something that we don't know how to do yet , th great , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: that 's , you know , research project for year four or something . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Research , yeah . +Professor D: You know ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yeah , I was thinking about Wizard of Oz , but it requires the wizard to know all about the meetings . +PhD E: We 'd have to listen to all the data . +Professor D: Um , well , not {disfmarker} maybe not true Wizard of Oz +Grad G: So . +Professor D: because people are too +Grad G: Oh , yeah . I {disfmarker} I understand . +Professor D: uh , aware of what 's going on . +PhD E: Well just imagine if {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Get people to ask questions that they def the machine definitely can't answer at the moment , +Professor D: Yeah . w Just "" what would you like to know ? "" +PhD E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: But that {disfmarker} neither could anyone else , though , is what , uh , my point is . +PhD E: Yes . +Postdoc H: I I was wondering if {disfmarker} if there might be one s more source of queries which is indicator phrases like "" action item "" , +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc H: which could be obtained from the text {disfmarker} from the transcript . +Grad G: Right . Since we have the transcript . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Dates maybe . I don't know . That 's something I always forget . +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's something to be determined , something to be specified , +PhD B: Well , probably if you have to sit there at the end of a meeting and say one thing you remember , it 's probably whatever action item was assigned to you . +Postdoc H: but text - oriented . +PhD B: I mean , in gen that 's all I remember from most meetings . +Grad G: That {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Postdoc H: I think you 'd remember that , yeah . +PhD B: So , in general , I mean , that could be something you could say , right ? I 'm supposed to {pause} do this . It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , that 's true . Well , but then you could {disfmarker} you could prompt them to say , you know , "" other than your action item "" , you know , whatever . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: But {disfmarker} but the action item would be a way to get , uh , maybe an additional query . +PhD B: I mean , that 's realistically what people might {pause} well be remembering . +Postdoc H: So . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Yeah . Well , but {disfmarker} you know , but you could get again @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , we 're piloting . We 'll just do it and see what happens . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: I usually don't remember my action items . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK - OK . Speaking of action items , can we move on to action items ? +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Sure . Can you hand me my note pad ? +Postdoc H: Yeah . yeah . +Professor A: Um , or maybe we should wait until the summary of this {disfmarker} until this meeting is transcribed and then we will hav +Professor D: We {disfmarker} we had {disfmarker} I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . Then we 'll know . +Grad G: Thanks . +Professor D: somewhere up there we had milestones , but I guess {disfmarker} Did y did you get enough milestone , uh , from the description things ? +Professor A: I got {disfmarker} Yeah . In fact , why don't you hand me those transparencies so that I remember to take them . eee , +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: And , you know , there 's obviously {pause} detail behind each of those , as much as is needed . So , you just have to {pause} let us know . +Professor A: OK . What I have down for action items is we 're supposed to find out about our human subject , um , {vocalsound} requirements . +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor A: Uh , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor A: people are supposed to send me U R for their {disfmarker} for web pages , to c and I 'll put together an overall cover . And you 're s +PhD E: Right . We {disfmarker} +Professor A: Hmm ? +PhD E: we need to look at our web page +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and you also need to look at your web page +PhD E: and make one that 's {disfmarker} that 's p +Professor A: and clean it up by mid - July . +PhD E: PDA - free . +Grad G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Professor A: let 's see . Choo - choo - choo . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mailing lists . +Professor A: Mailing list ? Uh , you need to put together a mailing list . +Professor D: Three of them . +Professor A: Uh , I think w +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , +Professor A: Um , +Professor D: mostly together . +Professor A: uh , I need to email Adam or Jane , um , about getting the data . Who should I email ? +Grad G: Uh , how quickly do you want it ? +Professor A: Um . +Grad G: My July is really very crowded . And so , uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: How about if I just c Uh , Right now all I want {disfmarker} I personally only want text data . I think the only thing Jeff would do anything with right now {disfmarker} But I 'm just speaking fr based on a conversation with him two weeks ago I had in Turkey . But I think all he would want is the digits . Um , but I 'll just speak for myself . I 'm interested in getting the language model data . Eh , so I 'm just interested in getting transcriptions . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So then just email you ? +Postdoc H: OK . So y Sure , sure , sure . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Wh +Postdoc H: You could email to both of us , uh , just {disfmarker} I mean , if you wanted to . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: I mean , I don't think either of us would mind recei +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: i +Grad G: That 's right . +Postdoc H: but {disfmarker} but in any case I 'd be happy to send you the {disfmarker} +Professor A: And your email is ? +Professor D: i +Postdoc H: Edwards at ICSI . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: w +Grad G: Dot Berkeley dot EDU , of course . +Professor A: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in our phone call , uh , before , we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} It turns out the way we 're gonna send the data is by , uh , And , uh {disfmarker} and then what they 're gonna do is take the CD - ROM and transfer it to analog tape and {vocalsound} give it to a transcription service , uh , that will {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , is this IBM ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Yeah , using foot pedals +Professor D: Yeah , foot {disfmarker} foot pedals +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Uh , so do they {disfmarker} How are they gonna do the multi - channel ? +Professor D: See , that 's a good question . +Postdoc H: Yeah . They {disfmarker} they don't have a way . +Grad G: I thought so . +Professor D: No , I mean , it 'll be +Postdoc H: But they have a verification . +Professor D: probably about like you did , +Grad G: Mix ? +Professor D: and then there will be some things {disfmarker} you know , many things that don't work out well . And that 'll go back to IBM and they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll , uh {disfmarker} they run their aligner on it and it kicks out things that don't work well , which {disfmarker} you know , the overlaps will certainly be examples of that . And , uh {disfmarker} I mean , what w we will give them all of it . Right ? +Grad G: OK . That 's , uh , my question . +Professor D: We 'll give them all the {disfmarker} the multi - channel stuff +Grad G: So we 'll give them all sixteen channels +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +Grad G: and they 'll do whatever they want with it . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But you also should probably give them the mixed {disfmarker} You know , equal sound - level {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Good idea . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , they 're not gonna easily be able to do that , probably . +Grad G: It 's not hard . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Grad G: So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's also won't be adding much to the data to give them the mixed . +PhD F: But w +PhD B: I +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: Right . It doesn't {disfmarker} it isn't difficult for us to do , +Grad G: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD B: i You should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: so we might as well just do it . +PhD B: You should {disfmarker} that may be all that they want to send off to their {pause} transcribers . +Grad G: Absolutely . So , sure . +Professor A: OK . Related to {disfmarker} to the conversation with Picheny , I need to email him , uh , my shipping address and you need to email them something which you already did . +Postdoc H: I did . I {disfmarker} I m emailed them the Transcriber URL , um , the on - line , uh , data that Adam set up , The URL so they can click on an utterance and hear it . and I emailed them the str streamlined conventions which you got a copy of today . +Professor D: Right . And I was gonna m email them the {disfmarker} which I haven't yet , a pointer to {disfmarker} to the web pages that we {disfmarker} that we currently have , cuz in particular they want to see the one with the {disfmarker} the way the recording room is set up +Postdoc H: Good . +Professor D: and so on , your {disfmarker} your page on that . +Postdoc H: Oh , excellent . Good . +Grad G: And then p possibly {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: I C - I CC ' ed Morgan . I should have sent {disfmarker} I should have CC ' ed you as well . +Professor A: OK . +Grad G: Not an immediate action item but something we do have to worry about is data formats for {disfmarker} for higher - level information . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Oh , yeah . We were gonna {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , or d or not even higher level , different level , prosody and all that sort of stuff . We 're gonna have to figure out how we 're gonna annotate that . +Professor A: Yeah . We never had our data format discussion . +Professor D: Yeah , we w Right . +Postdoc H: Oh , I thought we did . We discussed , uh , musi musical score notation +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad G: But that 's not {disfmarker} That 's display . +Postdoc H: and {disfmarker} and its XML {disfmarker} +Grad G: That 's different than format . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Well , um {disfmarker} +Professor A: W My {disfmarker} my u feeling right now on format is you guys have been doing all the work +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} uh , yeah . +Professor A: and whatever you want , we 're happy to live with . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , +Postdoc H: OK , excellent . +Professor A: other people may not agree with that , +Professor D: OK . So , what n important thing {disfmarker} +Professor A: but {disfmarker} Cuz I 'm not actually touching the data , +Postdoc H: Well , it c +PhD E: Right . +Professor A: so I shouldn't be the one to talk . But {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I think that 's fine . +Professor D: So a key thing will be that you {disfmarker} we tell you +Postdoc H: Great . +Professor A: Yeah . +Professor D: what it is . Uh , we also had {disfmarker} +PhD F: "" Here 's a mysterious file +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} "" +Professor D: We also had the , uh , uh {disfmarker} that we were s uh , that you were gonna get us the eight - hundred number +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: and we 're all gonna {disfmarker} we 're gonna call up your Communicator thing and {disfmarker} and we 're gonna be good slash bad , depending on how you define it , uh , users . +Professor C: Now , something that I mentioned earlier to Mari and Liz is that it 's probably important to get as many non - technical and non - speech people as possible in order to get some realistic users . So if you could ask other people to call and use our system , that 'd be good . Cuz we don't want people who already know how to deal with dialogue systems , +Professor A: Yeah . Or , {vocalsound} like if you have a {disfmarker} +Professor C: who know that you shouldn't hyper - articulate , for instance , and things like that . +Professor A: Or , like if you have somebody who makes your {disfmarker} your plane reservations for you , +Professor C: So . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor A: um , which is +Professor D: Yeah , we can do that . +Professor A: the n +Grad G: Get my parents to do it . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Seriously . +Professor C: Yeah , for instance . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor C: Your grandmother . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . e You know , it could {pause} result in some good bloopers , which is always good for presentations . So {disfmarker} Um , anyway {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: I think my father would last through the second prompt before he hang {disfmarker} hung up . +Professor A: Mmm . +Professor D: My mother would have a very interesting conversation with it +Grad G: He would never use it . +Professor D: but it wouldn't have anything to do with the travel . +Professor A: OK . Um , other {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +Professor A: Let 's see , other action items . So I have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: We talked about that we 're getting the recording equipment running at UW . And so it depends , w e e e they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're p m If that comes together within the next month , there at least will be , uh , uh , major communications between Dan and {vocalsound} UW folks +PhD E: Yeah . I mean , +Professor A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm shooting to try to get it done {disfmarker} get it put together by {pause} the beginning of August . +Professor D: as to {disfmarker} +PhD E: we should talk about it , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Mmm . +Professor A: So , um , you know , if +Professor D: But we have {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} We don't know . I mean , he {disfmarker} he s uh , he said that it was sitting in some room collecting dust +Professor A: We don't know . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and so we don't know , +Professor A: i It 's probably unlikely that we 'll pull this off , +Professor D: i e +Professor A: but a at least it 's worth trying . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . What is it ? +Professor D: We don't know . +Grad G: Oh , OK . +Professor D: "" Recording equipment . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: It 's a tape recorder . +Professor D: W We know it 's eight channels . Uh , we know it 's digital . +Grad G: It 's eight tape recorders . +Professor D: We don't even know if there 're microphones . So , we 'll find out . +Professor A: OK . Um , and I will email these notes {disfmarker} Um , I 'm not sure what to do about action items for the data stuff , although , then somebody {disfmarker} I guess somebody needs to tell Landay that you want the pads . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . I 'll do that . +Professor A: OK . +Professor D: Um , and he also said something about outside {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} that came up about the outside text sources , that he {disfmarker} he may have +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh ! +Professor D: some text sources that are close enough to the sort of thing that we can play with them for a language model . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , that was {disfmarker} uh , that was {disfmarker} What he was saying was this {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} this thing that , uh , Jason had been working on finds web pages that are thematically related to what you 're talking about . Well , that 's the idea . So that that {disfmarker} that would be a source of text which is {disfmarker} supposedly got the right vocabulary . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: But it 's obviously very different material . It 's not spoken material , for instance , +Professor D: Yeah . But it 's p it might be {disfmarker} +PhD E: so {disfmarker} +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but that 's actually what I wanna do . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what I wanna work with , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: is {disfmarker} is things that s the wrong material but the right da the right source . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad G: Un - unfortunately Landay told me that Jason is not gonna be working on that anymore . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad G: He 's switching to other stuff again . +Professor A: Yeah . He seemed {disfmarker} when I asked him if he could actually supply data , he seemed a little bit more reluctant . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send him email . I 'll put it in an action item that I send him email about it . And if I get something , great . If I don't get something {disfmarker} +Grad G: Who ? Landay or Jason ? +Professor A: Landay . And , uh , um , +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: OK . +Professor A: you know , otherwise , if you guys have any papers or {disfmarker} I could {disfmarker} I could use , uh {disfmarker} I could use your web pages . That 's what we could do . You 've got all the web pages on the Meeting Recor +Professor D: Yeah , why search for them ? +Professor A: Yeah ! +Professor D: They 're {disfmarker} we know where they are . +Grad G: True . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad G: Absolutely . +Professor A: Oh , forget this ! +PhD E: Sure . +Grad G: Well , but that 's not very much . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} One less action item . I can use what web pages there are out there on meeting recorders . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD E: Right . +Grad G: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Basically what his software does is h it picks out keywords and does a Google - like search . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So we can {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} we can do better than that . +PhD E: We can do that . Yeah . +Grad G: So you could {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , Carnegie Mellon stuff , right ? On {disfmarker} on meeting recording , +Grad G: Yep . +PhD B: And Xerox . +Professor A: So , there 's {disfmarker} there 's ICSI , Xerox , +Professor D: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} You should l look under , like , intelligent environments , +Professor D: And Xerox . Yeah . +PhD B: smart rooms , +Grad G: Um , the "" Georgia Tech Classroom Two Thousand "" is a good one . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Professor A: CMU , +PhD B: Right . And then {disfmarker} Right . J There 's {disfmarker} th That 's where I thought you would want to eventually be able to have a board or a camera , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: because of all these classroom {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , Georgia Tech did a very elaborate instrumented room . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad G: And I want to try to stay away from that . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . Great . That solves that problem . One less action item . Um {disfmarker} OK . I think that 's good enou that 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much all I can think of . +Postdoc H: Can I ask , uh , one thing ? It relates to data {disfmarker} data collection and I {disfmarker} and I 'd {disfmarker} and we mentioned earlier today , this question of {disfmarker} um , so , um , I s I know that from {disfmarker} with the near - field mikes some of the problems that come with overlapping speech , uh , are lessened . But I wonder if {disfmarker} Uh , is that sufficient or should we consider maybe getting some data gathered in such a way that , um , u w we would c uh , p have a meeting with less overlap than would otherwise be the case ? So either by rules of participation , or whatever . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . +Postdoc H: Now , I mean , you know , it 's true , I mean , we were discussing this earlier , that depending on the task {disfmarker} so if you 've got someone giving a report you 're not gonna have as much overlap . +PhD F: Adam ! +Postdoc H: But , um , i i uh , so we 're gonna have s you know , non - overlapping samples anyway . But , um , in a meeting which would otherwise be highly overlapping , is the near - field mike enough or should we have some rules of participation for some of our samples to lessen the overlap ? +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: turn off +Professor A: I don't think we should have rules of participation , but I think we should try to {pause} get a variety of meetings . That 's something that if we get the {disfmarker} the meeting stuff going at UW , that I probably can do more than you guys , +Postdoc H: OK . +Professor A: cuz you guys are probably mostly going to get ICSI people here . But we can get anybody in EE , uh , over {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and possibly also some CS people , uh , over at UW . So , I think that {disfmarker} that there 's a good chance we could get more variety . +Postdoc H: OK . Just want to be sure there 's enough data to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Um , +PhD B: They 're still gonna overlap , +Postdoc H: OK , good . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} Mark and others have said that there 's quite a lot of found data {comment} from the discourse community that has this characteristic and also the political {disfmarker} Y you know , anything that was televised for a third party has the characteristic of not very much overlap . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Wasn - but w I think we were saying before also that the natural language group here had less overlap . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: So it also depends on the style of the group of people . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: Like the , um , dominance relations of the people in the meeting . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . On the task , and the task . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc H: It 's just {disfmarker} I just wanted to {disfmarker} uh , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: because you know , it is true people can modify the amount of overlap that they do if {disfmarker} if they 're asked to . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: Not {disfmarker} not entirely modify it , but lessen it if {disfmarker} if it 's desired . But if {disfmarker} if that 's sufficient data {disfmarker} I just wanted to be sure that we will not be having a lot of data which can't be processed . +Professor A: OK . So I 'm just writing here , we 're not gonna try to specify rules of interaction but we 're gonna try to get more variety by i using different {pause} groups of people +Postdoc H: Time . +Professor A: and different sizes . +Postdoc H: Fine . And I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I know that the near f near - field mikes will take care of also the problems to s to a certain degree . +Professor A: e e Yeah . And then the other thing might be , um , uh , technical versus administrative . +Postdoc H: I just wanted to be sure . +Professor A: Cuz if I recorded some administrative meetings then that may have less overlap , because you might have more overlap when you 're doing something technical and disagreeing or whatever . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Well , I {disfmarker} just as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as a contributary {disfmarker} eh , so I {disfmarker} I know that in l in legal depositions people are pr are prevented from overlapping . They 'll just say , you know {disfmarker} you know , "" wait till each person is finished before you say something "" . So it is possible to lessen if we wanted to . But {disfmarker} but these other factors are fine . I just wanted to raise the issue . +Professor A: Well , the reason why I didn't want to is be why I personally didn't want to {comment} is because I wanted it to be {pause} as , uh , unintrusive as possi +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: as you could be with these things hanging on you . +Postdoc H: Oh , yeah . Yeah , I think that 's always desired . I just want to be sure we don't {disfmarker} that we 're able to process , i u uh , you know , as much data as we can . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Did they discuss any of that in the {disfmarker} the meeting they had with L Liberman ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: And there was a big division , +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} +PhD B: so Liberman and others {pause} were interested in a lot of found data . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So there 's lots of recordings that {disfmarker} They 're not close - talk mike , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and there 's lots of television , you know , stuff on , um , political debates and things like that , congre congressional hearings . Boring stuff like that . Um , and then the CMU folks and I were sort of on the other side in {disfmarker} cuz they had collected a lot of meetings that were sort of like this and said that those are nothing like these meetings . Um , so there 're really two different kinds of data . And , I guess we just left it as {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that {pause} if there 's found data that can be transformed for use in speech recognition easily , then of course we would do it , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but newly collected data would {disfmarker} would be natural meetings . So . +Professor D: Actually , th @ @ {comment} the CMU folk have collected a lot of data . Is that {disfmarker} is that going to be publicly available , +PhD B: As far as I know , they h have not . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Um , but e +Professor D: OK . +Grad G: It 's also {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not near - far , right ? +PhD B: I 'm not sure . Um , if people were interested they could talk to them , but I {disfmarker} I got the feeling there was some politics involved . +Grad G: I think @ @ gonna add that to one of my action items . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: Just to check . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor D: Yeah . W we should know what 's out there certainly . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz I had thought they 'd only done far - field , +PhD B: I think you need to talk to Waibel and {disfmarker} +Grad G: intelligent - room sorts of things . +PhD E: Oh , really ? It 's those guys . +Grad G: I hadn't known that then {disfmarker} they 'd done any more than that . +Professor D: Oh , they only did the far - field ? I see . +Grad G: Yeah . +PhD B: But they had multiple mikes and they did do recognition , and they did do real conversations . But as far as I know they didn't offer that data to the community at this meeting . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But that could change cuz Mark {disfmarker} you know , Mark 's really into this . We should keep in touch with him . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , once we send out {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , we still haven't sent out the first note saying "" hey , this list exists "" . But {disfmarker} but , uh , once we do that {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is that an action item ? +Professor D: Yeah . It 's on {disfmarker} I already added that one on my board to do that . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , hopefully everybody here is on that list . We should at least check that everybody here {disfmarker} ? +Grad G: I think everyone here is on the list . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: I 'm not . +Postdoc H: u e e +Grad G: I think you are . +Professor D: We haven't sent anything to the list yet . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Professor D: We 're just compiling the list . +PhD F: I see . +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I added a few people who didn't {disfmarker} who I knew had to be on it even though they didn't tell me . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Who specifically ask not to be . +Grad G: Like Jane , for example . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: You are on it , aren't you ? +Postdoc H: Yeah , I am . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc H: So , I w uh , just {disfmarker} just for clarification . So "" found data "" , they mean like established corpora of linguistics and {disfmarker} and other fields , right ? +PhD B: What they mean is stuff they don't have to fund to collect , +Postdoc H: It sounds like such a t +PhD B: and especially good {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah , OK . +PhD B: Well , I mean , "" found "" has , uh , also the meaning that 's it very natural . It 's things occur without any {disfmarker} You know , the pe these people weren't wearing close - talking mikes , but they were recorded anyway , like the congressional hearings and , you know , for legal purposes or whatever . +Postdoc H: OK . But it includes like standard corpora that have been used for years in linguistics and {pause} other fields . +PhD B: Mark 's aware of those , too . +PhD E: "" Hey , look what we found ! "" +Postdoc H: OK . +PhD B: That would be found data because they found it {vocalsound} and it exists . +Grad G: Hmm . +Postdoc H: Exactly . +PhD E: "" I found this great corpora . "" Yeah . +PhD B: They didn't have to collect it . Of course it 's not "" found "" in the sense that at the time it was collected for the purpose . +Grad G: "" Psst . {comment} Want to buy a corpora ? "" +Postdoc H: Yeah . OK , OK . +PhD B: But what he means is that {disfmarker} You know , Mark was really a fan of getting as much data as possible from {disfmarker} you know , reams and reams of stuff , of broadcast stuff , +Postdoc H: That 's interesting . +PhD B: web stuff , +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: TV stuff , radio stuff . But he well understands that that 's very different than these {disfmarker} this type of meeting . +Grad G: It 's not the same . +PhD B: But , so what ? It 's still {disfmarker} it 's interesting for other reasons . +Postdoc H: OK . Yeah . Just wanted to know . +Professor D: So , seems like we 're winding down . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? Many {pause} ways . +PhD B: You can {pause} tell {pause} by the {pause} prosody . +PhD E: So we should go {disfmarker} go around and s +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We should go around and say something interesting that happened at the meeting ? +Professor A: Oh . Yes , we should do that . +PhD B: Rrrh ! +Grad G: Now , I was already thinking about it , so {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! Good man . +PhD B: This is painful task . +Professor C: Hmm . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} +Grad G: So , um , I really liked the idea of {disfmarker} what I thought was interesting was the combination of the CrossPad and the speech . Especially , um , the interaction of them rather than just note - taking . So , can you {pause} determine the interesting points by who 's writing ? Can you do special gestures and so on that {disfmarker} that have , uh , special meaning to the corpora ? I really liked that . +Postdoc H: Well , I {disfmarker} I just realized there 's another category of interesting things which is that , um , I {disfmarker} I found this discussion very , uh , i this {disfmarker} this question of how you get at queries really interesting . And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and the fact that it 's sort of , uh , nebulous , what {disfmarker} what that {disfmarker} what kind of query it would be because it depends on what your purpose is . So I actually found that whole process of {disfmarker} of trying to think of what that would involve to be interesting . But that 's not really a specific fact . I just sort of thought we {disfmarker} we went around a nice discussion of the factors involved there , which I thought was worthwhile . +PhD E: I had a real revelation about taking pictures . I don't know why I didn't do this before and I regret it . So that was very interesting for me . +Postdoc H: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Did you take pictures of the boards ? +PhD E: Not that I {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +PhD E: The boards aren't really related to this meeting . I mean , I will take pictures of them , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: That 's a good point . +Professor A: They 're related to this morning 's meeting . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: To the pre previous meeting . That 's right . +PhD E: OK . Well , that 's why I 'll take pictures of them , then . +PhD F: I 'm gonna pass because I can't {disfmarker} I mean , of the {disfmarker} Jane took my answer . +Grad G: Ah ! +PhD F: So . +Postdoc H: Oh . +PhD F: Um , so I 'm gonna pass for the moment but y come {disfmarker} come back to me . +PhD E: For the moment . +PhD B: Pass . +Professor A: I think {disfmarker} I think "" pass "" is socially acceptable . But I will say {disfmarker} uh , I will actually {disfmarker} uh , a spin on different {disfmarker} slightly different spin on what you said , this issue of , uh , realizing that we could take minutes , and that actually may be a goal . So that {disfmarker} that may be kind of the test {disfmarker} in a sense , test data , uh , the {disfmarker} the template of what we want to test against , generating a summary . So that 's an interesting new twist on what we can do with this data . +Professor C: I agree with Jane and Eric . I think the question of how to generate queries automatically was the most interesting question that came up , and it 's something that , as you said , is a whole research topic in itself , so I don't think we 'll be able to do anything on it because we don't have funding on it , uh , in this project . But , um , {vocalsound} it 's definitely something I would {pause} want to do something on . +Grad G: I wonder if work 's already been done on it . +Postdoc H: Like e expert systems and stuff , +Professor D: Hmm . +Postdoc H: or {disfmarker} ? Uh - huh . +Professor D: Well , being more management lately than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} than research , I think the thing that impressed me most was the people dynamics and not any of the facts . That is , I {disfmarker} I really enjoyed hanging out with this group of people today . So that 's what really impressed me . +PhD E: How are we gonna find that in the data ? +Grad G: Well , if we had people wearing the wireless mikes all the time {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I mean , one thing you could search for is were people laughing a lot . +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: Right ? So . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: How happy were they ? +Professor D: I 'd probably search for something like that . +Grad G: That actually has come up a couple times in queries . I was talking to Landay +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that was one of his examples . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad G: When {disfmarker} when did people laugh ? +PhD E: That 's great . +Professor D: Find me a funny thing that Jeff said . Yeah . +Grad G: So we need a laugh detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Perfect . +Postdoc H: Yeah . +Grad G: Cuz that seems to be pretty common . Not in the congressional hearings . +PhD F: No . +Grad G: Quiet sobbing . +Professor D: So I think we 're done . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: Great . +PhD E: Great . +PhD F: OK . +Grad G: I think we 're done . +Professor D: Great . +Postdoc H: h Do we need {disfmarker} do I need to turn something off here , or I do unplug this , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Now these we turn off . Right ? +","**Summary of Meeting Discussion** + +During the meeting, the participants discussed various aspects related to data collection and analysis for their project on meeting recording systems. They considered the discomfort caused by headphones, with Grad G mentioning that they are not designed to be over the ears, leading to headaches and discomfort, referred to as ""temple squeezers."" + +Professor A checked whether they had started recording, indicating the importance of off-the-record conversation privacy. There was some confusion about whether they were live and what was being recorded. The team then transitioned into planning their discussion topics, considering details such as whether to introduce each participant and handle the digits. + +The conversation switched to more technical aspects involving equipment setup for data collection. PhD E pointed out issues regarding microphone orientation for optimal audio capture while others considered additional recording challenges, including the handling of extraneous noises like heartbeats, the placement of elements for best recording quality, and the setup of various recording devices in the room. + +As the meeting continued, the group delved into discussions related to data collection strategies and the design of user interfaces for facilitating queries and information retrieval. They debated the use of technologies like CrossPads for note-taking, the cleaning and annotation of handwriting recognition data, the incorporation of code for actions within the notes, and the challenges of involving participants in generating content useful for querying. + +Professor D briefly forgot a section of the agenda focused on individual introductions, which they eventually completed with a light-hearted reference to ""Rocky Raccoon"" by one member. They touched upon the organization of the room's equipment and the development of meeting protocols, considering how specialized terms like ""Jimlet"" should be addressed for transcription. + +Postdoc H brought up the importance of including visual aspects like whiteboard contents in the meeting recording, suggesting the use of digital photography for documentation. The group discussed the challenges and value of integrating video information with their data. + +The meeting continued with a focus on data collection tasks and summaries. A discussion ensued about the use of post-meeting summaries, its potential to help with queries, and the practical difficulties in getting cooperation for additional tasks from participants outside their group. + +Grad G elaborated on the queries, emphasizing the need for actual participation in the data collection to generate realistic queries, even if summarization was not his focus. The conversation navigated through the concept of leveraging summaries to create queries and the challenges of doing so effectively. + +Conversations circled back to meeting introductions, and the team engaged in a roll call followed by additional technical discussions about recording setup with respect to device placements and adjustments. + +Finally, the participants returned to discussing the collection of data related to queries and summaries. They contemplated different methods to elicit useful query information from meeting participants, such as asking people to write down important topics during meetings, collecting diverse perspectives through individual note-taking, and the benefits of immediate oral summaries. + +The meeting concluded with an agreement on next steps and some unresolved questions concerning the identification and utilization of queries and their relationship with summaries. They recognized that determining what is important or interesting during a meeting is complex and context-dependent, and understood the importance of moving toward practical recording and querying systems to gather more insights into the nature of queries users may have." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So uh good morning . +User Interface: Morning . +Marketing: Morning . +Project Manager: I see you all find your places . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: Is everybody sitting on the right place ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I guess so . So {disfmarker} Let's see . First I will introduce myself . I don't know if uh {disfmarker} if everybody knows me , so I'm Bart , +Marketing: My name's Frank . +Project Manager: hello . Hello . +User Interface: I'm {gap} . +Project Manager: Bart . Hello . Hello . Bart . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Welcome . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh let's see . Uh let's start off um with a little presentation . Uh Now first I'll tell you a little bit about the setting . You can see there are a few cameras here . They'll record uh our actions and you'll have wires and microphones that will record your voice . Uh there are also some microphones there but th um you don't have to pay a lot of attention on those , because it will uh disappear when you don't attend to it . So is there a project documents folder ? There are some notes in it already I see , some documents . Uh I'll start with the presentation kick off . Is being modified by the administrator . Uh okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm , that's interesting . +Project Manager: Let's do it read only . Well I don't know if you've noticed , but uh we're working for Real Reaction . Uh it's a company in uh electronics . We put fashion in electronics , uh we make it work , uh we put a lot of effort in design and in the product itself . I'm Bart {gap} the project manager so I'll direct you through the project . This is our agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we have our opening acquaintance , tool training , project plan description closing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh maybe I can sit down , then I can take some notes or {disfmarker} Let's see . Maybe you can take the minutes once in a while . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: I dunno it's not a lot of work , but just uh if you hear something uh you can write down , just write it down . Uh as you can see uh it's the opening , aquaintance tool training . Aquaintance is a point we've done a bit . Um have you all seen the corporate website already ? Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yep . Visit it . +Project Manager: Have you seen any flaws in it ? I think I found one . {vocalsound} No ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Can't say I paid much attention to it , +Project Manager: I can see if it works this way . No , it doesn't work here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay no problem . But um on the corporate information side there's a th uh {disfmarker} there was Real Remote instead of Real Reaction . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Real Remote is not really the company we're {disfmarker} we are , but it's just a little {gap} fault . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} Uh our project aim is as you can see a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy , and user friendly . So these are uh the points why uh we also hired you . {vocalsound} We've got the Marketing Expert for uh the trendy and user friendly look . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And Industrial Designer uh there's also user friendly and a bit original . {vocalsound} And we've got our User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's also uh {disfmarker} That's about the new remote control . Uh project method um is uh there are three phases we are going through . First is functional des uh design , individual work , meetings . After the functional design , then the conceptual design and the detailed design . {vocalsound} I had some role indications on here . But I think you know it already by yourself . The Industrial Designer is going to work on the working design , uh components design and a bit of the look and feel design . Uh the User Interface Designer is going to do the technical function design , user interface concept and user interface design . {vocalsound} And the marketing expert is doing a little bit of user requirement specification , trend watching and project {disfmarker} uh product ev evaluation . So that's a bit what you're going to do . But that will be all worked out in uh other meetings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we've got our first tool training . {vocalsound} We are going to work with a lot of high-tech tools here , so it's ab it's handy if we have a little bit of training first . As you can see we've got the smart boards here and here in the white board . Um in the white board here there's a little tool bar on this side . Here are some functions . You can save . N uh these functions we don't have anything to do with , only undo , you can undo a little uh piece of drawing . A blank new document for each person . Uh select a pen , eraser . Capture we don't have to do anything with . Uh then we've got our pen . This pen . It's really funny because you can draw with it on this page um in the {disfmarker} think it is form of . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: You can also select the current colour and the line width . But then first you have to select the pen function . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But we're going to work with it in a minute . So okay . Uh that's very simple and it's easy to uh draw your findings and drawings on there . {vocalsound} Uh then a short thing about documents . We've got our shared folder , project {gap} project {disfmarker} what was it ? Project documents {gap} I think . But all you will found that already because there are a lot of documents in it already , so it will be okay . And these are available on the smart boards as well , so if you have a document you wanna show , just open it from the folder . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Here is a simple tool bar . It's what I just said , it's save , print , move back or forward one page . You can switch between the different drawings . And then we're going to try out the white board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So as you can see we g all {vocalsound} going to draw a animal . {vocalsound} Just to uh uh just to get a bit familiar with it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mouse wasn't running away . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That was interesting . +Project Manager: Is everybody {disfmarker} is anybody playing with the mouse ? No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Innocent . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going to uh draw animal . {vocalsound} And uh just sum up a few of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the only thing we have to uh look after is that we use different colours , and different line width . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's {disfmarker} I can start from now . I will . You can use this pen by holding it like a like a little child . Because if you hold it like this , the sensors will get blocked and then the drawing won't get good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Another thing is you have to be uh a bit slow . 'Cause if you're going to draw like really fast then um the pen won't hold up . So we choose form of current colour uh I think grey is appropriate . Then the line width . I think seven will be nice . Now you'll see my drawing capabilities . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: These are not very much , but uh {disfmarker} Uh , see you have to do it real slow . {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: Ah I was trying to draw a dolphin , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I think his nose has to be a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's close . +Marketing: I'm thinking about a swordfish . +Project Manager: So what {disfmarker} yeah it's {disfmarker} this is bit of the swordfish . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , he hasn't got an eye . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Woah . {vocalsound} Now we've got another function . We've got the eraser . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you can undo this easily . +Marketing: Meat . +Project Manager: Ah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've got to write down a few of its characteristics . Uh is {disfmarker} They've got no text tool , no . Uh . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is typically a undo action , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Pen . Maybe you have to hold it a bit upside-down . I think that's it because if you wan ar are going to do it like this then it will be a stripe . But I don't know , I'm just trying . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This is not my work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to use {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . I think it's a {disfmarker} it wants to draw a {disfmarker} another animal ? I don't know . It lives for the fun . So {disfmarker} It's my characteristic uh characteristic about the dolphin . It lives for the fun . So now I'm gonna hand over the pen on the new blank sheet to you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Marketing: Thank you . Okay . Gonna use a different line width . And I'm gonna draw in black . There . 'Kay , I'm not much of an artist , but here we go . +Project Manager: Maybe it's easier to draw the smaller line width , I think . Because this is going a lot better than uh I did . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A sheep . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is my um {disfmarker} Hmm . Sheep . +Project Manager: It's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: With of course +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: little blue dot they always get sprayed on their butts . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a real dead sheep , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} For recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , I see . {vocalsound} Um maybe you can also write your name somewhere . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: They are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . You have to go really slow when you're writing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They're brilliant animal animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's just a little me thingy . So . Guess I'll pass the pen to our User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: Okay . Um I'm just gonna draw its uh head , but mm {disfmarker} Let's see . Mm . Uh . {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sweet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Interesting . +User Interface: You know what that is ? Or who ? +Industrial Designer: Garfield . +Marketing: A rabbit ? +User Interface: Ah okay , yeah . +Marketing: Garfield . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Mm . Guess . So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . That's enough . {vocalsound} Um , you say a blank , +Project Manager: Yeah , just a blank sheet . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I was gonna draw a cat too , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll just try something else . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something different than Garfield . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mine is a bit more skinny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's pretty skinny cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the most interesting tail . +Project Manager: Is your cat , or did you find him on the street ? {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it's supposed to be a cat . I like cats because uh they are uh independent . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The pen . So . +Project Manager: Okay . That's pretty clear . So everybody knows how to work with the white board now ? So if you have any ideas or if you wanna draw anything on the white board , just ask +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The pen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and go ahead . It's pretty uh easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S {gap} +Marketing: We're being haunted . +Project Manager: haunted white board . {vocalsound} So we've got the tool uh introduction . We move along to the project finance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um as you can see , we um for our remote control , a selling price is uh twenty five Euros . Our selling price . Uh our profit aim is fifty million Euros . Uh that's the least we have to get from our remote controls , so we have to work together to reach our aims . Uh we can do it international , so we have to focus on different kind of users , different kind of cultures , and different kind of trends as well . Um but that's all in the later stadium . Our production cost um can be maximal twelve and a half Euros , so that's also a point we have to keep in mind , that we won't make remote controls with small televisions inside , and stuff like that . It won't work . So just try to remember these points . Selling price twenty five , profit aims fifty million um , but more important is the int international market we're trying to focus on . And production cost uh maximal twelve and a half Euros . So that's leads us to our little discussion . We've got about five or ten minutes left for discussion . So I'm gonna sit down , I think . It's easier . +Marketing: Yeah , you got a message . +Project Manager: I've got a message . Five minutes . Okay , +User Interface: Five minutes , okay . +Project Manager: that's uh good timing . {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So just on a side note , why is it my laptop is only giving me a black screen ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Uh maybe you have to say the magic word . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: Does it do anything ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to just clap it down ? Mm back up again . No slide show . Hmm . +Marketing: It's off now . +Project Manager: It's off . Now you have to put it back o Oh yeah . You'll be okay , I think . +Marketing: Well , it was on , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's those laptops . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , there we are . +Project Manager: Nice . Okay . {vocalsound} But so mm does everybody has um experiences with uh remote controls , and I mean not the ordinary mote controls , but also a little bit different ones ? Like you can use for other ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Oh really ? +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: You ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , me neither . +Marketing: Well , we have a kind of broad T_V_ at home , and a D_V_D_ player , so we got like a lot of remote controls , one for the T_V_ , one for the video recorder , one for the D_V_D_ player . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Marketing: And I think it's {disfmarker} it would be best to just make one remote control that can operate them all . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah +User Interface: Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: I've I've got one at home . And you can uh program I think eight different devices in it , and you can use it for your television , anything else . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it also operates on infra-red , so you have to got the little device inside your room , and then you can operate it from the third or th or second floor . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Oh +Project Manager: So that's pretty handy when you have a video recorder or D_V_D_ player downstairs and you've got a link to your T_V_ on the second floor . So that's a pretty handy um +Marketing: really . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . {vocalsound} Um but only the I think that if you can put different kind of devices in one remote control , it makes it a lot easier as well . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: That's good to remember . +Marketing: So I think you can take minutes again . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's nice , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's your job . +Project Manager: So we've {disfmarker} we want different functions +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and we can maybe see if we can do something with the infra-red . But I don't know if that will exceed the production costs . So that uh that's something we have to find out , I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . But that would be really good if we could do that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And other functions for a remote control ? Maybe we can make it uh uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um . Think it has to be shock proof +User Interface: Sure , yeah . +Marketing: 'cause +Project Manager: Shock proof . +Marketing: my remote control tends to fall a lot . +User Interface: Waterproof , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure . +User Interface: Uh , you never no know uh , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I w I mean uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Waterproof . Okay . So these are our um a few things we can think of . Um I will put the minutes from this meeting uh in our project folder . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah , one other little thing . Thought it might be handy to put a battery status display on it . +Project Manager: That's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you can see +Project Manager: battery stays . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: how much is left in the battery . But they'll also really drag up the production costs , so think we'll have to see about that too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: But maybe just a little LED , I don't know . +Project Manager: That's an idea as well . Other ideas ? Quick ideas . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were all mentioned , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Any questions about this uh presentation ? Kick off presentation . +Marketing: Um . Nope , don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , then I'll put the minutes from this meeting in the project folder , and then we can all work . Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And we can all work uh on our own projects . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Aye sir . +Project Manager: Okay then I'll meet you in about a half an hour , I think . +Marketing: Half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So good luck . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +","In a project kickoff meeting, Project Manager Bart introduced himself and the agenda, which included opening acquaintances, tool training, project plan description, and a closing discussion. The team comprises a Marketing Expert named Frank, a User Interface Designer, and an Industrial Designer. Bart briefed the group on the use of cameras, microphones, and smart whiteboards for the project, which is run by Real Reaction, a company that fuses fashion and electronics. + +The team's task is to create an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. Bart outlined the project's method and the roles of each team member. He also highlighted that the team would utilize a shared folder for project documents and gave a demonstration on how to use the smart whiteboard. The team practiced using the whiteboard by drawing animals and exploring its different functions. + +The project's financial aspect was discussed, with a selling price of 25 Euros, a profit goal of 50 million Euros, and a maximum production cost of 12.5 Euros for the remote. The discussion emphasized the need to consider international markets and various user requirements for the remote control. + +The meeting concluded with a short discussion about personal experiences with remote controls, ideas for the product such as it being shockproof and waterproof, and additional functions like a battery status display. Bart stated the minutes of the meeting would be put in the project folder. The team agreed to reconvene in half an hour." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: Sorry . Mental {disfmarker} mental Palm Pilot . Right . Hence {pause} no problem . +Grad F: Let 's see . So . What ? I 'm supposed to be on channel five ? Her . Nope . Doesn't seem to be , +Grad B: Hello {pause} I 'm channel one . +Grad F: yeah . +Grad D: +Grad E: What does your thing say on the back ? +Grad D: Testing . +Grad F: Nnn , five . Alright , I 'm five . +Grad D: Sibilance . Sibilance . {comment} {pause} Three , three . I am three . +Grad B: Eh . +Grad D: See , that matches the seat up there . So . +Grad F: Yeah , well , I g guess {pause} it 's coming up then , or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} That starts counting from zero and these start counting from one . Ergo , the classic off - by - one error . +Grad B: But mine is correct . +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad E: No . +Grad B: It 's one . Channel one . +Grad D: Your mike {pause} number {pause} is what we 're t +Grad E: Look at the back . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh ! Oh . +Grad D: Ho ! +Grad B: So {disfmarker} +Grad D: I 've bested you again , Nancy . +Grad B: But your p No , but the paper 's correct . +Grad D: The paper is correct . +Grad B: Look at the paper . +Grad D: I didn't det I was saying the microphone , not the paper . +Professor C: Nnn , +Grad B: Oh . +Professor C: it 's n +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It 's always offset . Yeah . +Grad B: Yes , you 've bested me again . That 's how I think of our continuing interaction . Damn ! Foiled again ! +Grad D: So is Keith showing up ? He 's talking with George right now . Uh , is he gonna get a rip {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} rip himself away from {disfmarker} from that ? +Grad B: He 'll probably come later . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} He - he he 's probably not , is my guess . +Grad D: Oh , then it 's just gonna be the five of us ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Well , he {disfmarker} he was very affirmative in his way of saying he will be here at four . But {pause} you know , that was before he knew about that George lecture probably . +Professor C: Right . This {disfmarker} this is not {disfmarker} It 's not bad for the project if Keith is talking to George . OK . So my suggestion is we just +Grad B: Forge ahead . +Professor C: Forge ahead , yeah . +Grad E: Cool . +Grad B: Are you in charge ? +Grad E: Sure . Um . Well , I sort of had informal talks with most of you . So , Eva just reported she 's really happy about the {pause} CBT 's being in the same order in the XML as in the um {disfmarker} be Java declaration format +Grad F: Yeah . The e +Grad E: so you don't have to do too much in the style sheet transversion . +Grad F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , so . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} uh , Java {disfmarker} the embedded Bayes {pause} wants to take input {disfmarker} uh , uh , a Bayes - net {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some Java notation and Eva is using the Xalan style sheet processor to convert the XML that 's output by the Java Bayes for the {disfmarker} into the , uh , E Bayes input . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad F: Actually , maybe I could try , like , emailing the guy and see if he has any something already . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad F: That 'd be weird , that he has both the Java Bayes and the embedded Bayes in {disfmarker} +Grad D: But that 's some sort of conversion program ? +Grad F: Yeah . Yeah . And put them into different {pause} formats . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad D: I think you should demand things from him . +Grad F: Yep , he could do that , too . +Professor C: He charges so much . Right . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor C: No , I think it 's a good idea that you may as well ask . Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: And , um , well {pause} pretty mu pretty much on t on the top of my list , I would have asked Keith how the "" where is X ? "" {pause} hand parse is standing . Um . {pause} But we 'll skip that . Uh , there 's good news from Johno . The generation templates are done . +Grad D: So the trees {pause} for {disfmarker} the XML trees for the {disfmarker} for the gene for the synthesizer are written . So I just need to {pause} do the , uh {disfmarker} write a new set of {pause} tree combining rules . But I think those 'll be pretty similar to the old ones . So . Just gonna be {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh ! You were gonna send me a note about hiring {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yes . +Professor C: I didn't finish the sentence but he understood it . +Grad D: I know what he 's talking about . +Professor C: OK . But Nancy doesn't . +Grad B: Hiring somebody . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} w um {disfmarker} +Grad D: The guy . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} natural language generation {pause} produces not a {disfmarker} just a surface string that is fed into a text - to - speech but , a {pause} surface string with a syntax tree that 's fed into a concept - to - speech . +Professor C: No . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Better . +Grad E: Now and this concept - to - speech module has {pause} certain rules on how {pause} if you get the following syntactic structure , how to map this onto prosodic rules . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And Fey has foolheartedly agreed to rewrite uh , the German concept uh syntax - to - prosody rules {disfmarker} +Grad B: I didn't know she spoke German . +Grad E: No , she doesn't . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: But she speaks English . +Grad B: Oh . Rewrite the German ones into English . OK , got it . +Grad E: Into English . And um therefore {pause} the , uh {disfmarker} if it 's OK that we give her a couple of more hours per week , then {pause} she 'll do that . +Grad B: OK , got it . +Grad D: What {pause} language is that {pause} written i Is that that Scheme thing that you showed me ? +Grad E: Yeah . That 's the LISP - type scheme . +Grad D: She knows how to program in Scheme ? I hope ? +Grad E: No , I {disfmarker} My guess is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I asked for a commented version of that file ? If we get that , then it 's {pause} doable , even without getting into it , even though the Scheme li uh , stuff is really well documented in the {pause} Festival . +Grad D: Well , I guess if you 're not used to functional programming , Scheme can be completely incomprehensible . Cuz , there 's no {disfmarker} Like {pause} there 's lots of unnamed functions +Professor C: Syntax . Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You know ? +Professor C: Anyway , it {disfmarker} We 'll sort this out . Um . But anyway , send me the note and then I 'll - I 'll check with , uh , Morgan on the money . I {disfmarker} I don't anticipate any problem but we have to {pause} ask . Oh , so this was {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} You know , on the generation thing , um if {comment} sh y she 's really going to do that , then we should be able to get prosody as well . So it 'll say it 's nonsense with perfect intonation . +Grad D: Are we gonna {disfmarker} Can we change the voice of the {disfmarker} of the thing , because right now the voice sounds like a murderer . +Grad E: Yep . We ha we have to change the voice . +Grad B: Wh - Which one ? +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the little Smarticus {disfmarker} Smarticus sounds like a murderer . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad A: That 's good to know . +Grad D: "" I have your reservations . "" +Grad A: But I will not give them to you unless you come into my lair . +Grad E: It is {disfmarker} Uh , we have the choice between the , uh , usual Festival voices , which I already told the SmartKom people we aren't gonna use because they 're really bad . +Grad B: Festival ? +Professor C: It 's the name of some program , +Grad B: Oh , oh . Got it . OK . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} the synthesizer . +Grad A: You know , the usual party voices . +Grad E: But , um +Grad B: Yeah , I know . That doesn't sound , {vocalsound} exactly right either . +Grad E: OGI has , uh , crafted a couple of diphone type voices that are really nice and we 're going to use {pause} that . We can still , um , d agree on a gender , if we want . So we still have male or female . +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} Well , let 's just pick whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Hmm ? +Grad B: Whatever sounds best . +Grad E: Uh . +Grad B: Unfortunately , probably male voices , a bit more research on . +Grad D: Does OGI stand for {disfmarker} ? {comment} Original German Institute ? +Professor C: Orego +Grad B: So . +Professor C: Or +Grad E: Oregon . +Grad B: Oregon Graduate Insti +Professor C: Oregon @ @ {comment} Graduate Institute +Grad D: Oh . +Grad E: Try Oregon . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor C: It turns out there 's the long - standing links with these guys in the speech group . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Professor C: Very long . +Grad D: Hmm ! +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: In fact , there 's this guy who 's basically got a joint appointment , Hynek {pause} Hermansky . He 's - spends a fair amount of time here . Anyway . Leave it . Won't be a problem . +Grad E: OK . And it 's probably also absolutely uninteresting for all of you to , um learn that as of twenty minutes ago , David and I , per accident , uh managed to get the whole SmartKom system running on the {disfmarker} uh , ICSI Linux machines with the ICSI NT machines thereby increasing the number of running SmartKom systems in this house from {pause} one on my laptop to three . +Grad B: Mmm , that 's good . +Grad D: How was this by accident ? +Grad B: Yeah , I know . Tha - that 's the part I didn't understand . +Grad E: Um , I suggested to try something that was really kind of {disfmarker} even though against better knowledge shouldn't have worked , but it worked . +Grad B: Hmm ! +Grad E: Intuition . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Will it work again , +Grad E: Maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe a bit for the AI i intuition thing . +Grad B: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . And , um , we 'll never found out why . It - it 's just like why {disfmarker} why the generation ma the presentation manager is now working ? +Grad A: Hmm ! This is something you ha you get used to as a programmer , right ? +Grad E: Which +Grad A: You know , {comment} and it 's cool , it works out that way . +Grad E: Hmm . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the people at Saarbruecken and I decided not to touch it ever again . Yeah , that would work . OK . Um {disfmarker} I was gonna ask you where something is and what we know about that . +Grad A: Where {disfmarker} OK . +Grad B: Where the "" where is "" construction is . +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what thing is this ? +Grad E: Where is X ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Oh , but by {disfmarker} Uh , we can ask , uh , did you get to read all four hundred words ? +Professor C: I did . +Grad E: Was it OK ? Was it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I wa I was looking at it . It doesn't follow logically . It doesn't {disfmarker} The first paragraph doesn't seem to have any link to the second paragraph . +Grad A: And so on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . That {disfmarker} +Professor C: You know , i Yeah , it {disfmarker} +Grad D: Each paragraph is good , though . I li +Professor C: I i Yeah . Well , it it 's fine . +Grad A: It was written by committee . +Professor C: Anyway . Um . But c the meeting looks like it 's , it 's gonna be good . So . I think it 's uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I didn't know about it until {pause} Robert told me , like , +Professor C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I ra I ran across it in {disfmarker} I don't even know where , you know {disfmarker} some just {disfmarker} some weird place . And , uh , yeah , I I 'm surprised I didn't know about it +Grad B: Y yeah . Well , yeah . I was like , why didn't Dan tell me ? +Professor C: since we know all the invited speakers , an +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Right , or some Anyway . So {disfmarker} But anyway , yeah . I so I {disfmarker} I did see that . Oh wha Yeah . Before we get started on this st so I also had a nice email correspondence with Daphne Kohler , who said yes indeed she would love to work with us on the , um , {disfmarker} you know , using these structured belief - nets and stuff but {pause} starting in August , that she 's also got a new student working on this and that we should get in touch with them again in August and then we 'll figure out a way for you {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} you to get seriously connected with , um their group . So that 's , uh {disfmarker} looks pretty good . And um {disfmarker} Yeah , I 'll say it now . So , um {disfmarker} And it looks to me like {comment} we 're now at a good point to do something {disfmarker} start working on something really hard . We 've been so far working on things that are easy . +Grad A: Oh ! +Professor C: Uh , w Which is {comment} mental spaces and uh {disfmarker} and - or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: It 's hard . Yeah , it 's hard . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It 's a hard puzzle . But the other part of it is the way they connect to these , uh , probabilistic relational models . So {pause} there 's all the problems that the linguists know about , about mental spaces , and the cognitive linguists know about , but then there 's this problem of the belief - net people have only done a moderately good job of dealing with temporal belief - nets . Uh , which they call dynamic {disfmarker} they incorrectly call dynamic belief - nets . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: So there 's a term "" dynamic belief - net "" , doesn't mean that . It means time slices . And Srini used those and people use them . Uh . But one of the things I w would like to do over the next , uh , month , it may take more , {comment} is to st understand to what extent we can not only figure out the constructions for them for multiple worlds and uh sort of what the formalism will look like and where the slots and fillers will be , but also what that would translate into in terms of belief - net and the inferences . So the story is that if you have these probabilistic relational models , they 're set up , in principle , so that you can make new instances and instances connect to each other , and all that sort of stuff , so it should be feasible to set them up in such a way that if you 've got the past tense and the present tense and each of those is a separate {pause} uh , belief structure that they do their inferences with just the couplings that are appropriate . But that 's g that 's , as far as I can tell , it 's {disfmarker} it 's putting together two real hard problems . One is the linguistic part of what are the couplings and {disfmarker} and when you have a certain , uh , construction , that implies certain couplings and other couplings , you know , between let 's say between the past and the present , or any other one of these things and then we have this inference problem of exactly technically how does the belief - net work if it 's got um , let 's say one in {disfmarker} in , you know , different tenses or my beliefs and your beliefs , or any of these other ones of {disfmarker} of multiple models . So um you know , in the long run we need to solve both of those and my suggestion is that we start digging into them both , uh , in a way we that , you know , th hopefully turns out to be consistent , so that the {disfmarker} Um . And sometimes it 's actually easier to solve two hard problems than one +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: because they constrain each other . I mean if you 've got huge ra huge range of possible choices um {disfmarker} We 'll see . But anyway , so that 's , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh yeah , like uh , I solved the {disfmarker} the problem of um {disfmarker} we were talking about how do you {disfmarker} various issues of how come a plural noun gets to quote "" count as a noun phrase "" , you know , occur as an argument of a higher construction , but a bare singular stem doesn't get to act that way . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , and it would take a really long time to explain it now , but I 'm about to write it up this evening . I solved that at the same time as "" how do we keep adjectives from floating to the left of determiners and how do we keep all of that from floating outside the noun phrase "" to get something like "" I the kicked dog "" . Um . Did it {disfmarker} did it at once . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad A: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 'll be a similar thing . +Grad B: Cool . +Professor C: Yeah . No , I know , I th I I think that is gonna be sort of the key to this wh to th the big project of the summer of {disfmarker} of getting the constructions right is that people do manage to do this so there probably are some , uh , relatively clean rules , they 're just not context - free trees . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: And if we {disfmarker} if the formalism is {disfmarker} is good , then we should be able to have , you know , sort of moderate scale thing . And that by the way is {disfmarker} is , Keith , what I encouraged George to be talking with you about . Not the formalism yet +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but the phenomena . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: The p And {disfmarker} Oh , another thing , um there was this , uh thing that Nancy agreed to in a {disfmarker} in a weak moment this morning that +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad B: I was really strong . +Grad A: Hmm ! +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh , sorry . In a {disfmarker} in a friendly moment . +Grad A: Same thing . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , that we were {disfmarker} that we 're gonna try to get a uh , first cut at the revised formalism by the end of next week . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK ? Probably skipping the mental spaces part . +Grad B: Seems {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . I do . +Professor C: Uh , just trying to write up essentially what {disfmarker} what you guys have worked out so that everybody has something to look at . We 've talked about it , but only the innermost inner group currently , uh , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Knows . +Professor C: knows , uh +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and not even all of them really do . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: There 's {disfmarker} The group as a whole knows but no individual member kno +Professor C: Well that that {disfmarker} yeah th there 's one of the advantages of a document , right ? , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is that it actually transfers from head to head . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So anyway . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ah , communication ! +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: Communication . +Grad A: Hunh ! +Professor C: Communication , documentation and stuff . Anyway , so , uh , with a little luck {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} l let 's , let 's have that as a goal anyway . +Grad A: So , uh , what was the date there ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Monday or {disfmarker} ? It 's a Friday . +Professor C: No , no , no . No , w uh {disfmarker} we 're talking about a week fr e end of next week . +Grad A: End of next week . +Grad B: But , uh , but {disfmarker} but the two of us will probably talk to you at well before th +Grad A: I thought you said beginning of n Yeah . +Grad B: I mean . Anyway , w let 's talk separately about how t +Grad A: Yeah , I have a busy weekend but after that {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Yeah , gung - ho . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so someti sometime next week . +Grad A: Great , +Professor C: Now if it turns out that that effort leads us into some big hole that 's fine . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor C: You know , if you say we 're {disfmarker} we 're dump {disfmarker} dump {disfmarker} dump . There 's a really hard problem we haven't solved yet {disfmarker} that , that 's just fine . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But at {disfmarker} at least sort of try and work out what the state of the art is right now . +Professor C: Right , t t if {disfmarker} to the extent that we have it , let 's write it +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: and to the extent we don't , let 's find out what we need to do . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So , uh +Grad E: Can we {disfmarker} ? {vocalsound} Is it worth {pause} thinking of an example out of our tourism thing domain , that involves a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a decent mental {pause} space shift {pause} or setting up {disfmarker} +Professor C: I think it is , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but I interrupted before Keith got to tell us what happened with "" where is the Powder - Tower ? "" or whatever +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: Well . Uh , what was supposed to happen ? I 've sort of been actually caught up in some other ones , so , um , you know , I don't have a write - up of {disfmarker} or I haven't elaborated on the ideas that we were already talking about which were {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm , yeah . I think {disfmarker} I think we already came to the conclusion that we have two alternative {pause} paths that we {disfmarker} two alternative ways of representing it . One is sort of a {disfmarker} has a um +Grad A: It 's gone . +Grad E: um +Grad A: The question of whether the polysemy is sort of like in the construction or pragmatic . +Grad B: One of them was th Right . +Grad E: or comes {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: is resolved later . Yeah . +Grad A: I think it has to be the {disfmarker} the second case . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um , so d ' you {disfmarker} Is it clear what we 're talking about here ? +Grad B: I agree . +Grad A: The question is whether the construction is semantic or like ambiguous between asking for location and asking for path . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: So you might be {disfmarker} yeah , y And asking for directions . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um or {disfmarker} or whether the construction semantically , uh , is clearly only asking for location +Grad E: Should we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: but pragmatically that 's construed as meaning "" tell me how to get there "" . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad E: So {pause} assume these are two , uh , nodes we can observe in the Bayes - net . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: So these are either true or false and it 's also just true {pause} or false . If we encounter a phrase such as "" where is X ? "" , should that set this to true and this to true , and the Bayes - net figures out which under the c situation in general is more likely ? Um , or should it just activate this , have this be false , and the Bayes - net figures out whether this actually now means {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Uh w that 's a s +Grad B: Slightly different . +Professor C: OK , so that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a separate issue . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: So I a I I th I agree with you that , um , it 's a disaster to try to make separate constructions for every uh , pragmatic reading , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: although there are some that will need to be there . +Grad B: Good . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: I mean , there there 's some that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or have every construction list all the possible pragmatic implications of the same one . +Professor C: You can't do that either . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . But , you know , c um {disfmarker} almost certainly "" can you pass the salt "" is a construction worth noting that there is this th this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Request . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Very yeah . +Grad A: So right , this one is maybe in the gray area . Is it {disfmarker} is it like that or is it just sort of obvious from world knowledge that no one {disfmarker} you wouldn't want to know the location without wanting to know how to get there or whatever . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: Ri Yeah . +Grad E: One Or in some cases , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite definitely +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: s so that you just know {disfmarker} wanna know where it is . +Grad A: Yeah . Well the question is basically , is this conventional or conversational implicature ? +Professor C: Exactly . Yeah . +Grad B: Might be , yeah . +Professor C: And I guess , see , the more important thing at this stage is that we should be able to know how we would handle it in ei f in the short run it 's more important to know how we would treat {disfmarker} technically what we would do if we decided A and what we would do if we decided B , than it is t to decide A or B r right now . +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad B: Right . Right . +Grad A: Which of that is . {comment} Yeah , OK +Grad B: Which one it is . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Cuz there will be other k examples that are one way or the other . Right . +Professor C: W we know for sure that we have to be able to do both . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So I guess {vocalsound} In the short run , let 's {disfmarker} let 's be real clear on h what the two alternatives would be . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: And then the {vocalsound} we had another idea floating around um , which we wanted to , uh , get your input on , and that concerns the {disfmarker} But the nice thing is w we would have a person that would like to work on it , and that 's Ir - Irina Gurevich from EML {pause} who is going to be visiting us , uh , the week before , uh , August and a little bit into August . And she would like to {vocalsound} apply the {pause} ontology that is , um {vocalsound} being crafted at EML . That 's not the one I sent you . The one I sent you was from GMD , out of a European CRUMPET . +Professor C: It was terrible . +Grad E: Agreed . Um , and one of the reas one of the {disfmarker} those ideas was , so , back to the old Johno observation that if y if you have a dialogue history {pause} and it said the word "" admission fee "" was uh , mentioned um , it 's more likely that the person actually wants to enter {pause} than just take a picture of it from the outside . Now what could imagine {disfmarker} to , you know , have a list for each construction of things that one should look up in the discourse history , yeah ? That 's the really stupid way . Then there is the {pause} really clever way that was suggested by Keith and then there is the , uh , middle way that I 'm suggesting and that is you {disfmarker} you get X , which is whatever , the castle . The ontology will tell us that castles have opening hours , that they have admission fees , they have whatever . And then , this is {disfmarker} We go via a thesaurus and look up {pause} certain linguistic surface structures {pause} that are related to these concepts and feed those through the dialogue history and check dynamically for each e entity . We look it up check whether any of these were mentioned and then activate the corresponding nodes on the discourse side . But Keith suggested that a {disfmarker} a much cleaner way would be {disfmarker} is , you know , to keep track of the discourse in such a way that you {disfmarker} if you know that something like that ha has been mentioned before , this just a continues to add up , you know , in th in a {disfmarker} +Grad A: So if someone mentions admission f fees , that activates an Enter schema which sticks around for a little while in your rep in the representation of what 's being talked about . And then when someone asks "" where is X ? "" you 've already got the {disfmarker} the Enter schema activated +Grad B: Kind of a priming +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and you 're able to {disfmarker} to conclude on it . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: priming a spreading activation +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Yeah . So that 's certainly {pause} more {pause} realistic . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: I m I mean psychologically . Now technically +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Um +Grad D: Well , uh , is it {disfmarker} doesn't it seem like if you just managed the dialogue history with a {disfmarker} a thread , that you know , kept track of ho of the activity of {disfmarker} I mean , cuz it would {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thread would know what nodes {pause} like , needed to be activated , so it could just keep track of {pause} how long it 's been since {pause} something 's been mentioned , and {pause} automatically load it in . +Professor C: Yeah . You could do that . Um . But here 's {disfmarker} here 's a way {disfmarker} in th in the bl Bayes - net you could {disfmarker} you could think about it this way , that if um {pause} at the time "" admissions fee "" was mentioned {pause} you could increase the probability {pause} that someone wanted to enter . +Grad B: Turn prior on . +Grad D: We - yeah {disfmarker} th th that 's what I wa I wasn't {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I wasn't thinking in terms of Enter schemas . I was just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Fair enough , OK , but , but , in terms of the c c the current implementation {disfmarker} right ? so that um +Grad B: It would already be higher in the {pause} context . +Professor C: th that th the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the conditional probability that someone {disfmarker} So at the time you mentioned it {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} this is essentially the Bayes - net equivalent of the spreading activation . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: It 's {disfmarker} In some ways it 's not as good but it 's {pause} the implementation we got . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . No , I mean +Professor C: We don't have a connectionist implementation . Now {disfmarker} Now my guess is that it 's not a question of time but it is a question of whether another {pause} intervening object has been mentioned . +Grad B: Yeah , relevance . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean , we could look at dialo this is {disfmarker} Of course the other thing we ha we do is , is we have this data coming +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: which probably will blow all our theories , +Grad A: Yeah , right . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but skipping that {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but my guess is what {disfmarker} what 'll probably will happen , Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a proposed design . {comment} is that there 're certain constructions which , uh , for our purposes do change the probabilities of EVA decisions and various other kinds and th that the , uh , standard way that {disfmarker} that the these contexts work is sort of stack - like or whatever , but that 's sort of the most recent thing . And so it could be that {pause} when another uh , en tourist entity gets mentioned , you +Grad B: Renew +Professor C: re re essentially re - initiali you know , re - i essentially re - initialize the {pause} state . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And of course i if we had a fancier one with multiple worlds you could have {disfmarker} uh , you could keep track of what someone was {pause} uh saying about this and that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , "" I wanna go {disfmarker} in the morning +Grad A: "" Here 's my plan for today . +Professor C: I wanna {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Here 's my plan for tomorrow . "" +Professor C: Yeah , or {disfmarker} Yeah , in the morning morning I I 'm planning t to go shopping , +Grad A: hypothetically . +Professor C: in the afternoon to the Powder - Tower {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , tal so I 'm talking about shopping and then you say , uh , you know , well , um "" What 's it cost ? "" or something . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} Anyway . So one could well imagine , but not yet . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But I do th think that the {disfmarker} {comment} It 'll turn out that it 's gonna be {disfmarker} depend pretty much on whether there 's been an override . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , if {disfmarker} if you ask "" how much does a train ride and {disfmarker} and cinema around the vineyards cost ? "" and then somebody tells you it 's sixty dollars and then you say "" OK How much is , uh {disfmarker} I would like to {pause} visit the {disfmarker} "" {vocalsound} whatever , something completely different , "" then I go to , you know , Point Reyes "" , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} it 's not more likely that you want to enter anything , but it 's , as a matter of fact , a complete rejection of entering by doing that . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So when you admit have admission fee and it changes something , it 's only for that particular {disfmarker} It 's relational , right ? It 's only for that particular object . +Professor C: Yeah , I th th Yeah . Well , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the simple idea is that it 's on it 's only for m for the current uh , tourist e entity of instre interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} I mean this {disfmarker} this function , so , has the current object been mentioned in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} with a question about {disfmarker} concerning its {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , no . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} It goes the other d it goes in the other direction . Is {disfmarker} When th When the {disfmarker} this is mentioned , {pause} the uh probability of {disfmarker} of , let 's say , entering changes +Grad B: Of that object . For {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor C: changes . +Grad B: Right . +Grad D: You could just hav uh , just basically , ob it {disfmarker} It observes an {disfmarker} er , it sets the {disfmarker} a node for "" entered "" or "" true "" or something , +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Now , uh {disfmarker} But I think Ro - Robert 's right , that to determine that , OK ? you may well want to go through a th thesaurus +Grad D: "" discourse enter "" . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} So , if the issue is , if {disfmarker} so now th this construction has been matched and you say "" OK . Does this actually have any implications for our decisions ? "" Then there 's another piece of code {vocalsound} that presumably {pause} does that computation . +Grad B: So , sort of forward chaining in a way , rather than {pause} backward . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but what 's Robert 's saying is {disfmarker} is , and I think he 's right , {comment} is you don't want to try to build into the construction itself all the synonyms and all {disfmarker} you know , all the wo Uh maybe . I 'll have to think about that . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: I don't know . I mean it {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} I can thi I can think of arguments in either direction on that . But somehow you want to do it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Well , it 's just another , sort of , construction side is how to get at the possible inferences we can draw from the discourse history or changing of the {pause} probabilities , and - or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Guess it 's like {disfmarker} I g The other thing is , whether you have a m m user model that has , you know , whatever , a current plan , whatever , plans that had been discussed , and I don't know , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: What {disfmarker} uh , what 's the argument for putting it in the construction ? Is it just that {pause} the s synonym selection is better , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Oh , wel Well , the ar the {disfmarker} The argument is that you 're gonna have the {disfmarker} If you 've recognized the word , you 've recognized the word , which means you have a lexical construction for it , so you could just as well tag the lexical construction with the fact that it 's a uh , you know , thirty percent increase in probability of entering . You {disfmarker} So you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could invert {disfmarker} invert the whole thing , so you s you tag that information on to {pause} the lexicon +Grad D: Mmm . Oh , I see . +Professor C: since you had to recognize it anyway . That {disfmarker} that 's the argument in the other direction . at {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} Yeah , and this is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Even though uh the lexical construction itself {disfmarker} out {disfmarker} out of context , uh , won't do it . I mean , y you have to keep track whether the person says +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: "" But I but I 'm not interested in the opening times "" is sort of a more a V type . +Professor C: Yeah there 's , yeah ther there 's that as well . +Grad E: Yep . Hmm . So . But , we 'll {disfmarker} uh , we have time to {disfmarker} This is a s just a sidetrack , but uh I think it 's also something that people have not done before , is um , sort of abuse an ontology for these kinds of , uh , inferences , on whether anything relevant to the current something has been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , has crept up in the dialogue history already , or not . And , um I have the , uh {disfmarker} If we wanted to have that function in the dialogue hi dialogue module of SmartKom , I have the written consent of Jan to put it in there . +Professor C: Good . OK . {comment} {vocalsound} Well , this {disfmarker} this is highly relevant to someone 's thesis . +Grad E: Yes , um . That 's {disfmarker} uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm keeping on good terms with Jan . +Professor C: You 've noticed that . OK . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So the point is , it 's very likely that Robert 's thesis is going to be along these lines , +Grad B: Oh , s +Professor C: and the local rules are if it 's your thesis , you get to decide how it 's done . OK . So if , you know {disfmarker} if this is {disfmarker} seriously , if this becomes part of your thesis , you can say , hey we 're gonna do it this way , that 's the way it 's done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yay , it 's not me . It 's always me when it 's someone 's thesis . +Professor C: No , no , no ! No , no . We 've got a lot {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of theses going . +Grad A: There 's a few of us around now . +Grad B: Now it 's not . Yay ! I know it is . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: Well , let 's {disfmarker} let 's talk after Friday the twenty - ninth . Then we 'll see how f f +Professor C: Right . So h he 's got a th he 's got a meet meeting in Germany with his thesis advisor . +Grad B: Yeah , he said he 's gonna f finish his thesis by then . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . I should try to finish it by then . Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , right . +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Um . Yeah . So I think {pause} in fact , That 's the other thing . uh , this is {disfmarker} this is , speaking of hard problems , {comment} this is a very good time um , to start trying to make explicit where construal comes in and {disfmarker} you know , where c where the construction per - se ends {pause} and where construal comes in , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've {disfmarker} we 've done quite a bit of that . +Professor C: cuz this is clearly part of th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: We 've been doing quite a bit of that . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well I said . But that 's part of what the f +Grad B: We have many jobs for you , Ro - Robert . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , he 's gonna need this . +Grad A: Yeah , it seems to always land in your category . +Grad B: The conclusion . +Grad A: You 're lucky . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . So . {vocalsound} Right . So thing {disfmarker} That 's part of why we want the formalism , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: is {disfmarker} is because th it is gonna have implicit in it +Grad E: Was I ? In the room ? +Grad B: No , you weren't there {pause} on purpose . Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Made it much easier to make these decisions . +Grad B: Obviously . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right . Well I {disfmarker} That 's tentative . +Grad A: Yeah . Right , right , right . +Professor C: They aren't decisions , they 're ju they 're just proposals . +Grad A: Yes . {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Grad B: No , they 're decisions . OK . +Professor C: Yeah , that {disfmarker} That 's the point , is {disfmarker} is th +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Constraints . Let 's call them constraints , around which one has to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Actually , yeah . {vocalsound} There 's a problem with that word , too , though . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Anyway . But so that 's that 's w Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} he the decisions I made wer had to do with my thesis . So consequently don't I get to decide then that it 's Robert 's job ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: Anyhow . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad B: Well , I 'll just pick a piece of the problem and then just push the hard stuff into the center {pause} and say it 's Robert 's . Like . +Grad E: I 've always been {pause} completely in favor of consensus decisions , +Grad B: I can {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll find a way . +Professor C: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we will , but um +Grad B: I haven't . {comment} OK . +Professor C: not {disfmarker} +Grad E: It {disfmarker} it might even be {pause} interesting then to {pause} say that I should be forced to um , sort of pull some of the ideas that have been floating in my head out of the , uh {disfmarker} out of the top hat +Professor C: Yes . +Grad E: and , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Always good . +Professor C: Right . So +Grad E: That metaphor is not going anywhere , you know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Ri - No . Absolutely . So , uh , wh you had {disfmarker} you know you ha You had done one draft . +Grad E: Yes , and , um , it 's {disfmarker} Ha - None of that is basically still around , +Grad B: I didn't get +Professor C: And a another draft OK . +Grad E: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: D i +Grad A: That 's normal . +Professor C: I i +Grad B: Oh , I guess it 's good I didn't read it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I 'm shocked . This is the first time I 've seen a thesis proposal change . Right . Anyway , uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad B: Really ? +Professor C: But , yeah , a second {disfmarker} that would be great . So , uh , a sec I mean you 're gonna need it anyway . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor C: and +Grad E: Yeah , and I would like to d discuss it and , you know , get you guys 's input +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: and make it sort of bomb - proof . +Grad B: Bomb proof ! +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: Good . +Grad E: Bullet - proof . +Grad B: Oh ! Oh , OK . +Grad E: That 's the word I was looking for . +Professor C: Both proof . +Grad A: Either way . +Grad B: Both . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Good luck . {vocalsound} Really . +Professor C: Uh So that , so th thi this {disfmarker} I mean , so this is the point , is we {disfmarker} we 're going to have to cycle through this , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but th the draft of the p proposal on the constructions is {disfmarker} is going to tell us a lot about {pause} what {pause} we think needs to be done by construal . And , um , we oughta be doing it . +Grad E: OK . Yeah , we need {disfmarker} we need some {disfmarker} Then we need to make some dates . Um . +Grad B: +Grad E: Meeting {disfmarker} regular meeting time for the summer , we really haven't found one . We did {pause} Thursdays one for a while . I just talked to Ami . It 's - it 's a coincidence that he can't do {disfmarker} couldn't do it today {pause} here . +Grad B: Usually , he can . +Grad E: Usually he has no real constraints . +Professor C: And the NTL meeting moved to Wednesday , +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz of {disfmarker} of , uh +Grad E: Yeah , it was just an exception . +Professor C: Yeah , you weren't here , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} s uh , {disfmarker} And so , if that 's OK with you , +Grad A: It 's i Is it staying basically at the Wednesday noon ? +Professor C: you would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . It was th off this week , +Grad B: Yeah . I always thought it was staying . +Professor C: Yeah , it was th +Grad A: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , I thought it was just this week that we were changing it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mmm . {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: And , um . How do we feel about doing it Wednesdays ? Because it seems to me that this is sort of a time where when we {pause} have things to discuss with other people , there {disfmarker} they seem to be s tons of people around . +Professor C: The only disadvantage {pause} is that it may interfere with other +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} subgroup meetings +Professor C: s you know , other {disfmarker} other {disfmarker} No , you {disfmarker} Uh , people in this group connecting with {disfmarker} with +Grad B: Those people who {pause} happen to be around . +Professor C: those people {pause} who {disfmarker} who might not be around so much . Uh , I don't care . I I uh you know I have no fixed {disfmarker} +Grad A: To tell you the truth , I 'd rath I 'd , I 'd {disfmarker} would like to avoid more than one ICSI meeting per day , if possible . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean . I don't know . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Whatever . +Professor C: No , that 's fine . I mean that {disfmarker} +Grad E: The {disfmarker} I 'd like to have them all in one day , +Grad A: Yeah , I can understand that . +Professor C: Well p +Grad E: so package them up and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: people {disfmarker} people differ in their tastes in this matter . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I 'm neutral . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . {pause} I 'm always here anyway , +Grad E: It 's OK , that {disfmarker} +Grad B: so {disfmarker} It doesn't matter . +Professor C: Yeah . @ @ That 's {disfmarker} Me too . I 'm basically {disfmarker} I 'm here . So . +Grad E: Well , if {disfmarker} one {pause} sort of thing is , this room is taken at {disfmarker} after three - thirty pr pretty much every day by the data collection . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: So we have subjects anyway {disfmarker} Except for this week , we have subjects in here . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad E: That 's why it was one . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So we just knew i +Grad B: So did you just say that Ami can't make one o ' +Grad E: No , he can . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So let 's say Thursday one . But for next week , this is a bit late . So {pause} I would suggest that we need to {disfmarker} to talk {disfmarker} +Grad B: Oh , oh , OK . +Grad E: OK . About the c the {disfmarker} th +Grad B: Could we do Thursday at one - thirty ? Would that {disfmarker} that be horrible ? +Grad E: No . Yes . +Grad B: Oh really ? +Grad E: Because , uh , this room is again taken at two - thirty by Morgan . +Grad B: Oh , OK . OK . You didn't tell me that . OK , that 's fine . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} s meeting recorder meeting meeting meeting recording on meeting meetings {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , OK , OK . OK . {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Ah , yeah . +Professor C: Interesting . So you 're proposing that we meet Tuesday . +Grad E: How about that ? +Grad A: Next week . +Grad B: Well , we 're meeting Tuesday . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I could +Grad B: I mean we usually meet Tuesday {disfmarker} or l like , linguists {pause} um , at two . +Grad D: Would it {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . +Grad B: So . Do you want to meet again here bef +Grad D: And the s Is the Speech - Gen meeting still at {disfmarker} on Tuesdays ? +Grad E: I mean w Well , actually we w we we did scrap our Monday time just because Bhaskara couldn't come Monday . +Grad B: Hhh . {comment} Maybe I do need a Palm Pilot . +Grad E: So there 's {disfmarker} Nothing 's impeding Monday anymore {pause} either . +Grad A: That doesn't apply to a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Although I thought you wanted to go camping on Monday {disfmarker} er , take off Mondays a lot so you could go camping . +Grad E: Get a fresh start {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's another s thing . Yeah . But , um . I mean , there are also usually then holidays anyways . I mean {pause} like {disfmarker} {comment} Sometimes {pause} it works out that way . +Grad B: Usually ? +Grad E: So . Hmm ! +Grad B: Well , I mean , the linguists ' meeting {pause} i happens to be at two , but I think that 's {disfmarker} I mean . +Grad A: That should be relatively flexible be +Grad B: pretty flexible , I think . +Grad A: Yeah . There 's just {pause} sort of the two to four of us . +Grad B: So . The multiple meetings +Grad A: Right ? Yeah . So . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad A: And , you know , of course Nancy and I are just sort of always talking anyway and sometimes we do it in that room . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: So , you know , I mean . +Grad E: OK , so {pause} l forget about the b the camping thing . So let 's {disfmarker} eh , any other problems w w w ? But , I suggested Monday . If that 's a problem for me then I shouldn't {pause} suggest it . +Grad D: Ha - ha - ha . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: Um , all of the proposed times sound fine with me . +Grad B: Same here . +Grad E: Monday ? +Professor C: OK , whate I mean {disfmarker} What I think Robert 's saying is that +Grad A: Earlier in the week +Professor C: earlier we {disfmarker} At least for next week , there 's a lot of stuff we want to get done , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: so why don't we plan to meet Monday +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: and {pause} we 'll see if we want to meet any more than that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: What time ? +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: At o o o o one , two , three {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: One , two , three ? Three 's too late . +Professor C: Oh , I i {pause} Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} Two is the earliest I can meet on Monday . +Grad E: Two - thirty ? OK , two . +Professor C: Here I 'm blissfully agreeing to things and realizing that I actually do have some stuff scheduled on Monday . +Grad A: Sure . Sounds great . Uh , so that 's the eighteenth . +Grad B: You guys will still remind me , right ? +Grad D: No way ! +Grad B: Y you 'll come and take all the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the headph the good headphones first and then remind me . +Grad E: W why do you {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah , exactly . Sorry , two PM . +Grad E: And +Grad B: Why do I have this unless I 'm gonna write ? +Grad E: do I get to see th uh , your formalism before {pause} that ? +Grad B: Fine . Yes . Uh . Would you like to ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . I was actually gonna work on it for tomorrow {disfmarker} like this {disfmarker} this weekend . +Grad E: I wo I would like {disfmarker} I would sort of {pause} get a {disfmarker} get a notion of what {disfmarker} what you guys have in store for me . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Well m @ @ you know , w maybe Mond - Maybe we can put {disfmarker} This is part of what we can do Monday , if we want . +Grad B: Yeah . I OK . +Grad A: Alright . +Grad B: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Is some {disfmarker} some version +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , so there was like , you know , m m in my head the goal to have like an intermediate version , like , everything I know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And then , w I would talk to you and figure out everything you know , that {disfmarker} you know , see if they 're consistent . +Grad A: Yeah . OK . Why don't w Maybe you and I should meet sort of more or less first thing Monday morning and then we can work on this . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . That 's f fine with me . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . I might {disfmarker} I might {disfmarker} um , +Grad E: You - y +Grad B: s You said you 're busy {pause} over th until the weekend , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , sort of through the weekend because Kate has a photography show . +Grad B: That 's fine . So we might continue our email thing +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and that might be fine , too . So , maybe I 'll send you some {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , if you have time after this I 'll show you the noun phrase thing . +Grad B: OK . That would be cool . So . OK , and we 'll {disfmarker} You wanna m +Grad E: So the idea is on Monday at two we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see an intermediate version of the formalism for the constructions , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So that 's OK for you {disfmarker} +Grad E: and do an on - line merging with my construal {pause} ideas . +Grad B: Sure , sure . +Grad A: Alright . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: That 's OK . +Grad E: So it won't be , like , a for semi - formal presentation of my {pause} proposal . It 'll be more like towards {pause} finalizing that proposal . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Cuz then you 'll find out more of what we 're making you do . +Grad E: OK , that 's fine . Yep , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm , hmm . +Grad E: Yikes . +Grad A: Oy , {comment} deadlines . +Grad B: We 'll make a presentation of your propo {comment} of your proposal . +Grad E: Perfect . Can you also write it up ? +Grad B: It 's like , "" this is what we 're doing . +Professor C: Abso +Grad B: And the complement is Robert . "" +Grad E: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send you a style file , right ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: You just {disfmarker} +Grad B: I already sent you my fi {comment} my bib file . So . +Grad E: OK . And , um . Sounds good . +Grad A: Someday we also have to {disfmarker} we should probably talk about the other side of the "" where is X "" construction , which is the issue of , um , how do you simulate questions ? What does the simspec look like for a question ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Because {pause} it 's a little different . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , now , we we w +Grad A: We had to {disfmarker} we had an idea for this which seemed like it would probably work . +Professor C: Great . OK . Yeah . Simspec may need {disfmarker} we may n need to re - name that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So let 's think of a name for {disfmarker} for whatever the {disfmarker} this intermediate structure is . Oh , we talked about semspec , for "" semantic spec specification "" +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: and that seems {disfmarker} Um . +Grad A: It 's more general +Professor C: You know , so it 's a m minimal change . +Grad B: Only have to change one vowel . That 's great . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} +Grad B: All the old like {vocalsound} graphs , +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: just change the {disfmarker} just , like , mark out the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Cool . +Professor C: Right , a little substi substi You know , that 's what text substitution uh macros are for . +Grad A: Yeah . It 's good for you . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Anyway , uh , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's for the moment call it that until we think of something better . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: And , yeah , we absolutely need to find {disfmarker} Part of what was missing were markings of all sorts that weren't in there , incl including the questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: We didn't {disfmarker} we never did figure out how we were gonna do emphasis in {disfmarker} in uh , the semspec . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , we 've talked a little bit about {pause} that , too , which {disfmarker} uh , uh , it 's hard for me to figure out with sort of our general linguistic issues , how they map onto this particular one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} OK , yeah , understood . +Professor C: But that 's part of the formalism {disfmarker} is got to be uh , how things like that get marked . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: W do you have data , like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} You have preliminary {pause} data ? Cuz I know , you know , we 've been using this one easy sentence and I 'm sure you guys have {disfmarker} uh , maybe you are the one who 've been looking at {pause} the rest of it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , I +Grad B: it 'd {disfmarker} it 'd be useful for me , if we want to {pause} have it a little bit more data oriented . +Grad A: To tell you the truth , what I 've been looking at has not been the data so far , +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm {pause} mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just sort of said "" alright let 's see if I can get noun phrases and , uh , major verb co uh , constructions out of the way first . "" And I have not gotten them out of the way yet . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Surprise . So , um . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I have not really approached a lot of the data , but I mean obviously like these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the question one , since we have this idea about the indefinite pronoun thing and all that , you know , I ca can try and , um run with that , you know , try and do some of the sentence constructions now . It would make sense . +Grad E: OK . Do you wanna run the indefinite pronoun idea past Jerry ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Oh yeah , the basic idea is that um , uh {pause} you know {disfmarker} Uh , {vocalsound} let 's see {pause} if I can {pause} formulate this . +Grad E: So {pause} Mary fixed the car with a wrench . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So you perform the mental sum and then , you know , "" who fixed the car with a wrench ? "" You {pause} basically are told , to {disfmarker} to do this In the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} analogously to the way you would do "" someone fixed the car with a wrench "" . And then you hand it back to your hippocampus and find out {pause} what that , you know , +Grad A: Means . +Grad E: means , and then {pause} come up with that {disfmarker} so who that someone was . +Grad A: The WH question has this as sort of extra thing which says "" and when you 're done , tell me who fills that slot "" or w you know . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So , um . And , you know , this is sort of a nice way to do it , the idea of sort of saying that you treat {disfmarker} from the simulation point of view or whatever {disfmarker} you treat , uh , WH constructions similarly to uh , indefinite pronouns like "" someone fixed the car "" because {pause} lots of languages , um , have WH questions with an indefinite pronoun in situ or whatever , +Grad B: Use actually the same one . +Grad A: and you just get intonation to tell you that it 's a question . So it makes sense +Professor C: Alright , which is +Grad A: um +Professor C: Skolemization . +Grad A: Hmm ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: In {disfmarker} in logic , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's actual Huh ? +Grad B: Right . {vocalsound} Let 's put a Skolem {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Skolem constant in , +Grad A: Yeah . shko +Professor C: What ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: yeah . Yeah . {pause} Right . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: That - that 's not {disfmarker} that 's not saying it 's bad , +Grad A: Right . Right . No . Of course . +Professor C: it 's just that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the logicians have {disfmarker} have , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . It makes sense from that point of view , too , which is actually better . +Grad E: come up with this +Grad A: So yeah , um . Anyway , but just that kind of thing and we 'll figure out exactly how to write that up and so on , but +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Uh , no , all the focus stuff . We sort of just dropped that cuz it was too weird and we didn't even know , like , what we were talking about {comment} exactly , what the object of study was . +Grad B: Um - mmm . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I mean , i part of {disfmarker} of what the exercise is , t by the end of next week , is to say what are the things that we just don't have answers for yet . +Grad A: Yeah . Yep . +Professor C: That 's fine . I mean +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you do wanna discuss focus {pause} background and then get me into that because {disfmarker} I mean , I wo I w scientifically worked on that for {disfmarker} for almost two years . +Grad A: Yeah . OK , then certainly we will . Good . +Grad B: Yeah , you should definitely , um be on on that {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} maybe by {disfmarker} after Monday we 'll {disfmarker} y you can see what things we are and aren't {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . w We should figure out what our questions are , for example , {vocalsound} to ask you . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Wel - then t Hans . Has {disfmarker} I haven't seen Hans Boas ? +Grad B: He 's been around . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Just maybe not today . +Professor C: OK . So has he been {disfmarker} been involved with this , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Eh . with us ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: I would say that tha that those discussions have been primarily , um , Keith and {disfmarker} Keith and me , but um like in th the meeting {disfmarker} I mean , he sort of {disfmarker} I thin like the last meeting we had , I think we were all very much part of it +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: but {pause} um +Grad A: Sometimes Hans has been sort of coming in there as sort of like a {pause} devil 's advocate type role or something , +Grad B: but different perspec Yeah . +Grad A: like {pause} "" This make {disfmarker} you know , I 'm going to pretend I 'm a linguist who has nothing to do with this . This makes no sense . "" And he 'll just go off on parts of it which {pause} definitely need fixing +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: but aren't where we 're at right now , so it 's +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} like what you call certain things , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: which we decided long ago we don't care that much right now . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But in a sense , it 's good to know that he {pause} of all people {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: you know , like maybe a lot of people would have m much stronger reactions , so , you know , he 's like a relatively friendly linguist +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and yet a word like "" constraint "" causes a lot of problems . And , so . {pause} Right . So . +Professor C: OK . This is consistent with um the role I had suggested that he {disfmarker} he play , +Grad B: Ah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK , which was {pause} that o one of the things I would like to see happen is a paper that was tentatively called "" Towards a formal cognitive semantics "" which was addressed to these linguists {pause} uh {pause} who haven't been following {pause} this stuff at all . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So {pause} it could be that he 's actually , at some level , thinking about how am I going to {pause} communicate this story {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , internally , we should just do {pause} whatever works , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: cuz it 's hard enough . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: But {pause} if he g if he turns {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is really gonna turn around and help t to write this version that does {pause} connect with as many as possible of the {pause} other linguists in the world um {comment} then {disfmarker} then it becomes important to {pause} use terminology that doesn't make it hard {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Sure . +Professor C: I mean , it 's gonna be plenty hard for {disfmarker} for people to understand it as it is , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: but y y you don't want to make it worse . +Grad A: Yeah . No , right . I mean , tha that role is {disfmarker} is , uh , indispensable +Professor C: So . +Grad A: but that 's not where sort of our heads were at in these meetings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: It was a little strange . +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I just wanted t to I have to catch up with him , and I wanted t to get a feeling for that . OK . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I don't know what his take will be on these meetings exactly , you know . +Professor C: OK . Good . +Grad A: Cuz sometimes he sort of sounds like we 're talking a bunch of goobledy - gook from his point of view . +Grad B: I think it 's good when we 're {disfmarker} when we 're into data and looking at the {disfmarker} some specific linguistic phenomenon {pause} in {disfmarker} in English or in German , in particular , whatever , that 's great , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and Ben and {disfmarker} and Hans are , if {disfmarker} if anything , more {disfmarker} you know , they have more to say than , let 's say , I would about some of these things . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: But when it 's like , well , w how do we capture these things , you know , I think it 's definitely been Keith and I who have d you know , who have worried more about the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well , that 's good . That 's {disfmarker} I I I think that should be the {disfmarker} the core group +Grad B: s Which is fine . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and {pause} um that 's , you know , I think {pause} very close to the maximum number of people working together that can get something done . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Yes . Yeah . We actually have {disfmarker} I think we have been making progress , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: and its sort of surprising . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I definitely get that impression . Yeah . +Grad B: You know , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: That 's great . +Grad B: Yeah . So anyone else would like uh {comment} ruin the balance of {disfmarker} Anyway . +Professor C: Well , but {disfmarker} Well . But th th then w then we have to come back to the bigger group . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . {comment} {pause} Great . And then we 're gon we 're gonna {disfmarker} because of this other big thing we haven't talked about is {pause} actually implementing this stuff ? So that I guess the three of us are gonna connect tomorrow about that . +Grad B: Yeah , we could talk tomorrow . I was just gonna say , though , that , for instance , there was {disfmarker} you know , out of a meeting with Johno {pause} came the suggestion that "" oh , could it be that the {pause} meaning {pause} constraints really aren't used for selection ? "" which has sort of been implicit {pause} in the parsing {pause} strategy we talked about . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: In which case we w we can just say that they 're the effects or the bindings . Which {pause} uh , so far , in terms of like putting up all the constraints as , you know , pushing them into type constraints , the {disfmarker} when I 've , you know , propo then proposed it to linguists who haven't yet given me {disfmarker} you know , we haven't yet thought of a reason that that wouldn't work . Right ? As long as we allow our type constraints to be reasonably {pause} complex . +Professor C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad B: So {disfmarker} Anyway , to be {disfmarker} to talk about later . +Professor C: Yeah , it has to in the sense that you 're gonna use them eventu it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's sort of a , um , generate and test kind of thing , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and if you over - generate then you 'll have to do more . I mean , if there are some constraints that you hold back and don't use uh , in your initial matching then you 'll match some things {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I d I don't think there 's any way that it could completely fail . It {disfmarker} it could be that uh , you wind up {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} The original bad idea of purely context - free grammars died because {pause} there were just vastly too many parses . You know , exponentially num num many parses . And so th the concern might be that {disfmarker} not that it would totally fail , but that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . That it would still generate too many . {comment} Right ? So by just having semantic even bringing semantics in for matching just in the form of j semantic types , right ? +Professor C: it would still genera +Grad B: Like "" conceptually these have to be construed as this , this , and this "" might still give us quite a few possibilities +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: that , you know {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and it certainly helps a lot . +Professor C: We don't know , but , yeah . +Grad B: I mean , le let 's put it that way . So . +Professor C: No question . Yeah . And I think it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a perfectly fine place to start . You know , and say , let let 's see how far we can go this way . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . {pause} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well it definitely makes the problem easier . +Professor C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm in favor of that . Uh , cuz I think i I think it 's {disfmarker} As you know , I think it 's real hard and if w if we {disfmarker} Right . +Grad B: So {pause} Friday , Monday +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Monday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: So . OK , that 's {disfmarker} Tuesday . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: Like {disfmarker} {comment} th that 's the conclusion . OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , you your dance card is {pause} completely filled now ? +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , and I have nothing to do this weekend but work . +Grad E: Why don't {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , that 's not really true , +Grad A: Bummer . +Grad B: but like {disfmarker} +Grad D: What about {disfmarker} What about DDR ? +Grad B: It 's almost true . +Grad F: +Grad B: Oh , I don't have it this weekend , so , tsk {comment} don't have to worry about that . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor C: DDR , he asked ? +Grad B: Speaking of dance , Dance Dance Revolution I can't believe I 'm {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} it 's like a game , but it 's for , like , dancing . Hard to {disfmarker} It 's like karaoke , but for dancing , and they tell you what {disfmarker} It 's amazing . It 's so much fun . Yeah , it 's so good . My friend has a home version and he brought it over , and we are so into it . It 's so amazing . Well , y you know of it ? I i i it 's one of your hobbies ? It 's great exercise , I must say . I can't wait to hear this . Uh - huh . Oh , definitely . They have , like , places {disfmarker} instead of like {disfmarker} Yeah , instead of karaoke bars now that have , like , DDR , like {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , I didn't until I started hanging out with this friend , who 's like "" Oh , well , I can bring over the DDR if you want . "" Oh , oh , Dance Dance Revolution {disfmarker} OK . He actually brought a clone called Stepping Selection , but it 's just as good . So . Anyw +","The conversation is between a group of graduate students (Grad B, Grad F, Grad E, and Grad D), a professor (Professor C), and another contributor (Grad A). They discuss various technical and research topics, including channel assignments, microphone numbers, Keith's whereabouts, and whether they should wait for Keith or proceed with their project. Grad E updates everyone on the CBT's XML order and stylesheet transformations, while Grad F considers contacting someone who could help with Java Bayes and E Bayes integration. + +They touch on the construction of generation templates, hiring logistics, syntax-to-prosody rule conversion, and the use of a speech synthesizer. The conversation dives into technical aspects of programming languages like Scheme and LISP, and the intricacies of natural language generation and text-to-speech systems. Discussion revolves around mapping syntactic structures to prosodic rules, and how this relates to the project goals and resource allocation. + +The group also discusses various ongoing projects, future plans, and collaborations. They mention Keith possibly speaking with George and the relevance of Keith's discussions with George to the project. The conversation ends with the group deciding on the next meeting time and discussing various administrative and logistical issues related to their work, including meetings, potential theses topics, and the formalism for cognitive semantics. + +Overall, the group's discussion is heavily centered on technical aspects of linguistics and computational systems, formalism development, and project management. They are trying to coordinate their efforts and make progress on a complex project with many interrelated parts." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 13th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Chairs chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces at their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): I have a point of order. +The Chair: Can the member wait for the point of order until we finish the introduction? +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There is so much noise in the background over there, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: That is a very good point of order. I want to remind everyone that when we speak, it is picked up. We have amazing speakersand an amazing Speaker, but that's a whole other storyand amazing microphones in the chamber, and they do pick up everything. I know there was some chatter going on in the background. I want to make sure everyone is aware of that. Mr. Aboultaif, that was a very good point of order. I appreciate that. For those joining us via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mikes on mute when you're not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel, and if you want to speak in French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference wish to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements for today, so we'll continue to the presentation of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition goes to Mr. Manly, who is joining us via video conference. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a petition that calls on the government to deal with helping our honey bees. They are crucial to our food system. They provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of services to commercial agricultural crops and other ecological services every year, and the European Union has put heavy restrictions on the chemicals that are affecting them, the neonicotinoids. This petition calls on the Government of Canada, for the sake of bees and our food security, to follow Europe's lead and adhere to the precautionary principle by banning the use of neonicotinoids in Canada. +The Chair: The next presenter of petitions will be Mr. Genuis, who is very parliamentary and dressed from the waist up, I understand. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and that is all you need to see for the moment. Canadians are horrified by the military report on the conditions of long-term care in Ontario. It raises big questions about the choices facing seniors in certain situations, which is what makes this first petition particularly timely. I am tabling a petition related to Bill C-7, the government's euthanasia bill, which seeks to dramatically remove safeguards that the government said were vital only a short time ago. When some people are living in deplorable conditions, we cannot truly speak of them as having a choice of when they ought to die. Especially in light of that new information, I commend this petition for the consideration of members of the House. The second petition is in support of Bill S-204 on organ harvesting and trafficking, put forward in the Senate. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ without the donor's consent. This bill seeks to combat the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. +The Chair: The next petition presenter will be Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and greetings from SaanichGulf Islands. The petition I'm presenting today is petition e-2509, which has been duly certified. It relates to what I think many of us will regard as the real heroes of the last few months. In this pandemic, there have often been very underpaid and overworked front-line workers who receive minimum wage and nothing more, and who are of course deemed essential services. The petitioners have asked the government to implement a wage supplement as a temporary measure to bring the wages for those who are in contact with the general public and working in what has been deemed an essential service to no less than $20 an hour, in light of their service and the risks they're taking for all of us. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the honourable member who just spoke brought up a great point yesterday. She said that when we present petitions, we are simply supposed to give one or two sentences before putting them on the table. I believe that was more than one or two sentences. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that when they are presenting petitions, they should be very concise with the prcis that they give up front, as opposed to going on for a long time. Now we will proceed to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes, and each statement will be for one minute. We will start with Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I am honoured to recognize the youth in my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville who are part of the 52nd Mississauga Scouts. For over a decade, I've had the great opportunity to join the Scouts every year during the month of May for the door-to-door food drives. This year has been a lot different, owing to the COVID situation, but our Scouts are not used to saying the word impossible. David Chant, head leader for their cub pack, reached out to share that the youth have found innovative ways to engage our community through a virtual food bank. I say a big thank you to Scout leaders like David, who are strong role models for our youth, teaching them the importance of leadership, kindness and giving back. I've always been amazed with the support within our community for the Scouts' food drive. David and his group of Scouts raised over $46,000 worth of food last year for the Mississauga Food Bank and The Compass. Again, I give a huge virtual high-five to all of our young Scouts, who have taken the lead with lots of compassion and care. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): May 24 to May 31 is Tourism Week in Canada. This annual celebration is a time for us to recognize the contributions and experiences of Canada's tourism industry. This is a very important industry, and this year's Tourism Week is a little different from what it normally is. The ongoing coronavirus crisis has closed provincial and international borders to recreational travel, and tourism operators from coast to coast have been among the first and hardest hit due to the government-mandated lockdowns. Clear criteria regarding border reopenings and health and safety requirements will allow hospitality and tourism businesses to sufficiently prepare to reopen. This includes rehiring employees, ordering supplies and putting together tour packages and marketing plans. Operators do not need to be set back any further because of a lack of clarity around reopening. While this Tourism Week is not a celebration like the one we had expected, I anticipate next year's celebration to be a celebration of an even stronger and more successful tourism industry in Canada. The 1.8 million Canadians whose jobs depend on a thriving tourism sector are counting on it. Bonne semaine to tourism. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Monday was a sad day in my riding of BonavistaBurinTrinity, and indeed our entire province. Please join me as I offer sincere condolences to the families of the men who lost their lives at sea in a tragic accident off the coast of St. Lawrence in Placentia Bay. Ed Norman, his son Scott Norman and his nephew Jody Norman all tragically lost their lives while fishing for crab this past Monday. A fourth man, family friend Isaac Kettle, was also with them. After a courageous search mission by Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary members and the Department of National Defence and Provincial Airlines, he is unfortunately still missing. We grieve with the entire town of St. Lawrence as they mourn this tragic loss of life. Mr. Chair, I am sure the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador, this parliamentary family and Canadians from coast to coast to coast join me in thinking of these men, along with their friends and families, during this difficult time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to speak to you today about a solid man who unfortunately passed away on May25. We were greatly saddened to learn about the death of FrancisDufour. This builder of Quebec's political history drew his last breath at the age of91, late Sunday night. Mr.Dufour was the archetypal proud representative of my region who spent his entire life in Jonquire. He first became involved in the Alcan employee's union in Arvida, then continued his civic involvement at the municipal level as mayor, then in the Quebec National Assembly as the member for Jonquire. He will be remembered as a man with deep ties to his community, a man of integrity, a people person, who dedicated himself to serving citizens and advancing the independence movement in Quebec. On behalf of the people of the riding of Jonquire and all the people of Quebec, I offer my most sincere condolences to FrancisDufour's family and loved ones. Thank you. +The Chair: We are continuing with MartinezFerrada. +Ms. Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Hochelaga, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The pandemic has greatly affected Montreal East, particularly the riding of Hochelaga, which I represent. Today, I'd like to recognize the exceptional work of all the volunteers and organizations in Hochelaga that are helping the more vulnerable populations, including Anonyme, CAP St-Barnab, CARE Montral, the Cuisine collective Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Bouffe Action, the Centre Communautaire Hochelaga, Chic Resto Pop, Jojo Dpannage, Groupe d'Entraide de Mercier-Ouest and many others. I'd like to acknowledge the commitment of the merchants who have rolled up their sleeves, including the Coop Couturires Pop, to make masks. I'd especially like to recognize essential workers, especially attendants. Allow me to offer our condolences to the loved ones of the attendants who have lost their lives to protect ours. The citizens of Hochelaga are resilient and unified. I am proud to rise in the House to salute them. +The Chair: The next presentation will be by Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Albertan and former parliamentarian, Louise Feltham, who passed away this Monday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Louise was an entrepreneur, a public servant and a force of nature. She inspired the family motto How hard can it be? by creating communities and building several homes in her lifetime. In all that she did, Louise broke glass ceilings. Her many firsts included being the first woman to serve as a councillor in rural Alberta, the first female reeve in rural Alberta and the first woman born in Newfoundland to serve in this chamber. She was the MP for Wild Rose from 1988 to 1993. Her son Glenn served as the president of NAIT when I chaired the board. My thoughts and sympathies are with him, his wife Tammi and the rest of their family for this great loss. Her parliamentary family mourns with you today. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Bagnell. +Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is a great honour to speak to the House of Commons today from Whitehorse, Yukon, here on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dn First Nation and the Ta'an Kwch'n Council. As a great historic Canadian event last week, Yukon became home to Canada's first university north of 60. Yukon University will provide Yukoners with educational opportunities closer to home, expand our research capabilities and expertise on the Arctic and climate change and allow those who want to study northern and first nations governance to do so in the north. I encourage all students living in the northern half of Canada to look at the many programs and degrees at Yukon University to continue their studiesin some cases this year, virtuallyby remaining in the north. I want to congratulate the staff of Yukon College, who spent the last decade working towards this transition, and especially the outgoing president, Karen Barnes. I wish her all the best in her retirement. Thank you, merci, mahsi cho and sga senl. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Hutchings. +Ms. Gudie Hutchings (Long Range Mountains, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, from the Long Range Mountains, I too want to send my condolences to my colleague, Mr. Rogers from BonavistaBurinTrinity, on the tragic loss in St. Lawrence. We're all communities that rely on the sea, and we understand the importance and the tragedy, and the hard work it is being fishers. However, today, colleagues, I want to mention, as my colleague from across the way said, that it's national tourism week, so please take the time to get out and thank the tourism and hospitality businesses in your ridings. Most businesses around the world were hit hard by COVID-19. The tourism economy was hit very hard, especially seasonal and rural operations and the 1.8 million people the industry employs. However, this industry knows how to work hard. They know how to partner. They know how to look after their employees and their guests. They will find new and innovative opportunities and experiences. They will build new business and they will continue to attract visitors. We know that the domestic and local markets will recover first. I know that the operators in my riding are getting ready just for that. It's exciting to speak with them about how they're working on their new normal and how it's going to be developed and implemented here in the Long Range Mountains. Remember too that many of our national parks are opening on June 1, so get out and explore the park in your backyard. I look forward to working with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Destination Canada and my colleagues so that when we turn the corner of this pandemic, we are ready to rebuild a stronger tourism economy. Friends, go out and discover the tourism treasures in your province. They need your support. Tourism matters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Gourde, you have the floor. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some people were already too few in number and already burdened with heavy responsibilities even before the COVID-19 crisis occurred. I would like to take this opportunity to express my admiration for the dedication of all the essential workers who stepped up in the riding of LvisLotbinire. This crisis has created pressing needs and unprecedented emergencies. Fine men and women committed to human dignity, volunteers, retirees, and you, who have wisely agreed to stay home, you have been part, to varying degrees, of this great equation to minimize the impact of the spread and avoid the worst. The snow has melted, the flowers have arrived. Many children are happy to be able to expend their energy again; our seniors are being cuddled, with great care, and our essential workers in the riding are still dedicated to the job. I say bravo, thank you and don't give up, even though you have already earned your place in heaven. +The Chair: Ms.Bendayan. +Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Outremont, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My father, who is now retired, was a researcher for over 40years. He was involved in many medical discoveries. From his laboratories at the Univerist de Montral, he worked with CHUM and the Centre hospitalier universitaire SainteJustine, renowned institutions in Outremont. In Fact, Outremont is full of professors, scientists and researchers. They are Quebeckers, Canadians, who are at the forefront of discoveries that save and will save lives. Since coming into office, our government has reversed the funding cuts to medical research and has invested billions in science. Recently, we announced new funding for COVID-19 research for fundamental science and supports for academic researchers. We are working very hard to find a vaccine for COVID-19, and our fundamental research is helping us to understand viruses that we don't even know the names of yet. It is this work that will help us stay ahead of the curve rather than flatten it. To all our Canadian scientists and to my dad, thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Alleslev. +Ms. Leona Alleslev (AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill, CPC): Mr. Chair, citizens in my riding of AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill are showing incredible compassion as they help their families, their friends and even strangers during this difficult period. They are our community champions. The Aurora Chamber of Commerce and the Richmond Hill Board of Trade are helping businesses navigate in these difficult times. Organizations like The STEAM Project and Ganesha Temple are making and donating face masks for those in need. The Aurora Museum & Archives is collecting artifacts to document the pandemic for future generations. The Aurora Farmers' Market is bringing local farmers and businesses to us, but this year with one key person missing. Our community has lost one of the farmers' market's founders, our jam lady, Jan Freedman. We were deeply saddened by her passing, and she will be sorely missed. My sincere thanks to everyone who's working to ease the burdens on one another during this crisis. It's not easy, but this too will pass, and we will be stronger for it. In the meantime, stay safe, and let us all do our part to be community champions. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, we all understand that a crisis like the one the world is currently experiencing generates deficits. We also know that a deficit is a bill we send to our children and grandchildren, which is why it is important to be prudent, to make wise choices and, above all, to know where we are going. It's a shame that every time we ask the government a question, no minister can tell us how big the Canadian deficit is. We aren't the only ones concerned about the deficit and the government's lack of transparency. In fact, last Tuesday, at a parliamentary committee meeting in the Senate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer made some very scathing remarks about the government. He said he was concerned. He said that there had to be a deadline or we'd be heading toward taxation levels that haven't been seen in generations in this country because there is not a lot of ammunition left before we go into a large structural deficit. I'm not the one saying it; it's the Parliamentary Budget Officer. For weeks, almost every day, the Prime Minister has been announcing cash injections for Canadians. We agree with that. However, hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent without any idea of the deficit. That's why we're sounding the alarm and calling on the government to be careful. The Prime Minister needs to know that we can't play Santa Claus every day, because the bills in January come in fast, and they are high. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Mr. Chair, making sure science informs our health policies is critical during a pandemic. That's why I'm so disappointed that the Liberals have maintained the ban on blood donations from gay men and trans women. There is no science behind this ban. Not only does it reinforce homophobia and transphobia, it also reduces our blood supply at this critical time. Now we've learned that the ban will also result in rejecting plasma donors, when plasma is so critical in emerging COVID-19 research and treatment. More than 17 countries, including Argentina, Italy and Spain, have no deferral period for men who have sex with men. They know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than discriminatory identity-based rules. I have asked the minister many times to lift the gay blood ban and I do so again today, but today I also call on the family and friends of gay men and trans women to step up now and donate blood in place of those of us who cannot. When it comes to blood donations, we really should all be in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Desilets, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivire-des-Mille-les, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. I've missed you, by the way. On another note, the emergency wage subsidy was created for people who fear for their jobs or their businesses. It's for people who need it, not for millionaire political parties like the Liberals and Conservatives. In Rivire-des-Mille-les, as in many other ridings, we respond daily to businesses that don't have access to it. Unfortunately, there are people in our ridings who won't have the opportunity to hire staff this summer. There are businesses that are losing less than 30%of their revenues; they are losing29%. These businesses won't have access to it. Everywhere we look, there are businesses that are falling through the cracks. Meanwhile, the Liberals and the Conservatives are getting the wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. I repeat: it is to fund partisan activities. The Liberals and Conservatives don't even do it on the sly; they do it openly. These two parties have raised millions of dollars since January. Every dollar that's taken comes out of the taxpayers' pockets. It's the workers' money, not the political parties'. It's so embarrassing that it's shameful, disrespectful and ridiculous. The Liberals and the Conservatives have to pay that money back. I think that's obvious. For the Bloc Qubcois, its immeasurably clear. It's a question of ethics, morality and respect for citizens. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. This week is Paramedic Services Week, and I would like to take a moment to thank these men and women who work tirelessly at the best of times to protect and save lives. Their efforts during COVID-19, like the services provided by many front-line workers in health care, such as personal support workers, doctors, nurses, janitorial and clerical staff, lab technicians and many others, have been extraordinary and truly beyond the call of duty. I hope this week all Canadians will take a moment to thank a paramedic or any front-line health care worker in their community for the amazing services they have been called upon to perform and will continue to provide in the challenging days ahead. Chair, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention another unfortunate consequence of the current pandemic, the cancellation of the Kinmount Fair, a renowned event that has been running since 1870. This year the fair was to mark its 150th anniversary, but in true Kinmount spirit, this heartbreaking decision will not deter organizers from planning an even bigger and better event in 2021. +The Chair: Now we will go to Ms. Dhillon. +Ms. Anju Dhillon (DorvalLachineLaSalle, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the members of the Canadian Armed Forces from the bottom of my heart for their invaluable assistance in the long-term care facilities. Their deployment came at a critical time, when many seniors desperately needed them. Through the observations and testimonies of these members, we saw the extent of the nightmare that many seniors had endured for a long time. These are human beings who could not fend for themselves. They were treated with profound cruelty and carelessness. Among many other loathsome details, they were left to starve, were abused and lived in filth, their cries of anguish ignored. They were tormented and left in their agony. There is no excuse for this. No one ever deserves to be treated the way they were. I am talking about humanity, about compassion and mercy. It is up to each and every one of us to make sure no elderly person is ever hurt in this vile manner again. I take this moment to honour these victims. +The Chair: Before moving on, I want to remind the hon. members that, as the rules state, statements by members should be 60 seconds. That's one minute. Usually there are a few extra seconds, which doesn't matter, but some of them have gone quite a bit over time, so starting Monday we'll be cutting them off at 60 seconds. I encourage everyone to practise them or take a look at them, and try to keep them within the 60 seconds so that we don't go over our allotted time. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind members to speak fairly slowly so that the interpreters can understand what they're saying. I know sometimes we get excited in the House and we speak a little quickly. Just be conscious of it. I'm sure it will be appreciated by the interpreters and those at home who are listening in, as then they can make out the important questions and answers that are being given in this chamber. We will go to our first question. We will begin with Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Thanks, Mr. Chair. The government has consistently worked to shut down Parliament and undermine personal sittings and has argued that the business of this country can be done by Zoom. However, for work of the G7 the Prime Minister said, theres no question that in-person meetings...are much more effective than even virtual meetings. By pushing to go virtual, is it the Prime Minister's goal to make Canada's Parliament less effective? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, it is absolutely not. In fact, I am pleased to be here in person meeting with members from across the country and pleased that our colleagues who live further away from Ottawa than I do have the opportunity to join us. Parliament plays an essential role in our democracy, and it's +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, that is exactly the point. This isn't Parliament; this is a committee meeting. We do not have Parliament. This is a virtual committee. A Saskatchewan producer called me and said that he tried to use the online AgriStability calculator. He said that most farmers can't use it, that in fact they can't put in their inventory changes. This means it will give them erroneous information. Why is the agriculture minister touting this lifeline for farmers when it doesn't actually work? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the agricultural sector is critical to our country, and the questions some of us have been asking around food security have reminded us how lucky we are, as Canadians, to be living in an agricultural superpower. When it comes to the specific technical questions that farmers have, they should turn to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who will be delighted to help. +Mr. John Barlow: Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell me how much it cost to develop this online AgriStability calculator? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What I can say is that we are very mindful of and very grateful for the extremely +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, farmers have even hired accountants to try to navigate this shiny online calculator, but they've been told they would go broke before they received any money. Will the government admit that this is just a fig leaf before any actual assistance will come to Canadian farmers? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, very many farmers, and certainly many of the farmers of my acquaintance, have worked with accountants for a very long time. Farmers are sophisticated business people who deal in the futures markets every day. They run hugely important businesses +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it's that kind of condescension that is so frustrating to Canadian farmers. They shouldn't have to hire an accountant to figure out an assistance program. The last time I questioned the Prime Minister and the minister about the secret carbon tax data, they said that only part of it was secret and that the rest of it would be given to the House. I have yet to receive it. Will that be tabled today, in both official languages, to justify to Canadian farmers why the government has increased the carbon tax in the midst of a pandemic? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, what is condescending is to behave as if farmers are not highly sophisticated businessmen. They hire economists. They hire agronomists. They are at the cutting edge. I am proud of the sophistication of Canadian farmers, and I'm proud of the support we offer them. Some honourable members: Oh, oh! +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that the background noise and the heckling really make it difficult for the members who are tuning in via Zoom. I just want to make sure they're aware of what they're doing to our colleagues who are online. We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, for 64 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on his promise to assist Canada's energy sector. Small oil and gas companies still can't qualify for BDC loans, and last week's announcement for large employers, in my opinion, was nothing of exploitive. If the government doesn't fulfill its promise to provide support for the energy sector, it is in turn supporting unethically sourced foreign oil and costing good reliable Canadian jobs. After 64 days, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium-sized energy companies? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite about one thing: The energy sector and energy workers are absolutely essential to our economy, and we support them. One of the things I am most proud of is the $1.7 billion our government has committed to cleaning up orphan wells. That money today has created jobs in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. People are working because of it, and they are cleaning up their communities thanks to that support. +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'll try not to spend too much time. Will the Liberal Party of Canada pay back the money it took from the wage subsidy program, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the purpose of the wage subsidy is to support workers, help them keep their jobs and keep them connected to their workplace +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a no. In my riding, Trillium Media owns several weeklies. The company doesn't qualify for the wage subsidy because it has suffered losses of28% instead of30%. The historic village of Val-Jalbert is in the same situation. Does the Liberal Party of Canada consider itself to be in greater financial difficulty than the historic village of Val-Jalbert and Trillium Media? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, allow me to remind the hon. member opposite what we're doing to support Canadians: more than 8million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit. In addition, 635,000businesses have received loans through the Canada emergency business account. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. Does my hon. colleague take into account the fact that the billions of dollars that are currently being handed out come from taxpayers' pockets? It even comes from the pockets of people who have lost their jobs and who pay taxes when they go to the corner store. On the other side of the House, is it considered justified for multi-million dollar parties to finance themselves with public funds, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to continue by reminding my colleague opposite what our government is doing today to support Canadians and Quebeckers: 293applications for the Canada emergency wage subsidy have been approved. Over 2million Canadians today have +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. It's fantastic! The money that the Liberals are going to get from the wage subsidy is going to go directly into their election kitty. When they go to get their election expenses reimbursed, they're going to get 60%of that money back. So they'll have made the wage subsidy work for them. The businesses that'll have access to it won't, but the political parties will. Doesn't that contravene the Canada Elections Act, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, our programs don't discriminate. They're there to help all workers, to help all Canadians, to help all Quebeckers. The hon. member talked about companies and sectors that need more help. We agree with that. We think we all need to work together to continue to help Canadians and Quebeckers +The Chair: Order. We are returning to Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I don't know how to take it this time. I didn't get it all. I think it's necessary to stop, eject and throw the tape out, and provide an honest answer to the questions we ask. Can my colleague across the way answer a very simple question? Are their employees going to be used for political fundraising and so, once again, make the generous wage subsidy they receive work for them, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out something important when we talk about our work and our economy. The important thing is that we have put in place unprecedented economic measures that are absolutely urgent and necessary. That's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, we've already seen a Duceppe who denounces the use of federal programs by the Liberal Party for the Liberal Party. Can my hon. colleague tell me if she's able to look the entrepreneurs in her riding in the eye and tell them that they don't deserve the wage subsidy, because their loss of income is only28% or29%, while her party is dipping into the cookie jar, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I am absolutely willing to look into the eyes of the entrepreneurs and workers in my riding because they know that our government is doing a lot to help Canadians in this historic crisis. Our economic support program is the largest program in Canada's history +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Armed Forces report showed the relationship between equipment costs and the lack of care for our seniors. Will the government admit today that there is no room for profit in the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, that's a very important question, and I would like to thank the member for asking it. I think this is a historic week. All Canadians have seen what is happening in Ontario and Quebec. We +The Chair: Order. We'll go back to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, experts and advocates have all pointed out that in the for-profit model of care for seniors, there is more emphasis on the bottom line than on care for seniors. Will the Liberal government admit that there is no place for profit when it comes to the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to start by saying one thing, and that is to publicly thank, in this House, Brigadier-General Conrad Mialkowski and his team for compiling the assessment that they did of long-term care homes in Ontario. They acted with courage. They acted with compassion. What they did is historic, and we all need to +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Canadian Forces, of course, always deserve our thanks. However, they don't need our thanks right now; they need to see some action on what they have pointed out. The government owns Revera, the second-largest long-term care provider in Canada. It's for profit, and it's facing a $50-million lawsuit for negligence. What is the government doing to protect seniors in the long-term care homes that they own? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite that after what we have learned this week, all options must be on the table when it comes to how care for our elders will be provided in Canada in the future. I think it is clear to us all that root-and-branch reform is necessary. We need to act with speed but not haste, and work with our provincial partners. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: If all the options are on the table, will the Liberal government commit to removing profit from long-term care, particularly in the Revera long-term care homes, the second-largest number in Canada, which the government owns? Will it commit to removing profit from long-term care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we will commit to doand I hope with the support of all members of this Houseis work very carefully and also very urgently in close co-operation with our provincial partners, under whose jurisdiction this falls, to ensure that these heart-wrenching reports mean that as a country we turn the page +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Revera is a Crown corporation owned by the government, so let's not hear excuses. Is the government doing anything to ensure that seniors are cared for? Is it providing for robust inspections, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to clarify one point in the member's question. Canadian Crown corporations are not Liberal, not Conservative and not partisan. One of the strengths of Canada is that we have non-partisan government institutions, and they serve us extremely well. Our +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, right now the current government is responsible for Revera. It is a Crown corporation. Will the government commit to ensuring there is no profit anymore in Revera? As we've seen, it is facing a $50-million lawsuit, and there's been horrible negligence. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I said at the outset, the ownership structure of long-term care facilities needs to be on the table. Everything does. I also want to emphasize how important it is for us to do what we have been doing, which is to work very closely with the provinces, under whose jurisdiction this falls. In just the past 24 hours, I have spoken with Premier Ford, Premier Horgan and Premier Moe, and our conversation included long-term care facilities. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio (ElginMiddlesexLondon, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I join critics from the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party who deal with women's issues and gender equality to ask where the $75 million toward sexual exploitation and human trafficking has gone. Last week organizations had to close their doors and the programs that help vulnerable women and girls, so the simple question is this: Where is the money? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, let me begin by thanking the member for that very important question. I agree that human trafficking, which is a crime of coercion and exploitation, is unacceptable, and we have to ensure that we provide the supports necessary to the victims of this crime. As the member knows, we have launched a new, comprehensive national strategy to combat human trafficking, and we've incorporated a new pillar in that strategy of empowerment to ensure that the focus +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: With all due respect, it's great that we have a strategy, but when money is not going to the doors of these organizations that provide these services, a strategy is nothing. It's all talk and no action. Where's the money? +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Mr. Chair, let me pick up where my honourable colleague left off by acknowledging that trafficking is a heinous crime and that hundreds of organizations across the country are working to solve the challenges that come with human trafficking. I remind my honourable colleague that hundreds of organizations have received supports, and we will have more to announce to further support +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: It's so very simple. What should we tell the young women and girls looking for these supports right now? What is the answer from the government? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, no one should have to live a life with violence, whether it's sexual, physical, financial or emotional, and that the government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Thank you very much. Yesterday I happened to be part of the health committee, and the Battered Women's Support Services representative was there as a witness. She shared with me that the organizations that she is associated with, over 500 organizations that deal with sexual assault and shelters, did not receive funding. Can you explain why? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, I want to thank Angela and the team at the Battered Women's Support Services. They are receiving funds through Feminists Deliver, but there are hundreds of organizations that will receive additional funds to provide the critical care that they need to support front lines and the most vulnerable in their communities, and we will have more to say soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, we know that calls to centres like Battered Women's Support Services have gone up by 300 times, so this is a huge concern I have. What made this group of assault services and shelters ineligible? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, my colleague is putting words in my mouth. As I said, hundreds of organizations like the Battered Women's Support Services are going to be receiving funds from the federal government in the coming days. We thank them for their work and we will have more to say very soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, the need is now. For instance, at London Abused Women's Centre, calls are up by 45%. I've heard from communities where they've gone up 200%. As I said, yesterday I heard 300%. The money is needed now. Where is the money for this program? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, some organizations are seeing demands up as high as 400% with their capacity limited by 400%. We've centres and women's shelters, and 700 have received funds, with more to come soon. I appreciate that this Parliament includes consensus among all colleagues that feminism and supporting women +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: If we're talking about being a feminist government, I have one single question. Yesterday the minister was not willing to answer the question, so I will ask the Minister for Women and Gender Equality. How can a feminist government support the Wet'suwet'en First Nation women whose titles were stripped from them? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, it sounds like my honourable colleague wants to compare their record on advancing equality with ours. We are happy to do that, and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has been working very hard to move this historic agreement forward. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: These women have lost their titles, and the decisions were made with the hereditary chiefs and not the elected chiefs. Why is this government not standing up for these women hereditary chiefs who were stripped of their titles? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member knows that the route to self-determination is to have first nations, Inuit, and Mtis determine their own governance and abide by their own laws. Right now the Wet'suwet'en nation is in that process of determining what kind of governance they would like. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet (FlamboroughGlanbrook, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act has passed both houses of Congress in the United States and is now on the way to the Oval Office for signature. What is Canada's position on this Muslim minority being jailed and re-educated by the Communist Party of China? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, we are deeply concerned by the human rights situation faced by the Uighurs and other minorities in China. This is an issue our government has raised directly with the Chinese. Canada has also repeatedly voiced its concerns at the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet: The Burmese government is another being exploited by the CPC. Their Muslim minority was driven out and now languishes in Bangladesh, which is a commonwealth partner in the midst of this global pandemic. What will Canada do to answer the injustice done to the Rohingya? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will always stand with human rights. Canada has repeatedly voiced its concerns with the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on the Chinese government to ensure that human rights of all of its people, including the freedom of religion, are fully respected. +Mr. David Sweet: Yesterday the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening a grip of the Communist Party of China. Will the Prime Minister condemn this law? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada, with our international partners in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., made a joint statement in which we are expressing our deep concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +Mr. David Sweet: Canada has an admirable history of doing the right thing and helping when the situation is bleak. The Suez Canal, Cyprus, the fall of apartheid, child and maternal health in Africa, and Afghanistan are examples in my lifetime of how Canada has weighed in significantly. Why is the government letting down Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, with hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in Hong Kong's stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedoms of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: I think the 300,000 Canadians who are in Hong Kong want a little bit more than interest from the government. They'd like some action. What exactly is the government going to do to help those 300,000 Canadians who are in the breach between democracy and tyranny now? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has expressed deep concern regarding China's imposition of the new security law for Hong Kong. The proposed law would undermine the one country, two systems framework. We are going to continue to support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I have deep concern. After being fired at with pepper bullets and tear gas yesterday, 300 students were arrested in Hong Kong while peacefully protesting. Where is the outrage from this government with regard to what the CPC is doing in Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as we have said, we are deeply concerned about the arrests of political figures and about the law that has been imposed on Hong Kong. As we have said, Canada will always stand up and support freedom of speech and freedom of expression. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I'm going to give the minister another opportunity to answer the third question that I asked. Yesterday, the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill, undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening the iron grip of the Chinese Communist Party. Will this government condemn that law today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will continue to support Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and freedoms under the Basic Law and the one country, two systems framework. Canada and our international partners, with the U.S., Australia and the U.K., have made a joint statement deeply expressing our concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Lvis. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some hon. members: Ha, ha! Hon. Steven Blaney: I am pleased to represent the city of Lvis, because it is a privilege, Mr.Chair. It is the city where Alphonse Desjardins, who spearheaded the largest financial cooperative movement, was born. I hope you will not take that away from my time. My question is for the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. On April8, the minister announced measures for the Canada summer jobs program. We thought it was to improve the program, but can the minister confirm that the budget remained the same between April7 and9? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that we have increased the wage subsidies for Canada student jobs. We have added flexibilities, including the ability to have part-time work and the ability to have the jobs extended until February of next year. That said, the budget was not changed. It remains at 70,000 job placements for 70,000 students, with 100% of them being subsidized at 100%. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that the budget remains the same, but that by subsidizing each job more, they are reducing the number of jobs in the midst of the pandemic. Why reduce the number of jobs offered by our businesses in the midst of the pandemic, when our young people want to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member, all members and all Canadians that despite the fact that he's singling out the Canada summer jobs program, we also created an additional 76,000 jobs through our youth employment and skills strategy, with an additional 40,000 placements for students. I can assure the member that we are +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blaney once again. +Hon. Steven Blaney: How many jobs are vacant right now? The program is lagging behind compared to other years. Why, and how is it that there is still money to be invested in our businesses to create summer jobs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are not lagging behind whatsoever. We created flexibilities in Canada summer jobs so that we can assuredly fill all of these 70,000 positions. We are rolling them out in waves. There are 45,000 jobs up on our job bank. I can assure young Canadians that there is work for them there, and I encourage them to check out the job bank. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that there are delays in the midst of the pandemic, when the university year is over and businesses are waiting to hire young people. Why refuse to create additional jobs this year under the Canada summer jobs program, when businesses need them to adjust to the pandemic? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that we are not refusing to create any additional jobs. We've increased the number of jobs funded through our government's youth programs by over 100%. There are a number of jobs. We've added flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to maximize that program in ways that it never would have been maximized had we not done this. I can assure the member opposite that we are doing our utmost to make sure that young people have good-quality job experiences this summer. +Hon. Steven Blaney: When the minister says maximize, she is actually saying that there are fewer jobs this year for young people because the budget has remained the same, but that each position is funded more. My question is very simple: why not fund more jobs through the Canada summer jobs program instead of having open-ended programs like the Canada emergency student benefit, which does not allow young people to get work experience? We need young people and they want to work. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I agree, absolutely, that we need young people to work this summer. That's why we're creating a number of opportunities through a number of programs, Mr. Chair. Canada summer jobs is being maxed out, and that's a good thing, because we've increased the number of jobs and added an additional 76,000 jobs. I can assure the member that we're creating so many jobs, and it's so exciting for our young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The Canada emergency student benefit does not encourage young people to go to work, and employers have difficulty hiring them. Yet they had applied for the Canada summer jobs program. Why not enhance the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I'm sure the member opposite is not implying that offering young people income support that they take out of necessity will make them not want to work. Young people want to work. They want to serve in their communities. That's why we're creating these additional jobs beyond the Canada summer jobs program. That's why we've increased the flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program. It's so we can maximize these programs. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yesterday my colleague asked the Minister of Public Safety a question, and he did not get a good answer. Why are asylum seekers being allowed to cross the closed border and reunify with their families when Canadians are not being allowed to reunify with their counterparts in the U.S.? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to correct an error that was just repeated, we have put in rules that have excluded people from non-essential travel. We currently have an agreement with the United States that people crossing our border irregularly are being directed back to the United States. We've put in protection for those individuals to uphold our international obligations. We're continuing to deal with the +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, I have in my riding a pregnant woman who is having her first child. The father of the baby is not being allowed to come over. I have another citizen who's married to an American woman who needs medical services every three weeks who is not being allowed to go over and come back. I also have parents who have not seen their children in months because they're not allowing custody arrangements between Canadians and Americans to continue. Will the minister create exemptions to allow the reunification of these Canadians with their family? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member for an important question. It is never our intention to keep families apart. At the same time, we are exercising all due diligence to ensure that we prevent non-essential travel to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We've been working very hard to ensure that we have a solution for those individuals who need and want to reunite with their families. We will have further information on that as soon as we're able to resolve that difficulty. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, the Minister of Agriculture has known there's been a capacity issue on cattle processing for more than a year and has done nothing. We don't have a BSE exemption that would allow us to use American processors, and there's been no incentive to create additional capacity to process. How bad does it have to get for the minister to act? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): We have done a great deal for the meat sector lately. We have invested $100million in the beef and pork sectors through the AgriRecovery program. That's a significant increase, because in the last few years the program has provided between $7million and $15million only. That is significant. We have also invested $77.5million to improve the capacity of processors +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It still hasn't solved the problem. That's not a beef burger; that's a nothing burger. What is the minister going to do to help the cattle farmers who are struggling, especially in this pandemic? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have helped the meat sector through the AgriRecovery program and we have put in place a $77.5million program to help meat processors deal with the situation and reorganize their work environment in a way that is safe for workers +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It's not enough for the farmers in my area. To the Minister of National Revenue, I've had complaints from seniors in my riding that paper tax filings are not being processed. They're sitting on desks because people are not going in to the office. When will we begin to process those paper tax filings so seniors can get the refunds they need? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, we consider this to be a difficult situation for Canadians, and our government will do everything it can to support them. I can confirm that the CRA is still processing paper returns, but because of the reduced staff on site and the physical distancing, Canadians can expect delays. We regret the inconvenience this causes for those who file their returns on paper +The Chair: We will go back to Ms.Gladu. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The sound is not very good. This happens when ministers respond in the House. +The Chair: We will talk to the technicians about that. I'm not sure whether there's anything we can do now, but we'll see if we can sort it out for the next meeting. It will certainly be fixed by next Monday. In the meantime, we will do our best. Thank you very much for your comment. We go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, obviously with COVID, many people are struggling with the loss of loved ones and their grief. The Canadian Grief Alliance has submitted a proposal looking for a very modest sum of funding from the government to extend their virtual grief counselling. Can the Minister of Health let us know if that funding has been approved? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): I'm not aware of that specific proposal, but I commit to asking my officials to bring it forward to me and I will take a look. +The Chair: Ms. Gladu, you have time for a 15-second question. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Many are struggling with mental health in this pandemic. Can the Minister of Health tell us what she is doing to increase the capacity to help people who are suffering? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I know I don't have much time, but let me repeat our infomercial to Canadians. They should visit Wellness Together Canada, the portal that will provide access for Canadians to a variety of mental health supports, including connection to professionals. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. I'm sorry, Mr.Champoux; you are next. Mr.Waugh now has the floor. Oh, it's Mr. Waugh. My apologies. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Major events and mass gatherings being really out of the conversation for the foreseeable future, many event venues right now, such as concert halls and fairgrounds, are looking at the possibility of going more than a year without any revenue. Many are owned or managed by non-profit organizations. I can think of many in my riding, such as the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, the jazz festival, the folk festival, along with WDM and the Aviation Museum. Can the Minister of Canadian Heritage tell us what support has been made available to date to these organizations that are left up in the air? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (LaurierSainte-Marie, Lib.): As the member knows, we have done a number of things in the past weeks to help the arts and culture sector. We could talk about the Canadian emergency response benefit, or the wage subsidy. We have provided advance help to a number of organizations from Canadian Heritage programs or the Canada Council for the Arts on top of the $500-million program, which has started to be deployed and will continue to be deployed in the coming weeks specifically for these types of organizations. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Many media organizations are struggling. The reality only makes the allegations of predatory behaviour being levied against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation even more disturbing. I asked the minister on May 7 about these allegations, and he said he had not been informed of the allegations but would look into them. We can't afford to have a Crown corporation using its status to try to wipe out its competitors in this country. Has the minister begun the investigation into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and does he have any information that he can share with us here today? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member said, these are allegations, and as you well know, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent body. It's not controlled by the Minister of Canadian Heritage or the government. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, these allegations were in the National Post on April 22. I brought this up to you on May 7 when I talked virtually. Even more interesting, Mr. Chair, is that these allegations against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation came from an organization in the minister's own province of Quebec, so can the minister take action to address any predatory behaviour on behalf of the CBC, or can the government's friends at the CBC simply get away with anything? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Allegations are allegations, whether they are made in Quebec, Ontario or Alberta. As I said, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent organization. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: When I last rose, on May 7, the committee responsible for the government's massive $595-million media bailout package had not met. It is now three weeks later. Has the committee met? If yes, when can the media organizationsand I hear there are only 29 publishersexpect the support promised? If it hasn't met, when is it going to meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member is well aware, this program is a tax-break program. In order for organizations to qualify, they had to file their income tax forms, which they have done over the last few weeks. The program is in place, and we are confidant that media organizations will receive the money by the end of the summer. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh, go ahead with a 20-second question, hopefully. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: There was $30 million rolled out to media organizations, some 1,400 organizations. Yesterday Postmedia announced another 40 layoffs. Has the $30 million been distributed so far in this country to all 1,400 media organizations? +The Chair: Honourable minister, go ahead for 20 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would be happy to provide the list of those 1,400 media organizations that have received funding through that ad campaign. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Champoux. You have the floor, Mr.Champoux. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'm feeling generous today, and I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Pierre-BoucherLesPatriotesVerchres. At the beginning of the crisis, the government called on entrepreneurs in Quebec and Canada, inviting them to set an example in the situation we are experiencing. Many of them turned to the supplemental unemployment benefit plan to maintain the employment relationship and to preserve some security, enabling their employees to get through this difficult period with more peace of mind. However, on May22, despite the fact that these entrepreneurs had made sure that the SUB program would still be in place when the CERB was introduced, they were surprised. Employees were told at that time that they would have to repay the CERB because of the alleged gains they had made under the SUB program. At SOPREMA, one of the large employers in the Drummondville region, 150employees are affected. At Bridgestone, in Joliette, 1,100employees are affected by this decision. At Goodyear, in Valleyfield, 150employees are affected, and there are dozens more. Does the minister intend to correct this mistake so that employers who are able and willing to do so can treat their employees better during this difficult period? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: When we put in place the Canada emergency response benefit, the underlying goal was to make sure that every worker who needed it had access to income support as they were losing their employment for COVID reasons. We understood that meant some workers would not have access moving forward, although let me clarify that SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are definitely in place. We consider the fact that workers have access to $1,000 a month in addition to CERBand we've spoken with employers about thisto permit employers to assist their employees in an equitable way. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have 15seconds for your question. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, employers received absolutely no news from the government before this measure was implemented, despite the fact that they were assured that this measure would be transferred to the CERB. That's not an answer when those folks acted honestly and in good faith. They feel cheated, and rightly so. Does the government intend to fix this mistake, which would simply be the right thing to do? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member opposite that the SUB plans that were in place prior to March 15 are indeed in place now. In addition, employees who are now on the CERB as an alternative have access to $1,000 of income in addition to their CERB. We are working with employers to perhaps provide the $1,000 in lieu of the SUB plans. +The Chair: We will continue with you, Mr.Barsalou-Duval. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. On April27, Option consommateurs sent a letter to the Minister of Transport to warn him that the airlines' refusal to reimburse their customers for cancelled flights was contrary to Quebec's laws. What is the minister going to do to put an end to this situation? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr.Chair, I sympathize with the people who would have preferred to get a refund, and I understand their frustration. It is not an ideal situation. The airlines are going through a very difficult time right now. If they were forced to refund their customers immediately, many of them would go bankrupt. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, the minister sounds like a broken record. A few hours ago, the following motion was passed unanimously: THAT the National Assembly ask the Government of Canada to order airlines and other carriers under federal jurisdiction to allow customers whose trips have been cancelled because of the current pandemic to obtain a refund. What will the Minister of Transport tell the National Assembly of Quebec? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon.colleague knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled on this issue and has ruled that, in the present circumstances and in a non-binding way, it is acceptable for airlines to offer credits for up to two years. In the case of Air Canada, the credit has no expiry date. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you have about 15seconds for a question. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, I find it rather odd that the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency are telling the airlines that Quebec's regulations and laws are not important and that they can override them. It seems to me that this is a strange way to operate. Theoretically, under the famous Canadian Constitution, which they imposed on us, that is not how it should work. Can they uphold their own constitution? +The Chair: The hon. minister can answer in 15seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon. colleague probably knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency is a quasi-judicial body that operates at arm's length from Transport Canada and the Government of Canada. +The Chair: We will now take a short break. We're going to take a short break to allow employees supporting the meeting to switch in safety, including myself. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now carry on with Mr. Baker for Etobicoke Centre. Mr. Baker, go ahead. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, in Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 42 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville Care Centre. This week, we received a disturbing report from the Canadian Armed Forces documenting appalling and completely unacceptable conditions in the Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes Grace Manor in Brampton. It is beyond reprehensible that our seniors are being treated this way. As I said in the House of Commons on May 7, we need immediate action and comprehensive reform of long-term care. The four other MPs who represent the residents of these homes and I wrote to Premier Ford yesterday to urge him to appoint a third party manager to oversee all operations, to call a full public inquirybecause a government commission is not enoughand to work in partnership with the Government of Canada to establish enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across our country. Minister, will you call on the Government of Ontario to establish a full public inquiry, and will you work with provincial governments to establish and implement enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across Canada so that our seniors from coast to coast to coast can receive the quality of care they deserve? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the member for his very important question. I think all Canadians were horrified, shocked and saddened to hear about the conditions that elders were living in in those particular homes and that many seniors struggle with across the country. There is no question that we have to do better for our seniors. I know the Prime Minister has been very vocal about the need to do more to support provinces and territories to provide better care for seniors, no matter where they live. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Baker, you have another 20 seconds or so if you can manage that. +Mr. Yvan Baker: Thank you. I'll pass on my time to the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Drouin, member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): Mr.Chair, we know that farmers across Canada have been going through some difficult times in recent months. In my riding, farmers are looking for labour and young people are looking for jobs. The Canada summer jobs program plays a vital role in meeting this demand. I was very pleased to hear that the government has enhanced the youth employment and skills strategy program to help create 700new jobs for young people in the agriculture sector. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food tell us when and how our farmers will be able to apply for this new program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, in these unprecedented times, our producers are working that much harder to feed Canadians while facing challenges that are not always easy, particularly in terms of access to labour. To help them, this week, the Prime Minister announced an increase in the youth employment and skills strategy program to help young people be hired in the agricultural sector. This is a $9.2-million investment that will help to attract young Canadians between the ages of15 and30 and to provide them with an exceptional experience in the agricultural sector. I encourage all producers to apply through the Agriculture Canada website. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: I think you finished, Mr.Drouin. We'll move on now to Mr. Johns, CourtenayAlberni. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre. In early April, the NDP asked for a commercial rent abatement program so that tenants could apply for help instead of depending on their landlords, but the government chose to leave commercial tenants helpless if their landlord can't or does not want to apply. On Monday we wrote to ministers again, asking them to negotiate a nationwide moratorium on commercial rent evictions with the provinces and territories so that tenants can't be kicked out. Will the minister take action to ensure that no small business owner is evicted during COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau (Toronto Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We recognize the challenges that small business owners in particular, as well as landlords, are facing during the course of COVID-19. We have worked together with the provinces to come up with an approach that would provide an incentive for landlords to give a rent reduction to commercial tenants. We opened that as of Monday. Of course, we recognize that this is a jurisdiction of the provinces, so it will be up to the provinces to consider the next steps, if any, in this regard. We are looking toward seeing many landlords sign up for this. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage landlords to sign up for this, which not only gives them a sense of security but also their tenants. +Mr. Gord Johns: That's a no, so the government is still failing small businesses. If small business owners can't make June rent, thousands will have to close permanently. If the government won't negotiate a moratorium, will it at least let tenants apply for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program so they can get help with 50% of their rent? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, I think it's important that we have clarity of understanding of jurisdictions. We have worked with the provinces in this regard. The federal government is working through the CMHC to provide support to landlords, which is conditional on their working with their tenants, but of course, it is a provincial area of jurisdiction, so any further actions and any decisions on restricting evictions are in the provincial jurisdiction and not ones that the federal government is able to move forward on. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Gazan, Winnipeg Centre. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, they talk about wanting to support small businesses, but their failure to make rent support work is putting businesses out of business. When it comes to the rent for people's homes, the government didn't even try. Many people in my riding could not make rent on April 1 and May 1, and June 1 is coming up. When will the government act to ensure that families and individuals make their rent payments? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, for individuals, of course we've worked hard to provide support. Over eight million individuals are taking the Canada emergency response benefit. For businesses, of course, we've put in place not only the business account for small businesses but additional support through the wage subsidy program. We know that the rent approach is one that can have an important impact. I would encourage landlords to +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, just a moment. Go ahead on your point of order. +Ms. Leah Gazan: I just want to remind my honourable colleague that his response is supposed to be within the same time period as the question I asked. It's just a friendly reminder. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That is accurate. In fact, the minister was just coming up to the same amount of time it took for your question. I am monitoring that, and we will interrupt if one of the ministers responding goes more than just a short time over. In fact, we try to cut it off at the appropriate time, allowing a word or two perhaps to finish a phrase, and that's the extent of it. I'll watch that closely, the member can be assured. Let's go ahead then and finish up. You have another minute and 20 seconds to finish up, Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, Winnipeg Centre is the third-poorest riding in the country, and COVID-19 has put many of the residents in my riding on the verge of homelessness. Instead of bailing out its corporate buddies, when will this government provide proper rental assistance so that families and individuals do not end up on the streets? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, we have provided support for families and individuals to maintain their ability to pay the rent. In addition to that, we have provided over $157.5 million directly to community entities for homelessness all across Canada . +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, you have about 40 seconds remaining. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, adequate housing is a fundamental human right, especially in this time of crisis. How can the government not show leadership and provide the support that people need to afford their homes? Will this government provide support, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, once again, we have provided support to families and individuals so that they have the ability to pay their rent and pay for essential supplies and expenses. In addition to that, we have moved additional dollars, in the amount of $157.5 million, to the most vulnerable, including the homeless population in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to Ms. Harder from Lethbridge. +Ms. Rachael Harder: As this pandemic began to spread, the government propagated China's talking points about how human-to-human transmission was impossible. Now, I'm sure that the minister regrets those comments. Does she acknowledge that they were misleading? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite's continued lack of awareness of how science works is somewhat disconcerting. I'm sure she understands that this is a novel coronavirus that appeared on the scene in late December, and as the research community worldwide struggled to keep pace with understanding how the virus was adapting, the information changed. As such +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm simply wondering if the minister would like to do the honourable thing and acknowledge that that information was misleading. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, since the very beginning, we have been advising Canadians that they need to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. We have taken strong measures, as a country, to do so. We respect the professionals +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The minister also said that face masks weren't necessary, that they wouldn't help Canadians. Would she acknowledge that that was misleading? An hon. member: Good question. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the party opposite, obviously, does not understand the way that research and science evolve. The member opposite is propagating information that's misleading. She is the one who is confusing Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the health minister misleading the Canadian public? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the evidence changed about the novel coronavirus, as our amazing researchers gave us new evidence, we adapted to adjust our advice to Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the minister not able to acknowledge that she fed the Canadian public misinformation? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, why is the member not able to understand that science evolves with new information? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Back in January when we started noticing other countries closing their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19, Conservatives asked the government if it would do the same. In response, the Prime Minister called us racist. Does the Prime Minister still consider those who called for the closure of borders racist? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, providing misleading information to Canadians is not appropriate. As the member opposite knows, we took strong measures at the border, as recommended by the international health regulations, and we were able to contain the virus for quite some time. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I cannot agree with the minister more that providing misinformation is, in fact, incredibly wrong, which is why the government should simply apologize to the Canadian public for telling them that there was no emergency at our doorstep, that they didn't need to wear face masks, that we didn't need to close our borders, that human contact or contraction was impossible. Those are incredibly misleading statements. Why will the minister not just do the honourable thing and retract them and apologize to the Canadian public? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I maintain that the member opposite does not understand that as new evidence comes forward, that as new advice comes forward.... Canadians understand that. I am unsure why she doesn't. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I understand that knowledge evolves. I'm just wondering if the minister will retract the statements that she made previously, now that she understands that they are misleading. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am so proud of Canadians for being able to adapt to new evidence and public health advice as it becomes clearer and clearer what kinds of actions can protect our health. I want to thank all Canadians for having trust in the public health officials across this country. +Ms. Rachael Harder: On February 3, Conservatives called on the government to treat this virus as a public health emergency and to take immediate action. Unfortunately, Minister Hajdu scolded Conservative MPs, stating that we were spreading misinformation and trying to sensationalize the risk of the virus. Would the minister like to apologize to the members opposite for that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, very early on it was quite clear there were members of our community who were stigmatized by misinformation that was floating around in various circles in the Canadian community. We took strong action to assure those Canadians that we would be with them as we also fought the coronavirus in Canada. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Would the minister like to retract her statement that this side of the House somehow blew this up into something bigger than it is? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as early as January 2, Dr. Tam was convening members of the Canadian medical community to ensure that we would have a robust Canadian response to an issue of potential concern. We have taken this virus seriously every step of the way. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In truth, Mr. Chair, while the government has told the Canadian public that the virus was not something to be concerned about, that we didn't need to close the borders and that face masks weren't necessary, they were misleading the Canadian public. Now they are crowning themselves as the arbiters of truth, spending millions of dollars to censor what information is and is not available online. Would the minister like to respond to why she is misleading the Canadian public and then crowning her head with the ability to monitor +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're out of time. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I want to thank our public health officials and medical community for their incredible work in ensuring that Canadians have accurate information about how best to protect themselves. We continue to work with the community and Canadians. Together we have managed to flatten the curve to date. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I invite the honourable member for MganticL'rable to take the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. One million dollars is the cost of installing air conditioning for a number of rooms in a CHSLD; it is a new fire station; it is 200more student jobs for day camps in Quebec. With $1million, the Liberal government plans to give an annual bonus to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Does the Minister of Infrastructure agree with the bank's board, which is being so generous to its president with Canadians' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr.Chair, I am very proud of what our government has done to invest in communities across the country. We are investing in infrastructure. We are building by investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure and public transit, including in the member's riding. That is what we will continue to do. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has decided to join the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are going to continue our work. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, could the infrastructure minister explain to Canadians how it is better to give $1 million in bonuses to the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank than to invest in roads, schools, hospitals and long-term care homes? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am very happy to explain to the member opposite that we are doing just that. Perhaps he isn't aware of our $33 billion infrastructure program in which we are working directly with the Government of Quebec to build infrastructure that's making a huge difference, including projects in the member's riding. We are going to continue doing that. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, she is not answering the question at all. On April3, the previous president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank left his position for reasons that remain unclear. How much did he receive in bonuses for his years at the helm of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, the change of management at the Canada Infrastructure Bank marks a new phase in the development of the bank. We are working to build a modern, public infrastructure, to create jobs, and to make Canada more competitive internationally. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We are talking about the bonuses given to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have received no answer on that. What were the evaluation criteria that led to the decision that the former CEO had delivered a performance worthy of a bonus, when few, if any, projects were financed by the bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the former CEO, Pierre Lavalle, for his contribution to the establishment of this new institution. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has joined the bank. We will continue to work to build Canada and create good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: How much did he receive in bonuses? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The range of compensation for the CEO is set by the bank and is publicly available. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Did the minister approve the bonuses paid to the former president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: As I have already said, the compensation range for the CEO is determined by the bank and is public knowledge because of the legislation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Thank you, Mr.Chair. If the new president stays in the position for five years, he could be entitled to a bonus totalling $4million, in addition to his salary of $3million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities consider that this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: We have to build our country, create good short-term jobs, ensure that we have a cleaner future, invest in renewable energy and green infrastructure in order to build bridges, public transportation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, if the new CEO stays in office for five years, he will be entitled to a total potential bonus of $4 million, in addition to his salary of $3 million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure think this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money, yes or no? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm very proud that we have Michael Sabia, who is now head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank as the board chair. We need to move forward in building infrastructure that's going to create jobs, including in the member's riding; that's going to help move us to a cleaner future; that's going to grow our economy and increase Canada's competitiveness. The bank is a key part of the investing in Canada plan +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move to Mrs. Gray, KelownaLake Country. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important it is to be able to move our goods interprovincially. Christian Buhagiar of Supply Chain Canada called for the government to revisit interprovincial trade regulations to ensure we can quickly move production and distribution from one region to another during times of emergency. Will the government commit to immediately examine all our trade barriers that can affect interprovincial trade of essential goods due to COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'd like to thank the member opposite for her excellent point. Our government is very committed to removing barriers to interprovincial trade. It's something that we have been working on with the premiers. Obviously the coronavirus has taken precedence in recent weeks, but it's a priority. It's the right thing to do. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, the federal government has a regulatory reconciliation table as part of the Canada free trade agreement, focusing on breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. Due to COVID-19, it has been announced that deadlines for all of these items may be delayed. What is the government doing to ensure there won't be delays on these items? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, it is absolutely right and appropriate for first ministers, who have been meeting every week for more than two months, to be focusing on the urgent threat posed by the coronavirus. However, I agree with the member opposite that we need to lift barriers to interprovincial trade. That's something we're committed to doing and to working on with the premiers. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, while many of these items were past due prior to the pandemic, two important items from the list that should be worked on now are meat inspection and food inspection. Considering serious issues from these industries during the pandemic, would the minister commit to restarting the work on at least these two items? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I can assure you, as far as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is concerned, that we are very open to that issue. Moreover, the authorities are front and centre in cases where there may be a food shortage in one region of the country or another. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is adding huge pressures to our national supply chain. Those I speak with in the industry tell me they are beginning to see a backlog of goods. Does the government have a comprehensive plan to ensure the movement and resiliency of our national supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, since we are discussing the food supply chain, let me remind you that we are committed to spending $50million, specifically to buy surplus food and redistribute it, through the food bank network, to regions where the need is greatest. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, reports state that activists' rail blockades earlier this year cost the Canadian economy $275 million, and it took three to five days to catch up for every day that our transportation network was down. The supply chain industry just caught up, and then the pandemic hit, creating new issues and backlogs. We are hearing from those in the industry who are concerned about future blockades affecting essential goods getting across the country. Our railways are critical infrastructure. Will the government commit to immediately dismantling any potential future blockades? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I couldn't agree more with my colleague that it is important for our railways to be transporting all the goods that we produce in this country. I am in contact on a weekly basis with our major railways. Certain products are moving very well at the moment, including grain, potash and coal, but other goods haven't moved as quickly, because they have been affected by the pandemic. We are very vigilant with respect to moving our goods as efficiently as possible, whether it's by our railways, by trucks or by ships. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, at the standing committee for industry this week, David Montpetit of the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition stated that they believe shippers are going to face a container shortage over the next six months. He also stated that we could be facing labour and capacity shortages in our trucking industry. This could backlog essential goods interprovincially, including food and medicine, if the capacity isn't there. What steps is the government taking to address this problem? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, of course it's always important to have the capacity to move goods across this country. At the moment, our trains have the capacity to move goods across the country. With respect to trucking, we do have issues with respect to a lack of truckers for moving some of our goods across the country. This is a problem that has existed for some time, and we're working on it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now move on to Mrs. Wagantall of YorktonMelville. Mrs. Wagantall, go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Young and new farmers are struggling, as they don't have enough equity built up to borrow money to survive these difficult times. Price insurance is key, but the premiums are so expensive due to COVID that they can't participate. Has a price insurance program been implemented in Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, we are encouraging the use of private programs, as well as the risk management programs. The initiative must come from the private sector. I cannot answer my colleague's question directly. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Has the minister worked with her provincial counterparts to secure a short-term cost-sharing agreement to reduce premiums where price insurance already exists? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure my colleague that I am working very regularly with all my provincial colleagues. In addition to our individual meetings, we have a regular telephone meeting each week. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is cost-sharing of premiums already available for crop insurance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, for insurance protection, our proposal to the provinces is to include the possibility of recognizing a labour shortage as an insurable risk. It is up to each of the provinces to sign on to that or not. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Without price insurance, how many ranchers have had to address cash flow by selling cattle at the bottom of the market? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have established a number of programs in order to help our beef producers. For example, we are providing $50million through the AgriRecovery program and $77.5million for food processors. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On May 1, the Young Cattlemen's Council asked the minister to extend the deadline for attaining calf price insurance. Today is that deadline. Did the minister meet it? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we discuss different options with representatives of various organizations almost every day. We are trying to work with them to improve the various programs and to meet their needs, in addition to the risk management programs, of course. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: She didn't respond to the request of the Young Cattlemen's Council. The minister is telling farmers to access the BRM program, but just now I got a text from a young cattleman in my riding who's losing $250 to $300 per head and just told me that those programs in no way increase their capacity to deal with this crisis. The Farm Credit Canada lending capacity was increased by $5 billion, but only to service and manage loans of current customers. How many farmers have applied for that assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: However, Mr.Chair, there is a whole range of programs for our producers, whether they be specific programs for the agriculture sector, or the Canada emergency business account, the CEBA, the criteria of which have been broadened. This allows us to provide more loans, also with a forgivable portion of 25%, which could amount to $670million for the agricultural sector. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: What percentage of Canada's farmers are customers of Farm Credit Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, Farm Credit Canada is well-established from one end of the country to the other and it is ready to meet the needs of our agricultural producers. In addition +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Of the 25% of farmers who use FCC and have applied, how many have received assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I stand to be corrected but, according to the most recent information I have received, $4billion in flexible loans to producers have been made available since the crisis began. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 45 seconds left, Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is the minister concerned that cow-calf numbers will sharply decrease if producers aren't able to protect the value of their herds, which they cannot do, jeopardizing the future of the Canadian beef supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that I am extremely concerned about the future of the agri-food sector. That is why we are working extremely hard with the sector every day to improve existing programs and create new ones, especially in support of the meat industry. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: They made it clear that the BRM programs don't work and there's not funding in place to assist them. Three weeks ago, the processing backlog was more than 100,000 head. How many beef operations are facing the real danger of going out of business because of this pandemic and the lack of support by the agriculture minister and this Liberal government? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Once again, Mr.Chair, we know that the risk-management programs are not perfect. That is why we are working with the provinces to find solutions. These are shared-cost programs with the provinces and we want to improve them. This is why we are trying to incorporate some flexibility. In addition, we are supplementing the funding, especially for the meat industry. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Wilson-Raybould in Vancouver Granville. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister of Employment has stated that measures would be forthcoming for individuals with disabilities, similar to the one-time payment increase given to seniors on OAS and GIS. Could the minister please provide some more details with respect to the statement she made? When can individuals with disabilities expect meaningful financial assistance? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that Canadians with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by COVID in terms of both their own personal health and the access to supports that they have, or don't have, more specifically. We are three days away from National AccessAbility Week, the first week after we legislated it in the Accessible Canada Act. I would expect something from our government during that week. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you for that. My office has heard from many constituents who are frustrated over the lack of information on eligibility requirements from the government regarding the business credit availability program. Furthermore, banks are giving small and medium-sized businesses mixed messaging. How will the government ensure that the messaging for BCAP and similar programs is articulated properly? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for her question. Nothing is more important to us right now than making sure our small and medium-sized businesses are supported. The lending program through BCAP is available through financial institutions; that's banks and credit unions across the country. The money is flowing to those businesses. I would encourage Canadian businesses to get in touch with their financial institutions. Thank you so much. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Mr. Chair, members may not be aware, but there are ongoing restrictions on when some civil servants can access government servers and their files due to the pandemic, to ensure that those dealing directly with the pandemic have priority. For example, this is affecting negotiations with indigenous peoples. Can the government please tell us when the system will have sufficient capacity so that all civil servants can do their work remotely and without limitation? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to my colleague for her important question, which indeed speaks to the importance of public servants continuing their important jobs for Canadians, being mindful, of course, of the difficult circumstances in which many of those workers find themselves, both personally and professionally. We know that, in particular, indigenous communities need that support, and particularly so in the context of the crisis. We look forward to continuing to support them. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: As current and former parliamentarians call for a national inquiry into long-term care homes, something I would strongly support, can the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations please give the members an idea as to when the action plan on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls will be released? In asking this question, I certainly understand the need for consultation and the reality of some delays due to the pandemic. There are of course many actions that we all know need to take place now that do not need more consultation. The need for consultation cannot be an excuse for the lack of action. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I thank the member for her ongoing advocacy. As we approach the first anniversary of the release of the final report, we are grateful for the work of all of our partners as they really try to do what they can to end this national tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and those who are two-spirited, plus. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, they have put in good initiatives, and we look forward to releasing a national action plan that will include all provinces and territories as well as all of our indigenous governments and partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Wilson-Raybould, you're down to about the last 30 seconds, so please ask a short question. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I have a short question for the Minister of Transport. Does the government have any plans to step in and encourage airlines to return money to customers rather than vouchers? I've heard from many constituents and businesses in this regard. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned before, we're very sympathetic to the situation that those who would have preferred a refund are in at the moment. However, the airlines are going through an extremely difficult time, and if they had to reimburse at this time, some of them could fail. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to begin by indicating that I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. Across the country, a lot of Canadians are preparing to go back to work right now and some employers are doing a good job of ensuring that there is a safe workplace, with the right procedures and the right equipment. Unfortunately, some employers are not. For Canadians who are employed by them, that means making a really tough decision between going back to a workplace where they don't feel safe and which may present a threat to their families or communities, and staying home and worrying about not being paid because they're not at work or because they will lose access to the CERB. I am wondering what guidance the federal government has for people who feel that their workplace is not safe at this time and that their employer hasn't done its due diligence, and are concerned about losing access to the CERB. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are very concerned about the safety of our workplaces and we don't want workers to feel unsafe as they go back to work. However, we do want people to go back to work. We are working very closely with the provinces. The Minister of Health is working on occupational health and safety guidelines. The Minister of Labour is working with her colleagues. We are taking an all-of-government approach to ensure that workers are safe, that they don't have to put their lives or the health of their families in jeopardy and that we can support them in these efforts. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Mr. Chair, I think the issue here is that Canadian workers really need some certainty about what the federal government would consider an adequate employment offer, or an offer to come back to work, so that they wouldn't be on the CERB. Can Canadians be confident that they can stay on the CERB whether they go back to work or not, whether their employer makes them an offer or not? I think a lot of people have anxiety about this and it's a difficult time. When is the government going to release some formal guidance on how people go about refusing unsafe work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that the provinces have their own workers' compensation programs and refusal-to-work mechanisms, but the point for us, here in government, is to work with employers and with the provinces so that we make our workplaces safe. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: But this is about CERB eligibility. I respect +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Order. Mr. Blaikie, we have run out of time since we are splitting the time between two speakers. We're now going to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians depend on municipalities across Canada for vital services, especially during this pandemicservices like transit, drinking water, parks and sanitationyet the government has left municipalities in an unprecedented financial crisis. Local government leaders across the country have called on the government for help, yet mostly what we've heard are excuses. Does the minister acknowledge that the federal government has a leadership role to play in getting financial help to municipalities at this difficult time? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we do acknowledge is the essential role municipalities play in our country at all times, and the particularly essential role they play today as our country gets ready to restart our economy. We are working closely with the municipalities to talk about ways we can support them and are working closely with the provinces, in whose jurisdiction the municipalities fall. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Through you to the minister, we've seen deep cuts and more cuts are on the way. We've seen thousands of municipal workers laid off, and it's been over a month since municipal leaders called on this government for emergency financial relief. My question is very simple. When can the municipalities expect the help they need from the federal government? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say again, Mr. Chair, that we are extremely alive to the importance of municipalities in our economy. We are very aware of the difficult financial situation they find themselves in, and we are very aware of how important it is to keep our municipalities functioning, particularly as we move into the restart. We're working with municipalities and are urging them to work with their provinces, as we are doing too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We have about 30 seconds left. Go ahead, Mr. Bachrach, for 30 seconds. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: I have a very simple question, through you to the minister. Are there emergency federal dollars on the table for Canada's cities, yes, or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the federal government very much understands and appreciates the importance of municipalities. We are prepared to support them. Provinces need to do their share too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the honourable member for Manicouagan to take the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. At a time when we are asking our fellow citizens and Quebeckers to make sacrifices and even greater efforts, the Liberal Party, the government, is directly pilfering from a subsidy program that should be going to those who need it, not to rich political parties and their millionaire supporters. At a time when the work in the House is even more essentialwe should be working even harder, just as we are asking the people to dothe government, with the complicity of the NDP, decides to suspend the work of the House. This is the result of an absurd agreement that is absolutely impossible for it to implement. Can the government confirm to the House, and simultaneously to the NDP, that the measure involving 10days of leave is absolutely not something it can do? It is not in its jurisdiction, so it is a measure that it cannot implement. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, in order to be part of any agreement, you have to negotiate and be sitting at the table. The Bloc Qubcois says it wants to make gains for Quebec, but in order to do that, it must be sitting at the table, not outside the room. It's like a hockey game; if you want to score goals, you have to be on the ice. The other day, I asked this question: how many of Guy Lafleur's 560goals were scored when he was sitting on the bench? +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me shoot the puck back to the Leader of the Government in the House. He himself decided to close the rink, to shut down Parliament. That is where the teams are, and that is where the goals are scored. But when you play a sport, when you are on a team, and when you are in Parliament, you still have to play by the rules. But the government does not keep its word. It made a promise to us as well, just like it made one to the NDP. It was about the Canada emergency student benefit. The Deputy Prime Minister herself said that it was certainly a good idea. What did the government do? It backed away. I play on a team and I play by the rules. I take it at its word because this is the right place. Here, in this chamber. So I would like the government to tell people that this measure is absolutely not in their jurisdiction. That was my previous question. It was not about which parties were negotiating or not and when they kept their word or not. The NDP has to realize that their agreement is absolutely worthless. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, my colleague is alluding to previous current and future agreements. We have had discussions and we have reached a number of agreements with our friends in the Bloc Qubcois. It was going very well, but there was one agreement they did not like and they went off and sulked. When you are not happy, you do not go off and sulk; you stay at the table and negotiate. That is how things work. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I urge the honourable Leader of the Government to recall the House. I am ready to be here, on the ice, all the time. I must remind him that we are not sulking. The Bloc Qubcois has self-respect and respect for the public. An agreement is not a promise, it is an agreement. A word is given in dignity and sincerity; a bond of trust is created. When a player decides not to play by the rules, I do not let myself be taken in twice. I prefer to negotiate here, as we should be doing all the time in Parliament, not trying to play with someone who never keeps his word. I would just like the Leader of the Government in the House to tell us that the measure about the 10days is not up to him and so he will not be able to make it happen. I could also ask him whether he found out from the Government of Quebec whether it agreed with the measure. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, of course, it is not in my jurisdiction personally. We agree on that. It depends on a number of players, including the provinces and the private sector. We at federal level are holding discussions with the provinces and people in different areas. Of course, we are holding discussions with everyone involved. I want to know what my colleague has against having six hours of questions instead of four. What does she have against the fact that, from now on, people will be able to ask questions about anything, not just about COVID-19? What does she have against the fact that we are going to meet again this summer? What is it that she does not like? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms.Gill, you have about 30seconds left for your comment. Go ahead. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me teach the Leader of the Government in the House some arithmetic. First, 37.5hours per week, as well as the time we spend sitting on our normal committees, is quite a bit more than the eight short hours each week he is giving us. Second, once again, the leader said that it is absolutely not in his jurisdiction. So he reaches agreements with parties though his word is worth nothing. I hope that the NDP has not reached an agreement with him. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, it all depends on government decisions, and clearly, we are having discussions with the provinces. Actually, we have already started doing that. However, I still do not understand what she has against having more time than I do to ask questions. I would really like an answer from her. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now take a brief pause so that the technicians can spell each other off. Order. I see Mr. Bezan on a point of order. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier, during the question time here, Mr. Sweet, the member for Flamborough-Glanbrook, got up and was raising a number of issues about the Hong Kong protests, where 360 people have been arrested. The People's Republic of China, the regime in Beijing, and their rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, are circumventing Hong Kong legislation and the Hong Kong government in putting their own will upon the people of Hong Kong. I believe this demands an emergency debate here in the House of Commons. Mr. Chair, I'm asking if you would rule on this and schedule an emergency debate so that Parliament can actually discuss this crisis, this human rights crisis, as political protestors are being imprisoned because of their standing up against the communist regime in Beijing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable member, Mr. Bezan, for his point of order. It was really more of a request. He may know, and for the benefit of other honourable members, that we're operating in this Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic under the auspices of an order made earlier this week. There is no provision in that order for emergency debates. However, I would certainly encourage him to speak with his House leader, whips and others. Of course, he'll know that discussions of this sort are being shared, so he might want to pursue that opportunity. I see Mr. Bezan rising. Mr. Bezan, is it a different point of order? +Mr. James Bezan: No. I'd just like to respond to that if I could. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Well, there's +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, this is the problem with this special committee. Our rights and privileges as members have been completely degraded. It makes it impossible for us to address the issues of this day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Bezan, we're all operating under an order that was agreed to by the House. We'll stick to those provisions. Again, understand the situation we're in. Certainly circumstances do change, but I leave that to the party leaders to decide. For our last round of questions, we're going to CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Revenue. Minister, I've been informed by some of my colleagues that CRA officials have been directing constituents to phone their member of Parliament to resolve CRA-related issues. Why on earth would CRA direct individuals away from the agency during this stressful time when they're just trying to get their tax information and file their taxes? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. I can tell you that CRA employees have to deal with questions put to them. It is not up to MPs' offices to deal with specific questions about individual files. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Minister, you didn't answer the question. These are your CRA officials directing constituents away from the CRA. You really should be answering that question and not just talking about how inappropriate it is, although I appreciate that. Also, on your website, it says that the telephone service for the individual-inquiries line will be available to Canadians until June 5, and there is no further information about further live service. When will you get your agency under control and make sure it provides an actual person on the other end of the line to provide the information that taxpayers need? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we go to the minister, I would remind hon. members to address their questions through the chair. It's a little bit different from when we're questioning witnesses in a committee. We're using the rules more related to what we use in committee of the whole. The honourable minister has the floor. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, as far as I'm aware, this is not Parliament; this is a committee. I've been sitting on committees since October. I've talked to my colleagues, and no chair, including the chair of the finance committee, has ever asked me to address a question through the chair. So with the greatest of respect, unless this is in fact Parliament, which I'm told it's not and the Parliament voted that it's not, we really should be able to address the witnesses directly, should we not? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Thank you, Mr. Morantz. This really is a question around the way in which this special committee on COVID-19 has been structured. We're operating under the rules that were agreed to by the House in an order that was passed and adopted on Tuesday of this week, so we're bound to manage the affairs of this committee in that way, and one of those includes asking members to address their comments and questions through the chair to other hon. members. So I ask you to abide by the rules of the committee, and we'll pursue that. Now we'll go to the response to your second question. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I must thank the officials who have done excellent work during this historic COVID-19 period. I must tell you that CRA call centres are an essential service and the agency is able to answer calls quickly. The employees are answering calls from their homes. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Some of my colleagues have spoken to the CRA about drop-off boxes for paper returns actually being removed at some locations, citing COVID-19 as a reason. Has the CRA removed these boxes at all locations? Given this, will you commit today to make paper filing postage-free, since paper filers can no longer drop off their returns at all of the locations? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. At the CRA, we continue to process paper returns and to do the work that we usually do. I repeat, I must highlight the exceptional work that the agency employees are doing. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On the subject of paper returns, there have been numerous reportsin fact I asked you on May 10 for a written response at the government operations committee, OGGO, which I have not yet receivedon the delays in processing paper returns. Apparently this is still ongoing. When will Canadians who filed paper forms have their returns processed so they can get the refunds they need during this difficult time? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I can confirm that the Canada Revenue Agency continues to process paper returns. Because of COVID-19, we have had to implement distancing measures to protect the employees. We must ensure that employees are safe, but we continue to process paper returns. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Morantz, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead with your question. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Sure, Mr. Chair. During this crisis, the problem of illegal tax evasion and avoidance has been highlighted. The minister has been the minister since 2015 and should be able to answer this question off the top of her head. How many successful prosecutions have there been in Canada for the illegal use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, as we have said, one of our government's priorities was to invest almost $1billion to establish a system intended to fight tax evasion. That was not at all a priority under the Conservatives. We continue to do that important work for taxpayers; everyone must pay their fair share. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That concludes the 13thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Speaker Rota asked me to remind all honourable members that during the next meeting, which will be next Monday, we'll be watching more carefully the time for members' statements. We're allowed one minute. We ask members who are providing those by virtual conference to time their statements to within one minute, as he will start to cut off members who go beyond the one minute. With that, this committee stands adjourned until Monday at noon. Enjoy the weekend. +","The conversation begins with the Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, calling the 13th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic to order. He explains the hybrid format, with some members participating via video conference and others in person. Mr. Ziad Aboultaif raises a point of order about background noise, which the Chair addresses by reminding everyone that the microphones pick up all sounds. + +Mr. Paul Manly presents a petition about protecting honey bees by banning neonicotinoids, and Mr. Garnett Genuis presents two petitions, one related to the government's euthanasia bill and the other on organ harvesting and trafficking. Ms. Elizabeth May presents a petition relating to wage supplements for essential workers. + +Various other members presented petitions on different subjects, and members made statements about diverse topics, including tributes to local initiatives, commemorations of individuals, and the Canadian tourism industry. + +During the question period, members asked about support for farmers, ministerial announcements, and subsidies for political parties, among other issues. There was also discussion about the need for support for municipalities during the COVID-19 crisis and questions about delays in processing tax returns and CRA matters. + +The Chair reminded members to keep their remarks concise when presenting petitions and to adhere to the time limits. Members were also advised that the Chair would be enforcing the 60-second rule for member statements more strictly in future meetings. The meeting concluded with the Chair stating that the committee would reconvene on Monday at noon." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come again for the the second meeting . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh for the aim of this meeting now is to to make presentation about uh the work for each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {gap} take the the decision about the the design and the functionality of the the remote control . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we have {disfmarker} think I got a new project requirement . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So I think uh teletext becomes outdated . So the popularity of the {disfmarker} since the popularity of the internet , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and I think we don't need lighting adaptive , so the remote control should be only used for the the television . And of course we should have our image {gap} in the in the design . So , let's start with the the industrial designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , alright . +Project Manager: Or y you can use the whiteboard if you want . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} Well I have a PowerPoint pr presentation stored in my in my personal folder +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: so I I I think you can reach it from here . +Marketing: Just go to explorer . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Or open . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Project Manager: This one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Open uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh open . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you want to open {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because it's open you mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so um I will talk about the the w working design and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Marketing: Slide show , view slide show , {gap} . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: And um well I I will present my my first idea on how to build the {disfmarker} our new remote control for television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can you go one page down , please . So I think the first things to do is to define the hardware components neededs to achieve uh what we want to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh mm I'm thin uh {vocalsound} I think uh I I'll do a survey about what is uh what is available on the market and what what is the the cheapest possible {vocalsound} things we hav we can use . Then uh I will try with the technical team to to build a prototype and to see uh with uh h how this little box {vocalsound} would uh look look like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And how an and we can uh start troubleshooting first uh com communication problems or things like that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And when we are ready with this first prototype I I think we can add some software functionalities on a programmable chip like browsing by content or um things like that . Okay so can you go down uh {disfmarker} So , wha what I think {vocalsound} for now {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} we don't want to have a remote control w which is wired +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh I think we u we can use a battery for the {gap} . Then two programmable chips for both software functionalities and communication . And the communication with the T_V_ set is uh made through uh infrared communication So uh this is the {vocalsound} the schema of the {vocalsound} o of the future uh remote controls +User Interface: Did you draw it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so uh you can you can see the components , uh battery and uh the two chips goes to the infrared uh connection to the T_V_ set . +User Interface: This {gap} . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: What is the other chip for ? The one on top . +Industrial Designer: The one on top is for the um {disfmarker} well the functionali the functionalities +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: One is a communication . +Industrial Designer: and the the th red um {disfmarker} sorry the green one is is to {disfmarker} well , putting things together , um f transform the data into uh qu into the format to to {gap} uh to communicate with the T_V_ set . +User Interface: For men . To the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And , that's it . I think we should use a F_P_G_A_ for {vocalsound} for the functionalities which is easy to to t +User Interface: Mm . What is F_P_G_A_ ? +Industrial Designer: It's field programmable uh something array . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Gateway arrays . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: It's a field programmable gateway arrays . +User Interface: So why's it {disfmarker} how is it different from the Bluetooth ? +Industrial Designer: Well , uh a F_P_G_A_ is just a chip you can uh you can {gap} pr programme it uh wi with wh whatever you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Programme it . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh well the Bluetooth chip is just responsible to uh make the communication uh between uh the two devices . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} So this are the {disfmarker} they have to work together ? Or ? Do they have to work together or two separate choice {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . Well , th the F_P_G_A_ will produce the the data to send . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or it's something like {disfmarker} isn't hardware the first one ? And the second one is for the software . +User Interface: Is the is the software par alri okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah to run th to make it run . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: That's it . +User Interface: So you can control {gap} if you want , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright and that's it for the working design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So if you have any questions ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , and how about the battery power ? Uh you mean that battery would be somewhere there and the remote contro the power to the battery comes through infrared ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no no no no , I think uh we have uh to to uh have uh embedded uh b batteries in in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Into the {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah into the t . +Marketing: more compact and uh {disfmarker} okay , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh I I don't think it will need um {vocalsound} very uh much power to make it run , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Mm . You can put it on the charger when uh you when you don't need to use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Having a charger rather than putting the battery cells always . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: People don't like it to have to buy the batteries when they run out . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . Uh {disfmarker} mm . +Marketing: We just make a small charger +User Interface: Y yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can i yeah . +User Interface: Because you are using because you are using Bluetooth , if some people have P_D_A_ they can use their P_D_A_ to control the T_V_ if they want to , right ? +Industrial Designer: That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ma +Industrial Designer: Also , but but {vocalsound} I I I think uh the the goal is to sell our remote {vocalsound} control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bu {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we can change the b {gap} . +Marketing: Our remote , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: we do not want to make it P_D_A_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} okay , so charger for {gap} is the {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So is mine . +Project Manager: It's mine . Participant one , no ? +User Interface: Oh . Yeah , this your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Oh we have {gap} so let's move to to user interface design {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can open uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant {disfmarker} +User Interface: three . Yeah . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So I'm working on the technical functions design . {gap} can you show the next slide . So the the purpose is to to find uh the important questions to ask is what effect should the apparatus have . So {vocalsound} so I found on a webs on the internet +Project Manager: {vocalsound} During the weekend . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} I spent a lot of time searching {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh and I found that uh the function of remote control is to send messages to television set . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} For example switch on , switch off , switch the next channel and so on and so on . +Marketing: G +User Interface: So I found two very good prototypes for {vocalsound} for this interface from our competitors +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so can you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This are usual functionality {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Ours is a bit uh different . So these are two example . One is from {vocalsound} {gap} the other one is from , yeah , uh engineering centr yeah . +Project Manager: Tasks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This is the most competing prototypes I've found {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But then uh loo but then I found if you look at {disfmarker} you see on the left one there are too many buttons {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they are small {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . O on the right I tried to play with {vocalsound} the problem is that uh if I have hundred channels I have uh I have to choo press the other button to choose the hundred channels and I have to compose the number +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: so it's very lousy . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} so you move to the next the next one . +Industrial Designer: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , so I talk about the problem . And then I I look at the user manual they are a hundred pages thick , so we don't want that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I propose the easy to use uh prototype . You can navigate on T_V_ screen and we can {gap} the user's preference and we need to have the T_V_ connected to internet so we end {disfmarker} in order to access the T_V_ programmes by X_M_L_ and we need some {disfmarker} to do some preprocessing . From the technical aspect , the processing should be done on the T_V_ set than on the {vocalsound} on the remote controller , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And then we {disfmarker} the speech recognition as uh Harry says we may just put in {disfmarker} we may K_I_V_ . +Project Manager: What do you mean by the pa pa processing will be done on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah , all the processing is done {disfmarker} the T_V_ is a compu has some processing power the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: than the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So we have to t +Project Manager: So we should have specific T_V_ ? Or ? We can use this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have to sell a T_V_ with the remote control too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are you just wondering what controller {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . J j just the remote control . +Marketing: Yeah , not the T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: I think there there is there is al there there is a a technology like show view who is already available on most of the T_V_ set on recorders or thing like that +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we can try t to get this information on to the remote control to to do the processing on the remote control because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So i the processing on on the remote controller {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: so it can u be used in any T_V_ , any conventional T_V_ sets ? +Project Manager: we {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speech recognition . +User Interface: N yeah , that's all . The next one ? So I come up with a simple design , just keep the v navigation buttons . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's a good idea , I think . +Project Manager: Keep the navigation +Industrial Designer: We d we don't we we don't need really much buttons to {disfmarker} i if we have a screen to navigate on on the T_V_ so uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , f four five buttons , it's sufficient . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's easy to build , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it does not consume much power . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's all . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but you have a catch there , um assume that um if you want to go to {disfmarker} if you are watching channel two and if you want to go to channel ninety nine , then {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , then y you you go to the main menu and uh you have uh go to channel +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then uh you {gap} can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . No , because you choose by channel , so {disfmarker} you choose by T_V_ program +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you {disfmarker} +User Interface: so you don't have hundred channels to choose from . If you go by channel , you don't have to do that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} but uh I I think i i {gap} if you if you want to to make uh {disfmarker} well a a big jump {vocalsound} {gap} but uh well you you have to to have a a a device when you could you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah . Ah , a big jump . +Marketing: Yeah then yeah that's right . +User Interface: A mouse or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , not a mouse but uh something that that says more clearly that uh right , left , up , down , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , the to have the ability to to to write something to the navigator , maybe directly , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we can think of buttons like in the telephone to send messages or things like that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: How the {gap} this remote ? +Industrial Designer: But we'll see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it's gonna be small . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} small . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So it'll beep if you wanna find it +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} too small that it goes under the sofa and we can't find it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you just uh shout {disfmarker} y h just {disfmarker} it just has to re respond to you when you look for the device . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I dunno how bu {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} just {gap} give it a name and we call him . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {gap} responds to you , and {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh next presentation {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Participant four . So Harry . +Marketing: Okay , after having the inputs from {vocalsound} industrial design and user interface , I think most of the points which I want to are already covered here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And to find the most interesting features what the users would be interested , then what we have done is we have put a feedback forms in all the magazines , and the users send the feedbacks , and based on that {disfmarker} These are the findings which we got and {disfmarker} yeah adding of a speech interface is always good for a T_V_ remote but the technology {disfmarker} We already know that {disfmarker} as discussed earlier {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I I think it will be a , yes , a bit complicated to um make a speech recognisers runs on the small uh ts +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: An {vocalsound} it does {gap} how feasible it is . +User Interface: I- {vocalsound} mm . But I think if you {gap} to recognise numbers it's a well-studied problem . I if you just recognise uh numbers is a limited {disfmarker} you have limited vocabulary {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh we can put an limited vocabulary as in the mobile phones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We just have the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And this can allow to choose the the program , for instance without uh adding uh buttons +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a good idea . +Marketing: {gap} it's not going to take much space also . It's going to be very slim . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: And next one was the size of the remote control . It has to be of course a very slim and small one . And of course most of the people are interested in if it's less expensive , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so this is an important criteria here is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But do you think what they sug suggested s possibility {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: I mean we have to look for a trade-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The features and the cost . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I no {disfmarker} I I think that uh i if we go for quality people may tolerate for high quality and of course comes with uh reasonable cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe not less , but they may be willing to pay little bit more for comfort , +Marketing: Little bit more if it's with extra features . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah , extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , s s speech is a important extra feature I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: But is it useful or not u I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Well , uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is {gap} in the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , for a lazy guys they could say nine and the nine channel comes . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or they say movie name {disfmarker} or I don't go for movie names but only for the numbers on the channel , or volume up , volume down , brightness , contrast . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So , I think this should be a good idea , to put this features . And the fourth one was the teletext in various languages . +Industrial Designer: we we just have to find a mean how to to add a m a a a microphone or uh well {disfmarker} yes a microphone into the the remote control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it will be alright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it's necessary can {disfmarker} you can do that . +User Interface: What is the teletext ? Mm . +Project Manager: We can integrate small microphone in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's not really a problem . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What about lighting adaptive options ? +Marketing: Yeah as discussed in the earlier meeting , but {vocalsound} I think uh not much people are really interested in this point if it's not really required . +Project Manager: According to the re to the new requirements I think we don't need that . Yeah . +User Interface: It is interesting but we are only concerned with the remote controller . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So you need s special T_V_ sets to do that ? Or it's it's done via this remote controller ? It's very complex . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's a bit complex too {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} yeah , it's for the um industrial design and users interface designers to decide if it's going to be working or not . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: For our next product , our new T_V_ set with uh automatical uh sound adjustment {vocalsound} light {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , then we can conclude that . Yeah . Yeah , but it's quite possible but maybe not in this project . +Project Manager: So we have {disfmarker} I think we have s still we have couple of minutes . Mm-mm . {vocalsound} So any things to to discuss ? Or any suggestions ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think as I discussed th that four points would be good for um marketing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The speech interface and uh less uh reasonable uh cost . +Project Manager: Expensive . Price . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And the lighting adaptation +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and the teletext . And regarding the teletext uh these are the subtitl these are the text information which you got on the televisions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: If you are watching an foreign movie , you get {gap} subtitles sometimes . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: And uh if you are a French guy watching an English movie you would like to have it in French . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And if I am a German then I would like to have the {disfmarker} my options in German . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , the remote {disfmarker} it should have some {disfmarker} it should give me some flexibility of choosing the ch languages . +Industrial Designer: Function . +Marketing: That should be a good uh point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but well what about the the new project's requirement ? I I I think we should give up with teletext , no ? +Project Manager: I think we we can we {disfmarker} {gap} is the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Well , so maybe we we can j we can already think uh {vocalsound} about a way to to access the internet via the television . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Using the T_V_ to access the internet ? Or what ? I didn't quite understand {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh we can think that in a few years there will be T_V_ set that can access the internet . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a good idea if i i if we i if if we uh think about how to to to build up our remote uh control w with this functionality in a {disfmarker} w which will c which will come in a few years . +Marketing: We already have some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So if we already have it in our remote control {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have to anticipate the the future ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} The future demand , market demand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , to desi +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: well , not not to implement it , but to {disfmarker} well , to find a way to to add to add this functionality in a {disfmarker} yeah , in an in an easy manner , if is possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: The functionality in the future . +Project Manager: In future . +User Interface: Alright . Yeah . Because all the T_V_ sets will be digital , right . All the programmes , everything will be in digital than analog . Th the system will change and we have to anticipate for those change . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's go for the the lunch break , and we will meet after . +Industrial Designer: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . +","During the second project meeting, the aim was to present and discuss the work progress of each team member and to make critical decisions regarding the design and functionality of a remote control. Notably, this remote control is being developed for television use only, with explicit mention that features like teletext have become outdated due to the growing popularity of the internet. Additionally, the Project Manager suggested eliminating adaptive lighting features, proposing that the new remote should be straightforward, focusing solely on the TV functionalities, and should represent the company's image. + +The Industrial Designer started by sharing ideas on building the new remote control's working design. They proposed conducting market research to determine cost-effective hardware components. Once identified, the technical team would collaborate on building a prototype, followed by troubleshooting communication issues. The Industrial Designer also suggested adding software functionalities to the prototype such as content browsing. They revealed a design schema involving a battery, two programmable chips (one for functionality and the other for transforming data into the correct format for TV communication), and infrared communication components. There was a discussion about using FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips for programmable functionality and a potential comparison with Bluetooth technology. + +The User Interface Designer then focused on the technical functions, emphasizing a user-friendly prototype that would process user preferences and require the TV to be internet-connected for XML-based TV program access. There were discussions around speech recognition technology, considering it for recognizing numbers to simplify remote interactions. + +Marketing staff put forward findings based on customer feedback; users expressed interest in speech interfaces. They also suggested that while users want inexpensive options, they might be willing to pay more for additional comfort and features. In the context of this remote control project, marketing recommended opting for a less expensive, reasonably priced, slim, and small remote control. There were also suggestions about accommodating multiple language options for teletext, despite the earlier decision to discard this feature due to new project requirements. + +There were deliberations on how the remote control would handle processing—whether it would occur on the remote or the TV set, with a consensus leaning towards the former to ensure compatibility with conventional TV sets. There were also conversations about the physical design of the remote, ensuring it is neither too small to lose nor too large to handle uncomfortably. + +Marketing raised the point of including a function to assist in navigating across a wide range of channels without requiring numerous button presses. The topic of how users would find a misplaced remote was also humorously tackled, discussing the possibility of the remote emitting a sound upon command. + +Finally, the meeting considered future technological developments, such as TV sets having internet access, suggesting that the design of the remote control should anticipate and adapt to future functionalities and market demands. The session concluded with plans to regroup after a lunch break to continue their discussions. + +Overall, the meeting demonstrated the fluid dynamics of project development, with team members brainstorming and collaboratively navigating through design choices, technical features, and market strategies to create a user-friendly, marketable remote control for television sets." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Good morning everybody . Um I'm glad you could all come . I'm really excited to start this team . Um I'm just gonna have a little PowerPoint presentation for us , for our kick-off meeting . My name is Rose Lindgren . I I'll be the Project Manager . Um our agenda today is we are gonna do a little opening and then I'm gonna talk a little bit about the project , then we'll move into acquaintance such as getting to know each other a little bit , including a tool training exercise . And then we'll move into the project plan , do a little discussion and close , since we only have twenty five minutes . First of all our project aim . Um we are creating a new remote control which we have three goals about , it needs to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I'm hoping that we can all work together to achieve all three of those . Um so we're gonna divide us up into three {vocalsound} compa three parts . First the functional design which will be uh first we'll do individual work , come into a meeting , the conceptional design , individual work and a meeting , and then the detailed design , individual work and a meeting . So that we'll each be doing our own ideas and then coming together and um collaborating . Okay , we're gonna get to know each other a little bit . So um , what we're gonna do is start off with um let's start off with Amina . Um Alima , +Industrial Designer: Alima . +Project Manager: sorry , Alima . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're gonna do a little tool training , so we are gonna work with that whiteboard behind you . Um introduce yourself , um say one thing about yourself and then draw your favourite animal and tell us about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um I don't know which one of these I have to bring with me . +Project Manager: Probably both . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so , I'm supposed to draw my favourite animal . I have no drawing skills whatsoever . But uh let's see , introduce myself . My name is Alima Bucciantini . Um I'm from the state of Maine in the US . I'm doing nationalism studies , blah , blah , blah , and I have no artistic talents . +Project Manager: How do you spell your name ? +Industrial Designer: A_ L_ I_ M_ A_ . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and I guess I'm the Industrial Designer on this project . So let's see if I can get +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um here . I will draw a little turtle for you all . Not necessarily 'cause it's my absolute favourite animal , but just that I think they're drawable . And you have the pretty little shell going on . Some little eyes . Happy . There you go . That's a turtle . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So what are your favourite characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um . I I like the whole having a shell thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's quite cool carry your home around where you go , um quite decorative little animals , they can swim , they can , they're very adaptable , they carry everything they need with them , um and they're easy to draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we just go around the table ? +User Interface: Uh Okay . Well , my name is Iain uh +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and I'm the User Interface Designer for the project . Um . And I'll try and draw my favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , +User Interface: I'll {disfmarker} I should leave that one on there +Industrial Designer: you can erase the turtle , +User Interface: shouldn't I {vocalsound} before I callously rub it off . +Industrial Designer: it's alright . +Project Manager: Might be nice to have them all up there at same time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not gonna draw it quite to scale um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that at least identifiable ? +Industrial Designer: Snake . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Em +Industrial Designer: Well , +User Interface: It's a whale {vocalsound} , yes . +Industrial Designer: snake ? {vocalsound} It's w {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: Oh my god , it's better than what I'm gonna be able to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um and , yeah , the reason I like whales is 'cause uh they're {disfmarker} well , first of all they're quite intelligent um and also they're they're kind of mysterious , like we don't really know much about them or or understand how they work , how they form groups . And I just find them interesting animals . +Marketing: Take my contraptions with me . Alright , I'm Jessy . I'm from around D_C_ ish sort of in the U_S_ . And we're gonna keep the deep sea sort of theme going on , {gap} animal . Don't really know how to draw this . Just where can I {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . Maybe if I do the water , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but how ? Sort of give an idea . {vocalsound} I have no idea how one would explain this . Mm maybe with some whiskers . Briefly , it's supposed to be a seal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can imagine it in the water . I like them , because they are like playful and silly sort of have a good time . Not gonna try and pretend like I can get any better than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Mm 'kay ? I'm Rose and I'm Project Manager , {vocalsound} from California . Um . Hmm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , +Marketing: It's definitely significantly harder once you are doing it . +Industrial Designer: a cat . +Project Manager: Um it's actually a coyote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see . Let's see , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's impressive . +Project Manager: let's give it a little bit of a snout , I don't know , some teeth . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's pretty impressive . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh dear . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I live um I live right across the street from an open space in California . We have coyotes howl all the time . So I really enjoy their their singing , you they're really beautiful animals . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay um , moving on to slightly more serious stuff . We're gonna talk about project finances . Um we have a couple {vocalsound} we'd like to sell it for about twenty five Euro with the profit aim of um fifteen million Euro um from our sales and because this is such {disfmarker} this is for television it's a {disfmarker} we have a market range of Internet , like it's an international market range , we don't have to worry about specifics . Um in order to make a profit of this magnitude , we need to um be able to produce each one at a maximum of twelve fifty Euro . So we're selling it for twice what we'd like to produce it for . Okay um , just to generate a little bit of discussion about the project um , I could {disfmarker} I'd like to hear about your experiences using ro remote controls , um your first ideas about um creating a new r remote control , what would be the best um like you {disfmarker} what are the features that you really like what are the features that you don't like , etcetera , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um I hate when there's like four different buttons and you have to press to actually turn on the T_V_ like you have to do one for the power of the T_V_ and then like another one to get the actual screen on and something else to get it all going , I don't know . Now they keep combining all different remotes together , and I don't know if I necessarily like that 'cause I feel like you end up with multimedia overload . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just wanna watch the T_V_ {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Always gets lost . Some sort of like device to help you find it . +User Interface: I've used , I've used remote controls , for things like T_V_ and the C_D_ player and video recorder and I I guess they're they're pretty neat neat little tools uh . You don't have to get up and walk across the room to change a channel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So especially if you're someone really lazy like me they they're pretty nice . Um . I find them {disfmarker} they can be a bit annoying , especially , like you know if I'm watching T_V_ I have have to have three separate remote controls of {disfmarker} in front of me , you know , one for the T_V_ , one for the digital box , one for m the video recorder as well . Um . And also they tend to they tend to be a bit confusing , they've got too many buttons on them uh too too sort of too sort of complicated when all I really wanna do is switch on and off , change the channel , change the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um . I agree with having too many remotes around . My dad has a whole drawer at home of remotes for various things , and I don't know how to work half of them um . What's important for me , I guess , is that it's easy to use and that there's not too many buttons , they are not too small , you know you know you need to n to know what you're doing . And one thing I particularly like is if you are not um sort of moving it around to get it to work with the infra-red . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think there is a way around that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I know in my residence right now the the television you sort of have to walk all around the room to get it to turn on , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so i it's just simpler just to just turn around the T_V_ itself , and I think that's {disfmarker} if we're gonna make a remote control , it should actually work for what it's doing . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about like batteries and things like that , like are there some remotes that don don't require like batteries or do all remotes require batteries ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would imagine all of them , +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: but we could {disfmarker} but it's possible we could use like a lithium battery um that would last a lot longer than like double A_s . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , something that doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um like tho those are the batteries that are used in a lot of um M_P_ three players now and that kind of thing . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , it seems we have a little bit of a conflict over um to uh combining all the remotes cont together versus having f five different remotes . So um like you said you don't like having all the buttons on one on one remote , and yet you don't wanna have five remotes . So how do we work with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Could we get something that just has {disfmarker} No doesn't have all the buttons that you need to program the video recorder or program s other things that I'm not very coherent about , but that just has your major buttons for {disfmarker} that work for everything , you know volume control , on , off , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: channel changing . +Marketing: And maybe that spatially divides it , so it's like if you're looki if you're trying to get the T_V_ on that's , you know , like the top thing on the remote , I dunno if d be vertical or horizontal in terms of how we're gonna make it , but if it's like all the T_V_ stuff was here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then all the V_C_R_ stuff was here , all the {disfmarker} whatever else we have programmed into it it's all just in its separate place and not like all the on buttons together , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: N that way {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause then you like , I don't even know what I'm turning on . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , and if um if you'd save the more complicated functions maybe for separate remotes that you wouldn't need to use every day . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe have like one remote that has the main functions on , off , channel changing , volume , and another rote remote with all the special things . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Because that is one thing that um remotes tend to have buttons that the T_V_s no longer have as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So like you have to have them somewhere , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you're gonna m need those special functions occasionally . Um but not necessarily on the m the normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Can I ask , are we designing a remote control for a television only +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good question . +User Interface: um , and if if this device is just to be used for the television would we even technically be possible to include video recorder functions on it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know that yet . +User Interface: Um or should we just stick to just stick to having television television related buttons on it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: It's a good question . Um . {vocalsound} I'll look into that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm . +Project Manager: If I can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's just T_V_ , I mean , if it {disfmarker} if we're taking it just {gap} new product a new television remote control that's not like {vocalsound} doesn't say . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You know , things might be more advanced than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we should {disfmarker} maybe we should assume that i t it's just a television that we're wanting to control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I mean I suppose it would be nice to have {vocalsound} playing and record and stop buttons on it for the video recorder as well I I don't know if that works technologically or not . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I guess we have to define what what we're aiming for . If it's just a television then that {disfmarker} it's a bit simpler , 'cause there's less buttons that would even need to be on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's an idea with the buttons being really {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Large . If you have older people or people like me that aren't very co-ordinated hand-eye , it's really quite important that you are not pressing a small like teeny mobiles phone size buttons , if we can help it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay sounds like we've had a good little discussion for our first ideas . Mind if we move on ? Ps +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mm okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now our next meeting starts in thirty minutes . I believe we've actually been only working on this this one for about twenty , so we can continue discussing more new ideas if you'd like um , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: but this is just a breakdown of what we'll be doing individually . Um the industrial design , Alima will be doing um the working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the User Interface Designer , that's for {gap} . Technical functions , I guess like keeping in mind the buttons thing , the size of the buttons . Um user requirements um , so you'll be hearing about different trends , uh about different things that people need , um I guess kind of the same uh discussion that we've been having , we'll get from the actual consum s consumers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um . And you will get specific instructions sent by your personal coach . I realised in this past one we we didn't have much , we just wanted to get a little brain-storming done . Um so very exited to see all your animals and how {disfmarker} what wonderful um artists we all are {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What we're gonna be discussing at the next meeting ? Do we know that ? +Project Manager: I haven't gotten an agenda yet , um I'll put that together . I'm sure as we'll each get our own instruction +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and then um because what we gonna do is first our individual actions and then we'll come back together . So I'm sure we'll all have more concrete things to contribute next time +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll be busy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um I'll type up mi minutes and probably email those out to all of you . Um just including all the things that we talked about . Um . +User Interface: Okay . Can you e-mail your slides as well ? Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yes , I yes , I think I can . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Cool +Project Manager: I'll just attach it to an email . And you're you're number two , +Industrial Designer: I'm two . +Project Manager: three , four ? +Marketing: I'm four . +Project Manager: Is that correct ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Excellent . It was lovely meeting you all . +User Interface: 'Kay +Project Manager: Just make sure you keep checking the company web site and the emails . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Let me see if I can do that right now . +","In a well-organized kick-off meeting led by Project Manager Rose Lindgren, a diverse team came together with the sole purpose of creating a new remote control that embodies originality, trendiness, and user-friendliness. The meeting opened with an agenda that included a PowerPoint presentation and an introduction to the project's goals. Rose specified the three main aspects the remote control must encompass and outlined the workflow: individual work followed by discussions in the conceptual design, functional design, and detailed design stages. + +The team members engaged in an ice-breaking exercise where they introduced themselves by drawing their favorite animals and sharing some personal insights. Alima Bucciantini, the Industrial Designer, confessed to a lack of artistic talent but nonetheless endeavored to draw and speak about a turtle, emphasizing its adaptive nature and the appeal of carrying one's home. Alima hailed from Maine, U.S., and mentioned her studies in nationalism. + +As the meeting progressed, Rose sought to ensure the team became acquainted with each other's names, roles, and skills. Iain, the User Interface Designer, also participated in the drawing activity, poorly illustrating a whale which he appreciated for its intelligence and mysterious nature. Jessy, the energetic voice from Marketing, added to the exchange by sketching a seal and praised its playful and carefree character. + +The gathering wasn't just team-building; Rose brought the meeting to a more serious note by discussing project finances. She shared the ambitious sales target of €25 per unit aiming for a total profit of €15 million. She stressed the importance of keeping production costs to a maximum of €12.50 per unit to achieve this goal. + +The group was very engaged as they exchanged their experiences with remote controls. They discussed different user pain points such as the multitude of buttons, the irritation of multiple remotes for different devices, difficult button navigation, and issues with infrared reception and battery life. Insights highlighted the importance of a simple, user-friendly interface potentially combining multiple devices into one remote with distinct zones for different functionalities, as well as considering special features versus everyday uses. + +They also debated the technical feasibility of integrating functionalities from different devices within the new remote. Moreover, they delved into potential solutions, including the use of long-lasting lithium batteries and larger buttons for enhanced accessibility for all users, including the elderly and the less dexterous. + +By the end of the meeting, Rose had facilitated a cohesive session that struck a balance between light-hearted introductions and serious discussions about user requirements and design expectations. Plans were made for future meetings, including individual tasks and further group discussions, with a goal-oriented approach to ensure the project stayed on track. + +Rose concluded by confirming the upcoming meeting details, promising to distribute the minutes and the presentation slides. She encouraged the team to stay informed via the company website and email communications. The meeting underscored the collaborative nature of the project, the different perspectives each member brought to the table, and the shared commitment to developing a product that catered to the needs of modern consumers." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something . +Industrial Designer: Tha +User Interface: This one right there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation ? +User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You will as well ? +User Interface: Huh . Oh I thought we all were . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I have one too , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I just wanna {disfmarker} 'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here 'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_ . C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_ . +Project Manager: Okay , and +User Interface: Uh Gabriel . +Project Manager: Gabriel . E_L_ is it ? +User Interface: E_L_ . +Project Manager: 'Kay . And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: I am Reissa . R_E_I_S_S_A_ . Double S_ A_ , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , right . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right , welcome to meeting B_ . Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting , basically , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh 'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager , and , uh yeah , I'm just here to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going , get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically . Um right , this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you , what you've been working on for the last wee while , when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and , you know , filling out silly questionnaires and things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive . So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work , you know , from each of your presentations . We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all . Um and then we'll , yeah , we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it . +Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting ? +Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long . It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now . So I want each of your presentations to not be too long , five five minutes , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} No problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy , it doesn't matter , it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium . If you haven't had time to prepare one , you can draw stuff on the noteboard , you can talk to us , you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation , basically , you can . Don't feel pressurised into using this thing . 'Cause I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . So um . You okay over there ? Reissa , +Marketing: I'm fine . Yeah . +Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here +Marketing: I uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation . +Marketing: D I mean , I I'm finishing off my presentation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} Uh I'm done . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , jolly good . Alright , let's have um {disfmarker} well , we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be . So that's gonna be you Catherine , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um just connecting this . +Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really ? +Project Manager: there you go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Cool . Okay . So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So the working design , I've got a very quick presentation on this , so um I've {disfmarker} oh no , you can't see a thing . {vocalsound} Oh well , I'm gonna draw it on the board then . It's in blue uh , and I couldn't change it . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen , but never mind . So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um , which in our case will pr , oh well {disfmarker} okay , never mind . So um I think maybe uh two batteries , I dunno what they're called {gap} six , or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal , which could be uh an infra-red signal , um which will be sent by an electronic chip . And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface . So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels . Um and that's it really for the working design . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally . +Industrial Designer: Really ? Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , should I erase this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment , I just wanna copy this down . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this ? +Industrial Designer: Fine . {vocalsound} Or suggestions ? +Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's just , you don't want it plugged in really , s +User Interface: Yeah , alternate energy source , like win wind power or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you blow on it and i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In indoors . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power . +Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No 'cause like cha 'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound} , I dunno , solar charged ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's worked for the last fifty years you know . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: One question I have , and I don't know how much control we have over this is um , as far as the infra-red signal , do we have control over , you know , how far away you can be from the receiving unit , the the T_V_ , and still have it be operational ? I mean , maybe we want one with a strong signal stream . +Project Manager: How far away is your television ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be , you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch , it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? Doesn't have to go through a wall , because you're not gonna be looking through a wall . +User Interface: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down , and go into the other room . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it . I didn't think about that but {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about Bluetooth ? {gap} Instead of using infra-red , use Bluetooth . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more +Marketing: Isn't that a better signal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things . +Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know we don't need it . +Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice , but then I don't th I dunno , either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room , +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Basically , we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage , maybe , I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'S just an idea . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , well done , Catherine . Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do you need the border ? +User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Technical {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , while this is warming up , +Marketing: Adjusting . +User Interface: there it is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and basically uh , as far as methods , I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes , trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there . Thinking of what we can retain , what we can do away with , uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um . {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change , I guess , I mean people want a remote that's familiar , that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that , the basic functionality that people want . Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control , um so up-down keys for that , uh channel keys up-down , but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want , rather than doing up-down , and uh a mute button . Uh one thing that I didn't include here , that I forgot that we talked about last time , was doing um some sort of lock uh function . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , I don't I dunno , uh that's one possibility . And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes , ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred , which I don't know if I can access the web page from here , but I can show you {disfmarker} uh . Yeah . So this is a engineer centred one , so you see it's rather busy , but it also lets you play your movie , stop your movie , fast-forward , all this , um {vocalsound} freeze frame . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one . Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after , uh or the direction we were going in at least . Um . So , the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality , but it can be a little bit overwhelming , so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use . Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh , Reissa , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh , yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . Now that's I just have a q a q question for you . This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other , you know , existing units {gap} stuff . Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know . I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it . Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've , haven't I've never seen a locking functionality . I dunno , what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do , which I think it probably should be , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: even if it's a physical , you know , a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote , even something like that , um then yes , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: it's {gap} like , you know , like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing , something like that , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but you know being physical . Look into . Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well , something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit . It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know , the the company it's it's , from what I can see from our other products , are yellow with blue writing on them . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Right . And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . There you go . +User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable . If if remote control {disfmarker} well , if telephones can be fashionable , then maybe remote control units can be . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well yeah these , I think , we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design . +Project Manager: Yeah . Because we need {disfmarker} +User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here , I mean . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , everything is going t ergonomic , you know , there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market , I guess . Um . +Project Manager: Okay , fantastic . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , well done , Gabriel . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um Reissa . Let's plug you in , baby . +Marketing: Where does it go into ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The blue thing . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , this is getting all {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up . +Marketing: Well , function F_ eight . No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , w it it just takes a wee while . +User Interface: Yeah , it just takes a second uh . +Marketing: oh . {vocalsound} Come on . Right . Okay . {gap} . Okay . Well , for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab , and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out . Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know , so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings . So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly . Okay , so they don't like the look of the remote control . Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy . So I think we all agree with that . Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user . So , they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave . Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote , so probably if you have like one , two , three , four , five , the whole up to z ten , they probably don't use those , they only use the up and down channel . +Project Manager: 'Cause we've only got five channels . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing . {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap . Not quite sure what they mean , zap , goes like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels . +User Interface: Yeah , you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . I think especially for uh the older generation . I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones , takes ages to work how to use . Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room , so nobody can find them . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: Um personal preferences . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are a child of technology , aren't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use , especially for older people . Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool , flashy groovy for people to buy it . And it's easy to find {vocalsound} , so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So voice activation . So and this was what we came up with . Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age , sorry , {gap} age groups . So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes . +Project Manager: So there you go , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one . And neither did the older generation , but the younger generation who we are catering for , like who have most of the money nowadays , do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money ? They they don't . +User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people , yeah . +Project Manager: It's older generation , they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old , and thirty five , and the thirty five to forty five , forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five , you're kinda saying , yeah , they want it . Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five , +User Interface: Yeah , that would be my guess as well . +Project Manager: uh 'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years . +Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there , so yeah , it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent . +Marketing: These guys are growing up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost ? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , okay , there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best . +Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Um also with um with buttons , {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_ , so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , repetitive strains injury , so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often , keep changing channel hurts their wrist . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: maybe not so hard . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be , instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's jus {gap} +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years' time , say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Yeah , we should probably consult with our legal department uh . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department , the the ergonomic department , we can make some some really good improvements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: or we just like flat buttons , something . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that is me . +Project Manager: That's great , thank you very much for that , Reissa . {vocalsound} Um okay , so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be , you know uh , we're going for a basic television remote . It's gotta be safe to use , it's gotta look cool . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap . S um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it , you know , we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth . I think , we should just go with the simplest option on everything , uh and that would be infra-red , energy source , that would be batteries . Uh mean we we can look into using the s , you know , the little tiny weeny batteries , all like special long-lasting batteries . Um . {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years , because technology will have changed and , you know , we won't have televisions in ten years' time . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that . Um anyone have any questions ? Everybody happy in their work ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page . +Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good , we've got a good structure going on . We all know where we're going to . {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers ? +User Interface: Oh it's probably just you , 'cause you're the project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , just questionnaires . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay . Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other ? +Marketing: Yeah , you can . +Project Manager: Right . Do all you all know my e-mail address ? +User Interface: Okay . No I don't . I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , in the project announcement , you've got the addresses , I think . +Marketing: I think he's participant one , aren't you ? +Industrial Designer: So Project Manager , it's participant one at A_M_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's just participant one oh okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them , +User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one , participant two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail . +Project Manager: Send me , yeah +Industrial Designer: You want to have friends , don't you ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue ? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background , but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves . +Project Manager: Well , maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes , so somebody can choose different col +Project Manager: Well , see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image . +Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: But if it's a R_R_ , it would be Real Reaction , +Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_ . +Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan , this is the the the the type . +Marketing: Whoa . +User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so , I mean , we are sort of beholden to them . +Marketing: So we have to have it one colour . +Project Manager: Well , not necessarily . But we have to incorporate it . +User Interface: Not one colour , but the pattern needs to be recognisable . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products +Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a , you know , a Panasonic product . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe , so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If {gap} . +Project Manager: Quite poss yeah . Well this is all your department . Mm okay . Well , well done everybody . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And um , I think we uh stop for lunch now . +User Interface: Yeah , pretty soon I think , I guess that's now . +Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule ? +Project Manager: We might possibly have done . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Alright , see you all soon . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish , then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . Right . I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down , but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off , kick back , smoke 'em if you got 'em . {vocalsound} +","In a project team meeting, the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing team member discuss the design and features of a new remote control unit. There are discussions about the usability, appearance, and functionality of the remote including button layout, signal strength, energy source, and corporate branding consistency. The idea of a locking function and ergonomic considerations are also brought up, as well as the potential for using infra-red over Bluetooth. The Marketing representative presents findings that people often find remotes ugly and would pay more for aesthetically pleasing ones, that most users only use a fraction of the buttons and would prefer something user-friendly, especially for older people. They also mention the possibility of voice recognition, though this is dismissed by the group due to cost and lack of interest among key demographics. The meeting ends with the team agreeing on the basic design direction of the remote, incorporating safety, style, cost-effectiveness, brand identity, and they look forward to refining the design in future meetings." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody ready ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I think the first thing we do is introduce ourselves +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: and everybody's name and what your function is ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good plan . +Project Manager: So maybe we start with you ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , my name is Francina . And I'm uh an user interface {disfmarker} my role is uh {disfmarker} the main responsibility is user interface . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And my role is to design uh a television remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: And I'm a marketing person . I wanna figure out how to sell them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And your name is ? +Marketing: My name is Eileen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I'm Jeanne-Oui . Um uh my role is industrial designer and my responsibilities are uh uh um deal with the {vocalsound} technical-functional designs and specifications of user interface and dealing with user interface design . +Project Manager: Very good . And as you already know I am Betty . I am the project manager for today . So why don't we look at the presentation {vocalsound} to see what we really are supposed to do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes y opening , acquaintance , tool training {disfmarker} well , the tools are , I think , we already {disfmarker} I guess the tool is really our {disfmarker} the computer , as far as I can see . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we get ins each of us will get instructions and we'll take it from there . Project plan , that falls under the same heading pretty much . Um , I don't think we have any great discussion at this point . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Um . Here is what this thing should be . This thing we are gonna um uh design is a new remote control . Uh should be original {vocalsound} , trendy , and , of course , user friendly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe you wanna make some notes of that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: All right . {vocalsound} Here is what the functional design is supposed to achieve . Um . That is it's gonna be individual work and then at the meeting we'll discuss what uh we have come up with . The same goes for the conceptual design , there will be individual work whic and then discussion afterwards . Detailed design , same thing basically . +Marketing: Mm 'kay so {disfmarker} Three different types of design that we're gonna be concerned with okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Functional , conception and detailed . +Project Manager: I can't write with this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe we should redesign it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: After we've finished the remote control we'll get to that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . All right ? Then , tool training try out the white board , participant can draw their favourite animal . Does anybody want to go and see how the white board works ? So that in case we have to , in the next meeting , present something on the white board . You wanna go Eileen and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , I'll see what I can do . +Project Manager: Whether you {disfmarker} without hanging yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: See if I r See if I remember how to draw a kitty cat or a rabbit or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And remember you have to press so it works . +Marketing: So that it will record okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um uh um traditional kitty cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fat , a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've a very fat cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And it likes to sit like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you're Francine , right ? Would you like s like just to see um how it feels , so that you have a little idea ? +User Interface: Yes , I'm Francina . Yes , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In {disfmarker} +Marketing: Am I supposed to wipe off that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , no . No , that's okay . +User Interface: No , Okay . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: I don't know , we'll get to that later . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: What should I draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Snake . +User Interface: I'm going to draw a snake . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: How does it look like ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I hope the kitty cat is hungry 'cause I don't like snakes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here's the project finance uh which , of course , we all have to think about when we design this thing . Um selling price is supposed to be twenty five Euro . Uh profit aim for the company is fifty million Euro , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the market range unlimited meaning international +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and the production cost should not exceed {disfmarker} hopefully should be less than twelve fifty Euro . +Marketing: Mm 'kay that should keep everybody on their toes and challenged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Profit . Um is fifty mm . +Project Manager: So these are all things , of course , to remember with the budget and when you design {vocalsound} to materials , cost , etcetera . Now , uh the discussion I guess is um does anyone of you have experience with remote control ? +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: I exp I s 'cause we we use 'em {disfmarker} we use 'em , right , everyday . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , using remote control . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um now having used a remote control for years does anybody already have like an idea like things you didn't like with it , things you would like to change , things you would like to improve with this thing ye any first ideas ? Would you like it to be smaller , bigger , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: have more have more buttons on it or maybe clearly {disfmarker} better marked buttons , you know , things like that ? +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , I I feel that all the remote should be very compact . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Small , right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , those which we get here nowadays it's very long . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um and it should have multi-purpose . Like uh the remote control which we use for T_V_ , it shou uh it should be used f uh for some other purpose also , like controlling the uh temperature inside the house or for air-conditioners , or for heating system . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Audio player . Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be a multi-functional uh gadget that would um control all your household uh uh machines basically . +User Interface: Yes , exactly Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Divides us {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} At um twelve fifty Euros per {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Well who knows if we get a really good designer maybe we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We certainly can try to {disfmarker} I agree with her that to market something successfully it should do some more things . +Project Manager: It should be something new {disfmarker} it should be s it it should do something different than than just what we have . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Now , of course , the other thing to think there is maybe the design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: Yeah , design should be , yeah {disfmarker} it should be different . All the {disfmarker} almost all the remotes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like trendy no like f for earlier we saw maybe it should be something trendy you know . Maybe it should {disfmarker} different colours or materials or you know . +User Interface: Yes , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe ten {disfmarker} I do yeah , colours +User Interface: Are different shapes . +Industrial Designer: and al shapes also . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Um so yeah shapes right , you know , like kidney shape feels better in your hand or something , you know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , friendly shape , that would help . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think another thing that would help is um if it beeps when you clap , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: because I think one of the big things that happens is people lose them . They can't find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That is true , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because they put a newspaper or they put it behind a plant or , we you know , whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and they {disfmarker} suddenly the phone rings and they want to turn the T_V_ off and they say , where the hell is my {vocalsound} my remote control yeah ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well or yeah or if it's really , if it's really in a dark spot that it gives out a a sound or a signal . +Marketing: So some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , some beep or something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Or a b +Marketing: Uh so , so it's really the beep or , or a light should blink . +Industrial Designer: so that we can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if lost {disfmarker} If lost uh signal with b throw signal , you know . +User Interface: Should ha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A fluorescent signal , yeah . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it should have a light so that we can , we can just recognise where it is . +Project Manager: Exactly , I mean just {vocalsound} that's what I'm saying . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . May not be beep . +Project Manager: I'm just saying throw signal meaning just whether it's a beep or whether a light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Beep or uh it's a light , maybe it's a light . +Marketing: And do you think a good c c um clue for that is that it would respond to a clap or it would respond to your voice or it would respond {disfmarker} what what should you have to do to make it beep or blink ? +Project Manager: Okay , my {disfmarker} my idea is maybe that the minute it's really hidden , in in other words if it's like in a dark spot , uh meaning you know like a newspaper is on top , a sweater is on top or it it's behind a plant , at that moment it's it's like , it's like um , what you call it {disfmarker} a light s sensors , you know ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In in that moment it has a sensor , i it it gets a certain darkness , it ge has a sensor and it gives out a signal whether that be a light signal or a beep , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , that we can discuss that later , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , probably it's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the light sensor would activate the signal . +Project Manager: That's right . You know there would be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: right you have to have some kind of sensor and I I think uh voice or clapping it's not specific enough . Uh I know there are the lamps and stuff , you know , you can clap on and off , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: but I think they only work to certain degree and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it could be someplace really obvious and you still wouldn't be able to find it . +Project Manager: What with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , that didn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Then , in that case {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , because you're s because you're silly . Because people are silly . +Industrial Designer: I i we can't do it . +Project Manager: Oh yeah well , but then those people {disfmarker} we can't help everybody . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it could be on {disfmarker} well , i if it were like on top of your bookcase and you usually kept it on the coffee table +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Okay we have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: you know , well {disfmarker} maybe we have to move along , okay . +Project Manager: yeah , we have to move along , but I think we have some good good points to start with here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Okay , the next meeting will be in thirty minutes . I think you all {disfmarker} did you get uh notices on your computer for this ? Okay so well , you got the notice um +Industrial Designer: Me yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} uh . The working design , I guess that's the function I_D_ {disfmarker} uh who is this ? The industrial designer {disfmarker} That's you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's functional de yeah , exactly , technical . +Project Manager: Okay . So , we looking for a working design when we come back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh working design , yeah , it's it's uh mainly technical-functional design . +Project Manager: Then {disfmarker} And then the technical funct you are the technical function , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , functional design , +Project Manager: so so you are the working design . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have a working design and then a functional design . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And the marketing manager is coming up with some user requirement specification , like friendliness , and what we just discussed in general . That would be your idea . And , of course , price . That it , that it , that the price is a good price . I mean , the price is given , but , that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . We have to justify that price by having sufficient features to make it sell at that price . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , you know , specifi you you will get specific um instructions for that . I think that's the end of the show . Yeah . So um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} well , we have a twen two two two three minutes . Um any questions at this point ? Or uh suggestions ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} basically basically you will get instructions to work with and if you have any questions uh , uh I guess , you can uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I think I have enough to think about 'til our next meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have . +Marketing: How about you people ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have , I think , yeah . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so let's see . +Marketing: Alright , well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then uh we see you in about thirty minutes . And see what we can come up with . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , very good . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +","Summary: + +A project team consisting of a Project Manager (Betty), a Marketing person (Eileen), an Industrial Designer (Jeanne-Oui), and a User Interface Designer (Francina) convened to discuss the development of a new television remote control. They each introduced themselves and outlined their roles and responsibilities. Francina is responsible for user interface design, Eileen wants to figure out the marketing strategy, and Jeanne-Oui deals with technical-functional designs and specifications. + +The Project Manager discussed the team's tasks, reiterating that the remote control should be original, trendy, and user-friendly. They also covered the design process, which includes three stages: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design, all of which involve individual work followed by collaborative discussions. + +During their brainstorming, the team discussed the desire for a compact, multifunctional remote that could control other household devices, was user-friendly, and potentially had unique design elements such as colors, shapes, or the ability to give out a signal if misplaced. The team also considered financial aspects, mainly to keep production costs below a certain threshold to achieve a selling price of €25 and a significant profit goal for the company. + +The Project Manager encouraged the team to discuss personal experiences with remote controls and what improvements could be made. Ideas mentioned include a smaller size, a device that controls multiple items, the use of different materials or colors, and practical features like a light or sound signal to locate it when lost. + +The team agreed on the importance of incorporating these features within the production cost limits and discussed the possible use of a light sensor to activate a signal if the remote is covered or in a dark place. + +The team also discussed their next steps and planned to reconvene in 30 minutes to progress with individual tasks to lead to a working and functional design with user requirements focusing on friendliness and justification of the €25 selling price. + +The meeting concluded with the Project Manager stating that specific instructions would be provided and the team members expressing they had enough ideas to work on until they met again." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Yeah , I think I got my mike on . OK . Let 's see . +Professor B: OK . Ami , do yours then we 'll open it and I think it 'll be enough . +Grad A: Mmm {disfmarker} Doesn't , uh {disfmarker} It should be the other way . Yeah , now it 's on . +PhD F: Right . OK . +Professor B: OK . So , we all switched on ? +Grad A: We are all switched on , yeah . +Professor B: Alright . Anyway . So , uh , before we get started with the , uh , technical part , I just want to review what I think is happening with the {disfmarker} our data collection . +PhD F: We are all switched on . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , probably after today , {vocalsound} that shouldn't come up in this meeting . Th - this {disfmarker} this is s should be im it isn't {disfmarker} There 's another thing going on of gathering data , and that 's pretty much independent of this . But , uh , I just want to make sure we 're all together on this . What we think is gonna happen is that , uh , in parallel starting about now {vocalsound} we 're gonna get Fey {vocalsound} to , where you 're working with me and Robert , draft a note that we 're gonna send out to various CogSci c and other classes saying , "" here 's an opportunity to be a subject . Contact Fey . "" And then there 'll be a certain number of um , hours during the week which she will be available and we 'll bring in people . Uh , roughly how many , Robert ? We d Do we know ? +Grad C: Um , fifty was our {disfmarker} sort of our first {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . So , we 're looking for a total of fifty people , not necessarily by any means all students but we 'll s we 'll start with {disfmarker} with that . In parallel with that , we 're gonna need to actually do the script . And , so , I guess there 's a plan to have a meeting Friday afternoon Uh , with {disfmarker} uh , Jane , and maybe Liz and whoever , on actually getting the script worked out . But what I 'd like to do , if it 's O K , {vocalsound} is to s to , as I say , start the recruiting in parallel and possibly start running subjects next week . The week after that 's Spring Break , and maybe we 'll look for them {disfmarker} some subjects next door +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: or {pause} i +Grad C: Yeah . Also , Fey will not be here during spring break . +Professor B: Oh , OK , then we won't do it . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: OK . So that 's easy . Um . So , is {disfmarker} Is that make sense to everybody ? +Grad C: Yeah . Also , um , F {vocalsound} both Fey and I will , um , {vocalsound} do something of which I may , eh {disfmarker} kindly ask you to {disfmarker} to do the same thing , which is we gonna check out our social infrastructures for possible subjects . Meaning , {vocalsound} um , kid children 's gymnastic classes , pre - school parents and so forth . They also sometimes have flexible schedules . So , if you happen to be sort of in a non - student social setting , and you know people who may be interested in being subjects {disfmarker} We also considered using the Berkeley High School and their teachers , maybe , and get them interested in stuff . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +Grad C: And , um . So that 's as far as our brainstorming was concerned . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . The high school 's a great idea . +Grad C: So . But I {disfmarker} I will just make a first draft of the , uh , note , the "" write - up "" note , send it to you and Fey and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: And why don't you also copy Jane on it ? +Grad C: And , um , Are we {disfmarker} Have we concurred that , uh , these {disfmarker} these forms are sufficient for us , and necessary ? +Professor B: Uh , th I think they 're necessary . This {disfmarker} The permission form . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , there has to be one , +Grad C: Nuh . N . +Professor B: and I think we 're just gonna use it as it is , and {pause} Um +Grad C: N . You happy with that ? +Professor B: Well , yeah . There 's one tricky part about , um , they have the right um I The last paragraph {comment} "" if you agree to participate you have the opportunity to have anything excised which you would prefer not to have included in the data set . "" OK ? Now that , we had to be included for this other one which might have , uh , meetings , you know , about something . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In this case , it doesn't really make sense . Um , so what I 'd like to do is also have our subjects sign a waiver saying "" I don't want to see the final transcript "" . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And if they don't {disfmarker} If they say "" no , I 'm not willing to sign that "" , then we 'll show them the final transcript . But , um . +Grad C: Yep . Makes sense . +Professor B: That , uh {disfmarker} yeah , so we might actually , um S i Jane may say that , "" you know , you can't do this "" , uh , "" on the same form , we need a separate form . "" But anyway . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd like to , e e um , add an a little thi eh {disfmarker} a thing for them to initial , saying "" nah , do I don't want to see the final transcript . "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But other than that , that 's one 's been approved , this really is the same project , uh , rec you know . And so forth . So I think we just go with it . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . OK . So much for the data , except that with Munich everything is fine now . They 're gonna {vocalsound} transcribe . They 're also gonna translate the , uh , German data from the TV and cinema stuff for Andreas . So . They 're {disfmarker} they all seem to be happy now , {vocalsound} with that . So . w c sh should we move on to the technical sides ? +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: Well I guess the good {disfmarker} good news of last week was the parser . So , um Bhaskara and I started working on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser . Then Bhaskara went to class and once he came back , um , {vocalsound} it was finished . So . It , uh {disfmarker} I didn't measure it , but it was about an hour and ten minutes . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} and now it 's {disfmarker} We have a complete English parser that does everything the German parser does . +Grad D: Something like that . +Professor B: Which is {vocalsound} not a lot . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: That 's the , uh , point . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} uh , that 's not a lot . +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: Yes . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And um . +Grad E: What did you end up having to do ? I mean , wha Was there anything {pause} interesting about it at all ? +Grad C: Well , if you , eh {disfmarker} +Grad D: We 'll show you . +Professor B: Yeah , we can show us , +Grad E: or are we gonna see that ? +Professor B: right ? +Grad C: Well , w w We d The first we did is we {disfmarker} we tried to {disfmarker} to do {disfmarker} change the {disfmarker} the "" laufen "" into "" run "" , {vocalsound} or "" running "" , {vocalsound} or "" runs "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: And we noticed that whatever we tried to do , it no effect . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And we were puzzled . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: And , uh , the reason was that the parser i c completely ignores the verb . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So this sentence {disfmarker} sentence is {disfmarker} parses the p the same output , +Grad E: Hmm . Interesting parser property . +Grad C: um , even if you leave out , um , all {disfmarker} all of this . +Grad E: I see . Yeah . +Grad C: So it 's basically feature film and TV . +Grad E: Today +Grad C: That 's what you need . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: If {disfmarker} if you 'd add {disfmarker} add Today and Evening , it 'll add Time or not . +Grad E: And the {disfmarker} t and the time , right ? +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} i it does look at that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad C: But all the rest is p simply frosting on the cake , and it 's optional for that parser . +Grad E: True . +Professor B: So , you can sho You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Are {disfmarker} are you gonna show us the little templates ? +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Grad C: Yeah . We ar we can sh er {disfmarker} I can show you the templates . I {disfmarker} I also have it running here , +Grad E: The former end g "" Oh , I see . Uh - huh . +Grad C: so if I {vocalsound} do this now , um , {vocalsound} you can see that it parsed the wonderful English sentence , "" Which films are on the cinema today {pause} evening ? "" But , um . +Professor B: Well , that sounds {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh do don't worry about it . +Professor B: No i +Grad C: It could be "" this evening , which {disfmarker} which films are on the cinema "" , or "" running in the cinema , which {disfmarker} "" uh , "" today evening "" , uh i "" Is anything happening in the cinema this evening ? "" +Grad E: OK . OK . Key words , e basically . +Professor B: Well +Grad C: Ge - elaborate , or , more or less , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , it 's a little tricky , in that there 's some allowable German orders which aren't allowable English orders and so forth . And it is order - based . So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Isn't it ? +Grad C: No . +Grad D: No . +Professor B: Oh . So it {disfmarker} it doe I it {disfmarker} These {disfmarker} u these optional elements , +Grad C: It is not {disfmarker} +Professor B: it 's {disfmarker} it 's actually a set , not a sequence ? +Grad C: Yeah . We were {disfmarker} I was afraid that , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh ! +Grad E: So it really is key word matching , basically . +Professor B: Really a se +Grad C: Um . +PhD F: e yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , wow . +Grad C: Um , I mean , these sentences are just silly . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad C: I mean , uh , d these were not the ones we {disfmarker} we actually did it . Um . What 's an idiomatic of phrasing this ? Which films are {pause} showing ? +Grad D: Are pl playing at the cinema ? +Grad C: playing ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Tonight ? +Grad D: I changed that file , actually , where it 's on my account . +Grad E: This {disfmarker} this evening ? +PhD F: Actually , you would say , "" which films are on tonight ? "" +Grad D: You want to get it ? Or {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} di was it easy to get it ? +Grad C: Um . I have no net here . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Do I ? +Grad C: OK . So . Wonderful parse , same thing . Um . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Except that we d w we don't have this , uh , time information here now , which is , um {disfmarker} Oh . This {disfmarker} are the reserve . Anyways . {vocalsound} So . Um . These are the {disfmarker} sort of the ten different sentence types that the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the parser was able to do . And it still is , now in English . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} Sorry . And , um you have already to make it a little bit more elaborate , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , I mean I changed those sentences to make it , uh , more , uh , idiomatic . And , of course , you can have i many variations in those sentences , they will still parse fine . So , in a sense it 's pretty broad . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: OK . So , if you want to look at the templates , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} they 're conveniently located in a file , "" template "" . Um , and this is what I had to do . I had to change , @ @ {comment} "" Spielfilm "" to "" film "" , uh , "" Film "" to "" movie "" , cinem "" Kino "" to "" cinema "" {disfmarker} to "" today "" {disfmarker} heu "" heute "" to "" today "" , +Grad E: Huh . +Grad C: evening {disfmarker} "" Abend "" to "" evening "" +Professor B: Capitalized as well +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: And , um . +Professor B: Y i +Grad D: One thing I was wondering , was , those functions there , are those things that modify the M - three - L basically ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the next step , +Professor B: p +Grad C: but we 'll get to that in a second . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: And so this means , um , "" this "" and "" see "" are not optional . "" Want I like "" is all maybe in there , but may also not be in there . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , the point is , if it says "" this "" and "" see "" , it also will work in "" see "" and "" this "" ? +Grad E: S +Professor B: In the other order ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: with those two key words ? +Grad C: Should we try it ? +Professor B: "" This is the one I want to see "" or whatever . +Grad C: OK . "" Action watch "" , +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad C: whatever . Nothing was specialfi specified . except that it has some references to audio - visual media here . +Grad D: AV medium . +Grad C: Where it gets that from {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: It 's correct , but I don't know where it gets it from . +Grad D: "" See "" . +Grad C: Oh , "" see "" . Yeah . Yeah . Yep . OK . +Grad D: I mean it 's sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: And "" see this "" {comment} is exactly the same thing . +Professor B: OK , so it is set - based . Alright . +Grad D: One thing I was wondering was , {vocalsound} those percentage signs , right ? So , I mean , why do we even have them ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} if you didn't have them {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , I 'll tell you why . Because it gives a {disfmarker} you a score . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And the value of the score is , v I assume , I guess , the more of these optional things that are actually in there , the higher the r score {vocalsound} it is . +Grad D: Oh . OK . So that 's the main purpose . Alright . +Grad E: It 's a match . +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: So we {disfmarker} we shouldn't belittle it too much . It 's doing something , some things , and it 's very flexible . I 've just tried to +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: be nice . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: No , no . Fine . +Grad E: Right {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , flexible it is . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . {vocalsound} Um , let 's hope that the generation will not be more difficult , even though the generator is a little bit more complex . Uh but we 'll {disfmarker} Mmm , that means we may need two hours and twenty minutes rather than an hour ten minutes , +Professor B: Alright . +Grad C: I hope . +Grad D: Right . +Grad C: And the next thing I would like to be able to do , and it seems like this would not be too difficult either , is {vocalsound} to say , "" OK let 's now pretend we actually wanted to not only change the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the mapping of {disfmarker} of , uh , words to the M - three - L but we also wanted to change {disfmarker} add a new sentence type and and make up some {disfmarker} some new M - three - L {disfmarker} s "" +Professor B: Yep . So That 'd be great . It would be a good exercise to just see {vocalsound} whether one can get that to run . +Grad C: See th Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yep . And , um , +Grad D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: that 's {disfmarker} shouldn't be too tough . +Grad D: Fine , yeah . Yeah , so where are those {disfmarker} those functions "" Action "" , "" Goodbye "" , and so on , right ? Are they actually , um , {vocalsound} Are they going to be called ? Um , are they present in the code for the parser ? +Grad C: Yeah . I think what it does , it i i it does something sort of fancy . It loads um {disfmarker} It has these style sheets and also the , um , schemata . So what it probably does , is it takes the , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Is this where it is ? This is already the XML stuff ? This is where it takes its own , um , syntax , and converts it somehow . Um . Where is the uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: What are you looking for ? +Grad C: Um , where it actually produces the {disfmarker} the XML out of the , uh , parsed {pause} stuff . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad C: No , this is not it . Uh . I can't find it now . You mean , where the {disfmarker} where the act how the action "" Goodbye "" maps into something {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , where are those constructors defined ? +Grad D: Oh . +Grad C: Nope . +Grad D: No , that 's not it . +Grad C: Yeah . This is sort of what happens . This is what you would need to {disfmarker} to change {disfmarker} to get the , uh , XML changed . So when it encounts encounters "" Day "" , {vocalsound} it will , uh , activate those h classes in the {disfmarker} in the XML stuff But , um {disfmarker} I saw those actions {disfmarker} uh , the "" Goodbye "" stuff somewhere . Hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm , hmm . +Grad A: Grep for it ? +Grad C: Yeah . Let 's do that . Oh . +Grad D: Mmm . M - three - L dot DTD ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad D: That 's just a {pause} specification for the XML format . +Grad C: Yep . Well , we 'll find that out . So whatever {disfmarker} n this does {disfmarker} I mean this is , basically , looks l to me like a function call , right ? +Professor B: Hmm ? Oh , yeah . +Grad C: And , um {disfmarker} So , whenever it {disfmarker} it encounters "" Goodbye "" , which we can make it do in a second , here +Grad A: That function automatically generates an initialized XML structure ? +Grad C: I +Grad D: I think each of those functions act on the current XML structure , and change it in some way , for example , by adding a {disfmarker} a l a field to it , or something . +Professor B: y Yeah . They also seem to affect state , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cause some of them {disfmarker} there were other actions uh , that {disfmarker} that s seemed to step {disfmarker} state variables somewhere , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: like the n s "" Discourse Status Confirm "" . OK . So that 's going to be a call on the discourse +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: and {vocalsound} confirm that it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: W we Mm - hmm +Grad D: Oh , you mean that 's not going to actually modify the tree , +Professor B: I think that 's right . +Grad C: e +Grad D: but it 's going to change the event . +Professor B: I think it 's actually {disfmarker} That looks like it 's state modification . +Grad D: Oh . Oh . +Grad C: e mmm Um , well i There is a feature called "" Discourse - Status "" , +Grad D: When there 's a feature . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: And so whenever I just say , "" Write "" , it will {disfmarker} it will put this in here . +Professor B: Oh , so it always just {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} Well , go back , then , cuz it may be that all those th things , while they look like function calls , are just a way of adding exactly that to the XML . +Grad C: h Yep . +Professor B: Uh - huh ! I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad C: So , this {disfmarker} +Professor B: e I 'm not sure {disfmarker} e that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} well , we {disfmarker} we 'll see , when we say , let 's test something , "" Goodbye "" , causes it to c to create basically an "" Action Goodbye - End - Action "" . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Which is a means of telling the system to shut down . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Now , if we know that "" Write "" produces a "" Feature Discourse - Status Confirm Discourse - Status "" . So if I now say "" Write , Goodbye , "" it should do that . It sho it creates this , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: "" Confirm Goodbye "" . +Professor B: Yep . +Grad D: Right there . But there is some kind of function call , because how does it know to put Goodbye in Content , but , uh , Confirm in Features ? +Grad C: Oh . It d it {disfmarker} n That 's because {disfmarker} +Grad D: So So , it 's not just that it 's adding that field . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: It 's +Professor B: Absolutely . Good point . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's under what sub - type you 're doing it . Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad A: It 's mystery functions . +Grad C: Well , sometimes it m Sometimes , i +Grad D: Well , they 're defined somewhere , presumably . +Professor B: Yeah , each is {disfmarker} S so that 's funny . +Grad C: When it {disfmarker} +Professor B: You bury the s the state in the function Alright . +Grad C: it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it just automatically initializes things that are common , right ? +Professor B: Uh +Grad A: So it 's just a shorthand . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: For example {disfmarker} Oh , this is German . Sorry . e So , now , this , it cannot do anymore . Nothing comes out of here . +Grad A: A "" not a number "" is a value . Awesome . +Grad C: So , it doesn't speak German anymore , but it does speak English . And there is , here , a reference {disfmarker} So , this tells us that whatever is {disfmarker} has the ID "" zero "" is referenced here {disfmarker} by @ @ {comment} the restriction seed and this is exa "" I want {disfmarker} "" What was the sentence ? +Professor B: "" I want two seats here . "" +Grad C: "" need two seats here . "" Nuh . "" And where is it playing ? "" There should also be a reference to something , maybe . Our d This is re um Mmm . Here , we change {disfmarker} and so , we {disfmarker} Here we add something to the Discourse - Status , that the user wants to change something that was sort of done before And , uh {disfmarker} and that , whatever is being changed has something to do with the cinema . +Grad A: So then , whatever takes this M - three - L is what actually changes the state , not the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +Professor B: No , right , the Discourse Maintainer , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . I see . And it {disfmarker} and it runs around looking for Discourse Status tags , and doing whatever it does with them . And other people ignore those tags . Alright . So , yeah . I definitely think it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's worth the exercise of trying to actually add something that isn't there . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Professor B: Uh Disc +Grad C: Sort of get a complete understanding of the whole thing . +Professor B: Yeah , a kid understanding what 's going on . Then the next thing we talked about is actually , {vocalsound} um , figuring out how to add our own tags , and stuff like that . +Grad C: OK . Point number two . I got the , uh , M - three - L for the routes today . Uh , so I got some more . This is sort of the uh , {vocalsound} um , Hmm . Interesting . It 's just going up , it 's not going back down . So , this is {disfmarker} um , what I got today is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the new {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} M - three - L for um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the Maps , +Professor B: Yep . +Grad C: uh , and with some examples {disfmarker} So , this is the XML and this is sort of what it will look like later on , even though it {disfmarker} you can't see it on {disfmarker} on this resolution . And this is what it {disfmarker} sort of is the {disfmarker} the structure of Map requests , um also not very interesting , and here is the more interesting stuff for us , is the routes , route elements , and , again , as we thought it 's really simple . This is sort of the , uh , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} parameters . We have @ @ {comment} simple "" from objects "" and "" to objects "" and so forth , points of interest along the way {disfmarker} And , um , I asked them whether or not we could , um {disfmarker} First of all , I was little bit {disfmarker} It seemed to me that this m way of doing it is sort of a stack a step backwards from the way we 've done it before . t It seems to me that some notions were missing . +Professor B: S +Grad C: So these are {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} +Professor B: So these are {disfmarker} these are your friends back at EML . +Grad C: Yep . Who are doing this . +Professor B: So this is not a complicated negotiation . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not seven committees , or anything , right ? +Grad C: No . No , this is very straightforward . +Professor B: Great . So this is just trying to {disfmarker} It 's a design thing , not a political thing . Once we 've {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} We can just sort of agree on what oughta be done . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Good . +Grad C: Exactly . And , um {disfmarker} And , uh {disfmarker} However , the , uh {disfmarker} e So that you understand , it is really simple . Uh {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you have a route , and you cut it up in different pieces . And every {disfmarker} every element of that e r r f of that {disfmarker} Every segment we call a "" route element "" . And so , from A to B we cut up in three different steps , and every step has a "" from object "" where you start , a "" to object "" where y where {pause} you sort of end , and some points of interest along the way . What w I was sort of missing here , and uh , maybe it was just me being too stupid , is , {vocalsound} I didn't sort of get the {disfmarker} the notion of the global goal of the whole route . Really , s was not straightforward visibly for me . And some other stuff . And I {vocalsound} suggested that they should n be {disfmarker} k uh , kind enough to do s two things for us , is one , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Also allocating , uh , some tags for our Action Schema Enter - Vista - Approach , and {disfmarker} And also , um , since you had suggested that {disfmarker} that , um , we figure out if we ever , for a demo reason , wanted to shortcut directly to the g GIS and the Planner , of how we can do it . Now , what 's the state of the art of getting to entrances , um , what 's the syntax for that , how get getting to {vocalsound} vista points and calculating those on the spot . And the Approach mode , anyhow , is the default . That 's all they do it these days . Wherever you 'll find a route planner it n does nothing but get to the closest point where the street network is {vocalsound} at minimal distance to the geometric center . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . +Professor B: So , well , let {disfmarker} Now , this is important . Let , uh {disfmarker} I want a a Again , outside of m almost managerial point , um {disfmarker} You 're in the midst of this , so you know better . But it seems to me it 's probably a good idea to li uh {disfmarker} minimize the number of uh , change requests we make of them . So it seemed to me , what we ought to do is get our story together . OK ? And think about it some , internally , before asking them to make changes . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh . Does this {disfmarker} does this make sense to you guys ? It {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing the {disfmarker} the interaction but it seemed to me that {vocalsound} what we ought to do is come up with a {disfmarker} uh , something where you , um {disfmarker} And I {disfmarker} I don't know who 's mok working most closely on it . Probably Johno . OK . Uh , take what they have , send it to everybody saying "" this is what they have , this is what we think we should add "" , OK ? and then have a d a {disfmarker} an iteration within our group saying "" Hmm , well {disfmarker} "" OK ? And get our best idea of what we should add . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then go back to them . Is i or , I don't know does this make sense to you ? Or +Grad C: Yeah . {vocalsound} Especially if we want {disfmarker} Sort of , what I {disfmarker} my feeling was eh we {disfmarker} we sort of reserved something that has a r eh an OK label . That 's {disfmarker} th that was my th first sort of step . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I w No matter how we want to call it , {vocalsound} this is sort of our playground . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And if we get something in there that is a structure elaborate and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and complex enough to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to maybe enable a whole simulation , one of these days , that would be {disfmarker} u the {disfmarker} the perfect goal . +Professor B: Right . That 's right . So . So , Yeah . The problem isn't the short ra range optimization . It 's the sort of {disfmarker} o one or two year kind of thing . OK . What are the thl class of things we think we might try to do in a year or two ? How {disfmarker} how would we try to characterize those and what do we want to request now {vocalsound} that 's leave enough space to do all that stuff ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And that re that requires some thought . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} so that sounds like a great thing to do {vocalsound} as the priority item um , as soon as we can do it . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: So y so you guys will {vocalsound} send to the rest of us um {pause} {vocalsound} a version of um , this , and {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh , description {disfmarker} +Grad A: With sugge yeah , suggested improvements and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well b Yeah . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Not everyone uh , reads German , so if you 'd um +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: tu uh , tur change the description to , uh , English +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: and , um , Then {disfmarker} then , yeah . Then , with some sug s suggestions about where {disfmarker} where do we go from here ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , this {disfmarker} and this , of course , was just the {vocalsound} {vocalsound} action end . Uh , at some point we 're going to have to worry about the language end . But for the moment just {vocalsound} uh , t for this class of {disfmarker} of things , we might want to try to encompass . And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Then the scope of this is beyond {pause} Approach and Vis - or Vista . Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Oh , yeah , yeah yeah yeah . This is {disfmarker} this is everything that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} {vocalsound} you know , um {pause} we might want to do in the next couple years . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So what would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: We don't {disfmarker} I mean , that 's an issue . We don't know what , entirely . +Grad A: Uh , yeah . but I 'm just {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . So I just {disfmarker} this XML stuff here just has to do with Source - Path - Goal type stuff , in terms of traveling through Heidelberg . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad A: Or travel , specifically . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So , but this O Is the domain greater than that ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} I think the i the idea is {pause} that {disfmarker} Oh . It 's beyond Source - Path - Goal , but I think we don't need to get beyond it @ @ {comment} {disfmarker} tourists in Heidelberg . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: It seems to me we can get {vocalsound} all the complexity we want in actions and in language without going outside of tourists in Heidelberg . OK ? But you know , i depending on what people are interested in , one could have , {vocalsound} uh , tours , one could have {vocalsound} um , explanations of why something is {disfmarker} is , you know , why {disfmarker} why was this done , or {disfmarker} I mean , no {disfmarker} there 's no end to the complexity you can build into the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , what a tourist in Heidelberg might ask . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , at least {disfmarker} unless somebody else wants t to suggest otherwise I think {vocalsound} the general domain we don't have t to uh , broaden . That is , tourists in Heidelberg . And if there 's something somebody comes up with that can't be done that way , then , sure . W we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at that , but {vocalsound} uh I 'd be s I I 'd be surprised at {disfmarker} if there 's any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} important issue that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} And , um {disfmarker} I mean if {disfmarker} if you want to {pause} uh , push us into reference problems , that would be great . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: OK , so this is {disfmarker} his specialty is {disfmarker} reference , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what are these things referring to ? Not only {vocalsound} anaphora , but , uh , more generally the , uh {disfmarker} this whole issue of , uh , referring expressions , and , what is it that they 're actually dealing with in the world ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , again , this is li in the databa this is also pretty well formed because there is an ontology , and the database , and stuff . So it isn't like , {vocalsound} um , you know , the Evening Star or stuff like that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: I i it {disfmarker} All the entities do have concrete reference . Although th the {vocalsound} To get at them from a language may not be trivial . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: There aren't really deep mysteries about um , what w what things the system knows about . +PhD F: Right . Right . And you have both proper names and descriptions +Professor B: All those things . +PhD F: and y and you can ask for it . +Professor B: Yeah . You have proper names , and descriptions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And a l and a lot {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and anaphora , and pronouns , +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Professor B: and {pause} all those things . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Now , we hav the {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} Unfortunately , the whole database is , uh , {vocalsound} in German . We have just commissioned someone to translate some bits of it , IE the e the shortest k the {disfmarker} the more general descriptions of all the objects and , um , persons and events . So , it 's a relational database with persons , events , {vocalsound} and , um , objects . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite , um , {vocalsound} there . But did y I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think there will be great because the reference problem really is not trivial , even if you have such a g well - defined world . +Professor B: He knows . +Grad C: Ah - he you are not , uh , throwing uh , uh , carrying owls to Athens . +Grad A: Could you give me an example of a reference problem ? so {disfmarker} so l I can make it more concrete ? +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? We sort of t think that our bit in this problem is interesting , but , just to get from Powder - Tower to an object I ID in a database is also not really trivial . +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} or if you take something even more scary , um , "" how do I get to the third building after the Tower ? the Ple - Powder - Tower ? "" +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: Uh , you need some mechanism for +Professor B: Yeah . Or , you know , the church across from City Hall , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or the re the restaurant where they wear lederhosen ? +Grad C: Or the +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: Or is that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that would be fine . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: O or {disfmarker} or tower , or this tower , or that building , or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Grad E: Uniquely . +Grad C: hmm ? +Grad A: OK . Trying to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Or you can say "" how {disfmarker} "" you know , "" how do I get back ? "" +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And , again , it 's just a question of which of these things , uh , people want to {vocalsound} dive into . What , uh , I think I 'm gonna try to do , and I guess , pwww ! let 's say that by the end of spring break , I 'll try to come up with some {vocalsound} general story about , um , construction grammar , and what constructions we 'd use and how all this might fit together . There 's this whole framework problem that I 'm feeling really uncomfortable about . And I haven't had a chance to {vocalsound} think about it seriously . But I {disfmarker} I want to {disfmarker} I want to do that early , rather than late . And you and I will probably have to talk about this some . +Grad C: u u u u That 's what strikes me , that we sort of {disfmarker} the de g uh , small {disfmarker} Something , uh , maybe we should address one of these days , is to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That most of the work people actually always do is look at some statements , and {disfmarker} and analyze those . Whether it 's abstracts or newspapers and stuff like this . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad C: But the whole {disfmarker} i is it {disfmarker} is it really relevant that we are dealing mostly with , sort of , questions ? +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +Grad C: Uh , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean yeah , I d +Grad C: And this is {disfmarker} It seems to me that we should maybe at least spend a session or {disfmarker} or brainstorm a little bit about whether that l this is special case in that sense . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , I don't know . You know {disfmarker} Did we ever find m metaphorical use in {disfmarker} in questions in {disfmarker} in that sense , really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: +Professor B: You will . +Grad C: And how soon , +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +Grad C: I don't know . +Professor B: I mean , uh , we could take all the standard metaphor examples and make question versions of them . OK . +Grad C: "" Who got kicked out of France ? "" +PhD F: Muh +Professor B: Yeah , or , you know . "" Wh - why is he {disfmarker} why is he pushing for promotion ? "" +Grad C: Nuh . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: or , "" who 's pushing proof "" +Grad C: Nuh . +Professor B: er , just pick {disfmarker} pick any of them and just {vocalsound} do the {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I don't {disfmarker} I don't think , {vocalsound} uh , it 's at all difficult {disfmarker} Uh , to convert them to question forms that really exist and people say all the time , um {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} we don't know how to handle them , too . Right ? I mean , it 's {disfmarker} I d It {disfmarker} We don't know how to handle the declarative forms , @ @ {comment} really , and , then , the interrogative forms , ah - oh . Uh . Yeah . +Grad D: Ooo ! +Professor B: Nancy , it looked like you were s +Grad E: Oh . it 's just that {disfmarker} that the goals are g very different to cases {disfmarker} So we had this problem last year when we first thought about this domain , actually , was that {vocalsound} most of the things we talked about are our story understanding . +Professor B: Right . +Grad E: Uh , we 're gonna have a short discourse and {vocalsound} the person talking is trying to , I don't know , give you a statement and tell you something . And here , {vocalsound} it 's th +Grad C: Help you create a mental model , blah - blah - blah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yea - eh {disfmarker} y Yeah , I guess so . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: And then here , y you are j uh , the person is getting information and they or may not be following some larger plan , {vocalsound} you know , that we have to recognize or , you know , infer . And th th the {disfmarker} their discourse patterns probably {nonvocalsound} don't follo follow quite as many {vocalsound} logical connec +Professor B: Right . No , I think that 's one of things that 's interesting , is {disfmarker} is in this sort of over - arching story we {disfmarker} we worked it out for th as you say , this {disfmarker} the storytelling scenario . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I think it 's really worth thinking through {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what it looks like . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What is the simspec mean , et cetera . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . M Right . Cuz for a while we were thinking , "" well , how can we change the , {vocalsound} um , data to sort of illicit tha {vocalsound} illicit , um , actions that are more like what we are used to ? "" But obviously we would rather , you know , try to figure out what 's {disfmarker} what 's , you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe that 's what we 'll do is {disfmarker} is s u e We can do anything we want with it . I mean , once we have fulfilled these requirements , +Grad E: Yep . Mmm {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , and the one for next uh , summer is just half done and then the other half is this , um , "" generation thing "" which we think isn't much different . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So once that 's done , then all the rest of it is , uh , sort of , you know , what we want to do for the research . And we can {disfmarker} w we can do all sorts of things that don't fit into their framework at all . Th - there 's no reason why we 're c we 're constrained to do that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If we can use all the , uh , execution engines , then we can , {vocalsound} you know , really {nonvocalsound} try things that would be too {disfmarker} too much pain to do ourselves . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 's no obligation on any of this . So , if we want to turn it into u understan standing stories about Heidelberg , we can do that . I mean , that would just be a t a um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or , as a matter of fact , we need {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and if we if we ' r eh {disfmarker} take a ten year perspective , we need to do that , because w e w a Assuming we have this , um , we we ta in that case we actually do have these wonderful stories , and historical anecdotes , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and knights jumping out of windows , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad C: and - and - and {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} tons of stuff . So , th the database is huge , and if we want to answer a question on that , we actually have to go one step before that , and understand that . In order to e do sensible information extraction . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You might , yeah . +Grad C: And so , um , this has been a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a Deep Map research issue that was {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is part of the unresolved , and to - do 's , and something for the future , is {vocalsound} how can we sort of run our our text , our content , through a machine {vocalsound} that will enable us , later , to retrieve or answer e questions more sensibly ? +PhD F: Mwa Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Right . Anyway . S Who 's going ? +PhD F: So , uh {disfmarker} So , uh , I was just going to ask , um , {vocalsound} so , what is the {disfmarker} the basic thing that {disfmarker} that you are , um , obligated to do , um , uh , by the summer before w uh y c we can move {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ah ! OK . So {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , what happened is , there 's this , eh , uh {disfmarker} Robert was describing the {disfmarker} There 's two packages there 's a , uh , quote parser , there 's a particular piece {vocalsound} of this big system , which , in German , uh , takes these t sentence templates and produces XML structures . And one of our jobs was to make the English equivalent of that . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: That , these guys did in a {disfmarker} in a day . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Professor B: The other thing is , at the other end , roughly at the same level , there 's something that takes , uh , X M L structures , produces an output XML structure which is instructions for the generator . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? And then there 's a language generator , and then after that a s a synthesizer that goes from an XML structure to , uh , language generation , to actual specifications for a synthesizer . Eh , but again , there 's one module in which there 's one piece {vocalsound} that we have to convert to English . +PhD F: Right . Right . Got it . +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} OK . And that {disfmarker} But as I say , this is {disfmarker} all along was viewed as a kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a m a minor thing , necessary , but {disfmarker} but not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: OK ? +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: And much more interesting is the fact that , {vocalsound} as part of doing this , we {disfmarker} we are , you know , inheriting this system that does all sort of these other {vocalsound} things . +PhD F: That 's great ! Right . +Professor B: Not precisely what we want , and that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's wh where it {disfmarker} it gets difficult . And I {disfmarker} I don't pretend to understand yet what I think we really ought to do . +Grad C: OK . So , e enough of that , but I , uh , um , mmm , the e sort of , Johno and I will take up that responsibility , and , um , get a first draft of that . Now , we have um just , I think two more short things . +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: Um , y you guys sort of started fighting , uh , on the Bayes - net "" Noisy - OR "" front ? +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , I thought I should , um , talk a little bit about that , because that might be a good , uh , sort of architecture to have , in general for , uh , problems with , {vocalsound} you know , multiple inputs to a node . +Professor B: Good ! OK . Good . And what 's the other one ? so that {disfmarker} just we know what the d agenda is ? +Grad C: Um , the Wu paper , I think maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah . I 've got a couple new Wu papers as well . Uh , so I {disfmarker} I 've been in contact with Wu , so , probably let 's put that off till I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} till I understand better , {vocalsound} uh , what he 's doing . It 's just a little embarrassing cause all this was in his thesis and I was on his thesis committee , and , so , {vocalsound} I r really knew this at one time . +PhD F: Ugh . +Professor B: But , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It 's not only uh Is {disfmarker} Part of what I haven't figured out yet is {disfmarker} is how all this goes together . So I 'll dig up some more stuff from Dekai . And {disfmarker} so why don't we just do the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . So {disfmarker} should I {disfmarker} Is there a white board here that I can use ? +Professor B: Yeah . You could {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: squealing sound ? +Grad D: Or shall I just use this ? +Professor B: It 's probably just as easy . I +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: You can put the microphone in your pocket . +Grad D: Hey ! +Grad A: I was envying you and your pocket cause I don't have one . +Grad E: It was a quick one , huh ? +Professor B: That 's why they invented "" pocket T 's "" . +Grad A: exactly +Grad E: They have clips ! +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: So , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Recall that , uh , we want to have this kind of structure in our Bayes - nets . Namely , that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You have these nodes that have several bands , right ? So {disfmarker} Does I mean , they sort of {disfmarker} the typical example is that , um , these are all a bunch of cues for something , and this is a certain effect that we 'd like to conclude . So , uh {disfmarker} Like , let 's just look at the case when , um , this is actually the {disfmarker} the final action , right ? So this is like , uh , {vocalsound} you know , touch , +Grad C: Y +Grad D: or {disfmarker} +Grad C: E - EVA +Grad D: Sorry . Uh +Grad C: +Grad D: Yeah , E - {vocalsound} EVA , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Enter , V View , Approach , right ? +PhD F: W what was this ? It {disfmarker} i i i ehhh , {comment} i ehhh . +Professor B: Wri - write it out for for {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , this is {disfmarker} Yeah . Enter , +PhD F: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad D: View , Approach . +PhD F: OK . Right . +Grad D: Right . So , I mean , we 'd like to {disfmarker} take all these various cues , right ? +PhD F: Like the army . +Grad D: So this one might be , say , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: New terminology ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm ? +Grad D: Well , let me pick a random one +Grad E: I haven't heard that before . +Grad D: and say , uh {disfmarker} I don't know , it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This isn't the way it really is , but let me say {disfmarker} that , suppose someone mentioned , uh , admission fees Ah , it takes too long . Try {disfmarker} let me just say "" Landmark "" . If the thing is a landmark , you know , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} then there 's another thing that says if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} if it 's closed or not , at the moment . Alright , so you have nodes . Right ? And the , uh , problem that we were having was that , you know , given N - nodes , there 's "" two to the N "" Given N - nodes , and furthermore , the fact that there 's three things here , we need to specify "" three times "" , uh , "" two to the N "" probabilities . Right ? That 's assuming these are all binary , which f they may not be . For example , they could be "" time of day "" , in which case we could , uh , say , you know , "" Morning , afternoon , evening , night "" . So , this could be more So , it 's a lot , anyway . And , that 's a lot of probabilities to put here , which is kind of a pain . So {pause} Noisy - ORs are a way to , uh , {vocalsound} sort of deal with this . Um Where should I put this ? So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} Let 's call these , uh , C - one , C - two , C - three , and C - four , and E , for Cause and Effect , I guess . The idea is to have these intermediate nodes . Right . Well , actually , the idea , first of all , is that each of these things has a {disfmarker} quote - unquote distinguished state , which means that this is {vocalsound} the state in which we don't really know anything about it . So {disfmarker} right ? So , for example , if we don't really know {vocalsound} if the thing is a landmark or not , Or , i if that just doesn't seem relevant , then that would be th sort of the Disting - the Distinguish state . It 's a really , you know , {vocalsound} if there is something for the person talking about the admission fee , you know , if they didn't talk about it , that would be the Distinguish state . +Grad C: S so , this is a fanciful way of saying "" default "" ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: That 's just what they {disfmarker} the word they used in that paper . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , the idea is that , um , {vocalsound} you have these intermediate nodes , right ? E - one , E - two , E - three and E - four ? +Professor B: So , this is the Heckerman paper you 're working with ? Good . +Grad D: Yeah . So {pause} The idea is that , each of these EI {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} represents what this would be {disfmarker} if all the other ones were in the distinguish state . Right ? So , for example , suppose that the person {disfmarker} I mean , suppose the thing that they talked about is a landmark . But none of the other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sort of cues really apply . Then , {vocalsound} this would be {disfmarker} W The {vocalsound} this would just represent the probability distribution of this , assuming that this cue is turned on and the other ones just didn't apply ? So , you know , if it is a landmark , and no none of the other things really ap applicable , then {disfmarker} this would represent the probability distribution . So maybe in this case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we just t k Maybe we decide that , if the thing 's a landmark and we don't know anything else , then we 're gonna conclude that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They want to view it with probability , you know , point four . They want to enter it with probability , uh {disfmarker} with probability point five and they want to approach it probability point one , say {disfmarker} Right ? So we come up with these l little tables for each of those OK . And the final thing is that , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is a deterministic function of these , so we don't need to specify any probabilities . We just have to , um , say what function this is , right ? So we can let this be , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G of E - one comma E - two . E - three , E - four . Right ? and our example G would be , um , {vocalsound} a majority vote ? Right ? +Professor B: Well . OK , so th so the important point {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} W not what the G function is . The important point is {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a general kind of idea of shortcutting the full CPT . Th - c the full conditional probability table {disfmarker} with some function . OK ? Which y w you choose appropriately for each case . So , depending on {vocalsound} what your situation is , there are different functions which are most appropriate . And {disfmarker} So I gave {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} Bhaskara a copy of this , eh {disfmarker} sort of "" ninety - two "" {comment} paper . D and you got one , Robert . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't know who else has seen it . +Grad D: There 's {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} yeah . it 's Heckerman and Breese . +Professor B: It 's short . It 's short . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , I u w Um , yo uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Have you read it yet ? +Grad D: Uh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , you should take a look at it , I guess . +Grad A: OK +Professor B: OK , so you should take a look . Nancy , I 'm sure you read it at some point in life . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} yeah . I {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . +Professor B: OK . And {disfmarker} so , you other guys can decide how interested {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , @ @ . +Professor B: Anyway . So the paper isn't th isn't real hard . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} One of the questions just come at Bhaskara is , "" How much of this does JavaBayes support ? "" +Grad D: Yeah , it 's a good question . Um {pause} {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} The {disfmarker} so what we want , is basically JavaBayes to support deterministic , uh , functions . +Professor B: Right . +Grad D: And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} In a sense it sup we can make it supported by , um , {vocalsound} manually , uh , entering , you know , probabilities that are one and zeros , right ? +Professor B: Right . So the little handout that {disfmarker} The little thing that I sent {disfmarker} I sent a message saying , uh , here is a way to take {disfmarker} One thing you could do , which is kind of s in a way , stupid , is take this deterministic function , and use it to build the CPT . So , if Ba - JavaBayes won't do it for you , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: that you can convert all that into what the CPT would be . Um {disfmarker} and , what I sent out about a week ago , was an idea of how to do that , for , um , evidence combination . So one of {disfmarker} one function that you could use as your "" G function "" is an e e Evidence - Combining . So you just take {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} uh , if each of th if each of the ones has its own little table like that , {vocalsound} then you could take the , uh , strength of each of those , times its little table , and you 'd add up the total evidence for "" V "" , "" E "" , and "" A "" . +Grad D: Mmm . I don't think you can do this , because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} G is a function from {pause} that {vocalsound} to that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yep . Right . +Grad D: Right ? So there 's no numbers . There 's just {disfmarker} quadruplets of {disfmarker} well , N - duplets of , uh , E Vs . +Professor B: I i i No , no {disfmarker} But I 'm saying is {disfmarker} There {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} There is a w I mean , if y if {disfmarker} if you decide what 's {disfmarker} what is appropriate , is probablistic evidence combination , you can write a function that does it . It 's a pui it 's actually one of the examples he 's got in there . But , anyway , s skipping {disfmarker} skipping the question of exactly which functions {disfmarker} now is it clear that you might like to be able to shortcut the whole conditional probability table . +Grad C: I mean , in some {disfmarker} it seems very plausible in some sense , where we will be likely to not be {disfmarker} observe some of the stuff . Cuz we don't have the a access to the information . +Grad D: Oops , {comment} sorry . +Professor B: Right . That 's one of the problems , is , W Is {disfmarker} is , Where would th Where would it all come from ? +Grad C: Yeah . So . +Grad D: Is {disfmarker} Oh , right . W would not be ab able to observe +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: I if it 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discar Discourse Initial Phrase , we will have nothing in the discourse history . So , if {disfmarker} if we ever want to wonder what was mention +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} Oh . A are you saying that we 'll not be able to observe certain nodes ? That 's fine . That is sort of orthogonal thing . +Professor B: Yeah , so there 's {disfmarker} there 's two separate things , Robert . The f the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets in general are quite good at saying , "" if you have no current information about this variable just take the prior for that . "" OK ? Th - that 's what they 're real good at . So , if you don't have any information about the discourse , you just use your priors of {disfmarker} of whatever {disfmarker} eh the {disfmarker} discourse {disfmarker} uh , eh , basically whatever w it 's {disfmarker} Probabilistically , whatever it would be . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of not a great estimate , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} it 's the best one you have , and , so forth . So that , they 're good at . But the other problem is , how do you fill in all these numbers ? And I think that 's the one he was getting at . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So , specifically in this case you have to {disfmarker} f have this many numbers , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: whereas in this case you just have to have three for this , three for this , three for this . Right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So you have to have just three N ? So , this is much smaller than that . +Grad A: Asymptotically . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , pretty quickly . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: U yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , you don't need da data enough to cover {disfmarker} uh , nearly as much stuff . +Grad D: I don't know . +Grad A: So , really , i What a {disfmarker} A Noisy - OR seems to kind of {pause} "" neural - net - acize "" these Bayes - nets ? +Professor B: Eh {disfmarker} well to some No , no . So , "" Noisy - OR "" is a funny way of referring to this , because {vocalsound} the Noisy - OR is only one instance . +Grad D: Yeah . This isn't a Noisy - OR anymore . +Professor B: That one actually isn't a Noisy - OR . So we 'll have to think of {vocalsound} of a way t t +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: it 's a Noisy - arg - max or a Noisy - whatever . +Professor B: Yeah , whatever . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Eh {disfmarker} {comment} Um +Grad A: Well , my point was more that we just {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} With the neural net , right , eh , things come in , you have a function that combines them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Tha - that 's true . It is a is also more neural - net - like , although {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , it isn't necessarily sum {disfmarker} uh , s you know , sum of weights or anything like that . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: I mean i You could have , uh , like the Noisy - OR function , really is one that 's essentially says , uh , take the max . +Grad D: Well , the "" OR "" . +Professor B: Same . +Grad D: Right . I guess you 're right . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh But anyway . So {disfmarker} And , I thi I think that 's the standard way people get around the {disfmarker} uh There are a couple other ones . There are ways of breaking this up into s to {disfmarker} to subnets and stuff like that . But , um The I think we definitely {disfmarker} I think it 's a great idea tha to {disfmarker} to pursue that . +Grad D: Yep . So +Grad C: Wha - still sort of leaves one question . It {disfmarker} I mean you {disfmarker} you can always uh {disfmarker} see easily that {disfmarker} that I 'm not grasping everything correctly , but {vocalsound} what seemed attractive to me in im uh in the last discussion we had , was {vocalsound} that we find out a means of {disfmarker} of getting these point four , point five , point one , of C - four , not because , you know , A is a Landmark or not , but we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we label this whatever object type , and if it 's a garden , it 's point three , point four , point two . If it 's a castle , it 's point eight , point one , point one . If it 's , {vocalsound} uh , a town hall , it 's point two , point three , point five . +Professor B: Right . +Grad C: And so forth . And we don't want to write this down {disfmarker} necessarily every time for something but , uh {disfmarker} let 's see . +Grad D: It 'll be students {disfmarker} Where else would it be stored ? That 's the question . +Grad C: Well , in the beginning , we 'll write up a flat file . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad C: We know we have twenty object types +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: and we 'll write it down in a flat file . +Professor B: No . So , i is Well , let me say something , guys , cuz there 's not {disfmarker} There 's a pretty point about this we might as well get in right now . Which is {disfmarker} The hierarchy that s comes with the ontology is just what you want for this . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , if you know about it {disfmarker} let 's say , a particular town hall {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , it 's one that is a monument , {vocalsound} then , that would be stored there . If you don't , you look up the hierarchy , Eh {disfmarker} so , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you may or {disfmarker} So , then you 'd have this little vector of , um , you know , Approach Mode or EVA Mode . Let 's {disfmarker} OK , so we have {vocalsound} the EVA vector for {disfmarker} for various kinds of landmarks . If you know it for a specific landmark you put it there . If you don't , you just go up the hierarchy to the first place you find one . +Grad D: OK . So , is the idea to put it in the ontology ? +Professor B: Absolutely . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: Uh , or , link to {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but in any case {disfmarker} i View it logically as being in the ontology . It 's part of what you know about {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an object , {vocalsound} is its EVA vector . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: And , if yo As I say , if you know about a specific object , you put it there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: This is part of what Dekai was doing . So , when we get to Wu , The - e We 'll see w what he says about that . +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: And , then if you {disfmarker} If it isn't there , it 's higher , and if you don't know anything except that it 's a b it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} building , then up at the highest thing , you have the pr what amounts to a prior . If you don't know anything else about a building , {vocalsound} uh , you just take whatever your crude approximation is up at that level , +Grad D: Right . +Professor B: which might be equal , or whatever it is . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: So , that 's a very pretty relationship between these local vectors and the ontology . And it seems to me the obvious thing to do , unless {vocalsound} we find a reason to do something different . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Does this make sense to you ? +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Bhask - ? +Grad D: Yeah . So , we are {disfmarker} but we {disfmarker} we 're not doing the ontology , so we have to get to whoever is doing the {disfmarker} u ultimately , +Professor B: Indeed . So , that 's another thing we 're gonna need to do , is {disfmarker} is , to , either {disfmarker} +Grad D: we have to get them to {disfmarker} +Professor B: We 're gonna need some way to either get a p tag in the ontology , or add fields , or {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} some way to associate {disfmarker} Or , w It may be that all we can do is , um , some of our own hash tables that it {disfmarker} Th - the {disfmarker} th you know , there 's always a way to do that . It 's a just a question of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , hash on object name to , you know , uh , the probabilities or whatever . +Professor B: i th Yeah . e Right . And , so , i uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: But it 's , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , it strikes me as a What For If we get the mechanism , that will be sort of the wonderful part . And then , {vocalsound} how to make it work is {disfmarker} is the second part , in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , m the guy who was doing the ontology {disfmarker} eh , eh , s ap apologized that i it will take him another through {disfmarker} two to three days because they 're having really trouble getting the upper level straight , and right now . The reason is , {vocalsound} given the craw bet uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the projects that all carry their own taxonomy and , on all history , {vocalsound} they 're really trying to build one top level ontology ft that covers all the EML projects , and that 's , uh , uh , sort of a tough cookie , a little bit tougher than they {vocalsound} figured . I could have told them s so . +Professor B: Right . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh . But , nevertheless , it 's going to be there by n by , uh , next Monday and I will show you what 's {disfmarker} what some examples {vocalsound} from that for towers , and stuff . And , um , what I don't think is ever going to be in the ontology , is sort of , you know , the likelihood of , eh , people entering r town halls , and looking at town halls , and approaching town halls , especially since we are b dealing with a case - based , not an instance - based ontology . So , there will be nothing on {disfmarker} on that town hall , or on the Berkeley town hall , or on the {vocalsound} Heidelberg town hall , it 'll just be information on town halls . +Professor B: Well , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} How ar What are they gonna do with instances ? +Grad C: But what {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , you {disfmarker} y +Grad C: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Hhh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's al different question . I mean , th the {disfmarker} first , they had to make a design question , {vocalsound} "" do we take ontologies that have instances ? or just one that does not , that just has the types ? "" +Professor B: OK . +Grad C: And , so , since the d decision was on types , on a d simply type - based , {vocalsound} we now have to hook it up to instances . I mean this is +Professor B: But what i What is SmartKom gonna do about that ? +Grad C: one {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz , they have instances all the time . +Grad C: Yeah , but the ontology is really not a SmartKom thing , in {disfmarker} in and of itself . That 's more something that {vocalsound} I kicked loose in {disfmarker} in EML . So it 's a completely EML thing . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} SmartKom 's gonna need an ontology . +Grad C: Yes , u a w a lot of people are aware of that . +Professor B: I understand , {vocalsound} but is anybody doing anything about it ? +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . It 's a political problem . We won't worry about it . +Grad C: No , but {disfmarker} th the r eh {disfmarker} I th I still think that there is enough information in there . For example , whether {disfmarker} OK . So , th it will know about the twenty object types there are in the world . Let 's assume there are only twenty object types in this world . And it will know if any of those have institutional meanings . So , in a sense , "" I "" used as Institutions for some s in some sense or the other . Which makes them {disfmarker} enterable . Right ? In a sense . +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . So we may have to {disfmarker} +Grad C: You know . +Professor B: This is with the whole thing , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: we may have to build another data stru +Grad C: Yep . +Professor B: Conceptually , we know what should be done . When we see what people have done , it may turn out that the easiest thing to do {vocalsound} is to build a {disfmarker} a separate thing that {disfmarker} that just pools i i Like , i i it {disfmarker} it may be , that , the {disfmarker} the instance {disfmarker} w That we have to build our own instance , uh , things , that , with their types , +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Right , we can just assume {disfmarker} +Professor B: and then it goes off to the ontology once you have its type . So we build a little data structure And so what we would do in that case , is , in our instance gadget have {vocalsound} our E V And if we d there isn't one we 'd get the type and then have the E V As for the type . So we 'd have our own little , {vocalsound} uh , EVA tree . And then , for other , uh , vectors that we need . +Grad D: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: So , we 'd have our own little {vocalsound} things so that whenever we needed one , we 'd just use the ontology to get the type , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then would hash or whatever we do to say , "" ah ! +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If it 's that type of thing , and we want its EVA vector , pppt - pppt ! {comment} it 's that . "" So , I I think we can handle that . And then {disfmarker} But , the combination functions , and whether we can put those in Java Bayes , and all that sort of stuff , is , uh {disfmarker} is the bigger deal . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that 's where we have to get technically clever . +Grad A: We could just steal the classes in JavaBayes and then interface to them with our own code . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I me ye {nonvocalsound} eh , yeah , the {disfmarker} +Grad D: That requires understanding the classes in JavaBayes , I guess . @ @ . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it 's , uh , e e e e e cute . I mean , you 've been around enough to {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Just ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , there 's this huge package which {disfmarker} which may or may not be consistent and {disfmarker} you know . But , yeah , we could look at it . +Grad A: Well , I was j OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's b It {disfmarker} It 's an inter sort of a kind of a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} The thing is , it 's kind of an interpreter and i i it expects its data structures to be in a given form , and if you say , "" hey , we 're gonna {vocalsound} make a different kind of data structure to stick in there {disfmarker} "" +Grad A: Well , no , but that just means there 's a protocol , right ? That you could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It may or may not . I don't know . That 's the question is "" to what extent does it allow us to put in these G functions ? "" And I don't know . +Grad A: Well , no , but {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} What I uh the {disfmarker} So you could have four different Bayes - nets that you 're running , and then run your own {disfmarker} write your own function that would take the output of those four , and make your own "" G function "" , is what I was saying . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's fine if it 's {disfmarker} if it comes only at the end . But suppose you want it embedded ? +Grad A: Well , then you 'd have to break all of your Bayes - nets into smaller Bayes - nets , with all the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's a truly horrible way to do d it . One would hope {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , you bet . But , at that point you may say , "" hey , Java Bayes isn't the only package in town . Let 's see if there 's another package that 's , eh , more civilized about this . "" +Grad D: +Professor B: Now , Srini is worth talking to on this , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor B: cuz he said that he actually did hack some combining functions into But he doesn't remember {disfmarker} at least when I talked to him , he didn't remember {vocalsound} whether it was an e an easy thing , a natural thing , or whether he had to do some violence to it to make it work . +Grad D: Ah ! +Professor B: Uh . But he did do it . +Grad D: Yeah . I don't see why the , uh , combining f functions have to be directly hacked into I mean , they 're used to create tables so we can just make our own little functions that create tables in XML . +Professor B: Well , I say that 's one way to do it , is {disfmarker} is to just convert it int into a {disfmarker} into a C P T that you zip {disfmarker} It 's blown up , and is a {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} it 's huge , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it doesn't require any data fitting or complication . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . I don't think {disfmarker} I mean , the fact that it blown u blows up is a huge issue in the sense that {disfmarker} I mean , OK . So say it blows up , right ? So there 's , like , the you know , ten , f ten , fifteen , uh , things . It 's gonna be like , two to the {disfmarker} that , which isn't so bad . +Professor B: I I understand . I 'm just saying tha that w That was wi that was my note . The little note I sent said that . It said , "" Here 's the way you 'd take the logical f G function and turn it into a CPT . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean that {disfmarker} the Max - the Evidence - Combining function . So we could do that . And maybe that 's what we 'll do . But , um don't know . So , I will , e {vocalsound} e before next week , uh , @ @ {comment} p push {disfmarker} push some more on {disfmarker} on this stuff that Dekai Wu did , and try to understand it . Uh , you 'll make a couple of more copies of the Heckerman paper to give to people ? +Grad D: p Sure . +PhD F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would like a copy , +Professor B: OK . +Grad D: OK . +PhD F: y y yeah . +Professor B: And , um +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . And I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think s through this , uh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} getting EVA vectors dynamically out of ontologies one more time because I s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure whether we all think of the same thing or not , here . +Professor B: Well , you and I should talk about it . +Grad C: Yeah , uh - huh . OK . +Professor B: Alright , great ! And , Robert , thank you for {vocalsound} coming in under {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he 's been sick , Robert . +Grad C: Und . +Grad A: I was thinking maybe we should just cough into the microphone and see if they can't {disfmarker} th see if they can handle it . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad E: Sure . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} is this , uh {disfmarker} +","The meeting involves discussions about microphone checks, data collection strategies involving recruitment of subjects for research, plan for script development, data handling preferences, and technical aspects of data parsing and ontology development. Professor B emphasizes handling technicalities first and reviewing data collection processes. The recruitment target is 50 people, and discussions cover various subject sourcing methods. There's consensus to start recruiting in parallel with script development. Grad C discusses checking social infrastructures for potential subjects and drafting recruitment notes. Issues with permission forms, waivers, and subject transcripts are debated, and the team agrees to adhere to approved forms with minor adjustments. + +Concerns about accessing social infrastructures, like gymnastic classes or Berkeley High School, for recruitment purposes are mentioned. Grad C plans to distribute a draft note for comments and discusses the necessity of the forms being used. There's an unresolved discussion about a waiver that allows subjects to opt-out from seeing the final transcript. + +Additionally, there's dialogue about parser development. The team worked on transforming a German parser into an English version, discussing specifics about verb parsing and sentence structure variance. + +Finally, the meeting turns to technical issues about Bayesian networks and ontology design, considering how to manage the instance and type data in the ontology and debating the possibility of using ""Noisy-OR"" gates or other functions to handle complex conditional probability tables more efficiently. Professor B confirms further review of related work by Wu and Heckerman to guide decisions. + +Overall, plans for subject recruitment and data processing alongside complex technical discussions related to parsing and Bayesian network optimization dominate the conversation." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right uh . So um . So where's the PowerPoint presentation ? Sorry ? Microsoft PowerPoint , right . Right , okay . So . Right . Okay , so we've got uh so we've got new project requirements . Um . So basically we've got three things , and we've got forty minutes in which to uh {disfmarker} for this meeting to uh to discuss the various options . Um . Three presentations . +Industrial Designer: We have a {disfmarker} I guess we have a presentation each , 'cause I've got one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: I see , right . +Marketing: I've got one too . +Project Manager: That's nice to know , one from each of you . Um new project requirements . Um so do we want to do the presentation first , or do we want to um {disfmarker} W I I got um {gap} or or three things basically , um relating to the remote being only for T_V_ . We discussed that last time +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and in actual fact that was pr pretty well what we came up with anyway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled {vocalsound} in a sense . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um we've got uh teletext outdated . Um did you get any information on that ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we didn't , no . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Right and the corporate image was the uh final thing . +Industrial Designer: I d I didn't personally . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I I got that in email form . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Right okay . So I guess if we go ahead with the uh with the three presentations . So we'll start with yourself on the basis that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's fine . I'll just um I'll grab the wire out the back of this one . +Project Manager: Sorry , yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What is it ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not quite sure how it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think you've got to do um control F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: Control {gap} {disfmarker} Doesn't seem to be quite working at the moment . +User Interface: Shift F_ eight . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Alt function F_ eight . {vocalsound} Again not doing anything . +Marketing: {vocalsound} There's usually a little thing in the top right for the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Ah there , +Marketing: Oh hang on , +User Interface: it's doing something . +Marketing: it's just coming on . +Industrial Designer: {gap} pressed about five times now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's me {gap} . Okay , um I have to go {gap} again . +Project Manager: {gap} it going ? +Industrial Designer: Hopefully that should be it this time . Okay , I think we're there . That's good . Okay , um {disfmarker} Okay I'm gonna be looking at the working design . Um {vocalsound} of the of the remote control . Um I've just got three sections , first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself um . And then that involves the components required in it and the systems uh design of the actual the actual remote . Um so having researched the existing models within the market , um I found my research off the internet . Um I've established what the components required for the remote control to function , actually are . And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television . Um the basic components are an energy source which I guess um in most existing models would be a battery supply . Whether that'll be sort of two batteries , four batteries , um it may vary . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We then have the user interface , which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote . Um the various functions used for changing channel , uh channel up and down , volume , things like that . Um there's also a chip inside the remote which does all the computer type things . And then the sender , which um is usually , I've found , an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television . Um and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself , because that's obviously found in the television . {gap} . Um I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because uh it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working , so . I'll just go through there . S um um do we have a cloth to wipe this down with , or ? Oh I'll j +Project Manager: Uh there's the rubber on the right , I think . +User Interface: I think it's that little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh I see . Oh okay . I'll get rid of the bear.$ +Project Manager: {gap} it's magic . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay that's great . Okay , so we start off with a um battery suppl Uh no , a power supply which we'd probably get {disfmarker} it's probably gonna be the battery . Um we then have a particular button , which may be {disfmarker} {gap} that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons . Um but this is how the basic system works . Um that sends {gap} after you press that that sends the message to the chip , which um then sends {disfmarker} It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender . {vocalsound} Um . So that's {gap} . That's the remote in itself , that's the components of the remote and how they work together . So this is the uh user interface . Um this is the chip itself , which then {gap} , and that's the that's the infra-red sender . And then on the separate thing we have on the on the television we have a a receiver . And the sender sends a message to the receiver . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So the the top bit's the power source , yes ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah yes , that's the power source . Um . {gap} going on to personal preferences , I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote , just because of the size . You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote . Um and then the sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and infra-red um has been used quite successfully . If the battery's on reasonable power , they always seem to work fairly well . You don't have to be point directly at the television itself . +Project Manager: So the battery is the {disfmarker} in the sender . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Yes . 'Kay and that's it for the moment . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . So , now more design . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . Thank you . Mine's not quite as complicated as all that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what we like to hear . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I press function ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh , th there you go . +User Interface: Oh . Um . Okay so I'm gonna talk a bit about the technical functions design . I'm Louisa , the User Interface Designer , as you know . {vocalsound} Um so the m basic method of this is to send a signal from the remote to the television set , so that a desired function is performed . Um an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down , uh so obviously you need two different buttons for that . Um to change the channel , either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down . Um to switch the television on or off , maybe a standby button . Um here are two example remotes . Um by the look of it they both have um kind of play and fast forward , rewind functions , so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about . Uh but as you can see , the left remote is quite um quite busy looking , quite complicated . Um whereas the right remote is much simpler , it looks much more user friendly . Um so my personal preference would be the right remote . So , {vocalsound} it's got nice big buttons , it's got a very limited number of buttons . Um they're nice , kinda clearly labelled . Um I like the use of the kind of um symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the um kind of play functions and all that . So it's very very user friendly , and it's got a little splash of colour . Could maybe do with some more colour . Um . +Project Manager: Well there's a couple of things there . Um we have to remember that we have our own um logo and colour scheme . So basically we'd have to uh we'd have to be putting that on um the the product . +User Interface: Hmm . Do we get to see that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I haven't as yet , no . +User Interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But uh I got uh I got an email that basically said to uh make sure that uh whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate um the corporate colour and slogan . So uh I'm guessing that uh uh I notice on the bottom there it's got uh what's that ? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme , although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here , the the sort of circular section , because that seems to be for a video as well . So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume . Possibly ? +User Interface: What do you mean by the circular section ? +Industrial Designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah +User Interface: Like all of that bottom bit ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that {disfmarker} I think that's still um a video remote part , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we could get rid of that as well . +User Interface: Yeah . And I don't really think that you need nine numbers . +Project Manager: Well b uh w +User Interface: I mean how often do you use seven , eight and nine ? I think just one to six and then channel up and down should be enough . +Project Manager: Well th the on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like how often do you hit nine ? +Project Manager: Well uh for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we'd have to have some room for uh future such channels . But but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just people are used to seeing that , so if we didn't have them then they might think it's {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: But , well possibly but the the other thing is that with um the current expansion of uh channels uh in the process of taking place , certainly the button up and down , but uh I mean {vocalsound} how many channels do we have to um {disfmarker} actual television channels do we have to uh prepare for ? I would have thought that uh {gap} it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got {disfmarker} although you've onl you've got the five standard , you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh there's uh I don't know exactly how many channels there are on uh when you take into account uh Sky and various other um various others . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't , you know , rather {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , if the time of flicking from one to other , but presumably it'll take a second +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause you have to be able to stop it . Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise . Y you'd want you'd want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six , um if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , I s I suppose in a sense you could have um if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting {disfmarker} rather than having to go one to a hundred , you could go one to one to ten , ten to twenty +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and that would cut down your time . +User Interface: Mm . Um . +Project Manager: Anyway . +User Interface: But I think a lot of um like Cable and Sky and stuff , that would be tuned to one channel , and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +User Interface: Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whatever . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Limit the number of buttons , user friendly . +User Interface: But I suppose nine's not really excessive . +Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you {disfmarker} uh it's like uh multiples you can put them together so you can make any number . +User Interface: I suppose it does make a good pattern . +Industrial Designer: So with that we'd kind of by-pass any problems with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah Well that's true , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever , that that makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . 'Cause that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Um I think that's just for a video , so we wouldn't need any of that at all . +Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what ? +Project Manager: If it's just for T_V_ , which is what it is at the moment . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we get to {disfmarker} How many buttons have we got ? We've just got ten , eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need . I guess . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um which isn't really too many . That'll be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well we've we've got um that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with uh which would endanger the time to market {vocalsound} was one of the considerations . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I'm {disfmarker} I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or was I meant to give you that information ? +Marketing: Um I'm not sure . I had I've had some market information , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: but not from the company , no . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so basically time to market seems to be important , therefore speed of delivery . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We've only got about another four hours left . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so is everyone happy with that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes , that seems good . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Right well that's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . I'm gonna pull this off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think if you just give it a second to maybe catch up . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think she said twenty seconds to um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll have by the end of today . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll give it another go . Yeah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Right , we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control . And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and um how do people use it ? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them . Um how d how does a remote control look and feel for them , and what improvements would would they like to remote control . And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers . And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s uh a fancier remote control And that of all the buttons on the remote control , the sort of setting buttons for sort of the picture picture and brightness and the audio settings , um they weren't used very often at all . People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons . Uh we also asked them about speech recognition uh for remote control . And young people were quite receptive to this , but as soon as we got sort of over about into a thirty five to forty age {disfmarker} forty five age group and older , people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition . There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well . Um we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it . And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control , it was difficult to learn um all the buttons and all the functions , and to find your way around it . {vocalsound} Okay , so {disfmarker} My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some {vocalsound} sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech {disfmarker} A design which looks high-tech , basically . Um and that we should come up with fewer buttons than most of the controls on the market , and we should sort of concentrate on the channels and sort of power , and also volume and that sort of thing , as as Louisa said . Um we could maybe come up with a menu , a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control . That's worth thinking about . Um and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well , because um sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design . That that might be the market that we're we're looking for . And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room , rather than sort of um having it to {vocalsound} speech recognition to change the channels . 'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise , so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um , and that's the end of the slide show . That's it . Cool . +Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? +User Interface: Do {gap} a lot of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um about speech recognition ? +Project Manager: Speech recognition , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that was only for young people that preferred it , older people didn't . +Marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah , they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups , people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to , so . +Industrial Designer: No what I maybe think is um it seems the technology would be quite advanced for that and they might end up costing more than our twelve fifty budget for for the speech recognition . Um . +Project Manager: Well that's right . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have {disfmarker} You know with your mobile phone , you lose that and you can ring it . Maybe we can have some kind of sensor which is kept somewhere where you can {disfmarker} {gap} some kind of buzzer system between the two . So you can press a button which is always kept in one place +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else , wherever the remote actually is . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Yeah . Yeah , we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well , +Industrial Designer: That is true , yes . +Marketing: which which again would probably be a bit expensive , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: There's key rings um that you kind of whistle at or clap at , I can't remember , and then they whistle back , or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . +User Interface: That'd probably be really simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: they're cheap . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the {disfmarker} or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote . +Project Manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product 'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing , you know without sound recognition . But if you {disfmarker} I know . Um I was gonna say a sharp noise , you know a clapping of hand or whatever . {vocalsound} You'd want to try and av just have the one product that if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I dunno um talking about vo I mean obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command , a set command whatever that happened to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with uh voice recognition then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you could have an option to turn it off . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps , um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {vocalsound} Any sugges Well , any conclusions ? +Marketing: Um would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if it does then we can't . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Considering {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's that simple , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because we've got uh th th three um primary um uh requisites from uh from and email uh that was sent to me whereby we had {disfmarker} The design logo was one , which we've already mentioned . We've got um the remote was only for the television and not for {disfmarker} because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the uh third thing was that um teletext uh as far as uh the management is concerned , um is becoming dated uh due to the popularity of the internet . So that means that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so these are the sort of three um extra parameters that have been put on this uh project . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is uh wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: So anything that uh is to be added , such as voice recognition et cetera has to be very simple and has to be very quick +Industrial Designer: Has to be simple enough to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because time to market is is critical . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It would . But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Added extras would be nice , but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within uh this short time window , which effectively now is sort of four hours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} and if {disfmarker} and we've gotta get to the end . Uh d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with um added extras if possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Right okay , uh so I need to {disfmarker} Right . So I don't know how long we have left of our uh time . But we have to make the decisions on uh the remote control functions +Marketing: About five minutes . +Project Manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next uh meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll also know w when the next meeting is +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I um {disfmarker} so we'll know how long we've got to complete that task . And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes , we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this , this is how far we've progressed . Does that make reasonable sense ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes that seems right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing . And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting , if you get any additional information that uh only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making um process , then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Do it via the email +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: so that rather than coming you know {disfmarker} If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine . Come along with it in the next meeting , we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting , let everybody else know 'cause that might have an impact on their uh {disfmarker} on what they come up with {vocalsound} effectively at the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right , is there {disfmarker} +Marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now ? S +Project Manager: I would guess so . +User Interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of um kind of whistle back kind of function . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause that'll solve kind of the frustration of losing it . +Marketing: Yeah and {disfmarker} Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said , so . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that , so . +User Interface: Yeah . I don't really know about the voice recognition thing . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} w well uh i +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment , +Project Manager: Something simple . Uh if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time , time's short , +Industrial Designer: and if something comes back {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: something that's quick and simple . So , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: sounds good . +User Interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either , 'cause everyone can whistle or clap , and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology . +Project Manager: Well , so maybe a clap rather than a whistle would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: On the basis that if we've got {disfmarker} if we're catering to the whole age range , you want something that's easy to do , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: now something that doesn't like whis uh +Marketing: No not everyone can whistle , can they , though ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I I don't know . Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine , then go for that option , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle , +Marketing: No , +Industrial Designer: I'd go more {disfmarker} +Marketing: clapping , I think clapping , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , f more for clap . +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so uh so clap option . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button , haven't we ? +Project Manager: Uh . Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying , +User Interface: Is that one of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that uh if uh if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so so take out teletext . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking out teletext , okay . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide on having the ten um the ten numbers +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so , so zero to nine . +Marketing: Mm . I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you can press any two and it'll sort of put them together . +Industrial Designer: Okay , ten numbers +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then some kind of device to allow uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll put delay to allow um multiple numbers . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or multiple digits . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Did we decide anything about um the other functions ? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that ? You had an had an idea about the menu ? +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} we could possibly put an L_ {disfmarker} a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in , but that again is probably an expense that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But just thinking um people probably {disfmarker} I mean you don't have {disfmarker} you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once , but you have to be able to tune it that once . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks , you get a new one , you're gonna have to be able to tune it . You can't really avoid that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Except the new digital markets which do it by themselves . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic +Industrial Designer: So that'll be in {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: and if it is at the moment , that's fine . But at the moment it's not , so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters , 'cause otherwise it would make it {disfmarker} uh your device would become inoperable , or only operable in certain circumstances +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: and the idea is to have an international market +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale , so we're not really going for something that's uh terribly high-tech . +Marketing: Yeah . I s I suppose um if people are buying remotes , then they're probably buying it to replace another remote +Project Manager: Possibly . +Marketing: 'cause all most tellies come with remotes , so . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: I mean we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions , so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So how would this menu function work ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button , then you'd use the other buttons , maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: like the volume or something . +Marketing: that would be a good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you do need um kind of brightness and contrast and everything as well . My dad was watching a film the other week +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and it was too dark , so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} we're gonna have the the individual numbers +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced um instruction booklet to come with it , to guide {disfmarker} Presu uh I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp um just off like the menu {gap} use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet 'cause one {disfmarker} the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right , okay um . +Marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons , you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it , so you're basically pressing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two , and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , well . +User Interface: Well , if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well , have you seen those remotes where kind of um the bottom bit slides down , so there's kind of um everything else revealed ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So y Ah That's a very good idea . +User Interface: So you don't use it that much , you don't have to see it all the time . But it's all there if you need it . +Industrial Designer: That is that is a good idea actually . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sor sort of a second . +Project Manager: So you keep um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a hidden panel . +Project Manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting , so I've been told . I don't know if you've got the same . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh not quite , but I guess {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so keep um keep detailed functions um hidden at the back . +Industrial Designer: Keep the other buttons but hide them away . +User Interface: Hmm . And that'll be better for the older generation as well 'cause , well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu , +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: but he can pretty much read a button if it's displayed properly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well . So we're gonna have like two separate two separate lists , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} data functions hidden at back . Can bring out when needed . +Marketing: So th the {disfmarker} The detailed ones would be sort of brightness , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh sorta {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back . We have to decide . +Industrial Designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes , and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So on front , +Industrial Designer: {gap} about the number {gap} . +Project Manager: numbers , +Industrial Designer: Um the volume up and down . +User Interface: And the volume ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} volume . +Industrial Designer: Shall we have a mute button as well ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A mute button as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're handy . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And probably a power one as well . {vocalsound} Dunno . +User Interface: I know it's probably like um not an issue to raise here , but um the whole thing about not using your standby uh because of the like waste of electricity {gap} . Have you seen the adverts ? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like we should maybe try to discourage people from standby . +Industrial Designer: But then they might not buy it if they haven't got one . 'Cause people might just be too fickle and not want to change . +User Interface: Yeah , it's maybe too much of a big issue for here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so are you having the stand-by on the front , then ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-oh danger sign . +Industrial Designer: I think you probably should . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but a little bit smaller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Compromise . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons ? +Marketing: Um 'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'll have um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there ? +Project Manager: Channel up and down . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: What else have we got ? What was that , sixteen ? +Marketing: Numbers is ten , volume is twelve , +Project Manager: Volume button . How many volumes ? +Marketing: th Yeah si One up , one down . +Project Manager: Right okay . +User Interface: On mute . +Marketing: And a mute , yeah . That's sixteen isn't it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is there anything else ? Um . +Marketing: I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: Power button , stand-by , channel , up and down . So is that it ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} so . +Project Manager: Okay . That's sixteen buttons , you reckon . And then at the back ? +Marketing: You've got brightness and contrast . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time , one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be . +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So on the back it'll have brightness , contrast , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: anything else ? You're also gonna have the channel tuner {gap} , as it were . +User Interface: Uh there's audio functions . +Industrial Designer: So tuner up and down , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Tuner , would that have up and down ? {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um up {disfmarker} Tune one way , tune the o +User Interface: I think they normally do . +Project Manager: {gap} okay {gap} . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I dunno I dunno possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know , saying that you want that particular thing tuned in . So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah and th and a enter button just to select . Yeah , okay . Um I guess we're keeping s it simple . We don't really need any other audio funct uh functions because it's just volume up , volume down . +Project Manager: Um up volume , yeah , I would have thought so . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think um there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio , surround sort of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do they have their own {disfmarker} do they have their own controls on their actual products , then , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um maybe for the younger market . +Industrial Designer: or do you have to do it via the remote ? +User Interface: Um I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their {disfmarker} if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Oh no , I mean um like there's kind of individual buttons for them , like on the T_V_ remote . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . Right . +User Interface: But I don't really know what they're for , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I've never used them . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: I just know they're something to do with Dolby . +Industrial Designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you might get some research . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well shall we look into that and just get back together . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right so I'll do the minutes of uh this meeting . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we'll meet back at I'm not sure . Um forty minutes , I believe is the time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +","Summary: +In a project meeting, the team discussed the remote control design for a television, focusing on functionality, aesthetics, and user preferences. The group acknowledged the need for fewer buttons and simplicity to appeal to consumers, including the older generation. Important considerations included incorporating company branding, avoiding complexities to ensure a speedy time to market, and eliminating teletext due to the rise of the internet. The team also considered adding a ""whistle back"" or clapping function to address the common frustration of losing the remote. Speech recognition was discussed but aimed more at younger users and could be cost-prohibitive. Other functionalities to be potentially hidden in the design to maintain a sleek appearance were also mentioned. The team decided to finalize the remote functions, and each member will clarify their respective tasks for the next meeting, where progress will be reported. Communication via email was encouraged for any new relevant information before the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Hmm . Testing channel two . +Grad E: Two , two . +Grad C: Two . +Grad E: Two . Oh . +Grad D: Hello ? +Grad B: Hmm ? Yeah Thank You . OK Well , so Ralf and Tilman are here . +Professor F: OK . Great . Great . +Grad B: Made it safely . +Professor F: So the {disfmarker} what w we h have been doing i they would like us all to read these digits . But we don't all read them but a couple people read them . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Uh , wanna give them all with German accents today or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Sure . +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: OK and the way you do it is you just read the numbers not as uh each single , so just like I do it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: OK . First you read the transcript number . Turn . +Grad D: OK , uh {disfmarker} What 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . Let 's be done with this . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: OK . this is Ami , who {disfmarker} And this is Tilman and Ralf . +PhD A: Hi . Uh - huh . Nice to meet you . +Grad D: Hi . +Professor F: Hi . OK . So we 're gonna try to finish by five so people who want to can go hear Nancy Chang 's talk , uh downstairs . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor F: And you guys are g giving talks on tomorrow and Wednesday lunch times , +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: right ? That 's great . OK so , do y do you know what we 're gonna do ? +Grad B: I thought two things uh we 'll introduce ourselves and what we do . And um we already talked with Andreas , Thilo and David and some lines of code were already written today and almost tested and just gonna say we have um again the recognizer to parser thing where we 're working on and that should be no problem and then that can be sort of developed uh as needed when we get {disfmarker} enter the tourism domain . em we have talked this morning with the {disfmarker} with Tilman about the generator . +PhD A: S +Grad B: and um There one of our diligent workers has to sort of volunteer to look over Tilman 's shoulder while he is changing the grammars to English +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because w we have {disfmarker} we face two ways . Either we do a syllable concatenating um grammar for the English generation which is sort of starting from scratch and doing it the easy way , or we simply adopt the ah um more in - depth um style that is implemented in the German system and um are then able not only to produce strings but also the syntactic parse uh not parse not the syntactic tree that is underneath in the syntactic structure which is the way we decided we were gonna go because A , it 's easier in the beginning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and um it does require some {disfmarker} some knowledge of {disfmarker} of those grammars and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and some ling linguistic background . But um it shouldn't be a problem for anyone . +Professor F: OK So That sounds good . Johno , are you gonna have some time t to do that uh w with these guys ? +Grad E: Sure . +Professor F: cuz y you 're the grammar maven . +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: I mean it makes sense , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor F: doesn't it ? Yeah Good . OK . So , I think that 's probably the {disfmarker} the right way to do that . And an Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I actually wanna f to find out about it too , but I may not have time to get in . +Grad B: the {disfmarker} the ultimate goal is that before they leave we {disfmarker} we can run through the entire system input through output on at least one or two sample things . And um and by virtue of doing that then in this case Johno will have acquired the knowledge of how to extend it . Ad infinitum . When needed , if needed , when wanted and so forth . +Professor F: OK that sounds great . +Grad B: And um also um Ralf has hooked up with David and you 're gonna continue either all through tonight or tomorrow on whatever to get the er parser interface working . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: They are thinning out and thickening out lattices and doing this kind of stuff to see what works best . +Grad D: Mmm , yep . +Professor F: Great . So , you guys enjoy your weekend ? +PhD A: Yes , very much so . +Grad D: Yeah , very much +Professor F: OK , before {disfmarker} before you got put to work ? +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Great . OK , so that 's {disfmarker} Sort of one branch is to get us caught up on what 's going on . Also of course it would be really nice to know what the plans are , in addition to what 's sort of already in code . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: and we can d I dunno w w was there uh a time when we were set up to do that ? It probably will work better if we do it later in the week , after {pause} we actually understand uh better what 's going on . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So when do you guys leave ? +PhD A: Um we 're here through Sunday , +Grad D: Oh +PhD A: so All through Friday would be fine . +Professor F: Oh , OK , so {disfmarker} OK , So {disfmarker} so anyt we 'll find a time later in the week to uh get together and talk about {pause} your understanding of what SmartKom plans are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and how we can change them . +PhD A: Yes . Sure . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: Should we already set a date for that ? Might be beneficial while we 're all here . +Professor F: OK ? um What {disfmarker} what does not work for me is Thursday afternoon . I can do earlier in the day on Thursday , or {pause} um {pause} most of the time on Friday , not all . +Grad B: Thursday morning sounds fine ? +Professor F: Wha - but , Johno , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: what are your constraints ? +Grad E: um Thursday afternoon doesn't work for me , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: Neither does Thursday morning , no ? +Grad E: Uh Thursday morning should be fine . +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: Eleven ? Eleven on Thursday ? +Grad E: I was just thinking I w I will {pause} have {pause} leavened by eleven . +Professor F: Right . Right . This is then out of deference to our non - morning people . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . So at eleven ? +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Thursday around eleven ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . And actually we can invite um Andreas as well . +Grad B: Uh he will be in Washington , though . +Professor F: Oh that 's true . He 's off {disfmarker} off on his trip already . +Grad B: but um David is here and he 's actually knows everything about the SmartKom recognizer . +Professor F: Thilo . OK well yeah maybe we 'll see if David could make it . That would be good . +Grad B: OK so facing to {disfmarker} to what we 've sort of been doing here um well for one thing we 're also using this room to collect data . +PhD A: Yeah obviously . +Grad B: um um Not this type of data , +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: no not meeting data but sort of {disfmarker} sort ah our version of a wizard experiment such not like the ones in Munich but pretty close to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: The major difference to the Munich ones is that we do it via the telephone +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: even though all the recording is done here and so it 's a {disfmarker} sort of a computer call system that gives you tourist information +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: tells you how to get places . And it breaks halfway through the experiment and a human operator comes on . and part of that is sort of trying to find out whether people change their linguistic verbal behavior when first thinking they speak to a machine and then to a human . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and we 're setting it up so that we can {disfmarker} we hope to implant certain intentions in people . For example um we have first looked at a simple sentence that "" How do I get to the Powder - Tower ? "" OK so you have the {disfmarker} castle of Heidelberg +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: and there is a tower and it 's called Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Oh , OK . Yeah . +Grad B: and um so What will you parse out of that sentence ? Probably something that we specified in M - three - L , that is @ @ {comment} "" action go to whatever domain , object whatever Powder - Tower "" . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: And maybe some model will tell us , some GPS module , in the mobile scenario where the person is at the moment . And um we 've sort of gone through that once before in the Deep Mail project and we noticed that first of all what are {disfmarker} I should 've brought some slides , but what our {disfmarker} So here 's the tower . Think of this as a two - dimensional representation of the tower . And our system led people here , to a point where they were facing a wall in front of the tower . There is no entrance there , but it just happens to be the closest point of the road network to the geometric center Because that 's how the algorithm works . So we took out that part of the road network as a hack and then it found actually the way to the entrance . which was now the closest point of the road network to +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , geometric center . But what we actually observed in Heidelberg is that most people when they want to go there they actually don't want to enter , because it 's not really interesting . They wanna go to a completely different point where they can look at it and take a picture . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: And so what uh uh a s you s let 's say a simple parse from a s from an utterance won't really give us is what the person actually wants . Does he wanna go there to see it ? Does he wanna go there now ? Later ? How does the person wanna go there ? Is that person more likely to want to walk there ? Walk a scenic route ? and so forth . There are all kinds of decisions that we have identified in terms of getting to places and in terms of finding information about things . And we are constructing {disfmarker} and then we 've identified more or less the extra - linguistic parameters that may f play a role . Information related to the user and information related to the situation . And we also want to look closely on the linguistic information that what we can get from the utterance . That 's part of why we implant these intentions in the data collection to see whether people actually phrase things differently whether they want to enter in order to buy something or whether they just wanna go there to look at it . And um so the idea is to construct uh um suitable interfaces and a belief - net for a module that actually tries to guess what the underlying intention {pause} was . And then enrich or augment the M - three - L structures with what it thought what more it sort of got out of that utterance . So if it can make a good suggestion , "" Hey ! "" you know , "" that person doesn't wanna enter . That person just wants to take a picture , "" cuz he just bought film , or "" that person wants to enter because he discussed the admission fee before "" . Or "" that person wants to enter because he wants to buy something and that you usually do inside of buildings "" and so forth . These ah these types of uh these bits of additional information are going to be embedded into the M - three - L structure in an {disfmarker} sort of subfield that we have reserved . And if the action planner does something with it , great . If not you know , then that 's also something um that we can't really {disfmarker} at least we {comment} want to offer the extra information . We don't really {disfmarker} um we 're not too worried . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} t s Ultimately if you have {disfmarker} if you can offer that information , somebody 's gonna s do something with it sooner or later . That 's sort of part of our belief . +Grad E: What was he saying ? +Grad B: Um , for example , right now I know the GIS from email is not able to calculate these viewpoints . So that 's a functionality that doesn't exist yet to do that dynamically , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but if we can offer it that distinction , maybe somebody will go ahead and implement it . Surely nobody 's gonna go ahead and implement it if it 's never gonna be used , so . What have I forgotten about ? Oh yeah , how we do it , +Professor F: Well th uh +Grad B: yeah that 's the +Professor F: No no . It 's a good time to pause . I s I see {pause} questions on peoples ' faces , so why don't {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} Let 's hear {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well the obvious one would be if {disfmarker} if you envision this as a module within SmartKom , where exactly would that Sit ? That 's the d +Grad B: um {disfmarker} so far I 've thought of it as sort of adding it onto the modeler knowledge module . +PhD A: OK , yeah . +Grad B: So this is one that already adds additional information to the +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Makes perfect sense . Yes . +Grad D: Hmm , ah . +Grad B: but it could sit anywhere in the attention - recognition I mean basically this is what attention - recognition literally sort of can {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it 's supposed to do . Yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: That 's what it should do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Right , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: Huh . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well f from my understanding of what the people at Phillips were originally trying to do doesn't seem to quite fit into SmartKom currently so what they 're really doing right now is only selecting among the alternatives , the hypotheses that they 're given enriched by the domain knowledge and the um discourse modeler and so on . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if this is additional information that could be merged in by them . +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then it would be available to action planning and {disfmarker} and others . +Grad B: Yeah . the {disfmarker} +Professor F: let 's {disfmarker} let 's That w OK that was one question . Is there other {disfmarker} other things that cuz {pause} we wanna not Pa - pass over any {pause} you know , questions or concerns that you have . +PhD A: Well there 're {disfmarker} there 're two levels of {disfmarker} of giving an answer and I guess on both levels I don't have any um further questions . +Grad D: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD A: uh the {disfmarker} the two levels will be as far as I 'm concerned as {pause} uh standing here for the generation module +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and the other is {disfmarker} is my understanding of what SmartKom uh is supposed to be +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I think that fits in perfectly +Professor F: So {disfmarker} well , let me {disfmarker} Let me s {pause} expand on that a little bit from the point of view of the generation . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: So the idea is that we 've actually got this all laid out an and we could show it to you ig um Robert didn't bring it today but there 's a {disfmarker} a belief - net which is {disfmarker} There 's a first cut at a belief - net that {disfmarker} that doesn't {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} isn't fully uh instantiated , and in particular some of the {disfmarker} the combination rules and ways of getting the {disfmarker} the conditional probabilities aren't there . But we believe that we have laid out the fundamental decisions in this little space +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the things that influence them . So one of the decisions is what we call this AVE thing . Do you want to um access , view or enter a thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: So that 's a a discrete decision . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There are only three possibilities and the uh {disfmarker} what one would like is for this uh , knowledge modeling module to add which of those it is and give it to the planner . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But , uh th the current design suggests that if it seems to be an important decision and if the belief - net is equivocal so that it doesn't say that one of these is much more probable than the other , then an option is to go back and ask for the information you want . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Alright ? Now there are two ways one can go {disfmarker} a imagine doing that . For the debugging we 'll probably just have a {disfmarker} a drop - down menu and the {disfmarker} while you 're debugging you will just {disfmarker} OK . But for a full system , then one might very well formulate a query , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: give it to the dialogue planner and say this , you know ar are you know you {disfmarker} are you planning to enter ? Or whatever it {disfmarker} whatever that might be . So that 's {disfmarker} under that model then , There would be a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} um a loop in which this thing would formulate a query , +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: presumably give it to you . That would get expressed and then hopefully you know , you 'd get an answer {pause} back . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: And that would of course {disfmarker} the answer would have to be parsed . +Grad D: Mmm . Yep . +Professor F: right and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: OK so , {pause} th {pause} that uh , We probably won't do this early on , because the current focus is more on the decision making and stuff like that . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: But While we 're on the subject I just wanted to give you a sort of head 's up that it could be that some months from now we said "" OK we 're now ready to try to close that loop "" in terms of querying about some of these decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD A: Yep . So {disfmarker} my suggestion then is that you um look into the currently ongoing discussion about how the action plans are supposed to look like . And they 're currently um Agreeing or {disfmarker} or in the process of agreeing on an X M L - ification of um something like a state - transition network of how dialogues would proceed . and {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} these um transition networks uh will be what the action planner interprets in a sense . +Professor F: Hmm . D did you know this Robert ? +Grad B: uh Michael is doing that , right ? +PhD A: Well uh Marcus Lerkult is actually implementing that stuff and Marcus and Michael together are um leading the discussion there , yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor F: So we ha we have to get in on that . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: because um partly those are like X - schemas . +PhD A: Definitely . +Professor F: the transition diagrams . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor F: And it may be that {disfmarker} that um we should early on make sure that they have the flexibility that we need . +Grad B: Hmm . But they uh Have I understood this right ? They {disfmarker} they govern more or less the {disfmarker} the dialogue behavior or the action {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It 's not really what you do with the content of the dialogue but it 's So , I mean there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this nice interf +Grad D: uh , No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's also a quantrant uh uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: i Is it {disfmarker} +Professor F: So there 's ac so there {disfmarker} th the word "" action "" , OK , is {disfmarker} is what 's ambiguous here . +Grad D: I think . Hmm . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: So , um one thing is there 's an actual planner that tells the person in the tourist domain now , +PhD A: OK . +Professor F: per tells the person how to go , "" First go here , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: first go there uh , you know , take a bus "" , whatever it is . So that 's that form of planning , and action , and a route planner and GIS , all sort of stuff . uh But I think that isn't what you mean . +PhD A: No . No , in SmartKom terminology that 's um called a function that 's modeled by a function modeler . And it 's th that 's completely um encapsulated from th the dialogue system . That 's simply a functionality that you give data as in a query and then you get back from that mmm , a functioning model um which might be a planner or a VCR or whatever . um some result and that 's then {disfmarker} then used . +Professor F: Well , OK , so that 's what I thought . So action he action here means dia uh speech ac uh you know dialogue act . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , in that {disfmarker} in that sense +Grad B: Mmm . +PhD A: yes , dialogue act , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor F: Um , I think tha I think it 's not going to {disfmarker} I think that 's not going to be good enough . I I don what uh {disfmarker} what I meant by that . So I think the idea of having a , you know , transition diagram for the grammar of conversations is a good idea . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK ? And I think that we do hav definitely have to get in on it and find out {disfmarker} OK . But I think that um when {disfmarker} so , when you get to the tourist domain it 's not just an information retrieval system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Clearly . Yes . +Professor F: Right ? So this i this is where I think this {disfmarker} people are gonna have to think this through a bit more carefully . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So , if it 's only like in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the film and T V thing , OK , you can do this . And you just get information and give it to people . But what happens when you actually get them moving and so forth and so on +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Uh , y y your {disfmarker} I d I think the notion of this as a self contained uh module you know th the functional module that {disfmarker} that interacts with {disfmarker} with where the tourism g stuff is going {comment} probably is too restrictive . +PhD A: Yep . +Professor F: Now I dunno how much people have thought ahead to the tourist domain in this +PhD A: Probably not enough , I mean an {disfmarker} another uh more basic point there is that the current um tasks and therefore th the concepts in this ac what 's called the action plan and what 's really the dialogue manager . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD A: um is based on slots that have to be filled and the um kind of values in these slots would be fixed things like the a time or a movie title or something like this +Professor F: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: whereas in the a um tourist domain it might be an entire route . Set - based , or even very complex structured information in these slots +Professor F: Indeed . Right . +PhD A: and I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if complex slots of that type are really um being taken into consideration . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really something we +Professor F: Could you {disfmarker} could you put a message into the right place to see if we can at least ask that question ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD A: I mean nothing 's being completely settled there +Grad B: rea yep +PhD A: so this is really an ongoing discussion +Grad B: Mm - hmm +PhD A: and that 's +Grad B: yeah and um it might actually OK ah also {disfmarker} because um again in in Deep Map we have faced and implemented those problems once already +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: maybe we can even shuffle some know how from there to to Markus and Michael . +PhD A: Yes . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad B: And um mmm You don't know {disfmarker} OK th I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to Michael it 's what I do anyway . Who {disfmarker} How far is the uh the {disfmarker} the M - three - L specification for {disfmarker} for the la natural language input gone on the {disfmarker} the uh I haven't seen anything for the uh tourist path domain . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not defined yet . +Grad B: And um you are probably also involved in that , +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: right ? uh together with the usual gang , um Petra and Jan +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah , there 's a meeting next next week I think +Grad B: OK because That 's {disfmarker} Those are the {disfmarker} I think the {disfmarker} the true key issues is how does the whatever comes out of the language input pipeline look like and then what the action planner does with it {disfmarker} and how that is uh specified . I didn't think of the internal working of the uh the action planner and the language {disfmarker} uh the function model as sort of relevant . Because what {disfmarker} what they take is sort of this {disfmarker} this fixed representation of a {disfmarker} of an intention . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And that can be as detailed or as crude as you want it to be . But um the internal workings of of the {disfmarker} whether you know there 're dialogue {disfmarker} action planners that work with belief - nets that are action planners that work with you know state automata . So that shouldn't really matter too much . I mean it does matter because it does have to keep track of you {disfmarker} we are on part six of r a route that consists of eight steps and so forth +PhD A: Right . +Professor F: Yeah , th there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} I think there are a lot of reasons why it matters . OK , so that uh , for example , the i it 's the action planner is going to take some spec and s make some suggestions about what the user should do . What the user says after that is going to be very much caught up with what the action planner told it . +PhD A: Yes . +Professor F: If the {disfmarker} If the parser and the language end doesn't know what the person 's been told OK th it 's you 're making your life much more difficult than it has to be . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right ? So if someone says the best t to uh go there is by taxi , let 's say . Now the planner comes out and says you wanna get there fast , take a taxi . OK . And the language end doesn't know that . OK , there 's all sorts of dialogues that won't make any sense which would be just fine . +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: uh +PhD A: That would b but that {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that uh point has been realized and it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really um been defined yet but there 's gonna be some kind of feedback and input from uh the action planner into all the analysis modules , telling them what to expect and what the current state of the discourse is . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: Beyond what 's currently being implemented which is just word lists . +Professor F: Yeah , but this is not the st this is not just the state of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of special interest . +Professor F: This is actually the state of the plan . That 's why +PhD A: Yes , Yes , Mm - hmm yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: OK so it {disfmarker} z and s uh , It 's great if people are already taking that into account . But One would have t have to see {disfmarker} see the details . +PhD A: The specifics aren't really there yet . Yes . So , there 's work to do there . +Professor F: Yeah . So anyway , Robert , that 's why I was thinking that +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: um I think you 're gonna need {disfmarker} We talked about this several times that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the input end is gonna need a fair amount of feedback from the planning end . +PhD A: hmm +Professor F: In {disfmarker} in one of these things which are {disfmarker} are much more continuous than the {disfmarker} just the dialogue over movies and stuff . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: And even on {disfmarker} on a more basic level the {disfmarker} the action planner actually needs to be able to have um an expressive power that can deal with these structures . And not just um say um {disfmarker} um the dialogue um will consist of ten possible states and th these states really are fixed in {disfmarker} in a certain sense . +Professor F: Hmm ? +PhD A: You have to {disfmarker} +Professor F: Would there be any chance of getting the terminology changed so that the dialogue planner was called a "" dialogue planner "" ? Because there 's this other thing The o There 's this other thing in {disfmarker} in the tourist domain which is gonna be a route planner +PhD A: That 'd be nice . +Professor F: or {disfmarker} It 's really gonna be an action planner . And {comment} i it {disfmarker} +PhD A: It oughta be called a {disfmarker} a dialogue manager . cuz that 's what everybody else calls it . +Professor F: I would think , +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: Huh ? So , s So what would happen if we sent a note saying "" Gee we 've talked about this and couldn't we change this uh th the whole word ? "" I have no idea how complicated these things are . +Grad B: Probably close to impossible . +PhD A: Depends on who you talk to how . We 'll see . I 'll go check , cause I completely agree . Yeah , +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD A: and I think this is just for historical reasons within uh , the preparation phase of the project and not because somebody actually believes it ought to be action planner . So if there is resistance against changing it , that 's just because "" Oh , We don't want to change things . "" That {disfmarker} that not deep reason +Professor F: OK , anyway . I if {disfmarker} if that c in persists then we 're gonna need another term . for the thing that actually does the planning of the uh routes and whatever we are doing for the tourist . +Grad B: That 's external services . +Professor F: Yeah , but that 's not g eh tha That ha has all the wrong connotations . it 's {disfmarker} it sounds like it 's you know stand alone . It doesn't interact , it doesn't That 's why I 'm saying . I think you can't {disfmarker} it 's fine for looking up when T you know when the show 's on TV . You go to th but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's really {disfmarker} really wrong headed for something that you {disfmarker} that has a lot of state , it 's gonna interact co in a complicated way with the uh understanding parts . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah I think just the {disfmarker} the spatial planner and the route planner I showed you once the interac action between them among them in the deep map system +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: so {disfmarker} a printout of the communication between those two fills up I don't know how many pages +PhD A: Hmm +Grad B: and that 's just part of how do I get to one place . It 's really insane . and uh but um so this is um definitely a good point to get uh Michael into the discussion . Or to enter his discussion , actually . +PhD A: Yeah , Marcus . +Grad B: That 's the way around . Markus +PhD A: Wh - where 's ? +Grad B: Is he new in the {disfmarker} in the ? +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he started um I think January . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD A: And he 's gonna be responsible for the implementation of this action planner . Dialogue manager . +Grad B: Is he gonna continue with the old {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} thing ? +PhD A: No , no he 's completely gonna rewrite everything . In Java . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: OK so that 's interesting . +Grad B: Yes I was just {disfmarker} that 's my next question +PhD A: hmm +Grad B: whether we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna stick to Prolog or not . +PhD A: No . No , that 's gonna be phased out . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK But I do think the {disfmarker} the function modeling concept has a certain {disfmarker} makes sense in a {disfmarker} in a certain light +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: because the action planner should not be {disfmarker} or the dialogue manager in that case should not um w have to worry about whether it 's interfacing with um something that does route planning in this way or that way +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: I I totally agree . +Grad B: huh , +Professor F: Sure . +Grad B: it j +Professor F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I agree . There is {disfmarker} there 's a logic to dialogue which {disfmarker} which is {disfmarker} is separable . I Yeah . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} cant {disfmarker} sort of formulate its what it wants in a {disfmarker} in a rather a abstract uh way , you know f "" Find me a good route for this . "" +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: It doesn't really have to worry ab how route planner A or how route planner B actually wants it . So this is {disfmarker} seemed like a good idea . In the beginning . +Professor F: It 's tricky . It 's tricky because one could well imagine {disfmarker} I think it will turn out to be the case that uh , this thing we 're talking about , th the extended n uh knowledge modeler will fill in some parameters about what the person wants . One could well imagine that the next thing that 's trying to fill out the detailed uh , route planning , let 's say , will also have questions that it would like to ask the user . You could well imagine you get to a point where it 's got a {disfmarker} a choice to make and it just doesn't know something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so y you would like it t also be able to uh formulate a query . And to run that back through uh . the dialogue manager and to the output module and back around . +Grad B: hmm +Professor F: And a I a a good design would {disfmarker} would allow that to happen . +Grad B: a lot of , yeah +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: If {disfmarker} if you know if {disfmarker} if you can't make it happen then you {disfmarker} you do your best . +PhD A: Yeah but that doesn't necessarily contradict um an architecture where there really is a pers a def well - defined interface . and {disfmarker} and +Professor F: I totally agree . But {disfmarker} but what it nee but th what the point is the in that case the dialogue manager is sort of event driven . So the dialogue manager may think it 's in a dialogue state of one sort , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and this {disfmarker} one of these planning modules comes along and says "" hey , right now we need to ask a question "" . So that forces the dialogue manager to change state . +PhD A: Yes +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: Sure , +Professor F: It could be y +PhD A: ye yeah I {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the um concept that people have , +Professor F: Yeah , yeah it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD A: yep . +Professor F: OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} the underlying idea of course is that there is something like kernel modules with kernel functionality that you can plug uh certain applications like tourist information or um the home scenario with uh controlling a VCR and so on . And then extend it to an arbitrary number of applications eventually . So {disfmarker} wouldn't That 's an additional reason to have this well - defined interface and keep these things like uh tourist information external . +Professor F: Oh , yeah , yeah . +PhD A: And then call it external services . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: But of course the {disfmarker} the more complex {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , there is another philosophical issue that I think you know you can {disfmarker} evade +PhD A: yep . +Grad B: but , at at least it makes sense to me that sooner or later uh {disfmarker} a service is gonna come and describe itself to you . and that 's sort of what Srini is working on in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the DAML uh project where um you {disfmarker} you find a GIS about {disfmarker} that gives you information on Berkeley , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be there and tell you what it can do and how it wants to do things . and so you can actually interface to such a system without ever having met it before and the function modeler and a self - description of the um external service haggle it out +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: and you can use the same language core , understanding core to interface with planner - A , planner - B , planner - C and so forth . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad B: Which is , you know , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} utopian {disfmarker} completely utopian at the moment , but slowly , you know , getting into the realm of the uh contingent . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: But we are facing of course much more um realistic problems . And language input for example , is of course uh crucial you know also when you do the sort of deep understanding analysis that we envision . um Then of course , the uh um , you know what is it {disfmarker} poverty of the stimulus , yet the m uh the less we get of that the better . and um so we {disfmarker} we 're thinking , for example how much syntactic analysis actually happens already in the parser . and whether one could interface to that potentially +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah , are there currently is uh no syntactic analysis but in the next release there will be some . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: unless +Professor F: How 's it {disfmarker} +Grad D: and it 's um uh you can access this +Professor F: S so uh y we {disfmarker} we looked at the e current pattern matching thing . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: And as you say it 's just a surface pattern matcher . Uh , So what are {disfmarker} what are the plans roughly ? +Grad D: um it 's to {disfmarker} to integrate and syntactic analysis . and um add some more features like segmentation . So then an utter more than one utterance is {disfmarker} There um there 's often uh pause between it and a segmentation occurs . um +Professor F: So , the um {disfmarker} So the idea is to uh {disfmarker} have a pa y y a particular {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah +Professor F: Do you have a particular parser in mind ? Is it uh {disfmarker} partic d I mean have you thought through {disfmarker} ? Is it an HPSG parser ? Is it a whatever ? +Grad D: No {disfmarker} no it 's {disfmarker} uh I think it 's it 's totally complicated for it 's just one {disfmarker} one person +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: and so I have to keep the {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh , you have to do it . You have to do it , +Grad D: Yeah , +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: ah and so {vocalsound} things must be simpler +Professor F: I see , +Grad D: but uh , Miel syntactic analysis with um finite state transducers . +Professor F: so But the people at D F Yeah . People at DFKI have written a fair number of parsers . Other {disfmarker} you know , people over the years . uh have written various parsers at DFKI . None of them are suitable ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I 'm asking . I don't know . +Grad D: Yeah , uh the problem is th that it has to be very fast because um if you want to for more than one path anywhere +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: what 's in the latches from the speech recognizer +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it 's speed is crucial . uh And they are not fast enough . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And they also have to be very robust . cuz of um speech recognition errors and +Professor F: OK . So , um {disfmarker} So there was a chunk parser in Verbmobil , that was one of the uh branchers . You know they {disfmarker} d th I c There were these various uh , competing uh syntax modules . And I know one of them was a chunk parser and I don't remember {pause} who did that . +Grad B: A Alan ? +Grad D: I think it 's that might , at Tuebingen I thought . +Professor F: Yeah I d I don't remember . +Grad D: was {disfmarker} Do you know something about that ? +PhD A: Tubingen was at least involved in putting the chunks together +Grad D: In Tub - at {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} can't quite recall whether they actually produced the chunks in the first place . +Grad D: oh +Professor F: Uh . I see . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Or wh +Grad D: Oh from {disfmarker} from Stuttgart , +Professor F: There w That 's right . They w They had {disfmarker} There were {disfmarker} This was done with a two phase thing , where {comment} the chunk parser itself was pretty stupid +Grad D: yeah , also +Professor F: and then there was a kind of trying to fit them together that h used more context . +PhD A: Right . Yeah +Professor F: Right ? +PhD A: Well you s and {disfmarker} and especially you did some {disfmarker} some um , l um was a learning - based approach which learned from a big corpus of {disfmarker} of trees . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: And yes the {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the chunk parser was a finite - state machine that um Mark Light originally w worked on in {disfmarker} while he was in Tuebingen +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: and then somebody else in Tuebingen picked that up . So it was done in Tuebingen , yeah . Definitely . +Professor F: But is that the kind of thing y It sounds like the kind of thing that you were thinking of . +PhD A: Yeah I guess it 's similar . +Grad D: yeah . yeah that 's In this direction , yes +Professor F: What ? +Grad D: Yeah , it 's in {disfmarker} in this direction . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} +Professor F: Hmm . +Grad B: From Michael Strube , I 've heard very good stuff about the chunk parser that is done by FORWISS , uh , which is in embassy doing the parsing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So this is sort of {disfmarker} came as a surprise to me that you know , embassy s {comment} is featuring a nice parser but it 's {pause} what I hear . One could also look at that and see whether there is some synergy possible . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , yeah , it would be very interesting , Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad B: And they 're doing chunk parsing and it 's uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can give you the names of the people who do it there . But um . Then there is of course more ways of parsing things . +Professor F: Of course . But {disfmarker} But uh given th the constraints , that you want it to be small and fast and so forth , my guess is you 're probably into some kind of chunk parsing . And uh I 'm not a big believer in this um statistical you know , cleaning up uh It {disfmarker} That seems to me kind of a last resort if uh you can't do it any other way . uh but I dunno . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: It may {disfmarker} i i may be that 's what you guys finally decide do . Uh . And have you looked {disfmarker} uh just {disfmarker} again for context {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: There is this {disfmarker} this one that they did at SRI some years ago {disfmarker} Fastus ? +Grad D: um +Professor F: a {disfmarker} +Grad D: yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I 've looked at it but {disfmarker} but it 's no {disfmarker} not much uh information available . I found , +Professor F: ah ! +Grad D: but it 's also finite - state transducers , I thought . +Professor F: It is . Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was pretty ambitious . +Grad D: and +Professor F: And of course it was English oriented , +Grad D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and Purely finite - state transducers are not so good for German since there 's um +Professor F: um w Right . +Grad D: The word order is {disfmarker} is uh not fixed +Professor F: Yeah , I guess that 's the point is {disfmarker} is all the morphology and stuff . And English is all th all word order . And it makes a lot more sense . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} e Yeah , OK . Good point . So in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in German you 've got uh most of this done with +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Also it 's uh {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} Yes , uh the um choice between uh this processing and that processing and my template matcher . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad D: +Professor F: So what about Um Did y like Morfix ? a a e y you 've got stemmers ? Or is that something that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , yeah but it 's all in the {disfmarker} in the lexicon . So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: But did you have that ? +Grad D: Yeah th the information is available . +Professor F: OK . I see . So , but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: So y you just connect to the lexicon +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: and uh at least for German you have all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} uh the stemming information . +Grad D: Yeah , we can , oh yeah . We have knowledge bases from {disfmarker} from Verbmobil system we can use +Professor F: Yep . +Grad D: and so . +Professor F: Right . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't look like i you 're using it . I didn't n see it being used in the current template uh parser . I {disfmarker} I didn't see any Uh {disfmarker} of course we l actually only looked at the English . +Grad D: It {disfmarker} um +Professor F: Did we look at the German ? I don't remember . +Grad D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but it 's used for {disfmarker} for stem forms . +Professor F: So w wha +PhD A: n Well I think {disfmarker} I think there 's some misunderstanding here +Professor F: i +PhD A: it 's {disfmarker} Morphix is not used on - line . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +PhD A: s so the lexicon might be derived by Morphix +Grad D: What ? +PhD A: but What {disfmarker} what 's happening on - line is just um um a {disfmarker} a retrieval from the lexicon which would give all the stemming information +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD A: so it would be a full foreign lexicon . +Professor F: And that 's what you have . +PhD A: Yep . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: We threw out all the forms . +Professor F: What {disfmarker} uh I didn't reme +Grad B: We threw out all the forms +Professor F: Huh ? +Grad B: because , you know , English , well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Oh OK , so it {disfmarker} yeah , s s I thought I 'd {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So in German then you actually do case matching and things like in the {disfmarker} in the pattern matcher or not ? +Grad D: um Not yet but it 's planned to do that . +Professor F: OK . Cuz I r I didn't reme I didn't think I saw it . +Grad D: Yeah +Professor F: Have we looked at the German ? Oh , I haven yeah that 's {disfmarker} getting it from the lexicon is just fine . +PhD A: Sure , right . +Grad D: Oh yes . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . No problem with that . um Yeah and here 's the case where the English and the German might really be significantly different . In terms of if you 're trying to build some fast parser and so forth and {disfmarker} You really might wanna do it in a significantly different way . I don't know . So you 've {disfmarker} you guys have looked at this ? also ? in terms of You know , w if you 're doing this for English as well as German Um Do you think now that it would be this {disfmarker} doing it similarly ? +Grad D: um Yeah , it 's um I think it 's um yes , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um possible to {disfmarker} to do list processing . and Maybe this is um more adequate for English and in German um set processing is used . +Professor F: Set . +Grad D: Maybe yeah . Some extensions uh have to be made . For {disfmarker} for a English version +Professor F: Mmm . OK . Interesting . Not easy . +Grad B: Well there 's m I 'm sure there 's gonna be more discussion on that after your talk . +Grad D: Mm - hmm , +Grad B: We 're just gonna foreshadow what we saw that +Grad D: yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . +Grad B: and um +Professor F: Now actually , um Are you guys free at five ? Or {disfmarker} Do you have to go somewhere at five o ' clock tonight ? W in ten minutes ? +Grad D: Ah {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I think we 're expect {disfmarker} +Grad D: mmm . No . Oder there was an {disfmarker} talk ? +PhD A: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there 's the um practice talk . +Grad D: uh Mmm , yeah . +Professor F: Great . So you 're going to that . +PhD A: Yeah , that {disfmarker} that 's what we were planning to do . +Professor F: That 's good , because that will uh tell you a fair amount about The form of semantic construction grammar that we 're using . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: so {disfmarker} So I th I think that probably as good an introduction as you 'll get . +Grad D: Ah . +Professor F: Uh to the form of {disfmarker} of uh {disfmarker} conceptual grammar that {disfmarker} that w we have in mind for this . +Grad D: Mmm , ah . +Professor F: It won't talk particularly about how that relates to what uh Robert was saying at the beginning . But let me give you a very short version of this . So we talked about the fact that There 're going to be a certain number of decisions That you want the knowledge modeler to make , that will be then fed to the function module , that does uh , route planning . It 's called the "" route planner "" or something . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So there are these decisions . And then one half of this we talked about at little bit is how if you had the right information , if you knew something about what was said and about th the something about was the agent a tourist or a native or a business person or uh young or old , whatever . That information , and also about the Uh , what we 're calling "" the entity "" , Is it a castle , is it a bank ? Is it a s town square , is it a statue ? Whatever . So all that kind of information could be combined into decision networks and give you decisions . But the other half of the problem is How would you get that kind of information from the parsed input ? So , um So what you might try to do is just build more templates , saying uh we 're trying to build a templ you know build a template that w uh somehow would capture the fact that he wants to take a picture . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK ? And {disfmarker} and we could {disfmarker} you could do this . And it 's a small enough domain that probably you , you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . You could do this . But uh from our point of view this is also a research project and there are a couple of people not here for various reasons who are doing doctoral dissertations on this , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and the idea that we 're really after is a very deep semantics based on cognitive linguistics and the notion that there are a relatively small number of primitive conceptual schemas that characterize a lot of activity . So a typical one in this formulation is a container . So this is a static thing . And the notion is that all sorts of physical situations are characterized in terms of containers . Going in and out the portals and con +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: OK . But also , importantly for Lakoff and these guys is all sorts of metaphorical things are also characterized this way . You get in trouble and you know et cetera +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: and so {disfmarker} s So , what we 're really trying to do is to map from the discourse to the conceptual semantics level . And from there to the appropriate decisions . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So another one of these primitive , what are called "" image schemas "" , is uh goal seeking . So this a notion of a source , path , goal , trajector , possibly obstacles . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea is this is another conceptual primitive . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And that all sorts of things , particularly in the tourist domain , can be represented in terms of uh source , path and goal . So the idea would be could we build an analyser that would take an utterance and say "" Aha ! th this utterance is talking about an attempt to reach a goal . The goal is this , the pers the , uh traveller is that , uh the sor w where we are at now is is this , they 've mentioned possible obstacles , et cetera . "" So th the {disfmarker} and this is an {disfmarker} again attempt to get very wide coverage . So if you can do this , then the notion would be that across a very large range of domains , you could use this deep conceptual basis as the interface . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And then , uh The processing of that , both on the input end , recognizing that certain words in a language talk about containers or goals , et cetera , and on the output end , given this kind of information , you can then uh make decisions about what actions to take . Provides , they claim , a very powerful , general notion of deep semantics . So that 's what we 're really doing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And Nancy is going to {disfmarker} Her talk is going to be not about using this in applications , but about modeling how children might learn this kind of uh deep semantic grammar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yep , yep . And how do you envision um the {disfmarker} the um this deep semantic to be worked with . Would it be highly ambiguous if and then there would be another module that takes that um highly underspecified deep semantic construction and map it onto the current context to find out what the person really was talking about in that context . or {disfmarker} or a {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the belief - net comes in . So th the idea is , let 's take this business about going to the Powder - Tower . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So part of what you 'll get out of this will be the fact tha w if it works right , OK , that this is an agent that wants to go to this place and that 's their goal +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and there will be additional situational information . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor F: Uh , OK , +PhD A: th +Professor F: part of it comes from the ontology . The tower is this kind of object . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Professor F: Part of it comes from the user model . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And the idea of the belief - net is it combines the information from the dialogue which comes across in this general way , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: you know this is a {disfmarker} this is a goal seeking behavior , along with specific information from the ontology about the kinds of objects involved +PhD A: Yeah OK , Yeah , yep yep yep yep +Professor F: and about the situation about "" Is it raining ? "" I don't know . Whatever it is . And so that 's the belief - net that we 've laid out . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: And so th the coupling to the situation comes in this model from , at th at th at the belief - net , combining evidence from the dialogue with the ontology with the situation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: But Nancy isn't gonna talk about that , +PhD A: Yeah , oh yeah , I see , +Professor F: just about the um +PhD A: yeah yeah , really . +Grad B: First steps . +Professor F: Right . The {disfmarker} the construction grammar . +Grad B: And she 's gonna start in a minute . +Professor F: In a minute . +Grad D: Ah , OK . +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: Is it i in , then , your place , in five {disfmarker} five - A ? +PhD A: Alright . +","In this scripted academic conversation, we have a group of graduate students (Grad C, Grad E, Grad D, Grad B), a professor (Professor F), and a PhD (PhD A) discussing various project-related topics in a seminar-like setting. This exchange takes place in a somewhat informal and collaborative environment where attendees are troubleshooting, coordinating, and planning various aspects of their research. + +The conversation begins with a brief technical test of equipment (Grad C and Grad E testing channel two), followed by a recognition of the arrival of two individuals, Ralf and Tilman (Grad B mentions their safe arrival to Professor F). + +Professor F discusses how the participants should read digits, preferably with German accents, for the purpose of an unspecified task. The conversation then shifts towards planning for the upcoming tasks and setting schedules to accommodate a talk by Nancy Chang and talks by members of the group over the next couple of days. + +There is mention of working on code and testing recognizers (Grad B) and parser interfaces to enhance their system's capabilities, especially in relation to a ""recognizer to parser thing"" they were developing for the tourism domain (Grad B). The group seems to be discussing a computational linguistics project involving natural language processing, possibly related to parsing and understanding spoken language for applications in tourism or a comparable sector. + +The dialogue includes technical discussions about grammatical choices, such as adopting a simpler syllable concatenating grammar for English generation or working from an in-depth German model that handles syntactic structures. The group is keen on extending a German system into English to not only produce linguistic strings but also maintain an underlying syntactic tree structure. + +Grad E is identified by Professor F as the ""grammar maven,"" suggesting they will play a significant role in syntax-related aspects of the project. He is potentially tasked to observe the transformation of grammars (likely from German to English) and work on the project's linguistic components. + +A part of their project involves a knowledge module that interprets a speaker's intention based on verbal cues. The conversation dives deep into the specifics of analyzing linguistic structure and user intent within a given domain (like tourism) and how to model decisions based on contextual understanding. + +The group also discusses setting up experiments to collect data, specifically telephonic experiments to analyze changes in linguistic behavior when people switch from talking to a machine to a human operator (again, discussed by Grad B). + +PhD A and Professor F engage in a conversation about the differences between a dialogue manager and an action planner and how they should be more clearly defined to meet the design needs of the project. This part of the conversation touches on the software architecture for the project, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between modules responsible for managing dialogues and those executing actions. + +Another topic that comes up is the adaptation of M-three-L structures (unspecified but likely a representational format or programming language) specified for natural language input within the tourism path domain. + +The conversation concludes with planning a future meeting to discuss these issues in more detail and explore the implications for their project. + +Overall, this academic exchange reveals the complexities and interdisciplinary challenges of developing advanced computational systems that interpret and act upon human languages. The meeting reflects collaborative problem-solving and critical thinking in research where the integration of linguistics, computer science, and user interaction plays a critical role." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the first virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I determine that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Friday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video conference. A record of the proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation relating to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind all participants that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Can I just then, again, note for the record that, if, for any reason, I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Item 2, then, this afternoon is an evidence session with the Welsh Government on the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, Steve Davies, director of the education directorate, and Huw Morris, who is group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Can I welcome you all and thank you for attending? Minister, I understand you'd like to make a short opening statement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Lynne. And indeed, if I could just begin by, once again, putting on the record my gratitude to everyone who is helping us get through this pandemic. There are a vast number of people who are keeping our school hubs open, looking after vulnerable children, and the children of key workers. Because of them, and their efforts, those key workers are able to carry on their critical roles in responding to COVID-19. I am extremely proud of the way that members of the school community have gone above and beyond. They have kept their schools open out of hours, over the weekends, on bank holidays, and Easter. And it is really heartening and humbling to see the way that they have responded to this crisis. And there are teachers, teaching assistants, and many others, who are helping our children and their parents to keep learning at home. I know that home schooling isn't easy, so I want to say also thank you to parents and carers for their efforts at this time. By keeping their children at home, they are helping us to keep people safe, and reducing pressure on our education system, and on our NHS. Be in no doubt, we are facing many challenges because of this pandemic. My primary concern is, and always will be, the health and well-being of our children, of our young people, and of all the staff in our education settings. And I am very grateful to everyone who is supporting us in these endeavours. Thank you very much—diolch yn fawr. And I'm now happy to answer questions that members of the committee may have this afternoon. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister. I'm sure that the committee echoes the heartfelt thanks you have just given then. The first questions we've got this afternoon are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good afternoon, Minister. With regard to your five principles, which you've set out today, regarding when schools will reopen, they're very clear that they require a judgment from you. So could you outline when you think that schools might reopen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Hefin. I am very clear that schools will move to a new phase—because, already, schools are open in many settings; we will move to a new phase when it is safe to do so and when I have advice from the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer that it is safe to do so. I have made very clear in my statement that that is not imminent. I know that in some cases there has been speculation that a return to normal could be with us quite shortly. I'm clear that a return to normal is not imminent, and therefore I'm not in a position to give a date as to when we will see more schools opening up to more children. +Hefin David AM: Have you been given any indication at all by the chief medical officer as to when, in the longer term, it might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I have not been given a date. What I have done today is publish the principles that will aid me in, as you said, me making a decision. So, clearly, we will be relying on the advice of our medical and scientific advisers, but the principles are very clear. Firstly, we will need to consider any decision to have more children returning to school in the context of the safety and the physical and the emotional well-being of children and young people and the staff. Obviously, I can't make a decision regarding education in isolation. It will have to be taken in the context of the wider Welsh Government response to dealing with this pandemic. Thirdly, it is absolutely crucial in making any decisions that we have clearly communicated that to parents and to staff, on the information that we have used to reach any decisions, to build confidence for parents and professionals, but also to give them time to plan. It will be impossible to move quickly to new ways of working. And we also have to look at—and it's been paraphrased quite a lot today—if we are looking at certain groups of children accessing more education within a school setting, which groups they should be. And, finally, how do we operationalise that? How do we make those settings as safe as they possibly can be, and how do we tackle some of the difficult challenges of everything from ensuring that we have adequate numbers of workforce available, to the very real questions about how you would do social distancing in the context of education, school transport issues, how you would avoid people gathering at the school gate, for instance? So, there are very practical issues that would need to be considered and thought through very, very carefully before we could return, before what we could see is a move from where we are now to the next phase of education, and new approaches to what schooling may look like. But, again, I must be absolutely clear to you, members of the committee, and to people watching: it is not feasible, in this sense, that we would move from where we are now to what all of us would regard as normal education and what the operation of schools looked like before the start of this pandemic. +Hefin David AM: So, what is clear from what you've said is that it's going to be phased return. I would assume that would be the most vulnerable—perhaps additional learning needs pupils would return first. Just reading some of the things that you've said today, can you answer that question? And can I also ask: you said that guiding principle No. 3 will be having the confidence of parents, staff and students, based on evidence and information, so they can plan ahead. What will that evidence and information be, and how will you know that you've got the confidence of parents to return? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, primarily, we will need to take a lead from our scientific and medical advisers. I want to also say that we are obviously working on a four-nation basis and keeping in very close contact with my counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. But we're also looking beyond the United Kingdom to approaches to education in the face of this pandemic. Members are aware that we as a nation are a member of the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory. So, recently I was able to talk to educationalists and Ministers in Iceland, other parts of Europe, North America, South America and Australia. So, we're also looking at best international evidence in this regard. And, clearly, we will need to be very clear, as today is an attempt to be very clear with parents and our teaching professionals, and the unions that represent them, about the basis of that evidence. +Hefin David AM: And could I just ask, with regard to the principles, do they then apply to further education and universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, when we are discussing these challenges, we are doing that with our colleagues in both the school sector but also our colleagues in the FE sector, and we're in close contact with colleagues in higher education to share thinking on these matters. +Hefin David AM: But these principles don't apply in those circumstances; these are principles for schools only. +Kirsty Williams AM: These principles are applying to both, and our work in this area is applying to both schools and FE colleges. Clearly, universities, as independent institutions, we wouldn't be able to dictate to. But I want to be absolutely clear: we are working with representatives of the HE sector to include them in this work. And I have received, not assurances, but from discussions that I've had with Universities Wales and vice-chancellors, they are very keen to be kept apprised of these approaches, because they may well wish to implement something similar within their own institutions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a couple of supplementaries now; firstly, from Suzy Davies, and then I'm going to go to Siân Gwenllian. Suzy. No, we can't hear Suzy. Suzy? No. I'll go to Siân, then, and then I'll come back to Suzy. Siân. +Hefin David AM: Chair, I don't think my microphone is muted. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'll move on to my question to Kirsty Williams. Now, it is clear that any decisions that need to be taken on reopening schools would have to be made in the context of all of the other issues that the Welsh Government has to take into account. And it is entirely clear that the approach of Government towards testing hasn't been sufficiently developed for us to even start to think about removing restrictions. So, wouldn't it be dangerous, if truth be told, to start to discuss reopening schools when we haven't had the necessary testing in place for the majority of the population? And doesn't it convey a mixed message that we're starting to relax some of these restrictions when, in reality, the restrictions are still in place and still need to be in place robustly? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, thank you very much, Siân, for that important question. Can I be absolutely clear, and I thought I had been pretty clear in answering Hefin David, that we are not relaxing any of the restrictions with regard to education? As I said to Hefin, it is not imminent that we would see a further phase in the next stage of education here in Wales. What I have done today is to provide clarity on the nature of the principles that I would use when coming to any discussion. It is the responsibility of me, as the Minister, and indeed of the wider Government, to begin to think about planning for the future. But I have been absolutely clear: we are not moving to an imminent change in how education is operating at the moment. And I'm also very, very clear that should we be given the opportunity to see more children in our schools, I will only do that when it is safe for me to do so, when I've been advised by the CMO that I am able to do that, and we have given sufficient time and planning to the sector to respond. It is not going to be easy, and we will need to give them, as a sector, time to be able to address. But if I have not been clear enough, let me say it again: we are not relaxing any issues around schools at present, nor is that imminent. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, I think we can try going to you again now. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Minister, in your consideration of introducing a phased return to school, in due course, have you taken into consideration how things like school absences are going to be managed? Because, regardless of the amount of good work you do on messaging, there will still be some families that don't realise that going back to school is for their particular family. Will there be a relaxation of, effectively, what we would call truancy rules? Or is that something that schools will be getting guidance on much up-front? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. As I said in my statement earlier today, returning to school will not be a return to normal, and in recognition of this, I've already made it clear that I will seek, in all opportunities, to reduce the burdens on school. That includes various data collection, the suspension of performance measures and removing the requirement to undertake literacy and numeracy testing, and, clearly, school attendance will want to be an important factor of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I'm keen to go on now to talk about the current situation as being faced by our children and young people in schools with some questions from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Since yesterday, the Welsh Government has started publishing data on the number of schools that are open, the number of children attending those schools, and the number of staff involved, and they have been making this information available as per capita of the population. On average, I think it's 1 per cent of the children of Wales that actually attend these locations, and some 5 per cent of the staff. So, can you analyse those figures a little further? Can you tell us how many children, according to this data, are children of key workers, and how many are vulnerable children? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Siân. As you quite rightly say, on average, we have 518 school hubs open each day, with up to 4,200 children attending. We have seen an increase in the number of attendances since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. We have approximately 5.6 per cent of the teaching population working in those hubs, and at present, 85 per cent of the children who are attending are the children of key workers, the remainder being vulnerable children. So, we are now averaging 600 vulnerable children per day. These are small numbers, but we have seen an increase in those numbers since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'm sure we'll return to that point a little later on. How much confidence do you therefore have that the arrangements are effective in terms of the safety of staff and children at these locations? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you once again for that. The smooth operation of the hubs, with regard to health and safety, is, of course, of paramount importance. What we have seen since schools closed for traditional statutory purposes and moving to their repurposed function—we have seen a change of pattern over time. So, following my announcement on, I believe, 18 March, the week after, we saw a large number of settings open and operating. As local authorities have been able to understand the demand for those places—from critical workers and vulnerable children—we have seen more local authorities move to a hub model, and we have been able to publish guidance to local authorities on how issues around safe working in those hubs should be followed, and we've been able to give guidance in that regard. Local authorities are asked by us to report any incidents where they are concerned about operation issues on the ground. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As I mentioned earlier, testing is crucially important in dealing with this crisis. So, how many school staff have been tested for COVID because they may have experienced symptoms and so on? And how many of those have tested positive? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding from Public Health Wales is that 15 teachers have been tested for COVID-19, and I believe two of those results have come back as positive. Can I make it absolutely clear, the week before last, Welsh Government issued new guidance around who should be tested? I want to make it absolutely clear to those professionals working in our hubs, if they or a member of their family are exhibiting any of the symptoms, however mild, of COVID-19, they can and they should be tested. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the final question from me on this: how important is testing going to be in this next phase, as you start to think about relaxing restrictions? +Kirsty Williams AM: Obviously, the ability to be able to test, to trace and to quarantine will be critical to the next phase and will be a very, very important and significant building block in all aspects of the Government's work to respond to this pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Siân. We've got some questions now on the impact on particular groups of children, from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Just following on from your answer to Siân Gwenllian earlier about the number of vulnerable children in school, what's being done specifically to facilitate more of those children coming into a school setting or hub at the moment? I'm thinking about the 600 you've talked about, and I know, in one of my local authority areas of Merthyr, which is a very small authority, we're talking about the number of children identified as vulnerable running into thousands, not hundreds, and that's just in one authority. So, this is a particularly difficult issue to address, I appreciate, but how are we going to get more of these children into the hubs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, Dawn. The first thing to say is that the issue of vulnerable children attending settings is one that is a challenge to not just Wales, but also to my colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. I'm pleased to say that we are working across Government departments—myself, obviously, and colleagues in education—with colleagues in social services to have a cross-Government approach to these issues. I think the first thing to say is that these are complex messages, because the overriding public health message from our Government has been to stay at home and children should be kept at home as much as possible, and to make sure that our hubs run smoothly, safely and effectively, we do need to limit the number of children who are attending those hubs. So, firstly, the fact that numbers are small is in some ways a success of our public health messages, because parents have been heeding those messages, but, of course, all of us will have concerns for some children who remain at home. So, I'm pleased to say that we have seen a doubling in the last week of the number of children. So, although numbers are small, they have doubled over the course of the last week. We're working with local authorities and they have assured us that children and young people with a social worker have been risk assessed on a multi-agency basis and are receiving support in a number of ways, and that includes having conversations about some of those children attending the hubs. They're also looking to support in other ways. Of course, some of our children who would be classed as vulnerable—and our definition of 'vulnerable' is one that is shared between the systems in England and Wales—could be children with a statement of special educational needs. For some of those children who, perhaps, have very intense health needs, actually, staying at home is the appropriate thing for that child and that family to do, and we're looking to support families, and local authorities and local education systems are looking to support families, in a number of ways. We also know that just because you don't have a social worker or a statement of special educational needs does not mean that a child may not be vulnerable, and schools are very aware of the needs of those children and have been carrying out regular telephone check-ins where they can—if the age of the child is appropriate—just to keep in touch with those families and those individual children. But we will continue to work across Government to encourage, where it is appropriate, children to attend settings, and, if it is not appropriate for children to be in a setting, that there is contact with those children and young people to ensure that they remain, and their families remain, supported. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Minister. It's encouraging to hear you talk about the ongoing safeguarding of children that are at home and I assume, within that, appropriate referral mechanisms are still in place if teachers or anybody has any particular concern about a child. Similarly, with special educational needs, whereas some of those children benefit clearly from a one-to-one provision in a school, and they may not respond as well to remote working, or remote contact, with an SEN advisor, are you considering in any way any relaxation of the lockdown rule in particular for those children in terms of them being able to access the support that they need for their particular educational needs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, Dawn, you're absolutely right: my expectation is that schools should remain in contact with children and continue to identify vulnerable children, and schools should continue to refer children to children's services if they have any concerns, and that would also, of course, be the case for youth workers who may be keeping in contact with children. So, there is a professional expectation on all those that are working with our children and young people that, despite the circumstances they find themselves in, they should continue to report and refer cases if they see anything or hear or are told anything that makes them concerned about a child's welfare and safety. With regard to children with additional learning needs, I am aware that that can present a number of challenges to families and children, and perhaps Steve Davies could give some further details. We have been keen to work with local authorities to ensure specialist provision, where that is appropriate—so, if I could give you an example of my own local authority in Powys, they have two specialist centres available for children with more profound additional learning needs, and those centres are available—recognising, however, that, even with the provision of specialist hubs, it can be a challenge for some children with additional learning needs to find themselves outside of a routine. Hubs are often staffed on a rota basis and therefore children could be faced with staff that they are unfamiliar with. So, even when local authorities—and the vast, vast majority of them do—have specialist services in place, sometimes that might not be the best thing for a child's health and well-being. But perhaps Steve can give us further details of the conversations that have been taking place with directors of education to ensure that children with additional learning needs have access to the hubs and specialist support. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes, myself and colleague Albert Heaney—colleague-director—have been in regular touch with directors of education and directors of social services to make sure that these children and young people's needs are catered for. We are very aware of all of the special schools—profound and multiple learning difficulties, EBD schools and pupil referral units—that have been kept open in their own way, but also, in some cases, as hubs, to deliver those services for those children's needs, and we're pleased that the directors and the local authorities have responded so constructively. So, we have the details of every school that's open, the pupils who are attending, and we are clear that the risk assessments that the Minister referred to for children with special needs, as well as wider vulnerable groups—they are having risk assessments to make sure that, where there is a need identified for a pupil that is not currently attending a hub, then the local authority can be working with that child and with the parents. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Steve. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Just two more questions. One is around emotional and mental health difficulties being experienced by children and young people at the moment. Now, there was a very welcome announcement of £1.25 million pounds for school counselling. How is that, in practical terms, being applied if those children are not actually in school? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, Dawn: we have to consider how we can support children not only in their learning during this time, but also to recognise the very real impact that the pandemic will have on all of our mental health and well-being—recognising, of course, it is absolutely natural for all of us, including children and young people, to have fears and anxieties at this time. That's a natural reaction to the situation that we find ourselves in. But, of course, there are issues around those children that would have currently been receiving school counselling, and also being able to be in a position to respond to a potential growth in the number of children that are receiving support. So, the additional money will be made available to local authorities to be able to increase and ramp up services to support children and families. In the immediacy, of course, that will have to be done in different ways than perhaps we've traditionally delivered services in the past, because of social distancing and lockdown rules, but we want to get some of these systems in place now, rather than waiting for everything to go back to normal. We need to be able to plan to offer services in the here and now, but also be able to plan for what potentially could be an increase in the demand of those services. So, we've been in close touch with local authorities, asking them what they believe that they will need and how they can use additional financial resources, and we've been very pleased to be able to secure that for them. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, that would include things like telephone and video support as well, I guess, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, that would include remote counselling as in a fashion that we're doing now, but also, as and when some of the restrictions are perhaps removed, looking at an enhanced family therapy, or a therapy approach. So, when we talk about counselling, I think it's important to recognise that there will be some flexibility around this money and it does not necessarily mean that local authorities have to use it on a one-to-one basis. That might not be appropriate for some children, especially our younger children and their families, and they can use that money to provide counselling or therapy—in the widest possible terms—that is the best method to support individual children and their families. But, clearly, we're having to do that in the confines of lockdown and social distancing at the moment. Some of that money can also be used to support the professional learning and the professional development of counsellors, because, of course, they may be being asked to work in a different way and we need to make sure that they have the appropriate skills and abilities to do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Minister. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn, before you ask your final question, I've got a couple of supplementaries—firstly from Suzy, and then from Hefin. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, thank you. My question goes back to the comment you made earlier, Minister, about the number of children doubling—sorry, vulnerable children doubling—after the Easter break, if we can call it that. So, what I'm after is a sense of churn in these establishments. So, was that figure a recovery of a number of children that had been there before the Easter break, and are the people who are there still the same people as were there right at the beginning of the crisis and the lockdown? +Kirsty Williams AM: Suzy, what I believe that we're seeing in our schools is new pupils coming into school. So, there has been, I know, a real effort on behalf of educationalists and social services staff to really reach out to families and to make sure that they're aware of the support that is available out there for them and their children, and to be able to give them the confidence that there are—that the hubs are available for them. So, we have seen an increase in children. Those numbers are still small and, I believe, potentially, there is an opportunity to build on that and to have further conversations with families about the support that is available for vulnerable children, whether that—. That vulnerability, of course, can cover a whole range of issues. As I said when we last met, this is a constantly evolving situation. The initial response—local authorities and schools worked incredibly fast and incredibly quickly to set up these hubs. We've seen an evolution in the weeks since that time and I am sure that we will continue to see some evolution in approaches. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, you had a supplementary—briefly, please. +Hefin David AM: Yes, very quickly. I've been listening to the answers with regard to vulnerable children, following on from that answer. I'm at home with a vulnerable child—a child who has got additional learning needs. She's got autism; she's four. I imagine there are many, many parents in exactly the same position—I've heard from them. I haven't heard anything from the school or from the local authority. Should I have heard something or should I be proactive in pursuing it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to comment on personal cases— +Hefin David AM: But there are many others in this position. +Kirsty Williams AM: —but what I would say is that if parents have concerns and want to have a conversation about what support is available to them and their children, they should contact their local education authority to have a conversation as to what support is available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn, final question, please. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my last question is really about the potential for the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers. Is that a concern for you? I'm thinking particularly in relation to those less affluent families in having access to technology and so on. What kind of concerns do you have about that and what are we looking to do to try to ensure that that doesn't actually play out? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. All of the statistics would tell us that learning loss and the gap, potentially, will affect those more vulnerable children the most. Clearly, we will want to consider that as we think about what the new normal for education may look like, or as we develop into future phases. Depending on where that child is in their educational journey, of course, the needs and the potential for loss are slightly different. So, for instance, when we're thinking about very young children, we could be thinking about a lack of social interaction and the development of oracy skills. Of course, that, potentially, then will have a knock-on to their ability to learn to read and then to write, for instance. For other children who are, perhaps, older and heading towards formal examinations, the challenge when they return to school will be a slightly different one. I'm not sure, Chair, whether you want me to give some further details about our continuity-of-learning plan and how we are looking to address digital disadvantage now, or whether there are questions later. +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, I've got a question on that coming up, so, if it's okay, Dawn, we'll go on to that now. Before we do that, I was just going to ask how the Welsh Government is paying due regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and, obviously, the right children and young people have to an education. I was going to ask you about the risk of inequality due to varying access to digital resources, which are so important in ensuring continuity of learning. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're absolutely correct, Chair. Officials are very aware of our responsibilities towards children's rights in this regard and we are doing whatever we can to ensure that children have an equal opportunity and have equal access to learning at this time. We are fortunate in the regard that, because of previous decisions and investments, we have a strong base on which to build because we have our Hwb digital learning platform and because we have invested heavily in the national purchasing of Microsoft Office and Google for Education tools, which are available to all families. We have become the first, I think—we're certainly the first in the UK, and I'm not sure whether we're the first across the world, but I think we probably are—to deploy, for instance, Adobe Spark nationally. But, obviously, access to hardware and connectivity is crucial at this time. Officials are working with local authorities to ensure that all children have access to both the hardware and the connectivity they need to be able to participate in digital learning at this particular time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just a final question from me: how exactly are we communicating to parents what the expectations are of them in terms of delivering this education at home now? Are there, for example, guidelines on recommended hours of home learning per day of the week or volume of work to be completed? How are we ensuring that parents know how best to lead their children through this at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I recognise what a challenge this is? We've just heard from Hefin who is carrying on his day job as the Assembly Member, but is obviously trying to do that as well as care for and provide learning for his children, and I know, Chair, that you're doing the same, and I'm certainly trying to do the same, and it's a real challenge, it's not easy. As part of our 'Stay Safe. Stay Learning' policy statement, advice is available to parents and carers on the Hwb platform as to what they best can do to support their children. I think the really important message that I've been trying to give to parents is not to be too hard on ourselves. I know that everybody is doing the best that they can in really challenging circumstances. And if they have concerns, they should be in contact with their child's school, but we do have specific advice and guidance to parents on the Hwb platform. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now to some questions on examinations from Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet, we can't hear you. I tell you what, we'll—. Janet, do you want to try again? No. Okay, we'll go on then to questions on higher education and post 16, and we'll come back to examinations, if that's okay. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair. Before we leave continuity of learning, do you mind if I just ask this one question? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, that's fine. Yes, go on. +Suzy Davies AM: Your comment, Minister, on working with local authorities to make sure that individuals have hardware: can you just give us a bit of detail on what working with local authorities actually means? In the process of that, is there any data gathering going on for those pupils who are being educated at home and the levels at which they're engaging? You know, are they sticking with it, or how many are dropping out? Because I think the two of those perhaps go together. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, I'm hoping to make an announcement tomorrow, if not later on this week, about some specific details around support for hardware and connectivity. We're working closely with local authorities to understand just that: to understand from the schools the number of schools that—and a number of them have already done this—have been lending Chromebooks, iPads and laptops to children, and also identifying children who are not perhaps engaging in the activities that have been made available. And we'll be doing two things to support local authorities. The first is to use the stock of equipment that they already have to be able to provide hardware to students. So, we have purchased on a national basis software that, when applied to an old piece of kit, essentially turns it into an out-of-the-box Chromebook. Because, as you can imagine, just like other things during a pandemic, there has been a rush to buy new stuff on the market and then there is a scramble and nobody can get what they need. So, we're utilisng kit that is already available in schools and local authorities, and we will look to backfill that to schools at a later point out of our EdTech investment programme. The other issue is, once a child has a Chromebook or a laptop or a device, issues around connectivity. So, we're also looking to purchase on a national level and distribute Mi-Fi connectivity, so students will be able to have access to Wi-Fi where they don't have that already. That's why we need to work closely with local authorities and schools to identify the level of that need and to make sure the stuff gets to the right children. One of the ways in which we are able to do that is to look at engagement in education. So, if a child hasn't been engaging, is that because they just don't want to and they're voting with their feet—but clearly teachers need to have a conversation about that—or is that because the child simply does not have the ability to do that, and therefore we need to get that stuff out to those children? So, rather than just simply leaving it to local authorities to scramble around in a very crowded market to get the stuff that they will need, we're trying to do that on a national basis and deploy that to local authorities. So, our officials have been having conversations with each of our local authorities to ascertain what's already happened, and there is very good practice out there—schools have been proactive—but where there are gaps, what can we do as a national Government to be able to assist them to do that? We are repurposing some of the resources that we had previously identified for our EdTech investment, using those resources to fill this particular gap. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We're going to go back to Janet now. I believe we've got sound again, so Janet can ask her questions on examinations. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I thought it was something at this end; I'm glad to hear it wasn't. When will vocational learners know what is happening with their assessments, and how will those who have no choice but to wait for a vocational assessment be supported? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. That's a very good question, Janet, because I know that there has been some concern and anxiety around vocational qualification students and how quickly we've been able to provide certainty for them. You'll be aware that Qualifications Wales have been able, in the last week, to be able to give that greater clarity. So, they have announced that learners due to complete their Essential Skills Wales qualifications will receive results. They have also published their approach to how health and social care qualifications will be managed, because, of course, those are part of the first set of reformed quals that we have done on a Wales basis. You are right, there are a group of students who fall into the category where there are technical qualifications that require a certificate of competency to be industry ready—I hope I've explained that correctly—and, therefore, we are working to understand how we can accommodate those students in these particular circumstances. But, at this stage, there may be some delay for that element of their qualification being delayed to a further date. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. What are your expectations for how A-level and GCSE qualifications will be awarded this summer, following the ministerial direction that you have issued to Qualifications Wales? For example, how is an appropriate balance being taken between recognising the progress of pupils in their coursework, mock examinations, and other work to date, and also, the potential of pupils who might have performed particularly well in their examinations this summer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Janet, I understand—and today is a day where some students would have been undertaking practical examinations—I understand how devastating it has been to both students and teachers alike for the decision I had to take to cancel this summer's exam series. But I'm absolutely clear that was the only decision that could have been reached. Qualifications Wales has made it very clear—and for people who would like more information, I would urge them to look at Qualifications Wales's website—how they will go about giving, allocating, and awarding a grade to our A-level and GCSE students. Firstly, teachers will be asked to submit a grade they believe that student would have obtained, should they have taken an exam. And, of course, teachers will have a range of data and their own professional judgment that they will use in awarding that grade. Teachers will also be asked to rank students in order. Once that information has been submitted to Qualifications Wales, there will be a process by which that data will be moderated; moderated from centre to centre and across the nation, thus giving us the chance to award a student a fair grade whilst being, and remaining, true to ensuring that we have a robust qualifications system, and allowing those students who find themselves at a critical stage of their education, where they are looking to move on to the next stages—that they will have the grades that will allow them to make decisions about their future. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. We're going to go on now, then, to the questions on higher and further education from Suzy Davies. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I suppose my first question just goes back to the 16-year-olds at the moment and those who are looking forward to either going to college, the older ones going to university, there'll be apprenticeships, all kinds of future pathways for post 16. What's happening at school level, or even at college level, to get those students ready for the next steps, because, obviously, they're not in their usual environments and getting their usual programme of teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, that's quite right, Suzy, and I should have said in answer to Janet's question, as well—I'm sure people already know, but just to get the point across—that A-level results day and GCSE day will run as normal across not just Wales, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is really important. You're right, Suzy—for those people that are coming to the end of one part of their education this is a particularly challenging time. You'll be aware that, last week, on Hwb, we were able to launch a programme for year 13 students to help them get ready for university. I'm very grateful to the HE sector in Wales, who've worked really hard with us on that. So, for instance, if you were a year 13 student or even a year 12 student that was thinking about or interested in areas around social policy, you could have tuned into a social policy lecturer at Swansea University. If you go to the Hwb website, you will be able to see that there are subject listings, everything from animal science through to law, politics, history and science, with links through to higher education and further education courses that students can avail themselves of. There's also a section on preparation for essential study skills, whether that is report writing or academic writing. So, there is a range of activities and courses available for year 13, so that children—'children'; they're all children to me—young people can get themselves—. They don't have to stop learning, and they can get themselves ready for the next stage of their education. Again, for those children, perhaps, who are coming to the end of their GCSEs, there is a range of information, either within their own schools or within their local colleges about things that can keep them learning. So, for instance, I'm aware of one school where you can go onto the website and there are recommendations of, for instance, what you could be reading over the summer if you're interested in doing this particular A-level in September. I know that there are also moves in schools and in colleges to be able to make sure that those children don't miss out on really important careers advice at this time, as well, and information, so they can make informed decisions. I know that people are working hard to link up children to advice services that are available so that they can make those really important future decisions with the advice of either a teacher or other professional so that they've got those options. So, there is material out there and it's growing all the time. This week, we were able to launch our virtual Seren network. You'll be aware that, for the last couple of years, we've been able to send Welsh children to the Yale global summer school. Clearly, that can't happen this year. That's devastating for those year 12s who had worked so hard and had won a place on that programme. They will now be able to attend the Yale global scholars programme virtually and remotely, because Yale have moved that programme online. So, we're developing materials and resources all of the time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. Before I move on to my next question, can you give me some sort of sense of how that Hwb domain is being populated? Where is all this information being sourced from? Presumably, they'll be working with partners, but what does that look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, my goodness. Yes, absolutely— +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, we're working very hard. So, everything from our work with the BBC, for instance, and BBC Bitesize through to our FE colleges and our HE institutions, as well as other organisations in the third sector who are looking to provide those opportunities. Can I just say that, last week, we were looking at, every day, in the region of well over 150,000 logins a day into Hwb? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's great. So there's proactive populating of Hwb. That's what I was after. That's great. Just going back to some of Janet's questions and the assessed grades, I want to talk to you about the unconditional offers and where we are with that at the moment for entry to universities, because there's going to be a scramble now of the available students for further education, but primarily higher education institutions, across the UK. Is the moratorium on unconditional offers still standing? Are there conversations going on to extend that moratorium? Otherwise, this scramble is going to potentially negatively affect our universities quite considerably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you'll be aware that a moratorium does exist. It exists in this current context to 1 May. We continue to keep in close touch with colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and in the Westminster Government around these issues. Officials are also in touch with UCAS, and in the last couple of days I've had at least three meetings with representatives of the Welsh higher education sector to discuss these matters. +Suzy Davies AM: I just want to ask you now about students and their maintenance loan grants. I think they're getting, around now, the money going into their bank account that they would normally have expected at this time of year. That's right, yes? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's correct, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What's happening to those students who would normally be living in digs somewhere but are now living at home? Are they likely to be asked to reimburse part of the cost, because obviously it's not as expensive to live at home as away, and what's likely to be happening with the maintenance loans over the summer holiday period, potentially? Because we've had a period now where students can't top up their maintenance loans by going out and working on weekends or working in the evenings, or whatever, so their income has been impacted. Just in the round, what kind of conversations are happening around that? Again, it's probably a four-nation approach, I would imagine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. You are correct to say that our student support regime does allow for a lower payment to be made to those students that stay at home during their studies, but I want to reassure students that there will be no change to their student support payments just because they have left their universities and have decided to go home. There should be no change. Also, we are continuing, it should be important to say, to pay education maintenance allowance at this time for our FE students that are eligible for that, even though, obviously, for EMA there is an attendance requirement, but clearly that is not appropriate to enforce at the moment. You are correct—this is a worrying time for many students in higher education, especially for those who are looking to graduate at this time and are going out into an economy that has been tremendously badly hit by the pandemic. At this time, we continue to have conversations with NUS Wales about what can be done within a Welsh context, but, as you quite rightly say, also within a UK context, to support students who may have been affected. We are continuing—on our webpage we have a frequently asked questions section that advises students in the first instance, especially when it comes, for instance, to the cost of accommodation—to have those discussions, and I'm very grateful that, in some cases, some of our institutions have been able to waive or partially waive accommodation fees where students have vacated their accommodation and have returned to their usual home address. But we will continue to have dialogue with NUS Wales and with our counterparts across the country to look to see what more we can do to support students at this time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer, and, yes, I was pleased to see that announcement through the NUS as well, so well done to those accommodation providers who have a heart. I think we'll all have seen the Universities UK document that explains some of the difficulties that they're going to be running into if this proceeds much further. My understanding is that the main emphasis at the moment is to try and get all the universities across the UK through this initial period of difficulty by releasing as much money as possible. I can see that your figure to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales was a little bit down on last year's letter—not that there's been a remit letter yet, but an indication. Are you releasing that money earlier so that they can use it more swiftly, or does that not matter? +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you come in, Minister, that is going to have to be the last question, just to make you aware of that, because we are coming up to the end of our time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, Suzy, we are working closely with Universities Wales and have a lot of sympathy for the proposals that have come forward from Universities UK, which Wales's universities have been a part of forming. Stability in the first instance is really important to us, which is why we've been able to give an indication to HEFCW about resources that are available, and we've been very clear to HEFCW that we want to be as flexible as possible in how they use those resources to support institutions. That potentially would mean reprofiling the way in which money gets out to institutions, but clearly we will need to have an ongoing discussion about how we respond to the immediacy of the issues facing HE, how we can get stability for the next academic year, and how we then can support the sector through what is a really challenging time for them. We will do that in a Welsh context and we will continue to do that also in a UK context, because you will have seen the scale of some of the figures that have been talked about in terms of the impact on the HE sector at this time. Clearly, a four-nation approach to that will be crucial. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Well, we have come to the end of our time, and, as to anything that we didn't ask, we will have to write to the Minister. Can I just thank the Minister and her officials for your attendance today? We know how busy you are dealing with the pandemic and we very much welcome this opportunity to have this discussion with you. So, thank you, Minister and officials for your time. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. I see that Members are content, so we will now proceed to meet in private. +","The conversation is a transcript of a virtual meeting of the Children, Young People, and Education Committee. Lynne Neagle AM chairs the meeting and welcomes members, noting the public exclusion due to health protection reasons. The session is broadcast live. The main agenda item is discussing the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on education in Wales, with witnesses from the Welsh Government including Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education. + +Kirsty Williams expresses her gratitude to those involved in keeping education going during the pandemic, acknowledging the challenges, and stresses health and well-being as her primary concerns. She indicates that the reopening of schools is not imminent and will depend on advice from health officers and established principles. + +Questions from Hefin David AM focus on when schools might reopen, with Williams clarifying that no specific date is available, and that various logistical and health considerations must be planned. + +Sian Gwenllian AM raises concerns about testing capacity and potential mixed messaging about easing restrictions. Williams assures that no relaxations are currently taking place nor are they imminent for schools. + +Suzy Davies AM inquires about the management of school absences and expectations in this unusual context, and Williams indicates flexibility with regard to normal attendance rules. + +Further discussion highlights the low average attendance in school hubs, the testing of school staff, and future planning phases. Concerns about vulnerable children, including those with additional learning needs, are addressed, explaining multi-agency risk assessments and various support methods in place or being developed. + +Dawn Bowden AM questions support for children experiencing emotional and mental health difficulties. Williams explains the allocation of additional funds for counseling services, including remote possibilities. + +The conversation then touches on the digital divide and access to technology for remote learning, with meticulous planning steps described by Williams to ensure equal opportunities. + +Discussion on examinations follows, with updates on arrangements for vocational and academic assessments, along with the challenges and plans for students transitioning to post-16 education. + +Higher education issues around student maintenance loans, university accommodation costs, and the potential financial impact of the pandemic on universities are explored, emphasizing communication with NUS Wales and a collective UK approach. + +The meeting concludes with the committee agreeing to proceed in private for the remainder of the session." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is everyone ready to start ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Great . Well , welcome to the third meeting of conceptual design . I'll just get the PowerPoint presentation up and running . Okay . Um , on the agenda for this , um , for this particular meeting , we'll have your three presentations on what you've done since our last meeting , after we came up with um some general ideas of our design . And , um , then we have to make some key decisions on , on our remote control concept , and how we're gonna make it , what uh materials we're gonna use , and that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The meeting will be forty minutes long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um we will once again have Poppy as our first presenter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and I will switch up PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Should be just loading . {vocalsound} Okay . Oh , although I can't see it on my screen . That says go here . Okay . I've been doing some research into the different components that we could use , um what's available to us f to actually make the remote control . Um , first of all we have to look at how the remote control is actually made , and what is it happens inside the casing , which is more your field . Um , thes main internal feature is a circuit board , which contains all the elec electronics and also the contacts with the power source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is not necessarily a battery , as we're about to see . Um , there are several components of , um , the circuit board that we need to consider , where we'll be getting them from , what they'll be made of . Um , including the integrated circuit , which is also known as the chip . Which is where all the main information is uh contained . Um , diodes , transistors , resonators , resistors , and capacit capacitors all need to be considered as well . Um , and all their positioning in the circuit . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Are they all included , like mandatorily , or r are these different options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , these , they're all different options , they're all separate , apart from the chip , which we will probable decide whether we buy a simple , a regular , advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can go into that later . Um , all the other things are individual components that we'd have to get in separately , and work out the most , like , effective um circuit , including all the wires and everything like that . And the L_E_D_ of course , that's a light emitting diode . So , we could , so we've got flex flexibility with colours and things , with that as well . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , there are lots of different possibilities for the energy source . We could use a basic battery , but that brings with it , like they need to be recharged and the bulk , the size of it as well . And they're not so great to dispose of , environmentally . {vocalsound} There's a hand-powered dynamo which is a sort of thing that was used for torches fifty years ago . A bit out of date . Kinetic energy is something that's been recently developed . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} What is a hand-powered dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: Um , where you manually charge up the power . +Project Manager: Just every , every once in a while ? +Industrial Designer: Like you wind up something . +Project Manager: Just every once in a while or constantly ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? Yeah . Every once in a while I think +Project Manager: Alright . It'd be kind of strange to always be cranking it I think . +Industrial Designer: . But it's {disfmarker} Yeah . It would be like going a step back in time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it would really be with kind of cutting edge technology . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Whereas kinetic energy is a new idea that's being used by some watches and other devices , where you just shake the device and it gives it power . I mean , the kinetic energy is transformed into power to make the circuit work . Um , or there's solar power , which we've been considering inside a building , which is where it's gonna be used , might not be quite so useful . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: But , good to look into , renewable energy , always the way . Um , lots of considerations for the case , like what sort of shape it would be , curved or flat . That's got a lot to do with the ergonomics . Like how it's comfortable and s sits in the hand . We don't want something that's huge and you can't pick up . Or too small . Or too slidy . I know I've had a remote control before which you couldn't tell which was the front and the back , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it had so many buttons on , and the shape was so symmetrical that I'd be pressing like a volume button instead of the on button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't really see which way round it is . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um , we also can choose what materials {disfmarker} um , the {disfmarker} we could use metal , we could use rubber which might be more um ideal for the anti-R_S_I_ . It's like the same sort of rubber that's used in stress balls and things like that , so it's very like soft , not so stressful on your hands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , again , stepping back in time again there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that's quite up to date with what we're looking for here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , titanium is not gonna be possible , even though it just it beyond our budget really . But , would've been maybe for future projects . Um right our choice for buttons as well . We've developed some {disfmarker} we've got some good advances in technology , with our research team have found some uh new multiple um option scroll buttons . I think that was brought up for , um , {disfmarker} they're basically quite a flexible design , modern , you don't have to use individual buttons . You can just slide up and down . I'm sure we're all quite familiar with those on mobiles or computer laptop pads . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um one thing with the scroll buttons though . It , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we would have to have an L_C_D_ um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Project Manager: display , and the glow in the dark thing might be difficult . +Industrial Designer: And that would lead to an advanced {disfmarker} yeah . If we have {disfmarker} yeah . We're going on to that later with the advanc with the L_C_D_ that means we'd need a really advanced chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's unlikely that that's gonna be in our budget . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , also we've got the integrated pushbutton , which is what we're most familiar with . It's the most straightforward . But you can in like incorporate that with a scroll button as well . {gap} . Got decisions to make there . And this is what I was just saying before . Linked in the different {disfmarker} depends on what type of buttons we have and the inputs . Um simple would go with the pushbutton . Um , regular you could link with the scroll button . And the advanced we'd have to go with a L_C_D_ s display . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My personal preferences ? I think we could go for the kinetic energy source . I don't , I think that's quite um an advanced kind of technology . It's not been seen before , so it could be quite a , a novelty factor , attractive as well . And also energy saving 'cause you're producing the energy , you don't need an external sort of battery supply or solar panels . You just give it a shake . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds brilliant to me . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Rubber casing I thing would probably the best , if we're going for the anti-R_S_I_ and like more choice with um aesthetics . Like it could be pretty much any colour we want . Um , and gives you , yeah , more flexibility there . And probably the regular chip as opposed to the simple , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then we could possibly have the scroll and the push , but no L_C_D_ , 'cause we probably can't afford that one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um , one concern with the rubber casing is that it would be rubber encapsulating all of these {vocalsound} chips and diodes and delicate technology as +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like as the exterior . This is the one thing that's protecting its innards . +Industrial Designer: I think that would , uh there would be an in sort of more internal casing . And the rubber would just be the , what's in contact with the human . +Project Manager: Yeah . Another thing is it might be more difficult {disfmarker} if it's a rubber exterior {gap} talking about putting on interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't see how a like a rubber plate going on top it would stay there . Like if it was sort of like a clip-on plastic plate . It would work that way . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if the , um , if it was just kind of a , more of a rubber coating which was on to a case . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: So , it was kind of , the whole thing would be removable . +User Interface: Like plastic with rubber , kind of on top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} I can't think of what . +User Interface: Well , there's , there is a certain phone that has like a rubber casing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or like an {disfmarker} +User Interface: b like a Nokia it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you can get sort of outer casing for iPods and something , that's just {disfmarker} it's protective as well . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like the skin ? +Industrial Designer: It , it stops it , I mean , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it would reduce the impact if it was dropped or something , as well , 'cause it wouldn't damage itself so easily . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . So maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think i maybe a mixture of both there , maybe . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the actual remote would be hard plastic and the casings rubber . +Industrial Designer: And then {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the buttons obviously are rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That sounds good . I , um , is it possible to put designs onto this type of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: As far as I know . It should be . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll just say yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , just why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . I like the kinetic energy source idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know when people will , um , be moving a remote around a lot . +Industrial Designer: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think that it's worth it , kinetety , kinetic um +User Interface: Yeah , tha +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: energy source . It could make an we could have any kind of style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It wouldn't be as heavy or bulky , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just for environmental reasons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess it's a bit scary 'cause it hasn't been done before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it seems {disfmarker} we'd have to do more research on it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or I dunno if you could have a battery pack . +Industrial Designer: Like as a backup for something . +User Interface: Backup . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah so there's there is a one battery , because most remotes use two batteries I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , if it was running off of one battery as a {disfmarker} +User Interface: That would be good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Some alternative just in case something went wrong . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Maybe we could {disfmarker} you were saying about um solar power ma maybe not working indoors , but a lot of calculators , yeah , have solar power . +Industrial Designer: That's true . I just thought of that {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So maybe that could be incorporated as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May maybe that could be the backup . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Instead of a battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like solar backup . +Marketing: Although it needs some light , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose +Project Manager: Yeah , you can watch a T_V_ in the dark then . +User Interface: Do , do those calculators {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: s but some {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if we're doing {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . If we're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But thing is , it's not {disfmarker} you don't need the solar all the time . +User Interface: I don't know how it works . +Industrial Designer: It can be stored . It can be like {disfmarker} you can have the solar energy and then it can store that energy and use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just needs to be in light for a certain amount of time per day . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a few hours a day . {gap} . +Project Manager: I think that might be a little impractical though . +Marketing: Yeah . I think sometimes it's just shoved under , under a cushion , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . It could easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like people don't wanna have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I suppose it would be really annoying if you get to think , oh no , I forgot to charge my remote today . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if the kinetic thing , I think what's best about that is that it's instant energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to , you know , you can shake it a few times , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it works . +Project Manager: Or just like pick it up when you're gonna use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Instead of you don't have to like make sure it's in the right place to charge and {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Cool . +Industrial Designer: K okay . +Project Manager: 'S that the end of your presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: There we go . +User Interface: Thanks . Oh . {vocalsound} It's not on my screen . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it wasn't on mine either . +User Interface: Why ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know why . I think , I just , I just used the mouse on there . +User Interface: You don't know why ? Oh okay . Is it that one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I'm just gonna go through the interface concept with yous now . Uh , first of all I'll explain what a user interface is . It's the aspects of a computer system which can be seen or otherwise perceived , for example , heard or felt maybe , or {vocalsound} by the human user . And it's also the commands that the user uses to control its operation and to input data . Um , there are two types of user interfaces . There's the graphical user interface , which emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device , for example a mouse for input control . So that's sort of like the scroll thing we were talking about . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm not really sure about the pictures that {disfmarker} maybe that's on an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Or maybe it's the the buttons or pictures or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Do you think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I suppose sometime {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm sorry ? +Industrial Designer: after you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , because command interface requires you to type textual commands and input at a keyboard , so the numbers are sort of like a keyboard . You're pressing the numbers for , um , for what you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So you must , for the graphical user you must need some kind of presentation for the graphics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I s I suppose where um mm on some buttons you would have {disfmarker} like the power would be s some kind of symbol . +User Interface: Like an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And if you wanted to go onto teletext or , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not having that , but I mean a similar thing , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you , they have {disfmarker} there's a like little picture with a screen with lines across it , which {disfmarker} I suppose it's that sort of thing like the , the symbol on the button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if we're having a simplified display anyway , w that , we probably won't have to focus so much on that . +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll be doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'll be more the on the numbers and the volume . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It'd be more a command interface , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we need to think of symbols for like the volume , display , and stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just draf graphical for the pointing aspect ? +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: The infrared is like , that's considered a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm ? +User Interface: No I think it's to do with the actual symbols that are on the , that's on the buttons of the remote control , and per +Marketing: Okay . So when it says pointing device that doesn't include {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For inp +User Interface: Well it could be a wee scroller thing , and something could come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think they're talking about L_C_D_ type things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um I think we're gonna go with the command interface anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to make it more simplistic . But the , we could incorporate some of the graphical user um points , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: as in {disfmarker} just to make it m um nicer to look at maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you mean ? +User Interface: Like {vocalsound} I can't think of an example , but {disfmarker} Sort of like little pictures rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , like how the buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a little sound . Instead of saying volume , like a little speaker or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a button though . +User Interface: Yeah , something y +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So , it's a keyboard in the shape of it , right ? +User Interface: Yeah m perha yeah . Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . I like that idea . +User Interface: Um , the co uh {disfmarker} we've decided that the command interface would be the most useful for a remote control . As it would be less complicated , and the controls would be more user-friendly . Um , the remote control would be cheaper to design , so that we'd have more money in the budget to , um , target the design area of the interface . You know , make it more trendy and original . We'll have more money if we keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm sure i like kinetic energy would probably dip into the budget . A bit more too , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Seeing as it's quite a new technology . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We , we also have to keep in mind when we're designing our , um , more user-friendly remote control , that a lot of interfaces consist of a clutter of buttons , that , um , that their functions , colours and forms aren't always helpful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . That's in like the buttons with all the different like colours for different choices and things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It can be a bit , yeah , overwhelming . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . And that all interfaces are different . So , um , that doesn't improve the use of the produ product , so we need to come up with something that's easy to understand . And maybe learn from the mistakes of other interfaces that can be too complicated for people to use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Does anyone have any questions ? +Project Manager: Do you think that we should keep all the buttons to one same colour , just to keep it , give it a simplistic look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think if we go with the um design plate thing , we'll have to . Just because of colour clashing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if we wanted to , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so and , and we might , I mean , depending on what comes out of the design , we might have to stick to just black buttons . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But what about the lighting up effect ? +Marketing: You mean different colours for the lighting or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , well , um , I thought we had um decided that we would {disfmarker} if you touched one of the buttons they'd all light up . And so if they were black , it wouldn't be possible for them to light up . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Oh I see what you're saying . +Project Manager: If they were white they would glow , probably . +Marketing: Well y +Project Manager: If they were made out of rubber . +Marketing: Oh so you're picturing the light is coming from the back . I kinda pictured it as kind of coming from the sides and lighting it up frontwards . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: But , but I guess , you mean from the back . +Project Manager: Where would the light come from ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd assume , like , an internal light , that comes through . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there would have to , have to be some parts maybe transparent around the buttons , or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and well rubber is a more translucent product too , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: so we have that taken care of . +Industrial Designer: It should be able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm . +User Interface: In the phone that I was thinking of as well , when you change the um covers of it , the , the little buttons that actually , you know , that contro control stuff , are behind the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Li yeah . +User Interface: So you can change the buttons when you're changing the faces . Do you know what I mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: 'Cause it's just the wee control , +Marketing: Yeah . They , they insert over . +User Interface: yeah , thing that's behind it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , we don't have to decide on one colour . Each face could have its own colour of buttons maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , if they're raised up buttons . So that you can feel them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We were talking about it being more um , a lot more tangible . +Marketing: T +Project Manager: Um , it might be more difficult to do . If they're , if they're sticking up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's flat then , like o like on a cellphone or a mobile phone , it's like all very flat , and you just have to sort of press down on these tiny little buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would be possible . I don't think it would make that much difference . I mean , the uh the dimensions of it . 'Cause if it's just like constructed in the same way as like the front cover of a mobile phone . You can like take off the hard cover and then there's the like say the buttons . And then you get to the circuit . I don't think it would matter that the buttons were bigger through the , the top casing . I'm sure you could f work it out to fit in the casing , without causing too much difficulty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure that'd be fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . If it's do-able we can do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , sounds good to me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's everything , then ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you . +Marketing: Okay is that my turn then ? +Project Manager: That means you're up . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} I have a shorter report for you today . Um , it took a while to get this , uh {disfmarker} Uh . +Industrial Designer: You're not plugged in yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a very good point . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so um , this report is about uh trend-watching . Um , basically so we can live up to our , our uh purpose of having a very fashionable remote control . Sorry . There we go . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , just so you know , my method was mainly web web-based research this time around . I also spoke with fashion experts in Milan , New York and Paris . And I looked at the design reports from previous years , here at Real Remote . Um , just so c we can work off of them , see how fashions have changed . Um , {vocalsound} so I'll list the three most important aspects that I've come across . Um , and they , they're each more important than the one that comes after it . Uh , the first one is that there should be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look-and-feel . Um , this should be our priority , as we've been saying . The second most important aspect is that a remote sh that the remote control should be technologically innovative . So , I think we've done a lot of talking about that , just with lighting and the buttons and the {disfmarker} face-plates . Um , so it looks like we'll be able to keep on track with that . And the third most important aspect is that the remote control should be easy to use . {vocalsound} So , pretty basic there . And the recent fashion update , uh , according to fashion-watchers in Paris and Milan , is that fruit and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} Um , also , in contra uh in contrast to last year , the feel of the material is expected to be spongy . Again , we've already discussed that with rubber versus hard plastic buttons . Um {disfmarker} So , my personal preferences here , um of course , as {disfmarker} we , we've already talked about the personal face-plates in this meeting , and I'd like to stick to that . The fruits and vegetable themes , I don't know if that's going to work for us . It sounds something that you'd use on kitchenware . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know if we wanna do it on remotes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It could be one of the options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Maybe for the television that people have in their kitchen . Um , the temporary light-up idea , sounds like we're gonna stick to that . And then , uh , tying in a trendy look with user-friendliness . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's the fruits and vegetables is the only area that I find rather jarring . Everything else we can really , we can really +Industrial Designer: It is strange . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , do , according to our plans already , given the market . But fruits and vegetables seems a very strange idea for a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's , it's a little {gap} but it , it's everywhere . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we {disfmarker} I've seen a lot of purses with olives on them , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I I think , I think if we stick to T_V_ based , you know , maybe T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they still need to um fit into people's decor though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or colour schemes . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} I think we possibly could take a more abstract design . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Like look at the basic shapes of different fruits and vegetables . And then just really like strip it down to like really basic shapes . I mean we don't have to make something in the shape of a strawberry , but it could have the curves of a strawberry , or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or a strawberry seed or a leaf . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} The essence of strawberry . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or just like you know really make it a quite abstract , if that's fits in more with what we're doing . Instead of fruits and vegetables , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just {disfmarker} if you look at it straightforward , it's a bit {disfmarker} yeah . It doesn't s quite fit in with the trendy {disfmarker} well , obviously it does , if that's the current theme . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} may maybe we could go more directly , I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But initially , I dunno . I think if we just sort of tone it down a bit . +Project Manager: Tone it down . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and like not , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: like more like photos of fruit , on , on our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Or banana-shaped . {vocalsound} +Marketing: One thing I was thinking though is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if you all remember from our kickoff meeting , we talked about our favourite animals . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe there could be animal-based , you know . Because a lot of people have a house cat . Or , or a dog . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , that might be getting , you know , too specific , and we should see what the success of the first face-plates are . But it's something to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , did you have any questions ? Pretty straightforward ? +Project Manager: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , given that information , we need to start making some more specific decisions . So I'll need to um hook up the PowerPoint again . +Marketing: There you go . {vocalsound} Have you guys been saving your PowerPoint presentations to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't for the first one . But I have now . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: But it's still around right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , hopefully +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Where do you have to save it to ? +Industrial Designer: . Project documents I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm just trying to make this pop up now . Alright . Here we go . Okay so we have to uh decide now exactly what we are going to do . So energy , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: oh . Oh no I can't write it in when it's in this setting . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Does anyone know how to take it out of {disfmarker} Um , +User Interface: Just escape I think . +Marketing: The PowerPoint ? +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah . Okay . Um , so back to decisions . Energy , we've decided on kinetic , right ? +Industrial Designer: Kinetic yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's good . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to have a backup ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or do we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But would a backup really be necessary ? I mean will people just use the battery if there's no , if there's , +Industrial Designer: I think maybe we could just go for the kinetic energy , +Project Manager: if there is backup . +Industrial Designer: and be bold and innovative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and hope this works , and well hope that it works . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's like no reason why it wouldn't work , right ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} no . I , I think we should just like take uh advantage of like using this to its full potential . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It could even be one of our selling points . +Industrial Designer: Go for it . It could be {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fully kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Environmentally conscious or something . +Industrial Designer: Is everyone happy with that ? +Marketing: So if it's not working they just have to shake it a bit and that revitalises it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Hope so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , the next um decision is chip on print . I don't exactly know what that means . +Industrial Designer: Um , it was whether we went for the simple , the regular , or the advanced chip . And that linked in with what buttons we would gonna have , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , and we were going for more simplistic style , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that was without the L_C_D_ . So that means we're not doing the advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it depends on whether we wanted the scroll buttons or just the push buttons . +Project Manager: I think we decided on the pushbuttons , right ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , so that's the simple . +User Interface: Yeah . I don +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Would we need a more advanced one for uh the lighting , the interior lighting system ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah possibly . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So , it's probably gonna be the regular chip that we're going to need . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a medium . +Project Manager: That's called medium , or regular ? +Industrial Designer: So regular chip . Regular sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Marketing: Oh , is regular not simple ? +Industrial Designer: Lighting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's for the lighting , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the lighting that we've decided to put in as well . +Marketing: Right right right . +Project Manager: Okay , and cases . Um , does this , is this dependent on shape , or what it's made of , or what ? +Industrial Designer: So th I think this is just like gonna be the {disfmarker} a very outer case , which we will decide on rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I guess plastic and coated in rubber . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic with rubber +Industrial Designer: Plastic rubber coat . +User Interface: plastic coat . +Project Manager: coating and interchangeable um +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable , yeah . Still going for that . +Project Manager: yeah , interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . User interface concept . This is your time to shine . +User Interface: We decided on the component . I , I I'm sorry , I've lost my um {vocalsound} PowerPoint thing , so I can't remember what it's ca it's the component {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your screen ? +Marketing: Think it was called command interface . +Industrial Designer: Was it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Command interface , {gap} . +User Interface: The command inter +Project Manager: Command interface . +Industrial Designer: Ouch . +User Interface: The command line interface yeah . +Project Manager: Did you say command line ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Line interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , and supplements . What's that all about ? +User Interface: Um , I think that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well we haven't really made any decisions about what we're gonna do about the cluster of button functions , colours and forms , in the {disfmarker} in consistent use . Like what what are ideas to combat these problems ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know how um different interfaces are very different , and can be confusing because because of their difference , and because of the different clusters of buttons that they have . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We haven't really decided what to do about that . +Project Manager: Um , what are our choices here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it's just um w where where shall we locate the buttons . What kind of functions wi shall we have ? +Project Manager: You mean like we'll have the numbers of the channels , and we'll have the channel-changer , and volume , and power ? +Industrial Designer: The power . Volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So pretty {disfmarker} just just the basic button functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Like I don't know if we should go into like adjusting light levels , things like that , because different televisions will have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May yeah . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tone , contrast , and things . That's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That was on , um one of my presentations . About how often it was used . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was minima +Marketing: Do you remember that ? +Industrial Designer: well , it wasn't the l +Project Manager: Yeah , it was hardly ever used really . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I w {vocalsound} Should I bring it up ? +Project Manager: Yeah . And most televisions will come with a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That would be good . Yeah , and surely that would be like quite specific to the individual television , +User Interface: Yeah , each television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay , well we know we want numbers . +Marketing: The ch t Screen settings was used um zero point five times an hour . So tw twice every {disfmarker} once every two hours . Um , and it was considered a one point five relevance , on a scale of ten . That's brightness , colour , tone , all that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think most of that comes like on the i individual television set itself , +User Interface: You don't change that often , yeah . +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? I'm sure it has its own buttons , so you don't necessarily need to have it on remote . +Project Manager: Yeah , it does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , and different televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like we , I don't know if we can make a remote that would be universal to all the different kinds of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: changes like that . +Industrial Designer: So we're just going for power , channels , volume , +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: The other one was audio settings . Mono , stereo , pitch . I mean I sometimes use that . Some T_V_s will have the option of like living room style , movie style , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that , they say that's used zero point eight times an hour , which is actually somewhat high . Like almost once an hour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , relevance of two . +Project Manager: Oh . We have five minutes to finish our meeting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Crap . Okay , um , let's do this fast . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well that didn't some up on mine . +Project Manager: Should we have audio ? It only comes up on mine usually . +User Interface: It w {vocalsound} it would seem silly if we'd {gap} having anything else , just have an audio button though . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Do you know ? +Project Manager: I don't , I {disfmarker} it's , it's a problem with the international uh appeal , I think . Um , if we have audio because we don't know how other televisions work . But we know that everyone has this and it's the same . +User Interface: But we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess that it affects the marketing , 'cause it , {vocalsound} mm it is a good sales ploy to say , aren't you annoyed with remote controls that have all these buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: This one has channel , volume and your channe and your power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . We can just go for , make it a selling point that it is just the basic . +User Interface: That could be a sales pitch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Simple and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: brilliant . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . And , okay , in closing , 'cause we only have five minutes . We'll be meeting again in thirty minutes . Um , you'll be working , Poppy will be working on the look-and-feel design . Wait a minute . Is that right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep , and um the user interface design , so this is where the trendy stuff comes in . And you'll be evaluating the product . Um , Poppy and Tara will have to work together , using modelling clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , um , your personal coach will give you the rest of the information of what needs to happen . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . So , anyone else have something to say ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just have one question about the whole fruit and vegetable aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Are we {disfmarker} seeing as that was the most popular thing that came up out of your market research , I thi I think we should keep to that rather than moving to animals or something , because even if that may not seem obvious to us , if that's what the surveys brought out , I think that we should probably go along with that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I suppose that'll come out in our dev design development . But you're happy to go ahead with the fruit and veg ? +Marketing: Now do you guys need {disfmarker} want an idea of how many uh {disfmarker} are you gonna come up with casing ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah . +Marketing: Like f five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} five . {gap} . +User Interface: What I {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} what do yous think of this ? Um , having the numbers kind of like , not a bunch of grapes , but you know like purple and kind of in a triangle . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like grapes . Like that's kind of fruity or something . +Marketing: Yeah you can have some fun with the buttons , it's true . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can have a look at those ideas , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess what you i ideally you'd kind of think of age markets as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's a something that will , you know , appeal to the fifteen to twenty five year olds . Something that your granny would want on her remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , and international tastes as well , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tricky . {vocalsound} A lot of things to consider . Hm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not easy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Lots of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay we'll stick to the fruit and veggie theme then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And , um , we'll reconvene in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Bye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll see you later . {vocalsound} Oh , what did I just do . Okay . +","The project team holds their third meeting on conceptual design for a remote control project. The agenda includes presentations from team members on progress since the last meeting, decisions on the remote's design, materials, and technologies and discussions about design and market trends. The meeting includes contributions from the industrial designer, user interface specialist, and marketing manager, covering aspects like circuit board components, energy sources, casing materials, ergonomics, button types, and fashion trends. Key elements include using kinetic energy as the power source, rubber casing with plastic and interchangeable plates, a regular chip for the internal electronics, and maintaining a simple user interface for user-friendliness. They also discuss incorporating a fruit and vegetable theme into the design to stay on top of fashion trends. Decisions are made collaboratively, and the meeting concludes with plans to reconvene shortly to continue work on aesthetics and interface design." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay um , welcome to our detailed design meeting . I'm pretty excited . Let's start it's approximately fifteen forty or something like that . Okay um the agenda {disfmarker} we're gonna do an opening and then um I'll talk about the minutes from the last meeting , what we d discussed um , then we'll have the prototype presentation and a look at the evaluation criteria . We'll look at the finances and finally a {disfmarker} do a production evaluation and close . So , starting off with the um last {disfmarker} the last one , oh I don't have it here um , but we talked about energy , we're gonna use a kinetic battery um , we want to use a simple chip , because we're not gonna need a a shuffle um , we're gonna need a scroll um , we're choosing a latex case w in fruity colours that's curved and um we're using push buttons uh with a supplement of an on-screen menu . And it sounded like we had set um like eight or nine buttons , including five pre-set channels . Okay ? Let's do the look and feel design presentation first . +User Interface: Right , do you wanna start ? +Industrial Designer: Right , well we made three different prototypes and I guess we'll start with with this one . Um we have our colours not {disfmarker} are not fixed , but this is the general shape . Um it's {disfmarker} you hold it sort of either like like this in your left hand or you switch it over and uh it's easily adaptable to either hand . You can push the buttons with your thumb like a mobile phone , or you can push them with your index finger of your other hand , or even {disfmarker} I mean there's a whole variety , you can hold it like this and press it with your same index finger . Uh we have the on off button at the tip , very visible , very big . We have our up and down buttons , which are also gonna be our channel selectors , and we have our little menu button here . If you push {disfmarker} if you're just pushing these normally , they're the menu buttons , if {disfmarker} uh the volume buttons rather . If you press select once , they become channel changing buttons . If we press select three times , the menu with the other features and pro possibly also with your T_V_ channel choices shows up , and you have your five presets down here . Um if people wanna grab hold of that , see how it feels in your hand . That's our number one prototype . Um do you wanna present the potato , +Project Manager: {gap} like a little lightning in it . +Industrial Designer: or shall I present the Martian ? +User Interface: Okay , +Project Manager: The little lightning bolt in it , very cute . +User Interface: um {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} We call that one the rhombus , +Marketing: I could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The v the rhombus rhombus ? +User Interface: uh the rhombus . +Industrial Designer: That's the rhombus , yep . +User Interface: Um this one is known as the potato , uh it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how can I present it ? It's an ergonomic shape , so it it fits in your hand nicely . Um it's designed to be used either in your left hand or or in your right hand . Um I've gone here just for just for four buttons on this one . Um the two blue buttons here are for adjusting the volume . So you've got volume up and volume down on the other side here . Um the red ones are for uh changing channels , channel up and channel down and that's um moves between your favourite channels that you've selected . Uh this middle button here brings up the on-screen menu and when you're working in the on-screen menu you use the other four buttons to navigate around the menu system and the middle button uh to select and that's basically it , that's the potato . +Project Manager: Um on , off ? +User Interface: Uh that would be one of your channels , basically , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: so like channel zero would be t to switch switch the machine off , +Project Manager: Yeah we turn it off . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Could the middle button of the on-screen menu function as a power button ? +User Interface: Um not really , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: it would make it hard to turn the machine off , to turn your T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If you pressed and held it maybe . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , that that'd be one way of doing it , yeah . That'd work , yeah . +Marketing: If you like held it down , that would be on off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On off , that's a possibility , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And then finally we have um the Martian or the pear , either way . Um it's a bit different , just a little bit more of a creative feel . Uh you have the on off toggle stem on the top . {vocalsound} We have the five preset seeds {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you have on the sides to make it a little bit more three-dimensional , you have your channel changing , volume changing buttons and your menu button right here in the middle . So , that's for your consideration as well , plus it's an interesting talking point to have standing up . +User Interface: Let's pass . +Industrial Designer: We figured it could stand up like this on your table , if you wanted it to , if I made the bot the bottom flat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , what's the yellow one in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh the menu select button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I forgot . +Project Manager: {gap} Very interesting . {vocalsound} I think that one's my favourite . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} So that's our three prototypes . Um basically , in terms of making decisions , what we'd need to do is first of all decide on a form uh which of the three different shapes we want , then decide what kind of button layout we want , how many buttons , and then to choose what colours we want to make the buttons and if we wanna put any text on the device , like label on the buttons or put a brand name or or a logo on it or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We were we were thinking that normally we'd go for fruity colours , but maybe we're also thinking that your sort of middle aged man , for an example customer , might not want a fruity coloured remote , so m maybe we'd have one version that's a bit toned down , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: maybe with with less contrasts on it . Yeah , something still a little bright to make it hard to lose , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Would {disfmarker} Yeah , but we don't want it to look like a kids' toy {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Now that was one thing that we brought up over email . I don't know if you picked up your email , but um the f the um feature that we considered for it not getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well we were we were talking about that a little bit when we got that email and we think that each of these are so distinctive , that it {disfmarker} it's not just like another piece of technology around your house . It's gonna be somewhere that it can be seen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we're we're not thinking that it's gonna be as critical to have the loss {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it's like under covers or like in a couch you still can't see it . +Project Manager: It's really {disfmarker} Would it be very difficult to um just have an external device that like I dunno , you tape to your to your T_V_ um that when you press it you ha a little light beep goes off ? Do you think that would be conceptually possible ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it would be difficult technologically , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because if your if your remote's lost it's probably under the settee and in that case you can't you can't send an infrared sing signal to it to find it , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: s so it's {disfmarker} I'm not quite sure how it would work +Project Manager: That's true , mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then I wonder if it's if it's more just a gimmick then anything else . Uh I mean ho how many times do you really , seriously lose your remote control and would would a device like that actually help you to find it ? +Industrial Designer: There might be something that you can do in the circuit board and the chip to make it make a noise or something , but it would take a lot more development than we have this afternoon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , that's a fair evaluation . Getting lost . Um we {disfmarker} so we do we've decided not to worry about that for now . Okay 'cause {disfmarker} well , the designs are very bright , so you're right , they're gonna stick out , but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So d do people have a preference as far as feel and functionality ? Um . +Marketing: I feel like this is simil {vocalsound} or it's sort of what already exists so if we're trying to think of something sort of like new and fun , even though this is like what you're init I'm initially drawn to , just 'cause it's like comfortable and like not different . I sort of like this one , like I I don't know why , it just it's like small but still sort of like cute looking , I dunno . But I also like the b the side buttons on that one , like I think that's kind of neat . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I dunno how much any of this has to do with the fashionable , sort of cool looking thing that we also need to focus on {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Could we maybe have like an extra button on the top for on off ? So then w we wouldn't have to have like a dual function ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Ah , +Industrial Designer: that's good , that's good . +Marketing: there we go . +Industrial Designer: Here , stick it on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Put an extra the button on {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh why don't we do a product evaluation using your criteria , if you've developed some ? +Marketing: Well do we w {vocalsound} like I think we're supposed to have one that we do it for . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay . +Marketing: That was {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So where {disfmarker} +Marketing: I was a little vague on what exactly I'm supposed to do , but let me {disfmarker} I have to like write something on the whiteboard , so . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you need this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or just write on the white board ? +Marketing: No , I actually don't have like a PowerPointy thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: 'cause I think it would be redundant . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's kind of like uh like a joystick kind of thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh . +Project Manager: you know , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: kinda push it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a little smaller than that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , I kinda like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's hard to miss . +User Interface: It makes look more fruity as well . +Project Manager: Oh it does , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's kind of like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like a deformed foot , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There it could have a stem like that , 'cause I do l kind of like the stem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . It almost helps you ge keep a grip too , 'cause it goes in between fingers {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Interesting . +Project Manager: I like this one . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Variety of colours are nice . +Industrial Designer: is that where people are leaning then , the potato ? I like the idea of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think I'm leaning towards the potato . +Industrial Designer: I mean that's really gotten the simplicity of the buttons down , that one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I am worried about like um using a menu . Um in that {disfmarker} like i withing menus there are submenus , and so how do you get back to the main menu ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that {disfmarker} on the iPod , for example , you just {disfmarker} every time you wanna go back you hit the menu button again and it brings you back one level . +Project Manager: But that has a menu button separate from a select button , whereas if this one's both the menu and the select button ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: This is , it's {disfmarker} the up and down buttons are used for scrolling up and down for a list of choices . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You find the choice that you want and you press uh you press the right button uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could these be used for going to submenus +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so they're used for going into and out of your submenus , yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: maybe it can be one of those , if you press down and hold for two seconds , then it brings you back one level or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Well , as long as we have that in mind as we're designing it still , mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay , so which one are we sort of roughly looking at to address whether or not it meets our s um necessities , the yellowy one is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The potato ? Are we leaning towards the potato ? +User Interface: Potato . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think so . +Marketing: Okay , well we can obviously change it after we go through each different one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So basically what we need to do is some of the things that we've talked about before we need to make sure that that remote actually does conform to the things that we said it was going to . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So what we sort of wanna do is that we each need to separately rank each of the following things and then I'll tabulate an average just to make sure that it does meet that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we'll just go through them one at a time and we'll just go around and each of you can tell me on a scale of one to seven with one being really extremely true and seven being not true at all , or false , if the remote that we've created conforms to the following criteria . So we can do this one first . First we wanna know if it meets the fancy look and feel um objective . So like in my opinion the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} for now at least , the yellow one is probably somewhere in the middle so I'm gonna say it's like a three . That's just my opinion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does {vocalsound} each of you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I kind of think it's it's unique enough that I'd give it a one or a two . +Marketing: Okay , well give it a number , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I will give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno if it's it's creative . I dunno if fancy is the word I would use . I dunno if any of them are fancy in {disfmarker} I'd say two , because c unique . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll go for two . +Marketing: And two , awesome . Alright , and same sort of scale for functionality , is it functional ? I think it's extremely functional , I'm gonna give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One ? +User Interface: I think it's it's functional , it's also pretty basic , so I'll give it a two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um functional . I think it'll get everything done , I think it might be a little confusing at first , um , I don't know if that's gonna be a later one . +Marketing: Okay . Well there's some other ones , I will address that , +Project Manager: Okay , then I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: yeah . Awesome , okay . Um we wanna know next if it's technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Did you give a functional {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , she said it was one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um is it technologically innovative ? Mm . Not really , I mean not so much , 'cause we we don't have the L_C_D_ screen , we don't have fancy chip . Other than what it looks like , I dunno if it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , the kinetic battery . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the battery , that's it . +Marketing: I kinetic battery is a big one , so . +Industrial Designer: How many people would notice that , though ? +Marketing: Mm . But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they'll notice it after like a year , +Marketing: but we know it's there . +Project Manager: they'll be like hey , I have never changed the battery . +Marketing: And if it's made of like latex , that whole idea , that's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . Just the material . +Marketing: I'll give it a three . 'Cause it {disfmarker} we could've picked a lot of features that would've made it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I would say that it's {disfmarker} Yeah , like fancy versus creative it's it's different . But does that equal innovative ? I dunno . I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Alright . Everyone else ? +User Interface: I'd say it's technologically it's not it's not unique , I mean it's it's just {disfmarker} it is just pushbuttons um , so I I'd give it a four . +Project Manager: Think I'm gonna go with the four as well . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: I really like that kinetic battery though . +Marketing: Next , is it easy to use ? Just so you know , easy to learn will be separate , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: so don't overlap them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think it's really easy to use . I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Um I'll give it a one . Pretty hard to mess up . +User Interface: I'll say one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's say two . +Marketing: Alright . Um we next wanna see if it has a spongy quality +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {vocalsound} if indeed it's made of latex or rubber I {disfmarker} it's spongy all the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I wonder if it bounces when you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Ooh , that you couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be harder to break , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: harder to lose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause there would be less impact maybe , {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Iain , what do you give it ? +User Interface: I'd I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Alright and the next is , does it integrate some notion of fruits and vegetables {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Well , is it gonna be yellow ? +Industrial Designer: It it might be , 'cause that's our corporate colour , isn't it ? +Project Manager: That's right , yeah , corporate colour , we didn't keep that in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um well +Industrial Designer: We might wanna keep it yellow . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} I know it would make it a little less c a little more confusing , but if we had all the buttons in black , and a design in {disfmarker} and the outside in yellow , that'd be our corporate one and we could also have alternative colours , one a more conservative one , one that's more fruity . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , but if you had like a silvery kind of white or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and can we have like an R_R_ inscribed on the bottom or something ? +Industrial Designer: If we had a yellow {disfmarker} Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity , so fruity . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , so I think it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was inspired by the potato , so I think it's pretty fruity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think i it's kind of mangoey too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , mango +User Interface: Mangoey is better , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like mangoes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay , I'm giving it a one {vocalsound} the mango {gap} put me over . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's a much more trendy than a potato {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} what's everyone's numbers ? +Industrial Designer: one . +User Interface: Uh two . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright um , and does the design match the appropriate behaviour ? Remember earlier we discussed that people don't use a lot of buttons , that they use the channel flipping and the volume the most . I think we really took that into account a lot , so I'm gonna give it a one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Uh one . +Marketing: Did you say one , Rose ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Okay um , also we talked earlier about R_S_I_ and wanting to prevent um any sort of like Carpal Tunnely kind of thing . Do we think that the latex sort of grip appropriately takes that into account ? I think I'll give it a two , 'cause I almost feel like no matter what you do , something is gonna happen . +Project Manager: It's gonna be hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And if it's repetitive movement it is gonna be only four buttons that you're constantly pushing , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um um worth the risk , I think . +Project Manager: I like how it fits in the hand though so I I'd go with a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'll I'll say two as well . Because older people that aren't used to like texting with the thumb might find it a bit at first , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I'll I'll say two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , awesome . And the ease of learning it . I know you were saying that you're a little bit nervous about that , I dunno . It sort of reminds me of the iPod . I just got mine , I still haven't read the instruction book and I'm doing okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I'm not good at learning technology . So I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: The menu system and the the fact that multiple buttons are used for different things might be a bit confusing , but I think if it's one it's one of those things that it might take you five minutes to figure out , but you'll have it afterwards . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I'd I think I'd give it a two I guess . +User Interface: I think it it's probably a little harder then most remotes to learn , because you have to you have to use the menu system and you have to tell it what your favourite channels are +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +User Interface: and that could take a bit of learning at first , but +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: once you've , yeah once you'd learned how to use it , I think it is a lot easier . So I'd I'd give it a four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think I'd give it a four too . It's a pretty high learning curve , it'll be easy once you've done it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright , um also earlier we had something about losing it and so now we're not addressing that at all , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we can kind of say we addressed it with colour , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so in terms of not losing it , do you think that on a scale of one to seven , how easy or hard is it to lose ? I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a four , 'cause I think that you can still {disfmarker} if it's in between somewhere where you can't see it , you're kind of not gonna find it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but anywhere else it's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um I'd say I'd give it uh a three , I guess it depends on how tidy you are normally . +Project Manager: Mm I'd give it a four . +User Interface: Um I'll give it a five 'cause i it would be easy to lose something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Small too . +Marketing: Alright , we also said simplicity , {vocalsound} how w how well does it address just being simple ? +Industrial Designer: Simple to use or simple in design ? Do you know ? +Marketing: I think overall , 'cause we had said before our two main things were simplicity and fashion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so those are the next two things we're gonna look at . Separate from fancy , like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um it like wants to be simple but it's not like totally totally simple , so I'm gonna give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I'm {gap} give it a three I guess . +User Interface: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Alright , and fashionable ? +Project Manager: It's totally fashionable . I'd give it a one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's hot , I mean it's a mango , come on . +Project Manager: Mango . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean how fashionable can you make a remote ? I think it's bringing technology and fashion together real really well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's quite as fashionable as my robot remote +Project Manager: I do like uh the little Martian one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or alien or whatever he was . +Marketing: Yeah , the toggle on off switch , it's really appealing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Number . +Industrial Designer: Um two . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: And does it meet our like demographic need sort of for international appeal , that whole thing ? Just that it would se serve our audience . I don't see why not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think as long {disfmarker} if we offer in a {disfmarker} in at least three different colour arrangements . Um yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'll give it a a two {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll say two . +Marketing: Alright , did anyone have any other features that they think were important that we didn't talk about ? +Project Manager: Well um we didn't we didn't address the fact that it does need to b have a corporate logo , so let's let's make sure we keep that in mind that we ha that one of our colours concepts is corporate and has an R_R_ on it . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh {disfmarker} Well I think all of them should have an R_R_ . +Project Manager: All of them should have R_R_ , yeah . +Marketing: And so we're gonna do that , so it will address it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: fine . Okay . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: That's me . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're gonna look at finances . Um I have an Excel sheet that we're actually gonna calculate the cost um , so let me exit out of this first . Okay um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh my . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoa . +Project Manager: I know . Let me {gap} one more space . Gonna zoom in real quick . {gap} Okay . Hand dynamo . We're using kinetic battery , +Industrial Designer: Uh we're n using kinetic , yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Um and we're having one per {disfmarker} One , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um electronics . +Industrial Designer: Single . +Project Manager: Simple . +Industrial Designer: Simple , simple rather . +Marketing: Simple . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um the case . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh double-curved . +User Interface: Guess it's double-curved . It is pretty curvy . +Project Manager: It's very curvy , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I never did get a picture of those so I don't really know . Our case material supplements {disfmarker} oops , we just skipped by them . +Marketing: Well don't we need plastic , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we we {disfmarker} the plastic is the plastic for the inside is assumed . The supplement is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Provided , okay . +Project Manager: The wood ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I guess it was rubber rather than latex . +Project Manager: I mean the rubber . +Marketing: It was rubber and special colour , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Marketing: Do we have more than one special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we're using {disfmarker} we're gonna need at least two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Special colours , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what the se the basic colour is though . +Marketing: Per {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno where it {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Well , but we know that we're having at least three colours , +Project Manager: So let's y say three . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , are we talking about on each colour combination or are we , you know , we'll {disfmarker} like we'll have yellow and black . Is that two special colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . That I thi +Industrial Designer: Or or is white and black , then two more or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I thought that would be under yours . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I guess it's three , +Project Manager: We'll just say three . +Industrial Designer: three three {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Maybe the R_R_ will be in colour as well , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: so yeah . Interface , we're doing push buttons . And how many buttons do we have ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have six . +User Interface: We've got five {gap} . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Six , with the power . +User Interface: Oh {gap} +Marketing: Oh +User Interface: six . +Marketing: no , five . {gap} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . Oh , we'll {disfmarker} do we wa Are the buttons in special colour , special f I didn't get information on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , +Marketing: Oh wait . +Project Manager: buttons {disfmarker} oh , so um . So the case material will just have one colour , right , +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: but then the buttons will be in special colours ? +Industrial Designer: does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but if we're making multiple varieties of {disfmarker} this is where I'm getting confused . +Project Manager: We're saying per unit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} per unit , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , per unit . +Project Manager: Okay , so each unit will only have one colour on their {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright , and each button s +Project Manager: but the case is {disfmarker} could have up to thr I mean the buttons could ea could be up to three colours , 'cause that how it's designed there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I like it like that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Special form ? They're all kind of just push button , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Special material ? +Industrial Designer: Material , we want them rubber as well probably , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . Oh do {disfmarker} I have to do it per button , do I ? +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . I think they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if they're all gonna be rubber then it {disfmarker} that's what it matters . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause it wouldn't make sense otherwise , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause for the whole mat case material it's only one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} I mean it's two to make it rubber . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Oh wait , so maybe . +Project Manager: Thirteen point seven . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , what can we reduce ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's have our buttons all be one colour . +Marketing: Mm , I kind of like the buttons . +Project Manager: Let's see what that would do . It's only gonna bring us down to thirteen point three anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay um , are we sure this is double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Maybe it's single-curved , +Industrial Designer: We have no idea . +Project Manager: we have no idea . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , I didn't get any pictures . {vocalsound} It's single curved . +Marketing: It's single curved . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Well it's not the {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , it's the kinetic battery that's kind of expensive , but we have a simple chip , single curve , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: case material is rubber and it's a special colour , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's important . Six buttons {disfmarker} we have to have six buttons . +Industrial Designer: That is important . How did it get more expensive , what did you just change ? +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: It was it was thirteen and now it's fifteen . +Project Manager: No , okay , maybe not . I don't know what just happened . Now it's twelve . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What was our target price again ? +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five . Hey hey . +User Interface: Twelve point five . So we're just just about there . +Project Manager: So we're okay , I think . +Industrial Designer: We're all set then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ish . +Project Manager: Okay , we're all set . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um save . I saved that to our um our big shared folder , so you know . Um okay , back to agenda . {vocalsound} Um are the {disfmarker} are the costs under twelve fifty Euro ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , they are . +Project Manager: Let's move on to the project evaluation . Project process . Satisfaction with for example the room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , the means , any new ideas found . So I guess what we're gonna talk about here is just evaluating how we created this project , the information we got on the news , how we used it , if we were able to um , you know , use our creativity with the information , um how how well I guess I led it , um the {disfmarker} how well we worked together as a team , um the digital pens , the whiteboard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well . I felt very creative . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we've been successful +Industrial Designer: I enjoyed making the prototypes . +User Interface: in that we've achieved almost all of the design goals that we've set {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and we've come up with a finished project and we just about got {gap} cost . +Industrial Designer: I think we could've done even better with a little bit more information , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like what's a single-curved case , how many colours , what do colours count +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: things , but given given what we had I think that we did we did really well . Um I think we worked together pretty well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean {vocalsound} if I'd had more market research on the {gap} fruits and vegetables , maybe we could've taken that into account . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But the fruits and vegetables , they really {gap} my creativity , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I really did , the the whole mango idea was great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you think we could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I mean I thought the pen was a little distracting for me personally , like its heaviness , and like just being so conscious of like turning the pages , I dunno . That was a bit of a distraction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That was the last one , like I chose not to do a PowerPoint 'cause I didn't think it made sense to , so I liked that I had the option to do that and just to take my own notes and that whole sort of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think we all made um very significant contributions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think anybody dominated it , which I thought was really good , like each of us was able to um like each of you had your information and I uh I tried to facilitate it without like taking over , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I like our little finished products . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can we market this as the mango remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're funny . +Project Manager: Really cute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I kind of want one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we have that somewhere on the packaging ? I have a little R_R_ . +Marketing: I'm trying to think of a good pun that I could add there {gap} . +Project Manager: I know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's think of it like a little jingle . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the R_R_ , that's gonna be etched in . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hopefully not with just my fingernail at some point but um it's quite a useful little gadget . All thanks to Iain for the design of that one . +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay um +Industrial Designer: Mm . What did we find for new ideas ? +Project Manager: new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: People should really base their remotes on fruits and vegetables . +Project Manager: Definitely . Or or at least be c p creative enough to think of toggle switches mm +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: etcetera . +Industrial Designer: I I am really into the idea of kinetic batteries now after reading about them . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm so excited . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I didn't even know they existed . +Industrial Designer: I I knew you can get watches that had them , like really quite expensive watches that just never need a battery , 'cause you're always moving your wrist . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But in other things , I think it'd be really good . +Project Manager: I thi yeah , that's awesome . Um okay , closing . Are the costs within the budget ? Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Now there's the final questionnaire and meeting summary . Um so , this is the great product kids , I think we've created something really interesting and that we have a market for it , um especially if we can produce it at twelve point three +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we hope um {disfmarker} yeah . Make sure in your questionnaire to put down criticisms of both the process and the um the final results and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I do like the Martian remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we could choose more than one , that would be my second choice . +Marketing: Oh , that would definitely be my second choice . +Project Manager: Although the tog toggle +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm afraid I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's cool . Let's all let's all go for the yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I would break it . {vocalsound} I would break it . +Project Manager: It's cool . I think I would break it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It started because I wanted to have it as st as a stem +User Interface: Break the stem off . +Industrial Designer: and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} alright , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is {disfmarker} it started as a pear , but then it started looking more and more like a Martian +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: when I put the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Kind of looks like a penguin , like {vocalsound} with no eye {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take me to your leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , it's kind of a penguin . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: I like that it stands up . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Wow , maybe I should market it to some remote control company now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That was bound to happen.$ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , sad . +Industrial Designer: poor little thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , congratulations . Um . Anything else to say ? +Marketing: Nothing will come up until after our meeting's supposed to be over , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: its all timed . +Project Manager: Um anybody have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got more master classes , anybody else wanna like take a master's class ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really funny that you got spam in your work emails . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but check it out . So like there are all these like links , they don't go anywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But all that you need to keep in mind your {gap} knowledge management . Um just wanna make sure you do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No the first one that you sent like I didn't realise that it was a joke and I was like why did she send this to us ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very it's very work relevant , +Project Manager: It is . +Marketing: 'cause people send spam a lot . +Project Manager: Yes definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Let's see , +Project Manager: I'm very sad that I didn't get any links to the corporate website . {gap} . +Marketing: Oh here you can you can view . +Industrial Designer: what did I get through the corporate website ? It's just inspiration about circuit boards . +Marketing: You can just see what's up . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah it's it's really deep . Hold on . Takes a little while to get excited to load . That {disfmarker} the Excel thing is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is pretty neat . +Project Manager: I love Excel , +Marketing: Here , like , basically +Project Manager: it's one of my favourite programs . +Marketing: it's like inspiration , basically I'm gonna give you two sentences on fashion and that kind of thing , see . You didn't miss out that much . +Project Manager: I see , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my inspiration from from last time is the in interior of a remote control being taken apart bit by bit , talking about circuit boards . +Project Manager: Spongy . +Industrial Designer: I learned a lot actually . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I could probably take apart a remote control now if I really needed to . +Marketing: Oh wow . This one was cooler . I got a whole table and everything . +Industrial Designer: Now I have all about circuits and chips and transponders and {disfmarker} I wrote it all down , because I thought it would be relevant , like all the different parts of the inside of a remote control , but then they're like , you don't actually need this {disfmarker} you just need to talk about the case . +Marketing: That's like mine it was like , would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen or a multifunction remote control ? And then it didn't have like any kind of table , like awesome , I'm glad they asked that question and didn't report the result {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I I thought it was a little tricky having to hand around this thing . +Industrial Designer: It's really interesting though . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had a lot of the um {disfmarker} otherwise the technology {gap} today was kinda cool . +User Interface: I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That was really neat how I got emails +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: We didn't we didn't use the whiteboard that much . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Although I don't see how we could have very l at least for me +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah . If I'd gotten pictures of the different parts of the case , the different looks of the case , I would have probably drawn them up , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we weren't like voting on anything and I think usually , like whiteboards are good , you know like crossing out ideas , or like if we had had like a brainstorming period . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could've put our brainstorming stuff up there rather than just talking about it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but with only four people it doesn't really make sense . +Marketing: But I thought we were good orally . +Project Manager: And with and with the PowerPoint that we can all look at , like you can do all those things pretty much on PowerPoint +Industrial Designer: I think if you had a larger group {disfmarker} +Marketing: Get crazy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: as that's not as necessary to have . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And these might've made us more willing to like take notes than to like write up them here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause we all needed them separately , kind of on the whiteboards in this room . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because we're all gonna be working in different places . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} if we were all gonna stay in here all the time , then having the notes up on the whiteboard would've been alright , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but everyone needs their own , like specific notes , I guess . +Project Manager: Now when you were um creating your um prototypes here , did you work together or did you like do separate projects ? +User Interface: Uh we we worked together , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but we were making like we sort of made different shapes and then discussed how the how the buttons might work , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um and how we could like improve on the on the design . +Industrial Designer: So it was a bit of both really , we just kind of started out by each taking a colour of clay and just fooling around with it and I came up with that rhombus shape +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and he came up with the sort of potatoey , mangoey shape , and then just went from there really . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: It was fun . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So well done with the management , I felt well managed . +Project Manager: Oh thanks . +User Interface: I think we did well in first of all giving our meetings the time , +Project Manager: It's kinda fun . +User Interface: and second we actually we we did a good job of making firm decisions at the ends of the meetings . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That happened to me all the time though . +User Interface: I know what happens sometimes is that you tend to sort of have meetings and then people sorta drift away without anything actually really being decided . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think here we got we got clear and and decisive decisive points {gap} at the end of the meetings , so that we we knew where to go on from there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was quite worried at the end of the last meeting that we weren't getting {disfmarker} we didn't really have enough information to make firm decisions , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but we were able to do it regardless , so . I'm not usually a very decisive person , so it helped to have people say this needs to be done in five minutes . +Project Manager: This is what we'll do . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I found that we did {disfmarker} we could have used another five or ten minutes sometimes in the meetings . +Industrial Designer: Especially last time , +User Interface: Yeah , for some of the meetings , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah I think the last time we had a lot of information , but at the same time not quite enough , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you know what I mean , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like we we couldn't answer every single question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . And I I felt the first two meetings , that I was coming in with no information , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and not sort of made me really like , ooh I don't know {vocalsound} , throwing together PowerPoint out of no no information and then last time it was like the opposite . I had so much information and so much to talk about . +Project Manager: It was interesting what came out like later , like as I was doing the {disfmarker} when I was doing the breakdown on the agenda that they gave me um , that more points came out from your presentation even . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um . I'm a little {disfmarker} I am a little disappointed that we didn't do a {disfmarker} um something for losing the remote , because that was kind of a big point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} that was something like {disfmarker} in order to talk about that we would've had to have actual knowledge about circuit boards and {vocalsound} things like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well the problem was , even when we just were creating from the Excel file , there wasn't like a option to select to somehow have it included , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so there was no {disfmarker} we could be like yeah , it has it included . +Industrial Designer: I think we were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: There was no way for us to have +Project Manager: Considered the re +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: written down that it was really there . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we were just getting overenthusiastic with the task {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's interesting that they {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we really got into it , I mean I got into it as the day went on and I got really like , ooh I'm designing a remote control , I dunno if that's just me , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was interesting though that they put that fifty percent of people say they have frustration with losing their remote and yet they didn't provide us with information to um {disfmarker} we weren't provided with information to discuss that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know that like people people have like things they can put on their keys that you press it and it'll beep , but I but I'm sure that would require some kind of technology +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: that {disfmarker} I just don't know what it is , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think there are some of those like infomercial remotes that have things so you won't lose them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I mean we were talking about it and like i in my household at least , there's only about two places that the remote is ever +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause there's only one T_V_ and there's only like three chairs . +Marketing: That's like saying you're never gonna lose your keys , and I always do , anyway . You'll lose 'em in your pocket , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you just will forget that {disfmarker} or you like put it down somewhere that like made sense and then not remember , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: there's always ways to lose things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It d yeah , it depends on how organised you are personally , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or like I guess what the setup of the house is too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But , I mean {disfmarker} I am notorious for losing my keys , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just {disfmarker} I guess I've just never lost the remote . I put my keys in the refrigerator the other night {vocalsound} and couldn't find them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I was putting groceries away . +Marketing: That's funny . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: You you're taking stuff from a bag and putting them in the refrigerator and then go back to my room . +Project Manager: Can't get in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't get in , look all around the kitchen . Definitely in the vegetable drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's funny . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I always do that , leaving it in my coat , and then like using a different coat . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But I guess it's 'cause we don't carry remotes around that much . +Marketing: Yeah . Can't really take it into the other room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe with our little robot one we could've had him have a {disfmarker} robot , alien , pear , whatever he is , have a little voice like , I am located {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh a G_P_S_ system , {vocalsound} internal G_P_S_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh man . Here you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should make one that walks by itself . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Although if it's sitting still for too long . {vocalsound} Yes I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That really could get up and walk away {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or or like some crazy like electro-magnet , that you push it and it'll go zoom to the T_V_ and stick there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Or little {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Or just just a wheel , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like you'd have a remote for your remote , that'll {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but if you could attach them to the T_V_ , then you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} zoom {disfmarker} Yeah . Hmm . All kinds of possibilities . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . Sorry , I'm just um trying to update my minutes . I decided to {disfmarker} you know how I sent you the email saying that PowerPoint minutes will be complimentary , rather than like repeating them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just gonna make {disfmarker} I'm making full minutes , so that it'll include all of the agenda and all that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: 'Cause that seems a little more useful . +Industrial Designer: Wow . 'Cause you've had like the most typing and organising to do . +Project Manager: But I didn't have like information to sloth through either , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} How much of your PowerPoint was already done for you , every meeting . +Project Manager: Most of it , mm-hmm . I added slides , um I added a couple slides each time , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: but that was about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , I didn't even think about adding slides , 'cause I would just get slides with titles on them +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and fill them all in w didn't even think about adding more . +Project Manager: Well , the thing was they would provide y an agenda with s like several points , but it wouldn't have a slide for each point . And that's the only way I remember that I need to go other that point . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah. . +Project Manager: {gap} I know personally when I do PowerPoint , that's what I do and so {disfmarker} I had it once , even if it was just like the title of it , like the three presentations , and I would do your three . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You have you have to have the slogan on it or can it just be like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The slogan on it ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , definitely not . +Project Manager: No no no . +Marketing: Okay good . +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Cause I was like , it could go around the outside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't think we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we just need the um the R_R_ , +Industrial Designer: I think the R_ and R_ , especially if the yellow and black one . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Is it yellow and blue ? +Industrial Designer: Or yellow and blue . Lemme go to the web page . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just kinda going by the web page , 'cause they didn't give me any clear , like yellow , grey , or {gap} . +Marketing: Oh I guess it is black , grey . Grey is better than black , doesn't look so bumblebeeish . +Project Manager: I don't really like yellow in general . +Marketing: Hey now I understand the random like newsclippings . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Wasn't it interesting that um {disfmarker} I thought it was interesting that our market marketing um expert did not agree with the marketing um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: the marketing choices , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that was a bit of a conflict . +Marketing: I just feel like if you're really doing like a a really big market evaluation , you wouldn't just have like one set of source , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's kind of an {disfmarker} they were so not backed up , it would just be a sentence {gap} like we did a survey , this is what people said . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: S mm , I dunno . +Project Manager: People are stupid . +Industrial Designer: I guess it i it sort of a grey , isn't it ? Yellow and grey , but then the slogan's in blue . +Marketing: Well we got some grey and we got some blue buttons , we're good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we don't have the right colour clay anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe , like {disfmarker} I don't know . {gap} That could always be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well we're not , sadly , going to actually be producing this , so {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: If they ever come out with potato {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato mango shaped remotes . +Marketing: I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm claiming it intellectual property . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I can't believe a whole day is gone . I don't feel like it's been that long . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Get sucked in . Mm I haven't gotten questionnaire eight yet . +","The detailed design meeting for a new remote control project commenced with the Project Manager welcoming the attendees and expressing excitement for the task ahead. The meeting was scheduled to start around 15:40, and the agenda for this session included reviewing the minutes from the last meeting, a prototype presentation, evaluation of the design criteria, financial analysis, production evaluation, and the meeting's closure. + +The Project Manager began with a recap of the previous discussions, which included decisions to use a kinetic battery for energy, a simple chip to avoid the need for a shuffling function, and selecting a latex case with fruity colors and a curved design. Push buttons with the addition of an on-screen menu were to be incorporated, with roughly eight or nine buttons, including five pre-set channels. + +The User Interface Designer and the Industrial Designer presented three prototypes with various shapes and functionalities, none of which had fixed colors but suggested general designs. The first prototype featured a left or right-hand adaptable grip, big visible on/off button, channel selectors doubling as volume buttons, and a small menu button. A lively discussion ensued on the feel and appearance of the prototypes, the selection of materials, button configurations, and potential colors. Marketing considerations about broad audience appeal and non-fruity color options for conservative tastes were also deliberated. + +The discussion shifted to brainstorming solutions for the common issue of losing remotes, such as adding a find-me feature. However, it was acknowledged that due to technological and time constraints, addressing this issue wasn't feasible for the project. + +The team then dove into financials with an Excel sheet crunching numbers to ensure that costs remained under the target budget. After some adjustments, the team achieved a satisfying price close to €12.50 per unit, which was within the budget. + +Closing the meeting, the Project Manager invited feedback on the project process, including creativity, leadership, teamwork, and the tools used, like digital pens and a whiteboard. Overall, the team felt satisfied with their collaboration, despite expressing a need for more information on certain topics and reflecting on the effectiveness of some of the tools provided. + +In conclusion, the design and development of the remote control involved an interplay of creativity, user interface considerations, marketing insights, financial planning, and project management. The end result was a novel and potentially marketable remote control device – the potato-shaped, push-button prototype with mango inspiration that was color-coordinated with the brand, posited within budgetary restraints. + +The meeting closed with administrative housekeeping tasks and final comments from the team members. They briefly touched upon the idea of marketing the design, imagining more fanciful features such as a remote that could navigate back to a TV. + +Overall, the cross-functional team demonstrated enthusiasm and engagement throughout the meeting, showcasing a balance of technical and creative effort in bringing the remote design to its final conceptual form." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Alright . We 're on . +Professor B: Test , um . Test , test , test . Guess that 's me . Yeah . OK . +Grad D: Ooh , Thursday . +Professor B: So . There 's two sheets of paper in front of us . +PhD A: What are these ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . +Professor B: This is the arm wrestling ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , we formed a coalition actually . +PhD E: Yeah . Almost . +PhD C: We already made it into one . +Professor B: Oh , good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Excellent . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's the best thing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , tell me about it . +PhD E: So it 's {disfmarker} well , it 's {pause} spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , um , depending on if we put {disfmarker} if we square the transfer function or not . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And then with over - estimation of the noise , depending on the , uh {disfmarker} the SNR , with smoothing along time , um , smoothing along frequency . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: It 's very simple , smoothing things . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And , um , {vocalsound} the best result is {vocalsound} when we apply this procedure on FFT bins , uh , with a Wiener filter . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And there is no noise addition after {disfmarker} after that . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So it 's good because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's difficult when we have to add noise to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to find the right level . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Are you looking at one in {disfmarker} in particular of these two ? +PhD E: Yeah . So the sh it 's the sheet that gives fifty - f three point sixty - six . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , {vocalsound} the second sheet is abo uh , about the same . It 's the same , um , idea but it 's working on mel bands , {vocalsound} and it 's a spectral subtraction instead of Wiener filter , and there is also a noise addition after , uh , cleaning up the mel bins . Mmm . Well , the results are similar . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {comment} it 's actually , uh , very similar . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , {vocalsound} if you look at databases , uh , the , uh , one that has the smallest {disfmarker} smaller overall number is actually better on the Finnish and Spanish , uh , but it is , uh , worse on the , uh , Aurora {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's worse on {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean on the , uh , TI - TI - digits , +PhD E: on the multi - condition in TI - digits . Yeah . +Professor B: uh , uh . Um . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So , it probably doesn't matter that much either way . But , um , when you say u uh , unified do you mean , uh , it 's one piece of software now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So now we are , yeah , setting up the software . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , it should be ready , uh , very soon . Um , and we +PhD A: So what 's {disfmarker} what 's happened ? I think I 've missed something . +Professor B: OK . So a week ago {disfmarker} maybe you weren't around when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when Hynek and Guenther and I {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Hynek was here . +PhD A: Yeah . I didn't . +Professor B: Oh , OK . So {disfmarker} Yeah , let 's summarize . Um {disfmarker} And then if I summarize somebody can tell me if I 'm wrong , which will also be possibly helpful . What did I just press here ? I hope this is still working . +PhD E: p - p - p +Professor B: We , uh {disfmarker} we looked at , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} anyway we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} after coming back from QualComm we had , you know , very strong feedback and , uh , I think it was {vocalsound} Hynek and Guenter 's and my opinion also that , um , you know , we sort of spread out to look at a number of different ways of doing noise suppression . But given the limited time , uh , it was sort of time to {pause} choose one . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , and so , uh , th the vector Taylor series hadn't really worked out that much . Uh , the subspace stuff , uh , had not been worked with so much . Um , so it sort of came down to spectral subtraction versus Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , we had a long discussion about how they were the same and how they were d uh , completely different . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , I mean , fundamentally they 're the same sort of thing but the math is a little different so that there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's an exponent difference in the index {disfmarker} you know , what 's the ideal filtering , and depending on how you construct the problem . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , uh , I guess it 's sort {disfmarker} you know , after {disfmarker} after that meeting it sort of made more sense to me because {vocalsound} um , if you 're dealing with power spectra then how are you gonna choose your error ? And typically you 'll do {disfmarker} choose something like a variance . And so that means it 'll be something like the square of the power spectra . Whereas when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're doing the {disfmarker} the , uh , um , {vocalsound} looking at it the other way , you 're gonna be dealing with signals +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you 're gonna end up looking at power {disfmarker} uh , noise power that you 're trying to reduce . And so , eh {disfmarker} so there should be a difference {vocalsound} of {disfmarker} you know , conceptually of {disfmarker} of , uh , a factor of two in the exponent . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But there 're so many different little factors that you adjust in terms of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} uh , over - subtraction and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so forth , um , that {vocalsound} arguably , you 're c and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and the choice of do you {disfmarker} do you operate on the mel bands or do you operate on the FFT beforehand . There 're so many other choices to make that are {disfmarker} are almost {disfmarker} well , if not independent , certainly in addition to {pause} the choice of whether you , uh , do spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering , that , um , {vocalsound} @ @ again we sort of felt the gang should just sort of figure out which it is they wanna do and then let 's pick it , go forward with it . So that 's {disfmarker} that was {disfmarker} that was last week . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , we said , uh , take a week , go arm wrestle , you know , +Grad D: Oh . +Professor B: figure it out . I mean , and th the joke there was that each of them had specialized in one of them . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and so they {disfmarker} so instead they went to Yosemite and bonded , and {disfmarker} and they came out with a single {disfmarker} single piece of software . So it 's {vocalsound} another {disfmarker} another victory for international collaboration . So . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so you guys have combined {disfmarker} or you 're going to be combining the software ? +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Well , the piece of software has , like , plenty of options , +PhD E: Oh boy . +PhD C: like you can parse command - line arguments . So depending on that , it {disfmarker} it becomes either spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So , ye +PhD A: They 're close enough . +Professor B: Well , that 's fine , but the thing is {disfmarker} the important thing is that there is a piece of software that you {disfmarker} that we all will be using now . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: There 's just one piece of software . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I need to allow it to do everything and even more {disfmarker} more than this . +PhD C: Right . +PhD E: Well , if we want to , like , optimize different parameters of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Parameters . Yeah . +Professor B: Sure . +PhD E: Yeah , we can do it later . But , still {disfmarker} so , there will be a piece of software with , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , will give this system , the fifty - three point sixty - six , by default and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how is {disfmarker} how good is that ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have a sense of {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's just one percent off of the {pause} best proposal . +PhD C: Best system . +PhD E: It 's between {disfmarker} i we are second actually if we take this system . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Right ? +PhD A: Compared to the last evaluation numbers ? Yeah . +Professor B: But , uh {disfmarker} w which we sort of were before +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: but we were considerably far behind . And the thing is , this doesn't have neural net in yet for instance . You know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So it {disfmarker} so , um , it 's {disfmarker} it it 's not using our full bal bag of tricks , if you will . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , and it {disfmarker} it is , uh , very close in performance to the best thing that was there before . Uh , but , you know , looking at it another way , maybe more importantly , uh , {vocalsound} we didn't have any explicit noise , uh , handling {disfmarker} stationary {disfmarker} dealing with {disfmarker} e e we didn't explicitly have anything to deal with stationary noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And now we do . +PhD A: So will the {pause} neural net operate on the output from either the Wiener filtering or the spectral subtraction ? Or will it operate on the original ? +Professor B: Well , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so argu arguably , I mean , what we should do {disfmarker} I mean , I gather you have {disfmarker} it sounds like you have a few more days of {disfmarker} of nailing things down with the software and so on . But {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} but , um , {vocalsound} arguably what we should do is , even though the software can do many things , we should for now pick a set of things , th these things I would guess , and not change that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then focus on {pause} everything that 's left . And I think , you know , that our goal should be by next week , when Hynek comes back , {vocalsound} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , really just to have a firm path , uh , for the {disfmarker} you know , for the time he 's gone , of {disfmarker} of , uh , what things will be attacked . But I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would thought think that what we would wanna do is not futz with this stuff for a while because what 'll happen is we 'll change many other things in the system , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll probably wanna come back to this and possibly make some other choices . But , um . +PhD A: But just conceptually , where does the neural net go ? Do {disfmarker} do you wanna h run it on the output of the spectrally subtracted {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Well , depending on its size {disfmarker} Well , one question is , is it on the , um , server side or is it on the terminal side ? Uh , if it 's on the server side , it {disfmarker} you probably don't have to worry too much about size . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So that 's kind of an argument for that . We do still , however , have to consider its latency . So the issue is {disfmarker} is , um , {vocalsound} for instance , could we have a neural net that only looked at the past ? +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Um , what we 've done in uh {disfmarker} in the past is to use the neural net , uh , to transform , {vocalsound} um , all of the features that we use . So this is done early on . This is essentially , {vocalsound} um , um {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's more or less like a spee a speech enhancement technique here {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? {disfmarker} where we 're just kind of creating {vocalsound} new {disfmarker} if not new speech at least new {disfmarker} new FFT 's that {disfmarker} that have {disfmarker} you know , which could be turned into speech {disfmarker} uh , that {disfmarker} that have some of the noise removed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , after that we still do a mess of other things to {disfmarker} to produce a bunch of features . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: And then those features are not now currently transformed {vocalsound} by the neural net . And then the {disfmarker} the way that we had it in our proposal - two before , we had the neural net transformed features and we had {vocalsound} the untransformed features , which I guess you {disfmarker} you actually did linearly transform with the KLT , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , to orthogonalize them {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they were not , uh , processed through a neural net . And Stephane 's idea with that , as I recall , was that {vocalsound} you 'd have one part of the feature vector that was very discriminant and another part that wasn't , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , which would smooth things a bit for those occasions when , uh , the testing set was quite different than what you 'd trained your discriminant features for . So , um , all of that is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} still seems like a good idea . The thing is now we know some other constraints . We can't have unlimited amounts of latency . Uh , y you know , that 's still being debated by the {disfmarker} by people in Europe but , {vocalsound} uh , no matter how they end up there , it 's not going to be unlimited amounts , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so we have to be a little conscious of that . Um . So there 's the neural net issue . There 's the VAD issue . And , uh , there 's the second stream {pause} thing . And I think those that we {disfmarker} last time we agreed that those are the three things that have to get , uh , focused on . +PhD A: What was the issue with the VAD ? +Professor B: Well , better {comment} ones are good . +PhD A: And so the w the default , uh , boundaries that they provide are {disfmarker} they 're OK , but they 're not all that great ? +Professor B: I guess they still allow two hundred milliseconds on either side or some ? Is that what the deal is ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , so th um , they keep two hundred milliseconds at the beginning and end of speech . And they keep all the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Outside the beginnings and end . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And all the speech pauses , which is {disfmarker} Sometimes on the SpeechDat - Car you have pauses that are more than one or two seconds . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: More than one second for sure . Um . +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . And , yeah , it seems to us that this way of just dropping the beginning and end is not {disfmarker} We cou we can do better , I think , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , um , {vocalsound} with this way of dropping the frames they improve {pause} over the baseline by fourteen percent and {vocalsound} Sunil already showed that with our current VAD we can improve by more than twenty percent . +PhD A: On top of the VAD that they provide ? +PhD C: No . +PhD E: Just using either their VAD or our current VAD . +PhD C: Our way . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD E: So , our current VAD is {disfmarker} is more than twenty percent , while their is fourteen . +PhD A: Theirs is fourteen ? I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: Huh . +PhD E: So . Yeah . And {pause} another thing that we did also is that we have all this training data for {disfmarker} let 's say , for SpeechDat - Car . We have channel zero which is clean , channel one which is far - field microphone . And if we just take only the , um , VAD probabilities computed on the clean signal and apply them on the far - field , uh , test utterances , {vocalsound} then results are much better . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In some cases it divides the error rate by two . +PhD A: Wow . +PhD E: So it means that there are stim {comment} still {disfmarker} +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much latency does the , uh {disfmarker} does our VAD add ? +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if we can have a good VAD , well , it would be great . +PhD A: Is it significant , +PhD E: Uh , right now it 's , um , a neural net with nine frames . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: So it 's forty milliseconds plus , um , the rank ordering , which , uh , should be +PhD C: Like another ten frames . +PhD E: ten {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Rank . Oh . +PhD E: So , right now it 's one hundred and forty {pause} milliseconds . +Professor B: With the rank ordering {disfmarker} ? I 'm sorry . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the smoothing {disfmarker} the m the {disfmarker} the filtering of the probabilities . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} The , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: on the R . +PhD E: Yeah . It 's not a median filtering . It 's just {disfmarker} We don't take the median value . We take something {disfmarker} Um , so we have eleven , um , frames . +Professor B: Oh , this is for the VAD . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} for the VAD , yeah {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: and we take th the third . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad D: Dar +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . So {disfmarker} {comment} Yeah , I was just noticing on this that it makes reference to delay . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So what 's the {disfmarker} ? If you ignore {disfmarker} Um , the VAD is sort of in {disfmarker} in parallel , isn't i isn't it , with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} ? I mean , it isn't additive with the {disfmarker} the , uh , LDA and the Wiener filtering , and so forth . +PhD C: The LDA ? +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . So {disfmarker} so what happened right now , we removed the delay of the LDA . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So we {disfmarker} I mean , if {disfmarker} so if we {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} so which is like if we reduce the delay of VA So , the f the final delay 's now ba is f determined by the delay of the VAD , because the LDA doesn't have any delay . So if we re if we reduce the delay of the VAD , I mean , it 's like effectively reducing the delay . +PhD A: How {disfmarker} how much , uh , delay was there on the LDA ? +PhD C: So the LDA and the VAD both had a hundred millisecond delay . So and they were in parallel , so which means you pick either one of them {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the biggest , whatever . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now the LDA delays are more . +Professor B: And there {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And there didn't seem to be any , uh , penalty for that ? There didn't seem to be any penalty for making it causal ? +PhD C: Pardon ? Oh , no . It actually made it , like , point one percent better or something , actually . +Professor B: OK . Well , may as well , then . +PhD C: Or something like that +Professor B: And he says Wiener filter is {disfmarker} is forty milliseconds delay . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Yeah . So that 's the one which Stephane was discussing , like {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: The smoothing ? +PhD C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} you smooth it and then delay the decision by {disfmarker} So . +Professor B: Right . OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not bad . So we may in fact {disfmarker} we 'll see what they decide . We may in fact have , {vocalsound} um , the {disfmarker} the , uh , latency time available for {disfmarker} to have a neural net . I mean , sounds like we probably will . So . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 'd be good . Cuz I {disfmarker} cuz it certainly always helped us before . So . +PhD A: What amount of latency are you thinking about when you say that ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , they 're {disfmarker} you know , they 're disputing it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: You know , they 're saying , uh {disfmarker} one group is saying a hundred and thirty milliseconds and another group is saying two hundred and fifty milliseconds . Two hundred and fifty is what it was before actually . So , +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: uh , some people are lobbying {disfmarker} lobbying {comment} to make it shorter . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: Um . And , um . +PhD A: Were you thinking of the two - fifty or the one - thirty when you said we should {pause} have enough for the neural net ? +Professor B: Well , it just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} when we find that out it might change exactly how we do it , is all . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor B: I mean , how much effort do we put into making it causal ? I mean , {vocalsound} I think the neural net will probably do better if it looks at a little bit of the future . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um , it will probably work to some extent to look only at the past . And we ha you know , limited machine and human time , and {vocalsound} effort . And , you know , how {disfmarker} how much time should we put into {disfmarker} into that ? So it 'd be helpful if we find out from the {disfmarker} the standards folks whether , you know , they 're gonna restrict that or not . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . But I think , you know , at this point our major concern is making the performance better and {disfmarker} and , um , {vocalsound} if , uh , something has to take a little longer in latency in order to do it that 's {pause} you know , a secondary issue . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if we get told otherwise then , you know , we may have to c clamp down a bit more . +Grad D: Mmm . +PhD C: So , the one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one difference is that {disfmarker} was there is like we tried computing the delta and then doing the frame - dropping . +Grad D: S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: The earlier system was do the frame - dropping and then compute the delta on the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So this {disfmarker} +PhD A: Which could be a kind of a funny delta . Right ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh , oh . So that 's fixed in this . Yeah , we talked about that . +PhD C: Yeah . So we have no delta . And then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Good . +PhD C: So the frame - dropping is the last thing that we do . So , yeah , what we do is we compute the silence probability , convert it to that binary flag , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: and then in the end you c up upsample it to {vocalsound} match the final features number of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Did that help then ? +PhD C: It seems to be helping on the well - matched condition . So that 's why this improvement I got from the last result . So . And it actually r reduced a little bit on the high mismatch , so in the final weightage it 's b b better because the well - matched is still weighted more than {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , @ @ I mean , you were doing a lot of changes . Did you happen to notice how much , {vocalsound} uh , the change was due to just this frame - dropping problem ? What about this ? +PhD C: Uh , y you had something on it . Right ? +PhD E: Just the frame - dropping problem . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult . Sometime we {disfmarker} we change two {disfmarker} two things together and {disfmarker} But it 's around {pause} maybe {disfmarker} it 's less than one percent . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . {vocalsound} But like we 're saying , if there 's four or five things like that then {vocalsound} pretty sho soon you 're talking real improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . And it {disfmarker} Yeah . And then we have to be careful with that also {disfmarker} with the neural net +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: because in {comment} the proposal the neural net was also , uh , working on {disfmarker} after frame - dropping . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a real good point . +PhD E: So . Well , we 'll have to be {disfmarker} to do the same kind of correction . +Professor B: It might be hard if it 's at the server side . Right ? +PhD E: Mmm . Well , we can do the frame - dropping on the server side or we can just be careful at the terminal side to send a couple of more frames before and after , and {disfmarker} So . I think it 's OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: You have , um {disfmarker} So when you {disfmarker} Uh , maybe I don't quite understand how this works , but , um , couldn't you just send all of the frames , but mark the ones that are supposed to be dropped ? Cuz you have a bunch more bandwidth . Right ? +Professor B: Well , you could . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it always seemed to us that it would be kind of nice to {disfmarker} in addition to , uh , reducing insertions , actually use up less bandwidth . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But nobody seems to have {vocalsound} cared about that in this {pause} evaluation . +PhD A: And that way the net could use {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD A: If the net 's on the server side then it could use all of the {pause} frames . +PhD C: Yes , it could be . It 's , like , you mean you just transferred everything and then finally drop the frames after the neural net . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right ? Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But you could even mark them , before they get to the server . +PhD C: Yeah . Right now we are {disfmarker} Uh , ri Right now what {disfmarker} wha what we did is , like , we just mark {disfmarker} we just have this additional bit which goes around the features , {vocalsound} saying it 's currently a {disfmarker} it 's a speech or a nonspeech . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: So there is no frame - dropping till the final features , like , including the deltas are computed . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: And after the deltas are computed , you just pick up the ones that are marked silence and then drop them . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +Professor B: So it would be more or less the same thing with the neural net , I guess , actually . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what , uh , this is doing right now . +PhD A: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . OK . So , uh , what 's , uh {disfmarker} ? That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good set of work that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just one more thing . Like , should we do something f more for the noise estimation , because we still {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Yeah . I was wondering about that . That was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had written that down there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: So , we , uh {disfmarker} actually I did the first experiment . This is {pause} with just fifteen frames . Um . We take the first fifteen frame of each utterance to it , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: and average their power spectra . Um . I tried just plugging the , um , {vocalsound} uh , Guenter noise estimation on this system , and it {disfmarker} uh , it got worse . Um , but of course I didn't play {pause} with it . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Uh , I didn't {pause} do much more {pause} for noise estimation . I just tried this , +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . Well , it 's not surprising it 'd be worse the first time . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , um , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it does seem like , you know , i i i i some compromise between always depending on the first fifteen frames and a a always depending on a {disfmarker} a pause is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good idea . Uh , maybe you have to weight the estimate from the first - teen {disfmarker} fifteen frames more heavily than {disfmarker} than was done in your first attempt . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . No , I mean {disfmarker} Um , do you have any way of assessing how well or how poorly the noise estimation is currently doing ? +PhD E: Mmm . No , we don't . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: We don't have nothing {pause} that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is there {disfmarker} was there any experiment with {disfmarker} ? Well , I {disfmarker} I did {disfmarker} The only experiment where I tried was I used the channel zero VAD for the noise estimation and frame - dropping . So I don't have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't have a split , like which one helped more . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So . It {disfmarker} it was the best result I could get . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's something you could do with , um , this final system . Right ? Just do this {disfmarker} everything that is in this final system except , {vocalsound} uh , use the channel zero . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . For the noise estimation . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . We can try something . +Professor B: And then see how much better it gets . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Sure . +Professor B: If it 's , you know , essentially not better , then {pause} it 's probably not worth +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: any more . +PhD C: Yeah . But the Guenter 's argument is slightly different . It 's , like , ev even {disfmarker} even if I use a channel zero VAD , I 'm just averaging the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the s power spectrum . But the Guenter 's argument is , like , if it is a non - stationary {pause} segment , then he doesn't update the noise spectrum . So he 's , like {disfmarker} he tries to capture only the stationary part in it . So the averaging is , like , {vocalsound} different from {pause} updating the noise spectrum only during stationary segments . So , th the Guenter was arguing that , I mean , even if you have a very good VAD , averaging it , like , over the whole thing is not a good idea . +Professor B: I see . +PhD C: Because you 're averaging the stationary and the non - stationary , and finally you end up getting something which is not really the s because , you {disfmarker} anyway , you can't remove the stationary part fr I mean , non - stationary part from {vocalsound} the signal . +Professor B: Not using these methods anyway . Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So you just {pause} update only doing {disfmarker} or update only the stationary components . Yeah . So , that 's {disfmarker} so that 's still a slight difference from what Guenter is trying +Professor B: Well , yeah . And {disfmarker} and also there 's just the fact that , um , eh , uh , although we 're trying to do very well on this evaluation , um , we actually would like to have something that worked well in general . And , um , relying on having fifteen frames at the front or something is {disfmarker} is pretty {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: I mean , you might , you might not . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Um , it 'd certainly be more robust to different kinds of input if you had at least some updates . Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . Well , I don't know . What {disfmarker} what do you , uh {disfmarker} what do you guys see as {disfmarker} as being what you would be doing in the next week , given wha what 's {pause} happened ? +PhD C: Cure the VAD ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: What was that ? +PhD C: VAD . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: So , should we keep the same {disfmarker} ? I think we might try to keep the same idea of having a neural network , but {vocalsound} training it on more data and adding better features , I think , but {disfmarker} because the current network is just PLP features . Well , it 's trained on noisy {pause} PLP {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just the cepstra . Yeah . +PhD E: PLP features computed on noisy speech . But {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there is no nothing particularly robust in these features . +PhD A: So , I I uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . +PhD E: There 's no RASTA , no {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember what you said {vocalsound} the answer to my , uh , question earlier . Will you {disfmarker} will you train the net on {disfmarker} after you 've done the spectral subtraction or the Wiener filtering ? +Professor B: This is a different net . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: So we have a VAD which is like neur that 's a neural net . +PhD E: Oh , yeah . Hmm . +PhD A: Oh , you 're talking about the VAD net . OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +PhD C: So that {disfmarker} that VAD was trained on the noisy features . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , right now we have , like , uh {disfmarker} we have the cleaned - up features , so we can have a better VAD by training the net on {pause} the cleaned - up speech . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . I see . I see . +PhD C: Yeah , but we need a VAD for uh noise estimation also . So it 's , like , where do we want to put the VAD ? Uh , it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net to do both , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Can you use the same net that you {disfmarker} that I was talking about to do the VAD ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Uh , it actually comes at v at the very end . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So the net {disfmarker} the final net {disfmarker} I mean , which is the feature net {disfmarker} so that actually comes after a chain of , like , LDA plus everything . So it 's , like , it takes a long time to get a decision out of it . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can actually do it for final frame - dropping , but not for the VA - f noise estimation . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You see , the idea is that the , um , initial decision to {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that you 're in silence or speech happens pretty quickly . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Cuz that 's used by some of these other {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: And that {disfmarker} Yeah . And that 's sort of fed forward , and {disfmarker} and you say "" well , flush everything , it 's not speech anymore "" . +PhD A: Oh , OK . I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: I thought that was only used for doing frame - dropping later on . +Professor B: Um , it is used , uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's only used f Well , it 's used for frame - dropping . Um , it 's used for end of utterance +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: because , you know , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have {pause} more than five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of nonspeech then you figure it 's end of utterance or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . +PhD E: And it seems important for , like , the on - line normalization . Um . We don't want to update the mean and variance during silen long silence portions . Um . So it {disfmarker} it has to be done before +PhD A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: this mean and variance normalization . Um . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . So probably the VAD and {disfmarker} and maybe testing out the noise {pause} estimation a little bit . I mean , keeping the same method but {disfmarker} but , uh , {vocalsound} seeing if you cou but , um noise estimation could be improved . Those are sort of related issues . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It probably makes sense to move from there . And then , uh , {vocalsound} later on in the month I think we wanna start including the {pause} neural net at the end . Um . OK . Anything else ? +PhD E: The Half Dome was great . +Professor B: Good . Yeah . You didn't {disfmarker} didn't fall . That 's good . +PhD C: Well , yeah . +Professor B: Our e our effort would have been devastated if you guys had {comment} {vocalsound} run into problems . +PhD A: So , Hynek is coming back next week , you said ? +Professor B: Yeah , that 's the plan . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the week after he 'll be , uh , going back to Europe , and so we wanna {disfmarker} +PhD A: Is he in Europe right now or is he up at {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's dropped into the US . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . Hmm . +Professor B: So . Uh . {vocalsound} So , uh . Uh , the idea was that , uh , we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd sort out where we were going next with this {disfmarker} with this work before he , uh , left on this next trip . Good . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , Barry , you just got through your {vocalsound} quals , so I don't know if you {vocalsound} have much to say . But , uh . +Grad D: Mmm . No , just , uh , looking into some {disfmarker} some of the things that , um , {vocalsound} uh , John Ohala and Hynek , um , gave as feedback , um , as {disfmarker} as a starting point for the project . Um . In {disfmarker} in my proposal , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about starting from a set of , uh , phonological features , {vocalsound} or a subset of them . Um , but that might not be necessarily a good idea according to , um , John . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: He said , uh , um , these {disfmarker} these phonological features are {disfmarker} are sort of figments of imagination also . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Um . S +Professor B: In conversational speech in particular . I think you can {disfmarker} you can put them in pretty reliably in synthetic speech . +Grad D: Ye +Professor B: But {vocalsound} we don't have too much trouble recognizing synthetic speech since we create it in the first place . So , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . Yeah . So , um , a better way would be something more {disfmarker} more data - driven , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: just looking at the data and seeing what 's similar and what 's not similar . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , um , taking a look at some of , um , {vocalsound} Sangita 's work on {disfmarker} on TRAPS . She did something where , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w where the TRAPS learn She clustered the {disfmarker} the temporal patterns of , um , certain {disfmarker} certain phonemes in {disfmarker} in m averaged over many , many contexts . And , uh , some things tended to cluster . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right ? You know , like stop {disfmarker} stop consonants clustered really well . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad D: Um , silence was by its own self . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , uh , um , {vocalsound} v vocalic was clustered . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , {vocalsound} um , so , {vocalsound} those are {pause} interesting things to {disfmarker} +PhD A: So you 're {disfmarker} now you 're sort of looking to try to gather a set of these types of features ? +Grad D: Right . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . Just to see where {disfmarker} where I could start off from , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh , you know ? A {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a set of small features and continue to iterate and find , uh , a better set . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Well , short meeting . That 's OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . So next week hopefully we 'll {disfmarker} can get Hynek here to {disfmarker} to join us and , uh , uh . +PhD A: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Digits , digits . OK , now . +PhD A: Go ahead , Morgan . You can start . +Professor B: Alright . Let me get my glasses on so I can {pause} see them . OK . +PhD A: OK . And we 're off . +Professor B: Mm +","Meeting participants discussed ongoing work concerning noise suppression techniques, specifically spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering. They considered improvements via noise estimation and a neural network-based voice activity detector (VAD). They discussed whether to pre-process features before applying a neural net and touched upon frame dropping in relation to VAD and feature transformation. There was also mention of preparing software to unify their approach. Professor B and Ph.D. students A, C, and E talked about the need to consolidate findings before Hynek's return and the subsequent trip to Europe. Grad D provided a brief update on feedback from quals and potential directions for data-driven phonological feature research. The meeting concluded with plans to reconvene the following week when Hynek would be back." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): Honourable members, I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 15thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Members will be participating via video conference or in person. I will remind you that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connecting by video conference. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up here on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining by video conference, I'd like to remind you to leave your microphones on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you need to be on the English channel for interpretation, and if you want to speak French, you should do so on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, please change to the channel for the language that you happen to be using at the time. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will now proceed to ministerial announcements. I invite the Right Hon. Prime Minister to take the floor. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I rise today to address what so many people of colour live with every day. Over the past few days, we've seen horrific reports of police violence against black men and women south of the border, but these are not isolated incidents or elsewhere problems. Prejudice, discrimination and violence are a lived reality for far too many people. They are a result of systems that far too often condone, normalize, perpetrate and perpetuate inequality and injustice against people of colour. As a country, we are not concerned bystanders simply watching what is happening next door. We are part of it. The calls for justice, for equality and for peace are found echoed in our communities, because anti-black racism is happening here, everywhere in Canada, every single day. This is something that our own staff, cabinet ministers and colleagues face even in these halls. Over the past few days, I've heard many of these personal stories directly from them. I'm not just talking about acts of violence. I'm also talking about microaggressions, which many of us may not even see. That is the daily reality of far too many racialized Canadians, and it needs to stop. When it comes to being an ally, I have made serious mistakes in the past, mistakes that I deeply regret and continue to learn from. I want to thank my colleagues, community leaders and fellow Canadians for opening my eyes to what is really going on in our communities and for helping me better understand both privilege and power. I'm not perfect, but not being perfect is not a free pass to not do the right thing. It's not an excuse to not step up, stand up for each other, be an ally. I know that for so many people listening right now, the last thing you want to hear is another speech on racism from a white politician. I'm not here today to describe a reality I do not know or to speak to a pain I have not felt. I'm here because I want you to know that our government is listening. We hear your calls for justice, equality and accountability. We acknowledge your frustration, your anger, your heartbreak. We see you. Since coming to office, our government has taken many concrete steps to fight anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and injustice across the country. We are working directly with the communities and their leaders to close the gaps that persist in Canada. For example, we have provided $9million to support programs for black Canadian youth. We have made significant investments to enable the Public Health Agency of Canada to provide more mental health services to people who have experienced racism or intergenerational trauma. We are helping community organizations to obtain funding to purchase equipment or lease space. We have also created the anti-racism secretariat, which has an envelope of $4.6million, to address systemic barriers, such as employment, justice and social participation, that perpetuate injustice. We have made progress, but we know the work is far from being done. Over the past five years, our government has worked with communities to recognize and address injustices. We've taken action to support community organizations, invest in better data and fight racism. While we've made some progress, there is still so much more to do, because here are the facts in Canada: Anti-black racism is real. Unconscious bias is real. Systemic discrimination is real. For millions of Canadians, it is their daily, lived reality. The pain and damage it causes are real too. Mr. Chair, every Canadian who has felt the weight of oppression, every student who has the courage to demand a better future, every person who marches and posts and reads and fights, from Vancouver to Montreal to Halifax, expects more than the status quo. They expect more and deserve better. The Government of Canada has a lot of work to do, but we're ready. We're ready to work with our opposition colleagues, community leaders and Canadians to make our country a more just and fair place. Racism never has a place in this country, and we will do everything we can to eradicate it from coast to coast to coast. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Over the past week, we have all been affected by the heartbreaking killing of George Floyd in the United States. The video is painful to watch. No one should ever have to plead for help while a crime is being committed, ignored by other members of law enforcement. The tragedy triggered marches, occupations, protests and, unfortunately, riots. However, I hope it has mostly sparked conversations. Racism is real, painful and unacceptable. No one should ever feel unsafe because of the colour of their skin, especially around police officers who have a duty and a responsibility to uphold the law for all. Here in Canada, we are fortunate to live in a country that is welcoming, tolerant and inclusive. Canada was a beacon of freedom to so many escaping slavery during the U.S. Civil War. Our nation has benefited immensely from great Canadians who overcame prejudices and discrimination to serve their communities and make Canada a better country: Lincoln Alexander, elected as a Conservative in 1968, was the first black member of Parliament and went on to become the first black cabinet minister; John Ware was born into slavery in South Carolina but, following the American Civil War, was a leading figure in bringing the first cattle to Alberta and spearheading the ranching industry that would become the backbone of the province; Josiah Henson escaped slavery to become a thriving businessman in Ontario; and of course, Viola Desmond challenged segregation in Nova Scotia. Black Canadians throughout history have not just built this nation with their contributions; they have also represented Canada with excellence and pride on the world stage, like Harry Jerome, who represented Canada in three Olympic Games and won a bronze medal in 1964. He would go on to become a teacher in British Columbia, once again serving with excellence to try to make a better world for the next generation. Throughout our history, black Canadians have put their lives on the line for their fellow Canadians, bravely serving around the world in our armed forces. While there are many things we can point to in our history with pride, that is not to say that we have a perfect record, nor that we are immune to the threat of racism or that anti-black racism is just an American problem. Canada has had its own dark episodes of racism that cannot be ignoredsadly, not just in our past. Every day, there are people who experience discrimination or racism in some form. Throughout this pandemic, we have seen a troubling spike in anti-Asian racism. No one should be attacked in their community or targeted on the bus because of the colour of their skin. Nor should places of worship be broken into and desecrated, like the synagogue in Montreal. The Conservatives condemn all acts of anti-semitism, racism and discrimination. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism or extremism of any kind. But the violence and destruction we have seen in response are not the answer. Millions of people are protesting peacefully across the United States and in Canada, and we must always protect the rights of people who are protesting peacefully and within the law for a just cause and separate them from those who exploit tragedies to commit acts of violence. Mr. Floyd's brother, Terrence, said that violence will not bring his brother back. Instead, he has called for peace and justice and urged the crowds to educate themselves and to vote. Out of such tragedy, Mr. Chair, that is a powerful message about how each one of us can use our democratic rights to effect change. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism and extremism of any kind. We are not born believing we are better than one another. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, and because of that, we are all equal. An infinite value exists in each one of us. Canada is an incredibly diverse country. Canada is a nation of immigrants that stands on the traditional territories of first nations, Inuit and Mtis people. Waves of newcomers have come to Canada for a better life because our country is built on a rock-solid foundation of enduring values, democratic institutions, the rule of law and fundamental and universal human rights. Everyone comes here because Canada is built on solid values, democratic institutions, and respect for the rule of law, as well as for fundamental, universal human rights. We must absolutely protect these values, because they are what sets us apart. They allow Canada to offer what so many other countries simply cannot. There are those who say that diversity is our strength, and that is true, but it doesn't quite capture the full picture. Diversity is the result of our strength, and our strength is and always has been our freedom. It is the freedom for people to preserve and pass on their cultural traditions and the opportunity to live in peace with those around them; the freedom to live your life with equality under the law, regardless of your race or ethnic background; and the economic freedom that so many governments around the world deny their people. It is that economic freedom that ensures that hard work pays off. It gives people the ability to work towards their dreams and choose their own path in life. Together, generations of Canadians who trace their roots back to countries around the world have built Canada to truly the greatest country on earth, the true north strong and free. To ensure that our people remain free, we must continue to fight attacks on our freedoms, including racism and all forms of brutality and injustice in Canada and around the world. Minority rights must be protected. Freedom of religion must be protected. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest must be protected. As John Diefenbaker said, I am a Canadian...free to speak without fear, free to worship...in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeloeilChambly. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. At a time of crisis when outrage is overwhelming the caution and fear of disease among thousands of people who, despite everything, take to the streets to express that outrage, we here in politics will have to be careful, once again, about the words we use. Indeed we are particularly inclined to give other people's words a meaning other than the one they would have liked to give them. Today, our dutyand I would say almost our only dutyis to express our solidarity, our sadness, our indignation and our anger, but above alland in saying this, I'm thinking of all my friends and acquaintances in the wonderful black community in Quebec and the UnitedStatesour friendship. We must try to be heard by all humans. Every time we talk about this, a small part of me surfaces, that of the non-practising but unrepentant anthropologist who wants to remind us that races do not exist. It is the frequency of manifestations of certain genetic traits favoured by geography and history, which in turn shape cultures. Racism expresses itself first and foremost through aggression against what is presumed to be the culture of others, difference. Each time difference instills fear, it is, of course, one time too many. We must learn to live equality in diversity, in itself an extraordinary thing. Governments in the U.S. have all been racist. Their racism has necessarily been expressed, at some point in their history, in their institutions. It has left its mark. It is the only thing that we have the right to call systemic racism or systemic discrimination. I am concerned when anyone suggests that we are all and collectively inclined to engage in systemic discrimination or when anyone claims to be a bulwark of virtue between us and the victims. I believe that the Canadian government is not racist, that the Quebec government is not racist, and that the governments of our municipalities are not racist either. I believe, however, that there may be traces of horrible things left in our institutions that colour our relationships with people of different origins or with people who were here long before us. So systemic racism probably exists. It should not denounce individuals, but it should encourage us to reread our rules to get rid of what might still be discriminatory in them. This day belongs to GeorgeFloyd. This day belongs to the black people of the UnitedStates. This day belongs to the black people of Quebec and Canada. We don't play politics at the funeral doors: we gather our thoughts, and let indignation and sadness be expressed. We leave the streets to those who need to speak with one voice, in peace. All that is peaceful is legitimate. Nothing that is violent is legitimate. The Prime Minister expressed the desire to implement concrete measures to fight racism. The first must be to show our solidarity and friendship. I'm proposing a very concrete measure, which is to give priority and expedited processing to the files of refugee claimantsespecially Haitian, especially black, but also of other originswho have expressed their desire to be part of the Quebec nation by putting themselves on the front line. He has the power and the duty to do so, and if he needs Parliament, let's do it tomorrow or right now. That way, words will become actions, and the next step will be all the more credible. In the meantime, our duty is to stand up for those who are afraid and against those who frighten them. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for Burnaby South. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Many, many Canadians were shocked to see the violence surrounding the murder of GeorgeFloyd. GeorgeFloyd's murder is a grim reminder that anti-black racism still exists and that it hits hard. Anti-black racism isn't only in the UnitedStates; it's here in Canada, too. Systemic racism against blacks, indigenous people and many other visible minorities is alive and well: racial profiling, economic inequality, social inequality, discriminatory hiring, trivialization of violence, excess incarceration, and so on. Things aren't moving forward because one government after another prefers pretty words to concrete action. When the time comes to act, they don't have the courage, they don't have the will to act. People are feeling a lot of grief and frustration, but we can turn that into action and justice. We must not just call for peace. I believe that we have to call for justice. Justice is the only way to create a better world. When people around the world saw the killing of George Floyd, it left all of us shaken to our core. It was chilling, the casual violence of anti-black racism, the callous taking of another human being's life. It hurt to the core. There was pain. There was sadness. There is anger, and rightly so. There is frustration. This isn't just an American problem. This is just as much a Canadian problem as well, and something that continues to exist across our country. Anti-black racism and anti-indigenous racism are real. People have suffered violence. Indigenous people and black people have suffered violence and have been killed at the hands of police here in Canada. I think about Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and the calls for justice for Regis. A black trans woman was killed in suspicious circumstances in an interaction with the police. I think about Stewart Kevin Andrews, a young indigenous man killed in an interaction with the police in Winnipeg. The anger and frustration are about this: How many more people need to die before there's action? How many more speeches will be made? How many more protests need to happen before something is done? How many more times will people plead to breathe? How many more times will they plead to live? What we're talking about is basic human dignity. How many more voices have to ask, demand, plead, beg for basic human dignity? People are angry. They're feeling like enough is enough. Why do they need to keep on asking? Why do black people, why do indigenous people need to keep on asking to be treated like humans? Why? You know, people are done with pretty speeches, particularly pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now if they wanted to. I'm standing in a hall of power, the chamber of the Commons, with a Prime Minister who has the power not just to say pretty words but to actually do something about this. The Prime Minister of this country has the power to go beyond pretty words and pretty speeches and do something. I don't have all the answers. I don't think any one person does. We're going to have to come up with those solutions together, but there are certainly some things we do know. Martin Luther King said, True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. That's what we need. We need justice. Killer Mike extolled that people should plan, plot, strategize, organize and then mobilize. Cardi B put it this way: Another way for the people to take powerI don't want to make everything political but it is what it isis by voting. So what do we vote for? We vote for a government to take action. I call on the Prime Minister, in this hall of power: If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending racial profiling in our country? If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-policing of black bodies? If the Prime Minister believes, truly believes, that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration of black people in this country? If the Prime Minister truly believes that black lives matter, will he commit to ensuring that there are race-based data to make better decisions? Will he commit to ensuring that there's access to education and to health resources? The Prime Minister has the power to do all these things right now. The Prime Minister simply needs to get it done. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, then similarly the Prime Minister must commit today to ending the racial profiling of indigenous people, the over-policing of indigenous people and the over-incarceration of indigenous people. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, the Prime Minister could stop taking indigenous kids to court; the Prime Minister could stop delaying the action on the calls for justice for the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. If the Prime Minister believes that indigenous lives matter, he could ensure that there's clean drinking water and access to justice and to education and housing right now. People are angry because they are frustrated and done with pretty words. People are angry because they're done with pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now. People don't want peace. They don't want an absence of tension. People want the presence of justice. People want justice. People deserve justice. People need justice, and justice is what people will get. Nothing less will do. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for SaanichGulf Islands +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is indeed a difficult day. It's a difficult week. These have been difficult weeks. I stand here and want to begin by acknowledging that we are all on the traditional territory of the Algonquin peoples, and again to say meegwetch, on a day like this when we're focusing on something so painful that really is beyond partisanship and that should bind us together as people who say we cannot tolerate racism, not in this country. But we know it's here. As the Prime Minister just said, Racism never has a place in this country. But we know it's here and we know it's living with us. We are facing, in this pandemic, two dangerous, invisible viruses. One is COVID-19 and the other one we've tolerated far too long, which is race-based hatred, hate speech and anti-black racism. Yes, black lives matter. I want to do nothing but just chant it in this place until we all stand together and say, Black lives matter. What we are seeing in the murder of George Floyd is exactly as my colleague from the Bloc Qubcois said: George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. There is victim upon victim upon victim. These victims have names. We must not forget their names. The first time a black man was killed when his last words were I can't breathe was in 2014, with Eric Garner. His mother did interviews this week. Imagine what she's going through, because George Floyd died on video also saying, I can't breathe, and the people who were stopping him from breathing, his killers, are the police. In the case of Eric Garner, the policemen were fired but never charged. In George Floyd's murder, at least one killer has been charged, but it doesn't do anything to ease the pain, nor, as my friend from the NDP said, does it quench the thirst for justice, because that's what people are crying out for. They're crying out for justice. The names just keep cascading. I had to look it up because I thought, when was it that the poor young man who was jogging was murdered by the father and son in the pickup truck? He was murdered by a retired policeman and his son in their pickup truck, in February. Breonna Taylor of Louisville was murdered in her own home by cops who thought she might have drugs there. They searched, and she didn't. What on earth allows this to keep happening over and over again? I looked at a site called Just Security and I thought these words from reporter Mia Bloom, who happens to be Canadian, were pretty clear on what puts you at risk of death in the United States of America, but also in Canada: driving while black, jogging while black, reporting while black, bird watching while black, selling lemonade while black can get you killed. The killers far too often are wearing a uniform. I want to go back to the words reporting while black, because this is something else we've seen in the last four days that we've never seen before, which is the deliberate targeting of reporters by police. Over 100 reporters have been injured in the United States in the last four days. One woman lost her eye. These are serious injuries. Sometimes reporters get in the way of riots and whatnot, but this is different. This is another element altogether. It seems that, in this place, when we have speeches and pretty words to denounce racism, we do it in a kind of cycle. After Colten Boushie's murder, we talked about anti-indigenous racism. We talked about the threat to our indigenous brothers and sisters across this country who also face racism on a daily basis. We talked about the fact that they are disproportionately in our prisons. Just within the last day, the report came down on the killing of Dale Culver in Prince George at the hands of the Prince George RCMP. This indigenous young man was 35 years old, and he was pepper-sprayed until he couldn't breathe. There will be charges in this case. That's the recommendation that just came down. We go through sequential moments where we can say Islamophobia is not okay. Six Muslims at prayer in Quebec City were murdered. We can all stand up and say we denounce Islamophobia. Or we can denounce anti-trans violence against individual trans people who are murdered. We denounce anti-Semitism when we see anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on the door of an Ottawa rabbi's home. We denounce it, but can we get to the root of it? As the honourable leader of the Conservative Party mentioned, in recent days we're seeing anti-Asian racism on the increase. We're seeing all this happen and we want to be good allies. We want to be a good ally to the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. We want to be a good ally. I am a woman of privilege. I got it by mere random accident of birth. I was born to white parents. Privilege is being white. We have to study our privilege. We have to acknowledge our privilege and we have to know, as the Prime Minister said, we're not perfect, but it doesn't give us a free pass to ignore that we have to stand up and we have to speak out. I am sitting so close to my friend here, our minister, Ahmed HussenI say your name out loud, but your tweets brought me to tearsthat this fine man faces racism in his own riding, that his three beautiful black boys have people turn away or clutch their purse or they're a little worried when the kids are around. It sounds exactly like what the Prime Minister just called the microaggressions that many of us might not even see. We can look at our own conduct and our own behaviour. In looking at these things, there is something I want to say, when we look at all these things that are happening and we wonder, what we can do about it. When we see a bully, when we hear hate speech, we have to speak up. We have to speak out and we have to say that the President of the United States is fomenting hatred and violence and it's shameful and shocking that he would grab a Bible, then use tear gas to clear peaceful protestors on a Washington street so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of an Episcopal church. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington had this to say, because she is a good ally: In no way do we support the President's incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation. In faithfulness to our Saviour who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd. That's what we must do in this place. We must acknowledge and speak up for justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, the report on which languishes a year later. We must stand up for justice and we must examine something very worrying. In 2006, the U.S. FBI warned that white supremacist groups were targeting police forces and joining them. If we're looking for real action, things we can do in this place, I call on us to have an inquiry and an examination to root out white supremacist groups in Canada and identify them for what they are, a terrorist threat in our midst. We must make sure they're not in our police forces, because if there is one thing scarier than a white supremacist with a gun, it's a white supremacist with a gun in uniform. Please, God, there are things we can do. Please, God, we love each other, take care of each other regardless of the colour of our skin, and pray for the United States of America. It's a country being ripped apart, and the ripping and the tearing is being done by people who should at this very time be consoling and leading and inspiring. Pray. Pray for Canada. Pray for each and every one of our beautiful black baby girls and boys, the indigenous baby girls and boys, the Asian kids. Wherever you look, reach out and be a good ally. Stand up and say, With my body I get between you and the cops. We have to be good allies. Right now, they're just pretty words. Thank you for listening. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I'd like to remind honourable members that any petition presented during the meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's difficult to follow that set of speeches. I have a petition on a serious issue dealing with plastic pollution. It creates a major impact on aquatic life but also on human health. It's estimated that 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles are ingested per person every year. A recent study shows that each washing cycle 120,000 to 730,000 microfibres are shed from clothes and go directly into waste water. Many of these microfibres are synthetic and therefore are microplastics. Washing machine discharge filters are currently available on the market and greatly reduce the amount of microfibres being released into waste water and thus the environment. This petition is calling on the government to legislate the requirement for all new washing machines to have discharge filters as of 2021 and to provide incentives to all residents of Canada to install discharge filters on current washing machines. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for Peace RiverWestlock. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to table a petition signed by Canadians who are concerned about Bill C-7. Given what we've seen in assisted living homes in this country and the devastation particularly in Ontario and Quebec, the petitioners are asking for the government to look into assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for SaanichGulf Islands. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise to present a petition today from a number of constituents calling for the government to act to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. There is a call to respect the Wet'suwet'en territory and to dismantle RCMP exclusion zones. This petition came some time ago. Some of these issues have been dealt with. I am particularly pleased to note that the nation-to-nation talks called for by petitioners between the Wet'suwet'en and the federal and provincial governments have taken place. I will take this moment if I may to thank the honourable ministers involved in that effort. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That will conclude the presenting of petitions. I would ask members who have presented petitions here in person in the House if they would be so kind as to bring their petitions to the table. That would be most appreciated. We'll now go to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would remind members to do their best to keep their member statement to a maximum of one minute. We'll start statements by members with Mr. Weiler, the member for West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country. +Mr. Patrick Weiler (West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I continue to be amazed by how the communities throughout my riding have stepped up to support our most vulnerable at our time of crisis. In many ways it has brought our communities closer together even while we stay physically distant. Nowhere is this more true than on the Sunshine Coast. Dedicated individuals immediately and organically mobilized the Sunshine Coast community task force to coordinate local government, non-profit and business efforts to provide critical services to the community. Social enterprises banded together to form the Sunshine Coast food service response, which provides ready-made meals and donates to food banks. Persephone Brewing and others deliver groceries to at-risk customers both on the coast and on isolated islands. The 101 Brewhouse + Distillery and Bruinwood Distillery quickly retooled their business to supply much-needed hand sanitizer to local hospitals and other front-line workers. COVID-19, like all crises, has highlighted true leadership in our society, and I am grateful for what they and all of our health care workers do every day to get us through this. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Medicine HatCardstonWarner, Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz (Medicine HatCardstonWarner, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have shown they're unwilling to put the protection and safety of Canadians ahead of political interests. They themselves are the greatest source of disinformation in this country. The Prime Minister told Canadians that they can buy a gun without a licence. Either purposely or because of ignorance, he left out the fact that doing so is a criminal offence with a five-year prison sentence. The Minister of Public Safety said he wouldn't target hunters, but then he went ahead and banned numerous bolt-action hunting rifles and made owning a shotgun a criminal offence. They have weakened the ability to protect our borders. They have ignored our rampant drug crisis, and they have weakened sentences for serious crimes, all while saying they take these issues very seriously. Today they tell us they are banning a new Liberal-invented type of firearm, a military-style assault rifle. It's time to be honest with Canadians. The Liberals would rather make people afraid of hunters, farmers and sport shooters than deal with the real issues like drugs, gangs, illegal smuggling and crime. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sgro, the hon. member for Humber RiverBlack Creek. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is in our most difficult moments when we truly see stunning displays of human spirit and generosity. On that note, today I wish to recognize the work of the Humber River Hospital in my riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek and to congratulate them on the success of their Humber front-line support fund and PPE drive. Not only have they been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic keeping our residents safe and healthy, but thanks to the generosity of those both in my riding and beyond, the Humber River Hospital has raised over $1 million and received over 400,000 pieces of personal protective equipment. This will be invaluable to the hospital as they continue to work with us and fight the good fight to keep us all healthy. I thank all those brave workers at the hospital, and I thank those generous individuals who have donated to this important cause. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for AbitibiTmiscamingue, Mr.Lemire, to take the floor. +Mr. Sbastien Lemire (AbitibiTmiscamingue, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am honoured to speak to you about a proud warrior. StephanLavoie had made the choice to say thank you to life. For several years, he had been using his fight against cancer, which he led with the help of natural products only, to ensure cancer services and care were improved, particularly in regions far from major centres. Mayor of Preissac, in the RCM of Abitibi, StephanLavoie passed away yesterday. I would like to extend my condolences to his wife, Anabelle, to his entire family and especially to his daughter, Astrid, who is only 20months old. Through his humanism, StephanLavoie was a warrior, a visionary and a great source of inspiration for all of us. To me, he was above all the perfect model of a committed and loving father. My thoughts also go out to the citizens of Preissac, to whom he leaves a dynamic legacy, and to the leaders of the Abitibi community. In our first conversation, he said to me, and I hope the House will echo it forever, that all of our decisions must be made with our children in mind. Stephan, rest in peace, dear friend. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for MontRoyal, Mr.Housefather, has the floor. +Mr. Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal, Lib.): It is with great sadness that I rise today to pay tribute to Tristan Roy, after his tragic passing exactly two weeks ago. Born in Saint-Fabien-sur-Mer, Tristan became a pillar of the MontRoyal community in1997 when he bought the old MontRoyal newspaper. When the city's oldest newspaper, the TMR Weekly Post ceased operations, Tristan registered the name and renamed his newspaper the TMR Poste de Mont-Royal. He created a truly bilingual newspaper, ensuring that TMR residents could receive their news in both French and English. His editorials and views on local issues carried enormous weight. I join Mayor Philippe Roy and the members of the town council in offering our sincere condolences to Tristan's wife, Anne-Marie, his daughter, Aril, and his son, Lancelot. We all considered Tristan to be a friend, an example of what a good journalist and editor should be and could be. He will be sorely missed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux, has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Mr.Chair, if you didn't already know, people from Beauce are proud. There is Marie-PhilipPoulin of Beauceville, who was named the best female hockey player in the world earlier this year, or AntonyAuclair of Notre-Dame-des-Pins. AntonyAuclair said, in a CBC article, that Beauce had prepared him for his arrival in the NFL. There is also GuillaumeCouture, from Sainte-Marie, who made his mother very proud, and everyone from Beauce indirectly, on the program Les Chefs again last night. It is this same pride that I see throughout the region, with companies like Revtech Systmes, in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, or PuriHaze, in Sainte-Marie, which have invented robots to decontaminate spaces. There are also local purchasing initiatives such as the #onlaici campaign by the Nouvelle-Beauce chamber of commerce and industry or Achetons beauceron, by the Saint-Georges chamber of commerce. Today I have but two words for my constituents: thank you. I thank them for continuing to encourage local businesses that greatly need it. I thank them for being loyal to their habits and to rolling up their sleeves to help their neighbours. I thank them for being proud and being residents of Beauce. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to the member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government has shown leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that Canadians remain safe and get the financial assistance they need. Eight million Canadians are receiving the Canada emergency response benefit. The Canada emergency business account and the Canada emergency wage subsidy ensure that the economy is ready to start up post-pandemic. Seniors received top-ups to the OAS and GIS, and families, the child care benefit. All of these measures are helping thousands of seniors and low-income families in my riding of Don Valley East. The feedback from my regular virtual town halls has also helped to fine-tune many of the programs. Many Canadians have shown generosity during this crisis. I want to particularly thank Saravanaa Bhavan and Happy Pops for donating food and frozen treats to our superhero front-line workers at local hospitals. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for VaughanWoodbridge, Mr. Sorbara. +Mr. Francesco Sorbara (VaughanWoodbridge, Lib.): Mr. Chair, even though this year's festivities for Italian Heritage Month will be done differently, the same spirit and vitality exists throughout virtual events happening across the country. Virtual events have seen Italian Canadians, through their generosity, raise over $1 million to help Italy during COVID-19. Today, June 2, Italian citizens celebrate the founding of the modern day Italian Republic. The Italian Canadian story remains one of passion, an adopted homeland filled with hard work, sacrifice and optimism. Generations of Italian Canadians have contributed much to shaping the inclusive and generous Canada that we know today. Our diversity is our strength, and I'm proud to be Italian Canadian. Let's all join together in proudly celebrating Italian Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, as communities begin to ease restrictions, I remain mystified that, according to this government, Parliament is not an essential service. If it were up to the Prime Minister, he would not have to answer to anyone. That is not how democracy works. We in the opposition have been long calling for the return of Parliament, which would be possible while still maintaining public health guidelines. Canadians deserve to be represented in the House of Commons by the elected member of Parliament. While the work we do in our constituencies is incredibly important, it is equally important to bring those voices back to Ottawa to debate, to question and to hold the government to account. This is fundamental to the role of an elected representative. The role of the opposition is crucial now more than ever when billions of dollars are being spent with little oversight. Our role as members of Parliament is to uphold our democracy and to be present. This is the greatest pandemic in our lifetime. Now is not the time to hide behind a podium. If this government were doing the best job for Canadians, they would not need to hide. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Brampton East, Mr. Sidhu. +Mr. Maninder Sidhu (Brampton East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to take a moment to highlight displays of generosity in my riding of Brampton East. This is just a small sample of the many individuals and organizations that have stepped up across Canada. Khalsa Aid has been providing food supplies with the help of Sperenza Banquet Hall, which has graciously provided the space to run a province-wide campaign out of Brampton East. Care4Cause has sent hundreds of prepared meals on a weekly basis to Good Shepherd Ministries to lessen their load. Navraj Brar at Pharmasave has offered free care packages to health care workers and hand sanitizer to the Peel Regional Police. Aujla Salon and Spa has partnered with GlobalMedic to help deliver over 10,000 pounds of food to local food banks. I would also like to point out the heroic efforts of our truck drivers, taxi drivers, grocery store clerks, nurses, doctors, paramedics and countless other front-line heroes. We see you and we are immensely grateful for the bravery you display each and every day. Thank you to everyone in Brampton East who has stepped up for their neighbour in their time of need. You are setting a great example of the kind of progress we can make as Canadians when we come together and support each other. I am truly honoured to represent you in Ottawa. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for WellingtonHalton Hills, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Mr. Chair, the House of Commons is shut down. Let's be clear. This is not the House of Commons. It's a committee where only statements, petitions and questions are allowed. There is no power to introduce motions, to test confidence or to vote. The government came to office promising greater democracy but they broke their promise on electoral reform. They tried to give the PMO the control over this House in motion 6, and yesterday's report confirms that they rigged the leaders debate in their favour in the last election. Now they've shuttered Parliament. Parliament sat through two world wars, the October crisis and previous pandemics and it survived the test, but not now. The people's representatives need to sit. People need their representation. Parliament and this House of Commons with its full powers needs to reopen and it needs to reopen now. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for ReginaQu'Appelle. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these past few months have been tremendously difficult for so many Canadians: sickness, losing loved ones, job losses, economic hardships, loneliness and isolation. The pandemic has taken its toll on so many. It is in these times of suffering and adversity that we have seen Canadians coming together to support each other and that brings us hope. Mosques, churches, synagogues and gurdwaras have all answered the call to help their communities. Whether it's providing meals to the hungry, clothing for the cold, or technology for those who need it most, these actions are true reflections of the kindness and generosity that Canadians are known for. While there are too many groups to mention them all, I want to thank Vikas Sharma and Care4Cause out of Brampton for the meals that they have been providing their community in that area and across the GTA. This group and thousands of others like it across the country are working tirelessly to ease the suffering of others and help those in need. Thank you, and God bless all the volunteers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to the honourable member for Winnipeg Centre. Ms. Gazan, go ahead. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise today in honour of National Indigenous History Month to speak truth about a history of racism in Canada that was built on the wrongful dispossession of lands from indigenous people and controlled through the use of police-state violence that has resulted in a loss of life, freedom, respect and dignity. Even today we continue to observe this reality in my very own city where we witnessed the killing of three indigenous youth by police in a span of 10 days this past April. This is not a coincidence. We have statistics. We have research, and we have stories of loved ones lost. We know it, and we see it in our lives every day. We need to address police violence throughout this country. Canadians are rising from coast to coast demanding this of all of us and sending a clear message that we must address systemic racism in all of its forms to ensure justice for all. There will never be reconciliation in the absence of justice. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Mr.Chair, Canada Post is literally not delivering the goods. But the postal service is an essential service, and even more so today because everything is done online, even local shopping. The current crisis partly explains the congestion, but it is mainly due to the fact that Canada Post forgot to join the 21stcentury. It has been left behind where others have made millions of dollars. Its platform isn't effective. It's now delivering more parcels, but it's losing money. There's a statement to make here, right now. In the immediate term, Canada Post must deal with the delays, and to do so, it needs the help of the Government of Canada. Canada Post needs to hire staff. If a collective agreement had finally been signed, it would make it easier to hire staff. We have been waiting for two and a half years. A premium for essential workers might also be appropriate. As I said, the postal service is an essential service, and it's time to give it the importance this status imposes. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Calgary Centre. Mr. McLean, go ahead. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, the prospects in Canada's oil fields are bleak in the near term. Capital spending forecasts and drilling activities sank to a 49-year low. This is a result of the temporary collapse in demand for our most valuable commodity and the one that contributes the most to our GDP, our balance of trade, and whose taxes support the social programs Canadians enjoy, $108 billion in GDP, $8 billion per year in government revenues, $77 billion in trade surplus. It is a rude blow to hard-working professionals who soldier past negligent government policies that have left a stain on another generation of western Canadians. We're talking about an industry here that directly employs over 200,000, including 11,000 indigenous Canadians. We're talking about an industry that contributes 75% of Canada's investment in clean technology. However, Canada's resource industry will still be resilient. Bad policy cannot permanently erase the work, the hope and the pride of forward thinkers and doers, and their efforts to continue building a great country. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Winnipeg South. Mr. Duguid, go ahead. +Mr. Terry Duguid (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today I want to give a special thank you to the health care workers at Victoria General Hospital, who are serving patients in our community here in Winnipeg South. Every day, doctors, nurses and staff work selflessly to take care of those in our community who need it most. Whether it's by keeping seniors connected with their families by using iPads or making sure that patients go home with a special care package, staff at the Vic are doing extraordinary work to make this difficult time just a little bit easier. I would also like to give a big shout-out to our wonderful small businesses in Winnipeg South that continue to show their appreciation by preparing meals for the hard-working staff at the Vic. Folks in our community continue to show what it means to be exemplary Canadians, and it is a great honour to represent them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This concludes the period for statements by members. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr.Chair, the staff of long-term care facilities for seniors are showing exceptional courage and dedication. FranoisLegault asked that the military personnel currently helping in facilities in Quebec stay until the fall. The Prime Minister said no. I'd like to hear the Prime Minister tell us why they can't stay. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, like all Canadians, I am deeply grateful for the extraordinary work that the Canadian Armed Forces are doing in long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario. Thanks to their reports, we've seen that the situation was even worse than we feared. The work our military is doing is extraordinary. We will continue to support them, but we know that having military personnel in our long-term care facilities isn't a long-term solution. Therefore, we are going to work with Quebec to find better long-term solutions. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, now that Bell Canada has decided to partner with Ericsson to deliver its 5G network, the Liberals will undoubtedly ban Huawei, but the Liberal inaction on Huawei is just another example of this government's weak leadership. Instead of deciding for himself a year ago, the Prime Minister is forcing the business community to make the decision for him. Why couldn't the Prime Minister have shown some backbone and banned Huawei a year ago? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our approach every step of the way has been to listen to experts, to work with allies and to listen to the counsel of our security and intelligence community, which has been looking into this issue. We know we need to make sure that Canadian businesses, Canadians and Canadian infrastructure are protected at the same time as we remain competitive in the world. That has guided our approach on this from the beginning. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The fact of the matter, Mr Chair, is that it hasn't. The former public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, promised in this House over a year ago that an answer on Huawei would be coming. Here we are, it's June 2, 2020, and they still haven't made a decision. On another topic, Mr. Chair, the President of the Treasury Board wrote to cabinet last week and said that transparency is important even in a time of crisis. I guess the Minister of Infrastructure didn't get that letter. She's refusing to tell us how much of a bonus she gave to the departing head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At a time when Canadians are struggling, it is disgusting that the Liberals are paying out bonuses to someone who accomplished nothing. Will the Prime Minister have a little respect for taxpayers and tell us exactly how much of a bonus the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank received? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the mandate of the Canada Infrastructure Bank is to find innovative ways to finance some of Canada's biggest infrastructure projects by leveraging private capital. The remuneration range of the former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. The opposition is looking backward. We're moving forward. The bank is moving into its next phase of development, now under the leadership of the new board chair, Michael Sabia, and will play an important role in the recovery when the time comes. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, only to a Liberal would an innovative approach to building infrastructure mean building absolutely nothing. The CEO of an infrastructure bank who accomplished zero completed infrastructure projects should not be receiving a bonus. I didn't ask a question about the remuneration. I didn't ask a question about the salary. This individual received a bonus. How much was that bonus? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, the remuneration range of this former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. In regard to further payments, we do not comment on personal HR and financial information of individuals in government. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, again, I did not ask about the remuneration. I asked about the bonus. The Canada Infrastructure Bank was a Liberal scheme designed to protect the investments of private investors and put all the risk onto taxpayers. Even with that model, do you know how many projects they completed? Zero. Yet, the individual in charge of that received a bonus from the Prime Minister. Apparently, to the Liberals, he was doing a good job. They might try to claim that it's arm's length and that they can't divulge this information, but we know that Minister Champagne personally intervened in the decision regarding the bonus of the Canada Infrastructure Bank's CEO. It's a simple question. How much did that individual receive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, five years ago, when we first got elected, we had to turn around the underinvestment that Stephen Harper's Conservatives had made in infrastructure across the country. Even during the depths of the 2008 recession, the investments they made were for things like doorknobs and signs. They went into debt and didn't have anything to show for it. We're going to continue to move forward on historic investments in infrastructure to build up this country. We're using innovative means like the infrastructure bank to do that. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, well before 1867, in what became Quebec, in New Brunswick, in Acadia, in Ontario and in the west, lay the seeds of what later became the provinces of Canada and Quebec. It can therefore be inferred that Canada is a creature of the provinces and that the provinces are not creatures of Canada. Could the Prime Minister read his answer to this question: who pays for the health transfers to the provinces? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have a country with a number of levels of government working together to serve Canadians. In times of crisis, but also in good times, Canadians expect that their governments will work together to provide the services and the care that they need. That is exactly what we are doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let me remind the Prime Minister that all the provinces and Quebec are asking for increased and recurring health transfers that are unconditional and sustainable. Who pays for the all-too-meagre benefits made available to the seniors of Quebec and Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have worked with Quebec and the other provinces to make sure that we invest in health transfers. We have made transfers of $500million, that's halfabillion dollars, because of the recent COVID-19 crisis. We will continue to work with the provinces in the long term. But, for the moment, we are working on the emergency situation in which we find ourselves. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, the Conservatives have backtracked on the wage subsidy, and I congratulate them for that. Who pays for the part of the wage subsidy program that will be going into the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, since this crisis began, we have made investments to protect jobs and workers, including accountants, human resources managers and receptionists. We are in the process of ensuring that people with all kinds of jobs in all kinds of organizations will be able to keep those jobs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, it is comforting to know that they are a little richer now, but some companies are under threat because the Liberal Party is a little richer. Who is going to pay for the fact that one company has been chosen by a closed call for tender? One company has been awarded a private contract, probably a foreign multinational, probably for 2021, while we are perfectly capable of doing the work in Quebec and in Canada. Who is going to pay for this gift to a private company that will be doing the Government of Canada's work? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are in a crisis. We are in the process of helping workers and helping Canadians by means of measures like the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and with the assistance to companies, We will continue to do what we must do to help workers all across the country so that we can come out of this crisis together. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Fundamentally, my impression was that, in a crisis, civil society turns to the state to find and implement solutions. I see that, in this case, and in all its operations, the Government of Canada takes money, about 20% of which comes from Quebec, and gives it to a private company, possibly a foreign company, so that it can tell us what will happen, although the first wave will have come and gone for a year already. Is the Prime Minister telling us that he is incapable of doing his job? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, Canadians expect their government to look after their health and the health of the economy. That is exactly what we are doing. We are here for workers, we are here for families, we are here for our seniors and for our students. We will continue to be here throughout this pandemic and as the economy reopens. That is what Canadians expect of us and we will meet their expectations. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchet, you have about 40seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, as I see it, the Prime Minister is contracting out his job with taxpayers' money, a part of which is going into his party's bank account for the next election. Is that the only explanation of his role he has for the residents of Quebec, a role that is currently protected by a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all across the country, including in Quebec, people are worried about their jobs because of the crisis that the pandemic is causing. We are providing a wage subsidy to organizations and to companies to ensure that people will receive their paycheques in order to support their families and pay their rent. That is what people expected from this government as a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Burnaby South, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, people are fed up with pretty words from people in power. The Prime Minister has the power to do something about the anti-black racism that Canada is faced with. Will the Prime Minister end racial profiling in Canada against black people once and for all? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this government was the first government to recognize anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and unconscious bias and to take concrete actions against them in the context of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent but also in the context of a country that stands up for human rights and protects everyone. We have made significant steps forward, but there is so much to do, and I look forward to working with all members in this House to do just that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I did not hear an answer. Will the Prime Minister end the racial profiling of black people in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our justice system unfairly targets in many situations racialized Canadians, including indigenous Canadians and black Canadians. We know we need to improve our justice system and rates of incarceration and we will work on it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister end the over-policing and over-incarceration of black and indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic discrimination means that people of colour are at greater risk of being incarcerated than others when facing negative outcomes in the justice system. We know we need to work on all the determinants of that. We will work as a country together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister make sure Canada is collecting disaggregated data on the impacts of COVID-19 on racialized people, particularly indigenous and black people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, not just on COVID-19 but on all ranges of data, we've made investments over the past years to Statistics Canada so that they are better able to collect data in a disaggregated fashion. We need to know what is happening within vulnerable communities. Disaggregated data will help, and we're working with provinces on the COVID-19 data. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: We know people are frustrated with anti-black racism. People are also incredibly frustrated with anti-indigenous racism. Will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration, over-policing and racial profiling of indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I referred to that in an earlier answer. Yes, we need to work to ensure that the rates of incarceration for indigenous people and for racialized Canadians are reduced. There are many measures we're working on to move forward to make our justice system fairer, to reduce systemic discrimination and eventually to eliminate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Here are two specific things we can do. I asked the Prime Minister if he will commit to stop taking indigenous kids to court, and if he will stop delaying the response to the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls calls for justice. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, tomorrow is the anniversary of the end of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry. We have been working over the past year with partners on the ground to formulate the measures and the response that needs to move forward. Many of those partners over the past months have been engaged in keeping their communities safe and working hard on that, and that has delayed the putting out of the report. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister stop taking indigenous kids to court when it comes to indigenous child welfare? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we agree that we need to compensate kids and indigenous peoples who have suffered harm at the hands of our child and family services over the past decades and we will do that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister commit to not just pretty words but real action ensuring that all indigenous communities have access to clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP needs to know that we have eliminated over 80 long-term boil water advisories through our work over the past years, and we are on track to eliminating all of them on time by next spring. This is something we committed to Canadians and we are doing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister needs to speak to indigenous communities who talk of a completely different reality. They do not have access to clean drinking water, and communities are going off the list only to return back on to the list of boil water advisories. Will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring all indigenous communities have clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, that was a commitment we made to Canadians and a commitment we are keeping. The member opposite continues to talk as if there has been no progress made. There has been significant progress made. We are on track to eliminating those boil water advisories. It would be great if the members opposite talked about some good news instead of just highlighting the very real problems that are there. There is good news and there is challenging news. We are working on those together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Mr. Chair, what share of Canada's national debt is owed to foreign lenders? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our fiscal situation in a responsible manner, and we'll continue to do that. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much does the Government of Canada owe to the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we would be happy to provide information. If the member would like to send my office questions directly, I'd be happy to provide this information. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: It turns out I did a week ago. They still haven't provided answers to the questions, in particular the question regarding who owns Canada's foreign-held debt. We know that roughly a third of our debt is owned by foreigners. How much of that debt is owned by lenders from the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we'd be happy to reply to these questions directly. We'll do so. We'll get to it in order, as we work through this crisis, making sure we focus on Canadians first. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much is owned by lenders from Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, we'd be happy to provide information in this regard should the member wish to send a request directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Which I have. Mr. Chair, moving along to the impacts of the debt on our people, how much would a 1% increase in the effective interest rate on Canada's national debt cost Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our treasury function responsibly. I'd be happy to get financial calculations to the member if he'd like to send those directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: All right, Mr. Chair, we'll try a different question, then, as we're not getting any answers. We have lower interest rates than ever before. Normally, it means you lock in those rates for the long run. Anybody who has a mortgage knows you lock in for the long run when rates are low. What percentage of Canada's national debt is locked in for more than five years? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to get this information to the member, but I would acknowledge that as we manage the treasury function for the Government of Canada, we look at the short term, the medium term and the long term. We think we have come up with a responsible approach to managing the ongoing debt that we have as a country. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, it turns out, according to Department of Finance officials, that less than 3% of Canada's recently added debt since March is for terms of more than five years. Why has this minister made Canada so susceptible to future interest rate hikes by failing to lock in the $371.5 billion of new debt he's added in the last two and a half months? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage the treasury function of the Government of Canada in a responsible way, making sure we consider what debt should be issued in a short term, a medium term and a long term, which we've been doing as the Government of Canada during our entire term and as previous governments have done as well. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Canadians would be wise not to hire this minister as their mortgage broker if they're looking to get the best rate. Let's move on to the Canadian household. The average household was $200 away from insolvency before this crisis began. How many Canadians would experience bankruptcy in the next 12 months if interest rates were to rise by an effective one percentage point? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we'd be happy to get calculations to the member. I would make the observation that what we've been working to do during the course of this pandemic is to support Canadians and support Canadian families by providing them income during a time when they don't have access to income because they're actually at home. We think that has supported them in a very, very positive way that allows us to ensure that we will have a continuing economy when we get through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Poilievre. Go ahead. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Unfortunately, we will have a $1-trillion debt when this fiscal year comes to an end. How much will the finance minister try to raise taxes if interest rates on that debt rise by, say, 1%? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I've said to the House previously, we do not intend to raise taxes. What the member opposite is suggesting is that we shouldn't be investing to support Canadians. I think the approach we've taken, with the emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy, has been particularly critical for enabling Canadians to get through a very challenging time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The floor goes to the honourable member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, my question goes to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Day after day, I speak with those involved in the world of agriculture and with witnesses appearing before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. The consensus is very clear: the business risk management programs are not working. When will the Minister become involved and make major changes to those programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, we have made commitments to producers all across the country. Some programs are already provided, including the risk management programs. I am working regularly with my colleagues in the provinces in order to improve them. We have also increased our contribution to various other programs, specifically in the meat sector, for pork or beef producers, and food processors. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, I have been hearing the same answers for several weeks now. Could the Minister simply give us a date? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I repeat that we are working regularly with producers and their representatives. In addition, I am working together with my provincial colleagues. We are going to determine where the gaps are and we will identify the sectors that most need our assistance. Then, we will determine the best way to provide them with the assistance they need. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, the government promised to set its share of the business risk management programs at 60%, even if a province or territory does not participate. Have the provinces received the money, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Here is how it works. Through the AgriRecovery program, we have provided $50million for pork producers and $50million for beef producers. The program is available everywhere, but the provinces are responsible for implementing it. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, when will that transfer be made? Can the minister simply give us a date? That is all we are asking. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would really like to be able to give a date, but the answer depends on each of the provinces. The provinces have to implement the program. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: However, Mr.Chair, the minister has told us that she is ready to transfer the funds, whether or not the provinces add any to the program. To date, we still have no answer in that regard. How does the Minister of Agriculture intend to make major changes to the various risk management programs by July, when the government has itself pushed back the federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Ministers of Agriculture to October? We have been meeting by Zoom for some time now. Why was that not able to be an option? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I meet with my provincial colleagues every week, either by conference call or by Zoom. I can assure my colleague about our ongoing collaboration with the provinces. As for the AgriRecovery program, once again, the provinces have to implement it and it is their choice to contribute their share of 40% or not, in whole or in part. However, our federal commitment on the 60% share is firm. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, if I understand correctly, there will be no changes to the various programs before November. The sectors of agriculture under supply management, like eggs and poultry producers in my constituency, who have been promised compensation for a long time, want to know when the money will be transferred to the producers who are working tirelessly to feed our country. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I know that poultry, egg and milk producers work extremely hard. Our commitment to them in terms of compensation in response to the three free-trade agreements is still firm. At the moment, we are concentrating on emergency programs. We will then proceed with that compensation. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. As I see it, I still have not had an answer. The country is moving towards more automation. I am thinking, for example, about the advances that many SMEs and farmers in my constituency could implement in their companies. Unfortunately, in the regions, the Internet is far from adequate. When will I be able to tell my constituents that reliable Internet service will be available in their homes? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I assure you that we recognize the importance of the Internet in rural regions. I myself represent a rural constituency and it is a challenge every day. We are working with our colleagues, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Rural Economic Development to speed up the implementation of programs along those lines. +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll now proceed to Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz: Mr. Chair, for the Minister of Public Safety, Minister Blair, how many times has the list of banned firearms changed since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): My understanding is that an order in council was made on May 1, and we have not made any changes to that order in council. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. How many more firearms have been added to the original prohibited list since that date? +Hon. Bill Blair: I suspect the member may be referring to the work that the RCMP has been doing through the Canadian firearms program in order to apply the order in council that was passed. +The Chair: Before we go to Mr. Motz, I want to ask all honourable members to ensure that they are on mute. We are getting some voices in the background. Mr. Motz, please continue. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many .22 calibre rifles, firearms, are on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: To be very clear, Mr. Chair, the banned list includes a number of assault-style rifles, including the AR-15. The member may be referring to a weapon that the RCMP has identified as using an AR-15 frame, which of course +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is a wrong answer, Mr. Chair. How many shotguns are now on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That is a bit of confusion put out by the gun lobby to frighten hunters. In fact, we did not prohibit any shotguns. +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is another untruth, Mr. Chair. Are there any airsoft guns on the prohibited list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's another bit of mistruth and deception put out by the gun lobby. In fact, there was a weapon called the Blackwater AR-15, which was a real gun that was prohibited, but the toy gun, the airsoft one, was not. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. I know some of those exact firearms that are on that list. Why is the RCMP continuing to add firearms to the prohibited list after the list was published? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it is a very important that the RCMP, as the agency responsible for administering the Canadian firearms program, continues to do its diligence to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: Why has there been no notice given to firearms owners, retailers or the police of the many changes to the banned firearms list? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, it is very important that the Canadian firearms program and the RCMP continue to do the important work of ensuring that Canadians are kept safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been transferred between licensed gun owners and/or retailers since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I do not have that information and, as the member probably knows, records are not kept by the government or by law enforcement about the transfer of firearms that are not restricted. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been retroactively changed to prohibited since May 1? Of the firearms that have been transferred, how many now are retroactively prohibited since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, on May 1, by order in council, we prohibited 1,500 somewhat different types of firearms, all based upon a military design. Those are the weapons that are prohibited. +Mr. Glen Motz: Since that time you have added almost 700 more, and none of those meet that category you are trying to establish. If a firearm that was not on the original prohibited list was transferred since May 1 and now that firearm appears on that prohibited list, are those transfers subject to a criminal prosecution? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, the member is asking me a question that is solely the responsibility of the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction, and that is their decision, not ours. +Mr. Glen Motz: The minister has said that the issuance of firearm licences and transfers was stopped recently due to a printer failure. We now know that to be completely false. There was no such failure, but an ordered shutdown. Who ordered the RCMP to withhold these services from law-abiding Canadians? +Hon. Bill Blair: I have absolutely no knowledge of the allegation the member has just made, Mr. Chair, and so I cannot really confirm or deny that it actually ever happened. +Mr. Glen Motz: Maybe the minister needs to check with his officials and find out who actually did the ordering. What does the minister believe to be the estimated cost of the firearms confiscation plan? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, there was no firearms confiscation plan. We will, however, be bringing legislation forward at the very first opportunity to facilitate a buyback program that will treat Canadians who purchased these firearms fairly. +Mr. Glen Motz: You can't buy back something that you never owned in the first place, Mr. Chair. These costs must include administration, price per firearm, as well as the industry costs. We know that industry costs are over $1 billion. If this minister doesn't know the cost, maybe he's as incompetent as our Minister of Finance. I am wondering, Chair, through you, why the law enforcement notes were removed from the firearms reference table? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that parliamentary language is something we need to respect in the House. We should be careful what we say. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to advise you and this House that our purpose is to protect the lives of Canadians, and we are taking strong action to strengthen gun control. We are not influenced by the gun lobby or by gun manufacturers, only by our interest in keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: We will now continue to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to start by thanking the government for listening to my proposals a couple of weeks ago regarding the extension of benefits for vulnerable Canadians who may not have been able to file their income tax by this week's deadline. There are millions of relieved seniors with GIS and parents with the child tax benefit and GST who now know they have a bit of time and protection and aren't to be cut off from their benefits. I'm hoping to go two for two here today, so there's no pressure to the Minister of Public Safety. I want to build on the comments last week from Ms. Gladu, my colleague from SarniaLambton, about family reunification between Canadians and Americans. Many constituents in my riding are concerned and are caught in this situation. I certainly support, and I think we support in this chamber, the idea of the extension for travel. However, it's now been three months since many spouses have seen each other, and there are Canadian and American children in custody arrangements who have seen their parent only on one side of the border or the other. After stating for months that reunifying families wasn't considered essential travel, I am thankful that he and the Prime Minister have now said that it is. Will the minister agree to the safe and fair proposal we outlined in our letter last week, which would exempt spouses, children and those with medical needs travelling back and forth with accompanying documentation, so that we can get people and their families back together? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for what I think is a very important question and I want to assure him that I have had similar conversations with members of this House from all parties and representing all parts of the country. We recognize the challenge that this particular policy of restricting non-essential travel has meant for families. It is not our intention and never will be our intention to separate families. We are working very closely with the CBSA to ensure that individuals are treated fairly. I want to share this with the member and honourable members of this House. Any change we make to our arrangement at the border will require a change by an order in council. Because there is a great deal of concern in our communities and from our provincial and territorial partners about the movement of people across our border, any change has to be discussed and negotiated with our provincial partners. Some of them, you may be aware, have expressed some concern, and we're addressing those concerns because we respect their concerns. At the same time we are working very hard, and I am very hopeful that we'll be able to resolve this challenge to the satisfaction of the many Canadians you and everyone else represents. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that when they are asking or answering a question, they should speak through the Chair and not directly to the other member. We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: We were looking at each other. It's a bad habit. To the minister, I appreciate the comments. I will just note that the Canadian and American governments have worked with provinces, as we have with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to repatriate Canadians from around the world. There have been quarantine protocols put in place to allow that. There are protocols and there is a precedence. I am just wondering why there is a delay in acknowledging the families part. I believe there is a precedent and I believe there is a background there, and I think we can, through an order in council or whatever measure, get people back with their families. Can the minister explain why reunifying families needs to be any different from repatriating Canadians from other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again I thank the member, because this is a very important issue and it's important to us as well. We have been working over the past couple of weeks very diligently on trying to find a resolution of this problem, because it is never our intention to separate families and we have all heard some very heart-wrenching concerns that have been raised. At the same time, I think it's important to work very closely, as we have done, with our provincial and territorial partners to ensure that we address the concerns they have raised. We are prepared to move forward and we are working very hard to resolve the concerns that were raised so that we can have a positive answer to those many families, and we +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: I appreciate that comment from the minister. I want to share the story of a constituent of mine, Mr. David Lee, from Cornwall. He and his wife Maria have been married for a couple of years now. She is an American citizen. They spend about five months of the year in Texas and five months in Cornwall and would generally travel about two months of the year. However, she couldn't come up to Canada because of the restrictions that have been put in place, and it's certainly putting a strain on them. Can the minister confirm that the three concerns we outlined in our letter are being discussed as part of reaching a solution or a resolution as soon as possible? The three concerns are that spouses and long-term partners can be reunited, that children with child custody arrangements can see both of their parents, and that if somebody needs to travel back or forth over the border for medical appointments, they can do that and can stay with their spouse. Can you confirm that all three are on the table and will be addressed? +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can confirm is that we're working hard to make sure we keep families together. I want to reiterate, because you raise a very important point, that when people cross the border they're still subject to the quarantine orders of public health. That's for the protection of all Canadians. You mentioned travelling back and forth across the border. If the travel is deemed essential, that is an exception, but if it is not deemed essential, then a person must go into quarantine for 14 days. That's one of the concerns the provinces have raised with us and one of the assurances they have sought. We're working to provide those assurances. +The Chair: Before we go to the next line of questioning, I want to remind the honourable members that we have interpreters who are working very hard to translate from one language to the other. I therefore ask you to speak a little more slowly out of consideration for the interpreters, who are doing a really good job. We'll now go to Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I've had the opportunity to talk with Mr. James Bogusz, CEO of the Regina Airport Authority, and he paints a grim picture. He expects the airport to be out of money by the end of the summer. The loss of the Regina International Airport would be devastating, not only to the city of Regina but also to southern Saskatchewan. The Liberal government has made a great show out of allegedly providing $330 million in assistance to airports through lease deferrals, but here is what it's not telling people: Airport lease payments are already tied to revenue and have been for many years, so when an airport's revenue goes down to zero, its lease payments to the federal government go down to zero, pandemic or no pandemic. That means the government has done absolutely nothing to help Canada's airports. Will the government commit today to providing real assistance to Canada's struggling airports? +Hon. Bill Blair: The Minister of Transport has been working very closely with airports, large and small, right across the country. We have continued to update our responses in this rapidly evolving situation. We've been in touch with each of the airports, and we've been working very hard to help them manage through these difficult times. We know that in some circumstances, continued operations at smaller airports have not been possible, but wherever possible we have done our very best to try to accommodate the very real financial challenges these airports are experiencing. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, Canada's airports are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and the Liberal government's response has been to defer their lease payments. These were already based on revenue, so these deferrals are effectively meaningless. In the meantime, the U.S. government's CARES program is providing $10 billion in grants and low-interest forgivable loans to support American airports. Will the government commit today to saving Canada's airports with a similar program of grants and forgivable loans? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we have worked very hard, and continue to do so, to make sure we provide supports to regional airports right across this country. We know how important air transport is to such a vast country and we know the tremendous work they do. They support communities and the Canadian economy. We're going to work very closely with them to make sure we provide the right supports to help them get through this difficult time, because we know how important they will be to the eventual restart of our economy. Their continued existence and success are important to that restart, and we'll work with them. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the airport crisis goes far beyond my home city of Regina. Airports are vital to Canada's economy, providing over 200,000 jobs nationwide and paying $13 billion in wages and $7 billion in taxes. However, now Canada's airports are on the brink of collapse, and the government has stood idly by as airports have lost over 90% of their revenue. Last month Joyce Carter, chair of the Canadian Airports Council, called on the government for a three-point plan for airport recovery. It includes the permanent elimination of ground leases, substantive loan and bond guarantees and a special plan to support smaller airports that provide vital supplies to rural and remote communities. Could the minister inform the committee if the government has done anything in response to the Canadian Airports Council's request? +Hon. Bill Blair: I would make the observation that all of our smaller regional airports are vital to the communities they serve. That's why it's important that we work with them all. The Minister of Transport is in regular communication and in ongoing discussions with airport authorities, large and small, right across this country on how we can continue to support them. There have been a number of proposals made by the industry itself and by some of the regional airports on what form that help can take. That's all part of a very important ongoing discussion. I believe it is clear that Canadians need our help, and we are there for Canadians to help them get back on their feet when we get through this pandemic. +The Chair: Mr. Kram, we have time for a 15-second question and a 15-second answer. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all started free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom. Why hasn't Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (MarkhamThornhill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the question. We, of course, are going to make sure that we will always act in the interests of Canadian businesses, and I want to assure Canadians that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the United Kingdom. We will make sure that our further work will always take into account the interests of Canadian businesses. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Therrien. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to know how many full-time and part-time employees are currently working for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): On a point of order, Mr.Chair. I am not sure that the number of employees at the Liberal Party, the Bloc Qubcois, or the Conservative Party is relevant to government management. +The Chair: I am not sure whether that is a point of order, but I will let Mr.Therrien continue. +Mr. Alain Therrien: If he stays with me, he will understand. He can trust me. I would like to know how many people work full time and part time for the Liberal Party of Canada. It is a simple question. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: A number of people do. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I know that they think its funny to pilfer taxpayers money from government coffers. But that is not our style. The Liberal Party took money through the emergency wage subsidy program. I would just like to know how many people work for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Bill Morneau: I do not know how many people work for the Liberal Party, but I can say that the emergency wage subsidy is for all sectors of the economy. That is how we can protect employees across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have 157MPs and they have known for two weeks that we are working on the wage subsidy. Not one member wondered how many people work for them. They are too busy helping themselves to the cookie jar. In an article in La Presse on May25, Liberal Party spokesman Braeden Caley said that between 75and 100employees were receiving wages subsidized through this program. Is that correct? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I am very focused on our concern, which is to protect Canadians across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. It is very important for them and for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Let's use a round number. Let's say 100employees. How many employees in the Liberal Party of Canada are threatened by the pandemic? You should know; it's your party. +The Chair: I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We stand by our approach of protecting employees across the country. We want to make sure that they have enough money to meet the challenges that they are facing during the pandemic. +Mr. Alain Therrien: I would actually say that they want to have enough money for their next election campaign. I would like to know how much taxpayers' money has been taken from the emergency wage subsidy program and will be used as election loot for the Liberal Party of Canada. How much money have you taken from the program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The emergency wage subsidy program allows us to protect 75% of the income that employees were earning before the crisis, to a maximum of $847. This is important for them and, of course, very important for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, since I am not getting an answer, let me share with you the very simple calculation I cobbled together. One hundred employees at $847 a week is $340,000a month. That is the amount of taxpayers' money that the Liberal Party is putting into its pockets. If we multiply that amount by threethat's three months, since it started on March15we get over $1million. That is the amount they will have put in their pockets, to be used as election loot for the Liberal Party. Given that the Liberals are extending the emergency wage subsidy, will their party continue to help itself to the money? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The purpose of the emergency wage subsidy is to protect employees. So every business must ensure that the money goes to the employees. That is very important. It is how employees and their incomes are protected. It will help millions of families across the country to be in a better situation. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you can ask a question of no more than 15seconds. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have already taken $1million out of the register, so that is settled. My question is twofold. First, are they going to pay back that $1million? Second, I hope they will not be taking another $1million by September. Can I at least be reassured of that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach to protect employees and businesses needing it during the crisis. +The Chair: We will take a short break so that our employees can safely change places. We can now continue. We'll go now to Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Centre. Mr. Chair, as parliamentarians, our greatest responsibility is to keep Canadians safe. During the previous Parliament, our government made significant investments in the CBSA and the RCMP, and provided funds to provinces and territories to invest in programs that combat gun and gang violence and support our communities in providing positive alternatives for youth engagement and activities. On May 1, our government banned assault-style weapons. This is something that we pledged to do during the last federal election and something that victims' groups, law enforcement and everyday Canadians called on for decades, but we must know that we need to take more action to keep our communities safe. Mr. Chair, I'm sure that this continues to be an important issue for many communities. Can the minister tell the House and the constituents of NewmarketAurora what further steps our government will take to keep Canadians safe? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I'd like to begin by thanking the honourable member for NewmarketAurora for his question and for his advocacy on behalf of the safety of his community. Mr. Chair, building upon historic investments that we made in the last Parliament in law enforcement dealing with guns and gangs, we took the important next step in our promise to strengthen Canada's gun control by prohibiting weapons that many in the law enforcement community, including the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, have said have no place in our communities. There is much more to do. We will build on these early steps by strengthening our work and our laws at the border, by taking steps to prevent the theft and criminal diversion of guns and also by making significant investments in kids, families and communities where the conditions give rise to gun violence right across Canada. Mr. Chair, we have much work to do, and we are committed to keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in cities and towns across Canada, small businesses are the backbones of our local economies. They are also pillars of our communities. Even during these challenging times, we have seen restaurants and other businesses step up to deliver meals to front-line workers and make donations to our local food banks. So many have supported Scarborough Health Network's meals on wheels program. Their leadership has been inspiring. I have heard from many small business owners in Scarborough, from dentists to small manufacturers, who are having trouble paying their commercial rents due to the sharp downturn in business caused by COVID-19. They are interested in how programs like the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program would help them to stay in business, but they worry that these programs may not be able to help if their landlords don't participate. These small businesses are crucial to our community. Could the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade please explain why it is so important that the landlords participate to help small businesses make it through the pandemic and how we are working to make this program a success, not just here in Scarborough but across Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member of Parliament for her advocacy for the people of Scarborough Centre on this really important question. While rent is an area of provincial responsibility, helping businesses across the country is all of our responsibility. This is why we have stepped up to provide rent relief to businesses while, at the same time, helping property owners maintain the rental income through this crisis. We are asking property owners to do their part in keeping small businesses and their employees to get through these challenging times, and to take advantage of our forgivable loans in order to help small businesses that are the hardest hit by reducing their rent by 75%. This is a win-win situation. Many landlords have already stepped up, and we salute their efforts. We will continue to do what we can to help protect and help our small businesses across Canada from coast to coast to coast. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): The $4-billion Canada housing benefit agreement was announced in 2017. It's supposed to provide up to $2,500 per year to help families in need with their rent. We know that poverty and inadequate housing are barriers felt even more by black, indigenous and racialized people. Can the minister tell us how many families have actually received this housing support? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for asking about this really special and unique housing benefit. We introduced the Canada housing benefit as part of the national housing strategy to help people as a bridge to permanent housing, people who are in core housing need, are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We have signed agreements with provinces. We hope all of them come to the table to sign this really important cost-sharing +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It has been two and a half years, and families in need are still waiting. Only one province has signed on, and there has been no national consultation on how such a benefit program would even be implemented. With so little federal leadership, the Canadian Alliance of Non-Profit Housing Associations has stepped up and done the work for the government. They have outlined five key principles to guide the implementation of the Canada housing benefit. Will the minister adopt those principles and get on with ensuring vulnerable families get the rental assistance they need? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, it is really unfortunate that the honourable member thinks that an investment of $55 billion and the commitment of a 10-year federal plan of leadership in affordable housing and community housing is a lack of leadership. It is quite the opposite. The Canada housing benefit is yet another important segment of the national housing strategy, which will ensure people have access to a safe, affordable place to call home. It is being signed by a number of provinces, not just one as the honourable member suggests. There are up to five provinces that have moved on signing on to the Canada housing benefit. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Then surely the minister can actually tell us how many families benefited from that program. The fact is that two and a half million families are paying more than 30% of their income on rent, and they have been hit hard by this pandemic. Reciting the same message box over and over again will not get them the help they need. Aside from going forward with a housing benefit program, will the government prioritize affordable housing stimulus spending as a key component of any post-COVID stimulus policy? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, joining with provinces and territories and providing real help to members of the community who are experiencing homelessness so they can have a permanent roof over their heads is real action. It's real leadership by our government as part of the Canada housing benefit. This is a real benefit that is going to households in core housing need, people who experience a core housing need and who need a permanent place to call home. The Canada housing benefit is providing real help to thousands and thousands of Canadian households. We will continue to provide that leadership in concert with provinces and territories. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Well, minister, I would say that B.C. is still looking for the government to step up. We bought our first hotel to house the homeless in permanent housing, and the government has yet to provide any funding to them. The next question is for the Minister of Immigration. The first migrant worker died yesterday due to COVID-19. Migrant workers are warehoused in a space with no barriers between each sleeping cot. Others are housed in crowded communal bunkhouses. What action will the minister take to address this alarming situation? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): I thank my colleague for the question, and I want to extend our sympathies regarding the temporary worker who passed away from COVID-19. Of course, we continue to support workers by ensuring that they have the accommodations and the spacing necessary to work when they are here providing food security for all Canadians. We're also providing support to farmers to ensure that those accommodations are made. We put in place the regulations and the rules that are necessary, and we continue to work very closely with our provincial partners as well as leaders in this sector so that we can protect workers and ensure that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: No one should have to endure such inhumane housing conditions and risk their lives to support their families. We rely on them to put food on the table for our families. They don't have access to health care and they don't have a pathway to permanent residence. Will the minister do the right thing and grant migrant workers health care coverage and ensure the government follows up on the principle that if you're good enough to work, you're good enough to stay? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: In fact, Mr. Chair, I would clarify that temporary foreign workers do have a pathway to permanent residence. Of course, that is an opportunity we will continue to offer those who are ensuring that Canadians have access to healthy, safe and affordable food. We will continue to make the investments that are necessary to maintain a high standard of professionalism and workplace safety. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, fisheries and oceans stakeholders and coastal communities face unprecedented threats from the COVID-19 crisis, and they deserve the support of all levels of government, including their own MPs. Yesterday the Liberal and NDP MPs banded together to restrict the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to just four hours of sitting in the summer months. Conservatives are ready to put in the hours to support Canadians, while the Liberals and NDP refuse to do the work. When will the Prime Minister tell his MPs to get back to work for the Canadians who need their support? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we all agree that committees are doing extremely important work, and that's why committees are meeting regularly. I would like to remind my colleague that the committees are masters of their own destiny and make their own decisions, not the government. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, it took months for DFO to realize that fish passage on the Fraser River was blocked at Big Bar. Then it took them seven more months to tender a contract to clear the blockage. Now that contract has tripled from $17.6 million to over $52.5 million without a single communications post from the minister's office. The original contract amount was clearly inadequate, so who ordered it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, since we found out about the landslide at Big Bar, our government has been extremely active in making sure that the salmon have a passage through. We know how critically important the salmon are to the Fraser River, as well as to the indigenous communities along the Fraser. We're working diligently to make sure that we get that passage cleared. So far, we've made significant progress, but we know there's more work that needs to be done. That's why we'll continue to work with indigenous communities and the province to make sure that these +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the fisheries minister's mandate letter from November of last year directed her to make new investments in fighting invasive species. Half a year later, the minister has failed to deliver. Canadians on the front line of prevention wrote the minister, and when they got a response five months later, it was devoid of any help. This government's delays are hurting Canada's fight against invasive species. When will the minister follow her Prime Minister's directive and make new investments in the fight against invasive species? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question. Invasive species are a real challenge for our waterways. We know that a lot more has to be done. We're working diligently to find the answers to deal with some of the problems we are seeing from invasive species. We are continuing to monitor situations in waterways. I am committed to making sure that I meet my commitments within my mandate letter, and I will have more to say on that soon. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the list of hunting and sport shooting firearms banned by Minister Blair's order in council continues to grow. What other hunting firearms does he plan to ban? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, the weapons we have prohibited are weapons that were not designed for hunting or sport shooting but for soldiers to use in combat. As law enforcement leaders right across the country have said many times, they have no place in our community, and we agree. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, I continue to hear from constituents in the North OkanaganShuswap who are unable to access supports under the Canada emergency business account or the emergency commercial rent assistance program. Business owners have also lost employees and can't get them to come back to work because of the lack of flexibility in the emergency response benefit and the emergency student benefit. When the Liberals shut down Parliament, they removed our ability to amend legislation and fix their failures. When will the government fix these problems and the programs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to look at the programs we've put out to support Canadians to make sure that they are actually having the desired impact. As we've moved along, we have said that we need to make amendments. We've committed to extending the wage subsidy, and of course we're looking at all the measures we've put out so we can ensure that people have the support they need during this crisis. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, an April 1 letter confirms that Deloitte Canada has been contracted to help supply PPE. Was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member is correct that we have contracted with Deloitte to assist us with our operations on the ground in China in order to have an A-to-Z procurement approach to delivering goods +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Can the minister confirm that this was, indeed, a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, there are a number of goods that need to be procured for Canadian health care professionals to be safe, and that's exactly +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Yes or no, was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will take that question back to my department and come back to the member with a further, fuller response. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, is Deloitte of Canada able to speak on behalf of PSPC? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, not at all. The contracts that we are entering into are made by us +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: What is the value of the contract with Deloitte? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, again, that is information that we are not going to release at this time. When the time is right, we will do so. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of the suppliers that are in contact with Deloitte of Canada are indigenous contractors. Has the government secured any contracts with indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers, as we are with many suppliers across Canada and internationally. We are working hard to make sure that we have diverse supply chains across the board, and that means including indigenous suppliers in that mix. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of these indigenous suppliers have previously been vetted by the federal government and are certified vendors. Is it appropriate for Deloitte to be recertifying these vendors? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the honourable member appears to have information regarding Deloitte's certification processes, which would not be outside what the government itself is doing. I encourage him to come forward with a question that actually responds to fact before +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Does the minister think that re-vetting suppliers is a good use of resources? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'll tell you what I think. I believe that Canada is in a crisis, and I am making every effort to order PPE as Canadian health care workers require. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, indigenous suppliers stand at the ready to supply PPE to Canada. Has the minister contracted with any indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers and will continue to ensure that Canada has a diverse supply chain in terms of manufacturers, in terms of products and in terms of countries. That is our commitment to Canadian health care workers +The Chair: Now we go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Has the government signed a contract with a single indigenous supplier? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I would like to say that we are continuing to make sure that our supplier list is confidential, because we are in a crisis and we do not want to jeopardize The Chair: We go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, on Friday the association for indigenous business could not name a single indigenous company that had been contracted. Have any of the contracts signed with the federal government between Deloitte Canada and PPE suppliers been filled? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the member is mistaken. Deloitte is not signing contracts on behalf of the Government of Canada. Deloitte is assisting with and sourcing manufacturers, and all contracts are signed by the government with manufacturers. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Mr.Chair, we have difficulty understanding the government's management of the border. The order between Canada and the United States has an exception allowing refugee claimants to submit their claims in Canada if they have family here and we accept them. However, hundreds of Canadian-American couples cannot be reunited, which is a problem. I find it hard to believe that the minister cannot quickly instruct border services officers to allow spouses to enter the country right now. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I appreciate very much the member's intervention and the long list of people he sent to me. I'm also working with a number of different families. We remain committed to keeping families together. As I advised this House earlier, Mr. Chair, we're working diligently with our provincial and territorial partners to take the steps necessary to enable people to stay united as they cross the borders and enter into Canada, but to do so safely and not put other Canadians at risk. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, letting a spouse come home will not put Canadians at risk. A survey conducted in Canada reveals that a large majority of Canadians do not trust the Chinese communist regime at all and do not want Huawei in Canada. The good news today is that BCE and Telus have decided not to do business with Huawei. Now that the government no longer has to worry about BCE and Telus, can they say today that no other company is going to use Huawei and that Huawei will be banned from Canada for 5G? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for his question. Our government will always protect our networks and ensure that Canadians have access to the latest innovations in telecommunications. A review of 5G technologies and their economic and security considerations is currently under way. We will ensure that Canadians' security and personal information will never be compromised. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Let me remind the minister that we have been working on this for years and that CSIS has confirmed that Huawei is unreliable as far as Canada's security is concerned. Right now, two Canadians are being unjustly detained by the Chinese communist regime. The same regime continues to lie to the world about COVID-19, block our exports, and terrorize the citizens of Hong Kong. When will the Prime Minister confirm that he is going to ban Huawei from developing 5G in Canada? It is a simple question. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let's be very clear. Canadians deserve to have access to the most beneficial 5G technology. At the same time, the safety and security of Canada's digital environment will be of paramount consideration. We're doing the work required and we're not basing that agenda on some media report, but instead ensuring that all scientific and security factors are taken into account. We are engaged in robust discussions with our Five Eyes partners, including the United States, and all our security agencies. Mr. Chair, we'll do the work necessary to +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus has the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: The minister does not need a sheet of paper, this matter has been clear for a long time. Everyone is saying that we need to ban Huawei from Canada. I have a quick question for the Minister of Finance. Bell and Telus had each estimated that removing Huawei from their development would cost $1billion. Today we have learned that these companies have decided not to use Huawei. Did the government decide to pay for this under wraps to get out of it? Having said that, my next question is more about the theft on May27. About 90,000surgical masks bound for the Quebec City UHC were stolen from the Toronto airport. As we all know, these masks are critical in the fight against COVID-19. Has the minister called for an investigation? When are we going to find out what happened to those stolen masks that were bound for Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will gladly look into this issue and get back to my colleague. Our procurements have reached 101 million surgical masks at this time, and they're being distributed to provinces, including Quebec. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have time to ask a 15-second question. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: It is a little strange. The masks were stolen in Toronto on May27. So they have been gone a long time. I just want to know if there is an investigation and if they will ever be found. I want to address another complex and important issue. A police officer from the Montreal area called me and told me about a current fraud. Some social assistance recipients learned about the CERB and applied for it. Building managers have received a lot of cheques addressed to social assistance recipients. They know it is not legal and it constitutes fraud. The police officer is asking me what to do with the cheques and to whom they should be sent. Should he give them to the fraudsters? How does that work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we have robust mechanisms in place to address CERB fraud. We understand that in delivering this benefit to a million Canadians to date, we had to put more of our integrity measures at the back, but make no mistake: Canadians who behave fraudulently will be held to account, and we will ensure that the money is either repaid or the cheques not cashed. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there remains a concern across Canada that delays in the criminal courts could result in criminals walking free. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recently said in an interview that amendments to the Criminal Code could allow this backlog to be addressed. Can the minister outline what work has been done to address the backlog, and when we can expect to see it addressed? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. I can assure him that we are working closely with our provincial and territorial counterparts, who have the primary responsible for the superior courts of justice and therefore the criminal law in their various jurisdictions for the administration of justice in criminal law. I can also say that we have formed an action committee co-chaired by me and the Chief Justice of Canada, again with a variety of different kinds of representation on that committee, to look at the restart of the justice system +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, weeks ago I raised these concerns with the minister over backlogs in the criminal courts and the risk they present to our justice system. The provinces have significant insight into how this can be addressed, and many provinces have been proactive with their court backlogs. Can the minister outline what work has been done with the provinces on this important issue? +Hon. David Lametti: We are working with the provinces. There are different practices in each province. We're working to serve in a coordinating role as a repository of information for best practices so that they can be shared across provinces. We're also looking at specific suggestions that provinces have made with respect to reforming the criminal law. +Hon. Rob Moore: Many owners of small businesses in my riding, and indeed in all of our ridings, are suffering right now and have received absolutely no help from this government because of technicalities. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister indicated the government was looking to expand access to the Canada emergency business account to include to those who operate their businesses out of a personal bank account. This is something that we've been calling for over the past several weeks, and businesses cannot wait any longer. Can the minister tell me what we should be telling our constituents about those who are caught up based on a technicality and are not able to access this important measure? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that really important question. I want to assure the small business owners in his community and all across the country just how important they are and how difficult a time this is for them. We absolutely understand. We are hearing you and we are working as hard and as fast as we can to make sure that those business owners get access to this very important support. I would like to highlight, though, that owners of 650,000 small businesses across the country are getting the loan support. Of course, there is more to do, and we will keep working hard for those business owners. +Hon. Rob Moore: The lack of access to high-speed Internet remains a major issue across my home province of New Brunswick. This is a significant barrier to rural economic development. It impacts the quality of life of rural constituents. The lack of progress and transparency on rural Internet is frustrating for residents, for municipal leaders and for small business owners who are already suffering due to COVID. When will a new plan for rural Internet be introduced, and how quickly can we expect it to be deployed? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, our government has a plan to connect Canadians to high-speed Internet. To date, we've set aside investments to connect a million households, and there's more work to be done. We will be announcing our next steps to connect more Canadians through the universal broadband funds in the days to come. I look forward to communities across the country benefiting from federal investments and the private investments that our investments will bring. +Hon. Rob Moore: On the issue of commercial rent, how is the government going to ensure that business owners whose landlords still refuse to participate in the government's program receive the support that they need to stay open at this time? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the member knows and would understand, rent between small business owners and landlords is a provincial jurisdiction. That said, we've moved forward to try to ensure that there's a process so that those landlords and the commercial tenants can work together to come up with a solution that will work for both. We're seeing landlords +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Nicholas Gibbs, Colten Boushie, Tina Fontaine, Alain Magloire and Breonna Taylor were not all born on the same side of the border, but they all lost their lives at the hand of the same cruel enemy: racism. We cannot, here in Canada, think higher of ourselves when we are reading the headlines of our neighbour. We cannot ignore our history, past or present. The final report from the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls stated that indigenous women and girls have faced a Canadian genocide. In 2018 a report revealed that a black person was almost 20 times more likely than a white person to be fatally shot by the Toronto police, and a 2019 report exposed systemic bias among the Montreal police force against black and indigenous people. Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. I am asking the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, as per her mandate, what exactly our government intends to do now to fight racism among its institutions. If the anti-racism secretariat has in fact been established, what priorities have been actioned? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): I would like to thank the member for that very important question. I will state that it is essential that we all work together, not only during this challenging time but during the times that come out of it. On the comments that were shared earlier, this is another life lost that should not have been lost. Yes, the anti-racism secretariat has been established. This is a resource not only for Canadians but also for government agencies to better the way in which we do work internally as well, including advancement opportunities. We know that the decision-making table does not reflect the diversity of our country. That's exactly why we came out with an open, transparent, merit-based appointment process: so that we can see the country's diversity reflected at the decision-making table. There is a lot more work to do. I can assure the member and all Canadians that my eyes are open, my ears are open and I am an ally. I will work as hard as possible to be that voice at the cabinet table. I cannot experience what it is to be a black Canadian, but I can tell you that your voices will be represented and they will be heard. I see you. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Mr. Chair, it has been four years since the settlement payment for sixties scoop survivors was approved. That resolution hasn't taken place. The pain continues. Why is it that the 12,500 class members who have been determined eligible still haven't received the payments they are owed? These people deserve justice without any delay, especially in light of COVID-19 and the added pressures facing communities. Can the minister confirm exactly when these survivors will receive the interim payment? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Thank you very much. Thank you for your advocacy on all these truly important things. As you know, because of the exceptional circumstance of COVID-19, the class counsel, with the support of Canada, was seeking direction from the courts to issue partial payments to the class members with a valid claim. On June 1 the Federal Court granted that order. A similar motion is before the Ontario Superior Court. Once granted, eligible class members can expect to receive partial payments of $21,000 over the coming weeks. Canada welcomes the Federal Court's +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Eighty per cent of people who are diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, will die within two to five years of receiving the diagnosis. The pandemic has made it more difficult than ever for these people to access medical appointments and treatment. They do not have the luxury of time. They want to live and to share moments with their families and their loved ones. The lack of urgency to approve new trials and therapies in Canada directly impacts the life expectancy of people with ALS. Can the Minister of Health commit to taking leadership on this file, removing the barriers to accessing these promising treatments and therapies, and ensuring that the costs of these treatments will be covered? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much for the very important question. We know that people living with ALS and their families struggle immensely every single day. Of course the member opposite has my commitment to work with the community and with manufacturers of drugs that are promising for ALS to expedite approval in a safe way that protects the health of Canadians but also provides treatment in an affordable way for all Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I can't breathe and I'm tired, and today we've heard a lot of progressive words from the Prime Minister, but he hasn't really said anything. If the Prime Minister will not provide leadership in this House, will anybody from his cabinet here today commit to taking concrete steps to address anti-black racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, yes, we do commit. That's exactly why we will listen more. We will acknowledge that racism is alive in Canada. We know we must do better. However, I also need the member to recognize that this work has started. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in the decision-making table better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN international +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, will the member then commit today to make it a legal requirement to collect race-based data across all the ministries? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the recently announced immunity task force is providing disaggregated data to decision-makers, because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. Yes, I will work across all departments to ensure that data is better collected. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, that's not a legal requirement. It is also not lost on the black community that the former Toronto chief of police, the architect of this country's largest profiling program under the guise of street checks or carding, was made this country's Minister of Public Safety by this Prime Minister. As the tragic consequence of the unlawful, unconstitutional and racist practices in Toronto, black people are 20 times more likely than non-black people to be murdered by police. Does the Minister of Public Safety now admit that the police practice of street checks and carding is in fact a significant factor in Canada's systemic anti-black and anti-indigenous racism, and will he act to immediately end it today? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let me be very clear. First of all, every Canadian is entitled to bias-free and culturally competent policing. I know from experience that there is nothing more corrosive to the relationship of trust that must exist between the police and racialized communities than the issue of racism or the biased influences of those decisions. Mr. Chair, racial profiling is not only abhorrent and unacceptable, it's in fact unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it's contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. We are working diligently within all of the federal agencies under my purview to ensure that all officers receive training on culturally competent and bias-free delivery of service. We remain committed to creating a diverse workforce that truly reflects and respects the diverse people of this country. +Mr. Matthew Green: Nobody knows better through experience about the corrosive practice of street checks than I do. Will the minister now apologize to the black community for the harm caused under his tenure as chief of police? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clear, Mr. Chair, I actually worked with the diverse communities of Toronto for nearly four decades. I worked with extraordinary leaders from the black community and I learned extensively from their lived experience. We worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of all of the people in all of our diverse communities. +Mr. Matthew Green: Bill C-51 was introduced by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals, including this Prime Minister. It declared indigenous, racial, economic justice, and environmental activists as domestic terrorists. Each province was mandated to enact anti-terrorism protocols, which became a direction for the local police to engage in the practice of street checks or racial profiling. Given what he has said today in the House, will this Minister of Public Safety work to repeal the changes made under Bill C-51? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I will repeat for the member opposite that racial profiling and bias in the delivery of policing service is not only unacceptable and abhorrent but unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it is contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It cannot ever be tolerated in policing in any place in Canada, but we learned from the lived experience of black and indigenous communities, who tell us that this is still their lived experience, so there is a great deal of work left to do. +The Chair: It is now Mr.Champoux's turn. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will be sharing my time with the honourable member for Joliette. Supplementary unemployment benefits, or SUBs, give employers the opportunity to enhance their employees' employment insurance benefits when they need to temporarily lay them off. A number of companies, including Soprema in Drummond, have done so with the guarantee that the government would maintain the SUB terms when employment insurance is converted to the CERB. However, surprise, surprise, when the employees applied for the CERB in May, they found that they did not meet the criteria because the amount of SUBs they have received exceeded $1,000, the CERB income limit. In addition, they must reimburse the CERB because they found that they were not eligible for it. So, what does the Minister of Finance intend to do to correct his error? +The Chair: We will pause for a second. We have a point of order on the floor. Go ahead, Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: I posed the most important question. I had 10 seconds left by my count on my time before I was cut off, and I would appreciate, given the seriousness of the conversation here today, if the honourable Minister of Public Safety will please answer the question: Will he apologize to the black community for the irreparable harm that was caused by the racist process of street checks and carding? +The Chair: The way I work it is that if there are 15 seconds or less, we go on to the next one, because it's not really enough time to ask a question and get an answer. I will move on to Mr. Champoux. He did ask a question, and we'll let Ms. Qualtrough, the honourable minister, answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are very much alive and in place for companies, employers and their employees. The CERB allows employers to top up an employee's wages to the maximum of a $1,000. As was said, Mr. Chair, in order to deliver this important critical benefit to Canadians, we had to go outside of the EI system. That decision was made, and as a result, eight million Canadians are being helped. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, SUBs do not have an employment insurance cap. Employers can contribute as much as they want, and they were assured that this would be the case with the CERB. Otherwise, they would have opted for another program. Let me put my question to the Minister of Finance again, in the hope that he will be the one to answer it. When does he intend to fix this error? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I thank the member for his question, Mr. Chair. As we can all appreciate, delivering a benefit of this magnitude as quickly as possible to as many Canadians as possible, both those who were EI eligible and those who were outside of EI, resulted in our having to take some decisions to streamline processes and the system. SUB plans are available for employers +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will continue on the subject of supplementary unemployment benefits. Let me remind everyone that Service Canada has entered into agreements with companies and is not honouring them. The victims are thousands and thousands of workers who have to reimburse the Canada emergency response benefit, as my colleague just explained. I also have the question my colleague from Drummond asked: why is the government not doing the same thing it does with employment insurance and not counting the benefits paid out as part of earned income? It is simple. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, as legislated, we needed to set up a straightforward, simple benefit to deliver to as many people as possible. The nuance and sophistication of the EI system was not available to us. As a result, as I said, eight million Canadians are getting the CERB. Service Canada is working with each and every employee who is in a repayment situation. We do not want to put anybody in a more difficult situation. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the truth is that the government has forgotten the thousands of workers covered under a supplementary unemployment benefit agreement. We are talking about mothers and fathers. When the government rolled out its Canada emergency response benefit, it was overwhelmed and it forgot about them. The government can fix it right here, right now. Does it want to do that? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, let me clarify that employees who were covered by a SUB plan prior to March 15 are indeed covered by that plan. We're working with employers to make sure that their workers have this benefit, regardless of whether or not the CERB is in place. Those who accessed EI after March 15 have been streamlined into the CERB process, and their employers can help them with up to $1,000 a month. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we really do not have the same information. Agreements were signed before March15 for subsequent periods, but there was an agreement with Service Canada. Companies have tried to contact Service Canada by telephone, but no one is answering. They have tried by email, but no one is replying either. The companies have decided to honour their part of the contract and pay out the SUB. However, the government says that, after the fact, it changed the rules that had previously applied, and it is no longer honouring its agreement. As I understand it, the government does not want to straighten out the situation, and that is unacceptable. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I want to reassure the honourable member that we have moved quickly to deal with the unprecedented volumes at Service Canada. We have set up a 1,500-agent call centre to help people through the CERB, as well as redeploying 3,000 additional staff to make sure that people are helped through the EI process. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question, which is from Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As of December 31, 2019, the total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications had already grown to over 46,000. These are the most recent public figures. What is the current total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications before Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): I am sorry, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for the question and for giving me the opportunity to respond to the Parliament of Canada from my home in Midgell. As I indicated earlier in the House of Commons, I can assure the member that one of my major priorities is to make sure that we deal with the backlog and that the veterans of Canada receive the benefits they truly deserve and need. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Those 46,000 applications from December of 2019 represent over 30,000 individual veterans. These are men and women who are suffering. How many individual veterans are currently caught in the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I again thank my colleague. The fact is that service delivery and providing support to our veterans are of course my top priorities. As you understand, with this pandemic there are some difficulties, but we are processing the same number of decisions daily. Our +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: On March 10, we learned that the average time that a veteran was waiting to have their disability benefit application processed had grown to 32 weeks. What is the current average time a veteran is waiting to have their disability benefit application processed? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as I indicated, what we're doing is working to make sure that we streamline the process, make sure that some of the applications can be done automatically. Some cannot, because we have to make sure that what's provided to the veteran is adequate for the disability they +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: It seems as though having numbers is a difficult challenge for this government. On March 10, the deputy minister of Veterans Affairs committed to providing the veterans affairs committee with an updated, written plan on how the department will resolve this backlog. This plan was to include timelines. When will the veterans affairs committee be provided with this plan? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that of course the veterans affairs committee does vitally important work. I know how important this piece of information is for them. My department is now working to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality we now face with the situation in the country. I can assure my honourable colleague +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Mr. Chair, I'm sure that the department had a draft plan prior to COVID-19, so I wonder if Mr. MacAulay can provide the committee with that plan right now, rather than wait. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that we are working diligently to make sure that this report is prepared, and prepared properly, for the committee. As I said before, I fully understand the importance of the committee and the great work it does +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Can the minister give us a timeline of when this report will be given to the committee? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it's difficult to give a timeline. I want to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality of the situation to make sure that the committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: The minister's mandate letter instructed Mr. MacAulay to implement a system of automatic approval for the most common disability applications. When will this system be implemented? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, of course this all ties in to the report that the veterans affairs committee is waiting for and to make sure that we're in place in order to make sure that the automatic approval can work and to make sure that veterans receive the proper +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: If automatic approval is implemented, does the minister know how many applications this measure will remove from the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it will remove a number from the backlog, because quite simply, if you're skydiving out of a plane, you're going to have knee problems, and if you're a gunner, you're going to have ear problems. These things should be done automatically, and that's exactly what we're working on. As I said before, other things are complicated. To make sure that the veteran receives the appropriate remuneration +The Chair: Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The conversation covers a range of topics regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on various sectors in Canada, including discussions about: + +1. Opening remarks on the hybrid model of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic for both in-person and video conference participation. + +2. The Prime Minister's speech addressing systemic racism, the importance of allyship, the government's steps to combat anti-black racism and systemic discrimination, and a commitment to listen to calls for justice, equality, and accountability. + +3. The Leader of the Opposition's speech acknowledging the impacts of racism and questioning the destructiveness of violent responses, while asserting the importance of democratic rights, the rule of law, and the condemnation of intolerance and racism. + +4. Speeches by other members of various parties highlighting the need for action against systemic racism and discrimination, recognizing the contributions of black Canadians to society, and committing to fighting racism and injustice. + +5. Statements from members on various other topics, including assistance for seniors and low-income families during the pandemic, gratitude for healthcare workers, support for local businesses, and the importance of small businesses and tourism. + +6. Questions from committee members to ministers on topics such as the backlog in veterans' disability benefits applications, internet access in rural areas, support for small businesses affected by COVID-19, and the automatic approval for common disability applications for veterans. + +7. Discussions on the need for improved programs to address the challenges faced by families, businesses, and marginalized communities during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. + +The committee concludes with the acknowledgment that further action and support are needed to tackle systemic racism, improve support systems for those affected by the pandemic, and ensure the well-being of Canadian society as a whole." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: So I guess this is more or less now just to get you up to date , Johno . This is what , uh , +Grad C: This is a meeting for me . +Grad B: um , Eva , Bhaskara , and I did . +Grad D: Did you add more stuff to it ? {pause} later ? +Grad B: Um . Why ? +Grad D: Um . I don't know . There were , like , the {disfmarker} you know , @ @ and all that stuff . But . I thought you {disfmarker} you said you were adding stuff +Grad B: Uh , no . +Grad D: but {pause} I don't know . +Grad B: This is {disfmarker} Um , Ha ! Very nice . Um , so we thought that , {vocalsound} We can write up uh , an element , and {disfmarker} for each of the situation nodes that we observed in the Bayes - net ? So . What 's the situation like at the entity that is mentioned ? if we know anything about it ? Is it under construction ? Or is it on fire or something {pause} happening to it ? Or is it stable ? and so forth , going all the way um , f through Parking , Location , Hotel , Car , Restroom , @ @ {comment} Riots , Fairs , Strikes , or Disasters . +Grad C: So is {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} A situation are {disfmarker} is all the things which can be happening right now ? Or , what is the situation type ? +Grad B: That 's basically {pause} just specifying the {disfmarker} the input for the {disfmarker} w what 's +Grad C: Oh , I see y Why are you specifying it in XML ? +Grad B: Um . Just because it forces us to be specific about the values {pause} here ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: And , also , I mean , this is a {disfmarker} what the input is going to be . Right ? So , we will , uh {disfmarker} This is a schema . This is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , yeah . I just don't know if this is th l what the {disfmarker} Does {disfmarker} This is what Java Bayes takes ? as a Bayes - net spec ? +Grad B: No , because I mean if we {disfmarker} I mean we 're sure gonna interface to {disfmarker} We 're gonna get an XML document from somewhere . Right ? And that XML document will say "" We are able to {disfmarker} We were able to observe that w the element , um , @ @ {comment} of the Location that the car is near . "" So that 's gonna be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} Um . +Grad C: So this is the situational context , everything in it . Is that what Situation is short for , shi situational context ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So this is just , again , a an XML schemata which defines a set of possible , uh , permissible XML structures , which we view as input into the Bayes - net . Right ? +Grad C: And then we can r {pause} uh possibly run one of them uh transformations ? That put it into the format that the Bayes n or Java Bayes or whatever wants ? +Grad B: Yea - Are you talking {disfmarker} are you talking about the {disfmarker} the structure ? +Grad C: Well it {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean when you observe a node . +Grad C: When you {disfmarker} when you say {pause} the input to the {pause} v Java Bayes , {comment} it takes a certain format , +Grad B: Um - hmm . +Grad C: right ? Which I don't think is this . Although I don't know . +Grad B: No , it 's certainly not this . Nuh . +Grad C: So you could just {disfmarker} Couldn't you just run a {disfmarker} +Grad B: XSL . {comment} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . To convert it into the Java Bayes for format ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's no problem , but I even think that , um {disfmarker} I mean , once {disfmarker} Once you have this sort of as {disfmarker} running as a module {disfmarker} Right ? What you want is {disfmarker} You wanna say , "" OK , give me the posterior probabilities of the Go - there {pause} node , when this is happening . "" Right ? When the person said this , the car is there , it 's raining , and this is happening . And with this you can specify the {disfmarker} what 's happening in the situation , and what 's happening with the user . So we get {disfmarker} After we are done , through the Situation we get the User Vector . So , this is a {disfmarker} +Grad C: So this is just a specification of all the possible inputs ? +Grad B: Yep . And , all the possible outputs , too . So , we have , um , for example , the , uh , Go - there decision node +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: which has two elements , going - there and its posterior probability , and not - going - there and its posterior probability , because the output is always gonna be all the decision nodes and all the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} a all the posterior probabilities for all the values . +Grad C: And then we would just look at the , eh , Struct that we wanna look at in terms of if {disfmarker} if we 're only asking about one of the {disfmarker} So like , if I 'm just interested in the going - there node , I would just pull that information out of the Struct that gets return that would {disfmarker} that Java Bayes would output ? +Grad B: Um , pretty much , yes , but I think it 's a little bit more complex . As , if I understand it correctly , it always gives you all the posterior probabilities for all the values of all decision nodes . So , when we input something , we always get the , uh , posterior probabilities for all of these . Right ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So there is no way of telling it t not to tell us about the EVA {pause} values . +Grad C: Yeah , wait I agree , that 's {disfmarker} yeah , use {disfmarker} oh , uh {pause} Yeah , OK . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so we get this whole list of {disfmarker} of , um , things , and the question is what to do with it , what to hand on , how to interpret it , in a sense . So y you said if you {disfmarker} "" I 'm only interested in whether he wants to go there or not "" , then I just look at that node , look which one {disfmarker} +Grad C: Look at that Struct in the output , +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Look at that Struct in the {disfmarker} the output , even though I wouldn't call it a "" Struct "" . But . +Grad C: Well i well , it 's an XML Structure that 's being res returned , +Grad B: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: So every part of a structure is a "" Struct "" . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , I just uh {disfmarker} I just was {disfmarker} abbreviated it to Struct in my head , and started going with that . +Grad B: That element or object , I would say . +Grad C: Not a C Struct . That 's not what I was trying to k +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: though yeah . +Grad B: OK . And , um , the reason is {disfmarker} why I think it 's a little bit more complex or why {disfmarker} why we can even think about it as an interesting problem in and of itself is {disfmarker} Um . So . The , uh {disfmarker} Let 's look at an example . +Grad C: Well , w wouldn't we just take the structure that 's outputted and then run another transformation on it , that would just dump the one that we wanted out ? +Grad B: Yeah . w We 'd need to prune . Right ? Throw things away . +Grad C: Well , actually , you don't even need to do that with XML . +Grad B: No +Grad C: D Can't you just look at one specific {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , exactly . The {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Xerxes allows you to say , u "" Just give me the value of that , and that , and that . "" But , we don't really know what we 're interested in {pause} before we look at the complete {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the overall result . So the person said , um , "" Where is X ? "" and so , we want to know , um , is {disfmarker} Does he want info ? o on this ? or know the location ? Or does he want to go there ? Let 's assume this is our {disfmarker} our question . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad B: Nuh ? So . Um . Do this in Perl . So we get {disfmarker} OK . Let 's assume this is the output . So . We should con be able to conclude from that that {disfmarker} I mean . It 's always gonna give us a value of how likely we think i it is that he wants to go there and doesn't want to go there , or how likely it is that he wants to get information . But , maybe w we should just reverse this to make it a little bit more delicate . So , does he wanna know where it is ? or does he wanna go there ? +Grad C: He wants to know where it is . +Grad B: Right . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I tend to agree . And if it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well now , y I mean , you could {disfmarker} +Grad B: And i if there 's sort of a clear winner here , and , um {disfmarker} and this is pretty , uh {disfmarker} indifferent , then we {disfmarker} then we might conclude that he actually wants to just know where , uh t uh , he does want to go there . +Grad C: Uh , out of curiosity , is there a reason why we wouldn't combine these three nodes ? into one smaller subnet ? that would just basically be {pause} the question for {disfmarker} We have "" where is X ? "" is the question , right ? That would just be Info - on or Location ? Based upon {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or Go - there . A lot of people ask that , if they actually just wanna go there . People come up to you on campus and say , "" Where 's the library ? "" You 're gonna say {disfmarker} y you 're gonna say , g "" Go down that way . "" You 're not gonna say "" It 's {disfmarker} It 's five hundred yards away from you "" or "" It 's north of you "" , or {disfmarker} "" it 's located {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Well , I mean {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} So you just have three decisions for the final node , that would link thes these three nodes in the net together . +Grad B: Um . I don't know whether I understand what you mean . But . Again , in this {disfmarker} Given this input , we , also in some situations , may wanna postulate an opinion whether that person wants to go there now the nicest way , use a cab , or so s wants to know it {disfmarker} wants to know where it is because he wants something fixed there , because he wants to visit t it or whatever . So , it {disfmarker} n I mean {disfmarker} a All I 'm saying is , whatever our input is , we 're always gonna get the full output . And some {disfmarker} some things will always be sort of too {disfmarker} not significant enough . +Grad C: Wha Or i or i it 'll be tight . You won't {disfmarker} it 'll be hard to decide . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: But I mean , I guess {disfmarker} I guess the thing is , uh , this is another , smaller , case of reasoning in the case of an uncertainty , which makes me think Bayes - net should be the way to solve these things . So if you had {disfmarker} If for every construction , +Grad B: Oh ! +Grad C: right ? you could say , "" Well , there {disfmarker} Here 's the Where - Is construction . "" And for the Where - Is construction , we know we need to l look at this node , that merges these three things together +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: as for th to decide the response . And since we have a finite number of constructions that we can deal with , we could have a finite number of nodes . +Grad B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Say , if we had to y deal with arbitrary language , it wouldn't make any sense to do that , because there 'd be no way to generate the nodes for every possible sentence . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But since we can only deal with a finite amount of stuff {disfmarker} +Grad B: So , basically , the idea is to f to feed the output of that belief - net into another belief - net . +Grad C: Yeah , so basically take these three things and then put them into another belief - net . +Grad B: But , why {disfmarker} why {disfmarker} why only those three ? Why not the whol +Grad C: Well , I mean , d For the Where - Is question . So we 'd have a node for the Where - Is question . +Grad B: Yeah . But we believe that all the decision nodes are {disfmarker} can be relevant for the Where - Is , and the Where {disfmarker} How - do - I - get - to or the Tell - me - something - about . +Grad C: You can come in if you want . +Grad B: Yes , it is allowed . +Grad C: As long as y you 're not wearing your h your h headphones . Well , I do I {disfmarker} See , I don't know if this is a {pause} good idea or not . I 'm just throwing it out . But uh , it seems like we could have {disfmarker} I mea or uh we could put all of the all of the r information that could also be relevant {pause} into the Where - Is node answer +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad C: node thing stuff . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} Let 's not forget we 're gonna get some very strong {pause} input from {pause} these sub dis from these discourse things , right ? So . "" Tell me the location of X . "" Nuh ? Or "" Where is X located at ? "" +Grad C: We u +Grad B: Nuh ? +Grad C: Yeah , I know , but the Bayes - net would be able to {disfmarker} The weights on the {disfmarker} on the nodes in the Bayes - net would be able to do all that , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: wouldn't it ? Here 's a k Oh ! Oh , I 'll wait until you 're {pause} plugged in . Oh , don't sit there . Sit here . You know how you don't like that one . It 's OK . That 's the weird one . That 's the one that 's painful . That hurts . It hurts so bad . I 'm h I 'm happy that they 're recording that . That headphone . The headphone {pause} that you have to put on backwards , with the little {disfmarker} little thing {disfmarker} and the little {disfmarker} little foam block on it ? It 's a painful , painful microphone . +Grad B: I think it 's th called "" the Crown "" . +Grad C: The crown ? +Grad D: What ? +Grad B: Yeah , versus "" the Sony "" . +Grad A: The Crown ? Is that the actual name ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . The manufacturer . +Grad C: I don't see a manufacturer on it . +Grad B: You w +Grad C: Oh , wait , here it is . h This thingy . Yeah , it 's "" The Crown "" . The crown of pain ! +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: You 're on - line ? +Grad C: Are you {disfmarker} are your mike o Is your mike on ? +Grad A: Indeed . +Grad C: OK . So you 've been working with these guys ? You know what 's going on ? +Grad A: Yes , I have . And , I do . Yeah , alright . s So where are we ? +Grad C: Excellent ! +Grad B: We 're discussing this . +Grad A: I don't think it can handle French , but anyway . +Grad B: So . Assume we have something coming in . A person says , "" Where is X ? "" , and we get a certain {disfmarker} We have a Situation vector and a User vector and everything is fine ? An - an and {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did you just sti Did you just stick the m the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the microphone actually in the tea ? +Grad A: No . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: I 'm not drinking tea . What are you talking about ? +Grad C: Oh , yeah . Sorry . +Grad B: let 's just assume our Bayes - net just has three decision nodes for the time being . These three , he wants to know something about it , he wants to know where it is , he wants to go there . +Grad C: In terms of , these would be wha how we would answer the question Where - Is , right ? We u This is {disfmarker} i That 's what you s it seemed like , explained it to me earlier +Grad B: Yeah , but , mmm . +Grad C: w We {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we wanna know how to answer the question "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: Yeah . No , I can {disfmarker} I can do the Timing node in here , too , and say "" OK . "" +Grad C: Well , yeah , but in the s uh , let 's just deal with the s the simple case of we 're not worrying about timing or anything . We just want to know how we should answer "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: OK . And , um , OK , and , Go - there has two values , right ? , Go - there and not - Go - there . Let 's assume those are the posterior probabilities of that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Info - on has True or False and Location . So , he wants to know something about it , and he wants to know something {disfmarker} he wants to know Where - it - is , +Grad A: Excuse me . +Grad B: has these values . And , um , +Grad C: Oh , I see why we can't do that . +Grad B: And , um , in this case we would probably all agree that he wants to go there . Our belief - net thinks he wants to go there , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: right ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: In the , uh , whatever , if we have something like this here , and this like that and maybe here also some {disfmarker} +Grad A: You should probably {comment} make them out of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: something like that , +Grad C: Well , it +Grad B: then we would guess , "" Aha ! He , our belief - net , {comment} has s stronger beliefs that he wants to know where it is , than actually wants to go {pause} there . "" Right ? +Grad C: That it {disfmarker} Doesn't this assume , though , that they 're evenly weighted ? +Grad D: True . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} I guess they are evenly weighted . +Grad A: The different decision nodes , you mean ? +Grad C: Yeah , the Go - there , the Info - on , and the Location ? +Grad A: Well , d yeah , this is making the assumption . Yes . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} +Grad B: What do you mean by "" differently weighted "" ? They don't feed into anything really anymore . +Grad A: But I mean , why do we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or I jus +Grad A: If we trusted the Go - there node more th much more than we trusted the other ones , then we would conclude , even in this situation , that he wanted to go there . +Grad C: Le +Grad A: So , in that sense , we weight them equally right now . +Grad B: OK . Makes sense . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Grad C: So the But I guess the k the question {disfmarker} that I was as er wondering or maybe Robert was proposing to me is {disfmarker} How do we d make the decision on {disfmarker} as to {disfmarker} which one to listen to ? +Grad A: Yeah , so , the final d decision is the combination of these three . So again , it 's {disfmarker} it 's some kind of , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Bayes - net . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . +Grad C: OK so , then , the question i So then my question is t to you then , would be {disfmarker} So is the only r reason we can make all these smaller Bayes - nets , because we know we can only deal with a finite set of constructions ? Cuz oth If we 're just taking arbitrary language in , we couldn't have a node for every possible question , you know ? +Grad A: A decision node for every possible question , you mean ? +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} like , in the case of {disfmarker} Yeah . In the ca Any piece of language , we wouldn't be able to answer it with this system , b if we just h Cuz we wouldn't have the correct node . Basically , w what you 're s proposing is a n Where - Is node , right ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and if we {disfmarker} And if someone {disfmarker} says , you know , uh , something in Mandarin to the system , we 'd - wouldn't know which node to look at to answer that question , +Grad A: So is {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Mmm ? +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} but if we have a finite {disfmarker} What ? +Grad B: I don't see your point . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what I am thinking , or what we 're about to propose here is we 're always gonna get the whole list of values and their posterior probabilities . And now we need an expert system or belief - net or something that interprets that , that looks at all the values and says , "" The winner is Timing . Now , go there . "" "" Uh , go there , Timing , now . "" Or , "" The winner is Info - on , Function - Off . "" So , he wants to know {pause} something about it , and what it does . Nuh ? Uh , regardless of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the input . Wh - Regardle +Grad C: Yeah , but But how does the expert {disfmarker} but how does the expert system know {disfmarker} how who which one to declare the winner , if it doesn't know the question it is , and how that question should be answered ? +Grad B: Based on the k what the question was , so what the discourse , the ontology , the situation and the user model gave us , we came up with these values for these decisions . +Grad C: Yeah I know . But how do we weight what we get out ? As , which one i Which ones are important ? So my i So , if we were to it with a Bayes - net , we 'd have to have a node {disfmarker} for every question that we knew how to deal with , that would take all of the inputs and weight them appropriately for that question . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Does that make sense ? Yay , nay ? +Grad A: Um , I mean , are you saying that , what happens if you try to scale this up to the situation , or are we just dealing with arbitrary language ? +Grad C: We {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that your point ? +Grad C: Well , no . I {disfmarker} I guess my question is , Is the reason that we can make a node f or {disfmarker} OK . So , lemme see if I 'm confused . Are we going to make a node for every question ? Does that make sense ? {disfmarker} +Grad A: For every question ? +Grad C: Or not . +Grad A: Like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Every construction . +Grad A: Hmm . I don't {disfmarker} Not necessarily , I would think . I mean , it 's not based on constructions , it 's based on things like , uh , there 's gonna be a node for Go - there or not , and there 's gonna be a node for Enter , View , Approach . +Grad C: Wel W OK . So , someone asked a question . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: How do we decide how to answer it ? +Grad B: Well , look at {disfmarker} look {disfmarker} Face yourself with this pr question . You get this {disfmarker} You 'll have {disfmarker} y This is what you get . And now you have to make a decision . What do we think ? What does this tell us ? And not knowing what was asked , and what happened , and whether the person was a tourist or a local , because all of these factors have presumably already gone into making these posterior probabilities . What {disfmarker} what we need is a {disfmarker} just a mechanism that says , "" Aha ! There is {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Yeah . I just don't think a "" winner - take - all "" type of thing is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , in general , like , we won't just have those three , right ? We 'll have , uh , like , many , many nodes . So we have to , like {disfmarker} So that it 's no longer possible to just look at the nodes themselves and figure out what the person is trying to say . +Grad B: Yep . Because there are interdependencies , right ? The uh {disfmarker} Uh , no . So if {disfmarker} if for example , the Go - there posterior possibility is so high , um , uh , w if it 's {disfmarker} if it has reached {disfmarker} reached a certain height , then all of this becomes irrelevant . So . If {disfmarker} even if {disfmarker} if the function or the history or something is scoring pretty good on the true node , true value {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wel I don't know about that , cuz that would suggest that {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: He wants to go there and know something about it ? +Grad C: Do they have to be mutual Yeah . Do they have to be mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: I think to some extent they are . Or maybe they 're not . +Grad C: Cuz I , uh {disfmarker} The way you describe what they meant , they weren't mutu uh , they didn't seem mutually exclusive to me . +Grad B: Well , if he doesn't want to go there , even if the Enter posterior proba So . +Grad C: Wel +Grad B: Go - there is No . Enter is High , and Info - on is High . +Grad C: Well , yeah , just out of the other three , though , that you had in the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: those three nodes . The - d They didn't seem like they were mutually exclusive . +Grad B: No , there 's {disfmarker} No . But {disfmarker} It 's through the {disfmarker} +Grad C: So th s so , yeah , but some {disfmarker} So , some things would drop out , and some things would still be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But I guess what 's confusing me is , if we have a Bayes - net to deal w another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you know , uh , is the only reason {disfmarker} OK , so , I guess , if we have a Ba - another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , the only r reason {pause} we can design it is cuz we know what each question is asking ? +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's true . +Grad C: And then , so , the only reason {disfmarker} way we would know what question he 's asking is based upon {disfmarker} Oh , so if {disfmarker} Let 's say I had a construction parser , and I plug this in , I would know what each construction {disfmarker} the communicative intent of the construction was +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so then I would know how to weight the nodes appropriately , in response . So no matter what they said , if I could map it onto a Where - Is construction , I could say , "" ah ! +Grad A: Ge Mm - hmm . +Grad C: well the the intent , here , was Where - Is "" , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: and I could look at those . +Grad A: Yeah . Yes , I mean . Sure . You do need to know {disfmarker} I mean , to have that kind of information . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah , I 'm also agreeing that {pause} a simple pru {comment} Take the ones where we have a clear winner . Forget about the ones where it 's all sort of middle ground . Prune those out and just hand over the ones where we have a winner . Yeah , because that would be the easiest way . We just compose as an output an XML mes {vocalsound} message that says . "" Go there {pause} now . "" "" Enter historical information . "" And not care whether that 's consistent with anything . Right ? But in this case if we say , "" definitely he doesn't want to go there . He just wants to know where it is . "" or let 's call this {disfmarker} this "" Look - At - H "" He wants to know something about the history of . So he said , "" Tell me something about the history of that . "" Now , the e But for some reason the Endpoint - Approach gets a really high score , {pause} too . We can't expect this to be sort of at O point {comment} three , three , three , O point , three , three , three , O point , three , three , three . Right ? Somebody needs to zap that . You know ? Or know {disfmarker} There needs to be some knowledge that {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} Yeah , but , the Bayes - net that would merge {disfmarker} I just realized that I had my hand in between my mouth and my micr er , my and my microphone . So then , the Bayes - net that would merge there , that would make the decision between Go - there , Info - on , and Location , would have a node to tell you which one of those three you wanted , and based upon that node , then you would look at the other stuff . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Grad C: I mean , it i Does that make sense ? +Grad B: Yep . It 's sort of one of those , that 's {disfmarker} It 's more like a decision tree , if {disfmarker} if you want . You first look o at the lowball ones , +Grad C: Yeah , i +Grad B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I didn't intend to say that every possible {disfmarker} OK . There was a confusion there , k I didn't intend to say every possible thing should go into the Bayes - net , because some of the things aren't relevant in the Bayes - net for a specific question . Like the Endpoint is not necessarily relevant in the Bayes - net for Where - Is until after you 've decided whether you wanna go there or not . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: Show us the way , Bhaskara . +Grad A: I guess the other thing is that um , yeah . I mean , when you 're asked a specific question and you don't even {disfmarker} Like , if you 're asked a Where - Is question , you may not even look {disfmarker} like , ask for the posterior probability of the , uh , EVA node , right ? Cuz , that 's what {disfmarker} I mean , in the Bayes - net you always ask for the posterior probability of a specific node . So , I mean , you may not even bother to compute things you don't need . +Grad B: Um . Aren't we always computing all ? +Grad A: No . You can compute , uh , the posterior probability of one subset of the nodes , given some other nodes , but totally ignore some other nodes , also . Basically , things you ignore get marginalized over . +Grad B: Yeah , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's just shifting the problem . Then you would have to make a decision , +Grad A: Yeah . So you have to make {disfmarker} +Grad B: "" OK , if it 's a Where - Is question , which decision nodes do I query ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . Yes . But I would think that 's what you want to do . +Grad B: That 's un +Grad A: Right ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Well , eventually , you still have to pick out which ones you look at . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: So it 's pretty much the same problem , +Grad B: Yeah {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's apples and oranges . +Grad D: isn't it ? +Grad B: Nuh ? I mean , maybe it does make a difference in terms of performance , computational time . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So either you always have it compute all the posterior possibilities for all the values for all nodes , and then prune the ones you think that are irrelevant , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: or you just make a p @ @ {comment} a priori estimate of what you think might be relevant and query those . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So basically , you 'd have a decision tree {pause} query , {pause} Go - there . If k if that 's false , query this one . If that 's true , query that one . And just basically do a binary search through the {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: I don't know if it would necessarily be that , uh , complicated . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean , it w +Grad C: Well , in the case of Go - there , it would be . In the case {disfmarker} Cuz if you needed an If y If Go - there was true , you 'd wanna know what endpoint was . And if it was false , you 'd wanna d look at either Lo - Income Info - on or History . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's true , I guess . Yeah , {vocalsound} so , in a way you would have that . +Grad C: Also , I 'm somewhat boggled by that Hugin software . +Grad A: OK , why 's that ? +Grad C: I can't figure out how to get the probabilities into it . Like , I 'd look at {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: It 's somewha It 's boggling me . +Grad A: OK . Alright . Well , hopefully it 's {pause} fixable . +Grad C: Ju +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh yeah , yeah . I d I just think I haven't figured out what {disfmarker} the terms in Hugin mean , versus what Java Bayes terms are . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Um , by the way , are {disfmarker} Do we know whether Jerry and Nancy are coming ? +Grad A: So we can figure this out . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: They should come when they 're done their stuff , basically , whenever that is . So . +Grad C: What d what do they need to do left ? +Grad A: Um , I guess , Jerry needs to enter marks , but I don't know if he 's gonna do that now or later . But , uh , if he 's gonna enter marks , it 's gonna take him awhile , I guess , and he won't be here . +Grad C: And what 's Nancy doing ? +Grad A: Nancy ? Um , she was sorta finishing up the , uh , calculation of marks and assigning of grades , but I don't know if she should be here . Well {disfmarker} or , she should be free after that , so {disfmarker} assuming she 's coming to this meeting . I don't know if she knows about it . +Grad C: She 's on the email list , right ? +Grad A: Is she ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . OK . Because basically , what {disfmarker} where we also have decided , prior to this meeting is that we would have a rerun of the three of us sitting together +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: sometime {pause} this week {pause} again +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and finish up the , uh , values of this . So we have , uh {disfmarker} Believe it or not , we have all the bottom ones here . +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} +Grad D: You added a bunch of {pause} nodes , for {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Yep . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} Actually what we have is this line . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Right ? +Grad C: Uh , what do the , uh , structures do ? +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} For instance , this Location node 's got two inputs , +Grad A: Four inputs . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: that one you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Four . +Grad A: Those are {disfmarker} The bottom things are inputs , also . +Grad C: Oh , I see . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: OK , that was OK . That makes a lot more sense to me now . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Cuz I thought it was like , that one in Stuart 's book about , you know , the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alarm in the dog ? +Grad C: U Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Or the earthquake and the alarm . +Grad A: Sorry . Yeah , I 'm confusing two . +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a dog one , too , but that 's in Java Bayes , +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: isn't it ? +Grad A: Maybe . +Grad C: But there 's something about bowel problems or something with the dog . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: And we have all the top ones , all the ones to which no arrows are pointing . What we 're missing are the {disfmarker} these , where arrows are pointing , where we 're combining top ones . So , we have to come up with values for this , and this , this , this , and so forth . And maybe just fiddle around with it a little bit more . And , um . And then it 's just , uh , edges , many of edges . And , um , we won't {comment} meet next Monday . So . +Grad C: Cuz of Memorial Day ? +Grad A: We 'll meet next Tuesday , I guess . +Grad B: Yep . Yeah . +Grad C: When 's Jerry leaving for {disfmarker} Italia ? +Grad B: On {disfmarker} on Friday . +Grad A: Which Friday ? +Grad B: This {disfmarker} this Friday . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Oh . This Friday ? +Grad C: Ugh . +Grad B: This Friday . +Grad C: As in , four days ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Or , three days ? +Grad A: Is he {disfmarker} How long is he gone for ? +Grad B: Two weeks . +Grad A: Italy , huh ? What 's , uh {disfmarker} what 's there ? +Grad B: Well , it 's a country . Buildings . People . +Grad A: Pasta . +Grad C: But it 's not a conference or anything . +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: He 's just visiting . +Grad A: Right . Just visiting . +Grad B: Vacation . +Grad A: It 's a pretty nice place , in my brief , uh , encounter with it . +Grad B: Do you guys {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . So . Part of what we actually want to do is sort of schedule out what we want to surprise him with when {disfmarker} when he comes back . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , I think we should disappoint him . +Grad B: Yeah ? You {disfmarker} or have a finished construction parser and a working belief - net , and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That wouldn't be disappointing . I think w we should do absolutely no work for the two weeks that he 's gone . +Grad B: Well , that 's actually what I had planned , personally . I had {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had sort of scheduled out in my mind that you guys do a lot of work , and I do nothing . And then , I sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that sounds good , too . +Grad B: sort of bask in {disfmarker} in your glory . But , uh , i do you guys have any vacation plans , because I myself am going to be , um , gone , but this is actually not really important . Just this weekend we 're going camping . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm wanna be this {disfmarker} gone this weekend , too . +Grad B: Ah . But we 're all going to be here on Tuesday again ? Looks like it ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , then . Let 's meet {disfmarker} meet again next Tuesday . And , um , finish up this Bayes - net . And once we have finished it , I guess we can , um {disfmarker} and that 's going to be more just you and me , because Bhaskara is doing probabilistic , recursive , structured , object - oriented , uh , +Grad C: Killing machines ! +Grad B: reasoning machines . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Killing , reasoning . What 's the difference ? +Grad D: Wait . So you 're saying , next Tuesday , is it the whole group meeting , or just us three working on it , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Uh . The whole group . And we present our results , our final , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: definite {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , when you were saying we {pause} need to do a re - run of , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: h What ? +Grad D: What {disfmarker} Like , just working out the rest of the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . We should do this th the upcoming days . +Grad D: This week ? +Grad B: So , this week , yeah . +Grad C: When you say , "" the whole group "" , you mean {pause} the four of us , and Keith ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And , Ami might . +Grad C: Ami might be here , and it 's possible that Nancy 'll be here ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: So , yeah . +Grad B: Because , th you know , once we have the belief - net done {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 're just gonna have to explain it to me , then , on Tuesday , how it 's all gonna work out . You know . +Grad B: We will . OK . Because then , once we have it sort of up and running , then we can start you know , defining the interfaces and then feed stuff into it and get stuff out of it , and then hook it up to some fake construction parser and {disfmarker} +Grad C: That you will have in about nine months or so . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: The first bad version 'll be done in nine months . +Grad B: Yeah , I can worry about the ontology interface and you can {disfmarker} Keith can worry about the discourse . I mean , this is pretty {disfmarker} Um , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope everybody uh knows that these are just going to be uh dummy values , right ? +Grad A: Which {disfmarker} +Grad B: where the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which ones ? +Grad B: S so {disfmarker} so if the endpoint {disfmarker} if the Go - there is Yes and No , then Go - there - discourse will just be fifty - fifty . Right ? +Grad A: Um , what do you mean ? If the Go - there says No , then the Go - there is {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't get it . +Grad A: I don't u understand . +Grad B: Um . +Grad A: Like , the Go - there depends on all those four things . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , what are the values of the Go - there - discourse ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on the situation . If the discourse is strongly indicating that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , but , uh , we have no discourse input . +Grad A: Oh , I see . The d See , uh , specifically in our situation , D and O are gonna be , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Sure . So , whatever . +Grad D: So , so far we have {disfmarker} Is that what the Keith node is ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: OK . And you 're taking it out ? {pause} for now ? +Grad B: Well , this is D {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK , this , I can {disfmarker} I can get it in here . +Grad D: All the D 's are {disfmarker} +Grad B: I can get it in here , so th We have the , uh , um , sk let 's {disfmarker} let 's call it "" Keith - Johno +Grad A: Johno ? +Grad B: node "" . There is an H {comment} somewhere printed . +Grad C: There you go . +Grad A: Yeah . People have the same problem with my name . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Oops . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: Does th th does the H go b before the A or after the A ? +Grad A: Oh , in my name ? Before the A . +Grad C: Yeah . OK , good . Cuz you kn When you said people have the same problem , I thought {disfmarker} Cuz my H goes after the uh e e e the v +Grad A: People have the inverse problem with my name . +Grad C: OK . I always have to check , every time y I send you an email , {comment} a past email of yours , {comment} to make sure I 'm spelling your name correctly . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad C: I worry about you . +Grad A: I appreciate that . +Grad B: But , when you abbreviate yourself as the "" Basman "" , you don't use any H 's . +Grad A: "" Basman "" ? Yeah , it 's because of the chessplayer named Michael Basman , who is my hero . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: You 're a geek . It 's O K . I +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: How do you pronou How do you pronounce your name ? +Grad D: Eva . +Grad C: Eva ? +Grad A: Not Eva ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: What if I were {disfmarker} What if I were to call you Eva ? +Grad D: I 'd probably still respond to it . I 've had people call me Eva , but I don't know . +Grad C: No , not just Eva , Eva . Like if I u take the V and s pronounce it like it was a German V ? +Grad B: Which is F . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , no idea then . +Grad B: Voiced . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: It sounds like an F . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's also an F in German , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Well , it 's just the difference between voiced and unvoiced . +Grad C: which is why I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: As long as that 's O K . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: I mean , I might slip out and say it accidentally . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad D: That 's fine . +Grad A: Yeah . It doesn't matter what those nodes are , anyway , because we 'll just make the weights "" zero "" for now . +Grad B: Yep . We 'll make them zero for now , because it {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who knows what they come up with , what 's gonna come in there . OK . And , um , then should we start on Thursday ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: And not meet tomorrow ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: OK . I 'll send an email , make a time suggestion . +Grad C: Wait , maybe it 's OK , so that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we can {disfmarker} that we have one node per construction . Cuz even in people , like , they don't know what you 're talking about if you 're using some sort of strange construction . +Grad B: Yeah , they would still c sort of get the closest , best fit . +Grad C: Well , yeah , but I mean , the {disfmarker} uh , I mean , that 's what the construction parser would do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I mean , if you said something completely arbitrary , it would f find the closest construction , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: right ? But if you said something that was completel er {disfmarker} h theoretically the construction parser would do that {disfmarker} But if you said something for which there was no construction whatsoever , n people wouldn't have any idea what you were talking about . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Like "" Bus dog fried egg . "" I mean . You know . +Grad B: Or , if even something Chinese , for example . +Grad C: Or , something in Mandarin , yeah . Or Cantonese , as the case may be . What do you think about that , Bhaskara ? +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} But how many constructions do {disfmarker} could we possibly have {pause} nodes for ? +Grad C: In this system , or in r +Grad A: No , we . Like , when people do this kind of thing . +Grad C: Oh , when p How many constructions do people have ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: I have not {comment} the slightest idea . +Grad A: Is it considered to be like in {disfmarker} are they considered to be like very , uh , sort of s abstract things ? +Grad C: Every noun is a construction . +Grad A: OK , so it 's like in the {pause} thousands . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Any {disfmarker} any form - meaning pair , to my understanding , is a construction . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . +Grad C: And form u starts at the level of noun {disfmarker} Or actually , maybe even sounds . +Grad B: Phoneme . Yep . +Grad C: Yeah . And goes upwards until you get the ditransitive construction . +Grad A: S +Grad C: And then , of course , the c I guess , maybe there can be the {disfmarker} Can there be combinations of the dit +Grad A: Discourse - level {pause} constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . The "" giving a speech "" construction , +Grad B: Rhetorical constructions . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Yeah . But , I mean , you know , you can probably count {disfmarker} count the ways . I mean . +Grad C: It 's probab Yeah , I would s definitely say it 's finite . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And at least in compilers , that 's all that really matters , as long as your analysis is finite . +Grad A: How 's that ? {nonvocalsound} How it can be finite , again ? +Grad C: Nah , I can't think of a way it would be infinite . +Grad B: Well , you can come up with new constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} If the {disfmarker} if your {disfmarker} if your brain was totally non - deterministic , then perhaps there 's a way to get , uh , infin an infinite number of constructions that you 'd have to worry about . +Grad A: But , I mean , in the {nonvocalsound} practical sense , it 's impossible . +Grad C: Right . Cuz if we have a fixed number of neurons {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So the best - case scenario would be the number of constructions {disfmarker} or , the worst - case scenario is the number of constructions equals the number of neurons . +Grad A: Well , two to the power of the number of neurons . +Grad C: Right . But still finite . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: No , wait . Not necessarily , is it ? We can end the {pause} meeting . I just {disfmarker} Can't you use different var different levels of activation ? across , uh {disfmarker} lots of different neurons , to specify different values ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um , yeah , but there 's , like , a certain level of {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's a bandwidth issue , +Grad A: Bandw - Yeah , so you can't do better than something . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad B: Turn off the mikes . Otherwise it gets really tough for the tr +","In a detailed and extensive discussion among several graduate students, Grad B, Grad C, Grad D, and Grad A (also referred to as Johno, Eva, Bhaskara, and possibly Keith), a meeting unfolds that covers multiple topics around the development of a Bayesian network (Bayes-net) and related research issues. The conversation, which appears somewhat disjointed and technical, indicates efforts being made to update each other on the progress of a project and to address various concerns and questions that have arisen in the process. + +The foundational subject of the discussion is the elaboration and completion of a Bayes-net, which will handle different situational inputs and outputs for decision-making processes. There is mention of various nodes such as Situation, User Vector, Location, Go-there, and others for Passable XML structures as input. Grad B elaborately explains how they have been working on defining a schema in XML that specifies all possible situations and outputs like riots, disasters, fairs, and constructions, and how this schema will be used as an input for the Bayes-net. + +Grad C brings attention to the importance of the context of situations and inquires why XML is being used. The conversation navigates through the intricacies of software and specification, the need for specificity in the representations of values, and how these values will be converted into formats acceptable to Java Bayes or other desired formats such as XSL. + +Further discussion addresses pragmatic concerns like how the Bayes-net will determine the probabilities of nodes and the resultant decisions – deciding what is relevant, what can be pruned, and how to interpret the posterior probabilities. The dialogue suggests that the Bayes-net will need to process and make sense of disparate data to arrive at coherent outputs about situational contexts, even weighing the influence of factors like discourse, ontology, user model, etc. + +Grad A also suggests the idea of feeding the output of one Bayes-net into another as a possibility for bridging the gap between the raw output and a practical decision. This part of the conversation seems to pivot around the limitations of the Bayesian network in handling uncertain or unstructured information and how to pragmatically decide which decision nodes to query in a way that mirrors human conversation or understanding. + +The group attempts to plan a subsequent meeting to complete the Bayesian network, discussing the availability and deadlines. This planning is interspersed with reports of other members' anticipated absences, primarily due to Jerry's upcoming trip to Italy, which is referenced humorously in terms of vacation planning contrasted against the workload. + +The technical conversation occasionally veers off into personal asides and jokes among the members of the group, reflecting the camaraderie and casual interaction woven into the otherwise technical discussion. They contemplate the implications of their work, scheduling, personal travel plans, and the responsibilities of various team members in regards to the different components of the project such as the ontology interface, discourse analysis, possible dummy values for certain inputs, and coordinating efforts with a construct parser that is being developed concurrently. + +Towards the end, the group gets more speculative, discussing the nature of human language and constructions - the finite versus potentially infinite nature of such constructs and how this may affect their model. + +In essence, the transcription captures a snapshot of a collaborative research process among graduate students, tackling theoretical, computational, and practical aspects of a complex project. It offers insight into the back-and-forth nature of scientific discourse, where knowledge is incrementally built and shared, concerns and suggestions are raised, and decisions are made collectively within a framework of humor and group dynamic." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Alright . Is everyone here ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . This is our conceptual design meeting . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll just take a few minutes and uh go through the previous minutes . Um then each of you will have your presentation , um and then we will need to make a decision on the concept for the remote control . And then we'll have uh forty minutes for finishing up . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'll go through the mee through the minutes first . Um , we just refreshed our our uh goal of making the finest remote control available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided that , or we know that we need to use company colours , company logo . Um {vocalsound} and our Marketing Expert uh gave us some i uh information from interviews with a hundred different remote users . Um with some statistics that backed basically what we were thinking before . People thought their remotes were ugly , um um that remotes zap a lot . Um they only use uh a finite amount of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and that they often lose the {disfmarker} it's easy to lose a remote . Um which were all things we were thinking we would {disfmarker} wanna make it simple . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And uh some sort of locator . Either a button or tracking device . Um {disfmarker} And that it should look different than what's out there . Um {disfmarker} Kind of mixed mixed response on the speech recognition . The younger people said they wanted it , older people did not . Um uh I think we decided that um the expense was not necessarily worth it , and that it was probably a gimmick , that um would increasingly wear on the consumers' nerves . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the User Interface Designer um explored some of the technical functions of the remote . Um the simple versus the um the complex . The simple one being better for a user , the complex better for an engineer . Um {disfmarker} Um and some personal preferences that were found in that would be that it should be a user-oriented remote , something simple . Um and that we didn't wanna go with a universal remote , because uh increasing cost and increasing complexity . Um we would just have a T_V_ remote . Um and that we should also focus on the appearance of the remote . Have it s be something that looks different . And finally our um Industrial Designer uh gave us a rundown of how the remote will work . Um from energy source , um uh what we would use . Batteries because we don't wanna have a a cable . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How that would power the remote and the lamp . If we were to to have one . Uh um the user interface then would connect to a chip , {vocalsound} which would work with the infrared controls uh to send the signal to the T_V_ . Um {disfmarker} I believe then we came up with a couple of ideas for what we think the design of the remote will be . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um something that will fit into uh easily into someone's hand . {vocalsound} And with a , just a few buttons . Just the basics . And with a scrolling um function also . Okay and I will leave that , leave it at that . So {disfmarker} Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We're watching trends . +Marketing: Yep . Can I have your cable please ? +Project Manager: I suppose that you can have this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . Okay so I was looking at trend-watching . Um unfortunately I wasn't given too much information . I was given a brief executive summary , and then an update on some recent fashion trends that we might like to look at . And then I'll just tell you some personal preferences that I got from that . Um okay the most important finding was that the fancy look-and-feel seems to be twice as important to the users as the current functional look-and-feel design , which I think we've kind of already discussed before . Um the second most important finding was that the remote should be technologically innovative . And again these are all things we've kind of already come up with on our own , but this just backs it up . And thirdly the remote would be easy to use . As far as fashion update , we've learned that fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that might be a bit of a challenge to incorporate this into our remote , but we can try . Um and also , as opposed to last year , this year the material is expected to be spongy in feel . {vocalsound} Okay so from that um , as we've already said , we need to focus on a fancy look-and-feel . Um I think we've already discovered that it's kind of hard to go away from the traditional rectangular design . But I think that , even if it's very subtle , we need to kind of trick our consumers , so they at least get the idea that they're getting something that's new and modern and sleek and {disfmarker} Whether it's through the shape or the colours or all of that . Um for technologically innovative , we've talked about the tracking device . We brought up the idea of having two pieces , which we could discuss further . And Manuel had suggested um the energy source and the user interface , discussing some of those , um that we could change a little bit . We need to keep it simple , have limited buttons , which I think the two piece idea might be really beneficial for . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we need to incorporate this fashion trend of fruits and vegetables . I don't know , I mean I guess the two options are if we had our remote in the shape of a fruit or vegetable . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A banana shape ? +User Interface: Oh it was sort of banana shaped . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . Right . Or with exterior designs . But my question is , I mean the stereotypically speaking , you kind of picture males with their remote controls , and I'm not sure how they'd feel about having fruity logos on the outside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe we could have something that's somewhat removable , or I don't know , different options for female , male target groups . And then the spongy feel . I guess we could look at mobile phones and other technology that's out there . C and look at different types of material that {vocalsound} might please our users who want spongy-feeling remote controls . So that's that . +Project Manager: So possibly like a uh , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , just to butt in for a second . Possibly uh like a cover like they have for mobile phones ? +Marketing: That's what I was thinking yeah . +User Interface: Those like , yeah , sort of spongy ones . +Project Manager: You have one with a flag , and one with a banana and one that's a spongy +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . So when you buy your remote you can buy +Project Manager: feel to it . {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: various coverings . +Project Manager: Mm various covers . +User Interface: What's it called ? Cust you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} personalised , yeah . +Marketing: Personalise your remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We could leave that to the cover department . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We all know they've got nothing to do all day . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Why can't I see the {disfmarker} crazy . Um yeah I {disfmarker} talking about the interface concept and how the customer relates to , will use the , consumer will use the actual device . Um so I've looked at some of the stuff I was sent , um , try and get some inspiration . But keep in mind that our own ideas that we had . Um I was sent some information from the company saying that they , the technology department have devised a new speech recognition technology , where you can program questions into such devices . They gave an example of a coffee machine where you program a question , you program the answer , and the machine responds accordingly . Um okay . There's different ways of a user can use products l like a remote . Um there's a graphical use , where you you look at pictures and well on a screen . A command line where you obviously type things in , and you get a response . Um and then it ju that's just to point out the sort of inconsistent u sort of use of interface in remotes . You can't really see that picture well , but there's various different remotes , once again with lots of different buttons on , making it more complicated . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , then I had a look at new products that are on the market . Not necessarily remote controls but ones that you'll recognise . Um this is the voice , there is a voice recognition remote control , which can control mus multiple devices . I have a {disfmarker} there is a picture {gap} . You surf your favourite channels uh with your voice . Store up to eighty speech samples , controls four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , V_C_R_ , D_V_D_ and audio . And you can record your own v verbal labels , that are connected to remote control functions . So the technology is there . Um the one on the left is very similar to what we drew up on the board in the previous meeting , where there {disfmarker} has scroll down functions on the side . You can sort of just make those out . And then on the right is obviously an iPod , which is you know possibly one of the simplest things to use out there , and really is , and all that is is just a a nice big scroll menu that y you sort of go through . That is a {vocalsound} possibility . And nothing's simpler really . Um then there's things like this , which is a a a kid's remote , where the the parents have the facility to control and program what children can watch before . So the remote control it o only allows them to access the channels that their parents want them to watch . And um it means that th children have a novelty of having their own remote control . So I don't know {gap} if there's a possibility of having one remote contr you know like we just had two components , maybe it can have more components you know , different remotes . Um the point made at the end there here is that you have to be sort of be {disfmarker} need to be clear on your um devices , as to what , you know , things you use . Sometimes an arrow pointing down , which may suggest volume down , could become confused just as a V_ for volume . Just little things like that , which would need to be made clear in the design . Um I think , d carrying on from what I've already said , a user friendly remote with minimum buttons . Maybe we've so suggested this two-part thing , where if it was to have a speech recognition thing , you could maybe control that on the {disfmarker} do it {disfmarker} or program all that on the control bit . And then just have the simple sort of hand-held thing that we sort of devised earlier , as the actual remote . Um I don't {disfmarker} it could be a graphical display , the actual remote contr the actual control port maybe could have like an iPod where you just sort of control through the menus . Stuff like {gap} gets more and more compli complicated . And then the the hand-held bit should be ergonomically designed . And that is it . Why am I {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Just {gap} . {gap} Where are we ? Uh . Just to sort of show you . M {gap} they've even got things like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huge things . Which is just {gap} for your gr ninety year old grandma yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's industrial design for cranes , stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Notice the giant dog bone shape ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Industrial Designer: Makes sense , makes sense . +User Interface: And that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Also good for animals . +User Interface: Yeah . See . {gap} things {gap} . {gap} . Why's my screen crazy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Well let's see . I'm going to bore you with a couple of descriptions of the interior . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just to to make it more obvious what we have to fit in there , and that we do have to fit the stuff in there . I've more information on possible materials um as well . What we can and cannot do . Um but let's just wait for this to load up and I'll show you what we're talking about here . Okay . The details of the components' design , as you can see there , what we have is the board , main board of the remote control . {vocalsound} The underside , that's pretty cheap piece of of technology really {gap} top left side you can see the chip , which is the , what we were talking about , this was is the device to recognise the signals the input , and it passes it on to a row of um further transistors and stuff like that on the right side that actually amplify the signal , which later on is being , is being transferred to a infrared lamp which then um of course shines infrared light onto the television which then will recognise what signal um it's getting and will do what you tell it . Um {disfmarker} So much for the the workings of the of the uh remote control itself . {vocalsound} Its job is to wait for you to press a key , then to translate that key press into infrared light signals , um that are received by the television . When you press a key um you complete a specific connection . The chip senses the connection and knows what button you pressed . It produces a morse code line signal specific to that button . Right . Pretty clear . Transistor amplifies the signal and then sends the m sends the signal to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . The sensor in the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal reacts appropriately . This is the circuit board from the other side . Um the lower part of it , I don't know if you can see that properly , with the green greenish board is is what we what we saw in the first the first slide just flipped over . Um you can see the circuit board itself . That's the cheapest uh way to make electronic connections basically on the market . Um what you do is you have , don't have cables , but you have the connections actually in these in these lines on the on the board . These are the actual keys that are being pressed . They close the electric circuit . That then sends the signal to the chip on the other side . That would be behind here . Um which uh sends it over to the transistors and all that stuff that +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: amplify the signal and all that is being sent to the infrared lamp up there . Now as you can see this is the the rubber button version of it . {vocalsound} Um the way it works is that you have the keys here . The rubber button has a little metal uh plate on the other side , which closes the circuit here . And thus gives on the signal . Now this is the simple version . {vocalsound} Um we are talking um this this the simple and cheapest version at the same time . We are talking something more complicated of course , it's going to be more expensive as well . And not only that . Um we are also restricted in the use of our outer shell , or in the material that we could use for our outer shell . Um {vocalsound} I've gotten some information that we could use for the case material plastic , rubber , as well . Um rubber that is used in these anti-stress balls . So it's pretty squishy . That would that would serve that purpose . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spongy ? +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} we could also use wood , or titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What's the approximate per hundred thousand for the titanium ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh fya +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't have an information on that . However our company {vocalsound} obviously can provide us with uh with the titanium , so I assume , I'm , I was given an okay to use it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It certainly is an expensive material , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm aware of that , but I was given an okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there are certain restrictions to certain materials . Now let's first go through the list with the materials . So we what we can use is plastic , rubber , wood and titanium . Can also mix these . Um as for the energy source , um we were talking about that shortly in the other meeting . Um what we could use is , or what I was offered , or what we could use , is a basic bateer battery . Right ? Uh a dynamo . Interestingly enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we could use solar cells . Or a device that was not n not further specified that provides kinetic energy . Such as like watches you know . Where you just move them m move the the actual device and this pr uh provides it with with uh some energy . So um obviously I personally have to say that dynamo is out of the question really . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna wind up your remote control before you can use it right ? Um solar cell is interesting . {vocalsound} May fail though , every here and there . +User Interface: Would you have to leave it by the window ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah +User Interface: {gap} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . Or you know you lose it , it lies behind the couch for a week +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah mm . +Project Manager: Works well in Arizona but in Edinburgh not so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Always the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y probably not yeah . +Industrial Designer: exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um the kinetic energy thing um might work , um but the same problem . You leave it lying around and you first have to shake it before it it starts to work . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'd say what we're stuck with really is um the basic battery . Which also makes a base station basically obsolete . We don't need that then . Um {disfmarker} However our interface options are push-buttons . In which uh in the production of which or in manufacture of which um our company is expert . Um {disfmarker} However we've discussed that scroll wheels are a better option . And they are possible . We have an okay for scroll wheels . Okay . Um however {vocalsound} when it comes to the scroll wheel of the iPod I've one big objection and that is that we have to fit an L_C_D_ into the remote control as well . This however may exclude certain um materials . If you have a squishy uh kind of remote control , then an L_C_D_ screen may be affected by the movement . Hence we might not be able to put it in there . So um {disfmarker} There's also restrictions {vocalsound} to , when it comes to the chip . If we have a more sophistic uh sophisticated scroll wheel rather than this very basic uh set-up that we that I've just presented , um the chip has to be more s more sophisticated and thus more expensive as well . I don't have any details to , when it comes to the cost but um it will be a significant difference . I'd rather say drop the titanium and therefore let's have a more sophisticated chip , but that's not up to me to decide really . {vocalsound} So that's for the for the scroll wheel . Um it limits our choice and squishy is hip , so I'd say rather not go for for that . Let's see now . Um um solar cells cannot be used on a curved or latex um surface or um remote control . But obviously that's not our problem um since we have decided or against solar cells , I assume right ? Or is anybody still {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I think I think batteries are probably the way to go . +Industrial Designer: alright . +Marketing: No . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh which makes it very conventional but therefore traditional I assume . Um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} With the titanium um we cannot make it a curved design . We would just be able to make it flat and and um yeah a straight design pretty much . Which I assume would exclude uh some of the more sophisticated versions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Would the sort of {vocalsound} spongy and the the plasticky thing {disfmarker} y you can get those mobile phones that initially have a {disfmarker} it is plastic but then they have sort of a a s a cover on it which is just sort of soft and stuff . +Marketing: Mm . Like a covering . Yeah . +User Interface: So I don't know if that would still be possible to have you know {gap} in plastic . But then where do people hold it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just all be sort of spongy . +Marketing: The we can have the fruits and vegetables on the spongy parts , so they can remove it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So you {vocalsound} as the the possibility of having a a graphical display on it , like a screen ? Like the iPod ? +Industrial Designer: You can have an L_C_D_ screen . Um but therefore no rubber will be used . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? So plastic yes , titanium yes , but this will of course influence the form . With plastic , as I understand it , you can use any form . Um latex is tricky . Or rubber and um and titanium also seems to be tricky when it comes to the form . So the way to go is if you want a scroll wheel you either make it flat and angular , uh add an L_C_D_ screen , and um then you can basically choose either plastic or titanium . Or wood even . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um if you wanna make it a particular shape , use plastic . Add an L_C_D_ screen , add a scroll wheel , that'll be fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or make it just push-buttons . Basically plastic gives you the b biggest variety of of options . Maybe not the nicest feel . Or not much originality really . +Project Manager: So the ru wait the rubbery {disfmarker} we can shape it however we want ? Or the rubbery we cannot ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} With rubber we could uh sh pretty much shape it the way we wanted it , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but we cannot add scroll wheels , and we cannot add an L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the tricky thing . +User Interface: Could we not you know have a shape with a scroll and the screen , and then j just sort of that initial shape we had , just which is uh sort of banana-esque . So that's {gap} thing if we did it yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And um you know you just p stick on just sort of rubber things that that sort of grip the thumb bit . They wouldn't have any {disfmarker} they're just on the exterior . They wouldn't be necessary to the actual shape of the thing . +Project Manager: Is that an option , a plastic shell with a rubbery coating on at certain spots ? +Industrial Designer: S Certainly can be done yes . Um yeah . if that doesn't affect the functional side of it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like say just the underside or so then it can be done . I assume . Yeah . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The fruit design um {disfmarker} How about um affecting the surface of the actual um remote control ? Say we don't make it p a particular fruit shape obviously , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh give it like the surface of an orange , banana , whatever . You name it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: What about a smell ? +Industrial Designer: Just design-wise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T {vocalsound} to the remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Nice one . +User Interface: You could just sell it in different colours as well I suppose . In different ye yellows . +Marketing: Bright citrus colours yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't suppose we have to stick to co +Industrial Designer: Well we we're supposed to stick to the company colours though , +User Interface: Stick to the colours yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's yellow and grey . +Marketing: Yellow and grey . +Project Manager: Yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: So what have we , lemon , banana , is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm grapefruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Grapefruit . +Industrial Designer: Grapefruit +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is what we'd go for , when it comes to the outer appearance perhaps . But {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I would say , if I were to make a decision , I would probably put the fruit aspect at the lower lower end of the spectrum of of importance . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think having a shape could be a little ridiculous , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have it banana-shaped already , kind of . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well we kinda do yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well perhaps the implied shape will be enough to lure that fruit-minded remote buyer . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} and if it if it was done yellow , which is a company colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if it's yellow ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It's it's yellow . It's curved . +Industrial Designer: I it's yellow . +Marketing: Grey buttons yeah . +Project Manager: It's sort of {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well so why not add a couple of grey stripes and make it look like a banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: couple of couple of grey stripes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We could put the grey stripes on the bottom so that that person could turn it over . +User Interface: On the the gr the rubbery grips could be grey . +Project Manager: It would look like a banana just sitting on their table . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +Project Manager: Rather than {disfmarker} {vocalsound} rather th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It could {disfmarker} and then you could actually h put the banana-shaped thing on the fruit bowl , on the coffee table , +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: and then people would always know where it was . +Project Manager: Maybe the holder , if we were to have a holder , it could be shaped like a fruit . +Marketing: Nice . Could look like a fruit bowl . +Industrial Designer: It could be an ape . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could be , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: it could be an ape or a fruit bowl . we could have a variety of options here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you have more to your presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's pretty much it . I informed you about the materials , what the interior has to look like , and what the limitations to certain materials are on +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} there you go . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm gonna plug in here real quick . If I could . +Industrial Designer: Sure . Hang on . There you go . +Project Manager: Like I said we have to make a decision on a couple of these items here . Um {disfmarker} ow . Ow . +Marketing: So is the two piece idea out ? Or have we not decided ? +User Interface: Well we sort of {disfmarker} {gap} rid of that because {gap} gonna use a battery . And the base station might not be necessary . +Marketing: Oh right okay . +Industrial Designer: Well we can still design a two-piece uh remote um without having a base , having one of them be a base station , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but just have it be an optional either big remote with lots of functions , or you take out the smaller piece . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We can still do that . However {vocalsound} of course this would be like designing two remotes pretty much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um which then , as I understand it , would probably limit the , limit again the the the use of certain materials , because they would be too expensive . Say like have a scroll wheel and uh on both of them , or have an L_C_D_ screen and so on so on . You'd probably have to stick rather with a just traditional rubber button +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: design which we saw there . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But could be done , of course . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so these are the decisions that we do need to make by the end of this meeting . Um for our components concept we need to come up with the energy source , um the chip-on-print , and the case . Probably case um material . And probably a shape also . Um and then for the user interface concept we need to decide what the tape , what , what the type is . And what kind of supplements we'll have . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Energy source I think we've , I think we've decided batteries , although not exciting , are probably our best bet . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And we have five minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay when it comes to the chip-on-print , as I said , the the more advanced features you want , um the fancier the chip has to be and the more expensive . Uh if you want just a normal button version , the chip-on-print is gonna be +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: a cheap one . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Um I guess we should pick the case then . If we go with the plasticky case , or the the plastic case , um then the chip-on-print is still kind of , we could have either or . We could have a complex one or a a non-complex . But did we decide that the rubbery feel was important enough to us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well what about what you said , like putting the +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: finger grips just on top of the plastic ? +User Interface: yeah . Just a little bit of {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . So we would , we would have the L_C_D_ screen ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} as long as the pla uh the rubber is nowhere near the controls , yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So I guess the case would be plastic , with {disfmarker} Perhaps that's not even enough rubber to qualify as being part of it . It's more of a su it's more of a supplement maybe . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: M more of a l lamination perhaps . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So then for the scroll , are we going for the iPod type ? +User Interface: Yeah I think so . I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which will require a more expensive chip-on-print right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . It does . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So {disfmarker} I guess that , is that , is that about it ? So we have a good idea of what we're gonna need to to do on this ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um okay so we will have another meeting in thirty minutes . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Here's what's gonna be going on . Um {disfmarker} Um Ryan you'll be working on the user interface design . Um {disfmarker} Manuel you'll be working on the look-and-feel design . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Corrine we'll want a product evaluation . And the two of you get to play with the uh modelling components and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe and and get us a prototype . Which should go along well with your look-and-feel design and your interface . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that {vocalsound} basically {gap} just be working on the prototype , {vocalsound} uh we'll accomplish your other two actions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Let's do it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","The meeting opens with a conceptual design discussion among a project manager, marketing representative, user interface designer, and an industrial designer to finalize the concept for a new remote control. The goal is to make the finest remote control, incorporating company colors and logo, user-friendliness, simple design, a locator function, and distinct aesthetics. The design must also take into account market trends, technology innovation, user preferences, and materials. + +Key points: +- Users find current remotes ugly, overly complex, and easy to lose. +- Younger users want speech recognition; older users do not. +- The team opts against universal remote features to avoid added cost and complexity. +- Marketing research indicates a preference for a 'fancy' look and technological innovation. +- Fashion trends hint at incorporating fruit and vegetable themes and spongy materials. + +Decisions made and actions needed: +- Energy source will be a battery +- Remote will have a chip-on-print for signals +- The remote case will be plastic, possibly with rubbery grips +- Will include a scroll wheel, requiring a more expensive chip +- Buttons will be simple and minimal +- Further discussions on incorporating fruit and vegetable trends +- Follow-up meeting planned to work on interface design, look-and-feel, product evaluation, and prototype modelling." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Why ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: I 'm known . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , cuz she already told me it , before she told you . +Grad E: No , she told me a long time ago . She told me {disfmarker} she told me like two weeks ago . +Grad A: Oh , well , it doesn't matter what time . +Grad B: OK . You know how to toggle the display width {pause} function {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well maybe she hadn't just started transcribing me yet . +Grad D: Wow . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad D: What is it ? +Grad E: Let me explain something to you . +Grad D: Um , +Grad E: My laugh is better than yours . +Grad D: there . +Grad A: I beg to differ . +Grad B: Yo . +Grad D: Um , OK . +Grad A: But you have to say something genuinely funny before you 'll get an example . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: The thing is I don't know how to get to the next page . Here . +Grad E: No . You should be {disfmarker} at least be self - satisfied enough to laugh at your own jokes . +Grad D: Actually I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , it 's a different laugh . +Grad D: There . +Grad A: Ooh , wow ! +Grad D: How weird . +Grad E: Oh ! Holy mackerel . +Grad A: Wow . Whoa ! +Grad D: What ? ! Oh . OK . I wasn't even doing anything . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad E: Eva 's got a laptop , she 's trying to show it off . +Grad D: That was r actually Robert 's idea . But anyhow . Um +Professor F: O K . So , here we are . +Grad E: Once again . +Professor F: Once again , right , together . Um , so we haven't had a meeting for a while , and {disfmarker} and probably won't have one next week , I think a number of people are gone . Um , so Robert , why don't you bring us up to date on where we are with EDU ? +Grad B: Um , uh in a {disfmarker} in a smaller group we had uh , talked and decided about continuation of the data collection . So Fey 's time with us is almost officially over , and she brought us some thirty subjects and , t collected the data , and ten dialogues have been transcribed and can be looked at . If you 're interested in that , talk to me . Um , and we found another uh , cogsci student who 's interested in playing wizard for us . Here we 're gonna make it a little bit more complicated for the subjects , uh this round . She 's actually suggested to look um , at the psychology department students , because they have to partake in two experiments in order to fulfill some requirements . So they have to be subjected , {vocalsound} {comment} before they can actually graduate . And um , we want to design it so that they really have to think about having some time , two days , for example , to plan certain things and figure out which can be done at what time , and , um , sort of package the whole thing in a {disfmarker} in a re in a few more complicated um , structure . That 's for the data collection . As for SmartKom , I 'm {disfmarker} the last SmartKom meeting I mentioned that we have some problems with the synthesis , which as of this morning should be resolved . And , so , +Professor F: Good . +Grad B: "" should be "" means they aren't yet , but {disfmarker} but I think I have the info now that I need . Plus , Johno and I are meeting tomorrow , so maybe uh uh , when tomorrow is over , we 're done . And ha n hav we 'll never have to look at it again Maybe it 'll take some more time , to be realistic , but at least we 're {disfmarker} we 're seeing the end of the tunnel there . That was that . Um , the uh , uh I don't think we need to discuss the formalism that 'll be done officially s once we 're done . Um , something happened , in {disfmarker} on Eva 's side with the PRM that we 're gonna look at today , and um , we have a visitor from Bruchsal from the International University . Andreas , I think you 've met everyone except Nancy . +Grad A: Sorry . Hi . Hi . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Hi . Hi . +Grad A: So when you said "" Andreas "" I thought you were talking about Stolcke . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: Now I know that we aren't , OK . +Grad B: Andy , you actually go by Andy , right ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz there is another Andreas around , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: so , to avoid some confusion . +Grad B: That will be {pause} Reuter ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So my scientific director of the EML is also the dean of the International University , one of his many occupations that just contributes to the fact that he is very occupied . And , um , the {disfmarker} um , he @ @ might tell us a little bit about what he 's actually doing , and why it is s somewhat related , and {disfmarker} by uh using maybe some of the same technologies that we are using . And um . Was that enough of an update ? +Professor F: I think so . +Grad B: In what order shall we proceed ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Maybe you have your on - line {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh , yeah , sure . Um , so , I 've be just been looking at , um , Ack ! What are you doing ? Yeah . OK . Um , I 've been looking at the PRM stuff . Um , so , this is , sort of like the latest thing I have on it , and I sorta constructed a couple of classes . Like , a user class , a site class , and {disfmarker} and you know , a time , a route , and then {disfmarker} and a query class . And I tried to simplify it down a little bit , so that I can actually um , look at it more . It 's the same paper that I gave to Jerry last time . Um , so basically I took out a lot of stuff , a lot of the decision nodes , and then tried to {disfmarker} The red lines on the , um , graph are the um , relations between the different um , classes . Like , a user has like , a query , and then , also has , you know um , reference slots to its preferences , um , the special needs and , you know , money , and the user interest . And so this is more or less similar to the flat Bayes - net that I have , you know , with the input nodes and all that . And {disfmarker} So I tried to construct the dependency models , and a lot of these stuff I got from the flat Bayes - net , and what they depend on , and it turns out , you know , the CPT 's are really big , if I do that , so I tried to see how I can do , um {disfmarker} put in the computational nodes in between . And what that would look like in a PRM . And so I ended up making several classes {disfmarker} Actually , you know , a class of {disfmarker} with different attributes that are the intermediate nodes , and one of them is like , time affordability money affordability , site availability , and the travel compatibility . And so some of these classes are {disfmarker} s some of these attributes only depend on stuff from , say , the user , or s f just from , I don't know , like the site . S like , um , these here , it 's only like , user , but , if you look at travel compatibility for each of these factors , you need to look at a pair of , you know , what the um , preference of the user is versus , you know , what type of an event it is , or you know , which form of transportation the user has and whether , you know , the onsite parking matters to the user , in that case . And that makes the scenario a little different in a PRM , because , um , then you have one - user objects and potentially you can have many different sites in {disfmarker} in mind . And so for each of the site you 'll come up with this rating , of travel compatibility . And , they all depend on the same users , but different sites , and that makes a {disfmarker} I 'm tr I w I wa have been trying to see whether the PRM would make it more efficient if we do inferencing like that . And so , I guess you end up having fewer number of nodes than in a flat Bayes - net , cuz otherwise you would {disfmarker} c well , it 's probably the same . But um , No , you would definitely have {disfmarker} be able to re - use , like , {vocalsound} um , all the user stuff , and not {disfmarker} not having to recompute a lot of the stuff , because it 's all from the user side . So if you changed sites , you {disfmarker} you can , you know , save some work on that . But , you know , in the case where , it depends on both the user and the site , then I 'm still having a hard time trying to see how um , using the PRM will help . Um , so anyhow , using those intermediate nodes then , this {disfmarker} this would be the class that represent the intermediate nodes . And that would {disfmarker} basically it 's just another class in the model , with , you know , references to the user and the site and the time . And then , after you group them together this {disfmarker} no the dependencies would {disfmarker} of the queries would be reduced to this . And so , you know , it 's easier to specify the CPT and all . Um , so I think that 's about as far as I 've gone on the PRM stuff . +Professor F: Well +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: No . So y you didn't yet tell us what the output is . +Grad D: The output . +Professor F: So what decisions does this make ? +Grad D: OK . So it only makes two decisions , in this model . And one is basically how desirable a site is meaning , um , how good it matches the needs of a user . And the other is the mode of the visit , whether th It 's the EVA decision . Um , so , instead of um , {vocalsound} doing a lot of , you know , computation about , you know , which one site it wants of {disfmarker} the user wants to visit , I 'll come {disfmarker} well , try to come up with like , sort of a list of sites . And for each site , you know , where {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} how well it fits , and basically a rating of how well it fits and what to do with it . So . Anything else I missed ? +Professor F: So that was pretty quick . She 's ac uh uh Eva 's got a little write - up on it that uh , probably gives the {disfmarker} the details to anybody who needs them . Um , so the {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you didn't look at all yet to see if there 's anybody has a implementation . +Grad D: No , not yet , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So one {disfmarker} so one of the questions , you know , about these P R Ms is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , we aren't gonna build our own interpreter , so if {disfmarker} if we can't find one , then we uh , go off and do something else and wait until s one appears . Uh , so one of the things that Eva 's gonna do over the next few weeks is see if we can track that down . Uh , the people at Stanford write papers as if they had one , but , um , we 'll see . So w Anyway . So that 's a {disfmarker} a major open issue . If there is an interpreter , it looks like you know , what Eva 's got should run and we should be able to actually um , try to solve , you know , the problems , to actually take the data , and do it . Uh , and we 'll see . Uh , I actually think it is cleaner , and the ability to instantiate , you know , instance of people and sites and stuff , um , will help in the expression . Whether the inference gets any faster or not I don't know . Uh , it wouldn't surprise me if it {disfmarker} if it doesn't . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , it 's the same kind of information . I think there are things that you can express this way which you can't express in a normal belief - net , uh , without going to some incredible hacking of {disfmarker} sort of rebuilding it on the fly . I mean , the notion of instantiating your el elements from the ontology and stuff fits this very nicely and doesn't fit very well into the extended belief - net . So that was one of the main reasons for doing it . Um . I don't know . So , uh , people who have thought about the problem , like Robert i it looked to me like if {comment} Eva were able to come up with a {vocalsound} you know , value for each of a number of uh , sites plus its EVA thing , that a travel planner should be able to take it from there . And {disfmarker} you know , with some other information about how much time the person has and whatever , and then plan a route . +Grad B: Um - hmm , um , {vocalsound} well , first of all uh , uh , great looks , mu much cleaner , nnn , nnn , Certain {disfmarker} certain beauty in it , so , um , if beauty is truth , then , uh we 're in good shape . But , the um , as , uh , mentioned before we probably should look at t the details . So if you have a write - up then uh , I 'd love to read it +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} because , um , i Can you go all the way back to the {disfmarker} the very top ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , {vocalsound} uh these {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} these {disfmarker} w w when these are instantiated they take on the same values ? that we had before ? +Grad D: I can't really see the whole thing . +Grad B: or are they {disfmarker} have they changed , in a sense ? +Grad D: Well I think I basically leave them to similar things . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Some of the things might {disfmarker} that might be different , maybe like {disfmarker} are that the hours for the site . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: And , eventually I meant that to mean whether they 're open at this hour or not . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: And status would be , you know , more or less like , whether they 're under construction , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} or stuff like that . +Grad B: And the , uh , other question I would have is that presumably , from the way the Stanford people talk about it , you can put the probabilities also on the relations . If {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which is the structural uncertainty ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That I think was actually in the previous {disfmarker} the Ubenth stuff . I don't remember whether they carried that over to this or not , +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: uh , structural uncertainty . +Grad B: It 's sort of in the definition or {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in Daphne 's definition of a PRM is that classes and relations , +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: and you 're gonna have CPT 's over the classes and their relations . +Professor F: Alright . +Grad B: More uncertainty , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: I should say . +Grad D: I remember them learning when , you know , you don't know the structure for sure , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: but I don't remember reading how you specify +Grad B: Yeah , that would be exactly my question . +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: wh to start with . Yeah . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . So , uh , the {disfmarker} the plan is {disfmarker} is when Daphne gets back , we 'll get in touch and supposedly , um , we 'll actually get s deep {disfmarker} seriously connected to {disfmarker} to their work and +Grad B: Yep . +Professor F: somebody 'll {disfmarker} Uh , you know {disfmarker} If it 's a group meeting once a week probably someone 'll go down and , whatever . So , we 'll actually figure all this out . +Grad B: OK . OK . Then I think the w {vocalsound} long term perspective is {disfmarker} is pretty clear . We get rocking and rolling on this again , once we get a package , if , when , and how , then this becomes foregrounded +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: profiled , focused , again . +Grad E: Designated ? +Grad A: Of course . +Grad B: And um , until then we 'll come up with a something that 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that 's way more complicated for you . Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because this was laughingly easy , right ? +Grad D: Actually I had to take out a lot of the complicated stuff , cuz I {disfmarker} I made it really complicated in the beginning , and Jerry was like , {vocalsound} "" this is just too much "" . +Professor F: Yeah . So , um , you could , from this , go on and say suppose there 's a group of people traveling together and you wanted to plan something that somehow , with some Pareto optimal uh , {vocalsound} uh , thing for {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's good . That 's definitely a job for artificial intelligence . +Professor F: uh , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except for humans can't really solve it either , so . +Grad B: Well that 's not {disfmarker} not even something humans {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . Well that 's the {disfmarker} that would {disfmarker} that would be a {disfmarker} uh , you could sell it , as a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , eh you don't have to fight about this , just give your preferences to the {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then you can blame the computer . +Professor F: w Exactly . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: Hmm . But what does it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Would a pote potential result be to {disfmarker} to split up and never talk to each other again ? You know . +Grad A: That should be one of them . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: That 'd be nice . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Anyway . So . So there i there are some {disfmarker} some u uh , you know , uh , elaborations of this that you could try to put in to this structure , but I don't think it 's worth it now . Because we 're gonna see what {disfmarker} what else uh {disfmarker} what else we 're gonna do . Anyway . But uh , it 's good , yeah and {disfmarker} and there were a couple other ideas of {disfmarker} of uh , things for Eva to look at in {disfmarker} in the interim . +Grad B: Good . Then , we can move on and see what Andreas has got out his sleeve . Or Andy , for that matter ? +Grad C: OK . So uh , uh , well , thanks for having me here , first of all . Um , so maybe just a {disfmarker} a little background on {disfmarker} on my visit . So , uh , I 'm not really involved in any project , that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's relevant to you uh , a at the moment , uh , the {disfmarker} the reason is really for me uh , to have an opportunity to talk to some other researchers in the field . And {disfmarker} and so I 'll just n sort of give you a real quick introduction to what I 'm working on , and um , I just hope that you have some comments or , maybe you 're interested in it to find out more , and {disfmarker} and so I 'll be uh , happy to talk to you and {disfmarker} and uh , I 'd also like to find out some more and {disfmarker} and maybe I 'll just walk around the office and and then {disfmarker} and ask some {disfmarker} some questions , uh , in a couple days . So I 'll be here for uh , tomorrow and then uh , the remainder of uh , next week . OK , so , um , what I started looking at , uh , to begin with is just uh , content management systems uh , i i in general . So um , uh what 's uh {disfmarker} Sort of the state of the art there is to um {disfmarker} uh you have a bunch of {disfmarker} of uh documents or learning units or learning objects , um , and you store meta - data uh , associate to them . So there 's some international standards like the I - triple - E , uh {disfmarker} There 's an I - triple - E , LON standard , and um , these fields are pretty straightforward , you have uh author information , you have uh , size information , format information and so on . Uh , but they 're two uh fields that are um , more interesting . One is uh you store keywords associated with the uh {disfmarker} with the document , and one is uh , you have sort of a , um , well , what is the document about ? So it 's some sort of taxonomic uh , ordering of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the units . Now , if you sort of put on your semantic glasses , uh you say , well that 's not all that easy , because there 's an implicit um , uh , assumption behind that is that uh , all the users of this system share the same interpretation of the keyword and the same interpretation of uh , whichever taxonomy is used , and uh , I think that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very {disfmarker} that 's a key point of these systems and they sort of always brush over this real quickly without really elaborating much of that and uh {disfmarker} As a matter of fact , the only thing that m apparently really works out so far are library ordering codes , which are very , very coarse grain , so you have some like , science , biology , and then {disfmarker} But that 's really all that we have at the moment . So I think there 's a huge , um , uh need for improvement there . Now , what this uh {disfmarker} a standard like this would give us is we could um , sort of uh with a search engine just query uh , different repositories all over the world . But we can't really {disfmarker} Um , so what I 'm {disfmarker} what I try to do is um , to have um , uh {disfmarker} So . So the scenario is the following , you you 're working on some sort of project and you encounter a certain problem . Now , what {disfmarker} what we have at our university quite a bit is that uh , students um , try to u program a certain assignment , for example , they always run into the same problems , uh , and they always come running to us , and they 'll say why 's it not {disfmarker} it 's not working , and we always give out the same answer , so we thought , well , it 'd be nice to have a system that could sort of take care of this , and so , what I want to build is basically a {disfmarker} a smart F A Q system . Now , what you uh need to do here is you need to provide some context information which is more elaborate than "" I 'm looking for this and this and this keyword . "" So . And I think that I don't need to tell you this . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you have the same {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody utters a sentence in a certain , uh , context it , and {disfmarker} and the same sentence in another context makes a huge difference . So , I want to be able to model information like , um , so in the {disfmarker} in the context of {disfmarker} in the context of developing distributed systems , of a at a computer science school , um , what kind of software is the person using , which homework assignment is he or she working on at the moment , um , maybe what 's the background of that student 's um , which um , which error message was encountered . So this sort of information I think should be transmitted , uh , when a certain document is retrieved . Now , um , basically giving this um {disfmarker} Uh so we somehow need to have a formalized um , way of writing this down basically , and that 's where the shared interpretation of {disfmarker} of certain terms and keywords comes in again . And , using this and some {disfmarker} some uh , knowledge about the domain I think you can do some {disfmarker} some simple inferences . Like you know that when somebody 's working about {disfmarker} uh , working on {disfmarker} on servlets for example , he 's using Java , cuz servlets are used {disfmarker} are written in Java . So some {disfmarker} some inferences like that , now , um , u using this you can infer more information , and you could then match this to the meta - data of um {disfmarker} off the documents you 're {disfmarker} you 're searching against . So , uh what I wanna do is basically have some sort of um {disfmarker} given these inputs , and then I can compute how many documents match , and use this as a metric in the search . Now , what I plan to do is I want to uh sort of do a uh {disfmarker} uh {pause} try to improve the quality of the search results , and I want to do this by having a depth uh , um , um {disfmarker} steepest descent approach . So if I knew which operating system the person was working on , would this improve my search result ? And {disfmarker} and having uh , uh a symbolic formalized model of this I could simply compute that , and find out which um {disfmarker} which questions are worth um , asking . And that 's what I then propagate back to the user , and {disfmarker} and sort of try to optimize the search in this way . Now , the big problem that I 'm facing right now is um , it 's fairly easy to hack up a system uh quickly , that {disfmarker} that works in the small domain , but the problem is obviously the scalability . And uh uh , so Robert was mentioning uh , earlier today is that uh , Microsoft for example with their printer set up program has a Bayesian network , which does exactly this , but there you face a problem that these are very hard to extend . And so , uh what I 'm {disfmarker} What I try to do is basically try to model this uh , in a way that you could really combine uh , knowledge from very different sources , and {disfmarker} and um , sort of looking into some of the ideas that the semantic web community uh , came up with . Trying to {disfmarker} to have uh , an approach how to integrate s uh certain uh {disfmarker} representation of certain concepts and also some computational rules , um , what you can do with those . Um . What I 'm also looking into is a probabilistic approach into this because document retrievals is a very fuzzy procedure , so it 's probably not that easy to simply have a symbolic uh , computational model . That {disfmarker} that probably isn't expressive enough . So . So that 's another thing , um , which I think you 're also uh , uh looking into right now . And then um , uh sort of as an add - on to this whole idea , um , uh that would be now , depending on what the search engine or the content repository {disfmarker} depending on which {disfmarker} um , uh , which uh , rules and which ontologies it {disfmarker} it uses , or basically its view of the world , uh you can get very different results . So it might ma make a lot of sense to actually query a lot of different search engines . And there you could have an idea where you actually have sort of a {disfmarker} a peer to peer approach , where we 're all sort of carrying around our individual bookshelves , and um , if you have a question about a homework , it 's {disfmarker} probably makes sense to ask somebody who 's in your class with you , sort of the guru in the certain area , rather than going to some Yahoo - like uh , search engine . So these are some of the {disfmarker} just in a nutshell , some of the ideas . And I think a lot of the {disfmarker} even though it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a very different domain , but I think a lot of the , um , issues are {disfmarker} are fairly similar . So . OK . +Grad A: And so some of the {disfmarker} I don't know how much you know about the larger Heidelberg project , I {disfmarker} Are you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh I know , yeah I know abou about it . +Grad A: So it seems like a lot of {disfmarker} some of the issues are the same . It 's like , um , you know , the c context - based factors that influence how you interpret , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , s how to interpret . In {disfmarker} in this case , infer in in knowing {disfmarker} wanting to know what kinds of things to ask . We - we 've kind of talked about that , but we haven't worried too much about that end of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But maybe you guys had that in the previous models . +Grad B: Well , in a {disfmarker} in one {disfmarker} t one s mmm , small difference in a {disfmarker} in a way , is that he doesn't have to come up with an answer , but he wants to point to the places w w +Grad A: Documents that have the answers . +Grad C: Yeah , so . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not building an expert {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I want to build a smart librarian , basically +Grad A: Right . Right . +Grad C: that can point you to the right reference . I don't wanna compute the answer , so it 's a little bit easier for me . +Grad B: Well . Uh , you have to s still m understand what the content says about itself , and then match it to what you think the informational needs {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you also don't have to figure out what the content is . You 're just taking the keywords as a topic text , as {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I assume that {disfmarker} that the there will be learning systems that {disfmarker} that tag their {disfmarker} their content . +Grad A: OK . Right . +Grad C: And um , um , m @ @ and basically what I {disfmarker} what I envision is that you {disfmarker} rather than just supplying a bunch of keywords you could basically {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for an FAQ for example you could state sort of like a logic condition , when this document applies . So "" this document explains how to set up your uh , mail account on Linux "" or something like this . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . So something {disfmarker} something very specific that you can then {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} I think that the key point with these uh , learning systems is that uh , a learning system is only as good as uh the amount of content it {disfmarker} it carries . +Grad A: Mmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: You can have the best learning system with the best search interface , if there 's no content inside of it , it 's not very useful . So I think ultimately because um , uh developing these {disfmarker} these rules and these inference uh {disfmarker} inferences I think is very costly , so um , uh I think you must be able to reuse some {disfmarker} some existing um , domain {disfmarker} domain information , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or ontologies that {disfmarker} that uh other people wrote and then try to integrate them , and then also search the entire web basically , rather than just the small uh , content management system . +Grad A: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's crucial for {disfmarker} for the success of {disfmarker} or @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: So , you 're not {disfmarker} I guess I 'm trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how it maps to the kinds of things that we 've talked about in this group , and , actually associated groups , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: cuz some of us do pretty detailed linguistic analyses , and I 'm guessing that you {disfmarker} you won't be doing that ? OK . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: Just checking . So , {vocalsound} OK . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: So , you take the query , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor F: On the other hand , uh , FrameNet could well be useful . So do you know the FrameNet story ? +Grad C: Um , yeah . Uh , not {disfmarker} not too much , +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: but uh , +Professor F: Oh . Th - that 's another thing you might wanna look into while you 're here . +Grad C: I have a rough overview . +Professor F: Because , um , you know , the standard story is that keyworks {disfmarker} keywords evoke frames , and the frames may well give you additional keywords or uh , if you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a {disfmarker} a bunch of keywords uh , indicate a frame , then you can find documents that actually have the whole frame , rather th than just uh , individual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor F: So there 's a lot of stuff , and people are looking at that . Most of the work here is just trying to get the frames right . There 's linguists and stuff and there 's a lot of it and they 're {disfmarker} they 're busily working away . But there are some application efforts trying to exploit it . And this looks t it seems to be that this is a place where you might be able to do that . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I 'm sure I could learn a lot about um , yeah , just how to {disfmarker} how to come up with these structures , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's very easy to whip up something quickly , but it maybe then makes sense to {disfmarker} to me , but not to anybody else , and {disfmarker} and if we want to share and integrate things , they must {disfmarker} well , they must be well designed really . +Grad B: Remember the uh , Prashant story ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: The absolutely no {disfmarker} no linguistic background person that the IU sent over here . +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: And Andreas and I tried to come up wi or we had come up actually with a eh {disfmarker} with him working on an interface for FrameNet , as it was back then , that would p do some of the work for this machine , +Professor F: Right . Yeah . +Grad B: which uh , never got done because Prashant found a happy occupation +Professor F: W yeah , I know , I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} w he did w what {disfmarker} what he did was much more s sensible for him . +Grad B: which in the {disfmarker} Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: I think uh , +Grad B: But so {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , the uh , we had that idea +Professor F: you know {disfmarker} Yeah . The idea was there . Yeah , OK . +Grad B: uh to {disfmarker} to exploit FrameNet there as well . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: And um . +Professor F: Yeah , actually you guys never {disfmarker} +Grad B: And Srini 's doing information extraction also , right ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: with that FrameNet base . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So you {disfmarker} you guys never sent anybody else from I U . +Grad C: Except {disfmarker} except Prashant ? +Professor F: You were y no {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Um , +Professor F: Uh , this was supposedly an exchange program , and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , it 's fine . We don't care , but it just {disfmarker} I 'm a little surprised that uh , Andreas didn't come up with anyone else he wanted to send . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Uh I don't know , I mean the uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Alright . I mean I had forgotten a I {disfmarker} To be honest with you , I 'd totally forgotten we had a program . +Grad B: Uh it 's in the program ? +Grad C: Uh I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's really the lack of students uh , at IU at the moment . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . No , no . There was a whole co There was a little contract signed . It was {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I think it 's ju it 's more the lack of {disfmarker} of students , really , and w we have all these sponsors that are always sort of eager to get some teams . +Professor F: Yeah , I know . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: Well I mean if {disfmarker} if I were a student , I 'd love to come here , rather than work for some German {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} company , or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: You are being recorded right now , so beware . +Professor F: Oh , right ! +Grad C: Well , I didn't say anybody to {disfmarker} anything to offend {disfmarker} well , except for the sponsors maybe , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . Anyway . Right . So I thi tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the things that might be worth looking into while you 're here . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unfortunately , Srini , who is heavily involved in DAML and all this sort of stuff is himself out of town . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Well I 'll go to the uh , Semantic Web Workshop , uh , in two weeks . +Professor F: Right , and {disfmarker} Yeah , for {disfmarker} for some reason he 's not doing that . +Grad A: Yeah . Well , he had other things to do . +Professor F: I don't know why he @ @ {disfmarker} oh , I , who knows ? +Grad A: The uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Anyway , s yeah , you 'll see {disfmarker} you 'll certainly see a lot of the people there . +Grad A: The other person I thought of is Dan Gildea ? because he did some work on topic spotting +Professor F: Yeah . St - statistical stuff . That would be a very good idea . +Grad A: w um , which is , I mean , you {disfmarker} I mean . I don't {disfmarker} Depending on how well you wanna integrate with that end , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , like , taking the data and fig you said the learning systems that figure out {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} There 's someone in ICSI who actually has been working on {disfmarker} has worked on that kinda stuff , and he 's worked with frame net , so you could talk to him about , you know , both of those things at once . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . And he just finished writing a draft of his thesis . So . I u {vocalsound} Dan Gildea , GILDEA . +Grad C: So , uh , who is that again ? +Grad A: And , he 's in one of the rooms on the fifth floor and stuff , +Grad B: Who ? I can take you to his office . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's just around the corner . +Grad C: OK , great . +Grad A: Hmm . Well , if you fal solve the problem , {vocalsound} hope you can do one for us too . +Professor F: Alright , was there anything else for this ? One of these times soon we 're gonna hear about construal . +Grad B: Yeah . I 'm sure . I have um {disfmarker} I think it was November two thousand three or some {disfmarker} No . Wh - I had something in my calendar . +Professor F: Oh , OK . Right . +Grad B: Um , +Grad E: Wait a second . That 's a long way away . +Professor F: Good thinking ! +Grad B: Uh well , maybe I can {disfmarker} I can bribe my way out of this . So . So I did some double checking and it seems like spring break in two thousand {vocalsound} one . +Grad A: Talk about changing the topic . +Grad B: No . +Professor F: Well , no , but he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} as you said , he 's , like the state legislature , he 's trying to offer us bribes . +Grad A: At least this is a private meeting . Right , exactly , OK , that 's the link . +Grad B: This uh {disfmarker} Oh , they refused the budget again ? Is it {disfmarker} so about CITRIS ? Yeah , still nothing . +Professor F: Uh , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} t the s we 're , uh , involved in a literally three hundred million dollar uh , program . Uh , with the State of California . And , the State of California is now a month and a half behind its legis its legally required date to approve a budget . So the budget has not been approved . And two days ago {disfmarker} There 's two l you know , so , two branches of legislature . One branch approved it , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and , um , yesterdayday {comment} there was this uh {disfmarker} uh I thought that the other branch would just approve it , but now there 's actually a little back sliding to people who {disfmarker} who approved it got flak from there , eh anyway . So , um {disfmarker} Oh ! I have to tell you a wonderful story about this , OK ? And then we 'll go . So , I {disfmarker} it turns out I wound up having lunch today with a guy named Tom Kalil . KILL {disfmarker} KALIL . And , uh , he now works at Berkeley . In fact he 's hired to run a lot of CITRIS , even though we don't have the money they {disfmarker} So they 've been hiring people right and left , so , uh , they think the money 's coming . So {disfmarker} and he was , I think , the chief staffer to Clinton on technology matters . He was in the White House , I don't remember what he was saying . A anyway , like that . And , is now doing all the politics for CITRIS , but also , has a uh , a lot of interest in uh , actually doing things for society , so digital divide and stuff like that . So that 's s interesting to me but maybe not to you . But the really interesting thing was , he st he s he s said something about , you know I 'm interested in things that have high social multiplier , something that is of great social value . He said , "" for example "" , this was his only example , "" if you had a adult literacy program that was as good as an individual tutor , and as compelling as a video game , then that would have a huge social impact "" . I said , "" Oh great ! That 's a good problem to work on . "" Anyway . So it was nice that uh , he 's got this view , of A , that 's what you should try to do , and B , uh , language would be a good way to do it . +Grad A: Mmm . Definitely . +Professor F: So that 's {disfmarker} So anyway , that 's the end of the story . +Grad A: But for adults and not for the children . +Professor F: This was {disfmarker} Yeah . I didn't push him on the ch on the child thing , +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Professor F: but , uh , you know , a again , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you +Grad A: Oh . +Professor F: um , and this was {disfmarker} this was literacy , which actually is somewhat different problem . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Maybe easier . I don't know . So this is reading , rather than teaching {disfmarker} Another project we started on , and {disfmarker} and didn't get funded for was , uh , to try to build an automatic tutoring program , for kids whose first language wasn't English . Which is like half the school population in California . Something like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: isn't it ? Yeah . So , enormous problem in California , and the idea was if we 're so smart about language understanding and speech understanding , couldn't we build {vocalsound} uh , programs that would be tutors for the kids . We think we could . Anyway . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} But this is a slightly different problem , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and um , I know none of us have the spare time to look at it right now , but it i it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting and I may um , talk to him some more about is em somebody already doing this , and stuff like that . So anyway , that was {disfmarker} that was today 's little story . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: OK . So I {disfmarker} I did manage to get {disfmarker} pull my head out of the sling by sidetracking into CITRIS , +Professor F: No , no . +Grad B: but uh or {disfmarker} a temporarily putting it out of the sling +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: but , I {disfmarker} I 'll volunteer to put it right back in by stating that I am n uh among some other things in the process of writing up stuff that we have been discussing at our daily meetings , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: and also revising , thanks for all the comments , the c the original construal proposal . And , if I put one and one together , I may end up with a number that 's greater than one and that I {disfmarker} I can potentially present once you get back . +Grad A: Greater than two ? +Professor F: You 're good . +Grad B: Nnn . {comment} s sometimes , you know the sum is not uh less than the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , right , right . +Professor F: Right . Right . Anyway . Yeah , so {disfmarker} OK , so that 'd be great , but I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's time again , right ? +Grad B: Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: But um , and hopefully all sidetracking um , other things will have disappeared , soon . +Professor F: Good . Yep . Done ? +","In a research group meeting, a diverse ensemble of graduate students (Grads A, B, C, D, E) and a professor (Professor F) engage in a fragmented conversation. This dialogue suggests a research environment buzzing with various activities, projects, and interests. It begins with a mysterious exchange where Grad E insists on being told something by another party first, initiating a theme of information sharing and hierarchy. Grad A interrupts, downplaying the significance of the timing of the information exchange. + +As the discussion progresses, it seems communication and understanding are ongoing challenges. For example, Grad B seeks to clarify instructions on using a display function but is met with scattered responses and unfinished sentences, indicative of a chaotic and dynamic research setting where individuals are juggling multiple tasks or thoughts simultaneously. + +Grad A tries to establish the authenticity of interaction through laughter, yet is met with skepticism from Grad D, who expresses uncertainty in navigating through their work, hinting at the collaborative challenges and learning curves present in research environments. + +The conversation shifts focus as Professor F joins and addresses the group, suggesting a long hiatus from meetings may loom due to absences. This introduces a scenario where the group tries to make the most of the present session to align on projects and progress. Grad B updates the group on the ongoing data collection and transcription for a project named EDU, revealing intricate planning and coordination of tasks across the team, including leveraging cognitive science (cogsci) students' participation requirements. There's a sense of urgency to collate and analyze data, optimizing the process, and contemplating the next steps. + +The professor ensures the group is abreast of pressing technological issues such as synthesis problems in SmartKom, signifying the iterative nature of research troubleshooting. Meanwhile, the group toys with the idea of never revisiting certain frustrating tasks, embodying the universal research aspiration for resolving complex problems definitively. + +A visitor from Bruchsal, Andy (Andreas), brings a different perspective as he discusses his work on a smart FAQ system dealing with content management, contextual search optimization, and the integration of knowledge sources. This highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research, where computer science, content management, and user-focused design intersect. Grad A points out parallels between Andy's project and the group’s work, while Professor F directs Andy towards FrameNet, a potential tool that could enhance his project. + +The group contemplates various potential applications of their research, such as optimizing group travel plans, demonstrating how research tasks, while sometimes abstruse, strive towards real-world applications. The conversation introduces ideas about semantic web technologies, probabilistic approaches, and peer-to-peer models, emphasizing the blend of theoretical innovation and practical necessity. + +The meeting meanders through collaborative challenges, administrative intricacies, and the search for interdisciplinary connections, showcasing the reality of navigating academic and research endeavors, where meticulous planning and unexpected hurdles go hand in hand. The professor shares an insight about societal impact projects, opening up a contemplative space for considering the broader implications of their work. + +The meeting winds down as Grad B comically notes that he must resume his focus on a pending topic, humorously likening his respite to a temporary escape from accountability. The conclusion reinforces the continuous nature of academic research, where one seeks to connect disparate ideas into a cohesive narrative, all while juggling schedules, administrative red tape, and the quest for significant discovery." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the first virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I determine that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Friday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video conference. A record of the proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation relating to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind all participants that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Can I just then, again, note for the record that, if, for any reason, I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Item 2, then, this afternoon is an evidence session with the Welsh Government on the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on education in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, Steve Davies, director of the education directorate, and Huw Morris, who is group director, skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Can I welcome you all and thank you for attending? Minister, I understand you'd like to make a short opening statement. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Lynne. And indeed, if I could just begin by, once again, putting on the record my gratitude to everyone who is helping us get through this pandemic. There are a vast number of people who are keeping our school hubs open, looking after vulnerable children, and the children of key workers. Because of them, and their efforts, those key workers are able to carry on their critical roles in responding to COVID-19. I am extremely proud of the way that members of the school community have gone above and beyond. They have kept their schools open out of hours, over the weekends, on bank holidays, and Easter. And it is really heartening and humbling to see the way that they have responded to this crisis. And there are teachers, teaching assistants, and many others, who are helping our children and their parents to keep learning at home. I know that home schooling isn't easy, so I want to say also thank you to parents and carers for their efforts at this time. By keeping their children at home, they are helping us to keep people safe, and reducing pressure on our education system, and on our NHS. Be in no doubt, we are facing many challenges because of this pandemic. My primary concern is, and always will be, the health and well-being of our children, of our young people, and of all the staff in our education settings. And I am very grateful to everyone who is supporting us in these endeavours. Thank you very much—diolch yn fawr. And I'm now happy to answer questions that members of the committee may have this afternoon. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much, Minister. I'm sure that the committee echoes the heartfelt thanks you have just given then. The first questions we've got this afternoon are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good afternoon, Minister. With regard to your five principles, which you've set out today, regarding when schools will reopen, they're very clear that they require a judgment from you. So could you outline when you think that schools might reopen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Hefin. I am very clear that schools will move to a new phase—because, already, schools are open in many settings; we will move to a new phase when it is safe to do so and when I have advice from the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer that it is safe to do so. I have made very clear in my statement that that is not imminent. I know that in some cases there has been speculation that a return to normal could be with us quite shortly. I'm clear that a return to normal is not imminent, and therefore I'm not in a position to give a date as to when we will see more schools opening up to more children. +Hefin David AM: Have you been given any indication at all by the chief medical officer as to when, in the longer term, it might be? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I have not been given a date. What I have done today is publish the principles that will aid me in, as you said, me making a decision. So, clearly, we will be relying on the advice of our medical and scientific advisers, but the principles are very clear. Firstly, we will need to consider any decision to have more children returning to school in the context of the safety and the physical and the emotional well-being of children and young people and the staff. Obviously, I can't make a decision regarding education in isolation. It will have to be taken in the context of the wider Welsh Government response to dealing with this pandemic. Thirdly, it is absolutely crucial in making any decisions that we have clearly communicated that to parents and to staff, on the information that we have used to reach any decisions, to build confidence for parents and professionals, but also to give them time to plan. It will be impossible to move quickly to new ways of working. And we also have to look at—and it's been paraphrased quite a lot today—if we are looking at certain groups of children accessing more education within a school setting, which groups they should be. And, finally, how do we operationalise that? How do we make those settings as safe as they possibly can be, and how do we tackle some of the difficult challenges of everything from ensuring that we have adequate numbers of workforce available, to the very real questions about how you would do social distancing in the context of education, school transport issues, how you would avoid people gathering at the school gate, for instance? So, there are very practical issues that would need to be considered and thought through very, very carefully before we could return, before what we could see is a move from where we are now to the next phase of education, and new approaches to what schooling may look like. But, again, I must be absolutely clear to you, members of the committee, and to people watching: it is not feasible, in this sense, that we would move from where we are now to what all of us would regard as normal education and what the operation of schools looked like before the start of this pandemic. +Hefin David AM: So, what is clear from what you've said is that it's going to be phased return. I would assume that would be the most vulnerable—perhaps additional learning needs pupils would return first. Just reading some of the things that you've said today, can you answer that question? And can I also ask: you said that guiding principle No. 3 will be having the confidence of parents, staff and students, based on evidence and information, so they can plan ahead. What will that evidence and information be, and how will you know that you've got the confidence of parents to return? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, primarily, we will need to take a lead from our scientific and medical advisers. I want to also say that we are obviously working on a four-nation basis and keeping in very close contact with my counterparts in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. But we're also looking beyond the United Kingdom to approaches to education in the face of this pandemic. Members are aware that we as a nation are a member of the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory. So, recently I was able to talk to educationalists and Ministers in Iceland, other parts of Europe, North America, South America and Australia. So, we're also looking at best international evidence in this regard. And, clearly, we will need to be very clear, as today is an attempt to be very clear with parents and our teaching professionals, and the unions that represent them, about the basis of that evidence. +Hefin David AM: And could I just ask, with regard to the principles, do they then apply to further education and universities? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, of course, when we are discussing these challenges, we are doing that with our colleagues in both the school sector but also our colleagues in the FE sector, and we're in close contact with colleagues in higher education to share thinking on these matters. +Hefin David AM: But these principles don't apply in those circumstances; these are principles for schools only. +Kirsty Williams AM: These principles are applying to both, and our work in this area is applying to both schools and FE colleges. Clearly, universities, as independent institutions, we wouldn't be able to dictate to. But I want to be absolutely clear: we are working with representatives of the HE sector to include them in this work. And I have received, not assurances, but from discussions that I've had with Universities Wales and vice-chancellors, they are very keen to be kept apprised of these approaches, because they may well wish to implement something similar within their own institutions. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a couple of supplementaries now; firstly, from Suzy Davies, and then I'm going to go to Siân Gwenllian. Suzy. No, we can't hear Suzy. Suzy? No. I'll go to Siân, then, and then I'll come back to Suzy. Siân. +Hefin David AM: Chair, I don't think my microphone is muted. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'll move on to my question to Kirsty Williams. Now, it is clear that any decisions that need to be taken on reopening schools would have to be made in the context of all of the other issues that the Welsh Government has to take into account. And it is entirely clear that the approach of Government towards testing hasn't been sufficiently developed for us to even start to think about removing restrictions. So, wouldn't it be dangerous, if truth be told, to start to discuss reopening schools when we haven't had the necessary testing in place for the majority of the population? And doesn't it convey a mixed message that we're starting to relax some of these restrictions when, in reality, the restrictions are still in place and still need to be in place robustly? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, thank you very much, Siân, for that important question. Can I be absolutely clear, and I thought I had been pretty clear in answering Hefin David, that we are not relaxing any of the restrictions with regard to education? As I said to Hefin, it is not imminent that we would see a further phase in the next stage of education here in Wales. What I have done today is to provide clarity on the nature of the principles that I would use when coming to any discussion. It is the responsibility of me, as the Minister, and indeed of the wider Government, to begin to think about planning for the future. But I have been absolutely clear: we are not moving to an imminent change in how education is operating at the moment. And I'm also very, very clear that should we be given the opportunity to see more children in our schools, I will only do that when it is safe for me to do so, when I've been advised by the CMO that I am able to do that, and we have given sufficient time and planning to the sector to respond. It is not going to be easy, and we will need to give them, as a sector, time to be able to address. But if I have not been clear enough, let me say it again: we are not relaxing any issues around schools at present, nor is that imminent. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, I think we can try going to you again now. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Minister, in your consideration of introducing a phased return to school, in due course, have you taken into consideration how things like school absences are going to be managed? Because, regardless of the amount of good work you do on messaging, there will still be some families that don't realise that going back to school is for their particular family. Will there be a relaxation of, effectively, what we would call truancy rules? Or is that something that schools will be getting guidance on much up-front? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. As I said in my statement earlier today, returning to school will not be a return to normal, and in recognition of this, I've already made it clear that I will seek, in all opportunities, to reduce the burdens on school. That includes various data collection, the suspension of performance measures and removing the requirement to undertake literacy and numeracy testing, and, clearly, school attendance will want to be an important factor of that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I'm keen to go on now to talk about the current situation as being faced by our children and young people in schools with some questions from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Since yesterday, the Welsh Government has started publishing data on the number of schools that are open, the number of children attending those schools, and the number of staff involved, and they have been making this information available as per capita of the population. On average, I think it's 1 per cent of the children of Wales that actually attend these locations, and some 5 per cent of the staff. So, can you analyse those figures a little further? Can you tell us how many children, according to this data, are children of key workers, and how many are vulnerable children? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Siân. As you quite rightly say, on average, we have 518 school hubs open each day, with up to 4,200 children attending. We have seen an increase in the number of attendances since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. We have approximately 5.6 per cent of the teaching population working in those hubs, and at present, 85 per cent of the children who are attending are the children of key workers, the remainder being vulnerable children. So, we are now averaging 600 vulnerable children per day. These are small numbers, but we have seen an increase in those numbers since the start of what would have been the traditional summer term. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. I'm sure we'll return to that point a little later on. How much confidence do you therefore have that the arrangements are effective in terms of the safety of staff and children at these locations? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you once again for that. The smooth operation of the hubs, with regard to health and safety, is, of course, of paramount importance. What we have seen since schools closed for traditional statutory purposes and moving to their repurposed function—we have seen a change of pattern over time. So, following my announcement on, I believe, 18 March, the week after, we saw a large number of settings open and operating. As local authorities have been able to understand the demand for those places—from critical workers and vulnerable children—we have seen more local authorities move to a hub model, and we have been able to publish guidance to local authorities on how issues around safe working in those hubs should be followed, and we've been able to give guidance in that regard. Local authorities are asked by us to report any incidents where they are concerned about operation issues on the ground. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As I mentioned earlier, testing is crucially important in dealing with this crisis. So, how many school staff have been tested for COVID because they may have experienced symptoms and so on? And how many of those have tested positive? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding from Public Health Wales is that 15 teachers have been tested for COVID-19, and I believe two of those results have come back as positive. Can I make it absolutely clear, the week before last, Welsh Government issued new guidance around who should be tested? I want to make it absolutely clear to those professionals working in our hubs, if they or a member of their family are exhibiting any of the symptoms, however mild, of COVID-19, they can and they should be tested. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the final question from me on this: how important is testing going to be in this next phase, as you start to think about relaxing restrictions? +Kirsty Williams AM: Obviously, the ability to be able to test, to trace and to quarantine will be critical to the next phase and will be a very, very important and significant building block in all aspects of the Government's work to respond to this pandemic. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Siân. We've got some questions now on the impact on particular groups of children, from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Just following on from your answer to Siân Gwenllian earlier about the number of vulnerable children in school, what's being done specifically to facilitate more of those children coming into a school setting or hub at the moment? I'm thinking about the 600 you've talked about, and I know, in one of my local authority areas of Merthyr, which is a very small authority, we're talking about the number of children identified as vulnerable running into thousands, not hundreds, and that's just in one authority. So, this is a particularly difficult issue to address, I appreciate, but how are we going to get more of these children into the hubs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, Dawn. The first thing to say is that the issue of vulnerable children attending settings is one that is a challenge to not just Wales, but also to my colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. I'm pleased to say that we are working across Government departments—myself, obviously, and colleagues in education—with colleagues in social services to have a cross-Government approach to these issues. I think the first thing to say is that these are complex messages, because the overriding public health message from our Government has been to stay at home and children should be kept at home as much as possible, and to make sure that our hubs run smoothly, safely and effectively, we do need to limit the number of children who are attending those hubs. So, firstly, the fact that numbers are small is in some ways a success of our public health messages, because parents have been heeding those messages, but, of course, all of us will have concerns for some children who remain at home. So, I'm pleased to say that we have seen a doubling in the last week of the number of children. So, although numbers are small, they have doubled over the course of the last week. We're working with local authorities and they have assured us that children and young people with a social worker have been risk assessed on a multi-agency basis and are receiving support in a number of ways, and that includes having conversations about some of those children attending the hubs. They're also looking to support in other ways. Of course, some of our children who would be classed as vulnerable—and our definition of 'vulnerable' is one that is shared between the systems in England and Wales—could be children with a statement of special educational needs. For some of those children who, perhaps, have very intense health needs, actually, staying at home is the appropriate thing for that child and that family to do, and we're looking to support families, and local authorities and local education systems are looking to support families, in a number of ways. We also know that just because you don't have a social worker or a statement of special educational needs does not mean that a child may not be vulnerable, and schools are very aware of the needs of those children and have been carrying out regular telephone check-ins where they can—if the age of the child is appropriate—just to keep in touch with those families and those individual children. But we will continue to work across Government to encourage, where it is appropriate, children to attend settings, and, if it is not appropriate for children to be in a setting, that there is contact with those children and young people to ensure that they remain, and their families remain, supported. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Minister. It's encouraging to hear you talk about the ongoing safeguarding of children that are at home and I assume, within that, appropriate referral mechanisms are still in place if teachers or anybody has any particular concern about a child. Similarly, with special educational needs, whereas some of those children benefit clearly from a one-to-one provision in a school, and they may not respond as well to remote working, or remote contact, with an SEN advisor, are you considering in any way any relaxation of the lockdown rule in particular for those children in terms of them being able to access the support that they need for their particular educational needs? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, Dawn, you're absolutely right: my expectation is that schools should remain in contact with children and continue to identify vulnerable children, and schools should continue to refer children to children's services if they have any concerns, and that would also, of course, be the case for youth workers who may be keeping in contact with children. So, there is a professional expectation on all those that are working with our children and young people that, despite the circumstances they find themselves in, they should continue to report and refer cases if they see anything or hear or are told anything that makes them concerned about a child's welfare and safety. With regard to children with additional learning needs, I am aware that that can present a number of challenges to families and children, and perhaps Steve Davies could give some further details. We have been keen to work with local authorities to ensure specialist provision, where that is appropriate—so, if I could give you an example of my own local authority in Powys, they have two specialist centres available for children with more profound additional learning needs, and those centres are available—recognising, however, that, even with the provision of specialist hubs, it can be a challenge for some children with additional learning needs to find themselves outside of a routine. Hubs are often staffed on a rota basis and therefore children could be faced with staff that they are unfamiliar with. So, even when local authorities—and the vast, vast majority of them do—have specialist services in place, sometimes that might not be the best thing for a child's health and well-being. But perhaps Steve can give us further details of the conversations that have been taking place with directors of education to ensure that children with additional learning needs have access to the hubs and specialist support. Steve. +Steve Davies: Yes, myself and colleague Albert Heaney—colleague-director—have been in regular touch with directors of education and directors of social services to make sure that these children and young people's needs are catered for. We are very aware of all of the special schools—profound and multiple learning difficulties, EBD schools and pupil referral units—that have been kept open in their own way, but also, in some cases, as hubs, to deliver those services for those children's needs, and we're pleased that the directors and the local authorities have responded so constructively. So, we have the details of every school that's open, the pupils who are attending, and we are clear that the risk assessments that the Minister referred to for children with special needs, as well as wider vulnerable groups—they are having risk assessments to make sure that, where there is a need identified for a pupil that is not currently attending a hub, then the local authority can be working with that child and with the parents. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Steve. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Just two more questions. One is around emotional and mental health difficulties being experienced by children and young people at the moment. Now, there was a very welcome announcement of £1.25 million pounds for school counselling. How is that, in practical terms, being applied if those children are not actually in school? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, Dawn: we have to consider how we can support children not only in their learning during this time, but also to recognise the very real impact that the pandemic will have on all of our mental health and well-being—recognising, of course, it is absolutely natural for all of us, including children and young people, to have fears and anxieties at this time. That's a natural reaction to the situation that we find ourselves in. But, of course, there are issues around those children that would have currently been receiving school counselling, and also being able to be in a position to respond to a potential growth in the number of children that are receiving support. So, the additional money will be made available to local authorities to be able to increase and ramp up services to support children and families. In the immediacy, of course, that will have to be done in different ways than perhaps we've traditionally delivered services in the past, because of social distancing and lockdown rules, but we want to get some of these systems in place now, rather than waiting for everything to go back to normal. We need to be able to plan to offer services in the here and now, but also be able to plan for what potentially could be an increase in the demand of those services. So, we've been in close touch with local authorities, asking them what they believe that they will need and how they can use additional financial resources, and we've been very pleased to be able to secure that for them. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, that would include things like telephone and video support as well, I guess, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, that would include remote counselling as in a fashion that we're doing now, but also, as and when some of the restrictions are perhaps removed, looking at an enhanced family therapy, or a therapy approach. So, when we talk about counselling, I think it's important to recognise that there will be some flexibility around this money and it does not necessarily mean that local authorities have to use it on a one-to-one basis. That might not be appropriate for some children, especially our younger children and their families, and they can use that money to provide counselling or therapy—in the widest possible terms—that is the best method to support individual children and their families. But, clearly, we're having to do that in the confines of lockdown and social distancing at the moment. Some of that money can also be used to support the professional learning and the professional development of counsellors, because, of course, they may be being asked to work in a different way and we need to make sure that they have the appropriate skills and abilities to do that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Minister. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn, before you ask your final question, I've got a couple of supplementaries—firstly from Suzy, and then from Hefin. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, thank you. My question goes back to the comment you made earlier, Minister, about the number of children doubling—sorry, vulnerable children doubling—after the Easter break, if we can call it that. So, what I'm after is a sense of churn in these establishments. So, was that figure a recovery of a number of children that had been there before the Easter break, and are the people who are there still the same people as were there right at the beginning of the crisis and the lockdown? +Kirsty Williams AM: Suzy, what I believe that we're seeing in our schools is new pupils coming into school. So, there has been, I know, a real effort on behalf of educationalists and social services staff to really reach out to families and to make sure that they're aware of the support that is available out there for them and their children, and to be able to give them the confidence that there are—that the hubs are available for them. So, we have seen an increase in children. Those numbers are still small and, I believe, potentially, there is an opportunity to build on that and to have further conversations with families about the support that is available for vulnerable children, whether that—. That vulnerability, of course, can cover a whole range of issues. As I said when we last met, this is a constantly evolving situation. The initial response—local authorities and schools worked incredibly fast and incredibly quickly to set up these hubs. We've seen an evolution in the weeks since that time and I am sure that we will continue to see some evolution in approaches. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin, you had a supplementary—briefly, please. +Hefin David AM: Yes, very quickly. I've been listening to the answers with regard to vulnerable children, following on from that answer. I'm at home with a vulnerable child—a child who has got additional learning needs. She's got autism; she's four. I imagine there are many, many parents in exactly the same position—I've heard from them. I haven't heard anything from the school or from the local authority. Should I have heard something or should I be proactive in pursuing it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to comment on personal cases— +Hefin David AM: But there are many others in this position. +Kirsty Williams AM: —but what I would say is that if parents have concerns and want to have a conversation about what support is available to them and their children, they should contact their local education authority to have a conversation as to what support is available. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn, final question, please. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my last question is really about the potential for the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers. Is that a concern for you? I'm thinking particularly in relation to those less affluent families in having access to technology and so on. What kind of concerns do you have about that and what are we looking to do to try to ensure that that doesn't actually play out? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Dawn. All of the statistics would tell us that learning loss and the gap, potentially, will affect those more vulnerable children the most. Clearly, we will want to consider that as we think about what the new normal for education may look like, or as we develop into future phases. Depending on where that child is in their educational journey, of course, the needs and the potential for loss are slightly different. So, for instance, when we're thinking about very young children, we could be thinking about a lack of social interaction and the development of oracy skills. Of course, that, potentially, then will have a knock-on to their ability to learn to read and then to write, for instance. For other children who are, perhaps, older and heading towards formal examinations, the challenge when they return to school will be a slightly different one. I'm not sure, Chair, whether you want me to give some further details about our continuity-of-learning plan and how we are looking to address digital disadvantage now, or whether there are questions later. +Lynne Neagle AM: Well, I've got a question on that coming up, so, if it's okay, Dawn, we'll go on to that now. Before we do that, I was just going to ask how the Welsh Government is paying due regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and, obviously, the right children and young people have to an education. I was going to ask you about the risk of inequality due to varying access to digital resources, which are so important in ensuring continuity of learning. +Kirsty Williams AM: You're absolutely correct, Chair. Officials are very aware of our responsibilities towards children's rights in this regard and we are doing whatever we can to ensure that children have an equal opportunity and have equal access to learning at this time. We are fortunate in the regard that, because of previous decisions and investments, we have a strong base on which to build because we have our Hwb digital learning platform and because we have invested heavily in the national purchasing of Microsoft Office and Google for Education tools, which are available to all families. We have become the first, I think—we're certainly the first in the UK, and I'm not sure whether we're the first across the world, but I think we probably are—to deploy, for instance, Adobe Spark nationally. But, obviously, access to hardware and connectivity is crucial at this time. Officials are working with local authorities to ensure that all children have access to both the hardware and the connectivity they need to be able to participate in digital learning at this particular time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just a final question from me: how exactly are we communicating to parents what the expectations are of them in terms of delivering this education at home now? Are there, for example, guidelines on recommended hours of home learning per day of the week or volume of work to be completed? How are we ensuring that parents know how best to lead their children through this at the moment? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I recognise what a challenge this is? We've just heard from Hefin who is carrying on his day job as the Assembly Member, but is obviously trying to do that as well as care for and provide learning for his children, and I know, Chair, that you're doing the same, and I'm certainly trying to do the same, and it's a real challenge, it's not easy. As part of our 'Stay Safe. Stay Learning' policy statement, advice is available to parents and carers on the Hwb platform as to what they best can do to support their children. I think the really important message that I've been trying to give to parents is not to be too hard on ourselves. I know that everybody is doing the best that they can in really challenging circumstances. And if they have concerns, they should be in contact with their child's school, but we do have specific advice and guidance to parents on the Hwb platform. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now to some questions on examinations from Janet Finch-Saunders. Janet, we can't hear you. I tell you what, we'll—. Janet, do you want to try again? No. Okay, we'll go on then to questions on higher education and post 16, and we'll come back to examinations, if that's okay. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair. Before we leave continuity of learning, do you mind if I just ask this one question? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, that's fine. Yes, go on. +Suzy Davies AM: Your comment, Minister, on working with local authorities to make sure that individuals have hardware: can you just give us a bit of detail on what working with local authorities actually means? In the process of that, is there any data gathering going on for those pupils who are being educated at home and the levels at which they're engaging? You know, are they sticking with it, or how many are dropping out? Because I think the two of those perhaps go together. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. So, I'm hoping to make an announcement tomorrow, if not later on this week, about some specific details around support for hardware and connectivity. We're working closely with local authorities to understand just that: to understand from the schools the number of schools that—and a number of them have already done this—have been lending Chromebooks, iPads and laptops to children, and also identifying children who are not perhaps engaging in the activities that have been made available. And we'll be doing two things to support local authorities. The first is to use the stock of equipment that they already have to be able to provide hardware to students. So, we have purchased on a national basis software that, when applied to an old piece of kit, essentially turns it into an out-of-the-box Chromebook. Because, as you can imagine, just like other things during a pandemic, there has been a rush to buy new stuff on the market and then there is a scramble and nobody can get what they need. So, we're utilisng kit that is already available in schools and local authorities, and we will look to backfill that to schools at a later point out of our EdTech investment programme. The other issue is, once a child has a Chromebook or a laptop or a device, issues around connectivity. So, we're also looking to purchase on a national level and distribute Mi-Fi connectivity, so students will be able to have access to Wi-Fi where they don't have that already. That's why we need to work closely with local authorities and schools to identify the level of that need and to make sure the stuff gets to the right children. One of the ways in which we are able to do that is to look at engagement in education. So, if a child hasn't been engaging, is that because they just don't want to and they're voting with their feet—but clearly teachers need to have a conversation about that—or is that because the child simply does not have the ability to do that, and therefore we need to get that stuff out to those children? So, rather than just simply leaving it to local authorities to scramble around in a very crowded market to get the stuff that they will need, we're trying to do that on a national basis and deploy that to local authorities. So, our officials have been having conversations with each of our local authorities to ascertain what's already happened, and there is very good practice out there—schools have been proactive—but where there are gaps, what can we do as a national Government to be able to assist them to do that? We are repurposing some of the resources that we had previously identified for our EdTech investment, using those resources to fill this particular gap. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We're going to go back to Janet now. I believe we've got sound again, so Janet can ask her questions on examinations. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I thought it was something at this end; I'm glad to hear it wasn't. When will vocational learners know what is happening with their assessments, and how will those who have no choice but to wait for a vocational assessment be supported? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. That's a very good question, Janet, because I know that there has been some concern and anxiety around vocational qualification students and how quickly we've been able to provide certainty for them. You'll be aware that Qualifications Wales have been able, in the last week, to be able to give that greater clarity. So, they have announced that learners due to complete their Essential Skills Wales qualifications will receive results. They have also published their approach to how health and social care qualifications will be managed, because, of course, those are part of the first set of reformed quals that we have done on a Wales basis. You are right, there are a group of students who fall into the category where there are technical qualifications that require a certificate of competency to be industry ready—I hope I've explained that correctly—and, therefore, we are working to understand how we can accommodate those students in these particular circumstances. But, at this stage, there may be some delay for that element of their qualification being delayed to a further date. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. What are your expectations for how A-level and GCSE qualifications will be awarded this summer, following the ministerial direction that you have issued to Qualifications Wales? For example, how is an appropriate balance being taken between recognising the progress of pupils in their coursework, mock examinations, and other work to date, and also, the potential of pupils who might have performed particularly well in their examinations this summer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Janet, I understand—and today is a day where some students would have been undertaking practical examinations—I understand how devastating it has been to both students and teachers alike for the decision I had to take to cancel this summer's exam series. But I'm absolutely clear that was the only decision that could have been reached. Qualifications Wales has made it very clear—and for people who would like more information, I would urge them to look at Qualifications Wales's website—how they will go about giving, allocating, and awarding a grade to our A-level and GCSE students. Firstly, teachers will be asked to submit a grade they believe that student would have obtained, should they have taken an exam. And, of course, teachers will have a range of data and their own professional judgment that they will use in awarding that grade. Teachers will also be asked to rank students in order. Once that information has been submitted to Qualifications Wales, there will be a process by which that data will be moderated; moderated from centre to centre and across the nation, thus giving us the chance to award a student a fair grade whilst being, and remaining, true to ensuring that we have a robust qualifications system, and allowing those students who find themselves at a critical stage of their education, where they are looking to move on to the next stages—that they will have the grades that will allow them to make decisions about their future. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. We're going to go on now, then, to the questions on higher and further education from Suzy Davies. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I suppose my first question just goes back to the 16-year-olds at the moment and those who are looking forward to either going to college, the older ones going to university, there'll be apprenticeships, all kinds of future pathways for post 16. What's happening at school level, or even at college level, to get those students ready for the next steps, because, obviously, they're not in their usual environments and getting their usual programme of teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, that's quite right, Suzy, and I should have said in answer to Janet's question, as well—I'm sure people already know, but just to get the point across—that A-level results day and GCSE day will run as normal across not just Wales, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is really important. You're right, Suzy—for those people that are coming to the end of one part of their education this is a particularly challenging time. You'll be aware that, last week, on Hwb, we were able to launch a programme for year 13 students to help them get ready for university. I'm very grateful to the HE sector in Wales, who've worked really hard with us on that. So, for instance, if you were a year 13 student or even a year 12 student that was thinking about or interested in areas around social policy, you could have tuned into a social policy lecturer at Swansea University. If you go to the Hwb website, you will be able to see that there are subject listings, everything from animal science through to law, politics, history and science, with links through to higher education and further education courses that students can avail themselves of. There's also a section on preparation for essential study skills, whether that is report writing or academic writing. So, there is a range of activities and courses available for year 13, so that children—'children'; they're all children to me—young people can get themselves—. They don't have to stop learning, and they can get themselves ready for the next stage of their education. Again, for those children, perhaps, who are coming to the end of their GCSEs, there is a range of information, either within their own schools or within their local colleges about things that can keep them learning. So, for instance, I'm aware of one school where you can go onto the website and there are recommendations of, for instance, what you could be reading over the summer if you're interested in doing this particular A-level in September. I know that there are also moves in schools and in colleges to be able to make sure that those children don't miss out on really important careers advice at this time, as well, and information, so they can make informed decisions. I know that people are working hard to link up children to advice services that are available so that they can make those really important future decisions with the advice of either a teacher or other professional so that they've got those options. So, there is material out there and it's growing all the time. This week, we were able to launch our virtual Seren network. You'll be aware that, for the last couple of years, we've been able to send Welsh children to the Yale global summer school. Clearly, that can't happen this year. That's devastating for those year 12s who had worked so hard and had won a place on that programme. They will now be able to attend the Yale global scholars programme virtually and remotely, because Yale have moved that programme online. So, we're developing materials and resources all of the time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. Before I move on to my next question, can you give me some sort of sense of how that Hwb domain is being populated? Where is all this information being sourced from? Presumably, they'll be working with partners, but what does that look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, my goodness. Yes, absolutely— +Suzy Davies AM: [Inaudible.] +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, we're working very hard. So, everything from our work with the BBC, for instance, and BBC Bitesize through to our FE colleges and our HE institutions, as well as other organisations in the third sector who are looking to provide those opportunities. Can I just say that, last week, we were looking at, every day, in the region of well over 150,000 logins a day into Hwb? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's great. So there's proactive populating of Hwb. That's what I was after. That's great. Just going back to some of Janet's questions and the assessed grades, I want to talk to you about the unconditional offers and where we are with that at the moment for entry to universities, because there's going to be a scramble now of the available students for further education, but primarily higher education institutions, across the UK. Is the moratorium on unconditional offers still standing? Are there conversations going on to extend that moratorium? Otherwise, this scramble is going to potentially negatively affect our universities quite considerably. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you'll be aware that a moratorium does exist. It exists in this current context to 1 May. We continue to keep in close touch with colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and in the Westminster Government around these issues. Officials are also in touch with UCAS, and in the last couple of days I've had at least three meetings with representatives of the Welsh higher education sector to discuss these matters. +Suzy Davies AM: I just want to ask you now about students and their maintenance loan grants. I think they're getting, around now, the money going into their bank account that they would normally have expected at this time of year. That's right, yes? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's correct, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: What's happening to those students who would normally be living in digs somewhere but are now living at home? Are they likely to be asked to reimburse part of the cost, because obviously it's not as expensive to live at home as away, and what's likely to be happening with the maintenance loans over the summer holiday period, potentially? Because we've had a period now where students can't top up their maintenance loans by going out and working on weekends or working in the evenings, or whatever, so their income has been impacted. Just in the round, what kind of conversations are happening around that? Again, it's probably a four-nation approach, I would imagine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. You are correct to say that our student support regime does allow for a lower payment to be made to those students that stay at home during their studies, but I want to reassure students that there will be no change to their student support payments just because they have left their universities and have decided to go home. There should be no change. Also, we are continuing, it should be important to say, to pay education maintenance allowance at this time for our FE students that are eligible for that, even though, obviously, for EMA there is an attendance requirement, but clearly that is not appropriate to enforce at the moment. You are correct—this is a worrying time for many students in higher education, especially for those who are looking to graduate at this time and are going out into an economy that has been tremendously badly hit by the pandemic. At this time, we continue to have conversations with NUS Wales about what can be done within a Welsh context, but, as you quite rightly say, also within a UK context, to support students who may have been affected. We are continuing—on our webpage we have a frequently asked questions section that advises students in the first instance, especially when it comes, for instance, to the cost of accommodation—to have those discussions, and I'm very grateful that, in some cases, some of our institutions have been able to waive or partially waive accommodation fees where students have vacated their accommodation and have returned to their usual home address. But we will continue to have dialogue with NUS Wales and with our counterparts across the country to look to see what more we can do to support students at this time. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer, and, yes, I was pleased to see that announcement through the NUS as well, so well done to those accommodation providers who have a heart. I think we'll all have seen the Universities UK document that explains some of the difficulties that they're going to be running into if this proceeds much further. My understanding is that the main emphasis at the moment is to try and get all the universities across the UK through this initial period of difficulty by releasing as much money as possible. I can see that your figure to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales was a little bit down on last year's letter—not that there's been a remit letter yet, but an indication. Are you releasing that money earlier so that they can use it more swiftly, or does that not matter? +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you come in, Minister, that is going to have to be the last question, just to make you aware of that, because we are coming up to the end of our time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, Suzy, we are working closely with Universities Wales and have a lot of sympathy for the proposals that have come forward from Universities UK, which Wales's universities have been a part of forming. Stability in the first instance is really important to us, which is why we've been able to give an indication to HEFCW about resources that are available, and we've been very clear to HEFCW that we want to be as flexible as possible in how they use those resources to support institutions. That potentially would mean reprofiling the way in which money gets out to institutions, but clearly we will need to have an ongoing discussion about how we respond to the immediacy of the issues facing HE, how we can get stability for the next academic year, and how we then can support the sector through what is a really challenging time for them. We will do that in a Welsh context and we will continue to do that also in a UK context, because you will have seen the scale of some of the figures that have been talked about in terms of the impact on the HE sector at this time. Clearly, a four-nation approach to that will be crucial. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Well, we have come to the end of our time, and, as to anything that we didn't ask, we will have to write to the Minister. Can I just thank the Minister and her officials for your attendance today? We know how busy you are dealing with the pandemic and we very much welcome this opportunity to have this discussion with you. So, thank you, Minister and officials for your time. As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. I see that Members are content, so we will now proceed to meet in private. +","Summary: + +Lynne Neagle AM chaired a virtual meeting for the Children, Young People and Education Committee, excluding the public following Standing Order 34.19 for public health protection. The meeting was broadcast live, with translation from Welsh to English and central microphone control. The committee discussed the impact of COVID-19 on education in Wales with Education Minister Kirsty Williams AM and directors Steve Davies and Huw Morris. + +Williams expressed gratitude to those keeping educational hubs open for vulnerable kids and key worker children, highlighting the extraordinary efforts of educational staff and the importance of home-schooling. She outlined the principles for potentially reopening schools, stressing decisions would be made based on advice from health officers and would not be imminent. Key issues include safety, communication to build confidence, and which student groups should return first. + +Concerns were raised about support for vulnerable children and those with additional learning needs. There are procedures for at-risk children, including regular check-ins, risk assessments, and multi-agency support. Mental health support for children was addressed, including funding for counseling services to be adapted for remote provision. + +Regarding examinations, the focus was on ensuring GCSEs and A-levels would be awarded fairly, considering teacher assessments, coursework, and predicted grades with center-wide moderation. Vocational assessments pose a challenge for students requiring competency certification. + +The committee also discussed continuity of learning, with resources on Hwb for students preparing for higher education. Questions about university admissions and the impact of unconditional offers on Welsh institutions were discussed, as well as concerns around student financial support during the pandemic. + +The meeting concluded with discussions about ensuring financial stability and flexibility for higher education institutions during the crisis. The committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning , again . +Industrial Designer: One question . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Send . +User Interface: Choose a number ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Submit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: All set ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Good . Okay . Let's see what we can find here . Okay . A very warm welcome again to everyone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um here we are already at our uh functional design meeting . Um and this is what we are going to do . The opening , which we are doing now , um and the special note , I'm project manager but on the meetings I'm also the secretary , which means I will make uh minutes as I did of the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh I also put these as fast as possible in the uh project folder , so you can see them and review what we have discussed . Um if I'm right , there are three presentations , I guess each one of you has prepared one ? Good . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um we will also take a look at new project requirements , um if you haven't heard about them yet . And then of course we have to take a decision on the remote control functions and we have some more time , forty minutes . But I think we will need it . Um well I don't know who wants to go first with his presentation . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . Okay . I'll go first yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can go first , okay . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: Well , shall I go first with the users ? +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well okay no problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is there an order ? I haven't {disfmarker} +User Interface: everybody already has his presentation , +Marketing: Ja precies , ja precies , ja precies +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you can adjust it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So . Huh ? Okay , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And one question , uh your name Denni , is it with a +Marketing: E_I_E_ . +Project Manager: I_E_ {disfmarker} E_I_E_ , okay . Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um I wanted to explain the working design of the remote control . It's possibly very handy if you want to uh design one of those . Um {vocalsound} well so it basically works uh as I uh uh r wrote down uh in this uh little uh summary . Uh when you press a button , {vocalsound} uh that's when you do pr for example when you uh want to turn up the volume , um a little connection is made uh the the rubber uh {vocalsound} button just presses on a +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on a little print plate uh which uh makes uh uh {vocalsound} a connection that uh gives the chips , uh which is uh mounted beneath those uh that plastic of a rubber button . Uh senses that a connection has been made , and know and knows what button you pressed , becau uh for example the the volume up or volume down button . Um uh the the chip uh makes a Morse code uh like uh signal which uh then is si uh signalled {vocalsound} to uh several transistors which makes uh which sends the signal to a little let . You know what a let is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} And that makes uh the the infra-red lights signal which is sent to the television set . Uh which has a sensor in it to uh sense uh the signal of the infra-red . That's basically uh how it works . Um the findings uh uh that I found uh searching up some uh detailed information about the remote controls , are that uh they are very easy to produce , uh it is pis uh it's possible to uh make them in mass production because it is as eas it is as easy as uh printing a page , uh just uh fibreglass plate um is b uh is uh covered with uh some uh coatings and uh uh {vocalsound} and chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh and the technology's already available , we don't have to find out how remote controls uh have to work or uh how that how uh to make some chips that are possible to uh to to transmit those uh signals . Uh I made a little uh uh animation of {vocalsound} about how a tran our uh remote controller works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Animation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we tel +User Interface: There is something turning . +Industrial Designer: There . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a little bug it's in the in the smart board . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the sub-component , I suppose that you understand what a sub-component is , is f in this example it's the button . Uh when it is pressed down , um , the switch is ter is uh is switched on , so with uh the wire is sent to the to the chip in uh co-operation with the battery of course , because to make uh a a signal possible you have to have some sort of uh li uh a d ad uh electronic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Infrared light . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh , okay . Um w after it's being composed by the chip uh the signal uh is transported uh to the infra-red bulb , and from there it signals a Morse code-like signal to the to the b to the bulb in uh in the television set . Okay . S Uh I wrote down some personal preferences about uh the remote control . Of course it is very handy if the remote control is hand held , so you don't have to uh uh wind it up or something , or just is it's it's very light to uh to make uh to use it . Uh I personally uh pref prefer that uh it would be p uh come available in the various colours , and uh easy to use buttons . But I suppose that the one of the other team members uh uh thought of that uh too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've got it there too . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it is possible for several designs and um easy to use b uh sorry , easy to use buttons . Perhaps soft touch , uh touch screen uh buttons because uh the rubber buttons are always uh uh they uh slightly uh they can be slightly damaged , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh so the numbers on the buttons are not possible uh to read anymore . And uh well as I said uh before th uh we can uh make several designs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well , that's my contribution to this meeting , and uh +Marketing: To this meeting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: two of these this meeting . So . +User Interface: Shall I go uh next ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Please . +User Interface: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Smoking . +User Interface: Well uh , my name's {gap} , and I looked at uh technical functions design of the remote . Uh I did this by uh looking at examples of other remote controls , of how they uh they look , and information from the web that I found . Um well what I found was that uh th the actual use of the remote control is to send messages to television set , how you uh d what you described uh just early . And this can be all sorts of medsa messages , turn it on , turn it off , uh change the channel , adjust volume , that kind of thing . Uh play video , teletext , but also t uh play C_D_ if you use it your C_D_ player the remote control will that one . There are some uh examples of remote controls . You can see they are very different . The one has got all the functions that you could possibly need and an lot of uh buttons etcetera . And the other is uh more user friendly , little with big buttons . And uh not n all the the the the stuff you can do with it , but uh the the essential stuff is there . Um {vocalsound} I guess you could better y you should look at a a user centred uh approach , because the customers have to use them and and if they don't think it's usable they won't uh buy it . A lot of buttons they may think from I don't need s as much as that . Uh , well perf personal preferences is is uh a simple remote , with uh the basic functions that you can need that you could use . But uh keep in mind the new functions of T_V_ what we discussed earlier , split screen and uh is that a function that you should have ? Because all the T_V_s will have them . Or because of only a few and isn't really necessary . And then uh make it {disfmarker} I would make so that you can could uh use it on more than one appliance . If you have one that uh uh does with the vi the the video , it could also work with uh with the stereo , because play is play and stop stop and that sort of thing . The shu c you could reuse the buttons so that you don't have to have a lot of buttons for uh anything . And it should be a user friendly , clear buttons , and not too much . And that is my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . Check . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You must still have it open . +Marketing: Kijke {gap} 'Kay , so . {vocalsound} We're going to j discuss the functional requirements of the remote , that m that means that functions user n want to have on the remote control , or just {disfmarker} Yeah , and the users , actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods I I prefer is we're going to look which section of the users we are going to focus a l on more . Are the younger people going to buy the remote control or the elderly people ? And then {disfmarker} tho that section we're going to focus and adjust the remote more to that section than the whole user section . Okay . Some data . Younger people , from sixteen to thir forty five um years are more interested in fj features like L_C_D_ screens , speech recognition e etcetera . And we possess about two third of the market from in that range of age . The elderly people , from forty five years to sixty five years are not that much interested in features , and we possess less than two third , that's two fifth , of the market share in that area . {gap} Goed so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: 'Kay . Findings . Fifty percent of the users lose their remote often . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we don't have to make it very small , like uh like a mobile phone or something , but some somewhat bi bigger than small , so you don't lose it that much anymore . {vocalsound} Seventy five percent of the users also find it ugly , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and fif seventy five of the users zap a lot , so the buttons sh should be that small , or shouldn't be that complex because we have to search for the buttons , which one are you going to use . Next . Important issues about the remote . I think it would be better with a personal reference , but okay . Remote control has to have to have a low power usage , because s w seventy five percent of the users only zap one time an hour , so the power usage is also one one time an hour , or so , with a high power usage we would use a lot of but batteries . The volume button and the channel buttons are the two most important buttons on the remote control , so those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} those have to h be find very easily . And have to be somewhat like bigger etcetera . It has also be {disfmarker} have to find easily when the label is gone . My colleague also announced it that labels should be scratched off +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: or would be s uh {gap} senden {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . {vocalsound} So uh if that's k uh if that's the problem , you also have to find it easily on the remote . Buttons . Like what all colleagues said , have to have to be minimalized . or should be covered , or in L_C_D_ screen . L_C_D_ screen is easy because we have the L_C_D_ screen , we have the various options . Put one option and then you have the all the buttons of that options , so the other options would be gone . And you don't see the buttons . So L_C_D_ screens should be easy , but an L_C_D_ screen , the problem with the L_ sc L_C_D_ screen is that elderly people fr from forty five to for sixty five years don't use the L_C_D_ screen a lot . So we have to that keep that in mind that if you're going to implement L_C_D_ screen , you don't have to make it that hard to learn or to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh L_C_D_ screen as in uh touch screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , touch screen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The last but not least , younger people are more critical about the features . Because they use the remote control often more often , and are more technical than the ol older people . And the older people spend more money , and easily on a remote control . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: So we have to keep in mind to to focus not a lot {disfmarker} not that much on the younger pep younger people , but also somewhat on the elderly people . And on my personal preferences , I don't have any mo more time to come with that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like I said , L_C_D_ screen is easily to use +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because you have {disfmarker} you can implement a lot of buttons in one remote with not that much buttons . And it should be easy to use . Especially the volume buttons , the channel buttes buttons and the number buttons to zap through the channels . And that is it . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well thank you all , huh . {vocalsound} I dunno uh did everyone receive an email with uh the new project requirements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . Res I did not . +Project Manager: No ? Well , +User Interface: Perhaps the rest ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: then I think it's a good thing that I made a separate slide of them +Marketing: Ja , {gap} +Project Manager: so you can all read them . Oh , well not in this presentation . Hmm +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be in there . Well , I can tell you them uh from my laptop . Um teletext does {disfmarker} has become outdated since the popularity of the internet . +User Interface: Oh . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's uh the first thing we I think we should pay less attention to uh teletext . Uh the remote control should only be used for the television , otherwise the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time to market , and of course would make it more costly , I think . Um our current customers are within the age group of forty plus , and new product should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty , and you talked about that before . And uh a last point , but also very important , our corporate image should stay recognisable in our products , which means that our uh corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . So we have to keep that in mind . Um well uh according to our agenda it's then time to take a decision on the remote control functions . So , who has any idea about what should be on it , and what shouldn't ? +User Interface: Well you said it should only uh work with one appliance ? +Marketing: Be television . +User Interface: Or with one uh d che only the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Only be used for television . +User Interface: And the video also , or not uh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it says only for television here , huh . +Marketing: Only the television . +User Interface: Oh . Alright . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Makes it a lot easier , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So yeah , then you can yeah . Requirements , no ? Functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then it should have uh on , off , +Industrial Designer: Yeah for {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Standby options , +Marketing: Yeah , the basics then by a volume , channel , one till two zero numbers on it , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Uh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And per perhaps uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: oh teletext doesn't have to be ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Um other functions . +User Interface: Well uh uh yes yes s sh A button where you can uh change from one number to two numbers . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two s two two digits , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Can you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh okay . +User Interface: Don't know if that's got a name , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's I think it's easy to implement a button with a s s what which especially do that , because some T_V_s , if you press the t one and then the two , it be between five secs it make twelve , +Industrial Designer: It makes it twelve , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . S +Industrial Designer: Indeed . Okay . +Marketing: and that's that's not relaxed +Industrial Designer: Well , not really {vocalsound} +Marketing: to user . +Industrial Designer: And and there are some models that don't uh accommodate that function . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: d uh wh the Philip's television makes it possible in that indeed to uh press one and then two to make uh the uh tj to reach channel twelve . +Marketing: So that it {vocalsound} easy and fast . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh all the television makes uh use of those button where you first press that button and then press two digits to uh to get +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so you should have that one on . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , think so . +Marketing: Our main targets' age are ? were ? Forty five plus , or ? +User Interface: Mute misschien also . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: new product should reach a market with customers that are younger than forty , and now we have current customers uh of forty plus . +Marketing: Forties , okay because {vocalsound} because younger people as Uh younger people have now , sixteen till to twenty five age , are f eighty one percent interested in L_C_D_ screen . From twenty six to thirty five have sixty six percent , and thirty six to forty five , fifty five percent , so I think to um {disfmarker} Because on most recog remote controls um the print plate will be broken how much , two years . You have to press h very hard to go to the next channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: With the L_C_D_ screen it's easier because you only have to wipe the screen to uh {disfmarker} for fingerprint , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we could yeah . But I think that uh that collides with our mission to make it very cheap . +Marketing: and then you can use it again . +Industrial Designer: Because L_C_D_ screens are very expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: A touch screen uh probably uh even more . +Marketing: Yeah but a {disfmarker} you don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: true , true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh {disfmarker} Well um is it possible to make an L_C_D_ screen uh , how was the information ? +Marketing: Yeah , it only says that this perce percentage like L_C_D_ screen . Because , yeah and it says that younger age between sixteen and forty five highly interesting features more critical . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should we should focus on that L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if the only f Yeah , because our target is sixteen to forty five . +User Interface: But , do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh will we not uh exceed our uh our uh production uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah you don't know how much it costs . Yeah , you don't know how much it costs , the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to find out , anyway ? +Marketing: No , I don't have any costs here , +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Marketing: I only have percentages . +User Interface: But if you would do an L_C_D_ screen do we have don don't you have any buttons ? Or because if it only directs at the T_V_ , then you only have uh I don't know what you want to do with the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , an L_C_D_ screen's just like uh like a drawn here . Um just uh displays several buttons , +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: for example um if you wanted the minimal uh use b uh buttons , such as channel and volume , you just h uh displays four buttons on the screen +User Interface: Oh right , so you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's possible to p uh press them down , just like a touch screen . +User Interface: Oh , yeah alright . So you can adjust which buttons you want on that s screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can make it possible to do that , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if you want to adjust , like for example , adjust the audio settings , you press audio on the touchscreen +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you get the buttons for audio settings , +User Interface: Yeah alright , oh right . +Marketing: so the other buttons are gone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So we're going for an L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . Would be yeah . +Marketing: I think it's the most easier thing , +Industrial Designer: That's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And hoping that when we produce a lot it won't be too expensive . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well we had twelve fifty , I guess , for uh production ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Any guesses ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I suppose wi if the mar if our um {vocalsound} if the i if the young people are interested in L_C_D_ screens , we should make 'em . +Marketing: Highly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if that is our d uh market share to uh and our goal to uh deliver those uh remote controls {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But he also said that we should not only focus on the younger people , but also on the older , and will they use it if it only has an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Um , s forty six to forty five , thirty three percent , and sixty fifty six to sixty five twelve percent . +User Interface: Oh , so still a little bit people {disfmarker} +Marketing: But our our our what's it , project requirements are the new products should be reached for new markets , to customers that are younger than forty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's right . But you don't want to alienate the other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that not now , but , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if they also buy it then it's alright . I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , but market share fro for for forty years and younger is higher than that of sixty five and younger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , so L_C_D_ it is ? +User Interface: An Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . It's treasure . +Project Manager: And what else ? +Industrial Designer: I hope we uh h and let's hope to reach those uh those sales . +Marketing: Yeah , i i if it {disfmarker} Yeah , if it costs {disfmarker} gets too much , too expensive , then yeah , we should be sticking to rubber buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can you um uh s I think that that they will send you some information about uh the cost of L_C_D_ uh screens . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N nothing , no costs at all . +User Interface: But perhaps later , +Industrial Designer: Uh so if you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if you uh you receive an email about that , uh can you post it in the {disfmarker} or shouldn't we post that in uh our projects mail uh folder . +Marketing: Yeah , in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think that should yeah {disfmarker} I think we all get the costs of everything . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because you are the the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I'll I'll post it . +Industrial Designer: I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well perhaps we should have a backup plan that we would use buttons if it's uh {vocalsound} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . But for now it's L_C_D_ . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , L_C_D_ , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have the seventy five percent of users find it r ugly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ ? Oh that's a bit of a problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and eighty percent of the users would spend more money with a when a remote would look fancy . +User Interface: Oh , that's a bit of a problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Tha i l i it'll look fancy with L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's looks fancy one yeah , of L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , but they don't they don't like it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: They think it's ugly . When it has an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , just a {disfmarker} the plain remotes , not not specific L_C_D_ remotes . +User Interface: Oh , alright , I thought that you said that . +Project Manager: Yeah , and maybe you can make something fancy out of an L_C_D_ remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's new , as far as I know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And then not {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: And then you have the other thing , that seventy five percent zap a lot , but that's not a f question with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . +Marketing: Only thing you have to do is wipe the screen off once each time , to get all the fingerprints off it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay , what else does our remote need ? +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mute button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think . And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The most important things on a f on an on an uh remote control are channel selection , volume con selection , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and power s power usage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And a teletext , but that is not of the question . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But shouldn't you put a button of {disfmarker} for teletext on the {disfmarker} for the people who want to use it ? +Marketing: Other things are {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: Remembering we have got a big remote that you have to fill . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , and we could make an a a separate menu on the L_C_D_ uh screen for teletext . +Marketing: Yeah , teletext . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And there's also a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And other other less important things are screen settings , audio settings , and channel settings , +User Interface: Yeah , they are less important , but I think they should be there , +Marketing: Less important . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah , should be there , +Industrial Designer: A sh +Marketing: but not press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but in a sub sub-menu or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah , sub-menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think it's also important to uh make it possible to um how do you call it in English , uh , to not use batteries , and use ac uh bat uh {gap} batteries to uh to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like with a with a mouse , you have not , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah sure . Indeed . So uh you can mount uh the the the uh +Marketing: Yeah , in a breath it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh the remote control to um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Charted . +User Interface: We should think of the twelve fifty we have +Industrial Designer: to refill the {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: I don't know how much that's going to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we don't we don't have any costs now , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because i uh when you get an L_C_D_ screen , you run it on batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the batteries will be uh empty very soon , very fast . +Marketing: Yeah e e power supply is one of the most important things . +User Interface: You should {disfmarker} Perhaps you should be able to to switch the control off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have an L_C_D_ screen that's burns all the time I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You shouldn't on and off because that's ver extra , that you have t first you have to turn the remote on , and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's it's not that easy because I don't think people will like it who who uh that you have to turn it on first and then use it , +User Interface: Nee that's that's uh yeah . +Marketing: so I think it's better when th the T_V_ shuts down , the remote shuts down . +User Interface: But then you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And go to standby mode when you don't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah au automac matically , that it {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , automatically . After two minutes or three minutes , something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . After two minutes , yeah two three minutes , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And maybe a low battery indicator ? On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then b that uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: before an hour when its get again gets empty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have plenty of time to recharge it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: of put it in a recharger . Charger . +Project Manager: So we are going for the for the recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's {gap} . Uh . +User Interface: If it's sensible . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , because when you're watching T_V_ , you're zapping and you have to put it in a recharger , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , b when the batteries are low {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: and I don't think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: when you when you're done with s uh w uh watching your television , you have to put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but then we have to be sure that the the the the batteries go {vocalsound} hours , six hours , five , six hours , then . +User Interface: But you'll also forget to put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course . +User Interface: because you throw it on the couch +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you have a problem . +User Interface: and you don't remember . +Industrial Designer: But you also forget to buy batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . That's right . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or we have to be sure that the batteries last couple of days when they're recharged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I think the batteries should should w should work a lot longer than a couple of days , +Marketing: So . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah because you have b +User Interface: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you have L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: High power usage . +Industrial Designer: High power user cell , i uh it should be uh a standard move to to put your remote control in the charger when you're done watching television , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: that's also a a a great advantage because you can't lose it anymore . Because you are obliged to uh put it in the charger and not to uh leave it in a couch uh between some cushions . +Marketing: True . Yeah . Yeah . True . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , you made a point there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then you also have to s have somewhere where you can put a remo recharger near your couch +Project Manager: Yeah , also . +User Interface: because otherwise you have to walk a long way when you twoft want to turn on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , otherwise all your {disfmarker} yeah . Just a small device {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think everything has it for and {disfmarker} I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it hasn't {disfmarker} It doesn't have to be big . +Marketing: Plug it in , that's it . Yeah , like a {disfmarker} like telephone charger or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah just just a cable , or a even a a a a a charger where you can mount it on . Something like that , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just u +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , well I've +Marketing: It has to be easy to use also , or things . Uh market share , speaker re speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have some more +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: points . +Industrial Designer: Functional designs uh for the elderly uh you could make it possible to enlarge the screen , +Marketing: I think . +Industrial Designer: so make it possible to not uh display uh a button at ten points +Marketing: Also . +Industrial Designer: uh , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think that this should be standard . Large button {disfmarker} large buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it is uh one of the functions you have to uh specify . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because we can look at uh uh perhaps uh forty buttons at a screen , but the elderly only look at two buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: And you said something about speech recognition ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition ? +Marketing: it says also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euro +User Interface: twelve fifty , twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: twelve Euro fifty . +Marketing: Twelve . That's an {disfmarker} also ninety one percent sixteen to twenty five , twenty six to thirty five years , seventy six percent , and thirty six to forty five , thirty five percent . +User Interface: So it's pretty big . +Industrial Designer: Well , spread it by a big market . +Marketing: But then I I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Even bigger than for L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} W I know let's do a speech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: let's leave out all the remote controls and just put a {vocalsound} microphone on top of the television to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Ninety . Twenty five . +User Interface: You can clap or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} channel . +Industrial Designer: Turn volume up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey , that that's an idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now you shouldn't say the wrong thing , I dunno {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that should {disfmarker} it has to be remote control , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} twelve . +User Interface: But they want to talk into the remo remote control , or something , +Industrial Designer: Sure why not why not {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is this only would you would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . It's the only thing it says . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Oh , but do we want to implement that , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think an L_C_D_ screen {vocalsound} should be suf sufficient . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But when you look at the percentages {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it says a lot , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Speech recognition scores even higher , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Perhaps the options should be uh {disfmarker} Why not ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well , +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: maybe because of the cost , but uh nobody knows uh how much uh it will cost uh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's hope uh to have some uh d +User Interface: I know {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think I think it's better to have L_ L_C_D_ screen , because in the area of tw thirty six to forty five , we have about thirty percent of the market share in in our hands , and fifty five of those people want L_C_D_ screen and thirty five want speech recognition . So I think it's better to keep it with L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: But would it be useful to imple implement both ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: On one remote ? +Marketing: Yeah , if the costs al allow it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: I don't know if that can be done with the cost of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Nee . +User Interface: With that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it should be done , if it could be done , I won't matter . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: We should do it . Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: but how would you like to implement that , that you say volume up , and then it goes up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Certain systems already exist , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you also have to have different languages if we go international . Then uh it's y {vocalsound} it's yours to do a French and Dutch and English +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that should also be with f should be also with L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This should be uh accommodated with some software , uh , uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Because then I think in Chinese is different written , volume is different written than um Swahili or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Swahili . Swahili . +User Interface: Yeah you can use icons for the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: a speaker and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ja , well possible . +Industrial Designer: Indeed . +User Interface: But if that's better than language for the for the remote . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we want to uh yeah it's international uh okay . +User Interface: Then it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay , what else ? +Project Manager: So , no speech recognition ? Or {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , if it could be done , we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Y it should be done . If it could be done , should be done . +Marketing: we have to keep {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and then we have different languages . +User Interface: Yeah , that should be uh anything matters . +Industrial Designer: That's not so difficult at all , +Project Manager: Okay , just make a separate remote for each uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I already use on several voice operated systems , and they are all possible to uh not all , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , you sh you should to adjust the thing . +Marketing: I think it's difficult . Every language of dialects {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's very differen difficult . +User Interface: And you have to speak the {disfmarker} so that it can understand . +Marketing: Yeah . I think it can't be implemented , but maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You could use that n as an option , if you have money left , or something . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , 's an option , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure , indeed . +Marketing: Fifty Euro cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's do speech . +Industrial Designer: For speech recognition . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only do this when we have enough money left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I've written down an an on or off button , volume selection , channel selection , uh the digits from one to zero , huh . Um {disfmarker} or from zero to nine . Uh a digits button to switch uh between one and two digits , mute button , a separate menu for teletext , a battery indicator . Um we're going to use a docking station and uh probably L_C_D_ and if there's enough money , speech recognition . And uh the possibility to uh enlarge buttons or to have large buttons +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: in general . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} With uh teletext if {disfmarker} it wasn't ver very important , it was but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: You also now have colours . I don't know if we should implement that . Yeah , +Marketing: Curved ? +User Interface: when you press the red button , you go to page one hundred two , and when you press the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +User Interface: I don't know if we should implement that , +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: because it says that teletext not really important , +Industrial Designer: S Shortcuts . Uh . +User Interface: but yeah , the shortcut , and you can't go to sport . +Marketing: I think we should {disfmarker} we could that {disfmarker} we could also implement a audio settings , screen settings and channel settings , but as sub-menus . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: D Mainly if you turn the uh remote control on , you have to u you have to see from one till zero , channel and volume . And if you want to use teletext screen or audio , then you can press it . +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah , just just sub-menu . Yeah . +Marketing: It should be available but not +User Interface: 'Cause it should be there . +Industrial Designer: Not directly uh available . +Marketing: not {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so not too much teletext support , but in a separate menu , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So actually it is there but it's just not r ready there . +Marketing: Yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Directly available . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So does it confuse uh the user ? +User Interface: You'll have to search for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They'd have to be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I'll search um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If you want to use teletext , you can push the teletext button and then the options uh become available . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sign of it . +Project Manager: Okay , but no more buttons or functions , or ? +User Interface: I guess not . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh , no . What else can you do with a television ? +User Interface: We've got anon +Project Manager: Aren't we forgetting something very important ? +User Interface: Have got got two examples here , but I don't think there's anything we're missing . +Marketing: Uh play , pause , doesn't n need to be there . +User Interface: Well , we don't have the video orders {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , so this is your presentation . We could check the other remote controls with technical functions . +User Interface: Yeah , you could look here all the the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which ones were yours ? +User Interface: Uh th th th th I don't know , technical functions . +Marketing: Techni +User Interface: {vocalsound} They're a bit small , you can {disfmarker} we should stretch them , because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ping . +Marketing: Ja ja ja ja ja . Technical functions . Yeah okay . +User Interface: I guess we've got them all . +Marketing: Uh I think I go to have volume , mute but I {disfmarker} Yeah {gap} . Very slow . Yeah , the zoom buttons . +User Interface: And for a T_V_ ? Can you zoom in a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah , b wide screen , high screen , different things you have , +User Interface: Or that you can put 'em on uh on on wide and {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah different uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that should also be a sub then , a sub uh menu thing . +Industrial Designer: Menu . +Marketing: Yeah it should be available , but then in separate screen settings or something . +User Interface: Yeah , so we should also implement se screen settings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , screen settings , audio settings , teletext settings you have . +User Interface: Oh right . Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can program the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So those four , and of course the main . +User Interface: Yeah , so the first you see the main , and the other ones you can uh go to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Like tap screens or something +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or , I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope we can do this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There are a lot of options depending uh on what kind of television you got . +Marketing: Yeah , if uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you don't got a wide screen television you don't need the uh the screen settings +Marketing: No , you don't yu a no you then you don't no ni don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you don't use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if the television does not support such uh operations +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We don't have to use that top . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you leave it alone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or it could be possible to have a a standard version of the remote , an expanded version . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And do we want them in different colours , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And and the buttons , should they have colours ? +Marketing: Colours . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Colours I think the main colour of the remote control is uh the colour of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Oh but we don't have any buttons . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I Because we don't want a lot a devi yeah a device self s g +Marketing: Yeah , then defines itself . Because uh how many percent ? Eighty percent ? +User Interface: They think it's ugly , right ? +Marketing: Would spend more money if it looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so use uh very uh lot of peo {vocalsound} +User Interface: Perhaps you can uh make adjustable fronts , like with the telephones {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Adjust with phones , yes {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Twelve Euro fifty . Well , make it available in different colours , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Red , white , blue , black . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And a see-through uh +Marketing: Rasta colours . +Industrial Designer: Grey . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sea view , yes , Simpson's versions and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , see through version . Yeah . If you press a button , it turns green . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: Leave . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's the +User Interface: A disco version . +Project Manager: signal for las final five minutes . +User Interface: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Um so I have uh the things I just read . Um then we have uh separate menus for teletext , screen settings , audio settings , and what else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings ? +User Interface: Oh yeah , right . +Project Manager: Channel settings . +User Interface: So you can program the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Perhaps you should you'd throw them on on in one pile . So , options , and then you sub them . +Marketing: Yeah . Could be possible . +User Interface: Otherwise you have all those teletext , perhaps teletext not , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or like uh you have a menu button , you press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we said teletext also a separate menu . +User Interface: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , or otherwise you have a menu button , press menu then you have uh main uh menu search uh all the all the settings . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we can work that out later , I guess . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , no problem . Yep . +Project Manager: So we're having a a general menu with the most used functions , uh teletext , screen settings , audio settings , channel settings , and maybe there are options for the remote itself ? Like uh large icons or small icons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: and I don't know what else , +Marketing: Um , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I think b because we don't have a lot of buttons on the one screen , +User Interface: Or do we have any buttons ? On the remote . +Marketing: I think the buttons {disfmarker} Yeah , but but or like you have +User Interface: Which one ? +Marketing: you only have channel button or volume button . Those buttons you can you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but on the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: But that's also in the L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we don't have any normal buttons +Marketing: Yeah , th +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , no normal buttons , yeah . +User Interface: No , alright . +Marketing: Maybe only the on and o on and off button . +User Interface: Yet on and off is p is perhaps you kno +Project Manager: But we don't need a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh not button {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't need a special options menu for the remote itself . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: Mm , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh well , you should be able to set which T_V_ you have . If you have {disfmarker} if you have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course you need uh a settings button , uh or a settings option for the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . But isn't idea to use uh uh what you said , uh normal on and off button for the T_V_ , that you don't have to use a {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no , because we we discussed that you could charge it , otherwise is {disfmarker} it it jumps to stand-by mode automatically . +User Interface: Yeah but but not for the remote but for the T_V_ , that you use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but a T_V_ of course , th that's the {disfmarker} I think that's a best thing is that to implement that one in the menu with the volume and channel . +User Interface: But a not as normal button , in the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Well maybe there should be a separate button apart from the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: because you can't turn it on when the L_C_D_ is off . So how do you turn the thing on ? There has to be a on button on the remote , +User Interface: No you just tap I think . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Just tap it . +Marketing: Yeah , you tap . +Project Manager: Tap the thing . Okay . +Marketing: Touch screen , yeah then it's turn {disfmarker} turn off , turn on . +Project Manager: And then the television is on also , or just the remote ? +Marketing: No , just the remote . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: A television don't have to be on , that one you can {vocalsound} press on , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be in standby mode , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah stand-by , then press on remote , press on and then T_V_ should be available . Or not . +User Interface: Yeah a yeah . I don't know whether it's handy to have a n a normal on button , a r just uh rubber uh for for T_V_ , +Marketing: Separate . +User Interface: so you can turn it on and then you can choose the channel . Otherwise you {disfmarker} I don't know whether or not that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A A A normal button on the remote control , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . To turn it on . +Industrial Designer: or norm ? +User Interface: Of or you should put it in the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because uh when you touch the L_C_D_ screen when it is in standby mode , it should pop on . +User Interface: Yeah , I have , +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Wh uh why would it be a a need to have a normal button ? +User Interface: Well I I guess if you use the L_C_D_ screen , you first have to search where is the on button , then you uh you you then turn it , and then the T_V_ goes on . But if you have a normal on button on the on the remote , then you do the on , and then you search the channel which you want . +Marketing: Yeah , but I think the re the remote control , if you press tap the screen , it always should jump to the screen which has the volume button , channel button , and of course of also the on and off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: I think it looks a lot more fancy if you use uh if you don't have any buttons on the s on on remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . Otherwise y wet e k Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So actually we're going to create a a button-less uh remote . No buttons at all . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well that's might be a unique selling point , huh for a remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If we can afford it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , well I guess we have to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , if we can afford it . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: postpone further discussion to uh our next meeting , because we're running out of time . Um for now , we're having a lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and then there will be uh half an hour for the uh next share of individual work . I will uh write uh minutes , if I can create them out of this . And uh put them in the the project documents uh folder . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And here are the individual actions for the for the other roles . And of course specific instructions will be sent to you again by your uh personal coach . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Luckily as we are . Okay , well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you very much , for now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh have a nice lunch , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Lunch . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Food . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Should we put this back in our rooms , or uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +User Interface: Yeah . +","The meeting summary revolves around a functional design team meeting involving various key members responsible for the creation and marketing of a new remote control. The Project Manager, who doubles as the secretary, chairs the meeting and is determined to document the discussion's minutes and store them in the project folder for review. The Industrial Designer is first to present, giving a technical explanation of how remote controls function, from button pressing to signal transmission to IR light emission. He suggests mass production is feasible, advocates for simplicity in design, color variety, and possibly incorporating touch screen technology over conventional rubber buttons. The User Interface (UI) Designer talks about looking at other remote controls for design inspiration and emphasizes the need for a user-centric design approach. They propose basic functions on the remote control combined with features that accommodate newer TV functions (like split screen) and multi-appliance compatibility. + +Marketing highlights data showing different age demographic preferences, suggesting a focus on a particular user section. They stress the importance of design that is easy to identify when button labels wear off and discuss options for minimizing buttons, perhaps through LCD screens. However, this consideration is balanced against the remote's simplicity and elderly users' comfort with technology. + +The Project Manager introduces new project requirements, notably de-prioritizing teletext due to internet popularity, focusing the remote only for televisions to simplify the project, targeting customers below forty while also maintaining the company's recognizable corporate image. + +The team discusses potential features for the remote, debating the merits of an LCD screen, a rechargeable battery, and a docking station for the remote. Speech recognition is considered, but its implementation would depend on the available budget. There's talk about accommodating multiple languages and having a variety of remote control designs and colors to appeal to a broader market. + +Various action items and points of refinement are laid out, with the team agreeing upon a no-button LCD screen remote if cost permits. They also consider the industrial design aspects to ensure the remote is not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing to consumers who might be willing to pay more for a fancier looking remote. + +The meeting ends with the plan to continue the discussion in the next meeting, as they are out of time. The Project Manager assures that everyone will receive the minutes and individual tasks via their personal coaches, and the meeting disperses for a lunch break." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Good afternoon again . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we should have our final meeting about the detail designed of {disfmarker} detail design of the product of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} So here is the agenda for today . Uh uh just going to go quickly through the minutes of the last last uh meeting then we have a p presentation of prototype of you two , sounds interesting . And we'll have um {vocalsound} presentation of evaluation crit criteria by ou our Marketing Experts . Then we'll have to go through finance evaluation of the of the cost of the thing and um hopefully uh we should fit the target o tw of twelve point five uh uh Euro . {vocalsound} Okay . So let's go . Uh if I go quickly through the minutes of the last meeting . {vocalsound} So we went through th uh w we took this following decisions . No L_C_D_ , no speech recognition technology , okay , we went through a b to a banana look and feel for the remote control . We went through the use of wheels and but buttons . {vocalsound} And also the use of a basis station for battery ch charging and uh also to um call the to call the mot mote remote control when it is lost . Okay . Um . Good . So guys let {gap} this uh wonderful thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we can go to the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Sorry . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Number three . Oh number two sorry . +Project Manager: Which is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So final design . Final design . Okay so Michael you can go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah so uh following our decision to uh make a yellow {disfmarker} well to make a banana +Project Manager: Yeah can you show it to the the camera maybe . +User Interface: remote {disfmarker} okay so we actually have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can pull it out first , maybe . +User Interface: We've {disfmarker} well first first of all we made a an attractive {vocalsound} base station uh with a banana leaf uh look and feel um and uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: bana sit {disfmarker} the banana sits in there k you know nicely weighted so that it's not gonna tip over and um this is the remote itself , it's kind of it's it's ergonomic , it fits in the hand uh rather well . We've got the two uh {vocalsound} uh scroll wheels here which you know one on the the left for the uh volume and the one on the right for for the channel and uh underneath {vocalsound} we have the uh the turbo button which is in like a nice uh trigger position for you know for pressing quite naturally . +Project Manager: What's the use uh of the t turbo button already ? +User Interface: This is when you when you uh are scrolling the uh {disfmarker} through the channels you can tell it to to skip th past channels that you {disfmarker} quickly rather th +Project Manager: Ah yeah yeah an then you stop when you stop it stops . +User Interface: Yeah . Well when you stop scrolling the wheel it stops . But normally with uh {disfmarker} it will just uh s stay on each station briefly so you can see the the picture . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: And we we do have one more functionality . If you take the banana as such and uh you press the turbo button , so it switch ons the switch ons the T_V_ . +User Interface: The T_V_ yeah . +Project Manager: Which one ? +User Interface: The s the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: The turbo button . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So rather than having uh an extra button for um for the on off switch you just use the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: Additional button . +Marketing: What this button for ? +User Interface: This is a teletext button . So once you press that then you get teletext +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and you can use the the channel selector scroll wheel as uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To navigate it through th through teletext . +User Interface: To navigate yeah . +Marketing: But if you want to go to page seven hundred ? +Industrial Designer: That's right , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} with the wheel it's easy . +Marketing: How man +User Interface: Well then you can you you have like a little uh number selection thing , you press the {gap} the the teletext button uh to move between uh the fields and then you can just scroll the number back and forth so you have s you go {disfmarker} you scroll to seven and then zero zero and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't understand it . Can you repeat it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well you can you can press press the teletext button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you then you can you can f +Industrial Designer: So then then both the scroll buttons they are for teletext browsing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you can tele +Marketing: Ah okay okay . Okay . Okay okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: once you press the teletext button then the scroll buttons they are more for teletext , they are no more for channel or vol volume . +Marketing: Okay . I see . I see . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the infrared uh port . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: Also the top of the banana . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So . And then we have +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: in the uh in the base station we have the the button at the front for uh for calling the uh the banana . +Project Manager: Calling . Excellent . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the leaves plays the roles of of antennas ? +User Interface: Actually they do . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: That's that's yeah that's uh that's form and function in the one in the one uh object . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it always means , whatever the rays goes by they they get reflected and then you are having a better coverage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's like antennas . +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: But yeah that's um that's just like {disfmarker} that's an attractive um base station . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: So , what else ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And for the power source we are having solar cells and rechargeable batteries and this and uh the basis station is going to have the input from the mm power line for for charging the batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it really weight ? Is it light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is very light . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're light . +User Interface: It's it's uh it's about the weight of a banana . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: You know , to give you the correct look and feel . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ok +Industrial Designer: And we have put these different colours so that people don't mistake them mistake it as a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's you know a child comes and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Yeah yeah yeah , I see . I under I understand . +User Interface: I think a child would try to eat it anyway , so maybe we should +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: consider that . {gap} maybe health and safety aspects . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh we didn't think of that yet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So for the power source , apparently you still {disfmarker} you you want to use both solar cells and batteries . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh you mean {disfmarker} okay . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know if the solar cells are actually necessary any more if you have a recharging base station . +Project Manager: Yeah , where are going to {disfmarker} where are you are you going to place them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . It'll It'll be always at top somewhere at there . +User Interface: If I was gonna place them I'd put them on the on the top here since that's like uh the black bit +Project Manager: You have enough surface ? You {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but yeah I don't I really don't think it's necessary to have the solar cells anymore . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because now we are having rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that that is {gap} . +Project Manager: What will be the autonomy ? Roughly ? +User Interface: The what sorry ? +Project Manager: The autonomy . Autonomy . +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh I mean how long does i how how how long can it be held off a station ? +Marketing: How long the {disfmarker} how long the bit the batteries long . +User Interface: Ah . Ah . A long time . +Project Manager: Yeah . A long {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no no , +Industrial Designer: Eight to ten eight to ten hours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it can {disfmarker} it should be weeks . +Industrial Designer: N most {disfmarker} no most of the time it's not being used . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but y people don't like to put it back in the base station all the time people leave wanna leave it on the couch so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So when when you are making it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's used only when you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . No eight or eight or ten hours of working . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you are just leaving like that it'll be much longer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . F weeks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Right . Next slide ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we are having the speakers regular chip for control . Pricing is {disfmarker} was a factor so that's why we have gone for a regular chip only not the advanced chip . And uh that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} Okay . Those really sounds very good . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing else to add ? +User Interface: It seems to be falling over . +Marketing: I l yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I like I like it . Maybe the the thing that convince me the less is the {vocalsound} the multifunctional buttons . Looks a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You want to have more functional buttons ? +Marketing: Looks a bit puzzled uh I dunno how to say {vocalsound} that . +Industrial Designer: You are not convinced . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} the the b the buttons change h h their function depending if y it's teletext or not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not not many , we we want to keep it simple . So that this button fo is for teletext which is usually also the case , that usually there is a teletext button and once you press that , the channel buttons , they baco become the scrolling buttons . +Marketing: And the volume button will will become {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's up to you , means . +Project Manager: Well in fact b both will be {disfmarker} could be useful , navigating through teletext . +Industrial Designer: Now that {disfmarker} Means let's say this this can move the the larger digits and this can move the smaller digits . +User Interface: Or can move between positions in the in the number . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what about people who want to use digits ? Butto real buttons ? +Project Manager: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there was there was a constraint that the surface area which we have on this banana on one side because of the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we are targeting a segment which is which is just very trendy kind of thing , they they don't care about the buttons any more . And anyway {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Because have you thought about configuration and all this kind of uh stuff ? +User Interface: It's all automatic . +Marketing: It's all automatic . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay yeah it's fine . +Project Manager: Very good uh yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we are living in a wonderful world . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} you th yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bananas everywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Automatically configure {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to go through now evaluations . +Industrial Designer: Evalua yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So your slides are ready ? +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Uh you're four I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this is one , which one is this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I {vocalsound} I const I constructed a a list of criteria based on the on the general user requirements . And each criteria is {vocalsound} will be evaluated it's uh logical criteria so we must users must say i if it's true or is {disfmarker} or if it's false in a in a scale ranging from zero to seven . +Industrial Designer: Why this strange factor of seven ? +Marketing: Because i I'm sorry . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Usually I have seen that scales are from one to ten . +Marketing: Ah yeah . It's from {disfmarker} sorry , it's from one to seven . It's from from one to seven sorry . Because it should be an even it should be an even uh scale , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Num number {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and five is too short and nine is too long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm a I I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay fine , got the idea . +Project Manager: So to have {disfmarker} in order to have enough granularity {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry ? +Project Manager: it's in order to have enough granularity in the evaluation . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The variance is mi it's is minimal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , great . +Marketing: I'm um answering your question . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that's the criteria I I found more useful . I think I sh I {vocalsound} I could write the criteria in the on the whiteboard ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Marketing: And we all four could range +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: could evaluate the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you can say fancy , handy . Handy . +Marketing: Okay let's let's evaluate if it's fancy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's fancy , according to me . +Marketing: Seven but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S seven . +Industrial Designer: Seven . Seven by me . +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: I would say seven . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: So you can add seven plus six plus seven plus {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , wait . +User Interface: Yeah uh five . +Project Manager: What do you say seven ? Five ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Five , maybe maybe maybe six it's it's I guess it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , six point five . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Handy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Again I'll give seven . +Project Manager: Seven . +User Interface: I'd give it a six like I'd I think it's probably more handy than my current remote , 'cause of the scroll wheels +Marketing: Six . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: but maybe loses the point for not having you know the extra buttons when you reall if you do need them for some reason but you know you can always use your other remote . +Project Manager: So seven , seven , +Industrial Designer: Seven for me . +Project Manager: six , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Six . +Project Manager: six point five . Functional . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give five . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Well it depends when you say functional , do you mean it does what we want it to do , or d does what it does , you know , can it make you coffee ? +Marketing: Everything ar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh for a remote control , does he have all the {gap} +User Interface: You know . +Marketing: Mm everything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: you could expect . +Marketing: It's compared to the all +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: remote controls . +User Interface: That's before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's right . The standards . What is available in the market off the shelf . +User Interface: Yeah . I have to say four . +Marketing: Actually I don't know what are the r the real specification of a of a universal remote contro +User Interface: Well it's not a universal remote . Remember we're focus we're supposed to focus just on T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah it's not an univer but it's for all kind of T_V_s ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well all T_V_s but only T_ {disfmarker} only T_V_s I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's universal but for T_V_s . {vocalsound} So s uh four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five ? +User Interface: Four . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four . Four . +Industrial Designer: So four point two ? +User Interface: Just four . +Project Manager: Four . +Industrial Designer: {gap} four . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Obviously there are some outliers so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay cool ? Cool device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There I'll give it seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It means cool features , like new features actually . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For a T_V_ the most important feature which I felt was the locator which is a cool feature . And then the scroll buttons are again cool features . We don't have L_C_D_ for it but that we decided we don't want to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven . +Marketing: I would say five . +User Interface: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Seven . +Project Manager: Plus six , I say {disfmarker} I said seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's six . +User Interface: S yeah . +Marketing: You said seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause it's five five seven seven so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , okay , definitely easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Definitely seven . +User Interface: Seven . +Project Manager: Seven . Seven . And you ? Outl you are not lik outlier . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Seven {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Sorry , I have them {disfmarker} +User Interface: Alright , now here's the sixty million Dollar question , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well , twenty five twenty five Euro question . +Project Manager: Of course I'll buy the {gap} banana . {gap} +User Interface: What do you what do you guys reckon ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of cour Of course the most difficult question for the end . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} Cheap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I find it quite cheap {vocalsound} actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . If i i it depends , if you live in in Switzerland or you live in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so the target price is for all Europe , or only for rich countries ? {vocalsound} It's more targeting U_K_ or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . Wha the initial specifications were for the whole all Europe or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is selling costs , not production costs . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah this is the the initial specifications . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah sure . Um {disfmarker} Five . +Marketing: I would say six . It's quite cheap actually . +User Interface: I'd say two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aw , should be nice in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't want a banana on my {vocalsound} living room table , a banana remote . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but it's really handy actually if you see . +User Interface: It is handy , it's handy , but it it's terrible . +Industrial Designer: It's it's so handy . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's kitsch . +Industrial Designer: Anyb anybody who comes here {vocalsound} {disfmarker} anybody who comes to your home he'll at least ask once what is this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , but it's not a positive thing . +Industrial Designer: It's a very positive thing if you see like that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well , you know , it's it's handy , it's ergonomic , but it's a banana . +Project Manager: Well , don't forget well , don't for don't forget who we're targeting also who are f f who are wh +Industrial Designer: Youngsters . +Project Manager: yeah , youngst youngst +User Interface: Yeah but it says I , I would buy this , so . +Marketing: Actually maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} if you would be young . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not telling that you are young . Li li like a teenager for instance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's I . I would buy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay you're you're crazy teenager and you like fun things . +Industrial Designer: You want to flaunt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} with your girlfriend or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , you want to show the beautiful banana you have . {gap} +User Interface: S s +Industrial Designer: Or might be it does some other kind of thing but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Still I I'd say two . I don't think I {disfmarker} at any stage in my life I would want a banana remote control , really . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , crazy . +Project Manager: Okay so you s you give {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can say , maybe there is a market for it , I dunno . +Project Manager: oh yeah yeah I know I know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you say two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I say five . +Project Manager: F I d I say five . You say ? +Marketing: I change the question . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's the new question ? +Industrial Designer: And you have saved it ? +Marketing: So yeah upload the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You'll have to reload . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , it depends if uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah it's two different situations . If you really need an universal remote control or if you would change your remote control for a n for a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah that's two different question . +User Interface: If I had t if I had to spend twenty five Euro , if that was like my limit , maybe I would buy it . Because the other twenty five Euro remote controls are probably gonna look +Project Manager: Ugly . +User Interface: worse than a banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're not going to be as {disfmarker} And they they might not be a as easy as this {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} yeah this is gonna f you know handy to use . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So ? What now ? What range ? +Project Manager: I stick to five . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: Although it still has it still has the word of course at the beginning {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I go slightly up . Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: so I dunno . Um . +Project Manager: W we have six , five {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd give it I'd give it a +Project Manager: Three {vocalsound} +User Interface: I give it a four now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Six ? Six ? +Project Manager: So we are six , five , four {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six , five , four . +Marketing: Six , so it's uh five point five , or less . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So and last question , will I change my rem change my remote control from Mando banana . Um , zero . No uh we can't . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Actually yeah , I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No uh let's say I'll put two . +User Interface: I'd say three , I mean my remote control is kinda {disfmarker} at home is pretty terrible . If it was {disfmarker} change my remote control of my D_V_D_ player for a Mando banana then I would be more inclined to +Project Manager: It's for the T_V_ . +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} 'cause it's really bad but uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd say a three . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'll still give it five . Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Two three five two three fi and two . +Marketing: {gap} You are romantic , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's somewhere three point five I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say two . +Project Manager: So it's r Yeah , three point five . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who is the outlier ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh wh {vocalsound} you said five ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no you say five , he is the outlier . +Industrial Designer: No I said five . +Project Manager: Okay just just do a sum . +Marketing: I don't know if {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not very promising but you know we're not young trendsetters . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No because there are more {disfmarker} yeah , we shouldn't sum like that . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should we should uh have a look globally glob +Marketing: Because the the last two questions is much more important than the rest actually . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Otherwise we wouldn't {disfmarker} we will not sell . +User Interface: Is there some some formula you're using that says you have to sum them up ? +Marketing: Uh no I didn't {gap} anything . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well just leave it at that then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: So maybe maybe w we can we should stick to general feeling . We can had uh have a {disfmarker} out of these numbers , which which is that well we should go for it . +Marketing: Yeah , the uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Problem with connectors ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to sum +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's it's funny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: o I think it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it it kind of you just lose information if you sum it , so . +Project Manager: Okay . So let's move uh let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} now now we have to mm to estimate {vocalsound} uh the cost okay . So I prepare an Excel sh uh an Excel sheet . Um well we are going to calculate the production costs . We should we should be below twelve point five . So I already uh put some pu some numbers here , okay . We are going to go through {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so this is the number the mm number of components we need for this thing . So it appears that there were things that we didn't thought about . Uh and also things that I uh I d I forget to uh to put like solar cells . +User Interface: Well we decided against the solar cells so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah finally we say no . +Industrial Designer: Solar cells , yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah , we said no to that . +Project Manager: Okay so let's let's go let's go let go through all the lines . So hand dynamo . This something we didn't thought about . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: You mean , charging it by shaking the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think rechargeable batteries will take care of the power thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so we we stick to battery , one . +Industrial Designer: To bring the cost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: No kinetic also . I don't I don't see the difference between kinetic and dynamo . +User Interface: Well maybe dynamo is like you have to actually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah you have to {disfmarker} ah okay I see so kinetic is really uh shaking the banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Crazy . Okay . So those banana is falling . Let's go ahead . So we we st only have one for battery . Uh then for electronics um so I didn't put anything for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So we have the regular chip on the print , which is one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . No {disfmarker} so we hin +Industrial Designer: And we have sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah so one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {gap} the cost of that is very high . +Project Manager: Ooh ye ye ye the cost is increasing . So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well actually that that {disfmarker} no that sample speaker is not {disfmarker} we we're not using that , we're just using the the very beep {disfmarker} simple beep , +Project Manager: The beep . +User Interface: that s that sample thing is like the voice recording and everything . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That's what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay so I'll remove it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: I say that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So don't we need a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we have sev +Project Manager: Oh there is no listing for r radio frequency thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we we'll put some extras , if there is something . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . We'll see later . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so in {disfmarker} for the case um {vocalsound} I put single curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay . To reduce the cost , it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , wait a second , +Project Manager: Because we have two things . +User Interface: no , it's it's double curved , it's got a c , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's got all the directions +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: so don't worry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well d yeah it's monotonic {vocalsound} but +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's got a {gap} direction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's got {disfmarker} but if you hold it if you hold it that way that's two curved , one on this side , one on that side , but they're opposite sides . +Project Manager: Well . What a {disfmarker} what i if I put one here . +User Interface: This is actually {disfmarker} I mean this probably +Marketing: Actually what's the differen +User Interface: this probably actually costs more than three +Project Manager: Yeah so let's put one here in the {gap} then instead of single +User Interface: if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: oka all right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we stick to plastic , it cost nothing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: Well {gap} {disfmarker} no didn't we say we wanted to do a rubber {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , it's too {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: {gap} if you drop it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive . +Project Manager: It's too expensive . We're already at eleven . +User Interface: Well when {disfmarker} okay . Well we we'll come back we'll come back and see if we can fit it in . +Project Manager: Okay so I put rubber one . Okay so special colour , yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh for the interface we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We don't have any push buttons . +User Interface: No , we have two push buttons . +Project Manager: We have three . +Industrial Designer: No that is a scroll wheel itself , it'll be put in that . +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: No no . We have two scroll , and we have three push buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay it's gonna have to be plastic . +Marketing: Actually whe whe when you wrote regular chip you should put two , because there is another chip here . +Project Manager: No it's {gap} no chip . This is just radio frequency {gap} . Th This is no chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but +Industrial Designer: No . There's no chip there . +Marketing: you need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It just emits the signal . +Project Manager: It's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the receiver accepts it and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fo i it does nothing actually ? +Project Manager: No . Just {disfmarker} only {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just se sends the signal , that's it . +User Interface: It's a recharger thing and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay w we didn't think a thought about uh integrated scroll wheel push buttons . +User Interface: Well I actually did um think about it myself {vocalsound} but I thought you know {disfmarker} because you could potentially you know you could be pushing it down as you scroll it for a {disfmarker} instead of a turbo button +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but you know the turbo button does add that extra class . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: You know . So I mean if we're if we're over budget then maybe we could we could rethink that . +Project Manager: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , so for {disfmarker} we have no button supplements , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . No . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} well in fact could we could not we consider this button as a button supplement because {disfmarker} oh no , these are these are for colours , co and special forms , special colours and special materials . +User Interface: Yeah . No we're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: we don't need anything special for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay so we are over budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So first thing which we should take care of is , +User Interface: Make it plastic instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: instead of rubber , let it be plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then we're basically o on budget except for you know ten cents . +Industrial Designer: And uh that much money will be required for the base station , which is not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So mayb in fact n we have to put two here +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: because it cost nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well pl the base station is made out of m many units of {vocalsound} plastic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So might be ninety centimes for the the remaining things which {disfmarker} the cord and everything which'll go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Exactly exactly so we have margin for that stuff . +User Interface: Does that include charging circuitry and everything ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . Okay good . Wha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So what do we do with the extra profits ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we'll invest in R_ and D_ . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well we're under the the the cost . So we can go to {disfmarker} through to project evaluation . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay so now we have a product which nobody would would buy . Would {disfmarker} yeah , would buy . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: No we have a product which none of us would buy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah because th th the evaluation project {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is different . Which is different . None of us will buy it . +User Interface: No it's people in in in Milan and uh in Paris that are gonna buy it . +Marketing: Ah would buy , yeah . +User Interface: We're n +Marketing: Massively , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . We're not in Milan or Paris . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Uh you have been in Milan a couple of times , so . +Project Manager: This is a battery . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually there were a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And you said the lowest {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is what we {disfmarker} which you can mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S Detachable battery . +Project Manager: It did {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: That's 'cause I'm sick of Milan . +Marketing: Yeah , for the batteries {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Extra battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay so um {vocalsound} project process . +Project Manager: Exac {vocalsound} Well in fact I I did not know {vocalsound} I didn't know really what to say here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If uh if you have any ideas of what we can we can say . So I don't I don't I don't understand what what they mean by satisfaction um and for and for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should it be more like um like a status of of the {disfmarker} these meetings in fact . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well in fact uh we we use a little bit the white board and the digital pen , not that much . +User Interface: I dunno I think we had a fair bit of creativity . +Project Manager: Oh yeah it's really creative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh but I think one thing we m missed out of this whole process was a um {vocalsound} like a focus group with the actual people we're targeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We needed some of these kind of young trendsetters to come in and play with the banana and you know see if they +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They like that . +User Interface: see if they like it . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe we should go through , yeah an uh evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because yeah the evaluation for us is is kind of pointless . +Industrial Designer: Biased . +Project Manager: So maybe you should we should do a kinda evaluation {vocalsound} in the streets like asking to young peoples well , do you like to have a banana as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . Because it it would also be interesting to uh you to know find out if we have a market in really young children as well , to see you know how to how to market this thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause you know if {disfmarker} well I mean maybe you don't wanna give all your kids their own remote because they'll be changing the channel all the time but you know maybe in some households where there is you know a T_V_ for each kid , then you know , banana remote control could be fun for them as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Might have to draw a face on it . So but I think that's something we need to to work on next time is really finding out more about the target market . +Project Manager: Yep . Any any new ideas we could uh we could investigate next time ? Dunno , oranges ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The cost of the thing can be made more than might be . Because I think it's just the optimal , what we have done for the cost which we are looking forward to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . I think there are ways we could maybe simplify the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Interface . +User Interface: Well just the the the circuit board that we're using inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'm not sure really how complicated our um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: our needs are . I mean all we have is two push buttons and two scrollers , do we really need an integrated circuit to +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: you know to process that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So more general remote control instead of just focusing on uh on T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: The complexity shouldn't be much higher . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: For {disfmarker} you said if it good for D_V_D_ then I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also fo you know for mood lighting and and stuff , that would be rather cool . I think that's actually something that should be in version two , is the ability to you know to control things other than the T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Integrate . +User Interface: and not just electronic equipment but you know the whole environment of the room . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Very good . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} What else ? +Project Manager: Well done . I think we we can go +Industrial Designer: Okay . Home ? +Project Manager: home . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Happily satisfied . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe maybe we can hassle the the production department to to make a a real prototype that we can use at home to to evaluate . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay so thanks very much . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Bye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: Bye . +","In a final product development meeting, the team discusses their remote control product designed like a banana. The agenda includes reviewing last meeting’s decisions (no LCD or speech technology, a banana shape, wheels and buttons for control, and a charging base station that can also locate the lost remote), a prototype presentation, and financial evaluation to achieve a €12.50 target cost. + +The prototype's final design is revealed, showcasing an ergonomic banana-shaped remote with scroll wheels for volume and channels, a turbo button for fast scrolling, and teletext functionality. It also features an attractive banana leaf-designed base station that functions as a charger and locator for the remote, plus the leaves act as antennas for better coverage. + +There's a debate on whether additional digital buttons are needed, but it's agreed to target a trendy segment that doesn't require them. The team also discusses the power source, considering solar cells on top of the remote and agreeing on rechargeable batteries in a base station for practicality and cost-effectiveness. The remote's expected autonomy is several weeks of on-off use. + +Throughout the conversation, there are references to minor criticisms or uncertainties over features, such as whether the teletext system is easy to understand, the need for colored buttons to prevent it from being mistaken for a real banana, and safety concerns around a child’s potential interaction with the product. + +They review the estimated production costs, factor in necessary changes to stay within budget, and conclude that they are slightly under the target cost. There is a realization that no one on the team would personally buy the product; however, it may still appeal to the trendy demographic they are targeting. + +The conversation ends with the Project Manager suggesting an external evaluation by the target audience to better understand their preferences and outlines potential improvements or directions for the next iteration of the product. The meeting concludes with the team planning to request the production department to create a real prototype for further evaluation." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: Let 's see . Test ? Test ? Yeah . OK . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD B: Channel one . +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD C: Test . +Professor E: I was saying Hynek 'll be here next week , uh , Wednesday through Friday {disfmarker} uh , through Saturday , and , um , I won't be here Thursday and Friday . But my suggestion is that , uh , at least for this meeting , people should go ahead , uh , cuz Hynek will be here , and , you know , we don't have any Czech accent yet , uh , {vocalsound} as far as I know , so {disfmarker} There we go . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . So other than reading digits , what 's our agenda ? +PhD F: I don't really have , uh , anything new . Been working on {pause} Meeting Recorder stuff . So . +Professor E: OK . Um . Do you think that would be the case for next week also ? Or is {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} ? What 's your projection on {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Um . +Professor E: Cuz the one thing {disfmarker} the one thing that seems to me we really should try , if you hadn't tried it before , because it hadn't occurred to me {disfmarker} it was sort of an obvious thing {disfmarker} is , um , adjusting the , uh , sca the scaling and , uh , insertion penalty sorta stuff . +PhD F: I did play with that , actually , a little bit . Um . What happens is , uh , {vocalsound} when you get to the noisy stuff , you start getting lots of insertions . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: And , um , so I 've tried playing around a little bit with , um , the insertion penalties and things like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . I mean , it {disfmarker} it didn't make a whole lot of difference . Like for the well - matched case , it seemed like it was pretty good . Um . {vocalsound} I could do more playing with that , though . And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: But you were looking at mel cepstrum . +PhD F: and see . Yes . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: Oh , you 're talking about for th {vocalsound} for our features . +Professor E: Right . So , I mean , i it it 's not the direction that you were working with that we were saying what 's the {disfmarker} uh , what 's the best you can do with {disfmarker} with mel cepstrum . But , they raised a very valid point , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor E: which , I guess {disfmarker} So , to first order {disfmarker} I mean , you have other things you were gonna do , but to first order , I would say that the conclusion is that if you , um , do , uh , some monkeying around with , uh , the exact HTK training and @ @ {comment} with , uh , you know , how many states and so forth , that it {disfmarker} it doesn't particularly improve the performance . In other words , that even though it sounds pretty dumb , just applying the same number of states to everything , more or less , no matter what language , isn't so bad . Right ? And I guess you hadn't gotten to all the experiments you wanted to do with number of Gaussians , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: but , um , let 's just {disfmarker} If we had to {disfmarker} if we had to draw a conclusion on the information we have so far , we 'd say something like that . Right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , so the next question to ask , which is I think the one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that Andreas was dre addressing himself to in the lunch meeting , is , um , we 're not supposed to adjust the back - end , but anybody using the system would . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: So , if you were just adjusting the back - end , how much better would you do , uh , in noise ? Uh , because the language scaling and insertion penalties and so forth are probably set to be about right for mel cepstrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , um , they 're probably not at all set right for these things , particularly these things that look over , uh , larger time windows , in one way or another with {disfmarker} with LDA and KLT and neural nets and {vocalsound} all these things . In the fa past we 've always found that we had to increase the insertion penalty to {disfmarker} to correspond to such things . So , I think that 's , uh , @ @ {comment} that 's kind of a first - order thing that {disfmarker} that we should try . +PhD F: So for th so the experiment is to , um , run our front - end like normal , with the default , uh , insertion penalties and so forth , and then tweak that a little bit and see how much of a difference it makes +Professor E: So by "" our front - end "" I mean take , you know , the Aurora - two s take some version that Stephane has that is , you know , our current best version of something . +PhD F: if we were {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . I mean , y don't wanna do this over a hundred different things that they 've tried but , you know , for some version that you say is a good one . You know ? Um . How {disfmarker} how much , uh , does it improve if you actually adjust that ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: But it is interesting . You say you {disfmarker} you have for the noisy {disfmarker} How about for the {disfmarker} for the mismatched or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} or the medium mismatched conditions ? Have you {disfmarker} ? When you adjusted those numbers for mel cepstrum , did it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't remember off the top of my head . Um . Yeah . I didn't even write them down . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't remember . I would need to {disfmarker} Well , I did write down , um {disfmarker} So , when I was doing {disfmarker} I just wrote down some numbers for the well - matched case . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Looking at the {disfmarker} I wrote down what the deletions , substitutions , and insertions were , uh , for different numbers of states per phone . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Um , but , uh , that {disfmarker} that 's all I wrote down . +Professor E: OK . +PhD F: So . I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} Yeah . I would need to do that . +Professor E: OK . So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I can do that for next week . +Professor E: Yeah . And , um {disfmarker} Yeah . Also , eh , eh , sometimes if you run behind on some of these things , maybe we can get someone else to do it and you can supervise or something . But {disfmarker} but I think it would be {disfmarker} it 'd be good to know that . +PhD F: OK . I just need to get , um , {vocalsound} front - end , uh , stuff from you +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD F: or you point me to some files {pause} that you 've already calculated . +PhD B: Yeah . Alright . +Professor E: OK . Uh . +PhD F: I probably will have time to do that and time to play a little bit with the silence model . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So maybe I can have that for next week when Hynek 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Cuz , I mean , the {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} That , in fact , might have been part of what , uh , the difference was {disfmarker} at least part of it that {disfmarker} that we were seeing . Remember we were seeing the SRI system was so much better than the tandem system . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: Part of it might just be that the SRI system , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they always adjust these things to be sort of optimized , +PhD F: Is there {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: I wonder if there 's anything that we could do {vocalsound} to the front - end that would affect the insertion {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yes . I think you can . +PhD F: What could you do ? +Professor E: Well , um {disfmarker} uh , part of what 's going on , um , is the , uh , the range of values . So , if you have something that has a much smaller range or a much larger range , and taking the appropriate root . +PhD F: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? If something is kind of like the equivalent of a bunch of probabilities multiplied together , you can take a root of some sort . If it 's like seven probabilities together , you can take the seventh root of it or something , or if it 's in the log domain , divide it by seven . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but , um , that has a similar effect because it changes the scale of the numbers {disfmarker} of the differences between different candidates from the acoustic model +PhD F: Oh , right . +Professor E: as opposed to what 's coming from the language model . +PhD F: So that w Right . So , in effect , that 's changing the value of your insertion penalty . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , it 's more directly like the {disfmarker} the language scaling or the , uh {disfmarker} the model scaling or acoustic scaling , +PhD F: That 's interesting . +Professor E: but you know that those things have kind of a similar effect to the insertion penalty +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: anyway . They 're a slightly different way of {disfmarker} of handling it . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: So if we know what the insertion penalty is , then we can get an idea about what range our number should be in , +Professor E: I think so . +PhD F: so that they {pause} match with that . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . So that 's why I think that 's another reason other than curiosity as to why i it would in fact be kinda neat to find out if we 're way off . I mean , the other thing is , are aren't we seeing {disfmarker} ? Y y +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I 'm sure you 've already looked at this bu in these noisy cases , are {disfmarker} ? We are seeing lots of insertions . Right ? The insertion number is quite high ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: I know the VAD takes pre care of part of that , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 've seen that with the mel cepstrum . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know about {pause} the Aurora front - end , but {disfmarker} +PhD B: I think it 's much more balanced with , uh {disfmarker} when the front - end is more robust . Yeah . I could look at it {disfmarker} at this . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . Wha - what 's a typical number ? +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor E: Do we {disfmarker} ? Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you don't know . +PhD B: I don't have this in {disfmarker} +Professor E: OK . I 'm sure it 's more balanced , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: but it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wouldn't surprise me if there 's still {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: I mean , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the old systems we used to do , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I remember numbers kind of like insertions being half the number of deletions , as being {disfmarker} and both numbers being {disfmarker} tend to be on the small side comparing to {disfmarker} to , uh , substitutions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , this {disfmarker} the whole problem with insertions was what I think , um , we talked about when the guy from OGI came down {pause} that one time and {disfmarker} and that was when people were saying , well we should have a , uh , uh , voice activity detector {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: that , because all that stuff {comment} that we 're getting thr the silence that 's getting through is causing insertions . So . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD F: I 'll bet you there 's still a lot {vocalsound} of insertions . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . And it may be less of a critical thing . I mean , the fact that some get by may be less of a critical thing if you , uh , get things in the right range . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I mean , the insertions is {disfmarker} is a symptom . It 's a symptom that there 's something , uh , wrong with the range . +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: But there 's {disfmarker} uh , your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your substitutions tend to go up as well . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: uh , the most obvious thing is just the insertions , @ @ . But {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} um . If you 're operating in the wrong range {disfmarker} I mean , that 's why just in general , if you {vocalsound} change what these {disfmarker} these penalties and scaling factors are , you reach some point that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a minimum . So . Um . Um . We do have to do well over a range of different conditions , some of which are noisier than others . Um . But , um , I think we may get a better handle on that if we {disfmarker} if we see {disfmarker} Um , I mean we ca it 's if we actually could pick a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a more stable value for the range of these features , it , um , uh , could {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Even though it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's true that in a real situation you can in fact adjust the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these scaling factors in the back - end , and it 's ar artificial here that we 're not adjusting those , you certainly don't wanna be adjusting those all the time . And if you have a nice front - end that 's in roughly the right range {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: I remember after we got our stuff more or less together in the previous systems we built , that we tended to set those scaling factors at kind of a standard level , and we would rarely adjust them again , even though you could get a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: for an evaluation you can get an extra point or something if you tweaked it a little bit . But , once we knew what rou roughly the right operating range was , it was pretty stable , and {disfmarker} Uh , we might just not even be in the right operating range . +PhD F: So , would the {disfmarker} ? Uh , would a good idea be to try to map it into the same range that you get in the well - matched case ? So , if we computed what the range was in well - matched , and then when we get our noisy conditions out we try to make it have the same range as {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . You don't wanna change it for different conditions . No . No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what I 'm saying {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , I wasn't suggesting change it for different conditions . I was just saying that when we pick a range , we {disfmarker} we wanna pick a range that we map our numbers into {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: we should probably pick it based on the range that we get in the well - matched case . Otherwise , I mean , what range are we gonna choose to {disfmarker} to map everything into ? +Professor E: Well . It depends how much we wanna do gamesmanship and how much we wanna do {disfmarker} I mean , i if he it {disfmarker} to me , actually , even if you wanna be {disfmarker} play on the gamesmanship side , it can be kinda tricky . So , I mean , what you would do is set the {disfmarker} set the scaling factors , uh , so that you got the best number for this point four five times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and so on . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But they might change that {disfmarker} those weightings . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: Um . So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} I just sorta think we need to explore the space . Just take a look at it a little bit . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we may just find that {disfmarker} that we 're way off . +PhD F: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe we 're not . You know ? As for these other things , it may turn out that , uh , {vocalsound} it 's kind of reasonable . But then {disfmarker} I mean , Andreas gave a very reasonable response , and he 's probably not gonna be the only one who 's gonna say this in the future {disfmarker} of , you know , people {disfmarker} people within this tight - knit community who are doing this evaluation {vocalsound} are accepting , uh , more or less , that these are the rules . But , people outside of it who look in at the broader picture are certainly gonna say "" Well , wait a minute . You 're doing all this standing on your head , uh , on the front - end , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: when all you could do is just adjust this in the back - end with one s one knob . "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And so we have to at least , I think , determine that that 's not true , which would be OK , or determine that it is true , in which case we want to adjust that and then continue with {disfmarker} with what we 're doing . And as you say {disfmarker} as you point out {disfmarker} finding ways to then compensate for that in the front - end {vocalsound} also then becomes a priority for this particular test , +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: and saying you don't have to do that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So . OK . So , uh {disfmarker} What 's new with you ? +PhD B: Uh . So there 's nothing {pause} new . Um . +Professor E: Uh , what 's old with you that 's developed ? +PhD B: I 'm sorry ? +Professor E: You {disfmarker} OK . What 's old with you that has developed over the last week or two ? +PhD B: Mmm . Well , so we 've been mainly working on the report and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Mainly working on what ? +PhD B: On the report {pause} of the work that was already done . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: Um . Mm - hmm . That 's all . +PhD F: How about that {disfmarker} ? Any - anything new on the thing that , uh , you were working on with the , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I don't have results yet . +PhD F: No results ? Yeah . +Professor E: What was that ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} the , uh , +Grad A: Voicing thing . +PhD F: voicing detector . +Professor E: I mean , what what 's {disfmarker} what 's going on now ? What are you {pause} doing ? +PhD C: Uh , to try to found , nnn , robust feature for detect between voice and unvoice . And we {disfmarker} w we try to use {vocalsound} the variance {vocalsound} of the es difference between the FFT spectrum and mel filter bank spectrum . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh , also the {disfmarker} another parameter is {disfmarker} relates with the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: R - ze energy and the variance a also of the auto - correlation function . +Professor E: Uh - huh . So , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what you were describing , I guess , a week or two ago . +PhD C: Yeah . But we don't have res we don't have result of the AURO for Aurora yet . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: We need to train the neural network +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: So you 're training neural networks now ? +PhD C: No , not yet . +Professor E: So , what {disfmarker} wha {vocalsound} wh wha what what 's going on ? +PhD C: Well , we work in the report , too , because we have a lot of result , +Professor E: Uh - huh . +PhD C: they are very dispersed , and was necessary to {disfmarker} to look in all the directory to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to give some more structure . +PhD B: Yea +Professor E: So . B So {disfmarker} Yeah . I if I can summarize , basically what 's going on is that you 're going over a lot of material that you have generated in furious fashion , f generating many results and doing many experiments and trying to pull it together into some coherent form to be able to see wha see what happens . +PhD C: Hm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , y yeah . Basically we we 've stopped , uh , experimenting , +Professor E: Yes ? +PhD B: I mean . We 're just writing some kind of technical report . And {disfmarker} +PhD F: Is this a report that 's for Aurora ? Or is it just like a tech report for ICSI , +PhD C: No . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: For ICSI . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? Ah . I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Just summary of the experiment and the conclusion and something like that . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . So , my suggestion , though , is that you {disfmarker} you not necessarily finish that . But that you put it all together so that it 's {disfmarker} you 've got {disfmarker} you 've got a clearer structure to it . You know what things are , you have things documented , you 've looked things up that you needed to look up . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So that , you know {disfmarker} so that such a thing can be written . And , um {disfmarker} When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you leave again ? +PhD C: Uh , in July . First of July . +Professor E: First of July ? OK . And that you figure on actually finishing it in {disfmarker} in June . Because , you know , you 're gonna have another bunch of results to fit in there anyway . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And right now it 's kind of important that we actually go forward with experiments . +PhD C: It 's not . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so , I {disfmarker} I think it 's good to pause , and to gather everything together and make sure it 's in good shape , so that other people can get access to it and so that it can go into a report in June . But I think {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to really work on {disfmarker} on fine - tuning the report n at this point is {disfmarker} is probably bad timing , I {disfmarker} I {pause} think . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well , we didn't {disfmarker} we just planned to work on it one week on this report , not {disfmarker} no more , anyway . Um . +Professor E: But you ma you may really wanna add other things later anyway +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because you {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: There 's more to go ? +PhD B: Yeah . Well , so I don't know . There are small things that we started to {disfmarker} to do . But {disfmarker} +PhD F: Are you discovering anything , uh , that makes you scratch your head as you write this report , like why did we do that , or why didn't we do this , +PhD B: Uh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . And {disfmarker} Actually , there were some tables that were also with partial results . We just noticed that , wh while gathering the result that for some conditions we didn't have everything . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: But anyway . Um . Yeah , yeah . We have , yeah , extracted actually the noises from {pause} the SpeechDat - Car . And so , we can train neural network with speech and these noises . Um . It 's difficult to say what it will give , because when we look at the Aurora {disfmarker} the TI - digits experiments , um , they have these three conditions that have different noises , and apparently this system perform as well on the seen noises {disfmarker} on the unseen noises and on the seen noises . But , I think this is something we have to try anyway . So {disfmarker} adding the noises from {disfmarker} from the SpeechDat - Car . Um . +Professor E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's , uh {disfmarker} that 's permitted ? +PhD B: Uh . Well , OGI does {disfmarker} did that . Um . At some point they did that for {disfmarker} for the voice activity detector . +PhD C: Uh , for a v VAD . +PhD B: Right ? Um . +PhD F: Could you say it again ? What {disfmarker} what exactly did they do ? +PhD B: They used some parts of the , um , Italian database to train the voice activity detector , I think . It {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . I guess the thing is {disfmarker} Yeah . I guess that 's a matter of interpretation . The rules as I understand it , is that in principle the Italian and the Spanish and the English {disfmarker} no , Italian and the Finnish and the English ? {disfmarker} were development data +PhD B: Yeah . And Spanish , yeah . +Professor E: on which you could adjust things . And the {disfmarker} and the German and Danish were the evaluation data . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And then when they finally actually evaluated things they used everything . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's right . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: So {disfmarker} Uh , and it is true that the performance , uh , on the German was {disfmarker} I mean , even though the improvement wasn't so good , the pre the raw performance was really pretty good . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} And , uh , it {disfmarker} it doesn't appear that there 's strong evidence that even though things were somewhat tuned on those three or four languages , that {disfmarker} that going to a different language really hurt you . And the noises were not exactly the same . Right ? Because it was taken from a different , uh {disfmarker} I mean they were different drives . +PhD B: Different cars . Yeah . +Professor E: I mean , it was {disfmarker} it was actual different cars and so on . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: So . Um , it 's somewhat tuned . It 's tuned more than , you know , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You 'd really like to have something that needed no particular noise at all , maybe just some white noise or something like that a at most . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But that 's not really what this contest is . So . Um , I guess it 's OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That 's something I 'd like to understand before we actually use something from it , +PhD F: I think it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: because it would {disfmarker} +PhD F: it 's probably something that , mmm , the {disfmarker} you know , the , uh , experiment designers didn't really think about , because I think most people aren't doing trained systems , or , you know , uh , systems that are like ours , where you actually use the data to build models . I mean , they just {pause} doing signal - processing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 's true , +PhD F: So . +Professor E: except that , uh , that 's what we used in Aurora one , and then they designed the things for Aurora - two knowing that we were doing that . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: Um . +PhD F: And they didn't forbid us {disfmarker} right ? {disfmarker} to build models on the data ? +Professor E: No . But , I think {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it probably would be the case that if , say , we trained on Italian , uh , data and then , uh , we tested on Danish data and it did terribly , uh , that {disfmarker} that it would look bad . And I think someone would notice and would say "" Well , look . This is not generalizing . "" I would hope tha I would hope they would . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . But , uh , it 's true . You know , maybe there 's parameters that other people have used {disfmarker} you know , th that they have tuned in some way for other things . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {disfmarker} We should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} Maybe {disfmarker} that 's maybe a topic {disfmarker} Especially if you talk with him when I 'm not here , that 's a topic you should discuss with Hynek +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to , you know , double check it 's OK . +PhD F: Do we know anything about {pause} the speakers for each of the , uh , training utterances ? +PhD B: What do you mean ? We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Do you have speaker information ? +Professor E: Social security number +PhD F: That would be good . +PhD B: Like , we have {pause} male , female , +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD F: Bank PIN . +PhD B: at least . +PhD F: Just male f female ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: What kind of information do you mean ? +PhD F: Well , I was thinking about things like , you know , gender , uh {disfmarker} you know , gender - specific nets and , uh , vocal tract length normalization . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Things like that . I d I don't {disfmarker} I didn't know what information we have about the speakers that we could try to take advantage of . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Uh . Right . I mean , again , i if you had the whole system you were optimizing , that would be easy to see . But if you 're {vocalsound} supposedly just using a fixed back - end and you 're just coming up with a feature vector , w w I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I mean , having the two nets {disfmarker} Suppose you detected that it was male , it was female {disfmarker} you come up with different {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , you could put them both in as separate streams or something . Uh . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Maybe . +PhD F: I don't know . I was just wondering if there was other information we could exploit . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . Yeah , it 's an interesting thought . Maybe having something along the {disfmarker} I mean , you can't really do vocal tract normalization . But something that had some of that effect +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: being applied to the data in some way . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . +PhD B: Do you have something simple in mind for {disfmarker} I mean , vocal tract length normalization ? +PhD F: Uh no . I hadn't {disfmarker} I hadn't thought {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} thought too much about it , really . It just {disfmarker} something that popped into my head just now . And so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , you could maybe use the ideas {disfmarker} a similar {pause} idea to what they do in vocal tract length normalization . You know , you have some sort of a , uh , general speech model , you know , maybe just a mixture of Gaussians that you evaluate every utterance against , and then you see where each , you know , utterance {disfmarker} like , the likelihood of each utterance . You divide the {disfmarker} the range of the likelihoods up into discrete bins and then each bin 's got some knob {disfmarker} uh , setting . +Professor E: Yeah . But just listen to yourself . I mean , that uh really doesn't sound like a real - time thing with less than two hundred milliseconds , uh , latency that {disfmarker} and where you 're not adjusting the statistical engine at all . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor E: You know , that just {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor E: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Could be expensive . +Professor E: No . Well not just expensive . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see how you could possibly do it . You can't look at the whole utterance and do anything . You know , you can only {disfmarker} Right ? +PhD F: Oh , +Professor E: Each frame comes in and it 's gotta go out the other end . +PhD F: right . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . So whatever it was , it would have to be uh sort of on a per frame basis . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . I mean , you can do , um {disfmarker} Fairly quickly you can do male female {disfmarker} f male female stuff . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: But as far as , I mean {disfmarker} Like I thought BBN did a thing with , uh , uh , vocal tract normalization a ways back . Maybe other people did too . With {disfmarker} with , uh , uh , l trying to identify third formant {disfmarker} average third formant {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using that as an indicator of {disfmarker} +PhD F: I don't know . +Professor E: So . You know , third formant {disfmarker} I if you imagine that to first order what happens with , uh , changing vocal tract is that , uh , the formants get moved out by some proportion {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if you had a first formant that was one hundred hertz before , if the fifty {disfmarker} if the vocal tract is fifty percent shorter , then it would be out at seven fifty hertz , and so on . So , that 's a move of two hundred fifty hertz . Whereas the third formant which might have started off at twenty - five hundred hertz , you know , might be out to thirty - seven fifty , you know so it 's at {disfmarker} So , although , you frequently get less distinct higher formants , it 's still {disfmarker} third formant 's kind of a reasonable compromise , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , I think , eh , if I recall correctly , they did something like that . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} Um , that doesn't work for just having one frame or something . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: You know ? That 's more like looking at third formant over {disfmarker} over a turn or something like that , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . +Professor E: Um . So . But on the other hand , male female is a {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} is a much simpler categorization than figuring out a {disfmarker} a factor to , uh , squish or expand the {disfmarker} the spectrum . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , um . Y you could imagine that {disfmarker} I mean , just like we 're saying voiced - unvoiced is good to know {disfmarker} uh , male female is good to know also . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But , you 'd have to figure out a way to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to , uh , incorporate it on the fly . Uh , I mean , I guess , as you say , one thing you could do is simply , uh , have the {disfmarker} the male and female output vectors {disfmarker} you know , tr nets trained only on males and n trained only on females or {disfmarker} or , uh , you know . But {disfmarker} Um . I don't know if that would really help , because you already have males and females and it 's mm - hmm putting into one net . So is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Is it balanced , um , in terms of gender {disfmarker} the data ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Do you know ? +PhD B: Almost , yeah . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Hmm . OK . Y you 're {disfmarker} you were saying before {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Uh . Yeah . So , this noise , um {disfmarker} Yeah . The MSG {disfmarker} Um . Mmm . There is something {disfmarker} perhaps , I could spend some days to look at this thing , cuz it seems that when we train networks on {disfmarker} let 's say , on TIMIT with MSG features , they {disfmarker} they look as good as networks trained on PLP . But , um , when they are used on {disfmarker} on the SpeechDat - Car data , it 's not the case {disfmarker} oh , well . The MSG features are much worse , and so maybe they 're , um , less {disfmarker} more sensitive to different recording conditions , or {disfmarker} Shou +Professor E: Shouldn't be . They should be less so . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: R right ? +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor E: Wh - ? But let me ask you this . What {disfmarker} what 's the , um {disfmarker} ? Do you kno recall if the insertions were {disfmarker} were higher with MSG ? +PhD B: I don't know . I cannot tell . But {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the error rate is higher . So , I don +Professor E: Yeah . But you should always look at insertions , deletions , and substitutions . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so , uh {disfmarker} MSG is very , very dif Eh , PLP is very much like mel cepstrum . MSG is very different from both of them . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So , if it 's very different , then this is the sort of thing {disfmarker} I mean I 'm really glad Andreas brought this point up . I {pause} sort of had forgotten to discuss it . Um . You always have to look at how this {disfmarker} uh , these adjustments , uh , affect things . And even though we 're not allowed to do that , again we maybe could reflect that back to our use of the features . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So if it {disfmarker} if in fact , uh {disfmarker} The problem might be that the range of the MSG features is quite different than the range of the PLP or mel cepstrum . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And you might wanna change that . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , it 's d it 's after {disfmarker} Well , it 's tandem features , so {disfmarker} Mmm . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we have estimation of post posteriors with PLP and with MSG as input , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: so I don Well . I don't know . +Professor E: That means they 're between zero and one . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: But i it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} You know , they could be , um {disfmarker} Do - doesn't tell you what the variance of the things is . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right ? Cuz if you 're taking the log of these things , it could be , uh {disfmarker} Knowing what the sum of the probabilities are , doesn't tell you what the sum of the logs are . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should look at the likelihood , or {disfmarker} or what ? Or {disfmarker} well , at the log , perhaps , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Or what {disfmarker} you know , what you 're uh {disfmarker} the thing you 're actually looking at . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: So your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} the values that are {disfmarker} are actually being fed into HTK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} +Professor E: What do they look like ? +PhD F: No And so th the , uh {disfmarker} for the tandem system , the values that come out of the net don't go through the sigmoid . Right ? They 're sort of the pre - nonlinearity values ? +PhD B: Yes . +Professor E: Right . So they 're {pause} kinda like log probabilities is what I was saying . +PhD F: And those {disfmarker} OK . And tho that 's what goes {pause} into {pause} HTK ? +Professor E: Uh , almost . But then you actually do a KLT on them . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Um . They aren't normalized after that , are they ? +PhD B: Mmm . No , they are not {disfmarker} no . +Professor E: No . OK . So , um . Right . So the question is {disfmarker} Yeah . Whatever they are at that point , um , are they something for which taking a square root or cube root or fourth root or something like that is {disfmarker} is gonna be a good or a bad thing ? So . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , and that 's something that nothing {disfmarker} nothing else after that is gonna {disfmarker} Uh , things are gonna scale it {disfmarker} Uh , you know , subtract things from it , scale it from it , but nothing will have that same effect . Um . So . Um . Anyway , eh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Cuz if {disfmarker} if the log probs that are coming out of the MSG are really big , the standard {pause} insertion penalty is gonna have very little effect +Professor E: Well , the {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: compared to , you know , a smaller set of log probs . +Professor E: Yeah . No . Again you don't really {pause} look at that . It 's something {disfmarker} that , and then it 's going through this transformation that 's probably pretty close to {disfmarker} It 's , eh , whatever the KLT is doing . But it 's probably pretty close to what a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a discrete cosine transformation is doing . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor E: But still it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna probably radically change the scale of things . I would think . And , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . It may be entirely off and {disfmarker} and it may be {disfmarker} at the very least it may be quite different for MSG than it is for mel cepstrum or PLP . So that would be {disfmarker} So the first thing I 'd look at without adjusting anything would just be to go back to the experiment and look at the , uh , substitutions , insertions , and deletions . And if the {disfmarker} if the , uh {disfmarker} i if there 's a fairly large effect of the difference , say , uh , uh , the r ratio between insertions and deletions for the two cases then that would be , uh , an indicator that it might {disfmarker} might be in that direction . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , +Professor E: Anything else ? +PhD B: my {disfmarker} my point was more that it {disfmarker} it works sometimes and {disfmarker} but sometimes it doesn't work . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor E: Well . +PhD B: And it works on TI - digits and on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't work , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Well . +Professor E: But , you know , some problems are harder than others , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} And , uh , sometimes , you know , there 's enough evidence for something to work and then it 's harder , it breaks . You know , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} but , um , i it {disfmarker} it could be that when you say it works maybe we could be doing much better , even in TI - digits . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , sure . +Professor E: So . +PhD B: Uh . +Professor E: Hmm ? Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Well , there is also the spectral subtraction , which , um {disfmarker} I think maybe we should , uh , try to integrate it in {disfmarker} in our system . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Right . +PhD B: But , +Professor E: O +PhD B: I think that would involve to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to mmm {vocalsound} use a big {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} al already a big bunch of the system of Ericsson . Because he has spectral subtraction , then it 's followed by , {vocalsound} um , other kind of processing that 's {disfmarker} are dependent on the {disfmarker} uh , if it 's speech or noi or silence . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there is this kind of spectral flattening after {disfmarker} if it 's silence , and {disfmarker} and s I {disfmarker} I think it 's important , um , {vocalsound} to reduce this musical noise and this {disfmarker} this increase of variance during silence portions . So . Well . This was in this would involve to take almost everything from {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} this proposal and {disfmarker} and then just add some kind of on - line normalization in {disfmarker} in the neural network . Mmm . +Professor E: OK . Well , this 'll be , I think , something for discussion with Hynek next week . +PhD B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Yeah . OK . Right . So . How are , uh , uh {disfmarker} how are things going with what you 're doing ? +Grad D: Oh . Well , um , I took a lot of time just getting my taxes out of the way {disfmarker} multi - national taxes . So , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm starting to write code now for my work but I don't have any results yet . Um , i it would be good for me to talk to Hynek , I think , when he 's here . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Do you know what his schedule will be like ? +Professor E: Uh , he 'll be around for three days . +Grad D: OK . So , y +Professor E: Uh , we 'll have a lot of time . +Grad D: OK . +Professor E: So , uh {disfmarker} Um . I 'll , uh {disfmarker} You know , he 's {disfmarker} he 'll {disfmarker} he 'll be talking with everybody in this room So . +PhD F: But you said you won't {disfmarker} you won't be here next Thursday ? +Professor E: Not Thursday and Friday . Yeah . Cuz I will be at faculty retreat . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: So . I 'll try to {vocalsound} connect with him and people as {disfmarker} as I can on {disfmarker} on Wednesday . But {disfmarker} Um . Oh , how 'd taxes go ? Taxes go OK ? +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , good . Yeah . Yeah . That 's just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the big advantages of not making much money is {vocalsound} the taxes are easier . Yeah . +PhD F: Unless you 're getting money in two countries . +Professor E: I think you are . Aren't you ? +PhD F: They both want their cut . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD F: Right ? +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Huh . Canada w Canada wants a cut ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Have to do {disfmarker} So you {disfmarker} you have to do two returns ? +Grad D: Mmm . W uh , for two thousand I did . Yeah . +Professor E: Oh , oh . Yeah . For tw That 's right , ju +PhD F: But not for this next year ? +Professor E: Two thousand . Yeah . Probably not this next year , I guess . +Grad D: Ye +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll still have a bit of Canadian income but it 'll be less complicated because I will not be a {disfmarker} considered a resident of Canada anymore , so I won't have to declare my American income on my Canadian return . +Professor E: OK . Alright . Uh . Barry , do you wanna {pause} say something about your stuff here ? +Grad A: Oh , um . Right . I {pause} just , um , continuing looking at , uh , ph uh , phonetic events , and , uh , this Tuesday gonna be , uh , meeting with John Ohala with Chuck to talk some more about these , uh , ph um , phonetic events . Um , came up with , uh , a plan of attack , uh , gonna execute , and um {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} that 's pretty much it . +Professor E: Oh , well . No Um , why don't you say something about what it is ? +Grad A: Oh , you {disfmarker} oh , you want {disfmarker} you want details . Hmm . OK . +Professor E: Well , we 're all gathered here together . I thought we 'd , you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was hoping I could wave my hands . Um . So , um . So , once wa I {disfmarker} I was thinking getting {disfmarker} getting us a set of acoustic events to {disfmarker} um , to be able to distinguish between , uh , phones and words and stuff . And {vocalsound} um , once we {disfmarker} we would figure out a set of these events that can be , you know , um , hand - labeled or {disfmarker} or derived , uh , from h the hand - labeled phone targets . Um , we could take these events and , um , {vocalsound} do some cheating experiments , um , where we feed , um , these events into {pause} an SRI system , um , eh , and evaluate its performance on a Switchboard task . Uh , yeah . +Grad D: Hey , Barry ? Can you give an example of an event ? +Grad A: Yeah . Sure . Um , I {disfmarker} I can give you an example of {pause} twenty - odd events . Um {disfmarker} So , he In this paper , um , it 's talking about phoneme recognition using acoustic events . So , things like frication or , uh , nasality . +Professor E: Whose paper is it ? +Grad A: Um , this is a paper by Hubener and Cardson {pause} Benson {disfmarker} Bernds - Berndsen . +Professor E: Yeah . Huh . From , uh , University of Hamburg and Bielefeld . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: OK . +Grad A: Um . +PhD F: Yeah . I think the {disfmarker} just to expand a little bit on the idea of acoustic event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: There 's , um {disfmarker} in my mind , anyways , there 's a difference between , um , acoustic features and acoustic events . And I think of acoustic features as being , um , things that linguists talk about , like , um {disfmarker} +Professor E: So , stuff that 's not based on data . +PhD F: Stuff that 's not based on data , necessarily . +Professor E: Yeah . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +PhD F: Right . That 's not based on , you know , acoustic data . So they talk about features for phones , like , uh , its height , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: its tenseness , laxness , things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: which may or may not be all that easy to measure in the acoustic signal . Versus an acoustic event , which is just {nonvocalsound} some {nonvocalsound} something in the acoustic signal {nonvocalsound} that is fairly easy to measure . Um . So it 's , um {disfmarker} it 's a little different , in {disfmarker} at least in my mind . +Professor E: I mean , when we did the SPAM work {disfmarker} I mean , there we had {disfmarker} we had this notion of an , uh , auditory {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} auditory event . +Grad A: Good . That 's great . +Professor E: And , uh , um , called them "" avents "" , uh , uh , uh , with an A at the front . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the idea was something that occurred that is important to a bunch of neurons somewhere . So . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Um . A sudden change or a relatively rapid change in some spectral characteristic will {disfmarker} will do sort of this . I mean , there 's certainly a bunch of {disfmarker} a bunch of places where you know that neurons are gonna fire because something novel has happened . That was {disfmarker} that was the main thing that we were focusing on there . But there 's certainly other things beyond what we talked about there that aren't just sort of rapid changes , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's kinda like the difference between top - down and bottom - up . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: I think of the acoustic {disfmarker} you know , phonetic features as being top - down . You know , you look at the phone and you say this phone is supposed to be {disfmarker} you know , have this feature , this feature , and this feature . Whether tha those features show up in the acoustic signal is sort of irrelevant . Whereas , an acoustic event goes the other way . Here 's the signal . Here 's some event . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} ? And then that {disfmarker} you know , that may map to this phone sometimes , and sometimes it may not . It just depen maybe depends on the context , things like that . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so it 's sort of a different way of looking . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} Using these {disfmarker} these events , um , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can perform these {disfmarker} these , uh , cheating experiments . See how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how good they are , um , in , um {disfmarker} in terms of phoneme recognition or word recognition . And , um {disfmarker} and then from that point on , I would , uh , s design robust event detectors , um , in a similar , um , wa spirit that Saul has done w uh , with his graphical models , and this {disfmarker} this probabilistic AND - OR model that he uses . Um , eh , try to extend it to , um {disfmarker} to account for other {disfmarker} other phenomena like , um , CMR co - modulation release . And , um {disfmarker} and maybe also investigate ways to {disfmarker} to modify the structure of these models , um , in a data - driven way , uh , similar to the way that , uh , Jeff {disfmarker} Jeff , uh , Bilmes did his work . Um , and while I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm doing these , um , event detectors , you know , I can ma mea measure my progress by comparing , um , the error rates in clean and noisy conditions to something like , uh , neural nets . Um , and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , once we have these {disfmarker} these , uh , event detectors , um , we could put them together and {disfmarker} and feed the outputs of the event detectors into {disfmarker} into the SRI , um , HMM {disfmarker} HMM system , and , um {disfmarker} and test it on {disfmarker} on Switchboard or , um , maybe even Aurora stuff . And , that 's pretty much the {disfmarker} the big picture of {disfmarker} of um , the plan . +Professor E: By the way , um , there 's , uh , a couple people who are gonna be here {disfmarker} I forget if I already told you this , but , a couple people who are gonna be here for six months . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh {disfmarker} uh , there 's a Professor Kollmeier , uh , from Germany who 's , uh , uh , quite big in the , uh , hearing - aid signal - processing area and , um , Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's worked with him , who also looks at {vocalsound} auditory properties inspired by various , uh , brain function things . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor E: So , um , um , I think they 'll be interesting to talk to , in this sort of issue as these detectors are {disfmarker} are , uh , developing . +Grad A: Hmm . OK . +Professor E: So , he looks at interesting {disfmarker} interesting things in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different ways of looking at spectra in order to {disfmarker} to get various speech properties out . So . +Grad A: OK . +Professor E: OK . Well , short meeting , but that 's OK . And , uh , we might as well do our digits . And like I say , I {disfmarker} I encourage you to go ahead and meet , uh , next week with , uh , uh , Hynek . Alright , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll start . It 's , uh , one thirty - five . seventeen OK +","This conversation takes place in an academic setting, possibly a research lab, involving Professor E, graduate students (Grad A, Grad D), and Ph.D. candidates (PhD B, PhD F, and PhD C). They all seem to be part of a team working on speech recognition or related computational linguistics projects. + +Professor E leads the meeting, confirming that Hynek, a visitor, will be arriving next Wednesday and staying until Saturday. Professor E mentions he won't be present on Thursday and Friday due to other commitments. Nevertheless, he suggests that the meeting should proceed because Hynek will be present and it's an opportunity to gain a perspective that the team currently lacks, possibly referring to insights from Hynek's expertise or experience, which may be different due to his Czech accent. + +PhD F updates on his current work involving the ""Meeting Recorder,"" and there's a discussion about potential upcoming tasks for next week. Professor E advises him to consider trying out scaling and insertion penalty adjustments if he hasn't already, to which PhD F responds that he has experimented with that, noting that noisy conditions tend to produce a high number of insertions. + +The conversation shifts to technical details about their research, with Professor E and PhD F discussing mel cepstrum and its efficacy in various noisy scenarios. Professor E emphasizes the importance of adjusting the training and scaling for the HTK (an HMM toolkit) appropriately, and they ponder over the existing data and what conclusions they can draw regarding the number of Gaussians and states per phone in their models. + +There is another discussion concerning the back-end optimization for noise. Professor E wants to determine how adjusting the back-end could potentially improve performance in noisy environments, as it is set for mel cepstrum, but not necessarily suited for other features they are working with, such as LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis), KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform), and neural networks. + +PhD F proposes an experiment where they would run their front-end with default insertion penalties and tweaking them to gauge the impact. Professor E suggests using the Aurora system developed by Stephane, which is their current best version for such experiments. + +As they delve deeper, Professor E and PhD F talk about optimizing the range of numbers in their features to minimize insertions, which are symptomatic of a problem with the range. They consider looking into the Aurora front-end for this purpose. + +Professor E then checks in with the rest of the team. PhD B and PhD C are primarily working on compiling a report of past results into a coherent format, and they discuss the need to refocus on moving forward with experiments after organizing their findings. + +Grad A talks about his work with phonetic events and plans to meet with John Ohala and Chuck for further discussion. Grad D contributes a question about the nature of these events and then shares that he has been delayed by tax issues but is starting to write code for his project. + +The meeting transitions to end on a lighter note discussing the tax complexities for multi-national income, particularly for Grad D, with Professor E commenting humorously on the perks of having a lower income. + +In summary, the conversation is characteristic of a research team meeting in an academic setting, with discussions revolving around ongoing projects, future plans, technical challenges, administrative issues, and a little bit of humor about personal life interjections. The team is focused on speech recognition in various contexts, with particular attention to handling noisy conditions, optimizing acoustic models, and the practical aspects of implementing their research in real-world systems. There's a tone of collaboration and interest in each other's work, reflecting a healthy research group atmosphere." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first . +User Interface: Mm . We're the first ones . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Marketing Expert , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you found your spots . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bling bling . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone ? +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hello , good day . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , we have to talk in English , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . My screen is gone . +Project Manager: It's called black . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Kick-off meeting , wow . It's uh looks uh nice . +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow . {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not a lot . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough . +Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Very nice . +Project Manager: Okay let's get started . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance , tool training , uh how to use the things here . Uh project plan discussion , and yeah then the rest of the meeting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control , that's both original , trendy and user-friendly . So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hope you have good ideas . I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best . +Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom . Uh functional design , +Industrial Designer: Not yet . +Project Manager: then we do some in individual work , then we have a meeting to discuss the results , etcetera etcetera . And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up . Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard . Um uh we should take some practice . I have some instructions now to do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work . So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar . You see it next . Um we have a pen . And we can use this pen to perform . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Operations . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't always work . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you can draw . +Marketing: Draw . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width , etcetera etcetera . Okay ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal . Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , Julian . +User Interface: Um yeah . +Industrial Designer: Different pen widths , how do you do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh with the format menu . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . Yeah . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you serious ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: four legs . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Giraffe's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format . +Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing ? Or +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so y you must save it at the end +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you can press the next button , which is uh {disfmarker} yeah . I'll show you . +User Interface: That's some spots . +Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . In file menu . +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: No . +Marketing: then m make a new one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I can take forever on this . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal . +Project Manager: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe . +Project Manager: A giraffe okay . Yeah I see a long neck +User Interface: Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye . +Project Manager: Okay . That's nice of you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Hey . Come on . +Marketing: Some leaf to eat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah pretty good . Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: The next ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Then uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: Here you go . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Thanks . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other ? +Project Manager: Yeah sorry , introduction and get acquainted +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: That's the idea , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Your line broke . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow , +Marketing: It's not that fast . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see . It misses the spot . +Project Manager: {gap} pressure . +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle . No . {vocalsound} I'm kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why a turtle ? +Industrial Designer: Because of its shell . +Marketing: Because it's slow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow . +User Interface: 'Cause it's so +Project Manager: You were slow too +User Interface: 'cause it's green . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too . +Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Does it have legs ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's more like a tank . Yeah that's fins +Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs . With sharp nails on . +Marketing: but I don't know where . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Some spots . Ah some eye . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is . {vocalsound} Does it have ears ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe . +Marketing: Can you erase ears +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's a a gum , +Marketing: Yeah ? Alright . +Project Manager: gum to {gap} . +Marketing: Eraser . +Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: He said it was slow . +Marketing: I dunno . I it just came into my mind . So there's no particular reason +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I {gap} pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: That's my turtle . +Project Manager: Your turn Niels . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The next +Marketing: here . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Makes new paper . +Marketing: Here you go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? Let's see . +Project Manager: Orange . +Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this ? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh . +User Interface: A rabbit I think . +Project Manager: Kangaroo . +User Interface: Kangaroo . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually . +User Interface: Fox . +Marketing: A fox yeah . +Project Manager: Dog . +Marketing: Firefox . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Cat . +Industrial Designer: Aye . {vocalsound} It's a cat . +Project Manager: It's a cat . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through . +Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Why a cat ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno . They're my favourite pets . +Project Manager: You have some uh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already . Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen , +Industrial Designer: st Oh shit . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse my language . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face . But you get the idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: It's a cat . It's my favourite uh pet animal , 'cause they're cute , they're independent and cuddly , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay . You get idea +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project . {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros . Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros . Uh that's quite a big amount of money . And the production cost should be the half of the selling price . Okay +Industrial Designer: So we have to s +Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We should get started . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes . Um +Marketing: Okay . Great . +Project Manager: we each have a specific task , as I saw in my mail . I didn't know if you received the same mail . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design . Am I correct ? +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions . Right ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself , um what I had to do , 'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I had to uh , {vocalsound} I dunno , make an overview for myself about what I have to do , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase , I think was the functional . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design , which you said . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work ? And well I basically had two points . Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example , I have batteries to supply energy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far . +Project Manager: Yeah I got another point . It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo . +User Interface: Yeah . Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's very common . +User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function . You d you already told that . And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume . That are the the basic options for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I kept it global 'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that . I mean , you wanna ch ch flip the channel +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English . Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Same I believe {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do ? +Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective , um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled ? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean , what functions do they have . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings ? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search . For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support , and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions ? +Project Manager: Yep . Yes . +Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported . Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users . What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control ? Um especially for future users , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters , because they they use new technology first , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add . +Project Manager: Okay . And you can get that information ? +Marketing: I think I can get that information , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . That would be very handy . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are ? +Marketing: No n not specifically . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: More to how to get them +Project Manager: No okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Obviously . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons , not not uh very small buttons , but not the the also the big big buttons , but just normal buttons . It has to be a small unit . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah , you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house . So it has n has not to be l yeah , gigantic uh machine . +Project Manager: Big , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that ? +User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be , uh yeah um yeah , quite a big distance . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . From the other end of the room or something ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment . Um I think the best is to go to work . +Industrial Designer: Whoa . Is that you +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Any more points to discuss ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we can go ahead with what we have . I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder . Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design , etcetera etcetera . And it seems you get more information by email . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: that was it for me . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , in the project folder . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The pro okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm writing very fast . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Hope it's readable . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion ? +Marketing: I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session ? +User Interface: Yeah . Do we only have to to do uh phase one , the functional design uh ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because then we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Y you do some individual work , +Marketing: We're just working the three phases . +Project Manager: we have meeting , individual work , meeting . And at the end of the day we have a final meeting . And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so make it good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . We'll do our best . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I depend on you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already 'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in . +Project Manager: Yeah ? If you can mix it it's okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean , is it gonna be a multimedia control centre ? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} That is my question also +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part . +Marketing: Requirements . Yeah . +Project Manager: As to what they want . Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff , +Marketing: Unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I have to f put the components into the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I would first m +Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in , it's kind of hard . +Marketing: Yeah well +Project Manager: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} +Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there , which I know , there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you can switch to your video +Project Manager: Hmm , +Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video . +Project Manager: the C_D_ player . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre , because that's getting very popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control . So with the switch , one single switch {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean , but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_ . +Marketing: records and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever , I'll just put my ideas in uh in here +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting . +Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video . And um reserve the possibility to add other features . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're di dismissed . +User Interface: Can we leave now +Marketing: Half an hour . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Alright let's move on . +Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah see you later . +User Interface: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Thank you . +Marketing: Well good luck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} +","Summary: +The team consisting of a User Interface Designer, a Marketing Expert, an Industrial Designer, and a Project Manager convened to discuss the development of a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. Initially, they engaged in an exercise drawing animals on a smart board, possibly as a team-building activity to get acquainted with one another. + +As they moved to more substantive discussions, it became clear that they were in the early stages of the project, with each member assigned specific tasks. The Industrial Designer was in charge of creating a working design, the UI Designer was responsible for specifying technical functions, and the Marketing Expert needed to identify user requirements by conducting research and gathering insights on existing products, shortcomings, and potentially new features. + +They discussed the product's functionality, such as it being wireless with a significant zapping range, having user-friendly buttons, and being compact in size. They also touched on financial aspects, with a target to sell enough remote controls to reach a revenue of fifty million Euros, with production costs half of the selling price. + +Acknowledging that they had barely begun, they outlined the process, which would include individual work followed by meetings to discuss each phase. The remote should primarily cater to TV and video functionalities, keeping potential expandability in mind. The conversation concluded with an understanding that they would proceed with their individual tasks and regroup for further discussions, still clearly in the brainstorming and early planning stages of product development." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Now can you give me the uh {pause} remote T ? +Professor D: OK , so Eva , co uh {disfmarker} could you read your numbers ? +Grad A: Go ahead and read . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Alright . +Professor D: Yeah , let 's get started . Um {disfmarker} Hopefully Nancy will come , if not , she won't . +Grad B: Uh , Robert , do you uh have any way to turn off your uh screensaver on there so that it 's not going off every {disfmarker} uh , it seems to have about at two minute {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it 's not that I didn't try . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and um I {disfmarker} I told it to stay on forever and ever , but if it 's not plugged in it just doesn't obey my commands . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: It has a mind . +Grad B: Got it . +Grad C: But I I just {disfmarker} You know , sort of keep on wiggling . +Undergrad E: Wants to conserve . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} we 'll just be m m working on it at intensity so it doesn't happen . We 'll see . Should we plunge right into it ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So , would you like to {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think so . +Grad C: So what I 've tried to do here is list all the decision nodes that we have identified on this {pause} side . Commented and {disfmarker} what they 're about and sort of {disfmarker} the properties we may um give them . And here are the uh {disfmarker} tasks to be implemented via our data collection . So all of these tasks {disfmarker} The reading is out of these tasks more or less imply that the user wants to go there , sometime or the other . And analogously for example , here we have our EVA um {disfmarker} intention . And these are the data tasks where w we can assume the person would like to enter , view or just approach the thing . Analogously the same on the object information we can see that , you know , we have sort of created these tasks before we came up with our decision nodes so there 's a lot of things where we have no analogous tasks , and {pause} that may or may not be a problem . We can change the tasks slightly if we feel that we should have data for e sort of for every decision node so {disfmarker} trying to im um {disfmarker} implant the intention of going to a place now , going to a place later on the same tour , or trying to plant the intention of going sometime on the next tour , or the next day or whenever . +Professor D: Right , right . +Grad C: But I think that might be overdoing it a little . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So let me pop up a level . And uh s s make sure that we 're all oriented the same . So What we 're gonna do today is two related things . Uh one of them is to work on the semantics of the belief - net which is going to be the main inference engine for thi the system uh making decisions . And decisions are going to turn out to be parameter choices for calls on other modules . so f the natural language understanding thing is uh , we think gonna only have to choose parameters , but You know , a fairly large set of parameters . So to do that , we need to do two things . One of which is figure out what all the choices are , which we 've done a fair amount . Then we need to figure out what influences its choices and finally we have to do some technical work on the actual belief relations and presumably estimates of the probabilities and stuff . But we aren't gonna do the probability stuff today . Technical stuff we 'll do {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} another day . Probably next week . But we are gonna worry about all the decisions and the things that pert that contribute to them . And we 're also , sort of uh in the same process , going to work with Fey on what there should be in the dialogues . So One of the s steps that 's coming up real soon is to actually get subjects uh {disfmarker} in here , and have them actually record like this . Uh record dialogues more or less . And {disfmarker} depending on what Fey sort of provokes them to say , we 'll get information on different things . +Grad C: Well how people phrase different intentions more or less , +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Fo - v yeah people with the {disfmarker} phrase them +Grad C: huh ? +Professor D: and so {disfmarker} Uh for , you know , Keith and people worrying about what constructions people use , uh {disfmarker} we have some i we have some ways to affect that by the way the dialogues go . So what Robert kindly did , is to lay out a table of the kinds of uh {pause} things that {disfmarker} that might come up , and , the kinds of decisions . So the uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} on the left are decision nodes , and discreet values . So if {disfmarker} if we 're right , you can get by with um just this middle column worth of decisions , and it 's not all that many , and it 's perfectly feasible technically to build belief - nets that will do that . And he has a handout . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe it was too fast plunging in there , because j we have two updates . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Um you can look at this if you want , these are what our subject 's going to have to fill out . Any comments I can {disfmarker} can still be made and the changes will be put in correspondingly . +Undergrad E: m {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . +Grad C: Let me summarize in two sentences , mainly for Eva 's benefit , who probably has not heard about the data collection , at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Or have you heard about it ? +Grad A: Not that much you didn't . +Grad C: No . OK . We were gonna put this in front of people . They give us some information on themselves . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Then {disfmarker} then they will read uh {disfmarker} a task where lots of German words are sort of thrown in between . And um {disfmarker} and they have to read isolated proper names And these change {disfmarker} +Professor D: S I don't see a release +Grad C: No , this is not the release form . This is the speaker information form . +Professor D: Got it . OK , fine . OK . +Grad C: The release form is over there in that box . +Professor D: Alright , fair enough . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And then they gonna have to f um um choose from one of these tasks , which are listed here . They {disfmarker} they pick a couple , say three {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh six as a matter of fact . Six different things they sort of think they would do if they were in Heidelberg or traveling someplace {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} and they have a map . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: Like this . Very sketchy , simplified map . And they can take notes on that map . And then they call this computer system that works perfectly , and understands everything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is a fictional system obviously , +Grad C: The comp Yeah , the computer system sits right in front of you , +Grad B: huh . +Grad C: that 's Fey . +Undergrad E: I 've {disfmarker} I understand everything . +Professor D: And she does know everything . +Undergrad E: Yes I do . +Grad C: And she has a way of making this machine talk . So she can copy sentences into a window , or type really fast and this machine will use speech synthesis to produce that . So if you ask "" How do I get to the castle "" then a m s several seconds later it 'll come out of here "" In order to get to the castle you do {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK ? And um {disfmarker} And then after three tasks the system breaks down . And Fey comes on the phone as a human operator . And says "" Sorry the system broke down but let 's continue . "" And we sort of get the idea what people do when they s think they speak to a machine and what people say when they think they speak to a human , or know , or assume they speak to a human . +Grad A: OK . Huh . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's the data collection . And um {disfmarker} And Fey has some thirty subjects lined up ? Something ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And they 're {disfmarker} r ready uh {disfmarker} to roll . +Undergrad E: And more and more every day . +Grad C: And we 're gonna start tomorrow at three ? four ? one ? +Undergrad E: Tomorrow , well we don't know for sure . Because we don't know whether that person is coming or not , +Grad C: OK . Around four - ish . +Undergrad E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um we 're still l looking for a room on the sixth floor because they stole away that conference room . Um {disfmarker} behind our backs . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , there are these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} oh , I see , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tricky . We 'll {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} we 'll do that off - line , OK . +Grad C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} i i it 's happening . David and {disfmarker} and Jane and {disfmarker} and Lila are working on that as we speak . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . That was the uh {disfmarker} the data collection in a nutshell . And um {disfmarker} I can report a {disfmarker} so I did this but I also tried to do this {disfmarker} so if I click on here , Isn't this wonderful ? we get to the uh {disfmarker} uh belief - net just focusing on {disfmarker} on the g Go - there node . uh {disfmarker} Analogously this would be sort of the reason node and the timing node and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what w what happened is that um design - wise I 'd sort of n noticed that we can {disfmarker} we still get a lot of errors from a lot of points to one of these sub Go - there User Go - there Situation nodes . So I came up with a couple of additional nodes here where um whether the user is thrifty or not , and what his budget is currently like , is going to result in some financial state of the user . How much will he {disfmarker} is he willing to spend ? Or can spend . Being the same at this {disfmarker} just the money available , which may influence us , whether he wants to go there if it is {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} charging tons of dollars for admission or its gonna g cost a lot of t e whatever . Twenty - two million to fly to International Space Station , you know . just {disfmarker} Not all people can do that . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: So , and this actually turned out to be pretty key , because having specified sort of these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} intermediate level Um and sort of noticing that everything that happens here {disfmarker} let 's go to our favorite endpoint one is again more or less {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} then the situation nodes contributing to the {disfmarker} the endpoint situation node , which contributes to the endpoint and so forth . um {disfmarker} I can now sort of draw straight lines from these to here , meaning it g of course goes where the sub - S {disfmarker} everything that comes from situation , everything that comes from user goes with the sub - U , and whatever we specify for the so - called "" Keith node "" , or the discourse , what comes from the {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} parser , construction parser , um will contribute to the D and the ontology to the sub - O node . And um one just s sort of has to watch which {disfmarker} also final decision node so it doesn't make sense {disfmarker} t to figure out whether he wants to enter , view or approach an object if he never wants to go there in the first place . But this makes the design thing fairly simple . And um now all w that 's left to do then is the CPG 's , the conditional probabilities , for the likelihood of a person having enough money , actually wanting to go a place if it costs , you know this or that . And um {disfmarker} OK . and once um Bhaskara has finished his classwork that 's where we 're gonna end up doing . You get involved in that process too . And um {disfmarker} And for now uh the {disfmarker} the question is "" How much of these decisions do we want to build in explicitly into our data collection ? "" So {disfmarker} Um , one could {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} think of {disfmarker} you know we could call the z see or {disfmarker} you know , people who visit the zoo we could s call it "" Visit the zoo tomorrow "" , so we have an intention of seeing something , but not now {disfmarker} but later . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . Yeah , so {disfmarker} let 's s uh s see I th I think that from one point of view , Uh , um , all these places are the same , so that d d That , um {disfmarker} in terms of the linguistics and stuff , there may be a few different kinds of places , so I th i it seems to me that We ought to decide you know , what things are k are actually going to matter to us . And um , so the zoo , and the university and the castle , et cetera . Um are all big - ish things that um {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} have different parts to them , and one of them might be fine . +Grad C: Hmm . Hmm , hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the reason why we did it that way , as a {disfmarker} as a reminder , is uh {disfmarker} no person is gonna do all of them . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: They 're just gonna select u um , according to their preferences . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: "" Ah , yeah , I usually visit zoos , or I usually visit castles , or I usually {disfmarker} "" And then you pick that one . +Professor D: Right , no no , but {disfmarker} but s th point is to {disfmarker} to y to {disfmarker} build a system that 's got everything in it that might happen you do one thing . +Undergrad E: They 're redundant . +Professor D: T to build a system that um {disfmarker} had the most data on a relatively confined set of things , you do something else . And the speech people , for example , are gonna do better if they {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} things come up uh {disfmarker} repeatedly . Now , of course , if everybody says exactly the same thing then it 's not interesting . So , all I 'm saying is i th there 's {disfmarker} there 's a kind of question of what we 're trying t to accomplish . and {disfmarker} I think my temptation for the data gathering would be to uh , you know {disfmarker} And each person is only gonna do it once , so you don't have to worry about them being bored , so if {disfmarker} if it 's one service , one luxury item , you know , one big - ish place , and so forth and so on , um {disfmarker} then my guess is that {disfmarker} that the data is going to be easier to handle . Now of course you have this I guess possible danger that somehow there 're certain constructions that people use uh when talking about a museum that they wouldn't talk about with a university and stuff , um {disfmarker} but I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I uh m my temptation is to go for simpler . You know , less variation . But I don't know what other people think about this in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I don't exactly understand {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: like I I {disfmarker} I guess we 're trying to {disfmarker} limit the detail of our ontology or types of places that someone could go , right ? But who is it that has to care about this , or what component of the system ? +Professor D: Oh , well , uh {disfmarker} th I think there are two places where it comes up . One is uh {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} th these people who are gonna take this and {disfmarker} and try to do speech with it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Lots of pronunciations of th of the same thing are going to give you better data than l you know , a few pronunciations of lots more things . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: That 's one . +Grad B: So we would rather just ask {disfmarker} uh have a bunch of people talk about the zoo , uh and assume that that will {disfmarker} that the constructions that they use there will give us everything we need to know about these sort of zoo , castle , whatever type things , these bigger places . +Professor D: Bigger {disfmarker} Y yeah thi well this is a question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: And that way you get the speech data of people saying "" zoo "" over and over again or whatever too . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . So this is a question for you , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , you know , if we {disfmarker} if we do , and we probably will , actually try to uh build a prototype , uh probably we could get by with the prototype only handling a few of them anyway . So , Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the this was sort of {disfmarker} these are all different sort of activities . Um But I think y I {disfmarker} I got the point and I think I like it . We can do {disfmarker} put them in a more hierarchical fashion . So , "" Go to place "" and then give them a choice , you know either they 're the symphony type or opera type or the tourist site guide type or the nightclub disco type person and they say "" yeah this is {disfmarker} on that "" go to big - ish place "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: this is what I would do . "" And then we have the "" Fix "" thing , and then maybe "" Do something the other day "" thing , so . My question is {disfmarker} I guess , to some extent , we should {disfmarker} y we just have to try it out and see if it works . It would be challenging , in {disfmarker} in a sense , to try to make it so {disfmarker} so complex that they even really should schedule , or to plan it , uh , a more complex thing in terms of OK , you know , they should get the feeling that there are these s six things they have to do and they sh can be done maybe in two days . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: So they make these decisions , +Professor D: Well I think th th +Grad C: "" Can I go there tomorrow ? "" +Professor D: yeah . +Grad C: or {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} influences +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , I think it 's easy enough to set that up if that 's your expectation . So , the uh system could say , "" Well , uh we 'd like to {disfmarker} to set up your program for two days in Heidelberg , you know , let 's first think about all the things you might like to do . So there {disfmarker} th i i in {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I 'm sure that if that 's what you did then they would start telling you about that , and then you could get into um various things about ordering , if you wanted . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah , but I think this is part of the instructor 's job . And that can be done , sort of to say , "" OK now we 've picked these six tasks . "" "" Now you have you can call the system and you have two days . "" +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +Grad C: And th w +Professor D: No , we have to help {disfmarker} we have to decide . Fey will p carry out whatever we decide . But we have to decide you know , what is the appropriate scenario . That 's what we 're gonna talk about t yeah . +Grad C: Yep , yep . +PhD F: But these are two different scenarios entirely . I mean , one is a planner {disfmarker} The other , it kind of give you instructions on the spot +Grad C: Yeah , but th the {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not really interested in sort of "" Phase planning "" capabilities . But it 's more the {disfmarker} how do people phrase these planning requests ? So are we gonna masquerade the system as this {disfmarker} as you said simple response system , "" I have one question I get one response "" , or should we allow for a certain level of complexity . And a I w think the data would be nicer if we get temporal references . +Professor D: Well , so Keith , what do you think ? +Grad B: Well , um it seems that {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , off the top of my head it kinda seems like you would probably just want , you know , richer data , more complex stuff going on , people trying to do more complex sets of things . I mean {pause} you know , if our goal is to really sort of be able to handle a whole bunch of different stuff , then throwing harder situations at people will get them to do more linguistic {disfmarker} more interesting linguistic stuff . But I mean {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure Uh , because I don't fully understand like what our choices are of ways to do this here yet . +Grad C: I mean w we have tested this and a y have you heard {disfmarker} listen to the f first two or th as a matter of fact the second person is uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was faced with exactly this kind of setup . +Grad B: I started to listen to one and it was just like , um , uh , sort of depressing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: I thought I 'd just sort of listen to the beginning part and the person was just sort of reading off her script or something . And . +Grad C: Oh , OK . That was the first subject . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: First one wasn't very good . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So um , I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , it is {disfmarker} already with this it got pretty {disfmarker} with this setup and that particular subject it got pretty complex . +Undergrad E: Although {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Maybe {disfmarker} I suggest we make some fine tuning of these , get {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} run through ten or so subjects +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then take a breather , and see whether we wanna make it more complex or not , depending on what {disfmarker} what sort of results we 're getting . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . It {disfmarker} In fact , um , I am just you know {disfmarker} today , next couple days gonna start really diving into this data . I 've basically looked at one of the files {disfmarker} you know one of these {disfmarker} l y y y you gave me those dozens of files and I looked at one of them which was about ten sentences , found fifteen , twenty different construction types that we would have to look for and so on and like , "" alright , well , let 's start here . "" Um . So I haven't really gone into the , you know {disfmarker} looked at all of the stuff that 's going on . So I don't really {disfmarker} Right , I mean , once I start doing that I 'll have more to say about this kind of thing . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: And y and always {disfmarker} +Professor D: But well th but you did say something important , which is that um you can probably keep yourself fairly well occupied uh {disfmarker} with the simple cases for quite a while . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Although , obviously th so {disfmarker} so that sa s does suggest that {disfmarker} Uh , now , I have looked at all the data , and it 's pre it 's actually at least to an amateur , quite redundant . +Grad B: Yeah , Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that it was {disfmarker} it was very stylized , and quite a lot of people said more or less the same thing . +Grad B: I um {disfmarker} I did sort of scan it at first and noticed that , and then looked in detail at one of them . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: But yeah , yeah I noticed that , too . +Professor D: So , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna do more than that . +Grad C: And with this we 're getting more . No question . +Professor D: OK . Right . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: uh w do we wanna get going beyond more , which is sort of the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's take {disfmarker} let 's I {disfmarker} I think your suggestion is good , which is we 'll do a b uh {disfmarker} a batch . OK . And , uh , Fey , How long is it gonna be till you have ten subjects ? Couple days ? Or thr f a A week ? Or {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a feel for th +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean I s I think can probably schedule ten people , uh , whenever . +Professor D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's up to you , I mean I j I {disfmarker} uh e We don't have any huge time pressure . It 's just {disfmarker} when you have t +Undergrad E: How long will it be ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would say maybe two weeks . +Professor D: Oh , OK . So let 's do this . Let 's plan next Monday , OK , to have a review of what we have so far . +Grad C: This means audio , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Huh ? +Grad C: no transcriptions of course , yeah . +Professor D: No , we won't have the transcriptions , but what we should be able to do and I don't know if , Fey , if you will have time to do this , but it would be great if you could , um , not transcribe it all , but pick out uh , some stuff . I mean we could lis uh {disfmarker} just sit here and listen to it all . Are you gonna have the audio on the web site ? OK . +Grad C: Until we reach the gigabyte thing and David Johnson s ki kills me . And we 're gonna put it on the web site . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , we could get {disfmarker} I mean , you can buy another disk for two hundred dollars , right ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like {disfmarker} OK . So , we 'll take care of David Johnson . +Grad C: No , he {disfmarker} uh , he {disfmarker} he has been solving all our problems or {disfmarker} is wonderful , +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Take {disfmarker} care of him . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: so s +Professor D: Alright . So we 'll buy a disk . But anyway , so , um , If you {disfmarker} if you can think of a way {disfmarker} to uh , point us to th to interesting things , sort of as you 're doing this or {disfmarker} or something uh , make your {disfmarker} make notes or something that {disfmarker} that this is , you know , something worth looking at . And other than that , yeah I guess we 'll just have to uh , listen {disfmarker} although I guess it 's only ten minutes each , right ? Roughly . +Undergrad E: Well , I guess . I 'm not sure how long it 's actually going to take . +Grad C: The reading task is a lot shorter . That was cut by fifty percent . And the reading , nobody 's interested in that except for the speech people . +Professor D: Right . No , we don't care about that at all . +Grad C: So . It 's actually like five minutes dialogue . +Professor D: I b My guess is it 's gonna be ten . +Grad C: Ten minutes is long . +Professor D: People {disfmarker} I understand , but people {disfmarker} people {disfmarker} you know uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: It feels like a long time +Grad C: Yeah . +Undergrad E: but . +Grad C: It feels like forever when you 're doing it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: but then it turns out to be three minutes and forty five seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Could be . OK . I was thinking people would , you know , hesitate and {disfmarker} Whatever . Whatever it is we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll deal with it . +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} And it 's fun . +Professor D: OK , so that 'll be {disfmarker} that 'll be {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the web page . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: That 's great . Um But anyway {disfmarker} yeah , so I think {disfmarker} it 's a good idea to start with the sort of relatively straight forward res just response system . And then if we want to uh {disfmarker} get them to start doing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} multiple step planning with a whole bunch of things and then organize them an um tell them which things are near each other and {disfmarker} you know , any of that stuff . uh {disfmarker} You know , "" Which things would you like to do Tuesday morning ? "" +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: So yeah I {disfmarker} th that seems {disfmarker} pretty straight forward . +Undergrad E: But were you saying that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I need those back by the way . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's for {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm sorry , Fey , what ? +Undergrad E: That w maybe one thing we should do is go through this list and sort of select things that are categories and then o offer only one member of that category ? +Professor D: That 's what I was suggesting for the first round , yeah . +Undergrad E: OK . +Grad B: So rather than having zoo and castle . +Undergrad E: And then , I mean , they could be alternate versions of the same {disfmarker} If you wanted data on different constructions . +Professor D: They could , but i but i uh tha eh they c yeah , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Like one person gets the version with the zoo as a choice , and the other person gets the {disfmarker} +Professor D: You could , but i but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think in the short run , {disfmarker} +Grad C: And no , th the per the person don't get it . I mean , this is why we did it , because when we gave them just three tasks for w part - A and three tasks for part - B a +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Well no , they could still choose . They just wouldn't be able to choose both zoo and say , touring the castle . +Grad C: Exactly . This is limiting the choices , but yeah . Right . OK , sorry . But um I {disfmarker} I think this approach will very well work , but the person was able to look at it and say "" OK , This is what I would actually do . "" +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad E: He was vicious . +Grad C: OK , we gotta {disfmarker} we gotta disallow uh {disfmarker} traveling to zoos and uh castles at the same time , sort of {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: I mean there {disfmarker} they are significantly different , but . +Grad C: But no , they 're {disfmarker} I mean they 're sort of {disfmarker} this is where tour becomes {disfmarker} you know tourists maybe a bit different +Undergrad E: Yeah , I guess so . +Grad C: and , um , these are just places where you {disfmarker} you enter um , much like here . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: But we can uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , in fact if y if y if you use the right verb for each in common , like at you know , "" attend a theater , symphony or opera "" is {disfmarker} is a group , and "" tour the university , castle or zoo "" , +Grad C: mm - hmm Yeah . +Professor D: all of these d do have this kind of "" tour "" um {disfmarker} aspect about the way you would go to them . And uh , the movie theater is probably also uh {disfmarker} e is a "" attend "" et cetera . +Grad C: Attend , yeah . +Professor D: So it may turn out to be not so many different kinds of things , +Grad C: Hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then , what one would expect is that {disfmarker} that the sentence types would {disfmarker} uh their responses would tend to be grouped according to the kind of activity , you would expect . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But I mean i it seem that um {disfmarker} there is a difference between going {disfmarker} to see something , and things like "" exchange money "" or "" dine out "" +Professor D: Oh , absolutely . Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} @ @ function , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , this is where {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} th the function stuff is definitely different and the getting information or g stuff {disfmarker} yeah . OK . But this is open . So since people gonna still pick something , we we 're not gonna get any significant amount of redundancy . And for reasons , we don't want it , really , in that sense . And um we would be ultimately more interested in getting all the possible ways of people asking , oh , for different things with {disfmarker} or with a computer . And so if you can think of any other sort of high level tasks a tourist may do just always {disfmarker} just m mail them to us and we 'll sneak them into the collection . We 're not gonna do much statistical stuff with it . +Professor D: We don't have enough . +Grad C: No . But it seems like since we {disfmarker} since we are getting towards uh subject {disfmarker} uh fifty subjects and if we can keep it up um to a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} sort of five four - ish per week rate , we may even reach the one hundred before Fey t takes off to Chicago . +Undergrad E: That means that one hundred people have to be interested . +Grad B: Good luck . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , um , these are all f people off campus s from campus so far , +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: So we {disfmarker} yeah we don't know how many we can get next door at the {disfmarker} uh shelter for example . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Uh for ten bucks , probably quite a few . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . So , alright , so let 's go {disfmarker} let 's go back then , to the {disfmarker} the chart with all the decisions and stuff , and see how we 're doing . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Do {disfmarker} do people think that , you know this is {disfmarker} is gonna {disfmarker} um cover what we need , or should we be thinking about more ? +Grad C: Okay , in terms of decision nodes ? I mean , Go - there is {disfmarker} is a yes or no . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: Right ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: I 'm also interested in th in this "" property "" uh line here , so if you look at {disfmarker} sorry , look at that um , timing was um {disfmarker} I have these three . Do we need a final differentiation there ? Now , later on the same tour , sometimes on the next tour . +Grad B: What 's this idea of "" next tour "" ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's sort of next day , so you 're doing something now and you have planned to do these three four things , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can do something immediately , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you could sort of tag it on to that tour +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: or you can say this is something I would do s I wanna do sometime l in my life , basically . +Grad B: OK . OK . So {disfmarker} so this tour is sort of just like th the idea of current s round of {disfmarker} of touristness or whatever , +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , probably between stops back at the hotel . +Grad B: OK . Got it . +Professor D: I mean if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you wanted precise about it , uh you know , +Grad B: Got it . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} and I think that 's the way tourists do organize their lives . +Grad B: Sure , sure , sure . +Professor D: You know , "" OK , we 'll go back to the hotel and then we 'll go off +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} "" +PhD F: So all tours {disfmarker} b a tour happens only within one day ? +Professor D: Yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +PhD F: So the next tour will be tomorrow ? +Professor D: Right . For this . +Grad B: OK . Just to be totally clear . OK . +Grad C: Well , my visit to Prague there were some nights where I never went back to the hotel , so whether that counts as a two - day tour or not we 'll have to {vocalsound} think . +Grad B: You just spend the whole time at U Fleku or something , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} w we will {disfmarker} we will not ask you more . +Grad B: ri +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right . +Undergrad E: That 's enough . +Grad C: I don't know . What is the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the English co uh um cognate if you want , for "" Sankt Nimmerlandstag "" ? +Grad B: Keine Ahnung +Grad C: Sort of "" We 'll do it on {disfmarker} when you say on that d day it means it 'll never happen . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: Do you have an expression ? Probably you sh +Grad B: Not that I know of actually . +Grad C: Yeah , when hell {disfmarker} Yep , we 'll do it when hell freezes over . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So maybe that should be another {vocalsound} property in there . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Never . +Professor D: No . +Grad C: OK . Um , the reason why {disfmarker} why do we go there in the first place IE uh {disfmarker} it 's either uh {disfmarker} for sightseeing , for meeting people , for running errands , or doing business . Entertainment is a good one in there , I think . I agree . +Grad B: So , business is supposed to uh , be sort of {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like professional type stuff , right , or something like that ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . Um . +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} this w this is uh an old uh Johno thing . He sort of had it in there . "" Who is the {disfmarker} the tour is the person ? "" So it might be a tourist , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: it might be a business man who 's using the system , who wants to sort of go to some {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or both . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , I mean like for example my {disfmarker} my father is about to travel to Prague . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: He 'll be there for two weeks . He is going to uh {disfmarker} He 's there to teach a course at the business school but he also is touring around and so he may have some mixture of these things . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mmm . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Sure . Right . +Grad C: He would {disfmarker} +PhD F: What ab What do you have in mind in terms of um {disfmarker} socializing ? What kind of activities ? +Grad C: Eh , just meeting people , basically . "" I want to meet someone somewhere "" , which be puts a very heavy constraint on the "" EVA "" +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , because then if you 're meeting somebody at the town hall , you 're not entering it usually , you 're just {disfmarker} want to approach it . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} I mean , does this capture , like , where do you put {disfmarker} "" Exchange money "" is an errand , right ? But what about uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mm - hmm +Grad B: So , like "" Go to a movie "" is now entertainment , "" Dine out "" is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Socializing , I guess . +Professor D: No , I I well , I dunno . Let {disfmarker} Let {disfmarker} well , we 'll put it somewhere , +Grad B: So I mean {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I would say that if "" Dine out "" is a special c uh {disfmarker} if you 're doing it for that purpose then it 's entertainment . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} we 'll also as y as you 'll s further along we 'll get into business about "" Well , you 're {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} this is going over a meal time , do you wanna stop for a meal or pick up food or something ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's different . That 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of part of th that 's not a destination reason , that 's sort of "" en passant , "" right . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: That goes with the "" energy depletion "" function , blech . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right , yeah . +Grad C: OK , "" endpoint "" . +Grad B: "" Tourist needs food , badly "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Endpoint "" is pretty clear . Um , "" mode "" , uh , I have found three , "" drive there "" , "" walk there "" uh {disfmarker} or "" be driven "" , which means bus , taxi , BART . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Obviously taxis are very different than buses , but on the other hand the system doesn't have any public transport {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the planner system doesn't have any public transport in it yet . +Grad C: So this granularity would suffice , I think w if we say the person probably , based on the utterance we on the situation we can conclude wants to drive there , walk there , or use some other form of transportation . +Grad B: H How much of Heidelberg can you get around by public transport ? I mean in terms of the interesting bits . There 's lots of bits where you don't really I 've only ev was there ten years ago , for a day , so I don't remember , but . I mean , like the {disfmarker} sort of the tourist - y bits {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - Well , +Grad C: Everywhere . +Grad B: is it like {disfmarker} +Professor D: you can't get to the Philosophers ' Way very well , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but , I mean there are hikes that you can't get to , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: but I think other things you can , if I remember right . +Grad A: So is like "" biking there "" {disfmarker} part of like "" driving there "" , +Grad C: Yeah , um we actually {disfmarker} biking should be {disfmarker} should be a separate point because we have a very strong bicycle planning component . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: So . +Professor D: Oh ! +Undergrad E: Mmm g that 's good . +Grad C: Um . +Professor D: Put it in . +Grad C: Bicycles c should be in there , but , will we have bic I mean is this realistic ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , we can leave it out , I guess . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: We can {disfmarker} we can sort of uh , drive {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would {disfmarker} I would lump it with "" walk "" because hills matter . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right ? You know . Things like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Skateboards right , anyway . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Scooters , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: OK , "" Length "" is um , you wanna get this over with as fast as possible , +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: you wanna use some part of what {disfmarker} of the time you have . Um , they can . But we should just make a decision whether we feel that they want to use some substantial or some fraction of their time . +Professor D: Ye +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , they wanna do it so badly that they are willing to spend uh {disfmarker} you know the necessary and plus time . And um {disfmarker} And y you know , if we feel that they wanna do nothing but that thing then , you know , we should point out that {disfmarker} to the planner , that they probably want to use all the time they have . So , stretch out that visit for that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Wow {disfmarker} It seems like this would be really hard to guess . I mean , on the part of the system . It seems like it {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about rather than having the user decide this you 're supposed t we 're supposed to figure it out ? +Professor D: w well +Grad C: Th - the user can always s say it , but it 's just sort of we {disfmarker} we hand over these parameters if we make {disfmarker} if we have a feeling that they are important . +Grad B: Overrider +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And that we can actually infer them to a significant de degree , or we ask . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: And par yeah , and part of the system design is that if it looks to be important and you can't figure it out , then you ask . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But hopefully you don't ask you know , a all these things all the time . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} eh so , y but there 's th but definitely a back - off position to asking . +Grad B: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Grad C: And if no {disfmarker} no part of the system ever comes up with the idea that this could be important , no planner is ever gonna ask for it . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: y so {disfmarker} And I like the idea that , you know , sort of {disfmarker} Jerry pushed this idea from the very beginning , that it 's part of the understanding business to sort of make a good question of what 's s sort of important in this general picture , what you need t +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If you wanna simulate it , for example , what parameters would you need for the simulation ? And , Timing , uh , uh , Length would definitely be part of it , "" Costs "" , "" Little money , some money , lots of money "" ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Actually , maybe uh F {comment} uh so , F Yeah , OK . Hmm ? +Grad B: You could say "" some "" in there . +PhD F: I must say that thi this one looks a bit strange to me . Um {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} It seems like appropriate if I go to Las Vegas . Well {disfmarker} but I decide k kind of how much money uh I 'm willing to lose . But a I as a tourist , I 'll just paying what 's {disfmarker} what 's more or less is required . +Professor D: Well , no . I think there are {disfmarker} there 're different things where you have a ch choice , +Undergrad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: for example , uh this t interacts with "" do am I do oh are you willing to take a taxi ? "" +Grad B: Dinner . +Professor D: Or uh , you know , if {disfmarker} if you 're going to the opera are you gonna l look for the best seats or the peanut gallery +PhD F: The best seat or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: or , you know , +Grad B: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: whatever ? S so I think there are a variety of things in which um {disfmarker} Tour - tourists really do have different styles eating . Another one , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: you know . +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right , that 's true . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what my sort of sentiment is they 're {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I once had to write a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a charter , a carter for a {disfmarker} a student organization . And they had {disfmarker} wanted me to define what the quorum is going to be . And I looked at the other ones and they always said ten percent of the student body has to be present at their general meeting otherwise it 's not a {disfmarker} And I wrote in there "" En - Enough "" people have to be there . And it was hotly debated , but people agreed with me that everybody probably has a good feeling whether it was a farce , a joke , or whether there were enough people . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And if you go to Turkey , you will find when people go shopping , they will say "" How much cheese do you want ? "" and they say "" Ah , enough . "" And the {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} this used all over the place . Because the person selling the cheese knows , you know , that person has two kids and you know , a husband that dislikes cheese , so this is enough . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um so the middle part is always sort of the {disfmarker} the golden way , right ? So you can s you can be really {disfmarker} make it as cheap as possible , or you can say "" I want , er , you know , I don't care "" +Grad B: Money is no object . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Money is no object , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: or you say "" I just want to spend enough "" . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Or the sufficient , or the the appropriate amount . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But , Then again , this may turn out to be insufficient for our purposes . But well , this is my first guess , +Grad B: I mean y Yeah . +Grad C: in much the same way as how {disfmarker} how d you know {disfmarker} should the route be ? Should it be the easiest route , even if it 's a b little bit longer ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No steep inclinations ? Go the normal way ? Whatever that again means , er {disfmarker} or do you {disfmarker} does the person wanna rough it ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . I mean {disfmarker} th so there 's a couple of different ways you can interpret these things right ? You know {disfmarker} "" I want to go there and I don't care if it 's really hard . "" Or if you 're an extreme sport person , you know . "" I wanna go there and I insist on it being the hard way . "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Right ? you know , so I assume we 're going for the first interpretation , +Undergrad E: Right . +Grad B: right ? Something like {disfmarker} I 'll go th I mean {disfmarker} I 'd li I dunno . It 's different from thing to {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , I think he was going for the second one ar actually . +Grad B: Yeah ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor D: Anyway , we 'll sort th yeah , we 'll sort that out . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad C: Well , this is all sort of um , top of my head . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No {disfmarker} no research behind that . Um {disfmarker} "" Object information "" , "" Do I {disfmarker} do I wanna know anything about that object ? "" is either true or false . And . if I care about it being open , accessible or not , I don't think there 's any middle ground there . Um , either I wanna know where it is or not , I wanna know about it 's history or not , or , um I wanna know about what it 's good for or not . Maybe one could put scales in there , too . So I wanna know a l lot about it . +Professor D: Yeah , now ob OK , I 'm sorry , go ahead , what were you gonna say ? +Grad C: One could put scales in there . So I wanna know a lot about the history , just a bit . +Professor D: Yeah , right well y i w if we {disfmarker} w right . So "" object "" becomes "" entity "" , right ? +Grad C: Yep , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah , but we don't have to do it now . +Grad C: Yep . That was the wrong shortcut anyhow . +Professor D: And we think that 's it , interestingly enough , that um , you know , th or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something very close to it is going to be uh {disfmarker} going to be enough . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Still wrong . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Alright , so um {disfmarker} So I think the order of things is that um , Robert will clean this up a little bit , although it looks pretty good . And {disfmarker} +Grad C: What , well this is the part that {disfmarker} +Professor D: Huh ? +Grad C: this is the part that needs the work . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} right , so {disfmarker} So , um In parallel , uh {disfmarker} three things are going to happen . Uh Robert and Eva and Bhaskara are gonna actually {disfmarker} build a belief - net that {disfmarker} that , um , has CPT 's and , you know , tries to infer this from various kinds of information . And Fey is going to start collecting data , and we 're gonna start thinking a about {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} what constructions we want to elicit . And then w go it may iterate on uh , further data collection to elicit {disfmarker} +Grad B: D Do you mean {disfmarker} Do you mean eliciting particular constructions ? Or do you mean like what kinds of things we want to get people talking about ? Semantically speaking , eh ? +Professor D: Well , yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Both . Uh , and {disfmarker} Though for us , constructions are primarily semantic , right ? +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean from my point of view I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to care about the syntax , so you know {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well that too , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but um {disfmarker} You know if th if we in {disfmarker} if we you know , make sure that we get them talking about temporal order . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , that would be great and if th if they use prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses or whatever , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: um {disfmarker} W You know , whatever form they use is fine . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But I {disfmarker} I think that probably we 're gonna try to look at it as you know , s what semantic constructions d do we {disfmarker} do we want them to uh do direc +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: you know , um , "" Caused motion "" , I don't know , something like that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh But , Eh - uh this is actually a conversation you and I have to have about your thesis fantasies , and how all this fits into that . +Grad B: Got it . Yeah . Uh Yeah . OK . +Professor D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I will tell you the German tourist data . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Because I have not been able to dig out all the stuff out of the m ta thirty D V +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that roughly the equivalent of {disfmarker} of what I 've seen in English or is it {disfmarker} +Grad C: No , not at all . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Dialogues . SmartKom {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: SmartKom {disfmarker} Human . Wizard of Oz . +Grad B: OK . Same {disfmarker} OK , that . Got it . Like what {disfmarker} What have I got now ? I mean I have uh what {disfmarker} what I 'm loo what I {disfmarker} Those files that you sent me are the user side of some interaction with Fey ? +Grad C: A little bit of data , I {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that what it is ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: With nothing . +Grad B: Just talking into a box and not hearing anything back . +Professor D: No , no . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yep . Some data I collected in a couple weeks for training recognizers and email way back when . +Grad B: OK . OK . +Grad C: Nothing to write home about . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} see this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} ontology node is probably something that I will try to expand . Once we have the full ontology API , what can we expect to get from the ontology ? And hopefully you can sort of also try to find out , you know , sooner or later in the course of the summer what we can expect to get from the discourse that might , you know {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: not the discourse , the utterance as it were , uh , +Professor D: mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: in terms of uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right , but we 're not expecting Keith to actually build a parser . +Grad B: Right , Right . +Grad C: No , no , no , no , no . +Professor D: OK . We are expecting Johno to build a parser , +Grad C: Uh , this is {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad B: By the end of the summer , too . +Professor D: but that 's a {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: No . +Professor D: No . Uh {disfmarker} He 's g he 's hoping to do this for his masters ' thesis s by a year from now . +Grad C: But it 's sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . Hmm . Still , pretty formidable actually . +Professor D: Eh - absolutely . Uh {disfmarker} limited . I mean , you know , the idea is {disfmarker} is , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , the hope is that the parser itself is , uh , pretty robust . But it 's not popular {disfmarker} it 's only p only {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right , Right . Existence proof , you know . Set up the infrastructure , +Professor D: Right . It 's only popula +Grad B: yeah . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Um sometime , I have to talk to some subset of the people in this group , at least about um what sort of constructions I 'm looking for . I mean , you know obviously like just again , looking at this one uh thing , you know , I saw y things from {disfmarker} sort of as general as argument structure constructions . Oh , you know , I have to do Verb Phrase . I have to do uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} unbounded dependencies , you know , which have a variety of constructions in {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} instantiate that . On the other hand I have to have , you know , there 's particular uh , fixed expressions , or semi - fixed expressions like "" Get "" plus path expression for , you know , "" how d ho how do I get there ? "" , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" How do I get in ? "" , "" How do I get away ? "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: and all that kind of stuff . Um , so there 's a variety of sort of different sorts of constructions +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of like anything goes . Like {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK , so this is {disfmarker} I think we 're gonna mainly work on with George . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK , and hi let me f th {disfmarker} say what I think is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} so the idea is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} first of all I misspoke when I said we thought you should do the constructions . Cause apparently for a linguist that means to do completely and perfectly . So what I {disfmarker} yeah , OK , {disfmarker} So what {disfmarker} what I meant was "" Do a first cut at "" . +Grad B: er {disfmarker} that 's what Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK , Because uh {disfmarker} we do wanna get them r u perfectly {disfmarker} but I think we 're gonna have to do a first cut at a lot of them to see how they interact . +Grad B: Of course . Right , exactly . Now it {disfmarker} w we talked about this before , right . And I {disfmarker} I me it would it would be completely out of the question to really do more than , say , like , oh I don't know , ten , over the summer , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but uh , but you know obviously we need to get sort of a general view of what things look like , so yeah . +Professor D: Right . So the idea is going to be to do {disfmarker} sort of like Nancy did in some of the er these papers where you do enough of them so you can go from top to bottom {disfmarker} so you can do f you know , f f uh {disfmarker} have a complete story ov of s of some piece of dialogue . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's gonna be much more useful than having all of the clausal constructions and nothing else , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something like that . +Grad B: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor D: So that the {disfmarker} the trick is going to be t to take this and pick a {disfmarker} some sort of lattice of constructions , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: so some lexical and some phrasal , and {disfmarker} and , you know , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: whatever you need in order to uh , be able to then , uh , by hand , you know , explain , some fraction of the utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: And so , exactly which ones will partly depend on your research interests and a bunch of other things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . OK . But I mean in terms of the s th sort of level of uh {disfmarker} of analysis , you know , these don't necessarily have to be more complex than like the "" Out of "" construction in the BCP paper where it 's just like , you know , half a page on each one or something . +Professor D: Correct . Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . V a half a page is {disfmarker} is what we 'd like . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And if {disfmarker} if there 's something that really requires a lot more than that then it does and we have to do it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +Grad B: For the first cut , that should be fine , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: We could sit down and think of sort of the {disfmarker} the ideal speaker utterances , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I mean two or three that follow each other , so , where we can also sort of , once we have everything up and running , show the tremendous , insane inferencing capabilities of our system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , you know , as {disfmarker} as the SmartKom people have . This is sort of their standard demo dialogue , which is , you know , what the system survives and nothing but that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , we could also sor sort of have the analogen of o our sample sentences , the ideal sentences where we have complete construction coverage and , sort of , they match nicely . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the "" How do I get to X ? "" , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , that 's definitely gonna be uh , a major one . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's about six times in this little one here , so uh , {vocalsound} yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Where is X ? "" might be another one which is not too complicated . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um "" Tell me something about X . "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And hey , that 's {disfmarker} that 's already covering eighty percent of the system 's functionality . +Professor D: Ye - Right , but it 's not covering eighty percent of the intellectual interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No , we can w throw in an "" Out of Film "" construction if you want to , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , no , no . Well the {disfmarker} th the thing is there 's a lot that needs to be done to get this right . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: OK , I th We done ? +Grad C: I have one bit of news . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: Um , the action planner guy has wrote {disfmarker} has written a {disfmarker} a p lengthy {disfmarker} proposal on how he wants to do the action planning . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: And I responded to him , also rather lengthy , how he should do the action planning . And {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Action planning "" meaning "" Discourse Modeling "" ? +Grad C: Yes . And I tacked on a little paragraph about the fact that the whole world calls that module a dis disc dialogue manager , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: and wouldn't it make sense to do this here too ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: And also Rainer M Malaka is going to be visiting us shortly , most likely in the beginning of June . +Professor D: Uh - huh , I 'll be gone . +Grad C: Yeah . He - he 's just in a conference somewhere and he is just swinging through town . +Professor D: Sure , OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} m making me incapable of going to NAACL , for which I had funding . But . No , no Pittsburg this year . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: When is the uh Santa Barbara ? +Professor D: S +Grad C: Who is going to ? uh should a lot of people . That 's something I will {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} sort of enjoy . +Professor D: Probably should go . That was {disfmarker} that 's one you should probably go to . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: How much does it cost ? +Grad C: There 's +Grad B: I haven't planned to go . +Professor D: Uh , probably we can uh {disfmarker} pay for it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Um a student rate shouldn't be very high . So , if we all decide it 's a good idea for you to go then you 'll {disfmarker} we 'll pay for it . +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Undergrad E: Then you can go . +Professor D: I mean I {disfmarker} I don't have a feeling one way or the other at the moment , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but it probably is . OK , great . +Grad B: Thanks . +","The conversation involves multiple participants discussing a project related to decision-making for a semantic inference engine and data collection. They discuss issues with a computer system (e.g., screensaver problems and disobeyed commands) and address the setup for an upcoming data collection involving a computer system that understands dialogue and a subsequent shift to a human operator simulating a breakdown in the system. The Professor clarifies their objectives for the day: working on the semantics of a belief-net for decision-making and the influence of various factors on these decisions. They won't deal with probability estimations immediately. The discussion also touches on eliciting specific constructions in dialogue and coordinating with subjects for recording dialogues. + +There is focus on listing decision nodes, properties, tasks to be implemented, and their relevance to the user's intention and the object information. The data tasks imply the user's desire to go to a place either now, later in the same tour, or on a different day. The idea of intention implantation is debated, considering whether it complicates data collection unnecessarily. + +Later, Robert is tasked with handling the screensaver issue and sorting out decision nodes. They also mention a need to summarize data collection procedures for Eva, who might not be familiar with them. The conversation concludes with Robert's mention of an action planner and his communication with that individual regarding the module, known as the dialogue manager, and a planned visit from Rainer Malaka in June, which coincides with NAACL. There's an exchange about attending a conference in Santa Barbara, with consideration of funding and the potential value of participation. + +Overall, the conversation is technical and focused on data collection, inference decision-making, and planning for the project's semantic component development." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} minutes from the last meeting which were essentially that we uh had decided on roles for each of you , however , um there are some changes that I've got from on high +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um are a bit uh {disfmarker} well w what I didn't actually realise it was that the uh {vocalsound} this is for a specific television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the all in one idea goes out the window . And {vocalsound} they require that the uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: actually I'll get to that at the end {gap} point number four , um we'll get what you've got and then we can see what we can adapt from it . So um , presentations , were you {disfmarker} anybody got , raring to go ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Raring to go ? Okay . Good stuff . Mm . +Marketing: Um . So how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh I need to plug you in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S {gap} +Project Manager: Just about . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's a inspired design . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sh do you want me to hold it ? +Project Manager: Uh there we go , just screw 'em on in . Gonna have to swap them round so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , after that ? +Project Manager: now , it was function F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight . {vocalsound} f oh sorry F_ eight . +Project Manager: That's the wee blue one . Blue one F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Should do it , good one . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , me again , Rajan the Marketing Expert . Uh , as we have decided in the last meeting that I have to find out , sorry , yeah sure . +Project Manager: Hold on , sorry . {gap} and if you just click that it'll go ahead , one at a time . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Uh actually , sorry I have to see the other {gap} , sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , uh . +Marketing: Yeah , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , yes , I have to look at the uh market potential for this product , uh , like consumer likings and everything , what is the potential for this product and are we able to achieve our a net profit or our aims or not ? Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: P press F_ five to start it first . +Marketing: Sorry . Okay . Yeah , I can , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Jesus . +Marketing: Uh then uh the methodology I adopted to find out all this was market survey . A a detailed market survey on consumers was done to find out their likings and dislikings , what they prefer what they not prefer , w what problems they do encounter in all this type of things . And what we got was , we found that {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} uh , what they th what problems they are having with different uh remote controls available in the market . Seventy five percent of users they do find it that the remote controls available in the market are ugly . They are not so good looking . So , we have to put stress on this , uh we have to take care of this fact also like our design , uh should be appropriate , should be good looking for the consumers . And yes that's wi uh this will definitely , this can definitely put uh uh enhance our sales . Uh and even uh the good thing about this is that eighty percent of users they are willing to pay high uh pay more for this uh good looking remote controls also . So even if the available market goes for the available {disfmarker} uh even if the market goes for the available remote control is less even then we can sell it at twenty five Euros , which maybe which may seem quite high but if our looks are are if the re remote control we design have a good better uh better look uh designs , then we can hope that consumers will prefer these g remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} {gap} And the second thing , some some companies they think that they should have more and more functions of the users uh or in their remote controls , but rather than those having more functions in the remote controls we should emphasise what actually consumer want , what they operate , rather than making it too complicated . Because mostly it has been found that fifty percent of the users they use only ten percent of the buttons , so there is no point of having ninety percent buttons making the remote controls too bulky , too complicated too expensive a because I think I believe that technology is useful only if uh the consumers they want to use it . Otherwise there is no point of having all this type of things . So this will not only reduce the cost of our remote controls but it will increase our profit also . So we have to take care of this fact also . Then . Uh it was function I want to go to . +Project Manager: Oh you wanna go back ? Just escape . +Marketing: Uh , escape , okay thank you . Then if we look at this slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: uh these are in your shared documents , you can see , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} Uh , sorry . +User Interface: So , sorry {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , what was the question for this ? Or is {disfmarker} are you coming on to that ? +Marketing: Ah t look all the market potential , what uh how we should design consu our remote controls , what they should be there so as to en enhance our profit , enhance our sales . +User Interface: Okay . So these percentages are are what ? +Marketing: Yeah , these are different age group persons like uh sorry , I can open it in another way . +Project Manager: Okay . Speech recognition . +Marketing: Uh , yes . If we look at the costs whether the consumers they are willing to uh pay more for speech recognition in a remote control or not , we can find that they up to a thirty five years age group we have a very good disliking for this uh this uh point , like for speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we can emphasise on this point also like , because it will definitely enhance our sales in this ag in this particular age group from uh fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: and I uh and I think that most of the users of the rem uh T_V_ are belong to this age group . So we should look {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . We're als we we're looking at who buys it as well . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . We can look at that that factor also , so yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , which I think the twenty five to thirty five is uh usual , sort of . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , mm . +Marketing: So , and {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen to twe +Marketing: Yes . I think so . Uh if we look at this data how how uh h how what are the problems the consumers are facing with the existing remote controls in the market . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They find that thirt uh thirty five percent uh thirty four percent of the consumers they find too difficult to operate a remote control . So it should be in such a way that it should be easy to learn how to operate these remote controls and we should provide pl uh spe uh proper manuals for its use also so as that people {disfmarker} consumers could easily learn . They need not to have any , much technical knowledge to see uh to know how to operate these remote controls . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So this is also a very goo uh major factor to loo uh take into consideration to enhance our profits and sales . So um this is all about +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh market potential by me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , yes , th thank you . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . Um , {vocalsound} follow on with Helen ? Yeah please . +User Interface: Yep , sure , that's cool , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we have to take that {gap} out . +Project Manager: Oh , so we do yeah . +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fun and games . +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Don't know if the cable's gonna be long enough . +Marketing: Uh sorry , I have {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think I just kicked over whatever it runs on underneath as well . +Marketing: Brian , this one also I {gap} . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you very much Brian . +User Interface: I can turn my computer quickly if that's okay . +Marketing: If you want me to help , yeah . +User Interface: Um , yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and then what do I press , F_ eight ? +Marketing: Uh F_ eight . Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: Mm s . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: It's not coming . Function F_ eight , okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . No signal . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Computer . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Computer adjusting , yeah . +Project Manager: There you go . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay and then how do I press the the big one , to get it on to the big {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five and I press that again to get it off as well do I ? +Marketing: Escape . +Project Manager: Um , F_ five and escape'll bring it back and just uh the left button for advancing . +User Interface: Okay , so um I'm the interface design designer , User Interface Designer sorry , uh I'm concerned with um w what effect the apparatus should have on the user and um I'm I'm also {disfmarker} I want to point out that our motto , put the fashion in electronics , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so obviously we as a company we want to make our products trendy and fashionable , it's a big concern of ours . Okay , and how do I press n just the next button ? +Project Manager: Uh just a left uh +User Interface: The arrow ? Okay . +Project Manager: left mouse button . +User Interface: So um I looked at existing designs and also um the information that Raj gave us was very useful about what people like , what people dislike . Um and what people {disfmarker} fashionable , because we said people between twenty five and thirty five were the main um buyers of of our T_V_ I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: So um what they like and what they find fashionable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And ergonomics , we said um , I don't know I haven't actually been able to do any of this myself , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but um maybe that comes up , I don't know . +Project Manager: That can come under Arlo as well . +User Interface: And the findings , well the basic {disfmarker} that was the basic function to send messages to the television set . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: That's what people want to do . Um , so they need to be included , um , but I've got some pictures here of some leading ones . I don't know how to get to them , +Project Manager: Uh if you if you escape then you can see your bar . +User Interface: {vocalsound} do I press F_ five is it ? {gap} escape ? Oh okay , cool . I haven't got my glasses on so I hope it's this one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +User Interface: These are two leading um remote controls at the moment . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: You know they're grey , they've I mean this one's got loads of buttons , it's hard to tell from here what they actually do , +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they don't look very exciting at all . Um , personally I prefer this one just because it's looks easier use , it's a bit more sleek with more of this silver stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um , but there you go , that's what we're up against , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I think we can do much better than that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We hope so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um hang on . F_ five , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , sorry . Personal preferences . Um , well I think we need to l I think the ergonomics is quite um important , um +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , particularly if we've uh there was a bit in Raj's about R_S_I_ and things as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . And um I thought not too edgy and like a box , more kind of hand-held more um {vocalsound} not as uh computery and +Project Manager: Organic {vocalsound} . +User Interface: or organic , yeah , more organic shape I think . {vocalsound} Um simple designs , like the last one we just saw , not too many buttons and as Raj pointed out , only ten percent {disfmarker} fifty percent of people only use ten percent of the buttons , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so I think what we can miss out on the buttons we can make up for in design and and how nice it looks . +Project Manager: Sales , {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: Um , hand-held and portable I think is portamint is important because T_F_T_ have just um released um I think is it a a remote control for presentations or uh and a big seven inch big screen , anyway , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's like a , yeah . {vocalsound} It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , no seven inches isn't that big but um anyway um so hand-held and portable and uh m I thought about other functions for T_V_ but as you pointed out people don't actually want that , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the company want to keep it stuck to the T_V_ for uh to keep down the production time . +User Interface: so maybe we forget about that . It's for one T_V_ oh right okay , sure . And so the last thing I thought w which I quickly mentioned in the other one was maybe a bit of a gimmick to set us apart from other people , like glow-in-the-dark +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: um which {vocalsound} does already e exist but it's not very widely used I don't think . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Easy finder with the a whistle function or something , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: or rechargeable station because it's a pain when you run out of batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And I think that , yep , that's it . +Project Manager: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: So uh , I noticed your talk about speech recognition and whistling , +User Interface: Okay ? Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh I was just curious to know , have we done any research into how many people can whistle ? Um , or if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: is that a function we want in the remote ? +Project Manager: Um , do you have trouble whistling ? +User Interface: Um , I haven't been able to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't , but I I know a lot of people do right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah it just +Project Manager: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean it has to be a certain kind of whistle too , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I suppose that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah +Project Manager: Well I suppo uh you could y you could have the +User Interface: or some sort of voice {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you could have the basically um instead of a whistle if it's got the voice recognition you could have it just , you know , where are you ? {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's costly though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um a much easier thing is just any loud noise like clapping um , shouting , you know , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh and then , what would the response be ? It beeps back at you or something ? +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: Yeah , something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , uh let me set this up . So I plug it in , press F_ five ? Function F_ five ? +Project Manager: Function F_ eight for the um the uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or function F_ eight ? Okay . +User Interface: Oh you need to twiddle the thingamibobsy thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I think it's {vocalsound} uh just to lock it in . It's got it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} So as the Industrial Designer my job is to take an input from you guys , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um so it's good you went first , +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: and I jotted down some notes as to what are the b needs and uh what kind of novel features we can add to differentiate our product from the others . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's remember that . +Industrial Designer: Um so Raj told us that uh consumers are willing to spend more for fancy products , and um he also mentioned that uh the current products don't always match users' operating behaviour . Um , a lot of the buttons aren't used , and uh {vocalsound} he mentioned that they're not fun to use . And uh a novel feature which uh we just brought up was this this automatic speech recognition feature or noise detection feature for when you lose the remote , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: there could be a little microphone on it , and any noise over a certain threshold um it'll pick up as a a distress signal um from you and it'll beep back and say you know oh here I am or something of this sort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But sure surely that would have to be um sort of specific rather than above a threshold 'cause if you had a loud movie on you're likely to get it beeping back at you . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe you could have a um hmm {vocalsound} tha that would be a consideration to take into account yes . Um . +Project Manager: Sorry I didn't mean to derail you there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well tha that's uh for later down the road um , and then as for the user interface it should be trendy , um {vocalsound} and not computery , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right , so more low tech and not too many buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I took these all into consideration and also I have some limitations from the boss . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right um , and practical limitations which I kinda threw out the window . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so I did a little research and unfortunately all I had to work on was our uh our corporate archives of the great products we've made before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which include , you know , um space craft , coffee makers , and bullet trains {disfmarker} Or uh or a high speed train . +Project Manager: Ah is that what that is ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right and having personally worked with all these products uh I have a great deal of experience with uh with industrial design of these . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well that's cool . If you if you can build space craft you'll have no problem with a remote control , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , +User Interface: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: I figured , just put 'em all together . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You got a a caffeine powered space shuttle train transport to your T_V_ , and um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: as for the user interface problem , you know , too many buttons . Give it one button +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and and it's a {disfmarker} you know , for the the cowboy in all of us {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I I'm not quite sure what the the function is there but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I like that design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's a g I mean you could have a you know a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that just switches on the speech recognition and it's entirely speech operated , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right . So I think I I missed the budget thing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it was fifty million Euros ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we gotta sell twenty five of them ? Right . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , not a problem . +Marketing: Fifty million was uh prof +Project Manager: Ah now it's fif fifty million Euros we've gotta uh we've g {vocalsound} +Marketing: As a profit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh okay , so I I mixed those numbers . +Project Manager: gotta make profit , so we're making that at twelve and a half Euros a time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well I guess more realistically then , we need a product that's got some kinda nifty outer casing , cheap plastic uh , you know , um that should be just like uh a tenth of the price maybe or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: An energy source which'd probably just be uh your regular batteries {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: um , we don't wanna have it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Would it be possible to have the rechargeable idea ? Is that is that gonna mark up a lot ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Or a little base station or something , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , we could do that too . Um , I hadn't thought of that . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That might cost more though , 'cause obviously with batteries we don't need to provide , well we provide the first batteries , but it's more , it's {disfmarker} that's cheaper to just provide batteries . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: I mean if you think about these base stations now it's essentially just a a lead with a sort of self connecting brake in it , +User Interface: A battery in it , kinda . +Project Manager: so I don't think it'd up up the price that much . +Industrial Designer: Right , so so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: the unirs the user interface +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: uh the canonical user interface for these would be just a bunch of buttons , but since we're a cutting edge company , we uh of course will have alternatives like uh speech recognition , whistling recognition and rocket power +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: behind our product . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and lastly the transmission interface is uh , just some engineering thing you don't have to worry about . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so here's you know , a great schematic that my uh apprentice designer gave me . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um as you can see the the remote control have parts and those parts look like that and um {vocalsound} you know it's got a little operating procedure that looks something like that . {vocalsound} And I suppose you all know how it works because we've all used it and we wouldn't be in a company designing remote controls if we didn't know what they were so {disfmarker} uh personal preferences , I think uh programmable options which um just require a small amount of memory , uh non volatile memory , just um so the user can put in their favourite channels and maybe their preferred volume settings so that when they turn it on it's not blasting . +User Interface: Mm . Mm that's a good idea actually I like the programmable options . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . And the uh , the bells and whistles that we mentioned you know , they take more budgeting , um more technical uh expenditure of effort +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it's also much more likely to not work if if we add these bells and whistles . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's all I got . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you very much , um I'll take that back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh that's tight . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , also so um a notice I got not very long before the meeting , so didn't manage to forward it on to you , it is {disfmarker} let's see , I'll find it myself , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ta +Industrial Designer: Okay , I don't think we need to screw it in . +Project Manager: nah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just push it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had that um to dis-include teletext um because it's become outdated , and everybody uses the internet anyway . Um , {vocalsound} dunno what Oracle would have to say with that but never mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um it's only for the television , which I'm presuming means it's for a specific television , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and um instead of colours and sorta colour options , they want corporate colour and slogan somehow implemented in the new design . +User Interface: Corporate colour . +Project Manager: Yellow . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I presume . Um , everything , all their sort of uh you know the uh corporate website and everything's yellow . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the logo uh the sort of slogan we put the fa fashion in electronics uh {disfmarker} I don't know exactly how sort of incorpor I mean , I guess if you're going for a sort of globular shape you could kind of have it working its way round it or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , where am I ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so , we have to decide on which functions we're going to actually have . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh , {vocalsound} now , we had as listed options we had +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: speech recognition potentially , flat screen interface , L_C_D_ interface um we also want to limit the number of buttons so we'll pretty much take that one as read . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We'll use the the basic functions for a television . No teletext . Um {vocalsound} okay hold on . +User Interface: Although the the danger with that is , it could look a bit cheap . +Project Manager: Not enough buttons you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So sorta strike a balance between a a few and a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or it looks like we're just cutting on the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . On the number of buttons , kind of functions and stuff . +Project Manager: I do however have this from over my head , that they don't want teletext on it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh maybe Raj you could find out what people would think about that , or maybe they'll send +Marketing: About cost . +Project Manager: some information about that , about um what people , whether people would require um teletext in a remote {disfmarker} teletext option in a remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay um {gap} . So uh I take it your position Arlo is that the bells and whistles we've gotta come up with the {disfmarker} a gimmick but not too complicated a gimmick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Um so I mean a a the sort of inkling I'm getting from little bits of um web chatter that I'm getting sent is that they're quite interested in a T_F_T_ display , interactive display . However that does sound a bit like the more complicated design that rav uh sorry Raj um {vocalsound} said people didn't like . Although I guess if there's a sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: If you think about standard interfaces that people use already , sort of Windows-style drop down menus or whatever , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think maybe that's a bit , going a bit far +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but you know like in a basic sense that you could have your basic selection of buttons , and if you hit a sort of menu at the top you have um {vocalsound} it goes to a different selection of buttons , so it sorta keeps it simple . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um glow in the dark , is that sort of with a light inside it or is it sort of glow in the dark material ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +User Interface: Glow in the dark material I was thinking . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , so I I guess that would be cheaper than a light I think . +Marketing: Uh may I say something about {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh actually I think it's really really very important point uh as if we look at the market because people mor fifty percent people they find that the remote controls are often lost somewhere in the remote , in the room . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Often lost s was that , +Marketing: yeah are lost +Project Manager: Lost , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: and means they forget where they have kept the remote control last time . But if we add speech recognition as well as glow in the dark then both these factors will help their locating the remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like if they come and speak something at the remote control uh replies to something something and it glows in the dark . Both these factors uh both these points will help them to locate the where they have kept this remote control , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: and this will definitely enhance our uh market sales , +Project Manager: That's cool . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Marketing: so we should take it into consideration also . +Project Manager: Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: Well hmm . +Project Manager: Um speech recognition I take it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't , I've {disfmarker} I know of no products um that use speech recognition well . +Industrial Designer: They're act there there was a remote control that came out two years ago that had a {disfmarker} some basic speech recognition on it . You could programme it with your channels and then you say you know like uh B_B_C_ one and it goes to that channel . +Project Manager: Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it didn't work very well though because of this noise interference problem . They mentioned you know if the television says you are listening to B_B_C_ one {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , or a yeah an advert an advert for B_B_C_ two on B_B_C_ one'll switch the channel for you kinda thing . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right , right , and so there was a lot of this , you'd be watching the T_V_ and then all of a sudden it'd it'd pick up a noise and turn it off or you know or turn the volume off or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but if you can work around that that noise problem {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Well what about {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: this might get a bit too expensive actually , but what about um something that's built into the T_V_ um that you can press and it'll send out a little signal you know like the ones that we can't hear or {vocalsound} something +Project Manager: Ah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: um that that will activate the remote control starts to beep . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So like a kind of backwards remote from the telly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you find if y +Industrial Designer: Right and then it would do just you know , uh subtractive kind of cancellation of the noise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What you could do then would be you have uh {vocalsound} a remote controlled by the T_V_ speaker , or not a remo I'm sorry , a microphone by the T_V_ speaker and a transmitter there that sends back to your remote , 'cause you can't um expect uh the the television manufacturers to to put that feature into their T_V_s . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , that's the only thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But yeah , then you have like the little se separate module by the T_V_ speaker +Project Manager: That we should just stick on , yeah . +Industrial Designer: which {disfmarker} +User Interface: That comes with our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right , and then the remote control would know um what's being produced by the television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's a sort of basic R_F_ kind of frequency so it'll be cheap . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah that's certainly possible then an another thing was about this losing the remote and trying to find it again . If you do have this sorta speech interface to it , you don't even need to find it . You just say you know , um whatever you whatever you want the remote for , you know to change the channel or to uh turn the T_V_ on and off , you just shout your command to it and it would do it for you if it's within you know , within hearing range . And uh you know it could be somewhere in the room y that you've no idea where it is and it would still do its job . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: That could also be built into the T_V_ though , which might make our remote control a bit obsolete . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , hopefully we're uh we're ahead of the curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It might do us out of a job . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} I like the whole sort of remote feedback thing . Um so I think rather than {disfmarker} and that also kind of takes out the speech recognition in terms of the interference of it not working very well and things like that , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: so I th +User Interface: And the expense . +Project Manager: yeah and expense and the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I think if we're going to go {disfmarker} well I mean like the thing about the {disfmarker} there's the problem with the T_F_T_ or the L_C_D_ kind of thing is if you're also wanting the the kind of uh organic globby sort of feeling to it then you might have trouble incorporating the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , but I guess not I thin we'll just we'll just pretend that's not a problem . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} and how are you about the glow in the dark material ? Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Maybe not even all of it 'cause we said um colours and fashion w were important so maybe um just like a little l line that's kind of around the outside and then you can make the rest a different colour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Contrast contra well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no th the material's cheap but it's just uh the the glow in the dark material needs some light to charge it you know , and then uh if you're , if you're sitting in the dark for too long it uh it won't glow any more . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if it's dow it's d uh yeah . Or if it's down under the couch cushions +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um which is where I usually find mine . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay , well we can use {disfmarker} we can still use the glow in the dark as a gimmick essentially , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: um if we're gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause what I thought , main {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're gonna have the logo on as well , bright yellow logo in our our um slogan . +User Interface: Slogan , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then you know they're gonna be fairly brightly coloured anyway , and we can have sort of a a a trimming as well , of the glow in the dark material , just as gimmickyness . +User Interface: Right . Mm-hmm . 'Cause yeah , that w more than finding it , that was more like you know if you're watching a film in the dark , you can um still see the remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright , so n sorta if if if we're gon if we're gonna go with the idea of um {vocalsound} uh of feedback , sort of remote finder , then that kinda stuffs that one out then . +User Interface: That was more of a a gimmick . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh it makes it fairly unnecessary then . +User Interface: Yeah , unnecessary . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , okay so scratch that . Uh so we've got do we want to go with the T_F_T_ idea or the {disfmarker} is that far too expensive ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah we're getting a lot of features now , I I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I mean I think I think the sort of find the finder things I mean it's uh I could probably write the circuit diagram for that myself . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , I think a consideration too is that these uh remotes get abused a lot , you know they get thrown around , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's a good chance the the T_F_T_ screen would break or uh get damaged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They're pretty fragile . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So is that one of our definite requirements that they wa that it needs a T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: Um no , I mean {gap} that was going on ravs uh Raj's sort of um marketing research I guess . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So we'll stick with sort of programmability um for the buttons that we do have . Um . {gap} So that's sort of included in your sub-module kind of stuff , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} you were finding out about teletext . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you could find out that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Totally , it takes cheap speech recognition , she {disfmarker} they wi +Project Manager: Um I think we're gonna scratch the speech recognition as a bit of a +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: um expensive , +User Interface: Yeah you think so ? +Industrial Designer: Oh no it's it's much cheaper than the T_F_T_ , it's just a microphone and some some integrated circuits . +Project Manager: no ? Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: And it'd it'd be a small vocabulary speech recognition system , +Project Manager: Is it not the circuits that cost {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh well that kind of takes back the R_F_ {vocalsound} the R_F_ remote sort of idea as well . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Five minutes . Okay . Decisions . Uh , votes , let's vote . Who wants T_F_T_ ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No-one does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , so we'll go with speech recognition , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , that's cool . +Project Manager: Um , speech recognition , limited buttons , organic design . And what else was I thinking of that I haven't written down and therefore fallen out my head , +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: programmability . +Marketing: Glow in dark . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: if it's not too expensive s I think it's a good gimmick . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh o okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: And also , integrating the , remember to integrate the logo and the s slogan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so . Um can you put all these reports in the project documents folder if they're not already in there as well . So , it just helps me summarize them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Here ? Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And um I'll put any {disfmarker} {gap} I'm I'm putting anything I do in there anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And where is it sorry ? +Project Manager: Uh pro uh project documents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it should be when you save +Project Manager: On A_M_I_ scenario controller . +Industrial Designer: on your desktop , so it goes save as , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . +Marketing: Uh it is in shared documents ? +Industrial Designer: And then uh hit that little folder up thing again . +Project Manager: Where am I ? +Marketing: Projoct uh projector . +Industrial Designer: Again . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah , it's on your desktop as well . +Industrial Designer: All the way to the top , yeah that's up to desktop . Right and then project documents . +User Interface: Okay , cool . +Marketing: Hmm . It is not giving anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Shared documents . +Project Manager: And I will tr {gap} getting strings of um information , I'll try and forward any specific to anybody in particular , as soon as I get them now , rather than {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I was about to sort of tell you about the changes before the meeting , and then the meeting turned up , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Did you get my email ? Okay . +Project Manager: I did {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just making sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} What I thought as well about the material is um maybe not this kind of material , but maybe more like um this kind of rubbery material , it's a bit more bouncy , like you said they get chucked around a lot . Um , a bit more {vocalsound} durable and that can also be ergonomic +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and it kind of feels a bit different from all the other remote controls . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The rubber rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: More sort of um flesh-like than plasticky sort of . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: Um but we have to take care like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But we have to take care of our children also if they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} means if children catch hold of your or if they chew it it shouldn't be too harmful . So , whatever material we use it should be {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh no , ethics , {vocalsound} that's gonna cost us money . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we have to safety point of view also , we have to take care . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , safety . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Oh I think wi with the more organic shape of it it won't be as {disfmarker} it won't as have many sharp corners as that , so that's something good , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I dunno , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could go comp yeah . +Project Manager: It sme {vocalsound} smells good for children . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We could go completely out of the box and make the thing a big red ball foam ball . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's got the thing on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there's no buttons at all , it's always on , and just yell at it , and it works . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That sounds , +User Interface: That's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: And then ch children will love it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah it's gonna have to be it's gonna be have a big yellow foam ball , yeah , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Oh yellow , yellow ball . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , d with the colour , um does it have to be all yellow , do you know ? +Project Manager: Please God no . Um . Well , I wouldn't th I mean , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: my reaction to an all-yellow remote control wouldn't be anything other than horror , so I think just having it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Small logo with the like a small yellow strip or y yellow {gap} with the logo in it . +Project Manager: surrounding the logo . +User Interface: Having a little bit . Okay cool . Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: And I'll see if I can argue with boss about putting the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: what was it ? We put {vocalsound} we put fashion into {disfmarker} Whoops , it's not working . Can't believe I've forgotten it {gap} . We put the fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} I bet that'll catch on well . +User Interface: Oh yeah , that's a good one that . Yeah so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , any last +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Twelve thirty . +Project Manager: worries , queries ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S s {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I know what you're thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay then , lunchtime , yay . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Okay , that felt a bit more like a {disfmarker} something with order and and reason to it than the last one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is quite fun actually . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Has anybo oh . +Project Manager: I really don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Has anybody pressed okay , it vibrates . It's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Check here . +Project Manager: Wow you've {gap} your first page . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I've been using up the pages . +Project Manager: I was just writing really big . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , got small writing . I don't wanna waste it . +Project Manager: I've finished the meeting now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Another questionnaire . +Project Manager: Oh , everybody needs k questionnaire . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","In a recent project meeting, the Project Manager led a team consisting of a User Interface Designer, a Marketing Expert, and an Industrial Designer to reassess and refine the roles and functions for a television remote control project. Initially, the meeting opened with some unexpected changes communicated from higher management, indicating the need for a specific television design, thus discarding the all-in-one approach previously considered. + +The User Interface Designer confirmed the understanding of the changes, and upon the Project Manager's prompt, the Marketing Expert, Rajan, enthusiastically prepared to present. The Project Manager had to assist with the technical setup, facilitating the connection for the presentation, which included some troubleshooting. + +During Rajan's presentation, he highlighted his market research findings, emphasizing the importance of aesthetics in remote control design. His survey revealed that 75% of users found most remote controls unattractive, suggesting the team should focus on creating an appealing design. Additionally, he noted a willingness among 80% of users to pay more for better-looking remote controls. He suggested a price point of twenty-five Euros could be viable. Rajan also stressed the importance of simplicity, indicating that many users only utilize a small fraction of available buttons, suggesting the device shouldn't be overly complicated or have unnecessary features. + +The User Interface Designer, Helen, and the Project Manager then navigated technical difficulties to allow Helen to share her design insights. She emphasized the company's motto to integrate fashion into electronics, intending to create trendy and user-friendly products. Helen underscored the necessity of ergonomic design, attuned closely to consumer preferences and behaviors, and was mindful of the age demographics likely to purchase the product. + +The Industrial Designer, Arlo, contributed by considering the input from the Marketing Expert and the User Interface Designer. Arlo discussed the practical limitations of the design and the potential addition of novel features like noise recognition for finding lost remotes. However, the designer pointed out the challenges associated with noise interference and the technical limitations of speech recognition based on his experience working on various industrial design projects, including spacecraft, coffee makers, and high-speed trains. + +Throughout the meeting, the team discussed various features, such as speech recognition, glow-in-the-dark materials, and feedback mechanisms to locate the remote. They considered the advantages and drawbacks of each, balancing innovation against budget constraints and technical feasibility. The discussion steered toward the implementation of an organic, trendy design that would appeal to the target demographic and incorporate the company's yellow branding and slogan aesthetically. + +The Project Manager, taking notes and guiding the discussion, acknowledged the higher management's directives to exclude outdated functions like teletext and focus on specific television compatibility. The team contemplated different functions and gimmicks to establish a unique selling proposition, including glow-in-the-dark features and speech recognition, despite the noise challenges. + +Decisions had to be made quickly as the Project Manager enforced a voting system due to time constraints, ultimately deciding to pursue speech recognition and an organic design with limited but programmable buttons, aiming for a product that would stand out in the market through artistic design and user-centric features. The team agreed to integrate the corporate colors and slogans into the design, ensuring the device's look embodied the company's brand identity. + +In the end, the meeting gathered momentum toward designing a remote control that could satisfy modern consumer expectations while maintaining affordable production costs and upholding ethical considerations about material safety, especially concerning children. + +The Project Manager wrapped up the meeting, ensuring everyone's contributions and decisions were documented in the Project Documents folder for easy reference. The team members showed camaraderie and excitement, brainstorming innovative ideas like a remote control made from soft foam for durability and novelty factor, and concluded with plans to follow up on outstanding tasks, such as market research on the necessity of teletext. + +Although the meeting presented technical hiccups and challenges in incorporating higher management's directives, the team's collaborative spirit and creative problem-solving indicated a step towards a unique, user-friendly remote control design that could potentially elevate market sales and brand recognition. The team proceeded to lunch, reflecting a sense of order and the potential for exciting contributions to the electronics industry." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes , you can help me for the slide when {gap} +User Interface: Yep . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , welcome back . I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time . How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting . Okay , and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you . And it's in the , I think uh , in the sharing folder . And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects . So can you go to the next slide ? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening . Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management , what I'm going to do , and uh , of course , I'm doing the project management and secretary both , okay , to take the minutes of the meeting . And there are three presentations . One is uh new project requirements . And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions . And uh finally we are closing . Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes , so you have to be very quick . And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal , okay , and I have to discuss a few points on this . Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project . Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded , okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology . So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design . And the second one is about uh the remote control . Should be used only for the T_V_ . That's what our uh management says . And the third point , it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image , okay , with this new project or new product . Okay . {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes , can you go to the third slide ? +User Interface: No , this is the third slide . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} . So , I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , do you wanna open the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . Um . You're participant s +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +User Interface: Two ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +User Interface: Do you want the mouse , or do you want me to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes . Yeah , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements , and from my experience , I wanna uh , and from {vocalsound} research I did , uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button , you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it . Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them . So uh , I also , since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product , thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those , and , as I said in the first meeting , um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction , especially in the the uh the outside of the product +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance , and it is reliable , and so forth . {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth , so , I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic , which I kinda like the idea , 'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off , that might be interesting . And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off , and the sound on and off , and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today , uh fifty years later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation , but it was uh sensitive to the sun , so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems . So , uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind . +Marketing: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find . And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off , you could use it for something else . And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer , I didn't really know what to do with this slide . But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this , and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board . {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this . So , uh {vocalsound} personal preferences , {vocalsound} um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here , and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it . I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme , be very colourful , or you could make it clear , and um kind of blend in with things , so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home . Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof , because uh sometimes they fall into cups +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and , you know , it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that . Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not , because half the time , I keep pushing on the remote control , and I don't know if it's actually understood my message , so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue . And uh , course I never wanna replace the battery . {vocalsound} So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences , and that's my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah , let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility , other feature , like uh unbreakable . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , because uh especially today , you know , you have the family and the kids , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay , so if you can add the feature , okay , for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay , with unbreakable , okay , I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product , if I'm not wrong . Maybe you can uh add it in that . +Industrial Designer: Good idea . Good idea , I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes , very good . +Project Manager: Okay , uh thank you Christine , and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications , or any discussion on the functional design ? +User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials ? 'Cause , for example , in the unbreakable thing , doing something plastic would be harder , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: whereas having something like , I dunno , steel or titanium isn't really economically viable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Titanium . Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy , too , +Marketing: Titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wouldn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback , I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these , but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , yeah . No , I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium . It's light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah +Marketing: Expensive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: you know , nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly , maybe if I can go back {vocalsound} . I know the project plan and the budget . So I can close this , {gap} not sure . Was in uh {disfmarker} S This . So let me see where is this file . +User Interface: That's Christine's . +Project Manager: This is Christine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And that's mine , I think . +Project Manager: That's yours , okay . Saving . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: In modified . +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Okay , uh +Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell . +Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail , okay ? The project may be the the project aim , okay . At the end of the day , the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro . Okay , and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side . Okay , that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market . Okay . Then uh you can come back with your feedback . And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion . This remote control , okay , it can be for like universal , to use for any T_V_ . Okay , and it will be slim , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat ? +Project Manager: Not fat . +Industrial Designer: Not fat , huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find , though . +Project Manager: Yep . But let's try it , okay , with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs , okay , the functional designs . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? So any other questions ? +Marketing: Uh from her side , I don't think uh there's too many more questions . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you Christine for uh time being , +Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so then uh Ed , so can you tell about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah , from the marketing side , just to to give an idea what the management is looking for , I was looking for a a remote control to have a s +User Interface: S 'scuse me for one sec . +Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro , with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro . For what uh I think from what we're trying to find , we're tr we're looking for , I don't think that price is exactly in the market . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys , uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five , eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty-five Euros , uh that's that's a preson reasonable price . That's a market price right now . Now if we're gonna take a risk , and push this up a bit , make it more expensive , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell . Obviously the risk is there . Too expensive , they're not gonna buy . But , I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group , which always spends more money on trendy new things , speech recognition is requested . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? . +Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Obviously , we can't make a remote into a computer , but maybe simple commands . I dunno , louder , softer , on , off . That might be a possibility , even though it costs more , to be the first on the market to produce this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use . So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly . {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands , say remote , and there's a beep beep beep , and they can find it through , you know , ten tons of newspapers , magazines , whatever you have at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , in the cost that uh the management is looking for , that's not gonna be possible . But if it's trendy , if it's fancy , it's got some colour to it , if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use , if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control , like I said , louder , softer , change channel , on , off , remote , it goes beep beep , I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset 'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on . So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea , with the ideas of the industrial uh design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , price obviously we have to talk about . +Project Manager: Yep . So what do you think about uh the design {gap} ? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design , uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition ? +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh training is always an issue with uh commands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process , uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost . Not sure how . {vocalsound} But um anyway , um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life . And um so , maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it . So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh , you know , gets uh , from the light , um a a solar cell inside there +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things . +User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition , yeah , it's a great feature , but if you're watching T_V_ , there's a lot of ambient sound , and it's words . It's not just , you know , noises like something hitting . It's actual speech , so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech , and the the user's speech . Otherwise , you can say remote . +Industrial Designer: Off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing , all of a sudden , you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies , because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_ . {vocalsound} So , I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems , then yeah , it'd be a really good marketing gimmick . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: But , I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation . +Industrial Designer: Very good point . +Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition , 'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom , and it calls up Mom . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay the radio can be on and everything . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition , if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television . If somebody's speaking on the se the television , they're not gonna stop and say remote , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: okay . So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . No , I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements . +Marketing: Like the t like the telephone . No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home , and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: so well , that's kinda cute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , what I can uh suggest to you , Christine , okay , uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback , or some training , okay , about uh this facility , especially for the speech recognition , I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_ , okay , because they're already in this uh speech recognition part , okay . And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them , some kind of a technical tie-up . Okay , and uh if you want , I can coordinate , okay , to get some information , okay , and uh you can uh let me know , okay , so what kind of uh the details you require okay , to add this feature in this project . I don't think it's uh the difficult . And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop , apart from uh what {gap} today . +Industrial Designer: Okay , we'll find that out . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: From from your side uh , you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: What do they want ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} , a risk , take a risk on the market ? Something that's gonna cost more , but could very easily s make a boom in the market ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different , has to be total totally new . Something that nobody has right now . +Project Manager: Yeah but +Marketing: And it's gonna cost . +Project Manager: but end of the day , you're the sales guy , so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . And uh , so I don't mind to convince , okay , the management to spend some more money on the project , okay , if you can make out of +Marketing: Obviously . +Project Manager: the money from this project . +Marketing: If the bottom line is positive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay I don't mind to convince the the management , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The management says , okay , so they they don't want certain facilities , which it's already worked , okay , they want something uh new , okay . I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree , I don't think they'll say no for that , okay . And uh I hope I can convince the management on that , okay . So if you have any uh new ideas , okay , for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special , okay , coordination , okay , between any uh technical companies , which you can uh hide their technology backup , okay , for your uh functional design or technical design , okay , then I am ready to do that . And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um well , I mean , maybe if I go through my presentation , you can sort of see what the user perspective is , and how it ties into the other two comments . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so you are finish , Ed , uh so I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll uh hand over to Agnes . Just gonna close this . T Uh where are you , here ? +User Interface: Mm participant three . +Project Manager: Participant three . +User Interface: Nope , here {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , so I'll {disfmarker} yep . Okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: Is it okay ? +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alri +User Interface: Yeah , and that's fine . Okay . So , basically , the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products . So , in our case , existing remote controls . And then , what the good ideas are , and what the bad ideas are , and why they're bad and good , which isn't always as obvious . We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad , but when you look , technically , at how it works , sometimes that's not the case . Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep , 'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work . Um and then what the remote control should look like , obviously , once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are . So , in terms of the functionalities that we need , you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off . You need to change channels , both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing . You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever . So , the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls , in general . The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do . Um often , you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done , um which you don't necessarily always remember , especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often . And that the buttons are too small . So , here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side , you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The buttons , in a lot of cases , are tiny . Um they're hard to see , and okay , they're labelled , but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much . Whereas , on the other side , you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed . And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it . So , I would be inclined to go sort of towards this , in terms of design , rather than this . And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons , then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons . So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit , or to a minimum , sorry , make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed , so like the on button being really obvious one , the channel changing and the volume , and to keep the design basically sleek and simple . +Project Manager: Click mm . +User Interface: Which , I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably . Um so , that's pretty much it , an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it's um , seems {vocalsound} very understandable . Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , that's true . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh , you know , but that's okay . That's why we're all here at the table , so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh , when you hold it , is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal 'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about , th th the look and the feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh , you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , that's definitely a very important factor , especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases , I think . +Industrial Designer: First . Yep . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay , so I don't have any questions . Sounds good . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help , for time being , on this uh subjects , okay , so please come back to me , +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh Christine , maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim , okay , and to add some features , like we are talking about , the speech recognition and all . +User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table , but do we actually want to incorporate all of them , or have we missed anything ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide , maybe that would provide some guidance ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us . +Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab +Marketing: Individual actions . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept , supposed to work on the user interface concept , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends . Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach . I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now +User Interface: I thought {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process , that's my suggestion . +Project Manager: Okay , that will be great . {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I I'm just thinking in terms of time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , now I'm objecting . No , I mean , I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away ? I mean , it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features , um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use , maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting , +Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker} +User Interface: guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause w our meeting time has run out . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: and , you know , we can't hang out here +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and talk about this , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay , what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break , okay , then uh we can discuss furthermore , okay , with our areas , and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting . So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting , and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then . Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Agreed . {vocalsound} +","In an interactive functional design meeting, a team of professionals, including a project manager, a user interface designer, an industrial designer, and a marketing specialist, convened to discuss and refine the conceptualization and features of a new remote control device. + +The project manager began the session by orienting Agnes, the user interface designer, and calling for attention to detail on a particular slide, acknowledging the availability of relevant information within a shared folder. As the meeting moderator, the project manager also took on the role of a secretary, juggling dual responsibilities by managing the project and documenting the minutes. + +The meeting is structured around an agenda that included three presentations, with topics including new project requirements, decisions regarding remote control functions, and a closing discussion. Given the concise 40-minute meeting time frame, the participants were urged to prioritize efficiency. + +A point of discussion was the obsolescence of teletext systems due to advancing computer technology, implying that it need not be a consideration in the new design. Furthermore, the management suggested that the remote should only be used for TV control and highlighted the importance of the new product in establishing a robust corporate image. + +The project manager invited Christine, the industrial designer, to the podium to share her insights. She emphasized the user's need for a simple operation (a single press power function) and the ease of locating the remote, citing the common issue of losing them. A notion was put forward to leverage popular trends and consider the aesthetics and materials for the product's exterior, making it both visually appealing and reliable. + +Christine also discussed the historical evolution of remote controls, referencing the ""Flashmatic"" as a pioneering design that allowed users to turn TVs on and off with a flashlight beam. She compared its enduring relevance with modern requirements and underscored the trade-off between pioneering innovation and practical functionality, as early designs were sensitive to sunlight, causing problems. + +Marketing chimed in with demographic insights, noting the spending propensity of 15 to 35-year-olds on trendy items. Christine also touched on a variety of user preferences, pitching an idea for an inflatable remote that could change size per user preference—a concept aimed at convenience and integration with home decor, even implying waterproof design for accidental spills or outdoor use. + +As the dialogue continued, the project manager pointed to the advantage of an unbreakable design, a feature sought after in households with children who often play with or mishandle remotes. + +During the discussions on material choices—plastic versus metals like titanium—user interface raised concerns about the economic feasibility and practicality for mass production. Opinions converged on the idea that the product should cater to, but not be limited by, cost constraints. + +The meeting took a technical turn when speech recognition features were deliberated. Marketing stressed that although speech recognition could make the remote control trendy and innovative, this feature should be simple enough to operate without misunderstanding user commands over ambient television sound. + +When the conversation turned towards budgeting and financial projections, the project manager proposed coordinating with major tech companies like Intel or IBM to seek technical support, especially in embedding advanced features like speech recognition. + +Before concluding, the team analyzed the user interface presentation. The main issues users faced with existing remotes were button overload, small buttons, confusing operations, and the need for a more intuitive and streamlined design. The team considered a simplified remote with minimalistic design and easily accessible primary functions. + +As the meeting wrapped up, the project manager assured the team of management support for innovative features like speech recognition, offering assistance in technical collaboration and ensuring the team felt their opinions on feature integration were heard and valued. + +The meeting closed on an action-oriented note, with the project manager scheduling a lunch break, after which further discussions were to be had informally, with the shared understanding that the meeting's minutes and all information would be placed in the shared folder for communal access. With that, the team adjourned, ready to take on their collective mission with renewed vigor post the midday respite." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So uh good morning . +User Interface: Morning . +Marketing: Morning . +Project Manager: I see you all find your places . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: Is everybody sitting on the right place ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I guess so . So {disfmarker} Let's see . First I will introduce myself . I don't know if uh {disfmarker} if everybody knows me , so I'm Bart , +Marketing: My name's Frank . +Project Manager: hello . Hello . +User Interface: I'm {gap} . +Project Manager: Bart . Hello . Hello . Bart . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Welcome . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh let's see . Uh let's start off um with a little presentation . Uh Now first I'll tell you a little bit about the setting . You can see there are a few cameras here . They'll record uh our actions and you'll have wires and microphones that will record your voice . Uh there are also some microphones there but th um you don't have to pay a lot of attention on those , because it will uh disappear when you don't attend to it . So is there a project documents folder ? There are some notes in it already I see , some documents . Uh I'll start with the presentation kick off . Is being modified by the administrator . Uh okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm , that's interesting . +Project Manager: Let's do it read only . Well I don't know if you've noticed , but uh we're working for Real Reaction . Uh it's a company in uh electronics . We put fashion in electronics , uh we make it work , uh we put a lot of effort in design and in the product itself . I'm Bart {gap} the project manager so I'll direct you through the project . This is our agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we have our opening acquaintance , tool training , project plan description closing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh maybe I can sit down , then I can take some notes or {disfmarker} Let's see . Maybe you can take the minutes once in a while . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: I dunno it's not a lot of work , but just uh if you hear something uh you can write down , just write it down . Uh as you can see uh it's the opening , aquaintance tool training . Aquaintance is a point we've done a bit . Um have you all seen the corporate website already ? Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yep . Visit it . +Project Manager: Have you seen any flaws in it ? I think I found one . {vocalsound} No ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Can't say I paid much attention to it , +Project Manager: I can see if it works this way . No , it doesn't work here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay no problem . But um on the corporate information side there's a th uh {disfmarker} there was Real Remote instead of Real Reaction . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Real Remote is not really the company we're {disfmarker} we are , but it's just a little {gap} fault . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} Uh our project aim is as you can see a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy , and user friendly . So these are uh the points why uh we also hired you . {vocalsound} We've got the Marketing Expert for uh the trendy and user friendly look . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And Industrial Designer uh there's also user friendly and a bit original . {vocalsound} And we've got our User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's also uh {disfmarker} That's about the new remote control . Uh project method um is uh there are three phases we are going through . First is functional des uh design , individual work , meetings . After the functional design , then the conceptual design and the detailed design . {vocalsound} I had some role indications on here . But I think you know it already by yourself . The Industrial Designer is going to work on the working design , uh components design and a bit of the look and feel design . Uh the User Interface Designer is going to do the technical function design , user interface concept and user interface design . {vocalsound} And the marketing expert is doing a little bit of user requirement specification , trend watching and project {disfmarker} uh product ev evaluation . So that's a bit what you're going to do . But that will be all worked out in uh other meetings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we've got our first tool training . {vocalsound} We are going to work with a lot of high-tech tools here , so it's ab it's handy if we have a little bit of training first . As you can see we've got the smart boards here and here in the white board . Um in the white board here there's a little tool bar on this side . Here are some functions . You can save . N uh these functions we don't have anything to do with , only undo , you can undo a little uh piece of drawing . A blank new document for each person . Uh select a pen , eraser . Capture we don't have to do anything with . Uh then we've got our pen . This pen . It's really funny because you can draw with it on this page um in the {disfmarker} think it is form of . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: You can also select the current colour and the line width . But then first you have to select the pen function . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But we're going to work with it in a minute . So okay . Uh that's very simple and it's easy to uh draw your findings and drawings on there . {vocalsound} Uh then a short thing about documents . We've got our shared folder , project {gap} project {disfmarker} what was it ? Project documents {gap} I think . But all you will found that already because there are a lot of documents in it already , so it will be okay . And these are available on the smart boards as well , so if you have a document you wanna show , just open it from the folder . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Here is a simple tool bar . It's what I just said , it's save , print , move back or forward one page . You can switch between the different drawings . And then we're going to try out the white board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So as you can see we g all {vocalsound} going to draw a animal . {vocalsound} Just to uh uh just to get a bit familiar with it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mouse wasn't running away . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That was interesting . +Project Manager: Is everybody {disfmarker} is anybody playing with the mouse ? No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Innocent . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going to uh draw animal . {vocalsound} And uh just sum up a few of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the only thing we have to uh look after is that we use different colours , and different line width . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's {disfmarker} I can start from now . I will . You can use this pen by holding it like a like a little child . Because if you hold it like this , the sensors will get blocked and then the drawing won't get good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Another thing is you have to be uh a bit slow . 'Cause if you're going to draw like really fast then um the pen won't hold up . So we choose form of current colour uh I think grey is appropriate . Then the line width . I think seven will be nice . Now you'll see my drawing capabilities . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: These are not very much , but uh {disfmarker} Uh , see you have to do it real slow . {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: Ah I was trying to draw a dolphin , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I think his nose has to be a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's close . +Marketing: I'm thinking about a swordfish . +Project Manager: So what {disfmarker} yeah it's {disfmarker} this is bit of the swordfish . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , he hasn't got an eye . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Woah . {vocalsound} Now we've got another function . We've got the eraser . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you can undo this easily . +Marketing: Meat . +Project Manager: Ah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've got to write down a few of its characteristics . Uh is {disfmarker} They've got no text tool , no . Uh . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is typically a undo action , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Pen . Maybe you have to hold it a bit upside-down . I think that's it because if you wan ar are going to do it like this then it will be a stripe . But I don't know , I'm just trying . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This is not my work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to use {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . I think it's a {disfmarker} it wants to draw a {disfmarker} another animal ? I don't know . It lives for the fun . So {disfmarker} It's my characteristic uh characteristic about the dolphin . It lives for the fun . So now I'm gonna hand over the pen on the new blank sheet to you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Marketing: Thank you . Okay . Gonna use a different line width . And I'm gonna draw in black . There . 'Kay , I'm not much of an artist , but here we go . +Project Manager: Maybe it's easier to draw the smaller line width , I think . Because this is going a lot better than uh I did . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A sheep . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is my um {disfmarker} Hmm . Sheep . +Project Manager: It's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: With of course +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: little blue dot they always get sprayed on their butts . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a real dead sheep , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} For recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , I see . {vocalsound} Um maybe you can also write your name somewhere . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: They are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . You have to go really slow when you're writing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They're brilliant animal animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's just a little me thingy . So . Guess I'll pass the pen to our User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: Okay . Um I'm just gonna draw its uh head , but mm {disfmarker} Let's see . Mm . Uh . {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sweet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Interesting . +User Interface: You know what that is ? Or who ? +Industrial Designer: Garfield . +Marketing: A rabbit ? +User Interface: Ah okay , yeah . +Marketing: Garfield . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Mm . Guess . So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . That's enough . {vocalsound} Um , you say a blank , +Project Manager: Yeah , just a blank sheet . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I was gonna draw a cat too , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll just try something else . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something different than Garfield . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mine is a bit more skinny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's pretty skinny cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the most interesting tail . +Project Manager: Is your cat , or did you find him on the street ? {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it's supposed to be a cat . I like cats because uh they are uh independent . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The pen . So . +Project Manager: Okay . That's pretty clear . So everybody knows how to work with the white board now ? So if you have any ideas or if you wanna draw anything on the white board , just ask +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The pen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and go ahead . It's pretty uh easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S {gap} +Marketing: We're being haunted . +Project Manager: haunted white board . {vocalsound} So we've got the tool uh introduction . We move along to the project finance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um as you can see , we um for our remote control , a selling price is uh twenty five Euros . Our selling price . Uh our profit aim is fifty million Euros . Uh that's the least we have to get from our remote controls , so we have to work together to reach our aims . Uh we can do it international , so we have to focus on different kind of users , different kind of cultures , and different kind of trends as well . Um but that's all in the later stadium . Our production cost um can be maximal twelve and a half Euros , so that's also a point we have to keep in mind , that we won't make remote controls with small televisions inside , and stuff like that . It won't work . So just try to remember these points . Selling price twenty five , profit aims fifty million um , but more important is the int international market we're trying to focus on . And production cost uh maximal twelve and a half Euros . So that's leads us to our little discussion . We've got about five or ten minutes left for discussion . So I'm gonna sit down , I think . It's easier . +Marketing: Yeah , you got a message . +Project Manager: I've got a message . Five minutes . Okay , +User Interface: Five minutes , okay . +Project Manager: that's uh good timing . {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So just on a side note , why is it my laptop is only giving me a black screen ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Uh maybe you have to say the magic word . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: Does it do anything ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to just clap it down ? Mm back up again . No slide show . Hmm . +Marketing: It's off now . +Project Manager: It's off . Now you have to put it back o Oh yeah . You'll be okay , I think . +Marketing: Well , it was on , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's those laptops . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , there we are . +Project Manager: Nice . Okay . {vocalsound} But so mm does everybody has um experiences with uh remote controls , and I mean not the ordinary mote controls , but also a little bit different ones ? Like you can use for other ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Oh really ? +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: You ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , me neither . +Marketing: Well , we have a kind of broad T_V_ at home , and a D_V_D_ player , so we got like a lot of remote controls , one for the T_V_ , one for the video recorder , one for the D_V_D_ player . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Marketing: And I think it's {disfmarker} it would be best to just make one remote control that can operate them all . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah +User Interface: Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: I've I've got one at home . And you can uh program I think eight different devices in it , and you can use it for your television , anything else . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it also operates on infra-red , so you have to got the little device inside your room , and then you can operate it from the third or th or second floor . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Oh +Project Manager: So that's pretty handy when you have a video recorder or D_V_D_ player downstairs and you've got a link to your T_V_ on the second floor . So that's a pretty handy um +Marketing: really . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . {vocalsound} Um but only the I think that if you can put different kind of devices in one remote control , it makes it a lot easier as well . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: That's good to remember . +Marketing: So I think you can take minutes again . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's nice , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's your job . +Project Manager: So we've {disfmarker} we want different functions +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and we can maybe see if we can do something with the infra-red . But I don't know if that will exceed the production costs . So that uh that's something we have to find out , I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . But that would be really good if we could do that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And other functions for a remote control ? Maybe we can make it uh uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um . Think it has to be shock proof +User Interface: Sure , yeah . +Marketing: 'cause +Project Manager: Shock proof . +Marketing: my remote control tends to fall a lot . +User Interface: Waterproof , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure . +User Interface: Uh , you never no know uh , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I w I mean uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Waterproof . Okay . So these are our um a few things we can think of . Um I will put the minutes from this meeting uh in our project folder . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah , one other little thing . Thought it might be handy to put a battery status display on it . +Project Manager: That's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you can see +Project Manager: battery stays . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: how much is left in the battery . But they'll also really drag up the production costs , so think we'll have to see about that too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: But maybe just a little LED , I don't know . +Project Manager: That's an idea as well . Other ideas ? Quick ideas . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were all mentioned , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Any questions about this uh presentation ? Kick off presentation . +Marketing: Um . Nope , don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , then I'll put the minutes from this meeting in the project folder , and then we can all work . Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And we can all work uh on our own projects . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Aye sir . +Project Manager: Okay then I'll meet you in about a half an hour , I think . +Marketing: Half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So good luck . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +","In a meeting room on a bright morning, the project team for an innovative remote control gathered for a kickoff meeting. The team comprised a Project Manager named Bart, a Marketing expert Frank, a User Interface (UI) designer, and an Industrial Designer, whose name wasn't mentioned. Bart called the meeting to order, verifying that everyone was seated correctly and introducing himself; subsequent introductions by Frank and a gap in identification for the UI designer and Industrial designer were suggestive of brief technical communication interruptions or inaudibility in their responses. + +As the session progressed, Bart briefed the team about the recording setup within the meeting room, which included cameras and microphones to document their actions and discussions. However, he assured them that the recording equipment would become unintrusive as they proceeded with their respective tasks. + +Bart went on to describe the company they were working for, Real Reaction, which specialized in integrating fashion with electronics, emphasizing not just the design but also the functionality of their products. He outlined the project's agenda, which included opening acquaintances, tool training, a project plan description, and a closing meeting. + +With roles delineated—Marketing focused on the trend and user-friendliness aspects of the product, the Industrial Designer on the structure and look and feel, and the UI Designer on the technical and functional interface—the team had a clear understanding of their individual responsibilities within the three phases of the project: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. + +The meeting segued into a tool training session introducing smart boards and the interactive whiteboard functionality. Here, the team engaged in a hands-on exercise, drawing animals and familiarizing themselves with the tool's features like pen selection, color choice, and line width adjustment. A few humorous moments arose as they dealt with a finicky mouse and the subtle art form of using the digital pen correctly for drawing and writing. + +As the meeting progressed, Bart presented a financial overview, setting the project's financial targets. The team aimed to achieve at least fifty million Euros in profit with a selling price of twenty-five Euros per remote control and a maximum production cost of twelve and a half Euros. This cost-conscious approach considered the international market in the development of the remote control. + +The discussion opened up to team's experience with remote controls—highly relevant given the project at hand. They shared ideas for potential features like simplifying the plethora of remote controls for different devices into a single, universal remote and considering attributes such as shock and waterproofing, operability across distances, and diverse user requirements spanning various markets and cultures. + +Marketing proposed a battery status display, but this raised concerns related to potential increases in production costs. Bart assured the team that all key points from the discussion would be documented and made available in the project documents folder for everyone's reference. He encouraged anyone with further ideas to contribute. + +In conclusion, with a quick round for any final questions or additional discussion points, the meeting wrapped up having accomplished its main goals: team introduction, role assignments, tool familiarization, and setting a strategic direction for the project, leaving the team about half an hour for independent work before their next gathering. With that, Bart closed the meeting, reminding them of their shared goal and upcoming session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Just put it on the deskt {gap} desktop . +Project Manager: No on the desktop you'll find you should find that there's a project documents link . A well actually just there . +Marketing: Project documents , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: If you dump it in there . +Marketing: What's your username ? +Project Manager: Your username . +Marketing: What's your username and password ? Mm-hmm . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . There we go . +Project Manager: Excellent . Right . Hopefully that's us ready to uh to go . So . Functional design meeting . We'll have to flesh out some of the uh stuff . Um we'll start with the minutes of the last meeting . Not a lot thankfully to say . We introduced ourselves , discussed the possibility of a macro facility , interac interacting the T_V_ a bit more , um mentioning of bar-code , joystick for user manipulation , um and ergonomics of the remote control as well . Um it's come to my attention the following . Teletext has become outdated due to the populat popularity of the internet . Remote control should only be used for the T_V_ . Um due for uh time to market and possibly also cost issues . Um also key is the corporate image should stay recognisable , um f uh your colour and slogan of course is down at the bottom there . Um . Now . Just to say quickly uh I would have thought that only being used for a television the macro facility may now not be required . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um or at l its functionality would have been of limited use . So to the point in my opinion anyway that it might not be worth pursuing . Um if anybody disagrees we can uh definitely say so . Um and hopefully we'll just crack on and we'll get everything going . Um I'd like to if possible hear from our Marketing Expert first , to help us gain an idea of where we're going to go . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I'll just load up your presentation from here if you want . +Marketing: Sure . Um , sh would you like to {vocalsound} I'll just do it from here . +Project Manager: Yep . Sorry . Uh . Is yours the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , try second one maybe . Try it , yeah maybe . +Project Manager: Oh sorry . Okay , right . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Oh , I thought I put in my last name , I guess not , but {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh if you {disfmarker} that's all right . If you {disfmarker} do you want me to just cycle through it for you or ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah , that'd be fine , that'd be great . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . Functional requirement by me Ebenezer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so um we did some research , we asked one hundred people their opinions on remote controls . We asked some uh open ended questions , just , what are your opinions on the remote control , got a lot of re responses , and we asked some very specific questions , and we got a lot of good feedback . Please bear in mind this is only a hundred people , so even when the groups are divided into fifteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , there's only maybe ten people {vocalsound} fifteen people in each group . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} So we got {disfmarker} some the bad stuff we got , remotes are often lost . I often lose my remote control , the back of the couch , some place , and even if it's not lost permanently , it takes me a few minutes to find it . {vocalsound} Most buttons are not used any more , like you said , teletext is outdated now . I remember trying to load a D_V_D_ player recently , and there were so many buttons , it took me I don't know maybe ten minutes to to go through each button , 'cause you have to press the shift button to access the yellow buttons , you know there's just a lot of stuff that no one really uses . And if they do , not very often . Takes too long to master the remote control . I've seen some remote controls that are big , they have a lot of buttons , you have to hold down more than one key at one time to do something , they're just not great to use . We just got a lot of bad complaints about remote controls , people do not like remote controls . Some of the good stuff we got . Between the age of uh fifteen and twenty five , most people would be willing to pay extra for voice recognition software . Now don't get excited yet , I've got more to say on that . Most people'd be willing to pay for that um most people want remote controls to be pretty , they want it to be fancy , th they they want it to be different , everybody has a white remote control with black buttons , and a red button and a green button , not everybody wants that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Finally , my opinion . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The voice recognition thing is cool . And uh voice recognition , the software , open source software exist already . It's a bit sketchy at some times , uh , you're not gonna get good always accurate results , but for a very fixed number of words , you know you have , how many different words can you have for a remote control , up , down , left , right , channel five , channel seven , you know , how many , you can't have that many words . For a fixed vocabulary it works quite well . I'm pretty sure people would buy it . But after a while people may wanna return it , because {vocalsound} if you have to to say som I mean most people use a remote control for switching to channels , and they say they do that about ninety eight percent of the time . Using the remote control , ninety eight percent of the time for changing channels , and that's for flickering through channels . So if you have to say up , up , up , up , if you have to do that all the time , then people might get a bit fed up with that and they may return it . {vocalsound} However , {vocalsound} oh , because the voice recognition software exists already , there's no need to spend money on research and development , but this does mean the need for microphones in the in the remote control , which is an unusual feature in my opinion . But if we do have the voice recognition thing , there's a lot of stuff that you can uh get rid of . See , you could {disfmarker} there're two options . Either you have voice recognition by itself , which I think is a bit impractical for like night time if you wanna be watching television and you wanna be quiet , or I don't know you have a visitor coming round and the remote's only trained for you , it's a bit impractical to have just voice recognition by itself . So you can have voice recognition and a regular remote . But imagine you got rid of the regular remote part , then you can design the remote to look any way you want it to look , because there are no restrictions on physical size , or shape , it it could be as fancy as you want it to be , you know , it could be like a lollipop or something like that , something weird like that . As long as the voice recognition stuff works , that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Okay , yep . +Marketing: So we have the three birds , we have the design , that {vocalsound} we have the the fancy bit , right , the voice recognition's fancy , it's cool , it's different , it's radical , so , and then we have an extra bit I don't remember {vocalsound} so I'm pretty sure people will buy the remote , but is it practical to have a voice recognition system in a remote control , I think is a big question . Um , will people will people be willing to wait for the the period that it'll take to train the remote , 'cause I think it will the remote will uh get better over time with the same user user , but for the first week or for the first two weeks are you willing to wait , are you willing to have a bad remote control . {vocalsound} And uh what if you have visitors come round , they stay the night , they wanna use the T_V_ , they can't use the remote because they speak differently to you . Um , how do you account for regional accents and stuff like that . Uh , will people return the remote control , {vocalsound} I think a lot of young people will buy the remote control , if they have the money , you know , so , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . If you could uh +Marketing: do our audience have the money , but would they return it after a while because it's not as fast as pressing a button , it's not a practical . So . These are things I think we should consider . +Project Manager: sor +Marketing: I think it's cool , +Project Manager: if you could speed it up a bit , yeah . If you could uh speed it up a bit please , yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry ? Sure . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: I'm about to end , yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: I think it's cool but there are definitely some considerations . +Project Manager: Okay . Excellent . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um . Hear from the {vocalsound} User Interface Designer now I think might be an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , you've got your presentation now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did {disfmarker} where did {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the it's in the folder +Project Manager: is it on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: where did you get all your in information {gap} ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: is it ? Okay . +Marketing: There was uh a website , uh , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical functions ? +Marketing: right here . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Okay , this is a {vocalsound} brief run through of the um of the technical functions of the remote . As um is uh the the the presentation is uh already slightly obsolete because I {vocalsound} had in mind something that would uh be i be aimed at controlling multiple devices but uh there's still stuff of relevance , so +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: press on . I've looked at {vocalsound} looked at a num {vocalsound} uh couple of other uh remote control models just for an idea of basic design principles . Um and wasn't really satisfied by what I saw I have to say so this is more sort of springboard for uh how these could be improved on . {vocalsound} Um um basically the job of the device is to send commands to an appliance , in this case the television set . Um to save you getting off your backside . Um and there's two main trends in th in the sort of design practice . On the one hand {disfmarker} and this uh this particularly relates to its sort of earliest models where with you know i so so many buttons on it so about the size of the television set . Um giving you every possible function that the that the device has , the remote control controls . And most of these functions are not going to be used , it creates a rather user unfriendly interface . And on the other hand there's a user focused approach that pares things down to just what {vocalsound} what is most likely to get used . Um {vocalsound} With uh {disfmarker} a and a and of course there is a certain amount of sort of loss of function here obviously , but mostly that's relatively peripheral functions . And so you go for something that's fairly intuitive to use , and um well f the for the most part for T_V_ remote it's uh tha that would be channel control and volume . Um and if you {vocalsound} if you if you are wanting to incorporate uh control of a D_V_ {vocalsound} D_V_D_ or uh {vocalsound} V_C_R_ presumably into that then there's a play , pause , stop , rewind , fast-forward , record , so forth . Um . My own view is that we should definitely be going for a user focused design . Um but uh the pro {vocalsound} I think the problem with a lot of the sort of user focused designs that are about is that they sort of make assumptions in advance about what uh what a given user's going to uh want mo want to do from {vocalsound} want it to do most . So , something that's uh {vocalsound} something that is more programmable , that uh perh perhaps has the full range of functions available to it but you can then specify yourself what you're most likely to want . Um so that those are then immediately {vocalsound} accessible through fairly minimal number of controls , um I liked Ebenezer's idea of including a joystick in that and uh possibly a sort of fairly minimal number of sort of function buttons , and have a disp {vocalsound} you then have some sort of basic display on it so that if you're um sort of cha changing from different modes for the device it'll tell you just exactly what uh you know each direction of the uh of the um joystick's {vocalsound} going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do . Um , this is actually {gap} a again slightly taking inspiration off of uh games controllers , you know the Playstation control where you have four basic function buttons +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: that are just marked with um distinctive uh geometrical shapes but the {vocalsound} and then dependent on what you're doing with it what game and so on um those uh those functions are then sort of further specified . And so it's taking taking the lead from that . Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Right . Um , if we could hear from our Industrial engineer , or Designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh , I was still working on stuff , I hadn't got it finished . Um , {vocalsound} alright . Click to save in {disfmarker} where do I have to save it ? +Project Manager: If you look on the desktop you'll find that there's a link to the project folder , or project documents . If you save it in there we can open it up from here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , what I've done with it , I'm sorry . Shit . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Are you finding it okay or ? +Industrial Designer: I'm just {gap} closing it now . {gap} where I've saved it . +Marketing: Well like if you go to one , uh whichever one you were working {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that's it there , +Marketing: yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: and you just click file save as . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , right I'm responsible for working design , uh , this is basically the inside going on of the the uh remote control . So we have the energy source , we have the user interface , this this is what I've seen . Uh the sender will push the button , the chip will respond , uh and then the dig digital signal is sent to the T_V_ . So uh uh , if you go to next slide , you'll see you'll see uh what do we need on the user interface . Do we need uh many buttons , or do we need l many light bulbs that could be easier to uh to realise which appliances are on or not . Um , {vocalsound} , or would that take too much power , would we need more um components in there to supply the power ? Um , the joystick is another thing , if we were gonna add that , um , there'd be more components to deal with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} , so uh we need to {disfmarker} I dunno exactly what {disfmarker} That's the design of the the the layout of the uh electronic design , um obviously there'll be more details once we've decided what we're putting on the user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , that'll be decided , I guess . {vocalsound} Uh , and the next slide . Oh , yeah {disfmarker} Um , if you go to the next slide then . +Project Manager: Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just used the {vocalsound} it was a mess , uh I was just putting adding it together at the end there . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , don't worry about it at all mate . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so you have the energy source obviously connected to the chip , and the user interface obviously contains everything . You have the switch turn it on , infrared bulb , uh will contact the T_V_ and will have whatever device or D_V_D_ player , the bulb will turn on to say it's on . Uh , so do we need on the control uh different buttons to decide , or different light bulbs , would it be easier ? Um , I dunno what we should decide on that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well . Oh sorry , I'm I'm interrupting you . Are you {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , it's finished , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Okay . Right . Um , {vocalsound} right we can probably skip that for now . So , we've had some stuff put forward , um along with the new user requirements , um we've had a lot of kind of input I'd say so far . Um I hear what the Marketing Expert's saying about {vocalsound} um voice activated control . However I've got a couple of worries about that . {vocalsound} The power required , um and the ability to the cost , it seems like for uh an embedded system , this could cause us issues . +Industrial Designer: Cost . Mm . +Project Manager: Um for example you see that there's fairly robust services on uh computers via uh via voice , I_B_M_ do um drag and dictate , but these require a lot of memory +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and usually um state quite advanced processor requirements . Um voice activation could be an interesting idea but I think that our Ind Industrial Designer would probably upon some research say that it's maybe not feasible . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um that's just my view right now , +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: however the idea of a joystick and then maybe an L_C_D_ which has been kind of put forward so far , it's almost like having a small T_ not T_V_ to say , but if you can control almost all of the functionality from the display , I don't know how much power an L_C_D_ would take , but it might be quite low ? +Marketing: Mm . I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on , or {vocalsound} uh , interactive L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well literally um if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than um those on a {vocalsound} a mobile phone , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: something where you can read an an um fair amount of information , traverse maybe quite a few menus , if we maybe used mobile phones as a good example , they usually incorporate they have the keypad , and then evr all the other functionality is usually associated inside by traversing around . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That could be one possibility . Um and then we could have like say the common buttons as you say , volume control , changing channels {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} I I was thinking that the remote {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for uh volume , left and right for channels . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think that people will get mixed up , like , they'll be looking at this screen and that screen and then , you know , trying to get everything working , would it be a bit confusing ? +User Interface: Um I think probably for the first couple of hours of using it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but you know muscle memory's a wonderful thing , um . And I think {vocalsound} and I think that size of uh display was about what I had in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um though I mean I w I would say that uh we could probably probably be required to um mo most of the mobile phone displays you see these days are colour but we should probably try to stick to black and white . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree with you . +User Interface: Si si simply to keep m keep the unit cost down . Um I mean colour could be a sort of subsequent development but uh you know cost a bit of extra money f w w w w w once everyone's got the first , you know , oh colour's out , we'll have to replace it won't we . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It does nothing extra . +Project Manager: That would be my feeling as well , I think we could possibly create quite a useful user interface . Um now I mean I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or {disfmarker} and a joystick I think like I h if I was in the habit of buying remote controls then I would want one , +Project Manager: sorry , go for it . +Marketing: but I think we don't have a specific audience , you know , like what is our target audience , what niche are {disfmarker} niche are we trying to market and corner . You know , you know what I'm saying , like , for whom is this intended ? Everybody ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it could probably be aimed at most people who've used a mobile . And that might be just another way of saying try to target most people . +Marketing: Most people , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , if we are if we were to follow that avenue , we might be s you know um we're kind of almost relying on their experience with a mobile phone I suppose . But that does cover a very large section of the people out there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . I think that's fair {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , I mean I imagine as well that the actual L_C_D_ and maybe to a certain extent the joystick as well would be for the additional functionality . Which maybe doesn't get used as often , maybe it makes it easy for them to figure out how to um change the channels as in the frequencies and such for reprogramming it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and you can still have the main buttons that allow the people to turn the machine on and off , d up and down , it depends , I mean maybe we have the fol um the joystick as a separate one for the other functions then , that there's just a a small number of as you were saying uh buttons that have already been defined . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like we go for the nice standard um up and down for and volume control . So that literally anybody can come along , pick up the remote and still know what do do . And they can completely ignore most of the functionality which would be for say the o actual owner of the the T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and who would normally use the unit . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th the thing I like about the uh the uh joystick +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: is that uh you you you then basically you can then basically put it I mean for for T_ T_ for T_V_ remote alone , you could put um I mean there are {disfmarker} like I say the the the main things people do with a T_V_ remote control is the volume and the channel . You can pack all that onto was onto a single control . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh but the {vocalsound} but then o uh obviously if uh you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i {vocalsound} you you then get to sort of menu navigation . I mean with things like ch with things like tuning and channels um you know adjusting brightn uh brightness and {vocalsound} fiddly things that no one really bothers with , most T_V_s these days actually have menus anyway so this would be a fairly rational way of integra {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: integrating the uh the remote with the device it's controlling . Um {gap} concern about our market . Um , if we are I mean most of the uh of the replacement remote market is sort of {gap} remote control rationalisation . Um , you've got twenty different devices in your living room , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you want one wo {vocalsound} y you want one that'll do the job of all of them . Um , if all you're replacing is one of the you know however many remotes you have in your living room , um you know you still need separate remotes for everything else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I just think that uh possibly {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well this is a requirement that we have to stick to I'm afraid , +User Interface: mm . +Project Manager: this isn't one that I've just arbitrarily decided on . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So um this is this is one of the solid ones that has to be obeyed , for now . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I can understand your point , and I would agree with you , but this is our design spec for now . 'Fraid to say . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does that um would that include um access to say {vocalsound} interactive functions on digital or cable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say so , yes , because then we have to be able to control the remote boxes , and that is a separate unit . Um I think that it {disfmarker} I would say that the design spec we've been {gap} with is for the television only for now . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And until we hear otherwise we should go with just that . +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , specifically television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we'll hear differently , but for now {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It would be ease of manipulation of certain functions , yes . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Just a thought . {vocalsound} Um maybe then our market should be T_V_ manufacturers , rather than the public . Try and sell it t sell it to them to supply with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is that possibility , yes . B However I don't know exactly where we'll be going with that , but it might not even be the avenue of the Marketing Expert , +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that might be sales , who are not in this meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . It's just , the way I figure it , twelve point five Euros per unit , we have to sell at least like three million or something like that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: not to account for all the the money we waste on remotes that no one buys , you know , like if we made a perf if we made a ks for every remote we made someone bought it , then we have to sell a lot of remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just {disfmarker} Is this gonna be enough to to sell ? +Project Manager: Well , something else that you brought up was uh the ability to lose a remote , which as you said you've done , in fact we've probably all done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know if it's a gimmick or not , but have any of you ever seen those odd little key rings where if you whistle , it will beep and you {disfmarker} tell you where it is . +User Interface: Mm , yeah , I've seen them . +Marketing: I had one of those , and my brother , and my dad , could have beat me up +Project Manager: Um . Well +Marketing: because it it went off all the time accidentally . +Project Manager: the other option of course is that um the +Marketing: The clapping one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well {disfmarker} I was going to say clapping , um {disfmarker} Um digital telephones , uh for example , one unit has {disfmarker} of course you have to have that base unit , somewhere where there's a button , but maybe it's a button that you attach to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: To a television . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something which you when you press that , it would beep to give its location away , on the remote unit . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that could be something could um separate us a bit . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that way , because we're attaching what would be a small button to the T_V_ , again say what , it would be a small transmitter , um watch battery type scenario I would say , or something that if it was problems enough you could actually even just um I don't {disfmarker} power {gap} that might be something that we could look into . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , it's uh putting a lot on your shoulders there , so I mean that could be something that separates us a bit from the market as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So . To go on from here . Um we have to decide exactly what we're going to do with the remote . Before we leave this meeting , it would be best to say this is what we're going {disfmarker} this is the design we're gonna try and get , this is how we're gonna make ourselves look unique . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Do we go for maybe a remote contro uh sorry , we're gonna go for a remote control obviously , do we go for a small joystick that would operate say changing channels , up and down , and then , what , another button that would say that it's now being used to manoeuvre round the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm yeah . Yeah , I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We're just saying volume . Should volume be important in the joystick , do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could use say the left and right for changing channels and the up and down for volume , +User Interface: For volume . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we have a frequency of how what people use a remote control for most . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , power is used like once per hour , +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight per hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's by far the biggest one , and then teletext , is still here , that's like fourteen , +Project Manager: Vol Volume selection okay , yep , +Marketing: and volume selection . +Project Manager: the teletext we're gambling with , and we're gonna say it's dead , the way of the dodo {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , yeah , okay okay . Yeah , um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} well , sorry , we could maybe even go as far as saying power button , small joystick , L_C_D_ , and then what maybe is it one more button to say that you're using the menu system , and with the possibility of pushing down on the joystick to say okay ? So we're having very very few buttons involved , +User Interface: Actually how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but navigation around a menu for most things . +User Interface: Actually I would say maybe two two function buttons , the {disfmarker} y we're now using the menus button and um and an og and an okay button . I mean certainly something I've found with the joystick on mo the joysticks on mobile phones is that a lot of the time th the device mistakes you trying to move it in one direction or the other for pushing down for okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or vice versa . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really irritating . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The o the o the other dis design constraint I think we should bear in mind is that people are you know very much used to using a remote control one handedly , um , so we need to make sure that e even with the joystick , you know something that can just sit comfortably in the palm of the hand and have the joystick just controlled by the thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . So um we're actually that sounds like a rough idea . Do we incorporate the idea of trying to f locate the remote control again via a beeping noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you mind looking {gap} ? +Marketing: Um , I think because it's so small it might be an uh I mean if we only have like two three buttons it might be essential to have to have that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The ability to locate it again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that would require a um transmitter maybe attached to the T_V_ , just so that it says find me , and {vocalsound} what , a basically a small microphone um on the actual unit , can maybe hide it in the base . +Industrial Designer: Light bulb as well , +User Interface: Oh . So {vocalsound} so +Industrial Designer: no ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: a small speaker you mean . +Project Manager: Some speaker , +Marketing: Speaker {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a light bulb ? No . To flash . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Nah , you'd see it anyway , if you hear it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} E us we might be better with the sound possibly {disfmarker} we could maybe incorporate +Marketing: W those little key-rings have both , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: th e the true fact , considering the cost of an L_E_D_ , we could just incorporate it anyway . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: The L_E_D_s can be surprisingly bright now . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Blue ones particularly . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Plus that's a nice wee design touch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: by the sounds of it , with what we're suggesting so far , your design um the user interface is still quite open , you could go for quite an interesting design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because we're only going to have a very few key and you've got you know a small L_C_D_ , joystick , e I think it leaves you open to a a potential wide range of shapes , something that can make it stand out slightly . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um if you could look into what we've suggested so far , the feasibility of um small transmitter , um and such , maybe if an L_C_D_ screen requires too much power , or such . Ebenezer , um , Marketing Expert {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I can give you the frequency , what people what options people use most often , I guess that's gonna be important in the ts defining the the software side of the interface , right . +Project Manager: If , +Marketing: You want the stuff {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah if you could maybe as well see what people think about the idea of this minimalist approach that we've taken , where of a joystick to control the very basic functions , and then the idea of manipulating it like you would a mobile . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know how easy that will be within the time frame , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but could be something we could maybe look into . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . Um any last comments that anybody would like to put forward ? Anything that they think has been missed out . Bit of a wide open question there of course . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Feel free to email me if you think that uh we've screwed something up and wanna get it rectified as soon as possible . +Marketing: Sure . 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I should just look at um the speaker , {gap} the speaker and an L_E_D_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speaker and L_E_D_ for locating , um , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and a transmitter . +Project Manager: transmitter {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually one one wee thought about that . Um , if we do end up trying to market this to television manufacturers then the um then the transmitter could actually be built into the television . +Project Manager: {gap} getting the external power source , yep , that's quite true . Um , and something that we can can easily be adopted at the last minute as well I'd say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The electronics could be s either placed externally or internally , makes no difference to the final product of the actual remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so that's good . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} You know I think +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I mean if it w if we get a major television manufacturer to say y oh yeah we'll have that , save us the bother , then that's you know vast amounts of sales . Quite quickly . +Industrial Designer: P +Project Manager: Oh , one thing that we've almost not talked about at all , my apologies for that , um , user interface , we also need to maybe get the slogan in here , um it's , +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: I'm pointing at my laptop , what in God {disfmarker} Real reaction , and such . So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The slogan is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: yeah , the slogan's we put the fashion in electronics , isn't it ? +Project Manager: My apologies . No it could well be , I've probably missed that . Um , I think that's l almost the last minute thing +Industrial Designer: 'S also look cool . +Project Manager: we can just incorporate into the actual plastic on top . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I'm not too concerned a that we haven't gone into depth about that . But it might be something you could consider when you're thinking about shapes ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In fact we might like to put a slogan on , and um possibly the two R_s to signify the company . Rather than real reaction . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I thought the uh the d the double arc could perhaps uh be the uh the enter button . +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And I'd say that that's us for now . Okay . +","In a collaborative meeting between the marketing, project management, and design departments, the team discusses the functional design and marketing strategy for a new TV remote control. The conversation, which appears to take place in a semi-formal setting, involves a mixture of planning, brainstorming, and task delegation as the team works toward a unified vision for the product. + +Initially, there is a technical exchange regarding document location and username credentials for file sharing. Once settled, the project manager opens the discussion about the last meeting's minutes and summarizes the key points, including the introduction of a macro facility, the potential to enhance interaction with the TV using additional components such as a joystick for user manipulation, and considerations about the ergonomic design of the remote control. + +A significant revelation from the project manager is the obsolescence of teletext due to internet popularity. It prompts a discussion about focusing the remote control's functionalities strictly on TV controls to manage cost and time-to-market issues. + +Marketing chimes in with research findings derived from a survey of 100 people. The insights include common complaints such as remotes being easily lost, excessive unnecessary buttons, difficulty mastering the control, and slow adoption of new functionalities. Conversely, good feedback reveals a young demographic willing to pay extra for voice recognition and a desire for aesthetically pleasing remote designs. + +The project manager acknowledges these insights but expresses concerns about the practicality and cost of voice recognition technology. There is a preference instead for simpler functionalities obtainable via a joystick and possibly including voice activation as an ancillary feature. + +The User Interface Designer presents technical functions of remote controls and proposes a user-centric design, emphasizing a balance between functionality and user friendliness. There is an advocacy for a programmable remote that's intuitive and mainly controls essential functions like channel and volume. + +The Industrial Designer shares ongoing work on the internal workings of the remote, particularly the electronic design and user interface possibilities such as button configurations and additional components like joysticks. + +In the process of forming a consensus on the design features of the new remote control, the team recognizes the need to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. They explore ideas such as incorporating a joystick, a minimalistic LCD, and a 'find me' feature to help locate the remote when lost – perhaps through a sound or light signal. + +The marketability of the new design is reviewed, with considerations about the cost to produce and sell sufficient units. The potential to partner with TV manufacturers rather than exclusively target end consumers is pondered as a strategic approach to sales. + +The team decides the remote's base functionalities will be focused around a small joystick, possibly a couple of buttons for menu navigation, and a display like those found on mobile phones. It is agreed to consider additional features like a sound and light system for locating the misplaced remote control, a concept that appeals to the team in terms of market differentiation. + +Lastly, the incorporation of corporate branding and slogans is discussed, suggesting the use of the company's double 'R' logo as a possible 'enter' button for the remote, tying in well with the slogan ""we put the fashion in electronics."" + +As the team wraps up the meeting, there's an understanding that further research and development will ensue based on the discussion to bring the product vision to fruition. Everyone leaves with a clear idea of what needs to be done next, and the project manager invites them to share any additional thoughts or concerns via email." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Yeah , we had a long discussion about how much w how easy we want to make it for people to bleep things out . So {disfmarker} Morgan wants to make it hard . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did it {disfmarker} ? I didn't even check yesterday whether it was moving . +PhD D: It didn't move yesterday either when I started it . +Grad C: So . +PhD D: So I don't know if it doesn't like both of us {disfmarker} +Grad C: Channel three ? Channel three ? +PhD D: You know , I discovered something yesterday on these , um , wireless ones . +Grad B: Channel two . +Grad C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: You can tell if it 's picking up {pause} breath noise and stuff . +Grad C: Yeah , it has a little indicator on it {disfmarker} on the AF . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you breathe under {disfmarker} breathe and then you see AF go off , then you know {pause} it 's p picking up your mouth noise . +PhD F: Oh , that 's good . Cuz we have a lot of breath noises . +Grad C: Yep . Test . +PhD F: In fact , if you listen to just the channels of people not talking , it 's like "" @ @ "" . It 's very disgust +Grad C: What ? Did you see Hannibal recently or something ? +PhD F: Sorry . Exactly . It 's very disconcerting . OK . So , um , +Grad C: +PhD F: I was gonna try to get out of here , like , in half an hour , um , cuz I really appreciate people coming , and {vocalsound} the main thing that I was gonna ask people to help with today is {pause} to give input on what kinds of database format we should {pause} use in starting to link up things like word transcripts and annotations of word transcripts , so anything that transcribers or discourse coders or whatever put in the signal , {vocalsound} with time - marks for , like , words and phone boundaries and all the stuff we get out of the forced alignments and the recognizer . So , we have this , um {disfmarker} I think a starting point is clearly the {disfmarker} the channelized {pause} output of Dave Gelbart 's program , which Don brought a copy of , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm familiar with that . I mean , we {disfmarker} I sort of already have developed an XML format for this sort of stuff . +PhD F: um , which {disfmarker} +PhD D: Can I see it ? +Grad C: And so the only question {disfmarker} is it the sort of thing that you want to use or not ? Have you looked at that ? I mean , I had a web page up . +PhD F: Right . So , +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I actually mostly need to be able to link up , or {disfmarker} I it 's {disfmarker} it 's a question both of what the representation is and {disfmarker} +Grad C: You mean , this {disfmarker} I guess I am gonna be standing up and drawing on the board . +PhD F: OK , yeah . So you should , definitely . +Grad C: Um , so {disfmarker} so it definitely had that as a concept . So tha it has a single time - line , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then you can have lots of different sections , each of which have I Ds attached to it , and then you can refer from other sections to those I Ds , if you want to . So that , um {disfmarker} so that you start with {disfmarker} with a time - line tag . "" Time - line "" . And then you have a bunch of times . I don't e I don't remember exactly what my notation was , +PhD A: Oh , I remember seeing an example of this . +Grad C: but it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , "" T equals one point three two "" , uh {disfmarker} And then I {disfmarker} I also had optional things like accuracy , and then "" ID equals T one , uh , one seven "" . And then , {nonvocalsound} I also wanted to {disfmarker} to be i to be able to not specify specifically what the time was and just have a stamp . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , so these are arbitrary , assigned by a program , not {disfmarker} not by a user . So you have a whole bunch of those . And then somewhere la further down you might have something like an utterance tag which has "" start equals T - seventeen , end equals T - eighteen "" . So what that 's saying is , we know it starts at this particular time . We don't know when it ends . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? But it ends at this T - eighteen , which may be somewhere else . We say there 's another utterance . We don't know what the t time actually is but we know that it 's the same time as this end time . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: You know , thirty - eight , whatever you want . +PhD A: So you 're essentially defining a lattice . +Grad C: OK . Yes , exactly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: And then , uh {disfmarker} and then these also have I Ds . Right ? So you could {disfmarker} you could have some sort of other {disfmarker} other tag later in the file that would be something like , um , oh , I don't know , {comment} uh , {nonvocalsound} "" noise - type equals {nonvocalsound} door - slam "" . You know ? And then , uh , {nonvocalsound} you could either say "" time equals a particular time - mark "" or you could do other sorts of references . So {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or you might have a prosody {disfmarker} "" Prosody "" right ? D ? T ? D ? T ? T ? +PhD F: It 's an O instead of an I , but the D is good . +Grad C: You like the D ? That 's a good D . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Um , you know , so you could have some sort of type here , and then you could have , um {disfmarker} the utterance that it 's referring to could be U - seventeen or something like that . +PhD F: OK . So , I mean , that seems {disfmarker} that seems g great for all of the encoding of things with time and , +Grad C: Oh , well . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess my question is more , uh , what d what do you do with , say , a forced alignment ? +PhD A: How - how +PhD F: I mean you 've got all these phone labels , and what do you do if you {disfmarker} just conceptually , if you get , um , transcriptions where the words are staying but the time boundaries are changing , cuz you 've got a new recognition output , or s sort of {disfmarker} what 's the , um , sequence of going from the waveforms that stay the same , the transcripts that may or may not change , and then the utterance which {disfmarker} where the time boundaries that may or may not change {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} That 's actually very nicely handled here because you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} all you 'd have to change is the , {vocalsound} um , time - stamps in the time - line without {disfmarker} without , uh , changing the I Ds . +PhD F: Um . And you 'd be able to propagate all of the {disfmarker} the information ? +Grad C: Right . That 's , the who that 's why you do that extra level of indirection . So that you can just change the time - line . +PhD A: Except the time - line is gonna be huge . If you say {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , +PhD A: suppose you have a phone - level alignment . +PhD F: yeah , especially at the phone - level . +PhD A: You 'd have {disfmarker} you 'd have {disfmarker} +PhD F: The {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have phone - level backtraces . +Grad C: Yeah , this {disfmarker} I don't think I would do this for phone - level . I think for phone - level you want to use some sort of binary representation +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: because it 'll be too dense otherwise . +PhD F: OK . So , if you were doing that and you had this sort of companion , uh , thing that gets called up for phone - level , uh , what would that look like ? +PhD A: Why +Grad C: I would use just an existing {disfmarker} an existing way of doing it . +PhD F: How would you {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm . But {disfmarker} but why not use it for phone - level ? +PhD F: H h +PhD A: It 's just a matter of {disfmarker} it 's just a matter of it being bigger . But if you have {disfmarker} you know , barring memory limitations , or uh {disfmarker} I w I mean this is still the m +Grad C: It 's parsing limitations . I don't want to have this text file that you have to read in the whole thing to do something very simple for . +PhD A: Oh , no . You would use it only {pause} for {pause} purposes where you actually want the phone - level information , I 'd imagine . +PhD F: So you could have some file that configures how much information you want in your {disfmarker} in your XML or something . +Grad C: Right . I mean , you 'd {disfmarker} y +PhD F: Um , +PhD A: You {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I am imagining you 'd have multiple versions of this depending on the information that you want . +PhD F: cuz th it does get very bush with {disfmarker} Right . +Grad C: Um , I 'm just {disfmarker} what I 'm wondering is whether {disfmarker} I think for word - level , this would be OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: For word - level , it 's alright . +PhD F: Yeah . Definitely . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: For lower than word - level , you 're talking about so much data that I just {disfmarker} I don't know . I don't know if that {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , we actually have {disfmarker} So , one thing that Don is doing , is we 're {disfmarker} we 're running {disfmarker} For every frame , you get a pitch value , +PhD D: Lattices are big , too . +PhD F: and not only one pitch value but different kinds of pitch values +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , for something like that I would use P - file +PhD F: depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: or {disfmarker} or any frame - level stuff I would use P - file . +PhD F: Meaning {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Uh , that 's a {disfmarker} well , or something like it . It 's ICS uh , ICSI has a format for frame - level representation of features . Um . +PhD F: OK . That you could call {disfmarker} that you would tie into this representation with like an ID . +Grad C: Right . Right . Or {disfmarker} or there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a particular way in XML to refer to external resources . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: So you would say "" refer to this external file "" . Um , so that external file wouldn't be in {disfmarker} +PhD F: So that might {disfmarker} that might work . +PhD D: But what {disfmarker} what 's the advantage of doing that versus just putting it into this format ? +Grad C: More compact , which I think is {disfmarker} is better . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: I mean , if you did it at this {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean these are long meetings and with {disfmarker} for every frame , +Grad C: You don't want to do it with that {disfmarker} Anything at frame - level you had better encode binary +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: or it 's gonna be really painful . +PhD A: Or you just compre I mean , I like text formats . Um , b you can always , uh , G - zip them , and , um , you know , c decompress them on the fly if y if space is really a concern . +PhD D: Yeah , I was thi I was thinking the advantage is that we can share this with other people . +Grad C: Well , but if you 're talking about one per frame , you 're talking about gigabyte - size files . You 're gonna actually run out of space in your filesystem for one file . +PhD F: These are big files . These are really {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? Because you have a two - gigabyte limit on most O Ss . +PhD A: Right , OK . I would say {disfmarker} OK , so frame - level is probably not a good idea . But for phone - level stuff it 's perfectly {disfmarker} +PhD F: And th it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like phones , or syllables , or anything like that . +PhD F: Phones are every five frames though , so . Or something like that . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but most of the frames are actually not speech . So , you know , people don't {disfmarker} v Look at it , words times the average {disfmarker} The average number of phones in an English word is , I don't know , {comment} five maybe ? +PhD F: Yeah , but we actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , look at it , t number of words times five . That 's not {disfmarker} that not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so you mean pause phones take up a lot of the {disfmarker} long pause phones . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . OK . That 's true . But you do have to keep them in there . Y yeah . +Grad C: So I think it {disfmarker} it 's debatable whether you want to do phone - level in the same thing . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: But I think , a anything at frame - level , even P - file , is too verbose . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: I would use something tighter than P - files . +PhD F: Do you {disfmarker} Are you familiar with it ? +Grad C: So . +PhD F: I haven't seen this particular format , +PhD A: I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've used them . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know what their structure is . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I 've forgot what the str +PhD D: But , wait a minute , P - file for each frame is storing a vector of cepstral or PLP values , +Grad C: It 's whatever you want , actually . +PhD D: right ? Right . +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} what 's nice about the P - file {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} i Built into it is the concept of {pause} frames , utterances , sentences , that sort of thing , that structure . And then also attached to it is an arbitrary vector of values . And it can take different types . +PhD F: Oh . +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} th they don't all have to be floats . You know , you can have integers and you can have doubles , and all that sort of stuff . +PhD F: So that {disfmarker} that sounds {disfmarker} that sounds about what I w +Grad C: Um . Right ? And it has a header {disfmarker} it has a header format that {pause} describes it {pause} to some extent . So , the only problem with it is it 's actually storing the {pause} utterance numbers and the {pause} frame numbers in the file , even though they 're always sequential . And so it does waste a lot of space . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: But it 's still a lot tighter than {disfmarker} than ASCII . And we have a lot of tools already to deal with it . +PhD F: You do ? OK . Is there some documentation on this somewhere ? +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a ton of it . Man - pages and , uh , source code , and me . +PhD F: OK , great . So , I mean , that sounds good . I {disfmarker} I was just looking for something {disfmarker} I 'm not a database person , but something sort of standard enough that , you know , if we start using this we can give it out , other people can work on it , +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not standard . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} {comment} Is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I mean , it 's something that we developed at ICSI . But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's {pause} been used here +Grad C: But it 's been used here +PhD F: and people 've {disfmarker} +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and , you know , we have a {pause} well - configured system that you can distribute for free , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , it must be the equivalent of whatever you guys used to store feat your computed features in , right ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: Yeah , th we have {disfmarker} Actually , we {disfmarker} we use a generalization of the {disfmarker} the Sphere format . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so there is something like that but it 's , um , probably not as sophist +Grad C: Well , what does H T K do for features ? +PhD D: And I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or does it even have a concept of features ? +PhD A: They ha it has its own {disfmarker} I mean , Entropic has their own feature format that 's called , like , S - SD or some so SF or something like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I 'm just wondering , would it be worth while to use that instead ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD F: Yeah . Th - this is exactly the kind of decision {disfmarker} It 's just whatever {disfmarker} +PhD D: But , I mean , people don't typically share this kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: They generate their own . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Actually , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've done this stuff on prosodics and three or four places have asked for those prosodic files , and we just have an ASCII , uh , output of frame - by - frame . +Grad C: Ah , right . +PhD F: Which is fine , but it gets unwieldy to go in and {disfmarker} and query these files with really huge files . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: I mean , we could do it . I was just thinking if there 's something that {disfmarker} where all the frame values are {disfmarker} +Grad C: And a and again , if you have a {disfmarker} if you have a two - hour - long meeting , that 's gonna {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm ? They 're {disfmarker} they 're fair they 're quite large . +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , they 'd be emo enormous . +PhD F: And these are for ten - minute Switchboard conversations , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} So it 's doable , it 's just that you can only store a feature vector at frame - by - frame and it doesn't have any kind of , +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} is the sharing part of this a pretty important {pause} consideration +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: or does that just sort of , uh {disfmarker} a nice thing to have ? +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about what we 're gonna do with the data . But I thought it would be good to get something that we can {disfmarker} that other people can use or adopt for their own kinds of encoding . And just , I mean we have to use some we have to make some decision about what to do . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: And especially for the prosody work , what {disfmarker} what it ends up being is you get features from the signal , and of course those change every time your alignments change . So you re - run a recognizer , you want to recompute your features , um , and then keep the database up to date . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Or you change a word , or you change a {vocalsound} utterance boundary segment , which is gonna happen a lot . And so I wanted something where {pause} all of this can be done in a elegant way and that if somebody wants to try something or compute something else , that it can be done flexibly . Um , it doesn't have to be pretty , it just has to be , you know , easy to use , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the other thing {disfmarker} We should look at ATLAS , the NIST thing , +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: and see if they have anything at that level . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , I 'm not sure what to do about this with ATLAS , because they chose a different route . I chose something that {disfmarker} Th - there are sort of two choices . Your {disfmarker} your file format can know about {disfmarker} know that you 're talking about language {pause} and speech , which is what I chose , and time , or your file format can just be a graph representation . And then the application has to impose the structure on top . So what it looked like ATLAS chose is , they chose the other way , which was their file format is just nodes and links , and you have to interpret what they mean yourself . +PhD F: And why did you not choose that type of approach ? +Grad C: Uh , because I knew that we were doing speech , and I thought it was better if you 're looking at a raw file to be {disfmarker} t for the tags to say "" it 's an utterance "" , as opposed to the tag to say "" it 's a link "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: But other than that , are they compatible ? I mean , you could sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they 're reasonably compatible . +PhD F: I mean , you {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +PhD D: You could probably translate between them . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Yeah , that 's w So , +Grad C: So , well , the other thing is if we choose to use ATLAS , which maybe we should just do , we should just throw this out before we invest a lot of time in it . +PhD F: OK . I don't {disfmarker} So this is what the meeting 's about , +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: just sort of how to {disfmarker} Um , cuz we need to come up with a database like this just to do our work . And I actually don't care , as long as it 's something useful to other people , what we choose . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So maybe it 's {disfmarker} maybe oth you know , if {disfmarker} if you have any idea of how to choose , cuz I don't . +Grad C: The only thing {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Do they already have tools ? +Grad C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I chose this for a couple reasons . One of them is that it 's easy to parse . You don't need a full XML parser . It 's very easy to just write a Perl script {pause} to parse it . +PhD A: As long as uh each tag is on one line . +Grad C: Exactly . Exactly . Which I always do . +PhD F: And you can have as much information in the tag as you want , right ? +Grad C: Well , I have it structured . Right ? So each type tag has only particular items that it can take . +PhD F: Can you {disfmarker} But you can add to those structures if you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Sure . If you have more information . So what {disfmarker} What NIST would say is that instead of doing this , you would say something like "" link {nonvocalsound} start equals , um , you know , some node ID , +PhD F: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: end equals some other node ID "" , and then "" type "" would be "" utterance "" . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , so it 's very similar . +PhD F: So why would it be a {disfmarker} a waste to do it this way if it 's similar enough that we can always translate it ? +PhD D: It probably wouldn't be a waste . It would mean that at some point if we wanted to switch , we 'd just have to translate everything . +Grad C: Write a translator . But it se Since they are developing a big {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it {disfmarker} but that sounds {disfmarker} +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} I don't think that 's a big deal . +PhD F: As long as it is {disfmarker} +Grad C: they 're developing a big infrastructure . And so it seems to me that if {disfmarker} if we want to use that , we might as well go directly to what they 're doing , rather than {disfmarker} +PhD A: If we want to {disfmarker} Do they already have something that 's {disfmarker} that would be useful for us in place ? +PhD D: Yeah . See , that 's the question . I mean , how stable is their {disfmarker} Are they ready to go , +Grad C: The {disfmarker} I looked at it {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: The last time I looked at it was a while ago , probably a year ago , uh , when we first started talking about this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: And at that time at least {vocalsound} it was still not very {pause} complete . And so , specifically they didn't have any external format representation at that time . They just had the sort of conceptual {pause} node {disfmarker} uh , annotated transcription graph , which I really liked . And that 's exactly what this stuff is based on . Since then , they 've developed their own external file format , which is , uh , you know , this sort of s this sort of thing . Um , and apparently they 've also developed a lot of tools , but I haven't looked at them . Maybe I should . +PhD A: We should {disfmarker} we should find out . +PhD F: I mean , would the tools {disfmarker} would the tools run on something like this , if you can translate them anyway ? +Grad C: Um , th what would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} what would worry me is that maybe we might miss a little detail +PhD A: It 's a hassle +PhD F: I mean , that {disfmarker} I guess it 's a question that {disfmarker} +PhD A: if {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh , yeah . +Grad C: that would make it very difficult to translate from one to the other . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think if it 's conceptually close , and they already have or will have tools that everybody else will be using , I mean , {vocalsound} it would be crazy to do something s you know , separate that {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , we might as well . Yep . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take a closer look at it . +PhD F: Actually , so it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that would really be the question , is just what you would feel is in the long run the best thing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: Cuz {vocalsound} once we start , sort of , doing this I don't {disfmarker} we don't actually have enough time to probably have to rehash it out again +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yep . The other thing {disfmarker} the other way that I sort of established this was as easy translation to and from the Transcriber format . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} s Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , I like this . This is sort of intuitively easy to actually r read , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: as easy it could {disfmarker} as it could be . But , I suppose that {pause} as long as they have a type here that specifies "" utt "" , um , +Grad C: It 's almost the same . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} yeah , close enough that {disfmarker} +Grad C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} with this , though , is that you can't really add any supplementary information . Right ? So if you suddenly decide that you want {disfmarker} +PhD F: You have to make a different type . +Grad C: Yeah . You 'd have to make a different type . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Well , if you look at it and {disfmarker} Um , I guess in my mind I don't know enough {disfmarker} Jane would know better , {comment} about the {pause} types of annotations and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} But I imagine that those are things that would {disfmarker} well , you guys mentioned this , {comment} that could span any {disfmarker} it could be in its own channel , it could span time boundaries of any type , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: it could be instantaneous , things like that . Um , and then from the recognition side we have backtraces at the phone - level . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} if it can handle that , it could handle states or whatever . And then at the prosody - level we have frame {disfmarker} sort of like cepstral feature files , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: uh , like these P - files or anything like that . And that 's sort of the world of things that I {disfmarker} And then we have the aligned channels , of course , +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: It seems to me you want to keep the frame - level stuff separate . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: And then {disfmarker} +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I definitely agree and I wanted to find actually a f a nicer format or a {disfmarker} maybe a more compact format than what we used before . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Just cuz you 've got {vocalsound} ten channels or whatever and two hours of a meeting . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huge . +PhD A: Now {disfmarker} now how would you {disfmarker} how would you represent , um , multiple speakers in this framework ? Were {disfmarker} You would just represent them as {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , +PhD A: You would have like a speaker tag or something ? +Grad C: there 's a spea speaker tag up at the top which identifies them and then each utt the way I had it is each turn or each utterance , {comment} I don't even remember now , had a speaker ID tag attached to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And in this format you would have a different tag , which {disfmarker} which would , uh , be linked to the link . So {disfmarker} so somewhere else you would have another thing {pause} that would be , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Let 's see , would it be a node or a link ? Um {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} so this one would have , um , an ID is link {disfmarker} {comment} link seventy - four or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then somewhere up here you would have a link that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , was referencing L - seventy - four and had speaker Adam . +PhD A: Is i ? +Grad C: You know , or something like that . +PhD F: Actually , it 's the channel , I think , that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , channel or speaker or whatever . +PhD F: I mean , w yeah , channel is what the channelized output out +PhD A: It doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: This isn't quite right . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I have to look at it again . +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} so how in the NIST format do we express {vocalsound} a hierarchical relationship between , um , say , an utterance and the words within it ? So how do you {pause} tell {pause} that {pause} these are the words that belong to that utterance ? +Grad C: Um , you would have another structure lower down than this that would be saying they 're all belonging to this ID . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So each thing refers to the {pause} utterance that it belongs to . +Grad C: Right . And then each utterance could refer to a turn , +PhD D: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not hi it 's sort of bottom - up . +Grad C: and each turn could refer to something higher up . +PhD F: And what if you actually have {disfmarker} So right now what you have as utterance , um , the closest thing that comes out of the channelized is the stuff between the segment boundaries that the transcribers put in or that Thilo put in , which may or may not actually be , like , a s it 's usually not {disfmarker} um , the beginning and end of a sentence , say . +Grad C: Well , that 's why I didn't call it "" sentence "" . +PhD F: So , right . Um , so it 's like a segment or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , I mean , I assume this is possible , that if you have {disfmarker} someone annotates the punctuation or whatever when they transcribe , you can say , you know , from {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} from the c beginning of the sentence to the end of the sentence , from the annotations , this is a unit , even though it never actually {disfmarker} i It 's only a unit by virtue of the annotations {pause} at the word - level . +Grad C: Sure . I mean , so you would {disfmarker} you would have yet another tag . +PhD F: And then that would get a tag somehow . +Grad C: You 'd have another tag which says this is of type "" sentence "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: And , what {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's just not overtly in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: Um , cuz this is exactly the kind of {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think that should be {pause} possible as long as the {disfmarker} But , uh , what I don't understand is where the {disfmarker} where in this type of file {pause} that would be expressed . +Grad C: Right . You would have another tag somewhere . It 's {disfmarker} well , there 're two ways of doing it . +PhD F: S so it would just be floating before the sentence or floating after the sentence without a time - mark . +Grad C: You could have some sort of link type {disfmarker} type equals "" sentence "" , and ID is "" S - whatever "" . And then lower down you could have an utterance . So the type is "" utterance "" {disfmarker} equals "" utt "" . And you could either say that {disfmarker} No . I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: So here 's the thing . +Grad C: I take that back . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} can you say that this is part of this , +PhD F: See , cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would just have a r +PhD F: S +Grad C: or do you say this is part of this ? I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would refer up to the sentence . +PhD F: But they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , the thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: they 're actually overlapping each other , sort of . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: the thing is that some something may be a part of one thing for one purpose and another thing of another purpose . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: So f +PhD F: You have to have another type then , I guess . +PhD A: s Um , well , s let 's {disfmarker} let 's ta so let 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I think I 'm {disfmarker} I think w I had better look at it again +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: because I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . OK . +PhD A: y So for instance @ @ {comment} sup +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection that I 'm forgetting . +PhD A: Suppose you have a word sequence and you have two different segmentations of that same word sequence . f Say , one segmentation is in terms of , um , you know , uh , sentences . And another segmentation is in terms of , um , {vocalsound} I don't know , {comment} prosodic phrases . And let 's say that they don't {pause} nest . So , you know , a prosodic phrase may cross two sentences or something . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: I don't know if that 's true or not but {vocalsound} let 's as +PhD F: Well , it 's definitely true with the segment . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: That 's what I {disfmarker} exactly what I meant by the utterances versus the sentence could be sort of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . So , you want to be s you want to say this {disfmarker} this word is part of that sentence and this prosodic phrase . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: But the phrase is not part of the sentence +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and neither is the sentence part of the phrase . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: I I 'm pretty sure that you can do that , but I 'm forgetting the exact level of nesting . +PhD A: So , you would have to have {vocalsound} two different pointers from the word up {disfmarker} one level up , one to the sent +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so what you would end up having is a tag saying "" here 's a word , and it starts here and it ends here "" . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And then lower down you would say "" here 's a prosodic boundary and it has these words in it "" . And lower down you 'd have "" here 's a sentence , +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: An - Right . +Grad C: and it has these words in it "" . +PhD F: So you would be able to go in and say , you know , "" give me all the words in the bound in the prosodic phrase +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: and give me all the words in the {disfmarker} "" Yeah . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that would wor +PhD F: Um , OK . +Grad C: Let me look at it again . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the o the other issue that you had was , how do you actually efficiently extract , um {disfmarker} find and extract information in a structure of this type ? +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: That 's good . +PhD A: So you gave some examples like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , uh , and , I mean , you guys might {disfmarker} I don't know if this is premature because I suppose once you get the representation you can do this , but the kinds of things I was worried about is , +PhD A: No , that 's not clear . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , yeah , you c sure you can do it , +PhD F: Well , OK . So i if it {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can you do it sort of l l you know , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: I I mean , I can't do it , but I can {disfmarker} um , +PhD A: y y you gotta {disfmarker} you gotta do this {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're gonna want to do this very quickly +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: or else you 'll spend all your time sort of searching through very {vocalsound} complex data structures {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . You 'd need a p sort of a paradigm for how to do it . But an example would be "" find all the cases in which Adam started to talk while Andreas was talking and his pitch was rising , Andreas 's pitch "" . That kind of thing . +Grad C: Right . I mean , that 's gonna be {disfmarker} Is the rising pitch a {pause} feature , or is it gonna be in the same file ? +PhD F: Well , the rising pitch will never be {pause} hand - annotated . So the {disfmarker} all the prosodic features are going to be automatically {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} I mean , that 's gonna be hard regardless , +PhD F: So they 're gonna be in those {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? Because you 're gonna have to write a program that goes through your feature file and looks for rising pitches . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Right . So normally what we would do is we would say "" what do we wanna assign rising pitch to ? "" Are we gonna assign it to words ? Are we gonna just assign it to sort of {disfmarker} when it 's rising we have a begin - end rise representation ? But suppose we dump out this file and we say , uh , for every word we just classify it as , w you know , rise or fall or neither ? +Grad C: OK . Well , in that case you would add that to this {pause} format +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: r +PhD F: So we would basically be sort of , um , taking the format and enriching it with things that we wanna query in relation to the words that are already in the file , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and then querying it . +PhD A: You want sort of a grep that 's {disfmarker} that works at the structural {disfmarker} on the structural representation . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: You have that . There 's a {pause} standard again in XML , specifically for searching XML documents {disfmarker} structured X - XML documents , where you can specify both the content and the structural position . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not clear that that 's {disfmarker} That 's relative to the structure of the XML document , +PhD F: If {disfmarker} +PhD A: not to the structure of what you 're representing in the document . +Grad C: You use it as a tool . You use it as a tool , not an end - user . It 's not an end - user thing . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you would use that to build your tool to do that sort of search . +PhD A: Right . Be Because here you 're specifying a lattice . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: So the underlying {disfmarker} that 's the underlying data structure . And you want to be able to search in that lattice . +PhD F: But as long as the {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's a graph , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's different from searching through the text . +PhD F: But it seems like as long as the features that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , no , no , no . The whole point is that the text and the lattice are isomorphic . They {pause} represent each other {pause} completely . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} I mean th +PhD F: That 's true if the features from your acoustics or whatever that are not explicitly in this are at the level of these types . +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: That {disfmarker} that if you can do that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but that 's gonna be the trouble no matter what . Right ? No matter what format you choose , you 're gonna have the trou you 're gonna have the difficulty of relating the {disfmarker} the frame - level features {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's right . That 's true . That 's why I was trying to figure out what 's the best format for this representation . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: And it 's still gonna be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD F: it 's still gonna be , uh , not direct . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: You know , it {disfmarker} Or another example was , you know , uh , where in the language {disfmarker} where in the word sequence are people interrupting ? So , I guess that one 's actually easier . +PhD D: What about {disfmarker} what about , um , the idea of using a relational database to , uh , store the information from the XML ? So you would have {disfmarker} XML basically would {disfmarker} Uh , you {disfmarker} you could use the XML to put the data in , and then when you get data out , you put it back in XML . So use XML as sort of the {disfmarker} the transfer format , +Grad C: Transfer . +PhD D: uh , but then you store the data in the database , which allows you to do all kinds of {pause} good search things in there . +Grad C: The , uh {disfmarker} One of the things that ATLAS is doing is they 're trying to define an API which is independent of the back store , +PhD F: Huh . +Grad C: so that , uh , you could define a single API and the {disfmarker} the storage could be flat XML files or a database . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: My opinion on that is for the s sort of stuff that we 're doing , {comment} I suspect it 's overkill to do a full relational database , that , um , just a flat file and , uh , search tools I bet will be enough . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: But that 's the advantage of ATLAS , is that if we actually take {disfmarker} decide to go that route completely and we program to their API , then if we wanted to add a database later it would be pretty easy . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: It seems like the kind of thing you 'd do if {disfmarker} I don't know , if people start adding all kinds of s bells and whistles to the data . And so that might be {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be good for us to know {disfmarker} to use a format where we know we can easily , um , input that to some database if other people are using it . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Something like that . +Grad C: I guess I 'm just a little hesitant to try to go whole hog on sort of the {disfmarker} the whole framework that {disfmarker} that NIST is talking about , with ATLAS and a database and all that sort of stuff , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: cuz it 's a big learning curve , just to get going . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: Whereas if we just do a flat file format , sure , it may not be as efficient but everyone can program in Perl and {disfmarker} and use it . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? +PhD A: But this is {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , as opposed to {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I 'm still , um , {vocalsound} not convinced that you can do much at all on the text {disfmarker} on the flat file that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} you know , the text representation . e Because the text representation is gonna be , uh , not reflecting the structure of {disfmarker} of your words and annotations . It 's just {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , if it 's not representing it , then how do you recover it ? Of course it 's representing it . +PhD A: No . You {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do is you have to basically {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's the whole point . +PhD A: Y yeah . You can use Perl to read it in and construct a internal representation that is essentially a lattice . But , the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , that was a different point . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: Right ? So what I was saying is that {disfmarker} +PhD A: But that 's what you 'll have to do . Bec - be +Grad C: For Perl {disfmarker} if you want to just do Perl . If you wanted to use the structured XML query language , that 's a different thing . And it 's a set of tools {vocalsound} that let you specify given the D - DDT {disfmarker} DTD of the document , um , what sorts of structural searches you want to do . So you want to say that , you know , you 're looking for , um , a tag within a tag within a particular tag that has this particular text in it , um , and , uh , refers to a particular value . And so the point isn't that an end - user , who is looking for a query like you specified , wouldn't program it in this language . What you would do is , someone would build a tool that used that as a library . So that they {disfmarker} so that you wouldn't have to construct the internal representations yourself . +PhD F: Is a {disfmarker} See , I think the kinds of questions , at least in the next {disfmarker} to the end of this year , are {disfmarker} there may be a lot of different ones , but they 'll all have a similar nature . They 'll be looking at either a word - level prosodic , uh , an {disfmarker} a value , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a continuous value , like the slope of something . But you know , we 'll do something where we {disfmarker} some kind of data reduction where the prosodic features are sort o uh , either at the word - level or at the segment - level , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} or something like that . They 're not gonna be at the phone - level and they 're no not gonna be at the frame - level when we get done with sort of giving them simpler shapes and things . And so the main thing is just being able {disfmarker} Well , I guess , the two goals . Um , one that Chuck mentioned is starting out with something that we don't have to start over , that we don't have to throw away if other people want to extend it for other kinds of questions , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and being able to at least get enough , uh , information out on {disfmarker} where we condition the location of features on information that 's in the kind of file that you {pause} put up there . And that would {disfmarker} that would do it , +Grad C: Yeah . I think that there are quick and dirty solutions , +PhD F: I mean , for me . +Grad C: and then there are long - term , big - infrastructure solutions . And so {vocalsound} we want to try to pick something that lets us do a little bit of both . +PhD F: In the between , right . And especially that the representation doesn't have to be thrown away , +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: even if your tools change . +Grad C: And so it seems to me that {disfmarker} I mean , I have to look at it again to see whether it can really do what we want , but if we use the ATLAS external file representation , um , it seems like it 's rich enough that you could do quick tools just as I said in Perl , and then later on if we choose to go up the learning curve , we can use the whole ATLAS inter infrastructure , +PhD F: Yeah . I mean , that sounds good to me . +Grad C: which has all that built in . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} if you would l look at that and let us know what you think . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: I mean , I think we 're sort of guinea pigs , cuz I {disfmarker} I want to get the prosody work done but I don't want to waste time , you know , getting the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , maybe {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I wouldn't wait for the formats , because anything you pick we 'll be able to translate to another form . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Ma well , maybe you should actually look at it yourself too to get a sense of what it is you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll be dealing with , +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: because , um , you know , Adam might have one opinion but you might have another , so +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , definitely . +PhD A: I think the more eyes look at this the better . +PhD F: Especially if there 's , e um {disfmarker} you know , if someone can help with at least the {disfmarker} the setup of the right {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hi , Jane . +PhD F: Oh , hi . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD F: the right representation , then , i you know , I hope it won't {disfmarker} We don't actually need the whole full - blown thing to be ready , +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} Oh , well . +PhD F: so . Um , so maybe if you guys can look at it and sort of see what , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 're actually just {disfmarker} +Grad C: We 're about done . +PhD F: yeah , +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD F: wrapping up , but , um {disfmarker} Yeah , sorry , it 's a uh short meeting , but , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't know . Is there anything else , like {disfmarker} I mean that helps me a lot , +Grad C: Well , I think the other thing we might want to look at is alternatives to P - file . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , th the reason I like P - file is I 'm already familiar with it , we have expertise here , and so if we pick something else , there 's the learning - curve problem . But , I mean , it is just something we developed at ICSI . +PhD A: Is there an {disfmarker} is there an IP - API ? +Grad C: And so {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: There 's an API for it . And , uh , +PhD A: There used to be a problem that they get too large , +Grad C: a bunch of libraries , P - file utilities . +PhD A: and so {pause} basically the {disfmarker} uh the filesystem wouldn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that 's gonna be a problem no matter what . You have the two - gigabyte limit on the filesystem size . And we definitely hit that with Broadcast News . +PhD A: Maybe you could extend the API to , uh , support , uh , like splitting up , you know , conceptually one file into smaller files on disk so that you can essentially , you know , have arbitrarily long f +Grad C: Yep . Most of the tools can handle that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: So that we didn't do it at the API - level . We did it at the t tool - level . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} many of them can s you can specify several P - files and they 'll just be done sequentially . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: So , I guess , yeah , if {disfmarker} if you and Don can {disfmarker} if you can show him the P - file stuff and see . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: So this would be like for the F - zero {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . +Grad C: I mean , if you do "" man P - file "" or "" apropos P - file "" , you 'll see a lot . +Grad B: I 've used the P - file , I think . I 've looked at it at least , briefly , I think when we were doing s something . +PhD A: What does the P stand for anyway ? +Grad C: I have no idea . +Grad B: Oh , in there . +Grad C: I didn't de I didn't develop it . You know , it was {disfmarker} I think it was Dave Johnson . So it 's all part of the Quicknet library . It has all the utilities for it . +PhD A: No , P - files were around way before Quicknet . P - files were {disfmarker} were around when {disfmarker} w with , um , {vocalsound} RAP . +Grad C: Oh , were they ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right ? +PhD F: It 's like the history of ICSI . +PhD A: You worked with P - files . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +PhD D: No . +PhD A: I worked with P - files . +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD D: I don't remember what the "" P "" is , though . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: But there are ni they 're {disfmarker} The {pause} Quicknet library has a bunch of things in it to handle P - files , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: so it works pretty well . +PhD A: +PhD F: And that isn't really , I guess , as important as the {disfmarker} the main {disfmarker} I don't know what you call it , the {disfmarker} the main sort of word - level {disfmarker} +Grad C: Neither do I . +PhD D: Probably stands for "" Phil "" . Phil Kohn . +Grad C: It 's a Phil file ? +PhD D: Yeah . That 's my guess . +PhD F: Huh . OK . Well , that 's really useful . I mean , this is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to settle . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've been meaning to look at the ATLAS stuff again anyway . +PhD F: Great . +Grad C: So , just keep {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I guess it 's also sort of a political deci I mean , if {disfmarker} if you feel like that 's a community that would be good to tie into anyway , then it 's {disfmarker} sounds like it 's worth doing . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} it w +PhD A: j I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , w uh , as I said , I {disfmarker} what I did with this stuff {disfmarker} I based it on theirs . It 's just they hadn't actually come up with an external format yet . So now that they have come up with a format , it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems pretty reasonable to use it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: But let me look at it again . +PhD F: OK , great . +Grad C: As I said , that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Cuz we actually can start {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection and I 'm just blanking on exactly how it works . I gotta look at it again . +PhD F: I mean , we can start with , um , I guess , this input from Dave 's , which you had printed out , the channelized input . Cuz he has all of the channels , you know , with the channels in the tag and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah , I 've seen it . +PhD F: So that would be i directly , +Grad C: Yep . Easy {disfmarker} easy to map . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so then it would just be a matter of getting {disfmarker} making sure to handle the annotations that are , you know , not at the word - level and , um , t to import the +Grad B: Where are those annotations coming from ? +PhD F: Well , right now , I g Jane would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Are you talking about the overlap a annotations ? +PhD F: Yeah , any kind of annotation {pause} that , like , isn't already there . Uh , you know , anything you can envision . +Postdoc E: Yeah . So what I was imagining was {disfmarker} um , so Dave says we can have unlimited numbers of green ribbons . And so put , uh , a {disfmarker} a green ribbon on for an overlap code . And since we w we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's important to remain flexible regarding the time bins for now . And so it 's nice to have {disfmarker} However , you know , you want to have it , uh , time time uh , located in the discourse . So , um , if we {disfmarker} if we tie the overlap code to the first word in the overlap , then you 'll have a time - marking . It won't {disfmarker} it 'll be independent of the time bins , however these e evolve , shrink , or whatever , increase , or {disfmarker} Also , you could have different time bins for different purposes . And having it tied to the first word in an overlap segment is unique , uh , you know , anchored , clear . And it would just end up on a separate ribbon . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So the overlap coding is gonna be easy with respect to that . You look puzzled . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} I don't quite understand what these things are . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD D: Uh . +Postdoc E: What , the codes themselves ? +PhD D: Well , th overlap codes . +Postdoc E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I 'm not sure what that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: It probably doesn't matter . +Postdoc E: Well , we don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , it doesn't . +PhD D: No , I d +Postdoc E: We don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , that {disfmarker} not for the topic of this meeting . +Postdoc E: But let me just {disfmarker} No . W the idea is just to have a separate green ribbon , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and let 's say that this is a time bin . There 's a word here . This is the first word of an overlapping segment of any length , overlapping with any other , uh , word {disfmarker} uh , i segment of any length . And , um , then you can indicate that this here was perhaps a ch a backchannel , or you can say that it was , um , a usurping of the turn , or you can {disfmarker} you know , any {disfmarker} any number of categories . But the fact is , you have it time - tagged in a way that 's independent of the , uh , sp particular time bin that the word ends up in . If it 's a large unit or a small unit , or +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: we sh change the boundaries of the units , it 's still unique and {disfmarker} and , uh , fits with the format , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: flexible , all that . +PhD A: Um , it would be nice {disfmarker} um , eh , gr this is sort of r regarding {disfmarker} uh , uh it 's related but not directly germane to the topic of discussion , but , when it comes to annotations , um , you often find yourself in the situation where you have {pause} different annotations {pause} of the same , say , word sequence . OK ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: And sometimes the word sequences even differ slightly because they were edited s at one place but not the other . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: So , once this data gets out there , some people might start annotating this for , I don't know , dialogue acts or , um , you know , topics or what the heck . You know , there 's a zillion things that people might annotate this for . And the only thing that is really sort of common among all the versi the various versions of this data is the word sequence , or approximately . +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD F: Or the time . +PhD A: Or the times . But , see , if you 'd annotate dialogue acts , you don't necessarily want to {disfmarker} or topics {disfmarker} you don't really want to be dealing with time - marks . +PhD F: I guess . +PhD A: You 'd {disfmarker} it 's much more efficient for them to just see the word sequence , right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , most people aren't as sophisticated as {disfmarker} as we are here with , you know , uh , time alignments and stuff . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Should {disfmarker} should we mention some names on the people who are n ? +PhD A: Right . So , um , the p my point is that {pause} you 're gonna end up with , uh , word sequences that are differently annotated . And {pause} you want some tool , uh , that is able to sort of merge these different annotations back into a single , uh , version . OK ? Um , and we had this problem very massively , uh , at SRI when we worked , uh , a while back on , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} well , on dialogue acts as well as , uh , you know , um , what was it ? uh , +PhD F: Well , all the Switchboard in it . +PhD A: utterance types . There 's , uh , automatic , uh , punctuation and stuff like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Because we had one set of {pause} annotations that were based on , uh , one version of the transcripts with a particular segmentation , and then we had another version that was based on , uh , a different s slightly edited version of the transcripts with a different segmentation . So , {vocalsound} we had these two different versions which were {disfmarker} you know , you could tell they were from the same source but they weren't identical . So it was extremely hard {vocalsound} to reliably merge these two back together to correlate the information from the different annotations . +Grad C: Yep . I {disfmarker} I don't see any way that file formats are gonna help us with that . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's all a question of semantic . +PhD A: No . But once you have a file format , I can imagine writing {disfmarker} not personally , but someone writing a tool that is essentially an alignment tool , um , that mediates between various versions , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} uh , sort of like th uh , you know , you have this thing in UNIX where you have , uh , diff . +Grad C: Diff . +PhD F: W - diff or diff . +PhD A: There 's the , uh , diff that actually tries to reconcile different {disfmarker} two diffs f {comment} based on the same original . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Is it S - diff ? +Grad C: Yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD A: Something like that , um , but operating on these lattices that are really what 's behind this {disfmarker} uh , this annotation format . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's actually a diff library you can use {pause} to do things like that that {disfmarker} so you have different formats . +PhD F: You could definitely do that with the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So somewhere in the API you would like to have like a merge or some {disfmarker} some function that merges two {disfmarker} two versions . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it 's gonna be very hard . Any sort of structured anything when you try to merge is really , really hard +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: because you ha i The hard part isn't the file format . The hard part is specifying what you mean by "" merge "" . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: And that 's very difficult . +PhD F: But the one thing that would work here actually for i that is more reliable than the utterances is the {disfmarker} the speaker ons and offs . So if you have a good , +Grad C: But this is exactly what I mean , is that {disfmarker} that the problem i +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . You just have to know wha what to tie it to . +Grad C: Yeah , exactly . The problem is saying "" what are the semantics , +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Right . So {disfmarker} so just to let you know what we {disfmarker} where we kluged it by , uh , doing {disfmarker} uh , by doing {disfmarker} Hhh . +Grad C: So . +PhD A: Both were based on words , so , bo we have two versions of the same words intersp you know , sprinkled with {disfmarker} with different tags for annotations . +Grad C: And then you did diff . +PhD A: And we did diff . Exactly ! +Grad C: Yeah , that 's just what I thought . +PhD A: And that 's how {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's just wh how I would have done it . +PhD A: Yeah . But , you know , it had lots of errors and things would end up in the wrong order , and so forth . Uh , so , um , if you had a more {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Uh , it {disfmarker} it was a kluge because it was basically reducing everything to {disfmarker} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , uh , to textual alignment . +Grad C: A textual {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , d isn't that something where whoever {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if the people who are making changes , say in the transcripts , cuz this all happened when the transcripts were different {disfmarker} ye um , if they tie it to something , like if they tied it to the acoustic segment {disfmarker} if they {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? Then {disfmarker} Or if they tied it to an acoustic segment and we had the time - marks , that would help . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: But the problem is exactly as Adam said , that you get , you know , y you don't have that information or it 's lost in the merge somehow , +Postdoc E: Well , can I ask one question ? +PhD F: so {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: It {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , we will have o an official version of the corpus , which will be only one {disfmarker} one version in terms of the words {disfmarker} where the words are concerned . We 'd still have the {disfmarker} the merging issue maybe if coding were done independently of the {disfmarker} +PhD A: And you 're gonna get that +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: because if the data gets out , people will do all kinds of things to it . And , uh , s you know , several years from now you might want to look into , um , the prosody of referring expressions . And someone at the university of who knows where has annotated the referring expressions . So you want to get that annotation and bring it back in line with your data . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: OK ? +Grad C: But unfortunately they 've also hand - edited it . +Postdoc E: OK , then {disfmarker} +PhD F: But they 've also {disfmarker} Exactly . And so that 's exactly what we should {disfmarker} somehow when you distribute the data , say that {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} have some way of knowing how to merge it back in and asking people to try to do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , then the {disfmarker} +PhD D: What 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong with {pause} doing times ? I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I agree . That was what I was wondering . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , time is the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Postdoc E: Time is unique . You were saying that you didn't think we should {disfmarker} +PhD F: Time is passing ! +PhD A: Time {disfmarker} time {disfmarker} times are ephemeral . +Postdoc E: Andreas was saying {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: what if they haven't notated with them , times ? +PhD F: Yeah . He {disfmarker} he 's a language modeling person , though . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so imagine {disfmarker} I think his {disfmarker} his example is a good one . Imagine that this person who developed the corpus of the referring expressions didn't include time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: He included references to words . +Postdoc E: Ach ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: He said that at this word is when {disfmarker} when it happened . +Postdoc E: Well , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or she . +Grad C: Or she . +Postdoc E: But then couldn't you just indirectly figure out the time {pause} tied to the word ? +PhD F: But still they {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: Sure . But what if {disfmarker} what if they change the words ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Not {disfmarker} Well , but you 'd have some anchoring point . He couldn't have changed all the words . +PhD D: But can they change the words without changing the time of the word ? +Grad C: Sure . But they could have changed it a little . The {disfmarker} the point is , that {disfmarker} that they may have annotated it off a word transcript that isn't the same as our word transcript , so how do you merge it back in ? I understand what you 're saying . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I guess the answer is , um , it 's gonna be different every time . It 's j it 's just gonna be {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I it 's exactly what I said before , +PhD F: You only know the boundaries of the {disfmarker} +Grad C: which is that "" what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" So in this case where you have the words and you don't have the times , well , what do you mean by "" merge "" ? If you tell me what you mean , I can write a program to do it . +PhD F: Right . Right . You can merge at the level of the representation that the other person preserved and that 's it . +Grad C: Right . And that 's about all you can do . +PhD F: And beyond that , all you know is {disfmarker} is relative ordering and sometimes even that is wrong . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so in {disfmarker} so in this one you would have to do a best match between the word sequences , +PhD F: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: extract the times f from the best match of theirs to yours , and use that . +PhD F: And then infer that their time - marks are somewhere in between . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc E: But it could be that they just {disfmarker} uh , I mean , it could be that they chunked {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they lost certain utterances and all that stuff , +Grad C: Right , exactly . So it could get very , very ugly . +Postdoc E: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Definitely . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Definitely . Alright . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD F: Well , I guess , w I {disfmarker} I didn't want to keep people too long and Adam wanted t people {disfmarker} I 'll read the digits . If anyone else offers to , that 'd be great . And +PhD A: Ah , well . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: if not , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: For th for the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} for the benefit of science we 'll read the digits . +Grad C: More digits , the better . OK , this is +PhD F: Thanks {disfmarker} thanks a lot . It 's really helpful . I mean , Adam and Don {nonvocalsound} will sort of meet and I think that 's great . Very useful . Go next . +PhD D: Scratch that . +Postdoc E: O three +Grad C: Oh , right . +","In the conversation, several graduate students (Grad B, C, etc.) along with a postdoctoral researcher (Postdoc E) and PhDs (PhD A, D, F, etc.) discuss various technical aspects of data representation, especially in relation to an ongoing project involving speech annotation and databases. The conversation dives into specificities regarding how to format and handle the representation of overlapping speech, interruptions, annotations, timestamps, and file sizes. They touch on the wish to make the resulting data useful to others outside their group by adopting standard formats and languages (like XML), contemplating the use of ATLAS, and the potential need for databases. The difficulty of merging differently annotated versions of the same word sequences, once modifications are made by external entities, is highlighted. There is also mention of the use of green ribbons for coding overlaps and the importance of having unique time markers for clearer data referencing and subsequent easier merging. Some existing tools and possible utility modules like 'diff' are also briefly discussed. Towards the end of the conversation, they agree to read digits for the benefit of science, suggesting a practice or data gathering method connected to the project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay everybody is ready ? {vocalsound} Good morning again . So , today we are going to have a f second meeting . Oh Michael , hi . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: You're late . You have a good reason for that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Okay , let's have a look to the agenda today . {vocalsound} So , we are going to have a meeting about the functional design . Um so first before starting I w just going to uh to go quickly to {disfmarker} through the minutes of previous meeting . So uh {vocalsound} basically we we are not decided if w we should go for a universal or specific uh uh remote control , but I have new um new i inputs for {disfmarker} about that topics . I goin I'm going to share with you . {vocalsound} And uh basically we decided to um to uh go to individual actions for each of you uh so um Industrial Designer should wor was supposed to work on th on th on the working design . You showed us {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: you ar you you prepare something for us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: The U_I_ guy also uh work on that , yeah , and for the mar our Marketing Expert should deliver some specs . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} so we are going to go through three of your individual presentations . But first I would like quickly to uh to decide of {disfmarker} to give a name to the project . So , I just put d quickly Remo , but if you have any o other names that we co could decide for just to to keep something fun for our project we we should {disfmarker} we could discuss quickly . Any ideas ? +User Interface: Uh the Powerstick . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Powerstick , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What else ? What else ? +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe a Spanish name would work well . +Marketing: Mm I was thinking of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Especially if we're selling into the U_S_ market becasue there's a lot of Spanish speakers there . Maybe something that sounds cool in English but sounds funny in Spanish . +Marketing: Mando . +User Interface: Mando . +Project Manager: Mango ? Mango ? +User Interface: What is that ? +Marketing: Mando . +Project Manager: Mando . M_A_ ? M_A_ ? +Marketing: A*_N_ yeah D_O . +Project Manager: M_ D_O_ . Mm , okay . +Marketing: It doesn't it doesn't sound cool for me , +Project Manager: What does it mean ? Oh . +Marketing: but maybe for a Spanish {disfmarker} for I {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +User Interface: What does it mean in Spanish ? +Marketing: Control . +User Interface: Control . +Project Manager: Hmm . Nice . +User Interface: Okay . 'Cause it also {disfmarker} like in English it sounds like you know the man's tool you know because you know men like to have control of the remote +Marketing: But {disfmarker} mm , yeah . +User Interface: so it might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mando sounds Latino . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The Mando . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's go for Mando ? Yeah ? No objection ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And we could have some like you d you could have the fonts you know special , so you have man in like in in uh in one o in one font and then the O_ as like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Although you don't wanna cut uh cut women out of the uh potential buyers though , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: do you ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are the most T_V_ watcher . So we should be careful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is more a question of of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Marketing . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah +Project Manager: I I think this is more a question of of look and feel . +Marketing: it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that should be addressed later We should we should go to other {disfmarker} for the other topics . +Marketing: Yeah because if the product will be international {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's the thing . We need to know who we're selling it to before we can really decide on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay , so let's stick f to Man Mando for the name +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and we'll see for the for the look and feel later . So let's go for the three presentations right now . So , who want to start ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe we could start with the market , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe I should uh start . Yeah . Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so I have your slides somewhere ? +Marketing: Yeah . Should be in participant four . +Project Manager: Participant four . {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: S that's coming . Uh {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay so yeah I will I will give a brief outline about what I what I prepared for this meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: For the functional requirements and especially for the for the user requirements . I prepare a marketing report and we have to find the weaknesses and and the the improvements we could do to the current remote controls . And also I di I did a study with {disfmarker} for the incorporation of new technologies it seems that the remote controls have been {disfmarker} have remained the same for the last five , ten years . There is no no significant difference between the the b the first new controls and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Sh next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} more {disfmarker} most of the people think that remote controls are ugly , thoroughly . So and they they admit that the the they should uh s they would uh spend more money in a fancier remote control , which is which is good and it's interesting point . Also the people are worried about about the R*_S_I_ disease , which is if you repeat the sa the same movement , which is not a {disfmarker} with a not very appropriate device , you you will have problems whe when you will get old . So s people are uh are worried about the the shape of the of the remote control . They are also {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they get angry very often because they lost the remote control very often , so I think it would be a good point to to l to to find a a solution to {disfmarker} any beep any alarm or something incorporated to {disfmarker} with the remote control every time it it get lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And also I found that young people {disfmarker} the the younger people are the more interested they are in incorporating new technologies in the in the remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in my opinion the Mando {disfmarker} this Mando shouldn't be very small because the smaller it is , the more like {disfmarker} the the liklier it is to get lost . Liklier or more likely ? +User Interface: More likely . {gap} +Marketing: {gap} likely . Okay . Uh {vocalsound} people also complain because they they they all have the same size of the buttons for buttons who w which are not very use like f uh memorising channels or or this kind of actions which are not very often but {vocalsound} they they shouldn't they shouldn't have the same importance in the in the uh in the remote cont in the remote control . Also the z the design should fit the hand shape . So it may be interesting to to think in a {disfmarker} in both prototypes , for right and left handed people . +User Interface: Well th the on the thing is though , most remote controls are used by more than one person . So unless you're kind of targeting single people you know you're gonna maybe +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: cut out some {disfmarker} a lot of your market . +Marketing: I dunno I th Anyway I think it could be int interesting to to release some {disfmarker} a a small fraction of of this remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe it could be a universal design . +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A universal design , which is which is good for both the hands . +User Interface: Still shaped for yeah for your hand but not for a particular hand , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? That's right , whether it's left hand or right hand , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but {vocalsound} don't you think that the two points are clashing , one thing you are saying design should fit the hand shape and it should not be very small ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: The first and the third point , they are clashing . +User Interface: Well it can still be a {gap} , you can still extend past the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Like uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So fitting the hand doesn't mean much then . +User Interface: Well it means {disfmarker} like , this remote here is kind of {disfmarker} is very thin and long so instead of having {disfmarker} you know you might have it kind of {disfmarker} a bit bigger +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: or , you know , with maybe some some finger molds or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it means design should be similar to the traditional ones ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Little sleek , longer ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And it should fit the hand . +Marketing: No no I was thinking of so like something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something with the shape of the palm ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: Some finger grips maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could even have some buttons like you know on the sides and everything , +Project Manager: On the sides . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It sh it shouldn't it shouldn't be symmetric symmetrical . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not anymore . That's what {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: And then finally {disfmarker} +Marketing: And finally , the incorporation of a L_C_D_ or a speech recognition system in the remote control could also be interesting , but I don't know if the budget would be large enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . First I'm just wondering about the L_C_D_ stuff because uh because {disfmarker} +Marketing: But most of {disfmarker} yeah most of the young people to thirty to thirty years old were really interested in this kind of technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , so maybe it's a good time for me to uh {vocalsound} to bring you to some new uh new informations . We had the new requirements from the {disfmarker} so uh from the head offices of the company , and so they wanted {disfmarker} so they want to um {disfmarker} they would like to be restricted to T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I dunno if you had this information already . No , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: so they want us to restrict the remote control to T_V_ only because of time limitations . Um they want also uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually this marketing report is restricted to T_V_ remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . So we have also to focus more on the internet aspects because well well te teletext is outdated now and uh finally , {vocalsound} it should be clear that the corporate image , that means colours and logos of the co our company should be clearly inde identified in the product . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was still uh I was still working on this uh twenty five Euro price point because I think actually having looked at some of the remotes out there , this is quite a low uh price if if we're {disfmarker} maybe I can get to this in my presentation though , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Sure sure . +User Interface: but um yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can jump to your presentations , right now . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so let's keep in mind about tha that that {disfmarker} this last point about L_C_D_ and speech uh reco +User Interface: Yeah . I think even even if it was within budget do a speech reco rec system it might be a bit difficult because if you think {disfmarker} if you're watching T_V_ you're gonna have a lot of this uh background noise from the T_V_ which might interfere with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , what is your {gap} ? +User Interface: Uh participant three . You might have some background noise from the T_V_ which will make the speech recognition much uh harder , so . +Marketing: Yeah but you should be able to activate or disactivate , so {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh you press a press a button to talk , and the the T_V_ the T_V_ {vocalsound} sound turns off . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah uh channel fifty . +Industrial Designer: No it could be command control kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It requir recognises particular sequence and then it gets activated . Means you say {disfmarker} you should say like does that , remote control being on or be on kind of thing , and then remote control comes in the picture for the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because this kind of thing means speech is there from the T_V_ also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there should be something command controlled , you start and then you stop . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like V_I_ editor , you are having two modes similarly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's just lying idle . +Project Manager: Okay Michael . +User Interface: Okay , so , could I describe the mouse maybe {gap} be easier to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: could I use the mouse , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Thanks . Okay . +Project Manager: The wheel doesn't work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay so um while uh researching this this topic I first of all just thought of a couple of things that I would like to see in a remote , and just uh looked to see if they're actually available in any current remotes , and then also searched for which are the top-rated uh remote controls on Epinions dot com , which is a a you know a a customer um written basically review site . So um there's a pretty wide range of uh remote controls these days and and uh this remote control on the right here is is one of the more extravagant , but it's not really {disfmarker} it's by no means uh mm you know {vocalsound} on it's own in being so expensive . There are a lot of expensive remote controls out there . +Project Manager: {gap} Looks like a P_D_A_ {gap} ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah it doe it's {disfmarker} well basically all the functions uh are controlled through through the L_C_D_ screen except for the really really kind of main functions , which have a couple of of their own buttons . Um and if you look at a lot of the universal remotes out um on the market , I know we're working on television remote , but a lot of the universal remotes out there have uh have these L_C_D_ screens which kind of helps when you're using multiple uh devices I suppose because you can have multiple kind of functions {disfmarker} d different functions on the screen at different times . But um the thing that I find most interesting about this remote control , and it's kind of difficult to uh to see in the slide , but it has a scroll wheel on it , which is kind of like uh a mouse scroll wheel , which I think is {disfmarker} it's a really kind of important design aspect um is {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} 'Cause the thing is what a {vocalsound} what we {disfmarker} the presen this presentation we had is what we want the remote control to actually do . And obviously the the simplest thing that a remote control does is it just change the change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Change the channels . +User Interface: Now um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh the {disfmarker} I think that a scroll wheel is actually pretty a pretty handy way of of changing the channel . 'Cause I know when I um when I use the remote to change the channel I very rarely use the numbers on the on the pad . I usually use the up and down +Industrial Designer: Mmm-hmm mm-hmm . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because most channels are you know two digit numbers and you have to press you know a special button to enter a two-digit number , and then two numbers , so that's just uh {disfmarker} it's annoying . So I think a scroll wheel is is quite handy . Now um the the scroll wheel is is much more useful if you have an L_C_D_ screen , and this brings us to the the point you were mentioning before about the internet uh capability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: One possibility , if we {disfmarker} now we need to still talk about the price point because obviously a lot of this stuff can't be done for twenty five Eu uh Euro , but one possibility is to download program information into the L_C_D_ screen so that instead of actually saying I want to I want to go to channel thirty seven because I know this programme's on , you know , often you don't know what ch what channel it's on , or you don't know what's on . If you have a list of of programs on your L_C_D_ screen you just scroll to that program rather than to a channel . So if you think about {disfmarker} it's kind of like a {disfmarker} you know in mobile phones now you don't use {disfmarker} you don't remember people's phone number , you remember their name and you go find that name and ring it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this would be pretty {disfmarker} kind of a handy thing to have , but um we we really need t to discuss the price . So , I mean there are {vocalsound} there are uh cheaper {disfmarker} this is another multi kinda purpose remote control where it's it's it's very simple , there's only a few buttons , but al each of those buttons does something different in a different context . So this is something else we might wanna consider , is really kind of limiting the number of buttons , because this is the top rating uh universal remote control on on Epinions . It it's really uh maybe worth thinking about limiting the number of buttons as much as as possible um because really I think people want to be able to find the button they're looking for without even looking at the remote control . And {gap} was saying before about having different size buttons for different you know frequently used uh tasks , but I think also you know the location and and shape of the buttons is important , but also the number of buttons . So if you have too many buttons it it it increases the the difficulty of finding the one you want . +Industrial Designer: But there is one problem {gap} then the user has to understand each of that functionality . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah well we w +Industrial Designer: Because the same button is doing too many things . +User Interface: Yeah well we will have a bit of a simpler uh task in that we're only doing uh a television remote control . Um I think maybe one option is to have you know a little flip-open um door that uh that you have hidden most of the time , but contains the extra buttons like , say , the number buttons for instance . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I would {disfmarker} if I had my perfect remote control , I'd probably just have no numbers at all on it because they're just in the way . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: They don't really do anything . Maybe you know I {disfmarker} although I do also find flip-open doors a bit of a pain because sometimes they can break off or or whatever , but maybe a door that you can you can permanantly remove or permanantly have on would be good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} but I think definitely you need to to keep the buttons down to a minimum , but not not let that kind of interfere with the functionality of of the device . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: H I think I think that the tr the transition to this to this new remote control shouldn't be very very abrupt very hard because w if people see a remo see the {disfmarker} see a remote control without numbers mm they will think it's very difficult to learn very difficult to {disfmarker} very different build {disfmarker} very different to the traditional {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It does sampling out of the {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I guess that depends on how you market it . If you {vocalsound} if you have the right advertisement showing how how how easy it is and how you can , you know , navigate to a program without the numbers , then people might say that looks pretty easy . +Marketing: If y +Project Manager: Okay , can you continue , please Mi ? +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: yep . Um okay , so , I think um one of the really kind of useful things you can do with with internet connectivity would be to have this {disfmarker} a programme driven interface rather than the channel number . So if we can have a higher priced uh remote control I think that would really be worth uh {disfmarker} something that would be worth implementing . Um mm there's the L_C_D_ screen , um which maybe maybe is too expensive , um but I think also at the scroll wheel , I haven't mentioned it here , the scroll wheel could be used without an L_C_D_ screen , just for changing channel numbers easily . I think even that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean , that would be a fairly cheap thing , compared to an L_C_D_ screen , to implement , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um but I think that would be quite useful as well . And the other thing , you say we need to we need to keep it just television , but I think one {disfmarker} maybe one option , since this is supposed to be a kind of a fashionable device , is you know there's a certain kind of cool or wow factor that you can kind of {disfmarker} you can have with technology , and maybe we wanna make it something that's {vocalsound} extensible to do other tasks . Say you have like um {vocalsound} a little another little kind of base unit that can also receive signals as well as the television where you can , say uh , change the lighting in the room . You know that would be something maybe you could sell as an extra , so that it doesn't have to be part of the initial development , but , you know , later on you could you can you know you {disfmarker} also , selling the potential of the device . Then you say potentially you can then do other cool stuff like change the lights , I dunno , close the windows , whatever , turn the heating on , and um , I think that's something we may need to have as as {disfmarker} at least as an optional extra to to kinda make our product cool , since we say we're putting the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} {gap} you want to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So most of the things which we are discussing about is speech recognition uh , that means on my own I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , it should be . +Project Manager: Great . No , not that one . {gap} you are two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so the working design is uh user i interface could be of two types , one is the usual press buttons which are there so that the user feels that he is knoing {disfmarker} doing some he is knowing about that technology . So he is pretty comfortable if he wants to get this , and on top of that there there could be a speech recognition technology also being {disfmarker} sitting on the on the remote . So the old kind of users who don't want to have any changes , it can it can be useful for them , and the new users , as uh our Marketing Expert was saying , they can use the new gizmo which is speech recognition kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay , sorry to interrupt you , but we have seen before that there is a new way of interacting that use wheel . +Industrial Designer: That's right . So anyway , that didn't come into my mind , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so th that is a possibility . These could be other kind of interfaces . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Means we can have , depending on the cost , how much we can afford , we can have different kind of interfaces . So spe buttons are something which is very {disfmarker} everybody is familiar with . So if you go to the market and you say that buttons are there the people know what it is , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and on top of that if we are having extra functionality people are willing to shell that twenty-five Euros money which we are thinking . Otherwise we are just like others in the market . So anyway that is the first , user interface could be of more than one type , and uh yeah that means we can do the on-line changes which which cannot be done now actually . So apart from the speech , we can have the scroll kind of thing with the buttons . Now for buttons , normal requirements like bit coding and all those things are required . And for voice , limited vocabulary automatic speech recognition system is required and we require a microphone also to be sitting there on the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . That increases the the cost also . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's right . But uh means we have to see how much {disfmarker} what kind of microphones and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Do you think that performance of such systems are enough to to target well {disfmarker} of such technologies is enough ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , if it is limited vocabulary usually it's enough . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we we can uh target , means we can target ninety five percent accuracy or somewhere ninety seven perc +Project Manager: Well wh uh I imagine also that the microphone will be an ambiance um a um an ambience microphones +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: because you are not going to speak into into th into the remote control . +Industrial Designer: That's right . No it it could be little d yeah it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it could be s a few centimetres . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well one one other thing that that speech recognition could really blow out the price for is uh when you want to sell into other markets , though , +Industrial Designer: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: because , I'm not sure exactly where we're gonna sell this , but I presume it's not gonna just be English speaking countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So then you have to s you know , you have to train models for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . Uh it's more like , means there are different speech technologies which are existing so D_T_W_ could be kind of which is the easiest . So you have to store some templates on the on the on the chip itself , and {vocalsound} it's just dynamic time warping where you try to find out what it is , instead of having a model which has to be trained and being a micro-controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay we shou we should discuss this la later after after after this this uh slide . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Project Manager: This is a this is a this is a a very important uh issue in discussion . +Industrial Designer: So we can That's right . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , next . Uh that finished ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: No ? +Industrial Designer: No no . Components . +Project Manager: Components ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , will you go to the next slide ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah so this is the design which we are thinking so . We are having a power button and the switch {vocalsound} , which is not much , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we are having the {gap} which is to indicate whether the power is on or not . And then there are two kind of things which can be {disfmarker} so one is the button interface which has not been shown because because of lack of time {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we could not put that . So now where the A_S_R_ decoder is sitting , similarly there are different kind of interfaces which could be there . So there is A_S_R_ decoder which could be there , and then there could be another scroll button scroll scroller , and then there could be buttons , and all of them they will just do the decoding and put it in the math put it in the proper message format . And then there is there is the chip which is sitting , the green one , and it converts it into bit codes , and that bit codes are sent by the infrared device to the receiver . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is the easiest design the there could be . So th an A_S_R_ decoder we can have things in {gap} . To have different technologies . So this was the {disfmarker} my personal preference was that we can have A_S_R_ sitting there on the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know I guess you could actually train the remote control as you're using it by saying you know {vocalsound} turn volume up , and you press the uh press the button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh s people teach sign language to kids f well , by speaking and doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as soon as you try to put the microchip kind of thing or something the price will go up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So these are the slight problems . +Project Manager: So your your opinion is that we should go for special condition technologies ? +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} yeah the reason is that if we go into the market means {disfmarker} though I don't have much idea , but as he {disfmarker} the uh Marketing Expert presentation was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure if you can sell a a speech recognition remote control for twenty five Euros everyo {vocalsound} everyone will s will buy it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Actually I'm not so sure +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So if we go with just the {disfmarker} +User Interface: because I'm the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure . +User Interface: you know if I was using a remote control to , say , turn the volume up because I can't hear it very well , I don't really want to you know drown out what people are saying by talking you know when I'm when I'm {disfmarker} instead of pressing up on on a remote control . You know if there's some there's some dialogue all of a sudden that I can't hear , I'm trying to actually find out what's being said , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so maybe speech recognition gets in the way more than it helps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but you know the the average frequency of pushing buttons , it's about {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends if it's a remote control th +Marketing: it's about eighty eighty eighty pushes per hour , or something like that . +User Interface: Maybe if the remote control is something that y you don't actually have to pick up anymore , that would be a a useful feature of the speech recogntion . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you can leave it sitting on the table and you don't actually have to find it , then that could be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay gentlemens , we have to take some deci decisions right now . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um so if I if I kind of summarise everything we've de we we said . We are targeting T_V_ . {vocalsound} We need {vocalsound} we need to have um um remote control which is fanc fancy , which is uh which is easy to to hand not too small , not too big . Um we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: With a good shape for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or good shape , yes . We should bring new technologies for young peoples , and uh as we have uh also requirements to to use uh to to push thr toward the internet . Maybe this is something we can stick to it . And um {vocalsound} also , a very interesting things I I I've seen on on on the {disfmarker} one of the comp o our competitor is this wheel that we can use to navigate . So so my feeling is that re regarding costs budget we have an an an target price , it's not possible to go s to go to L_C_D_ {vocalsound} and also to go to automatic speech recognition technologies . Uh first m m why not to go to L_C_D_ . Because um in fact as we are targeting uh T_V_ {disfmarker} in fact we can use T_V_ screen as a screen to feedback {disfmarker} to to give some feedback informations about what we could have . +User Interface: Well it depends though {disfmarker} well it depends . If we we don't {disfmarker} unless we have some input some video input to the T_V_ or we have control over the T_V_ then we can't actually display that . Like if we if we produce the T_V_s then then yeah we can put you know menus up up there , but otherwise we need to actually have some kind of {disfmarker} something sitting in between the video signal and the and the T_V_ to superimpose those those menus . So that's an extra +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right . Don don't you ha +User Interface: cost . +Project Manager: don't we have contacts with uh people on T_V_ or or {gap} well systems that exist that we can use ? +User Interface: Well this is this is another que we still haven't really defined the remote . Are we still {disfmarker} you say we're focusing on T_V_ , but is it still a kind of like a universal remote in that it's a replacement remote control , or is this something for our own line of of televisions ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that really makes a big difference . 'Cause {vocalsound} even if we have contacts we can't really produce a remote control that can bring up menus on other other companies' T_V_s . It's just there are too many T_V_s out there . It's it's not really gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's good point . What's what cou what could be the cost of uh {disfmarker} well , could we fit the the targets uh in terms of cost uh if we go s to L_C_D_ on the remote control ? +User Interface: For twenty five Euro ? {vocalsound} I think it's impossible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not possible . It's impossible . +User Interface: But but I dunno , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think um it would be good to know if there is any leverage in that {disfmarker} any leeway in that um that twenty five Euro because for twenty five Euro I think all we can really do is provide a very basic remote control , and that seems to be kind of against the philosophy of our company which is you know putting the fashion into electronics . So I would I would like to know if there's any chance of of increasing the uh +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: of increasing the unit price . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you mean yo you mean we we should target something maybe which is {disfmarker} which would be more expensive but re really fancy in terms to um {disfmarker} in terms to had {disfmarker} to have really an added value ? +Marketing: What would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: so regarding the automatic speech recognition , I think this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wha but what would be {disfmarker} one question , what would be the goal of putting an L_C_D_ in a remote control ? +User Interface: Well th +Marketing: What what kind of information ? +User Interface: 'Cause you can have things like the programme name instead of the channel numbers , like an interactive programme guide . +Marketing: Yeah but mo most of the T_V_s nowadays show the show the +Project Manager: They have tele teletext . Well , because they have teletext on it . +Marketing: the n +Project Manager: Th th you have a teletext sin signal that you can that you can uh that you can get thr through the channel . +Marketing: Yeah but yeah most of the T_V_s have teletext nowadays . +Project Manager: They have t most of them have teletext , but we want to get rid {disfmarker} well one of our requirements is to uh to move to teletext to uh to the use of internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So to to uh +User Interface: You can get a lot more information on it . +Project Manager: to browse more easily the teletext . For instance through uh through your remote control . +Marketing: So what would what would appear in the in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: So you could have the name of the programme , you could have um the start time you know where it's up to . +Project Manager: The ti the start time , all the p all the programmes you could have uh {disfmarker} o +User Interface: You could have a l even a little image of you know the c you know the the m the main actors or something +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: so you can quickly just kind of {disfmarker} even without reading {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I don't know if this information is available from teletext , also . +User Interface: Well no , but there are the electronic programme guides out there . They may not have pictures , but maybe they do . +Industrial Designer: Are {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} dependi it also depends on the country . +Project Manager: Well because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the same reason that we cannot uh {gap} informations on the T_V_ {gap} . We c we couldn't grab information information which is not there . +User Interface: No but I mean with the internet you have flexibility of where you get your information from . So it may be possible that there are people out there providing that . Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so that mean w w we need an in an extra internet connection to use the remote control , if you want to browse , in addition to the T_V_ , or uh or it should be a special T_V_ connected to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well I I think if we're gonna {disfmarker} I think we would definitely need the internet connection because even with y I don't think you could even get teletext information from the T_V_ onto the remote control , especially if we don't control the T_V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno . We need to find that out . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} We need to close the meeting . Um {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} just a small thing , +Project Manager: Very quickly . +Industrial Designer: what kind of market we are targeting ? Is it that we are targeting the replacement remote market , or what ? So the remote has gone bad and the person wants to buy a new remote or {disfmarker} because the cost of L_C_D_ thing could be as high as the T_V_ itself . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That is very important . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , well people go to buy another remote control when they broke n broke their {gap} , +User Interface: If it's a really small T_V_ maybe {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Broke . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and they want to go t for universal one , and they take the fanciest they can have . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So this is {disfmarker} that we z that that we should target . So the com the um {vocalsound} the uh {vocalsound} the committment is the following , we don't go for speech recognition technology . The L_C_D_ is still on disc is still open to discussion . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It is up to you to go through this um {vocalsound} uh this way and to to report report me back next meeting . So +Marketing: I think that the speech recognition technology would be cheaper the {disfmarker} than the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: It's it's cheaper as compared to the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not sure . Maybe it's cheaper , but we have no {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because with the L_C_D_ you need more requirements . You need a internet connection . You need m more things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But +User Interface: Well the thing is I think I think the type of peop +Marketing: for the speech recognition you you don't need anything . You just say channel fifty , and that's it . +User Interface: I think the type of people that are gonna want to buy a very stylish rem r remote control with lots of new technologies are the kinda people that are gonna have you know a wireless internet connection maybe , or a {disfmarker} you know . +Marketing: But then we should move to another target b because at twenty five Dollars , +Industrial Designer: Means th yeah twenty five Euros is {disfmarker} yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Well this is what we need to find out . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we can we increase the the price point of this remote control ? 'Cause otherwise we need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay this is {gap} {disfmarker} this is an open question for you . Yeah . This is uh up to you to tell us . But I'm definitely not keen on to to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To move to another target ? +Project Manager: no no no , I'm no I'm definit definitely not keen on going to speech recognition technologies . I'm not confident enough . I'm not sure that that we'll have a product really that work . I uh that work {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kind of hard to guarantee that you're gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's real yeah . How to guarantee such performances is really hard . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the expert uh said ninety five percent {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well this is still {disfmarker} is is very bad . +User Interface: Ninety five percent is not good enough though . {gap} +Project Manager: So , this is the end of this discussion . Next meeting uh here are the task you have to work on . Um {vocalsound} so you have to work on the component uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh you have to work on user interface , and you have to go through a trend watching . Okay . So the question is still open about the L_C_D_ thing . Um uh we {disfmarker} I hope that next meeting we will uh we'll take some um decision that direction . Thanks . Bye . +User Interface: Yep . +","The meeting began with the project manager's informal greeting, ensuring everyone was present and ready to proceed. After a brief introduction, the project manager addressed tardiness, briefly discussed the agenda, which centered around the functional design of the project, and reviewed the minutes from the previous meeting. There was an unresolved decision from the previous meeting about whether to develop a universal or specific remote control, and the project manager introduced new inputs on the topic. + +Each team member was assigned individual tasks prior to the meeting. The industrial designer worked on the working design, which he confirmed was ready for review. The user interface specialist and the marketing expert were also supposed to have their respective contributions to share. + +After addressing the housekeeping items from the last meeting, the project manager initiated a brainstorming session for naming the project. Suggestions like ""Remo"" and ""Powerstick"" were mentioned. A discussion ensued about finding a name that had a positive ring in both English and Spanish, considering the significant Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. market. This led to the suggestion of ""Mando,"" which translates to ""Control"" in Spanish, and has a masculine connotation in English, potentially appealing to the notion that men like to have control of the remote. There was some debate about the implication of gender in the name and its effect on the potential market. The group seemed to agree on ""Mando,"" but the details related to marketing and branding were flagged for later discussion. + +After finalizing the provisional name, the project manager moved on to the individual presentations. The marketing expert started by outlining how a marketing report was prepared focusing on user requirements, weakness analysis of current remote controls, and the incorporation of new technologies. There was a consensus that young people show high interest in new technologies and that remote controls have not undergone significant changes in recent years. The marketing expert pointed out customer feedback on the aesthetic appeal of remotes, concerns about repetitive strain injury (RSI) from poor remote designs, and issues with losing remotes. There was discussion about creating a remote with a find-me function like a beep or alarm. + +Several design considerations were raised: making the remote neither too small nor too large, adjusting the size of buttons based on importance, and possibly creating a universal design to accommodate both right and left-handed users. + +The conversation then shifted to integrating an LCD or speech recognition system into the remote control. The feasibility of these features within the project budget was discussed, with mixed opinions on whether these technologies were realistic options. The project manager brought up new information from the company's head offices, emphasizing a focus on TV-only functionality due to time constraints, the importance of internet integration, and ensuring the corporate image and branding are evident in the product's design. + +The user interface specialist had prepared a presentation on existing remote controls and features they found appealing, such as a scroll wheel and reduced button count for a clearer, more user-friendly design. They proposed the idea of an interactive program-driven interface, possibly enabled by internet connectivity, but also questioned the feasibility of such features within the set price point of twenty-five Euros. + +The industrial designer presented working designs, including a basic layout of components and considerations for adding speech recognition while maintaining traditional buttons. However, concerns were raised about the increased cost and technical limitations associated with speech recognition, especially considering the need to sell the product in various language markets. + +The meeting concluded with the group leaning towards not implementing an LCD or speech recognition system due primarily to budget constraints and doubts about usability. The project manager tasked the team with refining their elements of the design (component concept, user interface, trend watching) and keeping the LCD discussion open for the next meeting, with the aim of making a firm decision soon. + +Overall, the meeting was a blend of creative brainstorming and practical analysis, as the team addressed technical, design, and marketing considerations for their remote control project in a collaborative manner. There was a clear emphasis on innovation, user experience, and aligning the product vision with the company's brand and values while being mindful of the constraints, such as budget and market expectations." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: We 're , I mean {pause} we {disfmarker} We didn't have a house before . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor D: We 're on again ? OK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . That is really great . +Grad H: Yeah , so if {pause} uh {disfmarker} {pause} So if anyone hasn't signed the consent form , please do so . +PhD A: That 's terrific . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Professor D: OK +Grad H: The new consent form . The new and improved consent form . +PhD A: Now you won't be able to walk or ride your bike , huh ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Uh . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: And uh , shall I go ahead and do some digits ? +Professor D: Uh , we were gonna do that at the end , remember ? +Grad H: OK , whatever you want . +Professor D: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to be consistent , from here on in at least , that {disfmarker} {pause} that we 'll do it at the end . +PhD B: The new consent form . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah , it doesn't matter . OK . +Professor D: OK Um Well , it ju I mean it might be that someone here has to go , +Postdoc F: Testing , one , two , three . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Right ? That was {disfmarker} that was sort of the point . So , uh {pause} I had asked actually anybody who had any ideas for an agenda {pause} to send it to me and no one did . So , +Grad H: So we all forgot . +Professor D: Uh , +Postdoc F: From last time I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {pause} The {disfmarker} An iss uh {pause} one topic from last time . +Professor D: Right , s OK , so one item for an agenda is uh {pause} Jane has some uh {vocalsound} uh some research to talk about , research issues . Um {pause} and {pause} Uh , Adam has some short research issues . +Grad H: And I have some {pause} short research issues . +Professor D: Um , I have a {pause} list of things that I think were done over the last three months I was supposed to {vocalsound} {vocalsound} send off , uh {pause} and , um {pause} I {disfmarker} I sent a note about it to uh {disfmarker} to Adam and Jane but I think I 'll just run through it {pause} also and see if someone thinks it 's inaccurate or {pause} uh insufficient . +PhD A: A list that you have to send off to who ? +Professor D: Uh , to uh uh , IBM . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor D: OK . They 're , you know {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor D: So . Um , So , uh {pause} so , I 'll go through that . Um , {pause} And , Anything else ? {pause} anyone wants to talk about ? +PhD A: What about the , um {disfmarker} your trip , yesterday ? +Professor D: No . OK . Um . Sort of off - topic I guess . +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Cuz that 's {pause} Cuz that was all {disfmarker} all about the , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can chat with you about that {pause} off - line . That 's another thing . Um , And , Anything else ? Nothing else ? Uh , there 's a {disfmarker} I mean , there is a {disfmarker} {pause} a , um {pause} uh {pause} telephone call tomorrow , {pause} which will be a conference call {pause} that some of us are involved in {pause} for uh a possible proposal . Um , we 'll talk {disfmarker} we 'll talk about it next week if {disfmarker} if something {disfmarker} +Grad H: Do you want me to {pause} be there for that ? I noticed you C C ' ed me , but I wasn't actually a recipient . I didn't quite know what to make of that . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll talk {disfmarker} talk about that after our meeting . OK . +Grad H: OK . +Professor D: Uh , OK . So it sounds like the {disfmarker} the three main things that we have to talk about are , uh this list , uh Jane and {disfmarker} Jane and Adam have some research items , and , other than that , anything , {pause} as usual , {pause} anything goes beyond that . OK , uh , Jane , since {disfmarker} since you were sort of cut off last time why don't we start with yours , make sure we get to it . +Postdoc F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's very {pause} eh {disfmarker} it 's {pause} very brief , I mean {disfmarker} just let me {disfmarker} just hand these out . Oops . +Grad H: Is this the same as the email or different ? +PhD C: Thanks . +Postdoc F: It 's slightly different . I {disfmarker} {pause} basically the same . +Grad H: OK . +PhD A: Same idea ? +Postdoc F: But , same idea . So , if you 've looked at this you 've seen it before , so {pause} Basically , {vocalsound} um {pause} as you know , uh {pause} part of the encoding {pause} includes a mark that indicates {pause} an overlap . It 's not indicated {pause} with , um {pause} uh , tight precision , it 's just indicated that {disfmarker} OK , so , It 's indicated to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} so the people know {pause} what parts of sp which {disfmarker} which stretches of speech were in the clear , versus being overlapped by others . So , I {pause} used this mark and , um {pause} and , uh {pause} uh , {pause} divided the {disfmarker} I wrote a script {pause} which divides things into individual minutes , {pause} of which we ended up with forty {pause} five , and a little bit . And , uh {pause} you know , minute zero , of course , is the first minute up to {pause} sixty seconds . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc F: And , um {pause} What you can see is the number of overlaps {pause} and then {pause} to the right , {pause} whether they involve two speakers , three speakers , or more than three speakers . And , {pause} um {pause} and , what I was looking for sp sp specifically was the question of {pause} whether they 're distributed evenly throughout or whether they 're {pause} bursts of them . Um . And {pause} it looked to me as though {disfmarker} uh , you know {disfmarker} y this is just {disfmarker} {pause} eh {disfmarker} eh , this would {disfmarker} this is not statistically {pause} verified , {pause} but it {pause} did look to me as though there are bursts throughout , rather than being {pause} localized to a particular region . The part down there , where there 's the maximum number of {disfmarker} {pause} of , um {pause} overlaps is an area where we were discussing {pause} {vocalsound} whether or not it would be useful to indi to s to {pause} code {pause} stress , {pause} uh , sentence stress {pause} as possible indication of , uh {pause} information retrieval . So it 's like , {pause} you know , rather , {pause} lively discussion there . +Professor D: What was {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} the parenthesized stuff {pause} that says , like {disfmarker} e the first one that says six overlaps and then two point eight ? +Postdoc F: Oh , th {vocalsound} {pause} That 's the per cent . +Professor D: Mmm . +Postdoc F: So , six is , uh {pause} two point eight percent {pause} of the total number of overlaps in the {pause} session . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: At the very end , this is when people were , {pause} you know , packing up to go basically , there 's {pause} this final stuff , I think we {disfmarker} {pause} I don't remember where the digits {pause} fell . I 'd have to look at that . But {pause} the final three there are no overlaps at all . And {pause} couple times there {pause} are not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So , i it seems like it goes through bursts {pause} but , um {pause} that 's kind of it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Now , {pause} Another question is {pause} is there {disfmarker} are there {pause} individual differences in whether you 're likely to be overlapped with or to overlap with others . And , again {pause} I want to emphasize this is just one {pause} particular {pause} um {disfmarker} {pause} one particular meeting , and also there 's been no statistical testing of it all , but {pause} I , um {pause} I took the coding of {pause} the {disfmarker} I , you know , my {disfmarker} I had this script {pause} figure out , um {pause} who {pause} was the first speaker , who was the second speaker involved in a two - person overlap , I didn't look at the ones involving three or more . And , um {pause} {pause} this is how it breaks down in the individual cells of {pause} who tended to be overlapping most often with who {disfmarker} who else , and {pause} if you look at the marginal totals , which is the ones on the right side and across the bottom , you get {pause} the totals for an individual . So , {vocalsound} um {pause} If you {pause} look at the bottom , those are the , um {pause} numbers of overlaps in which {pause} um {pause} Adam was involved as the person doing the overlapping and if you look {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , but you 're o alphabetical , that 's why I 'm choosing you And then if you look across the right , {pause} then {pause} that 's where he was the {pause} person who was the sp first speaker in the pair {pause} and got overlap overlapped with by somebody . +PhD A: Hmm ! +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And , {pause} then if you look down in the summary table , {pause} then you see that , um {pause} th they 're differences in {pause} whether a person got overlapped with or {pause} overlapped by . +Grad H: Is this uh {pause} just raw counts or is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Raw counts . +Grad H: So it would be interesting to see how much each person spoke . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah +Postdoc F: Yes , very true {disfmarker} very true +Grad H: Normalized to how much {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: it would be good to normalize with respect to that . Now on the table I did {pause} take one step toward , uh {pause} away from the raw frequencies by putting , {pause} uh {pause} percentages . So that the percentage of time {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the times that a person spoke , {pause} what percentage {pause} eh , w so . Of the times a person spoke and furthermore was involved in a two two - person overlap , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} what percentage of the time were they the overlapper and what percent of the time were they th the overlappee ? And there , it looks like you see some differences , um , {pause} that some people tend to be overlapped {pause} with more often than they 're overlapped , but , of course , uh i e {vocalsound} this is just one meeting , {pause} uh {pause} there 's no statistical testing involved , and that would be {pause} required for a {disfmarker} for a finding {pause} of {pause} any {pause} kind of {pause} scientific {pause} reliability . +Professor D: S so , i it would be statistically incorrect to conclude from this that Adam talked too much or something . +Grad H: No {disfmarker} no actually , that would be actually statistically correct , +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: No , no , no . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: but +Postdoc F: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . Excuse me . +Postdoc F: That 's right . And I 'm {pause} you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't see a point of singling people out , +Professor D: B I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I rather enjoyed it , but {disfmarker} but this +Postdoc F: now , this is a case where obviously {disfmarker} +PhD A: But the numbers speak for themselves . +PhD E: He 's {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , {vocalsound} you know , it 's like {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not saying on the tape who did {pause} better or worse +Grad H: Yes , that 's right , so you don't nee OK . +Professor D: Sure . +Postdoc F: because {pause} I don't think that it 's {disfmarker} I {pause} you know , and {disfmarker} and th here 's a case where of course , human subjects people would say be sure that you anonymize the results , {pause} and {disfmarker} and , so , might as well do this . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , when {disfmarker} this is what {disfmarker} This is actually {disfmarker} when Jane sent this email first , is what caused me to start thinking about anonymizing the data . +Postdoc F: Well , fair enough . Fair enough . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And actually , {pause} you know , the point is not about an individual , it 's the point about {pause} tendencies toward {pause} you know , different styles , different speaker styles . +Professor D: Oh sure . +Postdoc F: And {pause} it would be , you know {pause} of course , {pause} there 's also the question of what type of overlap was this , and w what were they , and i and I {disfmarker} and I know that I can distinguish at least three types and , probably more , I mean , the {vocalsound} general {pause} {vocalsound} cultural idea which w uh , the conversation analysts originally started with in the seventies was that we have this {vocalsound} strict model where politeness involves that you let the person finish th before you start talking , and {pause} and you know , I mean , {pause} w we know that {disfmarker} {pause} an and they 've loosened up on that too s in the intervening time , that {pause} that that 's {disfmarker} that 's viewed as being {pause} a culturally - relative thing , I mean , {pause} that you have the high - involvement style from the East Coast where people {vocalsound} will overlap often as an indication of interest in what the other person is saying . And +Grad H: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Exactly ! +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly ! +PhD E: Yeah +Postdoc F: Well , there you go . Fine , that 's alright , that 's OK . And {disfmarker} and , {pause} you know , in contrast , so Deborah {disfmarker} d and also Deborah Tannen 's {pause} thesis she talked about differences of these types , {pause} that they 're just different styles , and it 's um {pause} you {disfmarker} you can't impose a model of {disfmarker} {pause} there {disfmarker} of the ideal being no overlaps , and {pause} you know , conversational analysts also agree with that , so it 's {pause} now , universally {pause} a ag agreed with . And {disfmarker} and , als I mean , I can't say universally , but anyway , the people who used to say it was strict , {pause} um {pause} now , uh {pause} don't . I mean they {disfmarker} they {pause} also {pause} {vocalsound} you know , uh {pause} uh , ack acknowledge the influence of {pause} sub of subcultural norms and {pause} cross - cultural norms and things . So , um Then it beco {pause} though {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just superficially to give {pause} um {pause} a couple ideas of the types of overlaps involved , I have at the bottom several that I noticed . So , {pause} {vocalsound} uh , there are backchannels , like what Adam just did now and , um {pause} {vocalsound} um , anticipating the end of a question and {pause} simply answering it earlier , and there are several of those in this {disfmarker} in these data where {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: because we 're {pause} people who 've talked to each other , um {pause} we know {pause} basically what the topic is , what the possibilities are and w and we 've spoken with each other so we know basically what the other person 's style is likely to be and so {vocalsound} and t there are a number of places where someone just answered early . No problem . And places {pause} also which I thought were interesting , where two or more people gave exactly th the same answer in unison {disfmarker} different words of course but you know , the {disfmarker} basically , {pause} you know everyone 's saying "" yes "" or {disfmarker} you know , or ev even more sp specific than that . So , uh , the point is that , um {pause} {vocalsound} overlap 's not necessarily a bad thing and that it would be im {pause} i useful to subdivide these further and see if there are individual differences in styles with respect to the types involved . And that 's all I wanted to say on that , {pause} unless people have questions . +Professor D: Well , of course th the biggest , {pause} um {pause} result here , which is one we 've {disfmarker} {pause} we 've talked about many times and isn't new to us , but which I think would be interesting to show someone who isn't familiar with this {vocalsound} {pause} is just the sheer number of overlaps . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Right ? {pause} that {disfmarker} that , um +PhD E: Yes , yes ! +Postdoc F: Oh , OK {disfmarker} interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: here 's a relatively short meeting , it 's a forty {disfmarker} {pause} forty plus minute {pause} {vocalsound} meeting , and not only were there two hundred and fifteen overlaps {vocalsound} {pause} but , {pause} uh I think there 's one {disfmarker} {pause} one minute there where there {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there wasn't any overlap ? +Grad H: Hundred ninety - seven . +Professor D: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} uh throughout this thing ? +PhD A: It 'd be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor D: It 's {disfmarker} You have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , at the bottom , you have the bottom three . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: S n are {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: So four {disfmarker} four minutes all together with none {disfmarker} none . +PhD A: But it w +Professor D: Oh , so the bottom three did have s stuff going on ? There was speech ? +Postdoc F: Yes , uh - huh . Yeah . But just no overlaps . +Professor D: OK , so if {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 'd be interesting to see what the total amount of time is in the overlaps , versus {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly and that 's {disfmarker} that 's where Jose 's pro project comes in . +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , I h I have this that infor I have th that information now . +PhD G: I was about to ask {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: Oh , about how much is it ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the duration of eh {disfmarker} of each of the overlaps . +Professor D: O oh , what 's {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the average {pause} length ? +PhD E: M I {disfmarker} I haven't averaged it now but , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} I will , uh I will do the {disfmarker} the study of the {disfmarker} {pause} with the {disfmarker} with the program with the {disfmarker} uh , the different , uh {pause} the , nnn , {pause} distribution of the duration of the overlaps . +Professor D: You don't know ? OK , you {disfmarker} you don you don't have a feeling for roughly how {pause} much it is ? Yeah . +PhD E: mmm , {pause} Because the {disfmarker} the uh , @ @ is @ @ . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: The duration is , uh {pause} the variation {disfmarker} the variation of the duration is uh , very big on the dat +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I suspect that it will also differ , {pause} depending on the type of overlap {pause} involved . +PhD E: but eh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sure . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: So backchannels will be very brief +PhD E: Because , on your surface eh {pause} a bit of zone of overlapping with the duration eh , overlapped and another very very short . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i probably it 's very difficult to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} because the {disfmarker} the overlap is , uh on is only the {disfmarker} in the final "" S "" of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the fin the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end word of the , um {pause} previous speaker {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the next word of the {disfmarker} the new speaker . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , I considered {pause} that 's an overlap but it 's very short , it 's an "" X "" with a {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} the idea is probably , eh {pause} when eh {disfmarker} when eh , we studied th th that zone , eh {pause} {pause} eh , we h we have eh eh {pause} confusion with eh eh noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: With eh {pause} that fricative sounds , but uh {pause} I have new information but I have to {disfmarker} to study . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , but I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} u +PhD G: Can I {disfmarker} +Professor D: go ahead . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: You split this by minute , um {pause} so if an overlap straddles {pause} the boundary between two minutes , that counts towards both of those minutes . +Postdoc F: Yes . Mm - hmm . Actually , um {vocalsound} um {pause} actually not . Uh , so {pause} le let 's think about the case where {vocalsound} A starts speaking {pause} {vocalsound} and then B overlaps with A , {pause} and then the minute boundary happens . And let 's say that {vocalsound} after that minute boundary , {vocalsound} um {pause} B is still speaking , {pause} and A overlaps {pause} with B , that would be a new overlap . But otherwise {pause} um , let 's say B {pause} comes to the conclusion of {disfmarker} of that turn without {pause} anyone overlapping with him or her , in which case there would be no overlap counted in that second minute . +PhD G: No , but suppose they both talk simultaneously {vocalsound} {pause} both a {disfmarker} a portion of it is in minute one and another portion of minute two . +Postdoc F: OK . In that case , um {pause} my c {pause} the coding that I was using {disfmarker} {vocalsound} since we haven't , {pause} uh {pause} incorporated Adam 's , uh {pause} coding of overlap yets , the coding of Yeah , "" yets "" is not a word . Uh {vocalsound} since we haven't incorporated Adam 's method of handling overl overlaps yet {vocalsound} um {pause} then {pause} that would have fallen through the cra cracks . It would be an underestimate of the number of overlaps because , um {pause} I wou I wouldn't be able to pick it up from the way it was {pause} encoded so far . +Professor D: I I +Postdoc F: We just haven't done th the precise second to sec you know , {pause} second to second coding of when they occur . +Professor D: I I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm confused now . So l l let me restate what I thought Andreas was saying and {disfmarker} and see . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Let 's say that in {disfmarker} in second fifty - seven {pause} {vocalsound} of one minute , {pause} you start talking and I start talking and {pause} we ignore each other and keep on talking for six seconds . +Postdoc F: Yep . OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So we go over {disfmarker} So we were {disfmarker} we were talking over one another , {pause} and it 's just {disfmarker} in each case , it 's just sort of one {pause} interval . Right ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: So , um {pause} we talked over the minute boundary . Is this {pause} considered as one overlap in each of the minutes , the way you have done this . +Postdoc F: No , it wouldn't . It would be considered as an overlap in the first one . +Professor D: OK , so that 's {pause} good , i I think , in the sense that I think Andreas meant the question , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's good , yeah , cuz the overall rate is {disfmarker} +PhD C: +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Statistical . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . They 're not double counted . +PhD G: Other - otherwise you 'd get double counts , here and there . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD B: Ah but , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD G: And then it would be harder {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I should also say I did a simplifying , uh {pause} count in that {vocalsound} if A was speaking {pause} B overlapped with A and then A came back again and overlapped with B again , I {disfmarker} I didn't count that as a three - person overlap , I counted that as a two - person overlap , {pause} and it was A being overlapped with by D . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Because the idea was the first speaker {pause} had the floor {pause} and the second person {pause} started speaking and then the f the first person reasserted the floor {pause} kind of thing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: These are simplifying assumptions , didn't happen very often , there may be like three overlaps affected that way in the whole thing . +Grad H: I want to go back and listen to minute forty - one . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Cuz i i I find it interesting that there were a large number of overlaps and they were all two - speaker . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: I mean what I thought {disfmarker} what I would have thought in {pause} is that when there were a large number of overlaps , it was because everyone was talking at once , {vocalsound} but uh apparently not . +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . That 's interesting . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad H: That 's really neat . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , there 's a lot of backchannel , a lot o a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad H: This is {pause} really interesting data . +Postdoc F: Yeah , it is . +PhD B: I think what 's really interesting though , it is {pause} before d {pause} saying "" yes , meetings have a lot of overlaps "" is to actually find out how many more {pause} we have than two - party . +Postdoc F: I think so too , I think {disfmarker} +PhD B: Cuz in two - party conversations , like Switchboard , there 's an awful lot too if you just look at backchannels , if you consider those overlaps ? it 's also ver it 's huge . It 's just that people haven't been {pause} looking at that because they 've been doing single - channel processing for {pause} speech recognition . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So , the question is , you know , how many more overlaps {pause} {vocalsound} do you have {pause} of , say the two - person type , by adding more people . to a meeting , and it may be a lot more but i it may {disfmarker} {pause} it may not be . +Professor D: Well , but see , I find it interesting even if it wasn't any more , +PhD B: So . +Professor D: because {pause} since we were dealing with this full duplex sort of thing in Switchboard where it was just all separated out {vocalsound} we just {disfmarker} everything was just nice , +PhD B: Mm - hmm ? +Professor D: so that {disfmarker} so the issue is in {disfmarker} in a situation {pause} where th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not really {pause} "" nice "" . It depends what you 're doing . So if you were actually {pause} {vocalsound} having , uh {disfmarker} depends what you 're doing , if {disfmarker} Right now we 're do we have individual mikes on the people in this meeting . So the question is , you know {disfmarker} "" are there really more overlaps happening than there would be in a two - person {pause} party "" . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and there well may be , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: Let {disfmarker} let m let me rephrase what I 'm saying cuz I don't think I 'm getting it across . What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} I shouldn't use words like "" nice "" because maybe that 's too {disfmarker} i too imprecise . But what I mean is {vocalsound} that , um in Switchboard , {pause} despite the many {disfmarker} many other problems that we have , one problem that we 're not considering is overlap . And what we 're doing now is , {pause} aside from the many other differences in the task , we are considering overlap and one of the reasons that we 're considering it , {pause} you know , one of them not all of them , one of them is {vocalsound} that w uh at least , {pause} you know I 'm very interested in {vocalsound} the scenario in which , uh {pause} both people talking are pretty much equally {pause} audible , {vocalsound} and from a single microphone . And so , {pause} in that case , it does get mixed in , {vocalsound} and it 's pretty hard to jus {pause} to just ignore it , to just do processing on one and not on the other . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I agree that it 's an issue here {pause} but it 's also an issue for Switchboard and if you {pause} think of meetings {pause} being recorded over the telephone , which I think , you know , this whole point of studying meetings isn't just to have people in a room but to also have {pause} meetings over different phone lines . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe far field mike people wouldn't be interested in that but all the dialogue issues still apply , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so if each of us was calling and having {pause} {vocalsound} a meeting that way {pause} you kn you know like a conference call . And , just the question is , {pause} y you know , in Switchboard {pause} you would think that 's the simplest case of a meeting of more than one person , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {pause} {vocalsound} I 'm wondering how much more {pause} overlap {pause} of {pause} the types that {disfmarker} that Jane described happen with more people present . So it may be that having three people {pause} {vocalsound} is very different from having two people or it may not be . +Professor D: That 's an important question to ask . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: I think what I 'm {disfmarker} {pause} All I 'm s really saying is that I don't think we were considering that in Switchboard . +PhD B: Not you , me . But uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but +Professor D: Were you ? +Grad H: Though it wasn't {pause} in the design . +Professor D: Were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you {disfmarker} were you measuring it ? I mean , w w were {disfmarker} +PhD B: There {disfmarker} there 's actually to tell you the truth , the reason why it 's hard to measure is because of so , from the point of view of studying dialogue , I mean , which {pause} Dan Jurafsky and Andreas and I had some projects on , you want to know the sequence of turns . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: So what happens is if you 're talking and I have a backchannel in the middle of your turn , and then you keep going what it looks like in a dialogue model is your turn and then my backchannel , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: even though my backchannel occurred completely inside your turn . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: So , for things like language modeling or dialogue modeling {pause} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} We know that that 's wrong in real time . +Professor D: Yeah ? +PhD B: But , because of the acoustic segmentations that were done and the fact that some of the acoustic data in Switchboard were missing , people couldn't study it , but that doesn't mean in the real world that people don't talk that way . So , it 's {disfmarker} um +Professor D: Yeah , I wasn't saying that . Right ? I was just saying that w now we 're looking at it . +PhD B: Well , we 've als +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you {disfmarker} you maybe wanted to look at it before but , for these various technical reasons in terms of how the data was you weren't . +PhD B: Right . We 're looking at it here . +Professor D: So that 's why it 's coming to us as new even though it may well be {pause} you know , if your {disfmarker} if your hypothes The hypothesis you were offering {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: Right ? {disfmarker} if it 's the null poth {comment} hypothesis , and if actually you have as much overlap in a two - person , {vocalsound} we don't know the answer to that . The reason we don't know the answer to is cuz it wasn't studied and it wasn't studied because it wasn't set up . Right ? +PhD B: Yeah , all I meant is that if you 're asking the question from the point of view of {pause} what 's different about a meeting , studying meetings of , say , more than two people versus {pause} what kinds of questions you could ask with a two - person {pause} meeting . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: It 's important to distinguish {pause} that , you know , this project {pause} is getting a lot of overlap {pause} but other projects were too , but we just couldn't study them . And and so uh +Professor D: May have been . May have been . Right ? +PhD B: Well , there is a high rate , +Professor D: We do kn we don't know the numbers . +PhD B: So . It 's {disfmarker} but I don't know how high , in fact +PhD A: Well , here I have a question . +PhD B: that would be interesting to know . +Professor D: See , I mean , i i le let me t I mean , my point was just if you wanted to say to somebody , "" what have we learned about overlaps here ? "" just never mind comparison with something else , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: what we 've learned about is overlaps in this situation , is that {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} {pause} the first - order thing I would say is that there 's a lot of them . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: In {disfmarker} in the sense that i if you said if {disfmarker} i i i +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't di I agree with that . +Professor D: In a way , I guess what I 'm comparing to is more the common sense notion of {vocalsound} how {disfmarker} how much people overlap . Uh {pause} you know the fact that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when , uh , Adam was looking for a stretch of {disfmarker} of speech before , that didn't have any overlaps , and he w he was having such a hard time and now I look at this and I go , "" well , I can see why he was having such a hard time "" . +PhD B: Right . That 's also true of Switchboard . +Professor D: It 's happening a lot . +PhD B: It may not be {disfmarker} +Professor D: I wasn't saying it wasn't . +PhD B: Right . So it 's just , um +Professor D: Right ? I was commenting about this . +PhD B: OK . All I 'm saying is that from the +Professor D: I 'm saying if I {disfmarker} {pause} I 'm saying if I have this complicated thing in front of me , {vocalsound} and we sh which , {pause} you know we 're gonna get much more sophisticated about when we get lots more data , But {disfmarker} Then , if I was gonna describe to somebody what did you learn {pause} right here , about , you know , the {disfmarker} the modest amount of data that was analyzed I 'd say , "" Well , the first - order thing was there was a lot of overlaps "" . In fact {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and it 's not just an overlap {disfmarker} bunch of overlaps {disfmarker} second - order thing is {vocalsound} it 's not just a bunch of overlaps in one particular point , {vocalsound} but that there 's overlaps , uh throughout the thing . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Right . No , I {disfmarker} I agree with that . +Professor D: And that 's interesting . That 's all . +PhD B: I 'm just {pause} {vocalsound} saying that it may {disfmarker} {pause} the reason you get overlaps may or may not be due to sort of the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: Oh yeah . +PhD B: And that 's all . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , I wasn't making any statement about that . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and it would actually be interesting to find out +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: because some of the data say Switchboard , which isn't exactly the same kind of context , I mean these are two people who don't know each other and so forth , But we should still be able to somehow say what {disfmarker} what is the added contra contribution to sort of overlap time of each additional person , or something like that . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah , that would be good to know , +PhD A: What {disfmarker} +Professor D: but w we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , now . +Grad H: I could certainly see it going either way . +Postdoc F: Wh - yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} I agree with Adam . +PhD B: But yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And the reason is because I think there 's a limit {disfmarker} {pause} there 's an upper bound {pause} on how many you can have , simply {pause} from the standpoint of audibility . When we speak we {disfmarker} we do make a judgment of {pause} "" can {disfmarker} "" you know , as adults . +PhD B: Right . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , children don't adjust so well , I mean , if a truck goes rolling past , {vocalsound} adults will well , depending , but mostly , adults will {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} {pause} will hold off to what {disfmarker} {pause} to finish the end of the sentence till the {disfmarker} till the noise is past . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And I think we generally do {vocalsound} monitor things like that , {pause} about {disfmarker} whether we {disfmarker} whether our utterance will be in the clear or not . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: And partly it 's related to rhythmic structure in conversation , so , {vocalsound} you know , you {disfmarker} you t Yeah , this is d also um , people tend to time their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their , um {pause} when they {pause} come into the conversation based on the overall rhythmic , {pause} uh uh , ambient thing . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc F: So you don't want to be c cross - cutting . And {disfmarker} and , just to finish this , that um That I think that {vocalsound} there may be an upper bound on how many overlaps you can have , simply from the standpoint of audibility and how loud the other people are who are already {pause} in the fray . But I {disfmarker} you know , of certain types . Now if it 's just backchannels , {vocalsound} people {pause} may be doing that {pause} with less {pause} intention of being heard , {pause} just sort of spontaneously doing backchannels , in which case {pause} that {disfmarker} those might {disfmarker} there may be no upper bound on those . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have a feeling that backchannels , which are the vast majority of overlaps in Switchboard , {pause} uh , don't play as big a role here , because it 's very unnatural I think , to backchannel if {disfmarker} in a multi - audience {disfmarker} you know , in a multi - person {vocalsound} {pause} audience . +PhD B: If you can see them , actually . It 's interesting , so if you watch people are going like {disfmarker} {comment} {comment} Right {disfmarker} right , like this here , +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: but That may not be the case if you couldn't see them . +Professor D: u +PhD G: But {disfmarker} {pause} but , it 's sort of odd if one person 's speaking and everybody 's listening , and it 's unusual to have everybody going "" uh - huh , uh - huh "" +Professor D: Actually , I think I 've done it {pause} a fair number of times today . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: But . +PhD B: There 's a lot of head - nodding , in this +Grad H: Um . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep , we need to put trackers on it . +PhD A: In {disfmarker} in the two - person {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc F: He could , he could . +PhD G: Plus {disfmarker} plus {disfmarker} plus the {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} so actually , um That 's in part because the nodding , if you have visual contact , {pause} the nodding has the same function , but on the phone , in Switchboard {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} that wouldn't work . So {vocalsound} so you need to use the backchannel . +Grad H: Yeah , you don't have it . Your mike is {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , in the two - person conversations , {pause} when there 's backchannel , is there a great deal of {pause} overlap {pause} in the speech ? +Grad H: That is an earphone , so if you just put it {pause} so it 's on your ear . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Cuz my impression is sometimes it happens when there 's a pause , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad H: There you go . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc F: E for example . +Grad H: Thank you . +PhD A: you know , like you {disfmarker} you get a lot of backchannel , when somebody 's pausing +PhD B: Yes . Right . +Postdoc F: She 's doing that . +PhD B: Sorry , what were you saying ? +PhD A: It 's hard to do both , huh ? Um {pause} no , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when there 's backchannel , I mean , just {disfmarker} I was just listening , and {disfmarker} and when there 's two people talking and there 's backchannel it seems like , {pause} um the backchannel happens when , you know , the pitch drops and the first person {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh . +PhD A: and a lot of times , the first person actually stops talking and then there 's a backchannel {pause} and then they start up again , and so I 'm wondering about {disfmarker} h I just wonder how much overlap there is . Is there a lot ? +PhD B: I think there 's a lot of the kind that Jose was talking about , where {disfmarker} {pause} I mean , this is called "" precision timing "" in {pause} conversation analysis , where {pause} {vocalsound} they come in overlapping , {pause} but at a point where the {pause} information is mostly {pause} complete . So all you 're missing is some last syllables or something or the last word or some highly predictable words . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So technically , it 's an overlap . +PhD A: But maybe a {disfmarker} just a small overlap ? +PhD B: But {pause} you know , from information flow point of view it 's not an overlap in {pause} the predictable information . +PhD E: More , yeah . +Grad H: It 'd be interesting if we could do prediction . +PhD A: I was just thinking more in terms of alignment , alignment overlap . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: Language model prediction of overlap , that would be really interesting . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {pause} so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , that 's exactly , exactly why we wanted to study the precise timing of overlaps ins in uh Switchboard , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: say , because there 's a lot of that . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a first interesting {pause} labeling task . Uh , to distinguish between , say , backchannels {vocalsound} {pause} precision timing {disfmarker} Sort of {vocalsound} you know , benevolent overlaps , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} and w and {disfmarker} and sort of , um {pause} I don't know , hostile overlaps , where {vocalsound} someone is trying to grab the floor from someone else . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Let 's pick a different word . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Uh , that {disfmarker} that might be an interesting , um {pause} problem to look at . +PhD A: Hostile takeovers . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean you could do that . I ju I {disfmarker} I think that {pause} in this meeting I really had the feeling that wasn't happening , that {pause} the hostile {disfmarker} hostile type . These were {disfmarker} these were {pause} benevolent types , as people {pause} finishing each other 's sentences , and {pause} stuff . +PhD G: OK . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um , I could imagine that as {disfmarker} there 's a fair number of {vocalsound} um cases where , and this is sort of , not {pause} really hostile , but sort of competitive , where {vocalsound} one person is finishing something and {vocalsound} you have , like , two or three people jumping {disfmarker} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to {disfmarker} {pause} trying to , uh grab the next turn . +Grad H: Trying to get the floor . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: And so it 's not against the person who talks first {pause} because actually we 're all waiting for that person to finish . But they all want to {pause} be next . +Professor D: I have a feeling most of these things are {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {pause} that are not {pause} a benevolent kind are {disfmarker} are {vocalsound} {pause} are , uh {pause} um {pause} {vocalsound} are {disfmarker} are competitive as opposed to real really {disfmarker} really hostile . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: I wonder what determines who gets the floor ? +Professor D: But . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I mean {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , there are various things , you {disfmarker} you have the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh a vote {disfmarker} vote in Florida . +Grad H: It 's been studied a lot . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Voting for {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , o one thing {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} or you can tell a good joke and then everybody 's laughing and you get a chance to g break in . +PhD G: Seniority . +Professor D: But . But . Um . You know , the other thing I was thinking was that , {pause} um {pause} these {disfmarker} all these interesting questions are , of course , pretty hard to answer with , uh u {pause} you know , a small amount of data . +Grad H: Ach . +Professor D: So , um {pause} I wonder if what you 're saying suggests that we should make a conscious attempt to have , um {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a fair number of meetings with , uh a smaller number of people . Right ? I mean {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} most of our meetings are {pause} uh , meetings currently with say five , six , seven , eight people Should we {pause} really try to have some two - person meetings , {pause} or some three - person meetings and re record them {vocalsound} just to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to beef up the {disfmarker} the statistics on that ? +Postdoc F: That 's a control . Well , {vocalsound} it seems like there are two possibilities there , I mean {pause} i it seems like {vocalsound} if you have just {pause} two people it 's not {pause} really , y like a meeting , w is not as similar as the rest of the {disfmarker} {pause} of the sample . It depends on what you 're after , of course , but {vocalsound} It seems like that would be more a case of the control condition , compared to , uh {pause} an experimental {pause} condition , with more than two . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , Liz was raising the question of {disfmarker} of whether i it 's the number {disfmarker} there 's a relationship between the number of people and the number of overlaps or type of overlaps there , +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , um {vocalsound} If you had two people meeting in this kind of circumstance then you 'd still have the visuals . You wouldn't have that difference {pause} also that you have in the {vocalsound} say , in Switchboard data . Uh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I 'm just thinking that 'd be more like a c control condition . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , but from the acoustic point of view , it 's all good . +PhD E: Is the same . +Professor D: Yeah , acoustic is fine , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: If {disfmarker} if the goal were to just look at overlap you would {disfmarker} you could serve yourself {disfmarker} save yourself a lot of time but not even transcri transcribe the words . +PhD B: Well , I was thinking you should be able to do this from the {pause} acoustics , on the close - talking mikes , +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that was my {disfmarker} my status report , +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc F: You 've been working on that . +PhD B: Right , I mean Adam was {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so {vocalsound} {pause} Once we 're done with this stuff discussing , +PhD B: right . I mean , not as well as what {disfmarker} I mean , you wouldn't be able to have any kind of typology , obviously , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but you 'd get some rough statistics . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what do you think about that ? Do you think that would be useful ? I 'm just thinking that as an action item of whether we should try to record some two - person meetings or something . +PhD B: I guess my {disfmarker} my first comment was , um {pause} only that {vocalsound} um we should n not attribute overlaps only to meetings , but maybe that 's obvious , maybe everybody knew that , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: but that {vocalsound} in normal conversation with two people there 's an awful lot of the same kinds of overlap , and that it would be interesting to look at {pause} whether there are these kinds of constraints that Jane mentioned , that {vocalsound} what maybe the additional people add to this competition that happens right after a turn , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , because now you can have five people trying to grab the turn , but pretty quickly there 're {disfmarker} they back off and you go back to this sort of only one person at a time with one person interrupting at a time . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , I don't know . To answer your question I {pause} it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's crucial to have controls but I think it 's worth recording all the meetings we {pause} can . +Grad H: Can . +PhD B: So , um {pause} you know . +Professor D: Well , {vocalsound} OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I have an idea . +PhD B: D I wouldn't not record a two - person meeting just because it only has two people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: Could we {disfmarker} Could we , um {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} have in the past and I think continue {disfmarker} will continue to have a fair number of {pause} uh phone conference calls . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD G: And , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} and as a {disfmarker} to , um {vocalsound} as another c {pause} c comparison {pause} condition , {pause} we could um see what {disfmarker} what what happens in terms of overlap , when you don't have visual contact . +Grad H: Yeah , we talked about this repeatedly . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Can we actually record ? +Grad H: It just seems like that 's a very different {pause} thing than what we 're doing . +Professor D: Uh Well , we 'll have to set up for it . +PhD B: I mean {pause} physically {pause} can we record the o the other {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Well , we 're not really set up for it {pause} to do that . But . +PhD G: Or , this is getting a little extravagant , we could put up some kind of blinds or something to {disfmarker} {pause} to remove , uh {pause} visual contact . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Barriers ! +PhD B: That 's what they did on Map Task , you know , this Map Task corpus ? They ran exactly the same pairs of people with and without visual cues and it 's quite interesting . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we record this meeting so regularly it wouldn't be that {disfmarker} I mean {pause} a little strange . +Grad H: OK , we can record , but no one can look at each other . +PhD B: Well , we could just put {pause} b blindfolds on . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Well y no you {disfmarker} f +Grad H: Close your eyes . +Postdoc F: Blindf +PhD G: Yeah , Yeah . +Grad H: Turn off the lights . +PhD B: and we 'd take a picture of everybody sitting here with blindfolds . That would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , th that was the other thing , weren't we gonna take a picture {pause} at the beginning of each of these meetings ? +Grad H: Um , what {disfmarker} I had thought we were gonna do is just take pictures of the whiteboards . rather than take pictures of the meeting . +Postdoc F: Well , linguistic {disfmarker} +Grad H: And , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Linguistic anthropologists would {disfmarker} would suggest it would be useful to also take a picture of the meeting . +Professor D: There 's a head nodding here vigorously , yeah . +PhD A: Why {disfmarker} why do we want to have a picture of the meeting ? +PhD B: Ee - {pause} you mean , transc {pause} no {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} because you get then the spatial relationship of the speakers . +PhD E: Yeah Yeah . +Postdoc F: And that {pause} could be +PhD G: Well , you could do that by just noting on the enrollment sheet the {disfmarker} {pause} the seat number . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Seat number , that 's a good idea . I 'll do that . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: I 'll do that on the next set of forms . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So you 'd number them somehow . +PhD E: Is possible to get information from the rhythmic {disfmarker} f from the ge , eh {pause} uh , files . +Grad H: I finally remembered to put , uh put native language on the newer forms . +PhD A: We can {disfmarker} can't you figure it out from the mike number ? +Grad H: No . +PhD A: OK . +Grad H: The wireless ones . And even the jacks , I mean , I 'm sitting here and the jack is {pause} over {pause} in front of you . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD B: But probably from these you could 've {comment} infer it . +PhD G: Yeah , but It 's {disfmarker} it would be trivial {disfmarker} +Grad H: It would be another task . +PhD B: It would be a research task . +Grad H: Having {disfmarker} having ground tu truth would be nice , so {pause} seat number would be good . +PhD A: You know where you could get it ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Beam - forming during the digit {pause} uh stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I 'm gonna put little labels on all the chairs with the seat number . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: That 's a good idea . +PhD B: But you have to keep the chairs in the same pla like here . +PhD G: Not the chairs . The chairs are {disfmarker} Chairs are movable . +Grad H: But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Put them {disfmarker} {pause} Like , {pause} put them on the table where they {disfmarker} +PhD E: The chair {comment} Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: But you know , they {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} s the linguistic anthropologists would say it would be good to have a digital picture anyway , +PhD A: Just remembered a joke . +Postdoc F: because you get {pause} a sense also of posture . Posture , and we could like , {pause} you know , {pause} block out the person 's face or whatever +PhD G: What people were wearing . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD B: The fashion statement . +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , you know , these are important cues , +PhD G: Oh , Andreas was {disfmarker} +PhD A: How big their heads are . +Postdoc F: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} how a person is sitting {pause} is {disfmarker} +Professor D: But if you just f But from one picture , I don't know that you really get that . +PhD G: Yeah . Andreas was wearing that same old sweater again . +Professor D: Right ? You 'd want a video for that , I think . +Postdoc F: It 'd be better than nothing , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} i Just from a single picture I think you can tell some aspects . +PhD E: A video , yeah . +Professor D: Think so ? +Postdoc F: I mean I {disfmarker} I could tell you I mean , if I if I 'm in certain meetings I notice that there are certain people who really do {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} The body language is very uh {disfmarker} is very interesting in terms of the dominance aspect . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . And {disfmarker} and Morgan had that funny hair again . +Postdoc F: Yeah . {comment} Well , I mean you black out the {disfmarker} that part . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But it 's just , you know , the {disfmarker} the body +PhD A: He agreed . +Postdoc F: you know ? +Grad H: Of course , the {disfmarker} where we sit at the table , I find is very interesting , that we do tend to {pause} cong {pause} to gravitate to the same place each time . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: and it 's somewhat coincidental . I 'm sitting here so that I can run into the room if the hardware starts , you know , catching fire or something . +PhD G: Oh , no , you {disfmarker} you just like to be in charge , that 's why you 're sitting {disfmarker} +Grad H: I just want to be at the head of the table . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Take control . +Professor D: Speaking of taking control , you said you had some research to talk about . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , I 've been playing with , um uh , using the close - talking mike to do {disfmarker} to try to figure out who 's speaking . So my first attempt was just using thresholding and filtering , that we talked about {disfmarker} about two weeks ago , and so I played with that a little bit , and {vocalsound} it works O K , {pause} except that {pause} it 's very sensitive to your choice of {vocalsound} your filter width and your {vocalsound} threshold . So if you fiddle around with it a little bit and you get good numbers you can actually do a pretty good job of segmenting when someone 's talking and when they 're not . But if you try to use the same paramenters on another speaker , it doesn't work anymore , even if you normalize it based on the absolute loudness . +PhD B: But does it work for that one speaker throughout the whole meeting ? +Grad H: It does work for the one speaker throughout the whole meeting . Um Pretty well . +PhD A: How did you do it Adam ? +Grad H: Pretty well . How did I do it ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad H: What do you mean ? +PhD A: I mean , wh what was the {disfmarker} +Grad H: The algorithm was , uh take o every frame that 's over the threshold , and then median - filter it , {vocalsound} and then look for runs . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So there was a minimum run length , +PhD A: Every frame that 's over what threshold ? +Grad H: so that {disfmarker} A threshold that you pick . +PhD A: In terms of energy ? Ah ! +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Postdoc F: Say that again ? Frame over fres threshold . +Grad H: So you take a {disfmarker} each frame , and you compute the energy and if it 's over the threshold you set it to one , and if it 's under the threshold you set it to zero , {vocalsound} so now you have a bit stream {pause} of zeros and ones . +Postdoc F: Hmm . OK . +Grad H: And then I median - filtered that {vocalsound} using , um {pause} a fairly long {pause} filter length . Uh {pause} well , actually I guess depends on what you mean by long , you know , tenth of a second sorts of numbers . Um and that 's to average out you know , pitch , you know , the pitch contours , and things like that . And then , uh looked for long runs . +Postdoc F: OK +Grad H: And that works O K , if you fil if you tune the filter parameters , if you tune {vocalsound} how long your median filter is and how high you 're looking for your thresholds . +PhD A: Did you ever try running the filter before you pick a threshold ? +Grad H: No . I certainly could though . But this was just I had the program mostly written already so it was easy to do . OK and then the other thing I did , was I took {vocalsound} Javier 's speaker - change detector {disfmarker} acoustic - change detector , and I implemented that with the close - talking mikes , and {pause} unfortunately that 's not working real well , and it looks like it 's {disfmarker} the problem is {disfmarker} he does it in two passes , the first pass {vocalsound} is to find candidate places to do a break . And he does that using a neural net doing broad phone classification and he has the {vocalsound} the , uh {pause} one of the phone classes is silence . And so the possible breaks are where silence starts and ends . And then he has a second pass which is a modeling {disfmarker} a Gaussian mixture model . Um looking for {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} whether it improves or {disfmarker} or degrades to split at one of those particular places . And what looks like it 's happening is that the {disfmarker} even on the close - talking mike the broad phone class classifier 's doing a really bad job . +PhD A: Who was it trained on ? +Grad H: Uh , I have no idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad H: I don't remember . Does an do you remember , Morgan , was it Broadcast News ? +Professor D: I think so , yeah . +Grad H: Um {pause} So , at any rate , my next attempt , {pause} which I 'm in the midst of and haven't quite finished yet was actually using the {vocalsound} uh , thresholding as the way of generating the candidates . Because one of the things that definitely happens is if you put the threshold low {vocalsound} you get lots of breaks . All of which are definitely acoustic events . They 're definitely {vocalsound} someone talking . But , like , it could be someone who isn't the person here , but the person over there or it can be the person breathing . And then feeding that into the acoustic change detector . And so I think that might work . But , I haven't gotten very far on that . But all of this is close - talking mike , so it 's , uh {pause} just {disfmarker} just trying to get some ground truth . +PhD E: Only with eh uh , but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , eh when {disfmarker} when , y I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I saw the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech from PDA and , eh {pause} close {pause} {vocalsound} talker . I {disfmarker} I think the there is a {disfmarker} a great difference in the {disfmarker} in the signal . +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . +PhD E: Um but eh I {disfmarker} but eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean that eh eh {pause} in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file {vocalsound} you can find , uh {pause} zone with , eh {pause} great different , eh {pause} level of energy . +Grad H: So {pause} s my intention for this is {disfmarker} is as an aide for ground truth . not {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think for , eh {pause} algorithm based on energy , {pause} eh , that um h mmm , {disfmarker} more or less , eh , like eh {pause} eh , mmm , first sound energy detector . +Grad H: Say it again ? +PhD E: eh nnn . When y you the detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the first at {disfmarker} at the end of {disfmarker} of the {vocalsound} detector of , ehm princ um . What is the {disfmarker} the name in English ? the {disfmarker} the , mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} the de detector of , ehm of a word in the {disfmarker} in the s in {disfmarker} an isolated word in {disfmarker} in the background That , uh +Grad H: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you 're saying , can you try {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean that when {disfmarker} when you use , eh {pause} eh {pause} any +PhD A: I think he 's saying the onset detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Onset detector , OK . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think it 's probably to work well eh , because , eh {pause} you have eh , in the mixed files a great level of energy . eh {pause} and great difference between the sp speaker . And probably is not so easy when you use the {disfmarker} the PDA , eh that {disfmarker} Because the signal is , eh {pause} the {disfmarker} in the e energy level . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} in that , eh {pause} eh {pause} speech file {vocalsound} is , eh {pause} more similar . between the different eh , speaker , {vocalsound} um {pause} I {disfmarker} I think is {disfmarker} eh , it will {pause} i is my opinion . +Grad H: Right . But different speakers . +PhD E: It will be , eh {pause} more difficult to {disfmarker} to detect bass - tone energy . the {disfmarker} the change . I think that , um +Grad H: Ah , in the clo in the P D A , you mean ? +PhD E: In the PDA . +Grad H: Absolutely . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , no question . It 'll be much harder . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Much harder . +PhD E: And the {disfmarker} the another question , that when I review the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the work of Javier . I think the , nnn , the , nnn , {pause} that the idea of using a {pause} neural network {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get a broad class of phonetic , eh {pause} from , eh uh a candidate from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech signal . If you have , eh {vocalsound} uh , I 'm considering , only because Javier , eh {pause} only consider , eh {pause} like candidate , the , nnn , eh {pause} the silence , because it is the {disfmarker} the only model , eh {disfmarker} eh , he used that , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} nnn , to detect the {disfmarker} the possibility of a {disfmarker} a change between the {disfmarker} between the speaker , +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Um {pause} another {disfmarker} another research thing , different groups , eh {pause} working , eh {pause} on Broadcast News {vocalsound} prefer to , eh {pause} to consider hypothesis eh {pause} between each phoneme . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Yeah , when a {pause} phone changes . +PhD E: Because , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's more realistic that , uh {pause} only consider the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the silence between the speaker . Eh {pause} there {disfmarker} there exists eh {pause} silence between {disfmarker} between , eh {pause} a speaker . is {disfmarker} is , eh {pause} eh {pause} acoustic , eh {pause} event , important to {disfmarker} to consider . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I found that the , eh {pause} silence in {disfmarker} in many occasions in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but , eh {pause} when you have , eh {pause} eh , two speakers together without enough silence between {disfmarker} between them , eh {pause} {vocalsound} I think eh {pause} is better to use the acoustic change detector basically and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I IX or , mmm , BIC criterion for consider all the frames in my opinion . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah , the {disfmarker} you know , the reason that he , uh {pause} just used silence {vocalsound} was not because he thought it was better , it was {disfmarker} it was {disfmarker} it was the place he was starting . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor D: So , he was trying to get something going , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: and , uh e e you know , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as is in your case , if you 're here for only a modest number of months you try to pick a realistic goal , +PhD E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad H: Do something . +Professor D: But his {disfmarker} his goal was always to proceed from there to then allow broad category change also . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But , eh {pause} do {disfmarker} do you think that if you consider all the frames to apply {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the , eh {pause} the BIC criterion to detect the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the different acoustic change , {vocalsound} eh {pause} between speaker , without , uh {pause} with , uh {pause} silence or {vocalsound} with overlapping , uh , I think like {disfmarker} like , eh {pause} eh a general , eh {pause} eh {pause} way of process the {disfmarker} the acoustic change . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: In a first step , I mean . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: An - and then , eh {pause} {vocalsound} eh {pause} without considering the you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , um {pause} you can consider the energy {vocalsound} like a another parameter in the {disfmarker} in the feature vector , eh . +Grad H: Right . Absolutely . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: This {disfmarker} this is the idea . And if , if you do that , eh {pause} eh , with a BIC uh criterion for example , or with another kind of , eh {pause} of distance in a first step , {vocalsound} and then you , eh {pause} you get the , eh {pause} the hypothesis to the {disfmarker} this change acoustic , {vocalsound} eh {pause} {vocalsound} to po process +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Because , eh {pause} eh , probably you {disfmarker} you can find the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} eh {pause} a small gap of silence between speaker {vocalsound} with eh {pause} eh {pause} a ga mmm , {pause} {vocalsound} small duration Less than , {vocalsound} eh {pause} two hundred milliseconds for example +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and apply another {disfmarker} another algorithm , another approach like , eh {pause} eh {pause} detector of ene , eh detector of bass - tone energy to {disfmarker} to consider that , eh {vocalsound} that , eh {pause} zone . of s a small silence between speaker , or {vocalsound} another algorithm to {disfmarker} to process , {vocalsound} eh {pause} the {disfmarker} the segment between marks eh {pause} founded by the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the BIC criterion and applied for {disfmarker} for each frame . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I think is , eh {pause} nnn , it will be a an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a more general approach {vocalsound} the {pause} if we compare {disfmarker} with use , eh {pause} a neural net or another , eh {pause} speech recognizer with a broad class or {disfmarker} or narrow class , because , in my opinion eh {pause} it 's in my opinion , {vocalsound} eh if you {disfmarker} if you change the condition of the speech , I mean , if you adjust to your algorithm with a mixed speech file and to , eh {vocalsound} to , eh {pause} {vocalsound} adapt the neural net , eh {pause} used by Javier with a mixed file . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: uh With a m mixed file , +Grad H: With the what file ? +PhD A: "" Mixed "" . +PhD E: with a {disfmarker} the mix , mix . +Postdoc F: "" Mixed . "" +Grad H: "" Mixed ? "" +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Sorry . And {pause} and then you {disfmarker} you , eh you try to {disfmarker} to apply that , eh , eh , eh , speech recognizer to that signal , to the PDA , eh {pause} speech file , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think you will have problems , because the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {pause} condition {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you will need t t I {disfmarker} I suppose that you will need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to retrain it . +Professor D: Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , absolutely . This is {disfmarker} this is not what I was suggesting to do . +Professor D: u {vocalsound} Look , I {disfmarker} I think this is a {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} once {disfmarker} It 's a {disfmarker} I used to work , like , on voiced {disfmarker} on voice silence detection , you know , and this is this {pause} kind of thing . +PhD E: Really ? Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} If you {vocalsound} have somebody who has some experience with this sort of thing , and they work on it for a couple months , {vocalsound} they can come up with something that gets most of the cases fairly easily . Then you say , "" OK , I don't just wanna get most of the cases I want it to be really accurate . "" Then it gets really hard no matter what you do . So , the p the problem is is that if you say , "" Well I {disfmarker} I have these other data over here , {vocalsound} that I learn things from , either explicit training of neural nets or of Gaussian mixture models or whatever . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh {pause} Suppose you don't use any of those things . You say you have looked for acoustic change . Well , what does that mean ? That {disfmarker} that means you set some thresholds somewhere or something , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? and {disfmarker} and so {vocalsound} where do you get your thresholds from ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: From something that you looked at . So {vocalsound} you always have this problem , you 're going to new data um {pause} H how are you going to adapt whatever you can very quickly learn about the new data ? {vocalsound} Uh , if it 's gonna be different from old data that you have ? And I think that 's a problem {pause} with this . +Grad H: Well , also what I 'm doing right now is not intended to be an acoustic change detector for far - field mikes . What I 'm doing {vocalsound} is trying to use the close - talking mike {vocalsound} and just use {disfmarker} {pause} Can - and just generate candidate and just {pause} try to get a first pass at something that sort of works . +PhD E: Yeah ! +PhD A: You have candidates . +PhD G: Actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the candidate . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +PhD A: to make marking easier . Yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Grad H: and I haven't spent a lot of time on it and I 'm not intending to spend a lot of time on it . +PhD G: OK . I {disfmarker} um , I , unfortunately , have to run , +Grad H: So . +PhD G: but , um {pause} I can imagine {pause} uh building {pause} a {pause} um {pause} model of speaker change {pause} detection {pause} that {vocalsound} takes into account {pause} both the far - field and the {vocalsound} uh {pause} actually , not just the close - talking mike for that speaker , but actually for all of th {pause} for all of the speakers . +Grad H: Yep . Everyone else . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD G: um {pause} If you model the {disfmarker} {pause} the {pause} effect that {pause} me speaking has on {pause} your {pause} microphone and everybody else 's microphone , as well as on that , {vocalsound} and you build , um {disfmarker} basically I think you 'd {disfmarker} you would {pause} build a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an HMM that has as a state space all of the possible speaker combinations +Grad H: All the {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: and , um {vocalsound} you can control {disfmarker} +Grad H: It 's a little big . +PhD G: It 's not that big actually , um +Grad H: Two to the N . Two to the number of people in the meeting . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} Actually , Andreas may maybe {disfmarker} maybe just something simpler but {disfmarker} but along the lines of what you 're saying , +Grad H: Anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: I was just realizing , I used to know this guy who used to build , uh {vocalsound} um , mike mixers {disfmarker} automatic mike mixers where , you know , t in order to able to turn up the gain , you know , uh {vocalsound} as much as you can , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you lower the gain on {disfmarker} on the mikes of people who aren't talking , +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: right ? And then he had some sort of {vocalsound} reasonable way of doing that , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {vocalsound} uh , what if you were just looking at very simple measures like energy measures but you don't just compare it to some threshold {pause} overall but you compare it to the {vocalsound} energy in the other microphones . +Grad H: I was thinking about doing that originally to find out {pause} who 's the loudest , and that person is certainly talking . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I also wanted to find threshold {disfmarker} uh , excuse me , mol overlap . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: So , not just {disfmarker} just the loudest . +PhD E: But , eh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I Sorry . I {disfmarker} I have found that when {disfmarker} when I I analyzed the {disfmarker} the speech files from the , {pause} eh {pause} mike , eh {pause} from the eh close eh {pause} microphone , eh {pause} I found zones with a {disfmarker} a different level of energy . +PhD G: Sorry , I have to go . +Grad H: OK . Could you fill that out anyway ? Just , {pause} put your name in . Are y you want me to do it ? I 'll do it . +PhD A: But he 's not gonna even read that . Oh . +Grad H: I know . +PhD E: including overlap zone . including . because , eh {pause} eh {pause} depend on the position of the {disfmarker} of the microph of the each speaker {vocalsound} to , eh , to get more o or less energy {vocalsound} i in the mixed sign in the signal . and then , {vocalsound} if you consider energy to {disfmarker} to detect overlapping in {disfmarker} in , uh , and you process the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the speech file from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the mixed signals . The mixed signals , eh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's difficult , um {vocalsound} {pause} only to en with energy to {disfmarker} to consider that in that zone We have eh , eh , overlapping zone Eh , if you process only the the energy of the , of each frame . +Professor D: Well , it 's probably harder , but I {disfmarker} I think what I was s nnn noting just when he {disfmarker} when Andreas raised that , was that there 's other information to be gained from looking at all {vocalsound} of the microphones and you may not need to look at very sophisticated things , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: because if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if most of the overlaps {disfmarker} you know , this doesn't cover , say , three , but if most of the overlaps , say , are two , {vocalsound} if the distribution looks like there 's a couple high ones and {disfmarker} and {pause} the rest of them are low , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And everyone else is low , yeah . +Professor D: you know , what I mean , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: there 's some information there about their distribution even with very simple measures . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , by the way , I had an idea with {disfmarker} while I was watching Chuck nodding at a lot of these things , is that we can all wear little bells on our heads , {vocalsound} so that {vocalsound} then you 'd know that {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Ding , ding , ding , ding . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: "" Ding "" . That 's cute ! +PhD B: I think that 'd be really interesting too , with blindfolds . Then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nodding with blindfolds , +PhD B: Yeah . The question is , {pause} like {pause} whether {disfmarker} +Grad H: "" what are you nodding about ? "" +PhD B: Well , trying with and {disfmarker} {pause} with and without , yeah . +Grad H: "" Sorry , I 'm just {disfmarker} I 'm just going to sleep . "" +PhD B: But then there 's just one @ @ , like . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Actually , I saw a uh {disfmarker} a woman at the bus stop the other day who , um , was talking on her cell phone {vocalsound} speaking Japanese , and was bowing . you know , profusely . +PhD B: Oh , yeah , that 's really common . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah {comment} Yeah . +PhD A: Just , kept {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Ah . +Professor D: Wow . +PhD B: It 's very difficult if you try {disfmarker} while you 're trying , say , to convince somebody on the phone it 's difficult not to move your hands . Not {disfmarker} You know , if you watch people they 'll actually do these things . +Professor D: Mm - hmm ? +PhD B: So . I still think we should try a {disfmarker} a meeting or two with the blindfolds , at least of this meeting that we have lots of recordings of +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Um , maybe for part of the meeting , we don't have to do it the whole meeting . +Professor D: Yeah , I think th I think it 's a great idea . +PhD B: That could be fun . It 'll be too hard to make barriers , I was thinking because they have to go all the way +Professor D: W Yeah . +PhD B: you know , I can see Chuck even if you put a barrier here . +Grad H: Well , we could just turn out the lights . +Postdoc F: Actually {pause} well also {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can say I made barr barriers for {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the {pause} stuff I was doing with Collin wha {pause} which {pause} just used , um {pause} this {pause} kind of foam board . +PhD B: Y Yeah ? +Postdoc F: R really inexpensive . You can {disfmarker} you can masking tape it together , these are {pause} you know , pretty l large partitions . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: But then we also have these mikes , is the other thing I was thinking , so we need a barrier that doesn't disturb {pause} the sound , +Postdoc F: It 's true , it would disturb the , um {pause} the {disfmarker} the long - range {disfmarker} +Grad H: The acoustics . +PhD B: um +Professor D: Blindfolds would be good . +Postdoc F: it would {disfmarker} +Grad H: I think , blindfolds . +PhD B: I mean , it sounds weird but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {pause} you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's cheap and , uh Be interesting to have the camera going . +Professor D: Probably we should wait until after Adam 's set up the mikes , But . +Postdoc F: OK . I think we 're going to have to work on the , uh {disfmarker} {pause} on the human subjects {vocalsound} form . +PhD A: I 'll be peeking . +Grad H: Yeah , that 's right , we didn't tell them we would be blindfolding . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: "" Do you mind being blindfolded while you 're interviewed ? "" +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's the one that we videotape . So . Um , I {disfmarker} I wanna move this along . Uh {pause} I did have this other agenda item which is , uh @ @ {disfmarker} it 's uh a list which I sent to uh {disfmarker} a couple folks , but um I wanted to get broader input on it , So this is the things that I think we did {vocalsound} in the last three months obviously not everything we did but {disfmarker} but sort of highlights that I can {disfmarker} {pause} can {pause} tell {pause} s some outside person , you know , what {disfmarker} what were you {pause} actually working on . Um {pause} in no particular order {vocalsound} uh , one , uh , ten more hours of meeting r meetings recorded , something like that , you know from {disfmarker} from , uh {pause} three months ago . Uh {pause} XML formats and other transcription aspects sorted out {pause} and uh {pause} sent to IBM . Um , pilot data put together and sent to IBM for transcription , uh {pause} next batch of recorded data put together on the CD - ROMs for shipment to IBM , +Grad H: Hasn't been sent yet , but {disfmarker} It 's getting ready . +Professor D: But yeah , that 's why I phrased it that way , yeah OK . Um {pause} human subjects approval on campus , uh {pause} and release forms worked out so the meeting participants have a chance to request audio pixelization of selected parts of the spee their speech . Um {vocalsound} audio pixelization software written and tested . Um {pause} {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps in the pilot data we have transcribed , and exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences for topic coherence , that was {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} {pause} wasn't {pause} sure if those were the right way {disfmarker} {pause} that was the right way to describe that because of that little exercise that {disfmarker} that you {comment} and {disfmarker} and Lokendra did . +Postdoc F: What was that called ? +Professor D: I {disfmarker} well , I I 'm probably saying this wrong , but what I said was exploratory analysis of long - distance inferences {vocalsound} for topic coherence . +Postdoc F: The , uh {pause} say again ? +Professor D: Something like that . Um {pause} so , uh {pause} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} a lot of that was from , you know , what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what you two were doing so I {disfmarker} I sent it to you , and you know , please mail me , you know , the corrections or suggestions for changing +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I don't want to make this twice it 's length but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you know , just im improve it . Um Is there anything anybody {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I did a bunch of stuff for supporting of digits . +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff for s "" OK , maybe {disfmarker} maybe send me a sentence that 's a little thought through about that . +Grad H: So , {pause} OK , I 'll send you a sentence that doesn't just say "" a bunch of "" ? +Professor D: "" Bunch of stuff "" , yeah , "" stuff "" is probably bad too , +Grad H: Yep . "" Stuff "" {pause} is not very technical . +Professor D: Yeah , well . +Grad H: I 'll try to {pause} phrase it in passive voice . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +PhD A: Technical stuff . +Professor D: "" range of things "" , yeah . Um {pause} and {disfmarker} and you know , I sort of threw in what you did with what Jane did on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} under the , uh {pause} uh {vocalsound} preliminary analysis of overlaps . Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} Thilo , can you tell us about all the work you 've done on this project in the last , uh {pause} last three months ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} what is {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} Um . Not really . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: It 's too complicated . +PhD C: Um , {pause} I didn't get it . Wh - what is "" audio pixelization "" ? +Professor D: Uh , audio pix wh he did it , so why don't you explain it quickly ? +Grad H: It 's just , uh {pause} beeping out parts that you don't want included in the meeting so , you know you can say things like , "" Well , this should probably not be on the record , but beep "" +PhD C: OK , OK . I got that . +Professor D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we spent a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fair amount of time early on just talk dealing with this issue about op w e e {vocalsound} we realized , "" well , people are speaking in an impromptu way and they might say something that would embarrass them or others later "" , and , how do you get around that +PhD C: OK . +Professor D: so in the consent form it says , well you {disfmarker} we will look at the transcripts later and if there 's something that you 're {pause} unhappy with , yeah . +PhD C: OK , and you can say {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: But you don't want to just totally excise it because um uh , well you have to be careful about excising it , how {disfmarker} how you excise it keeping the timing right and so forth so that at the moment tho th the idea we 're running with is {disfmarker} is h putting the beep over it . +PhD C: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , you can either beep or it can be silence . I {disfmarker} I couldn't decide . which was the right way to do it . +PhD E: Ah , yeah . +Grad H: Beep is good auditorily , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: if someone is listening to it , there 's no mistake that it 's been beeped out , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: but for software it 's probably better for it to be silence . +PhD A: No , no . You can {disfmarker} you know , you could make a m as long as you keep using the same beep , people could make a model of that beep , +Postdoc F: Hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I like that idea . +Grad H: Yep . And I use {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh {pause} it 's an A below middle C beep , +PhD B: I think the beep is a really good idea . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It 's very clear . Then you don't think it 's a long pause . +PhD B: Also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , it 's more obvious that there was something there than if there 's just silence . +Grad H: so +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , he 's {disfmarker} he 's removing the old {pause} thing +PhD E: Yeah +Professor D: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: Yea - right . Right . But I mean if you just replaced it with silence , {pause} it 's not clear whether that 's really silence or {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I agree . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc F: One {disfmarker} one question . Do you do it on all channels ? +Grad H: Of course . +Postdoc F: Interesting . I like that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I like that . +Grad H: Yeah you have to do it on all channels because it 's , uh {pause} audible . +Postdoc F: Very clear . Very clear . +Grad H: Uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's potentially audible , you could potentially recover it . +Professor D: Ke - keep a back door . +Postdoc F: Well , the other thing that {disfmarker} you know , I mean the {disfmarker} the alternative might be to s +Grad H: Yeah . Well , I {disfmarker} I haven't thrown away any of the meetings that I beeped . Actually yours is the only one that I beeped and then , uh {pause} the ar DARPA meeting . +PhD B: Notice how quiet I am . +Grad H: Sorry , and then the DARPA meeting I just excised completely , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad H: so it 's in a private directory . +PhD B: You have some people who only have beeps as their speech in these meetings . +Postdoc F: That 's great . Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: They 're easy to find , then . +Professor D: Alright , so , uh {pause} I think we should , uh {pause} uh , go on to the digits ? +Postdoc F: I have one concept a t I {disfmarker} I want to say , which is that I think it 's nice that you 're preserving the time relations , +Grad H: OK . +Postdoc F: s so you 're {disfmarker} you 're not just cutting {disfmarker} you 're not doing scissor snips . You 're {disfmarker} you 're keeping the , uh {pause} the time duration of a {disfmarker} de - deleted {disfmarker} deleted part . +Grad H: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , definitely . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK , good , digits . +Grad H: Yeah , since we wanna {pause} possibly synchronize these things as well . Oh , I should have done that . +Postdoc F: It 's great . +Grad H: Shoot . Oh well . +PhD B: So I guess if there 's an overlap , {pause} like , if I 'm saying something that 's {pause} bleepable and somebody else overlaps during it they also get bleeped , too ? +Professor D: Yeah . Oh +Grad H: You 'll lose it . There 's no way around that . +Professor D: Yeah . Um {pause} I d I did {disfmarker} before we do the digits , I did also wanna remind people , uh {pause} {vocalsound} please do send me , you know , uh thoughts for an agenda , +Grad H: Agenda ? +Professor D: yeah that {disfmarker} that would be that 'd be good . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor D: Eh So that , uh , people 's ideas don't get +Grad H: Thursday crept up on me this week . +Professor D: yeah , well it does creep up , doesn't it ? +PhD B: And , I wanted to say , I think this is really interesting {pause} analysis . +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: It 's cool stuff , definitely . +PhD B: I meant to say that before I started off on the {pause} Switchboard stuff . +Postdoc F: Thank you . +Grad H: I was gonna say "" can you do that for the other meetings , +PhD B: It 's neat . +Grad H: can you do it for them ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad H: And , no actually , you can't . +PhD A: Actually {disfmarker} actually I {disfmarker} I thought that 's what you were giving us was another meeting and I was like , "" Oh , OK ! "" +PhD B: Does it take {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Thank you . Yeah . +Grad H: "" Ooo , cool ! "" +Postdoc F: Aw , thanks . +PhD B: How long does it {pause} take , just briefly , like {pause} t to {disfmarker} {pause} OK . {pause} to label the , +Postdoc F: No . I have the script now , so , I mean , it can work off the , uh {pause} other thing , +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} As soon as we get labels , yep . +PhD B: OK . +PhD A: But it has to be hand - labeled first ? +Postdoc F: but {disfmarker} Uh , well , yeah . Because , uh {pause} well , I mean {pause} once his {disfmarker} his algorithm is up and running then we can do it that way . +Grad H: If it works well enough . Right now it 's not . Not quite to the point where it works . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: But {pause} I {disfmarker} I just worked off of my +PhD B: It 's really neat . +Professor D: OK , go ahead +Postdoc F: Thanks . Appreciate that . I think {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what this has , uh , caused me {disfmarker} so this discussion caused me to wanna subdivide these further . I 'm gonna take a look at the , uh {pause} backchannels , how much we have anal I hope to have that for next time . +PhD A: That 'd be interesting . +Grad H: Yeah , my {disfmarker} my algorithm worked great actually on these , but when you wear it like that or with the uh , lapel {pause} or if you have it very far from your face , that 's when it starts {pause} failing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD B: Well , I can wear it , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Grad H: It doesn't matter . +PhD B: OK . +Grad H: I mean , we want it to work , +PhD A: It 's too late now . +Grad H: right ? I {disfmarker} I don't want {pause} to change the way we do the meeting . +PhD B: I feel like this troublemaker . +Grad H: It 's uh {disfmarker} {pause} so , it was just a comment on the software , not a comment on {vocalsound} prescriptions on how you wear microphones . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: OK , that 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's do digits . +Grad H: Get the bolts , "" whh whh "" +Postdoc F: Let 's do it . OK . +Grad H: OK . +PhD B: I 'm sorry . +Grad H: OK , thank you . +Postdoc F: Do you want us to put a mark on the bottom of these when they 've actually been read , or do you just {pause} i i the only one that wasn't read is {disfmarker} is known , so we don't do it . OK . +","Summary: + +During the meeting, there were discussions about various aspects of the ongoing project. Key points include: + +1. PhD B expressed having no house previously. +2. Participants talked about consent forms and the 'new and improved' version. +3. There was acknowledgment of the great work being done. +4. Grad H mentioned the need for signing consent forms if not done already. +5. Discussions on not being able to walk or ride a bike in certain situations. +6. Grad H proposed to discuss agenda items related to research issues and the consent form. +7. Professor D mentioned a conference call for a potential proposal. +8. There was talk about a list to be sent off to IBM and the importance of accuracy in this list. +9. Postdoc F shared an analysis of overlaps during meetings, indicating variations in overlaps and speaker styles. +10. The team considered the practicality of testing overlapped speech recognition and the challenges present in acoustic change detection. +11. There was a conversation about the audio pixelization software for privacy and ethical concerns in research recordings. +12. The plan for digit recordings was mentioned and the effort to keep the meeting productive and aligned with the project's agenda items was evident. + +Overall, the meeting focused on project progress, consent forms, data handling for privacy, and research analysis on overlaps and speaker patterns." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We’re very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it’s important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it’s really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs. +Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development? +Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time. +Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it’s probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do. +Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government’s approach 'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.' And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it’s absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it’s grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it’s eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things. +Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said: 'We can't say yet what we're going to do'? +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had—. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon. +Hefin David AM: Before Christmas? +Julie Morgan AM: I hope so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually—. We need to—. +Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Siân. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work? +Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder—? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in 'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire—and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven—who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded. +Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in—I think it was—February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention. +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter.] +Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter.] +Julie Morgan AM: Very significant. +Hefin David AM: In your report, the 'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that 'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about £81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within 'Prosperity for All' and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change. +Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue? +Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and,for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities' role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase? +Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day. +Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so,in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that—we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources—the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group? +Julie Morgan AM: It is demand— +Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible.]—because the offer is targeted at working parents— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes. +Nicola Edwards: —obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Nicola Edwards: Right, okay. +Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Môn was nearly 90 per cent or something— +Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding. +Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere. +Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand. +Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower—in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that? +Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured? +Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales? +Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to— +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any  case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities' Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on? +Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic. +Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps—we see this quite a lot in the office—quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only? +Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes—. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful. +Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information. +Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture. +Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future? +Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody—so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up. +Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare. +Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to—. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Siân's got a supplementary. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand? +Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of £50 million to £55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of £40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Môn, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years— +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots. +Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about 'on the cusp' of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what 'on the cusp' of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what 'on the cusp of returning to work' is—what that means from your perspective—and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments—that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the— +Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said—the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education—and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies—who are—the letters may have come in from some of your constituents—not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on 'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently—those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the—? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression 'on the cusp of work' we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly— +Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question— +Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Siân. Sorry, Dawn. +Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work? +Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that? +Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think 'secured' is probably a slightly premature phrase. +Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years. +Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful. +Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process— +Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously. +Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents? +Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about? +Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families. +Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference? +Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of £5.6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another—. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place. +Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022. +Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know—. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of— +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that— +Dawn Bowden AM: —what would happen beyond that. +Julie Morgan AM: —funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath. +Julie Morgan AM: No. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Siân's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. +Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money—£1 million, I understand—has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC? +Julie Morgan AM: +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation. +Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was— +Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know—. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of—. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail—going through HMRC would put limits on that. +Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties— +Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good. +Julie Morgan AM: But there are—. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards. +Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this? +Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called 'special characters' in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there— +Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was—. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that. +Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it—. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC—if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that—and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this—the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that—that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option—and this is only going back a few months—because it will remove—and this is quoting them— 'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'— blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know—. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence—we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases—I certainly have—where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local—. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose. +Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag? +Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about £2.5 million. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure—that's fine. +Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of— +Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things? +Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân, do you want to ask about the Welsh language? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've—. I'm happy with that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really—? +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened. +Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem. +Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems. +Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning? +Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers' standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea? +Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment? +Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area. +Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting— +Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great—very successful. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that: 'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government’s work on the Early Years system.' That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering? +Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension— +Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system— +Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more—. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it. +Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that—unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children—on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five—that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas? +Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas—I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that—? Do you know the actual percentage? +Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but— +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty.FootnoteLink +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is—basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter.] +Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second—oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course—in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can’t prove it? +Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we’ve been working with the SAIL—secure anonymised information linkage—and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children’s progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions. +Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage? +Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we’re thinking of doing with Flying Start—. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we’re looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities—we talked about that earlier—so, that’s where we’re going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that’s what we’re looking at. And we’re looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no—we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected? +Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why? +Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we’ve taken to evaluation in Flying Start—. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you’re familiar with the work that, as I say, we’ve been doing with SAIL. We’re currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We’ve been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child’s chances have improved primarily because they’re getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There’s got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference. +Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky—in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so— +Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do. +Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me—yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition—taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire? +Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year— +Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you? +Julie Morgan AM: —and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to—well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that— +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago. +Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that. +Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for—. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries—it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided? +Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course—we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really. +Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment. +Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes. +Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting—again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful. +Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3. +Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure. +Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","Lynne Neagle AM led a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, attended by Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services Julie Morgan AM, along with Jo-Anne Daniels and Nicola Edwards from Welsh Government. They discussed early childhood education and care, emphasizing support for both children and parents, including the importance of stable employment for parents and the childcare system as a significant employer. They debated the complexity of the current system and plans to simplify it, with pathfinder projects exploring integration across local authorities and health boards. The Welsh Government aims to align childcare with early years education, however, structural changes are not yet planned. An evaluation of the childcare offer's impact and costs is expected, and expansions including support for parents in education and training are being considered. The committee questioned the Deputy Minister about funding for the PaCE program post-Brexit and the status of Welsh language provisions following the withdraw from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) collaboration. + +Additionally, there were discussions about the targeted approach versus a more universal system in programs like Flying Start, with geographic targeting based on benefit take-up data. Evaluations show varying take-up rates and the government is working to understand and enhance participation. The effectiveness of Flying Start interventions is being explored through longitudinal studies, and while challenges exist in attributing specific outcomes to individual program components, holistic support from health visitors and childcare services play crucial roles. The committee requested further details about the change in approach to the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 and the WLGA's position on this. The committee concluded by agreeing to meet privately after the session." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right well . Welcome to the {disfmarker} what should be the last of these meetings and uh it looks like we've uh done a good job here and uh we'll just go through the the final uh the final details . Um okay , oh the um th the the minutes of the last meeting uh I think we'll take those as read , um {disfmarker} Okay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the um th the the next uh thing we we we'll have a look at the uh th have a look at the prototypes and uh look at the uh evaluation criteria and finance and then uh uh just tidy up with production and um and then we can close . Um So f if if you'd like to uh present your your proposals . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay we basically have the same kinda lay-out here it's just um you hold it like this and it gets kinda moulded to the to the shape of your hand , basically . Um on the left we've got the scroll for the volume , on the right we have buttons for the channels up and down and that kinda {disfmarker} so you can hold it and scroll , or you can hold it and and push . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is the power key , um it's kinda like the biggest so you know how to turn on . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's the little menu key . This is the infra-red section so you g it'll be sending rays and if you're you know pointing it like that it can send it , +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: or if you hold it up like that it'll send it . +Project Manager: yeah , good , good . +Industrial Designer: Uh we got a microphone there which for all the voice commands +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so you can you know talk to it like that +Project Manager: Yep , +Industrial Designer: and it'll still understand . +Project Manager: right . +Industrial Designer: Um the logo is down down there um +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {gap} has the cover on it +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: and you can see like it just kinda goes {disfmarker} the red bit's the cover and it kinda goes over everything +Project Manager: Yep , yep , +Industrial Designer: and then there's holes for the buttons to come through . Um . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And so we figured it would be kind of you know a light weight plastic , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: just kind of a light {vocalsound} non-descript grey +Project Manager: Yep yep . +User Interface: so that people'll wanna buy the covers +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: and then the covers will be that sort of rubbery material like they make iPod covers , +Project Manager: {gap} showing me age , +User Interface: so they kinda just stretch over . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't know what i c iPod covers are like . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah . +User Interface: I I didn't know that but yeah they're kind of {disfmarker} it's just kind of a rubbery {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and that way {disfmarker} you know +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: spongy like is something that people wanted +Project Manager: yep , right . +User Interface: and it just sort of stretches over +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and that way I think probably helps protect it a little bit too as well +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also e e easier to put on versus like mobile covers +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you actually have to screw them on and stuff and you kinda sometimes have to get someone to do that for you . This is very much you should be able to stretch it over yourself +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: just kinda stretch it over +Industrial Designer: and it'll be fine . +Project Manager: Okay , good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it'll just stay on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then the buttons come through and so {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} each one of 'em on the very end will have the logo with the yellow circle and the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Yep , right . +Industrial Designer: Li that'll be {gap} the covers as well , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean tha it's it's a detailed point , I just wondered {disfmarker} I mean h how will people put these down I wonder ? +User Interface: Like that . +Project Manager: Right . Okay {gap} for some strange re reason I had it in my mind that they'd put them down vertically +Industrial Designer: Yeah it could stand , yeah . +Project Manager: but uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well we could broaden the {disfmarker} broaden it out a bit +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh no +Industrial Designer: so it would stand like that . +Project Manager: because {gap} particularly if they've dif if they're gonna have it as a you know as a fashion item +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} standing . +Project Manager: uh I mean it it's uh it it's just I mean it's just a minor detailed point , but um as you say you can just make the base a little bit bigger and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could just widen it out uh +Project Manager: Yeah and uh it just needs another uh another logo somewhere is is is is all it gives gives people the option and if if say if they've got them um {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: because {gap} actually have several {gap} upon the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Could have one for your stereo , one for your {gap} D_V_ player . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Have to {disfmarker} if we just lengthen it I guess +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Industrial Designer: so it comes down to the base of the hand +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: but that that's uh {disfmarker} but uh +User Interface: just kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then flatten it out +Project Manager: no +Industrial Designer: and could sit there . +Project Manager: the the the overall uh the overall concept is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} mm . +User Interface: Or just make it little . +Project Manager: yeah yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Somewhere like that +Project Manager: no no , I mean that's {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it just sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We might {gap} have to lengthen it +Marketing: Yeah I kinda had a a kinda {disfmarker} a natural kind of a idea +Industrial Designer: so it kinda {disfmarker} your hand still holds it and have it there , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , yeah like that , like that {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: where it's like more of a kind of {disfmarker} like a kinda maybe slightly like thinner , +User Interface: Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , kinda like that kinda {gap} like a flower or a plant +Project Manager: But uh yeah {disfmarker} but no th but the {disfmarker} yeah the the the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: for the more natural kinda {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The final product would actually stand up , yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I mean it it's uh {disfmarker} wouldn't +User Interface: {gap} fall over . +Project Manager: wouldn't do that , indeed yeah . But th th but th yeah th b the +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these were all minor minor uh minor details , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the uh the basic concept i i is is absolutely bang on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . 'S a little longer . +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} i +Industrial Designer: Wee {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it certainly meets our criteria of being uh {disfmarker} of you know looking different . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: good that's that that's excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right let us um What's on the next one ? Oh right yes , let's have a look at the um f finance . Um , now we're given a a clear design brief , uh if I {gap} get the uh spreadsheet up . Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {vocalsound} just click there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh the the maximise button . +Project Manager: Oh right . Ah . Good , this is why we need to make these things simple so that the uh the the the boss can understand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I've um {vocalsound} this is the company's uh uh costing for for various uh uh aspects of design and I I I've treated some of these slightly uh liberally given the constraints placed on us , um I wouldn't know for in for instance if if they require us to have it in the corporate colours , then that is not a special colour , that's a that's a standard colour . Uh , so we're just simply on batteries , the the one th the one decision I've had to make is that um we're {vocalsound} we will have to find a s a regular standard chip to to do this with and I I um I'm I'm I'm certain that they they are around so , um that I don't think is a a serious problem . The uh the the voice sensor is is expensive but we we made a a basic decision that that was absolutely fundamental to the to the design so that that has to stay . Um then again the the the the shape of the case means that it's it's expensive to uh um l to make 'cause of the the th the double curves but on the other hand because of our overall fashion concept um we we should exceed the the sales targets . Um it's simply made of plastic so th that's uh that's no problem and uh um just because the whole {gap} the colour of the the whole thing that's uh uh there's some cost there . Um and uh we haven't actually got a scroll wheel we we we got push buttons and and a simple uh um {vocalsound} slider so um and the and the the buttons are uh uh well I do don't know that they're special colour . Anyway the the costings uh come in at {disfmarker} exactly on target at twelve point five uh but I thi I think we have a a very strong case to argue that uh what what we've got is is so in innovative and uh and different that um {vocalsound} any any slight compromise we have to make on on cost is is offset by the uh you know the uh you know the the the the concept of it being a a fashion accessory and and having the the interchangeable covers +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh um you know the {disfmarker} if if if the management expect us to be techno {gap} again {gap} fail again {disfmarker} technologically innovative um that they they have to accept that we we can't operate absolutely within uh the constraints that they give , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so uh we we we present this as the uh the company's uh the the company's way forward and uh uh I I think we can argue that we we have uh come in on on budget . Um . Okay , uh . So um . Does anybody want to uh {disfmarker} uh Andrew do you want {disfmarker} what do you want to say about um the uh yeah the evaluation +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: where where you know well where where we're where where we're at ? +Marketing: The {vocalsound} the product or the project ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the well the {disfmarker} I meant the product . +Marketing: Um , well well my presentation just now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , uh can I get the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh sorry yeah um , mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . More loud clicks in the microphone . +Marketing: Cheers . {vocalsound} There we go , oh . Method of evaluation {vocalsound} testing the product was to just {gap} if it met all the criteria {disfmarker} all the conditions that we set out to set out to solve , from the point of view of the the consumer and the management . So what I've been asked to do is , on the whiteboard +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um gauge our team response to these questions . So , on a scale of one to seven , one being true and seven being being false . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Seven being a nice round number to work to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And then at the end just take an average +Project Manager: Tr On for true and seven for flase . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh . {vocalsound} So , look at these questions . Is the device f flashy and fashionable ? +Project Manager: Well I think most definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'd say definitely a one yeah . +User Interface: I think it is yeah . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} and also uh technologically innovative ? +Project Manager: Yes the voice technology indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , defi yeah , yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: I don't see we could've made it any easier . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh suitable for the consumer ? That was um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah I think it made {disfmarker} we met all of the consumer +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: wants . +Marketing: Uh is it complicated ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Doing pretty well so far aren't we ? {vocalsound} Uh functional ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} Where are we ? +Project Manager: {gap} found easily . {gap} yeah +Marketing: We've b built in the the speech , where are you , function . +Project Manager: I mean that's that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Does it take long to learn to use ? Shouldn't . +Industrial Designer: No , not at all . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And uh , what else ? {vocalsound} The R_S_I_ compares to the current standards , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less buttons so it must be . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: well . We we +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: uh yeah it was our {disfmarker} it was a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} it is sorta the the handle more ergonomically correct as well . +Marketing: we made an actual effort to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yeah , um um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um will device appeal to all age groups ? +Project Manager: I think it will because I mean uh old older people who can't manage the buttons anyway will actually probably like the like like the voice bit so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: uh that's a good call , yeah . Well we had the we had the data {gap} saying that old people will be less likely to pay extra money but the funct the increased functionality , {vocalsound} the e ease of use of the device might make up for that . +Project Manager: And it's it's it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: well I don't think we're actually charging a particular premium anyway , in the end , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I I think it will tend to appeal more to younger aged groups +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just 'cause we have gone with the fashion focus +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the younger people tend to {disfmarker} would be more conscious of that aspect of it , but um I think it should still appeal on a certain level to everybody , yeah . +Project Manager: It will appeal f for dif for different reasons but it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah I think just the simplicity of it +Project Manager: yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: and +Project Manager: so I I {disfmarker} yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: not having to learn to programme +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: and not having you know a million buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , so I think we can reasonably say it's another another one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh can you just click the my mouse to move onto next page ? Uh , yeah and what h did we make the management's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} in in in in my interpretation of management's instructions uh is that yes it it meets the requirement +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is t it's television only , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: it's it's simple to use , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um it's it's it's within budget , +User Interface: Under the cost . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: um I {disfmarker} it's uh {disfmarker} yes an an any minor points we we we argue . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: So uh I I think we've done an amazing job +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: in uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well done us {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} coming up with what {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So uh one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven . Eleven divided by {vocalsound} eleven's one so {vocalsound} equals average of one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} Need a need a calculator for that . +Marketing: And that roughly concludes my evaluation of the of the product . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Excellent . +Project Manager: {gap} nick the cable back then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh no +User Interface: I mixed up the colours a little bit . +Industrial Designer: that's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think I {gap} all wrong . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ooh . Right do um either of you want to uh say anything ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Before I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ps I don't think so , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I think we worked well together +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and looked really at what the consumers wanted and what we were trying to make +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and you know , seemed to discuss things pretty well +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and come to group consensus and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well that's right , I mean th this this slide here I mean the satisfaction with uh room for creativity , I mean +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: I think we've allowed ourselves uh as much creativity as the uh the the the product uh allows . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I won't comment on leadership , uh teamwork I think we've uh {disfmarker} I think everybody's uh worked pretty well together . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we've just about coped with the whiteboard and digital pens , uh I think the results speak for itself +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and new ideas found , um , again gi no given relatively everyday product , I think we've v very uh very effectively come up with a a new uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: uh a new approach . Um are the costs within budget ? Yes . Is the project evaluated ? We're we're all happy that it it meets all the criteria , um +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Thank you very much indeed , I think that {disfmarker} I think that's uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool , thank you {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: I think we can go f for an early bath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I call the meeting closed . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Not sure how far ahead of schedule we were there . +","This conversation involves a project team concluding what appears to be the final meeting for their project. The Project Manager opens the meeting by reviewing the agenda, which includes finalizing details, looking at prototypes, going over evaluation criteria, finance, and tidy up with production. The Industrial Designer presents a device prototype that is ergonomically designed, with a scroll for volume on the left, channel buttons on the right, a prominently sized power key, a small menu key, an infra-red section, a microphone for voice commands, and a logo at the bottom. The device cover is discussed to be made of a lightweight plastic in a nondescript grey color, aiming to encourage users to purchase customizable covers made of a rubbery material similar to iPod covers. + +The team engages in a discussion about the product's standability and its appeal as a fashion item, including a slight modification to make the base wider to help it stand vertically. There's mention of the importance of the logo placement on the product and its accessories for branding purposes. + +The Project Manager reviews the finance section, noting they have to justify some design choices such as the voice sensor and the shape of the case. He argues that any cost compromises are offset by the product's innovative design and its status as a fashion accessory with interchangeable covers. Emphasis is placed on how the product meets the company's design brief and budget. + +Marketing presents an evaluation using a scale from one to seven on various questions regarding the product's appeal, innovation, ease of use, and suitability for the consumer market, among other things. The product rates highly on all accounts, signifying a successful evaluation against the team's criteria. + +Upon closing, the Project Manager praises the team's work and creativity within the bounds of what was a relatively everyday product, resulting in a novel approach. He confirms that the project's costs are within budget and that the project, per the team's assessment, meets the necessary criteria. Finally, the Project Manager officially closes the meeting, signaling a successful conclusion to the project. + +In summary, the meeting captures the project team's final review of a device's design, costs, and market evaluation, concluding positively with the project meeting the set goals, design criteria, and budgetary constraints, as well as expectations for innovative function and fashion appeal." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: As usual . +Grad B: Yes . Whew ! I almost forgot {pause} about the meeting . I woke up twenty minutes ago , thinking , what did I forget ? +Grad D: It 's great how the br brain sort of does that . +Grad E: Something 's not right here . +Grad B: Internal alarms . +Grad D: OK . So the news for me is A , my forthcoming travel plans +Grad B: Yes . +Grad D: in two weeks from today ? Yeah ? More or less ? I 'll be off to Sicily and Germany for a couple , three days . +Grad B: Now what are y what are you doing there ? I forgot ? +Grad D: OK , I 'm flying to Sicily basically to drop off Simon there with his grandparents . And then I 'm flying to Germany t to go to a MOKU - Treffen which is the meeting of all the module - responsible people in SmartKom , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: and , represent ICI and myself I guess there . And um . That 's the mmm actual reason . And then I 'm also going up to EML for a day , and then I 'm going to {vocalsound} meet the very big boss , Wolfgang Walster , in Saarbruecken and the System system integration people in Kaiserslautern and then I 'm flying back via Sicily pick up my son come back here on the fourth of July . And uh . +Grad E: What a great time to be coming back to the +Grad B: God bless America . +Grad E: You 'll see maybe {disfmarker} see the fireworks from your plane coming in . +Grad D: And I 'm sure all the {disfmarker} the people at the airport will be happy to work on that day . +Grad E: Yeah . You 'll get even better service than usual . +Grad B: Wait , aren't you flying on Lufthansa though ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Alitalia . +Grad B: Oh . Well then the {disfmarker} you know , it 's not a big deal . Once you get to the United States it 'll be a problem , but +Grad D: Yeah . And um , that 's that bit of news , and the other bit of news is we had {disfmarker} you know , uh , I was visited by my German project manager who A , did like what we did {disfmarker} what we 're doing here , and B , is planning to come here either three weeks in July or three weeks in August , to actually work . +Grad B: On {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: With us . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: And we sat around and we talked and he came up {disfmarker} we came up {disfmarker} with a pretty strange idea . And that 's what I 'm gonna lay on you now . And um , maybe it might be ultimately the most interesting thing for Eva because she has been known to complain about the fact that the stuff we do here is not weird enough . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So this is so weird it should even make you happy . +Grad C: Uh . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Oh great . +Grad D: Imagine if you will , {vocalsound} that we have a system that does all that understanding that we want it to do based on utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It should be possible to make that system produce questions . So if you have the knowledge of how to interpret "" where is X ? "" under given conditions , situational , user , discourse and ontological {vocalsound} conditions , you should also be able to make that same system ask "" where is X ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: in a sper certain way , based on certain intentions . So in instead of just being able to observe phenomenon , um , and , guess the intention we might be able just to sort of give it an intention , and make it produce an utterance . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , like in AI they generally do the take in , and then they also do the generation phase , like Nancy 's thing . Or uh , you remember , in the {disfmarker} the hand thing in one - eighty - two , like not only was it able to recognize but it was also to generate based upon situations . You mean that sort of thing ? +Grad D: Absolutely . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And once you 've done that what we can do is have the system ask itself . And answer , understand the answer , ask something else , and enter a dialogue with itself . So the {disfmarker} the ba basic {disfmarker} the same idea as having two chess computers play against each other . +Grad E: Except this smacks a little bit more of a schizophrenic computer than AI . +Grad D: Yeah you c if you want , you can have two parallel {vocalsound} machines um , asking each other . What would that give us ? Would A be something completely weird and strange , and B , i if you look at all the factors , we will never observe people let 's say , in wheelchairs under {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} under all conditions , +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: you know , when they say "" X "" , and there is a ride at the goal , and the parking is good , we can never collect enough data . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Grad D: But maybe one could do some learning . If you get the system to speak to itself , you may find n break downs and errors and you may be able to learn . And make it more robust , maybe learn new things . And um , so there 's no {disfmarker} no end of potential things one could get out of it , if that works . And he would like to actually work on that with us . +Grad B: Well then , he probably should be coming back a year {pause} from now . +Grad D: So Yeah , I w See the {disfmarker} the generation bit , making the system generate {disfmarker} generate something , {comment} is {disfmarker} shouldn't be too hard . +Grad B: Well , once the system understands things . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +Grad B: I just don't think {disfmarker} I think we 're probably a year away from getting the system to understand things . +Grad D: Yeah . Well , if we can get it to understand one thing , like our "" where is "" run through we can also , maybe , e make it say , or ask "" where is X ? "" Or not . +Grad E: Mmm , I don't know . e I 'm sort of {disfmarker} have the impression that getting it to say the right thing in the right circumstances is much more difficult than getting it to understand something given the circumstances and so on , you know , I mean just cuz it 's sort of harder to learn to speak correctly in a foreign language , rather than learning to understand it . Right ? I mean +Grad D: +Grad E: just the fact that we 'll get {disfmarker} The point is that getting it to understand one construction doesn't mean that it will n always know exactly when it 's correct to use that construction . Right ? +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've done generation and language production research for fo four {disfmarker} four and a half years . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you 're right , it 's not the same as the understanding . It 's in some ways easier and some ways harder . nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: But , um , I think it 'd be fun to look at it , or into that question . +Grad E: Nnn , yeah . +Grad D: It 's a pretty strange idea . And so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad B: The basic idea I guess would be to give {disfmarker} allow the system to have intentions , basically ? Cuz that 's basically what needs to be added to the system for it . +Grad D: Well , look at th eee , I think even {disfmarker} think even {disfmarker} What it {disfmarker} would be the {disfmarker} the prior intention . So let 's uh {disfmarker} uh , let 's say we have this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well we 'd have to seed that , I mean . +Grad D: No . Let 's {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} we have some {disfmarker} some top - down processing , given certain setting . OK , now we change nothing , and just say ask something . Right ? +Grad B: +Grad D: What would it ask ? +Grad B: It wouldn't know what to ask . I mean . +Grad D: It shur +Grad B: Unless it was in a situation . We 'd have to set up a situation where , it didn't know where something was and it wanted to go there . +Grad D: Yeah ! +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Which means that we 'd need to set up an intention inside of the system . Right ? Which is basically , "" I don't know where something is and I need to go there "" . +Grad D: Eh , n +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Ooh , do we really need to do that ? Because , +Grad B: Well , no I guess not . Excel +Grad D: s It 's {disfmarker} i I know it 's {disfmarker} it 's strange , but look at it {disfmarker} look at our Bayes - net . If we don't have {disfmarker} Let 's assume we don't have any input from the language . Right ? So there 's also nothing we could query the ontology , but we have a certain user setting . If you just ask , what is the likelihood of that person wanting to enter some {disfmarker} something , it 'll give you an answer . +Grad B: Sure . +Grad D: Right ? That 's just how they are . And so , @ @ whatever that is , it 's the generic default intention . That it would find out . Which is , wanting to know where something is , maybe nnn {disfmarker} and wanting {disfmarker} I don't know what it 's gonna be , but there 's gonna be something that +Grad E: Well you 're not gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna get a variety of intentions out of that then ? I mean , you 're just talking about like given this user , what 's the th what is it {disfmarker} what is that user most likely to want to do ? +Grad D: Well you can observe some user and context stuff and ask , what 's the posterior probabilities of all of our decision nodes . +Grad E: And , have it talk about {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: You could even say , "" let 's take all the priors , let 's observe nothing "" , and query all the posterior probabilities . It - it 's gonna tell us something . Right ? +Grad B: Well , it will d r assign values to all the nodes . Yes . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} Yes . And come up with posterior probabilities for all the values of the decision nodes . Which , if we have an algorithm that filters out whatever the {disfmarker} the best or the most consistent answer out of that , will give us the intention ex nihilo . And that is exactly what would happen if we ask it to produce an utterance , it would be b based on that extension , ex nihilo , which we don't know what it is , but it 's there . So we wouldn't even have to {disfmarker} t to kick start it by giving it a certain intention or observing anything on the decision node . And whatever that {disfmarker} maybe that would lead to "" what is the castle ? "" , +Grad B: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: or "" what is that whatever "" . +Grad B: I guess what I 'm afraid of is if we don't , you know , set up a {pause} situation , {comment} we 'll just get a bunch of garbage out , like you know , everything 's exactly thirty percent . +Grad D: No {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So what we actually then need to do is {disfmarker} is write a little script that changes all the settings , you know , go goes through all the permutations , which is {disfmarker} we did a {disfmarker} didn't we calculate that once ? +Grad B: Well that was {disfmarker} that was absurdly low , in the last meeting , +Grad D: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , +Grad B: cuz I went and looked at it cuz I was thinking , that could not be right , and it would {disfmarker} it was on the order of twenty output nodes and something like twenty {disfmarker} +Grad C: And like thirty input nodes +Grad B: thirty input nodes . +Grad C: or some {disfmarker} +Grad B: So to test every output node , uh , would at least {disfmarker} Let 's see , so it would be two to the thirty for every output node ? Which is very th very large . +Grad D: Oh ! That 's n +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's nothing for those neural guys . I mean , they train for millions and millions of epochs . +Grad B: Well , I 'm talking about +Grad D: So . +Grad B: Oh , I was gonna take a drink of my water . I 'm talking about billions and billions and billions and a number {disfmarker} two to the thirty is like a Bhaskara said , we had calculated out and Bhaskara believes that it 's larger than the number of particles in the universe . And if i +Grad E: I don't know if that 's right or not . Th - that 's big . That 's just {disfmarker} That 's uh {disfmarker} It 's a billion , right ? +Grad B: Two to the thirty ? Well , two to the thirty is a billion , but if we have to do it two to the twenty times , then that 's a very very large number . +Grad E: Right . Argh . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , that 's big . +Grad B: Cuz you have to query the node , for every a uh , or query the net two to the twenty times . +Grad E: Sure . Alright . +Grad B: Or not two to th excuse me , twenty times . +Grad E: OK . So , is it t comes to twenty billion or something ? +Grad B: Yes . As far as {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's pretty big , though . +Grad B: That 's @ @ {disfmarker} That 's big . Actually {disfmarker} Oh ! We calculated a different number before . How did we do that ? +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: I remember there being some other one floating around . But anyway , uh . +Grad C: I don't really know . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's g Anyway , the point is that given all of these different factors , it 's uh e it 's {disfmarker} it 's still going to be impossible to run through all of the possible situations or whatever . +Grad C: Ooo , it 's just big . +Grad E: But I mean , this 'll get us a bit closer at least , right ? I mean . +Grad B: If it takes us a second to do , for each one , and let 's say it 's twenty billion , {comment} then that 's twenty billion seconds , which is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Eva , do the math . +Grad C: Can't . +Grad E: Long ! +Grad C: +Grad B: Hours and hours and hours and hours . But we can do randomized testing . +Grad E: Tah - dah ! +Grad B: Which probabilistically will be good enough . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , it be it it 's an idea that one could n for {disfmarker} for example run {disfmarker} run past , um , what 's that guy 's name ? You know ? He - he 's usually here . Tsk . J J Jer - Jerj +Grad E: Here in the group ? Jerry Feldman . +Grad D: Oh , yeah . That 's the guy . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we g +Grad B: Wait , who ? +Grad E: Yeah , i that would the g the bald guy . +Grad B: Oh ! My advisor ! +Grad D: And um . so this is just an idea that 's floating around and we 'll see what happens . And um , hmm , what other news do I have ? Well we fixed some more things from the SmartKom system , but that 's not really of general interest , Um , Oh ! Questions , yeah . I 'll ask Eva about the E Bayes and she 's working on that . How is the generation XML thing ? +Grad B: I 'm gonna work on that today and tomorrow . +Grad D: OK . No need to do it today or tomorrow even . Do it next week or {disfmarker} +Grad B: I 'm gonna finish it today , uh hopefully . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I wanna do one of those things where I stay here . Cuz uh , if I go home , I can't finish it . I 've tried about five times so far , where I work for a while and then I 'm like , I 'm hungry . So I go home , and then I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm not going back . +Grad B: Yeah . Either that or I think to myself , I can work at home . And then I try to work at home , but I fail miserably . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Like I ended up at Blakes last night . +Grad E: Non - conducive . +Grad B: No . I almost got into a brawl . But I did not finish the uh , But I 've been looking into it . I th @ @ It 's not like it 's a blank slate . I found everything that I need and stu and uh , +Grad D: But st +Grad B: At the b uh furthermore , I told Jerry that I was gonna finish it before he got back . So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: That 's approaching . He 's coming back when ? Uh next {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think {disfmarker} we think we 'll see him definitely on Tuesday for the next {disfmarker} Or , no , wait . The meetings are on Thursday . +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad B: Maybe . +Grad D: Who knows . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Well , we 'll see him next week . +Grad E: Alright . +Grad D: That 's good . Yeah . The paper . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: I was thinking about that . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I will try to work on the SmartKom stuff and I 'll {disfmarker} if I can finish it today , I 'll help you with that tomorrow , if you work on it ? I don't have a problem with us working on it though ? So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} +Grad D: So you would say it 's funky cool . +Grad B: I mean we just {disfmarker} I mean it wouldn't hurt to write up a paper , cuz then , I mean , yeah {disfmarker} I was talking with Nancy and Nancy said , you don't know whether you have a paper to {pause} write up until you write it up . So . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Well +Grad B: And since Jerry 's coming back , we can run it by him too . So . +Grad D: Yep . Um , what 's your input ? +Grad E: Well , um , I don't have much experience with uh , conference papers for compu in the computer science realm , and so when I looked at what you had , which was apparently a complete submission , I just sort of said what {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I didn't really know what to do with it , like , this is the sort of the basic outline of the system or whatever , or {disfmarker} or "" here 's an idea "" , right ? That 's what that paper was , "" here 's {disfmarker} here 's one possible thing you could do "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: short , eight pages , and I just don't know what you have in mind for expanding . Like I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I didn't do is go to the web site of the conference and look at what they 're looking for or whatever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , it seems to me that um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Wait , is this a computer science conference or is it a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , well it 's more {disfmarker} It 's both , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of t cognitive , neural , psycho , linguistic , but all for the sake of doing computer science . So it 's sort of cognitive , psycho , neural , plausibly motivated , architectures of natural language processing . So it seems pretty interdisciplinary , and I mean , w w the keynote speaker is Tomasello and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Right . Oh , yeah . +Grad D: so , W the {disfmarker} the question is what could we actually do and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and keep a straight face while doing it . +Grad B: Well , I really can't keep a straight face doing anything . +Grad D: And i My idea is , +Grad E: Setting that aside . +Grad D: well , you can say we have done a little bit and that 's this , and uh sort of the rest is position paper , "" we wanna also do that "" . Which is not too good . Might be more interesting to do something like let 's assume um , we 're right , we have as Jerry calls it , a delusion of adequacy , and take a "" where is X "" sentence , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and say , "" we will just talk about this , and how we cognitively , neurally , psycho - linguistically , construction grammar - ally , motivated , envision uh , understanding that "" . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: So we can actually show how we parse it . That should be able to {disfmarker} we should be able to come up with , you know , a sort of a {disfmarker} a parse . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's on , just {disfmarker} just put it on . +Grad A: I 'm OK . +Grad B: Did Ben harass you ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Good . +Grad A: Was he supposed to harass me ? +Grad B: Yes . +Grad A: Well , he just told me that you came looking for me . +Grad D: You don +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: +Grad A: figure this out . +Grad D: You will suffer in hell , you know that . +Grad E: Backwards . There 's a s diagram somewhere which tells you how to put that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I know , I didn't understand that either ! +Grad B: No wait . You have to put it on exactly like that , +Grad D: This is it . Yeah . +Grad B: so put that {disfmarker} those things over your ears like that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: See the p how the plastic things ar arch out like that ? There we go . +Grad A: OK . It hurts . +Grad B: It hurts . It hurts real bad . +Grad A: It does ! I 'm sorry I didn't mean to {disfmarker} +Grad E: But that 's what you get for coming late to the meeting . +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , oh these are all the same . OK ! th this is not very {pause} on target . +Grad B: Is your mike on ? +Grad C: An +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Yeah , it is . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Alright , you guys can continue talking about whatever you were talking about before . +Grad E: Um , +Grad D: We 're talking about this um , alleged paper that we may , just , sort of w +Grad A: Oh ! Which Johno mentioned to me . Uh - huh . +Grad D: Yeah . And I just sort of brought forth the idea that we take a sentence , "" Where is the Powder - Tower "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and we {disfmarker} we p pretend to parse it , we pretend to understand it , and we write about it . +Grad E: Hmm . About how {vocalsound} all of these things {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the part that 's not pretend ? The writing ? +Grad D: OK , then we pretend to write about . +Grad E: The submitting to a major international conference . {comment} {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Tha - {vocalsound} Which conference is it for ? +Grad D: It 's the whatever , architectures , eh you know , where {disfmarker} There is this conference , it 's the seventh already international conference , on neu neurally , cognitively , motivated , architectures of natural language processing . +Grad A: Oh . Wow . Interesting . +Grad D: And the keynote speakers are Tomasello , MacWhinney ? +Grad A: Whinney . {comment} MacWhinney. Uh - huh . +Grad D: We - MacWhinney , I think . +Grad E: +Grad A: So , interesting , both , like , child language people . +Grad D: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: So maybe you wanna write something too . +Grad A: Yeah , maybe I wanna go . Um , why are they speaking at it if it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Grad A: is {disfmarker} is it normally like {disfmarker} like , dialogue systems , or , you know , other NLP - ish things ? +Grad D: No no no no no no no no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's like a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it 's cognitive . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . Even neuro . +Grad A: And uh , both learning and like , comprehension , production , that kinda stuff . +Grad D: Psycho . You could look at the web site . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . I don't know about it . +Grad D: And the ad and {disfmarker} and the deadline is the fifteenth of June . +Grad A: Yeah that 's pretty soon . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hey . Plenty of time . +Grad E: Why , we 've got over a week ! +Grad D: It would be nice to go write two papers actually . Yeah . And one {disfmarker} one from your perspective , and one from our peve per per +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I mean , th that 's the kinda thing that maybe like , um , the general uh con sort of like NTL - ish like , whatever , the previous simulation based pers {comment} maybe you 're talking about the same kind of thing . A general paper about the approach here would probably be appropriate . And good to do at some point anyway . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Well , I {disfmarker} I also think that if we sort of write about what we have done in the past six months , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could sort of craft a nice little paper that {pause} if it gets rejected , which could happen , doesn't hurt +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because it 's something we eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Having it is still a good thing . +Grad D: having it is a good {disfmarker} good thing . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's a nice exercise , it 's {disfmarker} I usually enjoy writing papers . It 's not {disfmarker} I don't re regard it as a painful thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . It 's fun . +Grad D: And um , we should all do more for our publication lists . And . It just never hurts . And Keith and - or Johno will go , probably . +Grad B: Will I ? +Grad A: When is it and where ? +Grad D: In case of {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Grad D: It 's on the twenty second of September , in Saarbruecken Germany . +Grad A: Ah , it 's in Germany . Ah , OK . I s I see . Tomasello 's already in Germany anyway , so makes sense . OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . OK . So , is the {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Are you just talking about you know , the details of how to do it , or whether to do it , or what it would be ? +Grad E: What would one possibly put in such a paper ? +Grad D: What to write about . +Grad A: Or what to write about ? +Grad D: What is our {disfmarker} what 's our take home message . What {disfmarker} what do we actually {disfmarker} Because I mean , it {disfmarker} I don't like papers where you just talk about what you plan to do . I mean , it 's obvious that we can't do any kind of evaluation , and have no {disfmarker} you know , we can't write an ACL type paper where we say , "" OK , we 've done this +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and now we 're whatever percentage better than everybody else "" . You know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It 's far too early for that . But uh , we {disfmarker} we can tell them what we think . I mean that 's {disfmarker} never hurts to try . And um , maybe even {disfmarker} That 's maybe the time to introduce the {disfmarker} the new formalism that you guys have cooked up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are in the process of {disfmarker} +Grad A: How many pages ? +Grad B: don't they need to finish the formalism ? +Grad D: It 's just like four pages . +Grad A: Four pages ? +Grad D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not even a h +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so it 's a little thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Well , you said it was four thousand lines ? +Grad E: Oh . +Grad B: Is that what you s +Grad A: OK . Four pages is , like , really not very much space . +Grad D: I don't know w Did you look at it ? Yeah , it depends on the format . +Grad E: Oh my gosh . Oh , I thought you were {disfmarker} I thought we were talking about something which was much more like ten or something . +Grad D: No that 's {disfmarker} I mean that 's actually a problem . It 's difficu it 's more difficult to write on four pages than on eight . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: And it 's also difficult to {disfmarker} even if you had a lot of substance , it 's hard to demonstrate that in four pages , basically . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad E: That would be hard . +Grad A: I mean it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well I uh maybe it 's just four thousand lines . I do I don't {disfmarker} They don't want any {disfmarker} They don't have a TeX f style @ @ guide . +Grad A: Uh - huh , uh - huh . +Grad D: They just want ASCII . Pure ASCII lines , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: whatever . Why , for whatever reason , +Grad A: Not including figures and such ? +Grad D: I don't know . I don't know . Very unspecific unfortunately . +Grad A: OK . Well , +Grad D: We 'll just uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would say that 's closer to six pages actually . Four thousand lines of ASCII ? +Grad D: OK then . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Four thousand lines . I mean . Isn't a isn't it about fifty s fifty five , sixty lines to a page ? +Grad D: I d don't quote me on this . This is numbers I {disfmarker} I have from looking o +Grad B: How many characters are on a line ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: ASCII ? +Grad D: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} wh wh what should we {disfmarker} should {disfmarker} should we uh , um , discuss this over tea and all of us look at the web ? Oh , I can't . I 'm wizarding today . +Grad A: OK , look at the web page ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: Wha - w +Grad D: Look at the web page and let 's talk about it maybe tomorrow afternoon ? +Grad A: More cues for us to find it are like , neural cons +Grad D: Johno will send you a link . +Grad A: Oh , you have a link . OK . OK . +Grad B: I got an email . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: By the way , Keith is comfortable with us calling him "" cool Keith "" . +Grad A: Oh . Cool . Keith . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he decided {vocalsound} I 'm chilling in the five - one - O . +Grad A: Cool , "" cool Keith "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Excellent . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: That 's a very cool T - shirt . +Grad E: Thank you . +Grad D: And I 'm also flying {disfmarker} +Grad E: I got this from the two one two . +Grad A: New York ? Excellent . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Yes ? +Grad D: I 'm flying to Sicily next {disfmarker} in a w two weeks from now , +Grad A: Oh , lucky you . +Grad D: w and a week of business in Germany . I should mention that for you . And otherwise you haven't missed much , except for a really weird idea , but you 'll hear about that soon enough . +Grad A: The idea that you and I already know about ? That you already told me ? Not that {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: No , no , no . Yeah , that is something for the rest of the gang to {disfmarker} to g +Grad E: The thing with the goats and the helicopters ? +Grad D: Change the watchband . It 's time to walk the sheep . +Grad C: like +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Um . Did you catch that allusion ? It 's time to walk the sheep ? +Grad E: No . +Grad D: It 's a a uh presumably one of the Watergate codes they uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: Anyways , th um , um , don't make any plans for spring break next year . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad D: That 's the other thing . We 're gonna do an int EDU internal workshop in Sicily . +Grad A: That 's what {disfmarker} That 's what he says . +Grad D: I 've already got the funding . +Grad A: I kn That 's great ! +Grad D: So , I mean . +Grad A: Does that mean {disfmarker} Does that mean you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll fly us there ? +Grad E: We 'll see . +Grad D: No , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's what it means . +Grad A: Hhh ! OK , cool . Uh - a a +Grad B: And he 'll put us up , too . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad A: I know {disfmarker} I know about that part . I know about the {disfmarker} the almond trees and stuff . Not joking . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Name a vegetable , OK . {vocalsound} Oh , um , kiwi ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm , too easy . +Grad A: Coconut . +Grad D: Ki +Grad A: Pineapple . See ? Mango ? OK . OK . Too easy ? +Grad D: Too easy . Yeah , mangos go everywhere . +Grad A: Really ? +Grad D: So do kiwi . +Grad A: Oh . OK , but I was trying to find something that he didn't grow on his farm . +Grad D: But coconut anana pineapple , that 's {disfmarker} that 's tricky , yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Anyway . Cantaloupe . +Grad E: So , but we have to decide what , like , sort of the general idea of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Potatoes . So . Sorry ! +Grad E: Um , I mean , we 're gonna have an example case um , right ? I m the {disfmarker} the point is to {disfmarker} like this "" where is "" case , or something . +Grad D: Yeah , maybe you have {disfmarker} It would be kind of {disfmarker} The paper ha would have , in my vision , a nice flow if we could say , well here is th the {disfmarker} th here is parsing if you wanna do it c right , here is understanding if you wanna do it right , and you know {disfmarker} without going into technical {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But then in the end we 're not doing like those things right yet , right ? Would that be clear in the paper or not ? +Grad D: That would be clear , we would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I mailed around a little paper that I have {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be like , this is the idea . Oh , I didn't get that , +Grad D: w we could sort of say , this is {disfmarker} +Grad A: did I ? Oops . Did I ? +Grad D: No , +Grad A: Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Grad B: No , y I don't think you got it . +Grad D: See this , if you if you 're not around , and don't partake in the discussions , and you don't get any email , +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , I 'm sorry . Sorry . +Grad D: and +Grad A: OK , go on . So parsing done right {vocalsound} is like chicken done right . +Grad D: Su So we could {disfmarker} we could say this is what {disfmarker} what 's sort of state of the art today . Nuh ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And say , this is bad . Nuh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: And then we can say , uh well what we do is this . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Parsing done right , interpretation done right , example . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . And +Grad A: And how much to get into the cognitive neural part ? +Grad B: That 's the only {disfmarker} That 's the question mark . +Grad D: We +Grad B: Don't you need to reduce it if it 's a {disfmarker} or reduce it , if it 's a cognitive neuro {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , you don't have t I mean the conference may be cognitive neural , doesn't mean that every paper has to be both . Like , NLP cognitive neural . +Grad D: Yeah , and you can {disfmarker} you can just point to the {disfmarker} to the literature , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: you can say that construction - based You know {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i so this paper wouldn't particularly deal with that side although it could reference the NTL - ish sort of , like , um , approach . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: The fact that the methods here are all compatible with or designed to be compatible with whatever , neurological {disfmarker} neuro neuro - biol su stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah , I guess four pages you could {disfmarker} I mean you could definitely {disfmarker} it 's definitely possible to do it . It 's just {disfmarker} It 'd just be small . Like introducing the formalism might be not really possible in detail , but you can use an example of it . +Grad E: Well , l looking at {disfmarker} yeah , looking at that paper that {disfmarker} that you had , I mean you know , like , you didn't really explain in detail what was going on in the XML cases or whatever you just sorta said well , you know , here 's the general idea , some stuff gets put in there . You know , hopefully you can {disfmarker} you can say something like constituents tells you what the construction is made out of , you know , without going into this intense detail . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So it be like using the formalism rather than you know , introducing it per se . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad E: Give them the one paragraph whirlwind tour of w w what this is for , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And people will sort of figure out or ask about the bits that are implicit . +Grad D: Yeah . So this will be sort of documenting what we think , and documenting what we have in terms of the Bayes - net stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And since there 's never a bad idea to document things , no ? +Grad A: That 's th that 's definitely a good idea . +Grad D: That would be my , uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we should sketch out the details maybe tomorrow afternoon - ish , if everyone is around . I don't know . You probably wouldn't be part of it . +Grad E: I think so . +Grad D: Maybe you want ? Think about it . Um , You may {disfmarker} may ruin your career forever , if you appear . +Grad B: Yeah , you might get blacklisted . +Grad D: And um , the uh , other thing , yeah we actually {disfmarker} Have we made any progress on what we decided , uh , last week ? I 'm sure you read the transcript of last week 's meeting in red so sh so you 're up to dated {disfmarker} caught up . +Grad A: No . Sorry . +Grad D: We decided t that we 're gonna take a "" where is something "" question , and pretend we have parsed it , and see what we could possibly hope to observe on the discourse side . +Grad B: Remember I came in and I started asking you about how we were sor going to sort out the uh , decision nodes ? +Grad A: Yes ! What 'd you say ? +Grad B: I remember you talking to me , just not what you said . +Grad A: I do remember you talking to me . Um , a few more bits . +Grad B: Well , there was like we needed to {disfmarker} or uh , in my opinion we need to design a Bayes {disfmarker} another sub - Bayes - net {disfmarker} You know , it was whether {disfmarker} it was whether we would have a Bayes - net on the output and on the input , +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: or whether the construction was gonna be in the Bayes - net , +Grad A: Oh , yeah . OK . +Grad B: a and outside of it , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So that was {disfmarker} was that the question ? Was that what {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well that was related to what we were talking about . +Grad D: Should I introduce it as SUDO - square ? +Grad B: Yeah sure . +Grad D: We have to put this in the paper . If we write it . This is {disfmarker} this is my only constraint . The {disfmarker} th So . The SUDO - square {nonvocalsound} is , {vocalsound} "" Situation "" , "" User "" , "" Discourse "" , right ? "" Ontology "" . +Grad E: Oh I saw the diagram in the office , +Grad A: Oh my god , that 's amazing ! +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . Whatever . +Grad A: No way . +Grad E: Way ! +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad A: Someone 's gonna start making Phil Collins jokes . +Grad D: Yeah . Hmm ? +Grad A: Sorry . +Grad B: What ? +Grad E: Oh , god , I hope not . +Grad A: You guys are too young . +Grad E: You know like "" Sussudio "" , +Grad A: Yeah , come on . +Grad E: that horrible , horrible song that should never have been created . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +Grad A: I know , that was horrible . Sussudio . +Grad B: I 've blocked every aspect of Phil Collins out of my mind . +Grad C: What ? +Grad A: I 'm sorry , I haven't . Not on purpose . +Grad E: in here +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , also he 's talking about suicide , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a notion I wanna have evoked . +Grad A: No , he 's not . Really ? +Grad D: He is . +Grad A: Oops . {comment} I didn't really listen to it , +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was too young . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad E: It sounds too rocking for that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . So , what 's going on here ? So what are {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , +Grad E: Was wollte der Kuenstler uns damit sagen ? +Grad A: Stop excluding me . +Grad D: OK , so we have tons of little things here , +Grad A: I can't believe that that 's never been thought of before . +Grad D: and we 've +Grad B: Wait , what are the dots ? I don't remember what the dots were . +Grad E: Those are little bugs . +Grad A: Cool Keith . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: +Grad D: You know , these are our , whatever , belief - net decision nodes , and they all contribute to these {pause} {nonvocalsound} things down here . +Grad B: Oh , oh . +Grad A: Wait , wait , what 's the middle thing ? +Grad D: That 's EDU . +Grad E: That 's a c +Grad D: e e Our e e e +Grad A: But wh I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: You . We . Us . +Grad A: But what is it ? +Grad D: Well , in the moment it 's a Bayes - net . And it has sort of fifty not - yet - specified interfaces . OK . Eh {pause} I have taken care that we actually can build little interfaces , {nonvocalsound} to other modules that will tell us whether the user likes these things and , n the {disfmarker} or these things , and he {disfmarker} whether he 's in a wheelchair or not , +Grad A: OK . Is that supposed to be the international sign for interface ? +Grad D: I think so , yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd never seen it before either . +Grad A: OK . Just t Cool . +Grad D: Mmm . So . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Cuz things fit onto that , see ? +Grad A: Cool . +Grad E: In a vaguely obscene fashion . +Grad D: No , this is a RME core by agent design , I don't know . +Grad A: That 's so great . +Grad D: There 's maybe a different +Grad E: So wait , what a what are these letters again , Situr - {comment} Situation , User , Discourse and +Grad D: Situation , user , d ontology . +Grad A: User ? +Grad E: Ontology . +Grad A: What about the utterance ? +Grad C: Discourse . +Grad D: That 's here . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , discourse . So that 's not like context , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Discourse is all things linguistic , yeah . +Grad D: So this {disfmarker} this includes the {disfmarker} the current utterance plus all the previous utterances . +Grad A: Interesting , uh - huh . User . +Grad D: And for example w i s I Irena Gurevich is going to be here eh , end of July . +Grad A: User . +Grad D: She 's a new linguist working for EML . And what she would like to do for example is great for us . She would like to take the ent ontolog +Grad C: Ouch . +Grad D: So , we have discussed in terms of the EVA {disfmarker} +Grad A: Grateful for us ? +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you just say grateful for us ? OK , sorry . Anyway . +Grad D: Think of {disfmarker} back at the EVA vector , and Johno coming up with the idea that if the person discussed the {disfmarker} discussed the admission fee , in {disfmarker} eh previously , that might be a good indication that , "" how do I get to the castle ? "" , actually he wants to enter . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or , you know , "" how do I get to X ? "" discussing the admission fee in the previous utterance , is a good indication . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: +Grad D: So we don't want a hard code , a set of lexemes , or things , that person 's you know , sort of filter , or uh search the discourse history . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So what would be kind of cool is that if we encounter concepts that are castle , tower , bank , hotel , we run it through the ontology , and the ontology tells us it has um , admission , opening times , it has admission fees , it has this , it has that , and then we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we make a thesaurus lexicon , look up , and then search dynamically through the uh , discourse history for {pause} occurrences of these things in a given window of utterances . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And that might , you know , give us additional input to belief A versus B . Or E versus A . +Grad A: So it 's not just a particular word 's {disfmarker} OK , so the {disfmarker} you 're looking for a few keys that you know are cues to {disfmarker} sorry , a few specific cues to some intention . +Grad B: You can dynamically look up keys , yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Uh , so , wait {disfmarker} so um , since this {disfmarker} since this sort of technical stuff is going over my head , +Grad B: And then grep , basically . +Grad E: the {disfmarker} the point is that you uh {disfmarker} that when someone 's talking about a castle , you know that it 's the sort of thing that people are likely to wanna go into ? Or , is it the fact that if there 's an admission fee , then one of the things we know about admission fees is that you pay them in order to go in ? And then the idea of entering is active in the discourse or something ? And then +Grad D: Well +Grad E: blah - blah - blah ? +Grad D: the {disfmarker} the idea is even more general . +Grad E: I mean . +Grad D: The idea is to say , we encounter a certain entity in a {disfmarker} in a in a utterance . So le let 's look up everything we {disfmarker} the ontology gives us about that entity , what stuff it does , what roles it has , what parts , whatever it has . Functions . And , then we look in the discourse , whether any of that , or any surface structure corresponding to these roles , functions aaa {comment} has ever occurred . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad D: And then , the discourse history can t tell us , "" yeah "" , or "" no "" . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And then it 's up for us to decide what to do with it . t So i +Grad E: OK . So {disfmarker} No , go ahead . +Grad D: So , we may think that if you say um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} "" where is the theater "" , um , whether or not he has talked about tickets before , then we {disfmarker} he 's probably wanna go there to see something . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or "" where is the opera in Par - Paris ? , +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: yeah ? Lots of people go to the opera to take pictures of it and to look at it , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: and lots of people go to attend a performance . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , the discourse can maybe tell us w what 's more likely if we know what to look for in previous statements . And so we can hard code "" for opera , look for tickets , look for this , look for that , +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad D: or look for Mozart , look for thi "" but the smarter way is to go via the ontology and dynamically , then look up u stuff . +Grad E: OK . But you 're still doing look up so that when the person {disfmarker} So the point is that when the person says , "" where is it ? "" then you sort of say , let 's go back and look at other things and then decide , rather than the other possibility which is that {pause} all through discourse as they talk about different things {disfmarker} You know like w prior to the "" where is it "" question they say , you know , "" how much does it cost to get in , you know , to {disfmarker} to see a movie around here "" , um , {vocalsound} "" where is the closest theater "" {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is that by mentioning admission fees , that just sort of stays active now . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: You know . That becomes part of like , their sort of current ongoing active conceptual structure . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , um , over in your Bayes - net or whatever , when {disfmarker} when the person says "" where is it "" , you 've already got , you know since they were talking about admission , and that evokes the idea of entering , um , then when they go and ask "" where is it "" , then you 're Enter node is already active +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because that 's what the person is thinking about . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean that 's the sort of cognitive linguistic - y way , +Grad D: Yeah , e ultimately that 's also what we wanna get at . +Grad E: and probably not practical . +Grad D: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the correct way . So , of course we have to keep memory of what was the last intention , and how does it fit to this , and what does it tell us , in terms of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're examining . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: And furthermore , I mean we can idealize that , you know , people don't change topics , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: but they do . But , even th for that , there is a student of ours who 's doing a dialogue act um , recognition module . +Grad E: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , maybe , we 're even in a position where we can take your approach , which is of course much better , as to say how {disfmarker} how do these pieces {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . And much harder to r program . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: And much harder to p to program . +Grad D: Yeah . How {disfmarker} how do these pieces fit together ? Uh - huh . And um . But , OK , nevertheless . So these are issues but we {disfmarker} what we actually decided last week , is to , and this is , again , for your benefit {disfmarker} is to um , pretend we have observed and parsed an utterance such as "" where is the Powder - Tower "" , or "" where is the zoo "" , and specify um , what {disfmarker} what we think the {disfmarker} the output uh , observe , out {disfmarker} i input nodes for our Bayes - nets for the sub sub - D , for the discourse bit , should be . So that {disfmarker} And I will {disfmarker} I will then {comment} {vocalsound} come up with the ontology side uh , bits and pieces , so that we can say , OK we {disfmarker} we always just look at this utterance . That 's the only utterance we can do , it 's hard coded , like Srini , sort of hand parsed , hand crafted , but this is what we hope to be able to observe in general from utterances , and from ontologies , and then we can sort of fiddle with these things to see what it actually produces , in terms of output . +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: So we need to find out what the "" where is X "" construction will give us in terms of semantics and {vocalsound} Simspec type things . +Grad A: Just {disfmarker} OK . Just "" where is X "" ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Or any variants of that . +Grad D: Yeah . No ! Um , look at it this way , i Yeah . What did we decide . We decided sort of the {disfmarker} the prototypical "" where is X "" , where you know , we don't really know , does he wanna go there , or just wanna know where it is . +Grad E: Well we were +Grad D: So the difference of "" where is the railway station "" , versus where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} "" where is Greenland "" . Nuh ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh s I was just dancing , sorry . +Grad D: We 're not videotaping any of this . So . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} ah {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , um , we 're supposed to {disfmarker} I mean we 're talking about sort of anything that has the semantics of request for location , right ? actually ? Or , I mean , anyway , the node in the uh {disfmarker} the ultimate , uh , in {disfmarker} in the Bayes - net thing when you 're done , the {disfmarker} the node that we 're talking about um , is one that says "" request for location , true "" , or something like that , right ? Um , and {disfmarker} and exactly how that gets activated , you know , like whether we want the sentence "" how do I get there ? "" to activate that node or not , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of the issue that sort of the linguistic - y side has to deal with , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} Yea - Nnn Well actually more {disfmarker} m more the other way around . We wanted something that represents uncertainty uh we in terms of going there or just wanting to know where it is , for example . Some generic information . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And so this is prototypically @ @ found in the "" where is something "" question , surface structure , +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: We +Grad D: which can be p you know , should be maps to something that activates both . I mean the idea is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright , OK . +Grad B: Hhh . I guess . I don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: let 's have it fit nicely with the paper . +Grad B: I don't see unde how we would be able to distinguish between the two intentions just from the g utterance , though . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , uh bef or , before we don't {disfmarker} before we cranked it through the Bayes - net . I mean . +Grad D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't . That 's exactly what we want . +Grad B: We would ? +Grad D: We want to get {disfmarker} No . We wouldn't . +Grad B: OK , but then so basically it 's just a {disfmarker} for every construction we have a node in the net , right ? And we turn on that node . +Grad D: Yeah . What {disfmarker} what is this gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oy . +Grad D: Exactly . What is the uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then given that we know that {pause} the construction {pause} has these two things , we can set up probabilities {disfmarker} we can s basically define all the tables for ev for those {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} So we have um , i let 's assume we {disfmarker} we call something like a loc - X node and a path - X node . And what we actually get if we just look at the discourse , "" where is X "" should activate or should {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Should be both , whereas maybe "" where is X located "" , we find from the data , is always just asked when the person wants to know where it is , and "" how do I get to "" is always asked when the person just wants to know how to get there . Right ? So we want to sort of come up with what gets uh , input , and how inter in case of a "" where is "" question . So what {disfmarker} what would the outcome of {disfmarker} of your parser look like ? And , what other discourse information from the discourse history could we hope to get , squeeze out of that utterance ? So define the {disfmarker} the input into the Bayes - net {vocalsound} based on what the utterance , "" where is X "" , gives us . So definitely have an Entity node here which is activated via the ontology , +Grad A: s +Grad D: so "" where is X "" produces something that is s stands for X , whether it 's castle , bank , restroom , toilet , whatever . And then the ontology will tell us {disfmarker} +Grad A: That it has a location or something like that ? {disfmarker} or th the ontology will tell us where actually it is located ? +Grad D: No . Not at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Where it is located , we have , a user proximity node here somewhere , +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad D: e which tells us how far the user {disfmarker} how far away the user is in respect to that uh entity . +Grad A: OK . So you 're talking about , for instance , the construction obviously involves this entity or refers {disfmarker} refers to this entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and from the construction also you know that it is a location {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} or a thing {disfmarker} thing that can be located . Right ? Ontology says this thing has a location slot . Sh - and that 's the thing that is being {disfmarker} that is the content of the question that 's being queried by one interpretation of "" where is X "" . And another one is , um , path from current {disfmarker} user current location to {comment} that location . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . So is the question {disfmarker} I mean it 's just that I 'm not sure what the {disfmarker} Is the question , for this particular construction how we specify that that 's the information it provides ? Or {disfmarker} or asked for ? b Both sides , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , you don't need to even do that . It 's just sort of what {vocalsound} what would be @ @ {comment} observed in uh {disfmarker} in that case . +Grad A: Observed when you heard the speaker say "" where is X "" , or when {disfmarker} when that 's been parsed ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So these little circles you have by the D ? Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +Grad D: That 's exactly what we 're looking for . +Grad B: I d I just {disfmarker} I don't like having {disfmarker} characterizing the constructions with location and path , or li characterizing them like that . Cuz you don't {disfmarker} It seems like in the general case you wouldn't know how {disfmarker} how to characterize them . +Grad D: You wouldn't . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} or , for when . There could be an interpretation that we don't have a node for in the {disfmarker} I mean it just seems like @ @ has to have uh {disfmarker} a node for the construction and then let the chips fall where they may . Versus uh , saying , this construction either can mean location or path . And , in this cas and since {disfmarker} since it can mean either of those things , it would light both of those up . +Grad D: It 's the same . +Grad B: Thoughts ? Questions ? +Grad E: I 'm thinking about it . +Grad D: It will be the same . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So I think r in here we have "" I 'll go there "" , right ? +Grad B: Answers ? +Grad D: And we have our Info - on . So in my c my case , this would sort of make this {pause} happy , and this would make the Go - there happy . What you 're saying is we have a Where - X question , Where - X node , that makes both happy . Right ? That 's what you 're proposing , which is , in my mind just as fine . So w if we have a construction {pause} node , "" where is X "" , it 's gonna both get the po posterior probability that {disfmarker} it 's Info - on up , +Grad B: Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: Info - on is True - up , and that Go - there is True - up , as well . Which would be exactly analogous to what I 'm proposing is , this makes {disfmarker} uh makes something here true , and this makes something {disfmarker} also something here true , and this makes this True - up , and this makes this True - up as well . +Grad E: I kinda like it better without that extra level of indirection too . You know with {disfmarker} with this points to this points to that , and so on because {vocalsound} I don't know , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is - uh , +Grad D: Yeah , because we get {disfmarker} we get tons of constructions I think . Because , you know , mmm people have many ways of asking for the same thing , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , sure . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So un +Grad B: I change I changed my mind actually . +Grad A: So I agree with that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I have a different kinda question , might be related , which is , OK so implicitly everything in EDU , we 're always inferring the speaker intent , right ? Like , what they want either , the information that they want , or {disfmarker} It 's always information that they want probably , of some kind . Right ? Or I {disfmarker} I don't know , or what 's something that they {disfmarker} +Grad D: The system doesn't massage you , no . No . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} OK . So , um , let 's see . So I don't know if the {disfmarker} I mean i if th just there 's more s here that 's not shown that you {disfmarker} it 's already like part of the system whatever , but , "" where is X "" , like , the fact that it is , you know , a speech - act , whatever , it is a question . It 's a question that , um , queries on some particular thing X , and X is that location . There 's , like , a lot of structure in representing that . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah . +Grad A: So that seems different from just having the node "" location - X "" and that goes into EDU , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Precisely . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: So tha is that what you 're t talking about ? +Grad D: So , w Exactly . We have su we have specified two . +Grad A: wh what kinds of structure we want . +Grad D: OK , the next one would be here , just for mood . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: The next one would be what we can squeeze out of the uh I don't know , maybe we wanna observe the uh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh the length of {disfmarker} of the words used , and , or the prosody +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: and g a and t make conclusions about the user 's intelligence . +Grad A: OK . So in some ways {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't know , +Grad A: um , so in some ways in the other sort of parallel set of mo more linguistic meetings we 've been talking about possible semantics of some construction . +Grad D: yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? Where it was the simulation that 's , according to it {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} that corresponds to it , and as well the {disfmarker} as discourse , whatever , conte infor in discourse information , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: such as the mood , and , you know , other stuff . So , are we looking for a sort of abbreviation of that , that 's tailored to this problem ? Cuz that {disfmarker} that has , you know , basically , you know , s it 's in progress still it 's in development still , but it definitely has various feature slots , attributes , um , bindings between things {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . U that 's exactly r um , why I 'm proposing {disfmarker} It 's too early to have {disfmarker} to think of them {disfmarker} of all of these discourse things that one could possibly observe , +Grad A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so let 's just assume +Grad A: For the subset of {disfmarker} +Grad D: human beings are not allowed to ask anything but "" where is X "" . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: This is the only utterance in the world . What could we observe from that ? +Grad A: OK . That exactly "" where is X "" , +Grad D: In ter +Grad A: not the {disfmarker} the choices of "" where is X "" or "" how do I get to X "" . Just "" where is X "" . +Grad D: Just {disfmarker} just "" where is X "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And , but you know , do it {disfmarker} do it in such a way that we know that people can also say , "" is the town hall in front of the bank "" , so that we need something like a w WH focus . Nuh ? Should be {disfmarker} should be there , that , you know , this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} whatever we get from the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , so do , or do not take other kinds of constructions into account ? +Grad D: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you can , oh definitely do , +Grad A: OK . Where possible . OK . +Grad D: where possible . Right ? If i if {disfmarker} if it 's not at all triggered by our thing , then it 's irrelevant , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and it doesn't hurt to leave it out for the moment . Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . Um , it seems like for instance , "" where is X "" , the fact that it might mean um , "" tell me how to get to X "" , like {disfmarker} Do y So , would you wanna say that those two are both , like {disfmarker} Those are the two interpretations , right ? the {disfmarker} the ones that are location or path . So , you could say that the s construction is a question asking about this location , and then you can additionally infer , if they 're asking about the location , it 's because they wanna go to that place , in which case , the {disfmarker} you 're jumping a step {disfmarker} step and saying , "" oh , I know where it is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: but I also know how to get {disfmarker} they wanna seem {disfmarker} they seem to wanna get there so I 'm gonna tell them "" . So there 's like structure +Grad E: Right , th this {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that this is sort of like semantically ambiguous between these two . +Grad A: i do you kn sort of uh , that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's really about this but why would you care about this ? Well , it 's because you also want to know this , or something like that right ? +Grad A: So it 's like you infer the speaker intent , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then infer a plan , a larger plan from that , for which you have the additional information , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you 're just being extra helpful . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Think {disfmarker} Uh , well this is just a mental exercise . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: If you think about , focus on this question , how would you design {pause} that ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Is it {disfmarker} do you feel confident about saying this is part of the language already to {disfmarker} to detect those plans , and why would anyone care about location , if not , you know and so forth . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Or do you actually , I mean this is perfectly legitimate , and I {disfmarker} I would not have any problems with erasing this and say , that 's all we can activate , based on the utterance out of context . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . And just by an additional link {disfmarker} Oh . +Grad D: What ? +Grad A: Right , +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: like , +Grad D: And then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the miracle that we get out the intention , Go - there , happens , based on what we know about that entity , about the user , about his various beliefs , goals , desires , blah - blah - blah . +Grad A: with context and enough user information , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Absolutely fine . But this is the sort of thing , I {disfmarker} I propose that we think about , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: so that we actually end up with um , um , nodes for the discourse and ontology so that we can put them into our Bayes - net , never change them , so we {disfmarker} all there is is "" where is X "" , and , Eva can play around with the observed things , and we can run our better JavaBayes , and have it produce some output . And for the first time in th in {disfmarker} in the world , we look at our output , and um {disfmarker} and see uh whether it {disfmarker} it 's any good . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: You know ? I mean , +Grad E: Here 's hoping . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: Here 's hoping . Right ? Now cross your fingers . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , for me this is just a ba matter of curiosity , I wanna {disfmarker} would like to look at uh , what this ad - hoc process of designing a belief - net would actually produce . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: If {disfmarker} if we ask it where is something . And , maybe it also h enables you to think about certain things more specifically , um , come up with interesting questions , to which you can find interesting answers . And , additionally it might fit in really nicely with the paper . Because if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want an example for the paper , I suggest there it is . +Grad E: Um - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: So th this might be a nice opening paragraph for the paper as saying , "" you know people look at kinds of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at ambiguities "" , and um , in the literature there 's "" bank "" and whatever kinds of garden path phenomenon . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And we can say , well , that 's all nonsense . A , A , uh these things are never really ambiguous in discourse , B , B , don't ever occur really in discourse , but normal statements that seem completely unambiguous , such as "" where is the blah - blah "" , actually are terribly complex , and completely ambiguous . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And so , what every everybody else has been doing so far in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} you know , has been completely nonsensical , and can all go into the wastepaper bin , and the only {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's always a good way to begin . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} +Grad B: I am great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: All others are useless . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: Nice overture , but , you know , just not really {disfmarker} OK , I 'm eja exaggerating , but that might be , you know , saying "" hey "" , you know , some stuff is {disfmarker} is actually complex , if you look at it in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the vacuum +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and ceases to be complex in reality . And some stuff that 's as {disfmarker} that 's absolutely straightforward in the vacuum , is actually terribly complex in reality . Would be nice sort of , uh , also , nice , um bottom - up linguistics , um , type message . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: Versus the old top - down school . I 'm running out of time . OK . +Grad B: When do you need to start wizarding ? +Grad D: At four ten . OK , this is the other bit of news . The subjects today know Fey , so she can't be here , and do the wizarding . So I 'm gonna do the wizarding +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: and Thilo 's gonna do the instructing . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Also we 're getting a {disfmarker} a person who just got fired uh , from her job . Uh a person from Oakland who is interested in maybe continuing the wizard bit once Fey leaves in August . And um , she 's gonna look at it today . Which is good news in the sense that if we want to continue , after the thir thir after July , we can . We could . And , um {disfmarker} and that 's also maybe interesting for Keith and whoever , if you wanna get some more stuff into the data collection . Remember this , we can completely change the set - up any time we want . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Look at the results we 've gotten so far for the first , whatever , fifty some subjects ? +Grad A: Fifty ? You 've had fifty so far , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: No , we 're approaching twenty now . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: But , until Fey is leaving , we surely will hit the {disfmarker} some of the higher numbers . +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Grad D: And um , so that 's cool . Can a do more funky stuff . +Grad E: Sure . Yeah , I 'll have to look more into that data . Is that around ? Like , cuz that 's pretty much getting posted or something right away when you get it ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} ? I guess it has to be transcribed , huh ? +Grad D: We have uh , eh found someone here who 's hand st hand transcribing the first twelve . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: First dozen subjects +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad D: just so we can build a {disfmarker} a language model for the recognizer . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: But , um {disfmarker} So those should be available soon . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: The first twelve . And I can ch ch st e +Grad E: You know {disfmarker} I mean you know that I {disfmarker} that I looked at the first {disfmarker} the first one and got enough data to keep me going for , you know , probably most of July . So . {vocalsound} But , um . Yeah , a probably not the right way to do it actually . +Grad D: But you can listen to {disfmarker} a y y y You can listen to all of them from your Solaris box . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: If you want . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's always fun . +","Graduate students and faculty members, identified by letters such as E, B, and D, engage in a dense and multifaceted conversation surrounding the intricacies of language parsing, travel plans, forthcoming meetings, and potential research papers. The dialogue oscillates between casual interjections and complex discussions on the challenges of constructing a robust computer system capable of interpreting natural language queries. + +Graduate D outlines upcoming travel plans which include personal and professional commitments across Europe. These travels are significant not only for their logistical complexities — such as dropping off Simon with grandparents in Sicily, attending a SmartKom meeting in Germany, discussing system integration in Kaiserslautern, and returning to the U.S. on July 4th — but also for their potential impact on D's work and collaborations. + +The conversations then delve into the technical aspects of their research project, which seems to involve understanding and generating questions related to locations using a system that comprehends utterances. They discuss the challenge of teaching the system to both interpret and generate contextually appropriate questions such as ""where is X,"" while considering the varying intentions behind such inquiries. The dialog reveals their research's AI, machine learning, and natural language processing elements. + +Graduate D introduces an idea they discussed with a German project manager involving a system that can enter a dialogue with itself in order to learn from breakdowns and errors. This leads to the broader speculation about the possibility of simulating user conditions that cannot be realistically observed, highlighting the innovation and experimentation inherent to their research. + +The conversation also touches on potential publication opportunities with an upcoming interdisciplinary conference as a possible venue for their work. They consider drafting a paper that emphasizes the nuances and complexities in seemingly straightforward language constructions and how their computational approach may shed new light on these issues. The group debates the best strategies for representing and formalizing such findings, noting the constraints of page limits and the necessity of making their work accessible within a brief format. + +Throughout the discussion, there are humorous asides and colloquial banter, grounding the conversation in a very real and relatable academic setting. The participants navigate interpersonal dynamics, professional courtesy, and the shared understanding that comes with being part of a tight-knit research community. + +The dialogue ends with plans to continue evaluating and improving their systems, expressing a shared enthusiasm for the challenges and potentials of their collaborative research. The tangible outputs of their work, including the transcription of users interacting with their system and the possibility of a new member joining the team, foreshadow continued growth and intellectual pursuit in the field of computational linguistics and user-system interactions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Are we on ? We 're on . OK . +PhD E: Is it on ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . OK , +PhD D: One , two {disfmarker} u OK . +PhD A: Why is it so cold in here ? +Professor B: so , uh , we haven't sent around the agenda . So , i uh , any agenda items anybody has , wants to talk about , what 's going on ? +Postdoc G: I c I could talk about the meeting . +Grad H: Does everyone {disfmarker} has everyone met Don ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's on ? +PhD C: Now , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah ? OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Hello . +Professor B: OK , agenda item one , +PhD D: We went {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: introduce Don . OK , we did that . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I had a {disfmarker} just a quick question but I know there was discussion of it at a previous meeting that I missed , but just about the {disfmarker} the wish list item of getting good quality close - talking mikes on every speaker . +Professor B: OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} So let 's just do agenda {pause} building right now . OK , so let 's talk about that a bit . +PhD A: I mean , that was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , @ @ tuss close talking mikes , better quality . OK , {vocalsound} uh , we can talk about that . You were gonna {disfmarker} starting to say something ? +Postdoc G: Well , you {disfmarker} you , um , already know about the meeting {comment} that 's coming up and I don't know if {disfmarker} if this is appropriate for this . I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's something we should handle outside of the meeting . +Professor B: No , no , that 's OK . +PhD E: What meeting ? +Professor B: We can {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} we can ta so n NIST is {disfmarker} NIST folks are coming by next week +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and so we can talk about that . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: I think +PhD E: Who 's coming ? +Professor B: Uh , uh , John Fiscus +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I think George Doddington will be around as well . Uh , OK , so we can talk about that . Uh , I guess just hear about how things are going with , uh , uh , the transcriptions . That 's right . +Postdoc G: Sure . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That would sorta be an obvious thing to discuss . Um , An - anything else , uh , strike anybody ? +PhD A: Uh , we started {pause} running recognition on {pause} one conversation but it 's the r {pause} isn't working yet . So , But if anyone has {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Wha +PhD A: uh , the main thing would be if anyone has , um , knowledge about ways to , uh , post - process the wave forms that would give us better recognition , that would be helpful to know about . +Professor B: Um , +Grad H: Dome yeah , it sounds like a topic of conversation . +Professor B: Yeah , so , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What about , uh , is there anything new with the speech , nonspeech stuff ? +PhD C: Yeah , we 're working more on it but , {vocalsound} it 's not finished . +Professor B: OK . Alright , that seems like a {disfmarker} a good collection of things . And we 'll undoubtedly think of {pause} other things . +Postdoc G: I had thought under my topic that I would mention the , uh , four items that I {disfmarker} I , uh , put out for being on the agenda f on that meeting , which includes like the pre - segmentation and the {disfmarker} and the developments in multitrans . +Professor B: Oh , under the NIST meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah , under the NIST thing . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , why don't we start off with this , u u I guess the order we brought them up seems fine . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so , better quality close talking mikes . So the one issue was that the {disfmarker} the , uh , lapel mike , uh , isn't as good as you would like . And so , uh , it {disfmarker} it 'd be better if we had close talking mikes for everybody . Right ? +PhD A: Ri - um , +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} is that basically the point ? +PhD A: yeah , the {disfmarker} And actually in addition to that , that the {disfmarker} the close talking mikes are worn in such a way as to best capture the signal . And the reason here is just that for the people doing work not on microphones but on sort of like dialogue and so forth , uh {disfmarker} or and even on prosody , which Don is gonna be working on soon , it adds this extra , you know , vari variable for each speaker to {disfmarker} to deal with when the microphones aren't similar . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} And I also talked to Mari this morning and she also had a strong preference for doing that . And in fact she said that that 's useful for them to know in starting to collect their data too . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so one th +Grad H: Well , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , well one thing I was gonna say was that , um , i we could get more , uh , of the head mounted microphones even beyond the number of radio channels we have because I think whether it 's radio or wire is probably second - order . And the main thing is having the microphone close to you , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: u although , not too close . +Grad H: Right , so , uh , actually the way Jose is wearing his is {disfmarker} is c {pause} correct . +PhD D: Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad H: The good way . So you want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I it 's not cor it 's correct ? +Professor B: Is . +Grad H: Yeah , th that 's good . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: So it 's towards the corner of your mouth so that breath sounds don't get on it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And then just sort of about , uh , a thumb or {disfmarker} a thumb and a half away from your {disfmarker} from your mouth . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: But we have more than one type of {disfmarker} +Professor B: How am I d +PhD A: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: And this one isn't very adjustable , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: so this about as good as I can get +PhD A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: cuz it 's a fixed boom . +PhD D: Is fixed . Yeah . +PhD A: But if we could actually standardize , you know , the {disfmarker} the microphones , uh , as much as possible that would be really helpful . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , I mean it doesn't hurt to have a few extra microphones around , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: so why don't we just go out and {disfmarker} and get an order of {disfmarker} of if this microphone seems OK to people , uh , I 'd just get a half dozen of these things . +Grad H: Well the onl the only problem with that is right now , um , some of the Jimlets aren't working . The little {disfmarker} the boxes under the table . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: And so , w Uh , I 've only been able to find three jacks that are working . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Can we get these , wireless ? +Grad H: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , but my point is {disfmarker} +PhD A: But y we could just record these signals separately and time align them with the start of the meeting . +Professor B: R r right {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I 'm follow . Say that again ? +Professor B: Right now , we 've got , uh , two microphones in the room , that are not quote - unquote standard . So why don't we replace those {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , just two . +Professor B: Well , however many we can plug in . You know , if we can plug in three , let 's plug in three . +Grad H: OK . +PhD D: Mm - yeah . +Professor B: Also what we 've talked before about getting another , uh , radio , +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: and so then that would be , you know , three {pause} more . +Grad H: Right . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} so we should go out to our full complement of whatever we can do , but have them all be the same mike . I think the original reason that it was done the other way was because , it w it was sort of an experimental thing and I don't think anybody knew whether people would rather have more variety or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or , uh , more uniformity , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} but uh , sounds {disfmarker} sounds fine . +Grad H: Sounds like uniformity wins . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Well , for short term research it 's just {disfmarker} there 's just so much effort that would have to be done up front n uh , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: so {disfmarker} yeah , uniformity would be great . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD E: Is it because {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 're saying the {disfmarker} for dialogue purposes , so that means that the transcribers are having trouble with those mikes ? Is that what you mean ? +PhD A: Well Jane would know more about the transcribers . +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc G: And that 's true . I mean , I {disfmarker} we did discuss this . Uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . Couple times . +Postdoc G: a couple times , so , um , yeah , the transcribers notice {disfmarker} And in fact there 're some where , um {disfmarker} ugh well , I mean there 's {disfmarker} it 's the double thing . It 's the equipment and also how it 's worn . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: And he 's always {disfmarker} they always {disfmarker} they just rave about how wonderful Adam 's {disfmarker} Adam 's channel is . +Grad H: What can I say . +Postdoc G: And then , +PhD A: So does the recognizer . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Oh , really ? Yeah , I 'm not surprised . I mean , "" Baaah ! "" +PhD A: Even if {disfmarker} if you 're talking on someone else 's mike it 's still {pause} you w +Postdoc G: Yeah , but I mean it 's not just that , it 's also you know you +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: It 's also like n no breathing , no {disfmarker} You know , it 's like it 's {disfmarker} it 's um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: it 's really {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} it makes a big difference from the transcribers ' point of view +Grad H: Yeah , it 's an advantage when you don't breath . +Postdoc G: and also from the research s point of view . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: When we 're doing {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I think that the point of doing the close talking mike is to get a good quality signal . We 're not doing research on close talking mikes . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: So we might as well get it as uniform as we can . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Now , this is locking the barn door after the horse was stolen . We do have thirty hours , of {disfmarker} of speech , which is done this way . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh , yeah , for future ones we can get it a bit more uniform . +PhD A: Great , great . +Grad H: So I think just do a field trip at some point . +Professor B: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , to the store we talked about and that {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: And there was some talk about , uh , maybe the h headphones that are uncomfortable for people , to {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . So , as {disfmarker} as I said , we 'll do a field trip and see if we can get all of the same mike that 's more comfortable than {disfmarker} than these things , which I think are horrible . +Postdoc G: OK . Good . +Grad H: So . +PhD A: Great , thank you very much . +PhD E: Especially for people with big heads . +PhD A: It 's makes our job a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad H: And , you know , we 're researchers , so we all have big heads . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , OK , second item was the , uh , NIST visit , and what 's going on there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . OK , so , um , uh , Jonathan Fiscus is coming on the second of February and I 've spoken with , uh , {pause} u u a lot of people here , not everyone . Um , and , um , he expressed an interest in seeing the room and in , um , seeing a demonstration of the modified multitrans , which I 'll mention in a second , and also , um , he was interested in the pre - segmentation and then he 's also interested in the transcription conventions . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: And , um {disfmarker} So , um , it seems to me in terms of like , um , i i it wou You know , OK . So the room , it 's things like the audio and c and audi audio and acoustic {disfmarker} acoustic properties of the room and how it {disfmarker} how the recordings are done , and that kind of thing . And , um . OK , in terms of the multi - trans , well that {disfmarker} that 's being modified by Dave Gelbart to , uh , handle multi - channel recording . +Grad H: Oh , I should 've {disfmarker} I was just thinking I should have invited him to this meeting . I forgot to do it . +Postdoc G: Yeah , OK . +Grad H: So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Well that 's OK , I mean we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad H: Sorry . +Postdoc G: Yeah , and it 's t and it looks really great . He {disfmarker} he has a prototype . I {disfmarker} I , uh , @ @ {comment} didn't {disfmarker} didn't see it , uh , yesterday but I 'm going to see it today . And , uh , that 's {disfmarker} that will enable us to do {pause} nice um , tight time marking of the beginning and ending of overlapping segments . At present it 's not possible with limitations of {disfmarker} of the , uh , original {pause} design of the software . And um . So , I don't know . In terms of , like , pre - segmentation , that {disfmarker} that continues to be , um , a terrific asset to the {disfmarker} to the transcribers . Do you {disfmarker} I know that you 're al also supplementing it further . Do you want to mention something about that c Thilo , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Um , yeah . What {disfmarker} what I 'm doing right now is I 'm trying to include some information about which channel , uh , there 's some speech in . But that 's not working at the moment . I 'm just trying to do this by comparing energies , uh {disfmarker} normalizing energies and comparing energies of the different channels . +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD C: And so to {disfmarker} to give the transcribers some information in which channel there 's {disfmarker} there 's speech in addition to {disfmarker} to the thing we {disfmarker} we did now which is just , uh , speech - nonspeech detection on the mixed file . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm relying on {disfmarker} on the segmentation of the mixed file +Postdoc G: This is good . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to subdivide the speech portions into different portions if there is some activity in {disfmarker} in different channels . +Postdoc G: Excellent , so this 'd be like w e providing also speaker ID {pause} potentially . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: Wonderful . Wonderful . +Professor B: Um , something I guess I didn't put in the list but , uh , on that , uh , same day later on in {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} No , actually {pause} it 's this week , uh , Dave Gelbart and I will be , uh , visiting with John Canny who i you know , is a CS professor , +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: who 's interested in ar in array microphones . +Grad H: HCC . Oh , he 's doing array mikes . +Professor B: Yeah . And so we wanna see what commonality there is here . You know , maybe they 'd wanna stick an array mike here when we 're doing things +PhD E: That would be cool . +Grad H: Yeah , that would be neat . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a specific array microphone they want +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: That would be really neat . +Professor B: but they might wanna just , {disfmarker} uh , you know , you could imagine them taking the four signals from these {disfmarker} these table mikes and trying to do something with them {disfmarker} Um , I also had a discussion {disfmarker} So , w uh , we 'll be over {disfmarker} over there talking with him , um , after class on Friday . Um , we 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what goes with that . Also had a completely unrelated thing . I had a , uh , discussion today with , uh , Birger Kollmeier who 's a , uh , a German , uh , scientist who 's got a fair sized group {vocalsound} doing a range of things . It 's sort of auditory related , largely for hearing aids and so on . But {disfmarker} but , uh , he does stuff with auditory models and he 's very interested in directionality , and location , and {disfmarker} and , uh , head models and {pause} microphone things . And so , uh , he 's {disfmarker} he and possibly a student , there w there 's , uh , a student of his who gave a talk here last year , uh , may come here , uh , in the fall for , uh , sort of a five month , uh , sabbatical . So he might be around . Get him to give some talks and so on . But anyway , he might be interested in {pause} this stuff . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That {disfmarker} that reminds me , I had a {disfmarker} a thought of an interesting project that somebody could try to do with {pause} the data from here , either using , you know , the {disfmarker} the mikes on the table or using signal energies from the head worn mikes , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and that is to try to construct a map of where people were sitting , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: uh , based on {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well Dan {disfmarker} Dan had worked on that . Dan Ellis , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh , did he ? Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad H: yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's the cross - correlation stuff , was {disfmarker} was doing b beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And so you could plot out who was sitting next to who +Professor B: A little bit , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , he didn't do a very extreme thing but just {disfmarker} it was just sort of +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: No , he did start on it . +Professor B: e e given that , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the block of wood with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two mikes {comment} on either side , +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if I 'm speaking , or if you 're speaking , or someone over there is speaking , it {disfmarker} if you look at cross - correlation functions , you end up with a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if {disfmarker} if someone who was on the axis between the two is talking , then you {disfmarker} you get a big peak there . And if {disfmarker} if someone 's talking on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , uh , one side or the other , it goes the other way . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , uh , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it even looks different if th t if the two {disfmarker} two people on either side are talking than if one in the middle . It {disfmarker} it actually looks somewhat different , so . +PhD E: Hmm . Well I was just thinking , you know , as I was sitting here next to Thilo that um , when he 's talking , my mike probably picks it up better than {pause} your guys 's mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: So if you just looked at {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , that 's another cl cue , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah , {comment} looked at {comment} the energy on my mike and you could get an idea about who 's closest to who . +Grad H: that 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or who talks the loudest . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , well you have to {disfmarker} the appropriate normalizations are tricky , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and are probably the key . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: You just search for Adam 's voice on each individual microphone , you pretty much know where everybody 's sitting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We 've switched positions recently so you can't {disfmarker} Anyway . OK . So those are just a little couple of news items . +Postdoc G: Can I ask one thing ? Uh , so , um , Jonathan Fiscus expressed an interest in , uh , microphone arrays . +Professor B: Yes . +Postdoc G: Um , is there {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} b And I also want to say , his {disfmarker} he can't stay all day . He needs to uh , leave for {disfmarker} uh , from here to make a two forty - five flight +Grad H: Oh , so just morning . +Postdoc G: from {disfmarker} from Oakland . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc G: So it makes the scheduling a little bit tight but do you think that , um {disfmarker} that , uh , i John Canny should be involved in this somehow or not . I have no idea . +Professor B: Probably not but I {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll know better after I see him this Friday what {disfmarker} what kind of level he wants to get involved . +Postdoc G: It 's premature . Fine . Good . +Professor B: Uh , he might be excited to and it might be very appropriate for him to , uh , or he might have no interest whatsoever . I {disfmarker} I just really don't know . +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad H: Is he involved in {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} I 'm blanking on the name of the project . NIST has {disfmarker} has done a big meeting room {disfmarker} instrumented meeting room with video and microphone arrays , and very elaborate software . Is {disfmarker} is he the one working on that ? +Professor B: Well that 's what they 're starting up . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , that 's what all this is about . They {disfmarker} they haven't done it yet . They wanted to do it {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK . I had read some papers that looked like they had already done some work . +Professor B: Uh , well I think they 've instrumented a room but I don't {pause} think they {disfmarker} they haven't started recordings yet . They don't have the t the transcription standards . They don't have the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Are they going to do video as well ? +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I think they are . +Grad H: Oh , cuz what {disfmarker} what I had read was , uh , they had a uh very large amount of software infrastructure for coordinating all this , both in terms of recording and also live room where you 're interacting {disfmarker} the participants are interacting with the computer , and with the video , and lots of other stuff . +Professor B: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: All {disfmarker} all I know is that they 've been talking to me about a project that they 're going to start up recording people meet in meetings . +Grad H: OK . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: And , uh , it is related to ours . They were interested in ours . They wanted to get some uniformity with us , uh , about the transcriptions and so on . +Grad H: Alright . +Professor B: And one {disfmarker} one notable difference {disfmarker} u u actually I can't remember whether they were going to routinely collect video or not , but one {disfmarker} one , uh , difference from the audio side was that they are interested in using array mikes . So , um , I mean , I 'll just tell you the party line on that . The reason I didn't go for that here was because , uh , the focus , uh , both of my interest and of Adam 's interest was uh , in impromptu situations . And we 're not recording a bunch of impromptu situations but that 's because it 's different to get data for research than to actually apply it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , for scientific reasons we thought it was good to instrument this room as we wanted it . But the thing we ultimately wanted to aim at was a situation where you were talking with , uh , one or more other people i uh , in {disfmarker} in an p impromptu way , where you didn't {disfmarker} didn't actually know what the situation was going to be . And therefore it would not {disfmarker} it 'd be highly unlikely that room would be outfitted with {disfmarker} with some very carefully designed array of microphones . Um , so it was only for that reason . It was just , you know , yet another piece of research and it seemed like we had enough troubles just {disfmarker} +PhD E: So there 's no like portable array of mikes ? +Professor B: No . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} uh , there 's a whole range of things {disfmarker} there 's a whole array of things , {vocalsound} that people do on this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the big arrays , uh , places , uh , like uh , Rutgers , and Brown , and other {disfmarker} other places , uh , they have , uh , big arrays with , I don't know , a hundred {disfmarker} hundred mikes or something . +Grad H: Xerox . +Professor B: And so there 's a wall of mikes . And you get really , really good beam - forming {comment} with that sort of thing . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} and , um , in fact at one point we had a {disfmarker} a proposal in with Rutgers where we were gonna do some of the sort of per channel signal - processing and they were gonna do the multi - channel stuff , but {pause} it d it d we ended up not doing it . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've seen demonstrations of the microphone arrays . It 's amazing how {disfmarker} how they can cut out noise . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's r It 's really neat stuff . +Grad H: And then they have little ones too +Professor B: And then they had the little ones , yeah . +Grad H: but I mean {disfmarker} but they don't have our block of wood , right ? +Professor B: Yeah , our block of wood is unique . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But the {vocalsound} But the No , there are these commercial things now you can buy that have four mikes or something +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} So , yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a range of things that people do . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor B: Um , so if we connected up with somebody who was interested in doing that sort of thing that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing to do . I mean , whenever I 've described this to other people who are interested on the {disfmarker} with the acoustic side that 's invariably the question they ask . Just like someone who is interested in the general dialogue thing will always ask {vocalsound} "" um , are you recording video ? "" +PhD A: Right , +Professor B: Um , right ? +PhD A: right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the acoustic people will always say , "" well are you doing , uh , uh , array microphones ? "" So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to do , but it doesn't solve the problem of how do you solve things when there 's one mike or at best two mikes in {disfmarker} in this imagined PDA that we have . So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll do some more of it . +Postdoc G: Well one thing I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . I mean , I know that having an array of {disfmarker} I mean , I would imagine it would be more expensive to have a {disfmarker} an array of microphones . But couldn't you kind of approximate the natural sis situation by just shutting off uh , channels when you 're {disfmarker} later on ? I mean , it seems like if the microphones don't effect each other then couldn't you just , you know , record them with an array and then just not use all the data ? +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just a lot of infrastructure that for our particular purpose we felt we didn't need to set up . +Postdoc G: I see . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Fine . +Professor B: Yeah , if ninety - nine percent of what you 're doing is c is shutting off most of the mikes , then going through the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: But if you get somebody who 's {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who has that as a primary interest then that put {disfmarker} then that drives it in that direction . +Grad H: That 's right , I mean if someone {disfmarker} if someone came in and said we really want to do it , +PhD A: Right . +Grad H: I mean , we don't care . That would be fine , +PhD E: So to save that data you {disfmarker} You have to have one channel recording per mike in the array ? +Grad H: Buy more disk space . +Professor B: Well , uh , at some level {disfmarker} at some level . +PhD E: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad H: I usually do a mix . +Professor B: But then , you know , there 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: What you save , I mean , if you 're going to do research with it . yeah +Professor B: There 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what they 're going to do and I don't know how big their array is . Obviously if you were gonna save all of those channels for later research you 'd use up a lot of space . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , th +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad H: Well their software infrastructure had a very elaborate design for plugging in filters , and mixers , and all sorts of processing . So that they can do stuff in real time and not save out each channel individually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +Grad H: So it was , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I mean , uh , for optimum flexibility later you 'd want to save each channel . But I think in practical situations you would have some engine of some sort doing some processing to reduce this to some {disfmarker} to the equivalent of a single microphone that was very directional . +PhD E: Uh , oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD A: I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Sort of saving the result of the beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: it seems to me that there 's {disfmarker} you know , there are good political reasons for {disfmarker} for doing this , just getting the data , because there 's a number of sites {disfmarker} like right now SRI is probably gonna invest a lot of internal funding into recording meetings also , which is good , um , but they 'll be recording with video and they 'll be {disfmarker} You know , it 'd be nice if we can have at least , uh , make use of the data that we 're recording as we go since it 's sort of {disfmarker} this is the first site that has really collected these really impromptu meetings , um , and just have this other information available . So , if we can get the investment in just for the infra infrastructure and then , I don't know , save it out or have whoever 's interested save that data out , transfer it there , it 'd be g it 'd be good to have {disfmarker} have the recording . I think . +Grad H: You mean to {disfmarker} to actually get a microphone array and do that ? +PhD A: Well , if {disfmarker} Even if we 're not {disfmarker} +Grad H: And video and {disfmarker} +PhD A: I 'm not sure about video . That 's sort of an {disfmarker} video has a little different nature since right n right now we 're all being recorded but we 're not being taped . Um , but it {disfmarker} definitely in the case of microphone arrays , since if there was a community interested in this , then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well , but I think we need a researcher here who 's interested in it . To push it along . +Professor B: See the problem is it {disfmarker} it took , uh , uh , it took at least six months for Dan to get together the hardware and the software , and debug stuff in {disfmarker} in the microphones , and in the boxes . And it was a really big deal . And so I think we could get a microphone array in here pretty easily and , uh , have it mixed to {disfmarker} to one channel of some sort . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , e I think for I mean , how we 're gonna decide {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for maximum flexibility later you really don't want to end up with just one channel that 's pointed in the direction of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the p the person with the maximum energy or something like that . I mean , you {disfmarker} you want actually to {disfmarker} you want actually to have multiple channels being recorded so that you can {disfmarker} And to do that , it {disfmarker} we 're going to end up greatly increasing the disk space that we use up , we also only have boards that will take up to sixteen channels and in {pause} this meeting , we 've got eight people and {disfmarker} and six mikes . And there we 're already using fourteen . +Grad H: And we actually only have fifteen . +Professor B: E +Grad H: One of them 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Details . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: But fifteen , not sixteen . +PhD A: Well if there 's a way to say time {disfmarker} to sort of solve each of these f those {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So suppose you can get an array in because there 's some person at Berkeley who 's interested and has some {pause} equipment , uh , and suppose we can {disfmarker} as we save it we can , you know , transfer it off to some other place that {disfmarker} that holds this {disfmarker} this data , who 's interested , and even if ICSI it itself isn't . Um , and it {disfmarker} it seems like as long as we can time align the beginning , do we need to mix it with the rest ? I don't know . You know ? The +Professor B: Yeah . So I think you 'd need a separate {disfmarker} a separate set up +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: and the assumption that you could time align the two . +PhD A: I mean it 's just {disfmarker} it 's worth considering as sort of +Grad H: And y it 'd certainly gets skew . +PhD A: once you make the up front investment {comment} and can sort of save it out each time , and {disfmarker} and not have to worry about the disk space factor , then it mi it might be worth having the data . +Professor B: I 'm not so much worried about disk space actually . I mentioned that , b as a practical matter , +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the real issue is that , uh , there is no way to do a recording extended to what we have now with low skew . So {pause} you would have a t completely separate set up , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: which would mean that the sampling times and so forth would be all over the place compared to this . So it would depend on the level of pr processing you were doing later , but if you 're d i the kind of person who 's doing array processing you actually care about funny little times . And {disfmarker} and so you actually wou would want to have a completely different set up than we have , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: one that would go up to thirty - two channels or something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So basically {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or a hundred thirty - two . +Professor B: or a hun Yeah . So , I 'm kinda skeptical , but um I think that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , I don't think we can share the resource in that way . But what we could do is if there was someone else who 's interested they could have a separate set up which they wouldn't be trying to synch with ours which might be useful for {disfmarker} for them . +PhD A: Right , I mean at least they 'd have the data and the transcripts , +Professor B: And then we can offer up the room , +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Right . +Professor B: Yeah , we can o offer the meetings , and the physical space , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah , the transcripts , and so on . +PhD A: OK . Right , I mean , just {disfmarker} it 'd be nice if we have more information on the same data . You know , and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} if it 's impossible or if it 's a lot of effort then you have to just balance the two , +Professor B: Well I thi +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: yeah , the thing will be , u u in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} again , in talking to these other people to see what {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what we can do . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh , we 'll see . +PhD E: Is there an interest in getting video recordings for these meetings ? +Professor B: Right , so we have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean +Grad H: Yes , absolutely . But it 's exactly the same problem , that you have an infrastructure problem , you have a problem with people not wanting to be video taped , and you have the problem that no one who 's currently involved in the project is really hot to do it . +PhD E: Hmm . So there 's not enough interest to overcome all of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . Internally , but I know there is interest from other places that are interested in looking at meeting data and having the video . So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah , w although I {disfmarker} m {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I have to u u mention the human subjects problems , {pause} that i increase with video . +PhD A: Right , that 's true . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's , uh , people {disfmarker} people getting shy about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: There 's this human subjects problem . There 's the fact that then um , if {disfmarker} i I I 've heard comments about this before , "" why don't you just put on a video camera ? "" But you know , it 's sort of like saying , "" uh , well we 're primarily interested in {disfmarker} in some dialogue things , uh , but , uh , why don't we just throw a microphone out there . "" I mean , the thing is , once you actually have serious interest in any of these things then you actually have to put a lot of effort in . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you really want to do it right . +Grad H: I know . Yep . +Professor B: So I think NIST or LDC , or somebody like that I think is much better shape to do all that . We {disfmarker} there will be other meeting recordings . We won't be the only place doing meeting recordings . We are doing what we 're doing . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , hopefully it 'll be useful . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it occurred to me , has Don signed a human subject 's form ? +Grad H: Oh ! Probably not . +Postdoc G: A permission form ? +Grad H: Has Don {disfmarker} have you s did you si I thought you did actually . +Grad F: I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I was {disfmarker} I was here {disfmarker} I was here before once . +Grad H: Didn't you read a digit string ? +PhD E: You were here at a meeting before . +Postdoc G: You were here at a meeting before . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad H: Yeah , and you {disfmarker} and you signed a form . +Grad F: Oh , I think so . +Postdoc G: Did you sign a form ? +Grad F: Did I ? I don't know . +Grad H: I 'm pretty sure . Well I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll get another one before the end of the meeting . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Thank you . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: You don't {disfmarker} you don't have to leave for it . +Professor B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: But I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Can I verbally consent ? +Postdoc G: you know . +Grad H: Well I can't , I 'm wired in . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we don't , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . You 're on recor you 're being recorded +Postdoc G: o +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: we don't {disfmarker} we don't perform electro - shock during these meetings , +Grad F: I don't care . You can do whatever you want with it . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Usually . +Grad F: That 's fine . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Uh , transcriptions . +Postdoc G: Transcriptions , OK . Um , I thought about {disfmarker} there are maybe three aspects of this . So first of all , um , I 've got eight transcribers . Uh , seven of them are linguists . One of them is a graduate student in psychology . Um , Each {disfmarker} I gave each of them , uh , their own data set . Two of them have already finished the data sets . And {pause} the meetings run , you know , let 's say an hour . Sometimes as man much as an hour and a half . +PhD E: How big is the data set ? +Postdoc G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} what I mean is one meeting . +PhD E: Ah , OK . +Postdoc G: Each {disfmarker} each person got their own meeting . I didn't want to have any conflicts of , you know , of {disfmarker} of when to stop transcribing this one or {disfmarker} So I wanted to keep it clear whose data were whose , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc G: And , uh , meetings , you know , I think that they 're {disfmarker} they go as long as a {disfmarker} almost two hours in some {disfmarker} in some cases . So , you know , that means {disfmarker} you know , if we 've got two already finished and they 're working on {disfmarker} Uh , right now all eight of them have differe uh , uh , additional data sets . That means potentially as many as ten might be finished by the end of the month . +PhD E: Wow . +Postdoc G: Hope so . But the pre - segmentation really helps a huge amount . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc G: And , uh , also Dan Ellis 's innovation of the , uh {disfmarker} the multi - channel to here really helped a r a lot in terms of clearing {disfmarker} clearing up h hearings that involve overlaps . But , um , just out of curiosity I asked one of them how long {pause} it was taking her , one of these two who has already finished her data set . She said it takes about , uh , sixty minutes transcription for every five minutes of real time . So it 's about twelve to one , which is what we were thinking . +Grad H: or Yep . +Postdoc G: It 's well in the range . +Grad H: It 's pretty good . +Postdoc G: OK . Uh , these still , when they 're finished , um , that means that they 're finished with their pass through . They still need to be edited and all but {disfmarker} But it 's word level , speaker change , the things that were mentioned . OK , now I wanted to mention the , um , teleconference I had with , uh , Jonathan Fiscus . We spoke for an hour and a half and , um , had an awful lot of things in common . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc G: He , um , um , he in indicated to me that they 've {disfmarker} that he 's been , uh , looking , uh , uh , spending a lot of time with {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure the connection , but spending a lot of time with the ATLAS system . And I guess that {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I need to read up on that . And there 's a web site that has lots of papers . But it looks to me like that 's the name that has developed for the system that Bird and Liberman developed {comment} for the annotated {pause} graphs approach . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: So what he wants me to do and what we {disfmarker} what we will do and {disfmarker} uh , is to provide them with the u already transcribed meeting for him to be able to experiment with in this ATLAS System . And they do have some sort of software , at least that 's my impression , related to ATLAS and that he wants to experiment with taking our data and putting them in that format , and see how that works out . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I explained to him in {disfmarker} in detail the , uh , conventions that we 're using here in this {disfmarker} in this word level transcript . And , um , you know , I {disfmarker} I explained , you know , the reasons that {disfmarker} that we were not coding more elaborately and {disfmarker} and the focus on reliability . He expressed a lot of interest in reliability . It 's like he 's {disfmarker} he 's really up on these things . He 's {disfmarker} he 's very {disfmarker} Um , independently he asked , "" well what about reliability ? "" So , {vocalsound} he 's interested in the consistency of the encoding and that sort of thing . OK , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry , can you explain what the ATLAS {disfmarker} I 'm not familiar with this ATLAS system . +Postdoc G: Well , you know , at this point I think {disfmarker} Uh , well Adam 's read more {disfmarker} in more detail than I have on this . I need to acquaint myself more with it . But , um , there {disfmarker} there is a way of viewing {disfmarker} Uh , whenever you have coding categories , um , and you 're dealing with uh , a taxonomy , then you can have branches that {disfmarker} that have alternative , uh , choices that you could use for each {disfmarker} each of them . And it just ends up looking like a graphical representation . +Grad H: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is ATLAS the {disfmarker} his annotated transcription graph stuff ? I don't remember the acronym . The {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what I think you 're referring to , they {disfmarker} they have this concept of an an annotated transcription graph representation . +PhD A: Oh . Oh . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: And that 's basically what I based the format that I did {disfmarker} I based it on their work almost directly , in combination with the TEI stuff . And so it 's very , very similar . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a data representation and a set of tools for manipulating transcription graphs of various types . +PhD E: Is this the project that 's sort of , uh , between , uh , NIST and {disfmarker} and , uh , a couple of other places ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Including LDC . +PhD E: Yeah , +Postdoc G: I think so . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD E: y right , OK . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Then there 's their web site that has lots of papers . And I looked through them and they mainly had to do with this , um , this , uh , tree structure , uh , annotated tree diagram thing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: So , um , um {disfmarker} and , you know , in terms of like the conventions that I 'm a that I 've adopted , it {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's no conflict at all . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc G: And he was , you know , very interested . And , "" oh , and how 'd you handle this ? "" And I said , "" well , you know , this way "" and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and we had a really nice conversation . Um , OK , now I also wanted to say in a different {disfmarker} a different direction is , Brian Kingsbury . So , um , I corresponded briefly with him . I , uh , c I {disfmarker} He still has an account here . I told him he could SSH on and use multi - trans , and have a look at the already done , uh , transcription . And he {disfmarker} and he did . And what he said was that , um , what they 'll be providing is {disfmarker} will not be as fine grained in terms of the time information . And , um , that 's , uh {disfmarker} You know , I need to get back to him and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , explore that a little bit more and see what they 'll be giving us in specific , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: The p the people {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but I just haven't had time yet . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the folks that they 're , uh , subcontracting out the transcription to , are they like court reporters +Postdoc G: Sorry , what ? Yes . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Apparently {disfmarker} Well , I get the sense they 're kind of like that . Like it 's like a pool of {disfmarker} of somewhat uh , secretarial {disfmarker} I don't think that they 're court reporters . I don't think they have the special keyboards and that {disfmarker} and that type of training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I get the sense they 're more secretarial . And that , um , uh , what they 're doing is giving them {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Like medical transcriptionist type people {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nu - it 's mostly {disfmarker} it 's for their speech recognition products , +PhD E: But aren't {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yep . +Grad H: that they 've hired these people to do . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're hiring them , they 're coming . It 's not a service they send the tapes out to . +Grad H: Well they {disfmarker} they do send it out but my understanding is that that 's all this company does is transcriptions for IBM for their speech product . +PhD E: Ah ! Oh . OK . I gotcha . +Grad H: So most of it 's ViaVoice , people reading their training material for that . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Up to now it 's been monologues , uh , as far my understood . +Grad H: Yep , exactly . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , um , Adam sent them a CD and Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} uh , cuz , you know , I mean , we wanted to have it so that they were in familiar f terms with what they wanted to do . He downloaded {pause} from the CD onto audio tapes . And apparently he did it one channel per audio tape . So each of these people is {pause} transcribing from one channel . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc G: And then what he 's going to do is check it , a before they go be beyond the first one . Check it and , you know , adjust it , and all that . +PhD E: So each person gets one of these channels {disfmarker} +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: So if they hear something off in the distance they don't {disfmarker} they just go {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well , but that 's OK , because , you know , you 'll do all them and then combine them . +PhD E: But there could be problems , right ? with that . +Postdoc G: I have t I , you know I {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +Postdoc G: I think it would be difficult to do it that way . I really +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Well if you 're tran if you got that channel right there {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: d uh , in my case {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: No , no . We 're talking about close talking , not the {disfmarker} not the desktop . +PhD D: No , close talk . +Professor B: Are you ? +Postdoc G: Yes . Well I th I think so . +Grad H: I sure hope so . It 'd be really foolish to do otherwise . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would think that it would be kind of hard to come out with {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's sort of hard just playing the {disfmarker} you know , just having played the individual files . And I {disfmarker} I mean , I know you . I know what your voice sounds like . I 'm sort of familiar with {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , it 's pretty hard to follow , especially +Grad H: One side . +PhD A: there are a lot of words that are so reduced phonetically that make sense when you know what the person was saying before . +Postdoc G: I agree . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , it sort of depends where you are in {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And especially since a lot of these {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I mean we had this {disfmarker} we 've had this discussion many times . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we have . +Grad H: And the answer is we don't actually know the answer because we haven't tried both ways . +Postdoc G: Well , except I can say that my transcribers use the mixed signal mostly +Grad H: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc G: unless there 's a huge disparity in terms of the volume on {disfmarker} on the mix . In which case , you know , they {disfmarker} they wouldn't be able to catch anything except the prominent {comment} channel , +Grad H: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: then they 'll switch between . +Grad H: Well I think that {disfmarker} that might change if you wanted really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but really {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: But they 're not giving f really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually , are th so {vocalsound} are they giving any time markings ? +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: In other words , if {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I have to ask him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's my email to him . That needs to be forthcoming . +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but the , uh {disfmarker} I did want to say that it 's hard to follow one channel of a conversation even if you know the people , and if you 're dealing furthermore with highly abstract network concepts you 've never heard of {disfmarker} So , you know , one of these people was {disfmarker} was transcribing the , uh , networks group talk and she said , "" I don't really know what a lot of these abbreviations are , "" "" but I just put them in parentheses cuz that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the convention and I just "" {disfmarker} Cuz you know , if you don't know {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I 'd be curious to {disfmarker} to look at that . +PhD E: Just out of curiosity , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: They also all have h heavy accents . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: The networks group meetings are all {disfmarker} +PhD E: Given all of the effort that is going on here in transcribing why do we have I B M doing it ? Why not just do it all ourselves ? +Professor B: Um , it 's historical . I mean , uh , some point ago we thought that uh , it {disfmarker} "" boy , we 'd really have to ramp up to do that "" , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: No , just {disfmarker} +Professor B: you know , like we just did , and , um , here 's , uh , a {disfmarker} a , uh , collaborating institution that 's volunteered to do it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , that was a contribution they could make . Uh in terms of time , money , you know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it still might be a good thing +PhD E: I 'm just wondering now {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actu yeah , Mar - Mari asked me the same question as sort of {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering now if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well we can talk about more details later . +PhD A: um , you know , yeah , whether to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , so . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We 'll see . I mean , I think , th you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 've proceeded along a bit . Let 's see what comes out of it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , have some more discussions with them . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . It 's very {disfmarker} a real benefit having Brian involved because of his knowledge of what the {disfmarker} how the data need to be used and so what 's useful to have in the format . +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad H: So , um , Liz , with {disfmarker} with the SRI recognizer , {comment} can it make use of some time marks ? +PhD A: OK , so this is a , um , +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I guess I don't know what that means . +PhD A: and actually I should say this is what Don has b uh , he 's already been really helpful in , uh , chopping up these {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so first of all you {disfmarker} um , I mean , for the SRI front - end , we really need to chop things up into pieces that are f not too huge . Um , but second of all , uh {disfmarker} in general because some of these channels , I 'd say , like , I don't know , at least half of them probably {comment} on average are g are ha are {disfmarker} have a lot of cross - ta sorry , some of the segments have a lot of cross - talk . Um , it 's good to get sort of short segments if you 're gonna do recognition , especially forced alignment . So , uh , Don has been taking a first stab actually using Jane 's first {disfmarker} the fir the meeting that Jane transcribed which we did have some problems with , and Thilo , uh , I think told me why this was , but that people were switching microphones around {comment} in the very beginning , so {disfmarker} the SRI re +PhD C: No , th Yeah . No . They {disfmarker} they were not switching them but what they were {disfmarker} they were adjusting them , +PhD A: and they {disfmarker} They were not {disfmarker} +PhD C: so . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: Adjusting . Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And aft after a minute or so it 's {disfmarker} it 's way better . +PhD A: So we have to sort of normalize {comment} the front - end and so forth , and have these small segments . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD A: So we 've taken that and chopped it into pieces based always on your {disfmarker} your , um , cuts that you made on the mixed signal . And so that every {disfmarker} every speaker has the same cuts . And if they have speech in it we run it through . And if they don't have speech in it we don't run it through . And we base that knowledge on the transcription . +Grad H: On {disfmarker} Just on the marks . Right ? +PhD A: Um , the problem is if we have no time marks , then for forced alignment we actually don't know where {disfmarker} you know , in the signal the transcriber heard that word . And so {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I see , +PhD A: I mean , if {disfmarker} if it 's a whole conversation and we get a long , uh , you know , par paragraph of {disfmarker} of talk , +Grad H: it 's for the length . I see . +PhD A: uh , I don't know how they do this . Um , we actually don't know which piece goes where . +Grad H: I understand . +PhD A: And , um , I think with {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well you would need to {disfmarker} like a forced alignment before you did the chopping , right ? +PhD A: No , we used the fact that {disfmarker} So when Jane transcribes them the way she has transcribers doing this , whether it 's with the pre - segmentation or not , +Grad H: It 's already chunked . +PhD A: they have a chunk and then they transcribes {comment} the words in the chunk . And maybe they choose the chunk or now they use a pre - segmentation and then correct it if necessary . But there 's first a chunk and then a transcription . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Then a chunk , then a transcription . That 's great , cuz the recognizer can {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh , it 's all pretty good sized for the recognizer also . +PhD A: Right , and it {disfmarker} it helps that it 's made based on sort of heuristics and human ear I think . +Postdoc G: Good . Oh good . +PhD A: Th - but there 's going to be a real problem , uh , even if we chop up based on speech silence these , uh , the transcripts from I B M , we don't actually know where the words were , which segment they belonged to . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So that 's sort of what I 'm {pause} worried about right now . +PhD E: Why not do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a forced alignment ? +Grad H: That 's what she 's saying , is that you can't . +PhD A: If you do a forced alignment on something really {disfmarker} +Grad H: Got uh six sixty minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD A: well even if you do it on something really long you need to know {disfmarker} you can always chop it up but you need to have a reference of which words went with which , uh , chop . +Postdoc G: Now wasn't {disfmarker} I thought that one of the proposals was that IBM was going to do an initial forced alignment , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: after they {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think that they are , +Grad H: We 'll have to talk to Brian . +Professor B: um , yeah , I 'm sure they will and so we {disfmarker} we have to have a dialogue with them about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it sounds like Liz has some concerns +PhD A: Maybe they have some {disfmarker} you know , maybe actually there is some , even if they 're not fine grained , maybe the transcribers {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh , I don't know , maybe it 's saved out in pieces or {disfmarker} or something . That would help . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: But , uh , it 's just an unknown right now . +Postdoc G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} to write to him . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc G: I just {disfmarker} you know , it 's like I got over - taxed with the timing . +PhD A: Right . But the {disfmarker} it is true that the segments {disfmarker} I haven't tried the segments that Thilo gave you but the segments that in your first meeting are great . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good length . +Postdoc G: A good size . Good . +PhD A: Right , cuz {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I {disfmarker} I was thinking it would be fun to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , uh , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} wouldn't mind , {comment} {vocalsound} to give us a pre - segmentation . +PhD A: y yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Uh , maybe you have one already of that first m of the meeting that uh , the first transcribed meeting , the one that I transcribed . +PhD C: Um , I 'm sure I have some +Postdoc G: Do you have a {disfmarker} could you generate a pre - segmentation ? +Grad H: February sixteenth I think . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but that 's the one where we 're , um , trai training on , so that 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh . +Postdoc G: Oh , I see . +PhD C: It 's a little bit at odd to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh , darn . Of course , of course , of course . Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: And actually as you get transcripts just , um , for new meetings , {comment} um , we can try {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , the {disfmarker} the more data we have to try the {disfmarker} the alignments on , um , the better . So it 'd be good for {disfmarker} just to know as transcriptions are coming through the pipeline from the transcribers , just to sort of {disfmarker} we 're playing around with sort of uh , parameters f on the recognizer , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz that would be helpful . Especially as you get , en more voices . +Postdoc G: Excellent , good . +PhD A: The first meeting had I think just four people , +PhD C: Four speakers , yeah . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah , Liz and I spoke d w at some length on Tuesday and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and I was planning to do just a {disfmarker} a preliminary look over of the two that are finished and then give them to you . +PhD A: Oh , great , great . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: That 's great . I guess the other thing , I {disfmarker} I can't remember if we discussed this in the meeting but , uh , I know you and I talked about this a little bit , there was an issue of , uh , suppose we get in the , uh , I guess it 's enviable position although maybe it 's just saying where the weak link is in the chain , uh , where we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , we have all the data transcribed and we have these transcribers and we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we 're still a bit slow on feeding {disfmarker} at that point we 've caught up and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , the weak link is {disfmarker} is recording meetings . OK , um , two questions come , is you know what {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how do we {disfmarker} uh , it 's not really a problem at the moment cuz we haven't reached that point but how do we step out the recorded meetings ? And the other one is , um , uh , is there some good use that we can make of the transcribers to do other things ? So , um , I {disfmarker} I can't remember how much we talked about this in this meeting but there was {disfmarker} +Grad H: We had spoken with them about it . +Postdoc G: And there is one use that {disfmarker} that also we discussed which was when , uh , Dave finishes the {disfmarker} and maybe it 's already finished {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the modification to multi - trans which will allow fine grained encoding of overlaps . Uh , then it would be very {disfmarker} these people would be very good to shift over to finer grain encoding of overlaps . It 's just a matter of , you know , providing {disfmarker} So if right now you have two overlapping segments in the same time bin , well with {disfmarker} with the improvement in the database {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the , uh , sorry , in the interface , it 'd be possible to , um , you know , just do a click and drag thing , and get the {disfmarker} uh , the specific place of each of those , the time tag associated with the beginning and end of {disfmarker} of each segment . +Professor B: Right , so I think we talking about three level {disfmarker} three things . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: One {disfmarker} one was uh , we had s had some discussion in the past about some very high level labelings , +Postdoc G: Yeah . The types of overlaps {disfmarker} +Professor B: types of overlaps , and so forth that {disfmarker} that someone could do . Second was , uh , somewhat lower level +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just doing these more precise timings . And the third one is {disfmarker} is , uh , just a completely wild hair brained idea that I have which is that , um , if , uh {disfmarker} if we have time and people are able to do it , to take some subset of the data and do some very fine grained analysis of the speech . For instance , uh , marking in some overlapping {disfmarker} potentially overlapping fashion , uh , the value of , uh , ar articulatory features . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , just sort of say , OK , it 's voiced from here to here , there 's {disfmarker} it 's nasal from here to here , and so forth . Um , as opposed to doing phonetic {disfmarker} uh , you know , phonemic and the phonetic analysis , +Grad H: +Professor B: and , uh , assuming , uh , articulatory feature values for those {disfmarker} those things . Um , obviously that 's extremely time - consuming . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: That would be really valuable I think . +Professor B: but , uh , we could do it on some small subset . +Postdoc G: Also if you 're dealing with consonants that would be easier than vowels , wouldn't it ? I mean , I would think that {disfmarker} that , uh , being able to code that there 's a {disfmarker} a fricative extending from here to here would be a lot easier than classifying precisely which vowel that was . +Grad H: Which one . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I think vowels {disfmarker} vowels are I think harder . +Professor B: Well , yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but I think also it 's just the issue that {disfmarker} that when you look at the {disfmarker} u w u u when you look at Switchboard for instance very close up there are places where whether it 's a consonant or a vowel you still have trouble calling it a particular phone +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at that point +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , OK . +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but just saying what the {disfmarker} +Professor B: because it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's this movement from here to here +Postdoc G: Yeah , I 'm sure . Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's {disfmarker} so I +PhD E: You 're saying r sort of remove the high level constraints and go bottom - up . +Professor B: Yeah , describe {disfmarker} describe it . +PhD E: Then just say {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , just features . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Now I 'm suggesting articulatory features . Maybe there 's {disfmarker} there 's even a better way to do it but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but that 's , you know , sort of a traditional way of describing these things , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: um , and {disfmarker} uh , I mean , actually this might be a g neat thing to talk to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: That 's nice . +PhD E: Acoustic features versus psychological categories . +Professor B: Sort of . I mean , it 's still {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: some sort of categories but {disfmarker} but something that allows for overlapping change of these things and then this would give some more ground work for people who were building statistical models that allowed for overlapping changes , different timing changes as opposed to just "" click , you 're now in this state , which corresponds to this speech sound "" and so on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So this is like gestural {disfmarker} uh , these g +Professor B: Yeah , something like that . +PhD A: Right . OK . +Professor B: I mean , actually if we get into that it might be good to , uh , uh , haul John Ohala into this +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and ask his {disfmarker} his views on it I think . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: But is {disfmarker} is the goal there to have this on meeting data , +Postdoc G: Excellent . +PhD A: like so that you can do far field studies {comment} of those gestures or {disfmarker} um , or is it because you think there 's a different kind of actual production in meetings {comment} that people use ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that purpose I 'm just viewing meetings as being a {disfmarker} a neat way to get people talking naturally . And then you have i and then {disfmarker} and then it 's natural in all senses , +PhD E: Just a source of data ? +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: in the sense that you have microphones that are at a distance that you know , one might have , and you have the close mikes , and you have people talking naturally . And the overlap is just indicative of the fact that people are talking naturally , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so I think that given that it 's that kind of corpus , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if it 's gonna be a very useful corpus um , if you say w OK , we 've limited the use by some of our , uh , uh , censored choices , we don't have the video , we don't {disfmarker} and so forth , but there 's a lot of use that we could make of it by expanding the annotation choices . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , most of the things we 've talked about have been fairly high level , and being kind of a bottom - up person I thought maybe we 'd , {vocalsound} do some of the others . +Grad H: Hmm . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , that would be good . +Postdoc G: It 's a nice balance . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: That would be really nice to offer those things with that wide range . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah and hopefully someone would make use of it . +Postdoc G: Really nice . +Professor B: I mean , people didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , I mean , people have made a lot of use of {disfmarker} of TIMIT and , uh w due to its markings , and then {pause} the Switchboard transcription thing , well I think has been very useful for a lot of people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I guess I wanted to , um , sort of make a pitch for trying to collect more meetings . +Postdoc G: Cool . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I actually I talked to Chuck Fillmore and I think they 've what , vehemently said no before but this time he wasn't vehement and he said you know , "" well , Liz , come to the meeting tomorrow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and try to convince people "" . So I 'm gonna {pause} try . Go to their meeting tomorrow and see if we can try , uh , to convince them +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: Cuz they have something like three or four different meetings , +PhD A: because they have {disfmarker} And they have very interesting meetings from the point of view of a very different type of {disfmarker} of talk than we have here +Professor B: right ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: and definitely than the front end meeting , probably . Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: You mean in terms of the topic {disfmarker} topics ? +PhD A: Well , yes and in terms of the {disfmarker} the fact that they 're describing abstract things and , uh , just dialogue - wise , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , so I 'll try . And then the other thing is , I don't know if this is at all useful , but I asked Lila if I can maybe go around and talk to the different departments in this building to see if there 's any groups that , for a free lunch , +Professor B: Yes . +PhD A: if we can still offer that , might be willing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Great . +Grad H: You mean non - ICSI ? +PhD A: non - ICSI , non - academic , +Grad H: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} you can try +PhD A: you know , like government people , +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad H: The problem is so much of their stuff is confidential . +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: It would be very hard for them . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is it in these departments ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Also it does seem like it takes us way out of the demographic . I mean , it seems like we {disfmarker} we had this idea before of having like linguistics students brought down for free lunches +Grad H: Well , tha I think that 's her point . +Postdoc G: and that 's a nice idea . +PhD A: Right , and then we could also {disfmarker} we might try advertising again because I think it 'd be good if {disfmarker} if we can get a few different sort of non - internal types of meetings +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and just also more data . So . +PhD E: Does {disfmarker} does John Ohala have weekly phonetics lab meetings ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And I think , uh , if we could get {disfmarker} +PhD A: So I actually wrote to him and he answered , "" great , that sounds really interesting "" . But I never heard back because we didn't actually advertise openly . We a I mean w I told {disfmarker} I d asked him privately . Um , and it is a little bit of a trek for campus {pause} folks . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yeah . You might give them a free lunch . +PhD A: Um , so it 's still worthwhile . +Grad H: But , um , it would be nice if we got someone other than me who knew how to set it up and could do the recording +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: so u I didn't have to do it each time . +PhD A: Exactly , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD A: and I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor B: He - he 's supposed {disfmarker} he 's supposed to be trained {vocalsound} to do it . +PhD A: Yeah . Plus we could also get you know , a s a student . +Grad H: OK , next week {pause} you 're going to do it all . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And I 'm willing to try to learn . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I would do my best . Um , the other thing is that {disfmarker} there was a number of things at the transcription side that , um , transcribers can do , like dialogue act tagging , +Grad H: It 's not that hard . +PhD A: disfluency tagging , um , things that are in the speech that are actually something we 're y {comment} working on for language modeling . And Mari 's also interested in it , Andreas as well . So if you wanna process a utterance and the first thing they say is , "" well "" , and that "" well "" is coded as some kind of interrupt u tag . Uh , and things like that , um , th +Postdoc G: Of course some of that can be li done lexically . +PhD A: A lot of it can be done {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I also {disfmarker} they are doing disfluency tagging to some degree already . +PhD A: Great . So a {disfmarker} a lot of this kind of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: I think there 's a second pass and I don't really know what would exist in it . But there 's definitely a second pass worth doing to maybe encode some kinds of , you know , is it a question or not , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} um , that maybe these transcribers could do . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc G: They 'd be really good . They 're {disfmarker} they 're very {disfmarker} they 're very consistent . +PhD A: That 'd be great . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: Uh , I wanted to {disfmarker} whi while we 're {disfmarker} Uh , so , to return just briefly to this question of more meeting data , um {disfmarker} I have two questions . One of them is , um , Jerry Feldman 's group , they {disfmarker} they , uh , are they {disfmarker} I know that they recorded one meeting . Are they willing ? +Professor B: I think they 're open to it . I think , you know , all these things are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: I think there 's {disfmarker} we should go beyond , uh , ICSI but , I mean , there 's a lot of stuff happening at ICSI that we 're not getting now that we could . +PhD A: Oh , that we could . +Professor B: So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . I thought that all these people had sort of said "" no "" twice already . +Professor B: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} +PhD A: If that 's not the case then {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no . No . So th there was the thing in Fillmore 's group but even there he hadn't {disfmarker} What he 'd said "" no "" to was for the main meeting . But they have several smaller meetings a week , +Grad H: So . +Professor B: and , uh , the notion was raised before that that could happen . And it just , you know {disfmarker} it just didn't come together +PhD A: Just {disfmarker} OK . +PhD E: Well , and {disfmarker} and the other thing too is when they originally said "" no "" they didn't know about this post - editing capability thing . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD A: Right . That was a big fear . +PhD E: So . +Postdoc G: That 's important . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean there 's possibilities there . I think Jerry 's group , yes . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , the networks group , uh , I don't {disfmarker} Do they still meeting regularly or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Well , I don't know if they meet regularly or not but they are no longer recording . +Professor B: But I mean , ha ha have they said they don't want to anymore or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Um , ugh , what was his name ? +Professor B: Uh , i i +Postdoc G: Joe Sokol ? +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: When {disfmarker} with him gone , it sorta trickled off . +Professor B: OK , so they 're down to three or four people +Grad H: They {disfmarker} and they stopped {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but the thing is three or four people is OK . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: We might be able to get the administration {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well he was sort of my contact , so I just need to find out who 's running it now . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc G: I see that Lila has a luncheon meeting in here periodically . +PhD A: Yeah , I mean , it {disfmarker} One thing that would be nice +Postdoc G: I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: and this {disfmarker} it sounds bizarre but , I 'd really like to look at {disfmarker} to get some meetings where there 's a little bit of heated discussion , like ar arguments and {disfmarker} or emotion , and things like that . And so I was thinking if there 's any like Berkeley political groups or something . I mean , that 'd be perfect . Some group , "" yes , we must {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Who 's willing to get recorded and distributed ? +PhD A: Well , you know , something {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I don't think the more political argumentative ones would be willing to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with potential use from the defense department . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: No , but maybe stu student , uh , groups or , um , film - makers , or som Something a little bit colorful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , th there 's a problem there in terms of , uh , the um commercial value of {disfmarker} of st uh , +Postdoc G: Yeah , of course there is this problem though , that if we give them the chance to excise later we e {vocalsound} might end up with like five minutes out of a f {comment} {pause} of m one hour +PhD D: Film - maker . +Grad H: Of beeps , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: yeah . +PhD A: And I don't mean that they 're angry +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: of {disfmarker} {comment} Yes . Really . +PhD A: but just something with some more variation in prosodic contours and so forth would be neat . So if anyone has ideas , I 'm willing to do the leg work to go try to talk to people but I don't really know which groups are worth pursuing . +Postdoc G: Well there was this K P F A +Grad H: No that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} OK . +Grad H: Legal . +Postdoc G: OK , OK . +Professor B: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it turned out to be a bit of a problem . +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I had one other {disfmarker} one other aspect of this which is , um , uh , uh , Jonathan Fiscus expressed primar uh y a major interest in having meetings which were all English speakers . Now he wasn't trying to shape us in terms of what we gather +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: but that 's what he wanted me to show him . So I 'm giving him our , um {disfmarker} our initial meeting because he asked for all English . And I think we don't have a lot of all English meetings right now . +Professor B: Of all {disfmarker} all nat all native speakers . +PhD E: Did he mean , uh {disfmarker} did he mean and non - British ? +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: The all native . +Postdoc G: That 's what I mean , yeah . +Grad H: Well if he meant and non - British I think we have zero . +Postdoc G: He doesn't care . No . Eh , well , British is OK . +PhD E: He said British was OK ? +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Sure , sure , sure . +Professor B: Why ? +Grad H: British is English ? +PhD C: +Postdoc G: Yeah . Different varieties of English . +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} if he didn't say that {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Native speaking . Native speaking English . +Grad H: I bet he meant native speaking American . +Postdoc G: Yes . +Professor B: I bet he did . +PhD C: American English ? +Postdoc G: Oh , really . +Grad H: So , why would he care ? +PhD E: Knowing the application {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember wh I I remember a study {disfmarker} +PhD A: I was thinking , knowing the , uh , n National Institute of Standards , it is all {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember a study that BBN did where they trained on {disfmarker} this was in Wall Street Journal days or something , they trained on American English and then they tested on , uh , different native speakers from different areas . And , uh , uh , the worst match was people whose native tongue was Mandarin Chinese . The second worst was British English . +Postdoc G: That 's funny . +Professor B: So h it 's , you know , t +Postdoc G: Alright . And so that would make sense . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} German was much better , +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Postdoc G: I didn't have the context of that . +Professor B: it was Swiss w Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} so I think , you know , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's thinking in terms of recognition kind of technology I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think he would probably want , uh {vocalsound} American English , +Postdoc G: All America , OK . +Grad H: I wonder if we have any . +Professor B: yeah . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} yeah , unless we 're gonna train with a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: I think that the {disfmarker} Feldman 's meetings tend to be more that way , aren't they ? I mean , I sort of feel like they have {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think so , +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad H: And maybe there are a few of {disfmarker} with us where it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: you know , Dan wasn't there and before Jose started coming , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's pretty tough , uh , this group . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , what about {disfmarker} what about people who involved in some artistic endeavor ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , film - making or something like that . +PhD A: Exactly , that 's what I was {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd think like they would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: A film - maker . +PhD A: something where there {disfmarker} there is actually discussion where there 's no right or wrong answer but {disfmarker} but it 's a matter of opinion kind of thing . Uh , anyway , if you {disfmarker} if you have ideas {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: It 's be fun . +Grad H: RASTA . PLP . RASTA . PLP . +PhD D: Yes . +Grad F: We can just discu we can just have a political discussion one day . +PhD A: Yeah , we could {disfmarker} +PhD E: A any department that calls itself science +PhD D: Department . +Grad F: Uh , I could make that pretty {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , like computer science . +PhD D: Computer sci +Grad H: That {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: We could get Julia Child . I know . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm actually serious +Grad H: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: because , uh , you know , we have the set up here +Grad H: Got a ticket . +Professor B: Yeah , I know you are . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that has a chance to give us some very interesting fun data . So if anyone has ideas , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: if you know any groups that are m you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I had asked some {disfmarker} some of the students at the business school . +PhD A: student groups c like clubs , things like that . +Grad F: I know {disfmarker} +Grad H: I could {disfmarker} +PhD A: Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Put a little ad up saying , "" come here and argue "" . +PhD A: Yeah . "" If you 're really angry at someone use our conference room . "" +Grad H: The Business school . Uh , the business school might be good . I actually spoke with some students up there +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad H: and they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they expressed willingness back when they thought they would be doing more stuff with speech . +PhD A: Really . +Grad H: But when they lost interest in speech they also {pause} stopped answering my email about other stuff , so . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Or people who are really h +Professor B: They could have a discussion about te +Grad F: I {disfmarker} +Grad H: We should probably bleep that out . +Professor B: about {disfmarker} about tax cuts or something . +Grad F: I heard that at Cal Tech they have a special room {disfmarker} someone said that they had a special room to get all your frustrations out that you can go to and like throw things and break things . +Professor B: Yeah , now that is not actually what we {disfmarker} +Grad F: So we can like post a {disfmarker} +Grad H: Th - that 's not what we want . +Grad F: No , not to that extent +PhD A: Well , far field mikes can pick up where they threw stuff on the wall . +Grad F: but , um . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , but we don't want them to throw the far field mikes is the thing . +PhD A: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah , right . +Grad H: That 's right . +PhD D: The fa +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: +Grad H: "" Please throw everything in that direction . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . +Grad H: Padded cell . +Postdoc G: It 'd be fun to get like a {disfmarker} a p visit from the {disfmarker} +Grad H: There was a dorm room at Tech that , uh , someone had coated the walls and the ceiling , and , uh , the floor with mattresses . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: The entire room . +Professor B: I had as my fourth thing here processing of wave forms . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: What did we mean by that ? Remember @ @ ? +Grad H: Uh , Liz wanted to talk about methods of improving accuracy by doing pre - processing . +Postdoc G: Pre - processing . +PhD A: Well I think that {disfmarker} that was just sort of {disfmarker} I I already asked Thilo +Professor B: Oh , you already did that . +PhD A: but that , um , it would be helpful if I can stay in the loop somehow with , um , people who are doing any kind of post - processing , whether it 's to separate speakers or to improve the signal - to - noise ratio , or both , um , that we can sort of try out as we 're running recognition . Um , so , i is that {disfmarker} Who else is work I guess Dan Ellis and you +PhD C: Dan , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and Dave uh {pause} Gel - Gelbart again , +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: and Dave . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: he 's {disfmarker} he 's interested in {disfmarker} in fact we 're look starting to look at some echo cancellation kind of things . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Which uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: I am not sure how much that 's an issue with the close talking mikes , +Professor B: Hmm ? +Grad H: but who knows ? +Professor B: Well , let 's {disfmarker} w i isn't that what {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . I 'm bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: t No , so {disfmarker} No , i w wha what you {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} when you 're saying improving the wave form you want the close talking microphone to be better . +PhD A: It 's like {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: And the question is to w to what extent is it getting hurt by , uh {disfmarker} by any room acoustics or is it just {disfmarker} uh , given that it 's close it 's not a problem ? +PhD A: It doesn't seem like big room acoustics problems to my ear +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm not an expert . It seems like a problem with cross - talk . +Professor B: OK , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: e I bet with the lapel mike there 's plenty , uh , room acoustic +PhD A: That {disfmarker} that may be true . +Grad H: but I I think the rest is cross - talk . +PhD A: But I don't know how good it can get either by those {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those methods {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} I think it 's just , +PhD A: Oh , I don't know . +Grad H: yeah , what you said , cross - talk . +PhD A: All I meant is just that as sort of {disfmarker} as this pipeline of research is going on we 're also experimenting with different ASR , uh , techniques . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so it 'd be w good to know about it . +PhD E: So the problem is like , uh , on the microphone of somebody who 's not talking they 're picking up signals from other people {comment} and that 's {vocalsound} causing problems ? +PhD A: R right , although if they 're not talking , using the {disfmarker} the inhouse transcriptions , were sort of O K because the t no one transcribed any words there and we throw it out . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But if they 're talking at all and they 're not talking the whole time , so you get some speech and then a "" mm - hmm "" , and some more speech , so that whole thing is one chunk . And the person in the middle who said only a little bit is picking up the speech around it , that 's where it 's a big problem . +Postdoc G: You know , this does like seem like it would relate to some of what Jose 's been working on as well , the encoding of the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and he also , he was {disfmarker} +PhD A: The energy , +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD A: right . Exactly . +PhD D: energy . +Postdoc G: I was t I was trying to remember , you have this interface where you {disfmarker} i you ha you showed us one time on your laptop that you {disfmarker} you had different visual displays as speech and nonspeech events . +PhD D: Yeah , c Yeah . May {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I only display the different colors for the different situation . But , eh , for me and for my problems , is uh {disfmarker} is enough . Because , eh , it 's possible , eh , eh , in a simp sample view , uh , to , nnn , to compare with c with the segment , the {disfmarker} the kind of assessment what happened with the {disfmarker} the different parameters . And only with a different bands of color for the , uh , few situation , eh , I consider for acoustic event is enough to @ @ . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I see that , eh , you are considering now , eh , a very sophisticated , eh , ehm , eh , @ @ {comment} set of , eh , graphic s eh , eh , ehm , si symbols to {disfmarker} to transcribe . No ? Because , uh , before , you {disfmarker} you are talking about the {disfmarker} the possibility to include in the Transcriber program eh , um , a set of symbols , of graphic symbol to {disfmarker} t to mark the different situations during the transcription +Postdoc G: Oh , I w Uh - huh . +PhD D: during the transcription . No ? +Postdoc G: Well , you 're saying {disfmarker} So , uh , symbols for differences between laugh , and sigh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and slam the door and stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . The s the symbols , you {disfmarker} you talk of before . +Postdoc G: Or some other kind of thing ? +PhD D: No ? To {disfmarker} to mark {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I wouldn't say {vocalsound} symbols so much . The {disfmarker} the main change that I {disfmarker} that I see in the interface is {disfmarker} is just that we 'll be able to more finely c uh , time things . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: But I {disfmarker} I also st there was another aspect of your work that I was thinking about when I was talking to you +PhD A: Hmm . +Postdoc G: which is that it sounded to me , Liz , as though you {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe I didn't q understand this , but it sounded to me as though part of the analysis that you 're doing involves taking segments which are of a particular type and putting them together . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And th so if you have like a p a s you know , speech from one speaker , {pause} then you cut out the part that 's not that speaker , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: and you combine segments from {pause} that same speaker to {disfmarker} {comment} and run them through the recognizer . Is that {pause} right ? +PhD A: Well we try to find as close of start and end time of {disfmarker} as we can to the speech from an individual speaker , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because then we {disfmarker} we 're more guaranteed that the recognizer will {disfmarker} for the forced alignment which is just to give us the time boundaries , because from those time boundaries then the plan is to compute prosodic features . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And the sort of more space you have that isn't the thing you 're trying to align the more errors we have . Um , so , you know , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} it would help to have either pre - processing of a signal that creates very good signal - to - noise ratio , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Cuz i OK . +PhD A: which I don't know how possible this is for the lapel , um , or to have very {disfmarker} to have closer , {vocalsound} um , time {disfmarker} you know , synch times , basically , around the speech that gets transcribed in it , or both . And it 's just sort of a open world right now of exploring that . So I just wanted to {pause} see , you know , on the transcribing end from here things look good . Uh , the IBM one is more {disfmarker} it 's an open question right now . And then the issue of like global processing of some signal and then , you know , before we chop it up is {disfmarker} is yet another way we can improve things in that . +PhD E: What about increasing the flexibility of the alignment ? +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD E: Do you remember that thing that Michael Finka did ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: that experiment he did a while back ? +PhD A: Right . You can , um {disfmarker} The problem is just that the acoustic {disfmarker} when the signal - to - noise ratio is too low , um , you {disfmarker} you 'll get , a uh {disfmarker} an alignment with the wrong duration pattern or it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , so that 's the problem , is the {disfmarker} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's not the fact that you have like {disfmarker} I mean , what he did is allow you to have , uh , words that were in another segment move over to the {disfmarker} at the edges of {disfmarker} of segmentations . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Or even words inserted that weren't {disfmarker} weren't there . +PhD A: Right , things {disfmarker} things near the boundaries where if you got your alignment wrong {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz what they had done there is align and then chop . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , and this problem is a little bit j more global . It 's that there are problems even in inside the alignments , uh , because of the fact that there 's enough acoustic signal there t for the recognizer to {disfmarker} to eat , {vocalsound} as part of a word . And it tends to do that . S So , uh , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: but we probably will have to do something like that in addition . Anyway . So , yeah , bottom {disfmarker} bottom line is just I wanted to make sure I can be aware of whoever 's working on these signal - processing techniques for , uh , detecting energies , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: because that {disfmarker} that 'll really help us . +Professor B: O K , uh tea has started out there I suggest we c run through our digits and , +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , So , OK , we 're done . +","The meeting transcription provides a detailed account of discussions and interactions among various academics working within a collaborative research setting. The participants include Professor B, multiple PhD candidates (PhD A, PhD E, PhD D, PhD C), a postdoctoral researcher (Postdoc G), and graduate students (Grad H, Grad F). The conversation revolves around setting the agenda, introducing new members, addressing equipment management, sharing research progress, and planning for upcoming events. + +A notable issue addressed during the meeting is the quality and management of microphones, particularly the desire to acquire good quality close-talking microphones for better audio capture. PhD A, who has missed previous discussions, is especially interested in this matter. This topic reflects broader concerns about sound quality for transcription and recognition purposes. There's discussion of past decisions around microphone types and the possible need to standardize equipment for uniformity. + +The group also discusses an upcoming meeting with individuals from NIST, including Jonathan Fiscus and George Doddington, and what should be presented and discussed in terms of transcription work and multichannel recording adaptations (mentioned by Postdoc G). There is a particular focus on the transcription process and transcription conventions, the use of pre-segmentation for aiding transcribers, and the development of software tools such as multitrans. Furthermore, the desire to obtain transcriptions of good quality from IBM is expressed, emphasizing the need for detailed time markings for subsequent speech recognition processing. + +The participants talk about ongoing research, including running recognition on conversations and the challenges with signal processing and waveform post-processing for improved recognition capabilities. The team contemplates potential research topics, such as speech versus non-speech analysis. + +Professor B and the group deliberate on future steps if transcripts become abundant and suggest deeper levels of analysis on speech, such as marking articulatory features or conducting fine-grained analyses of speech sounds. PhD A champions efforts to collect more diverse and naturalistic meeting recordings, including those outside of ICSI. + +PhD A also raises concerns about having sufficient and properly segmented speech data to support accurate speech recognition tasks. They express a keen interest in staying informed about signal processing techniques others in the group may be working on, particularly methods for separating speakers and improving signal-to-noise ratios. + +Throughout the transcript, there is a palpable sense of collaborative research dynamics, with cross-discussion, slight interruptions, and overlapping speech. These real-time interactions showcase the complexity and iterative nature of ongoing research, technical requirements, equipment issues, and future aspirations to enrich the corpus of transcribed meetings for varied linguistic and computational research endeavors." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Is everyone ready to start ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Great . Well , welcome to the third meeting of conceptual design . I'll just get the PowerPoint presentation up and running . Okay . Um , on the agenda for this , um , for this particular meeting , we'll have your three presentations on what you've done since our last meeting , after we came up with um some general ideas of our design . And , um , then we have to make some key decisions on , on our remote control concept , and how we're gonna make it , what uh materials we're gonna use , and that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The meeting will be forty minutes long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um we will once again have Poppy as our first presenter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and I will switch up PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Should be just loading . {vocalsound} Okay . Oh , although I can't see it on my screen . That says go here . Okay . I've been doing some research into the different components that we could use , um what's available to us f to actually make the remote control . Um , first of all we have to look at how the remote control is actually made , and what is it happens inside the casing , which is more your field . Um , thes main internal feature is a circuit board , which contains all the elec electronics and also the contacts with the power source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is not necessarily a battery , as we're about to see . Um , there are several components of , um , the circuit board that we need to consider , where we'll be getting them from , what they'll be made of . Um , including the integrated circuit , which is also known as the chip . Which is where all the main information is uh contained . Um , diodes , transistors , resonators , resistors , and capacit capacitors all need to be considered as well . Um , and all their positioning in the circuit . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Are they all included , like mandatorily , or r are these different options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , these , they're all different options , they're all separate , apart from the chip , which we will probable decide whether we buy a simple , a regular , advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can go into that later . Um , all the other things are individual components that we'd have to get in separately , and work out the most , like , effective um circuit , including all the wires and everything like that . And the L_E_D_ of course , that's a light emitting diode . So , we could , so we've got flex flexibility with colours and things , with that as well . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , there are lots of different possibilities for the energy source . We could use a basic battery , but that brings with it , like they need to be recharged and the bulk , the size of it as well . And they're not so great to dispose of , environmentally . {vocalsound} There's a hand-powered dynamo which is a sort of thing that was used for torches fifty years ago . A bit out of date . Kinetic energy is something that's been recently developed . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} What is a hand-powered dynamo ? +Industrial Designer: Um , where you manually charge up the power . +Project Manager: Just every , every once in a while ? +Industrial Designer: Like you wind up something . +Project Manager: Just every once in a while or constantly ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? Yeah . Every once in a while I think +Project Manager: Alright . It'd be kind of strange to always be cranking it I think . +Industrial Designer: . But it's {disfmarker} Yeah . It would be like going a step back in time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it would really be with kind of cutting edge technology . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Whereas kinetic energy is a new idea that's being used by some watches and other devices , where you just shake the device and it gives it power . I mean , the kinetic energy is transformed into power to make the circuit work . Um , or there's solar power , which we've been considering inside a building , which is where it's gonna be used , might not be quite so useful . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: But , good to look into , renewable energy , always the way . Um , lots of considerations for the case , like what sort of shape it would be , curved or flat . That's got a lot to do with the ergonomics . Like how it's comfortable and s sits in the hand . We don't want something that's huge and you can't pick up . Or too small . Or too slidy . I know I've had a remote control before which you couldn't tell which was the front and the back , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it had so many buttons on , and the shape was so symmetrical that I'd be pressing like a volume button instead of the on button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Because you can't really see which way round it is . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um , we also can choose what materials {disfmarker} um , the {disfmarker} we could use metal , we could use rubber which might be more um ideal for the anti-R_S_I_ . It's like the same sort of rubber that's used in stress balls and things like that , so it's very like soft , not so stressful on your hands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , again , stepping back in time again there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think that's quite up to date with what we're looking for here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , titanium is not gonna be possible , even though it just it beyond our budget really . But , would've been maybe for future projects . Um right our choice for buttons as well . We've developed some {disfmarker} we've got some good advances in technology , with our research team have found some uh new multiple um option scroll buttons . I think that was brought up for , um , {disfmarker} they're basically quite a flexible design , modern , you don't have to use individual buttons . You can just slide up and down . I'm sure we're all quite familiar with those on mobiles or computer laptop pads . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um one thing with the scroll buttons though . It , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we would have to have an L_C_D_ um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . +Project Manager: display , and the glow in the dark thing might be difficult . +Industrial Designer: And that would lead to an advanced {disfmarker} yeah . If we have {disfmarker} yeah . We're going on to that later with the advanc with the L_C_D_ that means we'd need a really advanced chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's unlikely that that's gonna be in our budget . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um , also we've got the integrated pushbutton , which is what we're most familiar with . It's the most straightforward . But you can in like incorporate that with a scroll button as well . {gap} . Got decisions to make there . And this is what I was just saying before . Linked in the different {disfmarker} depends on what type of buttons we have and the inputs . Um simple would go with the pushbutton . Um , regular you could link with the scroll button . And the advanced we'd have to go with a L_C_D_ s display . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My personal preferences ? I think we could go for the kinetic energy source . I don't , I think that's quite um an advanced kind of technology . It's not been seen before , so it could be quite a , a novelty factor , attractive as well . And also energy saving 'cause you're producing the energy , you don't need an external sort of battery supply or solar panels . You just give it a shake . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds brilliant to me . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Rubber casing I thing would probably the best , if we're going for the anti-R_S_I_ and like more choice with um aesthetics . Like it could be pretty much any colour we want . Um , and gives you , yeah , more flexibility there . And probably the regular chip as opposed to the simple , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then we could possibly have the scroll and the push , but no L_C_D_ , 'cause we probably can't afford that one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um , one concern with the rubber casing is that it would be rubber encapsulating all of these {vocalsound} chips and diodes and delicate technology as +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like as the exterior . This is the one thing that's protecting its innards . +Industrial Designer: I think that would , uh there would be an in sort of more internal casing . And the rubber would just be the , what's in contact with the human . +Project Manager: Yeah . Another thing is it might be more difficult {disfmarker} if it's a rubber exterior {gap} talking about putting on interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I don't see how a like a rubber plate going on top it would stay there . Like if it was sort of like a clip-on plastic plate . It would work that way . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if the , um , if it was just kind of a , more of a rubber coating which was on to a case . +User Interface: W +Industrial Designer: So , it was kind of , the whole thing would be removable . +User Interface: Like plastic with rubber , kind of on top +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} I can't think of what . +User Interface: Well , there's , there is a certain phone that has like a rubber casing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or like an {disfmarker} +User Interface: b like a Nokia it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you can get sort of outer casing for iPods and something , that's just {disfmarker} it's protective as well . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like the skin ? +Industrial Designer: It , it stops it , I mean , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it would reduce the impact if it was dropped or something , as well , 'cause it wouldn't damage itself so easily . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . So maybe the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think i maybe a mixture of both there , maybe . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So the actual remote would be hard plastic and the casings rubber . +Industrial Designer: And then {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And the buttons obviously are rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That sounds good . I , um , is it possible to put designs onto this type of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: As far as I know . It should be . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we'll just say yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , just why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . I like the kinetic energy source idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know when people will , um , be moving a remote around a lot . +Industrial Designer: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I think that it's worth it , kinetety , kinetic um +User Interface: Yeah , tha +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: energy source . It could make an we could have any kind of style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It wouldn't be as heavy or bulky , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Just for environmental reasons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess it's a bit scary 'cause it hasn't been done before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it seems {disfmarker} we'd have to do more research on it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or I dunno if you could have a battery pack . +Industrial Designer: Like as a backup for something . +User Interface: Backup . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah so there's there is a one battery , because most remotes use two batteries I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , if it was running off of one battery as a {disfmarker} +User Interface: That would be good yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Some alternative just in case something went wrong . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Maybe we could {disfmarker} you were saying about um solar power ma maybe not working indoors , but a lot of calculators , yeah , have solar power . +Industrial Designer: That's true . I just thought of that {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So maybe that could be incorporated as {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May maybe that could be the backup . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Instead of a battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like solar backup . +Marketing: Although it needs some light , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose +Project Manager: Yeah , you can watch a T_V_ in the dark then . +User Interface: Do , do those calculators {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: s but some {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , if we're doing {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: yeah . If we're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But thing is , it's not {disfmarker} you don't need the solar all the time . +User Interface: I don't know how it works . +Industrial Designer: It can be stored . It can be like {disfmarker} you can have the solar energy and then it can store that energy and use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just needs to be in light for a certain amount of time per day . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like a few hours a day . {gap} . +Project Manager: I think that might be a little impractical though . +Marketing: Yeah . I think sometimes it's just shoved under , under a cushion , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . It could easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like people don't wanna have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I suppose it would be really annoying if you get to think , oh no , I forgot to charge my remote today . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like if the kinetic thing , I think what's best about that is that it's instant energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to , you know , you can shake it a few times , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it works . +Project Manager: Or just like pick it up when you're gonna use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Instead of you don't have to like make sure it's in the right place to charge and {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Cool . +Industrial Designer: K okay . +Project Manager: 'S that the end of your presentation . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: There we go . +User Interface: Thanks . Oh . {vocalsound} It's not on my screen . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it wasn't on mine either . +User Interface: Why ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know why . I think , I just , I just used the mouse on there . +User Interface: You don't know why ? Oh okay . Is it that one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I'm just gonna go through the interface concept with yous now . Uh , first of all I'll explain what a user interface is . It's the aspects of a computer system which can be seen or otherwise perceived , for example , heard or felt maybe , or {vocalsound} by the human user . And it's also the commands that the user uses to control its operation and to input data . Um , there are two types of user interfaces . There's the graphical user interface , which emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device , for example a mouse for input control . So that's sort of like the scroll thing we were talking about . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I'm not really sure about the pictures that {disfmarker} maybe that's on an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Or maybe it's the the buttons or pictures or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Do you think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So I suppose sometime {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm sorry ? +Industrial Designer: after you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , because command interface requires you to type textual commands and input at a keyboard , so the numbers are sort of like a keyboard . You're pressing the numbers for , um , for what you want . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So you must , for the graphical user you must need some kind of presentation for the graphics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I s I suppose where um mm on some buttons you would have {disfmarker} like the power would be s some kind of symbol . +User Interface: Like an L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And if you wanted to go onto teletext or , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not having that , but I mean a similar thing , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you , they have {disfmarker} there's a like little picture with a screen with lines across it , which {disfmarker} I suppose it's that sort of thing like the , the symbol on the button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if we're having a simplified display anyway , w that , we probably won't have to focus so much on that . +Project Manager: Yeah , we'll be doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'll be more the on the numbers and the volume . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It'd be more a command interface , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we need to think of symbols for like the volume , display , and stuff like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's just draf graphical for the pointing aspect ? +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: The infrared is like , that's considered a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm ? +User Interface: No I think it's to do with the actual symbols that are on the , that's on the buttons of the remote control , and per +Marketing: Okay . So when it says pointing device that doesn't include {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For inp +User Interface: Well it could be a wee scroller thing , and something could come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think they're talking about L_C_D_ type things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But um I think we're gonna go with the command interface anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: to make it more simplistic . But the , we could incorporate some of the graphical user um points , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: as in {disfmarker} just to make it m um nicer to look at maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you mean ? +User Interface: Like {vocalsound} I can't think of an example , but {disfmarker} Sort of like little pictures rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , like how the buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like a little sound . Instead of saying volume , like a little speaker or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , as a button though . +User Interface: Yeah , something y +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So , it's a keyboard in the shape of it , right ? +User Interface: Yeah m perha yeah . Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . I like that idea . +User Interface: Um , the co uh {disfmarker} we've decided that the command interface would be the most useful for a remote control . As it would be less complicated , and the controls would be more user-friendly . Um , the remote control would be cheaper to design , so that we'd have more money in the budget to , um , target the design area of the interface . You know , make it more trendy and original . We'll have more money if we keep it simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm sure i like kinetic energy would probably dip into the budget . A bit more too , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Seeing as it's quite a new technology . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We , we also have to keep in mind when we're designing our , um , more user-friendly remote control , that a lot of interfaces consist of a clutter of buttons , that , um , that their functions , colours and forms aren't always helpful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's true . That's in like the buttons with all the different like colours for different choices and things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It can be a bit , yeah , overwhelming . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . And that all interfaces are different . So , um , that doesn't improve the use of the produ product , so we need to come up with something that's easy to understand . And maybe learn from the mistakes of other interfaces that can be too complicated for people to use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Does anyone have any questions ? +Project Manager: Do you think that we should keep all the buttons to one same colour , just to keep it , give it a simplistic look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I think if we go with the um design plate thing , we'll have to . Just because of colour clashing , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if we wanted to , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so and , and we might , I mean , depending on what comes out of the design , we might have to stick to just black buttons . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But what about the lighting up effect ? +Marketing: You mean different colours for the lighting or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um , well , um , I thought we had um decided that we would {disfmarker} if you touched one of the buttons they'd all light up . And so if they were black , it wouldn't be possible for them to light up . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Oh I see what you're saying . +Project Manager: If they were white they would glow , probably . +Marketing: Well y +Project Manager: If they were made out of rubber . +Marketing: Oh so you're picturing the light is coming from the back . I kinda pictured it as kind of coming from the sides and lighting it up frontwards . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: But , but I guess , you mean from the back . +Project Manager: Where would the light come from ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'd assume , like , an internal light , that comes through . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there would have to , have to be some parts maybe transparent around the buttons , or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and well rubber is a more translucent product too , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: so we have that taken care of . +Industrial Designer: It should be able to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm . +User Interface: In the phone that I was thinking of as well , when you change the um covers of it , the , the little buttons that actually , you know , that contro control stuff , are behind the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Li yeah . +User Interface: So you can change the buttons when you're changing the faces . Do you know what I mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: 'Cause it's just the wee control , +Marketing: Yeah . They , they insert over . +User Interface: yeah , thing that's behind it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , we don't have to decide on one colour . Each face could have its own colour of buttons maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , if they're raised up buttons . So that you can feel them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We were talking about it being more um , a lot more tangible . +Marketing: T +Project Manager: Um , it might be more difficult to do . If they're , if they're sticking up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's flat then , like o like on a cellphone or a mobile phone , it's like all very flat , and you just have to sort of press down on these tiny little buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it would be possible . I don't think it would make that much difference . I mean , the uh the dimensions of it . 'Cause if it's just like constructed in the same way as like the front cover of a mobile phone . You can like take off the hard cover and then there's the like say the buttons . And then you get to the circuit . I don't think it would matter that the buttons were bigger through the , the top casing . I'm sure you could f work it out to fit in the casing , without causing too much difficulty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure that'd be fine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . If it's do-able we can do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , sounds good to me . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's everything , then ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you . +Marketing: Okay is that my turn then ? +Project Manager: That means you're up . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} I have a shorter report for you today . Um , it took a while to get this , uh {disfmarker} Uh . +Industrial Designer: You're not plugged in yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a very good point . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , so um , this report is about uh trend-watching . Um , basically so we can live up to our , our uh purpose of having a very fashionable remote control . Sorry . There we go . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , just so you know , my method was mainly web web-based research this time around . I also spoke with fashion experts in Milan , New York and Paris . And I looked at the design reports from previous years , here at Real Remote . Um , just so c we can work off of them , see how fashions have changed . Um , {vocalsound} so I'll list the three most important aspects that I've come across . Um , and they , they're each more important than the one that comes after it . Uh , the first one is that there should be a fancy look-and-feel , instead of the current functional look-and-feel . Um , this should be our priority , as we've been saying . The second most important aspect is that a remote sh that the remote control should be technologically innovative . So , I think we've done a lot of talking about that , just with lighting and the buttons and the {disfmarker} face-plates . Um , so it looks like we'll be able to keep on track with that . And the third most important aspect is that the remote control should be easy to use . {vocalsound} So , pretty basic there . And the recent fashion update , uh , according to fashion-watchers in Paris and Milan , is that fruit and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} Um , also , in contra uh in contrast to last year , the feel of the material is expected to be spongy . Again , we've already discussed that with rubber versus hard plastic buttons . Um {disfmarker} So , my personal preferences here , um of course , as {disfmarker} we , we've already talked about the personal face-plates in this meeting , and I'd like to stick to that . The fruits and vegetable themes , I don't know if that's going to work for us . It sounds something that you'd use on kitchenware . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I don't know if we wanna do it on remotes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It could be one of the options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Maybe for the television that people have in their kitchen . Um , the temporary light-up idea , sounds like we're gonna stick to that . And then , uh , tying in a trendy look with user-friendliness . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's the fruits and vegetables is the only area that I find rather jarring . Everything else we can really , we can really +Industrial Designer: It is strange . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um , do , according to our plans already , given the market . But fruits and vegetables seems a very strange idea for a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's , it's a little {gap} but it , it's everywhere . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So maybe we {disfmarker} I've seen a lot of purses with olives on them , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I I think , I think if we stick to T_V_ based , you know , maybe T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they still need to um fit into people's decor though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or colour schemes . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} I think we possibly could take a more abstract design . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Like look at the basic shapes of different fruits and vegetables . And then just really like strip it down to like really basic shapes . I mean we don't have to make something in the shape of a strawberry , but it could have the curves of a strawberry , or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or a strawberry seed or a leaf . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} The essence of strawberry . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or just like you know really make it a quite abstract , if that's fits in more with what we're doing . Instead of fruits and vegetables , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just {disfmarker} if you look at it straightforward , it's a bit {disfmarker} yeah . It doesn't s quite fit in with the trendy {disfmarker} well , obviously it does , if that's the current theme . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} may maybe we could go more directly , I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But initially , I dunno . I think if we just sort of tone it down a bit . +Project Manager: Tone it down . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and like not , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: like more like photos of fruit , on , on our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Or banana-shaped . {vocalsound} +Marketing: One thing I was thinking though is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno if you all remember from our kickoff meeting , we talked about our favourite animals . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe there could be animal-based , you know . Because a lot of people have a house cat . Or , or a dog . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , that might be getting , you know , too specific , and we should see what the success of the first face-plates are . But it's something to keep in mind . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , did you have any questions ? Pretty straightforward ? +Project Manager: Yeah um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , given that information , we need to start making some more specific decisions . So I'll need to um hook up the PowerPoint again . +Marketing: There you go . {vocalsound} Have you guys been saving your PowerPoint presentations to the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't for the first one . But I have now . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: But it's still around right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , hopefully +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Where do you have to save it to ? +Industrial Designer: . Project documents I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . I'm just trying to make this pop up now . Alright . Here we go . Okay so we have to uh decide now exactly what we are going to do . So energy , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: oh . Oh no I can't write it in when it's in this setting . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Does anyone know how to take it out of {disfmarker} Um , +User Interface: Just escape I think . +Marketing: The PowerPoint ? +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah . Okay . Um , so back to decisions . Energy , we've decided on kinetic , right ? +Industrial Designer: Kinetic yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so that's good . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to have a backup ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or do we just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But would a backup really be necessary ? I mean will people just use the battery if there's no , if there's , +Industrial Designer: I think maybe we could just go for the kinetic energy , +Project Manager: if there is backup . +Industrial Designer: and be bold and innovative , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and hope this works , and well hope that it works . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's like no reason why it wouldn't work , right ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . I think {disfmarker} no . I , I think we should just like take uh advantage of like using this to its full potential . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It could even be one of our selling points . +Industrial Designer: Go for it . It could be {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fully kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Environmentally conscious or something . +Industrial Designer: Is everyone happy with that ? +Marketing: So if it's not working they just have to shake it a bit and that revitalises it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Hope so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , the next um decision is chip on print . I don't exactly know what that means . +Industrial Designer: Um , it was whether we went for the simple , the regular , or the advanced chip . And that linked in with what buttons we would gonna have , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , and we were going for more simplistic style , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that was without the L_C_D_ . So that means we're not doing the advanced . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it depends on whether we wanted the scroll buttons or just the push buttons . +Project Manager: I think we decided on the pushbuttons , right ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , so that's the simple . +User Interface: Yeah . I don +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Would we need a more advanced one for uh the lighting , the interior lighting system ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah possibly . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So , it's probably gonna be the regular chip that we're going to need . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's a medium . +Project Manager: That's called medium , or regular ? +Industrial Designer: So regular chip . Regular sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Marketing: Oh , is regular not simple ? +Industrial Designer: Lighting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's for the lighting , yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the lighting that we've decided to put in as well . +Marketing: Right right right . +Project Manager: Okay , and cases . Um , does this , is this dependent on shape , or what it's made of , or what ? +Industrial Designer: So th I think this is just like gonna be the {disfmarker} a very outer case , which we will decide on rubber . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I guess plastic and coated in rubber . +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic with rubber +Industrial Designer: Plastic rubber coat . +User Interface: plastic coat . +Project Manager: coating and interchangeable um +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable , yeah . Still going for that . +Project Manager: yeah , interchangeable plates . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . User interface concept . This is your time to shine . +User Interface: We decided on the component . I , I I'm sorry , I've lost my um {vocalsound} PowerPoint thing , so I can't remember what it's ca it's the component {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your screen ? +Marketing: Think it was called command interface . +Industrial Designer: Was it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Command interface , {gap} . +User Interface: The command inter +Project Manager: Command interface . +Industrial Designer: Ouch . +User Interface: The command line interface yeah . +Project Manager: Did you say command line ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Line interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , and supplements . What's that all about ? +User Interface: Um , I think that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well we haven't really made any decisions about what we're gonna do about the cluster of button functions , colours and forms , in the {disfmarker} in consistent use . Like what what are ideas to combat these problems ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know how um different interfaces are very different , and can be confusing because because of their difference , and because of the different clusters of buttons that they have . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We haven't really decided what to do about that . +Project Manager: Um , what are our choices here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it's just um w where where shall we locate the buttons . What kind of functions wi shall we have ? +Project Manager: You mean like we'll have the numbers of the channels , and we'll have the channel-changer , and volume , and power ? +Industrial Designer: The power . Volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So pretty {disfmarker} just just the basic button functions . +Project Manager: Yeah . Like I don't know if we should go into like adjusting light levels , things like that , because different televisions will have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: May yeah . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tone , contrast , and things . That's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That was on , um one of my presentations . About how often it was used . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was minima +Marketing: Do you remember that ? +Industrial Designer: well , it wasn't the l +Project Manager: Yeah , it was hardly ever used really . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I w {vocalsound} Should I bring it up ? +Project Manager: Yeah . And most televisions will come with a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That would be good . Yeah , and surely that would be like quite specific to the individual television , +User Interface: Yeah , each television . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay , well we know we want numbers . +Marketing: The ch t Screen settings was used um zero point five times an hour . So tw twice every {disfmarker} once every two hours . Um , and it was considered a one point five relevance , on a scale of ten . That's brightness , colour , tone , all that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . I think most of that comes like on the i individual television set itself , +User Interface: You don't change that often , yeah . +Industrial Designer: doesn't it ? I'm sure it has its own buttons , so you don't necessarily need to have it on remote . +Project Manager: Yeah , it does . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , and different televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Like we , I don't know if we can make a remote that would be universal to all the different kinds of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: changes like that . +Industrial Designer: So we're just going for power , channels , volume , +Project Manager: Volume . +Marketing: The other one was audio settings . Mono , stereo , pitch . I mean I sometimes use that . Some T_V_s will have the option of like living room style , movie style , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and that , they say that's used zero point eight times an hour , which is actually somewhat high . Like almost once an hour . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , relevance of two . +Project Manager: Oh . We have five minutes to finish our meeting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Crap . Okay , um , let's do this fast . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well that didn't some up on mine . +Project Manager: Should we have audio ? It only comes up on mine usually . +User Interface: It w {vocalsound} it would seem silly if we'd {gap} having anything else , just have an audio button though . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Do you know ? +Project Manager: I don't , I {disfmarker} it's , it's a problem with the international uh appeal , I think . Um , if we have audio because we don't know how other televisions work . But we know that everyone has this and it's the same . +User Interface: But we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess that it affects the marketing , 'cause it , {vocalsound} mm it is a good sales ploy to say , aren't you annoyed with remote controls that have all these buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: This one has channel , volume and your channe and your power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . We can just go for , make it a selling point that it is just the basic . +User Interface: That could be a sales pitch . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Simple and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: brilliant . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . And , okay , in closing , 'cause we only have five minutes . We'll be meeting again in thirty minutes . Um , you'll be working , Poppy will be working on the look-and-feel design . Wait a minute . Is that right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep , and um the user interface design , so this is where the trendy stuff comes in . And you'll be evaluating the product . Um , Poppy and Tara will have to work together , using modelling clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , um , your personal coach will give you the rest of the information of what needs to happen . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . So , anyone else have something to say ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just have one question about the whole fruit and vegetable aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Are we {disfmarker} seeing as that was the most popular thing that came up out of your market research , I thi I think we should keep to that rather than moving to animals or something , because even if that may not seem obvious to us , if that's what the surveys brought out , I think that we should probably go along with that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I suppose that'll come out in our dev design development . But you're happy to go ahead with the fruit and veg ? +Marketing: Now do you guys need {disfmarker} want an idea of how many uh {disfmarker} are you gonna come up with casing ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah . +Marketing: Like f five different {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} five . {gap} . +User Interface: What I {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} what do yous think of this ? Um , having the numbers kind of like , not a bunch of grapes , but you know like purple and kind of in a triangle . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like grapes . Like that's kind of fruity or something . +Marketing: Yeah you can have some fun with the buttons , it's true . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We can have a look at those ideas , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess what you i ideally you'd kind of think of age markets as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it's a something that will , you know , appeal to the fifteen to twenty five year olds . Something that your granny would want on her remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , and international tastes as well , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Tricky . {vocalsound} A lot of things to consider . Hm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not easy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Lots of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay we'll stick to the fruit and veggie theme then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And , um , we'll reconvene in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Bye . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll see you later . {vocalsound} Oh , what did I just do . Okay . +","Summary: +The team had their third meeting for conceptual design, during which they discussed progress and made key decisions about their remote control concept. They agreed to use kinetic energy as a power source to add a novelty factor and energy-saving benefit, with no backup source deemed necessary. The industrial designer proposed a regular chip that would be suitable for the buttons and lighting system they agreed upon and suggested a rubber casing for ergonomic and aesthetic reasons. The user interface designer opted for a command line interface, emphasizing simplicity in design for the user experience. Marketing shared insights from trend-watching reports, including a surprising trend involving fruits and vegetables as design influences, though they recognized that translating this to a remote control might be challenging. The team decided to take an abstract approach to the fruit and vegetable theme, rather than literal representations, to maintain a fashionable yet functional design for their remote. They also decided to keep the remote control simple with basic functionality such as power, channel controls, and volume, opting out of more complex features. The project manager summarized the decisions, specified tasks for team members to work on in their areas, and scheduled the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Eh , we should be going . +Professor B: So ne next week we 'll have , uh , both Birger {pause} and , uh , Mike {disfmarker} Michael {disfmarker} Michael Kleinschmidt and Birger Kollmeier will join us . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , and you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you 're probably gonna go up in a couple {disfmarker} three weeks or so ? When d when are you thinking of going up to , uh , OGI ? +PhD D: Yeah , like , uh , not next week but maybe the week after . +Professor B: OK . Good . So at least we 'll have one meeting with {vocalsound} yo with you still around , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That 's good . +PhD D: Um , Yeah . Well , {vocalsound} maybe we can start with this . Mmm . +Professor B: All today , huh ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . So there was this conference call this morning , um , and the only topic on the agenda was just to discuss a and to come at {disfmarker} uh , to get a decision about this latency problem . +Professor B: No , this {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , this is a conference call between different Aurora people or just {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . It 's the conference call between the Aurora , {vocalsound} uh , group . +Professor B: It 's the main conference call . OK . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . There were like two hours of {pause} discussions , and then suddenly , {vocalsound} uh , people were tired , I guess , and they decided on {nonvocalsound} a number , two hundred and twenty , um , included e including everything . Uh , it means that it 's like eighty milliseconds {pause} less than before . +Professor B: And what are we sitting at currently ? +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So , currently d uh , we have system that has two hundred and thirty . So , that 's fine . +Professor B: Two thirty . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's the system that 's described on the second point of {pause} this {vocalsound} document . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} we have to reduce it by ten milliseconds somehow . +PhD D: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's not a problem , I {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor B: OK . W It 's {disfmarker} it 's p d primary {disfmarker} primarily determined by the VAD at this point , +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: S so we can make the VAD a little shorter . +PhD D: Yeah . At this point , yeah . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . We probably should do that pretty soon so that we don't get used to it being a certain way . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Was Hari on the {disfmarker} on the phone ? +PhD D: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Well , it was mainly a discussion {vocalsound} between Hari and {vocalsound} David , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: who was like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . So , the second thing is the system that we have currently . Oh , yes . We have , like , a system that gives sixty - two percent improvement , but {vocalsound} if you want to stick to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this latency {disfmarker} Well , it has a latency of two thirty , but {vocalsound} if you want also to stick to the number {vocalsound} of features that {disfmarker} limit it to sixty , {vocalsound} then we go a little bit down but it 's still sixty - one percent . Uh , and if we drop the tandem network , then we have fifty - seven percent . +Professor B: Uh , but th the two th two thirty includes the tandem network ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . And i is the tandem network , uh , small enough that it will fit on the terminal size in terms of {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , no , I don't think so . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's still {disfmarker} in terms of computation , if we use , like , their way of computing the {disfmarker} the maps {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the MIPs , {vocalsound} I think it fits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but it 's , uh , m mainly a problem of memory . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Um , and I don't know how much {pause} this can be discussed or not , because it 's {disfmarker} it could be in ROM , so it 's maybe not that expensive . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ho - how much memory d ? H how many {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I d uh , I {disfmarker} I don't kn remember exactly , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah , I c I {disfmarker} I have to check that . +Professor B: Yeah . I 'd like to {pause} see that , cuz maybe I could think a little bit about it , cuz we {vocalsound} maybe we could make it a little smaller or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be neat if we could fit it all . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh , I 'd like to see how far off we are . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I guess it 's still within their rules to have {disfmarker} have it on the , uh , t uh , server side . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: And this is still {disfmarker} ? Uh , well , y you 're saying here . I c I should just let you go on . +PhD D: Yeah , there were small tricks to make this tandem network work . Uh , {vocalsound} mmm , and one of the trick was to , {vocalsound} um , use {vocalsound} some kind of hierarchical structure where {pause} the silence probability is not computed by {pause} the final tandem network but by the VAD network . Um , so apparently it looks better when , {vocalsound} uh , we use the silence probability from the VAD network +Professor B: Huh . +PhD D: and we re - scale the other probabilities by one minus the silence probability . Um . So it 's some kind of hierarchical thing , {vocalsound} uh , that Sunil also tried , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} on SPINE and apparently it helps a little bit also . Mmm . And . Yeah , the reason w why {disfmarker} why we did that with the silence probability was that , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could {disfmarker} ? Uh , uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really sorry . Can you repeat what you were saying about the silence probability ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I only {disfmarker} My mind was some {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So there is the tandem network that e e e estimates the phone probabilities +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and the silence probabilities also . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {vocalsound} things get better when , instead of using the silence probability computed by the tandem network , we use the silence probability , uh , given by the VAD network , +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: um , +Professor B: The VAD network is {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Which is smaller , but maybe , um {disfmarker} So we have a network for the VAD which has one hundred hidden units , and the tandem network has five hundred . Um . So it 's smaller but th the silence probability {pause} from this network seems , uh , better . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , it looks strange , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: but it +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Maybe it 's {disfmarker} has something to do to {vocalsound} the fact that {vocalsound} we don't have infinite training data and {disfmarker} +Professor B: We don't ? +PhD D: Well ! And so {disfmarker} Well , things are not optimal +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are you {disfmarker} you were going to say why {disfmarker} what made you {disfmarker} wh what led you to do that . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , there was a p {comment} problem that we observed , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that there was {disfmarker} there were , like , many insertions in the {disfmarker} in the system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: Actually plugging in the tandem network was increasing , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , the number of insertions . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So it looked strange and then just using the {disfmarker} the other silence probability helps . Mmm . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . The next thing we will do is train this tandem on more data . +Professor B: So , you know , in a way what it might {disfmarker} i it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit like {vocalsound} combining knowledge sources . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? Because {vocalsound} the fact that you have these two nets that are different sizes {pause} means they behave a little differently , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: they find different {pause} things . And , um , if you have , um {disfmarker} f the distribution that you have from , uh , f speech sounds is w {comment} sort of one source of knowledge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this is {disfmarker} and rather than just taking one minus that to get the other , which is essentially what 's happening , you have this other source of knowledge that you 're putting in there . So you make use of both of them {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in {pause} what you 're ending up with . Maybe it 's better . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , you can probably justify anything if what 's use +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and the features are different also . I mean , the VAD doesn't use the same features there are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: That might be the key , actually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz you were really thinking about speech versus nonspeech for that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's a good point . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , there are other things that {vocalsound} we should do but , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} it requires time and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have ideas , like {disfmarker} so , these things are like hav having a better VAD . Uh , we have some ideas about that . It would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} probably implies working a little bit on features that are more {vocalsound} suited to a voice activity detection . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Working on the second stream . Of course we have ideas on this also , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w we need to try different things and {disfmarker} Uh , but their noise estimation , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , back on the second stream , I mean , that 's something we 've talked about for a while . I mean , I think {nonvocalsound} that 's certainly a high hope . +PhD D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Professor B: Um , so we have this {disfmarker} this default idea about just using some sort of purely spectral thing ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: for a second stream ? +PhD D: But , um , we {disfmarker} we did a first try with this , and it {disfmarker} it {vocalsound} clearly hurts . +Professor B: But , uh , how was the stream combined ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} It was c it was just combined , um , by the acoustic model . So there was , no neural network for the moment . +Professor B: Right . So , I mean , if you just had a second stream that was just spectral and had another neural net and combined there , that {disfmarker} that , uh , {vocalsound} might be good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the other thing , that noise estimation and th um , maybe try to train {disfmarker} uh , the training data for the t tandem network , right now , is like {disfmarker} i is using the noises from the Aurora task and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that people might , {vocalsound} um , try to argue about that because {vocalsound} then in some cases we have the same noises in {disfmarker} for training the network {pause} than the noises that are used for testing , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So we have t n uh , to try to get rid of these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this problem . +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe you just put in some other noise , something that 's different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's probably helpful to have {disfmarker} have a little noise there . But it may be something else +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: th at least you could say it was . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} if it doesn't hurt too much , though . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's a good idea . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . The last thing is that I think we are getting close to human performance . Well , that 's something I would like to investigate further , but , um , I did , like , um {disfmarker} I did , uh , listen to the m most noisy utterances of the SpeechDat - Car Italian and tried to transcribe them . And , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So this is a particular human . This is {disfmarker} this i this is Stephane . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: St - Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: that 's the {disfmarker} the flaw of the experiment . This is just {disfmarker} i j {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's just one subject , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Getting close . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but still , uh , {vocalsound} what happens is {disfmarker} is that , {vocalsound} uh , the digit error rate on this is around one percent , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: while our system is currently at seven percent . Um , but what happens also is that if I listen to the , um {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} a re - synthesized version of the speech and {pause} I re - synthesized this using a white noise that 's filtered by a LPC , uh , filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , well , you can argue , that , uh {disfmarker} that this is not speech , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: so the ear is not trained to recognize this . But s actually it sound like {pause} whispering , so we are {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's two problems there . I mean {disfmarker} I mean , so {disfmarker} so the first is {vocalsound} that by doing LPC - twelve with synthesized speech w like you 're saying , uh , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i you 're {disfmarker} you 're adding other degradation . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's not just the noise but you 're adding in fact some degradation because it 's only an approximation . Um , and the second thing is {disfmarker} which is m maybe more interesting {disfmarker} is that , um , {comment} {vocalsound} if you do it with whispered speech , you get this number . What if you had {pause} done analysis {comment} re - synthesis and taken the pitch as well ? Alright ? So now you put the pitch in . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: What would the percentage be then ? +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: See , that 's the question . So , you see , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} Let 's say it 's {pause} back down to one percent again . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That would say at least for people , having the pitch is really , really important , which would be interesting in itself . Um , +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: if i on the other hand , if it stayed up {pause} near five percent , {vocalsound} then I 'd say "" boy , LPC n twelve is pretty crummy "" . You know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So I I I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how we can conclude from this anything about {disfmarker} that our system is close to {vocalsound} the human performance . +PhD D: Ye Yeah . Well , the point is that eh l ey {disfmarker} the point is that , um , {vocalsound} what I {disfmarker} what I listened to when I re - synthesized the LP - the LPC - twelve {pause} spectrum {vocalsound} is in a way what the system , uh , is hearing , cuz @ @ {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the , um , excitation {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} well , the excitation is {disfmarker} is not taken into account . That 's what we do with our system . And +Professor B: Well , you 're not doing the LPC {disfmarker} +PhD D: in this case {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , so {disfmarker} so what if you did a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it 's not LPC , sure , +Professor B: What if you did LPC - twenty ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} LPC {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Twenty . Right ? I mean , th the thing is LPC is not a {disfmarker} a really great representation of speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , all I 'm saying is that you have in addition to the w the , uh , removal of pitch , {vocalsound} you also are doing , uh , a particular parameterization , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which , um , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so , let 's see , how would you do {disfmarker} ? So , fo +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we do with our systems . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . Actually , we d we {disfmarker} we don't , because we do {disfmarker} we do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , mel filter bank , for instance . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but is it that {disfmarker} is it that different , I mean ? +Professor B: Um , {vocalsound} I don't know what mel , {pause} uh , based synthesis would sound like , +PhD D: I +Professor B: but certainly the spectra are quite different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Couldn't you t couldn't you , um , test the human performance on just the original {pause} audio ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . This is the one percent number . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's one percent . He 's trying to remove the pitch information +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: and make it closer to what {disfmarker} to what we 're seeing as the feature vectors . +PhD A: OK . So , y uh , your performance was one percent , and then when you re - synthesize with LPC - twelve it went to five . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} We were {disfmarker} we were j It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit still apples and oranges because we are choosing these features in order to be the best for recognition . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , um , i if you listen to them they still might not be very {disfmarker} Even if you made something closer to what we 're gonna {disfmarker} i it might not sound very good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , and i the degradation from that might {disfmarker} might actually make it even harder , {vocalsound} uh , to understand than the LPC - twelve . So all I 'm saying is that the LPC - twelve {vocalsound} puts in {disfmarker} synthesis puts in some degradation that 's not what we 're used to hearing , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and is , um {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} it 's not just a question of how much information is there , as if you will always take maximum {vocalsound} advantage of any information that 's presented to you . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In fact , you {vocalsound} hear some things better than others . And so it {disfmarker} it isn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} I agree that it says that , uh , the kind of information that we 're feeding it is probably , {vocalsound} um , um , a little bit , um , minimal . There 's definitely some things that we 've thrown away . And that 's why I was saying it might be interesting if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an interesting test of this would be if you {disfmarker} if you actually put the pitch back in . So , you just extract it from the actual speech and put it back in , and see does that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make the difference ? If that {disfmarker} if that takes it down to one percent again , {vocalsound} then you 'd say "" OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's in fact having , um , {vocalsound} not just the spectral envelope but also the {disfmarker} also the {disfmarker} the pitch {vocalsound} that , uh , {comment} @ @ {comment} has the information that people can use , anyway . "" +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mmm . +PhD A: But from this it 's pretty safe to say that the system is with either {vocalsound} two to seven percent away from {pause} the performance of a human . Right ? So it 's somewhere in that range . +Professor B: Well , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Two {disfmarker} two to six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's one point four times , uh , to , uh , seven times the error , +PhD D: To f seven times , yeah . +Professor B: for Stephane . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} uh , but i I don't know . I do don't wanna take you away from other things . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} +Professor B: But that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's the first thing that I would be curious about , is , you know , i i {vocalsound} when you we +PhD D: But the signal itself is like a mix of {disfmarker} um , of a {disfmarker} a periodic sound and , {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , unvoiced sound , and the noise +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is mostly , {vocalsound} uh , noise . I mean not {pause} periodic . So , {pause} what {disfmarker} what do you mean exactly by putting back the pitch in ? Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the LPC synthesis ? I think {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . You did LPC re - synthesis {disfmarker} +PhD D: I +Professor B: L PC re - synthesis . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} and you did it with a noise source , rather than with {disfmarker} with a s periodic source . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So if you actually did real re - synthesis like you do in an LPC synthesizer , where it 's unvoiced you use noise , where it 's voiced you use , {vocalsound} uh , periodic pulses . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but it 's neither {pause} purely voiced or purely unvoiced . Esp - especially because there is noise . +Professor B: Well , it might be hard to do it +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it but {disfmarker} but the thing is that if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , if you detect that there 's periodic {disfmarker} s strong periodic components , then you can use a voiced {disfmarker} voice thing . +PhD D: Oh . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it 's probably not worth your time . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a side thing and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a lot to do . +PhD D: Uh - huh , yeah . +Professor B: But I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , at least as a thought experiment , {vocalsound} that 's what I would wanna test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , I wan would wanna drive it with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a two - source system rather than a {disfmarker} than a one - source system . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then that would tell you whether in fact it 's {disfmarker} Cuz we 've talked about , like , this harmonic tunneling or {vocalsound} other things that people have done based on pitch , maybe that 's really a key element . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe , uh , {vocalsound} uh , without that , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible to do a whole lot better than we 're doing . That {disfmarker} that could be . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's what I was thinking by doing this es experiment , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} Mmm . {vocalsound} Evi +Professor B: But , I mean , other than that , I don't think it 's {disfmarker} I mean , other than the pitch de information , {vocalsound} it 's hard to imagine that there 's a whole lot more {vocalsound} in the signal that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} that we 're throwing away that 's important . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . Yeah , right . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , we 're using {vocalsound} a fair number of filters in the filter bank and {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . That look +PhD D: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one {disfmarker} one percent is sort of what I would {disfmarker} I would figure . If somebody was paying really close attention , you might get {disfmarker} I would actually think that if , {vocalsound} you looked at people on various times of the day and different amounts of attention , you might actually get up to three or four percent error on digits . Uh , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not incredibly far off . On the other hand , with any of these numbers except maybe the one percent , it 's st it 's not actually usable in a commercial system with a full telephone number or something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . At these noise levels . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Well , yeah . These numbers , I mean . Mmm . +Professor B: Good . Um , while we 're still on Aurora stuff {pause} maybe you can talk a little about the status with the , uh , {vocalsound} Wall Street Journal {vocalsound} things for it . +PhD A: So I 've , um , downloaded , uh , a couple of things from Mississippi State . Um , one is their {vocalsound} software {disfmarker} their , uh , LVCSR system . Downloaded the latest version of that . Got it compiled and everything . Um , downloaded the scripts . They wrote some scripts that sort of make it easy to run {vocalsound} the system on the Wall Street Journal , uh , data . Um , so I haven't run the scripts yet . Uh , I 'm waiting {disfmarker} there was one problem with part of it and I wrote a note to Joe asking him about it . So I 'm waiting to hear from him . But , um , I did print something out just to give you an idea about where the system is . Uh , {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} on their web site they , uh , did this little table of where their system performs relative to other systems that have done this {disfmarker} this task . And , um , the Mississippi State system {vocalsound} using a bigram grammar , uh , is at about eight point two percent . Other comparable systems from , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} were getting from , uh , like six point nine , six point eight percent . So they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is on clean test set ? +PhD A: This is on clean {disfmarker} on clean stuff . Yeah . They {disfmarker} they 've started a table {vocalsound} where they 're showing their results on various different noise conditions but they {disfmarker} they don't have a whole lot of it filled in and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I didn't notice until after I 'd printed it out that , um , {vocalsound} they don't say here {pause} what these different testing conditions are . +Professor B: +PhD A: You actually have to click on it on the web site to see them . So I {disfmarker} I don't know what those {pause} numbers really mean . +Professor B: What kind of numbers are they getting on these {disfmarker} on the test conditions ? +PhD A: Well , see , I was a little confused because on this table , I 'm {disfmarker} the they 're showing word error rate . But on this one , I {disfmarker} I don't know if these are word error rates because they 're really big . So , {vocalsound} under condition one here it 's ten percent . Then under three it goes to sixty - four point six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's probably Aurora . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: So m I guess maybe they 're error rates but they 're , uh {disfmarker} they 're really high . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't find that surpri +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , we {disfmarker} W what 's {disfmarker} what 's some of the lower error rates on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} uh , some of the higher error rates on , uh , {vocalsound} some of these w uh , uh , highly mismatched difficult conditions ? What 's a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh . Yeah , it 's around fifteen to twenty percent . +PhD A: Correct ? +PhD D: And the baseline , eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Accuracy ? +PhD D: Uh , error rate . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Twenty percent error rate , +Professor B: Yeah . So twenty percent error rate on digits . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , oh , on digits . +Professor B: So if you 're doing {disfmarker} so if you 're doing , +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: On digits . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: you know , +PhD D: And this is so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} still the baseline . +Professor B: sixty - thousand {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and if you 're saying sixty - thousand word recognition , getting sixty percent error on some of these noise condition not at all surprising . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is sixty percent also on digits , +PhD A: Oh , is it ? +PhD D: on the m more {pause} mismatched conditions . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So , yeah , that 's probably what it is then . Yeah . So they have a lot of different conditions that they 're gonna be filling out . +Professor B: It 's a bad sign when you {disfmarker} looking at the numbers , you can't tell whether it 's accuracy or error rate . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be hard . Um , they 're {disfmarker} I I 'm still waiting for them to {pause} release the , um , {vocalsound} multi - CPU version of their scripts , cuz right now their script only handles processing on a single CPU , which will take a really long time to run . So . But their s +Professor B: This is for the training ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} I beli Yes , for the training {pause} also . And , um , they 're supposed to be coming out with it any time , +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: the multi - CPU one . So , as soon as they get that , then I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll grab those too +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and so w +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz we have to get started , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz it 's {disfmarker} cuz , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'll go ahead and try to run it though with just the single CPU one , +Professor B: if the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they , {vocalsound} um , released like a smaller data set that you can use that only takes like sixteen hours to train and stuff . So I can {disfmarker} I can run it on that just to make sure that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing works and everything . +Professor B: Oh ! Good . Yeah . Cuz we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the actual evaluation will be in six weeks or something . So . Is that about right {pause} you think ? +PhD D: Uh , we don't know yet , I {disfmarker} I think . +Professor B: Really , we don't know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . Um . +PhD A: It wasn't on the conference call this morning ? +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Hmm . Did they say anything on the conference call {pause} about , um , how the {pause} Wall Street Journal part of the test was going to be {pause} run ? Because I {disfmarker} I thought I remembered hearing that some sites {vocalsound} were saying that they didn't have the compute to be able to run the Wall Street Journal stuff at their place , +PhD D: No . Mmm . +PhD A: so there was some talk about having Mississippi State run {pause} the systems for them . And I {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did that come up at all ? +PhD D: Uh , no . Well , this {disfmarker} first , this was not the point at all of this {disfmarker} the meeting today +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: and , +Professor B: Some +PhD D: uh , frankly , I don't know because I d {comment} didn't read also the {pause} most recent mails about {vocalsound} the large - vocabulary task . But , {vocalsound} uh , did you {disfmarker} do you still , uh , get the mails ? You 're not on the mailing list or what ? +PhD A: Hmm - mm . The only , um , mail I get is from Mississippi State {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we should have a look at this . +PhD A: about their system . I {disfmarker} I don't get any {pause} mail about {disfmarker} +Professor B: I have to say , there 's uh something funny - sounding about saying that one of these big companies doesn't have enough cup compute power do that , so they 're having to have it done by Mississippi State . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just sounds funny . +PhD A: Yeah . It does . +Professor B: But , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering about that +Professor B: anyway . +PhD A: because there 's this whole issue about , you know , simple tuning parameters , like word insertion penalties . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {pause} whether or not those are going to be tuned or not , and {disfmarker} {comment} So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , it makes a big difference . If you change your front - end , you know , the scale is completely {disfmarker} can be completely different , so . It seems reasonable that that at least should be tweaked to match the front - end . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: You didn't get any answer from {pause} Joe ? +PhD A: I did , but Joe {pause} said , you know , "" what you 're saying makes sense +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and {pause} I don't know "" . So he doesn't know what the answer is . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , that 's th We had this back and forth a little bit about , {vocalsound} you know , are sites gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna run this data for different sites ? And , well , if {disfmarker} if Mississippi State runs it , then maybe they 'll do a little optimization on that {pause} parameter , and , uh {disfmarker} But then he wasn't asked to run it for anybody . So i it 's {disfmarker} it 's just not clear yet what 's gonna happen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , he 's been putting this stuff out on their web site and {disfmarker} for people to grab but I haven't heard too much about what 's happening . +Professor B: So it could be {disfmarker} I mean , Chuck and I had actually talked about this a couple times , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} over some lunches , I think , {vocalsound} that , um , {vocalsound} one thing that we might wanna do {disfmarker} The - there 's this question about , you know , what do you wanna scale ? Suppose y you can't adjust {vocalsound} these word insertion penalties and so forth , so you have to do everything at the level of the features . What could you do ? And , uh , one thing I had suggested at an earlier time was maybe some sort of scaling , some sort of root or {disfmarker} or something of the , um , {vocalsound} uh , features . But the problem with that is that isn't quite the same , it occurred to me later , because what you really want to do is scale the , uh , @ @ {comment} the range of the likelihoods rather than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Nnn , the dist Yeah . +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} what might get at something similar , it just occurred to me , is kind of an intermediate thing {disfmarker} is because we do this strange thing that we do with the tandem system , at least in that system what you could do {vocalsound} is take the , um , {vocalsound} uh , values that come out of the net , which are something like log probabilities , and scale those . And then , uh , um {disfmarker} {pause} then at least those things would have the right values or the right {disfmarker} the right range . And then that goes into the rest of it and then that 's used as observations . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , {vocalsound} um , another way to do it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But , these values are not directly used as probabilities anyway . +Professor B: I know they 're not . +PhD D: So there are {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know they 're not . But {disfmarker} but , you know {disfmarker} So because what we 're doing is pretty strange and complicated , we don't really know what the effect is {pause} at the other end . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} my thought was maybe {disfmarker} I mean , they 're not used as probabilities , but the log probabilities {disfmarker} we 're taking advantage of the fact that something like log probabilities has more of a Gaussian shape than Gaus - than {vocalsound} probabilities , and so we can model them better . So , {pause} in a way we 're taking advantage of the fact that they 're probabilities , because they 're this quantity that looks kind of Gaussian when you take it 's log . So , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it would have a {disfmarker} a reasonable effect to do that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I d I don't know . But , {pause} I mean , I guess we still haven't had a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a ruling back on this . And we may end up being in a situation where we just you know really can't change the {vocalsound} word insertion penalty . But the other thing we could do {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} also we could {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this may not help us , {vocalsound} uh , in the evaluation but it might help us in our understanding at least . We might , {vocalsound} just run it with different insper insertion penalties , and show that , uh , "" well , OK , not changing it , {vocalsound} playing the rules the way you wanted , we did this . But in fact if we did that , it made a {disfmarker} {pause} a big difference . "" +PhD A: I wonder if it {disfmarker} it might be possible to , uh , simulate the back - end with some other system . So we {disfmarker} we get our f front - end features , and then , uh , as part of the process of figuring out the scaling of these features , {comment} you know , if we 're gonna take it to a root or to a power or something , {comment} {vocalsound} we have some back - end that we attach onto our features that sort of simulates what would be happening . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: And just adjust it until it 's the best number ? +PhD A: and just adjust it until that {disfmarker} our l version of the back - end , uh , decides that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we can probably use the real thing , can't we ? And then jus just , uh , {vocalsound} use it on a reduced test set or something . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then we just use that to determine some scaling factor that we use . +Professor B: Yeah . So I mean , I I think that that 's a reasonable thing to do and the only question is what 's the actual knob that we use ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the knob that we use should {disfmarker} uh , uh , unfortunately , like I say , I don't know the analytic solution to this cuz what we really want to do is change the scale of the likelihoods , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: not the cha not the scale of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {pause} observations . But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Out of curiosity , what {disfmarker} what kind of recognizer {pause} is the one from Mississippi State ? +PhD A: Uh , w what do you mean when you say "" what kind "" ? +Grad E: Is it {disfmarker} ? Um , is it like a {pause} Gaussian mixture model ? +PhD A: Yeah . Gaussian mixture model . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It 's the same system that they use {pause} when they participate in the Hub - five evals . It 's a , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} sort of {pause} came out of , uh {disfmarker} uh , looking a lot like HTK . I mean , they started off with {disfmarker} um , when they were building their system they were always comparing to HTK to make sure they were getting similar results . And so , {vocalsound} it 's a Gaussian mixture system , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Do they have the same sort of mix - down sort of procedure , where they {vocalsound} start off with a small number of some things +PhD A: I don't know . Yeah . And then {pause} divide the mixtures in half . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD A: I don't know if they do that . I 'm not really sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: D Do you know what kind of tying they use ? Are they {disfmarker} they sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} a bunch of Gaussians that they share across everything ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or if it 's {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah , th I have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have it up here but I have a {disfmarker} {pause} the whole system description , that describes exactly what their {pause} system is +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . But , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: It 's some kind of a mixture of Gaussians and , {vocalsound} uh , clustering and , uh {disfmarker} They 're {disfmarker} they 're trying to put in sort of all of the standard features that people use nowadays . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So the other , uh , Aurora thing maybe is {disfmarker} I I dunno if any of this is gonna {vocalsound} {pause} come in in time to be relevant , but , uh , we had talked about , uh , {comment} Guenter {vocalsound} playing around , uh , uh , over in Germany +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , @ @ {comment} uh , {pause} possibly coming up with something {vocalsound} that would , uh , {pause} uh , fit in later . Uh , I saw that other mail where he said that he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it wasn't going to work for him to do CVS . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So now he has a version of the software . +Professor B: So he just has it all sitting there . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if he 'll {disfmarker} he might work on improving the noise estimate or on {vocalsound} some histogram things , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I just saw the Eurospeech {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it at our meeting but I just saw the {disfmarker} just read the paper . Someone , I forget the name , {comment} and {disfmarker} and Ney , uh , about histogram equalization ? Did you see that one ? +PhD D: Um , it was a poster . Or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I just read the paper . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I didn't see the poster . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was something {pause} similar to n {vocalsound} on - line normalization finally {disfmarker} I mean , in {vocalsound} the idea of {disfmarker} of normalizing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But it 's a little more {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little finer , right ? So they had like ten quantiles +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and they adjust the distribution . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So you {disfmarker} you have the distributions from the training set , +PhD D: N +Professor B: and then , uh {disfmarker} So this is just a {disfmarker} a histogram of {disfmarker} of {vocalsound} the amplitudes , I guess . Right ? And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , people do this in image processing some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You have this kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of histogram of {disfmarker} of levels of brightness or whatever . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then , {vocalsound} when you get a new {disfmarker} new thing that you {disfmarker} you want to adjust to be {pause} better in some way , {vocalsound} you adjust it so that the histogram of the new data looks like the old data . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: You do this kind of {vocalsound} piece - wise linear or , {vocalsound} uh , some kind of piece - wise approximation . They did a {disfmarker} uh one version that was piece - wise linear and another that had a power law thing between them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} between the {pause} points . And , uh , they said they s they sort of see it in a way as s for the speech case {comment} {disfmarker} as being kind of a generalization of spectral subtraction in a way , because , you know , in spectral subtraction you 're trying to {vocalsound} get rid of this excess energy . Uh , you know , it 's not supposed to be there . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , this is sort of {pause} {vocalsound} adjusting it for {disfmarker} for a lot of different levels . And then they have s they have some kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} a floor or something , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: so if it gets too low you don't {disfmarker} don't do it . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: And they {disfmarker} they claimed very nice results , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So is this a histogram across different frequency bins ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Um , I think this i You know , I don't remember that . Do you remember {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think they have , yeah , different histograms . I uh {disfmarker} Something like one per {pause} frequency band , +Professor B: One {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , one histogram per frequency bin . +Professor B: One per critical {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} But I did {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess . +PhD A: And that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But I should read the paper . I just went {pause} through the poster quickly , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So th +Professor B: And I don't remember whether it was {pause} filter bank things +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: and I didn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: or whether it was FFT bins +PhD A: Huh . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} histogram represents {pause} the {pause} different energy levels that have been seen at that {pause} frequency ? +Professor B: I don't remember that . And how often they {disfmarker} you 've seen them . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And they do {disfmarker} they said that they could do it for the test {disfmarker} So you don't have to change the training . You just do a measurement over the training . And then , uh , for testing , uh , you can do it for one per utterance . Even relatively short utterances . And they claim it {disfmarker} it works pretty well . +PhD A: So they , uh {disfmarker} Is the idea that you {disfmarker} you run a test utterance through some histogram generation thing and then you compare the histograms and that tells you {vocalsound} what to do to the utterance to make it more like {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I guess in pri Yeah . In principle . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: I didn't read carefully how they actually implemented it , +PhD A: Hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: whether it was some , {vocalsound} uh , on - line thing , or whether it was a second pass , or what . But {disfmarker} but they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} that was sort of the idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that seemed , you know , different . We 're sort of curious about , uh , what are some things that are , u u um , {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} {pause} conceptually quite different from what we 've done . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz we {disfmarker} you know , one thing that w that , uh , Stephane and Sunil seemed to find , {vocalsound} uh , was , you know , they could actually make a unified piece of software that handled a range of different things that people were talking about , and it was really just sort of setting of different {pause} constants . And it would turn , you know , one thing into another . It 'd turn Wiener filtering into spectral subtraction , or whatever . But there 's other things that we 're not doing . So , we 're not making any use of pitch , uh , uh , which again , might {disfmarker} might be important , uh , because the stuff between the harmonics is probably a schmutz . And {disfmarker} and the , {vocalsound} uh , transcribers will have fun with that . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And , um , the , uh , stuff at the harmonics isn't so much . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} And we there 's this overall idea of really sort of matching the {disfmarker} the hi distributions somehow . Uh , not just , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} not just subtracting off your estimate of the noise . So . So I guess , uh , {vocalsound} Guenter 's gonna play around with some of these things now over this next {pause} period , +PhD D: Uh , I dunno . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I don't have feedback from him , but +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I guess he 's gonna , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , he 's got it anyway , so he can . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So potentially if he came up with something that was useful , like a diff a better noise estimation module or something , he could ship it to you guys u up there +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: we could put it in . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , that 's good . So , why don't we just , uh , um {disfmarker} I think starting {disfmarker} {pause} starting a w couple weeks from now , especially if you 're not gonna be around for a while , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be shifting more over to some other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} other territory . But , uh , uh , {comment} uh , n not {disfmarker} not so much in this meeting about Aurora , but {disfmarker} but , uh , uh , maybe just , uh , quickly today about {disfmarker} maybe you could just say a little bit about what you 've been talking about with Michael . And {disfmarker} and then Barry can say something about {pause} what {comment} {disfmarker} what we 're talking about . +Grad C: OK . So Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's a PHD student from Germany , {vocalsound} showed up this week . He 'll be here for about six months . And he 's done some work using {vocalsound} an auditory model {pause} of , um , {vocalsound} human hearing , and {pause} using that f uh , to generate speech recognition features . And {pause} he did {vocalsound} work back in Germany {vocalsound} with , um , a toy recognition system {vocalsound} using , um , isolated {vocalsound} digit recognition {vocalsound} as the task . It was actually just a single - layer neural network {vocalsound} that classified words {disfmarker} classified digits , {vocalsound} in fact . Um , and {pause} he tried that on {disfmarker} I think on some Aurora data and got results that he thought {pause} seemed respectable . And he w he 's coming here to u u use it on a {vocalsound} uh , a real speech recognition system . So I 'll be working with him on that . And , um , maybe I should say a little more about these features , although I don't understand them that well . The {disfmarker} I think it 's a two - stage idea . And , um , {vocalsound} the first stage of these features correspond to what 's called the peripheral {vocalsound} auditory system . And {vocalsound} I guess that is like {vocalsound} a filter bank with a compressive nonlinearity . And {vocalsound} I 'm - I 'm not sure what we have @ @ in there that isn't already modeled in something like , {vocalsound} um , {pause} PLP . I should learn more about that . And then {vocalsound} the second stage {pause} is , um , {vocalsound} the most different thing , I think , from what we usually do . It 's , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it computes features which are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} based on {disfmarker} sort of like based on diffe different w um , wavelet basis functions {vocalsound} used to analyze {vocalsound} the input . So th he uses analysis functions called {vocalsound} Gabor functions , um , {vocalsound} which have a certain {vocalsound} extent , um , {vocalsound} in time and in frequency . And {vocalsound} the idea is these are used to sample , {vocalsound} um , the signal in a represented as a time - frequency representation . So you 're {pause} sampling some piece of this time - frequency plane . And , um , {vocalsound} that , {vocalsound} um , is {disfmarker} is interesting , cuz , {vocalsound} @ @ for {disfmarker} for one thing , you could use it , {vocalsound} um , in a {disfmarker} a multi - scale way . You could have these {disfmarker} instead of having everything {disfmarker} like we use a twenty - five millisecond or so analysis window , {vocalsound} typically , um , and that 's our time scale for features , but you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using this , um , basis function idea , you could have some basis functions which have a lot longer time scale and , um , some which have a lot shorter , and {vocalsound} so it would be like {pause} a set of multi - scale features . So he 's interested in , um {disfmarker} Th - this is {disfmarker} because it 's , um {disfmarker} there are these different parameters for the shape of these {vocalsound} basis functions , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are a lot of different possible basis functions . And so he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he actually does {vocalsound} an optimization procedure to choose an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an optimal set of basis functions out of all the possible ones . +PhD A: Hmm . H What does he do to choose those ? +Grad C: The method he uses is kind of funny {disfmarker} is , {comment} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} he starts with {disfmarker} he has a set of M of them . Um , he {disfmarker} and then {pause} he uses that to classify {disfmarker} I mean , he t he tries , um , {vocalsound} using {pause} just M minus one of them . So there are M possible subsets of this {vocalsound} length - M vector . He tries classifying , using each of the M {vocalsound} possible sub - vectors . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: Whichever sub - vector , {vocalsound} um , works the {disfmarker} the best , I guess , he says {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the fe feature that didn't use was the most useless feature , +Professor B: Y yeah . Gets thrown out . Yeah . +Grad C: so we 'll throw it out and we 're gonna randomly select another feature {pause} from the set of possible basis functions . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: So i so it 's actuall +PhD A: it 's a little bit like a genetic algorithm or something in a way . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much simpler . +Grad E: It 's like a greedy {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it 's {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot {disfmarker} number of things I like about it , let me just say . +PhD A: Greedy . +Professor B: So , first thing , well , you 're absolutely right . I mean , {vocalsound} i i {nonvocalsound} in truth , {pause} both pieces of this are {disfmarker} have their analogies in stuff we already do . But it 's a different take {vocalsound} at how to approach it and potentially one that 's m maybe a bit more systematic than what we 've done , uh , and a b a bit more inspiration from {disfmarker} from auditory things . So it 's {disfmarker} so I think it 's a neat thing to try . The primary features , {vocalsound} um , are in fact {disfmarker} Yeah , essentially , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , you know , PLP or {disfmarker} or mel cepstrum , or something like that . You 've {disfmarker} you 've got some , {vocalsound} uh , compression . We always have some compression . We always have some {disfmarker} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the kind of filter bank with a kind of {vocalsound} {vocalsound} quasi - log scaling . Um , {vocalsound} if you put in {disfmarker} if you also include the RASTA in it {disfmarker} i RASTA {disfmarker} the filtering being done in the log domain {vocalsound} has an AGC - like , uh , characteristic , which , you know , people typi typically put in these kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} uh , auditory front - ends . So it 's very , very similar , uh , but it 's not exactly the same . Um , I would agree that the second one is {disfmarker} is somewhat more different but , {vocalsound} um , it 's mainly different in that the things that we have been doing like that have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , had a different kind of motivation and have ended up with different kinds of constraints . So , for instance , if you look at the LDA RASTA stuff , {vocalsound} you know , basically what they do is they {disfmarker} they look at the different eigenvectors out of the LDA and they form filters out of it . Right ? And those {pause} filters have different , uh , kinds of temporal extents and temporal characteristics . And so in fact they 're multi - scale . But , they 're not sort of systematically multi - scale , like "" let 's start here and go to there , and go to there , and go to there "" , and so forth . It 's more like , {vocalsound} you run it on this , you do discriminant analysis , and you find out what 's helpful . +Grad C: I it 's multi - scale because you use several of these in parallel , +Professor B: Yeah . They use several of them . +Grad C: is that right ? Of {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you don't have to but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , Hynek has . Um , but it 's also , uh {disfmarker} Hyn - when Hynek 's had people do this kind of LDA analysis , they 've done it on frequency direction and they 've done it on the time direction . I think he may have had people sometimes doing it on both simultaneously {disfmarker} some two - D {disfmarker} and that would be the closest to these Gabor function kind of things . Uh , but I don't think they 've done that much of that . And , uh , the other thing that 's interesting {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the feature selection thing , it 's a simple method , but I kinda like it . Um , {vocalsound} there 's a {disfmarker} {pause} a old , old method for feature selection . I mean , {pause} eh , uh , I remember people referring to it as old when I was playing with it twenty years ago , so I know it 's pretty old , uh , called Stepwise Linear Discriminant Analysis in which you {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I think it 's used in social sciences a lot . So , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you pick the best feature . And then {vocalsound} you take {disfmarker} y you find the next feature that 's the best in combination with it . And then so on and so on . And what {disfmarker} what Michael 's describing seems to me much , much better , because the problem with the stepwise discriminant analysis is that you don't know that {disfmarker} you know , if you 've {vocalsound} picked the right set of features . Just because something 's a good feature doesn't mean that you should be adding it . So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} uh , here at least you 're starting off with all of them , and you 're {vocalsound} throwing out useless features . I think that 's {disfmarker} that seems , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that seems like a lot better idea . Uh , you 're always looking at things in combination with other features . Um , so the only thing is , of course , there 's this {disfmarker} this artificial question of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} exactly how you {disfmarker} how you a how you assess it and if {disfmarker} if your order had been different in throwing them out . I mean , it still isn't necessarily really optimal , but it seems like a pretty good heuristic . So I th I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's kinda neat stuff . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the thing that I wanted to {disfmarker} to add to it also was to have us use this in a multi - stream way . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , so {disfmarker} so that , um , {vocalsound} when you come up with these different things , {vocalsound} and these different functions , {vocalsound} you don't necessarily just put them all into one huge vector , but perhaps {vocalsound} you {vocalsound} have some of them in one stream and some of them in another stream , and so forth . And , um , um , {comment} um {disfmarker} And we 've also talked a little bit about , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Shihab Shamma 's stuff , in which {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} the way you look at it is that there 's these different mappings and some of them emphasize , uh , upward moving , {vocalsound} uh , energy and fre and frequency . And some are emphasizing downward and {vocalsound} fast things and slow things and {disfmarker} and {pause} so forth . So . So there 's a bunch of stuff to look at . But , uh , I think we 're sorta gonna start off with what {vocalsound} he , uh , came here with and branch out {disfmarker} {vocalsound} branch out from there . And his advisor is here , too , {vocalsound} at the same time . So , he 'll be another {pause} interesting source of {pause} wisdom . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +Grad E: As {disfmarker} as we were talking about this I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} whether there 's a relationship between {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} between Michael 's approach to , uh , some {disfmarker} some sort of optimal brain damage or optimal brain surgeon on the neural nets . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: So , like , if we have , um {disfmarker} we have our {disfmarker} we have our RASTA features and {disfmarker} and presumably the neural nets are {disfmarker} are learning some sort of a nonlinear mapping , {vocalsound} uh , from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} this probability posterior space . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and each of the hidden units is learning some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of pattern . Right ? And it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like these , um {disfmarker} these auditory patterns that Michael {pause} is looking at . And then when you 're looking at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} the best features , {vocalsound} you know , you can take out {disfmarker} you can do the {disfmarker} do this , uh , brain surgery by taking out , {vocalsound} um , hidden units that don't really help at all . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Or the {disfmarker} or features . +Grad E: And this is k sorta like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , y actually , you make me think a {disfmarker} a very important point here is that , um , {vocalsound} if we a again try to look at how is this different from what we 're already doing , {vocalsound} uh , there 's a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a nasty argument that could be made th that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not different at {disfmarker} at all , because , uh {disfmarker} if you ignore the {disfmarker} the selection part because we are going into a {disfmarker} a very powerful , {vocalsound} uh , nonlinearity that , uh , in fact is combining over time and frequency , and is coming up with its own {disfmarker} you know , better than Gabor functions its , you know , neural net functions , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: its {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} whatever it finds to be best . +Grad C: +Professor B: Um , so you could argue that in fact it {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I don't actually believe that argument because I know that , um , {vocalsound} you can , uh {disfmarker} computing features is useful , even though {pause} in principle you haven't {pause} {vocalsound} added anything {disfmarker} in fact , you subtracted something , from the original waveform {disfmarker} You know , uh , if you 've {disfmarker} you 've processed it in some way you 've typically lost something {disfmarker} some information . And so , {vocalsound} you 've lost information and yet it does better with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with features than it does with the waveform . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I know that i sometimes it 's useful to {disfmarker} {pause} to constrain things . So that 's {vocalsound} why it really seems like the constraint {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in all this stuff it 's the constraints that are actually what matters . Because if it wasn't {pause} the constraints that mattered , then we would 've completely solved this problem long ago , because long ago we already knew how to put waveforms into powerful statistical mechanisms . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , if we had infinite processing power and {pause} data , {comment} I guess , using the waveform could {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah Uh , then it would work . Yeah , I agree . Yeah . There 's the problem . +PhD D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Then it would work . But {disfmarker} but , I mean , i it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} With finite {pause} of those things {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} we have done experiments where we literally have put waveforms in and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we kept the number of parameters the same and so forth , and it used a lot of training data . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} not infinite but a lot , and then compared to the number parameters {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} it just doesn't do nearly as well . So , anyway the point is that you want to suppress {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it 's not just having the maximum information , you want to suppress , {vocalsound} uh , the aspects of the input signal that are not helpful for {disfmarker} for the discrimination you 're trying to make . So . So maybe just briefly , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , that sort of segues into {pause} what {disfmarker} what I 'm doing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , {vocalsound} so , uh , the big picture is k um , {vocalsound} come up with a set of , {vocalsound} uh , intermediate categories , then build intermediate category classifiers , then do recognition , and , um , improve speech recognition in that way . Um , so right now I 'm in {disfmarker} in the phase where {vocalsound} I 'm looking at {disfmarker} at , um , deciding on a initial set of intermediate categories . And {vocalsound} I 'm looking {vocalsound} for data data - driven {pause} methods that can help me find , {vocalsound} um , a set of intermediate categories {vocalsound} of speech that , uh , will help me to discriminate {pause} later down the line . And one of the ideas , {vocalsound} um , that was to take a {disfmarker} take a neural net {disfmarker} train {disfmarker} train an ordinary neural net {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , to learn the posterior probabilities of phones . And so , um , at the end of the day you have this neural net and it has hidden {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hidden units . And each of these hidden units is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , is learning some sort of pattern . And so , um , what {disfmarker} what are these patterns ? +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: I don't know . Um , and I 'm gonna to try to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at those patterns {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to see , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} from those patterns {disfmarker} uh , presumably those are important patterns for discriminating between phone classes . And maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe some , uh , intermediate categories can come from {vocalsound} just looking at the patterns of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , that the neural net learns . +Professor B: Be - before you get on the next part l let me just point out that s there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a pretty nice {comment} {vocalsound} relationship between what you 're talking about doing and what you 're talking about doing there . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} it seems to me that , you know , if you take away the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {pause} the difference of this {pause} primary features , {vocalsound} and , say , you use {disfmarker} as we had talked about maybe doing {disfmarker} you use P - RASTA - PLP or something for the {disfmarker} the primary features , {vocalsound} um , then this feature discovery , {pause} uh , uh , thing {vocalsound} is just what he 's talking about doing , too , except that he 's talking about doing them in order to discover {pause} intermediate categories that correspond {vocalsound} to these {disfmarker} uh , uh , what these sub - features are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are showing you . And , um , {vocalsound} the other difference is that , um , {vocalsound} he 's doing this in a {disfmarker} in a multi - band setting , which means that he 's constraining himself {vocalsound} to look across time in some f relatively limited , uh , uh , spectral extent . Right ? And whereas in {disfmarker} in this case you 're saying "" let 's just do it unconstrained "" . So they 're {disfmarker} they 're really pretty related and maybe they 'll be {disfmarker} at some point where we 'll see the {disfmarker} the connections a little better and {vocalsound} connect them . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the first part {disfmarker} uh , one {disfmarker} one of the ideas to get at some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some patterns of intermediate categories . Um , {vocalsound} the other one {pause} was , {vocalsound} um , to , {vocalsound} uh , come up with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a model {disfmarker} {comment} um , a graphical model , {vocalsound} that treats {pause} the intermediate categories {vocalsound} as hidden {disfmarker} hidden variables , latent variables , that we don't know anything about , but that through , {vocalsound} um , s statistical training and the EM algorithm , {vocalsound} um , at the end of the day , {vocalsound} we have , um {disfmarker} we have learned something about these {disfmarker} these latent , um {disfmarker} latent variables which happen to correspond to {vocalsound} intermediate categories . Um . {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} Yeah , and so those are the {disfmarker} the two directions that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm looking into right now . And , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +Professor B: OK . Should we do our digits and get ou get our treats ? +Grad E: Oh , tea time ? +Professor B: Yeah . It 's kind of like , you know , the little rats with the little thing dropping down to them . +PhD A: That 's ri +Professor B: We do the digits and then we get our treats . +Grad E: Oops . +PhD A: OK . +","In a meeting, Professor B and PhD candidates A, D, and E, as well as Grad C, discuss various research-related topics. Professor B mentions that Birger Kollmeier and Michael Kleinschmidt will be joining them soon. PhD D plans to travel to OGI in about three weeks, but there will be at least one meeting before he leaves. + +They debate a decision about a system latency issue from a conference call with the Aurora group, where it was decided the system latency should be 220 milliseconds, reduced by 80 from before. The current system sits at 230 milliseconds, and there's a discussion on how to reduce it further, primarily by adjusting the VAD. + +A discussion starts on the topic of features for a voice activity detection system and training on different types of noise. PhD D also brings up trying to get closer to human performance in recognition systems. + +Grad E inquires about the Mississippi State system and its performance compared to other systems on the Wall Street Journal data. Discussions touch upon the use of Gaussian mixture models and some doubts about computation capacity at large companies versus Mississippi State's resources. + +Grad C introduces Michael Kleinschmidt's work on employing an auditory model for speech recognition and continues with the details of the features derived from this model. They discuss using neural networks for pattern recognition and feature selection. + +Grad E shares steps towards identifying intermediate categories for improving speech recognition, using both neural network patterns and a graphical model approach. The discussion concludes with the group deciding to take a break for tea." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hello . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dang it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you have to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's important to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot over here . +User Interface: Okay . No , that's okay . Joost , your mouse . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: No mouse needed ? +Marketing: I've got a touch-pad . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: A touch-pad ? +Marketing: No , my laptop . +User Interface: Slap it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You with your brilliant ideas . I don't know if I can touch the power button . Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Try the power button . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on , move it . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now , wake up , bitch . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: F_ five . F_ five {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I've lost my screen . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so did I . +User Interface: I don't . +Marketing: I closed it . That wasn that wasn't very smart , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . Get back to me . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I closed the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I closed it . +User Interface: You've got your name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , my name is name . +Marketing: No , I didn't restart it , I just closed it . Yes . +User Interface: Hope it working . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Never close your laptop . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Everybody's ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Great . Thanks . +Project Manager: Great . Well , welcome to the kick-off meeting . I uh forgot to put my name over here , it's uh {vocalsound} it's Martin . Uh , so you all know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , this is the agenda for today . Well , the opening is what I'm doing right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , we gonna do some acquaintance acquaintance things . Uh give some um examples of the tool training , project plan discussion and the closing . We have twenty five minutes . Okay , the project aim is to design a new remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , some of the {vocalsound} oje objectives are that is has to be original , trendy , and user-friendly . So now we all know what our +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: goal is . Um , I {disfmarker} oh forget {disfmarker} I forget the whole acquaintance part , but we we all know each other . We all know each other's names . Joost , Guido , Antek . +User Interface: What is your name ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Antek . +User Interface: Antek Ahmet . And Joost . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . I think we uh al already uh been through that part . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it consists of uh three levels of design . Uh we begin with the functional design , then we go to the conceptual design and the detailed design . Every uh level of design consists of some individual work , and we uh close it with a meeting . You all received an email with a example of our explanation of what uh the particular level of design uh means to the different uh functions , and uh you p you probably read that already , so I don't have to tell you about that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , first we're gonna um uh gonna try some different things with the tools we have over here , so you get acquainted with these uh um uh meeting tools . We have the smart-boards , uh the thes those two boards . This is the presentation boards , wh which one I'm using right now . You can uh um {disfmarker} there's a document folder called um the sh {vocalsound} shared document folder . You can upload your uh documents to that folder and then you can open them over here , so you can do your PowerPoint presentations on this screen . We also have the white-board . Uh , we're gonna skip through th +User Interface: Can we see the white-board on our laptops ? +Project Manager: No , no . Just on the on the screen over there . +User Interface: No , I saw I saw the file , the smart-board that X_B_K_ but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , no . Probably is , but I don't know if the software is on the laptop {gap} . Is is {disfmarker} if it's mainly a thing for in the meeting , so I don't think it's {disfmarker} I don't know if it's important . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This an explanation of the smart-boards . There is a tool-bar over here . It's quite simple . You have the the pen function , eraser function . It's like a very simple uh paint application . Uh , we {disfmarker} well , we use the same file during uh the whole day , and uh you can make new sheets by uh by pu puttin pressing on the blank button . It works like this . Oh . {vocalsound} If pen is selected , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , no no . +User Interface: With that pen ? +Project Manager: It's not {disfmarker} But it is pen . It's not working like a pen yet . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Huh . Huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's doing some stuff now . So you can use a pen . +User Interface: Little bit slower . +Project Manager: You can use an eraser . And you can make new uh fi uh new blanks , and you can change uh the line width and the colour of the pen by pressing on forward , which y you have to select pen format . And then select current colour or line width . So , it's quite easy . Uh well , now you're all uh acquainted with the different tools . Right , we're gonna try out the electronic white-boards . Uh , every participant should draw his favourite animal and some of its favourite characteristics , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: on blank sheets with different colours , with different pen widths . Uh , I'll start off then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll use this uh same sheet . Alright . Oh , let me think . Different colours . Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I'm gonna draw um a p piranha . Uh , a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} piranha . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I'm gonna use some different colour {gap} now . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Some {disfmarker} a little white . Looks like a fish . Think it is . Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Uh , colour . This is black ? I think so . +User Interface: Yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Oh , this is just uh {vocalsound} useless uh drawings but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh teeth . I need teeth . {vocalsound} Well , they're not supposed to be green , or whatever colour this is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . What was uh {disfmarker} I have su to sum up its favourite characteris +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Well , I like its uh sharp {disfmarker} razor sharp teeth . {vocalsound} Plus , uh the the big uh forehead and uh a small uh , well a small actual face . And I like its overall uh aggressive look and {disfmarker} Well , that's what I like about uh piranha . I think that's kind of what uh the intention should be . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , who wants to be next ? +Marketing: Nobody , I guess . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I will try . Yeah . I will try . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You go , Guido ? Okay . Uh , make a new sheet . Uh , it's by pressing on blank . +User Interface: Blank ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Then pen again ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} so in the format menu you can choose the different uh colours and uh pen widths . +User Interface: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Format . +User Interface: {gap} control . Uh {disfmarker} Ah , purple . Um , I don't know what my uh favourite uh animal is , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but the easiest animal I can think is is a bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I will {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know , I thought of that actually . +User Interface: That's my bird . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't it quite {disfmarker} it's a little bit light . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , another colour maybe . A red one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A small one . Uh , line width . Two ? Three . Oh that's okay . That's another one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , tell us something about uh your favourite characteristics of these uh particular birds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ano {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Its simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh the most simple uh animal I know , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't know . Maybe because uh there's there's some s uh free uh maybe in the sky or something like that . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Okay . +User Interface: Maybe a little bit . Yeah . I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . No , uh it's clear . +User Interface: So {gap} more uh birds ? +Project Manager: N no {vocalsound} no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We get your point . Okay . Who wants to be next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , {vocalsound} okay , {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , whatever . I'll go next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +User Interface: M +Marketing: I haven't got a favourite animal too , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pictionary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} What should I draw ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: A cow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Thank you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'll draw a penguin . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I'll draw a penguin . Whatever . I can't draw , so you can start to laugh already . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll do so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever . Something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , it's little bit hard . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm , orange . +User Interface: Orange , of course . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , {vocalsound} it's better than your bird . +User Interface: {gap} Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Everything's better than your bird . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} True . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , it's blue . No . Whatever . Um , I like its ugliness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , whatever . The way it walks or whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Your turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm going to draw a cat . I don't know why , but a cat is a very uh smart animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And you can have them at home . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Which is not as the case with uh with bingwings and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you can have a piranha at home . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yes , {vocalsound} yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Or a line . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A little bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean a bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Don't mess with my birds , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not very uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very good drawn , but you can see a cat from it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . It's a handicapped cat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} cat . +Project Manager: I don't think uh I don't think uh Darwin would agree with that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , it's not scared . He's crying but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} He's crying because it's ugl because of his ugliness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What do you like about it then ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh it's i most cats are small . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: You can handle them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then we are uh through the tool training , I guess . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wouldn't call it training , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , this is uh something about the project finance . The selling price of our remote control is gonna be twenty five Euros . And our profit aim is fifteen million Euros . We're very ambitious on this one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The market range is international , so it's gonna be sold world-wide , and the production cost should be a maximum of twelve Euro fifty per remote control . So that's clear . {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , we're now gonna discuss some stuff when {disfmarker} well , we're gonna brainstorm about uh what kind of kemoro romo remote control it's gonna be . Uh , well tell me about your experiences with the remote controls . Do you have uh {disfmarker} know what good experiences with remote controls ? Or do they annoy you sometimes ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Are they difficult to understand , or maybe they don't interact with different kind of uh equipment very well ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't th I don't think the four of us got problems with remote controls , +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: but if you see elderly people , all these buttons , and then they buy new T_V_ because their previous one was stolen or whatever . +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a totally different remote control with with different functions on different places , and half of the functions a are removed , or whatever . Uh , so I think what we need is is a clear uh remote control with uh grouped buttons , you know . All th all the buttons which apply to the text functions in in one uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Different functions of of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one area or whatever , not like the button to enter text on top of the remote control and the button to um , yeah , to minimise it to this this {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or whatever o o other functions {vocalsound} totally somewhere else . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we should group them . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And same for the for the volume buttons and the the t +Project Manager: And uh , is it gonna be a remote control that's um {disfmarker} what it can be used for different kind of equipment , like your T_V_ and your home stereo ? +Marketing: Well I was I was thinking uh since a T_V_ is uh mostly used together with a V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player or recorder , and not with a stereo , I think it should be good to include functions for V_C_R_s and D_V_D_ players , recorders . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But uh , the D_V_D_ players and home cinema sets often double as stereo hi-fi sets probably . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's what , from my experience . +User Interface: But isn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . Hi-fi set is uh not often used uh as I know of in combination with television . +Project Manager: Okay . But we gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's only for television , I thought . Not {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , it is only for televis +User Interface: {gap} I thought it was only for television . So so we probably don't have to have to uh have the functions for D_V_D_ player or V_C_R_ . +Marketing: Yes , it is only for television , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So wha what {disfmarker} What wha {vocalsound} what uh what document {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} well we we're gonna brainstorm about that . If we think it's useful , we do it . +Project Manager: But , where where did it uh {disfmarker} Where did you find that ? +User Interface: Uh , in the email . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: I thought it said uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right . It's a television remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I was thinking since it is useful with D_V_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most television remote controls support other functions as well . So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh something extras . +Project Manager: No , we have to think about that . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh but uh we've gonna put some a uh is is it so user-friendliness , is a is a pri priority in this case , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , also no one's gonna buy it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Only the experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess . +Project Manager: Well , this the maybe is uh some aspect of the {disfmarker} uh , or or some point at at which we can excel by making it very useful . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That w Well , then you're you're the usability uh man , so this uh gonna be a very important task for you then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my God . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , other ideas ? How can we make it trendy or something ? Do uh by just sh shape and the look of it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , to go with to go with fashion and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe a can opener underneath it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} For the bear . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know . Or someth something special , like uh M_P_ three player inside of it , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I uh , no I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , well then the production costs are gonna be too high probably . +User Interface: Uh , I th I think yo we have to keep it simple , to get a whole market . +Marketing: Yeah , way too high . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe with different type of fronts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's international , so we have to use a standard . +Project Manager: Well , m has to be something {vocalsound} spectacular or uh one which makes it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well that's an idea of course , yeah . +Project Manager: We gonna skip back to the goals probably . Uh , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: original , trendly , and user-friendly {disfmarker} Well , we al also already talked about user-friendliness . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: No , well something trendy and original , well that that goes hand in hand I guess . When something is original , it tends to be trendy , probably , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: or we should make it combination of that . 'Kay , so you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the um technical part of the process is something you're gonna look after for , so you have to think about what kind of uh equipment you want to uh , you know , you want to manage with it . Well , and that's an important part for you then , with gogors regards to the user-friendly part of it . +User Interface: Use friendly . Yep . +Project Manager: Well , and you uh should look out for what makes it trendy . {vocalsound} Well , you know , y like some special feature . Or some {disfmarker} {gap} Does it does it gets some gadgetness or something . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes , what the market wishes . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , the closing . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Individual , I think so . The the Industrial Designer will w or the working design , of course , we will uh {disfmarker} Already s said that . The User Interface Designer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it a User Inter User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Interface d +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the technical functions design . And the Management Expert of uh {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . User requirements specifi Well , this one was already clear to us . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . I don't know how much time we have left . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , not many I guess . We started at twelve . +Marketing: You just got a message . +Project Manager: Oh , and what does it said ? +Marketing: And it said uh five minutes , so we got four and a half . +User Interface: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W Okay , well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't get a message . +Marketing: No . He's the whatever . +User Interface: Oh , the Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Team Leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we're uh ahead of schedule then . +Marketing: Team Leader . {vocalsound} He is the whatever . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , close it . I'm gonna make some minutes or take some minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: And uh it's it's clear you can put the stuff in the project documents presentations . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: You can all {disfmarker} Or we're all uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project joc project documents is for showing uh on the white-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , but we're all familiar with uh uh Microsoft PowerPoint , are we ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I'm gonna wri uh write some stuff down +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: and then we're ready . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or we can leave already {gap} I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} or uh or sh or should we uh {disfmarker} or is important that we leave at exact uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . I don't think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: We'll see each other in uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , good luck . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will need it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I will need it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","During a kick-off meeting for designing a new remote control, the project manager emphasizes the need for the laptop to be placed on a marked spot while discussing the meeting's agenda and project goals with the marketing, user interface, and industrial designer teams. The remote should be original, trendy, and user-friendly. The group explores the toolsets available, such as smart-boards and document sharing for presentations, and each member drawing an animal represents a light-hearted exercise in familiarizing with the equipment. Following this, the project finance objectives are established, with a selling price of 25 Euros and a profit aim of 15 million Euros, keeping production costs below 12.50 Euros per unit. The remote is destined for the international market. + +The brainstorming session focuses on user experiences with remote controls, discussing the need for simplicity and clarity for various user demographics. Suggestions include grouping buttons logically and whether to include features for TVs, VCRs, or DVD players. The group touches on production and design aspects to ensure user-friendliness and market trends and prepares for individual work guided by personal coaches. The meeting concludes with plans to reconvene in thirty minutes, and participants express a need for luck in the upcoming tasks. + +In summary, the meeting was about setting the project's scope, exploring collaborative tools, discussing marketing and design considerations, and preparing for the next phases of the project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something . +Industrial Designer: Tha +User Interface: This one right there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation ? +User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You will as well ? +User Interface: Huh . Oh I thought we all were . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , I have one too , okay . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I just wanna {disfmarker} 'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here 'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_ . C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_ . +Project Manager: Okay , and +User Interface: Uh Gabriel . +Project Manager: Gabriel . E_L_ is it ? +User Interface: E_L_ . +Project Manager: 'Kay . And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: I am Reissa . R_E_I_S_S_A_ . Double S_ A_ , yeah {vocalsound} yeah . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , right . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Okay , right , welcome to meeting B_ . Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting , basically , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh 'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager , and , uh yeah , I'm just here to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going , get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically . Um right , this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you , what you've been working on for the last wee while , when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and , you know , filling out silly questionnaires and things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive . So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work , you know , from each of your presentations . We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all . Um and then we'll , yeah , we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it . +Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting ? +Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long . It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now . So I want each of your presentations to not be too long , five five minutes , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} No problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy , it doesn't matter , it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium . If you haven't had time to prepare one , you can draw stuff on the noteboard , you can talk to us , you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation , basically , you can . Don't feel pressurised into using this thing . 'Cause I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay . So um . You okay over there ? Reissa , +Marketing: I'm fine . Yeah . +Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here +Marketing: I uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation . +Marketing: D I mean , I I'm finishing off my presentation . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} Uh I'm done . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , jolly good . Alright , let's have um {disfmarker} well , we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be . So that's gonna be you Catherine , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um just connecting this . +Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really ? +Project Manager: there you go . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Cool . Okay . So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So the working design , I've got a very quick presentation on this , so um I've {disfmarker} oh no , you can't see a thing . {vocalsound} Oh well , I'm gonna draw it on the board then . It's in blue uh , and I couldn't change it . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen , but never mind . So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um , which in our case will pr , oh well {disfmarker} okay , never mind . So um I think maybe uh two batteries , I dunno what they're called {gap} six , or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal , which could be uh an infra-red signal , um which will be sent by an electronic chip . And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface . So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels . Um and that's it really for the working design . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally . +Industrial Designer: Really ? Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , should I erase this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment , I just wanna copy this down . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this ? +Industrial Designer: Fine . {vocalsound} Or suggestions ? +Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , it's just , you don't want it plugged in really , s +User Interface: Yeah , alternate energy source , like win wind power or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you blow on it and i {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: In indoors . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power . +Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No 'cause like cha 'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound} , I dunno , solar charged ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's worked for the last fifty years you know . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: One question I have , and I don't know how much control we have over this is um , as far as the infra-red signal , do we have control over , you know , how far away you can be from the receiving unit , the the T_V_ , and still have it be operational ? I mean , maybe we want one with a strong signal stream . +Project Manager: How far away is your television ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be , you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch , it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far , +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? Doesn't have to go through a wall , because you're not gonna be looking through a wall . +User Interface: That's true . +Marketing: Yeah , but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down , and go into the other room . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it . I didn't think about that but {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about Bluetooth ? {gap} Instead of using infra-red , use Bluetooth . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more +Marketing: Isn't that a better signal ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things . +Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it . +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know we don't need it . +Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice , but then I don't th I dunno , either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room , +Project Manager: Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Basically , we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage , maybe , I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'S just an idea . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , well done , Catherine . Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Do you need the border ? +User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: Technical {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , while this is warming up , +Marketing: Adjusting . +User Interface: there it is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and basically uh , as far as methods , I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes , trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there . Thinking of what we can retain , what we can do away with , uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um . {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change , I guess , I mean people want a remote that's familiar , that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that , the basic functionality that people want . Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control , um so up-down keys for that , uh channel keys up-down , but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want , rather than doing up-down , and uh a mute button . Uh one thing that I didn't include here , that I forgot that we talked about last time , was doing um some sort of lock uh function . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , I don't I dunno , uh that's one possibility . And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes , ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred , which I don't know if I can access the web page from here , but I can show you {disfmarker} uh . Yeah . So this is a engineer centred one , so you see it's rather busy , but it also lets you play your movie , stop your movie , fast-forward , all this , um {vocalsound} freeze frame . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one . Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after , uh or the direction we were going in at least . Um . So , the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality , but it can be a little bit overwhelming , so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use . Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh , Reissa , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh , yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . Now that's I just have a q a q question for you . This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other , you know , existing units {gap} stuff . Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know . I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it . Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've , haven't I've never seen a locking functionality . I dunno , what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do , which I think it probably should be , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: even if it's a physical , you know , a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote , even something like that , um then yes , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: it's {gap} like , you know , like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing , something like that , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but you know being physical . Look into . Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well , something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit . It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_ . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: You know , the the company it's it's , from what I can see from our other products , are yellow with blue writing on them . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Right . And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . There you go . +User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable . If if remote control {disfmarker} well , if telephones can be fashionable , then maybe remote control units can be . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well yeah these , I think , we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design . +Project Manager: Yeah . Because we need {disfmarker} +User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here , I mean . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , everything is going t ergonomic , you know , there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market , I guess . Um . +Project Manager: Okay , fantastic . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , well done , Gabriel . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um Reissa . Let's plug you in , baby . +Marketing: Where does it go into ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Here ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The blue thing . +User Interface: Uh , yeah , this is getting all {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up . +Marketing: Well , function F_ eight . No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , w it it just takes a wee while . +User Interface: Yeah , it just takes a second uh . +Marketing: oh . {vocalsound} Come on . Right . Okay . {gap} . Okay . Well , for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab , and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out . Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know , so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings . So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly . Okay , so they don't like the look of the remote control . Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy . So I think we all agree with that . Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user . So , they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave . Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote , so probably if you have like one , two , three , four , five , the whole up to z ten , they probably don't use those , they only use the up and down channel . +Project Manager: 'Cause we've only got five channels . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing . {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap . Not quite sure what they mean , zap , goes like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels . +User Interface: Yeah , you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . I think especially for uh the older generation . I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones , takes ages to work how to use . Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room , so nobody can find them . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow . +Marketing: Um personal preferences . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are a child of technology , aren't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use , especially for older people . Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool , flashy groovy for people to buy it . And it's easy to find {vocalsound} , so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So voice activation . So and this was what we came up with . Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age , sorry , {gap} age groups . So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes . +Project Manager: So there you go , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one . And neither did the older generation , but the younger generation who we are catering for , like who have most of the money nowadays , do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money ? They they don't . +User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people , yeah . +Project Manager: It's older generation , they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old , and thirty five , and the thirty five to forty five , forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five , you're kinda saying , yeah , they want it . Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five , +User Interface: Yeah , that would be my guess as well . +Project Manager: uh 'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years . +Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there , so yeah , it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent . +Marketing: These guys are growing up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost ? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , okay , there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best . +Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Um also with um with buttons , {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_ , so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury +Marketing: Huh ? +User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , repetitive strains injury , so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often , keep changing channel hurts their wrist . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: maybe not so hard . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be , instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's jus {gap} +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years' time , say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Yeah , we should probably consult with our legal department uh . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department , the the ergonomic department , we can make some some really good improvements . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: or we just like flat buttons , something . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So that is me . +Project Manager: That's great , thank you very much for that , Reissa . {vocalsound} Um okay , so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be , you know uh , we're going for a basic television remote . It's gotta be safe to use , it's gotta look cool . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap . S um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it , you know , we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth . I think , we should just go with the simplest option on everything , uh and that would be infra-red , energy source , that would be batteries . Uh mean we we can look into using the s , you know , the little tiny weeny batteries , all like special long-lasting batteries . Um . {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years , because technology will have changed and , you know , we won't have televisions in ten years' time . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that . Um anyone have any questions ? Everybody happy in their work ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page . +Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good , we've got a good structure going on . We all know where we're going to . {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers ? +User Interface: Oh it's probably just you , 'cause you're the project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , just questionnaires . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um okay . Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other ? +Marketing: Yeah , you can . +Project Manager: Right . Do all you all know my e-mail address ? +User Interface: Okay . No I don't . I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , in the project announcement , you've got the addresses , I think . +Marketing: I think he's participant one , aren't you ? +Industrial Designer: So Project Manager , it's participant one at A_M_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's just participant one oh okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them , +User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one , participant two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail . +Project Manager: Send me , yeah +Industrial Designer: You want to have friends , don't you ? +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue ? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background , but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves . +Project Manager: Well , maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas ? +Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes , so somebody can choose different col +Project Manager: Well , see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image . +Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: But if it's a R_R_ , it would be Real Reaction , +Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_ . +Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan , this is the the the the type . +Marketing: Whoa . +User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so , I mean , we are sort of beholden to them . +Marketing: So we have to have it one colour . +Project Manager: Well , not necessarily . But we have to incorporate it . +User Interface: Not one colour , but the pattern needs to be recognisable . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products +Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a , you know , a Panasonic product . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe , so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If {gap} . +Project Manager: Quite poss yeah . Well this is all your department . Mm okay . Well , well done everybody . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And um , I think we uh stop for lunch now . +User Interface: Yeah , pretty soon I think , I guess that's now . +Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule ? +Project Manager: We might possibly have done . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Alright , see you all soon . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish , then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . Right . I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down , but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off , kick back , smoke 'em if you got 'em . {vocalsound} +","The conversation involves a project manager, an industrial designer, a user interface designer, and a marketing representative discussing a remote control project. The project manager, wanting to address everyone by their names, asks for introductions: Catherine is the industrial designer, Gabriel is the user interface designer, and Reissa is in marketing. They discuss the specifics of the remote design, such as energy sources, signal types, and ergonomics. The industrial designer presents an infra-red based design, while Gabriel, the UI designer, suggests a user-friendly interface adopting successful features from existing remotes. Marketing's insights show that users find remotes unattractive and overly complicated, indicating a demand for a stylish remote that matches user behavior. They discuss the possibility of a locking feature, ergonomic considerations to reduce the risk of repetitive strain injury, and maintaining the corporate brand image in the product's design. Ideas like Bluetooth and voice activation are proposed but ultimately deemed unnecessary or too costly. The meeting concludes with preparations to email one another about their progress and a plan to meet again to discuss the color scheme in line with company branding. The group also managed to finish the meeting slightly ahead of schedule." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: 'S to do now is to decide how to fulfil what your stuff is , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so in that sense {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: so it does kind of make sense , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It kinda does make sense , doesn't it , because when we get into the end of meeting we're kind of {vocalsound} talking about action and design as opposed to background . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Everything I have is kinda background . +Project Manager: Okay we all ready to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Well how um on the {disfmarker} in this meeting then if we um {disfmarker} I'll just just recap on the minutes from the last meeting . And we uh decided on +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: decided on our our target group being fifteen to thirty five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we decided that it was gonna be non-rechargeable battery-powered , that we're gonna group our audio-visual and other functions into into those categories , um {vocalsound} . And I told you guys about the three new requirements about ignoring teletext , ignoring everything except the T_V_ , and trying to incorporate the the uh corporate colour and slogan . Um so that was the last meeting . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Is there anything {disfmarker} have I forgotten anything ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Is that everything ? +Marketing: Uh that sounds {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so if we have the three presentations , and then if you have anything to kind of {disfmarker} that you know you're gonna want to discuss , maybe just make a note of it , and we'll have all the discussion at the end . That might be a better idea this time . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: And so if we start off uh with Andrew and then Craig and then David , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: if that's alright . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um and then after that we'll have to make some decisions about stuff , right {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah , cool . +Project Manager: So if you wanna take this . +Marketing: Why don't I get that {vocalsound} ? Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Screwed in quite tightly . Uh what did {disfmarker} uh how did we leave it with speech recognition now ? We {disfmarker} did we say we were gonna try {disfmarker} maybe incorporate it but we hadn't made a definite decision on that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . Oh I should also point out that um the you know the kind of final objective of this meeting is to reach a decision on the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that's kind of the end result hopefully . +Marketing: Okay . Um alright so c is it function F_ eight ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . Hopefully appear in a wee second . +Marketing: Hmm . Come on . I think it's working . +Project Manager: Up there we go . +Marketing: Okay great s so let me just start this . {vocalsound} Okay great . So um {vocalsound} uh s move on . Uh-huh {disfmarker} oh where'd it all go ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh no . +Marketing: It's not good . Okay lemme just see where I can find it . This looks more like it . I think I just opened up the template . +Project Manager: Oh right . +Marketing: Sorry about that . Okay alright so let's have a look here . +Project Manager: Here we go . +Marketing: Okay so this was the method that um I've taken . Uh basically what I wanna do here , before we get into it uh too far , is I want to show you all the background information I have that I think we need to acknowledge if we want this to be successful . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh and then sorta g go through some of the way that I've dealt with that information , and then sort of bring us all together into it to see {disfmarker} sorta see how this fits in with the overall vision . Um so I've tried to take a whole lot of market research and summarise it for us , and then ide identify uh trends that are are sort of in sync and are important to our our uh p project plan that we have so far , and then uh initiate a kind of discussion on design options so that it sorta helps us to to narrow in on on aspects that will inform other uh other elements of the of the project . Does that make sense , tha that sort of strategy ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought that that will impact on the rest of what we do , so that's why I suggested we get in this . +Project Manager: Aye a fair point definitely . +Marketing: Okay so out of um different uh figures and ratings ob uh of people in general , um consumers in general , the number one thing that was found was that uh the br t television remote control , a fancy look and feel , okay , and not , it specified , not a functional look or or feel , uh b f f fancy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um however , this is where we kinda have to be very , I think , creative about it . Number two was that it be innovative . Okay so that tells me that we have to find a way to be innovative without a adding just unnecessary um sort of functional bits to it . Uh and third priority uh for ease of use , so again that kind of gives us a general picture of how it has to be , um {vocalsound} quite user friendly while still having technology . So it {disfmarker} I'll just say right away as a bit of a foreshadowing into how we proceed with this in terms of m marketing , is that I think um {vocalsound} what we should think about is how the um {vocalsound} about how the innovation uh contributes to the look and feel , and not so much to the functionality of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aye right . +Marketing: For example like when you pick it up and push it like it all lights up or something , you know what I mean , like , or it's got something else to it that just seems innovative +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: because obviously the thing that {disfmarker} the message here is ease of use . So how do you make innovation make something more {vocalsound} more easy to use ? Well that's I guess where we're gonna go with this . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay then there's the other aspect of the back the the market um research I have here is on fashion style , okay , which as we've agreed is a priority . Uh top European fashion trend um {vocalsound} that I read about says there's this emerging theme of fruit and vegetables , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: especially in clothes and furniture . And when I first saw that I thought hmm , well do we want to actually try and think about this trend and how we add something to it , or we get right into it , or we completely steer away from it , +Project Manager: Okay okay . +Marketing: do you know what I mean ? So my my feeling is that we w do want to observe this trend , but we want to think also about the fact that it sort of has to fit in with something which is not specifically electronics . Um 'cause I think what we're in what we're in is partly sort of home decor , partly something like a computer , um {vocalsound} so I think we might wanna be careful about how you know how quickly we create like a remote control in the shape of an apple or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that would be pushing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then in terms of m material trends are for things to be soft and spongy and sort of , you might say ergonomic or or friendly to handle , which is {disfmarker} which also in indicated that last year this was this was not the case . So um probably a lot of the competition on the market will be still in last year's mode , so if we try and really capitalise on that , I think that'll be in our favour . Um {disfmarker} So these this is the summary of everything . Um style is number one uh thing in the in the market of who we're selling to . Uh innovative design technology's also a must in that it's seen {disfmarker} it'd be seen to be uh cutting edge , uh but ease of use t has to be insured throughout . That was like the number three thing . And then at the end there are vibrant natural colours um that's the way I interpreted it anyway , softness in materials , shape , and function , and so I've written at written at the bottom to give us sort of a context of discussion , Mac iPods , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: something which is , I'd have to say very high-tech , ten gigabytes , whatever , but when you hold it in your hand there's like no buttons . +Project Manager: Mm that's true , yeah . +Marketing: You know what a Mac iPod is ? I'm thinking however Mac iPod is sort of last year's because it's very hard and sort of glassy and glossy , so I'm thinking if we imagine that we're taking some of the features of a Mac iPod and we're then making it s more of like a more of like a comfortable type of {disfmarker} or more of like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe more vibrant to friendly thing to have . Um and then so this is w with all that information what I'm what I'm suggesting in this slide here is that we we take these ideas , and as we get into more the more um {vocalsound} techni like sort of production side of things , that we think about shape , materials , and themes or series that go throughout . Sort of like a {disfmarker} I dunno like um we think of some kind of a thin theme that unifies it all , that we agree on , uh sorta like a marketing identity . Um {disfmarker} Does that make sense ? Yeah . So {vocalsound} so like I threw out a few ideas there just to kinda get us thinking along those lines like lemon , lime , I dunno , green colours , pe whatever , it's just an idea , 'cause I'm thinking that some of these ideas will seem quite coherent if we use them in terms of their {disfmarker} what people associate this {disfmarker} them with in terms of texture , shape , colours , things like that . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Great . +Marketing: Like um the ones the ones which I'm most fond of in terms of giving like a theme to it would be like um like lemon or something like that , you know something which is , like you see a lot in in other areas . Like I see lots of websites and things that seem to associate with like lemon and lime and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So anyway it's just just an idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm thinking maybe we could incorporate some of these features into a fairly um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} into something which is {disfmarker} which seems to have something to it which is almost gimmicky because like um like something to do with like lighting within it . Like you know just within the simple sense , when you pick up a phone and touch a button it uh lights up , q usually the buttons light up . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: How can we build on that ? Maybe like it could light up in different colours or something or or people could buy the buy the control and then it comes with different like covers or something so . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Anyway those are {disfmarker} that's all I have , +Project Manager: That's great . +Marketing: but uh hopefully we can we can revisit those ideas when we get into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay great . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Um thank you for that . Uh Craig do you wanna +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: uh plug yours in then ? +User Interface: Is it working ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . Not quite . +Marketing: Did you press F_ eight ? +Industrial Designer: It's probably not sending . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh something coming now , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep , there it is . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: And so think of this concept . Um to research it I've um had a look on the the homepage again . It's provided me with more examples of um previously existing c remote controls . Um there's a wee bit of discussion about the other existing ones there , um so I've taken the um suggestions from them and tried to incorporate them into this um {disfmarker} So then this {disfmarker} we're looking for um suggestions on size th um size of control and the buttons , um the shape of the control , and whereabout the buttons should be located on the control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um what I found from the research is that most the current controls are just basically big bricks with loads of buttons all over them . Um they're not very attractive to look at , {vocalsound} and they're not very comfortable to hold , they're {disfmarker} I just hold 'em like big bricks , and they're very easily lost . Um they tend to be very dark colours , so if there are shadowy places down the side of couches you can't really see them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} the the controls themselves tend to use a very inconsistent colour scheme . Um for instance , the stand-by button isn't always red , uh it really should be . It's uh something the user then uh identify with . This is a red switch off , that's how it should be . Um I'm not sure if there's any other examples of that , but something to look out for . Um there's a problem that I've I've got couple of preferences for the the end control {vocalsound} um I get 'em with the the red colour button for stand-by and s the other examples of that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The buttons should be large . They shouldn't be tiny little things like you get on some mobile phones . They should be easy to press , very comfortable . {vocalsound} Um one of the examples given on the homepage was um {vocalsound} there's an up and down volume button but both of them have a V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so the up volume button looks like it should be a down volume button , that's kinda confusing . Um should avoid s things like that . Um {vocalsound} if the the corporate colour scheme allows it we should have a very bright colour so that it can be easily identified anywhere . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um obviously trying trying to avoid being tacky there , but it could um tie-in very easily with your your lime and lemon idea . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , do we have a corporate colour scheme ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's yellow +Marketing: I didn't know . +Project Manager: because like the website is yellow and there's a band at the bottom is yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And the Play-Doh 's yellow {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: so yellow , lemon , you know definitely food for thought there , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but keep going +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and we'll discuss it after . +User Interface: Um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: any extra features we add beyond the basic ones should be m hidden , they shouldn't be on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} um shouldn't be visible without something be opened or some sort of special extra effort . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um if we did decide to go for voice activation {vocalsound} there sh should always be a button as alternative , possibly hidden in the the opened up section um making that something is wrong with it or with somebody's voice , maybe they got a cold or {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} we should definitely avoid the big square block look . That's just wrong . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um we got an email uh from I think it's the the research department , {vocalsound} and they've said th the voice control um can now talk back if you ask it a question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So it sh it could be good to have them um confirm any action you take +Project Manager: Aye that's a good idea , yeah . +User Interface: and {gap} possibility . Right and these are problems I've had with it . Um I don't know where the slogan should go , or really what the slogan is . I think it's um , fashion into electronics . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we don't know how flexible the colour scheme is . I mean you say you wanted the the corporate colours , but they don't say you know if we can use any other colours at all or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Great . {vocalsound} Lots of good information there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah that that was very good , +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay um . +Project Manager: and uh now with David . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think I'm cool . +Marketing: It's a shame the cable wasn't just in the middle {gap} {vocalsound} of the table , +Project Manager: I know it'd be handy , wouldn't it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: huh ? Just um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: Do y do you wanna sit in the the line of sight of this um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . Let me just get this going first . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah there it is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It takes a second , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , that should be it . Okay um I guess the same thing again , I started with something very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So just so you guys have some idea of what's involved in my process , um and then you can just work through it +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and we 'll either modify it or start from scratch um depending on what your needs are . Um the components are exactly the same . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I think , like what you guys said , um the most input that's needed is basically in the user interface . The rest of the components um they do have an impact in terms of cost and complexity . Um like you said time to market was a problem , um and how many components are physically in there in cost . And the power is basically a factor of that . Um and the lower components , the power , the logic , the transmitter , and the infrared , um they affect you in terms of the size of your device , um and that would have some inte impact on how y I think more how you hold rather than um the actual use using the the remote control because um like we've said {disfmarker} we've defined , like we only want the basic things that {disfmarker} to be visible , and the rest of them we try to hide . So um you know it's just a matter of working out space . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I guess three things , um cost , um complexity , and the size . These are the three things that um will have an impact on you . So just go through it in the components . Um these are the options that are available to you , um I'm not very sure about the voice thing 'cause I got another email and it was in fact quite sketchy on what n the voice options are . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um it said it could talk to you , but it never said anything about being able to listen . I it said something about a sensor but never clarified that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: well I could see the other email that they sent you , um 'cause they got back to me with like different requirements {vocalsound} , or different offerings of what components availa Okay so your basic components are buttons , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: okay and you have a wheel available , like a mouse scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: okay there's an L_C_D_ display , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} um I think these are quite standard things . +Marketing: They're standard , aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No um they're {disfmarker} well in the sense that these are all the options available for you . I'll explain to you the complexity and the cost thing again a bit later . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay um then there's um how the case actually looks . It can actually be flat or it can be curved , um and then the different types of materials that you can use , um I don't think you can use them in a combination , um but um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I could check back for you , but I don't think you can actually use them in a combination . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} you couldn't have like plastic and rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think plastic and rubber would be fine , but plastic , rubber , and wood , I wasn't {disfmarker} I'm not very sure about the titanium . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They had some restrictions on using the rubber and the titanium . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the rubber was a restriction on the kind of power source you could use , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but the titanium had a different kind of things on the shape of the thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so I think that there is some restriction on um {disfmarker} I think you could probably group plastic and rubber together , wood and titanium , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you know it might be easier from a cost perspective and a complexity just to use one . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know as opposed to two . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other components are logic chips , um again I'll I'll go back to the component chips . The com how complex or how easy the logic is , it depends on how many functions you have on the on the unit um and that impacts cost . Um I don't think the logic chip has a issue about size 'cause they should be about the same size . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Power consumption should be about the same . Um I think the main impact is complexity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and the other thing is um the power options . Um the first one is a standard battery . Okay the second one I think is more of a gimmick then actually a useable thing , it's a wind-up {vocalsound} you know , a crank {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll clear one of these things for you . Just by moving it yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that that might be something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think that's more of a look and feel decision because I don't think you can have one power source if you're using the alternative power sources . I think whatever it is you still need a battery 'cause I don't think anybody wants to keep doing one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay the other ones are a solar powered cell , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which may not be a great idea in Europe or {vocalsound} any country that has seasons 'cause half the year you'd be dead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So like what I said , you probably need like a battery and something else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the kinetic one I guess for me is the most interesting one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because it's movement and people like to fiddle with their {disfmarker} and it's a nice sales gimmick I think . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: From a marketing gimmick it it's a technology thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's a shake it {vocalsound} it doesn't work , shake it , knock it or something . You know +Project Manager: W yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: you have {disfmarker} you had those balls , you know those stress balls where you bounce the ball and it and it lights up and it goes , +Project Manager: Uh yeah yeah , I see . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know that might be a gimmick combined with rubber . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: You know just to {disfmarker} if you get frustrated wi remote control you can throw it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: kind of {vocalsound} you know just uh you know um {disfmarker} so . Um okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know what you mean yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: my {disfmarker} from my role , I don't think that personal preferences but role preferences , I think um something comfortable to hold , um small and slim +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess that's more in the sense of {disfmarker} small and slim in terms of comfortable not so small you can't , you know like a phone or something , too small phone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and the other thing is from a production point of view um the less components we use and the simpler the components means you reduce your cost and you increase your profit . Um and also the time to market and the complexity of developing designing and debugging it {disfmarker} um so . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um okay let me just go back and talk about some of the restrictions . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} The user interface restrictions basically means that if you use more complicated features , like the buttons are standard okay , the L_C_D_ panel and the scroll wheel you need more complicated logic . {vocalsound} Um the case {disfmarker} okay with a rubber case you can't have the solar panels . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay with the titanium case , let me just check that um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium case can't be curved , it has to be square . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um there's no restriction on the plastic , and +Marketing: It can't be curved . +Industrial Designer: it can't be curved on the wood . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's again , I don't think you can use them in a combination , um especially the titanium +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I I suspect they're very fixed to a particular need . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} mixing them may not be a good idea um yep . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Right can I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh question on {disfmarker} can I ask a question ? +Project Manager: Yeah well yeah it's just I'm quite keen to get the discussion going with the time we've left so {disfmarker} but yeah you c ask away . +Marketing: Okay . Can we uh power a light in this ? Can we get a strong enough battery to power a light ? +Industrial Designer: Um I think we could because the L_C_D_ panel requires power , and the L_C_D_ is a form of a light +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: So maybe one of the things we can just try and include is a really good battery . +Project Manager: Why what kind of light do you want {disfmarker} are you thinking of ? +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I mean I'm thinking it might be {disfmarker} That {disfmarker} for uh this to be a high-tech thing it's gonna have to have something high-tech about it +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Yeah . +Marketing: and that's gonna take battery power , and to make that to make that a realistic goal I think one of the issues that will come up later is , can the battery power it ? +Industrial Designer: Are you thinking are you thinking of of a light in the sense of um a light light , or a light in the sense of it glows kind of you know Frankenstein , it's alive . +Marketing: Illuminate the buttons . Yeah it glows . Well m I'm thinking along the lines of you're you're in the dark watching a D_V_D_ and you um you find the thing in the dark and you go like this , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: and that's what everybody does . Oh where's the volume button in the dark , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: and uh y you just touch it , or you just pick it up , and it lights up or something . +Project Manager: Like a phone yeah , like the backlight in a phone . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Like a phone , yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Marketing: Whereas with phones , people charge them once a week . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We're gonna need to put in a really good battery so people don't have to charge their r remote control every few days . +Industrial Designer: Um that's why I think the option of the the kinetic thing which basically means as long as you shake it like a watch , like an automatic watch +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But are people gonna wanna shake their movie controller ? +Industrial Designer: um it's probably sensitive enough when you fiddle it . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So you could trigger that to a light , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: like I said the bouncing ball thing , or you could trigger that to use that to power the light +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so when they pick it up , right , and then that that sorta triggers the +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: glowingness . +Project Manager: okay um well {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , great . +Project Manager: let's just go right back to the marketing ideas for a start , and just giving an id idea on the time , we've got about fifteen minutes to play with at most . So um yeah so just t to bear in mind that the ultimate goal of this meeting is to reach an {gap} decision on the the the concepts of the product . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So back to your idea about um incorporating the idea of like fruit and veg , and the corporate colour , and things like that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I mean what does everybody think about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Does anybody have any ideas of {disfmarker} about how we can fit all that in together ? I mean that's kind of the user interface type of thing , what are your thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think we could go for like um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe not a p a fruit shape but a very sort of curvy type shape . Um you could have the same sort of texture and colour as a fruit . +Project Manager: So maybe {disfmarker} do y are we thinking something that like s could sit in your hand comfortably , or do you th you'd hold onto comfortably or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um probably something that s sits in your hand comfortably , sort of feels right in your hand . +Project Manager: So something quite curvy ? Okay um right okay . Colour-wise I mean you made a re uh was it you or uh I can't remember who made the point about how if you've a nice bright colour you'll not lose it , was that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think he made that . +Project Manager: Whose {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Project Manager: about how if you have a bright colour you'll not lose it so much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and when the corporate colour is yellow , I mean maybe we could think about about the colour of the whole product being yellow I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then obviously the uh the materials {disfmarker} when it {disfmarker} has anybody got like an overall picture in their mind about what what might work ? That's all . +Marketing: Well I mean I'm thinking that what we need to do is have something that kind of unifies a lot of the different concepts , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if we think that what we are w our number one marketing motive is um {vocalsound} the look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So for the look and feel to seem coherent and not just sorta bits and bits and pieces of of concept and technology or or whatever or fashion , then we should have it kind of come back to one thing that we kind of all sorta can visualize . Um maybe what we could do is t th think about a concept which touches b back to the {disfmarker} on the um {vocalsound} the colour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you said company colour yellow . I mean if we think of something , like I was saying also lime and lemon you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: what {disfmarker} can we come up with something where we we try and associate it with with like the series . We just come up with something like that we kind of use it as a theme to inspire the +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: shapes and things . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Is there a particular shape that you're interested in ? Like does marketing have any research on {disfmarker} does it need to be long ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Does it need {disfmarker} with a square thing wha +Project Manager: Oh you know like in circular in shape or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause that will n help narrow down the choice of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Choice of material yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like fruit . {vocalsound} I'm thinking fruits in my head , but that's tacky . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I was kinda thinking about as well {disfmarker} you know how you get these shock resistant mobile phones , +User Interface: See I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're plastic but then also have like rubber on the outside , and it kinda feels {disfmarker} it feels kind of warmer to the touch . It feels a bit more comfortable , and maybe we could incorporate plastic and rubber into it . And then then we could have curved shapes , 'cause wood or titanium , yeah , it's gonna have to be boxy and rectangular and I think we might be moving away from that you know so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well I'm {disfmarker} do we really want it in like the shape of a lemon or {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no not at all . +Project Manager: no I don't think we do either {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's more more just that we we think about like what it is we're trying to achieve , so and then we have one one sorta theme that we stick with . +Project Manager: Okay right well um +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so thoughts about the actual shape of the thing . +User Interface: I'd quite like a sort of uh snowman type shape . +Project Manager: A snowman shape ? +User Interface: Um so a p sort of larger bit sits in your hand , and then you got maybe another bubble at the top for just any other function you need . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . That's quite a distinctive shape , +Marketing: Right , +Project Manager: that would be good +Marketing: sure . +Project Manager: wouldn't it . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so yeah should we go with that ? +Marketing: Um can we yeah like to and wha like do you have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna draw it on the board ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} yeah just t we can visualize it . +User Interface: Um something like that um you got two groups there um maybe it could fold up and you get a third group inside +Project Manager: Ooh that'd be good . +User Interface: or uh you have volume controls about there . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So call it the snowman-shape trademark {vocalsound} . Yeah that's cool . Um and I mean colour-wise what does everybody think ? I think it is quite important to get yellow in there somewhere . I mean do you want the whole thing yellow , maybe like yellow and white {disfmarker} do you want something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So I reckon it'd look quite nice if we just had um this {gap} here , had a sorta background yellow , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then have sort of a nice bold colour for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay cool . Um and also I mean how are we going to incorporate the slogan in ? The fact that it talks to you , I mean it might be quite cool if when you first start using it it says , what is it , putting fashion into electronics or something , I dunno . Or when you like {disfmarker} or if you turn it off or something {disfmarker} if it can speak if it could actually say the slogan it might be a bit more powerful than just having it written on it somewhere . +User Interface: I think that might scare me . +Project Manager: I d I d any thoughts on that at all ? +User Interface: I think that'd probably scare me . You turn it on your control possessed s {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I know . Um unless an a I mean if you {disfmarker} also would that work if we wanted to incorporate um an L_C_D_ display , where would we put that ? Would we put that on the inside or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we need an L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What what's the functionality of that ? +Project Manager: It's bound to increase the cost of it a lot , I would've thought . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the question is what are we using it {disfmarker} +Marketing: What would it achieve ? +Industrial Designer: what would we what would we achieve from it ? Putting in lights is cheap but putting in an L_C_D_ panel just to make it glow is a bit of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} L_C_ well I'd {disfmarker} when you used to mention the L_C_D_ I'd think I wonder what that would be about . And the th the thing I could see it helping with would be if it was somehow connected with um listings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So as you scroll through , 'cause we said we might have a jog dial , so as you scroll through your stations you can y it actually tells you what it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think that will be a problem because we don't have an input device to get the listings into it , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Industrial Designer: so um it's a bit nuts to get the {gap} Monday Tuesday Wednesday you know . +Project Manager: Mm oh yeah that's true . Yeah . So so no need for an L_C_D_ display ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I I'm not saying there's no need for an L_C_D_ display , but um it's {disfmarker} what's what what would it tell the user , +Project Manager: I think that would make it very complex . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the L_C_D_ tends to be an output as uh as opposed to an input so um does the remote control need to talk back to the user ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm not real +Industrial Designer: We have the option of the speaker as well {disfmarker} the sa the same thing goes for the speaker , is there a need for the remote control to to talk back ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if there is really , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Nah . +Project Manager: no um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would say no need for a talk-back . Uh does anybody disagree with that ? +Industrial Designer: You could put a game on it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Easy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: When the T_V_ dies you can play with the remote control {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay um right +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: so you're gonna have the three different sets of of functionalities , um I mean do you wanna group them into s head of the snowman , body of the snowman , inside of the snowman , is that what you're thinking ? +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well I think the advanced ones the the ones you don't usually use could be hid inside . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: B um I think the {gap} we had were fairly basic ones , they'd have to go on the the front somewhere . +Project Manager: Okay right um what else do you need to talk about ? +Marketing: Well i I was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Where would you physically position the buttons ? Um I think that that has some impact on on on many things . +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Um maybe you wanna draw onto the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'm just gonna um pop this in here 'cause I have a slide about decision making which I'd forgotten about . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh sh God we've got five minutes um okay uh back we go . Um energy what {disfmarker} do you think that's suggesting we're {disfmarker} how we're powering the thing ? I really like the idea of this kinetic thing where you'd have the back-up of the battery , but have have kinetic power , +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean what does anybody think about that ? +Marketing: Um I've had kinetic things before , and the the the one issue we need to keep in mind with them is that you're committing the user to moving it , +Industrial Designer: No , like I said we have a h hybrid kind of thing , so it's not gonna charge the battery , it's just {disfmarker} +Marketing: and watches yeah {disfmarker} Sure , okay , right , okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Support for it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean just {disfmarker} it's just worth pointing out because like I've I've known I've known people to have kinetic watches that they wear all the time , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's just like magic because it's always powered and there's no battery . I've also known people to have {vocalsound} things like like a jewellery watch they wear from time to time , and they eventually just say it's just too much of a nuisance because I don't wear it all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Like remote control is similar , you're away on vacation , I dunno whatever , you something , and it just starts to get worn down . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I suppose that if you're if you're away and you're not using it , then you're not using any power either . +Marketing: So we should think about {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you'd have the battery as the kind of {disfmarker} to keep it ticking over idea {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm really sorry we're gonna have to wrap up quite quickly , we don't have as much time as I thought . Um so I think that's what energy is referring to here . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Chip on print , is that {disfmarker} that's an industrial design thing , is it David ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay um as for the case , kind of discussed that {disfmarker} +Marketing: And this size here , I'd suggest this be small , like quite small . +Project Manager: Yeah I know we're gonna have like rubber buttons that feel kind of {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah I think so yeah . +Marketing: Um just a a lot of the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean one of the things running through my mind right now , I realise we're being efficient to wrap up the meeting and have lots of decisions made , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um but we are leaning quite a bit to the side of being low-tech , rubber buttons plastic frame , it's almost like we're reproducing the same old remote control that's out there . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Should we think about how we are actually getting this high-tech user friendly uh um theme {disfmarker} like what is it that we're u we're using to to achieve those goals ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could have things like backlighting the buttons and stuff like that . +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} Okay so so backlighting , that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Or even a clear case . Um you know a a glowing a a glowing yellow type case where the yellow is showable , +Marketing: Yeah clear , +Project Manager: Aye that would be a good idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but in the dark it sort of , it's alive {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Um in in a slight subtle way . +Project Manager: S so like cur slightly transparent case , so it's yellow , like tinted yellow , but you can maybe see through it . +Marketing: Yeah that'd be really good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or or there might be a light running through it like a mouse . +Project Manager: Is that what you mean ? +Industrial Designer: You know you have cordless mice and they don't eat that much power right . +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: So the power {disfmarker} the battery in that sense , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you have one or two stratig strategically placed lights +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . Yeah they they emanate a light through it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: but because the case is transparent so it gives it a little bit of a glow , doesn't make it freaky . +Project Manager: Lights . +Marketing: 'Kay . Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Um and then the other thing that we we're s we've committed ourselves to achieving is simplicity , and so I'm thinking maybe should we try and think about having something like um some kind of an innovative concept about how the um the volume and the channels are controlled , 'cause that's the main thing people will f wanna do . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Could we use like a jog dial , like a nice just sort of round , somewhere on it where you just roll it ? +Industrial Designer: The question is when you're rolling it , how do you wanna roll it ? +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? Do you want 'em to roll it like that ? 'Cause in a mouse your hand's in a position to roll it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas the other thing about having it jog dial this way , it tends to get moved accidentally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah if you are holding it in your hand you could you could do that , couldn't you ? +Marketing: Well why don't we do it like a mouse then ? +Project Manager: If you're holding it in your hand you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's a very unnatural motion to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Can you imagine you have to scroll a lot . Um it might work for volume , and maybe some of the brightness controls and stuff like that , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not for channels right . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you have a Telewest box you've got like , you don't have to buy all the channels , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: you've about fifty channels , can you imagine trying to {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay okay +Industrial Designer: Um and I don't think having that you know too quick too slow kin it's confusing to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: um {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , but then for um for skipping a large amount of channels you do have to uh to skip the channel button , the number part . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . But users tend to tend to want to use that +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and once they lose out on the user experience they're like {disfmarker} Because that's becomes the most accessible thing in front of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But that's not a bad thing is it ? +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because when you think about it , the alternative is to go push the button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Jog dials are much easier than that . +Project Manager: Okay um right well wouldn't it {disfmarker} +Marketing: You just roll . +Project Manager: we do need to make a decision on whether we want to incorporate a jog dial in nice and quickly . Um I'm all for them actually , I think they're quite {disfmarker} you know th very quick to m to use . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So does anybody oppose the idea of of incorporating one into the design at all ? No . And the other thing was um can we think of any way of getting the slogan into this thing ? +Marketing: Yeah like I mean if we if if we keep coming back to this board here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I wouldn't be surprised if we could take this idea , imagine that , I dunno , that it's within the shape of the hand , it's quite small {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh ooh okay , we really gotta wrap up +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's small , and that we've got like the the l slogan somewhere like on the casing at the side , +Project Manager: Okay well if we can do that , great . +Marketing: and that yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: well I mean isn't that what we just h said said we s just have to decide now ? +Project Manager: Yeah let's let's try and get the slogan on there um , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you wanna expand the shape of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then like a jo And then like a jog dial somewhere that fits in with the shape of it like I dunno like here , in with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that might have one problem in terms of um in terms of whether you're left handed or you're right handed you might be locking yourself in . +Marketing: It would get bumped , it's {disfmarker} doesn't really fit with your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or maybe just fit it in like down the middle here . +Industrial Designer: Could I just could I just jump in and suggest something quickly ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A jog di +Project Manager: I'm really gonna have to hurry you on here 'cause we're we're actually over time . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Um is there anything anybody's unsure about ? +Marketing: . It's kind of yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just for {disfmarker} in closing just {disfmarker} the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes , and so you can see in the screen here what each of you are gonna hopefully be doing , uh I know that the designers are gonna be working with Play-doh on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} that'll be that'll be good . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Um and I'll get the the minutes up as soon as possible . Anything at all you think we haven't discussed that we need to ? Is everybody kind of happy about what they're gonna be doing ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um I think one thing would be the jog dial 'cause that's gonna have quite a big impact on the thing um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I think the jog dial , you know it just after you drew that , what if it was flat and you just spun it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's what I was thinking the {disfmarker} +Marketing: that'd be great . +Industrial Designer: a slide , because then you you don't have to put the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think incorporating a logo is quite straight forward . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: There's lots of space for it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's kind of a design thing that you guys can can discuss , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it's also a a marketing and a function {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah and materials we sorta said we'd do plastic and rubber , didn't we , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and I think maybe we should try and stay away from just the big protruding rubber buttons , 'cause that'd just be so standard . +Project Manager: To make something flush with the case ? +Marketing: Something a bit more flush , yeah , +Project Manager: Okay right . +Marketing: or maybe have rubber incorporated into the case as well , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so that it has {disfmarker} and also t plastic I've seen can get really textured , so you can get plastics that actually feel soft in your hand . +Project Manager: Sp kinda grippy ? +Industrial Designer: Feel like fruit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Fruits kids {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They feel kind of like um , you get pens now and then that you'd think that they were rubber but they're not , +Industrial Designer: No like {disfmarker} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: they're actually just plastic that's textured , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah kinda like that yeah . +Marketing: kind of a little bit like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to call this to a close 'cause we're way over time . So um that's really good , like we've s had much to talk about that um pretty much run out of time to do so . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So off you go and design stuff +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: wooh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Play-doh time . +Project Manager: Yeah quite jealous actually . +Industrial Designer: You got to choose first . {vocalsound} No , we're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , can I just swipe your power cable , I don't think it matters . {vocalsound} Okay lemme {disfmarker} okay , I'm gonna pull everybody out first and then put in whoever needs to be left . It's you . Argh . This is a real hassle and a {disfmarker} oops . I'm gonna take the microphones , 'cause it's {disfmarker} too lazy t take them off again . Cool . +","The summary of the meeting encompasses a collaborative effort amongst industrial design, marketing, and project management teams to conceptualize a new remote control product targeting the 15-35 age group. The discussion mainly revolves around product design, incorporating market trends, and user interface concerns, aiming for a non-rechargeable battery-powered device that stands out in both form and functionality. + +The meeting begins with the Project Manager recapping previous decisions about the target demographic and the need to eschew excessive features like teletext in favor of focusing on essential TV functions. The team also decides to integrate the corporate color and slogan into the design. + +Marketing brings to the table crucial consumer insights, highlighting the demand for a product with a fancy look, innovative design technology, and ease of use. The idea is to ideate a product that uses technology to enhance aesthetics rather than add to the functionality. Marketing suggests taking inspiration from current fashion trends like “fruit and vegetables” and consumer preferences for soft and ergonomic materials, suggesting a shift from last year's harder, glassy designs. + +Following a comprehensive market research presentation, there is a consensus on the requirement for a stylish, user-friendly product with high-tech appeal but not overly complex features. The discussions pivot around fruit-inspired themes for the product's design, creating an identity that's aligned with upcoming trends without being gimmicky. + +The Industrial Designer contributes by discussing the relevance of different components, like buttons, power options, and materials. The team touches upon a new kinetic power source as an interesting gimmick and debates the necessity of an LCD display. They agree upon avoiding excessive complexity and reducing component count to lower costs and speed up market release. + +A user interface representative emphasizes the importance of a visually appealing and easily discoverable remote that avoids a block-like, conventional design. There are suggestions for large, easy-to-press buttons, consistent color-coding, and the inclusion of a brightly colored, possibly yellow case drawing from the corporate branding. The user interface design would ideally respect ergonomic considerations and possibly hide advanced functionalities to maintain simplicity. Voice activation is discussed, with suggestions that it could confirm actions taken, but the team leans towards not overcomplicating the interface with voice responses. + +During the discussions, the project manager maintains an emphasis on the meeting's final objective—to decide on the product concept. Several ideas are deliberated on: a snowman-shaped design, buttons with backlighting, a kinetic energy source with a battery backup, and incorporating the marketing slogan into the design. The marketing team advocates for simplicity and contemplates the organization, shape, and visual appeal of the remote. + +As the meeting progresses, the team reaches a shared vision of the product, combining novel power sources, a distinctive yet comfortable shape, and an interactive user interface. However, they stress avoiding tacky designs and retaining high-tech features that resonate with a modern user. The marketing team is especially interested in ensuring that the product aligns with the corporate color and slogan while also delivering on the desired high-tech and user-friendly experience. + +In conclusion, the team aligns on a unique, ergonomic design that utilizes vibrant colors and innovative power options to create a compelling product that marries fashion with electronics. They plan to reconvene in thirty minutes to further discuss the design details and prototype development. The meeting concludes with anticipation for the Play-doh design session, demonstrating the creative direction and brainstorming spirit of the design process." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or you get it . Okay . +User Interface: No I don't think so it has to be like that yeah and you have to adjust the length . Okay , and then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we uh {disfmarker} we will wait for Anna , a few minutes . +User Interface: Yeah , s yeah , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm {vocalsound} . Yours is well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think you can put anywhere you want , actually . I thin +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the the mic should not {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not a directional mic , anyway . +Project Manager: I think it should work like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: So I will try to get my presentation running . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Can't help you with that . +User Interface: Last . +Project Manager: It's no matter . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's y yeah . +Project Manager: No problem . Ah yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then press uh al +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: This . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Project Manager: Just try . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On this normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +User Interface: Alt F_ five . +Project Manager: Good . Doesn't appear on the screen here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Wow . Amazing . It's working {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: Hold that . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes and you can put can clip it uh on your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Somewhere . So , {vocalsound} good morning , everyone . Um {disfmarker} Welcome at uh {disfmarker} at the kick off meeting of our uh latest project . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hope you all have been uh updated about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: So . Yes . +Project Manager: So w we will try to structure this uh meeting with an a with an agenda uh as presented here . Um after the opening we will tr get acquainted to each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: See what our roles are in this project . So , um {disfmarker} We have been provided with uh some uh w technical tools to uh {disfmarker} to communicate and to well , learn from each other's plans uh as I can say um so w we will also try to uh to get acquainted to this tools so they are also new to me I don't know whether you worked with them before . Um then we will come to the uh to the to the actual project plan . You all know I hope {vocalsound} how it's about uh the uh new r remote control we are going going to design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Total . +Project Manager: Uh then we will uh discuss uh , well , how it should be and uh {disfmarker} wh what uh what our new product should look lite {disfmarker} like . And uh well then uh after some twenty five minutes I hope uh we can end this meeting . So . Um basically this is about a uh a new c remote control . Um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} When you design a new product you of {disfmarker} uh you of course want it to be original . Be uh {disfmarker} we want to be distinguished , mm ? People uh want to uh when they look at the shelf want to think , well that's the product I I need . So it needs to be trendy . I mean trendy is what people want , so then I w they will buy our product . But then , uh , it also should work uh user friendly and uh otherwise people uh uh well it will not be uh be rated very well in consumer uh articles and like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , the general outline of uh new project will be we first uh go through a functional design phase . Um {disfmarker} You all get uh um certain task uh in this uh in this phase and uh then we will meet again and uh discuss this functional design . And the same holds for the uh ph two phases uh after this , the conceptual design and after that a a more detailed design in which the the final project should get its definite shape . Alright , but first we will do some uh tool training . In all in front of you uh you see uh the uh notebooks and w uh n note blocks and we have here a a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a white-board . +User Interface: Whitebo +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um well it should work uh {disfmarker} I've read it from my uh from some colleague that it should work with some kind of toolbar . I didn't find out yet how it work , but maybe one of you did , so {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Under documents in the shared folder . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Do {disfmarker} Do we have to say something about that ? I I I'm not fully updated about this shared folder uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we'll have a shared folder uh with documents that we can share . And uh , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes well we will then find out ho how it works . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um . Well , this seems to me , yes , some computer program but I didn't find it yet . So , we'll come to that later . So , uh now we will try out the white-board we have here . So , I would suggest uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Each of us is going . +Project Manager: Well , yes , um we uh we should try to t to draw on it and then well it should be smart some way . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not really sure how this works , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , shall I start ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: a good idea Mael . +User Interface: you can start it you know . +Marketing: I think for us it's just like a normal whiteboard , but they'll be recording what we write down . +Industrial Designer: So , i +User Interface: No they will record through that . There's a sensor over there +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: which is going to record the strokes that you make . +Marketing: But for us it's just like a normal whiteboard . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Actually , I think I cannot go with uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} D doesn't it work ? Maybe someo Maybe {disfmarker} maybe Anna , maybe you can start . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then he can maybe find out to get his cord right . +Marketing: I have to draw . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} L Why don't you draw uh {vocalsound} your favourite animal on on th on the white-board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: M my {disfmarker} my favourite animal . {vocalsound} Sorry this is all tangled up here . +Project Manager: Oh , I see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes . Mm . So draw it . We will try to guess what it is . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I'm a very bad drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Weird . Um . You're not gonna be able to guess from my drawing . I'm a bad drawer . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They're ears , by the way . +User Interface: 's a cat . +Marketing: No . Um close though . Okay so {disfmarker} like a pet animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like a cat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's like a cat , so I guess it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , not a cat though . +Project Manager: What is this now ? +User Interface: Ah you forget about it . +Industrial Designer: You're on the knife . +User Interface: Yeah , uh I think it's fine . I just don't want to carry it off . Man , this wires , eh ? We need a wireless microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know ? Pro specially we should next project we should take l like that . +Marketing: Okay . So . +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: It's not a cat , +Project Manager: that's the cat . +Marketing: it's a dog . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Mael . +Project Manager: It's a dog . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So but that's also kind of cat , +User Interface: Oh +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: the dog doesn't have a tail ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got a tail then . +Project Manager: B bo both predators . +User Interface: Yeah , sure , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: I thought so . The dogs have a tail . +Marketing: So do cats . +Project Manager: So , thank you . Uh d did you uh work out cord ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you guessed cats without a tail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I will go without {disfmarker} without it , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: It'll still not extend , right ? It's not up to that . +Marketing: Okay , there you go . So what favourite characteristics . Uh . Dogs are always friendly and loyal and fun . A horse ? +User Interface: It's a horse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is why you're the designer . And I'm marketing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes , yes this is {disfmarker} Yes definitely a horse . Yes . Oh very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I suppose it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah I think you can put that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's it . {vocalsound} A blue and black zebra {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Can {disfmarker} you can meet them in Africa , I think . Yes . Very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: The very rare blue zebras . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} I'll tell to get it off my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ma Matthew ? +User Interface: Uh ? Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: You got a lot of room here . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can probably reach . +User Interface: Oh y it's not for that . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope you have some space in your uh the horse of uh Mael . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . So what should I draw ? Mm . He has already to do cat . +Marketing: I took a dog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . A mouse ? +Project Manager: This looks likes a cat who has been driven over . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we should sum up its favourite charas characteristics , right ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , the moustache . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} that's definitely a cat . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . And i Th They like to sleep , that's why you said you they are like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's quite , you know {disfmarker} relaxed situation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} She has the small legs . +Project Manager: Th thank you , Matthew . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thank you , Matthew . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a very big rat . Or a very small cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Perfect . {vocalsound} Oh a rat , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , this is certain uh {disfmarker} some contribution to our project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you , {gap} +Marketing: Your turn . +Project Manager: So . Let's see . Which animal has not been drawn yet . So you've all drawn land animals , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so why not draw an animal from the water . +Industrial Designer: A bird . Okay , in the water . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah I don't know what that is . It's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit hard to guess . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Put it colours . Maybe it would help us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The cat is going to eat the fish or the rat ? +Industrial Designer: With different pen widths . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.$ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , it's a shark now . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a shark , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , yes , why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good idea . +User Interface: Ah it's a baby shark , it looks to me , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you know it's going to eat the cat rather than the cat eating the fish , no ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Now it's a swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Why not . A swordfish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You have some in {disfmarker} in Australia , right ? +Marketing: Swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , maybe . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I've never seen one , no . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Yeah . +Project Manager: I hope it still works . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . So I dunno if we need to spend time on that , actually {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should go for the next one it seems to me . +Project Manager: W Well , this uh this tool seemed to work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's continue to uh {disfmarker} to the real stuff . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Um our project uh finance uh thing . Uh when we are {disfmarker} and when w you are uh going to design w uh we must keep in mind that the selling price of the product uh will be about twenty five Euros , so when designing a project uh I also look at you uh Mael , keep in mind uh uh uh {disfmarker} People uh +User Interface: Twenty four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: want to get the feeling this is a twenty five Euro project uh pr um product . +Industrial Designer: Per remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Per project . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: more interesting for our company {vocalsound} of course , p uh profit aim , about fifty million Euro . So we have to sell uh quite a lot of this uh {vocalsound} um things . Uh we will try to uh to get at a international market uh so um it will be I think mainly Europe and uh Northern America , +User Interface: Ah yeah , the sale man , four million . +Project Manager: maybe some uh Asian countries . Um also important for you all is um the the product uh production cost must be maximal uh twelve uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's half of the selling price , if I am good in mathematics . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . Uh um I mean we still have to uh to make a profit , huh ? +User Interface: They have to sell at least four million to make a profit {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You all have to be paid . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Excuse me ? +User Interface: Ah we have to make {disfmarker} we have to sell at least four million to make our own profit . Fifty mill +Industrial Designer: Oh you're g very good in mathematics . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four million . +Project Manager: So uh well I think w when we are working on the international market , uh in principle it has enough customers +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh so when we have a good product we uh we could uh meet this this aim , I think . So , that about finance . And uh now just let have some discussion about what is a good remote control and uh well keep in mind this this first point , it has to be original , it has to be trendy , it has to be user friendly . Um , maybe someone can mention some additional uh prerequisites for a good remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Of course it should have a on off button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , well i it should have the the the the expected functionality uh of a remote control . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , s and it depends what application you are using it for . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You might need uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We wer we were thinking television . Uh . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We are targ targeting the television set . So , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you need to record the channels . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You need to browse the {disfmarker} browse the channels in upward downward way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes , yes . Th th that's very handy I {disfmarker} I always miss it and {disfmarker} on some remote controls that you can go channel up or down ins instead of retyping the number , especially when you have a lot of channels . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh just before starting the detailed discussion , maybe we are the marketing guy ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm marketing . +User Interface: Marketing . +Industrial Designer: th So you are the marketing . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And you are in the u use user interface uh design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So just {disfmarker} yeah I wanted to to be sure . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm the the industrial designer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Because I I don't know you very well , actually , but yeah . +User Interface: I'm Matthew . You know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mael . +User Interface: Matth s uh +Industrial Designer: Happy to meet you . +Marketing: Anna . +User Interface: Anna . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . It's very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A and I'm Nanne . +User Interface: And um uh Matthew , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thi think you know me , +Industrial Designer: Uh so yeah uh {disfmarker} Just uh on your web page but uh yeah not uh {disfmarker} not face to face . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: yeah ? right yeah . +Project Manager: So . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S s +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are there some other very important things to to do {disfmarker} well , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I +Project Manager: to specify in this first phase of of the project . So the browse function , as you m mentioned . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Oth yeah . +User Interface: And uh , you'd need the usual ones , like the changing the volume , changing the the channel and then {disfmarker} you uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Today we have uh um teletext and all those things . Tomorrow you might have a some more functions which might come through that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Like what ? Like internet on the on T_V_ ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I_P_O_ or . Now we are looking for television things or I_P_ . For example personal video recorder and all those stuffs are coming up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . But we can't really design for something that hasn't been invented yet . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's coming up , actually . The personal video recorder and all those things it is coming up . +Project Manager: Mm , well uh I I think {disfmarker} Uh w y you two should {disfmarker} should , I think , think this over uh w espec what , what functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Actually , yeah +User Interface: Let's {disfmarker} Let's take {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: w {vocalsound} Of course , and first before um designing the func well thinking about the functionalities , we need to know what are the user requirements . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um then if they need internet , then we would be able to to p to propose something with uh uh T_V_ over I_P_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . But {disfmarker} Ninety percent of the time , ninety nine percent of the time , people will be using the main functions , the volume , the different channels , so we can have all the fancy things as well but the main controls need to be very obvious and very easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . Keep k keep in mind i it's a {disfmarker} it's a twenty five Euro unit , so uh uh the the very fancy stuff uh w we can leave that out , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So twenty five Euro you expect a quite , well normal but good functioning user friendly remote control . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh in that case you can you always hook up with uh someone who is providing that and you know , {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you sell their product as well as your product with them , you know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . So try and get T_V_ manufacturers to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w w we want to design a new one . {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's okay , yeah I understand . So we need some numbering buttons , some teletext things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} Yeah , the main is browsing . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , but but but ab about the spec the buttons , the buttons uh that will be on it . I I think we can discuss that in the in the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I would like to get this wrapped up and go to an end of this meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , we are alread mm . Mm . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: you know now the basic {disfmarker} the basic things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: well just {disfmarker} just for the next meeting , um +User Interface: L +Project Manager: well , uh , you wor yes , work on a design , keep it general , I mean {disfmarker} so w we will be still fle flexible with maybe adding some functions . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um you will be working on {disfmarker} on technical function design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: And uh you {disfmarker} and you and uh uh uh well , think about requirements , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: eh ? Does it need internet , or or do do we stay at basic basic television uh interface . +User Interface: Stam . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , uh I think we should now all go work uh uh at this +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you will be informed via email and other kind of communication . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting will be in uh {disfmarker} in thirty minutes uh . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: K keep it in mind . +","The team met to discuss a new remote control project, with a focus on originality, trendiness, user-friendliness, and a selling price of around 25 Euros. They touched upon the device's expected functions, such as channel browsing and volume control and considered user requirements. The project manager outlined financial goals and production cost limitations, emphasizing the need for the product to feel worth its price. Various team members debated functionality and market strategy, agreeing to further refine the design and reconvene in thirty minutes to continue discussions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: Why ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: I 'm known . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , cuz she already told me it , before she told you . +Grad E: No , she told me a long time ago . She told me {disfmarker} she told me like two weeks ago . +Grad A: Oh , well , it doesn't matter what time . +Grad B: OK . You know how to toggle the display width {pause} function {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well maybe she hadn't just started transcribing me yet . +Grad D: Wow . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad D: What is it ? +Grad E: Let me explain something to you . +Grad D: Um , +Grad E: My laugh is better than yours . +Grad D: there . +Grad A: I beg to differ . +Grad B: Yo . +Grad D: Um , OK . +Grad A: But you have to say something genuinely funny before you 'll get an example . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: The thing is I don't know how to get to the next page . Here . +Grad E: No . You should be {disfmarker} at least be self - satisfied enough to laugh at your own jokes . +Grad D: Actually I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , it 's a different laugh . +Grad D: There . +Grad A: Ooh , wow ! +Grad D: How weird . +Grad E: Oh ! Holy mackerel . +Grad A: Wow . Whoa ! +Grad D: What ? ! Oh . OK . I wasn't even doing anything . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad A: Uh . +Grad E: Eva 's got a laptop , she 's trying to show it off . +Grad D: That was r actually Robert 's idea . But anyhow . Um +Professor F: O K . So , here we are . +Grad E: Once again . +Professor F: Once again , right , together . Um , so we haven't had a meeting for a while , and {disfmarker} and probably won't have one next week , I think a number of people are gone . Um , so Robert , why don't you bring us up to date on where we are with EDU ? +Grad B: Um , uh in a {disfmarker} in a smaller group we had uh , talked and decided about continuation of the data collection . So Fey 's time with us is almost officially over , and she brought us some thirty subjects and , t collected the data , and ten dialogues have been transcribed and can be looked at . If you 're interested in that , talk to me . Um , and we found another uh , cogsci student who 's interested in playing wizard for us . Here we 're gonna make it a little bit more complicated for the subjects , uh this round . She 's actually suggested to look um , at the psychology department students , because they have to partake in two experiments in order to fulfill some requirements . So they have to be subjected , {vocalsound} {comment} before they can actually graduate . And um , we want to design it so that they really have to think about having some time , two days , for example , to plan certain things and figure out which can be done at what time , and , um , sort of package the whole thing in a {disfmarker} in a re in a few more complicated um , structure . That 's for the data collection . As for SmartKom , I 'm {disfmarker} the last SmartKom meeting I mentioned that we have some problems with the synthesis , which as of this morning should be resolved . And , so , +Professor F: Good . +Grad B: "" should be "" means they aren't yet , but {disfmarker} but I think I have the info now that I need . Plus , Johno and I are meeting tomorrow , so maybe uh uh , when tomorrow is over , we 're done . And ha n hav we 'll never have to look at it again Maybe it 'll take some more time , to be realistic , but at least we 're {disfmarker} we 're seeing the end of the tunnel there . That was that . Um , the uh , uh I don't think we need to discuss the formalism that 'll be done officially s once we 're done . Um , something happened , in {disfmarker} on Eva 's side with the PRM that we 're gonna look at today , and um , we have a visitor from Bruchsal from the International University . Andreas , I think you 've met everyone except Nancy . +Grad A: Sorry . Hi . Hi . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Hi . Hi . +Grad A: So when you said "" Andreas "" I thought you were talking about Stolcke . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: Now I know that we aren't , OK . +Grad B: Andy , you actually go by Andy , right ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Eh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Cuz there is another Andreas around , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: so , to avoid some confusion . +Grad B: That will be {pause} Reuter ? Oh , OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So my scientific director of the EML is also the dean of the International University , one of his many occupations that just contributes to the fact that he is very occupied . And , um , the {disfmarker} um , he @ @ might tell us a little bit about what he 's actually doing , and why it is s somewhat related , and {disfmarker} by uh using maybe some of the same technologies that we are using . And um . Was that enough of an update ? +Professor F: I think so . +Grad B: In what order shall we proceed ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Maybe you have your on - line {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh , yeah , sure . Um , so , I 've be just been looking at , um , Ack ! What are you doing ? Yeah . OK . Um , I 've been looking at the PRM stuff . Um , so , this is , sort of like the latest thing I have on it , and I sorta constructed a couple of classes . Like , a user class , a site class , and {disfmarker} and you know , a time , a route , and then {disfmarker} and a query class . And I tried to simplify it down a little bit , so that I can actually um , look at it more . It 's the same paper that I gave to Jerry last time . Um , so basically I took out a lot of stuff , a lot of the decision nodes , and then tried to {disfmarker} The red lines on the , um , graph are the um , relations between the different um , classes . Like , a user has like , a query , and then , also has , you know um , reference slots to its preferences , um , the special needs and , you know , money , and the user interest . And so this is more or less similar to the flat Bayes - net that I have , you know , with the input nodes and all that . And {disfmarker} So I tried to construct the dependency models , and a lot of these stuff I got from the flat Bayes - net , and what they depend on , and it turns out , you know , the CPT 's are really big , if I do that , so I tried to see how I can do , um {disfmarker} put in the computational nodes in between . And what that would look like in a PRM . And so I ended up making several classes {disfmarker} Actually , you know , a class of {disfmarker} with different attributes that are the intermediate nodes , and one of them is like , time affordability money affordability , site availability , and the travel compatibility . And so some of these classes are {disfmarker} s some of these attributes only depend on stuff from , say , the user , or s f just from , I don't know , like the site . S like , um , these here , it 's only like , user , but , if you look at travel compatibility for each of these factors , you need to look at a pair of , you know , what the um , preference of the user is versus , you know , what type of an event it is , or you know , which form of transportation the user has and whether , you know , the onsite parking matters to the user , in that case . And that makes the scenario a little different in a PRM , because , um , then you have one - user objects and potentially you can have many different sites in {disfmarker} in mind . And so for each of the site you 'll come up with this rating , of travel compatibility . And , they all depend on the same users , but different sites , and that makes a {disfmarker} I 'm tr I w I wa have been trying to see whether the PRM would make it more efficient if we do inferencing like that . And so , I guess you end up having fewer number of nodes than in a flat Bayes - net , cuz otherwise you would {disfmarker} c well , it 's probably the same . But um , No , you would definitely have {disfmarker} be able to re - use , like , {vocalsound} um , all the user stuff , and not {disfmarker} not having to recompute a lot of the stuff , because it 's all from the user side . So if you changed sites , you {disfmarker} you can , you know , save some work on that . But , you know , in the case where , it depends on both the user and the site , then I 'm still having a hard time trying to see how um , using the PRM will help . Um , so anyhow , using those intermediate nodes then , this {disfmarker} this would be the class that represent the intermediate nodes . And that would {disfmarker} basically it 's just another class in the model , with , you know , references to the user and the site and the time . And then , after you group them together this {disfmarker} no the dependencies would {disfmarker} of the queries would be reduced to this . And so , you know , it 's easier to specify the CPT and all . Um , so I think that 's about as far as I 've gone on the PRM stuff . +Professor F: Well +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: No . So y you didn't yet tell us what the output is . +Grad D: The output . +Professor F: So what decisions does this make ? +Grad D: OK . So it only makes two decisions , in this model . And one is basically how desirable a site is meaning , um , how good it matches the needs of a user . And the other is the mode of the visit , whether th It 's the EVA decision . Um , so , instead of um , {vocalsound} doing a lot of , you know , computation about , you know , which one site it wants of {disfmarker} the user wants to visit , I 'll come {disfmarker} well , try to come up with like , sort of a list of sites . And for each site , you know , where {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} how well it fits , and basically a rating of how well it fits and what to do with it . So . Anything else I missed ? +Professor F: So that was pretty quick . She 's ac uh uh Eva 's got a little write - up on it that uh , probably gives the {disfmarker} the details to anybody who needs them . Um , so the {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you didn't look at all yet to see if there 's anybody has a implementation . +Grad D: No , not yet , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: OK . So one {disfmarker} so one of the questions , you know , about these P R Ms is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: uh , we aren't gonna build our own interpreter , so if {disfmarker} if we can't find one , then we uh , go off and do something else and wait until s one appears . Uh , so one of the things that Eva 's gonna do over the next few weeks is see if we can track that down . Uh , the people at Stanford write papers as if they had one , but , um , we 'll see . So w Anyway . So that 's a {disfmarker} a major open issue . If there is an interpreter , it looks like you know , what Eva 's got should run and we should be able to actually um , try to solve , you know , the problems , to actually take the data , and do it . Uh , and we 'll see . Uh , I actually think it is cleaner , and the ability to instantiate , you know , instance of people and sites and stuff , um , will help in the expression . Whether the inference gets any faster or not I don't know . Uh , it wouldn't surprise me if it {disfmarker} if it doesn't . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: You know , it 's the same kind of information . I think there are things that you can express this way which you can't express in a normal belief - net , uh , without going to some incredible hacking of {disfmarker} sort of rebuilding it on the fly . I mean , the notion of instantiating your el elements from the ontology and stuff fits this very nicely and doesn't fit very well into the extended belief - net . So that was one of the main reasons for doing it . Um . I don't know . So , uh , people who have thought about the problem , like Robert i it looked to me like if {comment} Eva were able to come up with a {vocalsound} you know , value for each of a number of uh , sites plus its EVA thing , that a travel planner should be able to take it from there . And {disfmarker} you know , with some other information about how much time the person has and whatever , and then plan a route . +Grad B: Um - hmm , um , {vocalsound} well , first of all uh , uh , great looks , mu much cleaner , nnn , nnn , Certain {disfmarker} certain beauty in it , so , um , if beauty is truth , then , uh we 're in good shape . But , the um , as , uh , mentioned before we probably should look at t the details . So if you have a write - up then uh , I 'd love to read it +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} because , um , i Can you go all the way back to the {disfmarker} the very top ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Um , {vocalsound} uh these {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} these {disfmarker} w w when these are instantiated they take on the same values ? that we had before ? +Grad D: I can't really see the whole thing . +Grad B: or are they {disfmarker} have they changed , in a sense ? +Grad D: Well I think I basically leave them to similar things . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Some of the things might {disfmarker} that might be different , maybe like {disfmarker} are that the hours for the site . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad D: And , eventually I meant that to mean whether they 're open at this hour or not . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Grad D: And status would be , you know , more or less like , whether they 're under construction , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} or stuff like that . +Grad B: And the , uh , other question I would have is that presumably , from the way the Stanford people talk about it , you can put the probabilities also on the relations . If {disfmarker} +Grad D: Which is the structural uncertainty ? +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah , I {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} That I think was actually in the previous {disfmarker} the Ubenth stuff . I don't remember whether they carried that over to this or not , +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: uh , structural uncertainty . +Grad B: It 's sort of in the definition or {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in Daphne 's definition of a PRM is that classes and relations , +Professor F: OK . +Grad B: and you 're gonna have CPT 's over the classes and their relations . +Professor F: Alright . +Grad B: More uncertainty , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , +Grad B: I should say . +Grad D: I remember them learning when , you know , you don't know the structure for sure , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: but I don't remember reading how you specify +Grad B: Yeah , that would be exactly my question . +Professor F: Right . +Grad D: wh to start with . Yeah . +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . So , uh , the {disfmarker} the plan is {disfmarker} is when Daphne gets back , we 'll get in touch and supposedly , um , we 'll actually get s deep {disfmarker} seriously connected to {disfmarker} to their work and +Grad B: Yep . +Professor F: somebody 'll {disfmarker} Uh , you know {disfmarker} If it 's a group meeting once a week probably someone 'll go down and , whatever . So , we 'll actually figure all this out . +Grad B: OK . OK . Then I think the w {vocalsound} long term perspective is {disfmarker} is pretty clear . We get rocking and rolling on this again , once we get a package , if , when , and how , then this becomes foregrounded +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: profiled , focused , again . +Grad E: Designated ? +Grad A: Of course . +Grad B: And um , until then we 'll come up with a something that 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that 's way more complicated for you . Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Because this was laughingly easy , right ? +Grad D: Actually I had to take out a lot of the complicated stuff , cuz I {disfmarker} I made it really complicated in the beginning , and Jerry was like , {vocalsound} "" this is just too much "" . +Professor F: Yeah . So , um , you could , from this , go on and say suppose there 's a group of people traveling together and you wanted to plan something that somehow , with some Pareto optimal uh , {vocalsound} uh , thing for {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's good . That 's definitely a job for artificial intelligence . +Professor F: uh , or {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except for humans can't really solve it either , so . +Grad B: Well that 's not {disfmarker} not even something humans {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor F: Right . Right . Well that 's the {disfmarker} that would {disfmarker} that would be a {disfmarker} uh , you could sell it , as a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: OK , eh you don't have to fight about this , just give your preferences to the {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then you can blame the computer . +Professor F: w Exactly . +Grad A: So . +Grad B: Hmm . But what does it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Would a pote potential result be to {disfmarker} to split up and never talk to each other again ? You know . +Grad A: That should be one of them . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad E: That 'd be nice . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Anyway . So . So there i there are some {disfmarker} some u uh , you know , uh , elaborations of this that you could try to put in to this structure , but I don't think it 's worth it now . Because we 're gonna see what {disfmarker} what else uh {disfmarker} what else we 're gonna do . Anyway . But uh , it 's good , yeah and {disfmarker} and there were a couple other ideas of {disfmarker} of uh , things for Eva to look at in {disfmarker} in the interim . +Grad B: Good . Then , we can move on and see what Andreas has got out his sleeve . Or Andy , for that matter ? +Grad C: OK . So uh , uh , well , thanks for having me here , first of all . Um , so maybe just a {disfmarker} a little background on {disfmarker} on my visit . So , uh , I 'm not really involved in any project , that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's relevant to you uh , a at the moment , uh , the {disfmarker} the reason is really for me uh , to have an opportunity to talk to some other researchers in the field . And {disfmarker} and so I 'll just n sort of give you a real quick introduction to what I 'm working on , and um , I just hope that you have some comments or , maybe you 're interested in it to find out more , and {disfmarker} and so I 'll be uh , happy to talk to you and {disfmarker} and uh , I 'd also like to find out some more and {disfmarker} and maybe I 'll just walk around the office and and then {disfmarker} and ask some {disfmarker} some questions , uh , in a couple days . So I 'll be here for uh , tomorrow and then uh , the remainder of uh , next week . OK , so , um , what I started looking at , uh , to begin with is just uh , content management systems uh , i i in general . So um , uh what 's uh {disfmarker} Sort of the state of the art there is to um {disfmarker} uh you have a bunch of {disfmarker} of uh documents or learning units or learning objects , um , and you store meta - data uh , associate to them . So there 's some international standards like the I - triple - E , uh {disfmarker} There 's an I - triple - E , LON standard , and um , these fields are pretty straightforward , you have uh author information , you have uh , size information , format information and so on . Uh , but they 're two uh fields that are um , more interesting . One is uh you store keywords associated with the uh {disfmarker} with the document , and one is uh , you have sort of a , um , well , what is the document about ? So it 's some sort of taxonomic uh , ordering of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the units . Now , if you sort of put on your semantic glasses , uh you say , well that 's not all that easy , because there 's an implicit um , uh , assumption behind that is that uh , all the users of this system share the same interpretation of the keyword and the same interpretation of uh , whichever taxonomy is used , and uh , I think that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a very {disfmarker} that 's a key point of these systems and they sort of always brush over this real quickly without really elaborating much of that and uh {disfmarker} As a matter of fact , the only thing that m apparently really works out so far are library ordering codes , which are very , very coarse grain , so you have some like , science , biology , and then {disfmarker} But that 's really all that we have at the moment . So I think there 's a huge , um , uh need for improvement there . Now , what this uh {disfmarker} a standard like this would give us is we could um , sort of uh with a search engine just query uh , different repositories all over the world . But we can't really {disfmarker} Um , so what I 'm {disfmarker} what I try to do is um , to have um , uh {disfmarker} So . So the scenario is the following , you you 're working on some sort of project and you encounter a certain problem . Now , what {disfmarker} what we have at our university quite a bit is that uh , students um , try to u program a certain assignment , for example , they always run into the same problems , uh , and they always come running to us , and they 'll say why 's it not {disfmarker} it 's not working , and we always give out the same answer , so we thought , well , it 'd be nice to have a system that could sort of take care of this , and so , what I want to build is basically a {disfmarker} a smart F A Q system . Now , what you uh need to do here is you need to provide some context information which is more elaborate than "" I 'm looking for this and this and this keyword . "" So . And I think that I don't need to tell you this . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you have the same {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody utters a sentence in a certain , uh , context it , and {disfmarker} and the same sentence in another context makes a huge difference . So , I want to be able to model information like , um , so in the {disfmarker} in the context of {disfmarker} in the context of developing distributed systems , of a at a computer science school , um , what kind of software is the person using , which homework assignment is he or she working on at the moment , um , maybe what 's the background of that student 's um , which um , which error message was encountered . So this sort of information I think should be transmitted , uh , when a certain document is retrieved . Now , um , basically giving this um {disfmarker} Uh so we somehow need to have a formalized um , way of writing this down basically , and that 's where the shared interpretation of {disfmarker} of certain terms and keywords comes in again . And , using this and some {disfmarker} some uh , knowledge about the domain I think you can do some {disfmarker} some simple inferences . Like you know that when somebody 's working about {disfmarker} uh , working on {disfmarker} on servlets for example , he 's using Java , cuz servlets are used {disfmarker} are written in Java . So some {disfmarker} some inferences like that , now , um , u using this you can infer more information , and you could then match this to the meta - data of um {disfmarker} off the documents you 're {disfmarker} you 're searching against . So , uh what I wanna do is basically have some sort of um {disfmarker} given these inputs , and then I can compute how many documents match , and use this as a metric in the search . Now , what I plan to do is I want to uh sort of do a uh {disfmarker} uh {pause} try to improve the quality of the search results , and I want to do this by having a depth uh , um , um {disfmarker} steepest descent approach . So if I knew which operating system the person was working on , would this improve my search result ? And {disfmarker} and having uh , uh a symbolic formalized model of this I could simply compute that , and find out which um {disfmarker} which questions are worth um , asking . And that 's what I then propagate back to the user , and {disfmarker} and sort of try to optimize the search in this way . Now , the big problem that I 'm facing right now is um , it 's fairly easy to hack up a system uh quickly , that {disfmarker} that works in the small domain , but the problem is obviously the scalability . And uh uh , so Robert was mentioning uh , earlier today is that uh , Microsoft for example with their printer set up program has a Bayesian network , which does exactly this , but there you face a problem that these are very hard to extend . And so , uh what I 'm {disfmarker} What I try to do is basically try to model this uh , in a way that you could really combine uh , knowledge from very different sources , and {disfmarker} and um , sort of looking into some of the ideas that the semantic web community uh , came up with . Trying to {disfmarker} to have uh , an approach how to integrate s uh certain uh {disfmarker} representation of certain concepts and also some computational rules , um , what you can do with those . Um . What I 'm also looking into is a probabilistic approach into this because document retrievals is a very fuzzy procedure , so it 's probably not that easy to simply have a symbolic uh , computational model . That {disfmarker} that probably isn't expressive enough . So . So that 's another thing , um , which I think you 're also uh , uh looking into right now . And then um , uh sort of as an add - on to this whole idea , um , uh that would be now , depending on what the search engine or the content repository {disfmarker} depending on which {disfmarker} um , uh , which uh , rules and which ontologies it {disfmarker} it uses , or basically its view of the world , uh you can get very different results . So it might ma make a lot of sense to actually query a lot of different search engines . And there you could have an idea where you actually have sort of a {disfmarker} a peer to peer approach , where we 're all sort of carrying around our individual bookshelves , and um , if you have a question about a homework , it 's {disfmarker} probably makes sense to ask somebody who 's in your class with you , sort of the guru in the certain area , rather than going to some Yahoo - like uh , search engine . So these are some of the {disfmarker} just in a nutshell , some of the ideas . And I think a lot of the {disfmarker} even though it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a very different domain , but I think a lot of the , um , issues are {disfmarker} are fairly similar . So . OK . +Grad A: And so some of the {disfmarker} I don't know how much you know about the larger Heidelberg project , I {disfmarker} Are you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh I know , yeah I know abou about it . +Grad A: So it seems like a lot of {disfmarker} some of the issues are the same . It 's like , um , you know , the c context - based factors that influence how you interpret , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , s how to interpret . In {disfmarker} in this case , infer in in knowing {disfmarker} wanting to know what kinds of things to ask . We - we 've kind of talked about that , but we haven't worried too much about that end of the discourse . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But maybe you guys had that in the previous models . +Grad B: Well , in a {disfmarker} in one {disfmarker} t one s mmm , small difference in a {disfmarker} in a way , is that he doesn't have to come up with an answer , but he wants to point to the places w w +Grad A: Documents that have the answers . +Grad C: Yeah , so . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not building an expert {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I want to build a smart librarian , basically +Grad A: Right . Right . +Grad C: that can point you to the right reference . I don't wanna compute the answer , so it 's a little bit easier for me . +Grad B: Well . Uh , you have to s still m understand what the content says about itself , and then match it to what you think the informational needs {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you also don't have to figure out what the content is . You 're just taking the keywords as a topic text , as {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I assume that {disfmarker} that the there will be learning systems that {disfmarker} that tag their {disfmarker} their content . +Grad A: OK . Right . +Grad C: And um , um , m @ @ and basically what I {disfmarker} what I envision is that you {disfmarker} rather than just supplying a bunch of keywords you could basically {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for an FAQ for example you could state sort of like a logic condition , when this document applies . So "" this document explains how to set up your uh , mail account on Linux "" or something like this . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So . So something {disfmarker} something very specific that you can then {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} I think that the key point with these uh , learning systems is that uh , a learning system is only as good as uh the amount of content it {disfmarker} it carries . +Grad A: Mmm , mm - hmm . +Grad C: You can have the best learning system with the best search interface , if there 's no content inside of it , it 's not very useful . So I think ultimately because um , uh developing these {disfmarker} these rules and these inference uh {disfmarker} inferences I think is very costly , so um , uh I think you must be able to reuse some {disfmarker} some existing um , domain {disfmarker} domain information , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or ontologies that {disfmarker} that uh other people wrote and then try to integrate them , and then also search the entire web basically , rather than just the small uh , content management system . +Grad A: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's crucial for {disfmarker} for the success of {disfmarker} or @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: So , you 're not {disfmarker} I guess I 'm trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how it maps to the kinds of things that we 've talked about in this group , and , actually associated groups , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: cuz some of us do pretty detailed linguistic analyses , and I 'm guessing that you {disfmarker} you won't be doing that ? OK . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: Just checking . So , {vocalsound} OK . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: No . +Grad A: So , you take the query , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor F: On the other hand , uh , FrameNet could well be useful . So do you know the FrameNet story ? +Grad C: Um , yeah . Uh , not {disfmarker} not too much , +Professor F: OK . +Grad C: but uh , +Professor F: Oh . Th - that 's another thing you might wanna look into while you 're here . +Grad C: I have a rough overview . +Professor F: Because , um , you know , the standard story is that keyworks {disfmarker} keywords evoke frames , and the frames may well give you additional keywords or uh , if you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a {disfmarker} a bunch of keywords uh , indicate a frame , then you can find documents that actually have the whole frame , rather th than just uh , individual {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor F: So there 's a lot of stuff , and people are looking at that . Most of the work here is just trying to get the frames right . There 's linguists and stuff and there 's a lot of it and they 're {disfmarker} they 're busily working away . But there are some application efforts trying to exploit it . And this looks t it seems to be that this is a place where you might be able to do that . +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . I 'm sure I could learn a lot about um , yeah , just how to {disfmarker} how to come up with these structures , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad C: cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's very easy to whip up something quickly , but it maybe then makes sense to {disfmarker} to me , but not to anybody else , and {disfmarker} and if we want to share and integrate things , they must {disfmarker} well , they must be well designed really . +Grad B: Remember the uh , Prashant story ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: The absolutely no {disfmarker} no linguistic background person that the IU sent over here . +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: And Andreas and I tried to come up wi or we had come up actually with a eh {disfmarker} with him working on an interface for FrameNet , as it was back then , that would p do some of the work for this machine , +Professor F: Right . Yeah . +Grad B: which uh , never got done because Prashant found a happy occupation +Professor F: W yeah , I know , I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} w he did w what {disfmarker} what he did was much more s sensible for him . +Grad B: which in the {disfmarker} Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: I think uh , +Grad B: But so {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , the uh , we had that idea +Professor F: you know {disfmarker} Yeah . The idea was there . Yeah , OK . +Grad B: uh to {disfmarker} to exploit FrameNet there as well . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: And um . +Professor F: Yeah , actually you guys never {disfmarker} +Grad B: And Srini 's doing information extraction also , right ? +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: with that FrameNet base . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So you {disfmarker} you guys never sent anybody else from I U . +Grad C: Except {disfmarker} except Prashant ? +Professor F: You were y no {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Um , +Professor F: Uh , this was supposedly an exchange program , and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , it 's fine . We don't care , but it just {disfmarker} I 'm a little surprised that uh , Andreas didn't come up with anyone else he wanted to send . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad C: Uh I don't know , I mean the uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Alright . I mean I had forgotten a I {disfmarker} To be honest with you , I 'd totally forgotten we had a program . +Grad B: Uh it 's in the program ? +Grad C: Uh I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's really the lack of students uh , at IU at the moment . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . No , no . There was a whole co There was a little contract signed . It was {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I think it 's ju it 's more the lack of {disfmarker} of students , really , and w we have all these sponsors that are always sort of eager to get some teams . +Professor F: Yeah , I know . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . +Grad C: Well I mean if {disfmarker} if I were a student , I 'd love to come here , rather than work for some German {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} company , or {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: You are being recorded right now , so beware . +Professor F: Oh , right ! +Grad C: Well , I didn't say anybody to {disfmarker} anything to offend {disfmarker} well , except for the sponsors maybe , but {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right . Anyway . Right . So I thi tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's one of the things that might be worth looking into while you 're here . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Uh , unfortunately , Srini , who is heavily involved in DAML and all this sort of stuff is himself out of town . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Well I 'll go to the uh , Semantic Web Workshop , uh , in two weeks . +Professor F: Right , and {disfmarker} Yeah , for {disfmarker} for some reason he 's not doing that . +Grad A: Yeah . Well , he had other things to do . +Professor F: I don't know why he @ @ {disfmarker} oh , I , who knows ? +Grad A: The uh {disfmarker} +Professor F: Anyway , s yeah , you 'll see {disfmarker} you 'll certainly see a lot of the people there . +Grad A: The other person I thought of is Dan Gildea ? because he did some work on topic spotting +Professor F: Yeah . St - statistical stuff . That would be a very good idea . +Grad A: w um , which is , I mean , you {disfmarker} I mean . I don't {disfmarker} Depending on how well you wanna integrate with that end , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you know , like , taking the data and fig you said the learning systems that figure out {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} There 's someone in ICSI who actually has been working on {disfmarker} has worked on that kinda stuff , and he 's worked with frame net , so you could talk to him about , you know , both of those things at once . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . And he just finished writing a draft of his thesis . So . I u {vocalsound} Dan Gildea , GILDEA . +Grad C: So , uh , who is that again ? +Grad A: And , he 's in one of the rooms on the fifth floor and stuff , +Grad B: Who ? I can take you to his office . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's just around the corner . +Grad C: OK , great . +Grad A: Hmm . Well , if you fal solve the problem , {vocalsound} hope you can do one for us too . +Professor F: Alright , was there anything else for this ? One of these times soon we 're gonna hear about construal . +Grad B: Yeah . I 'm sure . I have um {disfmarker} I think it was November two thousand three or some {disfmarker} No . Wh - I had something in my calendar . +Professor F: Oh , OK . Right . +Grad B: Um , +Grad E: Wait a second . That 's a long way away . +Professor F: Good thinking ! +Grad B: Uh well , maybe I can {disfmarker} I can bribe my way out of this . So . So I did some double checking and it seems like spring break in two thousand {vocalsound} one . +Grad A: Talk about changing the topic . +Grad B: No . +Professor F: Well , no , but he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} as you said , he 's , like the state legislature , he 's trying to offer us bribes . +Grad A: At least this is a private meeting . Right , exactly , OK , that 's the link . +Grad B: This uh {disfmarker} Oh , they refused the budget again ? Is it {disfmarker} so about CITRIS ? Yeah , still nothing . +Professor F: Uh , this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} t the s we 're , uh , involved in a literally three hundred million dollar uh , program . Uh , with the State of California . And , the State of California is now a month and a half behind its legis its legally required date to approve a budget . So the budget has not been approved . And two days ago {disfmarker} There 's two l you know , so , two branches of legislature . One branch approved it , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and , um , yesterdayday {comment} there was this uh {disfmarker} uh I thought that the other branch would just approve it , but now there 's actually a little back sliding to people who {disfmarker} who approved it got flak from there , eh anyway . So , um {disfmarker} Oh ! I have to tell you a wonderful story about this , OK ? And then we 'll go . So , I {disfmarker} it turns out I wound up having lunch today with a guy named Tom Kalil . KILL {disfmarker} KALIL . And , uh , he now works at Berkeley . In fact he 's hired to run a lot of CITRIS , even though we don't have the money they {disfmarker} So they 've been hiring people right and left , so , uh , they think the money 's coming . So {disfmarker} and he was , I think , the chief staffer to Clinton on technology matters . He was in the White House , I don't remember what he was saying . A anyway , like that . And , is now doing all the politics for CITRIS , but also , has a uh , a lot of interest in uh , actually doing things for society , so digital divide and stuff like that . So that 's s interesting to me but maybe not to you . But the really interesting thing was , he st he s he s said something about , you know I 'm interested in things that have high social multiplier , something that is of great social value . He said , "" for example "" , this was his only example , "" if you had a adult literacy program that was as good as an individual tutor , and as compelling as a video game , then that would have a huge social impact "" . I said , "" Oh great ! That 's a good problem to work on . "" Anyway . So it was nice that uh , he 's got this view , of A , that 's what you should try to do , and B , uh , language would be a good way to do it . +Grad A: Mmm . Definitely . +Professor F: So that 's {disfmarker} So anyway , that 's the end of the story . +Grad A: But for adults and not for the children . +Professor F: This was {disfmarker} Yeah . I didn't push him on the ch on the child thing , +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Professor F: but , uh , you know , a again , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you +Grad A: Oh . +Professor F: um , and this was {disfmarker} this was literacy , which actually is somewhat different problem . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Maybe easier . I don't know . So this is reading , rather than teaching {disfmarker} Another project we started on , and {disfmarker} and didn't get funded for was , uh , to try to build an automatic tutoring program , for kids whose first language wasn't English . Which is like half the school population in California . Something like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: isn't it ? Yeah . So , enormous problem in California , and the idea was if we 're so smart about language understanding and speech understanding , couldn't we build {vocalsound} uh , programs that would be tutors for the kids . We think we could . Anyway . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} But this is a slightly different problem , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: and um , I know none of us have the spare time to look at it right now , but it i it 's {disfmarker} it 's interesting and I may um , talk to him some more about is em somebody already doing this , and stuff like that . So anyway , that was {disfmarker} that was today 's little story . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: OK . So I {disfmarker} I did manage to get {disfmarker} pull my head out of the sling by sidetracking into CITRIS , +Professor F: No , no . +Grad B: but uh or {disfmarker} a temporarily putting it out of the sling +Professor F: Right . +Grad B: but , I {disfmarker} I 'll volunteer to put it right back in by stating that I am n uh among some other things in the process of writing up stuff that we have been discussing at our daily meetings , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad B: and also revising , thanks for all the comments , the c the original construal proposal . And , if I put one and one together , I may end up with a number that 's greater than one and that I {disfmarker} I can potentially present once you get back . +Grad A: Greater than two ? +Professor F: You 're good . +Grad B: Nnn . {comment} s sometimes , you know the sum is not uh less than the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , right , right . +Professor F: Right . Right . Anyway . Yeah , so {disfmarker} OK , so that 'd be great , but I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's time again , right ? +Grad B: Absolutely . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . OK . +Grad B: But um , and hopefully all sidetracking um , other things will have disappeared , soon . +Professor F: Good . Yep . Done ? +","The conversation is a complex and disjointed discussion among graduate students (A, B, D, E), a professor (F), and someone named Andy or Andreas from a different institution. A key part of the conversation is an update on an ongoing project called EDU, where data collection for a study involving 30 subjects and the transcription of dialogues are discussed. The Stanford PRM (Probabilistic Relational Model) is another central topic, where Professor F points out the necessity of finding an interpreter for the model. + +Another important strand is Andy's presentation of his work on smart FAQ systems, content management, and document retrieval. He is focusing on improving document search results by providing context and utilizing inferred knowledge, probable matters relevant to semantic web technologies and probabilistic approaches. The group suggests he could benefit from exploring existing resources like FrameNet while at the institution. + +The professor shares an anecdote from his lunch with Tom Kalil, who expressed interest in socially impactful technologies, especially in the realm of language learning for adults. The group also briefly diverges into other topics like budget issues with the State of California and plans for future meetings and discussion on construal. + +Overall, the conversation meanders through several topics related to ongoing research projects, new ideas, and application possibilities, indicating a dynamic and multi-focused academic environment." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Good morning everybody . Um I'm glad you could all come . I'm really excited to start this team . Um I'm just gonna have a little PowerPoint presentation for us , for our kick-off meeting . My name is Rose Lindgren . I I'll be the Project Manager . Um our agenda today is we are gonna do a little opening and then I'm gonna talk a little bit about the project , then we'll move into acquaintance such as getting to know each other a little bit , including a tool training exercise . And then we'll move into the project plan , do a little discussion and close , since we only have twenty five minutes . First of all our project aim . Um we are creating a new remote control which we have three goals about , it needs to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I'm hoping that we can all work together to achieve all three of those . Um so we're gonna divide us up into three {vocalsound} compa three parts . First the functional design which will be uh first we'll do individual work , come into a meeting , the conceptional design , individual work and a meeting , and then the detailed design , individual work and a meeting . So that we'll each be doing our own ideas and then coming together and um collaborating . Okay , we're gonna get to know each other a little bit . So um , what we're gonna do is start off with um let's start off with Amina . Um Alima , +Industrial Designer: Alima . +Project Manager: sorry , Alima . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're gonna do a little tool training , so we are gonna work with that whiteboard behind you . Um introduce yourself , um say one thing about yourself and then draw your favourite animal and tell us about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um I don't know which one of these I have to bring with me . +Project Manager: Probably both . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so , I'm supposed to draw my favourite animal . I have no drawing skills whatsoever . But uh let's see , introduce myself . My name is Alima Bucciantini . Um I'm from the state of Maine in the US . I'm doing nationalism studies , blah , blah , blah , and I have no artistic talents . +Project Manager: How do you spell your name ? +Industrial Designer: A_ L_ I_ M_ A_ . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and I guess I'm the Industrial Designer on this project . So let's see if I can get +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um here . I will draw a little turtle for you all . Not necessarily 'cause it's my absolute favourite animal , but just that I think they're drawable . And you have the pretty little shell going on . Some little eyes . Happy . There you go . That's a turtle . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So what are your favourite characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um . I I like the whole having a shell thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's quite cool carry your home around where you go , um quite decorative little animals , they can swim , they can , they're very adaptable , they carry everything they need with them , um and they're easy to draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we just go around the table ? +User Interface: Uh Okay . Well , my name is Iain uh +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and I'm the User Interface Designer for the project . Um . And I'll try and draw my favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , +User Interface: I'll {disfmarker} I should leave that one on there +Industrial Designer: you can erase the turtle , +User Interface: shouldn't I {vocalsound} before I callously rub it off . +Industrial Designer: it's alright . +Project Manager: Might be nice to have them all up there at same time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not gonna draw it quite to scale um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that at least identifiable ? +Industrial Designer: Snake . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Em +Industrial Designer: Well , +User Interface: It's a whale {vocalsound} , yes . +Industrial Designer: snake ? {vocalsound} It's w {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: Oh my god , it's better than what I'm gonna be able to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um and , yeah , the reason I like whales is 'cause uh they're {disfmarker} well , first of all they're quite intelligent um and also they're they're kind of mysterious , like we don't really know much about them or or understand how they work , how they form groups . And I just find them interesting animals . +Marketing: Take my contraptions with me . Alright , I'm Jessy . I'm from around D_C_ ish sort of in the U_S_ . And we're gonna keep the deep sea sort of theme going on , {gap} animal . Don't really know how to draw this . Just where can I {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . Maybe if I do the water , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but how ? Sort of give an idea . {vocalsound} I have no idea how one would explain this . Mm maybe with some whiskers . Briefly , it's supposed to be a seal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can imagine it in the water . I like them , because they are like playful and silly sort of have a good time . Not gonna try and pretend like I can get any better than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Mm 'kay ? I'm Rose and I'm Project Manager , {vocalsound} from California . Um . Hmm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , +Marketing: It's definitely significantly harder once you are doing it . +Industrial Designer: a cat . +Project Manager: Um it's actually a coyote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see . Let's see , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's impressive . +Project Manager: let's give it a little bit of a snout , I don't know , some teeth . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's pretty impressive . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh dear . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I live um I live right across the street from an open space in California . We have coyotes howl all the time . So I really enjoy their their singing , you they're really beautiful animals . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay um , moving on to slightly more serious stuff . We're gonna talk about project finances . Um we have a couple {vocalsound} we'd like to sell it for about twenty five Euro with the profit aim of um fifteen million Euro um from our sales and because this is such {disfmarker} this is for television it's a {disfmarker} we have a market range of Internet , like it's an international market range , we don't have to worry about specifics . Um in order to make a profit of this magnitude , we need to um be able to produce each one at a maximum of twelve fifty Euro . So we're selling it for twice what we'd like to produce it for . Okay um , just to generate a little bit of discussion about the project um , I could {disfmarker} I'd like to hear about your experiences using ro remote controls , um your first ideas about um creating a new r remote control , what would be the best um like you {disfmarker} what are the features that you really like what are the features that you don't like , etcetera , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um I hate when there's like four different buttons and you have to press to actually turn on the T_V_ like you have to do one for the power of the T_V_ and then like another one to get the actual screen on and something else to get it all going , I don't know . Now they keep combining all different remotes together , and I don't know if I necessarily like that 'cause I feel like you end up with multimedia overload . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just wanna watch the T_V_ {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Always gets lost . Some sort of like device to help you find it . +User Interface: I've used , I've used remote controls , for things like T_V_ and the C_D_ player and video recorder and I I guess they're they're pretty neat neat little tools uh . You don't have to get up and walk across the room to change a channel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So especially if you're someone really lazy like me they they're pretty nice . Um . I find them {disfmarker} they can be a bit annoying , especially , like you know if I'm watching T_V_ I have have to have three separate remote controls of {disfmarker} in front of me , you know , one for the T_V_ , one for the digital box , one for m the video recorder as well . Um . And also they tend to they tend to be a bit confusing , they've got too many buttons on them uh too too sort of too sort of complicated when all I really wanna do is switch on and off , change the channel , change the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um . I agree with having too many remotes around . My dad has a whole drawer at home of remotes for various things , and I don't know how to work half of them um . What's important for me , I guess , is that it's easy to use and that there's not too many buttons , they are not too small , you know you know you need to n to know what you're doing . And one thing I particularly like is if you are not um sort of moving it around to get it to work with the infra-red . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think there is a way around that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I know in my residence right now the the television you sort of have to walk all around the room to get it to turn on , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so i it's just simpler just to just turn around the T_V_ itself , and I think that's {disfmarker} if we're gonna make a remote control , it should actually work for what it's doing . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about like batteries and things like that , like are there some remotes that don don't require like batteries or do all remotes require batteries ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would imagine all of them , +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: but we could {disfmarker} but it's possible we could use like a lithium battery um that would last a lot longer than like double A_s . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , something that doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um like tho those are the batteries that are used in a lot of um M_P_ three players now and that kind of thing . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , it seems we have a little bit of a conflict over um to uh combining all the remotes cont together versus having f five different remotes . So um like you said you don't like having all the buttons on one on one remote , and yet you don't wanna have five remotes . So how do we work with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Could we get something that just has {disfmarker} No doesn't have all the buttons that you need to program the video recorder or program s other things that I'm not very coherent about , but that just has your major buttons for {disfmarker} that work for everything , you know volume control , on , off , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: channel changing . +Marketing: And maybe that spatially divides it , so it's like if you're looki if you're trying to get the T_V_ on that's , you know , like the top thing on the remote , I dunno if d be vertical or horizontal in terms of how we're gonna make it , but if it's like all the T_V_ stuff was here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then all the V_C_R_ stuff was here , all the {disfmarker} whatever else we have programmed into it it's all just in its separate place and not like all the on buttons together , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: N that way {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause then you like , I don't even know what I'm turning on . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , and if um if you'd save the more complicated functions maybe for separate remotes that you wouldn't need to use every day . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe have like one remote that has the main functions on , off , channel changing , volume , and another rote remote with all the special things . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Because that is one thing that um remotes tend to have buttons that the T_V_s no longer have as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So like you have to have them somewhere , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you're gonna m need those special functions occasionally . Um but not necessarily on the m the normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Can I ask , are we designing a remote control for a television only +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good question . +User Interface: um , and if if this device is just to be used for the television would we even technically be possible to include video recorder functions on it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know that yet . +User Interface: Um or should we just stick to just stick to having television television related buttons on it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: It's a good question . Um . {vocalsound} I'll look into that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm . +Project Manager: If I can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's just T_V_ , I mean , if it {disfmarker} if we're taking it just {gap} new product a new television remote control that's not like {vocalsound} doesn't say . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You know , things might be more advanced than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we should {disfmarker} maybe we should assume that i t it's just a television that we're wanting to control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I mean I suppose it would be nice to have {vocalsound} playing and record and stop buttons on it for the video recorder as well I I don't know if that works technologically or not . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I guess we have to define what what we're aiming for . If it's just a television then that {disfmarker} it's a bit simpler , 'cause there's less buttons that would even need to be on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's an idea with the buttons being really {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Large . If you have older people or people like me that aren't very co-ordinated hand-eye , it's really quite important that you are not pressing a small like teeny mobiles phone size buttons , if we can help it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay sounds like we've had a good little discussion for our first ideas . Mind if we move on ? Ps +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mm okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now our next meeting starts in thirty minutes . I believe we've actually been only working on this this one for about twenty , so we can continue discussing more new ideas if you'd like um , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: but this is just a breakdown of what we'll be doing individually . Um the industrial design , Alima will be doing um the working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the User Interface Designer , that's for {gap} . Technical functions , I guess like keeping in mind the buttons thing , the size of the buttons . Um user requirements um , so you'll be hearing about different trends , uh about different things that people need , um I guess kind of the same uh discussion that we've been having , we'll get from the actual consum s consumers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um . And you will get specific instructions sent by your personal coach . I realised in this past one we we didn't have much , we just wanted to get a little brain-storming done . Um so very exited to see all your animals and how {disfmarker} what wonderful um artists we all are {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What we're gonna be discussing at the next meeting ? Do we know that ? +Project Manager: I haven't gotten an agenda yet , um I'll put that together . I'm sure as we'll each get our own instruction +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and then um because what we gonna do is first our individual actions and then we'll come back together . So I'm sure we'll all have more concrete things to contribute next time +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll be busy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um I'll type up mi minutes and probably email those out to all of you . Um just including all the things that we talked about . Um . +User Interface: Okay . Can you e-mail your slides as well ? Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yes , I yes , I think I can . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Cool +Project Manager: I'll just attach it to an email . And you're you're number two , +Industrial Designer: I'm two . +Project Manager: three , four ? +Marketing: I'm four . +Project Manager: Is that correct ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Excellent . It was lovely meeting you all . +User Interface: 'Kay +Project Manager: Just make sure you keep checking the company web site and the emails . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Let me see if I can do that right now . +","The conversation is a kick-off meeting led by Project Manager Rose Lindgren for a new project to create a remote control that needs to be original, trendy, and user-friendly. Team members include an Industrial Designer named Alima Bucciantini, a User Interface Designer named Iain, and a Marketing team member named Jessy. + +During the meeting, they participate in an ice-breaking exercise where they introduce themselves, state where they're from, and draw their favorite animal while explaining their choice. Alima draws a turtle, Iain draws a whale, Jessy attempts to draw a seal, and Rose sketches a coyote. + +The team then discusses the project's financial goals, aiming to sell the remote control for about 25 Euros with a 15 million Euro profit target, and a production cost of no more than 12.50 Euros per unit. + +Following this, they exchange experiences with using remote controls, touching upon frustrations with multiple remotes, over-complication, and the desire for an easy-to-use remote with fewer buttons. They also explore ideas about button layout, integrating functions for different devices, and using long-lasting lithium batteries. + +Rose notes the importance of agreeing on whether they're designing a remote solely for the TV or including other functions. They also discuss the idea of a primary remote for everyday use and potentially a separate one for more complicated tasks. + +The team plans on getting specific instructions from their personal coaches and will have individual tasks related to industrial design, user interface, and marketing trends before regrouping for further discussion. They agree that the notes and Rose's PowerPoint slides from the meeting will be distributed via email. + +In summary, the meeting served as an introduction for the team and set the stage for their collaboration on designing a new remote control, discussing initial ideas, financial goals, and the scope of the project alongside team-building exercises." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi Team . Hope you had a good lunch . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay we're back for the conceptual design meeting . Um let's get started . 'Kay , here is the agenda for today's meeting . Um we're gonna open it and I'm gonna keep the minutes as Project Manager . We're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you again . And then we are going to come to decision on the remote control concepts and then we're gonna close it up . And we have forty minutes again . 'Kay , and just to reiterate um after this meeting the team will reach a decision on the concepts of the remote control . Okay . Let's go ahead and start off with your presentations . Who would like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Just trying to move mine right now . +Project Manager: Okay . Um Courtney would you mind starting us off ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . Trend watching ? 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , so trend watching . Uh since we do put the fashion in electronics , it is kind of important how our product looks . So I guess we can go ahead and go to the next . So what they want . Right now customers want fancy versus functional . Um basically about fifty eight percent of what they {disfmarker} like of the product that they want , describing like the {disfmarker} in order of how much they want , fifty eight per cent of the decision of what it should look like , fancy versus functional , and then it has to also be technologically innovative , and yet easy to use . So the customer basically is confused . They don't know exactly what they want . They want us to tell them . {gap} +Industrial Designer: They want everything , but simply . +Marketing: Yes . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So we can go to next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay . So in Milan and Paris recently the trends have been showing that clothing , shoes and furniture are basically just covered with fruits and vegetable patterns . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't know if we want to go with that um and also the spongy feel is in in contrast to last year . I don't know really , I mean I guess the spongy could relate to the buttons if we want to +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: rather than like a hard clicky button that you find on like some mobiles and stuff , you'd want like a softer touch . I mean do you guys know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah th +Marketing: Yeah . Um . But as for the fruits and vegetable patterns , I don't know if we really want to go with that , because it is just a trend , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: and our product we want to stay around for much longer than just a few months , +Project Manager: Right . People don't buy a new remote every so often . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I can {disfmarker} +Marketing: because {disfmarker} Yeah . I mean that could just be a Spring thing right now . +Industrial Designer: I can address some of that issue , I think , with uh my presentation . +Marketing: Okay . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so design preferences , um we need easy to read like large buttons , clearly labelled so that , I mean 'cause we talked about that being a problem . Um and then also buttons illuminating upon touch , you said that in your design , with the bulb . Um and that could also tie in with the colour scheme . Uh we need the Real Reaction logo and colour scheme obviously . That's one of our key goals , we wanna promote our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And I was thinking about different types of designs and I came up with something . Actually right here . So what we could do is something like an old-fashioned telephone like this , where we put the buttons around , like we'd put a big on-off button or something else in the middle , I mean it could be the arrows or whatever for channel up and down , and then put the numbers around in like an old-fashioned dial shape . 'Cause then it'll appeal to older generation and like said retro's cool . So it's classically retro . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: So I mean that's just an idea if you guys like it . +Project Manager: Very good . I like it . {vocalsound} Okay , ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} And , yep . And that's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Op mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Great . Great presentation . Ready ? +User Interface: Okay hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: See if it's there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Which one is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . Hang on . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Interface concepts , no ? +Project Manager: Interface concepts new . +User Interface: Either refresh it , or it sh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Y +User Interface: Oh wait , maybe I didn't put it there . Hang on . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mine will always read copy of something or other . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I I copied mine before I sent it over . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Sorry , hang on . Don't know {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh there we go . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay , um {vocalsound} looking at the interface concept , it's gonna be mostly examples of possibilities of where we can go with this . Uh if you wanna start the next slide . +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: Um uh can't really see , but there's two possible ways , on the r left , if you see on th on the sides of of the remote , you have the sort of scroll down , so you have that option right there . And then also there's the idea of the base . That's sort of like an idea there . And then on the right , we have what's really big trend right now , it's the iPod . It's becoming really {gap} and so you have this sort of very very simplistic menu section uh with the round buttons , and it's sort of like you have the both {gap} kind of trendy and hip , but also very sleek and um and very simple , but technologically advanced . So if you wanted to do that th if we could find a way of sort of like {vocalsound} using that idea in a remote control then sort of look into it , but {disfmarker} Anyway , next . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Um there's the idea of like being able to do it by feel as well as by um by sight . You'd you know you're in the dark , you don't wanna be looking at the remote control . And the picture particularly is pointing out if you look at the top volume button it's a V_ , and so yo you're kind of feeling a V_ like volume up . What it really is is a V_ and what it you think it is is down , because the down arrow . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And so it's like a sort of a criticism you'd probably turn that o the other way up . Um but then you have {disfmarker} you could either do it by raised type , which could be you know , iffy , um sort of old-fashioned in a way . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Either that or just have it by shape , for example you have a specific triangular shape that you know you're looking at the up and down arrow . And then the round ones you sort of feel by , you know , that's the second one down , that sort of thing . So it's sort of looking into how we wanted t to do it by feel . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . Um this is sort of an example of going for a s certain demographic . Um this is particularly geared towards children . +Marketing: That's cute . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um it's very cute , and we could probably change it to yellow , bright yellow for like a the for the company logo . Um and you have the shapes and it's very simplistic and friendly looking . Um and then the other thing that it would be able to do is just to pro be ab you program certain {disfmarker} {vocalsound} channels that only these children would watch , so it's like they ch watch , you know , the C_ Beebies or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh keep them away from other channels . So that's like another ar Um , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean , these are three examples sort of looking at it . You have the wider section for the main controls there . Uh you could see how many buttons there are . And then on the left you have an example of the round buttons , and a simpler design . On the bottom we probably wouldn't need that , because it's more for like a D_V_D_ {vocalsound} function which we are not gonna be using . Um . So again it's sort of like just give you ideas and then down at the bottom you have the logos and that's where you could put the R_R_ , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And then finally these are like the sort of same examples , but also some more , just possibilities that we could go with . None of them I'm particularly keen on by the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But it's sort of like just taking aspects out of that and saying , well out of this one we like , you know the round section of um , b or we'd like the the button size on this . +Project Manager: Mm . Or I like , you know , the black finish or the silver finish or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: I have four of those remotes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good lord . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Ready ? Oh , yeah . Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Great job . +Industrial Designer: Okay , my turn . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Whoo . +Project Manager: What's the title ? +Industrial Designer: It'll be copy of component design . +Project Manager: Got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Th that looks like it . 'Kay . So basic remote operation runs as follows , press button makes connection with the power source and the rest of the circuit , chip senses the connection , chip produces a morse code infra-red signal , specific to that button . So you press the button , it produces uh a signal that's encoded specifically for that button . Transistors amplify that signal and it goes to the T_V_'s centre , which interprets the signal response accordingly , changes channel etcetera . So that being said {disfmarker} Next slide , please . Findings oh which were the required materials for the basic internal construction , so all the really simplistic functions that we just discussed , we need rubber for buttons , aluminium for battery y contacts , integrated circuit which consists of a diode , transistor , resonator , resistors , and a capacitator , all those basic things that make a circuit function . Um fibreglass and thin copper wire to create the actual circuit board itself . An L_E_D_ , which is a light emitting diode , um contact discs for the buttons , plastic for the casing , and a power-source , whatever power-source we've actually determined we want . Next slide , please . Thank you . Uh personal preferences , uh to save money for the components , the remote should be mass-produced and basic materials should be bought en masse . Um if we find another company who can produce the required chips , casing , L_E_D_ , any additional materials we decide we require at a less expensive rate than we ourselves are producing , we should go for it . {vocalsound} Next slide , please . Um just talking to the um manufacturing division . They suggested power options , solar cells , hand dynamo , and kinetic power , so you shake it and it increases the power . Um I'm not sure how the hand dynamo works , they have yet to get back to me on that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So next slide , please . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Suggested casing options . Okay . We can offer options for casing such as straight , curved , double-curved , you know , very specific to the customer . Options for materials , plastic , rubber , titanium , wood . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I don't think anyone's gonna go for a wood one , because splinters {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be amazing , though , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: No , splinters would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um certain restrictions do apply here though . Uh latex , you can't do solar power with a latex one . So , if they want some a soft squishy rubber , they can't have the solar powered option . Double-curved , you can't do titanium . +Marketing: What is that ? +Industrial Designer: Um that would be two curvatures , so it would actually , if you {disfmarker} the shape of your hand , you curve here and you curve here , so you could have two curves that match the shape of your hand to make it more comfortable to hold . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now if you wanted that , you can't do titanium . And uh so you {gap} functions what {disfmarker} for the buttons , scrolling function could be very beneficial to us instead of actual buttons themselves . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think I have one more slide . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Industrial Designer: No , I didn't . Um the manufacturing division also has said that um {vocalsound} they have several types of chips and they've just developed a sample sensor or sample speaker chip , which we could utilise . Um push button requires a simple chip and scroll requires more complicated chip . So depends on what we decide we wanna do . In addition to that if we're offering all those different options to the customer for producing their remote , we're going to have to have multiples of each type , like a double-curved in rubber , um you know , each option should have a certain select number produced with all those options . So we'll have to mix it up , make sure we produce enough of everyone . But that could also drive up the price of the actual remote itself if they know that we only produced five thousand , you know , double-curved wooden remotes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright , +Industrial Designer: And that's all I got . +Project Manager: well thank you for those informative presentations . Let's go back to um {disfmarker} Now we have to make some decisions . Where were we ? +User Interface: Let me just add one more thing that I couldn't say before , +Project Manager: Sure . +User Interface: and that's just that there's the new technology that they've developed on the voice recognition . Um . +Marketing: Oh this {disfmarker} the thing we were talking about earlier . +User Interface: Right except that it's sort of odd , and I'm no not exactly sure why they are explaining it in the way they are , um there's a sample sensor and there's a sample speaker unit for {disfmarker} So , you would say like , good morning , coffeemaker , and it would respond , good morning , Jill , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I'm not sure exactly how it's gonna work , 'cause do you programme {disfmarker} do we program the responses and the questions . So does that mean that the user then has to ask the specific question , and can't change it in order for it to be recognised , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: or can it be altered in a certain way , or does the actually user program it , to say a channel means this . +Project Manager: Right . Right . +Marketing: Yeah , like using the menu to be like , enter your name into the screen like on the menu options . +User Interface: Right , +Marketing: So that way the remote reads it . +User Interface: so it's got like a limited memory and {gap} programme it . So it's sort of iffy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: but that's kind of what you'd say . +Marketing: I feel like voice recognition would be , I don't know , w it would be too hard to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . Programme . +Marketing: I mean we could do it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If it's within our price to get that kind of chip that would , you know , technology {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , we are making the chip . +Marketing: Technology . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , I mean {disfmarker} But , I guess , we have to look at w what {vocalsound} our production cost is for the chip itself anyway . +Marketing: And it is a growing trend , the higher technological , like +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the , I mean just like the more advanced it is , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the better it'll sell . +Industrial Designer: I I thought {vocalsound} offering some of those options for different materials that it could be made of different , you know {disfmarker} I think we'd have to decide on the power options , maybe . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that we could reduce cost . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to know how big it's gonna be and how heavy . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that kind of brings us to this , let's let's see if we can decide what kind of energy source we want to have first and foremost . Um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do we wanna go for batteries or a stand like the one that we saw illustrated earlier ? +Marketing: Oh the base , yeah . +Project Manager: The base , the charging base with rechargeable batteries ? +Industrial Designer: I think the p +User Interface: I always feel like first I wanna know what it looks like , before {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause if it's something really really small , then it's sort of harder to imagine a base for it , that was p quite a s substantial size sort of standing up {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and we don't have multiple things that it has to control , it just has to control the T_V_ . +Marketing: W +Project Manager: It's not gonna be a huge universal remote . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: We need to decide , well so we can figure how big it's gonna be , like exactly what buttons we want +Project Manager: What size battery and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , the other thing is like even if it's got a few buttons , so we want it to be bigger than this , +Marketing: and exactly {disfmarker} It could be like this . Yes . +User Interface: 'cause it still fits in your hand , so you still wanted something that's comfortable and substantial , but not necessarily full of buttons . +Marketing: I'd , well uh {disfmarker} This one is really comfortable , like I like the sides whatever , +User Interface: Are you gonna lose it easier ? +Marketing: because {disfmarker} But if we have the um , the locator , then we don't have to worry about that . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: So we can make it small if we have a l locating device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If we do a voice-activated locator , though , we're gonna be looking at a more substantial chip . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: So i That's the other thing , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: it's like {disfmarker} You know {gap} Are we gonna have certain chips that are gonna require bigger size {vocalsound} period ? +Marketing: Two double A_s , for this size . +User Interface: But like , you know , if we get more complicated then it's gonna v be {disfmarker} have to be bigger to just accommodate the chip size . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Honestly , I think the customer would be kind of irritated by the fact that it has a base if we did do a nice small , compact {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . I agree , it's either gonna be bigger with a base or smaller with just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we sh +Marketing: Smaller , without {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A battery like this guy . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright , so what direction do you want to go in ? You wanna vote ? +Marketing: I think if we had a a locating device with the small one , I think that seems way more advanced . +Project Manager: I'm kind of I'm kind of leaning in the direction of this kind of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I'm a away from the base . +Project Manager: bigger and the base . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That just seems so clunky and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , because I mean if even looking at cellphones right now , those trends the smaller the hotter it is , +User Interface: Smaller and smaller , yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The only problem with that is if you forget to take it out of your pocket and it goes in wash . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You're kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You know it happens . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've had three watches go that way too . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh watches I've {disfmarker} but I've never washed a cell phone . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ouch . A phone , whoa , that would {disfmarker} wow , that would hurt . +Project Manager: Okay , so what kind of material do we want to be made out of ? +Industrial Designer: Pieces everywhere . Well , we have lots of options . I don't think wood is a viable option . +Marketing: Yeah wood . +Project Manager: No . Oh what did you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , titanium s +Project Manager: Oh sorry , go ahead . +User Interface: I was saying that titanium , if we're being restricted then I would probably {vocalsound} lean away from that . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause if it's gonna cost us more to produce a chip , titanium will be more expensive . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: However , +Project Manager: What would you recommend ? +Industrial Designer: well , we only wanna sell it for twenty five Euro +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? 'Cause I was thinking if we wanted to get the high in market then you could produce a few in titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . That'll {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: make them a rarity so to speak . +User Interface: The selling point , yeah . +Marketing: We could do that , because all our research shows that people are definitely willing to spend more if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we restricted by this ? +Project Manager: I I think we should just focus on one design and one concept right now.I'm +Industrial Designer: Well the original {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twenty five Euros +Project Manager: not sure that we'll have the time and money to {vocalsound} produce a whole array of +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: remotes . If this was a successful remote , we might then produce a higher end version of it , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good plan . +Marketing: Good plan . +Project Manager: Okay , so we wanna go for plastic , or what would you recommend for materials ? +Industrial Designer: Honestly I'd recommend like um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh since we're going with batteries instead of solar power , I'd recommend maybe a uh soft like latex , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because we could produce , you know how cellphones have those overlays that you can change the colour . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We could do uh one that fits in with the trends of the year so , +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: because this year is all fruit , God only knows why , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , who knows . +Industrial Designer: um we could do f a cherry cover for this year and then i if next year is stripes or solids , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So you're talking about like when it leaves our salesroom then it's all gonna be cherry-coloured or is it gonna be the kinda thing where people come back and swap it ? +Marketing: O or we could like take off this . +Project Manager: They could buy cases , maybe , +Industrial Designer: They could come back . And buy the extra case . +Project Manager: if they wanted . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's good to sell a basic thing and then sell options . +Industrial Designer: So we could do like a b a hard base plastic , and then we could {vocalsound} give two latex covers to start . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} what the top face , right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the soft latex definitely is squishy . That's in . Well I mean squishier than like , yeah , just a hard plastic . +Project Manager: Right . Right . Okay , and what kind of chip would we need for this guy ? +Industrial Designer: How complicated {disfmarker} Are we gonna go with the voice activated {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do voice , I think we should just do um the recognition for when it's lost , you know . {gap} could we {disfmarker} +User Interface: A tracker , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause that uh {disfmarker} what it type of , yeah , for voice activation would it be like a certain term what we would say like , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: because people could just be talking and we don't want it going off all the time . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could give it a specific code , you know , remote missing . +Marketing: So uh {disfmarker} Ooh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh see I'm uh I'm strangely attracted to it , because I know that's {disfmarker} it's definitely gonna be big , because it's , I don't know , it's just so high-tech . +User Interface: Well , my little sister got {disfmarker} for Christmas she got one of those key finders that's like a key-ring , and you have to whistle in a certain frequency for it to work . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see that would just irritate me . +User Interface: And then she would laugh and it would start going off in her purse , and you couldn't turn it off . +Project Manager: Oh dear . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: So it became highly irritating . +Marketing: then maybe voice +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I think having a key-phrase is much better . +Marketing: maybe voice activation won't be good . +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . But it's not gonna be voice activated in the fact that you would say , channel up , and it would work , right ? +Marketing: Yeah , n n no , we just want it to be a finder . +Project Manager: Just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: But then it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Hmm . Okay . +Marketing: But do {disfmarker} can your {disfmarker} can the department make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That would be like a mid-class um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , brilliant then . +Industrial Designer: So we don't actually have to go for {disfmarker} Well , if they've just developed the sample sensor , sample speaker , it's a brand new chip . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Why not introduce it in this way ? +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Uh and what size batteries , double A_ , triple A_ ? +Marketing: I think triple A_ , it'll be lighter . +Project Manager: Two ? Could it run off of two {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean more more come in a package . +User Interface: Well , that depends on what the energy is needed . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think , well , we could d r do two or we could do one small lithium , 'cause you know the lithium batteries are doing quite well in most other electronic products , right ? So they're more widely available now . And they also have a longer battery life than most batteries . +Project Manager: They're more expensive though , too . +Industrial Designer: But if you only have to replace it every five years . +Project Manager: Mm . Thoughts anybody ? +Marketing: That's a good point . +User Interface: As long as we sell it with it . +Industrial Designer: Well , how about a initial , you get one battery when you buy it , +User Interface: Right , that's what I meant . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm pretty sure we can get them pretty cheap on bulk . +Marketing: We could think about it and come back to it next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We still have one more meeting . +Project Manager: Okay . So we've covered that first category , User Interface Concept , meaning design . +User Interface: What's it gonna {disfmarker} Yeah , what's it gonna look like . +Project Manager: Okay . I ki I kind of {vocalsound} like your idea about the retro phone dial , +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and that {disfmarker} the central button could have , maybe our logo on it ? It might be the four way scroll , too . I mean if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be whatever , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: as long as there's something big in the middle , because like the old phones , there's like that just like piece of metal or like a picture or something in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well , my issue with that is if it got too big though , 'cause if you have the circle and the button in the middle , then is it gonna get wider than your your hands are , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh , that's true . +User Interface: because w And then would the buttons be too small if it was enough to fit on it ? +Marketing: Good point . +Industrial Designer: In the sample ones that you showed us there was one that had the scroll buttons on the side , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: which I think if we make it curved like a hand like a hand-shape like if we put the the scroll-button on the side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , I see what you mean . +Industrial Designer: that could be particularly useful . +Project Manager: I think so . +Marketing: So scroll buttons on the side and then buttons on top ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that . 'Kay . +Marketing: But we definitely {disfmarker} If we have scroll things on the side , we definitely have to have 'em labelled . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Well , if it's just up and down {disfmarker} +Marketing: like on the side of it . Oh if it's just up and down . +User Interface: But is that for {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Volume or channel . +User Interface: Which ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , you could do some on both sides . +User Interface: Do we have both sides ? +Project Manager: Can we ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . We should probably make it that you have to depress it to activate it then , +Project Manager: So that you're just not holding it and it changes the chan +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause oth {vocalsound} otherwise you're not just holding it and going like this , you know . +Marketing: That's squishy . That's squishy . +User Interface: Well , the other option is in instead of a scroll you just have the buttons up on the side which are on the side . +Marketing: {gap} have buttons . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} that . +Project Manager: Hmm . 'Kay any other ideas ? +User Interface: Um what colour ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . Latex covers . W +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have to make sure that logo always sticks out when we put the latex covers on , so we'll have to like have a little square or something , so that the our logo's available . +User Interface: Well I sort of like having the a yellow strip at the bottom with the R_R_ like that . And that's at the bottom of it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe we should do it on a b button itself though , because if people are able to change the covers , +User Interface: Which button ? +Project Manager: I don't know , maybe the on-off button , something , some {disfmarker} the menu button , I don't know , but you know if we're gonna put our company logo on there and somebody could just get another one . Are they all gonna have our company logo on them ? Every cover ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think we should do that , because that would just be icky . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think maybe putting it on a button is probably a good idea . +Project Manager: If we want it to be visible and {disfmarker} Um are all those {disfmarker} those one that you showed where they were um s met silver-metallic looking ? But those are plastic , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: They're not titanium . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I kind of like that look . Uh but , or if it was really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For our base one ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , for the base or if we're going for the retro look , I think , like a really shiny black would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What are your thoughts ? +Marketing: or like a gun-metal grey , +Project Manager: Gun-metal gray . +Marketing: 'cause then it combines the silver and the black . +Project Manager: There you go , gun-metal gray . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm just really wary of the putting anything on a button . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It'll wear off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's the button {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons wear off . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Well , w w then what's the button do , and how do you know that that is what the button does ? I guess . Just looking at examples , y you just don't ever see the logo on a button , it's always on the actual casing . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: There's nothing saying that we have to put the logo on the front of the actual {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On the back ? +User Interface: But you don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we want it to be seen . +Project Manager: It d visible {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh , yeah , you don't see it . +Project Manager: Visibility though {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need it to be seen . +Project Manager: 'Cause if it was only on the back really the only time you're gonna see it is when you drop it or when you're changing the battery . +User Interface: Well , hang on . The other option is {vocalsound} , I don't know if you can see it but it's like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I can find it again . +User Interface: Yeah , it's like the second to last slide . +Project Manager: Okay . And yours was called Interface Concept ? +User Interface: Interface , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Well , for some reason I can't get it to just go to that slide directly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , it's the very right one . You see at the bottom , it's kind of difficult to see , but you have like a d sort of s division between the bottom like , where the logo is , and if we have the replaceable section , it's like the top . It doesn't necessarily replace the entire top . +Project Manager: Mm +User Interface: And so you have that one piece that stays and the rest just sort of clips in . +Project Manager: Okay , yes +User Interface: If c you envisioning it ? +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: And so that stays the same when you have the logo , and then you have this s slip that kinda clips in and that's the bit that changes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The only problem is we're using a latex overlay so {gap} it actually would go over top of everything and have holes for the buttons , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so I was thinking maybe instead of doing that what we could do is leave a space for where the logo should be . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Like a little cut-out kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That's like , you know , {gap} a a cellphone it's like the the screen is always just left opened . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: And so , what we are gonna do it like bright yellow with the R_R_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Anybody see anything that they liked in these ones ? +Marketing: Some of tho Well , some of those buttons though are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um well , a lot of those buttons are blue-based . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , kind of . Um and then if v we do have them illuminate upon contact , they could illuminate yellow . +User Interface: Yellow . +Project Manager: Yellow , I like that idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like if we {vocalsound} like the one all the way on the left , uh you ca you can see it on your computer better . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um where the button is actually blue , but the number itself is clear or white or whatever so if you pressed it would illuminate yellow . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So we'd have blue and yellow for the touch buttons . +User Interface: Oh , that one . +Project Manager: I like the yellow illumination idea , very good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Any other ideas or thoughts ? We all seem to be fairly in agreement about what we wanna do with this project so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . Ha hang on {gap} {vocalsound} Let me catch up . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Did we finalise what buttons we're including or we {gap} just everything that we said before ? +Project Manager: I think there will be time for that later . I'm guessing . 'Kay , well we're gonna wrap this up . Um next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes , and here's what we're each of us going to do . The I_D_ is going to do the look and feel design , the U_I_D_ the user interface design . I think you're going to get a lot of , I mean , the final say on what buttons get put {disfmarker} We'll all talk about it , but I think , that's pretty much what you're gonna do , right ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess . 'Kay . And you're gonna do some product evaluation . Okay , and right now , the I_D_ and U_I_D_ , you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Great . Play Doh . +User Interface: Fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , and you should all be getting an email pretty soon . Alright . Well , thank you for a very productive meeting . +Industrial Designer: Wonderful Ooh . +","The team, consisting of a project manager, marketing representative, industrial designer, and user interface designer, met to conceptualize the design of a remote control. The project manager outlined the agenda for a forty-minute meeting where they would decide on the remote control concepts and presentations would be given. + +Marketing began by highlighting the importance of fashion in electronics, observing current trends favoring fancy over functional products and the popularity of fruit and vegetable patterns in design, which might not be suitable for a product intended to be long-lasting. + +The industrial designer suggested that customers wanted simple but fully-featured devices. They also discussed various casing options, power sources, and the need for mass production to reduce costs. The idea of using alternative materials like titanium or wood for casings was floated, and suggestions for powering devices included solar cells, hand dynamos, and kinetic power. + +The user interface designer presented different design possibilities, emphasizing the need for a design that can be used easily without looking, perhaps through distinctive button shapes or textures. They also showed concepts targeting specific demographics like children and pitched ideas for a simple, trendy look inspired by devices like the iPod. + +Key points of discussion included determining the energy source, materials, chip requirements, and sizes for the remote. Voice recognition technology was also debated, with concerns about user-friendliness and practicality. The team discussed making the remote small and portable, avoiding a bulky charging base. Ideas for incorporating a locator function and the company branding were also put forth. + +The project manager suggested focusing on a single design concept before considering diversity in the product line, and the team agreed to move forward with a small, battery-powered remote with a latex overlay for customization. They briefly discussed button designs and the use of the company logo. + +For the next steps, a prototype would be developed using modelling clay by the industrial designer and user interface designer. The meeting concluded with assignments handed out for the next meeting, including product evaluation and further design details." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order—that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation—this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill—that's the approach taken in amendment 1E—as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children’s rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children’s rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill’s strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone’s business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group—that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands— +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know—could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here— +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond— +Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now— +Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: —to my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members—the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following: 'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.' If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption.] Should our amendment be agreed— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now—that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that—about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying—and perhaps I will get some clarity on this—there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country—you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding— +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? +Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. +Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. +Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. +Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. +Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that—I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may—I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign—how have you concluded that— +Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. +Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. +Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. +Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it—again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C—the information about how to raise concerns—I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D—Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children—now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to 'understanding'—now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the 'understanding'; 'awareness' is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members' contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D—very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about 'laying' rather than 'publishing' at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be—I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Siân; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents' actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting—you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up—I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3—so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect—that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time—I know you've talked about New Zealand—but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone—you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin—that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow— +Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention— +Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. +Lynne Neagle AM: —he'll make a contribution. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies— +Hefin David AM: Just to say— +Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. +Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention—. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that—I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion—which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee—I'll leave it to you—on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but 'as soon as practicable' is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say 'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. +Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing—. +Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. +Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments—I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it—so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? +Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? +Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2— +Suzy Davies AM: Objection. +Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues—these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers' decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers' proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill—this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this—and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now—it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the—what is it—transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple—or at least simple in terms of drafting—initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that—. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers—what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? +Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? +Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? +Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? +Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11.05 a.m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated: 'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.' But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that: 'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.' And: 'We have to measure it as we go along.' Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of £60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act—they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that 'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.' Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee: 'In terms of thresholds for children’s services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that’s likely to happen.' That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said: 'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.' I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are—UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? +Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group—there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small—I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden—primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? +Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is, 'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of—we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to—this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability—not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group—the strategic implementation group, is it—was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children—no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53.2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said 'up to two years'—well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments—Suzy's amendments in particular—wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign, and I think—. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13, 14 and 15. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of—or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill—and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police—obviously I don't—there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say—or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different—sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order—. Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","Lynne Neagle AM, Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, leads a Stage 2 proceeding meeting on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Deputy Minister Julie Morgan AM responds to the committee's recommendation by tabling amendments for awareness-raising campaigns about the change in the law, including the removal of the defense of reasonable punishment. Debate ensues on details about amendments, with contributions from Janet Finch-Saunders AM and Suzy Davies AM addressing concerns over funding, public awareness, and criminalization. The committee also covers letters regarding healthy weight strategies and early childhood education and care. Votes are taken on various amendments, with some rejected and some agreed. The Stage 3 proceedings are scheduled, and the revised explanatory memorandum will be prepared by the Deputy Minister. The meeting concludes with agreement to continue in private." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay we all all set ? Right . Well this is the uh final detailed design meeting . Um we're gonna discuss the look and feel design , the user interface design , and we're gonna evaluate the product . And the end result of this meeting has to be a decision on the details of this remote control , like absolute final decision , um and then I'm gonna have to specify the final design in the final report . So um just from from last time to recap , we said we were gonna have a snowman shaped remote control with no L_C_D_ display , no need for talk-back , it was hopefully gonna be kinetic power and battery uh with rubber buttons , maybe backlighting the buttons with some internal L_E_D_s to shine through the casing , um hopefully a jog-dial , and incorporating the slogan somewhere as well . Anything I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay um so uh if you want to present your prototype go ahead . +User Interface: Uh-oh . This is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer , made in Japan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , there are a few changes we've made . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , well look at the expense sheet , and uh it turned to be quite a lot expensive to have open up and have lots of buttons and stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so instead we've um {disfmarker} this is gonna be an L_C_D_ screen , um just a a very very basic one , very small um with access to the menu through the the scroll wheel and uh confirm um button . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Uh , apart from that , it's just pretty much the same as we discussed last time . +Industrial Designer: And there isn't uh d it doesn't open up to the advanced functions ? the advanced functions are still hidden from you , but they're hidden in the sense that um they're not in use . +Marketing: Where are they ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're in the L_C_D_ panel and the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Ah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w what kind of thing uh is gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ panel just displays um functionally what you're doing . If you're using an advanced function right , like um c brightness , contrast , whatever , it will just say {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know it's like it only has four columns , it's a very simple L_C_D_ like , whereas many {disfmarker} the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay cool . +Marketing: Right , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: It might even be one , a bit more complex L_C_D_ panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the , you know , the the symbols of the various functions . +Marketing: Okay +Project Manager: Oh right okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , and what is this here ? +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That's a number pad . +Marketing: Okay so the number pad is {disfmarker} 'Kay , great . +Project Manager: Where are we gonna have the slogan ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're al along this {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know , just like right inside there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Industrial Designer: You have this space here , and then you have this thing on the side as well , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause slogans are usually quite small , right , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: they're not like huge +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they're s +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Say a button's about +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Looks good . +Industrial Designer: say a button's about this size , right , so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan , say even for that . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if this isn't to scale , what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so we reckon maybe that'll be about the same size as the palm of your hand . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button , so one two three four centimetres . Plus maybe half o five +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: six seven eight , +Marketing: About nine in total . +Project Manager: Six , seven , eight , nine , ten . +Industrial Designer: about yeah nine total . +Project Manager: So we're talking about ten centimetres . +Marketing: That sounds good . Yeah . +Project Manager: That would be good . So ten centimetres in height . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Nine , ten . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: That'd be good , in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually , so that would be {disfmarker} that sounds like a really good size , if you see it there . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's great and it's very bright as well . So um okay . +Marketing: Mm . Is it possible {disfmarker} uh I'm just gonna bring up the idea of colours . Is these are these the colours that {disfmarker} of production , or is this just what we had available ? +User Interface: Well I'm {disfmarker} We're gonna have again the the sort of the foggy um yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report . +User Interface: But um {vocalsound} this button um , because it's red it's sort of very prominent , we're gonna use it as uh {disfmarker} it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it'll send a stand-by signal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um apart from that it's gonna be used as a confirm button for the L_C_D_ screen +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and you use this as a jog-dial . +Project Manager: Okay so that's like an okay button , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh we've discussed how h high it is , but how wide is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: How high is it ? +Industrial Designer: No as in the height , but what about the width ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh oh +User Interface: Didn't put five centimetres . +Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Do we need five ? I don't think five is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: be about th three and a half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there okay . +User Interface: Something by there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So you can power on and off , what else can you do ? +Marketing: Three and a half . +User Interface: Um you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , were gonna have the volume control here , but um because we've got the the L_C_D_ and the jog-dial we just thought we'd um use that as the volume . +Project Manager: Okay jog-dial for volume . And what else do you do with the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um you can use it for um more advanced functions like contrast , colour and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Contrast , brightness , +User Interface: Um yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and anything else ? +User Interface: Um just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions , um we didn't actually go through and specify the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they ? +User Interface: Uh what can a T_V_ do ? +Industrial Designer: Okay things like um brightness , contrast , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um maybe tuning the channels . +Project Manager: Okay channel tuning . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: That's a good one . +Industrial Designer: What else ? Um the various inputs . Are you having a V_C_R_ , are you having {disfmarker} you know which input do you have ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay auxiliary inputs . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: probably colour or sharpness . +Industrial Designer: Yep , colour , sharpness . Um a lot of these things will have to be um free and open for users to define them . +Project Manager: Sharpness . Okay what about uh sound settings +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: ? Uh d can you change any of those at all ? +Marketing: Audio . +Industrial Designer: Audio , we have like your basic y your base , your mid-range , your high range . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: {gap} the the balance hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep , left-right balance , um maybe even pre-programmed sound modes , like um the user could determine like a series of sound modes , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and then what could happen would be um when you click on that then it would go to that setting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is there anything else at all it can do ? That {disfmarker} 'cause that's that's fine . Just need to know so I can write it down . Okay um right I g I guess that's it , so we can now um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing , and see if we need to um if we need to rethink anything at all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um for this first part here power-wise , have we got battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery . +Project Manager: Do we have kinetic as well ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: just battery . +Industrial Designer: We need an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's because of cost restraints is it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah advanced chip . +Project Manager: um what about the electronics here ? +Industrial Designer: We need an advanced chip I think , yep . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Let me just confirm that . Yes I think so . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um the case , what does it mean by single and double , do you know ? +User Interface: Um I think single would just be sort of one sort of oval whereas double is this sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we want double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Um . +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: Is there any rubber at all in the buttons or any +Industrial Designer: I think we're gonna have to skip the rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: um and we wanted special colours didn't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So I'll have to put that {disfmarker} Oh no wait we {disfmarker} ho how many colours have we got there ? +Industrial Designer: For the case itself , one colour . It's one special colour . +Project Manager: Just one colour , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause the case unit itself , the rest of our components go on top of it . +Project Manager: Okay so interface-wise , is it this third option we have , the two of them there ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . One and the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: Okay and then buttons , we have what , two colours ? +Industrial Designer: How many {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um we have um got some push buttons as well . +Marketing: Or even clear . +Industrial Designer: We've got push buttons as well . +Project Manager: Like uh oh wait so push button and integrated scroll wheel push +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: So I reckon we've got one button for this thing 'cause it's just one big sheet of rubber . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I'm not sure if that counts but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay let's just be safe and put like say four buttons for that one . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um and maybe a special colour for the buttons , so maybe four again . +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: You can see we're we're all very far beyond the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w why are we arriving at the number four ? Where does the number four come from ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that's one button by its the complexity of twelve buttons . +Project Manager: Okay right , +Industrial Designer: So we're just estimating that yeah it would be less . +Project Manager: so we're writing down four . {vocalsound} Okay . How about these ? Are we wanting them in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: no they're just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: is everything gonna be plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're w w quite far over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna have to go . Um we're at sixteen point eight and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh how mm-hmm {disfmarker} how are we going to achieve this high-end product if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we h something has to go to the tune of two point t three Euro , +Marketing: We only have very sparse {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so let me see , what are we {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two point three ? Four point three no ? +Project Manager: oh yes sorry , four point three . My maths is all out . +User Interface: Well we could take out ones by making it single curved , just fill in those bits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How much would that save us ? +Marketing: And then where is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How much would that save us ? +Industrial Designer: That will only save you one . +User Interface: That is one . +Industrial Designer: The other thing could be that um you could take away the L_C_D_ panel and the advanced chip together , +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: um because when you do something on the T_V_ , the T_V_ responds and reacts as well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so the user could be looking at the T_V_ and pushing his thing so we may not need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's fair enough , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so when we scroll we need just some way to get the T_V_ to respond , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which I think is a technically doable thing so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w what's our reviewed suggestion ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um take away the L_C_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . And the advanced chip goes away as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: To be replaced with a +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Project Manager: regular chip . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So what that means is that um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And so we've got point three to get rid of . Um and we ha where are the four {disfmarker} the four push buttons are where exactly now ? +Industrial Designer: The twelve buttons that you see there {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Twelve buttons . +User Interface: That's um one piece of rubber but it's gonna have twelve button things underneath so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Functionally you're gonna have to intercept {disfmarker} So four is a good estimate for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you can't actually cut {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's like three times the number of buttons , four , eight , twelve . +Project Manager: Like is is that one big button or is it twelve buttons , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} It needs to be more than one big button because if you open up your phone , underneath there's actually one button underneath , it's just that the panel itself is a single panel . +Project Manager: how can it be something in between ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well we have point three to get rid of somewhere . +Industrial Designer: We just report that it has to be over budget {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or the colours , you could take away s colours for th for the buttons . +Project Manager: No can do . +Marketing: Yeah we could just go with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah w +Industrial Designer: Normal coloured buttons . +Project Manager: Well do you want colour differentiation here ? +Industrial Designer: No that's not the button we're talking about . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry yeah then . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the buttons only refer to the pad so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Should we take that off uh ? +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey it's back to the original . +Project Manager: That's it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so then these just become normal coloured buttons , so that might be some some way of cutting the cost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , ach that's a shame . {vocalsound} Um right , so take away that completely ? Ah . And now we're under budget . So we do have point five Euro to play with if we wanted . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about with embossing the logo , isn't that going to cost us some money ? +Project Manager: Doesn't say so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . That's a freebie . +User Interface: Reckon that probably counts as a special form for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that's a good idea . Just one ? Does that mean that one button has a special form or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {gap} there's just one button so +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: handy {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well well there we go . So I'm just gonna have to redraw this now . So we're not gonna have the L_C_D_ anymore , and we'll just gonna have an on t on the T_V_ it'll show you what you're doing , which I think is fair enough , and so this is gonna be one big thing here . Um . +Marketing: Was the goal in your in your prototype design that it be as low profile as possible ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by profile ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sort of flat as possible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: You see I envision it as being um quite deep +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: sort of {vocalsound} deep enough to be comfy to hold in your hands rather than being wide and flat . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I was thinking , to +Industrial Designer: We didn't have enough Play-Doh to make it three D_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , okay . Yeah alright yeah fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , just thought I'd ask . +Industrial Designer: So there's one more dimension to the thing which we need to to add , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you might want to add in the report , length , width , and height . +Project Manager: Right okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just to well to be thorough then , width-wise we're looking at about what three centimetres or something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and then so height-wise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: How how tall do you envisage it being ? About that big ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Yeah it works , yeah . +Project Manager: About two centimetres , okay . +Marketing: Two's not very high at all though . +Industrial Designer: This is about this is about two . +Marketing: Maybe a bit higher ? +Industrial Designer: Slightly more than two , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: See , about that thick . +Project Manager: Okay . Ach , that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe closer to three even or two and a half . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we'll s we'll say two point five . Okay um so we have it within cost anyway . Um so yeah project evaluation is this point . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right uh . Okay so can we close that ? This is what it's {disfmarker} the final spec that it's gonna be . Someone is gonna have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah that's fine that's fine . +Marketing: Um it's probably just {disfmarker} I dunno if it's worth getting into , but um just in in that we want this to be stylish , should we think a little bit more out of the box in terms of a button grid , because I've seen there's lots of devices out there that that instead of taking your standard nine nine square grid , and they have it sort of stylized or in different concept that that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's something that's very hard to catch , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you you restrict the number of people who wanna try something . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +Industrial Designer: The the look and the colour is something which is cool , +Marketing: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: but I think that there's also that factor of if it's too unfamiliar +Marketing: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: then um {disfmarker} because when you put it on the shelf {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about button shape ? Square buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah button shape might be a good idea to change , rather than rather than positioning , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I think positioning is {disfmarker} we're kinda engrained into the the telephone kind of +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: pad . +Project Manager: Right um . So at this point we uh , let me see , discuss uh how satisfied we all are with um with these four points , with the room for creativity in the project , and leadership and teamwork , and the stuff we had around us I guess . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um , let me see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you want me to d um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you want me to do my um design evaluation last ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should do the design evaluation first . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I wasn't really sure what that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: , yeah go for that first . I wasn't entirely sure what uh {disfmarker} who was supposed to be doing that , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y you go for it . +Marketing: Sure . Um , alright so the way this works , I'm gonna need to plug into PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: I'll try and do it as quick as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , this is um {disfmarker} I'll just go over your head if that's okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think you need the power , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's okay that's okay . +Marketing: I don't need the PowerPoint ? +Industrial Designer: No , the power cord itself . +Marketing: Oh {gap} course , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so then you have a bit more freedom to {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah that's true . Let me get that . A bit more . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: You you still have your blue fingers . +Marketing: so what this is is a set-up for us to um uh use a kind of a like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is it ? +Industrial Designer: You killed a monster . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The idea is that I've set up {disfmarker} I've reviewed all of the um the points of discussion from the beginning , and used that as a criteria of evaluation for the um uh for the current design uh th or the plan , and uh so we can review that . Uh I think it's gonna end up being sort of elementary because we're sort we're in n we're not gonna probably use it to change anything but {disfmarker} Doesn't seem like it's going , does it ? +Project Manager: Oh there it is . +Marketing: Yeah , okay great . Uh and I'm gonna write up our results on the board , so this'll be a way for us to go through and decide if we're um {disfmarker} sort of review where we stand with it . Okay , so um {disfmarker} So to sort of b bring together two things , sort of design goals and also the market research that we had , uh when we rate this , one is v high in in succeeding or fitting to our original aim and seven is low , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: okay . So these i these i th are the {disfmarker} and um we've been asked to uh to collectively rate this , so what we can do is try and just y work on a consensus system so we just come to an agreement . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? So the first one uh , stylish look and feel . +Industrial Designer: I rate that pretty highly . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean compared to most remote controls you see that's pretty good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno like a six or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does anybody else think ? +Marketing: Yeah um me uh my only reservation with it was that we basically went with yellow because it's the company's colour , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I don't know if yellow's gonna really be a hit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm seeing five then . +Marketing: What do you guys think ? +Project Manager: I would say five or six . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm fine with that . +Project Manager: David ? +Marketing: Okay let's go with five then . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Fi oh uh just actually the opposite . +Industrial Designer: It's one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Oh yes +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: sorry then +Marketing: So it meant three , +Project Manager: , then I would say two or three . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait , what's the scale , one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , one is high . +User Interface: One's high-ish isn't it ? Ah , okay so yeah , two or three . +Marketing: 'Kay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's upside-down . +Marketing: Let's go with two point five then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , um {vocalsound} control {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: high tech innovation . +Project Manager: Well it has the wee jog-dial +Marketing: We had to remove {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so we've had to remove a few of our features we wanted , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but jog-dial +Industrial Designer: Say it's more +Project Manager: I'd go with three or four , +Marketing: 's good . +User Interface: Eight +Industrial Designer: medium , +Project Manager: maybe three . +User Interface: three . +Industrial Designer: but going towards a little bit higher than medium kind of thing . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah about three , okay . +Marketing: three ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Style reflects a fruit inspired colour , design . +Industrial Designer: Lemon . +Marketing: I shouldn't have said colour , but just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , the blue the blue colours and {disfmarker} don't re don't actually represent the colour , +Project Manager: Well that's kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorta . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: except for the b the the red button , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they {disfmarker} because for want of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But the yellow , I mean it could be a lemon yellow colour , +Marketing: Right . Yeah , could be . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the yellow is more representative of the colour , +Project Manager: couldn't it ? +Industrial Designer: but the button itself , the blue can be anything else . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay so we'll go two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay , and um design is simple to use , simple in features . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean it's really basic looking isn't it ? +Marketing: F f yeah f fairly basic , +Project Manager: I mean I'd give that nearly a one . +Marketing: you guys think ? +User Interface: Yeah {gap} one . +Industrial Designer: Yep , that's fine . +Marketing: Yeah , one ? Okay . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} soft and spongy , have we achieved that ? We've used mostly plastic in the end so it's going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's about five . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Five ? That's really low . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we have to use uh plastic +Project Manager: Yeah I suppose mm 'kay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it's probably gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , company logo . +Marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it ? Was that an option ? +Industrial Designer: I think it'll be cost prohibitive , +User Interface: I think I'd probably increase the cost . +Marketing: It would cost more than plastic . +User Interface: We've only got {vocalsound} like what , ten cents left so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay , logo , we've got it in there , haven't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Yep . Gonna have that on the side , aren't we , like there or something ? +Marketing: Huh . And um it's within budget , yep . It is , isn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so we can say then that uh out of a possible {disfmarker} or what would be our goal here ? +Project Manager: Out of forty nine , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , out of forty nine with with zero being the highest . We are at uh two , seven , eight , ten , fifteen point five . +Project Manager: 'S pretty good . +Marketing: So it's pretty good . Translates to something like about approximately seventy two percent efficacy of our original goal . Right ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: I think 'cause if you turn that into a hundred it would be about +Project Manager: Twice that , +Marketing: about thirty one , +Project Manager: about thirty one . +Marketing: and then invert that , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So yeah ab well yeah about sixty nine , seventy percent yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , about seventy , yeah seventy percent . +Project Manager: It's pretty good . +Marketing: Okay , good . That was just a little formality for us to go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep , oh hundred pound pen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry {vocalsound} {vocalsound} alright . +Project Manager: Nobody saw it , honestly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The cameras did . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Is that you all have all finished , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's that's me . I did have one other um one other frame I thought , I mean I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information , I thought okay in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design , revisiting our original goals . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not something I need to p push through , but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions , um sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Could our design involve a series of colours so that it's more of like a line where we have like sort of the , I don't know like the harvest line or the vibrant , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: I dunno the {gap} {disfmarker} Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones , lime green , lemon . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's just discussion . I mean obviously we can just abandon this , it's fine . I'm just thinking about what we originally set out to do . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Um , yep so there . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , great um are you submitting the the um evaluation criteria or am I ? I don't know what your instructions have been . +Marketing: Um , I think to record it and uh I haven't been asked to submit it yet . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because if you're submitting it anyway then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I will , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay great . +Industrial Designer: It keeps getting too big . +Project Manager: Cool . Um right , uh well next up then , because we've done finance , is the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay I'm I'm listening I'm just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing , so I'm playing with the Play-Doh as well . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just in case you're wondering {vocalsound} , why is he still playing with the Play-Doh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Just about right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_E_G_O_ Lego {vocalsound} . {gap} +User Interface: My leg . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . Um well do you wanna um just individually say what you think about about these four points and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or not those four points , my four points , sorry , forgotten that . {vocalsound} You got a different uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Yep . I like those printer cables that just have the two little butterfly clips like that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , they're good aren't they , yeah . +Marketing: It's really quick . +Project Manager: Right okay , +Marketing: To use . +Project Manager: um yeah here we are . Uh as a note we'll do this alphabetically . {vocalsound} Um do you wanna start Andrew ? +Marketing: Sure , um so what is it you're asking of me now ? +Project Manager: I don't know , just um your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them . +Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well , is it {disfmarker} uh okay I'll just go through your system then . The the room uh is fairly institutional , but um the main thing is , I think um our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to um have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion , you know , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity , whereas in reality as we've gone through this , it's not really the centre point of creativity , it's more just a +Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? +Marketing: d debating {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah but that's just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there , the room , it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave , and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then , you know . +Project Manager: But I don't I don't think it means the room as in this room . I think it means like you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , oh right right , oh right okay room for creativ +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh right I just looked up and saw okay whiteboard , digital pens , the room . +Project Manager: Room . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I dunno do you th I think it means um I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . Huh . Yeah . Yeah I th okay on th um yeah dif answering the question uh in those terms I'd say that actually there's sort of a tease of creativity because we're asked to work through this , but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of um okay fashion trends , say fruit and vegetable colour scheme , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but then i then we're told okay use the co company company colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So what do we do . We're told okay um think in terms of style and look and feel and technology , but build something for twelve and a half pounds , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so actually the creativity was more more of like a um a f sort of a f formality then an actual {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You feel like you're caged within whatever y +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah within the constraints +Industrial Designer: It's like a balloon in a cage , it can only go so big and not hit the side . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The constraints do come in very fast . +Project Manager: Okay uh do you know what , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: actually let's take each point and everybody discuss it , I think . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So still on the topic of room for creativity uh next up is Craig . +User Interface: Um I agree with his point it's um it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right , gotta cut everything out 'cause we don't have enough money . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings um are more brainstorming sessions than meetings , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so time is also a very s um strong factor , and structure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to {disfmarker} allows ideas to get tossed , um to be evaluated , and to be reviewed , and to get feedback and come back . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that , I think that's a very big thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think the fact that we're wearing these things restricts {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: I feel it 'cause I wear m my glasses , right , and that but that irritates me right +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it it it does actually you know affect how , w whether you feel comfortable to communicate . +Marketing: Yeah . New creativity . +Industrial Designer: I feel like I'm hiding behind the equipment , rather than the equipment is helping me , and you know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere , the atmosphere is very relaxed , but the the gear +Project Manager: Yeah , but actual environment ? +Industrial Designer: yeah you know that creates boundaries to that um +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and the time the time given also restricts {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very good . Um what about leadership ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if that means like , if I did a good job or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really know . +Marketing: Yeah , well well I mean my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction , encouragement {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that , do you think maybe ? +Marketing: Yeah from {disfmarker} and you as well I think , just sort of acting as team leader . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um yeah I think I think it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Marketing: I think it's good . I mean my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of um gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation , but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you know , innovative thought with . In in reality I think here the the different elements of leadership such as the the original b briefing and then the personal coach and the and then you know having having you with your {disfmarker} the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a {vocalsound} quite a con confining framework to work within . And so it is leadership almost to the point of sort of disempowering the the the team member , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . +Marketing: But it's not bad leadership , it's just sort of s fairly strong , you know . It turns it turns the individual into more of like a um sort of a predetermined mechanism , as opposed to a sort of a free {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , oh yeah , without without a doubt . +Industrial Designer: I think controlling is not the right word , I think the interactions are very structured . +Marketing: Yeah maybe not co confining . +Industrial Designer: I think structure is probably what you're saying that , each individual is structured to one particular task , and one parti rather than controlling . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think there's a sense of control 'cause all the decisions have been made in terms of a , like a consensus right , we go around and we think about it , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that you know process actually says you have to do it in a certain way . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't tell you , you know , some ways that you might wanna be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know , not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh what about teamwork ? +Marketing: Um did , you wanna comment Craig ? +User Interface: Uh , reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them , that would've been a lot easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate , +Marketing: Fully agree . +Industrial Designer: but um it just comes back to us so slow in the email +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: um it it doesn't have a , you know , a messenger will go {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did uh did you guys get the email I sent you ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's alright . +User Interface: Not just yet . +Project Manager: I was wondering if that got there okay . +Marketing: Yeah , got the email . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um so um to s to to summarize the teamwork issue , saying that if we could communicate outside the meeting , you know just like quick questions , quick thoughts , whatever , it probably would be bit easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the tools that they were given , the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they don't support collaboration , I think that's the word . +Marketing: Yeah , in it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: They don't support the team working together , you know , +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Marketing: exactly . Yeah , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: they're still very individual tools . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean sort of taking upon that idea , w the way I see this i is that it's uh the the s the structure in which we've we've approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of um divided , and then the work went on in isolation +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I I don't know what you guys did while you were together , maybe that was a bit different , +Industrial Designer: We had Play-Doh fun {vocalsound} . +Marketing: but um yeah , but um but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said okay , first thing we have to do is come up with um let's say um a design concept , and we sit here together and do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: well that's what teamwork is . To s to say okay go off and don't talk to each other , it's actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Um not that we haven't done I think the best we could have done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'm not dissatisfied with it . +Project Manager: Right , uh anything else to say on teamwork at all ? +Industrial Designer: No , not really . +Project Manager: Okay , um what about the you know how we used the whiteboard , the digital pens , the projector , stuff like that ? Um did anybody think anything was like really useful , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: anything was pretty un f {vocalsound} unsupportive ? +Marketing: I think the whiteboard , for me , is the kind of thing I would use all the time , but it's um not quite as useful as to us as it could have been , maybe just in the way that we we use it , in the sense that once we have an idea out there or while work was going on in between meetings , that could have been up on a board uh you know as opposed to in like in text . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , and then we could then keep our ideas sort of building on that . I know that people who design cars and you know in aviation they quite often just have a simple like fibreglass prototype and it's completely you know um abs abstract from the final product , but they use it as a kind of a context to sort of walk around and puzzle and and point and discuss +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . And point at ? Yeah . +Marketing: and and and in a way everybody's {disfmarker} as we discuss things in the {disfmarker} in theoretically and out of our notebooks , we're just {disfmarker} we're actually just each of us discussing something that's in each of our own minds . It wasn't until we had this here , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craig's paper and I'm like , now I know what he's thinking 'cause I saw his book . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: But the b the b whiteboard could've actually been this kind of continuing um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process woulda been a good idea ? +Marketing: Think could be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think um the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think that m um is also does you know hinder us and things I think . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know in the centre of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare , whereas I can imagine if I'd been encouraged to use Paintbrush , for example , or whatever , I would've actually used it , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: um 'ca you know , just 'cause that's sorta how we {disfmarker} what we were set up to to use while we had our time . +Project Manager: Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that there were too many PowerPoints in the meetings {vocalsound} . 'Cause the plug-in and the plugging spent {disfmarker} we spent a lot of time doing that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints , I don't think , you know , we needed to actually {disfmarker} it could have , we could have gone through it {gap} verbally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , not quite . +Industrial Designer: especially my slides , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I felt that they just you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to having to present them . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the digital pens , did you find them easy enough to use ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep clunky . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure , yeah . +User Interface: Oh they're a bit clunky . +Industrial Designer: Agreed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Clunky , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well , 'cause you're half way through a thought , and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I know , I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff , didn't click note on one , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page , but then did click note , and so I'm quite worried that I've just written over the top of it or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but they'll have my paper anyway um and haven't done that since . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive , everybody knows how to use it , we don't {gap} have to worry . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: So I think the pen's good . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's about the best thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And o on the topic of the technology , it just occurred to me that we actually didn't need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It just occurred to me that they all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we only needed one computer and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We only actually needed one computer . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: If there had been a fifth , that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time . +User Interface: Good point . +Industrial Designer: And the computer may not um be conducive to a meeting because um you tend to look at your computer and wanna have the urge to check something , you know , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's useful but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I think too many computers are just distracting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually , like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um I don't know about anybody else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} what else uh any wh I do I'm not really sure what they're looking for when they say new ideas found . Um I don't know is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is this for the project or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you think of like anything else that would have been helpful today at all ? +Marketing: Well , the w main one for me is that uh the process na in a natural f context would not have been interrupted by this necessity to discommunicate ourselves from each other . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah if we just had uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , that's kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea , well you know it's kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you're told you must now work away from your team . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah I I dunno I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do , and you can spend a lot of time talking about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design , I thought there {disfmarker} maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but um {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I really thi i I think maybe if we'd like all been working in the one room , and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just to have like something written down , just like you know a a milestone if you like um rather than having meetings , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: There you go . Um so in closing , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I haven't got my five minutes to go . Thin Oh there it i Five minutes to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wonderful . Okay um are the costs within the budget , yes they are . And is the project evaluated , yes it is . So now celebrate {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have Ninja Homer . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} So now we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well apparently now I write the final report . What are you guys doing now ? +User Interface: Do we know what the other ones are ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: You dunno ? +User Interface: Oh wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That is lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hey yeah , I said Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What did you call it ? +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . See it looks like Homer Simpson +Marketing: Huh , huh . +Industrial Designer: but it's electronic so it's made in Japan . +Project Manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything ? +Marketing: Logo . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's just a logo . +Project Manager: Just a logo and then like Ninja Homer , +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you wanna print on the side of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite nice . +Marketing: Fashion technology or something . +Industrial Designer: You can wear Homer , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you can throw Homer when you're frustrated , doh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm , hmm , hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no , that's cool , it's got {disfmarker} I'm kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's clunky . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm slightly gutted that we couldn't get plastic and rubber , I think that would have been nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah well , maybe from now on real reaction should give us more money . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I did learn something new , Play-Doh is useful . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: No it is it is . +Project Manager: Play-Doh s +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is useful and in in in in in in in um conceptualizing , in being creative . +Marketing: Huh . Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause like you say , it's something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for . +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like we were playing with the Play-Doh and the ideas came with the Play-Doh rather than with everything else . +Project Manager: Did they ? +Industrial Designer: You might wanna write that down . It's just , I'm just fiddling with the Play-Doh , and I'm going yeah yeah it's kinda cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Play-Doh . +Marketing: No , it's true , yeah . +User Interface: Guess I'd forgot how good s Play-Doh smells . +Project Manager: Yeah , it smells funny doesn't it . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . And some Play-Dohs are actually I think edible aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No , all Play-Doh is edible . +Project Manager: Yeah like the stuff for {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think they're all non-toxic 'cause it's aimed for like two-year-olds . +Project Manager: I think it has to be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's just wheat , it's the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah um so to +Marketing: Wow , hmm . +Project Manager: wha what are your summarising words about Play-Doh ? +Industrial Designer: It's helpful to the creative process . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um it engages all your senses not just your sight , but your sense of feel your sense of touch . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And it helps you to understand +Marketing: Taste . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} dimension as well . I think that that's very helpful because it it starts to pop up , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas on a piece of paper , on a computer , on a board , um even with a three D_ graphic thing it still , it requires a lot of +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yep . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not very tangible . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} tangible , that's a nice word . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: It becomes tangible . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Tangible . Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't know if there's anything else we needed to discuss . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: That that's about it really . Just sit still I guess for a little while . +Marketing: Do we retreat to our , to continue our +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably do it here as long as we don't collaborate . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: r reporting or what i +Project Manager: Well I dunno . Um I'm sure the little uh the little thing'll pop up any minute now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can we turn off the microphones ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah if the meeting's over then yeah I guess so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","In a final detailed design meeting of a project team, the group convened to solidify the specifics of a remote control’s design. The Project Manager reminded everyone that they must arrive at a conclusive decision regarding the remote control's intricacies, which would be specified in the final report. All design aspects were laid out, including the snowman shape, absence of an LCD display, talk-back feature, potential for kinetic power alongside battery usage, rubber buttons with possible backlighting, an internal LED, a jog-dial, and the inclusion of the corporate slogan. + +Despite initial plans, the User Interface designer informed the group that cost constraints necessitated changes, including the addition of a basic LCD screen for navigation and confirmation but sacrificing some earlier ambitious design features. Marketing sought clarification on the advanced functions, which the Industrial Designer explained were accessible through the LCD panel and jog-dial. There was a discussion on the LCD panel's simplicity and its ability to guide users through functions like brightness and contrast. + +Attention then turned to the remote's dimensions, aimed to be ergonomic for hand use, with the size of buttons common enough for intuitive use, leading to a decision that the remote would be approximately ten centimeters in height. The Project Manager analyzed the expense sheet with the team, confirming the use of a single-color casing due to budget constraints, agreeing to replace an advanced chip with a regular one, and accepting necessary compromises as they strived to stay within budget. + +To optimize costs, the team was forced to simplify the design, resulting in the exclusion of the advanced chip and LCD panel and a reconsideration of the buttons' color schemes. There was also a decision to integrate the corporate logo through embossment, confirming the final design while staying under budget with some room to spare. + +A review of the design evaluation was set to gauge the effectiveness of the achieved model against the original design goals. Marketing led an exercise in scoring each element from high to low, resulting in an approximate 70% effectiveness compared to their original aim, which they regarded as fairly successful. + +There was a collective reflection on the process, with individual roles like Project Manager and Marketing weighing in on the constraints they faced, such as creative freedom, leadership, teamwork, and technology use. They questioned whether the structured nature of the meetings and the technology provided aided or hindered their creative and collaborative efforts. They also deliberated on new ideas explored during the process, celebrating the unexpected insight on the usefulness of Play-Doh in the creative process due to its tangibility. + +The meeting was closed, with the team acknowledging the compromises and changes they made to ensure the design stayed within budget. The Project Manager was left to draft the final report detailing the specific outcomes of the meeting, the remote control’s design adjustments, the challenges of adhering to the budget, and the pragmatic decisions taken by the entire team. The collaborative, yet sometimes limiting, experience underscored the complexities of balancing creativity and practical constraints in product design." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright ? Alright . Thank you for coming to this third meeting of the uh uh design group . Um I think we uh made some definite progress at the last one um and come up with some interesting uh uh w suggestions for our our new remote control . Um I'll again very quickly uh just present some notes of that meeting . Um {vocalsound} the the the problem with existing remote controls , we felt , was that they're ugly um and that people are prepared to pay a premium for something better . Um they've got lots of buttons on them that uh people don't use and find difficult to learn . Um and people lose them . And {vocalsound} We we thought that f for our our new uh uh remote control that everybody will want to rush out and buy , um {vocalsound} that we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we should look at speech recognition rather than r rather than buttons , and that if we have any buttons they should be very few of them and only for those functions that are actually identified that that people use . That {disfmarker} um {vocalsound} we want to go for uh a long lasting battery that we gua we guarantee for the life of the uh uh the product and a shape that will be instantly recognisable , A_ um as uh a trendy remote control , and and B_ as uh a Real Reaction product . So that w uh when people are uh happy with that , they will they will want to buy uh everything else from us . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So again um , I'll {disfmarker} we'll have the three three presentations from the the the three of you and then uh we'll we'll make a a final a final uh decision . Um and the the decisions that we need to to make today , finally , are um what energy source we want to use , whether i it is practical to use uh um a a a long lasting one . And uh I I think our discussion was around the fact that uh if we're gonna go for uh a long lasting power supply , then basically it's uh sealed for life and uh if anybody does manage to run one down , we'll we'll give them another one . And uh it it'll be uh , you know , prominently displayed as part of the th the advertising literature that it's um um , you know , for life , guaranteed for life . Um {vocalsound} now the the the internal chip um {disfmarker} and uh this is where I need uh uh Kate's expert advice +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and given that {vocalsound} th this has to to go to market as quickly as possible um d d do we go for a custom designed chip ? Or or do we buy one off the shelf and and programme it ourselves ? Uh I mean I'm I'm I'm n not an expert on these things , but presumably , there must be loads of 'em already on the market that we can modify . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh that that's uh that's your area of expertise . And then the uh , you know , the the overall design of the case uh is is is Kendra's field and uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we we had some discussions last time as as to uh how we might go forward and we'll we'll finalise those uh da today . Um and thi this is all linked in with the the the user interface , whether we p um {vocalsound} go for voice , buttons , or or a bit of both . Uh and then uh , you know , f for the next meeting Kate will be looking at the the the s the look , feel and design , Kendra the uh ho how the the user actually uses it and and Andrew of course the the product evaluation . And uh Kate and Kendra will be producing a a model for us to uh to look at . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh so , if if we can have the the three presentations again please , and uh um p perhaps you'd like to start uh k . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kate . Oh I'm sorry , oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Um p there we go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay , I'll just be talking about the components design . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , basically I just uh looked at what exactly do remotes do . Uh basically they wait for you to press a key or give a voice command and then this is translated uh into uh light signals which are then seen by the T_V_ . Uh the materials we're gonna need to look at {disfmarker} uh the two big ones are the integrated circuit chip and the battery and the in integrated circuit chip uh works in conjunction with a a diode transistor or resonator , uh two more resistors and a capacitor and the battery works in conjunction with a resistor and a capacitor . Um . {vocalsound} Uh basically what happens is you'll press a number or give a voice command and this creates a a connection within the the remote that allows the chip {disfmarker} the chip then senses this connection and produces a signal in a Morse code format . This signal's sent to the transistor which amplifies it and then sends it on to the light emitting diode and uh {disfmarker} which is then trai changed into a infrared light which is sent to the T_V_ and sort of seen by the T_V_ and which uh changes the channels . {vocalsound} Um . Oh . {vocalsound} Uh cool . {vocalsound} Uh so as for how we should end up uh using this in our remote uh t couple of main questions are the buttons . Uh y the fewer buttons you have , I guess the fewer internal connections and internal codes you're gonna need . Um however uh to n not have buttons or to use a voice commands instead of buttons might make these connections more difficult and uh raise the production cost . That's something we should think about . Also we have to work within the company constraints , and the company has informed me via email that uh they're experts at pushbuttons and that seems to be the most uh cost-effective way of producing it . Um also with battery connections the company has some limits on the batteries we can use , so I was thinking perhaps a combination of solar cells with a back-up basic battery and somehow between the combination of that two we might be able to come up with something that uh will last the the lifetime or the five to ten years and we could still keep that original idea . {vocalsound} Um we also need to look at the chips , uh v custom-designed versus off the shelf , and the custom-designed will give us much more flexibility and enable us to incorporate the voice function that we all uh seem to have agreed upon . Um , however that's gonna cost more , but uh the off the shelf is gonna be uh cheaper and it's gonna be {disfmarker} allow us to produce it quicker and get out there faster , but it's going to be less flexible with the features , especially things like uh voice activation , which haven't really been used much on remotes , so there's not really chips out there that would be easy to uh to convert , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , +Industrial Designer: so if we were uh definitely gonna go with the the voice option we'd probably have to design um our own chip . {vocalsound} And that pretty much sums it up . +Project Manager: so how um {disfmarker} sorry , can you uh just put that one back up again , please ? Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh yep , sorry . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Uh d d d {vocalsound} okay , I mean uh inevitably a b a custom design chip is gonna be more expensive . Do we do we know uh by how much ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Um I don't actually have any price information , no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and do we know how long it'll take to uh develop a a custom chip . +Industrial Designer: Um it {disfmarker} a lot longer than an off the shelf chip . Oh w yeah , we did {disfmarker} the the problem is the the the voice technology is not really highly developed , +Project Manager: Right , +Industrial Designer: it's sort of still still in an ex experimental form , +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: uh so it would uh {disfmarker} it's hard to predict the time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I think we need to make a a decision here . Uh given that the company wants this on the market quickly and cheaply , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that would appear to uh effectively constrain us to an existing chip and thus therefore conventional button technology . Um uh now before we go round everybody else , does anybody um h have any have anyti ha anything to say about that ? +User Interface: I {disfmarker} I just have a question about that . Um does it make a difference if there are just a few commands , for example if you um can pre-programme in like numbers one through ten and pre-programme say , you know , nine channels and then just use the voice recognition to say channel one and then you've programmed in say B_B_C_ four as your channel one , as your favourite , it's like to have a certain number of favourites um +Industrial Designer: W just to to incorporate the voice activation in it is is sorta the trick . +User Interface: and that w +Industrial Designer: Once you've got the whole voice chip in there , then it's pretty much the the world {disfmarker} the the sky is your limit , +User Interface: Okay . Then it doesn't matter . Okay . +Industrial Designer: but to actually {disfmarker} the the big step is to actually get the voice activation chips in there and working . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Cause uh I {vocalsound} must say I find it slightly surprising given that , you know , mobile phones incorporate voice activated dialling . So uh um I mean +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I d d for slightly different {disfmarker} well no , I mean , it's if you you {disfmarker} speak somebody's name and it'll dial the number for you , so uh bu I mean the this this information is from {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} this is the internal company information , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh bits of it , yeah . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Of course mobile phones do tend to be more expensive , +Industrial Designer: Yes , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you know , hundred and fifty pounds or something . As opposed to the twenty Euros , twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm true , again but if it's without any without any uh p price informations that's uh difficult to uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh decide . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Also lots of mobile phones have got a lot of technology in them , not just that , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's right . It's like {disfmarker} it's it's {disfmarker} you can't {disfmarker} 'cause mobile phones are expensive , you can't say it's the voice recognition bit that is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: But we don't know . Um . {vocalsound} I mean uh I su i I mean if {disfmarker} given that the um the technology is not well developed and and given that it's it's never been done before , um th th the double risk , uh perhaps we ought to uh stick to uh to buttons , since the last thing we want to do is present a product that doesn't work . Um . Thoughts ? +User Interface: Well , another thought I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Would {disfmarker} +User Interface: oh , sorry , go ahead . +Marketing: Oh I was just gonna say mayb maybe it sh like um {disfmarker} maybe we can like cut corners somewhere else to bring in over cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean do w do we think that the voice technology is fundamental to the project ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's fundament well I mean I guess it it's something we've discussed uh since the the sort of the beginning , so I th I think in in our in our minds it's it's fundamental , but I don't know that the uh the upper echelons of the company would necessarily agree with that , so I think you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean I think we {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I kinda think if we're gonna have the voice recognition for part of it , then maybe we should have it for the whole thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I I I I think that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: And we've been talking about it the whole time . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +User Interface: Anyway , I'm I'm incli kinda inclined to say that we should just go for it . +Project Manager: Mm , right , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Uh yeah , {gap} it's the second most important aspect to users that the device should be technologically innovative . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: From uh my presentation show , so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Right , okay , so . +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: Fine . Okay . +Industrial Designer: that sounds good . Mm . +Project Manager: I it will have voice recognition um uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . Cool . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: if if that means uh if that means we can't afford buttons but I mean b b {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: second question , do we need the five buttons for channel change , up down , {vocalsound} volume up down and on off , just as a a backup or just so that people can uh j j just sit there pressing buttons ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I would say we do , yeah . +User Interface: I think so . +Project Manager: Right . Okay . Sorry , d did you want to say anything ? No ? +Industrial Designer: Uh nope , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that was it , that was it . +Project Manager: Shall we move rapidly on to uh Kendra ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh um ra rapidly move the cable over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Let's see . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh good . +User Interface: Oh . Yes . Is it gonna work ? +Project Manager: Mm yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's thinking about it . +Project Manager: it'll get there . Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so I did some research on the internet and um {vocalsound} what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , the interf user interface are just aspects that are seen by users , um commands and mechanisms for the operation , and there're just kind of a variety of choices . Um findings , so a lot of times they tend to look cluttered +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and these were just a couple examples of um different kinds that are a little bit more unusual . +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: There're some special ones available , like this one right here , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: which is marketed towards children , um different designs , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: and one of the things that n we need to watch out for is a V_ in volume because people some {vocalsound} Bring a little picture of what I thought ours could look like {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So just kind of minimise the clutter , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: avoid too many buttons and also um {vocalsound} one of the things that people have used is a slide button , like you have on a mouse , that possibly we could use that on the sides for volume , for example , have the slide button on the side , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and then you can pre-programme the channels , the voice recognition and then the voice response sample locator . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm yeah . Sorry y y yeah , {vocalsound} if I can interrupt you . Well d {vocalsound} p 'kay , do you wanna say anything about um slide controls ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean I think the reason everybody uses pushbuttons is that they're they're si simple , cheap and reliable . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh I think they're they're about the same cost really . I I mean , I think it's just sort of {disfmarker} the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there's a lot of slide buttons out there . I think it's pretty much the same sort of connection . Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , fair enough , fine . +User Interface: Just because I n for example if I'm using a mouse I like to be able to slide it up and down +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so I thought it might be good for volume to just be able to kind of roll it and then have the up and down +Project Manager: Yeah . Good , good . +User Interface: and then the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: this is my great little drawing . +Project Manager: So three three {disfmarker} there's three buttons on a slider . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three buttons , channel up channel up down and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y yes , yes . +Marketing: Well , if you g if you if you got a channel up down , we can have a slider in that as well . Because if it {disfmarker} if you no +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: if you notice on the thing it it kind of like has got kind of {disfmarker} if you you know it s kind of like sticks , if you know what I mean , up like one unit , if you see what I mean . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So it kinda goes up one , then y like you can keep rolling it up , but it's like like like like a cog or something . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So you kinda take it up one at a time . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: The only advantage I was thinking of to having the buttons , like the buttons on one side for the channel , and then the slider is that if you're just holding in your hand , and you pick it up , it's easy to n s know , okay , this is just the volume and this is the channel . +Marketing: D +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: This one on the one side and one {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh you could you could {vocalsound} as l as like a mouse you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah , 'cause I've definitely picked up remotes and like meant to change the channel and turn the volume , or vice versa , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it'd be kinda good to have them be {disfmarker} feel completely different . You'd know what you were fiddling with . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} yeah uh th th the {disfmarker} I mean thi this is what the {disfmarker} +User Interface: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like the shape of it almost like a mouse , with a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to come up with is the the actual shape that people can ins instantly pick it up and and know know uh know what it's going to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we we're looking at sliders for both a {disfmarker} uh volume and channel change +User Interface: Um well +Project Manager: of one sort . +User Interface: I was thinking kind of just for the volume , +Project Manager: Just for the volume , uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but what what do you guys think ? +Marketing: Dep I dunno if it {disfmarker} +User Interface: We could {disfmarker} +Marketing: depending on the final shape of it , 'cause you could have like , I dunno , {gap} it looks like you can c control the volume with your thumb , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then you could control the buttons with your fingers . +Project Manager: Fingers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if {disfmarker} yeah , in that kinda position the fingers would be better for pressing and the {disfmarker} that for rolling , +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yeah , I mean it it it seems to me that uh it uh it al also has the advantage that it it {disfmarker} the two are clearly different , +User Interface: B +Industrial Designer: just the way it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um that there's no no possibility of uh confusing the two . +Marketing: Oh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So okay . Right so uh +User Interface: I'm just gonna pass this along . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} sorry is that that all you want to say at the mo +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: okay , fine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm right . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here we go . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah , this is my report on trend watching . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The data's come off internet uh from executive summary for us on the top three things wanted by the consumer . And we got reports from Paris , Milan on new fashions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the most important aspect is the l the look {disfmarker} it has to look fancy , look and feel +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh instead of the current functional look and feel . This is a st well I was gonna say yeah twice as important as the second aspect , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: which is the technologically innov innovative um side of it . So uh and the third being easy to use is probably a given , we have to try and incorporate , so uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I mean I th I think that what we're suggesting ought to address all three of those . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh exactly , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I s that out of sequence ? Uh yeah , sorry . Uh yeah , and uh from the fashion watchers from Milan and Paris have said fruit and vegetables are an important theme for clothes and furniture and shoes , et cetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Uh sorry , clothes , shoes and furniture +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: and uh a spongy material to be used on the {vocalsound} on the outside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I hadn't thought of that , that's different , certainly . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . But uh I was gonna say um yeah , +Project Manager: What ? +Marketing: fruit and vegetables , uh important to {disfmarker} this year um important to furniture , I'm just gonna say uh {vocalsound} f like it's in {disfmarker} if if fashion {disfmarker} if we're going for the it looks fancy , then fashion is obviously the line we gotta be going through . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But fashions do don't last very long . +Industrial Designer: Well that can kinda tie into our changing uh face things , like we could have the fruit and vegetable theme this year +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh whatever happens next year , we can have the face plates , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , we can have a sp like a spongy skin on it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: and then we can just whip that off and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah like the kind you get on like hand weights . You know , that kind of spongy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that weird {disfmarker} I dunno what that is , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Industrial Designer: but yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: A kind of {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Also means you can drop it without damaging it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} , yeah , it's good as well . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} c cool . Um {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} if we could save {disfmarker} depending on the cost of the product itself , you know , could we have uh a cheaper b cheaper power source and then just have it annually renewed ? Instead of having a ten year guarantee ? With interchangeable covers , could just buy a new one every year , a new one when new fashions come out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I mean it its uh I {disfmarker} that's an interesting idea , it's like the old Swatch watch where uh um on only batteries ever got changed in those , 'cause people just bought a new one when it went out of fashion , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but it's just never been seen as a a fashion item before . Um that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Wh +Project Manager: yes if if if they're made in sufficient quantity {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} I think it's easier sometimes to have them buy changeable covers for it than to buy a whole new one , because you don't feel like you're investing in a whole new product . +Project Manager: W I mean we we can uh uh b but I mean my feeling is that current power sources are such that for relatively little cost you can make it last , you know , a long time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but if we also make it cheap enough that people either change the cover every year or even buy a new one every year then it it's it's even better . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: What if we included the batteries in the cover ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . I like that . +User Interface: So um +Industrial Designer: That all c also kind of encourages 'em to buy new covers +User Interface: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so can I see that thing ? +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} this as examples . +Project Manager: I n I know {disfmarker} the only p I mean the the the the immediate thing that comes to mind with that is that it it it {disfmarker} y you've then got the connection +User Interface: So f +Project Manager: and you've immediately got a sort of unreliability , whereas the advantage of having it plumbed in is that that the whole thing is all , you know , completely soldered together +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: and it it it {disfmarker} you know , total reliability , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , I guess that's true . +Project Manager: but I mean I d I I uh I know what you're saying and uh understand where you're coming from . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} well , but like uh like more than just the battery , like a complete different {disfmarker} like you've only got like , you know like th uh this bit's the bit you keep , and this is the expensive bit , this is like the chip +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and this is the microphone . And then this is the power source and the bit everyone sees . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I th I s I think if we're gonna go down that route , then we're talking about uh {disfmarker} even if it costs slightly more than that , um just building the whole thing in one , then having {disfmarker} getting cheaper production costs +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you probably are right . +Project Manager: um and , you know giving people the option of buying a new uh {disfmarker} a a complete new thing , the advantage of a replaceable cover is that even if they don't {disfmarker} it doesn't have a cover on at all , it will still work um totally . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um then if , you know , if people lose the cover , I mean they they might be well inclined to go out and spend however many Euros on a on a new one um rather than a a complete new re remote . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that that's just it with the covers , you're sort of tricking 'em into continuing to spend their money on our products without making 'em feel like they're being ripped off having to buy a new product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean it is {disfmarker} it's up to it's up to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +User Interface: Yeah , just another five Euro to get {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's up to our marketing people to to ma to ma turn it into a a fashion item . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Um and , you know , as as external fashions change , then we get new new covers on the market and , you know , readily available . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the sort of thing , once you get the mould set , you can just whip out different colours , different pictures very very quickly . +Project Manager: {gap} that's that's right , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , like they have for mobile phones +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , exactly , exactly . +User Interface: that are just fruits and animal prints and colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh i so uh okay . {vocalsound} Um right , +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: sorry . Um we hadn't finished your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh , don't worry it's all said , I was just gonna say uh {disfmarker} yeah , are we gonna make this as part of like like uh {disfmarker} a part of the f like it it {disfmarker} the fashions apply to furniture , so are we gonna make this part of the furniture ? +Project Manager: It's the sort of thing that we want people to have prominent dis displayed on their um coffee table to say this says something about me . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this is fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah . This is fashionable +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I , you know , I'm I'm I'm with it , I'm up to date . And you know , th the the design that I've got , and and it could be a a home-made design , um you know this says this is not just a a television remote control , this is , you know , a fashion accessory . Um , so I mean the the the basic shape i is is what we uh {disfmarker} I mean given that we've got you know one one on off button presumably , two buttons for uh channel change and one slider and basically nothing else , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: um w we need to decide on the {disfmarker} just the basic shape of the thing . And , know whether we go down the fruit and veg route , and I don't suggest we make it look like a banana , but um know sort of the the organic , you know , curved look , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , t to deliberately get away from the uh um {vocalsound} uh you know , the the the the square look of most um current uh remotes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and , you know , whether whether the you know , the the fixed part of it is the corporate yellow . Um mm or uh {disfmarker} 'cause there's certainly you know , the the corporate logo needs to be prominently uh displayed so that people s th looked at it and say right , that's a Real Reaction remote control , I want one of those . +Industrial Designer: I dunno that we should make the whole thing yellow I kinda thought with a {disfmarker} you'd have like a yellow circle with the R_R_ in it somewhere on it , +Project Manager: Yeah uh the the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or or b +Industrial Designer: but I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yellow seems a bit of a strong colour +User Interface: like an {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I'd I'd um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: to make the ent like the thing {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . Uh no +Industrial Designer: no , but I mean just like white or grey or black or some sort of blah colour . +Project Manager: I d I I agree , I mean we're we're we're simply {disfmarker} it's simply required to incorporate the the the the corporate logo prominently um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . Mm {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And make that a fashion symbol as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n +Project Manager: Well , th this is {disfmarker} this is the whole point , yes , you know , I'm {disfmarker} I've got a a Real Reaction uh remote control to go with my Real Reaction coffee maker or or whatever . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh then people , you know , people demand more Real Reaction stuff . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Well I was sort of mm kinda picturing like maybe um {vocalsound} a shape that's almost like a mouse . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: So that , you know , when they hold it it's {disfmarker} because a mouse is pretty comfortable to hold in your hand um maybe we could make it a slightly different shape so they could hold on to it , but that way they can have the volume on the side and then the channel buttons and +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: have the power , wherever , somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean I've uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: I mean that was just an idea that I had . +Project Manager: Oh no that {disfmarker} well there's the sim {disfmarker} my my idea was something a b probably you know a bit fatter than this but sort of tha that sorta shape +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: so that you can just sort of ho hold it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you'd want it narrower than a mouse though +User Interface: Kind of a c +Industrial Designer: 'cause it {disfmarker} a mouse you're kinda just resting on it , you want something you can definitely grip . +Project Manager: W it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} well it's sort of it's it's sort of uh a a mouse , +Industrial Designer: So maybe it'd be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Sort of a combination . +Project Manager: but held , you know , so it's {disfmarker} you sorta hold it in your hand like that , i with , you know , and fiddling with the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and fiddle around with it and press it . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} yeah , kind of maybe maybe a little wider than this , 'cause this is pretty comfortable to hold , and then if you had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe almost like a hairbrush , like you could get the {disfmarker} about the width of that end of the pen and then it widens up top +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and you can fiddle +User Interface: then wider up here . +Industrial Designer: an yeah . +User Interface: And then it would have a l uh wider thing to uh have the light , the infrared light at the T_V_ and just kinda change channels and adjust the volume +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: and the power could be wherever , up up the top or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , cool . +User Interface: What do you guys think about that ? +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that sounds {disfmarker} Um I'm just {disfmarker} I'm suddenly realising that yeah we're discussing how much {disfmarker} how good it's gonna be to change channels t we still can just tell it to . I mean are we are we starting to get away from the the voice functionality of it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a very good point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It is a very good point . +Project Manager: I think we d I think we decided that w we're actually going down both routes . That um the {vocalsound} we n +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we need the the manual controls and that they should be of that form , but that uh {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} do you know , this shape also kind of les lend itself to to voice {gap} 'cause if you're you're holding it and you're fiddling , but you can also bring it up like that +Project Manager: Then you just bring it up to your mouth and just speak to it , +Industrial Designer: and it's microphone-esque , +User Interface: Yeah , and just say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , maybe we cou like w like we're leaving out the buttons for the the f less frequently used stuff , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but maybe we could incorporate that into the voice . +Project Manager: I th I th honest uh {vocalsound} my personal view is that if it's not there , people wouldn't use it anyway um . +Marketing: Mm I suppose , but t there is the off chance that , you know , th the brightness is wrong on your T_V_ or the contrast needs changing . +Project Manager: It's cer it's certainly possible I mean , but they {disfmarker} we we're going beyond w w +Industrial Designer: Bu Mm . +Project Manager: given the state of the technology {vocalsound} we want something that we kno we know will will work um . +Marketing: Hmm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well you can still i incorporate the voice with with less buttons . I mean {vocalsound} uh if the power button was also somehow like a menu button you could press that and {disfmarker} or do voice commands , and {vocalsound} either volume thing could also be to scroll through other options like y and you could scroll through brightness +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and and sc +Marketing: that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can minimise the buttons +User Interface: Yeah , I suppose I sup +Industrial Designer: and still have those , you know , brightness and tint and stuff . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If we we're {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} I'm getting a clear message that we think that we should have those facilities available . +User Interface: So I guess we could have a menu button as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: We could have the channels and the power and then a menu button and then the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So have four buttons and the volume instead of three buttons and the volume . +Project Manager: Uh uh uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , if we if we're going down that route , then we need some sort of display . Do we need some sort of display ? +Industrial Designer: But the television would be the display +Project Manager: We actually use the television , okay . Okay , okay , okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's on the T_V_ , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} things like that usually c pop up on a televi like you hit menu +User Interface: Yeah , and then y +Industrial Designer: and menu will come up on television and have like tint brightness , and you'd use the scroll , scroll through it yeah . +Marketing: Well I mean +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: on a {disfmarker} onto like a mouse , the ru the scrolling button , is actually a button as well , you could press it , you could press that and have it as a menu button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah , press that is t +Industrial Designer: I never understood how that worked though , +User Interface: yeah , that might work . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's like um {disfmarker} yeah , it's like the mouse where you just kinda click it . You just press it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Yeah , and you could just click that to {disfmarker} so if you had like the menu then you could scroll through and then click it to select . +Industrial Designer: Mm , oka yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You know what I mean ? +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Okay , we got five minutes to go in this meeting , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: so um I d I think we've actually very conveniently just uh come to uh a good point to s to sum up um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: So um b b Kate and Kendra now go away and uh pa play play with a bit of Plasticine or play-dough , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Play with play-dough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whatever it is on the other side of the Atlantic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and actually put what we've discussed into something uh {disfmarker} I was gonna say concrete , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but that's a slightly inappropriate word {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um to something that we can we can see and um Andrew n can go away and th th think about how we can uh actually market this as a concept and not j not just a uh um a a simple remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh can I just get some things clear just for {vocalsound} my sake . +Project Manager: Yeah , certainly , of course . +Marketing: Our energy source is gonna be +Project Manager: I think I think we decided that we're gonna {disfmarker} for +Marketing: long term . +Project Manager: for simplicity of , you know , manufacturing and uh maintenance that we will go for a a long term battery source um , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Cool . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} you know , on the basis that um that , you know , if we're going for making it a fashion statement , then uh people are more likely to change it anyway uh before i it runs out and um {vocalsound} make an assumption that we we can aim for a battery that will last most people for uh we'll say at least five five ten years +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and that we'll w we will guarantee it for for five years um . +Marketing: And we're having a custom chip ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We're having a a custom chip , but given the the {disfmarker} we've cut the functions down , um that will hopefully not be too problematic , but given that um technol technological innovation is important , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then we need to , I'll say it again , technologically innovate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh we we , know , we must resist any efforts to uh to try and water that down um . +Marketing: And interchangeable case ? +Project Manager: I i interchangeable case seems to be um {vocalsound} um important to the concept . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um it it should be cheap , you know , if if we avoid any , you know , electrical connections . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh i you know , i if we can come up with some way of of allowing people to actually personalise it uh to whatever they want , then uh {disfmarker} I mean uh uh this is totally new . +Marketing: Mm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We d we don't know whether that {disfmarker} to what extent people do it or not , but if they've at least got a a good selection of um covers that they can use anyway , and uh and if if we can keep them , you know , rolling , then uh {disfmarker} you know , so they can get them in the supermarket when they go down to um a any of the famous supermarkets , I won't mention any mention any names , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um it's uh it's good for the supermarket +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's good for us and it hopefully makes them feel better . +Marketing: And uh are we gonna have it il being illuminated from inside onto the buttons or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I mean that's {disfmarker} no , because we've got so few buttons that it {disfmarker} that actually makes that redundant . +Industrial Designer: Mm , does actually , yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . +Marketing: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , and especially for making them so like different and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm different to feel , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know , that that solves one of the problems of b of battery life , 'cause that would {disfmarker} well that would clobber the battery life , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yep , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so no , I mean given the nature of the buttons we're having , it's actually uh uh unnecessary I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we having it that it's any angle , or is it just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As uh as wide +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cer certainly wider angle than than current , +Marketing: As wide as possible . +Project Manager: so that if you're holding it , you know , anyway like you're likely to and uh it's uh {vocalsound} you know , i i it will work most of the time um . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Like this or like this . +Project Manager: Not like my my mum who points it at the ceiling and wonders why the th th the television doesn't work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um yeah , I mean I d I th I sorta envisaged that if if this was the the thing , then sort of the the whole of the top would be the uh the infrared uh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , kinda like this whole {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Project Manager: Um so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you could use like this and it would go {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause I mean the r reality is people are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they're gonna be looking at the television whilst they're using it , the chances are , so if if they're holding it anyway , the they're reasonably likely to be holding it to use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then uh then that that's the sort of coverage that we want . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , d we're all clear where we go from here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep , sounds good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so thank you very much indeed and I'll s see you all again in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +","The design group's third meeting focused on refining the concept for a new remote control. The Project Manager summarized previous feedback on the shortcomings of existing remotes, emphasizing their unattractive appearance, underused buttons, and the common issue of being misplaced. The group decided to explore options such as speech recognition to minimize button use and to guarantee a long-lasting battery for the product's lifespan. The remote's shape and brand identity as a Real Reaction product were also discussed as important aspects to encourage brand loyalty and recognition. + +Discussions revolved around the technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a custom-designed internal chip versus an off-the-shelf one, with an emphasis on the urgency of going to market. The Industrial Designer provided an overview of how remotes function and indicated the complexities involved in reducing button use in favor of voice commands while meeting company and production constraints. + +The group contemplated including a few essential buttons with voice command functionality for most-used features and debated over the practicality and significance of voice technology. Discussions led to considering multiple design aspects: the user interface, avoidance of clutter, durability, a potential slide control for volume, minimalist button design, and the inclusion of a menu button. + +Marketing insights revealed consumer interest in innovative technology and customization, suggesting a need for interchangeable cases and associating remotes with current fashion trends. The Project Manager and team addressed various questions regarding the power source, chip design, operational range, and additional features such as button illumination and the practicality of changeable covers with integrated batteries. + +As the meeting concluded, the team prepared to create models based on the ideas discussed, investigate marketing strategies to position the remote as a fashion accessory, and further explore the aspects of technology, design, and user convenience to be integrated into the final product." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , this is one channel . Can you uh , say your name and talk into your mike one at a time ? +PhD C: This is Eric on channel three , I believe . +Grad A: OK . Uh , I don't think it 's on there , Jane . +Undergrad D: Tasting one two three , tasting . +Postdoc E: OK , this is Jane on channel five . +Grad A: Uh , I still don't see you Jane . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , what am I doing wrong ? +Undergrad D: Can you see me on channel four ? Really ? +Grad A: Yeah , I s +Undergrad D: My lucky day . +Postdoc E: Uh , screen no , {disfmarker} it is , oh , maybe it just warmed up ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: Oh , darn , can you can't see channel five yet ? +Grad A: Uh , well , the mike isn't close enough to your mouth , so . +Postdoc E: Oh , this would be k OK , is that better ? +Grad A: S uh , try speaking loudly , +Undergrad D: I like the high quality labelling . +Grad A: so , +Postdoc E: Hello , +Grad A: OK , good . +Undergrad D: David , can we borrow your labelling machine to improve the quality of the labelling a little bit here ? +Postdoc E: hello . Alright . +Grad A: Thank you . +PhD B: One t +Undergrad D: How {disfmarker} how many are there , one to five ? +PhD B: One five , yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah , please . +Postdoc E: Would you like to join the meeting ? +Grad A: Well , we don't wanna renumber them , +Postdoc E: I bet {disfmarker} +Grad A: cuz we 've already have like , forms filled out with the numbers on them . So , let 's keep the same numbers on them . +PhD B: Yeah , OK , that 's a good idea . +Grad A: OK , Dan , are you on ? +PhD B: I 'm on {disfmarker} I 'm on two and I should be on . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Want to join the meeting , Dave ? Do we {disfmarker} do {disfmarker} do we have a spare , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: And I 'm getting lots of responses on different ones , so I assume {pause} the various and assorted P Z Ms are on . +Undergrad D: We ' r we 're {disfmarker} we ' r This is {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is a meeting meeting . +Postdoc E: This is abou we 're {disfmarker} we 're mainly being taped but we 're gonna talk about , uh , transcription for the m future meeting meetings . +Grad A: Stuff . Yeah , this is not something you need to attend . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . e OK . +PhD C: You 're always having one of those days , Dave . +Postdoc E: Y you 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Besides , I don't want anyone who has a weird accent . +Postdoc E: You 'd be welcome . +Grad A: Right , Dan ? +Undergrad D: So , I don't understand if it 's neck mounted you don't get very good performance . +PhD C: It 's not neck mounted . It 's supposed to be h head mounted . +Undergrad D: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it should be head mounted . Right ? +Grad A: Well , then put it on your head . +PhD B: I don't know . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: What are you doing ? +Undergrad D: Cuz when you do this , you can {disfmarker} Rouww - Rouww . +Postdoc E: Why didn't I {disfmarker} you were saying that but I could hear you really well on the {disfmarker} on the transcription {disfmarker} on the , uh , tape . +Grad A: Well , I m I would prefer that people wore it on their head +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: i +Grad A: but they were complaining about it . Because it 's not {disfmarker} it doesn't go over the ears . +Undergrad D: Why ? +Postdoc E: It 's badly designed . +Grad A: It 's very badly designed so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's very badly designed ? +Undergrad D: What do you mean it doesn't go over the ears ? +PhD B: Why ? It 's not s It 's not supposed to cover up your ears . +Grad A: Yeah but , there 's nowhere to put the pad so it 's comfortable . +PhD B: I mean , it 's only badly {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So that 's what you 're d He 's got it on his temples so it cuts off his circulation . +PhD B: Oh , that 's strange . +PhD C: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I have . +Grad A: And it feels so good that way . +PhD C: It feels so good when I stop . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I again would like to do some digits . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Try it . +Grad A: Um . +Undergrad D: Somebody wanna close the door ? +Grad A: Sure . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: We could do it with noise . +Grad A: So let me {disfmarker} +PhD C: You 're always doing digits . +Grad A: Well , you know , I 'm just that sort of {disfmarker} digit - y g sorta guy . OK . So this is Adam . +Postdoc E: Uh , this is the same one I had before . +Grad A: I doubt it . +PhD B: It 's still the same words . +Grad A: I think we 're session four by the way . Or m it might be five . +Undergrad D: Psss ! Oh , that 's good . +Postdoc E: No +Grad A: I didn't bring my previous thing . +PhD B: We didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Now , just to be sure , the numbers on the back , this is the channel ? +PhD B: That 's the microphone number . +Postdoc E: That 's the microphone number . +Grad A: Yeah , d leave the channel blank . +Postdoc E: Uh - oh . OK , good . +Undergrad D: But number has to be {disfmarker} ? So we have to look up the number . +Postdoc E: Five {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , good . +Postdoc E: Good . OK . Well , this is Jane , on mike number five . Um . I just start ? Do I need to say anything more ? +Grad A: Uh , transcript number . +PhD B: Transcript number {disfmarker} +PhD C: OK , this is Eric on microphone number three , +Undergrad D: This is Beck on mike four . +Grad A: Thanks . Should I turn off the VU meter Dan ? Do you think that makes any difference ? +PhD B: Oh , God . No , let me do it . +Grad A: Why ? Are you gonna do something other than hit "" quit "" ? +PhD B: No , but I 'm gonna look at the uh , logs as well . +Grad A: Oh . Should have done it before . +Postdoc E: Uh , you said turn off the what ? +Grad A: The VU meter which tells you what the levels on the various mikes are and there was one hypothesis that perhaps that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the act of recording the VU meter was one of the things that contributed to the errors . +Postdoc E: Oh . Oh , I see . +Undergrad D: Yeah , but Eric , uh , you didn't think that was a reasonable hypothesis , right ? +Postdoc E: I See . +Grad A: That was me , +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry y +Grad A: I thought that was {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That was malarkey . +Grad A: Well , the only reason that could be is if the driver has a bug . Right ? Because the machine just isn't very heavily loaded . +Undergrad D: No chance of that . +Grad A: No chance of that . Just because it 's beta . Look OK ? +PhD B: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} there was a {disfmarker} there was a bug . There was a glitch last time we ran . +Undergrad D: Are - are yo are you recording where the table mikes are by the way ? +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Do you know which channels {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , we usually do that . +PhD B: No , we don't . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: But we {disfmarker} we ought to st we ought to standardize . +Undergrad D: Why not ? +PhD B: I think , {vocalsound} uh , I s I spoke to somebody , Morgan , {comment} about that . I think {disfmarker} I think we should put mar Well , no , w we can do that . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just do this ? +Grad A: I mean , that 's what we 've done before . +PhD B: I know what they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're four , three , two , one . In order now . +Undergrad D: Four . +PhD B: Three , two , {vocalsound} and one . +Undergrad D: Three . +PhD B: But I think {disfmarker} I think we should put them in standard positions . I think we should make little marks on the table top . +Grad A: Which means we need to move this thing , and sorta decide how we 're actually going to do things . +PhD B: So that we can put them {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Oh , OK . +PhD B: I guess that 's the point . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: It 'll be a lot easier if we have a {disfmarker} if we have them permanently in place or something like that . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: I do wish there were big booms coming down from the ceiling . +PhD B: You do ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Would it make you feel more important ? +Grad A: Mmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: I see . +Undergrad D: Wait till the projector gets installed . +Postdoc E: You know . +Grad A: That 'll work . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 'll be good . +Grad A: That 'll work . +PhD B: Oh , gosh . +Undergrad D: Cuz it 's gonna hang down , make noise . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: When 's it gonna be installed ? +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Well , {vocalsound} it depends on +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: Is this b is this being recorded ? +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Uh , I think Lila actually is almost getting r pretty close to even getting ready to put out the purchase order . +PhD B: OK . Cool . +Undergrad D: I handed it off to her about a month ago . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: OK , so , topic of this meeting is I wanna talk a little bit about transcription . Um , I 've looked a little bit into commercial transcription services and Jane has been working on doing transcription . Uh , and so we wan wanna decide what we 're gonna do with that and then get an update on the electronics , and then , uh , maybe also talk a little bit about some infrastructure and tools , and so on . Um , you know , eventually we 're probably gonna wanna distribute this thing and we should decide how we 're gonna {disfmarker} how we 're gonna handle some of these factors . So . +PhD B: Distribute what ? +Grad A: Hmm ? +PhD B: The data ? +Grad A: Right . Right . I mean , so we 're {disfmarker} we 're collecting a corpus and I think it 's gonna be generally useful . I mean , it seems like it 's not a corpus which is {disfmarker} uh , has been done before . And so I think people will be interested in having {disfmarker} having it , +PhD B: Oh . +Grad A: and so we will {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: u Using , like , audio D V Ds or something like that ? +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD B: Yes . +Undergrad D: Audio D V +Grad A: Well , or something . Yeah , audio D V C Ds , +Undergrad D: Or t +Grad A: you know . +Undergrad D: Yeah . tapes . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and so how we do we distribute the transcripts , how do we distribute the audio files , how do we {disfmarker} how do we just do all that infrastructure ? +PhD C: Well , I think {disfmarker} I mean , for that particular issue ther there are known sources where people go to {disfmarker} to find these kind of things like the LDC for instance . +Postdoc E: Yeah , +Grad A: Right , but {disfmarker} but so should we do it in the same format as LDC +Postdoc E: that 's right . +Grad A: and what does that mean to what we 've done already ? +PhD B: Right . The {disfmarker} It 's not so much the actu The logistics of distribution are secondary to {pause} preparing the data in a suitable form for distribution . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: Right . So , uh , as it is , it 's sort of a {pause} ad - hoc combination of stuff Dan set and stuff I set up , which we may wanna make a little more formal . So . +PhD B: And the other thing is that , um , University of Washington may want to start recording meetings as well , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: in which case w w we 'll have to decide what we 've actually got so that we can give them a copy . +Grad A: That 's right . +Undergrad D: A field trip . +Grad A: Yeah . I was actually thinking I wouldn't mind spending the summer up there . That would be kind of fun . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Grad A: Yeah . Visit my friends and spend some time {disfmarker} +PhD B: Different for you . Yes . +Grad A: Well , and then also I have a bunch of stuff for doing this digits . So I have a bunch of scripts with X Waves , and some Perl scripts , and other things that make it really easy to extract out {vocalsound} and align where the digits are . And if U d UW 's going to do the same thing I think it 's worth while for them to do these digits tasks as well . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And what I 've done is pretty ad - hoc , um , so we might wanna change it over to something a little more standard . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: You know , STM files , or XML , or something . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's interest up there ? +Grad A: What 's that ? +Undergrad D: There 's interest up there ? +Grad A: Well they {disfmarker} they certainly wanna collect more data . And so they 're applying , I think I B Is that right ? Something like that . +PhD B: I don't know . +Grad A: Um , for some more money to do more data . So we were planning to do like thirty or forty hours worth of meetings . They wanna do an additional hundred or so hours . So , they want a very large data set . Um , but of course we 're not gonna do that if we don't get money . So . +PhD B: I see . +Grad A: And I would like that just to get a disjoint speaker set and a disjoint room . I mean , one of the things Morgan and I were talking about is we 're gonna get to know this room really well , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the acoustics of this room . +PhD B: All about that . +Undergrad D: Including the fan . +Grad A: Including the fan . +Undergrad D: Did you notice the fan difference ? +PhD B: Oh , now you 've touched the fan control , now all our data 's gonna be {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hear the difference ? +Grad A: Oh , it 's enormous . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's great . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's better . +Undergrad D: Do you wanna leave it off or not ? +Postdoc E: That 's better . +Grad A: All the others have been on . +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} You sure ? +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Grad A: y Absolut +PhD B: Absolutely . +Undergrad D: You {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You think that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: things after the f then This fan 's wired backwards by the way . Uh , I think this is high speed here . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it 's noticeable . +Undergrad D: Well , not clear . +PhD B: Well it 's {disfmarker} well like {vocalsound} "" low "" is mid {disfmarker} mid - scale . +Undergrad D: Maybe it {disfmarker} Maybe it isn't . +PhD B: So it could be {vocalsound} that it 's not actually wired backwards +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD B: it 's just that ambiguous . +Undergrad D: I was wondering also , Get ready . {comment} whether the lights made any noise . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: There 's definitely {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD B: Oh , they do . +PhD C: Yeah , a little bit . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: High pitch hum . Wow . +Undergrad D: So , {vocalsound} do our meetings in the dark with no air conditioning in the future . +Grad A: Yeah , just get a variety . +Postdoc E: I think candles would be nice if they don't make noise . +Grad A: They 're very good . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: It would {disfmarker} you know , it would real really mean that we should do short meetings when you {vocalsound} turn off the {disfmarker} {comment} turn off the air conditioning , +Grad A: Carbon monoxide poisoning ? +Undergrad D: Short meetings , that 's right . Or {disfmarker} Yeah , sort of {comment} r r +PhD C: got to finish this meeting . +Undergrad D: Tear t {pause} Tear your clothing off to stay cool . +PhD C: That 's right . +Undergrad D: Actually , the a th air {disfmarker} the air conditioning 's still working , that 's just an auxiliary fan . +PhD C: Right , I see . +Grad A: So +PhD C: So , um , in addition to this issue about the UW stuff there was announced today , uh , via the LDC , um , a corpus from I believe Santa Barbara . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I saw it . I 've been watching for that corpus . +PhD C: Um , of general spoken English . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD C: And I don't know exactly how they recorded it but apparently there 's a lot of different {vocalsound} styles of speech and what not . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: They had people come in to a certain degree and they {disfmarker} and they have DAT recorders . +PhD C: I see . So it is sort of far field stuff . Right ? +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I assume so , actually , I hadn't thought about that . Unless they added close field later on but , um , I 've listened to some of those data and I , um , I 've been {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was actually on the advisory board for when they set the project up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD B: What 's it sound like ? +Postdoc E: I 'm glad to see that it got released . +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I wish {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: So it it 's a very nice thing . +Grad A: I wish we had someone here working on adaptation +PhD C: S +Grad A: because it would nice to be able to take that stuff and adapt it to a meeting setting . You know {disfmarker} +PhD C: But it may be {disfmarker} it may be useful in {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: How do you mean {disfmarker} do you mean mechanical adaptation or {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , software , to adapt the speech recognition . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Well , what I was thinking is it may be useful in transcribing , if it 's far field stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: right ? In doing , um , some of our first automatic speech recognition models , it may be useful to have that kind of data +Postdoc E: Great idea . +PhD C: because that 's very different than any kind of data that we have so far . +Grad A: That 's true . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and their recording conditions are really clean . I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've heard {disfmarker} I 've listened to the data . +Grad A: Well that 's not good , right ? +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's not great . +Postdoc E: It sounds {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Tr +Postdoc E: well but what I mean is that , um {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But far field means great distance ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just these . +Undergrad D: Not head mounted ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And so that 's why they 're getting away with just two channels or something , or are they using multiple DATs ? +Postdoc E: Um , oh , good question and I can't ans answer it . +Grad A: Well we can look into it . +Postdoc E: I don't know . +PhD C: No , and their web {disfmarker} their web page didn't answer it either . So I 'm , I uh , was thinking that we should contact them . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: So it 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of a beside - the - point point . But . +Grad A: So we can get that just with , uh , media costs , +Undergrad D: Still a point . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: is that right ? +PhD C: Uh , in fact we get it for free +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: cuz they 're distributing it through the LDC . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad A: So that would be {disfmarker} yeah , that would be something to look into . So . +PhD C: So , I can {disfmarker} I can actually arrange for it to arrive in short order if we 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: The other thing too is from {disfmarker} from a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , it 's silly to do unless we 're gonna have someone to work on it , so maybe we need to think about it a little bit . +PhD C: Huh . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that their their jus their transcription format is really nice and simple in {disfmarker} in the discourse domain . But they also mentioned that they have it time aligned . I mean , I s I {disfmarker} I saw that write - up . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe we should {disfmarker} maybe we should get a copy of it just to see what they did +PhD B: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} we can compare . +Postdoc E: It 's very nice . +Grad A: OK , why don't you go ahead and do that then Eric ? +PhD B: Absolutely . +PhD C: Alright , I 'll do that . I can't remember the name of the corpus . It 's Corps - S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: CSAE . +PhD C: S {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Corpus of Spoken American English . +PhD C: Right , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , sp I 've been {disfmarker} I was really pleased to see that . I knew that they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had had some funding problems in completing it +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but , um , +PhD C: Well they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: this is clever . +PhD C: Apparently this was like phase one +Postdoc E: Got it through the LDC . +PhD C: and the there 's still more that they 're gonna do apparently or something like that unless of course they have funding issues +Postdoc E: Great . Great . +PhD C: and then then it ma they may not do phase two but {vocalsound} from all the web documentation it looked like , "" oh , this is phase one "" , whatever that means . +Postdoc E: Super . Super . Great . Yeah , that {disfmarker} I mean , they 're really well respected in the linguistics d side too and the discourse area , +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} So this is a very good corpus . +PhD C: But , it uh it would also maybe help be helpful for Liz , if she wanted to start working on some discourse issues , you know , looking at some of this data and then , +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: you know {disfmarker} So when she gets here maybe that might be a good thing for her . +Grad A: Actually , that 's another thing I was thinking about is that maybe Jane should talk to Liz , to see if there are any transcription issues related to discourse that she needs to get marked . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Maybe we should have a big meeting meeting . +PhD B: Sure , of course . +Undergrad D: That would be a meeting meeting meeting ? +Grad A: A meeting meeting meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Well this is the meeting about the meeting meeting meeting . So . +PhD C: Oh . +Grad A: Um . +PhD C: Right . But maybe we should , uh find some day that Liz {disfmarker} uh , Liz and Andreas seem to be around more often . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So maybe we should find a day when they 're gonna be here and {disfmarker} and Morgan 's gonna be here , and we can meet , at least this subgroup . I mean , not necessarily have the U - dub people down . +Grad A: Well , I was even thinking that maybe we need to at least ping the U - dub {disfmarker} to see {disfmarker} +PhD C: We need {disfmarker} we need to talk to them some more . +Grad A: you know , say "" this is what we 're thinking about for our transcription "" , if nothing else . So , well w shall we move on and talk a little bit about transcription then ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Let 's . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so {comment} {vocalsound} since that 's what we 're talking about . What we 're using right now is a tool , um , from this French group , called "" Transcriber "" that seems to work very well . Um , so it has a , uh , nice useful Tcl - TK user interface and , uh , +Undergrad D: Thi - this is the process of converting audio to text ? +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: And this requires humans just like the {disfmarker} the STP stuff . +Grad A: Yes , yeah . Right , right . So we 're {disfmarker} we 're at this point only looking for word level . So all {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} so what you have to do is just identify a segment of speech in time , and then write down what was said within it , and identify the speaker . And so the things we {disfmarker} that we know {disfmarker} that I know I want are {vocalsound} the text , the start and end , and the speaker . But other people are interested in for example stress marking . And so Jane is doing primary stress , {vocalsound} um , stress marks as well . Um , and then things like repairs , and false starts , and , {vocalsound} filled pauses , and all that other sort of stuff , {vocalsound} we have to decide how much of that we wanna do . +Postdoc E: I did include a glo {comment} uh , a certain first pass . My {disfmarker} my view on it was when you have a repair {vocalsound} then , uh {disfmarker} it seems {disfmarker} I mean , we saw , there was this presentation in the {disfmarker} one of the speech group meetings about how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think Liz has done some stuff too on that , that it , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you get it bracketed in terms of like {disfmarker} well , if it 's parenthetical , which I know that Liz has worked on , then {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} y y you 'll have different prosodic aspects . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And then also {vocalsound} if it 's a r if it 's a repair where they 're {disfmarker} like what I just did , {vocalsound} then it 's nice to have sort of a sense of the continuity of the utterance , the start to be to the finish . And , uh , it 's a little bit deceptive if you include the repai the pre - repair part {disfmarker} and sometimes or of it 's in the middle . Anyway , {vocalsound} so what I was doing was bracketing them to indicate that they were repairs which isn't uh , very time - consuming . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I is there already some sort of plan in place for how this gonna be staffed or done ? Or is it real {disfmarker} is that what we 're talking about here ? +Grad A: Well , that 's part of the thing we 're talking about . So what we wanted to do was have Jane do basically one meeting 's worth , you know , forty minutes to an hour , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: As a pilot study . +Undergrad D: Yourself ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is like five times real time or ten times real time {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , as a pilot study . +Grad A: Ten times about , is {disfmarker} and so one of the things was to get an estimate of how long it would take , and then also what tools we would use . And so the next decision which has to be made actually pretty soon is how are we gonna do it ? So . +Undergrad D: And so you make Jane do the first one so then she can decide , oh , we don't need all this stuff , just the words are fine . +Postdoc E: That 's right , that 's right . +PhD B: That 's right . +Postdoc E: I wanna hear about these {disfmarker} uh , we have a g you were s continuing with the transcription conventions for s +Grad A: R right , so {disfmarker} so one {disfmarker} one option is to get linguistics grad students and undergrads to do it . And apparently that 's happened in the past . And I think that 's probably the right way to do it . Um , it will require a post pass , I mean people will have to look at it more than once to make sure that it 's been done correctly , but I just can't imagine that we 're gonna get anything that much better from a commercial one . And the commercial ones I 'm sure will be much more expensive . +Undergrad D: Can't we get Joy to do it all ? +Grad A: Yeah right . +Postdoc E: No , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: We will just get Joy and Jane to do everything . +Undergrad D: Is tha wasn't that what she was doing before ? Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: But , you know , that 's what we 're talking about is getting some slaves who {disfmarker} who need money +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: and , uh , duh , again o +Postdoc E: I object to that characterization ! +PhD B: Oh , really . +Grad A: I meant Joy . And so again , I have to say "" are we recording "" +Postdoc E: Oh , thank you . OK . +Grad A: and then say , uh , Morgan has {disfmarker} has consistently resisted telling me how much money we have . +Undergrad D: Right . Well , the answer is zero . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: There 's a reason why he 's resisted . +Grad A: Well , if it 's zero then we can't do any transcription . +Undergrad D: But . +Grad A: I mean , cuz we 're {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: I have such a hard name . +Grad A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I can't imagine us doing it ourselves . Right ? +Undergrad D: Well , we already {disfmarker} we already {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We already have a plan in place for the first meeting . +Grad A: N right . +Undergrad D: Right ? That 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well th there is als Yeah , really . There is also the o other possibility which is if you can provide not money but instructional experience or some other perks , {vocalsound} you can {disfmarker} you could get people to {disfmarker} to um , to do it in exchange . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , i b but seriously , I {disfmarker} I mean , Morgan 's obviously in a bind over this and thing to do is just the field of dreams theory , which is we we go ahead as though there will be money at the time that we need the money . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best we can do . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: i b To not do anything until we get money is {disfmarker} is ridiculous . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: We 're not gonna do any {disfmarker} get anything done if we do that . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So at any rate , Jane was looking into the possibility of getting students , at {disfmarker} is that right ? Talking to people about that ? +Postdoc E: I 'm afraid I haven't made any progress in that front yet . +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: I should 've sent email and I haven't yet . +Grad A: Yeah , right . So , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I d do {disfmarker} So until you actually {vocalsound} have a little experience with what this {disfmarker} this French thing does we don't even have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And I do have {disfmarker} +Grad A: She 's already done quite a bit . +Undergrad D: Oh , we have . +Postdoc E: I have {disfmarker} a bunch of hours , +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry . So that 's where you came up with the f the ten X number ? +Postdoc E: yeah . +Undergrad D: Or is that really just a guess ? +Postdoc E: Actually that 's the {disfmarker} the one people usually use , ten X . +PhD C: How fast are you ? +Postdoc E: And I haven't really calculated {disfmarker} How fast am I ? +Undergrad D: Yeah i +Postdoc E: I haven't done a s see , I 've been at the same time doing kind of a boot strapping in deciding on the transcription conventions that {disfmarker} that are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , and {disfmarker} and stuff like , you know , how much {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: There 's some interesting human factors problems like , {vocalsound} yeah , what span of {disfmarker} of time is it useful to segment the thing into in order to uh , transcribe it the most quickly . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Cuz then , you know , you get like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you get a span of five words , that 's easy . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But then you have to take the time to mark it . And then there 's the issue of {vocalsound} it 's easier to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hear it th right the first time if you 've marked it at a boundary instead of {vocalsound} somewhere in the middle , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz then the word 's bisected or whatever and {disfmarker} And so I mean , I 've been sort of playing with , uh , different ways of mar cuz I 'm thinking , you know , I mean , if you could get optimal instructions you could cut back on the number of hours it would take . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: D does uh {disfmarker} this tool you 're using is strictly {disfmarker} it doesn't do any speech recognition does it ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc E: No , it doesn't but what a super tool . It 's a great environment . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but is there anyway to {disfmarker} to wire a speech recognizer up to it and actually run it through {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's an interesting idea . +Grad A: We 've {disfmarker} we 've thought about doing that +Postdoc E: Hey ! +Grad A: but the recognition quality is gonna be horrendous . +Undergrad D: Well , a couple things . +PhD B: Wow . +Undergrad D: First of all the time marking you 'd get {disfmarker} you could get by a tool . +PhD B: That 's true . +Undergrad D: And so if the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if the issue really +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +Undergrad D: uh , I 'm think about the close caption that you see running by on {disfmarker} on live news casts . +Grad A: Most of those are done by a person . +Undergrad D: You know , yo I know {disfmarker} I know that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I +Undergrad D: No , I understand . And {disfmarker} in a lot of them you see typos and things like that , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} but it occurs to me that {vocalsound} it may be a lot easier to correct things than it is to do things from scratch , no matter how wonderful the tool is . +Grad A: Yeah . Yeah , we {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But if {disfmarker} if there was a way to merge the two {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , I mean , but sometimes it 's easier to type out something instead of going through and figuring out which is the right {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , we 've talked about it +Postdoc E: That 'd be fun . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , it depends on the error rate , right ? +Undergrad D: Well s but {disfmarker} but again the timing is for fr should be for free . The timing should be {disfmarker} +PhD C: But we don't care about the timing of the words . +Undergrad D: Well I thought you just {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} said that was a critical issue . +Grad A: We don't care about the timing of the words , just of the utterances . +Postdoc E: No , uh the {disfmarker} the boundary {disfmarker} +PhD C: We cut it s s +PhD B: We don't {disfmarker} we don't know , actually . +Postdoc E: boundary . +PhD B: We haven't decided which {disfmarker} which time we care about , and that 's kind of one of the things that you 're saying , is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have the option to put in more or less timing data {disfmarker} and , uh , be in the absence of more specific instructions , {vocalsound} we 're trying to figure out what the most convenient thing to do is . +Grad A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so what {disfmarker} what she 's done so far , is sort of {disfmarker} more or less breath g not breath groups , {comment} sort of phrases , continuous phrases . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , um , that 's nice because you {disfmarker} you separate when you do an extract , you get a little silence on either end . So that seems to work really well . +Postdoc E: That 's ideal . +Grad A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Although I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , the alternative , which I was sort of experimenting with before I ran out of time , {vocalsound} recently was , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that , you know , ev if it were like an arbitrary segment of time {disfmarker} i t pre - marked cuz it does take time to put those markings in . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's really the i the interface is wonderful because , you know , the time it takes is you listen to it , {vocalsound} and then you press the return key . But then , you know , it 's like , {vocalsound} uh , you press the tab key to stop the flow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , the return key to p to put in a marking of the boundary . But , you know , obviously there 's a lag between when you hear it and when you can press the return key +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so it 's slightly delayed , so then you {disfmarker} you listen to it a second time and move it over to here . +Undergrad D: a +Postdoc E: So that takes time . +Undergrad D: i a +Postdoc E: Now if it could all be pre - marked at some , {vocalsound} l you know , good {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: ar but +Grad A: Hmm . +Undergrad D: Are {disfmarker} are those d delays adjustable ? Those delays adjustable ? See a lot of people who actually build stuff with human computer interfaces {vocalsound} understand that delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} and so when you {disfmarker} by the time you click it it 'll be right on because it 'll go back in time to put the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It could do that +Postdoc E: Yeah , uh , not in this case . +Grad A: We could program that pretty easily , +PhD B: couldn't it . +Postdoc E: It has other {disfmarker} +Grad A: couldn't we Dan ? Yeah , mis Mister TCL ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting point . +PhD B: I would have thought so , yeah . +Postdoc E: Ah ! {comment} Interesting point . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: OK , that would make a difference . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's not bad +Grad A: But , if we tried to do automatic speaker ID . +Postdoc E: but it does {disfmarker} take twice . +Grad A: I mean , cuz primarily the markings are at speaker change . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: But that would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: But we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got the most channel data . We 'd have to do it from your signal . Right . I mean , we 've {disfmarker} we 've got {disfmarker} we 've got a lot of data . +Postdoc E: Oh , good point ! Ah ! +Grad A: Yeah , I guess the question is how much time will it really save us versus the time to write all the tools to do it . +Postdoc E: We 've got volume . +PhD B: Right . but the chances are if we if we 're talking about collecting {vocalsound} ten or a hundred hours , which is going to take a hundred or a thousand hours to transcribe {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: if we can go from ten X to five X we 're doing a big {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 're gonna need {disfmarker} we 're gonna need ten to a hundred hours to train the tools , and validate the tools the do the d to {disfmarker} to do all this anyway . +PhD C: Right . So maybe {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: If we 're just doing silence detection {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but it op +Grad A: I knew you were gonna do that . Just saw it coming . +Postdoc E: I 'm sorry . I wish you had told me {disfmarker} wish you 'd told me . +Undergrad D: Put {disfmarker} put it on your sweater . +Postdoc E: At what part ? OK , I 'm alright . +PhD B: Um , i it seems like {disfmarker} Well , uh , I don't know . Yeah . I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's maybe like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a week 's work to get to do something like this . So forty or fifty hours . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Could you get it so that with {disfmarker} so it would {disfmarker} it would detect volume on a channel and insert a marker ? And the {disfmarker} the format 's really transparent . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: It 's just a matter of {vocalsound} a very c clear {disfmarker} it 's XML , isn't it ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: It 's very {disfmarker} I mean , I looked at the {disfmarker} the file format and it 's just {disfmarker} it has a t a time {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time indication and then something or other , and then an end time or something or other . +PhD C: So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we could try the following experiment . Take the data that you 've already transcribed +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Is this already in the past or already in the future ? +PhD C: Already in the past . +Undergrad D: You 've already {disfmarker} you 've already done some ? +Grad A: She 's {disfmarker} she 's done about half a meeting . +PhD C: She {disfmarker} she 's done one {disfmarker} she 's one {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes I have . +Undergrad D: Oh - Oh , I see . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: OK , +Grad A: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: good . +Grad A: About half ? +PhD C: I 'm go +Postdoc E: S I 'm not sure if it 's that 's much but anyway , enough to work with . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Several minutes . +PhD C: Um , and {disfmarker} and throw out the words , but keep the time markings . And then go through {disfmarker} I mean , and go through and {disfmarker} and try and re - transcribe it , given that we had perfect boundary detection . +Postdoc E: OK . Good idea . +PhD C: And see if it {disfmarker} see if it {disfmarker} see if it feels easier to you . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And forgetting all the words because you 've been thr +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking . I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd be cheating a little bit g with familiarity effect . +PhD C: Yeah , I mean uh , that 's part of the problem is , is that what we really need is somebody else to come along . +PhD B: Well , no , you should do it {disfmarker} you should do it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do it again from scratch and then do it again at the boundaries . So you do the whole thing three times and then we get {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: No . Now , there 's a plan . +Undergrad D: And then {disfmarker} then w since we need some statistics do it three more . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: And so you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll get down to one point two X by the time you get done . +Postdoc E: Oh , yeah . I 'll do that tomorrow . I should have it finished by the end of the day . +Undergrad D: No , but the thing is the fact that she 's {disfmarker} she 's did it before just might give a lower bound . That 's all . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Uh , which is fine . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Undergrad D: It 's {disfmarker} And if the lower bound is nine X then w it 's a waste of time . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , uh but there 's an extra problem which is that I didn't really keep accurate {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh ! +Postdoc E: uh , it wasn't a pure task the first time , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it 's gonna be an upper bound in {disfmarker} in that case . And it 's not really strictly comparable . So I think though it 's a good proposal to be used on a new {disfmarker} a new batch of text that I haven't yet done yet in the same meeting . Could use it on the next segment of the text . +PhD B: The point we {disfmarker} where do we get the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the oracle boundaries from ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: Or the boundaries . +Grad A: Yeah , one person would have to assign the boundaries and the {disfmarker} and the other person would have to {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well , but couldn't I do it for the next {disfmarker} +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could get fake {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's easy enough . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I could do that . +Postdoc E: Well , but the oracle boundaries would come from volume on a partic specific channel wouldn't they ? +Grad A: No , no . +PhD B: That would be the automatic boundaries . +PhD C: No , no , no , no . You wanna know {disfmarker} given {disfmarker} Given a perfect human segmentation , I mean , you wanna know how well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the {disfmarker} the question is , is it worth giving you the segmentation ? +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . +Grad A: I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's easy enough . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: I could generate the segmentation and {disfmarker} and you could do the words , and time yourself on it . So . +Undergrad D: A little double - blind - ear kind of thing . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} that might be worth doing . +Postdoc E: That 's good . I like that . +Grad A: That would at least tell us whether it 's worth spending a week or two trying to get a tool , that will compute the segmentations . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: And the thing to keep in mind too about this tool , guys is that {vocalsound} sure , you can do the computation for what we 're gonna do in the future but if {disfmarker} if UW 's talking about doing two , or three , or five times as much stuff and they can use the same tool , then obviously there 's a real multiplier there . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is with {disfmarker} with speaker identification , if {disfmarker} if that could handle speaker identification that 's a big deal . +PhD B: Well it w +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Well , use it . Yeah , that 's why we s bought the expensive microphones . +Postdoc E: OK . Yeah , I mean , that 's a nice feature . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's a major {disfmarker} that 's like , one of the two things that {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , there 's gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be {disfmarker} in the meeting , like the reading group meeting that we had the other day , that 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a bit of a problem +PhD B: OK . +PhD C: because , like , I wasn't wearing a microphone +PhD B: Yes . +PhD C: f and there were other people that weren't wearing microphones . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But you didn't say anything worth while anyway , right ? +Grad A: That 'll s +PhD B: Right . +PhD C: That 's pretty much true +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: it might save ninety percent of the work though . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but , yes . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} we need to look at what {disfmarker} what the final output is but it seems like {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems like it 's not really not that hard to have an automatic tool to generate {vocalsound} the phrase marks , and the speaker , and speaker identity without putting in the words . +Grad A: Yeah . I 've already become pretty familiar with the format , +Postdoc E: That 'd be so great . +Grad A: so it would be easy . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: If you 'd tell me where it is , huh ? +Postdoc E: We didn't finish the {disfmarker} the part of work already completed on this , did we ? I mean , you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you talked a little bit about the transcription conventions , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and , I guess you 've mentioned in your progress report , or status report , that you had written a script to convert it into {disfmarker} So , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} i the {disfmarker} it 's quickest for me in terms of {vocalsound} the transcription part {vocalsound} to say {vocalsound} something like , you know , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if Adam spoke to , um {disfmarker} to just say , "" A colon "" , Like who could be , you know , I mean at the beginning of the line . +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and E colon {vocalsound} instead of entering the interface for speaker identification and clicking on the thing , uh , indicating the speaker ID . So , and then he has a script that will convert it into the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , would indicate speaker ID . +Grad A: It 's pretty cute . +Postdoc E: If that 's clear . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But at any rate . So , um , +Postdoc E: It 's Perl script . +Grad A: Right . So {disfmarker} so I think the guess at ten X seems to be pretty standard . Everyone {disfmarker} more or less everyone you talk to says about ten times for hard technical transcription . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Using wh using stone age +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Undergrad D: using stone age tools . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad A: Using {disfmarker} using stone age tools . I mean , I looked at Cyber Transcriber +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: which is a service that you send an audio file , they do a first - pass speech recognition . And then they {disfmarker} they do a clean up . But it 's gonna be horrible . They 're never gonna be able to do a meeting like this . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} i just approximately , what did you find out in terms of price or {disfmarker} or whatever ? +Grad A: Well , for Cyber Transcriber they don't quote a price . They want you to call and {disfmarker} and talk . So for other services , um , they were about thirty dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Of {disfmarker} of tape ? +Grad A: Thirty {disfmarker} So , yeah . +Postdoc E: Or of action ? +Grad A: For thirty dollars an hour for {disfmarker} of their work . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . Oh , of their {disfmarker} +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so if it 's ten times it 's three hundred dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Oh ! +PhD C: So that 's three {disfmarker} that 's three hours . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: D did you talk to anybody that does closed captioning for {disfmarker} for uh , TV ? +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: No . +Undergrad D: Cuz they a usually at the end of the show they 'll tell what the name of the company is , the captioning company that 's doing it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so my {disfmarker} my search was pretty cursory . +Postdoc E: Interesting . +Grad A: It was just a net search . And , uh , so it was only people who have web pages and are doing stuff through that . +Undergrad D: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing {disfmarker} the thing about this is thinking kind of , maybe a little more globally than I should here but {comment} {vocalsound} that really this could be a big contribution we could make . Uh , I mean , we 've been through the STP thing , we know what it {disfmarker} what it 's like to {disfmarker} to manage the {disfmarker} manage the process , and admittedly they might have been looking for more detail than what we 're looking for here but {vocalsound} it was a {disfmarker} it was a big hassle , right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I mean , uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they constantly could 've reminding people and going over it . And clearly some new stuff needs to be done here . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's only {vocalsound} our time , where "" our "" of course includes Dan , {vocalsound} Dan and you guys . It doesn't include me at all . Uh . j Just seems like {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I mean I don't know if we 'd be able to do any thing f to help STP type problems . But certainly for this problem we can do a lot better than {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Bec Why ? Because they wanted a lot more detail ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: No . Because they had {disfmarker} because they only had two speakers , right ? I mean , the {disfmarker} the segmentation problem is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Trivial . +Undergrad D: Only had two . +Grad A: They had two speakers over the telephone . +Undergrad D: Oh , I see . So what took them so long ? +Grad A: Um , mostly because they were doing much lower level time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So they were doing phone and syllable transcription , as well as , uh , word transcription . +Undergrad D: Right . Right . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And so we 're {disfmarker} w we decided early on that we were not gonna do that . +Undergrad D: I see . But there 's still the same issue of managing the process , of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of reviewing and keeping the files straight , and all this stuff , that {disfmarker} which is clearly a hassle . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . And so {disfmarker} so what I 'm saying is that if we hire an external service I think we can expect three hundred dollars an hour . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I think that 's the ball park . There were several different companies that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the range was very tight for technical documents . Twenty - eight to thirty - two dollars an hour . +PhD C: And who who knows if they 're gonna be able to m manage multal multiple channel data ? +PhD B: Yeah , they won't . +Grad A: They won't . +PhD B: They w they 'll refuse to do it . +Grad A: We 'll have to mix them . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD B: No , but I mean , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they won't {disfmarker} they will refuse to transcribe this kind of material . +Postdoc E: And then there 's the problem also that {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's not what they 're d quoting for , right ? +Grad A: Yes , it is . +Undergrad D: Well , they might {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they might quote it {disfmarker} +PhD B: For quoting meetings ? +Grad A: Sev - several of them say that they 'll do meetings , and conferences , and s and so on . None of them specifically said that they would do speaker ID , or speaker change mark . +PhD B: Wow . Yeah . +Grad A: They all just said transcription . +Undergrad D: Th - th the th there may be just multiplier for five people costs twice as much and for ten people co {comment} Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well , the {disfmarker} the way it worked is it {disfmarker} it was scaled . So what they had is , {vocalsound} if it 's an easy task it costs twenty - four dollars an hour and it will take maybe five or six times real time . And what they said is for the hardest tasks , bad acoustics , meeting settings , it 's thirty - two dollars an hour and it takes about ten times real time . So I think that we can count on that being about what they would do . +PhD B: I see . Yeah . +Grad A: It would probably be a little more +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: because we 're gonna want them to do speaker marking . +Undergrad D: A lot of companies I 've worked for y the , uh {disfmarker} the person leading the meeting , the executive or whatever , would sort of go around the room and {disfmarker} and mentally calculate h how many dollars per hour this meeting was costing , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: right ? In university {vocalsound} atmosphere you get a little different thing . But you know , it 's a lot like , "" he 's worth fifty an hour , he 's worth {disfmarker} "" And so he so here we 're thinking , "" well let 's see , if the meeting goes another hour it 's going to be another thousand dollars . "" You know ? It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , we have to have a short meeting . +Undergrad D: So ch {vocalsound} So every everybody ta Talk really fast . +Postdoc E: That 's very interesting . +Grad A: Stop talking ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Let 's get it over with . +Postdoc E: Talk {vocalsound} slowly but with few words . +Grad A: And clearly . +PhD B: That 's right . +Undergrad D: And only talk when you 're pointed to . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad A: Content words only . +Postdoc E: We could have some telegraphic meetings . That might be interesting . +PhD B: Yeah , it 'd be cheap . +Undergrad D: +PhD B: Cheap to transcribe . +Grad A: So . But at any rate , so we {disfmarker} we have a ballpark on how much it would cost if we send it out . +Undergrad D: And we 're talking about do doing how many hours worth of meetings ? +Grad A: Thirty or forty . +Undergrad D: So thirty or forty thousand dollars . +PhD B: Well , for ten thousand dollars . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: So , meanwhile {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Oh . What {disfmarker} Well , it was thirty times {disfmarker} +PhD B: Three hundred . +Grad A: Three hundred dollars an hour . +Undergrad D: Oh , I 'm sorry , three hundred . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right , I w got an extra factor of three there . +PhD C: So it 's thirty dollars an hour , essentially , right ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD C: But we can pay a graduate student seven dollars an hour . And the question is what 's the difference {disfmarker} +PhD B: How {disfmarker} how much lower are they ? +PhD C: or ei eight dollars . What {disfmarker} do you know what the going rate is ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} on the order of eight to ten . +Postdoc E: I think uh that would give us a {disfmarker} a good {disfmarker} good estimate . +PhD C: I think . But I 'm not sure . +Postdoc E: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd say {disfmarker} +PhD B: Ten . +Postdoc E: yeah , I was gonna say eight {disfmarker} you 'd say ten ? +PhD C: Let 's say ten . +PhD B: Yeah , give them a break . +PhD C: Cuz it 's easier . +Undergrad D: The - these are not for engineering graduate students , right ? +Grad A: Right , these are linguistics grad students . Six . +PhD C: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't know what the {disfmarker} I don't know what the standard {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +PhD C: but there is a standard pay scale +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I just don't know what it is . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . That 's right . +PhD C: Um , so that means that even if it takes them thirty times real time it 's cheaper to {disfmarker} to do graduate students . +Postdoc E: And there 's another aspect too . +Grad A: I mean , that 's why I said originally , that I couldn't imagine sending it out 's gonna be cheaper . +PhD B: No , it isn't . So . +Postdoc E: The other thing too is that , uh , if they were linguistics they 'd be {disfmarker} you know , in terms of like the post editing , i uh {disfmarker} tu uh content wise they might be easier to handle cuz they might get it more right the first time . +Grad A: And also we would have control of {disfmarker} I mean , we could give them feedback . Whereas if we do a service it 's gonna be limited amount . +PhD B: Yep , yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +Grad A: I mean , we can't tell them , you know , "" for this meeting we really wanna mark stress +Postdoc E: Good point . +PhD B: Yep . +Grad A: and for this meeting we want {disfmarker} "" +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: Good point . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and they 're not gonna provide {disfmarker} they 're not gonna provide stress , they 're not gonna re provide repairs , they 're not gonna {vocalsound} provide {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they may or may not provide speaker ID . So that we would have to do our own tools to do that . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Just hypoth hypothetically assuming that {disfmarker} that we go ahead and ended up using graduate students . I who {disfmarker} who 's the person in charge ? Who 's gonna be the Steve here ? +Grad A: I hope it 's Jane . +Undergrad D: You ? +Grad A: Is that alright ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . Um , now would this involve some manner of uh , monetary compensation or would I be the voluntary , uh , coordinator of multiple transcribers for checking ? +Grad A: Um , I would imagine there would be some monetary involved but we 'd have to talk to Morgan about it . +PhD B: Yeah , out of {disfmarker} out of Adam 's pocket . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: You know , it just means you have to stop working for Dave . See ? +Postdoc E: Oh , +Undergrad D: That 's why Dave should have been here . +Postdoc E: I don't wanna stop working for Dave . +Undergrad D: To pr protect his people . +Grad A: Well , I would like you to do it because you have a lot more experience than I do , +Postdoc E: Oh , cool . Yeah . +Grad A: but if {disfmarker} if that 's not feasible , I will do it with you as an advisor . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: W we 'd like you to do it and we 'd like to pay you . +Postdoc E: We 'll see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Not being Morgan though , it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: Oh , I see . +PhD B: We 'd like to . Unfortunately {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , six dollars an hour . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I see . +PhD C: That 's a {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . Boy , if I wanted to increase my income I could start doing the transcribing again . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah . +Undergrad D: an an an and be and be sure and say , would you like fries with that when you 're thinking about your pay scale . +Postdoc E: I see . Good . Yeah , no , that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would be interested in that {disfmarker} in becoming involved in the project in some aspect like that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . More . +Postdoc E: more . Yeah . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Grad A: Um , any more on transcript we wanna talk about ? +PhD B: What s so what are you {disfmarker} so you 've done some portion of the first meeting . And what 's your plan ? +Postdoc E: Yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: To carry on doing it ? +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} Well , you know what I thought was right now we have p So I gave him the proposal for the transcription conventions . He made his , uh , suggestion of improvement . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} It 's a good suggestion . So as far as I 'm concerned those transcription conventions are fixed right now . And so my next plan would be {disfmarker} +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what do they {disfmarker} what do they cover ? +Postdoc E: They 're very minimal . So , {vocalsound} it would be good to {disfmarker} just to summarize that . So , um , {vocalsound} one of them is the idea of how to indicate speaker change , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and this is a way which meshes well with {disfmarker} with , uh , making it {vocalsound} so that , uh , you know , on the {disfmarker} At the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Boy , it 's such a nice interface . When you {disfmarker} when you get the , um {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you get the speech signal you also get {vocalsound} down beneath it , {vocalsound} an indication of , {vocalsound} uh , if you have two speakers overlapping in a s in a single segment , you see them {vocalsound} one {disfmarker} displayed one above each other . And then at the same time {vocalsound} the top s part of the screen is the actual verbatim thing . You can clip {disfmarker} click on individual utterances and it 'll take you immediately to that part of the speech signal , and play it for you . And you can , eh you can work pretty well between those two {disfmarker} these two things . +Undergrad D: Is there a limit to the number of speakers ? +Grad A: Um , the user interface only allows two . And so if {disfmarker} if you 're using their interface to specify overlapping speakers you can only do two . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad A: But my script can handle any . And their save format can handle any . And so , um , using this {disfmarker} the convention that Jane and I have discussed , you can have as many overlapping speakers as you want . +Undergrad D: Do y is this a , uh , university project ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Th - this is the French software , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , French . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Grad A: Yeah . And they 're {disfmarker} they 've been quite responsive . +PhD B: their academic . +Undergrad D: eh +Grad A: I 've been exchanging emails on various issues . +PhD B: Oh , really ? +Undergrad D: Uh , did you ask them to change the interface for more speakers ? +Postdoc E: Oh . +Grad A: Yes , and they said that 's on {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the works for the next version . +Undergrad D: Good . +PhD C: Oh , so multi multichannels . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: Multichannels was also {disfmarker} Well , they said they wanted to do it but that the code is really very organized around single channels . So I think that 's n unlikely to ha happen . +PhD C: I see . OK . +Undergrad D: Do - do you know what they 're using it for ? Why 'd they develop it ? +Grad A: For this exact task ? +PhD C: For transcription . +Undergrad D: Are they linguists ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But I mean , are they {disfmarker} are they linguists or are they speech recognition people ? +Grad A: I think they 're linguists . +Postdoc E: Ho +PhD B: Linguists . +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: They 're {disfmarker} they have some connection to the LDC cuz the LDC has been advising them on this process , the Linguistic Data Consortium . Um , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} but a apart from that . +Grad A: It 's also {disfmarker} All the source is available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +PhD C: Right . +Grad A: If you {disfmarker} if you speak TCLTK . +Undergrad D: Great . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And they have {disfmarker} they 've actually asked if we are willing to do any development and I said , well , maybe . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: Good . +Grad A: So if we want {disfmarker} if we did {disfmarker} if we did something like programmed in a delay , which actually I think is a great idea , um , I 'm sure they would want that incorporated back in . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I do too . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Their pre pre - lay . +PhD B: Pre - lay . +Grad A: Way . +Postdoc E: Pre - lay . Well , and they 've thought about things . You know , I mean , they {disfmarker} they do have {disfmarker} So you have {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} when you play it back , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is useful to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a break mark to {disfmarker} se segment it . But it wouldn't be strictly necessary cuz you can use the {disfmarker} uh , the tabbed key to toggle {vocalsound} the sound on and off . I mean , it 'll stop the s speech you know if you if you press a tab . And , um . And so , uh , that 's a nice feature . And then also once you 've put a break in then you have the option of {vocalsound} cycling through the unit . You could do it like multiply until you get {comment} crazy and decide to stop cycling through that unit . +Undergrad D: Loop it ? Yo - you n you know , there 's al also the {disfmarker} the user interface that 's missing . +Postdoc E: Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's missing from all of our offices , and that is some sort of analog input for something like this . It 's what audio people actually use of course . It 's something that wh {vocalsound} when you move your hand further , the sound goes faster past it , like fast forward . You know , like a joy stick or a {disfmarker} uh , you could wire a mouse or trackball to do something like that . +Postdoc E: Why , that 's {disfmarker} That 's not something I wanted to have happen . +Undergrad D: No , but I 'm saying if this is what professionals who actually do this kind of thing for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} m for video or for audio {disfmarker} {vocalsound} where you {disfmarker} you need to do this , +Postdoc E: I see . Uh - huh . +Undergrad D: and so you get very good at sort of jostling back and forth , rather than hitting tab , and backspace , and carriage return , and enter , and things like that . +PhD B: Mmm . Mmm . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , we talked about things like foot pedals and other analog {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So {vocalsound} I mean , tho those are things we could do but I {disfmarker} I just don't know how much it 's worth doing . I mean we 're just gonna have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Ye - Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . They {disfmarker} they have several options . So , uh , you know , I mentioned the looping option . Another option is it 'll pause when it reaches the end of the boundary . And then to get to the next boundary you just press tab +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc E: and it goes on to the next unit . +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: I mean , it 's very nicely thought out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: They thought about {disfmarker} and also it 'll {vocalsound} go around the c the , uh , I wanna say cursor but I 'm not sure if that 's the right thing . +Grad A: Point , whatever . +Postdoc E: Anyway , you can {disfmarker} so they thought about different ways of having windows that you c uh work within , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} But so in terms of the con the conventions , then , {vocalsound} uh , basically , {vocalsound} uh , it 's strictly orthographic which means with some w provisions for , uh , w uh , {vocalsound} colloquial forms . So if a person said , "" cuz "" instead of "" because "" then I put a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an apostrophe at the beginning of the word and then in {disfmarker} in double ang angle brackets what the full lexical item would be . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And this could be {vocalsound} something that was handled by a table or something but I think {vocalsound} to have a convention marking it as a non - standard or wha I don't mean standard {disfmarker} but a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non {vocalsound} uh , ortho orthographic , uh , whatever . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Non - canonical . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: "" Gonna "" or "" wanna "" , you know , the same thing . And {disfmarker} and there would be limits to how much refinement you want in indicating something as non - standard pres pronunciation . +PhD C: How are you handling backchannels ? +Postdoc E: Backchannels ? +Grad A: Comments . +Postdoc E: Um , you know {disfmarker} oh , yes , there was some {disfmarker} in my view , when i when you 've got it densely overlapping , um , I didn't worry about {disfmarker} I didn't worry about s specific start times . +PhD C: What do you mean by du +Postdoc E: I sort of thought that this is not gonna be {comment} easily processed anyway and {vocalsound} maybe I shouldn't spend too much time getting exactly when the person said {vocalsound} "" no "" , or , you know , uh , i "" immediate "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And instead just sort of rendered "" within this time slot , {vocalsound} there were two people speaking during part of it +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and {vocalsound} if you want more detail , figure it out for yourself "" , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I think what {disfmarker} w what Eric was talking about was channels other than the direct speech , +PhD C: I see . +Postdoc E: was sort of the way I felt @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: right ? +PhD C: Well , yeah , what I mean is wh I mean , when somebody says "" uh - huh "" in the middle of , uh , a @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . That happened very seldom . +PhD C: Oh , cuz I was {disfmarker} I was listening to {disfmarker} Dan was agreeing a lot to things that you were saying as you were talking . +Undergrad D: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: Oh , well , thank you Dan . +PhD C: So . +Postdoc E: Appreciate it . Well , if it {disfmarker} if there was a word like "" right "" , you know , then I wou I would indicate {vocalsound} that it happened within the same tem time frame +Grad A: Yeah , there 's an overlapping mark . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: but wouldn't say exactly when it happened . +Undergrad D: I 'll be right back . +PhD B: I transcribed a minute of this stuff +PhD C: I see . +PhD B: and there was a lot of overlapping . It was {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: A lot of overlapping , yeah . +Grad A: Well there there 's a lot of overlapping at the beginning and end . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Huge amounts . +PhD B: It was at the beginning . +Grad A: Um , when {disfmarker} when no one i when we 're not actually in the meeting , {vocalsound} and we 're all sort of separated , and {disfmarker} and doing things . But even during the meeting there 's a lot of overlap but it {disfmarker} it 's marked pretty clearly . Um , some of the backchannel stuff Jane had some comments {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} but I think a lot of them were because you were at the meeting . And so I think that {disfmarker} that often {disfmarker} {vocalsound} often you can't tell . +Postdoc E: Yeah , well that 's true . That 's another issue . +Grad A: I mean , Jane had {disfmarker} had comments like uh , to {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who the person was speaking to . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Only when it was otherwise gonna be puzzling +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: because he was in the other room talking . +Grad A: Yeah , but someone who , uh , {vocalsound} was just the transcriber wouldn't have known that . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Or when Dan said , "" I wa I wasn't talking to you "" . +PhD C: Right . +Postdoc E: That 's true . I know . +Undergrad D: So you take a bathroom break in the middle and {disfmarker} and keep your head mount +Grad A: You have to turn off your mike . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Oh , you do ? +PhD B: You don't have to . +Postdoc E: Well he was so {disfmarker} so he was checking the meter levels and {disfmarker} and we were handling things while he was labeling the {disfmarker} the whatever it was , the PDA ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: And {disfmarker} and so he was {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} you were sort of talking {disfmarker} you know , so I was saying , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} "" and I could label this one left . Right ? "" And he {disfmarker} and he said , "" I don't see anything "" . And he said {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he said , {vocalsound} "" I wasn't talking to you "" . Or {disfmarker} it wasn't {disfmarker} it didn't sound quite that rude . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: But really , no , uh {disfmarker} w you know in the context if you know he can't hear what he 's saying {disfmarker} +Grad A: but when you w when you listen to it {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: he he It was a lot funnier if you were there though . +Postdoc E: Uh , yeah , +Grad A: Well what {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what happens is if you 're a transcriber listening to it it sounds like Dan is just being a total {disfmarker} {vocalsound} totally impolite . +Postdoc E: I know . Well , you 'll see . You can listen to it . Oh , I thought it was you who was . No , well , but you were {disfmarker} you were asking off the wall questions . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} but if you knew that {disfmarker} that I wasn't actually in the room , and that Dan wasn't talking to me , it {disfmarker} it became OK . So . +PhD B: I see . +Undergrad D: So th +Postdoc E: And that 's w that 's where I added comments . +PhD C: Hmm . +Postdoc E: The rest of the time I didn't bother with who was talking to who but {disfmarker} but this was unusual circum circumstance . +Undergrad D: So this is {disfmarker} this is gonna go on the meeting meeting transcriber bloopers tape , right ? +Grad A: Yes . Right . +Postdoc E: Well and part of it was funny , uh {disfmarker} reason was because it was a mixed signal so you couldn't get any clues from volume {vocalsound} that , you know , he was really far away from this conversation . +Grad A: Stereo . Yeah . +Postdoc E: You couldn't do that symmetrically in any case . +PhD B: No . +Grad A: Oh . I should rewrite the mix tool to put half the people in one channel and half in the other . I have a {pause} auto - gain - mixer tool that mixes all the head mounted microphones into one signal +Postdoc E: That 's a good idea . +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and that seems to work really well for the uh {pause} transcribers . +Undergrad D: Great . +Postdoc E: But I thought it would be {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't wanna add more contextual comments than were needed but that , it seemed to me , clarified that the con what was going on . And , uh {disfmarker} OK , +PhD C: So , s +Postdoc E: so normalization {disfmarker} +PhD C: I was just gonna ask , uh , so I just wanted to c sort of finish off the question I had about backchannels , +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD C: if that 's OK , +Postdoc E: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: which {disfmarker} which was , so say somebody 's talking for a while +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: and somebody goes "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of it , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and what not , does the conversation come out from the {disfmarker} or the person who 's speaking for the long time as one segment and then there 's this little tiny segment {vocalsound} of this other speaker or does it {disfmarker} does the fact that there 's a backchannel split the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} it in two . +Postdoc E: OK , my {disfmarker} my focus was to try and maintain conten con content continuity and , uh , to keep it within what he was saying . Like {vocalsound} I wouldn't say breath groups but prosodic or intonational groups as much as possible . So {vocalsound} if someone said "" mm - hmm "" in the middle of a {disfmarker} of someone 's , {vocalsound} uh , uh , intonational contour , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I indicated it as , like what you just did . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc E: then I indicated it as a segment which contained {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} this utterance plus an overlap . +PhD B: But that 's {disfmarker} but there 's only one {disfmarker} there 's only one time boundary for both speakers , +PhD C: OK . +PhD B: right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . And you know , it could be made more precise than that +PhD C: I see , +Postdoc E: but I just thought {disfmarker} +PhD C: I see , OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: I think whenever we use these speech words we should always {vocalsound} do the thing like you 're talking about , accent , +Postdoc E: Oh , I see what you mean . And then {pause} "" hesitation "" . Yeah . OK , and so then , uh , in terms of like words like "" uh "" and "" um "" I just wrote them because I figured there 's a limited number , and I keep them to a {disfmarker} uh , limited set because it didn't matter if it was "" mmm "" or "" um "" , {comment} {vocalsound} you know , versus "" um "" . So I just always wrote it as U M . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: And "" uh - huh "" , you know , "" UHUH . "" I mean , like a s set of like five . But in any case {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I didn't mark those . +PhD B: No . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: "" Uh - huh "" is "" U H H U H . "" H U H . "" +Postdoc E: I 'd be happy with that . That 'd be fine . It 'd be good to have that in the {disfmarker} in the conventions , what 's to be used . +PhD C: Huh - uh . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I did notice that there were some segments that had pauses on the beginning and end . We should probably mark areas that have no speakers as no speaker . Then , so question mark colon is fine for that . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's a fine idea . That 's a fine idea . +Grad A: Just say silence . +Undergrad D: Well , what 's that mean ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , OK . Yeah . +Undergrad D: You mean re +Grad A: No one 's talking . +Undergrad D: ye s Oh . Silence all around . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: Yep . +PhD B: We have to mark those ? +Postdoc E: So I had {disfmarker} +PhD B: Don't they {disfmarker} d can't we just leave them unmarked ? +Postdoc E: I d Well , you see , that 's possible too . +Grad A: Well , I wanna leave the marked {disfmarker} I don't want them to be part of another utterance . So you just {disfmarker} you need to have the boundary at the start and the end . +PhD B: OK . Sure . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Now that 's refinement that , uh , maybe it could be handled by part of the {disfmarker} part of the script or something more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , yeah , it seems like {disfmarker} it seems like the , uh , tran the transcription problem would be very different if we had these {vocalsound} automatic speaker detection turn placing things . Because suddenly {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know , actually it sounds like there might be a problem {vocalsound} putting it into the software if the software only handles two parallel channels . But assuming we can get around that somehow . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Well you were saying , I think it can read {disfmarker} +Grad A: It can read and write as many as you want , it 's just that it +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: But what if you wanna edit it ? Right ? I mean , the point is we 're gonna generate {vocalsound} this transcript with five {disfmarker} five tracks in it , but with no words . Someone 's gonna have to go in and type in the words . Um , and if there are five {disfmarker} five people speaking at once , +Grad A: Right , i it 's {disfmarker} I didn't explain it well . If we use the {disfmarker} the little {disfmarker} the conventions that Jane has established , I have a script that will convert from that convention to their saved convention . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . Yes . +Postdoc E: Which allows five . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc E: And it can be m edited after the fact , +Grad A: Yes . +Postdoc E: can't it also ? But their {disfmarker} but their format , if you wanted to in indicate the speakers right there instead of doing it through this indirect route , {vocalsound} then i they {disfmarker} a c window comes up and it only allows you to enter two speakers . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Undergrad D: But you 're saying that by the time you call it back in to {disfmarker} from their saved format it opens up a window with window with five speakers ? +Postdoc E: So . But . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Oh ! That is sort of {pause} f +Grad A: It 's just user interface . +Undergrad D: They didn't quite go the whole {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i it 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Yeah , they didn't go the whole route , +Grad A: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the whole saved form the saved format and the internal format , all that stuff , handles multiple speakers . +Undergrad D: did they ? They just {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just there 's no user interface for specifying multiple {disfmarker} any more than two . +Undergrad D: Right . So your {disfmarker} your script solves {disfmarker} Doesn't it solve all our problems , +Postdoc E: And that {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: cuz we 're always gonna wanna go through this preprocessing {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: uh , assuming it works . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: And that works nicely cuz this so quick to enter . So I wouldn't wanna do it through the interface anyway adding which {disfmarker} worry who the speaker was . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: I see . Right . Good . +Postdoc E: And then , uh , let 's see what else . Oh , yes , I {disfmarker} I wanted to have {disfmarker} So sometimes a pers I {disfmarker} uh in terms of like the continuity of thought {vocalsound} for transcriptions , it 's {disfmarker} i it isn't just words coming out , it 's like there 's some purpose for an utterance . And {vocalsound} sometimes someone will {vocalsound} do a backchannel in the middle of it but you wanna show that it 's continued at a later point . So I have {disfmarker} I have a convention of putting like a dash {vocalsound} arrow just to indicate that this person 's utterance continues . And then when it uh , catches back up again then there 's an arrow dash , and then you have the opposite direction {vocalsound} to indicate continuation of ones own utterance versus , um , sometimes {vocalsound} we had the situation which is {disfmarker} you know , which you {disfmarker} which you get in conversations , {comment} of someone continuing someone else 's utterance , +PhD B: Mmm . +Postdoc E: and in that case I did a tilde arrow versus a arrow tilde , {vocalsound} to indicate that it was continuation but it wasn't {disfmarker} Oh , I guess I did {vocalsound} equal arrow for the {disfmarker} for the own {disfmarker} for yourself things +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: cuz it 's {disfmarker} the speakers the same . And then tilde arrow if it was a different {disfmarker} if a different speaker , uh , con continuation . +PhD B: Mmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Postdoc E: But just , you know , the arrows showing continuation of a thought . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: And then you could track whether it was the same speaker or not by knowing {disfmarker} you know , at the end of this unit you 'd know what happened later . And that was like this person continued +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and you 'd be able to {vocalsound} look for the continuation . +Grad A: So +PhD B: But the only time that becomes ambiguous is if you have two speakers . Like , if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you only have one person , if you only have one thought that 's continuing across a particular time boundary , you just need {vocalsound} one arrow at each end , and if it 's picked up by a different speaker , it 's picked up by a different speaker . The time it becomes ambiguous if you have more than one speaker and that {disfmarker} and they sort of swap . I guess if you have more than one thread going , then you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} then you need to know whether they were swapped or not . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: How often does that happen do you think ? +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hopefully not very much . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I didn't use it very often . +Grad A: Especially for meetings . I mean , if i if you were just recording someone 's day , it would be impossible . You know , +Undergrad D: It l ou +Grad A: if you were trying to do a remembrance agent . But I think for meetings it 's probably alright . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad A: But , a lot of these issues , I think that for {disfmarker} uh , from my point of view , where I just wanna do speech recognition and information retrieval , it doesn't really matter . +PhD B: Sure . +Grad A: But other people have other interests . +PhD B: I know . +Grad A: So . +PhD B: But it {disfmarker} it does feel {disfmarker} it does feel like it 's really in there . I {disfmarker} you know I did this {disfmarker} I did this transcription and I marked that , I marked it with ellipsis because it seemed like there was a difference . It 's something you wanted to indicate that it {disfmarker} that I {disfmarker} this was the end of the phrase , this was the end of {vocalsound} that particular transcript , but it was continued later . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: And I picked up with an ellipsis . +Postdoc E: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD B: I didn't have the equal , not equal thing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Well that 's {disfmarker} you know , I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't {comment} I didn't do it n {vocalsound} I mean , that 's why I thought about it , and {disfmarker} and re - ev +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: and it didn't do {disfmarker} I didn't do it in ten times the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the time . +Grad A: Well , so anyway , are we interested then in writing tools to try to generate any of this stuff automatically ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that something you want to do , Dan ? +PhD B: No . +Grad A: No . +PhD B: But it 's something @ @ that I feel we definitely ought to do . +Postdoc E: I also wanted to ask you if you have a time estimate on the part that you transcribed . Do you have a sense of how long {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , it took me half an hour to transcribe a minute , but I didn't have any {disfmarker} I didn't even have a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: I was trying to get Transcriber to run but I couldn't . So I was doing it by typ typing into a text file and trying to fit {disfmarker} It was horrible . +Postdoc E: OK . OK . +Undergrad D: So thirty to one 's what you got ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: So that 's a new upper limit ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's because you didn't have the segmentation help and all the other {disfmarker} +Grad A: But I think for a first try that 's about right . +PhD B: Is it {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} so if we hired a who if we hired a whole bunch of Dan 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: That 's right . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: It was actually {disfmarker} it was quite {disfmarker} it was a t +Undergrad D: a +Grad A: If we {pause} hire an infinite number of Dan 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: it w +Undergrad D: It 'd b a a +Postdoc E: And there 's always a warm up thing of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Are we gonna run out of disk space by the way ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , +PhD B: No . +Grad A: good . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: d Doesn't it beep in the other room when you 're out of disk space ? +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Is there {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . +PhD C: Maybe we should s consider also , um , starting to build up a web site around all of these things . +PhD B: Web site ! That 's great ! +PhD C: I know . +Grad A: Dan 's sort of already started . +PhD B: We could have like business - to - business E - commerce as well ! +PhD C: That 's right . No , but I 'm it would be interesting {disfmarker} it would be interesting to see {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can we sell banner ads ? +Undergrad D: Get {disfmarker} get paid for click - throughs ? +Grad A: What a good idea , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: that 's how we could pay for the transcription . +PhD C: I want to introduce {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to introduce the word "" snot - head "" into the conversation at this point . +PhD B: We can have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You wanna word that won't be recognized ? +PhD C: You see , cuz {disfmarker} uh , cuz {disfmarker} Exactly . Um . +Postdoc E: Oh , I don't think so . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Hey , what about me ? +PhD C: The r w What {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc E: You 're the one who raised the issue . +PhD C: No . Alright , see here 's {disfmarker} here 's {disfmarker} here 's my thought behind it which is that , uh , the {disfmarker} the stuff that you 've been describing , Jane , I gu one has to , {vocalsound} of course {vocalsound} indicate , {comment} {vocalsound} um , i is very interesting , +Postdoc E: Alright . +PhD C: and I I 'd like to be able to {disfmarker} to pore through , you know , the {disfmarker} the types of tr conventions that you 've come up with and stuff like that . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So I would like to see that kind of stuff on the web . +Postdoc E: OK , now , w the alternative to a web site would be to put it in Doctor speech . +PhD B: Yes . Yes . +Postdoc E: Cuz {disfmarker} cuz what I have is a soft link to my transcription {vocalsound} that I have on my account +PhD C: Either 's fine . +PhD B: We c +Postdoc E: but it doesn't matter . +Grad A: We can do it all . +PhD B: we can do it all ! We can write {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: Oh . +Postdoc E: Web site 's nice . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Then you have to t you have to do an HT access . +Undergrad D: Web site 's what ? +PhD B: We could actually {disfmarker} maybe we could use the TCL plug - in . Oh , man . +Postdoc E: Ooo ! He 's committed himself to something . +PhD C: Ow . See he said the word TCL and {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But he does such a good job of it . He should be allowed to {disfmarker} to , you know , w do it . +Postdoc E: I know , I know . +PhD B: I know , but that {disfmarker} but , I {disfmarker} Right . But I should be allowed to but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: If you just did a crappy job , {vocalsound} no nobody would want you to do it . +PhD B: I sh I shouldn't be allowed to by m by my own {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by my {disfmarker} according to my own priorities . Alright . Let 's look at it anyway . So definitely we should {disfmarker} we should have some kind of access to the data . +Grad A: And we have {disfmarker} we have quite a disparate number of web and other sorts of documents on this project sort of spread around . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: I have several and Dan has a few , +PhD B: Yes . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right , so we can add in links and stuff like that to other things . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc E: Nice . +PhD B: Well , yeah . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well so then th +Grad A: Try {disfmarker} try to s consolidate . I mean , who wants to do that though ? +PhD B: the other side is , yeah . +PhD C: Uh , right . +Grad A: No one wants to do that . So . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: Right , that 's the problem . +PhD C: Well , we could put {disfmarker} we could put sort of a disorganized sort of group gestalt {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Why ? What {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the issue ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Undergrad D: No one what ? +PhD B: No one owns the project . +Grad A: Yeah , I own the project but I don't wanna do it . +PhD B: No one wants to own the project . +PhD C: Right . +Undergrad D: W well {pause} Do {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's mine ! All mine ! +PhD B: Well then you have to do the web site . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Wah - hah - hah - hah - hah - hah . "" +PhD B: You know , it 's like , it 's that simple . +Undergrad D: b but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but what are you {disfmarker} what are you talking about for web site hacking ? +PhD B: No {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: You 're talking about writing HTML , right ? +Grad A: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'm talking about putting together all the data in a form that {disfmarker} that is legible , and pleasant to read , and up to date , and et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: But , is it against the law to actually use a tool to help your job go easier ? +Grad A: Absolutely . It 's {disfmarker} it 's absolutely against the law to use a tool . I haven't found any tools that I like . +Undergrad D: You y +Grad A: It 's just as easy to use {disfmarker} to edit the raw HTML as anything else . +Undergrad D: No kidding ? +PhD B: That 's obviously not true , +Grad A: It 's obviously not true . +PhD B: but you have {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , it it it 's obviously true that he hasn't found any he likes . +PhD B: Right . That 's true . +Undergrad D: The question is what is {disfmarker} what 's he looked at . +Postdoc E: Which one do you use Jim ? +Undergrad D: I use something called Trellix . +Postdoc E: Oh , that 's right . I remember . Yeah . +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Which produces also site maps . +Grad A: Now , I guess if I were {disfmarker} if I were doing more powerful {disfmarker} excuse me {disfmarker} more complex web sites I might want to . +Undergrad D: it 's - it it 's very powerful . +Grad A: But most of the web sites I do aren't that complex . +Postdoc E: Well , would this be to document it also for outside people or mainly for in house use ? +Grad A: But . I think both . +PhD C: No , I think in +Grad A: Mostly in house . +PhD B: That 's right . +PhD C: I think mostly internal . +Undergrad D: Well , yeah , +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: but what does internal mean ? +PhD B: No , both . +Undergrad D: I mean , you 're leaving . People at UW wanna look at it . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's internal {comment} until {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Internal to the project . +Undergrad D: I see . +Postdoc E: We could do an HT access which would accommodate those things . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , well , send me links and I wi send me pointers , rather , and I 'll put it together . +PhD B: I 'm not {disfmarker} o +Postdoc E: Wonderful . +PhD B: OK . I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} how {vocalsound} important that distinction is . I don't think {vocalsound} we should say , {vocalsound} "" oh , it 's internal therefore we don't have to make it very good "" . I mean , you can say {vocalsound} "" oh {disfmarker} oh , it 's internal +PhD C: No . No . +PhD B: therefore we can put data in it that we don't {disfmarker} we don't have to worry about releasing "" . But I think the point is to try and {vocalsound} be coherent and make it a nice presentation . +Undergrad D: Right . I agree . +Postdoc E: Yeah , it is true , that is {disfmarker} it benefits to {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Cuz you 're gonna have to wor do the work sooner or later . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . I mean , it 's the early on . +Undergrad D: Even if it 's just writing things up . +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: You know ? +Postdoc E: It 's a great idea . +Grad A: OK , um , let 's move on to electronics . +PhD B: Ah . Great . +Undergrad D: d we {disfmarker} we out of tape {disfmarker} out of disk ? +PhD B: No , we 're doing {disfmarker} we 're doing great . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I was looking for the actual box I plan to use , uh , but I {disfmarker} c all I could {disfmarker} I couldn't find it at the local store . But this is {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the technology . It 's actually a little bit thinner than this . And it 's two by two , by one , and it would fit right under the {disfmarker} right under th the the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the lip , +Grad A: Yeah , does everyone know about the lip on the table ? It 's great . +Undergrad D: yeah . There 's a lip in these tables . +Postdoc E: Nice . +Undergrad D: And , it oc I p especially brought the bottom along to try and generate some frequencies that you may not already have recorded . +Grad A: Clink ! Clink ! +Undergrad D: Let 's see {disfmarker} {vocalsound} see what it does to the {disfmarker} But this was the uh {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just to review , and I also brought this {comment} along rather than the projector so we can put these on the table , and sort of w push them around . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and crinkle them and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What ? +Postdoc E: And th "" that "" being a diagram . +PhD B: What ? +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} that 's the six tables that we 're looking at . These six tables here , {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with little boxes sort of , uh , in the middle here . +PhD B: I see . +Postdoc E: OK . +Undergrad D: Which es would {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the boxes are pretty much out of the way anyway . I 'll - I 'll show you the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the cro this is the table cross section . I don't know if people realize what they 're looking at . +PhD B: You trying to {pause} screw up the m the microphones ? +Grad A: Yes . He is . Absolutely . +PhD B: I mean th +Undergrad D: Well why not ? I mean , cuz this is what 's gonna happen . You got plenty of data . I won't come to your next meeting . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you So this is the box 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Get your paper off my PDA ! +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , let {disfmarker} let the record show that this is exhibit two B . +Undergrad D: That 's right . "" Or not to be "" . Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Uh , the box , uh {disfmarker} there 's a half inch lip here . The box is an inch thick so it hangs down a half an inch . And so the {disfmarker} the two {vocalsound} head set jacks would be in the front and then the little LED to indicate that that box is live . The {disfmarker} the important issue about the LED is the fact that we 're talking about eight of these total , which would be sixteen channels . And , uh , even though we have sixteen channels back at the capture , they 're not all gonna be used for this . +PhD B: Hmm . +Undergrad D: So there 'd be a subset of them used for {disfmarker} obviously j just use the ones at this end for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for this many . So {disfmarker} Excuse me . you 'd like a {disfmarker} a way to tell whether your box is live , so the LED wouldn't be on . +PhD B: Right . All the lights . +Undergrad D: So if you 're plugged in it doesn't work and the LED is off that 's {disfmarker} that 's a tip off . And then the , uh {disfmarker} would wire the {disfmarker} all of the cables in a {disfmarker} in a bundle come through here and o obviously collect these cables at the same time . +Postdoc E: That 's good . +Undergrad D: Uh , so this {disfmarker} this notion of putting down the P Z Ms {vocalsound} and taking them away would somehow have to be turned into leaving them on the table +Grad A: Right . Well , we wanna do that definitely . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: Right . And so the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we just epoxy them down or something . Big screw into the table . +PhD B: Velcro . +Undergrad D: Uh , and even though there 's eight cables they 're not really very big around so my model is to get a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a p piece of {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sleeve . +Undergrad D: yeah , that {disfmarker} that stuff that people put with the little {disfmarker} you slip the wires into that 's {vocalsound} sort of shaped like that cross section . +Grad A: Oh . OK , not just sleeve them all ? +Undergrad D: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm r a I 'm going up and then I 'm going down . +Grad A: And leave them loose ? +PhD B: No . +Postdoc E: That looks like a semi - circle . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's like a {disfmarker} it 's a sleeping policeman . +Grad A: Whoo ! +PhD B: Speed bump ! +Postdoc E: Sleeping pol +PhD B: Speed bump . +Grad A: Speed A "" sleeping policeman "" ! +Undergrad D: Yeah , it 's like a speed bum {vocalsound} An +Postdoc E: Speed bump . That 's good . There we go s +Grad A: Cool . +Undergrad D: And they 're ac they 're actually ext extruded from plastic . +PhD C: What is {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: They sorta look like this . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: What does that mean ? +PhD B: That 's the s that 's British for speed bump , +PhD C: Is it a speed bump ? +Undergrad D: So that the wires go through here . +PhD B: yeah . +PhD C: Wow . +Postdoc E: Oh , is that right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: I never heard that . +Grad A: That 's really cruel . +Undergrad D: So . +Postdoc E: Ah ! +Grad A: OK , so that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: s So it would c basically go on the diagonal here . +PhD C: It could go either way . +Grad A: So why do we have sixteen channels instead of like some fewer number ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess . +Undergrad D: Uh , because the {disfmarker} +PhD B: How else are you gonna distribute them around the tables ? +Undergrad D: Because they 're there . +Grad A: Well , OK , let me rephrase that . Why two each ? +PhD B: Oh , because then you don't have to just have one each . So that if t if you have two people sitting next to each other they can actually go into the same box . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And to {disfmarker} See , thi this is really the way people sit on this table . Th +Grad A: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh . Dot , dot , dot . +Postdoc E: Which means two at each station . +Undergrad D: Well that {disfmarker} that 's the way people sit . That 's how many chairs are in the room . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad A: Alright . +Postdoc E: Yeah , I 'm just saying that for the recording . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: OK . +Undergrad D: And certainly you could do a thing where all sixteen were plugged in . +Grad A: But then none of these . +Undergrad D: Uh if {disfmarker} if you ha if you had nothing else . +Grad A: Right . N none of these and no P Z Ms then . +Undergrad D: Yeah . Right . Right . I agree . +PhD B: Only if you had {disfmarker} Well it depends on this box , right ? +Undergrad D: Oh , true enough . And actually , at the m my plan is to only bring eight wires out of this box . +PhD B: Exactly . +Grad A: Oh , I didn't understand {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} this box {disfmarker} Thi - thi thi this box is a one off deal . +Postdoc E: That being the wiring box . +Grad A: Oh , I see , I see . +Undergrad D: Uh . And , uh , it 's function is to s to , uh , essentially a wire converter to go from these little blue wires to these black wires , plus supply power to the microphones cuz the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} he the , uh , cheap head mounteds all require low voltage . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so you 'd imagine some sort of {disfmarker} in some sort of patch panel on top to figure out what the mapping was between each d of these two and each of those one or what ? +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: Well I w I I the simplest thing I could imagine , i which is really , really simple is to {disfmarker} quite literally that these things plug in . And there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a plug on the end of each of these {disfmarker} these , uh , ei eight cables . +Postdoc E: What {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: OK . Each of the blue wires ? +PhD B: But there are only four . +Undergrad D: An - and there 's only {disfmarker} there 's only four slots that are {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} in the first version or the version we 're planning to {disfmarker} to build . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: So {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that was the whole issue with the LED , that you plug it in , the LED comes on , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you 're live . +Grad A: Oh , then it comes on . I see , I see . OK , good . +Undergrad D: Now the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the subtle issue here is that {disfmarker} tha I {disfmarker} I haven't really figured out a solution for this . So , we it 'll have to be convention . What happens if somebody unplugs this because they plug in more of something else ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Well the {disfmarker} there 's no clever way to let the up stream guys know that you 're really not being powered . So {disfmarker} th there will be a certain amount of looking at cables has to be done if people , uh , rewire things . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah , I mean , we {disfmarker} I had that last time . +Undergrad D: But . +PhD B: But uh there are actually {disfmarker} that you know , there 's an extra {disfmarker} there 's a mix out on the radio receiver ? +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So there are actually six {vocalsound} XLR outs on the back of the radio receiver and only five cables going in , I had the wrong five , so I ended up {vocalsound} not recording one of the channels and recording the mix . +Undergrad D: How interesting . D did you do any recognition on the mix {disfmarker} mix out ? +Postdoc E: Hmm . +PhD B: No . +Undergrad D: Wonder whether it works any {disfmarker} +PhD B: But I subtracted the four that I did have from the mix and got a pretty good approximation of the @ @ . +Undergrad D: Got the fifth ? +Grad A: You g +Undergrad D: Cool . +Postdoc E: Oh , how great . +Grad A: And did it work ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Did it sound good ? +PhD B: It 's not bad . +Undergrad D: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's not bad , +Grad A: Wow . +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: Ain't science wonderful ? +Postdoc E: That 's amazing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So what 's the schedule on these things ? +Undergrad D: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , you always {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: Uh , well I was wrestling with th with literally the w number of connectors in the cable and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {vocalsound} powering system . And I {disfmarker} I was gonna do this very clever phantom power and I decided a couple days ago not to do it . +PhD B: Hmm ! +Undergrad D: So I 'm ready to build it . Which is to say , uh , the neighborhood of a week to get the circuit board done . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So I think the other thing I 'd like to do is , do something about the set up +PhD B: See +Grad A: so that it 's a little more presentable and organized . +Undergrad D: I agree . +Grad A: And I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just not sure what that is . I mean , some sort of cabinet . +Undergrad D: Well I can build a cabinet . The {disfmarker} the difficulty for this kind of project is the intellectual capital to design the cabinet . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: In other words , to figure out ex exactly what the right thing is . That cabinet can {disfmarker} can go away . We can use that for {disfmarker} for uh kindling or something . But if you can imagine what the right form factor is . Dan - Dan and I have sort of gone around on this , and we were thinking about something that opened up in the top {vocalsound} to allow access to the mixer for example . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: But there 's these things sticking out of the mixer which are kind of a pain , so you end up with this thing that {disfmarker} if if you stuck the mixer up here and the top opened , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be fine . You wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} Well , you s understand what I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I understand . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can start {disfmarker} start s sketching it out , +Grad A: So . +Undergrad D: and I can certainly build it out of oak no problem , would it {disfmarker} you know , arb you know , arbitrarily amount of {disfmarker} +Grad A: I need a desk at home too , alright ? Is that gonna be a better solution than just going out and buy one ? +Undergrad D: Well , the {disfmarker} as we found out with the {disfmarker} the thing that , uh , Jeff bought a long time ago to hold our stereo system {vocalsound} the stuff you buy is total crap . And I mean this is something you buy . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: And it 's total crap . +Undergrad D: It 's total crap . Well , it 's useless for this function . Works fine for holding a Kleenex , +Grad A: Right , Kleenex and telephones . +Undergrad D: but it {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Um , so yeah , I g I guess it 's just a question , is that something you wanna spend your time on ? +Undergrad D: Oh , I {disfmarker} I 'm paid for . +Grad A: OK , great . +Undergrad D: I have no problem . No , but w certainly one of the issues is {disfmarker} is the , uh {disfmarker} is security . +Grad A: Hmm ? Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: I mean , we 've been {disfmarker} been {disfmarker} been lax and lucky . +Grad A: Lax . +PhD B: Yeah . Yep . +Undergrad D: Really lucky with these things . But they 're not ours , so {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: the , uh {disfmarker} the flat panels . +PhD B: Oh , yeah ! +Grad A: I 'm telling you , I 'm just gonna cart one of them away if they stay there much longer . +PhD B: Well w yeah , exactly . +Undergrad D: Uh , let the record show at {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} at f four thirty - five {vocalsound} Adam Janin says {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Wow . Tempting . +PhD B: We 'll know {disfmarker} we 'll know to come after . +Postdoc E: Tempting . Yeah . +Grad A: So , um , j uh , then the other question is do we wanna try to do a user interface that 's available out here ? +PhD B: Sorry ? +Undergrad D: Slipped {disfmarker} almost slipped it by Dan . +Postdoc E: Use - user interface {disfmarker} +Grad A: A user interface . I mean , do we wanna try to get a monitor ? Or just something . +PhD B: Oh ! Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Well of course we do . +Grad A: And how do we want to do that ? +Postdoc E: You mean like see {disfmarker} see meter readings , from {disfmarker} while sitting here . +Grad A: J just so we see something . +Postdoc E: Wow . +Undergrad D: How about use the thing that um ACIRI 's doing . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Which is to say just laptop with a wireless . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Sure . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: Which we 'll borrow from them , {vocalsound} when we need it . +Undergrad D: What 's wrong with yours ? If we bought you a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , a Applecard . Sure . Right . Yeah , you could use my machine . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: What ? +Grad A: I have an IRAM machine I 've borrowed and we can use it . +PhD B: I {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: N no , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm serious . Does {disfmarker} does the wireless thing work on your {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , isn't that an ethernet connection or is that a phone ? +PhD B: Uh , that 's an ethernet connection . +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's going next door . +Undergrad D: Yeah {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no I 'm a I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I ain't joking here . +Grad A: We jus +Undergrad D: I 'm serious , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . No , no , absolutely , that 's the right way to do it . T to have it uh , just {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It 's very convenient especially if Dan happens to be sitting at that end of the table to not have to run down here and {disfmarker} and look in the thing every so often , +PhD B: Yeah . And given {disfmarker} given that we 've got a wireless {disfmarker} that we 've got a {disfmarker} we got the field . +Undergrad D: but just have the {disfmarker} It 's right there . +PhD B: Right . +Undergrad D: Right ? The antenna 's right there , +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: right outside the {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't know . +Undergrad D: Y I mean , we need {disfmarker} obviously need to clear this with ACIRI but , uh , how tough can that be ? There {disfmarker} it you 'd {disfmarker} all you need 's web access , isn't it ? +PhD B: W we don't need X access +Undergrad D: In {disfmarker} in theory . +PhD B: but I mean that 's fine . That 's {disfmarker} that 's what it does , +Undergrad D: OK , +PhD B: yeah . +Undergrad D: great , great . +Grad A: Um , +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: right , so it 's just a question of getting a laptop and a wireless modem . +PhD B: With a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} w +Undergrad D: No , and he {disfmarker} he had , reque @ @ {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my proposal is you have a laptop . +PhD B: No . Yeah . I do ! +Undergrad D: You don't ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: If {disfmarker} if we bought you the thing would you mind using it with i the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I would love to but I 'm not sure if my laptop is compatible with the wave LAN thing they 're using . +Undergrad D: Really ? +Grad A: To {pause} Mac . +PhD B: Well Apple has their own thing , right ? +PhD C: He 's {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Your new one ? +Grad A: Airport . +Undergrad D: I 'm sorry ? +PhD B: Apple has their own thing . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I thought it just came through a serial p or an Ethernet port . +PhD B: Yeah , I think what {disfmarker} I think you {disfmarker} I think it just plug plugs in a PC card , so you could probably make it run with that , but . +Grad A: The question is , is there an Apple driver ? +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} e +PhD B: Yeah , I 'm sure . I imagine there is . But {disfmarker} uh anyway there are {disfmarker} there are abs there are a bunch of machines at ICSI that have those cards +Undergrad D: But the two t +PhD B: and so I think if w if it doesn't {disfmarker} we should be able to find a machine that does that . I {disfmarker} I mean I know that doesn't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't the important people have those little blue VAIOs that {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Well , uh , b that {disfmarker} to me that 's a whole nother . That 's a whole nother issue . +Postdoc E: Hmm . Hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: The {disfmarker} the idea of con convincing them that we should use their network i is fairly straight forward . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad D: The idea of being able to walk into their office and say , "" oh , can I borrow your machine for a while "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a non - starter . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Undergrad D: That {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think that 's gonna work . So , I mean , either {disfmarker} either we figure out how to use a machine somebody already {disfmarker} in the group already owns , {vocalsound} a a and the idea is that if it 's it perk , you know , it 's an advantage not {disfmarker} not a disadvan {comment} {vocalsound} or else we {disfmarker} we literally buy a machine e exactly for that purpose . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Absolutely . Yeah . +Undergrad D: Certainly it solves a lot of the problems with leaving a monitor out here all the time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not a big fan of doing things to the room that make the room less attractive for other people , +Grad A: Right . +Undergrad D: right ? Which is part of the reason for getting all this stuff out of the way +Grad A: Yeah . +Undergrad D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , so a monitor sitting here all the time you know people are gonna walk up to it and go , "" how come I can't get , you know , Pong on this "" or , whatev +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Right . I 've {disfmarker} I 've borrowed the IRAM VAIO Sony thingy , +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: and I don't think they 're ever gonna want it back . +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: You 're kidding ! +Undergrad D: Well , the next conference they will . +Grad A: So . Sure . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +Grad A: But that does mean {disfmarker} so we can use that as well . +Undergrad D: Well , uh , the {disfmarker} certainly , u you should give it a shot first See whether you you can get compatible stuff . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Undergrad D: Uh , ask them what it costs . Ask them if they have an extra one . Who knows , they might have an extra {vocalsound} hardware s +PhD B: I 'd trade them a flat panel display for it . Yeah . +PhD C: What is the , um , projector supposed to be hooked up to ? +Undergrad D: Good . Uh , the , uh {disfmarker} Tsk . It 's gonna be hooked up to all sorts of junk . There 's gonna be actually a {disfmarker} a plug at the front that 'll connect to people 's laptops so you can walk in and plug it in . And it 's gonna be con connected to the machine at the back . So we certainly could use that as {disfmarker} as a constant reminder of what the VU meters are doing . +PhD B: Huge VU meters . +Undergrad D: So people sitting here {comment} are going {vocalsound} "" testing , one , two , three "" ! +PhD C: But I mean , that 's another {disfmarker} that 's another possibility that , you know , solves {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: It {disfmarker} a +PhD B: Yeah . +Undergrad D: Yeah . +PhD B: That 's an end +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I think the idea of having a control panel it 's {disfmarker} that 's there in front of you is really cool . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I think and uh , having {disfmarker} having it on wireless is {disfmarker} is the neatest way {disfmarker} neatest way to do it . +Undergrad D: R +Grad A: I had {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: As long as you d as l as long as you 're not tempted to sit there and f keep fiddling with the volume controls going , "" can you talk a bit louder ? "" +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I had actually earlier asked if I could borrow one of the cards to do wireless stuff +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: and they said , "" sure , whenever you want "" . So I think it won't be a problem . +PhD B: Oh , cool . OK . +Undergrad D: And {disfmarker} and it 's a {disfmarker} a PCMCIA card , right ? +Grad A: Yep . +Undergrad D: PC card , +Grad A: PC card . +Undergrad D: so you can have a slot , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Undergrad D: right ? In your new machine ? +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} it really come down to the driver . +Undergrad D: Is it with s +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , I mean , and if {disfmarker} and if his doesn't work , as I said , we can use the PC . +Undergrad D: Right , i it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll work {disfmarker} It 'll work the first time . I {disfmarker} I trust Steve Jobs . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: Um , +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +PhD B: well , that sounds like a d good solution one way or the other . +Grad A: So Jim is gonna be doing wiring and you 're gonna give some thought to cabinets ? +Undergrad D: Uh , y yeah . +Grad A: Great . +Undergrad D: We {disfmarker} we need to {vocalsound} figure out what we want . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: We 'd {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: Hey , what are those green lights doing ? +Grad A: They 're flashing ! +PhD B: Uh - oh ! Uh - oh ! Does that {disfmarker} it means {disfmarker} it means it 's gonna explode . No . +Undergrad D: Cut the red wire , the red wire ! +PhD B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: When people talk , it {disfmarker} they go on and off . +PhD B: This {disfmarker} So again , Washington wants to equip a system . Our system , we spent ten thousand dollars on equipment not including the PC . However , seven and a half thousand of that was the wireless mikes . Uh , +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: using {disfmarker} using these {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: And it {disfmarker} and the f the five thousand for the wires , so if I 'm gonna do {disfmarker} No . +PhD B: Yeah , +Undergrad D: It 's a joke . +PhD B: that 's true +Undergrad D: I have to do {disfmarker} +PhD B: but we haven't spent that , right ? But once we {disfmarker} once we 've done the intellectual part of these , uh , we can just knock them out , right ? +Grad A: Cheap . +PhD B: We can start {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} you can make a hundred of them or something . +Undergrad D: Oh , of the {disfmarker} of the boards ? Yeah , yeah , sure , right . +PhD B: And then we could {disfmarker} Washington could have a system that didn't have any wireless but would had {disfmarker} what 's based on these +Undergrad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and it would cost {disfmarker} +Grad A: A PC and a peanuts . +Undergrad D: Peanuts . +PhD B: PC and two thousand dollars for the A - to - D stuff . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD B: And that 's about {disfmarker} cuz you wouldn't even need the mixer if you didn't have the {disfmarker} Oh th {vocalsound} the P Z +Undergrad D: Right . +PhD B: P Z Ms cost a lot . But anyway you 'd save , on the seven {disfmarker} seven or eight thousand for the {disfmarker} for the wireless system . So actually that might be attractive . +Undergrad D: Right . +Grad A: Good . +PhD B: OK , I can move my thumb now . +Postdoc E: That 's a great idea . +Undergrad D: What ? +Postdoc E: It 's nice {disfmarker} it 's nice to be thinking toward that . +Undergrad D: Oh , I thought like if we talked softer the disk lasts longer . +Grad A: Well , actually shorten {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: There 's a speech compression program that works great on things like this , cuz if the dynamic range is low it encodes it with fewer bits . And so most of the time no one 's talking so it shortens it dramatically . But {vocalsound} if you talk quieter , the dynamic range is lower and it will compress better . So . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Oh . Hmm . +Undergrad D: It also helps if you talk in a monotone . +Grad A: Probably . +Undergrad D: Constant volume all the time . +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . And shorter words . +Grad A: Shorter words . +PhD C: Now , shorter words wouldn't {disfmarker} would induce more dynamics , right ? You want to have {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , but if the words are more predictable . +Grad A: How about if you just go "" uh "" ? +PhD C: Huh . +Undergrad D: Uh . +Postdoc E: That 's a long word ! +Grad A: How do you spell that ? +Postdoc E: I don't know . +Grad A: OK , can you do one more round of digits ? Are we done talking ? +Undergrad D: Well it 's a choice {disfmarker} if we get a choice , let 's keep talking . +Grad A: Do we have more to talk about ? +Undergrad D: Sure . No , I 'm done . +PhD C: I 'm done . +Grad A: Are you done ? +Postdoc E: I 'm done , +Grad A: I 'm done . +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD C: Dan isn't but he 's not gonna say anything . +Undergrad D: But {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} there 's a problem {disfmarker} a structural problem with this though . You really need an incentive at the end if you 're gonna do digits again . Like , you know , candy bars or something , +Grad A: I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll remember to bring M and M 's next time . +Undergrad D: or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or or a little , uh {disfmarker} you know , toothbrushes like they give you at the d dentist . +PhD B: Mmm ! +Postdoc E: Or both . +Undergrad D: Or both . +PhD B: Sorry . +Undergrad D: Eric , you and I win . We didn't make any mistakes . +Grad A: It 's harder at the end than at the beginning . +Postdoc E: We don't know that for sure , do we ? +Grad A: I should have mentioned that s uh , to pause between lines but {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: No , I know . I 'm just giving you a hard time . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's only a hard time for the transcriber not for the speech recognizer . +PhD B: Tha - tha +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} I also think you said channel four +Grad A: Me . +Postdoc E: and I think you meant microphone four . And I think that 's a mistake . +Undergrad D: Very good . So Eric , you win . But the other thing is that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a colon for transcripts . And there shouldn't be a colon . Because see , everything else is stuff you fill in . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's been filled in for you . +Undergrad D: Right ? Automatically . +PhD B: But they 're in order ! +Undergrad D: But real +PhD B: They start , six , seven , eight , nine , zero , one , two , three , four , five , six , eight , nine . +Undergrad D: Where 'd they come from ? +PhD B: And they 're in order because they 're sorted lexically by the file names , which are {disfmarker} have the numbers in digits . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And so they 're actually {disfmarker} this is like all the {disfmarker} all utterances that were generated by speaker MPJ or something . +Postdoc E: Oh . +PhD B: And then within MPJ they 're sorted by what he actually said . +Grad A: Ugh ! I didn't know that . I should have randomized it . +Postdoc E: Wow . +PhD B: It doesn't matter ! It 's like {disfmarker} Cuz you said "" six , seven , eight "" . +Undergrad D: Well , we think it doesn't matter . +PhD B: We think it doesn't matter . If I {disfmarker} if not I {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: But the real question I have is that , why bother with these ? +Postdoc E: Oh , interesting . +Undergrad D: Why don't you just ask people to repeat numbers they already know ? Like phone numbers , you know , social security numbers . +PhD B: Cuz we have these writt written down , right ? +Grad A: Because {disfmarker} Right . +PhD B: That 's why {disfmarker} +Grad A: If we have it , uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad D: I know . +Postdoc E: Social security numbers . +Undergrad D: I kn +Grad A: we don't have to transcribe . +PhD B: You can {disfmarker} you can generate {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Bank account numbers . +Undergrad D: Credit card numbers , +Grad A: We don't have to tran +Undergrad D: yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , please . +PhD B: Yeah . That 's a great idea . +Postdoc E: Passport numbers . +Undergrad D: Yeah , so you just say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} say your credit card numbers , say your phone numbers , say your mother 's maiden name . +Grad A: Bet we could do it . +Undergrad D: You know pe +Postdoc E: Password to your account . +Undergrad D: people off the street . +Postdoc E: Go on . +Undergrad D: This {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually , this {disfmarker} I got this directly from another training set , from Aurora . +PhD B: Alright . +Grad A: So . We can compare directly . +PhD B: Looks good . Looks like there were no errors . +Postdoc E: I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the reason I made my mistake was {disfmarker} +Grad A: What ? +Postdoc E: Wa - was this {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: There were no {disfmarker} there were no direct driver errors , by the look of it , which is good . +Grad A: Great . +Postdoc E: Good news . +Grad A: OK , the mike 's off . +PhD B: So I 'm gonna stop it . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad A: Thank you all . +Undergrad D: Mony on the mike . +PhD B: Uh - oh . +","Grad A organized a session to check microphones and recording channels for a group including PhD C (Eric), Postdoc E (Jane), and Undergrad D. They tested individual microphones by speaking into them and ensuring the levels were correct. Several issues arose such as Jane's channel not appearing and discussions about microphone design and setup. + +They discussed plans for accurate labeling of equipment and contemplated borrowing a labeling machine. They talked about transcription and the recording process for upcoming meetings, emphasizing that the conversation wasn't necessary for everyone to attend. There were concerns about the microphone positioning and comfort, as well as the clarity of the recordings with background noises like the fan. + +A significant amount of time was spent on discussing transcription methods, tools, and conventions for formatting the transcripts. The group considered both hiring external transcription services and having linguistics students do it, weighing the costs and potential accuracy. + +They also discussed the practical aspects of putting together a website to organize the project's information. There was talk about making the recording setup presentable and some planning for the electronics needed for the project, like accommodating wiring and potentially constructing a cabinet to house the equipment neatly. + +The session ended with discussions on whether to implement a user interface in the room for monitoring levels, possibly using a laptop with a wireless card. The group deliberated over the logistics of borrowing or acquiring a machine for this purpose and securing the required hardware. The session concluded with the group considering running another round of digit recordings." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , Project Manager , I have something to tell you . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I have a little problems with my laptop . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And uh s s s so I had a little less time to complete . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: No , a little problem , uh {vocalsound} big problem . I just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: What was it , problem ? +User Interface: Um , it didn't work anymore . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The laptop ? +User Interface: The entire Windows uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It hang {disfmarker} hung . +User Interface: It it hung . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ha-ha . Oh . Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You're our Project Manager . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your project manager . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome to the conceptual design meeting +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: for Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , hello again . Uh it's uh the same as the last time . Uh uh , also this time there will be uh three presentations . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And we um must uh reach a decision on uh the remote control concepts . Um uh , and at the end , uh I uh , when I finish it off I have some uh input from uh a master class I uh {vocalsound} visited . {vocalsound} {gap} information . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: During lunch , yeah . +Marketing: Master . +User Interface: He's the master , yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the the the concepts on uh {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} where we uh must reach a decision on . Um uh , our {disfmarker} from uh are of two sorts . +Marketing: Master of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Components concepts and user interface concepts . Uh , the first one is uh really about the the the the the total package uh with uh {disfmarker} Well , we have decided to do a {disfmarker} do the uh {disfmarker} with a touch-screen that must be a case around it so uh it won't be uh uh as breakable . Uh how how about the energy ? Can you uh can you reload it or uh just have batteries which you must exchange ? Uh , the user interface concept . Uh , with the type and uh the the supplements . So uh where to put what button . {vocalsound} And uh uh I would say uh {disfmarker} Jans , can you begin ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At the end , uh {disfmarker} I will take notes uh and at the end of the minutes uh will uh be at the shared folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , let me see . I think it's this one . Ha . +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh , well , I'll be talking about the components . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , what I did was I reviewed previously used items uh by uh two two uh different uh age groups . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh below forty five and above . And uh I just uh watch what the differences are and I checked uh , well , what what d do we want , and {gap} how can we uh d aim a at uh the target group . Well uh what I found was that a senior um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} senior citizens uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ye Ah , it's {vocalsound} it's okay . +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They , well , they like more the {disfmarker} they like the traditional materials , like wood and and such more . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wood and chrome . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh uh they like uh straightforward shapes . Um , uh they they they they like luxurious uh styles , where whereas the young and dynamic , they like a more uh soft materials . Think of the Teletubbies , for instance . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh , soft and fluffy and colourful and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh , shapes are curved and round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y y you get {vocalsound} the picture . And uh they like sports and gaming , and that gives them uh the vitality . Uh , so w well uh , firs +Project Manager: One one little question . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um about the the material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh a soft material for a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'll I'll get to that . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you'll see . Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , well f first off , let's start start with the energy . W I uh I had a choice between uh a few different uh sources . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But uh the two basic sources that I found were the best possible were the battery uh versus kinetic . Uh kinetic , that's when you move something , then uh it gets energy . I figured , well that's ki kinda high-tech , when when you have a remote control that well , when you pick it up , it has power . That would be actually very nice , uh I figured . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well , we could also use a battery , that's a bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but when the power gets low , you have to shake it or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah , you c just you have to shake it around a little bit . +Marketing: Uh , and uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then then it d then it has some more uh energy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well , y you could just go for a battery . Or you can go for both ? +User Interface: Oh , have you considered the option of using a solar panel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I actually did . But uh the thing is about solar panel is you have to have l uh light . Well , sunlight preferably . +User Interface: W {gap} nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , and you you could you could use normal light , but uh you wouldn't get the same amount of energy that you would from a battery or something . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for uh ultimate b uh {vocalsound} n uh use of uh solar panels , you could actually use uh {disfmarker} you could use uh solar panels , but uh you ha you'd have to implement them into uh the remote control , leaving you uh a bit less space for the interface . +Marketing: Mm yeah . It's too less space . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} so i i it it wo what's actually {disfmarker} I I c just in f I've figured it out that well , uh seeing that you'll always be uh within the l uh distance of T_V_ , and the {disfmarker} from T_V_ there comes a a a whole bunch of light . So it would actually power itself uh from a T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well you just take up all the space , and you wouldn't uh have the full amount of power actually used . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you prefer kinetic ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} I I prefer kinetic because it's uh {disfmarker} well , the costs aren't that much higher , and um , ju just a bit more high-tech than than a normal battery . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but you don't move a a remote control too much . +Industrial Designer: I mean , if {disfmarker} No , but uh d Well , you pick it up and you press buttons and y well , you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's enough to to keep the energy level uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well uh actually it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it it {disfmarker} if it isn't , you just shake it a bit and and add add with power up again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , what l what Jarek said , you could you could use a battery that you'd just keep it on the recharging whenever it moves . And for rest , you'd just add juice on the battery . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And when the battery doesn't work , I usually shake it too . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like slamming on it . {vocalsound} It's exactly the same . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so that {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh well , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: f furthermore , you you {disfmarker} we {gap} {disfmarker} uh checked uh the cases . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We have uh different options uh concerning the cases . You ha I {disfmarker} you sim uh you simply add a basic uh standard uh model uh {disfmarker} it was kind of square and uh I figured that's a bit boring . So you you {disfmarker} we could go for uh the single curved or the double curved . Um , single curve , it's just a {disfmarker} well , uh , you know , it's just uh a nice curve . Or but but you could go in a in an double curves . And that's {gap} like several different dimensions . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That gives you an whole new uh effec +Project Manager: Dynamic dynamic look ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that gives you a younger and uh more high-tech look , I f I figured . But , that uh we'll discuss later . +Marketing: But , are you going to draw it ? +Industrial Designer: What ? +User Interface: Th th yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You want me to draw in three-D_ ? +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , I c I can't imagine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , yeah , I ca I ca I could I could show you . I could show you . +Marketing: I can't imagine how how how it looks like . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh let's say y uh you uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's say that's your standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit your d standard design . But you could actually go like uh something like this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh in three-D_ effect you could go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So y you you just {disfmarker} Yeah , this is a {disfmarker} this {vocalsound} bit uh difficulty in {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't take a major in art . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But but you could have uh uh a whole new uh the back back the the the depth , you could you could uh just play around a bit with . +Marketing: Oh , okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You you don't have to use standard uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: A little artistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you could {disfmarker} y It leaves more space for creativity . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh that might be an idea , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} just a {disfmarker} Well , furthermore , uh well , uh plastic versus rubber ? You {disfmarker} We could choose uh what uh what's better , plastic um or rubber . I I ch prefer rubber because it feels uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's soft . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's soft and it's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like soft . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the material the younger people want uh , ain't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah I mean uh plastic uh is {disfmarker} Plastic also has that cheap feeling to it , {vocalsound} like plastic uh {disfmarker} Your your {disfmarker} I usually associate plastic with uh something that's cheap . Uh that's maybe just me , but {disfmarker} Uh , we could uh uh , oh , talk about it later . Uh furthermore , buttons . Uh traditional uh or a touch screen . Well , we discussed it in a previous meeting , so I figured I'll just leave it at the L_C_D_ . And uh chip set , well uh if we are going to use traditional buttons , we could go uh with a simple chip set . But uh if we decide to go on a n uh um L_C_D_ screen , we would use an uh {disfmarker} we have to use an a advanced chip set . And that would bring uh the necessary costs with with it . So that's something we th have to keep in mind . If it isn't uh manageable uh budget-wise , we'd have to go over to uh to sim to simple buttons . +Marketing: Well , I think uh we're going to sell tell {disfmarker} ten millions of them . So uh I bet a big company in uh Korea or Taiwan , like uh Samsung , can give us uh a big discount on the chips , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , probably . +Marketing: U usually , chips are uh aren't more expensive than one dollar . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably , but {disfmarker} But uh yeah , that's that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That that shouldn't be a real issue , I think . +Industrial Designer: That shouldn't shouldn't be uh that big a issue . I'll I'll I'll just add , uh uh I put a big summary here , so we could discuss it a bit . Uh {gap} what i what are your ideas {gap} concerning battery versus kinetic ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I think you should use kinetic as a back-up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you you should {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , a combination . +User Interface: A combination , yeah . +Industrial Designer: A combination . Uh , {gap} you use the battery and w charge it up with kinetic . When you pick it up , it charges up . +Marketing: Yeah . Like an uh aku uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Acu uh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , I know . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Just like the watch from Seiko . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , {gap} . Yeah . +User Interface: Psycho-kinetic . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I con Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what do you think ? +Project Manager: I I uh I would prefer uh both uh too . +Industrial Designer: You agree ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Both ? +Marketing: Combine them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh , well that would bring the m m some more costs , but I mean the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who cares , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the Project Manager's problem . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Buy a fifty cents battery and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . Fifty cent . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifty cent uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , why doesn't {disfmarker} And then we have single-curved versus double-curved . +User Interface: Well maybe I have something in my presentation to uh to cope with that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . No , we'll we'll just wait and uh {disfmarker} Uh , plastic versus rubber . Any ideas ? +Marketing: Rubber . +Project Manager: Rubber . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , rubber ? +User Interface: Um , isn't possible to make combination with kind of rubber is {gap} or bendable remotes where you've got a {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or do you think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I figured it will be m rather than hard {disfmarker} +User Interface: Rubber casing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Nah , rubber c uh this is a casing , yeah . Rubber casing , +Marketing: Rather hard . +Industrial Designer: because well if you use an uh d a touch-screen , uh it's just a casing uh around it . So um , you could go for plastic , but I figured {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well d Maybe I can ask it right now the question that I have . +Industrial Designer: I I I would choose rubber . +User Interface: Uh , is it possible uh of {disfmarker} is it necessary to make a touch-screen square ? It isn't , I think , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Well , m I don't know . No . +Marketing: Well , I think that touch-screens are generally square . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's the case you put around it that makes the shape . +User Interface: We're {disfmarker} We put fashion in electronics , +Industrial Designer: That isn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: so maybe we can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah okay , but if you have a square uh L_C_D_ screen , and you put a case around it that has uh like bulbs or that that covers part of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would cover it . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That that would solve the problem . +User Interface: Oh , yeah . Okay , I I get it . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's custom customisable and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} Uh uh so uh so what are the opinions ? Uh rubber or plastic ? I I I prefer rubber . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Me too . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you too ? +User Interface: That's good . +Industrial Designer: You sure ? You {gap} you you seemed to hesitate a bit . +User Interface: Well , as long a as long as it's it's uh it's firm , and you don't uh {disfmarker} it's not bendable or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: I th I think that goes too far . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it it shouldn't it shouldn't flop over when you hold it in your hand uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No , that that that that's gonna {disfmarker} The the chip set will hold it firm in place , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and uh and and uh and a L_C_D_ screen also {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might even bounce back when you drop it on the floor . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it {vocalsound} m might it might . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , tra uh traditional versus L_C_D_ , well I figured we we all set on that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh , then also the simple versus advanced . Well I figure if we go for L_ L_C_D_ , we we should have the advanced . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that shouldn't be a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well that's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Uh , you're welcome . +Marketing: Can I uh do my thing ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Do your thing , Tim . +Marketing: It uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do your thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bring it on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Expert map . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh {disfmarker} Last week +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I went to uh Paris and Milan for some trend-watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: For marketing . Our research and development department and I went to Paris and Milan . In Paris and Milan , we uh asked different people , uh differing in age and in income , uh the amount of money to spend , um {vocalsound} what they like in design uh and material nowadays . Findings . Our main audience , uh so that's people below forty , uh prefer the following . At first , the colours of fruit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very basic colours , like Janus explained . Um , fresh colours , uh green , red , uh strawberry red , uh yellow , banana yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um , considering material , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . They like spongy material , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Spongeball . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} yeah a sponge-ball . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like a s soft material . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Janus m uh mentioned it also . I think he did some uh some findings himself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , the Teletubbies sh {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You wer you weren't in Paris ? {vocalsound} Okay . Like this . Like big uh g flashy colours . Fresh . +Project Manager: Flashy . Yeah . +Marketing: It's nice , I think . Okay , our secondary audience , uh people above forty a forty years in age , they like the dark traditional colours . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh materials like wood that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but wood is not a not a material you {disfmarker} which you build a a remote control of . +Industrial Designer: Well , you could . You you could . +Marketing: No n j just j just a w +Project Manager: Yeah but {vocalsound} never seen one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll float . +Marketing: No , okay , but just just a wooden uh look . +Project Manager: Case . Oh , a wooden look , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like uh you have those fake uh fake panels on the floor . +User Interface: Tables . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} that isn't wood anyway , but {disfmarker} Okay ? {vocalsound} But , that's our secondary audience . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , uh we decided to take mm yeah the people below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , that {disfmarker} this doesn't apply . 'Kay , the third . Uh , there're some overall thoughts about new remote controls . They have to look fancy . Um , they should be technological in innovative . That means uh there have to be fancy things in . Uh , and easy to use . But that's common . My personal preferences . We have to aim at a mu at the {gap} main audience . And uh , therefore use fresh colours . +Project Manager: Would you prefer uh uh {gap} that you can choose the colour of your uh remote control or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I'll I'll come to that in a second point . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , think about removable covers , as seen in mobile telephon telephone market . To customise your own remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like the Nokia uh the removable covers , uh just put a red on it and go to the shop and buy a green one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Uh , a third , material being used uh could well be stuff like rubber . Um , two advantages . Uh , it fits within the current market trends . And uh it adds safety to your remote uh when you drop it . So {disfmarker} Uh to come back to your question , I think uh and the people in Milan and Paris also think that uh the rubber should be pretty hard . Like uh seen on regular mobile phones . Actually , they have a lot in common . The phones and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , I actually saw a phone that you could use as a remote , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe you could use your remote as a phone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hey . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: There are numbers on it , so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That might be a next step . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , in my second sheet of personal preferences , uh we have to reconsider the speech function {vocalsound} uh recognition . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , it's very innovative . Innovative . +Project Manager: So that you say um S_P_S_S_ , and it goes to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You you can see that the market is just screaming for new technologies , like speak {disfmarker} uh speech recognition and stuff . But , we have to keep the cost in uh in mind , but it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Twelve fifty uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it it can be uh very expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay , second . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , building games like Snake or Tetris {vocalsound} to amuse the younger users . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , also the link with uh mobile phones . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't use that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} th games when you watching television , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} No , okay . But you don't use games when you're d when you're making a telephone call . It's just the same . +User Interface: When your parents are watching some boring program , you can take the remote and do something else . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: When you're at college . +Project Manager: You take your remote control with you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You take your uh remote with you to school . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No . You al {vocalsound} you also take {vocalsound} uh t {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you take your IPac and go uh play games . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Well , I do that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay , and um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And third , I stick with it , {vocalsound} the log-in functionality uh with the slogan , take parental control to a new dimension . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ooh . S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh great {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: In {disfmarker} Okay . Um the interface contents . Well that's a just simple PowerPoint mock-up I want to m make it more as dynamic for you so I'll draw there . But , the main concept is um take one big touch screen . Um , always display the primary buttons clear and visible . Maybe even li like this with uh {vocalsound} u uses of a lot of space . And uh make the menu structure changeable . So if you press um system , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , well m multiple system options can , maybe five or ten or or one , can fit in . Or maybe even a step further when you want to um t um have some other options that are not programmable with one horizontal button . And um other buttons can may be displayed here if that's necessary . And um well , how do {disfmarker} uh do we want to look at uh uh f um {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound} Does a remote look {disfmarker} Well , it's {disfmarker} you've gotta hold it in one hand . So um the middle like all remotes have to be in a little bit small , so you can put it in inside your hands . And some remotes you can use with your thumb . But I think that's too difficult for this one . So you can make it s a little broader . Yeah . And here ? And maybe use your thumb on the on the main buttons . And use your other hands on the menu structure . So here are gonna be the program buttons . One , two {vocalsound} , three , four , et cetera . And the the volume control and program control maybe . And , down here , um , I added , this could be one uh big L_C_D_ . Um , the menu structure . So you can use it in uh in this way . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One thing you've gotta keep in mind , keep the remote clear of too much functions at the same time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , {vocalsound} know that if you are changing the menu structure here , um {disfmarker} And well , I still believe you should keep displaying the buttons . But if you're programming the colour of the T_V_ , do not display twenty other options that are possible . Just keep it as simple as uh as possible . And do not use too many levels . Do not have to select a screen first and then brightness and then colour and un-plus , and um push plus twenty times . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But just the um uh just in one button if possible . And um , well , you kn you all know the T_V_ levels . Um , channel one , two . And when you get to n to uh to ten , ye and want to go back , uh well you have a problem . Just m most most modern T_V_s , you {gap} {disfmarker} you press one zero , and it goes to ten . And else , to one and through after that . So the s a button less . And um , things like teletext , put them in the menu . Things like um um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , what do you think about a back-and-forth come-up uh button ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah w Yeah , I I find I must trying to uh tell it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} L like in uh internet explorer . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is uh volume plus and minus ? And this is program uh plus and minus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but does it {disfmarker} that is for uh going from four to five . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: But if you go from two to eight , and you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if you're watching Studio Sports on uh on seventeen , and your wife is watching some soap on two {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , and on two . That you can switch switch easy . +User Interface: Well yes , I think that's a good idea . But um , well m my preference would to be put it in the menu structure . +Marketing: Yeah it is . Yeah . +User Interface: And if you're using that button a lot of times , well of course the menu will still be displayed on the screen . You just don't have to play games uh in-between . But if you're really switching between two channels , you won't have time uh to d use the other options . +Marketing: Mm no . +User Interface: Um , yeah already already told that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Yeah . That's my conclusion . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} I think we can discuss a little about the the three uh kind of revolutionary things uh Tim uh came with . The parental control , the games , and the voice recognition . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There's n not uh too much decision on uh that one so uh {disfmarker} I think that parental control is a good function to uh to put in the remote . I don't know how you think about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I agree , just put it in the menu structure somewhere . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , yeah um system properties , um parental control . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} What I see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How I see it is you put it on the the remote and then you have like a Windows log-on screen with parents , children . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Something like that . +User Interface: Um , w well , yeah . +Marketing: And w when you want to use the parents uh option , you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It it has to be fast . You don't want to to go down and watch the news at eight o'clock and turn it on and wait twenty seconds for for uh the log-on screen and then remember your code and all kinds of settings . +Marketing: Yeah , ok +Project Manager: No but I think most people uh find it uh much more important that their children don't watch uh sex or violence uh on the television , and uh wait uh ten or fifteen seconds longer , so they can uh finally watch it uh because of that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Why {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . You c may use {disfmarker} like when there's uh X_P_ , uh a simple log-on , d you just push uh one or two or three . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Pu push parents . +User Interface: And if you push parents , then {disfmarker} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} then then then you have to uh go to three-digit uh log-in . +User Interface: Yeah . To log in . Yeah . And if you puts a ye +Marketing: Like two one three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: And it's in . +User Interface: And if you w you push p children , uh you don't have to uh log in , but you can only watch uh children's channels or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It automatically goes {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know if it's worth uh the time and effort we are going to spend on it . Because well it's a simple function , but it's gonna take a lot of resources and a lot of time um to programming it . Because you'll have to start working with the profiles and such . And I'm not sure if it's actually worth uh investing that much time and effort into it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well I think that's a b there's a big market for it , +Industrial Designer: I don't know what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because uh you {disfmarker} Yeah , you read many times in magazines same kind of stuff , and you heard on the news that uh that he Yeah , they believe that children uh are influenced by the television , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm yeah . V violent T_V_ . +Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} Well , we're we're aiming uh to uh below uh forty uh years . But there are a lot of uh people will below forty who have uh children in young age uh who who want um to uh not watch uh violent or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , maybe um some idea on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make through a remote as it is , but make an option to insert profiles , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause if my grandad would buy this remote , he wouldn't want to bother with all all the all the {gap} uh things to do . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Just make it an option in menu , ins install powerful profiles or something . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a that's a better idea ? +Marketing: Yeah , w It just has to be w when it's deliver out of the store , it has to be just simple and plain . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: But if you want to install it personally uh {disfmarker} If I got kids , and I could choose between uh two remote controls . One uh w with parent control and one without , and I would would buy the one with . +Project Manager: Yeah , with and one without . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , b well , still some question I have about how to incorporate those ones . +Marketing: I th Yeah . +User Interface: You're thinking about some channels they uh cannot see , but well , {vocalsound} I I {vocalsound} when I think , oh yeah , for the f for all the standard channels , and only for maybe after ten o'clock uh in the evening violent films and movies uh will come +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh maybe maybe some some timing uh will be uh needed {vocalsound} instead of uh of channels , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: because if you're watching uh , I don't know , you're in the {disfmarker} at day uh , cartoons will come up m on maybe Friday night . {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe it can work with show view . Uh , you you can control your video recorder with show view . +User Interface: {gap} {gap} +Project Manager: Uh , when you tick in a number , it will uh start and end uh recording . But maybe there's some option that uh that t uh the kind of show view numbers are violent , and that they are blocked out . +User Interface: Yeah , the disadvantage vantage is that someone will has to send all the show-view numbers of the programs that they {gap} remotes and edit it all , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: will have to decide uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but yeah but that isn't possible . +User Interface: That isn't possible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well , if you want to {disfmarker} I i i if we in incorporate uh the parental control , uh let's say we do , and and well whatever , cho uh child just goes up to the T_V_ and presses up {vocalsound} for instance . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well uh , nob nobody's stopping the child from uh well checking uh the channel . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Well , yeah you could say if parental control is only {disfmarker} it it'll go from fourteen to sixteen with the page-up then , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that {disfmarker} Well , I'm not sure because um for that to happen , you d you will have to receive a signal from the uh remote control , so it would , yeah , have to be constant uh constant signalling . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: What m what may be better is to incorporate an uh a separate device that uh that you can program with the remote control . And that uh provides parental control , for instance . And that's just an optional uh device . So there's n that's {disfmarker} there's {gap} {disfmarker} uh besides uh the remote control , you'll have a separate uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: I wouldn't put it in an optional device . That that then then then it becomes too much , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: If we do it , we we must do it in a kind of ways that like a profile , a parent profile , and a family profile , and otherwise . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on a separate menu uh option . +Marketing: And and you know w uh when you install another device , uh children can still go up to the T_V_ , p pop open uh the thing and and and g +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . That's true , +Marketing: go to a channel . +Industrial Designer: but uh at same instant , same happens when uh you have remote control . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah of course . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But , only difference is uh {vocalsound} the uh the people buying the remote control will now get the f added feature of parental control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and those people wouldn't uh necessary want it . +Marketing: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , you {disfmarker} you'd be +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But it's just an an added feature feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And what do you uh guys think of the games in the voice recognition ? I personally think that that becomes too much . +User Interface: Yeah , well yeah , I {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's more like it gets you to the functionality , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mail too from management that it's very popular to use voice recon recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But I don't think when you're watching T_V_ uh , hearing loud noises from the T_V_ , someone screaming {vocalsound} one , and you f the channel switches , uh {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , like f voice recognition is too much , I think . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And games ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} games . It doesn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I can see games happening . Yeah . +User Interface: W you can put it on chip anyway , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That would {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} As long as it's {disfmarker} isn't a primary feature of the remote , +Marketing: That that doesn't c that doesn't co +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that that doesn't cost a lot of extra resources , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . So that will uh {disfmarker} that that that must be in it , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that will be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . So the games uh are in it . The voice recognition are not . And the parental control are +User Interface: Optional in +Project Manager: optional ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's in it . But too ma I I think so , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: But how we do it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think also it's a good idea , buts very difficult to incorporate . So we should make it too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is t some menu uh function , you choose parental control , and maybe four files will emerge from menu where put it on . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But uh how how it's gonna work uh uh will f be a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Uh , but uh will there uh uh {disfmarker} Like the first idea uh from uh {disfmarker} You can buy it without and uh with parental contr control ? Or are we going to put it in and uh just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Well {disfmarker} Ye I I think best would be uh to put it in and {vocalsound} make it an menu option . +Marketing: To put {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can put on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to put it in always . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . And you can just uh s when you buy it , you can select um personal preference , parental control on , and the password or something . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well , I don't know . I I figure if you had two different remotes , you could bo choose one with uh well uh uh a receiver in it . So you could actually easily uh build in uh parental control . But it would would be uh more expensive . So , a and that that way uh you could make cheap model and a expensive model . Could ma make the uh {gap} simple model and the deluxe model , uh for instance . +User Interface: Oh , it's a p Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but T_V_s aren't capable of sending . +Industrial Designer: Yes they are . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? I thought they were just +Project Manager: Yeah , you yo +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you you have some T_V_s {gap} any {disfmarker} +Marketing: a able to receive . Yeah , some . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most often not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That is true , that is true . +User Interface: Well , maybe you just have to restrict it to what programs , where the parent says , you cannot watch channel seven , nine , and ten , and you cannot watch all channels after ten o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And there's just some little uh clock in the remote . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you could you could easily you could easily you could easily {gap} to the mote control . +Marketing: Yeah , j just some rules . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you still have the problem about uh the television itself . +User Interface: No , no , it's very simple . There uh th I h I've seen some of {gap} remotes who have a clock in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah yeah . +User Interface: So , the remote does doesn't transmit when it's after twelve clock . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . But , on the T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: at least my T_V_ , is a is a compartment which you can press . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And there are buttons uh behind it which you can use , if you d if you don't if you don't have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , that's {disfmarker} To put it very blunt , that's not our problem . Just have um the parents buy uh some glue and uh {disfmarker} It's not not a part of the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is true . Yeah , that is true . +User Interface: You have to f Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could you could go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , or make it ourselves very diffic +Industrial Designer: uh that that would actually make uh things a lot more easy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could just blame it on television and uh make it their problem . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I figured {disfmarker} I figure we could do that . Yeah , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm not sure what marketing thinks about it , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or j Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I have to uh {vocalsound} consult my legal advisor about it . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So uh I think we have decided on the things that {disfmarker} Uh from Janus , the energy , the combination between battery and kinetic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The case will be double-curved and uh rubber , in a fr flashy fruity colour uh that {disfmarker} with cover is removable . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons will be uh touch-screen . Uh but there may not be too many buttons . And in the the menu structure , uh there must not to be uh {disfmarker} Five minutes to go . Uh , too uh too many levels . And uh it must be easy to use . The parental control will be incorporated , but it must be not too complex . And the games {gap} are in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we have uh we have decided uh , okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Consensus . +Project Manager: Uh , little more . +Marketing: Oh . Oh . I I have one thing left . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe for uh Jerome . +User Interface: Yeah ? I'm listening . +Marketing: Um , the views . Maybe it's uh handy to build in an expert view and a simple view . +Project Manager: Like a like a moat or s or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: User profile . +Marketing: Like at {disfmarker} In the experts view , you have a lot of more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have that in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: What I was thinking about is just a menu structure , when you don't use it is simple . +Project Manager: Yeah . You use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: And when you push uh system properties , uh entire list pops up with e ev all kind of f stuff you can program . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's already incorporated a little in that concept . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay . Fairly enough . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , you you could actually build in a function that you can program it yourself , for the more advanced users . +Marketing: Yeah , wh which buttons you like or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , which buttons do you want to in it . Because you can you can like build in a back-forward button , and uh some po somebody would just want to watch two channels . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Just leave the other numbers away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , you could you could m have people want uh want that . +Project Manager: We take it to the other meeting , okay ? I have a little w uh little chat to do +Marketing: Okay . Go on . +Industrial Designer: Ah , yeah , sure . +Project Manager: and uh then we uh finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A little chat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I went to uh a master class and uh uh two things uh are uh are uh {disfmarker} can come in handy uh for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: First thing uh is uh we talked about knowledge uh management . Knowledge engineering and uh uh the fact that uh that uh that the idea of knowledge , uh sharing and learning knowledge from other companies is {gap} uh like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's it's uh very hot at the moment , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's it's mostly for the management expert to to look what other uh +Marketing: Marketing . +Project Manager: marketing {disfmarker} or did I said management ? +Marketing: Management . +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Just talking about myself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's my function , to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} W {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What other companies uh had to uh also with the the the the marketing campaign when they put on a newer remote , just some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Import export . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som some bench-marker . +Project Manager: Uh , they're a ha they're at {disfmarker} Yeah , benchmarking , that's the word I saw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh couldn't uh {disfmarker} Okay , uh another uh thing is uh there were there there was a survey , and um uh it came out that um people like to buy things from a single large provider , instead of those who uh are partnering uh with us . So , we must uh we must bring it as if uh Real Reaction is uh is big company , uh a trustful company , and uh it has m +Marketing: How {disfmarker} I know a marketing name for our product . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: R_ th R_ to the third power . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: R_ three . Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I had a I had another idea to put uh uh the whole the whole idea of uh Real Reaction and uh uh uh a single brand and uh uh that kind of thing . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Project Manager: When you uh put on remote , you see a kind of a {disfmarker} just like when you telephone , you see a little uh animation . +User Interface: Uh , logo . Yeah ? +Marketing: Bling . +Project Manager: Real Reaction remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh with the with the with the motto , we put fashion in electronics . And then you go uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but it has to be like a split second , because {vocalsound} you have to put in a code also and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , you can show somebody a logo for point five seconds , they'll still remember it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . But w th the idea from this uh thing is that we must present it as a {disfmarker} as we are a a single large provider who will stand on our own . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And it it l linger on every time you see it . +Industrial Designer: Well , if you if you have the l L_C_D_ screen , you can {gap} you can uh have a small logo i uh at the bottom . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it could just stay there . +Marketing: That spins around like all the time . +Project Manager: Mm yep , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Very annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that spins around or something . +Project Manager: Also also . But we we are uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: It it's just like a uh globe in Internet Explorer . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah y yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , something like that . A small icon . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh think about that kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} It's ok For f +Project Manager: That's what they said in the master class . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh , for the next meeting , right ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: N {vocalsound} Uh , next meeting starts in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Who uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So uh maybe you can go to Paris and Milan uh {vocalsound} once again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who who gave you the master class ? +Project Manager: The master class ? +Marketing: Ronald Betenberg ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Franz Mehler's . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , very special , uh next uh session . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh idea that you uh {disfmarker} the the industrial uh development uh centre {vocalsound} and uh user interface uh will work together on a prototype . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh will drawing it on the SMARTboard . So that's a kinda new uh thing . And um , the marketing expert will uh will uh ke he will be keeping busy with the product uh evaluation . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: But the most uh specific instructions will be sent to you by email . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we're going to work together right now ? +User Interface: Stay here and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , the {disfmarker} well , uh dids this what I uh what I heard . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: In the master class . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not in the master class . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you uh just wait for the specific instructions and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} P_ . +Project Manager: But I think it was a very uh very good uh session , uh gentlemen . +User Interface: Ah , no new email . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Me too . +Project Manager: I will thank you all . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well thank you too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you . Thank you very much . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thank you too , lord . +Project Manager: Give me a good evaluation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Kay guys , lot of success . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Industrial Designer: M Aye ? Cheers . +Project Manager: Cheers . See you in a half hour . +Industrial Designer: Hey . +Project Manager: But keep an eye on your uh laptops for a real uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh I'm not sure if we uh we {disfmarker} Because I saw something about individual actions . +Project Manager: Yeah , but th there's there's still the my uh instructions that you will work together . +User Interface: Yeah . Here ? Or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's not my problem . +User Interface: Yeah . If you got a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bye-bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid manager . +Project Manager: The project manager always works alone . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} Do you have new email ? +User Interface: No . Don't get what's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +","**Executive Summary:** + +The meeting convened by the Project Manager of Real Reaction brought together various team members: a User Interface specialist, an Industrial Designer, and a member from Marketing. Initially, the exchange between the attendees was informal with greetings exchanged and minor personal issues such as a complaint from the User Interface specialist regarding laptop problems which impacted work completion. + +As the meeting transitioned to the primary agenda, the Project Manager outlined the need to reach decisions on concepts for a remote control. To enrich the discussion and bring valuable insights, the Project Manager mentioned attending a master class where vital information was obtained. The objective was to deliberate on components and user interface concepts for the new product. Specific decisions needed to include choices regarding the remote's energy source, physical case, materials, and functionalities. + +The Industrial Designer reviewed items preferred by different age groups, discovering that senior citizens favored traditional materials like wood and straightforward shapes, expressing luxury, while a younger demographic leaned towards softer materials and vibrant colors. He proposed options for the energy source, debating between batteries and kinetic energy, with solar panels deemed impractical due to space and effectiveness constraints. He suggested that the kinetic energy source, which could be powered by movement, could give the remote a high-tech appeal, even though its movement during normal use could be limited. + +The discussion moved to case design, debating between a basic design, single-curved or double-curved options. The Industrial Designer argued in favor of a more dynamic and high-tech look, which might appeal to younger users. They also discussed material choice, touching upon plastic versus rubber, with a preference for rubber material due to its softness and higher quality perception. + +Marketing made a compelling contribution by sharing insights from trend-watching trips to Paris and Milan, emphasizing the preferences of the target audience – specifically the liking for fresh, fruity colors and spongy materials, which aligned with findings from an R&D visit to those cities. Secondary audience preferences for traditional dark colors and materials were noted too. + +Marketing also proposed several cutting-edge features: a parental control with different profiles for viewing restrictions, integrating games like Snake or Tetris for entertainment, and considering speech recognition for advanced control. Though there was some skepticism regarding the feasibility and consumer interest in voice recognition, the games feature was seen as a delightful addition without requiring significant resources. + +A user interface design was presented by the expert, suggesting a touch screen with easily changeable and accessible primary buttons, with room for profiles and additional settings while maintaining a simplistic and user-friendly design. Moreover, the importance of avoiding clutter and excessive functionalities was emphasized. + +During the conclusion of the meeting, they debated handling the integration of parental controls into the product, landing on making it optional in the menu to maintain simplicity for those users who might not be interested in this feature. + +The Project Manager injected insight from the master class about knowledge management and the preference of consumers to buy from a large single provider, suggesting the marketing approach should portray Real Reaction as a significant, trustworthy entity. A product slogan, ""We put fashion in electronics,"" was coined, and the idea of branding the remote control upon startup was floated. + +In a brainstorming session, they debated advanced features like profiles, expert views, removable covers to customize the look of the remote control, and the innovative use of hard rubber. + +As the meeting concluded, the session was considered successful with an understanding among the team to gear up for the next meeting and follow up on specific tasks via email, working collaboratively on a prototype with further details to be communicated at a later stage. The Project Manager then reminded the associates to manage their laptops carefully before the gathering adjourned. + +**Detailed Summary:** + +The meeting began as a routine gathering, with the Project Manager welcoming the other team members, discussing the agenda that echoed a past meeting focused on conceptual designs for the ""Real Reaction"" remote control project. Given the Product Manager had recently acquired knowledge from attending a master class, this knowledge was shared to invigorate and steer the discussions. + +The Interface Designer shared practical issues with their laptop, which affected their work productivity but then moved to present the User Interface design concept. Prioritizing visibility and accessibility of primary buttons, they proposed a large touch screen with an adaptable menu structure, stressing simplicity and feature limitation to enhance usability. + +Advancing discussions touched on alternative energy sources for the remote control. The Industrial Designer proposed two primary sources: a traditional battery and a more avant-garde kinetic energy collector, which harnessed the energy derived from motion and minimal interaction such as shaking. The latter was considered more high-tech and preferable, though it proposed the minor challenge of providing sufficient energy merely through user interaction. + +In terms of aesthetics and physical design, preferences for curves and luxurious, dynamic looks were relayed—targeting a younger audience with a sophisticated yet playful design that involves the use of double curves and evokes a sense of motion and modernity. + +The choice of materials for the remote's case was debated, with rubber being the favored option due to its soft, warm, high-quality feel as opposed to plastic's cheaper impression. Rubber was also proposed to protect the touchscreen, making it less vulnerable to damage. + +For further distinction and customization, Marketing brought insightful data from field research, suggesting vibrant, fruity colors and materials that appeal to tactile senses, such as spongy textures, resonating with the tastes of a younger demographic. They introduced ideas such as detachable covers, akin to those in the mobile phone market, allowing users to personalize their remote controls. + +The Marketing team member advanced arguments for innovative features like parental control with varying user profiles, casual gaming integration for entertainment, and sophisticated voice recognition for functionality. Building on these concepts, the inclusion of basic versus advanced user modes was considered, allowing for tailored user experiences. + +Despite the ambitious nature of the suggestions, practical concerns and cost analysis led to selective decisions. The parental control feature was debated thoroughly, exploring various implementation strategies from simple password protection measures to complex programming challenges. It was concluded to include this feature but not to overcomplicate it, keeping in line with the principle of simplicity directed by user preference. + +To round off the delicate discussion on features and aesthetics, the Project Manager pushed for a branding strategy that underscored Real Reaction's capability as a significant operator and an innovative market leader. Ideas such as a welcoming animation displaying the company's logo upon start-up were exchanged to reinforce the brand identity and leave a lasting impression on end-users. + +As actionable steps, the Project Manager announced that a prototype would soon be in the works and collaboration with marketing would be foundational for product evaluation. Aesthetic and functional components of the remote were more or less agreed upon, and other features such as the game's integration were approved. + +Finally, the team was assigned to keep an eye on their emails for specific instructions related to the continuing development process, outlining the intersection of industrial design and user interface as pivotal for the prototype's success. Marketing was also tasked with keeping the project's overall vision aligned with the brand's image and consumer appeal. + +The meeting adjourned on a note of optimism, with the members acknowledging the session's productiveness and seemingly prepared to take on the next phase of the project with enthusiasm and clear direction." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Good afternoon . Hope you have good lunch . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Afternoon . Yeah , we had falafel . +Project Manager: Oh . Nice . And you ? +User Interface: Uh , yes , I had something similar but non-vegetarian . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So today is um our third meeting . It will be about the conceptual design {vocalsound} uh . If I come back to uh the minutes of the last meetings um . We decided not to go for speech recognition technologies because of some reasons and we are not decided about u the use of L_C_D_ screen on on the remote control because of costs . So maybe we cou wi will be able to clarify this this question to today . Uh at the end of the meeting we should take decision on that point . So I hope uh that your respective pr presentations uh will help us . So each of you have some presentatio presentation to perform um who starts ? +Marketing: Okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: So marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you are {disfmarker} you saved your y your presentation somewhere ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you're four ? +Marketing: Four , yeah . +Project Manager: Which is trend watch . {vocalsound} Okay . Mr Marketing Experts . +Marketing: Yeah that's me . +Project Manager: So {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . Well I investigate the preference more d I investigate deeper the preference of the users . Uh so the the current investigation th uh th uh sorry the current the n current trends ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} Well wha {vocalsound} what I found {disfmarker} um can you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Next slide ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Thank you . What I found in order of importance from less to more important is that people want an easy to use device . After they they want something new technologic technologically speaking , but the most {disfmarker} what they what they find more more interesting , more {disfmarker} or more important it's uh a fancy look and feel instead of uh instead of the current the current trend which was f the functional look and feel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now more more cool aspect , ma more {disfmarker} a cooler aspect uh rather than a device with many functions and many buttons with {disfmarker} instead of i instead of ha of a device which can do many things , a device which is pleasant to to watch , to see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh also {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} in in Euro in in Paris and and {vocalsound} Milan the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: in Paris and in Paris and Milan the the current trend of {gap} uh of clothes , furniture and all this all this fashion it's {vocalsound} it's fruit and the the the theme is fruit and vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And also {vocalsound} in the in the U_S_A_ the the current {disfmarker} the mor the most popular feeling it's it's a spongy . Spongy means eponge ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe we should we should think in in this direction , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: What what do you mean by {vocalsound} fruit and vegetables and spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What {disfmarker} you mean clothe +Industrial Designer: Spongy means it it's like sp +Marketing: Fruit vegetables is the the new {disfmarker} have you seen the last exposition of clothes in Milan ? +User Interface: No , I missed that one . +Marketing: Yeah , I I didn't miss an {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I didn't miss and I saw that the fruit , there are many fr pictures of fruits and vegetables in the clothes . +User Interface: Oh , they're {disfmarker} okay so they're not like dressed as a carrot they just have like pictures of fruit on , okay . +Marketing: No no , not not yet , not yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we're not gonna have a remote control in the shape of of a banana , +Marketing: So te textu textures , yeah . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Vegetable textures and all this kind . +Project Manager: Drawings of bananas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But what's your suggestion how we can have some shape like that on the remote ? +Project Manager: Well so this is in the next slide certainly . +Marketing: Uh no no , it's not . +Project Manager: It's not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which fruit are you thinking of ? +Marketing: And {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I ha I haven't thought of any particular fruit , but the general aspect of the of the remote control may may {disfmarker} could remind some kind of vegetable , some kind of instead of vegetable , some natur mm uh natural object or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But yeah it it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So maybe you maybe you can display a banana on the L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , so you want the remote control to be the shape of a fruit , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you want just some kind of like fruit logo on the {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Means buttons are in the shape of fruits , +Marketing: Yeah maybe the shape the shape {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: buttons are in the frape {disfmarker} shape of fruits or something , apple , banana , something like that . +Marketing: No , not n not not too much focus , not too much focu not n not too s not too similar to a fruit because next year the ten the trend the trend will be different . +Project Manager: Apple for channel one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we shouldn't be at re really attached to to the trend +User Interface: So something that looks half like a fruit and half like an elephant . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} For instance , yeah . African or as an elephant ? +Industrial Designer: That we can discuss afterwards {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm not , I'm not really sure if uh that would really appeal to everyone though , maybe just to fashion gurus , like maybe just like a little bit n a little fruit picture somewhere in the corner , but I don't know about uh I dunno how ergonomic a , an orange is . +Marketing: Well ma maybe we we should further specify what target are we focusing . I think in my opinion we should focus on on young people because they are more open to new devi new devices +User Interface: To fruit ? +Marketing: and also yeah according to the marketing report ninety p ninety five percent of young people was {vocalsound} was was able to to buy a a n a cooler remote control . +User Interface: But is it uh is fruit cool ? +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: That's a question . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Is fruit cool ? +Marketing: Yeah ? Uh {disfmarker} Is the new trend of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I guess , you know , Apple has the iPod so , {vocalsound} imagi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just 'cause they have an apple on their on their product , doesn't mean fruit is cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think we we should think about a a shape with it {disfmarker} a device with a shape of some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but it has to be easy to uh to use though and to hold you know , you don't wanna pear or a watermelon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Don don't you think we can find uh the shape of a fruit which is handy to use ? +User Interface: Well , probably the only thing is a banana that I can think of , +Industrial Designer: Banana . +User Interface: a cucumber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe too long . +User Interface: I dunno . +Marketing: Or m +User Interface: Maybe . Too green . +Marketing: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , but I mean you also have to {disfmarker} you have to also have , fit r all the buttons and {disfmarker} you know . +Project Manager: A banana . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's , it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The thing is you have t normally with um with buttons , they have to be at some point attached to a circuit board so if you're gonna have things like {gap} on a cylindrical kind of device it may be difficult to kind of to build . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't th it will be rolling a lot . +Marketing: Yeah but I li I like your idea that we shouldn't have a lot of buttons b buttons so +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah and you you you will not have pla enough {disfmarker} a lot of place to put a L_C_D_ on a banana also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh do you want a an L_C_D_ with twenty five Euros ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you're the Marketing Expert you should tell us if it is too much or not . +User Interface: Well , this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} Well , according to the to the report people are more interested in in a fa fancy look and feel and in a technological inno in innovation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so , I will give more importance to the look and feel than {disfmarker} rather than the +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So you you you suggest to go f +Marketing: new inputs and also it's {disfmarker} I'm not convinced about this L_C_D_ because you need uh internet connection , you need more things , it's not just buying a new control re remote , you need {disfmarker} buying control remote , buying uh +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} S so you're simply +Marketing: more things . It's not so simple . +Project Manager: you're simply looking s to a remote control that looks like a banana with few buttons {disfmarker} with only a few buttons . +Marketing: For instance , yeah . Yeah for for for {disfmarker} given an an example yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay good . So maybe you can go ahead ? +Marketing: Yeah no , it's what I already said . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Thanks . Um . Okay , I'll give the floor . So you are User Interface guy . So you're three ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's this one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Go for it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . Okay . So . S next uh slide . Okay . So I received an email um around lunchtime letting me know that the brilliant minds at our technology division had developed an integrated programmable sample sensor sample speaker unit , um which is a way for you to have a conversation with your coffee machine and or remote control {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But it's just a speaker right ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} no , what it is , it's it's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not a microphone . +User Interface: It has a has a microphone , has a speaker , it's got a little chip and it allows you t +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Actually I'm not reading microphone there , so that's why you can all have conversation , it {gap} just to speak to you . +User Interface: Well , it's a sample sensor sample speaker . Sample sensor sample speaker . It means that it can recognize , it can do like a match on a on a certain phrase that you speak and then can play back a phrase in response to that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh there's no kind of um understanding of the phrase . So , I mean , you know , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I guess you could build that in , you could you could link the the recognition of a certain phrase to some function on on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But basically the thing is , we have this technology available +Industrial Designer: In-house . +User Interface: in-house . So , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but the thing is obviously there's still gonna be a cost if you decided to integrate that because you still have to pay for the c production of the components , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um it it {disfmarker} but it basically means we c we can kind of consider this from uh you know uh a theoretical or usability kind of viewpoint without worrying too much about you know how to develop it because we have this already done . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Whilst you know , some people might get annoyed if we uh if we just dump it , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} there's something that I {disfmarker} unclear really understanding . Is this a technology that recognize keywords {disfmarker} speech keywords ? +User Interface: It's it it's no , well , it's it'll recognize uh I guess keywords , but you know keywords in a certain order like a phrase . You train it for a certain uh , for a certain phrase , you say {disfmarker} the the example they said that they have uh up and running with their prototype is um {disfmarker} well they've actually integrated into the into the the coffee machine that uh that we're producing is , you can say good morning to the coffee machine and it can recognize that phrase and it'll playback good morning , how would you like your coffee ? +Project Manager: And it's just to , it's just to playback something ? +User Interface: Yeah . So actually that was a bad example , 'cause it doesn't actually ask how do you want your coffee because it can't really understand the response , so . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is not s really to do to to do control . +User Interface: Only , like , only in the sense that it it can recognize a set a set target kind of word an +Project Manager: Yeah . This is just more like a poi pois yeah . +User Interface: It's designed it's designed as a fun kind of thing , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: but I guess you could use it as uh as a way to implement uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it it's c uh it it +Marketing: Yeah but you can u +Project Manager: it is a uh uh easy uh a fancy thing that you you can bring to {disfmarker} we can bring to the remote control that will not have any uh +User Interface: Completely pointless yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah comp {vocalsound} completely pointless {vocalsound} for the inter for {disfmarker} from the interaction point of v point of view {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , unless you know , you like having conversation with your remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} can we use it for saying okay , channel fifty , channel twenty ? +User Interface: Well yeah , that's the thing , if {disfmarker} you can but {vocalsound} you have to pro though I think it's a fairly simple design so you would have to record into the device every possible combination , you have to s tr train it to l to learn channel fifteen , that whole thing , not just the word channel and the word fifteen , it doesn't have that kind of logic in it . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is so this is this is much more than tak taking this technology , bringing it to the remote control and using it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , that would be some development work . +Project Manager: So this is out of discussion . So if if if it is something that you can {disfmarker} we can bring easily and to put it into the banana remote control {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: M Mando . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-mando . +Project Manager: No this is mm banana-bando , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-man {vocalsound} +Marketing: Banana-mando yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then it could be cool yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , let's go ahead . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I uh I I I don't think it's worth it though , I think it doesn't really add much to the functional design and it's it's it's not mature enough to use as a speech recognition engine , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . So if we can just move on to the next slide , I've just done a quick mock-up of uh uh some of the features of our {vocalsound} potential funky-looking uh remote control {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't look like a banana at all . +User Interface: Well , you see , I was I was unaware at this point of th of the fruit focus , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: um , so at the moment it's more of a box focus . +Project Manager: But you you can fit i you're saying now you can fit it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks like a tr look likes a a tro a tropical fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , this is actu this could be a genetically engineered fruit that's designed to be you know square so that it packs tighter in the boxes . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I've just indicated here , we could have actually two scroll wheels , 'cause I think the scroll wheel is a fairly um key part of , you know , +Industrial Designer: Stable thing , that's right . To have {gap} , +User Interface: I think everyone has has agreed that it's {disfmarker} that it could be quite a useful um thing , so . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think it's important , you know , to have two scroll wheels because , you know , you want one for for the channel , but you also want one for for the volume , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because it's it's {disfmarker} the volume i it's , you know it's very handy for it to have uh instant kind of uh feedback uh and response , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um , I've also included this turbo button because I think , you know , every design should have a turbo button , and {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's a turbo button ? +User Interface: so this is you know , a unique problem with with televisions is that if you have this scro this scroll wheel for the television , the uh the tuner on the T_V_ is not gonna be able to to switch between stations as fast as you can scroll , so you know , the th the person might want to have a uh {disfmarker} Might want to be able to scroll past television stations without seeing what's on them , in which case it just waits until you stop scrolling and then , you know , displays that station . Or they might want to scroll and and have a quick glimpse of it , even if it lags behind what they're doing {gap} . +Marketing: It con it controls the speed ? +User Interface: Yeah , so with this turbo button you can , say , skip over t channels if uh , you know , if I'm if I'm going {disfmarker} if I'm scrolling past them and you know , it's um , you could have a little red light that comes up when they press it so they feel you know it's really going fast or whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yeah , that's um , those are the two important uh features I think we need on the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but I mean we can discuss about what other kind of buttons we need , um . You know , i it could be , you know , if we if we wanna have like a very cheap kind of device , I mean , we could either consider that maybe we want to sell this as a very , if it's gonna be a banana , you know that's a pretty gimmicky kind of thing that doesn't have that much functionality , it's just you know a couple of scroll wheels and a button cause it's hard to get so many buttons on a banana +Project Manager: It's enough . +User Interface: and it's still very {disfmarker} it may even be for most {disfmarker} for some people more functional than their current remote , but if they have these scroll wheels , so , um {vocalsound} you know , what other buttons do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean we could have {disfmarker} well , I guess you need an on and off switch , +Project Manager: Switch on . Yeah . +User Interface: but you could you could o you could turn it turn it on by taking the top off the banana maybe , you know , it's kind of like a spy kind of flick thing . +Marketing: Yeah . So sounds crazy . I like crazy ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's why you're a marketing guru . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So i it looks like we're going completely to forget about the L_C_D_ thing . +User Interface: Well , that's the thing , as {disfmarker} have we decided that we can only spend , uh , twenty five Euro ? +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well not spend , but you know , charge twenty five Euro . +Marketing: I I think we could use somehow the s coffee machine dialogue interface or so . +Project Manager: No we can we can't use that . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} we can ? We can't . +Project Manager: We can't use that to to comman co communicate , +Industrial Designer: Communicate . +Project Manager: it's just a thing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but we can say channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: It's one way . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: But then you have to have a template for every channel , for a hundred channels , you have to be able to to recognize {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's not a lot one hundred templates , +User Interface: Mm . Well , I f I think it's probably more than , than our {gap} can handle because it's designed for a coffee machine , you know , to say hello in the morning . +Marketing: it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , it's designed for a cof {vocalsound} okay . Is it design for a coffee machine ? +User Interface: Well that's its current application , I would presume that it's kind of , they wouldn't design it to handle a hundred things th so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe you could ask your {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you could ask the engineering department if we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . A good good good thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to g to move to your slides ? +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Project Manager: You're finished ? +User Interface: Well I just I just made the point , I don't I don't know if that speech recognition is , you know , even if we can do it , I think it's not really appropriate for uh television environment . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so . +User Interface: But um I did have one thing from a previous meeting , you were talking about um being able to find the remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and I was talking about extendin being able to extend the remote control by having you know , a base station that can control other things as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might be useful to have some kind of base station , even if it's just you press on a button on it and uh and the remote control starts beeping , you know , this is a way of finding the remote . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Y in that case maybe the maybe the speech recognition {disfmarker} the speech thing could be useful just to say I'm here +Project Manager: Exactly yeah . +User Interface: but uh it's probably a bit of overkill if you could just have a a beeping {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's a speech synthesis kind of thing , +User Interface: It's speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: something has been uh stored and it's just uh spoken out . +User Interface: It's it's speech synthesis and s it's speech kind of , not really speech recognition , but kind of pattern matching , yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's move on . So you're two ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is going to be about the component design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So first thing is we need power source for the remote control . So I was of the idea that we can have two kind of power supplies , one is the usual batteries which are there , they could be chargeable batteries if there's a basis station kind of thing and on top of that we can have solar cells , when the lighting conditions are good they can be used so it'll be pretty uh innovative kind . Then uh we need plastic with some elasticity so that if your {disfmarker} if the remote control falls it's not broken directly into pieces , there should be some flexibility in t +User Interface: I guess that fits in with the spongy kind of design philosophy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there should {disfmarker} we should think of something like that and then it should be double curve . The s science for the ease of handling and there are some other issues why we need double curve . Then controls for the traditionals u traditional users we can have the push buttons so that they don't feel that it's an alien thing for them . +User Interface: So , just one second , when you say double curve , what do you actually mean ? You reckon you could like draw us a thing on the , on the whiteboard 'cause I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Double curve is , you have curves on both the sides if I'm right . So it's symmetrical kind of thing , whatever it is . +User Interface: Okay , but like , kind of convex or concave ? +Industrial Designer: So , it could be curve , so it could be convex , conve concave , depending on what what we want . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So there are flats , there are single curve and there are double curves . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: These are the three things , and there are different materials , with plastic you can have double curve but with uh certain other materials we cannot have double curve . So there there was uh there were many other materials like wood , titanium and all those things , but plastic is I think is the most appropriate one , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it'll bring the cost down +User Interface: Although , you know , wood could be uh quite a stylish uh option , +Industrial Designer: and anyway it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: if you take like , nice quality kind of wood that's got a nice grain and you kind of put some , some varnish on . +Project Manager: Mm but i but there is no elasticity which could be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wooden cases {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends , I mean , you have the outs the wood itself is not gonna break so you don't have to worry too much about the case being broken , +Project Manager: Yeah but the components inside . +User Interface: it's the inside . Yeah but inside you know you could have {disfmarker} you can still have some kind of cushioning that's not visible to the to the user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very {disfmarker} too expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I mean you could also , you can have just a very thin veneer of wood as well . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's more easier to do a banana in plastic than uh in wood . +User Interface: That's true , but are we set on the banana idea ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually +Project Manager: it looks like you are all targeting that +Marketing: I was thinking that the +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah ? +Marketing: the shape of a banana is not it's not really handy . +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh I don't know the name o o in English uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it an e apple which has {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not a fruit it's a vegetable . +User Interface: It's like a pumpkin or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? Pumpkin . +Marketing: Green . +Project Manager: Green . +User Interface: Green . +Project Manager: Um um um , yes I see . +User Interface: What does it taste like ? +Marketing: And you put in the salad . +Project Manager: Pep pepperoni . +User Interface: Ah yeah , +Marketing: Um +User Interface: is it {disfmarker} what's it in French ? +Project Manager: Poivron . +Marketing: Oui c'est ca +User Interface: Yeah , okay , so capsicum or pepper . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh pepper . +Marketing: Pepper . +Project Manager: But um they do d +Marketing: And it's al it also suits with the double curve for easy of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know , it seems a little bit kind of bulky to me , like +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I mean in a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not re it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} like with a banana you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you you think it's really fancy and fun ? You think that young people that are {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure it's fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . More than a banana ? +Marketing: But banana is not so handy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Banana is more handier as compared to this I think , and to capsicum . +Marketing: I think that's handier . +User Interface: But {gap} like a banana you can you can be holding like this and have the scroll wheel kind of on top +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and just roll it back and forth like that , +Project Manager: It's kind it's kind of {disfmarker} it's more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but with uh {disfmarker} I don't know how you would hold a capsicum and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's really ergonomic , it's fit in the hand and you've a lot of surface to {vocalsound} to put the controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay let's move on . +Marketing: Yeah you're right . +Project Manager: So time is running , let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so push buttons for the traditional users so that they don't feel they are alienated , just {disfmarker} and a scroll button with push technology for channel selection , volume control and teletext browsing . These are the three scroll buttons which are already available with us in the company and we we can go ahead with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can go to the next slide . Then uh there are different kind of chips , one one is the basic chip and the regular chip and one an adva advanced chip . So we can have regular chip for control . Pricing is a factor for us , that's why we'll go for the regular chip . And uh regular chip supports speaker support , so this functionality could be used for tracing the mobile phone which has been misplaced . +User Interface: So is that , when you say speaker support , you mean it just has some output pinned which which which kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It could be a beep kind of thing . +User Interface: Okay , but the speaker is actually attached to the to the chip in some way , or is just the the signal ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , that's right , it's it's onto the chip , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: most most probably , not not hundred per cent sure about that . +User Interface: Okay . So are there any issues where we place this this chip to make sure you can actually hear the the speaker from the outside of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: That will be the volume control I think which which a user shou it it should be already pre-defined . It should be {disfmarker} whatever will be the case , the chip is always going to be sitting inside . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , but the speaker , if the speaker is actually on the chip , then if it's too far away from the the casing , or if the casing is too thick , then you may not hear the the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh , so we can have it at one of the boundaries so that things are slightly better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As {disfmarker} or as hearing is concerned , we can have some gap at some place , +User Interface: Yeah . So that's something we have to keep in mind with the actual physical design is to keep the the speaker close enough to the outside . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} That's right . Okay . Yeah . So these these were the component selection and these things . We can go to the next slide . And uh these were the findings which I I saw with the web web , that user wants to have control more than one device {disfmarker} wants to control more than one device from the same remote control , so our T_V_ remote can have little extra things to support additional devices like V_C_R_ D_V_D_ players which are usually attached with the T_V_ , because users are like this and they don't want to have one remote control for everything , so with this additional little , we might be having slightly better market for us . +User Interface: Although , if {disfmarker} It depends , if we like , if we are concentrating on like a fruit design , then maybe maybe we wanna sell a collection of fruit , you know , like a different fruit for each device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Of fruits . +User Interface: Cause that , you know , that {disfmarker} sometimes people like to collect um you know things that {disfmarker} of a similar type . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: S objects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Remotes {disfmarker} objects , okay . +Project Manager: Crazy objects . +Marketing: I think that would be funny at the beginning but after one month you will be tired of be surrounded of fruits . +User Interface: Well , {vocalsound} you're the one who wanted to do fruit in the first place . +Marketing: No but I think just one fruit to control everything . +User Interface: Like a power fruit . +Marketing: A power fr a power M a Mando , a Supermando fruit {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh as well as I could see on the web the scroll button is becoming really uh hot thing s +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should have it on the remote . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually I I didn't understand very well this trace speaker lost control . +Industrial Designer: So you're having a basis station . Okay . Your {disfmarker} usually your remote sits on that . So you {disfmarker} and it's {disfmarker} that's why it can have chargeable batteries . Now let's say {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you have to buy two things , the banana and the basis station . +Project Manager: Bu it's it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Basis station is with the thing . +Project Manager: You s you you {gap} thing . +Industrial Designer: It's like a telephone handset is there and the basis station for the telephone hand set is there . So now what user gets additionally he doesn't have to buy batteries , they're rechargeable batteries , so over the period of cor time he'll recover the cost . So you're having the basis station and there is a button , if you press that button wherever the remote it'll start beeping so you know where the remote is . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think that's a pretty handy feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's kind of {disfmarker} people would find that worth it even if it wasn't uh a recharging station , even if they didn't have to buy extra batteries , you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but I'm a bit worried about the budget . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is {disfmarker} basis station is nothing more , just it's a wire which is coming from the main cable and uh you're having one socket on which the thing sits . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Although you do need to include R_F_ kind of circuitry in the remote . +Industrial Designer: That's right . But all these things are usually in-house so we don't have much problems . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So component cost is going to be the least . Anyway , we are not using really advanced technology , L_C_D_ has already been ruled out , A_S_R_ has been ruled out . So it's the basic thing but very trendy and very user-friendly . +User Interface: Okay . I'm just wondering actually , 'cause , you know , I {disfmarker} this whole fruit thing with the banana , it's um it seemed like {disfmarker} it first seems a bit kind of uh niche , like only a few people would really want a banana , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: but what if it was kind of uh a stylised banana ? You know , rather than having it kind of you know yellow and really looking exactly like a banana , you could make it kind of silver . And um , you know to give you kind of the idea of a banana but without it looking you know completely kitsch . {vocalsound} For better {disfmarker} want of a better word +Project Manager: You think that yellow it's kitsch . +User Interface: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , you know , I don I don't know how many peop +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you make something that looks like a banana it should have the colour of a banana . +Marketing: Yeah . No , I I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A {disfmarker} yeah , otherwise it'll be mis means you don't get b any feeling then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O otherwise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe li like that . +Industrial Designer: It's neither a banana nor a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like this colour this colour {disfmarker} Maybe , you know , maybe {disfmarker} like still in the shape of a banana . +Project Manager: Roughly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , but you know , just maybe maybe not exactly the same texture as a banana and just kind of , you know {disfmarker} because the thing is it's gonna be a little bit difficult to make {disfmarker} um to give like the texture of a banana anyway and to k to have the exact shape . I think if you're gonna not be able to do it properly you may as well do it in a stylised way that just looks a bit more kind of , you know , twenty first century rather than sixties or seventies . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Let's move on . +Industrial Designer: And uh going to the last slide . +Project Manager: Uh uh {disfmarker} yeah . Before before st before ending the meeting I'd like to to draw some sketch about the pro future prot prototype . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Go for it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well no , not not you , you can finish your slides before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , so . Anyway , users'll be {disfmarker} so the findings is users'll be very interested in our locator device to find their misplaced remotes . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that was very {disfmarker} I thought it's a very good suggestion by everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: That's all ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , so mm {vocalsound} so well done for the presentations . So we need to take some de decisions about um {vocalsound} about what we're going to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I I propose that you go to the whiteboard +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we're going to report all the ideas we had we had during this these presentations just to draw some sketch about what will be the prod final product +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and uh where Superman go banana and uh {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh extra func functionalities such as wheels , um the speaker unit um well not in order {disfmarker} not to lost the um the device , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I do I don't remember you call it ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . The basis station . That's right . +Project Manager: Basis station , yeah . Uh so um {vocalsound} so we're going for a stylish banana shape . +User Interface: Yeah , so , I guess you wanna hold {disfmarker} like the way {disfmarker} the end of the banana you wanna kind of hold as ma you maybe wanna kinda hold like a gun rather than {disfmarker} 'cause you don't want it to point kind of towards the floor . +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +User Interface: So you know , so if you have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about what about this shape ? More or less . +Project Manager: We +Industrial Designer: There's less space on this to put with the buttons . +Project Manager: I if it i if it has really the model shape of a bana you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but how many buttons do we need ? +Project Manager: the the starting is good but it could {disfmarker} it should have more the shape of a banana if you want to point really a at the thing . If you don't want to to to do that movement which is which is difficult {disfmarker} if you don't have to do it in fact , it's better . So ti time is running , +Industrial Designer: Uh what about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to we have to we have to to move forward . So let's skip to uh this uh this this this idea . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have this . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have a a basis um , how do you call it {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: The base station . +Project Manager: A base station . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have a base station extra uh on the side . +User Interface: {gap} okay , so I guess we need , you know , something that can fit a banana shaped object . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , we have a R_F_ for um for beeping for beeping . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , we need that , yeah . +Project Manager: We need b R_F_ to beep . +User Interface: Okay , so it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} that means we need a button on th on the on the basis . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Basis station . +Project Manager: Basis station , thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Alright , so we need uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go quickly please ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So we are going to add uh also um you {disfmarker} as you suggested the whee some wheels to control the volumes and channels and your tur turbo turbo uh button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , which {disfmarker} I think it's it's probably best actually on the on the underneath of the the device , +Industrial Designer: Turbo button . +Project Manager: Yeah , on the th yeah , maybe here . +User Interface: so you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the and the wheel a a at the level of the thumb for instance . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah , so you have the thumb kind of here . +Project Manager: And and you have two wheels . +User Interface: So yeah , you need one one here and one on on the other side , so you got volume an and channel . +Project Manager: Okay right . Good . So no L_C_D_ . +User Interface: And , uh {disfmarker} No L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Okay great . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Very good . +User Interface: Oh we need a we need a power um on off switch as well . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , just the switch , +Industrial Designer: Remotes don't have power on off switch . +Project Manager: no f not for the T_V_ for the T_V_ . Uh so you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . S no , that'll be controlled by the {disfmarker} those buttons'll be there already , yeah . +Marketing: What a +User Interface: Where ? +Industrial Designer: Means on the remote . +Project Manager: On the side . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because remote is going to have both the interfaces , scroll as well as buttons . They are not going to cost you much , everything is in-house and now you don't want the traditional users to be apprehensive of this . +User Interface: Well , I dunno if the traditional user is gonna buy a a banana remote in the first place , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . That's that's another issue which I didn't think of . +User Interface: Y I mean you need to kind of keep it um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you know our targets are very high , means fifty million Euros is the profit which we want make . +Marketing: What about {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how many of these did we wanna sell ? I can't remember , +Industrial Designer: Twenty five . +Project Manager: Twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five is the profit on one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but how many units did we need to to sell {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Uh forty th four . Point point four million ? +Marketing: Four millions ? +User Interface: Four point four million . +Industrial Designer: Point four million . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's a lot of fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So . Well . No . Time is running , we have to close the meeting in a few minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , okay , the next step , you can come back to your seat . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The next step is to go for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to f is to go to uh to building a prototype , based on this , okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting you guys have to prepare the followi things . You have to uh work on the look and feel uh design and you have to work on the user interface , in fact you two you have to work together to model the first uh f first prototype . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh Marketing Expert uh have to go to product evaluation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: I wo what about adding the {disfmarker} this word spotting , keyword spotting recognition saying {gap} volume up volume down ? +Project Manager: It's too difficult . +Marketing: It's too difficult but people like innovation and that's really uh innovative and I don't know if it would cost a lot , just a few {disfmarker} five words . +Project Manager: It's not a possi it will not be possible to implement it for the next prototype , so t it's {disfmarker} in the next prototype so let's skip it . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: For the future prototypes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe , for the n if if if it it works well , we'll go for uh an orange one . +User Interface: That can be the t That can be like the turbo banana plus plus commando . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , honour the fruit . +Marketing: Plus plus , okay . Maybe objective banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks very much . We'll see n next meeting . Bye . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So meeting's over ? +User Interface: Yep . We have to go design the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: The problem is after all this meeting there is {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","The project team, consisting of a project manager, a user interface specialist, an industrial designer, and a marketing expert, is having their third meeting. Their main focus is to conceptualize the design of a remote control that has been decided to exclude speech recognition technology due to certain reasons and the possibility of incorporating an LCD screen, which is a topic for clarification due to cost concerns. + +During lunch, some of them had falafel, and the User Interface person had a similar non-vegetarian meal. The team's discussion revolves around various aspects of the product: + +- Marketing studies have shown that potential users are seeking easy-to-use devices with a fancy look and feel rather than a strictly functional one. Trends inspired by fashion scenes in Paris and Milan suggest fruit and vegetable themes, impacting marketing's thoughts on the aesthetics of the remote control, possibly suggesting a fruit-based design. +- Technical aspects like whether to include an LCD screen are debated. There's a desire for a minimalist design with fewer buttons, potentially with texture or imagery inspired by fruits or vegetables, possibly using dual scroll wheels for channel and volume control. The idea of a fun design, such as a banana shape, emerges as a concept. +- The team contemplates the feasibility of integrating new technology from their tech division, which allows basic voice interactions, into the remote control, but it's considered not mature enough for effective use. +- Marketing suggests focusing on young consumers who may appreciate a cooler, trendier remote control, while functionality discussions include finding a balance between fashion and ergonomics, considering handiness and the ability to incorporate necessary buttons. +- Practical features, like an item locator function, appeal to the team, with the suggestion of a beeping remote to help find it when misplaced. +- The group discusses various materials for the remote casing, with emphasis on flexibility and durability. They also consider the idea of controlling multiple devices with one remote and the introduction of a charging station. +- The remote's shape is debated, moving from a banana to other vegetable shapes, settling on a pepper as a design that fits well in hand. However, the team juggles with the idea of maintaining the appearance and functionality expected of a remote. + +In summary, the team conceptualizes a remote control combining trendy design elements (fruit-inspired aesthetics) with practical features (beeping locator, charging station). They consider the user interface and debate the inclusion of advanced features, striving to maintain a balance between innovation and practicality while looking toward a prototype as the next step in development. At the end of the meeting, they agree to progress with the development of a prototype resembling a stylish conception of a banana." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Sian Thomas: Bore da. Unfortunately, the Chair, Lynne Neagle, is unable to attend today's meeting. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 17.22, I call for nominations for a temporary Chair, for the duration of the meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Sian Thomas: Any further nominations? I therefore declare that John Griffiths has been appointed temporary Chair, and I invite him to chair for the duration of today's meeting. +John Griffiths AM: Thank you very much. I thank the Members for that. Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The first item on our agenda today is apologies, substitutions, declarations of interest. Obviously, Lynne Neagle isn't able to be with us today. We haven't received any other apologies. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2 on our agenda, the continuation of our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes, and evidence session 8. And I'm very pleased to welcome Estyn here this morning to give evidence to the committee. Would you like to introduce yourselves for the record, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Meilyr Rowlands, chief inspector. +Claire Morgan: Claire Morgan, strategic director. +Simon Brown: Simon Brown, strategic director. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you. And welcome again. If it's okay, we'll move straight into questions—we have quite a number of questions to get through this morning. Firstly, Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning. I just want to start by asking about your perception of how schools are using the pupil development grant funding, and to what extent they are genuinely targeting that funding exclusively towards children eligible for free school meals. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question. This grant has been targeted far better by now than it was originally. Estyn has made several reports regarding the effectiveness of the grant, and, really, going back to before this specific grant, to a similar grant, called RAISE. At the start of this grant, the funding was often spent on tackling underachievement, rather than dealing with the underachievement of children who are eligible for free school meals specifically. But, over a period of time, we have seen that it is targeted much better by now. That's not to say that the targeting is working perfectly still, and I think that we are seeing examples where the targeting isn't going just to children who receive free school meals. Schools sometimes interpret poverty in a slightly wider way than that. In terms of what schools are doing with the grant, we have given evidence to you of the kinds of things that they are doing. They are tracking progress of pupils, they are trying to improve attendance, they are trying to work with families and the community in general, they're doing work specifically to improve how children are doing in exams, in key stage 4, specifically—a lot of funding is being spent on that—improving the confidence of students, taking students on extra-curricular activities, improving literacy and numeracy. Those are the kinds of activities they're being used for. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because the research by Ipsos MORI and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods has shown that there is some kind of blurring—I think that's the term that they use—in terms of who is eligible. But you are relatively comfortable with the fact that there is sufficient targeting happening. You referred to the fact that it is used, perhaps, to reach a slightly wider cohort than just those who are eligible for free school meals, but you do feel that that balance, from your experience, is acceptable. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, it has improved a great deal. When I was looking at this initially, the targeting wasn’t happening at all. It was being spent on children who were underachieving, and one of the things that we did notice in the first report was that much more funding was being spent on boys than girls. And, of course, that raised the question immediately that it wasn't being spent then on children who are eligible for free school meals, because those numbers are equal. So, it wasn’t, but it has improved. There is a discussion about who exactly should have it and whether free school meals is the best definition. So, I think that schools are perhaps not following that exactly, but within the spirit of the grant, I think I’m fairly comfortable. There is a specific question—I don’t know if you are going to ask this—regarding more able and talented pupils. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's where I was going next. +Meilyr Rowlands: So, if there is a cohort of pupils who are missing out on this, they are the more able and talented pupils who receive free school meals. There are a number of reasons for this, I think. One of them is that there’s still some feeling that less able children should be receiving this grant, children who are underachieving. Schools don’t always identify underachievement of those more able children. It seems that they are doing okay, but if they were given more support, they would do even better. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, is it a lack of awareness of the nature of the grant, and that the individual has to be targeted rather than just those who are underachieving? Is that the problem? Or is it the regime that focuses on exam results and the need to draw those pupils who are underachieving up, rather than incentivising those who are achieving to achieve better? +Meilyr Rowlands: A bit of both, I'd say. And the third factor is identifying children who are more able. I think that we have a bit of work to do in that regard. I was in a conference for headteachers last week, where there was new data being discussed, and that data showed the progress of children from a certain point, year 6 tests. I think that kind of data will be very useful, because what that data can do is help secondary schools to identify more able children and that they are underachieving. Even though they're doing quite well, that kind of value-added data is very useful. So, I think that that will help as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Mark, did you want to pursue these matters further? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. I just wanted to ask about the more able and talented stream. It was good to read in your report an increased emphasis on this and to see your awareness of its importance in the PDG as well. Can I just ask—? Would you look at one area regarding schools' engagement with the Seren network, particularly for the more able and talented, and what more Estyn can do through its inspection criteria and otherwise to encourage this from schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think Estyn has always been very strongly focused on improving the performance of more able pupils. For example, in last year's annual report I raised it, and a lot of the debate around this now, I think, was generated by some of the things I've said in previous annual reports. We gave a lot of evidence to the—. Paul Flynn, I think, did the—no, who did the report? Paul Murphy did the report. So, we gave evidence to that. And on Seren, I'm particularly proud that my alma mater, Jesus College, is a very strong supporter of the Seren work. So, I'm personally quite interested in the work of Seren. And we look at the performance of more able pupils in all our inspections. It's a particular part of our inspection framework—looking at the relative performance of different groups. So, we look at the different performance of boys and girls, free school meals and non-free school meals, ethnic minorities, but we also look at the performance of more able pupils in particular, and we question schools about how they provide for the more able pupils, and we've referred to Seren in several of our inspection reports. +Mark Reckless AM: And where schools work particularly hard to engage with Seren and take up opportunities from that and push as many pupils as appropriate to work with that, is that something that you would recognise within your inspection reports? And, on the other side, where schools don't do that, is that something you would pull them up on? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we've done that. We've done it in several reports. +Claire Morgan: Throughout our inspections, we are looking for best practice, because part of our strategy is always to identify where there are weaknesses, but actually to point schools in the direction of where they can find a solution. So, capturing different approaches to more able and talented is part of the role of inspection. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just briefly, you touched earlier on using the measure of those who are eligible for free school meals as a way to identify children from disadvantaged backgrounds so that you can target this funding. Varied evidence has been given to us on this. Do you have an opinion on whether that's the best way? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly is a good way of doing it. There is a strong correlation between children who underachieve and that measure, so it is a strong measure. But, there is scope to discuss how exactly it does work. For example, some people say that if you have received free school meals for a period of time and now you're not receiving them, then perhaps you should still be receiving the funding for a period of time, for example. So, there are ways of fine-tuning that measure, I think. It's worth considering those approaches. +John Griffiths AM: Thanks for that. We move on now to Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. You've reported that the proportion of schools making effective use of the PDG remains around two thirds of secondary and primary schools, meaning that a third are still not using that PDG effectively. Why do you think this is? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that sort of proportion broadly corresponds to the schools that don't have particularly good leadership. I think, ultimately, all of these sorts of initiatives come down to strong leadership and effective leadership—that they know how to organise and use those grants effectively. One of the shortcomings that we often identify is evaluation—that money has been spent on a particular way of using the grant, but it has not been evaluated well. So, I think quite a lot of it is to do with generic leadership skills. But those are some of the specific shortcomings to do with evaluation. +Michelle Brown AM: Are there any patterns by region or type of school in that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think there's any patterns that we've identified in terms of region. +Claire Morgan: As Meilyr said, it's very strongly linked to leadership capacity. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. Thank you. What are the most effective uses of PDG, from your point of view? Is there something in particular that you think that schools should be focusing on? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a lot of evidence on what constitutes good practice in this area. There's the Welsh Government guidance, there's our guidance, there's a lot of research—the Sutton Trust toolkit—and they're the sorts of things I mentioned earlier. I think that more attention does need to be given to the community-focused element of this work. So, schools do a lot of things that they are in control of—the things I mentioned earlier: things like improving attendance, offering extra-curricular activities, literacy and numeracy support, tracking pupils—all those sorts of things. But an important element of this, I think, is engaging with the learners, but also with parents and the community. I think what we've found is that the most effective schools—the ones that really do make a big difference to this cohort of students—are the ones that do that most effectively. +Claire Morgan: I think that there are different situations in different schools, but in the best schools, they evaluate the barriers to learning for their particular children. Often we see that engagement with communities is part of that engagement with families. In Brackla Primary School, in Bridgend, they've got Families at Brackla, and it's a range of activities to engage with families. Families often have had a negative experience of education themselves, and the schools are trying to address some of those concerns. Cefn Hengoed in Swansea, which I'm sure many of you know about, have had an extensive strategy for engaging with the community, with the families, and equipping their children to participate in decisions around the curriculum, making them more confident learners. So, it is about removing the barriers for disadvantaged learners. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. You've made the comment that secondary schools are focusing too much on key stage 4 and not enough on developing pupils' skills in a sustainable way. Can you expand on that and give us a bit more detail on that, please? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think this is sort of generally accepted now. The latest guidance on the grant now says that 60 per cent of it should be spent on key stage 3. I think that acknowledges this general point. But what a lot of schools did with this money was precisely that, to target key stage 4—to have catch-up homework clubs, revision clubs, specifically to get children better GCSE results, and getting C grades, in particular. Of course, that is an important part of your armoury of tools to use, but I think there was too much use of that. Part of the problem with that is that it doesn't either develop the long-term transferable skills that those pupils have, or should have, nor does it produce the kinds of skills that the teachers need as well. So, it's kind of a quick win, a quick-fix solution, while what we feel would be more effective in the long term, and more sustainable in the long term—because if this money goes, then those quick fixes won't be possible—what would be more effective in the long term is to improve the curriculum and the pedagogy, the quality of the teaching, the quality of the curriculum, so that children are naturally enthused by what is on offer, that they attend better because they want to be in school, that they want to learn. So, we feel that getting the curriculum right, tailoring the curriculum to the needs of the pupils in that area, and improving teaching, is a more sustainable long-term solution. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you think there's anything in particular driving the focus on the key stage 4? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, again, I think most people would say it is the performance indicators. I think there's a general acknowledgement of that. Again, I said last week—. There was a conference of all the secondary heads in Wales, and that was one of the major discussion points in the conference: how do we get the performance indicators right so that there are no perverse incentives in it? +Michelle Brown AM: To what extent are decisions being made in schools concerning the application of the PDG actually evidence-based? To what extent are they using research to back up how they're using the PDG or is it effectively just guesswork? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that, of all the areas of school policy, this is the one that's most evidence-based. I think that, generally, schools can do much more about using evidence and research findings, but this particular area is probably the one that schools are strongest at using research in. That's partly because the guidance strongly suggests that you should do that, but also because there is a lot of easily accessible research evidence available. So, there's a lot of research on this. As I mentioned earlier, the Sutton Trust toolkit is a good example where researchers have really tried very hard to simplify all the evidence that exists in a way that schools can use. So, there are little pound signs to show how costly an intervention is and little stars or something to show how many months of gain pupils get out of this particular intervention. So, it makes it much easier for schools to make a decision. But I think what's missing is that you can't just take that evidence as it is, because you have to implement it in your own school, and that then will affect how effective that particular intervention is. Just because it is evaluated by researchers as being generally very effective doesn't mean that you will necessarily implement it effectively. So, it is therefore important that each school does evaluate. So, there are kind of two sides to using research. There's looking at research, but there's also doing your own research and evaluating how effectively you have implemented something. I think that's been a weakness. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Do you think there's an attendance crisis at key stage 4 for those students eligible for free school meals? +Meilyr Rowlands: 'Crisis' is maybe too strong a word, but I think there's been a lot of attention given to attendance, quite rightly. Over a long period of time, I was a member of the national behaviour and attendance review board under Ken Reid about 10 years ago. So, there's been a lot of attention on attendance, and that's very important because attendance has a very strong correlation with outcomes. +Hefin David AM: Of those students at key stage 4, 35 per cent of those eligible for free school meals are attending for 95 per cent of the time, whereas it's 60 per cent for their peers. Is the PDG making an impact on that? You've mentioned engagement with the curriculum. What more can be done? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what's happening now is that people are targeting their attention on attendance. Attendance has improved in primary and in secondary generally. It has also improved for these cohorts as well, and at a faster rate than the rest of the cohort. So, there have been improvements. Nevertheless, I agree with you totally that it is a major, major problem, and that is why schools do use the PDG specifically to improve attendance. +Hefin David AM: But you said they've not used it well enough. +Meilyr Rowlands: Did I say that? They are using it, and attendance has improved, and the attendance of this cohort has improved more, but there's still a major, major problem. So, I think there needs to be even more attention— +Hefin David AM: So, what—? I'm looking for specifics. What can be done with the PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, as I said earlier, that these are major social issues. So, I think what can be done that hasn't been done currently is to give more attention to the community-focused side of schooling. I think the schools that have done well, that have really improved attendance of this particular group of pupils, are the ones that have taken community relationships very, very seriously and worked with parents. +Hefin David AM: Yes, you mentioned working with families when you were answering Llyr. How does that happen, though? What does it look like? If I'm a parent, what does it look like? +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. I'll ask Claire to give you an example. Cefn Hengoed is a good example of a school that has not cracked it but made a lot of progress. +Claire Morgan: Often, in the best schools, the headteachers consider themselves to be community leaders as well as headteachers, and they often set up arrangements where they engage directly with the families of disadvantaged children or children who are underachieving generally. They try to build very strong relationships with the families so that the school is in a position to either liaise with different agencies or to bring agencies into the school to address some of the issues that are outside school control. +Hefin David AM: And where does the PDG come into this, and the use of it? +Claire Morgan: This sometimes is used for appointing staff whose role it is to facilitate these arrangements to give one-to-one support to children, to monitor attendance, to visit homes where children are not coming into schools, to try and address what the barriers are in getting them into classrooms. +Hefin David AM: And those lessons you've learned from Cefn Hengoed: how are you going to spread that? How does that get spread? +Claire Morgan: Well, we've done it in a number of ways. Obviously, the first thing we do is the inspection report, and we highlight the practice there. We also have things—. This is an example of our best-practice case studies. We also have conferences as well, where we invite the headteachers from those schools to come and present to other headteachers. We also tweet, use social media, to try and get the message out there. But there's also— +Hefin David AM: This all seems like stuff that's done to teachers. It doesn't seem very engaging. +Claire Morgan: Well, it is—. Headteachers tell us that learning about best practice from other headteachers is very, very useful. When we had a conference, and when we looked at leadership and improving schools, Cefn Hengoed, along with a number of other schools, presented, and we had very positive feedback from that. So, it is actually schools learning from other schools, and I think the work that the consortia have been doing on school-to-school support as well can contribute to it. +Hefin David AM: We're spreading the PDG very thinly now, if we're talking about attendance, and then we talk about exclusion as well. Is it possible that it can have an impact on reducing the higher exclusion rates for EFSM students? +Claire Morgan: I think it has the potential to. I think all these strategies have a potential to remove those barriers. But this is— +Hefin David AM: It doesn't sound very convincing. +Claire Morgan: But it is a difficult challenge for schools. These are often complex issues that schools are grappling with, and they are trying a variety of approaches. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm not being overly critical, but it does seem very hit and miss, to me. Some of the answers that you're giving—they seem to be giving certain examples, but there doesn't seem to be a coherence to it. +Claire Morgan: I think it comes back to leadership. Where we have very strong strategic leadership in schools, they are more direct in their approach, and they have a very strong strategy. Where there's weaker leadership, sometimes they are trying different things, perhaps in more of a scattergun approach, rather than trying strategies, evaluating and finding out what works. There is an element of the impact of leadership there. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Hefin? Okay. +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it is true to say that it's difficult to distinguish what some of these better schools do with PDG, as opposed to their general money. If that's what you're getting at, I would totally agree. Schools like Cefn Hengoed will be using more than just the PDG to do this work. +Hefin David AM: And it appears to be a lot about the way things are done, as much as how the money is spent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. +Claire Morgan: It is to do with the ethos and the culture of the school. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thanks for that. We have further questions from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. You've observed that the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those who aren't on free school meals hasn't closed significantly at any stage of learning. Is the PDG actually working? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I'm in danger of repeating myself now. It's quite difficult to identify the cause and the effect in terms of the PDG. So, where there have been improvements, it's quite difficult to say, 'Well, that's definitely down to the PDG', and similarly vice versa: if it's not working, it's difficult to say that it's because of PDG not being used properly. To come back to something else I said previously, there have been small improvements. Whether you say that that is due to PDG or not is quite difficult, but there have been some improvements. But there hasn't been a major step change in closing that gap, that is true, and I think the conclusion that I draw is that these are major societal challenges and barriers that these young people face. Schools can do a certain amount, and of course they must do a certain amount, but to have a step change you do need to engage with the learners, with the parents and with the community and that's why the more successful schools do actually succeed—it's because they do that. So, I think more of a push on that area at a national level would be welcome. +Michelle Brown AM: In most successful schools, how much is the attainment gap being narrowed, in the schools that make the most effective use of PDG? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would vary from school to school. We can look up specific examples for you of specific schools if you like. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, perhaps you could provide a note to the committee on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I could have a list of schools and how much they've closed, perhaps. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, I'll move on. +John Griffiths AM: Perhaps you could include in that what you would consider to be a significant increase. +Meilyr Rowlands: Okay. Fine. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. In 2017, we saw a re-widening of the attainment gap between pupils on free school meals and those not on free school meals. What effect do you think the Welsh Government's changes to performance measures have had in terms of impact? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they definitely had a direct impact on it, and probably there might well be an indirect, longer-term impact as well. But, clearly, changing the performance indicators had a direct, immediate effect, because some of those examinations, qualifications, courses that were typically followed by this cohort of students weren't any longer part of the headline performance indicators. So, you've all heard about BTEC Science and the key skills qualifications. Those sorts of things that many of these pupils used to succeed at, and therefore get the performance indicator for the school, no longer count. So, it's had a direct impact, and it's one of the reasons why it's quite difficult to compare the results of one year and another, because of these changes in performance indicators. +Michelle Brown AM: Yes, that makes sense. Do you think there hasn't been any—? Can we take it from what you've said that there's been a positive improvement, or has it been negative? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there's a growing realisation that secondary schools, key stage 4, is driven overly by performance indicators, and, whatever performance indicator you come up with, there will be unintended consequences. So, it's not, I think, useful to keep changing the performance indicators and think that you will get to a point where you solve the problem. That's not likely to happen. What needs to be done is to have a different approach to accountability that doesn't put so much attention on these performance indicators, because what you're doing is you're just moving the problem around by changing the performance indicators. Some of these vocational courses that I mentioned are a good example of this. So, I think the previous performance indicators encouraged schools to enter, for example, whole cohorts to do BTEC science, and that's not a good idea because the GCSE sciences are better preparation to go on to A-level science, for example. So, you're cutting out the possibility of progression for those pupils. On the other hand, by discouraging—the new performance indicators discourage BTEC and now people are saying, 'We're not offering BTEC at all', and it is suitable for a certain cohort of pupils. So, it's very difficult to get the performance indicators absolutely right if you put so much pressure on schools to actually achieve those performance indicators. +John Griffiths AM: Michelle, I'd just like to bring in Darren at this point. +Darren Millar AM: I share some of your concern around the unavailability now of BTEC in some schools. It strikes me that the decision to discourage the availability of BTEC, which is what the performance measures do, really is sending a message about vocational qualifications that is not helpful, actually, to many young people for whom vocational qualifications may be perfectly suitable. Is that something with which you concur? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's one of the unintended consequences, and what I'm trying to say is that, almost inevitably, there will be unintended consequences. So, you can sympathise with the original decision to change the performance indicators in such a way that it encouraged more pupils to do GCSEs, for example, but it does have that unintended consequence. In theory, there's nothing stopping a school entering pupils now for those qualifications. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle, we need to move on at this stage, so we'll move on Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you very much. I wanted to ask you about looked-after children and adopted children, and how effective the PDG has been for those groups of children. So, to begin with, how well do the schools know that the PDG does exist for looked-after children and adopted children? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think what we found—we did a review of looked-after children fairly recently, and we found there was some confusion about where the grant was, who had the grant and how it was spent, and what the priorities of regional consortia were, because I think the grant goes to regional consortia now. I think previously it went to local authorities. So, I think schools aren't quite sure about how it's spent and what the priorities are. +Claire Morgan: I think we've seen a bit of improvement there. Meilyr was right; there was a lack of clarity. Schools weren't always aware of the grant and the possibility of using it to support those learners. But the consortia are now using the grant, and there's some training being offered to schools around emotional behaviour and attachment training. There's some school-to-school work that is now being funded by the grant to share best practice, and there are some individual bursaries to support the work. So, from quite a concern, some action now is appearing to be done. +Simon Brown: And on other developments, regional consortia, they've have appointed regional LAC co-ordinators, which has been helpful— +Julie Morgan AM: For these particular groups? +Simon Brown: Yes. It has happened since July 2016 and they're now in post and beginning to work. And, as Claire said—she gave some of the spend that the regional consortia are using, targeted spending. It's an improving area of regional consortia's work. They are improving their tracking of looked-after children. There's an issue about adopted children, I think, because, currently, the pupil-level annual school census data doesn't differentiate whether children are adopted or not. So, they're more difficult to track. But looked-after children are being tracked by the consortia. So, it's an improving area, as Claire mentioned. +Julie Morgan AM: Could you give some examples of some work that's been done with looked-after children that you feel has been effective? +Claire Morgan: I think we'd probably need to go away and get that from our evidence base. That would be helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: That would be great if you could do that and send something in to us. I've mentioned before in this context that this previous committee, in the previous Assembly, did an inquiry into adopted children, where we met with a lot of adoptive parents. And one of the big issues that did come out was the fact that there was a great deal of concern about some of the insensitivities in the schools in dealing with adopted children, asking for pictures of when the children were born and things like that that didn't show a degree of sensitivity. Do you feel that those sorts of issues are being addressed on a wider basis now, and are they being addressed through this grant, through the PDG grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: We probably do need to come back to you with some more evidence on this. This is certainly on our radar. We've got two pieces of work currently that we're doing, which will give a little bit more evidence on this. We're doing a piece of work on managed moves and I think that will be helpful because a lot of these pupils are subject to managed moves, and that's the sort of thing we'll be looking at in that report: what information is transferred from one organisation and from one school to another. I think that generally hasn't been very helpful, and there isn't necessarily a good system for exchanging particularly their educational needs—some of the basic things about their date of birth and whatever are transferred, but their educational needs, when children move from one school to another. So, we've got a report coming out on that. The other piece of work we've been doing is on children who have had adverse experiences in their childhood and how schools deal with those traumatic backgrounds. +Julie Morgan AM: That would, of course, be much wider than looked-after and adopted children. +Meilyr Rowlands: It is wider. It is wider. That is wider. But, if you don't mind, we'll try and get you something specifically on— +Julie Morgan AM: If you could, because there does generally seem to be a lack of knowledge about how effective this work is with looked-after and adopted children. You don't have any information about exclusion rates, for example, with looked-after children, and the way this grant has been used to address those sorts of issues? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is some data available. I don't think exclusions have gone down particularly for that group more than any other group. But there has to be quite a bit of caution used with data on exclusions. The Welsh Government's statistics on that come with a big cautionary note, because that data is subject to a lot of variation—exactly what you're talking about, I think: different counties and different authorities do things differently. And I think the work we're doing on managed moves is very pertinent to that because managed moves don't count as part of the exclusion. So, the exclusion rates will differ from area to area, depending on the policy on managed moves. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about attendance? Anything about attendance with looked-after children? Any evidence of— +Meilyr Rowlands: I'll have to look that up as well I think. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, Chair, if we can have some more information on all of this, it would be great. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, yes, we'll look forward to receiving that further information from you. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I just ask a follow-up to a response that we had last week when we had the EAS consortium in, amongst others? They told us that the specific grant—the pupil deprivation grant—principally for looked-after children, they were responsible for, and that certainly the vast bulk of that was spent on a specific programme, aimed not at LACs specifically, but at all children considered vulnerable at times of transition, particularly into year 7. Does that strike you as an appropriate use of that grant? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think transition is appropriate—that's quite sensible, but clearly if the grant is for looked-after children, it should be spent on looked-after children. +Mark Reckless AM: Are there any other comments on that approach? I think, to take up what EAS has said, there were difficulties about having particular programmes aimed specifically at individual looked-after children, and it was felt that they would benefit vulnerable children, who had more transitions between schools perhaps than others. Is that a sufficient link to justify how that grant is spent? I think this is really in the wider context of how much schools need to make sure this grant goes towards the group it's specified for, and to what extent it is acceptable to blur the boundaries of that and perhaps this is just an example of a higher degree of blurring than some others. +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't know enough about this particular initiative to comment, but I would have thought that looked-after children is a very small group and if you were to blur it that much, then it wouldn't be very targeted. I would have thought that if the grant is specifically for looked-after children, it should be more targeted, but I don't know the details. +Mark Reckless AM: Just following up on another point, I think you said that the 'PLASS' data—. I apologise that I'm not familiar with the abbreviation, but could you explain if anything was being done to address previously looked-after children who are now adopted and seeking to ensure that they are measured to that data to allow proper tracking. Is that work that's in hand, do you know? Could you just clarify for me the 'PLASS' description and what information system that that refers to? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's the information that schools give formally to Welsh Government and every so often, the data that is collected formally by Welsh Government is improved and expanded. Exclusions is a good example. Previously, exclusions weren't collected through PLASC—the pupil level annual school census—and so we had no proper data at all on exclusions. Now that's been improved, but I'm afraid I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, I think what you were referring to—. I think you were saying that previously looked-after children who are now adopted, unlike looked-after children, that wasn't tracked by the PLASC data. +Simon Brown: That's our understanding. Looked-after children are differentiated, but whether they're adopted or not—whether any children are adopted—isn't picked up in the data at the moment. +Mark Reckless AM: But I think for the grant, it's previously looked-after children who have since been adopted rather than all adopted children, isn't it? +John Griffiths AM: Again, perhaps you could clarify that for us in the further information that you will provide. +Meilyr Rowlands: Although, you'd probably be better off asking the Welsh Government directly. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes, I agree—I think that would be better, but just to clarify finally from me, Chair: is your point that, if that group isn't measured, then it is difficult to target them with this grant, and if we want them to be targeted with this grant, we should ensure that they're tracked through that data system? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, that sounds sensible. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark, I think you have some further questions on Schools Challenge Cymru. +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Did you consider that the Schools Challenge Cymru programme was a success? +Meilyr Rowlands: It was certainly variable. It lasted for a relatively short period of time, so it's quite difficult to be definitive about the evaluation of it, but it was certainly variable. It varied from school to school. Some were very successful, some didn't make as much improvement. If it had lasted longer, maybe it would have made a difference. Overall, the data made—. There were improvements overall for the 40 schools over and above the general improvement that there was for all schools in Wales. So, you could say that it was successful in that respect. So, it's quite difficult to say whether it was successful, because that was a fairly limited improvement for quite a lot of money. It is, you know, quite a difficult judgment to say whether it was successful or not overall. What strikes one, I think, was the variability in the success of it, and I think that was clear also at an operational level. It was clearly more successful in certain areas where all the various people involved in the work worked together effectively. So, the challenge adviser and the local authority and the regional consortia were all working effectively together. And, in other cases, they weren't, and there had to be changes in personnel and that sort of thing. So, it was quite variable. +Mark Reckless AM: Of the five schools within the programme that Estyn actually inspected in the last year of the programme, I think that three of those were in special measures and two required significant improvement. Doesn't that suggest that, as far as Estyn engaged with the programme, your evidence was not to suggest that it was being successful? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not wildly successful, certainly, but many of these schools would have been in those sorts of categories in the past as well. So, it's not very surprising that many of them still remained. So, it wasn't a huge success, clearly. As you say, many of these schools are still struggling schools, so it hasn't been a panacea. +Mark Reckless AM: Bearing in mind your remarks earlier over the focus on key stage 4, in particular the C to D grade boundary, what sort of minimum length of time should a programme like this run for if we are to expect success? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's a hugely difficult question to answer, and it is at the core of whether this initiative was successful. There has been research, and people have looked at things like the City Challenge and have suggested that two or three years is too short a period to make a proper evaluation of how successful those particular initiatives were. I don't know of similar evaluations to that particular point in Wales for the Schools Challenge Cymru, but with similar initiatives in England, the suggestion has been that you need at least three years to be able to evaluate it properly. +Mark Reckless AM: The Schools Challenge Cymru advisers, I understand that Estyn met with those termly through the programme. Can you explain how useful that engagement was, and also perhaps compare or contrast it to the ongoing engagement you have with the advisers from the regional consortia? +Meilyr Rowlands: You know, the engagement we had with local authorities, and regional consortia, and with Schools Challenge Cymru advisers was not really a problem for us. That was fine. I think the engagement with each other was more of the issue, really. I think the challenge for Schools Challenge Cymru was that it was introduced at a time when regional consortia were just beginning. So, you had a period of time when it wasn't entirely clear what the responsibilities of regional consortia were, compared with local authorities. That has developed and clarified over time, but at that time it wasn't entirely clear. Plus, you were bringing in another player to the school improvement landscape. When all of those different agencies worked well together, then that was a positive thing for schools. When they were all saying the same thing, having that extra resource, extra money, extra attention, was a positive thing; but, clearly, in some cases, that relationship didn't always work, and some schools felt that they were being told different things by different agencies. Clearly, that was one of the reasons why that wasn't as successful. +Mark Reckless AM: So, is Welsh Government now trying to do, through the regional consortia, what it was then trying to do through Schools Challenge Cymru? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what you had then was you had all three: you had local authorities and regional consortia and Schools Challenge Cymru. So, what you have now is a clearer demarcation of who does what. I don't think what Welsh Government are doing now is the same as what they were trying to do in Schools Challenge Cymru, because I think what Schools Challenge Cymru did, and did well, I think, was identify that there are a small number of secondary schools that have particular challenges and they need over and above the normal local authority/regional consortia support, they need over and above that a certain quantum of support and resource. I think that's specifically what Schools Challenge Cymru was trying to do, and that's not quite the same as what the more universal provision of regional consortia is. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, that's all we have time for in this session, I'm afraid. There are some questions that we haven't reached that we'll write to you on to obtain further responses, and there are some matters that you've identified where you need to provide us with further information also. May I thank you very much for coming along this morning to give evidence? You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Thank you very much. The committee will now break for just over six minutes until 11:30. Welcome back, for item 3 on our agenda today, scrutiny of Estyn's annual report for 2016-17. We've got a number of areas to cover, but please, Members, feel free to raise whatever issues you think appropriate, because the areas that we've identified are a general guide only. Okay, welcome back to Estyn, our witnesses for this session also. I don't know if we need further introductions. I don't think we do, really; we've already had that on the record. So, we'll move straight into questions then, and Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you very much. Just to start with, what's your opinion about the way the Government has been introducing reforms in this area over this past inspection cycle? In general, what is your opinion about how effective that has been and how much of an impression has it had? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well the seven year cycle encompasses three Governments if truth be told, but there has been a sense of continuity and progress made in the nature of policy work in general, starting with the fundamental things such as literacy and numeracy in the first instance and also behaviour and attendance, as I said earlier this morning. And then they've developed a far more comprehensive scheme that is at the heart of the development of the curriculum and pedagogy specifically. And I think that that general shift from the foundations—of literacy and numeracy—moving towards the curriculum and pedagogy does make sense. And the other trend that we've seen is to promote collaboration and the self-improvement system, as it's called. I also think that there are a number of progressive countries doing the same kind of thing. So, I think that the general direction is right. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you think—and I'd agree—that the focus on pedagogy is correct and that this culture that appears to be putting more emphasis on self-improvement, and so on, is a positive one. Are there aspects that haven't worked as well in your opinion? +Meilyr Rowlands: Of course, one accepts that one would like to see development and progress happening far more quickly, but, even in that instance, we need to balance the need that we all have to see progress with the pressures that are on teachers—there are so many things changing. I think that the most striking aspect in looking back over the past seven years is that all aspects of work in the education system—I'm trying to avoid saying 'schools', because it's more than just schools; it's colleges and the system as a whole—have changed. All aspects of that have changed, and I think that we need that—all of those aspects need to be changed and improved—but we need to balance that against the fact that we need to not go so fast, because workload on teachers—. This responsibility of self-improvement means that there is more pressure on teachers and headteachers, ultimately. That's why Estyn was very pleased to collaborate with 15 other bodies to give guidance on workload for teachers, because we have to be very careful to get that right as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is it disappointing, then, in the latest annual report, that you are to all intents and purposes coming to the conclusion that the performance is consistent with how it has been over the past inspection cycle? Would you not expect some kind of progress or something more significant in terms of outcomes? +Meilyr Rowlands: That's one way of looking at it. Another way, as I said earlier, is that all of these things are changing and, under those particular circumstances, that it's a good thing that teachers and the education system have been able to maintain standards and the quality of education. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The sector, of course, is continually evolving. We know that a number of these reforms are still playing out and are still being developed and introduced. Of course, there is a risk that we are in this situation continuously, and therefore settling for managing to maintain, for me, perhaps wouldn't show enough ambition. Is there a risk that we will find ourselves continually—? As you say, the inspection cycle has seen three Governments. There are changes and different policies and priorities being implemented. From what you say, that does prevent the development of the sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: We are in the middle of a period of major change, and you're right that there is more change to come. The new curriculum will reach key stage 4 in around seven years again, so we're genuinely in the middle of this period of change. Perhaps 'revolutionary' is too strong a word, but it is the biggest change that I've seen in my career. You have to go back to the 1980s and 1990s to see similar changes. Of course, we all wish to see swifter progress being made, but what that means in practice is that you push more changes through, or that you push through the changes that we currently have more quickly. There was discussion, for example, about when the new curriculum should be introduced. Those are the kinds of practical questions that arise, and you have to remember that, in the classroom, what you will have are individual teachers having to prepare for a new GCSE, a new A-level, and there are new specifications in that regard, and it's a great deal of work. So, we have to be very careful when we say that we need to accelerate that process. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you understand the point I was making about the risk of finding ourselves like this continually and therefore to say, if we were to interpret your conclusion in the recent report, that outcomes have been consistent over the inspection cycle doesn't mean that we are pushing enough or that the reforms happen in a way that allows progress in performance terms. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would wish to see that we wouldn't be in this position continuously. I think that— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you've just suggested that there are seven years ahead of us yet in terms of introducing these reforms. +Meilyr Rowlands: But I do think that the reforms, in looking at them holistically, are fundamental, as I was saying. You have to go back 30, 40 years to see something similar. So, I do think that we need to look at—. One of the problems—. You ask what hasn't worked in the past. Well, I think one of the things, and it's difficult to answer that question, but one of the things that hasn't worked in the past is just doing one aspect of the system. We need to look at transforming the entire education system at the same time, because if you just tinker with one part then it might have an unintended effect in another place. So, I think we need to look at the system as a whole, and I think that what's happening at the moment is a structural change to the system. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, I think that's a fair enough point. What's your assessment, therefore, of how able or how ready schools are to deal with, in moving forward now, all of these changes and reforms? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, as I said, I think that they have coped with a whole host of changes, and that's something to be praised. We are disappointed the standards haven't improved as much as we would have liked to have seen, but we also need to be congratulating the workforce for getting to grips with so many changes in a relatively short period. So, that does give one confidence that they will be able to cope with other changes in future. So, I am confident in that sense, but we do have to be careful in looking out for the workload, because the culture of promoting is one of giving more responsibilities to teachers, to schools, to colleges and to headteachers. So, we have to be very careful that that workload doesn't become excessive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would you also share the concern that the reduction in school budgets will worsen those risks that you referred to? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. As you'll know, international research evidence shows that it is not the amount of funding that goes into education systems that dictates how effective they are. But it is true to say that, if you have financial cuts, that does cause practical problems for headteachers in having to lay off staff, and so on. So, it does take a lot of time and energy to deal with cuts. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Llyr. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: Could I ask the reasons for Professor Donaldson being asked to undertake a review of Estyn's role? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think any good organisation would welcome external scrutiny. I would say that, wouldn't I, because I'm an inspector, but I think it's important that we practise what we preach. There have been in the past systems of quinquennial reviews. I think it is healthy for anybody to have that sort of external view, and I think in particular we're proud in Estyn that we are a body that is developing and trying new things and evolving continuously. So, I think it's that. But if you were to ask, 'Why now?', it's because of the extent of the education reform that we're particularly facing. So, I think it's a good thing to do at any given time, but considering the range and speed of change that we're facing in education now, I thought it was particularly important that we ask Graham Donaldson to look at the implications for our work of all this education reform. +Mark Reckless AM: What have been the biggest benefits to Wales of having Estyn as an independent body inspecting schools and other institutions in Wales compared to the work that Ofsted has done in England? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we have very good relationships with Ofsted and with Education Scotland and the Education Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland. I wouldn't like to compare—I don't think it would be fair to compare ourselves. We do things slightly differently, but we benefit a lot from each other. We have inspectors from Ofsted or from Scotland, from Northern Ireland, on our inspections. We shadow them, and our inspectors go to their countries. So, we're working quite closely with the home countries, but also further afield with Holland and with the Republic of Ireland, for example. So, we're always, all of us, learning from one another about what we think they do well and what they think we do well. We're constantly learning from each other. I wouldn't think it's fair for me to say what I think—you know, where we're better than another country. +Mark Reckless AM: Of course. I'm not asking you to criticise Ofsted. I agree that wouldn't be appropriate. But I think what is fair for me to ask is: perhaps could you highlight one or two areas where you believe that Estyn has a particular difference of emphasis and approach from Ofsted? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think one of the things we've done and we've developed over many years is the use of the nominee and peer inspectors in particular. So, we've got, I think, a really good tradition of doing that in Wales, and when we do meet other inspectorates, they're always very interested in that part of our work. We're a very small organisation; we're only about 50 HMIs. We inspect a wide range of sectors, as you know, but the bulk of that inspection work is actually done now by peer inspectors. So, I think that, and the idea of a nominee, is also of interest to other inspectorates across the world. So, there's always someone from the body that we are inspecting on the inspection team. They're part of all the discussions so they actually understand how we've come to our report, and they can then help the organisation move forward after we've left. +Mark Reckless AM: I've clashed with Welsh Ministers on the absence of league tables for schools in Wales, with less accountability for their results than is the case in England. I note it as a parent myself. But, from, I think, at some point in 2014, you started in your inspection reports of primary schools putting the comparison of how they were doing compared to other schools and local authorities and nationally, as well as what you've described as their family of schools, and being more transparent over their key stage 2 results. So, what led you to do that? What difference has that made? And was that decision taken by Estyn on its own account, or was that something that was agreed with Welsh Ministers? +Meilyr Rowlands: I did listen to Plenary, so I've heard you raise this issue. I'm sure it's inadvertent on your part, but you've confused absolutely everyone with this. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm pleased to let you set the record straight, then. +Meilyr Rowlands: It's not actually true. The data that you refer to is published by the Welsh Government on My Local School. So, if you want to know about your own school or any other school, you should go onto that website. That's hugely—. It's very clear. There's a huge amount of data on it, but it's very, very clear. You can look at it in terms of tables and data and graphs and it shows all that data that you refer to, and that's the right place to have it. We do refer to some of that data in our reports, because our reports are based on evidence. Most of it is first-hand evidence that we see in the classroom and see in pupils' work, but we triangulate that with data and with what parents and pupils say and interviews with staff. So, we refer to that data and we always have referred to the data. Pre 2014, it was in the body of the text, and then after 2014 we put it in an appendix. We had a mid-cycle review and people felt it would be better in an appendix than in the body of the text, but it was always there. There's pros and cons on whether it should be in the body of the text or in an appendix. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, certainly, the data became clear to me in reports after 2014 in a way it wasn't before. So, I will leave that there. Can I just highlight a few of what I felt were either particularly striking statistics or comparisons or points that were made in your annual report of potential concern? You state that headteachers do not understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice in about three quarters of schools—this relates to the foundation phase. I find that quite a shocking statistic. Do you share that view? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. That's why I highlighted it in my foreword. I think there is a general consensus about the benefits of the foundation phase. There's a lot of research, and our own evidence shows that, where it is implemented well, pupils benefit a lot from it and they're well prepared to be independent thinkers. So, it's a development that we should be proud of in Wales, I think, the foundation phase. It's a great thing. But, we are disappointed that only about a quarter of primary schools are implementing it fully. There's a whole range of reasons, as I discuss in the annual report, why that might be the case. It is quite an innovative idea, and I think it's misunderstood by saying it's learning through play, because that's a bit too simplistic a definition of it. We have written a report recently on good practice in the foundation phase, so that we can try and explain clearly to people what the benefits of it are and how best to implement it. But I think it is true that too many headteachers—. Many of them might not have taught in foundation phase, they might not have that infant background, they might have a junior-school background. There might not have been enough—well, we say there wasn't enough training—or there might be people who missed any training that there was then. So, overall, there is a large number of leaders who don't fully appreciate what the foundation phase could deliver. +John Griffiths AM: Darren—is it on this? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, it is on this. I was just wondering—. I mean, one of the problems that I know you've identified in the past is this lack of good practice being able to travel into all parts of Wales, and, of course, we've got local authorities, we've got regional consortia, we've got the Welsh Government—all of which want to see good practice replicated where possible. What opportunities are there, perhaps, to develop some other further opportunities for good practice to be shared and promoted? I know that the Wales Audit Office, for example, has its good practice exchange. Is there something similar that schools can engage with to make things happen? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's a good question. I mean, specifically to do with foundation phase, there is a foundation phase—I can't remember what it's called now—excellence network I think, which is being relaunched. I think it was supposed to be relaunched during the snow period. So, there are networks being established. There's one for mathematics—a national network for excellence in mathematics—there's one for science and there's one for foundation phase in particular. So, I think it is a challenge that we haven't cracked yet in Wales: how do we make sure that good practice does travel? I think one specifically for foundation phase is a good idea, because we've got a specific issue with the foundation phase. +Mark Reckless AM: When you say that— +John Griffiths AM: Mark, just before you go on, I think Julie wanted to come in on this point as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I just wondered if you could give us some examples about how the foundation phase is not being implemented in the true spirit of the foundation phase in the three quarters of schools that you think fall—. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, what we mean by that is schools not necessarily teaching badly, but in a more traditional way. And where we've seen that most obviously is in year 1 and year 2. Some schools actually reverted, after the introduction of the new tests, from what was pedagogy that was in line with the foundation phase. And basically, if I understand it correctly, it's more to do with the children making their own choices about what they do. And that is pretty common in nursery and reception classes, but it's less common in year 1 and year 2. +Claire Morgan: I think it is very much, as Meilyr said, the difference between a pupil-led learning experience or a teacher-led learning experience. Because of the lack of training and maybe the confidence to pursue that active and experiential learning approach, teachers have tended to resort to what they feel more comfortable with, which is more of an adult-led learning—often still high quality, but it doesn't ensure that the learners become far more independent, far more engaged in their learning. So, it's almost holding children back to an extent. They're making good progress, but they could be making even more progress. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: So, when you say that some teachers are sort of holding children back, and in the report that three quarters of schools don't understand the principles of good pedagogy or good practice, what you mean is that teachers are using traditional methods, including whole-class teaching, rather than moving towards a pupil-led learning experience and one that you said was oversimplified as learning through play. May not the issue here therefore be that Estyn is seeking to impose this different approach on teachers who think that they are better able to teach children in the traditional way, which, at least in my experience, would be supported by quite a number of parents? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think it's Estyn that's imposing it. That's the national policy. +Mark Reckless AM: Do you support that policy? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we do, actually. We do. Our evidence, as I said, is that, when it is implemented properly, pupils do actually gain from it. But we're not imposing it, and what we're saying is that headteachers are not necessarily understanding it. I think there is quite a lot of jargon around it. I was just looking in the annual report. Quite unusually, in this section, we have had to actually explain some of the technical terms, like 'continuous provision'. So that's, I think, one of the reasons why people don't understand it fully. That's why we did produce this quite substantial bit of work, trying to unpack what this actually means in practice and giving a lot of good examples of the practice. +Mark Reckless AM: You referred to evidence of this approach working. Given the timing of when it was brought in and where we are now, has that really had time to distil through the system and give compelling evidence that this approach works better than more traditional approaches? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it has, to be fair. I think this has, because we're talking about a lot of developmental work related to the foundation phase prior to 2010, but it became compulsory for all schools to deliver it from 2010 onwards. So, that gives enough time for children to have been through the whole of the foundation phase onto key stage 2, and we can see the effect of it. In the schools where there is good practice in the foundation phase, we can see the effect when we inspect on key stage 2 children. +Mark Reckless AM: So, would you be confident about this, in the next few years, feeding through into an improvement in Programme for International Student Assessments, rather than a further deterioration? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think that if we did what Darren was talking about, getting more schools to share good practice, I think it will expand and more schools will take it on, yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Okay. On the sharing of good practice, you put emphasis in the report on this being an improving area and trend for the future as well, but I think you did raise concerns that it wasn't monitored or evaluated sufficiently well, particularly where one school was supporting another. How should that be done better? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think this has been a theme of many of the issues we've raised: that, whatever the initiative, you can't tell whether it's been successful or not unless you evaluate it properly. So, those evaluation skills, I think, are very important. I think that, with the development of the national academy for educational leadership, I would hope that research skills and evaluative skills would be part of the kind of training that headteachers get that maybe in the past they didn't. So, that becomes more of the day-to-day work of schools—that naturally, whenever you do something, you evaluate it afterwards. We've evaluated a lot of the school-to-school work. We've published two or three reports on it, and we've identified what we think is good practice and not-so-good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? If we move on at this stage—I wonder, before other Members come in, if I could ask about community-focused schools. Quite a lot of what we discussed earlier was around the importance of getting families and the community more involved in education, and one way of doing that, I think, is through community-focused schools that are very much accessible to the community, linked well with outside organisations, having an extended school-day offer. We have the twenty-first century schools programme, but we have a lot of schools existing that haven't been part of that. I just wondered to what extent Estyn might encourage or highlight the need to encourage greater consistency in community-focused schools across Wales, because I think there is a feeling that it is very inconsistent. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we would very much be happy to support anything like that. We discussed it earlier. We were talking about targeting vulnerable learners earlier this morning. We see that as, particularly, a solution for that long-standing issue we have in Wales in particular. So, yes, we do have good examples of good practice. We mentioned some of them earlier this morning. I've puzzled about this. I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding about the term 'community-focused school'. I think it became thought of as meaning the community just uses the facilities in the evening and, of course, it's a much, much broader concept than that. I think some schools particularly didn't like the community using their facilities in the evening, and that became, I think, possibly part of the reason why community-focused schools didn't become more popular. The way I look at it is, as Claire was explaining earlier about the school offering all kinds of services to people—you know, family learning, those sorts of nurture groups, all those sorts of educationally focused services available from the school, and generally building relationships. They're more to do with the culture than the actual building and the facilities. But, yes, we certainly have seen and identified where that good practice exists. +John Griffiths AM: So, if there might be a mechanism that could have community-focused schools working in the way that you've described right across Wales, would Estyn be in favour of such a mechanism? +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I just ask one further question, then, before, as I said, I bring other Members in? There is a particular concern at the moment—and has been for some time—about white working-class children, and perhaps particularly boys, not attaining as they should through our education system. Is that something that Estyn recognises? Has Estyn done much work on that, and if so, what is that work? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've done work on boys and girls, and we've done work on deprived children—you know, identified, as we were discussing this morning, by eligibility for free school meals. We haven't specifically looked at white working-class boys, but a lot of the solutions, and a lot of the good practice that we have identified generally, through the PDG and whatever I think is the way forward for that particular cohort as well. +John Griffiths AM: So, you wouldn't see the need for a particular focus or a particular piece of work to identify whether there are aspects of education that might particularly benefit that group. +Meilyr Rowlands: I wouldn't object to doing a piece of work on that, in case we have missed something, but I suspect it would be the same schools that do well with that cohort that we've identified already for the same reasons, I suspect. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. To what extent has the rate of improvement differed between the primary and secondary sectors? +Meilyr Rowlands: I'm not sure if there's been a difference in the rate of improvement, but certainly I've raised in this annual report, and indeed in previous annual reports, the difference between primary and secondary. We've got 7 in 10—nearly three quarters—of primary schools doing well and about half of secondary schools. So, I did open debate on why that is the case in last year's annual report. There are several reasons, I think. Generally, there is a widening of gaps when you go from primary to secondary, but also it's from foundation phase to key stage 2 to key stage 3 to key stage 4. There's a general widening of the gender gap, for example. There's a widening of the free-school-meals gap and so forth. So, there are particular challenges facing secondary schools that don't exist in primary. I should say that what you get in secondary schools is greater variability. So, there's actually more excellence in secondary schools according to our inspections than in primary, although the overall proportion of good or better schools is higher in primary than in secondary. So, I think it is a challenge to think why this is the case. It's partly because of the challenges of adolescent, young people. That is part of it. I think also, although I've got no evidence for this, it's probably more difficult for that community focus to work in a larger secondary school than a smaller primary school. You go to primary schools, you often see the parents much more engaged than in secondary school. So, I think that's a bit more of a challenge as well. So, there is a whole range of issues. The other one, of course, is the one we were talking about earlier this morning, the pressure on secondary schools to address performance indicators and examinations in particular. Another possible reason is the structure of secondary schools is subject-based, departmental-based, so children will get 10 to 12 different teachers. In primary school, for a whole year, they will have the same teacher. It's easier, therefore, in a primary school for the school to see the child as an individual and recognise their problems and their needs as a whole. So, I think there is a whole range of issues that explains or goes part way to explaining what you've identified. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. You touched on this quite a bit in your earlier evidence, but you said in the annual report that there's a danger that accountability measures might be having an effect on the advice being given to pupils about subjects they study. Do you have any evidence of that or is that a perception? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, I think everyone agrees that there's very strong evidence about that. We discussed examples this morning. When you change a performance indicator, the examination pattern changes. We talked about examples like BTEC science this morning. There's a very, very direct and immediate impact on them. There's plenty of evidence of that. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Michelle? Perhaps we'll move on at this stage—we haven't got a great deal of time left—if that's okay. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: I wanted to ask about special schools in terms of your views about the standards in special schools—whether you've got any views on that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, we highlighted special schools as a successful sector in the annual report, as we have over many years. Over 90 per cent of them are good or better. It's a very successful sector. The small number of schools that don't do quite as well tend to be the schools that deal with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. But the sector as a whole is a good example of sharing good practice. They work very, very well together. They're constantly—. It's difficult to say why that is in this particular sector, as opposed to other sectors. Possibly they don't have an overlap in catchment areas, they're quite geographically separate, so they don't feel as if they're in competition with one another. But they certainly work very well together, sharing good practice, doing peer reviews of each other. So, it is a successful sector. +Julie Morgan AM: And that includes the independent sector. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry, I should have said that was mainly to do with the maintained sector. The independent sector tends to focus maybe on those children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, so they have the more difficult task to begin with. But because they're independent, they are, to some extent, in competition with one another. So, we have seen improvement in that independent special sector over the cycle. That's partly down to the work we do in Estyn. We visit them on an annual basis to make sure that they're addressing all our recommendations, and continue to meet the needs of those pupils. And also, I think there's been a trend where more of those independent schools now have—. Several of them have the same owner, so they share good practice amongst that little chain of schools. So, that has been a trend we've seen over time as well. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And what about pupil referral units? How are the standards there? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, they're more variable. I think they have a lot of challenges. We've contributed a lot of evidence to the various working groups that have been looking at EOTAS—that's education other than at school. Half the children in EOTAS—educated other than at school—are in PRUs. So, we've done a lot of work about that. ADEW, which is the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, have now set up a national body to share good practice amongst PRUs, so I think that is a very positive step forward, because that sharing, I think, wasn't happening with PRUs. I think what we need to do with PRUs is to get them to be more of a part of the education system as a whole. They tend to be sort of semi-detached a little bit from the system. So, the more we can do to involve them in national events, and also, I think, make their governance more like that of a school so that they become more similar to schools—that makes it easier for them to share practice with schools. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, thank you very much. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I'd just like to spend a minute or two looking more specifically at post-16 education. The percentage of further education colleges who have reached a  good or better standard has increased, of course, over the past inspection cycle. I'd just like to ask what you think is responsible for that, and are there any lessons we can take out of that and transfer to other sectors within education? +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you for the question, but I'm going to ask Simon to answer. +Simon Brown: As you're aware, the number of colleges from 22 to 12, and I think those mergers resulted in establishments that were stronger in terms of their leadership in particular. That leadership, I think the characteristics we have seen in the 'good' or 'better'—as you say, 80 per cent leadership good or better—has been a culture of openness, a culture of clarity of purpose about where the college is going. High staff morale has been maintained, because a number of those colleges—. Obviously, if you're merging large colleges as they did in north Wales, keeping staff morale high is quite a skill, and I think the leadership have done that very well. They've also supported managers at all levels, and they've encouraged managers to support staff at all levels. So, it's become a very collaborative, very supportive organisation. I think another characteristic of the FE sector is that it's got very strong governance arrangements. I did a training session for college governors about a month ago, and what struck me was the breadth of experience of the college governors, from industry, from academia. They are a very challenging set of governors, I think, who hold the senior leadership to account in the colleges, and that helps to push standards forward. Teaching is 'good' or 'better' in 70 per cent of colleges because the senior leadership team are encouraging teachers in colleges to innovate, encouraging them to engage actively in performance management systems, and to become reflective practitioners in the colleges. And this is impacting, obviously, on the standards at the end of the day. So, I think those are the key features. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And how many of those do you think could effectively be transferred or encouraged in other sectors? +Simon Brown: But I think one sector that—. I think the other post-16 sector, which is work-based learning— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, yes, I was going to ask you. Conversely, of course, there's a different experience there. +Simon Brown: Yes, there is a contrast. And we do have concerns about work-based learning. And, again, those concerns tend to sit mainly with the leadership. As we said in the annual report, standards are 'good' or 'better' in only 50 per cent of work-based learning companies, mainly because the completion rates of learners are not what we'd expect, the progression that learners make isn't what we'd expect. And that is mainly due to the way in which the leadership teams monitor progress—monitor progress in themselves as a provider, but, more importantly, the way they manage sub-contractors, because, as you will already know, there's 19 lead providers; there's about 100 training providers. And the companies that are doing better, or the training providers doing better, are those that have got a firm grip on their sub-contractors, and, most importantly, they put quality as the top part of any agenda at any meeting. And, of course, if you're challenging your sub-contractors about quality, that will impact on standards of teaching, and, hopefully, ultimately, on standards of performance on the learners. And I think, to go back to your original question, Llyr, the sort of leadership models that FE colleges have, I think some of the work-based learning providers would be wise to start to emulate those. It's beginning to happen, because FE is getting more engaged in the work-based learning world, so I think some of those behaviours will start to rub off on the companies. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, who would you look to drive some of those changes through then? Is it the sector themselves,  or to what extent can Government and others do things? +Simon Brown: Well, as you know, Meilyr alluded to the changes across all sectors. We've got PCET—we've got the post-compulsory education and training reforms under way. The Welsh Government is looking at the implementation of Hazelkorn's recommendations. So, ultimately, that will start to drive the sectors closer together in post-16. But I think, in the shorter term, some of the work that groups like Colegau Cymru and the National Training Federation Wales are doing, sharing best practice, bringing the colleges and the training companies together, is beginning to help. I'm going to the national training federation conference tomorrow in Cardiff, and I notice the attendance there—there's a lot of FE colleges attending, senior staff of FE colleges, as well as from the work-based training companies. So, that sort of osmosis of good practice is beginning to happen quite naturally. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Llyr? We haven't got very long left, but we've got five minutes or so for some further questions from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: With regard to local authorities, you found shortcomings in your 2010-14 inspection in 15 of the 22. And one of the things that struck me in the report was where you said that you found ineffective processes for self-evaluating improvement within those authorities, but you've also said that there's been a high turnover of directors and new directors in place in many of them. Has that had a positive effect on that self-evaluation process? +Simon Brown: As you're aware, over the past three years, out of the 22 authorities, there have been 40 new directors, over the past three years. Those directors have got a range of experience. Some of those directors are very experienced. Other ones have come from headteachership fairly recently. So, that's one factor. I think the other factor is that the status of education directors has changed quite significantly. Some local authorities are a member of the corporate team and they are directors of education and children's services, so they've got very broad portfolios. In other ones, they're being treated more like heads of service, so heads of department level. +Hefin David AM: I know that Caerphilly went in the opposite direction—from having a chief education officer to then appointing a director, I think. +Simon Brown: I'm sorry? +Hefin David AM: In Caerphilly county borough, they went from having a chief education officer and now have got a director again. But, in many cases, they're the same people, aren't they? It's just that their roles are changed. +Simon Brown: Yes, it's the changes as the corporate structure of councils shift and change. I think the other thing that's happened, of course, with the role of the director of education, is, because of the regional consortia now doing the school improvement function, a large chunk of that role has now moved to the consortia. So, I think it's early days to say what the impact of that new cohort of directors will be, but, of course, we're starting a new inspection cycle in September. We don't do pilots. We looked at Neath Port Talbot in December; we looked at Denbighshire in February. Those reports are not yet published, but what I can say is that neither of those authorities are in follow-up. +Hefin David AM: But you said, even though it's not in follow-up, it was still showing signs of not being able to reflect effectively on improvement—in the report. +Simon Brown: Not in those two authorities. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay, but some of those not in follow-up were not reflecting effectively on their improvement—is the statement that was made in the report. +Simon Brown: What we're seeing, and we've seen this before in the previous cycle, is that the performance of some authorities is patchy. There are authorities that we have concerns about. Those are the authorities—. I think I said to committee last year those authorities are ones that we held improvement conferences in last year. That was to get the senior leadership—both political and officer-led leadership—and the consortia and Welsh Government and the Wales Audit Office and, as it was, the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales, around the table to get those senior leadership teams to actually identify what the longer-term issues are, to surface those issues and to put together an action plan. We're revisiting those three authorities very, very shortly. The first of the revisits is in April to see what progress they've made over the past 12 months or so. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with things like the curriculum reforms, you've identified the new directors in place, but you've said that, although they're new directors, they're actually very experienced in education, so therefore you're confident that they're going to manage the reforms well as they are developed in the next few years. +Simon Brown: I think one development, and I've raised this in committee before, was—. One of our concerns, apart from the fact that there was a large turnover of directors, was what sort of level of training senior leaders and middle managers were getting in those authorities. One of the things that I'm quite pleased to report is that the Association of Directors of Education in Wales and Welsh Government have stepped up to address that issue. Last year, all serving directors attended residential courses run by the Staff College Wales, facilitated by ADEW, and ADEW have just finished the first round of director—. The name of the course is the 'Welsh future leaders in education' course and 26 people have just finished that—aspiring directors. They're preparing for another cohort in September. That course, again, is developed by the Staff College Wales, but it has a lot of external input. They're putting in directors and chief executives from Scotland, they're putting in headteachers of very successful schools in England, who've got current grass-roots experience to share with these aspiring directors. So, I think the concerns that we had previously about the professional learning for middle managers and leaders in local authorities are being addressed. The proof will be in the pudding when we start to do the inspection cycle, but at least the issue now is being tackled. +Hefin David AM: Can I just look at, then, consortia? One of the criticisms in the report was that national policy wasn't being put in context—I think that was the statement in the report—in certain consortia. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that? +Simon Brown: Yes, when we talked, we said that—. Well, two things are at play. One is that the national model for regional working is being revised at the moment, and that work is ongoing by Welsh Government. That is to bring greater consistency to the four consortia, because one of our concerns, which we expressed in this report and we expressed in previous years, is that, although the national model had a particular approach back in 2012, when Robert Hill did the first review, it had a particular approach to the consortia being fairly similar, over the years, they've gone in four different directions. To be fair, over the past couple of years, the consortia are now collaborating much closer together. They are working together—for example, I mentioned earlier about the regional co-ordinators for LAC. Those four people are meeting regularly. So, they've all got different co-ordination roles in their regions. Whereas before they were working more in silos, they are now working much closer together. So, I think what we were referring to, and what we were talking about in the report, is the fact that the consortia need to have a more consistent approach across all four regions. But that will certainly be driven by the new national model. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And the relationships with local authorities, you said that the sharing of information with the local authorities is not always acted upon by local authorities—from the consortia. Is that a failure of communication, or is that something that sits with the local authority to acknowledge? +Simon Brown: I don't think it's a failure of communication. In the cases where some authorities haven't acted sufficiently in intervening in schools or in issuing warning letters, the consortia have been quite clear. The challenge advisers have highlighted these issues. It's the authority that hasn't acted as swiftly as we would expect it to. But, again, I think that is beginning to improve, because the local authorities are quite sensitive to the fact we are now going to be re-inspecting them and looking at them, and that is one of the issues we'll be picking up on. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, in order to do their jobs, the consortia need to be suitably resourced. Are they, and are they fit for the challenges ahead? +Simon Brown: It's not for us to comment on whether each consortium is sufficiently funded or not, but what we would say is that, generally, in the past, they've spent perhaps too large a proportion of their funds on challenge work and not enough funding on support work, but that, again, is moving. We've picked up that GwE, for example, is in the process of renaming their challenge advisers 'support advisers', because they're moving their culture more over to supporting schools to deal with all the raft of reforms that Meilyr mentioned, and that is, it seems to me, an entirely sensible way to go. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, that brings this session to an end. So, thank you all very much once again for giving evidence to committee today. Once again, you will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay, the next item on our agenda today, item 4, is papers to note. We have one paper to note, which is a letter from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee to the Welsh Government regarding the Hwb programme. Is committee content to note that paper? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 5, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting. Is committee content so to do? Okay. Thank you very much. We will move into private session. +","In the meeting, there is an acknowledgment that significant educational reforms are taking place in Wales, with a recognition that it's a period of major change in the education system. While standards have remained consistent, there is a desire to see more rapid improvement, but there is also an understanding that reforms must be balanced against the workload and pressures faced by teachers. + +The importance of engaging families and communities in education is discussed, particularly for targeting vulnerable learners. It is mentioned that a mechanism to promote community-focused schools across Wales, which are accessible and linked well with outside organizations, would be welcomed. + +There is concern over the performance of white working-class children, especially boys, and whether there should be a specific focus on addressing their educational needs. However, it is suggested that the successful practices identified for vulnerable learners in general would likely benefit this group as well. + +For post-16 education, further education (FE) colleges have seen improvements, attributed to strong leadership, collaboration, and governance. Work-based learning providers, meanwhile, face challenges with leadership and quality monitoring, particularly of sub-contractors. + +Local authorities have seen a high turnover of education directors, and efforts are being made to improve their self-evaluation processes related to educational reforms. The regional consortia's varied approaches and their relationships with local authorities are noted, as well as the need for consistent collaboration and sufficient resources to address upcoming challenges. + +The session concludes with an agreement to note the correspondence from the Public Accounts Committee regarding the Hwb programme and a motion to proceed with the meeting in private." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Are we on ? We 're on . OK . +PhD E: Is it on ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . OK , +PhD D: One , two {disfmarker} u OK . +PhD A: Why is it so cold in here ? +Professor B: so , uh , we haven't sent around the agenda . So , i uh , any agenda items anybody has , wants to talk about , what 's going on ? +Postdoc G: I c I could talk about the meeting . +Grad H: Does everyone {disfmarker} has everyone met Don ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's on ? +PhD C: Now , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah ? OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad F: Hello . +Professor B: OK , agenda item one , +PhD D: We went {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: introduce Don . OK , we did that . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I had a {disfmarker} just a quick question but I know there was discussion of it at a previous meeting that I missed , but just about the {disfmarker} the wish list item of getting good quality close - talking mikes on every speaker . +Professor B: OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} So let 's just do agenda {pause} building right now . OK , so let 's talk about that a bit . +PhD A: I mean , that was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , @ @ tuss close talking mikes , better quality . OK , {vocalsound} uh , we can talk about that . You were gonna {disfmarker} starting to say something ? +Postdoc G: Well , you {disfmarker} you , um , already know about the meeting {comment} that 's coming up and I don't know if {disfmarker} if this is appropriate for this . I don't know . I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it 's something we should handle outside of the meeting . +Professor B: No , no , that 's OK . +PhD E: What meeting ? +Professor B: We can {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} we can ta so n NIST is {disfmarker} NIST folks are coming by next week +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and so we can talk about that . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: I think +PhD E: Who 's coming ? +Professor B: Uh , uh , John Fiscus +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I think George Doddington will be around as well . Uh , OK , so we can talk about that . Uh , I guess just hear about how things are going with , uh , uh , the transcriptions . That 's right . +Postdoc G: Sure . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That would sorta be an obvious thing to discuss . Um , An - anything else , uh , strike anybody ? +PhD A: Uh , we started {pause} running recognition on {pause} one conversation but it 's the r {pause} isn't working yet . So , But if anyone has {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Wha +PhD A: uh , the main thing would be if anyone has , um , knowledge about ways to , uh , post - process the wave forms that would give us better recognition , that would be helpful to know about . +Professor B: Um , +Grad H: Dome yeah , it sounds like a topic of conversation . +Professor B: Yeah , so , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What about , uh , is there anything new with the speech , nonspeech stuff ? +PhD C: Yeah , we 're working more on it but , {vocalsound} it 's not finished . +Professor B: OK . Alright , that seems like a {disfmarker} a good collection of things . And we 'll undoubtedly think of {pause} other things . +Postdoc G: I had thought under my topic that I would mention the , uh , four items that I {disfmarker} I , uh , put out for being on the agenda f on that meeting , which includes like the pre - segmentation and the {disfmarker} and the developments in multitrans . +Professor B: Oh , under the NIST meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah , under the NIST thing . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright , why don't we start off with this , u u I guess the order we brought them up seems fine . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so , better quality close talking mikes . So the one issue was that the {disfmarker} the , uh , lapel mike , uh , isn't as good as you would like . And so , uh , it {disfmarker} it 'd be better if we had close talking mikes for everybody . Right ? +PhD A: Ri - um , +Professor B: Is that {disfmarker} is that basically the point ? +PhD A: yeah , the {disfmarker} And actually in addition to that , that the {disfmarker} the close talking mikes are worn in such a way as to best capture the signal . And the reason here is just that for the people doing work not on microphones but on sort of like dialogue and so forth , uh {disfmarker} or and even on prosody , which Don is gonna be working on soon , it adds this extra , you know , vari variable for each speaker to {disfmarker} to deal with when the microphones aren't similar . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} And I also talked to Mari this morning and she also had a strong preference for doing that . And in fact she said that that 's useful for them to know in starting to collect their data too . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so one th +Grad H: Well , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , well one thing I was gonna say was that , um , i we could get more , uh , of the head mounted microphones even beyond the number of radio channels we have because I think whether it 's radio or wire is probably second - order . And the main thing is having the microphone close to you , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: u although , not too close . +Grad H: Right , so , uh , actually the way Jose is wearing his is {disfmarker} is c {pause} correct . +PhD D: Yeah . Is {disfmarker} +Grad H: The good way . So you want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I it 's not cor it 's correct ? +Professor B: Is . +Grad H: Yeah , th that 's good . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: So it 's towards the corner of your mouth so that breath sounds don't get on it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: And then just sort of about , uh , a thumb or {disfmarker} a thumb and a half away from your {disfmarker} from your mouth . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: But we have more than one type of {disfmarker} +Professor B: How am I d +PhD A: I mean , for instance , you 're {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: And this one isn't very adjustable , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: so this about as good as I can get +PhD A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: cuz it 's a fixed boom . +PhD D: Is fixed . Yeah . +PhD A: But if we could actually standardize , you know , the {disfmarker} the microphones , uh , as much as possible that would be really helpful . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , I mean it doesn't hurt to have a few extra microphones around , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: so why don't we just go out and {disfmarker} and get an order of {disfmarker} of if this microphone seems OK to people , uh , I 'd just get a half dozen of these things . +Grad H: Well the onl the only problem with that is right now , um , some of the Jimlets aren't working . The little {disfmarker} the boxes under the table . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: And so , w Uh , I 've only been able to find three jacks that are working . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Can we get these , wireless ? +Grad H: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , but my point is {disfmarker} +PhD A: But y we could just record these signals separately and time align them with the start of the meeting . +Professor B: R r right {disfmarker} +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure I 'm follow . Say that again ? +Professor B: Right now , we 've got , uh , two microphones in the room , that are not quote - unquote standard . So why don't we replace those {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , just two . +Professor B: Well , however many we can plug in . You know , if we can plug in three , let 's plug in three . +Grad H: OK . +PhD D: Mm - yeah . +Professor B: Also what we 've talked before about getting another , uh , radio , +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: and so then that would be , you know , three {pause} more . +Grad H: Right . OK . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} so we should go out to our full complement of whatever we can do , but have them all be the same mike . I think the original reason that it was done the other way was because , it w it was sort of an experimental thing and I don't think anybody knew whether people would rather have more variety or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or , uh , more uniformity , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} but uh , sounds {disfmarker} sounds fine . +Grad H: Sounds like uniformity wins . +PhD D: Right . +PhD A: Well , for short term research it 's just {disfmarker} there 's just so much effort that would have to be done up front n uh , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: so {disfmarker} yeah , uniformity would be great . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD E: Is it because {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 're saying the {disfmarker} for dialogue purposes , so that means that the transcribers are having trouble with those mikes ? Is that what you mean ? +PhD A: Well Jane would know more about the transcribers . +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc G: And that 's true . I mean , I {disfmarker} we did discuss this . Uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . Couple times . +Postdoc G: a couple times , so , um , yeah , the transcribers notice {disfmarker} And in fact there 're some where , um {disfmarker} ugh well , I mean there 's {disfmarker} it 's the double thing . It 's the equipment and also how it 's worn . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: And he 's always {disfmarker} they always {disfmarker} they just rave about how wonderful Adam 's {disfmarker} Adam 's channel is . +Grad H: What can I say . +Postdoc G: And then , +PhD A: So does the recognizer . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Oh , really ? Yeah , I 'm not surprised . I mean , "" Baaah ! "" +PhD A: Even if {disfmarker} if you 're talking on someone else 's mike it 's still {pause} you w +Postdoc G: Yeah , but I mean it 's not just that , it 's also you know you +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: It 's also like n no breathing , no {disfmarker} You know , it 's like it 's {disfmarker} it 's um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: it 's really {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} it makes a big difference from the transcribers ' point of view +Grad H: Yeah , it 's an advantage when you don't breath . +Postdoc G: and also from the research s point of view . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: When we 're doing {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I think that the point of doing the close talking mike is to get a good quality signal . We 're not doing research on close talking mikes . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: So we might as well get it as uniform as we can . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Now , this is locking the barn door after the horse was stolen . We do have thirty hours , of {disfmarker} of speech , which is done this way . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's OK . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh , yeah , for future ones we can get it a bit more uniform . +PhD A: Great , great . +Grad H: So I think just do a field trip at some point . +Professor B: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , to the store we talked about and that {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: And there was some talk about , uh , maybe the h headphones that are uncomfortable for people , to {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . So , as {disfmarker} as I said , we 'll do a field trip and see if we can get all of the same mike that 's more comfortable than {disfmarker} than these things , which I think are horrible . +Postdoc G: OK . Good . +Grad H: So . +PhD A: Great , thank you very much . +PhD E: Especially for people with big heads . +PhD A: It 's makes our job a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad H: And , you know , we 're researchers , so we all have big heads . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , OK , second item was the , uh , NIST visit , and what 's going on there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . OK , so , um , uh , Jonathan Fiscus is coming on the second of February and I 've spoken with , uh , {pause} u u a lot of people here , not everyone . Um , and , um , he expressed an interest in seeing the room and in , um , seeing a demonstration of the modified multitrans , which I 'll mention in a second , and also , um , he was interested in the pre - segmentation and then he 's also interested in the transcription conventions . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: And , um {disfmarker} So , um , it seems to me in terms of like , um , i i it wou You know , OK . So the room , it 's things like the audio and c and audi audio and acoustic {disfmarker} acoustic properties of the room and how it {disfmarker} how the recordings are done , and that kind of thing . And , um . OK , in terms of the multi - trans , well that {disfmarker} that 's being modified by Dave Gelbart to , uh , handle multi - channel recording . +Grad H: Oh , I should 've {disfmarker} I was just thinking I should have invited him to this meeting . I forgot to do it . +Postdoc G: Yeah , OK . +Grad H: So . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Well that 's OK , I mean we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad H: Sorry . +Postdoc G: Yeah , and it 's t and it looks really great . He {disfmarker} he has a prototype . I {disfmarker} I , uh , @ @ {comment} didn't {disfmarker} didn't see it , uh , yesterday but I 'm going to see it today . And , uh , that 's {disfmarker} that will enable us to do {pause} nice um , tight time marking of the beginning and ending of overlapping segments . At present it 's not possible with limitations of {disfmarker} of the , uh , original {pause} design of the software . And um . So , I don't know . In terms of , like , pre - segmentation , that {disfmarker} that continues to be , um , a terrific asset to the {disfmarker} to the transcribers . Do you {disfmarker} I know that you 're al also supplementing it further . Do you want to mention something about that c Thilo , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Um , yeah . What {disfmarker} what I 'm doing right now is I 'm trying to include some information about which channel , uh , there 's some speech in . But that 's not working at the moment . I 'm just trying to do this by comparing energies , uh {disfmarker} normalizing energies and comparing energies of the different channels . +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD C: And so to {disfmarker} to give the transcribers some information in which channel there 's {disfmarker} there 's speech in addition to {disfmarker} to the thing we {disfmarker} we did now which is just , uh , speech - nonspeech detection on the mixed file . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm relying on {disfmarker} on the segmentation of the mixed file +Postdoc G: This is good . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to subdivide the speech portions into different portions if there is some activity in {disfmarker} in different channels . +Postdoc G: Excellent , so this 'd be like w e providing also speaker ID {pause} potentially . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: Wonderful . Wonderful . +Professor B: Um , something I guess I didn't put in the list but , uh , on that , uh , same day later on in {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} No , actually {pause} it 's this week , uh , Dave Gelbart and I will be , uh , visiting with John Canny who i you know , is a CS professor , +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: who 's interested in ar in array microphones . +Grad H: HCC . Oh , he 's doing array mikes . +Professor B: Yeah . And so we wanna see what commonality there is here . You know , maybe they 'd wanna stick an array mike here when we 're doing things +PhD E: That would be cool . +Grad H: Yeah , that would be neat . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} or maybe it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a specific array microphone they want +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: That would be really neat . +Professor B: but they might wanna just , {disfmarker} uh , you know , you could imagine them taking the four signals from these {disfmarker} these table mikes and trying to do something with them {disfmarker} Um , I also had a discussion {disfmarker} So , w uh , we 'll be over {disfmarker} over there talking with him , um , after class on Friday . Um , we 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what goes with that . Also had a completely unrelated thing . I had a , uh , discussion today with , uh , Birger Kollmeier who 's a , uh , a German , uh , scientist who 's got a fair sized group {vocalsound} doing a range of things . It 's sort of auditory related , largely for hearing aids and so on . But {disfmarker} but , uh , he does stuff with auditory models and he 's very interested in directionality , and location , and {disfmarker} and , uh , head models and {pause} microphone things . And so , uh , he 's {disfmarker} he and possibly a student , there w there 's , uh , a student of his who gave a talk here last year , uh , may come here , uh , in the fall for , uh , sort of a five month , uh , sabbatical . So he might be around . Get him to give some talks and so on . But anyway , he might be interested in {pause} this stuff . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That {disfmarker} that reminds me , I had a {disfmarker} a thought of an interesting project that somebody could try to do with {pause} the data from here , either using , you know , the {disfmarker} the mikes on the table or using signal energies from the head worn mikes , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and that is to try to construct a map of where people were sitting , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: uh , based on {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well Dan {disfmarker} Dan had worked on that . Dan Ellis , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh , did he ? Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad H: yeah . So that {disfmarker} that 's the cross - correlation stuff , was {disfmarker} was doing b beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And so you could plot out who was sitting next to who +Professor B: A little bit , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , he didn't do a very extreme thing but just {disfmarker} it was just sort of +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad H: No , he did start on it . +Professor B: e e given that , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the block of wood with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two mikes {comment} on either side , +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if I 'm speaking , or if you 're speaking , or someone over there is speaking , it {disfmarker} if you look at cross - correlation functions , you end up with a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if {disfmarker} if someone who was on the axis between the two is talking , then you {disfmarker} you get a big peak there . And if {disfmarker} if someone 's talking on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on , uh , one side or the other , it goes the other way . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then , uh , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it even looks different if th t if the two {disfmarker} two people on either side are talking than if one in the middle . It {disfmarker} it actually looks somewhat different , so . +PhD E: Hmm . Well I was just thinking , you know , as I was sitting here next to Thilo that um , when he 's talking , my mike probably picks it up better than {pause} your guys 's mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: So if you just looked at {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , that 's another cl cue , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah , {comment} looked at {comment} the energy on my mike and you could get an idea about who 's closest to who . +Grad H: that 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or who talks the loudest . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , well you have to {disfmarker} the appropriate normalizations are tricky , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and are probably the key . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: You just search for Adam 's voice on each individual microphone , you pretty much know where everybody 's sitting . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We 've switched positions recently so you can't {disfmarker} Anyway . OK . So those are just a little couple of news items . +Postdoc G: Can I ask one thing ? Uh , so , um , Jonathan Fiscus expressed an interest in , uh , microphone arrays . +Professor B: Yes . +Postdoc G: Um , is there {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} b And I also want to say , his {disfmarker} he can't stay all day . He needs to uh , leave for {disfmarker} uh , from here to make a two forty - five flight +Grad H: Oh , so just morning . +Postdoc G: from {disfmarker} from Oakland . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc G: So it makes the scheduling a little bit tight but do you think that , um {disfmarker} that , uh , i John Canny should be involved in this somehow or not . I have no idea . +Professor B: Probably not but I {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll know better after I see him this Friday what {disfmarker} what kind of level he wants to get involved . +Postdoc G: It 's premature . Fine . Good . +Professor B: Uh , he might be excited to and it might be very appropriate for him to , uh , or he might have no interest whatsoever . I {disfmarker} I just really don't know . +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad H: Is he involved in {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} I 'm blanking on the name of the project . NIST has {disfmarker} has done a big meeting room {disfmarker} instrumented meeting room with video and microphone arrays , and very elaborate software . Is {disfmarker} is he the one working on that ? +Professor B: Well that 's what they 're starting up . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . No , I mean , that 's what all this is about . They {disfmarker} they haven't done it yet . They wanted to do it {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK . I had read some papers that looked like they had already done some work . +Professor B: Uh , well I think they 've instrumented a room but I don't {pause} think they {disfmarker} they haven't started recordings yet . They don't have the t the transcription standards . They don't have the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Are they going to do video as well ? +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I think they are . +Grad H: Oh , cuz what {disfmarker} what I had read was , uh , they had a uh very large amount of software infrastructure for coordinating all this , both in terms of recording and also live room where you 're interacting {disfmarker} the participants are interacting with the computer , and with the video , and lots of other stuff . +Professor B: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: All {disfmarker} all I know is that they 've been talking to me about a project that they 're going to start up recording people meet in meetings . +Grad H: OK . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: And , uh , it is related to ours . They were interested in ours . They wanted to get some uniformity with us , uh , about the transcriptions and so on . +Grad H: Alright . +Professor B: And one {disfmarker} one notable difference {disfmarker} u u actually I can't remember whether they were going to routinely collect video or not , but one {disfmarker} one , uh , difference from the audio side was that they are interested in using array mikes . So , um , I mean , I 'll just tell you the party line on that . The reason I didn't go for that here was because , uh , the focus , uh , both of my interest and of Adam 's interest was uh , in impromptu situations . And we 're not recording a bunch of impromptu situations but that 's because it 's different to get data for research than to actually apply it . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , for scientific reasons we thought it was good to instrument this room as we wanted it . But the thing we ultimately wanted to aim at was a situation where you were talking with , uh , one or more other people i uh , in {disfmarker} in an p impromptu way , where you didn't {disfmarker} didn't actually know what the situation was going to be . And therefore it would not {disfmarker} it 'd be highly unlikely that room would be outfitted with {disfmarker} with some very carefully designed array of microphones . Um , so it was only for that reason . It was just , you know , yet another piece of research and it seemed like we had enough troubles just {disfmarker} +PhD E: So there 's no like portable array of mikes ? +Professor B: No . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} uh , there 's a whole range of things {disfmarker} there 's a whole array of things , {vocalsound} that people do on this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um , the , uh {disfmarker} the big arrays , uh , places , uh , like uh , Rutgers , and Brown , and other {disfmarker} other places , uh , they have , uh , big arrays with , I don't know , a hundred {disfmarker} hundred mikes or something . +Grad H: Xerox . +Professor B: And so there 's a wall of mikes . And you get really , really good beam - forming {comment} with that sort of thing . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And it 's {disfmarker} and , um , in fact at one point we had a {disfmarker} a proposal in with Rutgers where we were gonna do some of the sort of per channel signal - processing and they were gonna do the multi - channel stuff , but {pause} it d it d we ended up not doing it . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 've seen demonstrations of the microphone arrays . It 's amazing how {disfmarker} how they can cut out noise . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's r It 's really neat stuff . +Grad H: And then they have little ones too +Professor B: And then they had the little ones , yeah . +Grad H: but I mean {disfmarker} but they don't have our block of wood , right ? +Professor B: Yeah , our block of wood is unique . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But the {vocalsound} But the No , there are these commercial things now you can buy that have four mikes or something +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , uh , um {disfmarker} So , yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a range of things that people do . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor B: Um , so if we connected up with somebody who was interested in doing that sort of thing that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing to do . I mean , whenever I 've described this to other people who are interested on the {disfmarker} with the acoustic side that 's invariably the question they ask . Just like someone who is interested in the general dialogue thing will always ask {vocalsound} "" um , are you recording video ? "" +PhD A: Right , +Professor B: Um , right ? +PhD A: right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and the acoustic people will always say , "" well are you doing , uh , uh , array microphones ? "" So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to do , but it doesn't solve the problem of how do you solve things when there 's one mike or at best two mikes in {disfmarker} in this imagined PDA that we have . So maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll do some more of it . +Postdoc G: Well one thing I {disfmarker} I mean , I don't know . I mean , I know that having an array of {disfmarker} I mean , I would imagine it would be more expensive to have a {disfmarker} an array of microphones . But couldn't you kind of approximate the natural sis situation by just shutting off uh , channels when you 're {disfmarker} later on ? I mean , it seems like if the microphones don't effect each other then couldn't you just , you know , record them with an array and then just not use all the data ? +Grad H: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just a lot of infrastructure that for our particular purpose we felt we didn't need to set up . +Postdoc G: I see . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Fine . +Professor B: Yeah , if ninety - nine percent of what you 're doing is c is shutting off most of the mikes , then going through the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: But if you get somebody who 's {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who has that as a primary interest then that put {disfmarker} then that drives it in that direction . +Grad H: That 's right , I mean if someone {disfmarker} if someone came in and said we really want to do it , +PhD A: Right . +Grad H: I mean , we don't care . That would be fine , +PhD E: So to save that data you {disfmarker} You have to have one channel recording per mike in the array ? +Grad H: Buy more disk space . +Professor B: Well , uh , at some level {disfmarker} at some level . +PhD E: Is that {disfmarker} +Grad H: I usually do a mix . +Professor B: But then , you know , there 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: What you save , I mean , if you 're going to do research with it . yeah +Professor B: There 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what they 're going to do and I don't know how big their array is . Obviously if you were gonna save all of those channels for later research you 'd use up a lot of space . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And , th +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad H: Well their software infrastructure had a very elaborate design for plugging in filters , and mixers , and all sorts of processing . So that they can do stuff in real time and not save out each channel individually . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +Grad H: So it was , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I mean , uh , for optimum flexibility later you 'd want to save each channel . But I think in practical situations you would have some engine of some sort doing some processing to reduce this to some {disfmarker} to the equivalent of a single microphone that was very directional . +PhD E: Uh , oh , OK , I see . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD A: I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Sort of saving the result of the beam - forming . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: it seems to me that there 's {disfmarker} you know , there are good political reasons for {disfmarker} for doing this , just getting the data , because there 's a number of sites {disfmarker} like right now SRI is probably gonna invest a lot of internal funding into recording meetings also , which is good , um , but they 'll be recording with video and they 'll be {disfmarker} You know , it 'd be nice if we can have at least , uh , make use of the data that we 're recording as we go since it 's sort of {disfmarker} this is the first site that has really collected these really impromptu meetings , um , and just have this other information available . So , if we can get the investment in just for the infra infrastructure and then , I don't know , save it out or have whoever 's interested save that data out , transfer it there , it 'd be g it 'd be good to have {disfmarker} have the recording . I think . +Grad H: You mean to {disfmarker} to actually get a microphone array and do that ? +PhD A: Well , if {disfmarker} Even if we 're not {disfmarker} +Grad H: And video and {disfmarker} +PhD A: I 'm not sure about video . That 's sort of an {disfmarker} video has a little different nature since right n right now we 're all being recorded but we 're not being taped . Um , but it {disfmarker} definitely in the case of microphone arrays , since if there was a community interested in this , then {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well , but I think we need a researcher here who 's interested in it . To push it along . +Professor B: See the problem is it {disfmarker} it took , uh , uh , it took at least six months for Dan to get together the hardware and the software , and debug stuff in {disfmarker} in the microphones , and in the boxes . And it was a really big deal . And so I think we could get a microphone array in here pretty easily and , uh , have it mixed to {disfmarker} to one channel of some sort . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , e I think for I mean , how we 're gonna decide {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for maximum flexibility later you really don't want to end up with just one channel that 's pointed in the direction of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the p the person with the maximum energy or something like that . I mean , you {disfmarker} you want actually to {disfmarker} you want actually to have multiple channels being recorded so that you can {disfmarker} And to do that , it {disfmarker} we 're going to end up greatly increasing the disk space that we use up , we also only have boards that will take up to sixteen channels and in {pause} this meeting , we 've got eight people and {disfmarker} and six mikes . And there we 're already using fourteen . +Grad H: And we actually only have fifteen . +Professor B: E +Grad H: One of them 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Details . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: But fifteen , not sixteen . +PhD A: Well if there 's a way to say time {disfmarker} to sort of solve each of these f those {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So suppose you can get an array in because there 's some person at Berkeley who 's interested and has some {pause} equipment , uh , and suppose we can {disfmarker} as we save it we can , you know , transfer it off to some other place that {disfmarker} that holds this {disfmarker} this data , who 's interested , and even if ICSI it itself isn't . Um , and it {disfmarker} it seems like as long as we can time align the beginning , do we need to mix it with the rest ? I don't know . You know ? The +Professor B: Yeah . So I think you 'd need a separate {disfmarker} a separate set up +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: and the assumption that you could time align the two . +PhD A: I mean it 's just {disfmarker} it 's worth considering as sort of +Grad H: And y it 'd certainly gets skew . +PhD A: once you make the up front investment {comment} and can sort of save it out each time , and {disfmarker} and not have to worry about the disk space factor , then it mi it might be worth having the data . +Professor B: I 'm not so much worried about disk space actually . I mentioned that , b as a practical matter , +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} +Professor B: but the real issue is that , uh , there is no way to do a recording extended to what we have now with low skew . So {pause} you would have a t completely separate set up , +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: which would mean that the sampling times and so forth would be all over the place compared to this . So it would depend on the level of pr processing you were doing later , but if you 're d i the kind of person who 's doing array processing you actually care about funny little times . And {disfmarker} and so you actually wou would want to have a completely different set up than we have , +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: one that would go up to thirty - two channels or something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So basically {disfmarker} +Grad H: Or a hundred thirty - two . +Professor B: or a hun Yeah . So , I 'm kinda skeptical , but um I think that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , I don't think we can share the resource in that way . But what we could do is if there was someone else who 's interested they could have a separate set up which they wouldn't be trying to synch with ours which might be useful for {disfmarker} for them . +PhD A: Right , I mean at least they 'd have the data and the transcripts , +Professor B: And then we can offer up the room , +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Right . +Professor B: Yeah , we can o offer the meetings , and the physical space , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah , the transcripts , and so on . +PhD A: OK . Right , I mean , just {disfmarker} it 'd be nice if we have more information on the same data . You know , and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} if it 's impossible or if it 's a lot of effort then you have to just balance the two , +Professor B: Well I thi +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: yeah , the thing will be , u u in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} again , in talking to these other people to see what {disfmarker} you know , what {disfmarker} what we can do . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Uh , we 'll see . +PhD E: Is there an interest in getting video recordings for these meetings ? +Professor B: Right , so we have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean +Grad H: Yes , absolutely . But it 's exactly the same problem , that you have an infrastructure problem , you have a problem with people not wanting to be video taped , and you have the problem that no one who 's currently involved in the project is really hot to do it . +PhD E: Hmm . So there 's not enough interest to overcome all of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . Internally , but I know there is interest from other places that are interested in looking at meeting data and having the video . So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah , w although I {disfmarker} m {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I have to u u mention the human subjects problems , {pause} that i increase with video . +PhD A: Right , that 's true . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's , uh , people {disfmarker} people getting shy about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: There 's this human subjects problem . There 's the fact that then um , if {disfmarker} i I I 've heard comments about this before , "" why don't you just put on a video camera ? "" But you know , it 's sort of like saying , "" uh , well we 're primarily interested in {disfmarker} in some dialogue things , uh , but , uh , why don't we just throw a microphone out there . "" I mean , the thing is , once you actually have serious interest in any of these things then you actually have to put a lot of effort in . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you really want to do it right . +Grad H: I know . Yep . +Professor B: So I think NIST or LDC , or somebody like that I think is much better shape to do all that . We {disfmarker} there will be other meeting recordings . We won't be the only place doing meeting recordings . We are doing what we 're doing . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , hopefully it 'll be useful . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it occurred to me , has Don signed a human subject 's form ? +Grad H: Oh ! Probably not . +Postdoc G: A permission form ? +Grad H: Has Don {disfmarker} have you s did you si I thought you did actually . +Grad F: I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I was {disfmarker} I was here {disfmarker} I was here before once . +Grad H: Didn't you read a digit string ? +PhD E: You were here at a meeting before . +Postdoc G: You were here at a meeting before . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad H: Yeah , and you {disfmarker} and you signed a form . +Grad F: Oh , I think so . +Postdoc G: Did you sign a form ? +Grad F: Did I ? I don't know . +Grad H: I 'm pretty sure . Well I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll get another one before the end of the meeting . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Thank you . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: You don't {disfmarker} you don't have to leave for it . +Professor B: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: But I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Can I verbally consent ? +Postdoc G: you know . +Grad H: Well I can't , I 'm wired in . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we don't , uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . You 're on recor you 're being recorded +Postdoc G: o +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: we don't {disfmarker} we don't perform electro - shock during these meetings , +Grad F: I don't care . You can do whatever you want with it . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Usually . +Grad F: That 's fine . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . Uh , transcriptions . +Postdoc G: Transcriptions , OK . Um , I thought about {disfmarker} there are maybe three aspects of this . So first of all , um , I 've got eight transcribers . Uh , seven of them are linguists . One of them is a graduate student in psychology . Um , Each {disfmarker} I gave each of them , uh , their own data set . Two of them have already finished the data sets . And {pause} the meetings run , you know , let 's say an hour . Sometimes as man much as an hour and a half . +PhD E: How big is the data set ? +Postdoc G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} what I mean is one meeting . +PhD E: Ah , OK . +Postdoc G: Each {disfmarker} each person got their own meeting . I didn't want to have any conflicts of , you know , of {disfmarker} of when to stop transcribing this one or {disfmarker} So I wanted to keep it clear whose data were whose , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc G: And , uh , meetings , you know , I think that they 're {disfmarker} they go as long as a {disfmarker} almost two hours in some {disfmarker} in some cases . So , you know , that means {disfmarker} you know , if we 've got two already finished and they 're working on {disfmarker} Uh , right now all eight of them have differe uh , uh , additional data sets . That means potentially as many as ten might be finished by the end of the month . +PhD E: Wow . +Postdoc G: Hope so . But the pre - segmentation really helps a huge amount . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc G: And , uh , also Dan Ellis 's innovation of the , uh {disfmarker} the multi - channel to here really helped a r a lot in terms of clearing {disfmarker} clearing up h hearings that involve overlaps . But , um , just out of curiosity I asked one of them how long {pause} it was taking her , one of these two who has already finished her data set . She said it takes about , uh , sixty minutes transcription for every five minutes of real time . So it 's about twelve to one , which is what we were thinking . +Grad H: or Yep . +Postdoc G: It 's well in the range . +Grad H: It 's pretty good . +Postdoc G: OK . Uh , these still , when they 're finished , um , that means that they 're finished with their pass through . They still need to be edited and all but {disfmarker} But it 's word level , speaker change , the things that were mentioned . OK , now I wanted to mention the , um , teleconference I had with , uh , Jonathan Fiscus . We spoke for an hour and a half and , um , had an awful lot of things in common . +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc G: He , um , um , he in indicated to me that they 've {disfmarker} that he 's been , uh , looking , uh , uh , spending a lot of time with {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure the connection , but spending a lot of time with the ATLAS system . And I guess that {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I need to read up on that . And there 's a web site that has lots of papers . But it looks to me like that 's the name that has developed for the system that Bird and Liberman developed {comment} for the annotated {pause} graphs approach . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: So what he wants me to do and what we {disfmarker} what we will do and {disfmarker} uh , is to provide them with the u already transcribed meeting for him to be able to experiment with in this ATLAS System . And they do have some sort of software , at least that 's my impression , related to ATLAS and that he wants to experiment with taking our data and putting them in that format , and see how that works out . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I explained to him in {disfmarker} in detail the , uh , conventions that we 're using here in this {disfmarker} in this word level transcript . And , um , you know , I {disfmarker} I explained , you know , the reasons that {disfmarker} that we were not coding more elaborately and {disfmarker} and the focus on reliability . He expressed a lot of interest in reliability . It 's like he 's {disfmarker} he 's really up on these things . He 's {disfmarker} he 's very {disfmarker} Um , independently he asked , "" well what about reliability ? "" So , {vocalsound} he 's interested in the consistency of the encoding and that sort of thing . OK , um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Sorry , can you explain what the ATLAS {disfmarker} I 'm not familiar with this ATLAS system . +Postdoc G: Well , you know , at this point I think {disfmarker} Uh , well Adam 's read more {disfmarker} in more detail than I have on this . I need to acquaint myself more with it . But , um , there {disfmarker} there is a way of viewing {disfmarker} Uh , whenever you have coding categories , um , and you 're dealing with uh , a taxonomy , then you can have branches that {disfmarker} that have alternative , uh , choices that you could use for each {disfmarker} each of them . And it just ends up looking like a graphical representation . +Grad H: Is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is ATLAS the {disfmarker} his annotated transcription graph stuff ? I don't remember the acronym . The {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what I think you 're referring to , they {disfmarker} they have this concept of an an annotated transcription graph representation . +PhD A: Oh . Oh . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: And that 's basically what I based the format that I did {disfmarker} I based it on their work almost directly , in combination with the TEI stuff . And so it 's very , very similar . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a data representation and a set of tools for manipulating transcription graphs of various types . +PhD E: Is this the project that 's sort of , uh , between , uh , NIST and {disfmarker} and , uh , a couple of other places ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Including LDC . +PhD E: Yeah , +Postdoc G: I think so . +Grad H: Yep . +PhD E: y right , OK . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Then there 's their web site that has lots of papers . And I looked through them and they mainly had to do with this , um , this , uh , tree structure , uh , annotated tree diagram thing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: So , um , um {disfmarker} and , you know , in terms of like the conventions that I 'm a that I 've adopted , it {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's no conflict at all . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc G: And he was , you know , very interested . And , "" oh , and how 'd you handle this ? "" And I said , "" well , you know , this way "" and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and we had a really nice conversation . Um , OK , now I also wanted to say in a different {disfmarker} a different direction is , Brian Kingsbury . So , um , I corresponded briefly with him . I , uh , c I {disfmarker} He still has an account here . I told him he could SSH on and use multi - trans , and have a look at the already done , uh , transcription . And he {disfmarker} and he did . And what he said was that , um , what they 'll be providing is {disfmarker} will not be as fine grained in terms of the time information . And , um , that 's , uh {disfmarker} You know , I need to get back to him and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , explore that a little bit more and see what they 'll be giving us in specific , +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD E: The p the people {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but I just haven't had time yet . +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the folks that they 're , uh , subcontracting out the transcription to , are they like court reporters +Postdoc G: Sorry , what ? Yes . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Apparently {disfmarker} Well , I get the sense they 're kind of like that . Like it 's like a pool of {disfmarker} of somewhat uh , secretarial {disfmarker} I don't think that they 're court reporters . I don't think they have the special keyboards and that {disfmarker} and that type of training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I get the sense they 're more secretarial . And that , um , uh , what they 're doing is giving them {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Like medical transcriptionist type people {disfmarker} +Grad H: Nu - it 's mostly {disfmarker} it 's for their speech recognition products , +PhD E: But aren't {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yep . +Grad H: that they 've hired these people to do . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're hiring them , they 're coming . It 's not a service they send the tapes out to . +Grad H: Well they {disfmarker} they do send it out but my understanding is that that 's all this company does is transcriptions for IBM for their speech product . +PhD E: Ah ! Oh . OK . I gotcha . +Grad H: So most of it 's ViaVoice , people reading their training material for that . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I see . +Postdoc G: Up to now it 's been monologues , uh , as far my understood . +Grad H: Yep , exactly . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , um , Adam sent them a CD and Brian himself downloaded {disfmarker} uh , cuz , you know , I mean , we wanted to have it so that they were in familiar f terms with what they wanted to do . He downloaded {pause} from the CD onto audio tapes . And apparently he did it one channel per audio tape . So each of these people is {pause} transcribing from one channel . +Grad H: Right . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc G: And then what he 's going to do is check it , a before they go be beyond the first one . Check it and , you know , adjust it , and all that . +PhD E: So each person gets one of these channels {disfmarker} +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: So if they hear something off in the distance they don't {disfmarker} they just go {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well , but that 's OK , because , you know , you 'll do all them and then combine them . +PhD E: But there could be problems , right ? with that . +Postdoc G: I have t I , you know I {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +Postdoc G: I think it would be difficult to do it that way . I really +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Well if you 're tran if you got that channel right there {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: d uh , in my case {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: No , no . We 're talking about close talking , not the {disfmarker} not the desktop . +PhD D: No , close talk . +Professor B: Are you ? +Postdoc G: Yes . Well I th I think so . +Grad H: I sure hope so . It 'd be really foolish to do otherwise . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I would think that it would be kind of hard to come out with {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think it 's sort of hard just playing the {disfmarker} you know , just having played the individual files . And I {disfmarker} I mean , I know you . I know what your voice sounds like . I 'm sort of familiar with {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , it 's pretty hard to follow , especially +Grad H: One side . +PhD A: there are a lot of words that are so reduced phonetically that make sense when you know what the person was saying before . +Postdoc G: I agree . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , it sort of depends where you are in {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And especially since a lot of these {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: But I mean we had this {disfmarker} we 've had this discussion many times . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we have . +Grad H: And the answer is we don't actually know the answer because we haven't tried both ways . +Postdoc G: Well , except I can say that my transcribers use the mixed signal mostly +Grad H: So . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Right . +Postdoc G: unless there 's a huge disparity in terms of the volume on {disfmarker} on the mix . In which case , you know , they {disfmarker} they wouldn't be able to catch anything except the prominent {comment} channel , +Grad H: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: then they 'll switch between . +Grad H: Well I think that {disfmarker} that might change if you wanted really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but really {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad H: So . +Professor B: But they 're not giving f really fine time markings . +Postdoc G: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actually , are th so {vocalsound} are they giving any time markings ? +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: In other words , if {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I have to ask him . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's my email to him . That needs to be forthcoming . +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but the , uh {disfmarker} I did want to say that it 's hard to follow one channel of a conversation even if you know the people , and if you 're dealing furthermore with highly abstract network concepts you 've never heard of {disfmarker} So , you know , one of these people was {disfmarker} was transcribing the , uh , networks group talk and she said , "" I don't really know what a lot of these abbreviations are , "" "" but I just put them in parentheses cuz that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the convention and I just "" {disfmarker} Cuz you know , if you don't know {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I 'd be curious to {disfmarker} to look at that . +PhD E: Just out of curiosity , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: They also all have h heavy accents . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: The networks group meetings are all {disfmarker} +PhD E: Given all of the effort that is going on here in transcribing why do we have I B M doing it ? Why not just do it all ourselves ? +Professor B: Um , it 's historical . I mean , uh , some point ago we thought that uh , it {disfmarker} "" boy , we 'd really have to ramp up to do that "" , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: No , just {disfmarker} +Professor B: you know , like we just did , and , um , here 's , uh , a {disfmarker} a , uh , collaborating institution that 's volunteered to do it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , that was a contribution they could make . Uh in terms of time , money , you know ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it still might be a good thing +PhD E: I 'm just wondering now {disfmarker} +PhD A: Actu yeah , Mar - Mari asked me the same question as sort of {disfmarker} +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering now if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well we can talk about more details later . +PhD A: um , you know , yeah , whether to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , so . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We 'll see . I mean , I think , th you know , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they 've proceeded along a bit . Let 's see what comes out of it , and {disfmarker} and , uh , you know , have some more discussions with them . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . It 's very {disfmarker} a real benefit having Brian involved because of his knowledge of what the {disfmarker} how the data need to be used and so what 's useful to have in the format . +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad H: So , um , Liz , with {disfmarker} with the SRI recognizer , {comment} can it make use of some time marks ? +PhD A: OK , so this is a , um , +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I guess I don't know what that means . +PhD A: and actually I should say this is what Don has b uh , he 's already been really helpful in , uh , chopping up these {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so first of all you {disfmarker} um , I mean , for the SRI front - end , we really need to chop things up into pieces that are f not too huge . Um , but second of all , uh {disfmarker} in general because some of these channels , I 'd say , like , I don't know , at least half of them probably {comment} on average are g are ha are {disfmarker} have a lot of cross - ta sorry , some of the segments have a lot of cross - talk . Um , it 's good to get sort of short segments if you 're gonna do recognition , especially forced alignment . So , uh , Don has been taking a first stab actually using Jane 's first {disfmarker} the fir the meeting that Jane transcribed which we did have some problems with , and Thilo , uh , I think told me why this was , but that people were switching microphones around {comment} in the very beginning , so {disfmarker} the SRI re +PhD C: No , th Yeah . No . They {disfmarker} they were not switching them but what they were {disfmarker} they were adjusting them , +PhD A: and they {disfmarker} They were not {disfmarker} +PhD C: so . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: Adjusting . Oh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And aft after a minute or so it 's {disfmarker} it 's way better . +PhD A: So we have to sort of normalize {comment} the front - end and so forth , and have these small segments . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yep . +PhD A: So we 've taken that and chopped it into pieces based always on your {disfmarker} your , um , cuts that you made on the mixed signal . And so that every {disfmarker} every speaker has the same cuts . And if they have speech in it we run it through . And if they don't have speech in it we don't run it through . And we base that knowledge on the transcription . +Grad H: On {disfmarker} Just on the marks . Right ? +PhD A: Um , the problem is if we have no time marks , then for forced alignment we actually don't know where {disfmarker} you know , in the signal the transcriber heard that word . And so {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh , I see , +PhD A: I mean , if {disfmarker} if it 's a whole conversation and we get a long , uh , you know , par paragraph of {disfmarker} of talk , +Grad H: it 's for the length . I see . +PhD A: uh , I don't know how they do this . Um , we actually don't know which piece goes where . +Grad H: I understand . +PhD A: And , um , I think with {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well you would need to {disfmarker} like a forced alignment before you did the chopping , right ? +PhD A: No , we used the fact that {disfmarker} So when Jane transcribes them the way she has transcribers doing this , whether it 's with the pre - segmentation or not , +Grad H: It 's already chunked . +PhD A: they have a chunk and then they transcribes {comment} the words in the chunk . And maybe they choose the chunk or now they use a pre - segmentation and then correct it if necessary . But there 's first a chunk and then a transcription . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Then a chunk , then a transcription . That 's great , cuz the recognizer can {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh , it 's all pretty good sized for the recognizer also . +PhD A: Right , and it {disfmarker} it helps that it 's made based on sort of heuristics and human ear I think . +Postdoc G: Good . Oh good . +PhD A: Th - but there 's going to be a real problem , uh , even if we chop up based on speech silence these , uh , the transcripts from I B M , we don't actually know where the words were , which segment they belonged to . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: So that 's sort of what I 'm {pause} worried about right now . +PhD E: Why not do a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a forced alignment ? +Grad H: That 's what she 's saying , is that you can't . +PhD A: If you do a forced alignment on something really {disfmarker} +Grad H: Got uh six sixty minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD A: well even if you do it on something really long you need to know {disfmarker} you can always chop it up but you need to have a reference of which words went with which , uh , chop . +Postdoc G: Now wasn't {disfmarker} I thought that one of the proposals was that IBM was going to do an initial forced alignment , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: after they {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think that they are , +Grad H: We 'll have to talk to Brian . +Professor B: um , yeah , I 'm sure they will and so we {disfmarker} we have to have a dialogue with them about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it sounds like Liz has some concerns +PhD A: Maybe they have some {disfmarker} you know , maybe actually there is some , even if they 're not fine grained , maybe the transcribers {disfmarker} +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh , I don't know , maybe it 's saved out in pieces or {disfmarker} or something . That would help . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: But , uh , it 's just an unknown right now . +Postdoc G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I need to {disfmarker} to write to him . +PhD A: So . +Postdoc G: I just {disfmarker} you know , it 's like I got over - taxed with the timing . +PhD A: Right . But the {disfmarker} it is true that the segments {disfmarker} I haven't tried the segments that Thilo gave you but the segments that in your first meeting are great . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good length . +Postdoc G: A good size . Good . +PhD A: Right , cuz {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I {disfmarker} I was thinking it would be fun to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , uh , if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} wouldn't mind , {comment} {vocalsound} to give us a pre - segmentation . +PhD A: y yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Uh , maybe you have one already of that first m of the meeting that uh , the first transcribed meeting , the one that I transcribed . +PhD C: Um , I 'm sure I have some +Postdoc G: Do you have a {disfmarker} could you generate a pre - segmentation ? +Grad H: February sixteenth I think . +PhD C: but {disfmarker} but that 's the one where we 're , um , trai training on , so that 's a little bit {disfmarker} +Grad H: Oh . +Postdoc G: Oh , I see . +PhD C: It 's a little bit at odd to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh , darn . Of course , of course , of course . Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: And actually as you get transcripts just , um , for new meetings , {comment} um , we can try {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , the {disfmarker} the more data we have to try the {disfmarker} the alignments on , um , the better . So it 'd be good for {disfmarker} just to know as transcriptions are coming through the pipeline from the transcribers , just to sort of {disfmarker} we 're playing around with sort of uh , parameters f on the recognizer , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz that would be helpful . Especially as you get , en more voices . +Postdoc G: Excellent , good . +PhD A: The first meeting had I think just four people , +PhD C: Four speakers , yeah . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah , Liz and I spoke d w at some length on Tuesday and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} and I was planning to do just a {disfmarker} a preliminary look over of the two that are finished and then give them to you . +PhD A: Oh , great , great . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: So . +Professor B: That 's great . I guess the other thing , I {disfmarker} I can't remember if we discussed this in the meeting but , uh , I know you and I talked about this a little bit , there was an issue of , uh , suppose we get in the , uh , I guess it 's enviable position although maybe it 's just saying where the weak link is in the chain , uh , where we {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , we have all the data transcribed and we have these transcribers and we were {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} we 're still a bit slow on feeding {disfmarker} at that point we 've caught up and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , the weak link is {disfmarker} is recording meetings . OK , um , two questions come , is you know what {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how do we {disfmarker} uh , it 's not really a problem at the moment cuz we haven't reached that point but how do we step out the recorded meetings ? And the other one is , um , uh , is there some good use that we can make of the transcribers to do other things ? So , um , I {disfmarker} I can't remember how much we talked about this in this meeting but there was {disfmarker} +Grad H: We had spoken with them about it . +Postdoc G: And there is one use that {disfmarker} that also we discussed which was when , uh , Dave finishes the {disfmarker} and maybe it 's already finished {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the modification to multi - trans which will allow fine grained encoding of overlaps . Uh , then it would be very {disfmarker} these people would be very good to shift over to finer grain encoding of overlaps . It 's just a matter of , you know , providing {disfmarker} So if right now you have two overlapping segments in the same time bin , well with {disfmarker} with the improvement in the database {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the , uh , sorry , in the interface , it 'd be possible to , um , you know , just do a click and drag thing , and get the {disfmarker} uh , the specific place of each of those , the time tag associated with the beginning and end of {disfmarker} of each segment . +Professor B: Right , so I think we talking about three level {disfmarker} three things . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: One {disfmarker} one was uh , we had s had some discussion in the past about some very high level labelings , +Postdoc G: Yeah . The types of overlaps {disfmarker} +Professor B: types of overlaps , and so forth that {disfmarker} that someone could do . Second was , uh , somewhat lower level +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just doing these more precise timings . And the third one is {disfmarker} is , uh , just a completely wild hair brained idea that I have which is that , um , if , uh {disfmarker} if we have time and people are able to do it , to take some subset of the data and do some very fine grained analysis of the speech . For instance , uh , marking in some overlapping {disfmarker} potentially overlapping fashion , uh , the value of , uh , ar articulatory features . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: You know , just sort of say , OK , it 's voiced from here to here , there 's {disfmarker} it 's nasal from here to here , and so forth . Um , as opposed to doing phonetic {disfmarker} uh , you know , phonemic and the phonetic analysis , +Grad H: +Professor B: and , uh , assuming , uh , articulatory feature values for those {disfmarker} those things . Um , obviously that 's extremely time - consuming . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: That would be really valuable I think . +Professor B: but , uh , we could do it on some small subset . +Postdoc G: Also if you 're dealing with consonants that would be easier than vowels , wouldn't it ? I mean , I would think that {disfmarker} that , uh , being able to code that there 's a {disfmarker} a fricative extending from here to here would be a lot easier than classifying precisely which vowel that was . +Grad H: Which one . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: I think vowels {disfmarker} vowels are I think harder . +Professor B: Well , yeah , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but I think also it 's just the issue that {disfmarker} that when you look at the {disfmarker} u w u u when you look at Switchboard for instance very close up there are places where whether it 's a consonant or a vowel you still have trouble calling it a particular phone +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: at that point +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , OK . +Grad H: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but just saying what the {disfmarker} +Professor B: because it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's this movement from here to here +Postdoc G: Yeah , I 'm sure . Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I know . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's {disfmarker} so I +PhD E: You 're saying r sort of remove the high level constraints and go bottom - up . +Professor B: Yeah , describe {disfmarker} describe it . +PhD E: Then just say {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , just features . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Now I 'm suggesting articulatory features . Maybe there 's {disfmarker} there 's even a better way to do it but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but that 's , you know , sort of a traditional way of describing these things , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: um , and {disfmarker} uh , I mean , actually this might be a g neat thing to talk to {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: That 's nice . +PhD E: Acoustic features versus psychological categories . +Professor B: Sort of . I mean , it 's still {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: some sort of categories but {disfmarker} but something that allows for overlapping change of these things and then this would give some more ground work for people who were building statistical models that allowed for overlapping changes , different timing changes as opposed to just "" click , you 're now in this state , which corresponds to this speech sound "" and so on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So this is like gestural {disfmarker} uh , these g +Professor B: Yeah , something like that . +PhD A: Right . OK . +Professor B: I mean , actually if we get into that it might be good to , uh , uh , haul John Ohala into this +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: and ask his {disfmarker} his views on it I think . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: But is {disfmarker} is the goal there to have this on meeting data , +Postdoc G: Excellent . +PhD A: like so that you can do far field studies {comment} of those gestures or {disfmarker} um , or is it because you think there 's a different kind of actual production in meetings {comment} that people use ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No , I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that purpose I 'm just viewing meetings as being a {disfmarker} a neat way to get people talking naturally . And then you have i and then {disfmarker} and then it 's natural in all senses , +PhD E: Just a source of data ? +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: in the sense that you have microphones that are at a distance that you know , one might have , and you have the close mikes , and you have people talking naturally . And the overlap is just indicative of the fact that people are talking naturally , +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so I think that given that it 's that kind of corpus , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: if it 's gonna be a very useful corpus um , if you say w OK , we 've limited the use by some of our , uh , uh , censored choices , we don't have the video , we don't {disfmarker} and so forth , but there 's a lot of use that we could make of it by expanding the annotation choices . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , most of the things we 've talked about have been fairly high level , and being kind of a bottom - up person I thought maybe we 'd , {vocalsound} do some of the others . +Grad H: Hmm . +PhD A: Right . Yeah , that would be good . +Postdoc G: It 's a nice balance . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc G: That would be really nice to offer those things with that wide range . +PhD A: Right . +Professor B: Yeah and hopefully someone would make use of it . +Postdoc G: Really nice . +Professor B: I mean , people didn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , I mean , people have made a lot of use of {disfmarker} of TIMIT and , uh w due to its markings , and then {pause} the Switchboard transcription thing , well I think has been very useful for a lot of people . +Grad H: Right . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: I guess I wanted to , um , sort of make a pitch for trying to collect more meetings . +Postdoc G: Cool . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: I actually I talked to Chuck Fillmore and I think they 've what , vehemently said no before but this time he wasn't vehement and he said you know , "" well , Liz , come to the meeting tomorrow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and try to convince people "" . So I 'm gonna {pause} try . Go to their meeting tomorrow and see if we can try , uh , to convince them +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: Cuz they have something like three or four different meetings , +PhD A: because they have {disfmarker} And they have very interesting meetings from the point of view of a very different type of {disfmarker} of talk than we have here +Professor B: right ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Talk {disfmarker} +PhD A: and definitely than the front end meeting , probably . Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: You mean in terms of the topic {disfmarker} topics ? +PhD A: Well , yes and in terms of the {disfmarker} the fact that they 're describing abstract things and , uh , just dialogue - wise , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , so I 'll try . And then the other thing is , I don't know if this is at all useful , but I asked Lila if I can maybe go around and talk to the different departments in this building to see if there 's any groups that , for a free lunch , +Professor B: Yes . +PhD A: if we can still offer that , might be willing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Great . +Grad H: You mean non - ICSI ? +PhD A: non - ICSI , non - academic , +Grad H: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} you can try +PhD A: you know , like government people , +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . +Grad H: The problem is so much of their stuff is confidential . +PhD A: So . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: It would be very hard for them . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} is it in these departments ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Also it does seem like it takes us way out of the demographic . I mean , it seems like we {disfmarker} we had this idea before of having like linguistics students brought down for free lunches +Grad H: Well , tha I think that 's her point . +Postdoc G: and that 's a nice idea . +PhD A: Right , and then we could also {disfmarker} we might try advertising again because I think it 'd be good if {disfmarker} if we can get a few different sort of non - internal types of meetings +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: and just also more data . So . +PhD E: Does {disfmarker} does John Ohala have weekly phonetics lab meetings ? +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And I think , uh , if we could get {disfmarker} +PhD A: So I actually wrote to him and he answered , "" great , that sounds really interesting "" . But I never heard back because we didn't actually advertise openly . We a I mean w I told {disfmarker} I d asked him privately . Um , and it is a little bit of a trek for campus {pause} folks . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Yeah . You might give them a free lunch . +PhD A: Um , so it 's still worthwhile . +Grad H: But , um , it would be nice if we got someone other than me who knew how to set it up and could do the recording +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: so u I didn't have to do it each time . +PhD A: Exactly , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD A: and I was thinking {disfmarker} +Professor B: He - he 's supposed {disfmarker} he 's supposed to be trained {vocalsound} to do it . +PhD A: Yeah . Plus we could also get you know , a s a student . +Grad H: OK , next week {pause} you 're going to do it all . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: And I 'm willing to try to learn . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I would do my best . Um , the other thing is that {disfmarker} there was a number of things at the transcription side that , um , transcribers can do , like dialogue act tagging , +Grad H: It 's not that hard . +PhD A: disfluency tagging , um , things that are in the speech that are actually something we 're y {comment} working on for language modeling . And Mari 's also interested in it , Andreas as well . So if you wanna process a utterance and the first thing they say is , "" well "" , and that "" well "" is coded as some kind of interrupt u tag . Uh , and things like that , um , th +Postdoc G: Of course some of that can be li done lexically . +PhD A: A lot of it can be done {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I also {disfmarker} they are doing disfluency tagging to some degree already . +PhD A: Great . So a {disfmarker} a lot of this kind of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD A: I think there 's a second pass and I don't really know what would exist in it . But there 's definitely a second pass worth doing to maybe encode some kinds of , you know , is it a question or not , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} um , that maybe these transcribers could do . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Postdoc G: They 'd be really good . They 're {disfmarker} they 're very {disfmarker} they 're very consistent . +PhD A: That 'd be great . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: Uh , I wanted to {disfmarker} whi while we 're {disfmarker} Uh , so , to return just briefly to this question of more meeting data , um {disfmarker} I have two questions . One of them is , um , Jerry Feldman 's group , they {disfmarker} they , uh , are they {disfmarker} I know that they recorded one meeting . Are they willing ? +Professor B: I think they 're open to it . I think , you know , all these things are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: I think there 's {disfmarker} we should go beyond , uh , ICSI but , I mean , there 's a lot of stuff happening at ICSI that we 're not getting now that we could . +PhD A: Oh , that we could . +Professor B: So it 's just {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . I thought that all these people had sort of said "" no "" twice already . +Professor B: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} +PhD A: If that 's not the case then {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , no . No . So th there was the thing in Fillmore 's group but even there he hadn't {disfmarker} What he 'd said "" no "" to was for the main meeting . But they have several smaller meetings a week , +Grad H: So . +Professor B: and , uh , the notion was raised before that that could happen . And it just , you know {disfmarker} it just didn't come together +PhD A: Just {disfmarker} OK . +PhD E: Well , and {disfmarker} and the other thing too is when they originally said "" no "" they didn't know about this post - editing capability thing . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc G: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +PhD A: Right . That was a big fear . +PhD E: So . +Postdoc G: That 's important . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean there 's possibilities there . I think Jerry 's group , yes . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's , uh , the networks group , uh , I don't {disfmarker} Do they still meeting regularly or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Well , I don't know if they meet regularly or not but they are no longer recording . +Professor B: But I mean , ha ha have they said they don't want to anymore or {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Um , ugh , what was his name ? +Professor B: Uh , i i +Postdoc G: Joe Sokol ? +Grad H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: When {disfmarker} with him gone , it sorta trickled off . +Professor B: OK , so they 're down to three or four people +Grad H: They {disfmarker} and they stopped {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but the thing is three or four people is OK . +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc G: We might be able to get the administration {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well he was sort of my contact , so I just need to find out who 's running it now . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc G: I see that Lila has a luncheon meeting in here periodically . +PhD A: Yeah , I mean , it {disfmarker} One thing that would be nice +Postdoc G: I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: and this {disfmarker} it sounds bizarre but , I 'd really like to look at {disfmarker} to get some meetings where there 's a little bit of heated discussion , like ar arguments and {disfmarker} or emotion , and things like that . And so I was thinking if there 's any like Berkeley political groups or something . I mean , that 'd be perfect . Some group , "" yes , we must {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Who 's willing to get recorded and distributed ? +PhD A: Well , you know , something {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , I don't think the more political argumentative ones would be willing to {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with potential use from the defense department . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: No , but maybe stu student , uh , groups or , um , film - makers , or som Something a little bit colorful . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , th there 's a problem there in terms of , uh , the um commercial value of {disfmarker} of st uh , +Postdoc G: Yeah , of course there is this problem though , that if we give them the chance to excise later we e {vocalsound} might end up with like five minutes out of a f {comment} {pause} of m one hour +PhD D: Film - maker . +Grad H: Of beeps , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: yeah . +PhD A: And I don't mean that they 're angry +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: of {disfmarker} {comment} Yes . Really . +PhD A: but just something with some more variation in prosodic contours and so forth would be neat . So if anyone has ideas , I 'm willing to do the leg work to go try to talk to people but I don't really know which groups are worth pursuing . +Postdoc G: Well there was this K P F A +Grad H: No that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} OK . +Grad H: Legal . +Postdoc G: OK , OK . +Professor B: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it turned out to be a bit of a problem . +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: And I had one other {disfmarker} one other aspect of this which is , um , uh , uh , Jonathan Fiscus expressed primar uh y a major interest in having meetings which were all English speakers . Now he wasn't trying to shape us in terms of what we gather +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: but that 's what he wanted me to show him . So I 'm giving him our , um {disfmarker} our initial meeting because he asked for all English . And I think we don't have a lot of all English meetings right now . +Professor B: Of all {disfmarker} all nat all native speakers . +PhD E: Did he mean , uh {disfmarker} did he mean and non - British ? +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: The all native . +Postdoc G: That 's what I mean , yeah . +Grad H: Well if he meant and non - British I think we have zero . +Postdoc G: He doesn't care . No . Eh , well , British is OK . +PhD E: He said British was OK ? +Postdoc G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Sure , sure , sure . +Professor B: Why ? +Grad H: British is English ? +PhD C: +Postdoc G: Yeah . Different varieties of English . +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Professor B: Well , I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} if he didn't say that {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Native speaking . Native speaking English . +Grad H: I bet he meant native speaking American . +Postdoc G: Yes . +Professor B: I bet he did . +PhD C: American English ? +Postdoc G: Oh , really . +Grad H: So , why would he care ? +PhD E: Knowing the application {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember wh I I remember a study {disfmarker} +PhD A: I was thinking , knowing the , uh , n National Institute of Standards , it is all {disfmarker} +Professor B: I remember a study that BBN did where they trained on {disfmarker} this was in Wall Street Journal days or something , they trained on American English and then they tested on , uh , different native speakers from different areas . And , uh , uh , the worst match was people whose native tongue was Mandarin Chinese . The second worst was British English . +Postdoc G: That 's funny . +Professor B: So h it 's , you know , t +Postdoc G: Alright . And so that would make sense . +Professor B: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} German was much better , +PhD C: Ooo , ooo . +Postdoc G: I didn't have the context of that . +Professor B: it was Swiss w Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} so I think , you know , if he 's {disfmarker} if he 's thinking in terms of recognition kind of technology I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think he would probably want , uh {vocalsound} American English , +Postdoc G: All America , OK . +Grad H: I wonder if we have any . +Professor B: yeah . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} yeah , unless we 're gonna train with a whole bunch of {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: I think that the {disfmarker} Feldman 's meetings tend to be more that way , aren't they ? I mean , I sort of feel like they have {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think so , +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad H: Maybe . +PhD A: mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad H: And maybe there are a few of {disfmarker} with us where it was {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: you know , Dan wasn't there and before Jose started coming , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's pretty tough , uh , this group . Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So , uh , what about {disfmarker} what about people who involved in some artistic endeavor ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , film - making or something like that . +PhD A: Exactly , that 's what I was {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd think like they would be {disfmarker} +PhD D: A film - maker . +PhD A: something where there {disfmarker} there is actually discussion where there 's no right or wrong answer but {disfmarker} but it 's a matter of opinion kind of thing . Uh , anyway , if you {disfmarker} if you have ideas {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: It 's be fun . +Grad H: RASTA . PLP . RASTA . PLP . +PhD D: Yes . +Grad F: We can just discu we can just have a political discussion one day . +PhD A: Yeah , we could {disfmarker} +PhD E: A any department that calls itself science +PhD D: Department . +Grad F: Uh , I could make that pretty {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well , like computer science . +PhD D: Computer sci +Grad H: That {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: We could get Julia Child . I know . +PhD A: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm actually serious +Grad H: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: because , uh , you know , we have the set up here +Grad H: Got a ticket . +Professor B: Yeah , I know you are . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that has a chance to give us some very interesting fun data . So if anyone has ideas , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: if you know any groups that are m you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I had asked some {disfmarker} some of the students at the business school . +PhD A: student groups c like clubs , things like that . +Grad F: I know {disfmarker} +Grad H: I could {disfmarker} +PhD A: Not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} +Professor B: Put a little ad up saying , "" come here and argue "" . +PhD A: Yeah . "" If you 're really angry at someone use our conference room . "" +Grad H: The Business school . Uh , the business school might be good . I actually spoke with some students up there +PhD A: Oh , OK . +Grad H: and they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they expressed willingness back when they thought they would be doing more stuff with speech . +PhD A: Really . +Grad H: But when they lost interest in speech they also {pause} stopped answering my email about other stuff , so . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Or people who are really h +Professor B: They could have a discussion about te +Grad F: I {disfmarker} +Grad H: We should probably bleep that out . +Professor B: about {disfmarker} about tax cuts or something . +Grad F: I heard that at Cal Tech they have a special room {disfmarker} someone said that they had a special room to get all your frustrations out that you can go to and like throw things and break things . +Professor B: Yeah , now that is not actually what we {disfmarker} +Grad F: So we can like post a {disfmarker} +Grad H: Th - that 's not what we want . +Grad F: No , not to that extent +PhD A: Well , far field mikes can pick up where they threw stuff on the wall . +Grad F: but , um . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , but we don't want them to throw the far field mikes is the thing . +PhD A: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah , right . +Grad H: That 's right . +PhD D: The fa +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD D: +Grad H: "" Please throw everything in that direction . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Anyway . +Grad H: Padded cell . +Postdoc G: It 'd be fun to get like a {disfmarker} a p visit from the {disfmarker} +Grad H: There was a dorm room at Tech that , uh , someone had coated the walls and the ceiling , and , uh , the floor with mattresses . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad H: The entire room . +Professor B: I had as my fourth thing here processing of wave forms . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: What did we mean by that ? Remember @ @ ? +Grad H: Uh , Liz wanted to talk about methods of improving accuracy by doing pre - processing . +Postdoc G: Pre - processing . +PhD A: Well I think that {disfmarker} that was just sort of {disfmarker} I I already asked Thilo +Professor B: Oh , you already did that . +PhD A: but that , um , it would be helpful if I can stay in the loop somehow with , um , people who are doing any kind of post - processing , whether it 's to separate speakers or to improve the signal - to - noise ratio , or both , um , that we can sort of try out as we 're running recognition . Um , so , i is that {disfmarker} Who else is work I guess Dan Ellis and you +PhD C: Dan , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and Dave uh {pause} Gel - Gelbart again , +Grad H: Yep . +PhD A: and Dave . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: he 's {disfmarker} he 's interested in {disfmarker} in fact we 're look starting to look at some echo cancellation kind of things . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Which uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: I am not sure how much that 's an issue with the close talking mikes , +Professor B: Hmm ? +Grad H: but who knows ? +Professor B: Well , let 's {disfmarker} w i isn't that what {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know . I 'm bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: t No , so {disfmarker} No , i w wha what you {disfmarker} what you want {disfmarker} when you 're saying improving the wave form you want the close talking microphone to be better . +PhD A: It 's like {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: And the question is to w to what extent is it getting hurt by , uh {disfmarker} by any room acoustics or is it just {disfmarker} uh , given that it 's close it 's not a problem ? +PhD A: It doesn't seem like big room acoustics problems to my ear +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: but I 'm not an expert . It seems like a problem with cross - talk . +Professor B: OK , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad H: e I bet with the lapel mike there 's plenty , uh , room acoustic +PhD A: That {disfmarker} that may be true . +Grad H: but I I think the rest is cross - talk . +PhD A: But I don't know how good it can get either by those {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} those methods {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD A: That 's true . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} I think it 's just , +PhD A: Oh , I don't know . +Grad H: yeah , what you said , cross - talk . +PhD A: All I meant is just that as sort of {disfmarker} as this pipeline of research is going on we 're also experimenting with different ASR , uh , techniques . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so it 'd be w good to know about it . +PhD E: So the problem is like , uh , on the microphone of somebody who 's not talking they 're picking up signals from other people {comment} and that 's {vocalsound} causing problems ? +PhD A: R right , although if they 're not talking , using the {disfmarker} the inhouse transcriptions , were sort of O K because the t no one transcribed any words there and we throw it out . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But if they 're talking at all and they 're not talking the whole time , so you get some speech and then a "" mm - hmm "" , and some more speech , so that whole thing is one chunk . And the person in the middle who said only a little bit is picking up the speech around it , that 's where it 's a big problem . +Postdoc G: You know , this does like seem like it would relate to some of what Jose 's been working on as well , the encoding of the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And {disfmarker} and he also , he was {disfmarker} +PhD A: The energy , +PhD D: Yeah , +PhD A: right . Exactly . +PhD D: energy . +Postdoc G: I was t I was trying to remember , you have this interface where you {disfmarker} i you ha you showed us one time on your laptop that you {disfmarker} you had different visual displays as speech and nonspeech events . +PhD D: Yeah , c Yeah . May {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I only display the different colors for the different situation . But , eh , for me and for my problems , is uh {disfmarker} is enough . Because , eh , it 's possible , eh , eh , in a simp sample view , uh , to , nnn , to compare with c with the segment , the {disfmarker} the kind of assessment what happened with the {disfmarker} the different parameters . And only with a different bands of color for the , uh , few situation , eh , I consider for acoustic event is enough to @ @ . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I see that , eh , you are considering now , eh , a very sophisticated , eh , ehm , eh , @ @ {comment} set of , eh , graphic s eh , eh , ehm , si symbols to {disfmarker} to transcribe . No ? Because , uh , before , you {disfmarker} you are talking about the {disfmarker} the possibility to include in the Transcriber program eh , um , a set of symbols , of graphic symbol to {disfmarker} t to mark the different situations during the transcription +Postdoc G: Oh , I w Uh - huh . +PhD D: during the transcription . No ? +Postdoc G: Well , you 're saying {disfmarker} So , uh , symbols for differences between laugh , and sigh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and slam the door and stuff ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . The s the symbols , you {disfmarker} you talk of before . +Postdoc G: Or some other kind of thing ? +PhD D: No ? To {disfmarker} to mark {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Well , I wouldn't say {vocalsound} symbols so much . The {disfmarker} the main change that I {disfmarker} that I see in the interface is {disfmarker} is just that we 'll be able to more finely c uh , time things . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc G: But I {disfmarker} I also st there was another aspect of your work that I was thinking about when I was talking to you +PhD A: Hmm . +Postdoc G: which is that it sounded to me , Liz , as though you {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe I didn't q understand this , but it sounded to me as though part of the analysis that you 're doing involves taking segments which are of a particular type and putting them together . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc G: And th so if you have like a p a s you know , speech from one speaker , {pause} then you cut out the part that 's not that speaker , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: and you combine segments from {pause} that same speaker to {disfmarker} {comment} and run them through the recognizer . Is that {pause} right ? +PhD A: Well we try to find as close of start and end time of {disfmarker} as we can to the speech from an individual speaker , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because then we {disfmarker} we 're more guaranteed that the recognizer will {disfmarker} for the forced alignment which is just to give us the time boundaries , because from those time boundaries then the plan is to compute prosodic features . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And the sort of more space you have that isn't the thing you 're trying to align the more errors we have . Um , so , you know , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} it would help to have either pre - processing of a signal that creates very good signal - to - noise ratio , +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . Cuz i OK . +PhD A: which I don't know how possible this is for the lapel , um , or to have very {disfmarker} to have closer , {vocalsound} um , time {disfmarker} you know , synch times , basically , around the speech that gets transcribed in it , or both . And it 's just sort of a open world right now of exploring that . So I just wanted to {pause} see , you know , on the transcribing end from here things look good . Uh , the IBM one is more {disfmarker} it 's an open question right now . And then the issue of like global processing of some signal and then , you know , before we chop it up is {disfmarker} is yet another way we can improve things in that . +PhD E: What about increasing the flexibility of the alignment ? +Postdoc G: OK . +PhD E: Do you remember that thing that Michael Finka did ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: that experiment he did a while back ? +PhD A: Right . You can , um {disfmarker} The problem is just that the acoustic {disfmarker} when the signal - to - noise ratio is too low , um , you {disfmarker} you 'll get , a uh {disfmarker} an alignment with the wrong duration pattern or it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , so that 's the problem , is the {disfmarker} the signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD A: Yeah . It 's not the fact that you have like {disfmarker} I mean , what he did is allow you to have , uh , words that were in another segment move over to the {disfmarker} at the edges of {disfmarker} of segmentations . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Or even words inserted that weren't {disfmarker} weren't there . +PhD A: Right , things {disfmarker} things near the boundaries where if you got your alignment wrong {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: cuz what they had done there is align and then chop . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , and this problem is a little bit j more global . It 's that there are problems even in inside the alignments , uh , because of the fact that there 's enough acoustic signal there t for the recognizer to {disfmarker} to eat , {vocalsound} as part of a word . And it tends to do that . S So , uh , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: but we probably will have to do something like that in addition . Anyway . So , yeah , bottom {disfmarker} bottom line is just I wanted to make sure I can be aware of whoever 's working on these signal - processing techniques for , uh , detecting energies , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: because that {disfmarker} that 'll really help us . +Professor B: O K , uh tea has started out there I suggest we c run through our digits and , +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Uh , So , OK , we 're done . +","In the conversation, various participants discussed logistical and technical aspects of meeting transcription, audio processing, and the collection of additional meeting data for research purposes. + +They began by confirming their recording setup for the meeting. PhD A raised a concern about the cold temperature in the room. Professor B did not provide a formal agenda and asked if anyone had agenda items they'd like to discuss. + +Postdoc G offered to talk about an upcoming meeting. Grad H asked if everyone had met a new individual named Don, and Professor B asked for confirmation that the recording was functioning correctly, which was affirmed by multiple participants. + +PhD A inquired about acquiring better quality close-talking microphones for consistent audio capture, a topic previously discussed in a missed meeting. Professor B agreed that it was a good agenda item, and the group proceeded with additional agenda-building. + +Postdoc G mentioned the NIST visit planned for the following week, which led to a discussion about the attendees and what would be on the agenda, such as updates on transcription strategies and technical developments. + +Professor B and the group touched on topics related to speech versus nonspeech detection, recognition processing, and possible improvements in the post-processing of waveforms. + +There was also a discussion concerning the desirability of better microphones for the whole team to have uniform and high-quality recordings. Grad H noted the importance of microphone positioning to minimize breath sounds and other interference. + +The group briefly diverted into a discussion about nonvocalsound items and the experience with different microphones before returning to the need for standardized, high-quality close-talking microphones. + +Towards the end of the meeting, the conversation shifted towards building a wish list for future meetings, including having a diverse range of speakers and possibly inviting political groups for the purpose of collecting data that includes more emotional and varied prosodic content. + +They also discussed the involvement of the transcribers in additional tasks such as fine-grained encoding of overlaps in speech or more detailed speech analysis. + +The meeting ended with a reminder that tea was starting and everyone agreed to finish up their meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} How do you wear this thing ? +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm mm mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not too many cables and stuff . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Original . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is recorded ? Okay ? Okay so welcome everyone . So we are here for the kickoff meeting of uh the process of designing a new remote control . So I will first start with a warm welcome opening {vocalsound} stuff , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: then uh we will uh see what will be uh our product and what will be the different step we will have to design it . And uh then we will uh discuss if we have few ideas and we will uh end uh by uh dispatching the different task you will be {disfmarker} you will have to fulfil to complete this process . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . Just one thing . Uh , you said twenty-five minutes , but I have something else to do uh , so gotta have another meeting uh soon , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so maybe you could hurry up a bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} sorry ? +User Interface: It's true . I have another meeting so if you could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have another meeting soon ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have to be quick . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , for the lawnmower project . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So the the goal is to have a remote control so to have an advantage over our competitors we have to be original , we have to be trendy and we have to also try to be user-friendly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh the design step will be divided in three uh main points . First it will be the functional design . Third is the conceptual design and then is the desired design . So the functional design is to identify the main user needs , the technical function the remote control should fulfil . And then we will move to f conceptual design where we'll specify the different component involved , what kind of user interf interface we want and what are the different uh trend in user interface and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the desired devi design will consist in uh specifically implementing {vocalsound} and detailing the choice we've uh made in the second point . So I will now ask you which is very important for the design of a new remote control for to uh each of us to to draw uh your favourite animal on the white board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What an original idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you have any idea of which animal you want to show us ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} that's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no n +Project Manager: {vocalsound} n n {gap} +User Interface: Can I give you the +Project Manager: You should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} no ? But I don't have to say anything . When I'm drawing the orangutan . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} If you want to react uh about this wonderful drawing uh {vocalsound} I'll let you uh comment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's an abstract drawing of an orangutan . +Project Manager: Okay it's an abstract drawing . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think it's nice and original . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You should write y the name I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have a red colour . Usually orangutans have red hair so this is a very important but I don't have red pen , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: You want to draw something Christine ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh sorry . You have to imagine a little bit {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course your animal is recorded so it's not lost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry too {vocalsound} uh . +User Interface: Yes . I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Wha what is this strange beast ? +Marketing: Is it beautiful ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is it a monster ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you know ? It's a cat . +User Interface: It's a cat ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Isn't it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought these things did not exist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Industrial Designer: Me {vocalsound} +Marketing: is it {disfmarker} like that . +User Interface: Ah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Is it better ? +Project Manager: Ah okay it's pretty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay it's your cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my cat . +User Interface: Does have a name ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The name is Caramel . +User Interface: Caramel . Ah-ha . +Industrial Designer: Caramel . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Olivier , do you want to {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think I'm too short for the cables . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay I go , but next time you'll do something I'm sure . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm a bit short on cable . +User Interface: Next time I concentrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So what could I draw ? {vocalsound} Maybe I can draw like a very simplified cow . {vocalsound} I don't know if it looks like a cow {vocalsound} +User Interface: He looks like a bong . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a what ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Sorry . No . +Industrial Designer: Quite squarey . +User Interface: Scary ? +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He also . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno it it looks more like a donkey in fact {vocalsound} I would say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I think we will be finished this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so I hope that it helps you uh in the process of designing a remote control . +User Interface: Is it for uh for putting a {disfmarker} for logos , no . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's move on . So {disfmarker} Here the uh financial objective of our project . That is to say to to have a production cost lower than twelve point five Euros and have a selling price of twice that price t in order to target a profe profit of uh fifty uh million Euros . +User Interface: I is there a matter for a new remote control ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah if it's trendy , original I d fulfil the user needs . +User Interface: Is it uh a single device remote control or is it a multi-device remote control ? +Project Manager: We have to discuss that point . +User Interface: Ah +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is not defined at all ? +Project Manager: yeah you you can suggest points like this . So what what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: so we have to decide for example if it can control one device or multiple . So what's {disfmarker} what are your ideas about that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe I can have the {disfmarker} your opinion from the marketing side ? +User Interface: Well uh do we sell other stuff ? Uh if if we bundle the remote control with something uh to sell then it could be a single device , otherwise it could be programmable one otherwise who would buy a remote control from us . +Project Manager: Okay , so if it selled uh by its own i it it would rather be for multiple device . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe it should be for multiple devices . And uh do you have any ideas um of uh design ideas or any uh uh technical requirement we we should uh fulfil ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think we shouldn't have too many b for my part . I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , I couldn I cannot fi think of any requirements right now . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If we don't have so many buttons could be nice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Few buttons . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And do you have it also to be {disfmarker} to be lighted in order to be used in the dark ? Might be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And do you have any um any uh idea of the trend {disfmarker} the trend in domain , what it shouldn't {disfmarker} it should look like , or things like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Something which is not squarey maybe uh , not a box . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: With rou okay . Like for {disfmarker} okay . +User Interface: Something like that , least fits in your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: The basic requirement . +Project Manager: So . Fit in your hand , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only a buck . +Project Manager: And also it have , i it may be {vocalsound} it may be important for the remote control to be uh {disfmarker} To , to resist to various shocks that can happen if it fall . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Waterproof . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Water-proof as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I think we should have a device {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe it is original because you can uh use it in your uh {disfmarker} in your bath whereas the others can't . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe water-proof would be very original . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Havin having a water-proof remote control so that the people can uh use it in their bath . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: That could be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: B it seems uh so , but uh if you don't have an waterproof remote control it means you can just cover it with some plastic and you can sort of f +Project Manager: Yeah but , it is still something uh you have to buy and that is um not maybe very {disfmarker} +User Interface: And , and that's one of the {disfmarker} that's one of the shock {disfmarker} I mean there are people that have a remote control and they are worried that it's going to break and they put some extra plastic around it . +Project Manager: Yeah , mayb B +User Interface: That's people {gap} they actually do it themselves . +Project Manager: But maybe we can bulk it with uh already this plastic thing and uh the waterproof uh stuff as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} directly . +User Interface: I it will look a bulky in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe we can sell uh all that together , so so plastic protection and uh and a waterproof box as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That might be good uh track to follow . +User Interface: Like as an optional thing . +Project Manager: Optional or selled with it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I I think we should have something , most of the time I I lose my remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should have s uh special bu button on the T_V_ to make the remote control beeping . +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh {disfmarker} But we don't design the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh something you whistle and uh the remote control uh beep . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Barks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , barks , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Barks . +Project Manager: So we can uh have a whistle uh remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah whistle . +Project Manager: I don't know , whistle-able ? {vocalsound} Th +Industrial Designer: Whistle tracking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whistle tracking yeah . Whistle tracking remote control . That's a good idea , that's very original and that's can uh improve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's that's quite cool , but uh of course we {disfmarker} you don't normally need uh any audio uh recording stuff on your remote control right ? +Project Manager: Yeah d d uh . +User Interface: So i it's just going to add t to the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah but s still we have to mm we have to {vocalsound} have an advantage over our competitors . I think this is a good advantage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's cool . I think I like the idea , but I'm not sure about the what you , +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask {disfmarker} +User Interface: who is giving {disfmarker} who's giving who's giving our budget . Who's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . We have to ask the quest of that's uh design to the uh Industrial um Designer . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is you . +User Interface: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so try to find that for next meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So next meeting is in thirty minutes or so uh . {vocalsound} Don't pani . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't panic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So so I will ask the Industrial Designer to find out more about this industrial design so any working {disfmarker} any working function we have discussed . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So then I will ask the User Interf Interface Designer to to think about the point we discussed like the number of buttons , the the fact that is lighted or not , things like that , and what would be convenient for the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And also um {vocalsound} I will ask the Market Expert to uh try to find out what are the absolute requirements , what is absolutely needed in a remote control uh for the user . So . And then uh I will uh just ask you to think about that and uh look at your mail because you will receive uh some good advice soon . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So . Thank you I think that's all for this point . +User Interface: Good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , so we come back in five minutes ? Half an hour . +Project Manager: Anyway you will receive some messages . {vocalsound} Be careful . You eat it ? Does it move uh ? Okay , but I don't know if it uh is still correctly uh {disfmarker} We'll see . +Industrial Designer: Ah . {gap} +","Summary: + +During the kickoff meeting for designing a new remote control, the Project Manager outlined the goal to create an original, trendy, and user-friendly product to gain a competitive edge. The User Interface Designer expressed concerns about time constraints due to another meeting. The Project Manager explained the design process in three stages: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design, emphasizing the need for innovation and user-needs fulfillment. + +A lighthearted exercise involved drawing favorite animals, leading to an abstract orangutan and a cat named Caramel being drawn. Discussion shifted back to the remote control, addressing the financial objectives of maintaining low production costs while targeting significant profits. + +The team debated features such as single or multi-device control, minimalistic button design, lighting for dark conditions, ergonomic handling, shock-proofing, and waterproofing. An idea was proposed to include a whistle-activated beeping function to help find lost remote controls, but concerns about increased production costs were voiced. + +In preparation for the next meeting, the Project Manager assigned tasks to the Industrial Designer to research design possibilities and to the User Interface Designer and Marketing Expert to consider user-focused features and market requirements." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: We 're going ? OK . Sh - Close your door on {disfmarker} door on the way out ? +Grad B: OK . Thanks . +Professor A: Thanks . +Grad B: Oh . +Professor A: Yeah . Probably wanna get this other door , too . OK . So . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What are we talking about today ? +PhD E: Uh , well , first there are perhaps these uh Meeting Recorder digits that we tested . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . That was kind of uh interesting . +PhD E: So . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} both the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the SRI System and the oth +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: And for one thing that {disfmarker} that sure shows the {vocalsound} difference between having a lot of uh training data {vocalsound} or not , +PhD E: Of data ? Yeah . +Professor A: uh , the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The best kind of number we have on the English uh {disfmarker} on near microphone only is {disfmarker} is uh three or four percent . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh it 's significantly better than that , using fairly simple front - ends {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the SRI system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I th I think that the uh {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} that 's using uh a {disfmarker} a pretty huge amount of data , mostly not digits , of course , but {disfmarker} but then again {disfmarker} Well , yeah . In fact , mostly not digits for the actual training the H M Ms whereas uh in this case we 're just using digits for training the H M +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Did anybody mention about whether the {disfmarker} the SRI system is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} is doing the digits um the wor as a word model or as uh a sub s sub - phone states ? +PhD E: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh allophone models , +Professor A: Yeah . Probably . +PhD E: so , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Huh ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think so , because it 's their very d huge , their huge system . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . But . So . There is one difference {disfmarker} Well , the SRI system {disfmarker} the result for the SRI system that are represented here are with adaptation . So there is {disfmarker} It 's their complete system and {disfmarker} including on - line uh unsupervised adaptation . +Professor A: That 's true . +PhD E: And if you don't use adaptation , the error rate is around fifty percent worse , I think , if I remember . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's tha it 's that much , huh ? +PhD E: Nnn . It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's quite significant . +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Still . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but uh what {disfmarker} what I think I 'd be interested to do given that , is that we {disfmarker} we should uh {vocalsound} take {disfmarker} I guess that somebody 's gonna do this , right ? {disfmarker} is to take some of these tandem things and feed it into the SRI system , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We can do something like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Because {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But I guess the main point is the data because uh {vocalsound} I am not sure . Our back - end is {disfmarker} is fairly simple but until now , well , the attempts to improve it or {disfmarker} have fail Ah , well , I mean uh what Chuck tried to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do +Professor A: Yeah , but he 's doing it with the same data , right ? I mean so to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's two things being affected . +PhD E: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: I mean . One is that {disfmarker} that , you know , there 's something simple that 's wrong with the back - end . We 've been playing a number of states +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I {disfmarker} I don't know if he got to the point of playing with the uh number of Gaussians yet +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh , uh , you know . But , yeah , so far he hadn't gotten any big improvement , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but that 's all with the same amount of data which is pretty small . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: And um . +PhD E: Mmm . So , yeah , we could retrain some of these tandem on {disfmarker} on huge {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , you could do that , but I 'm saying even with it not {disfmarker} with that part not retrained , just {disfmarker} just using {disfmarker} having the H M Ms {disfmarker} much better H M +PhD E: Ah , yeah . Just {disfmarker} f for the HMM models . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} But just train those H M Ms using different features , the features coming from our Aurora stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . But {vocalsound} what would be interesting to see also is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} perhaps it 's not related , the amount of data but the um recording conditions . I don't know . Because {vocalsound} it 's probably not a problem of noise , because our features are supposed to be robust to noise . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: It 's not a problem of channel , because there is um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normalization with respect to the channel . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . What {disfmarker} what is the problem that you 're trying to explain ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the fact that {disfmarker} the result with the tandem and Aurora system are {vocalsound} uh so much worse . +Professor A: That the {disfmarker} Oh . So much worse ? Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I uh but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm almost certain that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , that it has to do with the um amount of training data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's orders of magnitude off . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah but we train only on digits and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a digit task , so . Well . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but having a huge {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you look at what commercial places do , they use a huge amount of data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: This is a modest amount of data . +PhD E: Alright . Yeah . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} I mean , ordinarily you would say "" well , given that you have enough occurrences of the digits , you can just train with digits rather than with , you know "" {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is , if you have a huge {disfmarker} in other words , do word models {disfmarker} But if you have a huge amount of data then you 're going to have many occurrences of similar uh allophones . +PhD E: Right . Mmm . +Professor A: And that 's just a huge amount of training for it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think it has to be that , because , as you say , this is , you know , this is near - microphone , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it 's really pretty clean data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Now , some of it could be the fact that uh {disfmarker} let 's see , in the {disfmarker} in these multi - train things did we include noisy data in the training ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean , that could be hurting us actually , for the clean case . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , actually we see that the clean train for the Aurora proposals are {disfmarker} are better than the multi - train , +Professor A: It is if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz this is clean data , and so that 's not too surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But um . Uh . So . +PhD E: Well , o I guess what I meant is that well , let 's say if we {disfmarker} if we add enough data to train on the um on the Meeting Recorder digits , I guess we could have better results than this . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And . What I meant is that perhaps we can learn something uh from this , what 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong uh what {disfmarker} what is different between TI - digits and these digits and {disfmarker} +Professor A: What kind of numbers are we getting on TI - digits ? +PhD E: It 's point eight percent , so . +Professor A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: Four - Fourier . +Professor A: So in the actual TI - digits database we 're getting point eight percent , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: and here we 're getting three or four {disfmarker} three , let 's see , three for this ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Sure , but I mean , um point eight percent is something like double uh or triple what people have gotten who 've worked very hard at doing that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and also , as you point out , there 's adaptation in these numbers also . So if you , you know , put the ad adap take the adaptation off , then it {disfmarker} for the English - Near you get something like two percent . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: And here you had , you know , something like three point four . And I could easily see that difference coming from this huge amount of data that it was trained on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: You know , I don't think there 's anything magical here . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's , you know , we used a simple HTK system with a modest amount of data . And this is a {disfmarker} a , you know , modern {vocalsound} uh system uh has {disfmarker} has a lot of nice points to it . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . So . I mean , the HTK is an older HTK , even . So . Yeah it {disfmarker} it 's not that surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But to me it just {disfmarker} it just meant a practical {vocalsound} point that um if we want to {vocalsound} publish results on digits that {disfmarker} that people pay {vocalsound} attention to we probably should uh {disfmarker} Cuz we 've had the problem before that you get {disfmarker} show some {vocalsound} nice improvement on something that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , uh {disfmarker} it seems like too large a number , and uh {vocalsound} uh people don't necessarily take it so seriously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Yeah . Yeah . So the three point four percent for this uh is {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} So why is it {disfmarker} It 's an interesting question though , still . Why is {disfmarker} why is it three point four percent for the d the digits recorded in this environment as opposed to {vocalsound} the uh point eight percent for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the original TI - digits database ? Um . +PhD E: Yeah . th that 's {disfmarker} th that 's my point +Professor A: Given {disfmarker} given the same {disfmarker} Yeah . So ignore {disfmarker} ignoring the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the SRI system for a moment , +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't I {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: just looking at {vocalsound} the TI - di the uh tandem system , if we 're getting point eight percent , which , yes , it 's high . It 's , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's not awfully high , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but it 's , you know {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's high . Um . {vocalsound} Why is it {vocalsound} uh four times as high , or more ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor A: Right ? I mean , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} even though it 's close - miked there 's still {disfmarker} there really is background noise . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . And {vocalsound} uh I suspect when the TI - digits were recorded if somebody fumbled or said something wrong or something that they probably made them take it over . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: It was not {disfmarker} I mean there was no attempt to have it be realistic in any {disfmarker} in any sense at all . +PhD E: Well . Yeah . And acoustically , it 's q it 's {disfmarker} I listened . It 's quite different . TI - digit is {disfmarker} it 's very , very clean and it 's like studio recording +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: whereas these Meeting Recorder digits sometimes you have breath noise and Mmm . +Professor A: Right . Yeah . So I think they were {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {nonvocalsound} not controlled at all , I mean . +Professor A: Bless you . +Grad B: Thanks . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} So . Yes . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's the indication it 's harder . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah and again , you know , i that 's true either way . I mean so take a look at the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , the SRI results . I mean , they 're much much better , but still you 're getting something like one point three percent for uh things that are same data as in T {disfmarker} TI - digits the same {disfmarker} same text . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . And uh , I 'm sure the same {disfmarker} same system would {disfmarker} would get , you know , point {disfmarker} point three or point four or something {vocalsound} on the actual TI - digits . So this {disfmarker} I think , on both systems the {vocalsound} these digits are showing up as harder . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Which I find sort of interesting cause I think this is closer to {disfmarker} uh I mean it 's still read . But I still think it 's much closer to {disfmarker} to what {disfmarker} what people actually face , {vocalsound} um when they 're {disfmarker} they 're dealing with people saying digits over the telephone . I mean . {vocalsound} I don't think uh {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm sure they wouldn't release the numbers , but I don't think that uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the companies that {disfmarker} that do telephone {vocalsound} speech get anything like point four percent on their {vocalsound} digits . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure they get {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for one thing people do phone up who don't have uh uh Middle America accents and it 's a we we it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's US . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it has {disfmarker} has many people {vocalsound} {vocalsound} who sound in many different ways . So . Um . I mean . OK . That was that topic . What else we got ? +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: Did we end up giving up on {disfmarker} on , any Eurospeech submissions , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: or {disfmarker} ? I know Thilo and Dan Ellis are {disfmarker} are submitting something , but uh . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess e the only thing with these {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder and , well , {disfmarker} So , I think , yeah {disfmarker} I think we basically gave up . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} Now , actually for the {disfmarker} for the Aur - uh +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: we do have stuff for Aurora , right ? Because {disfmarker} because we have ano an extra month or something . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . Yeah , for sure we will do something for the special session . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , that 's fine . So th so {disfmarker} so we have a couple {disfmarker} a couple little things on Meeting Recorder +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We don't {disfmarker} we don't have to flood it with papers . We 're not trying to prove anything to anybody . so . That 's fine . Um . Anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Well . So . Perhaps the point is that we 've been working on {vocalsound} is , yeah , we have put the um the good VAD in the system and {vocalsound} it really makes a huge difference . Um . So , yeah . I think , yeah , this is perhaps one of the reason why our system was not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not the best , because with the new VAD , it 's very {disfmarker} the results are similar to the France Telecom results and perhaps even better sometimes . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: Huh . +PhD E: Um . So there is this point . Uh . The problem is that it 's very big and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we still have to think how to {disfmarker} where to put it and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , this VAD uh either some delay and we {disfmarker} if we put it on the server side , it doesn't work , because on the server side features you already have LDA applied {vocalsound} from the f from the terminal side and {vocalsound} so you accumulate the delay so the VAD should be before the LDA which means perhaps on the terminal side and then smaller {vocalsound} and +Professor A: So wha where did this good VAD come from ? +PhD E: So . It 's um from OGI . So it 's the network trained {disfmarker} it 's the network with the huge amounts on hidden {disfmarker} of hidden units , and um nine input frames compared to the VAD that was in the proposal which has a very small amount of hidden units and fewer inputs . +Professor A: This is the one they had originally ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh . Yeah , but they had to {pause} get rid of it because of the space , didn't they ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . Yeah . But the abso assumption is that we will be able to make a VAD that 's small and that works fine . And . So we can {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . So that 's a problem . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} nnn . +Professor A: But the other thing is uh to use a different VAD entirely . I mean , uh i if {disfmarker} if there 's a {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what the thinking was amongst the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the ETSI folk but um if everybody agreed sure let 's use this VAD and take that out of there {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . They just want , apparently {disfmarker} they don't want to fix the VAD because they think there is some interaction between feature extraction and {disfmarker} and VAD or frame dropping But they still {vocalsound} want to {disfmarker} just to give some um {vocalsound} requirement for this VAD because it 's {disfmarker} it will not be part of {disfmarker} they don't want it to be part of the standard . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: So . So it must be at least uh somewhat fixed but not completely . So there just will be some requirements that are still not {disfmarker} uh not yet uh ready I think . +Professor A: Determined . I see . But I was thinking that {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} s "" Sure , there may be some interaction , +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor A: but I don't think we need to be stuck on using our or OGI 's {pause} VAD . We could use somebody else 's if it 's smaller or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: You know , as long as it did the job . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that 's good . +PhD E: Uh . So there is this thing . There is um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh I designed a new {disfmarker} a new filter because when I designed other filters with shorter delay from the LDA filters , {vocalsound} there was one filter with fif sixty millisecond delay and the other with ten milliseconds +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} uh Hynek suggested that both could have sixty - five sixty - s I think it 's sixty - five . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Both should have sixty - five because {disfmarker} +Professor A: You didn't gain anything , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . And . So I did that and uh it 's running . So , {vocalsound} let 's see what will happen . Uh but the filter is of course closer to the reference filter . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Um . Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that means logically , in principle , it should be better . So probably it 'll be worse . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor A: Or in the basic perverse nature uh of reality . Yeah . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah , and then we 've started to work with this of um voiced - unvoiced stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And next week I think we will {vocalsound} perhaps try to have um a new system with uh uh MSG stream also see what {disfmarker} what happens . So , something that 's similar to the proposal too , but with MSG stream . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: OK . +PhD D: No , I w {vocalsound} I begin to play {vocalsound} with Matlab and to found some parameter robust for voiced - unvoiced decision . But only to play . And we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} we found that maybe w is a classical parameter , the {vocalsound} sq the variance {vocalsound} between the um FFT of the signal and the small spectrum of time {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} after the um mel filter bank . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And , well , is more or less robust . Is good for clean speech . Is quite good {vocalsound} for noisy speech . +Professor A: Huh ? Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but um we must to have bigger statistic with TIMIT , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and is not ready yet to use on , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: well , I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . So , basically we wa want to look at something like the ex the ex excitation signal and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: which are the variance of it and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have here . I have here for one signal , for one frame . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the mix of the two , noise and unnoise , and the signal is this . Clean , and this noise . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: These are the two {disfmarker} the mixed , the big signal is for clean . +Professor A: Well , I 'm s uh {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} None of these axes are labeled , so I don't know what this {disfmarker} What 's this axis ? +PhD D: Uh this is uh {disfmarker} this axis is {vocalsound} nnn , "" frame "" . +Professor A: Frame . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And what 's th what this ? +PhD D: Uh , this is uh energy , log - energy of the spectrum . Of the this is the variance , the difference {nonvocalsound} between the spectrum of the signal and FFT of each frame of the signal and this mouth spectrum of time after the f may fit for the two , +Professor A: For this one . For the noi +PhD D: this big , to here , they are to signal . This is for clean and this is for noise . +Professor A: Oh . There 's two things on the same graph . +PhD D: Yeah . I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think that I have d another graph , but I 'm not sure . +Professor A: So w which is clean and which is noise ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think the lower one is noise . +PhD D: The lower is noise and the height is clean . +Professor A: OK . So it 's harder to distinguish +PhD D: It 's height . +Professor A: but it {disfmarker} but it g +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: with noise of course but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . I must to have . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: Pity , but I don't have two different +Professor A: And presumably when there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this should the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the t voiced portions . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah , it is the height is voiced portion . +PhD E: The p the peaks should be voiced portion . +PhD D: And this is the noise portion . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And this is more or less like this . But I meant to have see @ @ two {disfmarker} two the picture . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: This is , for example , for one frame . +Professor A: Yeah +PhD D: the {disfmarker} the spectrum of the signal . And this is the small version of the spectrum after ML mel filter bank . +Professor A: Yeah . And this is the difference ? +PhD D: And this is I don't know . This is not the different . This is trying to obtain {vocalsound} with LPC model the spectrum but using Matlab without going factor and s +Professor A: No pre - emphasis ? Yeah . +PhD D: Not pre - emphasis . Nothing . +Professor A: Yeah so it 's {disfmarker} doesn't do too well there . +PhD D: And the {disfmarker} I think that this is good . This is quite similar . this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this is another frame . ho how I obtained the {vocalsound} envelope , {nonvocalsound} this envelope , with the mel filter bank . +Professor A: Right . So now I wonder {disfmarker} I mean , do you want to {disfmarker} I know you want to get at something orthogonal from what you get with the smooth spectrum Um . But if you were to really try and get a voiced - unvoiced , do you {disfmarker} do you want to totally ignore that ? I mean , do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} I mean , clearly a {disfmarker} a very big {disfmarker} very big cues {vocalsound} for voiced - unvoiced come from uh spectral slope and so on , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , this would be {disfmarker} this would be perhaps an additional parameter , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: simply isn't {disfmarker} +Professor A: I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah because when did noise clear {nonvocalsound} in these section is clear +PhD E: Uh . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if s @ @ {nonvocalsound} val value is indicative that is a voice frame and it 's low values +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you probably want {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} certainly if {vocalsound} you want to do good voiced - unvoiced detection , you need a few features . Each {disfmarker} each feature is {vocalsound} by itself not enough . But , you know , people look at {disfmarker} at slope and {vocalsound} uh first auto - correlation coefficient , divided by power . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Or {disfmarker} or uh um there 's uh {disfmarker} I guess we prob probably don't have enough computation to do a simple pitch detector or something ? I mean with a pitch detector you could have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have a {disfmarker} an estimate of {disfmarker} of what the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Uh . Or maybe you could you just do it going through the P FFT 's figuring out some um probable {vocalsound} um harmonic structure . Right . And {disfmarker} and uh . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD D: you have read up and {disfmarker} you have a paper , {vocalsound} the paper that you s give me yesterday . they say that yesterday {vocalsound} they are some {nonvocalsound} problem +PhD E: Oh , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , but it 's not {disfmarker} it 's , yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's another problem . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} Is another problem . +PhD E: Yeah Um . Yeah , there is th this fact actually . If you look at this um spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: What 's this again ? Is it {vocalsound} the mel - filters ? +PhD D: Yeah like this . Of kind like this . +PhD E: Yeah . OK . So the envelope here is the output of the mel - filters +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and what we clearly see is that in some cases , and it clearly appears here , and the {disfmarker} the harmonics are resolved by the f Well , there are still appear after mel - filtering , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and it happens {vocalsound} for high pitched voice because the width of the lower frequency mel - filters {vocalsound} is sometimes even smaller than the pitch . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's around one hundred , one hundred and fifty hertz {vocalsound} Nnn . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: And so what happens is that this uh , add additional variability to this envelope and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: so we were thinking to modify the mel - spectrum to have something that {disfmarker} that 's smoother on low frequencies . +Professor A: That 's as {disfmarker} as a separate thing . +PhD E: i +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . This is a separate thing . +Professor A: Separate thing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . +Professor A: Yeah . Maybe so . Um . Yeah . So , what {disfmarker} Yeah . What I was talking about was just , starting with the FFT you could {disfmarker} you could uh do a very rough thing to estimate {disfmarker} estimate uh pitch . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh uh , given {disfmarker} you know , given that , uh {vocalsound} you could uh uh come up with some kind of estimate of how much of the low frequency energy was {disfmarker} was explained by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by uh uh those harmonics . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . It 's uh a variant on what you 're s what you 're doing . The {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the mel does give a smooth thing . But as you say it 's not that smooth here . And {disfmarker} and so if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you just you know subtracted off uh your guess of the harmonics then something like this would end up with {vocalsound} quite a bit lower energy in the first fifteen hundred hertz or so and {disfmarker} and our first kilohertz , even . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um {vocalsound} if was uh noisy , the proportion that it would go down would be if it was {disfmarker} if it was unvoiced or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you oughta be able to {vocalsound} pick out voiced segments . At least it should be another {disfmarker} another cue . So . {vocalsound} Anyway . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? That 's what 's going on . Uh . What 's up with you ? +Grad B: Um {vocalsound} our t I went to {vocalsound} talk with uh Mike Jordan this {disfmarker} this week +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um {nonvocalsound} and uh {vocalsound} shared with him the ideas about um {vocalsound} extending the Larry Saul work and um I asked him some questions about factorial H M so like later down the line when {vocalsound} we 've come up with these {disfmarker} these feature detectors , how do we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how do we uh {vocalsound} you know , uh model the time series that {disfmarker} that happens um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} and we talked a little bit about {vocalsound} factorial H M Ms and how {vocalsound} um when you 're doing inference {disfmarker} or w when you 're doing recognition , there 's like simple Viterbi stuff that you can do for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for these H M and {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the great advantages that um a lot of times the factorial H M Ms don't {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} don't over - alert the problem there they have a limited number of parameters and they focus directly on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on uh the sub - problems at hand so {vocalsound} you can imagine {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} five or so parallel {vocalsound} um features um transitioning independently and then {vocalsound} at the end you {disfmarker} you uh couple these factorial H M Ms with uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with uh undirected links um based on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} based on some more data . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: So he {disfmarker} he seemed {disfmarker} he seemed like really interested in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in um {disfmarker} in this and said {disfmarker} said this is {disfmarker} this is something very do - able and can learn a lot and um yeah , I 've just been {vocalsound} continue reading um about certain things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um thinking of maybe using um {vocalsound} um m modulation spectrum stuff to {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} as features um also in the {disfmarker} in the sub - bands +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because {vocalsound} it seems like {vocalsound} the modulation um spectrum tells you a lot about the intelligibility of {disfmarker} of certain um words and stuff So , um . Yeah . Just that 's about it . +Professor A: OK . +Grad C: OK . And um so I 've been looking at Avendano 's work and um uh I 'll try to write up in my next stat status report a nice description of {vocalsound} what he 's doing , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's an approach to deal with {vocalsound} reverberation or that {disfmarker} the aspect of his work that I 'm interested in the idea is that um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normally an analysis frames are um {vocalsound} too short to encompass reverberation effects um in full . You miss most of the reverberation tail in a ten millisecond window and so {vocalsound} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you 'd like it to be that {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the reverberation responses um simply convolved um in , but it 's not really with these ten millisecond frames cuz you j But if you take , say , a two millisecond {vocalsound} um window {disfmarker} I 'm sorry a two second window then in a room like this , most of the reverberation response {vocalsound} is included in the window and the {disfmarker} then it um {vocalsound} then things are l more linear . It is {disfmarker} it is more like the reverberation response is simply c convolved and um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can use channel normalization techniques {vocalsound} like uh in his thesis he 's assuming that the reverberation response is fixed . He just does um {vocalsound} mean subtraction , which is like removing the DC component of the modulation spectrum and {vocalsound} that 's supposed to d um deal {disfmarker} uh deal pretty well with the um reverberation and um {vocalsound} the neat thing is you can't take these two second frames and feed them to a speech recognizer um {vocalsound} so he does this {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} method training trading the um {vocalsound} the spectral resolution for time resolution {vocalsound} and um {vocalsound} come ca uh synthesizes a new representation which is with say ten second frames but a lower s um {vocalsound} frequency resolution . So I don't really know the theory . I guess it 's {disfmarker} these are called "" time frequency representations "" and h he 's making the {disfmarker} the time sh um finer grained and the frequency resolution um less fine grained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: s so I 'm {disfmarker} I guess my first stab actually in continuing {vocalsound} his work is to um {vocalsound} re - implement this {disfmarker} this thing which um {vocalsound} changes the time and frequency resolutions cuz he doesn't have code for me . So that that 'll take some reading about the theory . I don't really know the theory . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh , and um , {vocalsound} another f first step is um , so the {disfmarker} the way I want to extend his work is make it able to deal with a time varying reverberation response um {vocalsound} and um we don't really know {vocalsound} how fast the um {disfmarker} the reverberation response is varying the Meeting Recorder data um so um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we have this um block least squares um imp echo canceller implementation and um {vocalsound} I want to try {vocalsound} finding {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the response , say , between a near mike and the table mike for someone using the echo canceller and looking at the echo canceller taps and then {vocalsound} see how fast that varies {vocalsound} from block to block . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That should give an idea of how fast the reverberation response is changing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . Um . I think we 're {vocalsound} sort of done . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So let 's read our digits and go home . +Grad C: Um . S so um y you do {disfmarker} I think you read some of the {disfmarker} the zeros as O 's and some as zeros . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: Is there a particular way we 're supposed to read them ? +PhD E: There are only zeros here . Well . +Professor A: No . "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" and "" zero "" are two ways that we say that digit . +PhD E: Eee . Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ha ! +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} i +PhD E: Perhaps in the sheets there should be another sign for the {disfmarker} if we want to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the guy to say "" O "" or +Professor A: No . I mean . I think people will do what they say . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean in digit recognition we 've done before , you have {disfmarker} you have two pronunciations for that value , "" O "" and "" zero "" . +Grad C: Alright . +PhD E: OK . +Grad C: OK . +PhD E: But it 's perhaps more difficult for the people to prepare the database then , if {disfmarker} because here you only have zeros +Professor A: No , they just write {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} and people pronounce "" O "" or zero {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} they write down OH . or they write down ZERO a and they {disfmarker} and they each have their own pronunciation . +PhD E: Yeah but if the sh the sheet was prepared with a different sign for the "" O "" . +Professor A: But people wouldn't know what that wa I mean {vocalsound} there is no convention for it . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . +Professor A: See . I mean , you 'd have to tell them {vocalsound} "" OK when we write this , say it tha "" , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: you know , and you just {disfmarker} They just want people to read the digits as you ordinarily would +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and people say it different ways . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad C: OK . Is this a change from the last batch of {disfmarker} of um forms ? Because in the last batch it was spelled out which one you should read . +PhD E: Yeah , it was orthographic , so . +Professor A: Yes . That 's right . It was {disfmarker} it was spelled out , and they decided they wanted to get at more the way people would really say things . +Grad C: Oh . OK . +Professor A: That 's also why they 're {disfmarker} they 're bunched together in these different groups . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Everything 's fine . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: OK . Actually , let me just s since {disfmarker} since you brought it up , I was just {disfmarker} it was hard not to be self - conscious about that when it {vocalsound} after we {disfmarker} since we just discussed it . But I realized that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} when I 'm talking on the phone , certainly , and {disfmarker} and saying these numbers , {vocalsound} I almost always say zero . And uh {disfmarker} cuz {disfmarker} because uh i it 's two syllables . It 's {disfmarker} it 's more likely they 'll understand what I said . So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's the habit I 'm in , but some people say "" O "" and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah I normally say "" O "" cuz it 's easier to say . +Professor A: Yeah it 's shorter . Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} So . {vocalsound} So uh . +Grad B: "" O "" +Professor A: Now , don't think about it . +Grad B: Oh , no ! +Professor A: OK . We 're done . +","In the summarized interaction, Professor A initiates the meeting by advising attendees to ensure the door is closed on their way out. Professor A then proceeds to engage in a technical discussion with PhD E about testing Meeting Recorder digits and the performance of the SRI System. PhD E introduces the topic, mentioning the results obtained from these tests. + +Their conversation dives into the complexities of speech recognition systems, notably the interplay between training data quantity and recognition accuracy. Professor A highlights that a significant amount of training data, which is not restricted to digits, contributes to the heightened efficiency of speech recognition. PhD E concurs, noting the difference in error rates with and without adaptation in the recognition system. They discuss the SRI system's capabilities, touching on unsupervised adaptation and its importance in reducing error rates. + +A specific point of interest arises around whether the SRI System employs word models or sub-phone states for the digit recognition task, leading to a consensus on the likelihood of allophone models. They also deliberate on the potential benefits of integrating features from their Aurora project into the SRI system, thereby enhancing HMM (Hidden Markov Model) training. + +Further into their discussion, Professor A and PhD E brainstorm on leveraging massive datasets to improve backend processing. They puzzle over why tandem systems trained on digits yield differing error rates compared to the TI-digits database, exploring factors such as background noise, recording conditions, and data quality. + +As they delve into the waters of speech recognition, Professor A queries PhD E about the modeling approach used for digits—an esoteric conversation for the layman but teeming with implications for machine learning enthusiasts. The talk transitions into considerations of whether the SRI system accounts for digits pronounced as complete words or as sequences of sub-phoneme states. They reflect on the value of adaptation and its profound impact on error rates, as well as the challenge of comparing their methods with commercial systems that likely encounter a broader variation in accents and speaking conditions. + +The discussion navigates through the technical aspects of feature extraction, data analysis, and system training, with occasional detours into the challenges of robust voice activity detection (VAD). Professor A and PhD E assess the merits and limitations of different VAD techniques and ponder the practical application of their findings. + +Near the conclusion, Grad B shares plans to extend Larry Saul's work, seeking advice from another faculty member, and brings up factorial HMMs as a future consideration for modeling time series. Grad C outlines an aspiration to tackle reverberation in speech recognition by adopting Avendano's approach, hoping to account for time-varying reverberation responses. C's work involves understanding and implementing the theory of transforming time and frequency resolutions in signal processing. + +As the meeting draws to a close, there is a brief moment where participants prepare to read off some digits, which leads to a light-hearted discourse on the pronunciation nuances of 'zero' versus 'O.' The Professor clarifies that both pronunciations are acceptable and reflect the natural variation in how people articulate digits, which could be significant in the context of speech recognition tasks. + +All in all, the meeting encapsulates the intricacies of developing and refining speech recognition systems, underscoring the importance of data, adaptation, and modeling techniques in achieving accurate digit recognition—a tantalizing glimpse into the rigorous world of language technology research." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Jack Sargeant and I'm very pleased to welcome Jayne Bryant back, who is substituting for Jack today. Are there any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, this morning, is our sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning: Sally Jenkins, who is chair of All Wales Heads of Children’s Services and is here representing the Association of Directors of Social Services; Alastair Birch, who is senior system leader for equalities and safeguarding at Pembrokeshire County Council, who is here representing the Association of Directors of Education Wales; and Councillor Huw David, who is the Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for health and social care and leader of Bridgend County Borough Council. So, thank you all for attending this morning. We're very pleased to have you here. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so, if you're happy, we'll go straight into questions and I'll start just by asking about your general support for the Bill, which is outlined in the evidence. Can you just explain why you think the current law is ineffective or unclear? +Alastair Birch: Bore da—bore da, bawb. So, I'm Alastair Birch. The statement, really, from ADEW is that the rights of the child should be educated and achieved, really, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The current legislation has been criticised, obviously, by the UN concerning the defence of reasonable punishment still being within our current legislation. So, we will always—ADEW will always—advocate that the rights of the child be upheld, so that is really the fundamental aspect in terms of the statement from ADEW, and the position of ADEW is that the rights of the child are fundamental in this process. And there are certain articles—. I know that the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 made sure that article 3 and article 4, article 12 and article 37 were a focus in terms of making sure that the best interests of the child were put first, that children expressing their views and opinions was a priority. And we know, for safeguarding purposes, that the express opinions of the child and the voice of the child are a fundamental aspect of any safe environment, whether it be a school or college. So, that is—the position is really following that legal position under the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Nothing to add at this stage, no? +Sally Jenkins: I'll just add, on behalf of ADSS and on behalf of children's services and social services more widely, for us, this is not a change in our position, this is not new; this is a position that we, on behalf of the leaders of social services across Wales, have taken over many years, going back 20, 25 years. I think what we would say is that we really welcome this Bill and we welcome the proposed change for the clarity it would bring—the clarity that it would bring for children, for parents and for professionals. I think what we would recognise is that this is a very little-used piece of legislation, so it's rare, it's not as if this is something that is going to cast great change across the scene for children and families in Wales, but what it will do is represent a change in the reality of how we care and nurture our children. I would echo absolutely what Alastair has said in terms of the rights of the child, but equally, in terms of all of our policies in Wales in terms of promoting well-being for children, this has to be key. So, for us, this is about a natural progression of change in how we care for our children in Wales. For children's services at the very sharp end of this world, for us, it brings a true clarity. This continues with an ambiguity in how we treat our children and how we care for our children, and the shift for us brings that very much needed clarity. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The committee has already heard different views about whether there's clear evidence that physical punishment is harmful to children. What evidence does the work of social services provide about whether physical punishment is actually harmful? +Sally Jenkins: Obviously, what you'll all be aware of is that, as part of the consultation for this Bill, the Public Policy Institute did a further piece of research to look at the impact of physical punishment on children. A number of things that we know—we know from across the world that the evidence is that introducing legislation or changing legislation in this way improves children's positions within their families. What we know is that children themselves, as Alastair has already referred to, really find physical punishment demeaning and harmful, and for children it is an emotionally damaging experience. Now, there may be disagreement about that, there will be different views on that, but that's the voice of the child in this debate. The voice of the child is very clear that physical punishment is for them harmful. I think what we would also say is that, in the world that we work in, it's part of a continuum, and, whilst this is an element of how children are cared for, what we see is a continuum where an acceptance of how we treat children in a particular way perpetuates throughout our work. By changing this, it helps that shift to that absolute recognition that our children must be cared for in a way that is physically safe in all dimensions for them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've had evidence from the equal protection network that the reasonable punishment defence undermines child protection and fails to protect children because it permits an arbitrary level of violence, which invades children's physical integrity, making it a potential pathway to more serious physical or sexual abuse, and you did refer to that just now. Is there anything you want to add on that? +Sally Jenkins: I would echo that. I think there is something in this that is about our culture, about how we see our children. It is about how we see our smallest and most vulnerable people, and if it is acceptable it opens the door to those other, more extreme versions of violence, which then complicates the issue for us. This is about clarity, and, whilst there is an argument that this is a small episode for a child, it's not a small episode for a child, it is a major episode for a child, and I think absolutely, as you said, the potential for it then to lead on, and over gradation and time to increase the risk for children, is clearly there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question from me: your written evidence emphasises the need for greater clarity around the definition of what constitutes corporal punishment, but that contrasts with what we've been told by the children's commissioner and the equal protection network, who've emphasised the importance of simplicity in the Bill. How do you respond to that view, and is what you're calling for essential to be on the face of the Bill? +Sally Jenkins: It's not essential for it to be on the face of the Bill. What we would like to see is discussion within the implementation phase for that nuancing. Absolutely agree in terms of simplicity—I think that is really important—and I've already mentioned clarity. What we don't want to do is further confuse the position. We know that the legislation in different countries has done that, and there are ways that you can do it, but what we would welcome is an opportunity during the implementation phase for discussion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Huw David: And, as a principle, obviously we would welcome full involvement, and we know there's the commitment from Welsh Government to full involvement in the implementation, because, as with every piece of legislation, implementation is the most important part, and we would want to ensure there is that commitment to a major awareness-raising campaign, and there is that from Welsh Government, because we need to take families, carers and parents with us on this. Also we need to ensure that there is that support available to parents and carers that do sometimes struggle with parenting, and that needs to be a universal offer across Wales. If we're to progress with this, that has to be an option that is offered to every parent in Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Sally Jenkins: Local authorities have already been very heavily involved in terms of looking at this Bill and exploring what the issues are and the discussions and looking at what the implications from a local authority perspective will be, as Huw describes, both in terms of the awareness raising, early support and intervention and prevention services for families against the backdrop of the current issues that we have in local government, but also awareness raising—because absolutely it is key that families come with us on this journey. This is not an imposition. This is embracing a culture and a value system for our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden on the implementation of the Bill. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. So, you've pre-empted me, Huw. +Huw David: Right. Sorry. I've got good eyesight; I can't see—. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: You've already said, obviously, that you're looking towards working with Welsh Government in terms of its implementation. What's been your role so far in terms of the implementation of the Bill—local authorities generally, now? Have you had a role? Has Welsh Government been involving you in discussions around the introduction of the Bill so far? +Huw David: Yes. So, obviously we were consulted—a key consultee—but also our officials have worked very closely with Welsh Government officials to make sure this is implemented successfully, if it is progressed. +Sally Jenkins: Our involvement with this, from a social services perspective, goes back over two years, directly in working towards this point, never mind the history in terms of work towards this area. But, very directly in relation to this Bill, we were first involved at least two years ago, to recollect, and that was in a series of workshops with other agencies, for example Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru and the police, and looking in real depth at what the implications would be for us as agencies to look at what the likely trajectory would be in terms of our pathways for referral into our services and what that might mean for us. And then particularly, for example, with CAFCASS Cymru in relation to private law, what the fallout might be, and then what, if anything—and that's the discussion that we need to have—that could mean for children's services in particular, given the pressures that we're already under. So, we've been in constant, I suppose, involvement in terms of the Bill already, as part of the consultation, in terms of the focus groups and in terms of direct work with Welsh Government officials to take this forward. And we are absolutely committed to continuing with that work. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. You touched there on the pressures that you're already under, which we fully appreciate, but you also mentioned in answers to Lynne Neagle earlier on that you welcomed the Bill in terms of its clarity. So, are you confident that the Bill can be implemented without any major impact on your capacity to deal with it? +Sally Jenkins: We've done—. A number of local authorities—my own included, Newport City Council, has done some work to look at what the likely impact would be and then actually to look at what some of that costing would need to be. Further work is needed on that area, and that needs to be carried out during the implementation phase. I think what we've done is we've looked internationally at what the impact has been elsewhere when similar legislation has been introduced to try and gauge, but that's difficult to do in terms of comparable nations and size and also different systems. And obviously our approach in terms of children and pedagogy is very different from some of the nations that have already done this. I wouldn't like to say one way or the other, because I think, in terms of that culture shift, it could be a double impact on us in terms of increased referrals because of increased awareness, but it could also be, I suppose, as Huw alludes to, that, if we're looking at ensuring greater awareness of preventative services and support services for parents, actually people coming to the fore and asking us for those services as well. So, at this stage, I think what we would want to say is that we continue to be fully involved in the implementation phase, to look at what the cost implications for that could be, and not just for the local authorities but also the police, CAFCASS Cymru, for third sector organisations involved in preventative services. I don't think any of that should undermine the position in terms of children and their rights within our society. So, a difficult answer, in the sense that— +Dawn Bowden AM: No, I understand. What you're saying is that this is a piece of legislation that, in your view, is a good piece of legislation. It's setting out to, hopefully, achieve what the purpose of it is and you will deliver what you need to. Can I ask you whether, then, you've also given thought to the impact on—we've talked about social services, but the impact on other services, like housing, education and so on? You're obviously coming at it from slightly different angles in other sections. +Alastair Birch: We are part of the universal service for children, and we very much work in co-operation with the WLGA and our social care colleagues, and we've been part of that consultation. In terms of education, the main changes, or adaptations, would be around training and awareness. And, in terms of the Bill, there needs to be the clarity—ambiguity would be bad—in terms of making sure that safeguarding leads within all schools have the right training and support. So, really, that's the key element there, and then obviously the preventative services for the parents that schools can signpost, and sometimes possibly even host, in terms of being community schools. These positive parenting approaches that—. I have colleagues who have worked in that area for many years and see the benefits in how those positive parenting approaches make a difference to families. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, from your point of view, it's awareness raising, is it? +Alastair Birch: It's awareness raising; it's making sure that professionals are fully briefed on necessary changes, that there's very little ambiguity, that we are aware that—. We still have that duty to report whenever there is any safeguarding concern. That'll still be part of the all-Wales child protection procedures. That won't change, and that duty is always going to be there for all our professionals. But that awareness raising and training will be the key, and then, obviously, working in co-operation with our colleagues. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, I understand that. Have you been given an indication of how long you've got between Royal Assent and implementation, and whether you've thought through any of the key milestones that need to be implemented? +Sally Jenkins: There's a group proposed that would be a strategic leadership group in the steering group that we're part of, which is now laying out what would happen after Royal Assent if that is given. So, we will work towards that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question, Chair, is about some of the responses we've had to this committee that say that the state should not get involved in family life—I'm sure you've heard those views—unless it's in the most serious circumstances. To what extent do you think that this Bill undermines the existing local authority responsibilities, or don't you? +Huw David: The state's paramount role is to protect children from harm. That is our legal responsibility, it's our moral responsibility, and we will discharge that. And there is obviously a view—it's a view that is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—that physical punishment, physical harm to a child is harm to a child, and we should be preventing that and act to prevent that. That would be the position of the Welsh Local Government Association, and we also respect the mandate that Members of the National Assembly for Wales have too. And we believe that children can be raised by parents without recourse to physical punishment, effectively, and we'd support parents in that. We do not believe that in the 50 nations across the world where such legislation exists that the state is interfering in family life unnecessarily. We believe this action reflects a cultural change, a sea change that's taken place in Wales over the last 30 to 40 years, where the vast majority of parents now say that they do not use it themselves, they do not support it, and we believe this is actually a reflection of what has happened in Welsh society. We support Assembly Members in the view that the natural progression of that is that children's rights are protected across Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, I've got largely positive feedback from you in terms of the Bill and its intentions, and so on. Do you foresee any unintended consequences for this Bill? +Huw David: If we implement it carefully, if we implement it with the right resources, then I hope not. I think not. But as with every piece of legislation, it is about the implementation, it is about the cultural change as well, and that's why I cannot overstress the importance of making sure that resources are made available, because our social services departments—children's social services in particular—are overstretched. They are at breaking point—make no bones about it—and they are dealing with children who are facing serious harm and neglect. We are having record numbers of contacts from police, from teachers, from doctors and, of course, from children themselves who are experiencing that harm and neglect. And obviously, we want to focus our energy and our attention on those children. Equally, though, we don't want to lose sight of those families and children that are experiencing significant problems, but who we want to support through our early intervention and prevention programmes, and that is why it is important that there is investment in those programmes, so that children do not end up in that terrible position where we have to, for their safety, take them from their birth families to protect them. And the reality is, in Wales, that we are doing that to more children than we've done for a long time, and the numbers are growing across Wales. And that is only because of the most appalling neglect and abuse, because there is no way that any judge would permit us to act to make a child safe if it was not for that fact, and the facts are there. So, I don't want that focus to be lost, but, of course, we welcome and understand the need to progress this piece of legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: That rise that you talk about here, is that due to more interventions, greater awareness, more incidents? I'm trying to link this to the Bill in terms of whether the Bill is actually going to give you more work to do in those areas. +Sally Jenkins: On the reasons for the rise in the numbers of looked-after children in Wales, which are higher than those in England, and also the numbers of contacts that we have across the local authorities, the work of the care crisis review, which was completed last year; the work of Isabelle Trowler, who's the chief social worker in England; countless research and reports that have taken place in the last 18 months; and currently the public law working group, under the auspices of the president of the family court, would all indicate that it's multifactorial. So, what you have is a range of reasons that have led to the increasing numbers of children becoming looked after across England and Wales. What you can't do is identify a single reason. There have been headlines that have said, 'Is it increased austerity?' That is clearly a part of this. Is it in Wales an increased awareness of adverse childhood experiences and the emphasis of the impact on children of, for example, domestic abuse? Is it because of our understanding of what happens to children in those households? All of that research would say it's all of those things. And then, when you also add in changes in our practice with our colleagues in the judiciary, changes in our police service, but also changes in our preventative services, you've got that whole range of elements. And there is going on across the local authorities and Welsh Government a huge amount of work to try to address and understand that, and then to ameliorate that. Children who need to be in care for safety need to be in care, but what we have to do is get to a point where fewer children come into care and we're able to protect them, firstly, and secondly where those children who are in care are cared for in a way that delivers the best possible outcomes for them. So, there is no simple answer unfortunately. I think, in terms of this Bill and unintended consequences, I agree absolutely with everything that Huw has said. My job is around children at that far end, but what this Bill does is it brings clarity. It brings a clarity even for those children at that very far end. It takes away even that point of discussion that this could possibly be okay, and I think that's important to hang on to. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Sorry. +Alastair Birch: One unintended consequences is that I think that there will be an increased focus on the UNCRC. And, in terms of children having a discussion around this point, children need to be part of that discussion. It's something that affects them. And a key aspect of education is the voice of the child. It has become significantly—. It's changed completely in the last 10 years, and it is one of the key things in terms of us driving improvements. +Dawn Bowden AM: Would that be something that you would be looking to do in schools? +Alastair Birch: Anything that improves the voice of the child in any educational context is good and it's very powerful for the children. And it improves their educational experiences, encouraging the opportunities for them to discuss the issues, the adverse childhood experiences that they encounter, which are significant, and it's our educational professionals that are facing this day-in, day-out. They've become a very highly trained workforce, they're ACE aware, they're trauma aware, and anything that focuses, even increases, their professionalism and understanding around a particular point, and also—. So it's a positive unintended consequence, shall we say, that it could reinvigorate some of the voice of the child discussion within various contexts. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions now on implementation for social services, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. If this Bill becomes law, would you encourage members of the public to contact social services departments if they do see a child being smacked? +Sally Jenkins: We already encourage members of the public to contact social services or the police, depending on the circumstances. Interestingly, I'm picking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What, if a child is being smacked now? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. If a child is being smacked now, we would ask that people contact. We have a duty to report, as professionals. But if you were walking out, and you saw something happening to a child, in the same way as if you saw something to an adult. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Right. +Sally Jenkins: So, I think that the challenge is about—we've all probably, sadly, witnessed incidents in the doctor's reception, or in a supermarket, and we've failed to do something about it. And I think we then walk away and feel pretty guilty about that, realistically, when you see something happening to a child in a particular circumstance. I think we can't ignore the fact that a child is being assaulted in those circumstances. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. A campaign opposing this Bill, Be Reasonable Wales, have said that 'If the law is changed, the consequences for parents will be considerable.' It also says, 'Anyone accused or convicted of assaulting a child—under the new definition—' so, I suppose you could argue, a minor tap— 'will be subject to long-term social services involvement in their family and social stigma.' To what extent is this accurate, and, also, will thresholds for social services intervention change if the Bill is enacted? +Sally Jenkins: There are a number of parts to that. Firstly, in terms of long-term social services intervention in a family's life, I think, for people to be fully aware of the very few numbers of families where we have long-term intervention currently, even where there is what would be perceived as very significant abuse. What we do is we go in for short periods in families' lives, to support them to work with their strengths, to work with them and their family members. It's not about us going into families, whatever some of the public perception may be. Our aim is to get in and get out. So, in terms of long-term intervention, what we want is for families to find their own solutions. We want families to be able to work with each other, and together, and local community support, and preventative services, to be able to address issues. This is not about punitive approaches from social services. So, that's the first element. In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen. Because we also know that this is actually quite a rare occurrence currently; this is not a defence that's being used with great frequency, this is not something that is happening. And if we look at the data, we know that the incidents of children, and the number of parents who now recognise this as an acceptable form of punishment, has steadily declined over the last 15 to 20 years. So it's diminishing as it is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, on that one then, is there a need for legislation that will—obviously there'll be resources for the Welsh Government and there'll be resources out of hours and things like that—is there a need for legislation if, as you say, natural behaviour and the culture is changing? Let's be honest, as you've rightly pointed out, in social services—I know in my own authority—in your own authority, you're saying that even now you're working with the police, on systematic failings within the system. +Sally Jenkins: Two things. Firstly, we want legislation that reflects our society—we don't want the two to be out of kilter. That would be my first natural response: surely our legislation should be reflective of what our world is. It shouldn't be that we've got these rather confusing elements running in parallel, and that continues to perpetuate a lack of clarity and the ambiguity that we currently see. I think the other element is that, again, this is about potentially an accelerating of that awareness and that culture in our society, about how we care for our children. We've got there naturally; we've got there by the change that's happened in Wales over the last 15 to 20 years. What this does is to continue with that change and continue with that awareness and understanding of how we positively, from a strength-based approach, should care for our children, bearing in mind what's required of us in terms of the UNCRC. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Are there any comments from anyone else? +Huw David: Simply to say that I think that, in terms of that clarity for the very vulnerable children out there who are currently being assaulted—seriously assaulted and abused by their parents, which goes on on a daily basis—that is already covered by existing legislation. But at the moment, they don't know, because they could be being told—and they probably are being told—by their parents that's it's okay, that they can smack their child and that that's acceptable. They don't know the difference. A young child is not going to know that difference and there is confusion about what is—. And if you asked most parents, and in fact lots of professionals, they would not be able to tell you, and probably most of you wouldn't be able to tell me exactly where is the threshold— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, where's that line. +Huw David: Well, at the moment, we don't know where that line is. That vulnerable child, at home, being abused by their parents, does not know where that line is. And they should know where that line is because then they can pick up the phone to Childline or they can talk to a professional and ask them where that line is. So, that would be a step forward. I do recognise, though, that what we don't want to do—and the last thing any of us want to do—is criminalise parents who are bringing up their children. That is why we're saying there needs to be an emphasis on the support programmes that are available to parents. And to be clear, there is no way that we want long-term involvement in any child's life, but particularly not in the lives of children who have been smacked by their parents. That is not going to be the result of this legislation, trust me, because we don't want to be involved in—we haven't got the resources to be involved in children's lives. The social worker or the police officer—if they become involved, then there would be a proportionate response to that, and there'll also be a test about whether or not that is progressed. So, if there is an allegation—if this legislation is passed—then that will be looked into and a consideration will be made about whether any action will be taken, and as with any allegation of the law being broken, there would be a proportionate response, as there is now. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the next question does relate to the practical response to that. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Can you outline the practical ways in which social services' interaction with parents will change as a result of this proposed law and do you envisage that all referrals to the police will be automatically referred to social services for an assessment? Who's going to make those decisions? +Sally Jenkins: That will be part of the implementation phase about that decision making. Interestingly, the number of referrals that we currently get from the police that we take absolutely no action on is extraordinary. So, we get a very, very large number of—. It will be happening now; sitting in the civic centre in Newport City Council will be a whole host of social workers taking in the public protection notifications from overnight. It's 10 o'clock, so they're assessing them now, as we speak. And an awful lot of those will have no further action from the local authority. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But will they be investigated? +Sally Jenkins: No. There will be no action. There are countless referrals made by agencies to local authorities that we take no action on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, if there's an increase as a result of greater awareness— +Sally Jenkins: What happens is there is a paper assessment of them. There's a look at what's happened, who's involved, what the police have reported, and there's work being done with the police to improve that. Because one of the things that we want to get to is actually where we're not using huge amounts of time to look at that, but what comes to us is what we act on. So, there is work going on with a number of police authorities to look at how you improve that process. But I suppose, to pick up, each incident will be looked at, each one will be assessed in a way that is proportionate, as Huw says, to look at what's happened and then investigated. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sally, can you give us a couple of examples of what kind of things might have come in that you would then take no action on? +Sally Jenkins: We get countless referrals, for example, where there's been a domestic abuse incident overnight where a child wasn't present in the property and we then haven't taken action. It’ll be where the level of harm that’s perceived to happen to that child is below the threshold for intervention from children's services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I’m pretty cynical about assessment, because, you know, I have people come in who are benefit claimants where, when they’ve been assessed, the whole process has been very flawed and I’ve had to fight and fight and fight on their behalf. So— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But if you're struggling now with those assessments— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social services are as laid out in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. So, we have within what we carry out, I suppose, that kind of initial look, that look at the information, what else do we know about that family— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And are they qualified people that are doing this? +Sally Jenkins: Yes, absolutely. +Huw David: And, in fact, in lots of places in Wales now, it’s a multi-agency assessment. So, it’s a joint assessment carried out with police professionals and health professionals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what proportion currently would you not be taking any action on, if a report came in of some domestic abuse where a child had perhaps been smacked? +Sally Jenkins: If something came in to us where a child had been smacked and there was something clearly there, we would look at it. We would clearly look at it and we would take some sort of action. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Even now, before the legislation? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can you ask a final question? And I'm going to have to appeal for brief answers, because we've got a lot of ground to cover. +Huw David: Just very quickly, there may be no action from social services, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t offer support. So, the expectation is that support is offered in those circumstances from family support services, for example— +Sally Jenkins: Or prevention. +Huw David: —or prevention services. So, we would not say, if we were aware, for example, that there was domestic abuse at a home, ‘There’s no role for children’s social services’, because there may be an assessment that that child may not be at immediate risk of harm, but we would obviously recognise that there are causes for concern there and we would offer that support. So, just to be clear about that. And that’s a process that happens in every social services department in the UK, and it’s happened for a very long time, and, in fact, it’s reflective of the legislation that you have laid down as Assembly Members. +Lynne Neagle AM: And are those services there, Huw? Because I’m very acutely aware of the pressure on local government. Are the services there? Is there sufficient resource in things like Families First? Because what I’m hearing on the ground is that eligibility is changing for even those preventative services. +Huw David: There’s not enough of those services, and, obviously—you may have heard me saying this before—I think we need to invest more in those services, and I hope you invest more in the services, because, obviously, prevention is better than cure. And those pressures that Sally talked about earlier are pressures that are not going away; they’re only increasing by the day, actually, and I would want us to be able to offer those services now. Because that example of a child that perhaps is in a home where there is domestic abuse—we’ll probably have another referral off them in a couple of months’ time, and that could escalate. And what I’d rather do is provide support to that family and try and stop that family breaking down so that, in six months, we're not going back and saying that we've got to take this child into care because the domestic abuse has worsened and that child is at risk. But those services need additional investment. +Sally Jenkins: I appreciate that time is of the essence, but, just really quickly in relation to that, it’s not just social services. So, for example, there are developments like Encompass, which is a piece of work that is being rolled out across Gwent and across other areas, which is where the police automatically notify the school overnight of an incident, not expecting the school to do anything per se, but to be aware, to be able to offer care for that child. +Alastair Birch: Can I add to that? Operation Encompass I know in Gwent has been operational, and we started it in Pembrokeshire 18 months ago. We as a local authority—and it’ll be education that will contact the school around the domestic incident happening, and the school as part of that protocol will provide a level of universal service support for that child when they come in, before 9 o’clock, so that professionals are aware of the needs of the welfare of that child at that point. So, you know, schools play a key role in the universal service of this and we work very closely with our social care colleagues on that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, your last question, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The Bill's explanatory memorandum refers to an estimate of 274 offences annually where lawful chastisement was used as a defence or considered. It says there is also potential to create extra demand on out-of-hours social services teams due to the time that the offences were reported, and in order to support safeguarding measures. Have you assessed how this Bill will impact on emergency and out-of-hours local authority services? +Sally Jenkins: We have considered that, and again I think that's something that we would very much want to look at as part of implementation. We have out-of-hours provision, we have emergency duty teams already across Wales that operate 24/7. There's no doubt that they exist and they work very closely with our police colleagues. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Are they overstretched at the moment? +Sally Jenkins: I think in the same way as all of social services is. If we were offered additional resource, we are going to take that. But are they working in a way that protects children day in, day out, and vulnerable adults? Yes, they are, and they will continue to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We've got some specific questions now on the impact on education from Jayne Bryant. +Jayne Bryant AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Alastair, you've already mentioned about awareness raising and training, which will be key with educational professionals. How confident are you that teachers and others working in those educational settings will be clear about how to support the implementation of this Bill, if enacted? +Alastair Birch: Training requirements for all professionals in education settings are clear. The universal tier 1 training is there, and all local authorities in Wales will implement that. In that level of general safeguarding awareness and training, the infinite emphasis is on the duty to report. That will remain the same. The thresholds for social care, that's their responsibility. That duty to report will always be there. It says in 'Keeping learners safe', which is the bible in terms of education professionals, that there's a responsibility on the professional to make that referral and for that universal service. So, the more specialist safeguarding leads within the schools, who have become highly skilled professionals in terms of understanding what might be significant harm—because that's what we're talking about—they understand the legalities when a referral needs to be made. There's always the collation of safeguarding information, where there might be just general concerns about neglect and other areas, which combined would create a picture that there might be significant neglect or significant harm to the child, and then that referral would be made to the child care assessment team or the police. So, that awareness—it needs to be clear for educational professionals that that duty to report is always there. If they believe that that significant harm has happened then that report then goes to the child care assessment team. They will make the judgment on the threshold because they are the professionals. They have the multi-agency awareness of how that meets the threshold. But in terms of education, it'll be that awareness, making sure that there's clarity. If there's anything that professionals need to be trained additionally on, it'll need to go into 'Keeping learners safe', which at the moment is being rewritten. So, there would have to be some new possible information there relating to this. But as long as there's clarity, and once that implementation phase and the discussion has happened, as long as it's clear for professionals that the duty is always there and they feel a significant harm, then that report will always be there and will always need to be made. It's making sure—and I'll echo what my colleague said, Huw—that the services are key for families. Schools are absolutely fundamental in that support for the families. They have those relationships with the families. I know there was discussion around professional trust. On a daily basis, professionals are working on that trust with parents, because they are the ones that can engage with those families. The family support officers that are working on the ground with highly complex families, with multiple leads and supporting the children—they are fundamental, and investment in that level of support would also help our colleagues as well. So, anything that's preventative. That is already happening in schools and is effective, and is shown to be effective, and has an evidence base—we'd always support that that would continue to be invested in. So, that's really my answer. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay. And you were saying about how important trust is as well, but do you think that there's a risk that those in education settings will have a key role in referring more parents to social services, which some have said could cause potential harm to relationships and cause mistrust? +Alastair Birch: I don't think it's a matter of mistrust—it's a matter of, you know, if a professional believes, based on the evidence that they have, because they're working with that child every day, that there is significant harm to that child, they are under a duty to report that to social care. So, part of the work is with families, and most of the referrals we make are with parental consent. That consent is a key element of this, and conversation with our social care colleagues is usually, 'You need to speak to the parents again and have a conversation with them.' Some of the NFAs—the ones that don't get referred at threshold—it will come back to school for, possibly, some support from the family or a team around the family or some other aspect. So, I don't think—. The trust in the professionals—it's actually more important that we are seen to be upholding our duties under the all-Wales safeguarding procedures. That's what engenders trust in a professional workforce. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to move on now to some questions about the importance of awareness raising from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. In looking at your written evidence, you say that we must make it very clear to parents, guardians and the public that this legislation is not trying to criminalise parents, and that is clearly very important for you. How do you think we should do that and who should be doing that work? +Sally Jenkins: I think that's really broad. Obviously, colleagues in education, colleagues in social care, colleagues in preventative services, but also Welsh Government and the National Assembly, in terms of those drivers in relation to that awareness raising are really, really key. If you look at some of the other campaigns that have been run, notably in relation to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, and echoing some of those building campaigns that have been done to raise awareness—I think those would be really good models to begin to consider in terms of how this is taken forward with awareness. We also know that there are a number of routes that we can go through in terms of raising awareness. We have existing preventative services, we have all our universal services, we have the regional safeguarding boards and the national safeguarding boards. So, there are a number of avenues that we could then explore. In terms of not wishing to criminalise, I think if we look at the numbers, they are very, very small. And I think one of the things we need to hold on to in this is a sense of proportion about what is or isn't likely to happen once or if this Bill ever gets to the point of Royal Assent—they are small numbers who currently use this defence. It is about that wider issue of awareness raising, and using all of those avenues will help us to do that in the broadest sense. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you, therefore, believe that this needs to be on the face of the Bill? That is, you don't say this in your evidence. I'd like to know your opinion on that. Scotland is going to be making it a duty for Scottish Ministers to raise awareness of the impact of the Bill. So far, the Welsh Government says that we don't need to do that in Wales. Wouldn't it make it clearer for you if it was a clear duty on the face of the Bill, for example as it was with the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013? There was a duty in that Act for Ministers to promote transplantation. Surely, that awareness raising aspect would be clearer for everyone if it was on the face of the Bill. Do you have an opinion on that? +Huw David: Well, Welsh Government have given that commitment, and I know the Welsh Government honour every commitment that they make—[Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's why I'm asking. +Huw David: I don't know whether that is necessary—I'm not a legislator. I think that there's obviously an inherent interest in Welsh Government raising awareness, because we have to raise awareness effectively for this to be successful, otherwise we will have parents who feel that they're being criminalised, and that's the last thing we want. I think it's worthy of consideration, but, as I say, I'm not a legislator or a lawyer, so I don't know what implications that will have long term. But to be fair to Welsh Government, I think that commitment is one that I'm sure will be honoured, because Welsh Government will want to make a success of this Bill if it does receive Royal Assent. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But is it clear who would pay for all of that? +Huw David: I've suddenly changed my mind—[Laughter.] I think it should be a duty on Welsh Government Ministers—absolutely. I don't need to check with lawyers or legislators. There we go. And that's the WLGA position; I don't need to ask the other 21 leaders on that either. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: Wouldn't it make it clearer if there was a clear duty on the face of the Bill that awareness raising had to happen? It would be clearer, then, for local authorities and people in the front-line services what needs to happen. +Sally Jenkins: I'm going to echo Huw. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I thought you might. Okay, fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're moving on now, then, to the contentious issue of resources and we've got some questions from Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Sally Jenkins, you said that the purpose of the Bill is to bring clarity and to remove what is a little-used defence. Isn't this an expensive way of doing that? +Sally Jenkins: I don't think so, no. I think that our children deserve the best legislation. +Hefin David AM: But introducing this legislation diverts finances from other areas of children's services—or doesn't? +Sally Jenkins: Well, I would say, no, I don't think it will divert resources from children's services. Firstly, going back to the comment made, I think, proportionally, this is a very small number of cases. It's a very small number of existing cases that go through in terms of prosecution, or consideration for prosecution. We know that it's likely, from some of the work that we've already done, that it's not opening floodgates for a sudden sea of referrals to children's services—that's not the way this is going to be, because the numbers are not out there because of the changes that have already happened in Welsh family life and Welsh society. So, I think as part of the implementation phase, we need to have a really clear understanding of the trajectory of those costs and what's likely to happen over the first six months, 12 months in terms of people's awareness and understanding and what is referred and how that's worked. But in terms of a huge number, no, I don't anticipate it being that. +Hefin David AM: But the costs wouldn't just be directed to the number of referrals and the number of cases raised, it's the cost around that, with training of staff, awareness—all those extra additional costs that always come with legislation. Is it too much? Is it—? +Sally Jenkins: No. And I agree with that—that there clearly are—but if you think, many of those things will be aligned with work we are already doing, but it brings a clarity to that work. So, our teachers, our social workers, our health workers, our police officers already get substantial training around child protection, around safeguarding, around adverse childhood experiences and around a trauma-informed approach to children. What this does is it layers a clarity on that. But rather than having a part of that training, which has to deal with this as an aspect—that is no longer there; it is a clear message for all professions. +Hefin David AM: I fully appreciate that, and in the briefing note you've given us, you've outlined the pressures on social services. So, do you think this is another way of getting money into social services? +Sally Jenkins: If this was a way of getting money into—. I can think of better ways, but I don't think this is it. No, I mean, I absolutely do not think that. I think this is a clear commitment to the rights of children in Wales; this is not about levering additional resources into children's services. Oh that it was so simple. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, do you think those costs are quantifiable? +Sally Jenkins: I think we are currently looking at work and are doing work across my own local authority and across two others to look at breaking down those costs, not just for local authority, but also for health, for police and for Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru. So, there is work currently taking place to try to quantify those costs. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I think there was a bit about local authorities that Siân— +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian has got a question on resources. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just to carry on from that, in a way. The explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Bill talks about the unknown costs for different agencies. You mentioned there that you're doing work around trying to identify some of those costs, but wouldn't it be useful if the explanatory memorandum did explain more about any unknown or unidentified costs, partly in order to calm some of those fears around that? Giving a title 'unidentified costs'—is that good enough? +Sally Jenkins: I think, clearly, that is a challenge, and that is work that we are participating in and are committed to completing with Welsh Government, to look at what those costs are. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then they can be added into this. +Huw David: I think this is where it would be helpful in the committee's deliberations and where our concern would be, because the reality is we're not going to know what the costs are until it's actually implemented, because we haven't implemented this before. And, therefore, I think there needs to be a commitment that, whatever the costs are, those costs are met because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. And whilst we don't see it as levering in additional resources, we don't think it should be at the expense of current service provision to vulnerable families in Wales, and therefore it's important that it is properly and fully resourced. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I would argue on that is that you have to try and forecast. You say it's difficult to forecast how much this is going to cost, but we have to try and forecast that, and part of the argument for trying to have projections is to show that, perhaps, it's not going to cost that much, and that would add to the argument that, 'Okay, this is going to be fine to do and it's not going to put too much pressure on us'. Or we need to know that this is going to cost a lot to do it effectively, and therefore you have to make your argument, then, 'Well, we can't afford that, the money has to come from somewhere else.' We have to get the costs, surely. +Huw David: Yes, and we will work very closely with Welsh Government to try and establish those costs as quickly as possible. There will be some costs that we will be able to identify. So, for example, a campaign, an awareness-raising campaign, the marketing, if you like, but some of the other costs will be more difficult to establish in terms of the resource implications for front-line workers. I expressed a view that we need to see some additional investment in some of those programmes that are not targeted directly at families that would be impacted by this but support all families across Wales that have different needs, and some of that provision is universal. Obviously, my view is the more we put into that, the better. So, there's no limit to that, but I suspect Welsh Government will take a very different view to that. But I think that is something where we need to see a commitment to some additional resources. But I don't put an upper limit on that, because I don't think there's an authority in Wales, and I don't think there's a charity, a police service or a health board in Wales that doesn't think that we need to do more of that and could offer more of that if the resources were available. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for attending and for answering all of our questions? It's been a really useful and informative discussion. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for coming. +Huw David: And thank you for your questions and engagement. We welcome the opportunity. +Alastair Birch: Thank you very much. +Sally Jenkins: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government—additional information for our inquiry into school funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services on in-patient child and adolescent mental health services provision, and I would like to briefly return to that when we go into private. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee held its sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. The committee welcomed witnesses Sally Jenkins, Alastair Birch, and Councillor Huw David to discuss the proposed change in law. + +The witnesses discussed their support for the Bill, emphasizing the importance of aligning legislation with the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and improving children’s positions within their families. They argued that the current law contains ambiguities and fails to provide clarity for children, parents, and professionals. Evidence suggests that physical punishment is emotionally damaging to children and can be part of a continuum of violence. + +There was discussion on the potential impact on social services, with witnesses noting that while there will be a need to assess the cost and resource implications, they do not expect a significant increase in referrals or long-term social services interventions as a result of the Bill. It was acknowledged that clarity provided by the Bill could lead to an initial peak followed by a stabilization of referrals. There is ongoing work to quantify potential costs associated with the Bill for various services. + +The role of education, training, and awareness-raising in implementing the Bill was addressed, with emphasis on the duty of professionals to report any concerns and the importance of supporting parents through preventative services. + +Concerns were raised about the possible impact on parent-professional relationships and the potential increase in out-of-hours services demand. Witnesses stressed the importance of proper resourcing, suggesting a need for Welsh Government to commit to covering any additional costs arising from the Bill's implementation. + +Finally, papers related to school funding and in-patient child and adolescent mental health services were noted, and the committee resolved to continue the meeting in private." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: OK . We 're on . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: OK , so uh {vocalsound} had some interesting mail from uh Dan Ellis . Actually , I think he {disfmarker} he {vocalsound} redirected it to everybody also so uh {vocalsound} the PDA mikes uh have a big bunch of energy at {disfmarker} at uh five hertz uh where this came up was that uh I was showing off these wave forms that we have on the web and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} I just sort of hadn't noticed this , but that {disfmarker} the major , major component in the wave {disfmarker} in the second wave form in that pair of wave forms is actually the air conditioner . +Grad C: Huh . +Professor A: So . So . I {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I have to be more careful about using that as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as a good illustration , uh , in fact it 's not , of uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the effects of room reverberation . It is isn't a bad illustration of the effects of uh room noise . {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} on uh some mikes uh but So . And then we had this other discussion about um {vocalsound} whether this affects the dynamic range , cuz I know , although we start off with thirty two bits , you end up with uh sixteen bits and {vocalsound} you know , are we getting hurt there ? But uh Dan is pretty confident that we 're not , that {disfmarker} that quantization error is not {disfmarker} is still not a significant {vocalsound} factor there . So . So there was a question of whether we should change things here , whether we should {vocalsound} change a capacitor on the input box for that or whether we should +PhD B: Yeah , he suggested a smaller capacitor , right ? +Professor A: Right . But then I had some other uh thing discussions with him +PhD B: For the P D +Professor A: and the feeling was {vocalsound} once we start monk monkeying with that , uh , many other problems could ha happen . And additionally we {disfmarker} we already have a lot of data that 's been collected with that , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: A simple thing to do is he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he has a {disfmarker} I forget if it {disfmarker} this was in that mail or in the following mail , but he has a {disfmarker} a simple filter , a digital filter that he suggested . We just run over the data before we deal with it . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um The other thing that I don't know the answer to , but when people are using Feacalc here , uh whether they 're using it with the high - pass filter option or not . And I don't know if anybody knows . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} I could go check . +Professor A: But . Yeah . So when we 're doing all these things using our software there is {disfmarker} um if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's based on the RASTA - PLP program , {vocalsound} which does both PLP and RASTA - PLP {vocalsound} um then {vocalsound} uh there is an option there which then comes up through to Feacalc which {vocalsound} um allows you to do high - pass filtering and in general we like to do that , because of things like this and {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} it 's not a very severe filter . Doesn't affect speech frequencies , even pretty low speech frequencies , at all , but it 's +PhD B: What 's the {pause} cut - off frequency it used ? +Professor A: Oh . I don't know I wrote this a while ago +PhD B: Is it like twenty ? +Professor A: Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean I think there 's some effect above twenty but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's mild . So , I mean it probably {disfmarker} there 's probably some effect up to a hundred hertz or something but it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty mild . I don't know in the {disfmarker} in the STRUT implementation of the stuff is there a high - pass filter or a pre pre - emphasis or something in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . I think we use a pre - emphasis . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we want to go and check that in i for anything that we 're going to use the P D A mike for . {vocalsound} uh He says that there 's a pretty good roll off in the PZM mikes so {vocalsound} we don't need {disfmarker} need to worry about them one way or the other but if we do make use of the cheap mikes , {vocalsound} uh we want to be sure to do that {disfmarker} that filtering before we {vocalsound} process it . And then again if it 's uh depending on the option that the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our software is being run with , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite possible that 's already being taken care of . uh But I also have to pick a different picture to show the effects of reverberation . uh +PhD B: Did somebody notice it during your talk ? +Professor A: uh No . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor A: Well . uh Well . If they made output they were {disfmarker} they were , you know {disfmarker} they were nice . +PhD B: Didn't say anything ? +Professor A: But . {vocalsound} I mean the thing is it was since I was talking about reverberation and showing this thing that was noise , it wasn't a good match , but it certainly was still uh an indication of the fact that you get noise with distant mikes . uh It 's just not a great example because not only isn't it reverberation but it 's a noise that we definitely know what to do . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , I mean , it doesn't take deep {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a new {disfmarker} bold new methods to get rid of uh five hertz noise , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} uh But . So it was {disfmarker} it was a bad example in that way , but it 's {disfmarker} it still is {disfmarker} it 's the real thing that we did get out of the microphone at distance , so it wasn't {vocalsound} it w it w wasn't wrong it was inappropriate . So . {vocalsound} So uh , but uh , Yeah , someone noticed it later pointed it out to me , and I went "" oh , man . Why didn't I notice that ? "" +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: um . So . {vocalsound} um So I think we 'll change our {disfmarker} our picture on the web , when we 're @ @ . One of the things I was {disfmarker} I mean , I was trying to think about what {disfmarker} what 's the best {vocalsound} way to show the difference an and I had a couple of thoughts one was , {vocalsound} that spectrogram that we show {vocalsound} is O K , but the thing is {vocalsound} the eyes uh and the {vocalsound} the brain behind them are so good at picking out patterns {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} from noise {vocalsound} that in first glance you look at them it doesn't seem like it 's that bad uh because there 's many features that are still preserved . So one thing to do might be to just take a piece of the spec uh of the spectrogram where you can see {vocalsound} that something looks different , an and blow it up , and have that be the part that 's {disfmarker} just to show as well . You know . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: i i Some things are going to be hurt . um {vocalsound} Another , I was thinking of was um {vocalsound} taking some spectral slices , like uh {disfmarker} like we look at with the recognizer , and look at the spectrum or cepstrum that you get out of there , and the {disfmarker} the uh , um , {vocalsound} the reverberation uh does make it {disfmarker} does change that . And so maybe {disfmarker} maybe that would be more obvious . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad C: Spectral slices ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: W w what d what do you mean ? +Professor A: Well , I mean um all the recognizers look at frames . So they {disfmarker} they look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: So like one instant in time . +Professor A: Yeah , look at a {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: So it 's , yeah , at one point in time or uh twenty {disfmarker} over twenty milliseconds or something , {vocalsound} you have a spectrum or a cepstrum . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: That 's what I meant by a slice . +Grad C: I see . +Professor A: Yeah . And {vocalsound} if you look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could just {disfmarker} you could just throw up , you know , uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} some MFCC feature vectors . You know , one from one , one from the other , and then , you know , you can look and see how different the numbers are . +Professor A: Right . Well , that 's why I saying either {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , either spectrum or cepstrum +PhD B: I 'm just kidding . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I think the thing is you wanna {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't mean a graph . I mean the actual numbers . +Professor A: Oh . I see . Oh . That would be lovely , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . "" See how different these {vocalsound} sequences of numbers are ? "" +Professor A: Yeah . Or I could just add them up and get a different total . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's not the square . +Professor A: OK . Uh . What else {disfmarker} wh what 's {disfmarker} what else is going on ? +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , at first I had a remark why {disfmarker} I am wondering why the PDA is always so far . I mean we are always meeting at the {vocalsound} beginning of the table and {vocalsound} the PDA 's there . +Professor A: Uh . I guess cuz we haven't wanted to move it . We {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we could move us , +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: and . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD F: Well , anyway . Um . Yeah , so . Uh . Since the last meeting we 've {disfmarker} we 've tried to put together um {vocalsound} the clean low - pass um downsampling , upsampling , I mean , Uh the new filter that 's replacing the LDA filters , and also {vocalsound} the um delay issue so that {disfmarker} We considered th the {disfmarker} the delay issue on the {disfmarker} for the on - line normalization . Mmm . So we 've put together all this and then we have results that are not um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} very impressive . Well , there is no {vocalsound} real improvement . +Professor A: But it 's not wer worse and it 's better {disfmarker} better latency , +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . Well . Actually it 's better . It seems better when we look at the mismatched case but {vocalsound} I think we are like {disfmarker} like cheated here by the {disfmarker} th this problem that {vocalsound} uh in some cases when you modify slight {disfmarker} slightly modify the initial condition you end up {vocalsound} completely somewhere air somewhere else in the {disfmarker} in the space , {vocalsound} the parameters . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . The other system are for instance . For Italian is at seventy - eight {vocalsound} percent recognition rate on the mismatch , and this new system has eighty - nine . But I don't think it indicates something , really . I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it means that the new system is more robust +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} It 's simply the fact that {disfmarker} Well . +Professor A: Well , the test would be if you then tried it on one of the other test sets , if {disfmarker} if it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Y +Professor A: Right . So this was Italian , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So then if you take your changes +PhD F: It 's similar for other test sets +Professor A: and then {disfmarker} +PhD F: but I mean {vocalsound} from this se seventy - eight um percent recognition rate system , {vocalsound} I could change the transition probabilities for the {disfmarker} the first HMM and {pause} it will end up to eighty - nine also . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: By using point five instead of point six , point four {vocalsound} as in the {disfmarker} the HTK script . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah I looked at um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} looked at the results when Stephane did that +PhD F: Well . Eh uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's really wo really happens . +PhD F: This really happens . +PhD B: I mean th the only difference is you change the self - loop transition probability by a tenth of a percent +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: and it causes ten percent difference in the word error rate . +Professor A: A tenth of a per cent . +PhD B: Yeah . From point {disfmarker} +PhD F: Even tenth of a percent ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry +PhD F: Well , we tried {disfmarker} we tried point one , +PhD B: f for point {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} You change at point one +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD B: and n not tenth of a percent , one tenth , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: alright ? Um so from point five {disfmarker} so from point six to point five and you get ten percent better . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it 's what you basically hypothesized in the last meeting {vocalsound} about uh it just being very {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I think you mentioned this in your email too {disfmarker} it 's just very um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm , yeah . +PhD B: you know get stuck in some local minimum and this thing throws you out of it I guess . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well , what 's {disfmarker} what are {disfmarker} according to the rules what {disfmarker} what are we supposed to do about the transition probabilities ? Are they supposed to be point five or point six ? +PhD B: I think you 're not allowed to {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's supposed to be point six , for the self - loop . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Point {disfmarker} It 's supposed to be point six . +PhD B: Yeah . But changing it to point five I think is {disfmarker} which gives you much better results , but that 's {vocalsound} not allowed . +Professor A: But not allowed ? Yeah . OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , but even if you use point five , I 'm not sure it will always give you the better results +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: on other test set or it +PhD B: Right . We only tested it on the {disfmarker} the medium mismatch , +PhD F: on the other training set , I mean . +PhD B: right ? You said on the other cases you didn't notice {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But . I think , yeah . I think the reason is , yeah , I not I {disfmarker} it was in my mail I think also , {vocalsound} is the fact that the mismatch is trained only on the far microphone . Well , in {disfmarker} for the mismatched case everything is um using the far microphone training and testing , whereas for the highly mismatched , training is done on the close microphone so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clean speech basically so you don't have this problem of local minima probably and for the well - match , it 's a mix of close microphone and distant microphone and {disfmarker} Well . +PhD B: I did notice uh something {disfmarker} +PhD F: So th I think the mismatch is the more difficult for the training part . +PhD B: Somebody , I think it was Morgan , suggested at the last meeting that I actually count to see {vocalsound} how many parameters and how many frames . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there are uh almost one point eight million frames of training data and less than forty thousand parameters in the baseline system . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's very , very few parameters compared to how much training data . +Professor A: Well . Yes . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . And that {disfmarker} that says that we could have lots more parameters actually . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I did one quick experiment just to make sure I had everything worked out and I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh f for most of the um {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for all of the digit models , they end up at three mixtures per state . And so I just did a quick experiment , where I changed it so it went to four and um {vocalsound} it it {disfmarker} it didn't have a r any significant effect at the uh medium mismatch and high mismatch cases and it had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was just barely significant for the well - matched better . Uh so I 'm r gonna run that again but {vocalsound} um with many more uh mixtures per state . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz at forty thou I mean you could you could have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , easily four times as many {vocalsound} parameters . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And I think also {vocalsound} just seeing what we saw {vocalsound} uh in terms of the expected duration of the silence model ? when we did this tweaking of the self - loop ? The silence model expected duration was really different . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: And so in the case where {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} it had a better score , the silence model expected duration was much longer . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was a better match . I think {vocalsound} you know if we make a better silence model I think that will help a lot too um for a lot of these cases so but one one thing I {disfmarker} I wanted to check out before I increased the um {vocalsound} number of mixtures per state was {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} default training script they do an initial set of three re - estimations and then they built the silence model and then they do seven iterations then the add mixtures and they do another seven then they add mixtures then they do a final set of seven and they quit . Seven seems like a lot to me and it also makes the experiments go take a really long time I mean to do one turn - around of the well matched case takes like a day . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so {vocalsound} you know in trying to run these experiments I notice , you know , it 's difficult to find machines , you know , compute the run on . And so one of the things I did was I compiled HTK for the Linux {vocalsound} machines +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: cuz we have this one from IBM that 's got like five processors in it ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and so now I 'm {disfmarker} you can run stuff on that and that really helps a lot because now we 've got {vocalsound} you know , extra machines that we can use for compute . And if {disfmarker} I 'm do running an experiment right now where I 'm changing the number of iterations ? {vocalsound} from seven to three ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: just to see how it affects the baseline system . And so if we can get away with just doing three , we can do {vocalsound} many more experiments more quickly . And if it 's not a {disfmarker} a huge difference from running with seven iterations , {vocalsound} um , you know , we should be able to get a lot more experiments done . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: And so . I 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what happens with that . But if we can {vocalsound} you know , run all of these back - ends f with many fewer iterations and {vocalsound} on Linux boxes we should be able to get a lot more experimenting done . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . So I wanted to experiment with cutting down the number of iterations before I {vocalsound} increased the number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . Sorry . So um , how 's it going on the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . You {disfmarker} you did some things . They didn't improve things in a way that convinced you you 'd substantially improved anything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But they 're not making things worse and we have reduced latency , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . But actually {disfmarker} um actually it seems to do a little bit worse for the well - matched case and we just noticed that {disfmarker} Yeah , actually the way the final score is computed is quite funny . It 's not a mean of word error rate . It 's not a weighted mean of word error rate , it 's a weighted mean of improvements . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So . Which means that {vocalsound} actually the weight on the well - matched is {disfmarker} Well I well what what {disfmarker} What happened is that if you have a small improvement or a small if on the well - matched case {vocalsound} it will have uh huge influence on the improvement compared to the reference because the reference system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite good for {disfmarker} for the well - ma well - matched case also . +PhD B: So it {disfmarker} it weights the improvement on the well - matched case really heavily compared to the improvement on the other cases ? +PhD F: No , but it 's the weighting of the {disfmarker} of the improvement not of the error rate . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , and it 's hard to improve on the {disfmarker} on the best case , cuz it 's already so good , right ? +PhD F: Yeah but {pause} what I mean is that you can have a huge improvement on the H {disfmarker} HMK 's , uh like five percent uh absolute , and this will not affect the final score almost {disfmarker} Uh this will almost not affect the final score because {vocalsound} this improvement {disfmarker} because the improvement {vocalsound} uh relative to the {disfmarker} the baseline is small {disfmarker} +Professor A: So they do improvement in terms of uh accuracy ? rather than word error rate ? +PhD F: Uh . Uh improvement ? +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , it 's compared to the word er it 's improvement on the word error rate , +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: yeah . Sorry . +Professor A: So if you have uh ten percent error and you get five percent absolute uh {vocalsound} improvement then that 's fifty percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . So what you 're saying then is that if it 's something that has a small word error rate , {vocalsound} then uh a {disfmarker} even a relatively small improvement on it , in absolute terms , {vocalsound} will show up as quite {disfmarker} quite large in this . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Is that what you 're saying ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . But yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} it 's the notion of relative improvement . Word error rate . +PhD F: Yeah . Sure , but when we think about the weighting , which is point five , point three , point two , {vocalsound} it 's on absolute on {disfmarker} on relative figures , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So when we look at this error rate +Professor A: No . That 's why I 've been saying we should be looking at word error rate uh and {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not at {vocalsound} at accuracies . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Mmm , yeah . Mmm , yeah . +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean uh we probably should have standardized on that all the way through . It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that different , right ? I mean , just subtract the accuracy . +Professor A: Yeah but you 're {disfmarker} but when you look at the numbers , your sense of the relative size of things is quite different . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} Oh . Oh , I see . Yeah . +Professor A: If you had ninety percent uh correct {vocalsound} and five percent , five over ninety doesn't look like it 's a big difference , but {vocalsound} five over ten is {disfmarker} is big . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So just when we were looking at a lot of numbers and {vocalsound} getting sense of what was important . +PhD B: I see . I see . Yeah . That makes sense . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Well anyway uh . So . Yeah . So it hurts a little bit on the well - match and yeah . +Professor A: What 's a little bit ? Like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like , it 's difficult to say because again um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure I have the um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Morgan ? Do you remember that Signif program that we used to use for testing signi ? Is that still valid ? I {disfmarker} I 've been using that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , it was actually updated . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Jeff updated it some years ago +PhD B: Oh , it was . Oh , I shoul +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh cleaned it up made some things better in it . So . +PhD B: OK . I should find that new one . I just use my old one from {vocalsound} ninety - two or whatever +Professor A: Yeah , I 'm sure it 's not that different but {disfmarker} but he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he uh {disfmarker} he was a little more rigorous , as I recall . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Right . So it 's around , like , point five . No , point six {comment} uh percent absolute on Italian {disfmarker} +Professor A: Worse . +PhD F: Worse , yep . +Professor A: Out of what ? I mean . s +PhD F: Uh well we start from ninety - four point sixty - four , and we go to ninety - four point O four . +Professor A: Uh - huh . So that 's six {disfmarker} six point th +PhD F: Uh . +PhD B: Ninety - three point six four , right ? is the baseline . +PhD F: Oh , no , I 've ninety - four . Oh , the baseline , you mean . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not talking about the baseline here . +PhD B: Oh . Oh . I 'm sorry . +PhD F: I uh {disfmarker} My baseline is the submitted system . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Ah , ah . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD F: Oh yeah . For Finnish , we start to ninety - three point eight - four and we go to ninety - three point seventy - four . And for Spanish we are {disfmarker} we were at ninety - five point O five and we go to ninety - three - s point sixty one . +Professor A: OK , so we are getting hurt somewhat . +PhD F: So . +Professor A: And is that wh what {disfmarker} do you know what piece {disfmarker} you 've done several changes here . Uh , do you know what pie +PhD F: Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's the filter . Because nnn , well uh we don't have complete result , but the filter {disfmarker} So the filter with the shorter delay hurts on Italian well - matched , which {disfmarker} And , yeah . And the other things , like um {vocalsound} downsampling , upsampling , don't seem to hurt and {vocalsound} the new on - line normalization , neither . +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: I 'm really confused about something . If we saw that making a small change like , you know , a tenth , to the self - loop had a huge effect , {vocalsound} can we really make any conclusions about differences in this stuff ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah that 's th Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , especially when they 're this small . I mean . +PhD F: I think we can be completely fooled by this thing , but {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD F: So . There is first this thing , and then the {disfmarker} yeah , I computed the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like , the confidence level on the different test sets . And for the well - matched they are around um {vocalsound} point six uh percent . For the mismatched they are around like let 's say one point five percent . And for the well - m uh HM they are also around one point five . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} OK , so you {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these degradations you were talking about were on the well - matched case +PhD F: So . +Professor A: Uh . Do the {disfmarker} does the new filter make things uh better or worse for the other cases ? +PhD F: Yeah . But . Uh . About the same . It doesn't hurt . Yeah . +Professor A: Doesn't hurt , but doesn't get a little better , or something . +PhD F: No . +Professor A: No . OK , so {vocalsound} um I guess the argument one might make is that , "" Yeah , if you looked at one of these cases {vocalsound} and you jiggle something and it changes {vocalsound} then uh you 're not quite sure what to make of it . But when you look across a bunch of these and there 's some {disfmarker} some pattern , um {disfmarker} I mean , so eh h here 's all the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if in all these different cases {vocalsound} it never gets better , and there 's significant number of cases where it gets worse , {vocalsound} then you 're probably {pause} hurting things , {vocalsound} I would say . So um {vocalsound} I mean at the very least that would be a reasonably prediction of what would happen with {disfmarker} with a different test set , that you 're not jiggling things with . So I guess the question is if you can do better than this . If you can {disfmarker} if we can approximate {vocalsound} the old numbers while still keeping the latency down . +PhD F: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , so . Um . What I was asking , though , is uh {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the level of communication with uh {vocalsound} the O G I gang now , about this and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , we are exchanging mail as soon as we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have significant results . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . For the moment , they are working on integrating {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} spectral subtraction apparently from Ericsson . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . And so . Yeah . We are working on our side on other things like {vocalsound} uh also trying a sup spectral subtraction but of {disfmarker} of our own , I mean , another {vocalsound} spectral substraction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . So I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . It 's going {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is there any further discussion about this {disfmarker} this idea of {disfmarker} of having some sort of source code control ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well . For the moment they 're {disfmarker} uh everybody 's quite um {disfmarker} There is this Eurospeech deadline , so . +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: Um . And . Yeah . But yeah . As soon as we have something that 's significant and that 's better than {disfmarker} than what was submitted , we will fix {disfmarker} fix the system and {disfmarker} But we 've not discussed it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} this yet , yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Sounds like a great idea but {disfmarker} but I think that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} he 's saying people are sort of scrambling for a Eurospeech deadline . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: But that 'll be uh , uh done in a week . So , maybe after {vocalsound} this next one . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Wow ! Already a week ! Man ! +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: You 're right . That 's amazing . +Professor A: Yeah . Anybo - anybody in the {disfmarker} in this group do doing anything for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: S +Professor A: Or , is that what {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah we are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We are trying to {disfmarker} to do something with the Meeting Recorder digits , +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} But yeah . Yeah . And the good thing is that {pause} there is this first deadline , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and , well , some people from OGI are working on a paper for this , but there is also the um {vocalsound} special session about th Aurora which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh which has an extended deadline . So . The deadline is in May . +Professor A: For uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: For th Yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD F: So f only for the experiments on Aurora . So it {disfmarker} it 's good , +Professor A: Oh , a special dispensation . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: That 's great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Where is Eurospeech this year ? +PhD F: It 's in Denmark . +Professor A: Aalborg {disfmarker} Aalborg uh +PhD B: Oh . +Professor A: So the deadline {disfmarker} When 's the deadline ? When 's the deadline ? +PhD F: Hmm ? I think it 's the thirteenth of May . +Professor A: That 's great ! It 's great . So we should definitely get something in for that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But on meeting digits , maybe there 's {disfmarker} Maybe . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Maybe . +PhD F: So it would be for the first deadline . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Nnn . +Professor A: Yeah . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that you could certainly start looking at {disfmarker} at the issue uh but {disfmarker} but uh {vocalsound} I think it 's probably , on s from what Stephane is saying , it 's {disfmarker} it 's unlikely to get sort of active participation from the two sides until after they 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well I could at least {disfmarker} Well , I 'm going to be out next week but I could {pause} try to look into like this uh CVS over the web . That seems to be a very popular {vocalsound} way of {pause} people distributing changes and {disfmarker} over , you know , multiple sites and things +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so maybe {vocalsound} if I can figure out how do that easily and then pass the information on to everybody so that it 's {vocalsound} you know , as easy to do as possible and {disfmarker} and people don't {disfmarker} it won't interfere with {comment} their regular work , then maybe that would be good . And I think we could use it for other things around here too . So . +Professor A: Good . +Grad C: That 's cool . And if you 're interested in using CVS , I 've set it up here , +PhD B: Oh great . +Grad C: so . +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: um j +PhD B: I used it a long time ago but it 's been a while so maybe I can ask you some questions . +Grad C: Oh . So . I 'll be away tomorrow and Monday but I 'll be back on Tuesday or Wednesday . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . Dave , the other thing , actually , is {disfmarker} is this business about this wave form . Maybe you and I can talk a little bit at some point about {vocalsound} coming up with a better {vocalsound} uh demonstration of the effects of reverberation for our web page , cuz uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} um I mean , actually the {disfmarker} the uh It made a good {disfmarker} good audio demonstration because when we could play that clip the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the really {vocalsound} obvious difference is that you can hear two voices and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the second one and only hear {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe we could just {pause} like , talk into a cup . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Some good reverb . +Professor A: No , I mean , it sound {disfmarker} it sounds pretty reverberant , but I mean you can't {disfmarker} when you play it back in a room with a {disfmarker} you know a big room , {vocalsound} nobody can hear that difference really . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: They hear that it 's lower amplitude and they hear there 's a second voice , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} but uh that {disfmarker} actually that makes for a perfectly good demo because that 's a real obvious thing , that you hear two voices . +PhD B: But not of reverberation . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: A boom . +Professor A: Well that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's OK . But for the {disfmarker} the visual , just , you know , I 'd like to have uh {vocalsound} uh , you know , the spectrogram again , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: because you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're visual {vocalsound} uh abilities as a human being are so good {vocalsound} you can pick out {disfmarker} you know , you {disfmarker} you look at the good one , you look at the cru the screwed up one , and {disfmarker} and you can see the features in it without trying to @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD B: I noticed that in the pictures . +Professor A: yeah . +PhD B: I thought "" hey , you know th "" I {disfmarker} My initial thought was "" this is not too bad ! "" +Professor A: Right . But you have to {disfmarker} you know , if you look at it closely , you see "" well , here 's a place where this one has a big formant {disfmarker} uh uh formant {disfmarker} maj major formants here are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are moving quite a bit . "" And then you look in the other one and they look practically flat . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I mean you could {disfmarker} that 's why I was thinking , in a section like that , you could take a look {disfmarker} look at just that part of the spectrogram and you could say "" Oh yeah . This {disfmarker} this really distorted it quite a bit . "" +PhD B: Yeah . The main thing that struck me in looking at those two spectrograms was the difference in the high frequencies . It looked like {vocalsound} for the one that was farther away , you know , it really {disfmarker} everything was attenuated +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean that was the main visual thing that I noticed . +Professor A: Right . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} clearly are spectral effects . Since you 're getting all this indirect energy , then a lot of it does have {disfmarker} have uh {vocalsound} reduced high frequencies . But um the other thing is the temporal courses of things really are changed , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh we want to show that , in some obvious way . The reason I put the wave forms in there was because {vocalsound} uh they {disfmarker} they do look quite different . Uh . And so I thought "" Oh , this is good . "" but I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just uh {disfmarker} After {disfmarker} after uh they were put in there I didn't really look at them anymore , cuz I just {disfmarker} they were different . So {vocalsound} I want something that has a {disfmarker} is a more interesting explanation for why they 're different . Um . +Grad C: Oh . So maybe we can just substitute one of these wave forms and um {vocalsound} then do some kind of zoom in on the spectrogram on an interesting area . +Professor A: Something like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: The other thing that we had in there that I didn't like was that um {vocalsound} the most obvious characteristic of the difference uh when you listen to it is that there 's a second voice , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} cuts that we have there actually don't correspond to the full wave form . It 's just the first {disfmarker} I think there was something where he was having some trouble getting so much in , or . I {disfmarker} I forget the reason behind it . But {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's the first six seconds or something {vocalsound} of it and it 's in {vocalsound} the seventh or eighth second or something where @ @ the second voice comes in . So we {disfmarker} we would like to actually see {vocalsound} the voice coming in , too , I think , since that 's the most obvious thing {pause} when you listen to it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . Um . +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah . I brought some {disfmarker} I don't know if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some {vocalsound} figures here . Well . I start {disfmarker} we started to work on spectral subtraction . And {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the preliminary results were very bad . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So the thing that we did is just to add spectral subtraction before this , the Wall uh process , which contains LDA on - line normalization . And it hurts uh a lot . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And so we started to look at {disfmarker} at um things like this , which is , well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So you have the C - zero parameters for one uh Italian utterance . +PhD D: You can @ @ . +PhD F: And I plotted this for two channels . Channel zero is the close mic microphone , and channel one is the distant microphone . And it 's perfectly synchronized , so . And the sentence contain only one word , which is "" Due "" And it can't clearly be seen . Where {disfmarker} where is it ? +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Where is the word ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} this is , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: oh , a plot of C - zero , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: the energy . +PhD F: This is a plot of C - zero , uh when we don't use spectral substraction , and when there is no on - line normalization . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So . There is just some filtering with the LDA and {vocalsound} and some downsampling , upsampling . +PhD B: C - zero is the close talking ? {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: uh the close channel ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: and s channel one is the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . So C - zero is very clean , actually . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh then when we apply mean normalization it looks like the second figure , though it is not . Which is good . Well , the noise part is around zero +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And then the third figure is what happens when we apply mean normalization and variance normalization . So . What we can clearly see is that on the speech portion {vocalsound} the two channel come {disfmarker} becomes very close , but also what happens on the noisy portion is that the variance of the noise is {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: This is still being a plot of C - zero ? OK . +PhD F: Yeah . This is still C - zero . +PhD B: Can I ask um what does variance normalization do ? w What is the effect of that ? +Professor A: Normalizes the variance . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: I mean +PhD F: It normalized th the standard deviation . +PhD B: y Yeah . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand that , +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you get an estimate of the standard deviation . +PhD B: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's +PhD B: No . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand what it is , but I mean , what does it {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what is +PhD F: Yeah but . +PhD B: uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: What 's the rationale ? +PhD B: We Yeah . Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why do it ? +PhD F: Uh . +Professor A: Well , I mean , because {vocalsound} everything uh {disfmarker} If you have a system based on Gaussians , everything is based on means and variances . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So if there 's an overall {vocalsound} reason {disfmarker} You know , it 's like uh if you were doing uh image processing and in some of the pictures you were looking at , uh there was a lot of light uh and {disfmarker} and in some , there was low light , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , you would want to adjust for that in order to compare things . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And the variance is just sort of like the next moment , you know ? So uh {vocalsound} what if um one set of pictures was taken uh so that throughout the course it was {disfmarker} went through daylight and night uh {vocalsound} um um ten times , another time it went thr I mean i is , you know , how {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much vari +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor A: Or no . I guess a better example would be {vocalsound} how much of the light was coming in from outside rather than artificial light . So if it was a lot {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if more was coming from outside , then there 'd be the bigger effect of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the change in the {disfmarker} So every mean {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} the parameters that you have , especially the variances , are going to be affected by the overall variance . +PhD B: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor A: And so , in principle , you {disfmarker} if you remove that source , then , you know , you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: I see . OK . So would {disfmarker} the major effect is {disfmarker} that you 're gonna get is by normalizing the means , +Professor A: That 's the first order but {disfmarker} thing , +PhD B: but it may help {disfmarker} First - order effects . +Professor A: but then the second order is {disfmarker} is the variances +PhD B: And it may help to do the variance . OK . +Professor A: because , again , if you {disfmarker} if you 're trying to distinguish between E and B +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: if it just so happens that the E 's {vocalsound} were a more {disfmarker} you know , were recorded when {disfmarker} when the energy was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was larger or something , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: or the variation in it was larger , {vocalsound} uh than with the B 's , then this will be {disfmarker} give you some {disfmarker} some bias . +PhD B: +Professor A: So the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's removing these sources of variability in the data {vocalsound} that have nothing to do with the linguistic component . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Gotcha . OK . Sorry to interrupt . +Professor A: But the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} but let me as ask {disfmarker} ask you something . +PhD F: Yep . And it {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} +Professor A: i is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If you have a good voice activity detector , isn't {disfmarker} isn't it gonna pull that out ? +PhD F: Yeah . Sure . If they are good . Yeah . Well what it {disfmarker} it shows is that , yeah , perhaps a good voice activity detector is {disfmarker} is good before on - line normalization and that 's what uh {vocalsound} we 've already observed . But uh , yeah , voice activity detection is not {vocalsound} {vocalsound} an easy thing neither . +PhD B: But after you do this , after you do the variance normalization {disfmarker} I mean . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I don't know , it seems like this would be a lot easier than this signal to work with . +PhD F: Yeah . So . What I notice is that , while I prefer to look at the second figure than at the third one , well , because you clearly see where speech is . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: But the problem is that on the speech portion , channel zero and channel one are more different than when you use variance normalization where channel zero and channel one become closer . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: But for the purposes of finding the speech {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} Yeah , but here {disfmarker} +PhD B: You 're more interested in the difference between the speech and the nonspeech , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . So I think , yeah . For I th I think that it {disfmarker} perhaps it shows that {vocalsound} uh the parameters that the voice activity detector should use {disfmarker} uh have to use should be different than the parameter that have to be used for speech recognition . +Professor A: Yeah . So basically you want to reduce this effect . +PhD F: Well , y +Professor A: So you can do that by doing the voi voice activity detection . You also could do it by spect uh spectral subtraction before the {vocalsound} variance normalization , right ? +PhD F: Yeah , but it 's not clear , yeah . +Professor A: So uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: We So . Well . It 's just to +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: the {disfmarker} the number that at that are here are recognition experiments on Italian HM and MM {vocalsound} with these two kinds of parameters . And , {pause} well , it 's better with variance normalization . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So it does get better even though it looks ugly . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . but does this have the voice activity detection in it ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . +Grad E: OK . +PhD B: Where 's th +PhD F: But the fact is that the voice activity detector doesn't work on channel one . So . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Where {disfmarker} at what stage is the voice activity detector applied ? Is it applied here or a after the variance normalization ? +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor A: Spectral subtraction , I guess . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's applied before variance normalization . So it 's a good thing , +PhD B: Oh . +PhD F: because I guess voice activity detection on this should {disfmarker} could be worse . +PhD B: Yeah . Is it applied all the way back here ? +PhD F: It 's applied the um on , yeah , something like this , +PhD B: Maybe that 's why it doesn't work for channel one . +PhD F: yeah . Perhaps , yeah . +Professor A: Can I {disfmarker} +PhD F: So we could perhaps do just mean normalization before VAD . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Can I ask a , I mean {disfmarker} a sort of top - level question , which is {vocalsound} um "" if {disfmarker} if most of what the OGI folk are working with is trying to {vocalsound} integrate this other {disfmarker} other uh spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} why are we worrying about it ? "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . About ? Spectral subtraction ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just uh {disfmarker} Well it 's another {disfmarker} They are trying to u to use the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the Ericsson and we 're trying to use something {disfmarker} something else . And . Yeah , and also to understand what happens because +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: uh fff Well . When we do spectral subtraction , actually , I think {vocalsound} that this is the {disfmarker} the two last figures . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . It seems that after spectral subtraction , speech is more emerging now uh {vocalsound} than {disfmarker} than before . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Speech is more what ? +PhD F: Well , the difference between the energy of the speech and the energy of the n spectral subtrac subtracted noise portion is {disfmarker} is larger . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , if you compare the first figure to this one {disfmarker} Actually the scale is not the same , but if you look at the {disfmarker} the numbers um {vocalsound} you clearly see that the difference between the C - zero of the speech and C - zero of the noise portion is larger . Uh but what happens is that after spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} you also increase the variance of this {disfmarker} of C - zero . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so if you apply variance normalization on this , it completely sc screw everything . Well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Uh . Yeah . So yeah . And what they did at OGI is just {vocalsound} uh they don't use on - line normalization , for the moment , on spectral subtraction and I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think as soon as they will try on - line normalization {vocalsound} there will be a problem . So yeah , we 're working on the same thing but {vocalsound} I think uh with different {disfmarker} different system and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . I mean , i the Intellectually it 's interesting to work on things th uh one way or the other +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the list of things that there are to do , if there are things that we won't do because {vocalsound} we 've got two groups doing the same thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Just {disfmarker} just asking . Uh . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , +PhD B: There also could be {disfmarker} I mean . I can maybe see a reason f for both working on it too +PhD F: uh . +PhD B: if {vocalsound} um you know , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you work on something else and {disfmarker} and you 're waiting for them to give you {vocalsound} spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean it 's hard to know whether {vocalsound} the effects that you get from the other experiments you do will {vocalsound} carry over once you then bring in their spectral subtraction module . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost like everything 's held up waiting for this {vocalsound} one thing . I don't know if that 's true or not , but I could see how {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I don't know . +PhD B: Maybe that 's what you were thinking . +Professor A: I don't know . {vocalsound} I mean , we still evidently have a latency reduction plan which {disfmarker} which isn't quite what you 'd like it to be . That {disfmarker} that seems like one prominent thing . And then uh weren't issues of {disfmarker} of having a {disfmarker} a second stream or something ? That was {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} There was this business that , you know , we {disfmarker} we could use up the full forty - eight hundred bits , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But I think they ' I think we want to work on this . They also want to work on this , so . Uh . {vocalsound} yeah . We {disfmarker} we will try MSG , but um , yeah . And they are t I think they want to work on the second stream also , but more with {vocalsound} some kind of multi - band or , well , what they call TRAP or generalized TRAP . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . So . +Professor A: OK . Do you remember when the next meeting is supposed to be ? the next uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's uh in June . +Professor A: In June . OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Um . Yeah , the other thing is that you saw that {disfmarker} that mail about uh the VAD {disfmarker} V A Ds performing quite differently ? That that uh So um . This {disfmarker} there was this experiment of uh "" what if we just take the baseline ? "" +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: set uh of features , just mel cepstra , and you inc incorporate the different V A And it looks like the {disfmarker} the French VAD is actually uh better {disfmarker} significantly better . +PhD B: Improves the baseline ? +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah but I don't know which VAD they use . Uh . If the use the small VAD I th I think it 's on {disfmarker} I think it 's easy to do better because it doesn't work at all . So . I {disfmarker} I don't know which {disfmarker} which one . It 's Pratibha that {disfmarker} that did this experiment . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . We should ask which VAD she used . +PhD D: I don't @ @ . He {disfmarker} Actually , I think that he say with the good VAD of {disfmarker} from OGI and with the Alcatel VAD . And the experiment was sometime better , sometime worse . +PhD F: Yeah but I {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} I think you were talking about the other mail that used VAD on the reference features . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And on that one , uh the French one is {disfmarker} was better . +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor A: It was just better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean it was enough better that {disfmarker} that it would {vocalsound} uh account for a fair amount of the difference between our performance , actually . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} Uh . So if they have a better one , we should use it . I mean . You know ? it 's {disfmarker} you can't work on everything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , so we should find out if it 's really better . I mean if it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} compared to the small or the big network . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: And perhaps we can easily improve if {disfmarker} if we put like mean normalization before the {disfmarker} before the VAD . Because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} as you 've {pause} mentioned . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: H Hynek will be back in town uh the week after next , back {disfmarker} back in the country . So . And start {disfmarker} start organizing uh {vocalsound} more visits and connections and so forth , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} uh working towards June . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Also is Stephane was thinking that {vocalsound} maybe it was useful to f to think about uh {vocalsound} voiced - unvoiced {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to work uh here in voiced - unvoiced detection . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And we are looking {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the uh signal . +PhD F: Yeah , my feeling is that um actually {vocalsound} when we look at all the proposals , ev everybody is still using some kind of spectral envelope +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and um it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: No use of pitch uh basically . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , well , not pitch , but to look at the um fine {disfmarker} at the {disfmarker} at the high re high resolution spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . We don't necessarily want to find the {disfmarker} the pitch of the {disfmarker} of the sound but uh {disfmarker} Cuz I have a feeling that {vocalsound} when we look {disfmarker} when we look at the {disfmarker} just at the envelope there is no way you can tell if it 's voiced and unvoiced , if there is some {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy in clean speech because voiced sound are more low frequency and . So there would be more , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} there is the first formant , which is the larger and then voiced sound are more high frequencies cuz it 's frication and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But , yeah . When you have noise there is no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you have a low frequency noise it could be taken for {disfmarker} for voiced speech and . +Professor A: Yeah , you can make these mistakes , +PhD F: So . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Isn't there some other +PhD F: S +PhD B: uh d +PhD F: So I think that it {disfmarker} it would be good {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , well , go {disfmarker} go on . +PhD B: Uh , I was just gonna say isn't there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} aren't {disfmarker} aren't there lots of ideas for doing voice activity , or speech - nonspeech rather , {comment} um by looking at {vocalsound} um , you know , uh {vocalsound} I guess harmonics or looking across time {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , I think he was talking about the voiced - unvoiced , though , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: right ? So , not the speech - nonspeech . +PhD B: Yeah . Well even with e +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: uh w ah you know , uh even with the voiced - non {pause} voiced - unvoiced +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} I thought that you or {pause} somebody was talking about {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . Uh yeah . B We should let him finish what he w he was gonna say , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So go ahead . +PhD F: Um yeah , so yeah , I think if we try to develop a second stream well , there would be one stream that is the envelope and the second , it could be interesting to have that 's {disfmarker} something that 's more related to the fine structure of the spectrum . And . Yeah , so I don't know . We were thinking about like using ideas from {disfmarker} from Larry Saul , have a good voice detector , have a good , well , voiced - speech detector , that 's working on {disfmarker} on the FFT and {vocalsound} uh +Professor A: U +PhD F: Larry Saul could be an idea . We were are thinking about just {vocalsound} kind of uh taking the spectrum and computing the variance of {disfmarker} of the high resolution spectrum {vocalsound} and things like this . +Professor A: So u s u OK . So {disfmarker} So many {vocalsound} tell you something about that . Uh we had a guy here some years ago who did some work on {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} making use of voicing information uh to {vocalsound} help in reducing the noise . +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: So what he was doing is basically y you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you do estimate the pitch . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um you {disfmarker} from that you {disfmarker} you estimate {disfmarker} or you estimate fine harmonic structure , whichev ei either way , it 's more or less the same . But {vocalsound} uh the thing is that um you then {vocalsound} can get rid of things that are not {disfmarker} i if there is strong harmonic structure , {vocalsound} you can throw away stuff that 's {disfmarker} that 's non - harmonic . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And that {disfmarker} that is another way of getting rid of part of the noise +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: So um that 's something {vocalsound} that is sort of finer , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: brings in a little more information than just spectral subtraction . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And he had some {disfmarker} I mean , he did that sort of in combination with RASTA . It was kind of like RASTA was taking care of convolutional stuff +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and he was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and got some {disfmarker} some decent results doing that . So that {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} another way . But yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor A: Right . There 's all these cues . We 've actually back when Chuck was here we did some voiced - unvoiced uh {vocalsound} classification using a bunch of these , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh works OK . Obviously it 's not perfect but um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is that you can't {disfmarker} given the constraints of this task , we can't , {vocalsound} in a very nice way , feed {pause} forward to the recognizer the information {disfmarker} the probabilistic information that you might get about whether it 's voiced or unvoiced , where w we can't you know affect the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the uh distributions or anything . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But we {disfmarker} what we uh {disfmarker} I guess we could Yeah . +PhD B: Didn't the head dude send around that message ? Yeah , I think you sent us all a copy of the message , where he was saying that {disfmarker} I I 'm not sure , exactly , what the gist of what he was saying , but something having to do with the voice {vocalsound} activity detector and that it will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that people shouldn't put their own in or something . It was gonna be a {disfmarker} +Professor A: That {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} OK . So that 's voice activity detector as opposed to voicing detector . +PhD F: They didn't . +Professor A: So we 're talking about something a little different . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Oh , I 'm sorry . +Professor A: Right ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I missed that . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I guess what you could do , maybe this would be w useful , if {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} if you view the second stream , yeah , before you {disfmarker} before you do KLT 's and so forth , if you do view it as probabilities , and if it 's an independent {disfmarker} So , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not so much {vocalsound} envelope - based by fine - structure - based , uh looking at harmonicity or something like that , um if you get a probability from that information and then multiply it by {disfmarker} you know , multiply by all the voiced {vocalsound} outputs and all the unvoiced outputs , you know , then {vocalsound} use that as the +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} take the log of that or {vocalsound} uh pre pre uh {disfmarker} pre - nonlinearity , +PhD F: Yeah . i if {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh and do the KLT on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on that , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: then that would {disfmarker} that would I guess be uh a reasonable use of independent information . So maybe that 's what you meant . And then that would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , I was not thinking this {disfmarker} yeah , this could be an yeah So you mean have some kind of probability for the v the voicing +Professor A: R Right . So you have a second neural net . +PhD F: and then use a tandem system +Professor A: It could be pretty small . Yeah . If you have a tandem system and then you have some kind of {disfmarker} it can be pretty small {disfmarker} net {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: we used {disfmarker} we d did some of this stuff . Uh I {disfmarker} I did , some years ago , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: and the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing is to use information primarily that 's different as you say , it 's more fine - structure - based than {disfmarker} than envelope - based +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh so then it you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can pretty much guarantee it 's stuff that you 're not looking at very well with the other one , and uh then you only use for this one distinction . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and so now you 've got a probability of the cases , and you 've got uh the probability of the finer uh categories on the other side . You multiply them where appropriate and uh {vocalsound} um +PhD F: I see , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: if they really are from independent {pause} information sources then {vocalsound} they should have different kinds of errors +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and roughly independent errors , and {vocalsound} it 's a good choice for {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . Yeah , that 's a good idea . +PhD F: Yeah . Because , yeah , well , spectral subtraction is good and we could u we could use the fine structure to {disfmarker} to have a better estimate of the noise but {vocalsound} still there is this issue with spectral subtraction that it seems to increase the variance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: um Well it 's this musical noise which is annoying if you d you do some kind of on - line normalization after . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . Um . Yeah . Well . Spectral subtraction and on - line normalization don't seem to {disfmarker} to go together very well . I +Professor A: Or if you do a spectral subtraction {disfmarker} do some spectral subtraction first and then do some on - line normalization then do some more spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you can do it layers or something so it doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't hurt too much or something . +PhD F: Ah , yeah . +Professor A: But it {disfmarker} but uh , anyway I think I was sort of arguing against myself there by giving that example +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: uh I mean cuz I was already sort of {vocalsound} suggesting that we should be careful about not spending too much time on exactly what they 're doing In fact if you get {disfmarker} if you go into uh {disfmarker} a uh harmonics - related thing {vocalsound} it 's definitely going to be different than what they 're doing and uh uh +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: should have some interesting properties in noise . Um . {vocalsound} I know that when have people have done {pause} um sort of the obvious thing of taking {vocalsound} uh your feature vector and adding {pause} in some variables which are {vocalsound} pitch related or uh that {disfmarker} it hasn't {disfmarker} my impression it hasn't particularly helped . Uh . Has not . +PhD F: It {disfmarker} it i has not , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: But I think uh {pause} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a question for this uh you know extending the feature vector versus having different streams . +PhD F: Oh . Was it nois noisy condition ? the example that you {disfmarker} you just +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and it may not have been noisy conditions . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the example but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was on some DARPA data and some years ago and so it probably wasn't , actually +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But we were thinking , we discussed with Barry about this , and {vocalsound} perhaps {vocalsound} thinking {disfmarker} we were thinking about some kind of sheet cheating experiment where we would use TIMIT +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: and see if giving the d uh , this voicing bit would help in {disfmarker} in terms of uh frame classification . +Professor A: Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you just do it with Aurora ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Just any i in {disfmarker} in each {disfmarker} in each frame +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} B but we cannot do the cheating , this cheating thing . +Grad E: We 're {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: We need labels . +Professor A: Why not ? +PhD F: Well . Cuz we don't have {disfmarker} Well , for Italian perhaps we have , but we don't have this labeling for Aurora . We just have a labeling with word models +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: but not for phonemes . +PhD D: Not for foreigners . +Grad E: we don't have frame {disfmarker} frame level transcriptions . +Professor A: Um . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor A: But you could {disfmarker} I mean you can {disfmarker} you can align so that {disfmarker} It 's not perfect , but if you {disfmarker} if you know what was said and {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the problem is that their models are all word level models . So there 's no phone models {pause} that you get alignments for . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh . +PhD B: You {disfmarker} So you could find out where the word boundaries are but that 's about it . +Professor A: Yeah . I see . +Grad E: S But we could use uh the {disfmarker} the noisy version that TIMIT , which {vocalsound} you know , is similar to the {disfmarker} the noises found in the TI - digits {vocalsound} um portion of Aurora . +PhD F: Yeah . noise , yeah . Yeah , that 's right , yep . Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I guess we can {disfmarker} we can say that it will help , but I don't know . If this voicing bit doesn't help , uh , I think we don't have to {disfmarker} to work more about this because {disfmarker} +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: Uh . It 's just to know if it {disfmarker} how much i it will help +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and to have an idea of how much we can gain . +Professor A: Right . I mean in experiments that we did a long time ago +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and different ta it was probably Resource Management or something , um , I think you were getting {pause} something like still eight or nine percent error on the voicing , as I recall . And um , so um +Grad E: Another person 's voice . +Professor A: what that said is that , sort of , left to its own devices , like without the {disfmarker} a strong language model and so forth , that you would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you would make significant number of errors {vocalsound} just with your uh probabilistic machinery in deciding +PhD B: It also {disfmarker} +Professor A: one oh +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} though I think uh there was one problem with that in that , you know , we used canonical mapping so {vocalsound} our truth may not have really been {pause} true to the acoustics . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: So . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Well back twenty years ago when I did this voiced - unvoiced stuff , we were getting more like {vocalsound} ninety - seven or ninety - eight percent correct in voicing . But that was {vocalsound} speaker - dependent {vocalsound} actually . We were doing training {vocalsound} on a particular announcer +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and getting a {vocalsound} very good handle on the features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we did this complex feature selection thing where we looked at all the different possible features one could have for voicing and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and exhaustively searched {vocalsound} all size subsets and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that particular speaker and you 'd find you know the five or six features which really did well on them . +PhD B: Wow ! +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then doing {disfmarker} doing all of that we could get down to two or three percent error . But that , again , was speaker - dependent with {vocalsound} lots of feature selection +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and a very complex sort of thing . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: So I would {disfmarker} I would believe {vocalsound} that uh it was quite likely that um looking at envelope only , that we 'd be {vocalsound} significantly worse than that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: And the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} the SpeechCorders ? what 's the idea behind ? Cuz they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} Oh , they don't even have to detect voiced spe speech ? +Professor A: The modern ones don't do a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a simple switch . +PhD F: They just work on the code book +Professor A: They work on the code book excitation . +PhD F: and find out the best excitation . +Professor A: Yeah they do {vocalsound} analysis - by - synthesis . They try {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they try every {disfmarker} every possible excitation they have in their code book and find the one that matches best . +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . Alright . Yeah . So it would not help . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor A: Uh . O K . +PhD B: Can I just mention one other interesting thing ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Um . One of the ideas that we {pause} had come up with last week for things to try to {vocalsound} improve the system {disfmarker} Um . Actually I {disfmarker} I s we didn't {disfmarker} I guess I wrote this in after the meeting b but {vocalsound} the thought I had was um looking at the language model that 's used in the HTK recognizer , which is basically just a big {vocalsound} loop , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: right ? So you {disfmarker} it goes "" digit "" +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and then that can be {disfmarker} either go to silence or go to another digit , which {disfmarker} That model would allow for the production of {vocalsound} infinitely long sequences of digits , right ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So . I thought "" well I 'm gonna just look at the {disfmarker} what actual digit strings do occur in the training data . "" +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: And the interesting thing was it turns out that there are no sequences of two - long or three - long digit strings {pause} in any of the Aurora training data . So it 's either one , four , five , six , uh up to eleven , and then it skips and then there 's some at sixteen . +Professor A: But what about the testing data ? +PhD B: Um . I don't know . I didn't look at the test data yet . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean if there 's some testing data that has {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has two or three {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yeah . But I just thought that was a little odd , that there were no two or three long {disfmarker} Sorry . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just for the heck of it , I made a little grammar which um , you know , had it 's separate path {pause} for each length digit string you could get . So there was a one - long path and there was a four - long and a five - long +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I tried that and it got way worse . There were lots of deletions . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't have any weights of these paths or {disfmarker} I didn't have anything like that . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And I played with tweaking the {vocalsound} word transition penalties a bunch , but I couldn't go anywhere . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: But um . I thought "" well if I only allow {disfmarker} "" Yeah , I guess I should have looked at {disfmarker} to see how often there was a mistake where a two - long or a three - long path was actually put out as a hypothesis . Um . But . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: So to do that right you 'd probably want to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} allow for them all but then have weightings and things . So . I just thought that was a interesting {vocalsound} thing about the data . +Professor A: OK . So we 're gonna read some more digit strings I guess ? +PhD B: Yeah . You want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor A: Sure . +","The conversation involved several participants discussing technical aspects of audio processing and speech recognition systems, including Professor A, PhD B, PhD F, Grad C, and Grad E. They discussed issues related to PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) microphones, such as a persistent five hertz noise believed to be from an air conditioner, and possible remedies including a digital filter suggested by Dan Ellis. Professor A highlighted the need to be careful when using waveform illustrations to demonstrate effects of room reverberation, noting that room noise on some mics could be a bad example of reverberation. + +PhD B suggested looking into source code control to facilitate collaborative work, while Professor A and PhD F discussed the potential of utilizing voice activity detection (VAD) or voiced-unvoiced detection to improve system performance. There was also mention of utilizing spectral subtraction and other methods for noise reduction and improving feature vectors. + +An interesting observation shared by PhD B was that their training data for the Aurora project did not contain any sequences of two or three digits in a row, which was contrary to what their recognition system allowed, suggesting the possibility of refining the language model used by the recognizer. Professor A suggested that using fine harmonic structure for a second stream might offer independent information that could prove helpful. Towards the end of the conversation, participants expressed interest in developing a system that could handle different feature streams effectively, such as envelope-based and fine-structure-based analysis. + +Throughout the conversation, there were continuous themes around seeking to refine various features to enhance recognition capabilities, improve existing processes, and consider how collaborative efforts between different groups working on related problems could be better coordinated to avoid duplication and effectively utilize the best available tools and methods." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , all set ? Welcome to the conceptual design meeting . +User Interface: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: The agenda . The opening . I'll again be the secretary and make minutes , take minutes , uh and it will be three presentations , just like the last meeting . So um , {vocalsound} who wants to start off ? Technical uh designer again ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Again . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . Uh , before we begin it , I want to say I've I've put the minutes of the uh second meeting in the shared folder , but they're still not uh quite okay . It uh it uh still some technical difficulties so the the first part of the minutes are very hard to read , because there are two documents that uh were layered over each other . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But uh , from now on I won't use my pen anymore , so will be p just {vocalsound} ordinary keyboard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , may be better , yeah . +Marketing: Keyboard work . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it {gap} will will be more uh easy for you to read the minutes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , when we talk about uh components design , um it's really about the material and the {disfmarker} and uh uh really the stuff we build uh the remote controls of . Um , a remote control consist of uh components and the components of a remote control consist of uh properties and material . We have to choose th uh these uh wisely and it could affect uh uh a kind of grow of {disfmarker} in uh in buying uh the remote controls . Um , the components of a remote control are of course uh the case . Uh the properties of the case , um it has to be solid uh in hard material like uh hard plastic uh with soft rubber for uh falling and and uh uh {disfmarker} yeah , it feels uh good in your hand . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm the buttons has to be uh solid too , and the material is soft rubber . Uh I've got a uh email from the possibilities of Real Reaction . Um uh they're telling me that um when we build uh a remote control of um of plastic or rubber , the uh buttons have to be uh rubber too . Mm {disfmarker} It's okay . Yeah . I when we use a rubbled {disfmarker} a doubled curved case , we must use a rubber push-buttons to {disfmarker} uh the the rubber double-curved case is a is a t uh three-dimensional uh curve in the in the design , which is uh necessary when we want to be trendy . Uh {disfmarker} Um +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: the energy source , uh I've got a lot of possibilities for that too . Um , uh the basic battery , which I thi prefer because of its uh its non uh non-depending of of of uh um {disfmarker} Uh here you have to have a hand uh {disfmarker} yeah , kinetic uh energy . Also in uh this one , like in the watches , but a remote control can lie on a table for a day , and then you push uh a button and {disfmarker} so you don't have to uh walk with it all the all the time . Mm , solar cells are also uh a bit weird for uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh also the case material , uh I think that plastic is the is the best with rubber , because uh wood or titanium would also be a bit weird . +User Interface: Oh titanium is probably trendy , I think . {gap} . +Marketing: That's true , I guess . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , maybe a little bit expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh , they don't tell anything about the cost of uh titanium . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um the chip {disfmarker} uh the chip set uh and the board is uh all off the shelf . Also , the speaker in the remote control , when we want to retrieve it . Um , the base station is also off the shelf , all the materials and the components are uh just available in uh in our uh factory . Mm , I've told about uh the three first points . Mm , the simple electronical chip uh is is available uh with the LED transmitter uh transmitter . Uh , it's all uh off the shelf and even the speaker and the wireless retriever are all uh available in our company . Um , another possibility . I uh yeah , I looked up on was uh the L_C_D_ displays . Could be uh something special to our uh remote control , and it's possible , but it only cost a bit more , but maybe it can be uh within the limits of twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Twelve and a half . Actually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , production cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I th I got an email with uh some examples and it {disfmarker} these were were the most trendiest one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You see uh a covers , which can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What are those , t tooth uh brushes , or so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's actually kind of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: well , it resembles the design I had in mind for this proj +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You know the the cartoonish {vocalsound} Alessi kind of design . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can uh bri uh bring a couple of uh couple of types of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And we can we can steal their ideas . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe a kind of uh whole uh um a whole set of uh different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring a whole line uh with uh with a {gap} huge variety of uh +Project Manager: Well , it's a possibility , too . +Industrial Designer: uh house uh stuff . +User Interface: Different colours also . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {vocalsound} maybe radios and uh television also uh in this in this {disfmarker} in the same style , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that'll be for the future , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next time we're here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because we have to uh {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have to bring the logo and all the stuff uh back into it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I shall go to the next slide . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , I still don't have any information about user requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking about just uh the basic functions and I got uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , we decided upon that in the last meeting . Didn't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , but but then wh I don't know when there are new user requirements . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , tha I didn't receive any new requirements or somethi +User Interface: I ha I ha I have the I have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: nothing . +Project Manager: no , but we decided to use only b basic functions only . +User Interface: Well , I have here a couple of basic functions I could think of . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if they're {disfmarker} maybe a little bit more , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we {disfmarker} maybe we can think of that later . W just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these are the ones you already summed up in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I uh {vocalsound} well , I pointed them out here , just to make it a little bit easier . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um Another function uh is {disfmarker} of course we already discuss it on the side . Um , I don't know what costs of it . Uh , I've no idea about it . Uh , I was also looking for what you said , for {disfmarker} I got an email uh uh about uh L_C_D_ in in in front of the remote control . I don't know if that's a good idea , or maybe it's a little bit too much for twelve and a half . Production . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If we got already uh something like a base . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That might get redundant also maybe . I don't know what kind of information it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know . I d I uh ju I was just thinking about it . Then I got a pop-ups to go to the meeting . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring t uh uh teletext to the t {vocalsound} to the remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} a little uh too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} A little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then you've got a flag s {vocalsound} Very big R_C_ . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} That's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was not a good idea . +User Interface: A little bit too big , I think . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . Well , the functions are are not more to discuss , I think . +Project Manager: No . No . +User Interface: It's it's just the base things we already discussed that the {disfmarker} no V_C_R_ or that kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: uh , so that's very easy . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you do mention the next and previous uh button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well , that's next channel . I mean {gap} next channel . +Marketing: Next channel , previous channel . +Project Manager: Oh , okay , o okay okay . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} oh , I I got an email with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with an uh a remote control with a base . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So , it's uh just an idea . And I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh thinked of the button sizes and I'm not sure uh if they have to be big or uh just small {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you're the expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it depends on the function . +User Interface: Well , I'm not a e I'm the expert for user-friendly , but not for trendiness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , if you save uh {disfmarker} Perhaps uh s tiny buttons aren't user-friendly , then we wouldn't im implement that of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , that's your point . Um , yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've nothing to {vocalsound} s +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , w when we only use basic functions , we have the possibility to make the buttons larger . +Marketing: Oh , that's right . +User Interface: Uh , with a little bit larger , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I thought so , but maybe with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I think we already agreed upon the fact that the the the skip buttons and the cha and the volume buttons , th th those two have {disfmarker} yeah , they have to be large . +User Interface: Yeah , that groups . +Project Manager: Uh , I mean th th the the two two basic buttons , you know , the {disfmarker} to skip channels and to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Large ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know why , but I think that is {disfmarker} that's t trendy too , +User Interface: Most {disfmarker} the most used uh buttons . +Marketing: Those are probably the the th +Project Manager: because that's the mo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you know , it's uh acc acc um accentu uh , how do you say it ? It puts an extra accent on the the on the simplicity of our remotes to j to make these two most basic functions extra big , like t +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Marketing: Those are probably the b four most most used buttons on the th in the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . And you want to acc accentuate that , you know . +Industrial Designer: You did the research . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's from your research . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry ? Yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh , that was all y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh personal preference I didn't have . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I didn't had any time left . +Project Manager: No uh , that's coo it's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You don't care . No , {vocalsound} sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . Go away . +User Interface: It's there . +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , click on it . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Couple time . +Marketing: Oh , great . Well , I've done some research again about trends on the internet . Um I've done some investigation , and uh well I uh got some information from fashion watchers from Paris and uh Milan . {vocalsound} Some uh some findings {disfmarker} the most important thing is fancy look and feel of the remote control . Uh , well , we were going to imply that , so that's nice . The second important thing is uh innovative technology in the R_C_ . Uh , our market really likes really likes that . And uh the third point there in this uh order if {disfmarker} of importance , the third point , is a high ease of use . And uh , well , for the idea , I've put some trends uh for the market of elderly people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dark colours , simple recognisable shapes . So we probably won't do that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The younger market likes uh {disfmarker} Well , {gap} the {gap} themes of of this year are uh surprisingly fruits and vegetables and spongy material . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found this image , which is uh {disfmarker} Well , it symbolises the idea of fruits and vegetables . I don't see the spongy part in it . But with a little bit of fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe c {vocalsound} then we have to do something with Sponge Bob then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Exactly . I got some ideas {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , yeah , pictures isn't really good word , but um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: some symbols of fruits or vegetables maybe . Uh , catchy colours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit is uh yellow , green , red , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , remote controls in in catchy colours . +Project Manager: It doesn't stroke with the with the dark colours . +Marketing: Uh , no , we don't want dark colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not the dark colours ? Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just put them there to uh , yeah , uh for general idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh , the docking st +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh I think the spongy material is is very irritating for the uh remote control itself . But to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} To implement some spongy thing , maybe we can do it in the in the docking station . At the bottom of the docking station or whatever . And uh , we could bring one line with a dark colour uh to um uh p uh yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh uh v how do you say ? +Project Manager: For diversity or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also a bit for elderly people who are a little bit crazy and want {vocalsound} maybe want a little younger design but still the dark colour . +User Interface: Well , how uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it it it reaches a different market uh , but it it it doesn't cost really much effort to b to uh bring uh like a black R_C_ on the market or whatever . Yes . +User Interface: But how do we use uh fruits and vegetables in Christ's {vocalsound} sake with {vocalsound} remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , but I I I think that uh our design already resembles so a piece of fruit . +Marketing: Yeah , there's there's always a +User Interface: Uh , make it a banana ? +Project Manager: It's like a pear or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well there there's always empty space of course on a remote control . I mean I think this part of the R_C_ uh well {vocalsound} the upper the upper part or whatever is uh is not not used with buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: No , I don't think you have to do it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you can put some fruity things {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it that doesn't have to remind you , you know , like explicitly of s our f of a of a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like the the the the round curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course not . +Project Manager: And so y I I think this {disfmarker} y it already sem resembles uh something like a pear to me or something . +Marketing: Especially i +User Interface: Yeah , but th {vocalsound} yeah , but that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we make it little bit greenish . +Project Manager: You do get the idea , eh ? The fruity kind of round {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: A {vocalsound} and we could use {vocalsound} one of these for the uh w what is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Grapes . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , this is a b yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} Wha whatever . +User Interface: But d don't we need a creative artist or something like that to m make it to feel like a a a a vegetable or fruit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Of course we have uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: we have a very big uh the s +Marketing: Yeah . Well , w we can uh {disfmarker} w we can we can produce multiple uh multiple things . +Industrial Designer: For a big team of artists . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of d design team , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is then the uh pear . I don't know the English word , so forget it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's pear , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , maybe , yeah , a b a banana is uh is n {vocalsound} not easy for a remote control , but m yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I think we don't have to make +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: we can't make all uh ten designs . We have to make one design I th I I think . +Project Manager: No , but I think it's it's already what we were were up to . +Marketing: Mayb maybe two or three . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , it's {disfmarker} it doesn't have to resemble uh what I already said , a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like a fruity thing going on . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . No sure , but but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} it looks fruity to me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B but that's great , and and and what I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , but I do like the {disfmarker} +Marketing: what what I was saying , the catchy colours {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , I do like uh the f uh to {disfmarker} the idea of making a a y uh , a catchy colour design and a d because I do {disfmarker} I think a dark colour would be nice too . +Industrial Designer: But pictures of fruit , vegetables vegetables {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe it's too much , you know . +User Interface: But , we we have to um {disfmarker} There have to be the the the the firm colours , our own uh colours has to be in it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh not really . Pictures was a was a bad word , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but what are the {disfmarker} This is yellow . +Marketing: Well we c yeah . +User Interface: Yellow , a Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put a logo on top of it . +Project Manager: But I don't think our our company colours are this fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe we can if if we got our docking station over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We uh f +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's really fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't draw with this thing , but I'll try . +User Interface: A yellow do +Marketing: If this is our docking station , we can make our logo over here . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: It doesn't work . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the button then . +Industrial Designer: With a strawberry on top . +Project Manager: Yeah , on uh n uh on the bottom of the remote you can do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the button button over here or whatever , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . On the front , of course , because else you can't find it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well , that were my ideas a little bit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll close 'em down . Um , go away . +Project Manager: Okay , you {disfmarker} can you open the conceptual design presentation ? +Marketing: Conceptual design , yes . +Project Manager: See what was on the agenda . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Lazy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The agenda . +Project Manager: This is his own remote . Because um , maybe we can start with the technical uh functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't think it's there {disfmarker} uh , yeah um , do we want to um use an L_C_D_ display , for example ? +Marketing: Well , it's nice , of course . But I don't I don't know what to display on it . +Industrial Designer: Only if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Me neither . +Industrial Designer: Maybe maybe we can make a T_V_ guide on it , for the channel you're on . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but it should be li like this big , and I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , no , only the T_V_ channel with the {disfmarker} with uh with {vocalsound} uh four programmes . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do it . +Industrial Designer: You can uh zap through them with the page up page down button . +Marketing: Yes sure , but it it has to to show an entire title of a programme or at least a q a quite quite large part of it and then you get a very large L_C_D_ screen , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it can {disfmarker} On your {disfmarker} No , on your mobile phone you can y you can read text also . So why not on your remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} no . I do I think it's a bit redundant , actually . +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . +Project Manager: And it's also not {disfmarker} I don't th even think it it looks s like sexy or something , +User Interface: Well well what would you display on it then ? +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , programme uh information or or or or g or a guide +Marketing: Programme information . +User Interface: But is it {disfmarker} isn't that a already on T_V_ , a lot of new T_V_s ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: on t on teletext , yes . Also on the internet . +Marketing: Well a lot a lot of T_V_s indeed show uh when you uh zap to a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you're already watching the T_V_ , you're not gonna watch your remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you also want to know what's next . +Marketing: But then we also uh w need to bring out a line of T_V_s which we were planning to , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we also have to {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: but whatever . Because the T_V_ has to send information back to the R_C_ , and I don't know if that's possible . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh really possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , yes , o of course it's possible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you gotta uh implement it in the T_V_s , and I don't think everyone's gonna buy a Real Reaction T_V_ within a month after the release of our uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I really understand you want to make your job more exciting {vocalsound} by putting an L_C_D_ in it , +User Interface: And I also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I I really don't think it's a good n goo because it also doesn't stroke with {disfmarker} we wanted uh c When we talk about the materials , uh it's a good idea to use these plastic materials with soft rubber stuff on it . It was our idea , you know , to give it a more sturdy look and that you ca like you can throw with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think a L_C_D_ display fits in that image . You know , it's like more vulnerable , and it adds nothing really , you know . +Marketing: That's true , that's true , it breaks f yeah , it it it's not very solid , it's uh frag fragile . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You could make it , but it's just {disfmarker} it it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it's coherent with the design we're after . +Marketing: No . No . I don't think so ei either . +Project Manager: But that's my opinion . Well , you you y Okay , we can vote for it . You want the L_C_D_ display . I don't want to and {vocalsound} he doesn't , so it's up to him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} . Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've read somewhere that I've got some kind of veto veto uh rights . +User Interface: {vocalsound} . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bastard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I can also say {disfmarker} +User Interface: We can {gap} you away . +Project Manager: But did we skip the {disfmarker} Yeah , you could do {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m but what what i so what i but do you think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know . Uh , uh I {disfmarker} i if it's it's a simple p +Project Manager: We're not even sure what what information we want to display on it . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that that's right , +Industrial Designer: No uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh I also have to think about new functions , maybe buttons or something like that to control it . Kind of L_C_D_ or something or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yes , you can use uh buttons uh uh w that are already uh on the remote control for double functions . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess . +User Interface: But how does it display then ? W when I go to the second channel , what what does it show me ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you push a button . The title and the information about the programme . +User Interface: About that programme ? +Industrial Designer: But but uh {disfmarker} yeah , what he said was right , about the televisions , they have to be uh customised to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , that's not gonna work . +Industrial Designer: But maybe in future it will be a giant hit , and when you are the first +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , well uh I've seen it done before . +Industrial Designer: you have the biggest uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you know th like the the bigger rem uh universal remotes , they have d L_C_D_ displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it's very functional to indicate which {disfmarker} what uh uh device you are controlling . So it's {disfmarker} that that's what I've seen . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put uh a little L_C_D_ display on it with uh with lots of information . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , if you uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: But it just {disfmarker} it j it doesn't doesn't match with the {gap} our whole basic concept . +Industrial Designer: But uh I haven't thought about it . But whe but when you put a a a transparent uh plastic uh uh screen on top of it , it i it isn't vulnerable . +Project Manager: Well yeah , yeah , okay . That's maybe not the most important , +Industrial Designer: You can throw with it and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it fashion ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: When when you put uh maybe a colour L_C_D_ t uh screen on it , it's very special and very trendy to have uh a remote control from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . That's not up to you . That's up to market if i if it's trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah , well do you ha do you have to {disfmarker} {gap} You haven't looked after the trendiness of L_C_D_ displays , have you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Because our our motto is we put fashion {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I think it's uh I think it's pretty trendy , to be honest , uh but um I don't know if if if {disfmarker} well , I'm coming back to the costs again , but I think uh we gotta build a b pretty cheap design to to stay within our limits . And I think uh especially colour L_C_D_ , which is indeed pretty trendy . But I don't think {disfmarker} Uh , I think it will be too expensive . +Industrial Designer: But uh I've got a {disfmarker} the email with uh with the possibilities . {vocalsound} And L_C_D_ was a possibility for the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So why don't we use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're gonna {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , did it say a price also uh for for uh monogramme uh L_C_D_ or uh coloured L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , if you want to be trendy you have to be coloured . Coloured {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah really , +User Interface: If you have black and white or something , or grey , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: if y if you c i +Project Manager: Then uh then you better don't {disfmarker} yeah , d +Marketing: I in in two thousand and four you can't uh put something on the market which is a monogramme . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but it doesn't sa say anything about a colour or {disfmarker} But , mm , I alf I also got a possibility to put uh a scroll button on it . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh I really don't feel the whole idea of an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: I didn't think that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm sorry . It can't co you cannot convince me . I don't know how {disfmarker} well how to {disfmarker} with you guys , but {disfmarker} I don't really feel it . We already {disfmarker} we're uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's too much uh maybe uh with with the L_C_D_ and the docking station and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we already have the the th th th base station gadgets , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and want {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} uh uh , do {disfmarker} it has to be a simple design , which sturdy , which soft {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but o on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we've we've gotta find a balance , of course . +User Interface: With one thing special . +Marketing: And I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not a whole package of specialty . +Project Manager: I don't think {disfmarker} I j uh , and really , I don't see how the the L_C_D_ display is gonna add anything , you know , on a design level . Uh , I think it's slicker to have no L_ CEDs . +Industrial Designer: No , when y +Project Manager: Y we want to {disfmarker} it's simplicity , w you have two big buttons and you can do whatever you want with these two buttons , so you don't need an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: But it look {disfmarker} Yes , but that remote controls are already on the market . The simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It doesn't fit in our philosophy uh behind the whole remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but when you want to have something special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we already have the docking station , which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , but you had a picture of it from another company . +User Interface: And uh the {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have a pear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} It has to be developed , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} no , but it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's our that's our killer feature . +User Interface: It's just an it's just an idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's our {disfmarker} what makes it special . +User Interface: It's a it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it was already made . Tha the remote control on the docking station . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're gonna develop our own r n docking station . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Is that so ? Was it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it wasn't just a prototype ? +User Interface: Well uh I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , he have a picture of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Exactly , I've never seen it in a store . +Project Manager: Uh , but re we really have to cut this off , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I re I know you {disfmarker} I I I I {vocalsound} I get the idea you really like it , you know , the the L_C_D_ thing , but I I think it's it's not a good idea , and we have already mentioned all the arguments . I don't {disfmarker} uh , do you guys agre How do you guys think ? I d +User Interface: No , it's too much . +Marketing: I think it's a little too much , yeah . +User Interface: It's overdone . +Project Manager: Okay , we s skip the {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , maybe you can do something if we are at your own place , or make it make it make it happen in your basement or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Democratically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mayb {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will rule the world with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . But for the technical part . The m material , I think uh it was a good idea to use the plastic and uh the rubber . Uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe a bit of a cushion is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah , p Exactly . This is what it w Yeah , but it it was already what we're uh we're after , you know , to give it uh , you know , the soft touch in your hands +Marketing: Yeah , for the spongy uh feel . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: With a spongy Bob feel . +Project Manager: and also to , know , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that is y the b airbag kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Like a b yes . +Project Manager: You can st throw it at your little brother's head . +User Interface: Yeah , you just can drop it . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , airbag . If you drop it if you drop it the airbag comes out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . No no no , not that comfy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but then we have to look that it uh w uh will not um be too childish to see . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Yeah . Okay , that's a that's a good point . And that's why I like the dark t col dark colour bit , you know , because it may be {disfmarker} the design uh , it's uh maybe it is a bit of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But not black I think . +Project Manager: it's a bit nineties maybe , what we're what we're up to rat fun to this point . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Well if if it's fruit and vegetables , it have to be colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's true , but but it has to be a little big solid . +Marketing: Yeah , b yeah , that's what w I I was pointing at . +User Interface: But can we ge uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It mustn't be too , n you know , th too overwhelming , then when you put it on your {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we combine it or something ? Uh with uh yellow and black ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , maybe so . +User Interface: Make it a bee ? {vocalsound} A bee . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh , a bee . Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , uh I don't like the yellow and black combination {gap} . But it is our company colours . Apparently . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} it's our {disfmarker} yeah . We we have to use yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yes , real real good colours . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I don't like yellow , and uh maybe {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , we can as as I +Industrial Designer: But that's not really fruity . +Marketing: draw really nicely over there . {vocalsound} We can put the logo on our uh on our base station . Uh , yeah . And maybe very very tiny on the remote control itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , i +Project Manager: Okay , but what {disfmarker} uh , what are other tef technical things we have to discuss ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh fronts of the {disfmarker} We can have uh different uh uh fronts of the +Project Manager: Should we do that ? +Industrial Designer: telephone . +Project Manager: I don't think you {disfmarker} we should do that . Maybe just bring it out in different colours , +User Interface: Different fronts . +Project Manager: but not af that you can switch fronts afterwards , that's also too much . +Marketing: Yeah . I guess that's that's enough . +Project Manager: People don't wanna spend more money on their remote {vocalsound} control , I guess . +Marketing: That's way too Nokia . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , you can you can l uh let choose the customer which colour he wants , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are these designs ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . Just bring more designs on the market . +User Interface: Yeah , Three three or four uh four uh colours , or something like that . +Project Manager: But uh , without {disfmarker} gon uh +Marketing: Why not , yeah . +Project Manager: okay . So , are we through the technical part then ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . So we uh agreed upon uh n uh well , not u unanimously or how you call it , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , yeah , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} this a real uh young young and dynamic uh uh styles . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Three to one . {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The materials you uh mentioned in your your personal preferences were all {disfmarker} were quite okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yes . +Project Manager: O o only only the last point your {disfmarker} +User Interface: And tita uh titanium , is {disfmarker} uh is is it a no ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no titanium's not not out of question , I guess . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} It's just like that , th this titanium . +Industrial Designer: But also w Yes , b bu but when we use s soft +Project Manager: But is it possible to use both the the plastic and so uh soft things and t p titanium , as well ? +Industrial Designer: mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Makes it in a homogeneous uh design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No , not all , not all of them . +Industrial Designer: But it it {disfmarker} then it uh {disfmarker} you can't throw it it . It will uh make a huge noise or break other stuff +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It will it will break other stuff w {vocalsound} when it's plastic , as well . +Industrial Designer: when you throw with uh titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with your remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium is a bit uh it's a bit harder . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: No , but uh uh , you should ma Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But also on the colours , the young {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , think of the possibilities and make it in {disfmarker} completely titanium . Well would it be more trendy ? More chic ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it I think it does . +User Interface: Uh , I think titanium nowadays is way more often used than plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but a titanium remote control , when you're uh watching T_V_ uh or your hands are a little bit sweaty , and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: In trendy things . +Marketing: Yeah , o On the other hand , if you want to make fruit {disfmarker} fruity stuff with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's cold in the winter . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I I really like the idea of the the the plastic and the big kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the question is i then it's , you know , is is {disfmarker} it fits in our s philosophy to make it uh sturdy and simple and uh , know , like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Sports and gaming . Define +Project Manager: When you make it titanium , it becomes more like some kind of gadget you actually don't need . And when it's big and plastic , it's like some fun stuff you can always have around . It's always fun to have something big and plastic around . +User Interface: You have that uh M_P_ three player of Nike , I saw . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't that titanium with a little bit of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's w but it is uh plastic . +User Interface: Isn't it {disfmarker} Is plastic ? Well , it's titanium looking . +Industrial Designer: Yes , w we can do that on the on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Yeah , he is . Here he is . Uh , the {disfmarker} I don't know if you know the M_P_ three player of Nike . 'Kay , uh that that's very uh with rubber , so it's very +Marketing: Oh , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , that's beautiful . +Marketing: Yeah , I see . +Industrial Designer: We can make this as a style too . +Marketing: Yeah , but but but {disfmarker} +User Interface: rough . +Industrial Designer: Uh , this is uh just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , maybe th maybe this is an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I th I think that's difficult , because uh that's different material , and then you gotta have like uh uh uh two material lines of of of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we c we can make it from the same kind of plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's just a colour uh which you uh which you change then , I guess it's it's nice to have one of these . +Project Manager: No , I do like the idea of maybe a t titanium kind {disfmarker} type of body w and then with s plastic colouration {gap} around it . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , like the the soft stuff , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't know if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: I don't have the information . Uh , I I didn't got it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you can't make the plastic give uh the ti titanium look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But make it just like shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , true . +Project Manager: Maybe we should uh shou +Industrial Designer: Like the M_P_ three player . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's good idea , yeah . But if you want to la uh yeah , last longer than two weeks or something like that , you can maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh and +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe we sh should we t {gap} I don't know if we should talk about {disfmarker} uh , how how much time have we got left ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in a lot of other uh +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +User Interface: What time does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: in a lot of other product uh categories like uh even in b in bags industry . Uh , they began with uh t typical uh leather bags , but then they became stylish , with all all si all sort of colours , and w kind of fon {disfmarker} of uh of fronts , like we can use on the telephone and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like Eastpack uh began a revolution with it with all this uh kind of bags and and colours and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} You putting in different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yes , and and styles . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They have uh also uh a kind of uh um uh roses on it , a and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but w yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it is . It's a possibility . But , let's think about the bas +Industrial Designer: Then we can always uh use the same design for a greater resemblance , but with new uh with new colours , new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . New prints on it . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: But wha th our basic idea {disfmarker} y I mean , you gonna {disfmarker} we're probably gonna have like two type of materials , like the d d b the plastic uh enclosure and then the the pads that surround it . And and pro and lights . We have to incorporate the lights too . But , uh do w gonna {gap} gonna {disfmarker} are we going to give it a two-tone colour look , like the the plastic mould is in in one colour and the s the cushion pads around it are in another colour ? Is that the idea ? Is that a good idea ? +Marketing: How do you mean ? Th th the uh base in a in another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many colours are we {disfmarker} how many colours are we gonna {disfmarker} we're uh uh f uh f +User Interface: The rubber . +Project Manager: Only five minutes left , by the way . How many colours are we gonna give it ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Like two-tone colour ? T +Industrial Designer: There there are three uh components three components type . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh no , not too much I think . +Industrial Designer: You have the buttons , the the case uh itself , and the rubber and th +Marketing: How the buttons {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe the case itself should be in one colour and then the rubber of the buttons , {vocalsound} and the cushions as well should be in another colour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Or you just make uh one colour , uh maybe with a a z a kind of like a big wave or something like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but not more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: In in another colour . +Project Manager: Well , yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not more than two colours I think . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: It's a g a little bit too flashy . +Marketing: No , definitely not . +Project Manager: Maybe we should talk about it on a l in a later meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or when you use the buttons as black , it {disfmarker} you can use two colours as well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . But we have to uh think of some other uh important things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , the the functionalities of the the buttons . +User Interface: The funct yeah , I was I was thinking about th the st do we still want a joystick idea . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I think that's too vulnerable . +Project Manager: I think this is okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} so we have the basic . Then we have the numbers . We have the power button . We have we have a teletext button . +User Interface: The volume , teletext and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And maybe want to access a a menu or something . Most T_V_s have a menu . +Marketing: Yeah , but that's that's {disfmarker} I was thinking that's gotta be on the television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think you ha I really need a menu button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah yeah , b +Project Manager: That's just i the only button {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but wha what kind of menu ? +Project Manager: You know , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is uh {disfmarker} isn't that different from every television ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , I think most T_V_s have an uh a menu nowadays to access the uh uh screen settings . And so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah , if it's c if {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it's okay to to add a menu button for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But that that covers all the all the other settings . It covers everything then . +Marketing: and if the T_V_ doesn't have a menu , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then you have to put uh up and down and uh left and right {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , you can use the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can put that on the two eight four and six or whatever . +Project Manager: And you al can also use the normal skip buttons for that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Th in that way we have like only the numbers , the power button , skip and volume , and then uh uh ten uh rem +Marketing: Mm , yeah . A mute and a teletext and a menu . +Project Manager: uh yeah , mute . A teletext and a menu , and then then i that's it . +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: It's all we need . +Marketing: That's all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , uh another stuf some stuff {vocalsound} about the the the design of the docking station . +Marketing: Great . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , that's not mu not much functions . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something important about a s uh , no , uh which sh uh should remind us of the remote itself , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , in one colour . +Marketing: Are we gonna do something with the uh spongy thing there ? +Project Manager: Just use {disfmarker} I think the spongy thing already um comes forward in the in the in the cushions , pads and things on the s uh side . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Project Manager: And we will make it spongy and {disfmarker} and uh and uh well , the fruity thing is just the shape should be fru i did {disfmarker} I think this is kind of fruity , you know . Just round shapes with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it's kinda fruity , and with th with catchy colours uh uh w +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we're gonna have to {disfmarker} we really have to think {disfmarker} I think colours is very important , because it has to be flashy , but {disfmarker} and but it d it doesn't have to be annoying , that when you uh , know , some things is just over the top , and when you have it on your table for more than two weeks , you {disfmarker} {gap} it just gets annoying , because it's so big and flashy . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , it has to be some level of subtlety , but we have to {disfmarker} still have to think of how we manage to uh to get to that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Guess we're through then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I guess so . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} I think also we just {disfmarker} so we have to do something with colour but also , I I think we have to keep the dark colour thing in mind . I think that's uh adds to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: too much colour maybe m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too much colour , i it uh {disfmarker} when you got it in a living room , it's too much maybe +Project Manager: But our des design experts will uh work that out . +Marketing: Yea yeah . +User Interface: . It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well I think the meeting will be over within a minute . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So we will wrap up . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Or is there anything we'd like to discuss ? That's right . +Marketing: I guess not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you , guys ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Okay . Well , you will read the minutes uh in the {disfmarker} you can find them in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , okay , yeah . +Marketing: In the shared folder . +Project Manager: pro probably . Yeah {disfmarker} uh no , for su for sure because I'm will now type them out . +Industrial Designer: What are we going to do now ? +Project Manager: Uh , y yeah . +Marketing: You'll see in you email , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope so . And the other thing is that you don't have kind of prototype or something like that . You see a kinda prototype you can {disfmarker} a little bit more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I will make one in the next uh twenty minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Construct one , yeah . +Project Manager: But {gap} toilet paper roll and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: With you laptop ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh my God . +Marketing: Alright , shall we get back to work ? +Project Manager: Yep . I was waiting for the l last message , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: Well you are . We're not . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Bastard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Back to the pen . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You lazy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In the conceptual design meeting led by the Project Manager, the diverse team consisting of User Interface, Industrial Designer, and Marketing came together to discuss various aspects of a remote control's development. The meeting began with necessary administrative announcements from the Project Manager, who mentioned previous meeting minutes were stored in the shared folder but acknowledged technical difficulties with the documentation. Moving forward, the Project Manager pledged to forgo handwritten notes in favor of typed minutes to prevent readability issues. + +The Industrial Designer introduced the topic of component design, emphasizing the significance of material selection in the remote control's development. A durable plastic case with soft rubber was proposed for the remote's body for both aesthetic and functional purposes, offering a solid feel and protection against falls. The button material, suggested to be made of soft rubber, was informed by a recommendation from a hypothetical company called Real Reaction. The Industrial Designer also touched upon various energy sources, like basic batteries and the impracticality of kinetic energy and solar cells for remote controls. The remote control's chipset, speaker, and base station materials were confirmed to be standard, off-the-shelf components available in their factory. The mention of a potential LCD display as a special feature led to a price concern—it added cost but could potentially remain within a 25-euro limit for production. + +The User Interface raised a point about the lack of new user requirements and emphasized that only basic functions had been decided on, avoiding overly complicated features. There was also a brief discussion regarding the significance of large buttons based on the most frequently used functions like channel skipping and volume control. + +Marketing highlighted that current trends emphasized a fancy look and feel, innovative technology, and high ease of use. They detailed peculiar trends such as fruits, vegetables, and spongy materials, which they suggested integrating into the remote control's design to appeal to younger markets. The team envisioned potentially creating a line of home electronics designed to align stylistically with the remote control, considering different colors and styles but always ensuring usability remained a priority. Marketing also suggested the remote control's design could feature fruit or vegetable motifs with corresponding bright colors, although dark colors were also to be considered to cater to varied customer preferences. + +User Interface's presentation was hindered by a lack of new user requirement information, which led them to focus on refining the basic functions already decided upon. They also reflected on the potential addition of an LCD display on the remote control and questioned the practicability and cost-effectiveness of such a feature. + +As the meeting progressed, the team debated the feasibility and desirability of an LCD display on the remote control. The Project Manager voiced concerns that an LCD might be redundant and not align with the design's philosophy of sturdiness and simplicity. Despite the Industrial Designer's enthusiasm for the idea, the Project Manager, backed by the User Interface and Marketing voices, ultimately decided against including an LCD display, citing cost concerns and a lack of added value to the user experience. + +Additionally, the team discussed the remote control's materials at length. They debated the use of innovative materials like titanium and how to balance trendy design with practicality and cost-efficiency. Marketing contributed by suggesting that dark colors and recognizable shapes are preferred by older customers, while younger markets are drawn to colorful designs, leading to discussions about how to implement these insights into their product design. + +The Project Manager championed the importance of substantial planning around the product's material and colors, the necessity of maintaining a balance between being trendy and user-friendly, and ensuring the design would not become tiresome or overwhelming over time. The team agreed that the docking station should complement the remote control in both form and function and considered incorporating the spongy theme here. + +The dialogue brought forth various creative ideas, conflicting perspectives, and considerations for both the physical design and functionality of the remote control, aiming to balance the aesthetic allure and practical usability. By the meeting's end, the team established a clear, albeit tentative, roadmap for how to proceed with designing a remote control that would meet market trends and user requirements within a specified cost frame. The Project Manager ensured that the refined minutes would be accessible, marking the end of a constructive conceptual design meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: OK So uh today we 're looking at a number of uh things we 're trying and uh fortunately for listeners to this uh we lost some of it 's visual but um got tables in front of us . Um what is {disfmarker} what does combo mean ? +PhD C: So combo is um a system where we have these features that go through a network and then this same string of features but low - pass filtered with the low - pass filter used in the MSG features . And so these low - pass filtered goes through M eh {disfmarker} another MLP and then the linear output of these two MLP 's are combined just by adding the values and then there is this KLT . Um the output is used as uh features as well . +Professor B: Um so let me try to restate this and see if I have it right . There is uh {disfmarker} there is the features uh there 's the OGI features and then um those features um go through a contextual {disfmarker} uh l l let 's take this bottom arr one pointed to by the bottom arrow . Um those features go through a contextualized KLT . Then these features also uh get um low - pass filtered +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah so yeah I could perhaps draw this on the blackboard +Professor B: Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The graph , yeah another one . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's good . +PhD C: +Professor B: So +PhD C: So we have these features from OGI that goes through the three paths . +Professor B: Yeah . Three , OK . +PhD C: The first is a KLT using several frames of the features . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: The second path is uh MLP also using nine frames {disfmarker} several frames of features +Professor B: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD C: The third path is this low - pass filter . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh , MLP +Professor B: Aha ! aha ! +PhD C: Adding the outputs just like in the second propose the {disfmarker} the proposal from {disfmarker} for the first evaluation . +Professor B: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And then the KLT and then the two together again . +Professor B: No , the KLT . And those two together . That 's it . +PhD D: Two HTK . +Professor B: OK so that 's {disfmarker} that 's this bottom one . +PhD C: Um . So this is {disfmarker} yeah +Professor B: And so uh and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the one at the top {disfmarker} and I presume these things that uh are in yellow are in yellow because overall they 're the best ? +PhD C: Yeah that 's the reason , yeah . +Professor B: Oh let 's focus on them then so what 's the block diagram for the one above it ? +PhD C: For the f the f first yellow line you mean ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah so it 's uh basically s the same except that we don't have this uh low - pass filtering so we have only two streams . +PhD D: Step . +PhD C: Well . There 's {disfmarker} there 's no low {disfmarker} low - pass processing used as additional feature stream . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Do you e um they mentioned {disfmarker} made some {disfmarker} uh when I was on the phone with Sunil they {disfmarker} they mentioned some weighting scheme that was used to evaluate all of these numbers . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh actually the way things seems to um well it 's uh forty percent for TI - digit , sixty for all the SpeechDat - Cars , well all these languages . Ehm the well match is forty , medium thirty five and high mismatch twenty - five . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and we don't have the TI - digits part yet ? +PhD C: Uh , no . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: But yeah . Generally what you observe with TI - digits is that the result are very close whatever the {disfmarker} the system . +Professor B: OK . And so have you put all these numbers together into a single number representing that ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh not yet . +Professor B: OK so that should be pretty easy to do and that would be good {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . Mmm yeah , yeah . +Professor B: then we could compare the two and say what was better . +PhD C: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Um and how does this compare to the numbers {disfmarker} oh so OGI two is just the top {disfmarker} top row ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: So yeah to {disfmarker} actually OGI two is the {disfmarker} the baseline with the OGI features but this is not exactly the result that they have because they 've {disfmarker} they 're still made some changes in the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} well but uh actually our results are better than their results . Um I don't know by how much because they did not send us the new results +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Uh OK so the one {disfmarker} one place where it looks like we 're messing things up a bit is in the highly mismatched Italian . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: An +PhD C: Yeah there is something funny happening here because {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But there are thirty - six and then sometimes we are {disfmarker} we are {disfmarker} we are around forty - two and +Professor B: Now up +PhD C: but +Professor B: Uh so one of the ideas that you had mentioned last time was having a {disfmarker} a second um silence detection . +PhD C: Yeah . So there are some results here +PhD D: For the Italian . +PhD C: uh so the third and the fifth line of the table +PhD D: For this one . +Professor B: So filt is what that is ? +PhD C: Filt , yeah +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Um yeah so it seems f for the {disfmarker} the well match and mismatched condition it 's uh it brings something . Uh but uh actually apparently there are {disfmarker} there 's no room left for any silence detector at the server side because of the delay . Uh well +Professor B: Oh we can't do it . Oh OK . +PhD C: No . +PhD D: For that {disfmarker} for that we {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: Uh +Professor B: Too bad . Good idea , but can't do it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Except I don't know because they {disfmarker} I think they are still working well . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Uh t two days ago they were still working on this trying to reduce the delay of the silence detector so but yeah if we had time perhaps we could try to find uh some kind of compromise between the delay that 's on the handset and on the server side . Perhaps try to reduce the delay on the handset and {disfmarker} but well hmm For the moment they have this large delay on the {disfmarker} the feature computation and so we don't +Professor B: OK . So Alright so for now at least that 's not there you have some results with low - pass filter cepstrum doesn't have a huge effect but it {disfmarker} but it looks like it you know maybe could help in a couple places . +PhD C: I th +Professor B: Uh little bit . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um and um um Yeah and uh let 's see What else did we have in there ? Uh I guess it makes a l um at this point this is I {disfmarker} I guess I should probably look at these others a little bit uh And you {disfmarker} you yellowed these out uh but uh uh Oh I see yeah that {disfmarker} that one you can't use because of the delay . Those look pretty good . Um let 's see that one Well even the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the second row doesn't look that bad right ? That 's just uh yeah ? +PhD C: Yep . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and that looks like an interesting one too . +PhD D: Mmm yeah . +Professor B: Uh +PhD C: Actually the {disfmarker} yeah the second line is uh pretty much like the first line in yellow except that we don't have this KLT on the first {disfmarker} on the left part of the diagram . We just have the features as they are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Um +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so when we do this weighted measure we should compare the two cuz it might even come out better . And it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little {disfmarker} slightly simpler . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would put that one also as a {disfmarker} as a maybe . Uh and it {disfmarker} yeah and it 's actually {vocalsound} does {disfmarker} does significantly better on the uh uh highly mismatched Italian , so s and little worse on the mis on the MM case , but uh Well yeah it 's worse than a few things +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so uh let 's see how that c that c c see how that comes out on their {disfmarker} their measure and {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are we running this uh for TI - digits or uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Now is TI di {disfmarker} is is that part of the result that they get for the uh development {disfmarker} th the results that they 're supposed to get at the end of {disfmarker} end of the month , the TI - digits are there also ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . It 's included , yeah . +Professor B: Oh OK . OK . And see what else there is here . Um Oh I see {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} I was looking down here at the {disfmarker} the o the row below the lower yellowed one . Uh that 's uh that 's with the reduced uh KLT size {disfmarker} reduced dimensionality . +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: What happens there is it 's around the same and so you could reduce the dimension as you were saying before a bit perhaps . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's significantly worse well but {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's significantly worse {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh it 's {disfmarker} it 's mostly worse . +PhD C: Exc - except for the HM +PhD D: For many a mismatch it 's worse . +PhD C: but +Professor B: Yeah . But it is little . I mean not {disfmarker} not by a huge amount , I don't know . What are {disfmarker} what are the sizes of any of these sets , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure you told me before , but I 've forgotten . So {disfmarker} you know how many words are in uh one of these test sets ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor B: About ? +PhD C: Um it 's {disfmarker} it depends {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} the well matched is generally larger than the other sets and I think it 's around two thousand or three thousand words perhaps , at least . +PhD D: Ye But words {disfmarker} well word {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD C: Hmm ? The words , yeah . S sentences . +PhD D: Sentences . +PhD C: Some sets have five hundred sentences , so . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So the {disfmarker} so the sets {disfmarker} so the test sets are between five hundred and two thousand sentences , let 's say +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: and each sentence on the average has four or five digits or is it {disfmarker} most of them longer or +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah for the Italian even seven digits y more or less +PhD C: It {disfmarker} it d Seven digits . +PhD D: but sometime the sentence have only one digit and sometime uh like uh the number of uh credit cards , something like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right , so between one and sixteen . See the {disfmarker} I mean the reason I 'm asking is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is we have all these small differences and I don't know how seriously to take them , right ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm ? +Professor B: So uh i if {disfmarker} if you had uh just you know {disfmarker} to give an example , if you had uh um if you had a thousand words then uh a {disfmarker} a tenth of a percent would just be one word , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? So {disfmarker} so it wouldn't mean anything . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: um so um yeah it be kind of {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to know what the sizes of these test sets were actually . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: The size that we have ? +PhD C: We could {disfmarker} we could run {disfmarker} run some kind of significance tests +Professor B: Yeah since these {disfmarker} well also just to know the numbers , +PhD C: or +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right . So these {disfmarker} these are word error rates +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so this is on how many words . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah we have the result that the output of the HTK +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: The number of {disfmarker} of sentences , no it 's the number isn't . +PhD C: Yeah sure {disfmarker} sure . Yeah sure . +Professor B: Yeah so anyway if you could just mail out what those numbers are and then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that be great . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um {vocalsound} what else is there here ? Um see the second {disfmarker} second from the bottom it says SIL , but this is some different kind of silence or thing or {disfmarker} what was that ? +PhD C: Uh +PhD D: It the {disfmarker} the output silence of the MLP . +PhD C: Oh yeah I see . +PhD D: It 's only one small experiment to know what happened . To apply also to in include also the {disfmarker} the silence of the MLP we have the fifty - six form and the silence to pick up the silence and we include those . +Professor B: Yes . Uh - huh , uh - huh . The silence plus the KLT output ? Oh so you 're only using the silence . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , because when we apply the KLT +PhD C: No they 're {disfmarker} I think there is this silence in addition to the um KLT outputs +Professor B: No . +PhD D: in addition , yes . +PhD C: it is because we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we just keep uh we don't keep all the dimensions after the KLT +PhD D: In addition t +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +PhD D: and we not s we are not sure if we pick {disfmarker} we have the silence . +PhD C: So we try to add the silence also in addition to the {disfmarker} these twenty - eight dimensions . +Professor B: I see . OK . And what {disfmarker} and what 's OGI forty - five ? The bottom one there ? +PhD C: Uh it 's o it 's OGI two , it 's {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th it 's the features from the first line +PhD D: It 's in fact OGI two . +Professor B: S +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: Right , but I mean what 's the {disfmarker} what does the last row mean ? +PhD C: So it 's uh basically this but without the KLT on the {disfmarker} from the left path . +Professor B: I thought that was the one {disfmarker} I thought that was the second row . So what 's the difference between the second +PhD C: Uh the second line you don't have this combo stuff so you just +Professor B: Oh . +PhD C: uh +Professor B: So this is like the second line but with {disfmarker} with the combo stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And with the {disfmarker} all the output of the combo . +Professor B: OK . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh +Professor B: OK , so {disfmarker} alright so it looks to me {disfmarker} I guess the same {disfmarker} given that we have to take the filt ones out of the {disfmarker} the running because of this delay problem {disfmarker} so it looks to me like the ones you said I agree are {disfmarker} are the ones to look at +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but I just would add the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the second row one +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and then um if we can um +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: oh yeah also when {disfmarker} when they 're using this weighting scheme of forty , thirty - five , twenty - five is that on the percentages or on the raw errors ? I guess it 's probably on the percentages right ? +PhD C: Uh {vocalsound} I guess , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah OK . +PhD C: I guess , yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD C: It 's not clear here . +Professor B: OK . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they 'll argue about it . Um OK so if we can know what {disfmarker} how many words are in each and then um Dave uh Dave promised to get us something tomorrow which will be there as far as they 've gotten {vocalsound} Friday +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and then we 'll operate with that +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and uh how long did it I guess if we 're not doing all these things {disfmarker} if we 're only doing um um I guess since this is development data it 's legitimate to do more than one , right ? I mean ordinarily if {disfmarker} in final test data you don't want to do several and {disfmarker} and take the best +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's not proper but if this is development data we could still look at a couple . +PhD C: Yeah . We can {disfmarker} yeah . Sure . But we have to decide {disfmarker} I mean we have to fix the system on this d on this data , to choose the best +Professor B: Yeah . I Right . +PhD C: and these +Professor B: But the question is when {disfmarker} when do we fix the system , +PhD C: But we could +Professor B: do we fix the system uh tomorrow or do we fix the system on Tuesday ? +PhD C: it d +Professor B: I {disfmarker} Yeah , OK except that we do have to write it up . +PhD C: I think we fixed on Tuesday , yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Also , so +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Um +PhD C: Uh yeah well . Well basically it 's this with perhaps some kind of printing and some {disfmarker} some other @ @ . +Professor B: Right so maybe what we do is we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we uh as soon as we get the data from them we start the training and so forth +PhD C: Yeah but Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but we start the write - up right away because as you say there {disfmarker} there 's only minor differences between these . +PhD C: I think you {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} we could start soon , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Write up something . +Professor B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} you know , I would {disfmarker} I 'd kind of like to see it +PhD C: Um yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe I can {disfmarker} I can edit it a bit uh sure . The {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} what in this si i in this situation is my forte which is English . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh so +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: uh H yeah . Have y have you seen alt d do they have a format for how they want the system descriptions or anything ? +PhD C: Uh not really . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Um There is the format of the table which is {vocalsound} quite impressive . +Professor B: Yeah ? Uh I see . Yes , for those who are listening to this and not looking at it uh it 's not really that impressive , it 's just tiny . It 's all these little categories set a , set b , set c , multi - condition , clean . Uh No mitigation . Wow . Do you know what no {disfmarker} what no mitigation means here ? +PhD C: Um it should be the the problem with the error {disfmarker} channel error +Professor B: Oh that 's probably the {disfmarker} +PhD C: or +Professor B: this is probably channel error stuff +PhD C: well , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: huh ? Oh this is i right , it says right above here channel {disfmarker} channel error resilience , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: yeah . So recognition performance is just the top part , actually . Uh and they have {disfmarker} yes , split between seen databases and non - seen so basically between development and {disfmarker} and evaluation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} right , it 's presumed there 's all sorts of tuning that 's gone on on the see what they call seen databases and there won't be tuning for the uh unseen . Multi - condition {disfmarker} multi - condition . So they have {disfmarker} looks like they have uh uh +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so they splitting up between the TI - digits and everything else , I see . So the everything else is the SpeechDat - Car , that 's the multi multilingual +PhD C: Yeah , so it 's not divided between languages you mean or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , it is . +PhD C: it just +Professor B: It is , but there 's also {disfmarker} there 's these tables over here for the {disfmarker} for the TI - digits and these tables over here for the car data which is {disfmarker} which is I guess all the multilingual stuff +PhD C: Oh yeah . +Professor B: and then uh there 's {disfmarker} they also split up between multi - condition and clean only . +PhD C: Yeah . For TI - digits . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: Yeah , actually yeah . For the TI - digits they want to train on clean and on noisy +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor B: So we 're doing that also , I guess . +PhD C: Uh yeah . But uh we actually {disfmarker} do we have the features ? Yeah . For the clean TI - digits but we did not test it yet . Uh the clean training stuff . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Well anyway , sounds like there 'll be a lot to do just to {vocalsound} work with our partners to fill out the tables {vocalsound} over the next uh next few days +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yes . +Professor B: I guess they have to send it out {disfmarker} let 's see the thirty - first is uh uh Wednesday and I think the {disfmarker} it has to be there by some hour uh European time on Wednesday +PhD C: Hmm - hmm . +Professor B: so {vocalsound} I think basically +PhD D: We lost time uh Wednesday maybe because {vocalsound} that the difference in the time may be {disfmarker} is a long different of the time . +Professor B: E excuse me ? +PhD D: Maybe the Thursday the twelfth of the night of the Thurs - thirty - one is {disfmarker} is not valid in Europe . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: We don't know is happening . +Professor B: Yes , so I mean {disfmarker} I think we have to actually get it done Tuesday +PhD D: Tuesday . +Professor B: right because I {disfmarker} I think +PhD C: Yeah , well . +Professor B: uh Uh +PhD C: Except if {disfmarker} if it 's the thirty - one at midnight or I don't know {disfmarker} we can {vocalsound} still do some work on Wednesday morning . +Professor B: yeah well . W i is but is {disfmarker} is it midni I thought it was actually something like five PM on {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , well . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: was like {disfmarker} I thought it was five PM or something , I didn't think it was midnight . I thought they said they wanted everything by +PhD D: Yeah , five PM . +Professor B: well , so five PM their time is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if +PhD D: Not five PM , three PM . +Professor B: three PM . +PhD D: Three PM . +Professor B: Alright , that 's six in the morning here . +PhD C: It 's d no . +PhD D: Uh no three {disfmarker} three A - three PM ? +PhD C: No , we are wondering about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hour that we have to eh I don't know if it 's three PM {disfmarker} it 's +PhD D: Oh yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Three PM here is in Europe midnight . +PhD C: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's midnight but +Professor B: Yes , yes , but I didn't think it was midnight that it was due , I thought it was due at some hour during the day like five PM or something . +PhD D: Oh OK . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Professor B: In which case +PhD D: maybe . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh well we should look but my assumption is that we basically have to be done Tuesday . Um so then next Thursday we can sort of have a little aftermath +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: but then {disfmarker} then we 'll actually have the new data which is the German and the Danish +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: but that really will be much less work because uh the system will be fixed +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so all we 'll do is take whatever {vocalsound} they have and {disfmarker} and uh and run it through the process . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh we won't be changing the training on anything +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there 'll be no new training , there 'll just be new HTK runs , so that 's means in some sense we can kind of relax from this after {disfmarker} after Tuesday and {disfmarker} and uh maybe next meeting we can start talking a little bit about where we want to go from here uh in terms of uh the research . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um you know what things uh did you think of when you were uh doing this process that uh you just didn't really have time to adequately work on uh uh so +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: What ? +Grad A: Oh , Stephane always has these great ideas and {disfmarker} oh , but uh we don't have time . +PhD C: Sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I 'm not sure these are great ideas . +Professor B: But they 're ideas . Yeah ? Oh , that was good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh also it 's still true that uh I think it 's true that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we at least got fairly consistent i improved results by running uh the uh neural net transformation in parallel with the features +PhD C: But +Professor B: rather than uh in sequence which was {disfmarker} was your suggestion and that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems to have been borne out . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The fact that none of these are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} you know , enormous is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is not too surprising {disfmarker} most improvements aren't enormous and {vocalsound} uh +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: some of them are but uh I mean you have something really really wrong {vocalsound} and you fix it {vocalsound} you can get big and really enormous improvements +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} um Cuz our best improvements over the years that we 've gotten from finding bugs , but Anyway OK well I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I see where we are and everybody knows what they 're doing and is there {disfmarker} is there anything else we should talk about or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} are we done ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I think it 's OK um . We so basically we will {disfmarker} I think we 'll try to {disfmarker} to focus on these three architectures and {disfmarker} and perhaps I was thinking also a fourth one with just {disfmarker} just a single KLT because we did not really test that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: removing all these KLT 's and putting one single KLT at the end . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean that would be pretty low maintenance to try it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh if you can fit it in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh I have {disfmarker} yeah I do have one other piece of information which uh I should tell people outside of this group too uh I don't know if we 're gonna need it uh but uh Jeff up at the uh University of Washington has uh gotten a hold of a uh uh some kind of server farm of uh of ten uh uh multiprocessor uh IBM machines RS six thousands +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh so I think each one is four processors or something or {disfmarker} I don't know , eight hundred megahertz or something and there 's four processors in a box and there 's ten boxes and there 's some kind of ti so if {disfmarker} you know he 's got a lot of processing power and um we 'd have to schedule it but if we have some big jobs and we wanna {disfmarker} wanna {disfmarker} wanna run them he 's {disfmarker} he 's offering it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . It 's uh when he was here eh uh he {disfmarker} he used i not only every machine here but every machine on campus as far as I could tell , so {disfmarker} so in some ways he just got his payback , but uh again I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll end up with {disfmarker} if we 're gonna be CPU limited on anything that we 're doing in this group +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but if {disfmarker} if we are that 's an offer . OK well uh you guys doing great stuff so that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's really neat and uh we 'll uh uh g don't think we need to uh um Oh well the other thing I guess that I will say is that uh the digits that we 're gonna record momentarily is starting to get {disfmarker} are starting to get into a pretty good size collection and um in addition to the SpeechDat stuff we will have those to work with really pretty soon now so that 's {disfmarker} that 's another source of data . Um which is s under somewhat better control and that we can {disfmarker} we can make measurements of the room the {disfmarker} uh that {disfmarker} you know if we feel there 's other measurements we don't have that we 'd like to have we can make them and uh Dave and I were just talking about that a little while ago so uh that 's another {disfmarker} another possibility for this {disfmarker} this kind of work . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: K , uh if nobody has anything else maybe we should go around do {disfmarker} do our digits {disfmarker} do our digits duty . OK . OK I 'll start . Uh , let me say that again . OK . I guess we 're done . +","In a detailed interdisciplinary exchange, Professor B and PhD candidates C and D discuss a complex audio/visual technical evaluation initiative centered around speech recognition systems and feature processing techniques. Despite the loss of visual aids for listeners, the discourse reveals that they have numerous tables and diagrams at their disposal to guide their conversation. + +As PhD C explains, a central concept under discussion is ""combo,"" which refers to a system wherein features pass through a network, and the same features—after being low-pass filtered—are processed through an MLP (Multilayer Perceptron). The linear outputs of the two MLPs are then added together, after which they proceed through a KLT (Karhunen-Loève Transform), with the output serving as the features. + +Professor B, aiming for clarity, repeats back the explanation with slight confusion around the details, which prompts PhD C to offer to illustrate the concept on a blackboard. The discussion evolves into the description of three processing paths for features originating from the OGI (Oregon Graduate Institute) database: one with a KLT and several frames of features, a second with another MLP again using several frames of features, and a third that involves a low-pass filter followed by an MLP. + +PhD C acknowledges that certain lines of data, highlighted in yellow, represent the most optimal results. However, Professor B seeks further explanation, especially regarding an upper diagram that lacks low-pass filtering, effectively reducing its streams to two as opposed to three. + +The discussion then turns to a weighting scheme used to evaluate different systems, mentioning the proportions for TI-digit and SpeechDat-Cars databases, and the need to consolidate various performance numbers into a single representative figure. + +An interesting point arises when they touch upon regional discrepancies within their datasets, such as the highly mismatched Italian data behaving oddly. There is a suggestion to consider a second silence detection process, though constraints related to delays on the server side may hinder its implementation. + +Professor B and the PhD candidates analyze several rows of data, including various filtering approaches and reduced dimensionality applications. Some results show minor improvements but others yield declines in performance, leading to discussions about the significance of small differences given the sizes of their test sets which range from hundreds to a couple of thousand words or sentences. + +There's a focus on readiness for an impending deadline as the group acknowledges the need to finalize their system by Tuesday—given Europe's time difference—before submitting their results for an evaluative process. + +PhD C suggests focusing on three or possibly four different analysis architectures before the deadline, including potential complex variants and simple KLT applications. The group expresses interest in whether they could utilize the computational resources offered by Jeff at the University of Washington, indicating they might not be CPU-bound by the upcoming tasks but appreciating the resource that could facilitate further research. + +Toward the end of the exchange, the prospects of utilizing a new collection of recorded digits are mentioned, offering additional controlled data for their experiments. The meeting concludes with members ready to perform their duty of recording digits for the database, indicative of the hands-on nature of their work. + +Overall, the conversation demonstrates a working meeting where various computational strategies are evaluated and discussed in preparation for a significant project milestone that involves submitting system evaluations to an external organization. The discourse is highly technical, focused on the processing and integration of speech recognition features with an awareness of the practical challenges and opportunities in the field of audio machine learning." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , welcome to the second meeting of this uh design group . Um {vocalsound} I'll briefly go through the uh notes of the of the last meeting uh just done in in note form and I haven't attributed anything to individuals , because we're working strictly as a team here and uh n nobody's working equally , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: so uh . Um we we s we saw that the the problems with existing remote controls were the uh b a boring shape and boring colour . Um and and we s we saw that the um what we needed to do was to to make sure the device um controls several items , that switching was easy , that you shouldn't need to point the thing at uh anything in particular , um that it need to be contoured to make it interesting , that the keys might be concave , simply because that hasn't been done before that we know of . Um should have interchangeable fascias so people can personalise it , um illuminated so that people can see it in dark rooms . Um and that people might want it as as {disfmarker} in addition to their existing remote controls . Um {vocalsound} and that it sh it should just always work , whenever you uh um mm uh use it . And that it shouldn't be too small , mm that it it gets lost . Um . {gap} Now uh uh I'll shortly ask for for three three presentations . Uh before I do that , however , I will go through some new project requirements that um {disfmarker} the the management have placed on us and uh will be challenging in terms of what we discussed at the first meeting . Um the uh the ma the management has had it's own thoughts on this and uh the they don't necessarily agree with with what we uh we thought . Um and and then we'll {disfmarker} as a result of that we will then talk through the the functions that we see the the device um actually b carrying out , and we have uh forty minutes to do this in and I uh {disfmarker} Anyway . Okay . Now , the n the new requirements are um the the management team see that um teletext is no longer of any importance given the uh the rise of the internet . Um and and they want it only to cover televisions . Um now , what is not q quite clear from their directive is whether they mean th they don't want it to cover teletext or whether they don't want it to cover , you know , videos , D_V_D_s , um satellite boxes , which uh {disfmarker} I mean we saw as being fundamental to the uh to the exercise . The um the actual wording of the directive is that it should cover television only . Um and on that basis um I I think we we need to bear that in mind , um but possibly uh keep at the backs of our minds that the reality that people even when they uh no longer {disfmarker} they don't look at teletext anymore , they certainly do look at other things . Um {vocalsound} the device has to incorporate the company logo and colours . Um the the logo uh being at b the bottom of the screen there , the the the two R_s in grey against uh a yellow background . Um now this doesn't {vocalsound} necessarily mean that we have to give up some of our ideas about making it attractive to the t to the market . But uh do do introduce some some constraints as to how we might do that . Um it also has to be simple , which to some extent goes along w with the first one , and that {disfmarker} we've already said that it must be simple 'cause that's what people want anyway . Um but they also want it to be simple to get it to the market quickly , which um mm {vocalsound} uh is is is their choice , but uh um we we need to talk that through . Um okay , so uh after the meeting it'll be summarised and uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um notes sent out and uh etcetera . Okay , so {vocalsound} we'll first of all mm have individual reports from everybody . Um again I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} there is no order of precedence here um so I I I'll leave it up to you to {disfmarker} who who who thinks they would like to go go first ? +Marketing: Uh I don't mind . {gap} +Project Manager: P fine . +Marketing: Uh can I steal the cable ? +Project Manager: Oh sorry , you can indeed . +Marketing: Cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got a {disfmarker} how do I start there ? +Project Manager: Oh , if you click on the um uh the one that that looks like a projection screen , no the one to the right of that . That one . +Marketing: That one . Cool . Well these are functionality requirements from the {disfmarker} our our guys down in the the research lab . Took hundred people and covered all the aspects of what um is needed by people and what they want to see . Um {vocalsound} everything kinda from functionality and how individual functions are {disfmarker} how mu how how often they're used and how much their necessary and stuff . And general opinions about current current remotes . See that , as we kinda noticed , seventy five percent of people find their remote controls ugly . So some kind of a new style should be incorporated that's less ugly {vocalsound} . Uh along with um looking less ugly , if it looks better , eighty percent of people said they'd spend more money on it . Which is a a plus for us , if we can make it look better , it'd be uh more cost effective and we can put the price up . Current remote controls do not match the operating behaviour of the user . I can empl I kinda take that to mean as um {vocalsound} they they don't uh {disfmarker} they , yeah , they only use {disfmarker} they only work for the television or yeah like as in in my flat I've got six remote controls for a stereo system , a digital box , a D_V_D_ player , a video player and T_V_ . If it was uh {disfmarker} I mean th my behaviour is to use multiple things at the same time and multiple remotes aren't really matched well to my behaviour . {vocalsound} Uh again , seventy five percent is {disfmarker} seventy five percent of users say they zap a lot . I took to mean that they just {disfmarker} they use it a lot , they use it regularly rather than standing up and manually change channels or volume {gap} . {vocalsound} And uh yeah , uh I think the big issue is fifty percent users only use ten percent of the buttons , 'cause uh wh if we got a remote that like {disfmarker} well we'll have some buttons taken off by the lack of teletext , but uh oh and we're going to see uh on the {disfmarker} uh that some of the functions like audio settings aren't h hardly ever used and used very {disfmarker} aren't considered relevant by the user . So I think maybe fewer buttons , which also make the design look sleeker , I dunno . Uh um yeah and uh frustrations of like people losing remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I dunno maybe some kind of system of you press a button on the T_V_ or maybe that's b it would have to incorporate {gap} , but like some kind of system where you can f use something else to find the remote control . Maybe like it'll beep or something . And um , yep , the uh time taken to learn new remote controls is {disfmarker} Uh don't want to make it too complicated , easy to use for uh new {disfmarker} like first time users and stuff . And uh repetitive strain injury , I suppose we should make it more comfortable and make ma possibly even use {disfmarker} have to make it , yeah , fewer buttons , like I was saying about the whole mice {disfmarker} the mouse idea of it feels more comfortable . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Maybe don't even have to hold it as such . +Project Manager: Gosh , must be some telly addicts out there if they get R_S_I_ from their television remote , is all I can say . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh yeah . It also asked um if we would {disfmarker} if people would pay more for speech recognition +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: and younger people say they would . And uh there was another section on our {disfmarker} on the report for uh L_C_D_ displays , but the data wasn't there , so . I don't actually know what the results for that were , +Project Manager: Mm . Right . Mm . +Marketing: so . {vocalsound} May be incrementally emitting , but yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I must say that um the uh {disfmarker} I c can't remember what {vocalsound} um f you know phone service I was using the other day , but that had sorta speech recognition which worked uh remarkably well , so that is indeed a uh um a thought +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it would cut out the R_S_I_ as well if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it it cuts out uh {disfmarker} I was was gonna say , you can't get a lot of R_S_I_ , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: j just get jaw ache . Okay , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , um {disfmarker} oh yeah , so possibly the speech recognition is possibly something could add into the design . Oh , I've got some other things I couldn't fit onto this presentation . Um . You see this okay ? Almost {disfmarker} no ? It's {disfmarker} sorry it's a bit {gap} . I'll read out to you . Uh functionality , uh like people's opinions on functionality , the relevance to the remote and how often they're used . So um like the power . Using the using the d swi the power switch to switch on T_V_ is a high relevance of nine , but it's not frequently used . You see what I mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whereas channel selection , which is very high relevance +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: is used the most . So m we can maybe even start to cut down on {disfmarker} or I was possibly even thinking of a design that maybe some of the buttons are hidden from everyday use . Maybe like uh a folding ledge or something . So that we can maybe go into the channel settings and the audio settings , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: which are low relevance +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: and rarely used . And keep the v volume selection and channel selection very easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be {disfmarker} oh uh I was just gonna say uh maybe like the flip phones that they use ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Have you seen the new mo mobile phones +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: that flip out and they have the like texting , and then the numbers on one side , +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: so +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: you could have the most {vocalsound} used buttons on top and flip it out or something . +Project Manager: Hmm , hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , like the one that like slides back +Project Manager: Uh . Should we actually bite the bullet here ? +Marketing: and the buttons are concealed underneath . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: If people really don't use those buttons to any extent at all um {vocalsound} remove them altogether . +Marketing: Just remove them completely ? +Project Manager: We we could actually have we could actually have a remote control with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That might be the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I wonder whether we could get the remote control with no buttons at all if we went for voice recognition , given that um the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um now the the age structure we were looking at {disfmarker} um I mean w we had usage by age structure , what we didn't have was what proportion of people using remotes were in those particular age groups . Now do we know whether they {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: Forty {disfmarker} no sorry {disfmarker} for forty five to fifty five age group , uh to put myself right in the middle of it , um u use remote controls to a great extent . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um no this is for {disfmarker} pay more for speech recognition . +Project Manager: That would 've speech recogn right . So , we're looking at {disfmarker} um well again , we don't know the relative proportion {disfmarker} the relative numbers in the age groups . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: If we wanted something different , truly different , then the buttonless remote control w would be it . +Industrial Designer: P Well the only problem I can think of with that is if you've got a lot of people that don't wanna be bothered learning how to use new rem remote controls . If you just kind of take away everything that they're used to knowing , that's gonna be quite a change . +Project Manager: But if you just lift it up and say , channel one or B_B_C_ {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or even {disfmarker} I mean you could even just have it left on . +User Interface: Maybe i +Marketing: You could just put it down once on top your T_V_ and never have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , have a big kind of like the satellite box or the cable box +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and have it just go on the T_V_ and then it doesn't matter where in the room you are , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you won't lose it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It c well it {disfmarker} I can I can see technical problems with that in terms of the , you know , the sound from the television , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: because if somebody actually on the television says uh uh , you know , I_T_V_ and you're watching B_B_C_ then then it might um change itself , +Marketing: {vocalsound} B_B_C_ one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it probably needs to be um {disfmarker} possibly actually need a button on it +User Interface: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: just to activate it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Or or something just to identify that you've lifted it up and it's use . And and then just say , oh I don't know , a thought and and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh I mean that that would certainly be uh truly different . {vocalsound} Um 'cause uh you know audio settings , nought point eight percent . I mean if they weren't there , {vocalsound} would people miss them ? +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: But look at the importance of them . The volume settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Relevance of two out of ten , +Project Manager: Vol volume , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yes um +Industrial Designer: They're not used often +Project Manager: th {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but they are quite important when they're used . +Project Manager: w we need to s identify things that {vocalsound} people actually need +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and it's a function of frequency and relevance . And um I would say ignoring ig ignoring power for the moment , um the channel and volume +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and th w w given given that we've been told to ignore teletext . Uh channel and volume are the only ones that +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh would appear to be essential . +Marketing: Stand out . +Project Manager: Um . So {disfmarker} if we can design something that that looks interesting , know , or looks different , um incorporates the the logo and and the colours and um we can still have our interchangeable fascias even if it's {gap} the yellow and grey , um and uh I dunno , buttons or or buttons as an option . +Marketing: Uh I just had a thought actually , sorry to interrupt . +Project Manager: Do , please . +Marketing: Uh you were saying about um it could {disfmarker} technical problems of like uh someone on the television saying a channel number and it changed {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: we could maybe have like an activation word . +Project Manager: You cer certainly could . +Marketing: 'Cause I've seen I've seen this used on computers before , where you just {disfmarker} you address the remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depe uh i depends whether um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you address the computer , and then give it a command . +Project Manager: if we want to make this so simple that anybody can walk into the room and lift it up and say +Marketing: Oh I see . Oh yeah , I see . +Project Manager: B_B_C_ one . Um okay , I mean you could print {disfmarker} actually print it on the uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: device itself . Um . +Marketing: I mean I'm just thinking of the point of view of peop you could still like lose this remote . +Project Manager: S th this I th {vocalsound} that's always gonna be a problem I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um and I I I s so I suppose one um {disfmarker} could make it so desirable that if people lose it they immediately go out and buy another one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway , sorry , carry on . Do you want to just carry on with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh no +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I interrupted you , +Project Manager: no no , no uh b I was in the middle of in the middle of your report there . {vocalsound} +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . Oh okay . Um well , I was just kinda wrapping up there . Yeah , +Project Manager: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I was thinking um , yeah , maybe such things are relevant . We could make things much more f I think the the eighty percent of people would spend more on uh a remote uh that looks better , combined with uh decrease the {disfmarker} or take out the limited functio functions that we don't really use much . {gap} alright take out teletext , but as for channel settings and stuff it might it might um turn people somewhe peop some people that want the whole functionality away . But , since {disfmarker} if we're marketing a more kind of fashionable approach then it'd {disfmarker} it would be fashion and fashion over practicality . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . S s we could {disfmarker} we could make it dual function {gap} voice recognition and {gap} still have buttons on it um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , we could , yeah . We c yeah , +Project Manager: 'cause we're {disfmarker} +Marketing: we could even have it as like a {disfmarker} yeah the buttons control this and the voice functions control the f things that you would do all the time , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Certainly could . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So uh yeah , if we could uh {disfmarker} power on and channel selection and and volume selection , wouldn't have to really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} The {disfmarker} I mean the the advantage of doing away the buttons altogether is it makes the thing cheaper . +Marketing: Yeah and probably it would look better as well . +Project Manager: No , it cou certainly opens up the possibility for making it uh , you know , visually very distinctive . +Marketing: Yeah . yeah . +Project Manager: Um 'cause you know , it does not have to be a oblong box . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Lined with numbered buttons and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . Okay , who {disfmarker} sorry , have you have you finished there Andy ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah , that's everything . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Um {vocalsound} given that we've already had a extensive discussion uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay well , I can do mine . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Do you want the cable ? +User Interface: Yeah , let's see if I can make this work . Um . +Industrial Designer: Oh , you have to hit like function and F_ something . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ eight . +User Interface: Is it doing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Dunno . +Marketing: Uh , give it about twenty seconds , or so . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Ah , there we go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , it's going . +User Interface: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Okay , so this is just about the technical functions . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: So the method , I looked online for examples of other similar products and then just kind of was trying to brainstorm some possible design ideas and um identify what the necessary things are , what people are {disfmarker} what you really wanna have a remote control do . Um and then there are two different kinds that I found . There's a user centred one and an engineering centred one which I will have pictures of and then we kinda have to decide which one this should be . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So these are the two different ones . This one um {disfmarker} this is the user centred , it has uh quite a few mm uh um fewer buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then this is the engineering centred , which has a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and probably this is one that people complain about , about having too many buttons that you don't use . So basically , what a remote control is is you {disfmarker} it's to send messages to the television set , you know , turn on , off , switch the channels and the volume and things such as that . And so for this product it's gonna be television only , and then it has to have the uh logos for the company and the colours . And so , for my personal preferences , I think this one is easier to use and has quite a {disfmarker} you know , fewer buttons . Um we want something that sends messages easily to the television and I was kind of wondering about this example that they have . It looks kind of narrow at the top , and I was thinking maybe if it were wider at the top , +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: then that would be easier . Um {vocalsound} and so we have to decide what's gonna make our product different . E the unique style , maybe have it light up so it's visible in the dark , um the changeable face-plates , and the lighting up and visible I was {disfmarker} when we were talking about havi losing it , maybe to have a button on the television that you press and it {disfmarker} maybe if it makes a noise or lights up or something like that , so it's easier to find if someone has hidden under the couch or something like that . So that's my presentation . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , can I um {disfmarker} I'm actually gonna use the um {disfmarker} it's gonna cause great technical problems over here . I'm actually gonna use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: F they probably clip to you . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they might be movable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , they're all {disfmarker} they're not connected to anything on the table , you just leave 'em on and walk around with 'em . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , rather than the uh the the traditional {disfmarker} in fact , um I won't even go that far . Um something like this shape , you know , sort of something that you can {disfmarker} that's sort of a more vertical shape , um that you you sort of hold in your hand , um , well I'm trying to think uh uh uh l uh l such as {disfmarker} I mean um something you hold up like that , possibly with a couple of buttons like that , but with the the entire top with the , you know , the uh the infrared or whatever source . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh so that you know , it's flying off in all directions , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so that uh um uh {vocalsound} again the {disfmarker} n need to look at the the the technicalities of um actually achieving that in terms of whether the , you know , the power requirements of the uh {disfmarker} such a source , um you know , compromise the {disfmarker} our our need for uh you know , it it being um mm permanently uh you know , available . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh whether whether different technology {disfmarker} um I mean th all all these remotes are presumably infrared , and like they have been for a long time . Uh we we possibly need to be looking at at at something different , um you know , short range , not like the old uh radio remote controls where you'd change next door's telly when you change yours . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but uh uh I think basically i if we're going for {disfmarker} i if minimum number of buttons is our priority , then we should , as I say , r know , really bite the bullets and and reduce the buttons to absolute minimum , you know , possibly with backup channel and volume buttons and on off . Um and nothing else . {vocalsound} Um so that it can al it could uh almost end up like that , but again , except that um {disfmarker} you know the risk of losing it . Um anyway okay um so Kate , wh what are your uh your thoughts on this ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , mm . {gap} +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Which one does this plug into ? +User Interface: Hmm I think it's all there . +Industrial Designer: That one . +User Interface: H +Industrial Designer: I can't {disfmarker} did you {gap} {disfmarker} could you see it on you screen when it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's kind of strange . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Anyways . Um alright , yeah , so um I'll just do my presentation on the working design uh . {vocalsound} Oh there we go . Okay um just at the m yeah the whole sort of method of how the remote control works . Uh the basic function of the remote control is to send messages to another sh system , the the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ player or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and it does this uh by {disfmarker} well , you need {disfmarker} to start off you need an energy source {vocalsound} and this energy source will feed into an integrated circuit chip and the circuit chip is the part that actually composes the different messages uh within the remote um which will then be sent to the uh the television , the D_V_D_ to tell that what to do . Um and you need a user interface , which controls the chip and thus the messages and uh the user interface is {disfmarker} that's basically just you kn the s sorta design of the actual remote which you hold in your hands and what buttons will be on it . Um {disfmarker} Oh shoot . Okay . Uh just general findings . Uh what we need uh technically speaking for the remote control is some sort of energy source , {vocalsound} uh some sort of user interface , which I think we've mostly been talking about the user interface and the design of that . Um a circuit chip within that to uh control and send the messages and um a sender and receiver . And um {disfmarker} oops . Uh-huh . This is just sort of a little schematic diagram of what we're looking for . Uh this just kinda represents the energy source +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which feeds into the circuit chip uh which maybe then we could have that feed into a switch which would send signals f to um {vocalsound} a subcomponent and on to a light bulb between {disfmarker} so it'll light up once we start {disfmarker} once you start pressing buttons . Um also send signals to the um infrared bulb , which will be the part that actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what ? Sends signals to the the television . And then you've got your happy little T_V_ watcher there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so my personal preferences {disfmarker} I I just think we need sorta big uh energy source that won't die out , uh perhaps some sort of rechargeable battery or a battery dock you could place it in , so it'd constantly be charged , so you wouldn't have to uh be worrying about it running out of batteries and not changing channels for you . Uh a wide range uh sender-receiver , so that you can hit the buttons from basically anywhere in the room , and the channel'll still be changed . Uh also definitely a user-friendly interface {vocalsound} um and I think we've all sort of mentioned adding a a locating device on it , so when it does get stuck under the couch cushions , as they inevitably do , you can find them easily . And that's pretty much it . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh it seems seems to me there are a number of fundamental decisions to make before we um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} +Project Manager: I think your point about the the big energy source is uh a very valid one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I don't suppose we've got any statistics on the the life expectancy of uh remote controls , particularly sort of independent ones . Um given you know , the number of things you buy these days , which you know , have a a a lithium whatever battery in , that's uh , you know never needs replacing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um perhaps we should have the the disposable remote control , uh um you know , one {disfmarker} some sort of typical usage . You know , the the the battery will last know , five , ten years . By which time {disfmarker} I mean when all's said and done , the digital television {vocalsound} will be taking over in that time scale . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh uh p perhaps we should , know , reduce the uh , you know , the sort of moving parts even more by not even having a battery compartment and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just having one that's guaranteed to last five to ten years ? +Project Manager: Yeah , and if if anybody manages to run it down , we'll we'll give 'em a new one . +Industrial Designer: Oh , cool . {vocalsound} Yeah , fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um it's , you know , it's {disfmarker} what it saves in cost and you know there there's a {disfmarker} well , it's actually a marketing gimmick . I mean it's hardly a gimmick , it's uh it's totally practical . Uh so I th think you know the idea of a rechargeable one is um uh unless you're really high tech and it sort of just recharges itself if it's n by , you know , magnetic waves or whatever , if if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could have like uh {disfmarker} know like a cordless phone in your house it s got like a base that sits there all the time . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: Are are people really gonna use it though ? Um . +User Interface: Yeah , people are pro +Marketing: {vocalsound} I suppose , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would think that people might forget {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean people forget to put their cordless phones back on there , +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +User Interface: so . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} I mean I know that somei times my my wife goes out in the morning and says oh I should have put the phone on to charge +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and then then she's had those for so long that if she hasn't worked that out by now . Um . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I only remember to charge my cell phone uh when battery dies . {vocalsound} And that's pretty much {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When it {disfmarker} yeah , wh when it's died is a problem . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , when it turns itself off , that's when I plug it in , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah , {gap} so uh um +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what so wh what what do we think about the um the the permanent mm battery ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think that's a good idea . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Uh . That sounds pretty good , yeah . +Project Manager: Is the uh {disfmarker} you know , we we we are really going for the ultimate in ex uh external simplicity here . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um you know , cut cost within the manufacturing and uh you know , if we have a high tech interior , then then that that sh may well be cost effective . +User Interface: Do they make batteries that last that long ? +Project Manager: I mean th th certainly . Um I can't think of anything off the s top of my head , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They usually have the little light uh {vocalsound} source , +Project Manager: but there are certainly things that you buy . I mean calculators for example . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the heck they're called , +User Interface: Yeah , they have that little solar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: the {disfmarker} but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Som well some do , +Industrial Designer: yeah , the little cells that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean th th but there are battery ones +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that um are you know , sort of permanently sealed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: In in fact I'd {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Most of them , don't they have sort of a combination of the two , like when there is light , they'll work off the light , +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: and if there isn't , they'll kick into this battery , +Project Manager: uh uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so we can maybe do something like that whereas there is a battery , but if there's enough light , then it's using the light , so that it's not actually draining the battery all the time , but you will have the battery there for when you need it . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , I I mean th th this needs going t into the technology a bit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean the the actual time that a remote control is actually operating +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I would think is i is is probably , you know , no more than minutes in its entire life . Um . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it depend if it's {disfmarker} uh depends who who's using it , who's just sitting there clicking clicking clicking clicking , +User Interface: Yeah , some people are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If , but I say if if people are getting R_S_I_ from it then uh then uh then then perhaps we're looking at the wrong market +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , {vocalsound} then they're clicking a lot , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} W +Project Manager: n +Marketing: like like this um this uh market research thing says number of times per hour that it's used , channel selection a hundred and sixty eight +User Interface: {vocalsound} Per hour ? +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: times per hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} That's a lot . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , I must admit I hadn't um {disfmarker} I'd I'd missed that . That does sound excessive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: But then again , if you think it {disfmarker} of the amount of , you know amount of use it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less than a second , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , and and I I don't I don't even know whether the I don't even know whether the s the signal lasts as long as you actually keep the button pressed , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: or whether it's just a +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: sorta tenth of a second , no matter how long you press it for , I don't know I don't actually know . Um . +User Interface: Though I think with digital T_V_ , like I know on my cable box , you're not supposed to do that because the channel can't keep up with it if you just press it like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: so you're supposed to use the menu and go through the different +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: channels that way instead of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , so I've got a message to say five minutes , I dunno how long ago that appeared . Um 'cause we're we're getting +User Interface: Uh-oh . +Project Manager: um {disfmarker} right , so I'd {disfmarker} I need to sum up very quickly here um . {vocalsound} We're looking at extreme simplicity . We're looking at a radically different shape . Possibly no buttons at all um , but if you can incorporate um channel change and volume buttons um in into the design , then then that's fine . Um in the {disfmarker} I mean the the role of the of the um the user interface des designer becomes b you know more important here , because , you know , shape is no longer an a uh um a serious constraint . But we clearly only need th the main buttons , although , uh if {disfmarker} clearly only need the main functions . Um I don't see why we shouldn't go for voice recognition um and the the only buttons that I think we need are channel control , volume control and on off . Um it needs to incorporate the corporate logo , uh the the grey and yellow colour scheme and {vocalsound} there's no reason why we can't introduce um interchangeable uh covers . {vocalsound} Um uh d so does that accurately summarise what we've discussed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . We are doing just the television . +User Interface: Oh I just have one question . So are we doing just the television or are we doing {disfmarker} so not D_V_D_ players , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: we okay , okay . +Project Manager: I think that's quite clear from the the information that we've been given , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: no ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , like in the email of television only . In fact they're {gap} in the constraints email that I got . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Didn't you mention the teletext , just television only ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah well th that's one I s that's one I sent you , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which which was my interpretation of uh of the uh {disfmarker} what came down from from head office . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's {vocalsound} that that that that's their uh their view . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh we can all give some thought to that uh for for the next meeting , thank you very much indeed . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","The summary of the meeting begins with the project manager welcoming the design group to their second meeting. The project manager provides a recap of the previous meeting's discussions, emphasizing that no individual is singled out in the documentation, as the team is working cohesively and equitably. The problems identified with current remote controls include their uninteresting shape and dull color. The design group has established that the new remote control needs to feature easy switching between devices, removing the requirement of pointing directly at devices, an interesting contoured design, potentially concave keys, interchangeable fascias for personalization, illumination for low-light visibility, and reliable functionality. Importantly, the remote control should also not be too small to prevent it from being easily misplaced. + +The project manager mentions that new requirements from management will pose challenges to these concepts. Management insists that the new remote control should only support television functions due to the declining relevance of teletext and the rise of the internet, although the team acknowledges that people continue to use other devices like DVD players and satellite boxes. Furthermore, management has demanded that the company logo and colors (grey ""Rs"" on a yellow background) be incorporated into the design. Simplicity for ease of use and a rapid market launch are also high on management's agenda. + +Marketing, represented by Andy, shares insights from research, which included a survey of 100 people. Findings suggest that a large majority find their remote controls unattractive and that there is a willingness to pay more for aesthetically appealing designs. Current remotes do not necessarily align with user behaviors, often requiring multiple remotes for different devices. Additionally, it's reported that many users do not utilize a significant portion of the buttons on their remotes, highlighting an opportunity to simplify the design. Marketing suggests a potential for a ""find my remote"" feature and technologies like speech recognition to enhance usability and appeal, especially among younger demographics. + +The team starts brainstorming various technical and design solutions and the implications of management's directive to limit the remote to only television control. They deliberate over the possibility of a remote without any buttons, relying purely on voice recognition, or perhaps a hybrid model that maintains essential buttons for tactile feedback. + +The idea of a long-lasting, non-replaceable battery or an ambient light-powered battery is considered, aiming to reduce the need for user maintenance and create a sleek, simplified remote. They muse over the possibilities that the future of remote control design holds, potentially diverging considerably from current conventions. Concerns are raised about user adoption and the learning curve associated with drastic design changes. + +In their discussions, they touch upon various innovative concepts such as using an activation word to prevent accidental channel changes triggered by background conversations, utilizing a rechargeable battery, having a locating feature to find misplaced remotes, and ponder the technical and practical feasibility of these ideas. + +In summary, the main takeaways of the meeting include confirming the focus on a television-only remote control based on management directives and the need for a unique and simplified design that integrates voice recognition, corporate branding, and possibly the elimination of redundant buttons, leading to a potentially groundbreaking approach in remote control design. The project manager wraps up the meeting by reinforcing these decisions and suggesting that the team reflect on these points before the next session." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right , so start of the first meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . Right , so agenda of the first meeting . Where we uh {disfmarker} We have twenty five minutes for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We uh are to get acquainted . So does everyone want to say who they are ? {gap} that seem sensible ? +Marketing: Yeah . I'm Robin . I'm the Marketing Manager . +User Interface: I'm Louisa . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nick . I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: And I'm Alastair and I'm the project leader . {vocalsound} Alright okay , so tool training . Um . {vocalsound} Project plan . So does anyone have any uh thoughts as to the tool training that uh is required ? +Industrial Designer: Tool training +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by tool training . +Project Manager: Neither am I {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see , so we shouldn't really be {disfmarker} Oh right okay , so . So we have the project team , which is to um {vocalsound} basically to come up with a new r remote control device . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh we have uh {disfmarker} the starting base was the original {vocalsound} which has been in existence now for a period of time . And uh our idea is to uh to make the new remote control device uh more user friendly than the previous one , and to {vocalsound} to be trendier , to be with it , and therefore to uh to get a bigger market share and bigger audience . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} method of doing this is uh split up as you can see into uh {vocalsound} the functional design , the conceptional design , and the detailed design . So um {vocalsound} in each of these uh phases we'll uh basically be handing over to yourselves , the designers of this uh this device . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And uh having uh meetings so that we can uh during the course of the day um come up with a better better inst implement than we had before . And therefore um have a successful uh conclusion to the day . Um and you'll be doing uh various designs uh throughout the day to meet this end . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: So we've got tool training . Try out whiteboard . Uh . {vocalsound} So we will um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so everyone's to uh supposedly uh draw their favourite animal over on the white board over there . I guess this is uh make sure the whiteboard works . So uh I don't know who wishes to go first . +Industrial Designer: Okay {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wish to go f Have a first bash at uh whatever . +User Interface: I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Ah uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's see . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Good job I got pockets today . +Project Manager: But now you you uh you'll move out from the microphone and the camera . +Marketing: Your microphone's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I take it that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are we supposed to do this right now , do you think , or ? +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} I would guess so . Or {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You've lost uh your microphone there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical problems . +User Interface: Oh . Right here we go . +Project Manager: I mean you designers are meant to come up with these sort of things . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think that I would have to say that my favourite animal is the cat . Little smiley cat there . Um and this would be because they're very independent , uh they're very intelligent , compared to dogs maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} and they can be very very affectionate . Some people don't think so but I know very affectionate cats . Um . Um and they can look after themselves . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . I'll I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Shall I rub that out , actually ? +Project Manager: I don't see as there's any need to . There's plenty of space . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I mean whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can have have a whole menagerie . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Shall I see if I can get across without just tangling everything . Okay . +Project Manager: We've had more time to prepare over this side , +Industrial Designer: There's one . +Project Manager: so we've all stuck our bits and pieces in our pockets . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Didn't think of that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay uh +Project Manager: The three pens are underneath . +Industrial Designer: pens are over here . I'll try the red pen . Okay . Um . {vocalsound} I'm gonna go for the bear which I'm {gap} be able to draw very well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You get marks for artistic impression . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'll have a bash at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh ooh {gap} I lost it there . I think I've just knocked the microphone . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you're just doing the face . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll g then we'll go for a a s small small bear {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and I like my animal that looks nothing like a bear because um I dunno maybe because there's so many cartoon characters made up after the bear like the jungle book characters and stuff like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Hello . Um I'm gonna go for the dog , and I'm gonna draw one badly as well . Uh . {gap} looks like it's going to be a dachshund or something . +User Interface: That's quite good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . There's my dog . Um {vocalsound} I like dogs because they're very loyal . And they're always happy , so whenever whenever you're feeling sort of a bit a bit down or tired , they're always coming up and they're always um quite excited . So um you can always have a lot of fun with a dog . And they're also good for exercise as well . You can sorta get out and they they sorta never get tired . And and when they're tired they're quite cute as well , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , that's why I like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , um . {vocalsound} Well I've not actually had too many pets uh over my uh time 'cause to be honest with you uh {gap} I'm not too keen on them anyway . Not to worry . So what my daughters have got at the moment is they've got uh a few fish and so hopefully um won't prove too difficult to draw . Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: As you can see that my artist artistic work is useless as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway um . {vocalsound} And uh one of the best uh things about fish is that they don't really take uh too much looking after because uh with most of the animals if you're going away on holiday or whatever , you've gotta spend money or get a friend or whatever to look after them for you . Whereas if you got fish , you just gotta put the food in a a a dripper feed which feeds them over the uh couple of weeks that you're away and uh change the water every couple of months , and buy in a few plants , so . Other than the fact that they keep dying , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh fish are uh {vocalsound} are not are are are reasonable pets in that uh they're low maintenance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Okay , uh if we're still all with us . Right okay , so . Work has been done on uh this uh project where by um twenty five Euros is uh the uh expected uh selling price . That information has come from our marketing manager here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're looking to sell internationally , not just in Europe . We're looking at um having our production costs limited to uh twelve and an half Euro per unit . And therefore making a profit margin of uh {disfmarker} well not actually a profit margin it's uh {disfmarker} because obviously you're gonna have overheads and various other costs to uh take uh from uh from that to give you your profit margin per unit . And so depending what the uh the overhead uh costs are will determine uh how many units we're uh looking to sell or projecting to sell at this point in time . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Experience with remote control , first ideas . New remote . So I guess we're looking at um having a discussion at this point in time to help uh you um folks design our our new model as it were . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: So uh any any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Um I {gap} with some remote controls the buttons were a little small so they're quite hard to press so maybe we make something with uh easy to press buttons . As that is the main function . +Project Manager: Okay , so so basically we're looking for some um {disfmarker} we're looking for a device that is um robust and and therefore uh won't get damaged too easily . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um we're looking for a device that is uh {disfmarker} What was the other things you said there ? +Industrial Designer: Um sort of easy to use so the buttons are accessible . +Project Manager: Easy to use . Use . +Industrial Designer: {gap} is easy to use and see . +Project Manager: And see . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh . +User Interface: Can I just check ? {vocalsound} Is this just a television remote ? Because a lot of um systems are kind of T_V_ video combined now , or T_V_ D_V_D_ combined . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And one of the most annoying things is having like five remotes in the house . So if you've got a combined system , it could be a combined remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Or is it just a television that we're supposed to be doing ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oh I w um basically I'll get back to you on that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: But it seems to me sensible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause {disfmarker} as you rightly said , there's nothing more annoying than having three or four devices littered about the uh about the room . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So a device for for all remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Sorry , you go . You go . +Marketing: I've Okay . Yeah . Um one of the things um we found from the market research is that people often get confused by the number of buttons on them as well . 'Cause there's quite often lots and lots . And um sometimes uh they sort of {disfmarker} remote controls defeat their own purpose because you're sat in the chair and the remote is somewhere else in the room . So {disfmarker} whereas in the past you'd have to get up to change the channel , now you have to get up to sort of pick up the remote . So so I don't we need to sort of maybe think about how um we could maybe uh develop a remote control which moves around the room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Comes to your whistle . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's that's maybe something for the future when you can talk to your television , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But is it {disfmarker} in a sense it's r um mutually exclusive . You can't have both the th the one device and then have few buttons on it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you want you want simplicity as well , you want any idiot to be able to use it . Whilst at the same time you want , as you rightly said , one remote for all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so these are probably mutually exclusive options +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm you could argue that experience of using devices and similar devices as people get more and more used to using remotes , therefore they're more {gap} with handling them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: therefore you can make them more complicated as time goes on . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could um have better instructions with the remote . Or are we just doing the design of the remote control itself , or sort of the instructions that would come with it ? +Project Manager: {gap} Better instructions . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean we've done some research um about sort of you know what the cutting edge sort of hand held devices are , and a lot of them sort of use you know they're like they're like mini laptops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's possible that we could devise a system where where you're you're basically sort of holding a a miniature computer which is controlling all your your sort of your television , your stereo , and where {disfmarker} you know if you buy a new thing then it sort of {disfmarker} you can link it to that as well , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well we've got five minutes before the end of the meeting . So uh we have to uh start winding up . Um is there {disfmarker} Next meeting in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Right , so we've got I_D_ the {disfmarker} Come on , where's my {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you just click return it should be okay . It'll get rid of the message . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or not . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you hit just hit return and it should get rid of the message . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh there we go . +Marketing: Oh you've got {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what I was looking for . Right . So we've got function {disfmarker} Oh what happened to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that might be back to the start . Um if you grab the kind of uh slide to the left and pull it down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} slide four {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Right . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we've got um the working design for I_D_ . For U_I_D_ the technical functions design . Marketing , the user requirement specification . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your person by your personal coach . So . Are we all clear what objectives we're looking to meet in the next thirty minutes ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I guess I'll try and write up some minutes of uh this meeting to uh to give it to you for the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , yes . +User Interface: I'm not exactly clear on what we're designing the rem remote for . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is this a mun multi-functional one or do we decide that ourselves as we go away and work on it ? +Industrial Designer: I think you just said at the start it was a television remote control , +Project Manager: Television remote control . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we should just stick to that unless we get told otherwise . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: That's true , 'cause during during the course of our day we might make decisions based on information or meetings that would change {vocalsound} where we're going . +Marketing: Okay cool . +Project Manager: But at this point in time I think you're right that uh {disfmarker} shall we make it just a T_V_ . Okay ? So we will depart . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We will stay here and uh and break off . And I'll do minutes and and we'll see you in half and hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay cheers . +Project Manager: Okay . Right s +","In the first meeting of the project team, the Project Manager Alastair, Marketing Manager Robin, User Interface Designer Louisa, and Industrial Designer Nick introduced themselves and discussed the development of a new remote control device intended to be user-friendly and trendy to capture a larger market share. The team outlined a tentative plan to divide the design process into functional, conceptual, and detailed design phases. They began exploring ideas for making the remote more robust and easier to use, with large, accessible buttons. + +The team considered whether the new remote should be multifunctional across different devices, such as TVs, DVDs, or stereos, to avoid having multiple remotes. User Interface brought up the importance of clarifying whether they are designing specifically for a TV remote or a multifunctional one. Marketing shared insights from market research, including customer confusion over too many buttons and the inconvenience of having to find and pick up the remote. + +They also touched upon the idea of creating a remote with fewer buttons that's user-friendly for anyone while still being a single device for multiple uses. Additionally, they discussed providing better instructions and potentially designing a remote akin to a mini laptop for controlling various devices. + +The team acknowledged that production costs should be limited to 12.5 Euros per unit to maintain a selling price of 25 Euros, as informed by Marketing. The project aims for international sales. + +The session ended with the Project Manager planning to draft minutes of the meeting and clarifying the project's next steps. The team will reconvene in thirty minutes to progress with their respective design parts based on the information they have at the time, with the acknowledgment that elements of the project may change throughout the day based on ongoing discussions and decisions." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: Adam , what is the mike that , uh , Jeremy 's wearing ? +Grad F: It 's the ear - plug mike . +Postdoc A: Ear - plug . +PhD E: That 's good . +PhD C: Is that a wireless , or {disfmarker} ? Oh . +Grad F: No . +Grad G: It 's wired . +Professor B: Oh ! +Postdoc A: Is that {disfmarker} Does that mean you can't hear anything during the meeting ? +Grad D: It 's old - school . +Grad F: Huh ? What ? Huh ? +Professor B: Should we , uh , close the door , maybe ? +Grad F: It {disfmarker} it 's a fairly good mike , actually . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh . +Grad F: Well , I shouldn't say it 's a good mike . All I really know is that the signal level is OK . I don't know if it 's a {disfmarker} the quality . +Professor B: Well , that 's a +Grad F: Ugh ! So I didn't send out agenda items because until five minutes ago we only had one agenda item and now we have two . So . {vocalsound} And , uh . +Professor B: OK . So , just to repeat the thing bef that we said last week , it was there 's this suggestion of alternating weeks on {vocalsound} more , uh , automatic speech recognition related or not ? Was that sort of {pause} the division ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: So which week are we in ? +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} We haven't really started , but I thought we more {disfmarker} we more or less did Meeting Recorder stuff last week , so I thought we could do , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I thought we had a thing about speech recognition last week too . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: But I figure also if they 're short agenda items , we could also do a little bit of each . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . I seem to be having difficulty getting this adjusted . Here we go . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: So , uh , as most of you should know , I did send out the consent form thingies and , uh , so far no one has made any {disfmarker} Ach ! {comment} {comment} any comments on them . So , no on no one has bleeped out anything . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . +Grad F: So . I don't expect anyone to . But . +Professor B: Um . {vocalsound} So , w what follows ? At some point y you go around and get people to sign something ? +Grad F: No . We had spoken w about this before +Professor B: Yeah , but I 've forgotten . +Grad F: and we had decided that they have {disfmarker} they only needed to sign once . And the agreement that they already signed simply said that we would give them an opportunity . So as long as we do that , we 're covered . +Professor B: And how long of an opportunity did you tell them ? +Grad F: Uh , July fifteenth . +Professor B: July fifteenth . Oh , so they have a plenty of time , and y +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: Given that it 's that long , um , um {disfmarker} Why was that date chosen ? You just felt you wanted to {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Jane told me July fifteenth . So , that 's what I set it . +Postdoc A: Oh . I just meant that that was {pause} the release date that you had on the {pause} data . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Oh . I {disfmarker} I didn't understand that there was something specific . +Postdoc A: I , uh {disfmarker} I thought {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} y you had {disfmarker} +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad F: I had heard July fifteenth , so that 's what I put . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , the only {disfmarker} th the only {pause} mention I recall about that was just that July fifteenth or so is when {vocalsound} this meeting starts . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . That 's why . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: You said you wanted it to be available then . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean it to be the hard deadline . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's fine with me if it is , or we cou But I thought it might be good to remind people two weeks prior to that +Professor B: w +Postdoc A: in case , uh {disfmarker} you know , "" by the way {pause} this is your last {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Uh . Yeah . +Professor B: We probably should have talked about it , cuz i because if we wanna be able to give it to people July fifteenth , if somebody 's gonna come back and say "" OK , I don't want this and this and this used "" , uh , clearly we need some time to respond to that . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah . As I said , we {disfmarker} I just got one date +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: Damn ! +Grad F: and that 's the one I used . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: So . But I can send a follow - up . I mean , it 's almost all us . I mean the people who are in the meeti this meeting was , uh , these {disfmarker} the meetings that {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} are in set one . +PhD C: Was my {disfmarker} was my response OK ? +Postdoc A: That 's right . +PhD C: I just wrote you {disfmarker} replied to the email saying they 're all fine . +Grad F: Right . I mean , that 's fine . +PhD C: OK , good . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} My understanding of what we {pause} had agreed upon when we had spoken about this months ago was that , uh , we don't actually need a reply . +PhD C: That makes it easy . +Grad F: We just need to tell them that they can do it if they want . +Professor B: OK . I just didn't remember , but {disfmarker} +Grad F: And so no reply is no changes . +Postdoc A: And he 's got it so that the default thing you see when you look at the page is "" OK "" . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc A: So that 's very clear all the way down the page , "" OK "" . And they have two options they can change it to . One of them is {pause} "" censor "" , and the other one is "" incorrect "" . Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} your word is "" incorrect "" ? +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Which means also we get feedback on {pause} if {pause} um , there 's something that they w that needs to be {pause} adjusted , because , I mean , these are very highly technical things . I mean , it 's an added , uh , level of checking on the accuracy of the transcription , as I see it . But in any case , people can agree to things that are wrong . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: So . +Grad F: Yeah . The reason I did that it was just so that people would not censor {disfmarker} not ask to have stuff removed because it was transcribed incorrectly , +Postdoc A: And the reason I liked it was because {disfmarker} +Grad F: as opposed to , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: was because it , um {disfmarker} it gives them the option of , uh , being able to correct it . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: Approve it and correct it . And {pause} um . So , you have {pause} it nicely set up so they email you and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: When they submit the form , it gets processed and emailed to me . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I wanted to say the meetings that are involved in that set are Robustness and Meeting Recorder . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: The German ones will be ready for next week . Those are three {disfmarker} three of those . A different set of people . And we can impose {disfmarker} +PhD C: The German ones ? +Postdoc A: Uh , well . +PhD H: Yeah . Those {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: NSA . +Postdoc A: OK . I spoke loosely . The {disfmarker} the German , French {disfmarker} Sorry , the German , {vocalsound} Dutch , and Spanish ones . +PhD E: Spanish . Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh , those are the NSA meetings ? +PhD E: The non - native {disfmarker} +PhD H: Those are {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: German , Dutch , Swiss and Spanish . +PhD C: Oh , oh ! OK . +PhD E: The all non - native {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's r +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Uh - huh . +PhD C: OK . I 'd {disfmarker} I d +Postdoc A: Yeah . {pause} It 's the other group . +Professor B: I It was the network {disfmarker} network services group . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: I didn't mean to {pause} isolate them . +Professor B: Otherwise known as the German , Dutch , and Spanish . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Sorry . It was {disfmarker} it was not the best characterization . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: But what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I meant to say was that it 's the other group that 's not {disfmarker} n no m no overlap with our present members . And then maybe it 'd be good to set an explicit deadline , something like {pause} a week {pause} before that , uh , J July fifteenth date , or two weeks before . +Professor B: I mean , I would suggest we discuss {disfmarker} I mean , if we 're going to have a policy on it , that we discuss the length of time that we want to give people , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that we have a uniform thing . So , tha that 's a month , which is fine . I mean , it seems {disfmarker} +PhD C: Twelve hours . +Grad F: Well , the only thing I said in the email is that {pause} the data is going to be released on the fifteenth . I didn't give any other deadline . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So my feeling is if someone after the fifteenth says , "" wow I suddenly found something "" , we 'll delete it from our record . We just won't delete it from whatever 's already been released . +Postdoc A: Hmm . That 's a little bit difficult . +Grad F: What else can we do ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: If someone says "" hey , look , I {pause} found something in this meeting and {pause} it 's libelous and I want it removed "" . What can we do ? +Postdoc A: Well . {pause} That 's true . +Grad F: We have to remove it . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I agree with that part , but I think that it would {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} we need to have , uh , a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a message to them very clearly that {vocalsound} beyond this date , you can't make additional changes . +Professor B: I mean , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i I think that somebody might {pause} request something even though we say that . But I think it 's good to at least start some place like that . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . +Professor B: So if we agreed , {vocalsound} OK , how long is a reasonable amount of time for people to have {disfmarker} if we say two weeks , or if we say a month , I think we should just say that {disfmarker} say that , you know , i a as {pause} um , {vocalsound} "" per the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh , page you signed , you have the ability to look over this stuff "" and so forth "" and , uh , because we w "" these , uh {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine some sort of generic thing that would say "" because we , uh , will continually be making these things available {vocalsound} to other researchers , uh , this can't be open - ended and so , uh , uh , please give us back your response within this am you know , within this amount of time "" , whatever time we agree upon . +Grad F: Well , did you read the email and look at the pages I sent ? +Professor B: Did I ? No , I haven't yet . No , just {disfmarker} +Grad F: No . OK , well why don't you do that and then make comments on what you want me to change ? +Professor B: No , no . I 'm not saying that you should change anything . I I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm trying to spark a discussion hopefully among people who have read it so that {disfmarker} that you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you can , uh , decide on something . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So I 'm not telling you what to decide . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I 'm just saying you should decide something , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I already did decide something , and that 's what 's in the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah , yeah . OK , so {disfmarker} +Grad F: And if you disagree with it , why don't you read it and give me comments on it ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that there 's one missing line . +Professor B: Well , the one thing that I did read and that you just repeated to me {pause} was that you gave the specific date of July fifteenth . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And you also just said that the reason you said that was because someone said it to you . So what I 'm telling you {pause} is that what you should do is come up with a length of time that you guys think is enough +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and you should use that rather than {pause} this date that you just got from somewhere . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: OK ? +Postdoc A: I ha I have one question . This is in the summer period and presumably people may be out of town . But we can make the assumption , can't we ? that , um , they will be receiving email , uh , most of the month . Right ? Because if someone {disfmarker} +Professor B: It {disfmarker} well , it {disfmarker} well , you 're right . Sometimes somebody will be {pause} away and , uh , you know , there 's , uh {disfmarker} for any length of time that you {vocalsound} uh , choose {pause} there is some person sometime who will not {pause} end up reading it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know , just a certain risk to take . +PhD H: S so maybe when {disfmarker} Am I on , by the way ? +Grad F: I don't know . You should be . +PhD H: Oh . Hello ? Hello ? +Grad F: You should be channel B . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Alright . So . The , um {disfmarker} Maybe we should say in {disfmarker} w you know , when the whole thing starts , when they sign the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the agreement {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} you know , specify exactly uh , what , you know , how {disfmarker} how they will be contacted and they can , you know {disfmarker} they can be asked to give a phone number and an email address , or both . And , um , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We did that , I {disfmarker} I believe . +PhD H: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: So . {vocalsound} A And , then , you know , say very clearly that if they don't {disfmarker} if we don't hear from them , you know , as Morgan suggested , by a certain time or after a certain {vocalsound} period after we contact them {vocalsound} that is implicitly giving their agreement . +Grad F: Well , they 've already signed a form . +Postdoc A: And the form says {disfmarker} +PhD E: And nobody {disfmarker} nobody really reads it anyway . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: So . And the s and the form was approved by Human Subjects , +PhD H: Says that . Right . +Postdoc A: Uh , the f +PhD H: Well , if that 's i tha if that 's already {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad F: so , eh , that 's gonna be a little hard to modify . +Postdoc A: Well , the form {disfmarker} Well , the form doesn't say , if {disfmarker} uh , you know , "" if you don't respond by X number of days or X number of weeks {disfmarker} "" +PhD H: I see . Uh {disfmarker} Oh , OK . So what does it say about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the process of {disfmarker} of , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} y the review process ? +Postdoc A: It doesn't have a time limit . That you 'll be provided access to the transcripts and then , uh , allowed to {pause} remove things that you 'd like to remove , before it goes to the general {disfmarker} uh , larger audience . +PhD H: Oh , OK . Hmm . Right . +Grad F: Here . +Postdoc A: There you go . +Grad F: You can read what you already signed . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: I guess when I {pause} read it , um {disfmarker} +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: I 'm not as diligent as Chuck , but I had the feeling I should probably respond and tell Adam , like , "" I got this and I will do it by this date , and if you don't hear from me by then {disfmarker} "" You know , in other words responding to your email {pause} once , right away , saying "" as soon as you get this could you please respond . "" +Grad F: Right . +PhD E: And then if you {disfmarker} if the person thinks they 'll need more time because they 're out of town or whatever , they can tell you at that point ? Because {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , I just {disfmarker} I didn't wanna do that , because I don't wanna have a discussion with every person {pause} if I can avoid it . +PhD E: Well , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: So what I wanted to do was just send it out and say "" on the fifteenth , the data is released , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: if you wanna do something about it , do something about it , but that 's it "" . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I kind of like this . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . So , we 're assuming that {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that would be great if {disfmarker} but you should probably have a {pause} legal person look at this and {pause} make sure it 's OK . Because if you {disfmarker} if you , uh , do this {vocalsound} and you {disfmarker} then there 's a dispute later and , uh , some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , someone who understands these matters concludes that they didn't have , uh , you know , enough opportunity to actually {vocalsound} exercise their {disfmarker} their right {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or they {disfmarker} they might never have gotten the email , because although they signed this , they don't know by which date to expect your email . And so {pause} someone whose machine is down or whatever {disfmarker} I mean , we have no {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: in internally we know that people are there , +Grad F: Well , OK . l Let me {disfmarker} Let me reverse this . +PhD E: but we have no confirmation that they got the mail . +Grad F: So let 's say someone {disfmarker} I send this out , and someone doesn't respond . Do we delete every meeting that they were in ? +PhD E: Well , then {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't think so . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} we 're hoping that doesn't happen , +PhD H: No . +PhD E: but that 's why there 's such a thing as registered mail +Grad F: That will happen . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} +PhD H: That will happen . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: That will absolutely happen . Because people don't read their email , or they 'll read and say "" I don't care about that , I 'm not gonna delete anything "" and they don just won't reply to it . +PhD H: Maybe {disfmarker} uh , do we have mailing addresses for these people ? +Grad F: No . We have what they put on the speaker form , +PhD H: No . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} Most {disfmarker} +Grad F: which was just generic contact information . +PhD H: Oh . +Postdoc A: But the ones that we 're dealing with now are all local , +PhD H: Well , then {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: except the ones who {disfmarker} I mean , we {disfmarker} we 're totally in contact with all the ones in those two groups . +PhD H: Mmm . OK . +Postdoc A: So maybe , uh , I {disfmarker} you know , that 's not that many people and if I {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} i i there is an advantage to having them admit {disfmarker} and if I can help with {disfmarker} with processing that , I will . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} there is an advantage to having them be on record as having received the mail and indicating {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean I thought we had discussed this , like , a year ago . +Postdoc A: Yes , we did . +Grad F: And so it seems like this is a little odd for it to be coming up yet again . +Postdoc A: You 're right . Well , I {disfmarker} you know . But sometimes {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we {disfmarker} we haven't experienced it before . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: That 's right . +Professor B: Right ? So {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 'll either wonder {pause} at the beginning or you 'll wonder at the end . +Postdoc A: Need to get it right . +PhD E: I mean , there 's no way to get around {disfmarker} I It 's pretty much the same am amount of work except for an additional email just saying they got the email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD E: And maybe it 's better legally to wonder before {disfmarker} you know , a little bit earlier than {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's much easier to explain {pause} this way . +Grad F: OK . Well , why don't you talk {pause} t +Postdoc A: T t to have it on record . +Grad F: Morgan , can you talk to our lawyer about it , and find out what the status is on this ? Cuz I don't wanna do something that we don't need to . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but w Mmm . +Grad F: Because what {disfmarker} I 'm telling you , people won't respond to the email . No matter what you do , you there 're gonna be people who {pause} you 're gonna have to make a lot of effort to get in contact with . +Postdoc A: Well , then we make the effort . +Grad D: I mean , i it 's k +Grad F: And do we want to spend that effort ? +PhD H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: We make the effort . +Grad D: It 's kind of like signing up for a mailing list . They have opt in and opt out . And there are two different ways . I mean , and either way works probably , I mean . +Postdoc A: Except I really think in this case {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm agr I agree with Liz , that we need to be {pause} in the clear and not have to after the fact say "" oh , but I assumed "" , and "" oh , I 'm sorry that your email address was just accumulating mail without notifying you "" , you know . +Professor B: If this is a purely administrative task , we can actually have administration do it . +Postdoc A: Oh , excellent . +Professor B: But the thing is that , you know , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , without going through a whole expensive thing with our lawyers , {vocalsound} from my previous conversations with them , my {disfmarker} my sense very {pause} much is that we would want something on record {pause} as indicating that they actually were aware of this . +Postdoc A: Yes . +Grad F: Well , we had talked about this before +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I thought that we had even gone by the lawyers asking about that and they said you have to s they 've already signed away the f with that form {disfmarker} that they 've already signed once . +Postdoc A: I don't remember that this issue of {pause} the time period allowed for response was ever covered . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . We never really talked about that . +Grad F: OK . +PhD E: Or the date at which they would be receiving the email from you . +Postdoc A: Or {disfmarker} or how they would indicate {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: They probably forgot all about it . +Professor B: We certainly didn't talk , uh , about {disfmarker} with them at all about , uh , the manner of them being {disfmarker} {vocalsound} made the , uh , uh , materials available . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD H: We do it like with these {disfmarker} +Professor B: That was something that was sort of just within our implementation . +Grad F: OK . +PhD H: We can use it {disfmarker} we can use a {disfmarker} a ploy like they use to , um {disfmarker} you know , that when they serve , like {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} {comment} uh , you know , like dead - beat dads , they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they make it look like they won something in the lottery and then they open the envelope +Grad D: And they 're served . +PhD H: and that {disfmarker} Right ? Because {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing is served . So you just make it , you know , "" oh , you won {disfmarker} you know , go to this web site and you 've , uh {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} "" +PhD E: That 's why you never open these things that come in the mail . +Postdoc A: That one . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Well , it 's just , we 've gone from one extreme to the other , where at one point , a few months ago , Morgan was {disfmarker} you were saying let 's not do anything , +PhD H: Right . {vocalsound} Right . No , it I {disfmarker} it might {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Well , it doesn't matter . +PhD H: i i it {disfmarker} it might well be the case {disfmarker} +Grad F: and now we 're {disfmarker} we 're saying we have to follow up each person and get a signature ? +PhD H: it might {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: I mean , what are we gonna doing here ? +PhD H: It might well be the case that {disfmarker} that this is perfectly {disfmarker} you know , this is enough to give us a basis t to just , eh , assume their consent if they don't reply . +Professor B: Well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: But , I 'm not {disfmarker} you know , me not being a lawyer , I wouldn't just wanna do that without {pause} having the {disfmarker} the expert , uh , opinion on that . +Postdoc A: And how many people ? Al - altogether we 've got twenty people . These people are people who read their email almost all the time . +Grad F: Then I think we had better find out , so that we can find a {disfmarker} +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Let me look at this again . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I really don't see that it 's a problem . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's a common courtesy to ask them {disfmarker} uh , to expect for them to , uh , be able to have @ @ {comment} us try to contact them , +Grad F: For {disfmarker} for th +Postdoc A: u just in case they hadn't gotten their email . I think they 'd appreciate it . +Professor B: Yeah . My {disfmarker} Adam , my {disfmarker} my view before was about {pause} the nature of what was {disfmarker} of the presentation , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: of {disfmarker} of how {pause} my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} the things that we 're questioning were along the lines of how easy {disfmarker} uh , h how m how much implication would there be that it 's likely you 're going to be changing something , as opposed to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That was the kind of dispute I was making before . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . I remember that . +Professor B: But , um , the attorneys , I {disfmarker} uh , I can guarantee you , the attorneys will always come back with {disfmarker} and we have to decide how stringent we want to be in these things , but they will always come back with saying {vocalsound} that , um , you need to {disfmarker} you want to have someth some paper trail or {disfmarker} which includes electronic trail {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that they have , uh , in fact {pause} O K 'd it . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , I think that if you f i if {pause} we send the email as you have and if there 's half the people , say , who don't respond {pause} at all by , you know , some period of time , {vocalsound} we can just make a list of these people and hand it to , uh {disfmarker} you know , just give it to me and I 'll hand it to administrative staff or whatever , +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: and they 'll just call them up and say , you know , "" have you {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this OK ? And would you please mail {disfmarker} you know , mail Adam that it is , if i if it , you know , is or not . "" So , you know , we can {disfmarker} we can do that . +PhD E: The other thing that there 's a psychological effect that {disfmarker} at least for most people , that if they 've responded to your email saying "" yes , I will do it "" or "" yes , I got your email "" , they 're more likely to actually do it {comment} {pause} later {pause} than to just ignore it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And of course we don't want them to bleep things out , but it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit better if we 're getting the {disfmarker} their , uh , final response , once they 've answered you once than if they never answer you 'd {comment} at al at all . That 's how these mailing houses work . So , I mean , it 's not completely lost work because it might benefit us in terms of getting {pause} responses . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , an official OK from somebody {pause} is better than no answer , even if they responded that they got your email . And they 're probably more likely to do that once they 've responded that they got the email . +Postdoc A: I also think they 'd just simply appreciate it . I think it 's a good {disfmarker} a good way of {disfmarker} of fostering goodwill among our subjects . Well , our participants . +Professor B: I think the main thing is {disfmarker} I mean , what lawyers do is they always look at worst cases . +Grad F: Sending lots of spam . +Professor B: So they s so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} Tha - that 's what they 're paid to do . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor B: And so , {vocalsound} it is certainly possible that , uh , somebody 's server would be down or something and they wouldn't actually hear from us , and then they find this thing is in there and we 've already distributed it to someone . So , {vocalsound} what it says in there , in fact , is that they will be given an opportunity to blah - blah - blah , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but if in fact {disfmarker} if we sent them something or we thought we sent them something but they didn't actually receive it for some reason , {vocalsound} um , then we haven't given them that . +Grad F: Well , so how far do we have to go ? Do we need to get someone 's signature ? Or , is email enough ? +Professor B: I i i em email is enough . +Grad F: Do we have to have it notarized ? I mean {disfmarker} OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I 've been through this {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not a lawyer , but I 've been through these things a f things f like this a few times with lawyers now +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} I I 'm pretty comfortable with that . +PhD C: Do you track , um , when people log in to look at the {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Uh . If they submit the form , I get it . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad F: If they don't submit the form , it goes in the general web log . But that 's not sufficient . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad F: Right ? Cuz if someone just visits the web site that doesn't {pause} imply anything in particular . +PhD C: Except that you know they got the mail . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . That 's right . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I could get you on the notify list if you want me to . +Grad F: I 'm already on it . +Postdoc A: For that directory ? OK , great . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So again , hopefully , um , this shouldn't be quite as odious a problem either way , uh , in any of the extremes we 've talked about because {vocalsound} uh , we 're talking a pretty small {pause} number of people . +Grad F: W For this set , I 'm not worried , because {pause} we basically know everyone on it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: You know , they 're all more or less here or it 's {disfmarker} it 's Eric and Dan and so on . But for some of the others , you 're talking about visitors who are {pause} gone from ICSI , whose email addresses may or may not work , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} So what are we gonna do when we run into someone that we can't get in touch with ? +Postdoc A: I don't think , uh {disfmarker} They 're so recent , these visitors . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} they 're also so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: They 're prominent enough that they 're easy to find through {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I w I 'll be able to {disfmarker} if you have any trouble finding them , I really think I could find them . +Grad F: Other methods ? OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it really does promise here is that we will ask their permission . Um , and I think , you know , if you go into a room and close the door and {disfmarker} and ask their permission {vocalsound} and they 're not there , it doesn't seem {comment} that that 's the intent of , uh , meaning here . So . +Grad F: Well , the qu the question is just whether {disfmarker} how active it has to be . I mean , because they {disfmarker} they filled out a contact information and that 's where I 'm sending the information . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And so far everyone has done email . There isn't anyone who did , uh , any other contact method . +Professor B: Well , the way ICSI goes , people , uh , who , uh , were here ten years ago still have acc {vocalsound} have forwards to other accounts and so on . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's unusual that {disfmarker} that they , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: So my original impression was that that was sufficient , that if they give us contact information and that contact information isn't accurate that {pause} we fulfilled our burden . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then they just come back . +PhD C: All my files were still here . +PhD E: Same as us . +Postdoc A: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if we get to a boundary case like that then maybe I will call the attorney about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: But , you know , hopefully we won't need to . +Postdoc A: I d I just don't think we will . For all the reasons that we 've discussed . +Grad F: Alright . +Professor B: So we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see if we do or not . +Grad F: Yep . And we 'll see how many people respond to that email . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So far , two people have . +Professor B: Yeah . I think very few people will +Grad F: So . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , people {disfmarker} people see long emails about things that they don't think {vocalsound} is gonna be high priority , they typically , uh , don't {disfmarker} don't read it , or half read it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Cuz people are swamped . +Postdoc A: And actually , +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} didn't anticipate this so I {disfmarker} that 's why I didn't give this comment , and it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} this discussion has made me think it might be nice to have a follow - up email within the next couple of days saying "" by the way , you know , we wanna hear back from you by X date and please {disfmarker} "" , and then add what Liz said {disfmarker} "" please , uh , respond to {disfmarker} please indicate you received this mail . "" +Professor B: Uh , or e well , maybe even additionally , uh , um , "" Even if you 've decided you have no changes you 'd like to make , if you could tell us that "" . +Grad F: Respond to the email . {comment} Yep . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . It is the first time through the cycle . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . That would {disfmarker} that would definitely work on me . You know , it makes you feel m like , um , if you were gonna p if you 're predicting that you might not answer , you have a chance now to say that . Whereas , I {disfmarker} I mean , I would be much more likely myself , +PhD C: And the other th +PhD E: given all my email , t to respond at that point , saying "" you know what , I 'm probably not gonna get to it "" or whatever , rather than just having seen the email , thinking I might get to it , and never really , {vocalsound} uh , pushing myself to actually do it until it 's too late . +PhD C: Yeah . I was {disfmarker} I was thinking that it also {pause} lets them know that they don't have to go to the page to {pause} accept this . +PhD E: Right . R Right . That 's true . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Yeah . So that way they could {disfmarker} they can see from that email that if they just write back and say "" I got it , no changes "" , they 're off the hook . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: They don't have to go to the web page +Professor B: I mean , the other thing I 've learned from dealing with {disfmarker} dealing with people sending in reviews and so forth , uh , is , um , {vocalsound} if you say "" you 've got three months to do this review "" , {vocalsound} um , people do it , you know , {vocalsound} two and seven eighths months from now . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: If you say "" you 've got three weeks to do this review "" , they do {disfmarker} do it , you know , two and seven eighths weeks from now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they do the review . +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: And , um {disfmarker} So , if we make it {pause} a little less time , I don't think it 'll be that much {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , and also if we want it ready by the fifteenth , that means we better give them deadline of the first , if we have any prayer of actually getting everyone to respond in time . +Professor B: There 's the responding part and there 's also what if , uh , I mean , I hope this doesn't happen , what if there are a bunch of deletions that have to get put in and changes ? +Grad F: Right . +Professor B: Then {vocalsound} we actually have to deal with that +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Some lead time . +Professor B: if we want it to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Ugh ! Disk space , +Postdoc A: By the way , has {disfmarker} has Jeremy signed the form ? +Grad F: oh my god ! I hadn't thought about that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: That for every meeting {disfmarker} any meeting which has any bleeps in it we need yet another copy of . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD C: Just that channel . +Grad D: Can't you just do that channel ? +PhD C: Oh , no . We have to do {disfmarker} +Grad F: No , of course not . +PhD E: Yeah . You have to do all of them , +Grad F: You need all the channels . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD C: Do you have to do the other close - talking ? +PhD E: as well as all of these . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: You have to do all {disfmarker} You could just do it in that time period , though , +Grad F: Yes . Absolutely . There 's a lot of cross - talk . +Grad G: Wow . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: but I guess it 's a pain . +Grad F: Well , but you have to copy the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? Because we 're gonna be releasing the whole file . +PhD E: Yeah . You 're right . +Postdoc A: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} you know , I think at a certain point , that copy that has the deletions will become the master copy . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's just I hate deleting any data . So I {disfmarker} I don't want {disfmarker} I really would rather make a copy of it , rather than bleep it out +Professor B: Are you del are you bleeping it by adding ? +Grad F: and then {disfmarker} Overlapping . So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's exactly a censor bleep . So what I really think is "" bleep "" +Professor B: I I I I understand , but is {disfmarker} is it summing signals +Grad F: and then I want to {disfmarker} +Professor B: or do you {pause} delete the old one and put the new one in ? +Grad F: I delete the old one , put the new one in . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Cuz {disfmarker} +Grad F: There 's nothing left of the original signal . +Professor B: Oh . Cuz if you were summing , you could {disfmarker} No . But anyway {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . It would be qui quite easy to get it back again . +Postdoc A: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And then w I was gonna say also that the they don't have to stay on the system , as you know , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Then someday we can sell the {pause} unedited versions . +Postdoc A: cuz {disfmarker} cuz the {disfmarker} the ones {disfmarker} +Grad F: Say again ? +Postdoc A: Once it 's been successfully bleeped , can't you rely on the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Or {pause} we 'll tell people the frequency of the beep +Professor B: Encrypt it . +PhD C: and then they could subtract the beep out . +Grad D: You can hide it . Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can't you rely on the archiving to preserve the older version ? +PhD H: Oh , yeah . +Grad D: It wouldn't be that hard to hide it . +PhD E: Right . Exactly . I see . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . Yeah . Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: See , this is good . I wanted to create some {pause} side conversations in these meetings . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . You could encrypt it , you know , with a {disfmarker} with a two hundred bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} thousand bit , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can use spread spectrum . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad D: Hide it . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Here we go . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , there you go . +PhD E: Cuz we don't have enough asides . +PhD H: I have an idea . You reverse the signal , +Grad D: There you go . +PhD H: so it {disfmarker} it lets people say what they said backwards . +Grad F: Backwards . +Grad D: Then you have , like , subliminal , uh , messages , +Grad F: But , ha you 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} the speech recognition system that reversed very short segments . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad D: like . +Grad F: Did you read that paper ? It wouldn't work . +PhD H: No . +Grad F: The speech recognizer still works . +PhD E: Yeah . And if you do it backward then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's cuz they use forward - backward . +PhD E: H - good old HMM . +Grad F: Forward but backward . That 's right . +PhD E: No , it 's backward - forward . +Grad F: Good point . A point . Well , I 'm sorry if I sound a little peeved about this whole thing . It 's just we 've had meeting after meeting after meeting a on this and it seems like we 've never gotten it resolved . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Well , but we never also {disfmarker} we 've also never done it . +PhD E: Uh . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: This is the first cycle . +PhD E: If it makes {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: There 're bound to be some glitches the first time through . +Professor B: So . {vocalsound} And , uh {disfmarker} and I 'm sorry responding without , uh , having much knowledge , but the thing is , uh , I am , like , one of these people who gets a gazillion mails and {disfmarker} and stuff comes in as +Grad F: Well , and that 's exactly why I did it the way I did it , which is the default is if you do nothing we 're gonna release it . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Because , you know , I have my {pause} stack of emails of to d to be done , that , you know , fifty or sixty long , and the ones at the top I 'm never gonna get to . +Professor B: Right . +Grad F: And , uh {pause} So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +PhD C: Move them to the bottom . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so the only thing we 're missing is {disfmarker} is some way to respond to easily to say , uh , "" OK , go ahead "" or something . +Grad F: Yeah , right . So , i this is gonna mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Just re - mail them to yourself and then they 're at the bottom . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's actually definitely a good point . The m email doesn't specify that you can just reply to the email , as op as opposed to going to the form +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: In {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it also doesn't give a {disfmarker} a specific {disfmarker} I didn't think of it . +PhD E: Right . +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: S I think it 's a good idea {disfmarker} an ex explicit time by which this will be considered definite . +Grad F: Yeah , release . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and it has to be a time earlier than that endpoint . +Professor B: Yeah . It 's converging . +Postdoc A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD H: This {disfmarker} um , I 've seen this recently . Uh , I got email , and it {disfmarker} i if I use a MIME - capable mail reader , it actually says , you know , click on this button to confirm receipt {pause} of the {disfmarker} of the mail . +Postdoc A: Oh , that 's interesting . +Grad D: Hmm . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} +Grad D: It 's like certified mail . +Grad F: A lot of mailers support return receipt . +Postdoc A: Could do that . +PhD H: Right . +Grad F: But it doesn't confirm that they 've read it . +PhD H: No , no , no . This is different . This is not {disfmarker} So , I {disfmarker} I know , you can tell , you know , the , uh , mail delivery agent to {disfmarker} to confirm that the mail was delivered to your mailbox . +Postdoc A: Mmm . +Grad F: Right . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but , no . This was different . Ins - in the mail , there was a {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , just a button . +PhD H: uh , th there was a button that when you clicked on it , it would send , uh , you know , a actual acknowledgement to the sender that you had actually looked at the mail . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . Yeah . Unfor - Yeah , we could do that . But I hate that . +PhD H: But it o but it only works for , you know , MIME - capable {disfmarker} you know , if you use Netscape or something like that for your n +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: You might as well just respond to the mail . +Professor B: And we actually need a third thing . +PhD E: I mean +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: It 's not that you 've looked at it , it 's that you 've looked at it and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and agree with one of the possible actions . +PhD H: No , no . You can do that . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD H: You know , you can put this button anywhere you want , +Professor B: Oh ? Oh , I see . +PhD H: and you can put it the bottom of the message and say "" here , by {disfmarker} you know , by clicking on this , I {disfmarker} I agree {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , you know , I acknowledge {disfmarker} "" +Professor B: That i i my first - born children are yours , and {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Quick question . Are , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I could put a URL in there without any difficulty and {pause} even pretty simple MIME readers can do that . So . +Postdoc A: But why shouldn't they just {pause} email back ? I don't see there 's a problem . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Reply . +PhD H: Right . +Postdoc A: It 's very nice . I {disfmarker} I like the high - tech aspect of it , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but I think {disfmarker} +PhD H: No , no , no . {vocalsound} I actually don't . +Postdoc A: I appreciate it . +PhD H: I 'm just saying that +Grad F: Well , I {disfmarker} cuz I use a text mail reader . +PhD H: if ev but I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD E: Don't you use VI for your mai ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . That 's {disfmarker} that 's my guy . Alright . +Grad F: You {disfmarker} you read email {pause} in VI ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Yeah . {vocalsound} I like VI . +PhD H: So {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} i There 's these logos {pause} that you can put at the bottom of your web page , like "" powered by VI "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Wow . +Grad D: I see . +PhD E: Anyway , quick question . +Grad F: You could put wed bugs in the email . +PhD E: How m +PhD H: Yeah . +PhD E: Like , there were three meetings this time , or so +Postdoc A: Six . +PhD E: or how many ? Six ? But , no of different people . So I guess if you 're in both these types of meetings , you 'd have a lot . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} I mean , it also depends on how many {disfmarker} Like , if we release {disfmarker} this time it 's a fairly small number of meetings , but what if we release , like , twenty - five meetings to people ? In th +Grad F: Well , what my s expectation is , is that we 'll send out one of these emails {pause} every time a meeting has been checked and is ready . +PhD E: I don't know . Oh . Oh , OK . So this time was just the first chunk . OK . +Grad F: So . Tha - that was my intention . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} that we just happened to have a bunch all at once . +PhD E: Well , that 's a good idea . +Grad F: I mean , maybe {disfmarker} Is that {pause} the way it 's gonna be , you think , Jane ? +Postdoc A: I agree with you . It 's {disfmarker} we could do it , uh {disfmarker} I I could {disfmarker} I 'd be happy with either way , batch - wise {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} Uh , so this one {disfmarker} That was exactly right , that we had a {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had wanted to get the entire set of twelve hours ready . Don't have it . But , uh , this was the biggest clump I could do by a time where I thought it was reasonable . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: People would be able to check it and still have it ready by then . My , um {disfmarker} I was thinking that with the {pause} NSA meetings , I 'd like {disfmarker} there are three of them , and they 're {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I will have them done by Monday . Uh , unfortunately the time is later and I don't know how that 's gonna work out , but I thought it 'd be good to have that released as a clump , too , because then , {vocalsound} you know , they 're {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have a {disfmarker} it it 's in a category , it 's not quite so distracting to them , is what I was thinking , and it 's all in one chu But after that , when we 're caught up a bit on this process , then , um , I could imagine sending them out periodically as they become available . +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc A: I could do it either way . I mean , it 's a question of how distracting it is to the people who have to do the checking . +Professor B: We heard anything from IBM ? at all ? +PhD C: Uh . Let 's see . We {disfmarker} Yeah , right . So we got the transcript back from that one meeting . Everything seemed fine . Adam {pause} had a script that will {pause} put everything back together and there was {disfmarker} Well , there was one small problem but it was a simple thing to fix . And then , um , {vocalsound} we , uh {disfmarker} I sent him a pointer to three more . And so he 's {pause} off and {pause} working on those . +Grad F: Yeah . Now we haven't actually had anyone go through that meeting , to see whether the transcript is correct and to see how much was missed and all that sort of stuff . +Postdoc A: That 's on my list . +Grad F: So at some point we need to do that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well , that 's on my list . +PhD C: Yeah . It 's gonna have to go through our regular process . +Grad F: I mean , the one thing I noticed is it did miss a lot of backchannels . There are a fair number of "" yeahs "" and "" uh - huhs "" that {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} that aren't in there . So . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: But I think {disfmarker} Yeah . Like you said , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's gonna be our standard proc that 's what the transcribers are gonna be spending most of their time doing , I would imagine , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor B: once {disfmarker} once we {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Yeah . +Postdoc A: One question about the backchannels . +Professor B: It 's gonna {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Do you suppose that was because they weren't caught by the pre - segmenter ? +Grad F: Yes , absolutely . Absolutely . +Postdoc A: Oh , interesting . Oh , interesting . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . They 're {disfmarker} they 're not in the segmented . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: It 's not that the {pause} IBM people didn't do it . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: Just they didn't get marked . +Postdoc A: OK . So maybe when the detector for that gets better or something {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} There 's another issue which is this {disfmarker} we 've been , uh , contacted by University of Washington now , of course , to , um {disfmarker} We sent them the transcripts that correspond to those {pause} six meetings and they 're downloading the audio files . So they 'll be doing that . Chuck 's {disfmarker} Chuck 's , uh , put that in . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I pointed them to the set that Andreas put , uh , on the {vocalsound} web so th if they want to compare directly with his results they can . And , um , then once , uh , th we can also point them at the , um , uh , the original meetings and they can grab those , too , with SCP . +PhD E: Wait . So you put the reference files {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No , no . They d they wanted the audio . +PhD E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: Jane sent them the , uh , transcripts . +PhD E: No , I mean of the transcripts . Um . Well , we can talk about it off - line . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's another meeting in here , what , at four ? Right ? Yeah , so we have to finish by three forty - five . +PhD H: D d So , does Washi - does {disfmarker} does UW wanna u do this {disfmarker} wanna use this data for recognition or for something else ? +PhD C: Uh , for recognition . +PhD E: I think they 're doing w +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: didn't they want to do language modeling on , you know , recognition - compatible transcripts +PhD H: Oh . I see . +Postdoc A: This is to show you , uh , some of the things that turn up during the checking procedure . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: Um @ @ {comment} So , this is from one of the NSA meetings and , uh , i if you 're familiar with the diff format , the arrow to the left is what it was , and the arrow to the right is {pause} what it was changed to . So , um . {vocalsound} And now the first one . "" OK . So , then we started a weekly meeting . The last time , uh {disfmarker} "" And the transcriber thought "" little too much "" But , {vocalsound} uh , really , um , it was "" we learned too much "" , which makes more sense syntactically as well . +PhD H: And these {disfmarker} the parentheses were f from {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Then {disfmarker} Oh , this {disfmarker} that 's the convention for indicating uncertain . +Grad F: U uncertains . +Postdoc A: So the transcriber was right . +PhD H: S +Postdoc A: You know , she was uncertain about that . +PhD H: OK . +Postdoc A: So she 's right to be uncertain . And it 's also a g a good indication of the {disfmarker} of that . +PhD H: Oh . {comment} OK . +Postdoc A: The next one . This was about , uh , Claudia and {pause} she 'd been really b busy with stuff , such as waivers . Uh , OK . Um , next one . Um . {vocalsound} This was {pause} an interesting one . So the original was "" So that 's not {disfmarker} so Claudia 's not the bad master here "" , and then he laughs , but it really "" web master "" . +Grad F: Web master . +Grad D: Oh . {comment} Uh - oh . +Postdoc A: And then you see another type of uncertainty which is , you know , they just didn't know what to make out of that . So instead of "" split upon unknown "" , {comment} it 's "" split in principle "" . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Jane , these are from IBM ? +Grad F: Spit upon ? +Grad D: The top lines ? +Postdoc A: No , no . These are {disfmarker} these are our local transcriptions of the NSA meetings . +Grad F: No , these are {pause} ours . +Postdoc A: The transcribers {disfmarker} transcriber 's version ver versus the checked version . +Grad D: Oh . Oh , I see . +Postdoc A: My {disfmarker} my checked version , after I go through it . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc A: Um , then you get down here . Um . Sometimes some speakers will insert foreign language terms . That 's the next example , the next one . The , uh , version beyond this is {disfmarker} So instead of saying "" or "" , especially those words , "" also "" and "" oder "" and some other ones . Those sneak in . Um , the next one {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's cool . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: S +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? Discourse markers ? Sure . Sure , sure , sure . +PhD H: Discourse markers . +Postdoc A: And it 's {disfmarker} and it makes sense +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz it 's , like , below this {disfmarker} it 's a little subliminal there . +PhD H: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Postdoc A: Um . OK , the next one , uh , {vocalsound} this is a term . The problem with terminology . Description with th the transcriber has "" X as an advance "" . But really it 's "" QS in advance "" . I mean , I {disfmarker} I 've benefited from some of these , uh , cross - group meetings . OK , then you got , um , {vocalsound} uh , instead of "" from something - or - other cards "" , {comment} it 's "" for multicast "" . And instead of "" ANN system related "" , it 's "" end system related "" . This was changed to an acronym initially and it should shouldn't have been . And then , you can see here "" GPS "" was misinterpreted . It 's just totally understanda This is {disfmarker} this is a lot of jargon . Um , and the final one , the transcriber had th "" in the core network itself or the exit unknown , not the internet unknown "" . And it {disfmarker} it comes through as "" in the core network itself of the access provider , not the internet backbone core "" . Now this is a lot of {pause} terminology . And they 're generally extremely good , +PhD H: Mmm . +Postdoc A: but , you know in this {disfmarker} this area it really does pay to , um {disfmarker} to double check and I 'm hoping that when the checked versions are run through the recognizer that you 'll see s substantial improvements in performance cuz the {disfmarker} you know , there 're a lot of these in there . +PhD H: Yeah . So how often {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah , but I bet {disfmarker} I bet they 're acoustically challenging parts anyway , though . +Postdoc A: No , actually no . +Grad D: Mmm . +Postdoc A: Huh - uh . +Grad F: Oh , really ? Uh , it 's {disfmarker} Oh , so it 's just jargon . +Postdoc A: It 's jargon . Yeah . I mean this is {disfmarker} cuz , you know you don't realize in daily life how much you have top - down influences in what you 're hearing . +PhD H: Well , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And it 's jar it 's jargon coupled with a foreign accent . +PhD H: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} But we don't {disfmarker} I mean , our language model right now doesn't know about these words anyhow . So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD H: you know , un until you actually {pause} get a decent language model , @ @ {comment} Adam 's right . +Grad F: It probably won't do any better . +PhD H: You probably won't notice a difference . But it 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's definitely good that these are fixed . I mean , {vocalsound} obviously . +Postdoc A: Well , also from the standpoint of getting people 's approval , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: cuz if someone sees a page full of uh , um , barely decipherable w you know , sentences , and then is asked to approve of it or not , {vocalsound} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Did I say that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . That would be a shame if people said "" well , I don't approve it because {pause} the {disfmarker} it 's not what I said "" . +Grad F: Well , that 's exactly why I put the extra option in , +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Exactly . That 's why we discussed that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: is that I was afraid people would say , "" let 's censor that because it 's wrong "" , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: and I don't want them to do that . +Postdoc A: And then I also {disfmarker} the final thing I have for transcription is that I made a purchase of some other headphones +PhD H: C +Postdoc A: because of the problem of low gain in the originals . And {disfmarker} and they very much appro they mu much prefer the new ones , and actually I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that there will be fewer things to correct because of the {disfmarker} the choice . We 'd originally chosen , uh , very expensive head headsets +Grad F: Yeah . Ugh ! +Postdoc A: but , um , they 're just not as good as these , um , in this {disfmarker} with this respect to this particular task . +PhD H: Well , return the old ones . +Grad F: It 's probably impedance matching problems . +Postdoc A: I don't know exactly , +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: but we chose them because that 's what 's been used here by prominent projects in transcription . +Professor B: Could be . +Postdoc A: So it i we had every reason to think they would work . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: So you have spare headsets ? +Postdoc A: Sorry , what ? +PhD H: You have spare headsets ? +Grad F: They 're just earphones . They 're not headsets . They 're not microphones . +PhD E: Right . +PhD H: No , no . I mean , just earphones ? Um , because I , uh , I could use one on my workstation , just to t because sometimes I have to listen to audio files and I don't have to b go borrow it from someone and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: We have actua actually I have {disfmarker} W Well , the thing is , that if we have four people come to work {pause} for a day , I was {disfmarker} I was hanging on to the others for , eh {disfmarker} for spares , +PhD H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: but I can tell you what I recommend . +Professor B: No , but you 'd {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} Yeah , w we should get it . +PhD H: Sure . No problem . +Grad F: But if you need it , just get it . +PhD H: I just {disfmarker} +Grad F: Come on . +PhD H: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . If you need it . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 'd just have to be a s a separate order {disfmarker} an added order . +Grad D: Yeah , I still {disfmarker} I still need to get a pair , too . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're pretty inexpensive . +PhD E: Yeah , that {disfmarker} We should order a cou uh , t two or three or four , actually . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: I 'm using one of these . Yeah . +PhD E: We have {disfmarker} +PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home , but it 's f just for music listening +Professor B: No . Just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} just buy them . +PhD E: Sh - Just get the model number +PhD H: and it 's not {disfmarker} Nnn . Yeah . +Professor B: Just buy them . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Where do you buy these from ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks , just down the street . +PhD E: Like {disfmarker} ? You just b go and b +Postdoc A: Yeah . They always have them in stock . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: That 'd be a good idea . +PhD H: Anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: W uh , could you email out the brand ? +Postdoc A: Oh , sure . Yeah . OK . +Grad F: Cuz I think {disfmarker} sounds like people are interested . +Grad D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Definitely . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: It 's made a difference in {disfmarker} in how easy . Yeah . +Professor B: I realized something I should talk about . So what 's the other thing on the agenda actually ? +Grad F: Uh , the only one was Don wanted to , uh , talk about disk space yet again . +Grad D: Yeah . u It 's short . I mean , if you wanna go , we can just throw it in at the end . +Professor B: No , no . Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you go ahead since it 's short . +Grad D: Um , well , uh . +Grad F: Oh , I thought you meant the disk space . Yeah , we know disk space is short . +PhD H: The disk space was short . Yeah . That 's what I thought too . +PhD E: That 's a great ambiguity . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's one of these {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's social +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} I i i it i +PhD E: and , uh , discourse level +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , it 's great . Yeah , +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: double {disfmarker} double {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , it was really goo +PhD E: See , if I had that little {pause} scratch - pad , I would have made an X there . +Grad D: Thank you , thank you . +Grad F: Uh , well , we 'll give you one then . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: Um . {vocalsound} So , um , without thinking about it , when I offered up my hard drive last week {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , no . +Grad D: Um , this is always a suspect phrase . +PhD E: It was while I was out of town . +Grad D: But , um , no . I , uh {disfmarker} I realized that we 're going to be doing a lot of experiments , um , {vocalsound} o for this , uh , paper we 're writing , so we 're probably gonna need a lot more {disfmarker} We 're probably gonna need {vocalsound} that disk space that we had on that eighteen gig hard drive . But , um , we also have someone else coming in that 's gonna help us out with some stuff . +Professor B: We 've just ordered a hundred gigabytes . +Grad D: So {disfmarker} OK . We just need to {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think we need , like , another eighteen gig disk {pause} to be safe . +Professor B: Well , we 're getting three thirty {disfmarker} thirty - sixes . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Right ? +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: That are going into the main f file server . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Markham 's ordering and they should be coming in soon . +Grad D: W Well . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Soon ? +Grad D: Yeah . I mean , I guess the thing is is , all I need is to hang it off , like , {vocalsound} the person who 's coming in , Sonali 's , computer . +PhD H: Oh , so {disfmarker} so , you mean the d the internal {disfmarker} the disks on the machines that we just got ? +Grad D: Whew . Or we can move them . +Grad F: No . +PhD C: These are gonna go onto Abbott . +Grad F: Ne - new disks . +PhD H: Or extra disk ? +Professor B: Onto Abbott , the file server . +Grad D: So are we gonna move the stuff off of my hard drive onto that when those come in ? +Grad F: On {disfmarker} +PhD H: Oh , oh . OK . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh , i +Grad F: Once they come in . Sure . +Grad D: OK . That 's fine . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when is this planned for {pause} roughly ? +PhD C: They should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I imagine next week or something . +Grad D: OK . +PhD E: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: If you 're {disfmarker} if you 're desperate , I have some space on my drive . +Grad D: I think if I 'm {disfmarker} +Grad F: But I {disfmarker} I vacillate between no space free and {pause} a few gig free . +Grad D: Yeah . I think I can find something if I 'm desperate +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad D: and , um , in the meantime I 'll just hold out . +Grad F: OK . +Grad D: That was the only thing I wanted to bring up . +PhD C: It should be soon . We {disfmarker} we should {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: So there 's another hundred gig . So . +Grad D: Alright . Great . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . It 's great to be able to do it , +Grad D: That 's it . +Professor B: just say "" oh yeah , a hundred gig , +PhD E: Good . +Professor B: no big deal "" . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . A hundred gig here , a hundred gig there . +PhD E: Well , each meeting is like a gig or something , +Grad F: It 's eventually real disk space . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: so it 's really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I was just going to comment that I I 'm going to , uh , be on the phone with Mari tomorrow , late afternoon . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: We 're supposed to {vocalsound} get together and talk about , uh , where we are on things . Uh , there 's this meeting coming up , uh , and there 's also an annual report . Now , I never actually {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was asking about this . I don't really quite understand this . She was re she was referring to it as {disfmarker} I think this actually {pause} didn't just come from her , but this is {pause} what , uh , DARPA had asked for . Um , she 's referring to it as the an annual report for the fiscal year . But of course the fiscal year starts in October , so I don't quite understand w w why we do an annual report that we 're writing in July . +PhD C: She 's either really late or really early . +Grad F: Huh . Or she 's getting a good early start . +Professor B: Uh , I think basically it it 's none of those . It 's that the meeting is in July so they {disfmarker} so DARPA just said do an annual report . So . So . So anyway , I 'll be putting together stuff . I 'll do it , uh , you know , as much as I can without bothering people , just by looking at {disfmarker} at papers and status reports . I mean , the status reports you do are very helpful . +PhD H: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh , so I can grab stuff there . And if , uh {disfmarker} if I have some questions I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad F: When we remember to fill them out . +Professor B: Yeah . If {pause} people could do it as soon as {disfmarker} as you can , if you haven't done one si recently . Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , but , you know , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure before {pause} it 's all done , I 'll end up bugging people for {disfmarker} for more clarification about stuff . Um . {vocalsound} But , um , I don't know , I guess {disfmarker} I guess I know pretty much what people have been doing . We have these meetings and {disfmarker} and there 's the status reports . Uh . But , um . Um . Yeah . So that wasn't a long one . Just to tell you that . And if something {vocalsound} hasn't , uh {disfmarker} I 'll be talking to her late tomorrow afternoon , and if something hasn't been in a status report and you think it 's important thing to mention on {vocalsound} this kind of thing , uh , uh , just pop me a one - liner and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll have it in front of me for the phone conversation . +PhD H: OK . +Professor B: Uh . I guess , uh , you you 're still pecking away at the {pause} demos and all that , probably . +Grad F: Yep . And Don is {pause} gonna be helping out with that . +Professor B: Oh , that 's right . +Grad F: So . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: Did you wanna talk about that this afternoon ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad F: Not here , but later today ? +Grad D: We should probably talk off - line about when we 're gonna talk off - line . +Grad F: OK . OK . +Professor B: OK . Yeah , I might want to get updated about it in about a week cuz , um , I 'm actually gonna have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a few days off the following week , a after the {disfmarker} after the picnic . So . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor B: That 's all I had . +Grad F: So we were gonna do sort of status of speech transcription {disfmarker} automatic transcription , but we 're kind of running late . So . +PhD E: How long does it take you to save the data ? +Grad F: Fifteen minutes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . If you wanna do a quick +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: ten minute {disfmarker} +PhD E: Guess we should stop , like , twenty of at the latest . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: We {disfmarker} we have another meeting coming in that they wanna record . +Professor B: And there 's the digits to do . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: So maybe {disfmarker} may maybe {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Well , we can skip the digits . +Professor B: We could . Fi - five minute report or something . +PhD E: It 's up to you . I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Whatever you want . +Professor B: Well , I would love to hear about it , +Grad F: What do you have to say ? +Professor B: especially since {disfmarker} +Grad F: I 'm interested , so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I 'm gonna be on the phone tomorrow , so this is just a {pause} good example of {pause} the sort of thing I 'd like to {pause} hear about . +PhD E: Wait . Why is everybody looking at me ? +PhD C: I don't know . +Grad F: Sorry . +Professor B: Cuz he looked at you +PhD H: What ? +Professor B: and says you 're sketching . +PhD E: Uh . I 'm not sure what you were referring to . +PhD H: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} actually , I 'm not sure what {disfmarker} ? Are we supposed to have done something ? +Grad F: No . We were just talking before about alternating the subject of the meeting . +PhD H: Oh . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: And this week we were gonna try to do {pause} t automatic transcription {pause} status . +PhD H: Alternating . +PhD E: I wasn't here last week . Sorry . +PhD H: Oh ! +PhD E: Oh . +Grad F: But we sort of failed . +PhD H: We did that last week . Right ? +PhD E: Hhh . +Grad F: No . +Professor B: I thought we did . +Grad F: Did we ? OK . +PhD H: Yeah . We did . +Grad F: OK . So now {disfmarker} now we have the schedule . So next week we 'll do automatic transcription status , plus anything that 's real timely . +PhD H: OK . +PhD E: Oh . OK . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK . Whew ! +PhD C: Good update . +Grad F: Whew ! +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} +Grad F: Dodged that bullet . +Professor B: Yeah . Nicely done , Liz . +Postdoc A: A woman of few words . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but lots of prosody . OK . {vocalsound} OK . +Grad F: Th +PhD H: Uh , I mean , we {disfmarker} we really haven't done anything . +Grad F: Excuse me ? +PhD H: Sorry . +Postdoc A: Well , since last week . +PhD E: Yeah , we 're {disfmarker} +PhD H: I mean , the {disfmarker} the next thing on our agenda is to go back and look at the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the automatic alignments because , uh , I got some {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I learned from Thilo what data we can use as a benchmark to see how well we 're doing on automatic alignments of the background speech {disfmarker} or , of the foreground speech with background speech . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD H: So . +PhD E: And then , uh , I guess , the new data that Don will start to process {disfmarker} +PhD H: But , we haven't actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: the , um {disfmarker} when he can get these {disfmarker} You know , before we were working with these segments that were all synchronous and that caused a lot of problems +PhD H: Mmm . +PhD E: because you have timed sp at {disfmarker} on either side . +Grad F: Oh . Right , right . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And so that 's sort of a stage - two of trying the same kinds of alignments with the tighter boundaries with them is really the next step . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: I 'll be interested . +PhD E: We did get our , um {disfmarker} I guess , good news . We got our abstract accepted for this conference , um {disfmarker} workshop , ISCA workshop , in , um , uh , New Jersey . And we sent in a very poor abstract , but they {disfmarker} very poor , very quick . Um , but we 're hoping to have a paper for that as well , which should be an interesting {disfmarker} +Grad F: When 's it due ? +PhD E: The t paper isn't due until August . The abstracts were already due . So it 's that kind of workshop . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But , I mean , the good news is that that will have sort of the European experts in prosody {disfmarker} sort of a different crowd , and I think we 're the only people working on prosody in meetings so far , so that should be interesting . +Postdoc A: What 's the name of the meeting ? +PhD E: Uh , it 's ISCA Workshop on Prosody in Speech Recognition and Understanding , or something like that {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's called Prosody to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: Good . +PhD E: some generic {disfmarker} Uh , so it 's focused on using prosody in automatic systems and there 's a {disfmarker} um , a web page for it . +Professor B: Y you going to , uh , Eurospeech ? Yeah . +Grad F: I don't have a paper +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: but I 'd kinda like to go , if I could . Is that alright ? +Professor B: We 'll discuss it . +Grad F: OK . {vocalsound} I guess that 's "" no "" . +Professor B: My {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my car {disfmarker} my car needs a good wash , by the way . +Grad F: OK . Well , that th Hey , if that 's what it takes , that 's fine with me . +Professor B: Um . +Grad F: I 'll pick up your dry - cleaning , too . Should we do digits ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD H: Can I go next ? Because I have to leave , actually . +Grad F: Yep . Go for it . Hmm ! Thanks . Thank you . +Professor B: So you get to be the one who has all the paper rustling . Right ? +","Members of a research team, including graduate students, postdocs, and a professor, discussed various topics related to their work. Key points included the use of wired ear-plug mics for recording, adherence to consent agreements for transcription and data release, and the necessity of providing participants with an opportunity to review and remove their data prior to wider dissemination. The consent form's deadline was raised as July 15th; however, there was some confusion as to why that date was chosen. There was also talk of needing to follow up with participants who didn't respond to an email regarding consent, potentially involving legal advice to ensure proper procedures were followed. The meeting touched on disk space concerns, automatic transcription status, and upcoming reports and conferences. Some members needed to leave early or had limited time for discussion." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Wait for the marketing director actually , so . Anyways . Uh . See , shall we wait ? I'm not sure if he's late or delayed or whatever , so I'm gonna start soon , we have now {disfmarker} don't have much time anyway . +User Interface: Oh , there he is . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: There you are , +Industrial Designer: we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: a little bit of pl little problem with computer . +Project Manager: Uh no problem . We're about to start , so have a seat . Okay , welcome again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Today , functional design phase . I'll take you over the minutes of last last meeting . Okay , that was just to get to know each other , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: have a little thoughts on what your vision is and {disfmarker} on this project , so {disfmarker} I put the minutes on the {disfmarker} I made on the on the p the the project share , so if you wanna review them , they're there . I will do so after every meeting , so if you have some information you wanna take back you can find it there . Anyways , um today three presentations , from every one of you . Um after that I got some new project requirements from project board , so we're gonna go af go after {disfmarker} over this later . But I wanna start with uh stuff you did first , so we can see what everybody came up with . And after that we can have the new requirements and share some thoughts , so . Who would like {disfmarker} wanna go first ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure , no problem . +Project Manager: Take it . +User Interface: Go ahead . +Marketing: Um there was a little problem with my computer so not uh the whole uh presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , let's see what you have . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Uh it's still a bit open . +Marketing: I want to open the my s oh no . +Project Manager: You should close it on your own notebook , I guess . Yeah . So there ? +Marketing: Oh no , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: that's okay . Uh slide show . Yes . The functional requirements , it's uh {vocalsound} uh very important for uh the user , he he wants to {disfmarker} yeah . The the method we used uh it it's not m not a slide , because it went wrong , but the method we use uh , um {vocalsound} we tested it w uh with uh a hundred uh men , and we asked them to w uh what the remote uh f feel uh like and uh what what's uh important . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If I can cut in , is it people or men ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: People , +Project Manager: Is it people , okay . +Marketing: sorry . +Project Manager: 'Cause I thought it was only men , +Marketing: Both women and men , +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . Uh the findings um uh {vocalsound} seventy five percent of the users find most remote controls ugly . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's pretty shocking uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to s we have to do something about that . +Marketing: Yeah , and {disfmarker} yeah , most th th they want to spend money for a better system , for better remote control , so we can do uh a l a little uh nice things with it , and um they use {disfmarker} yeah , they use zap a lot , um uh fifty percent say they only {disfmarker} So that's the most important things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , not all of it is it on mine on my PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: Okay , just talk ahead . +Marketing: but um uh the relevant buttons are the power , the channel selection and the volume selection . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh the most basic buttons that a user wants uh {vocalsound} to use . Uh less important is tel teletext , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh um they use it , but it's not uh very uh important uh on the scale of zero to ten they six and a half uh +Project Manager: Okay , that's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} but not important is the channel selection , the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} hmm ? +Project Manager: That's a little weird . +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which channel selection ? +Marketing: the the {disfmarker} no no no no no , that's very important , but uh w and not important in the audio settings , display settings +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can we can hide those under a menu or something , +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um new preferences preferences . Uh um um beep to find your control , was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's like a button on your T_V_ ? +Marketing: that was {gap} in the test , the the most people uh f find it uh irritating uh when they cannot find a rem their remote control , +Project Manager: Remote , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so uh I think it's a bee beep to sound it and uh you can find it . And another thing uh they want was uh speech recognition um so they can say uh what they want to {disfmarker} let's go to channel one and uh that's uh kind of things . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And they want maybe an uh L_C_D_ screen um to to look it um wh what's on every channel uh and uh what do I want with it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We wanna have a little preview on the remote control . Preview what's on the channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Is that manageable ? 'Cause it sounds pretty expensive too . +Project Manager: That sounds too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's possible , but uh I think it's expensive , but do continue . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Uh my personal preferences is uh a button for my favourite channel , so I can uh I dunno , so I can zap to my uh f uh quick uh to my favourite channel wh what I uh {disfmarker} so , the remote mu must see or um must um {vocalsound} see wha what mine preferences are for which channel , +Project Manager: Okay , you don't set it yourself , +Marketing: so I can zap t to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it just remembers the channel that you are on most , for example . +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: You want the {disfmarker} you want it to be programmed , for example y programmed f +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you want it to recognise your favourite channel ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see , you you spend twenty minutes each day on that channel , +Marketing: Recognise {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it recognises your favourite channel . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's uh what my personal preference like . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's it it does {disfmarker} it recognise itself , you don't have to set it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: itself . Maybe it's easier to {vocalsound} to sell it , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I don't know it's manageable , but we will uh we will see . +Project Manager: I see . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a little bit uh it's the end of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's a little bit uh I lost it , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the computer uh crashed , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem , it's it's okay , +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} Yeah , go ahead . +User Interface: Shall I go ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So , some technical functions . +Marketing: Darn computer . +User Interface: Basically I have some issues which you discussed earlier . Uh let's just start with the method . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It sounds really easy , what does the user do , what does the th remote control do , but there are quite some issues . So the things I'm going to concentrate on are the user aspect , because the technical aspect , that's pretty much covered . We can do that . What goes wrong {vocalsound} at the user . Gets the remote control . Where is the remote control ? We've all had it once , I want to watch some television , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: where's the remote control ? That was one of your ideas which you posted in the network folder , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That seems very good . +User Interface: a really good idea . Uh these are just the issues . I come to some uh personal experience , findings , possible solutions later . Searches for the button . There are many buttons on a remote control which are not clear . Uh so either we lose those or we try to make it a little bit more clear . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh also symbols tend to fade after a while . +Marketing: Mm uh . +User Interface: There's nothing more annoying than faded symbols , because you don't know which channel is this button , so possibly we could find uh something for that , +Project Manager: Okay , so have it more {disfmarker} make it more durable actually . Okay . +User Interface: yes . Uh covered that . Oh yes , user presses the button . Um usually when you have a lot of buttons , buttons are small . So you press more once remote control goes kablouey or something like that , +Project Manager: Okay , so the buttons should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: so we have to pay attention not to put too mun too many buttons on uh the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And possibly also the size , so more important buttons , bigger +Project Manager: Wow . The s Yeah . Make it {disfmarker} make them bigger . +User Interface: si +Project Manager: Even more durable uh . +User Interface: So this is basically what I h had in mind in the {disfmarker} fade-proof symbols , locator , a sound , uh so clear we should stick to existing symbols , but maybe we could do a little uh investigation to see whether some symbols are uh {disfmarker} need to be replaced by others . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: This I pretty much covered . {vocalsound} So what we want to go to is not this one , +Project Manager: Yeah , it's true . +User Interface: but more {disfmarker} less buttons , easy , some bigger buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: that's basically uh what I had in mind . So +Project Manager: Yeah , that's clear . +User Interface: This is not the final design , +Project Manager: No , of course uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: this is just a general idea of how I'd like to see uh basically the general idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . I must say that it {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So that was it . +Project Manager: That was it . Okay , that was good . So we agree on the the part that we need to get something on the on the remote to find it somewhere and increase it {disfmarker} the durability of of the thing , +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's a really good idea . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The other aspects , we'll just see how {disfmarker} what you came up with and what's possible for that budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's fine . Um . Okay , now work a little with me . Okay . Well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: let's start it as it is . Okay , uh the method . There are a few questions that need to be answered , uh you already uh talked about it a little bit . Which buttons are wanted , uh is our remote control universal or should it be programmable . Uh if it should be programmeab grammeale then we need um something like a mode that you can switch it . Because then the buttons have to send out a different signal then they would normally do . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh how big is the remote control uh going to be ? I'll tell you why that's important to me . Um there are a lot of technical parts in the remote control , so uh uh that's {vocalsound} why I also would like to say uh go a little bit easy on the designs , uh I heard ab uh you talking about beeps and about uh video screens , but uh the material inside and the technical aspects are quite complex already . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So keep in mind that everything that you keep uh {disfmarker} think of , it has to b to be built . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Of course , hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} that's not as easy as it s might look like . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh material study , I'm working on that um for the the costs . I have to check out how far I can go with that . Normally , a circuit board is made of fibreglass uh and the wires are made of copper . Uh that is how it is done and all the remote controls work that way , I think we can just go on with that . Um then I've read more integration of materials means less cost for the production . The more we can make uh at once uh in one piece , uh that is cheaper . +Project Manager: You mean integrate them all into the circuit board . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , so if we make a circuit board with the the connections already on it , then that's cheaper . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} make something that's not too difficult in design again . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is what look like uh looks like if you press one button , so this is not the entire thing . You have the the power coming in , then you have like a switch . The switch uh uh {vocalsound} uh if you p press it then some electrical charge goes into the processor , that thinks over a Morse code , that's how you should see it . The Morse code goes to the amplifier , then uh the signal is sent to two uh light bulbs . You have infrared and an interv um {vocalsound} uh how to say it ? Uh a light in indication , light that you know that it's functioning . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh here again , that's my story about the different modes , if you do want to make remote uh universal , then the processor has to uh make up a different Morse code when some button is pressed . That makes it much more complex , so we really need to have a look , do we want that or not . Uh I don't have any personal p uh preferences uh so far , except for uh the materials to be used uh light , that they are light . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . That was it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was it . +Project Manager: I'll get back to my thing then . Uh {disfmarker} Okay , back this up {disfmarker} to the screen . So I got some new information on the project specifications are changing a little . Like you said uh teletext is not not very popular anymore because the uh the internet , nowadays people don't use the teletext anymore or hardly , so it can either {disfmarker} Well , I don't think we should remove the button , because there are always people who are using it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think it should be {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} it should be one of the big buttons for example . Just put it somewhere or under second option or whatever . It's not important anymore . Um we're targeting young people now , because our um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This is a new product and with this new product we want to appeal to younger people , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which are {disfmarker} um the younger people were defined under forty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I so I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's also good with the fashion and everything , +Marketing: B +Project Manager: so yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and they want to pay for it +Project Manager: They want to pay for it , people are willing to spend money actually to buy a um remote that they like . +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If they like the way it looks , the way it functions , so they're actually gonna spend uh spend money on it . +Marketing: With more {disfmarker} Where {disfmarker} with more technical specifications +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} see how far we can go with it anyway , so +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} And one thing that should be important is that the corporate l colour and slogan are recognisable , which is apparently {vocalsound} black and yellow , but {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we {disfmarker} I think we should keep the the logo in mind , because with colours you can uh have a lot of uh fashionable colours and everything on it , which suits everybody's taste . So {disfmarker} With that concept I started thinking , so why not just steal Nokia's idea and just make changeable covers for your {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: I mean those cost hardly anything I think , and people could even spend extra money on buying a cover +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and so have an entire new remote control that they like to see . Or we can sh for example we can make a different {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a basic design . And sell the covers separately , for example . That's just a little marketing idea that could be applied , so you can p it appeals to really everyone . So you don't have to {disfmarker} I think you don't have to make entire remote controls . We make a basic one and manufacture this cover separately . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So that was that was my idea on what we could do to appeal this product to everyone . So +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} I'm not sure if you came up with anything in the meantime , after making a presentation . Would you like to share ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I think this is a good idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} oh ? +User Interface: Is it manageable ? Is it easy ? +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah , with with an L_C_D_ screen you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I think we should lose the L_C_D_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Y Yes , I think so too . +Project Manager: like you said . I think for example it's it's huge {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ is huge , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Why ? Nokia w +Project Manager: it consumes batteries like hell . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I think it takes up a lot of a lot of power . +User Interface: And it costs too much to fabricate , +Project Manager: It costs a lot , I think . +User Interface: so we're on a tight budget here . +Industrial Designer: Okay , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What we could do , what could be possible , is maybe not an L_C_D_ screen but with a preview , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y I'm not sure if it's even possible {vocalsound} . For example , a little T_V_ guide . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Like you have a little {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: just just a text only , not colour , just a little text thing +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so you can use your remote as a T_V_ guide . I'm not sure it's even possible , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I have to check that out , +Project Manager: but maybe okay , make it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . +Project Manager: Yeah , find a little compromise in that , but {disfmarker} What did I write down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the p yeah , the beep is a very simple thing to imple implement , just make a button on your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: That must be possible . +Project Manager: and just hit the button , it beeps somewhere . I think it's easy to implement , +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: we should go for that . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: whe where do you wanna hit the T_ {disfmarker} you wanna {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we want a button on the television . {gap} +Project Manager: I thin {vocalsound} Yeah , I mean where else should you put it ? +Industrial Designer: In th okay , but that rules out a universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Because that's not possible uh . +Project Manager: but {vocalsound} how are you gonna use that if your {disfmarker} I mean if your remote control is lost , how are you gonna press {disfmarker} where are you gonna press the button ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: Maybe just a slap-on sticker with a button which sends out a small signal . +Project Manager: A slap-on sticker . Oh , you mean as like a separate thing you can attach to your T_V_ . +Marketing: Mm uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , that could be possible . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: A little little box you can attach to your T_V_ is fine then , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , then uh I'd I'd like to know now if we want the uh universal remote control or not , because that's uh determines everything I'm gonna do . +Project Manager: I think it's universal . I think we should go for universal , +Industrial Designer: If not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because apparently we're a separate company making separate c remote controls to sell to a lot of diverse people . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I think universal remote control should be possible . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , then I go for that . +Marketing: Everyone uh wants to buy it , so we w +Project Manager: Yeah , I think we're targeting everyone , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so remote {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . No , +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's fine with me , but then I know what to look for . +Project Manager: Okay , universal is good . Speech recognition , I think it's very hard , because we're selling across multiple countries . So I think implementing speech recognition is such a small um apparatus , it's very hard to do . +Marketing: Yeah . Or one . +User Interface: And it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or when you say one two uh i it uh it's enough , +Project Manager: Yeah , but I don't see Arabian people speaking one , two uh whatever . +Marketing: right ? But {disfmarker} Oh yeah . +User Interface: Besides that , the technology isn't really super yet , so that {vocalsound} is a problem in implementing this . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's not a mature technology , I think it takes a lot of memory and everything in in a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a good idea , but it's just not {disfmarker} I don't think the market's ripe for that yet . +Project Manager: I don't think it should be implemented in a remote control yet uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: What else do we have ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um well you should you should look into the in into the materials that are real durable . So the the the symbols won't fade , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe a little harder plastic +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: or especially li we don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I already noted that . +Project Manager: maybe we don't have have to do all the buttons , but especially the ones that are um the popular buttons , so those always fade first . +Industrial Designer: Mm , okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm the thing is the most important things that we have now . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Let's see . +Industrial Designer: If we uh make a remote control with changeable covers , then we can also make uh a cover for every language area . +Project Manager: For example ? +Industrial Designer: That's fo {vocalsound} is uh especially for older people , that they can read it read it in their own language . +Project Manager: Well , we're not we're not targeting older people , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we should remember that . Everything we target is under forty , +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: okay , okay . +Project Manager: You assume that that they read correctly and I think they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: The most important thing about young people is that they're really sensitive to to trends that are passing through the world , +Marketing: But b +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +User Interface: But should the exchangeable covers include the buttons themselves or just the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , of course . No , I think it's just something you you put over them , because {disfmarker} Yeah we c Yeah , you ca Well , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: tha that's not a that's not a bad {disfmarker} that's not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: C +Marketing: But every {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's a problem with the with the text then . +Project Manager: it's not even a bad idea . I mean , for example , if you're if you're into the durability issue you could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: For example , if your buttons are faded , after {disfmarker} I mean if you make a durable remote , they are faded , you can just buy a new cover . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure it's it's hard to make . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So it's a good and a bad idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh but I know that the buttons are like a Nokia telephone on uh one sleeve , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you don't have to change your whole cover . Uh we can make something that you can only remove the sleeve . +User Interface: Oh yeah , I know what you mean . +Industrial Designer: Know what I mean ? +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It works the same as a Nokia telephone , it's it's in my uh {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I know , it's just just a one one piece of rubber for example , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: that's what I {disfmarker} something I have to look into . Either either change both the buttons and and the cover or just the cover , I'm not sure which which is easier , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um anyway , yeah , this is what we're gonna do afterwards , just lunch break and have more individual work after that , so let's see what we {disfmarker} let's see we {disfmarker} So you have to come up with a components concept , yeah . I want some {disfmarker} you should do some trend-watching , because even if we're if we're gonna do those covers and everything , what people really want , that's what we need to know in this phase , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: because that's gonna be the essential final design that we're gonna come up with . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Yeah , I think user interface is fairly obvious . I mean it should be very intuitive , +User Interface: Pretty straightforward . +Project Manager: s Yeah , it should speak for itself . Uh for example I bought a remote control last week with a new T_V_ , it was it l it's like all buttons and you have no idea what it does at first , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {gap} total T_V_ new , anyway . So I think it should be {disfmarker} have less or l very little buttons and maybe a second {vocalsound} second level menu for the advanced things . Or maybe just stick 'em under a menu , like you said the um {vocalsound} the sound options and the surround and whatever , they're more complicated , just stick 'em under one menu and uh give it a {disfmarker} just put it in in s in a software piece , you can menu and you can uh select everything you want to to set on your T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Is it techni technically possible to uh {vocalsound} send a signal to a television and then pops up a menu , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because we're working with different types of television , so we're going to work with that ? +Project Manager: That is true . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . +Project Manager: No , that's true . +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . Because the television needs to respond to the signal , +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: It's an in-built menu , +Industrial Designer: and if it doesn't know how , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: isn't it ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , that's not possible . +User Interface: So basically +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it's impossible , +User Interface: we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but uh there's a chance it's not , so . +User Interface: Or we could use a double-sided {disfmarker} for {vocalsound} less used functions +Project Manager: A double-sided remote control ? +User Interface: you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't think that's useful . +User Interface: Yeah , with the cover . {vocalsound} I it's basically an idea to overcome these issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you're gonna have a lot of wasted buttons . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: For example you have a Sony T_V_ and the half of the buttons won't function if you have a {disfmarker} for a Sony that won't {disfmarker} for a Philips T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: No , but basic functions {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: but functions which are not frequently used . +Project Manager: I don't think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because if we use a universal remote control , we're going to have to have most buttons on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , for exam +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm not s +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , for ex you have to make it a little decision between the part if you want a universal remote control that {disfmarker} it should do what people usually do with their T_V_s , not not the very complicated settings +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that you can usually do that with uh either a old old remote control if they really hate that thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you can't you cannot take into consideration all the different brands of T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: But that might be broken . +Project Manager: I think there's I think there is a standard for example between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Hmm . +Project Manager: because usually the the menu is {disfmarker} the menu button is is usable between different brands . Especially the big ones , the big brands , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: so . 'Cause everybody {disfmarker} I have a universal remote control and it can use the menu button , so I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , if you can put some research into that , if it's possible . Uh I think just a b +Industrial Designer: Mm okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and the navigation is very basic , it's usually the same thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . But I think there must be a way uh to invoke the more complicated functions of a television . For instance , if your old remote control is broken and you buy ours , then uh you should be able to get everything out of the television that's in it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . I think so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because otherwise you'll lose functions by buying our {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we need to put some research into that if if we can open the menu , I think it's possible , just the way how to . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I thi I think so too . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , then then you could do everything I suppose , because usually the T_V_s have tha that inside in this other little piece of software , so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that our r remote control should not look like uh any other . For instance uh Sony makes all their remote controls exactly the same for all their devices , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you always grab the wrong one because formatting of the buttons is exactly the same , only the labels are different . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I think it should be a little distinct from everything else , +Industrial Designer: We should not do that . +Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} either it's both {gap} mayb +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: maybe the shape can be a little different . +User Interface: I have some ideas . I have some ideas . +Project Manager: Maybe it's a little more curves or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Mm that's your uh division . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} yeah . And uh with different colours uh . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'll put some on paper and present them next time uh the ideas that I have . +Project Manager: Yeah , this {gap} . Not sure what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because we have forty minutes , I'm not sure how much time we have left for the meeting anyway , so . +User Interface: I heard a beep go . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it wasn't me , it was him closing something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So anyway , yeah , we could do some i do some work now on on the design for example . I mean what do you want , do you want {gap} , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but we like some some curves or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , may maybe something like this . But though smooth inside . So you have the transmitter here for example . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see that you {disfmarker} what would be handy . I think that the {vocalsound} the buttons should be {disfmarker} the channel buttons should be {vocalsound} uh on their own . +Marketing: Uh . And a light uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see one , two {disfmarker} God damn it . +User Interface: Oh , we get the general ideas , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} Another one here . Let's see what {disfmarker} I think this should {disfmarker} these are always on top of the of the control , so they should be here . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , and since you're holding it like this , I suggest you put the channel up channel down and volume {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Think it's like this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Volume . +Project Manager: Withi within the {disfmarker} Yeah , just take it . +User Interface: yeah yeah . So you have the up channel {vocalsound} the down channel {disfmarker} the volume , do we want that horizontal or vertical ? +Project Manager: Do you take triangles or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it's it's fine , I think . +Project Manager: Um I think it should be I think it {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is basically what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Maybe we should make 'em bigger or whatever . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but this is just a g general idea . +Marketing: Oh d {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh maybe the menu button can go i in the middle . +Project Manager: Yeah , in the middle . It's it's usually uh there , but {disfmarker} Mm . +User Interface: Whoa . +Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should also make uh something like a flash on it , if you {disfmarker} if it's lost , for people that are deaf . They they won't hear the the beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but for example if it's lost in your armchair , we'll not see the flash . +User Interface: You won't be able to find it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And flash takes up a lot of batteries again . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah , it's true , but it's it's only has to do so when you press the button that it's lost . +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We could make a combination that it goes beep and that you {disfmarker} that some light lights up . +Industrial Designer: So . {gap} deaf people ? +Marketing: And L_E_D_ uh on it . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought about for deaf people for example , so . We could do that . Uh let's see . +Marketing: Just a light on it or {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we have the basic channels we've got here , uh the power button somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: Oh yeah , it's true . Um that thing should be central . +Marketing: Very important . +Project Manager: You shouldn't be {disfmarker} you uh shouldn't press it by accident , but it shouldn't be stacked away somewhere . +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: I usually press it on top . +Marketing: that's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: At least that's what I'm accustomed to . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I have another idea , +Project Manager: Yeah , like that's gonna work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure if it's possible . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: What would you like to {gap} ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought maybe we should move the buttons down +Marketing: But you r +Project Manager: and put it here for example +Marketing: And you are reading from the t +Project Manager: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: you always read from the top to the the bottom of it . +Project Manager: From top to bottom . Yeah , that's true , +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: you should {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the bu the power button should be on top , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause it's the first thing you do {vocalsound} , turn it on . So power button on top . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , mute button . Is that somewhere here ? +Project Manager: Mute . Do we hardly {disfmarker} I think it should be at the bottom somewhere . +User Interface: Is that used often ? +Marketing: So i it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: The mute button ? Do people use that often ? +Marketing: sorry ? +Project Manager: Mute . Turn the sound off . +Marketing: No , it's {disfmarker} no . {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause uh I'm pretty much accustomed to it {vocalsound} right over here , at least in general , +Marketing: Uh . Hmm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think it's important , {gap} but I think it I think it should be {disfmarker} you c +User Interface: It's not that important , no . +Project Manager: you could put it somewhere here . +Marketing: Or or with the volume selection . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , because it {disfmarker} Yeah , people are accustomed to that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Around uh not uh not at top at the {disfmarker} around the volume selection . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Can I have that ? That's j +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: I don't know where exactly , +Project Manager: Take this out and here see {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh are we gonna take triangles anyway ? I'm drawing triangles , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's pretty much what people are accustomed to , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: aren't they ? +Project Manager: it's maybe a bigger lesser than thing . So anyway , I think this is {disfmarker} should be the channels and {disfmarker} or sh +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: I'm accustomed to the channels being on top . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , +Marketing: Yeah , that's better . +Project Manager: should we chan +Marketing: On the right . +Project Manager: okay , {vocalsound} this two , channel up and down . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh also look if it's possible to make a rechargeable remote ? That you don't have to buy new batteries if every {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: for {disfmarker} that is it's on one part it's um it's a good thing to recharge it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe it's more ex expensive . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we should {disfmarker} what what could be possible is one with rechargeable batteries for example . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} just put Penlite batteries that are rechargeable , because it's an it's it's it's very annoying . +User Interface: But isn't that expensive in the entire package ? +Industrial Designer: But that's already possible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure y {vocalsound} I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} if it's expensive , but just take a look at it , because it might be a very good idea . Because if {disfmarker} it's it's uh useful to have it rechargeable , +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: but at the same time , if you don't want recha if you forgot to recharge it and you wanna watch T_V_ now , you wanna be able to put different batteries in it , use it now and not in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . Okay . Uh you could make a device , but I'm not sure how that uh is possible with the costs , that you can put in normal batteries , rechargeable , +Project Manager: I think I have a nice idea . +Industrial Designer: but it {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} the remote also can act as a recharger . So then you can choose , you have every decision . Know what I mean ? +Project Manager: Not exactly uh . +Industrial Designer: You can uh put in normal Penlites , rechargeable Penlites , but they can also be recharged with the remote , with a wire . +Marketing: Hmm . Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's uh it's a pretty good idea to have uh like sort of a {disfmarker} maybe a base station that you put on the T_V_ . Could be flat , you could insert your uh remote into it . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's g +Industrial Designer: But I think that will cost a lot . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Uh a normal wire would be better . +Project Manager: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Like a like a P_D_A_ , a hand-held . You can uh just put it in the electricity and it charges itself , +Project Manager: Well , we were talking about the fact that we wanted to insert either a beep or a flash into the thing with a little separate signal +Industrial Designer: you don't need basic station . Yes . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} So you could put that on a T_V_ for example . +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that's true . +Project Manager: It could be very flat , could be very small . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a very small {disfmarker} Yeah , I'm drawing it big now , but {disfmarker} So you can put your remote on flat for example . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And at the backside of remote just just just a little hole +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: for example um you just {vocalsound} put it down , it recharges for example . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive . +User Interface: But again , isn't that too expensive ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that means that we have to implement rechargeable batteries , a docking station {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm not sure if it costs a lot , that that's what he r +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's that you {disfmarker} that's what you buy yourself . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I'm going to try to find that out . I'm not sure if there's information available on this , +Project Manager: It's just an idea , we have to find out if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: And do people actually want that ? To pay extra {disfmarker} they want to pay for rechargeable ? +Marketing: Yeah , they want to pay for it . +Project Manager: Do they want {disfmarker} but they want a rechargeable one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , you should find out if it's {disfmarker} if rechargeable is important . +Marketing: Th uh there was not a el ask esque {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . These are uh comfort issues . So I think people will pay {disfmarker} they wanted to pay for comfort . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They want to pay for comfort , +Industrial Designer: Well , this is comfort . +Project Manager: we just assu we we could either make a separate station which just sends a signal to the remote control to either beep or flash to find it , +Marketing: But f hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: um and {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to {disfmarker} either that or make it integrated with a with a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . Exactly . I think this is a brilliant product . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it would be good actually . +Industrial Designer: I would buy it myself . +Project Manager: I like the beep part {vocalsound} anyway . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's go through the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I like the covers . That's a brilliant idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can can we save this or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Covers is covers is good . +Industrial Designer: I never thought {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} Oh we can save this . Up and saved . We even saved the ant . {gap} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what we have is {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} I think you have {vocalsound} to do a lot of work on if it's possible for the cost . +Industrial Designer: I hope if I have information about that , +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'm gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {vocalsound} maybe you can find out i what people are willing to pay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We are going for twenty five Euros sales price , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: but just try to find out what they're willing to pay for it , because if they're willing to pay more , we could lose a little profit and maybe attract more customers , +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: uh we just have to see what it looks like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would like to make a decision {gap} . What it costs and what kind of materials that we can uh choose what we want in it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , if you have some financial information that that'd be nice , +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} exactly , I need it . +Project Manager: so . Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Could you post some {vocalsound} other essentials of what people want , so that I can work with some buttons , where to put it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You seem to have information on that , I'd like to uh see some of it . +Industrial Designer: Was it not possible to uh send emails around the office ? +Project Manager: No , it wasn't wasn't allo +User Interface: No , it's not . No . +Project Manager: it was possible , +Industrial Designer: Not {gap} . +Project Manager: not allowed , so . So that's um why I'm not sure that {vocalsound} you're allowed to share documents on the on the draft . +Marketing: Yeah . My computer crashed , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: so uh +Project Manager: I don't care . I haven't heard any complaints yet , +User Interface: Oh , your computer . Okay . +Marketing: I lost my uh presentation , +Project Manager: so . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I have the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I have your PowerPoint presentation , I can get some inf information out of that . +Marketing: Yeah , but I Here I have the the s the homepage of uh our internet , +User Interface: Let's see . +Project Manager: Yeah , the oh , they inc uh +Marketing: and here is my +Project Manager: they include the new one . {vocalsound} Or just for you . +User Interface: Oh , where would we {disfmarker} +Marketing: here is my marketing report , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Marketing: maybe you ca you can look at uh {vocalsound} that +Project Manager: no , I didn't have that . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where would we want the uh teletext button ? +Marketing: Ah yeah . +User Interface: Because we decided that it's n not that important . +Project Manager: All it tells {gap} just {disfmarker} let's make make a new {disfmarker} +Marketing: And one {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we put it somewhere over here ? +Project Manager: tick the new one . {vocalsound} Um other side . Yeah , let's increase it a little because {disfmarker} +Marketing: And uh wha what people want , I've uh +User Interface: Or maybe this is something for the next meeting , I can draw out some ideas . +Project Manager: Yeah , draw us up some some designs of of possible {disfmarker} +Marketing: I have another thing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: just keep in mind that the important buttons should be on top and either big , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so the more {disfmarker} less important {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we have decided {vocalsound} more or less the basic structure . +Project Manager: More or less . +User Interface: I can put the other buttons in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just play a little with this , put l shift a little up or down and we'll see what looks best . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: What uh what did you wanna say ? +Project Manager: Or just po post your designs from time to time on the product share . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh what I al already said is the the uh the remote controls are always lost , +User Interface: Maybe another idea uh . +Marketing: but it it's also for people , {vocalsound} they want to learn it fast , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: not uh {disfmarker} they want to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so we don't want {gap} we want very little buttons , just the buttons you use a lot . +Marketing: No +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} yeah , it's easy to learn +User Interface: Yes , but it should cover all the functions , +Marketing: wi and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well +User Interface: so possibly , just an idea that popped in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: what {disfmarker} we had function that what people do , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so . People change channels , people {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they change the volume and they they change channel , they turn T_V_ off and on , for example . That's the basic fu that's what you do {disfmarker} I'm not sure who present that again , but those are the basic function that people use it for , so those should be very well represented . +User Interface: Yeah , but we could go a step further , +Marketing: And {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +User Interface: because some T_V_s have the uh possibility to adjust brightness , that kind of menus . +Project Manager: That's true , but that's what we stick under the menu button . Everything is {disfmarker} you say in every T_V_ that's configured under the menu . +User Interface: Yes , but it {disfmarker} Because we're making {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's the question , is it ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because it needs to be configured in the television under the menu . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If it isn't , then we cannot reach it . +User Interface: We need to adjust to the {vocalsound} technology . +Project Manager: But I think most modern T_V_s have it in their menu . +Industrial Designer: I think so too . I think so too . +User Interface: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh isn't there a possibility to do research on that , so we know that for sure ? If you rule out functions , then uh {disfmarker} and that gets known , then people are not gonna buy it . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , I thi +Industrial Designer: Then the consumer bond or something says uh you cannot do this and that with it . That's a bad bad com {vocalsound} commercial +Marketing: If um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh we'll we'll see what we can come up with . +Industrial Designer: for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Another thing I want to say is that uh we are looking at the market for the age uh {vocalsound} younger than forty . +Project Manager: Under forty . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: Um on my report , {vocalsound} I didn't uh {vocalsound} ish I didn't show it in my uh presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because my computer crashed . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Um they want to pay for an L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . +Project Manager: The want to pay for {disfmarker} +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did they really said it like that ? Those two things . +Marketing: i yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh shall we ? +Industrial Designer: Do they realise how much that costs ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's almost undoable . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Younger , age sixteen and forty five . +User Interface: Oh , we're not going to be able to sell it for twenty-five then , with an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's all here , here it says {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's that's {gap} . Even if i if we have this lost unit , then we cannot do it for that price . +Project Manager: Yeah , age sixteen forty fi interest in main features more critical . +Marketing: If if they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we're not focusing on this . Um {disfmarker} All the interest in features , not really the L_C_ {disfmarker} oh here . Would you pay for uh speech recognition in a remote control . Hmm , okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: So uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we can +Project Manager: Speech recognition is quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can look at the possibilities for an uh L_C_D_ and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just look at the possibilities then , +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: because if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: apparently it's what people want , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's supposed to be a luxurious remote , +Marketing: How much it will cost +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe it's not even that expensive . Or find a compromise , maybe just a black and white or {disfmarker} for some extra information on it , on your programmes . +Industrial Designer: Uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I doubt it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But I really need finance information . +Project Manager: Me too . {vocalsound} I mean we all do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It will come uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We all do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . I think it's something we should put into consideration . Apparently it's what people want , so . We should see if {disfmarker} what it costs , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we should do a little thing about design , because it looks boring really to me . Even if you put it {disfmarker} even if you put a different cover on it , it looks {disfmarker} still looks boring , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Different colours maybe . +Project Manager: so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . And the design , it should differ . +Marketing: But all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: This is Philips , huh ? +Project Manager: I have no clue . +Industrial Designer: Philips has this . +Project Manager: I just drew something what {disfmarker} which would fit into your hand easily . +User Interface: Well , I had basically {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Hmm . Uh . +User Interface: Something like this . To make it kind of futuristic . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Oh , I realise if we make it small , then it needs to be a little thicker , +Project Manager: I think it's a very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I need to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: If we make it s uh smaller , uh less wide , then we need to m make it a little thicker , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: because I have to put all the electronics in it . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah , but you have to j just keep in mind it shouldn't be too heavy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean we can stick it in in there , I think . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Huh even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: So +Project Manager: in the worst case we can even {disfmarker} +User Interface: what kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Could you give me the pen back ? +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: So let's say that people would want an L_C_D_ thing . Let's take take the basic design again , what we {disfmarker} oh , crap {disfmarker} uh came up with . I'll just make it a little bigger now . So a transmitter here . Anyway . We could {disfmarker} let's say we have an L_C_D_ screen , people want an L_C_D_ screen . So then we should probably put it here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be really big , but just just have to be {disfmarker} has to be there . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Think it's a good place , people don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you're reading from top to bottom , I think it's better to put it uh at the top . +Project Manager: No ? It's not that uh {disfmarker} it's not the most important function , +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Marketing: It's j {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's just an extra thing , +Industrial Designer: Ah +Project Manager: it just {disfmarker} you press the buttons on top , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . But i if you if you are going to uh put the L_C_D_ on it , {vocalsound} I think it's very important to use it , +Industrial Designer: but {gap} . +Project Manager: because your finger is on top . +Marketing: uh because it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} use it uh +Project Manager: How can you use an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: But nee the function of it . {vocalsound} So you can use it maximum , because uh it's a lot {disfmarker} it costs a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah , but why +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I'm not sure . +User Interface: Now it's pretty much tucked away in your hand . +Project Manager: Uh if you t if you press a button , you can see it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . No . +Project Manager: ri I'm not sure wha I'm trying to imagine myself what it would look like . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: M I personally would prefer it on the top . +Project Manager: You would prefer it n Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have three people saying it should be on top . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay , but then you would would s have to stack away your buttons somewhere else . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Hmm . +Project Manager: Anyways . +Marketing: It's expensive to build it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so +Project Manager: Uh this looks a little {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'm still not convinced of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: you must use the maximum of it . +Project Manager: About the L_C_D_s thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if it if it's +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: if it's possible wi if it's not too expensive , we should include it , +Industrial Designer: They want it uh . +Project Manager: because it's it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We should just try to make that if it's possible . If it is possible we should really do it , but we need that information . +Marketing: Huh . Uh . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Also keep in mind again , the L_C_D_ screen is very flat , but it needs transistors , resistors , I don't know what more and that needs space . So I have to look if that's possible . +Marketing: Yeah , I know uh . +User Interface: So basically +Industrial Designer: But if we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} can I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we have green now uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: what we have to decide now is uh what goes on top . Do we put the volume control and the channel control here , or do we put it on he Would we like to press it in the middle ? +Project Manager: Or maybe we should m we could uh draw draw something a bit {disfmarker} that has it on on on the bottom . +Marketing: In middle of it . In the middle . +Project Manager: Maybe in a circle for example , like we {disfmarker} like in this example . I think this is not good , but for {disfmarker} we could make circular buttons for example . For up and down , ma make it a circle on it , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes , but we do agree that we {vocalsound} keep this at the centre , +Project Manager: because it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: because it's basically the most important function . +Project Manager: I think the channel button should be in the centre . +Marketing: It's the most import yeah . +Project Manager: Channel button should be st stick together , for example here in this section . Because it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , that would make them quite small . +Project Manager: We're not sure about the size anyway , +User Interface: So maybe you'd put them here . +Project Manager: just a general design . You can make it as big as you want . For example if you take uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but a big remote control probably not something which people would like . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: let's see . For example just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we have a a space issue , we can also lose one battery . It is rechargeable , so we can stick with one instead of two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: I don't think if we if we even use an L_C_D_ screen , we need to , definitely . +Industrial Designer: That might be an option . Yeah , but if we need two batteries and an L_C_D_ screen , that means a lot of space that we need . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we have to see what the si what the size is . +Industrial Designer: But it has to be a little bit heavier . +Project Manager: The L_C_D_ doesn't have to nee doesn't need to be very big . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , but the things behind it . {gap} space . +Project Manager: Mm let's see . +Industrial Designer: Like a process uh . +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . +Marketing: It's on your computer . +Project Manager: Okay , we will . So either {disfmarker} +User Interface: So would we like this or would we like the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We either we have to decide what what people want . +Industrial Designer: I like this one more . +Project Manager: Either this one , this this could be the luxurious one . So we have channel buttons here . I'm just drawing something uh . Uh {disfmarker} I think this would this would look cool . You could have it for example {disfmarker} small buttons here for some extra functions , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: so if your basic function's here , we should {disfmarker} like we decided before , programmes up and down , and volume here . +User Interface: Let's see what we have here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} And uh what about speech recognition uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well you can just {disfmarker} no , I'm not sure if we can do that , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: but we could put a microphone in here for example . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} or or an L_C_D_ or an uh speech . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} L_C_D_ is better now . +Project Manager: Just to do research into both , w what it costs and what it takes for space . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'll try to . +Project Manager: But let's cut the meeting for now yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more uh thing I'd like to say , uh let's give this uh a name , and not like some vague serial number that no one understands , like with cars . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Shall we all try uh to think about a name ? +User Interface: So I think of a name . +Marketing: that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , let's think of a name , okay . +Marketing: yeah , that's okay . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Oh , good . +Project Manager: Okay , at anyways , the the minutes will be on the on the web shortly , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so there we go uh . +User Interface: Yes , go and finish up and I'll see you at lunch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , to all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Same . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I've {disfmarker} Do we uh save the {gap} ? +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} . +","The project team met to discuss the functional design phase of a new remote control project. The Project Manager opened the meeting, stating the plan to review three presentations from team members and discuss new project requirements from the project board. + +The Marketing representative presented findings, despite computer issues, highlighting that most users find current remote controls ugly and desire better systems. Key findings indicated people are willing to pay for a better remote with essential buttons like power, channel, and volume control. Less important features included teletext and advanced audio/display settings. + +The User Interface discussed usability problems, such as lost remotes and worn-off symbols. The suggestion was to focus on user-friendly design, remove or clarify unclear buttons, and ideally make symbols fade-proof. + +The Industrial Designer raised questions around universal remote capability, size constraints due to internal components, and material costs. There was a discussion on integrating circuit board components to reduce costs. + +Throughout the meeting, the team discussed a range of potential features, such as an LCD screen, speech recognition, personalized channel selection, and a beeping function to locate the remote. There was also the idea of changeable covers to customize the remote's appearance. + +The Project Manager incorporated feedback into the design considerations and determined the need to adhere to new project specifications. They debated on the importance and feasibility of various features like an LCD screen and speech recognition. + +The conversation ended with the decision to continue individual work after the meeting and to think of a name for the product. The minutes of the meeting were to be published on the project's web page for review." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders, and also from Dawn Bowden, and I'd like to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, who is substituting for Dawn Bowden. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to our evidence session for our inquiry on school improvement and raising standards. I'd like to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Steve Davies, director of education. Thank you both for attending and for your detailed paper in advance of the meeting. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. If I can just start by asking you: to what extent is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development still involved in the Welsh Government's school improvement journey? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, can I thank the committee for their invitation this morning, and their interest in this particular area? As you will be aware, on coming into office, the director and I agreed to ask the OECD to do a rapid review of the state of Welsh education at the beginning of this Assembly term. They did that, and the feedback from that work informed the publication and content of the national mission. I was very clear in the national mission that I would invite the OECD back to review our progress against that mission, and that has happened in the tail end of last year, and the OECD will publish their latest report on Welsh education next month now, in March. So, the expectation is that the report will be published on 23 March, and my intention is to make a statement to the Chamber on 24 March. The nature of that review is part of our ongoing development of self-evaluation. So, we talk a lot about self-evaluation in the school system. Actually, the continuing relationship with OECD is about self-evaluation of the entirety of the system and Welsh Government. We don't want to accept our own orthodoxy and just be in a bubble where we are constantly listening to ourselves and those people who might want to agree with us or tell us what we want to hear. So, the OECD is our best attempt of having some external verification of where we are. That's a risk for Ministers and for Government, because we want them to give an honest evaluation of where we are, but that's a really important tool for me, to ensure that we're constantly testing ourselves. The nature of that review is that the OECD were able to talk to whoever they felt it was important to talk to, so that included practitioners on the ground, elements of the middle tier, as well as Welsh Government. And I know, Chair—I hope you'll be pleased to hear this—that the reports of this committee have formed parts of their review, looking at how the Senedd itself has contributed to and has held the Government to account. So, as I said, we expect our report to be published towards the end of March. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Minister. Can I ask about the powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, to ask you to tell us about the use of those powers either by Welsh Government or by local authorities, and how effective you feel that legislation has been? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, as you'll be aware, local authorities have quite extensive powers of intervention in schools if they feel that is necessary. If I'm honest, I think there's a mixed picture, with some local authorities using those powers not on a regular basis, but obviously demonstrating a willingness to use those powers. There are other local authorities who don't seem to have used them. Since that legislation came into being, there have been a number of reasons, because of course a local authority has to give a reason for using those powers of intervention. They usually focus on standards, but sometimes they focus on a breakdown in governance arrangements, perhaps, or a failure or a breakdown in financial management. So, sometimes the budgetary issues trigger an intervention power. And the types of interventions that have been used have included, in some cases, appointing additional governors to governing bodies, or suspending a school's delegated budget so the local authority takes on, then, financial control of that particular school, or sometimes applying to the Welsh Government to entirely replace a governing body and establish an intervention board. So, if I can give you an example of where that's been used and has been successful, in Flintshire. They applied to Welsh Government for two interim executive boards, in Sir Richard Gwyn Catholic High School and in Ysgol Trefonnen. They applied to us. Those governing bodies were dissolved. The IEBs were put in place and both of those schools, which had been in special measures, moved quite rapidly, actually, out of special measures. Perhaps the most recent example of this is one that the Chair will know very well in her own constituency of Torfaen, in Cwmbran High School, where Torfaen has intervened in that case. The Welsh Government has not used those powers to date. My expectation always is that local authorities should be the first port of call, and I would encourage—and we always encourage—local authorities to take a proactive approach to intervention and to use those powers. But it's my belief that it is they who are best placed initially to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Minister. Can I ask, then, about the national evaluation and improvement resource and how significant a role that will play in the raising of school standards, and how you feel it's evolved since it was first conceived? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, this brings us back to the principle of self-evaluation and something, if we're honest, we've not been very good at. If you look at a number of chief inspectors' reports into the Welsh education system, self-evaluation has always been identified as something that is missing or underdeveloped in our system to date, hence, then, the work to establish not a new approach, but a more robust approach to self-evaluation. We've done that in conjunction, again, with the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. It's really important, throughout the entirety of our reform journey that that's done in co-construction, because we want this resource to be usable in schools. So, it's all very well having a conceptual idea and people outside the classroom working on it, but if it's of no practical use to a school leadership team, then we won't see the impact. So, it's—. We're in phase 2 at the moment, where we're doing—. So, the initial resource has been developed by the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. We're in the testing phase at the moment and having it evaluated itself, with a view to introducing that resource across the system at the start of the new academic year, in September 2020. I truly believe that, if we're to make progress in Welsh education, we have to develop the skills within our system to have robust self-evaluation. This resource gives us continuity of approach right the way across Wales. So, it's not left to an individual school to come up with a system; it's right the way across the system. My hope would be that those principles could then be applied to local education authorities, to regional school improvement services and Welsh Government as part of a whole-system approach to self-evaluation. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: Just to add that the other critical partners are Estyn themselves. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes, sorry. +Steve Davies: So, they have played a critical role and, as we know, as the Minister has said in the past, she may introduce policy and practice, but if Estyn are part of it then schools, usually, because they recognise that it will be part of the inspection process—it gives it greater push and support around it. So, they've been key players within it. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think, if I just say as well, that the external perception of what that's about is really important. It's not a test of school readiness for reform, it is a genuine attempt for a school to evaluate their strengths, their weaknesses and where they need to go next. It's not an Estyn checklist. And because of the word 'toolkit'—the feedback was that it gave the impression of a checklist, 'Just do this and check list'. So, we're actually going to change the name of that resource. So, it'll be called the national evaluation and improvement resource, rather than the toolkit, because, as I said, the feedback was that 'toolkit' gave the impression of a checklist exercise, and it's got to be about more than that if it's going to be meaningful. So, it'll be changed to an 'improvement resource'. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Before I bring Suzy in, can I just welcome Siân Gwenllian, who is joining us via video-conference in north Wales? Morning, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Can you hear me? +Lynne Neagle AM: We can, yes. We can hear you very nicely, thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Only a very quick one. It's about the development of the— +Kirsty Williams AM: The resource. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, the resource, thank you—about whether there were any conflicting ideas in the process of development that made it quite difficult to zone in on something that school leadership teams, in particular, could rely on. Were there differences of opinion on what this should look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not that I'm aware of from the practitioners that I've spoken to who have been part of that. So, for instance, Suzy, you will know the very small school of Gladestry. The head of Gladestry has been involved in this process, and she said that she'd really enjoyed the process of working alongside Estyn and the OECD as a school leader to be able to shape it. But I'm not aware that there's been conflict in that process. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not suggesting that there has been; I'm just interested as to how it had worked, that's all. +Steve Davies: Chair, I think, inevitably, when you bring stakeholders together, they're not going to be in total agreement as to how it's going to work, and I think initially one of the challenges was having Estyn there as part of the facilitation group. There are always some concerns that, actually, it's coming from a to inspect, oral, judgmental tick box. So, we had some early day challenges where we had to convince—and, ultimately, Estyn convinced them—that they were there to help and support as opposed to to inspect, and that the model that was developed, as the Minister said, was not going to be a tick box, 'You are good at this part of self-evaluation', it was to build the skillsets up. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's got their full confidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and I think again, also, what—. You know, four years into the job, what I've reflected on as well is there is this sometimes a feeling out there that the Minister says all the right stuff, but you're not actually going to do it, so, when you talk about a new approach to doing things, you're not actually serious about it. So, trying to build that confidence that we are serious about developing a new system around self-improvement, which is different from accountability—sometimes, the practitioners are like, 'Oh, yes, we've heard it all before but it never actually happens.' And I think that's been a part of the constant—not pressure, but the responsibility on Welsh Government is in following through. So, we said that we were going to do this in the national mission, and we are going to do it. I'm really proud that there or thereabouts, a few months either way, we've actually kept to the timetable as outlined in the national mission, and that helps build confidence within the sector that we are committed to that programme and we're going to do what we say we're going to do. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: And a final question from me: how effective do you think the investment in school standards has been in this Assembly term, as opposed to the approach taken in the last Assembly term, where there was the protection put in place for core school budgets? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think, first of all, it's important that, whilst this additional resource is specifically targeted at school standards, that is only a part of a much wider education budget, a budget that—you know—is incredibly complex. And so it is really challenging to be able to draw straight lines—you know, 'We did this and it's resulted in that'—given that we're looking at the entirety of school funding here. What's been really important is that, if you drill down into what that money has been spent on, 50 per cent of it has been directed towards professional learning in one form or another to support our teaching professionals. And that's been really important to me. I've said it time and time again: an education system cannot exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out to work with them and teach them. Therefore, that investment in staff and investment in the professional learning of our staff and support for them I think is making a difference already but, importantly, will continue to make a difference. But I think it is really challenging to be able to say, 'Well, we spent this bit of money and it definitely led to that', because it's such a complex picture. But that money, the way it's been spent, has been driven by evidence. And, again, what we do know from international best practice, what do we know that works in driving up standards, and then how can we align the money that we've got to supporting that? And, as I said, 50 per cent of that money has gone directly to simply supporting the professional learning of those who work with our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to talk now a bit about schools causing concern with questions from Huw Irranca-Davies. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If I can, just first of all, zoom in on the way in which we actually decide which schools need what support. So, one of the interesting questions for us is how do we use the different systems out there. So, we've got the school categorisation system, which we're familiar with. We've also got Estyn inspection reports, then we've got other intelligence, including local intelligence on the ground. How do you decide from that? How is it decided what schools need support, need challenge? How do we do that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're right: what we have is a variety of ways in which we can identify schools that need support, or need to be challenged on their practice. But it's important not to confuse them either. So, our primary route to doing this is our school categorisation system. Sometimes, and perhaps this is inevitable—. That system is primarily there as a triage system around identifying where our resource should be spent. So, our school improvement service—it's a risk-based approach, so they can evaluate where they need to put their time, effort and resource. Sometimes, it's used by other people for other things, but that is not its primary purpose; its primary purpose there is not one of accountability, it is one of identifying risk and aligning that then to the support that is available. Estyn—now that is part of that accountability system. That is our method of holding schools and their governing bodies to account for their practice and for the work that they do. Both systems, of course, are evolving. So, how we do categorisation has changed over a period of time. The elements that go into making that judgment around the levels of support have changed, and, of course, the Estyn inspection regime is also changing. At the moment, schools are only inspected once every seven years. We're moving to a system where Estyn will be more regularly in schools. So, they are two systems, but they are different and they look at different things. But our categorisation system is how we look for those ways of identifying support for schools. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: And you've made, with feedback over the last few years, adjustments to the way that the categorisation system works. Are you content with where it is now, or do you see more adjustments being made? Have you got things in front of you that you're getting feedback on saying 'Well, we need to tweak this again a little bit'? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that system has evolved over time. So, when it started, it was just a tool around secondary schools. Now, it covers the breadth of schools. Initially, on coming into office, when I first came in, it was purely driven by data, and it was also done in quartiles. So, there was a certain number of schools that had to be in the bottom, which drove practitioners mad. They were like 'Ah, every year, there's going to be some of us that have to be in the bottom quartile', because of the way in which it was arranged, which seemed very unfair to them. So, we've changed that. It's not just purely driven on data now; there are other judgments—the professional judgments of our challenge advisers are taken into account. And I would expect that situation to continue to evolve to align itself to our curriculum reform, and our changes in self-evaluation. So, it's not a fixed point. I expect that that system will continue to evolve and change, so that it complements and assists in the reform journey as other parts of the system change. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thanks for that. I think, for any impartial reader of the way that the trends have been going on this, there is some good news within that, in that, certainly, those schools that might have been identified as have been okay but coasting along, seem to be moving up the categories, although we still do have that—. Well, it's what the system is there to do, it's to identify those schools that do need that additional support. And I like your analogy of a triage system—'You're fit; keep on doing what you're doing and do it well; you need more support, we'll put the support in.' But, can I turn to those schools that are causing significant concern, and how we identify them? The Estyn chief inspector's conclusions at the end of the 2017-18 report that these schools are not being identified early enough—there's a need to do something urgently about these concerns, particularly in secondary schools. Have we addressed that? Are you content that we've addressed that concern? Was he right? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, the chief inspector is absolutely right—absolutely right. I've got no beef with that statement at all. In some ways, when a school goes into special measures, in a way, that's a failure of the system, because that should have been identified sooner. So I've got no beef, as I said, with the chief inspector saying that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: So just to ask, bearing in mind the earlier discussion we were having, how is it that we don't identify those schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's it—you're quite right. Undoubtedly, what categorisation has done is led to a greater understanding, I think, on behalf of local education authorities' and school improvement services' knowledge about their schools. I think knowledge around schools is greatly enhanced by that process. But we are not there yet in terms of necessarily, then, moving those schools more quickly, once they've been identified as needing the highest level of support to see improvement. And secondary schools is a particular, particular challenge. So you will have seen from the last publication of categorisation data that our primary sector continues to improve—more and more and more of our primary schools are in a green rating, which is very satisfying to me. But we have got more of an issue with secondary schools, and we have a particular issue with the same schools being identified in that level of categorisation. So even though we've identified them as needing that extra help, they are not moving at pace away from that system. So there are two things that we are doing at the moment. The first is, we are, again, looking at different sets of data that can give us even earlier warning systems that things are going wrong in a school—and perhaps Steve will explain later. For instance, staff sickness, and carefully monitoring staff sickness, because there is a direct correlation between high levels of staff sickness in a school and what is going on in the school. And Steve can explain some of this work later. But we're piloting a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. Each local authority has been asked to identify two of their high schools that they are particularly worried about. And we have a new multi-agency approach, working with those schools to try and move them more forward. So it's two from each region, a multi-agency panel, working with the school. And that multi-agency panel includes the school itself, the local authority, the regional consortia school improvement staff, Estyn and Welsh Government—as a multi-agency panel to support improvement in that school. So, for instance, what would normally happen, Estyn would come in, Estyn would make a judgment on the school—requiring special measures or urgent improvement—and Estyn would go away. They'd go away for six months, and then they'd come back in six months, and they'd make another judgment, 'No, still not good enough', and disappear for six months. We're saying—Estyn and the Welsh Government have agreed that's not the best approach; Estyn need to be part of the solution, rather than just coming and making a judgment. The initial feedback from this trial is very, very positive. Actually, we've had local authorities coming to us and saying, 'Can we put more schools in? Rather than just having two of our high schools, can we engage more in this project and this pilot?' It's being evaluated by Cardiff Metropolitan University and Swansea University, so we're having some academic overview to see, actually, does this approach work, can we evidence it—that it actually makes a difference? And it's actually—I'd like to claim all the credit for it, but it's actually not dissimilar to something that's happening in Scotland as well. But we knew that carrying on doing the same old thing clearly wasn't moving these schools, we needed a new approach, and this is what we're doing at the moment. So it's relatively new, but the initial feedback is positive. Steve, I don't know— +Steve Davies: I think your important point is about, 'What about the schools that are sliding in that direction?' And it's bringing together what we know from Estyn, but also, critically, local authorities have knowledge of their schools, and so do consortia. We've got to be better at bringing those together. So, the Minister gave the example of staff sickness—not always a trigger, but it's one of those. If you look at movement of pupils out of a school, you can look at complaints, you can look at, actually, emerging increased use of HR resources that a school pulls on a local authority. None of these have been pushed up into the public domain, but they're important antennae. The point the Minister made about Estyn as well is, historically, when they go into special measures, Estyn, at the end of that week, call in, historically, either the region or the local authority, they will feed back to one of them, and then they go away. So, they are staying with it. So, we are brining together the knowledge. But, as the Minister said, we want to keep a very clear distinction between the accountability and the transparency to the public, to parents, with the very detailed collective work of that multi-agency group to actually make that difference over time. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Okay. So, does that—. I'd love to go further, but time is against us. Does that deal with the issue of the schools that have been identified in those categories of requiring significant improvement and requiring special measures? Are those the ones that will be identified now, or is that above and beyond that again? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those are the ones that are primarily at the forefront of our minds, but this way of sharing data better, to step in earlier, is part of our attempt to address what the chief inspector says about stepping in early—not waiting until a school gets into special measures and a formal judgment from Estyn of that, but actually using that intelligence to get support in there earlier. The three elements that that multi-agency approach look at are: what are the fundamentals that need addressing in this school? What is the capacity of the school itself to be able to address those fundamentals? And, what extra support needs to go into that senior management team and the governing body to get those fundamentals addressed? And actually, what does sustainable improvement look like? Because, again, one of the issues, sometimes, that happens is, a school goes into a category with Estyn, there's a big push and a big, 'We must do something' and the school comes out, but actually, that improvement is not sustainable. It's the low-hanging fruit; it's the easy wins that have been achieved, but actually, perhaps some of the fundamental challenges underlying in that school haven't been addressed in that process. So, this is about what will sustainable improvement look like in six months, what's it going to look like in 12 months and what's it going to look like in 18 months. So, actually, a more strategic, longer term approach to real change in a school rather than, perhaps, some of the easy-to-fix items that make a school as if it's doing better, but we really haven't tackled some of the underlying problems that make that school vulnerable to slipping back. Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a couple of supplementaries on—. Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got a couple of supplementaries on this, first from Suzy and then from Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Chair. Obviously, I'm pleased to hear that this work is being done, but I'm wondering—. What strikes me, in the recent past, at least, particularly as we've got the usual suspects in this category—. I've got to ask myself why it is that councils have been reluctant, perhaps, to step in with these schools earlier, particularly as they've got consortia or middle-tier support as well. Has there been a deficit in that space that has meant that councils don't feel equipped to step in? I just don't really get it why they've been reluctant to step in so far. If they've been nervous about doing it, because they don't feel that they've got the tools to do it, then I think that's pretty important, because as you were saying, we were talking about fundamentals; surely, councils have been able to deal with fundamentals, and more importantly, consortia up until now. Because, obviously, we're asking these players to give us evidence at some point, so perhaps I'd like to challenge them on how come we're here now. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not laying this at your door. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. I guess each local authority will have an explanation for each individual school, I suspect. What's crucial to me is that we have to—. I see our job as corralling the collective effort, and I think, for too long in the system, there has been a lack of co-ordination. So, this is about bringing and corralling a collective effort to address this, going forward, in more sustainable way. And I think it does come back to this issue around self-evaluation and a willingness to be open, honest and upfront about some of the challenges that we've got. It's not easy, is it? It's not easy to accept or to acknowledge sometimes when things are— +Suzy Davies AM: That they don't know how to do this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that they're going badly, or perhaps they don't know exactly how to make the difference. So this approach, as I said, is a new way of trying to coral that collective effort across the board. But, I don't know if Steve—because you've done other roles in the system, so perhaps you've got a different insight. +Steve Davies: I think you're right. The variation across the country, across local authorities—. There are some local authorities that we've worked with and we identify have taken the appropriate action. There are others that we're working with, and yes, at its best, it's done as a joint exercise where they use their regional school improvement service to help in the identification that there is a need for this. They take advice as to what the action is, whether it is, as the Minister said, in the more significant areas, a board, or whether a warning notice comes in terms of standards or finance. So, we're working with them and we're working with the Welsh Local Government Association to share that practice. An example of that work is: we have done a development training session for cabinet members for education, and scrutiny leads for education across Wales, and all 22 local authorities came to that and engaged with that. That was partly about self-improvement, but it was also about where significant issues arise, you have to constructively confront them. And that comes with what the region knows, and increasingly, we're looking to have it consistently across 22 local authorities, so they are collecting all the additional data that we referred to earlier, so they can legitimately hold a mirror up and say, 'This is a real concern that we have. We're not punishing you, but we're registering the seriousness, and we want you to address it.' And we're making progress. I believe it's genuinely more consistent now, but I'd be lying if I said that there was consistency across all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'm conscious of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Siân, then back to Huw. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because you are moving to a more sophisticated approach in terms of identifying problems sooner, and so can offer the support earlier, is it time to think about moving away from the system of categorisation entirely? That is, has the categorisation system reached the end of its usefulness, and is the multi-agency approach, this more sophisticated approach, a better way, ultimately, of being able to assist schools in moving forward? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, Siân, as I said earlier, the categorisation system has evolved over time, and my expectation is that it will continue to evolve, because it has to be consistent with our overall approach to school improvement and raising standards. I expect OECD will have feedback for us on this important part of our system, and we'll wait to see exactly what they say about it, but as I said in answer to Huw Irranca-Davies earlier, I haven't got a closed mind; we've demonstrated over the last four years our willingness to change the system to make it a smarter system, and we will continue to keep that under review, as we move forward. If I could just go back briefly, it doesn't sound like a very exciting thing, does it, when we say we've been doing work with the WLGA, with cabinet members, but also scrutiny, because that's a really important part of the jigsaw as well, is actually local government scrutiny of the performance of your education portfolio holder and the leadership of your council. So this is about trying to up the ante on all sides, so that those issues around 'What are you doing in your local authority to use the powers that you have?' You know, sometimes, making sure that everybody in that authority—those in power and those who are there to hold those in power to account—have the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding to do that appropriately. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Huw, briefly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, briefly. I only have one final question. We've talked a lot about early identification; getting in there and then managing the improvement, this triage approach there, and then getting some grip of it, as well, in doing all of that. But my question now is on what we currently have. I won't touch on the primary schools, but let's just look at secondary schools—11 per cent of secondary schools inspected in the last two academic years judged as unsatisfactory, needing urgent improvement. There will always be secondary schools and primary schools that hit moments of crisis for one reason or another, but 11 per cent to me, and to any layperson, would seem unreasonably high. Are you—? It would be daft to ask you if you're content. What is a level that you would be content with of having schools in red category in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right. Schools will need different levels of support at different points, and sometimes, it's not because of a crisis. So, for instance, in my region, we do have an increase in the number of schools in the amber category. That's because we've seen in that particular region a number of headteachers retire because they've reached retirement age, and there are new headteachers. Well, that is a moment of risk in the school—when senior leadership changes. Nothing else has changed in that school, but the simple fact that you have a new leader, sometimes in those cases it might be their first headship. That means that that school is going to need a little bit of extra support, so it isn't always just a crisis that needs extra support, there are just general things that happen in the life of a school that could lead to it. But you're absolutely right—we have a particular challenge in the secondary sector where we have not been able to move individual schools forward at pace. And 11 per cent is not acceptable to me, Huw, which is why we have introduced this new pilot to address those schools where, persistently, we have concerns about their ability to move forward. If we'd have carried on doing the same thing, I suspect we would have just carried on getting the same result—hence the need for a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. +Steve Davies: Very briefly, the things we talked about earlier was how we measure the performance of schools, particularly at GCSEs, with a narrow focus. As was said earlier, some of these are the same groups—they trip in and then they don't come out. Our belief is, from research, that they concentrate on squeezing the pips to get the grades up in some small areas for a period of time, and you can do that by targeting and immersing them. Estyn can tick the box to say your grades have got better, but we haven't handled the serious underpinning issues—leadership, teaching and learning, and bringing those together. As the Minister said, what does sustainable improvement look like in six, 12, 18 months? It isn't just, as important as they are, getting those exam grades up a bit. They're the fundamental—. And if they're all agreed as the indicators at the outset, we're more likely—. So it's multi-agency; it's not a little activity, it's a major strategy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin David has some questions now on the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to consider the work of the consortia. In 2016, your election manifesto very clearly said that you wanted to abolish regional consortia—three words in it. Why haven't you done it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, given that you're such a keen student of my manifesto, you'll also know that— +Hefin David AM: It was only three words. +Kirsty Williams AM: The Liberal Democrat manifesto also said that we supported major local government reform and a major reduction in the number of local government units. That hasn't happened. I have to say genuinely, my experience over the last four years has proven to me the value of regional working, and in the absence of significant local government reform, I think it's absolutely vital that we have scale in school improvement services—scale that I don't think can be delivered across 22 individual local authorities. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, if there was local government reform, you would abolish the consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if there was significant local government reform and we could demonstrate that those units had such a scale that they could perform the functions of regional consortia, then I think it would be inevitable that any education Minister would look to see whether there was an opportunity to change structures. But in the absence of that, Hefin, I have been absolutely convinced whilst doing this job that you need larger units to be able to carry out successful school improvement work, and I think it would be reckless to advocate the system going back to school improvement being organised in 22 different ways. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Do you think that the work of the four consortia has been consistent and effective? +Kirsty Williams AM: The school improvement services? +Hefin David AM: The four consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as with individual local education authorities, there are some regional consortia services that have performed really highly—and that's not me saying that, that's Estyn, but gives us assurance around that—and there are others that need to improve. I think the consortia themselves would admit that they, since their establishment, have found new ways of working. Initially, they were very separate entities that did things their own way. Increasingly, over recent years, we have seen those consortia working together on a national approach, but delivered on a regional basis. So I think they themselves have evolved over time. But we are constantly looking for optimum delivery from those particular organisations, but as I said, I think it would be absolutely reckless to go back to a situation where school improvement services were being delivered individually on 22 different bases. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm happy to accept that you've changed your opinion there; that's no problem at all. But with regard to the four consortia, and we'll take Education through Regional Working as an example, it does things differently to the other three. Is that a cause for concern, or do you think that's entirely appropriate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, ERW does things differently, but then so does the Education Achievement Service. EAS is constituted in a different way to the Central South Consortium. What I'm interested in is not necessarily how they are constituted and organised, I'm interested in the effectiveness of that organisation to deliver for children and for teachers. ERW has got particular challenges, and we continue to work with those in ERW to address those, but increasingly, as I said, what we are seeing the regional consortia do is develop a national approach to school improvement services but deliver that on a regional basis so that there is greater consistency in terms of delivery. +Hefin David AM: Are you happy that, within the ERW area, local authorities employ their own improvement advisers, rather than doing it in the way that the others do? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have discussed this at length with them. My preference would be for school improvement officers to be employed in the centre, and we continue to have those discussions, but what's really important to understand is that the regional consortia are not a beast of the Government; they are a beast of the local authorities that have worked together to create a school improvement service that meets their needs. So we can't impose that solution, and we continue to discuss with ERW what is the optimal way, and they continue to discuss with their constituent local authorities about how that should be organised. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that Neath Port Talbot have given notice that they want to withdraw from regional working? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's really disappointing that Neath Port Talbot have published that notice. What's important for me is to understand—not for me, it will be important for Estyn. It will be really important for us to understand how Neath Port Talbot intend to support their schools and their teachers if they were to withdraw from ERW, especially at what is a very, very critical time. The regional consortia have a key role to play in supporting systems with the introduction of the curriculum. I would want to know from Neath Port Talbot how they are going to do that without being part of that organisation. And, of course, there's the added complexity that so much of our money is channelled through to schools via the regional consortia. So, I would want to understand from Neath Port Talbot how they're going to safeguard their schools and make sure that the children who are receiving their education in Neath Port Talbot are not disadvantaged if they were to follow through on that decision. +Hefin David AM: Do you feel that it's your role to intervene in that area and instruct Neath Port Talbot and ERW as to how they should resolve this issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I would be seeking assurances— +Hefin David AM: What does that mean, though, 'seeking assurances'? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Neath Port Talbot would need to demonstrate to me how they're going to address these issues. If they're not part of ERW and their schools and their children are not going to be in receipt of the support from ERW, as I said, especially at this critical time, how are they intending to do that? I haven't seen those plans, but if they were to push forward and follow through on the notice, I would want to see them and I suspect Estyn would want to see them also. +Hefin David AM: Okay, just last issue on that: you're just waiting to see what Neath Port Talbot do next, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we have written to Neath Port Talbot to ask them to demonstrate to us, if they were to pull out of ERW, how they're going to meet their functions. I have not heard back from them. +Hefin David AM: Steve, did you want to say something? +Steve Davies: Obviously—[Inaudible.]—that point. We wrote to them last Friday, and we are awaiting their response now. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, that's where we are. Okay. There was the document in 2015—'National model for regional working'. Is that the current document? Are there plans to change or update it, or is that exactly where we stand? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that is the current model. Some work was undertaken in 2017 and 2018 to look to update that model and revise that model. Some specific recommendations were put forward about additional services that could be organised on a regional basis; primarily, that is a specialist human resources resource. We know that, because of austerity in some local authorities, HR departments have been really stretched. Education HR is a specialist service, it's not generic. It's often a service that—. I see that as part of a school improvement service. Support for governors also has been stretched within individual local authorities. So, a proposal was put forward to include specialist HR and governor support as part of the regional model. That was rejected by local government. Our local authorities did not want to include that in the regional model. However, I must say, having presented that evidence, some of our local authorities, even though there wasn't a national agreement to put that into the national model, have pooled their resources, and those services are being delivered and supported on a regional basis. So, for instance, the Education Achievement Service now provide specialist HR resource, and EAS and Central South provide governor support. So, although we weren't successful in persuading local government to adopt a new national model, local authorities in those areas saw the value of moving that way. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, and perhaps I'll put this to Steve Davies, everything the Minister just said, and also the line in the document— 'The implementation of this model will change over time'— is it time to go back to that document and review it from a procedural point of view? +Steve Davies: I don't think it's necessarily timely to go back and have a complete review of it. But, certainly, we are in ongoing discussions with the Welsh Local Government Association, both in terms of work with local authorities, and the type of intervention in schools. So, we keep a constant watch as to which areas that we believe we could develop further. We are not currently intending to do a wholesale review of that. As the Minister touched on earlier, there is some work to get consistency across the current area, particularly, as we just mentioned, in relation to ERW work. So, it's getting a consistent approach at that level, and sharing the practice. I think what is emerging, as the Minister said, is that there are two regions who have already made this shift to pool services. I think the two other regions are seeing and will see the benefits of that, and instead of forcing it through, we'd expect that to evolve. But we're not, at this stage, looking to a wholesale review of the national model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: And Professor Dylan Jones's strategic delivery group seems to have had quite a warm welcome in the sector. Is it fair to say that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I believe so. I'm very grateful to Dylan for his hard work and his skill in chairing that group, and I think it's been welcomed by all, so that we can get that clarity and consistency about the roles and responsibilities of the individual partners and players in the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: And when will the work be completed, and what will the outcomes be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the group is currently engaging with Steve and other officials on agreeing a plan, but also, crucially, that plan is there to support the successful implementation of the curriculum, so that we're very clear about the roles and responsibilities in the middle tier in this crucial phase following the publication. We have to move now from the publication into a relentless focus on implementation. The history of devolution is full of fantastic documents, and, shall I say, patchy implementation. The work that has gone into that curriculum is too important for implementation to be left to chance. It's too important. It's too good to be left to chance. So, everything now is a relentless focus on successful implementation. +Hefin David AM: Yes, but I'm thinking that the strategic delivery is reviewing the role of the middle tier. So, you know, what do we expect to see from it, notwithstanding the kind of softly, softly approach that you've already talked about? +Steve Davies: It was set up, actually, about 18 months ago—just under. It was set up to build collective efficacy, because what people out there are seeing is that there's a confusion of roles, in what the regions are doing, and it was building that collective efficacy so everyone was behind the wheel. So, they've been looking at who is doing what for the last 18 months, and exploring and making some changes themselves. It's not just what they do with Government or what they do with each other; it's just happened that it's timely, because one of the key bits of feedback we believe we will get from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is we have had co-construction, we'd had collective effort, but we need to do more, particularly within the middle tier. This is not controlled by Government, it is arm's length from Government, and it's not their job to get it ready for the new curriculum—that's a key part of it. This group will have an ongoing role; it's not a task and finish group. It does feed back in to the Minister but there's no formal mechanism by which they have to report. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's very clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got supplementaries from Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, please. +Suzy Davies AM: I think this is a really interesting evidence session. What I'm about to say, I say it even though I'm a big localist: it all seems to be heading in one direction of a national service. Is the strategic group even thinking in these terms, obviously building in local accountability? But it'll just make it so much easier in terms of accountability and consistency to monitor what the middle tier does, if it's a national service, like the National Adoption Service. Local delivery, national service—is it heading in that direction? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not the intention of setting the group up. As Steve just said, I receive feedback from Dylan, because I meet Dylan in this particular capacity on a planned basis. He is there to give me advice on the middle tier, and to give me advice on what he thinks Welsh Government needs to do. But I've not had that conversation with him about a national service. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I was going to raise has been answered already, that is that, from what I can see, the work that Professor Dylan Jones is doing has evolved somewhat. I felt that, originally, the idea was to look at the middle tier in terms of any kind of duplication that was happening, and where it was possible to tighten up the people going into schools from different directions. But it appears that it has evolved to be something that's much more than that, and that it is placing a focus on the curriculum and other aspects of the educational system. Is there a risk for them to lose focus in that sense? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. I think they are very, very clear around establishing roles and responsibilities for each of the players and to be very clear about the expectations that each part of the middle tier can have of each other, as to what they can expect from their partners in the middle tier. And absolutely, it is about making sure that there isn't duplication, that people aren't second-guessing each other's work, and there are clear demarcations about who does what in the system, and, as I said, knowing that you can rely on your colleague in the middle tier to do the bit that they are responsible for. So, I don't think there's a question of it losing focus. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a lot of areas to cover so we are going to have to pick up our pace a bit. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thinking about you as a Minister trying to see what the long-term trends are with regard to raising standards and improving educational attainment, is that difficult, because the performance measures have changed, haven't they? We can't compare like-for-like now, because of the changes that have been made in the way that performance is measured. So, to begin with, is that a challenge, to see whether progress has been made? And secondly, what evidence do you as Minister use to look at the long-term trends? +Kirsty Williams AM: The first thing to say, with regard to changes to performance measures—you're right that change to those does make it, in some cases, more difficult to look at trends over a period of time. But those changes are made for really good reasons. If we change a performance measure, it is done to ensure that it is in the best interests of learners. And I think the best interests of learners always trumps the ease of comparison. I understand that, for researchers and for opposition Members, even for Ministers, it would be simpler to have the same set of measures over a period of time. But if we know that those things are driving behaviours that are unhelpful to children, and not in the best interests of children, then we have to change them, even thought that then does create challenges in different areas. With regard to what do we look at, there are a number of ways that we gain data and look at data in the system: everything from the categorisation system we spoke of earlier, and trends in categorisation; we look at Estyn reports; we continue to look at examination results. But we're trying to develop a broader range of data and statistics that give us a whole picture of the education performance, rather than narrowing down on one simple indicator that tells you one thing but doesn't tell you everything. But I don't know, Steve, if there's anything further that you'd like to add. +Steve Davies: It's going back to what the Member raised earlier, in terms of the range of things that you look at—things that can make a difference. So, when Estyn review schools, or we're looking to develop national frameworks for things like mental health and well-being, which look to the practice that enables raising standards, it's collecting that information, both at a national level, through the annual review of Estyn, as well as our engagement with regions and local authorities. So, it's looking at the evidence base that goes beyond, but impacts on data. And, inevitably, we will use the Programme for International Student Assessment, and any other external assessments that come through organisations like the OECD. And even where we've changed the performance measures, we still have, at national level, the ongoing data. So, if you looked at level 2 plus, we believe it is important that children get five good GCSEs—for higher education and for employment. So, we've not lost sight of those at a national level—we're not using them as a narrow set of performance measures for individual schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we look at—level 2 plus is a good example. We know that a relentless focus on that single measure, as a way of judging the system, leads to a set of behaviours in schools. It narrows the focus onto a certain part of the cohort, it narrows the curriculum, when we know that children— +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm not challenging the fact that you've changed the performance measures—I understand that, and having a broader way of looking is better in the long run. I'm just saying, because there's been this change, it makes it more of a challenge—whilst accepting why you've made the changes, but it does present more of a challenge, presumably, because you have to look at more indicators, and take evidence from different places. But I take it that you're confident that the trajectory is going in the right way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are making improvements. But you're right: it does make it more challenging. But those changes are being made for the right reasons, as I said, whether that be at level 2 plus. Look at English literature. I understand why perhaps a performance measure around English was introduced, but the effect of that was that significant numbers of children—and, it must be said, usually children who are entitled to free school meals—were suddenly not sitting English literature GCSE. We've changed that performance measure, and guess what? Last year, we saw a significant increase in the number of children that were sitting English literature GCSE. For standards of literacy and oracy, I think studying literature is really, really important, before we even get into the joy of introducing children to the written word and the love of reading. So, we make changes. Yes, it causes challenges, but we're making those changes because we believe that they are in the best interest of children, and that has to trump ease of comparison. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Why have you decided to ask the consortia, Estyn and so on not to report on local data or regional level data? How do we then come to conclusions about what is working if it isn't presented on a local authority and regional basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the thing to say about the communications from Welsh Government, Estyn, and the WLGA is it's not about not communicating the data, it's about challenging people on how that data should be used. So, the data is still available, but it's a challenge to them about how to use that data. So, for instance, when we're presenting data that compares local authority to local authority, you could have a local authority that says, 'There we go, I'm above the national average. I don't need to worry about the education in my local authority, because I'm above the average, or I'm better than my neighbour.' That doesn't necessarily mean that everything is right in your local education authority. Perhaps your children should be doing even better than what you're presented with. So, actually, it's not about hiding data; it's about how you use the data appropriately. And sometimes, how we were presenting data in the past was lulling some people into a false sense of security about the performance of their system. So, it's about how you use data, and that's what the communication from Welsh Government and the WLGA and Estyn was about: think very carefully about this data and what it's telling you about your system, and don't be lulled into a false sense of security that you may be doing brilliantly. Or, perhaps, looking at your data, you may think, 'Oh, my goodness me, we're not doing very well at all', but, actually, more careful consideration of that might show that your school's impact on those children is really, really a positive one. So, you've got to use that data in the context. So, it's not about less data. If anything, it's about more data and, crucially for me, it's about more intelligent use and interrogation of that data, about truly what it's telling you about your system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But again, the Welsh Government—. You have continued to publish the local and regional level data. So, doesn't that contradict what you've been telling the consortia and everyone else? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. As I said, we're not in the business of trying to hide data—I believe absolutely in full transparency. And in terms of level 2 data, I think I'm not moving away from the point that I think it's really important that more and more children get five really good GCSEs. I think it's important for their life chances. It is about how that data is used, not about hiding data or making that data not available. +Steve Davies: Can I, very briefly—? We didn't just send a letter out collectively. We've now carried out training jointly with WLGA and Estyn on how to use that data. So, it's not just looking where your LA is; it's also not looking at whether your school's better than average for the authority. And it is well received, and it should broaden the approach of scrutiny committees to beyond what historically was, if I'm honest, looking at the league table for their authority or looking at the league table of local authorities. It's not that they shouldn't be looking at that, but they need to dig much, much deeper underneath it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go on now to Suzy. I'm going to appeal for brief questions and brief answers so that we can cover the rest of the questions. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll shorten these questions, okay. We know why you got rid of the old measures. We've got interim measures now. What are they telling you about the success you've had in trying to avoid the bad behaviour? Short answers. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's impossible. [Laughter.] I think it's inevitable: whatever kind of measures we put in place, people will look to maximise their success in those measures, and I don't think we'll ever come up with a system where those measures are absolutely perfect. What's really important to me is that we're really, really, really challenging schools to look at the performance of all of their children, rather than just at a very, very narrow cohort around those C/D boundaries, which we knew was detrimental, potentially, to more able and talented children and really pushing those Bs to As and those As to A*s, and children for whom actually just getting in to school on a daily basis is an achievement, and the school has done well to provide that. So, our new capped 9 makes sure that there is breadth across a range of subjects, rather than just focusing on a narrower and narrower bunch of subject opportunities for children, and our new third-third-third system enables schools to really look at their performance. So if their capped 9 score is high, what's driving that? Is it because the bottom third of the cohort is doing really well, and the impact on those children is above and beyond what could be expected, but actually, you're not doing very well for your more able and talented; you're not pushing them on? Alternatively, maybe your capped 9 score is because your MAT children are doing incredibly well, but actually, you're not really making the progress for the middle tier of those children. It allows us to have a greater focus on the performance of our FSM children—where they really are within that system. So, it's a much more granular—. And crucially for me, it looks at the impact for every child, because every child has to matter in the system, and what we had before was a narrowing of curriculum choice and a narrowing on a certain cohort of children. +Suzy Davies AM: So are the permanent measures likely to be pretty similar to what you've got now? Because the research—I don't know if the research is complete yet. When will you be publishing the new permanent evaluation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sue, you're right: they're interim measures at the moment, and we will need to make sure that the performance measures are aligned to the new curriculum. That, potentially, of course—. Because Wales's review of qualifications potentially has an impact on what those finally will look like, so that work is ongoing at the moment, and unless Steve can tell me off the top of his head when we expect that to be completed by, I will send you a note. But they're interim at the moment, because we need to align them to the new curriculum. +Suzy Davies AM: I think we understand that. [Inaudible.]—date. +Steve Davies: No, no. This is not a quick fix. This is a two to three-year research base. The new qualifications for the new curriculum will not start until 2025. They have to be in place for 2022. There's a three-year roll on. I would expect the broad structure of the interim measures to continue over that time. There will be some tweaks for consistency. It's what's wrapped around those interim measures that I touched on earlier: the other evidence that we bring to bear about the effectiveness of a school, but we do want to say to schools that on the whole, broadly speaking, the interim measures will carry on for two, three years. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and the reason I asked that is right at the beginning of this session, the Minister said to the Chair that this £100 million that's going into school improvements will be going into things that work. We need some evidence that the interim measures are going to work as well, so when are they going to be evaluated? +Steve Davies: Well, we've only just used them for one year. +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I'm asking you. +Steve Davies: We've signalled that they're only going to be in place for three years. We are carrying out our own review of the impact of those and that's been built in, but I expect the OECD report—because it is an extensive report—to give us feedback on how those things are working now, and some steer, as they did with the last report, as to the direction we would want to go into. +Kirsty Williams AM: And what I'm also interested in is those performance management measures around schools. Yes, they're about outcomes for children, but actually are about a broader suite of behaviours within that school, so, yes, qualifications and grades are an important part of a performance measure, but actually, I have other expectations of schools, above and beyond simply qualifications. And so, we would want our permanent set of performance measures to look at a wider set of behaviours within a school, and I think because—. Exams are important—of course they are, qualifications are important—but the way in which those schools achieve those results are also important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Would you anticipate that including well-being, then? +Suzy Davies AM: In a whole-school approach. +Kirsty Williams AM: I absolutely—and we need to find a way of how we can truly measure that. Sometimes, children's well-being is influenced by lots of things outside the control of a school. So, I don't want schools to be held accountable for things that they have no control over, because of the circumstances in which a child may be living. But, absolutely: well-being and how the culture of the school addresses well-being is really important to me. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. Move on to PISA, please. +Suzy Davies AM: How useful is PISA for you in helping school improvement? I know that it's not always the thing that you enjoy watching or looking out for. But, genuinely, how useful is it? +Kirsty Williams AM: It is one of a range of tools that we need to look at. Siân, quite rightly, talked about consistency. PISA is one thing where there is a level of consistency, so it will continue to be, I think, an important part of how we test how our system is doing. +Suzy Davies AM: We know that you are a little bit encouraged, but we are not out of the woods yet. You mentioned this in Plenary when we talked about PISA. How confident are you that we are on track for meeting these targets that were set before your time, or do you think that having those targets is helpful? Is it setting up aspirations that are incapable of being met within a period of time? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those long-term targets of a score around 500 are part of 'Our National Mission', and we have to keep the pressure on to strive. They are testing, but we have to keep the pressure on to strive to reach them. In some cases, I can be quite encouraged. If we look at reading scores for girls, we are almost there, but that just demonstrates what a journey we've got with our boys to address. For me, one of the ways in which we will reach those targets and achieve them is further progress on our more able and talented children. Although we are now performing at an OECD average, I will be the first person to admit that, although we have seen an improvement in the higher level skills of our more able and talented children, we do not perform at an OECD average with regard to those level 6 and level 5 scores. +Suzy Davies AM: Even within the UK, really, we are quite far behind. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, I think that's where we really need to push on. That's one of the reasons why we have introduced a more able and talented budget to support that, and our Seren programme, which is delivering fantastic results post-16. That's why we're introducing the principles of Seren earlier into children's careers, bringing it down from year 9 upwards, to be able to drive improvements. So, I think that that's the area that we are particularly keen to work on: making sure that more of our children perform at the OECD average at level 5 and level 6. Clearly, we've got more work to do on reading. We are working with southern Ireland, who have consistently done well with reading scores, to look to see what lessons we can learn to press on with there with reading. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. My final question on this. You recognise it as a priority, particularly for boys. Does that mean that the focus will then drift slightly from maths, where there has been some success; and drift from science, where the encouragement of more people to take GCSE science has reduced the number of high-level passes? +Kirsty Williams AM: First, we have to have a system that is capable of doing all of those of things at the same time. We can't accept a system that says, 'Well, we can do a bit over here, but that means we have to—.' We have to have a system, Suzy, that can drive improvements at all levels. That's my expectation. +Suzy Davies AM: The balloon needs to be bigger not just squeezing it at one end. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, yes. That's my expectation of this system. You have to deliver across all of these. We have seen some progress. As I've said, it's far from perfect, and we've got more work to do, but we have to deliver across all three domains, as we did last time. And I'm not going to make any apologies for changing the performance indicators around science. It was a travesty that there were children who never had the opportunity to sit a science GCSE. We don't have to make assumptions about the nature of many, many, many of those children. We have seen a significant increase in the number of children who are having the opportunity to sit GCSE science and who are passing GCSE science. So, I'm not going to make any apologies about that. One of the reasons that I suspect we have ended up with poor science scores is because of the previous policy around science entries and science qualifications. Again, one of the reasons that we have changed it isn't just solely because we need to do better in PISA, but I think that by changing it, we will see an impact on PISA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: The final set of questions is from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to discuss an issue that I know is important to you, namely closing the attainment gap between pupils who are eligible for free school meals and those who are not eligible for free school meals. Unfortunately, the problem persists, doesn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. We are not where we need to be in terms of the performance, not only of our children on free school meals, but the performance of our looked-after children, and the performance of some children from some ethnic minority groups. So, we will continue to look to support those learners in a variety of ways, again looking to amend our practice on the basis of evidence that is given to us from our experts who are there to advise us. There is clearly more that we need to do. There has been some progress in some areas, but it is not where I would want it to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, this is despite the fact that there is £475 million that has been invested in the pupil development grant, for this exact purpose of closing the attainment gap. But, the problem persists, and in some places, it's deteriorating. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, I am not shying away from any assumption or declaration that we need to do better. But, I do think that we need to acknowledge where progress has been made. If we go back to look at what PISA has said about our performance, the PISA results show that pupils in Wales are relatively more able to overcome the disadvantage of their background than is the average in OECD countries. So, our children are doing better in that, and that gives me encouragement. That's not me saying that; that's there. If we look at pupils who are eligible for free school meals, they do score below their better-off counterparts in PISA by some 34 points. The gap in England is 40 points. So, again, that gap is smaller here in Wales. If we look at basic levels of qualifications, back in—. It's difficult to make comparisons because of all the reasons we have talked about, but if we look back to 2006 and we look at the very basic level of qualifications, which is a level 1 qualification, we have seen a jump from 9.4 per cent of children in 2006 achieving a level 1 qualification to over 18 per cent. So, there is progress. There is evidence that the resources that we are spending are making a difference. But, clearly, we are not where we would want to be. That's why we will continue to focus those resources on those children, where we need it. But, we need to do that earlier. Sticking plasters in years 10 and 11 aren't going to cut it. We need to get this right for those children, the moment that they come into a nursery and the moment that they start their formal education at the age of 5. That's how we are going to make the difference. Providing catch-up, of course, we need to do for those kids; we can't throw those year 10s and year 11s to the wind. We have to support those children. But, we will see real improvement when we get in there earlier. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But I'm sure that that is a disappointment to you, because it has been a personal priority for you as well. In terms of minority ethnic learners, while there are some groups within that category who are achieving, there is underachievement happening here as well, isn't there? It's not consistent across the minority ethnic group. Is that something that you will be focusing upon? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that's why we have committed to maintaining a ring-fenced grant to local authorities of some £10 million, to support education of our minority ethnic children. But, again, you are right, you are absolutely right, Siân. We need a much more sophisticated conversation about what is really going on in attainment across minority ethnic groups so that we can best target that resource and have a conversation about what the differences are. You are absolutely correct: there is a real mixed picture. If we look at black Welsh girls entitled to free school meals, they perform almost at the national average for all children—not FSM children; the national average for all children. Black Welsh boys don't, but neither do white Welsh boys. So, there is a really complex picture here, and I really welcome a debate about acknowledging the various levels of performance of BAME children, and where the gaps in performance lie. You are quite right: it is a complex picture in the system. I'm committed to continuing to support educational opportunities, and that's why have ring-fenced the minority ethnic achievement grant. There are some interesting data there. Some children are doing very, very well; others, we need to concentrate on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, this will need to be the last question, I'm afraid. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Sorry? +Lynne Neagle AM: This is going to have to be the last question. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. In terms of looked-after children, which is one of the groups where attainment isn't where we would like it to be, there was some improvement in 2016 at key stage 4, but it has been disappointing. Do we know what's been happening in 2019? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 2019 data will be published next month, and there has been significant activity. You are right: in recent years, the data have been poor and not where we would want it to be. That's why we have had a reformed approach to PDG LAC; the employment of PDG LAC co-ordinators across the regions. We've identified new resource in the new financial year to test new approaches, so, for instance, virtual school approaches, where we know, in other systems, that has worked. But, we expect the next set of data around the performance of this particular group of learners in March. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, and you hope to see progress. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to speculate, but I hope so. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We have come to the end of our time, so can I thank you, Minister, and your official for attending this morning? We have had a wide-ranging and very detailed discussion that will be very useful for the committee. As usual, you will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy, but thank you again, both of you, for your attendance this morning. Diolch yn fawr. Okay. Item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from ERW providing additional information following the evidence session on 16 January. Paper to note 2 is a letter from Central South Consortium, similarly providing additional information following the evidence session. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales regarding children's rights in Wales, following up on some additional information there. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales, providing additional information following the annual report scrutiny session in January. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","Lynne Neagle AM chaired a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, where they discussed school improvement and raising standards. They acknowledged apologies from Janet Finch-Saunders and Dawn Bowden and welcomed Huw Irranca-Davies as a substitute. Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Steve Davies, director of education, attended to provide evidence. The OECD's involvement in Welsh Government's school improvement journey was highlighted, including a forthcoming report. Discussions covered the use of intervention powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, the national evaluation and improvement resource's role in raising standards, and investment in school standards. A new approach was discussed for supporting schools causing concern, involving a multi-agency panel. The committee inquired about the consistency and effectiveness of regional consortia and local authorities' roles, including Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working. Other topics addressed were changes to performance measures and their implications on evaluating long-term trends, the use of PISA results, and efforts to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, including those eligible for free school meals and ethnic minority learners. The committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Je croix que c'est dommage de le {disfmarker} it will be sad to destroy this prototype . It really looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is a banana . +Project Manager: It is a banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is the essence of bananas . I would be confused with this thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How is everyone ? +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: So we are here for the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we will uh {disfmarker} I will first present what we are going to do in this meeting . Then uh I've {disfmarker} I will also take notes during this meeting and I will send you uh a summary then as usual . We will then look at the evaluation criteria of the prototype presented by uh our two colleagues that make good work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh then we will see the financial aspects and the cost of the product . Then we will uh evaluate the product . And uh end with the conclusion of this project and see whether it fits with {disfmarker} it fulf if it fulfil the requirement or not . So +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: d let's start with the cost aspect so so I look at the aspect discussed last time , that is to say uh to have a standard battery , {vocalsound} to have a yellow banana shaped uh case with uh a rubber material around it +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: to be uh to feel spongy , +User Interface: Like a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh also at the different aspect like having a wheel etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the cost ended to be ten point seven Euros . So which is uh good , because we had a price gap of twelve point five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So for the financial aspect it's okay , we can uh {disfmarker} we can continue with this product uh as if , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and we are now going to see the project evaluation with uh our marketing expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . So uh you can have my project in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You have a presentation ? +Marketing: Uh yeah just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Participant four , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four . Evaluation . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So you can go . We can go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I made an evaluation and the the evaluation criteria is made according to {vocalsound} the users' requirements and the market trends we talked about uh during the previous uh meetings . So you can go through and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: okay so uh we have uh six points . We we talked about before . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we we want to have a product fancy look and feel , technologically innovative , easy to use , fashion , {vocalsound} easy to find in a room , and robust , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh and uh uh I have a scale of uh seven points . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So I go through all the uh all the points here , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and uh according to what you think about the this project you can uh mm make a one point , two point or seven point . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And after we ha we have an an average , and uh we see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} okay ? {vocalsound} Uh so uh fancy look and feel , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe you can presen {vocalsound} +Marketing: F between o one and seven . +Project Manager: okay . Maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hold it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think it's uh very uh very nice . What do you think ? +User Interface: I give it a {disfmarker} I give it a five . +Project Manager: Yeah . So it's between one and seven ? Seven is the highest uh ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Seven is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I will give a six . +Industrial Designer: I will give a a five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And you ? +Marketing: {gap} sorry . +User Interface: Do you vote uh Christine ? +Marketing: {gap} eh ? +User Interface: Do you also vote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just want to see something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we all have to agree on a common {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we can {gap} very easily {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I think uh {gap} {vocalsound} and need to {gap} as well {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No problem . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is your {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh I don't know if you {disfmarker} we ha we have to put uh one uh f If it's better or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One is most {gap} . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Well , we can choose what we want . +Marketing: Um . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's say that seven is the best . +Marketing: Or maybe we can say s seven is the best mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so do note the grade we have five , six for me , +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: five . And what what's your choice ? +Marketing: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How much would you give on the fancy aspect , on the fashionable aspect ? +Marketing: Six {disfmarker} Uh s you can {disfmarker} how much what ? +Project Manager: How much would you {disfmarker} you don't answer to this uh questionnaire ? +Marketing: Oh yes I mm I dunno mm , I think six , it's a good uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it will have five point five average . +Project Manager: Five point five average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Wa can {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . So after , the technological aspect ? +Project Manager: Okay , techne technological aspect . +Marketing: So we we said uh we have uh a new technological uh thing with a wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have the wheel . We also have the rubber material , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which make it uh like new also . I think I would give a five . +User Interface: It's {gap} four . +Project Manager: Four ? +Industrial Designer: A four also , because , except for the wheel , we don't have so much innovation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The rubber is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a four . I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: D are we including the voice {disfmarker} are you glu are we including the voice in the end or not ? Huh ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: what's your uh grade ? +Marketing: Four . +Project Manager: Four ? So we have four , four f and five ? +Marketing: We can put four ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , four . Four , yeah , let's put four . +User Interface: For twenty five . +Marketing: Everyone is okay or {disfmarker} four poin Four . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Doesn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very easy to use . Do you think it's easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I give a seven , I think . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: I would give a {disfmarker} I would give a seven as well . It's very easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Mm , six for me also . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Six point five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: six point five . +Industrial Designer: Six six six point five . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Is it fashion ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: its its f its fruit fruit shape . +Marketing: Seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say seven . And is very very nice design . +Marketing: Yeah it's fashion , because it's a fruit , +User Interface: Yeah , we can we can put a seven here . +Marketing: and we say that the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , seven . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , we hope . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to find . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh easy to find in a room ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I lost my banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can't miss it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's cool . I think we can put a six here . +Marketing: We have the lightning , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we have {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} +Marketing: The lighting . +Project Manager: we don't sesh especially have the lightning +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you'll make the material transparent +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that it uh lights up completely , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's yellow . It's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I think it's very easy to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: I would say seven . It's hard to miss it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Six . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} is it robust ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's rubber , made of rubber , +Industrial Designer: Uh f yeah , it's ru it's rubber . +Project Manager: I think it's m it's uh more rubber than uh other remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah the only problem there might be {disfmarker} which {gap} know , i if it's very sensitive , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: they will , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it is uh {disfmarker} it is surrounded by rubber material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can put a six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Everybody is okay , six . +Industrial Designer: Six or five . Five {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Six is okay ? +User Interface: Six , yeah , for me . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: S now {vocalsound} um so . +Project Manager: Tadada . We have to sum up everything . +User Interface: Twenty . +Marketing: Thirteen uh , twenty , twenty six point five , uh seven , thirty two , thirty six {gap} . +User Interface: Thirty . Thir +Marketing: That's that's okay ? Six . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six is a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . Uh if we say that seven it's uh it's the better , +Project Manager: Yeah , the be . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , the top {disfmarker} +Marketing: and when uh s six sit six are good {disfmarker} it's a good uh p product , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , so six is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . So will become eight soon ? +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation , I think . It's very promising . +User Interface: Yeah , well it's a bit biased . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: We have a good price and uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this prototype is quite nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Because I saw uh some phones that were banana shaped , uh wireless phones not mobile ones , wireless for the house , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: uh quite big also , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they were selling {gap} something like a hundred Euros , two hundred Euros . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just a {vocalsound} just a phone , wireless . +Project Manager: So having this at twenty five Euros is uh quite attractive , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But almo also the complexity between a phone and a remote control is not {disfmarker} cannot compare . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's much more complex , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , I think , we can summarise . So we have seen the prototype . It's very nice according to the work of our two designer . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the financial aspect were okay . We we have the cost below uh our threshold and so we could sell at twenty five Euros and make i make profit . The the evaluation give satisfying result as well . So I think we can move to the last part of the meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the cost is in the budget , the evaluation is okay , so I th I think we can now uh open champagne and make a huge party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Start to eat banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if it's provided by uh by the meeting staff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so congratulation . {vocalsound} Nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Congratulations to the team . Uh very well , we worked together fantastically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it was a good collaboration uh . Aspect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what does the management say ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: What does the management say ? +Project Manager: I think we will have um much bigger project next time and a much bigger salary as well . +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: All it depends on who watch this meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: good guys {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so see you for next uh successful project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Fruits . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Mm . +","In a detailed design meeting, the team, comprised of the Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing Specialist, comes together to discuss a unique prototype – one that remarkably resembles a banana. The meeting begins with a light-hearted acknowledgment that their prototype, targeted as a user-friendly device, bears the essence of bananas to such an extent that it could easily be confused with one. + +The Project Manager takes the helm of the session with an agenda laid out to cover several key points. They agree to commence with a summary of decisions and to take comprehensive notes that will be shared with everyone post-meeting. Their focus is slated for evaluating the prototype on predefined criteria, deliberating the financial aspects including costs, and finally reaching a conclusion as to whether the device meets the project's requirements and standards. + +Discussion ensues on specific product features such as the incorporation of a standard battery, the adoption of a yellow banana-shaped case with spongy rubber material, and the potential inclusion of a wheel. The Project Manager reels off the materialized cost figures at 10.7 Euros, expressing satisfaction as it falls below the maximum threshold of 12.5 Euros set previously, signaling a green light from a financial perspective. + +The Marketing Specialist takes over to guide the team through an evaluation exercise, rating the prototype against factors like aesthetics, technological innovation, ease of use, fashionable attributes, visibility in a room, and robustness – all in accordance with user requirements and market trends that the team dissected in earlier meetings. Each criterion is scored on a scale of one to seven, with seven being the peak. + +Scores roll in from each member, sparking debate and consideration as they weigh the merits of the prototype against their collective standards: + +1. Fancy Look and Feel obtains a score of 5.5. +2. Technological Innovation is rated lower, at a 4, due to limited novelty beyond the wheel as a feature. +3. Ease of Use receives praises, averaging a high score of 6.5, suggesting straightforward operation by users. +4. Fashion scores a perfect 7, the team enamored with its trendy fruit shape. +5. Easy to Find in a Room gathers a strong score, thanks to its noticeable yellow coloration. +6. Robustness is also rated positively at a 6, crediting the durable rubber casing that encapsulates the product. + +The cumulative score indicates a favorable outcome, asserting the product as more than satisfactory, trending towards 'above average' on their tailored scale. + +The metaphorical ""champagne"" is prepared for popping, as the Project Manager foresees celebration over the comical yet practical banana prototype that has survived scrutiny and appears primed for market appeal, priced attractively at 25 Euros. Cautious optimism prevails as the team jests about eating bananas, envisioning their intriguing product concept bringing a forthcoming rise in both project scale and remuneration – dependent, humorously noted, on who reviews their meeting. + +The Industrial Designer and the User Interface designer commend each other on stellar teamwork, as the meeting wraps up with the Project Manager forecasting more successful ventures ahead. The personnel depart, ready to tackle future projects that may prove just as fruitful." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Um we are {disfmarker} So the meeting will have about the same format as the last time . So {gap} switching over I've just left uh my first two screens {gap} . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} mailed you the minutes of the last meeting uh just to save time . +User Interface: Okay . Cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and is there any questions you have that arised from last meeting that are particularly bothering you ? N +User Interface: Mm um . No , I don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , cool . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Then we shall start with a presentation from Raj . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Hi , me Raj , again . Uh in this meeting I I'm going to discuss about the trend watching , uh how these trends is going to affect our market potential and how important is this . So we have to look on this . First of all methodology . The met methodology to find out the trend was incl uh was done in a way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have done a rec not only a recent remote control market survey , but we also considered the latest fre fashion trends of the market , because we think that this is also a factor which will affect our sales and profit . So what are our findings ? In our {vocalsound} uh in our findings we have seen that {disfmarker} when we did our remote control market survey we found that uh people l uh people do have preference for tho fancy mobi uh f remote controls which look and feel very good , rather than having a functional look and feel uh good . So this sh this clearly indicates their preference for the design their outlook of the remote controls . So we should take into uh we should consider this factor as the most important factor , because this factor is twice as important , the second factor which is further ti twice the as important as the sec as uh the third factor . So this factor becomes the most important factor in our surv uh uh in our mark uh means in take {disfmarker} in designing our rem uh remote controls . +User Interface: The last one is the most important one , is it ? +Marketing: No the first one is the +User Interface: Oh , sorry . +Marketing: uh the outlook of the mobile , the it should have a fancy outlook , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: the fancy design uh rather than just having a functional look and feel good , it should have a fancy look and foo feel good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: The second most important aspect is that remote control should be a technologically uh innovative . We must have some technological advancement in the remote control tha rather than just putting it as it is as the other remo uh remote controls are . So it uh should be technologically innovative like glow-in-the-dark or speech recognition , something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that indicates our technological advancement . And the third most important aspect in the ta to take into consideration is that it should be easy to use , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like it shouldn't be too much co complicated , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: there shouldn't be too many buttons on this mobi uh remote control , it shouldn't be too complicated uh like this way . And it should be uh {disfmarker} and customers should be provided with manuals that is easy to understand in their local language , something . So that they could know how to use these remote controls . When we did uh f fashions uh , recent fashion uh {disfmarker} our recent fashion update shows that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah yeah ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was just reading fruit and vegetables . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hard to know how we are going to incorporate that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y yeah uh yeah , we have to , because uh d you can see how people have related their clothes , shoes , {gap} and everything with fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because the g world is now changing it's trend towards organic , becoming more and more organic , +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We should make a big sponge lemon , +Marketing: becoming {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then it'd be it would be yellow . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Th that's very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . So something like that we we should do . +User Interface: Glow-in-the-dark . Okay . +Marketing: And people uh the f feel of the material is expected to be spongy rather than just having a plastic look , hard look . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , that's good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's what we kind of predicted anyway . +Marketing: So so that they could play with it while handi uh while handling it . So that should also be taken into consideration . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: So these are my views . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , the spongy , not real spongy , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: No it ca {vocalsound} y a {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you think like rubber would be good or does it really want to be like gel kind of stuff ? +Marketing: The rubber which is good for health and which is quite disposable that we can take into co +User Interface: Okay . Quite disposable . +Marketing: Yeah . 'Cause we It shouldn't be have any harm to the environment also , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: because our company is very well {gap} for taking all these concerns into consideration , +Project Manager: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: so we don't want to have any harm to the society , +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fashion . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Cool . +Marketing: So that's all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fruit and veg , well there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just what I think of when I think of a remote control . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: A remote control ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: And were there any factors that weren't important in the survey , that they said we don't want ? +Marketing: S uh we didn't find out any such point . +User Interface: Or was it just {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yes , there could be , but we couldn't find out any , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . +User Interface: F_ , what is it ? Um . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . +User Interface: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh no , {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: No signal . Is that {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: No , it's got it's got it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh yeah , uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +User Interface: Okay , and then F_ five , right ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . Um okay , so the interface concept um . Yeah . The interface specification , what people {disfmarker} um how they interact with it basically , I think . Um so the method , we looked at existing designs , what are the {disfmarker} what's good about them , what's bad about them , um I looked at their flaws , so we're going to look at their flaws , everything . Um and what {vocalsound} the survey told us and what we think would be good , so a bit of imagination . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the findings , I've got some pictures to show you as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} either . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so most remote controls use graphical interface , where you um have got s buttons and you point it rather than having the output as a a stream of text or something . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Um and we also found that there's inconsistent layout , which makes it confusing . So I think for our remote control {disfmarker} There is some inconsistency already in {disfmarker} ec existing in {disfmarker} between remote controls , but I think standard kind of um shape and uh play and those kind of but buttons like the the top right for on and off or something , +Project Manager: Right , okay . Yeah . +User Interface: I think , people find that important,'cause then it's easy to use . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And we've got some pictures of some uh new remote controls to show you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: Do I press Escape F_ five ? Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no just escape should uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Escape , okay . Um , oh I still haven't got my glasses on . Yeah , okay . So these are the {disfmarker} some of the pictures of existing ones . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: I'll just walk you through them . This one is a voice recognition . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And that's the kind of idea we're going for . +Project Manager: Looks pretty complicated . +User Interface: There's um an L_C_D_ thing , which we thought could {disfmarker} I thought could get a bit confusing and a bit expensive as well for us . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: This one is {disfmarker} got a kind of scroll like a mouse , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , like the middle button . +User Interface: which {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um and {disfmarker} But I'm not exactly sure how you'd use that , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it's kinda like scrolling {disfmarker} +User Interface: like would the computer come {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh right , well , if I s if I'm thinking of the right one , I've got the same thing in front of my monitor , you scroll it and the when you reach the sort of um {vocalsound} menu item that you require , you press the middle of the scroll . +User Interface: Uh-huh , that's like the L_C_D_ one , +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: is it ? But the one below that has got like {vocalsound} a little scroll function on the side . But I presume that the functions must come up on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , presumably . +User Interface: I think that's what that is . So these are just a few ideas . Again that's just quite boring shape , grey , looks quite space-agey , but too many buttons , I think on that one . +Industrial Designer: Uh it looks threatening . +Project Manager: Yeah , looks like uh looks like something out of a jet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it does look kind of dangerous . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks like yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Um this one I thought was really cool . It's w it's got the programmability function that we talked about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can put it in there , it's for your kids , and it's quite an organic shape and the little circle around there is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really easy to use , bright , so I like this one lot for our design . I think something like that would be good . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Yeah , I m I mean the one thing I think about about these ones is um these kl uh secured areas um {vocalsound} , I've seen a lot of them with the the cover missing . +User Interface: Of course yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So like have it hinge rather than sort of clip on or whatever . +User Interface: Right , yeah . Yeah , that's true . Yeah . Um so maybe that could be built into one of the things and it comes up on the T_V_ or something . And this one , the over-sized one , I don't know about you , but I think it's a bit too gimmicky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think that will sell very well . +Project Manager: I mean is that not sort of to assist the blind or something , is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I guess so . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Then d blind don't watch T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Strange . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think that's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: No they do , they do . +Industrial Designer: They do ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They listen to it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And um this one {vocalsound} is just pointing out . I like {vocalsound} some of these things um the the raised symbols and everything , but {gap} pointing out um that this one the volume it is kind of pressing down , but it would actually go up , because of the shape . +Project Manager: Right , okay . +User Interface: So that could {disfmarker} that's a bit confusing . Um but the buttons on this I think are {disfmarker} it's just showing you how you can have different different um buttons . They don't have to be all the same . So that's quite cool . Um . +Project Manager: 'Kay but people tend to recognise certain shapes to do certain things anyway , don't they ? +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . Um F_ five . Yes . So there are some of the findings . So we need to combine those ones um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I've just got {vocalsound} an e-mail from our technical department saying that they have broken through with some new speech recognition software that you can program in . +Project Manager: Brilliant . That's handy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah it is , just in time , very handy . Um so {vocalsound} I think maybe incorporating that in our design would be good . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} you program it like you say , record , um and then , play , and then , record , play machine , and stuff like that , so that's {disfmarker} And it's much {disfmarker} Yeah . So that's quite cool . Uh personal preferences just some imagination , the raised symbols I thought were good , the L_C_D_ , it does look smart , but I think maybe for our budget , do you think that would be a bit too expensive to have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the other stuff uh , I think . +User Interface: And the speech recognition , 'cause I think we're definitely going for the speech recognition , +Marketing: But in our market survey we have seen that people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: are we ? +Marketing: but they want the quality , they want f fancy look , they want some new design , something new . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . But our budget , we've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's still it's still got to get within our twelve fifty , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So even if we increase our cost little bit , within uh some limits , and we give something new technological advancement as well as new design with fancy outlook , I think we will meet the requirements and we will be able to have a good sales in the market . +User Interface: Uh-huh . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm not sure if the {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} for twenty five Euros uh per uh twelve Euros fifty m manufacturing cost , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ben bana +Project Manager: Yeah . I can't see tha Although , th I mean to be to be sure they have got {disfmarker} I mean they are going crazy with the L_C_D_ technology now , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: so that you've got your L_C_D_ T_V_s and everything so maybe the small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I mean like I I {disfmarker} the black and white , I guess , it just doesn't look funky enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but , I mean , like even mobile phones or whatever have {disfmarker} now have colour L_C_D_ screens , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: w I ju I mean +User Interface: Yeah . S +Project Manager: I wouldn't know about the costs of them . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: But uh price price not withstanding um , is it too complicated , is it gonna be too much just overload ? +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: Uh i it will be easy because there will be , on L_C_D_ s screen , there will be different frent icons , they can just click ok okay , whatever they wa +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Possibly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the thing , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But but the thing is when you use a remote control , you never look at it , right ? You're looking at the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and and it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It just seems kind of like a a needless th +User Interface: And one of the survey findings was that they want it easy to use , so I think I'm not sure about the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: It's a it's great , it's a good idea , but for our budget and for the thing we're trying to go for eas easy to use , it's not the thing we should go for , I think . Child-friendly , I thought this was good , as you pointed out the um {vocalsound} the bit , it often goes missing especially with children , but it's a good shape and the organic is kind of {disfmarker} we could make a vegetabley kind of round shape , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So which vegetable ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I mean we could make a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I know , carrot {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , si since we're going for the uh the k the sort of company colours , I think your lemon wasn't that far s {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The the lemon . Well what are the options ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if it doesn't work you know , we've just made a lemon . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we don't want it to be {disfmarker} Yeah . Um the child-friendly , yeah . Easy to use , it seems quite easy to use . I like the d the different shapes of the buttons and stuff . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I like I like the colourful buttons as well . +User Interface: I think that's a good idea to go for . Yeah . And the mouse one , I thought it was a good idea , because people use mo mice mouses now with the scrolling thing . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean we are marketing to sort of twenty five to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so most people will have come in contact with that kind of use . +User Interface: S yeah . So they'd be able to use that um , as I said I think i I'd presume it would come up on the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um so there you go . +Project Manager: And that means tha that means you get to bump that bit to the T_V_ maker , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: So that's um the user interface +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: So okay , I'll take this out now then . +Industrial Designer: Um so +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: I guess there are a lot of options that we're gonna have to choose from among , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , looks like it . +Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll give you the uh , {vocalsound} I guess , technical considerations for those . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And I'm gonna use the whiteboard , just 'cause we haven't used it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just thinking the self same thing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . So , the way I'm gonna do this {vocalsound} is uh we're gonna take a look at some old remote controls , see how they work , uh reuse the the vital kind of um essential pieces of it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we'll throw in our new innovations um {vocalsound} and keep it all within budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Magic man . +Industrial Designer: So uh yeah , looking inside a a very simple remote control . Um this is what they sent me . 'Kay . Here's uh the competition , I suppose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um you open it up , there's a circuit board inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um {vocalsound} and there's a a chip , a processor , the T_A_ one one eight three five , which um receives input from the buttons , and ch +Project Manager: So this is a standard off the shelf kind of a chip , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Right , it's very {disfmarker} they're very cheap remote . This remote costs nothing , you know . Um so that takes a signals from the buttons and translates it into a sequence of pulses that it then sends to the to the amplifier , which is made of some transistors and amplifiers , op-amps , and then that gets sent to the uh to the L_E_D_ light , which I can kinda see is that little red light bulb at the end , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that sends out the infrared uh light signal to the television . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh here it is . {vocalsound} Um so this is kind of the the bear essentials that we need to have in our remote control , because it it defines the uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So can we make them to pretty much any size we like or is there a minimum or ? +Industrial Designer: R Um no , I mean this is a very old one , so now with the new technology this is a a minimally small and cheap thing to make . +Project Manager: They gotta be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Almost a key-ring . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . So this is what we need to have for certain . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . So you know , as we said , we got the outer casing , which we have to decide , you know , what's it gonna be , um the board we have to use basically uh the same set-up , processor , um we'll probably use the more advanced processor than they had , amplifier and transmitter are all standard . Um so for the casing , uh this an e-mail I got from our manufacturing team uh , you know , we have a bunch of options from wood , titanium , rubber , plastic , whatnot , um latex , double-curved , curved . So lots of choices , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: what do we think ? Uh or sponge , I guess , isn't on there , right . +Project Manager: Well . +User Interface: Mm . I'm not sure about the sponge . +Industrial Designer: Organic sponge . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I mean like la latex has a kinda spongy feeling to it , doesn't it . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's very elasticy for sure . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And that would k also give it kinda durability +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and ther that's also f sorta relatively cheap to cast . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so maybe s uh a sort of uh plastic {disfmarker} initial plastic with a a latex kinda sheath ? +Industrial Designer: Okay so , here are a a plastic , uh latex {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like the rubber , the stress balls , I think , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: you know , that could be a bit of a gimmick like it's good to hold and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Project Manager: I don't know what that stuff is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something with give to it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . And +User Interface: And that might be quite durable and easy to chuck around . +Industrial Designer: and the colour is yellow , right ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Or at least incorporating , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: y {vocalsound} yellow incorporated , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yellow {vocalsound} , okay . Um . +Project Manager: I mean I forgot i we're sort of uh {disfmarker} I don't know what other standard silver kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Other parts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , the buttons w like , 'cause there's gonna be the the cover the the rubber or the plastic casing and then the buttons in probably two different colours +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm' kay . +User Interface: or i if we're having buttons actually , +Industrial Designer: So yellow for the body , +User Interface: I don +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: and then what colour for the buttons ? +Project Manager: Um I quite like the multi-coloured buttons myself . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So multi-coloured buttons . +User Interface: You do have ones like um play {vocalsound} could be green or on and off is red , and stuff like that , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah or yeah a limit uh maybe even just a limited multi-colour so it it doesn't look too childish , perhaps . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Makes it easy to use . Yeah , that's true , because that blue one did look quite hardish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Although I mean this uh uh also comes to shape as well . I mean if we are gonna make it a novel {disfmarker} I mean double-curved sounds good to me if we're talking about sorta ergonomic and easy use , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: a bit comfier , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay so the shape we wanna go {disfmarker} Um how exactly ? Maybe double {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like uh {vocalsound} an hour glass kind of figure , is that what you're thinking of , +Project Manager: Yeah it's uh , yeah , that that'd be {disfmarker} that's sort of comfortable to hold , easy to hold so you don't drop it . +User Interface: or just like a {disfmarker} It's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What about a banana ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make novelty remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay , like we could have a big banana shaped remote control , +Project Manager: Well , yeah , I mean like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it's yellow fruit , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Mm and a lemon might be a little hard to grip . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But then how would you point it ? +Marketing: Ah +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: How would you point it ? +Industrial Designer: Oh i it doesn't matter which end you point , I guess . +User Interface: What {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We could have a little L_E_D_s on each end . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I appreciate this idea , +Project Manager: They only cost pennies . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because then this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this will help us in our advertisement also +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and we can relate with fruits and vegetables , the people's choices . That what our data shows that , so this w this w +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: {gap} y I'm I'm not sure about the banana idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: So a spongy banana re {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean that that th {vocalsound} +User Interface: Rubber banana . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: does +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: it does seem a bit uh again childish maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +User Interface: I think maybe just draw on the kind of fruit and vegetable shape . And what else did you say about fashions ? What was trendy ? +Marketing: Uh the fashion trend shows that fruits and vegetables , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: See {disfmarker} +Marketing: like people uh now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And sponginess . +Industrial Designer: So maybe an an unidentifiable fruit or fiable fruit or vegetable +User Interface: And spongy , yeah . +Marketing: Spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like so it would have a stem perhaps +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and a +User Interface: Maybe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe a {disfmarker} it'd be s axially symmetric . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: Like what's what's that {vocalsound} , I don't even know the name of it , some kind of , you know where it's like {disfmarker} looks like a little snowman kind of thing . I don't know the name of that . +Industrial Designer: So it'd look like this kinda . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +Industrial Designer: Like a gourd almost , or a squash of some sort ? +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's what they are . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: 'Cause that you can hold it in like the bottom bit +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it has a a clear top and bottom so y so you could say , you know , it transmits from this end . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , why the hell not . {vocalsound} Let's {vocalsound} that'll make us fifty million Euros . +User Interface: I don't know . What do you guy {disfmarker} What do you think ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . Well , I guess it's kind of dra uh you don't necessarily have to have it sort of clearly identified as a fruit just to have that kind of fruitish shape , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , then only we can relate it with something . +Project Manager: Yeah , we can relate it by advertising or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so double-curved , single-curved , what do we feel ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or we can do something , we can design two three shapes and we can have a public survey , let the public choose what they want . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There's a good man . There's a good idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um , I guess , since you're the marketing guy . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . I will be happy to do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll uh {disfmarker} Okay , we could do that . Um . +User Interface: Okay . And buttons would , did we say ? Uh different shapes of buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Um I l I su I mean for the specific functions , you know , up and down , uh play , stop . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so +Project Manager: They've got , I mean , they've got standard sort of intuitive um +Industrial Designer: so buttons . +Project Manager: things that are always used . +Industrial Designer: Okay , just like that . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll-wheel or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , what about the scroll wheel and speech recognition ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh speech recognition , I think , so we need a microphone presumably . +Industrial Designer: Okay uh I could put the microphone here . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay there's the microphone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Where should I put the microphone ? +Project Manager: I mean ho h h wel are we sure that scroll wheel does give ease of use ? +User Interface: Yeah , I'm not sure . Um I mean those ideas I saw were just for inspiration , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Glad , we're not doing this for real . +User Interface: Um yeah , I can {disfmarker} no I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well we can do some user test with scroll-wheels , right ? +User Interface: I couldn Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh I think if this this new software for the sound recognition is {gap} the microphone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So should the microphone be just anywhere on it or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I would put it sort of sub-centrally , so it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay there's the mic . +Project Manager: So it can be sort of held and w {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} We really need really gonna need to hold it , if it's gonna be voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Um n well we can {disfmarker} Whoops . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: So let's not use the whiteboard any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oops , sorry . Okay . +User Interface: And uh so what else was there ? Um the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the glow-in-the-dark thing , the strip around it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I s I still like it . +User Interface: Are we just gonna leave that ? +Project Manager: Um but that's me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You still like it . 'Cause we've got the uh technological innovation with the speech recognition system . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yes , or maybe it's just going a bit uh too far . I mean we are pushing it probably with funny fruit shapes . +User Interface: 'Cause um it could {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um don't wanna sort of overkill . +User Interface: Especially with yellow {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Mm . I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I mean like uh if we {disfmarker} I mean how good is the speech recognition thing ? Do we want to go for buttons at all , do we want to just have a device that maybe sits and pretends it's a fruit ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you put it in the fruit bowl ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} They can work from a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , you know , and then you just tal +Industrial Designer: You don't have to hold it . +Project Manager: I mean like everybody's got fruit bowl in front of the telly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it could even encourage healthier habits for television watchers , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know they have uh fruits all round them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Make them make them think of fruit , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now just make sure they don't eat the remote . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean uh {vocalsound} some uh I +User Interface: Yeah , do we need buttons ? +Project Manager: l like think of a fruit that could sit sort of independently on its own like uh , I dunno , an apple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Then it's just apple so sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , yellow apples though {disfmarker} Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I quite like the shape . I quite like the design of that , uh 'cause that could sit on its own and it's quite {disfmarker} got a quite steady base . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . But yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Groovy . +User Interface: Um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and as we say we n we don't wanna be too ridiculous with the fruit things you know . +Project Manager: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , about the speech thing , it doesn't have to be hand held or close . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It can sit at a distance and pick it up still . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {vocalsound} I mean like you could actually {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Or we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , gives you the options . +Marketing: we can do one thing , we can just have a remote control and casings of different different shapes , different fruit shapes in such a way that a any casing can be could be fit into this mobile general piece . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So whatever people want , like if somebody want it in banana shape , we will put that casing onto that mobile phone , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So a selection of casings . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: it will look l {vocalsound} Uh yeah . In that w +Project Manager: It kind of fi it fits with f fits with marketing um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause you said about disposable , +Marketing: S s sorry ? +User Interface: didn't you ? You said about disposable earli people want disposable things +Marketing: Uh like if this is a like if this is a mobile phone uh we will design casing in such a way like half of , we need not to have a full cover , we will just have a half of cover , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so we could do that , like have a choice . Yeah . +Marketing: okay ? If somebody wants it i in banana shape , we will fit banana shape casing onto that , so it will give a banana shape look . +Project Manager: Like like mobiles , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wanted in apple shape we will design that , we will put {disfmarker} we will put apple shape casing on that . It will give apple shape look . So in that way you can have any , that means whatever you want , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: without {disfmarker} uh yeah . +User Interface: We still need the buttons in the same places thought , +Marketing: Yeah , button will be on the upper side , buttons will be the on the upper side . +User Interface: don't we ? +Project Manager: You can standardise those , I mean . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , buttons will be on the upper side , lower side we will just put the casing , +User Interface: Oh , that's the other side . Oh , okay . +Marketing: so half of that will be look the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , half a fruit . Oh , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , not not the upper side . So from lower you can , it means while you are holding of {disfmarker} from this side you c you can have banana look or apple look , whatever . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: So in that way we need not to d have different different shape mobiles everything , we will just design casings fruit shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think tho I think if you're gonna have a facia then you'd want to have it so that it does go over the buttons , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause when {disfmarker} if you think about it if they're wanting it , 'cause they want to look at it , if they're using it , and what they want to look at is facing away from them . It doesn't really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm mm . +Project Manager: You know 'cause that'd be in the palm of their hand and they wouldn't be able to see it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: unless you have sort of {disfmarker} you got the buttons options on one side , and you get the facia on the other side with a microphone so that you can place it face down . And you've got the facia , and you can just talk at the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , um so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you've narrowed it down to half a dozen options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: s I guess we decided on material , right ? So that that spongy latex rubber everything feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the colours we got down , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and the shape , maybe we'll just make it kinda mix and match type of shape or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , um because {disfmarker} Well , I I'm not sure if we should go so far in the whole fruit thing , because I think we should maybe just take the inspiration from the fruit and uh because {vocalsound} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we stick with what we've got there . +User Interface: Yeah , w I think wh wha would {disfmarker} we're trying to get to twenty five , thirty five year olds who want it quite trendy as well they said . They wanted something that looks fancy and I think maybe fruit could be a bit of a {disfmarker} too much of a gimmick , but something ergonomically shaped and organic , like good to hold , based on fruits and natural things like that , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: because al already we're going a bit gaudy with the yellow , you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean we could make it nice pale yellow . +Project Manager: Well , it's kind of gotta be our company's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So again I mean like we could have , uh I mean , we could quite easily have the the main body be a different +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: colour , but have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we could have that pale yellow and then an outside bit bright yellow with , you said , the logan the slogan . +Project Manager: kinda going round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um I mean e even if {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I mean not necessarily that the um the whole body has to be of the company colour , so you know um blue and yellow tend to go to we well together . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have the main body blue with the yellow logo and slogan running up one side of it kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} Um as for the energy source um , you know , almost every remote control uses just batteries , but we don't have to be limited by that . We can use a hand-dynamo . Um I don't know what that means , we crank it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh It's I think it's basically the more you move i it , it's got a wee thing inside that just kinda {vocalsound} powers it . +Industrial Designer: Right , it's like those watches that you c +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , this might be an idea for something that people really wanna grab , you can shake it if it's out of power . +User Interface: Oh , a d a dynamo ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like with those watches that you kind of twist . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's quite cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So if it if it's not working , I guess people's natural reaction anyway is to just shake the thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . You shake it and scream at it . +Marketing: But but do you think that it will be a good idea to use dynamo , tha these type of cells ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is , yeah . +Marketing: Because then people have to , well like if the cell is out of bat +Project Manager: It does leave them with an obligation to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , to mo Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they want to use it uh uh sp uh specifically as um voice activated . +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because most of the people {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then if it's just sitting on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , then they have to pick it up and then activate it and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: That's true . +Project Manager: Right um what are the other options ? +Industrial Designer: Uh there's solar power . Um . +Marketing: Uh , solar power will w also not be a good idea , because then they have to keep m their mobiles outside in solar energy , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the days when there is no sola sunlight {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm I'm with uh Raj on that , +Industrial Designer: Okay , so probably just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , you know , +Marketing: What we w +Project Manager: I've got I've got no I've got a north facing house , there's not really ever sun coming in my window . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: yeah . I think we should {disfmarker} a rechargeable {vocalsound} battery will be a good idea . +User Interface: But w {vocalsound} like just normal light ? +Project Manager: Oh that's true . +Marketing: They can they can recharge it . +Project Manager: I mean I w I w uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that idea that I thought {vocalsound} um just on the basis of like ridding them of batteries and that kind of bother +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: is having a , +User Interface: And we're a very environmentally friendly company , aren't we as well ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: having a rechargeable stand , so that not only it doubles as a stand , but um for using it as {disfmarker} uh recharging it , but also for using it as sound recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Like like a hand {disfmarker} like one of those portable phones kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh a rechargeable battery {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um the user interface , the buttons , I guess we talked about this already . +Project Manager: Rechargeable . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: {gap} . What's chip on print ? What's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Sorry , never mind . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh th the uh the electronics um , basically the more features we add um {disfmarker} Oops , this one . So the more features we add the fancier chips we need to buy and put in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which adds to the cost as you can expect . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . But uh I think we can keep it all under budget . So uh yes , so the speech thing you said our our techno our research and development department came up with some break-through . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So just in time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we if we're just having buttons and the speech then we're getting our cheapest option of chipping . +User Interface: Just in time . +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Project Manager: That's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Uh woah . +Industrial Designer: and keeping the L_C_D_ screen out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , we're we're kind of uh we're kind of um {vocalsound} Excuse m I've just deleted that whole thing . Um we're kind of running out of time , so if you could {disfmarker} Uh . {vocalsound} Was that you ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Um that was {disfmarker} your bit's covered , +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that was that was it . +Project Manager: I just dele I just accidentally deleted what I was supposed to say next . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Bri +Project Manager: Um , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So control F_ eight , right ? +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , mine seems to have turned off . +Project Manager: And I just touch the pad . +User Interface: I can't do anything . +Marketing: You just touch the pad , yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's actually shut down . +User Interface: It's on , but there's nothing on the screen . +Project Manager: Okay , um now what we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Try uh flipping the screen down {gap} . +Project Manager: uh our next meeting's in half an hour +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and what I would like you guys to do is work on giving me a model in clay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I get to do it , too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . It's you guys . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh neat . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um , you know I mean , luckily we chose a nice simple shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and further instructions will be sent by your personal coaches . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Save everything to the shared documents , is that right ? +Marketing: {gap} That's great . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I hope I can recover this , 'cause I've accidentally deleted it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which doesn't really help me much . +User Interface: I think , I've saved mine already . +Project Manager: Yeah , can you save that {disfmarker} uh send that last one again , please , Raj , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: as I still can't find it on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh it was under a different name . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will show you , in shared documents . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh working components {gap} . Oh , you didn't get that . I will send new . +Project Manager: No . Okay , thank you . +Marketing: Uh I'll put it in shared documents , again . +Project Manager: Um yeah , Project , Project Documents . +Marketing: Project documents , sorry , I put it in the shared documents . +Project Manager: Uh right , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: that's that's the that {disfmarker} it goes there automatically if you put it in Project Documents . Project Documents is on the um {vocalsound} desktop . +Marketing: Right , that's great . But I cou can't open that , because it w asks uh for some username or password . +Industrial Designer: Oh {gap} . +Project Manager: Really ? {gap} +Marketing: {gap} I'll show you . +Industrial Designer: Uh these lapel mics are trouble . +Marketing: Ts +Project Manager: Oh right , I think um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hold on . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know if y it it just ca it just came up on my um on my agenda . S {vocalsound} Um presumably there's clay somewhere . Um . {vocalsound} Four . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Whoops . Light , light , please . Light . {vocalsound} Right , there you go . +Marketing: Yeah , th thank you . +Project Manager: Yeah , quite . And we're using this our basic chip set , so it's all good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . +Industrial Designer: Are we done with our meeting ? +Marketing: Uh excuse me , Brian . +Project Manager: Um I think we're almost done , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have to keep your pen separate , because I used your pen . +Project Manager: Oh oops . +Marketing: S {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sorry man . Uh okay , still didn't manage to get down all the last bits so we had rechargeable and {disfmarker} Uh . Apples . {vocalsound} Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm . 'Kay , so we came up with that , that's okay . What's supplements ? Supplements . Uh {vocalsound} uh . {vocalsound} See . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . Fun . +Project Manager: I shoulda {gap} something like that . If I kn see I I knew that . I shoulda sort of engineered it so we k ended up making a diffi difficult shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just for cruelty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Star fruit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder if they mean like literally make it , sort of buttons and everything . +Marketing: So sh should Should we leave now , Brian ? +User Interface: No . Oh yeah , we can do buttons . +Marketing: Or we are going to discuss something ? +Project Manager: Um . Uh no , I think that's us our discussion over unless anybody's got questions {vocalsound} or confusions , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I'm good . +Project Manager: 'cause I'm confused . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Huh ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Excuse me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh we'll probably get questionnaire in a minute , it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . Thank you . Yeah . +Project Manager: There we go . Warning , finish meeting now . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: I rounded it up far too fast . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} . Where are we going ? My Documents , that's not what I want . My Project Documents . {vocalsound} There we go . +","Project Manager kicks off the meeting reviewing the format, ensures minutes from the last meeting are circulated, and checks for any outstanding questions. A presentation starts with Marketing (Raj) discussing the importance of trend watching for market potential. Raj highlights that design, technological innovation, and ease of use are key factors based on market surveys and trend updates, emphasizing the preference for fancy-looking remote controls with a good feel, functionality paired with technological innovations, and user-friendliness. The User Interface designer and Industrial Designer engage in discussions about various design aspects, including shape, materials, and innovations like speech recognition. Marketing suggests letting the public choose the design through surveys, and they consider environmentally friendly and rechargeable power sources. The team agrees on a concept blending fruit inspiration with functionality, incorporates speech recognition, and plans to create a clay model for the next meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad D: And we already got the crash out of the way . It did crash , so I feel much better , earlier . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Will you get the door , and {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: OK , so um . +Professor F: OK . You collected an agenda , huh ? +Grad D: I did collect an agenda . So I 'm gonna go first . Mwa - ha - ha ! It shouldn't take too long . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , so we 're pretty much out of digits . We 've gone once through the set . Um , so the only thing I have to do +Professor F: No there 's only ten . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's right . so I {disfmarker} I just have to go through them +Professor F: Well , OK . +Grad D: and uh pick out the ones that have problems , and either correct them or have them re - read . So we probably have like four or five more forms to be read , to be once through the set . I 've also extracted out about an hour 's worth . We have about two hours worth . I extracted out about an hour 's worth which are the f digits with {disfmarker} for which whose speaker have speaker forms , have filled out speaker forms . Not everyone 's filled out a speaker form . So I extracted one for speakers who have speaker forms and for meetings in which the "" key "" file and the transcript files are parsable . Some of the early key files , it looks like , were done by hand , and so they 're not automatically parsable and I have to go back and fix those . So what that means is we have about an hour of transcribed digits that we can play with . Um , Liz {disfmarker} +Professor F: So you think two {disfmarker} you think two hours is the {disfmarker} is the total that we have ? +Grad D: Yep , yeah . +Professor F: And you think we th uh , I {disfmarker} I didn't quite catch all these different things that are not quite right , but you think we 'll be able to retrieve the other hour , reasonably ? +Grad D: Yes , absolutely . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: So it 's just a question of a little hand - editing of some files and then waiting for more people to turn in their speaker forms . I have this web - based speaker form , and I sent mail to everyone who hadn't filled out a speaker form , and they 're slowly s trickling in . +Professor F: So the relevance of the speaker form here , s +Grad D: It 's for labeling the extracted audio files . +Professor F: Oh , OK . +Grad D: By speaker ID and microphone type . +Professor F: Wasn't like whether they were giving us permission to use their digits or something . +Grad D: No , I spoke with Jane about that and we sort of decided that it 's probably not an issue that {disfmarker} We edit out any of the errors anyway . Right ? So the there are no errors in the digits , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: you 'll always read the string correctly . So I can't imagine why anyone would care . So the other topic with digits is uh , Liz would like to elicit different prosodics , and so we tried last week with them written out in English . And it just didn't work at all because no one grouped them together . So it just sounded like many many more lines instead of anything else . So in conversations with Liz and uh Jane we decided that if you wrote them out as numbers instead of words it would elicit more phone number , social security number - like readings . The problem with that is it becomes numbers instead of digits . When I look at this , that first line is "" sixty one , sixty two , eighteen , eighty six , ten . "" Um , and so the question is does anyone care ? Um , I 've already spoken with Liz and she feels that , correct me if I 'm wrong , that for her , connected numbers is fine , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: as opposed to connected digits . Um , I think two hours is probably fine for a test set , but it may be a little short if we actually wanna do training and adaptation and all that other stuff . +Professor F: Yeah Um , do um you want different prosodics , so if you always had the same groupings you wouldn't like that ? Is that correct ? +PhD G: Well , we actually figured out a way to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD G: the {disfmarker} the groupings are randomly generated . +Professor F: No but , I was asking if that was something you really cared about because if it wasn't , it seems to me if you made it really specifically telephone groupings that maybe people wouldn't , uh , go and do numbers so much . You know if it if it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I think they may still do it , um , +Professor F: Maybe some , but I probably not so much . +PhD B: What about putting a hyphen between the numbers in the group ? +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor F: Right ? So if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have uh +Grad D: Six dash one , you mean ? +Professor F: if you go six six six uh dash uh two nine three one . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} well OK {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it might help , I would like to g get away from having only one specific grouping . +Professor F: That 's what I was asking , yeah . +PhD G: Um , so if that 's your question , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but I mean it seems to me that , at least for us , we can learn to read them as digits +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: if that 's what people want . I {disfmarker} I 'm +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: don't think that 'd be that hard to read them as single digits . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Um , and it seems like that might be better for you guys since then you 'll have just more digit data , +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: and that 's always a good thing . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: It 's a little bit better for me too because the digits are easier to recognize . They 're better trained than the numbers . +Grad D: So we could just , uh , put in the instructions "" read them as digits "" . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Right . Right , read them as single digits , so sixty - one w is read as six one , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and if people make a mistake we {disfmarker} +Grad D: How about "" O "" versus "" zero "" ? +Professor F: I mean , the other thing is we could just bag it because it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's - I 'm not worrying about it I mean , because we do have digits training data that we have from uh from OGI . I 'm sorry , digits {disfmarker} numbers training that we have from OGI , we 've done lots and lots of studies with that . And um . +PhD G: But it 's nice to get it in this room with the acous +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , no , I guess what I 'm saying is that +Grad D: Just let them read it how they read it . +Professor F: to some extent maybe we could just read them {disfmarker} have them read how {disfmarker} how they read it and it just means that we have to expand our {disfmarker} our vocabulary out to stuff that we already have . +PhD G: Right . Well that 's fine with me as long as {disfmarker} It 's just that I didn't want to cause the people who would have been collecting digits the other way to not have the digits . +Professor F: Yeah . We can go back to the other thing later . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean we s we {disfmarker} we 've {disfmarker} We can do this for awhile +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: and then go back to digits for awhile , or um . Do yo I mean , do you want {disfmarker} do you want this {disfmarker} Do you need training data or adaptation data out of this ? +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: How much of this do you need ? with uh the {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's actually unclear right now . I just thought well we 're {disfmarker} if we 're collec collecting digits , and Adam had said we were running out of the TI forms , I thought it 'd be nice to have them in groups , and probably , all else being equal , it 'd be better for me to just have single digits +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: since it 's , you know , a recognizer 's gonna do better on those anyway , um , and it 's more predictable . So we can know from the transcript what the person said and the transcriber , in general . +Professor F: OK , well if you pre +PhD G: But if they make mistakes , it 's no big deal if the people say a hundred instead of "" one OO "" . and also w maybe we can just let them choose "" zero "" versus "" O "" as they {disfmarker} as they like because even the same person c sometimes says "" O "" and sometimes says "" zero "" in different context , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and that 's sort of interesting . So I don't have a Specific need cuz if I did I 'd probably try to collect it , you know , without bothering this group , but If we can try it {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK so {disfmarker} so I can just add to the instructions to read it as digits not as connected numbers . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right , and you can give an example like , you know , "" six {disfmarker} sixty - one would be read as six one "" . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . And i actually it 's no more artificial than what we 've been doing with words . +PhD G: And I think people will get it . +Postdoc E: I 'm sure people can adapt to this , read it single . +PhD G: Right , right . +Postdoc E: The spaces already bias it toward being separated . +PhD G: It 's just easier to read . +Postdoc E: And I know I 'm gonna find this easier than words . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: Oh yeah , absolutely , cognitively it 's much easier . +PhD G: OK I also had a hard {disfmarker} hard time with the words , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: but then we went back and forth on that . OK , so let 's give that a try +Grad D: OK . And is the spacing alright or do you think there should be more space between digits and groups ? +Professor F: OK . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or is that alright ? +PhD G: I mean what do other people think cuz you guys are reading {comment} them . +Postdoc E: I think that i it 's fine . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: I it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to me it looks like you 've got the func the idea of grouping and you have the grou the idea of separation +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: and , you know , it 's just a matter of u i the instructions , that 's all . +PhD G: Great . OK . +Grad D: And I think there are about ten different gouping patterns +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: Well let 's give it a try . +Grad D: isn't that right , Liz ? That we did . +PhD G: Righ - right , and you just {disfmarker} they 're randomly {nonvocalsound} generated and randomly assigned to digits . +Postdoc E: I did {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor F: So we have {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Go ahead . +Professor F: Sorry , I {disfmarker} I was just gonna say , so we have in the vicinity of forty hours of {disfmarker} of recordings now . And you 're saying two hours , uh , is digits , so that 's roughly the ratio then , +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: something like twenty {disfmarker} twenty to one . Which I guess makes {disfmarker} makes sense . So if we did another forty hours of recordings then we could get another couple hours of this . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Um , yeah like you say , I think a couple hours for a {disfmarker} for a {disfmarker} for a test {disfmarker} test set 's OK . It 'd be nice to get , you know , more later because we 'll {disfmarker} we might use {disfmarker} use this up , uh , in some sense , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , I also would like to argue for that cuz it {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , there 's a real strength in having the same test replicated in {disfmarker} a whole bunch of times and adding to that basic test bank . +Grad D: Right . +Postdoc E: Hmm ? Cuz then you have , you know , more and more , u chances to get away from random errors . And I think , um , the other thing too is that right now we have sort of a stratified sample with reference to dialect groups , and it might be {disfmarker} there might be an argument to be made for having uh f for replicating all of the digits that we 've done , which were done by non - native speakers so that we have a core that totally replicates the original data set , which is totally American speakers , and then we have these stratified additional language groups overlapping certain aspects of the database . +Grad D: Right . I think that uh trying to duplicate , spending too much effort trying to duplicate the existing TI - digits probably isn't too worthwhile because the recording situation is so different . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's gonna be very hard to be comparable . +Postdoc E: Except that if you have the stimuli {pause} comparable , then it says something about the {disfmarker} the contribution of setting +Professor F: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not the same . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: A little bit , but the other differences are so major . +Grad D: Yeah I mean read versus not . +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: They 're such major sources of variance that it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: What 's an example of a {disfmarker} of m some of the other differences ? Any other a difference ? +Professor F: Well i i individual human glottis {vocalsound} is going to be different for each one , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: you know , it 's just {disfmarker} There 's so many things . +Grad D: Well , and not just that , +Postdoc E: OK . +Professor F: it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and enunciation . +Grad D: I mean the uh the corpus itself . I mean , we 're collecting it in a read digit in a particular list , and I 'm sure that they 're doing more specific stuff . I mean if I remember correctly it was like postman reading zipcodes and things like that . +Professor F: TI - digits was ? +Grad D: I thought so . +Professor F: I thought {disfmarker} I thought it was read . +Grad D: Was it read ? +Professor F: Yeah , I think the reading zipcode stuff you 're thinking of would be OGI . +Grad D: Oh , I may well be . +Professor F: Yeah , no TI - digits was read in th in read in the studio I believe . +Grad D: I haven't ever listened to TI - digits . So I don't really know how it compares . +Professor F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} but regardless it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's hard to compare cross - corpus . +Professor F: But it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} It - it 's different people {pause} is the {disfmarker} is the core thing . +Grad D: So . +Postdoc E: OK , fine . +Professor F: And they 're different circumstances with different recording environment and so forth , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really pretty different . But I think the idea of using a set thing was just to give you some sort of framework , so that even though you couldn't do exact comparisons , it wouldn't be s valid scientifically at least it 'd give you some kind of uh frame of reference . Uh , you know it 's not {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Liz , What {disfmarker} what do the groupings represent ? +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD B: You said there 's like ten different groupings ? +PhD G: Right , just groupings in terms of number of groups in a line , and number of digits in a group , and the pattern of groupings . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Are the patterns {disfmarker} like are they based on anything or +PhD G: Um , I {disfmarker} I just roughly looked at what kinds of digit strings are out there , and they 're usually grouped into either two , three , or four , four digits at a time . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD G: And they can have , I mean , actually , things are getting longer and longer . In the old days you probably only had three sequences , and telephone numbers were less , and so forth . So , there 's between , um {disfmarker} Well if you look at it , there are between like three and five groups , and each one has between two and four groupings and {disfmarker} I purposely didn't want them to look like they were in any kind of pattern . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD G: So +Grad D: And which group appears is picked randomly , and what the numbers are are picked randomly . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So unlike the previous one , which I d simply replicated TI - digits , this is generated randomly . +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: Oh OK . +PhD B: Mmm , oh , OK . +PhD G: But I think it 'd be great i to be able to compare digits , whether it 's these digits or TI - digits , to speakers , um , and compare that to their spontaneous speech , and then we do need you know a fair amount of {disfmarker} of digit data because you might be wearing a different microphone +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and , I mean {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's nice to have the digits you know , replicated many times . Especially for speakers that don't talk a lot . +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: So {vocalsound} um , for adaptation . No , I 'm serious , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah all we have for some people is digits . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: so we have a problem with acoustic adaptation , and we 're not using the digit data now , but you know {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , you 're not . +PhD G: Not for adaptation , nope . v W we 're not {disfmarker} we were running adaptation only on the data that we ran recognition on and I 'd {disfmarker} As soon as someone started to read transcript number , that 's read speech and I thought "" well , we 're gonna do better on that , +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: that 's not fair to use "" . +Grad D: Oh yeah that 's true , absolutely . +PhD A: OK . +PhD G: But , it might be fair to use the data for adaptation , so . So those speakers who are very quiet , {comment} shy {disfmarker} +Grad D: That would be interesting to see whether that helps . +PhD G: r Right {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like Adam ? +Grad D: Do you think that would help adapting on {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , I have a real problem with that . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , it sh I mean it 's the same micropho see the nice thing is we have that in the {disfmarker} in the same meeting , +Grad D: Right . Same {disfmarker} same acoustics , +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: and so you don't get {disfmarker} +Grad D: same microphone , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: same channel . +PhD G: Right , and so I still like the idea of having some kind of {pause} digit data . +Grad D: OK . Good . +Professor F: Yeah I mean , for the {disfmarker} for the um acoustic research , for the signal - processing , farfield stuff , I see it as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as the place that we start . But , th I mean , it 'd be nice to have twenty hours of digits data , but {disfmarker} but uh the truth is I 'm hoping that we {disfmarker} we through the {disfmarker} the stuff that {disfmarker} that you guys have been doing as you continue that , we get , uh , the best we can do on the spontaneous stuff uh , uh nearfield , and then um , we do a lot of the testing of the algorithms on the digits for the farfield , and at some point when we feel it 's mature and we understand what 's going on with it then we {disfmarker} we have to move on to the spontaneous data with the farfield . So . +Postdoc E: Great . +PhD G: The only thing that we don't have , I know this sounds weird , and maybe it 's completely stupid , but we don't have any overlapping digits . +Grad D: Yeah , we talked about that a couple times . +PhD G: An - yea I know it 's weird , but um {disfmarker} +PhD A: Overlapping digits ! +Grad D: The {disfmarker} the problem I see with trying to do overlapping digits is the cognitive load . +PhD G: Alright everybody 's laughing . OK . +Grad C: Dueling digits . +Grad D: No it 's {disfmarker} it 's not stupid , it 's just {disfmarker} I mean , try to do it . +PhD G: I 'm just talkin for the stuff that like Dan Ellis is gonna try , +Grad D: I mean , here , let 's try it . +PhD G: you know , cross - talk cancellation . +Grad D: You read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: Let 's try it . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: Oh ! +PhD G: Wait {disfmarker} oh it {disfmarker} these are all the same forms . +Professor F: Sixty - one . +PhD G: OK {comment} So but {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so you read the last line , I 'll read the first line . +Professor F: No , I 'll p +PhD G: So you plu you plug your ears . +Grad D: Oh I guess if you plug you 're ears you could do it , but then you don't get the {disfmarker} the same effects . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Well , what I mean is actually no not the overlaps that are well - governed linguistically , but the actual fact that there is speech coming from two people +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: and the beam - forming stuf all the acoustic stuff that like Dan Ellis and {disfmarker} and company want to do . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: Digits are nice and well behaved , I mean +Grad D: I guess we could try . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Grad D: We could try doing some . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it would go faster . +PhD B: Parallel . +PhD G: It would take one around {comment} amount of ti +PhD B: It 's the P - make of digit reading . +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} Well OK . Well let 's try it . +PhD G: That 's right . I {disfmarker} I mea I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of serious , but I really , I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I don't feel strongly enough that it 's a good idea , +Professor F: See , y +Grad D: You do the last line , I 'll do the first line . +PhD G: so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: O . {comment} That 's not bad . +Professor F: No , I can do it . +PhD B: I couldn't understand a single thing you guys were saying . +PhD G: A and that prosody was great , by the way . +Postdoc E: I think it was numbers , but I 'm not sure . +PhD G: It {disfmarker} it sort of sounded like a duet , or something . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Performance art . +Professor F: Alright , let 's try three at once you {disfmarker} you pick one in the middle . +PhD A: The Aurora theater . +PhD G: OK . +Professor F: Go . +PhD G: I 'm sorry . I 'm mean I think it 's doable , +Grad D: The poor transcribers +PhD G: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: they 're gonna hate us . +PhD G: So , we {disfmarker} we could have a round like where you do two at a time , and then the next person picks up when the first guy 's done , or something . +PhD A: So pairwise . +Professor F: Oh like a round , yeah , like in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD G: Like a , +PhD A: Yeah , just pairwise , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: what do you call it ? +PhD A: or yeah . +Grad C: Round . +Grad D: A round . +Professor F: Row , row , row your boat . +PhD G: Li - a r like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: yeah , like that . +Professor F: OK . +PhD B: It 's gonna require some coordination . +PhD G: Then it would go like h twice as fast , or {pause} a third as fast . +Postdoc E: You have to have a similar pace . +PhD G: Anyway , it 's just a thought . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm actually sort of serious if it would help people do that kind o but the people who wanna work on it we should talk to them . +Professor F: I don't think we 're gonna collect vast amounts of data that way , +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Mmm . +Professor F: but I think having a little bit might at least be fun for somebody like Dan to play around with , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I think maybe if we wanted to do that we would do it as a separate session , +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: something like that rather than doing it during a real meeting and you know , do two people at a time then three people at a time and things like that . So . +PhD G: Can try it out . +Grad D: See {disfmarker} see what Dan thinks . +PhD G: If we have nothing {disfmarker} if we have no agenda we could do it some week . +Grad D: Yeah , right . +Professor F: Yeah , yeah . Spend the whole time reading digits with different qu quantities . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I thought this was gonna be fast . +Postdoc E: c c Can I can I have an another {disfmarker} another question w about this ? +Grad D: Oh well . +Postdoc E: So , um , there are these digits , which are detached digits , but there are other words that contain the same general phon phoneme sequences . Like "" wonderful "" has "" one "" in it and {disfmarker} and Victor Borge had a {disfmarker} had a piece on this where he inflated the digits . Well , I wonder if there 's , um , an if there would be a value in having digits that are in essence embedded in real words to compare in terms of like the articulation of "" one "" in "" wonderful "" versus "" one "" as a digit being read . +Professor F: That 's "" two "" bad . Yeah . +PhD G: I 'm all "" four "" it . +Postdoc E: There you go . +Grad D: Not after I "" eight "" though . +Professor F: Uh , they don't all work as well , do they ? Hmm . What does nine work in ? +Grad C: Nein ! +Grad D: Uh . +Professor F: Uh , +Grad C: You scream it . +Grad D: Nein ! You have to be German , +Professor F: Oh . In German , +PhD A: That 's German , yeah . +PhD B: It 's great for the Germans . +Professor F: yeah . +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: Oh , oh ! +Postdoc E: Nein . +Professor F: That 's right ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh ! +Grad C: It only sounds w good when you scream it , though . So . +Professor F: I think everybody 's a little punchy here {vocalsound} today . +Postdoc E: Well , I mean , I just wanted to offer that as a possible task +Professor F: Yes . +Postdoc E: because , you know , if we were to each read his embedded numbers words in sent in sentences cuz it 's like an entire sketch he does and I wouldn't take the inflated version . So he talks about the woman being "" two - derful "" , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a But , you know , if it were to be deflated , just the normal word , it would be like a little story that we could read . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I don't know if it would be useful for comparison , but it 's embedded numbers . +Grad D: I think for something like that we 'd be better off doing like uh TIMIT . +Professor F: Well I don't know . Well I think the question is what the research is , so I mean , I presume that the reason that you wanted to have these digits this way is because you wanted to actually do some research looking at the prosodic form here . +Grad D: Hmm . +Professor F: Yeah OK . +PhD G: Right , yeah . +Professor F: So if somebody wanted to do that , if they wanted to look at the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the difference of the uh phones in the digits in the context of a word versus uh the digits {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a non - digit word versus in digit word , uh that would be a good thing to do , but I think someone would have to express interest in that . +Postdoc E: I see . OK . +Professor F: I think , to {disfmarker} I mean if you were interested in it then we could do it , for instance . +Postdoc E: OK , thank you . +Grad D: OK , are we done with digits ? +Postdoc E: Huh . +Grad D: Um , We have ASR results from Liz , transcript status from Jane , and disk space and storage formats from Don . Does {disfmarker} do we have any prefer preference on which way we wanna {disfmarker} we wanna go ? +PhD G: Well I was actually gonna skip the ASR results part , in favor of getting the transcription stuff talked about +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: since I think that 's more important to moving forward , but I mean Morgan has this paper copy and if people have questions , um , it 's pretty preliminary in terms of ASR results because we didn't do anything fancy , but I think e just having the results there , and pointing out some main conclusions like it 's not the speaking style that differs , it 's the fact that there 's overlap that causes recognition errors . And then , the fact that it 's almost all insertion errors , which you would expect but you might also think that in the overlapped regions you would get substitutions and so forth , um , leads us to believe that doing a better segmentation , like your channel - based segmentation , or some kind of uh , echo cancellation to get basically back down to the individual speaker utterances would be probably all that we would need to be able to do good recognition on the {disfmarker} on the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: So these {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , why don't you , if you have a hard copy , why don't you email it to the list . +PhD G: So , that 's about the summary {disfmarker} But this is {disfmarker} Morgan has this paper . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: Oh it 's in the paper . +Professor F: Yeah , so it 's the same thing ? +PhD G: I mean he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} +Professor F: It 's the same thing I mailed to every everybody that w where it was , +PhD G: it {disfmarker} it 's that paper . +Grad D: OK . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Grad D: OK then , it 's already been mailed . +PhD G: So , we basically , um , did a lot of work on that +Professor F: yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} Let 's see , th I guess the other neat thing is it shows for sure w that the lapel , you know within speaker is bad . +Grad D: Horrible ? +PhD G: And it 's bad because it picks up the overlapping speech . +PhD A: So , your {disfmarker} your ASR results were run on the channels synchronized , +PhD G: Yes , cuz that 's all that w had been transcribed at the time , +PhD A: OK . OK . OK . +PhD G: um but as we {disfmarker} I mean I wanted to here more about the transcription . If we can get the channel asynchronous or the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: the closer t that would be very interesting for us +PhD B: So if {disfmarker} +PhD G: because we {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's why I only used the part from use +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: which we had uh about uh about the alt over all the channels +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah sure . Yeah . +Professor F: or mixed channel +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor F: rather mixed signal . +PhD B: So if there was a segment of speech this long +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: and oh and someone said "" oh , "" the whole thing was passed to the recognizer ? +Grad D: And someone said "" oh "" in the front {disfmarker} in the middle . +PhD A: There were several speakers in it , yeah . +PhD G: That 's right . In fact I {disfmarker} I pulled out a couple classic examples in case you wanna u use them in your talk of +PhD B: That 's why there 's so many insertion errors ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Chuck on the lapel , so Chuck wore the lapel three out of four times . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: I noticed that Chuck was wearing the lapel a lot . +PhD B: Early on , yeah . +PhD G: Um , yeah , and I wore the lapel once , and for me the lapel was OK . I mean I still {disfmarker} and I don't know why . I 'm {disfmarker} But um , +Grad D: Probably how you wear it {disfmarker} wore it I would guess . +PhD G: for you it was {disfmarker} Or who was next to me or something like that . +Grad C: Yeah , where you were sitting probably affected it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: Right , but when Chuck wore the lapel and Morgan was talking there 're a couple really long utterances where Chuck is saying a few things inside , and it 's picking up all of Morgan 's words pretty well and so the rec you know , there 're error rates because of insertion {disfmarker} Insertions aren't bounded , so with a one - word utterance and ten insertions you know you got huge error rate . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: And that 's {disfmarker} that 's where the problems come in . So I this is sort of what we expected , but it 's nice to be able to {disfmarker} to show it . +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: And also I just wanted to mention briefly that , um , uh Andreas and I called up Dan Ellis who 's still stuck in Switzerland , and we were gonna ask him if {disfmarker} if there 're {disfmarker} you know , what 's out there in terms of echo cancellation and things like that . Not that we were gonna do it , but we wanted to know what would need to be done . +Grad D: And he said , "" Lots lots lots lots . "" +PhD G: And he {disfmarker} We 've given him the data we have so far , so these sychronous cases where there are overlap . +PhD A: Yep . +PhD G: And he 's gonna look into trying to run some things that are out there and see how well it can do +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: because right now we 're not able to actually report on recognition in a real paper , like a Eurospeech paper , because it would look sort of premature . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So the idea is that you would take this big hunk where somebody 's only speaking a small amount in it , and then try to figure out where they 're speaking {comment} based on the other peopl +PhD G: Right . Or who 's {disfmarker} At any point in time who 's the foreground speaker , who 's the background speaker . +PhD A: So yeah {disfmarker} +PhD B: I thought we were just gonna move the boundaries in . +PhD A: Yeah , should it {disfmarker} +PhD G: So . +Grad D: Well that 's with the hand stuff . +PhD G: So there 's like {disfmarker} +Grad D: But how would you do that automatically ? +PhD G: Well ther there 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , I 've actually done some experiments with cross - correlation +PhD B: Right . +PhD A: and it seems to work pretty well to {disfmarker} to get rid of those {disfmarker} those overlaps , +Grad D: I mean that that 's the sort of thing that you would do . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . +Grad D: So . +PhD G: Yeah . Exactly , so it 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So why do you want to do echo cancellation ? +PhD G: Um , it would be techniques used from adaptive {disfmarker} adaptive echo cancellation which I don't know enough about to talk about . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Professor F: It {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} it just to r to remove cross - talk . +PhD G: Um . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: But , right , um , and that would be similar to what you 're also trying to do , but using um , you know , more than energy {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I don't know what exactly would go into it . +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +PhD B: So it would be {disfmarker} +PhD G: So the idea is to basically run this on the whole meeting . and get the locations , which gives you also the time boundaries of the individual speak +PhD B: OK . So do sort of what he 's already {disfmarker} what he 's trying to do . +PhD G: Right . Except that there are many techniques for the kinds of cues , um , that you can use to do that . +PhD A: Yeah , in another way , +PhD B: OK , I s I see . +PhD A: yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . I see . +Professor F: Yeah , Dave {disfmarker} Dave uh is , um , also gonna be doin usin playing around with echo cancellation for the nearfield farfield stuff , +PhD G: So . +Professor F: so we 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I guess Espen ? This {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} is he here too ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: May also be working {disfmarker} So it would just be ver that 's really the next step because we can't do too much , you know , on term in terms of recognition results knowing that this is a big problem +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: um , until we can do that kind of processing . And so , once we have some {disfmarker} some of yours , +PhD A: OK . Yeah I 'm working on it . +PhD G: and @ @ we 'll move on . +PhD B: I think this also ties into one of the things that Jane is gonna talk about too . +Grad D: Um , +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: I also wanted to say I have done all this chopping up of digits , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I have some naming conventions that we should try to agree on . So let 's do that off - line , +PhD G: Oh right . +Grad D: we don't need to do it during the meeting . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: Right . Definitely {disfmarker} +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and I have scripts that will extract it out from "" key "" files +PhD G: Uh , and Don should {disfmarker} +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and do all the naming automatically , +PhD G: OK . +Grad C: Alright . +Grad D: so you don't have to do it by hand . +PhD G: Great . +Grad C: You 've compiled the list of , uh , speaker names ? +PhD G: So that that 's it for the {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Speakers and {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: Not names , but I Ds . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah , names {disfmarker} names in the {disfmarker} names to I Ds , +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: so you +PhD G: Great . +Grad D: and it does all sorts of matches because the way people filled out names is different on every single file so it does a very fuzzy sort of match . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD G: So at this point we can sort of finalize the naming , and so forth , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: and we 're gonna basically re rewrite out these waveforms that we did because as you notice in the paper your "" M O in one meeting and "" M O - two "" in another meeting and it 's {disfmarker} we just need to standardize the +Grad C: Yeah . That was my fault . +PhD G: um , no it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: No , I didn't notice that actually . +PhD G: um , that 's why those comments are s {vocalsound} are in there . +Grad C: Yeah . Then disregard it then . +Grad D: Yep . So th I now have a script that you can just say basically look up Morgan , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . OK . +Grad D: and it will give you his ID . +PhD G: Great , great . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So . Um , +PhD G: Terrific . +Grad D: alright . Do we {disfmarker} Don , you had disk space and storage formats . Is that something we need to talk about at the meeting , or should you just talk with Chuck at some other time ? +Grad C: Um , I had some general questions just about the compression algorithms of shortening waveforms and I don't know exactly who to ask . I thought that maybe you would be the {disfmarker} the person to talk to . So , is it a lossless compression {comment} when you compress , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: so {disfmarker} +Grad D: Entropy coding . +Grad C: It just uses entropy coding ? +Grad D: So . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess my question would be is I just got this new eighteen gig drive installed . Um , yeah , which is {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I assume half of it is scratch and half of it is {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I 'm not exactly sure how they partitioned it . +Grad D: Probably , yeah . +Grad C: But um , +Professor F: That 's typical , huh . +Grad C: yeah , I don't know what 's typical here , but um , it 's local though , so {disfmarker} +Grad D: That doesn't matter . +Grad C: But {disfmarker} +Grad D: You can access it from anywhere in ICSI . N {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . Alright . How do you do that ? +Professor F: In fact , this is an eighteen gig drive , {comment} or is it a thirty six gig drive with eighteen {disfmarker} +Grad D: N {disfmarker} +Grad C: Eighteen . +PhD G: Eigh - eighteen . It was a spare that Dave had around {disfmarker} +Grad D: Slash N slash machine name , slash X A in all likelihood . +Professor F: Oh OK . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . Alright , I did know that . +Grad D: Um , so the {disfmarker} the only question is how much of it {disfmarker} The distinction between scratch and non - scratch is whether it 's backed up or not . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad D: So what you wanna do is use the scratch for stuff that you can regenerate . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So , the stuff that isn't backed up is not a big deal because disks don't crash very frequently , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: as long as you can regenerate it . +Grad C: Right . I mean all of this stuff can be regenerated , +PhD G: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: it 's just a question {disfmarker} +Grad D: Then put it all on scratch +PhD G: Well the {disfmarker} +Grad D: because we 're {disfmarker} ICSI is {disfmarker} is bottlenecked by backup . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , very good point . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So we wanna put {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I 'd leave all the {disfmarker} All the transcript stuff shouldn't {disfmarker} should be backed up , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but all the waveform {disfmarker} {comment} Sound files should not be backed up , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} Right . +PhD G: the ones that you write out . +Grad C: OK . So , I mean , I guess th the other question was then , should we shorten them , downsample them , or keep them in their original form ? Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: It just depends on your tools . I mean , because it 's not backed up and it 's just on scratch , if your sc tools can't take shortened format , I would leave them expanded , +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: so you don't have to unshorten them every single time you wanna do anything . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: We can downsample them , +Grad C: Do you think that 'd be OK ? +PhD G: so . +Grad C: To downsample them ? +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah , we get the same performance . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: I mean the r the front - end on the SRI recognizer just downsamples them on the fly , +Grad C: Yeah , I guess the only argument against downsampling is to preserve just the original files in case we want to experiment with different filtering techniques . +PhD G: so {disfmarker} So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , if +Professor F: Yeah , l I mean over all our data , we {disfmarker} we want to not downsample . +PhD G: fe You 'd {disfmarker} you wanna not . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: So we 're {disfmarker} what we 're doing is we 're writing out {disfmarker} I mean , this is just a question . We 're writing out these individual segments , that wherever there 's a time boundary from Thilo , or {disfmarker} or Jane 's transcribers , you know , we {disfmarker} we chop it {pause} there . +Professor F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And the reason is so that we can feed it to the recognizer , +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and throw out ones that we 're not using and so forth . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: And those are the ones that we 're storing . +Grad D: Yeah , as I said , since that 's {disfmarker} it 's regeneratable , what I would do is take {disfmarker} downsample it , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: and compress it however you 're e the SRI recognizer wants to take it in . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: ye +PhD G: So we can't shorten them , +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: but we can downsample them . +Professor F: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah , I 'm sorry . +PhD G: So . +Professor F: As {disfmarker} yeah , as long as there is a {disfmarker} a form that we can come from again , that is not downsampled , {comment} then , +Grad C: r Yeah . +PhD G: Oh yeah th +Grad C: Yeah those are gonna be kept . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's why we need more disk space +Professor F: uuu +PhD G: cuz we 're basically duplicating the originals , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: Right . +Professor F: Then it 's fine . But for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} fu future research we 'll be doing it with different microphone positions and so on +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: Yep . +PhD G: No . We always have the original long ones . +Professor F: we would like to {disfmarker} +PhD B: So the SRI front - end won't take a uh {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a large audio file name and then a {disfmarker} a list of segments to chop out {comment} from that large audio file ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: They actually have to be chopped out already ? +PhD G: Um , it 's better if they 're chopped out , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it will be {disfmarker} yeah , y we could probably write something to do that , but it 's actually convenient to have them chopped out cuz you can run them , you know , in different orders . You c you can actually move them around . +Grad D: And that 's the whole point about the naming conventions +PhD G: Uh , you can get rid of +Grad D: is that you could run all the English speaking , +PhD G: Yeah , it it 's a lot faster . +Grad D: all the native speakers , and all the non - native speakers , +PhD G: Right . You can grab everything with the word "" the "" in it , +Grad D: and all the men , and all the women . Yeah . +PhD G: and it 's {disfmarker} That 's a lot quicker than actually trying to access the wavefile each time , find the time boundaries and {disfmarker} So in principle , yeah , you could do that , +PhD B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's really right . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} but it 's um {disfmarker} +Grad D: "" That 's just not right , man . "" The {disfmarker} the point {disfmarker} +PhD G: These are long {disfmarker} These are long {disfmarker} +Grad D: So {disfmarker} so s For example , what if you wanted to run {disfmarker} run all the native speakers . +PhD G: You know . This is an hour of speech . +Grad D: Right , so if {disfmarker} if you did it that way you would have to generate a program that looks in the database somewhere , extracts out the language , finds the time - marks for that particular one , do it that way . The way they 're doing it , you have that already extracted and it 's embedded in the file name . And so , you know , you just say {disfmarker} +PhD G: We - yeah that 's {disfmarker} so that 's part of it +Grad D: y so you just say you know "" asterisk E asterisk dot wave "" , and you get what you want . +PhD G: is {disfmarker} Right . And the other part is just that once they 're written out it {disfmarker} it is a lot faster to {disfmarker} to process them . +Grad D: Rather than doing seeks through the file . +PhD G: So . Otherwise , you 're just accessing {disfmarker} +Grad D: This is all just temporary access , so I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} it 's all just {disfmarker} It 's fine . You know . Fine to do it however is convenient . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: I mean it just depends how big the file is . If the file sits in memory you can do extremely fast seeks +PhD G: Right . The other thing is that , believe it or not {disfmarker} I mean , we have some {disfmarker} +Professor F: but . +Grad D: Yeah and they don't . Two gig ? +PhD G: So we 're also looking at these in Waves like for the alignments and so forth . You can't load an hour of speech into X Waves . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: You need to s have these small files , and in fact , even for the Transcriber program Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yes you can . +PhD B: Yeah , you {disfmarker} you can give Waves a start and an end time . And middle . +PhD G: Yeah , if you try to load s really long waveform into X Waves , you 'll be waiting there for {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I {disfmarker} I 'm not suggesting you load a long wave file , +PhD G: Oh +PhD B: I 'm just saying you give it a start and an end time . And it 'll just go and pull out that section . +Grad D: I th w The transcribers didn't have any problem with that did they Jane ? +Postdoc E: What 's th u w in what respect ? +PhD G: Loading the long {disfmarker} +PhD A: No , with the Transcriber tool , it 's no problem . +Grad D: They loaded {disfmarker} they loaded the long long files into X Waves . +PhD G: It takes a very long ti +PhD A: Yeah just to load a transcription +Postdoc E: In the {disfmarker} in Mm - hmm . +PhD A: +PhD G: Right . +PhD A: takes a long time , +PhD G: It takes a l very long time . +PhD A: but not for the wavefile . The wavefile is there immediately . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: Are you talking about Transcriber or X Waves ? +PhD G: Huh . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , I 'm tr talking about Transcriber . +PhD G: Actually , you 're talking about Transcriber , right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Because {disfmarker} because i we used X Waves to do the digits . +Postdoc E: It was also true of the digits task which was X Waves . +Grad D: And they were loading the full mixed files then , +Postdoc E: Yeah . Very quickly . +Grad D: and it didn't seem to be any problem . +Postdoc E: I agree . +PhD G: Huh . Well we {disfmarker} we have a problem with that , you know , time - wise on a {disfmarker} It - it 's a lot slower to load in a long file , +Grad D: Hmm . Seemed really fast . +PhD G: and also to check the file , so if you have a transcript , um , +Grad D: Well regardless , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think overall you could get everything to work by accessing the same waveform and trying to find two {disfmarker} you know , the begin and end times . Um , but I think it 's more efficient , if we have the storage space , to have the small ones . +Grad D: and , it 's no problem , right ? +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: Because it 's not backed up . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: So we just {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad D: If we don't have a spare disk sitting around we go out and we buy ourselves an eighty gigabyte drive and make it all scratch space . You know , it 's not a big deal . +Postdoc E: You 're right about the backup being {pause} a bottleneck . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's good to think towards scratch . +PhD G: Yeah , so these wouldn't be backed up , the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Grad D: So remind me afterward +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Grad D: and I 'll {disfmarker} and we 'll look at your disk and see where to put stuff . +Grad C: OK . Alright . I mean , I could just u do a DU on it right ? And just see which {disfmarker} how much is on each {disfmarker} So . +Grad D: Yep . Each partition . And you wanna use , either XA or scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: Well X question mark , anything starting with X is scratch . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: With two {disfmarker} two digits . +Grad D: Two digits , right , XA , XB , XC . OK ? +Professor F: So , @ @ . +Grad D: Jane ? +Postdoc E: OK . So I got a little print - out here . So three on this side , three on this side . And I stapled them . OK . Alright so , first of all , um , there was a {disfmarker} an interest in the transcribe transcription , uh , checking procedures and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I can {vocalsound} tell you first , uh , to go through the steps although you 've probably seen them . Um , as you might imagine , when you 're dealing with , um , r really c a fair number of words , and uh , @ @ {comment} natural speech which means s self - repairs and all these other factors , that there 're lots of things to be , um , s standardized and streamlined and checked on . And , um , so , I did a bunch of checks , and the first thing I did was obviously a spell - check . And at that point I discovered certain things like , um , "" accommodate "" with one "" M "" , that kind of thing . And then , in addition to that , I did an exhaustive listing of the forms in the data file , which included n detecting things like f faulty punctuation and things {disfmarker} +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry to interrupt +Postdoc E: Yeah ? +PhD B: you could {disfmarker} could I just back up a little bit +Postdoc E: Sure , please , +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: yeah , please , please . +PhD B: So you 're doing these {disfmarker} So {pause} the whole process is that the transcribers get the conversation +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +PhD B: and they do their pass over it . +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD B: And then when they 're finished with it , it comes to you , +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD B: and you begin these sanit these quality checks . +Postdoc E: Exactly . I do these checks . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Exactly . Yeah . Thank you . And so , uh , I do a {disfmarker} an exhaustive listing of the forms {disfmarker} Actually , I will go through this in {disfmarker} in order , so if {disfmarker} if we could maybe wait and stick keep that for a second cuz we 're not ready for that . +Grad D: So on the fifth page , seven down {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . Exactly ! Exactly ! Alright so , {vocalsound} a spelling check first then an exhaustive listing of the , uh {disfmarker} all the forms in the data with the punctuation attached and at that point I pick up things like , oh , you know , word followed by two commas . And th and then another check involves , uh , being sure that every utterance has an identifiable speaker . And if not , then that gets checked . Then there 's this issue of glossing s w so - called "" spoken - forms "" . So there {disfmarker} mo for the most part , we 're keeping it standard wo word level transcription . But there 's {disfmarker} w And that that 's done with the assumption that {pause} pronunciation variants can be handled . So for things like "" and "" , the fact that someone doesn't say the "" D "" , uh that 's not important enough to capture in the transcription because a {disfmarker} a good pronunciation , uh , you know , model would be able to handle that . However , things like "" cuz "" where you 're lacking an entire very prominent first syllable , and furthermore , it 's a form that 's specific to spoken language , those are r reasons {disfmarker} f for those reasons I {disfmarker} I kept that separate , and used the convention of using "" CUZ "" for that form , however , glossing it so that it 's possible with the script to plug in the full orthographic form for that one , and a couple of others , not many . So "" wanna "" is another one , "" going {disfmarker} "" uh , "" gonna "" is another one , with just the assumption , again , that this {disfmarker} th these are things which it 's not really fair to a c consider {disfmarker} expect that {disfmarker} a pronunciation model , to handle . And Chuck , you in you indicated that "" cuz "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that 's handled in a different way also , didn't you ? Did I {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't remember . +Postdoc E: OK . So {disfmarker} so it might not have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It might not have been you , +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc E: but someone told me that in fact "" cuz "" is treated differently in , um , i u in this context because of that r reason that , um , it 's a little bit farther than a pronunciation variant . OK , so after that , let 's see , +PhD B: So that was part of the spell - check , {comment} or was that {disfmarker} that was after the spell - check ? +Postdoc E: um . Well so when I get the exhau So the spell - check picks up those words because they 're not in the dictionary . +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: So it gets "" cuz "" and "" wanna "" and that {disfmarker} +Grad D: And then you gloss them ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , mm - hmm . Run it through {disfmarker} I have a sed {disfmarker} You know , so I do sed script saying whenever you see "" gonna "" you know , "" convert it to gonna "" , you know , "" gloss equals quote going - to quote "" , you know . And with all these things being in curly brackets +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: so they 're always distinctive . OK , I also wrote a script which will , um , retrieve anything in curly brackets , {vocalsound} or anything which I 've classified as an acronym , and {disfmarker} a pronounced acronym . And the way I tag ac pronounced acronyms is that I have underscores between the components . So if it 's "" ACL "" then it 's "" A "" underscore "" C "" underscore "" L "" . +Grad D: And so {disfmarker} so your list here , are these ones that actually occurred in the meetings ? +Postdoc E: And the th Yes . Uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Whew ! +Postdoc E: OK , so now . Uh and {disfmarker} a +Grad D: We are acronym - loaded . +PhD G: Um , can I ask a question about the glossing , uh before we go on ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: So , for a word like "" because "" is it that it 's always predictably "" because "" ? I mean , is "" CUZ "" always meaning "" because "" ? +Postdoc E: Yes , but not the reverse . So sometimes people will say "" because "" in the meeting , and if {disfmarker} if they actually said "" because "" , then it 's written as "" because "" with no {disfmarker} w "" cuz "" doesn't even figure into the equation . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but in our meetings people don't say "" hey cuz how you doing ? "" +PhD G: Beca - because {disfmarker} Right . {comment} {vocalsound} Right . +Grad D: Except right there . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , so , I guess {disfmarker} So , from the point of view of {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's a good point . +PhD G: The {disfmarker} the only problem is that with {disfmarker} for the recognition we {disfmarker} we map it to "" because "" , +Grad D: Well , +PhD G: and so if we know that "" CUZ "" {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's fine . +Grad D: but they have the gloss . +Postdoc E: Well Don has a script . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: but , we don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: You have the gloss form so you always replace it . +Postdoc E: Exactly . +Grad D: If that 's how {disfmarker} what you wanna do . +Postdoc E: Uh - huh . And Don knows this , +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and he 's bee he has a glo he has a script that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I replace the "" cuz "" with "" because "" if it 's glossed . +PhD G: S Right . But , if it 's {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: But then there are other glosses that we don't replace , right ? Because {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . And that 's why there 're different tags on the glosses , +PhD G: OK . So , then it 's fine . +Postdoc E: on the different {disfmarker} on the different types of comments , which we 'll {disfmarker} which we 'll see in just a second . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: So the pronounceable acronyms get underscores , the things in curly brackets are viewed as comments . There 're comments of four types . So this is a good time to introduce that . The four types . w And maybe we 'll expand that +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: but the {disfmarker} but the comments are , um , of four types mainly right now . One of them is , um , the gloss type we just mentioned . +Grad D: Can {disfmarker} ca +Postdoc E: Another type is , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So a are we done with acronyms ? Cuz I had a question on what {disfmarker} what this meant . +Postdoc E: I 'm still doing the overview . I haven't actually gotten here yet . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sorry . +Postdoc E: OK so , gloss is things like replacing the full form u with the , um , more abbreviated one to the left . Uh , then you have if it 's {disfmarker} uh , there 're a couple different types of elements that can happen that aren't really properly words , and wo some of them are laughs and breathes , so we have {disfmarker} uh that 's prepended with a v a tag of "" VOC "" . +PhD A: Whew ! +Postdoc E: And the non - vocal ones are like door - slams and tappings , and that 's prepended with a no non - vocalization . +PhD B: So then it {disfmarker} just an ending curly brace there , or is there something else in there . +Postdoc E: Oh yeah , so i e this would {disfmarker} +Grad D: A comment , basically . +Postdoc E: Let 's just take one example . +PhD B: Oh , oh , oh . +Postdoc E: And then the no non - vocalization would be something like a door - slam . They always end . So it 's like they 're paired curly brackets . And then the third type right now , {vocalsound} uh , is {pause} m things that fall in the category of comments about what 's happening . So it could be something like , you know , "" referring to so - and - so "" , "" talking about such - and - such "" , uh , you know , "" looking at so - and - so "" . +PhD B: So on the m +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: on the middle t So , in the first case that gloss applies to the word to the left . But in the middle two {disfmarker} Th - it 's not applying to anything , right ? +Postdoc E: Yeah , and this gets substituted here . +Grad D: They 're impulsive . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc E: Huh - uh . No , they 're events . +PhD B: OK . +Grad D: Well the "" QUAL "" can be {disfmarker} The "" QUAL "" is applying to the left . +Postdoc E: They 're actually {disfmarker} They have the status of events . +PhD B: Right , I just meant the middle two ones , yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Well , and actually , um , it is true that , with respect to "" laugh "" , there 's another one which is "" while laughing "" , +Grad D: "" While laughing "" . +Postdoc E: and that is , uh , i i An argument could be made for this {disfmarker} tur turning that into a qualitative statement because it 's talking about the thing that preceded it , but at present we haven't been , um , uh , coding the exact scope of laughing , you know , and so to have "" while laughing "" , you know that it happened somewhere in there which could well mean that it occurred separately and following , or , you know , including some of the utterances to the left . Haven't been awfully precise about that , but I have here , now we 're about to get to the {disfmarker} to this now , I have frequencies . So you 'll see how often these different things occur . But , um , uh , the very front page deals with this , uh , final c pa uh , uh , aspect of the standardization which has to do with the spoken forms like "" mm - hmm "" and "" mm - hmm "" and "" ha "" and "" uh - uh "" and all these different types . And , um , uh , someone pointed out to me , this might have been Chuck , {comment} about , um {disfmarker} about how a recognizer , if it 's looking for "" mm - hmmm "" with three M 's , {vocalsound} and it 's transcribed with two M 's , {vocalsound} that it might {disfmarker} uh , that it might increase the error rate which is {disfmarker} which would really be a shame because um , I p I personally w would not be able to make a claim that those are dr dramatically different items . So , right now I 've standardized across all the existing data with these spoken forms . +Grad D: Oh good . +Postdoc E: I {disfmarker} I should say +Grad D: So it 's a small list . +Postdoc E: all existing data except thirty minutes which got found today . So , I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm gonna check {disfmarker} +Grad D: That {disfmarker} that 's known as "" found data "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah , yeah . Acsu - actually yeah . I got {disfmarker} It was stored in a place I didn't expect , +Grad C: It 's like the z Zapruder Film . +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and um , w we , uh , sh yea reconstructed how that happened . +Professor F: I wanna work with lost data . +Grad D: Yeah . It 's much easier . +Postdoc E: And this is {disfmarker} this 'll be great . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll be able to get through that tonight , and then everyth i well , actually later today probably . +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: And so then we 'll have everything following these conventions . But you notice it 's really rather a small set of these kinds of things . +Grad D: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And I made it so that these are , um , with a couple exceptions but , things that you wouldn't find in the spell - checker so that they 'll show up really easily . And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Jane , can I ask you a question ? What 's that very last one correspond to ? +Postdoc E: Sure . +Grad C: I don't even know how to pronounce that . +Postdoc E: Well , yeah . Now that {disfmarker} that s only occurs once , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: and I 'm thinking of changing that . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Uh , is that like someone 's like burning or some such thing ? +Postdoc E: So - c I haven't listened to it so I don't know . +Grad C: Like their hair 's on fire ? +Postdoc E: I haven't heard it actually . I n I need to listen to that one . +Grad D: Ah ! +PhD A: It 's the Castle of Ah ! +PhD G: Actually we {disfmarker} we gave this to our pronunciation person , +Grad C: Uh , it looks like that . +PhD G: she 's like , "" I don't know what that is either "" . So . +Postdoc E: Did she hear the th did she actually hear it ? Cuz I haven't heard it . +PhD G: No , we just gave her a list of words that , you know , weren't in our dictionary and so of course it picked up stuff like this , and she just didn't listen so she didn't know . We just {disfmarker} we 're waiting on that {pause} just to do the alignments . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah I 'm curious to se hear what it is , but I didn't know {disfmarker} wanna change it to something else until I knew . +Grad C: Right . +PhD G: Maybe it 's "" argh "" ? +Postdoc E: Well , sss , {comment} you know {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Grad C: But that 's not really like {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Hhh . +Grad C: No one really says "" argh , "" you know , +Postdoc E: +PhD G: Yeah . Right , no one say +Grad C: it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor F: Well , you just did . +PhD B: Except for now ! +Grad C: Well , there 's another {disfmarker} there 's another word error . +Grad D: +Postdoc E: Yeah . That 's right . +Grad D: Yes , that 's right . We 're gonna have a big problem when we talk about that . +Grad C: Cha - ching . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD B: We 're gonna never recognize this meeting . +Grad D: In Monty Python you say "" argh "" a lot . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad C: Oh yeah ? +Grad D: So . Well , or if you 're a C programmer . +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: You say arg - C and arg - V all the time . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +Grad C: That 's true . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: But it has a different prosody . +Professor F: Arg . +Grad D: It does . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Arg {disfmarker} arg - max , arg - min , yeah . +Grad D: Ah ! +Postdoc E: Uh , +PhD G: So , Jane , what 's the {disfmarker} d +Grad D: Maybe he died while dictating . +Postdoc E: so . +PhD G: I have one question about the the "" EH "" versus like the "" AH "" and the "" UH "" . +Postdoc E: That 's partly a nonnative - native thing , +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc E: but I have found "" EH "" in native speakers too . +PhD G: +Postdoc E: But it 's mostly non - native {disfmarker} +PhD A: H +PhD B: That 's "" eh "" versus "" ah "" ? +PhD G: S OK . +Postdoc E: Eh . +Grad D: Eh ? +PhD G: "" Eh , "" yeah right , cuz there were {disfmarker} were some speakers that did definite "" eh 's "" +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but right now we {disfmarker} +PhD B: They were the Canadians , right ? +Professor F: Canadians , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Postdoc E: That 's right . +PhD G: So , it {disfmarker} it 's actually probably good for us to know the difference between the real "" eh "" and the one that 's just like "" uh "" or transcribed "" aaa "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . +PhD G: cuz in {disfmarker} like in Switchboard , you would see e all of these forms , but they all were like "" uh "" . +Grad D: You mean just the single letter "" a "" {comment} as in the particle ? +PhD A: The transcription or {disfmarker} +Grad D: Article . +PhD G: No , no , I mean like the {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , +Postdoc E: "" UH "" . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} the "" UH "" , "" EH "" , "" AH "" were all the same . And then , we have this additional non - native version of {disfmarker} uh , like "" eeh "" . +Grad C: All the "" EH "" 's I 've seen have been like that . They 've been like "" eh "" like that have bee has been transcribed to "" EH "" . And sometimes it 's stronger , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Grad C: like "" eeh "" {comment} which is like closer to "" EH "" . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: But . +Grad D: I 'm just {disfmarker} these poor transcribers , they 're gonna hate this meeting . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: I know . We should go off - line . +Postdoc E: Well , {vocalsound} we 're not doing {disfmarker} We 're not doing length . +Professor F: Quick Thilo , do a {disfmarker} do a filled pause for us . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD A: Ooo {comment} no . +PhD G: But you 're a native German speaker so it 's not a {disfmarker} not a issue for {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's only {disfmarker} +Grad D: Them Canadians . +PhD G: Onl yeah . No , only if you don't have lax vowels , I guess . +Grad D: Oh . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: This makes sense . +PhD G: So it 's {disfmarker} like Japanese and Spanish +Postdoc E: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think you 've {disfmarker} uh - huh , yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: I didn't get that , +Postdoc E: That makes sense . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: Yeah , and so , you know , I mean , th th I have {disfmarker} there are some , um , Americans who {disfmarker} who are using this "" eh "" too , and I haven't listened to it systematically , maybe with some of them , uh , they 'd end up being "" uh 's "" but , uh , I my spot - checking has made me think that we do have "" eh "" in also , um , American e e data represented here . But any case , that 's the {disfmarker} this is reduced down from really quite a long a much longer list , +PhD G: Yeah this is great . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah , it 's good , +Postdoc E: and this is +Grad D: yeah . +PhD G: This is really really helpful . +Postdoc E: functionally pretty , you know , also {disfmarker} It was fascinating , I was listening to some of these , uh , I guess two nights ago , and it 's just hilarious to liste to {disfmarker} to do a search for the "" mm - hmm 's "" . And you get "" mm - hmm "" and diff everybody 's doing it . +Grad D: And just listen to them ? Yeah . +Postdoc E: Just {disfmarker} I wanted to say {disfmarker} I w think it would be fun to make a montage of it because there 's a "" Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Performance art , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . "" +Grad D: just extract them all . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: It 's really {disfmarker} it 's really fun to listen to . +PhD B: Morgan can make a song out of it . +Postdoc E: All these different vocal tracts , you know , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's the same item . It 's very interesting . OK . Uh , then the acronyms y and the ones in parentheses are ones which the transcriber wasn't sure of , +Grad D: Oh I see . +Postdoc E: and I haven't been able to listen to to {disfmarker} to clarify , but you can see that the parenthesis convention makes it very easy to find them +Grad D: o How about question mark ? +Postdoc E: cuz it 's the only place where {disfmarker} where they 're used . +PhD A: The question marks , yeah . What are those ? +Postdoc E: Question mark is punctuation . So it {disfmarker} they said that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Oh . +Postdoc E: um , "" DC ? "" +PhD A: Ah . +Grad D: So they {disfmarker} so it 's "" PLP ? "" +Postdoc E: Exactly . Exactly . Yeah , so the only {disfmarker} Well , and I do have a stress marker here . Sometimes the contrastive stress is showing up , and , um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I 'm sorry , I {disfmarker} I got lost here . What - w what 's the difference between the parenthesized acronym and the non - parenthesized ? +Postdoc E: The parenthesized is something that the transcriber thought was ANN , but wasn't entirely sure . So I 'd need to go back or someone needs to go back , and say , you know , yes or no , +Professor F: Ah . +Postdoc E: and then get rid of the parentheses . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: But the parentheses are used only in that context in the transcripts , of of noti noticing that there 's something uncertain . +Grad D: Yeah , P - make is {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I mean cuz they {disfmarker} they have no idea , +Grad D: That 's a good one . That 's correct . +PhD G: right . If you hear CTPD , I mean , they do pretty well +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I don't recognize a lot of these . +PhD G: you know how are {disfmarker} how are they gonna know ? +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: I know ! I {disfmarker} I was saying that I think a lot of them are the Networks meeting . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I think that 's true . +Professor F: Maybe . +Postdoc E: Yeah , absolutely . +Grad D: I see a few . +Postdoc E: NSA , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: a lot of these are {disfmarker} are coming from them . I listened to some of that . +Grad C: Yeah , we don't have that many acronyms comparatively in this meeting . +Grad D: Although I see {disfmarker} I see plenty of uh +Postdoc E: Yeah . Yeah . I agree . +Grad C: It 's not so bad . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And Robustness has a fair amount , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Mmm . +Postdoc E: but the NSA group is just very very many . +PhD G: The recognizer , it is funny . Kept getting PTA for PDA . +Grad D: Yeah , that 's pretty close . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: This is close , right , +Grad C: That 's not bad . +PhD G: and the PTA was in these , uh , topics about children , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD G: so , anyway . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD G: Is the P - PTA working ? +Postdoc E: Right and sometimes , I mean , you see a couple of these that are actually "" OK 's "" so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} may be that they got to the point where {disfmarker} I mean it was low enough understandable {disfmarker} understandability that they weren't entirely sure the person said "" OK . "" You know , so it isn't really necessarily a an undecipherable acronym , +Grad C: There 's a lot of "" OK 's "" . +Postdoc E: but just n needs to be double checked . Now we get to the comments . This {disfmarker} +Professor F: The number to the left is the number of incidences ? +Grad D: Count . Yep . +Postdoc E: Number of times out of the entire database , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +Postdoc E: w except for that last thirty minutes I haven't checked yet . +Professor F: So CTS is really big here , +Grad D: Yeah , I wonder what it is . +Professor F: yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: So what is the difference between "" papers rustling "" and "" rustling papers "" ? +Professor F: IP , I know what IP is . +Postdoc E: I 'd have to listen . I {disfmarker} I I agree . I w I 'd like to standardize these down farther but , um , uh , uh , to me that sounds equivalent . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: But , I {disfmarker} I 'm a little hesitant to {disfmarker} to collapse across categories unless I actually listen to them . +PhD A: Seems so . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oh I 'm sure we 've said XML more than five times . +Postdoc E: Well , then , at least now . +PhD A: Now it 's at least six times , yeah . +Professor F: S s six now , yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Six . OK well {disfmarker} +Professor F: Wh - the self - referential aspect of these {disfmarker} these p +PhD G: I 'm wai +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yes , it 's very bad . +PhD G: Well this is exactly how people will prove that these meetings do differ because we 're recording , right ? +Grad D: Yes . +PhD G: Y no normally you don't go around saying , "" Now you 've said it six times . +Grad D: Yeah {comment} that 's right . +PhD G: Now you 've said "" +Postdoc E: But did you notice that there were seven hundred and eighty five instances of "" OK "" ? +PhD A: Seven hundred eighty - five instances . +Postdoc E: And that 's just without the {disfmarker} without punc punctuation . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yep . +Professor F: No , I didn't . Yeah . +Grad D: And that 's an underestimate +Postdoc E: Extra forty one if it 's questioned . +PhD B: Where 's that ? +Grad D: cuz they 're Yep . +Professor F: So th +Postdoc E: On the page two of acronyms . +Grad C: Is this after {disfmarker} like did you do some uh replacements for all the different form of "" OK "" to this ? +Professor F: Yeah . Seven hundred eighty . +Postdoc E: Yeah . Of "" OK "" , yes . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . So that 's the single existing convention for "" OK "" . +PhD B: Wait a minute , w s +Professor F: So now we 're up to seven hundred and eighty eight . +Postdoc E: Yeah that 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Although , what 's {disfmarker} there 's one with a slash after it . That 's kind of disturbing . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , we 'll have to look at it you know . +Postdoc E: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I looked for that one . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad C: Anyway . +Postdoc E: I actually explicitly looked for that one , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: and I think that , um , I {disfmarker} I 'm not exactly sure about that . +PhD B: Was that somewhere where they were gonna say "" new speaker "" or something ? +Postdoc E: No , I looked for that , but that doesn't actually exist . And it may be , I don't {disfmarker} I can't explain that . +Grad C: That 's alright . I 'm just pointing that out . +Postdoc E: I i it 's the only {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: it 's the only pattern that has a slash after it , and I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's an epiphenomenon . +PhD G: Well there 's not @ @ . +Grad D: So I 'll just {disfmarker} I was just looking at the bottom of page three there , is that "" to be "" or "" not to be "" . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD B: There 's no tilde in front of it , +Postdoc E: Oh that 's cute . +PhD B: so . +Postdoc E: That 's funny . Yeah . +Grad D: OK anyways , sorry . +Postdoc E: OK . +Grad D: "" Try to stay on topic , Adam . "" +Postdoc E: There is th one {disfmarker} Y well , no , that 's r that 's legitimate . So now , uh , comments , you can see they 're listed again , same deal , with exhaustive listing of everything found in everything except for these final th thirty minutes . +Grad D: OK so , um , on some of these QUALs , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: are they really QUALs , or are they glosses ? So like there 's a "" QUAL TCL "" . +Postdoc E: "" TCL "" . Where do you see that ? +Grad D: Uh +Postdoc E: Oh , oh . The reason is because w it was said "" tickle "" . +Professor F: What 's a QUAL ? +Grad D: Oh I see , I see . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad D: So it 's not gloss . OK , I see . +Postdoc E: Yep . +Grad C: Sh - shouldn't it be "" QUAL TICKLE "" or something ? +Grad D: It wasn't said "" TCL "" . Of course . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: On the {disfmarker} in the actual script {disfmarker} in the actual transcript , I s I {disfmarker} So this {disfmarker} this happens in the very first one . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: I actually wrote it as "" tickle "" . +Grad C: OK . +Postdoc E: Because we {disfmarker} they didn't say "" TCL "" , they said "" tickle "" . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: And then , following that is "" QUAL TCL "" . +PhD G: Right . +Grad C: Oh I see . OK . +Professor F: I f I forget , what 's QUAL ? +Postdoc E: Qual - qualifier . +PhD B: It 's just comment about what they said . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Comment . +Grad C: It 's not something you wanna replace {pause} with +Postdoc E: Comment or contextual comment . +PhD B: So they didn't mean "" tickle "" as in Elmo , +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Tickle ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: they meant "" tickle "" as in {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: Huh . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: But at some point {disfmarker} I mean , we probably shoul +Grad D: We 'll probably add it to the language model . +PhD G: But we should add it to the dictionar +Grad D: Yeah . +PhD G: No , to the pronunciation model . +Grad D: What did I say ? +PhD A: To the language model {disfmarker} model . +PhD G: Language , uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well both . +PhD B: Add what , Liz ? +Grad D: We can go on lan lan add it to both dictionary and language model . +PhD G: Oh lan Oh OK - we OK +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's in the language model , w yeah , but it so it 's the pronunciation model that has to have a pronunciation of "" tickle "" . +Grad D: Well "" tickle "" was pronounced "" tickle "" . Right ? +PhD A: "" tickle "" is pronounced "" tickle "" ? +PhD B: What are you saying ? +Grad D: It 's pronounced the same {disfmarker} it 's pronounced the same as the verb . +PhD G: I 'm sorry ! +Grad D: So I think it 's the language model that makes it different . +PhD G: Oh , sorry . What I meant is that there should be a pronunciation "" tickle "" for TCL as a word . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad D: Oh I see . +PhD G: And that word in the {disfmarker} in , you know , it stays in the language model wherever it was . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: Yeah you never would put "" tickle "" in the language model in that form , +Postdoc E: +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: yeah . Right . There 's actually a bunch of cases like this with people 's names and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So how w there 'd be a problem for doing the language modeling then with our transcripts the way they are . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . Yeah so th th there there 's a few cases like that where the um , the word needs to be spelled out in {disfmarker} in a consistent way as it would appear in the language , but there 's not very many of these . Tcl 's one of them . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} and you 'll ha you 'll have to do it sychronously . +PhD G: Um , y yeah . +Grad D: Right , so y so , whoever 's creating the new models , will have to also go through the transcripts and change them synchronously . +Grad C: It 's just disturbing . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Hmm . +PhD G: Right . We have this {disfmarker} there is this thing I was gonna talk to you about at some point about , you know , what do we do with the dictionary as we 're up updating the dictionary , these changes have to be consistent with what 's in the {disfmarker} Like spelling people 's names and so forth . If we make a spelling correction to their name , like someone had Deborah Tannen 's name mispelled , and since we know who that is , you know , we could correct it , +Grad D: You can correct it . Yeah . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but we need to make sure we have the mispel If it doesn't get corrected we have to have a pronunciation as a mispelled word in the dictionary . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Things like that . +Grad D: These are so funny to read . +Postdoc E: Well , of course now the {disfmarker} the Tannen corre the spelling c change . +PhD G: So . +Postdoc E: Uh , that 's what gets {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I picked those up in the frequency check . +PhD G: Right . Right . So if there 's things that get corrected before we get them , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not an issue , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: but if there 's things that um , we change later , then we always have to keep our {disfmarker} the dictionary up to date . And then , yeah , in the case of "" tickle "" I guess we would just have a , you know , word "" TCL "" which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: You add it to the dictionary . +PhD G: which normally would be an acronym , you know , "" TCL "" +Grad D: Right . +PhD G: but just has another pronunciation . +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: "" ICSI "" is {disfmarker} is one of those that sometimes people pronounce and sometimes they say "" ICSI . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: So , those that are l are listed in the acronyms , I actually know +PhD G: Oh yeah . +Postdoc E: they were said as letters . The others , um , e those really do need to be listened to cuz I haven't been able to go to all the IC ICSI things , +PhD G: Right , exactly . +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} {comment} and until they 've been listened to they stay as "" ICSI "" . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: Don and I were just noticing , love this one over on page three , "" vocal {disfmarker} vocal gesture mimicking sound of screwing something into head to hold mike in place . "" +Grad C: That 's great . +Grad D: It 's this , "" rrre - rrre - rrre "" . It was me . +Postdoc E: It was ! In fact , it was ! Yeah ! +Grad D: A lot of these are me the {disfmarker} the "" beep is said with a high pit high pitch and lengthening . "" +Postdoc E: He {disfmarker} he s he said {disfmarker} he said get {disfmarker} +PhD A: To head . +Grad D: That was the {disfmarker} I was imitating uh , beeping out {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor F: Beep . +Postdoc E: Perfect . Yeah that 's it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh there is something spelled out "" BEEEEEEP "" +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: That 's it . +Grad C: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been changed . +PhD G: in the old {disfmarker} Thank you . Because he was saying , "" How many E 's do I have to allow for ? "" +Grad C: You need a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad D: What I meant was "" beep "" . +Grad C: You need a lot of qualification Adam . +Grad D: I guess so . +Postdoc E: That 's been changed . So , exactly , that 's where the lengthening comment c came in . +Grad C: Subtext . +Grad D: Anyway . +Postdoc E: s chan brought it down . +PhD G: Right , thanks , yeah . +Grad D: So they 're vocalization , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: And those of course get {disfmarker} get picked up in the frequency check +Grad D: glosses . +Postdoc E: because you see "" beep "" +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc E: and you know {disfmarker} I mean it gets kicked out in the spelling , and it also gets kicked out in the , uh , freq frequency listing . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Postdoc E: I have the {disfmarker} there 're various things like "" breathe "" versus "" breath "" versus "" inhale "" and , hhh , you know , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think they don't have any implications for anything else so it 's like I 'm tempted to leave them for now an and {disfmarker} It 's easy enough to find them when they 're in curly brackets . We can always get an exhaustive listing of these things and find them and change them . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: "" Sings finale - type song "" +Grad C: Yeah , that was in the first meeting . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , +Postdoc E: Yeah , but I don't actually remember what it was . But that was {disfmarker} Eric did that . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad D: So on {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Professor F: Tah - dah ! I don't know . +Postdoc E: I think maybe something like that . +Professor F: Something like that maybe , yeah . +Postdoc E: Well , that 'd qualify . +Grad D: On the glosses for numbers , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad D: it seems like there are lots of different ways it 's being done . +Postdoc E: OK . Interesting question . +Grad D: There 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yes . OK , now first of all {disfmarker} Ooo - ooo ! Very important . +Grad D: "" Ooo - ooo . "" +Postdoc E: Uh Chuck {disfmarker} Chuck led to a refinement here which is to add "" NUMS "" if these are parts of the read numbers . Now you already know i that I had , uh , in places where they hadn't transcribed numbers , I put "" numbers "" in place of any kind of numbers , but there are places where they , um , it {disfmarker} th this convention came later an and at the very first digits task in some transcripts they actually transcribed numbers . And , um , d Chuck pointed out that this is read speech , and it 's nice to have the option of ignoring it for certain other prob uh p uh , things . And that 's why there 's this other tag here which occurs a hundred and five {disfmarker} or three hundred and five times right now which is just {disfmarker} well n n "" NUMS "" by itself +Grad D: "" NUMS "" , yeah . +Postdoc E: which means this is part of the numbers task . I may change it to "" digits "" . I mean , i with the sed command you can really just change it however you want because it 's systematically encoded , you know ? +Grad D: Yep . +Postdoc E: Have to think about what 's the best for {disfmarker} for the overall purposes , but in any case , um , "" numbers "" and "" NUMS "" are a part of this digits task thing . Um , now th Then I have these numbers that have quotation marks around them . Um , I didn't want to put them in as gloss comments because then you get the substitution . And actually , th um , {vocalsound} the reason I b did it this way was because I initially started out with the other version , you have the numbers and you have the full form and the parentheses , however sometimes people stumble over these numbers they 're saying . So you say , "" Seve - seventy eight point two "" , or whatever . And there 's no way of capturing that if you 're putting the numbers off to the side . You can't have the seven and {disfmarker} +Grad D: So what 's to the left of these ? +Postdoc E: The left is i so example the very first one , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: it would be , spelled out in words , "" point five "" . +Grad D: OK , that 's what I was asking . Right . +Postdoc E: Only it 's spelled out in words . +Grad D: Point FIVE , yeah . +Postdoc E: So i this is also spelled out in {disfmarker} in words . "" Point five . "" +Grad D: Good . +Postdoc E: And then , in here , "" NUMS "" , so it 's not going to be mistaken as a gloss . It comes out as "" NUMS quote dot five "" . +Grad D: OK now , the other example is , in the glosses right there , +Postdoc E: Thank you . +Grad D: "" gloss one one one dash one three zero "" . +Grad C: Right . +Grad D: What {disfmarker} what 's to the left of that ? +Postdoc E: Well now {disfmarker} In that case it 's people saying things like "" one one one dash so - and - so "" or they 're saying uh "" two {disfmarker} I mean zero "" whatever . +Grad D: OK . +Postdoc E: And in that case , it 's part of the numbers task , and it 's not gonna be included in the read digits anyway , +PhD B: So there will be a "" NUMS "" tag on those lines ? +Postdoc E: so {disfmarker} I m in the uh {disfmarker} There is . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Yeah . I 've added that all now too . +Grad C: There 's a "" numbers "" tag {disfmarker} +Grad D: Good . +Grad C: I 'm sorry I 'm {disfmarker} I didn't follow that last thing . +PhD G: Wait . +Postdoc E: So , so gloss {disfmarker} in the same line that would have "" gloss quote one one one dash one thirty "" , you 'd have a gloss at the end of the line saying , uh , "" curly bracket NUMS curly bracket "" . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So if you {disfmarker} if you did a , uh , a "" grep minus V nums "" +PhD G: Oh , so you could do "" grep minus V nums "" . +Postdoc E: and you get rid of anything that was read . +PhD G: So that 's the {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD G: So there wouldn't be something like i if somebody said something like , "" Boy , I 'm really tired , OK . "" and then started reading that would be on a separate line ? +Postdoc E: Yes . +PhD G: OK great . Cuz I was doing the "" grep minus V "" quick and dirty and looked like that was working OK , +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . Good . +PhD G: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD G: Great . Now why do we {disfmarker} what 's the reason for having like the point five have the "" NUMS "" on it ? Is that just like when they 're talking about their data or something ? +Postdoc E: This is more because {disfmarker} +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . Oh these are all these , the "" NUMS point "" , this all where they 're saying "" point "" something or other . +PhD G: These are all like inside the spontaneous {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: And the other thing too is for readability of the transcript . I mean if you 're trying to follow this while you 're reading it it 's really hard to read , you know {disfmarker} eh , "" so in the data column five has "" , you know , "" one point five compared to seventy nine point six "" , it 's like when you see the words it 's really hard to follow the argument . And this is just really a {disfmarker} a way of someone who would handle th the data in a more discourse - y way to be able to follow what 's being said . +Grad D: Label it . +PhD G: Oh OK . +Postdoc E: So this is where Chuck 's , um , overall h architecture comes in , +PhD G: I see . +Postdoc E: where we 're gonna have a master file of the channelized data . Um , there will be scripts that are written to convert it into these t these main two uses and th some scripts will take it down th e into a f a for ta take it to a format that 's usable for the recognizer an uh , other scripts will take it to a form that 's usable for the {disfmarker} for linguistics an and discourse analysis . And , um , the implication that {disfmarker} that I have is that th the master copy will stay unchanged . These will just be things that are generated , +Grad D: Right +Postdoc E: and e by using scripts . +PhD G: OK . +Grad D: Master copies of superset . +Postdoc E: When things change then the {disfmarker} the script will cham change but the {disfmarker} but there won't be stored copies of {disfmarker} in different versions of things . +Grad D: Good . +PhD G: So , I guess I 'd have one request here which is just , um , maybe to make it more robust , th that the tag , whatever you would choose for this type of "" NUMS "" {comment} where it 's inside the spontaneous speech , is different than the tag that you use for the read speech . +PhD B: Right . Right . That would argue for changing the other ones to be "" digits "" or something . +PhD G: Um , that way w if we make a mistake parsing , or something , we don't see the "" point five "" , or {disfmarker} or it 's not there , then we +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: a Just {disfmarker} an And actually for things like "" seven eighths "" , or people do fractions too I guess , you {disfmarker} maybe you want one overall tag for sort of that would be similar to that , +Postdoc E: Except {disfmarker} +PhD G: or {disfmarker} As long as they 're sep as they 're different strings that we {disfmarker} that 'll make our p sort of processing more robust . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Cuz we really will get rid of everything that has the "" NUMS "" string in it . +PhD B: I suppose what you could do is just make sure that you get rid of everything that has "" curly brace NUMS curly brace "" . +Postdoc E: Well {disfmarker} Ex - exactly . +PhD B: I mean that would be the {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Exactly . That was {disfmarker} that was my motivation . And i these can be changed , like I said . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc E: You know , I mean , as I said I was considering changing it to "" digits "" . And , it just {disfmarker} i you know , it 's just a matter of deciding on whatever it is , and being sure the scripts know . +PhD B: Right . +PhD G: It would probably be safer , if you 're willing , to have a separate tag just because um , then we know for sure . And we can also do counts on them without having to do the processing . But you 're right , we could do it this way , it {disfmarker} it should work . Um , +PhD B: Yeah , and it makes it {disfmarker} I guess the thing about {disfmarker} +PhD G: but it it 's probably not hard for a person to tell the difference +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: because one 's in the context of a {disfmarker} you know , a transcribed word string , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: The other thing is you can get really so minute with these things +PhD G: and {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: and increase the size of the files and the re and decrease the readability to such an extent by simply something like "" percent "" . Now I {disfmarker} I could have adopted a similar convention for "" percent "" , but somehow percent is not so hard , you know ? +Grad D: Hmm . +Postdoc E: i It 's just when you have these points and you 're trying to figure out where the decimal places are {disfmarker} And we could always add it later . Percent 's easy to detect . Point however is {disfmarker} is uh a word that has a couple different meanings . And you 'll find both of those in one of these meetings , where he 's saying "" well the first point I wanna make is so - and - so "" and he goes through four points , and also has all these decimals . +PhD B: So Liz , what does the recognizer do , +Postdoc E: So . +PhD B: uh , +Professor F: Hmm . +PhD B: what does the SRI recognizer output for things like that ? "" seven point five "" . Does it output the word {disfmarker} +PhD G: "" Seven point five "" . +PhD B: Right , the word "" seven "" ? +Grad D: Well , the numbers ? +PhD B: The number "" seven "" ? +PhD G: The word . +PhD B: The word "" seven "" , OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So I 'd {disfmarker} so "" I 'd like {disfmarker} I 'd like to talk about point five "" . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and actually , you know the language {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: it 's the same point , actually , the {disfmarker} the p you know , the word "" to "" and the word y th "" going to "" and "" to go to "" those are two different "" to 's "" and so there 's no distinction there . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's just {disfmarker} just the word "" point "" has {disfmarker} Yeah , every word has only one , yeah e one version even if {disfmarker} even if it 's {disfmarker} A actually even like the word "" read "" {comment} and "" read "" Those are two different words . They 're spelled the same way , right ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And they 're still gonna be transcribed as READ . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: So , yeah , I {disfmarker} I like the idea of having this in there , I just {disfmarker} I was a little bit worried that , um , the tag for removing the read speech {disfmarker} because i What if we have like "" read letters "" or , I don't know , +Grad D: We might wanna {disfmarker} just a separate tag that says it 's read . +PhD G: like "" read something "" like "" read "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: yeah , basically . But other than that I it sounds great . +Grad D: Yeah . OK ? Are we done ? +Postdoc E: Well I wanted to say also regarding the channelized data , +Grad D: Oh , I guess we 're not done . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc E: that , um , Thilo requested , um , that we ge get some segments done by hand to e e s reduce the size of the time bins wh like was Chuc - Chuck was mentioning earlier that , um , that , um , if you {disfmarker} if you said , "" Oh "" and it was in part of a really long , s complex , overlapping segment , that the same start and end times would be held for that one +Grad D: Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: as for the longer utterances , +Grad D: We did that for one meeting , right , +Postdoc E: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: so you have that data don't you ? +PhD A: Yeah , that 's the training data . +Postdoc E: And he requested that there be , uh , similar , uh , samples done for five minute stretches c involving a variety of speakers and overlapping secti sections . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc E: He gave me {disfmarker} he did the {disfmarker} very nice , he {disfmarker} he did some shopping through the data and found segments that would be useful . And at this point , all four of the ones that he specified have been done . In addition the I 've {disfmarker} I have the transcribers expanding the amount that they 're doing actually . +PhD A: Oh great . +Postdoc E: So right now , um , I know that as of today we got an extra fifteen minutes of that type , and I 'm having them expand the realm on either side of these places where they 've already started . +PhD A: Oh great . OK . +Postdoc E: But if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , and I {disfmarker} and he 's gonna give me some more sections that {disfmarker} that he thinks would be useful for this purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: Because it 's true , I mean , if we could do the {disfmarker} the more fine grained tuning of this , uh , using an algorithm , that would be so much more efficient . And , um . So this is gonna be {pause} useful to expand this . +PhD A: So I {disfmarker} I thought we {disfmarker} we sh we sh perhaps we should try to {disfmarker} to start with those channelized versions just to {disfmarker} just to try it . Give it {disfmarker} Give one tr transcriber the {disfmarker} the channelized version of {disfmarker} of my speech - nonspeech detection and look if {disfmarker} if that 's helpful for them , or just let them try if {disfmarker} if that 's better or If they {disfmarker} if they can {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: You mean to start from scratch f in a brand new transcript ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: That 'd be excellent . Yeah , that 'd be really great . As it stands we 're still in the phase of sort of , um , cleaning up the existing data getting things , uh , in i m more tight tightly time {disfmarker} uh , aligned . I also wanna tell {disfmarker} um , I also wanted to r raise the issue that {disfmarker} OK so , there 's this idea we 're gonna have this master copy of the transcript , it 's gonna be modified by scripts t into these two different functions . And actually the master {disfmarker} +PhD B: Two or more . Two or more different functions . +Postdoc E: Two {disfmarker} two or more . And that the master is gonna be the channelized version . +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc E: So right now we 've taken this i initial one , it was a single channel basically the way it was input . And now , uh , thanks to the advances made in the interface , we can from now on use the channelized part , and , um , any changes that are made get made in the channelized version kind of thing . But I wanted to get all the finished {disfmarker} all the checks {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , so that has implications for your script . +Grad C: Yeah . So , uh , have those {disfmarker} e e the vis the ten hours that have been transcribed already , have those been channelized ? And I know {disfmarker} I 've seen @ @ {disfmarker} I 've seen they 've been channelized , +Postdoc E: Yes , they have . +Grad D: All ten hours ? +Grad C: but +Postdoc E: Except for the missing thirty minutes . +Grad C: have they uh {disfmarker} have they been {disfmarker} has the time {disfmarker} have the time markings been adjusted , uh , p on a per channel {disfmarker} +Grad D: Great . +Postdoc E: Uh , for {disfmarker} for a total of like twenty m f for a total of {disfmarker} Let 's see , four times {disfmarker} total of about an {disfmarker} {pause} thirty minutes . That 's {disfmarker} that 's been the case . +Grad C: So , +Postdoc E: And plus the training , whatever you have . +Grad C: I guess , I mean , I don't know if we should talk about this now , or not , but I +Grad D: Well it 's just we 're {pause} missing tea . +Grad C: Yeah , I know . +Grad D: So . +Grad C: No , but I mean my question is like should I wait until all of those are processed , and channelized , like the time markings are adjusted before I do all the processing , and we start like branching off into the {disfmarker} into the {disfmarker} our layer of uh transcripts . +Postdoc E: Well , you know the problem {disfmarker} the problem is that some {disfmarker} some of the adjustments that they 're making are to bring {disfmarker} are to combine bins that were {disfmarker} time bins which were previously separate . And the reason they do that is sometimes there 's a word that 's cut off . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: And so , i i i it 's true that it 's likely to be adjusted in the way that the words are more complete . And , +Grad C: OK . No I know {disfmarker} I know that adjusting those things are gonna {disfmarker} is gonna make it better . +Postdoc E: so I {disfmarker} it 's gonna be a more reliable thing and I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean I 'm sure about that , +Postdoc E: Yeah . +Grad C: but do you have like a time frame when you can expect like all of it to be done , or when you expect them to finish it , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Well partly it depends on how {disfmarker} um , how e effective it will be to apply an algorithm because i this takes time , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc E: you know , it takes a couple hours t to do , uh , ten minutes . +Grad C: Yeah , I don't doubt it . Um , so . +PhD B: So right now the {disfmarker} what you 're doing is you 're taking the {disfmarker} uh , the o original version and you 're sort of channelizing yourself , right ? +Grad C: Yeah . I 'm doing it myself . I mean i if the time markings aren't different across channels , like the channelized version really doesn't have any more information . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , I was just {disfmarker} I mean , originally I had done before like the channelized versions were coming out . +PhD B: Right . Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I th I think probably the way it 'll go is that , you know , when we make this first general version and then start working on the script , that script @ @ that will be ma you know primarily come from what you 've done , um , we 'll need to work on a channelized version of those originals . +Grad C: and so it 's a question of like what {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so it should be pretty much identical to what you have t except for the one that they 've already tightened the boundaries on . +Postdoc E: Yep . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Right . +PhD B: Um , So +Postdoc E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD B: uh , and then probably what will happen is as the transcribers finish tightening more and more , you know , that original version will get updated +Postdoc E: yeah . +PhD B: and then we 'll rerun the script and produce better uh versions . +Grad C: OK . +PhD B: But the {disfmarker} I guess the ef the effect for you guys , because you 're pulling out the little wave forms into separate ones , that would mean these boundaries are constantly changing you 'd have to constantly re rerun that , +Grad C: I know . +PhD B: so , maybe {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: But that {disfmarker} +PhD G: But that {disfmarker} that 's not hard . +Postdoc E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No . +PhD G: I I think the harder part is making sure that the transc the transcription {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: So if you b merge two things , then you know that it 's the sum of the transcripts , but if you split inside something , you don't where the word {disfmarker} which words moved . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And that 's wh that 's where it becomes a little bit {disfmarker} uh , having to rerun the processing . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: The cutting of the waveforms is pretty trivial . +Grad C: Yeah . I mean as long as it can all be done automatically , I mean , then that 's not a concern . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: You know , if I just have to run three scripts to extract it all and let it run on my computer for an hour and a half , or however long it takes to parse and create all the reference file , that 's not a problem . +PhD G: Right . +PhD B: Yeah . Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , so yeah . As long as we 're at that point . And I know exactly like what the steps will work {disfmarker} what 's going on , in the editing process , +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad C: so . OK . +Postdoc E: So that 's {disfmarker} I I mean I could {disfmarker} there were other checks that I did , but it 's {disfmarker} I think that we 've {disfmarker} unless you think there 's anything else , I think that I 've covered it . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: I can't think of any of the {disfmarker} other ones . +Postdoc E: OK . Great . +Professor F: OK . +Grad D: Oop ! Man ! +","The conversation is a technical discussion involving a group of academics, including at least one professor, postdocs, and graduate students, discussing the transcription and digitization of language data. They begin by discussing the transcription of spoken numbers and the need to extract and label audio files for various purposes. Grad D reminds the group of the importance of correctly labeling extracted audio for speakers and microphone types. They consider issues around the contextual use of spoken digits versus connected numbers and how they should be read for datasets. + +Professor F wonders about the process of recovering problematic transcriptions and whether certain errors will impact using the data for training and adaptation. Grad D and Postdoc E explore ideas related to eliciting different prosodies for spoken digits and whether specific groupings might elicit more natural readings. For instance, Grad D suggests that they instruct readers to pronounce numbers as single digits. + +The conversation shifts focus to data handling strategies, such as compression algorithms and storage formats. They discuss the balancing act between ensuring readability and processing facilitation for language recognition and considering future linguistic analyses. Jane (Postdoc E) details the transcription checking procedures she's conducted, such as spelling checks and listings, ensuring every utterance has an identifiable speaker, and glossing spoken forms like ""cuz."" + +They go through a list of acronyms and discuss how transcribers dealt with them, which leads to a broader discussion on how best to handle different spoken forms and nonverbal sounds for language modeling. There is also a mention of tagging specific parts of the transcript for different purposes, such as identifying sections of read speech versus spontaneous speech. + +The conversation winds down with an agreement on the importance of standardized transcription practices, the separation of tasks for transcription and language modeling, the usefulness of a master transcript copy, and the advantages of using scripts for generating different transcript versions. + +In summary, the group discusses various technical aspects of language data transcription, such as distinguishing between digit pronunciations, handling acronyms, refining transcriptions, labeling, storage issues, and preparing data for language recognition algorithms. They agree on standardizing transcriptions and suggest improvements to facilitate better recognition and analysis." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: We 're going ? OK . Sh - Close your door on {disfmarker} door on the way out ? +Grad B: OK . Thanks . +Professor A: Thanks . +Grad B: Oh . +Professor A: Yeah . Probably wanna get this other door , too . OK . So . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} What are we talking about today ? +PhD E: Uh , well , first there are perhaps these uh Meeting Recorder digits that we tested . +Professor A: Oh , yeah . That was kind of uh interesting . +PhD E: So . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} both the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the SRI System and the oth +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: And for one thing that {disfmarker} that sure shows the {vocalsound} difference between having a lot of uh training data {vocalsound} or not , +PhD E: Of data ? Yeah . +Professor A: uh , the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The best kind of number we have on the English uh {disfmarker} on near microphone only is {disfmarker} is uh three or four percent . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh it 's significantly better than that , using fairly simple front - ends {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , with the SRI system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I th I think that the uh {disfmarker} But that 's {disfmarker} that 's using uh a {disfmarker} a pretty huge amount of data , mostly not digits , of course , but {disfmarker} but then again {disfmarker} Well , yeah . In fact , mostly not digits for the actual training the H M Ms whereas uh in this case we 're just using digits for training the H M +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Did anybody mention about whether the {disfmarker} the SRI system is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} is doing the digits um the wor as a word model or as uh a sub s sub - phone states ? +PhD E: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh allophone models , +Professor A: Yeah . Probably . +PhD E: so , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Huh ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think so , because it 's their very d huge , their huge system . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . But . So . There is one difference {disfmarker} Well , the SRI system {disfmarker} the result for the SRI system that are represented here are with adaptation . So there is {disfmarker} It 's their complete system and {disfmarker} including on - line uh unsupervised adaptation . +Professor A: That 's true . +PhD E: And if you don't use adaptation , the error rate is around fifty percent worse , I think , if I remember . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's tha it 's that much , huh ? +PhD E: Nnn . It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's quite significant . +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Still . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but uh what {disfmarker} what I think I 'd be interested to do given that , is that we {disfmarker} we should uh {vocalsound} take {disfmarker} I guess that somebody 's gonna do this , right ? {disfmarker} is to take some of these tandem things and feed it into the SRI system , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: We can do something like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Because {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But I guess the main point is the data because uh {vocalsound} I am not sure . Our back - end is {disfmarker} is fairly simple but until now , well , the attempts to improve it or {disfmarker} have fail Ah , well , I mean uh what Chuck tried to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do +Professor A: Yeah , but he 's doing it with the same data , right ? I mean so to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's two things being affected . +PhD E: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: I mean . One is that {disfmarker} that , you know , there 's something simple that 's wrong with the back - end . We 've been playing a number of states +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I {disfmarker} I don't know if he got to the point of playing with the uh number of Gaussians yet +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh , uh , you know . But , yeah , so far he hadn't gotten any big improvement , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but that 's all with the same amount of data which is pretty small . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: And um . +PhD E: Mmm . So , yeah , we could retrain some of these tandem on {disfmarker} on huge {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , you could do that , but I 'm saying even with it not {disfmarker} with that part not retrained , just {disfmarker} just using {disfmarker} having the H M Ms {disfmarker} much better H M +PhD E: Ah , yeah . Just {disfmarker} f for the HMM models . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} But just train those H M Ms using different features , the features coming from our Aurora stuff . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . But {vocalsound} what would be interesting to see also is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} perhaps it 's not related , the amount of data but the um recording conditions . I don't know . Because {vocalsound} it 's probably not a problem of noise , because our features are supposed to be robust to noise . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD E: It 's not a problem of channel , because there is um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normalization with respect to the channel . So {disfmarker} +Professor A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . What {disfmarker} what is the problem that you 're trying to explain ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the fact that {disfmarker} the result with the tandem and Aurora system are {vocalsound} uh so much worse . +Professor A: That the {disfmarker} Oh . So much worse ? Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I uh but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm almost certain that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , that it has to do with the um amount of training data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's orders of magnitude off . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah but we train only on digits and it 's {disfmarker} it 's a digit task , so . Well . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but having a huge {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you look at what commercial places do , they use a huge amount of data . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: This is a modest amount of data . +PhD E: Alright . Yeah . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} I mean , ordinarily you would say "" well , given that you have enough occurrences of the digits , you can just train with digits rather than with , you know "" {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is , if you have a huge {disfmarker} in other words , do word models {disfmarker} But if you have a huge amount of data then you 're going to have many occurrences of similar uh allophones . +PhD E: Right . Mmm . +Professor A: And that 's just a huge amount of training for it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think it has to be that , because , as you say , this is , you know , this is near - microphone , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it 's really pretty clean data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Now , some of it could be the fact that uh {disfmarker} let 's see , in the {disfmarker} in these multi - train things did we include noisy data in the training ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean , that could be hurting us actually , for the clean case . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , actually we see that the clean train for the Aurora proposals are {disfmarker} are better than the multi - train , +Professor A: It is if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz this is clean data , and so that 's not too surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But um . Uh . So . +PhD E: Well , o I guess what I meant is that well , let 's say if we {disfmarker} if we add enough data to train on the um on the Meeting Recorder digits , I guess we could have better results than this . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And . What I meant is that perhaps we can learn something uh from this , what 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong uh what {disfmarker} what is different between TI - digits and these digits and {disfmarker} +Professor A: What kind of numbers are we getting on TI - digits ? +PhD E: It 's point eight percent , so . +Professor A: Oh . I see . +PhD E: Four - Fourier . +Professor A: So in the actual TI - digits database we 're getting point eight percent , +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: and here we 're getting three or four {disfmarker} three , let 's see , three for this ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Sure , but I mean , um point eight percent is something like double uh or triple what people have gotten who 've worked very hard at doing that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and also , as you point out , there 's adaptation in these numbers also . So if you , you know , put the ad adap take the adaptation off , then it {disfmarker} for the English - Near you get something like two percent . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: And here you had , you know , something like three point four . And I could easily see that difference coming from this huge amount of data that it was trained on . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: You know , I don't think there 's anything magical here . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: It 's , you know , we used a simple HTK system with a modest amount of data . And this is a {disfmarker} a , you know , modern {vocalsound} uh system uh has {disfmarker} has a lot of nice points to it . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . So . I mean , the HTK is an older HTK , even . So . Yeah it {disfmarker} it 's not that surprising . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But to me it just {disfmarker} it just meant a practical {vocalsound} point that um if we want to {vocalsound} publish results on digits that {disfmarker} that people pay {vocalsound} attention to we probably should uh {disfmarker} Cuz we 've had the problem before that you get {disfmarker} show some {vocalsound} nice improvement on something that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , uh {disfmarker} it seems like too large a number , and uh {vocalsound} uh people don't necessarily take it so seriously . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Yeah . Yeah . So the three point four percent for this uh is {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} So why is it {disfmarker} It 's an interesting question though , still . Why is {disfmarker} why is it three point four percent for the d the digits recorded in this environment as opposed to {vocalsound} the uh point eight percent for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the original TI - digits database ? Um . +PhD E: Yeah . th that 's {disfmarker} th that 's my point +Professor A: Given {disfmarker} given the same {disfmarker} Yeah . So ignore {disfmarker} ignoring the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the SRI system for a moment , +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't I {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor A: just looking at {vocalsound} the TI - di the uh tandem system , if we 're getting point eight percent , which , yes , it 's high . It 's , you know , it {disfmarker} it 's not awfully high , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but it 's , you know {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's high . Um . {vocalsound} Why is it {vocalsound} uh four times as high , or more ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess . +Professor A: Right ? I mean , there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} even though it 's close - miked there 's still {disfmarker} there really is background noise . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . And {vocalsound} uh I suspect when the TI - digits were recorded if somebody fumbled or said something wrong or something that they probably made them take it over . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: It was not {disfmarker} I mean there was no attempt to have it be realistic in any {disfmarker} in any sense at all . +PhD E: Well . Yeah . And acoustically , it 's q it 's {disfmarker} I listened . It 's quite different . TI - digit is {disfmarker} it 's very , very clean and it 's like studio recording +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: whereas these Meeting Recorder digits sometimes you have breath noise and Mmm . +Professor A: Right . Yeah . So I think they were {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {nonvocalsound} not controlled at all , I mean . +Professor A: Bless you . +Grad B: Thanks . +Professor A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} So . Yes . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's the indication it 's harder . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah and again , you know , i that 's true either way . I mean so take a look at the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , the SRI results . I mean , they 're much much better , but still you 're getting something like one point three percent for uh things that are same data as in T {disfmarker} TI - digits the same {disfmarker} same text . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . And uh , I 'm sure the same {disfmarker} same system would {disfmarker} would get , you know , point {disfmarker} point three or point four or something {vocalsound} on the actual TI - digits . So this {disfmarker} I think , on both systems the {vocalsound} these digits are showing up as harder . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Which I find sort of interesting cause I think this is closer to {disfmarker} uh I mean it 's still read . But I still think it 's much closer to {disfmarker} to what {disfmarker} what people actually face , {vocalsound} um when they 're {disfmarker} they 're dealing with people saying digits over the telephone . I mean . {vocalsound} I don't think uh {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm sure they wouldn't release the numbers , but I don't think that uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the companies that {disfmarker} that do telephone {vocalsound} speech get anything like point four percent on their {vocalsound} digits . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure they get {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for one thing people do phone up who don't have uh uh Middle America accents and it 's a we we it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's US . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: it has {disfmarker} has many people {vocalsound} {vocalsound} who sound in many different ways . So . Um . I mean . OK . That was that topic . What else we got ? +PhD E: Um . +Professor A: Did we end up giving up on {disfmarker} on , any Eurospeech submissions , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: or {disfmarker} ? I know Thilo and Dan Ellis are {disfmarker} are submitting something , but uh . +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess e the only thing with these {disfmarker} the Meeting Recorder and , well , {disfmarker} So , I think , yeah {disfmarker} I think we basically gave up . +Professor A: Um . {vocalsound} Now , actually for the {disfmarker} for the Aur - uh +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: we do have stuff for Aurora , right ? Because {disfmarker} because we have ano an extra month or something . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . Yeah , for sure we will do something for the special session . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , that 's fine . So th so {disfmarker} so we have a couple {disfmarker} a couple little things on Meeting Recorder +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We don't {disfmarker} we don't have to flood it with papers . We 're not trying to prove anything to anybody . so . That 's fine . Um . Anything else ? +PhD E: Yeah . Well . So . Perhaps the point is that we 've been working on {vocalsound} is , yeah , we have put the um the good VAD in the system and {vocalsound} it really makes a huge difference . Um . So , yeah . I think , yeah , this is perhaps one of the reason why our system was not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} not the best , because with the new VAD , it 's very {disfmarker} the results are similar to the France Telecom results and perhaps even better sometimes . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: Huh . +PhD E: Um . So there is this point . Uh . The problem is that it 's very big and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we still have to think how to {disfmarker} where to put it and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , this VAD uh either some delay and we {disfmarker} if we put it on the server side , it doesn't work , because on the server side features you already have LDA applied {vocalsound} from the f from the terminal side and {vocalsound} so you accumulate the delay so the VAD should be before the LDA which means perhaps on the terminal side and then smaller {vocalsound} and +Professor A: So wha where did this good VAD come from ? +PhD E: So . It 's um from OGI . So it 's the network trained {disfmarker} it 's the network with the huge amounts on hidden {disfmarker} of hidden units , and um nine input frames compared to the VAD that was in the proposal which has a very small amount of hidden units and fewer inputs . +Professor A: This is the one they had originally ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh . Yeah , but they had to {pause} get rid of it because of the space , didn't they ? +PhD E: Yeah . So . Yeah . But the abso assumption is that we will be able to make a VAD that 's small and that works fine . And . So we can {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . So that 's a problem . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah but {disfmarker} nnn . +Professor A: But the other thing is uh to use a different VAD entirely . I mean , uh i if {disfmarker} if there 's a {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know what the thinking was amongst the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the ETSI folk but um if everybody agreed sure let 's use this VAD and take that out of there {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . They just want , apparently {disfmarker} they don't want to fix the VAD because they think there is some interaction between feature extraction and {disfmarker} and VAD or frame dropping But they still {vocalsound} want to {disfmarker} just to give some um {vocalsound} requirement for this VAD because it 's {disfmarker} it will not be part of {disfmarker} they don't want it to be part of the standard . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: So . So it must be at least uh somewhat fixed but not completely . So there just will be some requirements that are still not {disfmarker} uh not yet uh ready I think . +Professor A: Determined . I see . But I was thinking that {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} s "" Sure , there may be some interaction , +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor A: but I don't think we need to be stuck on using our or OGI 's {pause} VAD . We could use somebody else 's if it 's smaller or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: You know , as long as it did the job . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So that 's good . +PhD E: Uh . So there is this thing . There is um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh I designed a new {disfmarker} a new filter because when I designed other filters with shorter delay from the LDA filters , {vocalsound} there was one filter with fif sixty millisecond delay and the other with ten milliseconds +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} uh Hynek suggested that both could have sixty - five sixty - s I think it 's sixty - five . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Both should have sixty - five because {disfmarker} +Professor A: You didn't gain anything , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . And . So I did that and uh it 's running . So , {vocalsound} let 's see what will happen . Uh but the filter is of course closer to the reference filter . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . Um . Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that means logically , in principle , it should be better . So probably it 'll be worse . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor A: Or in the basic perverse nature uh of reality . Yeah . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . Sure . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah , and then we 've started to work with this of um voiced - unvoiced stuff . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And next week I think we will {vocalsound} perhaps try to have um a new system with uh uh MSG stream also see what {disfmarker} what happens . So , something that 's similar to the proposal too , but with MSG stream . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: OK . +PhD D: No , I w {vocalsound} I begin to play {vocalsound} with Matlab and to found some parameter robust for voiced - unvoiced decision . But only to play . And we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} we found that maybe w is a classical parameter , the {vocalsound} sq the variance {vocalsound} between the um FFT of the signal and the small spectrum of time {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} after the um mel filter bank . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And , well , is more or less robust . Is good for clean speech . Is quite good {vocalsound} for noisy speech . +Professor A: Huh ? Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but um we must to have bigger statistic with TIMIT , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and is not ready yet to use on , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: well , I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . So , basically we wa want to look at something like the ex the ex excitation signal and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: which are the variance of it and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I have here . I have here for one signal , for one frame . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the mix of the two , noise and unnoise , and the signal is this . Clean , and this noise . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: These are the two {disfmarker} the mixed , the big signal is for clean . +Professor A: Well , I 'm s uh {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} None of these axes are labeled , so I don't know what this {disfmarker} What 's this axis ? +PhD D: Uh this is uh {disfmarker} this axis is {vocalsound} nnn , "" frame "" . +Professor A: Frame . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And what 's th what this ? +PhD D: Uh , this is uh energy , log - energy of the spectrum . Of the this is the variance , the difference {nonvocalsound} between the spectrum of the signal and FFT of each frame of the signal and this mouth spectrum of time after the f may fit for the two , +Professor A: For this one . For the noi +PhD D: this big , to here , they are to signal . This is for clean and this is for noise . +Professor A: Oh . There 's two things on the same graph . +PhD D: Yeah . I don't know . I {disfmarker} I think that I have d another graph , but I 'm not sure . +Professor A: So w which is clean and which is noise ? +PhD E: Yeah . I think the lower one is noise . +PhD D: The lower is noise and the height is clean . +Professor A: OK . So it 's harder to distinguish +PhD D: It 's height . +Professor A: but it {disfmarker} but it g +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: with noise of course but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . I must to have . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD D: Pity , but I don't have two different +Professor A: And presumably when there 's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this should the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the t voiced portions . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Yeah , it is the height is voiced portion . +PhD E: The p the peaks should be voiced portion . +PhD D: And this is the noise portion . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD D: And this is more or less like this . But I meant to have see @ @ two {disfmarker} two the picture . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: This is , for example , for one frame . +Professor A: Yeah +PhD D: the {disfmarker} the spectrum of the signal . And this is the small version of the spectrum after ML mel filter bank . +Professor A: Yeah . And this is the difference ? +PhD D: And this is I don't know . This is not the different . This is trying to obtain {vocalsound} with LPC model the spectrum but using Matlab without going factor and s +Professor A: No pre - emphasis ? Yeah . +PhD D: Not pre - emphasis . Nothing . +Professor A: Yeah so it 's {disfmarker} doesn't do too well there . +PhD D: And the {disfmarker} I think that this is good . This is quite similar . this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this is another frame . ho how I obtained the {vocalsound} envelope , {nonvocalsound} this envelope , with the mel filter bank . +Professor A: Right . So now I wonder {disfmarker} I mean , do you want to {disfmarker} I know you want to get at something orthogonal from what you get with the smooth spectrum Um . But if you were to really try and get a voiced - unvoiced , do you {disfmarker} do you want to totally ignore that ? I mean , do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} I mean , clearly a {disfmarker} a very big {disfmarker} very big cues {vocalsound} for voiced - unvoiced come from uh spectral slope and so on , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD E: Yeah . Well , this would be {disfmarker} this would be perhaps an additional parameter , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: simply isn't {disfmarker} +Professor A: I see . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah because when did noise clear {nonvocalsound} in these section is clear +PhD E: Uh . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: if s @ @ {nonvocalsound} val value is indicative that is a voice frame and it 's low values +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you probably want {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} certainly if {vocalsound} you want to do good voiced - unvoiced detection , you need a few features . Each {disfmarker} each feature is {vocalsound} by itself not enough . But , you know , people look at {disfmarker} at slope and {vocalsound} uh first auto - correlation coefficient , divided by power . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Or {disfmarker} or uh um there 's uh {disfmarker} I guess we prob probably don't have enough computation to do a simple pitch detector or something ? I mean with a pitch detector you could have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} have a {disfmarker} an estimate of {disfmarker} of what the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor A: Uh . Or maybe you could you just do it going through the P FFT 's figuring out some um probable {vocalsound} um harmonic structure . Right . And {disfmarker} and uh . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD D: you have read up and {disfmarker} you have a paper , {vocalsound} the paper that you s give me yesterday . they say that yesterday {vocalsound} they are some {nonvocalsound} problem +PhD E: Oh , yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah , but it 's not {disfmarker} it 's , yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's another problem . +PhD D: and the {disfmarker} Is another problem . +PhD E: Yeah Um . Yeah , there is th this fact actually . If you look at this um spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: What 's this again ? Is it {vocalsound} the mel - filters ? +PhD D: Yeah like this . Of kind like this . +PhD E: Yeah . OK . So the envelope here is the output of the mel - filters +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and what we clearly see is that in some cases , and it clearly appears here , and the {disfmarker} the harmonics are resolved by the f Well , there are still appear after mel - filtering , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and it happens {vocalsound} for high pitched voice because the width of the lower frequency mel - filters {vocalsound} is sometimes even smaller than the pitch . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's around one hundred , one hundred and fifty hertz {vocalsound} Nnn . +Professor A: Right . +PhD E: And so what happens is that this uh , add additional variability to this envelope and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: so we were thinking to modify the mel - spectrum to have something that {disfmarker} that 's smoother on low frequencies . +Professor A: That 's as {disfmarker} as a separate thing . +PhD E: i +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . This is a separate thing . +Professor A: Separate thing ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And . +Professor A: Yeah . Maybe so . Um . Yeah . So , what {disfmarker} Yeah . What I was talking about was just , starting with the FFT you could {disfmarker} you could uh do a very rough thing to estimate {disfmarker} estimate uh pitch . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh uh , given {disfmarker} you know , given that , uh {vocalsound} you could uh uh come up with some kind of estimate of how much of the low frequency energy was {disfmarker} was explained by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by uh uh those harmonics . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . It 's uh a variant on what you 're s what you 're doing . The {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} the mel does give a smooth thing . But as you say it 's not that smooth here . And {disfmarker} and so if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you just you know subtracted off uh your guess of the harmonics then something like this would end up with {vocalsound} quite a bit lower energy in the first fifteen hundred hertz or so and {disfmarker} and our first kilohertz , even . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um {vocalsound} if was uh noisy , the proportion that it would go down would be if it was {disfmarker} if it was unvoiced or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you oughta be able to {vocalsound} pick out voiced segments . At least it should be another {disfmarker} another cue . So . {vocalsound} Anyway . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK ? That 's what 's going on . Uh . What 's up with you ? +Grad B: Um {vocalsound} our t I went to {vocalsound} talk with uh Mike Jordan this {disfmarker} this week +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um {nonvocalsound} and uh {vocalsound} shared with him the ideas about um {vocalsound} extending the Larry Saul work and um I asked him some questions about factorial H M so like later down the line when {vocalsound} we 've come up with these {disfmarker} these feature detectors , how do we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how do we uh {vocalsound} you know , uh model the time series that {disfmarker} that happens um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} and we talked a little bit about {vocalsound} factorial H M Ms and how {vocalsound} um when you 're doing inference {disfmarker} or w when you 're doing recognition , there 's like simple Viterbi stuff that you can do for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for these H M and {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the great advantages that um a lot of times the factorial H M Ms don't {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} don't over - alert the problem there they have a limited number of parameters and they focus directly on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on uh the sub - problems at hand so {vocalsound} you can imagine {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} five or so parallel {vocalsound} um features um transitioning independently and then {vocalsound} at the end you {disfmarker} you uh couple these factorial H M Ms with uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with uh undirected links um based on {disfmarker} {vocalsound} based on some more data . +Professor A: Hmm . +Grad B: So he {disfmarker} he seemed {disfmarker} he seemed like really interested in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in um {disfmarker} in this and said {disfmarker} said this is {disfmarker} this is something very do - able and can learn a lot and um yeah , I 've just been {vocalsound} continue reading um about certain things . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: um thinking of maybe using um {vocalsound} um m modulation spectrum stuff to {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} as features um also in the {disfmarker} in the sub - bands +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: because {vocalsound} it seems like {vocalsound} the modulation um spectrum tells you a lot about the intelligibility of {disfmarker} of certain um words and stuff So , um . Yeah . Just that 's about it . +Professor A: OK . +Grad C: OK . And um so I 've been looking at Avendano 's work and um uh I 'll try to write up in my next stat status report a nice description of {vocalsound} what he 's doing , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's an approach to deal with {vocalsound} reverberation or that {disfmarker} the aspect of his work that I 'm interested in the idea is that um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} normally an analysis frames are um {vocalsound} too short to encompass reverberation effects um in full . You miss most of the reverberation tail in a ten millisecond window and so {vocalsound} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you 'd like it to be that {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the reverberation responses um simply convolved um in , but it 's not really with these ten millisecond frames cuz you j But if you take , say , a two millisecond {vocalsound} um window {disfmarker} I 'm sorry a two second window then in a room like this , most of the reverberation response {vocalsound} is included in the window and the {disfmarker} then it um {vocalsound} then things are l more linear . It is {disfmarker} it is more like the reverberation response is simply c convolved and um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you can use channel normalization techniques {vocalsound} like uh in his thesis he 's assuming that the reverberation response is fixed . He just does um {vocalsound} mean subtraction , which is like removing the DC component of the modulation spectrum and {vocalsound} that 's supposed to d um deal {disfmarker} uh deal pretty well with the um reverberation and um {vocalsound} the neat thing is you can't take these two second frames and feed them to a speech recognizer um {vocalsound} so he does this {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} method training trading the um {vocalsound} the spectral resolution for time resolution {vocalsound} and um {vocalsound} come ca uh synthesizes a new representation which is with say ten second frames but a lower s um {vocalsound} frequency resolution . So I don't really know the theory . I guess it 's {disfmarker} these are called "" time frequency representations "" and h he 's making the {disfmarker} the time sh um finer grained and the frequency resolution um less fine grained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: s so I 'm {disfmarker} I guess my first stab actually in continuing {vocalsound} his work is to um {vocalsound} re - implement this {disfmarker} this thing which um {vocalsound} changes the time and frequency resolutions cuz he doesn't have code for me . So that that 'll take some reading about the theory . I don't really know the theory . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Oh , and um , {vocalsound} another f first step is um , so the {disfmarker} the way I want to extend his work is make it able to deal with a time varying reverberation response um {vocalsound} and um we don't really know {vocalsound} how fast the um {disfmarker} the reverberation response is varying the Meeting Recorder data um so um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we have this um block least squares um imp echo canceller implementation and um {vocalsound} I want to try {vocalsound} finding {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the response , say , between a near mike and the table mike for someone using the echo canceller and looking at the echo canceller taps and then {vocalsound} see how fast that varies {vocalsound} from block to block . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That should give an idea of how fast the reverberation response is changing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . Um . I think we 're {vocalsound} sort of done . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: So let 's read our digits and go home . +Grad C: Um . S so um y you do {disfmarker} I think you read some of the {disfmarker} the zeros as O 's and some as zeros . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: Is there a particular way we 're supposed to read them ? +PhD E: There are only zeros here . Well . +Professor A: No . "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" {disfmarker} "" O "" and "" zero "" are two ways that we say that digit . +PhD E: Eee . Yeah . +Professor A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ha ! +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} i +PhD E: Perhaps in the sheets there should be another sign for the {disfmarker} if we want to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the guy to say "" O "" or +Professor A: No . I mean . I think people will do what they say . +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: I mean in digit recognition we 've done before , you have {disfmarker} you have two pronunciations for that value , "" O "" and "" zero "" . +Grad C: Alright . +PhD E: OK . +Grad C: OK . +PhD E: But it 's perhaps more difficult for the people to prepare the database then , if {disfmarker} because here you only have zeros +Professor A: No , they just write {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} and people pronounce "" O "" or zero {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} they write down OH . or they write down ZERO a and they {disfmarker} and they each have their own pronunciation . +PhD E: Yeah but if the sh the sheet was prepared with a different sign for the "" O "" . +Professor A: But people wouldn't know what that wa I mean {vocalsound} there is no convention for it . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . +Professor A: See . I mean , you 'd have to tell them {vocalsound} "" OK when we write this , say it tha "" , +PhD E: OK . +Professor A: you know , and you just {disfmarker} They just want people to read the digits as you ordinarily would +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and people say it different ways . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad C: OK . Is this a change from the last batch of {disfmarker} of um forms ? Because in the last batch it was spelled out which one you should read . +PhD E: Yeah , it was orthographic , so . +Professor A: Yes . That 's right . It was {disfmarker} it was spelled out , and they decided they wanted to get at more the way people would really say things . +Grad C: Oh . OK . +Professor A: That 's also why they 're {disfmarker} they 're bunched together in these different groups . So {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Everything 's fine . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: OK . Actually , let me just s since {disfmarker} since you brought it up , I was just {disfmarker} it was hard not to be self - conscious about that when it {vocalsound} after we {disfmarker} since we just discussed it . But I realized that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} when I 'm talking on the phone , certainly , and {disfmarker} and saying these numbers , {vocalsound} I almost always say zero . And uh {disfmarker} cuz {disfmarker} because uh i it 's two syllables . It 's {disfmarker} it 's more likely they 'll understand what I said . So that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's the habit I 'm in , but some people say "" O "" and {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah I normally say "" O "" cuz it 's easier to say . +Professor A: Yeah it 's shorter . Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} So . {vocalsound} So uh . +Grad B: "" O "" +Professor A: Now , don't think about it . +Grad B: Oh , no ! +Professor A: OK . We 're done . +","In the conversation, Professor A and PhD E discuss the results of testing Meeting Recorder digits and the SRI system's performance, including how data quantity and adaptation influence error rates. They also touch upon how SRI's system models digits, the effect of different recording conditions, and the importance of using a large amount of diverse training data. + +Grad B and Grad C share their progress with Professor A. Grad B discusses potential research directions involving factorial HMMs, modulation spectrum features, and intelligibility after speaking with Mike Jordan. Grad C is exploring work by Avendano on dealing with reverberation in speech and considering how reverberation responses vary in the Meeting Recorder data. + +Throughout the conversation, there are various interruptions and technical discussions about vocal and spectrum analyses, the role of Voiced-Unvoiced decision features, and the relevance of using different representations for speech recognition. + +At the end of the conversation, there's a brief mention of digit pronunciation and how people might say ""zero"" or ""O"" differently, highlighting the variations in real-world usage, which is essential to consider in speech recognition tasks. Professor A prefers to say ""zero"" on the phone for clarity, while Grad B leans towards ""O"" for its brevity." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hello {vocalsound} . 'Kay . +Project Manager: You all saw the newsflash ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or you got the same message ? +Marketing: Yeah I I just saw it one minute ago . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah sorry . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: When I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't see it yet I think . +User Interface: Newsflash ? D did I miss something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I received an email so I thought I I can't mail you so I thought I'd just drop it in the folder , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah pretty much . +Industrial Designer: Hey what's wrong with my computer ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Is it unlocked ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah that's my presentation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Woah . I uh kind of opened it {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Marketing: Mm ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh right . +User Interface: I think you have to uh change your desktop uh +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: size . +Marketing: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Not really . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Project Manager: No no no . Yes yes yes . +User Interface: {gap} computer is uh not functioning ? +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Where do I find this ? I'm not so g display huh ? +User Interface: Uh display . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then uh settings ? +Industrial Designer: Appearance ? +Marketing: Huh . +User Interface: Mm I'm not sure I {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You read the newsflash ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Can we get started +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No what was it about ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: or is there some pressing issue ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah my computer is not functioning properly . +Project Manager: Oh no pressing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did you plug in the power cable when you come back ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . No but my screen is reduced in size . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's difficult . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Feedback . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} alt delete . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Format . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Format save . +Marketing: {gap} . So it doesn't draw the attention away . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This is dreadful . +User Interface: I made uh uh my own map . +Project Manager: Oh yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: No not this , but the task . +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have Playstation also ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} No that's okay . No I just flapped it , closed it , took it here and then this happened . Ah . Uh {disfmarker} where was it ? In settings ? Okay . Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Do you guys like your tasks ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was gonna do and then a couple of minutes before this I get my function you know the information that I need . +User Interface: Yeah wa wa you actually {disfmarker} Yeah . But it it's not clear what you have to to to type uh type in your presentation . +Industrial Designer: So frustrating . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I I had a whole idea and then just was typing it and then oh . I have to do that so switch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} Yeah exactly . This presentation is mainly based on my own ideas 'cause I hadn't time to intergrate tha the information yet so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Really annoying . +Project Manager: Okay . So there we are again . +Marketing: By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay this is the agenda . Um we have three presentations , I heard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah really . {vocalsound} So who wants to start ? +Marketing: Yeah that's fine {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have to start it right away ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is you ? +Marketing: Functional ? Yeah functional requirements . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . I'm gonna talk about functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} Well uh some research has be done uh has been done . Uh observing of one hundred uh subjects in the usability lab using a remote control . Uh and they also filled in a questionnaire . The findings were um , well you can see them for yourself . They disliked the look-and-feel of current remotes controls . {vocalsound} Users think they're ugly . Um {vocalsound} they do not match the the operating behaviour of the users . So they they d they don't match what they want to have on it . Um {vocalsound} they are often lost somewhere in the room . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . And they're bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} I don't know uh how a user can reach that but okay . Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ts +Marketing: there is also uh was also some research on uh the most relevant and and and irrelevant uh f functions . Uh most irrelevant and less used were audio settings , mono , stereo , uh pitch , bass . Um screen settings for brightness and colour and stuff like that . Um but they are used . I mean the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So they do need to be in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah they do need to be on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I mean if you can't control the the sound settings {disfmarker} I mean if you dislike a very uh loud bass or something , you you need to change that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} often . +Marketing: So um yeah we have to . +Industrial Designer: By the way my T_V_ doesn't have an equ equaliser but +Marketing: We c we c Yeah I mean w we can't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next generation does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: my my T_V_ has , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: but we we can leave them uh away . Uh most relevant , uh most used functions , uh they speak for themselves I guess . Uh power button , uh channel , volume selection . Uh teletext but we can skip that because I saw the newsflash , and teletext is so outdated that it it's i should not be used uh any more in the future . +Project Manager: N not used anymore . +Marketing: So forget this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh channel settings , so for programming uh your channels in in the right order . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: By the way where did you guys get that newsflash from ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} I was wondering uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't get anything . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} on on the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Not by mail . I receiv the mail but you don't . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you you've got more information than {disfmarker} uh . +Marketing: No so it's a text file n in the project folder . So teletext can be skipped . +Project Manager: That's in the presentation , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there was some research on new features in a remote control . Uh about an L_C_D_ screen uh and speech recognition . Well we got an update for the for the audience . Or the the the targeted group . So it's above forty I guess . +Project Manager: Uh below I believe . +Marketing: The new product ? Or below {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah below forty . +Marketing: because that's pretty relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought I read a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Our current customers are in the age group forty plus . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: And the new product should reach new markets , which is the customers below forty . +Marketing: Below ? Okay well {vocalsound} +User Interface: But where did you get uh that information ? +Project Manager: That's in a newsflash . +Marketing: that's that's in the newsfla +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay that's a good to know . Um because you see see a clear distinction between the age groups , concerning the features . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean uh above forty people are not so interested uh not so interested in a screen or speech recognition . Uh but below that age they uh they pretty much are . So I think we can build that in . Um {disfmarker} Yeah well we can skip this part as well , because I thought I read above forty so we could skip the features , but we just have to build them in because uh they find it very interesting . Um well we have to keep all the classic functions but make the buttons as user-friendly as possible . Um and and also there's {disfmarker} so not only the design of the bus uh buttons but o how you can push them , and stuff like that . So the physical uh aspect of it . Um {disfmarker} And I think {disfmarker} and certainly for for the for the lower age groups , uh nice design , which uh does not make the remote control {gap} in your room . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's actually a part of your interior , of of your design in your room . So it's {vocalsound} the people can say , well what's that , well that's my remote control , so it's d it has to look nice and feel nice , and and have all the functions that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it also needs to have corporate identity . +Marketing: Yeah so the the logo has to be +Project Manager: Present and the colours . +Marketing: uh present yeah , and the colours as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can't change much of that . +Industrial Designer: Do we have {disfmarker} uh yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah so but I I don't think that's that's a problem because the thing has to have a colour anyway , and most of the times there is a brand present on it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So I think that's not gonna gonna affect it very uh very much . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well that are the the consequences uh on a marketing uh part . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's open already so you can use {gap} to +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: find yours . +User Interface: Mm . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go Jurgen . +User Interface: Oh . What is this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How do I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You pressed alt F_ four ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no . I pressed the mouse button . +Project Manager: Oh great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} th that's the self-destruct button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe you can do it from your computer so talk us through it . +User Interface: Okay . Um if you all go stand around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Computer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: F_ five . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: I uh had uh two examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um this one is the the yeah the advanced one with a lot of options and functions and buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This the easy one +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we have to to combine them . And uh yeah merge the best functions of all examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but yeah the the age is uh under forty ? +Project Manager: The mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and and and marketing research stated that that that kind of users are not afraid of of a lot of functions . +User Interface: So we {disfmarker} Okay so so we have the option for more functions . +Marketing: So not not too much but {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we do have to integrate the screen and the the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the speech recognition yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: alright . +User Interface: Uh yeah this this one we can remove for kids . It's just only for adults so uh we can uh use some advanced options . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah from age of sixteen so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but I prefer we we uh use the the basic options uh yeah . We have to to make them very easy so for just uh zapping around the channels you can just push one button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But if you want to to use your your video recorder or something else , you should use use an uh an advanced option . +Marketing: Yeah but uh the the newsflash also stated that it should control only one device , only your television . +User Interface: Okay one device . +Project Manager: Yeah . So n it's very easy . +User Interface: Okay . I didn't see {gap} . +Marketing: So w +Project Manager: Now yeah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay and I also uh yeah . W yeah . +Marketing: So there are not extra options in this case , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have to make it fashionable . Like you uh said uh before . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh yeah the basic functions . Um yeah only use a extra function if they are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah so maybe you can hide them or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah well what what we can do with the screen is is all the the configuration options , you can put that in the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you make a screen menu or something . +Marketing: And the and the {disfmarker} yeah screen menu to to to uh to do that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the basic function just on the device itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it looks very simple and all the advanced features are hidden in the screen , uh with a clear menu . +Project Manager: Yeah and the other oth other uh functionality is the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does the screen do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} wh +Project Manager: Yeah . It's low power . +User Interface: did I break it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: What {gap} . +Project Manager: So what does the screen do ? They said they needed it but what does it do ? What do they want with the screen ? +User Interface: For for the advanced functions I think . +Project Manager: Yeah that's what we make it up . +Marketing: Yeah well it {gap} yeah it didn't +Project Manager: So but what did the marketing {disfmarker} +Marketing: it didn't say what they want to do with the screen . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well I , my guess is it's it's pretty handy for advanced uh advanced functions . +Project Manager: Yeah okay it's handy . With no predefined uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like searching for channels and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah look . +Marketing: Yeah searching for channels , programming them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have your uh {disfmarker} oh never mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're back online . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} I'm al I'm almost finished so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} we have to to to watch out for the {disfmarker} i if we make it f very fashionable , it it the functional functionality will go down . So we have to make uh a compromise between functionality and fashional fashionable +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Content and form . +User Interface: yeah content and form . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Now that that was uh was the end . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was the end . Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well my presentation is a bit uh sucky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well you can improvise right ? +Project Manager: Uh which one is it ? Technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a little bit . +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that would be it then . {gap} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You didn't put it in ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea . +Marketing: So we we can go for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That w {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} it's not really English . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Let me check . I know . +Project Manager: Uh kick off . Oh working design I got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we can go for the look-and-feel of the the left example , and then a screen on top of it . +Project Manager: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: Alright how do I uh skip pages ? +Project Manager: Just uh press uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The keys yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um yeah well I was working on this before I got my information . So I was just working off the top of my head and using my colin common knowledge about uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And well the info on the website which came too late . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so I didn't really know what kind of functions we had to put into it yet . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh this is basically an overview of what we discussed in our last uh meeting . Those were my uh starting points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I was working on a s yeah on a schedule , and I was supposed to do it like this . But um yeah then uh the information came and it was kind of exact with all the steps in the remote control that I had to follow , so I was trying to organise them for myself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And then make the +Project Manager: Design yeah . +Industrial Designer: the design , a the actual design , +Marketing: Design ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I never came around to do that . So I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say about it . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean everything speaks for itself I guess . Mean you press a button um {vocalsound} the it tru goes , it sends a signal to a chip , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which uh translates it into infrared signal of certin spatial frequencies . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah frequency . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh or temporal fr frequencies actually . And then uh through a uh transformer , it the signal gets boosted and then sent to the to the receiver on the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah decoder . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ will translate it into a function . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah well this was actually {vocalsound} all I got around to do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Blank . Yeah okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I dunno if I'm too slow for this stuff , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Work harder . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay shou should we make a list of the of all the functions we want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we want to incorporate in uh into it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um for those that didn't see yet um the basic new requirements of the management were no teletext , only for T_V_ . Uh it should be designed for a use g uh group below forty , but I don't think it's w wrong if we can uh target the current customer group as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh the corporate identity should be clear in the design of the remote control . And we have to decide on the functions , and on the , let's see what was it , uh the target group . We have to make be clear what that is . +Marketing: {gap} group of users , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah users . +Marketing: because it says below forty I mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah so I think it's easy but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess that's that's the tar yeah uh or male and female {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh it's it's also for children or just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's below forty so we can decide where to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh six {disfmarker} the marketing research started on s on the age of sixteen . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Sixteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , thirty five to forty five , something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . So below forty is okay . +Marketing: So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we need an {disfmarker} lower level which to s uh focus . +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: So is it from sixteen to forty ? Is it from twenty to forty ? Is it from thirty ? +Marketing: Uh sixteen to forty . +Project Manager: Yeah ? 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . We we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I guess people of sixteen are are quite used to technology . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they they adapt to it pretty soon I guess . +User Interface: And if we have a larger public we have uh yeah more options to to uh sell our product . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so what we might wanna do is uh yeah cust I have customised the screen functions , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The uh younger users are more acquainted with these kind of machines so they can use more advanced functions . But maybe elderly people don't understand it so well , so they need a simpler remote . +Project Manager: Design . Mm . +Industrial Designer: And yeah that you can choose what the design displays , or wha whatever . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's why uh I wanted to to make yeah two uh different uh yeah groups of functions . The the simple functions for for the the whole public , and the the advanced options for the younger people yeah who are more yeah experienced with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And maybe y +Industrial Designer: Experienced yeah . +Marketing: But uh all incorporated in the screen or or just on the remote itself ? +User Interface: Na I w I should uh put uh the the yeah the extra advanced options on the onto the onscreen display . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like like you have a visual of the of the brightness with with a kind of sliding bar and a bus and and stuff like that for sound and and vis and and visuals ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So is {disfmarker} you should have a menu for all the the functions you don't use regular and which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh you can make a {disfmarker} if you make a drawing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Aye yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Shall I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh black's okay . {vocalsound} And draw it very big . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} no , it doesn't have line control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we get the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah well , this is basically uh it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The remote ? +Project Manager: The remote , yeah ? +Marketing: alright the remote ? Um well usually the power button is on top I guess . +Project Manager: Basic . Is on top . Which should be easy , easily reached with the thumb . +Marketing: Yeah so it should fit right in into your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . L left top or right uh top ? +Project Manager: T I s should said right . +Marketing: Right . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Right top . +Marketing: I most people are right-handed so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: maybe left-handed special addition , but okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you put it like like here . Or something . I dunno . Um then you could put a screen , like on a mobile phone , also on top I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but if you are using the the normal functions , the the basic functions , you normally press them on the u yeah . +Project Manager: Do the also with the thumb . So it should be a little bit longer so that you can put your uh thumb , also reach the middle . Or you should screen at the bottom and then you can see it very clearly . +Marketing: Okay so y yeah you have you have it in your hand , and the screen is below , and the buttons are in the middle . +Project Manager: You you need to be able to hold it so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay for example {vocalsound} if you put the screen here , it's more about the functions now than the than the layout . +Project Manager: Yeah okay that's true . Layout . That's for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Doesn't work too well . It's uh it's bent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I can't help it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: You broke it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Man . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay you get it . Uh for example if y if you put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You want the normal piece of paper ? And you have a pen ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And might be easier huh ? +Marketing: Maybe this . {gap} kind of works . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Like if you have like uh ten buttons for for all the for all the channels , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: um and here one for for +Project Manager: And the for flipping up and down . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . And volume control . +Marketing: Yeah that that usually uh {disfmarker} like here , here , here , here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you have up and down for the for the channels , and left and right for the volume uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And left to right . And those can also be used for the menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . I thought {disfmarker} but this is really your department , that we need just the functional display and four cursors . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but this is function so if you can use them for multiple things {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you you have {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: most of the time you have one button in the middle . It says menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: For the menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and then if you press it you {disfmarker} the screen gets activated and then you can use these buttons to scroll up and down and left and right to go into functon +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: mo most of the time this menu button is also like okay , to to confirm a a kind of action . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you scroll into it , okay . You select a function like v like uh bass . You just adjust it with these two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Then okay to confirm , and then uh on on each on each screen there's there should be an option to go back to a to a upper level . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then finally say okay , exit . Or or one button to exit it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh in one time I dunno , that's not really my department . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And do we need a a logo on our uh remote control , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's more your uh your department to to uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But it should be {disfmarker} if the screen is here then the logo should be like on on top , +User Interface: On the left uh top yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but that depends on where you put the screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But it's essential that there is a screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I mean the position of the screen is also more essential than {disfmarker} I mean we we look where we have space left and then put the logo over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . And for the speech uh recognition part , if we want to incorporate that , we need a microphone . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} Yeah so it should be {disfmarker} I mean if you have it in your hand here , should be on top somewhere , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah . This would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why did we wanna put the display in the bottom ? +Marketing: I mean i +Project Manager: No that's not s sure so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That's not sure +Project Manager: uh we need a display . +Marketing: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah may maybe because you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because yeah if you use the functions your hand will block the display . +User Interface: Yeah okay but {gap} only for the basic functi if you're going to use the advanced option , you're going to press the the menu button and then {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I mean a screen on top looks more lo logical to me . +Industrial Designer: Normal for logical t +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Also because people use m mobile phones and they also have the screen on top . +Project Manager: Yeah they're used to it . +User Interface: Okay the {disfmarker} yeah . That's possible . +Marketing: So you you just have to reach a little bit for the power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean if you grab it . +Industrial Designer: On once it's on it's on . You don't need the power button . +Marketing: But most most of the times if a if if a T_V_'s on standby people just press a channel to put it on . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Okay we put it on top . +Marketing: So we put this on top , and then make the corporate logo +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like over here . R_R_ . And j and the microphone , I mean it can be very small . If you look at your mobile phones {gap} are some stripes , {vocalsound} little little holes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe on the top or even on the side . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah maybe on the side . I mean if the if the microphone is good . +Project Manager: Yeah but then it's possible that you cover it with your hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: Yeah okay . So on the on the top is better . +Project Manager: I think that top is the best option . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if you uh if you hold the ma the remote like this , if you put it on the top on the side {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Should be able to work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: Depends on the sensitivity of the microphone , but I think that's okay . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Can we leave this up to you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it doesn't matter that much . So {disfmarker} but um the screen is on top ? Which functions did we have left ? I mean this is basically numbers , volume , uh channel up and down . +Project Manager: Volume . Up . Channel up and down , and the control of the advanced options . +Marketing: Screen is over there . +Project Manager: So maybe it , we should decide what advanced options we want to put in the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah . If we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . That's uh that's a good one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so we we needed to integrate the sound and uh and image options right ? +Project Manager: Yeah so sounds ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like uh bass uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Sound ? +Industrial Designer: so we need kind of an equaliser . If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Equaliser . So if you have sound {disfmarker} But not too advanced . I mean most T_V_s use only treble and bass . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah it it's just a remote control so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah treble , middl middle , bass or something . +Project Manager: They're not used often so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's uh pretty hard to write . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah as {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Okay but you have sound ? +Project Manager: Yeah sounds . +Marketing: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: oh y you have digital uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: better write it down over there yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . I'm just a {vocalsound} secretary . +Marketing: So you have sound . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Coffee ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah sound and then within sound I guess treble and bass ? +Industrial Designer: Yes please . +Project Manager: Treble bass . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the mono stereo option ? +Marketing: Yeah . Also . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And there there was something else also . +Project Manager: Pitch I believe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then pitch . +Marketing: Pitch . Yeah . But pitch , isn't that {disfmarker} yeah that's the the height of the tone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fr yeah the frequency of the tones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , +Project Manager: Yeah and mono stereo . +Marketing: wh why would you use that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah isn't that that depends on the on the signal of the of what program you're watching . +Marketing: If people like talk like uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the tuning part ? +Marketing: Programming part . +Project Manager: Yeah programming . So channel programming ? +Marketing: Uh so we have sound , yeah ? Channel programming . +Industrial Designer: And yeah in the functionality of the +User Interface: Television uh itself uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: no no of the remote uh do do we want uh the buttons to make sound when you press them ? As a confirmation or whatever you know ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I think it g it gets annoying . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean most mobile phones used that in the beginning but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We we could make an option for it , but uh you can disable s +Industrial Designer: Under the a yeah advanced option menu you can put those things . +User Interface: Yeah . But uh the the television itself has also the the options {gap} brightness and uh screen colour etcetera . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Contrast yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but people don't want to sit on their knees on their knees in front of their television with {gap} only three buttons then it's very hard to +Project Manager: Mm . No . Uh , so contrast , +Marketing: y yeah contrast and brightness ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: bright , +Marketing: Yeah those are the most used I guess . If you look at your monitor . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} And the others were in your presentation right ? So I can just copy those ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} yeah well I guess that these were the only ones , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} It's easy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But so we have we have T_V_ options , which is all this . +Marketing: Yeah . I will look it up . +Project Manager: Yeah the button options and the L_C_D_ options . +Industrial Designer: The sound , sound and image . And you have in that uh the indeed the remote control options . +Project Manager: Indeed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we need two menus kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah you have basically a button menu , which you can use directly , uh according to the old principle . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: And the L_C_D_ options are activated by some some software options , thats communicates with the infrared uh decoder yeah . +Marketing: Yeah with the chip and then {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you {disfmarker} You have an additional processor and and software part . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} yeah . Well {disfmarker} yeah we have power button , whether that's present . +Project Manager: Compared to o +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Channel volume selection present . Uh numbers present . Yeah a audio settings , mono , stereo , pitch , bass , treble . Screen settings , brightness and colour . +Project Manager: L_ s Yeah . Colour . Yeah I I call it contrast . +Marketing: Yeah con contrast is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I make it c colour . +Marketing: Yeah okay , colour and brightness . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and what you say , channel settings or channel programming ? So you you have an option to to start scanning all the frequencies , and when it encounters one , well it shows on your T_V_ . And then you can um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and automatically um {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh and then you can select uh a number in your remote on which you want to save it . +Project Manager: Yeah so I've g channel program is autoseek ? +Marketing: Yeah , autoseek . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh name a channel , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well most T_V_s automatically display the name , which they get through the cable . +Project Manager: Oh they get automatic names , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So you only have to choose the position on your +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It only has to match the the channel frequency on your T_V_ , with with the with the position on your T_V_ and and so your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but can you also say I want f uh Veronica on the channel number uh five or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Help . +Marketing: If you already programmed it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If you want to move it . Yeah that should be possible too . +Project Manager: Yeah . How do you call that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah how do you call that ? Mm ? Wait you you should be able to to browse through a list or something , which w displays all the all the values , all the channels which are possible . +Project Manager: Channels ? Yeah . +Marketing: I mean like one to f thirty of or ninety or whatever . +Project Manager: Ninety nine or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Just browse through it and then um in some kind of way see if it if it if it is programmed . +Project Manager: S swap channels ? Can I call it that ? +Marketing: Yeah . Swap channels . +Project Manager: Swap's good option . Okay . Uh other functions ? +Marketing: So you {disfmarker} most of the time if you if you swap it {disfmarker} S uh let's say for example you have uh R_T_L_ five on on channel five . And Veronica on channel eight and you want to move Veronica to channel five , most of the times you override the previous uh the previous one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's 's up to uh Mister User Interface Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It's it's pretty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah I mean you have to look on on the menu +Industrial Designer: {gap} working design . Doch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Also . +Marketing: on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He only has to figure out how it has to look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but also , which buttons you have to press to get a certain result ? +Industrial Designer: And how +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the working design was to specify how ph the physical interation between the components was , as I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But {disfmarker} You did your homework . But um {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or or is it too hard to to ju to just do it all on your remote ? To programme the channels ? +Project Manager: No I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No no . It should be able to do any remote . +User Interface: No that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: But I think the communication with the television is difficult . But that's not our part . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have to design a protocol so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's true . That's true . +Industrial Designer: Thank god . +User Interface: Okay {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So we have a figure a figure out a way to to do that easily . I mean th the autoseek is is not a problem . +Project Manager: No that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you uh you uh current channel and then then it just says , uh on which number do you want to save this , and you just press a number on your remote , and then say confirm , okay , and then it's it's saved . It's easier , {gap} it's it's it's harder to , if you have already programmed it , to to swap . +Project Manager: Yeah . So but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to think of something for that . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} The User Interface Designer can design a menu for all these function I put them on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah k kind of structure into layers . +User Interface: On the uh yeah can you i make a a map with with all the {disfmarker} yeah 'cause it's now {disfmarker} there are lots and lots of documents +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah . Yeah I can . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll just try to reorganise uh things . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you design the basic function menu for the L_C_D_ screen ? Uh um {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} +Marketing: And and the layout of of the thing itself . +Project Manager: th I think the yeah the layout of the screen +User Interface: The the layout of the remote control ? +Project Manager: and I think you can concentrate more on the button placement and the placement of the uh screen itself on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Isn't that more the the u uh the user interface part ? +Project Manager: {gap} . No I d I think that's more in {disfmarker} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh all the functional uh aspects of the remote I think are in my department . +Marketing: Maybe more on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have to know what it has to do , so if you wanna you know the changing the channels kind of s thing is , I have to integrate that in the design . +Project Manager: Okay . So he's layout and you're function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Form function okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a that's a good separation . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But do I have to to uh to yeah to make the the menu layout also ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are you going to do that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah ? I I'm going to make {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i that's your department yes , +User Interface: yeah o okay . +Project Manager: because w he already knows what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have to kind of work together . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If if I make the the the yeah the menu like , I have to state which function has to be in the menu , +Project Manager: But we're not allowed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then you have to decide , it's , in a in a way that b is user-friendly . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Y you you are going to make a list of what functions are uh are going to to be on the the screen , the menu screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And I'm going to make a a nice menu uh with with {gap} pages and yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: With with some l with some layers in it . +Project Manager: Yeah and also make clear which buttons to press to get certain result , +Marketing: So some menus . +Project Manager: because that's always the difficulty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Every device has its own {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well I guess this this button , the the the okay , +Project Manager: Menu okay . +Marketing: menu okay . Or you can incorporate two uh difference uh different buttons . Uh like uh for your mobile phone . Um so this is only for to get in the menu , or to exit it . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then one to confirm , and one to go one step back . +Project Manager: Back . Yeah . +Marketing: So it's like the the save button on your your mobile phone , if you have a Nokia or like that . Or the or the no button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: To go one step back you {gap} it's only two extra buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . W we {disfmarker} +Marketing: but if it if it's very clear that they are for the screen {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think we have to to group , to make two groups . Um the {disfmarker} one group for the for the display , and one group for the basic functions , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but they're incorporated {gap} ? Up and down is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay but we we have a m +Marketing: Yeah because this this is used for both . +User Interface: yeah but maybe that's that's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Smart ? +User Interface: yeah if you're if you're z zapping uh with your uh yeah remote control , you can press the the menu button , and then you are suddenly into the the yeah the display . +Marketing: Into your screen . Okay . So you +Industrial Designer: You wanna separate uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: l should leave the menu button out of here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And {gap} and just put it under the screen , the screen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it on top . +User Interface: Yeah j just just group group the {disfmarker} yeah we make these the advanced functions and these the basic functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we make a yeah a line between them . +Marketing: Yeah . But we should place the screen on top , right ? +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: F oh yeah . Okay yeah we swap uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: But that's uh J Jurgen's department . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we make it a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You just you just find out and {gap} . +Project Manager: You just make the layout . You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: do we do the extra two buttons or not ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you should . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's easier . If you put too many functions in one button it gets confusing . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we have a a menu button and a s +Project Manager: And to , okay and back , also . +User Interface: Okay . Okay and back button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , or confirm and back . Whatever . +Project Manager: And of course the four arrows . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But those are still y doubly used . Both the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should we save this picture , or or you know what it looks like ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm not s clear about uh the the extra two buttons . We have a menu button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That that just to to activate the screen . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the the one with the {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Menu button access the menu in the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: And then with these buttons , woa , y you navigate . +Project Manager: You can navigate . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you can also navigate the channels . And the volume . +User Interface: Okay so that that's not uh {disfmarker} Yeah that {disfmarker} Those are +Project Manager: Those are both both {disfmarker} +User Interface: multifunctional . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey is it interesting for users if we put LED lights under the buttons ? So that if you uh press on the menu function that only the buttons that are used for the menu are ligh li light up . +Marketing: Yeah . L l litten up yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh five minutes . +Marketing: That's very good idea . +Industrial Designer: N +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Light uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's a good idea because then it becomes clear which buttons are active now , which you can use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then it's also easier to integrate several functions in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Marketing: Those buttons are are lit up . +Industrial Designer: I think not . +Marketing: But just one thing . Should we use those two ? Them ? Or only this to to scroll ? +Project Manager: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use the two functional buttons to confirm , to go into something ? Oh no we have to use this to adjust some some bars ? +Project Manager: Volume . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah keep it optional 'cause maybe you can you know go left to right and up and down in a in one menu . +Marketing: Yeah . And maybe we should use this also as an okay button , still . And then just only a back button . +Project Manager: Well we have those buttons . We use all four . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The pr the problem with the okay button in the middle is , sorry +Project Manager: Yeah okay go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: sorry , uh is uh if you're pressing up and down , you can easily press the okay once you , when you're not already at your choice . +User Interface: Yeah . So maybe make one uh one okay button and and one navigation button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that was already decided . +Marketing: And one back . +User Interface: Yeah the with with the the channel and the volume uh {disfmarker} yeah m a multifunctional navigation button . +Project Manager: Okay that's what we decided earlier on . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You wanna close down huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah I wanna close down . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have to , sorry . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not because I don't like you but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Project Manager: yh we have lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Already . +Project Manager: and then we can work for thirty minutes , and I have to write very fast to make the minich min minutes . And then uh we'll see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . How m how long is the lunchbreak ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Nobody told me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to ask . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But do we have to write uh to write down uh the our stuff now ? Or first lunchbreak ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No I th believe there's first lunch break . +User Interface: Because I {disfmarker} I've everything in my head now {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Or you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can put uh the laptop back in the room and {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes sir . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Time pressure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Yeah it's a lot of pressure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sorry for my uh not finished presentation uh . +Project Manager: That's okay . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah we'll kick your ass later . No . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bring it on . +Project Manager: I don't know if it works but it should be saved . +Marketing: Aye {disfmarker} Y you saved it ? Does it save automatically in the project folder ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We'll see . +Project Manager: Should be here . Smart board . +Marketing: Just put back my laptop . +Project Manager: Don't know if you can use it but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah you can open it with the picture preview or stuff like that . +User Interface: And uh we have to make uh some maps with uh with the all the the data we uh gathered . +Project Manager: Yeah . I try to organise it by these three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . It's it's just my own map so I put everything into the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really mind . I just put the minutes here and we'll see . +User Interface: But you got some extra information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's in the functional design uh folder . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah that's just basically what I just showed . +User Interface: But where do you did you get the newsflash ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I got it by {disfmarker} +User Interface: You're the only one uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: yeah . I'm gonna get kicked if I don't do it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} internet . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Make me proud . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll try to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So first we have a lunchbreak now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: I believe so . {gap} just ask . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I dunno where she {gap} . +","The team is discussing the development of a new remote control following a newsflash received by the Project Manager, which led to a chaotic start with some members unaware of the update. They discuss the design and user interface features for targeting users below 40, ensuring ease of use and incorporating advanced functions within an LCD screen with a simple and clear menu system. The Industrial Designer manages functional aspects and basic design integration, while the User Interface designer focuses on making the menu user-friendly and organizing layout details. They also touch upon using LED lights for button illumination, having a corporate logo on the remote, and ensuring that it only operates one device (TV). The presentation ends with a suggestion to organize documents into structured maps for clarity. The team plans to regroup after a lunch break to finalize their plans." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Yep . Soon as I get this . Okay . This is our last meeting . Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting . Uh and then we'll have a , the prototype presentation . {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation . Uh or we'll see what , what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation . Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget . Um then we'll do the evaluation , and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make , or hopefully everything will fall right in line . Um let's see , minutes from the last meeting . Um we looked at uh the the trends . We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel . It was twice as important as anything else . Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles . Um and a spongy feel . So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype . Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity . Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote . Um looking at other other devices . Um the iPod , we really liked the look of that . Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea . Um a two part remote , which was what were were originally looking at . Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use . But I think we've still decided not to go with that . {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case , the different energy sources , the different types of chips , um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote . Um and basically how , what were making for the prototype . So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over . +User Interface: The prototype discussion . +Project Manager: The prototype yeah . Do you need a {disfmarker} this ? +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there +User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow . Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned , it's basically designed around a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: where it is , obviously it wouldn't be that floppy 'cause this would be hard plastic . These would be like the rubber , the rubber grips . So that's so that would hopefully help with grip , or like the ergonomics of it . Um but all the controlling would be done with this scroll wheel . You have to use your imagination a little bit . And this here represents the screen , where you , where you'd go through . +Project Manager: Very nice . +User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um almost identical to an iPod , where that one way ch through channels , that way th other way through channels . Volume up and down . And then to access the more complicated functions you'd you sorta go , you press that and go through the menus . It's that that simple . That just represents the infrared uh beam . That's a simple on and off switch . Um I don't know , we could use the voice . T that blue bits should be yellow , that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose . And um {vocalsound} that's about it . It's as simple as you , we could make it really . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Is there anything you want to add ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we have there . That's plastic . Plastic covered with rubber . We might uh add some more underneath here . Maybe give it , give it a form . I mean you're supposed to hold it like that , but um just if you grab it , take it from somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference . +Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah . +User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , {gap} use both . Might as well think about {disfmarker} +User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well . Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: What but what's that button ? +Industrial Designer: not do it at all . It's a quick on-off button . +User Interface: Just the on and off . +Project Manager: Uh , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: That's um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important . So you don't have to fiddle with that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Um that's not um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice . You wanna play with that over there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy 'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pretty impressive . +Project Manager: Well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana . +User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose . With the scroll and the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out . Or not luckily . Um do you have a marketing presentation for us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I do . Okay . You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria . Um . Okay . So first I'll just discuss some of the criteria that I found . Just based on the past trend reports that I was looking at earlier . And then we'll do a group evaluation of the prototype . And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did . Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier . So we're gonna be doing it based on a seven point scale . And one is going to mean true , that we did actually achieve that . With seven being false , we did not achieve that . {gap} . Okay . So for the first one , we need to decide , did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly , then yes I would say , I would say most definitely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I would {gap} . +Project Manager: It's bright . +User Interface: It's bright . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It still has your traditional black . +User Interface: It's curved . It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: angles to it . +Project Manager: Yep , not angular . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I'd say , when it comes to the ergonomics , the form and stuff , yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: However the colour , we don't have a say in that . +Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Some people might say it . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That has been , that has been dictated pretty much by the company . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh , we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly , definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'S nothing you can say about that . I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form . +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . It's different . You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that . +Marketing: Um okay so , do you think , since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria , do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Does that sound good ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think ? Three ? Four ? +Project Manager: I would say +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: four . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair . Okay . +Project Manager: Very non-committal , four . +Marketing: Okay , the second one . Did we make it simple for new users ? +Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive , I think yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . I think that was the main aim , one of the main aims that we had . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one . +Marketing: One , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'kay . Okay . Um , do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users ? +User Interface: Uh yeah . 'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common , which are channel and volume . +Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And then the other ones are just a matter of just going , just scrolling further . +Project Manager: S scrolling through and selecting a few . +Industrial Designer: Right . So that's a one . +Marketing: So one ? +Project Manager: I think that's a one . +Marketing: Yeah ? {vocalsound} Okay . Okay um the fourth one . How about the problem of a remote being easily lost ? One of the number one complaints . +Industrial Designer: Something that big and that yellow you just don't lose anymore . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not , you're not gonna lose it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's bright yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose . But um if we were to , if we were , that , the speech recognition . That , we could maybe just use that solely for the the finding thing . That was what we'd we'd mentioned . +Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just to use , to find it when it was lost . But like I said , like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily . +Industrial Designer: Oops . Hmm . +User Interface: And it's not gonna fall , like a rectangle would slip down behind things . That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe in the middle again , three or four or something ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose , I mean a million ways . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: But if we do go with the , with the speech recognition , then it , then our scale goes up quite a bit I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . You probably {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably two . You know . If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd say two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: With the speech recognition , which of course may be changed depending on budget . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Y you could add an extra feature actually . Which makes this thing raise hell when you remove it too far from the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far . +Project Manager: Which , which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah true . But I mean d just those whistling , clapping key rings you have . They're cheap . +Marketing: Annoying alarm or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it can't be that +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff , +User Interface: expensive . +Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage , another piece that starts beeping . That can't cost much . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that can also easily be integrated because these things are small enough to to hide , so you have one piece , you have to glue somewhere behind your {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then . {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television , yeah . Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So . Are we adding one of these two features ? +Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one ? +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Or a two ? +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two , 'kay . Okay . Are we technologically innovative ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with +Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker} +User Interface: screens on . +Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology . +Marketing: From iPod yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But we have {gap} . +Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow , there's not a lotta yellow . +Industrial Designer: right +Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: right +User Interface: Fa +Industrial Designer: right right . +Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour . +Marketing: Two ? Three ? +User Interface: {gap} 'cause it's stolen . +Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative , to tell you the truth . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No maybe not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah not really . +Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not so many . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Um spongy material ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that , kind of , sort of . +Project Manager: We have some spongy , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed , I think . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: It's not a one though . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing +Project Manager: Yeah . Because it's only got what , these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back . +Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's a four at most . +Project Manager: Probably a four at most . Possibly even a five . +Marketing: And lastly , did we put the fashion in electronics ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'd say we did . +Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda , you betcha . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour , +User Interface: On the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Be what we were told , and they'd say yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: 'Kay . Alright . Now we just gotta calculate . Six eight twelve sixteen . Seventeen divided by s +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Eight . +Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} two point four ? +User Interface: Is that some long division ? No . +Project Manager: Something . +Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What two {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: Just , I'm sure there's a {gap} . +Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two . Right ? How does that look ? +Industrial Designer: I'm impressed . I can't do that without a calculator . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No I can't do long {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while . +User Interface: very impressive . +Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria ? Is there like a scale that we have to hit ? +Marketing: Oh no . They just told me to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then . +Marketing: So that's that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , let's see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers . You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget . But we do . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah so . You'd been going a long time dividing that . It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on . +Marketing: Oh my god . +User Interface: Two point four two basically . +Marketing: Okay . Yeah we'll go with that . +Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent , you're kidding . +Marketing: Not too shabby . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P +Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this . Oh you can't really see that very well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us . Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's too much . +Project Manager: Well let's see . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that . Okay . Alright so at top , I don't know if you guys can read that or not . I can't 'cause I don't have my glasses on , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source . There's uh four , five , six categories . +Industrial Designer: Battery . +Project Manager: We have energy source , electronics , case . Then we have case material supplements , interface type , and then button supplements . Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source , we picked battery . Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Two ? {vocalsound} Like it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy , so that that's not our problem . People can change it every month . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is consumerism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print , regular chip-on-print , advanced chip-on-print , sample sensor , sample speaker . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: We're advanced chip are we ? +Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print , yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay , {gap} we have one of those . 'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved . +Industrial Designer: Double curved , yes . +Project Manager: Case materials are +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: plastic . Um I guess it's two , since one for the top , one for the bottom . +Industrial Designer: N no . +Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one ? +Industrial Designer: No that's just one . +Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould , we can do that . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter 'cause the price on that one is zero , which is nice . +Industrial Designer: Exactly , right . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Special colour ? +Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour . It's a specially ugly colour , but it's not special . +Marketing: Bright yellow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type . We have pushbutton , scroll-wheel interface , integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton , and an L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say the integrated . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Button supplement ? Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um special form ? Special material . +Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so +Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely . +Project Manager: Or titanium . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium . +Project Manager: They cost us all the same . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap} . +Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged , +Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements . +User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd ignore that . +Marketing: Leave it blank . +Project Manager: Okay . We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll . So our total is fifteen point five . Which I believe is +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much . +Project Manager: by three Euros over . +Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe . So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake . +User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface . And the L_C_D_ display . I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well 'cause we have to have both right ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it , it also depends on the software on the on the television . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display ? +User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . We may not need it . There you go . +Project Manager: Well there we go . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +User Interface: There we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Project Manager: Okay . So we just remove our {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: screen here . +User Interface: Make it a bigger dial . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Easier to use . Even easier to use then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Back to the design room boys . +Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: there you go . {gap} central ? +Marketing: What's the blue part ? +User Interface: That was just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: we ran out of yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's the batteries . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go +User Interface: There you go . +Industrial Designer: . Oops . +User Interface: Even simpler . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There you go . +User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there . +Industrial Designer: One more criteria . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro . Was no . We redesigned it . Now it's yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next slide . Project evaluation . Uh project process , satisfaction with , for example , room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , means , new ideas found . Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here . I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me . But I'd like to hear your thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +Marketing: Good teamwork {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just half a day , you have a remote . There you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Right from the start of the day . +Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought . +Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak . Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing . Um room for creativity ? There was that . Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things . Um you guys worked together well as a team . And um the means ? Which was the whiteboard and the pens . +User Interface: Yeah . We've used the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Super super . +Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think , but {vocalsound} minus your p +Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault . That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me , +Marketing: No I know . I'm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah . Incom {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll , believe me . +Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +Project Manager: Okay . N new ideas found ? Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Kinda . +Project Manager: Yes for the remote . Maybe no not f for +User Interface: Technology used . +Project Manager: technology . Alright . Closing . Costs are within the budget . Project is evaluated . Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary . That's it . +User Interface: Excellent . +Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Actually . Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up . And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can , what goes on after that . +Marketing: We might have a while though . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting . +","In the final project meeting, the team discussed the prototype of a remote control and its evaluation as per the criteria set from previous findings, which included fashion trends such as a fancy look-and-feel with fruit themes and simplicity. The User Interface designer presented a banana-shaped, yellow prototype with limited buttons and a scroll wheel for control, aiming for ergonomic grip and simplicity similar to an iPod. The team agreed the colour might be polarizing, but it was company-mandated. + +Marketing then led an evaluation of the prototype based on user complaints and trend reports, using a seven-point scale. Criteria included aesthetics, simplicity for new users, controls matching user behavior, and whether the remote could be easily lost – the latter potentially mitigated by adding speech recognition or proximity alarm features. The evaluation process resulted in mixed scores, acknowledging areas of improvement, especially in terms of technological innovation and using less conventional materials for controls like mahogany or titanium. + +After this, financial considerations were reviewed—aiming for a 50 percent profit margin while keeping costs under twelve and a half Euros—which led to the removal of the L_C_D_ screen from the design to reduce costs. This brought the project in line with the budget. + +The discussion concluded with a project evaluation where the team reflected positively on their creative process, teamwork, and outcomes, despite some initial leadership hesitations. The meeting ended with the project manager noting that the costs were within budget and that the team would need to complete a final questionnaire and summary, with future direction pending approval from higher management." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright , that did nothing . Okay . Welcome to the meeting everyone . Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show . Sorry guys . +Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing . +Project Manager: I did . Twice . +Marketing: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This'll just take a moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or it won't . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . Um . This is the first meeting uh for developing our , our new product . {gap} I'm Heather , I'm your Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Hello . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um . So that was the opening . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another . If everyone could go around and explain their role and um , and their name . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . My name's Poppy . I'm the Industrial Designer for this project . Um , I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase . Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product . +Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase , the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Hi , I'm Genevieve . I'm the Marketing Expert . I'm an expert at marketing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product . Um , I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design , and product evaluation for the design phase . +Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager , um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing . But um um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today , um um as well as planning the project , how we're going to , uh , create this product , and , um , discuss , um , our aims and objects of this , Which brings us to our next subject , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is , um , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control . Um , we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy , um , a completely new style , so that , um , can really appeal to a , to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of , uh , channel-changer . And , um , it needs to be user-friendly for , um , maybe , for an example , for people that , um , can't see the numbers as well , or , um , perhaps an ergonomic design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is a television remote control ? +Project Manager: Yes , it's a television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now . So , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Um , the way that we're going to go about this is , um , we'll have a time where we can , um come up with new ideas alone , and , and work on the project and then , um , after we've brainstormed and , and thought about , we can come together in a meeting and , and discuss what , what um , what kind of functional design we want to use . Same with conceptual design and detailed design . So , um , making sure that it , it's usable , that as a , um {disfmarker} and that it's , it's feasible to create , and uh , to come up with a concept of it want , what we want it to look like . Um , tool training . Is , is everyone , um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Got those notes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Great . Great . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Um One thing that , uh , we're going to do is become more acquainted with the , the tools that we have access to for our project . Um , one of them is our whiteboard . And , um , as a sort of team-building moment , um , I , I'd like us to , um , try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , why that , why that should be your favourite animal . So , um , I , I'm assuming that we should do that now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Gosh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , what's my favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do come up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first . {vocalsound} Oh , +Project Manager: This is a team-building time +Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: where , um , {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay cool , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My favourite animal , which changes all the time , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right now it is an elk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: An elk ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: alright , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . Looks kinda like , like it has holly growing out of its head . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You do . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: We have moose too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have sheep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep . Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: cows . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a great elk . +Marketing: Uh-oh , we have a good artist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That is really good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , very shapely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Brilliant . +Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk , and it , it is my favourite animal right now , 'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um , that um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward , because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain , and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous , because it has um strong antlers , and uh it can really combat its enemies , even like it it's a it's an herbivore but , uh , it can really defend itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I'm gonna take minutes while , um , you guys express your favourite animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll go next . I am a big animal lover . like all sorts of animals , but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat , in memory of my poor cat that died recently . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing , but never mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent , and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing . Um , but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable , 'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well , and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and , um , running around outside as well as being inside , and enjoying their food , and generally just , they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of , they got it sorted . They know what they want . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically , that's why I like cats . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out . There you go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think my favourite animal would be a dog , but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: I , I've never drawn a dog , I don't think . I'm tempted to draw a snail 'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Project Manager: I forget her name . +User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog , 'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog . +Marketing: Tara +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or Tara . +Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs , so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh , oh well . {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog . That {disfmarker} This , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that does not look like a dog . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog ? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god . Right . Yous know what it's supposed to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog . {vocalsound} . Um , I like dogs because , um , they're so good to humans , like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs , and they're just such friendly animals . And , like they're more of a companion than cats . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats . Cats don't really like me , so I can't like them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty . I feel like a robot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well I guess I had the most time to think about it . I'm going to draw a butterfly , because I saw a butterfly yesterday , that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving . And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild , and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland . It was like , well it was a little pointier than that . At first I thought it was a dead leaf . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me . But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this . And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green , I think it was a green ring , and there was like red going out like this . +Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it kinda was actually , 'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull , and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever , and I'm like , wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool . And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes . I wish I'd had my camera . So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , what do we {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that ? +Marketing: Yes I do . {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , now that we know how to use the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um , the next , um , thing we need to address is our financial department , to meet our our budget , um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more , um , like what kind of , uh , selling range we'll be looking at , um , wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros . And so we have to , um , come up with a way to , to create a , a uh remote control , where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less . Um , we'd like to , um to , uh , make fifty million Euro . I'm assuming that's what the M_ means . Um , and make it for an international market . Um , one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of , um , like different kinds of , uh , V_C_R_s . Things like that , depending on which country you are . Another thing for the design team to think about . Um , we want it to cost , uh , absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Marketing: Okay , so we'll have a hundred percent profit then ? Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I'm bad at math . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so now that , um , that is underway , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it is discussion time . So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas , any um suggestions that you may have so far , a um your personal experiences with remote controls , and um , um , areas you see that , uh , could be improved in your experience with them . Does anyone have any initial thoughts ? +Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So what's something we could , uh , do to remedy that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's always , where is the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , some kind of alarm . You can press a button on your wall , {gap} signal , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a great idea . It's a great idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it always gets lost . +User Interface: Do yous not find that , um , {vocalsound} like , there's a lot of , um , buttons on your remote control , and you don't know what half of them do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that you don't use half of them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know what they do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel , so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is . Yeah . +Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons , power button , T_V_ video button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Anything about , um , the look of the , uh , remote control that you might have ideas about . Maybe it could be , instead of like a standard rectangular shape , it could be , um , something more interesting like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you know . Be like a shell-shaped remote . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here . Like , I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original , um , aspect we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , you're the designers , you c , you can um decide what kind of , um , direction you wanna go in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but at this point in the , in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose , if we're he heading to have it , like make a huge profit out of this , it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing . Like , a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than , like , a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring , 'cause that wouldn't sell either . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , hmm . +Project Manager: And the key issue here is , is being trendy and original . Um , that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Okay we have five minutes left . So , just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing . Um , like you can go over your ideas , of course , in your own personal times . Um , our next meeting will be in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have half an hour to , uh , think about what you want to present . Or not present but bring to the meeting . Um , I_D_ , whatever that stands for . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Interface ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: That's me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , industrial . +Project Manager: I have to remember these things . Um . You'll be beginning your , your working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , U_I_D_ the technical functions design will , will be worked on the next thirty minutes . Um , {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved , and , um , we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , you will get specific instructions , um , of what to do in the next half an hour . And I'll see you in half an hour , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {gap} +","During a project kickoff meeting, the project manager, Heather, and team members struggled with technical issues and ultimately decided to proceed without a slideshow. The team, consisting of Heather (Project Manager), Poppy (Industrial Designer), Tara (User Interface Designer), and Genevieve (Marketing Expert), introduced themselves and outlined their roles and responsibilities for designing a new, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control. + +They brainstormed initial ideas, such as making the remote easier to find, reducing button clutter, and possibly incorporating innovative design elements like a hidden panel for less-used buttons. The team discussed creating a remote with a maximum production cost of €12.50 to target a retail price of €25, aiming for a €50 million revenue. They also considered the importance of an international design that accommodates various VCR systems. The team participated in a team-building exercise using a whiteboard to share their favorite animals and characteristics. + +After the introductions and discussions, the next steps were set: the Industrial Designer would begin working on the design, the User Interface Designer on technical functions, and the Marketing Expert on user requirements. The team agreed to reconvene in half an hour to continue the project planning." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: OK . So uh , he 's not here , +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so you get to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I will try to explain the thing that I did this {disfmarker} this week {disfmarker} during this week . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well eh you know that I work {disfmarker} I begin to work with a new feature to detect voice - unvoice . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: What I trying two MLP to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} with this new feature and the fifteen feature uh from the eh bus base system +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the mel cepstrum ? +PhD D: No , satly the mes the Mel Cepstrum , the new base system {disfmarker} the new base system . +PhD E: Oh the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , the Aurora system . +PhD D: yeah the Aurora system with the new filter , VAD or something like that . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: And I 'm trying two MLP , one one that only have t three output , voice , unvoice , and silence , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and other one that have fifty - six output . The probabilities of the allophone . And I tried to do some experiment of recognition with that and only have result with {disfmarker} with the MLP with the three output . And I put together the fifteen features and the three MLP output . And , well , the result are li a little bit better , but more or less similar . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm slightly confused . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what feeds the uh {disfmarker} the three - output net ? +PhD D: Voice , unvoice , and si +Professor C: No no , what feeds it ? What features does it see ? +PhD D: The feature {disfmarker} the input ? The inputs are the fifteen {disfmarker} the fifteen uh bases feature . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the {disfmarker} with the new code . And the other three features are R , the variance of the difference between the two spectrum , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the variance of the auto - correlation function , except the {disfmarker} the first point , because half the height value is R - zero +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and also R - zero , the first coefficient of the auto - correlation function . That is like the energy with these three feature , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: also these three feature . +Professor C: You wouldn't do like R - one over R - zero or something like that ? I mean usually for voiced - unvoiced you 'd do {disfmarker} yeah , you 'd do something {disfmarker} you 'd do energy +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: but then you have something like spectral slope , which is you get like R - one ov over R - zero or something like that . +PhD D: Uh yeah . +PhD E: What are the R 's ? +Professor C: R correlations . +PhD E: I 'm sorry I missed it . +PhD D: No , R c No . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD D: Auto - correlation ? Yes , yes , the variance of the auto - correlation function that uses that +Professor C: Ye - Well that 's the variance , but if you just say "" what is {disfmarker} "" I mean , to first order , um yeah one of the differences between voiced , unvoiced and silence is energy . Another one is {disfmarker} but the other one is the spectral shape . +PhD D: Yeah , I I 'll {disfmarker} The spectral shape , +Professor C: Yeah , and so R - one over R - zero is what you typically use for that . +PhD D: yeah . No , I don't use that {disfmarker} I can't use {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I 'm saying that 's what people us typically use . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: See , because it {disfmarker} because this is {disfmarker} this is just like a single number to tell you um "" does the spectrum look like that or does it look like that "" . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . R {disfmarker} R {disfmarker} R - zero . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's um {disfmarker} if it 's low energy uh but the {disfmarker} but the spectrum looks like that or like that , it 's probably silence . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh but if it 's low energy and the spectrum looks like that , it 's probably unvoiced . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So if you just {disfmarker} if you just had to pick two features to determine voiced - unvoiced , you 'd pick something about the spectrum like uh R - one over R - zero , um and R - zero +PhD D: Mm - hmm , OK . +Professor C: or i i you know you 'd have some other energy measure and like in the old days people did like uh zero crossing counts . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Right . S S +PhD D: Well , I can also th use this . +Professor C: Yeah . Um , +PhD D: Bec - because the result are a little bit better but we have in a point that everything is more or less the similar {disfmarker} more or less similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But um +PhD D: It 's not quite better . +Professor C: Right , but it seemed to me that what you were what you were getting at before was that there is something about the difference between the original signal or the original FFT and with the filter which is what {disfmarker} and the variance was one take uh on it . +PhD D: Yeah , I used this too . +Professor C: Right . But it {disfmarker} it could be something else . Suppose you didn't have anything like that . Then in that case , if you have two nets , Alright , and this one has three outputs , and this one has f +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: whatever , fifty - six , or something , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you were to sum up the probabilities for the voiced and for the unvoiced and for the silence here , we 've found in the past you 'll do better at voiced - unvoiced - silence than you do with this one . So just having the three output thing doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't really buy you anything . The issue is what you feed it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , I have {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: So uh +PhD D: No {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you 're saying take the features that go into the voiced - unvoiced - silence net and feed those into the other one , as additional inputs , rather than having a separate {disfmarker} +Professor C: w W well that 's another way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: That wasn't what I was saying but yeah that 's certainly another thing to do . No I was just trying to say if you b if you bring this into the picture over this , what more does it buy you ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor C: And what I was saying is that the only thing I think that it buys you is um based on whether you feed it something different . And something different in some fundamental way . And so the kind of thing that {disfmarker} that she was talking about before , was looking at something uh ab um {disfmarker} something uh about the difference between the {disfmarker} the uh um log FFT uh log power uh and the log magnitude uh F F - spectrum uh and the um uh filter bank . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And so the filter bank is chosen in fact to sort of integrate out the effects of pitch and she 's saying you know trying {disfmarker} So the particular measure that she chose was the variance of this m of this difference , but that might not be the right number . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Maybe . +Professor C: Right ? I mean maybe there 's something about the variance that 's {disfmarker} that 's not enough or maybe there 's something else that {disfmarker} that one could use , but I think that , for me , the thing that {disfmarker} that struck me was that uh you wanna get something back here , so here 's {disfmarker} here 's an idea . uh What about it you skip all the {disfmarker} all the really clever things , and just fed the log magnitude spectrum into this ? +PhD D: Ah {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +Professor C: This is f You have the log magnitude spectrum , and you were looking at that and the difference between the filter bank and {disfmarker} and c c computing the variance . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's a clever thing to do . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What if you stopped being clever ? And you just took this thing in here because it 's a neural net and neural nets are wonderful +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and figure out what they can {disfmarker} what they most need from things , and I mean that 's what they 're good at . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're trying to be clever and say what 's the statistic that should {disfmarker} we should get about this difference but uh in fact , you know maybe just feeding this in or {disfmarker} or feeding both of them in +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: you know , another way , saying let it figure out what 's the {disfmarker} what is the interaction , especially if you do this over multiple frames ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Then you have this over time , and {disfmarker} and both kinds of measures and uh you might get uh something better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} so don't uh {disfmarker} don't do the division , but let the net have everything . +Professor C: That 's another thing you could do yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . I mean , it seems to me , if you have exactly the right thing then it 's better to do it without the net because otherwise you 're asking the net to learn this {disfmarker} you know , say if you wanted to learn how to do multiplication . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean you could feed it a bunch of s you could feed two numbers that you wanted to multiply into a net and have a bunch of nonlinearities in the middle and train it to get the product of the output and it would work . But , it 's kind of crazy , cuz we know how to multiply and you {disfmarker} you 'd be you know much lower error usually {vocalsound} if you just multiplied it out . But suppose you don't really know what the right thing is . And that 's what these sort of dumb machine learning methods are good at . So . Um . Anyway . It 's just a thought . +PhD E: How long does it take , Carmen , to train up one of these nets ? +PhD D: Oh , not too much . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , one day or less . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's probably worth it . +Grad A: What are {disfmarker} what are your f uh frame error rates for {disfmarker} for this ? +PhD D: Eh fifty - f six uh no , the frame error rate ? +Grad A: O +PhD D: Fifty - six I think . +Professor C: Is that {disfmarker} maybe that 's accuracy ? +PhD D: Percent . +Grad A: Fif - fifty - six percent accurate for v voice - unvoice +PhD D: The accuracy . Mm - hmm . No for , yes f I don't remember for voice - unvoice , +Grad A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: maybe for the other one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , voiced - unvoiced hopefully would be a lot better . +PhD D: for voiced . I don't reme +Grad A: Should be in nineties somewhere . +PhD D: Better . Maybe for voice - unvoice . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: This is for the other one . I should {disfmarker} I can't show that . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: But I think that fifty - five was for the {disfmarker} when the output are the fifty - six phone . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: That I look in the {disfmarker} with the other {disfmarker} nnn the other MLP that we have are more or less the same number . Silence will be better but more or less the same . +Professor C: I think at the frame level for fifty - six that was the kind of number we were getting for {disfmarker} for uh um reduced band width uh stuff . +PhD D: I think that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that for the other one , for the three output , is sixty sixty - two , sixty three more or less . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's all ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: That 's pretty bad . +PhD D: Yeah , because it 's noise also . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor C: Aha ! +PhD D: And we have +Professor C: Aha ! Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD D: I know . +Professor C: But even i in {disfmarker} Oh yeah , in training . Still , Uh . Well actually , so this is a test that you should do then . Um , if you 're getting fifty - six percent over here , uh that 's in noise also , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Oh OK . If you 're getting fifty - six here , try adding together the probabilities of all of the voiced phones here and all of the unvoiced phones +PhD D: will be {disfmarker} +Professor C: and see what you get then . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: I bet you get better than sixty - three . +PhD D: Well I don't know , but {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} I have the result more or less . Maybe . I don't know . I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure but I remember @ @ that I can't show that . +Professor C: OK , but that 's a {disfmarker} That is a {disfmarker} a good check point , you should do that anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK ? Given this {disfmarker} this uh regular old net that 's just for choosing for other purposes , uh add up the probabilities of the different subclasses and see {disfmarker} see how well you do . Uh and that {disfmarker} you know anything that you do over here should be at least as good as that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: I will do that . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: The targets for the neural net , uh , they come from forced alignments ? +PhD D: Uh , {comment} no . +Grad A: TIMIT canonical ma mappings . +PhD D: TIMIT . +Professor C: Oh . So , this is trained on TIMIT . +PhD E: Ah ! OK . +Grad A: Yeah , noisy TIMIT . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah this for TIMIT . +Professor C: But noisy TIMIT ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Noisy TIMIT . We have noisy TIMIT with the noise of the {disfmarker} the TI - digits . And now we have another noisy TIMIT also with the noise of uh Italian database . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . Well there 's gonna be {disfmarker} it looks like there 's gonna be a noisy uh {disfmarker} some large vocabulary noisy stuff too . Somebody 's preparing . +PhD E: Really ? +Professor C: Yeah . I forget what it 'll be , resource management , Wall Street Journal , something . Some {disfmarker} some read task actually , that they 're {disfmarker} preparing . +Grad A: Hmm ! +PhD E: For what {disfmarker} For Aurora ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor C: Yeah , so the uh {disfmarker} Uh , the issue is whether people make a decision now based on what they 've already seen , or they make it later . And one of the arguments for making it later is let 's make sure that whatever techniques that we 're using work for something more than {disfmarker} than connected digits . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: When are they planning {disfmarker} When would they do that ? +Professor C: Mmm , I think late {disfmarker} uh I think in the summer sometime . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . OK , thanks . +PhD D: This is the work that I did during this date +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and also mmm I {disfmarker} H Hynek last week say that if I have time I can to begin to {disfmarker} to study well seriously the France Telecom proposal +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to look at the code and something like that to know exactly what they are doing because maybe that we can have some ideas +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but not only to read the proposal . Look insi look i carefully what they are doing with the program @ @ and I begin to {disfmarker} to work also in that . But the first thing that I don't understand is that they are using R - the uh log energy that this quite {disfmarker} I don't know why they have some constant in the expression of the lower energy . I don't know what that means . +PhD E: They have a constant in there , you said ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , at the front it says uh "" log energy is equal to the rounded version of sixteen over the log of two "" +PhD D: This {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . uh times the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Then maybe I can understand . +Professor C: Well , this is natural log , and maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have no idea . +PhD E: Is that some kind of base conversion , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} but um , then there 's the sixty - four , Uh , {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD D: Because maybe they 're {disfmarker} the threshold that they are using on the basis of this value {disfmarker} +PhD E: Experimental results . +Grad A: Mc - McDonald 's constant . +PhD D: I don't know exactly , because well th I thought maybe they have a meaning . But I don't know what is the meaning of take exactly this value . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's pretty funny looking . +PhD E: So they 're taking the number inside the log and raising it to sixteen over log base two . +Professor C: I don't know . Yeah , I {disfmarker} um Right . Sixteen over {comment} two . +PhD E: Does it have to do with those sixty - fours , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Um . If we ignore the sixteen , the natural log of t one over the natural log of two times the natu I don't know . Well , maybe somebody 'll think of something , +PhD E: +Professor C: but this is uh {disfmarker} It may just be that they {disfmarker} they want to have {disfmarker} for very small energies , they want to have some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , the e The effect I don't {disfmarker} @ @ I can understand the effect of this , no ? because it 's to {disfmarker} to do something like that . +Professor C: Well , it says , since you 're taking a natural log , it says that when {disfmarker} when you get down to essentially zero energy , this is gonna be the natural log of one , which is zero . +PhD D: No ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So it 'll go down to uh to {nonvocalsound} the natural log being {disfmarker} So the lowest value for this would be zero . So y you 're restricted to being positive . And this sort of smooths it for very small energies . Uh , why they chose sixty - four and something else , that was probably just experimental . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the constant in front of it , I have no idea . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: um +PhD D: Well . I {disfmarker} I will look to try if I move this parameter in their code what happens , maybe everything is {disfmarker} Maybe they tres hole are on basis of this . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} they probably have some fi particular s fixed point arithmetic that they 're using , +PhD D: I don't know . +Professor C: and then it just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I was just gonna say maybe it has something to do with hardware , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: something they were doing . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean that {disfmarker} they 're s probably working with fixed point or integer or something . I think you 're supposed to on this stuff anyway , and {disfmarker} and so maybe that puts it in the right realm somewhere . +PhD E: Well it just , yeah , puts it in the right range , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . I think , given at the level you 're doing things in floating point on the computer , I don't think it matters , would be my guess , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} this more or less anything +Professor C: Yeah . OK , and wh when did Stephane take off ? He took off {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think that Stephane will arrive today or tomorrow . +Professor C: Oh , he was gone these first few days , and then he 's here for a couple days before he goes to Salt Lake City . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: He 's {disfmarker} I think that he is in Las Vegas or something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to ICASSP which is good . I {disfmarker} I don't know if there are many people who are going to ICASSP +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: so {disfmarker} so I thought , make sure somebody go . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} Have people sort of stopped going to ICASSP in recent years ? +Professor C: Um , people are less consistent about going to ICASSP and I think it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still a reasonable forum for students to {disfmarker} to present things . Uh , it 's {disfmarker} I think for engineering students of any kind , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's if you haven't been there much , it 's good to go to , uh to get a feel for things , a range of things , not just speech . Uh . But I think for {disfmarker} for sort of dyed - in - the - wool speech people , um I think that ICSLP and Eurospeech are much more targeted . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh . And then there 's these other meetings , like HLT and {disfmarker} and uh ASRU {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor C: so there 's {disfmarker} there 's actually plenty of meetings that are really relevant to {disfmarker} to uh computational uh speech processing of one sort or another . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . So . I mean , I mostly just ignored it because I was too busy and {vocalsound} didn't get to it . So uh Wanna talk a little bit about what we were talking about this morning ? +Grad A: Oh ! um {pause} uh {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: Just briefly , or {pause} Or anything else ? +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I guess some of the progress , I {disfmarker} I 've been getting a {disfmarker} getting my committee members for the quals . And um so far I have Morgan and Hynek , {vocalsound} Mike Jordan , and I asked John Ohala and he agreed . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Cool . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I just need to ask um Malek . One more . Um . Tsk . Then uh I talked a little bit about {vocalsound} um continuing with these dynamic ev um acoustic events , and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {vocalsound} thinking about a way to test the completeness of a {disfmarker} a set of um dynamic uh events . Uh , completeness in the {disfmarker} in the sense that {vocalsound} um if we {disfmarker} if we pick these X number of acoustic events , {vocalsound} do they provide sufficient coverage {vocalsound} for the phones that we 're trying to recognize {vocalsound} or {disfmarker} or the f the words that we 're gonna try to recognize later on . And so Morgan and I were uh discussing {vocalsound} um s uh s a form of a cheating experiment {vocalsound} where we get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um we have uh {vocalsound} um a chosen set of features , or acoustic events , and we train up a hybrid {vocalsound} um system to do phone recognition on TIMIT . So i i the idea is if we get good phone recognition results , {vocalsound} using um these set of acoustic events , {vocalsound} then {vocalsound} um that {disfmarker} that says that these acoustic events are g sufficient to cover {vocalsound} a set of phones , at least found in TIMIT . Um so i it would be a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a measure of "" are we on the right track with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the choices of our acoustic events "" . Um , {vocalsound} So that 's going on . And {vocalsound} also , just uh working on my {vocalsound} uh final project for Jordan 's class , uh which is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , let me {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Hold that thought . +Grad A: OK , sure . +Professor C: Let me back up while we 're still on it . The {disfmarker} the other thing I was suggesting , though , is that given that you 're talking about binary features , uh , maybe the first thing to do is just to count and uh count co - occurrences and get probabilities for a discrete HMM cuz that 'd be pretty simple because it 's just {disfmarker} Say , if you had ten {disfmarker} ten events , uh that you were counting , uh each frame would only have a thousand possible values for these ten bits , and uh so you could make a table that would {disfmarker} say , if you had thirty - nine phone categories , that would be a thousand by thirty - nine , and just count the co - occurrences and divide them by the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} uh uh occ uh count the co - occurrences between the event and the phone and divide them by the number of occurrences of the phone , and that would give you the likelihood of the {disfmarker} of the event given the phone . And um then just use that in a very simple HMM and uh you could uh do phone recognition then and uh wouldn't have any of the issues of the uh training of the net or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be on the simple side , but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh um you know , if {disfmarker} uh uh the example I was giving was that if {disfmarker} if you had um onset of voicing and {disfmarker} and end of voicing as being two kinds of events , then if you had those a all marked correctly , and you counted co - occurrences , you should get it completely right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . um {disfmarker} But you 'd get all the other distinctions , you know , randomly wrong . I mean there 'd be nothing to tell you that . So um {vocalsound} uh If you just do this by counting , then you should be able to find out in a pretty straightforward way whether you have a sufficient uh set of events to {disfmarker} to do the kind of level of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of uh classification of phones that you 'd like . So that was {disfmarker} that was the idea . And then the other thing that we were discussing was {disfmarker} was um {vocalsound} OK , how do you get the {disfmarker} your training data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz uh the {vocalsound} Switchboard transcription project uh uh you know was half a dozen people , or so working off and on over a couple years , and uh similar {disfmarker} {vocalsound} similar amount of data {vocalsound} to what you 're talking about with TIMIT training . So , it seems to me that the only reasonable starting point is uh to automatically translate the uh current TIMIT markings into the markings you want . And uh {vocalsound} it won't have the kind of characteristic that you 'd like , of catching funny kind of things that maybe aren't there from these automatic markings , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's probably a good place to start . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah and a short {disfmarker} short amount of time , just to {disfmarker} again , just to see if that information is sufficient to uh determine the phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Yeah , you could even then {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get an idea about how different it is , you could maybe take some subset and you know , go through a few sentences , mark them by hand and then see how different it is from you know , the canonical ones , +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: just to get an idea {disfmarker} a rough idea of h if it really even makes a difference . +Professor C: You can get a little feeling for it that way , yeah that is probably right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean uh my {disfmarker} my guess would be that this is {disfmarker} since TIMIT 's read speech that this would be less of a big deal , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you went and looked at spontaneous speech it 'd be more {disfmarker} more of one . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: And the other thing would be , say , if you had these ten events , you 'd wanna see , well what if you took two events or four events or ten events or t and you know , and {disfmarker} and hopefully there should be some point at which {vocalsound} having more information doesn't tell you really all that much more about what the phones are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . You could define other events as being sequences of these events too . +Professor C: Uh , you could , but the thing is , what he 's talking about here is a uh {disfmarker} a translation to a per - frame feature vector , so there 's no sequence in that , I think . I think it 's just a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Unless you did like a second pass over it or something after you 've got your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 're just talking about something simple here , yeah , to see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . I 'm adding complexity . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} You know . The idea is with a {disfmarker} with a very simple statistical structure , could you {disfmarker} could you uh at least verify that you 've chosen features that {vocalsound} are sufficient . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , and you were saying something {disfmarker} starting to say something else about your {disfmarker} your class project , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Oh . Yeah th Um . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So for my class project I 'm {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm tinkering with uh support vector machines ? something that we learned in class , and uh um basically just another method for doing classification . And so I 'm gonna apply that to {vocalsound} um compare it with the results by um King and Taylor who did {vocalsound} um these um using recurrent neural nets , they recognized {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} a set of phonological features um and made a mapping from the MFCC 's to these phonological features , so I 'm gonna {vocalsound} do a similar thing with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with support vector machines and see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what 's the advantage of support vector machines ? What {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . So , support vector machines are {disfmarker} are good with dealing with a less amount of data +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: and um so if you {disfmarker} if you give it less data it still does a reasonable job {vocalsound} in learning the {disfmarker} the patterns . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Um and {vocalsound} um +Professor C: I guess it {disfmarker} yeah , they 're sort of succinct , and {disfmarker} and they {vocalsound} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Does there some kind of a distance metric that they use or how do they {disfmarker} for cla what do they do for classification ? +Grad A: Um . Right . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the simple idea behind a support vector machine is {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} you have this feature space , right ? and then it finds the optimal separating plane , um between these two different um classes , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} and so {vocalsound} um , what it {disfmarker} i at the end of the day , what it actually does is {vocalsound} it picks {vocalsound} those examples of the features that are closest to the separating boundary , and remembers those +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uses them to recreate the boundary for the test set . So , given these {vocalsound} um these features , or {disfmarker} or these {disfmarker} these examples , {pause} um , {pause} critical examples , {vocalsound} which they call support f support vectors , {vocalsound} then um {vocalsound} given a new example , {vocalsound} if the new example falls {vocalsound} um away from the boundary in one direction then it 's classified as being a part of this particular class +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: and otherwise it 's the other class . +PhD E: So why save the examples ? Why not just save what the boundary itself is ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um . Hmm . Let 's see . Uh . Yeah , that 's a good question . I {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: That 's another way of doing it . Right ? So {disfmarker} so it {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . Sort of an equivalent . +Professor C: You know , it {disfmarker} it goes back to nearest - neighbor {vocalsound} sort of thing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? Um , i i if {disfmarker} is it eh w When is nearest - neighbor good ? Well , nearest - neighbor good {disfmarker} is good if you have lots and lots of examples . Um but of course if you have lots and lots of examples , then it can take a while to {disfmarker} to use nearest - neighbor . There 's lots of look ups . So a long time ago people talked about things where you would have uh a condensed nearest - neighbor , where you would {disfmarker} you would {disfmarker} you would pick out uh some representative examples which would uh be sufficient to represent {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to correctly classify everything that came in . +PhD E: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think s I think support vector stuff sort of goes back to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to that kind of thing . Um . +PhD E: I see . So rather than doing nearest neighbor where you compare to every single one , you just pick a few critical ones , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: And th the You know , um neural net approach uh or Gaussian mixtures for that matter are sort of {disfmarker} fairly brute force kinds of things , where you sort of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you predefine that there is this big bunch of parameters and then you {disfmarker} you place them as you best can to define the boundaries , and in fact , as you know , {vocalsound} these things do take a lot of parameters and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} if you have uh only a modest amount of data , you have trouble {vocalsound} uh learning them . Um , so I {disfmarker} I guess the idea to this is that it {disfmarker} it is reputed to uh be somewhat better in that regard . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . I it can be a {disfmarker} a reduced um {vocalsound} parameterization of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the model by just keeping {vocalsound} certain selected examples . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . +Professor C: But I don't know if people have done sort of careful comparisons of this on large tasks or anything . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they have . I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah , I don't know either . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: S do you get some kind of number between zero and one at the output ? +Grad A: Actually you don't get a {disfmarker} you don't get a nice number between zero and one . You get {disfmarker} you get either a zero or a one . Um , uh there are {disfmarker} there are pap Well , basically , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you get a distance measure at the end of the day , and then that distance measure is {disfmarker} is um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is translated to a zero or one . Um . +Professor C: But that 's looking at it for {disfmarker} for classification {disfmarker} for binary classification , +Grad A: That 's for classification , right . +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: And you get that for each class , you get a zero or a one . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: But you have the distances to work with . +Grad A: You have the distances to work with , +Professor C: Cuz actually Mississippi State people did use support vector machines for uh uh speech recognition and they were using it to estimate probabilities . +Grad A: yeah . Yeah . Yeah , they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had a {disfmarker} had a way to translate the distances into {disfmarker} into probabilities with the {disfmarker} with the simple {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} uh sigmoidal function . +Professor C: Yeah , and d did they use sigmoid or a softmax type thing ? +Grad A: Um {pause} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Professor C: And didn't they like exponentiate or something +Grad A: there 's some {disfmarker} there 's like one over one plus the exponential or something like that . +Professor C: and then {vocalsound} divide by the sum of them , or {disfmarker} ? Oh it {disfmarker} i Oh , so it is a sigmoidal . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Alright . +PhD E: Did the {disfmarker} did they get good results with that ? +Professor C: I mean , they 're OK , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they were earth {disfmarker} earth shattering , but I think that {vocalsound} uh this was a couple years ago , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: I remember them doing it at some meeting , and {disfmarker} and um I don't think people were very critical because it was interesting just to {disfmarker} to try this and you know , it was the first time they tried it , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the {disfmarker} you know , the numbers were not incredibly good +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: but there 's you know , it was th reasonable . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't remember anymore . I don't even remember what the task was , it {comment} was Broadcast News , or {vocalsound} something . I don't know . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Uh s So Barry , if you just have zero and ones , how are you doing the speech recognition ? +Grad A: Oh I 'm not do I 'm not planning on doing speech recognition with it . I 'm just doing {vocalsound} detection of phonological features . +Grad B: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So uh for example , {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} this uh feature set called the uh sound patterns of English {vocalsound} um is just a bunch of {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} binary valued features . Let 's say , is this voicing , or is this not voicing , is this {vocalsound} sonorants , not sonorants , and {vocalsound} stuff like that . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Did you find any more mistakes in their tables ? +Grad A: Oh ! Uh I haven't gone through the entire table , {pause} yet . Yeah , yesterday I brought Chuck {vocalsound} the table and I was like , "" wait , this {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is the mapping from N to {disfmarker} to this phonological feature called um "" coronal "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} should it be {disfmarker} shouldn't it be a one ? or should it {disfmarker} should it be you know coronal instead of not coronal as it was labelled in the paper ? "" So I ha haven't hunted down all the {disfmarker} all the mistakes yet , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: But a as I was saying , people do get probabilities from these things , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh we were just trying to remember how they do , but people have used it for speech recognition , and they have gotten probabilities . So they have some conversion from these distances to probabilities . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Right , yeah . +Professor C: There 's {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} you have the paper , right ? The Mississippi State paper ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , if you 're interested y you could look , +Grad B: And {disfmarker} OK . OK . +Grad A: Yeah , I can {disfmarker} I can show you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: yeah . +Grad A: yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD E: So in your {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the thing that you 're doing , uh you have a vector of ones and zeros for each phone ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh , is this the class project , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . um +PhD E: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , {comment} Right , right f so for every phone there is {disfmarker} there is a um {disfmarker} a vector of ones and zeros {vocalsound} f uh corresponding to whether it exhibits a particular phonological feature or not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And so when you do your wh I 'm {disfmarker} what is the task for the class project ? To come up with the phones ? +Grad A: Um +PhD E: or to come up with these vectors to see how closely they match the phones , +Grad A: Oh . Right , um to come up with a mapping from um MFCC 's or s some feature set , {vocalsound} um to {vocalsound} uh w to whether there 's existence of a particular phonological feature . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um yeah , basically it 's to learn a mapping {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} {vocalsound} from the MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features . Is it {disfmarker} did that answer your question ? +PhD E: I think so . +Grad A: OK . C +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you {disfmarker} what you 're {disfmarker} what you get out of your system . Do you get out a uh {disfmarker} a vector of these ones and zeros and then try to find the closest matching phoneme to that vector , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: No , no . I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not planning to do any {disfmarker} any phoneme mapping yet . Just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's basically {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really simple , basically a detection {vocalsound} of phonological features . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , +PhD E: I see . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} cuz the uh {disfmarker} So King and {disfmarker} and Taylor {vocalsound} um did this with uh recurrent neural nets , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: and this i their {disfmarker} their idea was to first find {vocalsound} a mapping from MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then later on , once you have these {vocalsound} phonological features , {vocalsound} then uh map that to phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of reproducing phase one of their stuff . +PhD E: Mmm . So they had one recurrent net for each particular feature ? +Grad A: Right . Right . Right . Right . +PhD E: I see . I wo did they compare that {disfmarker} I mean , what if you just did phone recognition and did the reverse lookup . +Grad A: Uh . +PhD E: So you recognize a phone and which ever phone was recognized , you spit out it 's vector of ones and zeros . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor C: I expect you could do that . +PhD E: I mean uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's probably not what he 's going to do on his class project . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So um have you had a chance to do this um thing we talked about yet with the uh {disfmarker} um +PhD E: Insertion penalty ? +Professor C: Uh . No actually I was going a different {disfmarker} That 's a good question , too , but I was gonna ask about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} changes to the data in comparing PLP and mel cepstrum for the SRI system . +PhD E: Uh . Well what I 've been {disfmarker} "" Changes to the data "" , I 'm not sure I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So we talked on the phone about this , that {disfmarker} that there was still a difference of a {disfmarker} of a few percent +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} you told me that there was a difference in how the normalization was done . And I was asking if you were going to do {disfmarker} {vocalsound} redo it uh for PLP with the normalization done as it had been done for the mel cepstrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh right , no I haven't had a chance to do that . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: What I 've been doing is {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} trying to figure out {disfmarker} it just seems to me like there 's a um {disfmarker} well it seems like there 's a bug , because the difference in performance is {disfmarker} it 's not gigantic but it 's big enough that it {disfmarker} it seems wrong . +Professor C: Yeah , I agree , but I thought that the normalization difference was one of the possibilities , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , but I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess I don't think that the normalization difference is gonna account for everything . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: So what I was working on is um just going through and checking the headers of the wavefiles , to see if maybe there was a um {disfmarker} a certain type of compression or something that was done that my script wasn't catching . So that for some subset of the training data , uh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features I was computing were junk . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Which would you know cause it to perform OK , but uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the models would be all messed up . So I was going through and just double - checking that kind of think first , to see if there was just some kind of obvious bug in the way that I was computing the features . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . I see . OK . +PhD E: Looking at all the sampling rates to make sure all the sampling rates were what {disfmarker} eight K , what I was assuming they were , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , that makes sense , to check all that . +PhD E: Yeah . So I was doing that first , before I did these other things , just to make sure there wasn't something {disfmarker} +Professor C: Although really , uh uh , a couple three percent uh difference in word error rate uh {comment} could easily come from some difference in normalization , I would think . But +PhD E: Yeah , and I think , hhh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm trying to remember but I think I recall that Andreas was saying that he was gonna run sort of the reverse experiment . Uh which is to try to emulate the normalization that we did but with the mel cepstral features . Sort of , you know , back up from the system that he had . I thought he said he was gonna {disfmarker} I have to look back through my {disfmarker} my email from him . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's probably off at {disfmarker} at uh his meeting now , +PhD E: Yeah , he 's gone now . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor C: Yeah . But yeah +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: the {disfmarker} I sh think they should be {vocalsound} roughly equivalent , um I mean again the Cambridge folk found the PLP actually to be a little better . Uh So it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: I mean the other thing I wonder about was whether there was something just in the {disfmarker} the bootstrapping of their system which was based on {disfmarker} but maybe not , since they {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah see one thing that 's a little bit um {disfmarker} I was looking {disfmarker} I 've been studying and going through the logs for the system that um Andreas created . And um his uh {disfmarker} the way that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} S R I system looks like it works is that it reads the wavefiles directly , uh and does all of the cepstral computation stuff on the fly . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD E: And , so there 's no place where these {disfmarker} where the cepstral files are stored , anywhere that I can go look at and compare to the PLP ones , so whereas with our features , he 's actually storing the cepstrum on disk , and he reads those in . +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: But it looked like he had to give it {disfmarker} uh even though the cepstrum is already computed , he has to give it uh a front - end parameter file . Which talks about the kind of uh com computation that his mel cepstrum thing does , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: so i I {disfmarker} I don't know if that {disfmarker} it probably doesn't mess it up , it probably just ignores it if it determines that it 's already in the right format or something but {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two processes that happen are a little different . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: So anyway , there 's stuff there to sort out . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , OK . Let 's go back to what you thought I was asking you . +PhD E: Yeah no and I didn't have a chance to do that . +Professor C: Ha ! Oh ! You had the sa same answer anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I 've been um , {disfmarker} I 've been working with um Jeremy on his project and then I 've been trying to track down this bug in uh the ICSI front - end features . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: So one thing that I did notice , yesterday I was studying the um {disfmarker} the uh RASTA code +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and it looks like we don't have any way to um control the frequency range that we use in our analysis . We basically {disfmarker} it looks to me like we do the FFT , um and then we just take all the bins and we use everything . We don't have any set of parameters where we can say you know , "" only process from you know a hundred and ten hertz to thirty - seven - fifty "" . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: At least I couldn't see any kind of control for that . +Professor C: Yeah , I don't think it 's in there , I think it 's in the uh uh uh the filters . So , the F F T is on everything , but the filters um , for instance , ignore the {disfmarker} the lowest bins and the highest bins . And what it does is it {disfmarker} it copies +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the filters ? Which filters ? +Professor C: um The filter bank which is created by integrating over F F T bins . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um +PhD E: When you get the mel {disfmarker} When you go to the mel scale . +Professor C: Right . Yeah , it 's bark scale , and it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} it actually copies the uh um {disfmarker} the second filters over to the first . So the first filters are always {disfmarker} and you can s you can specify a different number of {vocalsound} uh features {disfmarker} different number of filters , I think , as I recall . So you can specify a different number of filters , and whatever {vocalsound} um uh you specify , the last ones are gonna be ignored . So that {disfmarker} that 's a way that you sort of change what the {disfmarker} what the bandwidth is . Y you can't do it without I think changing the number of filters , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: I saw something about uh {disfmarker} that looked like it was doing something like that , but I didn't quite understand it . So maybe {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so the idea is that the very lowest frequencies and {disfmarker} and typically the veriest {comment} highest frequencies are kind of junk . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And so um you just {disfmarker} for continuity you just approximate them by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by the second to highest and second to lowest . It 's just a simple thing we put in . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so if you h +PhD E: But {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} but that 's a fixed uh thing ? +Professor C: Yeah , {comment} I think that 's a fixed thing . +PhD E: There 's nothing that lets you {disfmarker} +Professor C: But see {disfmarker} see my point ? If you had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you had ten filters , {vocalsound} then you would be throwing away a lot at the two ends . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And if you had {disfmarker} if you had fifty filters , you 'd be throwing away hardly anything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , I don't remember there being an independent way of saying "" we 're just gonna make them from here to here "" . +PhD E: Use this analysis bandwidth or something . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , it 's actually been awhile since I 've looked at it . +PhD E: Yeah , I went through the Feacalc code and then looked at you know just calling the RASTA libs {comment} and thing like that . And I didn't {disfmarker} I couldn't see any wh place where that kind of thing was done . But um I didn't quite understand everything that I saw , +Professor C: Yeah , see I don't know Feacalc at all . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it calls RASTA with some options , and um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I think in {disfmarker} I don't know . I guess for some particular database you might find that you could tune that and tweak that to get that a little better , but I think that {vocalsound} in general it 's not that critical . I mean there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You can {disfmarker} You can throw away stuff below a hundred hertz or so and it 's just not going to affect phonetic classification at all . +PhD E: Another thing I was thinking about was um is there a {disfmarker} I was wondering if there 's maybe um {vocalsound} certain settings of the parameters when you compute PLP which would basically cause it to output mel cepstrum . So that , in effect , what I could do is use our code but produce mel cepstrum and compare that directly to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's not precisely . Yeah . I mean , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: um , {vocalsound} um what you can do is um you can definitely change the {disfmarker} the filter bank from being uh a uh trapezoidal integration to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a triangular one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is what the typical mel {disfmarker} mel cepstral uh filter bank does . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And some people have claimed that they got some better performance doing that , so you certainly could do that easily . But the fundamental difference , I mean , there 's other small differences {disfmarker} +PhD E: There 's a cubic root that happens , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , but , you know , as opposed to the log in the other case . I mean {vocalsound} the fundamental d d difference that we 've seen any kind of difference from before , which is actually an advantage for the P L P i uh , I think , is that the {disfmarker} the smoothing at the end is auto - regressive instead of being cepstral {disfmarker} uh , {comment} from cepstral truncation . So um it 's a little more noise robust . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's why when people started getting databases that had a little more noise in it , like {disfmarker} like uh um Broadcast News and so on , that 's why c Cambridge switched to PLP I think . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So um That 's a difference that I don't {vocalsound} think we put any way to get around , since it was an advantage . um {vocalsound} uh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we did {disfmarker} eh we did hear this comment from people at some point , that {vocalsound} um it uh they got some better results with the triangular filters rather than the trapezoidal . So that is an option in RASTA . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh and you can certainly play with that . But I think you 're probably doing the right thing to look for bugs first . I don't know . +PhD E: Yeah just {disfmarker} it just seems like this kind of behavior could be caused by you know s some of the training data being messed up . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD E: You know , you 're sort of getting most of the way there , but there 's a {disfmarker} So I started going through and looking {disfmarker} One of the things that I did notice was that the um log likelihoods coming out of the log recognizer from the PLP data were much lower , much smaller , than for the mel cepstral stuff , and that the average amount of pruning that was happening was therefore a little bit higher for the PLP features . +Professor C: Oh - huh ! +PhD E: So , since he used the same exact pruning thresholds for both , I was wondering if it could be that we 're getting more pruning . +Professor C: Oh ! He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He used the identical pruning thresholds even though the s the range of p of the likeli +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh well that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's a pretty good {comment} point right there . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , +Professor C: I would think that you might wanna do something like uh you know , look at a few points to see where you are starting to get significant search errors . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Right . Well , what I was gonna do is I was gonna take um a couple of the utterances that he had run through , then run them through again but modify the pruning threshold and see if it you know , affects the score . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . But I mean you could {disfmarker} uh if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if that looks promising you could , you know , r uh run {vocalsound} the overall test set with a {disfmarker} with a few different uh pruning thresholds for both , +PhD E: So . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and presumably he 's running at some pruning threshold that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , you know {disfmarker} gets very few search errors +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: but is {disfmarker} is relatively fast +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . I mean , yeah , generally in these things you {disfmarker} you turn back pruning really far , +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: so I {disfmarker} I didn't think it would be that big a deal because I was figuring well you have it turned back so far that you know it {disfmarker} +Professor C: But you may be in the wrong range for the P L P features for some reason . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And the uh the {disfmarker} the run time of the recognizer on the PLP features is longer which sort of implies that the networks are bushier , you know , there 's more things it 's considering which goes along with the fact that the matches aren't as good . So uh , you know , it could be that we 're just pruning too much . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , maybe just be different kind of distributions and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah so that 's another possible thing . They {disfmarker} they should {disfmarker} really shouldn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's no particular reason why they would be exactly {disfmarker} behave exactly the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . Right . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: So . There 's lots of little differences . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Uh . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Trying to track it down . +Professor C: Yeah . I guess this was a little bit off topic , I guess , because I was {disfmarker} I was thinking in terms of th this as being a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a core {vocalsound} item that once we {disfmarker} once we had it going we would use for a number of the front - end things also . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um Wanna {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} as far as my stuff goes , +Professor C: What 's {disfmarker} what 's on {disfmarker} +Grad B: yeah , well I {vocalsound} tried this mean subtraction method . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Um . Due to Avendano , {vocalsound} I 'm taking s um {vocalsound} six seconds of speech , um {vocalsound} I 'm using two second {vocalsound} FFT analysis frames , {vocalsound} stepped by a half second so it 's a quarter length step and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I take that frame and four f the four {disfmarker} I take {disfmarker} Sorry , I take the current frame and the four past frames and the {vocalsound} four future frames and that adds up to six seconds of speech . And I calculate um {vocalsound} the spectral mean , {vocalsound} of the log magnitude spectrum {pause} over that N . I use that to normalize the s the current center frame {vocalsound} by mean subtraction . And I then {disfmarker} then I move to the next frame and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I do it again . Well , actually I calculate all the means first and then I do the subtraction . And um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} I tried that with HDK , the Aurora setup of HDK training on clean TI - digits , and um {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it helped um in a phony reverberation case um {vocalsound} where I just used the simulated impulse response um {vocalsound} the error rate went from something like eighty it was from something like eighteen percent {vocalsound} to um four percent . And on meeting rec recorder far mike digits , mike {disfmarker} on channel F , it went from um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} forty - one percent error to eight percent error . +PhD E: On {disfmarker} on the real data , not with artificial reverb ? +Grad B: Right . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And that {disfmarker} that was um {vocalsound} trained on clean speech only , which I 'm guessing is the reason why the baseline was so bad . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's ac actually a little side point is I think that 's the first results that we have uh uh uh of any sort on the far field uh {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the far field data uh for {disfmarker} recorded in {disfmarker} in meetings . +Grad B: Oh um actually um Adam ran the SRI recognizer . +Professor C: Did he ? On the near field , on the ne +Grad B: On the far field also . He did one PZM channel and one PDA channel . +Professor C: Oh did he ? Oh ! I didn't recall that . What kind of numbers was he getting with that ? +Grad B: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure , I think it was about five percent error for the PZM channel . +Professor C: Five . +Grad B: f I think . Yeah . +Professor C: So why were you getting forty - one here ? Is this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Um . I {disfmarker} I 'm g I 'm guessing it was the {disfmarker} the training data . Uh , clean TI - digits is , like , pretty pristine {vocalsound} training data , and if they trained {vocalsound} the SRI system on this TV broadcast type stuff , I think it 's a much wider range of channels and it {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} What am I saying here ? Yeah , so that was the SRI system . Maybe you 're right . Yeah . Cuz it was getting like one percent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It was {disfmarker} it was getting one percent or something on the near field . Wasn't it ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm , or it wa a it was around one . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . I think it was getting around one percent for the near {disfmarker} for the n for the close mike . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Huh ? OK . +Professor C: So it was like one to five {disfmarker} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a lot more training data . So So probably it should be something we should try then is to {disfmarker} is to see if {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} at some point just to take {disfmarker} i to transform the data and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh use th use it for the SRI system . +Grad B: b You me you mean um ta +Professor C: So you 're {disfmarker} so you have a system which for one reason or another is relatively poor , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh you have something like forty - one percent error uh and then you transform it to eight by doing {disfmarker} doing this {disfmarker} this work . Um . So here 's this other system , which is a lot better , but there 's still this kind of ratio . It 's something like five percent error {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the distant mike , and one percent with the close mike . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So the question is {vocalsound} how close to that one can you get {vocalsound} if you transform the data using that system . +Grad B: r Right , so {disfmarker} so I guess this SRI system is trained on a lot of s Broadcast News or Switchboard data . Is that right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Do you know which one it is ? +PhD E: It 's trained on a lot of different things . Um . It 's trained on uh a lot of Switchboard , Call Home , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: um a bunch of different sources , some digits , there 's some digits training in there . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: O one thing I 'm wondering about is what this mean subtraction method {vocalsound} um will do if it 's faced with additive noise . Cuz I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's cuz I don't know what log magnitude spectral subtraction is gonna do to additive noise . +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor C: well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not exactly the right thing +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} but you 've already seen that cuz there is added noise here . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , so it 's then {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's reasonable to expect it would be helpful if we used it with the SRI system and +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , as helpful {disfmarker} I mean , so that 's the question . Yeah , w we 're often asked this when we work with a system that {disfmarker} that isn't {disfmarker} isn't sort of industry {disfmarker} industry standard great , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: uh and we see some reduction in error using some clever method , then , you know , will it work on a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on a {disfmarker} on a good system . So uh you know , this other one 's {disfmarker} it was a pretty good system . I think , you know , one {disfmarker} one percent word error rate on digits is {disfmarker} uh digit strings is not {vocalsound} uh you know stellar , but {disfmarker} but given that this is real {vocalsound} digits , as opposed to uh sort of laboratory {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well . +PhD E: And it wasn't trained on this task either . +Professor C: And it wasn't trained on this task . Actually one percent is sort of {disfmarker} you know , sort of in a reasonable range . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: People would say "" yeah , I could {disfmarker} I can imagine getting that "" . And uh so the {disfmarker} the four or five percent or something is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite poor . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , you know , if you 're doing a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a sixteen digit uh credit card number you 'll basically get it wrong almost all the time . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So . So . Uh , {vocalsound} um a significant reduction in the error for that would be great . +Grad B: Huh , OK . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and then , uh Yeah . So . Yeah . Cool . +Grad B: Sounds good . +Professor C: Yeah . Alright , um , I actually have to run . So I don't think I can do the digits , but um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll leave my microphone on ? +PhD E: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Thank you . +PhD E: Yep . Yeah . That 'll work . +Professor C: I can be out of here quickly . {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That 's I just have to run for another appointment . OK , I t Yeah . I left it on . OK . +","In a collaborative academic setting, individuals identified as Professor C, PhD D, Ph.D. E, Grad A, and Grad B engage in a detailed discussion about various aspects of voice recognition, feature detection, and the application of different methodologies in speech processing. The discourse seems to revolve around the technicalities involved in the detection and differentiation of voice, unvoiced, and silence sounds within vocal recordings, as well as the recognition of phonetic features. + +Ph.D. D is sharing his recent work, which involves utilizing a new feature for detecting voice and unvoiced sounds. He mentions experimenting with two separate models: one with three outputs (voice, unvoiced, and silence) and another with fifty-six outputs (probabilities of allophones). The models are tested on the Aurora system, and he notes that only the results with the three-output MLP are conclusive. When compared to a base system of fifteen features, the inclusion of the three MLP outputs shows only slightly improved results. + +Professor C expresses confusion and seeks clarification on the functionality and inputs of the three-output net. Ph.D. D explains that it sees inputs comprising fifteen base features, variance between two spectrums, and coefficients of the auto-correlation function. There is some discussion about whether other features like spectral slope or energy measures should be included in the classification of voiced and unvoiced sounds. + +Ph.D. E inquires about the use of R correlations, which leads to a further technical exploration of how these features affect voice recognition amongst voiced, unvoiced, and silence. There's a consideration of whether certain features, such as utilitarian forms of energy measures, should be manually iterated, or if a ""dumb machine learning method"" should be allowed to discover them. + +Grad A is working on a project that seems to involve dynamic acoustic events and is seeking to determine the completeness of a set of events for recognizing phones or words. They discuss a potential cheating experiment using a hybrid system for phone recognition on TIMIT as a way to verify the sufficiency of chosen acoustic events. Grad A is also doing a class project comparing recurrent neural nets to support vector machines for recognizing phonological features. + +Ph.D. E discusses challenges in matching performance between PLP and mel cepstrum in an SRI system, suggesting possible reasons like differences in normalization, and investigates potential bugs within the ICSI front-end features. + +Grad A examines the use of support vector machines for classification and whether they perform better with less data compared to other methods like neural nets or Gaussian mixtures. They explain how support vector machines select examples close to the separating boundary between classes, storing them as support vectors, to classify new examples. + +Grad B reports on his application of a mean subtraction method (based on log magnitude spectrum normalization) in the context of far-field microphone digit recognition. Grad B’s experiments show significant improvement in error rates within simulated and real-world far-field data when using this method, hinting at the potential for its effectiveness when applied to an SRI system trained on a variety of data sources. + +The conversation is highly technical, indicating a deep understanding of the minutiae involved in speech and voice recognition research. The discussants are keen to identify and investigate potential discrepancies and improvements in their methodologies, exploring different avenues such as the application of new features, algorithm optimizations, and system comparisons to advance the field of speech processing." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody ready ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I think the first thing we do is introduce ourselves +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: and everybody's name and what your function is ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good plan . +Project Manager: So maybe we start with you ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , my name is Francina . And I'm uh an user interface {disfmarker} my role is uh {disfmarker} the main responsibility is user interface . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And my role is to design uh a television remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: And I'm a marketing person . I wanna figure out how to sell them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And your name is ? +Marketing: My name is Eileen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh I'm Jeanne-Oui . Um uh my role is industrial designer and my responsibilities are uh uh um deal with the {vocalsound} technical-functional designs and specifications of user interface and dealing with user interface design . +Project Manager: Very good . And as you already know I am Betty . I am the project manager for today . So why don't we look at the presentation {vocalsound} to see what we really are supposed to do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes y opening , acquaintance , tool training {disfmarker} well , the tools are , I think , we already {disfmarker} I guess the tool is really our {disfmarker} the computer , as far as I can see . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we get ins each of us will get instructions and we'll take it from there . Project plan , that falls under the same heading pretty much . Um , I don't think we have any great discussion at this point . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Um . Here is what this thing should be . This thing we are gonna um uh design is a new remote control . Uh should be original {vocalsound} , trendy , and , of course , user friendly . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe you wanna make some notes of that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: All right . {vocalsound} Here is what the functional design is supposed to achieve . Um . That is it's gonna be individual work and then at the meeting we'll discuss what uh we have come up with . The same goes for the conceptual design , there will be individual work whic and then discussion afterwards . Detailed design , same thing basically . +Marketing: Mm 'kay so {disfmarker} Three different types of design that we're gonna be concerned with okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Functional , conception and detailed . +Project Manager: I can't write with this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe we should redesign it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: After we've finished the remote control we'll get to that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . All right ? Then , tool training try out the white board , participant can draw their favourite animal . Does anybody want to go and see how the white board works ? So that in case we have to , in the next meeting , present something on the white board . You wanna go Eileen and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , I'll see what I can do . +Project Manager: Whether you {disfmarker} without hanging yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: See if I r See if I remember how to draw a kitty cat or a rabbit or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And remember you have to press so it works . +Marketing: So that it will record okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um uh um traditional kitty cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fat , a fat cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've a very fat cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And it likes to sit like that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And you're Francine , right ? Would you like s like just to see um how it feels , so that you have a little idea ? +User Interface: Yes , I'm Francina . Yes , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In {disfmarker} +Marketing: Am I supposed to wipe off that or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , no . No , that's okay . +User Interface: No , Okay . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: I don't know , we'll get to that later . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: What should I draw ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Snake . +User Interface: I'm going to draw a snake . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: How does it look like ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: I hope the kitty cat is hungry 'cause I don't like snakes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here's the project finance uh which , of course , we all have to think about when we design this thing . Um selling price is supposed to be twenty five Euro . Uh profit aim for the company is fifty million Euro , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the market range unlimited meaning international +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and the production cost should not exceed {disfmarker} hopefully should be less than twelve fifty Euro . +Marketing: Mm 'kay that should keep everybody on their toes and challenged . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Profit . Um is fifty mm . +Project Manager: So these are all things , of course , to remember with the budget and when you design {vocalsound} to materials , cost , etcetera . Now , uh the discussion I guess is um does anyone of you have experience with remote control ? +Marketing: Oops . +Project Manager: I exp I s 'cause we we use 'em {disfmarker} we use 'em , right , everyday . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , using remote control . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um now having used a remote control for years does anybody already have like an idea like things you didn't like with it , things you would like to change , things you would like to improve with this thing ye any first ideas ? Would you like it to be smaller , bigger , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: have more have more buttons on it or maybe clearly {disfmarker} better marked buttons , you know , things like that ? +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , I I feel that all the remote should be very compact . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Small , right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , those which we get here nowadays it's very long . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And um and it should have multi-purpose . Like uh the remote control which we use for T_V_ , it shou uh it should be used f uh for some other purpose also , like controlling the uh temperature inside the house or for air-conditioners , or for heating system . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Audio player . Oh . Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be a multi-functional uh gadget that would um control all your household uh uh machines basically . +User Interface: Yes , exactly Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Divides us {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} At um twelve fifty Euros per {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Well who knows if we get a really good designer maybe we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We certainly can try to {disfmarker} I agree with her that to market something successfully it should do some more things . +Project Manager: It should be something new {disfmarker} it should be s it it should do something different than than just what we have . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Now , of course , the other thing to think there is maybe the design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: Yeah , design should be , yeah {disfmarker} it should be different . All the {disfmarker} almost all the remotes {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like trendy no like f for earlier we saw maybe it should be something trendy you know . Maybe it should {disfmarker} different colours or materials or you know . +User Interface: Yes , exactly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe ten {disfmarker} I do yeah , colours +User Interface: Are different shapes . +Industrial Designer: and al shapes also . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Um so yeah shapes right , you know , like kidney shape feels better in your hand or something , you know . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , friendly shape , that would help . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think another thing that would help is um if it beeps when you clap , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: because I think one of the big things that happens is people lose them . They can't find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That is true , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because they put a newspaper or they put it behind a plant or , we you know , whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And and they {disfmarker} suddenly the phone rings and they want to turn the T_V_ off and they say , where the hell is my {vocalsound} my remote control yeah ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well or yeah or if it's really , if it's really in a dark spot that it gives out a a sound or a signal . +Marketing: So some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , some beep or something like that , +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Or a b +Marketing: Uh so , so it's really the beep or , or a light should blink . +Industrial Designer: so that we can go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if lost {disfmarker} If lost uh signal with b throw signal , you know . +User Interface: Should ha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A fluorescent signal , yeah . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe it should have a light so that we can , we can just recognise where it is . +Project Manager: Exactly , I mean just {vocalsound} that's what I'm saying . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . May not be beep . +Project Manager: I'm just saying throw signal meaning just whether it's a beep or whether a light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Beep or uh it's a light , maybe it's a light . +Marketing: And do you think a good c c um clue for that is that it would respond to a clap or it would respond to your voice or it would respond {disfmarker} what what should you have to do to make it beep or blink ? +Project Manager: Okay , my {disfmarker} my idea is maybe that the minute it's really hidden , in in other words if it's like in a dark spot , uh meaning you know like a newspaper is on top , a sweater is on top or it it's behind a plant , at that moment it's it's like , it's like um , what you call it {disfmarker} a light s sensors , you know ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In in that moment it has a sensor , i it it gets a certain darkness , it ge has a sensor and it gives out a signal whether that be a light signal or a beep , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , that we can discuss that later , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably {disfmarker} yeah , probably it's a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the light sensor would activate the signal . +Project Manager: That's right . You know there would be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: right you have to have some kind of sensor and I I think uh voice or clapping it's not specific enough . Uh I know there are the lamps and stuff , you know , you can clap on and off , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: but I think they only work to certain degree and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it could be someplace really obvious and you still wouldn't be able to find it . +Project Manager: What with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , of course , that didn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Then , in that case {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , because you're s because you're silly . Because people are silly . +Industrial Designer: I i we can't do it . +Project Manager: Oh yeah well , but then those people {disfmarker} we can't help everybody . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it could be on {disfmarker} well , i if it were like on top of your bookcase and you usually kept it on the coffee table +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Okay we have uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: you know , well {disfmarker} maybe we have to move along , okay . +Project Manager: yeah , we have to move along , but I think we have some good good points to start with here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good point . +Project Manager: Okay , the next meeting will be in thirty minutes . I think you all {disfmarker} did you get uh notices on your computer for this ? Okay so well , you got the notice um +Industrial Designer: Me yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} uh . The working design , I guess that's the function I_D_ {disfmarker} uh who is this ? The industrial designer {disfmarker} That's you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , it's functional de yeah , exactly , technical . +Project Manager: Okay . So , we looking for a working design when we come back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh working design , yeah , it's it's uh mainly technical-functional design . +Project Manager: Then {disfmarker} And then the technical funct you are the technical function , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , functional design , +Project Manager: so so you are the working design . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you have a working design and then a functional design . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And the marketing manager is coming up with some user requirement specification , like friendliness , and what we just discussed in general . That would be your idea . And , of course , price . That it , that it , that the price is a good price . I mean , the price is given , but , that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . We have to justify that price by having sufficient features to make it sell at that price . +Project Manager: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And , you know , specifi you you will get specific um instructions for that . I think that's the end of the show . Yeah . So um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} well , we have a twen two two two three minutes . Um any questions at this point ? Or uh suggestions ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} basically basically you will get instructions to work with and if you have any questions uh , uh I guess , you can uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I think I have enough to think about 'til our next meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have . +Marketing: How about you people ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I have , I think , yeah . +Marketing: Really ? Okay . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so let's see . +Marketing: Alright , well uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then uh we see you in about thirty minutes . And see what we can come up with . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , very good . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +","The meeting commenced with the Project Manager asking if everyone was ready and suggesting that the team should start by introducing themselves—their names and their roles within the project. The team agreed that it was a good plan, and the Project Manager asked the User Interface lead to begin. + +The User Interface lead introduced herself as Francina. She explained that her main responsibility was the design of the user interface for a new television remote control. She encountered slight difficulty with the phrase ""user interface,"" which may be due to nerves or a temporary lapse in thought. + +The Project Manager, having identified herself as Betty, prompted the Marketing lead to introduce herself next. Marketing, whose name is Eileen, expressed her intent to figure out how to market the newly designed remote controls. + +Jeanne-Oui, the Industrial Designer, joined the introductions. Her responsibilities included dealing with technical-functional designs and specifications, particularly relating to user interface design. + +The Project Manager mentioned that the team should look at the presentation to understand the scope of what they were supposed to do. There was also a reference to tool training and the use of a computer as their primary tool. Instructions for the project would be given individually to each member. + +Betty outlined that the project at hand was to design an original, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control. The team briefly touched upon the idea of making notes about this. + +The meeting progressed to discuss the designs required: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. Each design was to involve individual work followed by a collaborative discussion. + +A brief activity followed, where team members were encouraged to try out a whiteboard, suggesting they draw their favorite animals. There was a playful exchange about drawing a kitty cat, a snake, and using the whiteboard effectively. + +The finance aspect of the project was then addressed. The selling price was to be twenty-five euros, with the company aiming for a fifty million euro profit and hoping to reach an international market. The production cost was projected not to exceed twelve euros and fifty cents per unit. This constrained budget set a challenge for the team to maintain the balance between costs and desired features. + +The team then embarked on an initial brainstorming session regarding their experiences with remote controls. They sought to identify common frustrations and possibilities for improvement. Ideas included making the proposed remote control compact, multifunctional (e.g., able to control house temperature, air conditioners, heating systems), and possibly integrated with other household devices. + +Further design considerations were suggested, such as incorporating different shapes, colors, materials, and user-friendliness. Marketing proposed that the remote should emit a beep or flash when clapped to make it easier to find if lost—common issues faced by remote control users. + +The team contemplated incorporating a light sensor to signal the location of the remote when covered or in a dark place. Although voice activation was briefly mentioned, it was dismissed for not being specific enough. + +Throughout the meeting, the roles of the project members were reaffirmed: the Industrial Designer focused on working and technical-functional design, the Marketing leader was responsible for user requirement specifications and price justification, and the User Interface lead was tasked with making the design accessible and appealing to users. + +Before adjourning, the Project Manager confirmed that the next meeting would take place in thirty minutes and that members would receive detailed instructions to facilitate their contributions. The team confirmed having received notices about the meeting on their computers. The meeting concluded with the participants having enough topics to ponder before their subsequent gathering, anticipating the challenges and creative solutions that lay ahead." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , is everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah I'd to just put on my microphone here and I'll be right with you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} I take it you all have received instructions as to what you were supposed to do +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and um I think the Marketing Manager probably should go first , addressing the needs and desires . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay you want me to start right now ? +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , could you um put my slides up 'cause I think it might be helpful if uh we looked at the slides at the same time . +Project Manager: Okay . You're participant four . +Marketing: I'm participant four I believe . Yes uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay , and now I can uh full screen . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Open . +Project Manager: Uh , okay , okay . +Marketing: There we go . Okay well I think we have introduced ourselves , +Industrial Designer: And then full screen . +Marketing: so the functional requirements are {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} is part of my goal but why don't we pass right to the second slide . Cause that's where m my discussion starts . Right well um since I'm in charge of trying to figure out what we should put on this thing since I have to try to sell it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} I thought that the method I should follow would be gather suggestions from everybody , and th the reason I just put that there like that is that uh in the init in the initial stage I think I should just be open to lots of suggestions . You know you can say anything you want no matter how silly it sounds you know it should run your car , it should heat up your motor if should um turn on your C_D_ {vocalsound} whatever you want it to do {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: um and then as we go on what we'll have to do is accept and eliminate these suggestions according to um design and budget feasibility . So I'll be coming to you um frequently as the Industrial Expert to tell me how hard it's gonna be to add a feature or how expensive it's gonna be or if your time , if it takes five years to develop this it's just something we can't do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Hmm hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So in the beginning just have a big puddle of things that we {disfmarker} anybody can th throw anything in +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just weed things out that can't be done for one reason or another , and then the things that seem the most attractive that to uh to a customer we'll try to then prioritise those . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: So that was um what I meant there , and as I said on the slide there consulting the Industrial Engineer about that and the other thing is timing is really gonna be as important as money , because if we're gonna sell this thing , I think the best time to sell it is as a Christmas present . Twenty five Euros makes a nice little present , and we want it to be an impulse purchase , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: we want somebody to see it and think it's , gee I just gotta have that . And take out their wallet and buy it . So it's gotta be really attractive and it {disfmarker} but it's gotta go to market by September , 'cause anything that you don't already have out there in September showing it around , isn't gonna sell for Christmas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} and then I'll be coming to you as the User Interface person to try to tell me from your point of view what are the most friendly features that we could put on it and try to prior help me with that prioritising of uh of the features and of the the look and the colour +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and I'll be coming back to you to help weed out those suggestions from that point of view . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So I'll be coming to you for how much is it gonna cost us and how long is it gonna take you , +Industrial Designer: Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: and I'll be coming to you to tell me what's gonna make somebody take out their wallet you know , +User Interface: What features . +Marketing: what what's what's gonna really be what they call a sizzle , +User Interface: S sellable . Yes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'cause we gotta sell this sizzle {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A lot of times the thing that works the best from an engineering point of view isn't the thing that somebody's really just gonna take out their wallet and buy for Christmas for for their child or for their husband or whatever . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay can we go to the next slide please ? Alright I I already did a little bit of research after our first meeting where we threw out some ideas and it looks to me that within the budget that we're looking at the uh the whole house idea really isn't gonna be possible . So I'd like your suggestions to come back to the other slide where I was saying we we could suggest anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd like the suggestions to be really specific , so that we'll have a list of things we can cross off , not something like you know whole house control what'll be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} And then I found on the internet from from my research that some extended electronic entertainment control should be possible . At the budget that we're looking at and at the price point we're looking at , we should be able to make it work the T_V_ , the V_C_R_ , the stereo set um maybe something else cute like a coffee pot or one other appliance or maybe a lamp . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay , can can I at this point interject um something ? +Marketing: I have to wind up ? Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Um we have received instruction from higher up that certain things should not be uh considered . Um the one thing for example {disfmarker} something to eliminate maybe that's the teletext , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because that's sort of outdated with the internet , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and according to to higher management the {disfmarker} it should only control the T_V_ , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mostly because they feel that it's too comp complex a task to um to to include other things , +Industrial Designer: Complicated , yeah , of course . +Project Manager: and they are concerned with the time to market . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so that's something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the third thing that they wanna make sure um that their {disfmarker} that the corporate image is being maintained , and that the corporate colour and design are being used on the product , so that it's easy that that that they can be easily identified as a product of of of the company , and that there's no mistake that it could be somebody else who is bringing this out . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I just wanted to interject this here so we're not getting too much off track here with uh with the things we wanna look at . These were instructions from higher up so we have to eliminate uh these things , so it's only gonna be T_V_ , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the one thing maybe that could be um eliminated is the teletext uh idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright , thanks for that . Um alright now {vocalsound} other things that I found out on {disfmarker} in my research is that the complaints that people have about the remote controls that are out there now . 'Cause a lot of them take too much time to learn how to use , and that was thirty four percent but even more important the thing that we did address in our last meeting that frequently it's lost somewhere in the room . Um so those are two things that we definitely do wanna address , uh we wanna s make it as simple as possible , we wanna make it um obvious and intuitive to use , and then the things about finding it we talked about the {disfmarker} a light emitting thing as well as uh maybe a beep , and I think that those are things after my research that we definitely wanna try to incorporate . 'Kay can we go to the next slide please ? Okay , so , my personal preferences in this um project are really have to concentrate on the sizzle . That is the selling point , the thing that's gonna make it an impulse purchase . Uh because once there's no be-back , well in sales they always say you know , be-backs don't come back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If somebody says , oh I'll come back and get it next week you're dead . They're never gonna come back and buy it . You've gotta make it attractive enough so they buy it now now now w now is a big word in in my book for selling this thing . And , in order to make it really sellable we've gotta shorten the learning curve , make sure it's really intuitive and easy to use . We have to have as few buttons as possible , because more buttons is more confusion , so that's why I'm saying , simplicity is good . Finding it's important , obviously you can't use it if you can't find it . So we've gotta concentrate on the features that help you find it , and I've already said this several times but I put it down in writing here , it should be an attractive impulse purchase at twenty five Euros . So it has to have enough value that when somebody looks at it they say , uh twenty five Euros I'm not gonna take that . Has to be so great that they're gonna say , uh twenty five Euros isn't much . Um and then maybe a motto , like we put fashion in electronics might be something we can use in our marketing campaign . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay that's uh about it for me right now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . And uh who would be next , uh , I guess that would be you . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'kay . +Project Manager: You want me to get your slide show up ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And you are number three ? +Industrial Designer: Number two , +Project Manager: Number two . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh can you make it uh full screen please ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Industrial Designer: No , it's like a well you you have to press here . The cup cup shape here ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: The thir third . +Project Manager: There , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . Uh so today I'm going to talk about the working design of the remote controller . Um can you go to the next sli slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The metal is like uh in a remote controller you have a chip integrated circuit which is like a brain of the remote controller . It takes the power from a battery say a battery it it can be a elec an electric supply like you have to uh like uh switch connec connect connect your remote controller to uh power supply from the you know electricity or something like that . It should be a battery because uh uh remote controller should be like you you you should take it t to wherever you want and then um uh th +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: this integrated circuitry takes energy from the power source and whatever like if you press a button it's like a input for the remote controller and it takes the input and it it transforms into a infro infrared bits and it sends it into the device , like a T_V_ or a air conditioner , something like that so . Uh a remote controller is specifically designed to a single device . If you want to design it for multiple devices then you should make all the devices compatible with the frequency like uh th the remote controller it sends some bits some uh waves like with a particular frequency the device should know what the frequency is . It should re re recognise the uh waves which are coming from the remote controller and it should take the action like if you press a button channel or something like that then uh the remote uh remote controller will send a send a se {vocalsound} send a signal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Signal . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ it should translate that into like change the channel or something like that , change the volume control +User Interface: Receive . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh so uh I think it's hard to design a remote controller for multiple uh devices . +User Interface: Multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yo and it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah well that's already been eliminated by management , so we're off the hook {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah {disfmarker} but it's so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um . So uh user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages like there should be a user user in interface like you know switch pad or something like that buttons should be there . So uh you can control whatever you want , you want to change the channel you want to control the volume you you want to uh mute uh mute the uh T_V_ or you want to have a child lock or you want to do some operations there's a {disfmarker} there should be some device to tell what to do to the uh in uh integrated circuit so that the integrated circuit can s send the signals and T_V_ can perform the actions . +Marketing: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: So can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I just would like to uh add some extra features to the remote controller um I think these are the very simple features and uh they don't take much uh uh much of the um um investment also , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's like el the text or buttons which uh which are there on the uh remote controller they {disfmarker} those we can make uh um like fluorescent uh they'll be like light emitting if it is dark so that you can find your remote controller if it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And ther there should be a beep if many buttons are pressed if suppose a child is playing with the remote controller and a and she she or he is pressing the buttons all at the time then there should be a beep saying that it's {disfmarker} this this is not a a you know a a action , there can be no action taking to that so . And there should be a child lock , like uh uh you should be able to lock your remote controller so that uh um whatever buttons are pressed by a child they can't be like y you i you if you have ki kids and all then they'll be pl playing with the remote controllers so can lock the remote controller . If make it useable for more than one device it's a it's hard but I think it's possible +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah well that has been e that has been eliminated , so that's that's unfortunately a moot point now . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it uh +Marketing: Well we already eliminated that . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: Eliminated . +Industrial Designer: so it's it's okay , yeah , yeah . And uh different shapes that we can do like uh we can have you know a all animals shapes or you know comfortable uh whi which can fit into your hands +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and um so that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now that's good from a marketing point of view , the fun {disfmarker} the fun shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah and colours also , different colours , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm colours . +Marketing: And that {disfmarker} you you say that won't add too much to the budget ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , it won't uh I don't think it will be like , +Marketing: To d the shape is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can have you know for uh if you want ther there to be more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It just build a mould basically and uh you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Industrial Designer: It's it's just a s shape so it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: As the budget we're looking at if you build one mould I don't think that's going to make a big difference whether it's gonna be square or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you think there's any chance of um having ser in {disfmarker} having basically the same machine with the same buttons but maybe several different shapes ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is also possible I uh yeah I I yeah . +Project Manager: Oh yes . +Marketing: Is that gonna be a possible ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause that might help with the marketing . +Project Manager: I think we will have to look at the budget on that +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think in principle that that would be {disfmarker} that would be kind of fun , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Because we had something sort of sexy for adults and we could have something sort of +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Silly for children . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for children , yeah exactly . +Marketing: silly for children +Project Manager: Like an animal or {disfmarker} +Marketing: or a little animal shape or in a {disfmarker} or a little elephant so they can remember where it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like a doll , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And and the butto buttons also I think if you want to have more features in your remote controller then there should be more buttons . If there are more buttons then it will be more complicated . If you have less features then your remote controller won't be attractive , so I think uh we need to make some buttons which are {disfmarker} which are like um uh f in uh in intended for two or three operations , like if you press one button in one mode then it will change the channel , if you press the other button in another mode it will change the colour . So if you want to have less buttons we can have that option but I think it will complicate the matter more I think so . +Marketing: Mm . Well , I think {disfmarker} I think that that's something that we'll have to discuss um with the User Interface person +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yep , yeah . +Marketing: because I think there's a lot of argument to be made for one button for one feature . Because I think one of the things were complaining about in my {disfmarker} what I found out in my research is when they complained about how hard it is to learn a new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The changing modes was something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like you know {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: I mean you and I , all f all four of us we work with computers all the time , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: changing modes is nothing for us , but people who {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , a little elderly , a little arthritic hand you know , +Marketing: {vocalsound} N and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and and it's a small button and and it {disfmarker} they don't press it exactly +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know something else happens n not their favourite channel comes up but something else +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: and they're very frustrated you know . +User Interface: Something else . +Marketing: And that's {disfmarker} and that's the kind of thing people learn by feel , and um {vocalsound} you don't feel the mode change . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah you don't {vocalsound} us yeah yeah , usually . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um maybe having buttons be various shapes might be a help too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah shapes also , different shapes . +Marketing: You know , like the {disfmarker} a triangle is for the volume and a square is for changing channels , so that people can uh develop a tactile sense of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: But we'll get to that with you . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also text should be very clear so that there there won't be any ambiguities and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right , yeah . Now that's a good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh display clock i if you want more features then we can display a clock it I I don't think it will take any money extra money because anyway we have an integrated circuit I think we can just definitely fit that feature into the circuit so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we display a clock . +Marketing: because the clock would be really friendly , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and and when is your favourite show coming on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and then you can just see your remote controller yeah yeah yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're sitting there already or maybe you have no other uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , and a lot of time there's not a clock on the screen , and you have to go somewhere but you just wanna look at the news for a minute . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's that's good , the clock is good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh components uh the main components we need for uh it ha like buttons and uh underneath that there should be switch . And uh bulbs . Like uh we can have a bulb like whenever we are operating a remote controller or uh whenever the T_V_ is on suppose , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: then the remote controller should automatically have a b s light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then it will be like if you switch on your T_V_ through anoth another source , not from {disfmarker} through a remote remote controller and you you lost your remote controller maybe you can find with the light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can have that . Whenever the T_V_ is on , remote controller will have a light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh infrared bulbs . Um this is like uh when it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And battery , there should be a battery for power supply , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and a chip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: chip which is like a brain to the remote controller which does all the operations , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and wires connecting all chips , which is uh lights , everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so there should be wires . And uh uh of course there should be a case where we can keep all the things and , you know different shapes or whatever it is there should be a case to put to give a shape . +User Interface: To keep the remote ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Case . +User Interface: A case holder . A holder {disfmarker} remote holder . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , holder . +Project Manager: Holder , yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um uh can you move onto the next slide . Um next sli slide please . Um I have referred the site uh the homepage of the um our website , uh from where I have uh uh I got s few points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's it , that's it from me now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} um we should visit this site and have a look at uh what's up there ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Well , you don't have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's not like that , I have referred the page to get new ideas or like what can be the working design to how it works and all and so and so . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . So it might be helpful if we had a look at that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you want . Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . Could you go back to that slide where she had that uh s slide up Betsy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's actually there now , there on the screen . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: And Francine ? +User Interface: Participant two . +Project Manager: You are number two ? +User Interface: Yes . No no , I'm three . +Project Manager: You're three . Would you want it full full screen ? +User Interface: I can make it full ? Yes yes yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . +User Interface: Okay . As uh User Interface Designer I did a little research to find out what are the features which a user would like to have on their remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah can you please go onto the next slide ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I found out that uh but uh the main purpose of a remote is to uh f control the function of a television at a far off distance at remote distance . Now for that , uh a remote controller should have a switch on off button by which a user can sit anywhere in the room in front of the T_V_ and he can control the functionalities different functionalities of the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There should be a signal uh something like a radio wave or a infrared light or a LED which can be used to change the different functionalities in the television if the user wants to uh change the channels or increase the volume he can change it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now there should be some timer to set for viewing a particular a particular programme or switching on and off a uh a particular programme according to the user choice . +Project Manager: On the on on the remote . Yeah , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . So if if he want to view a particular programme at say nine o'clock he can set the time , and the T_V_ will automatically it will switch on at that particular time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So he can use that kind of uh uh properties of features and then there should be a child lock system if a particular channel is not to be viewed by a particular uh for a certain age , then the parents can lock that particular channel so that the ch children cannot view that channel . +Project Manager: Yes . By your child , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh the uh the uh and the {disfmarker} one of the feature a user would like to have is the compactness of the co remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh t the remote should be compact and it should ha it should have as many buttons as possible for controlling different functionalities of the T_V_ television . And um uh as uh uh this is my personal preference that it should be in the shape of a T_ in alphabet for more compactability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and uh and it is one more point which I noted it down , like uh the material which which which is used for remotes should be human friendly it should not cause any skin disease or something some al allergy to either children or to um ad adult person . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it should have an uh it can have an alarm clock a a person if some if somebody wants to get up at around eight eight P_M_ then he can set the time and it can be used as an alarm clock , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and I don't think it will cost much to set an alarm clock inside a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If there is a clock then there can be a alarm clock . +User Interface: Yes , +Marketing: And an alarm clock , yeah that should {disfmarker} that should be okay . +User Interface: and as John Reece said the buttons can be , uh can me we can use the fluorescence to light up the buttons so different uh buttons will glow differently . So in even in the dark the user can know what buttons to use to switch on a particular channel . And uh uh the design of the uh um remote should be in such a way that there should not be any sharp projections so that if a child plays with a remote , he uh he should not be harmed in any way . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And findings , uh I found out uh y um on different sites that uh there are different remotes which can be used , there are remotes which use the infrared for controlling the different functionalities , there are remotes which use the radio waves to control the functions and there are uh {disfmarker} So uh there you have different uh types of remotes for different light source which are used {disfmarker} which can be used for controlling the different functionalities of a television . Next slide . And these are my few personal preferences like it can be used for a multipurpose use . Not , uh no uh like it can {disfmarker} it can be used as a T_V_ control as plus an alarm clock to set an alarm a timing and it should have a child lock , and then to save electricity uh there should not be uh much s move uh lots of circuits and all that . And if a person if if if parents wants the television to be switched off by ten o'clock then it should be switched off ten o at ten o'clock automatically , so that nobody else comes later and use it . +Industrial Designer: It's like a t okay , it's like a timer {gap} it's like a lock to the television . +Project Manager: Timer , yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Timer . Yeah and then you can use a timer as well . Yes . Yeah that's it . +Project Manager: Uh okay , now I have {disfmarker} On my slide show basically we already {disfmarker} we have already done the agenda , and uh on the closing uh basically there will be lunch break and all that . However uh the decision we have to take in this meeting is who is our target group . And uh what function , working design , how how does it work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So these are the two things we should come up wit with . So uh the first thing is pro maybe a little easier on uh who is our target group . Um . I guess in many ways everybody . Everybody who has a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm , T_V_ , yeah . +User Interface: T_V_ television we was . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I think today there are probably not many people who don't have a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Don't T_V_ , yeah . +Project Manager: There are a few but in general not . {vocalsound} Now , talking about the target group which is in a sense everybody , but I think within the target group we have subgroups . We have {disfmarker} we have earlier it was mentioned about um for example elderly people who have limited function with their fingers and hands , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I think that's uh one group that's certainly important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we have just the nervous people who can never press a little button on anything um unless it's really very clear . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how much we want to cater to children's use . I mean that's a question um whether that's important that children can really use it or not . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} these are just some thoughts I have on it , and um I dunno what you feel about whether we can just say we have one target group and for this one target group we're gonna design this one thing {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or whether we're looking at what we like we we talking about different shapes , whether that different shape also includes maybe different uh buttons uh for different groups . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well you know there's the old motto , children under six never shop alone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if you've designed something that's very attractive to children um the mummy please mummy please um you know we want it now we wanna go to the store and see it um that has uh a lot of marketing pull . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That has a lot of {disfmarker} that has a lot of appeal but I think uh I'm I'm talking about the functionality now on it whether we're looking at different groups . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the children issue can be addressed with the shape and with colours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You know , like you make it nice and pink , fluorescent , banana colour or whatever {vocalsound} you know +User Interface: Different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: You can make a banana shaped one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , for example you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: But the question is really , who is our target group . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do we look at one target group ? {vocalsound} And with the twenty five Euros you know can we can we afford to have uh I'm asking the technical people here whether um to look at sort of subgroups with maybe different buttons for each group how much would that throw us out of the cost we are supposed to respect ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Respect . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . No uh generally we can we can design a remote which is mainly for people with uh f age from ten to um forty +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: and and then we can add on uh specific functional buttons for children as well as the elderly people or the people wit with who have nervous problems , yes . +Project Manager: With with {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We can design different remotes for different people , like for aged people there will be big buttons and you know . +Project Manager: Well that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But in a family {disfmarker} in a family there will be a aged person , children and a middle aged but they cannot buy three different remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . Children and everybody , yeah . +User Interface: They would like to buy just one and um just one which can be used all the three uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course that we can do , but specifically if y if like elderly people want big buttons then you can't really make a bi big remote controller so maybe specifically you can design a big con remote controller for elderly and for children , like in a different you know . +Marketing: What about the electronics ? That's not really gonna change much , is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Cost effective . +Industrial Designer: No , it it doesn't cost , yeah . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {vocalsound} that w that won't change much , will it uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Doesn't doesn't doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The the quest the question to be addressed here is only who is the target group and how will it function , +Marketing: I d I wouldn't think so . +Project Manager: and I think the how will it function is probably the question of the buttons you know , within the target group or subgroups . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: The question is only whether our budget will allow to have more than one design in a sense . I mean the basic design I understand will be the same , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but the question is how much will that set us back if let's say {vocalsound} uh forty percent we make large buttons and the rest we make regular buttons for example . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that remains to s to be seen but {vocalsound} uh the target group as a whole is is basically everybody with a T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and can we {disfmarker} can we is it even feasible to make one one remote control with something for everyone , or would we have to use the same electronics and make three different shapes ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well that's that's the question . +Marketing: Um the same electronics and basically all that's gonna be different is the plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Marketing: And in that case we could probabl moulded plastic isn't all that expensive is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . Mm , I I I don't think no . It's not . +Marketing: Um you as an industrial person ? +Project Manager: Well maybe there's {disfmarker} there's an idea you know t the new for example new portable phones ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: They have like removable plastic cases , so you can have a striped one or you can have a fluorescent blue one , or whatever , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and maybe something like that , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: that in each package you know you have {disfmarker} you you have {disfmarker} you have for example uh {vocalsound} you have let's say a fluorescent blue on it but then you have uh another colour or stripe whatever that already comes in a package . +Marketing: Well there's a real idea yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And then if people really want more colours they can buy it separately . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , like for mobile phones we have uh different you know covers , like designs and all so that w we can have that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} but like if if then everybody is is is tired of the fluorescent blue and of the striped or whatever they have as another one in the package , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: then they can go to the store and for a few uh Francs or Euros whatever they can buy +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An alternate package . +Project Manager: an alternate package with another two colours in it you know for example you know . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: But uh yeah I I have a doubt like will it be cost wise effective if we {disfmarker} if we design a remote having all the uh different features for different people or designing three different um remotes for three different categories of people . +Project Manager: Well I think {disfmarker} I think the idea here is to uh to to d design one remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we can only aff {gap} , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and what the only change is gonna be um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the funct d t yeah uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cosmetic . +User Interface: Of th okay . +Project Manager: the functional {vocalsound} functional cosmetics if you want to put it that way , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um having maybe larger buttons or buttons that light up or buttons that are slightly differently shaped for people uh either for children um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Five minutes that was I guess tha that's the old message . +Marketing: Warning , finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Um um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we may have to come back to one or two of these points at our next meeting but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we do some more research , maybe we {gap} . +Project Manager: I I think to sum it up the target group is basically everybody . If money permits we can address some features for some subgroups within that . +User Interface: Okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah , +Project Manager: Do we agree , do we ? +Industrial Designer: I think maybe seventy percent is a unique uh uh remote controller and thirty percent is yeah it's sort of like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay but we have to l +Project Manager: Do we agree on on that in principle , like money will tell whether we will be able to do that or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , of course , yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? So now I understand it's lunch break . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um . So that's what we will do . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So hank you very much . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And we'll see you after lunch . +","In a collaborative meeting aimed at developing a new remote control product, various team members from different departments assembled to discuss the project's requirements, design considerations, and marketing strategies. The meeting, managed by the Project Manager, is attended by a Marketing Manager, an Industrial Designer, and a User Interface Designer. + +The conversation begins with the Project Manager ensuring all participants are ready and have received their instructions. The Marketing Manager initiates the discussion by asking to have their slides displayed for reference. This discussion kicks off with emphasis on gathering a wide range of suggestions from all team members for what the product should be capable of without any initial constraints, suggesting blue-sky thinking. The Marketing Manager stresses the importance of feasibility regarding design, budget, and development time in the later stages, aiming to weed out impractical ideas while focusing on features that are attractive to customers. Time-to-market is highlighted as crucial, with the target being to release the product by September to capitalize on the Christmas shopping season. The product is anticipated to be a gift item, suggesting a price point around 25 Euros to encourage impulse purchases. + +The Marketing Manager further outlines the marketing perspective, expressing a need for frequent consultation with the Industrial Designer on cost and complexity and the User Interface specialist for insight on user-friendly aspects. They discuss the positioning of the product as a ""sizzle,"" a term used to describe an appealing feature that triggers an immediate purchase decision. There's an acknowledgment that efficient engineering alone does not assure market success; the product's appeal is just as vital. + +Research by the Marketing Manager suggests that complete home automation is beyond the project's budget, but controlling a range of entertainment devices is feasible. They touch on common user complaints surrounding existing remote controls, like difficulty in learning to use them and ease of misplacing them, leading to the consideration of features like a light or beep for easy locating. + +The Industrial Designer delves into the technical aspects of designing the remote control, like the importance of the integrated circuit ('the brain'), power sources, compatibility across multiple devices, and interface considerations. The designer brings ideas for additional features such as lighting for visibility, an alarm beep for excessive button pressing, and child lock capabilities. They propose various shapes and colors for appeal but recognize the added complexity of multi-functional buttons. + +The conversation quickly adapts to feedback from the Project Manager about constraints dictated by upper management, such as excluding features like teletext due to its obsolescence. They stress adherence to corporate image and colors for brand recognition. This input shifts the focus away from elaborate, expansive functions towards a more streamlined, TV-centric approach. + +The User Interface Designer then presents findings on desirable user features, emphasizing simplicity, compactness, and the inclusion of functions such as child locks, timers, and alarm clocks. The goal is to accommodate the needs of a broad age range from children to seniors without overcomplicating the design or creating safety hazards. + +As the meeting progresses, the team debates the ideal target group for the remote, discussing if it should focus on universal accessibility or cater to specific subgroups with unique needs. They contemplate cost-effective strategies such as offering multiple button configurations or interchangeable plastic cases for a personalized aesthetic choice. + +The lunch break signals a pause in the proceedings, with the plan to reconvene and further refine the target group and functional design decisions. The Project Manager concludes that while aiming for a universal target group, budget permitting, they could incorporate specific features for various user subgroups. + +In summary, the meeting is a collaborative exchange involving diverse roles aiming to combine innovative design, cost effectiveness, technological feasibility, and marketing appeal, geared toward launching a user-friendly, market-ready remote control appropriate for a range of consumers, ideally in time for the holiday shopping season." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Right . Conceptual design meeting . Right . Okay , so {disfmarker} Right well um from the last meeting {vocalsound} I was trying to send you the minutes , but uh it didn't work out too well , so maybe in sort of um quick summary of the last uh meeting , I can quickly give you what we what we had . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh right , so {disfmarker} Wishing I hadn't closed the damn {disfmarker} Right so we had the fact that we're gonna have the the logo uh the company logo in its uh colour scheme incorporated onto the the device the remote device . We had uh made our decisions about uh made our decisions about uh the device itself , that it was gonna be simple to make it uh enable us to complete the project in time . We're gonna have uh effectively two pages , a front page which had the uh features that the uh the customers most wanted , and then the uh the backup features on the second page so that it could uh meet the technical requirements . And the customers wouldn't have to look at them too often , only as and when required . So . So basically what decisions uh have we uh made ? Uh have there been any uh changes ? +Industrial Designer: I think we all have a presentation again , +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: so if we go through those and then um +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three presentation , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Shall I go first again ? {gap} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , fine . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I see {gap} this a little more smoothly than the last one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay right , let's get started . Um basically the uh for the {disfmarker} Um I'll {gap} back actually . For the components design , um next step is basically the the way the remote's gonna work is still the same idea as before . We still have the user interface which is all the buttons we're gonna incorporate . Then there is a chip and still the sender . So um yes {gap} including the power s supply as well . Um I'll go on to my findings in each of these areas . Uh first in the power supply , we have the option of just the standard battery , um . {vocalsound} There's a dynamo . Any of you think of kind of like the the old torches which you wind up {gap} um . There's a kinetic option , which if any of you've seen those new watches which you kind of you power up by waving around , um it just requires a small amount of movement which would mean the batteries wouldn't have to be replaced . Um that's one option , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I think that was gonna cost a little more . And then there's solar cells . Um as a final option . For the buttons , we have um an integrated push button , which is {disfmarker} Oh just to say all all these are um supplied by Real Reaction . So I guess for the ease of for quickness and ease we should take them from at least like one of these options . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um so for the buttons there's an integrated push button , which I guess is just the same as the standard ones . This says it's uh similar to uh the button on the mouse for a normal {disfmarker} for like uh like modern computer . Um there's a scroll wheel which is {disfmarker} you know the new mouse has just got like the centre section which you can scroll up and down , which may be for the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You could do do that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one issue for the buttons is , depending on which material we use , if we use rubber buttons then it requires a rubber case , so we have to take that into consideration . Um moving on to the printed s +Project Manager: What would be the cost do do we know ? +Industrial Designer: Um that's on the next {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I th I think the there wasn't too much difference in the cost , that that related to the actual buttons , but it does affect the printed circuit board . Um which is the next section . Basically for the circuit board which is the middle , it's just {disfmarker} see it down there the chips like the like the workings of the actual um of the remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The firm supplies a simple , a regular and an advanced um circuit board . And there's different prices according to each . So if we've got the scroll wheel for one of the buttons , that would require a slightly more advanced circuit board than if we just had a standard um push button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um one final thing we came up with was some information on the speech recognition . There's a small unit available through the company um which obviously would be an extra cost , but it wouldn't affect the size of the remote too much . Um and I guess that would require a more advanced circuit board , so there is an extra price in that sense . There is th sorry an extra cost in that sense . Um going to my personal preferences , um I thought possibly for power we could use kinetic um which is the idea of the watches um that you move you move the remote around to power it up . And this would avoid batteries running out , having to replace batteries and such like . Um for the buttons , I thought we'd probably get away with just having the standard um push buttons rather than the scroll wheel . Um and for the circuit board , again depends on which features we want in the actual in the remote . So if we wanted the scroll wheel and wanted the voice recognition , um then we'd have to get a a more costly circuit board . And that's it . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} with the printed circuit boards you were going for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um i it kind of depends um if we're gonna have the speech recognition , we'd have to probably get an advanced one . I'm guessing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh but I don't know , so that is something I'll have to look into . +Project Manager: But are we going f R right . +Industrial Designer: Um that's a that's a decision for all of us . Um . +Project Manager: So are we able to make that decision now in a sense that this is the point at which we're discussing that issue , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . We decide . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so would it not be best to {disfmarker} rather than {disfmarker} I mean one way is to do each of the presentations and then make decisions going back to the various presentations as they were . The other way would be to do the presentation +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then make the decision at that point in time . +Industrial Designer: Um . Maybe w +User Interface: Yeah , that's probably a better one , to discuss it straight away . +Project Manager: 'Cause at that point then you've got the details up there , so if we wanted to know for instance that the scroll wheel required the regular {gap} and what required advance . Then if we were able to see that down then we could make the decision at that point in time +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: and then that would be the end of that issue . Does that make sense ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I have a lot of the information there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might not be very clear . +Industrial Designer: Is there {disfmarker} +User Interface: Unless you want to plug it back in to yours . +Industrial Designer: Um . We could do , yeah . Um yeah we should {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As I say it only specified that we need a more advanced circuit board for the scroll wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it didn't {disfmarker} The voice recognition came as a separate piece of information . Um . +Project Manager: No the scroll wheel required the regular , so the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah if if you {gap} down um . It's just this bit at the bottom which I've highlighted , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but the scroll wheel requires a mini m minimally a regular chip , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is in the higher price range . +Project Manager: Okay . The display requires an advanced chip +User Interface: I think the scroll wheel um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: the display requires an advanced chip which in turn is more expense . +Industrial Designer: Also the display's for something else which we decided against . Um but that bit {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And note that the push button just requires a simple chip , so that would keep the price down . +Project Manager: Down . +User Interface: Yeah , and if we're going for sleek and sexy , I think a scroll wheel is maybe a bit kinda bulky ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I I've got um pictures well I've seen pictures with it kind of sticking off the side of it , +Project Manager: Right . Okay . +User Interface: and they don't really look great . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . So maybe just a simple push button , and that would cut costs on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So . So we're going for p Okay . So {gap} is um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So are we going for the w are we going for the simple one , are we ? +User Interface: Yeah , a simple pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Simple push button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Did everyone get this on the speech recognition ? The um it was basically what we said before , the idea that you record in a set message , and then it picks up that message um and replies to you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So it is basically the concept we discussed before . Um but then we don't know for sure whether it would require a more complicated circuit board . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing it would , but {gap} got like the definite information . Maybe we should go on what we're certain of rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if we go for the simple push button , so effectively we're going for the simple printed circuit board are we ? Or are we going for the regular ? +Industrial Designer: Um if it's just the push button then it just needs the simple circuit board . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . But is there any other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean okay , that's true for the {disfmarker} for for that element , but we have to take all {gap} el elements into consideration . And so if there is one element that requires the more expensive one , or say the regular one , or the more advanced , then that would have to be the same for all of them . S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: I suppose we need we need to find out what circuit board that requires , maybe before we {gap} m make a decision . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: But the way that I interpret that um it doesn't seem to send out a signal to the telly , it just {disfmarker} it's like a parrot just rep reply replying to your message . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , I suppose so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe that would be something separate , yeah . +User Interface: So I don't think it would effect our circuit board . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we'd have a simple circuit board +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and that would be an extra that would be in addition to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that makes sense . +User Interface: And I don't think you could really perform any of the remote functions with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause the example that they've given there is good morning coffee machine , good morning Jo . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: It might be useful to say like where are you remote . Here I am , Jo . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think that's maybe as far as that one could go ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that makes sense , so we'd stick with the simple circuit board and then think of the speech recognition as an extra an extra possibility . +User Interface: Yeah , just as a fun way to find it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Simple circuit board . Simple push button . Okay . W w kinetic . +User Interface: And it says that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You were you were wanting to go for the kinetic power supply . +User Interface: I think it said the cost of that isn't too much . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah I I thought so just for {disfmarker} just for ease of not having to replace the batteries . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: And how does it get uh charged up ? +Industrial Designer: It's um I think it works on the basis they have some kind of ball bearings inside . It's um it's some on watches which you you kind of you shake to power it up . Somehow the mechanism inside powers up through movement . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd you'd move the remote around a little bit and then that powers it up to use it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the speech recognition was {disfmarker} Are we going for speech recognition ? No ? 'Cause that required the advanced {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I think it would be helpful to find it , but I don't think it'd um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I think {disfmarker} did we decide it didn't affect the circuit board , it just affected {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Just just for the call and find thing . +Industrial Designer: It was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I had speech recognition requires advanced req require +Industrial Designer: Oh no th that's what that's what I thought , but maybe maybe it doesn't {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Um I think I might have got that wrong . +Project Manager: So okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it's s it's separate isn't it , +Project Manager: Speech recognition you reckon then is s simple . +Marketing: it's not part of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's it's just an addition thing it's um yeah . +Project Manager: And so we would want it in as an extra because it doesn't appear to cost too much . Would that be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay shall I pass on to you now ? +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In fact , it wouldn't really cost anymore , would it ? +User Interface: I'll just just check what it said . Actually I don't think it really says anything about the cost , but it says that it's already in the coffee machines , so like it's already kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I assume it would cost extra , but {disfmarker} Maybe we maybe we'll find out how much that does cost and have to decide slightly later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then have to change all {vocalsound} change {gap} everything at the last minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . S +User Interface: Um . {vocalsound} Oh , that was quick . Um okay , so very brief presentation , um . From looking at the remotes that are out there at the minute , none of them are particularly um sleek and sexy . Um I haven't actually got the examples of the scroll button there , um but there's some curved cases that you can see , uh a range of sizes uh . All of them have a lot of buttons there um they seem to just have the rubber buttons . Does that move it ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: It just seems to be skipping on without us doing anything . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I've found that {gap} try and get it back . +Industrial Designer: If you right click and then go onto a previous slide . +User Interface: Ah it's alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , right . +User Interface: Um . There wasn't much more to say about that , just rambling . {vocalsound} Um some of the uh remotes that I looked at , one of the models da did actually have voice recognition where you could um where it was connected to the remote control functions . And uh it was quite uh a swish model , where it can control uh four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , video , D_V_D_ , audio . Um so that's a bit of competition there . So I mean maybe it's better not to try and compete with that sort of thing and just to market it as a completely different um like different viewpoint as a kind of finding your lost control +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: rather than trying to compete with the functions . Um the scroll buttons , as you've already mentioned , um there's examples of those , but they don't look as sleek as other models . And there's no real advantage and {disfmarker} because it impacts on other {disfmarker} on the materials and the price it's not great . +Industrial Designer: On the price , yeah . +Project Manager: So you were saying the scroll buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th there was a specialist type of remote that we could think about , um . There was children's remote , where um they just had a very limited range of buttons and they were b uh bright and colourful and um you you could program them so that they could only look at certain channels . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um but I don't know if that's really in our field ? +Industrial Designer: I guess I guess we're going for the biggest market , {gap} maybe not , +User Interface: But that's something that's out there . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Was it was it specified that we went for the biggest ? +Project Manager: Well we're to go for the international market rather than a local market but that that wouldn't necessarily preclude {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: The one thing that you can often do with products is you can uh make small modifications . So you have your basic model which you would sell at whatever , and then you could have additional features in you know like a {disfmarker} You'd have model one , model two and model three , and therefore you can sub-divide your market up . But that's really where your field is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So maybe the children's remote should be like a a next step , but maybe I dunno for ours , maybe we should {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyway you could add on for an extra package , but on this basic one I'm reckoning that we're going for the basic model to be discussed here and that uh you would have for future reference the possibility of adding in extra features at extra cost to take care of specialist market segments . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that +User Interface: Right well that's something that we can be aware of . +Project Manager: So so what are we deciding to do here ? +User Interface: Um . I think because there's already um very good voice recognition technology out there , and because ours might not cover the same functions that the leading brands do , it might be a good idea to market it as a um finder function . +Project Manager: Right . Mm-hmm . Uh the fi Yeah , the finder function rather than as a speech function to find your remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you also said for going for the international market um that some some maybe older people might not like the speech recognition . S s so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Different languages might not be compatible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It w it would make it quite complicated , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: where um ours at least keeps it fairly simple and then the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause I think you program um this one yourself , like to say like whatever you want to your question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and ours is quite a cheap device , so I don't know how much we'll be able to put into it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you'd have a finder feature rather than a voice recognition feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: And you were talking +User Interface: Maybe unless something else comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . And you were talking about scroll buttons ? +User Interface: Um yeah I think um I think we've decided that it's gonna increase the cost +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and give no real kinda extra benefit +Project Manager: {gap} b +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's gonna decrease from the sleekness of it . +Project Manager: Alright , so we're just gonna have the the rubber buttons , was that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: Hmm um and just to be aware that there are kind of specialist functions and specialist remotes but we probably don't want to focus on those like such as the children's remote . +Project Manager: Okay . So not to be focused on . +User Interface: Yeah . Um there was a mention just as kind of a warning about button design . Um just to avoid ambiguity . So it gave the example of say your volume buttons for up and down , they might both have a V_ on for volume , {disfmarker} Um let's think how they did this . +Project Manager: Good in in {disfmarker} Flip it round in ninety degree a hundred and eighty degrees and have it up and down . +User Interface: I'm just gonna check so I do this right . +Project Manager: An upside-down V_ . So that would show that volume was going up , whereas the one underneath would see the volume going down . +User Interface: Um . What did they say ? Um I think the thing was that if you decide to do this , to have triangular buttons , um somebody might look at this one and say oh well this triangular button is pointing up , and that's the first thing that they see {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Actually that can't be right , can it ? Oh well , no , they might see yeah , they might see this pointing down and think right that's gonna turn the volume down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: whereas the actual button's pointing up , so the function is to turn the button up . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , be careful what you put on the buttons +Industrial Designer: So maybe we could have like {disfmarker} +User Interface: and be careful of the shape that you make them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because they might be kind of two um contradicting kind of shapes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean . So maybe we could have volume written on the side and then up and down on the on the buttons themselves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You could have volume up and volume {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Possible . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Volume up , down and {disfmarker} Like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And 'cause the idea was to have limited um {disfmarker} it was to have sizable amount of information on it . Limited number of buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah {gap} . +Project Manager: 'Cause it was sixteen buttons , wasn't it that were {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah we got it down to not too many . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um and I think that's all I had to say for that . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Um so what was the decision on the um design of the volume button ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Are we are we gonna go through the design of all the buttons at the moment , or are we gonna t +Marketing: I've I've got some things to say about possible design things from trend watching . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe we should see yours first . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Marketing: Cool . Right , um I've been looking at some trends in in sort of basically fashion on top of doing the um research into the remote control market the the one {disfmarker} that's the one I talked about last time , that we'd sort of asked people about remote controls and what what was good about them , what was bad , what they used . And we've also been looking at sort of fa sort of fashions and what people are wanting out of consumer goods at the moment . So we've had people in Paris and Milan watching the uh fashion trends . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You know {gap} yourself . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So just to summarise the most important things which came out of the remote control market investigation . The most important thing was that the thing sort of look and felt fancy rather than just functional . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: And second , there should be some technological innovation . And then third and l less important than the other two , there should be an ease of use as well . And apparently , the fashion trends {vocalsound} are that people want sort of clothes and shoes and things with a fruit and vegetables theme . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um but um the feel of the material should be spongy , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which is contrary to last year , apparently . I presume it must have been not not spongy last year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So we need to emphasise the fancy design with on on our remote control above all else . And then also try and add in technological informat innovation which could be our sort of find the thing with a hand clap . And then we need to ma sort of make it easy to use that's as a third priority , so perhaps um fewer fewer buttons and functions as we've as we've discussed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then maybe find a way to incorporate these trends so that we sort of capture people's imaginations . So maybe we could make the buttons shaped like fruit and veg , or the the buttons could be spongy , uh somehow . Maybe we could make them out of rubber rather than sort of hard plastic . And then sort of even wackier than that , we could maybe have a fruit or vegetable shaped remote , say in the shape of a banana or something like that . {vocalsound} Right , so that'll be it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe a banana or courgette or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: How how far we actually want to go along and sort of follow the trends , do we think the trends are particularly important for this type of gadget , or or you know , do they not matter that much ? +User Interface: I think if you start making the buttons fruit shaped , it might make it more complicated to use . +Project Manager: Well you were just talking about you've got to be careful how you shape your buttons , 'cause you're can mis-direct people . And I would've thought the functionality {disfmarker} 'cause the people get cheesed off by things {disfmarker} by having to read instructions et cetera , so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: .. . +User Interface: Maybe just one button , say the standby button is quite kinda separate from all the other functions . Maybe that could be a little apple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Now ? Yeah . +User Interface: And then that wouldn't get in the way of like kinda one to nine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it wouldn't confuse the numbers . +Project Manager: Stand-by button . No th that that incorporates the trend whilst at the same time not confusing people , if you're looking for functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Well I dunno I I guess maybe fruit and vegetables may be popular at the moment , but as we know how fickle the fashion markets are , +Project Manager: But what are they gonna be next {disfmarker} Yeah . What are they gonna be next year . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . S +Project Manager: But but th but okay but you you can incorporate the tr If y if you change all the buttons then you've got the problem that this year's fruit and veg , next year's uh {vocalsound} I was gonna say animals or elephants or w whatever . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Project Manager: That means you're constantly changing your production schedule , +Marketing: I'm not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and you've gotta make different moulds and everything else , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so that's not a good idea I would I would suggest . +Marketing: I'm not I'm not sure what what what the sort of timescale we're thinking of selling the product over is . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I mean it just seems realistic that the remote control market isn't the kind of thing which takes in those kinds of fashion trends . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to something which is maybe more universal . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I suppose as long as it's quite a subtle design , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um even if the design kind of changes , {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We c maybe can imply a fruit shape possibly . +Project Manager: Ah d d But if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the spongy feel is something we could think about , um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Well . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Maybe still with a rubber design we could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Was that in the sort of fashion sense that this {disfmarker} Or was {disfmarker} the spongy feel was that uh sort of fashion ? It was , wasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It seems like you're gonna have rubber cases , as well as buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that you can make them curved or double-curved and that would be the kind of sleek and sexy look . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah one of the things were if you had rubber buttons then you had to have a rubber case . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um oh no no no +User Interface: Oh right , that fits , doesn't it ? +Industrial Designer: sorry it's if you use the uh rubber double curved case then you must use rubber buttons . That's the way round . If you have the rubber case then you have to have the rubber buttons to go with it . Which makes sense . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Rubber buttons require rubber case . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: And that would fit in with what we want , wouldn't it , for the spongy feel , to have everything rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh so , yeah . The m the main problem is how f how frequently do the fashions change ? 'Cause in essence in the production you want things to stay {disfmarker} you want to basically mint them out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'cause if you've got fashion changes and that you're incorporating , then it means that your stock is um is last year's stock +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and therefore you're selling it or having to sell it at a discounted rate which you wouldn't want to do . Whereas if you kept the product the same but you could have a difference from year to year , uh it seems to me that you could incorporate a fashion statement if you like , rather than changing the whole kit and caboodle . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: You're just changing one aspect like like the standby button or something like that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and especially 'cause then you could make it something that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suppose we maybe are limited in the fact that we still have to put the logo on the actual {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well , you might be limited in space , that {vocalsound} yes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} would or not . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Well you two are obviously gonna find that out fairly quickly when you move over to your kit modelling stage as to uh how much pl how much how much how pliable is Plasticine . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could think of the the cases like changing with the fashions +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like the Nokia phones where you could take the casing off the outside . But whether that would be too much to incorporate in production , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether that would just increase the costs , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: make it more complicated . +Project Manager: So you're talking there about uh changing changing the casing . +Marketing: That's possibly it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the a the actual the sort of the look from the outside , so where the buttons would stay the same , and the general function of the remote would stay the same , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you could change the the way it looked . +User Interface: Yeah and then you could have {disfmarker} Oh but you still would have to have the logo on every new case , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: but you could have like pink cases for girls and red ones and things like that . +Project Manager: Yeah you you could do a colour change , so therefore you would yeah yeah {disfmarker} I mean that's effectively what they did with the with the mobile phones , was to have some in blue , some in red , some in {disfmarker} rather than all in black +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or , you know , which four do you want , as long as it's black ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But uh so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it is a possibility , um . +User Interface: But we are supposed to use the um company colour scheme , aren't we ? +Project Manager: Yes oh that's true +User Interface: We haven't really seen that yet +Industrial Designer: Oh okay yes +Project Manager: uh that might no +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that is {disfmarker} +User Interface: It might {disfmarker} and we might be able to do both but it might clash with certain things . +Project Manager: Well not necessarily , because you could have your company uh {disfmarker} We're we're meant to be finishing up . You could have your company badge and logo . I mean a lot of um computers for instance like like on the one you've got there , it actually has a sort of um stick on badge +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so what you would al all you would really need , whether it , you know , whether the casing be w any colour , could be any colour , but that badge would then have to stick out on top of it so that uh in a sense , with a with a logo like that , because it's on a white background , the only colour that it might not stick out so well on would be a white casing . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause you you know you're sort of you're badging it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact a lot of companies get somebody else to make them and literally just badge them themselves with their own uh badge over the top . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And in fact the way they've got that there even if you had that on a white , which is the predominant colour of the uh the Windows badge , you'd still be able to see it clearly from you know a white casing uh product . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: And whether we'd have a big enough market to have this kind of like secondary market of selling the cases might be something to consider . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well if it's for young people , um like the phone generation , that sort of thing'd probably go down well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and the market research has been on that side of things , hasn't it ? +Marketing: Yeah , I mean it's people say that it's the look , they want the fancy looking thing but I'm {disfmarker} Yeah . I'm not convinced on whether having changeable covers would be something that people would buy into . I think with the mobiles , it's the , you know it's a communication device , people see you with it all about and +Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: where you you keep the remote hidden under the sofa most of the time . +Marketing: i if it +Project Manager: It's uh in in the house , isn't it , I suppose . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so if we just went for one colour of a rubber case {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So don't change case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Change case colour . And we're sort of saying no to that . +User Interface: Did we decide on the rubber case ? The spongy feel , or did we think that that might go as a trend ? +Marketing: Well , it was different last year . The trend was different last year apparently . It was not not spongy feel . But {disfmarker} I don't know whether the trend will change . I don't know whether it's one of those things that like sort of having all fruit shaped keys , that that probably would go out of fashion very quickly , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: whereas just the fact that it was a rubber case is probably less less of something that y you're gonna end up hating in a year , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , less likely to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sounds reasonable . {vocalsound} {gap} If you're going for fashion trends like that they'll need t you'd have to have interchangeable cases +Industrial Designer: So then th th that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so that you could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or 'cause otherwise someone's gonna have to buy a complete new remote rather than just a case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} it seems to make sense that we we'd just maybe stick with the standard rubber case , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then have the standard rubber buttons as well . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Uh we haven't really talked about uh the curvature of the case . There's flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: there's single-curved and there's double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Um . Mayb +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what these things look like . +Industrial Designer: Maybe curves give it like the slightly more aesthetic feel ? But the double curve wouldn't require us to perform miracles with the Plasticine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well it says that {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you say d when you say double-curved , what what exactly does that mean ? +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure . {vocalsound} Um I'll show you the remotes that I've got . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: See how uh {disfmarker} Let's just get that bigger . See how uh the one {disfmarker} Oh I'm not plugged in , am I ? +Marketing: No you're not connected to me anymore . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That doesn't help . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One one thing to cons +User Interface: Shall I just turn it round for time ? +Project Manager: one thing to consider is that in some ways you want um {disfmarker} by having a fairly standard case it means they can all fit together on top of each other +Marketing: {gap} That should come up . +Project Manager: therefore for storage purposes in shops and the like and it makes it easier that you can {disfmarker} if you can store them up on top of each other . +Marketing: Mm {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Whereas if you do um fancy things with it , you then gotta put it in a ca a a packaging box that that does that . And the cost of packaging could be quite important vis-a-vis the total cost of the product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So shall we go through quickly and just work out what we've decide on , if we have to kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um it's not very clear up there , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but you can see some of them have got kind of bulges , like the second one and the end one uh where there's a curve there . +Project Manager: Mm yep . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm not exactl I don't know if a double curve is maybe it comes up slightly , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what I was trying to work out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um it is a kinda sleeker look if you've got curves in there . +Project Manager: Oh right . S so do you wanna go for curves , more curves ? +Marketing: Shall we +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: We're meant to be f we're meant to be finishing this meeting in about a minute or so . +User Interface: Definitely a single , maybe a double . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , so shall we quickly {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we go for single curve , just to compromise ? +Industrial Designer: We'll go for single curve , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Single curve . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: curved or double curved ? So it's single curved . +Industrial Designer: So did we did we decide on the kinetic power supply ? The one you move around ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I think that think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: And the rubber push buttons , rubber case . +Marketing: Rubber {disfmarker} Rubber buttons and case . +User Interface: Um and we don't really know much about the colour scheme or logo yet do we , +Industrial Designer: Oh we ca +User Interface: but possibly a sticker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , we'll still have the {disfmarker} Are we gonna go for the simple circuit board just to keep the cost down ? I th I think we can by by not having anything too complicated {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah and and the voice recognition , we can use that can't we , just to find it . Without affecting the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: And see we could always decide against it if something comes up that's just something to {disfmarker} that we seemed to leave out . +Marketing: Okay . And then are we going for sort of one button shaped like a fruit . {vocalsound} Or veg . +User Interface: Yeah that sounds like it wouldn't do too much harm in a couple of years . Uh what sort of shape do we want ? +Project Manager: So we've got spongy feel buttons as well , have we ? +Marketing: Don't know , maybe just +Project Manager: As well as {disfmarker} or w or was that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . That's ru rubber buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: So it's rubber buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so it's not really spongy feel buttons , it's just rubber buttons . With a rubber case right ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , so it's not too wacky . +Marketing: Reasonably spongy I guess , yeah . +Project Manager: And the standby button is gonna be different . +Marketing: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Um I think an apple would be a good recognisable shape . If you start getting into kinda aubergines and things , it gets a bit weird . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so what what shape are we making the standby button ? +Marketing: Yeah {gap} . Apple ? +Project Manager: A apple . +User Interface: Vote ? +Project Manager: Oh oh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Shall we vote on it ? +Industrial Designer: We will go for the a a a apples apples . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Anyone got any suggestions ? +Marketing: Apple apple a a qu Quite a big one , as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A big apple . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well it could be red . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Could be a red apple , yeah . Either , don't mind . +Project Manager: A red apple ? Is it ? +User Interface: Yeah 'cause we wanna incorporate a bit of colour if we can , once we find out um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . And then we're gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna work on keeping the button design quite simple ? Just like the {disfmarker} Just working out what we're gonna do for the next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah that seems pretty straight forward . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause most of them will just be kind of mainly circular or like very plain . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry what was that last thing again there ? +User Interface: Uh just to keep the shape of the buttons simple . +Project Manager: Right {gap} much option on that . I thought you were going for a single curve and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah just the uh shape of the buttons . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And j yeah , just keeping the sort of the labelling them labelling of them fairly simple as well . Fairly sort of self explanatory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , so shape of buttons simple . Okay . So that's that , I guess . We should now go away and get these things sorted out . {gap} I guess you two are on plasticine duty or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , so um . +Industrial Designer: Is that the end ? Okay . +Marketing: Looks like it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +","The descriptive summary of the provided text narrates the events and discussions that took place during a team meeting regarding the conceptual design of a new remote control device. The participants included the Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface specialist, and a Marketing representative. + +During the meeting, the Project Manager acknowledges initial technical difficulties in sharing previous meeting minutes. They proceed to recap the previous session's decisions, which included incorporating the company logo and color scheme into the design, ensuring ease of manufacture for on-time project completion, and designing a two-page interface featuring the most desired features on the front page and technical backup features on the second page. + +The team then discusses various aspects of the remote's design. The Industrial Designer details the options for the power supply, including standard batteries, a dynamo, a kinetic option, and solar cells, highlighting that kinetic power could avoid battery replacement issues. The conversation shifts to button designs – options such as integrated push buttons, a scroll wheel, and materials like rubber are examined, considering cost and production implications. + +The Project Manager pushes for actionable decisions, suggesting they evaluate solutions immediately after each presentation. There is agreement to target simplicity and avoid complicating the user interface. + +Further deliberation revolves around the circuit board complexity, with attention to how different buttons or features like speech recognition might necessitate a more advanced and expensive board. The conversation meanders through technical options, with the team weighing the implications of each choice. + +As the meeting progresses, the team converges on certain design choices, such as opting for kinetic power, rubber buttons, and a simple circuit board. They also consider the potential of a speech recognition feature purely as a novelty to locate the remote, leaving open the possibility of omitting it in the future if it proves impractical or costly. + +Marketing's input focuses on current fashion trends and consumer preferences, including a ""fancy"" appearance and technological innovation. They explore the idea of making the remote's design align with trends like spongy textures or a fruit and vegetable theme, but the practicality of such features is debated. The UI specialist suggests moderation in following fashion trends, using a single fruit-shaped button as a compromise. + +The team seeks to balance practical considerations with innovative features, ensuring the remote control stands out in the market without sacrificing user-friendliness or falling out of fashion. Curvature of the case is also discussed, with a general preference for a single curve to capture the ""sleek and sexy"" appeal. + +By the meeting's end, the team reaches a consensus on several key design attributes: a kinetic power supply, rubber for both buttons and casing, a single-curved design, and incorporating a fruit-shaped button as a nod to current trends without it overshadowing overall functionality. They decide to conclude with a simple circuit board, potentially adding speech recognition if it doesn't complicate the design or increase costs substantially. + +The use of the company's color scheme and logo placement remains undetermined, depending on further information. Throughout the meeting, there is an ongoing concern about keeping designs adaptable to rapidly changing fashion trends. The final decisions are made with an understanding that they may need to revisit some elements as more information becomes available or market research provides new insights. + +The Project Manager closes the meeting with instructions for moving forward, assigning the Industrial Designer and UI specialist to create mockups of the design, likely using material like Plasticine for the upcoming prototyping phase." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: OK . So uh , he 's not here , +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so you get to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I will try to explain the thing that I did this {disfmarker} this week {disfmarker} during this week . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well eh you know that I work {disfmarker} I begin to work with a new feature to detect voice - unvoice . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: What I trying two MLP to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} with this new feature and the fifteen feature uh from the eh bus base system +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the mel cepstrum ? +PhD D: No , satly the mes the Mel Cepstrum , the new base system {disfmarker} the new base system . +PhD E: Oh the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , the Aurora system . +PhD D: yeah the Aurora system with the new filter , VAD or something like that . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: And I 'm trying two MLP , one one that only have t three output , voice , unvoice , and silence , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and other one that have fifty - six output . The probabilities of the allophone . And I tried to do some experiment of recognition with that and only have result with {disfmarker} with the MLP with the three output . And I put together the fifteen features and the three MLP output . And , well , the result are li a little bit better , but more or less similar . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm slightly confused . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what feeds the uh {disfmarker} the three - output net ? +PhD D: Voice , unvoice , and si +Professor C: No no , what feeds it ? What features does it see ? +PhD D: The feature {disfmarker} the input ? The inputs are the fifteen {disfmarker} the fifteen uh bases feature . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the {disfmarker} with the new code . And the other three features are R , the variance of the difference between the two spectrum , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the variance of the auto - correlation function , except the {disfmarker} the first point , because half the height value is R - zero +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and also R - zero , the first coefficient of the auto - correlation function . That is like the energy with these three feature , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: also these three feature . +Professor C: You wouldn't do like R - one over R - zero or something like that ? I mean usually for voiced - unvoiced you 'd do {disfmarker} yeah , you 'd do something {disfmarker} you 'd do energy +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: but then you have something like spectral slope , which is you get like R - one ov over R - zero or something like that . +PhD D: Uh yeah . +PhD E: What are the R 's ? +Professor C: R correlations . +PhD E: I 'm sorry I missed it . +PhD D: No , R c No . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD D: Auto - correlation ? Yes , yes , the variance of the auto - correlation function that uses that +Professor C: Ye - Well that 's the variance , but if you just say "" what is {disfmarker} "" I mean , to first order , um yeah one of the differences between voiced , unvoiced and silence is energy . Another one is {disfmarker} but the other one is the spectral shape . +PhD D: Yeah , I I 'll {disfmarker} The spectral shape , +Professor C: Yeah , and so R - one over R - zero is what you typically use for that . +PhD D: yeah . No , I don't use that {disfmarker} I can't use {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I 'm saying that 's what people us typically use . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: See , because it {disfmarker} because this is {disfmarker} this is just like a single number to tell you um "" does the spectrum look like that or does it look like that "" . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . R {disfmarker} R {disfmarker} R - zero . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's um {disfmarker} if it 's low energy uh but the {disfmarker} but the spectrum looks like that or like that , it 's probably silence . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh but if it 's low energy and the spectrum looks like that , it 's probably unvoiced . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So if you just {disfmarker} if you just had to pick two features to determine voiced - unvoiced , you 'd pick something about the spectrum like uh R - one over R - zero , um and R - zero +PhD D: Mm - hmm , OK . +Professor C: or i i you know you 'd have some other energy measure and like in the old days people did like uh zero crossing counts . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Right . S S +PhD D: Well , I can also th use this . +Professor C: Yeah . Um , +PhD D: Bec - because the result are a little bit better but we have in a point that everything is more or less the similar {disfmarker} more or less similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But um +PhD D: It 's not quite better . +Professor C: Right , but it seemed to me that what you were what you were getting at before was that there is something about the difference between the original signal or the original FFT and with the filter which is what {disfmarker} and the variance was one take uh on it . +PhD D: Yeah , I used this too . +Professor C: Right . But it {disfmarker} it could be something else . Suppose you didn't have anything like that . Then in that case , if you have two nets , Alright , and this one has three outputs , and this one has f +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: whatever , fifty - six , or something , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you were to sum up the probabilities for the voiced and for the unvoiced and for the silence here , we 've found in the past you 'll do better at voiced - unvoiced - silence than you do with this one . So just having the three output thing doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't really buy you anything . The issue is what you feed it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , I have {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: So uh +PhD D: No {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you 're saying take the features that go into the voiced - unvoiced - silence net and feed those into the other one , as additional inputs , rather than having a separate {disfmarker} +Professor C: w W well that 's another way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: That wasn't what I was saying but yeah that 's certainly another thing to do . No I was just trying to say if you b if you bring this into the picture over this , what more does it buy you ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor C: And what I was saying is that the only thing I think that it buys you is um based on whether you feed it something different . And something different in some fundamental way . And so the kind of thing that {disfmarker} that she was talking about before , was looking at something uh ab um {disfmarker} something uh about the difference between the {disfmarker} the uh um log FFT uh log power uh and the log magnitude uh F F - spectrum uh and the um uh filter bank . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And so the filter bank is chosen in fact to sort of integrate out the effects of pitch and she 's saying you know trying {disfmarker} So the particular measure that she chose was the variance of this m of this difference , but that might not be the right number . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Maybe . +Professor C: Right ? I mean maybe there 's something about the variance that 's {disfmarker} that 's not enough or maybe there 's something else that {disfmarker} that one could use , but I think that , for me , the thing that {disfmarker} that struck me was that uh you wanna get something back here , so here 's {disfmarker} here 's an idea . uh What about it you skip all the {disfmarker} all the really clever things , and just fed the log magnitude spectrum into this ? +PhD D: Ah {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +Professor C: This is f You have the log magnitude spectrum , and you were looking at that and the difference between the filter bank and {disfmarker} and c c computing the variance . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's a clever thing to do . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What if you stopped being clever ? And you just took this thing in here because it 's a neural net and neural nets are wonderful +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and figure out what they can {disfmarker} what they most need from things , and I mean that 's what they 're good at . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're trying to be clever and say what 's the statistic that should {disfmarker} we should get about this difference but uh in fact , you know maybe just feeding this in or {disfmarker} or feeding both of them in +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: you know , another way , saying let it figure out what 's the {disfmarker} what is the interaction , especially if you do this over multiple frames ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Then you have this over time , and {disfmarker} and both kinds of measures and uh you might get uh something better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} so don't uh {disfmarker} don't do the division , but let the net have everything . +Professor C: That 's another thing you could do yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . I mean , it seems to me , if you have exactly the right thing then it 's better to do it without the net because otherwise you 're asking the net to learn this {disfmarker} you know , say if you wanted to learn how to do multiplication . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean you could feed it a bunch of s you could feed two numbers that you wanted to multiply into a net and have a bunch of nonlinearities in the middle and train it to get the product of the output and it would work . But , it 's kind of crazy , cuz we know how to multiply and you {disfmarker} you 'd be you know much lower error usually {vocalsound} if you just multiplied it out . But suppose you don't really know what the right thing is . And that 's what these sort of dumb machine learning methods are good at . So . Um . Anyway . It 's just a thought . +PhD E: How long does it take , Carmen , to train up one of these nets ? +PhD D: Oh , not too much . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , one day or less . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's probably worth it . +Grad A: What are {disfmarker} what are your f uh frame error rates for {disfmarker} for this ? +PhD D: Eh fifty - f six uh no , the frame error rate ? +Grad A: O +PhD D: Fifty - six I think . +Professor C: Is that {disfmarker} maybe that 's accuracy ? +PhD D: Percent . +Grad A: Fif - fifty - six percent accurate for v voice - unvoice +PhD D: The accuracy . Mm - hmm . No for , yes f I don't remember for voice - unvoice , +Grad A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: maybe for the other one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , voiced - unvoiced hopefully would be a lot better . +PhD D: for voiced . I don't reme +Grad A: Should be in nineties somewhere . +PhD D: Better . Maybe for voice - unvoice . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: This is for the other one . I should {disfmarker} I can't show that . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: But I think that fifty - five was for the {disfmarker} when the output are the fifty - six phone . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: That I look in the {disfmarker} with the other {disfmarker} nnn the other MLP that we have are more or less the same number . Silence will be better but more or less the same . +Professor C: I think at the frame level for fifty - six that was the kind of number we were getting for {disfmarker} for uh um reduced band width uh stuff . +PhD D: I think that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that for the other one , for the three output , is sixty sixty - two , sixty three more or less . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's all ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: That 's pretty bad . +PhD D: Yeah , because it 's noise also . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor C: Aha ! +PhD D: And we have +Professor C: Aha ! Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD D: I know . +Professor C: But even i in {disfmarker} Oh yeah , in training . Still , Uh . Well actually , so this is a test that you should do then . Um , if you 're getting fifty - six percent over here , uh that 's in noise also , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Oh OK . If you 're getting fifty - six here , try adding together the probabilities of all of the voiced phones here and all of the unvoiced phones +PhD D: will be {disfmarker} +Professor C: and see what you get then . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: I bet you get better than sixty - three . +PhD D: Well I don't know , but {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} I have the result more or less . Maybe . I don't know . I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure but I remember @ @ that I can't show that . +Professor C: OK , but that 's a {disfmarker} That is a {disfmarker} a good check point , you should do that anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK ? Given this {disfmarker} this uh regular old net that 's just for choosing for other purposes , uh add up the probabilities of the different subclasses and see {disfmarker} see how well you do . Uh and that {disfmarker} you know anything that you do over here should be at least as good as that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: I will do that . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: The targets for the neural net , uh , they come from forced alignments ? +PhD D: Uh , {comment} no . +Grad A: TIMIT canonical ma mappings . +PhD D: TIMIT . +Professor C: Oh . So , this is trained on TIMIT . +PhD E: Ah ! OK . +Grad A: Yeah , noisy TIMIT . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah this for TIMIT . +Professor C: But noisy TIMIT ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Noisy TIMIT . We have noisy TIMIT with the noise of the {disfmarker} the TI - digits . And now we have another noisy TIMIT also with the noise of uh Italian database . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . Well there 's gonna be {disfmarker} it looks like there 's gonna be a noisy uh {disfmarker} some large vocabulary noisy stuff too . Somebody 's preparing . +PhD E: Really ? +Professor C: Yeah . I forget what it 'll be , resource management , Wall Street Journal , something . Some {disfmarker} some read task actually , that they 're {disfmarker} preparing . +Grad A: Hmm ! +PhD E: For what {disfmarker} For Aurora ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor C: Yeah , so the uh {disfmarker} Uh , the issue is whether people make a decision now based on what they 've already seen , or they make it later . And one of the arguments for making it later is let 's make sure that whatever techniques that we 're using work for something more than {disfmarker} than connected digits . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: When are they planning {disfmarker} When would they do that ? +Professor C: Mmm , I think late {disfmarker} uh I think in the summer sometime . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . OK , thanks . +PhD D: This is the work that I did during this date +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and also mmm I {disfmarker} H Hynek last week say that if I have time I can to begin to {disfmarker} to study well seriously the France Telecom proposal +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to look at the code and something like that to know exactly what they are doing because maybe that we can have some ideas +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but not only to read the proposal . Look insi look i carefully what they are doing with the program @ @ and I begin to {disfmarker} to work also in that . But the first thing that I don't understand is that they are using R - the uh log energy that this quite {disfmarker} I don't know why they have some constant in the expression of the lower energy . I don't know what that means . +PhD E: They have a constant in there , you said ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , at the front it says uh "" log energy is equal to the rounded version of sixteen over the log of two "" +PhD D: This {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . uh times the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Then maybe I can understand . +Professor C: Well , this is natural log , and maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have no idea . +PhD E: Is that some kind of base conversion , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} but um , then there 's the sixty - four , Uh , {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD D: Because maybe they 're {disfmarker} the threshold that they are using on the basis of this value {disfmarker} +PhD E: Experimental results . +Grad A: Mc - McDonald 's constant . +PhD D: I don't know exactly , because well th I thought maybe they have a meaning . But I don't know what is the meaning of take exactly this value . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's pretty funny looking . +PhD E: So they 're taking the number inside the log and raising it to sixteen over log base two . +Professor C: I don't know . Yeah , I {disfmarker} um Right . Sixteen over {comment} two . +PhD E: Does it have to do with those sixty - fours , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Um . If we ignore the sixteen , the natural log of t one over the natural log of two times the natu I don't know . Well , maybe somebody 'll think of something , +PhD E: +Professor C: but this is uh {disfmarker} It may just be that they {disfmarker} they want to have {disfmarker} for very small energies , they want to have some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , the e The effect I don't {disfmarker} @ @ I can understand the effect of this , no ? because it 's to {disfmarker} to do something like that . +Professor C: Well , it says , since you 're taking a natural log , it says that when {disfmarker} when you get down to essentially zero energy , this is gonna be the natural log of one , which is zero . +PhD D: No ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So it 'll go down to uh to {nonvocalsound} the natural log being {disfmarker} So the lowest value for this would be zero . So y you 're restricted to being positive . And this sort of smooths it for very small energies . Uh , why they chose sixty - four and something else , that was probably just experimental . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the constant in front of it , I have no idea . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: um +PhD D: Well . I {disfmarker} I will look to try if I move this parameter in their code what happens , maybe everything is {disfmarker} Maybe they tres hole are on basis of this . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} they probably have some fi particular s fixed point arithmetic that they 're using , +PhD D: I don't know . +Professor C: and then it just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I was just gonna say maybe it has something to do with hardware , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: something they were doing . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean that {disfmarker} they 're s probably working with fixed point or integer or something . I think you 're supposed to on this stuff anyway , and {disfmarker} and so maybe that puts it in the right realm somewhere . +PhD E: Well it just , yeah , puts it in the right range , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . I think , given at the level you 're doing things in floating point on the computer , I don't think it matters , would be my guess , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} this more or less anything +Professor C: Yeah . OK , and wh when did Stephane take off ? He took off {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think that Stephane will arrive today or tomorrow . +Professor C: Oh , he was gone these first few days , and then he 's here for a couple days before he goes to Salt Lake City . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: He 's {disfmarker} I think that he is in Las Vegas or something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to ICASSP which is good . I {disfmarker} I don't know if there are many people who are going to ICASSP +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: so {disfmarker} so I thought , make sure somebody go . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} Have people sort of stopped going to ICASSP in recent years ? +Professor C: Um , people are less consistent about going to ICASSP and I think it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still a reasonable forum for students to {disfmarker} to present things . Uh , it 's {disfmarker} I think for engineering students of any kind , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's if you haven't been there much , it 's good to go to , uh to get a feel for things , a range of things , not just speech . Uh . But I think for {disfmarker} for sort of dyed - in - the - wool speech people , um I think that ICSLP and Eurospeech are much more targeted . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh . And then there 's these other meetings , like HLT and {disfmarker} and uh ASRU {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor C: so there 's {disfmarker} there 's actually plenty of meetings that are really relevant to {disfmarker} to uh computational uh speech processing of one sort or another . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . So . I mean , I mostly just ignored it because I was too busy and {vocalsound} didn't get to it . So uh Wanna talk a little bit about what we were talking about this morning ? +Grad A: Oh ! um {pause} uh {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: Just briefly , or {pause} Or anything else ? +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I guess some of the progress , I {disfmarker} I 've been getting a {disfmarker} getting my committee members for the quals . And um so far I have Morgan and Hynek , {vocalsound} Mike Jordan , and I asked John Ohala and he agreed . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Cool . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I just need to ask um Malek . One more . Um . Tsk . Then uh I talked a little bit about {vocalsound} um continuing with these dynamic ev um acoustic events , and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {vocalsound} thinking about a way to test the completeness of a {disfmarker} a set of um dynamic uh events . Uh , completeness in the {disfmarker} in the sense that {vocalsound} um if we {disfmarker} if we pick these X number of acoustic events , {vocalsound} do they provide sufficient coverage {vocalsound} for the phones that we 're trying to recognize {vocalsound} or {disfmarker} or the f the words that we 're gonna try to recognize later on . And so Morgan and I were uh discussing {vocalsound} um s uh s a form of a cheating experiment {vocalsound} where we get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um we have uh {vocalsound} um a chosen set of features , or acoustic events , and we train up a hybrid {vocalsound} um system to do phone recognition on TIMIT . So i i the idea is if we get good phone recognition results , {vocalsound} using um these set of acoustic events , {vocalsound} then {vocalsound} um that {disfmarker} that says that these acoustic events are g sufficient to cover {vocalsound} a set of phones , at least found in TIMIT . Um so i it would be a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a measure of "" are we on the right track with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the choices of our acoustic events "" . Um , {vocalsound} So that 's going on . And {vocalsound} also , just uh working on my {vocalsound} uh final project for Jordan 's class , uh which is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , let me {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Hold that thought . +Grad A: OK , sure . +Professor C: Let me back up while we 're still on it . The {disfmarker} the other thing I was suggesting , though , is that given that you 're talking about binary features , uh , maybe the first thing to do is just to count and uh count co - occurrences and get probabilities for a discrete HMM cuz that 'd be pretty simple because it 's just {disfmarker} Say , if you had ten {disfmarker} ten events , uh that you were counting , uh each frame would only have a thousand possible values for these ten bits , and uh so you could make a table that would {disfmarker} say , if you had thirty - nine phone categories , that would be a thousand by thirty - nine , and just count the co - occurrences and divide them by the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} uh uh occ uh count the co - occurrences between the event and the phone and divide them by the number of occurrences of the phone , and that would give you the likelihood of the {disfmarker} of the event given the phone . And um then just use that in a very simple HMM and uh you could uh do phone recognition then and uh wouldn't have any of the issues of the uh training of the net or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be on the simple side , but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh um you know , if {disfmarker} uh uh the example I was giving was that if {disfmarker} if you had um onset of voicing and {disfmarker} and end of voicing as being two kinds of events , then if you had those a all marked correctly , and you counted co - occurrences , you should get it completely right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . um {disfmarker} But you 'd get all the other distinctions , you know , randomly wrong . I mean there 'd be nothing to tell you that . So um {vocalsound} uh If you just do this by counting , then you should be able to find out in a pretty straightforward way whether you have a sufficient uh set of events to {disfmarker} to do the kind of level of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of uh classification of phones that you 'd like . So that was {disfmarker} that was the idea . And then the other thing that we were discussing was {disfmarker} was um {vocalsound} OK , how do you get the {disfmarker} your training data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz uh the {vocalsound} Switchboard transcription project uh uh you know was half a dozen people , or so working off and on over a couple years , and uh similar {disfmarker} {vocalsound} similar amount of data {vocalsound} to what you 're talking about with TIMIT training . So , it seems to me that the only reasonable starting point is uh to automatically translate the uh current TIMIT markings into the markings you want . And uh {vocalsound} it won't have the kind of characteristic that you 'd like , of catching funny kind of things that maybe aren't there from these automatic markings , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's probably a good place to start . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah and a short {disfmarker} short amount of time , just to {disfmarker} again , just to see if that information is sufficient to uh determine the phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Yeah , you could even then {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get an idea about how different it is , you could maybe take some subset and you know , go through a few sentences , mark them by hand and then see how different it is from you know , the canonical ones , +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: just to get an idea {disfmarker} a rough idea of h if it really even makes a difference . +Professor C: You can get a little feeling for it that way , yeah that is probably right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean uh my {disfmarker} my guess would be that this is {disfmarker} since TIMIT 's read speech that this would be less of a big deal , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you went and looked at spontaneous speech it 'd be more {disfmarker} more of one . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: And the other thing would be , say , if you had these ten events , you 'd wanna see , well what if you took two events or four events or ten events or t and you know , and {disfmarker} and hopefully there should be some point at which {vocalsound} having more information doesn't tell you really all that much more about what the phones are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . You could define other events as being sequences of these events too . +Professor C: Uh , you could , but the thing is , what he 's talking about here is a uh {disfmarker} a translation to a per - frame feature vector , so there 's no sequence in that , I think . I think it 's just a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Unless you did like a second pass over it or something after you 've got your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 're just talking about something simple here , yeah , to see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . I 'm adding complexity . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} You know . The idea is with a {disfmarker} with a very simple statistical structure , could you {disfmarker} could you uh at least verify that you 've chosen features that {vocalsound} are sufficient . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , and you were saying something {disfmarker} starting to say something else about your {disfmarker} your class project , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Oh . Yeah th Um . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So for my class project I 'm {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm tinkering with uh support vector machines ? something that we learned in class , and uh um basically just another method for doing classification . And so I 'm gonna apply that to {vocalsound} um compare it with the results by um King and Taylor who did {vocalsound} um these um using recurrent neural nets , they recognized {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} a set of phonological features um and made a mapping from the MFCC 's to these phonological features , so I 'm gonna {vocalsound} do a similar thing with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with support vector machines and see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what 's the advantage of support vector machines ? What {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . So , support vector machines are {disfmarker} are good with dealing with a less amount of data +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: and um so if you {disfmarker} if you give it less data it still does a reasonable job {vocalsound} in learning the {disfmarker} the patterns . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Um and {vocalsound} um +Professor C: I guess it {disfmarker} yeah , they 're sort of succinct , and {disfmarker} and they {vocalsound} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Does there some kind of a distance metric that they use or how do they {disfmarker} for cla what do they do for classification ? +Grad A: Um . Right . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the simple idea behind a support vector machine is {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} you have this feature space , right ? and then it finds the optimal separating plane , um between these two different um classes , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} and so {vocalsound} um , what it {disfmarker} i at the end of the day , what it actually does is {vocalsound} it picks {vocalsound} those examples of the features that are closest to the separating boundary , and remembers those +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uses them to recreate the boundary for the test set . So , given these {vocalsound} um these features , or {disfmarker} or these {disfmarker} these examples , {pause} um , {pause} critical examples , {vocalsound} which they call support f support vectors , {vocalsound} then um {vocalsound} given a new example , {vocalsound} if the new example falls {vocalsound} um away from the boundary in one direction then it 's classified as being a part of this particular class +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: and otherwise it 's the other class . +PhD E: So why save the examples ? Why not just save what the boundary itself is ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um . Hmm . Let 's see . Uh . Yeah , that 's a good question . I {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: That 's another way of doing it . Right ? So {disfmarker} so it {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . Sort of an equivalent . +Professor C: You know , it {disfmarker} it goes back to nearest - neighbor {vocalsound} sort of thing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? Um , i i if {disfmarker} is it eh w When is nearest - neighbor good ? Well , nearest - neighbor good {disfmarker} is good if you have lots and lots of examples . Um but of course if you have lots and lots of examples , then it can take a while to {disfmarker} to use nearest - neighbor . There 's lots of look ups . So a long time ago people talked about things where you would have uh a condensed nearest - neighbor , where you would {disfmarker} you would {disfmarker} you would pick out uh some representative examples which would uh be sufficient to represent {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to correctly classify everything that came in . +PhD E: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think s I think support vector stuff sort of goes back to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to that kind of thing . Um . +PhD E: I see . So rather than doing nearest neighbor where you compare to every single one , you just pick a few critical ones , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: And th the You know , um neural net approach uh or Gaussian mixtures for that matter are sort of {disfmarker} fairly brute force kinds of things , where you sort of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you predefine that there is this big bunch of parameters and then you {disfmarker} you place them as you best can to define the boundaries , and in fact , as you know , {vocalsound} these things do take a lot of parameters and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} if you have uh only a modest amount of data , you have trouble {vocalsound} uh learning them . Um , so I {disfmarker} I guess the idea to this is that it {disfmarker} it is reputed to uh be somewhat better in that regard . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . I it can be a {disfmarker} a reduced um {vocalsound} parameterization of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the model by just keeping {vocalsound} certain selected examples . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . +Professor C: But I don't know if people have done sort of careful comparisons of this on large tasks or anything . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they have . I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah , I don't know either . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: S do you get some kind of number between zero and one at the output ? +Grad A: Actually you don't get a {disfmarker} you don't get a nice number between zero and one . You get {disfmarker} you get either a zero or a one . Um , uh there are {disfmarker} there are pap Well , basically , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you get a distance measure at the end of the day , and then that distance measure is {disfmarker} is um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is translated to a zero or one . Um . +Professor C: But that 's looking at it for {disfmarker} for classification {disfmarker} for binary classification , +Grad A: That 's for classification , right . +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: And you get that for each class , you get a zero or a one . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: But you have the distances to work with . +Grad A: You have the distances to work with , +Professor C: Cuz actually Mississippi State people did use support vector machines for uh uh speech recognition and they were using it to estimate probabilities . +Grad A: yeah . Yeah . Yeah , they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had a {disfmarker} had a way to translate the distances into {disfmarker} into probabilities with the {disfmarker} with the simple {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} uh sigmoidal function . +Professor C: Yeah , and d did they use sigmoid or a softmax type thing ? +Grad A: Um {pause} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Professor C: And didn't they like exponentiate or something +Grad A: there 's some {disfmarker} there 's like one over one plus the exponential or something like that . +Professor C: and then {vocalsound} divide by the sum of them , or {disfmarker} ? Oh it {disfmarker} i Oh , so it is a sigmoidal . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Alright . +PhD E: Did the {disfmarker} did they get good results with that ? +Professor C: I mean , they 're OK , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they were earth {disfmarker} earth shattering , but I think that {vocalsound} uh this was a couple years ago , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: I remember them doing it at some meeting , and {disfmarker} and um I don't think people were very critical because it was interesting just to {disfmarker} to try this and you know , it was the first time they tried it , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the {disfmarker} you know , the numbers were not incredibly good +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: but there 's you know , it was th reasonable . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't remember anymore . I don't even remember what the task was , it {comment} was Broadcast News , or {vocalsound} something . I don't know . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Uh s So Barry , if you just have zero and ones , how are you doing the speech recognition ? +Grad A: Oh I 'm not do I 'm not planning on doing speech recognition with it . I 'm just doing {vocalsound} detection of phonological features . +Grad B: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So uh for example , {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} this uh feature set called the uh sound patterns of English {vocalsound} um is just a bunch of {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} binary valued features . Let 's say , is this voicing , or is this not voicing , is this {vocalsound} sonorants , not sonorants , and {vocalsound} stuff like that . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Did you find any more mistakes in their tables ? +Grad A: Oh ! Uh I haven't gone through the entire table , {pause} yet . Yeah , yesterday I brought Chuck {vocalsound} the table and I was like , "" wait , this {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is the mapping from N to {disfmarker} to this phonological feature called um "" coronal "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} should it be {disfmarker} shouldn't it be a one ? or should it {disfmarker} should it be you know coronal instead of not coronal as it was labelled in the paper ? "" So I ha haven't hunted down all the {disfmarker} all the mistakes yet , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: But a as I was saying , people do get probabilities from these things , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh we were just trying to remember how they do , but people have used it for speech recognition , and they have gotten probabilities . So they have some conversion from these distances to probabilities . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Right , yeah . +Professor C: There 's {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} you have the paper , right ? The Mississippi State paper ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , if you 're interested y you could look , +Grad B: And {disfmarker} OK . OK . +Grad A: Yeah , I can {disfmarker} I can show you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: yeah . +Grad A: yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD E: So in your {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the thing that you 're doing , uh you have a vector of ones and zeros for each phone ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh , is this the class project , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . um +PhD E: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , {comment} Right , right f so for every phone there is {disfmarker} there is a um {disfmarker} a vector of ones and zeros {vocalsound} f uh corresponding to whether it exhibits a particular phonological feature or not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And so when you do your wh I 'm {disfmarker} what is the task for the class project ? To come up with the phones ? +Grad A: Um +PhD E: or to come up with these vectors to see how closely they match the phones , +Grad A: Oh . Right , um to come up with a mapping from um MFCC 's or s some feature set , {vocalsound} um to {vocalsound} uh w to whether there 's existence of a particular phonological feature . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um yeah , basically it 's to learn a mapping {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} {vocalsound} from the MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features . Is it {disfmarker} did that answer your question ? +PhD E: I think so . +Grad A: OK . C +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you {disfmarker} what you 're {disfmarker} what you get out of your system . Do you get out a uh {disfmarker} a vector of these ones and zeros and then try to find the closest matching phoneme to that vector , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: No , no . I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not planning to do any {disfmarker} any phoneme mapping yet . Just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's basically {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really simple , basically a detection {vocalsound} of phonological features . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , +PhD E: I see . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} cuz the uh {disfmarker} So King and {disfmarker} and Taylor {vocalsound} um did this with uh recurrent neural nets , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: and this i their {disfmarker} their idea was to first find {vocalsound} a mapping from MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then later on , once you have these {vocalsound} phonological features , {vocalsound} then uh map that to phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of reproducing phase one of their stuff . +PhD E: Mmm . So they had one recurrent net for each particular feature ? +Grad A: Right . Right . Right . Right . +PhD E: I see . I wo did they compare that {disfmarker} I mean , what if you just did phone recognition and did the reverse lookup . +Grad A: Uh . +PhD E: So you recognize a phone and which ever phone was recognized , you spit out it 's vector of ones and zeros . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor C: I expect you could do that . +PhD E: I mean uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's probably not what he 's going to do on his class project . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So um have you had a chance to do this um thing we talked about yet with the uh {disfmarker} um +PhD E: Insertion penalty ? +Professor C: Uh . No actually I was going a different {disfmarker} That 's a good question , too , but I was gonna ask about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} changes to the data in comparing PLP and mel cepstrum for the SRI system . +PhD E: Uh . Well what I 've been {disfmarker} "" Changes to the data "" , I 'm not sure I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So we talked on the phone about this , that {disfmarker} that there was still a difference of a {disfmarker} of a few percent +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} you told me that there was a difference in how the normalization was done . And I was asking if you were going to do {disfmarker} {vocalsound} redo it uh for PLP with the normalization done as it had been done for the mel cepstrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh right , no I haven't had a chance to do that . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: What I 've been doing is {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} trying to figure out {disfmarker} it just seems to me like there 's a um {disfmarker} well it seems like there 's a bug , because the difference in performance is {disfmarker} it 's not gigantic but it 's big enough that it {disfmarker} it seems wrong . +Professor C: Yeah , I agree , but I thought that the normalization difference was one of the possibilities , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , but I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess I don't think that the normalization difference is gonna account for everything . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: So what I was working on is um just going through and checking the headers of the wavefiles , to see if maybe there was a um {disfmarker} a certain type of compression or something that was done that my script wasn't catching . So that for some subset of the training data , uh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features I was computing were junk . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Which would you know cause it to perform OK , but uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the models would be all messed up . So I was going through and just double - checking that kind of think first , to see if there was just some kind of obvious bug in the way that I was computing the features . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . I see . OK . +PhD E: Looking at all the sampling rates to make sure all the sampling rates were what {disfmarker} eight K , what I was assuming they were , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , that makes sense , to check all that . +PhD E: Yeah . So I was doing that first , before I did these other things , just to make sure there wasn't something {disfmarker} +Professor C: Although really , uh uh , a couple three percent uh difference in word error rate uh {comment} could easily come from some difference in normalization , I would think . But +PhD E: Yeah , and I think , hhh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm trying to remember but I think I recall that Andreas was saying that he was gonna run sort of the reverse experiment . Uh which is to try to emulate the normalization that we did but with the mel cepstral features . Sort of , you know , back up from the system that he had . I thought he said he was gonna {disfmarker} I have to look back through my {disfmarker} my email from him . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's probably off at {disfmarker} at uh his meeting now , +PhD E: Yeah , he 's gone now . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor C: Yeah . But yeah +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: the {disfmarker} I sh think they should be {vocalsound} roughly equivalent , um I mean again the Cambridge folk found the PLP actually to be a little better . Uh So it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: I mean the other thing I wonder about was whether there was something just in the {disfmarker} the bootstrapping of their system which was based on {disfmarker} but maybe not , since they {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah see one thing that 's a little bit um {disfmarker} I was looking {disfmarker} I 've been studying and going through the logs for the system that um Andreas created . And um his uh {disfmarker} the way that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} S R I system looks like it works is that it reads the wavefiles directly , uh and does all of the cepstral computation stuff on the fly . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD E: And , so there 's no place where these {disfmarker} where the cepstral files are stored , anywhere that I can go look at and compare to the PLP ones , so whereas with our features , he 's actually storing the cepstrum on disk , and he reads those in . +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: But it looked like he had to give it {disfmarker} uh even though the cepstrum is already computed , he has to give it uh a front - end parameter file . Which talks about the kind of uh com computation that his mel cepstrum thing does , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: so i I {disfmarker} I don't know if that {disfmarker} it probably doesn't mess it up , it probably just ignores it if it determines that it 's already in the right format or something but {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two processes that happen are a little different . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: So anyway , there 's stuff there to sort out . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , OK . Let 's go back to what you thought I was asking you . +PhD E: Yeah no and I didn't have a chance to do that . +Professor C: Ha ! Oh ! You had the sa same answer anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I 've been um , {disfmarker} I 've been working with um Jeremy on his project and then I 've been trying to track down this bug in uh the ICSI front - end features . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: So one thing that I did notice , yesterday I was studying the um {disfmarker} the uh RASTA code +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and it looks like we don't have any way to um control the frequency range that we use in our analysis . We basically {disfmarker} it looks to me like we do the FFT , um and then we just take all the bins and we use everything . We don't have any set of parameters where we can say you know , "" only process from you know a hundred and ten hertz to thirty - seven - fifty "" . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: At least I couldn't see any kind of control for that . +Professor C: Yeah , I don't think it 's in there , I think it 's in the uh uh uh the filters . So , the F F T is on everything , but the filters um , for instance , ignore the {disfmarker} the lowest bins and the highest bins . And what it does is it {disfmarker} it copies +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the filters ? Which filters ? +Professor C: um The filter bank which is created by integrating over F F T bins . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um +PhD E: When you get the mel {disfmarker} When you go to the mel scale . +Professor C: Right . Yeah , it 's bark scale , and it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} it actually copies the uh um {disfmarker} the second filters over to the first . So the first filters are always {disfmarker} and you can s you can specify a different number of {vocalsound} uh features {disfmarker} different number of filters , I think , as I recall . So you can specify a different number of filters , and whatever {vocalsound} um uh you specify , the last ones are gonna be ignored . So that {disfmarker} that 's a way that you sort of change what the {disfmarker} what the bandwidth is . Y you can't do it without I think changing the number of filters , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: I saw something about uh {disfmarker} that looked like it was doing something like that , but I didn't quite understand it . So maybe {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so the idea is that the very lowest frequencies and {disfmarker} and typically the veriest {comment} highest frequencies are kind of junk . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And so um you just {disfmarker} for continuity you just approximate them by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by the second to highest and second to lowest . It 's just a simple thing we put in . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so if you h +PhD E: But {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} but that 's a fixed uh thing ? +Professor C: Yeah , {comment} I think that 's a fixed thing . +PhD E: There 's nothing that lets you {disfmarker} +Professor C: But see {disfmarker} see my point ? If you had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you had ten filters , {vocalsound} then you would be throwing away a lot at the two ends . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And if you had {disfmarker} if you had fifty filters , you 'd be throwing away hardly anything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , I don't remember there being an independent way of saying "" we 're just gonna make them from here to here "" . +PhD E: Use this analysis bandwidth or something . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , it 's actually been awhile since I 've looked at it . +PhD E: Yeah , I went through the Feacalc code and then looked at you know just calling the RASTA libs {comment} and thing like that . And I didn't {disfmarker} I couldn't see any wh place where that kind of thing was done . But um I didn't quite understand everything that I saw , +Professor C: Yeah , see I don't know Feacalc at all . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it calls RASTA with some options , and um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I think in {disfmarker} I don't know . I guess for some particular database you might find that you could tune that and tweak that to get that a little better , but I think that {vocalsound} in general it 's not that critical . I mean there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You can {disfmarker} You can throw away stuff below a hundred hertz or so and it 's just not going to affect phonetic classification at all . +PhD E: Another thing I was thinking about was um is there a {disfmarker} I was wondering if there 's maybe um {vocalsound} certain settings of the parameters when you compute PLP which would basically cause it to output mel cepstrum . So that , in effect , what I could do is use our code but produce mel cepstrum and compare that directly to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's not precisely . Yeah . I mean , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: um , {vocalsound} um what you can do is um you can definitely change the {disfmarker} the filter bank from being uh a uh trapezoidal integration to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a triangular one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is what the typical mel {disfmarker} mel cepstral uh filter bank does . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And some people have claimed that they got some better performance doing that , so you certainly could do that easily . But the fundamental difference , I mean , there 's other small differences {disfmarker} +PhD E: There 's a cubic root that happens , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , but , you know , as opposed to the log in the other case . I mean {vocalsound} the fundamental d d difference that we 've seen any kind of difference from before , which is actually an advantage for the P L P i uh , I think , is that the {disfmarker} the smoothing at the end is auto - regressive instead of being cepstral {disfmarker} uh , {comment} from cepstral truncation . So um it 's a little more noise robust . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's why when people started getting databases that had a little more noise in it , like {disfmarker} like uh um Broadcast News and so on , that 's why c Cambridge switched to PLP I think . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So um That 's a difference that I don't {vocalsound} think we put any way to get around , since it was an advantage . um {vocalsound} uh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we did {disfmarker} eh we did hear this comment from people at some point , that {vocalsound} um it uh they got some better results with the triangular filters rather than the trapezoidal . So that is an option in RASTA . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh and you can certainly play with that . But I think you 're probably doing the right thing to look for bugs first . I don't know . +PhD E: Yeah just {disfmarker} it just seems like this kind of behavior could be caused by you know s some of the training data being messed up . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD E: You know , you 're sort of getting most of the way there , but there 's a {disfmarker} So I started going through and looking {disfmarker} One of the things that I did notice was that the um log likelihoods coming out of the log recognizer from the PLP data were much lower , much smaller , than for the mel cepstral stuff , and that the average amount of pruning that was happening was therefore a little bit higher for the PLP features . +Professor C: Oh - huh ! +PhD E: So , since he used the same exact pruning thresholds for both , I was wondering if it could be that we 're getting more pruning . +Professor C: Oh ! He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He used the identical pruning thresholds even though the s the range of p of the likeli +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh well that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's a pretty good {comment} point right there . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , +Professor C: I would think that you might wanna do something like uh you know , look at a few points to see where you are starting to get significant search errors . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Right . Well , what I was gonna do is I was gonna take um a couple of the utterances that he had run through , then run them through again but modify the pruning threshold and see if it you know , affects the score . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . But I mean you could {disfmarker} uh if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if that looks promising you could , you know , r uh run {vocalsound} the overall test set with a {disfmarker} with a few different uh pruning thresholds for both , +PhD E: So . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and presumably he 's running at some pruning threshold that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , you know {disfmarker} gets very few search errors +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: but is {disfmarker} is relatively fast +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . I mean , yeah , generally in these things you {disfmarker} you turn back pruning really far , +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: so I {disfmarker} I didn't think it would be that big a deal because I was figuring well you have it turned back so far that you know it {disfmarker} +Professor C: But you may be in the wrong range for the P L P features for some reason . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And the uh the {disfmarker} the run time of the recognizer on the PLP features is longer which sort of implies that the networks are bushier , you know , there 's more things it 's considering which goes along with the fact that the matches aren't as good . So uh , you know , it could be that we 're just pruning too much . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , maybe just be different kind of distributions and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah so that 's another possible thing . They {disfmarker} they should {disfmarker} really shouldn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's no particular reason why they would be exactly {disfmarker} behave exactly the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . Right . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: So . There 's lots of little differences . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Uh . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Trying to track it down . +Professor C: Yeah . I guess this was a little bit off topic , I guess , because I was {disfmarker} I was thinking in terms of th this as being a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a core {vocalsound} item that once we {disfmarker} once we had it going we would use for a number of the front - end things also . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um Wanna {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} as far as my stuff goes , +Professor C: What 's {disfmarker} what 's on {disfmarker} +Grad B: yeah , well I {vocalsound} tried this mean subtraction method . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Um . Due to Avendano , {vocalsound} I 'm taking s um {vocalsound} six seconds of speech , um {vocalsound} I 'm using two second {vocalsound} FFT analysis frames , {vocalsound} stepped by a half second so it 's a quarter length step and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I take that frame and four f the four {disfmarker} I take {disfmarker} Sorry , I take the current frame and the four past frames and the {vocalsound} four future frames and that adds up to six seconds of speech . And I calculate um {vocalsound} the spectral mean , {vocalsound} of the log magnitude spectrum {pause} over that N . I use that to normalize the s the current center frame {vocalsound} by mean subtraction . And I then {disfmarker} then I move to the next frame and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I do it again . Well , actually I calculate all the means first and then I do the subtraction . And um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} I tried that with HDK , the Aurora setup of HDK training on clean TI - digits , and um {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it helped um in a phony reverberation case um {vocalsound} where I just used the simulated impulse response um {vocalsound} the error rate went from something like eighty it was from something like eighteen percent {vocalsound} to um four percent . And on meeting rec recorder far mike digits , mike {disfmarker} on channel F , it went from um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} forty - one percent error to eight percent error . +PhD E: On {disfmarker} on the real data , not with artificial reverb ? +Grad B: Right . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And that {disfmarker} that was um {vocalsound} trained on clean speech only , which I 'm guessing is the reason why the baseline was so bad . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's ac actually a little side point is I think that 's the first results that we have uh uh uh of any sort on the far field uh {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the far field data uh for {disfmarker} recorded in {disfmarker} in meetings . +Grad B: Oh um actually um Adam ran the SRI recognizer . +Professor C: Did he ? On the near field , on the ne +Grad B: On the far field also . He did one PZM channel and one PDA channel . +Professor C: Oh did he ? Oh ! I didn't recall that . What kind of numbers was he getting with that ? +Grad B: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure , I think it was about five percent error for the PZM channel . +Professor C: Five . +Grad B: f I think . Yeah . +Professor C: So why were you getting forty - one here ? Is this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Um . I {disfmarker} I 'm g I 'm guessing it was the {disfmarker} the training data . Uh , clean TI - digits is , like , pretty pristine {vocalsound} training data , and if they trained {vocalsound} the SRI system on this TV broadcast type stuff , I think it 's a much wider range of channels and it {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} What am I saying here ? Yeah , so that was the SRI system . Maybe you 're right . Yeah . Cuz it was getting like one percent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It was {disfmarker} it was getting one percent or something on the near field . Wasn't it ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm , or it wa a it was around one . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . I think it was getting around one percent for the near {disfmarker} for the n for the close mike . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Huh ? OK . +Professor C: So it was like one to five {disfmarker} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a lot more training data . So So probably it should be something we should try then is to {disfmarker} is to see if {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} at some point just to take {disfmarker} i to transform the data and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh use th use it for the SRI system . +Grad B: b You me you mean um ta +Professor C: So you 're {disfmarker} so you have a system which for one reason or another is relatively poor , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh you have something like forty - one percent error uh and then you transform it to eight by doing {disfmarker} doing this {disfmarker} this work . Um . So here 's this other system , which is a lot better , but there 's still this kind of ratio . It 's something like five percent error {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the distant mike , and one percent with the close mike . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So the question is {vocalsound} how close to that one can you get {vocalsound} if you transform the data using that system . +Grad B: r Right , so {disfmarker} so I guess this SRI system is trained on a lot of s Broadcast News or Switchboard data . Is that right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Do you know which one it is ? +PhD E: It 's trained on a lot of different things . Um . It 's trained on uh a lot of Switchboard , Call Home , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: um a bunch of different sources , some digits , there 's some digits training in there . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: O one thing I 'm wondering about is what this mean subtraction method {vocalsound} um will do if it 's faced with additive noise . Cuz I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's cuz I don't know what log magnitude spectral subtraction is gonna do to additive noise . +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor C: well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not exactly the right thing +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} but you 've already seen that cuz there is added noise here . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , so it 's then {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's reasonable to expect it would be helpful if we used it with the SRI system and +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , as helpful {disfmarker} I mean , so that 's the question . Yeah , w we 're often asked this when we work with a system that {disfmarker} that isn't {disfmarker} isn't sort of industry {disfmarker} industry standard great , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: uh and we see some reduction in error using some clever method , then , you know , will it work on a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on a {disfmarker} on a good system . So uh you know , this other one 's {disfmarker} it was a pretty good system . I think , you know , one {disfmarker} one percent word error rate on digits is {disfmarker} uh digit strings is not {vocalsound} uh you know stellar , but {disfmarker} but given that this is real {vocalsound} digits , as opposed to uh sort of laboratory {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well . +PhD E: And it wasn't trained on this task either . +Professor C: And it wasn't trained on this task . Actually one percent is sort of {disfmarker} you know , sort of in a reasonable range . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: People would say "" yeah , I could {disfmarker} I can imagine getting that "" . And uh so the {disfmarker} the four or five percent or something is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite poor . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , you know , if you 're doing a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a sixteen digit uh credit card number you 'll basically get it wrong almost all the time . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So . So . Uh , {vocalsound} um a significant reduction in the error for that would be great . +Grad B: Huh , OK . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and then , uh Yeah . So . Yeah . Cool . +Grad B: Sounds good . +Professor C: Yeah . Alright , um , I actually have to run . So I don't think I can do the digits , but um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll leave my microphone on ? +PhD E: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Thank you . +PhD E: Yep . Yeah . That 'll work . +Professor C: I can be out of here quickly . {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That 's I just have to run for another appointment . OK , I t Yeah . I left it on . OK . +","PhD D presented work on a new feature for detecting voice-unvoiced segments using two multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) with different outputs (3 and 56). The new feature improved detection slightly when combined with fifteen other features. There was a discussion about feature inputs for MLPs, efforts to better model spectral shape for voiced-unvoiced detection, and ongoing confusion about what might yield improved results. There were also questions about auto-correlation function variance and its use in recognition experiments. Professor C and PhD E provided suggestions on alternative analysis methods and advised checking if the new methods significantly outperform existing models. There was also mention of further investigating the France Telecom proposal and applying their new technique to noisy TIMIT data." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Yeah , we had a long discussion about how much w how easy we want to make it for people to bleep things out . So {disfmarker} Morgan wants to make it hard . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did it {disfmarker} ? I didn't even check yesterday whether it was moving . +PhD D: It didn't move yesterday either when I started it . +Grad C: So . +PhD D: So I don't know if it doesn't like both of us {disfmarker} +Grad C: Channel three ? Channel three ? +PhD D: You know , I discovered something yesterday on these , um , wireless ones . +Grad B: Channel two . +Grad C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: You can tell if it 's picking up {pause} breath noise and stuff . +Grad C: Yeah , it has a little indicator on it {disfmarker} on the AF . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . So if you {disfmarker} yeah , if you breathe under {disfmarker} breathe and then you see AF go off , then you know {pause} it 's p picking up your mouth noise . +PhD F: Oh , that 's good . Cuz we have a lot of breath noises . +Grad C: Yep . Test . +PhD F: In fact , if you listen to just the channels of people not talking , it 's like "" @ @ "" . It 's very disgust +Grad C: What ? Did you see Hannibal recently or something ? +PhD F: Sorry . Exactly . It 's very disconcerting . OK . So , um , +Grad C: +PhD F: I was gonna try to get out of here , like , in half an hour , um , cuz I really appreciate people coming , and {vocalsound} the main thing that I was gonna ask people to help with today is {pause} to give input on what kinds of database format we should {pause} use in starting to link up things like word transcripts and annotations of word transcripts , so anything that transcribers or discourse coders or whatever put in the signal , {vocalsound} with time - marks for , like , words and phone boundaries and all the stuff we get out of the forced alignments and the recognizer . So , we have this , um {disfmarker} I think a starting point is clearly the {disfmarker} the channelized {pause} output of Dave Gelbart 's program , which Don brought a copy of , +Grad C: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm familiar with that . I mean , we {disfmarker} I sort of already have developed an XML format for this sort of stuff . +PhD F: um , which {disfmarker} +PhD D: Can I see it ? +Grad C: And so the only question {disfmarker} is it the sort of thing that you want to use or not ? Have you looked at that ? I mean , I had a web page up . +PhD F: Right . So , +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I actually mostly need to be able to link up , or {disfmarker} I it 's {disfmarker} it 's a question both of what the representation is and {disfmarker} +Grad C: You mean , this {disfmarker} I guess I am gonna be standing up and drawing on the board . +PhD F: OK , yeah . So you should , definitely . +Grad C: Um , so {disfmarker} so it definitely had that as a concept . So tha it has a single time - line , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then you can have lots of different sections , each of which have I Ds attached to it , and then you can refer from other sections to those I Ds , if you want to . So that , um {disfmarker} so that you start with {disfmarker} with a time - line tag . "" Time - line "" . And then you have a bunch of times . I don't e I don't remember exactly what my notation was , +PhD A: Oh , I remember seeing an example of this . +Grad C: but it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , "" T equals one point three two "" , uh {disfmarker} And then I {disfmarker} I also had optional things like accuracy , and then "" ID equals T one , uh , one seven "" . And then , {nonvocalsound} I also wanted to {disfmarker} to be i to be able to not specify specifically what the time was and just have a stamp . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: Yeah , so these are arbitrary , assigned by a program , not {disfmarker} not by a user . So you have a whole bunch of those . And then somewhere la further down you might have something like an utterance tag which has "" start equals T - seventeen , end equals T - eighteen "" . So what that 's saying is , we know it starts at this particular time . We don't know when it ends . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? But it ends at this T - eighteen , which may be somewhere else . We say there 's another utterance . We don't know what the t time actually is but we know that it 's the same time as this end time . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: You know , thirty - eight , whatever you want . +PhD A: So you 're essentially defining a lattice . +Grad C: OK . Yes , exactly . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: And then , uh {disfmarker} and then these also have I Ds . Right ? So you could {disfmarker} you could have some sort of other {disfmarker} other tag later in the file that would be something like , um , oh , I don't know , {comment} uh , {nonvocalsound} "" noise - type equals {nonvocalsound} door - slam "" . You know ? And then , uh , {nonvocalsound} you could either say "" time equals a particular time - mark "" or you could do other sorts of references . So {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or you might have a prosody {disfmarker} "" Prosody "" right ? D ? T ? D ? T ? T ? +PhD F: It 's an O instead of an I , but the D is good . +Grad C: You like the D ? That 's a good D . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: Um , you know , so you could have some sort of type here , and then you could have , um {disfmarker} the utterance that it 's referring to could be U - seventeen or something like that . +PhD F: OK . So , I mean , that seems {disfmarker} that seems g great for all of the encoding of things with time and , +Grad C: Oh , well . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess my question is more , uh , what d what do you do with , say , a forced alignment ? +PhD A: How - how +PhD F: I mean you 've got all these phone labels , and what do you do if you {disfmarker} just conceptually , if you get , um , transcriptions where the words are staying but the time boundaries are changing , cuz you 've got a new recognition output , or s sort of {disfmarker} what 's the , um , sequence of going from the waveforms that stay the same , the transcripts that may or may not change , and then the utterance which {disfmarker} where the time boundaries that may or may not change {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} That 's actually very nicely handled here because you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} all you 'd have to change is the , {vocalsound} um , time - stamps in the time - line without {disfmarker} without , uh , changing the I Ds . +PhD F: Um . And you 'd be able to propagate all of the {disfmarker} the information ? +Grad C: Right . That 's , the who that 's why you do that extra level of indirection . So that you can just change the time - line . +PhD A: Except the time - line is gonna be huge . If you say {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , +PhD A: suppose you have a phone - level alignment . +PhD F: yeah , especially at the phone - level . +PhD A: You 'd have {disfmarker} you 'd have {disfmarker} +PhD F: The {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have phone - level backtraces . +Grad C: Yeah , this {disfmarker} I don't think I would do this for phone - level . I think for phone - level you want to use some sort of binary representation +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: because it 'll be too dense otherwise . +PhD F: OK . So , if you were doing that and you had this sort of companion , uh , thing that gets called up for phone - level , uh , what would that look like ? +PhD A: Why +Grad C: I would use just an existing {disfmarker} an existing way of doing it . +PhD F: How would you {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm . But {disfmarker} but why not use it for phone - level ? +PhD F: H h +PhD A: It 's just a matter of {disfmarker} it 's just a matter of it being bigger . But if you have {disfmarker} you know , barring memory limitations , or uh {disfmarker} I w I mean this is still the m +Grad C: It 's parsing limitations . I don't want to have this text file that you have to read in the whole thing to do something very simple for . +PhD A: Oh , no . You would use it only {pause} for {pause} purposes where you actually want the phone - level information , I 'd imagine . +PhD F: So you could have some file that configures how much information you want in your {disfmarker} in your XML or something . +Grad C: Right . I mean , you 'd {disfmarker} y +PhD F: Um , +PhD A: You {disfmarker} +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I am imagining you 'd have multiple versions of this depending on the information that you want . +PhD F: cuz th it does get very bush with {disfmarker} Right . +Grad C: Um , I 'm just {disfmarker} what I 'm wondering is whether {disfmarker} I think for word - level , this would be OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: For word - level , it 's alright . +PhD F: Yeah . Definitely . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: For lower than word - level , you 're talking about so much data that I just {disfmarker} I don't know . I don't know if that {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , we actually have {disfmarker} So , one thing that Don is doing , is we 're {disfmarker} we 're running {disfmarker} For every frame , you get a pitch value , +PhD D: Lattices are big , too . +PhD F: and not only one pitch value but different kinds of pitch values +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , for something like that I would use P - file +PhD F: depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: or {disfmarker} or any frame - level stuff I would use P - file . +PhD F: Meaning {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Uh , that 's a {disfmarker} well , or something like it . It 's ICS uh , ICSI has a format for frame - level representation of features . Um . +PhD F: OK . That you could call {disfmarker} that you would tie into this representation with like an ID . +Grad C: Right . Right . Or {disfmarker} or there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a particular way in XML to refer to external resources . +PhD F: And {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: So you would say "" refer to this external file "" . Um , so that external file wouldn't be in {disfmarker} +PhD F: So that might {disfmarker} that might work . +PhD D: But what {disfmarker} what 's the advantage of doing that versus just putting it into this format ? +Grad C: More compact , which I think is {disfmarker} is better . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: I mean , if you did it at this {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean these are long meetings and with {disfmarker} for every frame , +Grad C: You don't want to do it with that {disfmarker} Anything at frame - level you had better encode binary +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: or it 's gonna be really painful . +PhD A: Or you just compre I mean , I like text formats . Um , b you can always , uh , G - zip them , and , um , you know , c decompress them on the fly if y if space is really a concern . +PhD D: Yeah , I was thi I was thinking the advantage is that we can share this with other people . +Grad C: Well , but if you 're talking about one per frame , you 're talking about gigabyte - size files . You 're gonna actually run out of space in your filesystem for one file . +PhD F: These are big files . These are really {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: Right ? Because you have a two - gigabyte limit on most O Ss . +PhD A: Right , OK . I would say {disfmarker} OK , so frame - level is probably not a good idea . But for phone - level stuff it 's perfectly {disfmarker} +PhD F: And th it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like phones , or syllables , or anything like that . +PhD F: Phones are every five frames though , so . Or something like that . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but most of the frames are actually not speech . So , you know , people don't {disfmarker} v Look at it , words times the average {disfmarker} The average number of phones in an English word is , I don't know , {comment} five maybe ? +PhD F: Yeah , but we actually {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , look at it , t number of words times five . That 's not {disfmarker} that not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh , so you mean pause phones take up a lot of the {disfmarker} long pause phones . +PhD A: Exactly . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . OK . That 's true . But you do have to keep them in there . Y yeah . +Grad C: So I think it {disfmarker} it 's debatable whether you want to do phone - level in the same thing . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: But I think , a anything at frame - level , even P - file , is too verbose . +PhD F: OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: I would use something tighter than P - files . +PhD F: Do you {disfmarker} Are you familiar with it ? +Grad C: So . +PhD F: I haven't seen this particular format , +PhD A: I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've used them . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: I don't know what their structure is . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I 've forgot what the str +PhD D: But , wait a minute , P - file for each frame is storing a vector of cepstral or PLP values , +Grad C: It 's whatever you want , actually . +PhD D: right ? Right . +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} what 's nice about the P - file {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} i Built into it is the concept of {pause} frames , utterances , sentences , that sort of thing , that structure . And then also attached to it is an arbitrary vector of values . And it can take different types . +PhD F: Oh . +Grad C: So it {disfmarker} th they don't all have to be floats . You know , you can have integers and you can have doubles , and all that sort of stuff . +PhD F: So that {disfmarker} that sounds {disfmarker} that sounds about what I w +Grad C: Um . Right ? And it has a header {disfmarker} it has a header format that {pause} describes it {pause} to some extent . So , the only problem with it is it 's actually storing the {pause} utterance numbers and the {pause} frame numbers in the file , even though they 're always sequential . And so it does waste a lot of space . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: But it 's still a lot tighter than {disfmarker} than ASCII . And we have a lot of tools already to deal with it . +PhD F: You do ? OK . Is there some documentation on this somewhere ? +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a ton of it . Man - pages and , uh , source code , and me . +PhD F: OK , great . So , I mean , that sounds good . I {disfmarker} I was just looking for something {disfmarker} I 'm not a database person , but something sort of standard enough that , you know , if we start using this we can give it out , other people can work on it , +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not standard . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} {comment} Is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I mean , it 's something that we developed at ICSI . But , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's {pause} been used here +Grad C: But it 's been used here +PhD F: and people 've {disfmarker} +Grad C: and {disfmarker} and , you know , we have a {pause} well - configured system that you can distribute for free , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , it must be the equivalent of whatever you guys used to store feat your computed features in , right ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: Yeah , th we have {disfmarker} Actually , we {disfmarker} we use a generalization of the {disfmarker} the Sphere format . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD A: Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah , so there is something like that but it 's , um , probably not as sophist +Grad C: Well , what does H T K do for features ? +PhD D: And I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or does it even have a concept of features ? +PhD A: They ha it has its own {disfmarker} I mean , Entropic has their own feature format that 's called , like , S - SD or some so SF or something like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I 'm just wondering , would it be worth while to use that instead ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD F: Yeah . Th - this is exactly the kind of decision {disfmarker} It 's just whatever {disfmarker} +PhD D: But , I mean , people don't typically share this kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: They generate their own . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Actually , I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've done this stuff on prosodics and three or four places have asked for those prosodic files , and we just have an ASCII , uh , output of frame - by - frame . +Grad C: Ah , right . +PhD F: Which is fine , but it gets unwieldy to go in and {disfmarker} and query these files with really huge files . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: I mean , we could do it . I was just thinking if there 's something that {disfmarker} where all the frame values are {disfmarker} +Grad C: And a and again , if you have a {disfmarker} if you have a two - hour - long meeting , that 's gonna {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm ? They 're {disfmarker} they 're fair they 're quite large . +Grad C: Yeah , I mean , they 'd be emo enormous . +PhD F: And these are for ten - minute Switchboard conversations , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} So it 's doable , it 's just that you can only store a feature vector at frame - by - frame and it doesn't have any kind of , +PhD D: Is {disfmarker} is the sharing part of this a pretty important {pause} consideration +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD D: or does that just sort of , uh {disfmarker} a nice thing to have ? +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about what we 're gonna do with the data . But I thought it would be good to get something that we can {disfmarker} that other people can use or adopt for their own kinds of encoding . And just , I mean we have to use some we have to make some decision about what to do . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: And especially for the prosody work , what {disfmarker} what it ends up being is you get features from the signal , and of course those change every time your alignments change . So you re - run a recognizer , you want to recompute your features , um , and then keep the database up to date . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Or you change a word , or you change a {vocalsound} utterance boundary segment , which is gonna happen a lot . And so I wanted something where {pause} all of this can be done in a elegant way and that if somebody wants to try something or compute something else , that it can be done flexibly . Um , it doesn't have to be pretty , it just has to be , you know , easy to use , and {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the other thing {disfmarker} We should look at ATLAS , the NIST thing , +PhD F: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: and see if they have anything at that level . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , I 'm not sure what to do about this with ATLAS , because they chose a different route . I chose something that {disfmarker} Th - there are sort of two choices . Your {disfmarker} your file format can know about {disfmarker} know that you 're talking about language {pause} and speech , which is what I chose , and time , or your file format can just be a graph representation . And then the application has to impose the structure on top . So what it looked like ATLAS chose is , they chose the other way , which was their file format is just nodes and links , and you have to interpret what they mean yourself . +PhD F: And why did you not choose that type of approach ? +Grad C: Uh , because I knew that we were doing speech , and I thought it was better if you 're looking at a raw file to be {disfmarker} t for the tags to say "" it 's an utterance "" , as opposed to the tag to say "" it 's a link "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} +PhD F: But other than that , are they compatible ? I mean , you could sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , they 're reasonably compatible . +PhD F: I mean , you {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} +PhD D: You could probably translate between them . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Yeah , that 's w So , +Grad C: So , well , the other thing is if we choose to use ATLAS , which maybe we should just do , we should just throw this out before we invest a lot of time in it . +PhD F: OK . I don't {disfmarker} So this is what the meeting 's about , +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: just sort of how to {disfmarker} Um , cuz we need to come up with a database like this just to do our work . And I actually don't care , as long as it 's something useful to other people , what we choose . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So maybe it 's {disfmarker} maybe oth you know , if {disfmarker} if you have any idea of how to choose , cuz I don't . +Grad C: The only thing {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Do they already have tools ? +Grad C: I mean , I {disfmarker} I chose this for a couple reasons . One of them is that it 's easy to parse . You don't need a full XML parser . It 's very easy to just write a Perl script {pause} to parse it . +PhD A: As long as uh each tag is on one line . +Grad C: Exactly . Exactly . Which I always do . +PhD F: And you can have as much information in the tag as you want , right ? +Grad C: Well , I have it structured . Right ? So each type tag has only particular items that it can take . +PhD F: Can you {disfmarker} But you can add to those structures if you {disfmarker} +Grad C: Sure . If you have more information . So what {disfmarker} What NIST would say is that instead of doing this , you would say something like "" link {nonvocalsound} start equals , um , you know , some node ID , +PhD F: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: end equals some other node ID "" , and then "" type "" would be "" utterance "" . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , so it 's very similar . +PhD F: So why would it be a {disfmarker} a waste to do it this way if it 's similar enough that we can always translate it ? +PhD D: It probably wouldn't be a waste . It would mean that at some point if we wanted to switch , we 'd just have to translate everything . +Grad C: Write a translator . But it se Since they are developing a big {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it {disfmarker} but that sounds {disfmarker} +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} I don't think that 's a big deal . +PhD F: As long as it is {disfmarker} +Grad C: they 're developing a big infrastructure . And so it seems to me that if {disfmarker} if we want to use that , we might as well go directly to what they 're doing , rather than {disfmarker} +PhD A: If we want to {disfmarker} Do they already have something that 's {disfmarker} that would be useful for us in place ? +PhD D: Yeah . See , that 's the question . I mean , how stable is their {disfmarker} Are they ready to go , +Grad C: The {disfmarker} I looked at it {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: The last time I looked at it was a while ago , probably a year ago , uh , when we first started talking about this . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: And at that time at least {vocalsound} it was still not very {pause} complete . And so , specifically they didn't have any external format representation at that time . They just had the sort of conceptual {pause} node {disfmarker} uh , annotated transcription graph , which I really liked . And that 's exactly what this stuff is based on . Since then , they 've developed their own external file format , which is , uh , you know , this sort of s this sort of thing . Um , and apparently they 've also developed a lot of tools , but I haven't looked at them . Maybe I should . +PhD A: We should {disfmarker} we should find out . +PhD F: I mean , would the tools {disfmarker} would the tools run on something like this , if you can translate them anyway ? +Grad C: Um , th what would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} what would worry me is that maybe we might miss a little detail +PhD A: It 's a hassle +PhD F: I mean , that {disfmarker} I guess it 's a question that {disfmarker} +PhD A: if {disfmarker} +PhD F: uh , yeah . +Grad C: that would make it very difficult to translate from one to the other . +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think if it 's conceptually close , and they already have or will have tools that everybody else will be using , I mean , {vocalsound} it would be crazy to do something s you know , separate that {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Yeah , we might as well . Yep . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll take a closer look at it . +PhD F: Actually , so it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that would really be the question , is just what you would feel is in the long run the best thing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: Cuz {vocalsound} once we start , sort of , doing this I don't {disfmarker} we don't actually have enough time to probably have to rehash it out again +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yep . The other thing {disfmarker} the other way that I sort of established this was as easy translation to and from the Transcriber format . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} s Right . +Grad C: Um , +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: but {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean , I like this . This is sort of intuitively easy to actually r read , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: as easy it could {disfmarker} as it could be . But , I suppose that {pause} as long as they have a type here that specifies "" utt "" , um , +Grad C: It 's almost the same . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} yeah , close enough that {disfmarker} +Grad C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} with this , though , is that you can't really add any supplementary information . Right ? So if you suddenly decide that you want {disfmarker} +PhD F: You have to make a different type . +Grad C: Yeah . You 'd have to make a different type . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Well , if you look at it and {disfmarker} Um , I guess in my mind I don't know enough {disfmarker} Jane would know better , {comment} about the {pause} types of annotations and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} But I imagine that those are things that would {disfmarker} well , you guys mentioned this , {comment} that could span any {disfmarker} it could be in its own channel , it could span time boundaries of any type , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: it could be instantaneous , things like that . Um , and then from the recognition side we have backtraces at the phone - level . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: If {disfmarker} if it can handle that , it could handle states or whatever . And then at the prosody - level we have frame {disfmarker} sort of like cepstral feature files , +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: uh , like these P - files or anything like that . And that 's sort of the world of things that I {disfmarker} And then we have the aligned channels , of course , +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: It seems to me you want to keep the frame - level stuff separate . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: And then {disfmarker} +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I definitely agree and I wanted to find actually a f a nicer format or a {disfmarker} maybe a more compact format than what we used before . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Just cuz you 've got {vocalsound} ten channels or whatever and two hours of a meeting . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a lot of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huge . +PhD A: Now {disfmarker} now how would you {disfmarker} how would you represent , um , multiple speakers in this framework ? Were {disfmarker} You would just represent them as {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , +PhD A: You would have like a speaker tag or something ? +Grad C: there 's a spea speaker tag up at the top which identifies them and then each utt the way I had it is each turn or each utterance , {comment} I don't even remember now , had a speaker ID tag attached to it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad C: And in this format you would have a different tag , which {disfmarker} which would , uh , be linked to the link . So {disfmarker} so somewhere else you would have another thing {pause} that would be , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: um {disfmarker} Let 's see , would it be a node or a link ? Um {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} so this one would have , um , an ID is link {disfmarker} {comment} link seventy - four or something like that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And then somewhere up here you would have a link that {disfmarker} that , uh , you know , was referencing L - seventy - four and had speaker Adam . +PhD A: Is i ? +Grad C: You know , or something like that . +PhD F: Actually , it 's the channel , I think , that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , channel or speaker or whatever . +PhD F: I mean , w yeah , channel is what the channelized output out +PhD A: It doesn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: This isn't quite right . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: I have to look at it again . +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} so how in the NIST format do we express {vocalsound} a hierarchical relationship between , um , say , an utterance and the words within it ? So how do you {pause} tell {pause} that {pause} these are the words that belong to that utterance ? +Grad C: Um , you would have another structure lower down than this that would be saying they 're all belonging to this ID . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So each thing refers to the {pause} utterance that it belongs to . +Grad C: Right . And then each utterance could refer to a turn , +PhD D: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not hi it 's sort of bottom - up . +Grad C: and each turn could refer to something higher up . +PhD F: And what if you actually have {disfmarker} So right now what you have as utterance , um , the closest thing that comes out of the channelized is the stuff between the segment boundaries that the transcribers put in or that Thilo put in , which may or may not actually be , like , a s it 's usually not {disfmarker} um , the beginning and end of a sentence , say . +Grad C: Well , that 's why I didn't call it "" sentence "" . +PhD F: So , right . Um , so it 's like a segment or something . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , I mean , I assume this is possible , that if you have {disfmarker} someone annotates the punctuation or whatever when they transcribe , you can say , you know , from {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} from the c beginning of the sentence to the end of the sentence , from the annotations , this is a unit , even though it never actually {disfmarker} i It 's only a unit by virtue of the annotations {pause} at the word - level . +Grad C: Sure . I mean , so you would {disfmarker} you would have yet another tag . +PhD F: And then that would get a tag somehow . +Grad C: You 'd have another tag which says this is of type "" sentence "" . +PhD F: OK . OK . +Grad C: And , what {disfmarker} +PhD F: But it 's just not overtly in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD F: Um , cuz this is exactly the kind of {disfmarker} +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think that should be {pause} possible as long as the {disfmarker} But , uh , what I don't understand is where the {disfmarker} where in this type of file {pause} that would be expressed . +Grad C: Right . You would have another tag somewhere . It 's {disfmarker} well , there 're two ways of doing it . +PhD F: S so it would just be floating before the sentence or floating after the sentence without a time - mark . +Grad C: You could have some sort of link type {disfmarker} type equals "" sentence "" , and ID is "" S - whatever "" . And then lower down you could have an utterance . So the type is "" utterance "" {disfmarker} equals "" utt "" . And you could either say that {disfmarker} No . I don't know {disfmarker} +PhD A: So here 's the thing . +Grad C: I take that back . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} can you say that this is part of this , +PhD F: See , cuz it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would just have a r +PhD F: S +Grad C: or do you say this is part of this ? I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: You would refer up to the sentence . +PhD F: But they 're {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , the thing {disfmarker} +PhD F: they 're actually overlapping each other , sort of . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: the thing is that some something may be a part of one thing for one purpose and another thing of another purpose . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: So f +PhD F: You have to have another type then , I guess . +PhD A: s Um , well , s let 's {disfmarker} let 's ta so let 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I think I 'm {disfmarker} I think w I had better look at it again +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +Grad C: because I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . OK . +PhD A: y So for instance @ @ {comment} sup +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection that I 'm forgetting . +PhD A: Suppose you have a word sequence and you have two different segmentations of that same word sequence . f Say , one segmentation is in terms of , um , you know , uh , sentences . And another segmentation is in terms of , um , {vocalsound} I don't know , {comment} prosodic phrases . And let 's say that they don't {pause} nest . So , you know , a prosodic phrase may cross two sentences or something . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: I don't know if that 's true or not but {vocalsound} let 's as +PhD F: Well , it 's definitely true with the segment . +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: That 's what I {disfmarker} exactly what I meant by the utterances versus the sentence could be sort of {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . So , you want to be s you want to say this {disfmarker} this word is part of that sentence and this prosodic phrase . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: But the phrase is not part of the sentence +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and neither is the sentence part of the phrase . +PhD F: Right . +Grad C: I I 'm pretty sure that you can do that , but I 'm forgetting the exact level of nesting . +PhD A: So , you would have to have {vocalsound} two different pointers from the word up {disfmarker} one level up , one to the sent +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so what you would end up having is a tag saying "" here 's a word , and it starts here and it ends here "" . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: And then lower down you would say "" here 's a prosodic boundary and it has these words in it "" . And lower down you 'd have "" here 's a sentence , +PhD A: Right . +PhD F: An - Right . +Grad C: and it has these words in it "" . +PhD F: So you would be able to go in and say , you know , "" give me all the words in the bound in the prosodic phrase +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: and give me all the words in the {disfmarker} "" Yeah . +Grad C: So I think that 's {disfmarker} that would wor +PhD F: Um , OK . +Grad C: Let me look at it again . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the o the other issue that you had was , how do you actually efficiently extract , um {disfmarker} find and extract information in a structure of this type ? +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: That 's good . +PhD A: So you gave some examples like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , uh , and , I mean , you guys might {disfmarker} I don't know if this is premature because I suppose once you get the representation you can do this , but the kinds of things I was worried about is , +PhD A: No , that 's not clear . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I mean , yeah , you c sure you can do it , +PhD F: Well , OK . So i if it {disfmarker} +PhD A: but can you do it sort of l l you know , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: I I mean , I can't do it , but I can {disfmarker} um , +PhD A: y y you gotta {disfmarker} you gotta do this {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're gonna want to do this very quickly +Grad C: Well {disfmarker} +PhD A: or else you 'll spend all your time sort of searching through very {vocalsound} complex data structures {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . You 'd need a p sort of a paradigm for how to do it . But an example would be "" find all the cases in which Adam started to talk while Andreas was talking and his pitch was rising , Andreas 's pitch "" . That kind of thing . +Grad C: Right . I mean , that 's gonna be {disfmarker} Is the rising pitch a {pause} feature , or is it gonna be in the same file ? +PhD F: Well , the rising pitch will never be {pause} hand - annotated . So the {disfmarker} all the prosodic features are going to be automatically {disfmarker} +Grad C: But the {disfmarker} I mean , that 's gonna be hard regardless , +PhD F: So they 're gonna be in those {disfmarker} +Grad C: right ? Because you 're gonna have to write a program that goes through your feature file and looks for rising pitches . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} Right . So normally what we would do is we would say "" what do we wanna assign rising pitch to ? "" Are we gonna assign it to words ? Are we gonna just assign it to sort of {disfmarker} when it 's rising we have a begin - end rise representation ? But suppose we dump out this file and we say , uh , for every word we just classify it as , w you know , rise or fall or neither ? +Grad C: OK . Well , in that case you would add that to this {pause} format +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: r +PhD F: So we would basically be sort of , um , taking the format and enriching it with things that we wanna query in relation to the words that are already in the file , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and then querying it . +PhD A: You want sort of a grep that 's {disfmarker} that works at the structural {disfmarker} on the structural representation . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: You have that . There 's a {pause} standard again in XML , specifically for searching XML documents {disfmarker} structured X - XML documents , where you can specify both the content and the structural position . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not clear that that 's {disfmarker} That 's relative to the structure of the XML document , +PhD F: If {disfmarker} +PhD A: not to the structure of what you 're representing in the document . +Grad C: You use it as a tool . You use it as a tool , not an end - user . It 's not an end - user thing . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you would use that to build your tool to do that sort of search . +PhD A: Right . Be Because here you 're specifying a lattice . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: So the underlying {disfmarker} that 's the underlying data structure . And you want to be able to search in that lattice . +PhD F: But as long as the {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's a graph , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: That 's different from searching through the text . +PhD F: But it seems like as long as the features that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , no , no , no . The whole point is that the text and the lattice are isomorphic . They {pause} represent each other {pause} completely . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So that {disfmarker} I mean th +PhD F: That 's true if the features from your acoustics or whatever that are not explicitly in this are at the level of these types . +PhD A: Hhh . +PhD F: That {disfmarker} that if you can do that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , but that 's gonna be the trouble no matter what . Right ? No matter what format you choose , you 're gonna have the trou you 're gonna have the difficulty of relating the {disfmarker} the frame - level features {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's right . That 's true . That 's why I was trying to figure out what 's the best format for this representation . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: And it 's still gonna be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . +PhD F: it 's still gonna be , uh , not direct . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: You know , it {disfmarker} Or another example was , you know , uh , where in the language {disfmarker} where in the word sequence are people interrupting ? So , I guess that one 's actually easier . +PhD D: What about {disfmarker} what about , um , the idea of using a relational database to , uh , store the information from the XML ? So you would have {disfmarker} XML basically would {disfmarker} Uh , you {disfmarker} you could use the XML to put the data in , and then when you get data out , you put it back in XML . So use XML as sort of the {disfmarker} the transfer format , +Grad C: Transfer . +PhD D: uh , but then you store the data in the database , which allows you to do all kinds of {pause} good search things in there . +Grad C: The , uh {disfmarker} One of the things that ATLAS is doing is they 're trying to define an API which is independent of the back store , +PhD F: Huh . +Grad C: so that , uh , you could define a single API and the {disfmarker} the storage could be flat XML files or a database . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: My opinion on that is for the s sort of stuff that we 're doing , {comment} I suspect it 's overkill to do a full relational database , that , um , just a flat file and , uh , search tools I bet will be enough . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Grad C: But that 's the advantage of ATLAS , is that if we actually take {disfmarker} decide to go that route completely and we program to their API , then if we wanted to add a database later it would be pretty easy . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: It seems like the kind of thing you 'd do if {disfmarker} I don't know , if people start adding all kinds of s bells and whistles to the data . And so that might be {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be good for us to know {disfmarker} to use a format where we know we can easily , um , input that to some database if other people are using it . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: Something like that . +Grad C: I guess I 'm just a little hesitant to try to go whole hog on sort of the {disfmarker} the whole framework that {disfmarker} that NIST is talking about , with ATLAS and a database and all that sort of stuff , +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: cuz it 's a big learning curve , just to get going . +PhD D: Hmm . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad C: Whereas if we just do a flat file format , sure , it may not be as efficient but everyone can program in Perl and {disfmarker} and use it . +PhD F: OK . +Grad C: Right ? +PhD A: But this is {disfmarker} +Grad C: So , as opposed to {disfmarker} +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I 'm still , um , {vocalsound} not convinced that you can do much at all on the text {disfmarker} on the flat file that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} you know , the text representation . e Because the text representation is gonna be , uh , not reflecting the structure of {disfmarker} of your words and annotations . It 's just {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , if it 's not representing it , then how do you recover it ? Of course it 's representing it . +PhD A: No . You {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do is you have to basically {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's the whole point . +PhD A: Y yeah . You can use Perl to read it in and construct a internal representation that is essentially a lattice . But , the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad C: Well , that was a different point . +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: Right ? So what I was saying is that {disfmarker} +PhD A: But that 's what you 'll have to do . Bec - be +Grad C: For Perl {disfmarker} if you want to just do Perl . If you wanted to use the structured XML query language , that 's a different thing . And it 's a set of tools {vocalsound} that let you specify given the D - DDT {disfmarker} DTD of the document , um , what sorts of structural searches you want to do . So you want to say that , you know , you 're looking for , um , a tag within a tag within a particular tag that has this particular text in it , um , and , uh , refers to a particular value . And so the point isn't that an end - user , who is looking for a query like you specified , wouldn't program it in this language . What you would do is , someone would build a tool that used that as a library . So that they {disfmarker} so that you wouldn't have to construct the internal representations yourself . +PhD F: Is a {disfmarker} See , I think the kinds of questions , at least in the next {disfmarker} to the end of this year , are {disfmarker} there may be a lot of different ones , but they 'll all have a similar nature . They 'll be looking at either a word - level prosodic , uh , an {disfmarker} a value , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: like a continuous value , like the slope of something . But you know , we 'll do something where we {disfmarker} some kind of data reduction where the prosodic features are sort o uh , either at the word - level or at the segment - level , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} or something like that . They 're not gonna be at the phone - level and they 're no not gonna be at the frame - level when we get done with sort of giving them simpler shapes and things . And so the main thing is just being able {disfmarker} Well , I guess , the two goals . Um , one that Chuck mentioned is starting out with something that we don't have to start over , that we don't have to throw away if other people want to extend it for other kinds of questions , +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: and being able to at least get enough , uh , information out on {disfmarker} where we condition the location of features on information that 's in the kind of file that you {pause} put up there . And that would {disfmarker} that would do it , +Grad C: Yeah . I think that there are quick and dirty solutions , +PhD F: I mean , for me . +Grad C: and then there are long - term , big - infrastructure solutions . And so {vocalsound} we want to try to pick something that lets us do a little bit of both . +PhD F: In the between , right . And especially that the representation doesn't have to be thrown away , +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} Right . +PhD F: even if your tools change . +Grad C: And so it seems to me that {disfmarker} I mean , I have to look at it again to see whether it can really do what we want , but if we use the ATLAS external file representation , um , it seems like it 's rich enough that you could do quick tools just as I said in Perl , and then later on if we choose to go up the learning curve , we can use the whole ATLAS inter infrastructure , +PhD F: Yeah . I mean , that sounds good to me . +Grad C: which has all that built in . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} if you would l look at that and let us know what you think . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: I mean , I think we 're sort of guinea pigs , cuz I {disfmarker} I want to get the prosody work done but I don't want to waste time , you know , getting the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , maybe {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I wouldn't wait for the formats , because anything you pick we 'll be able to translate to another form . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Ma well , maybe you should actually look at it yourself too to get a sense of what it is you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll be dealing with , +PhD F: OK . +PhD A: because , um , you know , Adam might have one opinion but you might have another , so +Grad B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , definitely . +PhD A: I think the more eyes look at this the better . +PhD F: Especially if there 's , e um {disfmarker} you know , if someone can help with at least the {disfmarker} the setup of the right {disfmarker} +Grad C: Hi , Jane . +PhD F: Oh , hi . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD F: the right representation , then , i you know , I hope it won't {disfmarker} We don't actually need the whole full - blown thing to be ready , +Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} Oh , well . +PhD F: so . Um , so maybe if you guys can look at it and sort of see what , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 're actually just {disfmarker} +Grad C: We 're about done . +PhD F: yeah , +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD F: wrapping up , but , um {disfmarker} Yeah , sorry , it 's a uh short meeting , but , um {disfmarker} Well , I don't know . Is there anything else , like {disfmarker} I mean that helps me a lot , +Grad C: Well , I think the other thing we might want to look at is alternatives to P - file . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: I mean , th the reason I like P - file is I 'm already familiar with it , we have expertise here , and so if we pick something else , there 's the learning - curve problem . But , I mean , it is just something we developed at ICSI . +PhD A: Is there an {disfmarker} is there an IP - API ? +Grad C: And so {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: There 's an API for it . And , uh , +PhD A: There used to be a problem that they get too large , +Grad C: a bunch of libraries , P - file utilities . +PhD A: and so {pause} basically the {disfmarker} uh the filesystem wouldn't {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , that 's gonna be a problem no matter what . You have the two - gigabyte limit on the filesystem size . And we definitely hit that with Broadcast News . +PhD A: Maybe you could extend the API to , uh , support , uh , like splitting up , you know , conceptually one file into smaller files on disk so that you can essentially , you know , have arbitrarily long f +Grad C: Yep . Most of the tools can handle that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: So that we didn't do it at the API - level . We did it at the t tool - level . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} many of them can s you can specify several P - files and they 'll just be done sequentially . +PhD A: OK . +Grad C: So . +PhD F: So , I guess , yeah , if {disfmarker} if you and Don can {disfmarker} if you can show him the P - file stuff and see . +Grad C: Sure . +PhD F: So this would be like for the F - zero {disfmarker} +Grad B: True . +Grad C: I mean , if you do "" man P - file "" or "" apropos P - file "" , you 'll see a lot . +Grad B: I 've used the P - file , I think . I 've looked at it at least , briefly , I think when we were doing s something . +PhD A: What does the P stand for anyway ? +Grad C: I have no idea . +Grad B: Oh , in there . +Grad C: I didn't de I didn't develop it . You know , it was {disfmarker} I think it was Dave Johnson . So it 's all part of the Quicknet library . It has all the utilities for it . +PhD A: No , P - files were around way before Quicknet . P - files were {disfmarker} were around when {disfmarker} w with , um , {vocalsound} RAP . +Grad C: Oh , were they ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right ? +PhD F: It 's like the history of ICSI . +PhD A: You worked with P - files . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Like {disfmarker} +PhD D: No . +PhD A: I worked with P - files . +PhD F: Yeah ? +PhD D: I don't remember what the "" P "" is , though . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: But there are ni they 're {disfmarker} The {pause} Quicknet library has a bunch of things in it to handle P - files , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: so it works pretty well . +PhD A: +PhD F: And that isn't really , I guess , as important as the {disfmarker} the main {disfmarker} I don't know what you call it , the {disfmarker} the main sort of word - level {disfmarker} +Grad C: Neither do I . +PhD D: Probably stands for "" Phil "" . Phil Kohn . +Grad C: It 's a Phil file ? +PhD D: Yeah . That 's my guess . +PhD F: Huh . OK . Well , that 's really useful . I mean , this is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to settle . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've been meaning to look at the ATLAS stuff again anyway . +PhD F: Great . +Grad C: So , just keep {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I guess it 's also sort of a political deci I mean , if {disfmarker} if you feel like that 's a community that would be good to tie into anyway , then it 's {disfmarker} sounds like it 's worth doing . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} it w +PhD A: j I think there 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: And , w uh , as I said , I {disfmarker} what I did with this stuff {disfmarker} I based it on theirs . It 's just they hadn't actually come up with an external format yet . So now that they have come up with a format , it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems pretty reasonable to use it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad C: But let me look at it again . +PhD F: OK , great . +Grad C: As I said , that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Cuz we actually can start {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's one level {disfmarker} there 's one more level of indirection and I 'm just blanking on exactly how it works . I gotta look at it again . +PhD F: I mean , we can start with , um , I guess , this input from Dave 's , which you had printed out , the channelized input . Cuz he has all of the channels , you know , with the channels in the tag and stuff like that . +Grad C: Yeah , I 've seen it . +PhD F: So that would be i directly , +Grad C: Yep . Easy {disfmarker} easy to map . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so then it would just be a matter of getting {disfmarker} making sure to handle the annotations that are , you know , not at the word - level and , um , t to import the +Grad B: Where are those annotations coming from ? +PhD F: Well , right now , I g Jane would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Are you talking about the overlap a annotations ? +PhD F: Yeah , any kind of annotation {pause} that , like , isn't already there . Uh , you know , anything you can envision . +Postdoc E: Yeah . So what I was imagining was {disfmarker} um , so Dave says we can have unlimited numbers of green ribbons . And so put , uh , a {disfmarker} a green ribbon on for an overlap code . And since we w we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it 's important to remain flexible regarding the time bins for now . And so it 's nice to have {disfmarker} However , you know , you want to have it , uh , time time uh , located in the discourse . So , um , if we {disfmarker} if we tie the overlap code to the first word in the overlap , then you 'll have a time - marking . It won't {disfmarker} it 'll be independent of the time bins , however these e evolve , shrink , or whatever , increase , or {disfmarker} Also , you could have different time bins for different purposes . And having it tied to the first word in an overlap segment is unique , uh , you know , anchored , clear . And it would just end up on a separate ribbon . +Grad C: Right . +Postdoc E: So the overlap coding is gonna be easy with respect to that . You look puzzled . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} I don't quite understand what these things are . +Postdoc E: OK . +PhD D: Uh . +Postdoc E: What , the codes themselves ? +PhD D: Well , th overlap codes . +Postdoc E: Or the {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I 'm not sure what that @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I mean , is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: It probably doesn't matter . +Postdoc E: Well , we don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , it doesn't . +PhD D: No , I d +Postdoc E: We don't have to go into the codes . +Grad C: I mean , that {disfmarker} not for the topic of this meeting . +Postdoc E: But let me just {disfmarker} No . W the idea is just to have a separate green ribbon , you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and let 's say that this is a time bin . There 's a word here . This is the first word of an overlapping segment of any length , overlapping with any other , uh , word {disfmarker} uh , i segment of any length . And , um , then you can indicate that this here was perhaps a ch a backchannel , or you can say that it was , um , a usurping of the turn , or you can {disfmarker} you know , any {disfmarker} any number of categories . But the fact is , you have it time - tagged in a way that 's independent of the , uh , sp particular time bin that the word ends up in . If it 's a large unit or a small unit , or +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc E: we sh change the boundaries of the units , it 's still unique and {disfmarker} and , uh , fits with the format , +PhD F: Right . +Postdoc E: flexible , all that . +PhD A: Um , it would be nice {disfmarker} um , eh , gr this is sort of r regarding {disfmarker} uh , uh it 's related but not directly germane to the topic of discussion , but , when it comes to annotations , um , you often find yourself in the situation where you have {pause} different annotations {pause} of the same , say , word sequence . OK ? +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: And sometimes the word sequences even differ slightly because they were edited s at one place but not the other . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD A: So , once this data gets out there , some people might start annotating this for , I don't know , dialogue acts or , um , you know , topics or what the heck . You know , there 's a zillion things that people might annotate this for . And the only thing that is really sort of common among all the versi the various versions of this data is the word sequence , or approximately . +Postdoc E: Yep . +PhD F: Or the time . +PhD A: Or the times . But , see , if you 'd annotate dialogue acts , you don't necessarily want to {disfmarker} or topics {disfmarker} you don't really want to be dealing with time - marks . +PhD F: I guess . +PhD A: You 'd {disfmarker} it 's much more efficient for them to just see the word sequence , right ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , most people aren't as sophisticated as {disfmarker} as we are here with , you know , uh , time alignments and stuff . So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Should {disfmarker} should we mention some names on the people who are n ? +PhD A: Right . So , um , the p my point is that {pause} you 're gonna end up with , uh , word sequences that are differently annotated . And {pause} you want some tool , uh , that is able to sort of merge these different annotations back into a single , uh , version . OK ? Um , and we had this problem very massively , uh , at SRI when we worked , uh , a while back on , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} well , on dialogue acts as well as , uh , you know , um , what was it ? uh , +PhD F: Well , all the Switchboard in it . +PhD A: utterance types . There 's , uh , automatic , uh , punctuation and stuff like that . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Because we had one set of {pause} annotations that were based on , uh , one version of the transcripts with a particular segmentation , and then we had another version that was based on , uh , a different s slightly edited version of the transcripts with a different segmentation . So , {vocalsound} we had these two different versions which were {disfmarker} you know , you could tell they were from the same source but they weren't identical . So it was extremely hard {vocalsound} to reliably merge these two back together to correlate the information from the different annotations . +Grad C: Yep . I {disfmarker} I don't see any way that file formats are gonna help us with that . +PhD A: No . +Grad C: It 's {disfmarker} it 's all a question of semantic . +PhD A: No . But once you have a file format , I can imagine writing {disfmarker} not personally , but someone writing a tool that is essentially an alignment tool , um , that mediates between various versions , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} uh , sort of like th uh , you know , you have this thing in UNIX where you have , uh , diff . +Grad C: Diff . +PhD F: W - diff or diff . +PhD A: There 's the , uh , diff that actually tries to reconcile different {disfmarker} two diffs f {comment} based on the same original . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Is it S - diff ? +Grad C: Yep . +Postdoc E: Mmm . +PhD A: Something like that , um , but operating on these lattices that are really what 's behind this {disfmarker} uh , this annotation format . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's actually a diff library you can use {pause} to do things like that that {disfmarker} so you have different formats . +PhD F: You could definitely do that with the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So somewhere in the API you would like to have like a merge or some {disfmarker} some function that merges two {disfmarker} two versions . +Grad C: Yeah , I think it 's gonna be very hard . Any sort of structured anything when you try to merge is really , really hard +PhD A: Right . +Grad C: because you ha i The hard part isn't the file format . The hard part is specifying what you mean by "" merge "" . +PhD A: Is {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: And that 's very difficult . +PhD F: But the one thing that would work here actually for i that is more reliable than the utterances is the {disfmarker} the speaker ons and offs . So if you have a good , +Grad C: But this is exactly what I mean , is that {disfmarker} that the problem i +PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah . You just have to know wha what to tie it to . +Grad C: Yeah , exactly . The problem is saying "" what are the semantics , +PhD F: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" +PhD F: Right , right . +PhD A: Right . So {disfmarker} so just to let you know what we {disfmarker} where we kluged it by , uh , doing {disfmarker} uh , by doing {disfmarker} Hhh . +Grad C: So . +PhD A: Both were based on words , so , bo we have two versions of the same words intersp you know , sprinkled with {disfmarker} with different tags for annotations . +Grad C: And then you did diff . +PhD A: And we did diff . Exactly ! +Grad C: Yeah , that 's just what I thought . +PhD A: And that 's how {disfmarker} +Grad C: That 's just wh how I would have done it . +PhD A: Yeah . But , you know , it had lots of errors and things would end up in the wrong order , and so forth . Uh , so , um , if you had a more {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Uh , it {disfmarker} it was a kluge because it was basically reducing everything to {disfmarker} uh , to {disfmarker} uh , uh , to textual alignment . +Grad C: A textual {disfmarker} +PhD A: Um , so {disfmarker} +PhD F: But , d isn't that something where whoever {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if the people who are making changes , say in the transcripts , cuz this all happened when the transcripts were different {disfmarker} ye um , if they tie it to something , like if they tied it to the acoustic segment {disfmarker} if they {disfmarker} You know what I mean ? Then {disfmarker} Or if they tied it to an acoustic segment and we had the time - marks , that would help . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD F: But the problem is exactly as Adam said , that you get , you know , y you don't have that information or it 's lost in the merge somehow , +Postdoc E: Well , can I ask one question ? +PhD F: so {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: It {disfmarker} it seems to me that , um , we will have o an official version of the corpus , which will be only one {disfmarker} one version in terms of the words {disfmarker} where the words are concerned . We 'd still have the {disfmarker} the merging issue maybe if coding were done independently of the {disfmarker} +PhD A: And you 're gonna get that +Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD A: because if the data gets out , people will do all kinds of things to it . And , uh , s you know , several years from now you might want to look into , um , the prosody of referring expressions . And someone at the university of who knows where has annotated the referring expressions . So you want to get that annotation and bring it back in line with your data . +Grad C: Right . +PhD A: OK ? +Grad C: But unfortunately they 've also hand - edited it . +Postdoc E: OK , then {disfmarker} +PhD F: But they 've also {disfmarker} Exactly . And so that 's exactly what we should {disfmarker} somehow when you distribute the data , say that {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} have some way of knowing how to merge it back in and asking people to try to do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +PhD A: Right . +Postdoc E: Well , then the {disfmarker} +PhD D: What 's {disfmarker} what 's wrong with {pause} doing times ? I {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: I agree . That was what I was wondering . +PhD F: Uh , yeah , time is the {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , +Postdoc E: Time is unique . You were saying that you didn't think we should {disfmarker} +PhD F: Time is passing ! +PhD A: Time {disfmarker} time {disfmarker} times are ephemeral . +Postdoc E: Andreas was saying {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad C: what if they haven't notated with them , times ? +PhD F: Yeah . He {disfmarker} he 's a language modeling person , though . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so imagine {disfmarker} I think his {disfmarker} his example is a good one . Imagine that this person who developed the corpus of the referring expressions didn't include time . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad C: He included references to words . +Postdoc E: Ach ! +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: He said that at this word is when {disfmarker} when it happened . +Postdoc E: Well , then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or she . +Grad C: Or she . +Postdoc E: But then couldn't you just indirectly figure out the time {pause} tied to the word ? +PhD F: But still they {disfmarker} Exactly . +Grad C: Sure . But what if {disfmarker} what if they change the words ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc E: Not {disfmarker} Well , but you 'd have some anchoring point . He couldn't have changed all the words . +PhD D: But can they change the words without changing the time of the word ? +Grad C: Sure . But they could have changed it a little . The {disfmarker} the point is , that {disfmarker} that they may have annotated it off a word transcript that isn't the same as our word transcript , so how do you merge it back in ? I understand what you 're saying . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I guess the answer is , um , it 's gonna be different every time . It 's j it 's just gonna be {disfmarker} +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad C: I it 's exactly what I said before , +PhD F: You only know the boundaries of the {disfmarker} +Grad C: which is that "" what do you mean by "" merge "" ? "" So in this case where you have the words and you don't have the times , well , what do you mean by "" merge "" ? If you tell me what you mean , I can write a program to do it . +PhD F: Right . Right . You can merge at the level of the representation that the other person preserved and that 's it . +Grad C: Right . And that 's about all you can do . +PhD F: And beyond that , all you know is {disfmarker} is relative ordering and sometimes even that is wrong . +Grad C: So {disfmarker} so in {disfmarker} so in this one you would have to do a best match between the word sequences , +PhD F: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: extract the times f from the best match of theirs to yours , and use that . +PhD F: And then infer that their time - marks are somewhere in between . +Grad C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc E: But it could be that they just {disfmarker} uh , I mean , it could be that they chunked {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they lost certain utterances and all that stuff , +Grad C: Right , exactly . So it could get very , very ugly . +Postdoc E: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Definitely . +Postdoc E: Yeah . +PhD F: Definitely . Alright . +Postdoc E: That 's interesting . +PhD F: Well , I guess , w I {disfmarker} I didn't want to keep people too long and Adam wanted t people {disfmarker} I 'll read the digits . If anyone else offers to , that 'd be great . And +PhD A: Ah , well . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD F: if not , I guess {disfmarker} +PhD A: For th for the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} for the benefit of science we 'll read the digits . +Grad C: More digits , the better . OK , this is +PhD F: Thanks {disfmarker} thanks a lot . It 's really helpful . I mean , Adam and Don {nonvocalsound} will sort of meet and I think that 's great . Very useful . Go next . +PhD D: Scratch that . +Postdoc E: O three +Grad C: Oh , right . +","In a meeting involving a group of graduate students and PhD holders, the participants discussed various technical matters concerning the development and representation of a database for speech and language data. The conversation began with Grad C expressing how they had previously deliberated on the ease of censoring sensitive words (""bleeping things out"") within spoken content, noting that Morgan preferred making the process difficult. + +PhD D and Grad C then shifted focus to address the non-functioning of a certain object or software, though the exact context of the malfunction wasn't clear due to ""disfmarkers"" indicating disrupted speech or unintelligible phrases. The talk then navigated into a technical exchange about the functionality of wireless devices, breath noises, and audio feedback issues, evidence of their in-depth technical knowledge and concern with detail. + +PhD F, presumably the moderator or lead of the meeting, indicated a pressing need to discuss the structure and accessibility of their database, emphasizing the connection between various types of linguistic data (such as transcripts, discourse codes, time-marked words, phoneme boundaries) potentially derived from automated processes like forced alignments and recognition software. + +The conversation took a deep dive into XML format and its suitability for their database goals, with Grad C discussing the structure and merits of a system they had already started developing. PhD D and PhD F deliberated on the practical usefulness and potential limitations of this system for different levels of linguistic information granularity (e.g., word level versus phoneme level). They also pondered over the benefits and shortcomings of different storage formats, particularly for dense, frame-level acoustic data. + +An extended technical discussion ensued over the XML-based data representation systems and the need to develop a standardized database format that is adaptable, can handle varying levels of detail, and is amenable to updates and changes without requiring a full re-assessment of the existing data. + +Grad C revealed their hesitance towards adopting a complete framework like ATLAS due to the steep learning curve. They proposed using a flat file format as an intermediary step, providing flexibility for future upscaling into a more comprehensive database system. + +PhD F, with practical concerns and a project-oriented mindset, pushed for a decision that would allow their current prosody work to move forward without needing to reconfigure the database down the line. The discussion concluded with a sense of commitment from Grad C to revisit the ATLAS formatting to see if it would meet their evolving project requirements. + +The conversation briefly turned towards the practical challenges related to merging different data annotations varying in detail and structure, illustrating the complex requirements of a standard format for speech data and the potential problems of reconciling disparate datasets. + +Throughout the discussion, the participants juggled the intricacies of data formats, parsing limitations, database features, and the priorities of their research work, while also considering the broader implications of choosing a standard that could benefit the wider research community." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences—and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked—that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Siân. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll be aware that there were four main reasons for the introduction of the Bill: around regulation of institutions in Wales; safeguarding the contribution made to public good arising from Welsh Government's financial support for the sector; maintaining a focus on fair access; and preserving and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy. I think the evidence that has been received by the committee to date shows that there are different views about the effectiveness of whether all four strategic aims have been achieved. I think those strategic aims are still really, really important and certainly will underpin our thought process going forward, but we have to recognise the higher education and research Bill across the border in England, the implementation of new student support measures in Wales, as well as the report that was done by Ellen Hazelkorn, I think, means it is appropriate that we move forward with different proposals, not just regulation of the HE sector but the post-compulsory sector as a whole. We will look to see what we can do to strengthen or whether there is more that we need to do to achieve those four objectives, because I think those four objectives are still very, very relevant. But we have to have legislation now that is fit for the circumstances we currently find ourselves in and, hopefully, futureproofs us for how we want to see the sector develop in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't been strong enough, and that you then have had to drive some of these objectives through the annual remit letter, rather than through legislation, and that's why the strengthening is required? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, I see the remit letter as a really, really important way in which national priorities and the priorities of an elected Government can be clearly stated, communicated to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and then HEFCW use their powers to ensure that that happens. So, certainly, I see the remit letter as being a very important mechanism for ensuring, as I said, that those national priorities are clearly articulated, and then change happens. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has the current legislation been framed around institutional autonomy so that it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any national outcomes, and is that going to be an element of the new Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly, the 2015 Act contains numerous provisions that protect universities' privileges and autonomy. And that's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll certainly be looking to see how we can carry those protections into the forthcoming Bill, but, at the same time, we do have to ensure appropriate regulation and accountability of institutions for their public funding and the privileges that they enjoy. And I think there are a number of ways in which that can happen. We have a very positive working relationship with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and I am very fortunate to have a very positive working relationship with the sector. The remit letters are a really important way in which we can lay out those national priorities. I don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't there be a discussion looking to move in a direction where there are national outcomes being set through legislation, because there is public money going into that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know whether we need national outcomes through legislation, because those national priorities, potentially, will change over time. What is really important, and what we will be seeking to do in the new legislation, is look to move to a system of outcome agreements. So, there is a very clear expectation that the commission will have, in regulating the sector, and co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's clear enough. What about private providers? The Act, or the Act as it stands, makes it a requirement for a regulated institution to be a charity, and that means it's not possible to regulate alternative private providers under the Act, even though they can provide higher education in Wales. What is your view on this, and will the new legislation continue with the requirement of being a charity? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's important to make the distinction between the scale of private providers, and what could be termed as 'unregulated providers' in the Welsh system, as opposed to the English system. And I think that's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case basis. So, we do have a circumstance where—and a process in place, to manage this. So, we have a specific designation policy, which is operated on our behalf by HEFCW. Only six organisations were designated on a case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 academic year, so the scale here is small. Three of those were further education colleges. So, when we talk about a private provider, perhaps people would have a view of a private university, but, actually, three of those were FE colleges, which we would all be familiar with. And the three private providers were the Centre for Alternative Technology, the training arm of the Church in Wales and the Newport and District Group Training Association. All three of those are actual charities. So, in order for their courses to be specifically designated, the three crucial questions that those providers have to answer are: quality—is what they’re providing to students of a good quality; the financial viability of the institution, again, to try to protect the interests of the students who may find themselves embarking on a course in an institution that isn’t viable; as well as their contribution to private—sorry, not to private good—public good. And we are considering how that part of the sector will be regulated in the forthcoming legislation. But, Huw, I don't know if there's anything else to add? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that there are a very small number of private providers, as the Minister has outlined, and, in comparison with England, where I think the last figures said that there were between 300 and 400 private providers in England, you get a sense of the differences that exist there. And, if you look at what happened over recent years, it has been those small private providers across the UK who have been most financially challenged and a number of them have stopped their operations, with consequences for the students. So, we’ve been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they’re enrolling with are strong and have good quality. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not— +Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage— +Sian Gwenllian AM: —or are you still thinking about it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act—the 2015 Act—does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government’s policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, the Act was introduced as a direct result of the changing scenario around finance and the different ways in which, because of the reduction in HEFCW's budget, the level of influence that HEFCW would be able to exert over institutions through the imposition of terms and conditions of funding—. So, the Act was introduced in part to address that shift in influence and the Act also has provided HEFCW with a range of new powers of intervention and sanctions in the case of non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm determined that any legislation that I bring forward and any commission that I establish will be empowered to enable that to happen through its regulatory and funding powers. Of course, the funding situation has shifted again now because of the introduction of what is commonly known as the Diamond reforms, but our new system of student finance does again shift the parameters of influence that HEFCW or any new tertiary commission could have. But, as I said earlier, it's not to say that institutions have had a free reign. We have been able to use the remit letter and our relationship with HEFCW to progress agendas that we would want to see. So, for instance, you'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've had no influence, but there are opportunities now, because of the change in financial circumstances once again, to look at that in any forthcoming legislation. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders' pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've been able to use the remit letter and some funding to be able to drive change and some improvements in mental health in the higher education sector. These are national priorities and we're acting upon them and we're using the multiple levers we have at the moment to engage in universities. And, I have to say, universities have risen to that challenge, and I'm very grateful to them for doing that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms—to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you—that's great, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use—I think HEFCW called them 'threatening'—saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight. +Dawn Bowden AM: I think they were saying it was difficult to use for swift interventions—they found it a bit cumbersome. They explained to us that they often take informal measures or actions in their role as regulator, and they've explained that the small size of the sector enables good relationships to be developed. How can such measures work in the tertiary education body when there clearly will be many more than the 10 providers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, looking ahead to the new Bill, I would want to see and be very keen to ensure that there are sufficiently flexible—did you use the word soft—and soft regulatory powers that the commission could exercise. Those powers, for instance, could include the ability to offer advice and guidance, rather than, maybe, punitive interventions, and powers to undertake enhanced monitoring of institutions to ensure compliance with regulatory conditions. So, I would expect the commission to be able to have a series of abilities to intervene, from the soft, flexible type, which is non-punitive but actually allows people to go in and support institutions, through to something that would be, as I said, more punitive, if they felt that an institution was in danger of not providing quality or financial failure. +Hefin David AM: Can I just come in there, on the point that was made? The issue that seemed to me to come from HEFCW and from the universities is that the dial seems to have only three steps. So, rather than having a graduated series of actions that they can take, it seems to step from—what did he call it—a 'meeting without coffee' to— +Kirsty Williams AM: That's a very HEFCW thing to say. +Hefin David AM: —potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative scrutiny is useful, because we can reflect on that feedback. As I said, I would expect to be able to ensure that the commission had a range of powers that could address—from that soft power and those early conversations to being able to, as I said, issue, perhaps, advice and guidance to an institution, so there would be a more graduated escalation. Huw, is there anything else that I've missed out? +Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's a range of ways in which we interact with all institutions that are going to be in the tertiary sector, and some of that is about providing information. So, HEFCW provides information—it sends around circulars, it produces reports and it holds events. There's staff, management and leadership development activity, which can create a culture amongst the leaders of institutions, but also amongst their governing bodies, to help them move in a particular direction. We would hope that's in the direction of the civic university approach that the Minister has outlined. We use those mechanisms and informal interactions with FE college principals, with the work-based learning provider network, with sixth forms and others, and we would want to see, I hope, in the tertiary sector some alignment of those things. When things go badly wrong, there are a range of mechanisms. I think what stands behind HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances— +Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those. +Huw Morris: So, in—. Shall I carry on? +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes. +Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's quite a lot of focus on that and looking to learn from other national systems where outcome agreements provide a broader measure of the range of things the institutions do and a mechanism for tracking how things are done through the provision of information back to the institution to help them know how they're doing. And potentially, in some of these other institutions, funding is linked to some of those things. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, what always has to be—. What we have to strike the balance of as well is at what point those powers seem to be—and the ability to direct—interfering with the principle of autonomy within an institution. So, there's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's really, really important, but also a regulatory regime, the ability to influence and to develop and to deliver national outcomes and the power to intervene in that sector, which you know, better than probably anybody else in this room, guards that institutional autonomy very, very, very dear indeed. And that's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures—and I understand what you're saying—but I think what HEFCW were saying was that they try as far as possible to use informal measures and they are able to do that because of the size of the sector—just 10 institutions to work with. The post-16 sector, however many we're talking—50 plus providers—it's probably going to be less likely that they would be able to have that sort of relationship with the leaders in those institutions. So, the informal measures might not be as prevalent as they are currently, possibly. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, but also, what's incumbent upon me as the Minister is to ensure that the commission is set up in a way where it can have that relationship with the sector, because what's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll be creating a commission that will be structured in such a way that it can have those relationships. Because, of course, whilst HEFCW will face changes, our relationship with and how we manage the FE sector and the apprenticeship sector will also shift. So, the point is that we need to create a commission that will still be able to be close to the sector, close enough to be able to provide that soft regulation, those really important relationships in a way—. So, it has to be created in such a way and resourced in such a way that it allows that to happen, and that's my intention. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Well, then, of course, the University of Wales said to us that they felt that there was the potential for HEFCW to issue directions enforceable by injunction to remedy minor matters. So, I think, from what you're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's important to recognise when HEFCW can enforce its directions by way of an injunction. If they were to do that because a university was breaking fee limits or because there were real questions about the quality of the provision or whether a university was not complying with the financial management code—personally, I wouldn't describe those as minor matters, as a Minister, if we had an institution that was significantly falling down on quality and HEFCW were using these powers to intervene. I wouldn't describe that as a minor matter. +Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't yet used their powers of intervention. Do you find that surprising? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what they have done in these circumstances is, perhaps, used their ability to support those institutions through what, undoubtedly, have been challenging times. Given the fact that there are ongoing legal processes attached to Swansea University, I think it would not be appropriate for me to comment any further, because there are still matters in train with regard to that institution. But clearly, our expectation on HEFCW is to ensure that they are using their powers to support those universities, and I would expect them, if they felt necessary, to use the full remit of their powers if they felt that that was what they needed to do. Now, I have to trust their professional judgment that that has not been necessary to date, but our expectation is that they would do that if they felt it was necessary. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation. +Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd like to think about outputs and outcomes, more importantly—what are the outcomes of the fee and access plan, not necessarily just how much money has been spent on them. I think, certainly, to really understand the success of the fee and access plan, you have to question whether an annual basis is an appropriate timescale for a university to be working to, and whether we could have something that was focused over a longer period of time. Because, when you think about it, you write the plan and then you're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's an opportunity there to look to restructure. So, do I see a place for fee and access plans going forward, as part of our outcome agreements? Yes, I do. Can we do them differently to make them more effective? Yes, I think we can. +Hefin David AM: So, why would introducing outcome agreements make them work any better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think they're going to be a part of an outcome agreement—part of that wider expectation. So, fee and access plans are there to address an issue around, primarily, changing the nature of people who go to university and making sure that nobody is put off from pursuing that. So, that's part of a wider piece of work that I'd want to see as an outcome agreement. But, as I said, I think looking at outcomes for students and outcomes of that activity, rather than the inputs of the activity, over a longer period of time, is probably a more effective way of doing it. I think it's still—. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't think we can necessarily point to the fee and access plans as being the driver for some of those improvements. +Hefin David AM: No, I appreciate that, and some of the things you're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying—can I just pin down what you're saying—is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle—I'd like to think we can all agree around the principle of what a fee and access plan is hoping to achieve, but I think there are better ways of doing it, and I think we should take the opportunity of reform to look at how we can do it better. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, I think we're talking about the future of the Bill, the consultation on the PCET reforms closed in summer 2018—with these important issues in mind and things that are currently ongoing, have you had further dialogue since then with key stakeholders like, for example, Universities Wales and others? +Kirsty Williams AM: On the Bill or on fee and access plans in particular? +Hefin David AM: I'm thinking about fee and access plans as an issue that suggests that there is a need for deep consultation, so with that in mind, with things like that, have you had further discussion? +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh my goodness me, civil servants in the department are constantly in discussion with a range of stakeholders as we continue to develop legislative proposals. I meet on a regular basis with both HEFCW—I meet separately with the vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll come on to issues of governance later. So, we are constantly discussing with stakeholders all options for change— +Hefin David AM: I suppose the message I'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received. +Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's outlined that there is very extensive, ongoing communication both ways with the sector, but the challenge of preparing a Bill is the balancing act between gathering in information—and there's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process—and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't been discussed with anybody else before it comes to be considered by the Senedd. So, the broad principles have been discussed, but specific details of what goes into a Bill or policy instructions that inform a Bill haven't been the subject of consultation— +Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1. +Huw Morris: Indeed, yes. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item? +Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section. +Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific— +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view—. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest—they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin—carry on. +Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. The feedback from Universities Wales suggests that, with the outcome of the 2015 Act, institutions with the strongest track records are more highly regulated than the riskier private alternative providers. Do you think that Act has struck the right balance? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the Act has created a system where the level of regulation is proportional to the amount and the nature of public moneys received by institutions. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales— +Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm not disagreeing. My view is: I believe that the Act has struck that proportionality. When you look at public moneys going into institutions, I think that the Act is proportionate, myself. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think it's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions—? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand—they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're less regulated. +Huw Morris: Can I just chip in? I think that the category 'private' covers quite a wide range of things, and many private institutions are also charities. We don't have the presence of some of the large private charities that are present in other countries, but Stanford and Harvard would count as private universities. So, I think we need to be careful in focusing on the inherent quality of things. We've made charitable status a key reference point in the operation of things at the moment. I think there has been attention drawn to some private providers, particularly in England, but I wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily. +Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith—if they're not charitable providers running validated courses, for example, they fall outwith the strength of regulation that is currently in place on the universities in Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, we would regulate them on a course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course basis to validate alternative providers. And as Huw said, I think we should recognise the nature of that is very, very, very small in Wales, and there is a process to ensure quality provision. If there were concerns about the quality of that provision, that course could be deregulated. +Hefin David AM: And I'm aware that there are a small number of private institutions in Wales, but are you concerned that in the future the landscape may change, particularly with the opportunity to recruit more part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. We had some evidence from the University and College Union that were concerned about the governance of universities, actually, as being a bigger problem than the regulatory framework in many ways. Can you tell us, perhaps, how the HE Act addresses the issue of poor governance, or is it really just limited to responding to the symptoms rather than the poor governance itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance—we've talked briefly about some recent history within the sector that I think has certainly brought the issue of governance to the fore once again, and I think there are two important things that we're trying to do about that in the current time, prior to any legislative changes. The first is, as I just said to Hefin, I have sought to have a more direct relationship with chairs of universities and have that one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively—and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're more likely to get some success and change—Universities Wales and HEFCW have worked together to undertake an independent review of governance. And I think it's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd have more resistance. So, there is an independent review going on at the moment— +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that the risk review process in—? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's chaired by Gillian Camm, who is the chair of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and she is doing an independent review to advise on changes to governance. And I welcome that, I'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's been recognition from within the sector themselves that they need to make sure, and they need to give confidence, that governance arrangements are what they should be. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, is that something that you're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition in respect of good governance, and a commission would be able to set expectations with regard to good governance. I think one of the concerns for me—and I know that this is a concern that is shared by the UCU—is the diversity of governance and who finds themselves in these really important positions. HEFCW don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've asked officials to do for me, currently in the universities that we have, I would say that men make up around 56 per cent of membership of universities' governing bodies; women—44 per cent; BME—as low as 4 per cent. Of course, in individual institutions, it does vary, but I think there is some way to go to making sure that our governing bodies are diverse and that there's an opportunity to look at the student voice in governance going forward, the staff voice in governance going forward, and these are things that we hope to have discussions on whilst we bring the legislation forward. +Dawn Bowden AM: But also, I guess—sorry, Chair—a greater understanding, that anybody going in to become a governor of one of these institutions has a greater understanding of what is expected of them. Do you think that that's a gap that needs to be plugged? +Huw Morris: One of the things that HEFCW have led on with AdvanceHE, the body that encompasses the leadership foundation, is a development programme for governing bodies, and that started earlier—well, it's been going on for some time, but it was recommenced earlier this year, with a session for all of the chairs of universities in Wales. And I believe—I'll need to check this—that there are plans to engage with each of the governing bodies, because, as you rightly say, and this lies behind a lot of what we've been discussing, the activities of these institutions have become much more complex over recent years, and so there is a need for that training and development and understanding also of the fast-changing nature of that activity. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Siân on quality assurance. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure all the provision in two further education colleges. That sounds to me like some kind of an anomaly or an unintended consequence of the Act. Could you clarify that and explain the situation in that instance? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding—and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't put myself into the thought process of the Minister at the time and what his expectation was. But, certainly, my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, it was an expectation built into the Act that HEFCW and Estyn would work together on these matters. The Act built on what were the quality assessment arrangements in the 1992 Act, which required HEFCW to secure arrangements for the assessment of the quality of education provided by funding institutions. So, as a consequence of that approach, HEFCW's quality assessment duty currently encompasses all the education provided by or on behalf of a regulated institution. So, it is complicated, and Huw can help me out here if I get it wrong, but my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence, that was the expectation of what would happen when the legislation was passed. Huw. +Huw Morris: I would completely agree with what the Minister has said. +Kirsty Williams AM: As always. [Laughter.] At least in public, Huw. +Huw Morris: There is the expectation that they will work together in concert. There's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges. +Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice? +Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've listened to stakeholders' concerns regarding proposals to introduce a single quality assessment body. As I said, we recognise that stakeholders are broadly content with the current situation with regard to Estyn and QAA. So, we've been listening to that, following the technical consultation, and policy officials are working through options in regard to ensuring what quality assurance will look like in the commission. As I said, I don't want to pre-empt bringing forward the legislation, but the principles underlying any assurance regime would need to be coherent, need to be effective and need to be comprehensive. What we're also very clear about, and I think it is important to say, is that any quality framework covering higher education will be compatible with ENQA, which I think is really, really important going forward. And by an extension of that, it would be compatible with current UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't want to create specific problems for the HE sector in Wales. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, you have touched on this, there is substantial concern in the sector about this offer to move to one assurance body for the tertiary sector. One vice-chancellor has told us: +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of, 'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?' And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're not going to do anything in the quality assurance regime that would risk what is the very high reputation and standards that Welsh universities currently comply with or would set them apart from institutions across the border or in a European context. Huw. +Huw Morris: I agree, obviously. I think the fear is misplaced, but coming back to another theme in the conversation so far about futureproofing, what we're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time is the desire of a greater number of people at different ages to engage in higher and tertiary education, and quite often that will be in a workplace or it will be in a non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's an issue not just in Wales. The Augar report, which was published earlier this year in England, drew attention to this as being a major problem in the relationship over the border between Ofsted and the QAA. So, I think we're not looking to impose one institution on anybody, but we are looking to encourage greater synergy in the ways in which quality assurance and enhancement is undertaken in those different areas of activity. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE? +Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this. +Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. +","Summary: + +The Committee on Children, Young People and Education met to discuss post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, attended along with Huw Morris, director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group of the Welsh Government. They discussed plans to replace the 2015 Act with a new post-compulsory education and training (PCET) Bill, which will address governance, quality assurance, and aim to align the sector with national objectives. + +Concerns about the regulatory framework for HE institutions, including governance and intervention powers, were addressed, with a recognition of the need to balance institutional autonomy with regulatory oversight. The discussion also touched on fee and access plans, and the potential for creating outcome agreements to better reflect national priorities. The Minister highlighted increases in access to higher education after reforms to student financial support. The meeting also acknowledged the small scale and regulation of private providers in Wales. + +The meeting moved on to address issues surrounding governance, with an independent review chaired by Gillian Camm underway and the possibility of introducing a regulatory condition regarding governance in the upcoming Bill. In terms of quality assurance, there were talks about whether it is necessary to have a single quality assurance body for the tertiary sector. Regarding transnational education, it was emphasized that quality guarantees are important to maintain the reputation of Welsh institutions. + +Finally, the Committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for the first item on 2 October." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hello {vocalsound} . 'Kay . +Project Manager: You all saw the newsflash ? +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or you got the same message ? +Marketing: Yeah I I just saw it one minute ago . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah sorry . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Marketing: When I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't see it yet I think . +User Interface: Newsflash ? D did I miss something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . 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No I just flapped it , closed it , took it here and then this happened . Ah . Uh {disfmarker} where was it ? In settings ? Okay . Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Do you guys like your tasks ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was gonna do and then a couple of minutes before this I get my function you know the information that I need . +User Interface: Yeah wa wa you actually {disfmarker} Yeah . But it it's not clear what you have to to to type uh type in your presentation . +Industrial Designer: So frustrating . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I I had a whole idea and then just was typing it and then oh . I have to do that so switch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} Yeah exactly . This presentation is mainly based on my own ideas 'cause I hadn't time to intergrate tha the information yet so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Really annoying . +Project Manager: Okay . So there we are again . +Marketing: By your humble P_M_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay this is the agenda . Um we have three presentations , I heard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah really . {vocalsound} So who wants to start ? +Marketing: Yeah that's fine {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have to start it right away ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh this is you ? +Marketing: Functional ? Yeah functional requirements . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . I'm gonna talk about functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} Well uh some research has be done uh has been done . Uh observing of one hundred uh subjects in the usability lab using a remote control . Uh and they also filled in a questionnaire . The findings were um , well you can see them for yourself . They disliked the look-and-feel of current remotes controls . {vocalsound} Users think they're ugly . Um {vocalsound} they do not match the the operating behaviour of the users . So they they d they don't match what they want to have on it . Um {vocalsound} they are often lost somewhere in the room . Um it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . And they're bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} I don't know uh how a user can reach that but okay . Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ts +Marketing: there is also uh was also some research on uh the most relevant and and and irrelevant uh f functions . Uh most irrelevant and less used were audio settings , mono , stereo , uh pitch , bass . Um screen settings for brightness and colour and stuff like that . Um but they are used . I mean the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So they do need to be in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah they do need to be on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I mean if you can't control the the sound settings {disfmarker} I mean if you dislike a very uh loud bass or something , you you need to change that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} often . +Marketing: So um yeah we have to . +Industrial Designer: By the way my T_V_ doesn't have an equ equaliser but +Marketing: We c we c Yeah I mean w we can't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next generation does . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: my my T_V_ has , +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} Alright . +Marketing: but we we can leave them uh away . Uh most relevant , uh most used functions , uh they speak for themselves I guess . Uh power button , uh channel , volume selection . Uh teletext but we can skip that because I saw the newsflash , and teletext is so outdated that it it's i should not be used uh any more in the future . +Project Manager: N not used anymore . +Marketing: So forget this one . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Uh channel settings , so for programming uh your channels in in the right order . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: By the way where did you guys get that newsflash from ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} I was wondering uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I didn't get anything . +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} on on the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Not by mail . I receiv the mail but you don't . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you you've got more information than {disfmarker} uh . +Marketing: No so it's a text file n in the project folder . So teletext can be skipped . +Project Manager: That's in the presentation , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there was some research on new features in a remote control . Uh about an L_C_D_ screen uh and speech recognition . Well we got an update for the for the audience . Or the the the targeted group . So it's above forty I guess . +Project Manager: Uh below I believe . +Marketing: The new product ? Or below {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah below forty . +Marketing: because that's pretty relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I thought I read a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Our current customers are in the age group forty plus . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: And the new product should reach new markets , which is the customers below forty . +Marketing: Below ? Okay well {vocalsound} +User Interface: But where did you get uh that information ? +Project Manager: That's in a newsflash . +Marketing: that's that's in the newsfla +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay that's a good to know . Um because you see see a clear distinction between the age groups , concerning the features . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean uh above forty people are not so interested uh not so interested in a screen or speech recognition . Uh but below that age they uh they pretty much are . So I think we can build that in . Um {disfmarker} Yeah well we can skip this part as well , because I thought I read above forty so we could skip the features , but we just have to build them in because uh they find it very interesting . Um well we have to keep all the classic functions but make the buttons as user-friendly as possible . Um and and also there's {disfmarker} so not only the design of the bus uh buttons but o how you can push them , and stuff like that . So the physical uh aspect of it . Um {disfmarker} And I think {disfmarker} and certainly for for the for the lower age groups , uh nice design , which uh does not make the remote control {gap} in your room . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's actually a part of your interior , of of your design in your room . So it's {vocalsound} the people can say , well what's that , well that's my remote control , so it's d it has to look nice and feel nice , and and have all the functions that uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But it also needs to have corporate identity . +Marketing: Yeah so the the logo has to be +Project Manager: Present and the colours . +Marketing: uh present yeah , and the colours as well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can't change much of that . +Industrial Designer: Do we have {disfmarker} uh yeah {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah so but I I don't think that's that's a problem because the thing has to have a colour anyway , and most of the times there is a brand present on it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So I think that's not gonna gonna affect it very uh very much . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well that are the the consequences uh on a marketing uh part . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's open already so you can use {gap} to +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: find yours . +User Interface: Mm . It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +User Interface: F_ five . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go Jurgen . +User Interface: Oh . What is this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How do I uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You pressed alt F_ four ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no . I pressed the mouse button . +Project Manager: Oh great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} th that's the self-destruct button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe you can do it from your computer so talk us through it . +User Interface: Okay . Um if you all go stand around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Computer {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: F_ five . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: I uh had uh two examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um this one is the the yeah the advanced one with a lot of options and functions and buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This the easy one +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think we have to to combine them . And uh yeah merge the best functions of all examples . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um but yeah the the age is uh under forty ? +Project Manager: The mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and and and marketing research stated that that that kind of users are not afraid of of a lot of functions . +User Interface: So we {disfmarker} Okay so so we have the option for more functions . +Marketing: So not not too much but {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we do have to integrate the screen and the the speech {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the speech recognition yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: alright . +User Interface: Uh yeah this this one we can remove for kids . It's just only for adults so uh we can uh use some advanced options . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah from age of sixteen so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but I prefer we we uh use the the basic options uh yeah . We have to to make them very easy so for just uh zapping around the channels you can just push one button . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But if you want to to use your your video recorder or something else , you should use use an uh an advanced option . +Marketing: Yeah but uh the the newsflash also stated that it should control only one device , only your television . +User Interface: Okay one device . +Project Manager: Yeah . So n it's very easy . +User Interface: Okay . I didn't see {gap} . +Marketing: So w +Project Manager: Now yeah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay and I also uh yeah . W yeah . +Marketing: So there are not extra options in this case , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We have to make it fashionable . Like you uh said uh before . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh yeah the basic functions . Um yeah only use a extra function if they are really needed . +Project Manager: Yeah so maybe you can hide them or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah well what what we can do with the screen is is all the the configuration options , you can put that in the screen . +Project Manager: Yeah you make a screen menu or something . +Marketing: And the and the {disfmarker} yeah screen menu to to to uh to do that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the basic function just on the device itself . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it looks very simple and all the advanced features are hidden in the screen , uh with a clear menu . +Project Manager: Yeah and the other oth other uh functionality is the screen . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does the screen do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} wh +Project Manager: Yeah . It's low power . +User Interface: did I break it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: What {gap} . +Project Manager: So what does the screen do ? They said they needed it but what does it do ? What do they want with the screen ? +User Interface: For for the advanced functions I think . +Project Manager: Yeah that's what we make it up . +Marketing: Yeah well it {gap} yeah it didn't +Project Manager: So but what did the marketing {disfmarker} +Marketing: it didn't say what they want to do with the screen . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Well I , my guess is it's it's pretty handy for advanced uh advanced functions . +Project Manager: Yeah okay it's handy . With no predefined uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like searching for channels and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah look . +Marketing: Yeah searching for channels , programming them . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We have your uh {disfmarker} oh never mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're back online . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . That's uh {disfmarker} I'm al I'm almost finished so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um the {disfmarker} we have to to to watch out for the {disfmarker} i if we make it f very fashionable , it it the functional functionality will go down . So we have to make uh a compromise between functionality and fashional fashionable +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Content and form . +User Interface: yeah content and form . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Now that that was uh was the end . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was the end . Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well my presentation is a bit uh sucky . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well you can improvise right ? +Project Manager: Uh which one is it ? Technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a little bit . +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . No no . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that would be it then . {gap} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You didn't put it in ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I have no idea . +Marketing: So we we can go for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That w {gap} . +Project Manager: {gap} it's not really English . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Let me check . I know . +Project Manager: Uh kick off . Oh working design I got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So we can go for the look-and-feel of the the left example , and then a screen on top of it . +Project Manager: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: Alright how do I uh skip pages ? +Project Manager: Just uh press uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The keys yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um yeah well I was working on this before I got my information . So I was just working off the top of my head and using my colin common knowledge about uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And well the info on the website which came too late . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so I didn't really know what kind of functions we had to put into it yet . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh uh this is basically an overview of what we discussed in our last uh meeting . Those were my uh starting points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I was working on a s yeah on a schedule , and I was supposed to do it like this . But um yeah then uh the information came and it was kind of exact with all the steps in the remote control that I had to follow , so I was trying to organise them for myself . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And then make the +Project Manager: Design yeah . +Industrial Designer: the design , a the actual design , +Marketing: Design ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I never came around to do that . So I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say about it . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I mean everything speaks for itself I guess . Mean you press a button um {vocalsound} the it tru goes , it sends a signal to a chip , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which uh translates it into infrared signal of certin spatial frequencies . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah frequency . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh or temporal fr frequencies actually . And then uh through a uh transformer , it the signal gets boosted and then sent to the to the receiver on the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah decoder . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ will translate it into a function . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah well this was actually {vocalsound} all I got around to do . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Blank . Yeah okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean I dunno if I'm too slow for this stuff , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Work harder . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay shou should we make a list of the of all the functions we want uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah we want to incorporate in uh into it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um for those that didn't see yet um the basic new requirements of the management were no teletext , only for T_V_ . Uh it should be designed for a use g uh group below forty , but I don't think it's w wrong if we can uh target the current customer group as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh the corporate identity should be clear in the design of the remote control . And we have to decide on the functions , and on the , let's see what was it , uh the target group . We have to make be clear what that is . +Marketing: {gap} group of users , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah users . +Marketing: because it says below forty I mean . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah so I think it's easy but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess that's that's the tar yeah uh or male and female {disfmarker} +User Interface: But uh it's it's also for children or just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's below forty so we can decide where to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh six {disfmarker} the marketing research started on s on the age of sixteen . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Sixteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , thirty five to forty five , something like that . +Project Manager: Okay . So below forty is okay . +Marketing: So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But we need an {disfmarker} lower level which to s uh focus . +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: So is it from sixteen to forty ? Is it from twenty to forty ? Is it from thirty ? +Marketing: Uh sixteen to forty . +Project Manager: Yeah ? 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . We we have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I guess people of sixteen are are quite used to technology . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So they they adapt to it pretty soon I guess . +User Interface: And if we have a larger public we have uh yeah more options to to uh sell our product . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so what we might wanna do is uh yeah cust I have customised the screen functions , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The uh younger users are more acquainted with these kind of machines so they can use more advanced functions . But maybe elderly people don't understand it so well , so they need a simpler remote . +Project Manager: Design . Mm . +Industrial Designer: And yeah that you can choose what the design displays , or wha whatever . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's why uh I wanted to to make yeah two uh different uh yeah groups of functions . The the simple functions for for the the whole public , and the the advanced options for the younger people yeah who are more yeah experienced with uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And maybe y +Industrial Designer: Experienced yeah . +Marketing: But uh all incorporated in the screen or or just on the remote itself ? +User Interface: Na I w I should uh put uh the the yeah the extra advanced options on the onto the onscreen display . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like like you have a visual of the of the brightness with with a kind of sliding bar and a bus and and stuff like that for sound and and vis and and visuals ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So is {disfmarker} you should have a menu for all the the functions you don't use regular and which are {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh you can make a {disfmarker} if you make a drawing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Aye yeah . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Shall I uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh black's okay . {vocalsound} And draw it very big . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} no , it doesn't have line control , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we get the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah well , this is basically uh it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The remote ? +Project Manager: The remote , yeah ? +Marketing: alright the remote ? Um well usually the power button is on top I guess . +Project Manager: Basic . Is on top . Which should be easy , easily reached with the thumb . +Marketing: Yeah so it should fit right in into your hand . +User Interface: Yeah . L left top or right uh top ? +Project Manager: T I s should said right . +Marketing: Right . Right . +User Interface: Yeah , right . +Industrial Designer: Right top . +Marketing: I most people are right-handed so {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely . +Marketing: maybe left-handed special addition , but okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you put it like like here . Or something . I dunno . Um then you could put a screen , like on a mobile phone , also on top I guess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but if you are using the the normal functions , the the basic functions , you normally press them on the u yeah . +Project Manager: Do the also with the thumb . So it should be a little bit longer so that you can put your uh thumb , also reach the middle . Or you should screen at the bottom and then you can see it very clearly . +Marketing: Okay so y yeah you have you have it in your hand , and the screen is below , and the buttons are in the middle . +Project Manager: You you need to be able to hold it so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay for example {vocalsound} if you put the screen here , it's more about the functions now than the than the layout . +Project Manager: Yeah okay that's true . Layout . That's for the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Doesn't work too well . It's uh it's bent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I can't help it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: You broke it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Man . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay you get it . Uh for example if y if you put all the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You want the normal piece of paper ? And you have a pen ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And might be easier huh ? +Marketing: Maybe this . {gap} kind of works . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Like if you have like uh ten buttons for for all the for all the channels , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: um and here one for for +Project Manager: And the for flipping up and down . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . And volume control . +Marketing: Yeah that that usually uh {disfmarker} like here , here , here , here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you have up and down for the for the channels , and left and right for the volume uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And left to right . And those can also be used for the menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . I thought {disfmarker} but this is really your department , that we need just the functional display and four cursors . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but this is function so if you can use them for multiple things {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you you have {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: most of the time you have one button in the middle . It says menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: For the menu . Yeah . +Marketing: and then if you press it you {disfmarker} the screen gets activated and then you can use these buttons to scroll up and down and left and right to go into functon +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: mo most of the time this menu button is also like okay , to to confirm a a kind of action . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you scroll into it , okay . You select a function like v like uh bass . You just adjust it with these two buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Then okay to confirm , and then uh on on each on each screen there's there should be an option to go back to a to a upper level . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then finally say okay , exit . Or or one button to exit it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh in one time I dunno , that's not really my department . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And do we need a a logo on our uh remote control , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's more your uh your department to to uh to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But it should be {disfmarker} if the screen is here then the logo should be like on on top , +User Interface: On the left uh top yeah . +Marketing: yeah . I mean it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah but that depends on where you put the screen . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But it's essential that there is a screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I mean the position of the screen is also more essential than {disfmarker} I mean we we look where we have space left and then put the logo over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . And for the speech uh recognition part , if we want to incorporate that , we need a microphone . +Marketing: But um {disfmarker} Yeah so it should be {disfmarker} I mean if you have it in your hand here , should be on top somewhere , maybe . +Project Manager: Yeah . This would be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why did we wanna put the display in the bottom ? +Marketing: I mean i +Project Manager: No that's not s sure so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: That's not sure +Project Manager: uh we need a display . +Marketing: but it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah may maybe because you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because yeah if you use the functions your hand will block the display . +User Interface: Yeah okay but {gap} only for the basic functi if you're going to use the advanced option , you're going to press the the menu button and then {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I mean a screen on top looks more lo logical to me . +Industrial Designer: Normal for logical t +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Also because people use m mobile phones and they also have the screen on top . +Project Manager: Yeah they're used to it . +User Interface: Okay the {disfmarker} yeah . That's possible . +Marketing: So you you just have to reach a little bit for the power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean if you grab it . +Industrial Designer: On once it's on it's on . You don't need the power button . +Marketing: But most most of the times if a if if a T_V_'s on standby people just press a channel to put it on . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . Okay we put it on top . +Marketing: So we put this on top , and then make the corporate logo +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like over here . R_R_ . And j and the microphone , I mean it can be very small . If you look at your mobile phones {gap} are some stripes , {vocalsound} little little holes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe on the top or even on the side . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah maybe on the side . I mean if the if the microphone is good . +Project Manager: Yeah but then it's possible that you cover it with your hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: Yeah okay . So on the on the top is better . +Project Manager: I think that top is the best option . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if you uh if you hold the ma the remote like this , if you put it on the top on the side {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Should be able to work . +Marketing: Yeah . {gap} . +Project Manager: Depends on the sensitivity of the microphone , but I think that's okay . +Industrial Designer: Never mind . Can we leave this up to you ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it doesn't matter that much . So {disfmarker} but um the screen is on top ? Which functions did we have left ? I mean this is basically numbers , volume , uh channel up and down . +Project Manager: Volume . Up . Channel up and down , and the control of the advanced options . +Marketing: Screen is over there . +Project Manager: So maybe it , we should decide what advanced options we want to put in the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah . If we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . That's uh that's a good one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so we we needed to integrate the sound and uh and image options right ? +Project Manager: Yeah so sounds ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like uh bass uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Sound ? +Industrial Designer: so we need kind of an equaliser . If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Equaliser . So if you have sound {disfmarker} But not too advanced . I mean most T_V_s use only treble and bass . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Yeah it it's just a remote control so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah treble , middl middle , bass or something . +Project Manager: They're not used often so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . It's uh pretty hard to write . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah as {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . Okay but you have sound ? +Project Manager: Yeah sounds . +Marketing: Yeah just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: oh y you have digital uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: better write it down over there yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . I'm just a {vocalsound} secretary . +Marketing: So you have sound . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Coffee ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah sound and then within sound I guess treble and bass ? +Industrial Designer: Yes please . +Project Manager: Treble bass . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the mono stereo option ? +Marketing: Yeah . Also . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And there there was something else also . +Project Manager: Pitch I believe , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then pitch . +Marketing: Pitch . Yeah . But pitch , isn't that {disfmarker} yeah that's the the height of the tone . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The fr yeah the frequency of the tones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah okay , +Project Manager: Yeah and mono stereo . +Marketing: wh why would you use that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah isn't that that depends on the on the signal of the of what program you're watching . +Marketing: If people like talk like uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also the tuning part ? +Marketing: Programming part . +Project Manager: Yeah programming . So channel programming ? +Marketing: Uh so we have sound , yeah ? Channel programming . +Industrial Designer: And yeah in the functionality of the +User Interface: Television uh itself uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: no no of the remote uh do do we want uh the buttons to make sound when you press them ? As a confirmation or whatever you know ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I think it g it gets annoying . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean most mobile phones used that in the beginning but {disfmarker} +User Interface: We we could make an option for it , but uh you can disable s +Industrial Designer: Under the a yeah advanced option menu you can put those things . +User Interface: Yeah . But uh the the television itself has also the the options {gap} brightness and uh screen colour etcetera . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Contrast yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but people don't want to sit on their knees on their knees in front of their television with {gap} only three buttons then it's very hard to +Project Manager: Mm . No . Uh , so contrast , +Marketing: y yeah contrast and brightness ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: bright , +Marketing: Yeah those are the most used I guess . If you look at your monitor . +Project Manager: uh {disfmarker} And the others were in your presentation right ? So I can just copy those ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} yeah well I guess that these were the only ones , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} It's easy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But so we have we have T_V_ options , which is all this . +Marketing: Yeah . I will look it up . +Project Manager: Yeah the button options and the L_C_D_ options . +Industrial Designer: The sound , sound and image . And you have in that uh the indeed the remote control options . +Project Manager: Indeed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we need two menus kind of thing . +Project Manager: Yeah you have basically a button menu , which you can use directly , uh according to the old principle . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: And the L_C_D_ options are activated by some some software options , thats communicates with the infrared uh decoder yeah . +Marketing: Yeah with the chip and then {gap} I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you {disfmarker} You have an additional processor and and software part . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} yeah . Well {disfmarker} yeah we have power button , whether that's present . +Project Manager: Compared to o +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Channel volume selection present . Uh numbers present . Yeah a audio settings , mono , stereo , pitch , bass , treble . Screen settings , brightness and colour . +Project Manager: L_ s Yeah . Colour . Yeah I I call it contrast . +Marketing: Yeah con contrast is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I make it c colour . +Marketing: Yeah okay , colour and brightness . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um and what you say , channel settings or channel programming ? So you you have an option to to start scanning all the frequencies , and when it encounters one , well it shows on your T_V_ . And then you can um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah and automatically um {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh and then you can select uh a number in your remote on which you want to save it . +Project Manager: Yeah so I've g channel program is autoseek ? +Marketing: Yeah , autoseek . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh name a channel , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well most T_V_s automatically display the name , which they get through the cable . +Project Manager: Oh they get automatic names , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So you only have to choose the position on your +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It only has to match the the channel frequency on your T_V_ , with with the with the position on your T_V_ and and so your remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah but can you also say I want f uh Veronica on the channel number uh five or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Help . +Marketing: If you already programmed it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If you want to move it . Yeah that should be possible too . +Project Manager: Yeah . How do you call that ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah how do you call that ? Mm ? Wait you you should be able to to browse through a list or something , which w displays all the all the values , all the channels which are possible . +Project Manager: Channels ? Yeah . +Marketing: I mean like one to f thirty of or ninety or whatever . +Project Manager: Ninety nine or something . Yeah . +Marketing: Just browse through it and then um in some kind of way see if it if it if it is programmed . +Project Manager: S swap channels ? Can I call it that ? +Marketing: Yeah . Swap channels . +Project Manager: Swap's good option . Okay . Uh other functions ? +Marketing: So you {disfmarker} most of the time if you if you swap it {disfmarker} S uh let's say for example you have uh R_T_L_ five on on channel five . And Veronica on channel eight and you want to move Veronica to channel five , most of the times you override the previous uh the previous one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . Well that's 's up to uh Mister User Interface Designer . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It's it's pretty uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah I mean you have to look on on the menu +Industrial Designer: {gap} working design . Doch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Also . +Marketing: on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He only has to figure out how it has to look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but also , which buttons you have to press to get a certain result ? +Industrial Designer: And how +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the working design was to specify how ph the physical interation between the components was , as I believe . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . But {disfmarker} You did your homework . But um {disfmarker} yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or or is it too hard to to ju to just do it all on your remote ? To programme the channels ? +Project Manager: No I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No no . It should be able to do any remote . +User Interface: No that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: But I think the communication with the television is difficult . But that's not our part . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have to design a protocol so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's true . That's true . +Industrial Designer: Thank god . +User Interface: Okay {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . So we have a figure a figure out a way to to do that easily . I mean th the autoseek is is not a problem . +Project Manager: No that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you uh you uh current channel and then then it just says , uh on which number do you want to save this , and you just press a number on your remote , and then say confirm , okay , and then it's it's saved . It's easier , {gap} it's it's it's harder to , if you have already programmed it , to to swap . +Project Manager: Yeah . So but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to think of something for that . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} The User Interface Designer can design a menu for all these function I put them on the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah k kind of structure into layers . +User Interface: On the uh yeah can you i make a a map with with all the {disfmarker} yeah 'cause it's now {disfmarker} there are lots and lots of documents +Project Manager: {gap} . Yeah . Yeah I can . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll just try to reorganise uh things . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you design the basic function menu for the L_C_D_ screen ? Uh um {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} +Marketing: And and the layout of of the thing itself . +Project Manager: th I think the yeah the layout of the screen +User Interface: The the layout of the remote control ? +Project Manager: and I think you can concentrate more on the button placement and the placement of the uh screen itself on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Isn't that more the the u uh the user interface part ? +Project Manager: {gap} . No I d I think that's more in {disfmarker} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh all the functional uh aspects of the remote I think are in my department . +Marketing: Maybe more on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have to know what it has to do , so if you wanna you know the changing the channels kind of s thing is , I have to integrate that in the design . +Project Manager: Okay . So he's layout and you're function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Form function okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a that's a good separation . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: But do I have to to uh to yeah to make the the menu layout also ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are you going to do that ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah ? I I'm going to make {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think i that's your department yes , +User Interface: yeah o okay . +Project Manager: because w he already knows what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have to kind of work together . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: If if I make the the the yeah the menu like , I have to state which function has to be in the menu , +Project Manager: But we're not allowed . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then you have to decide , it's , in a in a way that b is user-friendly . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . Y you you are going to make a list of what functions are uh are going to to be on the the screen , the menu screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And I'm going to make a a nice menu uh with with {gap} pages and yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: With with some l with some layers in it . +Project Manager: Yeah and also make clear which buttons to press to get certain result , +Marketing: So some menus . +Project Manager: because that's always the difficulty . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Every device has its own {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well I guess this this button , the the the okay , +Project Manager: Menu okay . +Marketing: menu okay . Or you can incorporate two uh difference uh different buttons . Uh like uh for your mobile phone . Um so this is only for to get in the menu , or to exit it . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And then one to confirm , and one to go one step back . +Project Manager: Back . Yeah . +Marketing: So it's like the the save button on your your mobile phone , if you have a Nokia or like that . Or the or the no button . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: To go one step back you {gap} it's only two extra buttons , +User Interface: Yeah . W we {disfmarker} +Marketing: but if it if it's very clear that they are for the screen {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I think we have to to group , to make two groups . Um the {disfmarker} one group for the for the display , and one group for the basic functions , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah but they're incorporated {gap} ? Up and down is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah okay but we we have a m +Marketing: Yeah because this this is used for both . +User Interface: yeah but maybe that's that's not uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Smart ? +User Interface: yeah if you're if you're z zapping uh with your uh yeah remote control , you can press the the menu button , and then you are suddenly into the the yeah the display . +Marketing: Into your screen . Okay . So you +Industrial Designer: You wanna separate uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: l should leave the menu button out of here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And {gap} and just put it under the screen , the screen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it on top . +User Interface: Yeah j just just group group the {disfmarker} yeah we make these the advanced functions and these the basic functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we make a yeah a line between them . +Marketing: Yeah . But we should place the screen on top , right ? +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: F oh yeah . Okay yeah we swap uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: But that's uh J Jurgen's department . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we make it a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . You just you just find out and {gap} . +Project Manager: You just make the layout . You {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: do we do the extra two buttons or not ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you should . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's easier . If you put too many functions in one button it gets confusing . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So we have a a menu button and a s +Project Manager: And to , okay and back , also . +User Interface: Okay . Okay and back button . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , or confirm and back . Whatever . +Project Manager: And of course the four arrows . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But those are still y doubly used . Both the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Marketing: Should we save this picture , or or you know what it looks like ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm not s clear about uh the the extra two buttons . We have a menu button and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That that just to to activate the screen . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the the one with the {disfmarker} yeah okay . +Project Manager: Menu button access the menu in the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: And then with these buttons , woa , y you navigate . +Project Manager: You can navigate . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you can also navigate the channels . And the volume . +User Interface: Okay so that that's not uh {disfmarker} Yeah that {disfmarker} Those are +Project Manager: Those are both both {disfmarker} +User Interface: multifunctional . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey is it interesting for users if we put LED lights under the buttons ? So that if you uh press on the menu function that only the buttons that are used for the menu are ligh li light up . +Marketing: Yeah . L l litten up yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh five minutes . +Marketing: That's very good idea . +Industrial Designer: N +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Light uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's a good idea because then it becomes clear which buttons are active now , which you can use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and then it's also easier to integrate several functions in one button . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Marketing: Those buttons are are lit up . +Industrial Designer: I think not . +Marketing: But just one thing . Should we use those two ? Them ? Or only this to to scroll ? +Project Manager: I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use the two functional buttons to confirm , to go into something ? Oh no we have to use this to adjust some some bars ? +Project Manager: Volume . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah keep it optional 'cause maybe you can you know go left to right and up and down in a in one menu . +Marketing: Yeah . And maybe we should use this also as an okay button , still . And then just only a back button . +Project Manager: Well we have those buttons . We use all four . +User Interface: No {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The pr the problem with the okay button in the middle is , sorry +Project Manager: Yeah okay go ahead . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: sorry , uh is uh if you're pressing up and down , you can easily press the okay once you , when you're not already at your choice . +User Interface: Yeah . So maybe make one uh one okay button and and one navigation button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that was already decided . +Marketing: And one back . +User Interface: Yeah the with with the the channel and the volume uh {disfmarker} yeah m a multifunctional navigation button . +Project Manager: Okay that's what we decided earlier on . +User Interface: Yeah okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You wanna close down huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah I wanna close down . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have to , sorry . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not because I don't like you but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's okay . +Project Manager: yh we have lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Already . +Project Manager: and then we can work for thirty minutes , and I have to write very fast to make the minich min minutes . And then uh we'll see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . How m how long is the lunchbreak ? +Project Manager: I don't know . Nobody told me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to ask . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But do we have to write uh to write down uh the our stuff now ? Or first lunchbreak ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: No I th believe there's first lunch break . +User Interface: Because I {disfmarker} I've everything in my head now {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Or you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can put uh the laptop back in the room and {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: This is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes sir . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Time pressure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Yeah it's a lot of pressure . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sorry for my uh not finished presentation uh . +Project Manager: That's okay . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh no no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah we'll kick your ass later . No . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bring it on . +Project Manager: I don't know if it works but it should be saved . +Marketing: Aye {disfmarker} Y you saved it ? Does it save automatically in the project folder ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We'll see . +Project Manager: Should be here . Smart board . +Marketing: Just put back my laptop . +Project Manager: Don't know if you can use it but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah you can open it with the picture preview or stuff like that . +User Interface: And uh we have to make uh some maps with uh with the all the the data we uh gathered . +Project Manager: Yeah . I try to organise it by these three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . It's it's just my own map so I put everything into the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really mind . I just put the minutes here and we'll see . +User Interface: But you got some extra information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah that's in the functional design uh folder . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah that's just basically what I just showed . +User Interface: But where do you did you get the newsflash ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I got it by {disfmarker} +User Interface: You're the only one uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: yeah . I'm gonna get kicked if I don't do it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} internet . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Make me proud . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll try to . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So first we have a lunchbreak now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: I believe so . {gap} just ask . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I dunno where she {gap} . +","During a team meeting, the Project Manager opens the discussion, referring to an email with new requirements. The Industrial Designer reports issues with their computer screen being reduced in size and not having seen the newsflash yet. Marketing confirms seeing the newsflash and discusses functional requirements for a new remote control, highlighting user dislike for current remote designs and suggesting they include a screen and speech recognition. The group decides to target a user group below forty years old. The User Interface designer plans to combine advanced and basic functions in the remote's design. Different interface options are discussed, and the team aims for a design with a clear corporate identity whilst deciding on the advanced functions to include. The Industrial Designer needs to integrate the agreed functions into the design. The meeting concludes with the Project Manager pushing for a write-up before their lunch break." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Good afternoon . Hope you have good lunch . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Afternoon . Yeah , we had falafel . +Project Manager: Oh . Nice . And you ? +User Interface: Uh , yes , I had something similar but non-vegetarian . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So today is um our third meeting . It will be about the conceptual design {vocalsound} uh . If I come back to uh the minutes of the last meetings um . We decided not to go for speech recognition technologies because of some reasons and we are not decided about u the use of L_C_D_ screen on on the remote control because of costs . So maybe we cou wi will be able to clarify this this question to today . Uh at the end of the meeting we should take decision on that point . So I hope uh that your respective pr presentations uh will help us . So each of you have some presentatio presentation to perform um who starts ? +Marketing: Okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: So marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you are {disfmarker} you saved your y your presentation somewhere ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you're four ? +Marketing: Four , yeah . +Project Manager: Which is trend watch . {vocalsound} Okay . Mr Marketing Experts . +Marketing: Yeah that's me . +Project Manager: So {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . Well I investigate the preference more d I investigate deeper the preference of the users . Uh so the the current investigation th uh th uh sorry the current the n current trends ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} Well wha {vocalsound} what I found {disfmarker} um can you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Next slide ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Thank you . What I found in order of importance from less to more important is that people want an easy to use device . After they they want something new technologic technologically speaking , but the most {disfmarker} what they what they find more more interesting , more {disfmarker} or more important it's uh a fancy look and feel instead of uh instead of the current the current trend which was f the functional look and feel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now more more cool aspect , ma more {disfmarker} a cooler aspect uh rather than a device with many functions and many buttons with {disfmarker} instead of i instead of ha of a device which can do many things , a device which is pleasant to to watch , to see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh also {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} in in Euro in in Paris and and {vocalsound} Milan the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: in Paris and in Paris and Milan the the current trend of {gap} uh of clothes , furniture and all this all this fashion it's {vocalsound} it's fruit and the the the theme is fruit and vegetables . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And also {vocalsound} in the in the U_S_A_ the the current {disfmarker} the mor the most popular feeling it's it's a spongy . Spongy means eponge ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe we should we should think in in this direction , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: What what do you mean by {vocalsound} fruit and vegetables and spongy ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What {disfmarker} you mean clothe +Industrial Designer: Spongy means it it's like sp +Marketing: Fruit vegetables is the the new {disfmarker} have you seen the last exposition of clothes in Milan ? +User Interface: No , I missed that one . +Marketing: Yeah , I I didn't miss an {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I didn't miss and I saw that the fruit , there are many fr pictures of fruits and vegetables in the clothes . +User Interface: Oh , they're {disfmarker} okay so they're not like dressed as a carrot they just have like pictures of fruit on , okay . +Marketing: No no , not not yet , not yet . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: So we're not gonna have a remote control in the shape of of a banana , +Marketing: So te textu textures , yeah . +User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Vegetable textures and all this kind . +Project Manager: Drawings of bananas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But what's your suggestion how we can have some shape like that on the remote ? +Project Manager: Well so this is in the next slide certainly . +Marketing: Uh no no , it's not . +Project Manager: It's not ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So which fruit are you thinking of ? +Marketing: And {disfmarker} Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I ha I haven't thought of any particular fruit , but the general aspect of the of the remote control may may {disfmarker} could remind some kind of vegetable , some kind of instead of vegetable , some natur mm uh natural object or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But yeah it it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So maybe you maybe you can display a banana on the L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , so you want the remote control to be the shape of a fruit , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you want just some kind of like fruit logo on the {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Means buttons are in the shape of fruits , +Marketing: Yeah maybe the shape the shape {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: buttons are in the frape {disfmarker} shape of fruits or something , apple , banana , something like that . +Marketing: No , not n not not too much focus , not too much focu not n not too s not too similar to a fruit because next year the ten the trend the trend will be different . +Project Manager: Apple for channel one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we shouldn't be at re really attached to to the trend +User Interface: So something that looks half like a fruit and half like an elephant . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} For instance , yeah . African or as an elephant ? +Industrial Designer: That we can discuss afterwards {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} okay , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm not , I'm not really sure if uh that would really appeal to everyone though , maybe just to fashion gurus , like maybe just like a little bit n a little fruit picture somewhere in the corner , but I don't know about uh I dunno how ergonomic a , an orange is . +Marketing: Well ma maybe we we should further specify what target are we focusing . I think in my opinion we should focus on on young people because they are more open to new devi new devices +User Interface: To fruit ? +Marketing: and also yeah according to the marketing report ninety p ninety five percent of young people was {vocalsound} was was able to to buy a a n a cooler remote control . +User Interface: But is it uh is fruit cool ? +Marketing: What ? +Project Manager: That's a question . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Is fruit cool ? +Marketing: Yeah ? Uh {disfmarker} Is the new trend of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well I guess , you know , Apple has the iPod so , {vocalsound} imagi {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just 'cause they have an apple on their on their product , doesn't mean fruit is cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think we we should think about a a shape with it {disfmarker} a device with a shape of some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , but it has to be easy to uh to use though and to hold you know , you don't wanna pear or a watermelon . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Don don't you think we can find uh the shape of a fruit which is handy to use ? +User Interface: Well , probably the only thing is a banana that I can think of , +Industrial Designer: Banana . +User Interface: a cucumber . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe too long . +User Interface: I dunno . +Marketing: Or m +User Interface: Maybe . Too green . +Marketing: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , but I mean you also have to {disfmarker} you have to also have , fit r all the buttons and {disfmarker} you know . +Project Manager: A banana . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's , it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: The thing is you have t normally with um with buttons , they have to be at some point attached to a circuit board so if you're gonna have things like {gap} on a cylindrical kind of device it may be difficult to kind of to build . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't th it will be rolling a lot . +Marketing: Yeah but I li I like your idea that we shouldn't have a lot of buttons b buttons so +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah and you you you will not have pla enough {disfmarker} a lot of place to put a L_C_D_ on a banana also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh do you want a an L_C_D_ with twenty five Euros ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you're the Marketing Expert you should tell us if it is too much or not . +User Interface: Well , this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} Well , according to the to the report people are more interested in in a fa fancy look and feel and in a technological inno in innovation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so , I will give more importance to the look and feel than {disfmarker} rather than the +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So you you you suggest to go f +Marketing: new inputs and also it's {disfmarker} I'm not convinced about this L_C_D_ because you need uh internet connection , you need more things , it's not just buying a new control re remote , you need {disfmarker} buying control remote , buying uh +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} S so you're simply +Marketing: more things . It's not so simple . +Project Manager: you're simply looking s to a remote control that looks like a banana with few buttons {disfmarker} with only a few buttons . +Marketing: For instance , yeah . Yeah for for for {disfmarker} given an an example yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay good . So maybe you can go ahead ? +Marketing: Yeah no , it's what I already said . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Thanks . Um . Okay , I'll give the floor . So you are User Interface guy . So you're three ? +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it's this one . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Go for it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep . Okay . So . S next uh slide . Okay . So I received an email um around lunchtime letting me know that the brilliant minds at our technology division had developed an integrated programmable sample sensor sample speaker unit , um which is a way for you to have a conversation with your coffee machine and or remote control {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But it's just a speaker right ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} no , what it is , it's it's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's not a microphone . +User Interface: It has a has a microphone , has a speaker , it's got a little chip and it allows you t +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Actually I'm not reading microphone there , so that's why you can all have conversation , it {gap} just to speak to you . +User Interface: Well , it's a sample sensor sample speaker . Sample sensor sample speaker . It means that it can recognize , it can do like a match on a on a certain phrase that you speak and then can play back a phrase in response to that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh there's no kind of um understanding of the phrase . So , I mean , you know , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I guess you could build that in , you could you could link the the recognition of a certain phrase to some function on on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: But basically the thing is , we have this technology available +Industrial Designer: In-house . +User Interface: in-house . So , um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but the thing is obviously there's still gonna be a cost if you decided to integrate that because you still have to pay for the c production of the components , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um it it {disfmarker} but it basically means we c we can kind of consider this from uh you know uh a theoretical or usability kind of viewpoint without worrying too much about you know how to develop it because we have this already done . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Whilst you know , some people might get annoyed if we uh if we just dump it , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} there's something that I {disfmarker} unclear really understanding . Is this a technology that recognize keywords {disfmarker} speech keywords ? +User Interface: It's it it's no , well , it's it'll recognize uh I guess keywords , but you know keywords in a certain order like a phrase . You train it for a certain uh , for a certain phrase , you say {disfmarker} the the example they said that they have uh up and running with their prototype is um {disfmarker} well they've actually integrated into the into the the coffee machine that uh that we're producing is , you can say good morning to the coffee machine and it can recognize that phrase and it'll playback good morning , how would you like your coffee ? +Project Manager: And it's just to , it's just to playback something ? +User Interface: Yeah . So actually that was a bad example , 'cause it doesn't actually ask how do you want your coffee because it can't really understand the response , so . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is not s really to do to to do control . +User Interface: Only , like , only in the sense that it it can recognize a set a set target kind of word an +Project Manager: Yeah . This is just more like a poi pois yeah . +User Interface: It's designed it's designed as a fun kind of thing , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: but I guess you could use it as uh as a way to implement uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it it's c uh it it +Marketing: Yeah but you can u +Project Manager: it is a uh uh easy uh a fancy thing that you you can bring to {disfmarker} we can bring to the remote control that will not have any uh +User Interface: Completely pointless yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah comp {vocalsound} completely pointless {vocalsound} for the inter for {disfmarker} from the interaction point of v point of view {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , unless you know , you like having conversation with your remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} can we use it for saying okay , channel fifty , channel twenty ? +User Interface: Well yeah , that's the thing , if {disfmarker} you can but {vocalsound} you have to pro though I think it's a fairly simple design so you would have to record into the device every possible combination , you have to s tr train it to l to learn channel fifteen , that whole thing , not just the word channel and the word fifteen , it doesn't have that kind of logic in it . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . So this is so this is this is much more than tak taking this technology , bringing it to the remote control and using it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , that would be some development work . +Project Manager: So this is out of discussion . So if if if it is something that you can {disfmarker} we can bring easily and to put it into the banana remote control {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: M Mando . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-mando . +Project Manager: No this is mm banana-bando , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-man {vocalsound} +Marketing: Banana-mando yeah . +Project Manager: Uh then it could be cool yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , let's go ahead . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I uh I I I don't think it's worth it though , I think it doesn't really add much to the functional design and it's it's it's not mature enough to use as a speech recognition engine , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . So if we can just move on to the next slide , I've just done a quick mock-up of uh uh some of the features of our {vocalsound} potential funky-looking uh remote control {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't look like a banana at all . +User Interface: Well , you see , I was I was unaware at this point of th of the fruit focus , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: um , so at the moment it's more of a box focus . +Project Manager: But you you can fit i you're saying now you can fit it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks like a tr look likes a a tro a tropical fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , this is actu this could be a genetically engineered fruit that's designed to be you know square so that it packs tighter in the boxes . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But um , I've just indicated here , we could have actually two scroll wheels , 'cause I think the scroll wheel is a fairly um key part of , you know , +Industrial Designer: Stable thing , that's right . To have {gap} , +User Interface: I think everyone has has agreed that it's {disfmarker} that it could be quite a useful um thing , so . +Industrial Designer: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think it's important , you know , to have two scroll wheels because , you know , you want one for for the channel , but you also want one for for the volume , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: because it's it's {disfmarker} the volume i it's , you know it's very handy for it to have uh instant kind of uh feedback uh and response , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But um , I've also included this turbo button because I think , you know , every design should have a turbo button , and {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's a turbo button ? +User Interface: so this is you know , a unique problem with with televisions is that if you have this scro this scroll wheel for the television , the uh the tuner on the T_V_ is not gonna be able to to switch between stations as fast as you can scroll , so you know , the th the person might want to have a uh {disfmarker} Might want to be able to scroll past television stations without seeing what's on them , in which case it just waits until you stop scrolling and then , you know , displays that station . Or they might want to scroll and and have a quick glimpse of it , even if it lags behind what they're doing {gap} . +Marketing: It con it controls the speed ? +User Interface: Yeah , so with this turbo button you can , say , skip over t channels if uh , you know , if I'm if I'm going {disfmarker} if I'm scrolling past them and you know , it's um , you could have a little red light that comes up when they press it so they feel you know it's really going fast or whatever . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yeah , that's um , those are the two important uh features I think we need on the remote , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but I mean we can discuss about what other kind of buttons we need , um . You know , i it could be , you know , if we if we wanna have like a very cheap kind of device , I mean , we could either consider that maybe we want to sell this as a very , if it's gonna be a banana , you know that's a pretty gimmicky kind of thing that doesn't have that much functionality , it's just you know a couple of scroll wheels and a button cause it's hard to get so many buttons on a banana +Project Manager: It's enough . +User Interface: and it's still very {disfmarker} it may even be for most {disfmarker} for some people more functional than their current remote , but if they have these scroll wheels , so , um {vocalsound} you know , what other buttons do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean we could have {disfmarker} well , I guess you need an on and off switch , +Project Manager: Switch on . Yeah . +User Interface: but you could you could o you could turn it turn it on by taking the top off the banana maybe , you know , it's kind of like a spy kind of flick thing . +Marketing: Yeah . So sounds crazy . I like crazy ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's why you're a marketing guru . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So i it looks like we're going completely to forget about the L_C_D_ thing . +User Interface: Well , that's the thing , as {disfmarker} have we decided that we can only spend , uh , twenty five Euro ? +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well not spend , but you know , charge twenty five Euro . +Marketing: I I think we could use somehow the s coffee machine dialogue interface or so . +Project Manager: No we can we can't use that . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} we can ? We can't . +Project Manager: We can't use that to to comman co communicate , +Industrial Designer: Communicate . +Project Manager: it's just a thing {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but we can say channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: It's one way . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: But then you have to have a template for every channel , for a hundred channels , you have to be able to to recognize {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's not a lot one hundred templates , +User Interface: Mm . Well , I f I think it's probably more than , than our {gap} can handle because it's designed for a coffee machine , you know , to say hello in the morning . +Marketing: it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , it's designed for a cof {vocalsound} okay . Is it design for a coffee machine ? +User Interface: Well that's its current application , I would presume that it's kind of , they wouldn't design it to handle a hundred things th so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe you could ask your {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you could ask the engineering department if we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . A good good good thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to g to move to your slides ? +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right , yeah . +Project Manager: You're finished ? +User Interface: Well I just I just made the point , I don't I don't know if that speech recognition is , you know , even if we can do it , I think it's not really appropriate for uh television environment . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so . +User Interface: But um I did have one thing from a previous meeting , you were talking about um being able to find the remote control +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and I was talking about extendin being able to extend the remote control by having you know , a base station that can control other things as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It might be useful to have some kind of base station , even if it's just you press on a button on it and uh and the remote control starts beeping , you know , this is a way of finding the remote . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Y in that case maybe the maybe the speech recognition {disfmarker} the speech thing could be useful just to say I'm here +Project Manager: Exactly yeah . +User Interface: but uh it's probably a bit of overkill if you could just have a a beeping {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's a speech synthesis kind of thing , +User Interface: It's speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: something has been uh stored and it's just uh spoken out . +User Interface: It's it's speech synthesis and s it's speech kind of , not really speech recognition , but kind of pattern matching , yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's move on . So you're two ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is going to be about the component design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So first thing is we need power source for the remote control . So I was of the idea that we can have two kind of power supplies , one is the usual batteries which are there , they could be chargeable batteries if there's a basis station kind of thing and on top of that we can have solar cells , when the lighting conditions are good they can be used so it'll be pretty uh innovative kind . Then uh we need plastic with some elasticity so that if your {disfmarker} if the remote control falls it's not broken directly into pieces , there should be some flexibility in t +User Interface: I guess that fits in with the spongy kind of design philosophy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there should {disfmarker} we should think of something like that and then it should be double curve . The s science for the ease of handling and there are some other issues why we need double curve . Then controls for the traditionals u traditional users we can have the push buttons so that they don't feel that it's an alien thing for them . +User Interface: So , just one second , when you say double curve , what do you actually mean ? You reckon you could like draw us a thing on the , on the whiteboard 'cause I'm not sure {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Double curve is , you have curves on both the sides if I'm right . So it's symmetrical kind of thing , whatever it is . +User Interface: Okay , but like , kind of convex or concave ? +Industrial Designer: So , it could be curve , so it could be convex , conve concave , depending on what what we want . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So there are flats , there are single curve and there are double curves . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: These are the three things , and there are different materials , with plastic you can have double curve but with uh certain other materials we cannot have double curve . So there there was uh there were many other materials like wood , titanium and all those things , but plastic is I think is the most appropriate one , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it'll bring the cost down +User Interface: Although , you know , wood could be uh quite a stylish uh option , +Industrial Designer: and anyway it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: if you take like , nice quality kind of wood that's got a nice grain and you kind of put some , some varnish on . +Project Manager: Mm but i but there is no elasticity which could be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wooden cases {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends , I mean , you have the outs the wood itself is not gonna break so you don't have to worry too much about the case being broken , +Project Manager: Yeah but the components inside . +User Interface: it's the inside . Yeah but inside you know you could have {disfmarker} you can still have some kind of cushioning that's not visible to the to the user . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very {disfmarker} too expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And I mean you could also , you can have just a very thin veneer of wood as well . +Project Manager: Yeah but it's more easier to do a banana in plastic than uh in wood . +User Interface: That's true , but are we set on the banana idea ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually +Project Manager: it looks like you are all targeting that +Marketing: I was thinking that the +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah ? +Marketing: the shape of a banana is not it's not really handy . +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh I don't know the name o o in English uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Is it an e apple which has {disfmarker} +Marketing: it's not a fruit it's a vegetable . +User Interface: It's like a pumpkin or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? Pumpkin . +Marketing: Green . +Project Manager: Green . +User Interface: Green . +Project Manager: Um um um , yes I see . +User Interface: What does it taste like ? +Marketing: And you put in the salad . +Project Manager: Pep pepperoni . +User Interface: Ah yeah , +Marketing: Um +User Interface: is it {disfmarker} what's it in French ? +Project Manager: Poivron . +Marketing: Oui c'est ca +User Interface: Yeah , okay , so capsicum or pepper . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh pepper . +Marketing: Pepper . +Project Manager: But um they do d +Marketing: And it's al it also suits with the double curve for easy of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know , it seems a little bit kind of bulky to me , like +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I mean in a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not re it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} like with a banana you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you you think it's really fancy and fun ? You think that young people that are {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure it's fun . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . More than a banana ? +Marketing: But banana is not so handy , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Banana is more handier as compared to this I think , and to capsicum . +Marketing: I think that's handier . +User Interface: But {gap} like a banana you can you can be holding like this and have the scroll wheel kind of on top +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and just roll it back and forth like that , +Project Manager: It's kind it's kind of {disfmarker} it's more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: but with uh {disfmarker} I don't know how you would hold a capsicum and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's really ergonomic , it's fit in the hand and you've a lot of surface to {vocalsound} to put the controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay let's move on . +Marketing: Yeah you're right . +Project Manager: So time is running , let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so push buttons for the traditional users so that they don't feel they are alienated , just {disfmarker} and a scroll button with push technology for channel selection , volume control and teletext browsing . These are the three scroll buttons which are already available with us in the company and we we can go ahead with that . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can go to the next slide . Then uh there are different kind of chips , one one is the basic chip and the regular chip and one an adva advanced chip . So we can have regular chip for control . Pricing is a factor for us , that's why we'll go for the regular chip . And uh regular chip supports speaker support , so this functionality could be used for tracing the mobile phone which has been misplaced . +User Interface: So is that , when you say speaker support , you mean it just has some output pinned which which which kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It could be a beep kind of thing . +User Interface: Okay , but the speaker is actually attached to the to the chip in some way , or is just the the signal ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , yes , that's right , it's it's onto the chip , +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: most most probably , not not hundred per cent sure about that . +User Interface: Okay . So are there any issues where we place this this chip to make sure you can actually hear the the speaker from the outside of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: That will be the volume control I think which which a user shou it it should be already pre-defined . It should be {disfmarker} whatever will be the case , the chip is always going to be sitting inside . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , but the speaker , if the speaker is actually on the chip , then if it's too far away from the the casing , or if the casing is too thick , then you may not hear the the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh , so we can have it at one of the boundaries so that things are slightly better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: As {disfmarker} or as hearing is concerned , we can have some gap at some place , +User Interface: Yeah . So that's something we have to keep in mind with the actual physical design is to keep the the speaker close enough to the outside . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} That's right . Okay . Yeah . So these these were the component selection and these things . We can go to the next slide . And uh these were the findings which I I saw with the web web , that user wants to have control more than one device {disfmarker} wants to control more than one device from the same remote control , so our T_V_ remote can have little extra things to support additional devices like V_C_R_ D_V_D_ players which are usually attached with the T_V_ , because users are like this and they don't want to have one remote control for everything , so with this additional little , we might be having slightly better market for us . +User Interface: Although , if {disfmarker} It depends , if we like , if we are concentrating on like a fruit design , then maybe maybe we wanna sell a collection of fruit , you know , like a different fruit for each device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Of fruits . +User Interface: Cause that , you know , that {disfmarker} sometimes people like to collect um you know things that {disfmarker} of a similar type . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: S objects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Remotes {disfmarker} objects , okay . +Project Manager: Crazy objects . +Marketing: I think that would be funny at the beginning but after one month you will be tired of be surrounded of fruits . +User Interface: Well , {vocalsound} you're the one who wanted to do fruit in the first place . +Marketing: No but I think just one fruit to control everything . +User Interface: Like a power fruit . +Marketing: A power fr a power M a Mando , a Supermando fruit {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh as well as I could see on the web the scroll button is becoming really uh hot thing s +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we should have it on the remote . +Project Manager: Okay , good . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually I I didn't understand very well this trace speaker lost control . +Industrial Designer: So you're having a basis station . Okay . Your {disfmarker} usually your remote sits on that . So you {disfmarker} and it's {disfmarker} that's why it can have chargeable batteries . Now let's say {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you you have to buy two things , the banana and the basis station . +Project Manager: Bu it's it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Basis station is with the thing . +Project Manager: You s you you {gap} thing . +Industrial Designer: It's like a telephone handset is there and the basis station for the telephone hand set is there . So now what user gets additionally he doesn't have to buy batteries , they're rechargeable batteries , so over the period of cor time he'll recover the cost . So you're having the basis station and there is a button , if you press that button wherever the remote it'll start beeping so you know where the remote is . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think that's a pretty handy feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it's kind of {disfmarker} people would find that worth it even if it wasn't uh a recharging station , even if they didn't have to buy extra batteries , you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but I'm a bit worried about the budget . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is {disfmarker} basis station is nothing more , just it's a wire which is coming from the main cable and uh you're having one socket on which the thing sits . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Although you do need to include R_F_ kind of circuitry in the remote . +Industrial Designer: That's right . But all these things are usually in-house so we don't have much problems . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So component cost is going to be the least . Anyway , we are not using really advanced technology , L_C_D_ has already been ruled out , A_S_R_ has been ruled out . So it's the basic thing but very trendy and very user-friendly . +User Interface: Okay . I'm just wondering actually , 'cause , you know , I {disfmarker} this whole fruit thing with the banana , it's um it seemed like {disfmarker} it first seems a bit kind of uh niche , like only a few people would really want a banana , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: but what if it was kind of uh a stylised banana ? You know , rather than having it kind of you know yellow and really looking exactly like a banana , you could make it kind of silver . And um , you know to give you kind of the idea of a banana but without it looking you know completely kitsch . {vocalsound} For better {disfmarker} want of a better word +Project Manager: You think that yellow it's kitsch . +User Interface: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , you know , I don I don't know how many peop +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you make something that looks like a banana it should have the colour of a banana . +Marketing: Yeah . No , I I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A {disfmarker} yeah , otherwise it'll be mis means you don't get b any feeling then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: O otherwise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe li like that . +Industrial Designer: It's neither a banana nor a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , like this colour this colour {disfmarker} Maybe , you know , maybe {disfmarker} like still in the shape of a banana . +Project Manager: Roughly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , but you know , just maybe maybe not exactly the same texture as a banana and just kind of , you know {disfmarker} because the thing is it's gonna be a little bit difficult to make {disfmarker} um to give like the texture of a banana anyway and to k to have the exact shape . I think if you're gonna not be able to do it properly you may as well do it in a stylised way that just looks a bit more kind of , you know , twenty first century rather than sixties or seventies . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Let's move on . +Industrial Designer: And uh going to the last slide . +Project Manager: Uh uh {disfmarker} yeah . Before before st before ending the meeting I'd like to to draw some sketch about the pro future prot prototype . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Go for it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well no , not not you , you can finish your slides before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay , so . Anyway , users'll be {disfmarker} so the findings is users'll be very interested in our locator device to find their misplaced remotes . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that was very {disfmarker} I thought it's a very good suggestion by everybody . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: That's all ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , so mm {vocalsound} so well done for the presentations . So we need to take some de decisions about um {vocalsound} about what we're going to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I I propose that you go to the whiteboard +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we're going to report all the ideas we had we had during this these presentations just to draw some sketch about what will be the prod final product +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and uh where Superman go banana and uh {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh extra func functionalities such as wheels , um the speaker unit um well not in order {disfmarker} not to lost the um the device , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I do I don't remember you call it ? +Industrial Designer: That's right . The basis station . That's right . +Project Manager: Basis station , yeah . Uh so um {vocalsound} so we're going for a stylish banana shape . +User Interface: Yeah , so , I guess you wanna hold {disfmarker} like the way {disfmarker} the end of the banana you wanna kind of hold as ma you maybe wanna kinda hold like a gun rather than {disfmarker} 'cause you don't want it to point kind of towards the floor . +Project Manager: Yeah , right . +User Interface: So you know , so if you have like {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about what about this shape ? More or less . +Project Manager: We +Industrial Designer: There's less space on this to put with the buttons . +Project Manager: I if it i if it has really the model shape of a bana you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but how many buttons do we need ? +Project Manager: the the starting is good but it could {disfmarker} it should have more the shape of a banana if you want to point really a at the thing . If you don't want to to to do that movement which is which is difficult {disfmarker} if you don't have to do it in fact , it's better . So ti time is running , +Industrial Designer: Uh what about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we have to we have to we have to to move forward . So let's skip to uh this uh this this this idea . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we have this . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have a a basis um , how do you call it {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: The base station . +Project Manager: A base station . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have a base station extra uh on the side . +User Interface: {gap} okay , so I guess we need , you know , something that can fit a banana shaped object . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , we have a R_F_ for um for beeping for beeping . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , we need that , yeah . +Project Manager: We need b R_F_ to beep . +User Interface: Okay , so it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} that means we need a button on th on the on the basis . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Basis station . +Project Manager: Basis station , thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Alright , so we need uh {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go quickly please ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} So we are going to add uh also um you {disfmarker} as you suggested the whee some wheels to control the volumes and channels and your tur turbo turbo uh button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , which {disfmarker} I think it's it's probably best actually on the on the underneath of the the device , +Industrial Designer: Turbo button . +Project Manager: Yeah , on the th yeah , maybe here . +User Interface: so you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And the and the wheel a a at the level of the thumb for instance . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah , so you have the thumb kind of here . +Project Manager: And and you have two wheels . +User Interface: So yeah , you need one one here and one on on the other side , so you got volume an and channel . +Project Manager: Okay right . Good . So no L_C_D_ . +User Interface: And , uh {disfmarker} No L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Okay great . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} Very good . +User Interface: Oh we need a we need a power um on off switch as well . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh for the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , just the switch , +Industrial Designer: Remotes don't have power on off switch . +Project Manager: no f not for the T_V_ for the T_V_ . Uh so you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . S no , that'll be controlled by the {disfmarker} those buttons'll be there already , yeah . +Marketing: What a +User Interface: Where ? +Industrial Designer: Means on the remote . +Project Manager: On the side . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because remote is going to have both the interfaces , scroll as well as buttons . They are not going to cost you much , everything is in-house and now you don't want the traditional users to be apprehensive of this . +User Interface: Well , I dunno if the traditional user is gonna buy a a banana remote in the first place , you know . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . That's that's another issue which I didn't think of . +User Interface: Y I mean you need to kind of keep it um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you know our targets are very high , means fifty million Euros is the profit which we want make . +Marketing: What about {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how many of these did we wanna sell ? I can't remember , +Industrial Designer: Twenty five . +Project Manager: Twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five is the profit on one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , but how many units did we need to to sell {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Uh forty th four . Point point four million ? +Marketing: Four millions ? +User Interface: Four point four million . +Industrial Designer: Point four million . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's a lot of fruit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So . Well . No . Time is running , we have to close the meeting in a few minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , okay , the next step , you can come back to your seat . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: The next step is to go for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to f is to go to uh to building a prototype , based on this , okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting you guys have to prepare the followi things . You have to uh work on the look and feel uh design and you have to work on the user interface , in fact you two you have to work together to model the first uh f first prototype . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh Marketing Expert uh have to go to product evaluation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Marketing: I wo what about adding the {disfmarker} this word spotting , keyword spotting recognition saying {gap} volume up volume down ? +Project Manager: It's too difficult . +Marketing: It's too difficult but people like innovation and that's really uh innovative and I don't know if it would cost a lot , just a few {disfmarker} five words . +Project Manager: It's not a possi it will not be possible to implement it for the next prototype , so t it's {disfmarker} in the next prototype so let's skip it . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: For the future prototypes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe , for the n if if if it it works well , we'll go for uh an orange one . +User Interface: That can be the t That can be like the turbo banana plus plus commando . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , honour the fruit . +Marketing: Plus plus , okay . Maybe objective banana ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks very much . We'll see n next meeting . Bye . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So meeting's over ? +User Interface: Yep . We have to go design the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Thank you . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: The problem is after all this meeting there is {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +","At the third meeting of a product development team, the focus was to discuss and clarify the conceptual design of a new remote control. The project manager kicked off the afternoon meeting shortly after lighthearted lunchtime banter about falafel and non-vegetarian variants. With a reference to previous meetings' minutes, it was noted that speech recognition technologies had been ruled out, primarily due to cost concerns associated with implementing an LCD screen on the remote control. This meeting aimed to finalize decision-making on these features. + +A marketing expert began the presentation, detailing consumer preferences uncovered through research. An emphasis was placed on an easy-to-use device, technological innovation, and most importantly, a fancy look and feel – a paradigm shift from functional aesthetics to a cooler, visually appealing design. There was mention of themes involving fruits and vegetables in Paris and Milan fashion scenes, and a 'spongy' feel in the USA, pointing to market trends that could influence design direction. + +During the presentations, there ensued a collaborative discussion about potential designs and functionalities of the remote. Various ideas were tossed around, like incorporating vegetable textures or drawing inspiration from trendy fruit and vegetable motifs. While suggestions like shaping the remote after a banana or using textures were mulled over, concerns about practicality and ergonomics were highlighted. The marketing expert suggested focusing on young demographic preferences but questioned the longevity of a trend-led design approach. + +The user interface designer mentioned a newly developed speaker unit capable of basic speech recognition functionalities that could facilitate interaction with the remote control. Although recognized as innovative, there were doubts about the applicability and development readiness for such a feature within the remote control's context. + +The industrial designer proposed powering the remote with rechargeable batteries and solar cells for an innovative and environmentally conscious approach. Additionally, the use of durable, elastic plastic would ensure the remote's resilience upon falling. There was also talk of incorporating traditional push-button controls and scroll wheels for channel and volume adjustments to maintain usability for standard remote control users. + +During the interactive brainstorming, ideas were sketched out to conceptualize a remote resembling a banana, equipped with essential functionalities targeted towards a balance of innovation and practicality. Notably, the concept of a base station was introduced, allowing the misplaced remote to be located through an audible beep – a feature that resonated with the team as highly marketable. + +As the meeting wound down, the project manager directed the team to start working on a prototype based on the discussions. The industrial designer and user interface designer were tasked with developing the look and feel, aiming for a balance between fruit-inspired novelty and functional design. The marketing expert was assigned the job of carrying out product evaluations. Despite a brief push for including voice recognition features such as 'volume up' and 'volume down' commands, the team decided it wasn't feasible for the next prototype, instead suggesting it as a potential future enhancement. + +The group agreed to produce a trendy, user-friendly, and potentially fruit-inspired remote control, nicknamed 'Supermando,' with attention given to cost control and the target market's aesthetic and technological interests. They resolved to reconvene in a future meeting to continue evolving the prototype and bringing the innovative remote control to fruition." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: OK . So uh , he 's not here , +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so you get to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I will try to explain the thing that I did this {disfmarker} this week {disfmarker} during this week . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Well eh you know that I work {disfmarker} I begin to work with a new feature to detect voice - unvoice . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: What I trying two MLP to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} with this new feature and the fifteen feature uh from the eh bus base system +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the mel cepstrum ? +PhD D: No , satly the mes the Mel Cepstrum , the new base system {disfmarker} the new base system . +PhD E: Oh the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK , the Aurora system . +PhD D: yeah the Aurora system with the new filter , VAD or something like that . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: And I 'm trying two MLP , one one that only have t three output , voice , unvoice , and silence , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and other one that have fifty - six output . The probabilities of the allophone . And I tried to do some experiment of recognition with that and only have result with {disfmarker} with the MLP with the three output . And I put together the fifteen features and the three MLP output . And , well , the result are li a little bit better , but more or less similar . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm slightly confused . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: What {disfmarker} what feeds the uh {disfmarker} the three - output net ? +PhD D: Voice , unvoice , and si +Professor C: No no , what feeds it ? What features does it see ? +PhD D: The feature {disfmarker} the input ? The inputs are the fifteen {disfmarker} the fifteen uh bases feature . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the {disfmarker} with the new code . And the other three features are R , the variance of the difference between the two spectrum , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: the variance of the auto - correlation function , except the {disfmarker} the first point , because half the height value is R - zero +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and also R - zero , the first coefficient of the auto - correlation function . That is like the energy with these three feature , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: also these three feature . +Professor C: You wouldn't do like R - one over R - zero or something like that ? I mean usually for voiced - unvoiced you 'd do {disfmarker} yeah , you 'd do something {disfmarker} you 'd do energy +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: but then you have something like spectral slope , which is you get like R - one ov over R - zero or something like that . +PhD D: Uh yeah . +PhD E: What are the R 's ? +Professor C: R correlations . +PhD E: I 'm sorry I missed it . +PhD D: No , R c No . +PhD E: Oh . +PhD D: Auto - correlation ? Yes , yes , the variance of the auto - correlation function that uses that +Professor C: Ye - Well that 's the variance , but if you just say "" what is {disfmarker} "" I mean , to first order , um yeah one of the differences between voiced , unvoiced and silence is energy . Another one is {disfmarker} but the other one is the spectral shape . +PhD D: Yeah , I I 'll {disfmarker} The spectral shape , +Professor C: Yeah , and so R - one over R - zero is what you typically use for that . +PhD D: yeah . No , I don't use that {disfmarker} I can't use {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I 'm saying that 's what people us typically use . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor C: See , because it {disfmarker} because this is {disfmarker} this is just like a single number to tell you um "" does the spectrum look like that or does it look like that "" . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . R {disfmarker} R {disfmarker} R - zero . +Professor C: Right ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's um {disfmarker} if it 's low energy uh but the {disfmarker} but the spectrum looks like that or like that , it 's probably silence . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh but if it 's low energy and the spectrum looks like that , it 's probably unvoiced . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So if you just {disfmarker} if you just had to pick two features to determine voiced - unvoiced , you 'd pick something about the spectrum like uh R - one over R - zero , um and R - zero +PhD D: Mm - hmm , OK . +Professor C: or i i you know you 'd have some other energy measure and like in the old days people did like uh zero crossing counts . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Right . S S +PhD D: Well , I can also th use this . +Professor C: Yeah . Um , +PhD D: Bec - because the result are a little bit better but we have in a point that everything is more or less the similar {disfmarker} more or less similar . +Professor C: Yeah . But um +PhD D: It 's not quite better . +Professor C: Right , but it seemed to me that what you were what you were getting at before was that there is something about the difference between the original signal or the original FFT and with the filter which is what {disfmarker} and the variance was one take uh on it . +PhD D: Yeah , I used this too . +Professor C: Right . But it {disfmarker} it could be something else . Suppose you didn't have anything like that . Then in that case , if you have two nets , Alright , and this one has three outputs , and this one has f +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: whatever , fifty - six , or something , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you were to sum up the probabilities for the voiced and for the unvoiced and for the silence here , we 've found in the past you 'll do better at voiced - unvoiced - silence than you do with this one . So just having the three output thing doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't really buy you anything . The issue is what you feed it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , I have {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: So uh +PhD D: No {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you 're saying take the features that go into the voiced - unvoiced - silence net and feed those into the other one , as additional inputs , rather than having a separate {disfmarker} +Professor C: w W well that 's another way . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: That wasn't what I was saying but yeah that 's certainly another thing to do . No I was just trying to say if you b if you bring this into the picture over this , what more does it buy you ? +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor C: And what I was saying is that the only thing I think that it buys you is um based on whether you feed it something different . And something different in some fundamental way . And so the kind of thing that {disfmarker} that she was talking about before , was looking at something uh ab um {disfmarker} something uh about the difference between the {disfmarker} the uh um log FFT uh log power uh and the log magnitude uh F F - spectrum uh and the um uh filter bank . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: And so the filter bank is chosen in fact to sort of integrate out the effects of pitch and she 's saying you know trying {disfmarker} So the particular measure that she chose was the variance of this m of this difference , but that might not be the right number . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Maybe . +Professor C: Right ? I mean maybe there 's something about the variance that 's {disfmarker} that 's not enough or maybe there 's something else that {disfmarker} that one could use , but I think that , for me , the thing that {disfmarker} that struck me was that uh you wanna get something back here , so here 's {disfmarker} here 's an idea . uh What about it you skip all the {disfmarker} all the really clever things , and just fed the log magnitude spectrum into this ? +PhD D: Ah {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +Professor C: This is f You have the log magnitude spectrum , and you were looking at that and the difference between the filter bank and {disfmarker} and c c computing the variance . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's a clever thing to do . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: What if you stopped being clever ? And you just took this thing in here because it 's a neural net and neural nets are wonderful +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and figure out what they can {disfmarker} what they most need from things , and I mean that 's what they 're good at . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: So I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're trying to be clever and say what 's the statistic that should {disfmarker} we should get about this difference but uh in fact , you know maybe just feeding this in or {disfmarker} or feeding both of them in +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: you know , another way , saying let it figure out what 's the {disfmarker} what is the interaction , especially if you do this over multiple frames ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Then you have this over time , and {disfmarker} and both kinds of measures and uh you might get uh something better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} so don't uh {disfmarker} don't do the division , but let the net have everything . +Professor C: That 's another thing you could do yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . I mean , it seems to me , if you have exactly the right thing then it 's better to do it without the net because otherwise you 're asking the net to learn this {disfmarker} you know , say if you wanted to learn how to do multiplication . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I mean you could feed it a bunch of s you could feed two numbers that you wanted to multiply into a net and have a bunch of nonlinearities in the middle and train it to get the product of the output and it would work . But , it 's kind of crazy , cuz we know how to multiply and you {disfmarker} you 'd be you know much lower error usually {vocalsound} if you just multiplied it out . But suppose you don't really know what the right thing is . And that 's what these sort of dumb machine learning methods are good at . So . Um . Anyway . It 's just a thought . +PhD E: How long does it take , Carmen , to train up one of these nets ? +PhD D: Oh , not too much . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , one day or less . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's probably worth it . +Grad A: What are {disfmarker} what are your f uh frame error rates for {disfmarker} for this ? +PhD D: Eh fifty - f six uh no , the frame error rate ? +Grad A: O +PhD D: Fifty - six I think . +Professor C: Is that {disfmarker} maybe that 's accuracy ? +PhD D: Percent . +Grad A: Fif - fifty - six percent accurate for v voice - unvoice +PhD D: The accuracy . Mm - hmm . No for , yes f I don't remember for voice - unvoice , +Grad A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: maybe for the other one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Yeah , voiced - unvoiced hopefully would be a lot better . +PhD D: for voiced . I don't reme +Grad A: Should be in nineties somewhere . +PhD D: Better . Maybe for voice - unvoice . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: This is for the other one . I should {disfmarker} I can't show that . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: But I think that fifty - five was for the {disfmarker} when the output are the fifty - six phone . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: That I look in the {disfmarker} with the other {disfmarker} nnn the other MLP that we have are more or less the same number . Silence will be better but more or less the same . +Professor C: I think at the frame level for fifty - six that was the kind of number we were getting for {disfmarker} for uh um reduced band width uh stuff . +PhD D: I think that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that for the other one , for the three output , is sixty sixty - two , sixty three more or less . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: That 's all ? +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: That 's pretty bad . +PhD D: Yeah , because it 's noise also . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor C: Aha ! +PhD D: And we have +Professor C: Aha ! Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD D: I know . +Professor C: But even i in {disfmarker} Oh yeah , in training . Still , Uh . Well actually , so this is a test that you should do then . Um , if you 're getting fifty - six percent over here , uh that 's in noise also , right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Oh OK . If you 're getting fifty - six here , try adding together the probabilities of all of the voiced phones here and all of the unvoiced phones +PhD D: will be {disfmarker} +Professor C: and see what you get then . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: I bet you get better than sixty - three . +PhD D: Well I don't know , but {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I think that we {disfmarker} I have the result more or less . Maybe . I don't know . I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure but I remember @ @ that I can't show that . +Professor C: OK , but that 's a {disfmarker} That is a {disfmarker} a good check point , you should do that anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK ? Given this {disfmarker} this uh regular old net that 's just for choosing for other purposes , uh add up the probabilities of the different subclasses and see {disfmarker} see how well you do . Uh and that {disfmarker} you know anything that you do over here should be at least as good as that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: I will do that . But {disfmarker} +PhD E: The targets for the neural net , uh , they come from forced alignments ? +PhD D: Uh , {comment} no . +Grad A: TIMIT canonical ma mappings . +PhD D: TIMIT . +Professor C: Oh . So , this is trained on TIMIT . +PhD E: Ah ! OK . +Grad A: Yeah , noisy TIMIT . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah this for TIMIT . +Professor C: But noisy TIMIT ? +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Noisy TIMIT . We have noisy TIMIT with the noise of the {disfmarker} the TI - digits . And now we have another noisy TIMIT also with the noise of uh Italian database . +Professor C: I see . Yeah . Well there 's gonna be {disfmarker} it looks like there 's gonna be a noisy uh {disfmarker} some large vocabulary noisy stuff too . Somebody 's preparing . +PhD E: Really ? +Professor C: Yeah . I forget what it 'll be , resource management , Wall Street Journal , something . Some {disfmarker} some read task actually , that they 're {disfmarker} preparing . +Grad A: Hmm ! +PhD E: For what {disfmarker} For Aurora ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor C: Yeah , so the uh {disfmarker} Uh , the issue is whether people make a decision now based on what they 've already seen , or they make it later . And one of the arguments for making it later is let 's make sure that whatever techniques that we 're using work for something more than {disfmarker} than connected digits . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: When are they planning {disfmarker} When would they do that ? +Professor C: Mmm , I think late {disfmarker} uh I think in the summer sometime . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: So . OK , thanks . +PhD D: This is the work that I did during this date +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD D: and also mmm I {disfmarker} H Hynek last week say that if I have time I can to begin to {disfmarker} to study well seriously the France Telecom proposal +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to look at the code and something like that to know exactly what they are doing because maybe that we can have some ideas +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but not only to read the proposal . Look insi look i carefully what they are doing with the program @ @ and I begin to {disfmarker} to work also in that . But the first thing that I don't understand is that they are using R - the uh log energy that this quite {disfmarker} I don't know why they have some constant in the expression of the lower energy . I don't know what that means . +PhD E: They have a constant in there , you said ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh , at the front it says uh "" log energy is equal to the rounded version of sixteen over the log of two "" +PhD D: This {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . uh times the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Then maybe I can understand . +Professor C: Well , this is natural log , and maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have no idea . +PhD E: Is that some kind of base conversion , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Yeah , that 's what I was thinking , but {disfmarker} but um , then there 's the sixty - four , Uh , {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD D: Because maybe they 're {disfmarker} the threshold that they are using on the basis of this value {disfmarker} +PhD E: Experimental results . +Grad A: Mc - McDonald 's constant . +PhD D: I don't know exactly , because well th I thought maybe they have a meaning . But I don't know what is the meaning of take exactly this value . +Professor C: Yeah , it 's pretty funny looking . +PhD E: So they 're taking the number inside the log and raising it to sixteen over log base two . +Professor C: I don't know . Yeah , I {disfmarker} um Right . Sixteen over {comment} two . +PhD E: Does it have to do with those sixty - fours , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Um . If we ignore the sixteen , the natural log of t one over the natural log of two times the natu I don't know . Well , maybe somebody 'll think of something , +PhD E: +Professor C: but this is uh {disfmarker} It may just be that they {disfmarker} they want to have {disfmarker} for very small energies , they want to have some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , the e The effect I don't {disfmarker} @ @ I can understand the effect of this , no ? because it 's to {disfmarker} to do something like that . +Professor C: Well , it says , since you 're taking a natural log , it says that when {disfmarker} when you get down to essentially zero energy , this is gonna be the natural log of one , which is zero . +PhD D: No ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So it 'll go down to uh to {nonvocalsound} the natural log being {disfmarker} So the lowest value for this would be zero . So y you 're restricted to being positive . And this sort of smooths it for very small energies . Uh , why they chose sixty - four and something else , that was probably just experimental . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the constant in front of it , I have no idea . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: um +PhD D: Well . I {disfmarker} I will look to try if I move this parameter in their code what happens , maybe everything is {disfmarker} Maybe they tres hole are on basis of this . +Professor C: uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} they probably have some fi particular s fixed point arithmetic that they 're using , +PhD D: I don't know . +Professor C: and then it just {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , I was just gonna say maybe it has something to do with hardware , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: something they were doing . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean that {disfmarker} they 're s probably working with fixed point or integer or something . I think you 're supposed to on this stuff anyway , and {disfmarker} and so maybe that puts it in the right realm somewhere . +PhD E: Well it just , yeah , puts it in the right range , or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . I think , given at the level you 're doing things in floating point on the computer , I don't think it matters , would be my guess , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} this more or less anything +Professor C: Yeah . OK , and wh when did Stephane take off ? He took off {disfmarker} +PhD D: I think that Stephane will arrive today or tomorrow . +Professor C: Oh , he was gone these first few days , and then he 's here for a couple days before he goes to Salt Lake City . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: He 's {disfmarker} I think that he is in Las Vegas or something like that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So he 's {disfmarker} he 's going to ICASSP which is good . I {disfmarker} I don't know if there are many people who are going to ICASSP +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: so {disfmarker} so I thought , make sure somebody go . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Do {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} Have people sort of stopped going to ICASSP in recent years ? +Professor C: Um , people are less consistent about going to ICASSP and I think it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still a reasonable forum for students to {disfmarker} to present things . Uh , it 's {disfmarker} I think for engineering students of any kind , I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's if you haven't been there much , it 's good to go to , uh to get a feel for things , a range of things , not just speech . Uh . But I think for {disfmarker} for sort of dyed - in - the - wool speech people , um I think that ICSLP and Eurospeech are much more targeted . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh . And then there 's these other meetings , like HLT and {disfmarker} and uh ASRU {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor C: so there 's {disfmarker} there 's actually plenty of meetings that are really relevant to {disfmarker} to uh computational uh speech processing of one sort or another . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um . So . I mean , I mostly just ignored it because I was too busy and {vocalsound} didn't get to it . So uh Wanna talk a little bit about what we were talking about this morning ? +Grad A: Oh ! um {pause} uh {pause} Yeah . +Professor C: Just briefly , or {pause} Or anything else ? +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I guess some of the progress , I {disfmarker} I 've been getting a {disfmarker} getting my committee members for the quals . And um so far I have Morgan and Hynek , {vocalsound} Mike Jordan , and I asked John Ohala and he agreed . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Cool . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I just need to ask um Malek . One more . Um . Tsk . Then uh I talked a little bit about {vocalsound} um continuing with these dynamic ev um acoustic events , and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {vocalsound} thinking about a way to test the completeness of a {disfmarker} a set of um dynamic uh events . Uh , completeness in the {disfmarker} in the sense that {vocalsound} um if we {disfmarker} if we pick these X number of acoustic events , {vocalsound} do they provide sufficient coverage {vocalsound} for the phones that we 're trying to recognize {vocalsound} or {disfmarker} or the f the words that we 're gonna try to recognize later on . And so Morgan and I were uh discussing {vocalsound} um s uh s a form of a cheating experiment {vocalsound} where we get {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um we have uh {vocalsound} um a chosen set of features , or acoustic events , and we train up a hybrid {vocalsound} um system to do phone recognition on TIMIT . So i i the idea is if we get good phone recognition results , {vocalsound} using um these set of acoustic events , {vocalsound} then {vocalsound} um that {disfmarker} that says that these acoustic events are g sufficient to cover {vocalsound} a set of phones , at least found in TIMIT . Um so i it would be a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a measure of "" are we on the right track with {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the choices of our acoustic events "" . Um , {vocalsound} So that 's going on . And {vocalsound} also , just uh working on my {vocalsound} uh final project for Jordan 's class , uh which is {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , let me {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Hold that thought . +Grad A: OK , sure . +Professor C: Let me back up while we 're still on it . The {disfmarker} the other thing I was suggesting , though , is that given that you 're talking about binary features , uh , maybe the first thing to do is just to count and uh count co - occurrences and get probabilities for a discrete HMM cuz that 'd be pretty simple because it 's just {disfmarker} Say , if you had ten {disfmarker} ten events , uh that you were counting , uh each frame would only have a thousand possible values for these ten bits , and uh so you could make a table that would {disfmarker} say , if you had thirty - nine phone categories , that would be a thousand by thirty - nine , and just count the co - occurrences and divide them by the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} uh uh occ uh count the co - occurrences between the event and the phone and divide them by the number of occurrences of the phone , and that would give you the likelihood of the {disfmarker} of the event given the phone . And um then just use that in a very simple HMM and uh you could uh do phone recognition then and uh wouldn't have any of the issues of the uh training of the net or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be on the simple side , but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh um you know , if {disfmarker} uh uh the example I was giving was that if {disfmarker} if you had um onset of voicing and {disfmarker} and end of voicing as being two kinds of events , then if you had those a all marked correctly , and you counted co - occurrences , you should get it completely right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So . um {disfmarker} But you 'd get all the other distinctions , you know , randomly wrong . I mean there 'd be nothing to tell you that . So um {vocalsound} uh If you just do this by counting , then you should be able to find out in a pretty straightforward way whether you have a sufficient uh set of events to {disfmarker} to do the kind of level of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of uh classification of phones that you 'd like . So that was {disfmarker} that was the idea . And then the other thing that we were discussing was {disfmarker} was um {vocalsound} OK , how do you get the {disfmarker} your training data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Cuz uh the {vocalsound} Switchboard transcription project uh uh you know was half a dozen people , or so working off and on over a couple years , and uh similar {disfmarker} {vocalsound} similar amount of data {vocalsound} to what you 're talking about with TIMIT training . So , it seems to me that the only reasonable starting point is uh to automatically translate the uh current TIMIT markings into the markings you want . And uh {vocalsound} it won't have the kind of characteristic that you 'd like , of catching funny kind of things that maybe aren't there from these automatic markings , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's probably a good place to start . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah and a short {disfmarker} short amount of time , just to {disfmarker} again , just to see if that information is sufficient to uh determine the phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Yeah , you could even then {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get an idea about how different it is , you could maybe take some subset and you know , go through a few sentences , mark them by hand and then see how different it is from you know , the canonical ones , +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: just to get an idea {disfmarker} a rough idea of h if it really even makes a difference . +Professor C: You can get a little feeling for it that way , yeah that is probably right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: I mean uh my {disfmarker} my guess would be that this is {disfmarker} since TIMIT 's read speech that this would be less of a big deal , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: if you went and looked at spontaneous speech it 'd be more {disfmarker} more of one . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: And the other thing would be , say , if you had these ten events , you 'd wanna see , well what if you took two events or four events or ten events or t and you know , and {disfmarker} and hopefully there should be some point at which {vocalsound} having more information doesn't tell you really all that much more about what the phones are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . You could define other events as being sequences of these events too . +Professor C: Uh , you could , but the thing is , what he 's talking about here is a uh {disfmarker} a translation to a per - frame feature vector , so there 's no sequence in that , I think . I think it 's just a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Unless you did like a second pass over it or something after you 've got your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , but we 're just talking about something simple here , yeah , to see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . I 'm adding complexity . +Professor C: Yeah . Just {disfmarker} You know . The idea is with a {disfmarker} with a very simple statistical structure , could you {disfmarker} could you uh at least verify that you 've chosen features that {vocalsound} are sufficient . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , and you were saying something {disfmarker} starting to say something else about your {disfmarker} your class project , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Oh . Yeah th Um . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So for my class project I 'm {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm tinkering with uh support vector machines ? something that we learned in class , and uh um basically just another method for doing classification . And so I 'm gonna apply that to {vocalsound} um compare it with the results by um King and Taylor who did {vocalsound} um these um using recurrent neural nets , they recognized {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} a set of phonological features um and made a mapping from the MFCC 's to these phonological features , so I 'm gonna {vocalsound} do a similar thing with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with support vector machines and see if {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what 's the advantage of support vector machines ? What {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . So , support vector machines are {disfmarker} are good with dealing with a less amount of data +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: and um so if you {disfmarker} if you give it less data it still does a reasonable job {vocalsound} in learning the {disfmarker} the patterns . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Um and {vocalsound} um +Professor C: I guess it {disfmarker} yeah , they 're sort of succinct , and {disfmarker} and they {vocalsound} uh +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Does there some kind of a distance metric that they use or how do they {disfmarker} for cla what do they do for classification ? +Grad A: Um . Right . So , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the simple idea behind a support vector machine is {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} you have {disfmarker} you have this feature space , right ? and then it finds the optimal separating plane , um between these two different um classes , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} and so {vocalsound} um , what it {disfmarker} i at the end of the day , what it actually does is {vocalsound} it picks {vocalsound} those examples of the features that are closest to the separating boundary , and remembers those +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uses them to recreate the boundary for the test set . So , given these {vocalsound} um these features , or {disfmarker} or these {disfmarker} these examples , {pause} um , {pause} critical examples , {vocalsound} which they call support f support vectors , {vocalsound} then um {vocalsound} given a new example , {vocalsound} if the new example falls {vocalsound} um away from the boundary in one direction then it 's classified as being a part of this particular class +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: and otherwise it 's the other class . +PhD E: So why save the examples ? Why not just save what the boundary itself is ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Um . Hmm . Let 's see . Uh . Yeah , that 's a good question . I {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: That 's another way of doing it . Right ? So {disfmarker} so it {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . Sort of an equivalent . +Professor C: You know , it {disfmarker} it goes back to nearest - neighbor {vocalsound} sort of thing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: right ? Um , i i if {disfmarker} is it eh w When is nearest - neighbor good ? Well , nearest - neighbor good {disfmarker} is good if you have lots and lots of examples . Um but of course if you have lots and lots of examples , then it can take a while to {disfmarker} to use nearest - neighbor . There 's lots of look ups . So a long time ago people talked about things where you would have uh a condensed nearest - neighbor , where you would {disfmarker} you would {disfmarker} you would pick out uh some representative examples which would uh be sufficient to represent {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to correctly classify everything that came in . +PhD E: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think s I think support vector stuff sort of goes back to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to that kind of thing . Um . +PhD E: I see . So rather than doing nearest neighbor where you compare to every single one , you just pick a few critical ones , and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: And th the You know , um neural net approach uh or Gaussian mixtures for that matter are sort of {disfmarker} fairly brute force kinds of things , where you sort of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you predefine that there is this big bunch of parameters and then you {disfmarker} you place them as you best can to define the boundaries , and in fact , as you know , {vocalsound} these things do take a lot of parameters and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} if you have uh only a modest amount of data , you have trouble {vocalsound} uh learning them . Um , so I {disfmarker} I guess the idea to this is that it {disfmarker} it is reputed to uh be somewhat better in that regard . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . I it can be a {disfmarker} a reduced um {vocalsound} parameterization of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the model by just keeping {vocalsound} certain selected examples . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . So . +Professor C: But I don't know if people have done sort of careful comparisons of this on large tasks or anything . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe they have . I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah , I don't know either . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: S do you get some kind of number between zero and one at the output ? +Grad A: Actually you don't get a {disfmarker} you don't get a nice number between zero and one . You get {disfmarker} you get either a zero or a one . Um , uh there are {disfmarker} there are pap Well , basically , it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you get a distance measure at the end of the day , and then that distance measure is {disfmarker} is um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is translated to a zero or one . Um . +Professor C: But that 's looking at it for {disfmarker} for classification {disfmarker} for binary classification , +Grad A: That 's for classification , right . +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: And you get that for each class , you get a zero or a one . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: But you have the distances to work with . +Grad A: You have the distances to work with , +Professor C: Cuz actually Mississippi State people did use support vector machines for uh uh speech recognition and they were using it to estimate probabilities . +Grad A: yeah . Yeah . Yeah , they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had a {disfmarker} had a way to translate the distances into {disfmarker} into probabilities with the {disfmarker} with the simple {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} uh sigmoidal function . +Professor C: Yeah , and d did they use sigmoid or a softmax type thing ? +Grad A: Um {pause} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Professor C: And didn't they like exponentiate or something +Grad A: there 's some {disfmarker} there 's like one over one plus the exponential or something like that . +Professor C: and then {vocalsound} divide by the sum of them , or {disfmarker} ? Oh it {disfmarker} i Oh , so it is a sigmoidal . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Alright . +PhD E: Did the {disfmarker} did they get good results with that ? +Professor C: I mean , they 're OK , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't think they were earth {disfmarker} earth shattering , but I think that {vocalsound} uh this was a couple years ago , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: I remember them doing it at some meeting , and {disfmarker} and um I don't think people were very critical because it was interesting just to {disfmarker} to try this and you know , it was the first time they tried it , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so the {disfmarker} you know , the numbers were not incredibly good +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: but there 's you know , it was th reasonable . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I don't remember anymore . I don't even remember what the task was , it {comment} was Broadcast News , or {vocalsound} something . I don't know . +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad B: Uh s So Barry , if you just have zero and ones , how are you doing the speech recognition ? +Grad A: Oh I 'm not do I 'm not planning on doing speech recognition with it . I 'm just doing {vocalsound} detection of phonological features . +Grad B: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So uh for example , {vocalsound} this {disfmarker} this uh feature set called the uh sound patterns of English {vocalsound} um is just a bunch of {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} binary valued features . Let 's say , is this voicing , or is this not voicing , is this {vocalsound} sonorants , not sonorants , and {vocalsound} stuff like that . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Did you find any more mistakes in their tables ? +Grad A: Oh ! Uh I haven't gone through the entire table , {pause} yet . Yeah , yesterday I brought Chuck {vocalsound} the table and I was like , "" wait , this {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Is the mapping from N to {disfmarker} to this phonological feature called um "" coronal "" , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} should it be {disfmarker} shouldn't it be a one ? or should it {disfmarker} should it be you know coronal instead of not coronal as it was labelled in the paper ? "" So I ha haven't hunted down all the {disfmarker} all the mistakes yet , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: but {disfmarker} +Professor C: But a as I was saying , people do get probabilities from these things , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh we were just trying to remember how they do , but people have used it for speech recognition , and they have gotten probabilities . So they have some conversion from these distances to probabilities . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Right , yeah . +Professor C: There 's {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} you have the paper , right ? The Mississippi State paper ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , if you 're interested y you could look , +Grad B: And {disfmarker} OK . OK . +Grad A: Yeah , I can {disfmarker} I can show you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: yeah . +Grad A: yeah , our {disfmarker} +PhD E: So in your {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the thing that you 're doing , uh you have a vector of ones and zeros for each phone ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh , is this the class project , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . um +PhD E: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , {comment} Right , right f so for every phone there is {disfmarker} there is a um {disfmarker} a vector of ones and zeros {vocalsound} f uh corresponding to whether it exhibits a particular phonological feature or not . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And so when you do your wh I 'm {disfmarker} what is the task for the class project ? To come up with the phones ? +Grad A: Um +PhD E: or to come up with these vectors to see how closely they match the phones , +Grad A: Oh . Right , um to come up with a mapping from um MFCC 's or s some feature set , {vocalsound} um to {vocalsound} uh w to whether there 's existence of a particular phonological feature . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And um yeah , basically it 's to learn a mapping {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} {vocalsound} from the MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features . Is it {disfmarker} did that answer your question ? +PhD E: I think so . +Grad A: OK . C +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} I 'm not sure what you {disfmarker} what you 're {disfmarker} what you get out of your system . Do you get out a uh {disfmarker} a vector of these ones and zeros and then try to find the closest matching phoneme to that vector , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Oh . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: No , no . I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm not planning to do any {disfmarker} any phoneme mapping yet . Just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's basically {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really simple , basically a detection {vocalsound} of phonological features . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Yeah , +PhD E: I see . +Grad A: and um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} cuz the uh {disfmarker} So King and {disfmarker} and Taylor {vocalsound} um did this with uh recurrent neural nets , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: and this i their {disfmarker} their idea was to first find {vocalsound} a mapping from MFCC 's to {vocalsound} uh phonological features +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then later on , once you have these {vocalsound} phonological features , {vocalsound} then uh map that to phones . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of reproducing phase one of their stuff . +PhD E: Mmm . So they had one recurrent net for each particular feature ? +Grad A: Right . Right . Right . Right . +PhD E: I see . I wo did they compare that {disfmarker} I mean , what if you just did phone recognition and did the reverse lookup . +Grad A: Uh . +PhD E: So you recognize a phone and which ever phone was recognized , you spit out it 's vector of ones and zeros . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Uh . +Professor C: I expect you could do that . +PhD E: I mean uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's probably not what he 's going to do on his class project . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: So um have you had a chance to do this um thing we talked about yet with the uh {disfmarker} um +PhD E: Insertion penalty ? +Professor C: Uh . No actually I was going a different {disfmarker} That 's a good question , too , but I was gonna ask about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} changes to the data in comparing PLP and mel cepstrum for the SRI system . +PhD E: Uh . Well what I 've been {disfmarker} "" Changes to the data "" , I 'm not sure I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . So we talked on the phone about this , that {disfmarker} that there was still a difference of a {disfmarker} of a few percent +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: and {vocalsound} you told me that there was a difference in how the normalization was done . And I was asking if you were going to do {disfmarker} {vocalsound} redo it uh for PLP with the normalization done as it had been done for the mel cepstrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh right , no I haven't had a chance to do that . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: What I 've been doing is {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} trying to figure out {disfmarker} it just seems to me like there 's a um {disfmarker} well it seems like there 's a bug , because the difference in performance is {disfmarker} it 's not gigantic but it 's big enough that it {disfmarker} it seems wrong . +Professor C: Yeah , I agree , but I thought that the normalization difference was one of the possibilities , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , but I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} +Professor C: right ? +PhD E: Yeah , I guess I don't think that the normalization difference is gonna account for everything . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: So what I was working on is um just going through and checking the headers of the wavefiles , to see if maybe there was a um {disfmarker} a certain type of compression or something that was done that my script wasn't catching . So that for some subset of the training data , uh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features I was computing were junk . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Which would you know cause it to perform OK , but uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the models would be all messed up . So I was going through and just double - checking that kind of think first , to see if there was just some kind of obvious bug in the way that I was computing the features . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . I see . OK . +PhD E: Looking at all the sampling rates to make sure all the sampling rates were what {disfmarker} eight K , what I was assuming they were , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: um {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , that makes sense , to check all that . +PhD E: Yeah . So I was doing that first , before I did these other things , just to make sure there wasn't something {disfmarker} +Professor C: Although really , uh uh , a couple three percent uh difference in word error rate uh {comment} could easily come from some difference in normalization , I would think . But +PhD E: Yeah , and I think , hhh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm trying to remember but I think I recall that Andreas was saying that he was gonna run sort of the reverse experiment . Uh which is to try to emulate the normalization that we did but with the mel cepstral features . Sort of , you know , back up from the system that he had . I thought he said he was gonna {disfmarker} I have to look back through my {disfmarker} my email from him . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's probably off at {disfmarker} at uh his meeting now , +PhD E: Yeah , he 's gone now . +Professor C: yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor C: Yeah . But yeah +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: the {disfmarker} I sh think they should be {vocalsound} roughly equivalent , um I mean again the Cambridge folk found the PLP actually to be a little better . Uh So it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: I mean the other thing I wonder about was whether there was something just in the {disfmarker} the bootstrapping of their system which was based on {disfmarker} but maybe not , since they {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah see one thing that 's a little bit um {disfmarker} I was looking {disfmarker} I 've been studying and going through the logs for the system that um Andreas created . And um his uh {disfmarker} the way that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} S R I system looks like it works is that it reads the wavefiles directly , uh and does all of the cepstral computation stuff on the fly . +Professor C: Right . Right . +PhD E: And , so there 's no place where these {disfmarker} where the cepstral files are stored , anywhere that I can go look at and compare to the PLP ones , so whereas with our features , he 's actually storing the cepstrum on disk , and he reads those in . +Professor C: Right . +PhD E: But it looked like he had to give it {disfmarker} uh even though the cepstrum is already computed , he has to give it uh a front - end parameter file . Which talks about the kind of uh com computation that his mel cepstrum thing does , +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: so i I {disfmarker} I don't know if that {disfmarker} it probably doesn't mess it up , it probably just ignores it if it determines that it 's already in the right format or something but {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the two processes that happen are a little different . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: So anyway , there 's stuff there to sort out . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: So , OK . Let 's go back to what you thought I was asking you . +PhD E: Yeah no and I didn't have a chance to do that . +Professor C: Ha ! Oh ! You had the sa same answer anyway . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I 've been um , {disfmarker} I 've been working with um Jeremy on his project and then I 've been trying to track down this bug in uh the ICSI front - end features . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: So one thing that I did notice , yesterday I was studying the um {disfmarker} the uh RASTA code +Professor C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and it looks like we don't have any way to um control the frequency range that we use in our analysis . We basically {disfmarker} it looks to me like we do the FFT , um and then we just take all the bins and we use everything . We don't have any set of parameters where we can say you know , "" only process from you know a hundred and ten hertz to thirty - seven - fifty "" . +Professor C: Um {disfmarker} +PhD E: At least I couldn't see any kind of control for that . +Professor C: Yeah , I don't think it 's in there , I think it 's in the uh uh uh the filters . So , the F F T is on everything , but the filters um , for instance , ignore the {disfmarker} the lowest bins and the highest bins . And what it does is it {disfmarker} it copies +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the filters ? Which filters ? +Professor C: um The filter bank which is created by integrating over F F T bins . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um +PhD E: When you get the mel {disfmarker} When you go to the mel scale . +Professor C: Right . Yeah , it 's bark scale , and it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} it actually copies the uh um {disfmarker} the second filters over to the first . So the first filters are always {disfmarker} and you can s you can specify a different number of {vocalsound} uh features {disfmarker} different number of filters , I think , as I recall . So you can specify a different number of filters , and whatever {vocalsound} um uh you specify , the last ones are gonna be ignored . So that {disfmarker} that 's a way that you sort of change what the {disfmarker} what the bandwidth is . Y you can't do it without I think changing the number of filters , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: I saw something about uh {disfmarker} that looked like it was doing something like that , but I didn't quite understand it . So maybe {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah , so the idea is that the very lowest frequencies and {disfmarker} and typically the veriest {comment} highest frequencies are kind of junk . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And so um you just {disfmarker} for continuity you just approximate them by {disfmarker} {vocalsound} by the second to highest and second to lowest . It 's just a simple thing we put in . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so if you h +PhD E: But {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} but that 's a fixed uh thing ? +Professor C: Yeah , {comment} I think that 's a fixed thing . +PhD E: There 's nothing that lets you {disfmarker} +Professor C: But see {disfmarker} see my point ? If you had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you had ten filters , {vocalsound} then you would be throwing away a lot at the two ends . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And if you had {disfmarker} if you had fifty filters , you 'd be throwing away hardly anything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , I don't remember there being an independent way of saying "" we 're just gonna make them from here to here "" . +PhD E: Use this analysis bandwidth or something . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , it 's actually been awhile since I 've looked at it . +PhD E: Yeah , I went through the Feacalc code and then looked at you know just calling the RASTA libs {comment} and thing like that . And I didn't {disfmarker} I couldn't see any wh place where that kind of thing was done . But um I didn't quite understand everything that I saw , +Professor C: Yeah , see I don't know Feacalc at all . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it calls RASTA with some options , and um +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I think in {disfmarker} I don't know . I guess for some particular database you might find that you could tune that and tweak that to get that a little better , but I think that {vocalsound} in general it 's not that critical . I mean there 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You can {disfmarker} You can throw away stuff below a hundred hertz or so and it 's just not going to affect phonetic classification at all . +PhD E: Another thing I was thinking about was um is there a {disfmarker} I was wondering if there 's maybe um {vocalsound} certain settings of the parameters when you compute PLP which would basically cause it to output mel cepstrum . So that , in effect , what I could do is use our code but produce mel cepstrum and compare that directly to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's not precisely . Yeah . I mean , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: um , {vocalsound} um what you can do is um you can definitely change the {disfmarker} the filter bank from being uh a uh trapezoidal integration to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a triangular one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is what the typical mel {disfmarker} mel cepstral uh filter bank does . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And some people have claimed that they got some better performance doing that , so you certainly could do that easily . But the fundamental difference , I mean , there 's other small differences {disfmarker} +PhD E: There 's a cubic root that happens , right ? +Professor C: Yeah , but , you know , as opposed to the log in the other case . I mean {vocalsound} the fundamental d d difference that we 've seen any kind of difference from before , which is actually an advantage for the P L P i uh , I think , is that the {disfmarker} the smoothing at the end is auto - regressive instead of being cepstral {disfmarker} uh , {comment} from cepstral truncation . So um it 's a little more noise robust . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's why when people started getting databases that had a little more noise in it , like {disfmarker} like uh um Broadcast News and so on , that 's why c Cambridge switched to PLP I think . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So um That 's a difference that I don't {vocalsound} think we put any way to get around , since it was an advantage . um {vocalsound} uh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we did {disfmarker} eh we did hear this comment from people at some point , that {vocalsound} um it uh they got some better results with the triangular filters rather than the trapezoidal . So that is an option in RASTA . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor C: Uh and you can certainly play with that . But I think you 're probably doing the right thing to look for bugs first . I don't know . +PhD E: Yeah just {disfmarker} it just seems like this kind of behavior could be caused by you know s some of the training data being messed up . +Professor C: Could be . +PhD E: You know , you 're sort of getting most of the way there , but there 's a {disfmarker} So I started going through and looking {disfmarker} One of the things that I did notice was that the um log likelihoods coming out of the log recognizer from the PLP data were much lower , much smaller , than for the mel cepstral stuff , and that the average amount of pruning that was happening was therefore a little bit higher for the PLP features . +Professor C: Oh - huh ! +PhD E: So , since he used the same exact pruning thresholds for both , I was wondering if it could be that we 're getting more pruning . +Professor C: Oh ! He {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} He used the identical pruning thresholds even though the s the range of p of the likeli +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Oh well that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's a pretty good {comment} point right there . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , +Professor C: I would think that you might wanna do something like uh you know , look at a few points to see where you are starting to get significant search errors . +PhD E: so {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} Right . Well , what I was gonna do is I was gonna take um a couple of the utterances that he had run through , then run them through again but modify the pruning threshold and see if it you know , affects the score . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . But I mean you could {disfmarker} uh if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if that looks promising you could , you know , r uh run {vocalsound} the overall test set with a {disfmarker} with a few different uh pruning thresholds for both , +PhD E: So . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and presumably he 's running at some pruning threshold that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , you know {disfmarker} gets very few search errors +PhD E: Right . +Professor C: but is {disfmarker} is relatively fast +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . I mean , yeah , generally in these things you {disfmarker} you turn back pruning really far , +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: so I {disfmarker} I didn't think it would be that big a deal because I was figuring well you have it turned back so far that you know it {disfmarker} +Professor C: But you may be in the wrong range for the P L P features for some reason . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And the uh the {disfmarker} the run time of the recognizer on the PLP features is longer which sort of implies that the networks are bushier , you know , there 's more things it 's considering which goes along with the fact that the matches aren't as good . So uh , you know , it could be that we 're just pruning too much . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . +Professor C: Yeah , maybe just be different kind of distributions and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: yeah so that 's another possible thing . They {disfmarker} they should {disfmarker} really shouldn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: There 's no particular reason why they would be exactly {disfmarker} behave exactly the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Right . Right . +Professor C: So . +PhD E: So . There 's lots of little differences . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Uh . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Trying to track it down . +Professor C: Yeah . I guess this was a little bit off topic , I guess , because I was {disfmarker} I was thinking in terms of th this as being a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a core {vocalsound} item that once we {disfmarker} once we had it going we would use for a number of the front - end things also . +PhD E: Yeah +Professor C: So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um Wanna {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} as far as my stuff goes , +Professor C: What 's {disfmarker} what 's on {disfmarker} +Grad B: yeah , well I {vocalsound} tried this mean subtraction method . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Um . Due to Avendano , {vocalsound} I 'm taking s um {vocalsound} six seconds of speech , um {vocalsound} I 'm using two second {vocalsound} FFT analysis frames , {vocalsound} stepped by a half second so it 's a quarter length step and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I take that frame and four f the four {disfmarker} I take {disfmarker} Sorry , I take the current frame and the four past frames and the {vocalsound} four future frames and that adds up to six seconds of speech . And I calculate um {vocalsound} the spectral mean , {vocalsound} of the log magnitude spectrum {pause} over that N . I use that to normalize the s the current center frame {vocalsound} by mean subtraction . And I then {disfmarker} then I move to the next frame and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I do it again . Well , actually I calculate all the means first and then I do the subtraction . And um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} I tried that with HDK , the Aurora setup of HDK training on clean TI - digits , and um {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it helped um in a phony reverberation case um {vocalsound} where I just used the simulated impulse response um {vocalsound} the error rate went from something like eighty it was from something like eighteen percent {vocalsound} to um four percent . And on meeting rec recorder far mike digits , mike {disfmarker} on channel F , it went from um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} forty - one percent error to eight percent error . +PhD E: On {disfmarker} on the real data , not with artificial reverb ? +Grad B: Right . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And that {disfmarker} that was um {vocalsound} trained on clean speech only , which I 'm guessing is the reason why the baseline was so bad . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: That 's ac actually a little side point is I think that 's the first results that we have uh uh uh of any sort on the far field uh {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the far field data uh for {disfmarker} recorded in {disfmarker} in meetings . +Grad B: Oh um actually um Adam ran the SRI recognizer . +Professor C: Did he ? On the near field , on the ne +Grad B: On the far field also . He did one PZM channel and one PDA channel . +Professor C: Oh did he ? Oh ! I didn't recall that . What kind of numbers was he getting with that ? +Grad B: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure , I think it was about five percent error for the PZM channel . +Professor C: Five . +Grad B: f I think . Yeah . +Professor C: So why were you getting forty - one here ? Is this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Um . I {disfmarker} I 'm g I 'm guessing it was the {disfmarker} the training data . Uh , clean TI - digits is , like , pretty pristine {vocalsound} training data , and if they trained {vocalsound} the SRI system on this TV broadcast type stuff , I think it 's a much wider range of channels and it {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , but wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th {disfmarker} I think he {disfmarker} What am I saying here ? Yeah , so that was the SRI system . Maybe you 're right . Yeah . Cuz it was getting like one percent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It was {disfmarker} it was getting one percent or something on the near field . Wasn't it ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm , or it wa a it was around one . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . I think it was getting around one percent for the near {disfmarker} for the n for the close mike . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Huh ? OK . +Professor C: So it was like one to five {disfmarker} So it 's still this kind of ratio . It 's just {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a lot more training data . So So probably it should be something we should try then is to {disfmarker} is to see if {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} at some point just to take {disfmarker} i to transform the data and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh use th use it for the SRI system . +Grad B: b You me you mean um ta +Professor C: So you 're {disfmarker} so you have a system which for one reason or another is relatively poor , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} and uh you have something like forty - one percent error uh and then you transform it to eight by doing {disfmarker} doing this {disfmarker} this work . Um . So here 's this other system , which is a lot better , but there 's still this kind of ratio . It 's something like five percent error {vocalsound} with the {disfmarker} the distant mike , and one percent with the close mike . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So the question is {vocalsound} how close to that one can you get {vocalsound} if you transform the data using that system . +Grad B: r Right , so {disfmarker} so I guess this SRI system is trained on a lot of s Broadcast News or Switchboard data . Is that right ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Do you know which one it is ? +PhD E: It 's trained on a lot of different things . Um . It 's trained on uh a lot of Switchboard , Call Home , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: um a bunch of different sources , some digits , there 's some digits training in there . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad B: O one thing I 'm wondering about is what this mean subtraction method {vocalsound} um will do if it 's faced with additive noise . Cuz I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it 's cuz I don't know what log magnitude spectral subtraction is gonna do to additive noise . +Professor C: Yeah , +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} +Professor C: well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not exactly the right thing +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: but {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} but you 've already seen that cuz there is added noise here . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's true . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , so it 's then {disfmarker} then it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's reasonable to expect it would be helpful if we used it with the SRI system and +Professor C: Yeah , I mean , as helpful {disfmarker} I mean , so that 's the question . Yeah , w we 're often asked this when we work with a system that {disfmarker} that isn't {disfmarker} isn't sort of industry {disfmarker} industry standard great , +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: uh and we see some reduction in error using some clever method , then , you know , will it work on a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on a {disfmarker} on a good system . So uh you know , this other one 's {disfmarker} it was a pretty good system . I think , you know , one {disfmarker} one percent word error rate on digits is {disfmarker} uh digit strings is not {vocalsound} uh you know stellar , but {disfmarker} but given that this is real {vocalsound} digits , as opposed to uh sort of laboratory {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Well . +PhD E: And it wasn't trained on this task either . +Professor C: And it wasn't trained on this task . Actually one percent is sort of {disfmarker} you know , sort of in a reasonable range . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: People would say "" yeah , I could {disfmarker} I can imagine getting that "" . And uh so the {disfmarker} the four or five percent or something is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite poor . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , you know , if you 're doing a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a sixteen digit uh credit card number you 'll basically get it wrong almost all the time . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So . So . Uh , {vocalsound} um a significant reduction in the error for that would be great . +Grad B: Huh , OK . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and then , uh Yeah . So . Yeah . Cool . +Grad B: Sounds good . +Professor C: Yeah . Alright , um , I actually have to run . So I don't think I can do the digits , but um , {vocalsound} I guess I 'll leave my microphone on ? +PhD E: Uh , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Thank you . +PhD E: Yep . Yeah . That 'll work . +Professor C: I can be out of here quickly . {comment} {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That 's I just have to run for another appointment . OK , I t Yeah . I left it on . OK . +","Summary: + +Professor C and PhD students discuss various aspects of voice recognition and feature detection. PhD D is working on recognizing voiced and unvoiced sounds using a new feature with a multi-layer perceptron (MLP). They discuss issues with inputs for MLP, making comparisons between the use of three vs. fifty-six outputs, and the impact on recognition results. There is confusion about the inputs and the need for certain features like spectral slope to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced sounds. Grad A is considering a cheating experiment to test the completeness of a set of acoustic events for phone recognition, and is working on a project using support vector machines for phonological feature detection. PhD E is troubleshooting feature computation for a speech recognition system, especially looking into discrepancies between PLP and mel cepstral features, including the potential impact of normalization differences on error rates. Grad B discusses using mean subtraction as a method to improve system performance in reverberant environments and is considering its efficacy against additive noise. The group also briefly touches on the impact of different training data on system performance and the possibilities of trying these methods with industry-standard systems. Professor C has to leave before the meeting concludes and discusses leaving their microphone on." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Here we go again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My mouse is not working anymore . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: when I put it in , is is going to beep beep beep . +Marketing: Oh , I got a nice little screen here over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I got like this big black border uh on every side . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: Everybody ready ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll I'll fix it . +User Interface: Yeah , it's okay . +Project Manager: Welcome at the functional design meeting , again presented by Maarten . +Marketing: Yeah , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh this is the agenda , the opening . Uh , we've got three presentations . And I'm gonna show you some of the new projects requirements that were sent to me . And we're gonna make a decision on the remote control functions . We have uh forty minutes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , well this is the {vocalsound} the closing already . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} well we start off with the th the first presentation then . Uh , I think um in uh {disfmarker} we have to do it in uh in right order . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what the right order is . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Project Manager: Oh that . It won't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe we should start with the the technical functions . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: how can I get this on the whiteboard ? +Project Manager: Well it's you dumped the file in the uh in the sh in the project document folder . +User Interface: In project . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I've done that . +Project Manager: You've already done that ? +User Interface: No can that open . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Well let's close this one . We'll just uh open a new one . +User Interface: Open it there . +Project Manager: Uh , well . Yes . Uh-oh . New thing . Oh yeah , uh I have to say something . Uh , due to some uh technical problems I haven't uh digitized the last uh the meeting minutes . But I'll uh make sure that uh happens next time . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} About the get {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And I'll get this one uh in digital uh form too . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we're going to um uh talk about working design . Um , the method of the remote control is uh electrical energy , it activates a chip uh in the remote . It's an electrical circuit which compose uh messages in the form of uh uh infrared signals to control the television . Mm , it's a nowadays very uh known , a known uh uh technology . Um , the known technology can make a cost very low . Uh , it's a wild uh {disfmarker} a wide sale uh of uh remote controls in the world . And and the components are very uh very cheap . Um , Uh , diodes , uh bat batteries and uh uh LED lights , they're needed and they're uh everywhere available . Uh , again , it's a fair price . It's a common uh technology uh , like I told um {disfmarker} Uh , the circuit board , it's the most um important uh um part of the remote control . Uh , we can use for that uh fibreglass with copper wires , it's {disfmarker} it is uh {disfmarker} can be made as fast as printing paper . It's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's all very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they're making it uh all the time . Uh , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and it's not uh very specialised uh technology . {vocalsound} I haven't come to here , but um I've got uh some uh images of uh remote controls . They were not uh very uh trendy or just uh just a remote control like everyone knows . So I don't know uh why I should put it here . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . But it's the technical side of the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but uh I uh haven't made it because uh of the time . +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . Well , we'll we'll have to skip that part then . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: But you don't think it's a problem um to design uh the technical part of the remote control ? It's gonna be easy ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But nothing restricted for user interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah . M +User Interface: With technical {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , no , it's uh it's just a part of uh a known technology , yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Remote control is nothing special nowadays . +Project Manager: R regardless of what type of functions we want to implement . Doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But I kind of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so , +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , {gap} okay . +Industrial Designer: because of the {disfmarker} all the televisions uh {disfmarker} there are a few {disfmarker} maybe a couple of televisions with the new functions , +User Interface: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but is it useful to put them on a on a standard uh remote ? +Project Manager: Well , we'll see . We'll see later on . +User Interface: Well , the technical functions . Um , well I don't know if you got the same uh pictures as I got , +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: but uh I got these two , +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: and I think they're {disfmarker} we have to focus uh on uh the uh one hand the expert view or the novice user . {vocalsound} th I think it's it's very much uh depending on the user requirements , I don't s uh know who's doing t +Project Manager: Well , uh will there be some uh user requirements later on ? {vocalsound} The ones I {disfmarker} I've uh received from the account manager . +User Interface: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} I think that's very important to watch uh what kind of functions there we want to uh put in a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we'll keep this in mind , and then discuss it later on . +User Interface: Yeah , well y we can put functions in it when uh {disfmarker} yeah , when we uh get the user requirements uh and we can update it . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Okay , but this real this uh big d uh distinction between this type of remote . {gap} we should we should choose one uh {disfmarker} we should not compromise but uh really choose for uh expert viewer or novice v +Marketing: Yes , I agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Well , what {disfmarker} that's what you want {disfmarker} trying to say . +User Interface: Well , yeah w if you want try a a a huge market , if you want to reach a huge market , uh like elderly people and {disfmarker} we have to choose for novice user . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: But I don't know . It's it's really um depending on how how how far the the the remote controls are already in n um in use . +Project Manager: Yeah , well {vocalsound} some of these {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . Well , some of that will {disfmarker} Yeah , but i but it will be more clear when we come to the uh u uh some of the new requirements . +User Interface: Yeah , probably , yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh well , there are l at least uh basic functions , uh like just th the channels uh one till nine , uh on and off switch , which must be clear with a red button or something like that . Um , most standard uh have volume , of course , and a mute function , and , of course , the next and previous channel . I think that's just basic what we need . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And from that on we can {gap} user requirements what we need more . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , I just um um I thought Joost was looking at the trendy {disfmarker} the trends in the markets , and I don't know if there uh are any um {disfmarker} uh if you put more functions , more buttons , maybe it's com becoming less trendy or something like that . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: M you can just {vocalsound} you can k {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I haven't really found a conclusion like that . +User Interface: you can keep it in mind that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know . Uh , I th I thought the the {disfmarker} with less buttons you can make a more trendier uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Design . +User Interface: yeah , more trendier design , I think . I think . +Marketing: Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , well , that's all I have to say , I think . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that was it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Well , then the Marketing expert can uh tell us something about the current market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . It's alright . Um {disfmarker} Alright , I've done some research for functional requirements . Um {disfmarker} yes . The working method um {vocalsound} there were hundred uh uh w h one hundred people , uh how do you say uh , f watched using remote controls in the usability lab and they also uh filled out a questionnaire uh with a few questions . Uh , I've lined them up here . Uh , ask whether um common remote control looks good or not , about willingness to spend money on remote control , about zapping behaviour , and uh and stuff like that . I uh have found some interesting things . We do we do got a market . Um , {vocalsound} three out of four people claim m uh to find remote controls ugly . So if we make a trendy design , we sure have seventy fi seventy five percent of the market , which you can reach . Um , three out of four users uh zaps a lot , as I uh quoted here from the uh results . {vocalsound} Zap buttons are used one hundred and sixty eight times per hour . That's quite a lot . Um , {vocalsound} relevant options are , of course , power buttons . Although , only used once per hour . Uh , channel selection , volume and buttons for text , and the more um , yeah , other functions , like audio settings , video settings , sound settings are not said to be very important and uh very much used . Furthermore , fifty percent says uh they only use ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . That doesn't say we got {disfmarker} we can leave ninety percent off . But it sure um says we shouldn't make it too uh complicated . Fifty percent also claims uh to have lost a remote control very often in the room . And um {vocalsound} an important thing here , the most important customers uh , which is over seventy percent of our market , is in the age range of thirty six to sixty five years old . And uh elderly people , our market , are less interested in uh nice features , but more willingly to spend more money on remote controls . So , {vocalsound} what I was thinking {disfmarker} oh , wrong side . We shouldn't implement too much features on uh on our remote control , because elderly people will get th lost . Group features for a higher usability , uh what I was claiming in the previous meeting . Um , all the settings , about audio settings , video settings and channel settings , which are not very often used , we could group them uh on one button and make them accessible uh in one menu button or whatever , because they are used very rarely and well , it uh {disfmarker} there are a lot of options there , so we can really make uh {disfmarker} yeah , how do you say , we can spare at buttons over there . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , if you want to implement V_C_R_ and D_V_D_ options , group them in the button , not too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . Small buttons , so they won't be very um , how do you say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Visually presents . +Marketing: Yes , won't be very present , thank you . And a trendy look , well uh , although seventy percent of the market is uh {disfmarker} consists of elderly people uh who don't really care for trendy looks or whatever , I guess it can do no harm to make it trendy for the other thirty percent . That was kind of what I found . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well , then we {disfmarker} I'm gonna show you some of the new project requirements and then we gonna discuss on uh what features we find important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , well some of the uh new requirements {vocalsound} make some of your findings quite uh irrelevant , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because um uh s decided to put {disfmarker} They have decide to put two additional requirements forward . Well , now I see four . +Marketing: Two ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's kinda strange . Well , they say tele teletext becomes outdated since the popularity of the internet . Well , I think that may be so , but well , we can't just leave the teletext button off . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's impossible , I think . +User Interface: No way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No uh , I agree , I agree . +Project Manager: So the compromise we could make is just to make one teletext button , you know , like on and off , and don't make a lot of special {disfmarker} put a lot of special features on it to make it transparent or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much , no . +Project Manager: You know , it's just you want you want to be able to make use of teletext , but not to play with it that much . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we have to think of that . The remote control should only be used for television . Otherwise , the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time t t ma uh the time to market . So maybe we should leave all D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ related features off completely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know . I think that uh that's what they're trying to say . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , our current customers are within the age group of forty plus . New products should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty . So you uh talked about the elderly who were willing to spend more on a remote control and who were interested . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But , well , they're not relevant because we are aiming at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't really agree actually , to be honest . It's a very small market which we will approach then if we uh want to reach customers younger than forty . It's only like thirty percent of the total market . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it is {disfmarker} it's is a dif it's a fact that the th th that bigger market you're talking about , we already cover that . +Marketing: Mayb yeah ? +Project Manager: Our company already sells remote control to the older people , but we we also want , {vocalsound} you know , a new customer group . That's the one we haven't covered yet . So I think that's what the problem is . We haven't got remote controls for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Well I think , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe we can compromise a little bit . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Maybe if it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not too much then , bu alright . +Project Manager: no no , but I think we have to just keep in mind what the older age group wants . So maybe we can make a remote control that's primarily interesting for the younger group , but isn't that bad for an older person either . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh , our corporate image sh should stay recognisable in our products . Our product's corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . Okay , {vocalsound} something else nice to know . +User Interface: But what's our slogan ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? Yeah , {vocalsound} you will have to look that up . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The slogan uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I'll have a look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's something about the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Puts fashion in electronics . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We put the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} I thought it w might be , let's make things better or something , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sense simplicity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sense and simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay well , {vocalsound} let's go back to the the agenda . So we've now had to {disfmarker} the three presentations . We know about the new project requirements . That means we can uh well d yeah , discuss on the remote control functions . Well , if I can uh make a start , I think it's becoming more clear what kind of remote control it's gonna be , and I already talked about the {disfmarker} maybe you have a f familiar with the rem remote control that has the the can opener underneath it . I think we're we're looking for some {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we're looking for a really simple remote control with only basic T_V_ functions . Y well , that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , to be honest , if um our uh aim group is uh till forty , not older than forty , maybe that's not very uh {disfmarker} yeah , we don't really need to have a simple remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can implement more functions then , because um {vocalsound} basically uh the younger people are more able to adapt to new technology +User Interface: Yeah , but wha +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and therefore will be a more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: M yeah , that's why um well a lot of um the use the requirements the the account manager sent me , I think they are are c are contradicting each other , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because they want a simpler design , and no uh other uh s functions than just T_V_ , but they s do aim at a younger {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , ma +User Interface: Yeah , but you sai you said that that a lot of functions aren't used . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So why should j we put this function in ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think more {disfmarker} I think uh people {disfmarker} younger people are more looking for just a trendy look than uh more functions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think uh you {disfmarker} we can make some discuss uh distinctions in uh what kin in the , know , th th in functions you have {disfmarker} Y Well you have different kind of uh equipment in your room , like a t T_V_ and a D_V_D_ player . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: You can uh , know , you {gap} you can {vocalsound} make very d you can put very detailed functions regarding the T_V_ set on your remote control uh with the with uh the , you know , audio settings and uh v uh screen settings . We don't want that . I think that was {disfmarker} that became clear . We don't want . But w maybe we should put some func uh , I know that the younger people will most likely have a D_V_D_ player they want to , you know , they want to uh +Marketing: Yeah , control . +User Interface: Yeah , but uh you said {disfmarker} +Project Manager: control , remotely . +User Interface: Yeah , d yeah , but th the functions are not in the remote control we're making . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , yeah , th th the user requirements of the the {disfmarker} The new project requirements told us not to {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's n Yeah . +Project Manager: But maybe w Yeah . I think we maybe should {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , well we should uh put some functions for other {disfmarker} maybe for other equipment on it . But just the basic functions . Maybe like rewind and wind , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: or n what d what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: But you can put them under the same button . +Marketing: Not much more than that . +Project Manager: Yeah , if {disfmarker} as far as possible . +Marketing: Yep . Or we can u u we could put 'em behind the flip-flap or whatever . +Project Manager: But what do you think ? +Marketing: So t +Project Manager: Do th should we implement features that uh uh or functions that {disfmarker} to control other devices ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No , you don't think so ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , new requirements say no . +Project Manager: Yeah , the new requirements say so . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you can put a play and stop and and rewind . +Project Manager: Well , maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe there there there is something th m most of the time these functions don't support the particular device as well as their their own remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , a lot of D_V_D_ players have some tricky settings with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I i if it's too simple uh th they won't use the remote control , they use their own th th {vocalsound} with lot more functions . +Marketing: Y yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep , exactly . That's that's wha +Marketing: But but for for example , V_C_R_ , that's better example in this case . I think on a remote control for television you don't need to be able to programme uh the V_C_R_ to start recording at three P_M_ or whatever , +Project Manager: No no , you don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} No no , you don't need it . No , no . +User Interface: No , no . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: just play , stop , rewind and uh fast forward . +Project Manager: Okay , but we have to think uh {disfmarker} w we have to think D_V_D_ I th uh , I guess , +Marketing: Yeah , I know , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so um but uh from my experience it's kinda {vocalsound} a lot of D_V_D_ players , you know , like forwarding , goes differently . Uh , you get two speed or eight speed or sixteen speed . It's c sometimes a bit difficult . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe if we just leave the D_V_D_ functional m uh {disfmarker} Well , I was thinking about putting it in , but concerning the project requirements and what you just said , I think we m should focus on the T_V_ then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Yeah , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} keep it simple and look more at th +Project Manager: And uh and it's just an uh a complimentary remote and not a universal one . If you want to keep it simple , you can make a universal remote . +User Interface: No . It's only for television . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . It's just a s it it should be something that is like a gadget on your coffee table , +Industrial Designer: Yes , but there are there are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's just for when you you you jump on the couch , you pick up the the the nice remote , the simple one , just to put on the television , nothing more . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , nothing more . Exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um , but what televis +Industrial Designer: But how wi how will you be able to handle a whole market ? There are uh a dozen of uh {disfmarker} dozens of of remote controls that have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we we'll make w this one trendy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And simple . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The user interface is easy . +Project Manager: Well , we we will come to that , but ju first on the on the functions . So we should put uh zap buttons on it . Um , also numbers , to uh to go to the specific channels . +User Interface: And the basic {disfmarker} yeah , basic functions , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , +User Interface: It's too much integrated in the other . +Project Manager: Okay , a t a teletext button should be there . But just one big teletext button , on and off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably . +Marketing: Yeah , and maybe two or three other options , but not {disfmarker} nothing more than that . I think stop function is very useful . If you have a uh a page which consists of more pages , and you are not a very quick reader , +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: then I think it's very irritating if the next page shows up , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I think that becomes too difficult , it's not a very common function and people will have to read up on their remote then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I use it very regularly , the action . I re I use it {vocalsound} quite often . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , but maybe you s yeah yeah , maybe y you do , but I've never heard of it in the first place . And +User Interface: Will you look {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have to {disfmarker} well t yeah , and t and teletext is becoming outdated . +User Interface: Look at the market . +Project Manager: We just want to see what programmes are on and what time it is probably . Yeah . I don't know . I think that that's kin getting too complex for our remote . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know what you th guys think . +Marketing: Might be . Might be . +User Interface: Yeah , I {disfmarker} uh , it's {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} Sunday I always use it for the uh yeah , for the soccer uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you like to have a {disfmarker} such a s stop button ? Or do you think it uh {disfmarker} I think it's a kind of uh uh very rare and special function . +User Interface: Well , uh when you uh uh {disfmarker} when you look uh {disfmarker} for example um , a couple of weeks ago I looked at the {disfmarker} for the flights , and there are a lot of flights in one page , so if if th +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , it goes {disfmarker} Yeah , but that's kind of stuff we should do on the internet right now . That's why {vocalsound} it was uh said in the in the use in the r new requirements . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you could put +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on the z on the zap buttons you can put it to uh to uh access all the same pages . +Project Manager: Well yeah uh , +Industrial Designer: If you have seven pages , you can go up and down . +Project Manager: lots of new televisions can store pages , you know , and then you can just skip manually through them using {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: I think we should just put one teletext button on it . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: Then we meet uh the new requirements . we also meet the other thin y you sh you just re we have to choose for the the simple design , I guess . +User Interface: A simple {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , well , what functions do we have to decide on ? Or do we {disfmarker} uh I dunno if we have t stif specifically name all the functions we n we want . We have the zap and uh the volume . Should we do m make them very big ? The the the zap button . D d +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: I think the plus and the minus button should be uh quite present , +Project Manager: Th that's that's that's considered to be trendy also . +User Interface: But trendy , yeah . +Marketing: yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe you should place them on a {disfmarker} uh , in a special way ? +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can make uh a kind of a joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , something or uh {vocalsound} somethin special way to to zap through the {disfmarker} it has to {vocalsound} s it has to be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah , and quick . You have to use it very quickly . +User Interface: Original . It was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you grab the remote , your hands should be on top of the plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , and it {disfmarker} the buttons should make it um possible to to zap through your channels in a rapid {disfmarker} at a rapid pace . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , what should we decide on then ? I think in a in a case of this simple remote control , the technical aspects which uh weren't worked out already , but it w shouldn't be a problem then . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , it's o just signals uh {disfmarker} and the television d uh does the rest . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Maybe uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , okay , but we don't have to {disfmarker} uh , when we don't want to uh control other devices , I think it makes it even more simple . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Uh maybe we {disfmarker} uh uh the batteries maybe . If you use large batteries or small batter batteries . +Project Manager: I think +Industrial Designer: The most standard batteries . +Project Manager: I think that we should use uh d +User Interface: Yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think double A_ . +Project Manager: yeah , not not uh the b the watch kind +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} th the most uh {disfmarker} Well , it has to be simple , and I wi +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The most ordinary uh batteries . +Project Manager: Which are most likely to be found somewhere in the house , you know . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Oh . How much time do we ha we have left uh ? M m m more than thirty minutes ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think about twenty minutes . +Project Manager: Uh ten twenty minutes . {vocalsound} Well , uh these these shouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Early break . +Industrial Designer: But i in a way we have to be uh uh special . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , okay . But that's that's {disfmarker} Do you uh have you have you think about tha thought about that ? How we can {disfmarker} what the extra touch can be . Do you suggest design or the shape or some gadget f f kind of feature or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe th m +Project Manager: Well , it was something about how we lose them . Maybe it should be a remote control when you you clap you hands it makes some noise or some gadget kind of thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that's n that's more for a for an age range or uh {vocalsound} ten to twelve or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: To find him . That's maybe {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Nah , um a lot of people like to have such kind kind of kind of gay kind of things . It w it w should be like a birthday present or something that you give someone , and it is i {gap} has something nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , that's good one , yep . +Project Manager: Or maybe it w should have a big uh light that can flash or something on it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or maybe it should {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or an {disfmarker} or the like the the can opener . Maybe it contains some feature that you don't normally link to a remote control . I think it's very impor because we're gonna make such a basic remote control , we have to do something to make it special . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's gonna cost twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye I think the can opener i is a brilliant idea actually , because television and beer is not a rare combination . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but the {disfmarker} well , it's already been done . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Nah . {vocalsound} Yeah , that's true . But {disfmarker} and I think it's gonna be uh very uh {disfmarker} it has to be sturdy or something , so maybe with with bouncing pads so that you can just throw it on the floor or something . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: {gap} it has to be used something special , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it has to , +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: you know y not s people , when they buy it , they have to think , well this one lasts for a long time . We're really gonna use them . Not some thing you you throw away next week , you know . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: So maybe uh that's i I think that's {vocalsound} when uh when we decide on these type of functions , know , basic functions , uh it's very important to find something like this . So there's a very important task for you . And maybe we can all think about it . +User Interface: Be original , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , also for you maybe , when t you {disfmarker} it's very nice when you can be entra when you can be trendy , and and uh and al as in a friend {disfmarker} use friendly as well , you know . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . And use friendly , yeah . +Project Manager: So big buttons , flashy design , and maybe some kind of gadget kind of thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Must brain-storm . +Marketing: Yeah , a swapable front or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah , or just different colours would be uh {disfmarker} I don't know if people also wanna spend more money on fronts for their uh remote control . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For the remote control . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It could be be {disfmarker} Yeah , you never know , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why not ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: More money for us . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and I think we have to make it quite big . +User Interface: Yeah . Quite big . Yeah , you think ? +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , definitely , definitely . +Project Manager: {gap} people {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's to be uh a formed for your hand . +Project Manager: So , and and also because uh it is expensive . If you want it to be something , you know , it's ha doesn't have much functions {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: want to be {disfmarker} you don't want to get it l make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , it {disfmarker} it it should be f {vocalsound} be visible nearly anywhere in the room . As I uh as I said during my presentation , fifty percent uh o +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And shou and should ni look nice when you put it on a table . I I think you m might wanna put it uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: A standard or something . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah , that it it it it stands up . Yeah , you have to put it on its {disfmarker} So it's like a vase or uh something you put on a table . +Marketing: Yeah . A face ? +Project Manager: {gap} no no , {gap} put stuff inside it . But , it's like like a statue or something {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or uh yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: More like a joystick then . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I see what you mean , yep . +User Interface: It's like you have uh four phones . Something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , but you also can put it somewhere near the window in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you do that , but I don't know if that's possible within the production cost of twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: That it's it's fashionable . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} I {gap} I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I in in the base we could like make uh a button , and if you push it , the remote control itself s makes noise . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: That's probably stupid , but uh as I found here uh , fifty percent , was it fifty ? +Industrial Designer: But that's that's fun for the first time , and then the second {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh fifty percent fifty percent often loses remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , but but when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when it gets lost , how can you press the button to make it {disfmarker} +Marketing: No uh , of the base the the the the the the the thing you put it in . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +User Interface: On the television . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , that's kind of nice . +User Interface: Oh , like this . +Marketing: If an {disfmarker} a button in in that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then also you don't even need batteries , because you can make it uh chargeable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or you can {disfmarker} +User Interface: A char {vocalsound} chargeable . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , you can ma make rechargeable one , yeah . Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that w yeah , but {disfmarker} yeah , the pro No , well I think that it might be t p Well , nee but we don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Why not . +Project Manager: Maybe you , but {vocalsound} we don't know much about production cost , but when you {disfmarker} you can imagine that when you spend twenty five Euros on a remote control and it's a basic remote control , then the then the money {disfmarker} there must be money to spend on that kind of st you know , {gap} rechargeable units . +Industrial Designer: With recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It should only cost twelve and a half Euros , of course . Aye ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but we would d ma we'd do it in Taiwan and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , it's not gonna be that expen +User Interface: Production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I I think it's a great idea . +User Interface: It should be possible . I think it's a good idea . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: S some kind of be I've never seen that before , and you make it uh um be uh , you see it with uh the mo the mouses nowadays . +User Interface: To make a base or something ? +Marketing: Yes . Yes , definitely . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but is that handy ? +Project Manager: Well , I {disfmarker} well it's really ch you can recharge it , so you ha never have the battery problem . That's one {gap} . +User Interface: It's it's it's it's +Project Manager: And uh you can always find your remote control up {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not the purpose to be handy , it's +Industrial Designer: But but remote controls remote controls nowadays can can last uh two years , three years , with with t two batteries . +Project Manager: Uh , okay . Well , maybe yeah , you could {disfmarker} when that's {disfmarker} when it's too costly , you could probably skip the recharger , +Industrial Designer: And then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you will {disfmarker} you do need uh also an {disfmarker} uh , also you would need a battery in the the base unit as well , you know . Does it makes it kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well y you you could connect that to two hundred to twenty volts , of course . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , but that's not {disfmarker} it's ugly , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , but then it's very easy to make it also a rechargeab I don't think that is gonna cost much to make it also a recharge function in it . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: On the other hand , if you don't do it , we can also make a nice bay . I mean , it looks trendy and still {vocalsound} still put a bleep function in it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: but um I think the bay is definitely uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's a good idea . And make it , you know , we we um {disfmarker} Well , we uh {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it isn't a t a most uh costly uh remote control . We can save on the on the functions . We just {vocalsound} put some simple button in , make it big and sturdy , nothing more , and just make s sure there's some noise that it can make , or probably some kind of cheap light thing around it or that it uh that it lights up , +Marketing: Sure , why not . Yep . +Project Manager: it's also nice . And if you put it away , I think it's uh w we have to {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's not a easy market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have to something special . And for twenty five Euros people want something remote c special from your mote control , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: True . +Project Manager: and we can't deliver that in r with uh regards to the functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: because we aren't gonna put {disfmarker} +Marketing: With eye candy , ear candy , whatever . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . And then uh when make it , you know , nice looking shape and this {gap} {disfmarker} and then you also you got the stand-up thing . Yeah . I think I think it's a good idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it must be must be a gadget to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , if it {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} well , we will see what's possible concerning the the costs , and if it's possible we'll do that . And we even try to save up on other stuff to make sure we can do such a thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the first thing we {disfmarker} the most likeable thing to to n to skip is then probably the recharge function or something . If that's too expensive , we won't do that . +User Interface: Yeah , we c +Project Manager: But it would be nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It would be nice , yes . +Project Manager: It's the idea . I know that batteries last long nowadays . And and what people just think about , well , I'll never have to buy any r batteries again , so y b because it's very annoying when your battery is empty . And you know then when you haven't batteries around , and probably for two weeks , your remo {gap} {disfmarker} I've experienced that that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Most televisions break down before the battery pack is empty , so {vocalsound} yes . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . So , easy functions . Well , we will we will {disfmarker} I think we'll work that out , zapping , numbers on it , bi +User Interface: Or just give a beep when the battery's out or uh down . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's also annoying . +Marketing: Yeah , why not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} 'cause as long as it stays {disfmarker} as it ke keeps working , you're not very motivated to do something about it . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} true . +Project Manager: Then it beeps all the time and {gap} . +Marketing: No , that's true . +Project Manager: You don't want to have {disfmarker} ever have those problems , and you won't have if if you have the rechargeable {gap} . And you don't have to use the unit , you can also put it on the side if people don't like it . Uh , i i in the in the ma +Marketing: Why not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you pay for it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it w I mean , if if they pay for it because they think , oh , that's a great idea , I'm gonna use it . And when it , you know , when time goes by and they think , well , I'll never put him in the recharger , I think last long enough , then they put it on side and they can use it now and then . Then when they look {disfmarker} get m I I I know for sure that everybody who buys this remote control , within a couple of months of {disfmarker} they will be in the situation that they they're seeking for the remote control , they wanna see something quick and uh just push the button and th uh , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it's brilliant . +Marketing: Bleep bleep bleep , oh there it is , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've never {disfmarker} it's so simple , but I've never seen it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: M maybe we should really {vocalsound} do this . +User Interface: And you can leave it just there . +Marketing: No . Nearly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay now , well , how much time have we got left ? These clocks aren't uh synched . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , now I've put uh {disfmarker} well , {gap} it is twenty p +User Interface: Yeah , I'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so we have ten minutes or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're uh we're done . I think . +User Interface: Uh fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: We've decided on the functions . Well , there is some {disfmarker} oh . There is a closing sheet . We have lunch break , and then we have thirty minutes of individual work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh {vocalsound} okay , I'll make sure {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} I had some problems with uh the digitising the the first minutes , the the s the next minutes won't be a problem , but I'll try to make sure the first one will be in the folder too , but maybe it won't work , but you'll see . I think these are more important than the first ones , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Can you make an uh uh a part of f folder for the minutes maybe ? +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: That not not everything in one one uh folder . +Marketing: Maarten , five minutes . +Project Manager: Oh , five minutes . Yeah , because uh I I d I did uh {disfmarker} the first minutes I did were were were a bit scratchy , you know . Then I did a s second one with a nicer layout , which I could uh , know , use for the other ones {gap} well , but uh I d think uh I forgot to do {disfmarker} put done under the first one , and when you go write a second uh it's get {disfmarker} it's not working {vocalsound} when you try to write second uh paper or something . +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe . +Marketing: No , that's true uh , yeah . +Project Manager: And then you {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you had to overwrite it or someth I don't know . Becau I d uh , it was not my uh pen . +Marketing: Should we by the way draw um +Project Manager: {gap} this kind of looks you like . +Marketing: on our nice whiteboard , um a little uh idea of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of the shape . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , probably , it would be nice . +User Interface: Or the sh +Marketing: I dunno . Has anyone got um {vocalsound} a little bit detailed ideas about the shape ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you get an idea of the shape ? +Marketing: I don't , for one . +Industrial Designer: Maybe like this pen . +Marketing: A bit bigger I guess , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , bigger . +User Interface: A little bit bigger , yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The shape is nice , it's um something different , and we want we want that . +Industrial Designer: It has to feel nice in your hand . +Project Manager: Well , I I {vocalsound} I have to say , I have this uh can opening remote control in my head most of all , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or I think some {disfmarker} maybe we should {disfmarker} no , that will be too costly . +User Interface: Oh , uh look {disfmarker} uh look at the pictures . +Project Manager: We shou we could also , that was a {disfmarker} would also be an idea , but I don't think it {disfmarker} I don't know if it exists already , you should like make Alessi or something design it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: That would also be nice . But that's gonna {disfmarker} then you c then you don't +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} twelve and a half Euros ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you don't have t yeah it {disfmarker} that's not something i that's in the production cost {disfmarker} {gap} a one {disfmarker} it's a one time , you know {disfmarker} s was {disfmarker} it's a single cost . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , m but but then you can {disfmarker} nah , I don't thin I think that it would be more expensive , because I've bought the Alessi stuff more often and even small pencil holders or something are more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Would be a nice idea though . I don't know . I think it uh has to be a r {gap} it has to have round forms or something . Like something like that or so or so +Marketing: Something like that is very ergonomic . +Project Manager: And on th and then uh s a base unit underneath it . It's also round . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Put it in there uh {gap} wire on it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe uh , I don't know , some some lights , a big but well . {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , flash lights at the side . At the side , or something like that . +Project Manager: Volume and programme , yeah . +Marketing: Yes , volume and programme should be there I guess , because you hands wi uh y your hands will be in the smaller part . +Project Manager: And some of the extra funct Some of the extra functions over here . Numbers . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and the numbers on top , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And and lights ? How we're g well , maybe uh s a ring of {disfmarker} no , no , you have to {gap} {disfmarker} Maybe on the side of it . +Marketing: Maybe ro roun rounds +User Interface: Yeah , side of it . +Marketing: uh uh l sorry . +Project Manager: Along the side uh strip of {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Just two LEDs or something on the side . Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe lights also around the volume and the p the plus minus programme buttons . {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I also meant the the blinking li w you know , the ones that also blink when you try to uh uh locate your remote . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , theys have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , uh probably at the side . You know look at the front , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Exactly . When you you see it from the side , then it would look just {gap} like that . And then you have a strip of uh lights or something +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , and then there is {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah , something like that , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Well , uh I think it's nice , for one thing . {gap} maybe put something on top of it {vocalsound} or , you know , like that's {disfmarker} looks funny . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know . Or some bump . +Marketing: I think I think that'll be too big tha too big then . +Project Manager: Maybe some {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Bumper or something . +Project Manager: We'll have to think about it . I think we're we're done . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , we are . +Project Manager: We can save this one . +User Interface: Lunch break . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Yes , I guess it's lunch time . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: Mm mm . {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Half and hour ? +User Interface: Okay , five {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought our next uh next individual round was half an hour . +Project Manager: Yeah , that was what uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know about the lunch break . +Project Manager: Mm , we'll hear about it . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh {gap} . {gap} . {vocalsound} +","In a collaborative meeting environment, a diverse team composed of a User Interface Expert, an Industrial Designer, a Marketing Expert, and a Project Manager has come together to hash out the specific parameters for a functional design meeting. The discussion revolves around the design of a new remote control intended for the market. + +Initially, the team faces technical glitches, including a malfunctioning mouse and display screen issues, as they prepare for the presentations. The Project Manager attempts to direct the meeting by reviewing the agenda, highlighting the necessity to decide on remote control functions and address new projects requirements within a tight forty minutes timeframe. + +The Industrial Designer presents the remote's technical aspects, underscoring the utilization of cost-effective, widely available technology, such as infrared signals and basic materials like fiberglass, copper wires, diodes, batteries, and LEDs. He implies that the simplicity of their remote control's technology will ensure affordability and wide market appeal. + +The User Interface Expert advocates for a design that suits both expert and novice users, emphasizing consideration for user requirements while constructing the remote's interface. Accordingly, basic functionality such as channel selection, volume adjustment, and an intuitive on/off switch is deemed essential, while additional features will hinge on user demand and market trends. + +The Marketing Expert delivers insights from market research, highlighting that a large segment of the customer base finds current remote controls unattractive and overly complex, suggesting a potential opportunity for a trendy design with grouped features enhancing usability. Interestingly, he reveals that while elderly customers prioritize practicality over advanced features, they are willing to pay more for a remote, thereby guiding the design focus toward the preferences of older demographics despite the aim to attract a younger market. + +As new project requirements are brought to light, the team realizes the importance of narrowing the remote's function solely to television operation to simplify the project and expedite time to market. New targeted customer demographics, corporate image, and cost constraints lead to intriguing product feature considerations like a base unit that could serve as a charging station or object locator. + +Throughout the meeting, the Project Manager encourages a balanced approach, with the necessity to satisfy a younger target market without alienating the existing customer base. They debate the viability of incorporating auxiliary features like DVD or VCR controls while ultimately adhering to the shifted focus on television-specific functions due to new project directives. + +Brainstorming ensues on possible unique selling points and aesthetical enhancements to create a trendy product that stands out, potentially even featuring brand slogans and colorways for a distinctive corporate identity. Ideas such as replaceable fronts, rechargeability, and audibly findable remotes float around, alongside considerations for striking design and durability that could make it more than just a utility device, but also a fashionable home accessory. + +The diverse opinions and expertise within the team provide a rich dialogue as they navigate the conflicting requirements to design a universally appealing remote control. The meeting closes with a schematic representation of the proposed remote, featuring ergonomic shapes, conveniently placed function buttons, and niche, creative features that differentiate it from the market's current offerings. With challenges and potential solutions presented, the team adjourns for lunch, anticipating the individual work ahead." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): Honourable members, I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 15thmeeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Members will be participating via video conference or in person. I will remind you that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connecting by video conference. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up here on either side of the Speaker's chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining by video conference, I'd like to remind you to leave your microphones on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you need to be on the English channel for interpretation, and if you want to speak French, you should do so on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, please change to the channel for the language that you happen to be using at the time. Should members participating by video conference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will now proceed to ministerial announcements. I invite the Right Hon. Prime Minister to take the floor. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I rise today to address what so many people of colour live with every day. Over the past few days, we've seen horrific reports of police violence against black men and women south of the border, but these are not isolated incidents or elsewhere problems. Prejudice, discrimination and violence are a lived reality for far too many people. They are a result of systems that far too often condone, normalize, perpetrate and perpetuate inequality and injustice against people of colour. As a country, we are not concerned bystanders simply watching what is happening next door. We are part of it. The calls for justice, for equality and for peace are found echoed in our communities, because anti-black racism is happening here, everywhere in Canada, every single day. This is something that our own staff, cabinet ministers and colleagues face even in these halls. Over the past few days, I've heard many of these personal stories directly from them. I'm not just talking about acts of violence. I'm also talking about microaggressions, which many of us may not even see. That is the daily reality of far too many racialized Canadians, and it needs to stop. When it comes to being an ally, I have made serious mistakes in the past, mistakes that I deeply regret and continue to learn from. I want to thank my colleagues, community leaders and fellow Canadians for opening my eyes to what is really going on in our communities and for helping me better understand both privilege and power. I'm not perfect, but not being perfect is not a free pass to not do the right thing. It's not an excuse to not step up, stand up for each other, be an ally. I know that for so many people listening right now, the last thing you want to hear is another speech on racism from a white politician. I'm not here today to describe a reality I do not know or to speak to a pain I have not felt. I'm here because I want you to know that our government is listening. We hear your calls for justice, equality and accountability. We acknowledge your frustration, your anger, your heartbreak. We see you. Since coming to office, our government has taken many concrete steps to fight anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and injustice across the country. We are working directly with the communities and their leaders to close the gaps that persist in Canada. For example, we have provided $9million to support programs for black Canadian youth. We have made significant investments to enable the Public Health Agency of Canada to provide more mental health services to people who have experienced racism or intergenerational trauma. We are helping community organizations to obtain funding to purchase equipment or lease space. We have also created the anti-racism secretariat, which has an envelope of $4.6million, to address systemic barriers, such as employment, justice and social participation, that perpetuate injustice. We have made progress, but we know the work is far from being done. Over the past five years, our government has worked with communities to recognize and address injustices. We've taken action to support community organizations, invest in better data and fight racism. While we've made some progress, there is still so much more to do, because here are the facts in Canada: Anti-black racism is real. Unconscious bias is real. Systemic discrimination is real. For millions of Canadians, it is their daily, lived reality. The pain and damage it causes are real too. Mr. Chair, every Canadian who has felt the weight of oppression, every student who has the courage to demand a better future, every person who marches and posts and reads and fights, from Vancouver to Montreal to Halifax, expects more than the status quo. They expect more and deserve better. The Government of Canada has a lot of work to do, but we're ready. We're ready to work with our opposition colleagues, community leaders and Canadians to make our country a more just and fair place. Racism never has a place in this country, and we will do everything we can to eradicate it from coast to coast to coast. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Over the past week, we have all been affected by the heartbreaking killing of George Floyd in the United States. The video is painful to watch. No one should ever have to plead for help while a crime is being committed, ignored by other members of law enforcement. The tragedy triggered marches, occupations, protests and, unfortunately, riots. However, I hope it has mostly sparked conversations. Racism is real, painful and unacceptable. No one should ever feel unsafe because of the colour of their skin, especially around police officers who have a duty and a responsibility to uphold the law for all. Here in Canada, we are fortunate to live in a country that is welcoming, tolerant and inclusive. Canada was a beacon of freedom to so many escaping slavery during the U.S. Civil War. Our nation has benefited immensely from great Canadians who overcame prejudices and discrimination to serve their communities and make Canada a better country: Lincoln Alexander, elected as a Conservative in 1968, was the first black member of Parliament and went on to become the first black cabinet minister; John Ware was born into slavery in South Carolina but, following the American Civil War, was a leading figure in bringing the first cattle to Alberta and spearheading the ranching industry that would become the backbone of the province; Josiah Henson escaped slavery to become a thriving businessman in Ontario; and of course, Viola Desmond challenged segregation in Nova Scotia. Black Canadians throughout history have not just built this nation with their contributions; they have also represented Canada with excellence and pride on the world stage, like Harry Jerome, who represented Canada in three Olympic Games and won a bronze medal in 1964. He would go on to become a teacher in British Columbia, once again serving with excellence to try to make a better world for the next generation. Throughout our history, black Canadians have put their lives on the line for their fellow Canadians, bravely serving around the world in our armed forces. While there are many things we can point to in our history with pride, that is not to say that we have a perfect record, nor that we are immune to the threat of racism or that anti-black racism is just an American problem. Canada has had its own dark episodes of racism that cannot be ignoredsadly, not just in our past. Every day, there are people who experience discrimination or racism in some form. Throughout this pandemic, we have seen a troubling spike in anti-Asian racism. No one should be attacked in their community or targeted on the bus because of the colour of their skin. Nor should places of worship be broken into and desecrated, like the synagogue in Montreal. The Conservatives condemn all acts of anti-semitism, racism and discrimination. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism or extremism of any kind. But the violence and destruction we have seen in response are not the answer. Millions of people are protesting peacefully across the United States and in Canada, and we must always protect the rights of people who are protesting peacefully and within the law for a just cause and separate them from those who exploit tragedies to commit acts of violence. Mr. Floyd's brother, Terrence, said that violence will not bring his brother back. Instead, he has called for peace and justice and urged the crowds to educate themselves and to vote. Out of such tragedy, Mr. Chair, that is a powerful message about how each one of us can use our democratic rights to effect change. In a peaceful and free country like Canada, there is absolutely no room for intolerance, racism and extremism of any kind. We are not born believing we are better than one another. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, and because of that, we are all equal. An infinite value exists in each one of us. Canada is an incredibly diverse country. Canada is a nation of immigrants that stands on the traditional territories of first nations, Inuit and Mtis people. Waves of newcomers have come to Canada for a better life because our country is built on a rock-solid foundation of enduring values, democratic institutions, the rule of law and fundamental and universal human rights. Everyone comes here because Canada is built on solid values, democratic institutions, and respect for the rule of law, as well as for fundamental, universal human rights. We must absolutely protect these values, because they are what sets us apart. They allow Canada to offer what so many other countries simply cannot. There are those who say that diversity is our strength, and that is true, but it doesn't quite capture the full picture. Diversity is the result of our strength, and our strength is and always has been our freedom. It is the freedom for people to preserve and pass on their cultural traditions and the opportunity to live in peace with those around them; the freedom to live your life with equality under the law, regardless of your race or ethnic background; and the economic freedom that so many governments around the world deny their people. It is that economic freedom that ensures that hard work pays off. It gives people the ability to work towards their dreams and choose their own path in life. Together, generations of Canadians who trace their roots back to countries around the world have built Canada to truly the greatest country on earth, the true north strong and free. To ensure that our people remain free, we must continue to fight attacks on our freedoms, including racism and all forms of brutality and injustice in Canada and around the world. Minority rights must be protected. Freedom of religion must be protected. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest must be protected. As John Diefenbaker said, I am a Canadian...free to speak without fear, free to worship...in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeloeilChambly. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. At a time of crisis when outrage is overwhelming the caution and fear of disease among thousands of people who, despite everything, take to the streets to express that outrage, we here in politics will have to be careful, once again, about the words we use. Indeed we are particularly inclined to give other people's words a meaning other than the one they would have liked to give them. Today, our dutyand I would say almost our only dutyis to express our solidarity, our sadness, our indignation and our anger, but above alland in saying this, I'm thinking of all my friends and acquaintances in the wonderful black community in Quebec and the UnitedStatesour friendship. We must try to be heard by all humans. Every time we talk about this, a small part of me surfaces, that of the non-practising but unrepentant anthropologist who wants to remind us that races do not exist. It is the frequency of manifestations of certain genetic traits favoured by geography and history, which in turn shape cultures. Racism expresses itself first and foremost through aggression against what is presumed to be the culture of others, difference. Each time difference instills fear, it is, of course, one time too many. We must learn to live equality in diversity, in itself an extraordinary thing. Governments in the U.S. have all been racist. Their racism has necessarily been expressed, at some point in their history, in their institutions. It has left its mark. It is the only thing that we have the right to call systemic racism or systemic discrimination. I am concerned when anyone suggests that we are all and collectively inclined to engage in systemic discrimination or when anyone claims to be a bulwark of virtue between us and the victims. I believe that the Canadian government is not racist, that the Quebec government is not racist, and that the governments of our municipalities are not racist either. I believe, however, that there may be traces of horrible things left in our institutions that colour our relationships with people of different origins or with people who were here long before us. So systemic racism probably exists. It should not denounce individuals, but it should encourage us to reread our rules to get rid of what might still be discriminatory in them. This day belongs to GeorgeFloyd. This day belongs to the black people of the UnitedStates. This day belongs to the black people of Quebec and Canada. We don't play politics at the funeral doors: we gather our thoughts, and let indignation and sadness be expressed. We leave the streets to those who need to speak with one voice, in peace. All that is peaceful is legitimate. Nothing that is violent is legitimate. The Prime Minister expressed the desire to implement concrete measures to fight racism. The first must be to show our solidarity and friendship. I'm proposing a very concrete measure, which is to give priority and expedited processing to the files of refugee claimantsespecially Haitian, especially black, but also of other originswho have expressed their desire to be part of the Quebec nation by putting themselves on the front line. He has the power and the duty to do so, and if he needs Parliament, let's do it tomorrow or right now. That way, words will become actions, and the next step will be all the more credible. In the meantime, our duty is to stand up for those who are afraid and against those who frighten them. Thank you, Mr.Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for Burnaby South. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Many, many Canadians were shocked to see the violence surrounding the murder of GeorgeFloyd. GeorgeFloyd's murder is a grim reminder that anti-black racism still exists and that it hits hard. Anti-black racism isn't only in the UnitedStates; it's here in Canada, too. Systemic racism against blacks, indigenous people and many other visible minorities is alive and well: racial profiling, economic inequality, social inequality, discriminatory hiring, trivialization of violence, excess incarceration, and so on. Things aren't moving forward because one government after another prefers pretty words to concrete action. When the time comes to act, they don't have the courage, they don't have the will to act. People are feeling a lot of grief and frustration, but we can turn that into action and justice. We must not just call for peace. I believe that we have to call for justice. Justice is the only way to create a better world. When people around the world saw the killing of George Floyd, it left all of us shaken to our core. It was chilling, the casual violence of anti-black racism, the callous taking of another human being's life. It hurt to the core. There was pain. There was sadness. There is anger, and rightly so. There is frustration. This isn't just an American problem. This is just as much a Canadian problem as well, and something that continues to exist across our country. Anti-black racism and anti-indigenous racism are real. People have suffered violence. Indigenous people and black people have suffered violence and have been killed at the hands of police here in Canada. I think about Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and the calls for justice for Regis. A black trans woman was killed in suspicious circumstances in an interaction with the police. I think about Stewart Kevin Andrews, a young indigenous man killed in an interaction with the police in Winnipeg. The anger and frustration are about this: How many more people need to die before there's action? How many more speeches will be made? How many more protests need to happen before something is done? How many more times will people plead to breathe? How many more times will they plead to live? What we're talking about is basic human dignity. How many more voices have to ask, demand, plead, beg for basic human dignity? People are angry. They're feeling like enough is enough. Why do they need to keep on asking? Why do black people, why do indigenous people need to keep on asking to be treated like humans? Why? You know, people are done with pretty speeches, particularly pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now if they wanted to. I'm standing in a hall of power, the chamber of the Commons, with a Prime Minister who has the power not just to say pretty words but to actually do something about this. The Prime Minister of this country has the power to go beyond pretty words and pretty speeches and do something. I don't have all the answers. I don't think any one person does. We're going to have to come up with those solutions together, but there are certainly some things we do know. Martin Luther King said, True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. That's what we need. We need justice. Killer Mike extolled that people should plan, plot, strategize, organize and then mobilize. Cardi B put it this way: Another way for the people to take powerI don't want to make everything political but it is what it isis by voting. So what do we vote for? We vote for a government to take action. I call on the Prime Minister, in this hall of power: If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending racial profiling in our country? If the Prime Minister believes that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-policing of black bodies? If the Prime Minister believes, truly believes, that black lives matter, will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration of black people in this country? If the Prime Minister truly believes that black lives matter, will he commit to ensuring that there are race-based data to make better decisions? Will he commit to ensuring that there's access to education and to health resources? The Prime Minister has the power to do all these things right now. The Prime Minister simply needs to get it done. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, then similarly the Prime Minister must commit today to ending the racial profiling of indigenous people, the over-policing of indigenous people and the over-incarceration of indigenous people. If the Prime Minister truly believes that indigenous lives matter, the Prime Minister could stop taking indigenous kids to court; the Prime Minister could stop delaying the action on the calls for justice for the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. If the Prime Minister believes that indigenous lives matter, he could ensure that there's clean drinking water and access to justice and to education and housing right now. People are angry because they are frustrated and done with pretty words. People are angry because they're done with pretty speeches from people in power who could do something about it right now. People don't want peace. They don't want an absence of tension. People want the presence of justice. People want justice. People deserve justice. People need justice, and justice is what people will get. Nothing less will do. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for SaanichGulf Islands +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is indeed a difficult day. It's a difficult week. These have been difficult weeks. I stand here and want to begin by acknowledging that we are all on the traditional territory of the Algonquin peoples, and again to say meegwetch, on a day like this when we're focusing on something so painful that really is beyond partisanship and that should bind us together as people who say we cannot tolerate racism, not in this country. But we know it's here. As the Prime Minister just said, Racism never has a place in this country. But we know it's here and we know it's living with us. We are facing, in this pandemic, two dangerous, invisible viruses. One is COVID-19 and the other one we've tolerated far too long, which is race-based hatred, hate speech and anti-black racism. Yes, black lives matter. I want to do nothing but just chant it in this place until we all stand together and say, Black lives matter. What we are seeing in the murder of George Floyd is exactly as my colleague from the Bloc Qubcois said: George Floyd is not a victim of racism; he is another victim of racism. There is victim upon victim upon victim. These victims have names. We must not forget their names. The first time a black man was killed when his last words were I can't breathe was in 2014, with Eric Garner. His mother did interviews this week. Imagine what she's going through, because George Floyd died on video also saying, I can't breathe, and the people who were stopping him from breathing, his killers, are the police. In the case of Eric Garner, the policemen were fired but never charged. In George Floyd's murder, at least one killer has been charged, but it doesn't do anything to ease the pain, nor, as my friend from the NDP said, does it quench the thirst for justice, because that's what people are crying out for. They're crying out for justice. The names just keep cascading. I had to look it up because I thought, when was it that the poor young man who was jogging was murdered by the father and son in the pickup truck? He was murdered by a retired policeman and his son in their pickup truck, in February. Breonna Taylor of Louisville was murdered in her own home by cops who thought she might have drugs there. They searched, and she didn't. What on earth allows this to keep happening over and over again? I looked at a site called Just Security and I thought these words from reporter Mia Bloom, who happens to be Canadian, were pretty clear on what puts you at risk of death in the United States of America, but also in Canada: driving while black, jogging while black, reporting while black, bird watching while black, selling lemonade while black can get you killed. The killers far too often are wearing a uniform. I want to go back to the words reporting while black, because this is something else we've seen in the last four days that we've never seen before, which is the deliberate targeting of reporters by police. Over 100 reporters have been injured in the United States in the last four days. One woman lost her eye. These are serious injuries. Sometimes reporters get in the way of riots and whatnot, but this is different. This is another element altogether. It seems that, in this place, when we have speeches and pretty words to denounce racism, we do it in a kind of cycle. After Colten Boushie's murder, we talked about anti-indigenous racism. We talked about the threat to our indigenous brothers and sisters across this country who also face racism on a daily basis. We talked about the fact that they are disproportionately in our prisons. Just within the last day, the report came down on the killing of Dale Culver in Prince George at the hands of the Prince George RCMP. This indigenous young man was 35 years old, and he was pepper-sprayed until he couldn't breathe. There will be charges in this case. That's the recommendation that just came down. We go through sequential moments where we can say Islamophobia is not okay. Six Muslims at prayer in Quebec City were murdered. We can all stand up and say we denounce Islamophobia. Or we can denounce anti-trans violence against individual trans people who are murdered. We denounce anti-Semitism when we see anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on the door of an Ottawa rabbi's home. We denounce it, but can we get to the root of it? As the honourable leader of the Conservative Party mentioned, in recent days we're seeing anti-Asian racism on the increase. We're seeing all this happen and we want to be good allies. We want to be a good ally to the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. We want to be a good ally. I am a woman of privilege. I got it by mere random accident of birth. I was born to white parents. Privilege is being white. We have to study our privilege. We have to acknowledge our privilege and we have to know, as the Prime Minister said, we're not perfect, but it doesn't give us a free pass to ignore that we have to stand up and we have to speak out. I am sitting so close to my friend here, our minister, Ahmed HussenI say your name out loud, but your tweets brought me to tearsthat this fine man faces racism in his own riding, that his three beautiful black boys have people turn away or clutch their purse or they're a little worried when the kids are around. It sounds exactly like what the Prime Minister just called the microaggressions that many of us might not even see. We can look at our own conduct and our own behaviour. In looking at these things, there is something I want to say, when we look at all these things that are happening and we wonder, what we can do about it. When we see a bully, when we hear hate speech, we have to speak up. We have to speak out and we have to say that the President of the United States is fomenting hatred and violence and it's shameful and shocking that he would grab a Bible, then use tear gas to clear peaceful protestors on a Washington street so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of an Episcopal church. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington had this to say, because she is a good ally: In no way do we support the President's incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation. In faithfulness to our Saviour who lived a life of non-violence and sacrificial love, we align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd. That's what we must do in this place. We must acknowledge and speak up for justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, the report on which languishes a year later. We must stand up for justice and we must examine something very worrying. In 2006, the U.S. FBI warned that white supremacist groups were targeting police forces and joining them. If we're looking for real action, things we can do in this place, I call on us to have an inquiry and an examination to root out white supremacist groups in Canada and identify them for what they are, a terrorist threat in our midst. We must make sure they're not in our police forces, because if there is one thing scarier than a white supremacist with a gun, it's a white supremacist with a gun in uniform. Please, God, there are things we can do. Please, God, we love each other, take care of each other regardless of the colour of our skin, and pray for the United States of America. It's a country being ripped apart, and the ripping and the tearing is being done by people who should at this very time be consoling and leading and inspiring. Pray. Pray for Canada. Pray for each and every one of our beautiful black baby girls and boys, the indigenous baby girls and boys, the Asian kids. Wherever you look, reach out and be a good ally. Stand up and say, With my body I get between you and the cops. We have to be good allies. Right now, they're just pretty words. Thank you for listening. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I'd like to remind honourable members that any petition presented during the meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, it's difficult to follow that set of speeches. I have a petition on a serious issue dealing with plastic pollution. It creates a major impact on aquatic life but also on human health. It's estimated that 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles are ingested per person every year. A recent study shows that each washing cycle 120,000 to 730,000 microfibres are shed from clothes and go directly into waste water. Many of these microfibres are synthetic and therefore are microplastics. Washing machine discharge filters are currently available on the market and greatly reduce the amount of microfibres being released into waste water and thus the environment. This petition is calling on the government to legislate the requirement for all new washing machines to have discharge filters as of 2021 and to provide incentives to all residents of Canada to install discharge filters on current washing machines. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for Peace RiverWestlock. +Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace RiverWestlock, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise to table a petition signed by Canadians who are concerned about Bill C-7. Given what we've seen in assisted living homes in this country and the devastation particularly in Ontario and Quebec, the petitioners are asking for the government to look into assisted living, not assisted dying. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Presenting petitions, the hon. member for SaanichGulf Islands. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise to present a petition today from a number of constituents calling for the government to act to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action. There is a call to respect the Wet'suwet'en territory and to dismantle RCMP exclusion zones. This petition came some time ago. Some of these issues have been dealt with. I am particularly pleased to note that the nation-to-nation talks called for by petitioners between the Wet'suwet'en and the federal and provincial governments have taken place. I will take this moment if I may to thank the honourable ministers involved in that effort. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That will conclude the presenting of petitions. I would ask members who have presented petitions here in person in the House if they would be so kind as to bring their petitions to the table. That would be most appreciated. We'll now go to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would remind members to do their best to keep their member statement to a maximum of one minute. We'll start statements by members with Mr. Weiler, the member for West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country. +Mr. Patrick Weiler (West VancouverSunshine CoastSea to Sky Country, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I continue to be amazed by how the communities throughout my riding have stepped up to support our most vulnerable at our time of crisis. In many ways it has brought our communities closer together even while we stay physically distant. Nowhere is this more true than on the Sunshine Coast. Dedicated individuals immediately and organically mobilized the Sunshine Coast community task force to coordinate local government, non-profit and business efforts to provide critical services to the community. Social enterprises banded together to form the Sunshine Coast food service response, which provides ready-made meals and donates to food banks. Persephone Brewing and others deliver groceries to at-risk customers both on the coast and on isolated islands. The 101 Brewhouse + Distillery and Bruinwood Distillery quickly retooled their business to supply much-needed hand sanitizer to local hospitals and other front-line workers. COVID-19, like all crises, has highlighted true leadership in our society, and I am grateful for what they and all of our health care workers do every day to get us through this. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Medicine HatCardstonWarner, Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz (Medicine HatCardstonWarner, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have shown they're unwilling to put the protection and safety of Canadians ahead of political interests. They themselves are the greatest source of disinformation in this country. The Prime Minister told Canadians that they can buy a gun without a licence. Either purposely or because of ignorance, he left out the fact that doing so is a criminal offence with a five-year prison sentence. The Minister of Public Safety said he wouldn't target hunters, but then he went ahead and banned numerous bolt-action hunting rifles and made owning a shotgun a criminal offence. They have weakened the ability to protect our borders. They have ignored our rampant drug crisis, and they have weakened sentences for serious crimes, all while saying they take these issues very seriously. Today they tell us they are banning a new Liberal-invented type of firearm, a military-style assault rifle. It's time to be honest with Canadians. The Liberals would rather make people afraid of hunters, farmers and sport shooters than deal with the real issues like drugs, gangs, illegal smuggling and crime. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Sgro, the hon. member for Humber RiverBlack Creek. +Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber RiverBlack Creek, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is in our most difficult moments when we truly see stunning displays of human spirit and generosity. On that note, today I wish to recognize the work of the Humber River Hospital in my riding of Humber RiverBlack Creek and to congratulate them on the success of their Humber front-line support fund and PPE drive. Not only have they been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic keeping our residents safe and healthy, but thanks to the generosity of those both in my riding and beyond, the Humber River Hospital has raised over $1 million and received over 400,000 pieces of personal protective equipment. This will be invaluable to the hospital as they continue to work with us and fight the good fight to keep us all healthy. I thank all those brave workers at the hospital, and I thank those generous individuals who have donated to this important cause. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the hon. member for AbitibiTmiscamingue, Mr.Lemire, to take the floor. +Mr. Sbastien Lemire (AbitibiTmiscamingue, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am honoured to speak to you about a proud warrior. StephanLavoie had made the choice to say thank you to life. For several years, he had been using his fight against cancer, which he led with the help of natural products only, to ensure cancer services and care were improved, particularly in regions far from major centres. Mayor of Preissac, in the RCM of Abitibi, StephanLavoie passed away yesterday. I would like to extend my condolences to his wife, Anabelle, to his entire family and especially to his daughter, Astrid, who is only 20months old. Through his humanism, StephanLavoie was a warrior, a visionary and a great source of inspiration for all of us. To me, he was above all the perfect model of a committed and loving father. My thoughts also go out to the citizens of Preissac, to whom he leaves a dynamic legacy, and to the leaders of the Abitibi community. In our first conversation, he said to me, and I hope the House will echo it forever, that all of our decisions must be made with our children in mind. Stephan, rest in peace, dear friend. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for MontRoyal, Mr.Housefather, has the floor. +Mr. Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal, Lib.): It is with great sadness that I rise today to pay tribute to Tristan Roy, after his tragic passing exactly two weeks ago. Born in Saint-Fabien-sur-Mer, Tristan became a pillar of the MontRoyal community in1997 when he bought the old MontRoyal newspaper. When the city's oldest newspaper, the TMR Weekly Post ceased operations, Tristan registered the name and renamed his newspaper the TMR Poste de Mont-Royal. He created a truly bilingual newspaper, ensuring that TMR residents could receive their news in both French and English. His editorials and views on local issues carried enormous weight. I join Mayor Philippe Roy and the members of the town council in offering our sincere condolences to Tristan's wife, Anne-Marie, his daughter, Aril, and his son, Lancelot. We all considered Tristan to be a friend, an example of what a good journalist and editor should be and could be. He will be sorely missed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux, has the floor. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Mr.Chair, if you didn't already know, people from Beauce are proud. There is Marie-PhilipPoulin of Beauceville, who was named the best female hockey player in the world earlier this year, or AntonyAuclair of Notre-Dame-des-Pins. AntonyAuclair said, in a CBC article, that Beauce had prepared him for his arrival in the NFL. There is also GuillaumeCouture, from Sainte-Marie, who made his mother very proud, and everyone from Beauce indirectly, on the program Les Chefs again last night. It is this same pride that I see throughout the region, with companies like Revtech Systmes, in Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, or PuriHaze, in Sainte-Marie, which have invented robots to decontaminate spaces. There are also local purchasing initiatives such as the #onlaici campaign by the Nouvelle-Beauce chamber of commerce and industry or Achetons beauceron, by the Saint-Georges chamber of commerce. Today I have but two words for my constituents: thank you. I thank them for continuing to encourage local businesses that greatly need it. I thank them for being loyal to their habits and to rolling up their sleeves to help their neighbours. I thank them for being proud and being residents of Beauce. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to the member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government has shown leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that Canadians remain safe and get the financial assistance they need. Eight million Canadians are receiving the Canada emergency response benefit. The Canada emergency business account and the Canada emergency wage subsidy ensure that the economy is ready to start up post-pandemic. Seniors received top-ups to the OAS and GIS, and families, the child care benefit. All of these measures are helping thousands of seniors and low-income families in my riding of Don Valley East. The feedback from my regular virtual town halls has also helped to fine-tune many of the programs. Many Canadians have shown generosity during this crisis. I want to particularly thank Saravanaa Bhavan and Happy Pops for donating food and frozen treats to our superhero front-line workers at local hospitals. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for VaughanWoodbridge, Mr. Sorbara. +Mr. Francesco Sorbara (VaughanWoodbridge, Lib.): Mr. Chair, even though this year's festivities for Italian Heritage Month will be done differently, the same spirit and vitality exists throughout virtual events happening across the country. Virtual events have seen Italian Canadians, through their generosity, raise over $1 million to help Italy during COVID-19. Today, June 2, Italian citizens celebrate the founding of the modern day Italian Republic. The Italian Canadian story remains one of passion, an adopted homeland filled with hard work, sacrifice and optimism. Generations of Italian Canadians have contributed much to shaping the inclusive and generous Canada that we know today. Our diversity is our strength, and I'm proud to be Italian Canadian. Let's all join together in proudly celebrating Italian Heritage Month. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, as communities begin to ease restrictions, I remain mystified that, according to this government, Parliament is not an essential service. If it were up to the Prime Minister, he would not have to answer to anyone. That is not how democracy works. We in the opposition have been long calling for the return of Parliament, which would be possible while still maintaining public health guidelines. Canadians deserve to be represented in the House of Commons by the elected member of Parliament. While the work we do in our constituencies is incredibly important, it is equally important to bring those voices back to Ottawa to debate, to question and to hold the government to account. This is fundamental to the role of an elected representative. The role of the opposition is crucial now more than ever when billions of dollars are being spent with little oversight. Our role as members of Parliament is to uphold our democracy and to be present. This is the greatest pandemic in our lifetime. Now is not the time to hide behind a podium. If this government were doing the best job for Canadians, they would not need to hide. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Brampton East, Mr. Sidhu. +Mr. Maninder Sidhu (Brampton East, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to take a moment to highlight displays of generosity in my riding of Brampton East. This is just a small sample of the many individuals and organizations that have stepped up across Canada. Khalsa Aid has been providing food supplies with the help of Sperenza Banquet Hall, which has graciously provided the space to run a province-wide campaign out of Brampton East. Care4Cause has sent hundreds of prepared meals on a weekly basis to Good Shepherd Ministries to lessen their load. Navraj Brar at Pharmasave has offered free care packages to health care workers and hand sanitizer to the Peel Regional Police. Aujla Salon and Spa has partnered with GlobalMedic to help deliver over 10,000 pounds of food to local food banks. I would also like to point out the heroic efforts of our truck drivers, taxi drivers, grocery store clerks, nurses, doctors, paramedics and countless other front-line heroes. We see you and we are immensely grateful for the bravery you display each and every day. Thank you to everyone in Brampton East who has stepped up for their neighbour in their time of need. You are setting a great example of the kind of progress we can make as Canadians when we come together and support each other. I am truly honoured to represent you in Ottawa. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for WellingtonHalton Hills, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Mr. Chair, the House of Commons is shut down. Let's be clear. This is not the House of Commons. It's a committee where only statements, petitions and questions are allowed. There is no power to introduce motions, to test confidence or to vote. The government came to office promising greater democracy but they broke their promise on electoral reform. They tried to give the PMO the control over this House in motion 6, and yesterday's report confirms that they rigged the leaders debate in their favour in the last election. Now they've shuttered Parliament. Parliament sat through two world wars, the October crisis and previous pandemics and it survived the test, but not now. The people's representatives need to sit. People need their representation. Parliament and this House of Commons with its full powers needs to reopen and it needs to reopen now. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for ReginaQu'Appelle. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these past few months have been tremendously difficult for so many Canadians: sickness, losing loved ones, job losses, economic hardships, loneliness and isolation. The pandemic has taken its toll on so many. It is in these times of suffering and adversity that we have seen Canadians coming together to support each other and that brings us hope. Mosques, churches, synagogues and gurdwaras have all answered the call to help their communities. Whether it's providing meals to the hungry, clothing for the cold, or technology for those who need it most, these actions are true reflections of the kindness and generosity that Canadians are known for. While there are too many groups to mention them all, I want to thank Vikas Sharma and Care4Cause out of Brampton for the meals that they have been providing their community in that area and across the GTA. This group and thousands of others like it across the country are working tirelessly to ease the suffering of others and help those in need. Thank you, and God bless all the volunteers. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to the honourable member for Winnipeg Centre. Ms. Gazan, go ahead. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise today in honour of National Indigenous History Month to speak truth about a history of racism in Canada that was built on the wrongful dispossession of lands from indigenous people and controlled through the use of police-state violence that has resulted in a loss of life, freedom, respect and dignity. Even today we continue to observe this reality in my very own city where we witnessed the killing of three indigenous youth by police in a span of 10 days this past April. This is not a coincidence. We have statistics. We have research, and we have stories of loved ones lost. We know it, and we see it in our lives every day. We need to address police violence throughout this country. Canadians are rising from coast to coast demanding this of all of us and sending a clear message that we must address systemic racism in all of its forms to ensure justice for all. There will never be reconciliation in the absence of justice. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Mr.Chair, Canada Post is literally not delivering the goods. But the postal service is an essential service, and even more so today because everything is done online, even local shopping. The current crisis partly explains the congestion, but it is mainly due to the fact that Canada Post forgot to join the 21stcentury. It has been left behind where others have made millions of dollars. Its platform isn't effective. It's now delivering more parcels, but it's losing money. There's a statement to make here, right now. In the immediate term, Canada Post must deal with the delays, and to do so, it needs the help of the Government of Canada. Canada Post needs to hire staff. If a collective agreement had finally been signed, it would make it easier to hire staff. We have been waiting for two and a half years. A premium for essential workers might also be appropriate. As I said, the postal service is an essential service, and it's time to give it the importance this status imposes. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Calgary Centre. Mr. McLean, go ahead. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, the prospects in Canada's oil fields are bleak in the near term. Capital spending forecasts and drilling activities sank to a 49-year low. This is a result of the temporary collapse in demand for our most valuable commodity and the one that contributes the most to our GDP, our balance of trade, and whose taxes support the social programs Canadians enjoy, $108 billion in GDP, $8 billion per year in government revenues, $77 billion in trade surplus. It is a rude blow to hard-working professionals who soldier past negligent government policies that have left a stain on another generation of western Canadians. We're talking about an industry here that directly employs over 200,000, including 11,000 indigenous Canadians. We're talking about an industry that contributes 75% of Canada's investment in clean technology. However, Canada's resource industry will still be resilient. Bad policy cannot permanently erase the work, the hope and the pride of forward thinkers and doers, and their efforts to continue building a great country. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Winnipeg South. Mr. Duguid, go ahead. +Mr. Terry Duguid (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, today I want to give a special thank you to the health care workers at Victoria General Hospital, who are serving patients in our community here in Winnipeg South. Every day, doctors, nurses and staff work selflessly to take care of those in our community who need it most. Whether it's by keeping seniors connected with their families by using iPads or making sure that patients go home with a special care package, staff at the Vic are doing extraordinary work to make this difficult time just a little bit easier. I would also like to give a big shout-out to our wonderful small businesses in Winnipeg South that continue to show their appreciation by preparing meals for the hard-working staff at the Vic. Folks in our community continue to show what it means to be exemplary Canadians, and it is a great honour to represent them. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): This concludes the period for statements by members. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. The honourable Leader of the Opposition. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr.Chair, the staff of long-term care facilities for seniors are showing exceptional courage and dedication. FranoisLegault asked that the military personnel currently helping in facilities in Quebec stay until the fall. The Prime Minister said no. I'd like to hear the Prime Minister tell us why they can't stay. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, like all Canadians, I am deeply grateful for the extraordinary work that the Canadian Armed Forces are doing in long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario. Thanks to their reports, we've seen that the situation was even worse than we feared. The work our military is doing is extraordinary. We will continue to support them, but we know that having military personnel in our long-term care facilities isn't a long-term solution. Therefore, we are going to work with Quebec to find better long-term solutions. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, now that Bell Canada has decided to partner with Ericsson to deliver its 5G network, the Liberals will undoubtedly ban Huawei, but the Liberal inaction on Huawei is just another example of this government's weak leadership. Instead of deciding for himself a year ago, the Prime Minister is forcing the business community to make the decision for him. Why couldn't the Prime Minister have shown some backbone and banned Huawei a year ago? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our approach every step of the way has been to listen to experts, to work with allies and to listen to the counsel of our security and intelligence community, which has been looking into this issue. We know we need to make sure that Canadian businesses, Canadians and Canadian infrastructure are protected at the same time as we remain competitive in the world. That has guided our approach on this from the beginning. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: The fact of the matter, Mr Chair, is that it hasn't. The former public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, promised in this House over a year ago that an answer on Huawei would be coming. Here we are, it's June 2, 2020, and they still haven't made a decision. On another topic, Mr. Chair, the President of the Treasury Board wrote to cabinet last week and said that transparency is important even in a time of crisis. I guess the Minister of Infrastructure didn't get that letter. She's refusing to tell us how much of a bonus she gave to the departing head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At a time when Canadians are struggling, it is disgusting that the Liberals are paying out bonuses to someone who accomplished nothing. Will the Prime Minister have a little respect for taxpayers and tell us exactly how much of a bonus the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank received? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the mandate of the Canada Infrastructure Bank is to find innovative ways to finance some of Canada's biggest infrastructure projects by leveraging private capital. The remuneration range of the former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. The opposition is looking backward. We're moving forward. The bank is moving into its next phase of development, now under the leadership of the new board chair, Michael Sabia, and will play an important role in the recovery when the time comes. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, only to a Liberal would an innovative approach to building infrastructure mean building absolutely nothing. The CEO of an infrastructure bank who accomplished zero completed infrastructure projects should not be receiving a bonus. I didn't ask a question about the remuneration. I didn't ask a question about the salary. This individual received a bonus. How much was that bonus? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, as I said, the remuneration range of this former CEO has been in the public domain for more than two years. In regard to further payments, we do not comment on personal HR and financial information of individuals in government. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, again, I did not ask about the remuneration. I asked about the bonus. The Canada Infrastructure Bank was a Liberal scheme designed to protect the investments of private investors and put all the risk onto taxpayers. Even with that model, do you know how many projects they completed? Zero. Yet, the individual in charge of that received a bonus from the Prime Minister. Apparently, to the Liberals, he was doing a good job. They might try to claim that it's arm's length and that they can't divulge this information, but we know that Minister Champagne personally intervened in the decision regarding the bonus of the Canada Infrastructure Bank's CEO. It's a simple question. How much did that individual receive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, five years ago, when we first got elected, we had to turn around the underinvestment that Stephen Harper's Conservatives had made in infrastructure across the country. Even during the depths of the 2008 recession, the investments they made were for things like doorknobs and signs. They went into debt and didn't have anything to show for it. We're going to continue to move forward on historic investments in infrastructure to build up this country. We're using innovative means like the infrastructure bank to do that. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, well before 1867, in what became Quebec, in New Brunswick, in Acadia, in Ontario and in the west, lay the seeds of what later became the provinces of Canada and Quebec. It can therefore be inferred that Canada is a creature of the provinces and that the provinces are not creatures of Canada. Could the Prime Minister read his answer to this question: who pays for the health transfers to the provinces? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have a country with a number of levels of government working together to serve Canadians. In times of crisis, but also in good times, Canadians expect that their governments will work together to provide the services and the care that they need. That is exactly what we are doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let me remind the Prime Minister that all the provinces and Quebec are asking for increased and recurring health transfers that are unconditional and sustainable. Who pays for the all-too-meagre benefits made available to the seniors of Quebec and Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have worked with Quebec and the other provinces to make sure that we invest in health transfers. We have made transfers of $500million, that's halfabillion dollars, because of the recent COVID-19 crisis. We will continue to work with the provinces in the long term. But, for the moment, we are working on the emergency situation in which we find ourselves. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, the Conservatives have backtracked on the wage subsidy, and I congratulate them for that. Who pays for the part of the wage subsidy program that will be going into the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, since this crisis began, we have made investments to protect jobs and workers, including accountants, human resources managers and receptionists. We are in the process of ensuring that people with all kinds of jobs in all kinds of organizations will be able to keep those jobs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, it is comforting to know that they are a little richer now, but some companies are under threat because the Liberal Party is a little richer. Who is going to pay for the fact that one company has been chosen by a closed call for tender? One company has been awarded a private contract, probably a foreign multinational, probably for 2021, while we are perfectly capable of doing the work in Quebec and in Canada. Who is going to pay for this gift to a private company that will be doing the Government of Canada's work? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are in a crisis. We are in the process of helping workers and helping Canadians by means of measures like the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and with the assistance to companies, We will continue to do what we must do to help workers all across the country so that we can come out of this crisis together. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Fundamentally, my impression was that, in a crisis, civil society turns to the state to find and implement solutions. I see that, in this case, and in all its operations, the Government of Canada takes money, about 20% of which comes from Quebec, and gives it to a private company, possibly a foreign company, so that it can tell us what will happen, although the first wave will have come and gone for a year already. Is the Prime Minister telling us that he is incapable of doing his job? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, Canadians expect their government to look after their health and the health of the economy. That is exactly what we are doing. We are here for workers, we are here for families, we are here for our seniors and for our students. We will continue to be here throughout this pandemic and as the economy reopens. That is what Canadians expect of us and we will meet their expectations. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchet, you have about 40seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, as I see it, the Prime Minister is contracting out his job with taxpayers' money, a part of which is going into his party's bank account for the next election. Is that the only explanation of his role he has for the residents of Quebec, a role that is currently protected by a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all across the country, including in Quebec, people are worried about their jobs because of the crisis that the pandemic is causing. We are providing a wage subsidy to organizations and to companies to ensure that people will receive their paycheques in order to support their families and pay their rent. That is what people expected from this government as a priority. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to the honourable member for Burnaby South, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, people are fed up with pretty words from people in power. The Prime Minister has the power to do something about the anti-black racism that Canada is faced with. Will the Prime Minister end racial profiling in Canada against black people once and for all? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, this government was the first government to recognize anti-black racism, systemic discrimination and unconscious bias and to take concrete actions against them in the context of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent but also in the context of a country that stands up for human rights and protects everyone. We have made significant steps forward, but there is so much to do, and I look forward to working with all members in this House to do just that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I did not hear an answer. Will the Prime Minister end the racial profiling of black people in Canada? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our justice system unfairly targets in many situations racialized Canadians, including indigenous Canadians and black Canadians. We know we need to improve our justice system and rates of incarceration and we will work on it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister end the over-policing and over-incarceration of black and indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic discrimination means that people of colour are at greater risk of being incarcerated than others when facing negative outcomes in the justice system. We know we need to work on all the determinants of that. We will work as a country together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister make sure Canada is collecting disaggregated data on the impacts of COVID-19 on racialized people, particularly indigenous and black people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, not just on COVID-19 but on all ranges of data, we've made investments over the past years to Statistics Canada so that they are better able to collect data in a disaggregated fashion. We need to know what is happening within vulnerable communities. Disaggregated data will help, and we're working with provinces on the COVID-19 data. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: We know people are frustrated with anti-black racism. People are also incredibly frustrated with anti-indigenous racism. Will the Prime Minister commit to ending the over-incarceration, over-policing and racial profiling of indigenous people? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I referred to that in an earlier answer. Yes, we need to work to ensure that the rates of incarceration for indigenous people and for racialized Canadians are reduced. There are many measures we're working on to move forward to make our justice system fairer, to reduce systemic discrimination and eventually to eliminate it. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Here are two specific things we can do. I asked the Prime Minister if he will commit to stop taking indigenous kids to court, and if he will stop delaying the response to the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls calls for justice. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, tomorrow is the anniversary of the end of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry. We have been working over the past year with partners on the ground to formulate the measures and the response that needs to move forward. Many of those partners over the past months have been engaged in keeping their communities safe and working hard on that, and that has delayed the putting out of the report. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister stop taking indigenous kids to court when it comes to indigenous child welfare? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we agree that we need to compensate kids and indigenous peoples who have suffered harm at the hands of our child and family services over the past decades and we will do that. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Will the Prime Minister commit to not just pretty words but real action ensuring that all indigenous communities have access to clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the NDP needs to know that we have eliminated over 80 long-term boil water advisories through our work over the past years, and we are on track to eliminating all of them on time by next spring. This is something we committed to Canadians and we are doing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister needs to speak to indigenous communities who talk of a completely different reality. They do not have access to clean drinking water, and communities are going off the list only to return back on to the list of boil water advisories. Will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring all indigenous communities have clean drinking water? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, that was a commitment we made to Canadians and a commitment we are keeping. The member opposite continues to talk as if there has been no progress made. There has been significant progress made. We are on track to eliminating those boil water advisories. It would be great if the members opposite talked about some good news instead of just highlighting the very real problems that are there. There is good news and there is challenging news. We are working on those together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Mr. Chair, what share of Canada's national debt is owed to foreign lenders? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our fiscal situation in a responsible manner, and we'll continue to do that. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much does the Government of Canada owe to the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we would be happy to provide information. If the member would like to send my office questions directly, I'd be happy to provide this information. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: It turns out I did a week ago. They still haven't provided answers to the questions, in particular the question regarding who owns Canada's foreign-held debt. We know that roughly a third of our debt is owned by foreigners. How much of that debt is owned by lenders from the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we'd be happy to reply to these questions directly. We'll do so. We'll get to it in order, as we work through this crisis, making sure we focus on Canadians first. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How much is owned by lenders from Saudi Arabia? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, we'd be happy to provide information in this regard should the member wish to send a request directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Which I have. Mr. Chair, moving along to the impacts of the debt on our people, how much would a 1% increase in the effective interest rate on Canada's national debt cost Canadian taxpayers? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage our treasury function responsibly. I'd be happy to get financial calculations to the member if he'd like to send those directly to my office. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: All right, Mr. Chair, we'll try a different question, then, as we're not getting any answers. We have lower interest rates than ever before. Normally, it means you lock in those rates for the long run. Anybody who has a mortgage knows you lock in for the long run when rates are low. What percentage of Canada's national debt is locked in for more than five years? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to get this information to the member, but I would acknowledge that as we manage the treasury function for the Government of Canada, we look at the short term, the medium term and the long term. We think we have come up with a responsible approach to managing the ongoing debt that we have as a country. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, it turns out, according to Department of Finance officials, that less than 3% of Canada's recently added debt since March is for terms of more than five years. Why has this minister made Canada so susceptible to future interest rate hikes by failing to lock in the $371.5 billion of new debt he's added in the last two and a half months? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to manage the treasury function of the Government of Canada in a responsible way, making sure we consider what debt should be issued in a short term, a medium term and a long term, which we've been doing as the Government of Canada during our entire term and as previous governments have done as well. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Canadians would be wise not to hire this minister as their mortgage broker if they're looking to get the best rate. Let's move on to the Canadian household. The average household was $200 away from insolvency before this crisis began. How many Canadians would experience bankruptcy in the next 12 months if interest rates were to rise by an effective one percentage point? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again, we'd be happy to get calculations to the member. I would make the observation that what we've been working to do during the course of this pandemic is to support Canadians and support Canadian families by providing them income during a time when they don't have access to income because they're actually at home. We think that has supported them in a very, very positive way that allows us to ensure that we will have a continuing economy when we get through this crisis. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 30 seconds left, Mr. Poilievre. Go ahead. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Unfortunately, we will have a $1-trillion debt when this fiscal year comes to an end. How much will the finance minister try to raise taxes if interest rates on that debt rise by, say, 1%? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I've said to the House previously, we do not intend to raise taxes. What the member opposite is suggesting is that we shouldn't be investing to support Canadians. I think the approach we've taken, with the emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy, has been particularly critical for enabling Canadians to get through a very challenging time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The floor goes to the honourable member for Beauce, Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, my question goes to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Day after day, I speak with those involved in the world of agriculture and with witnesses appearing before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. The consensus is very clear: the business risk management programs are not working. When will the Minister become involved and make major changes to those programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, we have made commitments to producers all across the country. Some programs are already provided, including the risk management programs. I am working regularly with my colleagues in the provinces in order to improve them. We have also increased our contribution to various other programs, specifically in the meat sector, for pork or beef producers, and food processors. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, I have been hearing the same answers for several weeks now. Could the Minister simply give us a date? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I repeat that we are working regularly with producers and their representatives. In addition, I am working together with my provincial colleagues. We are going to determine where the gaps are and we will identify the sectors that most need our assistance. Then, we will determine the best way to provide them with the assistance they need. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, the government promised to set its share of the business risk management programs at 60%, even if a province or territory does not participate. Have the provinces received the money, yes or no? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Here is how it works. Through the AgriRecovery program, we have provided $50million for pork producers and $50million for beef producers. The program is available everywhere, but the provinces are responsible for implementing it. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, when will that transfer be made? Can the minister simply give us a date? That is all we are asking. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I would really like to be able to give a date, but the answer depends on each of the provinces. The provinces have to implement the program. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: However, Mr.Chair, the minister has told us that she is ready to transfer the funds, whether or not the provinces add any to the program. To date, we still have no answer in that regard. How does the Minister of Agriculture intend to make major changes to the various risk management programs by July, when the government has itself pushed back the federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Ministers of Agriculture to October? We have been meeting by Zoom for some time now. Why was that not able to be an option? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I meet with my provincial colleagues every week, either by conference call or by Zoom. I can assure my colleague about our ongoing collaboration with the provinces. As for the AgriRecovery program, once again, the provinces have to implement it and it is their choice to contribute their share of 40% or not, in whole or in part. However, our federal commitment on the 60% share is firm. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, if I understand correctly, there will be no changes to the various programs before November. The sectors of agriculture under supply management, like eggs and poultry producers in my constituency, who have been promised compensation for a long time, want to know when the money will be transferred to the producers who are working tirelessly to feed our country. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I know that poultry, egg and milk producers work extremely hard. Our commitment to them in terms of compensation in response to the three free-trade agreements is still firm. At the moment, we are concentrating on emergency programs. We will then proceed with that compensation. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, you have about 30seconds left. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Thank you, Mr.Chair. As I see it, I still have not had an answer. The country is moving towards more automation. I am thinking, for example, about the advances that many SMEs and farmers in my constituency could implement in their companies. Unfortunately, in the regions, the Internet is far from adequate. When will I be able to tell my constituents that reliable Internet service will be available in their homes? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I assure you that we recognize the importance of the Internet in rural regions. I myself represent a rural constituency and it is a challenge every day. We are working with our colleagues, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Rural Economic Development to speed up the implementation of programs along those lines. +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): We'll now proceed to Mr. Motz. +Mr. Glen Motz: Mr. Chair, for the Minister of Public Safety, Minister Blair, how many times has the list of banned firearms changed since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): My understanding is that an order in council was made on May 1, and we have not made any changes to that order in council. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. How many more firearms have been added to the original prohibited list since that date? +Hon. Bill Blair: I suspect the member may be referring to the work that the RCMP has been doing through the Canadian firearms program in order to apply the order in council that was passed. +The Chair: Before we go to Mr. Motz, I want to ask all honourable members to ensure that they are on mute. We are getting some voices in the background. Mr. Motz, please continue. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many .22 calibre rifles, firearms, are on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: To be very clear, Mr. Chair, the banned list includes a number of assault-style rifles, including the AR-15. The member may be referring to a weapon that the RCMP has identified as using an AR-15 frame, which of course +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is a wrong answer, Mr. Chair. How many shotguns are now on that banned list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That is a bit of confusion put out by the gun lobby to frighten hunters. In fact, we did not prohibit any shotguns. +Mr. Glen Motz: Again, that is another untruth, Mr. Chair. Are there any airsoft guns on the prohibited list? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's another bit of mistruth and deception put out by the gun lobby. In fact, there was a weapon called the Blackwater AR-15, which was a real gun that was prohibited, but the toy gun, the airsoft one, was not. +Mr. Glen Motz: That's untrue. I know some of those exact firearms that are on that list. Why is the RCMP continuing to add firearms to the prohibited list after the list was published? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it is a very important that the RCMP, as the agency responsible for administering the Canadian firearms program, continues to do its diligence to keep Canadians safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: Why has there been no notice given to firearms owners, retailers or the police of the many changes to the banned firearms list? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, it is very important that the Canadian firearms program and the RCMP continue to do the important work of ensuring that Canadians are kept safe. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been transferred between licensed gun owners and/or retailers since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I do not have that information and, as the member probably knows, records are not kept by the government or by law enforcement about the transfer of firearms that are not restricted. +Mr. Glen Motz: How many firearms have been retroactively changed to prohibited since May 1? Of the firearms that have been transferred, how many now are retroactively prohibited since May 1? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, on May 1, by order in council, we prohibited 1,500 somewhat different types of firearms, all based upon a military design. Those are the weapons that are prohibited. +Mr. Glen Motz: Since that time you have added almost 700 more, and none of those meet that category you are trying to establish. If a firearm that was not on the original prohibited list was transferred since May 1 and now that firearm appears on that prohibited list, are those transfers subject to a criminal prosecution? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, the member is asking me a question that is solely the responsibility of the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction, and that is their decision, not ours. +Mr. Glen Motz: The minister has said that the issuance of firearm licences and transfers was stopped recently due to a printer failure. We now know that to be completely false. There was no such failure, but an ordered shutdown. Who ordered the RCMP to withhold these services from law-abiding Canadians? +Hon. Bill Blair: I have absolutely no knowledge of the allegation the member has just made, Mr. Chair, and so I cannot really confirm or deny that it actually ever happened. +Mr. Glen Motz: Maybe the minister needs to check with his officials and find out who actually did the ordering. What does the minister believe to be the estimated cost of the firearms confiscation plan? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, there was no firearms confiscation plan. We will, however, be bringing legislation forward at the very first opportunity to facilitate a buyback program that will treat Canadians who purchased these firearms fairly. +Mr. Glen Motz: You can't buy back something that you never owned in the first place, Mr. Chair. These costs must include administration, price per firearm, as well as the industry costs. We know that industry costs are over $1 billion. If this minister doesn't know the cost, maybe he's as incompetent as our Minister of Finance. I am wondering, Chair, through you, why the law enforcement notes were removed from the firearms reference table? +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that parliamentary language is something we need to respect in the House. We should be careful what we say. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd just like to advise you and this House that our purpose is to protect the lives of Canadians, and we are taking strong action to strengthen gun control. We are not influenced by the gun lobby or by gun manufacturers, only by our interest in keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: We will now continue to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan (StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to start by thanking the government for listening to my proposals a couple of weeks ago regarding the extension of benefits for vulnerable Canadians who may not have been able to file their income tax by this week's deadline. There are millions of relieved seniors with GIS and parents with the child tax benefit and GST who now know they have a bit of time and protection and aren't to be cut off from their benefits. I'm hoping to go two for two here today, so there's no pressure to the Minister of Public Safety. I want to build on the comments last week from Ms. Gladu, my colleague from SarniaLambton, about family reunification between Canadians and Americans. Many constituents in my riding are concerned and are caught in this situation. I certainly support, and I think we support in this chamber, the idea of the extension for travel. However, it's now been three months since many spouses have seen each other, and there are Canadian and American children in custody arrangements who have seen their parent only on one side of the border or the other. After stating for months that reunifying families wasn't considered essential travel, I am thankful that he and the Prime Minister have now said that it is. Will the minister agree to the safe and fair proposal we outlined in our letter last week, which would exempt spouses, children and those with medical needs travelling back and forth with accompanying documentation, so that we can get people and their families back together? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for what I think is a very important question and I want to assure him that I have had similar conversations with members of this House from all parties and representing all parts of the country. We recognize the challenge that this particular policy of restricting non-essential travel has meant for families. It is not our intention and never will be our intention to separate families. We are working very closely with the CBSA to ensure that individuals are treated fairly. I want to share this with the member and honourable members of this House. Any change we make to our arrangement at the border will require a change by an order in council. Because there is a great deal of concern in our communities and from our provincial and territorial partners about the movement of people across our border, any change has to be discussed and negotiated with our provincial partners. Some of them, you may be aware, have expressed some concern, and we're addressing those concerns because we respect their concerns. At the same time we are working very hard, and I am very hopeful that we'll be able to resolve this challenge to the satisfaction of the many Canadians you and everyone else represents. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that when they are asking or answering a question, they should speak through the Chair and not directly to the other member. We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: We were looking at each other. It's a bad habit. To the minister, I appreciate the comments. I will just note that the Canadian and American governments have worked with provinces, as we have with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to repatriate Canadians from around the world. There have been quarantine protocols put in place to allow that. There are protocols and there is a precedence. I am just wondering why there is a delay in acknowledging the families part. I believe there is a precedent and I believe there is a background there, and I think we can, through an order in council or whatever measure, get people back with their families. Can the minister explain why reunifying families needs to be any different from repatriating Canadians from other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again I thank the member, because this is a very important issue and it's important to us as well. We have been working over the past couple of weeks very diligently on trying to find a resolution of this problem, because it is never our intention to separate families and we have all heard some very heart-wrenching concerns that have been raised. At the same time, I think it's important to work very closely, as we have done, with our provincial and territorial partners to ensure that we address the concerns they have raised. We are prepared to move forward and we are working very hard to resolve the concerns that were raised so that we can have a positive answer to those many families, and we +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Duncan. +Mr. Eric Duncan: I appreciate that comment from the minister. I want to share the story of a constituent of mine, Mr. David Lee, from Cornwall. He and his wife Maria have been married for a couple of years now. She is an American citizen. They spend about five months of the year in Texas and five months in Cornwall and would generally travel about two months of the year. However, she couldn't come up to Canada because of the restrictions that have been put in place, and it's certainly putting a strain on them. Can the minister confirm that the three concerns we outlined in our letter are being discussed as part of reaching a solution or a resolution as soon as possible? The three concerns are that spouses and long-term partners can be reunited, that children with child custody arrangements can see both of their parents, and that if somebody needs to travel back or forth over the border for medical appointments, they can do that and can stay with their spouse. Can you confirm that all three are on the table and will be addressed? +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can confirm is that we're working hard to make sure we keep families together. I want to reiterate, because you raise a very important point, that when people cross the border they're still subject to the quarantine orders of public health. That's for the protection of all Canadians. You mentioned travelling back and forth across the border. If the travel is deemed essential, that is an exception, but if it is not deemed essential, then a person must go into quarantine for 14 days. That's one of the concerns the provinces have raised with us and one of the assurances they have sought. We're working to provide those assurances. +The Chair: Before we go to the next line of questioning, I want to remind the honourable members that we have interpreters who are working very hard to translate from one language to the other. I therefore ask you to speak a little more slowly out of consideration for the interpreters, who are doing a really good job. We'll now go to Mr. Kram. +Mr. Michael Kram (ReginaWascana, CPC): Mr. Chair, I've had the opportunity to talk with Mr. James Bogusz, CEO of the Regina Airport Authority, and he paints a grim picture. He expects the airport to be out of money by the end of the summer. The loss of the Regina International Airport would be devastating, not only to the city of Regina but also to southern Saskatchewan. The Liberal government has made a great show out of allegedly providing $330 million in assistance to airports through lease deferrals, but here is what it's not telling people: Airport lease payments are already tied to revenue and have been for many years, so when an airport's revenue goes down to zero, its lease payments to the federal government go down to zero, pandemic or no pandemic. That means the government has done absolutely nothing to help Canada's airports. Will the government commit today to providing real assistance to Canada's struggling airports? +Hon. Bill Blair: The Minister of Transport has been working very closely with airports, large and small, right across the country. We have continued to update our responses in this rapidly evolving situation. We've been in touch with each of the airports, and we've been working very hard to help them manage through these difficult times. We know that in some circumstances, continued operations at smaller airports have not been possible, but wherever possible we have done our very best to try to accommodate the very real financial challenges these airports are experiencing. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, Canada's airports are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and the Liberal government's response has been to defer their lease payments. These were already based on revenue, so these deferrals are effectively meaningless. In the meantime, the U.S. government's CARES program is providing $10 billion in grants and low-interest forgivable loans to support American airports. Will the government commit today to saving Canada's airports with a similar program of grants and forgivable loans? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we have worked very hard, and continue to do so, to make sure we provide supports to regional airports right across this country. We know how important air transport is to such a vast country and we know the tremendous work they do. They support communities and the Canadian economy. We're going to work very closely with them to make sure we provide the right supports to help them get through this difficult time, because we know how important they will be to the eventual restart of our economy. Their continued existence and success are important to that restart, and we'll work with them. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the airport crisis goes far beyond my home city of Regina. Airports are vital to Canada's economy, providing over 200,000 jobs nationwide and paying $13 billion in wages and $7 billion in taxes. However, now Canada's airports are on the brink of collapse, and the government has stood idly by as airports have lost over 90% of their revenue. Last month Joyce Carter, chair of the Canadian Airports Council, called on the government for a three-point plan for airport recovery. It includes the permanent elimination of ground leases, substantive loan and bond guarantees and a special plan to support smaller airports that provide vital supplies to rural and remote communities. Could the minister inform the committee if the government has done anything in response to the Canadian Airports Council's request? +Hon. Bill Blair: I would make the observation that all of our smaller regional airports are vital to the communities they serve. That's why it's important that we work with them all. The Minister of Transport is in regular communication and in ongoing discussions with airport authorities, large and small, right across this country on how we can continue to support them. There have been a number of proposals made by the industry itself and by some of the regional airports on what form that help can take. That's all part of a very important ongoing discussion. I believe it is clear that Canadians need our help, and we are there for Canadians to help them get back on their feet when we get through this pandemic. +The Chair: Mr. Kram, we have time for a 15-second question and a 15-second answer. +Mr. Michael Kram: Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all started free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom. Why hasn't Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng (MarkhamThornhill, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for the question. We, of course, are going to make sure that we will always act in the interests of Canadian businesses, and I want to assure Canadians that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the United Kingdom. We will make sure that our further work will always take into account the interests of Canadian businesses. +The Chair: We now move to Mr.Therrien. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to know how many full-time and part-time employees are currently working for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): On a point of order, Mr.Chair. I am not sure that the number of employees at the Liberal Party, the Bloc Qubcois, or the Conservative Party is relevant to government management. +The Chair: I am not sure whether that is a point of order, but I will let Mr.Therrien continue. +Mr. Alain Therrien: If he stays with me, he will understand. He can trust me. I would like to know how many people work full time and part time for the Liberal Party of Canada. It is a simple question. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: A number of people do. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I know that they think its funny to pilfer taxpayers money from government coffers. But that is not our style. The Liberal Party took money through the emergency wage subsidy program. I would just like to know how many people work for the Liberal Party of Canada. +Hon. Bill Morneau: I do not know how many people work for the Liberal Party, but I can say that the emergency wage subsidy is for all sectors of the economy. That is how we can protect employees across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have 157MPs and they have known for two weeks that we are working on the wage subsidy. Not one member wondered how many people work for them. They are too busy helping themselves to the cookie jar. In an article in La Presse on May25, Liberal Party spokesman Braeden Caley said that between 75and 100employees were receiving wages subsidized through this program. Is that correct? +Hon. Bill Morneau: I am very focused on our concern, which is to protect Canadians across the country who are working for businesses facing a reduction in revenue of 30% or more. It is very important for them and for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Let's use a round number. Let's say 100employees. How many employees in the Liberal Party of Canada are threatened by the pandemic? You should know; it's your party. +The Chair: I would like to remind honourable members to direct their questions through the Chair. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We stand by our approach of protecting employees across the country. We want to make sure that they have enough money to meet the challenges that they are facing during the pandemic. +Mr. Alain Therrien: I would actually say that they want to have enough money for their next election campaign. I would like to know how much taxpayers' money has been taken from the emergency wage subsidy program and will be used as election loot for the Liberal Party of Canada. How much money have you taken from the program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The emergency wage subsidy program allows us to protect 75% of the income that employees were earning before the crisis, to a maximum of $847. This is important for them and, of course, very important for our economy. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, since I am not getting an answer, let me share with you the very simple calculation I cobbled together. One hundred employees at $847 a week is $340,000a month. That is the amount of taxpayers' money that the Liberal Party is putting into its pockets. If we multiply that amount by threethat's three months, since it started on March15we get over $1million. That is the amount they will have put in their pockets, to be used as election loot for the Liberal Party. Given that the Liberals are extending the emergency wage subsidy, will their party continue to help itself to the money? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The purpose of the emergency wage subsidy is to protect employees. So every business must ensure that the money goes to the employees. That is very important. It is how employees and their incomes are protected. It will help millions of families across the country to be in a better situation. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you can ask a question of no more than 15seconds. +Mr. Alain Therrien: They have already taken $1million out of the register, so that is settled. My question is twofold. First, are they going to pay back that $1million? Second, I hope they will not be taking another $1million by September. Can I at least be reassured of that? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We will continue with our approach to protect employees and businesses needing it during the crisis. +The Chair: We will take a short break so that our employees can safely change places. We can now continue. We'll go now to Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough Centre. Mr. Chair, as parliamentarians, our greatest responsibility is to keep Canadians safe. During the previous Parliament, our government made significant investments in the CBSA and the RCMP, and provided funds to provinces and territories to invest in programs that combat gun and gang violence and support our communities in providing positive alternatives for youth engagement and activities. On May 1, our government banned assault-style weapons. This is something that we pledged to do during the last federal election and something that victims' groups, law enforcement and everyday Canadians called on for decades, but we must know that we need to take more action to keep our communities safe. Mr. Chair, I'm sure that this continues to be an important issue for many communities. Can the minister tell the House and the constituents of NewmarketAurora what further steps our government will take to keep Canadians safe? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I'd like to begin by thanking the honourable member for NewmarketAurora for his question and for his advocacy on behalf of the safety of his community. Mr. Chair, building upon historic investments that we made in the last Parliament in law enforcement dealing with guns and gangs, we took the important next step in our promise to strengthen Canada's gun control by prohibiting weapons that many in the law enforcement community, including the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, have said have no place in our communities. There is much more to do. We will build on these early steps by strengthening our work and our laws at the border, by taking steps to prevent the theft and criminal diversion of guns and also by making significant investments in kids, families and communities where the conditions give rise to gun violence right across Canada. Mr. Chair, we have much work to do, and we are committed to keeping Canadians safe. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in cities and towns across Canada, small businesses are the backbones of our local economies. They are also pillars of our communities. Even during these challenging times, we have seen restaurants and other businesses step up to deliver meals to front-line workers and make donations to our local food banks. So many have supported Scarborough Health Network's meals on wheels program. Their leadership has been inspiring. I have heard from many small business owners in Scarborough, from dentists to small manufacturers, who are having trouble paying their commercial rents due to the sharp downturn in business caused by COVID-19. They are interested in how programs like the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program would help them to stay in business, but they worry that these programs may not be able to help if their landlords don't participate. These small businesses are crucial to our community. Could the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade please explain why it is so important that the landlords participate to help small businesses make it through the pandemic and how we are working to make this program a success, not just here in Scarborough but across Canada? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member of Parliament for her advocacy for the people of Scarborough Centre on this really important question. While rent is an area of provincial responsibility, helping businesses across the country is all of our responsibility. This is why we have stepped up to provide rent relief to businesses while, at the same time, helping property owners maintain the rental income through this crisis. We are asking property owners to do their part in keeping small businesses and their employees to get through these challenging times, and to take advantage of our forgivable loans in order to help small businesses that are the hardest hit by reducing their rent by 75%. This is a win-win situation. Many landlords have already stepped up, and we salute their efforts. We will continue to do what we can to help protect and help our small businesses across Canada from coast to coast to coast. +The Chair: The next question goes to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): The $4-billion Canada housing benefit agreement was announced in 2017. It's supposed to provide up to $2,500 per year to help families in need with their rent. We know that poverty and inadequate housing are barriers felt even more by black, indigenous and racialized people. Can the minister tell us how many families have actually received this housing support? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for asking about this really special and unique housing benefit. We introduced the Canada housing benefit as part of the national housing strategy to help people as a bridge to permanent housing, people who are in core housing need, are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We have signed agreements with provinces. We hope all of them come to the table to sign this really important cost-sharing +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It has been two and a half years, and families in need are still waiting. Only one province has signed on, and there has been no national consultation on how such a benefit program would even be implemented. With so little federal leadership, the Canadian Alliance of Non-Profit Housing Associations has stepped up and done the work for the government. They have outlined five key principles to guide the implementation of the Canada housing benefit. Will the minister adopt those principles and get on with ensuring vulnerable families get the rental assistance they need? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, it is really unfortunate that the honourable member thinks that an investment of $55 billion and the commitment of a 10-year federal plan of leadership in affordable housing and community housing is a lack of leadership. It is quite the opposite. The Canada housing benefit is yet another important segment of the national housing strategy, which will ensure people have access to a safe, affordable place to call home. It is being signed by a number of provinces, not just one as the honourable member suggests. There are up to five provinces that have moved on signing on to the Canada housing benefit. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Then surely the minister can actually tell us how many families benefited from that program. The fact is that two and a half million families are paying more than 30% of their income on rent, and they have been hit hard by this pandemic. Reciting the same message box over and over again will not get them the help they need. Aside from going forward with a housing benefit program, will the government prioritize affordable housing stimulus spending as a key component of any post-COVID stimulus policy? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, joining with provinces and territories and providing real help to members of the community who are experiencing homelessness so they can have a permanent roof over their heads is real action. It's real leadership by our government as part of the Canada housing benefit. This is a real benefit that is going to households in core housing need, people who experience a core housing need and who need a permanent place to call home. The Canada housing benefit is providing real help to thousands and thousands of Canadian households. We will continue to provide that leadership in concert with provinces and territories. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Well, minister, I would say that B.C. is still looking for the government to step up. We bought our first hotel to house the homeless in permanent housing, and the government has yet to provide any funding to them. The next question is for the Minister of Immigration. The first migrant worker died yesterday due to COVID-19. Migrant workers are warehoused in a space with no barriers between each sleeping cot. Others are housed in crowded communal bunkhouses. What action will the minister take to address this alarming situation? +Hon. Marco Mendicino (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship): I thank my colleague for the question, and I want to extend our sympathies regarding the temporary worker who passed away from COVID-19. Of course, we continue to support workers by ensuring that they have the accommodations and the spacing necessary to work when they are here providing food security for all Canadians. We're also providing support to farmers to ensure that those accommodations are made. We put in place the regulations and the rules that are necessary, and we continue to work very closely with our provincial partners as well as leaders in this sector so that we can protect workers and ensure that Canadians have access to safe and affordable food. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: No one should have to endure such inhumane housing conditions and risk their lives to support their families. We rely on them to put food on the table for our families. They don't have access to health care and they don't have a pathway to permanent residence. Will the minister do the right thing and grant migrant workers health care coverage and ensure the government follows up on the principle that if you're good enough to work, you're good enough to stay? +Hon. Marco Mendicino: In fact, Mr. Chair, I would clarify that temporary foreign workers do have a pathway to permanent residence. Of course, that is an opportunity we will continue to offer those who are ensuring that Canadians have access to healthy, safe and affordable food. We will continue to make the investments that are necessary to maintain a high standard of professionalism and workplace safety. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Arnold. +Mr. Mel Arnold (North OkanaganShuswap, CPC): Mr. Chair, fisheries and oceans stakeholders and coastal communities face unprecedented threats from the COVID-19 crisis, and they deserve the support of all levels of government, including their own MPs. Yesterday the Liberal and NDP MPs banded together to restrict the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to just four hours of sitting in the summer months. Conservatives are ready to put in the hours to support Canadians, while the Liberals and NDP refuse to do the work. When will the Prime Minister tell his MPs to get back to work for the Canadians who need their support? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we all agree that committees are doing extremely important work, and that's why committees are meeting regularly. I would like to remind my colleague that the committees are masters of their own destiny and make their own decisions, not the government. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, it took months for DFO to realize that fish passage on the Fraser River was blocked at Big Bar. Then it took them seven more months to tender a contract to clear the blockage. Now that contract has tripled from $17.6 million to over $52.5 million without a single communications post from the minister's office. The original contract amount was clearly inadequate, so who ordered it? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (South ShoreSt. Margarets, Lib.): Mr. Chair, since we found out about the landslide at Big Bar, our government has been extremely active in making sure that the salmon have a passage through. We know how critically important the salmon are to the Fraser River, as well as to the indigenous communities along the Fraser. We're working diligently to make sure that we get that passage cleared. So far, we've made significant progress, but we know there's more work that needs to be done. That's why we'll continue to work with indigenous communities and the province to make sure that these +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the fisheries minister's mandate letter from November of last year directed her to make new investments in fighting invasive species. Half a year later, the minister has failed to deliver. Canadians on the front line of prevention wrote the minister, and when they got a response five months later, it was devoid of any help. This government's delays are hurting Canada's fight against invasive species. When will the minister follow her Prime Minister's directive and make new investments in the fight against invasive species? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question. Invasive species are a real challenge for our waterways. We know that a lot more has to be done. We're working diligently to find the answers to deal with some of the problems we are seeing from invasive species. We are continuing to monitor situations in waterways. I am committed to making sure that I meet my commitments within my mandate letter, and I will have more to say on that soon. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, the list of hunting and sport shooting firearms banned by Minister Blair's order in council continues to grow. What other hunting firearms does he plan to ban? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to be very clear, the weapons we have prohibited are weapons that were not designed for hunting or sport shooting but for soldiers to use in combat. As law enforcement leaders right across the country have said many times, they have no place in our community, and we agree. +Mr. Mel Arnold: Mr. Chair, I continue to hear from constituents in the North OkanaganShuswap who are unable to access supports under the Canada emergency business account or the emergency commercial rent assistance program. Business owners have also lost employees and can't get them to come back to work because of the lack of flexibility in the emergency response benefit and the emergency student benefit. When the Liberals shut down Parliament, they removed our ability to amend legislation and fix their failures. When will the government fix these problems and the programs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we continue to look at the programs we've put out to support Canadians to make sure that they are actually having the desired impact. As we've moved along, we have said that we need to make amendments. We've committed to extending the wage subsidy, and of course we're looking at all the measures we've put out so we can ensure that people have the support they need during this crisis. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, an April 1 letter confirms that Deloitte Canada has been contracted to help supply PPE. Was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, the honourable member is correct that we have contracted with Deloitte to assist us with our operations on the ground in China in order to have an A-to-Z procurement approach to delivering goods +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Can the minister confirm that this was, indeed, a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, there are a number of goods that need to be procured for Canadian health care professionals to be safe, and that's exactly +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Yes or no, was this a sole-source contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will take that question back to my department and come back to the member with a further, fuller response. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, is Deloitte of Canada able to speak on behalf of PSPC? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, not at all. The contracts that we are entering into are made by us +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: What is the value of the contract with Deloitte? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, again, that is information that we are not going to release at this time. When the time is right, we will do so. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of the suppliers that are in contact with Deloitte of Canada are indigenous contractors. Has the government secured any contracts with indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers, as we are with many suppliers across Canada and internationally. We are working hard to make sure that we have diverse supply chains across the board, and that means including indigenous suppliers in that mix. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Many of these indigenous suppliers have previously been vetted by the federal government and are certified vendors. Is it appropriate for Deloitte to be recertifying these vendors? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the honourable member appears to have information regarding Deloitte's certification processes, which would not be outside what the government itself is doing. I encourage him to come forward with a question that actually responds to fact before +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Does the minister think that re-vetting suppliers is a good use of resources? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I'll tell you what I think. I believe that Canada is in a crisis, and I am making every effort to order PPE as Canadian health care workers require. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, indigenous suppliers stand at the ready to supply PPE to Canada. Has the minister contracted with any indigenous suppliers? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, we are in touch with indigenous suppliers and will continue to ensure that Canada has a diverse supply chain in terms of manufacturers, in terms of products and in terms of countries. That is our commitment to Canadian health care workers +The Chair: Now we go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Has the government signed a contract with a single indigenous supplier? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I would like to say that we are continuing to make sure that our supplier list is confidential, because we are in a crisis and we do not want to jeopardize The Chair: We go back to Mr. Viersen. +Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Chair, on Friday the association for indigenous business could not name a single indigenous company that had been contracted. Have any of the contracts signed with the federal government between Deloitte Canada and PPE suppliers been filled? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, the member is mistaken. Deloitte is not signing contracts on behalf of the Government of Canada. Deloitte is assisting with and sourcing manufacturers, and all contracts are signed by the government with manufacturers. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Mr.Chair, we have difficulty understanding the government's management of the border. The order between Canada and the United States has an exception allowing refugee claimants to submit their claims in Canada if they have family here and we accept them. However, hundreds of Canadian-American couples cannot be reunited, which is a problem. I find it hard to believe that the minister cannot quickly instruct border services officers to allow spouses to enter the country right now. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I appreciate very much the member's intervention and the long list of people he sent to me. I'm also working with a number of different families. We remain committed to keeping families together. As I advised this House earlier, Mr. Chair, we're working diligently with our provincial and territorial partners to take the steps necessary to enable people to stay united as they cross the borders and enter into Canada, but to do so safely and not put other Canadians at risk. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, letting a spouse come home will not put Canadians at risk. A survey conducted in Canada reveals that a large majority of Canadians do not trust the Chinese communist regime at all and do not want Huawei in Canada. The good news today is that BCE and Telus have decided not to do business with Huawei. Now that the government no longer has to worry about BCE and Telus, can they say today that no other company is going to use Huawei and that Huawei will be banned from Canada for 5G? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for his question. Our government will always protect our networks and ensure that Canadians have access to the latest innovations in telecommunications. A review of 5G technologies and their economic and security considerations is currently under way. We will ensure that Canadians' security and personal information will never be compromised. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Let me remind the minister that we have been working on this for years and that CSIS has confirmed that Huawei is unreliable as far as Canada's security is concerned. Right now, two Canadians are being unjustly detained by the Chinese communist regime. The same regime continues to lie to the world about COVID-19, block our exports, and terrorize the citizens of Hong Kong. When will the Prime Minister confirm that he is going to ban Huawei from developing 5G in Canada? It is a simple question. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let's be very clear. Canadians deserve to have access to the most beneficial 5G technology. At the same time, the safety and security of Canada's digital environment will be of paramount consideration. We're doing the work required and we're not basing that agenda on some media report, but instead ensuring that all scientific and security factors are taken into account. We are engaged in robust discussions with our Five Eyes partners, including the United States, and all our security agencies. Mr. Chair, we'll do the work necessary to +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus has the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: The minister does not need a sheet of paper, this matter has been clear for a long time. Everyone is saying that we need to ban Huawei from Canada. I have a quick question for the Minister of Finance. Bell and Telus had each estimated that removing Huawei from their development would cost $1billion. Today we have learned that these companies have decided not to use Huawei. Did the government decide to pay for this under wraps to get out of it? Having said that, my next question is more about the theft on May27. About 90,000surgical masks bound for the Quebec City UHC were stolen from the Toronto airport. As we all know, these masks are critical in the fight against COVID-19. Has the minister called for an investigation? When are we going to find out what happened to those stolen masks that were bound for Quebec? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, I will gladly look into this issue and get back to my colleague. Our procurements have reached 101 million surgical masks at this time, and they're being distributed to provinces, including Quebec. +The Chair: Mr.Paul-Hus, you have time to ask a 15-second question. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: It is a little strange. The masks were stolen in Toronto on May27. So they have been gone a long time. I just want to know if there is an investigation and if they will ever be found. I want to address another complex and important issue. A police officer from the Montreal area called me and told me about a current fraud. Some social assistance recipients learned about the CERB and applied for it. Building managers have received a lot of cheques addressed to social assistance recipients. They know it is not legal and it constitutes fraud. The police officer is asking me what to do with the cheques and to whom they should be sent. Should he give them to the fraudsters? How does that work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can assure the member that we have robust mechanisms in place to address CERB fraud. We understand that in delivering this benefit to a million Canadians to date, we had to put more of our integrity measures at the back, but make no mistake: Canadians who behave fraudulently will be held to account, and we will ensure that the money is either repaid or the cheques not cashed. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore (Fundy Royal, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there remains a concern across Canada that delays in the criminal courts could result in criminals walking free. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recently said in an interview that amendments to the Criminal Code could allow this backlog to be addressed. Can the minister outline what work has been done to address the backlog, and when we can expect to see it addressed? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, I thank the honourable member for his question. I can assure him that we are working closely with our provincial and territorial counterparts, who have the primary responsible for the superior courts of justice and therefore the criminal law in their various jurisdictions for the administration of justice in criminal law. I can also say that we have formed an action committee co-chaired by me and the Chief Justice of Canada, again with a variety of different kinds of representation on that committee, to look at the restart of the justice system +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Moore. +Hon. Rob Moore: Mr. Chair, weeks ago I raised these concerns with the minister over backlogs in the criminal courts and the risk they present to our justice system. The provinces have significant insight into how this can be addressed, and many provinces have been proactive with their court backlogs. Can the minister outline what work has been done with the provinces on this important issue? +Hon. David Lametti: We are working with the provinces. There are different practices in each province. We're working to serve in a coordinating role as a repository of information for best practices so that they can be shared across provinces. We're also looking at specific suggestions that provinces have made with respect to reforming the criminal law. +Hon. Rob Moore: Many owners of small businesses in my riding, and indeed in all of our ridings, are suffering right now and have received absolutely no help from this government because of technicalities. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister indicated the government was looking to expand access to the Canada emergency business account to include to those who operate their businesses out of a personal bank account. This is something that we've been calling for over the past several weeks, and businesses cannot wait any longer. Can the minister tell me what we should be telling our constituents about those who are caught up based on a technicality and are not able to access this important measure? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that really important question. I want to assure the small business owners in his community and all across the country just how important they are and how difficult a time this is for them. We absolutely understand. We are hearing you and we are working as hard and as fast as we can to make sure that those business owners get access to this very important support. I would like to highlight, though, that owners of 650,000 small businesses across the country are getting the loan support. Of course, there is more to do, and we will keep working hard for those business owners. +Hon. Rob Moore: The lack of access to high-speed Internet remains a major issue across my home province of New Brunswick. This is a significant barrier to rural economic development. It impacts the quality of life of rural constituents. The lack of progress and transparency on rural Internet is frustrating for residents, for municipal leaders and for small business owners who are already suffering due to COVID. When will a new plan for rural Internet be introduced, and how quickly can we expect it to be deployed? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, our government has a plan to connect Canadians to high-speed Internet. To date, we've set aside investments to connect a million households, and there's more work to be done. We will be announcing our next steps to connect more Canadians through the universal broadband funds in the days to come. I look forward to communities across the country benefiting from federal investments and the private investments that our investments will bring. +Hon. Rob Moore: On the issue of commercial rent, how is the government going to ensure that business owners whose landlords still refuse to participate in the government's program receive the support that they need to stay open at this time? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the member knows and would understand, rent between small business owners and landlords is a provincial jurisdiction. That said, we've moved forward to try to ensure that there's a process so that those landlords and the commercial tenants can work together to come up with a solution that will work for both. We're seeing landlords +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Nicholas Gibbs, Colten Boushie, Tina Fontaine, Alain Magloire and Breonna Taylor were not all born on the same side of the border, but they all lost their lives at the hand of the same cruel enemy: racism. We cannot, here in Canada, think higher of ourselves when we are reading the headlines of our neighbour. We cannot ignore our history, past or present. The final report from the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls stated that indigenous women and girls have faced a Canadian genocide. In 2018 a report revealed that a black person was almost 20 times more likely than a white person to be fatally shot by the Toronto police, and a 2019 report exposed systemic bias among the Montreal police force against black and indigenous people. Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. I am asking the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, as per her mandate, what exactly our government intends to do now to fight racism among its institutions. If the anti-racism secretariat has in fact been established, what priorities have been actioned? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): I would like to thank the member for that very important question. I will state that it is essential that we all work together, not only during this challenging time but during the times that come out of it. On the comments that were shared earlier, this is another life lost that should not have been lost. Yes, the anti-racism secretariat has been established. This is a resource not only for Canadians but also for government agencies to better the way in which we do work internally as well, including advancement opportunities. We know that the decision-making table does not reflect the diversity of our country. That's exactly why we came out with an open, transparent, merit-based appointment process: so that we can see the country's diversity reflected at the decision-making table. There is a lot more work to do. I can assure the member and all Canadians that my eyes are open, my ears are open and I am an ally. I will work as hard as possible to be that voice at the cabinet table. I cannot experience what it is to be a black Canadian, but I can tell you that your voices will be represented and they will be heard. I see you. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Mr. Chair, it has been four years since the settlement payment for sixties scoop survivors was approved. That resolution hasn't taken place. The pain continues. Why is it that the 12,500 class members who have been determined eligible still haven't received the payments they are owed? These people deserve justice without any delay, especially in light of COVID-19 and the added pressures facing communities. Can the minister confirm exactly when these survivors will receive the interim payment? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Thank you very much. Thank you for your advocacy on all these truly important things. As you know, because of the exceptional circumstance of COVID-19, the class counsel, with the support of Canada, was seeking direction from the courts to issue partial payments to the class members with a valid claim. On June 1 the Federal Court granted that order. A similar motion is before the Ontario Superior Court. Once granted, eligible class members can expect to receive partial payments of $21,000 over the coming weeks. Canada welcomes the Federal Court's +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Atwin. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Eighty per cent of people who are diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, will die within two to five years of receiving the diagnosis. The pandemic has made it more difficult than ever for these people to access medical appointments and treatment. They do not have the luxury of time. They want to live and to share moments with their families and their loved ones. The lack of urgency to approve new trials and therapies in Canada directly impacts the life expectancy of people with ALS. Can the Minister of Health commit to taking leadership on this file, removing the barriers to accessing these promising treatments and therapies, and ensuring that the costs of these treatments will be covered? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much for the very important question. We know that people living with ALS and their families struggle immensely every single day. Of course the member opposite has my commitment to work with the community and with manufacturers of drugs that are promising for ALS to expedite approval in a safe way that protects the health of Canadians but also provides treatment in an affordable way for all Canadians. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, I can't breathe and I'm tired, and today we've heard a lot of progressive words from the Prime Minister, but he hasn't really said anything. If the Prime Minister will not provide leadership in this House, will anybody from his cabinet here today commit to taking concrete steps to address anti-black racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, yes, we do commit. That's exactly why we will listen more. We will acknowledge that racism is alive in Canada. We know we must do better. However, I also need the member to recognize that this work has started. The open, transparent, merit-based appointment process is resulting in the decision-making table better reflecting Canadians. We recognize the UN international +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, will the member then commit today to make it a legal requirement to collect race-based data across all the ministries? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Chair, the recently announced immunity task force is providing disaggregated data to decision-makers, because decisions need to be based on science and evidence. Yes, I will work across all departments to ensure that data is better collected. +Mr. Matthew Green: Mr. Chair, that's not a legal requirement. It is also not lost on the black community that the former Toronto chief of police, the architect of this country's largest profiling program under the guise of street checks or carding, was made this country's Minister of Public Safety by this Prime Minister. As the tragic consequence of the unlawful, unconstitutional and racist practices in Toronto, black people are 20 times more likely than non-black people to be murdered by police. Does the Minister of Public Safety now admit that the police practice of street checks and carding is in fact a significant factor in Canada's systemic anti-black and anti-indigenous racism, and will he act to immediately end it today? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, let me be very clear. First of all, every Canadian is entitled to bias-free and culturally competent policing. I know from experience that there is nothing more corrosive to the relationship of trust that must exist between the police and racialized communities than the issue of racism or the biased influences of those decisions. Mr. Chair, racial profiling is not only abhorrent and unacceptable, it's in fact unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it's contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. We are working diligently within all of the federal agencies under my purview to ensure that all officers receive training on culturally competent and bias-free delivery of service. We remain committed to creating a diverse workforce that truly reflects and respects the diverse people of this country. +Mr. Matthew Green: Nobody knows better through experience about the corrosive practice of street checks than I do. Will the minister now apologize to the black community for the harm caused under his tenure as chief of police? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clear, Mr. Chair, I actually worked with the diverse communities of Toronto for nearly four decades. I worked with extraordinary leaders from the black community and I learned extensively from their lived experience. We worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of all of the people in all of our diverse communities. +Mr. Matthew Green: Bill C-51 was introduced by the Conservatives and supported by the Liberals, including this Prime Minister. It declared indigenous, racial, economic justice, and environmental activists as domestic terrorists. Each province was mandated to enact anti-terrorism protocols, which became a direction for the local police to engage in the practice of street checks or racial profiling. Given what he has said today in the House, will this Minister of Public Safety work to repeal the changes made under Bill C-51? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I will repeat for the member opposite that racial profiling and bias in the delivery of policing service is not only unacceptable and abhorrent but unlawful. It's contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it is contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act. It cannot ever be tolerated in policing in any place in Canada, but we learned from the lived experience of black and indigenous communities, who tell us that this is still their lived experience, so there is a great deal of work left to do. +The Chair: It is now Mr.Champoux's turn. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will be sharing my time with the honourable member for Joliette. Supplementary unemployment benefits, or SUBs, give employers the opportunity to enhance their employees' employment insurance benefits when they need to temporarily lay them off. A number of companies, including Soprema in Drummond, have done so with the guarantee that the government would maintain the SUB terms when employment insurance is converted to the CERB. However, surprise, surprise, when the employees applied for the CERB in May, they found that they did not meet the criteria because the amount of SUBs they have received exceeded $1,000, the CERB income limit. In addition, they must reimburse the CERB because they found that they were not eligible for it. So, what does the Minister of Finance intend to do to correct his error? +The Chair: We will pause for a second. We have a point of order on the floor. Go ahead, Mr. Green. +Mr. Matthew Green: I posed the most important question. I had 10 seconds left by my count on my time before I was cut off, and I would appreciate, given the seriousness of the conversation here today, if the honourable Minister of Public Safety will please answer the question: Will he apologize to the black community for the irreparable harm that was caused by the racist process of street checks and carding? +The Chair: The way I work it is that if there are 15 seconds or less, we go on to the next one, because it's not really enough time to ask a question and get an answer. I will move on to Mr. Champoux. He did ask a question, and we'll let Ms. Qualtrough, the honourable minister, answer. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are very much alive and in place for companies, employers and their employees. The CERB allows employers to top up an employee's wages to the maximum of a $1,000. As was said, Mr. Chair, in order to deliver this important critical benefit to Canadians, we had to go outside of the EI system. That decision was made, and as a result, eight million Canadians are being helped. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, SUBs do not have an employment insurance cap. Employers can contribute as much as they want, and they were assured that this would be the case with the CERB. Otherwise, they would have opted for another program. Let me put my question to the Minister of Finance again, in the hope that he will be the one to answer it. When does he intend to fix this error? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I thank the member for his question, Mr. Chair. As we can all appreciate, delivering a benefit of this magnitude as quickly as possible to as many Canadians as possible, both those who were EI eligible and those who were outside of EI, resulted in our having to take some decisions to streamline processes and the system. SUB plans are available for employers +The Chair: Mr.Ste-Marie, you have the floor. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ): Mr.Chair, I will continue on the subject of supplementary unemployment benefits. Let me remind everyone that Service Canada has entered into agreements with companies and is not honouring them. The victims are thousands and thousands of workers who have to reimburse the Canada emergency response benefit, as my colleague just explained. I also have the question my colleague from Drummond asked: why is the government not doing the same thing it does with employment insurance and not counting the benefits paid out as part of earned income? It is simple. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, as legislated, we needed to set up a straightforward, simple benefit to deliver to as many people as possible. The nuance and sophistication of the EI system was not available to us. As a result, as I said, eight million Canadians are getting the CERB. Service Canada is working with each and every employee who is in a repayment situation. We do not want to put anybody in a more difficult situation. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, the truth is that the government has forgotten the thousands of workers covered under a supplementary unemployment benefit agreement. We are talking about mothers and fathers. When the government rolled out its Canada emergency response benefit, it was overwhelmed and it forgot about them. The government can fix it right here, right now. Does it want to do that? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, let me clarify that employees who were covered by a SUB plan prior to March 15 are indeed covered by that plan. We're working with employers to make sure that their workers have this benefit, regardless of whether or not the CERB is in place. Those who accessed EI after March 15 have been streamlined into the CERB process, and their employers can help them with up to $1,000 a month. +Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie: Mr.Chair, we really do not have the same information. Agreements were signed before March15 for subsequent periods, but there was an agreement with Service Canada. Companies have tried to contact Service Canada by telephone, but no one is answering. They have tried by email, but no one is replying either. The companies have decided to honour their part of the contract and pay out the SUB. However, the government says that, after the fact, it changed the rules that had previously applied, and it is no longer honouring its agreement. As I understand it, the government does not want to straighten out the situation, and that is unacceptable. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, I want to reassure the honourable member that we have moved quickly to deal with the unprecedented volumes at Service Canada. We have set up a 1,500-agent call centre to help people through the CERB, as well as redeploying 3,000 additional staff to make sure that people are helped through the EI process. +The Chair: Now we'll go to the next question, which is from Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. As of December 31, 2019, the total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications had already grown to over 46,000. These are the most recent public figures. What is the current total number of pending veterans' disability benefits applications before Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): I am sorry, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for the question and for giving me the opportunity to respond to the Parliament of Canada from my home in Midgell. As I indicated earlier in the House of Commons, I can assure the member that one of my major priorities is to make sure that we deal with the backlog and that the veterans of Canada receive the benefits they truly deserve and need. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Those 46,000 applications from December of 2019 represent over 30,000 individual veterans. These are men and women who are suffering. How many individual veterans are currently caught in the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I again thank my colleague. The fact is that service delivery and providing support to our veterans are of course my top priorities. As you understand, with this pandemic there are some difficulties, but we are processing the same number of decisions daily. Our +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: On March 10, we learned that the average time that a veteran was waiting to have their disability benefit application processed had grown to 32 weeks. What is the current average time a veteran is waiting to have their disability benefit application processed? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as I indicated, what we're doing is working to make sure that we streamline the process, make sure that some of the applications can be done automatically. Some cannot, because we have to make sure that what's provided to the veteran is adequate for the disability they +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: It seems as though having numbers is a difficult challenge for this government. On March 10, the deputy minister of Veterans Affairs committed to providing the veterans affairs committee with an updated, written plan on how the department will resolve this backlog. This plan was to include timelines. When will the veterans affairs committee be provided with this plan? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that of course the veterans affairs committee does vitally important work. I know how important this piece of information is for them. My department is now working to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality we now face with the situation in the country. I can assure my honourable colleague +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Mr. Chair, I'm sure that the department had a draft plan prior to COVID-19, so I wonder if Mr. MacAulay can provide the committee with that plan right now, rather than wait. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I can assure my honourable colleague that we are working diligently to make sure that this report is prepared, and prepared properly, for the committee. As I said before, I fully understand the importance of the committee and the great work it does +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: Can the minister give us a timeline of when this report will be given to the committee? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it's difficult to give a timeline. I want to make sure that the report itself reflects the reality of the situation to make sure that the committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: The minister's mandate letter instructed Mr. MacAulay to implement a system of automatic approval for the most common disability applications. When will this system be implemented? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, of course this all ties in to the report that the veterans affairs committee is waiting for and to make sure that we're in place in order to make sure that the automatic approval can work and to make sure that veterans receive the proper +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Redekopp. +Mr. Brad Redekopp: If automatic approval is implemented, does the minister know how many applications this measure will remove from the backlog? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, it will remove a number from the backlog, because quite simply, if you're skydiving out of a plane, you're going to have knee problems, and if you're a gunner, you're going to have ear problems. These things should be done automatically, and that's exactly what we're working on. As I said before, other things are complicated. To make sure that the veteran receives the appropriate remuneration +The Chair: Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","The summary of the discussions includes points on various topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, the Canada emergency response benefit, telecommunications and Huawei, and veterans’ affairs, among others. + +The Acting Chair, Mr. Bruce Stanton, opened the meeting, keeping in mind health protocols and ensuring smooth participation for members via video conferencing. There was a call for order related to procedures around televisual proceedings. The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and other members from different political parties, including the Leader of the Opposition, addressed the chamber on various topics, with a focus on systemic racism and recent incidents related to police violence against people of color in the United States and Canada. + +The Prime Minister acknowledged the existence of systemic discrimination and racism in Canada and considered it a lived reality for many racialized Canadians, calling for allyship and concrete actions to promote justice, equality, and accountability. The discussions involved testimonies and personal stories, emphasizing the need for systemic changes. + +Questions were raised pertaining to legislative processes, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, support measures for individuals and businesses, protection of the borders, and concerns about Huawei in Canada's 5G network development. Other members of parliament also raised the need for practical help for families in need, especially during the pandemic, and voiced concerns about the backlog and delays experienced by veterans in obtaining disability benefits. + +There was also acknowledgment of the crucial role of small businesses in the economy and community life, along with expressions of urgency to provide more support to struggling airports and to address the lack of high-speed Internet in rural areas. The discussions touched on various government programs, including the Canada housing benefit, with questions on the implementation and impact on vulnerable families. + +Members also discussed law enforcement practices and the implications of certain bills on indigenous and racialized communities. The need for greater transparency and expedited processes to address the demands of marginalized communities was expressed. + +Overall, the meeting highlighted a range of pressing issues facing Canada, with an emphasis on the need for collaborative and immediate actions to ensure that the country's systems and policies are just and inclusive for all Canadians." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Is this okay ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . Fine now . Oh , it's not liking us , it went that-a-way . Computer adjusting . Oh . Uh . Okay . {vocalsound} So . Right . You ready back there ? {vocalsound} Uh okay . Welcome everyone . Um this is the kick-off meeting for the day . Um we're the new group uh to create a new remote control for Real Reaction . As you can see our agenda is to open up the meeting , um become acquainted with each other , um have a little training on tools , uh create a plan , discuss things and and we only have twenty minut twenty five minutes total . Okay . The new remote control is to be original , trendy and user-friendly . That , Steph , is your part , is the user-friendliness . The originality um is gonna take all of us . Um the trendiness we'll probably go look at {disfmarker} for some marketing research information from you , Sarah . Um and we'll get on with it . Okay , so we'll have a functional design individual work um with meeting and then conceptual design t and then detailed design . Okay ? Right . Everybody's supposed to try out the whiteboard . Kate , why don't you try it first , if you can either bring your things with you , I guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , if I can pick up with all these bits and pieces , hang on . +Project Manager: And while you're doing that we'll try and figure out how to hook these things on as well , 'cause we're all gonna have to be able to walk around . +Industrial Designer: Uh right , so you want an animal and the characteristics of that animal . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have to be able to recognise what animal it is ? {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh I do not think so , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Are we all gonna draw a cat ? +Project Manager: I think it's just to try out the whiteboard . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Only animal I could thin I could draw {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Its a sort of bunny rabbit cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can tell it's not a bunny rabbit by the ears . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um I suppose it should have a mouth as well , sort of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: Great . And the characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um the favourite characteristics of the cat um {disfmarker} the whiskers I think , um because they're the easiest to draw . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: In fact , I'll give it some more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , and the tail +Project Manager: Fantastic . Since you're handy as well , why don't you do yours next , Steph . I think it's to get us used to using the pen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . Um sure it's not to test our artistic {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh no . {vocalsound} A mouse-y ? +Industrial Designer: It's a mouse . +User Interface: That's not a mouse-y , no . +Industrial Designer: No it's not a mouse . It's a wombat . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: It's a ratty . +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: A what ? +Project Manager: Rat . +User Interface: A ratty . +Project Manager: Not a mouse , a rat . +Industrial Designer: A webbed foot . Webbed f {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's clothes . That's it's clothes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a ratty with a with a with a very long tail . +Project Manager: And your favourite characteristics of that animal . +User Interface: I love whiskers . Uh they're intelligent and they're cheeky {vocalsound} and uh fantastic pets +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: and very friendly . +Project Manager: Okay . Kate ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: And they sit on your shoulder and whisper the answers to your homework in your ear when you're doing your homework . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Oh , a fish . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Gosh , +User Interface: A shark ? +Industrial Designer: why didn't I think of fish ? That's even easier to draw than cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm {vocalsound} this is very representational fish . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fine . +Marketing: Um I like them because they're sleek +Project Manager: Favourite characteristics ? +Marketing: and they have a lot of freedom but they also do n uh swim in groups , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So they have team elements . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you have a favourite one ? +Project Manager: I'm afraid I'm with Steph . And I think your pen's running out of whatever . But I'm afraid I take the coward's way out , and the cat's looking the other way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's hiding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um cats are sometimes very independent . My parents had cats . Uh and they can mm decide for themselves what is best . Okay . Now um {vocalsound} we have to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to make this and this remote control has to be sold {disfmarker} um we're to sell it for twenty five Euros , with a profit aim ultimately of fifty million Euros . That tells you something about how many um we have to sell on an international scale . Um would be an awful lot of these , would be like what , a hundred million of them um to make twenty five Euros on each one and to make a total profit of fifty million . Um the production is to only cost twelve and a half Euros per item . Now if they cost twelve and a half , you're selling it for twenty five , you're making twelve and a half Euros each . Um and we're to make a profit of fifty million , that's t uh {disfmarker} can you do the maths and how many are we selling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if that's the um {disfmarker} If fifty percent is normal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mark-up ? +Marketing: B yeah . Um I would think would be more like sixty percent . But um let me {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I have two thoughts . One hundred , fifty percent . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: And and your question is how many do we have to sell ? +Project Manager: Yes , 'cause our market um is international and your problem is {disfmarker} has to do with marketing of {disfmarker} you know , you gotta know how many we're going to be selling to know how big a market you have to target and who is that . +Marketing: At twenty five . Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To give you a pretty good idea of where you're looking . +Marketing: So that's four million of them ? +Project Manager: Something like that ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's fifty million Euros . In order to make fifty million Euros , and you're only getting twelve and a half each {disfmarker} +Marketing: And if we make {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a lot of selling . Two four {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Four million . +Project Manager: To be fifty , be four million . You'd have to sell four million . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right . Experience with a remote control . Any of you use of remote control for a television or D_V_D_ or something ? You're both nodding , +Industrial Designer: That that that's the sorta product we're talking about , one that will work for a {disfmarker} in a home environment , for a T_V_s and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: all three . Well I've seen some remote controls that are for more than one device at a time , but I also have heard about them not working well or not well co-ordinated and you wind up working with this one for thi this three and then this one over here for another . +User Interface: It is true that you always sit around {disfmarker} you know , you're sitting on your sofa and you wanna change something , there's five different remotes , and one for the D_V_D_ and one for the video and one for cable and one for whatever else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Y yeah . +Project Manager: And they don't always talk to each other . +User Interface: But I presume this is t I presume this is just for television . +Project Manager: Don't know . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Are there any um ideas for the remote ? What would it be for and what group would be be for ? We have to think about that one . +Marketing: We could make a Hello Kitty +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: themed remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think one in b bright colours would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think one that works would be good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could totally go for the Japan-a-mation . Well I mean there's also the cachet that um uh the Japanese make great {vocalsound} products . Electrical {disfmarker} their industrial design is very good . +User Interface: I think one that doesn't have lots of superfluous functions . Like I've got one at home that has well , apart from the obvious , channels , channel up , channel down , volume , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: you know , subtitles , mute , there's a lotta buttons that I've got no idea what they do , like {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's a really good point , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: because I think one of the things that {disfmarker} being somewhat computer literate , we tend to um go to menus and then make choices , you know , so if it's like an uh volume button , you know , you can go in and say mute or or volume . We don't need to have like the l the numbers if we also have uh uh channel up channel down . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Mm . We can make it smart like an iPod , you know , make everything menus . +User Interface: Ooh , closing the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um I know this sounds like it was very quick , +User Interface: That was quick . +Project Manager: but the I think that's the industrial design is the first one , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: that's Kate , for the working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And user , that's you S Steph , for the technical functions design , and for marketing the user requirements specification . I think there's going to be a lot of {disfmarker} we have to help each other and work through this as a group , and I think we all , you know , {vocalsound} we like our kitty-cat and our rat and our fish , but I think we all have to like each other um to get this done . Uh as it says , we're gonna get individual instructions , but uh I don't think they allowed a lot of extra time , so I think a little bit of less of this and more at do will set us in good stead . Do you all agree ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Alright . Um then I don't see any reason to prolong it and f we should finish this meeting at ni right now and go into other things . Alright , so this is the end of the first meeting . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you all . +","In a bustling corporate backdrop, the Real Reaction team assembles for a quintessential kick-off meeting, divinely choreographed by an evidently occupied project manager whose agenda is tightly packed with ambitions and expectations yet to unfold. The stage is modest—a dialogue amidst the creative minds of marketing, user interface, and industrial design departments, each of whom has stepped into the symposium armed with unique skill sets and a shared vision of engineering not just an ordinary household device but a remote control that would quintessentially redefine how user-friendliness and savvy design coalesce. + +In an atmosphere tinged with practicality, the project manager, aware of the temporal constraints, lays out the itinerary: a simple meet and greet, a dabble in tool training, a collaborative plan creation session, and an anticipatory agenda discussion—all to be executed swiftly within the allotted twenty-five-minute frame. The fundamental elements of the remote control’s manifesto echo throughout the meeting room—it must radiate originality, embrace trendiness, and most crucially, be the epitome of user convenience. The marketer, identified as Sarah, carries the weight of trend research analysis, while Steph, attached to user interface, is handed the baton for ensuring the product's intuitive ease of use. The collective imagination is to be funneled into birthing a design that is nothing short of inventive. + +An impromptu exercise to test the functionality of the whiteboard inadvertently morphs into a showcase of unconventional artistry, featuring animal-inspired drawings—from a cat with distinctly non-feline ears by the industrial designer to thoughts of a whisker-clad rat discussed by the user interface—beckoning and unraveling the attributes of teamwork overlaid with a hue of humor within the ensemble. The interjections and contributions, albeit observational and marked with {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} notations, set the stage for a free-flowing exchange of ideas, a playful prelude to the weightier discussions that lie ahead. + +The project manager, determined to tether the creative outpouring back to the gritty economic reality, outlines a formidable financial target: the remote control, priced at a retail value of twenty-five euros, is intended to achieve a significant profit benchmark of fifty million euros. This delineation steers the conversation sternly into logistics as the team grapples with the daunting scale of production; at an exemplary cost-profit equilibrium, an astronomical volume of sales would be requisite to hit the fiscal mark—a vivid indication of the mammoth task that awaits their collective prowess. + +The conversation spirals into an interrogation of market norms and strategies, with the marketer offering insights into typical profit margins and suggesting recalibrations. A consensus around the need for international market penetration emerges as the crux of the commercial hurdle they must vault over. Ideas briefly flit across the room, from the pop culture-infused Hello Kitty themed remote to a vibrant, simplified interface devoid of superfluous buttons—a mirror to the changing tides of user preferences. + +In a swift and almost unceremonious closure, the project manager, cognizant of the immutable rush against the clock, reinforces the essential ethos of camaraderie and mutual reliance. Assignments are delegated—industrial design's functional aesthetics, user interface's technical prowess, and marketing's demographic acumen. The implicit chorus of agreement amongst the members signals an unspoken acknowledgment—the path ahead, swathed in innovation and collaborative zest, will necessitate a harmonious fusion of each one's creative DNA with the pragmatic fibers of their professional mandates. + +With a succinct wrap-up, the assembly is adjourned, leaving behind a palpable sense of excitement intermingled with the gravity of the challenge they have collectively embraced. Each member departs with a tacit oath to breathe life into a remote control that might just encapsulate the future's calling—a device that harmonizes design, functionality, and commercial viability in an elegant dance of technological evolution. It is here the meeting ends, but for the Real Reaction project, it's mere prologue to an immersive undertaking filled with potential and the promise of innovation." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Starts {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD D: No . That 's a different thing . +Professor C: There 's another {disfmarker} I don't know . It starts with a P or something . I forget the word for it , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's um +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: Typically when you {disfmarker} you 're ab r starting around forty for most people , it starts to harden and then it 's just harder for the lens to shift things +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: and th the {disfmarker} the symptom is typically that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to hold stuff uh uh further away to {disfmarker} to see it . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor C: In fact , uh m my brother 's a {pause} gerontological psychologist and he {disfmarker} he uh {vocalsound} came up with an {disfmarker} an uh {disfmarker} a uh body age test which uh gets down to sort of only three measurements that are good enough st statistical predictors of all the rest of it . And one of them is {disfmarker} is the distance {vocalsound} that you have to hold it at . +PhD D: Give someone a piece of paper and then they {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: We 're {disfmarker} we 're live by the way , so we 've got a good intro here +Professor C: Oh . Yeah . About how old I am . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: We can edit that out if you want . +PhD D: Oh , that 's optional . +Professor C: No , that 's OK . +Grad A: OK . So . This time the form discussion should be very short , +PhD D: You know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: right ? +Professor C: It also should be {pause} later . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Because Jane uh is not here yet . +Grad A: Good point . +Professor C: And uh she 'll be most interested in that . Uh , she 's probably least involved in the signal - processing stuff so maybe we can just {disfmarker} just uh , I don't think we should go though an elaborate thing , but um uh Jose and I were just talking about {vocalsound} the uh {nonvocalsound} uh , speech e energy thing , +PhD E: The @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor C: and I uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: We didn't talk about the derivatives . But I think , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i if I can {disfmarker} if you don't mind my {disfmarker} my speaking for you for a bit , um {vocalsound} Uh . Right now , that he 's not really showing any kind of uh distinction , but uh {disfmarker} but we discussed a couple of the possible things that uh he can look at . Um . And uh one is that uh this is all in log energy and log energy is basically compressing the distances {vocalsound} uh {pause} between things . Um {pause} Another is that he needs to play with the {disfmarker} the different uh {pause} uh temporal sizes . He was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was taking everything over two hundred milliseconds uh , and uh he 's going to vary that number and also look at moving windows , as we discussed before . Um And uh {disfmarker} and the other thing is that the {disfmarker} yeah doing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} subtracting off the mean and the variance in the {disfmarker} {pause} uh and dividing it by the {pause} standard deviation in the log domain , {vocalsound} may not be {pause} the right thing to do . +Grad A: Hi Jane ! +PhD E: Hi . +Grad A: We just started . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Could you take that mike there ? +PhD D: Are these the long term means ? Like , over the whole {disfmarker} I mean , the means of {pause} what ? +Grad A: Thanks . +Professor C: Uh B Between {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD D: All the frames in the conversation ? +Professor C: No . +PhD D: Or of things that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Between {disfmarker} Neither . It 's uh between the pauses {pause} uh for some segment . +PhD E: No . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so i i his {disfmarker} his {disfmarker} He 's making the constraint it has to be at least two hundred milliseconds . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so you take that . And then he 's {disfmarker} he 's uh measuring at the frame level {disfmarker} still at the frame level , of what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} and then just uh normalizing with that larger amount . um and {disfmarker} But one thing he was pointing out is when he {disfmarker} he looked at a bunch of examples in log domain , it is actually pretty hard to see {vocalsound} the change . And you can sort of {pause} see that , because of j of just putting it on the board that {vocalsound} if you sort of have log - X plus log - X , that 's the log of X plus the log of two +PhD E: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah , maybe it 's not log distributed . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and it 's just , {pause} you know , it {disfmarker} it diminishes the {pause} effect of having two of them . +PhD E: +Professor C: Um . +PhD D: But you could do like a C D F there instead ? I mean , we don't know that the distribution here is normally . +Professor C: Yes , right . So {disfmarker} So what I was suggesting to him is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So just some kind of a simple {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , a PDF . But , you know , uh But , either way . +PhD D: PDF +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , eith eith uh {vocalsound} B +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Something like that where it 's sort of data driven . +Professor C: Yeah , but I think {pause} also u I think a good first indicator is when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the researcher looks at {vocalsound} examples of the data and can not see a change {pause} in how big the {disfmarker} the signal is , {vocalsound} when the two speaker {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Then , that 's a problem right there . So . I think you should at least be able , +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Professor C: doing casual looking and can get the sense , "" Hey , there 's something there . "" and then you can play around with the measures . And when he 's looking in the log domain he 's not really seeing it . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . And when he 's looking in straight energy he is , so that 's a good place to start . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . So that was {disfmarker} that was the discussion we just had . Um . {vocalsound} The other thing Actually we ca had a question for Adam in this . Uh , when you did the {vocalsound} sampling ? uh {pause} over the {pause} speech segments or s or sampling over the {disfmarker} the individual channels in order to do the e uh the {pause} amplitude equalization , {vocalsound} did you do it over just the entire {disfmarker} everything in the mike channels ? +PhD E: How {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't try to find speech ? +Grad A: No , I just took over the entire s uh entire channel um {pause} sampled ten minutes randomly . +Professor C: Right , OK . So then that means that someone who didn't speak {pause} very much {vocalsound} would be largely represented by silence . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: And someone who would {disfmarker} who would be {disfmarker} So the normalization factor probably is {pause} i i i {pause} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , this was quite quick and dirty , and it was just for {pause} listening . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And for listening it seems to work really well . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , it 's not {disfmarker} Not a good measure . +Professor C: Right . So th +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . So yeah there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} There 's a good chance then given that different people do talk different amounts {pause} that there is {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there is still a lot more to be gained from gain norm normalization with some sort +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad A: Yes , absolutely . +Professor C: if {disfmarker} if we can figure out a way to do it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . But we were agreed that in addition to that {comment} uh there should be {pause} s stuff related to pitch and harmonics and so forth . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we didn't talk at all about uh the other derivatives , but uh again just {disfmarker} just looking at {disfmarker} Uh , I think uh Liz has a very good point , that in fact it would be much more graphic just to show {disfmarker} Well , actually , you do have some distributions here , uh for these cases . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: You have some histograms , um {pause} and {pause} uh , they don't look very separate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh {vocalsound} {pause} separated . +PhD E: This is the {disfmarker} the first derivate of log of frame energy uh without any kind of normalization . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Log energy . Sorry . +PhD E: These the These are the {disfmarker} the first experiments uh with comment uh +PhD D: Frame energy . +Grad A: Except that {pause} it 's hard to judge this because the {disfmarker} they 're not normalized . It 's just number of frames . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But yeah , even so . +PhD D: W {vocalsound} I mean , what I meant is , even if you use linear , {pause} you know , raw {pause} measures , like {pause} raw energy or whatever , +Professor C: "" Number "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: maybe we shouldn't make any assumptions about the distribution 's shape , and just use {disfmarker} you know , use the distribution to model the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} the mean , or what y you know , rather than the mean take some {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} And so in {disfmarker} in these he 's got that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: He 's got some pictures . But he doesn't {disfmarker} he doesn't in the {disfmarker} he i +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: just in derivatives , but not in the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: but he d but he doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . So , we don't {pause} know what they look like {pause} on the , {pause} tsk {disfmarker} {comment} For the raw . +Professor C: But he didn't h have it for the energy . He had it for the derivatives . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So . I mean , there might be something there . I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Grad A: Interesting +PhD E: Here I {disfmarker} I +Professor C: Oh that {disfmarker} yeah that 's a good q +PhD E: in {disfmarker} No I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the result +Professor C: did {disfmarker} did you have this sort of thing , for just the {disfmarker} just the l r uh the {disfmarker} the unnormalized log energy ? OK . Yeah . So she {disfmarker} she 's right . +PhD E: but it 's the {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the following . +Professor C: That 's a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it might be just good to know what it looks like . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} That 's uh {pause} cuz I 'd mentioned scatter plots before but she 's right , +PhD D: Cuz {disfmarker} +PhD E: Huh ? +Professor C: I mean , even before you get the scatter plots , just looking at a single feature {vocalsound} uh , looking at the distribution , is a good thing to do . +PhD E: Yeah . Catal - uh {disfmarker} Combining the different possibilities of uh the parameters . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the scatter plot {pause} combining eh different {pause} n two combination . +Professor C: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but what she 's saying {pause} is , which is right , is {pause} le +PhD E: combination of two , {pause} of energy and derivate {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , let 's start with the {disfmarker} Before we get complicated , let 's start with the most basic wh thing , which is {pause} we 're arguing that if you take energy {disfmarker} uh if you look at the energy , that , when two people are speaking at the same time , usually {vocalsound} {pause} there 'll be more energy than when one is right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that sort of hypothesis . +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor C: And the first way you 'd look at that , uh s she 's , you know , absolutely right , is that you would just take a look at the distribution of those two things , much as you 've plotted them here , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , but just {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} {pause} just uh do it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well in this case you have three . You have the silence , and that {disfmarker} that 's fine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh with three colors or three shades or whatever , just {disfmarker} just look at those distributions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , given that as a base , you can see if that gets improved , you know , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} {pause} or worsened {pause} by the {disfmarker} looking at regular energy , looking at log energy , we were just proposing that maybe it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's harder to {pause} see with the log energy , um and uh also these different normalizations , does a particular choice of normalization make it better ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I had maybe made it too complicated by suggesting early on , that you look at scatter plots because that 's looking at a distribution in two dimensions . Let 's start off just in one , uh , with this feature . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: I think that 's probably the most basic thing , before anything very complicated . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um And then we w I think we 're agreed that pitch - related things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are going to be a {disfmarker} a really likely candidate to help . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . I agree , yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um {pause} But {pause} since {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh your intuition from looking at some of the data , is that when you looked at the regular energy , that it did in fact usually go up , {vocalsound} when two people were talking , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} eh you know , you should be able to come up with a measure which will {pause} match your intuition . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And she 's right , that a {disfmarker} that having a {disfmarker} having {disfmarker} {comment} having this table , with a whole bunch of things , {pause} with the standard deviation , the variance and so forth , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's harder to interpret than just looking at the {disfmarker} the same kind of picture you have here . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Uh - huh . Yeah . But {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's curious but uh I f I found it in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file , in one channel {vocalsound} that eh in several {disfmarker} oh e eh several times eh you have an speaker talking alone with a high level of energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh in the middle eh a zone of overlapping with mmm less energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and eh come with another speaker with high energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and the overlapping zone has eh less energy . +Professor C: Yeah . So there 'll be some cases for which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Because there reach very many +Professor C: But , the qu So {disfmarker} So they 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I w want to point {pause} to visual things , But I mean they {disfmarker} there 'll be time {disfmarker} There 'll be overlap between the distributions , but the question is , "" If it 's a reasonable feature at all , there 's some separation . "" +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Especially locally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Locally . +PhD E: just locally , yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I was just going to say that {disfmarker} that {pause} right now we 're just exploring . +PhD D: And the other thing is I Sorry . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: What you would imagine eventually , is that you 'll feed all of these features into some {pause} discriminative system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And so even if {disfmarker} if one of the features does a good job at one type of overlap , another feature might do a good job at another type of overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . I mean the {disfmarker} the reason I had suggested the scatter f p features is I used to do this a lot , when we had thirteen or fifteen or twenty features {pause} to look at . +PhD E: Yeah , this is the {disfmarker} +Professor C: um Because something is a good feature uh by itself , you don't really know how it 'll behave in combination and so it 's nice to have as many {disfmarker} as many together at the same time as possible in uh in some reasonable visual form . There 's cool graphic things people have had sometimes to put together three or four in some funny {disfmarker} funny way . But it 's true that you shouldn't do any of that unless you know that the individual ones , at least , have {disfmarker} have some uh {disfmarker} some hope +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , especially for normalizing . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , it 's really important to {pause} pick a normalization that matches the distribution for that feature . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And it may not be the same for all the types of overlaps or the windows may not be the same . e Actually , I was wondering , {vocalsound} right now you 're taking a {disfmarker} all of the {pause} speech , from the whole meeting , and you 're trying to find points of overlap , but we don't really know which speaker is overlapping with which speaker , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: right ? So I mean another way would just be to take the speech from just , say , Morgan , And just Jane and then just their overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} but by hand , by cheating , and looking at you know , if you can detect something that way , because if we can't do it that way , there 's no good way that we 're going to be able to do it . +Grad A: No prayer . +PhD D: That {disfmarker} You know , there might be something helpful and cleaner about looking at just {pause} individuals and then that combination alone . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Plus , I think it has more elegant {disfmarker} e +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: The m the right model will be {pause} easier to see that way . So if {disfmarker} I don't know , if you go through and you find Adam , cuz he has a lot of overlaps and some other speaker who also has e enough speech +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and just sort of look at those three cases of Adam and the other person and the overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: maybe {disfmarker} and just look at the distributions , maybe there is a clear pattern +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: but we just can't see it because there 's too many combinations of {disfmarker} of people that can overlap . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: I had the same intuition last {disfmarker} last {disfmarker} last week . +PhD D: So . Just seems sort of complex . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think it 's {disfmarker} to start with it 's s your {disfmarker} your idea of simplifying , starting with something that {pause} you can see {pause} eh you know without the {pause} extra {pause} layers of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Cuz if energy doesn't matter there , like {disfmarker} I don't think this is true , but what if +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Sorry , what ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Well , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you don't have to study everybody individually +PhD D: Well , to study the simplest case to get rid of extra {disfmarker} +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Consider {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but {pause} just simple case and the one that has the lot of data associated with it . +PhD D: Right . Cuz what if it 's the case and I don't think this is true {disfmarker} +Grad A: That was a great overlap by the way . +PhD D: What if it 's the case that when two people overlap they equate their {disfmarker} you know , there 's a {pause} conservation of energy and everybody {disfmarker} both people talk more softly ? I don't think this happens at all . +Postdoc B: Or {disfmarker} or what if what if the equipment {disfmarker} what if the equipment adjusts somehow , +PhD D: Or they get louder . +Postdoc B: there 's some equalizing in there ? +PhD D: Yeah or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no we don't have that . +PhD D: I mean . +Grad A: Well , but {disfmarker} But I think that 's what I was saying about different types of overlap . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: But . +Postdoc B: Saturation . +PhD D: There are {disfmarker} there are different types , and within those types , like as Jose was saying , that {pause} sounded like a backchannel overlap , meaning the kind that 's {pause} a friendly encouragement , like "" Mm - hmm . "" , "" Great ! "" , "" Yeah ! "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And it doesn't take {disfmarker} you don't take the floor . Um , but , some of those , as you showed , I think can be discriminated by the duration of the overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . It {disfmarker} Actually the s new student , Don , who um Adam has met , and he was at one of our meetings {disfmarker} He 's {pause} getting his feet wet and then he 'll be starting again {pause} in mid - January . He 's interested in trying to distinguish the types of overlap . I don't know if he 's talked with you yet . But in sort of honing in on these different types +PhD E: Yeah . I don't consi Now I don't consider that possibility . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So maybe {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is a s a general studio of the overlapping we 're studying the {disfmarker} i +Professor C: Yeah . Well {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would s actually still recommend that he do the overall thing +PhD D: So it might be something that we can {pause} help by categorizing some of them and then , you know , look at that . +Professor C: because {pause} it would be the quickest thing for him to do . He could {disfmarker} You see , he already has all his stuff in place , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: he has the histogram mechanism , he has the stuff that subtracts out {disfmarker} and all he has to do is change it uh uh from {disfmarker} from log to plain energy and plot the histogram and look at it . And then he should go on and do the other stuff bec but {disfmarker} But this will {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , no . I didn't mean that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} for you to do that , but I was thinking if {disfmarker} if Don and I are trying to get {pause} categories +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and we label some data for you , and we say this is what we think is going {disfmarker} So you don't have to worry about it . And here 's the three types of overlaps . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll do the labelling for you . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Hm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . +PhD E: Consider different class of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah , that we would be working on anyway . +PhD E: If there 's time . +PhD D: Then maybe {pause} you can try some different things for those three cases , and see if that helps , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . This is the thing I {disfmarker} I comment with you before , that uh we have a great variation of th situation of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And the behavior for energy is , uh log energy , {vocalsound} is not uh the same all the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: But I guess I was just saying that {disfmarker} that right now uh from the means that you gave , I don't have any sense of whether even , you know , there are any significant number of cases for which there is distinct {disfmarker} and I would imagine there should be some {disfmarker} you know , there should be {disfmarker} The distributions should be somewhat separated . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh and I {disfmarker} I would still guess that if they are not separated at all , that there 's some {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's most likely something wrong in the way that we 're measuring it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Um , but {pause} um For instance , I mean I wouldn't expect that it was very common overall , that when two people were talking at the same time , that it would {disfmarker} that it really was lower , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: although sometimes , as you say , it would . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . So . +PhD D: Yeah , no , that was {disfmarker} That was a jok +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: or a sort of , a case where {disfmarker} where you would never know that unless you actually go and look at two individuals . +Professor C: I mean . No . It could {disfmarker} it probably does happen sometimes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mind if I turned that light off ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Grad A: The flickering is annoying me . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: It might the case , though , that the significant energy , just as Jose was saying , comes in the non - backchannel cases . Because in back Most people when they 're talking don't change their own {pause} energy when they get a backchannel , cuz they 're not really predicting the backchannel . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And sometimes it 's a nod and sometimes it 's an "" mm - hmm "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And the "" mm - hmm "" is really usually very low energy . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So maybe those don't actually have much difference in energy . But {pause} all the other cases might . +Professor C: e {vocalsound} e and {disfmarker} and again what they {disfmarker} what difference there was would kind of be lost in taking the log , +PhD D: and the backchannels are sort of easy to spot s in terms of their words or {disfmarker} I mean , just listen to it . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so , as well . +PhD D: Well , it would be lost {pause} no matter what you do . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mmm , no , if it 's {disfmarker} if i if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Tone +Professor C: Well , it won't be as big . +PhD D: I mean , even if you take the log , you can {disfmarker} your model just has a more sensitive {pause} measures . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sure , but tone might be very +PhD D: So . +Grad A: Yeah , you 're "" mm - hmm "" tone is going to be very different . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . Right . +Grad A: You could imagine doing specialized ones for different types of backchannels , if you could {disfmarker} if you had a good model for it . Your "" mm - hmm "" detector . +Professor C: If {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} a I guess my point is , if you 're doing essentially a linear separation , taking the log first does in fact make it harder to separate . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} So , uh if you i i So i if there {disfmarker} if there close to things it does +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: it 's a nonlinear operation that does in fact change the distinction . If you 're doing a non if you 're doing some fancy thing then {disfmarker} then yeah . And right now we 're essentially doing this linear thing by looking across here and {disfmarker} and saying we 're going to cut it here . Um and that {disfmarker} that 's the indicator that we 're getting . But anyway , yeah , we 're not {pause} disagreeing on any of this , we should look at it more uh {disfmarker} more finely , but uh uh I think that {disfmarker} This often happens , you do fairly complicated things , and then you stand back from them and you realize that you haven't done something simple . So uh , if you generated something like that just for the energy and see , and then , a a a as {disfmarker} as Liz says , when they g have uh uh smaller um , more coherent groups to look at , that would be another interesting thing later . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then that should give us some indication {disfmarker} between those , should give us some indication of whether there 's anything to be achieved f from energy at all . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then you can move on to the uh {pause} uh more {nonvocalsound} pitch related stuff . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think this is a good idea . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Not consider the log energy . +Professor C: Yeah . But then the {disfmarker} Have you started looking at the pitch related {pause} stuff at all , or {disfmarker} ? Pitch {pause} related ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Harmonicity and so on ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the program but I don't {disfmarker} I don't begin because eh {vocalsound} I saw your email +Professor C: Preparing to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: and {pause} I agree with you it 's better to {disfmarker} I suppose it 's better to {disfmarker} to consider the {disfmarker} the energy this kind of parameter {vocalsound} bef +Professor C: Yeah . Oh , that 's not what I meant . No , no . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Well , we certainly should see this but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the harm I certainly wasn't saying this was better than the harmonicity and pitch related things I was just saying +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I go on with the {disfmarker} with the pitch , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: aha ! {pause} OK . +Professor C: Yeah , I was just saying {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understood uh that eh {pause} I {disfmarker} I had to finish {pause} by the moment with the {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and concentrate my {disfmarker} my energy in that problem . +Professor C: OK . OK . {vocalsound} OK . But I think , like , all these derivatives and second derivatives and all these other very fancy things , I think I would just sort of look at the energy {pause} and then get into the harmonicity as {disfmarker} as a suggestion . +PhD E: OK . I go on with the pitch . +Professor C: Uh OK . So maybe uh since w we 're trying to uh compress the meeting , um , I know Adam had some form stuff he wanted to talk about and did you have some ? +Postdoc B: I wanted to ask just s something on the end of this top topic . So , when I presented my results about the uh distribution of overlaps and the speakers and the profiles of the speakers , at the bottom of that I did have a proposal , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: and I had plan to go through with it , of {disfmarker} of co coding the types of overlaps that people were involved in s just with reference to speaker style so , you know , with reference {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: and you know I said that on my {disfmarker} in my summary , +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Postdoc B: that {pause} you know so it 's like people may have different amounts of being overlapped with or overlapping +PhD D: Yeah , I remem Right . +Postdoc B: but that in itself is not informative without knowing what types of overlaps they 're involved in so I was planning to do a taxonomy of types overlaps with reference to that . +PhD D: That would be great . +Postdoc B: So , but it you know it 's like it sounds like you also have uh something in that direction . +PhD D: That would be really great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Is {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD D: We have nothing {disfmarker} You know , basically , we got {pause} his environment set up . He 's {disfmarker} he 's a double - E {comment} you know . So . It 's mostly that , {pause} if we had to {pause} label it ourselves , we {disfmarker} we would or we 'd have to , to get started , but if {disfmarker} {pause} It {disfmarker} it would be much better if you can do it . You 'd be much better {comment} at doing it also because {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't have a good feel for how they should be sorted out , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD D: and I really didn't wanna go into that if I didn't have to . So if {disfmarker} If you 're w willing to do that or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be interesting , though , to talk , maybe not at the meeting , but at some other time about what are the classes . +Postdoc B: Well maybe we can OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I think that 's a research {pause} effort in and of itself , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , it would be interesting . +PhD D: because you can read the literature , but I don't know how it 'll {pause} turn out +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , You know , it 's always an interesting question . +Postdoc B: It seems like we also s with reference to a purpose , too , that we we 'd want to have them coded . +PhD E: I would think it 's interesting , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: That 'd be really great . +Postdoc B: I can do that . +PhD D: And we 'd still have some {pause} funding for this project , +PhD E: uh uh +PhD D: like probably , if we had to hire some {disfmarker} like an undergrad , because uh Don is being covered half time on something else {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , he {disfmarker} we 're not paying him {pause} the full RA - ship for {disfmarker} all the time . So . {vocalsound} um If we got it to where we wanted {disfmarker} we needed someone to do that {disfmarker} I don't think there 's really enough data where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see this as a prototype , to use the only the {disfmarker} the already transcribed meeting as just a prototype . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think a a another parameter we c we {disfmarker} we can consider is eh the {pause} duration . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Another e e m besides eh the {disfmarker} the class of overlap , the duration . Because is possible {vocalsound} eh some s s um eh some classes eh has eh {pause} a type of a duration , eh , {pause} a duration very short uh when we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have overlapping with speech . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , definitely . +Postdoc B: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} It may be correlated . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Is possible to have . And it 's interesting , {pause} I think , {pause} to consider the {disfmarker} the window of normalization , normalization window . Eh {pause} because eh if we have a type of , {pause} a kind of eh overlap , eh backchannel overlap , with a short duration , is possible {pause} eh to normali i i that if we normalize eh with eh {pause} eh consider only the {disfmarker} the eh window eh by the left eh ri eh {pause} side on the right side overlapping with a {disfmarker} a very {pause} eh oh a small window eh the {disfmarker} if the fit of normalization is eh mmm bigger eh in that overlapping zone eh very short +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's true . The window shouldn't be larger than the backchannel . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I me I {disfmarker} I understand . I mean that you have eh you have a backchannel , eh , eh {disfmarker} you have a overlapping zone very short +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: and you consider eh n eh all the channel to normalize this very short eh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: for example "" mmm mm - hmm hmm "" eh And the energy is not eh height eh I think if you consider all the channel to normalize and the channel is {pause} mmm bigger {pause} eh eh eh compared with the {disfmarker} with the overlapping eh duration , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh the effect is mmm stronger eh {pause} that I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the e effect of the normalization eh with the mean and the {disfmarker} and the variance eh is different that if you consider {pause} only a {pause} window compared eh with the n the duration of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . You {disfmarker} you want it around the overlapping part . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: You want it to include something that 's not in overlapping +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} s If {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it 's a sliding window , right ? So if you take the {disfmarker} the measure in the center of the overlapped {pause} piece , you know , there 'd better be some something . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: But if your window is really huge then yeah you 're right you won't even {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , This is the {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} the idea , {vocalsound} to consider only the {disfmarker} the small window near {disfmarker} near {disfmarker} near the {disfmarker} the overlapping zone . +PhD D: The portion of the {disfmarker} {comment} of the backchannel won't {disfmarker} won't effect anything . But you {disfmarker} Yeah . So . You know , you shouldn't be more than like {disfmarker} {pause} You should definitely not be three times as big as your {disfmarker} as your {pause} backchannel . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Then you 're gonna w have a wash . And hopefully it 's more like on the order of {disfmarker} +Professor C: I 'm not sure that 's {pause} necessarily true . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc B: It is an empirical question , it seems like . +Professor C: Because {disfmarker} because it {disfmarker} because um again if you 're just compensating for the gain , +PhD D: Yea +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: you know , the fact that this {disfmarker} this gain thing was crude , and the gain wh if someone is speaking relatively at consistent level , just to {disfmarker} to give a {disfmarker} an extreme example , all you 're doing is compensating for that . And then you still s And then if you look at the frame with respect to that , it still should {disfmarker} should uh change +PhD D: Yeah , it depends how different your normalization is , as you slide your window across . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean . That 's something we don't know . +Postdoc B: It 's possible to try it both ways , +Grad A: Well , I mean we 're also talking about a couple of different things . +Postdoc B: isn't it ? in this small +Grad A: I mean , one is your analysis window and then the other is any sort of normalization that you 're doing . +PhD D: Yeah I was talking about the n normalization window . +Grad A: And the {disfmarker} And they could be quite different . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: This was sort of where {disfmarker} where we were last week . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . Yeah . +Professor C: But , anyway We {disfmarker} we 'll have to look at some core things . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Um . But that 'd be great if {disfmarker} if you 're marking those +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc B: Great . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} um . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: But it is definitely true that we need to have the time marks , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was assuming that will be inherited because , if you have the words and they 're roughly aligned in time via forced alignment or whatever we end up using , then you know , this {pause} student and I would be looking at the time marks +Postdoc B: Yep , I agree . Mm - hmm . Coming off of the other {disfmarker} +PhD D: and classifying all the frames inside those as whatever labels Jane gave +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Good . So , it wouldn't be {pause} I wasn't planning to label the time marks . +PhD D: +PhD E: I can give you my transcription file , +Postdoc B: I was thinking that that would come from the engineering side , +PhD D: I don't think you need to . +PhD E: no ? +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . That should be linked to the words which are linked to time somehow , +Postdoc B: There you go . +Grad A: Well we 're not any time soon going to get a forced alignment . +PhD D: right ? Not now . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um If it 's not hand - marked then we 're not going to get the times . +PhD D: Well , it 's something that w Well , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't be able to do any work without a forced alignment anyway , +PhD E: Yes +PhD D: so somehow if {disfmarker} once he gets going we 're gonna hafta come up with one +Professor C: Yes . +PhD D: and Yeah . +Grad A: I mean w I guess we could do a very bad one with Broadcast News . +Postdoc B: Good . Good . +PhD D: So whatever you would label would be attached to the words , I think . +Postdoc B: Great ! Good , good . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well again for the close {pause} mike stuff , we could come up {disfmarker} take a s take the Switchboard system or something , +Grad A: That might be good enough . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} Um +Grad A: It 'd be worth a try . It would be interesting to see what we get . +Professor C: Just , you know , low - pass filter the speech and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Cuz there 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot of work you can't do without that , I mean , how {disfmarker} how would you {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: You 'd have to go in and measure every start and stop point next to a word +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: It would be very inefficient . +PhD D: is y if you 're interested in anything to do with words . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Anyway {pause} So that 'd be great . +Postdoc B: Good . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: There 's something we should talk about later but maybe not just now . But , uh , should talk about our options as far as the uh uh {pause} transcription +Grad A: Yep , if IBM doesn't {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Well , w But we 'll do that later . +Postdoc B: OK . Good . +PhD D: Do we hafta {pause} turn {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . Let 's do that later . +PhD D: Are we supposed to keep recording here ? +Grad A: Yeah {vocalsound} Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 'll talk about it later . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: So {vocalsound} uh Uh "" forms "" . +Grad A: Forms Next iteration of forms . +Professor C: You had something on forms . +Grad A: Oops . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Oh good , OK . +Professor C: Um . Oh . +Postdoc B: How {disfmarker} So it 's two pages per person ? +Grad A: Nope . One 's a digit form , one 's a speaker form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! +Grad A: So one is a one time only {pause} speaker form and the other is the digits . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Oh it 's the same . Oh no no . Is {disfmarker} is new Is OK . +Grad A: So don't fill these out . +Postdoc B: Alright . +Grad A: This is just the suggestion for uh what the new forms would look like . So , they incorporate the changes {pause} that we talked about . +Postdoc B: Date and time . Uh why did you switch the order of the Date and Time fields ? This is rather a low - level , but +Grad A: On which one ? +Postdoc B: On {disfmarker} on the new one , Time comes first and then Date , but I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh you mean on the digit form ? +Postdoc B: This is {disfmarker} this is rather a low level question , but {disfmarker} but it used {disfmarker} used to be Date came first . +Grad A: Uh , because the user fills out the first three fields and I fill out the rest . +Postdoc B: Oh I see . +Grad A: So it was intentional . +Postdoc B: Well , how would the {disfmarker} How would the user know the time if they didn't know the date ? +Grad A: It 's an interesting observation , but it was intentional . Because the date is when you actually read the digits and the time and , excuse me , the time is when you actually read the digits , but I 'm filling out the date beforehand . If you look at the form in front of you ? that you 're going to fill out when you read the digits ? you 'll see I 've already filled in the date but not the time . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I always assumed {disfmarker} So the time is supposed to be pretty exact , because I 've just been taking beginning time {disfmarker} time of the meeting . +PhD D: Yeah , me too . +Grad A: Yeah , I 've noticed that in the forms . +PhD E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the reason I put the time in , is so that the person who 's extracting the digits , meaning me , will know where to look in the meeting , to try to find the digits . +PhD D: +PhD E: Me too . Oh ! +Postdoc B: Oh dear . We 've been {disfmarker} we 've been messing up your forms . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} I am put {disfmarker} I am putting the beginning of the meeting . +Grad A: I know . +PhD D: So you should call it , like , "" digits start time "" . Or . +Grad A: And I haven't said anything . Yep . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} on there . +Professor C: Why {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what were you putting in ? +Postdoc B: Oh , well , I was saying if we started the meeting at two thirty , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I 'd put two thirty , and I guess d e everyone was putting two thirty , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , it 's about fifty fifty . +Postdoc B: and I didn't realize there was "" uh oh I 'm about to read this and I should "" {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually it 's about one third each . About one third of them are blank , about one third of them are when the digits are read , and about one third of them are when the {pause} meeting starts . So . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: This would be a radical suggestion but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I could put instructions ? Nah . +Postdoc B: Ei - either that or maybe you could maybe write down when people {vocalsound} start reading digits on that particular session . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But if I 'm not at the meeting , I can't do that . +Postdoc B: I know , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's been setting stuff up and going away . So . +Postdoc B: I see . Good point good point . +Professor C: For some reason he doesn't want to sit through every meeting that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , but that is the reason Name , Email and Time are where they are . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I rest my {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then the others are later on . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: OK . w +PhD E: And the Seat is this number ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Seat and Session . +PhD D: "" For official use only "" That 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , he 's very professional . +PhD E: "" use only "" +Postdoc B: Actually you could {disfmarker} Well that does raise another question , which is why is the "" Professional use only "" line not higher ? Why doesn't it come in at the point of Date and Seat ? Oh . Because we 're filling in other things . +Grad A: What ? +Professor C: What ? +Postdoc B: Well , because {disfmarker} If y your {disfmarker} your professional use , you 're gonna already have the date , and the s +Grad A: What {disfmarker} which form are you talking about ? +Postdoc B: Well I 'm comparing the new one with the old one . This is the digit form . +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: Oh you 're talking about the digit form . +Professor C: Digit . Digit form . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't {disfmarker} The digit {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh ! I wasn't supposed to {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , that 's alright . +Postdoc B: Sorry . Sorry . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't have a "" for official use only "" line . It just has a line , {pause} which is what you 're supposed to read . +Postdoc B: That {disfmarker} uh OK . +Grad A: So on the digits form , everything above the line is a fill - in form +Postdoc B: Sorry about that . Yeah . +Grad A: and everything below the line is digits that the user reads . +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . Alright s but I didn't mean to derail our discussion here , so you really wanted to start with this other form . +Grad A: No , either way is fine I just {disfmarker} You just started talking about something , and I didn't know which form you were referring to . +Postdoc B: Alright yeah , I was comparing {disfmarker} so th this is {disfmarker} So I was looking at the change first . So it 's like we started with this and now we 've got a new version of it wi {pause} with reference to this . So the digit form , we had one already . Now the f the fields are slightly different . +Professor C: So the main thing that the person fills out um {pause} is the name and email and time ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: You do the rest ? +PhD E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . Just as uh {disfmarker} as I have for all the others . +Postdoc B: What {disfmarker} And there 's an addition of the native language , which is a bit redundant . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: This one has Native Language and this one does too . +Grad A: That 's because the one , the digit form that has native language is the old form not the new form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Thank you . {pause} Thank you , thank you . There we go . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , yeah . I 'll catch up here . OK , I see . +Professor C: "" South Midland , North Midland "" +Postdoc B: That 's the old and that 's the new . +Grad A: Yeah this was the problem with these categories , I {disfmarker} I picked those categories from TIMIT . I don't know what those are . +PhD D: Actually , the only way I know is from working with the database and having to figure it out . +PhD E: What {disfmarker} +Grad A: With TIMIT , yeah ? +PhD E: uh - huh . +Grad A: So , I was gonna ask +PhD E: What i +Professor C: So is South Midland like Kansas ? +Grad A: wh w I mean . +Professor C: and North Midland like {disfmarker} like uh Illinois , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Well yeah . Nor - um {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so what accent are we speaking ? Western ? +Professor C: By definition ? +PhD E: And for simple for {disfmarker} for me ? +Professor C: Well , +PhD D: Probably Western , yeah . +PhD E: Is mean my native language Spanish {disfmarker} Spanish ? eh The original is the center of Spain and the {vocalsound} beca +Grad A: Yeah , I mean you could call it whatever you want . For the foreign language we couldn't classify every single one . So I just left it blank and you can put whatever you want . +PhD E: Because is different , the Span - uh {pause} the Spanish language from the {disfmarker} the north of Spain , of the south , of the west and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD E: But . +Grad A: So I 'm not sure what to do about the Region field for English variety . You know , when I wrote {disfmarker} I was writing those down , I was thinking , "" You know , these are great {pause} if you 're a linguist "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to categorize them . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Actually even if you {vocalsound} {pause} t +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} if e {vocalsound} if y +PhD D: This wasn't developed by {disfmarker} th these regions weren't {disfmarker} +Professor C: if you 're a TI or MIT {vocalsound} from {vocalsound} nineteen eighty - five . +Grad A: Yeah So I guess my only question was if {disfmarker} if you were a South Midland speaking region , person ? Would you know it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Is that what you would call yourself ? +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , I think if you 're talking {disfmarker} if you 're thinking in terms of places , {pause} as opposed to {pause} names different peop names people have given to {pause} different ways of talking , {pause} I would think North Midwest , and South Midwest would be more common than saying Midland , right , I mean , I {disfmarker} I went to s +PhD D: Yeah . Now {pause} the usage {disfmarker} Maybe we can give them a li {pause} like a little map ? with the regions and they just {disfmarker} No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc B: No , that 's not bad . Yeah . +PhD D: Because it takes less time , and it 's sort of cute +PhD E: i at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in that side {disfmarker} in that side of the {disfmarker} the paper . +PhD D: there 's no figure . +Professor C: Well . +PhD D: Well just a little {disfmarker} You know , it doesn't have all the detail , but you sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: But what if you moved five times and {disfmarker} and uh +Postdoc B: Well , I was thinking you could have ma multiple ones and then the amount of time {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , but you 're categorized . That 's the same {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so , roughly . So . You could say , {pause} you know "" ten years {pause} on the east coast , five years on the west coast "" or something or other . +Grad A: Well , We {disfmarker} I think we don't want to get that level of detail at this form . I think that 's alright if we want to follow up . But . +Professor C: I guess we don't really know . +PhD D: I mean I {disfmarker} As I said , I don't think there 's a huge {pause} benefit to this region thing . It {disfmarker} it gets {disfmarker} The problem is that for some things it 's really clear and usually listening to {comment} it you can tell right away if it 's a New York or Boston accent , but New York and Boston are two {disfmarker} well , I guess they have the NYC , but New England has a bunch of very different dialects and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {pause} so does um S So do other places . +Grad A: Yeah , so I picked these regions cuz we had talked about TIMIT , and those are right from TIMIT . +PhD D: Right . And so these would be {pause} satisfying like a speech {pause} research {pause} community if we released the database , +Grad A: So . +PhD D: but as to whether subjects know where they 're from , I 'm not sure because um I know that they had to fill this out for Switchboard . This is i almost exactly the same as Switchboard regions +Postdoc B: Oh . OK . +PhD D: or very close . Yeah . Um And I don't know how they filled that out . But th if Midland {disfmarker} Yeah , Midland is the one that 's difficult I guess . +Postdoc B: I think a lot of people {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Also Northwest you 've got Oreg - Washington and Oregon now which uh y people don't know if it 's western or northern . +Grad A: Yeah , I certainly don't . I mean , I was saying I don't even know what I speak . +PhD D: It 's like Northwest +Grad A: Am I speaking {disfmarker} Am I speaking Western ? +Professor C: Oh , what is Northern ? Well and what {disfmarker} and what 's Northern ? +PhD D: I think originally it was North {disfmarker} Northwest +Grad A: Northwest ? +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , so this is a real problem . I don't know what to do about it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I wouldn't know how to characterize mine either . And {disfmarker} and so I would think {disfmarker} I would say , I 've {disfmarker} I 've got a mix of California and Ohio . +Grad A: I c I think at the first level , for example , we speak the same . +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: our {disfmarker} our dialects Or {pause} whatever you {disfmarker} region are the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Grad A: But I don't know what it is . So . +PhD D: Well , you have a like techno - speak accent I think . +Grad A: a techno - speak accent ? +PhD D: Yeah , you know ? +PhD E: A techno +Grad A: A {disfmarker} a geek region ? +PhD D: Well it 's {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} you can sort of identify +Postdoc B: Geek region . +PhD D: it f It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not that that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is different . Is different . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but maybe that {disfmarker} maybe we could leave this and see what people {disfmarker} See what people choose and then um let them just fill in if they don't {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what else we can do , cuz {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's North Midland . +Postdoc B: I 'm wondering about a question like , "" Where are you from mostly ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I 'm s I 'm {disfmarker} now that you mentioned it though , I am {disfmarker} really am confused by "" Northern "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . I agree . +Professor C: I really am . +Postdoc B: I agree . +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you 're {pause} in New England , that 's North . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} i if you 're +Postdoc B: Scandinavian , the Minnesota area 's north . +Professor C: Uh yeah . That 's {disfmarker} But that 's also North Midland , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , @ @ . {disfmarker} OK . +Professor C: right ? +Postdoc B: +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Oregon and {disfmarker} and Oregon and Washington are {disfmarker} are Western , but they 're also Northern . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course , that 's very different from , like , Michigan , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , Idaho ? +PhD D: Well there are hardly any subjects from Idaho . +Professor C: Montana ? +Grad A: No problem . +Postdoc B: Just rule them out . +PhD D: There 's only a few people in Idaho . +Grad A: There are hardly any subjects from "" beep "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Sorry . +Professor C: Maybe {disfmarker} Maybe we {disfmarker} Maybe we should put a little map and say "" put an X on where you 're from "" , +PhD D: No , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: And {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} in those {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah really . +PhD D: We could ask where they 're from . +PhD E: And if you put {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: It 'd be pretty simple , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But - We went back to that . +PhD E: Yeah . If you put eh the state ? +Grad A: Well well we sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Where are you from mostly ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we went {disfmarker} we went around this and then {pause} a lot of people ended up saying that it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Well , I like the idea of asking "" what variety of English do you speak "" as opposed to where you 're from Because th if we start asking where we 're from , again you have to start saying , "" well , is that the language you speak or is that just where you 're from ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +PhD D: Right . Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Let 's {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean it gives us good information on where they 're from , but that doesn't {comment} tell us anything {disfmarker} +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: We could always ask them if they 're from {disfmarker} +PhD D: well , enough about their {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . So {disfmarker} so I would say Germany +PhD D: like {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know am I speaking with German accent +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad A: I don't think so . +Postdoc B: Well , see , I 'm thinking "" Where are you from mostly "" +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Oh , OK yeah . +Postdoc B: because , you know , then you have some {disfmarker} some kind of subjective amount of time factored into it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Yeah , I guess I could try to put {disfmarker} squeeze in a little map . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean there 's not a lot of r of room +Professor C: I 'd say , uh , "" Boston , New York City , the South and Regular "" . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , I don't know . +Grad A: I think of those , Northern is the only one that I don't even know what they 're meaning . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {pause} And usually here {disfmarker} people here know what is their kind of mmm lang English language ? +Professor C: That 's a joke . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So let 's make it up . S I mean , who cares . Right ? We can make up our own {disfmarker} So we can say "" Northwest "" , "" Rest of West "" or something . You know . "" West "" and I mean . +Grad A: Ye I don't think the Northwest people speak any differently than I do . +PhD D: It doesn't even {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . That 's not really a region . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: "" Do you come from the Louisiana Purchase ? "" +PhD D: So we could take out "" North "" {disfmarker} "" Northern "" . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} that 's exactly what we 're arguing about . +PhD E: eh here Is easy for people to know ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah , w It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's harder in America anywhere else , basically . +Grad A: We don't know . +PhD E: because you have {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean some of them are very obvious . If you {disfmarker} if you talk to someone speaking with Southern drawl , you know . +PhD E: N m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , or Boston . +Grad A: Or Boston , yeah . +Postdoc B: I can't do it , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or Boston ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And those people , if you ask them to self - identify their accent they know . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , they do . +PhD D: They know very well . +Postdoc B: Yeah I agree I agree . I agree . +PhD D: They know they don't speak the same as the +Grad A: But is Boston New England ? +Postdoc B: And they 're proud of it . +PhD D: day o +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: It 's identity thing . +PhD D: And they 're glad to tell you . +PhD E: style . +PhD D: Well . Depends who you ask , I suppose . +Grad A: W {vocalsound} I guess that 's the problem with these categories . +PhD E: +PhD D: But that 's why they have New York City but {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Well , we ca Well , why can't we just say characterize {disfmarker} something like char characterize your accent +Professor C: Well , Boston 's @ @ , too . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} "" Characterize your accent {pause} if you can . "" +Postdoc B: and {disfmarker} and so I would say , "" I don't know "" . +PhD D: Yeah . Right , which probably means you have a very {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But someone from Boston with a really strong coloration would know . And so would an R - less Maine {disfmarker} or something , +PhD D: And that 's actually good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking of something along that line +Professor C: How +Postdoc B: Good . +PhD D: because {pause} if you don't know , then , you know , ruling out the fact that you 're totally {pause} inept or something , +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD D: if somebody doesn't know , it probably means their accent isn't very strong compared to the sort of midwest standard . +Professor C: Well , {vocalsound} I mean , it wasn't that long ago that we had somebody here who was from Texas who was absolutely sure that he didn't have any accent left . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and had {disfmarker} he had a pretty {vocalsound} noticeable drawl . +Grad A: OK , so . I propose , {pause} take out Northern add , don't know . +Postdoc B: Oh . {pause} Yeah . I {disfmarker} I would say more {disfmarker} more sweepingly , "" how would you characterize your accent ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So you want to change the instructions also not just say region ? +PhD D: W +Postdoc B: Well , I think this discussion has made me think that 's s something to consider . +Grad A: I don't know if I {disfmarker} if I read this form , I think they 're going to ask {comment} it {disfmarker} they 're going to answer the same way if you say , "" What 's variety of English do you speak ? Region . "" as if you say "" what variety of region {disfmarker} region {comment} do you speak ? Please characterize your accent ? "" They 're going to answer the same way . +Postdoc B: I guess {disfmarker} Well , I was not sure that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: So . I was suggesting not having the options , just having them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Huh . +Grad A: Well what we talked about with that is {pause} is so that they would understand the granularity . +Postdoc B: Yes , but if , as Liz is suggesting , people who have strong accents know that they do {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's what I had before , and you told me to list the regions to list them . +Postdoc B: and are {disfmarker} Well , I know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Each {disfmarker} each one has pros and cons +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: That 's true . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: I mean we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah last week {disfmarker} last week I was sort of r arguing for having it wide open , but then everybody said "" Oh , no , but then it will be hard to interpret because some people will say Cincinnati and some will say Ohio "" . +Grad A: I mean I had it wide open last week and {disfmarker} and you said TIMIT . +Professor C: And . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: What if we put in both ? +Grad A: That 's what the "" Other "" is for . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Would people {disfmarker} No , I mean what if we put in both ways of asking them ? So . One is {pause} Region and the another one is "" if you had to characterize yourself {disfmarker} your accent , what would you say ? "" +Grad A: Won't they answer the same thing ? +PhD D: Well they might only answer only one of the questions but if +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's fine . +PhD D: You know . +Postdoc B: They might say "" Other "" for Region because they don't know what category to use +PhD D: Actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but they might have something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc B: because it is easier to have it open ended . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} And we {disfmarker} we might learn from what they say , as to which one 's a better {comment} way to ask it . +Professor C: W This is just a small thing +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Cuz I really don't know . +Professor C: but um It says "" Variety "" and then it gives things that e have American as one of the choices . But then it says "" Region "" , but Region actually just applies to uh , US , +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: right ? +Grad A: I mean that 's why I put the "" Other "" in . +Postdoc B: Well , we thought about it . +Professor C: Ah , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah , OK . We just {disfmarker} We sort of thought , "" yes , {disfmarker} "" y y I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: S +Postdoc B: At the last meeting , my recollection was that {pause} we felt people would have uh less {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that there are so many types and varieties of {pause} these other languages and we are not going to have that many subjects from these different language groups +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: and that it 's a huge waste of {disfmarker} of space . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: So I mean , I {disfmarker} I mean the way I had it last time {pause} was Region was blank , +Postdoc B: That 's what I thought . +Grad A: it just said Region colon . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and I think that that 's the best way to do it , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: because {disfmarker} because of the problems we 're talking about but what we said last week , was no , put in a list , so I put in a list . So should we go back to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe we can make the list a little smaller . +Grad A: Well , certainly dropping "" Northern "" I think is right , because none of us know what that is . +PhD D: Cuz , I mean {disfmarker} And keeping "" Other "" , and then {pause} maybe this North Midland , we call it "" North Midwest "" . South {pause} Midwest , or just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . +PhD D: South Midwest . Does that make sense ? +PhD E: South Midwest ? +PhD D: That would help me {disfmarker} +Professor C: U unless you 're from Midland , Kansas . +PhD D: Yeah . Cuz {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Yeah . +PhD D: I don't know where Midland is +Professor C: There 's a {disfmarker} Or Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is "" Midwest "" one word ? +Professor C: Is it Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} Midland , Texas or Midland , Kansas ? I forget . +PhD D: Y yeah , one w +Professor C: But there 's a town . in {disfmarker} in there . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: I forget what it is @ @ . +Postdoc B: I don't think that 's what they mean . +PhD D: But , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So . Kansas would be {pause} South Midland . Right ? +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and wouldn't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: And Colorado , right across the border , would be {vocalsound} North Midland . +PhD D: So , th I 'm from Kansas , actually . +PhD E: Southern Midland . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Colora Oh , right . And then , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} dropping North , so it would be Western . It 's just one big shebang , where , of course , you have huge variation in dialects , +Grad A: But that 's true of New England too . +Professor C: But you do in the others , too . So . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} {comment} but so do you {disfmarker} +Grad A: So . I mean only one {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I shouldn't say that . I have no clue . I was going to say the only one that doesn't have a huge variety is New York City . But I have no idea whether it does or not . +Postdoc B: It does seem {disfmarker} I mean . I {disfmarker} I would think that these categories would be more {disfmarker} w would be easier for an an analyst to put in rather than the subject himself . +Professor C: U +Grad A: I think that {disfmarker} that was what happened with TIMIT , was that it was an analyst . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Wait a minute . Where does {disfmarker} Where does {disfmarker} {pause} d w Where {disfmarker} Where 's {disfmarker} where does uh {vocalsound} New {disfmarker} New York west of {disfmarker} west of uh New York City and {pause} Pennsylvania {pause} uh and uh +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know how it came from . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: New England +PhD D: So . That 's New England I think . +Professor C: N No , it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Oh , no . +Postdoc B: I sort of thought they were part of the {disfmarker} one of the Midlands . +Professor C: Oh no . No , no . {pause} No . Pennsylvania is not {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Other "" , it goes under "" Other "" , definitely under "" Other "" . +PhD D: Well , you know , Pennsylvania has a pretty strong dialect and it 's totally different than {disfmarker} +Professor C: Pennsylvania {disfmarker} Yeah . Pennsylvania is not New England . and uh New Jersey is not New England and Maryland is not New England and none of those are the South . +Grad A: OK . So . Another suggestion . Rather than have circle fill in forms , say "" Region , open paren , E G Southern comma Western comma close paren colon . "" +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: OK ! +Postdoc B: Fine by me , fine by me . +Professor C: That 's good . I like that . +PhD D: Sure ! +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 're all {pause} sufficiently {pause} tired of this that we 're agreeing with you . +PhD D: Let 's just {disfmarker} And we 'll see what we get . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Be easier on the subjects . I think that 's fine . No . I think {disfmarker} +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I like that . I like that . +Professor C: You like it ? +Postdoc B: Yeah , I do . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Actually , maybe we do one non - English one as well . +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Southern , Cockney ? +PhD D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that a {pause} real accent ? +Postdoc B: Sure , yeah ! +Grad A: How do you spell it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think that 's fine . +Professor C: Cockney ? +Grad A: N E +Professor C: CO {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: You could say Liverpool . +Professor C: Liverpuddlian . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Alright . +PhD D: Actually , Liverpool doesn't l Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm s I ha +Postdoc B: Well . Well . I mean , pure {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , we 'll do it that way . Actually , I like that a lot . Because that get 's at both of the things we were trying to do , +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: the granularity , and the person can just self - assess and we don't have to argue about what these regions are . +Postdoc B: That 's right . And it 's easy on the subjects . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Now I have one suggestion on the next section . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: So you have native language , you have region , and then you have time spent in English speaking country . Now , I wonder if it might be useful to have another open field saying "" which one parenthesis S {comment} paren closed parenthesis "" . Cuz if they spent {pause} time in {disfmarker} in Britain and America {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes . +Postdoc B: It doesn't have to be ex all {disfmarker} at all exact , just in the same open field format that you have . +Grad A: Yep , just which one . I think that 's fine . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . with a {disfmarker} with an S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: "" which one sss , {comment} optional S . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We uh {disfmarker} We done ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: OK . um s e Any {disfmarker} any other uh open mike topics or should we go {pause} right to the digits ? +Grad A: Um , did you guys get my email on the multitrans ? That {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc B: Isn't that wonderful ! Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . So . So . I {disfmarker} I have a version also which actually displays all the channels . +Postdoc B: Excellent ! Thank you ! +PhD D: It 's really great . +Grad A: But it 's hideously slow . +Postdoc B: So you {disfmarker} this is n Dan 's patches , Dan Ellis 's patches . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} the ones I applied , that you can actually do are Dan 's , because it doesn't slow it down . +PhD D: M +Postdoc B: Fantastic ! +Grad A: Just uses a lot of memory . +PhD D: So when you say "" slow "" , does that mean to {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the one that 's installed is fine . It 's not slow at all . I wrote another version . Which , instead of having the one pane with the one view , It has multiple panes {pause} with the views . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But the problem with it is the drawing of those waveforms is so slow that every time you do anything it just crawls . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's really bad . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} it 's the redrawing of the w +Postdoc B: That 's a consideration . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: oh uh - huh , w as you move . +Grad A: As you play , as you move , as you scroll . Just about anything , and it {disfmarker} it was so slow it was not usable . So that 's why I didn't install it and didn't pursue it . +Postdoc B: And this 'll be a {disfmarker} hav having the multiwave will be a big help cuz {disfmarker} in terms of like disentangling overlaps and things , that 'll be a big help . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Grad A: So . I think that the one Dan has is usable enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: It doesn't display the others . It displays just the mixed signal . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But you can listen to any of them . +Postdoc B: That 's excellent . He also has version control which is another nice +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: e so you {disfmarker} e the patches that you {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , he suggested that , but he didn't {disfmarker} {pause} It 's not installed . +Postdoc B: Oh , I thought it was in one of those patches . +Grad A: No . No . +Postdoc B: Oh OK . Well . Alright . +PhD D: So is there any hope for actually displaying the wave form ? +Grad A: Um , not if we 're going to use Tcl - TK At least not if we 're going to use Snack . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: I mean you would have to do something ourselves . +Postdoc B: Well , or use the one that crawls . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I probably would be trying to use the {disfmarker} {comment} whatever 's there . And it 's useful to have the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} we see how Dan 's works and if it {disfmarker} If we really need the display {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . I mean . I wonder {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if we can display things other than the wave form . So . Suppose we have a feature {disfmarker} a feature stream . And it 's just , you know , a {disfmarker} a uni - dimensional feature , varying in time . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we want to plot that , instead of the whole wave form . +Grad A: I mean . +PhD D: That might be faster . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Right ? +Grad A: We {disfmarker} we could do that but that would mean changing the code . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean this isn't a program we wrote . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: This is a program that we got from someone else , and we 've done patches on . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'll talk to you about it and we can see +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Cou - i e I mean , y +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: but it 's definitely {pause} great to have the other one . +Professor C: If there was some {disfmarker} Is there some way to {pause} have someone write patches in something faster and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} link it in , or something ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Not easily . +Professor C: Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean y yes we could do that . You could {disfmarker} you can write widgets in C . And try to do it that way but I just don't think {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Let 's try it with Dan 's and if that isn't enough , we can do it otherwise . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: I think it is , cuz when I was playing with it , the mixed signal has it all in there . And so it 's really {disfmarker} It 's not too bad to find places in the {disfmarker} in the stream where things are happening . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be bad . +Postdoc B: And it 's also {disfmarker} also the case that {disfmarker} that uh this multi - wave thing {pause} is proposed to the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm ? +Postdoc B: So . Dan proposed it to the Transcriber central people , and it 's likely that uh {disfmarker} So . And {disfmarker} and they responded favorably looks as though it will be incorporated in the future version . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: They said that the only reason they hadn't had the multi the parallel uh stream one before was simply that {pause} they hadn't had time to do it . And uh {pause} so it 's likely that this {disfmarker} this may be entered into the ch this central @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: And if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Professor C: They may well have not had much demand for it . +Postdoc B: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's true , too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: This is a {disfmarker} {pause} a useful thing for us . +PhD D: So . You mean they could {disfmarker} they could do it and it would be {pause} fast enough if they do it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Depends on how much work they did . +Postdoc B: Oh . No . I just mean {disfmarker} I just mean that it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that his {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: So . {pause} This one that we now have does have the status of {pause} potentially being incorporated l likely being incorporated into the central code . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc B: Now , tha Now , if we develop further then , y uh , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if one of us sat down and coded it , so that it could be displayed fast enough I 'm sure they would be quite willing to incorporate it . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's a nice feature to have it {disfmarker} set that way . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But it 's not a trivial task . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I just like the idea of it being something that 's , you know , tied back into the original , so that other people can benefit from it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . However . I also understand that you can have {pause} widgets that are very useful for their purpose and that you don't need to always go that w route . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Grad A: anyway , shall we do digits ? +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Let 's do digits , uh , and then we 'll turn off the mikes , and then I have one other thing to discuss . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: I actually have to leave . So . Um . I mean {pause} I had to leave at three thirty , +Postdoc B: Uh - oh . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Oh . +PhD D: so I can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , I can wait {pause} for the digits but I can't stay for the discussion +Grad A: Well , you want to go first ? Or . +PhD D: I c {pause} I have to make a call . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: So . +Postdoc B: Well , should we {disfmarker} e should we switch off the g +Professor C: Well , we 'll talk to you about it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh +Grad A: Do you wanna go do digits or do you wanna just skip digits ? +PhD D: Um . No , I can do digits if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} But I don't wanna butt in , or something . +Grad A: Then {disfmarker} Alright . You go ahead . +PhD D: But if there 's something on the rest of the {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'll be around just have to make call before quarter of . So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So I {disfmarker} Or we can talk about it . +Postdoc B: Ke +Grad A: Why don't you read the digits ? +Professor C: Yeah , why don't you read the digits and then you can {pause} go . +PhD D: OK . {vocalsound} Alright . Oh , this is the new one . +Grad A: Yeah , don't {disfmarker} Don't read the old one . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Alright . The {disfmarker} And the time is . OK . +Grad A: OK +Postdoc B: Turn it off . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: But wait till he {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: And +","In the meeting, the group discussed the design of participant forms for collecting accent and regional information, concluding with a plan to simplify and open up the options for subjects to self-identify their English accent or region. The discussion also covered updates to the transcription software with multi-wave display functionality added by Dan Ellis, which allows playing of individual channels but currently encounters performance issues with displaying multiple waveforms simultaneously. Professor C suggested revisiting the software issue later and directed the meeting towards the reading of digits activity. Ph.D. D needed to leave early to make a phone call and volunteered to read the digits first. The recording was then planned to be stopped so that a final topic could be discussed without being recorded." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD F: And we 're on . +Professor D: OK . Might wanna {vocalsound} close the door so that {disfmarker} Uh , Stephane will {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'll get it . +Professor D: Yeah +PhD F: Hey Dave ? Could you go ahead and turn on , uh , Stephane 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So that 's the virtual Stephane over there . +PhD F: OK . +Professor G: Do you use a PC for recording ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh , yeah , a Linux box . Yeah . It 's got , uh , like sixteen channels going into it . +Professor G: Uh - huh . Uh - huh . The quality is quite good ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , so far , it 's been pretty good . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . So , uh , yeah {disfmarker} the suggestion was to have these guys start to {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . Why don't you go ahead , Dave ? +Grad C: OK . Um , so , yeah , the {disfmarker} this past week I 've been main mainly occupied with , um , getting some results , u from the SRI system trained on this short Hub - five training set for the mean subtraction method . And , um , I ran some tests last night . But , um , c the results are suspicious . Um , it 's , um , {vocalsound} cuz they 're {disfmarker} the baseline results are worse than , um , Andreas {disfmarker} than results Andreas got previously . And {vocalsound} it could have something to do with , um {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's on digits ? +Grad C: That 's on digits . It c it {disfmarker} it could h it could have something to do with , um , downsampling . +PhD F: Hmm . +Grad C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's worth looking into . Um , d and , um , ap ap apart from that , I guess the {disfmarker} the main thing I have t ta I have to talk is , um , where I 'm planning to go over the next week . Um . So I 've been working on integrating this mean subtraction approach into the SmartKom system . And there 's this question of , well , so , um , in my tests before with HTK I found it worked {disfmarker} it worked the best with about twelve seconds of data used to estimate the mean , but , we 'll often have less {comment} in the SmartKom system . Um . So I think we 'll use as much data as we have {pause} at a particular time , and we 'll {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll concatenate utterances together , um , to get as much data as we possibly can from the user . But , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} there 's a question of how to set up the models . So um , we could train the models . If we think twelve seconds is ideal we could train the models using twelve seconds to calculate the mean , to mean subtract the training data . Or we could , um , use some other amount . So {disfmarker} like I did an experiment where I , um , was using six seconds in test , um , but , for {disfmarker} I tried twelve seconds in train . And I tried , um , um , the same in train {disfmarker} I 'm a I tried six seconds in train . And six seconds in train {vocalsound} was about point three percent better . Um , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , it 's not clear to me yet whether that 's {vocalsound} something significant . So I wanna do some tests and , um , {vocalsound} actually make some plots of , um {disfmarker} for a particular amount of data and test what happens if you vary the amount of data in train . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Uh , Guenter , I don't know if you t {vocalsound} followed this stuff but this is , uh , {vocalsound} a uh , uh , long - term {disfmarker} long - term window F F Yeah . Yeah , he {disfmarker} you talked about it . +Professor G: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we spoke about it already , +Professor D: Oh , OK . So you know what he 's doing . +Professor G: yeah . +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: y s so I was {disfmarker} I actually ran the experiments mostly and I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} I was hoping to have the plots with me today . I just didn't get to it . But , um {disfmarker} yeah , I wou I would be curious about people 's feedback on this cuz I 'm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I p I think there are some I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's kind of like a {disfmarker} a bit of a tricky engineering problem . I 'm trying to figure out what 's the optimal way to set this up . So , um , {vocalsound} I 'll try to make the plots and then put some postscript up on my {disfmarker} on my web page . And I 'll mention it in my status report if people wanna take a look . +Professor D: You could clarify something for me . You 're saying point three percent , you take a point three percent hit , {vocalsound} when the training and testing links are {disfmarker} don't match or something ? +PhD E: Hello . +Professor D: Is that what it is ? +Grad C: w Well , it c +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: I {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} just for any mismatch {vocalsound} you take a hit . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: i In some cases it might be u better to have a mismatch . Like I think I saw something like {disfmarker} like if you only have two seconds in test , or , um , maybe it was something like four seconds , you actually do a little better if you , um , {vocalsound} train on six seconds than if you train on four seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . +Grad C: Um , but the case , uh {disfmarker} with the point three percent hit was {vocalsound} using six seconds in test , um , comparing train on twelve seconds {comment} versus train on six seconds . +Professor D: And which was worse ? +Grad C: The train on twelve seconds . +Professor D: OK . But point three percent , uh , w from what to what ? That 's point three percent {disfmarker} +Grad C: On {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the accuracies {vocalsound} w went from {disfmarker} it was something vaguely like ninety - five point six accuracy , um , improved to ninety - five point nine wh when I {disfmarker} +Professor D: So four point four to four point one . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} yeah . So about a {disfmarker} about an eight percent , uh , seven or eight percent relative ? +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Uh , Yeah . Well , I think in a p You know , if {disfmarker} if you were going for an evaluation system you 'd care . But if you were doing a live system that people were actually using nobody would notice . It 's {disfmarker} uh , I think the thing is to get something that 's practical , that {disfmarker} that you could really use . +Grad C: Huh . That 's {disfmarker} that 's interesting . Alright , the e uh , I see your point . I guess I was thinking of it as , um , {vocalsound} an interesting research problem . The {disfmarker} how to g I was thinking that for the ASRU paper we could have a section saying , {vocalsound} "" For SmartKom , we {disfmarker} we d in {disfmarker} we tried this approach in , uh , {vocalsound} interactive system "" , which I don't think has been done before . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and then there was two research questions from that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And one is the k does it still work if you just use the past history ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Alright , and the other was this question of , um what I was just talking about now . So I guess that 's why I thought it was interesting . +Professor D: I mean , a short - time FFT {disfmarker} short - time cepstrum calculation , uh , mean {disfmarker} u mean calculation work that people have in commercial systems , they do this all the time . They {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} they calculate it from previous utterances and then use it , you know . +Grad C: Yeah , um . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but , uh , as you say , there hasn't been that much with this long {disfmarker} long - time , uh , spectra work . +Grad C: Oh , o Oh , OK . +Professor D: Uh , +Grad C: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's standard . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . Pretty common . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Um , but , u uh , yes . No , it is interesting . And the other thing is , I mean , there 's two sides to these really small , uh , gradations in performance . Um , I mean , on the one hand in a practical system if something is , uh , four point four percent error , four point one percent error , people won't really tell {disfmarker} be able to tell the difference . On the other hand , when you 're doing , uh , research , you may , eh {disfmarker} you might find that the way that you build up a change from a ninety - five percent accurate system to a ninety - eight percent accurate system is through ten or twelve little things that you do that each are point three percent . So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I don't mean to say that they 're {disfmarker} they 're irrelevant . Uh , they are relevant . But , um , {vocalsound} i for a demo , you won't see it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: And , um , Let 's {disfmarker} l let 's see . Um , OK . And then there 's um , another thing I wanna start looking at , um , {vocalsound} wi is , um , the choice of the analysis window length . So I 've just been using two seconds just because that 's what Carlos did before . Uh , I wrote to him asking about he chose the two seconds . And it seemed like he chose it a bit informally . So , um , with the {disfmarker} with the HTK set - up I should be able to do some experiments , on just varying that length , say between one and three seconds , in a few different reverberation conditions , um , say this room and also a few of the artificial impulse responses we have for reverberation , just , um , making some plots and seeing how they look . And , um , so , with the {disfmarker} the sampling rate I was using , one second or two seconds or four seconds is at a power of two um , number of samples and , um , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll jus f for the ones in between I guess I 'll just zero - pad . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . I guess one thing that might also be an issue , uh , cuz part of what you 're doing is you 're getting a {disfmarker} a spectrum over a bunch of different kinds of speech sounds . Um , and so it might matter how fast someone was talking for instance . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: You know , if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if there 's a lot of phones in one second maybe you 'll get a {disfmarker} a really good sampling of all these different things , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , on the other hand if someone 's talking slowly maybe you 'd need more . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: I don't know if you have some samples of faster or slower speech but it might make a difference . I don't know . +Grad C: Uh , yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I don't think the TI - digits data that I have , um , {vocalsound} i is {disfmarker} would be appropriate for that . +Professor D: Yeah , probably not . Yeah . +Grad C: But what do you {disfmarker} What about if I w I fed it through some kind of , um , speech processing algorithm that changed the speech rate ? +Professor D: Yeah , but then you 'll have the degradation of {disfmarker} of , uh , whatever you do uh , added onto that . But maybe . Yeah , maybe if you get something that sounds {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} does a pretty job at that . +Grad C: Yeah . Well , uh , just if you think it 's worth looking into . +Professor D: You could imagine that . +Grad C: I mean , it {disfmarker} it is getting a little away from reverberation . +Professor D: Um , yeah . It 's just that you 're making a choice {disfmarker} uh , I was thinking more from the system aspect , if you 're making a choice for SmartKom , that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it might be that it 's {disfmarker} it c the optimal number could be different , depending on {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Could be . I don't know . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and th the third thing , um , uh , is , um , Barry explained LDA filtering to me yesterday . And so , um , Mike Shire in his thesis um , {vocalsound} did a {disfmarker} a series of experiments , um , training LDA filters in d on different conditions . And you were interested in having me repeat this for {disfmarker} for this mean subtraction approach ? Is {disfmarker} is that right ? Or for these long analysis windows , I guess , is the right way to put it . +Professor D: I guess , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the issue I was {disfmarker} the general issue I was bringing up was that if you 're {disfmarker} have a moving {disfmarker} {vocalsound} moving window , uh , a wa a {disfmarker} a set of weights times things that , uh , move along , shift along in time , that you have in fact a linear time invariant filter . And you just happened to have picked a particular one by setting all the weights to be equal . And so the issue is what are some other filters that you could use , uh , in that sense of "" filter "" ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , as I was saying , I think the simplest thing to do is not to train anything , but just to do some sort of , uh , uh , hamming or Hanning , uh , kind of window , kind of thing , +Grad C: Right . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: just sort of to de - emphasize the jarring . So I think that would sort of be the first thing to do . But then , yeah , the LDA i uh , is interesting because it would sort of say well , suppose you actually trained this up to do the best you could by some criterion , what would the filter look like then ? +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Uh , and , um , that 's sort of what we 're doing in this Aur - Aurora stuff . And , uh , it 's still not clear to me in the long run whether the best thing to do would be to do that or to have some stylized version of the filter that looks like these things you 've trained up , because you always have the problem that it 's trained up for one condition and it isn't quite right for another . So . uh {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's why {disfmarker} that 's why RASTA filter has actually ended up lasting a long time , people still using it quite a bit , because y you don't change it . So doesn't get any worse . Uh , +Grad C: Huh . +Professor D: Anyway . +Grad C: o OK . So , um , a actually I was just thinking about what I was asking about earlier , wi which is about having {vocalsound} less than say twelve seconds in the SmartKom system to do the mean subtraction . You said in {vocalsound} systems where you use cepstral mean subtraction , they concatenate utterances and , {vocalsound} do you know how they address this issue of , um , testing versus training ? Can {disfmarker} +Professor D: Go ahead . +Professor G: I think what they do is they do it always on - line , I mean , that you just take what you have from the past , that you calculate the mean of this and subtract the mean . +Grad C: OK . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And then you can {disfmarker} yeah , you {disfmarker} you can increase your window whi while you get {disfmarker} while you are getting more samples . +Grad C: OK , um , and , um , so {disfmarker} so in tha in that case , wh what do they do when they 're t um , performing the cepstral mean subtraction on the training data ? So {disfmarker} because you 'd have hours and hours of training data . So do they cut it off and start over ? At intervals ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: So do you have {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you mean you have files which are hours of hours long ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Oh , well , no . I guess not . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , usually you have in the training set you have similar conditions , I mean , file lengths are , I guess the same order or in the same size as for test data , or aren't they ? +Grad C: OK . But it 's {disfmarker} OK . So if someone 's interacting with the system , though , uh , Morgan {disfmarker} uh , Morgan said that you would {vocalsound} tend to , um , {vocalsound} chain utterances together um , r +Professor D: Well , I think what I was s I thought what I was saying was that , um , at any given point you are gonna start off with what you had from before . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: From {disfmarker} and so if you 're splitting things up into utterances {disfmarker} So , for instance , in a dialogue system , {comment} where you 're gonna be asking , uh , you know , th for some information , there 's some initial th something . And , you know , the first time out you {disfmarker} you might have some general average . But you {disfmarker} you d you don't have very much information yet . But at {disfmarker} after they 've given one utterance you 've got something . You can compute your mean cepstra from that , +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then can use it for the next thing that they say , uh , so that , you know , the performance should be better that second time . Um , and I think the heuristics of exactly how people handle that and how they handle their training I 'm sure vary from place to place . But I think the {disfmarker} ideally , it seems to me anyway , that you {disfmarker} you would wanna do the same thing in training as you do in test . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's just , uh , a prejudice . And I think anybody working on this with some particular task would experiment . +Grad C: Right . I g I guess the question I had was , um , amount of data e u was the amount of data that you 'd give it to , um {vocalsound} update this estimate . Because say you {disfmarker} if you have say five thousand utterances in your training set , {vocalsound} um , and you {disfmarker} you keep the mean from the last utterance , by the time it gets to the five thousandth utterance {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , but those are all different people with different {disfmarker} I mean , i in y So for instance , in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in a telephone task , these are different phone calls . So you don't wanna @ @ {comment} chain it together from a {disfmarker} from a different phone call . +Grad C: OK , so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so they would {disfmarker} g s +Professor D: So it 's within speaker , within phone call , +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: if it 's a dialogue system , it 's within whatever this characteristic you 're trying to get rid of is expected to be consistent over , +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: r and it {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: right . OK , so you 'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} and so in training you would start over at {disfmarker} at every new phone call or at every {vocalsound} new speaker . Yeah , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Now , {vocalsound} you know , maybe you 'd use something from the others just because at the beginning of a call you don't know anything , and so you might have some kind of general thing that 's your best guess to start with . But {disfmarker} So , s I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you know , a lot of these things are proprietary so we 're doing a little bit of guesswork here . I mean , what do comp what do people do who really face these problems in the field ? Well , they have companies and they don't tell other people exactly what they do . +Grad C: R right . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} but I mean , when you {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the hints that you get from what they {disfmarker} when they talk about it are that they do {disfmarker} they all do something like this . +Grad C: Right , OK . I see . Bec - because I {disfmarker} so this SmartKom task first off , it 's this TV and movie information system . +Professor D: Yeah , but you might have somebody who 's using it +Grad C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: and then later you might have somebody else who 's using it . +Grad C: Yeah . Right . Right . I {disfmarker} I see . +Professor D: And so you 'd wanna set some {disfmarker} +Grad C: I was {disfmarker} I was about to say . So if {disfmarker} if you ask it "" What {disfmarker} what movies are on TV tonight ? "" , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: if I look at my wristwatch when I say that it 's about two seconds . The way I currently have the mean subtraction , um , set up , the {disfmarker} the analysis window is two seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So what you just said , about what do you start with , raises a question of {vocalsound} what do I start with then ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: I guess it {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , w OK , so in that situation , though , th maybe what 's a little different there , is I think you 're talking about {disfmarker} there 's only one {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it also depends {disfmarker} we 're getting a little off track here . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor D: r But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Uh , there 's been some discussion about whether the work we 're doing in that project is gonna be for the kiosk or for the mobile or for both . And I think for this kind of discussion it matters . If it 's in the kiosk , then the physical situation is the same . It 's gonna {disfmarker} you know , the exact interaction of the microphone 's gonna differ depending on the person and so forth . But at least the basic acoustics are gonna be the same . So f if it 's really in one kiosk , then I think that you could just chain together and {disfmarker} and you know , as much {disfmarker} as much speech as possible to {disfmarker} because what you 're really trying to get at is the {disfmarker} is the reverberation characteristic . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} in the case of the mobile , uh , {comment} presumably the acoustic 's changing all over the place . +Grad C: Right . +Professor D: And in that case you probably don't wanna have it be endless because you wanna have some sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a question of how long do you think it 's {disfmarker} you can get an approximation to a stationary something , given that it 's not really stationary . +Grad C: Right . Right . +Professor D: So . +Professor G: Hmm . +Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I g I guess I s just started thinking of another question , which is , {vocalsound} for {disfmarker} for the very first frame , w what {disfmarker} what do I do if I 'm {disfmarker} if I take {disfmarker} if I use that frame to calculate the mean , then I 'm just gonna get n nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: so I should probably have some kind of default {vocalsound} mean for the first f couple of frames ? +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Or subtract nothing . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or subtract nothing . And {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I guess that 's something that 's p people have figured out how to deal with in cepstral mean subtraction as well ? +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , people do something . They {disfmarker} they , uh , they have some , um , uh , in {disfmarker} in cepstral mean subtraction , for short - term window {disfmarker} analysis windows , as is usually done , you 're trying to get rid of some very general characteristic . And so , uh , if you have any other information about what a general kind of characteristic would be , then you {disfmarker} you can do it there . +PhD F: You can also {disfmarker} you can also reflect the data . So you take , uh {disfmarker} you know , I 'm not sure how many frames you need . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: But you take that many from the front and flip it around to {disfmarker} a as the negative value . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: So you can always {disfmarker} +Professor D: The other thing is that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I remember B B N doing this , is that if you have a multi - pass system , um , if the first pass ta it takes most of the computation , the second and the third pass could be very , very quick , +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor D: just looking at a relatively small n small , uh , space of hypotheses . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Then you can do your first pass {vocalsound} without any subtraction at all . +Grad C: Oh . +Professor D: And then your second pass , uh , uh , eliminates those {disfmarker} most of those hypotheses by , uh {disfmarker} by having an improved {disfmarker} improved version o of the analysis . +Grad C: OK . OK . +Professor D: So . +Grad C: OK . So that was all I had , for now . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD F: Do you wanna go , Barry ? +Grad A: Yeah , OK . Um , so for the past , {vocalsound} uh , week an or two , I 've been just writing my , uh , formal thesis proposal . Um , so I 'm taking {vocalsound} this qualifier exam that 's coming up in two weeks . And I {disfmarker} I finish writing a proposal and submit it to the committee . Um . And uh , should I {disfmarker} should I explain , uh , more about what {disfmarker} what I 'm proposing to do , and s and stuff ? +Professor D: Yes , briefly . +PhD F: Yeah briefly . +Grad A: OK . Um , so briefly , {vocalsound} I 'm proposing to do a n a new p approach to speech recognition using um , a combination of , uh , multi - band ideas and ideas , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {comment} about the uh , acoustic phonec phonetic approach to speech recognition . Um , so I will be using {vocalsound} these graphical models that {disfmarker} um , that implement the multi - band approach {vocalsound} to recognize a set of intermediate categories that might involve , uh , things like phonetic features {vocalsound} or other {disfmarker} other f feature things that are more closely related to the acoustic signal itself . Um , and the hope in all of this is that by going multi - band and by going into these , {vocalsound} um intermediate classifications , {vocalsound} that we can get a system that 's more robust to {disfmarker} to unseen noises , and situations like that . Um , and so , some of the research issues involved in this are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {comment} one , what kind of intermediate categories do we need to classify ? Um , another one is {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what other types of structures in these multi - band graphical models should we consider in order to um , combine evidence from {vocalsound} the sub - bands ? And , uh , the third one is how do we {disfmarker} how do we merge all the , uh , information from the individual uh , multi - band classifiers to come up with word {disfmarker} word recognition or {disfmarker} or phone recognition things . Um , so basically that 's {disfmarker} that 's what I 've been doing . And , +PhD F: So you 've got two weeks , huh ? +Grad A: I got two weeks to brush up on d um , presentation stuff and , um , +Professor D: Oh , I thought you were finishing your thesis in two weeks . +Grad A: But . Oh , that too . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD F: Are you gonna do any dry runs for your thing , +Grad A: Yes . +PhD F: or are you just gonna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yes . I , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm gonna do some . Would you be interested ? To help out ? +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: OK . +PhD F: Sure . +Grad A: Thanks . Yeah . +PhD F: Is that it ? +Grad A: That 's it . +PhD F: Hhh . OK . Uh . Hhh . Let 's see . So we 've got forty minutes left , and it seems like there 's a lot of material . An - any suggestions about where we {disfmarker} where we should go next ? +PhD B: Mmm , @ @ . +PhD F: Uh . Do you wanna go , Sunil ? Maybe we 'll just start with you . +PhD B: Yeah . But I actually stuck most of this in our m last meeting with Guenter . Um , but I 'll just {disfmarker} Um , so the last week , uh , I showed some results with only SpeechDat - Car which was like some fifty - six percent . And , uh , I didn't h I mean , I {disfmarker} I found that the results {disfmarker} I mean , I wasn't getting that r results on the TI - digit . So I was like looking into "" why , what is wrong with the TI - digits ? "" . Why {disfmarker} why I was not getting it . And I found that , the noise estimation is a reason for the TI - digits to perform worse than the baseline . So , uh , I actually , picked th I mean , the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate by a factor which is less than one to see if that {disfmarker} because I found there are a lot of zeros in the spectrogram for the TI - digits when I used this approach . So the first thing I did was I just scaled the noise estimate . And I found {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the results that I 've shown here are the complete results using the new {disfmarker} Well , the n the new technique is nothing but the noise estimate scaled by a factor of point five . So it 's just an ad - hoc {disfmarker} I mean , some intermediate result , because it 's not optimized for anything . So the results {disfmarker} The trend {disfmarker} the only trend I could see from those results was like the {disfmarker} the p the current noise estimation or the , uh , noise composition scheme is working good for like the car noise type of thing . Because I 've {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} p very good result in the TI - digits is the noise {disfmarker} car noise condition for their test - A , which is like the best I could see that uh , for any non - stationary noise like "" Babble "" or "" Subway "" or any {disfmarker} "" Street "" , some "" Restaurant "" noise , it 's like {disfmarker} it 's not performing w very well . So , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So that {disfmarker} that 's the first thing I c uh , I could make out from this stuff . And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what is important to see is that there is a big difference between the training modes . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh - huh . If you have clean training , you get also a fifty percent improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you have muddy condition training you get only twenty percent . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh , and in that twenty percent @ @ it 's very inconsistent across different noise conditions . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: So I have like a forty - five {vocalsound} percent for "" Car noise "" and then there 's a minus five percent for the "" Babble "" , +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: and there 's this thirty - three for the "" Station "" . And so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not actually very consistent across . So . The only correlation between the SpeechDat - Car and this performance is the c stationarity of the noise that is there in these conditions and the SpeechDat - Car . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , uh {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so the overall result is like in the last page , which is like forty - seven , which is still very imbalanced because there are like fifty - six percent on the SpeechDat - Car and thirty - five percent on the TI - digits . And {disfmarker} uh , ps the fifty - six percent is like comparable to what the French Telecom gets , but the thirty - five percent is way off . +Professor D: I 'm sort of confused but {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} I 'm looking on the second page , +PhD B: Oh , yep . +Professor D: and it says "" fifty percent "" {disfmarker} looking in the lower right - hand corner , "" fifty percent relative performance "" . +Professor G: For the clean training . +Professor D: Is that {disfmarker} +Professor G: u And if you {disfmarker} if you look {disfmarker} +Professor D: is that fifty percent improvement ? +PhD B: Yeah . For {disfmarker} that 's for the clean training and the noisy testing for the TI - digits . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's improvement over the baseline mel cepstrum ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: But the baseline mel cepstrum under those training doesn't do as well I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to understand why it 's {disfmarker} it 's eighty percent {disfmarker} That 's an accuracy number , I guess , +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor D: right ? So that 's not as good as the one up above . +PhD B: No . +Professor D: But the fifty is better than the one up above , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: so I 'm confused . +PhD B: Uh , actually the noise compensation whatever , uh , we are put in it works very well for the high mismatch condition . I mean , it 's consistent in the SpeechDat - Car and in the clean training also it gives it {disfmarker} But this fifty percent is {disfmarker} is that the {disfmarker} the high mismatch performance {disfmarker} equivalent to the high mismatch performance in the speech . +PhD F: So n s So since the high mismatch performance is much worse to begin with , it 's easier to get a better relative improvement . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . I do . Yeah , yeah . So by putting this noise {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , if we look at the figures on the right , we see that the reference system is very bad . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: Yeah . The reference drops like a very fast {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh , oh , oh , oh , oh , oh . +PhD E: Like for clean {disfmarker} clean training condition . +Professor D: I see . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . +PhD E: Nnn . +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} this is TI digits {comment} we 're looking at ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Oh {disfmarker} +Professor D: This whole page is TI - digits +PhD B: Oh . Yeah . +Professor D: or this is {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: It 's not written anywhere . Yeah , it 's TI - digits . The first r spreadsheet is TI - digits . +Professor D: Mmm . How does clean training do for the , uh , "" Car "" +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: The "" Car "" ? +Professor D: stuff ? +PhD B: Oh . Still {disfmarker} it still , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's still consistent . I mean , I get the best performance in the case of "" Car "" , which is the third column in the A condition . +Professor D: No . I mean , this is added noise . I mean , this is TI - digits . I 'm sorry . I meant {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the , uh , multi - language , uh , uh , Finnish and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: This is next {disfmarker} next page . +PhD B: That 's the next {disfmarker} next spreadsheet , is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD B: So that is the performance for Italian , Finnish and Spanish . +Professor D: "" Training condition "" {disfmarker} Oh , right . So "" clean "" corresponds to "" high mismatch "" . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And "" increase "" , That 's increase e +Professor G: Improvement . +PhD B: Improvement . That 's {disfmarker} "" Percentage increase "" is the percentage improvement over the baseline . +Professor G: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: Which means decrease in word error rate ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , so "" percentage increase "" means decrease ? +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the w there was a very long discussion about this on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the , uh , Amsterdam meeting . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: How to {disfmarker} how to calculate it then . +PhD B: Yeah . There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess you are using finally this {disfmarker} the scheme which they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Which is there in the spreadsheet . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: I 'm not changing anything in there . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD B: So . Uh , yeah . So all the hi H M numbers are w very good , in the sense , they are better than what the French Telecom gets . So . But the {disfmarker} the only number that 's still {disfmarker} I mean , which Stephane also got in his result was that medium mismatch of the Finnish , which is very {disfmarker} {vocalsound} which is a very strange situation where we used the {disfmarker} we changed the proto for initializing the HMM {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this is basically because it gets stuck in some local minimum in the training . That seventy - five point seven nine in the Finnish mismatch which is that {disfmarker} the eleven point nine six what we see . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So we have to jiggle it somehow ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so we start with that different proto and it becomes eighty - eight , which is like some fifty percent improvement . +Professor D: S Wait a minute . Start with a different what ? +PhD B: Different prototype , which is like a different initialization for the , uh , s transition probabilities . It 's just that right now , the initialization is to stay more in the current state , which is point four point six , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: And if it changes to point five point five , which is equal @ @ for transition and self loop where it becomes eighty - eight percent . +PhD F: Well , but that involves mucking with the back - end , +PhD B: Yeah . We can't do it . +PhD F: which is not allowed . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor G: I mean , it uh , like , i i i It is well known , this {disfmarker} this medium match condition of the Finnish data has some strange effects . +PhD B: Very s +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: It has a very few at {disfmarker} uh , actually , c uh , tran I mean , words also . +Professor G: I mean , that is {disfmarker} Yeah , +PhD B: It 's a very , very small set , actually . +Professor G: that too . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD B: So there is {disfmarker} +Professor G: There is a l a {disfmarker} There is a lot of {disfmarker} Uh , there are a lot of utterances with music in {disfmarker} with music in the background . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . It has some music also . I mean , very horrible music like like I know . +Professor D: So maybe for that one you need a much smarter VAD ? Mmm , +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: if it 's music . +PhD B: So , that {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's about the results . And , uh , the summary is like {disfmarker} OK . So there are {disfmarker} the other thing what I tried was , which I explained in the last meeting , is using the channel zero for , uh , for both dropping and estimating the noise . And that 's like just to f n get a feel of how good it is . I guess the fifty - six percent improvement in the SpeechDat - Car becomes like sixty - seven percent . Like ten percent better . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a {disfmarker} that 's a cheating experiment . So . That 's just {disfmarker} So , m w +Professor G: But the {disfmarker} but the , uh , forty - seven point nine percent which you have now , that 's already a remarkable improvement in comparison to the first proposal . +PhD B: Yeah . So we had forty - four percent in the first proposal . +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We have f a big im So {vocalsound} the major improvement that we got was in all the high mismatch cases , because all those numbers were in sixties and seventies because we never had any noise compensations . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: So that 's where the biggest improvement came up . Not much in the well match and the medium match and TI - digits also right now . So this is still at three or four percent improvement over the first proposal . +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's good . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor D: Then if we can improve the noise estimation , then it should get better . +Professor G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I started thinking about also {disfmarker} I mean yeah , uh , {vocalsound} I discovered the same problem when I started working on {disfmarker} uh , on this Aurora task {vocalsound} almost two years ago , that you have the problem with this mulit a at the beginning we had only this multi condition training of the TI - digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , I {disfmarker} I found the same problem . Just taking um , what we were used to u {vocalsound} use , I mean , uh , some type of spectral subtraction , {comment} y {vocalsound} you get even worse results than {vocalsound} the basis +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor G: and uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I tried to find an explanation for it , +Professor D: Mmm . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yes . Stephane also has the same experience of using the spectral subtraction right ? +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So here {disfmarker} here I mean , I found that it 's {disfmarker} if I changed the noise estimate I could get an improvement . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So that 's {disfmarker} so it 's something which I can actually pursue , is the noise estimate . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I think what you do is in {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this multi - condition training mode , um then you have {disfmarker} then you can train models for the speech , for the words , as well as for the pauses where you really have all information about the noise available . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And it was surprising {disfmarker} At the beginning it was not surprising to me that you get really the best results on doing it this way , I mean , in comparison to any type of training on clean data and any type of processing . But it was {disfmarker} So , u u it {disfmarker} it seems to be the best what {disfmarker} wh wh what {disfmarker} what we can do in this moment is multi - condition training . And every when we now start introducing some {disfmarker} some noise reduction technique we {disfmarker} we introduce also somehow artificial distortions . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And these artificial distortions {disfmarker} uh , I have the feeling that they are the reason why {disfmarker} why we have the problems in this multi - condition training . That means the H M Ms we trained , they are {disfmarker} they are based on Gaussians , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: and on modeling Gaussians . And if you {disfmarker} Can I move a little bit with this ? Yeah . And if we introduce now this {disfmarker} this u spectral subtraction , or Wiener filtering stuff {disfmarker} So , usually what you have is maybe , um {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm showing now an envelope um maybe you 'll {disfmarker} f for this time . So usually you have {disfmarker} maybe in clean condition you have something which looks like this . And if it is noisy it is somewhere here . And then you try to subtract it or Wiener filter or whatever . And what you get is you have always these problems , that you have this {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these zeros in there . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: And you have to do something if you get these negative values . I mean , this is your noise estimate and you somehow subtract it or do whatever . Uh , and then you have {disfmarker} And then I think what you do is you introduce some {disfmarker} some artificial distribution in this uh in {disfmarker} in the models . I mean , i you {disfmarker} you train it also this way but , i somehow there is {disfmarker} u u there is no longer a {disfmarker} a Gaussian distribution . It is somehow a strange distribution which we introduce with these {vocalsound} artificial distortions . And {disfmarker} and I was thinking that {disfmarker} that might be the reason why you get these problems in the {disfmarker} especially in the multi - condition training mode . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Th - That 's true . Yeah {disfmarker} the c the models are not complex enough to absorb that additional variability that you 're introducing . +Professor G: s +PhD F: Thanks Adam . +Professor G: Yeah . Yes . +PhD B: Well , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: I also have the feeling that um , the reason ye why it doesn't work is {disfmarker} yeah , that the models are much {disfmarker} are t um , not complex enough . Because I {disfmarker} actually I als always had a good experience with spectral subtraction , just a straight spectral subtraction algorithm when I was using neural networks , big neural networks , which maybe are more able to model strange distributions and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I tried the same {disfmarker} exactly the same spectral subtraction algorithm on these Aurora tasks and it simply doesn't work . It 's even {disfmarker} it , uh , hurts even . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: So . +Professor D: We probably should at some point here try the tandem {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the system - two kind of stuff with this , with the spectral subtraction for that reason . +Professor G: Hmm . +Professor D: Cuz {vocalsound} again , it should do a transformation to a domain where it maybe {disfmarker} looks more Gaussian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Hmm . Yeah , y I {disfmarker} I was {disfmarker} whe w w just yesterday when I was thinking about it {vocalsound} um w what {disfmarker} what we could try to do , or do about it {disfmarker} I mean , if you {disfmarker} if you get at this {disfmarker} in this situation that you get this {disfmarker} this negative values and you simply set it to zero or to a constant or whatever {vocalsound} if we {disfmarker} if we would use there a somehow , um {disfmarker} a random generator which {disfmarker} which has a certain distribution , u not a certain {disfmarker} {comment} yeah , a special distribution we should see {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have to think about it . +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: And that we , so , introduce again some natural behavior in this trajectory . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Very different from speech . Still , I mean , it shouldn't confuse the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , similar to what {disfmarker} what you see really u in {disfmarker} in the real um noisy situation . +PhD B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Or i in the clean situation . But {disfmarker} but somehow a {disfmarker} a natural distribution . +Professor D: But isn't that s again sort of the idea of the additive thing , if it {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} as we had in the J stuff ? I mean , basically if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you have random data , um , in {disfmarker} in the time domain , then when you look at the s spectrum it 's gonna be pretty flat . And {disfmarker} and , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , so just add something everywhere rather than just in those places . It 's just a constant , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} e yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's just especially in these segments , I mean , you introduce , um , very artificial behavior . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , see if you add something everywhere , it has almost no effect up {disfmarker} up {disfmarker} up on {disfmarker} on top . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} and it has significant effect down there . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was , sort of the idea . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Hmm . Yeah the {disfmarker} that 's true . That {disfmarker} those {disfmarker} those regions are the cause for this @ @ {disfmarker} those negative values or whatever you get . +Professor G: I Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} we could trit uh , we {disfmarker} we could think how w what {disfmarker} what we could try . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: I mean , {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it was just an idea . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: I mean , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think when it 's noisy people should just speak up . +Professor G: to {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: If we look at the France Telecom proposal , they use some kind of noise addition . They have a random number generator , right ? And they add noise on the trajectory of , uh , the log energy only , right ? +Professor D: Oh , they do ! +PhD B: Yep . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: C - z C - zero and log energy also , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Um , But I don't know how much effect it {disfmarker} this have , but they do that . +PhD B: Now ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it is l somehow similar to what {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think because they have th log energy , yeah , and then just generate random number . They have some kind of mean and variance , and they add this number to {disfmarker} to the log energy simply . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the log energy , the {disfmarker} after the clean {disfmarker} cleaning up . +Professor D: To the l +PhD B: So they add a random {disfmarker} random noise to it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: To the {disfmarker} just the energy , or to the mel {disfmarker} uh , to the mel filter ? +PhD B: No . On - only to the log energy . +PhD E: Only {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: So it {disfmarker} Cuz I mean , I think this is most interesting for the mel filters . Right ? +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} or F F one or the other . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but they do not apply filtering of the log energy or what {disfmarker} +PhD B: Like , uh {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor G: like {disfmarker} like a spectral subtraction or {disfmarker} +PhD B: No {disfmarker} their filter is not M domain . S so they did filter their time signal +Professor G: Yeah . I kn +PhD B: and then what @ @ {disfmarker} u +Professor G: And then they calculate from this , the log energy +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} then after that it is s almost the same as the baseline prop system . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} ? Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then the final log energy that they {disfmarker} that they get , that {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to that they add some random noise . +Professor D: Yeah , but again , that 's just log energy as opposed to {vocalsound} filter bank energy . +PhD B: Yeah . So it 's not the mel . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: You know , it 's not the mel filter bank output . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: These are log energy computed from the time s domain signal , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: not from the mel filter banks . So {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD E: Maybe it 's just a way to decrease the importance of this particular parameter in the {disfmarker} in the world feature vector cu if you add noise to one of the parameters , you widen the distributions +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD B: Becomes flat . The variance , yeah , reduces , +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: so . Hmm , yeah . +PhD E: Eee - sss - uh . +Professor D: So it could reduce the dependence on the amplitude and so on . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Although {disfmarker} +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So is , uh {disfmarker} Is that about it ? +PhD B: Uh , so the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: OK . So the other thing is the {disfmarker} I 'm just looking at a little bit on the delay issue where the delay of the system is like a hundred and eighty millisecond . So {vocalsound} I just {disfmarker} just tried another sk system {disfmarker} I mean , another filter which I 've like shown at the end . Which is very similar to the existing uh , filter . Only {disfmarker} Uh , only thing is that the phase is {disfmarker} is like a totally nonlinear phase because it 's a {disfmarker} it 's not a symmetric filter anymore . +PhD F: This is for the LDA ? +PhD B: Yeah {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this {disfmarker} this is like {disfmarker} So this makes the delay like zero for LDA because it 's completely causal . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} So I got actually just the results for the Italian for that and that 's like {disfmarker} So the fifty - one point O nine has become forty - eight point O six , which is like three percent relative degradation . So I have like the fifty - one point O nine +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} So . I don't know it f fares for the other conditions . So it 's just like {disfmarker} it 's like a three percent relative degradation , with the {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but is there {disfmarker} is there a problem with the one hundred eighty milliseconds ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: u Uh , may +Professor D: Th - Well , this is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I talked to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} uh , I ta Uh , I talked , uh , about it with {disfmarker} with Hynek . I mean , there is {disfmarker} +Professor D: This is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} So , basically our {disfmarker} our position is {vocalsound} that , um , we shouldn't be unduly constraining the latency at this point because we 're all still experimenting with trying to make the performance better in the presence of noise . Uh , there is a minority in that group who is a arguing {disfmarker} who are arguing for {vocalsound} um , uh , having a further constraining of the latency . So we 're s just continuing to keep aware of what the trade - offs are and , you know , what {disfmarker} what do we gain from having longer or shorter latencies ? +Professor G: Mmm . +Professor D: But since we always seem to at least get something out of longer latencies not being so constrained , we 're tending to go with that if we 're not told we can't do it . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} where was the , um {disfmarker} the smallest latency of all the systems last time ? +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: The French Telecom . +Professor D: Well , France Telecom was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was very short latency +Professor G: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: and they had a very good result . +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what was it ? +Professor D: It was thirty - five . +Professor G: It was in the order of thirty milliseconds +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: Thirteen ? +Professor D: th th +Professor G: Thirty . +PhD F: Thirty . +PhD B: Thirty - four . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so it 's possible to get very short latency . +Professor G: +Professor D: But , again , we 're {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the approaches that we 're using are ones that {vocalsound} take advantage of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . I was just curious about where we are compared to , you know , the shortest that people have done . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but I think this thirty milliseconds {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they did {disfmarker} it did not include the {disfmarker} the delta calculation . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: And this is included now , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: you know ? +PhD B: So if they include the delta , it will be an additional forty millisecond . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the {disfmarker} i th They were not using the HTK delta ? +PhD B: No , they 're using a nine - point window , which is like a four on either side , +Professor G: Nine - point . +PhD B: which is like {disfmarker} +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: f so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: they didn't include that . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Where does the comprish compression in decoding delay comes from ? +PhD F: OK . +PhD E: +PhD B: That 's the way the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the frames are packed , like you have to wait for one more frame to pack . Because it 's {disfmarker} the CRC is computed for two frames always . +Professor D: Well , that {disfmarker} the they would need that forty milliseconds also . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: No . They actually changed the compression scheme altogether . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they have their own compression and decoding scheme and they {disfmarker} I don't know what they have . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: But they have coded zero delay for that . Because they ch I know they changed it , their compression . They have their own CRC , their {disfmarker} their own {vocalsound} error correction mechanism . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD B: So they don't have to wait more than one more frame to know whether the current frame is in error . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD B: So they changed the whole thing so that there 's no delay for that compression and {disfmarker} part also . +Professor D: Hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Even you have reported actually zero delay for the {pause} compression . I thought maybe you also have some different {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mmm . Mmm . No , I think I {disfmarker} I used this scheme as it was before . +PhD B: OK . Ah . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: OK , we 've got twenty minutes so we should {vocalsound} probably try to move along . Uh , did you wanna go next , Stephane ? +PhD E: I can go next . Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Oh . Wait a minute . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah , we have to take {disfmarker} +Professor D: Wait a minute . I think {vocalsound} I 'm confused . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} OK . +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: So you have w w one sheet ? This one is {disfmarker} you don't need it , alright . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So you have to take the whole {disfmarker} the five . There should be five sheets . +Professor D: OK , +PhD E: +Professor D: I have four now because I left one with Dave because I thought I was dropping one off and passing the others on . So , no , we 're not . OK . +PhD B: Thanks . +PhD H: Please give me one . +Professor D: Ah , we need one more over here . +PhD E: OK , maybe there 's not enough for everybody . +PhD F: I can share with Barry . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , OK . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Can we look at this ? +Professor G: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD E: So , yeah , there are two figures showing actually the , mmm , um , performance of the current VAD . So it 's a n neural network based on PLP parameters , uh , which estimate silence probabilities , and then I just put a median filtering on this to smooth the probabilities , right ? Um {disfmarker} I didn't use the {disfmarker} the scheme that 's currently in the proposal because {vocalsound} I don't want to {disfmarker} In the proposal {disfmarker} Well , in {disfmarker} in the system we want to add like speech frame before every word and a little bit of {disfmarker} of , uh , s a couple of frames after also . Uh , but to estimate the performance of the VAD , we don't want to do that , because it would artificially increase the um {disfmarker} the false alarm rate of speech detection . Right ? Um , so , there is u normally a figure for the Finnish and one for Italian . And maybe someone has two for the Italian because I 'm missing one figure here . +PhD B: No . +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} Well , whatever . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so one surprising thing that we can notice first is that apparently the speech miss rate is uh , higher than the false alarm rate . So . It means {disfmarker} +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so what is the lower curve and the upper curve ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , there are two curves . One curve 's for the close - talking microphone , which is the lower curve . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And the other one is for the distant microphone +Professor G: Ah , OK . +PhD E: which has more noise so , it 's logical that {vocalsound} it performs worse . So as I was saying , the miss rate is quite important uh , which means that we tend to label speech as {disfmarker} as a silence . And , uh , I didn't analyze further yet , but {vocalsound} I think it 's {disfmarker} it may be due to the fricative sounds which may be {disfmarker} in noisy condition maybe label {disfmarker} labelled as silence . And it may also be due to the alignment because {disfmarker} well , the reference alignment . Because right now I just use an alignment obtained from {disfmarker} from a system trained on channel zero . And I checked it a little bit but there might be alignment errors . Um , yeah , e like the fact that {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the models tend to align their first state on silence and their last state o on silence also . So the reference {disfmarker} reference alignment would label as speech some silence frame before speech and after speech . This is something that we already noticed before when {disfmarker} mmm , So this cus this could also explain , uh , the high miss rate maybe . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this curves are the average over the whole database , so . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the different points of the curves are for five uh , thresholds on the probability {comment} uh from point three to point seven . +PhD B: So that threshold {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD B: OK . S OK {disfmarker} so d the detection threshold is very {disfmarker} +PhD E: So the v +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: The VAD ? Yeah . There first , a threshold on the probability {comment} @ @ {comment} That puts all the values to zero or one . +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: And then the median filtering . +PhD B: Yeah , so the median filtering is fixed . You just change the threshold ? +PhD E: Yeah . It 's fixed , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: yeah . Mm - hmm . So , going from channel zero to channel one , uh , almost double the error rate . Um , Yeah . Well , so it 's a reference performance that we can {disfmarker} you know , if we want to {disfmarker} to work on the VAD , {comment} we can work on this basis +PhD H: +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Is this {disfmarker} is this VAD a MLP ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . How {disfmarker} how big is it ? +PhD E: It 's a very big one . I don't remember . +PhD B: So three {disfmarker} three hundred and fifty inputs , +PhD E: m +PhD B: uh , six thousand hidden nodes and two outputs . t t +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Middle - sized one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: +PhD E: Yeah . Uh , ppp . I don't know , you have questions about that , or suggestions ? +PhD B: Mmm . S so {disfmarker} +PhD E: It seems {disfmarker} the performance seems worse in Finnish , which {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , it 's not trained on Finnish . +PhD E: uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: It 's worse . +PhD E: It 's not trained on Finnish , yeah . +Professor D: What 's it trained on ? +PhD B: I mean , the MLP 's not trained on Finnish . +Professor D: Right , what 's it trained on ? +PhD B: Oh {disfmarker} oh . Sorry . Uh , it 's Italian TI - digits . +Professor D: Yeah . Oh , it 's trained on Italian ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: That 's right . +Professor D: OK . +PhD E: And also there are like funny noises on Finnish more than on Italian . I mean , like music +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , the {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's true . +PhD E: and {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So , yeah , we were looking at this . But for most of the noises , noises are {disfmarker} um , I don't know if we want to talk about that . But , well , the {disfmarker} the "" Car "" noises are below like five hundred hertz . And we were looking at the "" Music "" utterances and in this case the noise is more about two thousand hertz . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Well , the music energy 's very low apparently . Uh , uh , from zero to two {disfmarker} two thousand hertz . So maybe just looking at this frequency range for {disfmarker} from five hundred to two thousand would improve somewhat the VAD +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm {disfmarker} +PhD B: So there are like some {disfmarker} some s some parameters you wanted to use or something ? +PhD E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD B: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , the next , um {disfmarker} Oh , it 's there . +Professor G: So is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the training {disfmarker} is the training based on these labels files which you take as reference here ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Wh - when you train the neural net y y you {disfmarker} +PhD E: No . It 's not . It 's {disfmarker} it was trained on some alignment obtained um , uh {disfmarker} For the Italian data , I think we trained the neural network on {disfmarker} with embedded training . So re - estimation of the alignment using the neural network , I guess . That 's right ? +PhD B: Yeah . We actually trained , uh , the {disfmarker} on the Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we had another {vocalsound} system with u +PhD E: So it was a f f a phonetic classification system for the Italian Aurora data . +PhD B: Yeah . It must be somewhere . Yeah . +PhD E: For the Aurora data that it was trained on , it was different . Like , for TI - digits you used a {disfmarker} a previous system that you had , I guess . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} No it {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . That 's true . +PhD E: So the alignments from the different database that are used for training came from different system . +PhD B: Syste Yeah . +PhD E: Then we put them tog together . Well , you put them together and trained the VAD on them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , But did you use channel {disfmarker} did you align channel one also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD B: I just took their entire Italian training part . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was both channel zero plus channel one . +PhD E: So di Yeah . So the alignments might be wrong then on channel one , right ? +PhD B: On one . Possible . +PhD E: So we might , +PhD B: We can do a realignment . +PhD E: yeah , +PhD B: That 's true . +PhD E: at least want to retrain on these alignments , which should be better because they come from close - talking microphone . +Professor G: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that was my idea . I mean , if {disfmarker} if it ha if it is not the same labeling which is taking the spaces . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD B: Yeah , possible . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD B: I mean , it {disfmarker} so the system {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: so the VAD was trained on maybe different set of labels for channel zero and channel one +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: was the alignments were w were different for {disfmarker} s certainly different because they were independently trained . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: We didn't copy the channel zero alignments to channel one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: But for the new alignments what you generated , you just copied the channel zero to channel one , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Right . Yeah . Um . And eh , hhh actually when we look at {disfmarker} at the VAD , {vocalsound} for some utterances it 's almost perfect , I mean , it just dropped one frame , the first frame of speech or {disfmarker} So there are some utterances where it 's almost one hundred percent VAD performance . +Professor G: Hmm . +PhD E: Uh , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm {disfmarker} Yep . So the next thing is um , I have the spreadsheet for three different system . But for this you only have to look right now on the SpeechDat - Car performance uh , because I didn't test {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} I didn't test the spectral subtraction on TI - digits yet . Uh , so you have three she sheets . One is the um proposal - one system . Actually , it 's not exe exactly proposal - one . It 's the system that Sunil just described . Um , but with uh , Wiener filtering from um , France Telecom included . Um , so this gives like fifty - seven point seven percent , uh , s uh , error rate reduction on the SpeechDat - Car data . Mmm , and then I have two sheets where it 's for a system where {disfmarker} uh , so it 's again the same system . But in this case we have spectral subtraction with a maximum overestimation factor of two point five . Uh , there is smoothing of the gain trajectory with some kind of uh , low - pass filter , which has forty milliseconds latency . And then , after subtraction um , I add a constant to the energies and I have two cases d where {disfmarker} The first case is where the constant is twenty - five DB below the mean speech energy and the other is thirty DB below . Um , and for these s two system we have like fifty - five point , uh , five - percent improvement , and fifty - eight point one . So again , it 's around fifty - six , fifty - seven . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz I notice the TI - digits number is exactly the same for these last two ? +PhD E: Yeah , because I didn't {disfmarker} For the France Telecom uh , spectral subtraction included in the {disfmarker} our system , the TI - digits number are the right one , but not for the other system because I didn't test it yet {disfmarker} this system , including {disfmarker} with spectral subtraction on the TI - digits data . I just tested it on SpeechDat - Car . +Professor D: Ah ! So {disfmarker} so that means the only thing {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so these numbers are simply {disfmarker} +PhD E: This , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: But this number . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: So you {disfmarker} so you just should look at that fifty - eight perc point O nine percent and so on . +PhD E: Yes . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor D: OK . Good . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um , Yeah . +PhD B: So this {disfmarker} So by {disfmarker} uh , by {disfmarker} by reducing the noise a {disfmarker} a decent threshold like minus thirty DB , it 's like {disfmarker} Uh , you are like r r reducing the floor of the noisy regions , right ? +Professor G: s +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . The floor is lower . Um , +PhD B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: mm - hmm . +Professor D: I 'm sorry . So when you say minus twenty - five or minus thirty DB , with respect to what ? +PhD E: To the average um , speech energy which is estimated on the world database . +Professor D: OK , so basically you 're creating a signal - to - noise ratio of twenty - five or thirty DB ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: uh r +PhD E: But it 's not {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think what you do is this . +PhD E: it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: i When {disfmarker} when you have this , {vocalsound} after you subtracted it , I mean , then you get something w w with this , uh , where you set the values to zero and then you simply add an additive constant again . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: So you shift it somehow . This {disfmarker} this whole curve is shifted again . +Professor D: But did you do that before the thresholding to zero , +PhD E: Right . It 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: But , it 's after the thresholding . +Professor G: +Professor D: Oh , +PhD E: So , +Professor D: so you 'd really want to do it before , +PhD E: maybe {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD E: maybe we might do it before , +Professor D: Yeah , because then the {disfmarker} then you would have less of that phenomenon . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: I think . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: E Hhh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: c +PhD E: But still , when you do this and you take the log after that , it {disfmarker} it reduce the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor D: Yeah , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Right . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Mmm , +Professor D: Yeah , that will reduce the variance . That 'll help . But maybe if you does {disfmarker} do it before you get less of these funny - looking things he 's drawing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Um , +PhD B: So before it 's like adding this , col to the {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} o exi original {disfmarker} +Professor G: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: We would {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right at the point where you 've done the subtraction . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Um , essentially you 're adding a constant into everything . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But the way Stephane did it , it is exactly the way I have implemented in the phone , so . +Professor D: Oh , yeah , better do it different , then . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor D: Just you {disfmarker} you just ta you just set it for a particular signal - to - noise ratio that you want ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah I {disfmarker} I made s similar investigations like Stephane did here , just uh , adding this constant and {disfmarker} and looking how dependent is it on the value of the constant +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and then , must choose them somehow {vocalsound} to give on average the best results for a certain range of the signal - to - noise ratios . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , it 's clear . I should have gi given other results . Also it 's clear when you don't add noise , it 's much worse . Like , around five percent worse I guess . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And if you add too much noise it get worse also . And it seems that {vocalsound} right now this {disfmarker} this is c a constant that does not depend on {disfmarker} {comment} on anything that you can learn from the utterance . It 's just a constant noise addition . Um . And I {disfmarker} I think w w +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . Then {disfmarker} then I 'm confused . +PhD E: I think {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought {disfmarker} you 're saying it doesn't depend on the utterance but I thought you were adding an amount that was twenty - five DB down from the signal energy . +PhD E: Yeah , so the way I did that , {comment} i I just measured the average speech energy of the {disfmarker} all the Italian data . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD E: And then {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} I used this as mean speech energy . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Oh , it 's just a constant amount over all . +PhD E: Yeah . And {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD E: wha what I observed is that for Italian and Spanish , {comment} when you go to thirty and twenty - five DB , {comment} uh it {disfmarker} it 's good . +PhD B: Oh . +PhD E: It stays {disfmarker} In this range , it 's , uh , the p u well , the performance of the {disfmarker} this algorithm is quite good . But for Finnish , {vocalsound} you have a degradation already when you go from thirty - five to thirty and then from thirty to twenty - five . And {disfmarker} I have the feeling that maybe it 's because just Finnish has a mean energy that 's lower than {disfmarker} than the other databases . And due to this the thresholds should be {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: the {disfmarker} the a the noise addition should be lower +Professor D: But in {disfmarker} I mean , in the real thing you 're not gonna be able to measure what people are doing over half an hour or an hour , or anything , right ? +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you have to come up with this number from something else . +PhD E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh , but you are not doing it now language dependent ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: It 's not . It 's just something that 's fixed . +Professor G: No . It 's overall . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: But what he is doing language dependent is measuring what that number i reference is that he comes down twenty - five down from . +PhD E: Yeah , so I g No . It {disfmarker} No . +Professor D: No ? +PhD E: Because I did it {disfmarker} I started working on Italian . I obtained this average energy +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: and then I used this one . +PhD B: For all the languages . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: So it 's sort of arbitrary . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , so if y if {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Um , yeah , so the next thing is to use this as {disfmarker} as maybe initialization +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD E: and then use something on - line . +Professor D: Something more adaptive , +PhD E: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I expect improvement at least in Finnish because eh {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} +Professor D: yeah . OK . +PhD E: Well , um , for Italian and Spanish it 's {disfmarker} th this value works good but not necessarily for Finnish . Mmm . But unfortunately there is , like , this forty millisecond latency and , um {disfmarker} Yeah , so I would try to somewhat reduce this @ @ . I already know that if I completely remove this latency , so . {vocalsound} um , {comment} it {disfmarker} um there is a three percent hit on Italian . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: d Does latency {disfmarker} +Professor G: i +PhD B: Sorry . Go ahead . +Professor G: Yeah . Your {disfmarker} your smoothing was @ @ {comment} uh , over this s so to say , the {disfmarker} the factor of the Wiener . And then it 's , uh {disfmarker} What was it ? This {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: this smoothing , it was over the subtraction factor , so to say . +PhD E: It 's a smoothing over the {disfmarker} the gain of the subtraction algorithm . +Professor G: Was this done {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} and you are looking into the future , into the past . +PhD E: Right . +Professor G: And smoothing . +PhD E: So , to smooth this {pause} thing . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Professor G: And did {disfmarker} did you try simply to smooth um to smooth the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to {disfmarker} to smooth stronger the {disfmarker} the envelope ? +PhD E: Um , no , I did not . +Professor G: Mmm . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor G: Because I mean , it should have a similar effect if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , you {disfmarker} you have now several stages of smoothing , so to say . You start up . As far as I remember you {disfmarker} you smooth somehow the envelope , you smooth somehow the noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mmm {disfmarker} +Professor G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and later on you smooth also this subtraction factor . +PhD E: Uh , no , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just the gain that 's smoothed actually +PhD B: Uh , actually I d I do all the smoothing . +PhD E: but it 's smoothed {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ah . Oh , it w it was you . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . No , in this case it 's just the gain . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +PhD E: But the way it 's done is that um , for low gain , there is this non nonlinear smoothing actually . For low gains um , I use the smoothed sm uh , smoothed version but {disfmarker} for high gain @ @ {comment} it 's {disfmarker} I don't smooth . +Professor G: Uh . Mm - hmm . I just , uh {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Experience shows you , if {disfmarker} if you do the {disfmarker} The best is to do the smoo smoothing as early as possible . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor G: So w when you start up . I mean , you start up with the {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} somehow with the noisy envelope . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , best is to smooth this somehow . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah , I could try this . Um . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So , before estimating the SNR , @ @ smooth the envelope . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Then I {disfmarker} I would need to find a way to like smooth less also when there is high energy . Cuz I noticed that it {disfmarker} it helps a little bit to s like smooth more during low energy portions and less during speech , +Professor G: Yes , y +PhD E: because if you smooth then y you kind of distort the speech . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Um . +Professor G: Right . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I think when w you {disfmarker} you could do it in this way that you say , if you {disfmarker} if I 'm {disfmarker} you have somehow a noise estimate , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and , if you say I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} with my envelope I 'm close to this noise estimate , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: then you have a bad signal - to - noise ratio and then you {disfmarker} you would like to have a stronger smoothing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So you could {disfmarker} you could base it on your estimation of the signal - to - noise ratio on your actual {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah , or some silence probability from the VAD if you have {disfmarker} +PhD E: Um , yeah , but I don't trust {vocalsound} the current VAD . So . +PhD B: Yeah , uh , so not {disfmarker} not right now maybe . +PhD E: Well , maybe . +Professor D: The VAD later will be much better . +PhD E: Maybe . +Professor D: Yeah . So . I see . +PhD F: So is {pause} that it ? +PhD E: Uh , fff {comment} I think that 's it . Yeah . Uh . +Professor G: s So to summarize the performance of these , SpeechDat - Car results is similar than {disfmarker} than yours so to say . +PhD B: Yeah , so the fifty - eight is like the be some fifty - six point {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Y you have {disfmarker} you have fifty - six point four +PhD B: Yeah , that 's true . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and dependent on this additive constant , it is s better or {disfmarker} or worse . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly better . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: And , {vocalsound} yeah , i i i the condition where it 's better than your approach , it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} just because maybe it 's better on well matched and that the weight on well matched is {disfmarker} is bigger , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , you {disfmarker} you caught up . +PhD E: because {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yep , that 's true . +PhD E: if you don't weigh differently the different condition , you can see that your {disfmarker} well , the win the two - stage Wiener filtering is maybe better or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's better for high mismatch , right ? +PhD B: Yeah , it 's better for high mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But a little bit worse for well matched . +PhD B: So over all it gets , yeah , worse for the well matched condition , so y +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So we need to combine these two . +PhD B: Uh , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the best thing , is like the French Telecom system is optimized for the well matched condition . They c +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . So they know that the weighting is good for the well matched , and so there 's {disfmarker} everywhere the well matched 's s s performance is very good for the French Telecom . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: T we are {disfmarker} we may also have to do something similar @ @ . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Well , our tradition here has always been to focus on the mismatched . +PhD B: Um the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz it 's more interesting . +Professor G: Mu - my {disfmarker} mine was it too , I mean . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Before I started working on this Aurora . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: so . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . OK . +PhD F: Carmen ? Do you , uh {disfmarker} +PhD H: Well , I only say that the {disfmarker} this is , a summary of the {disfmarker} of all the VTS experiments and say that the result in the last {comment} um , for Italian {disfmarker} the last experiment for Italian , {vocalsound} are bad . I make a mistake when I write . Up at D I copy {vocalsound} one of the bad result . +PhD B: So you {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} There . {vocalsound} You know , this . Um , well . If we put everything , we improve a lot u the spectral use of the VTS but the final result {vocalsound} are not still mmm , good {vocalsound} like the Wiener filter for example . I don't know . Maybe it 's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} it 's possible to {disfmarker} to have the same result . +PhD B: That 's somewhere {disfmarker} +PhD H: I don't know exactly . Mmm . Because I have , {vocalsound} mmm , {comment} worse result in medium mismatch and high mismatch . +PhD B: You s you have a better r Yeah . You have some results that are good for the high mismatch . +PhD H: And {disfmarker} Yeah . I someti are more or less similar but {disfmarker} but are worse . And still I don't have the result for TI - digits . The program is training . Maybe for this weekend I will have result TI - digits and I can complete that s like this . Well . +Professor D: Uh . Right . +PhD H: One thing that I {comment} note are not here in this result {vocalsound} but are speak {disfmarker} are spoken before with Sunil I {disfmarker} I improve my result using clean LDA filter . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: If I use , {vocalsound} eh , the LDA filter that are training with the noisy speech , {vocalsound} that hurts the res my results . +Professor D: So what are these numbers here ? Are these with the clean or with the noisy ? +PhD H: This is with the clean . +Professor D: OK . +PhD H: With the noise I have worse result , that if I doesn't use it . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD H: But m that may be because {vocalsound} with this technique {vocalsound} we are using really {disfmarker} really clean speech . The speech {disfmarker} the {comment} representation that go to the HTK is really clean speech because it 's from the dictionary , the code book and maybe from that . I don't know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD H: Because I think that you {disfmarker} did some experiments using the two {disfmarker} the two LDA filter , clean and noi and noise , +PhD E: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD H: and it doesn't matter too much . +PhD E: Um , yeah , I did that but it doesn't matter on SpeechDat - Car , but , it matters , uh , a lot on TI - digits . +PhD B: Using the clean filter . +PhD H: It 's better to use clean . +PhD E: Yeah , d uh , it 's much better when you {disfmarker} we used the clean derived LDA filter . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . Maybe you can do d also this . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD H: To use clean speech . +PhD B: Yeah , I 'll try . +PhD E: Uh , but , yeah , Sunil in {disfmarker} in your result it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'll try the cle No , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} my result is with the noisy {disfmarker} noisy LDA . +PhD E: It 's with the noisy one . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! +PhD B: It 's with the noisy . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's not the clean LDA . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} in the front sheet , I have like {disfmarker} like the summary . Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and your result {comment} is with the {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's with the clean LDA . +PhD B: Oh . This is {disfmarker} Your results are all with the clean LDA result ? +PhD H: Yeah , with the clean LDA . +PhD B: OK . @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD E: And in your case it 's all {disfmarker} all noisy , +PhD H: Is that the reason ? +PhD B: All noisy , yeah . +PhD E: yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD H: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: But I observe my case it 's in , uh , uh , at least on SpeechDat - Car it doesn't matter but TI - digits it 's like two or three percent absolute , uh , {comment} better . +PhD B: On TI - digits this matters . Absolute . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: So you really might wanna try the clean I think . +PhD E: So if {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I will have to look at it . Yeah , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , that could be sizeable right there . +PhD H: And this is everything . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Professor G: Maybe you {disfmarker} you are leaving in {disfmarker} in about two weeks Carmen . No ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . So I mean , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I would put it {disfmarker} put on the head of a project mana manager {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I I would say , uh , um {disfmarker} I mean there is not so much time left now . +Professor D: Be my guest . +Professor G: I mean , if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , what {disfmarker} what I would do is I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would pick @ @ {comment} the best consolation , which you think , and {vocalsound} c create {disfmarker} create all the results for the whole database that you get to the final number as {disfmarker} as Sunil did it +PhD H: And prepare at the s +Professor G: and {vocalsound} um and maybe also to {disfmarker} to write somehow a document where you describe your approach , and what you have done . +PhD H: Yeah , I was thinking to do that next week . +Professor D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll borrow the head back and {disfmarker} and agree . Yeah , +PhD H: Yeah , I wi I {disfmarker} I will do that next week . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} Right . In fact , actually I g I guess the , uh {disfmarker} the Spanish government , uh , requires that anyway . They want some kind of report from everybody who 's in the program . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . And of course I 'd {disfmarker} we 'd {disfmarker} we 'd like to see it too . So , +PhD H: OK . +Professor D: yeah . +PhD F: So , um , what 's {disfmarker} Do you think we , uh , should do the digits or skip it ? Or what are {disfmarker} what do you think ? +Professor D: Uh , we have them now ? +PhD F: Yeah , got them . +Professor D: Uh , why don why don't we do it ? +PhD F: OK . +Professor D: Just {comment} {disfmarker} just take a minute . +PhD H: I can send yet . +PhD F: Would you pass those down ? +Professor D: Oh ! Sorry . +PhD F: OK , um , so I guess I 'll go ahead . Um , +Professor D: Seat ? +PhD E: Dave ? Is it the channel , or the mike ? I don't remember . It 's the mike ? +Professor D: Mike ? +PhD E: It 's not four . +PhD H: This is date and time . No . On the channel , channel . +Professor G: What is this ? +PhD B: t +PhD F: OK , if you could just leave , um , your mike on top of your , uh , digit form I can fill in any information that 's missing . +Professor G: OK . +PhD F: That 's uh {disfmarker} I didn't get a chance to fill them out ahead of time . Yeah , we 're gonna have to fix that . Uh , let 's see , it starts with one here , and then goes around and ends with nine here . +Grad A: Seven . So I {disfmarker} I 'm eight , +PhD F: So he 's eight , +Grad A: you 're seven . +PhD F: you 're seven , +Grad A: Yeah . +","Participants discussed various speech recognition systems, primarily focusing on the Voice Activity Detection (VAD) performance and different noise reduction techniques, such as spectral subtraction and Wiener filtering. They compared these methods using the SpeechDat-Car and Italian TI-digits databases. The group debated advantages and disadvantages of each approach, with particular attention to how different systems performed under mismatched conditions. The conversation also touched on the impact of the latency introduced by certain techniques and the need to optimize systems for real-world applications. Carmen indicated that VTS experiments did not yield results as good as the Wiener filter but mentioned an improvement when using clean LDA filters over noisy filters. The group emphasized the importance of finalizing the best configurations and documenting approaches as Carmen's involvement in the project was nearing its end." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 13th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be a hybrid meeting. Some members will be participating via video conference and some will be participating in person. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up on either side of the Chairs chair, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor audio or to interpretation using the earpieces at their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name, and please direct your remarks through the chair. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): I have a point of order. +The Chair: Can the member wait for the point of order until we finish the introduction? +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif: There is so much noise in the background over there, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: That is a very good point of order. I want to remind everyone that when we speak, it is picked up. We have amazing speakersand an amazing Speaker, but that's a whole other storyand amazing microphones in the chamber, and they do pick up everything. I know there was some chatter going on in the background. I want to make sure everyone is aware of that. Mr. Aboultaif, that was a very good point of order. I appreciate that. For those joining us via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mikes on mute when you're not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel, and if you want to speak in French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by video conference wish to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their mic and state that they have a point of order. Those in the Chamber can rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements for today, so we'll continue to the presentation of petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition goes to Mr. Manly, who is joining us via video conference. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a petition that calls on the government to deal with helping our honey bees. They are crucial to our food system. They provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of services to commercial agricultural crops and other ecological services every year, and the European Union has put heavy restrictions on the chemicals that are affecting them, the neonicotinoids. This petition calls on the Government of Canada, for the sake of bees and our food security, to follow Europe's lead and adhere to the precautionary principle by banning the use of neonicotinoids in Canada. +The Chair: The next presenter of petitions will be Mr. Genuis, who is very parliamentary and dressed from the waist up, I understand. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and that is all you need to see for the moment. Canadians are horrified by the military report on the conditions of long-term care in Ontario. It raises big questions about the choices facing seniors in certain situations, which is what makes this first petition particularly timely. I am tabling a petition related to Bill C-7, the government's euthanasia bill, which seeks to dramatically remove safeguards that the government said were vital only a short time ago. When some people are living in deplorable conditions, we cannot truly speak of them as having a choice of when they ought to die. Especially in light of that new information, I commend this petition for the consideration of members of the House. The second petition is in support of Bill S-204 on organ harvesting and trafficking, put forward in the Senate. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ without the donor's consent. This bill seeks to combat the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. +The Chair: The next petition presenter will be Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and greetings from SaanichGulf Islands. The petition I'm presenting today is petition e-2509, which has been duly certified. It relates to what I think many of us will regard as the real heroes of the last few months. In this pandemic, there have often been very underpaid and overworked front-line workers who receive minimum wage and nothing more, and who are of course deemed essential services. The petitioners have asked the government to implement a wage supplement as a temporary measure to bring the wages for those who are in contact with the general public and working in what has been deemed an essential service to no less than $20 an hour, in light of their service and the risks they're taking for all of us. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the honourable member who just spoke brought up a great point yesterday. She said that when we present petitions, we are simply supposed to give one or two sentences before putting them on the table. I believe that was more than one or two sentences. +The Chair: I want to remind honourable members that when they are presenting petitions, they should be very concise with the prcis that they give up front, as opposed to going on for a long time. Now we will proceed to statements by members for a period not exceeding 15 minutes, and each statement will be for one minute. We will start with Mr. Fonseca. +Mr. Peter Fonseca (Mississauga EastCooksville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I am honoured to recognize the youth in my riding of Mississauga EastCooksville who are part of the 52nd Mississauga Scouts. For over a decade, I've had the great opportunity to join the Scouts every year during the month of May for the door-to-door food drives. This year has been a lot different, owing to the COVID situation, but our Scouts are not used to saying the word impossible. David Chant, head leader for their cub pack, reached out to share that the youth have found innovative ways to engage our community through a virtual food bank. I say a big thank you to Scout leaders like David, who are strong role models for our youth, teaching them the importance of leadership, kindness and giving back. I've always been amazed with the support within our community for the Scouts' food drive. David and his group of Scouts raised over $46,000 worth of food last year for the Mississauga Food Bank and The Compass. Again, I give a huge virtual high-five to all of our young Scouts, who have taken the lead with lots of compassion and care. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Richards. +Mr. Blake Richards (BanffAirdrie, CPC): May 24 to May 31 is Tourism Week in Canada. This annual celebration is a time for us to recognize the contributions and experiences of Canada's tourism industry. This is a very important industry, and this year's Tourism Week is a little different from what it normally is. The ongoing coronavirus crisis has closed provincial and international borders to recreational travel, and tourism operators from coast to coast have been among the first and hardest hit due to the government-mandated lockdowns. Clear criteria regarding border reopenings and health and safety requirements will allow hospitality and tourism businesses to sufficiently prepare to reopen. This includes rehiring employees, ordering supplies and putting together tour packages and marketing plans. Operators do not need to be set back any further because of a lack of clarity around reopening. While this Tourism Week is not a celebration like the one we had expected, I anticipate next year's celebration to be a celebration of an even stronger and more successful tourism industry in Canada. The 1.8 million Canadians whose jobs depend on a thriving tourism sector are counting on it. Bonne semaine to tourism. +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Rogers. +Mr. Churence Rogers (BonavistaBurinTrinity, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Monday was a sad day in my riding of BonavistaBurinTrinity, and indeed our entire province. Please join me as I offer sincere condolences to the families of the men who lost their lives at sea in a tragic accident off the coast of St. Lawrence in Placentia Bay. Ed Norman, his son Scott Norman and his nephew Jody Norman all tragically lost their lives while fishing for crab this past Monday. A fourth man, family friend Isaac Kettle, was also with them. After a courageous search mission by Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary members and the Department of National Defence and Provincial Airlines, he is unfortunately still missing. We grieve with the entire town of St. Lawrence as they mourn this tragic loss of life. Mr. Chair, I am sure the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador, this parliamentary family and Canadians from coast to coast to coast join me in thinking of these men, along with their friends and families, during this difficult time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr.Simard. +Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquire, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I would like to speak to you today about a solid man who unfortunately passed away on May25. We were greatly saddened to learn about the death of FrancisDufour. This builder of Quebec's political history drew his last breath at the age of91, late Sunday night. Mr.Dufour was the archetypal proud representative of my region who spent his entire life in Jonquire. He first became involved in the Alcan employee's union in Arvida, then continued his civic involvement at the municipal level as mayor, then in the Quebec National Assembly as the member for Jonquire. He will be remembered as a man with deep ties to his community, a man of integrity, a people person, who dedicated himself to serving citizens and advancing the independence movement in Quebec. On behalf of the people of the riding of Jonquire and all the people of Quebec, I offer my most sincere condolences to FrancisDufour's family and loved ones. Thank you. +The Chair: We are continuing with MartinezFerrada. +Ms. Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Hochelaga, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The pandemic has greatly affected Montreal East, particularly the riding of Hochelaga, which I represent. Today, I'd like to recognize the exceptional work of all the volunteers and organizations in Hochelaga that are helping the more vulnerable populations, including Anonyme, CAP St-Barnab, CARE Montral, the Cuisine collective Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Bouffe Action, the Centre Communautaire Hochelaga, Chic Resto Pop, Jojo Dpannage, Groupe d'Entraide de Mercier-Ouest and many others. I'd like to acknowledge the commitment of the merchants who have rolled up their sleeves, including the Coop Couturires Pop, to make masks. I'd especially like to recognize essential workers, especially attendants. Allow me to offer our condolences to the loved ones of the attendants who have lost their lives to protect ours. The citizens of Hochelaga are resilient and unified. I am proud to rise in the House to salute them. +The Chair: The next presentation will be by Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Albertan and former parliamentarian, Louise Feltham, who passed away this Monday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Louise was an entrepreneur, a public servant and a force of nature. She inspired the family motto How hard can it be? by creating communities and building several homes in her lifetime. In all that she did, Louise broke glass ceilings. Her many firsts included being the first woman to serve as a councillor in rural Alberta, the first female reeve in rural Alberta and the first woman born in Newfoundland to serve in this chamber. She was the MP for Wild Rose from 1988 to 1993. Her son Glenn served as the president of NAIT when I chaired the board. My thoughts and sympathies are with him, his wife Tammi and the rest of their family for this great loss. Her parliamentary family mourns with you today. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Bagnell. +Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Mr. Chair, it is a great honour to speak to the House of Commons today from Whitehorse, Yukon, here on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dn First Nation and the Ta'an Kwch'n Council. As a great historic Canadian event last week, Yukon became home to Canada's first university north of 60. Yukon University will provide Yukoners with educational opportunities closer to home, expand our research capabilities and expertise on the Arctic and climate change and allow those who want to study northern and first nations governance to do so in the north. I encourage all students living in the northern half of Canada to look at the many programs and degrees at Yukon University to continue their studiesin some cases this year, virtuallyby remaining in the north. I want to congratulate the staff of Yukon College, who spent the last decade working towards this transition, and especially the outgoing president, Karen Barnes. I wish her all the best in her retirement. Thank you, merci, mahsi cho and sga senl. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Hutchings. +Ms. Gudie Hutchings (Long Range Mountains, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, from the Long Range Mountains, I too want to send my condolences to my colleague, Mr. Rogers from BonavistaBurinTrinity, on the tragic loss in St. Lawrence. We're all communities that rely on the sea, and we understand the importance and the tragedy, and the hard work it is being fishers. However, today, colleagues, I want to mention, as my colleague from across the way said, that it's national tourism week, so please take the time to get out and thank the tourism and hospitality businesses in your ridings. Most businesses around the world were hit hard by COVID-19. The tourism economy was hit very hard, especially seasonal and rural operations and the 1.8 million people the industry employs. However, this industry knows how to work hard. They know how to partner. They know how to look after their employees and their guests. They will find new and innovative opportunities and experiences. They will build new business and they will continue to attract visitors. We know that the domestic and local markets will recover first. I know that the operators in my riding are getting ready just for that. It's exciting to speak with them about how they're working on their new normal and how it's going to be developed and implemented here in the Long Range Mountains. Remember too that many of our national parks are opening on June 1, so get out and explore the park in your backyard. I look forward to working with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Destination Canada and my colleagues so that when we turn the corner of this pandemic, we are ready to rebuild a stronger tourism economy. Friends, go out and discover the tourism treasures in your province. They need your support. Tourism matters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Mr.Gourde, you have the floor. +Mr. Jacques Gourde (LvisLotbinire, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some people were already too few in number and already burdened with heavy responsibilities even before the COVID-19 crisis occurred. I would like to take this opportunity to express my admiration for the dedication of all the essential workers who stepped up in the riding of LvisLotbinire. This crisis has created pressing needs and unprecedented emergencies. Fine men and women committed to human dignity, volunteers, retirees, and you, who have wisely agreed to stay home, you have been part, to varying degrees, of this great equation to minimize the impact of the spread and avoid the worst. The snow has melted, the flowers have arrived. Many children are happy to be able to expend their energy again; our seniors are being cuddled, with great care, and our essential workers in the riding are still dedicated to the job. I say bravo, thank you and don't give up, even though you have already earned your place in heaven. +The Chair: Ms.Bendayan. +Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Outremont, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My father, who is now retired, was a researcher for over 40years. He was involved in many medical discoveries. From his laboratories at the Univerist de Montral, he worked with CHUM and the Centre hospitalier universitaire SainteJustine, renowned institutions in Outremont. In Fact, Outremont is full of professors, scientists and researchers. They are Quebeckers, Canadians, who are at the forefront of discoveries that save and will save lives. Since coming into office, our government has reversed the funding cuts to medical research and has invested billions in science. Recently, we announced new funding for COVID-19 research for fundamental science and supports for academic researchers. We are working very hard to find a vaccine for COVID-19, and our fundamental research is helping us to understand viruses that we don't even know the names of yet. It is this work that will help us stay ahead of the curve rather than flatten it. To all our Canadian scientists and to my dad, thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Alleslev. +Ms. Leona Alleslev (AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill, CPC): Mr. Chair, citizens in my riding of AuroraOak RidgesRichmond Hill are showing incredible compassion as they help their families, their friends and even strangers during this difficult period. They are our community champions. The Aurora Chamber of Commerce and the Richmond Hill Board of Trade are helping businesses navigate in these difficult times. Organizations like The STEAM Project and Ganesha Temple are making and donating face masks for those in need. The Aurora Museum & Archives is collecting artifacts to document the pandemic for future generations. The Aurora Farmers' Market is bringing local farmers and businesses to us, but this year with one key person missing. Our community has lost one of the farmers' market's founders, our jam lady, Jan Freedman. We were deeply saddened by her passing, and she will be sorely missed. My sincere thanks to everyone who's working to ease the burdens on one another during this crisis. It's not easy, but this too will pass, and we will be stronger for it. In the meantime, stay safe, and let us all do our part to be community champions. Thank you. +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, we all understand that a crisis like the one the world is currently experiencing generates deficits. We also know that a deficit is a bill we send to our children and grandchildren, which is why it is important to be prudent, to make wise choices and, above all, to know where we are going. It's a shame that every time we ask the government a question, no minister can tell us how big the Canadian deficit is. We aren't the only ones concerned about the deficit and the government's lack of transparency. In fact, last Tuesday, at a parliamentary committee meeting in the Senate, the Parliamentary Budget Officer made some very scathing remarks about the government. He said he was concerned. He said that there had to be a deadline or we'd be heading toward taxation levels that haven't been seen in generations in this country because there is not a lot of ammunition left before we go into a large structural deficit. I'm not the one saying it; it's the Parliamentary Budget Officer. For weeks, almost every day, the Prime Minister has been announcing cash injections for Canadians. We agree with that. However, hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent without any idea of the deficit. That's why we're sounding the alarm and calling on the government to be careful. The Prime Minister needs to know that we can't play Santa Claus every day, because the bills in January come in fast, and they are high. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Garrison. +Mr. Randall Garrison (EsquimaltSaanichSooke, NDP): Mr. Chair, making sure science informs our health policies is critical during a pandemic. That's why I'm so disappointed that the Liberals have maintained the ban on blood donations from gay men and trans women. There is no science behind this ban. Not only does it reinforce homophobia and transphobia, it also reduces our blood supply at this critical time. Now we've learned that the ban will also result in rejecting plasma donors, when plasma is so critical in emerging COVID-19 research and treatment. More than 17 countries, including Argentina, Italy and Spain, have no deferral period for men who have sex with men. They know that behaviour-based screening provides better security for the blood supply than discriminatory identity-based rules. I have asked the minister many times to lift the gay blood ban and I do so again today, but today I also call on the family and friends of gay men and trans women to step up now and donate blood in place of those of us who cannot. When it comes to blood donations, we really should all be in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Desilets, you have the floor. +Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivire-des-Mille-les, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr.Chair. I've missed you, by the way. On another note, the emergency wage subsidy was created for people who fear for their jobs or their businesses. It's for people who need it, not for millionaire political parties like the Liberals and Conservatives. In Rivire-des-Mille-les, as in many other ridings, we respond daily to businesses that don't have access to it. Unfortunately, there are people in our ridings who won't have the opportunity to hire staff this summer. There are businesses that are losing less than 30%of their revenues; they are losing29%. These businesses won't have access to it. Everywhere we look, there are businesses that are falling through the cracks. Meanwhile, the Liberals and the Conservatives are getting the wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. I repeat: it is to fund partisan activities. The Liberals and Conservatives don't even do it on the sly; they do it openly. These two parties have raised millions of dollars since January. Every dollar that's taken comes out of the taxpayers' pockets. It's the workers' money, not the political parties'. It's so embarrassing that it's shameful, disrespectful and ridiculous. The Liberals and the Conservatives have to pay that money back. I think that's obvious. For the Bloc Qubcois, its immeasurably clear. It's a question of ethics, morality and respect for citizens. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. This week is Paramedic Services Week, and I would like to take a moment to thank these men and women who work tirelessly at the best of times to protect and save lives. Their efforts during COVID-19, like the services provided by many front-line workers in health care, such as personal support workers, doctors, nurses, janitorial and clerical staff, lab technicians and many others, have been extraordinary and truly beyond the call of duty. I hope this week all Canadians will take a moment to thank a paramedic or any front-line health care worker in their community for the amazing services they have been called upon to perform and will continue to provide in the challenging days ahead. Chair, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention another unfortunate consequence of the current pandemic, the cancellation of the Kinmount Fair, a renowned event that has been running since 1870. This year the fair was to mark its 150th anniversary, but in true Kinmount spirit, this heartbreaking decision will not deter organizers from planning an even bigger and better event in 2021. +The Chair: Now we will go to Ms. Dhillon. +Ms. Anju Dhillon (DorvalLachineLaSalle, Lib.): Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the members of the Canadian Armed Forces from the bottom of my heart for their invaluable assistance in the long-term care facilities. Their deployment came at a critical time, when many seniors desperately needed them. Through the observations and testimonies of these members, we saw the extent of the nightmare that many seniors had endured for a long time. These are human beings who could not fend for themselves. They were treated with profound cruelty and carelessness. Among many other loathsome details, they were left to starve, were abused and lived in filth, their cries of anguish ignored. They were tormented and left in their agony. There is no excuse for this. No one ever deserves to be treated the way they were. I am talking about humanity, about compassion and mercy. It is up to each and every one of us to make sure no elderly person is ever hurt in this vile manner again. I take this moment to honour these victims. +The Chair: Before moving on, I want to remind the hon. members that, as the rules state, statements by members should be 60 seconds. That's one minute. Usually there are a few extra seconds, which doesn't matter, but some of them have gone quite a bit over time, so starting Monday we'll be cutting them off at 60 seconds. I encourage everyone to practise them or take a look at them, and try to keep them within the 60 seconds so that we don't go over our allotted time. We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. I would like to remind members to speak fairly slowly so that the interpreters can understand what they're saying. I know sometimes we get excited in the House and we speak a little quickly. Just be conscious of it. I'm sure it will be appreciated by the interpreters and those at home who are listening in, as then they can make out the important questions and answers that are being given in this chamber. We will go to our first question. We will begin with Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Thanks, Mr. Chair. The government has consistently worked to shut down Parliament and undermine personal sittings and has argued that the business of this country can be done by Zoom. However, for work of the G7 the Prime Minister said, theres no question that in-person meetings...are much more effective than even virtual meetings. By pushing to go virtual, is it the Prime Minister's goal to make Canada's Parliament less effective? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, it is absolutely not. In fact, I am pleased to be here in person meeting with members from across the country and pleased that our colleagues who live further away from Ottawa than I do have the opportunity to join us. Parliament plays an essential role in our democracy, and it's +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, that is exactly the point. This isn't Parliament; this is a committee meeting. We do not have Parliament. This is a virtual committee. A Saskatchewan producer called me and said that he tried to use the online AgriStability calculator. He said that most farmers can't use it, that in fact they can't put in their inventory changes. This means it will give them erroneous information. Why is the agriculture minister touting this lifeline for farmers when it doesn't actually work? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the agricultural sector is critical to our country, and the questions some of us have been asking around food security have reminded us how lucky we are, as Canadians, to be living in an agricultural superpower. When it comes to the specific technical questions that farmers have, they should turn to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, who will be delighted to help. +Mr. John Barlow: Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell me how much it cost to develop this online AgriStability calculator? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What I can say is that we are very mindful of and very grateful for the extremely +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, farmers have even hired accountants to try to navigate this shiny online calculator, but they've been told they would go broke before they received any money. Will the government admit that this is just a fig leaf before any actual assistance will come to Canadian farmers? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, very many farmers, and certainly many of the farmers of my acquaintance, have worked with accountants for a very long time. Farmers are sophisticated business people who deal in the futures markets every day. They run hugely important businesses +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it's that kind of condescension that is so frustrating to Canadian farmers. They shouldn't have to hire an accountant to figure out an assistance program. The last time I questioned the Prime Minister and the minister about the secret carbon tax data, they said that only part of it was secret and that the rest of it would be given to the House. I have yet to receive it. Will that be tabled today, in both official languages, to justify to Canadian farmers why the government has increased the carbon tax in the midst of a pandemic? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, what is condescending is to behave as if farmers are not highly sophisticated businessmen. They hire economists. They hire agronomists. They are at the cutting edge. I am proud of the sophistication of Canadian farmers, and I'm proud of the support we offer them. Some honourable members: Oh, oh! +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members that the background noise and the heckling really make it difficult for the members who are tuning in via Zoom. I just want to make sure they're aware of what they're doing to our colleagues who are online. We will go back to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, for 64 days the finance minister has failed to deliver on his promise to assist Canada's energy sector. Small oil and gas companies still can't qualify for BDC loans, and last week's announcement for large employers, in my opinion, was nothing of exploitive. If the government doesn't fulfill its promise to provide support for the energy sector, it is in turn supporting unethically sourced foreign oil and costing good reliable Canadian jobs. After 64 days, when will the credit options be available to Canada's small and medium-sized energy companies? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite about one thing: The energy sector and energy workers are absolutely essential to our economy, and we support them. One of the things I am most proud of is the $1.7 billion our government has committed to cleaning up orphan wells. That money today has created jobs in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. People are working because of it, and they are cleaning up their communities thanks to that support. +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'll try not to spend too much time. Will the Liberal Party of Canada pay back the money it took from the wage subsidy program, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the purpose of the wage subsidy is to support workers, help them keep their jobs and keep them connected to their workplace +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a no. In my riding, Trillium Media owns several weeklies. The company doesn't qualify for the wage subsidy because it has suffered losses of28% instead of30%. The historic village of Val-Jalbert is in the same situation. Does the Liberal Party of Canada consider itself to be in greater financial difficulty than the historic village of Val-Jalbert and Trillium Media? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, allow me to remind the hon. member opposite what we're doing to support Canadians: more than 8million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit. In addition, 635,000businesses have received loans through the Canada emergency business account. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. Does my hon. colleague take into account the fact that the billions of dollars that are currently being handed out come from taxpayers' pockets? It even comes from the pockets of people who have lost their jobs and who pay taxes when they go to the corner store. On the other side of the House, is it considered justified for multi-million dollar parties to finance themselves with public funds, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to continue by reminding my colleague opposite what our government is doing today to support Canadians and Quebeckers: 293applications for the Canada emergency wage subsidy have been approved. Over 2million Canadians today have +The Chair: Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, I'll take that as a yes. It's fantastic! The money that the Liberals are going to get from the wage subsidy is going to go directly into their election kitty. When they go to get their election expenses reimbursed, they're going to get 60%of that money back. So they'll have made the wage subsidy work for them. The businesses that'll have access to it won't, but the political parties will. Doesn't that contravene the Canada Elections Act, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, our programs don't discriminate. They're there to help all workers, to help all Canadians, to help all Quebeckers. The hon. member talked about companies and sectors that need more help. We agree with that. We think we all need to work together to continue to help Canadians and Quebeckers +The Chair: Order. We are returning to Mr.Brunelle-Duceppe. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: I don't know how to take it this time. I didn't get it all. I think it's necessary to stop, eject and throw the tape out, and provide an honest answer to the questions we ask. Can my colleague across the way answer a very simple question? Are their employees going to be used for political fundraising and so, once again, make the generous wage subsidy they receive work for them, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I want to point out something important when we talk about our work and our economy. The important thing is that we have put in place unprecedented economic measures that are absolutely urgent and necessary. That's what we'll continue to do. +Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe: Mr.Chair, we've already seen a Duceppe who denounces the use of federal programs by the Liberal Party for the Liberal Party. Can my hon. colleague tell me if she's able to look the entrepreneurs in her riding in the eye and tell them that they don't deserve the wage subsidy, because their loss of income is only28% or29%, while her party is dipping into the cookie jar, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I am absolutely willing to look into the eyes of the entrepreneurs and workers in my riding because they know that our government is doing a lot to help Canadians in this historic crisis. Our economic support program is the largest program in Canada's history +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Armed Forces report showed the relationship between equipment costs and the lack of care for our seniors. Will the government admit today that there is no room for profit in the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, that's a very important question, and I would like to thank the member for asking it. I think this is a historic week. All Canadians have seen what is happening in Ontario and Quebec. We +The Chair: Order. We'll go back to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, experts and advocates have all pointed out that in the for-profit model of care for seniors, there is more emphasis on the bottom line than on care for seniors. Will the Liberal government admit that there is no place for profit when it comes to the care of our seniors? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to start by saying one thing, and that is to publicly thank, in this House, Brigadier-General Conrad Mialkowski and his team for compiling the assessment that they did of long-term care homes in Ontario. They acted with courage. They acted with compassion. What they did is historic, and we all need to +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Canadian Forces, of course, always deserve our thanks. However, they don't need our thanks right now; they need to see some action on what they have pointed out. The government owns Revera, the second-largest long-term care provider in Canada. It's for profit, and it's facing a $50-million lawsuit for negligence. What is the government doing to protect seniors in the long-term care homes that they own? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I agree with the member opposite that after what we have learned this week, all options must be on the table when it comes to how care for our elders will be provided in Canada in the future. I think it is clear to us all that root-and-branch reform is necessary. We need to act with speed but not haste, and work with our provincial partners. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: If all the options are on the table, will the Liberal government commit to removing profit from long-term care, particularly in the Revera long-term care homes, the second-largest number in Canada, which the government owns? Will it commit to removing profit from long-term care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we will commit to doand I hope with the support of all members of this Houseis work very carefully and also very urgently in close co-operation with our provincial partners, under whose jurisdiction this falls, to ensure that these heart-wrenching reports mean that as a country we turn the page +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Revera is a Crown corporation owned by the government, so let's not hear excuses. Is the government doing anything to ensure that seniors are cared for? Is it providing for robust inspections, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I want to clarify one point in the member's question. Canadian Crown corporations are not Liberal, not Conservative and not partisan. One of the strengths of Canada is that we have non-partisan government institutions, and they serve us extremely well. Our +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, right now the current government is responsible for Revera. It is a Crown corporation. Will the government commit to ensuring there is no profit anymore in Revera? As we've seen, it is facing a $50-million lawsuit, and there's been horrible negligence. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I said at the outset, the ownership structure of long-term care facilities needs to be on the table. Everything does. I also want to emphasize how important it is for us to do what we have been doing, which is to work very closely with the provinces, under whose jurisdiction this falls. In just the past 24 hours, I have spoken with Premier Ford, Premier Horgan and Premier Moe, and our conversation included long-term care facilities. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio (ElginMiddlesexLondon, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today I join critics from the NDP, the Bloc and the Green Party who deal with women's issues and gender equality to ask where the $75 million toward sexual exploitation and human trafficking has gone. Last week organizations had to close their doors and the programs that help vulnerable women and girls, so the simple question is this: Where is the money? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, let me begin by thanking the member for that very important question. I agree that human trafficking, which is a crime of coercion and exploitation, is unacceptable, and we have to ensure that we provide the supports necessary to the victims of this crime. As the member knows, we have launched a new, comprehensive national strategy to combat human trafficking, and we've incorporated a new pillar in that strategy of empowerment to ensure that the focus +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: With all due respect, it's great that we have a strategy, but when money is not going to the doors of these organizations that provide these services, a strategy is nothing. It's all talk and no action. Where's the money? +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Mr. Chair, let me pick up where my honourable colleague left off by acknowledging that trafficking is a heinous crime and that hundreds of organizations across the country are working to solve the challenges that come with human trafficking. I remind my honourable colleague that hundreds of organizations have received supports, and we will have more to announce to further support +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: It's so very simple. What should we tell the young women and girls looking for these supports right now? What is the answer from the government? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, no one should have to live a life with violence, whether it's sexual, physical, financial or emotional, and that the government of Canada +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Thank you very much. Yesterday I happened to be part of the health committee, and the Battered Women's Support Services representative was there as a witness. She shared with me that the organizations that she is associated with, over 500 organizations that deal with sexual assault and shelters, did not receive funding. Can you explain why? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, I want to thank Angela and the team at the Battered Women's Support Services. They are receiving funds through Feminists Deliver, but there are hundreds of organizations that will receive additional funds to provide the critical care that they need to support front lines and the most vulnerable in their communities, and we will have more to say soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, we know that calls to centres like Battered Women's Support Services have gone up by 300 times, so this is a huge concern I have. What made this group of assault services and shelters ineligible? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, my colleague is putting words in my mouth. As I said, hundreds of organizations like the Battered Women's Support Services are going to be receiving funds from the federal government in the coming days. We thank them for their work and we will have more to say very soon. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: Mr. Chair, the need is now. For instance, at London Abused Women's Centre, calls are up by 45%. I've heard from communities where they've gone up 200%. As I said, yesterday I heard 300%. The money is needed now. Where is the money for this program? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, some organizations are seeing demands up as high as 400% with their capacity limited by 400%. We've centres and women's shelters, and 700 have received funds, with more to come soon. I appreciate that this Parliament includes consensus among all colleagues that feminism and supporting women +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Vecchio. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: If we're talking about being a feminist government, I have one single question. Yesterday the minister was not willing to answer the question, so I will ask the Minister for Women and Gender Equality. How can a feminist government support the Wet'suwet'en First Nation women whose titles were stripped from them? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Mr. Chair, it sounds like my honourable colleague wants to compare their record on advancing equality with ours. We are happy to do that, and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has been working very hard to move this historic agreement forward. +Mrs. Karen Vecchio: These women have lost their titles, and the decisions were made with the hereditary chiefs and not the elected chiefs. Why is this government not standing up for these women hereditary chiefs who were stripped of their titles? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): Mr. Chair, I think the honourable member knows that the route to self-determination is to have first nations, Inuit, and Mtis determine their own governance and abide by their own laws. Right now the Wet'suwet'en nation is in that process of determining what kind of governance they would like. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet (FlamboroughGlanbrook, CPC): Thank you, Chair. The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act has passed both houses of Congress in the United States and is now on the way to the Oval Office for signature. What is Canada's position on this Muslim minority being jailed and re-educated by the Communist Party of China? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, we are deeply concerned by the human rights situation faced by the Uighurs and other minorities in China. This is an issue our government has raised directly with the Chinese. Canada has also repeatedly voiced its concerns at the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Sweet. +Mr. David Sweet: The Burmese government is another being exploited by the CPC. Their Muslim minority was driven out and now languishes in Bangladesh, which is a commonwealth partner in the midst of this global pandemic. What will Canada do to answer the injustice done to the Rohingya? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will always stand with human rights. Canada has repeatedly voiced its concerns with the UN Human Rights Council. We will continue to call on the Chinese government to ensure that human rights of all of its people, including the freedom of religion, are fully respected. +Mr. David Sweet: Yesterday the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening a grip of the Communist Party of China. Will the Prime Minister condemn this law? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada, with our international partners in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., made a joint statement in which we are expressing our deep concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +Mr. David Sweet: Canada has an admirable history of doing the right thing and helping when the situation is bleak. The Suez Canal, Cyprus, the fall of apartheid, child and maternal health in Africa, and Afghanistan are examples in my lifetime of how Canada has weighed in significantly. Why is the government letting down Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, with hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in Hong Kong, we have a vested interest in Hong Kong's stability and prosperity, the foundations of which are Hong Kong's relative autonomy and basic freedoms. Canada will always support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedoms of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: I think the 300,000 Canadians who are in Hong Kong want a little bit more than interest from the government. They'd like some action. What exactly is the government going to do to help those 300,000 Canadians who are in the breach between democracy and tyranny now? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has expressed deep concern regarding China's imposition of the new security law for Hong Kong. The proposed law would undermine the one country, two systems framework. We are going to continue to support and promote freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press around the world. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I have deep concern. After being fired at with pepper bullets and tear gas yesterday, 300 students were arrested in Hong Kong while peacefully protesting. Where is the outrage from this government with regard to what the CPC is doing in Hong Kong? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, as we have said, we are deeply concerned about the arrests of political figures and about the law that has been imposed on Hong Kong. As we have said, Canada will always stand up and support freedom of speech and freedom of expression. +Mr. David Sweet: Mr. Chair, I'm going to give the minister another opportunity to answer the third question that I asked. Yesterday, the rubber-stamp National People's Congress passed the national security bill, undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and strengthening the iron grip of the Chinese Communist Party. Will this government condemn that law today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Canada will continue to support Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and freedoms under the Basic Law and the one country, two systems framework. Canada and our international partners, with the U.S., Australia and the U.K., have made a joint statement deeply expressing our concern regarding China's imposition of a new security law for Hong Kong. +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Lvis. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Some hon. members: Ha, ha! Hon. Steven Blaney: I am pleased to represent the city of Lvis, because it is a privilege, Mr.Chair. It is the city where Alphonse Desjardins, who spearheaded the largest financial cooperative movement, was born. I hope you will not take that away from my time. My question is for the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. On April8, the minister announced measures for the Canada summer jobs program. We thought it was to improve the program, but can the minister confirm that the budget remained the same between April7 and9? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion): Mr. Chair, I can confirm that we have increased the wage subsidies for Canada student jobs. We have added flexibilities, including the ability to have part-time work and the ability to have the jobs extended until February of next year. That said, the budget was not changed. It remains at 70,000 job placements for 70,000 students, with 100% of them being subsidized at 100%. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that the budget remains the same, but that by subsidizing each job more, they are reducing the number of jobs in the midst of the pandemic. Why reduce the number of jobs offered by our businesses in the midst of the pandemic, when our young people want to work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member, all members and all Canadians that despite the fact that he's singling out the Canada summer jobs program, we also created an additional 76,000 jobs through our youth employment and skills strategy, with an additional 40,000 placements for students. I can assure the member that we are +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blaney once again. +Hon. Steven Blaney: How many jobs are vacant right now? The program is lagging behind compared to other years. Why, and how is it that there is still money to be invested in our businesses to create summer jobs? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are not lagging behind whatsoever. We created flexibilities in Canada summer jobs so that we can assuredly fill all of these 70,000 positions. We are rolling them out in waves. There are 45,000 jobs up on our job bank. I can assure young Canadians that there is work for them there, and I encourage them to check out the job bank. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The minister confirms that there are delays in the midst of the pandemic, when the university year is over and businesses are waiting to hire young people. Why refuse to create additional jobs this year under the Canada summer jobs program, when businesses need them to adjust to the pandemic? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that we are not refusing to create any additional jobs. We've increased the number of jobs funded through our government's youth programs by over 100%. There are a number of jobs. We've added flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to maximize that program in ways that it never would have been maximized had we not done this. I can assure the member opposite that we are doing our utmost to make sure that young people have good-quality job experiences this summer. +Hon. Steven Blaney: When the minister says maximize, she is actually saying that there are fewer jobs this year for young people because the budget has remained the same, but that each position is funded more. My question is very simple: why not fund more jobs through the Canada summer jobs program instead of having open-ended programs like the Canada emergency student benefit, which does not allow young people to get work experience? We need young people and they want to work. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: I agree, absolutely, that we need young people to work this summer. That's why we're creating a number of opportunities through a number of programs, Mr. Chair. Canada summer jobs is being maxed out, and that's a good thing, because we've increased the number of jobs and added an additional 76,000 jobs. I can assure the member that we're creating so many jobs, and it's so exciting for our young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The Canada emergency student benefit does not encourage young people to go to work, and employers have difficulty hiring them. Yet they had applied for the Canada summer jobs program. Why not enhance the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I'm sure the member opposite is not implying that offering young people income support that they take out of necessity will make them not want to work. Young people want to work. They want to serve in their communities. That's why we're creating these additional jobs beyond the Canada summer jobs program. That's why we've increased the flexibilities in the Canada summer jobs program. It's so we can maximize these programs. +The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu (SarniaLambton, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yesterday my colleague asked the Minister of Public Safety a question, and he did not get a good answer. Why are asylum seekers being allowed to cross the closed border and reunify with their families when Canadians are not being allowed to reunify with their counterparts in the U.S.? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, to correct an error that was just repeated, we have put in rules that have excluded people from non-essential travel. We currently have an agreement with the United States that people crossing our border irregularly are being directed back to the United States. We've put in protection for those individuals to uphold our international obligations. We're continuing to deal with the +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, I have in my riding a pregnant woman who is having her first child. The father of the baby is not being allowed to come over. I have another citizen who's married to an American woman who needs medical services every three weeks who is not being allowed to go over and come back. I also have parents who have not seen their children in months because they're not allowing custody arrangements between Canadians and Americans to continue. Will the minister create exemptions to allow the reunification of these Canadians with their family? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member for an important question. It is never our intention to keep families apart. At the same time, we are exercising all due diligence to ensure that we prevent non-essential travel to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We've been working very hard to ensure that we have a solution for those individuals who need and want to reunite with their families. We will have further information on that as soon as we're able to resolve that difficulty. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, the Minister of Agriculture has known there's been a capacity issue on cattle processing for more than a year and has done nothing. We don't have a BSE exemption that would allow us to use American processors, and there's been no incentive to create additional capacity to process. How bad does it have to get for the minister to act? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): We have done a great deal for the meat sector lately. We have invested $100million in the beef and pork sectors through the AgriRecovery program. That's a significant increase, because in the last few years the program has provided between $7million and $15million only. That is significant. We have also invested $77.5million to improve the capacity of processors +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It still hasn't solved the problem. That's not a beef burger; that's a nothing burger. What is the minister going to do to help the cattle farmers who are struggling, especially in this pandemic? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, once again, we have helped the meat sector through the AgriRecovery program and we have put in place a $77.5million program to help meat processors deal with the situation and reorganize their work environment in a way that is safe for workers +The Chair: We will go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: It's not enough for the farmers in my area. To the Minister of National Revenue, I've had complaints from seniors in my riding that paper tax filings are not being processed. They're sitting on desks because people are not going in to the office. When will we begin to process those paper tax filings so seniors can get the refunds they need? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, we consider this to be a difficult situation for Canadians, and our government will do everything it can to support them. I can confirm that the CRA is still processing paper returns, but because of the reduced staff on site and the physical distancing, Canadians can expect delays. We regret the inconvenience this causes for those who file their returns on paper +The Chair: We will go back to Ms.Gladu. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The sound is not very good. This happens when ministers respond in the House. +The Chair: We will talk to the technicians about that. I'm not sure whether there's anything we can do now, but we'll see if we can sort it out for the next meeting. It will certainly be fixed by next Monday. In the meantime, we will do our best. Thank you very much for your comment. We go back to Ms. Gladu. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Mr. Chair, obviously with COVID, many people are struggling with the loss of loved ones and their grief. The Canadian Grief Alliance has submitted a proposal looking for a very modest sum of funding from the government to extend their virtual grief counselling. Can the Minister of Health let us know if that funding has been approved? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): I'm not aware of that specific proposal, but I commit to asking my officials to bring it forward to me and I will take a look. +The Chair: Ms. Gladu, you have time for a 15-second question. +Ms. Marilyn Gladu: Many are struggling with mental health in this pandemic. Can the Minister of Health tell us what she is doing to increase the capacity to help people who are suffering? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I know I don't have much time, but let me repeat our infomercial to Canadians. They should visit Wellness Together Canada, the portal that will provide access for Canadians to a variety of mental health supports, including connection to professionals. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. I'm sorry, Mr.Champoux; you are next. Mr.Waugh now has the floor. Oh, it's Mr. Waugh. My apologies. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Major events and mass gatherings being really out of the conversation for the foreseeable future, many event venues right now, such as concert halls and fairgrounds, are looking at the possibility of going more than a year without any revenue. Many are owned or managed by non-profit organizations. I can think of many in my riding, such as the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, the jazz festival, the folk festival, along with WDM and the Aviation Museum. Can the Minister of Canadian Heritage tell us what support has been made available to date to these organizations that are left up in the air? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (LaurierSainte-Marie, Lib.): As the member knows, we have done a number of things in the past weeks to help the arts and culture sector. We could talk about the Canadian emergency response benefit, or the wage subsidy. We have provided advance help to a number of organizations from Canadian Heritage programs or the Canada Council for the Arts on top of the $500-million program, which has started to be deployed and will continue to be deployed in the coming weeks specifically for these types of organizations. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Many media organizations are struggling. The reality only makes the allegations of predatory behaviour being levied against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation even more disturbing. I asked the minister on May 7 about these allegations, and he said he had not been informed of the allegations but would look into them. We can't afford to have a Crown corporation using its status to try to wipe out its competitors in this country. Has the minister begun the investigation into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and does he have any information that he can share with us here today? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member said, these are allegations, and as you well know, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent body. It's not controlled by the Minister of Canadian Heritage or the government. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Well, these allegations were in the National Post on April 22. I brought this up to you on May 7 when I talked virtually. Even more interesting, Mr. Chair, is that these allegations against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation came from an organization in the minister's own province of Quebec, so can the minister take action to address any predatory behaviour on behalf of the CBC, or can the government's friends at the CBC simply get away with anything? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Allegations are allegations, whether they are made in Quebec, Ontario or Alberta. As I said, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an independent organization. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: When I last rose, on May 7, the committee responsible for the government's massive $595-million media bailout package had not met. It is now three weeks later. Has the committee met? If yes, when can the media organizationsand I hear there are only 29 publishersexpect the support promised? If it hasn't met, when is it going to meet? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: As the member is well aware, this program is a tax-break program. In order for organizations to qualify, they had to file their income tax forms, which they have done over the last few weeks. The program is in place, and we are confidant that media organizations will receive the money by the end of the summer. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh, go ahead with a 20-second question, hopefully. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: There was $30 million rolled out to media organizations, some 1,400 organizations. Yesterday Postmedia announced another 40 layoffs. Has the $30 million been distributed so far in this country to all 1,400 media organizations? +The Chair: Honourable minister, go ahead for 20 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would be happy to provide the list of those 1,400 media organizations that have received funding through that ad campaign. +The Chair: We will continue with Mr.Champoux. You have the floor, Mr.Champoux. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I'm feeling generous today, and I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Pierre-BoucherLesPatriotesVerchres. At the beginning of the crisis, the government called on entrepreneurs in Quebec and Canada, inviting them to set an example in the situation we are experiencing. Many of them turned to the supplemental unemployment benefit plan to maintain the employment relationship and to preserve some security, enabling their employees to get through this difficult period with more peace of mind. However, on May22, despite the fact that these entrepreneurs had made sure that the SUB program would still be in place when the CERB was introduced, they were surprised. Employees were told at that time that they would have to repay the CERB because of the alleged gains they had made under the SUB program. At SOPREMA, one of the large employers in the Drummondville region, 150employees are affected. At Bridgestone, in Joliette, 1,100employees are affected by this decision. At Goodyear, in Valleyfield, 150employees are affected, and there are dozens more. Does the minister intend to correct this mistake so that employers who are able and willing to do so can treat their employees better during this difficult period? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: When we put in place the Canada emergency response benefit, the underlying goal was to make sure that every worker who needed it had access to income support as they were losing their employment for COVID reasons. We understood that meant some workers would not have access moving forward, although let me clarify that SUB plans that existed prior to March 15 are definitely in place. We consider the fact that workers have access to $1,000 a month in addition to CERBand we've spoken with employers about thisto permit employers to assist their employees in an equitable way. +The Chair: Mr.Champoux, you have 15seconds for your question. +Mr. Martin Champoux: Mr.Chair, employers received absolutely no news from the government before this measure was implemented, despite the fact that they were assured that this measure would be transferred to the CERB. That's not an answer when those folks acted honestly and in good faith. They feel cheated, and rightly so. Does the government intend to fix this mistake, which would simply be the right thing to do? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, I can assure the member opposite that the SUB plans that were in place prior to March 15 are indeed in place now. In addition, employees who are now on the CERB as an alternative have access to $1,000 of income in addition to their CERB. We are working with employers to perhaps provide the $1,000 in lieu of the SUB plans. +The Chair: We will continue with you, Mr.Barsalou-Duval. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-BoucherLes PatriotesVerchres, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. On April27, Option consommateurs sent a letter to the Minister of Transport to warn him that the airlines' refusal to reimburse their customers for cancelled flights was contrary to Quebec's laws. What is the minister going to do to put an end to this situation? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr.Chair, I sympathize with the people who would have preferred to get a refund, and I understand their frustration. It is not an ideal situation. The airlines are going through a very difficult time right now. If they were forced to refund their customers immediately, many of them would go bankrupt. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, the minister sounds like a broken record. A few hours ago, the following motion was passed unanimously: THAT the National Assembly ask the Government of Canada to order airlines and other carriers under federal jurisdiction to allow customers whose trips have been cancelled because of the current pandemic to obtain a refund. What will the Minister of Transport tell the National Assembly of Quebec? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon.colleague knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled on this issue and has ruled that, in the present circumstances and in a non-binding way, it is acceptable for airlines to offer credits for up to two years. In the case of Air Canada, the credit has no expiry date. +The Chair: Mr.Barsalou-Duval, you have about 15seconds for a question. +Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval: Mr.Chair, I find it rather odd that the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency are telling the airlines that Quebec's regulations and laws are not important and that they can override them. It seems to me that this is a strange way to operate. Theoretically, under the famous Canadian Constitution, which they imposed on us, that is not how it should work. Can they uphold their own constitution? +The Chair: The hon. minister can answer in 15seconds or less, please. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr.Chair, as my hon. colleague probably knows, the Canadian Transportation Agency is a quasi-judicial body that operates at arm's length from Transport Canada and the Government of Canada. +The Chair: We will now take a short break. We're going to take a short break to allow employees supporting the meeting to switch in safety, including myself. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now carry on with Mr. Baker for Etobicoke Centre. Mr. Baker, go ahead. +Mr. Yvan Baker (Etobicoke Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. My question is for the Minister of Health. Minister, in Etobicoke Centre, we are mourning the loss of 42 residents to COVID-19 at the Eatonville Care Centre. This week, we received a disturbing report from the Canadian Armed Forces documenting appalling and completely unacceptable conditions in the Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes Grace Manor in Brampton. It is beyond reprehensible that our seniors are being treated this way. As I said in the House of Commons on May 7, we need immediate action and comprehensive reform of long-term care. The four other MPs who represent the residents of these homes and I wrote to Premier Ford yesterday to urge him to appoint a third party manager to oversee all operations, to call a full public inquirybecause a government commission is not enoughand to work in partnership with the Government of Canada to establish enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across our country. Minister, will you call on the Government of Ontario to establish a full public inquiry, and will you work with provincial governments to establish and implement enforceable national standards for long-term care homes across Canada so that our seniors from coast to coast to coast can receive the quality of care they deserve? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the member for his very important question. I think all Canadians were horrified, shocked and saddened to hear about the conditions that elders were living in in those particular homes and that many seniors struggle with across the country. There is no question that we have to do better for our seniors. I know the Prime Minister has been very vocal about the need to do more to support provinces and territories to provide better care for seniors, no matter where they live. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Baker, you have another 20 seconds or so if you can manage that. +Mr. Yvan Baker: Thank you. I'll pass on my time to the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Drouin, member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): Mr.Chair, we know that farmers across Canada have been going through some difficult times in recent months. In my riding, farmers are looking for labour and young people are looking for jobs. The Canada summer jobs program plays a vital role in meeting this demand. I was very pleased to hear that the government has enhanced the youth employment and skills strategy program to help create 700new jobs for young people in the agriculture sector. Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food tell us when and how our farmers will be able to apply for this new program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, in these unprecedented times, our producers are working that much harder to feed Canadians while facing challenges that are not always easy, particularly in terms of access to labour. To help them, this week, the Prime Minister announced an increase in the youth employment and skills strategy program to help young people be hired in the agricultural sector. This is a $9.2-million investment that will help to attract young Canadians between the ages of15 and30 and to provide them with an exceptional experience in the agricultural sector. I encourage all producers to apply through the Agriculture Canada website. +Mr. Bruce Stanton: I think you finished, Mr.Drouin. We'll move on now to Mr. Johns, CourtenayAlberni. +Mr. Gord Johns (CourtenayAlberni, NDP): Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre. In early April, the NDP asked for a commercial rent abatement program so that tenants could apply for help instead of depending on their landlords, but the government chose to leave commercial tenants helpless if their landlord can't or does not want to apply. On Monday we wrote to ministers again, asking them to negotiate a nationwide moratorium on commercial rent evictions with the provinces and territories so that tenants can't be kicked out. Will the minister take action to ensure that no small business owner is evicted during COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau (Toronto Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We recognize the challenges that small business owners in particular, as well as landlords, are facing during the course of COVID-19. We have worked together with the provinces to come up with an approach that would provide an incentive for landlords to give a rent reduction to commercial tenants. We opened that as of Monday. Of course, we recognize that this is a jurisdiction of the provinces, so it will be up to the provinces to consider the next steps, if any, in this regard. We are looking toward seeing many landlords sign up for this. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage landlords to sign up for this, which not only gives them a sense of security but also their tenants. +Mr. Gord Johns: That's a no, so the government is still failing small businesses. If small business owners can't make June rent, thousands will have to close permanently. If the government won't negotiate a moratorium, will it at least let tenants apply for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program so they can get help with 50% of their rent? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Again, Mr. Chair, I think it's important that we have clarity of understanding of jurisdictions. We have worked with the provinces in this regard. The federal government is working through the CMHC to provide support to landlords, which is conditional on their working with their tenants, but of course, it is a provincial area of jurisdiction, so any further actions and any decisions on restricting evictions are in the provincial jurisdiction and not ones that the federal government is able to move forward on. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Gazan, Winnipeg Centre. +Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chair, they talk about wanting to support small businesses, but their failure to make rent support work is putting businesses out of business. When it comes to the rent for people's homes, the government didn't even try. Many people in my riding could not make rent on April 1 and May 1, and June 1 is coming up. When will the government act to ensure that families and individuals make their rent payments? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, for individuals, of course we've worked hard to provide support. Over eight million individuals are taking the Canada emergency response benefit. For businesses, of course, we've put in place not only the business account for small businesses but additional support through the wage subsidy program. We know that the rent approach is one that can have an important impact. I would encourage landlords to +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, just a moment. Go ahead on your point of order. +Ms. Leah Gazan: I just want to remind my honourable colleague that his response is supposed to be within the same time period as the question I asked. It's just a friendly reminder. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That is accurate. In fact, the minister was just coming up to the same amount of time it took for your question. I am monitoring that, and we will interrupt if one of the ministers responding goes more than just a short time over. In fact, we try to cut it off at the appropriate time, allowing a word or two perhaps to finish a phrase, and that's the extent of it. I'll watch that closely, the member can be assured. Let's go ahead then and finish up. You have another minute and 20 seconds to finish up, Ms. Gazan. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, Winnipeg Centre is the third-poorest riding in the country, and COVID-19 has put many of the residents in my riding on the verge of homelessness. Instead of bailing out its corporate buddies, when will this government provide proper rental assistance so that families and individuals do not end up on the streets? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, we have provided support for families and individuals to maintain their ability to pay the rent. In addition to that, we have provided over $157.5 million directly to community entities for homelessness all across Canada . +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Gazan, you have about 40 seconds remaining. +Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Chair, adequate housing is a fundamental human right, especially in this time of crisis. How can the government not show leadership and provide the support that people need to afford their homes? Will this government provide support, yes or no? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, once again, we have provided support to families and individuals so that they have the ability to pay their rent and pay for essential supplies and expenses. In addition to that, we have moved additional dollars, in the amount of $157.5 million, to the most vulnerable, including the homeless population in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now go to Ms. Harder from Lethbridge. +Ms. Rachael Harder: As this pandemic began to spread, the government propagated China's talking points about how human-to-human transmission was impossible. Now, I'm sure that the minister regrets those comments. Does she acknowledge that they were misleading? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite's continued lack of awareness of how science works is somewhat disconcerting. I'm sure she understands that this is a novel coronavirus that appeared on the scene in late December, and as the research community worldwide struggled to keep pace with understanding how the virus was adapting, the information changed. As such +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'm simply wondering if the minister would like to do the honourable thing and acknowledge that that information was misleading. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, since the very beginning, we have been advising Canadians that they need to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. We have taken strong measures, as a country, to do so. We respect the professionals +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder: The minister also said that face masks weren't necessary, that they wouldn't help Canadians. Would she acknowledge that that was misleading? An hon. member: Good question. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the party opposite, obviously, does not understand the way that research and science evolve. The member opposite is propagating information that's misleading. She is the one who is confusing Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the health minister misleading the Canadian public? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the evidence changed about the novel coronavirus, as our amazing researchers gave us new evidence, we adapted to adjust our advice to Canadians. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Why is the minister not able to acknowledge that she fed the Canadian public misinformation? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, why is the member not able to understand that science evolves with new information? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Back in January when we started noticing other countries closing their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19, Conservatives asked the government if it would do the same. In response, the Prime Minister called us racist. Does the Prime Minister still consider those who called for the closure of borders racist? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, providing misleading information to Canadians is not appropriate. As the member opposite knows, we took strong measures at the border, as recommended by the international health regulations, and we were able to contain the virus for quite some time. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I cannot agree with the minister more that providing misinformation is, in fact, incredibly wrong, which is why the government should simply apologize to the Canadian public for telling them that there was no emergency at our doorstep, that they didn't need to wear face masks, that we didn't need to close our borders, that human contact or contraction was impossible. Those are incredibly misleading statements. Why will the minister not just do the honourable thing and retract them and apologize to the Canadian public? Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I maintain that the member opposite does not understand that as new evidence comes forward, that as new advice comes forward.... Canadians understand that. I am unsure why she doesn't. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I understand that knowledge evolves. I'm just wondering if the minister will retract the statements that she made previously, now that she understands that they are misleading. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am so proud of Canadians for being able to adapt to new evidence and public health advice as it becomes clearer and clearer what kinds of actions can protect our health. I want to thank all Canadians for having trust in the public health officials across this country. +Ms. Rachael Harder: On February 3, Conservatives called on the government to treat this virus as a public health emergency and to take immediate action. Unfortunately, Minister Hajdu scolded Conservative MPs, stating that we were spreading misinformation and trying to sensationalize the risk of the virus. Would the minister like to apologize to the members opposite for that statement? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, very early on it was quite clear there were members of our community who were stigmatized by misinformation that was floating around in various circles in the Canadian community. We took strong action to assure those Canadians that we would be with them as we also fought the coronavirus in Canada. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Would the minister like to retract her statement that this side of the House somehow blew this up into something bigger than it is? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as early as January 2, Dr. Tam was convening members of the Canadian medical community to ensure that we would have a robust Canadian response to an issue of potential concern. We have taken this virus seriously every step of the way. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In truth, Mr. Chair, while the government has told the Canadian public that the virus was not something to be concerned about, that we didn't need to close the borders and that face masks weren't necessary, they were misleading the Canadian public. Now they are crowning themselves as the arbiters of truth, spending millions of dollars to censor what information is and is not available online. Would the minister like to respond to why she is misleading the Canadian public and then crowning her head with the ability to monitor +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're out of time. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I want to thank our public health officials and medical community for their incredible work in ensuring that Canadians have accurate information about how best to protect themselves. We continue to work with the community and Canadians. Together we have managed to flatten the curve to date. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I invite the honourable member for MganticL'rable to take the floor. +Mr. Luc Berthold (MganticL'rable, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. One million dollars is the cost of installing air conditioning for a number of rooms in a CHSLD; it is a new fire station; it is 200more student jobs for day camps in Quebec. With $1million, the Liberal government plans to give an annual bonus to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Does the Minister of Infrastructure agree with the bank's board, which is being so generous to its president with Canadians' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr.Chair, I am very proud of what our government has done to invest in communities across the country. We are investing in infrastructure. We are building by investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure and public transit, including in the member's riding. That is what we will continue to do. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has decided to join the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We are going to continue our work. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, could the infrastructure minister explain to Canadians how it is better to give $1 million in bonuses to the CEO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank than to invest in roads, schools, hospitals and long-term care homes? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I am very happy to explain to the member opposite that we are doing just that. Perhaps he isn't aware of our $33 billion infrastructure program in which we are working directly with the Government of Quebec to build infrastructure that's making a huge difference, including projects in the member's riding. We are going to continue doing that. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr.Chair, she is not answering the question at all. On April3, the previous president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank left his position for reasons that remain unclear. How much did he receive in bonuses for his years at the helm of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, the change of management at the Canada Infrastructure Bank marks a new phase in the development of the bank. We are working to build a modern, public infrastructure, to create jobs, and to make Canada more competitive internationally. +Mr. Luc Berthold: We are talking about the bonuses given to the president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We have received no answer on that. What were the evaluation criteria that led to the decision that the former CEO had delivered a performance worthy of a bonus, when few, if any, projects were financed by the bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank the former CEO, Pierre Lavalle, for his contribution to the establishment of this new institution. I am very proud that Michael Sabia has joined the bank. We will continue to work to build Canada and create good jobs. +Mr. Luc Berthold: How much did he receive in bonuses? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: The range of compensation for the CEO is set by the bank and is publicly available. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Did the minister approve the bonuses paid to the former president of the Canada Infrastructure Bank? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: As I have already said, the compensation range for the CEO is determined by the bank and is public knowledge because of the legislation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Thank you, Mr.Chair. If the new president stays in the position for five years, he could be entitled to a bonus totalling $4million, in addition to his salary of $3million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities consider that this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: We have to build our country, create good short-term jobs, ensure that we have a cleaner future, invest in renewable energy and green infrastructure in order to build bridges, public transportation +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Berthold, the floor is yours. +Mr. Luc Berthold: Mr. Chair, if the new CEO stays in office for five years, he will be entitled to a total potential bonus of $4 million, in addition to his salary of $3 million. Does the Minister of Infrastructure think this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money, yes or no? +Hon. Catherine McKenna: Mr. Chair, I'm very proud that we have Michael Sabia, who is now head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank as the board chair. We need to move forward in building infrastructure that's going to create jobs, including in the member's riding; that's going to help move us to a cleaner future; that's going to grow our economy and increase Canada's competitiveness. The bank is a key part of the investing in Canada plan +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move to Mrs. Gray, KelownaLake Country. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important it is to be able to move our goods interprovincially. Christian Buhagiar of Supply Chain Canada called for the government to revisit interprovincial trade regulations to ensure we can quickly move production and distribution from one region to another during times of emergency. Will the government commit to immediately examine all our trade barriers that can affect interprovincial trade of essential goods due to COVID-19? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I'd like to thank the member opposite for her excellent point. Our government is very committed to removing barriers to interprovincial trade. It's something that we have been working on with the premiers. Obviously the coronavirus has taken precedence in recent weeks, but it's a priority. It's the right thing to do. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, the federal government has a regulatory reconciliation table as part of the Canada free trade agreement, focusing on breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. Due to COVID-19, it has been announced that deadlines for all of these items may be delayed. What is the government doing to ensure there won't be delays on these items? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, it is absolutely right and appropriate for first ministers, who have been meeting every week for more than two months, to be focusing on the urgent threat posed by the coronavirus. However, I agree with the member opposite that we need to lift barriers to interprovincial trade. That's something we're committed to doing and to working on with the premiers. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, while many of these items were past due prior to the pandemic, two important items from the list that should be worked on now are meat inspection and food inspection. Considering serious issues from these industries during the pandemic, would the minister commit to restarting the work on at least these two items? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I can assure you, as far as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is concerned, that we are very open to that issue. Moreover, the authorities are front and centre in cases where there may be a food shortage in one region of the country or another. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is adding huge pressures to our national supply chain. Those I speak with in the industry tell me they are beginning to see a backlog of goods. Does the government have a comprehensive plan to ensure the movement and resiliency of our national supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, since we are discussing the food supply chain, let me remind you that we are committed to spending $50million, specifically to buy surplus food and redistribute it, through the food bank network, to regions where the need is greatest. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, reports state that activists' rail blockades earlier this year cost the Canadian economy $275 million, and it took three to five days to catch up for every day that our transportation network was down. The supply chain industry just caught up, and then the pandemic hit, creating new issues and backlogs. We are hearing from those in the industry who are concerned about future blockades affecting essential goods getting across the country. Our railways are critical infrastructure. Will the government commit to immediately dismantling any potential future blockades? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I couldn't agree more with my colleague that it is important for our railways to be transporting all the goods that we produce in this country. I am in contact on a weekly basis with our major railways. Certain products are moving very well at the moment, including grain, potash and coal, but other goods haven't moved as quickly, because they have been affected by the pandemic. We are very vigilant with respect to moving our goods as efficiently as possible, whether it's by our railways, by trucks or by ships. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, at the standing committee for industry this week, David Montpetit of the Western Canadian Shippers' Coalition stated that they believe shippers are going to face a container shortage over the next six months. He also stated that we could be facing labour and capacity shortages in our trucking industry. This could backlog essential goods interprovincially, including food and medicine, if the capacity isn't there. What steps is the government taking to address this problem? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, of course it's always important to have the capacity to move goods across this country. At the moment, our trains have the capacity to move goods across the country. With respect to trucking, we do have issues with respect to a lack of truckers for moving some of our goods across the country. This is a problem that has existed for some time, and we're working on it. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now move on to Mrs. Wagantall of YorktonMelville. Mrs. Wagantall, go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Young and new farmers are struggling, as they don't have enough equity built up to borrow money to survive these difficult times. Price insurance is key, but the premiums are so expensive due to COVID that they can't participate. Has a price insurance program been implemented in Atlantic Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, we are encouraging the use of private programs, as well as the risk management programs. The initiative must come from the private sector. I cannot answer my colleague's question directly. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Has the minister worked with her provincial counterparts to secure a short-term cost-sharing agreement to reduce premiums where price insurance already exists? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure my colleague that I am working very regularly with all my provincial colleagues. In addition to our individual meetings, we have a regular telephone meeting each week. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is cost-sharing of premiums already available for crop insurance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, for insurance protection, our proposal to the provinces is to include the possibility of recognizing a labour shortage as an insurable risk. It is up to each of the provinces to sign on to that or not. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Without price insurance, how many ranchers have had to address cash flow by selling cattle at the bottom of the market? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we have established a number of programs in order to help our beef producers. For example, we are providing $50million through the AgriRecovery program and $77.5million for food processors. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On May 1, the Young Cattlemen's Council asked the minister to extend the deadline for attaining calf price insurance. Today is that deadline. Did the minister meet it? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, we discuss different options with representatives of various organizations almost every day. We are trying to work with them to improve the various programs and to meet their needs, in addition to the risk management programs, of course. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: She didn't respond to the request of the Young Cattlemen's Council. The minister is telling farmers to access the BRM program, but just now I got a text from a young cattleman in my riding who's losing $250 to $300 per head and just told me that those programs in no way increase their capacity to deal with this crisis. The Farm Credit Canada lending capacity was increased by $5 billion, but only to service and manage loans of current customers. How many farmers have applied for that assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: However, Mr.Chair, there is a whole range of programs for our producers, whether they be specific programs for the agriculture sector, or the Canada emergency business account, the CEBA, the criteria of which have been broadened. This allows us to provide more loans, also with a forgivable portion of 25%, which could amount to $670million for the agricultural sector. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: What percentage of Canada's farmers are customers of Farm Credit Canada? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, Farm Credit Canada is well-established from one end of the country to the other and it is ready to meet the needs of our agricultural producers. In addition +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Of the 25% of farmers who use FCC and have applied, how many have received assistance? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I stand to be corrected but, according to the most recent information I have received, $4billion in flexible loans to producers have been made available since the crisis began. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have 45 seconds left, Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Is the minister concerned that cow-calf numbers will sharply decrease if producers aren't able to protect the value of their herds, which they cannot do, jeopardizing the future of the Canadian beef supply chain? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I can assure you that I am extremely concerned about the future of the agri-food sector. That is why we are working extremely hard with the sector every day to improve existing programs and create new ones, especially in support of the meat industry. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: They made it clear that the BRM programs don't work and there's not funding in place to assist them. Three weeks ago, the processing backlog was more than 100,000 head. How many beef operations are facing the real danger of going out of business because of this pandemic and the lack of support by the agriculture minister and this Liberal government? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Once again, Mr.Chair, we know that the risk-management programs are not perfect. That is why we are working with the provinces to find solutions. These are shared-cost programs with the provinces and we want to improve them. This is why we are trying to incorporate some flexibility. In addition, we are supplementing the funding, especially for the meat industry. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Ms. Wilson-Raybould in Vancouver Granville. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister of Employment has stated that measures would be forthcoming for individuals with disabilities, similar to the one-time payment increase given to seniors on OAS and GIS. Could the minister please provide some more details with respect to the statement she made? When can individuals with disabilities expect meaningful financial assistance? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that Canadians with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by COVID in terms of both their own personal health and the access to supports that they have, or don't have, more specifically. We are three days away from National AccessAbility Week, the first week after we legislated it in the Accessible Canada Act. I would expect something from our government during that week. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you for that. My office has heard from many constituents who are frustrated over the lack of information on eligibility requirements from the government regarding the business credit availability program. Furthermore, banks are giving small and medium-sized businesses mixed messaging. How will the government ensure that the messaging for BCAP and similar programs is articulated properly? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for her question. Nothing is more important to us right now than making sure our small and medium-sized businesses are supported. The lending program through BCAP is available through financial institutions; that's banks and credit unions across the country. The money is flowing to those businesses. I would encourage Canadian businesses to get in touch with their financial institutions. Thank you so much. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Mr. Chair, members may not be aware, but there are ongoing restrictions on when some civil servants can access government servers and their files due to the pandemic, to ensure that those dealing directly with the pandemic have priority. For example, this is affecting negotiations with indigenous peoples. Can the government please tell us when the system will have sufficient capacity so that all civil servants can do their work remotely and without limitation? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable minister. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to my colleague for her important question, which indeed speaks to the importance of public servants continuing their important jobs for Canadians, being mindful, of course, of the difficult circumstances in which many of those workers find themselves, both personally and professionally. We know that, in particular, indigenous communities need that support, and particularly so in the context of the crisis. We look forward to continuing to support them. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: As current and former parliamentarians call for a national inquiry into long-term care homes, something I would strongly support, can the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations please give the members an idea as to when the action plan on murdered and missing indigenous women and girls will be released? In asking this question, I certainly understand the need for consultation and the reality of some delays due to the pandemic. There are of course many actions that we all know need to take place now that do not need more consultation. The need for consultation cannot be an excuse for the lack of action. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I thank the member for her ongoing advocacy. As we approach the first anniversary of the release of the final report, we are grateful for the work of all of our partners as they really try to do what they can to end this national tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and those who are two-spirited, plus. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, they have put in good initiatives, and we look forward to releasing a national action plan that will include all provinces and territories as well as all of our indigenous governments and partners. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms. Wilson-Raybould, you're down to about the last 30 seconds, so please ask a short question. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I have a short question for the Minister of Transport. Does the government have any plans to step in and encourage airlines to return money to customers rather than vouchers? I've heard from many constituents and businesses in this regard. +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, as I mentioned before, we're very sympathetic to the situation that those who would have preferred a refund are in at the moment. However, the airlines are going through an extremely difficult time, and if they had to reimburse at this time, some of them could fail. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Blaikie. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to begin by indicating that I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. Across the country, a lot of Canadians are preparing to go back to work right now and some employers are doing a good job of ensuring that there is a safe workplace, with the right procedures and the right equipment. Unfortunately, some employers are not. For Canadians who are employed by them, that means making a really tough decision between going back to a workplace where they don't feel safe and which may present a threat to their families or communities, and staying home and worrying about not being paid because they're not at work or because they will lose access to the CERB. I am wondering what guidance the federal government has for people who feel that their workplace is not safe at this time and that their employer hasn't done its due diligence, and are concerned about losing access to the CERB. +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we are very concerned about the safety of our workplaces and we don't want workers to feel unsafe as they go back to work. However, we do want people to go back to work. We are working very closely with the provinces. The Minister of Health is working on occupational health and safety guidelines. The Minister of Labour is working with her colleagues. We are taking an all-of-government approach to ensure that workers are safe, that they don't have to put their lives or the health of their families in jeopardy and that we can support them in these efforts. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Mr. Chair, I think the issue here is that Canadian workers really need some certainty about what the federal government would consider an adequate employment offer, or an offer to come back to work, so that they wouldn't be on the CERB. Can Canadians be confident that they can stay on the CERB whether they go back to work or not, whether their employer makes them an offer or not? I think a lot of people have anxiety about this and it's a difficult time. When is the government going to release some formal guidance on how people go about refusing unsafe work? +Hon. Carla Qualtrough: Mr. Chair, we know that the provinces have their own workers' compensation programs and refusal-to-work mechanisms, but the point for us, here in government, is to work with employers and with the provinces so that we make our workplaces safe. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: But this is about CERB eligibility. I respect +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Order. Mr. Blaikie, we have run out of time since we are splitting the time between two speakers. We're now going to Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians depend on municipalities across Canada for vital services, especially during this pandemicservices like transit, drinking water, parks and sanitationyet the government has left municipalities in an unprecedented financial crisis. Local government leaders across the country have called on the government for help, yet mostly what we've heard are excuses. Does the minister acknowledge that the federal government has a leadership role to play in getting financial help to municipalities at this difficult time? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: What we do acknowledge is the essential role municipalities play in our country at all times, and the particularly essential role they play today as our country gets ready to restart our economy. We are working closely with the municipalities to talk about ways we can support them and are working closely with the provinces, in whose jurisdiction the municipalities fall. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Through you to the minister, we've seen deep cuts and more cuts are on the way. We've seen thousands of municipal workers laid off, and it's been over a month since municipal leaders called on this government for emergency financial relief. My question is very simple. When can the municipalities expect the help they need from the federal government? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me just say again, Mr. Chair, that we are extremely alive to the importance of municipalities in our economy. We are very aware of the difficult financial situation they find themselves in, and we are very aware of how important it is to keep our municipalities functioning, particularly as we move into the restart. We're working with municipalities and are urging them to work with their provinces, as we are doing too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We have about 30 seconds left. Go ahead, Mr. Bachrach, for 30 seconds. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: I have a very simple question, through you to the minister. Are there emergency federal dollars on the table for Canada's cities, yes, or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the federal government very much understands and appreciates the importance of municipalities. We are prepared to support them. Provinces need to do their share too. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I now invite the honourable member for Manicouagan to take the floor. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. At a time when we are asking our fellow citizens and Quebeckers to make sacrifices and even greater efforts, the Liberal Party, the government, is directly pilfering from a subsidy program that should be going to those who need it, not to rich political parties and their millionaire supporters. At a time when the work in the House is even more essentialwe should be working even harder, just as we are asking the people to dothe government, with the complicity of the NDP, decides to suspend the work of the House. This is the result of an absurd agreement that is absolutely impossible for it to implement. Can the government confirm to the House, and simultaneously to the NDP, that the measure involving 10days of leave is absolutely not something it can do? It is not in its jurisdiction, so it is a measure that it cannot implement. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, in order to be part of any agreement, you have to negotiate and be sitting at the table. The Bloc Qubcois says it wants to make gains for Quebec, but in order to do that, it must be sitting at the table, not outside the room. It's like a hockey game; if you want to score goals, you have to be on the ice. The other day, I asked this question: how many of Guy Lafleur's 560goals were scored when he was sitting on the bench? +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me shoot the puck back to the Leader of the Government in the House. He himself decided to close the rink, to shut down Parliament. That is where the teams are, and that is where the goals are scored. But when you play a sport, when you are on a team, and when you are in Parliament, you still have to play by the rules. But the government does not keep its word. It made a promise to us as well, just like it made one to the NDP. It was about the Canada emergency student benefit. The Deputy Prime Minister herself said that it was certainly a good idea. What did the government do? It backed away. I play on a team and I play by the rules. I take it at its word because this is the right place. Here, in this chamber. So I would like the government to tell people that this measure is absolutely not in their jurisdiction. That was my previous question. It was not about which parties were negotiating or not and when they kept their word or not. The NDP has to realize that their agreement is absolutely worthless. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, my colleague is alluding to previous current and future agreements. We have had discussions and we have reached a number of agreements with our friends in the Bloc Qubcois. It was going very well, but there was one agreement they did not like and they went off and sulked. When you are not happy, you do not go off and sulk; you stay at the table and negotiate. That is how things work. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: I urge the honourable Leader of the Government to recall the House. I am ready to be here, on the ice, all the time. I must remind him that we are not sulking. The Bloc Qubcois has self-respect and respect for the public. An agreement is not a promise, it is an agreement. A word is given in dignity and sincerity; a bond of trust is created. When a player decides not to play by the rules, I do not let myself be taken in twice. I prefer to negotiate here, as we should be doing all the time in Parliament, not trying to play with someone who never keeps his word. I would just like the Leader of the Government in the House to tell us that the measure about the 10days is not up to him and so he will not be able to make it happen. I could also ask him whether he found out from the Government of Quebec whether it agreed with the measure. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, of course, it is not in my jurisdiction personally. We agree on that. It depends on a number of players, including the provinces and the private sector. We at federal level are holding discussions with the provinces and people in different areas. Of course, we are holding discussions with everyone involved. I want to know what my colleague has against having six hours of questions instead of four. What does she have against the fact that, from now on, people will be able to ask questions about anything, not just about COVID-19? What does she have against the fact that we are going to meet again this summer? What is it that she does not like? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Ms.Gill, you have about 30seconds left for your comment. Go ahead. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Let me teach the Leader of the Government in the House some arithmetic. First, 37.5hours per week, as well as the time we spend sitting on our normal committees, is quite a bit more than the eight short hours each week he is giving us. Second, once again, the leader said that it is absolutely not in his jurisdiction. So he reaches agreements with parties though his word is worth nothing. I hope that the NDP has not reached an agreement with him. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr.Chair, it all depends on government decisions, and clearly, we are having discussions with the provinces. Actually, we have already started doing that. However, I still do not understand what she has against having more time than I do to ask questions. I would really like an answer from her. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now take a brief pause so that the technicians can spell each other off. Order. I see Mr. Bezan on a point of order. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier, during the question time here, Mr. Sweet, the member for Flamborough-Glanbrook, got up and was raising a number of issues about the Hong Kong protests, where 360 people have been arrested. The People's Republic of China, the regime in Beijing, and their rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, are circumventing Hong Kong legislation and the Hong Kong government in putting their own will upon the people of Hong Kong. I believe this demands an emergency debate here in the House of Commons. Mr. Chair, I'm asking if you would rule on this and schedule an emergency debate so that Parliament can actually discuss this crisis, this human rights crisis, as political protestors are being imprisoned because of their standing up against the communist regime in Beijing. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I thank the honourable member, Mr. Bezan, for his point of order. It was really more of a request. He may know, and for the benefit of other honourable members, that we're operating in this Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic under the auspices of an order made earlier this week. There is no provision in that order for emergency debates. However, I would certainly encourage him to speak with his House leader, whips and others. Of course, he'll know that discussions of this sort are being shared, so he might want to pursue that opportunity. I see Mr. Bezan rising. Mr. Bezan, is it a different point of order? +Mr. James Bezan: No. I'd just like to respond to that if I could. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Well, there's +Mr. James Bezan: Mr. Chair, this is the problem with this special committee. Our rights and privileges as members have been completely degraded. It makes it impossible for us to address the issues of this day. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Bezan, we're all operating under an order that was agreed to by the House. We'll stick to those provisions. Again, understand the situation we're in. Certainly circumstances do change, but I leave that to the party leaders to decide. For our last round of questions, we're going to CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, Mr. Morantz. +Mr. Marty Morantz (CharleswoodSt. JamesAssiniboiaHeadingley, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Revenue. Minister, I've been informed by some of my colleagues that CRA officials have been directing constituents to phone their member of Parliament to resolve CRA-related issues. Why on earth would CRA direct individuals away from the agency during this stressful time when they're just trying to get their tax information and file their taxes? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. I can tell you that CRA employees have to deal with questions put to them. It is not up to MPs' offices to deal with specific questions about individual files. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Minister, you didn't answer the question. These are your CRA officials directing constituents away from the CRA. You really should be answering that question and not just talking about how inappropriate it is, although I appreciate that. Also, on your website, it says that the telephone service for the individual-inquiries line will be available to Canadians until June 5, and there is no further information about further live service. When will you get your agency under control and make sure it provides an actual person on the other end of the line to provide the information that taxpayers need? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we go to the minister, I would remind hon. members to address their questions through the chair. It's a little bit different from when we're questioning witnesses in a committee. We're using the rules more related to what we use in committee of the whole. The honourable minister has the floor. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On a point of order, Mr. Chair, as far as I'm aware, this is not Parliament; this is a committee. I've been sitting on committees since October. I've talked to my colleagues, and no chair, including the chair of the finance committee, has ever asked me to address a question through the chair. So with the greatest of respect, unless this is in fact Parliament, which I'm told it's not and the Parliament voted that it's not, we really should be able to address the witnesses directly, should we not? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Thank you, Mr. Morantz. This really is a question around the way in which this special committee on COVID-19 has been structured. We're operating under the rules that were agreed to by the House in an order that was passed and adopted on Tuesday of this week, so we're bound to manage the affairs of this committee in that way, and one of those includes asking members to address their comments and questions through the chair to other hon. members. So I ask you to abide by the rules of the committee, and we'll pursue that. Now we'll go to the response to your second question. The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I must thank the officials who have done excellent work during this historic COVID-19 period. I must tell you that CRA call centres are an essential service and the agency is able to answer calls quickly. The employees are answering calls from their homes. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Some of my colleagues have spoken to the CRA about drop-off boxes for paper returns actually being removed at some locations, citing COVID-19 as a reason. Has the CRA removed these boxes at all locations? Given this, will you commit today to make paper filing postage-free, since paper filers can no longer drop off their returns at all of the locations? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I thank my colleague for that important question. At the CRA, we continue to process paper returns and to do the work that we usually do. I repeat, I must highlight the exceptional work that the agency employees are doing. +Mr. Marty Morantz: On the subject of paper returns, there have been numerous reportsin fact I asked you on May 10 for a written response at the government operations committee, OGGO, which I have not yet receivedon the delays in processing paper returns. Apparently this is still ongoing. When will Canadians who filed paper forms have their returns processed so they can get the refunds they need during this difficult time? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, I can confirm that the Canada Revenue Agency continues to process paper returns. Because of COVID-19, we have had to implement distancing measures to protect the employees. We must ensure that employees are safe, but we continue to process paper returns. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Morantz, you have about 45 seconds left. Go ahead with your question. +Mr. Marty Morantz: Sure, Mr. Chair. During this crisis, the problem of illegal tax evasion and avoidance has been highlighted. The minister has been the minister since 2015 and should be able to answer this question off the top of her head. How many successful prosecutions have there been in Canada for the illegal use of tax havens? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier: Mr.Chair, as we have said, one of our government's priorities was to invest almost $1billion to establish a system intended to fight tax evasion. That was not at all a priority under the Conservatives. We continue to do that important work for taxpayers; everyone must pay their fair share. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): That concludes the 13thmeeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Speaker Rota asked me to remind all honourable members that during the next meeting, which will be next Monday, we'll be watching more carefully the time for members' statements. We're allowed one minute. We ask members who are providing those by virtual conference to time their statements to within one minute, as he will start to cut off members who go beyond the one minute. With that, this committee stands adjourned until Monday at noon. Enjoy the weekend. +","The Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, calls the 13th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic to order. It's a hybrid meeting with some members attending in person and others via video conference. The Chair reminds members about maintaining audio etiquette and the process for indicating a point of order. + +Various members, including Mr. Ziad Aboultaif, Mr. Paul Manly, and Mr. Garnett Genuis, present petitions on topics such as bee protection, long-term care conditions, euthanasia, and forced organ harvesting. Issues with the parliamentary process and the presentation of petitions are addressed. + +Members then provide statements on topics ranging from local community efforts during the pandemic to the importance of tourism, from the tragic loss of life at sea to Quebec's political history, and from front-line workers to the Yukon's first university. + +During the questioning of ministers, topics such as support for the energy sector, use of the wage subsidy by political parties, care for seniors in long-term care homes, and citizens' challenges with federal agencies, among other issues, are covered. + +There were also discussions on the government's support for municipalities, the CRA's handling of tax returns and inquiries, the work of MPs concerning safe return to work conditions, and the illegal use of tax havens. + +The Chair provides final reminders about the one-minute limit for members' statements for the next meeting, and the meeting is adjourned until the following Monday." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or you get it . Okay . +User Interface: No I don't think so it has to be like that yeah and you have to adjust the length . Okay , and then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we uh {disfmarker} we will wait for Anna , a few minutes . +User Interface: Yeah , s yeah , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm {vocalsound} . Yours is well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think you can put anywhere you want , actually . I thin +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the the mic should not {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not a directional mic , anyway . +Project Manager: I think it should work like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: So I will try to get my presentation running . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Can't help you with that . +User Interface: Last . +Project Manager: It's no matter . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's y yeah . +Project Manager: No problem . Ah yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then press uh al +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: This . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Project Manager: Just try . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On this normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +User Interface: Alt F_ five . +Project Manager: Good . Doesn't appear on the screen here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Wow . Amazing . It's working {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: Hold that . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes and you can put can clip it uh on your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Somewhere . So , {vocalsound} good morning , everyone . Um {disfmarker} Welcome at uh {disfmarker} at the kick off meeting of our uh latest project . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hope you all have been uh updated about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: So . Yes . +Project Manager: So w we will try to structure this uh meeting with an a with an agenda uh as presented here . Um after the opening we will tr get acquainted to each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: See what our roles are in this project . So , um {disfmarker} We have been provided with uh some uh w technical tools to uh {disfmarker} to communicate and to well , learn from each other's plans uh as I can say um so w we will also try to uh to get acquainted to this tools so they are also new to me I don't know whether you worked with them before . Um then we will come to the uh to the to the actual project plan . You all know I hope {vocalsound} how it's about uh the uh new r remote control we are going going to design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Total . +Project Manager: Uh then we will uh discuss uh , well , how it should be and uh {disfmarker} wh what uh what our new product should look lite {disfmarker} like . And uh well then uh after some twenty five minutes I hope uh we can end this meeting . So . Um basically this is about a uh a new c remote control . Um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} When you design a new product you of {disfmarker} uh you of course want it to be original . Be uh {disfmarker} we want to be distinguished , mm ? People uh want to uh when they look at the shelf want to think , well that's the product I I need . So it needs to be trendy . I mean trendy is what people want , so then I w they will buy our product . But then , uh , it also should work uh user friendly and uh otherwise people uh uh well it will not be uh be rated very well in consumer uh articles and like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , the general outline of uh new project will be we first uh go through a functional design phase . Um {disfmarker} You all get uh um certain task uh in this uh in this phase and uh then we will meet again and uh discuss this functional design . And the same holds for the uh ph two phases uh after this , the conceptual design and after that a a more detailed design in which the the final project should get its definite shape . Alright , but first we will do some uh tool training . In all in front of you uh you see uh the uh notebooks and w uh n note blocks and we have here a a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a white-board . +User Interface: Whitebo +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um well it should work uh {disfmarker} I've read it from my uh from some colleague that it should work with some kind of toolbar . I didn't find out yet how it work , but maybe one of you did , so {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Under documents in the shared folder . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Do {disfmarker} Do we have to say something about that ? I I I'm not fully updated about this shared folder uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we'll have a shared folder uh with documents that we can share . And uh , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes well we will then find out ho how it works . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um . Well , this seems to me , yes , some computer program but I didn't find it yet . So , we'll come to that later . So , uh now we will try out the white-board we have here . So , I would suggest uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Each of us is going . +Project Manager: Well , yes , um we uh we should try to t to draw on it and then well it should be smart some way . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not really sure how this works , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , shall I start ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: a good idea Mael . +User Interface: you can start it you know . +Marketing: I think for us it's just like a normal whiteboard , but they'll be recording what we write down . +Industrial Designer: So , i +User Interface: No they will record through that . There's a sensor over there +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: which is going to record the strokes that you make . +Marketing: But for us it's just like a normal whiteboard . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Actually , I think I cannot go with uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} D doesn't it work ? Maybe someo Maybe {disfmarker} maybe Anna , maybe you can start . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then he can maybe find out to get his cord right . +Marketing: I have to draw . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} L Why don't you draw uh {vocalsound} your favourite animal on on th on the white-board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: M my {disfmarker} my favourite animal . {vocalsound} Sorry this is all tangled up here . +Project Manager: Oh , I see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes . Mm . So draw it . We will try to guess what it is . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I'm a very bad drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Weird . Um . You're not gonna be able to guess from my drawing . I'm a bad drawer . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They're ears , by the way . +User Interface: 's a cat . +Marketing: No . Um close though . Okay so {disfmarker} like a pet animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like a cat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's like a cat , so I guess it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , not a cat though . +Project Manager: What is this now ? +User Interface: Ah you forget about it . +Industrial Designer: You're on the knife . +User Interface: Yeah , uh I think it's fine . I just don't want to carry it off . Man , this wires , eh ? We need a wireless microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know ? Pro specially we should next project we should take l like that . +Marketing: Okay . So . +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: It's not a cat , +Project Manager: that's the cat . +Marketing: it's a dog . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Mael . +Project Manager: It's a dog . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So but that's also kind of cat , +User Interface: Oh +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: the dog doesn't have a tail ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got a tail then . +Project Manager: B bo both predators . +User Interface: Yeah , sure , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: I thought so . The dogs have a tail . +Marketing: So do cats . +Project Manager: So , thank you . Uh d did you uh work out cord ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you guessed cats without a tail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I will go without {disfmarker} without it , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: It'll still not extend , right ? It's not up to that . +Marketing: Okay , there you go . So what favourite characteristics . Uh . Dogs are always friendly and loyal and fun . A horse ? +User Interface: It's a horse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is why you're the designer . And I'm marketing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes , yes this is {disfmarker} Yes definitely a horse . Yes . Oh very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I suppose it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah I think you can put that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's it . {vocalsound} A blue and black zebra {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Can {disfmarker} you can meet them in Africa , I think . Yes . Very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: The very rare blue zebras . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} I'll tell to get it off my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ma Matthew ? +User Interface: Uh ? Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: You got a lot of room here . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can probably reach . +User Interface: Oh y it's not for that . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope you have some space in your uh the horse of uh Mael . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . So what should I draw ? Mm . He has already to do cat . +Marketing: I took a dog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . A mouse ? +Project Manager: This looks likes a cat who has been driven over . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we should sum up its favourite charas characteristics , right ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , the moustache . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} that's definitely a cat . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . And i Th They like to sleep , that's why you said you they are like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's quite , you know {disfmarker} relaxed situation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} She has the small legs . +Project Manager: Th thank you , Matthew . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thank you , Matthew . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a very big rat . Or a very small cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Perfect . {vocalsound} Oh a rat , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , this is certain uh {disfmarker} some contribution to our project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you , {gap} +Marketing: Your turn . +Project Manager: So . Let's see . Which animal has not been drawn yet . So you've all drawn land animals , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so why not draw an animal from the water . +Industrial Designer: A bird . Okay , in the water . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah I don't know what that is . It's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit hard to guess . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Put it colours . Maybe it would help us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The cat is going to eat the fish or the rat ? +Industrial Designer: With different pen widths . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.$ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , it's a shark now . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a shark , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , yes , why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good idea . +User Interface: Ah it's a baby shark , it looks to me , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you know it's going to eat the cat rather than the cat eating the fish , no ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Now it's a swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Why not . A swordfish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You have some in {disfmarker} in Australia , right ? +Marketing: Swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , maybe . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I've never seen one , no . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Yeah . +Project Manager: I hope it still works . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . So I dunno if we need to spend time on that , actually {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should go for the next one it seems to me . +Project Manager: W Well , this uh this tool seemed to work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's continue to uh {disfmarker} to the real stuff . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Um our project uh finance uh thing . Uh when we are {disfmarker} and when w you are uh going to design w uh we must keep in mind that the selling price of the product uh will be about twenty five Euros , so when designing a project uh I also look at you uh Mael , keep in mind uh uh uh {disfmarker} People uh +User Interface: Twenty four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: want to get the feeling this is a twenty five Euro project uh pr um product . +Industrial Designer: Per remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Per project . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: more interesting for our company {vocalsound} of course , p uh profit aim , about fifty million Euro . So we have to sell uh quite a lot of this uh {vocalsound} um things . Uh we will try to uh to get at a international market uh so um it will be I think mainly Europe and uh Northern America , +User Interface: Ah yeah , the sale man , four million . +Project Manager: maybe some uh Asian countries . Um also important for you all is um the the product uh production cost must be maximal uh twelve uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's half of the selling price , if I am good in mathematics . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . Uh um I mean we still have to uh to make a profit , huh ? +User Interface: They have to sell at least four million to make a profit {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You all have to be paid . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Excuse me ? +User Interface: Ah we have to make {disfmarker} we have to sell at least four million to make our own profit . Fifty mill +Industrial Designer: Oh you're g very good in mathematics . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four million . +Project Manager: So uh well I think w when we are working on the international market , uh in principle it has enough customers +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh so when we have a good product we uh we could uh meet this this aim , I think . So , that about finance . And uh now just let have some discussion about what is a good remote control and uh well keep in mind this this first point , it has to be original , it has to be trendy , it has to be user friendly . Um , maybe someone can mention some additional uh prerequisites for a good remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Of course it should have a on off button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , well i it should have the the the the expected functionality uh of a remote control . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , s and it depends what application you are using it for . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You might need uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We wer we were thinking television . Uh . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We are targ targeting the television set . So , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you need to record the channels . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You need to browse the {disfmarker} browse the channels in upward downward way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes , yes . Th th that's very handy I {disfmarker} I always miss it and {disfmarker} on some remote controls that you can go channel up or down ins instead of retyping the number , especially when you have a lot of channels . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh just before starting the detailed discussion , maybe we are the marketing guy ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm marketing . +User Interface: Marketing . +Industrial Designer: th So you are the marketing . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And you are in the u use user interface uh design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So just {disfmarker} yeah I wanted to to be sure . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm the the industrial designer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Because I I don't know you very well , actually , but yeah . +User Interface: I'm Matthew . You know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mael . +User Interface: Matth s uh +Industrial Designer: Happy to meet you . +Marketing: Anna . +User Interface: Anna . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . It's very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A and I'm Nanne . +User Interface: And um uh Matthew , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thi think you know me , +Industrial Designer: Uh so yeah uh {disfmarker} Just uh on your web page but uh yeah not uh {disfmarker} not face to face . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: yeah ? right yeah . +Project Manager: So . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S s +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are there some other very important things to to do {disfmarker} well , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I +Project Manager: to specify in this first phase of of the project . So the browse function , as you m mentioned . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Oth yeah . +User Interface: And uh , you'd need the usual ones , like the changing the volume , changing the the channel and then {disfmarker} you uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Today we have uh um teletext and all those things . Tomorrow you might have a some more functions which might come through that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Like what ? Like internet on the on T_V_ ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I_P_O_ or . Now we are looking for television things or I_P_ . For example personal video recorder and all those stuffs are coming up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . But we can't really design for something that hasn't been invented yet . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's coming up , actually . The personal video recorder and all those things it is coming up . +Project Manager: Mm , well uh I I think {disfmarker} Uh w y you two should {disfmarker} should , I think , think this over uh w espec what , what functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Actually , yeah +User Interface: Let's {disfmarker} Let's take {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: w {vocalsound} Of course , and first before um designing the func well thinking about the functionalities , we need to know what are the user requirements . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um then if they need internet , then we would be able to to p to propose something with uh uh T_V_ over I_P_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . But {disfmarker} Ninety percent of the time , ninety nine percent of the time , people will be using the main functions , the volume , the different channels , so we can have all the fancy things as well but the main controls need to be very obvious and very easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . Keep k keep in mind i it's a {disfmarker} it's a twenty five Euro unit , so uh uh the the very fancy stuff uh w we can leave that out , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So twenty five Euro you expect a quite , well normal but good functioning user friendly remote control . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh in that case you can you always hook up with uh someone who is providing that and you know , {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you sell their product as well as your product with them , you know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . So try and get T_V_ manufacturers to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w w we want to design a new one . {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's okay , yeah I understand . So we need some numbering buttons , some teletext things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} Yeah , the main is browsing . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , but but but ab about the spec the buttons , the buttons uh that will be on it . I I think we can discuss that in the in the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I would like to get this wrapped up and go to an end of this meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , we are alread mm . Mm . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: you know now the basic {disfmarker} the basic things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: well just {disfmarker} just for the next meeting , um +User Interface: L +Project Manager: well , uh , you wor yes , work on a design , keep it general , I mean {disfmarker} so w we will be still fle flexible with maybe adding some functions . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um you will be working on {disfmarker} on technical function design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: And uh you {disfmarker} and you and uh uh uh well , think about requirements , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: eh ? Does it need internet , or or do do we stay at basic basic television uh interface . +User Interface: Stam . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , uh I think we should now all go work uh uh at this +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you will be informed via email and other kind of communication . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting will be in uh {disfmarker} in thirty minutes uh . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: K keep it in mind . +","Summary of the conversation: + +The project team is discussing the initial phase of designing a new remote control with a retail price target of around 25 Euros. The Project Manager suggests waiting for a team member named Anna before starting. They experience minor technical issues with microphone placement and a presentation setup, which are soon resolved. + +The Project Manager opens the kick-off meeting by outlining the importance of creating a remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly, as these qualities are expected to increase sales. They emphasize the importance of the product being appealing to consumers and mention the need for a functional, conceptual, and detailed design phase. The Project Manager also introduces the team to new technical tools for communication and planning, such as a whiteboard and shared folders. + +The team proceeds to test the interactive whiteboard by drawing animals and discussing their characteristics. As an ice-breaker, this activity helps the members get acquainted with each other. Some small talk and jokes are shared about the drawings and the difficulty in identifying them. + +The Project Manager steers the conversation to the project's financial aspects, stating a profit goal of fifty million Euros and a production cost cap of twelve Euro and fifty cents per unit. They highlight the international market scope for the product, including Europe, North America, and potentially Asian countries. + +The team starts to discuss the fundamental prerequisites for the remote control, such as having an on/off button, browsing channels, and adjusting volume, while considering the functionalities of modern devices like teletext. The User Interface and Marketing members are tasked with thinking over additional functionalities and user requirements. + +Toward the end of the meeting, the Project Manager requests input on the design, emphasizing keeping it general for now to allow for flexibility in adding functions later. Everyone agrees to work on their respective assignments, and they are informed that the next meeting will be in thirty minutes. The meeting concludes with an understanding that further communication will occur via email and other channels." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: Eh , we should be going . +Professor B: So ne next week we 'll have , uh , both Birger {pause} and , uh , Mike {disfmarker} Michael {disfmarker} Michael Kleinschmidt and Birger Kollmeier will join us . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , and you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you 're probably gonna go up in a couple {disfmarker} three weeks or so ? When d when are you thinking of going up to , uh , OGI ? +PhD D: Yeah , like , uh , not next week but maybe the week after . +Professor B: OK . Good . So at least we 'll have one meeting with {vocalsound} yo with you still around , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That 's good . +PhD D: Um , Yeah . Well , {vocalsound} maybe we can start with this . Mmm . +Professor B: All today , huh ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . So there was this conference call this morning , um , and the only topic on the agenda was just to discuss a and to come at {disfmarker} uh , to get a decision about this latency problem . +Professor B: No , this {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , this is a conference call between different Aurora people or just {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . It 's the conference call between the Aurora , {vocalsound} uh , group . +Professor B: It 's the main conference call . OK . +PhD D: Uh , yeah . There were like two hours of {pause} discussions , and then suddenly , {vocalsound} uh , people were tired , I guess , and they decided on {nonvocalsound} a number , two hundred and twenty , um , included e including everything . Uh , it means that it 's like eighty milliseconds {pause} less than before . +Professor B: And what are we sitting at currently ? +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So , currently d uh , we have system that has two hundred and thirty . So , that 's fine . +Professor B: Two thirty . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's the system that 's described on the second point of {pause} this {vocalsound} document . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} we have to reduce it by ten milliseconds somehow . +PhD D: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's not a problem , I {disfmarker} I guess . +Professor B: OK . W It 's {disfmarker} it 's p d primary {disfmarker} primarily determined by the VAD at this point , +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: S so we can make the VAD a little shorter . +PhD D: Yeah . At this point , yeah . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . We probably should do that pretty soon so that we don't get used to it being a certain way . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Was Hari on the {disfmarker} on the phone ? +PhD D: Yeah , sure . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Well , it was mainly a discussion {vocalsound} between Hari and {vocalsound} David , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: who was like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Uh , +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . So , the second thing is the system that we have currently . Oh , yes . We have , like , a system that gives sixty - two percent improvement , but {vocalsound} if you want to stick to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this latency {disfmarker} Well , it has a latency of two thirty , but {vocalsound} if you want also to stick to the number {vocalsound} of features that {disfmarker} limit it to sixty , {vocalsound} then we go a little bit down but it 's still sixty - one percent . Uh , and if we drop the tandem network , then we have fifty - seven percent . +Professor B: Uh , but th the two th two thirty includes the tandem network ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . And i is the tandem network , uh , small enough that it will fit on the terminal size in terms of {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , no , I don't think so . +Professor B: No . +PhD D: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's still {disfmarker} in terms of computation , if we use , like , their way of computing the {disfmarker} the maps {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the MIPs , {vocalsound} I think it fits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: but it 's , uh , m mainly a problem of memory . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Um , and I don't know how much {pause} this can be discussed or not , because it 's {disfmarker} it could be in ROM , so it 's maybe not that expensive . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Ho - how much memory d ? H how many {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I d I d uh , I {disfmarker} I don't kn remember exactly , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah , I c I {disfmarker} I have to check that . +Professor B: Yeah . I 'd like to {pause} see that , cuz maybe I could think a little bit about it , cuz we {vocalsound} maybe we could make it a little smaller or {disfmarker} I mean , it 'd be {disfmarker} it 'd be neat if we could fit it all . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh , I 'd like to see how far off we are . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I guess it 's still within their rules to have {disfmarker} have it on the , uh , t uh , server side . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: And this is still {disfmarker} ? Uh , well , y you 're saying here . I c I should just let you go on . +PhD D: Yeah , there were small tricks to make this tandem network work . Uh , {vocalsound} mmm , and one of the trick was to , {vocalsound} um , use {vocalsound} some kind of hierarchical structure where {pause} the silence probability is not computed by {pause} the final tandem network but by the VAD network . Um , so apparently it looks better when , {vocalsound} uh , we use the silence probability from the VAD network +Professor B: Huh . +PhD D: and we re - scale the other probabilities by one minus the silence probability . Um . So it 's some kind of hierarchical thing , {vocalsound} uh , that Sunil also tried , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} on SPINE and apparently it helps a little bit also . Mmm . And . Yeah , the reason w why {disfmarker} why we did that with the silence probability was that , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Could {disfmarker} ? Uh , uh , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really sorry . Can you repeat what you were saying about the silence probability ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I only {disfmarker} My mind was some {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So there is the tandem network that e e e estimates the phone probabilities +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and the silence probabilities also . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And {vocalsound} things get better when , instead of using the silence probability computed by the tandem network , we use the silence probability , uh , given by the VAD network , +Professor B: Oh . +PhD D: um , +Professor B: The VAD network is {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Which is smaller , but maybe , um {disfmarker} So we have a network for the VAD which has one hundred hidden units , and the tandem network has five hundred . Um . So it 's smaller but th the silence probability {pause} from this network seems , uh , better . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , it looks strange , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: but it +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: Maybe it 's {disfmarker} has something to do to {vocalsound} the fact that {vocalsound} we don't have infinite training data and {disfmarker} +Professor B: We don't ? +PhD D: Well ! And so {disfmarker} Well , things are not optimal +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Mmm {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are you {disfmarker} you were going to say why {disfmarker} what made you {disfmarker} wh what led you to do that . +PhD D: Yeah . Uh , there was a p {comment} problem that we observed , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} that there was {disfmarker} there were , like , many insertions in the {disfmarker} in the system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: Actually plugging in the tandem network was increasing , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think , the number of insertions . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} So it looked strange and then just using the {disfmarker} the other silence probability helps . Mmm . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . The next thing we will do is train this tandem on more data . +Professor B: So , you know , in a way what it might {disfmarker} i it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit like {vocalsound} combining knowledge sources . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? Because {vocalsound} the fact that you have these two nets that are different sizes {pause} means they behave a little differently , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: they find different {pause} things . And , um , if you have , um {disfmarker} f the distribution that you have from , uh , f speech sounds is w {comment} sort of one source of knowledge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this is {disfmarker} and rather than just taking one minus that to get the other , which is essentially what 's happening , you have this other source of knowledge that you 're putting in there . So you make use of both of them {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in {pause} what you 're ending up with . Maybe it 's better . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , you can probably justify anything if what 's use +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and the features are different also . I mean , the VAD doesn't use the same features there are . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: That might be the key , actually . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz you were really thinking about speech versus nonspeech for that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's a good point . +PhD D: Mmm . Uh . Well , there are other things that {vocalsound} we should do but , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} it requires time and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have ideas , like {disfmarker} so , these things are like hav having a better VAD . Uh , we have some ideas about that . It would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} probably implies working a little bit on features that are more {vocalsound} suited to a voice activity detection . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Working on the second stream . Of course we have ideas on this also , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} w we need to try different things and {disfmarker} Uh , but their noise estimation , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , back on the second stream , I mean , that 's something we 've talked about for a while . I mean , I think {nonvocalsound} that 's certainly a high hope . +PhD D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Professor B: Um , so we have this {disfmarker} this default idea about just using some sort of purely spectral thing ? +PhD D: Uh , yeah . +Professor B: for a second stream ? +PhD D: But , um , we {disfmarker} we did a first try with this , and it {disfmarker} it {vocalsound} clearly hurts . +Professor B: But , uh , how was the stream combined ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} It was c it was just combined , um , by the acoustic model . So there was , no neural network for the moment . +Professor B: Right . So , I mean , if you just had a second stream that was just spectral and had another neural net and combined there , that {disfmarker} that , uh , {vocalsound} might be good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mmm . Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , and the other thing , that noise estimation and th um , maybe try to train {disfmarker} uh , the training data for the t tandem network , right now , is like {disfmarker} i is using the noises from the Aurora task and {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that people might , {vocalsound} um , try to argue about that because {vocalsound} then in some cases we have the same noises in {disfmarker} for training the network {pause} than the noises that are used for testing , +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So we have t n uh , to try to get rid of these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this problem . +Professor B: Yeah . Maybe you just put in some other noise , something that 's different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , it {disfmarker} it 's probably helpful to have {disfmarker} have a little noise there . But it may be something else +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: th at least you could say it was . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And then {disfmarker} if it doesn't hurt too much , though . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's a good idea . +PhD D: Um . Yeah . The last thing is that I think we are getting close to human performance . Well , that 's something I would like to investigate further , but , um , I did , like , um {disfmarker} I did , uh , listen to the m most noisy utterances of the SpeechDat - Car Italian and tried to transcribe them . And , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: So this is a particular human . This is {disfmarker} this i this is Stephane . +PhD D: Yeah . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: St - Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: that 's the {disfmarker} the flaw of the experiment . This is just {disfmarker} i j {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it 's just one subject , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Getting close . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but still , uh , {vocalsound} what happens is {disfmarker} is that , {vocalsound} uh , the digit error rate on this is around one percent , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: while our system is currently at seven percent . Um , but what happens also is that if I listen to the , um {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} a re - synthesized version of the speech and {pause} I re - synthesized this using a white noise that 's filtered by a LPC , uh , filter {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Um , well , you can argue , that , uh {disfmarker} that this is not speech , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: so the ear is not trained to recognize this . But s actually it sound like {pause} whispering , so we are {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: eh {disfmarker} +Professor B: There 's two problems there . I mean {disfmarker} I mean , so {disfmarker} so the first is {vocalsound} that by doing LPC - twelve with synthesized speech w like you 're saying , uh , it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i you 're {disfmarker} you 're adding other degradation . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's not just the noise but you 're adding in fact some degradation because it 's only an approximation . Um , and the second thing is {disfmarker} which is m maybe more interesting {disfmarker} is that , um , {comment} {vocalsound} if you do it with whispered speech , you get this number . What if you had {pause} done analysis {comment} re - synthesis and taken the pitch as well ? Alright ? So now you put the pitch in . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: What would the percentage be then ? +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: See , that 's the question . So , you see , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's , uh {disfmarker} Let 's say it 's {pause} back down to one percent again . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: That would say at least for people , having the pitch is really , really important , which would be interesting in itself . Um , +PhD D: Uh , yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor B: if i on the other hand , if it stayed up {pause} near five percent , {vocalsound} then I 'd say "" boy , LPC n twelve is pretty crummy "" . You know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So I I I 'm not sure {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how we can conclude from this anything about {disfmarker} that our system is close to {vocalsound} the human performance . +PhD D: Ye Yeah . Well , the point is that eh l ey {disfmarker} the point is that , um , {vocalsound} what I {disfmarker} what I listened to when I re - synthesized the LP - the LPC - twelve {pause} spectrum {vocalsound} is in a way what the system , uh , is hearing , cuz @ @ {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} all the , um , excitation {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} well , the excitation is {disfmarker} is not taken into account . That 's what we do with our system . And +Professor B: Well , you 're not doing the LPC {disfmarker} +PhD D: in this case {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , so {disfmarker} so what if you did a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well , it 's not LPC , sure , +Professor B: What if you did LPC - twenty ? +PhD D: but {disfmarker} LPC {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Twenty . Right ? I mean , th the thing is LPC is not a {disfmarker} a really great representation of speech . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , all I 'm saying is that you have in addition to the w the , uh , removal of pitch , {vocalsound} you also are doing , uh , a particular parameterization , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which , um , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , so , let 's see , how would you do {disfmarker} ? So , fo +PhD D: But that 's {disfmarker} that 's what we do with our systems . And {disfmarker} +Professor B: No . Actually , we d we {disfmarker} we don't , because we do {disfmarker} we do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , mel filter bank , for instance . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but is it that {disfmarker} is it that different , I mean ? +Professor B: Um , {vocalsound} I don't know what mel , {pause} uh , based synthesis would sound like , +PhD D: I +Professor B: but certainly the spectra are quite different . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Couldn't you t couldn't you , um , test the human performance on just the original {pause} audio ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . This is the one percent number . +Professor B: Yeah , it 's one percent . He 's trying to remove the pitch information +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh , oh . OK , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: and make it closer to what {disfmarker} to what we 're seeing as the feature vectors . +PhD A: OK . So , y uh , your performance was one percent , and then when you re - synthesize with LPC - twelve it went to five . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} We were {disfmarker} we were j It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little bit still apples and oranges because we are choosing these features in order to be the best for recognition . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And , um , i if you listen to them they still might not be very {disfmarker} Even if you made something closer to what we 're gonna {disfmarker} i it might not sound very good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , and i the degradation from that might {disfmarker} might actually make it even harder , {vocalsound} uh , to understand than the LPC - twelve . So all I 'm saying is that the LPC - twelve {vocalsound} puts in {disfmarker} synthesis puts in some degradation that 's not what we 're used to hearing , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and is , um {disfmarker} It 's not {disfmarker} it 's not just a question of how much information is there , as if you will always take maximum {vocalsound} advantage of any information that 's presented to you . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: In fact , you {vocalsound} hear some things better than others . And so it {disfmarker} it isn't {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} I agree that it says that , uh , the kind of information that we 're feeding it is probably , {vocalsound} um , um , a little bit , um , minimal . There 's definitely some things that we 've thrown away . And that 's why I was saying it might be interesting if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an interesting test of this would be if you {disfmarker} if you actually put the pitch back in . So , you just extract it from the actual speech and put it back in , and see does that {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make the difference ? If that {disfmarker} if that takes it down to one percent again , {vocalsound} then you 'd say "" OK , it 's {disfmarker} it 's in fact having , um , {vocalsound} not just the spectral envelope but also the {disfmarker} also the {disfmarker} the pitch {vocalsound} that , uh , {comment} @ @ {comment} has the information that people can use , anyway . "" +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mmm . +PhD A: But from this it 's pretty safe to say that the system is with either {vocalsound} two to seven percent away from {pause} the performance of a human . Right ? So it 's somewhere in that range . +Professor B: Well , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Two {disfmarker} two to six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's one point four times , uh , to , uh , seven times the error , +PhD D: To f seven times , yeah . +Professor B: for Stephane . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: So , uh {disfmarker} uh , but i I don't know . I do don't wanna take you away from other things . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} +Professor B: But that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's what {disfmarker} that 's the first thing that I would be curious about , is , you know , i i {vocalsound} when you we +PhD D: But the signal itself is like a mix of {disfmarker} um , of a {disfmarker} a periodic sound and , {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , unvoiced sound , and the noise +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is mostly , {vocalsound} uh , noise . I mean not {pause} periodic . So , {pause} what {disfmarker} what do you mean exactly by putting back the pitch in ? Because {disfmarker} +PhD A: In the LPC synthesis ? I think {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . You did LPC re - synthesis {disfmarker} +PhD D: I +Professor B: L PC re - synthesis . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} and you did it with a noise source , rather than with {disfmarker} with a s periodic source . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right ? So if you actually did real re - synthesis like you do in an LPC synthesizer , where it 's unvoiced you use noise , where it 's voiced you use , {vocalsound} uh , periodic pulses . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD D: Yeah , but it 's neither {pause} purely voiced or purely unvoiced . Esp - especially because there is noise . +Professor B: Well , it might be hard to do it +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: but it but {disfmarker} but the thing is that if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , if you detect that there 's periodic {disfmarker} s strong periodic components , then you can use a voiced {disfmarker} voice thing . +PhD D: Oh . Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it 's probably not worth your time . It 's {disfmarker} it 's a side thing and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and there 's a lot to do . +PhD D: Uh - huh , yeah . +Professor B: But I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just saying , at least as a thought experiment , {vocalsound} that 's what I would wanna test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , I wan would wanna drive it with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a two - source system rather than a {disfmarker} than a one - source system . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then that would tell you whether in fact it 's {disfmarker} Cuz we 've talked about , like , this harmonic tunneling or {vocalsound} other things that people have done based on pitch , maybe that 's really a key element . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe , uh , {vocalsound} uh , without that , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible to do a whole lot better than we 're doing . That {disfmarker} that could be . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's what I was thinking by doing this es experiment , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} Mmm . {vocalsound} Evi +Professor B: But , I mean , other than that , I don't think it 's {disfmarker} I mean , other than the pitch de information , {vocalsound} it 's hard to imagine that there 's a whole lot more {vocalsound} in the signal that {disfmarker} that , uh {disfmarker} that we 're throwing away that 's important . +PhD D: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . Yeah , right . +Professor B: Right ? I mean , we 're using {vocalsound} a fair number of filters in the filter bank and {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: Um . +Professor B: Yeah . That look +PhD D: Yeah , that 's it . +Professor B: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I mean , one {disfmarker} one percent is sort of what I would {disfmarker} I would figure . If somebody was paying really close attention , you might get {disfmarker} I would actually think that if , {vocalsound} you looked at people on various times of the day and different amounts of attention , you might actually get up to three or four percent error on digits . Uh , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} you know , we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not incredibly far off . On the other hand , with any of these numbers except maybe the one percent , it 's st it 's not actually usable in a commercial system with a full telephone number or something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . At these noise levels . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: Well , yeah . These numbers , I mean . Mmm . +Professor B: Good . Um , while we 're still on Aurora stuff {pause} maybe you can talk a little about the status with the , uh , {vocalsound} Wall Street Journal {vocalsound} things for it . +PhD A: So I 've , um , downloaded , uh , a couple of things from Mississippi State . Um , one is their {vocalsound} software {disfmarker} their , uh , LVCSR system . Downloaded the latest version of that . Got it compiled and everything . Um , downloaded the scripts . They wrote some scripts that sort of make it easy to run {vocalsound} the system on the Wall Street Journal , uh , data . Um , so I haven't run the scripts yet . Uh , I 'm waiting {disfmarker} there was one problem with part of it and I wrote a note to Joe asking him about it . So I 'm waiting to hear from him . But , um , I did print something out just to give you an idea about where the system is . Uh , {vocalsound} they {disfmarker} on their web site they , uh , did this little table of where their system performs relative to other systems that have done this {disfmarker} this task . And , um , the Mississippi State system {vocalsound} using a bigram grammar , uh , is at about eight point two percent . Other comparable systems from , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} were getting from , uh , like six point nine , six point eight percent . So they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is on clean test set ? +PhD A: This is on clean {disfmarker} on clean stuff . Yeah . They {disfmarker} they 've started a table {vocalsound} where they 're showing their results on various different noise conditions but they {disfmarker} they don't have a whole lot of it filled in and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and I didn't notice until after I 'd printed it out that , um , {vocalsound} they don't say here {pause} what these different testing conditions are . +Professor B: +PhD A: You actually have to click on it on the web site to see them . So I {disfmarker} I don't know what those {pause} numbers really mean . +Professor B: What kind of numbers are they getting on these {disfmarker} on the test conditions ? +PhD A: Well , see , I was a little confused because on this table , I 'm {disfmarker} the they 're showing word error rate . But on this one , I {disfmarker} I don't know if these are word error rates because they 're really big . So , {vocalsound} under condition one here it 's ten percent . Then under three it goes to sixty - four point six percent . +Professor B: Yeah , that 's probably Aurora . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: So m I guess maybe they 're error rates but they 're , uh {disfmarker} they 're really high . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't find that surpri +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , we {disfmarker} W what 's {disfmarker} what 's some of the lower error rates on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} uh , some of the higher error rates on , uh , {vocalsound} some of these w uh , uh , highly mismatched difficult conditions ? What 's a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh . Yeah , it 's around fifteen to twenty percent . +PhD A: Correct ? +PhD D: And the baseline , eh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Accuracy ? +PhD D: Uh , error rate . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Twenty percent error rate , +Professor B: Yeah . So twenty percent error rate on digits . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , oh , on digits . +Professor B: So if you 're doing {disfmarker} so if you 're doing , +PhD D: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: On digits . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: you know , +PhD D: And this is so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} still the baseline . +Professor B: sixty - thousand {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , and if you 're saying sixty - thousand word recognition , getting sixty percent error on some of these noise condition not at all surprising . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: The baseline is sixty percent also on digits , +PhD A: Oh , is it ? +PhD D: on the m more {pause} mismatched conditions . +PhD A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +PhD A: So , yeah , that 's probably what it is then . Yeah . So they have a lot of different conditions that they 're gonna be filling out . +Professor B: It 's a bad sign when you {disfmarker} looking at the numbers , you can't tell whether it 's accuracy or error rate . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be hard . Um , they 're {disfmarker} I I 'm still waiting for them to {pause} release the , um , {vocalsound} multi - CPU version of their scripts , cuz right now their script only handles processing on a single CPU , which will take a really long time to run . So . But their s +Professor B: This is for the training ? +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} I beli Yes , for the training {pause} also . And , um , they 're supposed to be coming out with it any time , +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: the multi - CPU one . So , as soon as they get that , then I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll grab those too +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and so w +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz we have to get started , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: cuz it 's {disfmarker} cuz , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'll go ahead and try to run it though with just the single CPU one , +Professor B: if the {disfmarker} +PhD A: and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they , {vocalsound} um , released like a smaller data set that you can use that only takes like sixteen hours to train and stuff . So I can {disfmarker} I can run it on that just to make sure that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing works and everything . +Professor B: Oh ! Good . Yeah . Cuz we 'll {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I guess the actual evaluation will be in six weeks or something . So . Is that about right {pause} you think ? +PhD D: Uh , we don't know yet , I {disfmarker} I think . +Professor B: Really , we don't know ? +PhD D: Uh - huh . Um . +PhD A: It wasn't on the conference call this morning ? +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD D: No . +PhD A: Hmm . Did they say anything on the conference call {pause} about , um , how the {pause} Wall Street Journal part of the test was going to be {pause} run ? Because I {disfmarker} I thought I remembered hearing that some sites {vocalsound} were saying that they didn't have the compute to be able to run the Wall Street Journal stuff at their place , +PhD D: No . Mmm . +PhD A: so there was some talk about having Mississippi State run {pause} the systems for them . And I {disfmarker} Did {disfmarker} did that come up at all ? +PhD D: Uh , no . Well , this {disfmarker} first , this was not the point at all of this {disfmarker} the meeting today +PhD A: Oh , OK . +PhD D: and , +Professor B: Some +PhD D: uh , frankly , I don't know because I d {comment} didn't read also the {pause} most recent mails about {vocalsound} the large - vocabulary task . But , {vocalsound} uh , did you {disfmarker} do you still , uh , get the mails ? You 're not on the mailing list or what ? +PhD A: Hmm - mm . The only , um , mail I get is from Mississippi State {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we should have a look at this . +PhD A: about their system . I {disfmarker} I don't get any {pause} mail about {disfmarker} +Professor B: I have to say , there 's uh something funny - sounding about saying that one of these big companies doesn't have enough cup compute power do that , so they 're having to have it done by Mississippi State . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just sounds funny . +PhD A: Yeah . It does . +Professor B: But , +PhD A: Yeah . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm wondering about that +Professor B: anyway . +PhD A: because there 's this whole issue about , you know , simple tuning parameters , like word insertion penalties . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {pause} whether or not those are going to be tuned or not , and {disfmarker} {comment} So . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I mean , it makes a big difference . If you change your front - end , you know , the scale is completely {disfmarker} can be completely different , so . It seems reasonable that that at least should be tweaked to match the front - end . But {disfmarker} +PhD D: You didn't get any answer from {pause} Joe ? +PhD A: I did , but Joe {pause} said , you know , "" what you 're saying makes sense +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and {pause} I don't know "" . So he doesn't know what the answer is . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: I mean , that 's th We had this back and forth a little bit about , {vocalsound} you know , are sites gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna run this data for different sites ? And , well , if {disfmarker} if Mississippi State runs it , then maybe they 'll do a little optimization on that {pause} parameter , and , uh {disfmarker} But then he wasn't asked to run it for anybody . So i it 's {disfmarker} it 's just not clear yet what 's gonna happen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , he 's been putting this stuff out on their web site and {disfmarker} for people to grab but I haven't heard too much about what 's happening . +Professor B: So it could be {disfmarker} I mean , Chuck and I had actually talked about this a couple times , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} over some lunches , I think , {vocalsound} that , um , {vocalsound} one thing that we might wanna do {disfmarker} The - there 's this question about , you know , what do you wanna scale ? Suppose y you can't adjust {vocalsound} these word insertion penalties and so forth , so you have to do everything at the level of the features . What could you do ? And , uh , one thing I had suggested at an earlier time was maybe some sort of scaling , some sort of root or {disfmarker} or something of the , um , {vocalsound} uh , features . But the problem with that is that isn't quite the same , it occurred to me later , because what you really want to do is scale the , uh , @ @ {comment} the range of the likelihoods rather than {disfmarker} +PhD D: Nnn , the dist Yeah . +Professor B: But , {vocalsound} what might get at something similar , it just occurred to me , is kind of an intermediate thing {disfmarker} is because we do this strange thing that we do with the tandem system , at least in that system what you could do {vocalsound} is take the , um , {vocalsound} uh , values that come out of the net , which are something like log probabilities , and scale those . And then , uh , um {disfmarker} {pause} then at least those things would have the right values or the right {disfmarker} the right range . And then that goes into the rest of it and then that 's used as observations . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , {vocalsound} um , another way to do it . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But , these values are not directly used as probabilities anyway . +Professor B: I know they 're not . +PhD D: So there are {disfmarker} there is {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know they 're not . But {disfmarker} but , you know {disfmarker} So because what we 're doing is pretty strange and complicated , we don't really know what the effect is {pause} at the other end . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} my thought was maybe {disfmarker} I mean , they 're not used as probabilities , but the log probabilities {disfmarker} we 're taking advantage of the fact that something like log probabilities has more of a Gaussian shape than Gaus - than {vocalsound} probabilities , and so we can model them better . So , {pause} in a way we 're taking advantage of the fact that they 're probabilities , because they 're this quantity that looks kind of Gaussian when you take it 's log . So , {comment} {vocalsound} uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe it would have a {disfmarker} a reasonable effect to do that . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I d I don't know . But , {pause} I mean , I guess we still haven't had a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a ruling back on this . And we may end up being in a situation where we just you know really can't change the {vocalsound} word insertion penalty . But the other thing we could do {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} also we could {disfmarker} I mean , this {disfmarker} this may not help us , {vocalsound} uh , in the evaluation but it might help us in our understanding at least . We might , {vocalsound} just run it with different insper insertion penalties , and show that , uh , "" well , OK , not changing it , {vocalsound} playing the rules the way you wanted , we did this . But in fact if we did that , it made a {disfmarker} {pause} a big difference . "" +PhD A: I wonder if it {disfmarker} it might be possible to , uh , simulate the back - end with some other system . So we {disfmarker} we get our f front - end features , and then , uh , as part of the process of figuring out the scaling of these features , {comment} you know , if we 're gonna take it to a root or to a power or something , {comment} {vocalsound} we have some back - end that we attach onto our features that sort of simulates what would be happening . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , +Professor B: And just adjust it until it 's the best number ? +PhD A: and just adjust it until that {disfmarker} our l version of the back - end , uh , decides that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , we can probably use the real thing , can't we ? And then jus just , uh , {vocalsound} use it on a reduced test set or something . +PhD A: Yeah . Oh , yeah . That 's true . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: And then we just use that to determine some scaling factor that we use . +Professor B: Yeah . So I mean , I I think that that 's a reasonable thing to do and the only question is what 's the actual knob that we use ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And the knob that we use should {disfmarker} uh , uh , unfortunately , like I say , I don't know the analytic solution to this cuz what we really want to do is change the scale of the likelihoods , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: not the cha not the scale of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {pause} observations . But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Out of curiosity , what {disfmarker} what kind of recognizer {pause} is the one from Mississippi State ? +PhD A: Uh , w what do you mean when you say "" what kind "" ? +Grad E: Is it {disfmarker} ? Um , is it like a {pause} Gaussian mixture model ? +PhD A: Yeah . Gaussian mixture model . +Grad E: OK . +PhD A: It 's the same system that they use {pause} when they participate in the Hub - five evals . It 's a , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} sort of {pause} came out of , uh {disfmarker} uh , looking a lot like HTK . I mean , they started off with {disfmarker} um , when they were building their system they were always comparing to HTK to make sure they were getting similar results . And so , {vocalsound} it 's a Gaussian mixture system , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Do they have the same sort of mix - down sort of procedure , where they {vocalsound} start off with a small number of some things +PhD A: I don't know . Yeah . And then {pause} divide the mixtures in half . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD A: I don't know if they do that . I 'm not really sure . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: D Do you know what kind of tying they use ? Are they {disfmarker} they sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} a bunch of Gaussians that they share across everything ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or if it 's {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah , th I have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't have it up here but I have a {disfmarker} {pause} the whole system description , that describes exactly what their {pause} system is +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . But , um {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: It 's some kind of a mixture of Gaussians and , {vocalsound} uh , clustering and , uh {disfmarker} They 're {disfmarker} they 're trying to put in sort of all of the standard features that people use nowadays . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So the other , uh , Aurora thing maybe is {disfmarker} I I dunno if any of this is gonna {vocalsound} {pause} come in in time to be relevant , but , uh , we had talked about , uh , {comment} Guenter {vocalsound} playing around , uh , uh , over in Germany +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , @ @ {comment} uh , {pause} possibly coming up with something {vocalsound} that would , uh , {pause} uh , fit in later . Uh , I saw that other mail where he said that he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it wasn't going to work for him to do CVS . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So now he has a version of the software . +Professor B: So he just has it all sitting there . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if he 'll {disfmarker} he might work on improving the noise estimate or on {vocalsound} some histogram things , or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . I just saw the Eurospeech {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we didn't talk about it at our meeting but I just saw the {disfmarker} just read the paper . Someone , I forget the name , {comment} and {disfmarker} and Ney , uh , about histogram equalization ? Did you see that one ? +PhD D: Um , it was a poster . Or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I just read the paper . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I didn't see the poster . +PhD D: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was something {pause} similar to n {vocalsound} on - line normalization finally {disfmarker} I mean , in {vocalsound} the idea of {disfmarker} of normalizing {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . But it 's a little more {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a little finer , right ? So they had like ten quantiles +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and they adjust the distribution . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So you {disfmarker} you have the distributions from the training set , +PhD D: N +Professor B: and then , uh {disfmarker} So this is just a {disfmarker} a histogram of {disfmarker} of {vocalsound} the amplitudes , I guess . Right ? And then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , people do this in image processing some . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You have this kind of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of histogram of {disfmarker} of levels of brightness or whatever . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then , {vocalsound} when you get a new {disfmarker} new thing that you {disfmarker} you want to adjust to be {pause} better in some way , {vocalsound} you adjust it so that the histogram of the new data looks like the old data . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: You do this kind of {vocalsound} piece - wise linear or , {vocalsound} uh , some kind of piece - wise approximation . They did a {disfmarker} uh one version that was piece - wise linear and another that had a power law thing between them {disfmarker} {vocalsound} between the {pause} points . And , uh , they said they s they sort of see it in a way as s for the speech case {comment} {disfmarker} as being kind of a generalization of spectral subtraction in a way , because , you know , in spectral subtraction you 're trying to {vocalsound} get rid of this excess energy . Uh , you know , it 's not supposed to be there . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and , uh , this is sort of {pause} {vocalsound} adjusting it for {disfmarker} for a lot of different levels . And then they have s they have some kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} a floor or something , +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: so if it gets too low you don't {disfmarker} don't do it . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: And they {disfmarker} they claimed very nice results , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So is this a histogram across different frequency bins ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: Or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Um , I think this i You know , I don't remember that . Do you remember {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I think they have , yeah , different histograms . I uh {disfmarker} Something like one per {pause} frequency band , +Professor B: One {disfmarker} +PhD A: So , one histogram per frequency bin . +Professor B: One per critical {disfmarker} +PhD D: or {disfmarker} But I did {disfmarker} Yeah , I guess . +PhD A: And that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But I should read the paper . I just went {pause} through the poster quickly , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So th +Professor B: And I don't remember whether it was {pause} filter bank things +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: and I didn't {disfmarker} +Professor B: or whether it was FFT bins +PhD A: Huh . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} that , um , {pause} histogram represents {pause} the {pause} different energy levels that have been seen at that {pause} frequency ? +Professor B: I don't remember that . And how often they {disfmarker} you 've seen them . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And they do {disfmarker} they said that they could do it for the test {disfmarker} So you don't have to change the training . You just do a measurement over the training . And then , uh , for testing , uh , you can do it for one per utterance . Even relatively short utterances . And they claim it {disfmarker} it works pretty well . +PhD A: So they , uh {disfmarker} Is the idea that you {disfmarker} you run a test utterance through some histogram generation thing and then you compare the histograms and that tells you {vocalsound} what to do to the utterance to make it more like {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I guess in pri Yeah . In principle . +PhD A: I see . +Professor B: I didn't read carefully how they actually implemented it , +PhD A: Hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: whether it was some , {vocalsound} uh , on - line thing , or whether it was a second pass , or what . But {disfmarker} but they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} that was sort of the idea . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor B: So that {disfmarker} that seemed , you know , different . We 're sort of curious about , uh , what are some things that are , u u um , {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} {pause} conceptually quite different from what we 've done . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz we {disfmarker} you know , one thing that w that , uh , Stephane and Sunil seemed to find , {vocalsound} uh , was , you know , they could actually make a unified piece of software that handled a range of different things that people were talking about , and it was really just sort of setting of different {pause} constants . And it would turn , you know , one thing into another . It 'd turn Wiener filtering into spectral subtraction , or whatever . But there 's other things that we 're not doing . So , we 're not making any use of pitch , uh , uh , which again , might {disfmarker} might be important , uh , because the stuff between the harmonics is probably a schmutz . And {disfmarker} and the , {vocalsound} uh , transcribers will have fun with that . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And , um , the , uh , stuff at the harmonics isn't so much . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} And we there 's this overall idea of really sort of matching the {disfmarker} the hi distributions somehow . Uh , not just , um , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} not just subtracting off your estimate of the noise . So . So I guess , uh , {vocalsound} Guenter 's gonna play around with some of these things now over this next {pause} period , +PhD D: Uh , I dunno . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I don't have feedback from him , but +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: I guess he 's gonna , maybe {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , he 's got it anyway , so he can . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: So potentially if he came up with something that was useful , like a diff a better noise estimation module or something , he could ship it to you guys u up there +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: and +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: we could put it in . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . {vocalsound} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , that 's good . So , why don't we just , uh , um {disfmarker} I think starting {disfmarker} {pause} starting a w couple weeks from now , especially if you 're not gonna be around for a while , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll be shifting more over to some other {disfmarker} {vocalsound} other territory . But , uh , uh , {comment} uh , n not {disfmarker} not so much in this meeting about Aurora , but {disfmarker} but , uh , uh , maybe just , uh , quickly today about {disfmarker} maybe you could just say a little bit about what you 've been talking about with Michael . And {disfmarker} and then Barry can say something about {pause} what {comment} {disfmarker} what we 're talking about . +Grad C: OK . So Michael Kleinschmidt , who 's a PHD student from Germany , {vocalsound} showed up this week . He 'll be here for about six months . And he 's done some work using {vocalsound} an auditory model {pause} of , um , {vocalsound} human hearing , and {pause} using that f uh , to generate speech recognition features . And {pause} he did {vocalsound} work back in Germany {vocalsound} with , um , a toy recognition system {vocalsound} using , um , isolated {vocalsound} digit recognition {vocalsound} as the task . It was actually just a single - layer neural network {vocalsound} that classified words {disfmarker} classified digits , {vocalsound} in fact . Um , and {pause} he tried that on {disfmarker} I think on some Aurora data and got results that he thought {pause} seemed respectable . And he w he 's coming here to u u use it on a {vocalsound} uh , a real speech recognition system . So I 'll be working with him on that . And , um , maybe I should say a little more about these features , although I don't understand them that well . The {disfmarker} I think it 's a two - stage idea . And , um , {vocalsound} the first stage of these features correspond to what 's called the peripheral {vocalsound} auditory system . And {vocalsound} I guess that is like {vocalsound} a filter bank with a compressive nonlinearity . And {vocalsound} I 'm - I 'm not sure what we have @ @ in there that isn't already modeled in something like , {vocalsound} um , {pause} PLP . I should learn more about that . And then {vocalsound} the second stage {pause} is , um , {vocalsound} the most different thing , I think , from what we usually do . It 's , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} it computes features which are , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} based on {disfmarker} sort of like based on diffe different w um , wavelet basis functions {vocalsound} used to analyze {vocalsound} the input . So th he uses analysis functions called {vocalsound} Gabor functions , um , {vocalsound} which have a certain {vocalsound} extent , um , {vocalsound} in time and in frequency . And {vocalsound} the idea is these are used to sample , {vocalsound} um , the signal in a represented as a time - frequency representation . So you 're {pause} sampling some piece of this time - frequency plane . And , um , {vocalsound} that , {vocalsound} um , is {disfmarker} is interesting , cuz , {vocalsound} @ @ for {disfmarker} for one thing , you could use it , {vocalsound} um , in a {disfmarker} a multi - scale way . You could have these {disfmarker} instead of having everything {disfmarker} like we use a twenty - five millisecond or so analysis window , {vocalsound} typically , um , and that 's our time scale for features , but you could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} using this , um , basis function idea , you could have some basis functions which have a lot longer time scale and , um , some which have a lot shorter , and {vocalsound} so it would be like {pause} a set of multi - scale features . So he 's interested in , um {disfmarker} Th - this is {disfmarker} because it 's , um {disfmarker} there are these different parameters for the shape of these {vocalsound} basis functions , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are a lot of different possible basis functions . And so he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he actually does {vocalsound} an optimization procedure to choose an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an optimal set of basis functions out of all the possible ones . +PhD A: Hmm . H What does he do to choose those ? +Grad C: The method he uses is kind of funny {disfmarker} is , {comment} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} he starts with {disfmarker} he has a set of M of them . Um , he {disfmarker} and then {pause} he uses that to classify {disfmarker} I mean , he t he tries , um , {vocalsound} using {pause} just M minus one of them . So there are M possible subsets of this {vocalsound} length - M vector . He tries classifying , using each of the M {vocalsound} possible sub - vectors . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad C: Whichever sub - vector , {vocalsound} um , works the {disfmarker} the best , I guess , he says {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the fe feature that didn't use was the most useless feature , +Professor B: Y yeah . Gets thrown out . Yeah . +Grad C: so we 'll throw it out and we 're gonna randomly select another feature {pause} from the set of possible basis functions . +PhD A: Hmm ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So it 's a {disfmarker} +Professor B: So i so it 's actuall +PhD A: it 's a little bit like a genetic algorithm or something in a way . +Professor B: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much simpler . +Grad E: It 's like a greedy {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it 's {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot {disfmarker} number of things I like about it , let me just say . +PhD A: Greedy . +Professor B: So , first thing , well , you 're absolutely right . I mean , {vocalsound} i i {nonvocalsound} in truth , {pause} both pieces of this are {disfmarker} have their analogies in stuff we already do . But it 's a different take {vocalsound} at how to approach it and potentially one that 's m maybe a bit more systematic than what we 've done , uh , and a b a bit more inspiration from {disfmarker} from auditory things . So it 's {disfmarker} so I think it 's a neat thing to try . The primary features , {vocalsound} um , are in fact {disfmarker} Yeah , essentially , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , you know , PLP or {disfmarker} or mel cepstrum , or something like that . You 've {disfmarker} you 've got some , {vocalsound} uh , compression . We always have some compression . We always have some {disfmarker} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the kind of filter bank with a kind of {vocalsound} {vocalsound} quasi - log scaling . Um , {vocalsound} if you put in {disfmarker} if you also include the RASTA in it {disfmarker} i RASTA {disfmarker} the filtering being done in the log domain {vocalsound} has an AGC - like , uh , characteristic , which , you know , people typi typically put in these kind of , {vocalsound} uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} uh , auditory front - ends . So it 's very , very similar , uh , but it 's not exactly the same . Um , I would agree that the second one is {disfmarker} is somewhat more different but , {vocalsound} um , it 's mainly different in that the things that we have been doing like that have been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , had a different kind of motivation and have ended up with different kinds of constraints . So , for instance , if you look at the LDA RASTA stuff , {vocalsound} you know , basically what they do is they {disfmarker} they look at the different eigenvectors out of the LDA and they form filters out of it . Right ? And those {pause} filters have different , uh , kinds of temporal extents and temporal characteristics . And so in fact they 're multi - scale . But , they 're not sort of systematically multi - scale , like "" let 's start here and go to there , and go to there , and go to there "" , and so forth . It 's more like , {vocalsound} you run it on this , you do discriminant analysis , and you find out what 's helpful . +Grad C: I it 's multi - scale because you use several of these in parallel , +Professor B: Yeah . They use several of them . +Grad C: is that right ? Of {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Uh , I mean , you don't have to but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , Hynek has . Um , but it 's also , uh {disfmarker} Hyn - when Hynek 's had people do this kind of LDA analysis , they 've done it on frequency direction and they 've done it on the time direction . I think he may have had people sometimes doing it on both simultaneously {disfmarker} some two - D {disfmarker} and that would be the closest to these Gabor function kind of things . Uh , but I don't think they 've done that much of that . And , uh , the other thing that 's interesting {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the feature selection thing , it 's a simple method , but I kinda like it . Um , {vocalsound} there 's a {disfmarker} {pause} a old , old method for feature selection . I mean , {pause} eh , uh , I remember people referring to it as old when I was playing with it twenty years ago , so I know it 's pretty old , uh , called Stepwise Linear Discriminant Analysis in which you {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I think it 's used in social sciences a lot . So , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you pick the best feature . And then {vocalsound} you take {disfmarker} y you find the next feature that 's the best in combination with it . And then so on and so on . And what {disfmarker} what Michael 's describing seems to me much , much better , because the problem with the stepwise discriminant analysis is that you don't know that {disfmarker} you know , if you 've {vocalsound} picked the right set of features . Just because something 's a good feature doesn't mean that you should be adding it . So , {vocalsound} um , {pause} uh , here at least you 're starting off with all of them , and you 're {vocalsound} throwing out useless features . I think that 's {disfmarker} that seems , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that seems like a lot better idea . Uh , you 're always looking at things in combination with other features . Um , so the only thing is , of course , there 's this {disfmarker} this artificial question of {disfmarker} of , uh , {vocalsound} exactly how you {disfmarker} how you a how you assess it and if {disfmarker} if your order had been different in throwing them out . I mean , it still isn't necessarily really optimal , but it seems like a pretty good heuristic . So I th I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's kinda neat stuff . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the thing that I wanted to {disfmarker} to add to it also was to have us use this in a multi - stream way . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , so {disfmarker} so that , um , {vocalsound} when you come up with these different things , {vocalsound} and these different functions , {vocalsound} you don't necessarily just put them all into one huge vector , but perhaps {vocalsound} you {vocalsound} have some of them in one stream and some of them in another stream , and so forth . And , um , um , {comment} um {disfmarker} And we 've also talked a little bit about , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Shihab Shamma 's stuff , in which {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} the way you look at it is that there 's these different mappings and some of them emphasize , uh , upward moving , {vocalsound} uh , energy and fre and frequency . And some are emphasizing downward and {vocalsound} fast things and slow things and {disfmarker} and {pause} so forth . So . So there 's a bunch of stuff to look at . But , uh , I think we 're sorta gonna start off with what {vocalsound} he , uh , came here with and branch out {disfmarker} {vocalsound} branch out from there . And his advisor is here , too , {vocalsound} at the same time . So , he 'll be another {pause} interesting source of {pause} wisdom . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . +Grad E: As {disfmarker} as we were talking about this I was thinking , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} whether there 's a relationship between {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} between Michael 's approach to , uh , some {disfmarker} some sort of optimal brain damage or optimal brain surgeon on the neural nets . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: So , like , if we have , um {disfmarker} we have our {disfmarker} we have our RASTA features and {disfmarker} and presumably the neural nets are {disfmarker} are learning some sort of a nonlinear mapping , {vocalsound} uh , from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the features {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to this {disfmarker} this probability posterior space . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Right ? And , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} and each of the hidden units is learning some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of {disfmarker} some sort of pattern . Right ? And it could be , like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like these , um {disfmarker} these auditory patterns that Michael {pause} is looking at . And then when you 're looking at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , {pause} um , {vocalsound} the best features , {vocalsound} you know , you can take out {disfmarker} you can do the {disfmarker} do this , uh , brain surgery by taking out , {vocalsound} um , hidden units that don't really help at all . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Or the {disfmarker} or features . +Grad E: And this is k sorta like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , y actually , you make me think a {disfmarker} a very important point here is that , um , {vocalsound} if we a again try to look at how is this different from what we 're already doing , {vocalsound} uh , there 's a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a nasty argument that could be made th that it 's {disfmarker} it 's not different at {disfmarker} at all , because , uh {disfmarker} if you ignore the {disfmarker} the selection part because we are going into a {disfmarker} a very powerful , {vocalsound} uh , nonlinearity that , uh , in fact is combining over time and frequency , and is coming up with its own {disfmarker} you know , better than Gabor functions its , you know , neural net functions , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: its {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} whatever it finds to be best . +Grad C: +Professor B: Um , so you could argue that in fact it {disfmarker} But I {disfmarker} I don't actually believe that argument because I know that , um , {vocalsound} you can , uh {disfmarker} computing features is useful , even though {pause} in principle you haven't {pause} {vocalsound} added anything {disfmarker} in fact , you subtracted something , from the original waveform {disfmarker} You know , uh , if you 've {disfmarker} you 've processed it in some way you 've typically lost something {disfmarker} some information . And so , {vocalsound} you 've lost information and yet it does better with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with features than it does with the waveform . So , uh , I {disfmarker} I know that i sometimes it 's useful to {disfmarker} {pause} to constrain things . So that 's {vocalsound} why it really seems like the constraint {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in all this stuff it 's the constraints that are actually what matters . Because if it wasn't {pause} the constraints that mattered , then we would 've completely solved this problem long ago , because long ago we already knew how to put waveforms into powerful statistical mechanisms . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Well , if we had infinite processing power and {pause} data , {comment} I guess , using the waveform could {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah Uh , then it would work . Yeah , I agree . Yeah . There 's the problem . +PhD D: So , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Then it would work . But {disfmarker} but , I mean , i it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} With finite {pause} of those things {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} we have done experiments where we literally have put waveforms in and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we kept the number of parameters the same and so forth , and it used a lot of training data . And it {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} not infinite but a lot , and then compared to the number parameters {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} it , uh {disfmarker} it just doesn't do nearly as well . So , anyway the point is that you want to suppress {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: it 's not just having the maximum information , you want to suppress , {vocalsound} uh , the aspects of the input signal that are not helpful for {disfmarker} for the discrimination you 're trying to make . So . So maybe just briefly , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well , that sort of segues into {pause} what {disfmarker} what I 'm doing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Um , {vocalsound} so , uh , the big picture is k um , {vocalsound} come up with a set of , {vocalsound} uh , intermediate categories , then build intermediate category classifiers , then do recognition , and , um , improve speech recognition in that way . Um , so right now I 'm in {disfmarker} in the phase where {vocalsound} I 'm looking at {disfmarker} at , um , deciding on a initial set of intermediate categories . And {vocalsound} I 'm looking {vocalsound} for data data - driven {pause} methods that can help me find , {vocalsound} um , a set of intermediate categories {vocalsound} of speech that , uh , will help me to discriminate {pause} later down the line . And one of the ideas , {vocalsound} um , that was to take a {disfmarker} take a neural net {disfmarker} train {disfmarker} train an ordinary neural net {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , to learn the posterior probabilities of phones . And so , um , at the end of the day you have this neural net and it has hidden {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hidden units . And each of these hidden units is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , is learning some sort of pattern . And so , um , what {disfmarker} what are these patterns ? +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: I don't know . Um , and I 'm gonna to try to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at those patterns {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to see , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} from those patterns {disfmarker} uh , presumably those are important patterns for discriminating between phone classes . And maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe some , uh , intermediate categories can come from {vocalsound} just looking at the patterns of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , that the neural net learns . +Professor B: Be - before you get on the next part l let me just point out that s there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a pretty nice {comment} {vocalsound} relationship between what you 're talking about doing and what you 're talking about doing there . Right ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So , {vocalsound} it seems to me that , you know , if you take away the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {pause} the difference of this {pause} primary features , {vocalsound} and , say , you use {disfmarker} as we had talked about maybe doing {disfmarker} you use P - RASTA - PLP or something for the {disfmarker} the primary features , {vocalsound} um , then this feature discovery , {pause} uh , uh , thing {vocalsound} is just what he 's talking about doing , too , except that he 's talking about doing them in order to discover {pause} intermediate categories that correspond {vocalsound} to these {disfmarker} uh , uh , what these sub - features are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are showing you . And , um , {vocalsound} the other difference is that , um , {vocalsound} he 's doing this in a {disfmarker} in a multi - band setting , which means that he 's constraining himself {vocalsound} to look across time in some f relatively limited , uh , uh , spectral extent . Right ? And whereas in {disfmarker} in this case you 're saying "" let 's just do it unconstrained "" . So they 're {disfmarker} they 're really pretty related and maybe they 'll be {disfmarker} at some point where we 'll see the {disfmarker} the connections a little better and {vocalsound} connect them . +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah , so {disfmarker} so that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the first part {disfmarker} uh , one {disfmarker} one of the ideas to get at some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some patterns of intermediate categories . Um , {vocalsound} the other one {pause} was , {vocalsound} um , to , {vocalsound} uh , come up with a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a model {disfmarker} {comment} um , a graphical model , {vocalsound} that treats {pause} the intermediate categories {vocalsound} as hidden {disfmarker} hidden variables , latent variables , that we don't know anything about , but that through , {vocalsound} um , s statistical training and the EM algorithm , {vocalsound} um , at the end of the day , {vocalsound} we have , um {disfmarker} we have learned something about these {disfmarker} these latent , um {disfmarker} latent variables which happen to correspond to {vocalsound} intermediate categories . Um . {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} Yeah , and so those are the {disfmarker} the two directions that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm looking into right now . And , uh , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . +Professor B: OK . Should we do our digits and get ou get our treats ? +Grad E: Oh , tea time ? +Professor B: Yeah . It 's kind of like , you know , the little rats with the little thing dropping down to them . +PhD A: That 's ri +Professor B: We do the digits and then we get our treats . +Grad E: Oops . +PhD A: OK . +","In the conversation, PhD A and Professor B discuss the upcoming visits of Michael Kleinschmidt and Birger Kollmeier, as well as the departure of PhD D in a few weeks. PhD D reports on a conference call with the Aurora group regarding a decision on latency problems and the system specification. They also discuss the need to adjust the Voice Activity Detector (VAD) to reduce latency by ten milliseconds. Grad E and PhD A address the question of human performance in comparison to the system's performance. + +Professor B and Grad C introduce Michael Kleinschmidt, a PhD student from Germany who is joining them for six months. Michael has been working with auditory models for generating speech recognition features. His feature selection involves a data-driven approach using neural nets for classifying the posterior probabilities of phones and determining intermediate categories. + +Grad E's work focuses on finding data-driven methods to identify intermediate categories of speech. He considers two approaches: analyzing the patterns learned by hidden units in a neural network trained to learn posterior probabilities and developing a graphical model with latent variables representing intermediate categories, which are learned through statistical training. + +The group plans to adjust the systems based on the information they've gathered and discussed. They end the conversation with light talk about having tea time and treats as a reward, similar to a reinforcement system for animals." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I g yeah . Time is it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fourteen twenty six . +Project Manager: Okay . Lovely to see you all again . Um {vocalsound} it's our conceptual design meeting and it's starting at approximately fourteen twenty five and so we have forty minutes for this one again and so we'll go just after three o'clock . Um okay {vocalsound} our agenda , we're gonna do an opening , I'm gonna review the minutes of the last meeting , then we'll have your three presentations um and then we'll have to make a decision on the remote control concepts , and finally we'll close . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: opening . Um these are our minutes from r the functional design . We decided our target group is the focus on who can afford it , because we have international appeal and we said it's for all age groups , different um functions of it . Our main objectives were simplicity and fashion . {vocalsound} And s um in specific functions are something to keep the remote from getting lost , large buttons for the essential functions , a possibility for extra functions , like a sliding a sliding piece {vocalsound} and a long-life battery or a charging station . Okay , now three presentations . I'd like to do it in this order , first do the conceptual specification of components , properties and materials {vocalsound} um and then the conceptual specification of user interface {vocalsound} and finally trend watching . +Industrial Designer: That would be me . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Well . +Project Manager: Mm . 'kay . Function F_ eight it . There we go . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um I'm very excited by this one actually guys I uh had a lot of fun doing it . Components design . This is where you look at what does it take to make a remote control and what should we make our specific remote control out of . {vocalsound} Um . So , we need to examine each element separately , but we're designing a full thing , so you wanna keep it integrated as a whole . The main elements of remote controls in general , and therefore ours as well , are the case , the buttons , the circuit board with the chip and the battery . These are all things that we had sort of addressed before , but I'm gonna take each one a little bit separately here as we figure out what they should be made of and what they should look like . The case , uh the options that I've gotten from headquarters about what we can do , um there's there's the shape of a case , we could do a flat sh a flat case , a curved case or maybe even a double double-curved case . I haven't seen any pictures of what this exactly looks like yet , just keep that in mind , but these are the options that we have from manufacturing and we can make our case out of plastic , the m the main base will be plastic , but we have all these sort of fashion and technological elements we can add in , wood , latex , titanium , rubber or other coloured types of plastic . That would be our case . Um buttons , for buttons we have um pushbuttons , which is what Real Reaction uses the most often , but we also have scror scroll wheels , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which can have integrated pushbuttons , or we could go all high-tech and have an L_ L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Um circuit board and chip we can have a simple one , a regular one or an advanced one , depending on what our other needs are . And then battery I think is where things get most exciting . We're talking about long-life batteries here . {vocalsound} Um we can we can have your sort of basic double A_ batteries , but we also have these options of um {vocalsound} using a kinetic battery , like are used in high-tech watches , where you just have to move it a little bit to get it to power up . Um so simple movements like pushing buttons would recharge the battery . Or a solar battery , although there are slight um {vocalsound} complications with solar batteries as in we can't use a latex case if we have a solar battery . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or um something they only described as the type of battery you find in torches from about fifty years ago , flashlights . Not quite sure what that is , but that's the description that I received , so that's what I'm passing on to you . {vocalsound} So those are our options . Um personal preferences that I was thinking through {disfmarker} here's what we've been talking about all through , fashion and simplicity . So if we're going for fashion in our cases , I think that what we're gonna wanna look at is a curved or a double-curved case , probably with a variety of design elements . Maybe titanium , maybe some wood . We're gonna have to investigate that better when I get specifics of the actual materials , but that's sort of what I have in mind . And we wanna go for simplicity . Probably pushbuttons , but I'm sort of intrigued by the idea of a scroll scroll wheel , if anyone has anything +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: any ideas on that ? I mean I know the iPods and things right now have touch scroll um buttons which are exactly like what they're describing , so that might be something we wanna look into . And I'm really intrigued by the idea of a kinetic battery . {vocalsound} Solar I don't think would be such a good idea , because how often are you sure that your remote control will get a certain amount of light . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But this idea of the kinetic , that you don't have to replace , and that a simple just shaking it around will make it work , I think that that m would be a very interesting thing . But I think we'd also wanna go for e a simple chip or regular chip to keep our costs down . Uh we really only need a regular or advanced chip t if we're gonna start using an L_C_D_ . So I think we want to be aware of not making things overly t technological if they don't need to be , 'cause that'll keep our manufacturing price way down . That's what I have for options . Um I'd appreciate anyone's input , but that's what I'm seeing for the future of the the look of this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is double-curved like {disfmarker} would be like two hands kind of thing ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . I haven't received any specific +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: visuals of this yet . +Marketing: 'Cause I'm imagining like double-curved is like , you know , like two sides that curve +Industrial Designer: This is what I'm sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then like one curve would just be like a single vertical-ish kind of looking thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm not sure , +Marketing: but I've no idea . +Industrial Designer: but I'll let you know as soon as I get any pictures . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Yeah , I wonder {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know if we do have a double-curved case , it can't have any titanium in it . But the titanium , they were quite {disfmarker} they're marketing quite hard to us as being used in the space programme , so that could be quite interesting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Space-age remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Just an interesting marketing kind of element . +Industrial Designer: Just all things to keep in mind . Yeah . {vocalsound} That's about all I have to do , guys . I hope I didn't go through that too quickly . +Project Manager: Uh just a real quick question um the weight of these different elements , have you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , n +Project Manager: no idea , okay . +Industrial Designer: no idea , no idea . Um I'm assuming that a kinetic battery isn't gonna take up that much weight , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that a tita titanium is very light , I know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um but other than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: that's really basic , I mean , that's all I have gotten so far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? Any other questions ? +User Interface: Uh-huh . Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No ? Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: I have save this in the uh shared projects , if anyone wants to look +Project Manager: Thank you , perfect . +Industrial Designer: and I have c considerable notes on the topic as well , if anyone needs any more information . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Um if you made notes yourself you can put those on our um {disfmarker} underneath our {disfmarker} oh , uh in your book , +Industrial Designer: Just in my notebook , +Project Manager: then don't worry about that . +Industrial Designer: but if anyone has any specific questions , don't hesitate to email me or something . Alright ? Uh I guess I can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay now we're um concepts concepts of user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , um . This one's so much tighter than the other one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I know . +Project Manager: Okay . Nope . There we go . Here you are . +User Interface: Jess . +Industrial Designer: G oh , geez . +User Interface: Alright , so I'm gonna describe the the concept of the user interface of this des device . Um we've talked about uh the two essential properties of the user interface . We want it to be simple and we want it to be fashionable . Um other {disfmarker} we've also got to remember that this is a device that serves as a useful purpose . Uh we want people to be able to use it s as a remote control , so we need to determine what the essential functions of the d of the device are and make sure that we include {disfmarker} that we've included all of those and that we actually end up with a device that is going to be useful to people . We have a number of different choices for a design concept um and s that's that's something that that I'll show you some examples of um , but essentially we need to choose how how is this device going to work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how how {disfmarker} what kind of model is there going to be for user interaction with this device . Uh once we've chosen a a concept for it , we can then design the features around the concept , making sure that we get all the essential functions in the device and uh the extra functions and the more advanced features . And of course we also have to make it look cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So basically , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's what we don't want . {vocalsound} M we don't want lots of buttons , uh complicated features . We want something that looks nice and simple . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Here's a a fairly simple device . This is an an iPod from Apple . Um I think the main thing to notice about it is it just has four buttons . It's very minimalistic in its design . Uh you use these four buttons to m to move around a range of settings on the small L_C_D_ screen . Um {vocalsound} the thing I like about this is that it's very very quick to access the main features . Uh you can just about make out uh that the button {disfmarker} three buttons are uh previous track , next track and play pause . They're the main the main features of the iPod , the things you will use a all the time . Um then if you want to do anything more advanced , you go into the little menu on the L_C_D_ screen and you use the buttons just to scroll around and and find the more advanced features that you want . So I think that's that's a good a good kind of model that we could have . Um {vocalsound} here's a another example . This is uh {disfmarker} it's an interesting idea and I think i it looks pretty cool . Um it's certainly got novelty value . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's nice and colourful , it's nice and bright . Uh it's also something that you can kind of feel your way around . The buttons are are different shapes and and you can sort of {disfmarker} yeah if you're watching T_V_ in the dark or whatever , you can work out which button's which and basically , yeah it's ith it's fun . So I {vocalsound} I like I like this idea of just having buttons for the features that you use most often . So you'd need a few buttons to select your favourite channels . I mean most people , when they watch T_V_ , they have two hundred and fifty channels on their T_V_ and they watch of 'bout four of them at the most . So , you have buttons for your favourite channel , changing the volume , which is something you do all the time when you're watching T_V_ , and the button to switch it off , in case you get bored . Um other features , things like adjusting the brightness , tuning the T_V_ , uh I don't know what else you do with a T_V_ . Um but these are these are all necessary functions . Uh you can't have a t there's no point having a television that you can't tune or that you can't set the contrast , so we need to find a way of including these somehow . Um and one other suggestions I'd make is to in is to include in a menu system , a bit like on the iPod . So we'd either have a small L_C_D_ display on the device itself , or uh have a dis a menu display that comes up on your television and can b be controlled through the device . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And that would allow you to access access the advanced features uh whilst keeping a very small and simple set of buttons for the features that you use most often . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd be advocating an L_C_D_ then ? +User Interface: I think that's {vocalsound} that's one way to go , yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um I mean there are there are advantages and disadvantages if you if you have an L_C_D_ display , it's it's nice , because it's {disfmarker} it it lets you just sort of sit there and st and control your television from your armchair . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There are disadvantages , an an L_C_D_ display would have to be quite small , 'cause we're we're {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right +User Interface: well we're {disfmarker} I assume we're gonna be making quite a small device . Um it would also have to have uh a kind of backlighting in it , 'cause you ten you tend to watch T_V_ in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but you need to be able to see your L_D_D_ L_C_D_ display . The alternative is to have a {vocalsound} an on-screen display on your television that you control through your remote control . Uh a bit like a bit like how they have these um digital boxes where you you press the buttons and it comes up with your {disfmarker} this thing of watch lo what's on each channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean that that's also a good idea . It's it can it does have it's problems as well , if you've got a small T_V_ and you're sitting on the other side of a room , it's hard to read the little text that comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh but that's a that's a design decision that we can make . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I do think that um one of the important features for a remote is seeing a menu and seeing what's on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like favourite channels is is applicable , but I think th that you do need to have some kind of function where it's {disfmarker} um you have t you can see the title of the show or possibly a description of it . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Are you are you tak +Project Manager: Like I I know I use that often enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait , but is that separate from what he was saying ? +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: if it if it was a L_ L_C_D_ on th on the remote , I don't know that you could f that you'd be able to see a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I think I think we're talking menu like contrast and tuning the V_C_R_ or something if I've understood you correctly , rather than menu as what's on . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that that would be one of the features , yes . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that would be more specifically a digital box , +User Interface: But it's it's it's something to bear in mind is that if we put a display on the remote control the c uh communication is one way , +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can't have the televisions and information back to the remote control , at least I don't think you can . +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're moving on to market . Marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should I plug that in ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is that going on ? Okay . +Marketing: Maybe it's just not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that should be alright , actually . +Marketing: Is it on ? Ri What F_ do you have to press , +Project Manager: Eight . +Marketing: five ? I just keep pressing lots of 'em . Well , I don't know how relevant all of this gonna be . {vocalsound} If anything , the {gap} that they gave me . +Project Manager: Oops , it's not plugged in , quite in well enough . +Industrial Designer: No signal . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: There we are . +Industrial Designer: Oop , there we go . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so we're gonna look a little bit at trend watching . {vocalsound} Basically , I was given um an executive summary that was a market investigation on remote controls that was recently conducted , and then also some fashion watchers in Paris and Milan commented on some things that are gonna be going on this year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So first um they had people {disfmarker} they ranked um the important aspects of r remote controls , and right now i d they're saying that currently there's a functional look and feel preference , but that really , over the next year it it that's gonna be switching to fancy look and feel remotes , so that just goes back to the whole desire of our c Real Reaction company wanting to focus on fashion and so , even though we're stressing , when we're talking , we've all been talking about this like simplicity and easy to use idea , they're sort of wanting us to remember that the number one thing for everyone is that it's fancy look and feel . And as these are ranked , the top one is doubly important to the second one , which is doubly important to the third one , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so just to take that weight into account . {vocalsound} The second thing that was mentioned as important was the technological innovations . That would be like if we use something like the space material or the L_C_D_ screen , things like that . And then ease of use was the third most important , whi so really , no matter what , we need to focus the most on fancy look and feel , according to this . I don't know how much we agree with that . {vocalsound} And then {vocalsound} the fashion watch talks about that this year's top trend for clothes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: shoes and furniture is fruits and vegetables and tha that there's a preference for spongy , {vocalsound} tight material . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S sweet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And so that brings us to my personal preferences . Who wants a spongy remote or one with {vocalsound} fruit and vegetable padding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Personally , I don't really think that I want one that's gonna go out of style or go stale , excuse the pun , um in a year , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} even though this is coming from us as , you know , trend watch , market research , I don't know how much of it we necessarily {vocalsound} wanna take away . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Also , considering that the d research b has been carried out by Real Reaction , I'm a little hesitant as to {vocalsound} like , how these questions may have been worded , and if necessarily this whole fashion to technology y edas ease of use is necessarily the right ranking . Personally , like I might reverse it , but if we're working for this company then I guess no matter what , we have to stress fashion the most . {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it doesn't necessarily need to be a spongy material . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} there's all kinds of scope for imagination in that one though . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't have a lot of notes to share if you want them , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that pretty much sums it up . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , do we have any {disfmarker} s some questions for this , let's see um . +Marketing: Yeah , what can I possibly enlighten on ? +Project Manager: Um do you have any ideas how to possibly use these ? Um how to how to use a fruit or vegetable or um or the spongy material at all ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Like could we make a s like could we make a spongy remote ? It would be easier on the hands . +Industrial Designer: If it's latex {disfmarker} if it's latexy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's kind of {disfmarker} and then it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we would have to find a way to protect like the chip and all that , +User Interface: A kind of thing that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: An uh I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} my understanding of a latex case is that it's in fact hard to protect stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that it's covered with the latex , which is spongier and softer on your hands . It's {disfmarker} there's something to be said , I mean we we got that thing earlier from you about um not wanting it to {disfmarker} R_ R_ repetitive stress injuries and things +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , so something , m m instead of a necess +Industrial Designer: something grippable , I mean we don't we don't we don't wanna go spongy , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah , grip , I'm thinking grip more than like sinking into your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: you know , i and I think I'm envisioning more like , you know , the material that you have when you sit on like a bicycle , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that it doesn't hurt when you're sitting down for a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like I'm imagining that sort of thing , I don't know what th that material's called . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that given the list of materials I w I was forwarded it's {disfmarker} that seems doable . {vocalsound} could we go in fruit and vegetable colours ? We could colour-co-ordinate them , +Project Manager: F for sure , or maybe like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: um couple main ones being like , I dunno , lemons or strawberries or something . +Industrial Designer: The buttons could be fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: Could they be smelly ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I Is it supposed to be shaped like a vegetable ? Uh like uh I dunno , like uh carrots or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or carrot shaped , +Industrial Designer: it's quite easy to s shape thing like carrot +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Maybe , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like large button , +Industrial Designer: Or maybe the buttons could be shaped like different fruits . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's what I was thinking of , yeah . +Marketing: What about the idea of like a round remote ? Instead of like a vertical up and down one . Like in terms of holding it . Like that's a f shape of a fruit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of like a potato . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Might {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'd be harder to f bu uh buttons I think . +Project Manager: would you think you you {disfmarker} do you think you'd be able to hold it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just to tie it in a little . +Project Manager: 'Cause I think the reason they're long is {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It'd be harder to press button . +Project Manager: Harder to push . +User Interface: Depends . When you when you use a remote , do you press the buttons with your thumb , usually ? Or your fingers ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I usually hold it in one hand . Maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe you want something that's shaped like a mobile phone , so you you hold it in one hand , and you press the buttons with your thumb . +Project Manager: But then the buttons would have to be very small . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's ts how I tend to do it . +Project Manager: Don't you think ? +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: just thumb-sized . +Marketing: 'cause otherwise your fingers can't move around . +Industrial Designer: Jus +Project Manager: But I mean in order to get to all of them , +Marketing: But I like i +Project Manager: you know . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: They would have to be within a certain amount of space with each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +User Interface: But if you've only got like four or five buttons anyway , then it's it's not so much a problem , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Right . I When I'm when I'm pressing buttons on my iPod , that's how I do it , hold it and press the four . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you hold it in one hand and you press you press the buttons with your thumb +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or in and use my thumb or my pointer finger on the touch scroll wheel . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} And you find that works quite well ? +Marketing: I love the idea of the wheel like the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause th +User Interface: The button on an iPod , is it {disfmarker} what is it , is it just four buttons or is it li more like a scroll thing ? +Marketing: It's like five , +Project Manager: It's a scroll , yeah , it's a wheel . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} wel well {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause there's one in the middle . +Industrial Designer: yeah , it would {disfmarker} I mean each version of it has been a little bit different , +Project Manager: The one I have doesn't have the four on i like around it , I don't think . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh yeah , you had one of the in-between ones , when they weren't doing that anymore . Ts and you press the centre button , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: that's that's your all-purpose select button right there . +User Interface: Oh , I see , right , yeah . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Since it's the one in the centre that's not marked , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's quite a good design . +Marketing: I think why it would be good for us is 'cause like you could have the same wheel sort of effect for like channel flipping and then the other one could be like for volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like just the idea of like those {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh +Marketing: so few buttons for main things , +Industrial Designer: t +Marketing: but then how you could go back to the menu and like , I dunno if we would want it on the screen there or on the actual T_V_ . I kind of am wanting to say on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause if you're changing the brightness , don't you wanna see it happening , kind of ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then you could still have that available . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think an {vocalsound} L_C_D_ screen might be good in theory , but not as useful in practice . +User Interface: I think it could be difficult in practice , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Also z yeah , 'cause you would be z looking down at the L_C_D_ screen , than back up at your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and people don't wanna do that . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay um we have we've about fifteen minutes left , +Industrial Designer: Oh we probably have to get going , don't we ? +Project Manager: so I'm I'm gonna continue with my pres presentation . Um I've one more slide before we close , but in that slide is when we need to make decisions about this {disfmarker} these kinds of things , so I'll just bring that up and show you all +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Project Manager: before we move on . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} Could we uh could we have changeable covers like for your mobile ? In different fruit and vegetable colours , +Marketing: If I get any more information of fruits and vegetables , I'll let you know . +User Interface: Like , to make it different fruits . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then like the the covers could be spongy latex +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: wherea but the actual model could be titanium . +Industrial Designer: And you could co-ordinate with your house {vocalsound} or whatever . All these options . +User Interface: I think maybe th the packaging , it should be like a lemon and the the packaging is like the peel . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So instead of opening the box you just kind of peel it , and the remote control's inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Ah hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Don't know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: there we go . The iPod packaging is me like was so {disfmarker} that was like half the fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's like the way it all comes all cute . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Options . +Marketing: Lemons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: components concept . Energy , chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Uh-hu oh , oh yes . +Project Manager: G +Industrial Designer: Right , I had sort of skipped over that hoping it wouldn't get {disfmarker} be necessary but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's th th this is the agenda they gave me . So can you just explain what that is real quick ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , so um decisions , what the {disfmarker} okay deci decisions on energy I'm thinking is based on the battery . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno , what do people think about this kinetic battery idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's awesome . I think it's really cool . +Industrial Designer: Am I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean , it would t totally take care of our problem of not wanting to change batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , um I think it's good , as as long as we consider the the cost and the uh how reliable it is , +Industrial Designer: Right , I haven't gotten any {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as far as I know , the technology is good . +Marketing: Costs . +Industrial Designer: yeah , any more information on cost other than it's more expensive than a regular battery , but um but if we're using a an i a cheaper chip , then it'll even out , I think . +Marketing: But over time {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um circuit boards . Um yeah , I got a whole bunch of information on how circuit boards are produced . They're {vocalsound} they're thin fibreglass with copper wires etched on to them , and di I think they're quite easily printed on by machine , which is chip on print is where the machine prints on the wires and solders it all together for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't really know what to tell you as far as decisions . I wasn't really given any options , I was just given that this is how they're done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I can't can't really tell you . I can I can tell you a whole lot about how it works . But I don't know any decisions on {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If they're if they're really options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I did f +User Interface: Al all circuit boards are pretty much the same , I think . Uh it's fairly fairly standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , then we'll move on to the case . Um oh bu I guess maybe if we decided on like a simple , a regular , or an advanced chip , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well okay , here's the here's the thing on the chips that I that I got . Um simple , regular , advanced chip on print . The chip on print includes an infrared sensor , so we don't have to worry about that . Um , {vocalsound} 'kay , the pushbutton {disfmarker} if we're gonna have pushbuttons , they require a simple chip , but a scroll wheel requires a regular chip , and an L_C_D_ requires advanced . Do we want a scroll wheel , or do we just want pushbuttons ? +User Interface: Um I don't think we ne really need the scroll whe wheel . I mean it might be nice for changing the volume . +Project Manager: It would be nice for changing the volume , +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I don't know how useful it'd be for changing the channel . 'Cause you don't have control over numbers +User Interface: I don't think it would really work . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you really need buttons for changing a channel . +Industrial Designer: th it'd be it'd be handy for going through if there was an on-screen menu of your channel choices , than you can scroll down on the scroll . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But if you c if you could scroll through the channels , and then the volume would just be +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left for the meeting , so . +Marketing: and the volume would just be like the same way , forward and backward as {disfmarker} I'm just thinking like it would make it much like sleeker sort of looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And otherwise , no matter how may buttons we have , we're gonna have like , you know , black with red sticking out and th no {disfmarker} it's gonna inevitably sort of start looking like those group of sort of ugly ones that we saw stacked up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So , have a scroll for volume ? +Industrial Designer: F or for all those secret functions ? +Project Manager: F +Industrial Designer: When you get on the on-screen menu of all your functions that your remote could do for you without the buttons and you could have a scroll wheel to go through those menus . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think a scroll wheel would be nice , but it's not necessary . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . So we could either go with a simple or a regular chip , depending {disfmarker} and maybe we could table that decision for later . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: I think w well {disfmarker} I think when we go on to the une userface , we're gonna have to decide {disfmarker} the interface we're gonna have to decide um whether we're gonna have a scroll or not . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , let's think about that while we talk about the case . +Project Manager: Okay , let's do case . +Industrial Designer: Uh I'm kinda liking the idea of latex , if if spongy is the in thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm a little um I'm a little hesitant about it , because I'm worried about protecting the stuff on the inside . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh could it be hard , and then something around it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , everything I've {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I would be more okay with like a titanium actual thing and then maybe like a mobile phone kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: N oh wha what I've what I've seen , just not related to this , but of latex cases before , is that {vocalsound} there's uh like a hard plastic inside , and it's just covered with the latex . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not too thick a layer of latex , just enough to be grippable , like bike handles or or anything that you've seen like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: The inside is hard . I don't think we need to worry about protecting the circuit board , +Project Manager: Ge o +Industrial Designer: I think that that's done for us . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we uh we do want latex . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Latex . Um and probably in colours , maybe fruity , vegetable colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity colours . {vocalsound} Okay um let's go to the ufe user interface then we'll come back to the chip I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Oh and we want a curved case , yeah ? Or a double-curved ? +Project Manager: Well , we don't really know what the difference is , right ? +Marketing: I'm thinking curved of some sort . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We don't really know what the difference {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , interface , the type and the supplements . So push or scroll , +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: right ? Or both ? +User Interface: Yep . Um {disfmarker} And I think if we wanna keep our costs down , we should just go for pushbuttons , 'cause then we can have a a simple chip and it's simpler , it's it's cheaper to make pushbuttons than it is a scroll button . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: So in terms of uh in terms of uh economics it's probably better to have pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And if we had a sc an on-screen um kind of thing that you could scroll through , like you can use your buttons to scroll through things . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's fairly simple . +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} yeah . For channel surfing I think a scroll {disfmarker} an actual {disfmarker} like an iPod's kind of scroll thing would be too fast , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I say pushbuttons at least unless we get any information but I have no idea how much more expensive a scroll wheel is than than a pushbutton , but it's gotta be some more expensive , so I think it might be better to put our money into the stuff like the kinetic battery and the cool case +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How you feeling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And let's like see if we get anything else . I mean I'm not like hard-sold on the scroll wheel , it's more just to give it a different kind of look , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but if it's gonna be in a latex type thing and that's gonna look cool , then that's probably gonna have a bigger impact than the scroll wheel . +Project Manager: It might be cool enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're gonna go with um type pushbuttons , and then supplements , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: how are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: Uh what do you mean by supplements , exactly ? +Project Manager: Um I assume that's what else we're gonna {disfmarker} like h ha the um the additional buttons we can use . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're gonna have like a menu button , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so that we can access on-screen things then ? +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um so we're doing an on-screen menu that we can scroll through . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Um in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what are what are our buttons gonna be ? +User Interface: Yeah . On off , +Industrial Designer: On off {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh volume , favourite channels , uh and menu . +Industrial Designer: So like one through five , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah +Marketing: Like a radio type sorta situation ? +User Interface: about {disfmarker} yeah like {disfmarker} yeah , a bit like radio presets . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Pre-set channels and then we're gonna need um numbers one through zero , right ? +User Interface: Uh we wouldn't even need the numbers . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I think maybe numbers seems {disfmarker} is kind of old-fashioned . +Project Manager: Well , but in order to pre-set a cha oh I guess you can just hold it down when you get to one when you're scrolling through . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and you need some kind of , I dunno , sort of up down kind of button , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , up down . +User Interface: but the volume control could double for that , for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , um finishing the meeting now . Um our next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um you each have things to do , look and feel design , user interface design , product evaluation , and you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . You'll get specific instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . +Project Manager: Um did we decide on a chip ? Let's go with a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: Simple chip . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We are done . Thank you everyone . Oh I di these are already in our shared folder , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cool . Clay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Clay . I wasn't expecting that . {vocalsound} +","Project team discusses remote control design emphasizing simplicity and fashion. The industrial designer presents options for the case, buttons, circuit board, and battery. A decision is made to focus on a latex case, pushbuttons, and a simple chip, taking into account cost-effectiveness and ease of use. The user interface team advocates for a minimalistic design with essential buttons and an on-screen menu for advanced features. Marketing highlights trend research favoring fancy look and feel, with interest in fruit and vegetable themes. The meeting ends with plans for look and feel design, user interface design, product evaluation, and prototype creation with modelling clay." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: As usual . +Grad B: Yes . Whew ! I almost forgot {pause} about the meeting . I woke up twenty minutes ago , thinking , what did I forget ? +Grad D: It 's great how the br brain sort of does that . +Grad E: Something 's not right here . +Grad B: Internal alarms . +Grad D: OK . So the news for me is A , my forthcoming travel plans +Grad B: Yes . +Grad D: in two weeks from today ? Yeah ? More or less ? I 'll be off to Sicily and Germany for a couple , three days . +Grad B: Now what are y what are you doing there ? I forgot ? +Grad D: OK , I 'm flying to Sicily basically to drop off Simon there with his grandparents . And then I 'm flying to Germany t to go to a MOKU - Treffen which is the meeting of all the module - responsible people in SmartKom , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: and , represent ICI and myself I guess there . And um . That 's the mmm actual reason . And then I 'm also going up to EML for a day , and then I 'm going to {vocalsound} meet the very big boss , Wolfgang Walster , in Saarbruecken and the System system integration people in Kaiserslautern and then I 'm flying back via Sicily pick up my son come back here on the fourth of July . And uh . +Grad E: What a great time to be coming back to the +Grad B: God bless America . +Grad E: You 'll see maybe {disfmarker} see the fireworks from your plane coming in . +Grad D: And I 'm sure all the {disfmarker} the people at the airport will be happy to work on that day . +Grad E: Yeah . You 'll get even better service than usual . +Grad B: Wait , aren't you flying on Lufthansa though ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Alitalia . +Grad B: Oh . Well then the {disfmarker} you know , it 's not a big deal . Once you get to the United States it 'll be a problem , but +Grad D: Yeah . And um , that 's that bit of news , and the other bit of news is we had {disfmarker} you know , uh , I was visited by my German project manager who A , did like what we did {disfmarker} what we 're doing here , and B , is planning to come here either three weeks in July or three weeks in August , to actually work . +Grad B: On {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: With us . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: And we sat around and we talked and he came up {disfmarker} we came up {disfmarker} with a pretty strange idea . And that 's what I 'm gonna lay on you now . And um , maybe it might be ultimately the most interesting thing for Eva because she has been known to complain about the fact that the stuff we do here is not weird enough . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So this is so weird it should even make you happy . +Grad C: Uh . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Oh great . +Grad D: Imagine if you will , {vocalsound} that we have a system that does all that understanding that we want it to do based on utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It should be possible to make that system produce questions . So if you have the knowledge of how to interpret "" where is X ? "" under given conditions , situational , user , discourse and ontological {vocalsound} conditions , you should also be able to make that same system ask "" where is X ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: in a sper certain way , based on certain intentions . So in instead of just being able to observe phenomenon , um , and , guess the intention we might be able just to sort of give it an intention , and make it produce an utterance . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , like in AI they generally do the take in , and then they also do the generation phase , like Nancy 's thing . Or uh , you remember , in the {disfmarker} the hand thing in one - eighty - two , like not only was it able to recognize but it was also to generate based upon situations . You mean that sort of thing ? +Grad D: Absolutely . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And once you 've done that what we can do is have the system ask itself . And answer , understand the answer , ask something else , and enter a dialogue with itself . So the {disfmarker} the ba basic {disfmarker} the same idea as having two chess computers play against each other . +Grad E: Except this smacks a little bit more of a schizophrenic computer than AI . +Grad D: Yeah you c if you want , you can have two parallel {vocalsound} machines um , asking each other . What would that give us ? Would A be something completely weird and strange , and B , i if you look at all the factors , we will never observe people let 's say , in wheelchairs under {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} under all conditions , +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: you know , when they say "" X "" , and there is a ride at the goal , and the parking is good , we can never collect enough data . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Grad D: But maybe one could do some learning . If you get the system to speak to itself , you may find n break downs and errors and you may be able to learn . And make it more robust , maybe learn new things . And um , so there 's no {disfmarker} no end of potential things one could get out of it , if that works . And he would like to actually work on that with us . +Grad B: Well then , he probably should be coming back a year {pause} from now . +Grad D: So Yeah , I w See the {disfmarker} the generation bit , making the system generate {disfmarker} generate something , {comment} is {disfmarker} shouldn't be too hard . +Grad B: Well , once the system understands things . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +Grad B: I just don't think {disfmarker} I think we 're probably a year away from getting the system to understand things . +Grad D: Yeah . Well , if we can get it to understand one thing , like our "" where is "" run through we can also , maybe , e make it say , or ask "" where is X ? "" Or not . +Grad E: Mmm , I don't know . e I 'm sort of {disfmarker} have the impression that getting it to say the right thing in the right circumstances is much more difficult than getting it to understand something given the circumstances and so on , you know , I mean just cuz it 's sort of harder to learn to speak correctly in a foreign language , rather than learning to understand it . Right ? I mean +Grad D: +Grad E: just the fact that we 'll get {disfmarker} The point is that getting it to understand one construction doesn't mean that it will n always know exactly when it 's correct to use that construction . Right ? +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've done generation and language production research for fo four {disfmarker} four and a half years . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you 're right , it 's not the same as the understanding . It 's in some ways easier and some ways harder . nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: But , um , I think it 'd be fun to look at it , or into that question . +Grad E: Nnn , yeah . +Grad D: It 's a pretty strange idea . And so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad B: The basic idea I guess would be to give {disfmarker} allow the system to have intentions , basically ? Cuz that 's basically what needs to be added to the system for it . +Grad D: Well , look at th eee , I think even {disfmarker} think even {disfmarker} What it {disfmarker} would be the {disfmarker} the prior intention . So let 's uh {disfmarker} uh , let 's say we have this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well we 'd have to seed that , I mean . +Grad D: No . Let 's {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} we have some {disfmarker} some top - down processing , given certain setting . OK , now we change nothing , and just say ask something . Right ? +Grad B: +Grad D: What would it ask ? +Grad B: It wouldn't know what to ask . I mean . +Grad D: It shur +Grad B: Unless it was in a situation . We 'd have to set up a situation where , it didn't know where something was and it wanted to go there . +Grad D: Yeah ! +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Which means that we 'd need to set up an intention inside of the system . Right ? Which is basically , "" I don't know where something is and I need to go there "" . +Grad D: Eh , n +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Ooh , do we really need to do that ? Because , +Grad B: Well , no I guess not . Excel +Grad D: s It 's {disfmarker} i I know it 's {disfmarker} it 's strange , but look at it {disfmarker} look at our Bayes - net . If we don't have {disfmarker} Let 's assume we don't have any input from the language . Right ? So there 's also nothing we could query the ontology , but we have a certain user setting . If you just ask , what is the likelihood of that person wanting to enter some {disfmarker} something , it 'll give you an answer . +Grad B: Sure . +Grad D: Right ? That 's just how they are . And so , @ @ whatever that is , it 's the generic default intention . That it would find out . Which is , wanting to know where something is , maybe nnn {disfmarker} and wanting {disfmarker} I don't know what it 's gonna be , but there 's gonna be something that +Grad E: Well you 're not gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna get a variety of intentions out of that then ? I mean , you 're just talking about like given this user , what 's the th what is it {disfmarker} what is that user most likely to want to do ? +Grad D: Well you can observe some user and context stuff and ask , what 's the posterior probabilities of all of our decision nodes . +Grad E: And , have it talk about {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: You could even say , "" let 's take all the priors , let 's observe nothing "" , and query all the posterior probabilities . It - it 's gonna tell us something . Right ? +Grad B: Well , it will d r assign values to all the nodes . Yes . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} Yes . And come up with posterior probabilities for all the values of the decision nodes . Which , if we have an algorithm that filters out whatever the {disfmarker} the best or the most consistent answer out of that , will give us the intention ex nihilo . And that is exactly what would happen if we ask it to produce an utterance , it would be b based on that extension , ex nihilo , which we don't know what it is , but it 's there . So we wouldn't even have to {disfmarker} t to kick start it by giving it a certain intention or observing anything on the decision node . And whatever that {disfmarker} maybe that would lead to "" what is the castle ? "" , +Grad B: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: or "" what is that whatever "" . +Grad B: I guess what I 'm afraid of is if we don't , you know , set up a {pause} situation , {comment} we 'll just get a bunch of garbage out , like you know , everything 's exactly thirty percent . +Grad D: No {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So what we actually then need to do is {disfmarker} is write a little script that changes all the settings , you know , go goes through all the permutations , which is {disfmarker} we did a {disfmarker} didn't we calculate that once ? +Grad B: Well that was {disfmarker} that was absurdly low , in the last meeting , +Grad D: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , +Grad B: cuz I went and looked at it cuz I was thinking , that could not be right , and it would {disfmarker} it was on the order of twenty output nodes and something like twenty {disfmarker} +Grad C: And like thirty input nodes +Grad B: thirty input nodes . +Grad C: or some {disfmarker} +Grad B: So to test every output node , uh , would at least {disfmarker} Let 's see , so it would be two to the thirty for every output node ? Which is very th very large . +Grad D: Oh ! That 's n +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's nothing for those neural guys . I mean , they train for millions and millions of epochs . +Grad B: Well , I 'm talking about +Grad D: So . +Grad B: Oh , I was gonna take a drink of my water . I 'm talking about billions and billions and billions and a number {disfmarker} two to the thirty is like a Bhaskara said , we had calculated out and Bhaskara believes that it 's larger than the number of particles in the universe . And if i +Grad E: I don't know if that 's right or not . Th - that 's big . That 's just {disfmarker} That 's uh {disfmarker} It 's a billion , right ? +Grad B: Two to the thirty ? Well , two to the thirty is a billion , but if we have to do it two to the twenty times , then that 's a very very large number . +Grad E: Right . Argh . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , that 's big . +Grad B: Cuz you have to query the node , for every a uh , or query the net two to the twenty times . +Grad E: Sure . Alright . +Grad B: Or not two to th excuse me , twenty times . +Grad E: OK . So , is it t comes to twenty billion or something ? +Grad B: Yes . As far as {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's pretty big , though . +Grad B: That 's @ @ {disfmarker} That 's big . Actually {disfmarker} Oh ! We calculated a different number before . How did we do that ? +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: I remember there being some other one floating around . But anyway , uh . +Grad C: I don't really know . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's g Anyway , the point is that given all of these different factors , it 's uh e it 's {disfmarker} it 's still going to be impossible to run through all of the possible situations or whatever . +Grad C: Ooo , it 's just big . +Grad E: But I mean , this 'll get us a bit closer at least , right ? I mean . +Grad B: If it takes us a second to do , for each one , and let 's say it 's twenty billion , {comment} then that 's twenty billion seconds , which is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Eva , do the math . +Grad C: Can't . +Grad E: Long ! +Grad C: +Grad B: Hours and hours and hours and hours . But we can do randomized testing . +Grad E: Tah - dah ! +Grad B: Which probabilistically will be good enough . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , it be it it 's an idea that one could n for {disfmarker} for example run {disfmarker} run past , um , what 's that guy 's name ? You know ? He - he 's usually here . Tsk . J J Jer - Jerj +Grad E: Here in the group ? Jerry Feldman . +Grad D: Oh , yeah . That 's the guy . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we g +Grad B: Wait , who ? +Grad E: Yeah , i that would the g the bald guy . +Grad B: Oh ! My advisor ! +Grad D: And um . so this is just an idea that 's floating around and we 'll see what happens . And um , hmm , what other news do I have ? Well we fixed some more things from the SmartKom system , but that 's not really of general interest , Um , Oh ! Questions , yeah . I 'll ask Eva about the E Bayes and she 's working on that . How is the generation XML thing ? +Grad B: I 'm gonna work on that today and tomorrow . +Grad D: OK . No need to do it today or tomorrow even . Do it next week or {disfmarker} +Grad B: I 'm gonna finish it today , uh hopefully . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I wanna do one of those things where I stay here . Cuz uh , if I go home , I can't finish it . I 've tried about five times so far , where I work for a while and then I 'm like , I 'm hungry . So I go home , and then I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm not going back . +Grad B: Yeah . Either that or I think to myself , I can work at home . And then I try to work at home , but I fail miserably . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Like I ended up at Blakes last night . +Grad E: Non - conducive . +Grad B: No . I almost got into a brawl . But I did not finish the uh , But I 've been looking into it . I th @ @ It 's not like it 's a blank slate . I found everything that I need and stu and uh , +Grad D: But st +Grad B: At the b uh furthermore , I told Jerry that I was gonna finish it before he got back . So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: That 's approaching . He 's coming back when ? Uh next {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think {disfmarker} we think we 'll see him definitely on Tuesday for the next {disfmarker} Or , no , wait . The meetings are on Thursday . +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad B: Maybe . +Grad D: Who knows . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Well , we 'll see him next week . +Grad E: Alright . +Grad D: That 's good . Yeah . The paper . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: I was thinking about that . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I will try to work on the SmartKom stuff and I 'll {disfmarker} if I can finish it today , I 'll help you with that tomorrow , if you work on it ? I don't have a problem with us working on it though ? So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} +Grad D: So you would say it 's funky cool . +Grad B: I mean we just {disfmarker} I mean it wouldn't hurt to write up a paper , cuz then , I mean , yeah {disfmarker} I was talking with Nancy and Nancy said , you don't know whether you have a paper to {pause} write up until you write it up . So . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Well +Grad B: And since Jerry 's coming back , we can run it by him too . So . +Grad D: Yep . Um , what 's your input ? +Grad E: Well , um , I don't have much experience with uh , conference papers for compu in the computer science realm , and so when I looked at what you had , which was apparently a complete submission , I just sort of said what {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I didn't really know what to do with it , like , this is the sort of the basic outline of the system or whatever , or {disfmarker} or "" here 's an idea "" , right ? That 's what that paper was , "" here 's {disfmarker} here 's one possible thing you could do "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: short , eight pages , and I just don't know what you have in mind for expanding . Like I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I didn't do is go to the web site of the conference and look at what they 're looking for or whatever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , it seems to me that um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Wait , is this a computer science conference or is it a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , well it 's more {disfmarker} It 's both , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of t cognitive , neural , psycho , linguistic , but all for the sake of doing computer science . So it 's sort of cognitive , psycho , neural , plausibly motivated , architectures of natural language processing . So it seems pretty interdisciplinary , and I mean , w w the keynote speaker is Tomasello and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Right . Oh , yeah . +Grad D: so , W the {disfmarker} the question is what could we actually do and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and keep a straight face while doing it . +Grad B: Well , I really can't keep a straight face doing anything . +Grad D: And i My idea is , +Grad E: Setting that aside . +Grad D: well , you can say we have done a little bit and that 's this , and uh sort of the rest is position paper , "" we wanna also do that "" . Which is not too good . Might be more interesting to do something like let 's assume um , we 're right , we have as Jerry calls it , a delusion of adequacy , and take a "" where is X "" sentence , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and say , "" we will just talk about this , and how we cognitively , neurally , psycho - linguistically , construction grammar - ally , motivated , envision uh , understanding that "" . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: So we can actually show how we parse it . That should be able to {disfmarker} we should be able to come up with , you know , a sort of a {disfmarker} a parse . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's on , just {disfmarker} just put it on . +Grad A: I 'm OK . +Grad B: Did Ben harass you ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Good . +Grad A: Was he supposed to harass me ? +Grad B: Yes . +Grad A: Well , he just told me that you came looking for me . +Grad D: You don +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: +Grad A: figure this out . +Grad D: You will suffer in hell , you know that . +Grad E: Backwards . There 's a s diagram somewhere which tells you how to put that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I know , I didn't understand that either ! +Grad B: No wait . You have to put it on exactly like that , +Grad D: This is it . Yeah . +Grad B: so put that {disfmarker} those things over your ears like that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: See the p how the plastic things ar arch out like that ? There we go . +Grad A: OK . It hurts . +Grad B: It hurts . It hurts real bad . +Grad A: It does ! I 'm sorry I didn't mean to {disfmarker} +Grad E: But that 's what you get for coming late to the meeting . +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , oh these are all the same . OK ! th this is not very {pause} on target . +Grad B: Is your mike on ? +Grad C: An +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Yeah , it is . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Alright , you guys can continue talking about whatever you were talking about before . +Grad E: Um , +Grad D: We 're talking about this um , alleged paper that we may , just , sort of w +Grad A: Oh ! Which Johno mentioned to me . Uh - huh . +Grad D: Yeah . And I just sort of brought forth the idea that we take a sentence , "" Where is the Powder - Tower "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and we {disfmarker} we p pretend to parse it , we pretend to understand it , and we write about it . +Grad E: Hmm . About how {vocalsound} all of these things {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the part that 's not pretend ? The writing ? +Grad D: OK , then we pretend to write about . +Grad E: The submitting to a major international conference . {comment} {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Tha - {vocalsound} Which conference is it for ? +Grad D: It 's the whatever , architectures , eh you know , where {disfmarker} There is this conference , it 's the seventh already international conference , on neu neurally , cognitively , motivated , architectures of natural language processing . +Grad A: Oh . Wow . Interesting . +Grad D: And the keynote speakers are Tomasello , MacWhinney ? +Grad A: Whinney . {comment} MacWhinney. Uh - huh . +Grad D: We - MacWhinney , I think . +Grad E: +Grad A: So , interesting , both , like , child language people . +Grad D: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: So maybe you wanna write something too . +Grad A: Yeah , maybe I wanna go . Um , why are they speaking at it if it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Grad A: is {disfmarker} is it normally like {disfmarker} like , dialogue systems , or , you know , other NLP - ish things ? +Grad D: No no no no no no no no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's like a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it 's cognitive . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . Even neuro . +Grad A: And uh , both learning and like , comprehension , production , that kinda stuff . +Grad D: Psycho . You could look at the web site . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . I don't know about it . +Grad D: And the ad and {disfmarker} and the deadline is the fifteenth of June . +Grad A: Yeah that 's pretty soon . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hey . Plenty of time . +Grad E: Why , we 've got over a week ! +Grad D: It would be nice to go write two papers actually . Yeah . And one {disfmarker} one from your perspective , and one from our peve per per +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I mean , th that 's the kinda thing that maybe like , um , the general uh con sort of like NTL - ish like , whatever , the previous simulation based pers {comment} maybe you 're talking about the same kind of thing . A general paper about the approach here would probably be appropriate . And good to do at some point anyway . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Well , I {disfmarker} I also think that if we sort of write about what we have done in the past six months , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could sort of craft a nice little paper that {pause} if it gets rejected , which could happen , doesn't hurt +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because it 's something we eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Having it is still a good thing . +Grad D: having it is a good {disfmarker} good thing . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's a nice exercise , it 's {disfmarker} I usually enjoy writing papers . It 's not {disfmarker} I don't re regard it as a painful thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . It 's fun . +Grad D: And um , we should all do more for our publication lists . And . It just never hurts . And Keith and - or Johno will go , probably . +Grad B: Will I ? +Grad A: When is it and where ? +Grad D: In case of {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Grad D: It 's on the twenty second of September , in Saarbruecken Germany . +Grad A: Ah , it 's in Germany . Ah , OK . I s I see . Tomasello 's already in Germany anyway , so makes sense . OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . OK . So , is the {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Are you just talking about you know , the details of how to do it , or whether to do it , or what it would be ? +Grad E: What would one possibly put in such a paper ? +Grad D: What to write about . +Grad A: Or what to write about ? +Grad D: What is our {disfmarker} what 's our take home message . What {disfmarker} what do we actually {disfmarker} Because I mean , it {disfmarker} I don't like papers where you just talk about what you plan to do . I mean , it 's obvious that we can't do any kind of evaluation , and have no {disfmarker} you know , we can't write an ACL type paper where we say , "" OK , we 've done this +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and now we 're whatever percentage better than everybody else "" . You know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It 's far too early for that . But uh , we {disfmarker} we can tell them what we think . I mean that 's {disfmarker} never hurts to try . And um , maybe even {disfmarker} That 's maybe the time to introduce the {disfmarker} the new formalism that you guys have cooked up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are in the process of {disfmarker} +Grad A: How many pages ? +Grad B: don't they need to finish the formalism ? +Grad D: It 's just like four pages . +Grad A: Four pages ? +Grad D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not even a h +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so it 's a little thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Well , you said it was four thousand lines ? +Grad E: Oh . +Grad B: Is that what you s +Grad A: OK . Four pages is , like , really not very much space . +Grad D: I don't know w Did you look at it ? Yeah , it depends on the format . +Grad E: Oh my gosh . Oh , I thought you were {disfmarker} I thought we were talking about something which was much more like ten or something . +Grad D: No that 's {disfmarker} I mean that 's actually a problem . It 's difficu it 's more difficult to write on four pages than on eight . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: And it 's also difficult to {disfmarker} even if you had a lot of substance , it 's hard to demonstrate that in four pages , basically . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad E: That would be hard . +Grad A: I mean it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well I uh maybe it 's just four thousand lines . I do I don't {disfmarker} They don't want any {disfmarker} They don't have a TeX f style @ @ guide . +Grad A: Uh - huh , uh - huh . +Grad D: They just want ASCII . Pure ASCII lines , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: whatever . Why , for whatever reason , +Grad A: Not including figures and such ? +Grad D: I don't know . I don't know . Very unspecific unfortunately . +Grad A: OK . Well , +Grad D: We 'll just uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would say that 's closer to six pages actually . Four thousand lines of ASCII ? +Grad D: OK then . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Four thousand lines . I mean . Isn't a isn't it about fifty s fifty five , sixty lines to a page ? +Grad D: I d don't quote me on this . This is numbers I {disfmarker} I have from looking o +Grad B: How many characters are on a line ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: ASCII ? +Grad D: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} wh wh what should we {disfmarker} should {disfmarker} should we uh , um , discuss this over tea and all of us look at the web ? Oh , I can't . I 'm wizarding today . +Grad A: OK , look at the web page ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: Wha - w +Grad D: Look at the web page and let 's talk about it maybe tomorrow afternoon ? +Grad A: More cues for us to find it are like , neural cons +Grad D: Johno will send you a link . +Grad A: Oh , you have a link . OK . OK . +Grad B: I got an email . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: By the way , Keith is comfortable with us calling him "" cool Keith "" . +Grad A: Oh . Cool . Keith . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he decided {vocalsound} I 'm chilling in the five - one - O . +Grad A: Cool , "" cool Keith "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Excellent . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: That 's a very cool T - shirt . +Grad E: Thank you . +Grad D: And I 'm also flying {disfmarker} +Grad E: I got this from the two one two . +Grad A: New York ? Excellent . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Yes ? +Grad D: I 'm flying to Sicily next {disfmarker} in a w two weeks from now , +Grad A: Oh , lucky you . +Grad D: w and a week of business in Germany . I should mention that for you . And otherwise you haven't missed much , except for a really weird idea , but you 'll hear about that soon enough . +Grad A: The idea that you and I already know about ? That you already told me ? Not that {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: No , no , no . Yeah , that is something for the rest of the gang to {disfmarker} to g +Grad E: The thing with the goats and the helicopters ? +Grad D: Change the watchband . It 's time to walk the sheep . +Grad C: like +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Um . Did you catch that allusion ? It 's time to walk the sheep ? +Grad E: No . +Grad D: It 's a a uh presumably one of the Watergate codes they uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: Anyways , th um , um , don't make any plans for spring break next year . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad D: That 's the other thing . We 're gonna do an int EDU internal workshop in Sicily . +Grad A: That 's what {disfmarker} That 's what he says . +Grad D: I 've already got the funding . +Grad A: I kn That 's great ! +Grad D: So , I mean . +Grad A: Does that mean {disfmarker} Does that mean you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll fly us there ? +Grad E: We 'll see . +Grad D: No , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's what it means . +Grad A: Hhh ! OK , cool . Uh - a a +Grad B: And he 'll put us up , too . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad A: I know {disfmarker} I know about that part . I know about the {disfmarker} the almond trees and stuff . Not joking . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Name a vegetable , OK . {vocalsound} Oh , um , kiwi ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm , too easy . +Grad A: Coconut . +Grad D: Ki +Grad A: Pineapple . See ? Mango ? OK . OK . Too easy ? +Grad D: Too easy . Yeah , mangos go everywhere . +Grad A: Really ? +Grad D: So do kiwi . +Grad A: Oh . OK , but I was trying to find something that he didn't grow on his farm . +Grad D: But coconut anana pineapple , that 's {disfmarker} that 's tricky , yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Anyway . Cantaloupe . +Grad E: So , but we have to decide what , like , sort of the general idea of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Potatoes . So . Sorry ! +Grad E: Um , I mean , we 're gonna have an example case um , right ? I m the {disfmarker} the point is to {disfmarker} like this "" where is "" case , or something . +Grad D: Yeah , maybe you have {disfmarker} It would be kind of {disfmarker} The paper ha would have , in my vision , a nice flow if we could say , well here is th the {disfmarker} th here is parsing if you wanna do it c right , here is understanding if you wanna do it right , and you know {disfmarker} without going into technical {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But then in the end we 're not doing like those things right yet , right ? Would that be clear in the paper or not ? +Grad D: That would be clear , we would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I mailed around a little paper that I have {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be like , this is the idea . Oh , I didn't get that , +Grad D: w we could sort of say , this is {disfmarker} +Grad A: did I ? Oops . Did I ? +Grad D: No , +Grad A: Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Grad B: No , y I don't think you got it . +Grad D: See this , if you if you 're not around , and don't partake in the discussions , and you don't get any email , +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , I 'm sorry . Sorry . +Grad D: and +Grad A: OK , go on . So parsing done right {vocalsound} is like chicken done right . +Grad D: Su So we could {disfmarker} we could say this is what {disfmarker} what 's sort of state of the art today . Nuh ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And say , this is bad . Nuh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: And then we can say , uh well what we do is this . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Parsing done right , interpretation done right , example . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . And +Grad A: And how much to get into the cognitive neural part ? +Grad B: That 's the only {disfmarker} That 's the question mark . +Grad D: We +Grad B: Don't you need to reduce it if it 's a {disfmarker} or reduce it , if it 's a cognitive neuro {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , you don't have t I mean the conference may be cognitive neural , doesn't mean that every paper has to be both . Like , NLP cognitive neural . +Grad D: Yeah , and you can {disfmarker} you can just point to the {disfmarker} to the literature , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: you can say that construction - based You know {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i so this paper wouldn't particularly deal with that side although it could reference the NTL - ish sort of , like , um , approach . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: The fact that the methods here are all compatible with or designed to be compatible with whatever , neurological {disfmarker} neuro neuro - biol su stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah , I guess four pages you could {disfmarker} I mean you could definitely {disfmarker} it 's definitely possible to do it . It 's just {disfmarker} It 'd just be small . Like introducing the formalism might be not really possible in detail , but you can use an example of it . +Grad E: Well , l looking at {disfmarker} yeah , looking at that paper that {disfmarker} that you had , I mean you know , like , you didn't really explain in detail what was going on in the XML cases or whatever you just sorta said well , you know , here 's the general idea , some stuff gets put in there . You know , hopefully you can {disfmarker} you can say something like constituents tells you what the construction is made out of , you know , without going into this intense detail . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So it be like using the formalism rather than you know , introducing it per se . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad E: Give them the one paragraph whirlwind tour of w w what this is for , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And people will sort of figure out or ask about the bits that are implicit . +Grad D: Yeah . So this will be sort of documenting what we think , and documenting what we have in terms of the Bayes - net stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And since there 's never a bad idea to document things , no ? +Grad A: That 's th that 's definitely a good idea . +Grad D: That would be my , uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we should sketch out the details maybe tomorrow afternoon - ish , if everyone is around . I don't know . You probably wouldn't be part of it . +Grad E: I think so . +Grad D: Maybe you want ? Think about it . Um , You may {disfmarker} may ruin your career forever , if you appear . +Grad B: Yeah , you might get blacklisted . +Grad D: And um , the uh , other thing , yeah we actually {disfmarker} Have we made any progress on what we decided , uh , last week ? I 'm sure you read the transcript of last week 's meeting in red so sh so you 're up to dated {disfmarker} caught up . +Grad A: No . Sorry . +Grad D: We decided t that we 're gonna take a "" where is something "" question , and pretend we have parsed it , and see what we could possibly hope to observe on the discourse side . +Grad B: Remember I came in and I started asking you about how we were sor going to sort out the uh , decision nodes ? +Grad A: Yes ! What 'd you say ? +Grad B: I remember you talking to me , just not what you said . +Grad A: I do remember you talking to me . Um , a few more bits . +Grad B: Well , there was like we needed to {disfmarker} or uh , in my opinion we need to design a Bayes {disfmarker} another sub - Bayes - net {disfmarker} You know , it was whether {disfmarker} it was whether we would have a Bayes - net on the output and on the input , +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: or whether the construction was gonna be in the Bayes - net , +Grad A: Oh , yeah . OK . +Grad B: a and outside of it , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So that was {disfmarker} was that the question ? Was that what {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well that was related to what we were talking about . +Grad D: Should I introduce it as SUDO - square ? +Grad B: Yeah sure . +Grad D: We have to put this in the paper . If we write it . This is {disfmarker} this is my only constraint . The {disfmarker} th So . The SUDO - square {nonvocalsound} is , {vocalsound} "" Situation "" , "" User "" , "" Discourse "" , right ? "" Ontology "" . +Grad E: Oh I saw the diagram in the office , +Grad A: Oh my god , that 's amazing ! +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . Whatever . +Grad A: No way . +Grad E: Way ! +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad A: Someone 's gonna start making Phil Collins jokes . +Grad D: Yeah . Hmm ? +Grad A: Sorry . +Grad B: What ? +Grad E: Oh , god , I hope not . +Grad A: You guys are too young . +Grad E: You know like "" Sussudio "" , +Grad A: Yeah , come on . +Grad E: that horrible , horrible song that should never have been created . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +Grad A: I know , that was horrible . Sussudio . +Grad B: I 've blocked every aspect of Phil Collins out of my mind . +Grad C: What ? +Grad A: I 'm sorry , I haven't . Not on purpose . +Grad E: in here +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , also he 's talking about suicide , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a notion I wanna have evoked . +Grad A: No , he 's not . Really ? +Grad D: He is . +Grad A: Oops . {comment} I didn't really listen to it , +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was too young . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad E: It sounds too rocking for that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . So , what 's going on here ? So what are {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , +Grad E: Was wollte der Kuenstler uns damit sagen ? +Grad A: Stop excluding me . +Grad D: OK , so we have tons of little things here , +Grad A: I can't believe that that 's never been thought of before . +Grad D: and we 've +Grad B: Wait , what are the dots ? I don't remember what the dots were . +Grad E: Those are little bugs . +Grad A: Cool Keith . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: +Grad D: You know , these are our , whatever , belief - net decision nodes , and they all contribute to these {pause} {nonvocalsound} things down here . +Grad B: Oh , oh . +Grad A: Wait , wait , what 's the middle thing ? +Grad D: That 's EDU . +Grad E: That 's a c +Grad D: e e Our e e e +Grad A: But wh I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: You . We . Us . +Grad A: But what is it ? +Grad D: Well , in the moment it 's a Bayes - net . And it has sort of fifty not - yet - specified interfaces . OK . Eh {pause} I have taken care that we actually can build little interfaces , {nonvocalsound} to other modules that will tell us whether the user likes these things and , n the {disfmarker} or these things , and he {disfmarker} whether he 's in a wheelchair or not , +Grad A: OK . Is that supposed to be the international sign for interface ? +Grad D: I think so , yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd never seen it before either . +Grad A: OK . Just t Cool . +Grad D: Mmm . So . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Cuz things fit onto that , see ? +Grad A: Cool . +Grad E: In a vaguely obscene fashion . +Grad D: No , this is a RME core by agent design , I don't know . +Grad A: That 's so great . +Grad D: There 's maybe a different +Grad E: So wait , what a what are these letters again , Situr - {comment} Situation , User , Discourse and +Grad D: Situation , user , d ontology . +Grad A: User ? +Grad E: Ontology . +Grad A: What about the utterance ? +Grad C: Discourse . +Grad D: That 's here . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , discourse . So that 's not like context , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Discourse is all things linguistic , yeah . +Grad D: So this {disfmarker} this includes the {disfmarker} the current utterance plus all the previous utterances . +Grad A: Interesting , uh - huh . User . +Grad D: And for example w i s I Irena Gurevich is going to be here eh , end of July . +Grad A: User . +Grad D: She 's a new linguist working for EML . And what she would like to do for example is great for us . She would like to take the ent ontolog +Grad C: Ouch . +Grad D: So , we have discussed in terms of the EVA {disfmarker} +Grad A: Grateful for us ? +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you just say grateful for us ? OK , sorry . Anyway . +Grad D: Think of {disfmarker} back at the EVA vector , and Johno coming up with the idea that if the person discussed the {disfmarker} discussed the admission fee , in {disfmarker} eh previously , that might be a good indication that , "" how do I get to the castle ? "" , actually he wants to enter . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or , you know , "" how do I get to X ? "" discussing the admission fee in the previous utterance , is a good indication . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: +Grad D: So we don't want a hard code , a set of lexemes , or things , that person 's you know , sort of filter , or uh search the discourse history . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So what would be kind of cool is that if we encounter concepts that are castle , tower , bank , hotel , we run it through the ontology , and the ontology tells us it has um , admission , opening times , it has admission fees , it has this , it has that , and then we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we make a thesaurus lexicon , look up , and then search dynamically through the uh , discourse history for {pause} occurrences of these things in a given window of utterances . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And that might , you know , give us additional input to belief A versus B . Or E versus A . +Grad A: So it 's not just a particular word 's {disfmarker} OK , so the {disfmarker} you 're looking for a few keys that you know are cues to {disfmarker} sorry , a few specific cues to some intention . +Grad B: You can dynamically look up keys , yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Uh , so , wait {disfmarker} so um , since this {disfmarker} since this sort of technical stuff is going over my head , +Grad B: And then grep , basically . +Grad E: the {disfmarker} the point is that you uh {disfmarker} that when someone 's talking about a castle , you know that it 's the sort of thing that people are likely to wanna go into ? Or , is it the fact that if there 's an admission fee , then one of the things we know about admission fees is that you pay them in order to go in ? And then the idea of entering is active in the discourse or something ? And then +Grad D: Well +Grad E: blah - blah - blah ? +Grad D: the {disfmarker} the idea is even more general . +Grad E: I mean . +Grad D: The idea is to say , we encounter a certain entity in a {disfmarker} in a in a utterance . So le let 's look up everything we {disfmarker} the ontology gives us about that entity , what stuff it does , what roles it has , what parts , whatever it has . Functions . And , then we look in the discourse , whether any of that , or any surface structure corresponding to these roles , functions aaa {comment} has ever occurred . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad D: And then , the discourse history can t tell us , "" yeah "" , or "" no "" . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And then it 's up for us to decide what to do with it . t So i +Grad E: OK . So {disfmarker} No , go ahead . +Grad D: So , we may think that if you say um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} "" where is the theater "" , um , whether or not he has talked about tickets before , then we {disfmarker} he 's probably wanna go there to see something . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or "" where is the opera in Par - Paris ? , +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: yeah ? Lots of people go to the opera to take pictures of it and to look at it , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: and lots of people go to attend a performance . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , the discourse can maybe tell us w what 's more likely if we know what to look for in previous statements . And so we can hard code "" for opera , look for tickets , look for this , look for that , +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad D: or look for Mozart , look for thi "" but the smarter way is to go via the ontology and dynamically , then look up u stuff . +Grad E: OK . But you 're still doing look up so that when the person {disfmarker} So the point is that when the person says , "" where is it ? "" then you sort of say , let 's go back and look at other things and then decide , rather than the other possibility which is that {pause} all through discourse as they talk about different things {disfmarker} You know like w prior to the "" where is it "" question they say , you know , "" how much does it cost to get in , you know , to {disfmarker} to see a movie around here "" , um , {vocalsound} "" where is the closest theater "" {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is that by mentioning admission fees , that just sort of stays active now . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: You know . That becomes part of like , their sort of current ongoing active conceptual structure . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , um , over in your Bayes - net or whatever , when {disfmarker} when the person says "" where is it "" , you 've already got , you know since they were talking about admission , and that evokes the idea of entering , um , then when they go and ask "" where is it "" , then you 're Enter node is already active +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because that 's what the person is thinking about . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean that 's the sort of cognitive linguistic - y way , +Grad D: Yeah , e ultimately that 's also what we wanna get at . +Grad E: and probably not practical . +Grad D: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the correct way . So , of course we have to keep memory of what was the last intention , and how does it fit to this , and what does it tell us , in terms of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're examining . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: And furthermore , I mean we can idealize that , you know , people don't change topics , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: but they do . But , even th for that , there is a student of ours who 's doing a dialogue act um , recognition module . +Grad E: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , maybe , we 're even in a position where we can take your approach , which is of course much better , as to say how {disfmarker} how do these pieces {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . And much harder to r program . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: And much harder to p to program . +Grad D: Yeah . How {disfmarker} how do these pieces fit together ? Uh - huh . And um . But , OK , nevertheless . So these are issues but we {disfmarker} what we actually decided last week , is to , and this is , again , for your benefit {disfmarker} is to um , pretend we have observed and parsed an utterance such as "" where is the Powder - Tower "" , or "" where is the zoo "" , and specify um , what {disfmarker} what we think the {disfmarker} the output uh , observe , out {disfmarker} i input nodes for our Bayes - nets for the sub sub - D , for the discourse bit , should be . So that {disfmarker} And I will {disfmarker} I will then {comment} {vocalsound} come up with the ontology side uh , bits and pieces , so that we can say , OK we {disfmarker} we always just look at this utterance . That 's the only utterance we can do , it 's hard coded , like Srini , sort of hand parsed , hand crafted , but this is what we hope to be able to observe in general from utterances , and from ontologies , and then we can sort of fiddle with these things to see what it actually produces , in terms of output . +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: So we need to find out what the "" where is X "" construction will give us in terms of semantics and {vocalsound} Simspec type things . +Grad A: Just {disfmarker} OK . Just "" where is X "" ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Or any variants of that . +Grad D: Yeah . No ! Um , look at it this way , i Yeah . What did we decide . We decided sort of the {disfmarker} the prototypical "" where is X "" , where you know , we don't really know , does he wanna go there , or just wanna know where it is . +Grad E: Well we were +Grad D: So the difference of "" where is the railway station "" , versus where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} "" where is Greenland "" . Nuh ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh s I was just dancing , sorry . +Grad D: We 're not videotaping any of this . So . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} ah {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , um , we 're supposed to {disfmarker} I mean we 're talking about sort of anything that has the semantics of request for location , right ? actually ? Or , I mean , anyway , the node in the uh {disfmarker} the ultimate , uh , in {disfmarker} in the Bayes - net thing when you 're done , the {disfmarker} the node that we 're talking about um , is one that says "" request for location , true "" , or something like that , right ? Um , and {disfmarker} and exactly how that gets activated , you know , like whether we want the sentence "" how do I get there ? "" to activate that node or not , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of the issue that sort of the linguistic - y side has to deal with , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} Yea - Nnn Well actually more {disfmarker} m more the other way around . We wanted something that represents uncertainty uh we in terms of going there or just wanting to know where it is , for example . Some generic information . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And so this is prototypically @ @ found in the "" where is something "" question , surface structure , +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: We +Grad D: which can be p you know , should be maps to something that activates both . I mean the idea is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright , OK . +Grad B: Hhh . I guess . I don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: let 's have it fit nicely with the paper . +Grad B: I don't see unde how we would be able to distinguish between the two intentions just from the g utterance , though . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , uh bef or , before we don't {disfmarker} before we cranked it through the Bayes - net . I mean . +Grad D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't . That 's exactly what we want . +Grad B: We would ? +Grad D: We want to get {disfmarker} No . We wouldn't . +Grad B: OK , but then so basically it 's just a {disfmarker} for every construction we have a node in the net , right ? And we turn on that node . +Grad D: Yeah . What {disfmarker} what is this gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oy . +Grad D: Exactly . What is the uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then given that we know that {pause} the construction {pause} has these two things , we can set up probabilities {disfmarker} we can s basically define all the tables for ev for those {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} So we have um , i let 's assume we {disfmarker} we call something like a loc - X node and a path - X node . And what we actually get if we just look at the discourse , "" where is X "" should activate or should {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Should be both , whereas maybe "" where is X located "" , we find from the data , is always just asked when the person wants to know where it is , and "" how do I get to "" is always asked when the person just wants to know how to get there . Right ? So we want to sort of come up with what gets uh , input , and how inter in case of a "" where is "" question . So what {disfmarker} what would the outcome of {disfmarker} of your parser look like ? And , what other discourse information from the discourse history could we hope to get , squeeze out of that utterance ? So define the {disfmarker} the input into the Bayes - net {vocalsound} based on what the utterance , "" where is X "" , gives us . So definitely have an Entity node here which is activated via the ontology , +Grad A: s +Grad D: so "" where is X "" produces something that is s stands for X , whether it 's castle , bank , restroom , toilet , whatever . And then the ontology will tell us {disfmarker} +Grad A: That it has a location or something like that ? {disfmarker} or th the ontology will tell us where actually it is located ? +Grad D: No . Not at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Where it is located , we have , a user proximity node here somewhere , +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad D: e which tells us how far the user {disfmarker} how far away the user is in respect to that uh entity . +Grad A: OK . So you 're talking about , for instance , the construction obviously involves this entity or refers {disfmarker} refers to this entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and from the construction also you know that it is a location {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} or a thing {disfmarker} thing that can be located . Right ? Ontology says this thing has a location slot . Sh - and that 's the thing that is being {disfmarker} that is the content of the question that 's being queried by one interpretation of "" where is X "" . And another one is , um , path from current {disfmarker} user current location to {comment} that location . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . So is the question {disfmarker} I mean it 's just that I 'm not sure what the {disfmarker} Is the question , for this particular construction how we specify that that 's the information it provides ? Or {disfmarker} or asked for ? b Both sides , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , you don't need to even do that . It 's just sort of what {vocalsound} what would be @ @ {comment} observed in uh {disfmarker} in that case . +Grad A: Observed when you heard the speaker say "" where is X "" , or when {disfmarker} when that 's been parsed ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So these little circles you have by the D ? Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +Grad D: That 's exactly what we 're looking for . +Grad B: I d I just {disfmarker} I don't like having {disfmarker} characterizing the constructions with location and path , or li characterizing them like that . Cuz you don't {disfmarker} It seems like in the general case you wouldn't know how {disfmarker} how to characterize them . +Grad D: You wouldn't . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} or , for when . There could be an interpretation that we don't have a node for in the {disfmarker} I mean it just seems like @ @ has to have uh {disfmarker} a node for the construction and then let the chips fall where they may . Versus uh , saying , this construction either can mean location or path . And , in this cas and since {disfmarker} since it can mean either of those things , it would light both of those up . +Grad D: It 's the same . +Grad B: Thoughts ? Questions ? +Grad E: I 'm thinking about it . +Grad D: It will be the same . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So I think r in here we have "" I 'll go there "" , right ? +Grad B: Answers ? +Grad D: And we have our Info - on . So in my c my case , this would sort of make this {pause} happy , and this would make the Go - there happy . What you 're saying is we have a Where - X question , Where - X node , that makes both happy . Right ? That 's what you 're proposing , which is , in my mind just as fine . So w if we have a construction {pause} node , "" where is X "" , it 's gonna both get the po posterior probability that {disfmarker} it 's Info - on up , +Grad B: Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: Info - on is True - up , and that Go - there is True - up , as well . Which would be exactly analogous to what I 'm proposing is , this makes {disfmarker} uh makes something here true , and this makes something {disfmarker} also something here true , and this makes this True - up , and this makes this True - up as well . +Grad E: I kinda like it better without that extra level of indirection too . You know with {disfmarker} with this points to this points to that , and so on because {vocalsound} I don't know , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is - uh , +Grad D: Yeah , because we get {disfmarker} we get tons of constructions I think . Because , you know , mmm people have many ways of asking for the same thing , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , sure . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So un +Grad B: I change I changed my mind actually . +Grad A: So I agree with that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I have a different kinda question , might be related , which is , OK so implicitly everything in EDU , we 're always inferring the speaker intent , right ? Like , what they want either , the information that they want , or {disfmarker} It 's always information that they want probably , of some kind . Right ? Or I {disfmarker} I don't know , or what 's something that they {disfmarker} +Grad D: The system doesn't massage you , no . No . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} OK . So , um , let 's see . So I don't know if the {disfmarker} I mean i if th just there 's more s here that 's not shown that you {disfmarker} it 's already like part of the system whatever , but , "" where is X "" , like , the fact that it is , you know , a speech - act , whatever , it is a question . It 's a question that , um , queries on some particular thing X , and X is that location . There 's , like , a lot of structure in representing that . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah . +Grad A: So that seems different from just having the node "" location - X "" and that goes into EDU , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Precisely . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: So tha is that what you 're t talking about ? +Grad D: So , w Exactly . We have su we have specified two . +Grad A: wh what kinds of structure we want . +Grad D: OK , the next one would be here , just for mood . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: The next one would be what we can squeeze out of the uh I don't know , maybe we wanna observe the uh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh the length of {disfmarker} of the words used , and , or the prosody +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: and g a and t make conclusions about the user 's intelligence . +Grad A: OK . So in some ways {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't know , +Grad A: um , so in some ways in the other sort of parallel set of mo more linguistic meetings we 've been talking about possible semantics of some construction . +Grad D: yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? Where it was the simulation that 's , according to it {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} that corresponds to it , and as well the {disfmarker} as discourse , whatever , conte infor in discourse information , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: such as the mood , and , you know , other stuff . So , are we looking for a sort of abbreviation of that , that 's tailored to this problem ? Cuz that {disfmarker} that has , you know , basically , you know , s it 's in progress still it 's in development still , but it definitely has various feature slots , attributes , um , bindings between things {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . U that 's exactly r um , why I 'm proposing {disfmarker} It 's too early to have {disfmarker} to think of them {disfmarker} of all of these discourse things that one could possibly observe , +Grad A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so let 's just assume +Grad A: For the subset of {disfmarker} +Grad D: human beings are not allowed to ask anything but "" where is X "" . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: This is the only utterance in the world . What could we observe from that ? +Grad A: OK . That exactly "" where is X "" , +Grad D: In ter +Grad A: not the {disfmarker} the choices of "" where is X "" or "" how do I get to X "" . Just "" where is X "" . +Grad D: Just {disfmarker} just "" where is X "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And , but you know , do it {disfmarker} do it in such a way that we know that people can also say , "" is the town hall in front of the bank "" , so that we need something like a w WH focus . Nuh ? Should be {disfmarker} should be there , that , you know , this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} whatever we get from the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , so do , or do not take other kinds of constructions into account ? +Grad D: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you can , oh definitely do , +Grad A: OK . Where possible . OK . +Grad D: where possible . Right ? If i if {disfmarker} if it 's not at all triggered by our thing , then it 's irrelevant , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and it doesn't hurt to leave it out for the moment . Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . Um , it seems like for instance , "" where is X "" , the fact that it might mean um , "" tell me how to get to X "" , like {disfmarker} Do y So , would you wanna say that those two are both , like {disfmarker} Those are the two interpretations , right ? the {disfmarker} the ones that are location or path . So , you could say that the s construction is a question asking about this location , and then you can additionally infer , if they 're asking about the location , it 's because they wanna go to that place , in which case , the {disfmarker} you 're jumping a step {disfmarker} step and saying , "" oh , I know where it is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: but I also know how to get {disfmarker} they wanna seem {disfmarker} they seem to wanna get there so I 'm gonna tell them "" . So there 's like structure +Grad E: Right , th this {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that this is sort of like semantically ambiguous between these two . +Grad A: i do you kn sort of uh , that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's really about this but why would you care about this ? Well , it 's because you also want to know this , or something like that right ? +Grad A: So it 's like you infer the speaker intent , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then infer a plan , a larger plan from that , for which you have the additional information , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you 're just being extra helpful . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Think {disfmarker} Uh , well this is just a mental exercise . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: If you think about , focus on this question , how would you design {pause} that ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Is it {disfmarker} do you feel confident about saying this is part of the language already to {disfmarker} to detect those plans , and why would anyone care about location , if not , you know and so forth . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Or do you actually , I mean this is perfectly legitimate , and I {disfmarker} I would not have any problems with erasing this and say , that 's all we can activate , based on the utterance out of context . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . And just by an additional link {disfmarker} Oh . +Grad D: What ? +Grad A: Right , +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: like , +Grad D: And then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the miracle that we get out the intention , Go - there , happens , based on what we know about that entity , about the user , about his various beliefs , goals , desires , blah - blah - blah . +Grad A: with context and enough user information , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Absolutely fine . But this is the sort of thing , I {disfmarker} I propose that we think about , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: so that we actually end up with um , um , nodes for the discourse and ontology so that we can put them into our Bayes - net , never change them , so we {disfmarker} all there is is "" where is X "" , and , Eva can play around with the observed things , and we can run our better JavaBayes , and have it produce some output . And for the first time in th in {disfmarker} in the world , we look at our output , and um {disfmarker} and see uh whether it {disfmarker} it 's any good . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: You know ? I mean , +Grad E: Here 's hoping . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: Here 's hoping . Right ? Now cross your fingers . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , for me this is just a ba matter of curiosity , I wanna {disfmarker} would like to look at uh , what this ad - hoc process of designing a belief - net would actually produce . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: If {disfmarker} if we ask it where is something . And , maybe it also h enables you to think about certain things more specifically , um , come up with interesting questions , to which you can find interesting answers . And , additionally it might fit in really nicely with the paper . Because if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want an example for the paper , I suggest there it is . +Grad E: Um - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: So th this might be a nice opening paragraph for the paper as saying , "" you know people look at kinds of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at ambiguities "" , and um , in the literature there 's "" bank "" and whatever kinds of garden path phenomenon . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And we can say , well , that 's all nonsense . A , A , uh these things are never really ambiguous in discourse , B , B , don't ever occur really in discourse , but normal statements that seem completely unambiguous , such as "" where is the blah - blah "" , actually are terribly complex , and completely ambiguous . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And so , what every everybody else has been doing so far in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} you know , has been completely nonsensical , and can all go into the wastepaper bin , and the only {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's always a good way to begin . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} +Grad B: I am great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: All others are useless . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: Nice overture , but , you know , just not really {disfmarker} OK , I 'm eja exaggerating , but that might be , you know , saying "" hey "" , you know , some stuff is {disfmarker} is actually complex , if you look at it in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the vacuum +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and ceases to be complex in reality . And some stuff that 's as {disfmarker} that 's absolutely straightforward in the vacuum , is actually terribly complex in reality . Would be nice sort of , uh , also , nice , um bottom - up linguistics , um , type message . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: Versus the old top - down school . I 'm running out of time . OK . +Grad B: When do you need to start wizarding ? +Grad D: At four ten . OK , this is the other bit of news . The subjects today know Fey , so she can't be here , and do the wizarding . So I 'm gonna do the wizarding +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: and Thilo 's gonna do the instructing . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Also we 're getting a {disfmarker} a person who just got fired uh , from her job . Uh a person from Oakland who is interested in maybe continuing the wizard bit once Fey leaves in August . And um , she 's gonna look at it today . Which is good news in the sense that if we want to continue , after the thir thir after July , we can . We could . And , um {disfmarker} and that 's also maybe interesting for Keith and whoever , if you wanna get some more stuff into the data collection . Remember this , we can completely change the set - up any time we want . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Look at the results we 've gotten so far for the first , whatever , fifty some subjects ? +Grad A: Fifty ? You 've had fifty so far , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: No , we 're approaching twenty now . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: But , until Fey is leaving , we surely will hit the {disfmarker} some of the higher numbers . +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Grad D: And um , so that 's cool . Can a do more funky stuff . +Grad E: Sure . Yeah , I 'll have to look more into that data . Is that around ? Like , cuz that 's pretty much getting posted or something right away when you get it ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} ? I guess it has to be transcribed , huh ? +Grad D: We have uh , eh found someone here who 's hand st hand transcribing the first twelve . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: First dozen subjects +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad D: just so we can build a {disfmarker} a language model for the recognizer . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: But , um {disfmarker} So those should be available soon . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: The first twelve . And I can ch ch st e +Grad E: You know {disfmarker} I mean you know that I {disfmarker} that I looked at the first {disfmarker} the first one and got enough data to keep me going for , you know , probably most of July . So . {vocalsound} But , um . Yeah , a probably not the right way to do it actually . +Grad D: But you can listen to {disfmarker} a y y y You can listen to all of them from your Solaris box . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: If you want . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's always fun . +","Grad D shared travel plans that included dropping off their son in Sicily with grandparents, attending a MOKU-Treffen meeting representing ICI, visiting EML, meeting Wolfgang Walster in Saarbruecken, and system integration in Kaiserslautern, picking up their son and returning to the US by July 4th. They also discussed potential airport service due to the holiday. Additionally, Grad D revealed plans for a German project manager's visit to work and a ""strange idea"" for system development to possibly stimulate discussion. The group debated alternate natural language processing architectures and strategies to infer user intentions, such as having the system query itself. There was a proposition to develop an algorithm that filters the ""best"" answer when querying nodes. Grad D's upcoming trip and proposed paper topics, which include working on the SmartKom system and discussing a new formalism, were also touched upon." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come to the third meetings . I have {gap} good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so in the last meeting we have discussed the functional design and now we will talk about the conceptual design . So we will talk about some specific details . +Industrial Designer: Okay so I think I will do my presentation on the components concept so can you please uh open uh {disfmarker} I'm participant two . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Components design . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay so uh the first thing uh I have done is to to made a review together with the uh manufactural uh department and have which components was uh available to build a remote control . So for energy sources we have we have to choose between the solar energy , hand dynamo and uh kinetic um well uh kinetic uh technique {vocalsound} to to store the energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We also um {vocalsound} we also can put a regular battery in the in the remote control . Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh this is what we have decided in the last meeting . But if we use battery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah b uh f well uh I meant uh by by battery I meant uh I will not have a uh a wire between the remote control and the energy source but uh I didn't fou we didn't decide yet which kind of battery we will put inside the the remote . So uh it's a point to discuss . Then uh the case material we have uh uh also several choices , like wood , rubber , titanium or latex . {vocalsound} But uh well it's not a a re uh well a real issue for the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} from the technical uh point of view . Concerning the interface uh we can we can put mm just simple buttons or scrolls or buttons uh much more complicated , but it also requires that the chip to process the button is more complicated so . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh this is the last point , the choice of chips . So what I have f found is that I think basic battery or kinetic uh energy uh collection is the is the better way to provide energy because I think solar energy wi won't work {vocalsound} in a cluttered uh {vocalsound} uh environment . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So um so I think we can start with these two main things . For the case uh well uh I think that uh titanium is um is a good choice because it's trendy and it's uh it's uh well it's modern and uh user are are are {disfmarker} mm will be uh very happy to have a {vocalsound} a a nice remote . For the interface uh I think that we can ach achieve uh all the desired functionalities by s just uh using uh rubber buttons , simple buttons and th thus this allow to use a regular chip {vocalsound} that are uh well cheaper . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And s so uh we can move to the next slide . +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What is this single curved {disfmarker} what does it mean ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh uh i i it's uh it's the the shape of the um of the remote . +User Interface: So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You you will have the {disfmarker} well um the the curve will fit into your hand when you grab the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yo l yeah . When you hold on it , it is comfortable to hold . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's more confog f comfortable that if these uh it's completely flat . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . And the battery , is it kind of a rechargeable or it doesn't matter ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the um that's the point . The kinetic one is uh y you can recharge uh by the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That that's what it means by kinetic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and by {disfmarker} well by just by moving the ar uh your arm the mm well the remote will uh accumulate energy . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I d I don't know it's {disfmarker} if it is feasible because I don't know if yet if if the user will move enough to provide the remote um all the necessary energy . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Okay . Yeah . Yeah . We we might check with our R_ and D_ department to see if they have this product {vocalsound} ready for market . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} yeah and so can you go to the next slide please . So and uh that's uh that summarize well what I have said . +User Interface: Mm mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wha +Industrial Designer: So uh you're right we can uh see in our uh R_ and D_ uh {vocalsound} if the kinetic metal is sufficient to provide enough energy . +User Interface: Ah the department . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} So I um keep in touch with the R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I take care , it's all right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So the titanium case is the normal case that {disfmarker} I'll show you some pictures that I have and you tell me whether they are titanium case or not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All right . Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause I am not very sure , plastic , titanium or whatever . There's another point I want to make , is that the uh {disfmarker} well you've seen them I le na my presentation that um I point out some {disfmarker} why buttons are not the mm not the only ways you can {vocalsound} use {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , maybe n +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So the user interface is uh i it uses the aspect uh of a computer system , a programme which can be seen or heard or otherwise perceived by the human user +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and the commands and mechanism the user uses to control its operation and input data . So you s this gives you the ways to input data and we have uh {disfmarker} we are more {disfmarker} we emphasise more on the graphical user interface here . The idea is to represent buttons as figures , diagrams , symbols and on so you you can easily when you look at the symbols you understand what it is doing . +Project Manager: What's the function of this button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: I think it makes the the interface really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ea easy to use . So next one . +Project Manager: Graphical user interface {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} function five . So I can use the button , the mouse maybe . +Project Manager: A graphical user interface emphasise the use of pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . So next line . So the {disfmarker} here are some examples . So they cluster the buttons together . They group them into col they colour them and uh they have different forms as well . Mm but this interface are kind of confusing . Uh basically there are too many buttons . Right . Next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So some people are propose voice recognition and so {disfmarker} ah by the way I receive an email from the from one our departments saying that the voice recognition has been used in the coffee machine {vocalsound} for this by a company +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: when you tell the {disfmarker} you say good morning coffee machine and the machine are reply to you . So I just got an email saying that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm mm . +User Interface: And it seems like this voice recognition technology is ready to be used so we might consider that , supposedly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah fine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next one . Mm so somebody {disfmarker} some people use uh some people use a spinning wheel th with the L_C_ display so instead of using the mm buttons you have a L_C_D_ screen and then there you can u you can use that as buttons , you can use that as real {disfmarker} so so that could be an option as well . Touch screen , I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Next one . And some people propose a scroll button . Integrated with push buttons or you may have scroll button instead of p just the push button . Like the one we have here . Uh , next one . So mm +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so there are a few aspects that I collected here . So s basically this deals with special users , children , handicapped people , old people , and uh mm and prog basically they are programmable , specially for children . And uh mm {disfmarker} yeah yeah . And then they also secure uh covers , to protect uh secure and hidden programming and battery covers that will protect your settings . So {disfmarker} But we don't have to integrate all these complicated features . I'm just saying that the {disfmarker} currently in the market there are there are control there are remote controllers f {gap} customisable for different people . Yeah , so that's the point . The next one . And uh you see this is the one where you have the protection cover . Mm maybe useful for children , they migh you you they only see the buttons outside . And for adults wh where you have more control you can see the one inside . So the adults might wanna have a key to lock that to pr so children will not touch the button inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: S a good idea . +User Interface: The next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this guy {disfmarker} this is another company that provides big buttons . At {disfmarker} I see that that is useful for old people and then you don't get it lost . But for our product we don't need a big one because you have voice recognition e eventually with use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And you can call your remote controller if you don't know where it is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} T_V_ remote controller where are you ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then , he will beeps and to say that I am here , {vocalsound} for example . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We should include speech synthesis in this case , no ? +User Interface: Is it possible ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as Norman say if uh there is uh already a commercial product available who t who do this we we can check uh to integrate it i into our uh new remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And uh , this is another one where you can uh {disfmarker} the the the part that's a V_ standing for the volume . So there's a up arrow and a down arrow . But you the see that in the V_ , the V_ appears to be the down arrow on the top {disfmarker} on the top up arrow {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: up arrow there's a V_ like as as if it's turning down so it's confusing interface , so I wanna avoid this kind of thing in the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: And here are {disfmarker} is uh here is a s short summary that I summary that I compiled after the findings I found . Big buttons are convenient , voice recognition helps , push buttons , scroll buttons , spinning wheels can be used as navigation tools . And uh user customisable is important and finally simplicity simplicity is the key . Yeah . So {vocalsound} we have many concepts there +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we have to choose later on which ones are important to be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And basically uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I {vocalsound} I think you it's it's it's fine you have uh reviewed all all the possibilities +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh uh well uh i if we consider that uh the user interface is displayed on the T_V_ screen I don't think we nee uh we need much buttons in the remote +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we we just have to navigate and to have a okay or enter key or things like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: because uh adding wheels or scrolls uh makes the thing more complicated and more expensive also , so . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Or maybe we can include the user manual in the in the remote control {gap} and we should have just a button like help and you say uh and you ik you press the button help and maybe you see the the user m might in the in the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To have a help button . +User Interface: A help button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you are display on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: On T_V_ T_V_ screen . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: On the T_V_ screen . On the T_V_ screen the uh how to use your remote . +Project Manager: So just you push the button +User Interface: Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: So that eliminates all the complicated documentation {gap} , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . So wi +Marketing: But people are often enough looking at the help , +Project Manager: If the if {disfmarker} +Marketing: once they see the help button they say oh this is a complicated stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} In the case where they need help , in the case where they need help . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a psychology . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In a marketing point of view . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And let us see what the market demands . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We could just go to my presentation . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} uh wel well I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for user customizable , for kids or old people . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it just showed us the remote with an cap which could be used for kids and if you remove the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: Same remote with some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can be used by both kids and old people . +Marketing: Both yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Well uh what I s propose is that uh you know a remote controller , i {vocalsound} it could be a cube , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: is uh a small device that uh looks like a cube and maybe you can just change the {vocalsound} um the buttons , if you ch turn one side you get one one buttons , you turn the other side you get the other buttons , so for maybe new generation people who get used to the computer they want lots of controls . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe for kids , kids they like uh t no l they like to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So le le let's see what uh what {vocalsound} people want . +User Interface: Let's see the market demand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then we can decide what what we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: What what {gap} market {disfmarker} yes yes . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So we just made an marketing survey of what people need from our remotes and how it could be special from the other remotes . And we got the best on the responses from the questionnaires . Uh we also have some prizes for the most creative solutions . And we found the following solutions which we could {disfmarker} which would be helpful for our design . So seventy percent of the users , they find their remote controls very ugly , they don't find it pleasant to use in the size or usage or anything . And eighty percent of the people they are always l I mean they are willing to spend more money if the remote control would look fancy . And the current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . And seventy five percent of the users said they zap a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And fifty percent say they use only ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so the rest of the ninety percent of the buttons they're not used most of the times . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes . +Marketing: So this were the findings which we found . And also they cited frustrations with the present remote controls . Most of {disfmarker} fifty percent of the time the remote controls are lost somewhere in the room and people are always searching for them {vocalsound} rather than watching the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And by the time they found the remote control the program is finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} they're frustrated a lot {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um if the remote control is too complicated it takes much time to learn the functionality of it . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , the functionalities yeah . +Marketing: So you can just see the percentage , fifty percent people they responded that they always lose their remotes and thirty four percent they say that it's quite difficult to learn if it's too complex . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So keeping in view all these findings and the frustrations I think this should be the solution for them . We should have an L_C_D_ on the rem remote control . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well mm w well I I I don't really see the advantage of having uh L_C_D_ on the on the remote control if we have a a a big screen and uh display on the screen . +User Interface: Big screen . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Industrial Designer: yeah of course it's fancy trendy and so on but it's it's expensive to produce {vocalsound} and it's not really {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean as our survey says that people are willing to pay more if their remotes are fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we have a L_C_D_ on the remote , rather than looking onto the T_V_ you just look into a remote and navigate it . It's the same menu as we have saw that iPod remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . The thing {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: We just {vocalsound} play around +Industrial Designer: Yeah but when you play with the iPod you don't have {vocalsound} a big screen in front of you , s +Project Manager: You can use this screen instead of the big se screen , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: instead of use the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: If you re-use the existing screen , we element {disfmarker} eliminate the L_C_D_ , after all the L_C_D_ just to display +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and if you have the colourful screen you can make the display colourful , fancy , as fancy as the one on the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: maybe even better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean this were the points which we got from the market demands . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So +Industrial Designer: So I th I I {vocalsound} well I think we we can focus on the uh on the fancy look on the uh +User Interface: Yeah . More on a fancy design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's fine . +Industrial Designer: on the speech recognition if the technology is available +Marketing: Yeah . I mean that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but well I think L_C_D_ will uh will uh make us spend a lot of money for not so big results . +User Interface: Mm . Remember we have a s budget for the cost of producing the remote controller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So i is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah we have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so the thing is you can find out how much an L_C_D_ will cost and then we'll decide again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean that should be found out by the Industrial Designers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh maybe you can find out the price and tell us next time {gap} . Is i if i +Industrial Designer: So price of uh L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it's always good to have an voice recognition for the remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah . And also the cost for the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Mm . It's for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ask our R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's just for small vocabulary . We {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it's o only for a limited vocabulary , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And ho +Marketing: say eighty commands or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And also the scroller button , how much will it cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well uh compared to the to s the simpl simpler simplest button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Push push {gap} . +Marketing: Mm , the scroll button , {gap} from the survey we never see that people would like to have some scrolling button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because they they just they're just frightened to use the scrollings or {vocalsound} help button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I I think that uh well uh as we have seen in the in the presentation uh well uh about uh uh fifty percent of the of the percent n choose the button +User Interface: Don't use the buttons . +Industrial Designer: so uh I think to have uh five uh simple button is sufficient for our functionality . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: It doesn't mean that the other buttons are not necessary or important . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Important . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they are just less used compar +Marketing: They're not used much . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the uh the thing is is i is that we can add a functionality on the on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like uh a a list of function +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then you choose with the with the button to {disfmarker} well you navigate +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . So so the at most {disfmarker} more power uh . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe we can u uh or maybe we can uh make this the ten percent of button more bigger than the others . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if i i if we if we could have a a a display uh g a user interface that is very complete on the T_V_ screen {vocalsound} I think that just five buttons are sufficient , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: one to go up left right down and uh enter +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you you you just select the functionality you want to access or things like that . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to to switch to a channel to another uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be like this , as the people say , if they have a L_C_D_ on the remote not on the television . Because when you have the L_C_D_ onto the television screen you miss the picture in the background , we are most focused on the commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have then L_C_D_ in the remote , you just have a menu , and increasing and lower these signs here to change the programs and this menu when you press the menu , in the L_C_D_ displays as you go on pressing the menu it faster displays volume , then the program , then the brightness , contrast and all the stuff . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Yeah but if you look at the L_C_D_ you you don't look at the T_V_ screen +Marketing: And accordingly you can just increase or decrease . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} i i it's not really worth to get {disfmarker} to have the image if you don't look at , so . +User Interface: I if {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: And I think it's increases the cost of the the remote control if you use L_C_D_ . I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that has to be checked out . +User Interface: I think that there's no contradiction here , because if there are few buttons , you don't have to look at your your controller any more because you know where the buttons are , so if you wanna control the screen d sh sharpness you just say sharpness +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you t turn {disfmarker} you just press lef increase or decrease button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the same for the volume and the channel , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you had the speech recognition there you just shout your channel , just tell your channel and then you don't even have to look at the butto at the controller so finally that wil eliminates the the need for L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: with the help of speech recogniser you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , {gap} better if we could just check all the cost with L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and also with the speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we could find which would would be a more suitable in this case . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . A and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the third problem was to find the remote control . Always , so fifty percent of the people say they lose the remotes . +Industrial Designer: Well so we we can think about a well a a vocal command like uh find +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} when the remote control uh hears fine well yeah just uh to make him beep or t +Project Manager: You will listen to a peep , {vocalsound} special peep . +User Interface: Where {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right , that's exactly what I mean by voice commander . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be also something like this , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it's always boring to change the batteries of the remotes control , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so we have some one charger there and whenever we don't use the remote control we put it in the charger . +User Interface: Put it back at the charge . +Industrial Designer: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And when we're using that t remote and if we misplace somewhere , in the charger we have a small button , and just by pressing the button in the charger the uh remote control beeps , wherever it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And that's a good idea , that's simple , like in phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I mean it doe it also doesn't require a voice command , +Project Manager: But you don't you don't have to move the the charger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because there are problems with a voice command . +User Interface: Hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Th yeah . Mm yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: You have to keep it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean charger would be fixed +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because it's always with electricity plugged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if there if there uh there is nuff not enough battery . Also and uh uh the remote is lost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . There's {disfmarker} mm . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: That {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} what we can do is we can program a function whereby when you press the switch off T_V_ button , the off button , the remote there be s uh instruction on the screen , please charge charge me . You never get it lost +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh every time you're off the computer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the T_V_ you are asked the the command the T_V_ com remote controller would tell you to put it back to where {disfmarker} to the charger . +Marketing: It's an good reminder , +User Interface: Yeah . So you will never get lost {gap} {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe for some people {gap} {vocalsound} lazy people . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah because everything is programmed inside . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So it's it's uh it's all about strategy , y +Marketing: And of course the final point is a fancy look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: As we have seen earlier the remotes which were displayed by Norman they weren't fancy , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I mean mm very big or something with lot of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should have something {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the last one with the um {vocalsound} yeah with the two parts was uh {gap} original , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: With uh two two two parts controller . +Marketing: I mean {gap} uh I mean uh I mean uh you see if it's like that even a kid who wants to have a control he could just plug it and {vocalsound} use it , you can't avoid him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But you can have an button for child lock . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So just by pressing the button with some code , you t you put a lock onto the remote , so that he can't use even {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well we can think about uh having uh on the on the on the user interface when you switch on the T_V_ you can uh well write a code or choose a category , if it is kids , uh things like that . +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Or maybe you have to to show some specific programmes for kids and then just just {disfmarker} yeah just push uh kids button so it's automatically +User Interface: Mm . {gap} these are probl yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So if he {gap} . +Marketing: I think these other four points they're the market demands and so it's for the user interface design and industrial design to just think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So for mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So for my part I will check the prices the um the prices difference uh of what to use , where to use , and s uh and so on . +Marketing: Yeah I think it should be clearer for us in the next meeting that th uh these {gap} could be included . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I think we need to define also a s the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh if you want {gap} uh say we can sort by channels or sort by T_V_ programs , you have to decide a category of vocabularies for them . If numbers , they're easy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if {gap} name the channel by by name {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we can we can have just numbers for channels and you can say to your remote control like uh sports and then on the T_V_ you have a list with with uh uh well with sports program playing now +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we have a problem there . You see uh if you have a voice commands and you are s you are watching a score on uh {disfmarker} basketball score or something , and if the score comes twenty four thirty five , you've just say twenty five +Project Manager: Yeah it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and suddenly {vocalsound} the screen the channel goes to twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So I think there should be a prefix to some numbers {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well but well e every possible word uh has a probability to come about of the T_V_ so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the the {disfmarker} you just check all the probability that saying T_V_ twenty five and just ordinary twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Ordinary twenty five you almost there's a probability of being said around sixty seventy percent +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but well {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: and T_V_ twenty five I dunno it will be round about one or two percent . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So it's better to have some prefix {gap} before the number . +User Interface: But I I I think that the user would like wou would like to associate the channel or call the channel rather than than the numbers . +Marketing: Yeah something , some code . +User Interface: You say numbe channel number five of the T_V_ correspond to something else in the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So some people may want to say , I want to see this channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm mm . Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: That will be too big . +Project Manager: Or just {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it will be difficult for the vocabulary also . +User Interface: Yeah . Check with the v R_ and D_ department the capability of recogniser . +Project Manager: It's difficult to to just say the the name of the channel . It will be difficult to say just the name of the channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: Because you have to s t uh a ch +User Interface: Well , it's convenient for the user . +Project Manager: yeah but you have to to have all the name of the channel in your vocabulary . +Marketing: Als might be you just forgot the channel name , you kno only know the number . +Project Manager: Or maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe the user can create his own vocabulary , +User Interface: The {disfmarker} uh uh mm . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: just pronouncing the the name of channels and include in the vocabulary . +User Interface: I I think that I have {disfmarker} mm mm {vocalsound} I think there's another way you can do is that uh you can uh {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} when the user ch press a button to choose the channel for example , then what you can do is that the {disfmarker} you can make the T_V_ screen to split them into small little little squares of images where you you you have a snapshot of every channel , so let's say it's a four by four matrix of the images , so now what you do is f looking at the all the sixteen channels available at one time , you just use the control button uh , you just you you just choose the the option you want +Marketing: Yeah , the {gap} . +User Interface: and then you just hit the button and then you go to that channel . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or lets the user create his own vocabulary of channel . +User Interface: Mm . So you you don't use the speech recogniser in that way . +Project Manager: No . Just you have uh in the beginning you have uh t you have to train {disfmarker} you have to create the vocabulary by yourself . +User Interface: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh I also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By associating each channel with the name or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I also think about uh another problem , if if there is uh more than one person who is watching T_V_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for each one has his own . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the s well the the speech uh r recogniser should be able to distinguish between the two . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh I remember when I was a {vocalsound} young child with my sister we {disfmarker} yeah we always want to w to watch different emission at the at the same time +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or you have to s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I wanna watch this , I wanna watch that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a pr it could be a problem if uh if well if someone passes by when you are watching T_V_ and say oh T_V_ thirty {vocalsound} and just run , s +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: A and in the same lines we would have a {disfmarker} one more problem . If we are using the television in the different environments , say in the factories or in the shops where there is a lot of noise and this voice commands if they fail to work , that would bring a bad name {disfmarker} bad uh reputation for our company . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we should specify some pre-requirements if we want to use a voice commands , say that it should be used in an silent homely environment or s something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we can switch on or switch off the the special {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right that should be an option . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} well I think that's a good uh a good option because it's simple and uh simple to implement also , so . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think these are the practical problems . So we need to take care of them in the design . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll discuss them in next meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's time to close this meeting . +User Interface: Well , you you stay a five minutes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh it came there on three minutes back so we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think we can just press the okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks for your collaborations . +Industrial Designer: So I see ya . +Marketing: Okay . See you another thirty minutes . +","In the third project meeting, the team discussed the conceptual design of a remote control. They evaluated energy options, including solar, hand dynamo, kinetic energy, and batteries, and considered case materials like wood, rubber, titanium, and latex. Interface options were debated, including buttons versus touchscreens and the possible integration of voice recognition technology. The importance of a user-friendly design with less complexity was stressed. The market survey indicated users want fancy-looking remotes and are willing to spend more for them. Key takeaways included the need to balance cost with features such as LCD screens and voice recognition, with a focus on fancy design and user customization. The team planned to further investigate costs and market demands, and explore solutions for common frustrations such as losing the remote. They would reconvene to discuss findings in a subsequent meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hello everyone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hi . +Marketing: Hi . +Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , good . +Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting , more or less . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working , meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given . Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use . Um it's also an item that people lose a lot . So we should address that . And , of course , it should be something s s that is very simple to use . In addition to that to make it sell , of course , uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because , in particular with smaller items , that's a very important fact , 'cause um if they say , well , I go home and think about it , that won't work . Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve . And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip . Therefore , messages uh will be controlled in the same manner . There should be extra features like lid buttons , maybe a beep . If too many buttons are pressed , mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time , you know , what show they want to watch . Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes . So the components of the thing should be button , bulbs , infra infra-red bulbs , battery , chips , wires , and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item . Francino who is our um +User Interface: Interface designer . +Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it , of course , should have an on-off button , and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock . Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable . It should be compact . Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped . And maybe have an anar alarm-clock . And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature . Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves . Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time ? Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think that pretty much is it . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations . And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh , I don't I don't think so , so whoever w wants {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , I can start first . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Okay . Now my slide , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , your slides . Okay . Oh , come on , close already . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And that's number two , right ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Participant three . Yes . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Now as an interface designer , I would give more emphasis on the interface , how the remote looks like so that it is sellable , it is attractive to customers . Next , please . Okay . Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television . This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel , like you can have the numbers one , two , three , four , up to nine . +Project Manager: Nine what ? Nine channel uh switches ? +User Interface: Pardon me ? +Project Manager: Nine channel switches ? Is {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , nine numbers . And then you have swapping of uh button +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa . Then it should have a next button , and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television . For example , if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English , then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour , colour of the picture , the contrast , sharpness , brightness of the picture . Now there should be a memory switch . There should be a mute button . Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call , and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_ , but he he can reduce the sound , he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_ . Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature . It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit . So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers , you can record your own voice +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television , for example , if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel , uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah , the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have . So this is one one of the interface which can be created . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , please , next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then , these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour , but they have many buttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that . So you can you can design an interface which is very simple , and which is user-friendly . Even a kid can use that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide . Yeah , so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use , it can be used for T_V_ , it can be used for cable-satellite , it can be used for V_C_R_ , D_V_D_s and audio . And this has in-built voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide ? Yeah , now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly , it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it . And this comes with different colours , different shapes . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small , compact , attractive child interface . Next slide , please . Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You don't know me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big , you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created . {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Right . +User Interface: Thank you , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , thank you very much . Uh any comments on uh her presentation ? +Marketing: Well , um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more . I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good , the child one is good , the too big to misplace , I think it's just funny . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I I th I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think the these are her presentations , but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after +Marketing: Yeah mm . Mm-hmm . Have to come back to that later . Okay . +User Interface: We can . +Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation . +Marketing: No , I think her presentation was good , and she really explored all the options . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm right . Mm-hmm . Ho who wants to go next um ? Mm-hmm . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +Project Manager: and you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Participant two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh the next one , sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one . +Project Manager: The components design . +Industrial Designer: Components . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , can you go on to the next slide , please . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit , battery , etcetera , etcetera , it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one , hard plastic , so that it can be strong , even if you just uh uh , {vocalsound} you know , if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down , then it doesn't {vocalsound} break . So it should be strong . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that . And it should be recyclable . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound} , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Good point . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours , blue , red , green , so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components . And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller . If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one . And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures . Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside , it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures . And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility . And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery , capacitor . Can you go on to the next slide , please ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh a diode , a transistor , a resonator , these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller . A battery uh , I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery , even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery . Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one , then uh people can use it for a long time , so in that way we can cut cut the cost , but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one . And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller . Can you go to the next slide , please . And how it works , how the remote controller works . +Project Manager: Go away . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Uh when you press a button , when you do that , you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button , and it will send some signals through the wires , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed . Suppose you have pressed channel one button , number one you have pressed , then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button . Every button , every individual button , has its own morse code . Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one , then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button , and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light . Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button . That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit . Now , that signal , that morse code , has to be amplified by the transistor . That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller . It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits . The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light , and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately , that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal , then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do . Then it will do the appropriate action . So uh this is how the remote controller works . +User Interface: It works . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Yeah , I have few pictures . When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller . And {gap} to the next slide , please . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all . And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor , three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah , and di and a diode transistor . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah , di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor , and a uh uh cylinder shape , uh that one is a capacitor . Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry , ther there is a diode . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board . The green one is a circuit board . Actually , uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive . Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper , because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires , it's it's better to go for printing , because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing , nothing like uh , you know , you don't need to use wires and all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using . It's just printing something on a board . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits . So th that green uh thing is a circuit board , and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons , like when you press a button , the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the , yeah , um integrated circuit . +User Interface: Transmit . +Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide , please . Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons . Uh can you see the black uh , round marks ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Next , please . And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls . Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it , but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range . Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery , a more ingenious uh hard dynamo , um a kinetic provision of energy , more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy . So that also we can have in a battery , uh or we can use solar sells . Uh . +Marketing: Hmm , that's interesting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases . Uh usually , the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And you have more pictures . Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe d uh I have just one more slide , I think . Um . Like we can have a ma material such as plastic , rubber , wood , titanium , but titanium we can't use . Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print , um also infra it includes the infrared se sender . Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker . An Yeah , that's it . It's all for me now , +Project Manager: Okay , well thank you . +Industrial Designer: thank you . +Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody ? +Marketing: Uh yeah , on the scroll and the push-button , um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , th the the the scrolling wheels are different , like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls , uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Now , nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons . +Marketing: Um . We'll just go for push buttons +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah , push-buttons . Yeah . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision , and the marketing expert has to present her her thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +Marketing: Um alright , my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing , and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition , so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers . I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing . And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that , I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have , and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it . And I would encourage you all to do the same . Um and my findings from this is that , you know , small is beautiful . Um people like something that really fits in their hand . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Simple is beautiful . They don't want to have to squint at small print um , they want buttons whose functions are obvious , and they want um as few buttons as possible , and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing . They want each button to do something . And eye-catching is important . It's gotta look cute , it's gotta look appealing . Go ahead , I'm trying to finish fast for you . Um {vocalsound} and our preference is , as far as I'm concerned , are we got to get to the market before the competition . Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others , so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item . And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign . If we try to tell people it has too many great features , um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere . So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things , I think , that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product . And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular . And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular . And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal . They are more back into soft feel , spongy feeling things , things with maybe a little cloth on them . So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone . And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: of the remote ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours , and limit yours a bit ? +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh yes , I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned ? +User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w +Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature . +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That that {gap} be really good , yeah , I agree with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work , because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems , issues . +Marketing: Distance problem ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices , so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system , it's a costly thing , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it's it's , uh yeah , it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already , and then you're expecting an answer from th For example , you have a T_V_ system , I'm the user and my family members are the user , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I will already record uh a question like , uh good morning , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on . It will recognise my voice and will switch on . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , before we get too far off here um , the components of the concept is the energy . What kind of energy do we foresee ? Battery . +Marketing: I think I think battery , +Project Manager: Battery . +User Interface: Battery . +Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And the case . And I think we all agree on the case , we wanna have something uh maybe bright , colourful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright , colourful , trendy trendy design , and strong . +User Interface: And compact . +Industrial Designer: And also strong . +User Interface: Trendy design and compact . +Industrial Designer: Trendy , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Trendy design , compact and strong . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: User interface concept , uh {vocalsound} interface type , supplements +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That will be your area I think , right , Jana . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Um like the switches , like we use buttons for user interface . +User Interface: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Push-buttons . +Project Manager: yeah . And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons , like can have a f mute button or a swapping button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , I think that {disfmarker} Yeah , +Project Manager: Oh , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement . +Project Manager: Oh . A what ? +Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement . +Project Manager: Right , right , right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Recogniser . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes , and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then , to have the look and feel design , and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: In this phase , the two of you , Jana and Francine , have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay , it says here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um if you have any questions , you know , you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach , I suppose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes , according to our timetable here . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you . +","Summary: + +During the meeting, the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, and Marketing expert reviewed the decisions of their previous meeting and discussed concepts for a new product. The Marketing Manager had proposed a marketing strategy prioritizing ease of use, market appeal, and a short learning curve for the product. The Industrial Designer presented a concept involving a chip with infrared and interface controls, extra features fashioned for ease of use, and a variety of possible shapes and materials for the product. The Interface Designer suggested designing a remote with essential buttons, a T-shaped design, non-allergenic materials, and a standout feature like voice recognition or a channel lock for child safety. + +The team explored options including a rechargeable battery, push-buttons for the user interface, bright and trendy design for the case, and possibly a speech recognition feature. They agreed on needing a user-friendly, compact design with a strong yet appealing case, battery power, and cost-effectiveness. The Industrial Designer highlighted the importance of sophisticated components for the remote's effectiveness, while the Marketing expert emphasized distinguishing their product from competitors and focusing on a couple of significant features for an ad campaign. + +The meeting concluded with tasks assigned to the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer to work on a prototype using modeling clay, while the Marketing expert was to focus on product evaluation. The team agreed to reconvene in thirty minutes, after completing their respective tasks." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hello . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dang it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you have to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: It's important to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot over here . +User Interface: Okay . No , that's okay . Joost , your mouse . +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: No mouse needed ? +Marketing: I've got a touch-pad . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: A touch-pad ? +Marketing: No , my laptop . +User Interface: Slap it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You with your brilliant ideas . I don't know if I can touch the power button . Do you know how how I can wake it up ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Try the power button . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on , move it . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now , wake up , bitch . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: F_ five . F_ five {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I've lost my screen . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so did I . +User Interface: I don't . +Marketing: I closed it . That wasn that wasn't very smart , I guess . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . Get back to me . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I closed the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I closed it . +User Interface: You've got your name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , my name is name . +Marketing: No , I didn't restart it , I just closed it . Yes . +User Interface: Hope it working . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Never close your laptop . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Everybody's ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Great . Thanks . +Project Manager: Great . Well , welcome to the kick-off meeting . I uh forgot to put my name over here , it's uh {vocalsound} it's Martin . Uh , so you all know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , this is the agenda for today . Well , the opening is what I'm doing right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , we gonna do some acquaintance acquaintance things . Uh give some um examples of the tool training , project plan discussion and the closing . We have twenty five minutes . Okay , the project aim is to design a new remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , some of the {vocalsound} oje objectives are that is has to be original , trendy , and user-friendly . So now we all know what our +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: goal is . Um , I {disfmarker} oh forget {disfmarker} I forget the whole acquaintance part , but we we all know each other . We all know each other's names . Joost , Guido , Antek . +User Interface: What is your name ? +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Antek . +User Interface: Antek Ahmet . And Joost . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . I think we uh al already uh been through that part . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , it consists of uh three levels of design . Uh we begin with the functional design , then we go to the conceptual design and the detailed design . Every uh level of design consists of some individual work , and we uh close it with a meeting . You all received an email with a example of our explanation of what uh the particular level of design uh means to the different uh functions , and uh you p you probably read that already , so I don't have to tell you about that . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , first we're gonna um uh gonna try some different things with the tools we have over here , so you get acquainted with these uh um uh meeting tools . We have the smart-boards , uh the thes those two boards . This is the presentation boards , wh which one I'm using right now . You can uh um {disfmarker} there's a document folder called um the sh {vocalsound} shared document folder . You can upload your uh documents to that folder and then you can open them over here , so you can do your PowerPoint presentations on this screen . We also have the white-board . Uh , we're gonna skip through th +User Interface: Can we see the white-board on our laptops ? +Project Manager: No , no . Just on the on the screen over there . +User Interface: No , I saw I saw the file , the smart-board that X_B_K_ but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , no . Probably is , but I don't know if the software is on the laptop {gap} . Is is {disfmarker} if it's mainly a thing for in the meeting , so I don't think it's {disfmarker} I don't know if it's important . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: This an explanation of the smart-boards . There is a tool-bar over here . It's quite simple . You have the the pen function , eraser function . It's like a very simple uh paint application . Uh , we {disfmarker} well , we use the same file during uh the whole day , and uh you can make new sheets by uh by pu puttin pressing on the blank button . It works like this . Oh . {vocalsound} If pen is selected , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , no no . +User Interface: With that pen ? +Project Manager: It's not {disfmarker} But it is pen . It's not working like a pen yet . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Huh . Huh . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It's doing some stuff now . So you can use a pen . +User Interface: Little bit slower . +Project Manager: You can use an eraser . And you can make new uh fi uh new blanks , and you can change uh the line width and the colour of the pen by pressing on forward , which y you have to select pen format . And then select current colour or line width . So , it's quite easy . Uh well , now you're all uh acquainted with the different tools . Right , we're gonna try out the electronic white-boards . Uh , every participant should draw his favourite animal and some of its favourite characteristics , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: on blank sheets with different colours , with different pen widths . Uh , I'll start off then . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll use this uh same sheet . Alright . Oh , let me think . Different colours . Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , I'm gonna draw um a p piranha . Uh , a fish . +User Interface: {vocalsound} piranha . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I'm gonna use some different colour {gap} now . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Some {disfmarker} a little white . Looks like a fish . Think it is . Oh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} Uh , colour . This is black ? I think so . +User Interface: Yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Oh , this is just uh {vocalsound} useless uh drawings but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh teeth . I need teeth . {vocalsound} Well , they're not supposed to be green , or whatever colour this is . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . What was uh {disfmarker} I have su to sum up its favourite characteris +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Well , I like its uh sharp {disfmarker} razor sharp teeth . {vocalsound} Plus , uh the the big uh forehead and uh a small uh , well a small actual face . And I like its overall uh aggressive look and {disfmarker} Well , that's what I like about uh piranha . I think that's kind of what uh the intention should be . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , who wants to be next ? +Marketing: Nobody , I guess . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I will try . Yeah . I will try . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You go , Guido ? Okay . Uh , make a new sheet . Uh , it's by pressing on blank . +User Interface: Blank ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . Then pen again ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} so in the format menu you can choose the different uh colours and uh pen widths . +User Interface: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Format . +User Interface: {gap} control . Uh {disfmarker} Ah , purple . Um , I don't know what my uh favourite uh animal is , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but the easiest animal I can think is is a bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I will {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know , I thought of that actually . +User Interface: That's my bird . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't it quite {disfmarker} it's a little bit light . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , another colour maybe . A red one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A small one . Uh , line width . Two ? Three . Oh that's okay . That's another one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , tell us something about uh your favourite characteristics of these uh particular birds . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ano {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Its simplicity . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's uh the most simple uh animal I know , I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , I don't know . Maybe because uh there's there's some s uh free uh maybe in the sky or something like that . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Okay . +User Interface: Maybe a little bit . Yeah . I don't know . +Project Manager: Okay . No , uh it's clear . +User Interface: So {gap} more uh birds ? +Project Manager: N no {vocalsound} no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We get your point . Okay . Who wants to be next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay , {vocalsound} okay , {vocalsound} okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , whatever . I'll go next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thanks . +User Interface: M +Marketing: I haven't got a favourite animal too , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Pictionary . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} What should I draw ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: A cow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Thank you , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'll draw a penguin . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} I'll draw a penguin . Whatever . I can't draw , so you can start to laugh already . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll do so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever . Something like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , it's little bit hard . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm , orange . +User Interface: Orange , of course . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , {vocalsound} it's better than your bird . +User Interface: {gap} Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Everything's better than your bird . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} True . +Marketing: Whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hey , it's blue . No . Whatever . Um , I like its ugliness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , whatever . The way it walks or whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Your turn . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm going to draw a cat . I don't know why , but a cat is a very uh smart animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And you can have them at home . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Which is not as the case with uh with bingwings and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , you can have a piranha at home . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yes , {vocalsound} yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: Or a line . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A little bit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean a bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Don't mess with my birds , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not very uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very good drawn , but you can see a cat from it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . It's a handicapped cat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} cat . +Project Manager: I don't think uh I don't think uh Darwin would agree with that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , it's not scared . He's crying but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} He's crying because it's ugl because of his ugliness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What do you like about it then ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh it's i most cats are small . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: You can handle them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Okay , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then we are uh through the tool training , I guess . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wouldn't call it training , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , this is uh something about the project finance . The selling price of our remote control is gonna be twenty five Euros . And our profit aim is fifteen million Euros . We're very ambitious on this one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The market range is international , so it's gonna be sold world-wide , and the production cost should be a maximum of twelve Euro fifty per remote control . So that's clear . {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , we're now gonna discuss some stuff when {disfmarker} well , we're gonna brainstorm about uh what kind of kemoro romo remote control it's gonna be . Uh , well tell me about your experiences with the remote controls . Do you have uh {disfmarker} know what good experiences with remote controls ? Or do they annoy you sometimes ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Are they difficult to understand , or maybe they don't interact with different kind of uh equipment very well ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I don't th I don't think the four of us got problems with remote controls , +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: but if you see elderly people , all these buttons , and then they buy new T_V_ because their previous one was stolen or whatever . +User Interface: Different . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a totally different remote control with with different functions on different places , and half of the functions a are removed , or whatever . Uh , so I think what we need is is a clear uh remote control with uh grouped buttons , you know . All th all the buttons which apply to the text functions in in one uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Different functions of of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , one area or whatever , not like the button to enter text on top of the remote control and the button to um , yeah , to minimise it to this this {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or whatever o o other functions {vocalsound} totally somewhere else . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: I think we should group them . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And same for the for the volume buttons and the the t +Project Manager: And uh , is it gonna be a remote control that's um {disfmarker} what it can be used for different kind of equipment , like your T_V_ and your home stereo ? +Marketing: Well I was I was thinking uh since a T_V_ is uh mostly used together with a V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player or recorder , and not with a stereo , I think it should be good to include functions for V_C_R_s and D_V_D_ players , recorders . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . But uh , the D_V_D_ players and home cinema sets often double as stereo hi-fi sets probably . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's what , from my experience . +User Interface: But isn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't know . Hi-fi set is uh not often used uh as I know of in combination with television . +Project Manager: Okay . But we gonna {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's only for television , I thought . Not {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: Oh , it is only for televis +User Interface: {gap} I thought it was only for television . So so we probably don't have to have to uh have the functions for D_V_D_ player or V_C_R_ . +Marketing: Yes , it is only for television , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So wha what {disfmarker} What wha {vocalsound} what uh what document {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} well we we're gonna brainstorm about that . If we think it's useful , we do it . +Project Manager: But , where where did it uh {disfmarker} Where did you find that ? +User Interface: Uh , in the email . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +User Interface: I thought it said uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right . It's a television remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I was thinking since it is useful with D_V_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but most television remote controls support other functions as well . So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh something extras . +Project Manager: No , we have to think about that . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh but uh we've gonna put some a uh is is it so user-friendliness , is a is a pri priority in this case , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , also no one's gonna buy it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Only the experts . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I guess . +Project Manager: Well , this the maybe is uh some aspect of the {disfmarker} uh , or or some point at at which we can excel by making it very useful . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That w Well , then you're you're the usability uh man , so this uh gonna be a very important task for you then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my God . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , other ideas ? How can we make it trendy or something ? Do uh by just sh shape and the look of it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , to go with to go with fashion and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe a can opener underneath it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} For the bear . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know . Or someth something special , like uh M_P_ three player inside of it , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I uh , no I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , well then the production costs are gonna be too high probably . +User Interface: Uh , I th I think yo we have to keep it simple , to get a whole market . +Marketing: Yeah , way too high . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe with different type of fronts or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's international , so we have to use a standard . +Project Manager: Well , m has to be something {vocalsound} spectacular or uh one which makes it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well that's an idea of course , yeah . +Project Manager: We gonna skip back to the goals probably . Uh , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: original , trendly , and user-friendly {disfmarker} Well , we al also already talked about user-friendliness . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: No , well something trendy and original , well that that goes hand in hand I guess . When something is original , it tends to be trendy , probably , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: or we should make it combination of that . 'Kay , so you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the um technical part of the process is something you're gonna look after for , so you have to think about what kind of uh equipment you want to uh , you know , you want to manage with it . Well , and that's an important part for you then , with gogors regards to the user-friendly part of it . +User Interface: Use friendly . Yep . +Project Manager: Well , and you uh should look out for what makes it trendy . {vocalsound} Well , you know , y like some special feature . Or some {disfmarker} {gap} Does it does it gets some gadgetness or something . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes , what the market wishes . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , the closing . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Individual , I think so . The the Industrial Designer will w or the working design , of course , we will uh {disfmarker} Already s said that . The User Interface Designer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it a User Inter User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Interface d +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the technical functions design . And the Management Expert of uh {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . User requirements specifi Well , this one was already clear to us . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . I don't know how much time we have left . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , not many I guess . We started at twelve . +Marketing: You just got a message . +Project Manager: Oh , and what does it said ? +Marketing: And it said uh five minutes , so we got four and a half . +User Interface: Oh , I don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W Okay , well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I didn't get a message . +Marketing: No . He's the whatever . +User Interface: Oh , the Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Team Leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we're uh ahead of schedule then . +Marketing: Team Leader . {vocalsound} He is the whatever . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , close it . I'm gonna make some minutes or take some minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: And uh it's it's clear you can put the stuff in the project documents presentations . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: You can all {disfmarker} Or we're all uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Project joc project documents is for showing uh on the white-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , but we're all familiar with uh uh Microsoft PowerPoint , are we ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I'm gonna wri uh write some stuff down +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: and then we're ready . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Or we can leave already {gap} I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} or uh or sh or should we uh {disfmarker} or is important that we leave at exact uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No . I don't think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: We'll see each other in uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Good luck . +Project Manager: Yeah , good luck . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will need it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I will need it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","The conversation is a team meeting involving members from Marketing, a Project Manager, a User Interface designer, and an Industrial Designer. The meeting seems to start with technical difficulties surrounding laptop positioning and waking up devices. The Project Manager emphasizes the importance of proper laptop placement for the meeting. + +As they move on, the Project Manager introduces the agenda and objectives for the meeting, including the design of a new remote control that needs to be original, trendy, and user-friendly. They briefly mention that they know each other's names, suggesting the participants work together frequently. + +The group then engages in an exercise to familiarize themselves with electronic whiteboards, where each person is asked to draw their favorite animal and articulate its favorite characteristics. This part is somewhat informal and playful, with various participants attempting to draw on the smart-board and describe their drawings. + +The professional conversation resumes with the Project Manager outlining the project's financial goals, including the selling price, profit aim, and production costs. The team starts brainstorming ideas for the remote control discussing user-friendliness and market trends. They touch upon the need for the remote control to possibly control various devices like TVs, VCRs, and DVD players but also keeping it simple for a broad market appeal. There is also a brief touch on the importance of the remote being trendy to appeal to consumers. + +Finally, the Project Manager moves to the goals of originality and trendiness and starts to assign tasks to team members based on their roles. The meeting concludes with next steps and scheduling the follow-up meeting. + +Overall, the meeting seems casual yet focused on initiating the design process for a new, user-friendly, and trendy remote control targeted for a wide market with a specific financial goal in mind." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Well hi everyone again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Hello +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and so here we go . Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote +User Interface: Designer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_ . It should have nine channel buttons , a next button , volume buttons , subtitle buttons , switch to control features , colour contrast , sharpness etcetera . It should have a memory switch , a mute button in case the telephone rings or something . Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote . Um . {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons , colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons . Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she , she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote . The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue . She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong , not using any harmful materials , should be recyclable and should be colourful . Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant . She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated . Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor , diode transistor , resonator , and if possible a rechargeable battery . Uh and of course a circuit board . And how it would works , you press the button , the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore . Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases . The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition , has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small , easy to use and it should be eye catching . From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does . To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on . Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter . So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home . Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel . She feels that's really what people want today . And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser , the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip , should be trendy design , compact and strong , and should have buttons . And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting . Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just the look like , the button part I'll explain . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made . This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oops , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als +Marketing: Oh that's good , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: no , that's nice and friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led , for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote . Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Yeah , okay , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: on the side of the model . Then we have included one to nine buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels . Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: What kind of button ? +User Interface: Menu button . +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh menu th menu , uh one one . +User Interface: Yes , menu {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu button . {vocalsound} +User Interface: At the centre +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour , sharpness , brightness +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Of the screen . Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: of this uh picture . We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button . Now this is uh a special , special feature which we have included . Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel , if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel . It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button . +Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap , this button . +Marketing: Yeah , mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , okay . +User Interface: And at the end , it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is our proposed model . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Tell , yeah . +User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised , right ? +Marketing: The buttons are all raised +Project Manager: Are raised , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around , turn it upside down , move it up , up and down , +Project Manager: Right . Or have two hands to operate it , yeah . +Marketing: I really like that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You really did a good job on that , my little designers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place . That's that's a really good good thing . +Project Manager: Yes , and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Abs okay . +Marketing: The colour's very attractive . Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute +User Interface: No , these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here , are the mute buttons . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute ? +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: So you can push either one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter . +Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me ? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes , yes . +Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker} +User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels . +Marketing: F f okay . +User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels . +Marketing: Right , very good . Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I have one question +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons , like that people know , or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what ? +User Interface: Yes , it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , which can be easily recognised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols 'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , and also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols , text or something so that people kn +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text . +Marketing: Symbols on it . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself , +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay , mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A shell shape . +Marketing: For the snail , yeah , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , snail shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +Marketing: He goes right back into his shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course , yeah . +Marketing: you know that would , that would really work . +Project Manager: Now what , what are our special features for the marketing ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And then , and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use . +Marketing: Yep +Project Manager: You know . +Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical . I think we have to , we have to dwell on on on the appearance . +Project Manager: Colours . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the +Project Manager: Cutest . +Marketing: cutest remote control on the block . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image , play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think those are the two things to push . The look and the voice recognition . They're gonna be our two selling points . +Project Manager: Okay , now uh having said that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation , aren't I ? +Project Manager: No , now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , there is a production evaluation . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Is that you ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: But that's after the financing . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: See ? Fi see ? +Marketing: Sorry , sorry . Mm-mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Okay , we had looks and voice recognition . Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is . Okay uh energy source we say that's battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay , now . So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What ? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected . Well , that's nice . She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work . Hmm . +Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's see . Okay , one , okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh go away . Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh electronics , simple chip on print ? Is that's what we're using ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: One of those ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . Okay , one . Uh regular chip on print . No . That's all we need , the one +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} case , uncurved flat , single curved , double curved . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single curve ? Mm . +Marketing: I guess it's double curved . +Project Manager: Double curved ? One of those ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Case materi s supplements . Plastic we said , right ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh wood , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber , because we're gonna have the soft buttons . +Project Manager: Uh but , yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material . +Project Manager: That's just for the case material , +User Interface: Is this for the case ? Yes . +Project Manager: so special colours though , we having that , +Marketing: Oh okay , the mm-hmm , mm' kay . +Project Manager: right ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel , no . Integrated scroll wheel , L_C_ display ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Button . +Marketing: 'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all , right ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , button supplement special colour ? +User Interface: Speci Yes +Project Manager: Special form ? +User Interface: Yes d we do have special form . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And special material , rubber , wood , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I think that's the price . +Project Manager: That's the price . +User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine +Project Manager: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n +Project Manager: Eight , eight point two . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nine points , +Project Manager: hmm ? +User Interface: okay , yes . +Project Manager: Eight point two , right ? So , we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . I guess I should save this I suppose , huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . Uh-huh huh huh . +User Interface: On the desktop . +Project Manager: I just tried that . My documents , computer . +Industrial Designer: AMI . +Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is , yes . +Industrial Designer: AMI should for +Project Manager: Okay , fine . Save . Okay good , so that's the good news . We gonna be popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation . +Marketing: Okay , I'll take my file down so you can bring it up . 'Kay should be able to get it now . 'Kay , why don't you move just to the next slide right away . +Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah right away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question , will it sell ? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course , but maybe we just need to get a few . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups , we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it , we think it's good , we're gonna get behind it and sell it . Um , next slide please . Okay , now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype . I wanted the shape to be biomorphic , I didn't want anything with angles and all square , I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that . The size is small , the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted . We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible , we'll have the soft buttons +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and the way this is shaped , even though it's gonna be hard plastic , it feels good in your hand so that's nice . And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features , in other words , the look , the feel um and the shape , that's what people are gonna get in the store . +User Interface: Fee selling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: They don't have a television in the store , they can't play with it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points . So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please . Okay , so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one . That's really , really excellent shape . The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the , for the marketing , these aren't i in how I feel . I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven . I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And our colour I think is great . The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there . And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible . And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality , obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it . +Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that , too . +Marketing: Well , um we had what , eight eight euros twenty as our cost ? +Project Manager: Eight , eight twenty , yes . +Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend . +Industrial Designer: We have um four euros , yeah +Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well um that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished , as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that . I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price , the the the problem is quality . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , still . +Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Included , yeah . Hmm , +User Interface: Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: hmm +Project Manager: So to beware of that . You wanna go to this next slide , marketing expert ? +Marketing: Uh , well I isn't this my last slide ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Maybe . +Project Manager: Yes it is . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Go ahead . I think that was my last slide , yeah . Um . Mm okay . And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard . Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now , so if you put my last slide back up there . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that , um . +Project Manager: Why ? Wh why you need that up ? +Marketing: Hmm ? Well because I can't remember what I put on there . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here . +Project Manager: I think you can make it there . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . You ready . So now we're all supposed to say what we think . Um okay so on shape I gave it a one . Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst . +User Interface: Worse , okay . +Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is ? +User Interface: One . +Marketing: One , okay , and Be Betsy ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even my {disfmarker} yeah , shape is one . +Marketing: Okay , uh-huh one , okay . And how about on size ? On size {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four . +Marketing: I gave it a four , yeah , I feel it's just average . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno . I think I would give it at least a two . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I think it is one . It's quite small . +Marketing: Okay . Okay {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're the designer , of course you wanna give it a one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour ? +Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Colour , I gave it a one . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: I really like all those nice bright , warm colours . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours . One . +User Interface: One . Yes . +Marketing: One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One , one , one , okay . And how about the feel ? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand . +Project Manager: Uh , I think I would give it a two . +Marketing: Okay , I gave it a three , two , +User Interface: I'll give three . +Marketing: yeah ? Three . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two , +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh three , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . Well , um . It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product . Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe , heaven forbid , having another meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product . Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate ? +Project Manager: Uh . Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity . Um . Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy ? +User Interface: We can always improve , yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah , include some more buttons and uh um +User Interface: Yes , features . +Industrial Designer: yeah features . We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller . Uh I think they are quite big , so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case . If we want to have more features than that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yes . Voices . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons , instead of having two mute buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , definitely , yeah , two mu mute buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control . Maybe we can put that all on one button . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that . +Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't , with this particular item , we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . No . +Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process ? Uh , um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created ? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy . +Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too , yeah um , +Project Manager: Um an +Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy . +Marketing: it's something I think I can market . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job , Miss leader . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , yes you've done a good job . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , definitely . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good , I think we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used ? We used whiteboard , we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more , yeah , +User Interface: Whiteboard more , yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably . +Marketing: we didn't use that enough . +Project Manager: Yes , we could . Uh , it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , I think so , I think absolutely , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , many . +Marketing: I think we were we were very good , yeah , mm . +Project Manager: I think we we did , uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Are the costs within budget ? Yes , yes . Uh is the project evaluated ? Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um then celebration . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Celebration . +User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes , yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of 'em we have champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much . Um , I think this was very good and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible . Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Okay . Watch I I have my cord behind you here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I always get it on here , but getting it off is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left ? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: They say it's forty minutes . +Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later +Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time , whenever we felt we were finished . +Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace . {vocalsound} Oh , there we go . +","The meeting starts with the project manager recapping discussions from the previous meeting. In the recap, various features of a new remote control product are outlined, including its child-friendly design, few buttons, colorful star-shaped or other shaped buttons, an oversized version that is impossible to lose, integration of speech recognition, and various technical specifications. + +During the presentation of the prototype by the user interface designer and the industrial designer, the remote is described as snail-shaped with bright colors and comfortably fitting into the hand, highlighting its practicality and the use of soft rubber for the buttons' texture. + +The marketing expert emphasizes that the remote should be small, easy to use, and eye-catching, with speech recognition and fruit and vegetable design elements. The marketing strategy should focus on one or two key features for a clear campaign. The projected cost is within budget, and voice recognition is designated as a special feature that may need financial and technical consideration. + +The group collaborates effectively with positive feedback on the leadership of the project. Use of the whiteboard is critiqued as possibly underutilized in comparison to digital slides. Overall, it is felt that creativity was displayed, and the product is confirmed to be within budget and evaluated positively. The team concludes with feelings of satisfaction over the project's process and outcome. Celebration is mentioned towards the end." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: So I guess this is more or less now just to get you up to date , Johno . This is what , uh , +Grad C: This is a meeting for me . +Grad B: um , Eva , Bhaskara , and I did . +Grad D: Did you add more stuff to it ? {pause} later ? +Grad B: Um . Why ? +Grad D: Um . I don't know . There were , like , the {disfmarker} you know , @ @ and all that stuff . But . I thought you {disfmarker} you said you were adding stuff +Grad B: Uh , no . +Grad D: but {pause} I don't know . +Grad B: This is {disfmarker} Um , Ha ! Very nice . Um , so we thought that , {vocalsound} We can write up uh , an element , and {disfmarker} for each of the situation nodes that we observed in the Bayes - net ? So . What 's the situation like at the entity that is mentioned ? if we know anything about it ? Is it under construction ? Or is it on fire or something {pause} happening to it ? Or is it stable ? and so forth , going all the way um , f through Parking , Location , Hotel , Car , Restroom , @ @ {comment} Riots , Fairs , Strikes , or Disasters . +Grad C: So is {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} A situation are {disfmarker} is all the things which can be happening right now ? Or , what is the situation type ? +Grad B: That 's basically {pause} just specifying the {disfmarker} the input for the {disfmarker} w what 's +Grad C: Oh , I see y Why are you specifying it in XML ? +Grad B: Um . Just because it forces us to be specific about the values {pause} here ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: And , also , I mean , this is a {disfmarker} what the input is going to be . Right ? So , we will , uh {disfmarker} This is a schema . This is {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , yeah . I just don't know if this is th l what the {disfmarker} Does {disfmarker} This is what Java Bayes takes ? as a Bayes - net spec ? +Grad B: No , because I mean if we {disfmarker} I mean we 're sure gonna interface to {disfmarker} We 're gonna get an XML document from somewhere . Right ? And that XML document will say "" We are able to {disfmarker} We were able to observe that w the element , um , @ @ {comment} of the Location that the car is near . "" So that 's gonna be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {comment} Um . +Grad C: So this is the situational context , everything in it . Is that what Situation is short for , shi situational context ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So this is just , again , a an XML schemata which defines a set of possible , uh , permissible XML structures , which we view as input into the Bayes - net . Right ? +Grad C: And then we can r {pause} uh possibly run one of them uh transformations ? That put it into the format that the Bayes n or Java Bayes or whatever wants ? +Grad B: Yea - Are you talking {disfmarker} are you talking about the {disfmarker} the structure ? +Grad C: Well it {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean when you observe a node . +Grad C: When you {disfmarker} when you say {pause} the input to the {pause} v Java Bayes , {comment} it takes a certain format , +Grad B: Um - hmm . +Grad C: right ? Which I don't think is this . Although I don't know . +Grad B: No , it 's certainly not this . Nuh . +Grad C: So you could just {disfmarker} Couldn't you just run a {disfmarker} +Grad B: XSL . {comment} Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . To convert it into the Java Bayes for format ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's no problem , but I even think that , um {disfmarker} I mean , once {disfmarker} Once you have this sort of as {disfmarker} running as a module {disfmarker} Right ? What you want is {disfmarker} You wanna say , "" OK , give me the posterior probabilities of the Go - there {pause} node , when this is happening . "" Right ? When the person said this , the car is there , it 's raining , and this is happening . And with this you can specify the {disfmarker} what 's happening in the situation , and what 's happening with the user . So we get {disfmarker} After we are done , through the Situation we get the User Vector . So , this is a {disfmarker} +Grad C: So this is just a specification of all the possible inputs ? +Grad B: Yep . And , all the possible outputs , too . So , we have , um , for example , the , uh , Go - there decision node +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: which has two elements , going - there and its posterior probability , and not - going - there and its posterior probability , because the output is always gonna be all the decision nodes and all the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} a all the posterior probabilities for all the values . +Grad C: And then we would just look at the , eh , Struct that we wanna look at in terms of if {disfmarker} if we 're only asking about one of the {disfmarker} So like , if I 'm just interested in the going - there node , I would just pull that information out of the Struct that gets return that would {disfmarker} that Java Bayes would output ? +Grad B: Um , pretty much , yes , but I think it 's a little bit more complex . As , if I understand it correctly , it always gives you all the posterior probabilities for all the values of all decision nodes . So , when we input something , we always get the , uh , posterior probabilities for all of these . Right ? +Grad C: OK . +Grad B: So there is no way of telling it t not to tell us about the EVA {pause} values . +Grad C: Yeah , wait I agree , that 's {disfmarker} yeah , use {disfmarker} oh , uh {pause} Yeah , OK . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so we get this whole list of {disfmarker} of , um , things , and the question is what to do with it , what to hand on , how to interpret it , in a sense . So y you said if you {disfmarker} "" I 'm only interested in whether he wants to go there or not "" , then I just look at that node , look which one {disfmarker} +Grad C: Look at that Struct in the output , +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Look at that Struct in the {disfmarker} the output , even though I wouldn't call it a "" Struct "" . But . +Grad C: Well i well , it 's an XML Structure that 's being res returned , +Grad B: Oh . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: So every part of a structure is a "" Struct "" . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , I just uh {disfmarker} I just was {disfmarker} abbreviated it to Struct in my head , and started going with that . +Grad B: That element or object , I would say . +Grad C: Not a C Struct . That 's not what I was trying to k +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: though yeah . +Grad B: OK . And , um , the reason is {disfmarker} why I think it 's a little bit more complex or why {disfmarker} why we can even think about it as an interesting problem in and of itself is {disfmarker} Um . So . The , uh {disfmarker} Let 's look at an example . +Grad C: Well , w wouldn't we just take the structure that 's outputted and then run another transformation on it , that would just dump the one that we wanted out ? +Grad B: Yeah . w We 'd need to prune . Right ? Throw things away . +Grad C: Well , actually , you don't even need to do that with XML . +Grad B: No +Grad C: D Can't you just look at one specific {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , exactly . The {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Xerxes allows you to say , u "" Just give me the value of that , and that , and that . "" But , we don't really know what we 're interested in {pause} before we look at the complete {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the overall result . So the person said , um , "" Where is X ? "" and so , we want to know , um , is {disfmarker} Does he want info ? o on this ? or know the location ? Or does he want to go there ? Let 's assume this is our {disfmarker} our question . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad B: Nuh ? So . Um . Do this in Perl . So we get {disfmarker} OK . Let 's assume this is the output . So . We should con be able to conclude from that that {disfmarker} I mean . It 's always gonna give us a value of how likely we think i it is that he wants to go there and doesn't want to go there , or how likely it is that he wants to get information . But , maybe w we should just reverse this to make it a little bit more delicate . So , does he wanna know where it is ? or does he wanna go there ? +Grad C: He wants to know where it is . +Grad B: Right . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I tend to agree . And if it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well now , y I mean , you could {disfmarker} +Grad B: And i if there 's sort of a clear winner here , and , um {disfmarker} and this is pretty , uh {disfmarker} indifferent , then we {disfmarker} then we might conclude that he actually wants to just know where , uh t uh , he does want to go there . +Grad C: Uh , out of curiosity , is there a reason why we wouldn't combine these three nodes ? into one smaller subnet ? that would just basically be {pause} the question for {disfmarker} We have "" where is X ? "" is the question , right ? That would just be Info - on or Location ? Based upon {disfmarker} +Grad B: Or Go - there . A lot of people ask that , if they actually just wanna go there . People come up to you on campus and say , "" Where 's the library ? "" You 're gonna say {disfmarker} y you 're gonna say , g "" Go down that way . "" You 're not gonna say "" It 's {disfmarker} It 's five hundred yards away from you "" or "" It 's north of you "" , or {disfmarker} "" it 's located {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Well , I mean {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} So you just have three decisions for the final node , that would link thes these three nodes in the net together . +Grad B: Um . I don't know whether I understand what you mean . But . Again , in this {disfmarker} Given this input , we , also in some situations , may wanna postulate an opinion whether that person wants to go there now the nicest way , use a cab , or so s wants to know it {disfmarker} wants to know where it is because he wants something fixed there , because he wants to visit t it or whatever . So , it {disfmarker} n I mean {disfmarker} a All I 'm saying is , whatever our input is , we 're always gonna get the full output . And some {disfmarker} some things will always be sort of too {disfmarker} not significant enough . +Grad C: Wha Or i or i it 'll be tight . You won't {disfmarker} it 'll be hard to decide . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: But I mean , I guess {disfmarker} I guess the thing is , uh , this is another , smaller , case of reasoning in the case of an uncertainty , which makes me think Bayes - net should be the way to solve these things . So if you had {disfmarker} If for every construction , +Grad B: Oh ! +Grad C: right ? you could say , "" Well , there {disfmarker} Here 's the Where - Is construction . "" And for the Where - Is construction , we know we need to l look at this node , that merges these three things together +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: as for th to decide the response . And since we have a finite number of constructions that we can deal with , we could have a finite number of nodes . +Grad B: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Say , if we had to y deal with arbitrary language , it wouldn't make any sense to do that , because there 'd be no way to generate the nodes for every possible sentence . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But since we can only deal with a finite amount of stuff {disfmarker} +Grad B: So , basically , the idea is to f to feed the output of that belief - net into another belief - net . +Grad C: Yeah , so basically take these three things and then put them into another belief - net . +Grad B: But , why {disfmarker} why {disfmarker} why only those three ? Why not the whol +Grad C: Well , I mean , d For the Where - Is question . So we 'd have a node for the Where - Is question . +Grad B: Yeah . But we believe that all the decision nodes are {disfmarker} can be relevant for the Where - Is , and the Where {disfmarker} How - do - I - get - to or the Tell - me - something - about . +Grad C: You can come in if you want . +Grad B: Yes , it is allowed . +Grad C: As long as y you 're not wearing your h your h headphones . Well , I do I {disfmarker} See , I don't know if this is a {pause} good idea or not . I 'm just throwing it out . But uh , it seems like we could have {disfmarker} I mea or uh we could put all of the all of the r information that could also be relevant {pause} into the Where - Is node answer +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yep . +Grad C: node thing stuff . And uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} Let 's not forget we 're gonna get some very strong {pause} input from {pause} these sub dis from these discourse things , right ? So . "" Tell me the location of X . "" Nuh ? Or "" Where is X located at ? "" +Grad C: We u +Grad B: Nuh ? +Grad C: Yeah , I know , but the Bayes - net would be able to {disfmarker} The weights on the {disfmarker} on the nodes in the Bayes - net would be able to do all that , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: wouldn't it ? Here 's a k Oh ! Oh , I 'll wait until you 're {pause} plugged in . Oh , don't sit there . Sit here . You know how you don't like that one . It 's OK . That 's the weird one . That 's the one that 's painful . That hurts . It hurts so bad . I 'm h I 'm happy that they 're recording that . That headphone . The headphone {pause} that you have to put on backwards , with the little {disfmarker} little thing {disfmarker} and the little {disfmarker} little foam block on it ? It 's a painful , painful microphone . +Grad B: I think it 's th called "" the Crown "" . +Grad C: The crown ? +Grad D: What ? +Grad B: Yeah , versus "" the Sony "" . +Grad A: The Crown ? Is that the actual name ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . The manufacturer . +Grad C: I don't see a manufacturer on it . +Grad B: You w +Grad C: Oh , wait , here it is . h This thingy . Yeah , it 's "" The Crown "" . The crown of pain ! +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: You 're on - line ? +Grad C: Are you {disfmarker} are your mike o Is your mike on ? +Grad A: Indeed . +Grad C: OK . So you 've been working with these guys ? You know what 's going on ? +Grad A: Yes , I have . And , I do . Yeah , alright . s So where are we ? +Grad C: Excellent ! +Grad B: We 're discussing this . +Grad A: I don't think it can handle French , but anyway . +Grad B: So . Assume we have something coming in . A person says , "" Where is X ? "" , and we get a certain {disfmarker} We have a Situation vector and a User vector and everything is fine ? An - an and {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} and our {disfmarker} +Grad C: Did you just sti Did you just stick the m the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the microphone actually in the tea ? +Grad A: No . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad A: I 'm not drinking tea . What are you talking about ? +Grad C: Oh , yeah . Sorry . +Grad B: let 's just assume our Bayes - net just has three decision nodes for the time being . These three , he wants to know something about it , he wants to know where it is , he wants to go there . +Grad C: In terms of , these would be wha how we would answer the question Where - Is , right ? We u This is {disfmarker} i That 's what you s it seemed like , explained it to me earlier +Grad B: Yeah , but , mmm . +Grad C: w We {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we wanna know how to answer the question "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: Yeah . No , I can {disfmarker} I can do the Timing node in here , too , and say "" OK . "" +Grad C: Well , yeah , but in the s uh , let 's just deal with the s the simple case of we 're not worrying about timing or anything . We just want to know how we should answer "" Where is X ? "" +Grad B: OK . And , um , OK , and , Go - there has two values , right ? , Go - there and not - Go - there . Let 's assume those are the posterior probabilities of that . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Info - on has True or False and Location . So , he wants to know something about it , and he wants to know something {disfmarker} he wants to know Where - it - is , +Grad A: Excuse me . +Grad B: has these values . And , um , +Grad C: Oh , I see why we can't do that . +Grad B: And , um , in this case we would probably all agree that he wants to go there . Our belief - net thinks he wants to go there , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: right ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: In the , uh , whatever , if we have something like this here , and this like that and maybe here also some {disfmarker} +Grad A: You should probably {comment} make them out of {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: something like that , +Grad C: Well , it +Grad B: then we would guess , "" Aha ! He , our belief - net , {comment} has s stronger beliefs that he wants to know where it is , than actually wants to go {pause} there . "" Right ? +Grad C: That it {disfmarker} Doesn't this assume , though , that they 're evenly weighted ? +Grad D: True . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} I guess they are evenly weighted . +Grad A: The different decision nodes , you mean ? +Grad C: Yeah , the Go - there , the Info - on , and the Location ? +Grad A: Well , d yeah , this is making the assumption . Yes . +Grad C: Like {disfmarker} +Grad B: What do you mean by "" differently weighted "" ? They don't feed into anything really anymore . +Grad A: But I mean , why do we {disfmarker} +Grad C: Or I jus +Grad A: If we trusted the Go - there node more th much more than we trusted the other ones , then we would conclude , even in this situation , that he wanted to go there . +Grad C: Le +Grad A: So , in that sense , we weight them equally right now . +Grad B: OK . Makes sense . Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Grad C: So the But I guess the k the question {disfmarker} that I was as er wondering or maybe Robert was proposing to me is {disfmarker} How do we d make the decision on {disfmarker} as to {disfmarker} which one to listen to ? +Grad A: Yeah , so , the final d decision is the combination of these three . So again , it 's {disfmarker} it 's some kind of , uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Bayes - net . +Grad A: Yeah , sure . +Grad C: OK so , then , the question i So then my question is t to you then , would be {disfmarker} So is the only r reason we can make all these smaller Bayes - nets , because we know we can only deal with a finite set of constructions ? Cuz oth If we 're just taking arbitrary language in , we couldn't have a node for every possible question , you know ? +Grad A: A decision node for every possible question , you mean ? +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} like , in the case of {disfmarker} Yeah . In the ca Any piece of language , we wouldn't be able to answer it with this system , b if we just h Cuz we wouldn't have the correct node . Basically , w what you 're s proposing is a n Where - Is node , right ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} and if we {disfmarker} And if someone {disfmarker} says , you know , uh , something in Mandarin to the system , we 'd - wouldn't know which node to look at to answer that question , +Grad A: So is {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: right ? +Grad B: Mmm ? +Grad C: So , but {disfmarker} but if we have a finite {disfmarker} What ? +Grad B: I don't see your point . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what I am thinking , or what we 're about to propose here is we 're always gonna get the whole list of values and their posterior probabilities . And now we need an expert system or belief - net or something that interprets that , that looks at all the values and says , "" The winner is Timing . Now , go there . "" "" Uh , go there , Timing , now . "" Or , "" The winner is Info - on , Function - Off . "" So , he wants to know {pause} something about it , and what it does . Nuh ? Uh , regardless of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the input . Wh - Regardle +Grad C: Yeah , but But how does the expert {disfmarker} but how does the expert system know {disfmarker} how who which one to declare the winner , if it doesn't know the question it is , and how that question should be answered ? +Grad B: Based on the k what the question was , so what the discourse , the ontology , the situation and the user model gave us , we came up with these values for these decisions . +Grad C: Yeah I know . But how do we weight what we get out ? As , which one i Which ones are important ? So my i So , if we were to it with a Bayes - net , we 'd have to have a node {disfmarker} for every question that we knew how to deal with , that would take all of the inputs and weight them appropriately for that question . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Does that make sense ? Yay , nay ? +Grad A: Um , I mean , are you saying that , what happens if you try to scale this up to the situation , or are we just dealing with arbitrary language ? +Grad C: We {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is that your point ? +Grad C: Well , no . I {disfmarker} I guess my question is , Is the reason that we can make a node f or {disfmarker} OK . So , lemme see if I 'm confused . Are we going to make a node for every question ? Does that make sense ? {disfmarker} +Grad A: For every question ? +Grad C: Or not . +Grad A: Like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Every construction . +Grad A: Hmm . I don't {disfmarker} Not necessarily , I would think . I mean , it 's not based on constructions , it 's based on things like , uh , there 's gonna be a node for Go - there or not , and there 's gonna be a node for Enter , View , Approach . +Grad C: Wel W OK . So , someone asked a question . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: How do we decide how to answer it ? +Grad B: Well , look at {disfmarker} look {disfmarker} Face yourself with this pr question . You get this {disfmarker} You 'll have {disfmarker} y This is what you get . And now you have to make a decision . What do we think ? What does this tell us ? And not knowing what was asked , and what happened , and whether the person was a tourist or a local , because all of these factors have presumably already gone into making these posterior probabilities . What {disfmarker} what we need is a {disfmarker} just a mechanism that says , "" Aha ! There is {disfmarker} "" +Grad C: Yeah . I just don't think a "" winner - take - all "" type of thing is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean , in general , like , we won't just have those three , right ? We 'll have , uh , like , many , many nodes . So we have to , like {disfmarker} So that it 's no longer possible to just look at the nodes themselves and figure out what the person is trying to say . +Grad B: Yep . Because there are interdependencies , right ? The uh {disfmarker} Uh , no . So if {disfmarker} if for example , the Go - there posterior possibility is so high , um , uh , w if it 's {disfmarker} if it has reached {disfmarker} reached a certain height , then all of this becomes irrelevant . So . If {disfmarker} even if {disfmarker} if the function or the history or something is scoring pretty good on the true node , true value {disfmarker} +Grad C: Wel I don't know about that , cuz that would suggest that {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: He wants to go there and know something about it ? +Grad C: Do they have to be mutual Yeah . Do they have to be mutually exclusive ? +Grad B: I think to some extent they are . Or maybe they 're not . +Grad C: Cuz I , uh {disfmarker} The way you describe what they meant , they weren't mutu uh , they didn't seem mutually exclusive to me . +Grad B: Well , if he doesn't want to go there , even if the Enter posterior proba So . +Grad C: Wel +Grad B: Go - there is No . Enter is High , and Info - on is High . +Grad C: Well , yeah , just out of the other three , though , that you had in the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: those three nodes . The - d They didn't seem like they were mutually exclusive . +Grad B: No , there 's {disfmarker} No . But {disfmarker} It 's through the {disfmarker} +Grad C: So th s so , yeah , but some {disfmarker} So , some things would drop out , and some things would still be important . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: But I guess what 's confusing me is , if we have a Bayes - net to deal w another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you know , uh , is the only reason {disfmarker} OK , so , I guess , if we have a Ba - another Bayes - net to deal with this stuff , the only r reason {pause} we can design it is cuz we know what each question is asking ? +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's true . +Grad C: And then , so , the only reason {disfmarker} way we would know what question he 's asking is based upon {disfmarker} Oh , so if {disfmarker} Let 's say I had a construction parser , and I plug this in , I would know what each construction {disfmarker} the communicative intent of the construction was +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and so then I would know how to weight the nodes appropriately , in response . So no matter what they said , if I could map it onto a Where - Is construction , I could say , "" ah ! +Grad A: Ge Mm - hmm . +Grad C: well the the intent , here , was Where - Is "" , +Grad A: OK , right . +Grad C: and I could look at those . +Grad A: Yeah . Yes , I mean . Sure . You do need to know {disfmarker} I mean , to have that kind of information . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah , I 'm also agreeing that {pause} a simple pru {comment} Take the ones where we have a clear winner . Forget about the ones where it 's all sort of middle ground . Prune those out and just hand over the ones where we have a winner . Yeah , because that would be the easiest way . We just compose as an output an XML mes {vocalsound} message that says . "" Go there {pause} now . "" "" Enter historical information . "" And not care whether that 's consistent with anything . Right ? But in this case if we say , "" definitely he doesn't want to go there . He just wants to know where it is . "" or let 's call this {disfmarker} this "" Look - At - H "" He wants to know something about the history of . So he said , "" Tell me something about the history of that . "" Now , the e But for some reason the Endpoint - Approach gets a really high score , {pause} too . We can't expect this to be sort of at O point {comment} three , three , three , O point , three , three , three , O point , three , three , three . Right ? Somebody needs to zap that . You know ? Or know {disfmarker} There needs to be some knowledge that {disfmarker} +Grad C: We {disfmarker} Yeah , but , the Bayes - net that would merge {disfmarker} I just realized that I had my hand in between my mouth and my micr er , my and my microphone . So then , the Bayes - net that would merge there , that would make the decision between Go - there , Info - on , and Location , would have a node to tell you which one of those three you wanted , and based upon that node , then you would look at the other stuff . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Grad C: I mean , it i Does that make sense ? +Grad B: Yep . It 's sort of one of those , that 's {disfmarker} It 's more like a decision tree , if {disfmarker} if you want . You first look o at the lowball ones , +Grad C: Yeah , i +Grad B: and then {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I didn't intend to say that every possible {disfmarker} OK . There was a confusion there , k I didn't intend to say every possible thing should go into the Bayes - net , because some of the things aren't relevant in the Bayes - net for a specific question . Like the Endpoint is not necessarily relevant in the Bayes - net for Where - Is until after you 've decided whether you wanna go there or not . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: Show us the way , Bhaskara . +Grad A: I guess the other thing is that um , yeah . I mean , when you 're asked a specific question and you don't even {disfmarker} Like , if you 're asked a Where - Is question , you may not even look {disfmarker} like , ask for the posterior probability of the , uh , EVA node , right ? Cuz , that 's what {disfmarker} I mean , in the Bayes - net you always ask for the posterior probability of a specific node . So , I mean , you may not even bother to compute things you don't need . +Grad B: Um . Aren't we always computing all ? +Grad A: No . You can compute , uh , the posterior probability of one subset of the nodes , given some other nodes , but totally ignore some other nodes , also . Basically , things you ignore get marginalized over . +Grad B: Yeah , but that 's {disfmarker} that 's just shifting the problem . Then you would have to make a decision , +Grad A: Yeah . So you have to make {disfmarker} +Grad B: "" OK , if it 's a Where - Is question , which decision nodes do I query ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . Yes . But I would think that 's what you want to do . +Grad B: That 's un +Grad A: Right ? +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Well , eventually , you still have to pick out which ones you look at . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad D: So it 's pretty much the same problem , +Grad B: Yeah {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's apples and oranges . +Grad D: isn't it ? +Grad B: Nuh ? I mean , maybe it does make a difference in terms of performance , computational time . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So either you always have it compute all the posterior possibilities for all the values for all nodes , and then prune the ones you think that are irrelevant , +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad B: or you just make a p @ @ {comment} a priori estimate of what you think might be relevant and query those . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So basically , you 'd have a decision tree {pause} query , {pause} Go - there . If k if that 's false , query this one . If that 's true , query that one . And just basically do a binary search through the {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: I don't know if it would necessarily be that , uh , complicated . But , uh {disfmarker} I mean , it w +Grad C: Well , in the case of Go - there , it would be . In the case {disfmarker} Cuz if you needed an If y If Go - there was true , you 'd wanna know what endpoint was . And if it was false , you 'd wanna d look at either Lo - Income Info - on or History . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's true , I guess . Yeah , {vocalsound} so , in a way you would have that . +Grad C: Also , I 'm somewhat boggled by that Hugin software . +Grad A: OK , why 's that ? +Grad C: I can't figure out how to get the probabilities into it . Like , I 'd look at {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: It 's somewha It 's boggling me . +Grad A: OK . Alright . Well , hopefully it 's {pause} fixable . +Grad C: Ju +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh yeah , yeah . I d I just think I haven't figured out what {disfmarker} the terms in Hugin mean , versus what Java Bayes terms are . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: Um , by the way , are {disfmarker} Do we know whether Jerry and Nancy are coming ? +Grad A: So we can figure this out . +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: They should come when they 're done their stuff , basically , whenever that is . So . +Grad C: What d what do they need to do left ? +Grad A: Um , I guess , Jerry needs to enter marks , but I don't know if he 's gonna do that now or later . But , uh , if he 's gonna enter marks , it 's gonna take him awhile , I guess , and he won't be here . +Grad C: And what 's Nancy doing ? +Grad A: Nancy ? Um , she was sorta finishing up the , uh , calculation of marks and assigning of grades , but I don't know if she should be here . Well {disfmarker} or , she should be free after that , so {disfmarker} assuming she 's coming to this meeting . I don't know if she knows about it . +Grad C: She 's on the email list , right ? +Grad A: Is she ? OK . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . OK . Because basically , what {disfmarker} where we also have decided , prior to this meeting is that we would have a rerun of the three of us sitting together +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: sometime {pause} this week {pause} again +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and finish up the , uh , values of this . So we have , uh {disfmarker} Believe it or not , we have all the bottom ones here . +Grad C: Well , I {disfmarker} +Grad D: You added a bunch of {pause} nodes , for {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Yep . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} Actually what we have is this line . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Right ? +Grad C: Uh , what do the , uh , structures do ? +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} For instance , this Location node 's got two inputs , +Grad A: Four inputs . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: that one you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Four . +Grad A: Those are {disfmarker} The bottom things are inputs , also . +Grad C: Oh , I see . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: OK , that was OK . That makes a lot more sense to me now . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Cuz I thought it was like , that one in Stuart 's book about , you know , the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alarm in the dog ? +Grad C: U Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: Or the earthquake and the alarm . +Grad A: Sorry . Yeah , I 'm confusing two . +Grad C: Yeah , there 's a dog one , too , but that 's in Java Bayes , +Grad A: Right . +Grad C: isn't it ? +Grad A: Maybe . +Grad C: But there 's something about bowel problems or something with the dog . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: And we have all the top ones , all the ones to which no arrows are pointing . What we 're missing are the {disfmarker} these , where arrows are pointing , where we 're combining top ones . So , we have to come up with values for this , and this , this , this , and so forth . And maybe just fiddle around with it a little bit more . And , um . And then it 's just , uh , edges , many of edges . And , um , we won't {comment} meet next Monday . So . +Grad C: Cuz of Memorial Day ? +Grad A: We 'll meet next Tuesday , I guess . +Grad B: Yep . Yeah . +Grad C: When 's Jerry leaving for {disfmarker} Italia ? +Grad B: On {disfmarker} on Friday . +Grad A: Which Friday ? +Grad B: This {disfmarker} this Friday . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Oh . This Friday ? +Grad C: Ugh . +Grad B: This Friday . +Grad C: As in , four days ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: Or , three days ? +Grad A: Is he {disfmarker} How long is he gone for ? +Grad B: Two weeks . +Grad A: Italy , huh ? What 's , uh {disfmarker} what 's there ? +Grad B: Well , it 's a country . Buildings . People . +Grad A: Pasta . +Grad C: But it 's not a conference or anything . +Grad B: Hmm ? +Grad C: He 's just visiting . +Grad A: Right . Just visiting . +Grad B: Vacation . +Grad A: It 's a pretty nice place , in my brief , uh , encounter with it . +Grad B: Do you guys {disfmarker} Oh , yeah . So . Part of what we actually want to do is sort of schedule out what we want to surprise him with when {disfmarker} when he comes back . Um , so {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , I think we should disappoint him . +Grad B: Yeah ? You {disfmarker} or have a finished construction parser and a working belief - net , and uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: That wouldn't be disappointing . I think w we should do absolutely no work for the two weeks that he 's gone . +Grad B: Well , that 's actually what I had planned , personally . I had {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had sort of scheduled out in my mind that you guys do a lot of work , and I do nothing . And then , I sort of {disfmarker} +Grad C: Oh , yeah , that sounds good , too . +Grad B: sort of bask in {disfmarker} in your glory . But , uh , i do you guys have any vacation plans , because I myself am going to be , um , gone , but this is actually not really important . Just this weekend we 're going camping . +Grad C: Yeah , I 'm wanna be this {disfmarker} gone this weekend , too . +Grad B: Ah . But we 're all going to be here on Tuesday again ? Looks like it ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK , then . Let 's meet {disfmarker} meet again next Tuesday . And , um , finish up this Bayes - net . And once we have finished it , I guess we can , um {disfmarker} and that 's going to be more just you and me , because Bhaskara is doing probabilistic , recursive , structured , object - oriented , uh , +Grad C: Killing machines ! +Grad B: reasoning machines . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: And , um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Killing , reasoning . What 's the difference ? +Grad D: Wait . So you 're saying , next Tuesday , is it the whole group meeting , or just us three working on it , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: Uh . The whole group . And we present our results , our final , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: definite {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , when you were saying we {pause} need to do a re - run of , like {disfmarker} +Grad A: h What ? +Grad D: What {disfmarker} Like , just working out the rest of the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . We should do this th the upcoming days . +Grad D: This week ? +Grad B: So , this week , yeah . +Grad C: When you say , "" the whole group "" , you mean {pause} the four of us , and Keith ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And , Ami might . +Grad C: Ami might be here , and it 's possible that Nancy 'll be here ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad C: So , yeah . +Grad B: Because , th you know , once we have the belief - net done {disfmarker} +Grad C: You 're just gonna have to explain it to me , then , on Tuesday , how it 's all gonna work out . You know . +Grad B: We will . OK . Because then , once we have it sort of up and running , then we can start you know , defining the interfaces and then feed stuff into it and get stuff out of it , and then hook it up to some fake construction parser and {disfmarker} +Grad C: That you will have in about nine months or so . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: The first bad version 'll be done in nine months . +Grad B: Yeah , I can worry about the ontology interface and you can {disfmarker} Keith can worry about the discourse . I mean , this is pretty {disfmarker} Um , I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope everybody uh knows that these are just going to be uh dummy values , right ? +Grad A: Which {disfmarker} +Grad B: where the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which ones ? +Grad B: S so {disfmarker} so if the endpoint {disfmarker} if the Go - there is Yes and No , then Go - there - discourse will just be fifty - fifty . Right ? +Grad A: Um , what do you mean ? If the Go - there says No , then the Go - there is {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't get it . +Grad A: I don't u understand . +Grad B: Um . +Grad A: Like , the Go - there depends on all those four things . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , what are the values of the Go - there - discourse ? +Grad A: Well , it depends on the situation . If the discourse is strongly indicating that {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , but , uh , we have no discourse input . +Grad A: Oh , I see . The d See , uh , specifically in our situation , D and O are gonna be , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Sure . So , whatever . +Grad D: So , so far we have {disfmarker} Is that what the Keith node is ? +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: OK . And you 're taking it out ? {pause} for now ? +Grad B: Well , this is D {disfmarker} +Grad D: Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad B: OK , this , I can {disfmarker} I can get it in here . +Grad D: All the D 's are {disfmarker} +Grad B: I can get it in here , so th We have the , uh , um , sk let 's {disfmarker} let 's call it "" Keith - Johno +Grad A: Johno ? +Grad B: node "" . There is an H {comment} somewhere printed . +Grad C: There you go . +Grad A: Yeah . People have the same problem with my name . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad A: Oops . +Grad B: And , um , +Grad C: Does th th does the H go b before the A or after the A ? +Grad A: Oh , in my name ? Before the A . +Grad C: Yeah . OK , good . Cuz you kn When you said people have the same problem , I thought {disfmarker} Cuz my H goes after the uh e e e the v +Grad A: People have the inverse problem with my name . +Grad C: OK . I always have to check , every time y I send you an email , {comment} a past email of yours , {comment} to make sure I 'm spelling your name correctly . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's good . +Grad C: I worry about you . +Grad A: I appreciate that . +Grad B: But , when you abbreviate yourself as the "" Basman "" , you don't use any H 's . +Grad A: "" Basman "" ? Yeah , it 's because of the chessplayer named Michael Basman , who is my hero . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: You 're a geek . It 's O K . I +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: How do you pronou How do you pronounce your name ? +Grad D: Eva . +Grad C: Eva ? +Grad A: Not Eva ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad C: What if I were {disfmarker} What if I were to call you Eva ? +Grad D: I 'd probably still respond to it . I 've had people call me Eva , but I don't know . +Grad C: No , not just Eva , Eva . Like if I u take the V and s pronounce it like it was a German V ? +Grad B: Which is F . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad D: Um , no idea then . +Grad B: Voiced . +Grad D: What ? +Grad C: It sounds like an F . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's also an F in German , +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: Well , it 's just the difference between voiced and unvoiced . +Grad C: which is why I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: OK . +Grad C: As long as that 's O K . +Grad D: Um . +Grad C: I mean , I might slip out and say it accidentally . That 's all I 'm saying . +Grad D: That 's fine . +Grad A: Yeah . It doesn't matter what those nodes are , anyway , because we 'll just make the weights "" zero "" for now . +Grad B: Yep . We 'll make them zero for now , because it {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who knows what they come up with , what 's gonna come in there . OK . And , um , then should we start on Thursday ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: And not meet tomorrow ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad B: OK . I 'll send an email , make a time suggestion . +Grad C: Wait , maybe it 's OK , so that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we can {disfmarker} that we have one node per construction . Cuz even in people , like , they don't know what you 're talking about if you 're using some sort of strange construction . +Grad B: Yeah , they would still c sort of get the closest , best fit . +Grad C: Well , yeah , but I mean , the {disfmarker} uh , I mean , that 's what the construction parser would do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Uh , I mean , if you said something completely arbitrary , it would f find the closest construction , +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: right ? But if you said something that was completel er {disfmarker} h theoretically the construction parser would do that {disfmarker} But if you said something for which there was no construction whatsoever , n people wouldn't have any idea what you were talking about . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Like "" Bus dog fried egg . "" I mean . You know . +Grad B: Or , if even something Chinese , for example . +Grad C: Or , something in Mandarin , yeah . Or Cantonese , as the case may be . What do you think about that , Bhaskara ? +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} But how many constructions do {disfmarker} could we possibly have {pause} nodes for ? +Grad C: In this system , or in r +Grad A: No , we . Like , when people do this kind of thing . +Grad C: Oh , when p How many constructions do people have ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: I have not {comment} the slightest idea . +Grad A: Is it considered to be like in {disfmarker} are they considered to be like very , uh , sort of s abstract things ? +Grad C: Every noun is a construction . +Grad A: OK , so it 's like in the {pause} thousands . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yeah . Any {disfmarker} any form - meaning pair , to my understanding , is a construction . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: So . +Grad C: And form u starts at the level of noun {disfmarker} Or actually , maybe even sounds . +Grad B: Phoneme . Yep . +Grad C: Yeah . And goes upwards until you get the ditransitive construction . +Grad A: S +Grad C: And then , of course , the c I guess , maybe there can be the {disfmarker} Can there be combinations of the dit +Grad A: Discourse - level {pause} constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . The "" giving a speech "" construction , +Grad B: Rhetorical constructions . +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Yeah . But , I mean , you know , you can probably count {disfmarker} count the ways . I mean . +Grad C: It 's probab Yeah , I would s definitely say it 's finite . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And at least in compilers , that 's all that really matters , as long as your analysis is finite . +Grad A: How 's that ? {nonvocalsound} How it can be finite , again ? +Grad C: Nah , I can't think of a way it would be infinite . +Grad B: Well , you can come up with new constructions . +Grad C: Yeah . {comment} If the {disfmarker} if your {disfmarker} if your brain was totally non - deterministic , then perhaps there 's a way to get , uh , infin an infinite number of constructions that you 'd have to worry about . +Grad A: But , I mean , in the {nonvocalsound} practical sense , it 's impossible . +Grad C: Right . Cuz if we have a fixed number of neurons {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad C: So the best - case scenario would be the number of constructions {disfmarker} or , the worst - case scenario is the number of constructions equals the number of neurons . +Grad A: Well , two to the power of the number of neurons . +Grad C: Right . But still finite . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: No , wait . Not necessarily , is it ? We can end the {pause} meeting . I just {disfmarker} Can't you use different var different levels of activation ? across , uh {disfmarker} lots of different neurons , to specify different values ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um , yeah , but there 's , like , a certain level of {disfmarker} +Grad C: There 's a bandwidth issue , +Grad A: Bandw - Yeah , so you can't do better than something . +Grad C: right ? Yeah . +Grad B: Turn off the mikes . Otherwise it gets really tough for the tr +","The conversation involves multiple graduate students discussing updates on their project. They are working with an XML schema for input in a Bayes-net (Bayesian network), a model used in probabilistic reasoning. They talk about various nodes (Location, Hotel, Car, etc.) and how these can represent different real-life situations like construction work or disasters. Some confusion exists over the input format for the Bayes-net, and the need for converting XML to a format Java Bayes understands, possibly using XSL transformations. + +Grad B mentions creating a schema of possible input and output scenarios involving decision nodes like ""Go-there,"" which has corresponding probabilities. They discuss how the Bayesian network implies always getting posterior probabilities for all decision nodes and how they should handle the outputs. A crucial topic is how they interpret the data and choose what's relevant, possibly indicating a secondary layer of decision-making. + +There is also a discussion about how the Bayes-net weights various decision nodes, how to make decisions based on outputs, and whether they're mutually exclusive. The students consider whether they should feed the output of their current network into another one for further interpretation. Grad C questions the scalability of the model with arbitrary language, highlighting the system's limitation to finite constructions. + +Towards the end of the conversation, they discuss their work plans for the coming weeks, setting goals before a project member Jerry leaves for a vacation to Italy. They aim to have a working construction parser and a functioning Bayes-net, although there's a suggestion to take a break instead. There is also some light banter about how to pronounce each other's names, and the discussion ends with talk about neuron activation levels relating to brain function and the finiteness of constructions in language. They agree it's time to turn off the microphones to make it easier for transcription." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Good morning everybody . Um I'm glad you could all come . I'm really excited to start this team . Um I'm just gonna have a little PowerPoint presentation for us , for our kick-off meeting . My name is Rose Lindgren . I I'll be the Project Manager . Um our agenda today is we are gonna do a little opening and then I'm gonna talk a little bit about the project , then we'll move into acquaintance such as getting to know each other a little bit , including a tool training exercise . And then we'll move into the project plan , do a little discussion and close , since we only have twenty five minutes . First of all our project aim . Um we are creating a new remote control which we have three goals about , it needs to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I'm hoping that we can all work together to achieve all three of those . Um so we're gonna divide us up into three {vocalsound} compa three parts . First the functional design which will be uh first we'll do individual work , come into a meeting , the conceptional design , individual work and a meeting , and then the detailed design , individual work and a meeting . So that we'll each be doing our own ideas and then coming together and um collaborating . Okay , we're gonna get to know each other a little bit . So um , what we're gonna do is start off with um let's start off with Amina . Um Alima , +Industrial Designer: Alima . +Project Manager: sorry , Alima . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're gonna do a little tool training , so we are gonna work with that whiteboard behind you . Um introduce yourself , um say one thing about yourself and then draw your favourite animal and tell us about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um I don't know which one of these I have to bring with me . +Project Manager: Probably both . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , so , I'm supposed to draw my favourite animal . I have no drawing skills whatsoever . But uh let's see , introduce myself . My name is Alima Bucciantini . Um I'm from the state of Maine in the US . I'm doing nationalism studies , blah , blah , blah , and I have no artistic talents . +Project Manager: How do you spell your name ? +Industrial Designer: A_ L_ I_ M_ A_ . +Project Manager: Thanks . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and I guess I'm the Industrial Designer on this project . So let's see if I can get +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um here . I will draw a little turtle for you all . Not necessarily 'cause it's my absolute favourite animal , but just that I think they're drawable . And you have the pretty little shell going on . Some little eyes . Happy . There you go . That's a turtle . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So what are your favourite characteristics ? +Industrial Designer: Um . I I like the whole having a shell thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's quite cool carry your home around where you go , um quite decorative little animals , they can swim , they can , they're very adaptable , they carry everything they need with them , um and they're easy to draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we just go around the table ? +User Interface: Uh Okay . Well , my name is Iain uh +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and I'm the User Interface Designer for the project . Um . And I'll try and draw my favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , +User Interface: I'll {disfmarker} I should leave that one on there +Industrial Designer: you can erase the turtle , +User Interface: shouldn't I {vocalsound} before I callously rub it off . +Industrial Designer: it's alright . +Project Manager: Might be nice to have them all up there at same time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not gonna draw it quite to scale um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is that at least identifiable ? +Industrial Designer: Snake . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Em +Industrial Designer: Well , +User Interface: It's a whale {vocalsound} , yes . +Industrial Designer: snake ? {vocalsound} It's w {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: Oh my god , it's better than what I'm gonna be able to do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um and , yeah , the reason I like whales is 'cause uh they're {disfmarker} well , first of all they're quite intelligent um and also they're they're kind of mysterious , like we don't really know much about them or or understand how they work , how they form groups . And I just find them interesting animals . +Marketing: Take my contraptions with me . Alright , I'm Jessy . I'm from around D_C_ ish sort of in the U_S_ . And we're gonna keep the deep sea sort of theme going on , {gap} animal . Don't really know how to draw this . Just where can I {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . Maybe if I do the water , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but how ? Sort of give an idea . {vocalsound} I have no idea how one would explain this . Mm maybe with some whiskers . Briefly , it's supposed to be a seal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can imagine it in the water . I like them , because they are like playful and silly sort of have a good time . Not gonna try and pretend like I can get any better than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Mm 'kay ? I'm Rose and I'm Project Manager , {vocalsound} from California . Um . Hmm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , +Marketing: It's definitely significantly harder once you are doing it . +Industrial Designer: a cat . +Project Manager: Um it's actually a coyote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Let's see . Let's see , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's impressive . +Project Manager: let's give it a little bit of a snout , I don't know , some teeth . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's pretty impressive . +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh dear . {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I live um I live right across the street from an open space in California . We have coyotes howl all the time . So I really enjoy their their singing , you they're really beautiful animals . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay um , moving on to slightly more serious stuff . We're gonna talk about project finances . Um we have a couple {vocalsound} we'd like to sell it for about twenty five Euro with the profit aim of um fifteen million Euro um from our sales and because this is such {disfmarker} this is for television it's a {disfmarker} we have a market range of Internet , like it's an international market range , we don't have to worry about specifics . Um in order to make a profit of this magnitude , we need to um be able to produce each one at a maximum of twelve fifty Euro . So we're selling it for twice what we'd like to produce it for . Okay um , just to generate a little bit of discussion about the project um , I could {disfmarker} I'd like to hear about your experiences using ro remote controls , um your first ideas about um creating a new r remote control , what would be the best um like you {disfmarker} what are the features that you really like what are the features that you don't like , etcetera , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um I hate when there's like four different buttons and you have to press to actually turn on the T_V_ like you have to do one for the power of the T_V_ and then like another one to get the actual screen on and something else to get it all going , I don't know . Now they keep combining all different remotes together , and I don't know if I necessarily like that 'cause I feel like you end up with multimedia overload . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just wanna watch the T_V_ {vocalsound} um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Always gets lost . Some sort of like device to help you find it . +User Interface: I've used , I've used remote controls , for things like T_V_ and the C_D_ player and video recorder and I I guess they're they're pretty neat neat little tools uh . You don't have to get up and walk across the room to change a channel . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So especially if you're someone really lazy like me they they're pretty nice . Um . I find them {disfmarker} they can be a bit annoying , especially , like you know if I'm watching T_V_ I have have to have three separate remote controls of {disfmarker} in front of me , you know , one for the T_V_ , one for the digital box , one for m the video recorder as well . Um . And also they tend to they tend to be a bit confusing , they've got too many buttons on them uh too too sort of too sort of complicated when all I really wanna do is switch on and off , change the channel , change the volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um . I agree with having too many remotes around . My dad has a whole drawer at home of remotes for various things , and I don't know how to work half of them um . What's important for me , I guess , is that it's easy to use and that there's not too many buttons , they are not too small , you know you know you need to n to know what you're doing . And one thing I particularly like is if you are not um sort of moving it around to get it to work with the infra-red . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I think there is a way around that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I know in my residence right now the the television you sort of have to walk all around the room to get it to turn on , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so i it's just simpler just to just turn around the T_V_ itself , and I think that's {disfmarker} if we're gonna make a remote control , it should actually work for what it's doing . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about like batteries and things like that , like are there some remotes that don don't require like batteries or do all remotes require batteries ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would imagine all of them , +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: but we could {disfmarker} but it's possible we could use like a lithium battery um that would last a lot longer than like double A_s . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , something that doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um like tho those are the batteries that are used in a lot of um M_P_ three players now and that kind of thing . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , it seems we have a little bit of a conflict over um to uh combining all the remotes cont together versus having f five different remotes . So um like you said you don't like having all the buttons on one on one remote , and yet you don't wanna have five remotes . So how do we work with that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Could we get something that just has {disfmarker} No doesn't have all the buttons that you need to program the video recorder or program s other things that I'm not very coherent about , but that just has your major buttons for {disfmarker} that work for everything , you know volume control , on , off , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: channel changing . +Marketing: And maybe that spatially divides it , so it's like if you're looki if you're trying to get the T_V_ on that's , you know , like the top thing on the remote , I dunno if d be vertical or horizontal in terms of how we're gonna make it , but if it's like all the T_V_ stuff was here , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then all the V_C_R_ stuff was here , all the {disfmarker} whatever else we have programmed into it it's all just in its separate place and not like all the on buttons together , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: N that way {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause then you like , I don't even know what I'm turning on . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , and if um if you'd save the more complicated functions maybe for separate remotes that you wouldn't need to use every day . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe have like one remote that has the main functions on , off , channel changing , volume , and another rote remote with all the special things . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Because that is one thing that um remotes tend to have buttons that the T_V_s no longer have as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So like you have to have them somewhere , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you're gonna m need those special functions occasionally . Um but not necessarily on the m the normal remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Can I ask , are we designing a remote control for a television only +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good question . +User Interface: um , and if if this device is just to be used for the television would we even technically be possible to include video recorder functions on it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know that yet . +User Interface: Um or should we just stick to just stick to having television television related buttons on it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: It's a good question . Um . {vocalsound} I'll look into that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm hmm . +Project Manager: If I can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's just T_V_ , I mean , if it {disfmarker} if we're taking it just {gap} new product a new television remote control that's not like {vocalsound} doesn't say . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You know , things might be more advanced than that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we should {disfmarker} maybe we should assume that i t it's just a television that we're wanting to control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I mean I suppose it would be nice to have {vocalsound} playing and record and stop buttons on it for the video recorder as well I I don't know if that works technologically or not . +Industrial Designer: Yes . I guess we have to define what what we're aiming for . If it's just a television then that {disfmarker} it's a bit simpler , 'cause there's less buttons that would even need to be on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's an idea with the buttons being really {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Large . If you have older people or people like me that aren't very co-ordinated hand-eye , it's really quite important that you are not pressing a small like teeny mobiles phone size buttons , if we can help it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay sounds like we've had a good little discussion for our first ideas . Mind if we move on ? Ps +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mm okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now our next meeting starts in thirty minutes . I believe we've actually been only working on this this one for about twenty , so we can continue discussing more new ideas if you'd like um , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: but this is just a breakdown of what we'll be doing individually . Um the industrial design , Alima will be doing um the working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the User Interface Designer , that's for {gap} . Technical functions , I guess like keeping in mind the buttons thing , the size of the buttons . Um user requirements um , so you'll be hearing about different trends , uh about different things that people need , um I guess kind of the same uh discussion that we've been having , we'll get from the actual consum s consumers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um . And you will get specific instructions sent by your personal coach . I realised in this past one we we didn't have much , we just wanted to get a little brain-storming done . Um so very exited to see all your animals and how {disfmarker} what wonderful um artists we all are {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What we're gonna be discussing at the next meeting ? Do we know that ? +Project Manager: I haven't gotten an agenda yet , um I'll put that together . I'm sure as we'll each get our own instruction +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: and then um because what we gonna do is first our individual actions and then we'll come back together . So I'm sure we'll all have more concrete things to contribute next time +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll be busy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay um I'll type up mi minutes and probably email those out to all of you . Um just including all the things that we talked about . Um . +User Interface: Okay . Can you e-mail your slides as well ? Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yes , I yes , I think I can . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Cool +Project Manager: I'll just attach it to an email . And you're you're number two , +Industrial Designer: I'm two . +Project Manager: three , four ? +Marketing: I'm four . +Project Manager: Is that correct ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Excellent . It was lovely meeting you all . +User Interface: 'Kay +Project Manager: Just make sure you keep checking the company web site and the emails . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Let me see if I can do that right now . +","Project Manager Rose Lindgren led a kick-off meeting for a diverse project team aiming to create an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The team discussed project goals and planned to divide the work into three parts: functional, conceptual, and detailed design, with individual work and collaborative meetings for each phase. They emphasized the need for a design that is easy to use, has fewer but well-organized and accessible buttons, and possibly utilizes long-lasting batteries. The team engaged in a team-building exercise by drawing their favorite animals. They also discussed project financing, targeting a selling price of 25 Euros for a profit goal of 15 million Euros. The initial brainstorming focused on user experiences with remote controls, leading to ideas such as reducing button complexity and combining functions without overwhelming users. The project will proceed with specific actions assigned to each role, including industrial and user interface design." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Right first time this time . Nu There we go . It's not that complicated , but I get it wrong every time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap} . +Marketing: For Matthew , yep . +Project Manager: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason . {vocalsound} Good . Um . Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design . I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap} . Uh I will take some minutes uh again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members , +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented . So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready ? +Marketing: I have a presentation , I'm just making this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here +Project Manager: Okay . Ah +Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team +Project Manager: there is Matthew . +Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file , my presentation . +Project Manager: So . Good . Do {gap} presentation ready ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides , you didn't see them ? +Project Manager: Oh yes I see him , good yes . +User Interface: Okay . {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment . Um can I just put this on ? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it . Um . This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone . {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time , the main results of that , and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really . The most important by far was the look and feel of it . It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there . It needs to stand out {vocalsound} . It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment . Most people find remote controls boring at the moment , we need to have something that looks interesting , that looks exciting , that will stand out . People will wanna buy it . Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else , apart from just the look of it . People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want . That's a really cool feature , and it has to make them wanna buy it again . Third on the list , and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect , it has to be easy to use . So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um . Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment , uh fruit and vegetables um . This is basically talking about just the the feel of it , so probably not the smell of it , but the bright colours , um eye-catching , really bold designs , and a spongy feel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this , but having a remote that's tactile , that feels different , that would be really cool . That would make it stand out . Um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said ? +Project Manager: Spongy feel ? +Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo +Marketing: Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing . Spongy is the current texture , but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all , so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something , that'll be something that sets it apart , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So as far as the design goes , the very most important aspect was the design , to the customers . So going with the fruit and vegetable idea , we've got the bright colours , so makes it stand out , the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours , part of the fruit and vegetables um . Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones , they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers , so they can choose what colour the outside is . That's one way of looking at it um . Textured feel we just talked about . Maybe it's another way of doing that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture , a spongy one or a soft one or something like that . So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room , or just what they like , their sports team or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um and yeah , still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality , the way the mobile phones work , the way the keypad looks . Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment . They're big selling items . People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that , and we can start using some of their ideas . Um back to technological in in innovation , not quite as important , but still a big issue . Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost , uh that's one thing we could look at . There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think , in my personal opinion , gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them . I think we're better doing something basic like this +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in . And {disfmarker} {gap} use . I had no real specific ideas for this , maybe we just , the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe , by themselves , +Project Manager: Mm . Yes well +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation . +User Interface: Voila . +Project Manager: Okay good , that's very clear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that ? I think you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To let the people choose , {gap} you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this . This is gonna be a mass marketed product , we can afford to have two or three different designs at least . +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah , a set of three , four different aspects . +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three , five Euro {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: s +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} +User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together . +Project Manager: Together indeed uh , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It should be easier with that . +Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: what you were already mentioning . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside . +User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures , different forms , and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other , and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button . So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_ , V_C_R_ , music system operated ones actually , and they are very specific to each other , but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information , names , like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality , say T_V_ , V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_ , and you can programme the keys if you want to , certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_ , rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it , you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Yeah I really like that idea . +Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that ? For facing this problem ? +User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one . In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing , eighty word , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement , like eighty to hundred word . Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel . +Marketing: Maybe ten channels , yeah at the most . +User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information . You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie , and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now , so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it , it could be like , for example I can use a simple toggle switch , and a display , so I press it so the display says , okay , I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is , instead of having three keys separately for four keys , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh yeah yeah yeah mm . +User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them . You can't . And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them , and you can operate them . So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote , is uh um is a good idea , like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having , um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm b +User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine , it say hi Joe , or something like that , you know , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But a coffee machine , there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it , so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing , and very isolated word +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting , and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys , on the display for the browsing +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing , like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote , the blinking . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: At the same time , if it's a dark room , it can be used to locate the remote also +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point +Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish . +Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys ? Some of them ? +User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that . +Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise . +User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way , so if you want to give the full freedom to the user +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . I think you can do it both ways . +User Interface: So it de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it , +Industrial Designer: A standard . +Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it . S so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition , I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys , you said , uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system , uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this +User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented , +User Interface: yeah yeah +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost , maybe with a f cheap chip . +User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them , and we can come with that , +Project Manager: Mm mm . +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display , you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery , so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also . +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something . +User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um , it can be for two purposes , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote , +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_ . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It may need more actually , so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that , some functionality to indicate the battery limit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated , if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something +Industrial Designer: It's true . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery , well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You know . +Project Manager: 'Kay good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have time some more ? Yep . +Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still . We have time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control , and how is it manufactured h what is the process , just to explain you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap} , and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously , and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end . So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control . +Project Manager: Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver . And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons , infrared {vocalsound} , led , etcetera , for the components um . So you {gap} finding , just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed , and then it translate to the key , to a sequence , something like morse code , as you know , uh with a different sequence for each key , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's , with the components we will use , we will have different uh messages , different sequences , and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um . So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble . And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology , +User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is important , and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use . If it's plastic +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit , veg or {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well well +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but , with the changeable covers to fancy it up . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in , for instance , a wooden case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think . Yeah inside the car +Marketing: Just the veneer on it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons , a scroll wheels , integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse . And uh very cheap L_C_D_s , so liquid crystal displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering , I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_ . And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip , but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright . And the display requires an advanced chip , which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip , but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items , then I think w we could be able to handle that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account . And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert +User Interface: Sorry . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh . So +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement , +Project Manager: No of course . +User Interface: Yeah so +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device , and we have to insert . +User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions +User Interface: Okay so +Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} +User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah , for customizing and yeah . +User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually . How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah good idea . +Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip , but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip , so can we use same chip , so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle , uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip , that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget , uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip , so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible ? +User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible . +User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking , I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros , it will be okay , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then . Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better . +Project Manager: Mm yes +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea . +Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea . +Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that . +Project Manager: Good good . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also , like what will be the each individually the cost of it . For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh {gap} 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I agree on that . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition , and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: which which come with a with another price . +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them , but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do do you agree ? +Marketing: Mm yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user , and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that . +Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design . Uh so drawing it on the board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh . So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs , one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure . Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh , how do you call them , these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah customized . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap} . We can give them smooth keys , you know . Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen , the keys is that it's small , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys , then you can merge them together +Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly +User Interface: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: or is this just ideas ? +User Interface: Oh you can actually , for example , if you see , they are they are they are quite small over here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can , for example , as I was {gap} if you make them big , it may change the look of the thing also to the people . +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: At the same time , it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think . +User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You see ? +Industrial Designer: I agree yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah . +Marketing: Mm well +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: one I've had before , a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so the bottom bit is just , covers half the keys most of the time , and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: which you don't use . So maybe it's possible uh , I don't know whether you can can indicate this , that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Um yeah I've seen that before too . Anoth another like b +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah so it's something like this , the model here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well . +Industrial Designer: That's what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book . +Marketing: I like this one . I like the shape of this one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one , so with not just the straight little box +Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one . +Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something . +User Interface: Yeah , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm mm 'kay . Is this for the next meeting though ? +User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ju just make two designs , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea . So +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no . I don't have . +Marketing: No . So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting ? +Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices , if you're using speech recognition or something like that . +Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh , I don't know whether that's possible , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow . +Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but a as far as possible . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email . +Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes ? +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them , +Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: yeah that's how it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: So we are done for now . {gap} . +","In the meeting, the marketing, industrial designer, user interface, and project manager discuss the conceptual design for a new product. The team waits for Matthew, who is late, and the project manager suggests starting without him. They talk about presenting different concepts and making decisions. Marketing has a presentation ready, and the industrial designer emphasizes the importance of team input. + +The marketing team presents their research on current trends and the importance of the product standing out through looks, technological innovation, and ease of use. They suggest using bright colors, tactile features, and design inspirations from mobile phones, like changeable covers. They also consider adding a feature to find lost remotes. + +The industrial designer presents the internal components of a remote control and suggests using advanced chips and materials for the cover, considering the cost implications. The user interface discusses key designs, functionality, speech recognition for channel selection, and options to personalize the remote. + +The project manager is concerned about keeping the cost within €12.50, which may limit the features they can include. It is suggested that the team should explore the feasibility of more expensive components and provide specific costings for two designs, one basic and one advanced, for the next meeting. + +Towards the end of the meeting, they discuss key design aspects such as shape, button size, and ways to hide less-used keys. The project manager asks the marketing team to consider evaluating the designers' work for the next meeting and suggests that the designers work on two prototypes with different features to compare. The meeting wraps up with plans to send further instructions via email." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Hello . +Project Manager: {gap} . {gap} . +Marketing: Yes , I made it . English from now on {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Drawing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah just testing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm ? English . +Industrial Designer: Just kidding . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So annoying . +Project Manager: Break is over . +Marketing: Ooh it works . +Project Manager: Whoo . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Spicy . +Marketing: Where are are all the other presentations ? +Industrial Designer: I just put it in the in the shared folder so it should be {disfmarker} +Marketing: The conceptual or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah I think so . Yeah , conceptual design . What or whatever does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . Because I see only my own presentation {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no , can you go back one ? +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh 'cause it has to be PowerPoint pre yeah components design , that's it . +Marketing: This ? {gap} I'll just put it in there . +Project Manager: So , he's coming . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . {vocalsound} I did get a bit more done than the last time , +Marketing: Or not . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I knew that I didn't have time so I just copy and paste everything into the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , +Project Manager: Ah . She {gap} . +Marketing: I can't cut and paste it into the other folder but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can look at the final report , 'cause I have to record everything we are deciding and such , so I'm trying to write it down between everything else . +Marketing: Move to meeting room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sometimes I have these pop-ups or these sounds and there's nothing there , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: and also with {disfmarker} I don't know how to use PowerPoint , so it takes me forever to get something done with it . +Marketing: Yeah me too , {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I've got the same problem as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Here we go again . Welcome . Uh we have again three presentations and then we have to decide on what concepts the mobile phone has to uh {disfmarker} f the remote control has to support . +Industrial Designer: Thi +Project Manager: So who wants go . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Who wants to start ? +Marketing: Me first again or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah sure . Doesn't matter . +User Interface: Oh . No . Yeah . No problem +Marketing: yeah . Alright . Did you open it already or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: no . Ah . Ah . Yes . So welcome to the marketing presentation once again . Um this time about trendwatching . {vocalsound} Uh well there has been inv investigation again , in the in the remote control market . Uh it shows a number of developments . Uh I will address them uh in a moment . Um fashion watch watchers uh have detected the trends for young public , because that's our public . Um well fruit and vegetables will be will be the most important theme for clothing , uh shoes and furniture . And the feel of the material is expected to be spongey . So um the developments I will address them {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh yeah well this is the fruit and vegetables looks of fresh bright colours . So to give you an idea . Um well the developments ? Uh development one . {vocalsound} Uh well most important aspect for remote control happens to be a fancy look-and-feel . Instead of the current uh functional look-and-feel . Um well fancy stands for an original look-and-feel of the case and the interface . And the second most important aspect is that a remote control should be technological uh innovative . Um well it stands for the use of technical features that do not exist in current remote controls . I think we pretty much covered that with our screen and um and speech recognition , +Industrial Designer: Sound . Yeah yeah uh uh . +Marketing: so I don't expect that to be a problem . And the third development um is that the remote control should be easy to use . Um {disfmarker} Well the first aspect uh was twice as important as the second aspect,w which was twice as important as the third aspect . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So um that kind of gets you this ratios . So fancy look-and-feel uh is the most important uh point of attention . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Uh so the fruits and vegetables in combination with the spongey material . Um well technolog technological innovation , we've covered that pretty much I guess . Um and easy to use , I don't think that will be problem . So my point of attention is especially this part . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That this will be a crux . So that was the marketing uh presentation . I had only one document left . +Industrial Designer: And shall I go first ? +User Interface: Yeah . No . I I don't mi I don't mind . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah sure . No . +Marketing: So kind of this {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do you want to go first ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} So a k a small example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Kind of this this look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh nothing about the buttons but just sponge kind of thing , and and some fruit and colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Just made a quick design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} Yeah you're just the user interface hmm ? +User Interface: It's better than than my uh drawing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah okay but I have to design the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh components . +Project Manager: Yeah layout . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh no . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . +Project Manager: You probably opened it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Marketing: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Alright . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm dealing with the components design . Um let's see . I uh used some design examples we had uh from similar products . And I used uh possibilities from our manufacturing department about current components which will have to be implemented in the design . That's why I had to , wanted to go first . Well they gave me um an idea about what people want . We're f mainly focusing on this group , but I want to make the distinction clear . Uh I could not drag the pictures into the the slides so s so I don't have examples of how it looks like . But it comes down to what you uh what you think we should do with the spongey and the fruity looking uh type . If you , the young dynamic people want soft primary colours uh , which looks like fruits you know , you can {disfmarker} and shapes that are curved and not uh solid straight lines anymore . So this basically um yeah goes on to what you were mentioning earlier . There is a lot of um {vocalsound} factors involved in choosing the components . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's a lot of options that we have to discuss . Uh for example the energy source . we have four types . The basic battery . Uh we have a hand dynamo , which we yeah we Dutch refer to it as the kneipgatt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh the kinetic provision of energy which means if you move the thing , if you shake it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which will be fun for toddlers right , if they wanna use the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh of course solar cells . But I dunno how we would use that into the design of the actual product . +Marketing: Wi an indoors . +Industrial Designer: So uh my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Calculator's can do it . +Industrial Designer: yeah also also in you know countries where there's n isn't much light like in Scandinavia , they wouldn't be y able to use it half of the year you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So that's not cool either . So um {vocalsound} for the uh a case , there's uh the traditional uncurved flat hard case . Single curved , which means that it has uh curves in one dimension . Or the double curved . Um {vocalsound} I wasn't able to finish my uh personal preferences sheet , but well you know that we will have to go for the double curved 'cause it's daring and different from what we have now . Uh the case materials . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we have all kinds of hard uh materials like the the hard plastic , the wood and the titanium . I would definitely go for rubber 'cause it fits most in what people wanna see nowadays . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um poo , this is a lot of text . I wasn't able to organise this yet . We have yeah several uh interface designs . Uh we can use a scroll buttons for the menus , but we already kind of decided to go for the f for the pushbuttons , for the the arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . Pushbuttons . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that's not really interesting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Electronics ? Yeah , {vocalsound} maybe we wanna decide on what electronics to use {gap} the advanced chip I think is easiest to implement uh for the production , 'cause they they can print it better . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think this is about it . Yeah I was working on some per personal preferences . I first uh chose for the battery , 'cause yeah I'm traditional and that's the most obvious , easiest choice to go to . But I really think that we should maybe uh think about the kinetic energy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where you have to move the thing to be able to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: As an optional uh feature . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or combine uh both with a with one uh +Project Manager: Uh I think you can only fit one uh source of energy on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I guess we can only choose one . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I can imagine that the kinetic uh type energy source would be more expensive to make . But it is more longlasting , that the people don't have to ever buy batteries again . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . And it's more fun . +Project Manager: I didn't receive any info uh . +Industrial Designer: And it's also more fun yeah . I always chuck my uh remote control around , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , just playing with it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} especially when the material's rubber . It can be done , I mean , you can't harm it , +Project Manager: S yeah it's safe . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And throw it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y exactly . +Marketing: so it's a perfect combination I guess . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to be scared about bouncing it off the g floor and breaking it or whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's the end of it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay next . +Industrial Designer: Uh go ahead . +Marketing: So double curved is like this , this , this , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No it means curved in two dimensions . So uh w single curved ? Uh let's say would be a b square box , but then with curves on one dimension . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And double curved would means that it would have curves curves in every direction . Like three D_ . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Also in in height ? +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Can we uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . One one uh very important thing I was uh yeah thinking about is the speech uh option . We were going to use that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah um yeah that's one thing uh which I'm not sure uh of how to implement it uh into the remote control . +Project Manager: Well the visual representation is not there with speech +Industrial Designer: Design ? +User Interface: No okay but it has to be combined with with the menu uh for functions and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but you can {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: So okay . +Project Manager: I think you can just uh match the speech commands with the functions that are already present . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I don't think you have to design anything else for that . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah with the programme . +User Interface: But do uh j do we uh do the speech just for the basic options , for the simple buttons ? +Project Manager: Both . +User Interface: For for everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: also for the advanced options ? Okay . Uh we have this {gap} very uh basic uh trendy design . Everybody says it so that's what's uh {disfmarker} yeah um {disfmarker} Yeah in the in the last uh meeting we uh we were yeah putting the the simple and the advanced options separated . That's yeah obvious . Um yeah . Pressing the the menu option uh will disable uh all other options on your uh remote control . And only the the L_C_D_ panel will uh light up and then you can only uh change the yeah the options . +Marketing: And and the and the buttons that you need to control it , I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um yeah design has to be very attractive but that's your your op your {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} you have to uh delete this but this is the the the simple uh layout . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh display on the upper side with the the menu button and maybe a some sort of cancel button or save button . +Project Manager: That would be the back . +User Interface: I'm {disfmarker} The back . +Project Manager: Back and okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Back and okay yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Back and okay . +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You did read the minutes I wrote ? +User Interface: What ? A little bit I think but not not everything w +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh okay 'cause I pretty much summed up all the buttons there were . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Oh {vocalsound} I uh didn't read that . +Project Manager: I hate doing work for nothing . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But this is the the basic uh design uh for the for the m yeah for the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I wanted to to categorise everything . Uh with a speech display uh yeah , sound , everything you you noted in your uh minutes . Um every pushbutton has uh has its own uh LED light . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you can uh yeah change uh m make it more trendy for for younger people . And uh if there are older people they wanted more uh yeah more uh luxurous {disfmarker} so that's an a also an option . Um that was it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That was it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} {gap} again . Ugh . {vocalsound} Okay so what we have to decide is what kind of components do we use ? Uh energy source , chip type , case type . And user interface . But I didn't see a clear distinction between these so I think what we have is okay . So we only , we already decided that kinetic would be the choice for energy . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Uh the case would be doubly curved . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And rubber . Rubber material . +Marketing: Rubber material . +Project Manager: Rubber material . And that's the only thing we have left . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we need the the chip on print to be able to support the the screen and uh and f audio function . +Project Manager: Oh okay . No it's easy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's uh {disfmarker} is that is that the advanced chip ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Otherwise you would have a simple chip , just for pressing buttons . But we need more . +Marketing: Wow . Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking , this is not my department , but I I'm not sure what this is gonna cost , +Marketing: Kinetic . Double curved . +Project Manager: Too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: to be able to m +Project Manager: Uh I didn't get any info on this . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So 'cause we need to sell it for twenty five Euro a piece . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's gonna be difficult huh ? +Marketing: The cost of making it should be twelve and a half ? +Project Manager: I have total here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: I didn't get any information about that so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . We're going to produce it in uh China so it's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Child labour man , we love it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , so it's cheap . +Project Manager: Who doesn't . Uh let's see . Is there a new thing ? +Marketing: Um well the interface type supplements . +Project Manager: Yeah the interface , maybe can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's it's quite difficult because we we haven't got all the options uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Ooh . No . Uh do you have a picture of doubly curved case ? And could you put that in the group folder ? Of the project folder . +Industrial Designer: Um let me see . Wait a sec . +Marketing: If you go to your homepage or something , you should +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm going there now . +Marketing: get your own information . +Industrial Designer: Inspiration . +Marketing: I got my fresh and fyoo fruity uh picture uh also uh over there , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah you didn't draw it yourself . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too less time . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} yeah maybe it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that that w +User Interface: This is the the menu I was uh looking uh at . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah I was thinking of that also , with with a with a uh arrow . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Arrow . +User Interface: Arrow yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that indicates that there's an menu under that menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah perfect . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . 'S the target group . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's easier if you guys come over here . +User Interface: S yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: S see this is the the the standard traditional type , where the form uh yeah serves the function , you know . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like really basic . But this m is more appealing to old people and we don't want that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is what we're looking for . And th that means curved in both dire dire uh dimensions . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I see . +Industrial Designer: Not only like this but it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah also like this . So you can hold it . +Industrial Designer: exactly . It has to be kind of instead of the PlayStation , the module . It has to be like the the Game Cube , you know , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: where your thumbs would be laying in the instrument and it has to be nice to hold . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it has also to {disfmarker} it it has also to be uh luxurous uh for for yeah rich people . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Th this looks a little bit like like for only for children . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It ha +Project Manager: The children's story . Yeah I've got it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but that's that's the the problem uh yeah the dilemma actually , +Project Manager: Distinction . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause we wanna appeal to the to the young public with fancy with flashy colours , and with a lot of shape . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and the and the rubber , it it will look cheap always , +User Interface: The colour {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay but the the colours , you you can make it uh make the colours with {gap} LEDs uh beneath the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: you know , with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: If you press a button and you can disable the the colour LEDs for for people that don't like it . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: There is mobile phones , in which you can change the colour also of the lights . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should consider this function . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: To customise it and so {disfmarker} I mean kids can make it look more flashy with different kinds of colours +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and people who want something , you know , different , or more uh design , they can go for one colour +Project Manager: Different . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like uh for example this uh photo th camera . +Project Manager: Camera . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Cool . S underwater uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah submarine . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Personally I think it's really ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just give me the thing that it's inside there {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah but this this the {gap} is for the {gap} . +User Interface: Very cheap uh cheap look . +Industrial Designer: maybe I'm too old for this stuff . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So those I think are all my {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: oh . +Project Manager: Ah yeah bright colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Also a kind of rubber uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And this is , this is with the curved that I mean . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's singly curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That should be nice . +Project Manager: Well we could make a compromise between that . But I don't know if it's worth the effort . +Industrial Designer: A compromise between what ? +Project Manager: Uh instead of doubly curved we take a single curved . So to appeal a little more to the all the public . +Marketing: So s +Industrial Designer: This , this would be uh single curved uh ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah there's only in in this dimension . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like this . So curvy or not {gap} . +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: Yeah so we keep it singly c single curved then ? +Project Manager: Yeah that would be an option . I don't know what you think . +Industrial Designer: I think the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean our aim is to make something different right ? To make something new . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I would go for the double curved . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah I'd agree . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm I'm thinking uh you know uh a drawing palette , where you have the shape for your thumb . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So it kind of holds nicely , something like that . +User Interface: Yeah but if you if you make it more curved we we can make more and more options for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Well this is really your decision but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh it have it in your hand , you you you are not only um yeah you don't need one dimension but you can use other dimensions for pressing the the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As well . You can make a trigger button or something like that . +User Interface: Yeah . Something to shoot at your television {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or that that is the confirmation button or something , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that you scroll with your thumb , with the arrows , and then confirm . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That would be a nice way to use it but {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I'm thinking big already , and we need something that well that {gap} that you can able to use in one hand I think . +Project Manager: Different . Stands out . Or {disfmarker} Oh yeah a one hand uh solution . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So from top view it looks kinda like this . But from the side you you can have it also in a kind of shape . +Project Manager: {gap} can turn it maybe . +Marketing: Maybe because the the screen is on top you can have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To switch from buttons to interface hmm . If you turn it a little . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Maybe you can c have this kind of shape . A little upwards . So that the screen is more +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Least you can easily see it . +Marketing: towards yourself , so you can easily see your screen . +Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well well you have it in your hand so it's a kind of an angle from your eyes to the screen . So then you have double double curved in some way . So this this is so the screen is positioned over here . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh . Something like that . And the buttons are more , well it's very thick now but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . +Marketing: That's uh that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How about we do a uh a pop-up screen , like the laptop . +Project Manager: If you can uh flip . +Industrial Designer: So that the only the simple functions will be visible at first . +Marketing: Yeah ? That that you can press it and then it comes up ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And then if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh so you have a the the side view . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Something like that . +Marketing: But then the side view can be straight . If you have a pop-up screen . But I dunno if that's too expensive . +Project Manager: So and you want to be able to +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's too much {disfmarker} +Project Manager: make this +Industrial Designer: No uh like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I would draw it like this . Let's say this is the side view . That you have a a screen that will come up here , and can go down that way . If you know what I mean . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that it would come up like that . +Project Manager: Okay so the buttons are on top here , and you flip it over that way . +Industrial Designer: Yeah or {vocalsound} preferably even keep the simple buttons here , and then under the screen even you could put more more advanced buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . Yeah yeah yeah yeah . Right . Yeah that's good idea . +Marketing: Oh the advanced buttons . Right . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} the the more advanced options were uh for the for the menu . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But you you want {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: F for the L_C_D_ menu right ? +User Interface: okay . You just want to hide them all ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So w w +Project Manager: No not all because you need most of them , the arrow buttons . +User Interface: The {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But you can hide the okay and the back uh button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: And the menu button also because when you flip it open {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can maybe even drop the menu button because maybe if you flip it open it will auto activate amauto uh uh automatically . +Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Activate and th the {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} okay b but you have t you need some button to flip this open . +Project Manager: Why ? You could just make it mechanical . +Industrial Designer: True . True . But you can make a , yeah , you can make a trigger here . You know a simple uh {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah and it says menu and it flips open and then you have the buttons to control it , in combination with your {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but it's it's not +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +User Interface: it's not very uh very strong uh {disfmarker} yeah if you drop it one time {gap} . +Marketing: True . It uh c it can go open . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah the the idea of it was , is that because you close it , you cover the L_C_D_ screen and it won't be vulnerable to scratches or whatever . +Project Manager: If you cover it with rubber . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: An adv an adv and it will be covered in some kind of uh thin rubber layer or something like that . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . So it can bounce . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . Exactly . We just have to make sure that the closing mechanism won't break . +Marketing: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} It's very no it's very strong . +Industrial Designer: Th it's very solid yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay so that that may work . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That actually will offer some extra protection for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay but then we still have the the the thing of the the the shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking , if if you have your hand , it this is your th +Project Manager: Harder . +Marketing: Yeah the lower part doesn't work I guess , so maybe you should try it over there . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . If this is your thumb , and this is your hand like that . With your uh wrist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That you , that it would be kind of shape like this , you know . So it's easier to hold in your hand , to y f +User Interface: But when you are left-handed , that's that's a problem . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . Yeah of course . +Project Manager: Maybe can design two versions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah then w then you would have to to make it like this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that's that's very expensive uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like you drew here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And maybe th then make this thicker also than the centre . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Give it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And ergonomical shape . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a female shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh yeah . Anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The female shape yeah . With two uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Obviously . {vocalsound} Make it more appealing to guys . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We we could make some some rubber uh some rubber uh yeah mouse , with which you can change uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Some uh k esk uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and so if you {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but but that's optional for later I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I mean , we have to make {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but we have hardware inside , which is {disfmarker} so it has to have some sort of basic shape . +User Interface: Some {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah we we better so choose one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the screen , you cannot mould it . +User Interface: No no no no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah so okay we should better choose one sh one shape . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that's the kind of the idea , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it lays good in the hand , and then on on the side with with your thumb , +Industrial Designer: You can place the screen here , which can come {gap} . +Marketing: you you can you can use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , you can use the button option {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So the keywords are primary co colours , spongey ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} but then I w I would {disfmarker} +Marketing: Spongey . +Industrial Designer: I would do the arrows here , kind of thing . +Marketing: Spongey can be reached by means of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Those buttons ? And the simple buttons here , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . And and the and the control thngs in the middle ? The the the arrows ? +Industrial Designer: I Uh y eah that's what I mean . +User Interface: No the arrow's over here . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The arrows over here , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and here the s simple uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah and then numbers . +Project Manager: Buttons . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: I think that uh it's a nice design . +Marketing: Uh pretty nice design . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it looks uh pretty fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} or do we wanna make its shape look like a banana or something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh bananas {gap} wierd shape and other fruits also , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so it's better to have um some sort of basic print and then a fruit print in some primary uh colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we could make {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what what colours should the basic print be like ? Like some soft {vocalsound} green or something ? +Project Manager: Orange or something . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or blue ? Dark blue or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah yeah , dark blue +Industrial Designer: We should use {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then and then very bright , uh a yellow banana , {vocalsound} an orange , uh a green apple , stuff like that , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: with very uh bright tones I guess . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w we need very primary colours , like bright red , bright yellow . +Marketing: So you have something like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but the primary colours w we can uh create with the with the LEDs on the on the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah okay yeah . +User Interface: If you we uh {disfmarker} yeah . If you make it uh just a yeah bl give it a blue colour , then it's just a neutral colour , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: also for the for the more uh yeah for the {gap} people . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Huh cool . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} That doesn't really work . To draw , I guess . +Project Manager: No it's {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . What's this ? +Project Manager: Yeah it's text . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: N no you have to exit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You could also make line with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Two hours further . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} thickness . Oh . +User Interface: So that's blue . +Marketing: Oh . Wh why not go for the twenty ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . That's what I call painting . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Y {vocalsound} +Marketing: So that's that's a dark blue basic colour I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah and then on top of that . +Marketing: It's pretty nice . And then uh {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some yellow . +Marketing: Yeah with some some yellow banana {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Banana colour . +Industrial Designer: And how about some uh some flashing standby lights ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like you have on the Samsung , well I don't like to call brands phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} the you know that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'cause I remember from one of our first meetings that uh people lose their uh remote controls often . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: So it {disfmarker} not not only in in the colours {vocalsound} of the LEDs , that we want something to keep it visible at all times , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Yeah if you if flashing colour so you can't lose it , basically . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Some some {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly . +Project Manager: Well I think it's a bit too much but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah an orange . Well alright well this is more like purple I guess , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} it's should be more real dark blue , so the contrast with the with the fruit objects is uh pretty high . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So uh yeah . That would be a nice uh nice device I guess . +User Interface: And which which colour should uh should I give the the display ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Who ? +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , the the colour of the background of the display ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah well I don't guess it s has to be a sixty uh sixty six {vocalsound} five thousand uh colour , so yeah too expensive . +Project Manager: And then you can use yellow or semething . Why not ? {vocalsound} Aye . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So just just a {vocalsound} a blue blue backlight or something like that . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Green is too old-fashioned . But blue , blue's okay . J +Industrial Designer: As long as you loo {vocalsound} use uh high contrast between the the background and the foreground colour . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Like this . +User Interface: maybe a maybe a white a white backlight ? +Industrial Designer: So that people with uh with +Marketing: White backlight , and dark . +User Interface: Dark uh letters , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Whatever which is visible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know you sh you should test it under uh under a light conditions . I mean it's hard to tell uh I dunno . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And also for people who are a bit colourblind . +Project Manager: Colourblind yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Project Manager: No so that's mostly red and green I believe . +Marketing: Which which uh colour should the buttons be ? +User Interface: That's adjustable . +Project Manager: Woah . All all buttons ? +Marketing: Why adjustable ? +User Interface: Yeah ? Or not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: No uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's how we are going to make it uh more trendy . Or is it uh too expensive ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But {vocalsound} maybe I mean they have to they have to have some colour right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's difficult . +Marketing: And if the background is very dark blue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Blue . Maybe green . +Industrial Designer: But don't we wanna make the background the the bright colo colours ? So th the total of the thing is very bright ? +Project Manager: Yeah you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like the pictures I showed you guys . Those things were all like like bright red , bright red , flashy . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm flashy . +Marketing: So more like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm bzz . +Marketing: Doesn't work very well . Uh . More like this colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that , something that stands out more . +Marketing: And then then yellow and orange and red objects on it or something . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But then then again , which colour should the buttons be ? The the press buttons . Should they be white or black or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Red maybe . +User Interface: And it it looks quite cheap , that colour I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Black . +User Interface: It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The green ? +Project Manager: Why ? +User Interface: Yeah . I dunno . +Marketing: Yeah but it's pretty fresh , on the other side . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's actually a pretty trendy colour at the moment . +User Interface: It's it's trendy okay . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: My couch is in that colour . +Project Manager: Ooh . {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well it works pretty well . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then time was up . +Project Manager: Uh not yet . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you get a pop-up if we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah within five minutes yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That you have five minutes left or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Y left yeah left and then uh I have to kick you out . +Marketing: So something like this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That should be pretty nice colour . But maybe the buttons , all buttons in red is maybe a bad contrast for colourblind people . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: No that's actu +Marketing: Because the {gap} of the green . +User Interface: But the but the buttons have their own LEDs or not ? +Project Manager: They have LEDs but they have a colour . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Red and green are actually the b the easiest to discriminate . Even for colourblind . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: They will see one of each as grey . But if you use uh green on blue , those kind of colours will look the same . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: So red buttons are okay ? +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Project Manager: You can make them red . +User Interface: Okay . That that's a default uh setting . The the red buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . But I think you need to keep in mind that the LEDs are just extra light . {vocalsound} +Marketing: How do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh they they don't determine the colour that much , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah I I was think about a red uh red LEDs and blue LEDs and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Cause you have to print on them {disfmarker} you have a background +Marketing: No that's that's too busy I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Each number is transparent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh partly but you have to print on the number . Or the the sign . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you can't {gap} change the colour so {disfmarker} +Marketing: You better bet better better keep the LED and the button itself in the same colour I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So just an extra +Project Manager: Bit of light . +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: bit of light and attention . +Project Manager: Bit of feedback . +Industrial Designer: what we should do I think is is make kind of a see-through plastic button , with uh one coloured LED behind it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that the whole button will shine +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: as the colour the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And if you think about easy to use buttons , we have to , well we have to make it the shape so that it's easy to hold f for both hands , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but also that you can reach the buttons with your thumb , if you hold the machine . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay with {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Don't mean to discourage you but {disfmarker} uh basically you two are going to work on the smartboard . Next thirty minutes to design something so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , right . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: And the {disfmarker} You will do the evaluation . +Marketing: Of the product ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which we don't have yet . +Project Manager: Yeah uh about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So wh how should I do that ? +Project Manager: Yeah I don't know . {vocalsound} You probably get a mail . +Marketing: Oh okay . Or you you or you send it to me . Or just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Once they are finished . Yeah . +Marketing: because you are going to design it on this board right ? +Project Manager: Yeah but maybe you can do the evaluation {disfmarker} you don't have to evaluate yet but you can make a procedure which to follow . I don't know . +Marketing: Yeah . I I probably get instruction on that , how to do that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so I make another presentation I guess . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I kn I know what's gonna happen in in yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About . Yeah . You have the basic idea . +Marketing: I've a basic idea . +Project Manager: And you two uh are going to do this . Look-and-feel and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So we're gonna work here ? On this sketchboard ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good luck . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Thanks . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright so that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I {gap} uh make new page and uh be creative . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But we have to do it at this moment , after th this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah you have uh +Industrial Designer: Thirty minutes . +Project Manager: thirty minutes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Then we have to uh see something which we can uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: show to the management . +User Interface: Ah so this is basically the what what we are thinking about ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would yeah . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh make a new uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah l let's just uh delete all these uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I just {vocalsound} make a new one . +User Interface: Oh , next {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh and save this uh board . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Just save it . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah I'll just I'll just keep it there . +Project Manager: Yeah okay but just press save and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It'll be fine . +Marketing: On the left . S so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can also include clip-art . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you'll rather draw in paint or something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Current colour ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shall we make some outline sketches of the basic shape first ? +User Interface: Yeah . And then after that we can make the user uh inter interface . +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} then look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'cause I have to uh focus on the on the basic look-and-feel design . +Marketing: This ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So how it's gonna look . And you have to think uh how we're gonna put the screen in it and those kind of things . +Marketing: Uh pretty accurate . +Industrial Designer: So if I'm drawing and you think okay I'm not gonna be able to put a screen in there , you have to correct . +Marketing: Oh we skip this I guess . Sound {gap} button press . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh do you mind if I draw in black then ? For normal sketches . +Project Manager: You can also include it . It's not much work . +User Interface: Oh no it's it's okay . +Marketing: Light only button user ca user interaction . +Industrial Designer: {gap} so we kind of want the girlish +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's included . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: figure . +Marketing: So the pl the plastic plastic buttons also help uh because of um they are only lit during interaction . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'm not so good at drawing . Excuse me ? +Marketing: Well it's a good thing that the buttons aren't um , well that they are plastic , because then you can light up the light on {gap} when when they are usable . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No uh uh . +Marketing: Maybe you should draw it very large {vocalsound} like this . +User Interface: Yeah but this part isn't uh functioning properly . +Project Manager: Yeah . Sensitive . +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: How do we uh uh +Marketing: Erase ? +Industrial Designer: or insert text ? +Project Manager: I dunno . Maybe just start typing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a bit uh large . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh that's a bit big . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You also do the other sides . Not only on the front si uh the top side but also the the side view . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Ex exactly . +User Interface: L let's make first the the the all the views . The the front view , side view and the back view . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I thought for the side view , that the w the basic section would be rather uh a bit thicker than the middle , where you're holding it with your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jesus . What do I write down ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I work here ? This is much easier . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Much easier , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause your fingers have to fit underneath and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The middle has to be very small so you can have it in your hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I don't see a sign that the meeting is over yet but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly but the uh but the upper side has to be a bit more like that I think . +Project Manager: No so I just work here a few minutes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah the display , +Industrial Designer: Uh don't you think ? +User Interface: we yeah we can put a display . +Industrial Designer: So the display we will put in here , the basic uh functions in here , where it's most reachable . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +User Interface: The the arrow functions . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The th Exactly . Oh . This is hard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do {disfmarker} {gap} don't have to draw it exactly do we ? +User Interface: No it's it's uh it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait . Let me try it one more time . Maybe I've uh {disfmarker} it's easier if I draw it in once . Okay , of course it will become way more ugly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can make it m larger . Maybe it's easier to to draw uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . This'll take forever . It's fun to work with this pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um so , larger . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah that's that's the basic idea . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrong one . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So side . +Project Manager: Five minutes left before the meeting ends . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Um other views ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah only if you are going to put buttons on the side of the unit . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's the question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Let's fill i fill in the buttons later . +Marketing: But we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So this is gonna be from the +Marketing: I is it {disfmarker} if if this is from the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh from {vocalsound} +User Interface: From the {disfmarker} +Marketing: woah . Steady . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . Sorry . +Marketing: Because there the screen goes up like that right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So then it's like this , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: or {disfmarker} that's not convenient because then you have the screen like this and look like the {disfmarker} it's better to have it somewhat like this . Or does it flip all the way ? +User Interface: Yeah I'm I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the idea is that it has to flip up to here . +User Interface: May maybe it's it's easier to to integrate the the the L_C_D_ screen just into this this bubble . Because it do doesn't have to flip then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Because we have en enough space for for making a an L_C_D . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Because here {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's better to to have this like this I guess , and then flip it like this . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: But why why do we need uh the flipping uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} you can adjust the angle to which it flips . So it can also from this angle , it can flip all the way up to there . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can flip it up to there if you want . +Marketing: Yeah . So w yeah . But we still keep the flipping mechanism . +Project Manager: Yeah we keep the flip ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Think so . +Project Manager: Keep the flip live . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because I think it will feel weird if you would make this smaller and this bigger or something that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the the shape is okay but {disfmarker} yeah ? I don't see the the yeah why why we should use the the flipping uh mechanism . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought it would be cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Because we {disfmarker} Okay yeah . It's it's for for for more trendy uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but maybe {disfmarker} Yeah but maybe we we should then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because we have enough space . H here we got uh the basic functions , the the arrow uh yeah button . +Marketing: Yeah there the middle {disfmarker} Sh sh shouldn't we integrate it ? +User Interface: Yeah and then h we sh mm . +Marketing: And then like i oh th {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: doh . Come on . So this is the shape . Oh . It hasn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . It doesn't aim so well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay but the screen is a bit lower because if it falls on the other side , it doesn't fall on the screen . +User Interface: Yeah , then it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So there's a layer of rubber on the side . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So no flipping but just {disfmarker} +User Interface: No flipping or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No flipping ? +Marketing: no . +User Interface: {gap} you wanted the flipping so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I guess but uh I mean most votes count right ? +User Interface: But if you if you {disfmarker} If you drop it it it just breaks . And it has to be very strong because of the {gap} . Yeah kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's shaking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Throwing and the kinetics . Oh . We better make we better make it like this . Eventually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah true true . +Project Manager: Yeah just light on top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And it's also for the for the children , it's yeah for people not sixteen years . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you if you're going for the kinetics {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Safer . Mm . Yeah okay that {gap} the target group . +User Interface: But there are more {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh they are responsible enough to have a mobile phone , so also to to deal with their uh remote uh control . Yes . +User Interface: Yeah okay . That's true . Okay . Yeah ? +Project Manager: Well . I just uh ended the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm just thinking totally different designs also . +Project Manager: You two go design . +User Interface: Okay wi +Industrial Designer: Remember that the weird pocketphone thingy which looked like kind of a Gameboy . +Project Manager: Oh . By the way . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should try something like that . But yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I uh thought up a name for our product . Yeah . It's called uh the Real Remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh right . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With a copyright sign after Real . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The Real Remote . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like it . +Project Manager: So maybe you can include that somewhere . +Industrial Designer: Okay . This can go . +Marketing: Good . Yeah . We should work in our own room right ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah we have to f uh include that in our design as well . +Project Manager: I don't see any power cables here so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Yeah . Yes . +Industrial Designer: What the hell's that ? +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think uh it's the sensors . +Marketing: See you two in half an hour uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . Okay that's the side . Ah it's it's okay . But do we want uh options on the on the side with the with the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think we do . +User Interface: Or just leave it ? Uh could make an uh a volume button uh scroll , volume button . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah or j or also scrolling for the m yeah . +User Interface: For menu . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? I dunno . We w kind of wanted to stick with the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I'm just thinking , {vocalsound} if we i we wanna make something different +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: right ? So the with the scroll is is more futuristic than the standard arrow buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah you are going to design it so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +","The meeting involves a conversation between a marketing representative, a project manager, an industrial designer, and a user interface specialist who are discussing the design and functionality of a new remote control product they are working on. They mention the importance of a ""fancy look-and-feel"" for the remote based on trend-watching information that suggests bright colors and spongey textures inspired by fruits and vegetables will be popular. + +They discuss various features and considerations, such as energy sources (battery, hand dynamo, kinetic energy, solar cells), case types and materials (with rubber being favored), and the requirement for the remote to be easy to use. They also touch on interface design, mentioning the use of LEDs and contemplating including a flipping mechanism for an LCD screen or incorporating the screen into the remote's body. + +The group debates the practicality and cost of implementing these features while aiming for a price point of €25 per unit. They agree on some elements and decide on the appearance and functionality of the remote, eventually setting on the name ""Real Remote"" for the product. They have to work on the smartboard for the remainder of the meeting to design the product, with the marketing representative being instructed to evaluate the final designs later." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Good afternoon again . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we should have our final meeting about the detail designed of {disfmarker} detail design of the product of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} So here is the agenda for today . Uh uh just going to go quickly through the minutes of the last last uh meeting then we have a p presentation of prototype of you two , sounds interesting . And we'll have um {vocalsound} presentation of evaluation crit criteria by ou our Marketing Experts . Then we'll have to go through finance evaluation of the of the cost of the thing and um hopefully uh we should fit the target o tw of twelve point five uh uh Euro . {vocalsound} Okay . So let's go . Uh if I go quickly through the minutes of the last meeting . {vocalsound} So we went through th uh w we took this following decisions . No L_C_D_ , no speech recognition technology , okay , we went through a b to a banana look and feel for the remote control . We went through the use of wheels and but buttons . {vocalsound} And also the use of a basis station for battery ch charging and uh also to um call the to call the mot mote remote control when it is lost . Okay . Um . Good . So guys let {gap} this uh wonderful thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we can go to the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Sorry . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Number three . Oh number two sorry . +Project Manager: Which is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So final design . Final design . Okay so Michael you can go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah so uh following our decision to uh make a yellow {disfmarker} well to make a banana +Project Manager: Yeah can you show it to the the camera maybe . +User Interface: remote {disfmarker} okay so we actually have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can pull it out first , maybe . +User Interface: We've {disfmarker} well first first of all we made a an attractive {vocalsound} base station uh with a banana leaf uh look and feel um and uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: bana sit {disfmarker} the banana sits in there k you know nicely weighted so that it's not gonna tip over and um this is the remote itself , it's kind of it's it's ergonomic , it fits in the hand uh rather well . We've got the two uh {vocalsound} uh scroll wheels here which you know one on the the left for the uh volume and the one on the right for for the channel and uh underneath {vocalsound} we have the uh the turbo button which is in like a nice uh trigger position for you know for pressing quite naturally . +Project Manager: What's the use uh of the t turbo button already ? +User Interface: This is when you when you uh are scrolling the uh {disfmarker} through the channels you can tell it to to skip th past channels that you {disfmarker} quickly rather th +Project Manager: Ah yeah yeah an then you stop when you stop it stops . +User Interface: Yeah . Well when you stop scrolling the wheel it stops . But normally with uh {disfmarker} it will just uh s stay on each station briefly so you can see the the picture . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: And we we do have one more functionality . If you take the banana as such and uh you press the turbo button , so it switch ons the switch ons the T_V_ . +User Interface: The T_V_ yeah . +Project Manager: Which one ? +User Interface: The s the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: The turbo button . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So rather than having uh an extra button for um for the on off switch you just use the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: Additional button . +Marketing: What this button for ? +User Interface: This is a teletext button . So once you press that then you get teletext +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and you can use the the channel selector scroll wheel as uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To navigate it through th through teletext . +User Interface: To navigate yeah . +Marketing: But if you want to go to page seven hundred ? +Industrial Designer: That's right , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} with the wheel it's easy . +Marketing: How man +User Interface: Well then you can you you have like a little uh number selection thing , you press the {gap} the the teletext button uh to move between uh the fields and then you can just scroll the number back and forth so you have s you go {disfmarker} you scroll to seven and then zero zero and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't understand it . Can you repeat it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well you can you can press press the teletext button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you then you can you can f +Industrial Designer: So then then both the scroll buttons they are for teletext browsing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you can tele +Marketing: Ah okay okay . Okay . Okay okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: once you press the teletext button then the scroll buttons they are more for teletext , they are no more for channel or vol volume . +Marketing: Okay . I see . I see . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the infrared uh port . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: Also the top of the banana . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So . And then we have +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: in the uh in the base station we have the the button at the front for uh for calling the uh the banana . +Project Manager: Calling . Excellent . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the leaves plays the roles of of antennas ? +User Interface: Actually they do . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: That's that's yeah that's uh that's form and function in the one in the one uh object . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it always means , whatever the rays goes by they they get reflected and then you are having a better coverage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's like antennas . +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: But yeah that's um that's just like {disfmarker} that's an attractive um base station . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: So , what else ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And for the power source we are having solar cells and rechargeable batteries and this and uh the basis station is going to have the input from the mm power line for for charging the batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it really weight ? Is it light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is very light . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're light . +User Interface: It's it's uh it's about the weight of a banana . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: You know , to give you the correct look and feel . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ok +Industrial Designer: And we have put these different colours so that people don't mistake them mistake it as a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's you know a child comes and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Yeah yeah yeah , I see . I under I understand . +User Interface: I think a child would try to eat it anyway , so maybe we should +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: consider that . {gap} maybe health and safety aspects . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh we didn't think of that yet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So for the power source , apparently you still {disfmarker} you you want to use both solar cells and batteries . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh you mean {disfmarker} okay . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know if the solar cells are actually necessary any more if you have a recharging base station . +Project Manager: Yeah , where are going to {disfmarker} where are you are you going to place them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . It'll It'll be always at top somewhere at there . +User Interface: If I was gonna place them I'd put them on the on the top here since that's like uh the black bit +Project Manager: You have enough surface ? You {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but yeah I don't I really don't think it's necessary to have the solar cells anymore . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because now we are having rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that that is {gap} . +Project Manager: What will be the autonomy ? Roughly ? +User Interface: The what sorry ? +Project Manager: The autonomy . Autonomy . +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh I mean how long does i how how how long can it be held off a station ? +Marketing: How long the {disfmarker} how long the bit the batteries long . +User Interface: Ah . Ah . A long time . +Project Manager: Yeah . A long {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no no , +Industrial Designer: Eight to ten eight to ten hours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it can {disfmarker} it should be weeks . +Industrial Designer: N most {disfmarker} no most of the time it's not being used . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but y people don't like to put it back in the base station all the time people leave wanna leave it on the couch so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So when when you are making it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's used only when you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . No eight or eight or ten hours of working . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you are just leaving like that it'll be much longer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . F weeks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Right . Next slide ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we are having the speakers regular chip for control . Pricing is {disfmarker} was a factor so that's why we have gone for a regular chip only not the advanced chip . And uh that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} Okay . Those really sounds very good . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing else to add ? +User Interface: It seems to be falling over . +Marketing: I l yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I like I like it . Maybe the the thing that convince me the less is the {vocalsound} the multifunctional buttons . Looks a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You want to have more functional buttons ? +Marketing: Looks a bit puzzled uh I dunno how to say {vocalsound} that . +Industrial Designer: You are not convinced . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} the the b the buttons change h h their function depending if y it's teletext or not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not not many , we we want to keep it simple . So that this button fo is for teletext which is usually also the case , that usually there is a teletext button and once you press that , the channel buttons , they baco become the scrolling buttons . +Marketing: And the volume button will will become {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's up to you , means . +Project Manager: Well in fact b both will be {disfmarker} could be useful , navigating through teletext . +Industrial Designer: Now that {disfmarker} Means let's say this this can move the the larger digits and this can move the smaller digits . +User Interface: Or can move between positions in the in the number . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what about people who want to use digits ? Butto real buttons ? +Project Manager: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there was there was a constraint that the surface area which we have on this banana on one side because of the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we are targeting a segment which is which is just very trendy kind of thing , they they don't care about the buttons any more . And anyway {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Because have you thought about configuration and all this kind of uh stuff ? +User Interface: It's all automatic . +Marketing: It's all automatic . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay yeah it's fine . +Project Manager: Very good uh yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we are living in a wonderful world . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} you th yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bananas everywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Automatically configure {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to go through now evaluations . +Industrial Designer: Evalua yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So your slides are ready ? +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Uh you're four I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this is one , which one is this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I {vocalsound} I const I constructed a a list of criteria based on the on the general user requirements . And each criteria is {vocalsound} will be evaluated it's uh logical criteria so we must users must say i if it's true or is {disfmarker} or if it's false in a in a scale ranging from zero to seven . +Industrial Designer: Why this strange factor of seven ? +Marketing: Because i I'm sorry . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Usually I have seen that scales are from one to ten . +Marketing: Ah yeah . It's from {disfmarker} sorry , it's from one to seven . It's from from one to seven sorry . Because it should be an even it should be an even uh scale , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Num number {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and five is too short and nine is too long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm a I I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay fine , got the idea . +Project Manager: So to have {disfmarker} in order to have enough granularity {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry ? +Project Manager: it's in order to have enough granularity in the evaluation . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The variance is mi it's is minimal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , great . +Marketing: I'm um answering your question . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that's the criteria I I found more useful . I think I sh I {vocalsound} I could write the criteria in the on the whiteboard ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Marketing: And we all four could range +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: could evaluate the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you can say fancy , handy . Handy . +Marketing: Okay let's let's evaluate if it's fancy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's fancy , according to me . +Marketing: Seven but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S seven . +Industrial Designer: Seven . Seven by me . +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: I would say seven . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: So you can add seven plus six plus seven plus {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , wait . +User Interface: Yeah uh five . +Project Manager: What do you say seven ? Five ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Five , maybe maybe maybe six it's it's I guess it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , six point five . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Handy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Again I'll give seven . +Project Manager: Seven . +User Interface: I'd give it a six like I'd I think it's probably more handy than my current remote , 'cause of the scroll wheels +Marketing: Six . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: but maybe loses the point for not having you know the extra buttons when you reall if you do need them for some reason but you know you can always use your other remote . +Project Manager: So seven , seven , +Industrial Designer: Seven for me . +Project Manager: six , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Six . +Project Manager: six point five . Functional . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give five . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Well it depends when you say functional , do you mean it does what we want it to do , or d does what it does , you know , can it make you coffee ? +Marketing: Everything ar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh for a remote control , does he have all the {gap} +User Interface: You know . +Marketing: Mm everything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: you could expect . +Marketing: It's compared to the all +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: remote controls . +User Interface: That's before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's right . The standards . What is available in the market off the shelf . +User Interface: Yeah . I have to say four . +Marketing: Actually I don't know what are the r the real specification of a of a universal remote contro +User Interface: Well it's not a universal remote . Remember we're focus we're supposed to focus just on T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah it's not an univer but it's for all kind of T_V_s ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well all T_V_s but only T_ {disfmarker} only T_V_s I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's universal but for T_V_s . {vocalsound} So s uh four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five ? +User Interface: Four . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four . Four . +Industrial Designer: So four point two ? +User Interface: Just four . +Project Manager: Four . +Industrial Designer: {gap} four . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Obviously there are some outliers so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay cool ? Cool device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There I'll give it seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It means cool features , like new features actually . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For a T_V_ the most important feature which I felt was the locator which is a cool feature . And then the scroll buttons are again cool features . We don't have L_C_D_ for it but that we decided we don't want to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven . +Marketing: I would say five . +User Interface: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Seven . +Project Manager: Plus six , I say {disfmarker} I said seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's six . +User Interface: S yeah . +Marketing: You said seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause it's five five seven seven so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , okay , definitely easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Definitely seven . +User Interface: Seven . +Project Manager: Seven . Seven . And you ? Outl you are not lik outlier . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Seven {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Sorry , I have them {disfmarker} +User Interface: Alright , now here's the sixty million Dollar question , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well , twenty five twenty five Euro question . +Project Manager: Of course I'll buy the {gap} banana . {gap} +User Interface: What do you what do you guys reckon ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of cour Of course the most difficult question for the end . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} Cheap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I find it quite cheap {vocalsound} actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . If i i it depends , if you live in in Switzerland or you live in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so the target price is for all Europe , or only for rich countries ? {vocalsound} It's more targeting U_K_ or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . Wha the initial specifications were for the whole all Europe or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is selling costs , not production costs . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah this is the the initial specifications . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah sure . Um {disfmarker} Five . +Marketing: I would say six . It's quite cheap actually . +User Interface: I'd say two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aw , should be nice in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't want a banana on my {vocalsound} living room table , a banana remote . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but it's really handy actually if you see . +User Interface: It is handy , it's handy , but it it's terrible . +Industrial Designer: It's it's so handy . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's kitsch . +Industrial Designer: Anyb anybody who comes here {vocalsound} {disfmarker} anybody who comes to your home he'll at least ask once what is this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , but it's not a positive thing . +Industrial Designer: It's a very positive thing if you see like that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well , you know , it's it's handy , it's ergonomic , but it's a banana . +Project Manager: Well , don't forget well , don't for don't forget who we're targeting also who are f f who are wh +Industrial Designer: Youngsters . +Project Manager: yeah , youngst youngst +User Interface: Yeah but it says I , I would buy this , so . +Marketing: Actually maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} if you would be young . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not telling that you are young . Li li like a teenager for instance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's I . I would buy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay you're you're crazy teenager and you like fun things . +Industrial Designer: You want to flaunt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} with your girlfriend or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , you want to show the beautiful banana you have . {gap} +User Interface: S s +Industrial Designer: Or might be it does some other kind of thing but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Still I I'd say two . I don't think I {disfmarker} at any stage in my life I would want a banana remote control , really . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , crazy . +Project Manager: Okay so you s you give {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can say , maybe there is a market for it , I dunno . +Project Manager: oh yeah yeah I know I know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you say two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I say five . +Project Manager: F I d I say five . You say ? +Marketing: I change the question . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's the new question ? +Industrial Designer: And you have saved it ? +Marketing: So yeah upload the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You'll have to reload . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , it depends if uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah it's two different situations . If you really need an universal remote control or if you would change your remote control for a n for a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah that's two different question . +User Interface: If I had t if I had to spend twenty five Euro , if that was like my limit , maybe I would buy it . Because the other twenty five Euro remote controls are probably gonna look +Project Manager: Ugly . +User Interface: worse than a banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're not going to be as {disfmarker} And they they might not be a as easy as this {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} yeah this is gonna f you know handy to use . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So ? What now ? What range ? +Project Manager: I stick to five . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: Although it still has it still has the word of course at the beginning {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I go slightly up . Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: so I dunno . Um . +Project Manager: W we have six , five {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd give it I'd give it a +Project Manager: Three {vocalsound} +User Interface: I give it a four now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Six ? Six ? +Project Manager: So we are six , five , four {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six , five , four . +Marketing: Six , so it's uh five point five , or less . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So and last question , will I change my rem change my remote control from Mando banana . Um , zero . No uh we can't . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Actually yeah , I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No uh let's say I'll put two . +User Interface: I'd say three , I mean my remote control is kinda {disfmarker} at home is pretty terrible . If it was {disfmarker} change my remote control of my D_V_D_ player for a Mando banana then I would be more inclined to +Project Manager: It's for the T_V_ . +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} 'cause it's really bad but uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd say a three . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'll still give it five . Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Two three five two three fi and two . +Marketing: {gap} You are romantic , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's somewhere three point five I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say two . +Project Manager: So it's r Yeah , three point five . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who is the outlier ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh wh {vocalsound} you said five ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no you say five , he is the outlier . +Industrial Designer: No I said five . +Project Manager: Okay just just do a sum . +Marketing: I don't know if {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not very promising but you know we're not young trendsetters . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No because there are more {disfmarker} yeah , we shouldn't sum like that . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should we should uh have a look globally glob +Marketing: Because the the last two questions is much more important than the rest actually . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Otherwise we wouldn't {disfmarker} we will not sell . +User Interface: Is there some some formula you're using that says you have to sum them up ? +Marketing: Uh no I didn't {gap} anything . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well just leave it at that then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: So maybe maybe w we can we should stick to general feeling . We can had uh have a {disfmarker} out of these numbers , which which is that well we should go for it . +Marketing: Yeah , the uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Problem with connectors ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to sum +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's it's funny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: o I think it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it it kind of you just lose information if you sum it , so . +Project Manager: Okay . So let's move uh let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} now now we have to mm to estimate {vocalsound} uh the cost okay . So I prepare an Excel sh uh an Excel sheet . Um well we are going to calculate the production costs . We should we should be below twelve point five . So I already uh put some pu some numbers here , okay . We are going to go through {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so this is the number the mm number of components we need for this thing . So it appears that there were things that we didn't thought about . Uh and also things that I uh I d I forget to uh to put like solar cells . +User Interface: Well we decided against the solar cells so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah finally we say no . +Industrial Designer: Solar cells , yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah , we said no to that . +Project Manager: Okay so let's let's go let's go let go through all the lines . So hand dynamo . This something we didn't thought about . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: You mean , charging it by shaking the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think rechargeable batteries will take care of the power thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so we we stick to battery , one . +Industrial Designer: To bring the cost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: No kinetic also . I don't I don't see the difference between kinetic and dynamo . +User Interface: Well maybe dynamo is like you have to actually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah you have to {disfmarker} ah okay I see so kinetic is really uh shaking the banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Crazy . Okay . So those banana is falling . Let's go ahead . So we we st only have one for battery . Uh then for electronics um so I didn't put anything for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So we have the regular chip on the print , which is one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . No {disfmarker} so we hin +Industrial Designer: And we have sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah so one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {gap} the cost of that is very high . +Project Manager: Ooh ye ye ye the cost is increasing . So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well actually that that {disfmarker} no that sample speaker is not {disfmarker} we we're not using that , we're just using the the very beep {disfmarker} simple beep , +Project Manager: The beep . +User Interface: that s that sample thing is like the voice recording and everything . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That's what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay so I'll remove it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: I say that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So don't we need a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we have sev +Project Manager: Oh there is no listing for r radio frequency thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we we'll put some extras , if there is something . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . We'll see later . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so in {disfmarker} for the case um {vocalsound} I put single curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay . To reduce the cost , it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , wait a second , +Project Manager: Because we have two things . +User Interface: no , it's it's double curved , it's got a c , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's got all the directions +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: so don't worry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well d yeah it's monotonic {vocalsound} but +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's got a {gap} direction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's got {disfmarker} but if you hold it if you hold it that way that's two curved , one on this side , one on that side , but they're opposite sides . +Project Manager: Well . What a {disfmarker} what i if I put one here . +User Interface: This is actually {disfmarker} I mean this probably +Marketing: Actually what's the differen +User Interface: this probably actually costs more than three +Project Manager: Yeah so let's put one here in the {gap} then instead of single +User Interface: if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: oka all right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we stick to plastic , it cost nothing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: Well {gap} {disfmarker} no didn't we say we wanted to do a rubber {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , it's too {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: {gap} if you drop it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive . +Project Manager: It's too expensive . We're already at eleven . +User Interface: Well when {disfmarker} okay . Well we we'll come back we'll come back and see if we can fit it in . +Project Manager: Okay so I put rubber one . Okay so special colour , yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh for the interface we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We don't have any push buttons . +User Interface: No , we have two push buttons . +Project Manager: We have three . +Industrial Designer: No that is a scroll wheel itself , it'll be put in that . +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: No no . We have two scroll , and we have three push buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay it's gonna have to be plastic . +Marketing: Actually whe whe when you wrote regular chip you should put two , because there is another chip here . +Project Manager: No it's {gap} no chip . This is just radio frequency {gap} . Th This is no chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but +Industrial Designer: No . There's no chip there . +Marketing: you need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It just emits the signal . +Project Manager: It's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the receiver accepts it and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fo i it does nothing actually ? +Project Manager: No . Just {disfmarker} only {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just se sends the signal , that's it . +User Interface: It's a recharger thing and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay w we didn't think a thought about uh integrated scroll wheel push buttons . +User Interface: Well I actually did um think about it myself {vocalsound} but I thought you know {disfmarker} because you could potentially you know you could be pushing it down as you scroll it for a {disfmarker} instead of a turbo button +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but you know the turbo button does add that extra class . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: You know . So I mean if we're if we're over budget then maybe we could we could rethink that . +Project Manager: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , so for {disfmarker} we have no button supplements , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . No . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} well in fact could we could not we consider this button as a button supplement because {disfmarker} oh no , these are these are for colours , co and special forms , special colours and special materials . +User Interface: Yeah . No we're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: we don't need anything special for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay so we are over budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So first thing which we should take care of is , +User Interface: Make it plastic instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: instead of rubber , let it be plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then we're basically o on budget except for you know ten cents . +Industrial Designer: And uh that much money will be required for the base station , which is not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So mayb in fact n we have to put two here +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: because it cost nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well pl the base station is made out of m many units of {vocalsound} plastic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So might be ninety centimes for the the remaining things which {disfmarker} the cord and everything which'll go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Exactly exactly so we have margin for that stuff . +User Interface: Does that include charging circuitry and everything ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . Okay good . Wha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So what do we do with the extra profits ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we'll invest in R_ and D_ . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well we're under the the the cost . So we can go to {disfmarker} through to project evaluation . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay so now we have a product which nobody would would buy . Would {disfmarker} yeah , would buy . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: No we have a product which none of us would buy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah because th th the evaluation project {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is different . Which is different . None of us will buy it . +User Interface: No it's people in in in Milan and uh in Paris that are gonna buy it . +Marketing: Ah would buy , yeah . +User Interface: We're n +Marketing: Massively , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . We're not in Milan or Paris . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Uh you have been in Milan a couple of times , so . +Project Manager: This is a battery . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually there were a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And you said the lowest {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is what we {disfmarker} which you can mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S Detachable battery . +Project Manager: It did {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: That's 'cause I'm sick of Milan . +Marketing: Yeah , for the batteries {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Extra battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay so um {vocalsound} project process . +Project Manager: Exac {vocalsound} Well in fact I I did not know {vocalsound} I didn't know really what to say here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If uh if you have any ideas of what we can we can say . So I don't I don't I don't understand what what they mean by satisfaction um and for and for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should it be more like um like a status of of the {disfmarker} these meetings in fact . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well in fact uh we we use a little bit the white board and the digital pen , not that much . +User Interface: I dunno I think we had a fair bit of creativity . +Project Manager: Oh yeah it's really creative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh but I think one thing we m missed out of this whole process was a um {vocalsound} like a focus group with the actual people we're targeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We needed some of these kind of young trendsetters to come in and play with the banana and you know see if they +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They like that . +User Interface: see if they like it . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe we should go through , yeah an uh evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because yeah the evaluation for us is is kind of pointless . +Industrial Designer: Biased . +Project Manager: So maybe you should we should do a kinda evaluation {vocalsound} in the streets like asking to young peoples well , do you like to have a banana as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . Because it it would also be interesting to uh you to know find out if we have a market in really young children as well , to see you know how to how to market this thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause you know if {disfmarker} well I mean maybe you don't wanna give all your kids their own remote because they'll be changing the channel all the time but you know maybe in some households where there is you know a T_V_ for each kid , then you know , banana remote control could be fun for them as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Might have to draw a face on it . So but I think that's something we need to to work on next time is really finding out more about the target market . +Project Manager: Yep . Any any new ideas we could uh we could investigate next time ? Dunno , oranges ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The cost of the thing can be made more than might be . Because I think it's just the optimal , what we have done for the cost which we are looking forward to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . I think there are ways we could maybe simplify the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Interface . +User Interface: Well just the the the circuit board that we're using inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'm not sure really how complicated our um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: our needs are . I mean all we have is two push buttons and two scrollers , do we really need an integrated circuit to +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: you know to process that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So more general remote control instead of just focusing on uh on T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: The complexity shouldn't be much higher . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: For {disfmarker} you said if it good for D_V_D_ then I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also fo you know for mood lighting and and stuff , that would be rather cool . I think that's actually something that should be in version two , is the ability to you know to control things other than the T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Integrate . +User Interface: and not just electronic equipment but you know the whole environment of the room . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Very good . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} What else ? +Project Manager: Well done . I think we we can go +Industrial Designer: Okay . Home ? +Project Manager: home . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Happily satisfied . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe maybe we can hassle the the production department to to make a a real prototype that we can use at home to to evaluate . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay so thanks very much . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Bye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: Bye . +","The project team had a meeting to discuss the final design details and cost evaluation of a banana-shaped remote control prototype. The remote features banana leaf aesthetics, ergonomic design, scroll wheels for volume and channel control, a teletext button, a turbo button for rapid channel surfing, and a base station with a button to locate the lost remote. The meeting covered design decisions, such as excluding an LCD screen and speech recognition technology. During the meeting, team members expressed concerns about multifunction buttons and the product's market appeal. The projected cost was set to fit a target price of €12.50. Although the team member's personal opinions on the product's desirability were mixed, they considered the potential appeal to a trendy, youthful demographic. The session closed with the decision to proceed with the project, refining the details and considering broader remote control functionality for future developments." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Du +Project Manager: Okay . Thanks for coming to this meeting . +Marketing: Hm . +Project Manager: S how we doing on our remote ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have some {disfmarker} we have some ideas and some uh ideas for what people want . +User Interface: Uh we yes s I've lo {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I've done the role that I was asked to do anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright let's just go over the agenda real quick for this meeting . See if I can't get things uh moving along here a little bit better . Um I'll go over what we went over last time , which shouldn't take long . Then I believe each of you have a presentation . Um I've was sent a a couple more requirements for our remote , what they want . Um then we can come to a conclusion on uh what we want the remote to do , um and how it's going to do it hopefully . And uh then we'll have the closing . {vocalsound} Um which we'll have forty minutes for . Uh let's see , the last meeting we went over um {vocalsound} who was responsible for what . I'm responsible for leading the meetings , keeping the notes , uh and coming up with the final presentation . Um Corinne is our Marketing Expert . She's gonna figure out what what um the consumer wants . Um {vocalsound} Ryan is our User Interface Designer . And Manuel is the Industrial Designer . So you're gonna come up with the ideas Ryan , and you're gonna pick 'em apart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we decided our remote , uh we want it to be a universal remote uh that everyone would want . Um we want to be modern , um fun , different . Uh it needs to be sturdy , um easy to find , so we gonna have that locator function . Um and we want to be different . Um and then we went over a couple of different ideas . Ball-shaped phone . The keyboard shape . Um we decided that it should probably be one-handed . Something we could use with one hand . Um and that was our last meeting . So um why don't um {disfmarker} Do each of you have a presentation ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . I'll hand it off to you and um {disfmarker} Does anyone {disfmarker} do you wanna go first ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So we can maybe see what uh what the people want . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What was it ? Function ? +Industrial Designer: Eight . F_ eight . +Marketing: F_ eight ? Well . {vocalsound} How do I get it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Slide show . +Project Manager: To go to the next one ? +Marketing: Oh right right right . +Project Manager: Yeah you click on that guy . +Marketing: That one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Alright . Well , this is my report , which is going to be based pretty much on a survey that I was sent . Oh gosh , I've no idea . {vocalsound} G +User Interface: Just press the arrow keys I think . Usually goes to it . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry I actually need to see something else on my screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think . +Marketing: And then ? Again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You want it to be on both screens , or just just yours ? +Marketing: No I want something else on mine . Is that possible ? +Project Manager: Yeah but I think you have to hit escape . And then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay but now you don't have that . +Project Manager: Oh hit F_ eight again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry guys . +Project Manager: I know . I did the same thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then it should come up here shortly . 'Kay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So is there no way I can give you the slideshow and +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} oh give us the slideshow and something on your screen ? +Marketing: yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: I'm not sure . You could maybe minimise that screen and then have them both up at the same time I think . +Marketing: Yeah . It's okay . Okay . Um so first of all , the method that I used was by doing some marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: by um doing research on some interviews that were conducted . And then some internet research . And I was sent a report that was {disfmarker} I think there were a hundred remote users that they interviewed . And so I will show you some of the results from that , which I think will be helpful . Um okay here are some of the findings . They said that the users dislike the look and feel of their current remote controls . And seventy five percent of the users find their remote controls to be ugly . Which is a fairly significant number I would say . And eighty percent of the users would be willing to spend more money if they could get a remote that would look fancy . So I think that earlier we were onto something when we were talking about having it be a modern cool look , I think that's definitely important . Um they say that current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot . And if anyone could clarify what that means ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just jus +User Interface: Is is it j just just +Marketing: Zap , does that just mean like changing the channel ? +User Interface: just using it +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Um and fifty percent of the users say that they're only using ten percent of the buttons on their remote control . And there was something else , they kept track of the frequency per hour in using certain buttons . And some of them it looks like barely need to be included at all . Of course channel selection is used the most frequently . And then teletext was the next . Volume and then power . And then audio settings and screen settings and channel settings were practically never used . So I think we could definitely eliminate or somehow combine a lot of the functions into one button . Um the biggest user frustrations , as we said fifty percent of people find that their remotes are lost somewhere , and so I think a tracking device of some sort would be a good idea . They said it take {disfmarker} thirty four percent said it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote . And twenty six percent said that the controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: Just repetitive strain injury . I think . That's what I guess . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . And so bas okay . Um as far as speech recognition goes , um the younger group looks like they're all for it . From the fifteen to twenty five age group over ninety percent said they would pay more . And it kind of just went down incrementally . The groups at {disfmarker} the older they get it looks like the less willing they are to pay , so maybe we could discuss this and think {disfmarker} and decide if we think it's worth investing in this . At least if we're targeting the younger groups . And so in conclusion . Some things that I drew from this are that I think we were correct . We definitely need to focus on a new modern appearance , since so many people seem to be concerned about the ugliness of their remote control . Um a multifunctional remote could be a good thing to explore . So you only have one rather than five different remotes sitting all over your room . Uh we need to simplify the remote and reduce the number of buttons , get rid of the ones that don't seem to be serving much purpose . And then lastly I thought that maybe we could discuss the idea of speech recognition . And that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Very nice . Now we actually have some ideas of what what people want , what we should focus on . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wait can I look at that real quick ? {gap} . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Sorry did you guys get time to write everything that you needed ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Having just listened to what Corinne just said , I'll draw on some of the things as well . {vocalsound} {gap} Some things that sort of relevant to what I wanna say . 'Kay so I'm just gonna yeah approach the technical functions design . Um {vocalsound} the method I used was to explore the uh technical functions of a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And t s simplest approach that I came to is is to change , programme and operate an electronic device remotely . I mean that's an obvious thing to say , but it's not attached to the device that you want to control . Um I had some things sent to me . Not very much . To look at similar devices . Um defined in some them . And then the personal preferences that I will suggest . Um we discussed a universal one . Um like it's just been brought up again then . But I think a universal remote control is actually quite a difficult object to design , and po possibly within maybe the budget that we do it , um because you'd need to know all the spef specifications of a all the like electronic companies . I'm not sure have you ever come across a universal remote control yourself , but you have to {disfmarker} i they're a nightmare to use . You have to set them , reset them to everything . Um and that would only add buttons . Whereas I think the aim is to take away buttons . So I think it'd be better maybe to concentrate on maybe just a universal one for T_V_s . Um or maybe just one that you could we could design and then different people , manufacturers could use it to set to their specifications , if if the aim is to get something that's unique in design . Um {disfmarker} Okay here here's just two pictures of remote controls . They're just simple T_V_ remote controls . But one is uh user-centred . That is the one on the left . And you can straight away see there's less buttons . And the other one is {gap} engineer-centred where that's more uh specified for the sort of the elaborate piece of equipment it's trying to control um {disfmarker} {gap} which appeals more to the product that we want , and on what the {gap} have said and the market research and stuff {gap} probably looking at something that should be user-centred . Fewer buttons , simpler to use , and if ten percent um is hidden away {disfmarker} if ten percent is what's used , maybe the other fifty percent , the buttons that are used very rarely like programming , they could be hidden maybe under {disfmarker} some remote controls you might have come across have maybe a little flip thi thing where they're hidden away . And the main buttons are the ones you or the ones you come across . Um and finally , um uh sort I've sort of covered that , our product I think should be user interface orientated . Um {disfmarker} Like I said to concentrate on T_V_ remote control , a universal remote might be too complex . Um and as what it , the major findings {gap} market researchers have said , it's the image and the appearance that people di dislike . So that we should concentrate on something that would set a trend . And that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} cable there . Thank you . +Project Manager: What was your last conclusion on that one ? Focus on uh the i +User Interface: On something on the image of it . +Project Manager: the image of it . +User Interface: Uh the f the actual design . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Good . Good . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Gonna talk to you about the working design of the interiors basically which is what dictates the design the both the interface basically and the outer appearance because this is all the stuff that needs to go in there . Right . So unfortunately the people who were supposed to do this little presentation for me obviously were too drunk to actually accomplish it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um {vocalsound} I'm going to do a lot of the stuff on the board . Um just {disfmarker} This is the basic basic premise of a remote control . Um the basic function is to send messages to another system . Okay so much is clear . An energy source feeds an integrated circuit , like a chip , that can compose messages . {vocalsound} Often in the form of infrared bits . This is the most mostly used . Um there's uh also some sound systems but infrared is the better or the more more used system . Um parts are cheaper as well . A user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages . This is where my people screwed up basically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I'm going to explain that on the board rather . Um what we have is different components that obviously need to go in there . We'll start with an energy source . Right . Um which is usually a battery right ? {vocalsound} Since it's not feasible to add a cable to that . This energy source of course is connected to the the user interface itself {vocalsound} . Uh which can be buttons , whatever , which in fact controls a chip . Right ? This is the user interface and there we have the chip . Um the way this goes normally is that this chip then controls an infrared lamp . That sends out the signal . Of course the signal differs accordingly . Um depending on what the chip tells the infrared lan lamp . And {disfmarker} Of course that's controlled , the chip itself is controlled by the user interface . The way you normally normally do it is that you add a little device such as a lamp to the whole thing as well , so that you know that it's working basically . You press something , you get a response . Which is also comparatively um important on one of those devices . Now this , what we're talking about here , or what I think should be discussed are these two components mostly . The the uh energy source for one thing can be altered . What we probably cannot alter is of course the infrared , the sending device basically , the infrared lamp . We cannot change the chip which controls the infrared lamp . Right ? These two are components that we have to use , and these are dictated by the whole function of the whole thing . Um the lamp can be put onto the desi the device . It c it doesn't have to be there . This can be discussed as well . {vocalsound} The user interface . That's something we can also discuss . Um as we've heard uh speech recognition is the hype obviously in the moment . Speech recognition um interface , we don't know that . Or if we just do the usual button thing . Or we have a touch pad or something like that {disfmarker} that's something we can discuss . And of course the energy source . Batteries . Solar cells . Who knows ? {vocalsound} Of course it's always a question whether these these components are in fact {vocalsound} available cheap enough , developed enough . But that's like I s I suppose rather up to marketing , and not to +Project Manager: So we could {disfmarker} the the +Industrial Designer: to the industrial design department . +Project Manager: the more complex we make it of course , the more expensive {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Expensive it's gonna be get uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: But people have said that they would {disfmarker} well younger generations of people have said that they would pay more for a speech recognition remote . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So possibly it might be worth the investment . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think speech recognition was uh one of those things where um they have to be really good for them to work . 'Cause sometimes you find yourself just saying things over and o {gap} if it's on your phone . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I agree . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you need to sort of take into light languages and then {vocalsound} different dialects I suppose as well . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} myself I find , when you , h when there's something like spee speech recognition . Like uh you call on the phone and you try to change your telephone or power or something . Sometimes they have a a speech recognition on the other end , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you say one for this , and you find yours , like you said , saying the same thing over and over and over . I find myself , especially if I'm in a crowd of people , looking really silly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe if you're sitting on your couch with a bunch of people then you know , you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: And wou I don't know if would would you want to keep saying stuff if you were watching stuff . If you were watching something would you sort of be wanting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Volume up . Volume down . Change the channel , you know channel up , channel down ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I I don't know . +Marketing: Another thing about these figures is ninety one percent of the youngest age groups said they'd do it , but probably a lot of them that's actually their parents money . Like I don't know if they would actually go out and purchase this themselves , a fifteen year old you know . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} As well it'd be j the gimmick factor for the younger people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But practically I don't think it's {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a , it's a gimmick factor that they like at first , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It'll wear off . +Marketing: Gets old yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} Let's see here . +User Interface: Do you wanna put your cord back in ? +Project Manager: Yeah I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Trade you . +Industrial Designer: {gap} go . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now I was sent a couple of things to modify our uh new requirements . Um the remote's only gonna be for the television , which is good because we already decided {disfmarker} y your your research showed that uh not only is a universal remote more complicated , it's more cost , more costly . And your re uh research showed that you know most of the people don't even use it . I think uh you said fifty percent of the people only use half the or ten percent of the buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So if we remove the universal remote then that solves that problem . Um no teletext . Um {disfmarker} So we don't have to worry about that . Um but we do have to use the the company wants us to incorporate the corporate colour and our slogan , which is we put the fashion in electronics . And our corporate colours are grey and yellow . And we could probably get away with black too but {disfmarker} So those are the three um the three new requirements that that I was told we need to use . Um from all all three of your uh presentations , I think that we were on the right track a lot in our last meeting . We want something that looks good . Um we want something that's simple . We want something that you can find easily . Um {disfmarker} And the speech recognition I I guess is kind of uh give or take . It's gonna cost more . S the young the younger people say that they like it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um it's probably , I would say , probably not worth the investment at this point in time . So maybe we should just do away with speech recognition . Um {disfmarker} And that way we can focus on our form . +User Interface: I did have have a thought about the sort of the tracking thing . Is that {disfmarker} if it came with maybe a holder or holster , whatever you wanna call it . Um that you you should put it back in . Your remote . But if you don't put it back in , you press something like a little button on that , and that just sort of sends out a beep {vocalsound} to find where it is or something . Just by infrared . That shouldn't be too complex I would've thought . +Project Manager: That'd be , that'd be good if we were going with our our ball . +User Interface: Yeah it would be quite good . +Project Manager: Or or with {disfmarker} you know I guess with any form that that would be good . +User Interface: The ball could sit on a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: You know that could be the charger . For you know +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we could use rechargeable batteries in the remote . And that would be {disfmarker} or solar . Or you know {disfmarker} However , however you wanted to go about it , the holder could also be the charging unit . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the locator button . Um and if it were the ball you'd no longer have to have a flat space on it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um like +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: if +Industrial Designer: you still do . +Project Manager: we still have the how to hold on to it +Industrial Designer: You s you still {disfmarker} W yeah . You put it on t on the couch table . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's gonna roll away . +Industrial Designer: While you're watching , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Rolls away +Industrial Designer: it's gonna roll off . So +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's not an issue really . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So I guess after the meeting {vocalsound} we'll have some questionnaires . And uh and some summaries for for what's going on . Um then we'll take lunch . Then we can come back and uh work on our individual work . Um {disfmarker} I'll do the minutes . Uh let's see . It looks like you're already on your way for uh working with the components . Um chips , the what chips we need +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: and what uh you know how to power it and whatnot . User interface concept , we want it to be something simple . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Minimal number of buttons . I guess our , I guess our main um main thing that we should focus on until then is probably deciding on a certain look , you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Did you have time earlier to to work on that . Did you guys feel you have enough time in between our meetings to get everything done that you need to get done ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not really . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll yeah I'll have a look , try {gap} look at the actual appearance in the next break . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I th I I do still think it needs to be something that is ultimately one-handed . The ball is probably not a good idea . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And even something that's held like that might be difficult . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So that I think it still has to be a variation . On maybe a a rect on a rectangle but maybe not necessarily as boring , as plain as a rectangle . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Shall we maybe shoot for a a specific uh target group ? That way we could l I mean if it were , if we were shooting for young guys then it's um a certain look to the remote . Or girls or older people ? Um {disfmarker} Would that {disfmarker} you think that would help us find um a specific form ? That we would would wanna pick out ? +User Interface: D I don't know if that might cope with like the trend-watching . I {gap} find anything more on that . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah not yet but maybe by the next meeting we'll have some info on that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . So um we know that the remote's gonna have to be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we'll just say we've got a colour scheme for it . Um yellow and {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know yellow it's nice and bright , with the buttons being grey or black . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And our slogan pasted somewhere on it , on the the bottom +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or the +User Interface: Bottom perhaps +Project Manager: you know . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe we could sketch a {disfmarker} so basically all of our remotes all of our typical remotes now are just kind of a rectangular sort . You know . Um maybe we could flare it or something . You know . So it's more {disfmarker} of course this will look like a bone then . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} go ahead and erase this . Um {disfmarker} Hope everyone memorised that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} I mean it might be to look at sort of the the shape and trend of like things like mobile phones , and the shapes that the they've been going . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: They've gone from big brick block things , which is {gap} a remote control is , to sort of slinky small things . +Project Manager: Yeah everybody's got a mobile phone right ? Except for me now . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But they are all , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , mobile phones um they've kind of taken a turn to where they're really small . Um which may defeat our purpose for being able to locate our remote all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: But then again you don't want you know like the first mobile phone that was this big +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you had a handbag to carry it around in . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we've got basically what remotes look like now is kind of what we're what we're stuck with . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Maybe we could go with a square or something . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +Project Manager: Um you know with minimal number of buttons . I guess you've got you know one through nine . For typing in your channels . Uh you've got volume , up and down . Channel up and down . +Marketing: Power . +Project Manager: Power . Usually at the top . Um a mute . +Industrial Designer: That's the classical design . +Project Manager: That's that's pretty much all you need I think . Um {disfmarker} A menu button , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So you know . If you , if we want the remote to do other things like um {disfmarker} or I guess the T_V_ to be able to change the tint and the colour and you know all those kind of things that are built into T_V_s , we just have that under one standard menu button where you go in , press the menu button , scroll up and down to select it . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talking of which maybe a scrolling function is not not too bad . +Project Manager: 'Kay so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Talk about maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} f look at that from the side , there maybe . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Which is technically the easiest option . Would probably be like a scrolling , little scrolling wheel like this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: Like a wheel on your mouse . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sort of like that . +Project Manager: Sort of . +Industrial Designer: You can even if we're coming from mice , we can even add a click function , where you , in order to verify the information you just press it down . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'S a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Also when it comes to the ergonomics of the whole thing , if you wanna make it square for the looks of it , then maybe to make it more comfortable to hold the whole thing , you add a little bulge down here . Just which maybe from an engineering point this could be holding the the batteries and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I know . You know what I'm getting at here , +Project Manager: Look g yeah . Looks good . +Industrial Designer: fel look at it from the side . It's {gap} like that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh {disfmarker} Then you hold it in your hand like this . And maybe you bring the buttons nearer to the {disfmarker} or the imp more important buttons nearer to the to the side . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} +Project Manager: To the thumb . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Mm . +User Interface: To the thumb yeah . Maybe the buttons could like uh decrease in s the bigger ones you know they could actually be bigger in size than the ones that are less important , the smaller here . +Industrial Designer: Right . You can also have it , maybe , talking about mobile phones again , sliding open . With the lesser used functions on this part , +User Interface: Yeah . Behind . +Industrial Designer: and then it slides into that part . And out . +User Interface: Definitely . {gap} just like o on a sort of side view . Something that you know it would sort of fit in the hand better . So you know you just sort of have your hand +Industrial Designer: Mm well I was just thinking , this this of course causes +User Interface: Yeah . Right on the {disfmarker} and your thumb would be up here type thing . +Industrial Designer: causes a problem um for left or right-handed people actually . So . +User Interface: Yeah that's also true . {gap} instantly sort of always going for the right-handed person . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: But I mean {gap} the older so +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} is everyone {disfmarker} who in here's right-handed , left-handed ? You guys all right-handed ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . So +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm left-handed but I , so I can say that most things are designed for right-handed people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's right . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like the written language . {vocalsound} Or English . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe you could buy like a special left-handed version of the remote . {vocalsound} Special order . +Project Manager: Maybe . Ow . I would say I mean it should be probably designed for a right-handed p person . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um but that's that's good . That's {disfmarker} w I think we've got a kind of a good plan there . Um {disfmarker} At least for what buttons we're gonna use . Um {disfmarker} So we've got uh {disfmarker} I like the scroll , the scroll action and the {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: I mean I'm just just thinking maybe if it was um circular um with the sort of {disfmarker} that sort of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the sort of early idea we had , with the way that was more like that , whereas this is just a one-handed thing that you sort of almost wrap round the thumb . So you'd have your , you'd put your hand into there with the thumb there . And then your thumb would do {disfmarker} you'd have all the buttons sort of round here . And that I think could work . On any hand . If you just had it like wrapped round there . Left or right . +Project Manager: Yeah . Kinda like holding a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {vocalsound} That minimises it size-wise as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Minimise its size . It could be you know really quite small . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Then there's maybe another point of making it a two-in-one kind of thing . If we have a smaller a smaller device that actually fits into the big one . You give it the full functions in here , and just a couple of functions in there . Like your zap zapping device is just u channels up-down , uh volume , and on-off . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Zapping functions . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could be good . +Project Manager: So two remotes in one . But then would be easier to lose one or the other . +Industrial Designer: That's right . Means the big one has to be sufficiently big . And perhaps heavy , so you can't move it around . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It actually is your coffee table . +Industrial Designer: Make it a piece of furniture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} yes . Yes , there you go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or a statue or something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Well we need to finish up here . Um {disfmarker} So for the next {disfmarker} So for the next um {disfmarker} before the next meeting w uh sh shall we work on {disfmarker} you're watching trends to see what what kind of new information we've got going on . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Manuel you're going to work on the components for for what we're gonna use . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Let's go with our our uh rounded kind of fit in your hand {disfmarker} let's explore uh the the uh possibility of having the two-piece . So one for the the quick zapping um and possibly one you know with just that rounded part that fits into your hand . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And Ryan you work on um how how well they'll work with the us with the user . So both of those concepts . +User Interface: How well it'll work yeah . +Project Manager: And uh okay I think we made some good progress here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} see you in {disfmarker} I dunno . I gu I guess we'll take lunch in about uh half an hour . {vocalsound} Or I guess we'll be taking lunch shortly and then then in about half an hour after that we'll probably have another meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +","The project team, consisting of the Project Manager, Marketing Expert Corinne, User Interface Designer Ryan, and Industrial Designer Manuel, had a meeting to discuss the design of a remote control. They reviewed roles, with the Project Manager responsible for leading meetings and final presentations, Corinne focusing on consumer desires, Ryan generating ideas based on user interface design, and Manuel analyzing and constructing the industrial design. They aim to create a modern, fun, sturdy, and easy-to-find remote, ideally with a locator function. + +Key points discussed include the remote being user-friendly and simple, with fewer buttons and no teletext functionality. It will only be for television, not a universal remote, as agreed due to complexity and cost. They must incorporate the company’s corporate colors (grey and yellow) and slogan (“We put the fashion in electronics”). Speech recognition was deemed too costly and potentially impractical. + +The team brainstormed design features such as a locator function possibly integrated into a holder/charger, a scroll action similar to that of a mouse, and ergonomic considerations for holding the remote, which could be different for left- and right-hand users. They discussed possibly making the remote dual-part, with one primary remote and another smaller one with basic functions. The team decided to pursue a design that's like a mobile phone in size and shape. The idea of zapping functions being on a smaller device was brought up. + +After this meeting, Corinne will continue to watch market trends, Manuel will work on the remote's components, and Ryan will focus on user compatibility with the proposed design concepts. They plan to regroup after a lunch break to continue the project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay Right {vocalsound} Um well this is the kick-off meeting for our our project . Um {vocalsound} and um this is just what we're gonna be doing over the next twenty five minutes . Um so first of all , just to kind of make sure that we all know each other , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm Laura and I'm the project manager . {vocalsound} Do you want to introduce yourself again ? +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Hi , I'm David and I'm supposed to be an industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I'm Andrew and I'm uh our marketing +User Interface: Um I'm Craig and I'm User Interface . +Marketing: expert . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . {vocalsound} Um so we're designing a new remote control and um {disfmarker} Oh I have to record who's here actually . So that's David , Andrew and Craig , isn't it ? And you all arrived on time . Um yeah so des uh {vocalsound} design a new remote control . Um , as you can see it's supposed to be original , trendy and user friendly . Um so that's kind of our our brief , as it were . Um and so there are three different stages to the design . Um I'm not really sure what what you guys have already received um in your emails . What did you get ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just got the project announcement about what the project is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Designing a remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's about it , didn't get anything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's that's it . +Project Manager: Is that what everybody got ? +Industrial Designer: Did you get the same thing ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . So we're gonna have like individual work and then a meeting about it . And repeat that process three times . Um and at this point we get try out the whiteboard over there . Um . {vocalsound} So uh you get to draw your favourite animal and sum up your favourite characteristics of it . So who would like to go first ? +Marketing: I will go . That's fine . +Project Manager: Very good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This one here , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Very nice . Alright . My favourite animal is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} A beagle . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um charac favourite characteristics of it ? Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , right , well basically um high priority for any animal for me is that they be willing to take a lot of physical affection from their family . And , yeah that they have lots of personality and uh be fit and in robust good health . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is blue . Blue beagle . My family's beagle . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Well , my favourite animal would be a monkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then they're small cute and furry , and uh when planet of the apes becomes real , {vocalsound} I'm gonna be up there with them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's too much gear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can take as long over this as you like , because we haven't got an awful lot to discuss . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ok oh we do we do +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't feel like you're in a rush , anyway . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I coulda told you a whole lot more about beagles . +Project Manager: Ach {gap} why not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Boy , let me tell you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We might have to get you up again then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what mine is . I'm gonna have to think on the spot now . +Marketing: Impressionist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't draw . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Is that a whale ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , well anyway , I don't know , it's just the first animal I can think off the top of my head . Um . Yes . Big reason is 'cause I'm allergic to most animals . Allergic to animal fur , +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: so um fish was a natural choice . Um , yeah , and I kind of like whales . They come in and go {vocalsound} eat everything in sight . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And they're quite harmless and mild and interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . God , I still don't know what I'm gonna write about . Um . +Marketing: Superb sketch , by the way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tail's a bit big , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I was gonna choose a dog as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'll just draw a different kind of dog . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: M my favourite animal is my own dog at home . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} That doesn't really look like him , actually . He looks more like a pig , actually . Ah well . +Marketing: I see a dog in there . +Project Manager: Do you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's very good of you . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Now I see a rooster . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: What kind is it ? +Project Manager: Um he's a mixture of uh various things . Um and what do I like about him , um {disfmarker} That's just to suggest that his tail wags . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um he's very friendly and cheery and always pleased to see you , and very kind of affectionate and um {vocalsound} uh and he's quite quite wee as well so you know he can {disfmarker} doesn't take up too much space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh {disfmarker} And he does a funny thing where he chases his tail as well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is quite amusing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is he aware that th it's his own cha tail he's chasing ? +Project Manager: It is . I think it is . He only does it after he's had his dinner +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um he'll just all of a sudden just get up and start chasing his tail 'round the living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's an after dinner dog then . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably when he was little he got lots of attention for doing it and has forever been conditioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . {vocalsound} Right , um where did you find this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just down here ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um what are we doing next ? Uh um . Okay , uh we now need to discuss the project finance . Um so according to the brief um we're gonna be selling this remote control for twenty five Euro , um and we're aiming to make fifty million Euro . Um so we're gonna be selling this on an international scale . And uh we don't want it to cost any more than uh twelve fifty Euros , so fifty percent of the selling price . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , can we just go over that again ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: Uh , so bas at twel Alright , yeah . Okay . So cost {disfmarker} like production cost is twelve fifty , +Project Manager: All together . +Marketing: but selling price is {disfmarker} is that wholesale or retail ? Like on the shelf . +Project Manager: Um I dunno . I imagine {disfmarker} That's a good question . +Marketing: Our sale our sale anyway . +Project Manager: I imagine it probably is our sale actually +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay . +Project Manager: because it's probably up to the the um the retailer to uh sell it for whatever price they want . Um . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I {disfmarker} I don't know , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: I mean do you think the fact that it's going to be sold internationally will have a bearing on how we design it at all ? +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it will ? Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: Well right away I'm wondering if there's um th th uh , like with D_V_D_ players , if there are zones . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , regions and stuff , yeah . +Marketing: Um f frequencies or something +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: um as well as uh characters , um different uh keypad styles and s symbols . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well for a remote control , do you think that will be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: I suppose it's depends on how complicated our remote control is . +Marketing: I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does make sense from maybe the design point of view 'cause you have more complicated characters like European languages , then you need more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a and then al the other thing international is on top of the price . I'm thinking the price might might appeal to a certain market in one region , whereas in another it'll be different , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What , just like in terms of like the wealth of the country ? +Marketing: Just a chara just a characteristic of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like how much money people have to spend on things like ? +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} Or just like , basic product podi positioning , the twenty five Euro remote control might be a big hit in London , might not be such a big hit in Greece , who knows , +Project Manager: Aye , I see what you mean , yeah . +Marketing: something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Marketing . Good marketing thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Oh gosh , I should be writing all this down . Um . +Marketing: Right away I'm making some kind of assumptions about what what information we're given here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: thinking , 'kay trendy probably means something other than just basic , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: something other than just standard . Um so I'm wondering right away , is selling twenty five Euros , is that sort of the {disfmarker} thi is this gonna to be like the premium product kinda thing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Like how much does , you know , a remote control cost . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Well twenty five Euro , I mean that's um that's about like eighteen pounds or something , isn't it ? Or no , is it as much as that ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Sixteen seventeen eighteen pounds . +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , I'd say so , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno , I've never bought a remote control , so I don't know how how good a remote control that would get you . Um . +Marketing: No . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But yeah , I suppose it has to look kind of cool and gimmicky . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um right , okay . Let me just scoot on ahead here . Okay . Um well d Does anybody have anything to add to uh to the finance issue at all ? Thin +Marketing: Do we have any other background information on like how that compares to other +Project Manager: No , actually . That would be useful , though , +Marketing: other {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wouldn't it , if you knew like what your money would get you now . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , interesting thing about discussing um production of a remote control for me is that l as you point out , I just don't think of remote controls as somethin something people consciously assess in their purchasing habits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: It's just like getting shoelaces with shoes or something . +Project Manager: Oh . Five minutes to end of meeting . +Marketing: It just comes along . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . We're a bit behind . +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like so sort of like how do you I I mean one one way of looking at it would be , well the people producing television sets , maybe they have to buy remote controls . Or another way is maybe people who have T_V_ sets are really fed up with their remote control and they really want a better one or something . +User Interface: I know um {disfmarker} My parents went out and bought um remote controls because um they got fed up of having four or five different remote controls for each things the house . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Right . Right . +User Interface: So um for them it was just how many devices control . +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} Right , so in function one of the priorities might be to combine as many uses {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Right , so do you think that should be like a main design aim of our remote control d you know , +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: do your your satellite and your regular telly and your V_C_R_ and everything ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Well like um , maybe what we could use is a sort of like a example of a successful other piece technology is palm palm pilots . They're gone from being just like little sort of scribble boards to cameras , M_P_ three players , telephones , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: everything , agenda . So , like , I wonder if we might add something new to the to the remote control market , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: such as the lighting in your house , or um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or even like , you know , notes about um what you wanna watch . Like you might put in there oh I want to watch such and such and look a +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's a good idea . So extra functionalities . +Marketing: An Yeah . Like , p personally for me , at home I've I've combined the um the audio video of my television set and my D_V_D_ player and my C_D_ player . So they w all work actually function together but I have different remote controls for each of them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's sort of ironic that that then they're in there um you know , the sound and everything it's just one system . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But each one's got its own little part . +Project Manager: Um okay , uh I'd wel we're gonna have to wrap up pretty quickly in the next couple of minutes . Um I'll just check we've nothing else . Okay . Um so anything else anybody wants to add about what they don't like about remote controls they've used , what they would really like to be part of this new one at all ? +Industrial Designer: And you keep losing them . +Project Manager: You keep losing them . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Finding them is really a pain , you know . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's usually quite small , or when you want it right , it slipped behind the couch +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or it's kicked under the table . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: W You get those ones where you can , if you like , whistle or make a really high pitched noise they beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know . +Marketing: That's just really good id Yep . +Project Manager: There {disfmarker} I mean is that something we'd want to include , do you think ? +Marketing: Uh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dunno . +Marketing: sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I remember when the first remote control my my family had was on a cable . Actually had a cable between it and the T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and big like buttons that sort of like , like on a blender or something . +Project Manager: My goodness . +Marketing: And um , you know , when I think about what they are now , it's better , but actually it's still kind of , I dunno , like a massive junky thing on the table . +Project Manager: Still feels quite primitive . +Marketing: Maybe we could think about how , could be more , you know , streamlined . S +Project Manager: Maybe like a touch screen or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Or whatever would be technologically reasonable . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . Well I guess that's up to our industrial designer . +Marketing: 'Cause it could b it could it could be that f it could be that functionally that doesn't make it any better , but that just the appeal of of not having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks better . +Marketing: You know , these days there's a r pe things in people's homes are becoming more and more like chic , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , nicer materials +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and might be +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: be worth exploring anyway . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Right , well um so just to wrap up the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes . So that's about um about ten to twelve by my watch . Um so inbetween now and then , um as the industrial designer , you're gonna be working on you know the actual working design of it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so y you know what you're doing there . Um for user interface , technical functions , I guess that's you know like what we've been talking about , what it'll actually do . Um and uh marketing executive , you'll be just thinking about what it actually {disfmarker} what , you know , what requirements it has to has to fulfil and you'll all get instructions emailed to you , I guess . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's th the functional design stage is next , I guess . {vocalsound} And uh and that's the end of the meeting . So I got that little message a lot sooner than I thought I would , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Before we wrap up , just to make sure we're all on the same page here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um , do we {disfmarker} We were given sort of an example of a coffee machine or something , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? Well , um are we at ma right now on the assumption that our television remote control may have features which go beyond the television ? Or are we keeping sort of like a a design commitment to television features ? +Project Manager: Th Okay , well just very quickly +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: 'cause this {disfmarker} we're supposed to finish now . Um I guess that's up to us , +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean you probably want some kind of unique selling point of it , so um , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think one factor would be production cost . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because there's a cap there , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so um depends on how much you can cram into that price . Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think that that's the main factor . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , okay , we'll that's that's the end of the meeting , then . Um +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you all for coming . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","In the kick-off meeting for a new project, Project Manager Laura and team members David (Industrial Designer), Andrew (Marketing), and Craig (User Interface) discussed the design of an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. They reviewed the brief and outlined the project stages. The team established design objectives and financial targets, aiming for the remote to cost no more than €12.50 to produce and sell for €25, with a goal of making €50 million internationally. The meeting continued with an icebreaker activity where each drew their favorite animal, sharing its characteristics, and then returned to project specifics, debating the remote control's design features and market considerations, such as international compatibility and consumer appeal. The meeting concluded with a reminder of the next meeting in 30 minutes, where the roles and tasks would be further defined and emailed to each team member." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay um , welcome to our detailed design meeting . I'm pretty excited . Let's start it's approximately fifteen forty or something like that . Okay um the agenda {disfmarker} we're gonna do an opening and then um I'll talk about the minutes from the last meeting , what we d discussed um , then we'll have the prototype presentation and a look at the evaluation criteria . We'll look at the finances and finally a {disfmarker} do a production evaluation and close . So , starting off with the um last {disfmarker} the last one , oh I don't have it here um , but we talked about energy , we're gonna use a kinetic battery um , we want to use a simple chip , because we're not gonna need a a shuffle um , we're gonna need a scroll um , we're choosing a latex case w in fruity colours that's curved and um we're using push buttons uh with a supplement of an on-screen menu . And it sounded like we had set um like eight or nine buttons , including five pre-set channels . Okay ? Let's do the look and feel design presentation first . +User Interface: Right , do you wanna start ? +Industrial Designer: Right , well we made three different prototypes and I guess we'll start with with this one . Um we have our colours not {disfmarker} are not fixed , but this is the general shape . Um it's {disfmarker} you hold it sort of either like like this in your left hand or you switch it over and uh it's easily adaptable to either hand . You can push the buttons with your thumb like a mobile phone , or you can push them with your index finger of your other hand , or even {disfmarker} I mean there's a whole variety , you can hold it like this and press it with your same index finger . Uh we have the on off button at the tip , very visible , very big . We have our up and down buttons , which are also gonna be our channel selectors , and we have our little menu button here . If you push {disfmarker} if you're just pushing these normally , they're the menu buttons , if {disfmarker} uh the volume buttons rather . If you press select once , they become channel changing buttons . If we press select three times , the menu with the other features and pro possibly also with your T_V_ channel choices shows up , and you have your five presets down here . Um if people wanna grab hold of that , see how it feels in your hand . That's our number one prototype . Um do you wanna present the potato , +Project Manager: {gap} like a little lightning in it . +Industrial Designer: or shall I present the Martian ? +User Interface: Okay , +Project Manager: The little lightning bolt in it , very cute . +User Interface: um {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} We call that one the rhombus , +Marketing: I could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The v the rhombus rhombus ? +User Interface: uh the rhombus . +Industrial Designer: That's the rhombus , yep . +User Interface: Um this one is known as the potato , uh it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's a {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how can I present it ? It's an ergonomic shape , so it it fits in your hand nicely . Um it's designed to be used either in your left hand or or in your right hand . Um I've gone here just for just for four buttons on this one . Um the two blue buttons here are for adjusting the volume . So you've got volume up and volume down on the other side here . Um the red ones are for uh changing channels , channel up and channel down and that's um moves between your favourite channels that you've selected . Uh this middle button here brings up the on-screen menu and when you're working in the on-screen menu you use the other four buttons to navigate around the menu system and the middle button uh to select and that's basically it , that's the potato . +Project Manager: Um on , off ? +User Interface: Uh that would be one of your channels , basically , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: so like channel zero would be t to switch switch the machine off , +Project Manager: Yeah we turn it off . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Could the middle button of the on-screen menu function as a power button ? +User Interface: Um not really , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: it would make it hard to turn the machine off , to turn your T_V_ off . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If you pressed and held it maybe . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , that that'd be one way of doing it , yeah . That'd work , yeah . +Marketing: If you like held it down , that would be on off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On off , that's a possibility , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And then finally we have um the Martian or the pear , either way . Um it's a bit different , just a little bit more of a creative feel . Uh you have the on off toggle stem on the top . {vocalsound} We have the five preset seeds {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then you have on the sides to make it a little bit more three-dimensional , you have your channel changing , volume changing buttons and your menu button right here in the middle . So , that's for your consideration as well , plus it's an interesting talking point to have standing up . +User Interface: Let's pass . +Industrial Designer: We figured it could stand up like this on your table , if you wanted it to , if I made the bot the bottom flat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , what's the yellow one in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh the menu select button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I forgot . +Project Manager: {gap} Very interesting . {vocalsound} I think that one's my favourite . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So that's {disfmarker} So that's our three prototypes . Um basically , in terms of making decisions , what we'd need to do is first of all decide on a form uh which of the three different shapes we want , then decide what kind of button layout we want , how many buttons , and then to choose what colours we want to make the buttons and if we wanna put any text on the device , like label on the buttons or put a brand name or or a logo on it or whatever . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We were we were thinking that normally we'd go for fruity colours , but maybe we're also thinking that your sort of middle aged man , for an example customer , might not want a fruity coloured remote , so m maybe we'd have one version that's a bit toned down , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: maybe with with less contrasts on it . Yeah , something still a little bright to make it hard to lose , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Would {disfmarker} Yeah , but we don't want it to look like a kids' toy {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: Now that was one thing that we brought up over email . I don't know if you picked up your email , but um the f the um feature that we considered for it not getting lost . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well we were we were talking about that a little bit when we got that email and we think that each of these are so distinctive , that it {disfmarker} it's not just like another piece of technology around your house . It's gonna be somewhere that it can be seen . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we're we're not thinking that it's gonna be as critical to have the loss {disfmarker} +Marketing: But if it's like under covers or like in a couch you still can't see it . +Project Manager: It's really {disfmarker} Would it be very difficult to um just have an external device that like I dunno , you tape to your to your T_V_ um that when you press it you ha a little light beep goes off ? Do you think that would be conceptually possible ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it would be difficult technologically , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because if your if your remote's lost it's probably under the settee and in that case you can't you can't send an infrared sing signal to it to find it , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: s so it's {disfmarker} I'm not quite sure how it would work +Project Manager: That's true , mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then I wonder if it's if it's more just a gimmick then anything else . Uh I mean ho how many times do you really , seriously lose your remote control and would would a device like that actually help you to find it ? +Industrial Designer: There might be something that you can do in the circuit board and the chip to make it make a noise or something , but it would take a lot more development than we have this afternoon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , that's a fair evaluation . Getting lost . Um we {disfmarker} so we do we've decided not to worry about that for now . Okay 'cause {disfmarker} well , the designs are very bright , so you're right , they're gonna stick out , but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So d do people have a preference as far as feel and functionality ? Um . +Marketing: I feel like this is simil {vocalsound} or it's sort of what already exists so if we're trying to think of something sort of like new and fun , even though this is like what you're init I'm initially drawn to , just 'cause it's like comfortable and like not different . I sort of like this one , like I I don't know why , it just it's like small but still sort of like cute looking , I dunno . But I also like the b the side buttons on that one , like I think that's kind of neat . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I dunno how much any of this has to do with the fashionable , sort of cool looking thing that we also need to focus on {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Could we maybe have like an extra button on the top for on off ? So then w we wouldn't have to have like a dual function ? +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Ah , +Industrial Designer: that's good , that's good . +Marketing: there we go . +Industrial Designer: Here , stick it on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Put an extra the button on {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um uh why don't we do a product evaluation using your criteria , if you've developed some ? +Marketing: Well do we w {vocalsound} like I think we're supposed to have one that we do it for . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay . +Marketing: That was {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So where {disfmarker} +Marketing: I was a little vague on what exactly I'm supposed to do , but let me {disfmarker} I have to like write something on the whiteboard , so . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you need this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: or just write on the white board ? +Marketing: No , I actually don't have like a PowerPointy thing , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: 'cause I think it would be redundant . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's kind of like uh like a joystick kind of thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh . +Project Manager: you know , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . +Project Manager: kinda push it {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a little smaller than that {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No , I kinda like it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's hard to miss . +User Interface: It makes look more fruity as well . +Project Manager: Oh it does , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's kind of like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's like a deformed foot , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: There it could have a stem like that , 'cause I do l kind of like the stem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . It almost helps you ge keep a grip too , 'cause it goes in between fingers {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Interesting . +Project Manager: I like this one . +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: Variety of colours are nice . +Industrial Designer: is that where people are leaning then , the potato ? I like the idea of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think I'm leaning towards the potato . +Industrial Designer: I mean that's really gotten the simplicity of the buttons down , that one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I am worried about like um using a menu . Um in that {disfmarker} like i withing menus there are submenus , and so how do you get back to the main menu ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well that {disfmarker} on the iPod , for example , you just {disfmarker} every time you wanna go back you hit the menu button again and it brings you back one level . +Project Manager: But that has a menu button separate from a select button , whereas if this one's both the menu and the select button ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: This is , it's {disfmarker} the up and down buttons are used for scrolling up and down for a list of choices . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: You find the choice that you want and you press uh you press the right button uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Could these be used for going to submenus +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so they're used for going into and out of your submenus , yeah . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: maybe it can be one of those , if you press down and hold for two seconds , then it brings you back one level or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . Well , as long as we have that in mind as we're designing it still , mm 'kay . +Marketing: Okay , so which one are we sort of roughly looking at to address whether or not it meets our s um necessities , the yellowy one is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The potato ? Are we leaning towards the potato ? +User Interface: Potato . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think so . +Marketing: Okay , well we can obviously change it after we go through each different one . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So basically what we need to do is some of the things that we've talked about before we need to make sure that that remote actually does conform to the things that we said it was going to . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So what we sort of wanna do is that we each need to separately rank each of the following things and then I'll tabulate an average just to make sure that it does meet that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So we'll just go through them one at a time and we'll just go around and each of you can tell me on a scale of one to seven with one being really extremely true and seven being not true at all , or false , if the remote that we've created conforms to the following criteria . So we can do this one first . First we wanna know if it meets the fancy look and feel um objective . So like in my opinion the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} for now at least , the yellow one is probably somewhere in the middle so I'm gonna say it's like a three . That's just my opinion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: What does {vocalsound} each of you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I I kind of think it's it's unique enough that I'd give it a one or a two . +Marketing: Okay , well give it a number , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: sorry {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I will give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno if it's it's creative . I dunno if fancy is the word I would use . I dunno if any of them are fancy in {disfmarker} I'd say two , because c unique . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: I'll go for two . +Marketing: And two , awesome . Alright , and same sort of scale for functionality , is it functional ? I think it's extremely functional , I'm gonna give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One ? +User Interface: I think it's it's functional , it's also pretty basic , so I'll give it a two . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um functional . I think it'll get everything done , I think it might be a little confusing at first , um , I don't know if that's gonna be a later one . +Marketing: Okay . Well there's some other ones , I will address that , +Project Manager: Okay , then I'm gonna give it a two . +Marketing: yeah . Awesome , okay . Um we wanna know next if it's technologically innovative . +Project Manager: Did you give a functional {gap} ? +Marketing: Yeah , she said it was one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um is it technologically innovative ? Mm . Not really , I mean not so much , 'cause we we don't have the L_C_D_ screen , we don't have fancy chip . Other than what it looks like , I dunno if it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , the kinetic battery . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the battery , that's it . +Marketing: I kinetic battery is a big one , so . +Industrial Designer: How many people would notice that , though ? +Marketing: Mm . But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they'll notice it after like a year , +Marketing: but we know it's there . +Project Manager: they'll be like hey , I have never changed the battery . +Marketing: And if it's made of like latex , that whole idea , that's pretty cool . +Project Manager: Mm . Just the material . +Marketing: I'll give it a three . 'Cause it {disfmarker} we could've picked a lot of features that would've made it really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I would say that it's {disfmarker} Yeah , like fancy versus creative it's it's different . But does that equal innovative ? I dunno . I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Alright . Everyone else ? +User Interface: I'd say it's technologically it's not it's not unique , I mean it's it's just {disfmarker} it is just pushbuttons um , so I I'd give it a four . +Project Manager: Think I'm gonna go with the four as well . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: I really like that kinetic battery though . +Marketing: Next , is it easy to use ? Just so you know , easy to learn will be separate , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: so don't overlap them . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think it's really easy to use . I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Um I'll give it a one . Pretty hard to mess up . +User Interface: I'll say one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's say two . +Marketing: Alright . Um we next wanna see if it has a spongy quality +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and {vocalsound} if indeed it's made of latex or rubber I {disfmarker} it's spongy all the way . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Give it a one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I wonder if it bounces when you drop it . +Industrial Designer: Ooh , that you couldn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be harder to break , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: harder to lose . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause there would be less impact maybe , {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Iain , what do you give it ? +User Interface: I'd I'd give it a one . +Marketing: Alright and the next is , does it integrate some notion of fruits and vegetables {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Well , is it gonna be yellow ? +Industrial Designer: It it might be , 'cause that's our corporate colour , isn't it ? +Project Manager: That's right , yeah , corporate colour , we didn't keep that in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: um well +Industrial Designer: We might wanna keep it yellow . +Project Manager: if we {disfmarker} I know it would make it a little less c a little more confusing , but if we had all the buttons in black , and a design in {disfmarker} and the outside in yellow , that'd be our corporate one and we could also have alternative colours , one a more conservative one , one that's more fruity . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , but if you had like a silvery kind of white or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and can we have like an R_R_ inscribed on the bottom or something ? +Industrial Designer: If we had a yellow {disfmarker} Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity , so fruity . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , so I think it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it was inspired by the potato , so I think it's pretty fruity . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think i it's kind of mangoey too . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , mango +User Interface: Mangoey is better , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I like mangoes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay , I'm giving it a one {vocalsound} the mango {gap} put me over . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's a much more trendy than a potato {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What are {disfmarker} what's everyone's numbers ? +Industrial Designer: one . +User Interface: Uh two . +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright um , and does the design match the appropriate behaviour ? Remember earlier we discussed that people don't use a lot of buttons , that they use the channel flipping and the volume the most . I think we really took that into account a lot , so I'm gonna give it a one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: Uh one . +Marketing: Did you say one , Rose ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Okay um , also we talked earlier about R_S_I_ and wanting to prevent um any sort of like Carpal Tunnely kind of thing . Do we think that the latex sort of grip appropriately takes that into account ? I think I'll give it a two , 'cause I almost feel like no matter what you do , something is gonna happen . +Project Manager: It's gonna be hard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And if it's repetitive movement it is gonna be only four buttons that you're constantly pushing , but um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um um worth the risk , I think . +Project Manager: I like how it fits in the hand though so I I'd go with a two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'll I'll say two as well . Because older people that aren't used to like texting with the thumb might find it a bit at first , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I'll I'll say two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , awesome . And the ease of learning it . I know you were saying that you're a little bit nervous about that , I dunno . It sort of reminds me of the iPod . I just got mine , I still haven't read the instruction book and I'm doing okay , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I'm not good at learning technology . So I'll give it a two . +Industrial Designer: The menu system and the the fact that multiple buttons are used for different things might be a bit confusing , but I think if it's one it's one of those things that it might take you five minutes to figure out , but you'll have it afterwards . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I'd I think I'd give it a two I guess . +User Interface: I think it it's probably a little harder then most remotes to learn , because you have to you have to use the menu system and you have to tell it what your favourite channels are +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +User Interface: and that could take a bit of learning at first , but +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: once you've , yeah once you'd learned how to use it , I think it is a lot easier . So I'd I'd give it a four . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think I'd give it a four too . It's a pretty high learning curve , it'll be easy once you've done it , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright , um also earlier we had something about losing it and so now we're not addressing that at all , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we can kind of say we addressed it with colour , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so in terms of not losing it , do you think that on a scale of one to seven , how easy or hard is it to lose ? I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a four , 'cause I think that you can still {disfmarker} if it's in between somewhere where you can't see it , you're kind of not gonna find it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but anywhere else it's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um I'd say I'd give it uh a three , I guess it depends on how tidy you are normally . +Project Manager: Mm I'd give it a four . +User Interface: Um I'll give it a five 'cause i it would be easy to lose something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Small too . +Marketing: Alright , we also said simplicity , {vocalsound} how w how well does it address just being simple ? +Industrial Designer: Simple to use or simple in design ? Do you know ? +Marketing: I think overall , 'cause we had said before our two main things were simplicity and fashion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so those are the next two things we're gonna look at . Separate from fancy , like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um it like wants to be simple but it's not like totally totally simple , so I'm gonna give it a two . +Industrial Designer: I'm {gap} give it a three I guess . +User Interface: I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Three . +Marketing: Alright , and fashionable ? +Project Manager: It's totally fashionable . I'd give it a one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's hot , I mean it's a mango , come on . +Project Manager: Mango . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean how fashionable can you make a remote ? I think it's bringing technology and fashion together real really well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's quite as fashionable as my robot remote +Project Manager: I do like uh the little Martian one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or alien or whatever he was . +Marketing: Yeah , the toggle on off switch , it's really appealing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Number . +Industrial Designer: Um two . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: And does it meet our like demographic need sort of for international appeal , that whole thing ? Just that it would se serve our audience . I don't see why not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think as long {disfmarker} if we offer in a {disfmarker} in at least three different colour arrangements . Um yeah , that's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I'll give it a a two {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll say two . +Marketing: Alright , did anyone have any other features that they think were important that we didn't talk about ? +Project Manager: Well um we didn't we didn't address the fact that it does need to b have a corporate logo , so let's let's make sure we keep that in mind that we ha that one of our colours concepts is corporate and has an R_R_ on it . +Industrial Designer: Shall we uh {disfmarker} Well I think all of them should have an R_R_ . +Project Manager: All of them should have R_R_ , yeah . +Marketing: And so we're gonna do that , so it will address it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: fine . Okay . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: That's me . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're gonna look at finances . Um I have an Excel sheet that we're actually gonna calculate the cost um , so let me exit out of this first . Okay um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh my . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whoa . +Project Manager: I know . Let me {gap} one more space . Gonna zoom in real quick . {gap} Okay . Hand dynamo . We're using kinetic battery , +Industrial Designer: Uh we're n using kinetic , yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Um and we're having one per {disfmarker} One , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um electronics . +Industrial Designer: Single . +Project Manager: Simple . +Industrial Designer: Simple , simple rather . +Marketing: Simple . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um the case . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh double-curved . +User Interface: Guess it's double-curved . It is pretty curvy . +Project Manager: It's very curvy , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I never did get a picture of those so I don't really know . Our case material supplements {disfmarker} oops , we just skipped by them . +Marketing: Well don't we need plastic , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we we {disfmarker} the plastic is the plastic for the inside is assumed . The supplement is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Provided , okay . +Project Manager: The wood ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I guess it was rubber rather than latex . +Project Manager: I mean the rubber . +Marketing: It was rubber and special colour , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Marketing: Do we have more than one special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we're using {disfmarker} we're gonna need at least two special colours . +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Special colours , isn't it ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know what the se the basic colour is though . +Marketing: Per {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno where it {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Well , but we know that we're having at least three colours , +Project Manager: So let's y say three . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , are we talking about on each colour combination or are we , you know , we'll {disfmarker} like we'll have yellow and black . Is that two special colours ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . That I thi +Industrial Designer: Or or is white and black , then two more or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I thought that would be under yours . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I guess it's three , +Project Manager: We'll just say three . +Industrial Designer: three three {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Maybe the R_R_ will be in colour as well , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: so yeah . Interface , we're doing push buttons . And how many buttons do we have ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: We have six . +User Interface: We've got five {gap} . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Six , with the power . +User Interface: Oh {gap} +Marketing: Oh +User Interface: six . +Marketing: no , five . {gap} +Project Manager: Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No . Oh , we'll {disfmarker} do we wa Are the buttons in special colour , special f I didn't get information on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , +Marketing: Oh wait . +Project Manager: buttons {disfmarker} oh , so um . So the case material will just have one colour , right , +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: but then the buttons will be in special colours ? +Industrial Designer: does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but if we're making multiple varieties of {disfmarker} this is where I'm getting confused . +Project Manager: We're saying per unit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} per unit , okay , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , per unit . +Project Manager: Okay , so each unit will only have one colour on their {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright , and each button s +Project Manager: but the case is {disfmarker} could have up to thr I mean the buttons could ea could be up to three colours , 'cause that how it's designed there . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I like it like that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Special form ? They're all kind of just push button , +Industrial Designer: No , +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Special material ? +Industrial Designer: Material , we want them rubber as well probably , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . Oh do {disfmarker} I have to do it per button , do I ? +Industrial Designer: No , I don't think so . I think they're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if they're all gonna be rubber then it {disfmarker} that's what it matters . +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause it wouldn't make sense otherwise , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause for the whole mat case material it's only one . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} I mean it's two to make it rubber . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Oh wait , so maybe . +Project Manager: Thirteen point seven . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , what can we reduce ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's have our buttons all be one colour . +Marketing: Mm , I kind of like the buttons . +Project Manager: Let's see what that would do . It's only gonna bring us down to thirteen point three anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Okay um , are we sure this is double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Maybe it's single-curved , +Industrial Designer: We have no idea . +Project Manager: we have no idea . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , I didn't get any pictures . {vocalsound} It's single curved . +Marketing: It's single curved . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Well it's not the {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , it's the kinetic battery that's kind of expensive , but we have a simple chip , single curve , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: case material is rubber and it's a special colour , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but that's important . Six buttons {disfmarker} we have to have six buttons . +Industrial Designer: That is important . How did it get more expensive , what did you just change ? +Project Manager: What ? +Industrial Designer: It was it was thirteen and now it's fifteen . +Project Manager: No , okay , maybe not . I don't know what just happened . Now it's twelve . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What was our target price again ? +Project Manager: Twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Twelve point five . Hey hey . +User Interface: Twelve point five . So we're just just about there . +Project Manager: So we're okay , I think . +Industrial Designer: We're all set then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Ish . +Project Manager: Okay , we're all set . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um save . I saved that to our um our big shared folder , so you know . Um okay , back to agenda . {vocalsound} Um are the {disfmarker} are the costs under twelve fifty Euro ? Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , they are . +Project Manager: Let's move on to the project evaluation . Project process . Satisfaction with for example the room for creativity , leadership , teamwork , the means , any new ideas found . So I guess what we're gonna talk about here is just evaluating how we created this project , the information we got on the news , how we used it , if we were able to um , you know , use our creativity with the information , um how how well I guess I led it , um the {disfmarker} how well we worked together as a team , um the digital pens , the whiteboard . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well . I felt very creative . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we've been successful +Industrial Designer: I enjoyed making the prototypes . +User Interface: in that we've achieved almost all of the design goals that we've set {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and we've come up with a finished project and we just about got {gap} cost . +Industrial Designer: I think we could've done even better with a little bit more information , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: like what's a single-curved case , how many colours , what do colours count +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: things , but given given what we had I think that we did we did really well . Um I think we worked together pretty well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean {vocalsound} if I'd had more market research on the {gap} fruits and vegetables , maybe we could've taken that into account . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But the fruits and vegetables , they really {gap} my creativity , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I really did , the the whole mango idea was great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you think we could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I mean I thought the pen was a little distracting for me personally , like its heaviness , and like just being so conscious of like turning the pages , I dunno . That was a bit of a distraction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That was the last one , like I chose not to do a PowerPoint 'cause I didn't think it made sense to , so I liked that I had the option to do that and just to take my own notes and that whole sort of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think we all made um very significant contributions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think anybody dominated it , which I thought was really good , like each of us was able to um like each of you had your information and I uh I tried to facilitate it without like taking over , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I like our little finished products . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can we market this as the mango remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're funny . +Project Manager: Really cute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I kind of want one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Should we have that somewhere on the packaging ? I have a little R_R_ . +Marketing: I'm trying to think of a good pun that I could add there {gap} . +Project Manager: I know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: let's think of it like a little jingle . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the R_R_ , that's gonna be etched in . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Hopefully not with just my fingernail at some point but um it's quite a useful little gadget . All thanks to Iain for the design of that one . +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay um +Industrial Designer: Mm . What did we find for new ideas ? +Project Manager: new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: People should really base their remotes on fruits and vegetables . +Project Manager: Definitely . Or or at least be c p creative enough to think of toggle switches mm +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: etcetera . +Industrial Designer: I I am really into the idea of kinetic batteries now after reading about them . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm so excited . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I didn't even know they existed . +Industrial Designer: I I knew you can get watches that had them , like really quite expensive watches that just never need a battery , 'cause you're always moving your wrist . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But in other things , I think it'd be really good . +Project Manager: I thi yeah , that's awesome . Um okay , closing . Are the costs within the budget ? Is the project evaluated ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Now there's the final questionnaire and meeting summary . Um so , this is the great product kids , I think we've created something really interesting and that we have a market for it , um especially if we can produce it at twelve point three +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we hope um {disfmarker} yeah . Make sure in your questionnaire to put down criticisms of both the process and the um the final results and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , Real Reaction . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I do like the Martian remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If we could choose more than one , that would be my second choice . +Marketing: Oh , that would definitely be my second choice . +Project Manager: Although the tog toggle +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm afraid I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's cool . Let's all let's all go for the yellow {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I would break it . {vocalsound} I would break it . +Project Manager: It's cool . I think I would break it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It started because I wanted to have it as st as a stem +User Interface: Break the stem off . +Industrial Designer: and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker} alright , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's funny {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is {disfmarker} it started as a pear , but then it started looking more and more like a Martian +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh +Industrial Designer: when I put the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Kind of looks like a penguin , like {vocalsound} with no eye {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Take me to your leader . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , it's kind of a penguin . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: I like that it stands up . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Wow , maybe I should market it to some remote control company now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So are are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That was bound to happen.$ +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , sad . +Industrial Designer: poor little thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , congratulations . Um . Anything else to say ? +Marketing: Nothing will come up until after our meeting's supposed to be over , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: its all timed . +Project Manager: Um anybody have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got more master classes , anybody else wanna like take a master's class ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really funny that you got spam in your work emails . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but check it out . So like there are all these like links , they don't go anywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But all that you need to keep in mind your {gap} knowledge management . Um just wanna make sure you do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No the first one that you sent like I didn't realise that it was a joke and I was like why did she send this to us ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very it's very work relevant , +Project Manager: It is . +Marketing: 'cause people send spam a lot . +Project Manager: Yes definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Let's see , +Project Manager: I'm very sad that I didn't get any links to the corporate website . {gap} . +Marketing: Oh here you can you can view . +Industrial Designer: what did I get through the corporate website ? It's just inspiration about circuit boards . +Marketing: You can just see what's up . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah it's it's really deep . Hold on . Takes a little while to get excited to load . That {disfmarker} the Excel thing is pretty cool . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that is pretty neat . +Project Manager: I love Excel , +Marketing: Here , like , basically +Project Manager: it's one of my favourite programs . +Marketing: it's like inspiration , basically I'm gonna give you two sentences on fashion and that kind of thing , see . You didn't miss out that much . +Project Manager: I see , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my inspiration from from last time is the in interior of a remote control being taken apart bit by bit , talking about circuit boards . +Project Manager: Spongy . +Industrial Designer: I learned a lot actually . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I could probably take apart a remote control now if I really needed to . +Marketing: Oh wow . This one was cooler . I got a whole table and everything . +Industrial Designer: Now I have all about circuits and chips and transponders and {disfmarker} I wrote it all down , because I thought it would be relevant , like all the different parts of the inside of a remote control , but then they're like , you don't actually need this {disfmarker} you just need to talk about the case . +Marketing: That's like mine it was like , would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen or a multifunction remote control ? And then it didn't have like any kind of table , like awesome , I'm glad they asked that question and didn't report the result {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I I thought it was a little tricky having to hand around this thing . +Industrial Designer: It's really interesting though . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We had a lot of the um {disfmarker} otherwise the technology {gap} today was kinda cool . +User Interface: I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That was really neat how I got emails +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: We didn't we didn't use the whiteboard that much . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Although I don't see how we could have very l at least for me +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} yeah . If I'd gotten pictures of the different parts of the case , the different looks of the case , I would have probably drawn them up , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause we weren't like voting on anything and I think usually , like whiteboards are good , you know like crossing out ideas , or like if we had had like a brainstorming period . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we could've put our brainstorming stuff up there rather than just talking about it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but with only four people it doesn't really make sense . +Marketing: But I thought we were good orally . +Project Manager: And with and with the PowerPoint that we can all look at , like you can do all those things pretty much on PowerPoint +Industrial Designer: I think if you had a larger group {disfmarker} +Marketing: Get crazy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: as that's not as necessary to have . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And these might've made us more willing to like take notes than to like write up them here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: 'cause we all needed them separately , kind of on the whiteboards in this room . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Because we're all gonna be working in different places . +Marketing: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} if we were all gonna stay in here all the time , then having the notes up on the whiteboard would've been alright , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but everyone needs their own , like specific notes , I guess . +Project Manager: Now when you were um creating your um prototypes here , did you work together or did you like do separate projects ? +User Interface: Uh we we worked together , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but we were making like we sort of made different shapes and then discussed how the how the buttons might work , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um and how we could like improve on the on the design . +Industrial Designer: So it was a bit of both really , we just kind of started out by each taking a colour of clay and just fooling around with it and I came up with that rhombus shape +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and he came up with the sort of potatoey , mangoey shape , and then just went from there really . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: It was fun . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So well done with the management , I felt well managed . +Project Manager: Oh thanks . +User Interface: I think we did well in first of all giving our meetings the time , +Project Manager: It's kinda fun . +User Interface: and second we actually we we did a good job of making firm decisions at the ends of the meetings . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That happened to me all the time though . +User Interface: I know what happens sometimes is that you tend to sort of have meetings and then people sorta drift away without anything actually really being decided . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But I think here we got we got clear and and decisive decisive points {gap} at the end of the meetings , so that we we knew where to go on from there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I was quite worried at the end of the last meeting that we weren't getting {disfmarker} we didn't really have enough information to make firm decisions , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but we were able to do it regardless , so . I'm not usually a very decisive person , so it helped to have people say this needs to be done in five minutes . +Project Manager: This is what we'll do . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I found that we did {disfmarker} we could have used another five or ten minutes sometimes in the meetings . +Industrial Designer: Especially last time , +User Interface: Yeah , for some of the meetings , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah I think the last time we had a lot of information , but at the same time not quite enough , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you know what I mean , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: like we we couldn't answer every single question . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . And I I felt the first two meetings , that I was coming in with no information , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and not sort of made me really like , ooh I don't know {vocalsound} , throwing together PowerPoint out of no no information and then last time it was like the opposite . I had so much information and so much to talk about . +Project Manager: It was interesting what came out like later , like as I was doing the {disfmarker} when I was doing the breakdown on the agenda that they gave me um , that more points came out from your presentation even . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um . I'm a little {disfmarker} I am a little disappointed that we didn't do a {disfmarker} um something for losing the remote , because that was kind of a big point . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} that was something like {disfmarker} in order to talk about that we would've had to have actual knowledge about circuit boards and {vocalsound} things like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: About {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well the problem was , even when we just were creating from the Excel file , there wasn't like a option to select to somehow have it included , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so there was no {disfmarker} we could be like yeah , it has it included . +Industrial Designer: I think we were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: There was no way for us to have +Project Manager: Considered the re +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: written down that it was really there . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think we were just getting overenthusiastic with the task {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's interesting that they {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we really got into it , I mean I got into it as the day went on and I got really like , ooh I'm designing a remote control , I dunno if that's just me , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was interesting though that they put that fifty percent of people say they have frustration with losing their remote and yet they didn't provide us with information to um {disfmarker} we weren't provided with information to discuss that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I know that like people people have like things they can put on their keys that you press it and it'll beep , but I but I'm sure that would require some kind of technology +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: that {disfmarker} I just don't know what it is , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think there are some of those like infomercial remotes that have things so you won't lose them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . I mean we were talking about it and like i in my household at least , there's only about two places that the remote is ever +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause there's only one T_V_ and there's only like three chairs . +Marketing: That's like saying you're never gonna lose your keys , and I always do , anyway . You'll lose 'em in your pocket , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you just will forget that {disfmarker} or you like put it down somewhere that like made sense and then not remember , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: there's always ways to lose things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It d yeah , it depends on how organised you are personally , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or like I guess what the setup of the house is too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But , I mean {disfmarker} I am notorious for losing my keys , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just {disfmarker} I guess I've just never lost the remote . I put my keys in the refrigerator the other night {vocalsound} and couldn't find them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I was putting groceries away . +Marketing: That's funny . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: You you're taking stuff from a bag and putting them in the refrigerator and then go back to my room . +Project Manager: Can't get in . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't get in , look all around the kitchen . Definitely in the vegetable drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's funny . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I always do that , leaving it in my coat , and then like using a different coat . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But I guess it's 'cause we don't carry remotes around that much . +Marketing: Yeah . Can't really take it into the other room . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe with our little robot one we could've had him have a {disfmarker} robot , alien , pear , whatever he is , have a little voice like , I am located {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh a G_P_S_ system , {vocalsound} internal G_P_S_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh man . Here you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We should make one that walks by itself . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Although if it's sitting still for too long . {vocalsound} Yes I {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That really could get up and walk away {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or or like some crazy like electro-magnet , that you push it and it'll go zoom to the T_V_ and stick there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Or little {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Or just just a wheel , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like you'd have a remote for your remote , that'll {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , but if you could attach them to the T_V_ , then you can {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} zoom {disfmarker} Yeah . Hmm . All kinds of possibilities . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . Sorry , I'm just um trying to update my minutes . I decided to {disfmarker} you know how I sent you the email saying that PowerPoint minutes will be complimentary , rather than like repeating them . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just gonna make {disfmarker} I'm making full minutes , so that it'll include all of the agenda and all that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: 'Cause that seems a little more useful . +Industrial Designer: Wow . 'Cause you've had like the most typing and organising to do . +Project Manager: But I didn't have like information to sloth through either , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess {disfmarker} How much of your PowerPoint was already done for you , every meeting . +Project Manager: Most of it , mm-hmm . I added slides , um I added a couple slides each time , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: but that was about it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah , I didn't even think about adding slides , 'cause I would just get slides with titles on them +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and fill them all in w didn't even think about adding more . +Project Manager: Well , the thing was they would provide y an agenda with s like several points , but it wouldn't have a slide for each point . And that's the only way I remember that I need to go other that point . +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah. . +Project Manager: {gap} I know personally when I do PowerPoint , that's what I do and so {disfmarker} I had it once , even if it was just like the title of it , like the three presentations , and I would do your three . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: You have you have to have the slogan on it or can it just be like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The slogan on it ? +Industrial Designer: No , no , definitely not . +Project Manager: No no no . +Marketing: Okay good . +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'Cause I was like , it could go around the outside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't think we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we just need the um the R_R_ , +Industrial Designer: I think the R_ and R_ , especially if the yellow and black one . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Is it yellow and blue ? +Industrial Designer: Or yellow and blue . Lemme go to the web page . +Project Manager: Yeah , I was just kinda going by the web page , 'cause they didn't give me any clear , like yellow , grey , or {gap} . +Marketing: Oh I guess it is black , grey . Grey is better than black , doesn't look so bumblebeeish . +Project Manager: I don't really like yellow in general . +Marketing: Hey now I understand the random like newsclippings . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Wasn't it interesting that um {disfmarker} I thought it was interesting that our market marketing um expert did not agree with the marketing um +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Project Manager: the marketing choices , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I will +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that was a bit of a conflict . +Marketing: I just feel like if you're really doing like a a really big market evaluation , you wouldn't just have like one set of source , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's kind of an {disfmarker} they were so not backed up , it would just be a sentence {gap} like we did a survey , this is what people said . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: S mm , I dunno . +Project Manager: People are stupid . +Industrial Designer: I guess it i it sort of a grey , isn't it ? Yellow and grey , but then the slogan's in blue . +Marketing: Well we got some grey and we got some blue buttons , we're good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we don't have the right colour clay anyway . +Project Manager: Maybe , like {disfmarker} I don't know . {gap} That could always be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well we're not , sadly , going to actually be producing this , so {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: If they ever come out with potato {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato mango shaped remotes . +Marketing: I'm gonna have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'm claiming it intellectual property . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I can't believe a whole day is gone . I don't feel like it's been that long . +Marketing: I know . +Industrial Designer: Get sucked in . Mm I haven't gotten questionnaire eight yet . +","Summary: + +The team met for a detailed design meeting to discuss the creation of a new remote control. The meeting started with a review of the previous minutes, followed by prototype presentations, evaluation criteria discussion, financial considerations, and production evaluation. They discussed details like using a kinetic battery, a simple chip, a latex case in fruity colors, a curved design, push buttons, and an on-screen menu with several preset channels. + +During the meeting, three prototypes were presented: the ""rhombus,"" ""potato,"" and a model inspired by a Martian or a pear. Each prototype had a unique shape and was designed with ergonomics in mind to be adaptable for both left and right-hand use. The prototypes featured a mix of color, big visible on/off buttons, channel selectors, volume controls, a menu system, and the use of push buttons. + +They debated on the aesthetics, functionality, and technological innovation of the prototypes. After discussing the appeal for various demographics and ease of use, the team settled on the ""potato"" as their preferred design. It incorporated many of the desired features, including a simple interface with a minimalist button layout. + +The financial aspect was explored using an Excel sheet to calculate costs, seeking to keep the production under twelve and a half euros. They managed to align the price just within the budget. The project evaluation covered satisfaction with creativity, leadership, teamwork, and the tools provided, such as digital pens and a whiteboard. + +Concerns were raised about not addressing a feature to help locate the remote when it's lost, despite acknowledging that 50% of people report frustration with losing remotes. + +Closing the meeting, they appreciated the mango-inspired design, the project's adherence to a tight budget, and the collaborative process that led to decisive conclusions. There was some discussion of amusing additional features like GPS or a walking remote, but those were not taken seriously. The team also shared a laugh over spam emails and other distractions encountered throughout the project. + +The team's task was to create a fashionable and simple remote control that catered to their market research findings. They concluded that, overall, the meeting was productive, and despite some concerns and the project's scale, they had a functional prototype ready for potential production." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Here we go . Alright , the agenda for thi oh . Alright . Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers . And then we will evaluate it , given the criteria that um that we gave gave it . And um talk about our finances , whether we were under or over our budget . I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made , given our options . And um evaluate the product , as a group . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation . Do you need the um PowerPoint for this ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . I just got a few slides , so show them . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Do you want to present it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , here we are . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with . It's a pretty simple design . It's um based on a mango ? Yeah . And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ . +User Interface: and this'll be the power point , the on off button kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_ ? +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: And then the other one is the power . And uh we just have a simple design . We wanted it all to be +Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held . +User Interface: accessible from your thumb +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb . +Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button . +User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just need the nought . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right no , that's a zero . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off . {vocalsound} Sorry . I was in charge of the numbers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus . +Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one , three or something . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . You press a plus button ? +User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I've never heard of that kind before . +User Interface: Well we just thought , we have all the numbers here , so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote , if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve , you press one , and then you go to channel one , and then two then you'd just go to channel two , instead of twelve . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , there's no e +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve , or two plus two is channel twenty two . +User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two ? +User Interface: No no , th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers . These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press , it'll go to that channel right away . 'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh no . Uh , the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine . +Project Manager: Yeah I know , but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five , channel sixty five , if I press the six it'll go to channel six , and then I'll press the plus , and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five ? +Marketing: Sixty . +User Interface: You p Oh . No you press the plus first . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind , we can further define that . +User Interface: what do you think is simpler ? +Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first , in like on the way to channel sixty five . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem . But I was just wondering +Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do . +Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think . +User Interface: Oops . Yeah . +Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's like a five second input time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you don't put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And channel , +User Interface: A channel . +Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Channel up volume up . Okay cool . +Project Manager: C_ and V_ . +User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , where um where's the power button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_ . +Marketing: It's the R_ . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's all accessible . Without m taking your hand off the remote . +Industrial Designer: We deci +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Ergonomic , definitely ergonomic . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , no I mean it's a different movement +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it , I mean , we've made this out of Play Doh , which is representing the , you know , the rubber , and the spongy rubberness . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The spon yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um 'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . I would . +Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My goodness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go . +Industrial Designer: And you ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: . Oh it's nice . Oh I think I killed the five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I did . +Project Manager: And something hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I killed the four . Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: O Okay , as for the colours , we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype . +User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah . +Marketing: Oh it smells good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that , seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway , that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use . Or the combination . Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme , the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit , like banana could be black and yellow , watermelon red and green , +Project Manager: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in +User Interface: 'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish . +Project Manager: Yeah . It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would . +Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme , like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon , you know , m probably appealing to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kinda Christmas , you know . +Industrial Designer: yeah , seasonal . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Apple green , brown , more kinda trendy , you know , khaki {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of , +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device , I mean you don't need to use both hands , one hand to hold this and type in with the other , you can just use your thumb . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good work everyone . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And so now that we've we have a prototype , uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute . +Marketing: You want the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm gonna check that out for a second . +Marketing: I have one . +Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What time is it anyw +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right . Evaluation criteria is next in line . +Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay . That's me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Hello . Oh there we go . Okay . Come on my computer . Come on . {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties . +Project Manager: Just press um function eight again . +Marketing: Should I press it again ? Last time I did that it sh Okay . You're right . +Project Manager: And then again I think . One more time . +Marketing: Oh . Still not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it . Um , we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen . Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings , um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were , um , back to our kick-off meeting this morning . Um , and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do . Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false . So basically the lower p the lower the points the better . {vocalsound} Okay so question number one . Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops . Sorry . Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um , I'll do it on the whiteboard . I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Okay so number one . Do we have a fancy look-and-feel ? +Industrial Designer: Feel I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy , but it's definitely different . +Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah . +Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it . I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek +Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red , black and yellow , and orange . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way , anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . A metallic-y finish we were thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Polished . Okay {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look . +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well , potato , mango , fruit and veg . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very different . It's what ? +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine . Potato's fine . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is , fruit or vegetable depends on your mood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Totally . It's really adaptable . +Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would say two . Personally . +User Interface: I w I'd say two I think . +Marketing: It's a two ? +Industrial Designer: For the +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: Fanciness . +Marketing: and p +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker} +Marketing: One being true . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two , three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing , like that . Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative ? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber , the use of the L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons , it's all pushbuttons , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control , so if we're thinking about the rest of the market , it's sort of probably halfway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is , like we said . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say maybe three . +User Interface: I'll go for three as well . +Marketing: Yeah . And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this , because then that would've defeated the purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Though it was our specification . +User Interface: No . Wouldn't be simple , yeah . +Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three , but I think we actually reached our goal . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that . Okay question number three . Uh , will it be easy to use ? +Project Manager: I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah very . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think one for that . +Marketing: Yeah . S Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . One . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you can't really get confused with that . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Th +Marketing: I mean , there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system . +Project Manager: The plus number thing . +User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah . +Marketing: But once that's figured out , it should be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Number four . Is this a good-looking remote ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this . +Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom , kind of . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent . +Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess . +Marketing: Whoops . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should just not touch it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Don't worry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands . +Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now . What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room ? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa ? +Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat , and then the rest is like +Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: round . +User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh . That's true . +Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think . We c we could handle it I think . +Industrial Designer: Thing is like that , it's not going anywhere particularly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom , so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here , so it sits up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like that . +User Interface: Oh that would be nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though . It'd be annoying . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's less um , what's th ha . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay we're done designing . +Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Details , details . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on . +Marketing: Okay . So , is this a good-looking remote ? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . You would though , 'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay . I think maybe a two . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that , +Marketing: I mean I gue yeah , it's personal taste , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour , I'm not happy with those colours . +Marketing: Okay , so should we say two for that ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Uh , question number five . What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product ? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy . +User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way , that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So people don't just see it and think , uh , this is so simplistic , I don't want to spend twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We have to market it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it . +Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy , shaker-style-y , whoo , +User Interface: And the kinetic energy part . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Durable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: ooh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know , those'll be firmly on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus . {vocalsound} You're +Marketing: No , I guess , I don't know much about the remote control industry , how much your average sells for , +User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one . +Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am , aren't I ? +User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound , aren't they ? About ten pounds . Fifteen ? +Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries . So in the long term this can actually save you money . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: So we'll market it that way too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good point . +Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options , it'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a two still though . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay number six . Can someone read it out ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um yeah . So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it does very well . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: we said {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah , because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing . +User Interface: The zap {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're clearly there , easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average , 'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But they're not you and I really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So . Okay so one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Number seven . C Heather could you push it down ? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost ? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly . +Project Manager: We have the alarm system . +Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented ? +User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system , the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: l lights on and , or flash as well . But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen 'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm . +User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing . +Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up . +User Interface: Yeah . The light {disfmarker} it will . +Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But when the alarm's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Awesome . Awesome . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , that would be brilliant . +Marketing: Here I am . +User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean , when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went . But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something , there wouldn't be any point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm , but it would light up . +User Interface: It would have to be in the market +Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alarm , +User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it . +Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself . +User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . It w yeah . +Marketing: But yeah , it'll be there . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whoo . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can give it a one , because compared to every other remote ever m ever made , this one will be easier to find . +Project Manager: Yeah , totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No problem , mm . +Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear . +Marketing: Question number eight . Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new ? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult . +Project Manager: Totally . +Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah , it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do . +User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple , +Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: won't it ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons , I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button ? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's just like channel six , six , enter . +User Interface: That kind of annoys me though , when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros . +User Interface: I don't know why . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You could just press six enter , +User Interface: Oh okay . Right . +Project Manager: And then like twelve , enter . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter , y +Marketing: or one two enter . +User Interface: Alright , aye . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward . Yeah . Good {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say w yeah one . +Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Mm . +Marketing: Question number nine . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Uh , will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_ , which was repeated strain injury ? +Industrial Designer: Injury . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , which affected over a quarter of users . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I think so . It's like right in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +User Interface: yeah . I don't think it will f +Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: the biology . +Project Manager: But it is soft . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's soft , +Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_ , +Marketing: And people could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what other options there are . +Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's true . +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean , you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , one or two do you think ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I'd say t +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think too . +User Interface: two . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two okay . Okay number ten . Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo ? +Project Manager: Yes we did . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that +Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It won't stand out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour . +Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , yeah the colours are yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Gray , yeah . +Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one . +User Interface: Yeah , could be grey . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though , +User Interface: Yeah that's right , +Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: we didn't even rea +Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers , and see if we can get away with just the R_R_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . I think this is the +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Perhaps a metallic +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey , and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal . No ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That isn't rubber . +Marketing: And the buttons in the middle . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay So , do you think that's more of a three then ? Three , four ? +Industrial Designer: Four I think . Well I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hum . +Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it , so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and final question . {vocalsound} Um , did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies , desire for sponginess . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Following that briefing we did . +Project Manager: But maybe more like two 'cause there's no like pictures of fruit , it's just sort of naming it by a fruit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the with the colours . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No , uh , are the plates interchangeable ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they are ? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . Okay , so that's something that's kind of in the making too , like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: I think w yeah , I think one . Well that was our brief and we followed the brief . +Industrial Designer: The thing is , I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from , I don't know if you'd instantly say mango . +User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . There we go . That would be great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation , do we average them out sorta thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes we do . So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that ? +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: A two for fashion ? +Project Manager: I would say two . +User Interface: Yeah . Two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so our average there , five , six , eight , ten , eleven , twelve , thirteen , fifteen , nineteen , twenty one , divided by eleven +Project Manager: One point nine or something ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things . Um , between one and two . +Industrial Designer: Between one and two . +Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic . +User Interface: Close to two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's very good 'cause the highest we coulda got is one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does that seem right then ? +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we've a four to bring down . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , aye . +Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , should've added five . +Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator ? +Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Oh wow . Well done . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls . +Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright , now with that over and done with , our next step is to see if we are under budget . And um my computer's frozen . And now it's not . Okay . So um in our shared folder , if everyone could go there right now , um I'm going to um steal a cable . +Marketing: Sorry . Are you gonna do that ? Okay . +Project Manager: Um it's it's um +User Interface: Is that the project document ? +Project Manager: it's an Excel file . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Production costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay there we go . Um , production costs . And um I have to access that as well . One moment . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on ? Great . It's blinking at me . It's locked for editing . Read only . I'm gonna open up a second one then 'cause it's locked for editing . I have the original in my um my email account . +Marketing: Oh is it locked 'cause I'm in it ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it ? +Project Manager: No . No , I was hoping that you guys could . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , there we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay here we go . So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing . So um if you can look up at the screen , um the large screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think . Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , it's cur it's double curved , so its curved all around . +Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah . +Project Manager: That's another three . We're already at five . Um , we're using plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free , we're at eight . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: What about a special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we using that ? +Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind . So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Well one colour for the case , one colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , we have push button interface , so that's inexpensive . And um we have a special colour for the button , and we also have a special form . And a special material . +User Interface: And a special material . Yeah . +Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget . +Industrial Designer: Oof . +Project Manager: Hurray . +Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good work guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . 'S good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros . +User Interface: That's good . +Project Manager: Awesome . And back to our PowerPoint . So we've {disfmarker} 'Kay . Yes we are . So we need to do a product evaluation , again , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno . A different extension of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: A project ? Is is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause we're talking about leadership , teamwork . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Pushed for creativity ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time , or materials , yeah , to go about our design task . +User Interface: The ma Or materials . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials . But you were allowed m creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional . Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess , but m +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen , and like solar power backup and everything , then we wouldn't have been able to afford that . +Marketing: When we can down to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity . +User Interface: Creativity . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: But yeah . The fruit and veg idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Leadership ? Is this me being like , guys do you like me ? Um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership , I think we stayed on task . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we did . We've , uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended . A pro um a product within the budget . I think that's a sign of good leadership +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine . +Marketing: And the timing was good . We never were pushed for time , or sat around doing nothing , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good timing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: And project manager of course . +Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork . I think we are well-suited to our roles . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright how were our means ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause that was all the red we had . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype , we wouldn't have been able to . +User Interface: Yeah , it c it might've been bigger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The computer programmes are good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It could be really straightforward for the computer . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think there was anything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh me too . +Marketing: They'll probably still be there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: New ideas found . I don't really know what that means . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Through discussion . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Just about each different {gap} . Got new ideas from each other . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure , new ideas found . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other , which was cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , worked well . +User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Each other's {gap} +Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? +Marketing: Does it have smart materials ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well mm , did it come into the into {disfmarker} +User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it can be afforded . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Well with that achieved , our last slide is our closing slide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget . It's evaluated generally positively . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then we celebrate +Industrial Designer: Uh . Fantastic . +User Interface: Yay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_ ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , brilliant . +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Conclusion ? Dadada . +","Summary: + +The meeting commenced with the Project Manager outlining the agenda, which included a prototype presentation by the designers, financial review, and product evaluation by the group. Following an initial introduction to the prototype, which was described as a simple, palm-held design inspired by a mango shape with the company logo and an infrared LED feature, the group discussed the practicality and uniqueness of the design aspects such as button placement, the ""power point"" button, and an unconventional channel selection method using a ""+"" button. + +The designers and the Marketing team walked through the design details, like the mango-like shape, the material which had anti-RSI (repetitive stress injury) qualities akin to stress balls, the product's color themes based on fruits and vegetables, and ergonomic considerations. Some mistakes were noted, like an erroneous ""number ten"" button that needed to be changed to zero, and the group considered improvements and potential issues, such as the remote's stability when placed on a sofa arm. + +Financial considerations followed, with the Project Manager providing a spreadsheet to calculate costs and ensuring the design met the budget constraints. It was determined that the prototype was under budget. + +The meeting traction then shifted to an evaluation, where each aspect was rated on a scale, providing a low aggregate score which indicated an overall positive assessment. Finally, the group briefly reflected on their creative process, leadership, teamwork, and the meeting's technical aspects, concluding with the need to complete a final questionnaire and a meeting summary. They ended on a celebratory note, looking forward to enjoying their success." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 23rd meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those of you who are joining via video conference, I will remind you that when speaking you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking, and please use your headsets. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. As I understand, there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. I remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, I ask that they please come and drop their signed certificates off at the table once the petition is presented. I would ask members to be very brief and concise, and to summarize the exact content of the petition. We will continue. The first person presenting a petition today is Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I present two petitions this morning. The residents of SaanichGulf Islands are calling on the government to simplify the process for protection of marine protected areas. It's a multi-layered communication process. The marine protected area first proposed in the 1970s for the southern Strait of Georgia, now called the Salish Sea, has been awaiting designation for so long that it was originally endorsed by Jacques Cousteau. That gives us a sense for why petitioners are calling for a simplified and more rapid process. The second petition is from petitioners who are very concerned about our obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and our commitments under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action. They specifically reference the RCMP violation of UNDRIP in its actions on Wet'suwet'en territory and ask the government to commit to actually living the principles embodied in UNDRIP. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Hardie. +Mr. Ken Hardie (FleetwoodPort Kells, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am presenting a petition on behalf of the one in a million Canadians who suffer severe and adverse effects from vaccinations. GuillainBarre syndrome is very debilitating, and this petition seeks the setting up of a no-fault accident or compensation system to help offset the loss of work, the loss of wages and the loss of quality of life that many of these people suffer. I'm pleased to present this petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. +The Chair: Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): Mr.Chair, culture is the soul of a people. Over the past 20years or so, culture, especially music, has never been as accessible as it is now. Paradoxically, creators' incomes have never been so low. The advent of digital technology has completely overturned the system for distributing the wealth generated by creators for the benefit of various Web stakeholders, many of whom are billionaires. This petition addresses these problems and proposes realistic solutions. The first is to set a minimum royalty model for streaming platforms for artists. The second is to update the existing private copying system. The third is for Internet and cell phone providers who sell their services as direct access to culture to share their profits with artists. The fourth is that the GAFAMs have to pay taxes on their services. Six thousand people have already signed the first version of this petition, launched last month by musician JordanOfficer and supported by singer BarbaraSecours. As an artist, I am proud to present this petition today because the issues it raises are fundamental to the survival of Quebec culture. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have four petitions to present today. I will be as brief as you suggested, although I will observe that if some members are going on longer during petitions than they normally do, it might be because the government has taken away so many of the tools that opposition members normally have for raising important issues in the House. The first petition deals with the issue of euthanasia and long-term care. The petitioners are concerned that instead of focusing on improving medically assisted life, something that we know is a major issue in light of recent revelations, the government has put so much time and legislative energy into efforts to continually further expand euthanasia in Canada and remove vital safeguards. The second petition speaks to the ongoing conversations happening in Canada around systemic discrimination and systemic racism. I think we do need to reflect on systemic discrimination. This petition deals specifically with Bill 21 in Quebec and raises concerns. The reality of the way that bill applies is that people from certain backgrounds who wish to practise their faith are not able to fully participate in Canadian society if they are employed in the public service. This petition asks the government to provide a response on that issue, something it hasn't done in response to past petitions on this. The third petition deals with the issue of firearms. The petitioners want to see the government take a strong response in dealing with illegal guns and gun smuggling. The petition notes that the vast majority of firearms-related crimes in Canada involves illegal guns. At the same time, the petitioners are concerned that the government has the wrong focusthat is, harassing law-abiding firearms ownerswithout putting in place substantial measures to deal with illegal guns. The petitioners want to see the reversal of the order in council from May 1 and strong measures to deal with illegal firearms. The fourth and final petition deals with Bill S-204, a bill that would make it a criminal offence for a Canadian to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who has not consented to giving that organ. It would also create a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and of similar bills in previous parliaments and would like to see us pass that bill as soon as possible. +The Chair: Presenting petitions, Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is with pleasure that I table another petition by the residents of Winnipeg North. These residents have signed a petition asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to put a high priority on assisting our poorest seniors. The increases to the GIS by $200, and $300 to the OAS, have been well received. They just want to highlight how important it is to support our seniors, in particular the poorest of our seniors. +The Chair: For members present in the Chamber, a reminder that they are asked to bring their petitions to the table. We'll now proceed to statements by members. We'll go to Ms. Atwin for the first one. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day of acknowledgement and a day of celebration of the beautiful diversity of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I wish to recognize the leadership of Chief Shelley Sabattis of the Welamukotuk First Nation in Oromocto, New Brunswick. Each year she and her council, volunteers and staff go above and beyond to show appreciation for their members and to demonstrate pride and culture while promoting well-being. We gather in an event where all are welcome to take part, from traditional hand drum-making with elders to moose meat and tacos. This year we will celebrate a bit differently, but we will still stay connected, virtually and in spirit, to the vast network of indigenous peoples and allies. We need each other now more than ever. May we come together in song and stories and in solidarity. We will remember those who are not among us. I hope all of Canada will join us in observing National Indigenous Peoples Day. Mawiyapasuwok: let us come together. Nit liech. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Beech. +Mr. Terry Beech (Burnaby NorthSeymour, Lib.): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge for all communities across Canada, but as we do our part to flatten the curve, I often think about those who suit up every morning to serve on the front lines of our health care system. My mother is a home care worker and my sister is a nurse. Even before the crisis, they would often share the hardships they faced on a day-to-day basis. It's a tough job at the best of times. In a pandemic, these jobs are life-threatening. I think we can all agree that these workers deserve more than our good wishes. They deserve a raise. That is why we have worked with the provinces to implement pandemic pay. In British Columbia more than 250,000 front-line workers are eligible for this program. That works out to a pay increase of about $4 an hour. It's a small show of our appreciation for their difficult and priceless contribution to our country. Share this message and say thanks to our front-line workers, participate in the 7 p.m. cheer, and order a pizza for your local nurses. It's the least we can do. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Shipley. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been living in difficult times. Slowly, we are getting back to some resemblance of normalcy, although unfortunately not soon enough for some of our great summer festivals. It will not be normal in BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte this summer without the iconic Boots and Hearts weekend music festival, Kempenfest, Oro World's Fair, the Elmvale Fall Fair, or the Midhurst Autumnfest. Canada Day celebrations have been cancelled, but we can still celebrate the great nation we call home. Because of the lack of Canada Day celebrations, I've created Happy Canada Day lawn signs that are available through my constituency office, free to all residents of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. I'm also hosting a drive-through party on Canada Day at the Royal Canadian Legion on St. Vincent Street in Barrie. All are welcome to attend. There will be cupcakes for all. Please drop by the legion between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and we can celebrate Canada Day safely together. Thank you and have a great summer. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Ms. Young. +Ms. Kate Young (London West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Among the countless ordinary Canadians who have stepped up to do extraordinary work during COVID-19, I wish to draw attention to our teachers. Teachers have always had a special place in my heart. My father was a teacher, and my daughter-in-law, Kelly Webb, is one now. I'm certain that my colleagues can all easily remember a teacher in their past who played an important role in helping them achieve their potential. I remember my grade 12 English teacher, Vince Weaver, at Westminster Secondary School in London. He made me realize that I could do so much more than I believed. Across the country, as schools closed, teachers did not stop their work. Some took their classes online. Others found innovative ways to continue engaging with their students. This is not the school year anyone imagined, and what the next one will look like is unclear, but our teachers in London West and across Canada have shown that no matter what, they will be there to help our next generation shine. +The Chair: Before proceeding to the next presenter, I just want to remind the honourable members in the chamber that I realize that the six-foot limit makes it harder to whisper to each other, but we're hearing a bit of rumble, so I just want you to try to whisper at your best. Mr.Bergeron, you have the floor. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron (Montarville, BQ): Mr.Chair, on July1st, we will be celebrating one of the most important events for the riding of Montarville: the 175thanniversary of the city of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. The theme Proud of our traditions will be the focus of this celebration for the people of Montarville. This is a good illustration of the rich history of this municipality nestled in the western foothills of Mont-Saint-Bruno. The seigneury of Montarville was granted in1710 to the illustrious former governor of Trois-Rivires, PierreBoucher. The parish of Saint-Bruno, which took root there and in which a village grew, became a municipal corporation in1845. To this day, it is one of the most prosperous localities, with a strong sense of belonging, a very dynamic community life and jealously preserved natural environments. A whole program had been drawn up for the celebration, but the current health crisis has taken over some of the planned activities, which has in no way diminished the pride and festive spirit of the people of Montarville. On July1st, we will have a good reason to be proud, in spite of everything. Happy 175thanniversary to Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Maloney. +Mr. James Maloney (EtobicokeLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me to take a moment to highlight an initiative that I started early on during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Heroes of EtobicokeLakeshore is an opportunity for citizens in my riding to recognize the contributions of those in their community who make life a bit easier. I'm pleased with the number of nominations I received that honour everyone from front-line workers to businesses that are innovating in these difficult times to volunteers who are finding new ways to reach out. I think of Daniel Lauzon who set up Food for Now, a mobile service that helps take care of the homeless. I think of Toni Varone, who helped his business clients by forgiving their rents, or young Lucas, who wanted to thank his teachers. I've been moved and inspired by the countless stories of generosity, strength, resiliency, kindness, incredible character and creativity. I want to thank all the heroes, as well as the people who nominated them. Keep them coming. Stay safe, everyone, and I wish you happy Canada Day early. +The Chair: We'll now move on to Ms. Wong. +Hon. Alice Wong (Richmond Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, it gives me great pleasure to thank a local Richmond-based charity, the Social Diversity for Children Foundation, SDC, for its hard work both in raising funds for the purchase of personal protective equipment and in distributing this PPE to long-term care facilities and individual seniors' homes in the lower mainland of B.C. The COVID-19 relief fund is supported by a dozen other non-profits, businesses and community groups. Over the past two months, SDC has been to 32 seniors homes and senior-related organizations. In total, it has delivered masks to 7,000 care workers, staff and seniors. It is amazing to have witnessed how the younger generation have gotten involved in caring for the elderly at this very challenging time. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Damoff. +Ms. Pam Damoff (Oakville NorthBurlington, Lib.): Mr. Chair, June is ALS Awareness Month, and 79 years after Lou Gehrig died from ALS little has changed. There's still no cure, and those with ALS typically die within five years of diagnosis. On June 21, Canadians will gather virtually to raise funds for ALS Canada in the Walk to End ALS. In Halton, normally we meet each year at Bronte Creek Provincial Park on the May long weekend to raise funds for ALS Canada. This year I will virtually join Tim's Titans, a team formed to honour Tim Robertson, my friend who died in 2016 after living with ALS for 13 years. I have a T-shirt, with a picture of Lou Gehrig, that says, Great Player...Lousy Disease and Tim's Titans...Great Team! ALS...Still a Lousy Disease. Join me on June 21 for the virtual Walk to End ALS to raise funds to support patients and their families and for ALS research. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Khera. +Ms. Kamal Khera (Brampton West, Lib.): Mr. Chair, on Saturday our community stood and marched in solidarity against anti-black racism. The peaceful protests that we're seeing across the country and around the world were not triggered by an isolated incident. They are fuelled by decades of ineffective action against something that is so insidious and deeply entrenched in our history, systems and institutions. For us, that is the racial inequality faced by Canada's indigenous and black communities. Anti-black racism is real. It exists right here in Canada, in our communities, including in Brampton. It exists when racialized students at McCrimmon Middle School are called McCriminals. It exists when a shocking report exposes the Peel District School Board's failure to work fairly with the black community. It exists when D'Andre Campbell, who was fighting mental illness, loses his life at the hands of the police. It is clear that we need reform. We need to dismantle the systems that allow this privilege and oppression to take form, and address the unconscious bias plaguing our institutions. We'll need to be bold, and the time to do that is now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Mr. Chair, a few months ago I rose in the House on the eve of our closure due to COVID-19. I told Canadians we must not give in to fear, that we would carry on and get through this crisis stronger than ever. Today, in this city and across Canada, Canadians are enjoying a beer on their favourite patios. Businesses are reopening, jobs are returning and our lives are starting to feel a bit normal again. Canadians pulled together, and because of that we did not see the devastating death toll that many had predicted. Life may be returning to normal, but unfortunately, here in this chamber of democracy, the people's voices continue to be shut down. There is no good reason for Parliament to be suspended today. In the words of my grandfather, it's time for the Liberals to get with the program and bring back the House. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Ms. Jones. +Ms. Yvonne Jones (Labrador, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from in-person learning to virtual classrooms, COVID-19 has drastically changed the lives of students across the country, especially those in post-secondary education who are worried about covering costs like tuition or rent this coming fall. Our government recognized that students should not have to worry or put their futures on pause during this difficult time. That's why last month the federal government introduced the Canada emergency student benefit. If you're a high school student headed to a post-secondary school, or a current post-secondary student or a recent graduate, you can receive the Canada emergency student benefit every four weeks and have the financial support that you need to save for school. We also doubled Canada student grants and loans, enhanced the student loan program, increased supports for indigenous post-secondary education and introduced the Canada student service grant for those who wish to pursue it. Our government is here to help all students get the support they need to pursue their future goals successfully. I wish them all the very best, and I wish all of you, my colleagues and those across Canada, a very happy National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is coming up on June 21. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to keep to their 60 seconds so that we don't go over the time. I'm sure it would be a lot easier for everyone if we stuck to that limit. We will now go to Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison (Parry SoundMuskoka, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to once again implore the government to do something about the horrible lack of access to and crazy cost of rural Internet service. Right now, too many areas of my riding have no access to rural Internet service at all, and those who can get service are paying through the nose. I've even heard constituents say that during this pandemic, they are having to choose between feeding their kids and educating them. Over the last few weeks, Conservatives have been consulting with rural Canadians, and the results are in. My constituents are tired of fancy political promises. They are frustrated beyond belief by the new challenges created by this pandemic. They are absolutely fed up with having their pleas ignored. All we want is affordable and reliable Internet service. Is that too much to ask of the government? +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Mr. Chair, these last few months have been incredibly challenging for the residents of CowichanMalahatLangford, who have been forced to deal with the economic and social consequences of COVID-19. The pandemic has laid bare the inadequacies of our social safety net, the weakness in our supply chains and the dependence of our society on essential workers, who often work long hours for low wages, putting themselves and their families at risk. We've also been forced to confront the systemic inequality, poverty and racism that continue to hold so many people back from achieving their full potential. I will not dishonour the sacrifice that so many have made during this time by allowing us to go back to the status quo that got us here in the first place. I will not apologize for demanding that the most vulnerable in our society get the supports and opportunities they need to live with dignity, and I will not relent from pushing my political colleagues to summon the courage necessary to implement policies that lead to environmental, economic and social justice. +The Chair: I now give the floor to Mr.Blaney. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Mr.Chair, here is a beautiful story, the story of a woman from Bellechasse, a courageous young mother from Saint-Malachie, Marie-ChristineGoupil. With three children, including the eldest daughter with a disability, and realizing that her daughter with a disability had special clothing needs, she decided to go into business to meet the needs of other parents who, like her, were facing their child's clothing challenges. Last week, she presented her Handy clothing collection on the show Dans l'il du dragon. It was a very emotional moment for the audience and the dragons. They were so touched that they decided to give her the amount she wanted without diluting her shares. The video of her presentation has already been viewed over 1million times on social networks. Marie-ChristineGoupil has discovered a passion for entrepreneurship and has moved and inspired many people with her passionate and courageous attitude. Congratulations, Ms.Goupil, your example makes us proud. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I lend my voice to the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec-Labrador, GhislainPicard, whose message is as follows: There have been no fewer than 14reports and conclusions of commissions of inquiry since1967 highlighting major problems in relations between law enforcement agencies and indigenous people. Each time, the conclusions have been overwhelming and highlight a disturbing reality. The justice system has failed indigenous people. Are you going to respond, as you too often do, by moving on to the next one, or are you going to do what we expect you to do, which is to recognize that the justice system discriminates against indigenous people and that we have no less right to security than the rest of the population? In three months, police interventions have claimed more victims among our members than the pandemic. But it is not enough to simply take a knee and denounce racism. It's about standing up and taking action. Those are the words of GhislainPicard. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Over the last few months, Canada's democracy has been disregarded and an autocracy has been resurrected in its place. By refusing to hold regular parliamentary sittings, Mr. Trudeau is sending a strong message to the Canadian public that he alone is the one who matters. In 2014, he professed that Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. As it stands, however, he has shut down Parliament. Effectively, he has stripped us, the opposition, of our privileges and our powers. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful Prime Minister that he once warned against. A government that does not allow for effective opposition is not functioning in the best interest of Canadians; it is operating in the best interest of itself and, even more so, the interest of the Prime Minister. Canadians deserve to flourish in a democracy, not merely survive under the autocracy that this Prime Minister has created. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the work of Agincourt Community Services Association and its tireless executive director, Lee Soda, who have been serving our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under more pressure than ever, their staff and volunteers continue to serve a community whose need was great even before the crisis. Their food bank helps over 4,000 people weekly. They have opened outdoor washrooms and hand-washing stations for vulnerable communities and are delivering groceries and other essentials to vulnerable seniors. ACSA is a bridge between those who can help and those who need help, and they are just one example of how our community has come together to meet this challenge. There are restaurants and businesses donating meals to front-line workers, residents answering the call to stock the food bank shelves and neighbours looking in on the vulnerable and isolated. I am so proud of our community's spirit. Scarborough is strong. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, for months Conservatives have been pointing out flaws in Liberal government programs that are preventing Canadians from getting the help they need. The Prime Minister has refused to make these very technical changes to get more help to Canadians who need it. For example, on the wage subsidy, more than two-thirds of the money allocated for that program has lapsed because businesses don't qualify. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister change the program to allow companies who have made acquisitions to access the wage subsidy to keep more people working? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning we knew that as we rolled out measures, we would need to improve them and tweak them, and that's exactly what we've been doing over the past three months. We needed to make measures happen quickly for Canadians, and we did that. But we continued to improve them, to make additions and amendments so that more people could get the help they needed, including with the proposed legislation last week that expanded the reach of the wage subsidy to more businesses. Unfortunately, the Conservatives didn't even want us to debate that particular piece of legislation. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Actually, Mr. Chair, it was the Liberals who said no to the motion to allow this Parliament to sit to debate that motion, and even in that legislation they refused to allow businesses who have made acquisitions to access the program. Now, when we look at the rent relief program, it is so difficult to apply for it that many landlords are refusing to bother, leaving even more small businesses to fall through the cracks. In fact, of the $3 billion allocated to the rent relief program, only $39 million has been paid out. That's less than 2%. Now, the Prime Minister is still using talking points from April. It's now June and he has refused to fix these programs and has successfully talked out the calendar on the days that the House of Commons could meet to discuss these programs. When will he make these changes to get more help to Canadians who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this pandemic, we have constantly been updating and expanding our various programs. We recognize, in conversations with the premiers, how important it is to make sure that we're working together, the provinces and the federal government, on issues like rent subsidies where commercial rent is indeed a provincial jurisdiction. Many provinces have moved forward with the eviction bans that are necessary to go along with this, and we'll continue to work with provinces to make sure that we're getting Canadians the help they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Canadians cannot wait. He has run down the clock on parliamentary sittings and he still refuses to make these changes to get more help to Canadians. Today, we learned that Telus has installed Huawei technology in downtown Ottawa. There are over 80 sites across the national capital region with Huawei technology installed. Some of these sites are very near sensitive government institutions, like government departments, the National Research Council, RCMP headquarters and the Bank of Canada. How long has the Prime Minister known that Huawei technology has been installed in the Ottawa area? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, first off, on the issue of Parliament, it has been meeting four times a week over the past many weeks, and members of the opposition have been able to continue to ask questions on COVID-19 and a broad range of subjects. Moreover, every two weeks the finance department puts forward at the finance committee the full transparent measures that we've taken, so that parliamentarians can study them. We are continuing to work in this crisis. At the same time +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Answer the question. The Chair: I'm sorry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: in regard to Huawei technology there are strict rules for companies to follow and we assume they will all follow those. +The Chair: We'll pause for a second and stop the clock. I want to remind the honourable members who are joining us virtually that heckling really does disrupt the whole session. Your face does come up and we do see who it is, so I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Now we'll go back to Mr. Scheer. We have a minute and 10 seconds left. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is bragging about accountability and transparency. Will he table an economic update before the House rises? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this unprecedented pandemic, we have been open and transparent about all of the measures we've put forward. We've updated the finance committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: That's a long way of saying no, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has pursued a policy of appeasement in pursuit of a personal vanity product at the UN. In the process, he's cozied up to dictators and human rights violators. He's abandoned Israel and committed funding to UNRWA, an organization whose schools have been used as storage facilities for Hamas rockets against Israeli civilians, and whose facilities have served as breeding grounds for racism and anti-Semitism. He has apologized for the Iranian regime when it shot down a plane full of Canadian citizens, and he refuses to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. What's the point of having a seat at the table if you have to sell out Canadian principles to get there? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we see that the Conservatives have kept with the Harper approach to international diplomacy. The failed presence of Canada on the world stage was an embarrassment for many Canadians for many years. That's why, when we took office five years ago, we demonstrated the kind of leadership on values that Canadians expected. We will continue to work around the world to defend multilateralism. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This being a committee, we can have a point of order during what would have been question period. I am not sitting that far away from the Prime Minister, and I'm sorry, but Andrew Scheer used to be the Speaker of the House and should show better decorum. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, on the same point of order, it is disgusting for the leader of the Green Party to use decorum as an excuse to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition in the middle of critical lines of questioning. The leader of the Green Party knows the rules of the House and shouldn't be abusing them to advance a partisan agenda. +The Chair: We're getting into debate. I do want to point out that the time had run out. We're now moving on to the next line of questions. On a point of order, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: I appreciate the honourable leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, for that reminder. When I was Speaker I always appreciated her help and advice about how to improve decorum in here. I just want to say to the member, and to all members, that the reason that I cannot control myself is that the Prime Minister used the word embarrassment in answering a foreign affairs question, and it just made me think of the India trip. +The Chair: I believe we're getting into debate and arguments. Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, while the Greens and the Conservatives are saying that they'll be waiting outside after the meeting, I will ask a question. The Prime Minister has extended the Canada emergency response benefit, and that's good news, but it's not enough. Last week in the House, the government said it was urgent to fight fraud. For us, it was also urgent to adjust the CERB to the needs of the tourism, arts and agriculture sectors. Farmers are going to be seriously under-resourced. So what happened to the urgency of reforming the CERB? Why is the government refusing to talk to the opposition parties? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to hear the hon. member finally align himself with the positions of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, the Bloc is a week late. It should have let us debate these concerns in the House last week. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It seems to me that the word alignment here is a fantasy. We have unequivocally proposed to extend the debate to reach an agreement, which brings me to my second question. Last week, the issue of assistance to people with disabilities was also a pressing concern, and it's even more so a week later. The Bloc proposed to extend the discussions and split the government's bill in two to help people with disabilities. Why is the government refusing this assistance to people with disabilities, when it could have been debated with the opposition in a civilized and proper way in a Parliament in which it has a minority? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: That was exactly what we wanted, but unanimous consent of the Chamber was required to debate this matter, and the Conservative Party of Canada voted against it. Unfortunately, we are going to have to find a different way to help people with disabilities. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the idea is so good and wonderful, why not start over and open the dialogue now? What's stopping the Prime Minister from being a rallying point and inviting us to take to each other and resolve the problem, rather than saying that he is going to pack up his toys and go home? The people with disabilities are the ones who will pay the price. Where was the Prime Minister on October21,2019? He received a minority mandate from Quebeckers and Canadians. Why is he behaving like something between a prime minister with a majority and a monarch by divine right? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I've heard the Conservative Party and the Bloc Qubcois throw their accusations around. They don't point out that the House of Commons did indeed give its consent to extend the mandate of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic until the end of June. Three parties agreed, which was the right thing to do in the context of this minority government. We've been working with the other parties. However, as they did not get the results they wanted, they complained. Unfortunately, they too are part of a minority Parliament and must respect the voice of the majority of parliamentarians, just as we do. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I might have been tempted, but that's unlikely to happen because the Prime Minister isn't me, he's him. It's therefore up to him to bring people together, open a dialogue and recall Parliament. All we were asking for was the opportunity to talk for an hour or two. However, suddenly he doesn't want to play anymore. It's not working anymore, and there's something a bit strange about that. In addition, the government wants to buy the right to interfere in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions for $14billion. However, Quebec and a number of provinces are refusing to allow it to interfere in their jurisdictions and are asking that this money be paid to them unconditionally. Is the Prime Minister trying to take advantage of the crisis or is he trying to create a constitutional crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, the safety of Canadians is the responsibility of all levels of government. That's why we have proposed a $14billion agreement to ensure that all Canadians across the country experience a safe re-opening of the economy. This is a proposal that we are working on with the provinces because we know that there are needs across the country, including early childhood centres, screening and support for municipalities. The federal government wants to be there to help the provinces. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Indigenous leaders have expressed a lack of confidence in the RCMP commissioner's ability to tackle full-scale systemic racism, but the Prime Minister has expressed his confidence in the commissioner. What's that based on? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past two years, Commissioner Lucki has made significant strides forward on an issue where there is still much more to do. We know that systemic racism exists in all of our institutions across this country +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: This is the same RCMP commissioner who just recently said that they couldn't explain what systemic racism was. Now the Prime Minister says that he has confidence, when indigenous leaders express their lack of confidence. Why does the Prime Minister believe that the RCMP commissioner can tackle systemic racism in the RCMP? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic racism is something that touches every corner of our country, every corner of our institutions. It requires people to understand and move forward in coordinated ways with partners. The commissioner is committed to doing that, alongside members of our government. We will do that together and work with indigenous communities and black +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, recent events have made it abundantly clear that to tackle the systemic racism at the level of the RCMP, we need a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP. Is the Prime Minister committed to a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP to root out systemic racism? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I've said many times, Mr. Chair, I am committed to addressing systemic racism in this country and taking significant, bold actions to reduce the amount of discrimination that indigenous peoples, that racialized Canadians face on a daily basis. We have much work to do, but we will do it together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Black Lives Matter has been calling for governments to defund the police. What it's saying is that we need to be better at where we spend our money, investing in communities and not policing. Will the Prime Minister commit to a review of the RCMP budget to allocate resources to community services and not to policing? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past years we have been investing more directly and more money in community organizations, in the black community, and working with indigenous partners on the path to reconciliation. We have been investing in the kinds of community-based programs and solutions that are part of the solution. We know there is much more to do, and we will continue to look at all of our expenditures to make sure we're doing the right things. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, over the past few years, while the Prime Minister has been in office, the RCMP budget has increased by 31%. More money is going towards policing. In recent events we've seen people who needed a health care response to a health care crisis been killed by the RCMP. Does the Prime Minister believe that we need to be investing in a health care response instead of a police response for people who are faced with a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite well knows that it's not an either-or. We need to make sure that our systems across the board, from our police systems to our judicial systems, to our health care systems, to our community systems, are actually addressing the systemic discrimination issues that are embedded within them That is exactly what we are going to continue to do in the coming years. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, with regard to the CERB extension, can the Prime Minister guarantee that everyone who is receiving CERB payments now will continue to do so without any gaps throughout the summer? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I am happy to highlight that many Canadians who were on the CERB are now returning to work. Many more who are on the CERB now will be returning to work in the coming weeks. We know that as the economy gets back to work, people will want to +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Can the Prime Minister assure people who need it that they will continue to receive the CERB over the summer, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are very pleased to point out that we are going to extend the Canada emergency response benefit for at least another eight weeks, because a lot of people are going to need it. Even if they want to work, there aren't enough jobs for everyone. So we'll be there for them, as we have been from the beginning. +The Chair: We're going to pause and suspend proceedings just for a few moments to allow our support staff to substitute for one another in a healthy and safe way. We'll now proceed with Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, it was really a surprise in the middle of a pandemic to see the Prime Minister at his first campaign stop last week in Ottawa. Certainly the game plan has become very transparent. He has a daily report show and he wants to sideline Parliament, dominate the news cycle and keep everyone in the dark about the state of the economy. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, there is no reason that he cannot provide the fiscal update during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the PBO has published a number of reports himself. Why won't the Prime Minister provide a fiscal update so we can all understand the state of our economy, or is that just not part of his campaign playbook? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada's economy is in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've been clear about that. We will continue to be open and transparent about the actions that we are taking to support families, businesses, workers, our health care system and our economy. This includes biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic measures. Once it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. We are in this together, and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to support Canadians. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Chair, Canada's economy was in trouble prior to the COVID, with some of the worst numbers since 2009. Government revenues in March dropped by 7.2%, and it's shameful and, quite frankly, it's outrageous that they refuse to provide Parliament and Canadians with an economic update. Households during this challenging time know how much money is coming in and they know how much money is going out. The picture is not pretty, but they know what the picture is. Can the finance minister at least reveal the projected revenue decline in quarters one and two? +Hon. Mona Fortier: The Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've known this for three months. We've continued to be open and transparent about the measures we've put in place for Canadians, workers and businesses. In fact, we have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of our plan's measures. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a comprehensive update to Canadians +The Chair: We go back to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Other governments have managed to provide updates for their citizens and carry out their responsibilities, but of course this government has sidelined Parliament with simply a question-but-no-answer period. Let's try something else. The forestry industry was in crisis even before the pandemic, with mills closing down and thousands of jobs lost. Eight weeks ago, Minister Freeland said, I have had many discussions with leaders in our forestry sector and the provinces about what we can do to support the industry today. Meanwhile, we've had support going to the arts and we've had support going to fisheries, just to name a few, but arguably for the industry that was having some of the most numerous challenges, it has been radio silence. That was eight weeks ago today. Can the government at least commit to releasing an updated softwood lumber transition plan before we rise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, we remain committed, of course, to the forestry industry and seeing it through this pandemic and this very uncertain time. The expanding market opportunities program, for instance, has helped Canada's forestry sector diversify, create jobs and open new markets. We've had new construction projects that are active today, using Canadian wood in key markets like Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Tomorrow this House will vote on our government's investment of $20.97 million for this program. It's part of our budget 2019 commitment to invest $251 million over three years, and I hope the opposition will support us in that. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: It was stated in a major newspaper this morning that this government is like a sexy sports carvroom, vroom, vroombut with a history of breakdowns and major repairs. I think that might describe what has been happening. For forestry, it has been eight weeks and there has been nothing. There is another area that Deputy Prime Minister Freeland did talk about. We were talking about the U.S. softwood lumber duties that are being held in the United States. It's billions of dollars being held with the U.S. treasury. In April, she acknowledged that these duties are a real issue for the softwood lumber industry. What's been done since that time? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, Canada's forestry industry supports good middle-class jobs in communities across our country. The sector is also an essential link in the medical equipment supply chain, and we thank them for all the work they're doing. We're aware of the immense pressures faced by this sector, especially at this time, and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and others are taking that seriously and working through this issue. As our government has said repeatedly, we firmly believe that the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwarranted, and we will pursue all means in order to +The Chair: Before continuing, I want to remind honourable members who are at home to make sure that the boom on their headsets is down. It just makes a better pickup. We heard everything, but it was a little distant. That's for everyone's benefit. We're now going to continue with Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, before I ask my question, I'd like to pay tribute to the Minister of Justice, particularly to his versatility. Today, he talked about forests. Yesterday, the Minister of Justice talked about Davie and indigenous affairs. Really, this minister is very versatile. My question is directly for the Minister of Finance. I like Mr.Lametti very much, but I'd like Mr.Morneau to answer my question. Yesterday, in a Senate parliamentary committee, the Minister of Finance half-opened the door to an economic update. Based on what he said, it seems that, as we speak, a committee of the Department of Finance is working on an economic update. Could Mr.Morneau tell Canadians when he is going to table this economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, the Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a full update to Canadians. Right now, we can say that we have supported workers, businesses and Canadians with the emergency measures we have put in place. We will continue to do so, because we need to be sure that Canadians can get through this crisis. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I thought it was too good to be true. The Minister of Finance is opening the door, and the Minister of Small Business is closing it. We don't know when the economic update will take place, yet all across Canada, provinces are doing economic updates. Could Mr.Morneau explain to Canadians why he is unable to give one? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have implemented the economic action plan to respond to COVID-19, and we've provided immediate assistance to Canadians, businesses and workers. Over 2.5million jobs were protected by the Canada emergency wage subsidy. In addition, 8.4million Canadians +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, next Friday, the Quebec minister of finance, EricGirard, will give an economic update. If EricGirard can give one for Quebec, why can't BillMorneau give one for Canada? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, once again, we have been open and transparent from the outset. We have devoted our energy to support Canadians, workers and businesses. We will continue to do so. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I cannot judge the quality of the work done by the provinces, but what I do know is that Quebec, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland have also made efforts to support their residents economically. Those provinces are able to table economic updates. Yesterday, Saskatchewan even tabled a budget. Why is Bill Morneau unable to table an economic update for all Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Let me repeat for my hon. colleague that we are going through extraordinarily uncertain times. We have continued to be open and transparent. We have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of the measures in our economic response plan. Once again, as soon as clear economic projections can be provided, we will provide an update +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The minister talks about the total cost of the government's economic expenditures. So I ask the question: so far, over the past three months, how much has the pandemic cost Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As I said earlier, it is important to note that we have put forward measures, including the wage subsidy, which have helped more than 2.5million +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I have been trying for four minutes to get anything remotely resembling an answer, and I'm getting absolutely nothing. I am not asking questions for myself; I am asking questions for Canadians. Why are the government and the Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, not able to table an economic update when some provinces are able to? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that we have provided interest-free loans to businesses. More than 669,000loans have been approved. We have continued to support businesses and Canadians during this time +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have time for a very brief question. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The only thing that distinguishes the provinces that table economic updates and the current government is political will. Why does Bill Morneau not have the political will to tell Canadians the truth? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, we have been open and transparent. As soon as it is possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide Canadians with a full update. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. COVID-19 has sparked and spurred anti-Asian racism. These are not just racist comments online; Asian Canadians have been attacked. What is the government doing to combat anti-Asian racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, since our government took office in 2015, we have been making investments and working with communities. The difference between our government and the previous government is that we will actually consult with Canadians, including black Canadians, including Asian Canadians, to respond to the challenges, including with an anti-racism secretariat and an anti-racism strategy. It will take all of us. I appreciate the member's question, so that we can also work together. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, one business owner I know in Markham has operated for 20 years. Now she's looking at over $9,000 in rent due on June 24. COVID-19 has crippled her sales and she's going to go out of business. Her landlord has no interest in the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. How can the government say this program is working? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, this program was made possible by working with the provinces, and we will continue to encourage landlords and tenants to work together to make sure they have relief for this very difficult time in which they're living. We're continuing to monitor the CECRA program and we will make it possible for businesses to have access to the program. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, the government business rent relief program has been a total disaster. Even the government's own numbers show it is a failure. As of June 8, less than 2% of the $3 billion budgeted has been spent. What is it going to take for the government to admit that the program is a disaster and needs changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we know our government has been working closely with the provinces and territories to deliver the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. Although the tenant-landlord relationship is ultimately the responsibility of the provinces and territories, our government has stepped up to provide support through the tools we have and through CMHC so that small businesses can get the rent relief they need. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, according to the government, there are around 1.1 million small businesses in Canada. At committee, we were told only around 5,500 of them are receiving COVID-19 rent relief. That number is shameful. When will the Liberal government wake up and make the changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we welcome the steps some provinces and territories have taken to further protect commercial tenants. We will continue to monitor this program closely and ensure that Canada's small businesses are supported during this challenging time. We will continue to monitor to see +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, there was no answer. When can the government make these changes? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable colleague that we are doing everything and will continue to do everything to help small businesses in our country. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, on May 27 the CBSA seized 65 small handguns at Pearson airport, the largest firearms seizure on record. It is clear that smuggled handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals. Why is the Prime Minister focusing on an ineffective municipal ban? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would point out that gun violence in any of our communities is unacceptable, and it's important that governments and communities take steps to prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals. That's why we do important work at our border to keep guns from being smuggled into our country, but it also necessitates additional work. I don't think you can talk about gun violence without talking about stronger gun control. That's why our government has taken a very strong position and will strengthen gun control to keep Canadians safe. +The Chair: Mr. Saroya, you may have a 10-second question, if that's possible, please. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has not stopped gun violence in the GTA. My constituents are concerned about shootings minutes away from their homes. We know the Liberals' gun ban won't change anything, but a focus on smuggled guns and criminals will. When will they make that change? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, stronger gun control laws are an effective tool, and that's been told to us by police leadership and communities across the country. We're also making investments in borders and law enforcement. Most importantly, we're making investments in communities and in kids to keep communities safe. I look forward to the member's strong support of those measures when we bring them forward. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the U.S. and the U.K. began their second round of free trade negotiations yesterday. Does the government intend to have a trade agreement in place before the U.K. tariffs come into effect on January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the U.K. is a strong partner of Canada, as is the European Union, and we're looking forward to continuing that strong relationship +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the negotiations with the U.K., when will the minister publish her goals and objectives for this agreement? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we're going to continue to work to ensure that any future agreement is going to be based on the best interests of Canadians, and we will +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Can the minister confirm whether they've entered into negotiations with the U.K. at this point? +Hon. Mary Ng: Our government is analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule the U.K. has put out. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, during the CUSMA negotiations, a deal was struck between the Liberal Party and the NDP that the government would notify this House 90 days before it starts any negotiations on any trade agreement. When will the minister notify this House? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we will absolutely be sharing information. Right now, we are analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule put out by the U.K. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, any meaningful attempts to reform the WTO needs buy-in from the United States. I think all countries agree on that. Has the minister discussed a WTO reform with the USTR, the United States trade representative? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group, and any decisions will be taken together. Of course, any meaningful reform must include the U.S. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Has the U.S. been invited to the Ottawa Group meetings? +Hon. Mary Ng: The Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group limited to WTO members who are committed to bringing forward ideas and proposals +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Just as with any other trade agreement, the minister has committed to this House that she will publish the list of goals and responsibilities for the negotiations. When will she publish the list for the Ottawa Group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I'm thrilled that we had an excellent meeting of the Ottawa Group yesterday where, as a group, we agreed to take concrete action. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Will the minister be releasing a list of Canada's objectives we would like to see the new WTO's director-general pursue prior to the upcoming DG election? +Hon. Mary Ng: We published an action statement from the Ottawa Group yesterday. I would encourage the member opposite to have a look. I'm certainly happy to send it to him. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Going back to economic prosperity, we know that the U.S. has been having talks with other countries around the world. Has Canada yet been invited to this group? +Hon. Mary Ng: I'm pleased to continue to pursue the objectives of trade diversification. I would remind the member that we have access to a billion and a half customers through our very robust +Mr. Randy Hoback: A billion and a half customers is fine if you have a functioning WTO, but if you don't have a functioning WTO, then a billion and a half customers may not be fully accessible to our suppliers, manufacturers and agriculture producers. Can the minister confirm that she's in discussions with the U.S. in joining this economic prosperity group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that nothing is more important than standing up and helping create markets for our Canadian businesses and to help our small businesses get more export-ready so that they can grow into the international marketplace. This is work that we've committed to do, and we will keep working on it, particularly +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Yesterday Saskatchewan presented a budget. Not only did they present the budget, but they'll also actually debate the budget and pass the budget in Parliament. There's full accountability. Why won't this government do the same? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, the House is sitting in this hybrid format so that people can participate in the House on the screens. I'm sure my colleague is happy to see that his own colleagues are able to ask questions and participate. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will say that this is no substitute for Parliament, but I appreciate the opportunity. New Brunswick families and businesses are rapidly making adjustments to manage and live with the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses here are opening and services are being offered. Families are preparing for summer and even planning ahead for a new school year in September. We have a lot of work ahead of us. One notable absence is Service Canada. When does the government plan on opening its service counters to assist Canadians again? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to the benefits that they rely on through Service Canada. We have redeployed over 3,000 additional staff to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to their benefits. We've established a 1,500-agent call centre to make sure that people can get access to the phone lines to get the help they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Service Canada is about more than providing COVID-19 information and benefits. Provincial governments are working hard to adjust to Canada's new normal by opening up businesses and front-line government services. When will we see Service Canada play its role and open its service counters in our communities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we're currently working with our world-class public health experts to determine how best to reopen the Service Canada network for the public. Make no mistake: Our Service Canada employees have gone above and beyond to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to the services that they rely on and the benefits that they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Please don't hide behind health experts when the Prime Minister is appearing in the middle of large protests, yet is afraid to bring back the Parliament of Canada to do its business. In fact, the New Brunswick legislature is open for regular business. Bills are being studied, opposition input is being heard and MLAs are voting on legislation, not rubber-stamping government bills. By comparison, our Parliament is stuck in pretending it cannot function like other law-making assemblies. Canadians are in the dark about our country's finances. When will the government table an economic update so taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, nobody's hiding. Nobody's doing anything like that. The only reason my colleague is able to ask a question and I'm able to answer his question is that he's right there on the screen. We have this hybrid format that cares for MPs across the country, not only the ones sitting in the House. +Mr. John Williamson: This is no substitute for Parliament. I will ask my question again. When will the government table an economic update so that taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like in today's environment? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for his question. Canada's economy is still in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We have been open and transparent about the measures we have been providing to support families, businesses and workers. Even our health care +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson: Except you have not. The Auditor General is underfunded. We have no idea about the total of government spending. Again I will ask when the government will table an economic update so that we can have an understanding of what the government's fiscal footing looks like. +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have included biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic response plan measures since the beginning. I have said, and I will continue to say, that when it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. +Mr. John Williamson: What is the full cost to date of the government's COVID-19 relief measures, as the minister just claimed the government has provided to Parliament? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have provided support for workers, and 2.5 million Canadians have been helped through the Canadian wage subsidy. We have provided businesses with some loans, and 669,000 businesses have applied for these loans. Even for the CERB, we have over eight million Canadians who have applied. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr.Bergeron. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: Mr.Chair, as the leader of the Bloc Qubcois mentioned a few moments ago, the government promised $14billion to Quebec and the provinces, but in targeted transfers. That is very little compared to the considerable expenses incurred to deal with the current crisis. But Quebec and the provinces don't just want this money to be transferred unconditionally, they also want a real discussion on a permanent increase in health care transfers. PremierLegault was rightly concerned about the feds' interference into provincial jurisdictions. The federal government, which does not manage any hospitals or long-term care centres, must stop playing armchair quarterback and transfer the money to the only governments with jurisdiction over health, that is, Quebec and the provinces. Will it do so without delay and without nitpicking? +The Honourable Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr.Chair, we know that the Government of Quebec is working hard to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and we are here to support them. As part of this co-operation, we have developed health and safety recommendations for workplaces, we have purchased medical equipment for workers and we have supported the province in developing its reopening program. We are continuing this important partnership to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and all Canadians. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: The co-operation is so effective that the money is staying in the federal government's coffers. In fact, when the federal government wants to impose conditions, it always takes longer. We see it with housing, for which Quebec has not received a dime of the $1.4billion it is owed. We have also seen it with infrastructure funds, particularly for public transit, water systems and water treatment. The health crisis is now. The needs are now. The much needed reopening of our economy is now. Will the government finally transfer the money without messing around or quibbling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I am pleased to confirm to my colleague that there is no messing around, no quibbling, nothing of the kind. There is co-operation between two levels of government. It is natural to have discussions with all the provinces and with Quebec. I myself am taking part in some discussions and several of my colleagues are taking part in others. There is a clear willingness on the part of the federal government to co-operate with Quebec and all the provinces. That is what we are doing and that is perhaps what the Bloc Qubcois does not like. It likes bickering, but for the time being, there is none. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: We don't want to bicker, we want the money to be paid out. It is not complicated, for heaven's sake! We do not want a blank cheque. Right now, the money remains in the federal government's coffers. There is $1.4billion that should be paid to Quebec for social housing and is sitting in the federal government's coffers. We are waiting for money for water treatment and water systems, but it is sitting in the federal government's coffers. It's almost July. We are wasting precious months for construction. What is the government waiting for to pay out the money so that we can get our economy rolling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The federal government is a very active partner. We are discussing and working with Quebec on infrastructure projects. We are continuing our discussions and negotiations on the housing agreement. Nothing is at a standstill. We are discussing and co-operating for the well-being of all Quebeckers. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: MadamChair, things are definitely at a standstill, because the money is owed and has not been paid out. Months are going by while construction is not taking place. We need to reopen the economy. We need more flexibility in the gas tax program and Quebec's contribution to allow municipalities to undertake work on city halls, community centres and fire stations. We need the federal government to contribute to funding public transit operations, which have become a real financial drain because of the drop in ridership. What is the federal government waiting for to provide real help instead of just talking? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: When it comes to just talking, the Bloc Qubcois has a lot of experience, I admit. We, in the government, are working and co-operating. We are not waiting with our arms folded, we are discussing a series of issues with Quebec. We do more than discuss, we work and we co-operate. We are working on projects, not only in infrastructure, but in a number of other areas. Just think of the co-operation of our armed forces in the CHSLDs, for example. We are here for Quebeckers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Your time has run out, Mr.Bergeron. We'll go now to Ms. Khalid, from MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. During a consultation with the business community in Mississauga, the concerns of businesses, big and small, included the need for stable, affordable and safe child care. With the lack of such child care spaces, an economic recovery plan post-COVID cannot be effective until and unless we make sure that people are able to get back to work. I've heard from parents across Mississauga that they're being forced to stay home because of inadequate child care and that they have to choose between putting food on the table and keeping family safe. More and more employers are realizing that good employees are unable to contribute to their business growth because of this challenge. Now more than ever, we need to find long-term sustainable solutions for Canadians who face challenges with regard to child care. I ask our Minister of Families, Children and Social Development this: What is our strategy to tackle this ever-growing need for a national child care plan? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question and for her important advocacy and work on this important issue. We understand that child care is important to our economic recovery and our social infrastructure. We know the pressure that COVID-19 has placed on families, especially parents. That is why we're committed to continuing to work with provinces and territories to renew our agreements on early learning and child care, and to provide, at the earliest opportunity, $400 million in support. In addition to that, the Prime Minister has already indicated that child care will be part of the $14-billion pledge to provinces and territories to assist them with respect to COVID-19 recovery efforts. Over the next decade, we will continue to invest $7.5 billion, and together we have achieved the goal of over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We are also committed to continuing to create over 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces for kids under the age of 10. We will continue to work with our partners in the provinces and territories to ensure that Canadians can continue to have access to safe, quality and affordable child care. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has the floor. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): MadamChair, small businesses play a fundamental role in the Canadian economy. In an article in LaPresse, the Minister of Economic Development warned us that the economic crisis caused by severe lockdown measures could have more serious consequences in small municipalities than in large cities. Based on discussions with the chambers of commerce in my riding, it is clear that federal government assistance will be essential for the reopening of the economy, specifically for the rural economy. In fact, I would like to acknowledge the work of the Prescott-Russell community development corporation , under the leadership of John Candie. After announcing almost $57million to help SMEs adopt e-commerce, how does the minister plan to help SMEs and the business community in our rural areas? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): MadamChair, I also thank my colleague from GlengarryPrescottRussell for his important question. Yes, our regions are important and the entrepreneurs in those regions are creative and daring. They take risks, but they are currently facing huge challenges. So we are here for them. We understand their anxiety and we want to help them. That is why we have decided to invest heavily in rural economic development. It is also why we have doubled the budget of CFDCs and Community Futures organizations across the country. In southern Ontario we have reinvested over $260million in the regional economic development agency FedDev. In the great riding of GlengarryPrescottRussell, which I am particularly fond of and where there is a very good member of Parliament, there is an additional $1million for entrepreneurs in the region. We have been, we are and we will be at your side. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has 36seconds left. No? Then we'll go to the honourable member for ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. Madam Chair, Krystal is a community worker in Winnipeg. She has been working from home since late March, taking care of her child, who is out of school, and caring for her father, who is living with her and vulnerable to COVID-19. Her employer called her up recently and asked her to physically return to work or to take a leave. As a parent and a care provider to a vulnerable person, she's not comfortable with physically returning to work. Service Canada won't give Krystal a straight answer as to whether going on leave and collecting CERB would count as refusing a reasonable job offer. With Bill C-17 looming in the background, Krystal is worried about jail time and fines if she does right by her child and her father by applying for CERB. Can Krystal reasonably refuse to go back to work and collect CERB, or will she be considered a fraudster? That's my question for the minister that is specific to Krystal's case. As well, what is the minister doing to provide clear direction to Canadians and to Service Canada agents so that people can get a clear answer before making their decision about returning to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his important question. We recognize that Canadian workers will face various different situations, including those who are ineligible for the Canada emergency support benefit. We'll continue to work with workers to make sure they're able to be supported throughout this pandemic. The fact of the matter is that every province has workplace health and safety regulations that must be supported. We understand that workers have the right not to work in unsafe situations. We also understand that many Canadians do want to go back to work; and in fact many have. We will make sure that we support Canadians throughout this recovery process. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 47 seconds left, and that includes the answer. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Madam Chair, that answer is really not good enough, because the problem here is that Krystal needs to know whether she can continue receiving CERB or not. That's a federal government decision, and she needs to know whether the federal government is going to accuse her of fraud and put her in jail or assess fines against her if she refuses to go back to work because she wants to take care of her child and her father. What is the minister's answer to that? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has 20 seconds to respond. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that if a Canadian has to take care of a loved one due to circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, they are indeed eligible to receive the CERB and remain receiving that benefit. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): As we deal with the global pandemic, we cannot lose sight of the ongoing climate emergency. Canada has missed every single climate target it set, and we need to break the cycle of empty promises. Canadians want their government to be accountable, and environmental groups such as Ecojustice, CAN-Rac, Environmental Defence and West Coast Environmental Law, as well as the government's own climate institute, are all calling for legally binding climate targets. When will the government put its climate targets into law with legally binding milestones so we never miss another target again? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Madam Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for her question. I totally agree with her when it comes to the environment. It is a priority not only for us as a government, but it should be a priority for all Canadians. That is why we have put measures in place to put a price on pollution through carbon pricing. That is why we have a comprehensive plan that also includes significant investments in clean technology, which will help reduce our carbon footprint. I am confident that these measures will enable us to not only meet but exceed our 2030 target and also allow us to achieve our net-zero 2050 target. +Ms. Laurel Collins: That didn't answer my question. I asked when. Empty promises won't get us any closer to meeting our climate targets. Can the minister tell us when his government will introduce climate accountability laws? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I think the fundamental issue here is having a plan when it comes to the environment. I'm confident that the measures that we have takenputting a price on pollution, investing in clean technology, and other key measures to reduce our carbon footprint, including the investment in infrastructureunderpin a plan +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to the honourable member for Victoria. +Ms. Laurel Collins: This government is not meeting its targets, but it is meeting with oil and gas lobbyists. The pandemic has made us reflect on our priorities. Are we going to choose a just recovery with good, sustainable jobs for Canadian workers, or are we going to keep subsidizing oil and gas companies to the tune of billions, subsidies that we know are ending up in the pockets of CEOs and shareholders? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will have a brief answer from the minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Madam Chair, this is the fundamental difference between us and the NDP. We fundamentally believe that the entire economy needs to work together, including the energy sector, to enable us to achieve those 2030 and 2050 targets. We are going to work together to support our workers, including in the energy sector, to reduce our carbon footprint. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we will go to the honourable member for SaskatoonGrasswood, Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was last here in May, I was on my way back to Saskatoon from Toronto, and there was actually someone on my flight who tested positive for COVID-19. I was never informed of it by the airline. I found out two weeks later. The report was in the news media. Why hasn't the government put rules in place requiring airlines to reach out to individuals like me who may have been exposed to COVID on their flights? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, it's hard to speculate on what happened from such a vague description of his experience, but I will say that we have every confidence in local public health, which is doing the hard and heavy lifting of contact tracing and working very closely with all kinds of different sectors, including airline sectors, to make sure that close contacts of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are found, are traced and are isolated. I assume that the member took appropriate precautions on the flight and I hope that he continues to do so. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it was reported that the individual on my plane who had COVID was actually connecting in Toronto from an international flight. The Prime Minister announced last week that they would begin mandating temperature checks for those bound for Canada in July. Will international travellers be tested when they land in Canada, or will they be relying on the tests that take place in other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, this is a very important question, because the protection and safety of all Canadiansin particular, Canadian travellersis a high priority for our government. We've been working very closely with the airlines. At the current time, we are putting temperature screening in place. That will initially be done primarily by the airlines that are in the best position to do it at this point in time. We are also now going to be including CATSA, the people who do the security screening, so that when people enter the airport, they will also be screened. We believe that is going to be the most effective measure to keep all travellers safe. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week five of the largest professional sports leagues in North America put out a statement of support for my private member's bill, the safe and regulated sports betting act. Given the struggles that clubs and leagues are facing due to COVID-19, including having no fans at all in the stands for the foreseeable future, the legalization of sports betting would be a welcome opportunity not only to engage fans but to generate much-needed revenue. Will the government commit now to supporting the sports and gaming industries by supporting my private member's bill, Bill C-218? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I've had the opportunity on many occasions to speak to members of Parliament and also to mayors and councillors and people living in border communities where there are casinos. They've raised this issue a number of times. We've listened very carefully to the concerns that have been expressed by them. I would like to advise the member that I look forward to the opportunity for a careful examination of his bill. We are at all times concerned about maintaining the integrity of the gaming industry within our community. That's the best way to protect Canadians. At the same time, we will examine his bill with all of the necessary attention to make sure it's given full consideration. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it's the first time in history that we've had the five professional leagues in this country joining together for this bill. Newspapers rely, as we all know, on advertising for a significant portion of their revenue. This includes the usual flyers as well as in-paper ads. I've heard major concerns from a number of newspapers in this country about competition they're receiving today from Canada Post, which is offering massive free postage services. In fact, I have one of their ads here, which says that the first 6,000 pieces of postage are 100% free. If the government is genuine about wanting to ensure that newspapers and journals can succeed in this country, why are you allowing Canada Post to use its monopoly power to actually threaten local newspapers in this country? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair, and I thank the member opposite for his question. As you well know, a healthy news and media sector in Canada is a priority for our government, which is why we have put in place a number of measures before COVID-19 and during COVID-19, and we will continue to be there for them after this crisis has gone by. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before we go on, we will be taking a break to do a bit of a changeover. I also want to remind members to address their questions and comments to the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for BruceGreyOwen Sound, Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Mr. Blair stated yesterday here in the House that the AR-15 has been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions. Mr. Blair, please provide just one specific instance in which an AR-15 was used in a mass killing in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member to address questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may respond. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I think this is an excellent opportunity to point out to the member opposite how important it is to actually listen to what was said. If you go back and review that tape, and I would invite you to do so, you'll see that I said the AR-15 and other weapons like themreferring of course to military-style assault weaponshave been used in mass killings, and I actually cited a number of examples. Madam Chair, I think it would be very useful if the member's questions were based on facts. +Mr. Alex Ruff: I can remind Mr. Blair that I actually have watched the video a couple of times, and he specifically states that the AR-15 was used in mass killings in Canada, yet he has yet to provide one. My additional question is to Mr. Blair. Out of the recently banned firearms on May 1, how many have been or are still currently in use by the Canadian Armed Forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's an excellent question, Madam Chair, because it's very important to provide Canadians with clarity. We have prohibited these firearms for non-law enforcement and non-military use. The military uses weapons that were actually designed for soldiers to use in combat to shoot other soldiers. That's the appropriate use of such weapons, Madam Chair. They're not things to be played with in civilian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As a soldier for 25 years, I'll remind Mr. Blair that none of the currently prohibited firearms would be used in the Canadian Armed Forces. I asked him a question on whether any of them is being or ever has been used in the Canadian Armed Forces. Are any of the recently banned firearms still in use, or have they ever been in use, in any military in the world? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I think it's important to also recognize that the basic origin, the provenance of the weapons that we have prohibited, was in their original design. They were designed for military use for various military forces around the world. As I've said previously, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers. They're very efficient in their design for killing people. They have no purpose in Canadian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As someone who has used many military-style firearms and who is actually involved in helping define what we purchase in the military, I would use none of the ones that are currently prohibited. I have a question, Chair, for Minister MacAulay. Can he please confirm whether Veterans Affairs has a plan to address the claims backlog, yes or no? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Madam Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question, and yes, we've indicated that it's a major priority. That's why I'm so pleased that the supplementary estimates contained just under $90 million to address hiring more staff, improving the process and making sure that we attack the backlog in an appropriate manner. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Madame Chair, does that plan exist in written form? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, Madam Chair, I can assure you that it's in the supplementary estimates, and of course, this money is +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The question is about the plan, not how much money has been allocated. I am asking for the written plan on how to address the backlog. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Chair, I can tell my honourable colleague that the money is in the supplementary estimates, and with the money we're able to attack this problem in an appropriate manner, and that's what is important for our veterans. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The deputy minister committed on March 10 that a written plan would be provided to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs within a month and made public. Did the deputy minister or the department provide the minister that plan within a month? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madame Chair, I'm sure my honourable colleague wants an appropriate plan and he would be fully aware this just under $90 million would make a big difference in the plan to attack the backlog. We +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Thank you, Chair. Therefore, my question is, if the deputy minister in the department provided him with an appropriate plan or a written plan, why is he questioning how appropriate that plan is? I have complete confidence in the deputy minister's ability to produce a written plan. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may give a brief answer, please. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure my honourable colleague that with the appropriate funding, we will address the backlog in Veterans Affairs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Parry SoundMuskoka, Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is about summer camps again. Three weeks ago, I asked this government if the finance minister would meet with the beleaguered summer camp sector. Summer camps, which are a social and economic mainstay in Parry SoundMuskoka and all of northern Ontario, have been crippled by the global pandemic. It's costing millions of jobs, and some camps are actually in danger of folding. Aside from a brief follow-up conversation over the phone with the junior minister, there has still been no action from this government. When will the Minister of Finance meet with summer camps to find a solution? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I recognize the honourable member's important question and his focus on summer camps. We recognize the importance of looking at that and paying attention to the needs of that community. We will continue to engage with them, as we have, to ensure and find ways in which we can get their feedback and find ways in which we can support them. That work is ongoing, and I assure the honourable member that our focus is on the kids and on ensuring that they have access to summer camps for this year. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I don't know why you need to find ways to get feedback. The summer camps association has given lots of feedback and my office has given lots of feedback, so I don't see what's confusing about this. However, I've become accustomed to not really getting answers to questions, so I will go to the next one. The Ontario government's regional reopening plan permits cruise boats to resume on Georgian Bay, yet the federal government is refusing to allow these vessels to operate until July 1. Therefore, small businesses such as the Island Queen cruiser in Parry Sound, which has only a very few precious weeks to operate in the first place, is losing yet another two weeks because of federal inaction. This not only hurts the cruise boat industry but also hurts tourism and small businesses all through our area. Will the Minister of Transport take a regional approach himself by lifting the federal ban on Georgian Bay, just like the Province of Ontario has done? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may reply. Is there a response? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, there is. I apologize for the confusion. Let me respond, if I may, on behalf of the Minister of Transport. There have been a number of very important discussions with the provinces, in particular with the Province of Ontario, around provisions regarding pleasure craft. There are certain restrictions that will come to an end on June 30. We're working very closely with our provincial counterparts to address this issue, but we want to ensure that it will be done safely. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Madam Chair, I actually gave the minister a heads-up that I would be asking that question. He sent me an email today saying he was not going to be able to be in the House, and it's great of him to do that. He said that whoever was going to fill in for him would have an answer, but again, that was not really an answer. The next issue I would like to bring this government's attention to is the deplorable state of rural Internet service in Parry SoundMuskoka. Quite simply, there are too many gaps in service, and what is available is generally way too expensive. We have families trying to work and teach their kids from home on unreliable and outrageously expensive Internet service, and we have too many small businesses that either cannot access or afford reliable Internet services. Today Greg Rickford, the Ontario energy minister, and Laurie Scott, Ontario Minister of Infrastructure, announced $2.3 million for seven northern Ontario broadband projects. Minister, will when your government get serious and become a reliable partner for the Government of Ontario and the private sector to deliver this crucial modern-day infrastructure to rural Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member that he needs to address the questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Madam Chair, in the best of times, life without access to high-speed Internet is hard. During a pandemic, the challenges are that much more pronounced. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting a million more Canadian households to this essential service, but until we achieve universal access our work is not done. We will work with our partners, including provinces across the country, to connect every Canadian household to high-quality Internet access that is affordable and reliable. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 30 seconds. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I think I can squeeze something in here, then. I'm wondering, then, Madam Chair, since the Province of Ontario has used the Northern Ontario Heritage Corporation Fund to make this announcement, what about using FedNor to make the same kind of announcement, and partner with the province? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has a brief answer. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Obviously we believe in the importance of northern Ontario; that's why we nearly doubled the budget of FedNor. We will continue to invest in businesses and people all around Parry Sound, Muskoka and northern Ontario. If my colleague has specific projects in mind, please come and see me and let's have a conversation. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for Montmagny-L'Islet-KamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, Mr.Gnreux, has the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux (MontmagnyL'IsletKamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. I will continue along the same lines as my colleague. During this pandemic, we are realizing the extent to which reliable high-speed Internet service is needed for Canada's economy. There are still places where telework is not possible today because of the lack of adequate coverage. However, since2015, the government has committed to addressing the situation through three new programs. Benot Pilotto, who is the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth, in my riding, wrote to me a few days ago. That is why I am asking you what concrete results the government plans to achieve for our rural areas by the end of the year. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: At the best of times, life without high-speed Internet access is difficult. During a pandemic, the difficulties are even greater. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting an additional one million Canadian households to this essential service. However, until we achieve universal access, our job is not done. We are working +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am simply asking the minister to tell me when the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth will be able to tell his residents when the Internet will be available in his municipality. It is not complicated. What does the government plan to do so that rural municipalities across Canada can have access to the Internet as soon as possible? What is its plan? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: We are working with partners across the country to ensure that every Canadian household is connected to a high-quality, accessible and affordable high-speed Internet service. Madam Chair, I assure my colleagues that we share the same goal, and we will work with all our partners across the country to ensure every Canadian household has access +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am still not getting a specific answer. According to the government's plan, when will rural Canadian businesses and households be connected? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I would ask the honourable minister to provide a brief answer. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, those plans are under way, and we will have more to share in the coming days. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: It seems that the Minister of Rural Economic Development plans to announce a new plan this week. Can she tell us how this program will differ from the Connect to Innovate program, which is already in place? Can the minister tell us whether her program will solve the problem of the 25square kilometre hexagonal zones, which unfortunately make many projects ineligible for the CRTC's broadband fund? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to share with my colleague that the model he's referring to, the hexagon model, is no more. Our maps are much more precise now to ensure that we do not leave Canadians behind. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, this year, the Canada summer jobs program is a real fiasco. I think all my colleagues will agree with me. On May13, 100jobs were announced in my riding; on May20, 16jobs were announced; on May27, 13jobs were announced; on June3, 12jobs were announced; and on June10, only one job was announced. As we speak, an amount of $100,000 is still to be confirmed in my riding. Can we have an announcement, once and for all? Let's stop the piecemeal announcements and finally confirm the remaining jobs today so that our organizations can have young people before the summer starts on the weekend. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: MadamChair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program is playing in supporting employers and young workers in communities right across the country. Our government is working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the same time is supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that more young workers have opportunities to get employed. The honourable member also has to understand that we're in the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such it will take some time for businesses to equip themselves to hire students. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. In the first five months of this year, 554 B.C. residents died from opioid overdoses. They were teachers, construction workers, business owners, family members, neighbours and friends. Addiction is a health and social issue, but criminalization creates stigma, so people hide their drug use and die alone. Access to a safe supply of drugs and safe injection sites saves lives and puts addicts in daily contact with people who can help them. Will this government end the war on drugs by decriminalizing them, providing a safe supply and reallocating resources from policing addicts to providing treatment for them? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I think it's really important we make sure that when we speak about people who use substances, we remove stigmatizing language like the word addict. We can stand together, as this government has, with people who use substances and their families to ensure a range of options for people who are struggling with addiction, who are using substances in a way that is harming their health and their communities. As you know, we have restored harm reduction to the Canadian drugs and substances strategy. We've made it easier for people to access safe supplies of substances. We've increased access to treatment and the variety of treatment through federal transfers to provinces and territories. Madam Chair, we're working with communities to make sure there are more community-based approaches to treating +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the Geneva Convention considers both tear gas and pepper spray to be chemical weapons and prohibits their use in war, yet our police forces use these weapons on Canadian civilians. These weapons are indiscriminate and can affect peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders. Will the government prohibit the use of these weapons and require police to use de-escalation techniques to keep legal protests peaceful? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the right to peaceful protest in this country is a constitutionally protected right. We want to ensure it's always respected. At the same time, Madam Chair, we recognize that the use of even less than lethal force can have significant impacts on people's safety. This is a highly regulated substance in Canada. It's prohibited for non-police use, and for the police it is and should be highly regulated. The RCMP have advised me they have not used tear gas in nine years. We'll continue to monitor it to ensure that peaceful protest is always respected. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, in 2012 the RCMP spent $14 million on 18 armoured personnel carriers. One's parked at the Nanaimo detachment. I can't imagine why we have weapons of war like this for policing civilians. Will the government rein in the RCMP budget and end wasteful spending on militarizing our civilian police forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, it's a very important tradition that our Canadian police are not militarized. At the same time, we've seen a number of tragedies when police have responded to situations in which people were armed with weapons designed for soldiers to kill soldiers, and they've been used to kill police officers. The militarization of our society, so strongly promoted by some, is the direct consequence of the militarization of the police. As we remove these weapons from our society and prohibit them, we'll make it safer for everyone and we can then move away from such a model of policing. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the government spent $4.5 billion to buy an old, leaky pipeline. Since 1961, there have been 82 reported spills from the Trans Mountain pipeline. Over 1.5 million litres of crude oil has spilled into the surrounding environment. This weekend, the Trans Mountain pipeline leaked again, dumping 190,000 litres of oil. How much is this spill going to cost Canadian taxpayers to clean up? How much contingency funding has been budgeted to repair the environmental destruction from spills? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable colleague for his question. He full well knows that the acquisition that we made with regard to the TMX initiative is a reflection of the fact that we want this initiative to move forward in a sustainable manner and in a manner that protects the environment. I'll continue to work with my colleagues to endeavour to make sure that we have the appropriate processes in place to protect the environment and at the same time create good-quality, middle-class jobs for Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for RosemontLa PetitePatrie, Mr.Boulerice, has the floor. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (RosemontLa Petite-Patrie, NDP): Thank you, MadamChair. The Black Lives Matter movement is right to discuss systemic racism in our societies. In Montreal, the city and the police department have recognized this, and measures will be put in place. The Liberal government, once again, is all talk and no walk. Although it spends $10million a day, we see no attempt to reform or change the RCMP. If the Prime Minister really wants to act, why is he delaying the action plan in response to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? +Hon. Bill Blair: Let me assure this House and the member opposite that we're not dragging our feet. This is an important issue. Indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes through the criminal justice system. It's incumbent upon all of us who work within the criminal justice system to take the steps and actions necessary to produce more equitable outcomes. All police services, including the RCMP, must be committed to ensuring that the people they're sworn to serve and protect are always treated with dignity and respect. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: MadamChair, why are the Liberals taking indigenous children to court to challenge the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling in their favour? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Madam Chair, as the honourable member knows full well, a number of cases are pending, and we are currently negotiating with the parties. We are making progress, and I would be delighted to tell the member and the House about it in response to a later question. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: We've been asking questions about it for months, and as I see it, we should keep doing so. The Prime Minister's new pipeline, which taxpayers were forced to buy with their hard-earned money, has leaked. Some 190,000litres of oil spilled, and we can't even make the company pay for it because the Liberals bought the pipeline. Trans-Mountain, KeystoneXL and the resumption of gas exploration and development off the coast of Newfoundland and Labradorare these the projects the Liberals had in mind for their green recovery? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. Our priority was to protect the health and safety of Canadians throughout the pandemic, especially when it comes to the environment. That's why environmental and climate change laws aimed at protecting the environment, human health and conservation will remain in force. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Across Quebec, the cultural community is going through a harrowing time. Unions, associations, artists and creators have all taken part in public demonstrations recently to condemn the lack of a specific plan for the living arts, performing arts and festival sector. What is the government waiting for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'd like to thank the member for his question. However, I strongly disagree with him. We haven't waited to develop a plan for the arts and culture sector. We listened to the community and we tailored our supports, as they were announced. We have an emergency plan for the arts and culture sector. We were asked to adapt the CERB to take royalties into account, and we did. We were asked to extend the CERB, and we did. We are fully aware that the recovery will take longer in the arts and culture sector. We have been there, we are there and we will be there for the arts and culture sector. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Well, that wasn't at all what the artists and creators who were out demonstrating in the streets a few days ago thought. They were protesting on the weekend. The CERB extension announced by the government only brings us to September, but the cultural community is expecting the worst in the fall. What is the government's long-term plan to support creators and their entire teams? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'm not so sure those who were protesting last week had issues with our government, but we'd certainly be happy to speak with them. As for a long-term plan, we are currently consulting arts and culture stakeholders to contemplate together how the government can help the sector in response to the ongoing crisis. We are working on finding solutions, but until we have long-term solutions, we have seen to it that our artists and organizations have access to funding until September. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Montcalm. According to the latest news, Seaspan Shipyards will be spending an additional $1.5billion to build two ships. Why? Because the ships were ordered in 2011 and still haven't been delivered. Davie built the Asterix without going over budget because it delivered the ship on time. Davie is currently the top shipyard, representing 50% of Canada's shipbuilding capacity. Why isn't Davie being awarded its fair share of contracts? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): I'd like to thank the member for her question. Davie is certainly a strong and trusted partner that works very hard to help our government get results for Canadians. Building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for cost estimates to change throughout the procurement project. It's important to make sure additional funding is available for the joint support ships project to ensure the navy's vessels are delivered. +Mrs. Julie Vignola: We are talking about $1.5billion, here. In the beginning, eight years ago, the project was supposed to cost $2.6billion. There can't be much missing when the cost overrun is double the initial estimate. Why haven't the ships been delivered yet? Why is Davie still not seen as a trusted partner? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Minister, please keep your answer brief. +Hon. Anita Anand: Once again, I would point out that building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for the cost estimate to change for a procurement project as large as this one. I know that Davie works very hard, and we also believe it is an outstanding partner. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): It is now over to the honourable member for Montcalm, Mr.Thriault. +Mr. Luc Thriault (Montcalm, BQ): Madam Chair, in Quebec, 12,000people have begun their training to work in residential and long-term care centres. They will be ready for duty in mid-September. In the meantime, we need the support of the army, which is helping us save lives. The dedication of the members of the armed forces is paramount, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks. The government extended their mission until June26, which is only 10days away. What does the army have to do right now that is more important than helping our caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, I'm glad my fellow member recognizes the fundamental role the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have played and continue to play in residential and long-term care centres and many other areas in support of our seniors. We are in talks with the Quebec government. The discussions around providing continued assistance to Quebec are quite positive and productive. That assistance can take many forms, including the Red Cross. We will be there for our seniors, Madam Chair. +Mr. Luc Thriault: We are short 12,000people, so if the Red Cross wants to help us, all the better. We'll take all the help we can get. Barely 800members of the military are still in Quebec. I repeat my question: What does the army have to do 10days from now that is more important if it's not to help caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, all the members of the military are still in Quebec. They have done absolutely incredible work and are continuing to do so. The people at the Canadian Red Cross are well-trained paid workers who can perform the same work in partnership with the members of the armed forces, who can stay in Quebec as well. Right now, we are working with the Quebec government and discussing how we can keep the measure in place until September15. +Mr. Luc Thriault: Madam Chair, our nurses and orderlies are exhausted. They're at the end of their ropes. Now is the time to thank them, not the time to turn our backs on them. It's not the time for dilly-dallying or discussions. It's the time to tell them that we will be there to help them until the end. I will repeat my question. What does the army have to do that is more important than helping caregivers save the lives of those who built Quebec? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is asked to keep his answer brief. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, the Government of Canada is there and will continue to be there to help the people who built Quebec. The Government of Canada will work with the Quebec government to make that happen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Red DeerMountain View, Mr. Dreeshen. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen (Red DeerMountain View, CPC): Thank you so much. Madam Chair, on May 14 I asked the Minister of Agriculture when the Liberal government would put aside its usual campaign rhetoric and recognize the very detrimental impact the carbon tax is having on farmers across this country. Minister Bibeau proudly noted that according to their data, the average cost of the carbon tax per farm across Canada is $210 to $819. We know that these numbers are completely unfounded and are not based on any factual evidence. The fact is that the Liberal government's own Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that at $25 per tonne, the cost for an 855-acre crop farm in Alberta is well over $6,000. The office came up with that using the government's statistics from the 2016 agricultural census. Madam Chair, the evidence is right in front of the minister. When will this Liberal government come clean with Canadians and recognize the disastrous impact the carbon tax is having on Canada's critical agriculture and agri-food sector? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Madam Chair, our pollution pricing policy is designed to grow a clean economy. To support this sector, we have put in place the following measures. Emissions from livestock and crop production are not priced. Farm fuels and fuels from cardlock facilities are exempt, and there is a partial rebate for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. We will do a review of our pollution pricing system in 2020, focused on competitiveness issues in trade-exposed industries such as agriculture. It is also important to remember that this is about tackling climate change and that 100% of the revenues stay in the province. We will continue to support our farmers and food processors as they provide an essential service across Canada. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau keeps talking about wanting to protect Canadians' environment. Well, the truth is that Canada's farmers, ranchers and processors have for years demonstrated their ability to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and to safeguard the environment through the adoption of new technologies, education and innovative management practices, but the government ignores these efforts. Will the minister at the very least admit to Canadians that Canadian farmers are unable to pass on the cost of the carbon tax to consumers and instead have to absorb those extra costs out of their own pockets? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, allow me to explain again our government's position on pollution pricing. The price and method were developed so we could build an increasingly clean economy. We put a number of measures in place to help the agriculture sector. Emissions from animal and plant production aren't taxed. Farm fuels and fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are also +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have another question. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I am watching the time, Mr. Dreeshan. You have a couple more seconds. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you. Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau has repeatedly asked stakeholders to send her data about the impacts of the carbon tax on farmers, so this is exactly what they have been doing. The Atlantic Grains Council, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, Producteurs de grains du Qubec and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association issued a joint statement at the beginning of this year in which they estimated that the cumulative indirect inflation of carbon tax on farm costs will be $14.50 an acre this year, with that cost escalating by more than double by 2022 to almost $30 an acre. These are huge numbers. Why does the Liberal government continue to ignore the facts presented to it and continue to misrepresent the truth to Canadians? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madame Chair, I can assure you that we have paid close attention to all the information that has been provided to us and that our calculation was also based on this information provided by provinces and different stakeholders. Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. The department used data from stakeholders and provinces Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you very much, Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau:as well as the 2019 agricultural tax data to estimate the average cost of pollution pricing associated with grain drying at up to 0.4% of overall operating costs. It is important to remember that we have put in place many special provisions Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: like exempting farm fuel and providing other financial supports for farmers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Dreeshen, I am watching the time, and the minister is allowed to answer for the same amount of time that you used to ask the question. Therefore, I would hope that we would allow her to finish. She has finished, and unfortunately the time is up. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","On June 16, 2020, the Chair of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hon. Anthony Rota, presided over the 23rd meeting, reminding members of sound protocol and language channel usage for those participating via video conference. No ministerial announcements were scheduled for that day. + +MP Elizabeth May presented two petitions emphasizing the need to simplify processes for protecting marine areas and align actions to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) commitments. Mr. Ken Hardie introduced a petition advocating for compensation systems for Canadians suffering severe vaccine effects. Mr. Denis Trudel presented a petition addressing digital technology impacts on creators' revenues, proposing solutions such as minimum royalty models, tax contributions from internet and cell providers directly accessing culture, and updating private copying systems. + +MP Garnett Genuis presented four petitions concerning expansions to euthanasia law, systemic discrimination and Bill 21 in Quebec, demands for action against illegal gun trafficking, and support for Bill S-204 relating to organ harvesting and trafficking. MP Kevin Lamoureux spoke about the importance of supporting seniors, especially those living in poverty. Mrs. Jenica Atwin highlighted the upcoming National Indigenous Peoples Day and virtuous initiatives within the First Nations community in her areas. + +Mr. Terry Beech spoke about the frontline workers' contribution during the pandemic and the need for their fair compensation. Mr. Doug Shipley mentioned local summer festivities, emphasizing that despite cancellations, the community spirit remains alive. Ms. Kate Young paid tribute to teachers' roles during the transition to virtual classrooms due to the pandemic. Mr. Stéphane Bergeron marked the 175th anniversary of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville and Mr. James Maloney praised a volunteer initiative providing PPE to vulnerable groups. + +MP Alice Wong recognized a charity called Social Diversity for Children Foundation for its efforts in aiding long-term care workers, staff, and seniors. Ms. Pam Damoff urged support for ALS Canada's Walk to End ALS and Ms. Kamal Khera spoke on anti-black racism, urging commitment to action against systemic discrimination. + +MP Dane Lloyd called for a government that allows effective opposition work for Canadians, and Ms. Yvonne Jones emphasized continued support for both students and Indigenous peoples. Lastly, Mr. Scott Aitchison mentioned challenges faced by rural communities in accessing stable Internet services and the need for government action. + +During the question period, discussions included accountability for government spending on COVID-19 relief measures, concerns about Huawei technology use in Ottawa, and calls for updates and reforms to support various sectors including cultural industries, agriculture, drug policy, and environmental protection. Members also voiced requests for veterans' claims backlog plans and reviewed the emergency assistance to Quebec amid the COVID-19 crisis." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees—pupils who are eligible for free school meals. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to—in challenge advisers' discussions in schools—we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that, 'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.' Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school—it's an ethos for the whole school—but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an 'Ever 2' concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional £40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional £40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the £40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that £40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over £90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done—because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say, 'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.' Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying, 'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,' because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say, 'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.' +Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have? +Kirsty Williams AM: We've— +Ruth Conway: Sorry—I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that 'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions' on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it—that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been—. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been—well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next. +Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said, 'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step—we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children. +Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the—. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: There is also another very good example—and I take what you say about where there are small numbers—but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions. +Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it—with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer—on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it—. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus—one in five—by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's— +Hefin David AM: Why, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject. +Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability? +Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children. +Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is—while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic—we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city—so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium—you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils. +Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years' time, when we will be looking back in two years' time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the— +Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance. +Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours—not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning— +Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then. +Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey—only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder—can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators—they're in their second year this year—to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have—not concerns. 'Concerns' isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail. +Steve Davies: I think the challenge that—. One of the rationales for shifting—not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support—was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools—the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents—historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically, 'How do I need to support them?' So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely. +Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation— +Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what— +Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017. +Mark Reckless AM: November 2017. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move. +Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because— +Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle. +Lynne Neagle AM: —both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for. +Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of, 'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family, 'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need. +Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others—. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions. +Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support—even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas—. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying, 'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget' is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying, 'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them, 'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go, 'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.' So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school—when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think, 'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?' If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection—how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to. +Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again—and I've said this a lot—after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well—this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do— +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good. +Julie Morgan AM: —in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they? +Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all. +Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training. +Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions? +Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well. +Steve Davies: And investment in well-being— +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission—to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay— +Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because— +Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive. +Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality—how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity—again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools—but that expertise is available to all our schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering— +Kirsty Williams AM: In what way? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would—not that I want to argue with Estyn— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you— +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again—gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress—how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of—well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have. +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over £10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to—. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about—Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon—I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take—. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this. +Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations— +Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year—not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum. +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out—not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board. +Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off—not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over—so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then—that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry. +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by 'the figurehead' you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme? +Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations. +Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow—with Professor Ainscow himself. +Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings— +Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year. +Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions. +Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us, 'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he? +Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you—and I'm absolutely confident—is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia—. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer. +Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all—in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can—like Mark talked about, the expertise—how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers. +John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute—. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial. +John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people—in some cases, it has been reported to me—it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence—that there sometimes was a conflict: 'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.' Or, a local education authority said to me, 'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.' Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one. +Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting—[Inaudible.]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them—and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this—it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions—I can't remember which ones—so he's established relationships—[Interruption.] Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Central south. +Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working. +Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes—for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report. +John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members—you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG—because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record—can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3—another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5—a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +",The committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 17.42. +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor C: Starts {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD D: No . That 's a different thing . +Professor C: There 's another {disfmarker} I don't know . It starts with a P or something . I forget the word for it , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's um +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: Typically when you {disfmarker} you 're ab r starting around forty for most people , it starts to harden and then it 's just harder for the lens to shift things +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: and th the {disfmarker} the symptom is typically that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have to hold stuff uh uh further away to {disfmarker} to see it . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor C: In fact , uh m my brother 's a {pause} gerontological psychologist and he {disfmarker} he uh {vocalsound} came up with an {disfmarker} an uh {disfmarker} a uh body age test which uh gets down to sort of only three measurements that are good enough st statistical predictors of all the rest of it . And one of them is {disfmarker} is the distance {vocalsound} that you have to hold it at . +PhD D: Give someone a piece of paper and then they {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: We 're {disfmarker} we 're live by the way , so we 've got a good intro here +Professor C: Oh . Yeah . About how old I am . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: We can edit that out if you want . +PhD D: Oh , that 's optional . +Professor C: No , that 's OK . +Grad A: OK . So . This time the form discussion should be very short , +PhD D: You know . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: right ? +Professor C: It also should be {pause} later . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Because Jane uh is not here yet . +Grad A: Good point . +Professor C: And uh she 'll be most interested in that . Uh , she 's probably least involved in the signal - processing stuff so maybe we can just {disfmarker} just uh , I don't think we should go though an elaborate thing , but um uh Jose and I were just talking about {vocalsound} the uh {nonvocalsound} uh , speech e energy thing , +PhD E: The @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor C: and I uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: We didn't talk about the derivatives . But I think , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} i if I can {disfmarker} if you don't mind my {disfmarker} my speaking for you for a bit , um {vocalsound} Uh . Right now , that he 's not really showing any kind of uh distinction , but uh {disfmarker} but we discussed a couple of the possible things that uh he can look at . Um . And uh one is that uh this is all in log energy and log energy is basically compressing the distances {vocalsound} uh {pause} between things . Um {pause} Another is that he needs to play with the {disfmarker} the different uh {pause} uh temporal sizes . He was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he was taking everything over two hundred milliseconds uh , and uh he 's going to vary that number and also look at moving windows , as we discussed before . Um And uh {disfmarker} and the other thing is that the {disfmarker} yeah doing the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} subtracting off the mean and the variance in the {disfmarker} {pause} uh and dividing it by the {pause} standard deviation in the log domain , {vocalsound} may not be {pause} the right thing to do . +Grad A: Hi Jane ! +PhD E: Hi . +Grad A: We just started . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Could you take that mike there ? +PhD D: Are these the long term means ? Like , over the whole {disfmarker} I mean , the means of {pause} what ? +Grad A: Thanks . +Professor C: Uh B Between {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD D: All the frames in the conversation ? +Professor C: No . +PhD D: Or of things that {disfmarker} +Professor C: Between {disfmarker} Neither . It 's uh between the pauses {pause} uh for some segment . +PhD E: No . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so i i his {disfmarker} his {disfmarker} He 's making the constraint it has to be at least two hundred milliseconds . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: And so you take that . And then he 's {disfmarker} he 's uh measuring at the frame level {disfmarker} still at the frame level , of what {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: and then {disfmarker} and then just uh normalizing with that larger amount . um and {disfmarker} But one thing he was pointing out is when he {disfmarker} he looked at a bunch of examples in log domain , it is actually pretty hard to see {vocalsound} the change . And you can sort of {pause} see that , because of j of just putting it on the board that {vocalsound} if you sort of have log - X plus log - X , that 's the log of X plus the log of two +PhD E: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah , maybe it 's not log distributed . +PhD E: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: and it 's just , {pause} you know , it {disfmarker} it diminishes the {pause} effect of having two of them . +PhD E: +Professor C: Um . +PhD D: But you could do like a C D F there instead ? I mean , we don't know that the distribution here is normally . +Professor C: Yes , right . So {disfmarker} So what I was suggesting to him is that {disfmarker} +PhD D: So just some kind of a simple {disfmarker} +Professor C: Actually , a PDF . But , you know , uh But , either way . +PhD D: PDF +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah , eith eith uh {vocalsound} B +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Something like that where it 's sort of data driven . +Professor C: Yeah , but I think {pause} also u I think a good first indicator is when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the researcher looks at {vocalsound} examples of the data and can not see a change {pause} in how big the {disfmarker} the signal is , {vocalsound} when the two speaker {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Then , that 's a problem right there . So . I think you should at least be able , +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Professor C: doing casual looking and can get the sense , "" Hey , there 's something there . "" and then you can play around with the measures . And when he 's looking in the log domain he 's not really seeing it . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . And when he 's looking in straight energy he is , so that 's a good place to start . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um . So that was {disfmarker} that was the discussion we just had . Um . {vocalsound} The other thing Actually we ca had a question for Adam in this . Uh , when you did the {vocalsound} sampling ? uh {pause} over the {pause} speech segments or s or sampling over the {disfmarker} the individual channels in order to do the e uh the {pause} amplitude equalization , {vocalsound} did you do it over just the entire {disfmarker} everything in the mike channels ? +PhD E: How {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't try to find speech ? +Grad A: No , I just took over the entire s uh entire channel um {pause} sampled ten minutes randomly . +Professor C: Right , OK . So then that means that someone who didn't speak {pause} very much {vocalsound} would be largely represented by silence . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: And someone who would {disfmarker} who would be {disfmarker} So the normalization factor probably is {pause} i i i {pause} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , this was quite quick and dirty , and it was just for {pause} listening . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And for listening it seems to work really well . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , it 's not {disfmarker} Not a good measure . +Professor C: Right . So th +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . So yeah there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} There 's a good chance then given that different people do talk different amounts {pause} that there is {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there is still a lot more to be gained from gain norm normalization with some sort +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mmm . +Grad A: Yes , absolutely . +Professor C: if {disfmarker} if we can figure out a way to do it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . But we were agreed that in addition to that {comment} uh there should be {pause} s stuff related to pitch and harmonics and so forth . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we didn't talk at all about uh the other derivatives , but uh again just {disfmarker} just looking at {disfmarker} Uh , I think uh Liz has a very good point , that in fact it would be much more graphic just to show {disfmarker} Well , actually , you do have some distributions here , uh for these cases . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: You have some histograms , um {pause} and {pause} uh , they don't look very separate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: uh {vocalsound} {pause} separated . +PhD E: This is the {disfmarker} the first derivate of log of frame energy uh without any kind of normalization . +PhD D: What {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Log energy . Sorry . +PhD E: These the These are the {disfmarker} the first experiments uh with comment uh +PhD D: Frame energy . +Grad A: Except that {pause} it 's hard to judge this because the {disfmarker} they 're not normalized . It 's just number of frames . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But yeah , even so . +PhD D: W {vocalsound} I mean , what I meant is , even if you use linear , {pause} you know , raw {pause} measures , like {pause} raw energy or whatever , +Professor C: "" Number "" {disfmarker} +PhD D: maybe we shouldn't make any assumptions about the distribution 's shape , and just use {disfmarker} you know , use the distribution to model the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {pause} the mean , or what y you know , rather than the mean take some {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} And so in {disfmarker} in these he 's got that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: He 's got some pictures . But he doesn't {disfmarker} he doesn't in the {disfmarker} he i +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: just in derivatives , but not in the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Oh . +Professor C: but he d but he doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . So , we don't {pause} know what they look like {pause} on the , {pause} tsk {disfmarker} {comment} For the raw . +Professor C: But he didn't h have it for the energy . He had it for the derivatives . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So . I mean , there might be something there . I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Huh . +Grad A: Interesting +PhD E: Here I {disfmarker} I +Professor C: Oh that {disfmarker} yeah that 's a good q +PhD E: in {disfmarker} No I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the result +Professor C: did {disfmarker} did you have this sort of thing , for just the {disfmarker} just the l r uh the {disfmarker} the unnormalized log energy ? OK . Yeah . So she {disfmarker} she 's right . +PhD E: but it 's the {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the following . +Professor C: That 's a {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it might be just good to know what it looks like . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} That 's uh {pause} cuz I 'd mentioned scatter plots before but she 's right , +PhD D: Cuz {disfmarker} +PhD E: Huh ? +Professor C: I mean , even before you get the scatter plots , just looking at a single feature {vocalsound} uh , looking at the distribution , is a good thing to do . +PhD E: Yeah . Catal - uh {disfmarker} Combining the different possibilities of uh the parameters . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the scatter plot {pause} combining eh different {pause} n two combination . +Professor C: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but what she 's saying {pause} is , which is right , is {pause} le +PhD E: combination of two , {pause} of energy and derivate {disfmarker} +Professor C: I mean , let 's start with the {disfmarker} Before we get complicated , let 's start with the most basic wh thing , which is {pause} we 're arguing that if you take energy {disfmarker} uh if you look at the energy , that , when two people are speaking at the same time , usually {vocalsound} {pause} there 'll be more energy than when one is right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's {disfmarker} that sort of hypothesis . +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor C: And the first way you 'd look at that , uh s she 's , you know , absolutely right , is that you would just take a look at the distribution of those two things , much as you 've plotted them here , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , but just {disfmarker} but just {disfmarker} {pause} just uh do it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well in this case you have three . You have the silence , and that {disfmarker} that 's fine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh with three colors or three shades or whatever , just {disfmarker} just look at those distributions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then , given that as a base , you can see if that gets improved , you know , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} {pause} or worsened {pause} by the {disfmarker} looking at regular energy , looking at log energy , we were just proposing that maybe it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's harder to {pause} see with the log energy , um and uh also these different normalizations , does a particular choice of normalization make it better ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I had maybe made it too complicated by suggesting early on , that you look at scatter plots because that 's looking at a distribution in two dimensions . Let 's start off just in one , uh , with this feature . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: I think that 's probably the most basic thing , before anything very complicated . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Um And then we w I think we 're agreed that pitch - related things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are going to be a {disfmarker} a really likely candidate to help . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . I agree , yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: Um {pause} But {pause} since {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh your intuition from looking at some of the data , is that when you looked at the regular energy , that it did in fact usually go up , {vocalsound} when two people were talking , {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} eh you know , you should be able to come up with a measure which will {pause} match your intuition . +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: And she 's right , that a {disfmarker} that having a {disfmarker} having {disfmarker} {comment} having this table , with a whole bunch of things , {pause} with the standard deviation , the variance and so forth , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's harder to interpret than just looking at the {disfmarker} the same kind of picture you have here . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Uh - huh . Yeah . But {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's curious but uh I f I found it in the {disfmarker} in the mixed file , in one channel {vocalsound} that eh in several {disfmarker} oh e eh several times eh you have an speaker talking alone with a high level of energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh in the middle eh a zone of overlapping with mmm less energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and eh come with another speaker with high energy +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: and the overlapping zone has eh less energy . +Professor C: Yeah . So there 'll be some cases for which {disfmarker} +PhD E: Because there reach very many +Professor C: But , the qu So {disfmarker} So they 'll be {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I w want to point {pause} to visual things , But I mean they {disfmarker} there 'll be time {disfmarker} There 'll be overlap between the distributions , but the question is , "" If it 's a reasonable feature at all , there 's some separation . "" +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Especially locally . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Locally . +PhD E: just locally , yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I was just going to say that {disfmarker} that {pause} right now we 're just exploring . +PhD D: And the other thing is I Sorry . I {disfmarker} +Grad A: What you would imagine eventually , is that you 'll feed all of these features into some {pause} discriminative system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: And so even if {disfmarker} if one of the features does a good job at one type of overlap , another feature might do a good job at another type of overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Right . I mean the {disfmarker} the reason I had suggested the scatter f p features is I used to do this a lot , when we had thirteen or fifteen or twenty features {pause} to look at . +PhD E: Yeah , this is the {disfmarker} +Professor C: um Because something is a good feature uh by itself , you don't really know how it 'll behave in combination and so it 's nice to have as many {disfmarker} as many together at the same time as possible in uh in some reasonable visual form . There 's cool graphic things people have had sometimes to put together three or four in some funny {disfmarker} funny way . But it 's true that you shouldn't do any of that unless you know that the individual ones , at least , have {disfmarker} have some uh {disfmarker} some hope +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , especially for normalizing . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , it 's really important to {pause} pick a normalization that matches the distribution for that feature . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And it may not be the same for all the types of overlaps or the windows may not be the same . e Actually , I was wondering , {vocalsound} right now you 're taking a {disfmarker} all of the {pause} speech , from the whole meeting , and you 're trying to find points of overlap , but we don't really know which speaker is overlapping with which speaker , +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: right ? So I mean another way would just be to take the speech from just , say , Morgan , And just Jane and then just their overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: like {disfmarker} but by hand , by cheating , and looking at you know , if you can detect something that way , because if we can't do it that way , there 's no good way that we 're going to be able to do it . +Grad A: No prayer . +PhD D: That {disfmarker} You know , there might be something helpful and cleaner about looking at just {pause} individuals and then that combination alone . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Plus , I think it has more elegant {disfmarker} e +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: The m the right model will be {pause} easier to see that way . So if {disfmarker} I don't know , if you go through and you find Adam , cuz he has a lot of overlaps and some other speaker who also has e enough speech +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and just sort of look at those three cases of Adam and the other person and the overlaps , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: maybe {disfmarker} and just look at the distributions , maybe there is a clear pattern +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: but we just can't see it because there 's too many combinations of {disfmarker} of people that can overlap . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: I had the same intuition last {disfmarker} last {disfmarker} last week . +PhD D: So . Just seems sort of complex . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think it 's {disfmarker} to start with it 's s your {disfmarker} your idea of simplifying , starting with something that {pause} you can see {pause} eh you know without the {pause} extra {pause} layers of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Cuz if energy doesn't matter there , like {disfmarker} I don't think this is true , but what if +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Sorry , what ? +PhD D: Hmm ? +PhD E: To study individual ? +Postdoc B: Well , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you don't have to study everybody individually +PhD D: Well , to study the simplest case to get rid of extra {disfmarker} +PhD E: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} Consider {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but {pause} just simple case and the one that has the lot of data associated with it . +PhD D: Right . Cuz what if it 's the case and I don't think this is true {disfmarker} +Grad A: That was a great overlap by the way . +PhD D: What if it 's the case that when two people overlap they equate their {disfmarker} you know , there 's a {pause} conservation of energy and everybody {disfmarker} both people talk more softly ? I don't think this happens at all . +Postdoc B: Or {disfmarker} or what if what if the equipment {disfmarker} what if the equipment adjusts somehow , +PhD D: Or they get louder . +Postdoc B: there 's some equalizing in there ? +PhD D: Yeah or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , no we don't have that . +PhD D: I mean . +Grad A: Well , but {disfmarker} But I think that 's what I was saying about different types of overlap . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: But . +Postdoc B: Saturation . +PhD D: There are {disfmarker} there are different types , and within those types , like as Jose was saying , that {pause} sounded like a backchannel overlap , meaning the kind that 's {pause} a friendly encouragement , like "" Mm - hmm . "" , "" Great ! "" , "" Yeah ! "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And it doesn't take {disfmarker} you don't take the floor . Um , but , some of those , as you showed , I think can be discriminated by the duration of the overlap . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . It {disfmarker} Actually the s new student , Don , who um Adam has met , and he was at one of our meetings {disfmarker} He 's {pause} getting his feet wet and then he 'll be starting again {pause} in mid - January . He 's interested in trying to distinguish the types of overlap . I don't know if he 's talked with you yet . But in sort of honing in on these different types +PhD E: Yeah . I don't consi Now I don't consider that possibility . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} So maybe {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is a s a general studio of the overlapping we 're studying the {disfmarker} i +Professor C: Yeah . Well {pause} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would s actually still recommend that he do the overall thing +PhD D: So it might be something that we can {pause} help by categorizing some of them and then , you know , look at that . +Professor C: because {pause} it would be the quickest thing for him to do . He could {disfmarker} You see , he already has all his stuff in place , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: he has the histogram mechanism , he has the stuff that subtracts out {disfmarker} and all he has to do is change it uh uh from {disfmarker} from log to plain energy and plot the histogram and look at it . And then he should go on and do the other stuff bec but {disfmarker} But this will {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah , no . I didn't mean that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} for you to do that , but I was thinking if {disfmarker} if Don and I are trying to get {pause} categories +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and we label some data for you , and we say this is what we think is going {disfmarker} So you don't have to worry about it . And here 's the three types of overlaps . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll do the labelling for you . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Hm - hmm . +PhD D: Um . +PhD E: Consider different class of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah , that we would be working on anyway . +PhD E: If there 's time . +PhD D: Then maybe {pause} you can try some different things for those three cases , and see if that helps , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . This is the thing I {disfmarker} I comment with you before , that uh we have a great variation of th situation of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And the behavior for energy is , uh log energy , {vocalsound} is not uh the same all the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: But I guess I was just saying that {disfmarker} that right now uh from the means that you gave , I don't have any sense of whether even , you know , there are any significant number of cases for which there is distinct {disfmarker} and I would imagine there should be some {disfmarker} you know , there should be {disfmarker} The distributions should be somewhat separated . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh and I {disfmarker} I would still guess that if they are not separated at all , that there 's some {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's most likely something wrong in the way that we 're measuring it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: Um , but {pause} um For instance , I mean I wouldn't expect that it was very common overall , that when two people were talking at the same time , that it would {disfmarker} that it really was lower , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: although sometimes , as you say , it would . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: So . So . +PhD D: Yeah , no , that was {disfmarker} That was a jok +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: or a sort of , a case where {disfmarker} where you would never know that unless you actually go and look at two individuals . +Professor C: I mean . No . It could {disfmarker} it probably does happen sometimes . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Mind if I turned that light off ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Grad A: The flickering is annoying me . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: It might the case , though , that the significant energy , just as Jose was saying , comes in the non - backchannel cases . Because in back Most people when they 're talking don't change their own {pause} energy when they get a backchannel , cuz they 're not really predicting the backchannel . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And sometimes it 's a nod and sometimes it 's an "" mm - hmm "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And the "" mm - hmm "" is really usually very low energy . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So maybe those don't actually have much difference in energy . But {pause} all the other cases might . +Professor C: e {vocalsound} e and {disfmarker} and again what they {disfmarker} what difference there was would kind of be lost in taking the log , +PhD D: and the backchannels are sort of easy to spot s in terms of their words or {disfmarker} I mean , just listen to it . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor C: so , as well . +PhD D: Well , it would be lost {pause} no matter what you do . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mmm , no , if it 's {disfmarker} if i if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Tone +Professor C: Well , it won't be as big . +PhD D: I mean , even if you take the log , you can {disfmarker} your model just has a more sensitive {pause} measures . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sure , but tone might be very +PhD D: So . +Grad A: Yeah , you 're "" mm - hmm "" tone is going to be very different . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . Right . +Grad A: You could imagine doing specialized ones for different types of backchannels , if you could {disfmarker} if you had a good model for it . Your "" mm - hmm "" detector . +Professor C: If {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} a I guess my point is , if you 're doing essentially a linear separation , taking the log first does in fact make it harder to separate . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} So , uh if you i i So i if there {disfmarker} if there close to things it does +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: it 's a nonlinear operation that does in fact change the distinction . If you 're doing a non if you 're doing some fancy thing then {disfmarker} then yeah . And right now we 're essentially doing this linear thing by looking across here and {disfmarker} and saying we 're going to cut it here . Um and that {disfmarker} that 's the indicator that we 're getting . But anyway , yeah , we 're not {pause} disagreeing on any of this , we should look at it more uh {disfmarker} more finely , but uh uh I think that {disfmarker} This often happens , you do fairly complicated things , and then you stand back from them and you realize that you haven't done something simple . So uh , if you generated something like that just for the energy and see , and then , a a a as {disfmarker} as Liz says , when they g have uh uh smaller um , more coherent groups to look at , that would be another interesting thing later . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then that should give us some indication {disfmarker} between those , should give us some indication of whether there 's anything to be achieved f from energy at all . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor C: And then you can move on to the uh {pause} uh more {nonvocalsound} pitch related stuff . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think this is a good idea . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Not consider the log energy . +Professor C: Yeah . But then the {disfmarker} Have you started looking at the pitch related {pause} stuff at all , or {disfmarker} ? Pitch {pause} related ? +PhD E: The {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: Harmonicity and so on ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I 'm preparing the {disfmarker} the program but I don't {disfmarker} I don't begin because eh {vocalsound} I saw your email +Professor C: Preparing to {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD E: and {pause} I agree with you it 's better to {disfmarker} I suppose it 's better to {disfmarker} to consider the {disfmarker} the energy this kind of parameter {vocalsound} bef +Professor C: Yeah . Oh , that 's not what I meant . No , no . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Well , we certainly should see this but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that the harm I certainly wasn't saying this was better than the harmonicity and pitch related things I was just saying +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I go on with the {disfmarker} with the pitch , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: aha ! {pause} OK . +Professor C: Yeah , I was just saying {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I understood uh that eh {pause} I {disfmarker} I had to finish {pause} by the moment with the {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and concentrate my {disfmarker} my energy in that problem . +Professor C: OK . OK . {vocalsound} OK . But I think , like , all these derivatives and second derivatives and all these other very fancy things , I think I would just sort of look at the energy {pause} and then get into the harmonicity as {disfmarker} as a suggestion . +PhD E: OK . I go on with the pitch . +Professor C: Uh OK . So maybe uh since w we 're trying to uh compress the meeting , um , I know Adam had some form stuff he wanted to talk about and did you have some ? +Postdoc B: I wanted to ask just s something on the end of this top topic . So , when I presented my results about the uh distribution of overlaps and the speakers and the profiles of the speakers , at the bottom of that I did have a proposal , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: and I had plan to go through with it , of {disfmarker} of co coding the types of overlaps that people were involved in s just with reference to speaker style so , you know , with reference {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: and you know I said that on my {disfmarker} in my summary , +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Postdoc B: that {pause} you know so it 's like people may have different amounts of being overlapped with or overlapping +PhD D: Yeah , I remem Right . +Postdoc B: but that in itself is not informative without knowing what types of overlaps they 're involved in so I was planning to do a taxonomy of types overlaps with reference to that . +PhD D: That would be great . +Postdoc B: So , but it you know it 's like it sounds like you also have uh something in that direction . +PhD D: That would be really great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc B: Is {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +PhD D: We have nothing {disfmarker} You know , basically , we got {pause} his environment set up . He 's {disfmarker} he 's a double - E {comment} you know . So . It 's mostly that , {pause} if we had to {pause} label it ourselves , we {disfmarker} we would or we 'd have to , to get started , but if {disfmarker} {pause} It {disfmarker} it would be much better if you can do it . You 'd be much better {comment} at doing it also because {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm not {disfmarker} I don't have a good feel for how they should be sorted out , +Postdoc B: Interesting . +PhD D: and I really didn't wanna go into that if I didn't have to . So if {disfmarker} If you 're w willing to do that or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be interesting , though , to talk , maybe not at the meeting , but at some other time about what are the classes . +Postdoc B: Well maybe we can OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I think that 's a research {pause} effort in and of itself , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , it would be interesting . +PhD D: because you can read the literature , but I don't know how it 'll {pause} turn out +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: and , You know , it 's always an interesting question . +Postdoc B: It seems like we also s with reference to a purpose , too , that we we 'd want to have them coded . +PhD E: I would think it 's interesting , yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: That 'd be great . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: That 'd be really great . +Postdoc B: I can do that . +PhD D: And we 'd still have some {pause} funding for this project , +PhD E: uh uh +PhD D: like probably , if we had to hire some {disfmarker} like an undergrad , because uh Don is being covered half time on something else {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean , he {disfmarker} we 're not paying him {pause} the full RA - ship for {disfmarker} all the time . So . {vocalsound} um If we got it to where we wanted {disfmarker} we needed someone to do that {disfmarker} I don't think there 's really enough data where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah , I see this as a prototype , to use the only the {disfmarker} the already transcribed meeting as just a prototype . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I think a a another parameter we c we {disfmarker} we can consider is eh the {pause} duration . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Another e e m besides eh the {disfmarker} the class of overlap , the duration . Because is possible {vocalsound} eh some s s um eh some classes eh has eh {pause} a type of a duration , eh , {pause} a duration very short uh when we have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have overlapping with speech . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , definitely . +Postdoc B: Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} It may be correlated . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Is possible to have . And it 's interesting , {pause} I think , {pause} to consider the {disfmarker} the window of normalization , normalization window . Eh {pause} because eh if we have a type of , {pause} a kind of eh overlap , eh backchannel overlap , with a short duration , is possible {pause} eh to normali i i that if we normalize eh with eh {pause} eh consider only the {disfmarker} the eh window eh by the left eh ri eh {pause} side on the right side overlapping with a {disfmarker} a very {pause} eh oh a small window eh the {disfmarker} if the fit of normalization is eh mmm bigger eh in that overlapping zone eh very short +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's true . The window shouldn't be larger than the backchannel . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I me I {disfmarker} I understand . I mean that you have eh you have a backchannel , eh , eh {disfmarker} you have a overlapping zone very short +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: and you consider eh n eh all the channel to normalize this very short eh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: for example "" mmm mm - hmm hmm "" eh And the energy is not eh height eh I think if you consider all the channel to normalize and the channel is {pause} mmm bigger {pause} eh eh eh compared with the {disfmarker} with the overlapping eh duration , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: eh the effect is mmm stronger eh {pause} that I {disfmarker} I mean the {disfmarker} the e effect of the normalization eh with the mean and the {disfmarker} and the variance eh is different that if you consider {pause} only a {pause} window compared eh with the n the duration of overlapping . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . You {disfmarker} you want it around the overlapping part . +PhD E: Not {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: You want it to include something that 's not in overlapping +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but uh +PhD E: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} s If {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well it 's a sliding window , right ? So if you take the {disfmarker} the measure in the center of the overlapped {pause} piece , you know , there 'd better be some something . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: But if your window is really huge then yeah you 're right you won't even {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , This is the {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} the idea , {vocalsound} to consider only the {disfmarker} the small window near {disfmarker} near {disfmarker} near the {disfmarker} the overlapping zone . +PhD D: The portion of the {disfmarker} {comment} of the backchannel won't {disfmarker} won't effect anything . But you {disfmarker} Yeah . So . You know , you shouldn't be more than like {disfmarker} {pause} You should definitely not be three times as big as your {disfmarker} as your {pause} backchannel . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Then you 're gonna w have a wash . And hopefully it 's more like on the order of {disfmarker} +Professor C: I 'm not sure that 's {pause} necessarily true . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc B: It is an empirical question , it seems like . +Professor C: Because {disfmarker} because it {disfmarker} because um again if you 're just compensating for the gain , +PhD D: Yea +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: you know , the fact that this {disfmarker} this gain thing was crude , and the gain wh if someone is speaking relatively at consistent level , just to {disfmarker} to give a {disfmarker} an extreme example , all you 're doing is compensating for that . And then you still s And then if you look at the frame with respect to that , it still should {disfmarker} should uh change +PhD D: Yeah , it depends how different your normalization is , as you slide your window across . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean . That 's something we don't know . +Postdoc B: It 's possible to try it both ways , +Grad A: Well , I mean we 're also talking about a couple of different things . +Postdoc B: isn't it ? in this small +Grad A: I mean , one is your analysis window and then the other is any sort of normalization that you 're doing . +PhD D: Yeah I was talking about the n normalization window . +Grad A: And the {disfmarker} And they could be quite different . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: This was sort of where {disfmarker} where we were last week . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . Yeah . +Professor C: But , anyway We {disfmarker} we 'll have to look at some core things . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Um . But that 'd be great if {disfmarker} if you 're marking those +PhD E: OK . +Postdoc B: Great . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} um . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: But it is definitely true that we need to have the time marks , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and I was assuming that will be inherited because , if you have the words and they 're roughly aligned in time via forced alignment or whatever we end up using , then you know , this {pause} student and I would be looking at the time marks +Postdoc B: Yep , I agree . Mm - hmm . Coming off of the other {disfmarker} +PhD D: and classifying all the frames inside those as whatever labels Jane gave +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Good . So , it wouldn't be {pause} I wasn't planning to label the time marks . +PhD D: +PhD E: I can give you my transcription file , +Postdoc B: I was thinking that that would come from the engineering side , +PhD D: I don't think you need to . +PhD E: no ? +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . That should be linked to the words which are linked to time somehow , +Postdoc B: There you go . +Grad A: Well we 're not any time soon going to get a forced alignment . +PhD D: right ? Not now . +Grad A: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um If it 's not hand - marked then we 're not going to get the times . +PhD D: Well , it 's something that w Well , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't be able to do any work without a forced alignment anyway , +PhD E: Yes +PhD D: so somehow if {disfmarker} once he gets going we 're gonna hafta come up with one +Professor C: Yes . +PhD D: and Yeah . +Grad A: I mean w I guess we could do a very bad one with Broadcast News . +Postdoc B: Good . Good . +PhD D: So whatever you would label would be attached to the words , I think . +Postdoc B: Great ! Good , good . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Well again for the close {pause} mike stuff , we could come up {disfmarker} take a s take the Switchboard system or something , +Grad A: That might be good enough . Yeah . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} Um +Grad A: It 'd be worth a try . It would be interesting to see what we get . +Professor C: Just , you know , low - pass filter the speech and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Cuz there 's {disfmarker} there 's a lot of work you can't do without that , I mean , how {disfmarker} how would you {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: You 'd have to go in and measure every start and stop point next to a word +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: It would be very inefficient . +PhD D: is y if you 're interested in anything to do with words . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Anyway {pause} So that 'd be great . +Postdoc B: Good . OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: There 's something we should talk about later but maybe not just now . But , uh , should talk about our options as far as the uh uh {pause} transcription +Grad A: Yep , if IBM doesn't {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Well , w But we 'll do that later . +Postdoc B: OK . Good . +PhD D: Do we hafta {pause} turn {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . Let 's do that later . +PhD D: Are we supposed to keep recording here ? +Grad A: Yeah {vocalsound} Right . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 'll talk about it later . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: So {vocalsound} uh Uh "" forms "" . +Grad A: Forms Next iteration of forms . +Professor C: You had something on forms . +Grad A: Oops . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Oh good , OK . +Professor C: Um . Oh . +Postdoc B: How {disfmarker} So it 's two pages per person ? +Grad A: Nope . One 's a digit form , one 's a speaker form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! +Grad A: So one is a one time only {pause} speaker form and the other is the digits . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Oh it 's the same . Oh no no . Is {disfmarker} is new Is OK . +Grad A: So don't fill these out . +Postdoc B: Alright . +Grad A: This is just the suggestion for uh what the new forms would look like . So , they incorporate the changes {pause} that we talked about . +Postdoc B: Date and time . Uh why did you switch the order of the Date and Time fields ? This is rather a low - level , but +Grad A: On which one ? +Postdoc B: On {disfmarker} on the new one , Time comes first and then Date , but I thought {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh you mean on the digit form ? +Postdoc B: This is {disfmarker} this is rather a low level question , but {disfmarker} but it used {disfmarker} used to be Date came first . +Grad A: Uh , because the user fills out the first three fields and I fill out the rest . +Postdoc B: Oh I see . +Grad A: So it was intentional . +Postdoc B: Well , how would the {disfmarker} How would the user know the time if they didn't know the date ? +Grad A: It 's an interesting observation , but it was intentional . Because the date is when you actually read the digits and the time and , excuse me , the time is when you actually read the digits , but I 'm filling out the date beforehand . If you look at the form in front of you ? that you 're going to fill out when you read the digits ? you 'll see I 've already filled in the date but not the time . +Postdoc B: Yeah . I always assumed {disfmarker} So the time is supposed to be pretty exact , because I 've just been taking beginning time {disfmarker} time of the meeting . +PhD D: Yeah , me too . +Grad A: Yeah , I 've noticed that in the forms . +PhD E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} the reason I put the time in , is so that the person who 's extracting the digits , meaning me , will know where to look in the meeting , to try to find the digits . +PhD D: +PhD E: Me too . Oh ! +Postdoc B: Oh dear . We 've been {disfmarker} we 've been messing up your forms . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} I am put {disfmarker} I am putting the beginning of the meeting . +Grad A: I know . +PhD D: So you should call it , like , "" digits start time "" . Or . +Grad A: And I haven't said anything . Yep . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} on there . +Professor C: Why {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} what were you putting in ? +Postdoc B: Oh , well , I was saying if we started the meeting at two thirty , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I 'd put two thirty , and I guess d e everyone was putting two thirty , +Professor C: Oh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , it 's about fifty fifty . +Postdoc B: and I didn't realize there was "" uh oh I 'm about to read this and I should "" {disfmarker} +Grad A: Actually it 's about one third each . About one third of them are blank , about one third of them are when the digits are read , and about one third of them are when the {pause} meeting starts . So . +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: This would be a radical suggestion but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I could put instructions ? Nah . +Postdoc B: Ei - either that or maybe you could maybe write down when people {vocalsound} start reading digits on that particular session . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But if I 'm not at the meeting , I can't do that . +Postdoc B: I know , OK . That 's a good point . +Professor C: Yeah , he 's been setting stuff up and going away . So . +Postdoc B: I see . Good point good point . +Professor C: For some reason he doesn't want to sit through every meeting that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep , but that is the reason Name , Email and Time are where they are . +Postdoc B: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I rest my {disfmarker} +Grad A: And then the others are later on . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: OK . w +PhD E: And the Seat is this number ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: Seat and Session . +PhD D: "" For official use only "" That 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , he 's very professional . +PhD E: "" use only "" +Postdoc B: Actually you could {disfmarker} Well that does raise another question , which is why is the "" Professional use only "" line not higher ? Why doesn't it come in at the point of Date and Seat ? Oh . Because we 're filling in other things . +Grad A: What ? +Professor C: What ? +Postdoc B: Well , because {disfmarker} If y your {disfmarker} your professional use , you 're gonna already have the date , and the s +Grad A: What {disfmarker} which form are you talking about ? +Postdoc B: Well I 'm comparing the new one with the old one . This is the digit form . +PhD E: Oh . +Grad A: Oh you 're talking about the digit form . +Professor C: Digit . Digit form . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't {disfmarker} The digit {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh ! I wasn't supposed to {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: No , that 's alright . +Postdoc B: Sorry . Sorry . +Grad A: The digit form doesn't have a "" for official use only "" line . It just has a line , {pause} which is what you 're supposed to read . +Postdoc B: That {disfmarker} uh OK . +Grad A: So on the digits form , everything above the line is a fill - in form +Postdoc B: Sorry about that . Yeah . +Grad A: and everything below the line is digits that the user reads . +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . Alright s but I didn't mean to derail our discussion here , so you really wanted to start with this other form . +Grad A: No , either way is fine I just {disfmarker} You just started talking about something , and I didn't know which form you were referring to . +Postdoc B: Alright yeah , I was comparing {disfmarker} so th this is {disfmarker} So I was looking at the change first . So it 's like we started with this and now we 've got a new version of it wi {pause} with reference to this . So the digit form , we had one already . Now the f the fields are slightly different . +Professor C: So the main thing that the person fills out um {pause} is the name and email and time ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: You do the rest ? +PhD E: Ah ! +Grad A: Yep . Just as uh {disfmarker} as I have for all the others . +Postdoc B: What {disfmarker} And there 's an addition of the native language , which is a bit redundant . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: This one has Native Language and this one does too . +Grad A: That 's because the one , the digit form that has native language is the old form not the new form . +Postdoc B: Oh ! Thank you . {pause} Thank you , thank you . There we go . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , yeah . I 'll catch up here . OK , I see . +Professor C: "" South Midland , North Midland "" +Postdoc B: That 's the old and that 's the new . +Grad A: Yeah this was the problem with these categories , I {disfmarker} I picked those categories from TIMIT . I don't know what those are . +PhD D: Actually , the only way I know is from working with the database and having to figure it out . +PhD E: What {disfmarker} +Grad A: With TIMIT , yeah ? +PhD E: uh - huh . +Grad A: So , I was gonna ask +PhD E: What i +Professor C: So is South Midland like Kansas ? +Grad A: wh w I mean . +Professor C: and North Midland like {disfmarker} like uh Illinois , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Well yeah . Nor - um {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} so what accent are we speaking ? Western ? +Professor C: By definition ? +PhD E: And for simple for {disfmarker} for me ? +Professor C: Well , +PhD D: Probably Western , yeah . +PhD E: Is mean my native language Spanish {disfmarker} Spanish ? eh The original is the center of Spain and the {vocalsound} beca +Grad A: Yeah , I mean you could call it whatever you want . For the foreign language we couldn't classify every single one . So I just left it blank and you can put whatever you want . +PhD E: Because is different , the Span - uh {pause} the Spanish language from the {disfmarker} the north of Spain , of the south , of the west and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD E: But . +Grad A: So I 'm not sure what to do about the Region field for English variety . You know , when I wrote {disfmarker} I was writing those down , I was thinking , "" You know , these are great {pause} if you 're a linguist "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: But I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to {disfmarker} I don't know how to categorize them . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Actually even if you {vocalsound} {pause} t +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} if e {vocalsound} if y +PhD D: This wasn't developed by {disfmarker} th these regions weren't {disfmarker} +Professor C: if you 're a TI or MIT {vocalsound} from {vocalsound} nineteen eighty - five . +Grad A: Yeah So I guess my only question was if {disfmarker} if you were a South Midland speaking region , person ? Would you know it ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Is that what you would call yourself ? +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: You know , I think if you 're talking {disfmarker} if you 're thinking in terms of places , {pause} as opposed to {pause} names different peop names people have given to {pause} different ways of talking , {pause} I would think North Midwest , and South Midwest would be more common than saying Midland , right , I mean , I {disfmarker} I went to s +PhD D: Yeah . Now {pause} the usage {disfmarker} Maybe we can give them a li {pause} like a little map ? with the regions and they just {disfmarker} No , I 'm serious . +Postdoc B: No , that 's not bad . Yeah . +PhD D: Because it takes less time , and it 's sort of cute +PhD E: i at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in that side {disfmarker} in that side of the {disfmarker} the paper . +PhD D: there 's no figure . +Professor C: Well . +PhD D: Well just a little {disfmarker} You know , it doesn't have all the detail , but you sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: But what if you moved five times and {disfmarker} and uh +Postdoc B: Well , I was thinking you could have ma multiple ones and then the amount of time {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , but you 're categorized . That 's the same {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: so , roughly . So . You could say , {pause} you know "" ten years {pause} on the east coast , five years on the west coast "" or something or other . +Grad A: Well , We {disfmarker} I think we don't want to get that level of detail at this form . I think that 's alright if we want to follow up . But . +Professor C: I guess we don't really know . +PhD D: I mean I {disfmarker} As I said , I don't think there 's a huge {pause} benefit to this region thing . It {disfmarker} it gets {disfmarker} The problem is that for some things it 's really clear and usually listening to {comment} it you can tell right away if it 's a New York or Boston accent , but New York and Boston are two {disfmarker} well , I guess they have the NYC , but New England has a bunch of very different dialects and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {pause} so does um S So do other places . +Grad A: Yeah , so I picked these regions cuz we had talked about TIMIT , and those are right from TIMIT . +PhD D: Right . And so these would be {pause} satisfying like a speech {pause} research {pause} community if we released the database , +Grad A: So . +PhD D: but as to whether subjects know where they 're from , I 'm not sure because um I know that they had to fill this out for Switchboard . This is i almost exactly the same as Switchboard regions +Postdoc B: Oh . OK . +PhD D: or very close . Yeah . Um And I don't know how they filled that out . But th if Midland {disfmarker} Yeah , Midland is the one that 's difficult I guess . +Postdoc B: I think a lot of people {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Also Northwest you 've got Oreg - Washington and Oregon now which uh y people don't know if it 's western or northern . +Grad A: Yeah , I certainly don't . I mean , I was saying I don't even know what I speak . +PhD D: It 's like Northwest +Grad A: Am I speaking {disfmarker} Am I speaking Western ? +Professor C: Oh , what is Northern ? Well and what {disfmarker} and what 's Northern ? +PhD D: I think originally it was North {disfmarker} Northwest +Grad A: Northwest ? +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , so this is a real problem . I don't know what to do about it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I wouldn't know how to characterize mine either . And {disfmarker} and so I would think {disfmarker} I would say , I 've {disfmarker} I 've got a mix of California and Ohio . +Grad A: I c I think at the first level , for example , we speak the same . +PhD D: I don't know . +Grad A: our {disfmarker} our dialects Or {pause} whatever you {disfmarker} region are the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Grad A: But I don't know what it is . So . +PhD D: Well , you have a like techno - speak accent I think . +Grad A: a techno - speak accent ? +PhD D: Yeah , you know ? +PhD E: A techno +Grad A: A {disfmarker} a geek region ? +PhD D: Well it 's {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} you can sort of identify +Postdoc B: Geek region . +PhD D: it f It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not that that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is different . Is different . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} but maybe that {disfmarker} maybe we could leave this and see what people {disfmarker} See what people choose and then um let them just fill in if they don't {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what else we can do , cuz {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's North Midland . +Postdoc B: I 'm wondering about a question like , "" Where are you from mostly ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: But I {disfmarker} I 'm s I 'm {disfmarker} now that you mentioned it though , I am {disfmarker} really am confused by "" Northern "" . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . I agree . +Professor C: I really am . +Postdoc B: I agree . +Professor C: I mean , if {disfmarker} if you 're {pause} in New England , that 's North . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: If you 're {disfmarker} i if you 're +Postdoc B: Scandinavian , the Minnesota area 's north . +Professor C: Uh yeah . That 's {disfmarker} But that 's also North Midland , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Oh , @ @ . {disfmarker} OK . +Professor C: right ? +Postdoc B: +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Oregon and {disfmarker} and Oregon and Washington are {disfmarker} are Western , but they 're also Northern . +PhD D: Yeah . Of course , that 's very different from , like , Michigan , or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: uh , Idaho ? +PhD D: Well there are hardly any subjects from Idaho . +Professor C: Montana ? +Grad A: No problem . +Postdoc B: Just rule them out . +PhD D: There 's only a few people in Idaho . +Grad A: There are hardly any subjects from "" beep "" +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Sorry . +Professor C: Maybe {disfmarker} Maybe we {disfmarker} Maybe we should put a little map and say "" put an X on where you 're from "" , +PhD D: No , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: And {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} in those {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah really . +PhD D: We could ask where they 're from . +PhD E: And if you put {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: It 'd be pretty simple , yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . But - We went back to that . +PhD E: Yeah . If you put eh the state ? +Grad A: Well well we sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Where are you from mostly ? +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we went {disfmarker} we went around this and then {pause} a lot of people ended up saying that it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Well , I like the idea of asking "" what variety of English do you speak "" as opposed to where you 're from Because th if we start asking where we 're from , again you have to start saying , "" well , is that the language you speak or is that just where you 're from ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +PhD D: Right . Right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor C: Let 's {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean it gives us good information on where they 're from , but that doesn't {comment} tell us anything {disfmarker} +Grad A: And {disfmarker} +Professor C: We could always ask them if they 're from {disfmarker} +PhD D: well , enough about their {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean . So {disfmarker} so I would say Germany +PhD D: like {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know am I speaking with German accent +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad A: I don't think so . +Postdoc B: Well , see , I 'm thinking "" Where are you from mostly "" +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Oh , OK yeah . +Postdoc B: because , you know , then you have some {disfmarker} some kind of subjective amount of time factored into it . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Yeah , I guess I could try to put {disfmarker} squeeze in a little map . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean there 's not a lot of r of room +Professor C: I 'd say , uh , "" Boston , New York City , the South and Regular "" . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , I don't know . +Grad A: I think of those , Northern is the only one that I don't even know what they 're meaning . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {pause} And usually here {disfmarker} people here know what is their kind of mmm lang English language ? +Professor C: That 's a joke . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So let 's make it up . S I mean , who cares . Right ? We can make up our own {disfmarker} So we can say "" Northwest "" , "" Rest of West "" or something . You know . "" West "" and I mean . +Grad A: Ye I don't think the Northwest people speak any differently than I do . +PhD D: It doesn't even {disfmarker} Yeah , exactly . That 's not really a region . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: "" Do you come from the Louisiana Purchase ? "" +PhD D: So we could take out "" North "" {disfmarker} "" Northern "" . +Grad A: That {disfmarker} that 's exactly what we 're arguing about . +PhD E: eh here Is easy for people to know ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah , w It 's {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's harder in America anywhere else , basically . +Grad A: We don't know . +PhD E: because you have {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean some of them are very obvious . If you {disfmarker} if you talk to someone speaking with Southern drawl , you know . +PhD E: N m Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , or Boston . +Grad A: Or Boston , yeah . +Postdoc B: I can't do it , but {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or Boston ? +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: And those people , if you ask them to self - identify their accent they know . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah , they do . +PhD D: They know very well . +Postdoc B: Yeah I agree I agree . I agree . +PhD D: They know they don't speak the same as the +Grad A: But is Boston New England ? +Postdoc B: And they 're proud of it . +PhD D: day o +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , exactly . +Postdoc B: It 's identity thing . +PhD D: And they 're glad to tell you . +PhD E: style . +PhD D: Well . Depends who you ask , I suppose . +Grad A: W {vocalsound} I guess that 's the problem with these categories . +PhD E: +PhD D: But that 's why they have New York City but {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Well , we ca Well , why can't we just say characterize {disfmarker} something like char characterize your accent +Professor C: Well , Boston 's @ @ , too . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} "" Characterize your accent {pause} if you can . "" +Postdoc B: and {disfmarker} and so I would say , "" I don't know "" . +PhD D: Yeah . Right , which probably means you have a very {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But someone from Boston with a really strong coloration would know . And so would an R - less Maine {disfmarker} or something , +PhD D: And that 's actually good . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: yeah . +PhD D: I was {disfmarker} I was thinking of something along that line +Professor C: How +Postdoc B: Good . +PhD D: because {pause} if you don't know , then , you know , ruling out the fact that you 're totally {pause} inept or something , +Postdoc B: Hmm . +PhD D: if somebody doesn't know , it probably means their accent isn't very strong compared to the sort of midwest standard . +Professor C: Well , {vocalsound} I mean , it wasn't that long ago that we had somebody here who was from Texas who was absolutely sure that he didn't have any accent left . +Postdoc B: Hmm ? +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and had {disfmarker} he had a pretty {vocalsound} noticeable drawl . +Grad A: OK , so . I propose , {pause} take out Northern add , don't know . +Postdoc B: Oh . {pause} Yeah . I {disfmarker} I would say more {disfmarker} more sweepingly , "" how would you characterize your accent ? "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: So you want to change the instructions also not just say region ? +PhD D: W +Postdoc B: Well , I think this discussion has made me think that 's s something to consider . +Grad A: I don't know if I {disfmarker} if I read this form , I think they 're going to ask {comment} it {disfmarker} they 're going to answer the same way if you say , "" What 's variety of English do you speak ? Region . "" as if you say "" what variety of region {disfmarker} region {comment} do you speak ? Please characterize your accent ? "" They 're going to answer the same way . +Postdoc B: I guess {disfmarker} Well , I was not sure that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mmm . +Postdoc B: So . I was suggesting not having the options , just having them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , I see . +PhD E: Huh . +Grad A: Well what we talked about with that is {pause} is so that they would understand the granularity . +Postdoc B: Yes , but if , as Liz is suggesting , people who have strong accents know that they do {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's what I had before , and you told me to list the regions to list them . +Postdoc B: and are {disfmarker} Well , I know . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: Each {disfmarker} each one has pros and cons +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Right . +Postdoc B: That 's true . +Professor C: Right . +PhD D: I mean we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah last week {disfmarker} last week I was sort of r arguing for having it wide open , but then everybody said "" Oh , no , but then it will be hard to interpret because some people will say Cincinnati and some will say Ohio "" . +Grad A: I mean I had it wide open last week and {disfmarker} and you said TIMIT . +Professor C: And . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: What if we put in both ? +Grad A: That 's what the "" Other "" is for . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} Would people {disfmarker} No , I mean what if we put in both ways of asking them ? So . One is {pause} Region and the another one is "" if you had to characterize yourself {disfmarker} your accent , what would you say ? "" +Grad A: Won't they answer the same thing ? +PhD D: Well they might only answer only one of the questions but if +Postdoc B: Yeah that 's fine . +PhD D: You know . +Postdoc B: They might say "" Other "" for Region because they don't know what category to use +PhD D: Actually {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: but they might have something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +Postdoc B: because it is easier to have it open ended . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} And we {disfmarker} we might learn from what they say , as to which one 's a better {comment} way to ask it . +Professor C: W This is just a small thing +PhD D: But {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Cuz I really don't know . +Professor C: but um It says "" Variety "" and then it gives things that e have American as one of the choices . But then it says "" Region "" , but Region actually just applies to uh , US , +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: right ? +Grad A: I mean that 's why I put the "" Other "" in . +Postdoc B: Well , we thought about it . +Professor C: Ah , OK . +Postdoc B: Yeah , OK . We just {disfmarker} We sort of thought , "" yes , {disfmarker} "" y y I mean {disfmarker} +Professor C: S +Postdoc B: At the last meeting , my recollection was that {pause} we felt people would have uh less {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that there are so many types and varieties of {pause} these other languages and we are not going to have that many subjects from these different language groups +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: and that it 's a huge waste of {disfmarker} of space . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: So I mean , I {disfmarker} I mean the way I had it last time {pause} was Region was blank , +Postdoc B: That 's what I thought . +Grad A: it just said Region colon . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and I think that that 's the best way to do it , +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Grad A: because {disfmarker} because of the problems we 're talking about but what we said last week , was no , put in a list , so I put in a list . So should we go back to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Maybe we can make the list a little smaller . +Grad A: Well , certainly dropping "" Northern "" I think is right , because none of us know what that is . +PhD D: Cuz , I mean {disfmarker} And keeping "" Other "" , and then {pause} maybe this North Midland , we call it "" North Midwest "" . South {pause} Midwest , or just {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . +PhD D: South Midwest . Does that make sense ? +PhD E: South Midwest ? +PhD D: That would help me {disfmarker} +Professor C: U unless you 're from Midland , Kansas . +PhD D: Yeah . Cuz {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Professor C: But . Yeah . +PhD D: I don't know where Midland is +Professor C: There 's a {disfmarker} Or Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is "" Midwest "" one word ? +Professor C: Is it Midland {disfmarker} Midland {disfmarker} Midland , Texas or Midland , Kansas ? I forget . +PhD D: Y yeah , one w +Professor C: But there 's a town . in {disfmarker} in there . +PhD D: Oh . +Professor C: I forget what it is @ @ . +Postdoc B: I don't think that 's what they mean . +PhD D: But , +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: yeah . So . Kansas would be {pause} South Midland . Right ? +Professor C: Y yeah . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} and wouldn't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: And Colorado , right across the border , would be {vocalsound} North Midland . +PhD D: So , th I 'm from Kansas , actually . +PhD E: Southern Midland . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Colora Oh , right . And then , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} dropping North , so it would be Western . It 's just one big shebang , where , of course , you have huge variation in dialects , +Grad A: But that 's true of New England too . +Professor C: But you do in the others , too . So . +PhD D: but {disfmarker} {comment} but so do you {disfmarker} +Grad A: So . I mean only one {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I shouldn't say that . I have no clue . I was going to say the only one that doesn't have a huge variety is New York City . But I have no idea whether it does or not . +Postdoc B: It does seem {disfmarker} I mean . I {disfmarker} I would think that these categories would be more {disfmarker} w would be easier for an an analyst to put in rather than the subject himself . +Professor C: U +Grad A: I think that {disfmarker} that was what happened with TIMIT , was that it was an analyst . +Postdoc B: OK . +Professor C: Wait a minute . Where does {disfmarker} Where does {disfmarker} {pause} d w Where {disfmarker} Where 's {disfmarker} where does uh {vocalsound} New {disfmarker} New York west of {disfmarker} west of uh New York City and {pause} Pennsylvania {pause} uh and uh +PhD D: Yeah , I don't know how it came from . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: New England +PhD D: So . That 's New England I think . +Professor C: N No , it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Oh , no . +Postdoc B: I sort of thought they were part of the {disfmarker} one of the Midlands . +Professor C: Oh no . No , no . {pause} No . Pennsylvania is not {disfmarker} +Grad A: "" Other "" , it goes under "" Other "" , definitely under "" Other "" . +PhD D: Well , you know , Pennsylvania has a pretty strong dialect and it 's totally different than {disfmarker} +Professor C: Pennsylvania {disfmarker} Yeah . Pennsylvania is not New England . and uh New Jersey is not New England and Maryland is not New England and none of those are the South . +Grad A: OK . So . Another suggestion . Rather than have circle fill in forms , say "" Region , open paren , E G Southern comma Western comma close paren colon . "" +Postdoc B: Yeah . OK . +PhD D: OK ! +Postdoc B: Fine by me , fine by me . +Professor C: That 's good . I like that . +PhD D: Sure ! +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We 're all {pause} sufficiently {pause} tired of this that we 're agreeing with you . +PhD D: Let 's just {disfmarker} And we 'll see what we get . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Be easier on the subjects . I think that 's fine . No . I think {disfmarker} +Professor C: So . +Postdoc B: I like that . I like that . +Professor C: You like it ? +Postdoc B: Yeah , I do . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Actually , maybe we do one non - English one as well . +Professor C: Good . +Grad A: Southern , Cockney ? +PhD D: Yeah , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Is that a {pause} real accent ? +Postdoc B: Sure , yeah ! +Grad A: How do you spell it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think that 's fine . +Professor C: Cockney ? +Grad A: N E +Professor C: CO {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: You could say Liverpool . +Professor C: Liverpuddlian . +Postdoc B: Yeah . Alright . +PhD D: Actually , Liverpool doesn't l Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'm s I ha +Postdoc B: Well . Well . I mean , pure {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , we 'll do it that way . Actually , I like that a lot . Because that get 's at both of the things we were trying to do , +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: the granularity , and the person can just self - assess and we don't have to argue about what these regions are . +Postdoc B: That 's right . And it 's easy on the subjects . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Now I have one suggestion on the next section . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: So you have native language , you have region , and then you have time spent in English speaking country . Now , I wonder if it might be useful to have another open field saying "" which one parenthesis S {comment} paren closed parenthesis "" . Cuz if they spent {pause} time in {disfmarker} in Britain and America {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yes . +Postdoc B: It doesn't have to be ex all {disfmarker} at all exact , just in the same open field format that you have . +Grad A: Yep , just which one . I think that 's fine . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . with a {disfmarker} with an S +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: "" which one sss , {comment} optional S . +Professor C: OK . +PhD E: +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: We uh {disfmarker} We done ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc B: Yeah , that 's good . +Professor C: OK . um s e Any {disfmarker} any other uh open mike topics or should we go {pause} right to the digits ? +Grad A: Um , did you guys get my email on the multitrans ? That {disfmarker} OK . +Postdoc B: Isn't that wonderful ! Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . So . So . I {disfmarker} I have a version also which actually displays all the channels . +Postdoc B: Excellent ! Thank you ! +PhD D: It 's really great . +Grad A: But it 's hideously slow . +Postdoc B: So you {disfmarker} this is n Dan 's patches , Dan Ellis 's patches . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} the ones I applied , that you can actually do are Dan 's , because it doesn't slow it down . +PhD D: M +Postdoc B: Fantastic ! +Grad A: Just uses a lot of memory . +PhD D: So when you say "" slow "" , does that mean to {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the one that 's installed is fine . It 's not slow at all . I wrote another version . Which , instead of having the one pane with the one view , It has multiple panes {pause} with the views . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But the problem with it is the drawing of those waveforms is so slow that every time you do anything it just crawls . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's really bad . +PhD D: It 's {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} it 's the redrawing of the w +Postdoc B: That 's a consideration . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: oh uh - huh , w as you move . +Grad A: As you play , as you move , as you scroll . Just about anything , and it {disfmarker} it was so slow it was not usable . So that 's why I didn't install it and didn't pursue it . +Postdoc B: And this 'll be a {disfmarker} hav having the multiwave will be a big help cuz {disfmarker} in terms of like disentangling overlaps and things , that 'll be a big help . +PhD D: Oh yeah . +Grad A: So . I think that the one Dan has is usable enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: It doesn't display the others . It displays just the mixed signal . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But you can listen to any of them . +Postdoc B: That 's excellent . He also has version control which is another nice +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: e so you {disfmarker} e the patches that you {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , he suggested that , but he didn't {disfmarker} {pause} It 's not installed . +Postdoc B: Oh , I thought it was in one of those patches . +Grad A: No . No . +Postdoc B: Oh OK . Well . Alright . +PhD D: So is there any hope for actually displaying the wave form ? +Grad A: Um , not if we 're going to use Tcl - TK At least not if we 're going to use Snack . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: I mean you would have to do something ourselves . +Postdoc B: Well , or use the one that crawls . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I probably would be trying to use the {disfmarker} {comment} whatever 's there . And it 's useful to have the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Why don't we {disfmarker} we see how Dan 's works and if it {disfmarker} If we really need the display {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . I mean . I wonder {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if we can display things other than the wave form . So . Suppose we have a feature {disfmarker} a feature stream . And it 's just , you know , a {disfmarker} a uni - dimensional feature , varying in time . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: And we want to plot that , instead of the whole wave form . +Grad A: I mean . +PhD D: That might be faster . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD D: Right ? +Grad A: We {disfmarker} we could do that but that would mean changing the code . +PhD D: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean this isn't a program we wrote . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: This is a program that we got from someone else , and we 've done patches on . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK . Well , I 'll talk to you about it and we can see +Grad A: So . +Professor C: Cou - i e I mean , y +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: but it 's definitely {pause} great to have the other one . +Professor C: If there was some {disfmarker} Is there some way to {pause} have someone write patches in something faster and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} link it in , or something ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Not easily . +Professor C: Or is that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean y yes we could do that . You could {disfmarker} you can write widgets in C . And try to do it that way but I just don't think {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Let 's try it with Dan 's and if that isn't enough , we can do it otherwise . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: I think it is , cuz when I was playing with it , the mixed signal has it all in there . And so it 's really {disfmarker} It 's not too bad to find places in the {disfmarker} in the stream where things are happening . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: So I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be bad . +Postdoc B: And it 's also {disfmarker} also the case that {disfmarker} that uh this multi - wave thing {pause} is proposed to the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm ? +Postdoc B: So . Dan proposed it to the Transcriber central people , and it 's likely that uh {disfmarker} So . And {disfmarker} and they responded favorably looks as though it will be incorporated in the future version . +PhD D: Oh . +Postdoc B: They said that the only reason they hadn't had the multi the parallel uh stream one before was simply that {pause} they hadn't had time to do it . And uh {pause} so it 's likely that this {disfmarker} this may be entered into the ch this central @ @ . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: And if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Professor C: They may well have not had much demand for it . +Postdoc B: Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's true , too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Postdoc B: This is a {disfmarker} {pause} a useful thing for us . +PhD D: So . You mean they could {disfmarker} they could do it and it would be {pause} fast enough if they do it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Depends on how much work they did . +Postdoc B: Oh . No . I just mean {disfmarker} I just mean that it 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that his {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Oh . +Postdoc B: So . {pause} This one that we now have does have the status of {pause} potentially being incorporated l likely being incorporated into the central code . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc B: Now , tha Now , if we develop further then , y uh , I don't {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if one of us sat down and coded it , so that it could be displayed fast enough I 'm sure they would be quite willing to incorporate it . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's {disfmarker} I think it 's a nice feature to have it {disfmarker} set that way . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But it 's not a trivial task . +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Postdoc B: I just like the idea of it being something that 's , you know , tied back into the original , so that other people can benefit from it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Yeah . However . I also understand that you can have {pause} widgets that are very useful for their purpose and that you don't need to always go that w route . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Grad A: anyway , shall we do digits ? +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Let 's do digits , uh , and then we 'll turn off the mikes , and then I have one other thing to discuss . +Postdoc B: OK . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: I actually have to leave . So . Um . I mean {pause} I had to leave at three thirty , +Postdoc B: Uh - oh . +Grad A: OK . +Professor C: Oh . +PhD D: so I can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , I can wait {pause} for the digits but I can't stay for the discussion +Grad A: Well , you want to go first ? Or . +PhD D: I c {pause} I have to make a call . +Professor C: OK . +PhD D: So . +Postdoc B: Well , should we {disfmarker} e should we switch off the g +Professor C: Well , we 'll talk to you about it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh +Grad A: Do you wanna go do digits or do you wanna just skip digits ? +PhD D: Um . No , I can do digits if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} But I don't wanna butt in , or something . +Grad A: Then {disfmarker} Alright . You go ahead . +PhD D: But if there 's something on the rest of the {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'll be around just have to make call before quarter of . So . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So I {disfmarker} Or we can talk about it . +Postdoc B: Ke +Grad A: Why don't you read the digits ? +Professor C: Yeah , why don't you read the digits and then you can {pause} go . +PhD D: OK . {vocalsound} Alright . Oh , this is the new one . +Grad A: Yeah , don't {disfmarker} Don't read the old one . +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD D: Alright . The {disfmarker} And the time is . OK . +Grad A: OK +Postdoc B: Turn it off . +Professor C: OK . +Postdoc B: But wait till he {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: And +","In the conversation, participants discuss adjustments to forms, specifically accent classification for speakers of English and other languages in the context of a research project. They start by debating the inclusion of regions like ""Northern"" or ""Midland,"" and how these could be confusing for subjects to identify with. A new proposal includes changing the form to have open fields where participants can characterize their accent or English variety instead of selecting from predetermined regions. They also mention adding an open field for the time spent in English-speaking countries. The issue of multiple pane displays being too slow for practical use is brought up, with some patches from Dan Ellis being incorporated into the current version. They agree to attempt to use Dan's version and, if needed, develop a faster alternative themselves. Additionally, there's a mention of a new multi-stream feature that might be included in the central code for broader benefit. Ph.D. D has to leave early and goes to read digits (part of their project protocol), which will be recorded, and then the team plans to turn off the mics for a final discussion." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK . We seem to be recording . +Professor G: Alright ! +Grad A: So , sorry about not {disfmarker} +Professor G: We 're not crashing . +PhD D: Number four . +Grad A: not pre - doing everything . The lunch went a little later than I was expecting , Chuck . +PhD E: Hmm ? +Professor G: OK . +PhD B: Chuck was telling too many jokes , or something ? +Grad A: Yep . Pretty much . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . {vocalsound} Does anybody have an agenda ? +Grad A: No . +Postdoc F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I sent a couple of items . They 're {disfmarker} they 're sort of practical . +Professor G: I thought {pause} somebody had . +Postdoc F: I don't know if you 're {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah , that 's right . +Postdoc F: if {disfmarker} if that 's too practical for what we 're {pause} focused on . +Grad A: I mean , we don't want anything too practical . +Professor G: Yeah , we only want th useless things . +Grad A: Yeah , that would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . No , why don't we talk about practical things ? +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Sure . +Postdoc F: Well , um , I can {pause} give you an update on the {pause} transcription effort . +Professor G: Great . +Postdoc F: Uh , maybe {nonvocalsound} raise the issue of microphone , uh , um procedures with reference to the {pause} cleanliness of the recordings . +Professor G: OK , transcription , uh , microphone issues {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And then maybe {nonvocalsound} ask , th uh , these guys . The {disfmarker} we have great {disfmarker} great , uh , p steps forward in terms of the nonspeech - speech pre - segmenting of the signal . +Professor G: OK . +Grad A: Well , we have steps forward . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a big improvement . +PhD C: I would prefer this . +Professor G: Yes . Yeah , well . OK . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: We talk about the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the results of +Professor G: You have some {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: I have a little bit of IRAM stuff +Professor G: OK . +PhD D: use {disfmarker} +Grad A: but {pause} I 'm not sure if that 's of general interest or not . +Professor G: Uh , bigram ? +Grad A: IRAM . +PhD D: IRAM . +Professor G: IRAM . +Grad A: IRAM , bigram , +Professor G: Well , m maybe . +PhD D: Bi - Bigram . +Grad A: you know . +Professor G: Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} let 's see where we are at three - thirty . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Since , uh {disfmarker} since I have to leave as usual at three - thirty , can we do the interesting stuff first ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +Professor G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which is {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: What 's the interesting stuff ? +Postdoc F: I beg your pardon ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . Th - now you get to tell us what 's the interesting part . +PhD E: Please specify . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well , uh , I guess the work that 's been {pause} done on segmentation would be most {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I think that would be a good thing to start with . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor G: OK . Um , and , um , {vocalsound} the other thing , uh , which I 'll just say very briefly that maybe relates to that a little bit , which is that , um , uh , one of the suggestions that came up in a brief meeting I had the other day when I was in Spain with , uh , Manolo Pardo and {vocalsound} Javier , uh , Ferreiros , who was {pause} here before , was , um , why not start with what they had before but add in the non - silence boundaries . So , in what Javier did before when they were doing , um {disfmarker} h he was looking for , uh , speaker change {pause} points . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Um . As a simplification , he originally did this only using {pause} silence as , uh , a {pause} putative , uh , speaker change point . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , he did not , say , look at points where you were changing broad sp uh , phonetic class , for instance . And for Broadcast News , that was fine . Here obviously it 's not . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , um , so one of the things that they were pushing in d in discussing with me is , um , w why are you spending so much time , uh , on the , uh , feature issue , uh , when perhaps if you sort of deal with what you were using before +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: and then just broadened it a bit , instead of just ta using silence as putative change point also {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Professor G: So then you 've got {disfmarker} you already have the super - structure with Gaussians and H - you know , simple H M Ms and so forth . And you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} So there was a {disfmarker} there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a difference of opinion because I {disfmarker} I thought that it was {disfmarker} it 's interesting to look at what features are useful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But , uh , on the other hand I saw that the {disfmarker} they had a good point that , uh , if we had something that worked for many cases before , maybe starting from there a little bit {disfmarker} Because ultimately we 're gonna end up {vocalsound} with some s su kind of structure like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: where you have some kind of simple HMM and you 're testing the hypothesis that , {vocalsound} uh , there is a change . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so anyway , I just {disfmarker} reporting that . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: But , uh , uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah , why don't we do the speech - nonspeech discussion ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . Do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hear {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you didn't {disfmarker} +PhD C: Speech - nonspeech ? OK . +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD C: Um , so , uh , what we basically did so far was using the mixed file to {disfmarker} to detect s speech or nonspeech {pause} portions in that . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And what I did so far is I just used our old Munich system , which is an HMM - ba based system with Gaussian mixtures for s speech and nonspeech . And it was a system which used only one Gaussian for silence and one Gaussian for speech . And now I added , uh , multi - mixture possibility for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for speech and nonspeech . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I did some training on {disfmarker} on one dialogue , which was transcribed by {disfmarker} Yeah . We {disfmarker} we did a nons s speech - nonspeech transcription . +PhD D: Jose . +PhD C: Adam , Dave , and I , we did , for that dialogue and I trained it on that . And I did some pre - segmentations for {disfmarker} for Jane . And I 'm not sure how good they are or what {disfmarker} what the transcribers say . They {disfmarker} they can use it or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Uh , they {disfmarker} they think it 's a terrific improvement . And , um , it real it just makes a {disfmarker} a world of difference . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: And , um , y you also did some something in addition which was , um , for those in which there {nonvocalsound} was , uh , quiet speakers in the mix . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , yeah . That {disfmarker} that was one {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one thing , uh , why I added more mixtures for {disfmarker} for the speech . So I saw that there were loud {disfmarker} loudly speaking speakers and quietly speaking speakers . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so I did two mixtures , one for the loud speakers and one for the quiet speakers . +Grad A: And did you hand - label who was loud and who was quiet , or did you just {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: I did that for {disfmarker} for five minutes of one dialogue +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and that was enough to {disfmarker} to train the system . +PhD B: W What {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: And so it {disfmarker} it adapts , uh , on {disfmarker} while running . So . +PhD B: What kind of , uh , front - end processing did you do ? +PhD C: Hopefully . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: It 's just our {disfmarker} our old Munich , uh , loudness - based spectrum on mel scale twenty {disfmarker} twenty critical bands and then loudness . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And four additional features , which is energy , loudness , modified loudness , and zero crossing rate . So it 's twenty - four {disfmarker} twenty - four features . +PhD B: Mmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And you also provided me with several different versions , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: which I compared . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And so you change {nonvocalsound} parameters . What {disfmarker} do you wanna say something about the parameters {nonvocalsound} that you change ? +PhD C: Yeah . You can specify {vocalsound} the minimum length of speech or {disfmarker} and silence portions which you want . And so I did some {disfmarker} some modifications in those parameters , basically changing the minimum {disfmarker} minimum {pause} length for s for silence to have , er to have , um {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} to have more or less , uh , silence portions in inserted . So . +Grad A: Right . So this would work well for , uh , pauses and utterance boundaries and things like that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: But for overlap I imagine that doesn't work at all , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that you 'll have plenty of s sections that are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: That 's it . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . But {nonvocalsound} it {disfmarker} it saves so much time {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcribers +Professor G: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: just enormous , enormous savings . Fantastic . +Professor G: That 's great . Um , just qu one quickly , uh , still on the features . So {vocalsound} you have these twenty - four features . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh , a lot of them are spectral features . Is there a {disfmarker} a transformation , uh , like principal components transformation or something ? +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . It was IS two . +PhD C: No . W w we {disfmarker} originally we did that +Professor G: Just {disfmarker} +PhD C: but we saw , uh , when we used it , uh , f for our close - talking microphone , which {disfmarker} yeah , for our {disfmarker} for our recognizer in Munich {disfmarker} we saw that w it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not so necessary . It {disfmarker} it works as well f with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} without , uh , a LDA or something . +Professor G: OK . OK . No , I was j {pause} curious . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah , I don't think it 's a big deal for this application , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Right . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . But then there 's another thing that also Thilo 's involved with , which is , um {disfmarker} OK , and {disfmarker} and also Da - Dave Gelbart . So there 's this {disfmarker} this problem of {disfmarker} and w and {disfmarker} so we had this meeting . Th - the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} also Adam , before the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} before you went away . Uh we , um {disfmarker} regarding the representation {nonvocalsound} of overlaps , because at present , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} um , because {nonvocalsound} of the limitations of {vocalsound} th the interface we 're using , overlaps are , uh , not being {nonvocalsound} encoded by {nonvocalsound} the transcribers in as complete {nonvocalsound} and , uh , detailed a way as it might be , and as might be desired {disfmarker} I think would be desired in the corpus ultimately . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: So we don't have start and end points {nonvocalsound} at each point where there 's an overlap . We just have the {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} overlaps {nonvocalsound} encoded in a simple bin . Well , OK . So {nonvocalsound} @ @ the limits of the {nonvocalsound} over of {disfmarker} of the interface are {vocalsound} such that we were {disfmarker} at this meeting we were entertaining how we might either expand {nonvocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} interface or find other tools which already {pause} do what would be useful . Because what would ultimately be , um , ideal in my {disfmarker} my view and I think {disfmarker} I mean , I had the sense that it was consensus , is that , um , a thorough - going musical score notation would be {nonvocalsound} the best way to go . Because {nonvocalsound} you can have multiple channels , there 's a single time - line , it 's very clear , flexible , and all those nice things . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . So , um , um , I spoke {disfmarker} I had a meeting with Dave Gelbart on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} and he had , uh , excellent ideas on how {pause} the interface could be {pause} modified to {disfmarker} to do this kind of representation . But , um , he {disfmarker} in the meantime you were checking into the existence of already , um , existing interfaces which might already have these properties . So , do you wanna say something about that ? +PhD C: Yes . Um , I {vocalsound} talked with , uh , Munich guys from {disfmarker} from Ludwi - Ludwig Maximilians University , who do a lot of transcribing and transliterations . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And they basically said they have {disfmarker} they have , uh , a tool they developed {pause} themselves and they can't give away , uh , f it 's too error - prone , and had {disfmarker} it 's not supported , a a a and {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD C: But , um , Susanne Bur - Burger , who is at se CMU , he wa who was formally at {disfmarker} in Munich and w and is now at {disfmarker} with CMU , she said she has something which she uses to do eight channels , uh , trans transliterations , eight channels simultaneously , +Professor G: Excuse me . +PhD C: but it 's running under Windows . +Postdoc F: Under Windows . +PhD C: So I 'm not sure if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we can use it . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: She said she would give it to us . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: It wouldn't be a problem . And I 've got some {disfmarker} some kind of manual {pause} down in my office . +Grad A: Well , maybe we should get it and if it 's good enough we 'll arrange Windows machines to be available . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . We could {disfmarker} uh , potentially {nonvocalsound} so . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: I also wanted to be sure {disfmarker} I mean , I 've {disfmarker} I 've seen the {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this is called Praat , PRAAT , {nonvocalsound} which I guess means spee speech in Dutch or something . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah , but then I 'm not sure {pause} that 's the right thing for us . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} In terms {nonvocalsound} of it being {nonvocalsound} Windows {nonvocalsound} versus {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: No , no . Praat isn't {disfmarker} Praat 's multi - platform . +Postdoc F: But I 'm just wondering , is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: No . No , Praat {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh ! I see . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , I see . So Praat may not be {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's not Praat . It 's called "" trans transedit "" {pause} I think . +Postdoc F: It 's a different one . +PhD C: The {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the tool from {disfmarker} from Susanne . +Postdoc F: I see . Oh , I see . OK . OK . Alright . +Professor G: The other thing , uh , to keep in mind , uh {disfmarker} I mean , we 've been very concerned to get all this rolling so that we would actually have data , +Postdoc F: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: but , um , I think our outside sponsor is actually gonna kick in +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: and ultimately that path will be smoothed out . So I don't know if we have a long - term need to do lots and lots of transcribing . I think we had a very quick need to get something out and we 'd like to be able to do some later because just it 's inter it 's interesting . But as far a you know , uh , with {disfmarker} with any luck we 'll be able to wind down the larger project . +Grad A: Oh . +PhD B: But you s +Grad A: What our decision was is that {pause} we 'll go ahead with what we have with a not very fine time scale on the overlaps . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Yeah . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} and do what we can later {pause} to clean that up if we need to . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I was just thinking that , um , {vocalsound} if it were possible to bring that in , like , {vocalsound} you know , this week , then {nonvocalsound} when they 're encoding the overlaps {nonvocalsound} it would be nice for them to be able to specify when {disfmarker} you know , the start points and end points of overlaps . +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: uh Th - they 're {nonvocalsound} making really quick progress . +Professor G: Yeah . That 's great . +Postdoc F: And , um , so my {disfmarker} my goal was {disfmarker} w m my charge was to get eleven hours by the end of the month . And it 'll be {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm clear that we 'll be able to do that . +Professor G: That 's great . +Grad A: And did you , uh , forward Morgan Brian 's {pause} thing ? +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I sent {nonvocalsound} it to , um {disfmarker} who did I send that to ? I sent it to a list and I thought {nonvocalsound} I sent it to {nonvocalsound} the {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} e to the local list . +PhD E: Meeting Recorder . +Grad A: Oh , you did ? OK . So you probably did get that . +Postdoc F: You saw that ? So Brian did tell {nonvocalsound} me that {nonvocalsound} in fact what you said , that , {nonvocalsound} uh {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} our {disfmarker} that they are {pause} making progress and that he 's going {disfmarker} that {nonvocalsound} they 're {nonvocalsound} going {disfmarker} he 's gonna check the f the output of the first transcription and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Professor G: I mean , basically it 's {disfmarker} it 's all the difference in the world . I mean , basically he 's {disfmarker} he 's on it now . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , that 's {disfmarker} this is a new development . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so i it 'll happen . +Postdoc F: OK . Super . Super . OK . Great . +Professor G: Yeah . I mean , basically it 's just saying that one of our {disfmarker} one of our best people is on it , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: you know , who just doesn't happen to be here anymore . Someone else pays him . So {disfmarker} +PhD B: But about the need for transcription , +Postdoc F: Isn't that great ? +PhD B: I mean , don't we {disfmarker} didn't we previously {vocalsound} decide that the {pause} IBM {pause} transcripts would have to be {pause} checked anyway and possibly augmented ? +Professor G: So . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes . That 's true . +PhD B: So , I think having a good tool is worth something no matter what . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . S OK . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good point . +Grad A: Yeah , and Dave Gelbart did volunteer , +Postdoc F: Good . +Grad A: and since he 's not here , I 'll repeat it {disfmarker} to at least modify Transcriber , which , if we don't have something else that works , I think that 's a pretty good way of going . +PhD C: Mmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we discussed on some methods to do it . My approach originally , and I 've already hacked on it a little bit {disfmarker} it was too slow because I was trying to display all the waveforms . But he pointed out that you don't really have to . I think that 's a good point . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: That if you just display the mix waveform and then have a user interface for editing the different channels , that 's perfectly sufficient . +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Yeah , exactly . And just keep those {nonvocalsound} things separate . And {disfmarker} and , um , Dan Ellis 's hack already allows them to be {nonvocalsound} able to display {vocalsound} different {nonvocalsound} waveforms to clarify overlaps and things , +Grad A: No . They can only display one , +Postdoc F: so that 's already {disfmarker} +Grad A: but they can listen to different ones . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes , but {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} uh , yes , but {nonvocalsound} what I mean is {pause} that , uh , from the transcriber 's {nonvocalsound} perspective , uh , those {nonvocalsound} two functions are separate . And Dan Ellis 's hack handles the , {vocalsound} um , choice {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the ability to choose different waveforms {vocalsound} from moment to moment . +Grad A: But only to listen to , not to look at . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: The waveform you 're looking at doesn't change . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's true . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah , but {nonvocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's OK , cuz they 're {disfmarker} they 're , you know , they 're focused on the ear anyway . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: And then {disfmarker} and then +Professor G: Hmm . +Postdoc F: the hack to {vocalsound} preserve the overlaps {nonvocalsound} better would be one which creates different output files for each channel , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: which then {nonvocalsound} would also serve Liz 's request {pause} of having , you know , a single channel , separable , uh , cleanly , easily separable , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: uh , transcript tied to a single channel , uh , audio . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Have , uh , folks from NIST been in contact with you ? +Postdoc F: Not directly . I 'm trying to think if {disfmarker} if I could have gotten it over a list . +Professor G: OK . +Postdoc F: I don't {disfmarker} I don't think so . +Professor G: OK . Well , holidays may have interrupted things , cuz in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} They {vocalsound} seem to want to {pause} get absolutely clear on standards for {disfmarker} transcription standards and so forth with {disfmarker} with us . +Postdoc F: Oh ! This was from before December . Yeah . +Professor G: Right . Because they 're {disfmarker} they 're presumably going to start recording next month . +Postdoc F: OK . OK . +Grad A: Oh , we should definitely get with them then , +Professor G: So . +Grad A: and agree upon a format . Though I don't remember email on that . So was I not in the loop on that ? +Professor G: Um . Yeah , I don't think I mailed anybody . I just think I told them to contact Jane {disfmarker} that , uh , if they had a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , OK . +Postdoc F: That 's right . +Professor G: if , uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that , uh , as the point person on it . +Grad A: Yeah , I think that 's right . +Professor G: But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: So , yeah . Maybe I 'll , uh , ping them a little bit about it to {vocalsound} get that straight . +Postdoc F: OK . I 'm keeping the conventions {pause} absolutely {pause} as simple {nonvocalsound} as possible . +Professor G: Yeah . So is it {disfmarker} cuz with any luck there 'll actually be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} there 'll be collections at Columbia , collections at {disfmarker} at UW {disfmarker} I mean Dan {disfmarker} Dan is very interested in doing some other things , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Well , I think it 's important both for the notation and the machine representation to be the same . +Professor G: and collections at NIST . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Postdoc F: N there was also this , {nonvocalsound} uh , email from Dan regarding the {pause} speech - non nonspeech segmentation thing . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I don't know if , uh , uh , we wanna , uh {disfmarker} and Dan Gel - and Dave Gelbart is interested in pursuing the aspect {nonvocalsound} of using amplitude {nonvocalsound} as a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} as a basis for the separation . +Grad A: Cross - correlation . +Professor G: Oh , yeah . He was talking {disfmarker} he was talking {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we {disfmarker} he had {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Cross +Professor G: Yeah , cross - correlation . +PhD C: Cross +Professor G: I had mentioned this a couple times before , the c the commercial devices that do , uh , {vocalsound} uh , voice , uh {disfmarker} you know , active miking , +Postdoc F: Uh - huh . +Professor G: basically look at the amp at the energy at each of the mikes . And {disfmarker} and you basically compare the energy here to {vocalsound} some function of all of the mikes . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So , by doing that , you know , rather than setting any , uh , absolute threshold , you actually can do pretty good , uh , selection of who {disfmarker} who 's talking . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} And those {disfmarker} those systems work very well , by the way , I mean , so people use them in {vocalsound} panel discussions and so forth with sound reinforcement differing in {disfmarker} in sort of , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: uh {disfmarker} and , uh , those {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} Boy , the guy I knew who built them , built them like twenty {disfmarker} twenty years ago , +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor G: so they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the techniques work pretty well . +Postdoc F: Fantastic . Cuz there is one thing that we don't have right now and that is the automatic , um , channel identifier . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: That {disfmarker} that , you know , that would g help in terms of encoding of overlaps . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the transcribers would have less , uh , disentangling to do {pause} if that were available . +Professor G: Yeah . So I think , you know , basically you can look at some {disfmarker} p you have to play around a little bit , uh , to figure out what the right statistic is , +Postdoc F: But . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: but you compare each microphone to some statistic based on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Uh , and we also have these {disfmarker} we have the advantage of having {pause} distant mikes too . So that , you cou yo +Grad A: Yeah , although the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} using the close - talking I think would be much better . Wouldn't it ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: I just {disfmarker} it 'd be {disfmarker} If I was actually working on it , I 'd sit there and {disfmarker} and play around with it , and {disfmarker} and get a feeling for it . I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} But , uh , you certainly wanna use the close - talking , as a {disfmarker} at least . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: I don't know if the other would {disfmarker} would add some other helpful dimension or not . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . What {disfmarker} what are the different , uh , classes to {disfmarker} to code , uh , the {disfmarker} the overlap , you will use ? +Postdoc F: Um , to code d +PhD D: What you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: so types of overlap ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Um , so {nonvocalsound} at a meeting that wasn't transcribed , we worked up a {disfmarker} a typology . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Look like , uh , you t you explaining in the blackboard ? The {disfmarker} ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yes , exactly . That hasn't changed . So it {nonvocalsound} i the {disfmarker} it 's basically a two - tiered structure where the first one is whether {nonvocalsound} the person who 's interrupted continues or not . And then below that there 're {nonvocalsound} subcategories , uh , that have more to do with , {nonvocalsound} you know , is it , {vocalsound} uh , simply {nonvocalsound} backchannel +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: or is {nonvocalsound} it , um , someone completing someone else 's thought , or is it someone in introducing a new thought . +Grad A: Right . And I hope that if we do a forced alignment with the close - talking mike , that will be enough to recover at least some of the time the time information of when the overlap occurred . +PhD D: Huh . Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Well , {vocalsound} one would {disfmarker} +PhD D: We hope . +Grad A: Yeah . Who knows ? +Postdoc F: That 'd be {disfmarker} that 'd be nice . I mean , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: So who 's gonna do that ? Who 's gonna do forced alignment ? +Grad A: Well , u uh , IBM was going to . Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Oh , OK . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: and I imagine they still plan to but {disfmarker} but , you know , I haven't spoken with them about that recently . +PhD B: OK . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor G: Well , uh , my suggestion now is {disfmarker} is on all of these things to , uh , contact Brian . +Grad A: OK . I 'll do that . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: This is wonderful {nonvocalsound} to have a direct contact like that . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: uh Well , th lemme ask {nonvocalsound} you this . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: It occurs to me {disfmarker} {vocalsound} one of my transcribers t {nonvocalsound} told {nonvocalsound} me today that she 'll {nonvocalsound} be finished with one meeting , {vocalsound} um , by {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: well , she said tomorrow but then she said {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} you know , but {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} the , you know {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's just , uh , say +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: maybe the day after just to be s on the safe side . I could send Brian the , {nonvocalsound} um {disfmarker} the {nonvocalsound} transcript . I know these {nonvocalsound} are {disfmarker} er , uh , I could send him that {nonvocalsound} if {nonvocalsound} it would be possible , {nonvocalsound} or a good idea or not , to {nonvocalsound} try {nonvocalsound} to do a s forced alignment on what we 're {disfmarker} on the way we 're encoding overlaps now . +Professor G: Well , just talk to him about it . +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: I mean , you know , basically he 's {disfmarker} he just studies , he 's a colleague , a friend , and , +Postdoc F: Yeah ! +Professor G: uh , they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , you know , the {disfmarker} the organization always did wanna help us . +Postdoc F: Super . Super . +Professor G: It was just a question of getting , you know , the right people connected in , who had the time . +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah . +Professor G: So , um , eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is he on the mailing list ? The Meeting Recorder mailing li ? +Postdoc F: Oh ! +Grad A: We should add him . +Postdoc F: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know for sure . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Did something happen , Morgan , that he got put on this , or was he already on it , +Grad A: Add him . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: No , I , eh , eh , p It {disfmarker} it oc I {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} Yeah , something happened . I don't know what . +PhD B: He asked for more work . +PhD E: Huh . +Professor G: But he 's on it now . +Postdoc F: That would be {nonvocalsound} like {disfmarker} that 'd be like him . He 's great . +Professor G: Right . So , uh , where are we ? Maybe , uh , uh , brief {disfmarker} Well , let 's {disfmarker} why don't we talk about microphone issues ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . That 'd be great . +Professor G: That was {disfmarker} that was a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um , so one thing is that I did look on Sony 's for a replacement for the mikes {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the head m head - worn ones cuz they 're so uncomfortable . But I think I need someone who knows more about mikes than I do , because I couldn't find a single other model that seemed like it would fit the connector , which seems really unlikely to me . Does anyone , like , know stores or {vocalsound} know about mikes who {disfmarker} who would know the right questions to ask ? +Professor G: Oh , I probably would . I mean , my knowledge is twenty years out of date but some of it 's still the same . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} Uh , so maybe we c we can take a look at that . +PhD E: You couldn't {disfmarker} you couldn't find the right connector to go into these things ? +Grad A: Yep . When I looked , i they listed one microphone and that 's it +PhD E: Huh ! +Grad A: as having that type of connector . But my guess is that Sony maybe uses a different number for their connector than everyone else does . And {disfmarker} and so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Well , let 's look at it together +Grad A: it seems {disfmarker} it seems really unlikely to me that there 's only one . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And there 's no adaptor for it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Seems like there 'd be a {disfmarker} OK . +Grad A: As I said , who knows ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Who {disfmarker} who are we buying these from ? +Grad A: Um , +Professor G: That 'd be +Grad A: I have it downstairs . I don't remember off the top of my head . +Professor G: Yeah . OK . Yeah . We {disfmarker} we can try and look at that together . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} just in terms of how you wear them {disfmarker} I mean , I had thought about this before . I mean , when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you use a product like DragonDictate , they have a very extensive description about how to wear the microphone and so on . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Grad A: But I felt that in a real situation we were very seldom gonna get people to really do it and maybe it wasn't worth concentrating on . But {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , I think that that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good back - off position . That 's what I was saying {vocalsound} earlier , th that , you know , we are gonna get some {vocalsound} recordings that are imperfect and , hey , that 's life . But I {disfmarker} I think that it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt , uh , the naturalness of the situation to try to have people {pause} wear the microphones properly , if possible , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: because , {vocalsound} um , the natural situation is really what we have with the microphones on the table . +Grad A: Oh . That 's true . +Professor G: I mean , I think , {vocalsound} you know , in the target applications that we 're talking about , people aren't gonna be wearing head - mounted mikes anyway . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So this is just for u these head - mounted mikes are just for use with research . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , it 's gonna make {disfmarker} You know , if {disfmarker} if An - Andreas plays around with language modeling , he 's not gonna be m wanna be messed up by people breathing into the microphone . +Grad A: Right . +Professor G: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , I 'll dig through the documentation to DragonDictate and ste s see if they still have the little {pause} form . +Professor G: But it does happen . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , and any {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's interesting , uh , I talked to some IBM guys , uh , last January , I think , I was there . And {disfmarker} so people who were working on the {disfmarker} on their ViaVoice dictation product . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: And they said , uh , the breathing is really a {disfmarker} a terrible problem {pause} for them , to {disfmarker} to not recognize breathing as speech . +Postdoc F: Wow . +PhD B: So , anything to reduce breathing is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is a good thing . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Well , that 's the {disfmarker} It seemed to me when I was using Dragon that it was really microphone placement helped an {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} an enormous amount . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So you want it enough to the side so that when you exhale through your nose , it doesn't {disfmarker} the wind doesn't hit the mike . +PhD B: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then , uh {disfmarker} Everyone 's adjusting their microphones , of course . And then just close enough so that you get good volume . So you know , wearing it right about here seems to be about the right way to do it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Is {disfmarker} Uh - huh . +Professor G: I remember when I was {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used , uh , um , {vocalsound} a prominent laboratory 's , uh , uh , speech recognizer about , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} This was , boy , this was a while ago , this was about twelve {disfmarker} twelve years ago or something . And , um , they were {disfmarker} they were perturbed with me because I was breathing in instead of breathing out . And they had models for {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they had Markov models for br breathing out but they didn't have them for breathing in . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's interesting . Well , what I wondered is whether it 's possible to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to maybe use the display at the beginning +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: to be able to {disfmarker} to judge how {disfmarker} how correctly {disfmarker} I mean , have someone do some routine whatever , and {disfmarker} and then see if when they 're breathing it 's showing . +Grad A: I mean , when {disfmarker} when it 's on , you can see it . +Postdoc F: I don't know if the {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Grad A: You can definitely see it . +Postdoc F: Can you see the breathing ? +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Cuz I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Absolutely . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: And so , you know , I 've {disfmarker} I 've sat here and watched sometimes the breathing , +Professor G: I +Grad A: and the bar going up and down , and I 'm thinking , I could say something , but +Professor G: I mean , I think {disfmarker} +Grad A: I don't want to make people self - conscious . Stop breathing ! +Professor G: It {disfmarker} it 's going to be imperfect . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor G: You 're not gonna get it perfect . And you can do some , uh , you know , first - order thing about it , which is to have people move it , uh , uh , a away from being just directly in front of the middle +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . +Professor G: but not too far away . +Postdoc F: Yeah , i +Professor G: And then , you know , I think there 's not much {disfmarker} Because you can't al you know , interfere w you can't fine tune the meeting that much , I think . +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It 's sort of {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: That 's true . It just seems like i if something l simple like that can be tweaked {vocalsound} and the quality goes , you know , uh , dramatically up , then it might be worth {pause} doing . +Grad A: Yep . And then also {disfmarker} the position of the mike also . If it 's more directly , you 'll get better volume . So {disfmarker} so , like , yours is pretty far down {pause} below your mouth . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . My {disfmarker} my feedback from the transcribers is he is always close to crystal clear and {disfmarker} and just fan fantastic to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I don't know why that is . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you {disfmarker} Yeah , of course . You 're {disfmarker} you 're also {disfmarker} uh , your volume is {disfmarker} is greater . But {disfmarker} but still , I mean , they {disfmarker} they say {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 've been eating a lot . +Postdoc F: I it makes their {disfmarker} their job extremely easy . +Professor G: Uh . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's mass . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Anyway . +Postdoc F: I could say something about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} Well , I don't know what you wanna do . Yeah . +Professor G: About what ? +Postdoc F: About the transcribers or anything or {disfmarker} ? I don't know . +Professor G: Well , the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , uh , just to {disfmarker} to , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: why don't we do that ? +PhD B: One more remark , uh , concerning the SRI recognizer . Um . It is useful to transcribe and then ultimately train models for things like breath , and also laughter is very , very frequent and important to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to model . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So , +Grad A: So , +PhD B: if you can in your transcripts mark {disfmarker} +Grad A: mark them ? +PhD B: mark very audible breaths and laughter especially , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: They are . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc F: They 're putting {disfmarker} Eh , so in curly brackets they put "" inhale "" or "" breath "" . +Grad A: Oh , great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: It {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} and then in curly brackets they say "" laughter "" . Now they 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they 're not being {pause} awfully precise , uh , m So they 're two types of laughter that are not being distinguished . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: One is {vocalsound} when sometimes s someone will start laughing when they 're in the middle of a sentence . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and then the other one is when they finish the sentence and then they laugh . So , um , I {disfmarker} I did s I did some double checking to look through {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you 'd need to have extra e extra complications , like time tags indicating the beginning and ending of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the laughing through the utterance . +PhD B: It 's not so {disfmarker} I don't think it 's , um {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: And that {disfmarker} and what they 're doing is in both cases just saying "" curly brackets laughing "" a after the unit . +PhD B: As {disfmarker} as long as there is an indication that there was laughter somewhere between {pause} two words {vocalsound} I think that 's sufficient , +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Good . Oh ! +Grad A: Against {disfmarker} they could do forced alignment . +Postdoc F: OK . +PhD B: because actually the recognition of laughter once you kn um {disfmarker} you know , is pretty good . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD B: So as long as you can stick a {disfmarker} you know , a t a tag in there that {disfmarker} that indicates that there was laughter , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know that . +PhD B: that would probably be , uh , sufficient to train models . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: That would be a really interesting {pause} prosodic feature , +Postdoc F: Then {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And let me ask y and I gotta ask you one thing about that . +Grad A: when {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm . +Postdoc F: So , um , if they laugh between two words , you {disfmarker} you 'd get it in between the two words . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc F: But if they laugh across three or four words you {disfmarker} you get it after those four words . Does that matter ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , the thing that you {disfmarker} is hard to deal with is whe {vocalsound} when they speak while laughing . Um , and that 's , uh {disfmarker} I don't think that we can do very well with that . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: But , um , that 's not as frequent as just laughing between speaking , +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad A: So are {disfmarker} do you treat breath and laughter as phonetically , or as word models , or what ? +PhD B: so {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh is it ? +PhD D: Huh . I {disfmarker} I think it 's frequent in {disfmarker} in the meeting . +Postdoc F: I think he 's right . Yeah . +PhD B: We tried both . Uh , currently , um , we use special words . There was a {disfmarker} there 's actually a word for {disfmarker} uh , it 's not just breathing but all kinds of mouth {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mouth stuff ? +PhD B: uh , mouth {disfmarker} mouth stuff . And then laughter is a {disfmarker} is a special word . +Grad A: How would we do that with the hybrid system ? +Professor G: Same thing . +Grad A: So train a phone {pause} in the neural net ? +PhD B: Same thing ? Yeah . Yeah . You ha Oh . And each of these words has a dedicated phone . +Professor G: No {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it does ? +PhD B: So the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the mouth noise , uh , word has just a single phone , um , that is for that . +Grad A: Right . So in the hybrid system we could train the net with a laughter phone and a breath sound phone . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always the same thing . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could say well , let {disfmarker} we now think that laughter should have three sub sub {vocalsound} sub - units in the {disfmarker} the three states , uh {disfmarker} different states . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then you would have three {disfmarker} I mean , you know , eh , eh , it 's u +Grad A: Do whatever you want . +PhD B: And the {disfmarker} the pronun the pronunciations {disfmarker} the pronunciations are l are somewhat non - standard . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah , yeah . +PhD D: No . +PhD B: They actually are {disfmarker} uh , it 's just a single , s uh , you know , a single phone in the pronunciation , but it has a self - loop on it , so it can {disfmarker} +Grad A: To {pause} go on forever ? +PhD B: r can go on forever . +Grad A: And how do you handle it in the language model ? +PhD B: It 's just a {disfmarker} it 's just a word . +Grad A: It 's just a word in the language model . +PhD B: We train it like any other word . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD B: Yeah . We also tried , {vocalsound} um , absorbing these {disfmarker} uh , both laughter and {disfmarker} and actually also noise , and , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yes . OK . Anyway . We also tried absorbing that into the pause model {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the model that {disfmarker} that matches the stuff between words . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And , um , it didn't work as well . So . +Grad A: Huh . OK . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Can you hand me your digit form ? +PhD B: Sorry . +Grad A: I just wanna mark that you did not read digits . +Professor G: OK . Say hi for me . +Postdoc F: Good . You {disfmarker} you did get me to thinking about {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure which is more frequent , whether f f laughing {disfmarker} I think it may be an individual thing . Some people are more prone to laughing when they 're speaking . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: I was noticing that with Dan in the one that we , uh {disfmarker} we hand tran hand - segmented , +Professor G: Yeah . I think {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: But I can't {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: that {disfmarker} th he has these little chuckles as he talks . +Postdoc F: Yeah . OK . +Professor G: I 'm sure it 's very individual . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} one thing that c that we 're not doing , of course , is we 're not claiming to , uh , get {disfmarker} be getting a representation of mankind in these recordings . We have {vocalsound} this very , very tiny sample of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: Speech researchers ? +Professor G: Uh , yeah . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , r right . +PhD D: Speech research . +Professor G: So , uh , who knows . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Why don why don't we just {disfmarker} since we 're on this vein , why don't we just continue with , uh , what you were gonna say about the transcriptions +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: Um , um , the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm really very for I 'm extremely fortunate with the people who , uh , applied and who are transcribing for us . They {vocalsound} are , um , um , uh really perceptive and very , um {disfmarker} and I 'm not just saying that cuz they might be hearing this . +Grad A: Cuz they 're gonna be transcribing it in a few days . +Postdoc F: No , they 're super . They 're {disfmarker} the they {disfmarker} very quick . +PhD E: OK . Turn the mikes off and let 's talk . +Postdoc F: Yeah , I know . I am {disfmarker} I 'm serious . They 're just super . So I , um , e you know , I {disfmarker} I brought them in and , um , trained them in pairs because I think people can raise questions {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc F: you know , i i the they think about different things and they think of different {disfmarker} and um , I trained them to , uh , f on about a minute or two of the one that was already transcribed . This also gives me a sense of {disfmarker} You know , I can {disfmarker} I can use that later , with reference to inter - coder reliability kind of issues . But the main thing was to get them used to the conventions and , {vocalsound} you know , the idea of the {disfmarker} th th the size of the unit versus how long it takes to play it back so these {disfmarker} th sort of calibration issues . And then , um , I just set them loose and they 're {disfmarker} they all have e a already background in using computers . They 're , um {disfmarker} they 're trained in linguistics . +Grad A: Good . Oh , no . Is that good or bad ? +Postdoc F: They got {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: Well , they they 're very perce they 'll {disfmarker} So one of them said "" well , you know , he really said "" n "" , not really "" and "" , +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: so what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} what should I do with that ? "" +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And I said , "" well for our purposes , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I do have a convention . If it 's an {disfmarker} a noncanonical p "" That one , I think we {disfmarker} you know , with Eric 's work , I sort of figure we {disfmarker} we can just treat that as a variant . But I told them if {disfmarker} if there 's an obvious speech error , uh , like I said in one thing , +Professor G: OK . Yes . +Postdoc F: and I gave my {disfmarker} my example , like I said , "" microfon "" {pause} in instead of "" microphone "" . Didn't bother {disfmarker} I knew it when I said it . I remember s thinking "" oh , that 's not correctly pronounced "" . But it {disfmarker} but I thought {vocalsound} it 's not worth fixing cuz often when you 're speaking everybody knows what {disfmarker} what you mean . +Grad A: You 'll self - repair . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: But I have a convention that if it 's obviously a noncanonical pronunciation {disfmarker} a speech error with {disfmarker} you know , wi within the realm of resolution that you can tell in this native English {disfmarker} American English speaker , you know that I didn't mean to say "" microfon . "" Then you 'd put a little tick at the beginning of the word , +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and that just signals that , um , this is not standard , and then in curly brackets "" pron {nonvocalsound} error "" . And , um , and other than that , it 's w word level . But , you know , the fact that they noticed , you know , the "" nnn "" . "" He said "" nnn "" , not "" and "" . What shall I do with that ? "" I mean , they 're very perceptive . And {disfmarker} and s several of them are trained in IPA . C they really could do phonetic transcription if {disfmarker} if we wanted them to . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , you know , it might be something we 'd wanna do with some , uh , s small subset {pause} of the whole thing . +Grad A: Hmm . Where were they when {pause} we needed them ? +Postdoc F: I think {disfmarker} +Professor G: We certainly wouldn't wanna do it with everything . +Postdoc F: And I 'm also thinking these people are a terrific pool . I mean , if , uh {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I told them that , um , we don't know if this will continue past the end of the month +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: and I also {disfmarker} m I think they know that the data p source is limited and I may not be able to keep them employed till the end of the month even , although I hope to . +Professor G: The other thing we could do , actually , uh , is , uh , use them for a more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} Oh , that 'd be so super . They would be so {disfmarker} s so terrific . +Grad A: I mean , this was something that we were talking about . +Professor G: Right ? +Grad A: We could get a very detailed overlap if they were willing to transcribe each meeting four or five times . Right ? One for each participant . So they could by hand {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , that 's one way to do it . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: But I 've been saying the other thing is just go through it for the overlaps . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm , that 's right . +Professor G: Right ? +Postdoc F: And with the right in interface {disfmarker} +Professor G: Given that y and {disfmarker} and do {disfmarker} so instead of doing phonetic , uh , uh , transcription for the whole thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which {vocalsound} we know from the {disfmarker} Steve 's experience with the Switchboard transcription is , you know , very , very time - consuming . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you know , it took them I don't know how many months to do {disfmarker} to get four hours . And so {vocalsound} that hasn't been really our focus . Uh , we can consider it . But , I mean , the other thing is since we 've been spending so much time thinking about overlaps is {disfmarker} is maybe get a much more detailed analysis of the overlaps . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: But anyway , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to c our consideration . +Postdoc F: That 'd be great . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I don't wanna say that by fiat . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor G: I 'm open to every consideration of {vocalsound} what are some other kinds of detailed analysis that would be most useful . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: And , uh , uh , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {vocalsound} this year we {disfmarker} we actually , uh , can do it . +Postdoc F: Oh , wonderful . +Professor G: It 's a {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} due to @ @ {comment} variations in funding we have {disfmarker} we seem to be doing , uh , very well on m money for this {disfmarker} this year , and {vocalsound} next year we may have {disfmarker} have much less . +Grad A: Is {disfmarker} you mean two thousand one ? +Professor G: So I don't wanna hire a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Calendar year or {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Uh , I mean , calendar year two thousand one . +Grad A: OK . +Professor G: Yeah . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} we don't wanna hire a bunch of people , a long - term staff , +Grad A: Full - time . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor G: because {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the funding that we 've gotten is sort of a big chunk for this year . But {vocalsound} having {pause} temporary people doing some specific thing that we need is actually a perfect match to that kind of , uh , funding . +Postdoc F: Wonderful . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And then school will start in {disfmarker} in the sixt on the sixteenth . +Professor G: So . +Postdoc F: Some of them will have to cut back their hours at that point . +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD E: Are they working full - time now , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} Some of them are . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc F: Yeah . Well , why do I wouldn't say forty - hour weeks . No . But what I mean is {disfmarker} Oh , I shouldn't say it that way because {nonvocalsound} that does sound like forty - hour weeks . No . I th I {disfmarker} I would say they 're probably {nonvocalsound} {disfmarker} they don't have o they don't have other things that are taking away their time . +Grad A: I don't see how someone could do forty hours a week on transcription . +PhD E: Hmm . +Postdoc F: But {nonvocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} you can't . +Professor G: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: No . You 're right . It 's {disfmarker} i it would be too taxing . But , um , they 're putting {nonvocalsound} in a lot of {disfmarker} +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} and I checked them over . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't checked them all , but {pause} just spot - checking . They 're fantastic . +Grad A: I think it would be {disfmarker} +Professor G: I remember when we were transcribing BeRP , uh , uh , {vocalsound} uh , Ron Kay , uh , volunteered to {disfmarker} to do some of that . And , he was {disfmarker} the first {disfmarker} first stuff he did was transcribing Chuck . And he 's saying "" You {disfmarker} you know , I always thought Chuck spoke really well . "" +Postdoc F: Yeah . Yeah . Well , you know , and I also thought , y Liz has this , eh , you know , and I do also , this {disfmarker} this interest in the types of overlaps that are involved . These people would be {nonvocalsound} great choices for doing coding of that type if we wanted , +Grad A: We 'd have to mark them . +Postdoc F: or whatever . So , um . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think it would also be interesting to have , uh , a couple of the meetings have more than one transcriber do , +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: cuz I 'm curious about inter - annotator agreement . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: OK . Yeah . Th - that 'd be {disfmarker} I think that 's a {disfmarker} a good idea . +Professor G: Yeah . +Postdoc F: You know , there 's also , the e In my mind , I think A An - Andreas was {pause} leading to this topic , the idea that , um , {vocalsound} we haven't yet seen the {disfmarker} the type of transcript that we get from IBM , and it may just be , you know , pristine . But on the other hand , given the lesser interface {disfmarker} Cuz this is , you know {disfmarker} we 've got a good interface , we 've got great headphones , m um {disfmarker} +Professor G: It could be that they will uh {disfmarker} theirs will end up being a kind of fir first pass or something . +Postdoc F: Something like that . +Professor G: Maybe an elaborate one , cuz again they probably are gonna do these alignments , which will also clear things up . +Postdoc F: That 's {disfmarker} that 's true . Al - although you have to s Don't you have to start with a close enough approximation {nonvocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the verbal part {nonvocalsound} to be able to {disfmarker} ? +Professor G: Well , tha that 's {disfmarker} that 's debatable . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , so the {disfmarker} so the argument is that if your statistical system is good {vocalsound} it will in fact , uh , clean things up . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: Right ? So it it 's got its own objective criterion . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , so in principle you could start up with something that was kind of rough {disfmarker} I mean , to give an example of , um , something we used to do , uh , at one point , uh , back {disfmarker} back when Chuck was here in early times , is we would take , um , {vocalsound} da take a word and , uh , have a canonical pronunciation and , uh , if there was five phones in a word , {vocalsound} you 'd break up the word , {vocalsound} uh , into five equal - length pieces which is completely gross . +Grad A: Wrong . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? I mean , th the timing is off {pause} all over the place in just about any word . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor G: But it 's O K . You start off with that and the statistical system then aligns things , and eventually you get something that doesn't really look too bad . +Postdoc F: Oh , excellent . OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I think using a {disfmarker} a good {pause} aligner , um , actually can {disfmarker} can help a lot . Um . {vocalsound} But , uh , you know , they both help each other . If you have a {disfmarker} if you have a better starting point , then it helps the aligner . If you have a good alignment , it helps the , uh , th the human in {disfmarker} in taking less time to correct things . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Excellent . I guess there 's another aspect , too , and I don't know {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} very possibly a different , uh , topic . But , {nonvocalsound} uh , just let me say {pause} with reference to this idea of , um , {vocalsound} higher - order organization within meetings . So like in a {disfmarker} you know , the topics that are covered during a meeting with reference to the other , uh , uses of the data , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: so being able to {pause} find where so - and - so talked about such - and - such , then , um , um {disfmarker} e I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did sort of a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a rough {pause} pass {nonvocalsound} on encoding , like , episode - like level things on the , uh , transcribed meeting {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: already transcribed meeting . And I don't know if , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: where {nonvocalsound} that {disfmarker} i if that 's something that we wanna do with each meeting , sort of like a , um {disfmarker} it 's like a manifest , when you get a box full of stuff , or {disfmarker} or if that 's , um {disfmarker} +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: I mean , i I {disfmarker} I don't know what uh , level of detail would be most useful . I don't know i if that 's something that {pause} I should do when I look over it , or if we want someone else to do , or whatever . +Professor G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: But this issue of the contents of the meeting in an outline form . OK . +Professor G: Yeah . Meaning really isn't my thing . Um {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think it just {disfmarker} whoever is interested can do that . I mean , so if someone wants to use that data {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor G: We 're running a little short here . +Postdoc F: That 's fine . +Professor G: We , uh , uh , cou trying to {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: I 'm finished . +Professor G: eh , was {disfmarker} p Well , you know , the thing I 'm concerned about is we wanted to do these digits +Postdoc F: Oh , yeah . +Professor G: and {disfmarker} and I haven't heard , uh , from Jose yet . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . +PhD D: OK . What do you want ? +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: We could skip the digits . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: We don't have to read digits each time . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} you know , another {disfmarker} another bunch of digits . More data is good . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . +Professor G: So {disfmarker} so I 'd like to do that . But I think , do you , maybe , eh {disfmarker} ? Did you prepare some whole thing you wanted us just to see ? +PhD D: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's prepared . +Professor G: Or what was that ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: Oh , k Sorry . +Professor G: Uh , how long a {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's fast , because , uh , I have the results , eh , of the study of different energy without the law length . Eh , um , eh , in the {disfmarker} in the measurement , uh , the average , uh , dividing by the {disfmarker} by the , um , variance . Um , I {disfmarker} th i +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: the other , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the last w uh , meeting {disfmarker} eh , I don't know if you remain we have problem to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with {disfmarker} with the parameter {disfmarker} with the representations of parameter , because the {disfmarker} the valleys and the peaks in the signal , eh , look like , eh , it doesn't follow to the {disfmarker} to the energy in the signal . +Professor G: Yes . Right . +PhD D: And it was a problem , uh , with the scale . +Grad A: With what ? +PhD D: Eh , the scale . +Postdoc F: Scale . +Grad A: Scale . +PhD D: Eh , and I {disfmarker} I change the scale and we can see the {disfmarker} the variance . +Professor G: OK . But the bottom line is it 's still not , uh , separating out very well . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Right ? +PhD D: The distribution {disfmarker} the distribution is {disfmarker} is similar . +Professor G: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's enough then . OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: No , I mean , that there 's no point in going through all of that if that 's the bottom line , really . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So , I {disfmarker} I think we have to start {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , there there 's two suggestions , really , which is , uh {disfmarker} what we said before is that , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: um , it looks like , at least that you haven't found an obvious way to normalize so that the energy is anything like a reliable , uh , indicator of the overlap . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: Um , I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm still {pause} a little f think that 's a little funny . These things l @ @ seems like there should be , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but you don't want to keep , uh {disfmarker} keep knocking at it if it 's {disfmarker} if you 're not getting any {disfmarker} any result with that . But , I mean , the other things that we talked about is , uh , {vocalsound} pitch - related things and harmonicity - related things , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: so {disfmarker} which we thought also should be some kind of a reasonable indicator . Um {disfmarker} But , uh , a completely different tack on it wou is the one that was suggested , uh , by your colleagues in Spain , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: which is to say , don't worry so much about the , uh , features . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: That is to say , use , you know , as {disfmarker} as you 're doing with the speech , uh , nonspeech , use some very general features . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: And , uh , then , uh , look at it more from the aspect of modeling . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: You know , have a {disfmarker} have a couple Markov models and {disfmarker} and , uh , try to indi try to determine , you know , w when is th when are you in an overlap , when are you not in an overlap . +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: And let the , uh , uh , statistical system {pause} determine what 's the right way to look at the data . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I {disfmarker} I , um , I think it would be interesting to find individual features and put them together . I think that you 'd end up with a better system overall . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But given the limitation in time {vocalsound} and given the fact that Javier 's system already exists {pause} doing this sort of thing , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , but , uh , its main limitation is that , again , it 's only looking at silences which would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: maybe that 's a better place to go . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that , eh , the possibility , eh , can be that , eh , Thilo , eh , working , eh , with a new class , not only , eh , nonspeech and speech , but , eh , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the speech class , +Professor G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: dividing , eh , speech , eh , of {disfmarker} from a speaker and overlapping , to try {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to do , eh , eh , a fast {disfmarker} a fast , eh , {vocalsound} experiment to {disfmarker} to prove that , nnn , this fea eh , general feature , {vocalsound} eh , can solve the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem , +Professor G: Yeah . +PhD D: and wh what {disfmarker} nnn , how far is {disfmarker} +Professor G: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD D: And , I {disfmarker} I have prepared the {disfmarker} the pitch tracker now . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And I hope the {disfmarker} the next week I will have , eh , some results and we {disfmarker} we will show {disfmarker} we will see , eh , the {disfmarker} the parameter {disfmarker} the pitch , {vocalsound} eh , tracking in {disfmarker} with the program . +Professor G: I see . +PhD D: And , nnn , nnn {disfmarker} +Professor G: Ha - h have you ever looked at the , uh , uh {disfmarker} Javier 's , uh , speech segmenter ? +PhD C: No . No . +PhD D: No . +Professor G: Oh . Maybe m you could , you kn uh show Thilo that . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: Cuz again the idea is there {disfmarker} the limitation there again was that he was {disfmarker} he was only using it to look at silence as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} as a p putative split point between speakers . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: But if you included , uh , broadened classes then {pause} in principle maybe you can {pause} cover the overlap cases . +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , but I 'm not too sure if {disfmarker} if we can {pause} really represent {vocalsound} overlap with {disfmarker} with the s {pause} detector I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used up to now , +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Professor G: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think with {disfmarker} +PhD C: the {disfmarker} to speech - nonspeech as {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's right . But I think Javier 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: it 's only speech or it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's nonspeech . +PhD D: Ah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I think Javier 's might be able to . +PhD C: So . +Professor G: N n +Grad A: It doesn't have the same Gaus - uh , H M M modeling , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: which is I think a drawback . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor G: Well , it 's {disfmarker} sort of has a simple one . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +Grad A: Does it ? +Professor G: Right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} isn't it just a Gaussian +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: for each {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Yeah . And then {pause} he ch you choose optimal splitting . +PhD D: Hmm . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: Yeah . Oh , it doesn't have {disfmarker} it doesn't have any temporal , uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Maybe I 'm misremembering , but I did not think it had a Markov {disfmarker} +Professor G: I thought it {disfmarker} Yeah . I gues I guess I don't remember either . Uh . It 's been a while . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , I could have a look at it . +PhD D: Javier {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh . +PhD C: So . +PhD D: You mean Ja - eh , eh , Javier program ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: No , Javier di doesn't worked with , uh , a Markov {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I didn't think so . +PhD D: He on only train {disfmarker} +Professor G: Oh , OK . So he 's just {disfmarker} he just computes a Gaussian over potential {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: Yeah . It was only Gaussian . +Professor G: Oh , I see . I see . +Grad A: And so I {disfmarker} I think it would work fine for detecting overlap . +PhD D: This is the idea . +Professor G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's just , uh , that i it {disfmarker} he has the two - pass issue that {disfmarker} What he does is , as a first pass he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} p he does , um , a guess at where the divisions might be and he overestimates . And that 's just a data reduction step , so that you 're not trying at every time interval . +PhD C: OK . +Grad A: And so those are the putative {pause} places where he tries . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . OK . +Grad A: And right now he 's doing that with silence and that doesn't work with the Meeting Recorder . So if we used another method to get the first pass , I think it would probably work . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Sure . Yeah . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: It 's a good method . As long as the len as long the segments are long enough . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's the other problem . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor G: O - k OK . So let me go back to what you had , though . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Um . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: The other thing one could do is {disfmarker} Couldn't {disfmarker} I mean , it 's {disfmarker} So you have two categories +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and you have Markov models for each . Couldn't you have a third category ? So you have , uh {disfmarker} you have , {vocalsound} uh , nonspeech , single - person speech , and multiple - person speech ? +Postdoc F: He has this on his board actually . Don't you have , like those {disfmarker} those several different {vocalsound} categories on the board ? +Professor G: Right ? And then you have a Markov model for each ? +PhD C: Um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . I {disfmarker} I thought about , uh , adding , uh , uh , another class too . But it 's not too easy , I think , the {disfmarker} the transition between the different class , to model them in {disfmarker} in the system I have now . But it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it could be possible , I think , +Professor G: I see . I see . +PhD C: in principle . +Professor G: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} This is all pretty gross . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: I mean , the {disfmarker} th the reason why , uh , I was suggesting originally that we look at features is because I thought , well , we 're doing something we haven't done before , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: we should at least look at the space and understand {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: It seems like if two people {disfmarker} two or more people talk at once , it should get louder , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: uh , and , uh , uh , there should be some discontinuity in pitch contours , +PhD C: I had the impression . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: and , uh , there should overall be a , um , smaller proportion of the total energy that is explained by any particular harmonic {pause} sequence in the spectrum . +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: So those are all things that should be there . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor G: So far , um , uh , Jose has {disfmarker} has been {disfmarker} By the way , I was told I should be calling you Pepe , but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: by your friends , but Anyway , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: um , uh , the {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} has , uh , been exploring , uh , e largely the energy issue and , um , as with a lot of things , it is not {disfmarker} uh , like this , it 's not as simple as it sounds . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: And then there 's , you know {disfmarker} Is it energy ? Is it log energy ? Is it LPC residual energy ? Is it {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is it , uh , delta of those things ? Uh , what is it no Obviously , just a simple number {disfmarker} {vocalsound} absolute number isn't gonna work . So {vocalsound} it should be with {disfmarker} compared to what ? Should there be a long window for the {vocalsound} normalizing factor and a short window for what you 're looking at ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: Or , you know , how b short should they be ? So , +PhD D: Hmm . +Professor G: th he 's been playing around with a lot of these different things and {disfmarker} and so far at least has not come up with {vocalsound} any combination that really gave you an indicator . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: So I {disfmarker} I still have a hunch that there 's {disfmarker} it 's in there some place , but it may be {disfmarker} given that you have a limited time here , it {disfmarker} it just may not be the best thing to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to focus on for the remaining of it . +PhD D: Yeah . To overrule , yeah . +Professor G: So pitch - related and harmonic - related , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {pause} somewhat more hopeful for it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor G: But it seems like if we just wanna get something to work , +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor G: that , uh , their suggestion of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} Th - they were suggesting going to Markov models , uh , but in addition there 's an expansion of what Javier did . And one of those things , looking at the statistical component , +PhD D: One . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: even if the features that you give it are maybe not ideal for it , it 's just sort of this general filter bank +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor G: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or cepstrum or something , um {disfmarker} Eee {vocalsound} it 's in there somewhere probably . +PhD D: But , eh , what did you think about the possibility of using the Javier software ? Eh , I mean , the , uh {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} the BIC criterion , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} t to train the {disfmarker} the Gaussian , eh , using the {disfmarker} the mark , eh , by hand , eh , eh , to distinguish be mmm , to train overlapping zone and speech zone . I mean , eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that an interesting , eh , experiment , eh , could be , th eh , to prove that , mmm , if s we suppose that , eh , the {disfmarker} the first step {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean , the {disfmarker} the classifier what were the classifier from Javier or classifier from Thilo ? W What happen with the second step ? I {disfmarker} I mean , what {disfmarker} what happen with the , eh {disfmarker} the , uh , clu the , uh {disfmarker} the clu the clustering process ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Using the {disfmarker} the Gaussian . +Grad A: You mean Javier 's ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: What do you mean ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I mean , that is {disfmarker} is enough {disfmarker} is enough , eh , to work well , eh , to , eh , separate or to distinguish , eh , between overlapping zone and , eh , speaker zone ? Because th {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} if we , eh , nnn , develop an classifier {disfmarker} and the second step doesn't work {pause} well , eh , we have {pause} another problem . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} Yeah . I had tried doing it by hand at one point with a very short sample , +PhD D: N +Grad A: and it worked pretty well , but I haven't worked with it a lot . So what I d I d I took a hand - segmented sample +PhD D: Nnn , yeah . +Grad A: and I added ten times the amount of numbers at random , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and it did pick out pretty good boundaries . +PhD D: Oh . Yeah . But is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} +Grad A: But this was just very anecdotal sort of thing . +PhD D: But it 's possible with my segmentation by hand {pause} that we have information about the {disfmarker} the overlapping , +Grad A: Right . So if we {disfmarker} if we fed the hand - segmentation to Javier 's and it doesn't work , then we know something 's wrong . +PhD D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} N n Yeah . No . The demonstration by hand . Segmentation by hand I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think is the fast experiment . +Grad A: Yeah . I think that 's probably worthwhile doing . +PhD D: Uh , we can prove that the {disfmarker} +Professor G: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Whether it 'll work or not . +PhD D: this kind o emph emphasises parameter and Gaussian {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor G: Yeah . +Grad A: Yep . Y do you know where his software is ? Have you used it at all ? +PhD D: I yeah have . I have . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: +Grad A: So . I {disfmarker} I have as well , so if you need {disfmarker} need help let me know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor G: Let 's read some digits . +Grad A: OK . uuh +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And we are {disfmarker} +","Participants gathered for a meeting, starting with a brief acknowledgment of a late lunch and the need for practical discussion items. Postdoc F updated on transcription efforts and microphone procedures, and raised issues related to speech-nonspeech segmentation of audio signals. There was talk about possible improvements in segmentation techniques and discussions about IRAM and other technical aspects. The issue of accurately transcribing overlaps in speech was addressed, with various approaches suggested. They also touched upon the standards for transcription and the progress on transcribing eleven hours of audio by the end of the month. Ideas were shared on how to refine audio analysis for features like energy and pitch, as well as using statistical modeling to identify overlaps. The meeting ended with plans to read some digits, a routine part of the group's procedure." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Just put it on the deskt {gap} desktop . +Project Manager: No on the desktop you'll find you should find that there's a project documents link . A well actually just there . +Marketing: Project documents , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's it . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: If you dump it in there . +Marketing: What's your username ? +Project Manager: Your username . +Marketing: What's your username and password ? Mm-hmm . Sorry . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . There we go . +Project Manager: Excellent . Right . Hopefully that's us ready to uh to go . So . Functional design meeting . We'll have to flesh out some of the uh stuff . Um we'll start with the minutes of the last meeting . Not a lot thankfully to say . We introduced ourselves , discussed the possibility of a macro facility , interac interacting the T_V_ a bit more , um mentioning of bar-code , joystick for user manipulation , um and ergonomics of the remote control as well . Um it's come to my attention the following . Teletext has become outdated due to the populat popularity of the internet . Remote control should only be used for the T_V_ . Um due for uh time to market and possibly also cost issues . Um also key is the corporate image should stay recognisable , um f uh your colour and slogan of course is down at the bottom there . Um . Now . Just to say quickly uh I would have thought that only being used for a television the macro facility may now not be required . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um or at l its functionality would have been of limited use . So to the point in my opinion anyway that it might not be worth pursuing . Um if anybody disagrees we can uh definitely say so . Um and hopefully we'll just crack on and we'll get everything going . Um I'd like to if possible hear from our Marketing Expert first , to help us gain an idea of where we're going to go . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: So um I'll just load up your presentation from here if you want . +Marketing: Sure . Um , sh would you like to {vocalsound} I'll just do it from here . +Project Manager: Yep . Sorry . Uh . Is yours the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , try second one maybe . Try it , yeah maybe . +Project Manager: Oh sorry . Okay , right . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Oh , I thought I put in my last name , I guess not , but {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh if you {disfmarker} that's all right . If you {disfmarker} do you want me to just cycle through it for you or ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah , that'd be fine , that'd be great . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . Functional requirement by me Ebenezer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so um we did some research , we asked one hundred people their opinions on remote controls . We asked some uh open ended questions , just , what are your opinions on the remote control , got a lot of re responses , and we asked some very specific questions , and we got a lot of good feedback . Please bear in mind this is only a hundred people , so even when the groups are divided into fifteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , there's only maybe ten people {vocalsound} fifteen people in each group . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} So we got {disfmarker} some the bad stuff we got , remotes are often lost . I often lose my remote control , the back of the couch , some place , and even if it's not lost permanently , it takes me a few minutes to find it . {vocalsound} Most buttons are not used any more , like you said , teletext is outdated now . I remember trying to load a D_V_D_ player recently , and there were so many buttons , it took me I don't know maybe ten minutes to to go through each button , 'cause you have to press the shift button to access the yellow buttons , you know there's just a lot of stuff that no one really uses . And if they do , not very often . Takes too long to master the remote control . I've seen some remote controls that are big , they have a lot of buttons , you have to hold down more than one key at one time to do something , they're just not great to use . We just got a lot of bad complaints about remote controls , people do not like remote controls . Some of the good stuff we got . Between the age of uh fifteen and twenty five , most people would be willing to pay extra for voice recognition software . Now don't get excited yet , I've got more to say on that . Most people'd be willing to pay for that um most people want remote controls to be pretty , they want it to be fancy , th they they want it to be different , everybody has a white remote control with black buttons , and a red button and a green button , not everybody wants that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Finally , my opinion . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The voice recognition thing is cool . And uh voice recognition , the software , open source software exist already . It's a bit sketchy at some times , uh , you're not gonna get good always accurate results , but for a very fixed number of words , you know you have , how many different words can you have for a remote control , up , down , left , right , channel five , channel seven , you know , how many , you can't have that many words . For a fixed vocabulary it works quite well . I'm pretty sure people would buy it . But after a while people may wanna return it , because {vocalsound} if you have to to say som I mean most people use a remote control for switching to channels , and they say they do that about ninety eight percent of the time . Using the remote control , ninety eight percent of the time for changing channels , and that's for flickering through channels . So if you have to say up , up , up , up , if you have to do that all the time , then people might get a bit fed up with that and they may return it . {vocalsound} However , {vocalsound} oh , because the voice recognition software exists already , there's no need to spend money on research and development , but this does mean the need for microphones in the in the remote control , which is an unusual feature in my opinion . But if we do have the voice recognition thing , there's a lot of stuff that you can uh get rid of . See , you could {disfmarker} there're two options . Either you have voice recognition by itself , which I think is a bit impractical for like night time if you wanna be watching television and you wanna be quiet , or I don't know you have a visitor coming round and the remote's only trained for you , it's a bit impractical to have just voice recognition by itself . So you can have voice recognition and a regular remote . But imagine you got rid of the regular remote part , then you can design the remote to look any way you want it to look , because there are no restrictions on physical size , or shape , it it could be as fancy as you want it to be , you know , it could be like a lollipop or something like that , something weird like that . As long as the voice recognition stuff works , that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Okay , yep . +Marketing: So we have the three birds , we have the design , that {vocalsound} we have the the fancy bit , right , the voice recognition's fancy , it's cool , it's different , it's radical , so , and then we have an extra bit I don't remember {vocalsound} so I'm pretty sure people will buy the remote , but is it practical to have a voice recognition system in a remote control , I think is a big question . Um , will people will people be willing to wait for the the period that it'll take to train the remote , 'cause I think it will the remote will uh get better over time with the same user user , but for the first week or for the first two weeks are you willing to wait , are you willing to have a bad remote control . {vocalsound} And uh what if you have visitors come round , they stay the night , they wanna use the T_V_ , they can't use the remote because they speak differently to you . Um , how do you account for regional accents and stuff like that . Uh , will people return the remote control , {vocalsound} I think a lot of young people will buy the remote control , if they have the money , you know , so , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . If you could uh +Marketing: do our audience have the money , but would they return it after a while because it's not as fast as pressing a button , it's not a practical . So . These are things I think we should consider . +Project Manager: sor +Marketing: I think it's cool , +Project Manager: if you could speed it up a bit , yeah . If you could uh speed it up a bit please , yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry ? Sure . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: I'm about to end , yeah . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: I think it's cool but there are definitely some considerations . +Project Manager: Okay . Excellent . +Marketing: So , yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um . Hear from the {vocalsound} User Interface Designer now I think might be an idea . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , you've got your presentation now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did {disfmarker} where did {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the it's in the folder +Project Manager: is it on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: where did you get all your in information {gap} ? +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: is it ? Okay . +Marketing: There was uh a website , uh , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical functions ? +Marketing: right here . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: No . Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Okay , this is a {vocalsound} brief run through of the um of the technical functions of the remote . As um is uh the the the presentation is uh already slightly obsolete because I {vocalsound} had in mind something that would uh be i be aimed at controlling multiple devices but uh there's still stuff of relevance , so +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: press on . I've looked at {vocalsound} looked at a num {vocalsound} uh couple of other uh remote control models just for an idea of basic design principles . Um and wasn't really satisfied by what I saw I have to say so this is more sort of springboard for uh how these could be improved on . {vocalsound} Um um basically the job of the device is to send commands to an appliance , in this case the television set . Um to save you getting off your backside . Um and there's two main trends in th in the sort of design practice . On the one hand {disfmarker} and this uh this particularly relates to its sort of earliest models where with you know i so so many buttons on it so about the size of the television set . Um giving you every possible function that the that the device has , the remote control controls . And most of these functions are not going to be used , it creates a rather user unfriendly interface . And on the other hand there's a user focused approach that pares things down to just what {vocalsound} what is most likely to get used . Um {vocalsound} With uh {disfmarker} a and a and of course there is a certain amount of sort of loss of function here obviously , but mostly that's relatively peripheral functions . And so you go for something that's fairly intuitive to use , and um well f the for the most part for T_V_ remote it's uh tha that would be channel control and volume . Um and if you {vocalsound} if you if you are wanting to incorporate uh control of a D_V_ {vocalsound} D_V_D_ or uh {vocalsound} V_C_R_ presumably into that then there's a play , pause , stop , rewind , fast-forward , record , so forth . Um . My own view is that we should definitely be going for a user focused design . Um but uh the pro {vocalsound} I think the problem with a lot of the sort of user focused designs that are about is that they sort of make assumptions in advance about what uh what a given user's going to uh want mo want to do from {vocalsound} want it to do most . So , something that's uh {vocalsound} something that is more programmable , that uh perh perhaps has the full range of functions available to it but you can then specify yourself what you're most likely to want . Um so that those are then immediately {vocalsound} accessible through fairly minimal number of controls , um I liked Ebenezer's idea of including a joystick in that and uh possibly a sort of fairly minimal number of sort of function buttons , and have a disp {vocalsound} you then have some sort of basic display on it so that if you're um sort of cha changing from different modes for the device it'll tell you just exactly what uh you know each direction of the uh of the um joystick's {vocalsound} going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do . Um , this is actually {gap} a again slightly taking inspiration off of uh games controllers , you know the Playstation control where you have four basic function buttons +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: that are just marked with um distinctive uh geometrical shapes but the {vocalsound} and then dependent on what you're doing with it what game and so on um those uh those functions are then sort of further specified . And so it's taking taking the lead from that . Um . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Right . Um , if we could hear from our Industrial engineer , or Designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh , I was still working on stuff , I hadn't got it finished . Um , {vocalsound} alright . Click to save in {disfmarker} where do I have to save it ? +Project Manager: If you look on the desktop you'll find that there's a link to the project folder , or project documents . If you save it in there we can open it up from here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um , what I've done with it , I'm sorry . Shit . Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Are you finding it okay or ? +Industrial Designer: I'm just {gap} closing it now . {gap} where I've saved it . +Marketing: Well like if you go to one , uh whichever one you were working {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} that's it there , +Marketing: yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: and you just click file save as . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , right I'm responsible for working design , uh , this is basically the inside going on of the the uh remote control . So we have the energy source , we have the user interface , this this is what I've seen . Uh the sender will push the button , the chip will respond , uh and then the dig digital signal is sent to the T_V_ . So uh uh , if you go to next slide , you'll see you'll see uh what do we need on the user interface . Do we need uh many buttons , or do we need l many light bulbs that could be easier to uh to realise which appliances are on or not . Um , {vocalsound} , or would that take too much power , would we need more um components in there to supply the power ? Um , the joystick is another thing , if we were gonna add that , um , there'd be more components to deal with that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} , so uh we need to {disfmarker} I dunno exactly what {disfmarker} That's the design of the the the layout of the uh electronic design , um obviously there'll be more details once we've decided what we're putting on the user interface . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , that'll be decided , I guess . {vocalsound} Uh , and the next slide . Oh , yeah {disfmarker} Um , if you go to the next slide then . +Project Manager: Oh . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I just used the {vocalsound} it was a mess , uh I was just putting adding it together at the end there . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , don't worry about it at all mate . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh so you have the energy source obviously connected to the chip , and the user interface obviously contains everything . You have the switch turn it on , infrared bulb , uh will contact the T_V_ and will have whatever device or D_V_D_ player , the bulb will turn on to say it's on . Uh , so do we need on the control uh different buttons to decide , or different light bulbs , would it be easier ? Um , I dunno what we should decide on that . +Project Manager: Okay . Well . Oh sorry , I'm I'm interrupting you . Are you {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , it's finished , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah ? Okay . Right . Um , {vocalsound} right we can probably skip that for now . So , we've had some stuff put forward , um along with the new user requirements , um we've had a lot of kind of input I'd say so far . Um I hear what the Marketing Expert's saying about {vocalsound} um voice activated control . However I've got a couple of worries about that . {vocalsound} The power required , um and the ability to the cost , it seems like for uh an embedded system , this could cause us issues . +Industrial Designer: Cost . Mm . +Project Manager: Um for example you see that there's fairly robust services on uh computers via uh via voice , I_B_M_ do um drag and dictate , but these require a lot of memory +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and usually um state quite advanced processor requirements . Um voice activation could be an interesting idea but I think that our Ind Industrial Designer would probably upon some research say that it's maybe not feasible . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um that's just my view right now , +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: however the idea of a joystick and then maybe an L_C_D_ which has been kind of put forward so far , it's almost like having a small T_ not T_V_ to say , but if you can control almost all of the functionality from the display , I don't know how much power an L_C_D_ would take , but it might be quite low ? +Marketing: Mm . I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on , or {vocalsound} uh , interactive L_C_D_ or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well literally um if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than um those on a {vocalsound} a mobile phone , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: something where you can read an an um fair amount of information , traverse maybe quite a few menus , if we maybe used mobile phones as a good example , they usually incorporate they have the keypad , and then evr all the other functionality is usually associated inside by traversing around . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That could be one possibility . Um and then we could have like say the common buttons as you say , volume control , changing channels {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} I I was thinking that the remote {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for uh volume , left and right for channels . +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think that people will get mixed up , like , they'll be looking at this screen and that screen and then , you know , trying to get everything working , would it be a bit confusing ? +User Interface: Um I think probably for the first couple of hours of using it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: um but you know muscle memory's a wonderful thing , um . And I think {vocalsound} and I think that size of uh display was about what I had in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um though I mean I w I would say that uh we could probably probably be required to um mo most of the mobile phone displays you see these days are colour but we should probably try to stick to black and white . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree with you . +User Interface: Si si simply to keep m keep the unit cost down . Um I mean colour could be a sort of subsequent development but uh you know cost a bit of extra money f w w w w w once everyone's got the first , you know , oh colour's out , we'll have to replace it won't we . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It does nothing extra . +Project Manager: That would be my feeling as well , I think we could possibly create quite a useful user interface . Um now I mean I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or {disfmarker} and a joystick I think like I h if I was in the habit of buying remote controls then I would want one , +Project Manager: sorry , go for it . +Marketing: but I think we don't have a specific audience , you know , like what is our target audience , what niche are {disfmarker} niche are we trying to market and corner . You know , you know what I'm saying , like , for whom is this intended ? Everybody ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it could probably be aimed at most people who've used a mobile . And that might be just another way of saying try to target most people . +Marketing: Most people , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , if we are if we were to follow that avenue , we might be s you know um we're kind of almost relying on their experience with a mobile phone I suppose . But that does cover a very large section of the people out there . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . I think that's fair {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , I mean I imagine as well that the actual L_C_D_ and maybe to a certain extent the joystick as well would be for the additional functionality . Which maybe doesn't get used as often , maybe it makes it easy for them to figure out how to um change the channels as in the frequencies and such for reprogramming it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and you can still have the main buttons that allow the people to turn the machine on and off , d up and down , it depends , I mean maybe we have the fol um the joystick as a separate one for the other functions then , that there's just a a small number of as you were saying uh buttons that have already been defined . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like we go for the nice standard um up and down for and volume control . So that literally anybody can come along , pick up the remote and still know what do do . And they can completely ignore most of the functionality which would be for say the o actual owner of the the T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and who would normally use the unit . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th the thing I like about the uh the uh joystick +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: is that uh you you you then basically you can then basically put it I mean for for T_ T_ for T_V_ remote alone , you could put um I mean there are {disfmarker} like I say the the the main things people do with a T_V_ remote control is the volume and the channel . You can pack all that onto was onto a single control . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But uh but the {vocalsound} but then o uh obviously if uh you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i {vocalsound} you you then get to sort of menu navigation . I mean with things like ch with things like tuning and channels um you know adjusting brightn uh brightness and {vocalsound} fiddly things that no one really bothers with , most T_V_s these days actually have menus anyway so this would be a fairly rational way of integra {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: integrating the uh the remote with the device it's controlling . Um {gap} concern about our market . Um , if we are I mean most of the uh of the replacement remote market is sort of {gap} remote control rationalisation . Um , you've got twenty different devices in your living room , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you want one wo {vocalsound} y you want one that'll do the job of all of them . Um , if all you're replacing is one of the you know however many remotes you have in your living room , um you know you still need separate remotes for everything else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I just think that uh possibly {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well this is a requirement that we have to stick to I'm afraid , +User Interface: mm . +Project Manager: this isn't one that I've just arbitrarily decided on . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So um this is this is one of the solid ones that has to be obeyed , for now . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I can understand your point , and I would agree with you , but this is our design spec for now . 'Fraid to say . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Does that um would that include um access to say {vocalsound} interactive functions on digital or cable ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: I would say so , yes , because then we have to be able to control the remote boxes , and that is a separate unit . Um I think that it {disfmarker} I would say that the design spec we've been {gap} with is for the television only for now . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And until we hear otherwise we should go with just that . +Marketing: Hmm . Okay , specifically television . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe we'll hear differently , but for now {disfmarker} +Marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It would be ease of manipulation of certain functions , yes . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Just a thought . {vocalsound} Um maybe then our market should be T_V_ manufacturers , rather than the public . Try and sell it t sell it to them to supply with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There is that possibility , yes . B However I don't know exactly where we'll be going with that , but it might not even be the avenue of the Marketing Expert , +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that might be sales , who are not in this meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . It's just , the way I figure it , twelve point five Euros per unit , we have to sell at least like three million or something like that , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: not to account for all the the money we waste on remotes that no one buys , you know , like if we made a perf if we made a ks for every remote we made someone bought it , then we have to sell a lot of remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We just {disfmarker} Is this gonna be enough to to sell ? +Project Manager: Well , something else that you brought up was uh the ability to lose a remote , which as you said you've done , in fact we've probably all done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know if it's a gimmick or not , but have any of you ever seen those odd little key rings where if you whistle , it will beep and you {disfmarker} tell you where it is . +User Interface: Mm , yeah , I've seen them . +Marketing: I had one of those , and my brother , and my dad , could have beat me up +Project Manager: Um . Well +Marketing: because it it went off all the time accidentally . +Project Manager: the other option of course is that um the +Marketing: The clapping one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well {disfmarker} I was going to say clapping , um {disfmarker} Um digital telephones , uh for example , one unit has {disfmarker} of course you have to have that base unit , somewhere where there's a button , but maybe it's a button that you attach to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: To a television . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Something which you when you press that , it would beep to give its location away , on the remote unit . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that could be something could um separate us a bit . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Project Manager: And that way , because we're attaching what would be a small button to the T_V_ , again say what , it would be a small transmitter , um watch battery type scenario I would say , or something that if it was problems enough you could actually even just um I don't {disfmarker} power {gap} that might be something that we could look into . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah , it's uh putting a lot on your shoulders there , so I mean that could be something that separates us a bit from the market as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So . To go on from here . Um we have to decide exactly what we're going to do with the remote . Before we leave this meeting , it would be best to say this is what we're going {disfmarker} this is the design we're gonna try and get , this is how we're gonna make ourselves look unique . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Do we go for maybe a remote contro uh sorry , we're gonna go for a remote control obviously , do we go for a small joystick that would operate say changing channels , up and down , and then , what , another button that would say that it's now being used to manoeuvre round the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm yeah . Yeah , I think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We're just saying volume . Should volume be important in the joystick , do you think ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could use say the left and right for changing channels and the up and down for volume , +User Interface: For volume . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: But we have a frequency of how what people use a remote control for most . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , power is used like once per hour , +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight per hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's by far the biggest one , and then teletext , is still here , that's like fourteen , +Project Manager: Vol Volume selection okay , yep , +Marketing: and volume selection . +Project Manager: the teletext we're gambling with , and we're gonna say it's dead , the way of the dodo {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , yeah , okay okay . Yeah , um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} well , sorry , we could maybe even go as far as saying power button , small joystick , L_C_D_ , and then what maybe is it one more button to say that you're using the menu system , and with the possibility of pushing down on the joystick to say okay ? So we're having very very few buttons involved , +User Interface: Actually how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but navigation around a menu for most things . +User Interface: Actually I would say maybe two two function buttons , the {disfmarker} y we're now using the menus button and um and an og and an okay button . I mean certainly something I've found with the joystick on mo the joysticks on mobile phones is that a lot of the time th the device mistakes you trying to move it in one direction or the other for pushing down for okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or vice versa . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's really irritating . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The o the o the other dis design constraint I think we should bear in mind is that people are you know very much used to using a remote control one handedly , um , so we need to make sure that e even with the joystick , you know something that can just sit comfortably in the palm of the hand and have the joystick just controlled by the thumb . +Project Manager: Okay . So um we're actually that sounds like a rough idea . Do we incorporate the idea of trying to f locate the remote control again via a beeping noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you mind looking {gap} ? +Marketing: Um , I think because it's so small it might be an uh I mean if we only have like two three buttons it might be essential to have to have that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The ability to locate it again . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that would require a um transmitter maybe attached to the T_V_ , just so that it says find me , and {vocalsound} what , a basically a small microphone um on the actual unit , can maybe hide it in the base . +Industrial Designer: Light bulb as well , +User Interface: Oh . So {vocalsound} so +Industrial Designer: no ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: a small speaker you mean . +Project Manager: Some speaker , +Marketing: Speaker {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry , yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a light bulb ? No . To flash . No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Nah , you'd see it anyway , if you hear it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} E us we might be better with the sound possibly {disfmarker} we could maybe incorporate +Marketing: W those little key-rings have both , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: th e the true fact , considering the cost of an L_E_D_ , we could just incorporate it anyway . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: The L_E_D_s can be surprisingly bright now . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Blue ones particularly . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Plus that's a nice wee design touch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: by the sounds of it , with what we're suggesting so far , your design um the user interface is still quite open , you could go for quite an interesting design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because we're only going to have a very few key and you've got you know a small L_C_D_ , joystick , e I think it leaves you open to a a potential wide range of shapes , something that can make it stand out slightly . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um if you could look into what we've suggested so far , the feasibility of um small transmitter , um and such , maybe if an L_C_D_ screen requires too much power , or such . Ebenezer , um , Marketing Expert {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I can give you the frequency , what people what options people use most often , I guess that's gonna be important in the ts defining the the software side of the interface , right . +Project Manager: If , +Marketing: You want the stuff {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah if you could maybe as well see what people think about the idea of this minimalist approach that we've taken , where of a joystick to control the very basic functions , and then the idea of manipulating it like you would a mobile . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I don't know how easy that will be within the time frame , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but could be something we could maybe look into . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . Um any last comments that anybody would like to put forward ? Anything that they think has been missed out . Bit of a wide open question there of course . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Feel free to email me if you think that uh we've screwed something up and wanna get it rectified as soon as possible . +Marketing: Sure . 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I should just look at um the speaker , {gap} the speaker and an L_E_D_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Speaker and L_E_D_ for locating , um , +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and a transmitter . +Project Manager: transmitter {disfmarker} +User Interface: Actually one one wee thought about that . Um , if we do end up trying to market this to television manufacturers then the um then the transmitter could actually be built into the television . +Project Manager: {gap} getting the external power source , yep , that's quite true . Um , and something that we can can easily be adopted at the last minute as well I'd say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The electronics could be s either placed externally or internally , makes no difference to the final product of the actual remote control , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so that's good . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} You know I think +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: I mean if it w if we get a major television manufacturer to say y oh yeah we'll have that , save us the bother , then that's you know vast amounts of sales . Quite quickly . +Industrial Designer: P +Project Manager: Oh , one thing that we've almost not talked about at all , my apologies for that , um , user interface , we also need to maybe get the slogan in here , um it's , +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: I'm pointing at my laptop , what in God {disfmarker} Real reaction , and such . So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The slogan is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +Industrial Designer: yeah , the slogan's we put the fashion in electronics , isn't it ? +Project Manager: My apologies . No it could well be , I've probably missed that . Um , I think that's l almost the last minute thing +Industrial Designer: 'S also look cool . +Project Manager: we can just incorporate into the actual plastic on top . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So I'm not too concerned a that we haven't gone into depth about that . But it might be something you could consider when you're thinking about shapes ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: In fact we might like to put a slogan on , and um possibly the two R_s to signify the company . Rather than real reaction . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm . Yeah . I thought the uh the d the double arc could perhaps uh be the uh the enter button . +Project Manager: Sounds good . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: And I'd say that that's us for now . Okay . +","In the conversation, various team members are discussing aspects of a remote control project. The Marketing team member shared insights from research, including that users find many remote buttons unnecessary and often lose their remotes, yet some would pay extra for voice recognition and desire aesthetically pleasing designs. The Project Manager emphasized that the remote should only control the TV due to current market trends, focusing on ergonomics and recognizable corporate branding. The User Interface Designer suggested a user-focused, programmable design with minimal buttons and possibly integrating a joystick for navigation. The Industrial Designer contemplated the internal design mechanics, like the energy source and user interface mechanisms. The group then explored ideas such as simplifying the remote to a joystick and a few buttons with an LCD screen, similar to mobile phones. Voice recognition was debated but considered potentially complex and costly. They also discussed the possibility of embedding a feature to locate the remote when lost, through a beeping mechanism or a transmitter in the TV. Marketing emphasized considering user preferences gathered from research, and the UI Designer mentioned the potential market of selling the idea to TV manufacturers. The conversation concluded with the need to decide on the remote's design direction, prioritize functionality that aligns with user habits, and possibly include company branding elements." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright , yeah . {gap} crack on {gap} . Okay so we'll start off with a quick overview of the minutes . I think to sum up the last meeting , would be to say um the requirements that we've um set out . Those are we were going to go for what seemed to be a fairly minimal design based on uh a small joystick , {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and a couple of other buttons for navigation um with power being I suppose one of the main single purpose buttons . Um we were also going to use {gap} novelty of being able to locate the remote control again via a small transmitter with any luck , the idea to try and separate us and also because of the minimal design um looks like we'll be able to be fairly adventurous in the actual physical shape of our remote control with any luck . Um that pretty much sums up the last one . So we'll just crack on , um like to maybe start with the Industrial Designer if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh uh okay . +Project Manager: Um uh the con today is the concep today . +Industrial Designer: I'll just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This uh meeting is the conceptual design phase and is um {disfmarker} Sorry about this . {gap} . And is to cover things like um what the parts might be made of , um , can we uh outsource these from elsewhere , um will we have to construct any items ourselves ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I have a presentation {gap} I just saved it in the uh the folder . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay well I'll just uh I'll load it up then . Um {vocalsound} . Which one do y +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: Oh , interface concept ? +User Interface: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: That's you . We've got trend watching , that's you . +Industrial Designer: It's uh {disfmarker} Components design . +Project Manager: Components design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh . The case uh le that's what I wrote first of all , could be plastic our plastic . Uh but later on {gap} we found out that um it can be rubber as well , or titanium or even wood . So uh we decide what it's gonna be . Probably plastic . Uh we need the infra-red transmitter . Get that off the shelf . Uh joystick we'll probably if we're gonna use it , um could be plastic w or rubber even as well . Um {vocalsound} if you go on to the next slide . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you go on to f uh findings , it's like two or three slides down . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Right . So , this is what I found we can use . Uh three different types of batteries . Um can either use a hand dynamo , or the kinetic type ones , you know that they use in watches , or else uh a solar powered one . +Project Manager: Okay . Now , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: the kinetic one , we've {disfmarker} 'cause that's the ones where like you {disfmarker} the movement causes it . +Marketing: Cost is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the bat uh the battery for a a watch wouldn't require a lot of power , would be my one query . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is a kinetic one going to be able to supply enough power ? +User Interface: There's also a watch moves around a great deal more . +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: W +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I don't think it would . Um . And solar cells , I dunno about that . +Marketing: {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh . We should probably just use conventional batteries . Um , just like in usual remote controls . +Project Manager: Which I suppose as well would allow us to go off the shelf again , you'd say ? +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . Um . {vocalsound} And these are three different types of {disfmarker} or two different types {disfmarker} three different types of shapes you can have . Uh one is a flat one , and then more original ones are single curved one or one with a double curved . Um {vocalsound} the materials are tha there as you can see , but uh you can't have a titanium one for a double curved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Titanium , the really strong metal , titanium ? +Industrial Designer: uh which would be {disfmarker} Yeah , +Marketing: Is it not also it's expensive ? +Industrial Designer: and light . Uh , i think so as well , yeah . +Project Manager: Um . Um . +Industrial Designer: They make mountain bikes out of that , don't they . So it's really light as well . +Project Manager: Curious . Um , I don't know if you'd be able to off the top of your head or not , the single curved and double curved , would you be able to give an example ? +Industrial Designer: Um . {vocalsound} T yeah . +Project Manager: Um could you maybe draw something ? I you don't doesn't have to be perfect , it's just 'cause I'm not quite sure if I understand the difference between the two . +Industrial Designer: Uh . Well for a curved , well I was thinking to {disfmarker} f for to sit in your {disfmarker} the palm of your hand . Uh maybe like this , with the uh joy pad here . Joystick here . And maybe um an okay button around here , so that the thumb can uh use it quite easily . Um I don't exactly {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Double curved . It probably means {disfmarker} this is probably double curved . Uh whereas a single curved would be like that . I guess . Or not necessarily . +Project Manager: So it might literally just be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two curves {gap} . +Project Manager: okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like that . Whereas this is two curves . Um {vocalsound} so I guess that's what they mean by uh double curve . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Um which obviously {disfmarker} it looks better than the single curve , but uh you can't have it in titanium , which is uh a nice material . {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and for the buttons , um it can have the scroll wheel which they use in mouses for com P_C_s . Uh but um it requires a more expensive chip to use , and if you wanna use L_C_D_ it's even more expensive . So you have to decide , there's trade-offs there . Um {vocalsound} if you want the buttons to be {disfmarker} oh yeah , if you have a double curve uh control and it's rubber , then you have these rubber buttons as well . But {vocalsound} you're gonna ha I reckon you're gonna have to have uh key a number keypad anyway for the amount of channels these days . You wouldn't want to just have to scroll through all the channels to get to the one you want . You wanna enter just the number of it , if you know it . So um I reckon we're gonna have to have a number keypad anyway . Do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay , that was definitely something we can talk about . Um so you've got a little bit about the the chip that we might require as well ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , depends where gonna spend the money if you want the f fancy L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Um , do you have any idea so far , like when we're saying that we'd need an advanced chip for an L_C_D_ , does that in shoot the cost up by a drastic amount ? Or ? +Marketing: Need an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ . Is that {disfmarker} did I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think compared to say just pressing {gap} buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Advanced , like three eight six advance . +Project Manager: {gap} if you press a button that sends a certain transmission through the infra-red , whereas I think if we're controlling the L_C_D_ we definitely require a much more powerful chip . Just compared to the chip you would use for pushing buttons I think is the the point being made . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , sure . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If I've not over-stepped . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah i +Project Manager: Okay , um should I go on , or go back ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , if we only have twelve Pounds fifty , twelve Euros , not even twelve Pounds . Twelve Euros , what's that , like eight pounds or something like that , nine Pounds ? +Project Manager: Well we'd also be relying on the um the bulk buying in producement and such . I assume . +Marketing: Okay , that's good point . +Project Manager: We have to look into the costs of those . So , sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh the previous slides just explain what's in the internal components of the uh remote control . If you go to the one before that uh so it just says what it does , translate the key press into an infra-red signal and this is received by the T_V_ . Uh the chip just needs to detect the signal or detect the key press and then uh it'll send it to the tr the amplifier . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh then the next slide just shows how the uh copper wires uh interact with the buttons , the rubber buttons , uh to uh get sent to the chip . So that's just how the control works inside . Um we have to decide on what buttons we're gonna use . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um . {gap} . So in the information that you've been supplied , how feasible would you say that the idea of using an L_C_D_ looks ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} I think we can do it if {vocalsound} uh we use conventional batteries and not have solar cells or kinetic . Um and then maybe use single curved uh case . Because we might need it to be curved for the uh thumb to use the joyst joystick easily . Um and then you'll need the advanced chip obviously for the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Um I mean that sounds like quite a good requirement to me . Um conventional battery would seem to make sense . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'm not sure if there's any cost differences between single and double curved and I'm {disfmarker} I don't know about anybody else , but plastic or rubber as a traditional form of casing would seem to be a good way forward ? {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . Um I'm actually gonna be bold and go oo go straight for rubber um for reasons I'll go into uh in more detail . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I also have a preference for rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Based on my research . +Project Manager: Yeah , well will we move on to user interface , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah ? Um sorry , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: as long as {disfmarker} were you ? Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm finished . +Project Manager: Um {gap} and d d d interface concept . +User Interface: Yep . Now I'm gonna have to work between the uh the slides and the uh {vocalsound} and the white board +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause I actually I have some fairly concrete things this time . Uh um I was given a an H_T_M_L_ file giving um various ideas from uh from other previous remote control designs , and pretty much decided to just dump them all . I wasn't very impressed by them and they didn't seem to re uh nothing I saw seemed to meet the sorts of design specifications that we're going for today . Um so what I ra rather than looking at other remotes , uh ra oomp be better to simply look at the human hand . Um and try and f um and try and figure out a way of laying out the elements we've already decided on , um so that if r a if {vocalsound} so that the finger is e each finger or thumb is wherever it needs to be already . Um so uh next slide , if you please . Um and what we've basically decided on was the the um the joy uh the joystick , two function buttons and the L_C_D_ , just keep it paired down to the absolute minimum . I don't actually think we need the um the numeric keypad because if you m because one of the menus that we could have available um {vocalsound} v via via the L_C_D_ is one where you scroll through channels , so if there's something f {vocalsound} and be bear in mind since this isn't meant to work for um +Marketing: {gap} digital . +User Interface: f f f {vocalsound} for di for digital or um or for {vocalsound} or for cable , whatever , +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +User Interface: you're basically looking at four or five terrestrial channels , and then um your V_C_ uh and then the channel through your V_C_R_ and or D_V_D_ player . And or um {gap} box . So it's not {vocalsound} I'm not really excessively concerned about that . You must have two two modes , basic mode , where um the joystick's uh left right {vocalsound} left right for channels , up down for volume , um and the uh uh and the menu mode for uh further functions . Um now the reason I was particularly interested in using rubber for this is that if we're going to have a highly ergonomic design , um it needs to be ergonomic for left or right handed people . Um , so you +Project Manager: Can I just jump in slightly there ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That would suggest the double curved design's probably going to be most appropriate , then . +User Interface: Yes , absolutely . +Project Manager: {gap} okay . +User Interface: Um , basi {vocalsound} basically what I {vocalsound} basically what the {vocalsound} what {gap} be having um , I would say , the the whole thing articulated at two points , so that if you if you're handing it from a lef uh left or right handed user you can adjust it so that the um the L_C_ {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ and the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The joystick would be in the right place . And {vocalsound} also this is {gap} a rather nicer de uh design gimmick that the {vocalsound} the um you know the whole thing you know {vocalsound} it should have sort of organic feel to it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that it should be , you know , soft to touch and can be moved around all nice . Um okay +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: on to {vocalsound} on to the next uh to the next slide . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Just to let you know we'll probably be quite tight for time as well , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: because I think you've probably got a lot you'd like to say , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , 'kay basically um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can add pretty pictures to this . The um {disfmarker} Assuming the hand {vocalsound} the hand to be in about sort of this position , um {gap} hol uh holding the remote , the um the joystick unit should rest over the uh the joint of the f of the uh four finger so that it's directly accessible for the thumb . Um and it would need t there would need to be a {disfmarker} it would need to be articulated just below that so that it could be switched around for uh left or right handed users . So . You then have a grip section that can be more or less the same irrespective of handedness . You just have big {vocalsound} two big buttons that cover most of the area so it can {vocalsound} in the upper part , one for the four finger , one for the middle finger . Um , and that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is this the joystick ? +User Interface: Th {vocalsound} this part here is the joystick . This would be the actual grip . Probably where you'd want to have the battery as well . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: That would be probably the bulkiest part . And you then have , at the uh at the bottom , the L_C_D_ , and this would need to be articulated as well . And basically I'd want this to rest here , right at the base of the wrist . So it would fit just nicely in the hand . And again , this part could be rotated , so it can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} so so that it can be adjusted to either left or right handed user . Um {disfmarker} So the t uh the top function button in basic mode would be the on off switch and menu mode would be the enter button . And then the bottom function buttons switches between between modes . Um now programming it {vocalsound} actually thi this is one thing I've found with um the replacement remote control . Programming them can be a right pain . So I thought th the simplest way around that would be to have um a cable to connect it to the computer some {vocalsound} some fair iv {gap} fairly fairly simple software on the computer just so that you {disfmarker} on your {gap} computer just so that you could um pr {vocalsound} program it at a rather {vocalsound} in a rather more comfortable interface . And you could download programs for it from uh for uh T_V_s from all sort of main manufacturers . Um though you {disfmarker} i it would be necessary to have uh have a m uh have a {vocalsound} ha have a mode for programming it without the computer , uh just in case there are there are still people left out there who don't have them yet . Um . But uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: That's that's my idea . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Excellent , right . Um {vocalsound} uh . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: File open . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We go . +Project Manager: Trend watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} So uh to gather my research , two basic methods . We compared uh whether people want the remote control to do a lot of stuff or they want it to look cool . And then we we research uh fashion trends in Europe , what's what's the new black , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: you know , as it goes . {vocalsound} Next slide please . Uh we found , in order of importance , people want the remote control to look cool more than they want it to to be cool . As in they want it to do a lot of good s they want it to look like it does a lot , and if it does do a lot that's a bonus , but they don't care so much , you know . {vocalsound} They want it to be {disfmarker} that's sounds a bit like a contradiction . Technology technical {disfmarker} technologically innovative . People want it to be that , but s still they care more about the way it looks than what it does . So like the interface is really important . {vocalsound} And easy to use , it it just so happens that uh from the second point to the third point is twice as important {disfmarker} I mean the second point is twice as important as the third point . People want it {disfmarker} I is it has to be cooler than easy to use , you know , if it has the newest features , even if it's difficult to use , {gap} prefer it to have the newest features . And if it's easy to use that's a bonus . {vocalsound} The fashion , now this is seems a bit odd to me , but fruit and veg is the new is the new black for furniture , for clothes , for shoes . How that relates to a remote control I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I I see {vocalsound} I come on to that in the next in the next slide . Spongy . I've als I've been saying everything's the new black . Well spongy's the new black as well . So we have the choice between rubber and plastic . If it's the type of rubber that you can squeeze , you know , it's spongy , then {disfmarker} can I skip the rest ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I forgot to mention that . The uh rubber material is the type of stress ball material , not just normal rubber . +Marketing: Okay . Okay , so +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Forgot to say that . +Marketing: kinda spongy material . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So um so my personal opinion ? {vocalsound} Um we want something fancy and techni technologically innovative , obviously . But what we what we need is something that looks like it's from the future that looks cool , that's that's different , you know , that's {disfmarker} everyone has a white remote control , black remote control , you need something cool . Like , titanium is cool but it's expensive . And maybe it's a bit of overkill for a remote control . Um now the fruit and veg options , either we we go in that direction or we stay totally away from it . Um {vocalsound} I mean the research did come up with fruit and veg , so maybe it is important for {disfmarker} it's the up to the interface guy . So if we stay away from it , s you know stay away from it , but if we're gonna go along with it then it doesn't necessarily have to be like an apple or something like that , or a kiwi fruit . It could be something like , I say potato peeler but I'm sure you guys have a have a much cooler idea than I do . So I think cool is the key . {vocalsound} Few questions about a spongy remote control . I've never seen one before . I've seen plastic remote controls . I think maybe they were {disfmarker} I don't know , back in the day when they first came up with remote controls , they had a reason for it being +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: sturdy , you know . For being strong and sturdy . So um if we want something strong and sturdy , I say stay with plastic or titanium , but if we go with spongy , we can stress that you can drop this as many times as you want , it doesn't matter , it's spongy material , it's not gonna break , you know . I just don't know how the L_E_D_ and the lights are gonna fit into a spongy material because it's not gonna be completely squeezable . So how do things fit it ? And if we are gonna use spongy , we can say it's long lasting , you know it's damage resistant and stuff like that , so . So just to summarise , people want stuff that's cool , that's that looks like it's cool , and if it is cool then that's a bonus {gap} doesn't have to be um people like fruit and veg . We can either go down that alley or stay totally away from it . People like spongy material . If we're gonna use spongy material we have to think of how practical it is , and how we can further promote that idea . And also , this was this year . So , things change all the time , every year you know they they always talk about this year , this is the new black . Well next year something else is gonna be the new black +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we're stuck with last year's fruit and veg type stuff . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's me . +Project Manager: Well , um I would say that the most you could probably hope for is gaining a year's lead on most people anyway . You always have to bring out new designs , so if we can get next year then that's possibly a good place to start anyway . Um . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Seems like a a lot of the components could be off the shelf , so {disfmarker} I don't exactly what cost would be incurred . Um I can see your point about the number keypad , but I've {disfmarker} I would say that we can probably incorporate it into the menu system if you need to do traversal of a large number of channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My feeling would be that even if at a later date this was to be taking control of um {gap} boxes as well um having the use of the L_C_D_ and the joystick would probably allow you to manipulate enough channel numbers for you to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , actually {gap} if you've got a lot of channels , the number keypad can be quite annoying as well , becau {vocalsound} {gap} it's you know if you're trying to remember what uh , you know , what number's the discovery channel or whatever . It's just irritating . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's a good point . +User Interface: But if you h {vocalsound} but but but if you have a me but if you have a menu structure , then you can sub-group them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You can incorporate names into the menu . Okay . +User Interface: So you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Even news , music . Like they do on uh sky digital kinda . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So what it looks like to me is we'll use a large number of standard components , um , say something like um lithium ion battery , the kind that you find in most um small hand held devices now . Um {disfmarker} Looks like we {gap} going for a double curved design . Um I don't know what cost implications there are in that . Um , looks like we're pretty much decided on some kind of flexible rubber . Though I'd have to say {vocalsound} depending on how flexible it is , we might need to have some kind of inner frame . +User Interface: Yeah , I I would say definitely , I mean {vocalsound} I mean I mean the the idea of having it sort of articulated i th there would be basically two points of articulation . W um one below and one above the m the uh the main sort of grip . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think there's any way we could maybe remove the articulation ? I can see why it looks appealing , but it could be a weak point in um the structure , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm {gap} . +Project Manager: That would be a worry of mine . +Industrial Designer: If you're going with the fruit and veg thing , {vocalsound} looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I d I don't thi I don't think that it would be a {vocalsound} a structural weakness , +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: F if you wanna design it that way . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean if you have a firm s sub-structure , you can then incorporate articulation into that . If you then have a sort of outer skin of mm flexible , spongy rubber then you have something that is you know very much you know organic , and I think would look rather co I mean {vocalsound} mi {vocalsound} rather cool . I mean my drawing there doesn't doesn't do it justice , it makes it {vocalsound} makes it look more a little bit more like a vibrator than a than a uh than a remote control , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , we won't add that functionality . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Course not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: However , one interesting point is , I don't know how serious you were there , but we {disfmarker} if we take some of the ideas {gap} why don't we make the damn thing yellow to incorporate the des the colour of the logo ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's an {disfmarker} certainly a different colour from your average um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Make it harder to lose , as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's true . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Was there anything in your research {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The noise for when you lose the banana , um f yeah , for when you lose the remote control , {vocalsound} it could be like a a monkey noise or something like that , rather than a standard beep beep . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y you know , you lose the monkey {disfmarker} the banana , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} monkey {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: y {vocalsound} you lose the banana , you press a button , and you hear like monkey screams or something like that to direct you towards the banana . +User Interface: I th uh I mean if it {disfmarker} I think that's something that could perhaps be programmable , though maybe have monkey as default . Um . +Marketing: S oh , I was gonna talk about the programmable remote control . Now I think it'd be cool if you had one remote control that could work with all T_V_s , you know you s you click a button and it finds the frequency that works with your particular television . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But why you'd need to program it like as as a standard feature , I I don't know . +User Interface: Well basi {vocalsound} basically the um for {vocalsound} f for uh {disfmarker} I mean e each manufacturer will have a partic {vocalsound} will have a particular command set that uh the T_V_ responds to . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's not simply a matter of frequency . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So um {vocalsound} usually what's done is you have this big booklet full of different possi {vocalsound} you'll have all of them sort of programmed in to the uh remote , and you'll have this little booklet of codes you then find your um ma uh find your manufacturer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and try the different codes that +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: come under that manufacturer's name 'til you find the right one . +Marketing: That's because televisions , they don't give the remote control any type of feedback when you send it {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So that's that's quite annoying and we probably would still have to do that . But if we had um some sort of hook-up to your computer as an option , then if you've got a computer you can avoid that rather irritating thing . +Project Manager: An interesting point is that if the person doesn't have the computer , we can still make the process easier because instead of having to look up codes , maybe we can have it that one of the options they have is that they look up the name of the company on the L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then they maybe look up different names of um {vocalsound} different actual units that have been produced . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we have the remote control just go through them until it's like does this do the correct function , and such . +Marketing: Is it is it actually a book of names to digits , or is it like a few pages ? +User Interface: Um booklet . {vocalsound} Some pages . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was just thinking , if we were to store this information , some type of mapping . This person probably need to use this feature like once , you know , when you first buy the remote control , or whenever they buy a new television , so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Doesn't have to be used very often +Marketing: once every s +Project Manager: that's right , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . But it's a but it's a nuisance . +Marketing: and it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it's a nuisance very close to the to um to actually purchasing it , so it's something that you're likely to be thinking about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If you {disfmarker} if there's w i if there's one in the shop that's {vocalsound} that says it can avoid much of that nuisance , you might be favourably inclined towards it . Um mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , this {disfmarker} {gap} just to give us a rough idea of what we're meant to be doing for the next stage . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I'm pretty sure that you got that anyway . This is the conceptual one . Um . I think we've come up {disfmarker} I think we've covered everything we need to here . Um I think we've decided on what , you know , decided on standard items for most of um rubber and such , so we're now looking at the detailed design and what we need to be doing for the next meeting . Um {disfmarker} So for example , um I'll just start at the top , you've got yourself and the Industrial Designer gonna be working quite closely at this stage 'cause it'll be hard not to , obviously . Um looking from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} prototyping of some des description using clay . Um I suppose you'll be told a lot more about that as uh {vocalsound} progress . Um {disfmarker} The user interface design , They're kind of {disfmarker} it looks they're {disfmarker} the idea I've pushed forward so far is maybe more of a physical one there , whereas {vocalsound} possibly be more interested in maybe how the L_C_D_'s going to incorporate , do you think ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or do you s perceive that most the design design decisions still need to be based on the physical layout ? +User Interface: Um well I I think other than ge getting a sort of more aesthetically pleasing form for it , um mo most of the sort of layout design decisions are {vocalsound} are made , I would say . Um but then again , the um the menu structure to to a considerable extent that's gonna vary according to the model of television , and also any customisations that the user might wish to incorporate . So um and one of the nice things about having an L_C_D_ and a menu structure is that there is that flexibility to it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's very true . {vocalsound} Um . Okay . Um got product evaluation as well . Um . +Marketing: Yeah , you see I don't {disfmarker} some of these things kinda logically follow the others . How can {disfmarker} t product evaluation , doesn't that come after actually seen a product prototype . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I think we'd be {disfmarker} yeah , no , it'd be more a case of how do we envisage us performing the product evaluation once we have a model to test with . +Marketing: Oh , that's the {disfmarker} okay , sure sure sure . +Project Manager: Um so it'd be a case of do you think that just bringing users in to have them test it out , uh maybe putting a certain number of products into the field in certain places which I suppose is quite similar . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or just kind of hitting the streets and you know saying this is a new remote control , what do you think of the look of it ? Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , sure . At this stage we still have no no target audience or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think the target audience is pretty much anybody under the age of say maybe sixty or something ludicrous . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the reason I'm saying that is we're just looking at a a replacement remote control , something that's stylish , so maybe you're even just maybe you're narrowing down your target audience simply by saying +Marketing: And it's stylish . +Project Manager: if they're buying it that often or they're maybe looking to replace something then , they've got a bit of free cash , so that puts them potentially in the younger age bracket . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even single , just for the reasons of um uh excess cash flow . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Although of course I mean at twenty five Euros , I don't think we're looking at charging the earth for the uh device . +Marketing: Yep . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Think that's well within the normal bracket . Um your idea of the U_S_B_ would I think would largely depend on the cost . U_S_B_'s definitely one of the cheapest interfaces out there , but it might push the cost of the overall unit up 'cause it would require not just the connection but the chip for communicating with the rest of the system . That one might have to be based on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Programmable memory as well . +Industrial Designer: The U_S_B_ for which ? +Marketing: For the remote control . +Project Manager: The the idea was that maybe it could connect up for um allowing a software interface on the P_C_ for a larger programming +Industrial Designer: Oh right , okay . +Project Manager: due to the fact that we've gone for such a nice , easy minimal design , normally . Um . +Marketing: We've w definitely talking some type of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But didn't they just say it's just for T_V_ , or are we gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for T_V_ , but for +Marketing: Different . +Project Manager: programming it to use your T_V_ , you might hook it up to the P_C_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure , but I'm thinking maybe that the additional cost of the U_S_B_ might be prohibitive . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: We don't know unless {disfmarker} it would make sense to . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: But you're gonna need some type of flash memory or something . +User Interface: I mean it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well something that doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you wouldn't have to redo the whole thing once the batteries are changed , you know , once you turn off the power . +User Interface: Yeah . The other thing I mean it I mean it would need to ha {vocalsound} it would need to have um some sort of on board memory anyway . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um f {vocalsound} for one {vocalsound} for one thing because I do think that the menu system should be um uh I mean although you know , it's not going to be terribly complicated if it's just controlling one device , the menu system ought to be um o ought to be customisable and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Different languages , uh different skins and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . W +User Interface: Mm-hmm . How uh how uh how you want say the um the the menu structure for flicking through channels if you've got lots of channels . That sort of thing . +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} I if it was customisable as in different languages and stuff , that does open {disfmarker} it is supposed to be international , right ? So . +Project Manager: It would make sense to . I would say to . +Marketing: It would make sense if you could {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um and we'd better be careful about the time as well . We've already had the five minute warning , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: so . Um . I would say yeah . International would make sense . Um you're gonna look at product evaluation . I'm I'd better start writing up a hell of a lot of crap . Um you're gonna look a bit more at the kind of the physical make up you say . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um looks like we're gonna need a maybe a kind of prototype in clay . {vocalsound} Uh we'll see how that goes . Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Are we going to be supplied with the clay is what I want to know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So um +User Interface: Where is the clay ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do {disfmarker} I think we've got an idea of where we need to go for the next meeting , would you say ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} they're going with the fashion thing , like the design , spongy rubber . +Marketing: The fruit and veg . This one . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I th I think I would largely want to actually steer clear of the whole sort of fruit and veg thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I would s that would be my my feeling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bu {vocalsound} but um but the spongy idea I like . I like it a lot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We seem to have quite a general consensus that the idea of the the r rubber could be quite {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I {gap} having it i having it sort of br bright yellow I think that's quite a good idea , though maybe we could have options for colours as well . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} and again this has the advantage of being harder to lose . +Marketing: Sure . I mean we are trying to promote a remote control , but we wanna keep the company brand as well , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: so . +Project Manager: So we always need to remember that somewhere we're meant to be getting the slogan on . Possibly I'm think I'm not sure but I'm seeing a little bit of space around maybe the joystick area which could be used . Um . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . I was {vocalsound} like like I said before I I think we should have the R_R_ on the uh on the top function button . +Project Manager: Okay . And I think that says it all really . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so too . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Sa +Project Manager: See everybody in a half hour . +","The team, consisting of a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface expert, and a Marketing representative, discusses the conceptual design of a new remote control. The remote is to have minimal design with a joystick, LCD, and a few navigation buttons, with the aim to stand out through its physical shape and minimal design. There's consensus on a rubber material that could be squeezed (stress-ball-like), possibly in bright yellow to align with company branding and to make it less likely to be lost. + +The Industrial Designer presents various options for the material of the casing, types of batteries, and potential shapes (flat, single curved, or double curved). A preference for plastic, infra-red transmitters off the shelf, and conventional batteries is expressed. Discussions cover the necessary chips for functioning with an LCD and the design's implications on cost and ergonomics. The Marketing representative emphasizes the importance of a cool appearance over functionality, scrutinizing current trends like ""fruit and veg"" and ""spongy"" materials. + +User Interface wants to focus on a hand-centric design without a numeric keypad, with the joystick and a few buttons as controls, potentially in a double-curved design suitable for both left and right-handed users. Flexibility in menu structure is highlighted, along with the benefits of an ergonomic rubber casing. + +Marketing suggests the remote should be technologically innovative but focus more on looking cool and stylish. They also convey consumer preference for sponginess and discuss the importance of trends, ultimately suggesting the product be adaptable and resistant to damage. + +There's a consensus on using standard components, avoiding overcomplication, and an initial proposal to feature a bright yellow color for the design. The team considers programmability and the possibility of a U.S.B. connection to customize the remote via a PC, acknowledging that it could potentially raise costs. + +The group agrees to move forward with product evaluation strategies and the development of physical prototypes, with particular attention to the unit's ergonomics and the costs of added features like a U.S.B. connection. The next steps include detailed design work, prototyping, and further evaluation methods. The slogan will also need to be incorporated into the design, potentially near the joystick." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . Ooh . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So we're 'kay ? On the {gap} or {disfmarker} No . I dunno where to put it 'cause the {disfmarker} Okay . Could you s take it off ? {gap} . +Marketing: Is that alright ? {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Keeps coming off . 'S fiddly . +Project Manager: Hmm . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: How do we sta wa how do we start ? Does anybody know ? +Marketing: Oh , another one . +Project Manager: So that's this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay , right . +Industrial Designer: Are we free to take notes uh {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} {gap} . Hmm . Okay , just hang on a second everybody . I haven't actually looked at this yet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Very nice . +Project Manager: I haven't looked at it , but let's just start it off and we'll see what happens . If you're all ready . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} is the agenda ? Opening , acquaintance , tool training and project plan , discussion and then closing . Project aim is a new remote control . It's original , uh trendy and it's user-friendly . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Project method , functional design , individual work , another meeting , conceptual design , individual work , and a meeting of details design , individual work and a meeting . Tool training . Try out the whiteboard , every participant should draw their favourite animal and sum up their favourite characteristics of that animal . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Uh Miss Industrial Designer , would you like to go first ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So are we supposed to bring the little things for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why don't you just c , I think just clip on {disfmarker} clip +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} do you have a belt ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Clip {gap} . +Project Manager: Or put 'em in your pocket , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} okay . So my favourite animal {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what's your favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: 'Kay um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Is it rude ? +Marketing: It's an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a very good elephant . +User Interface: The back end of an elephant . +Marketing: Oh my gosh , I'm never gonna be able to draw that well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , and you want to write up on there , it says you've gotta sum up your f f your favourite characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , it's big , it's got a great memory . +Marketing: Does it ? Oh . +Industrial Designer: Supposed to have a great memory , we say an elephant never forgets . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And uh dunno know why but {vocalsound} looks like nice to me . +Project Manager: Okay . Wonderful , well done . +Industrial Designer: Nice animal . +Project Manager: Do you want to use the wipe {disfmarker} the m the wiper and wipe it off ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And Mister aesthetics designer do you wanna go next ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aesthetic yep , sure . +Marketing: I have no idea what my favourite animal is . +User Interface: 'Kay , my favourite animal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh let's see . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: Dunno if any of you have seen Napoleon Dynamite before . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a liger {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: A what ? +User Interface: a combination of a lion and tiger {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Have you not seen Napoleon Dynamite ? +Marketing: How {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Oh it's a hilarious movie . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: You have to see it . And and it's best characteristic is it's pretty much the awesomest animal . But you have to see the movie to fully appreciate it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well done . +Marketing: Great . Me ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Miss mar Miss Marketing ? +Marketing: Okay . Not quite sure how this is gonna work . +User Interface: There {gap} go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} well I'll try my best {vocalsound} to draw . Can I just draw the face ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , I think you can just draw the face , but then you'll have to describe in writing how the rest of it looks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ooh . It's a cat . +Project Manager: That's a very pr pretty cat . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Which also has what ? A big fat body and big {disfmarker} and a long tail . +Project Manager: Okay , do y do you wanna do some {disfmarker} write {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: you wanna just write some words about it ? +Marketing: Because um cuddly . And usually cats are very friendly . Usually . And they're healing as well . They heal . And they can feel when a human's got problems so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Wow , so they're kinda spiritual . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , that's why I like cats . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: There we are , that's me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , I don't actually have a favourite animal , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but for the for th for this meeting I'll s draw a little {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh . I honestly can't draw for toffee . Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} no +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A prairie dog ? +Project Manager: {gap} no {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh a squirrel ? +Project Manager: That's exactly what it is . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh not a very good one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not bad I would say . +User Interface: Yeah , that's pretty good . +Project Manager: Okay , well , you got it's a s It's a squirrel , and I like them , because they're cute and stupid . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Right . Okay , so , I guess that was the test to see if this equipment is all working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Let's move on to the next page . Okay , project finance , selling price twenty five Euros , profit aim fifty million Euros . +Marketing: Market range internationally sold . +Project Manager: Yeah . Production cost , ah right it's gotta be {disfmarker} can't cost any more than twelve fifty to make . +Marketing: Ah right okay . +Project Manager: {gap} experience with with remote control , so talk about who who's used what . Any ideas ? Stuff like that . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes . {vocalsound} At quarter to twelve . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So I think before we close uh , we are expected {disfmarker} I mean the last slide wanted us to maybe discuss longer what our what our ideas where . I mean if you wanna go back to the last slide . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: S +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we're {disfmarker} I mean before we close the meeting , we're supposed to come up with some ideas for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh k so we're actually supposed to be doing this discussion like right now are we or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I thought this was just t giving us instructions for the re to do next , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I think this is just the preliminary , get some rough ideas for what our experiences with remote controls have been and and what we would {disfmarker} roughly what we would incorporate into a new one maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Right , who's got experiences with remote controls then ? Pretty much everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , I think we've all got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Is this a T_V_ one we are supposed to make ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it's a T_V_ remote control . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay um . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: A new remote control for T_V_ . What would I like ? {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: W what {disfmarker} You want it big do you want it small . Are we are we going for like like telephones are going little teeny tiny things or we are going for something that's that's big and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Medium . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah it seems like there's like {disfmarker} there's sort of a tension between two ideas , I mean , you want you want one remote that maybe can work uh all all of the functions of T_V_ and if you have whatever associated with T_V_ the D_V_D_ player , or something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Video and ts hi-fi and stuff . +User Interface: but like at the same time you don't wanna really busy remote with a thousand buttons on it or something . +Project Manager: Maybe you {disfmarker} yeah +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: now th that's the other thing is it's gotta be cheap . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Cause I I I mean I was thinking something that's got different like maybe a a an L_C_D_ display on it that's got different pages for different devices , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but that would p that would probably be quite expensive . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But how do we know how much uh , I mean , how much do we have per {disfmarker} how much ? +Marketing: Twelve fifty . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It g can't be more than twelve fifty per unit . +Marketing: Each . +Project Manager: Per unit , yeah . +User Interface: Cost . +Industrial Designer: So do we have to be realistic within the budget or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well at the moment we could , wa I mean we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Close pr I don't know how much it would cost . Yeah . +Marketing: Guess {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'cause we this is what we th what we're doing at the moment is just saying what what we'd like , and then after we after we've found out what we can like , some different ideas , we can then go and do the research to find out if these {disfmarker} any of these ideas are feasible or not . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: So would be nice to have something that that controls lots of different things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Couldn't we have like one that comes out ? {vocalsound} Like so you have one in like {disfmarker} mm +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it doesn't have to be really thick . I mean remote controls can be thin bits . And then you have one for your D_V_D_ and you sort of slide it out , and then you have another one , you slide it out . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} have slides . And then it all comes compact +Project Manager: Okay , that's {gap} . +Marketing: into one . So it's not {disfmarker} you actually just putting three or four different remotes together but making them thinner , and um into one basically . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's an idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So you just flip them out . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um {gap} have uh one very complicated one on one side with {vocalsound} all the D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ access and stuff , and then on the other side o {vocalsound} one uh a remote control that would be very very simple with just the channel , program plus and {vocalsound} minus , and the just the mute button , for example . I can real keep it really really simple on one side and the other side be very complicated . +Project Manager: One side for kids , one side for adults . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if that's like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or grandma as well , you know it's like {vocalsound} what is the mute button . +User Interface: I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have a two sided remote though , 'cause it would be very hard to use in the way that you mani manipulate it . +Industrial Designer: No , but you would slide it into uh someth like something on the back would hold {disfmarker} like you wouldn't be able to press the buttons , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Like it {gap} +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: or something like a flip telephone , something like that maybe . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: That would be cool . +Project Manager: F flip it open and you've got all the buttons , or you flip it closed and you've just got the basic buttons on the outside maybe . +Marketing: I was thinking that like a flip . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , oh we've got five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Start breaking up . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um . +Project Manager: Well we've got a k we've got a few ideas there . +User Interface: Yeah , we should uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: I guess by the end of this meeting we should have at least a a rough conception {disfmarker} you know {gap} stage one was technical functions design , what effect the apparatus should have . Okay . Um so I mean we still have time in our next meeting to come up with the actual concept for the user interface , but the the functions that we're sure that we want are that it can control the T_V_ , but also devices connected to the to the T_V_ , I mean , be able to operate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: D_V_D_ players , things like that . +Project Manager: I have got {disfmarker} I think we should also have a back-up plan of {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} 'cause I I I just think that it might be expensive to make something that {disfmarker} I mean we don't , we haven't been told it has to be something that will control everything . We should have a back-up plan of just a really good television remote control , that just {disfmarker} that is just for a T_V_ , but it's just a really good , nice one . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Project Manager: What do you reckon ? See 'cause , {gap} I'm just thinking {disfmarker} bearing in mind th we've gotta {disfmarker} we have to have something that's cheap to make . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean {gap} . Yeah , that's true , maybe we should just concentrate on having a a good T_V_ remote , and have it be um +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we'll be able to come up with ideas and stuff a lot quicker . +User Interface: have it be like ergonomic so it's comfortable to use , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: uh simple to use , and looks decent and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: May w you know , maybe even {disfmarker} +Marketing: But what'll make it what'll make it interesting for people to buy though ? +Project Manager: Or maybe even so something that's for disabled people +Marketing: I mean if it's if it's just like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or so people that uh b don't see very well or {disfmarker} big buttons for {disfmarker} touchy buttons for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorta find a niche for our remote , like market it to a certain kind of p kind of people , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or just one that looks really fucking cool . +User Interface: certain certain demographic {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Could be really light or , I dunno , something special . +User Interface: Yeah , no I think you're right . Yeah , rathe rather than focus on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Otherwise we'll be we'll be here all day talking about {gap} do this let's do that n I think we sh I think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Y {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause at the end of the day if it says just T_V_ remote , doesn't say com combination with all all the r {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I mean obviously everyone {disfmarker} we're uh you know uh sounds like we're all a bit sort of gadget heads and we like things that do everything at once , but you know , that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remotes spinning out from other remotes and having little nested remotes inside . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . I mean I'd like one that makes tea as well , but {vocalsound} that's not gonna happen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think a flip up thing , 'cause you always have this problem of like if it's on this {disfmarker} well I did anyway , like we had five or six remotes and they would be lying on the c on the coach , and you'd come and sit down and {disfmarker} ooh , the telephone's {disfmarker} the television switched on or something . So maybe something that like does have a lid or closes , so you don't accidentally press a button or record button for something . +Project Manager: Okay , like a lock f like a lock functs function on it like you have on your telephones , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . But make it like really snazzy and cool {gap} people will want it . So make it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's gotta be sellable . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's true what you were saying , I mean it doesn't have to have a flip function , it can just have a lock function , so that it's not uh not usable when you don't want it to be usable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And even for kids as well . It's um it's safer for them , I guess . Like they don't flick onto channels and all that sl flick onto . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No porn channel for children . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um alright , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we've got some ideas , we've got um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I guess that's good good for now . +Project Manager: Let's move on . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oops , let's close that . Next meeting , uh okay . +Marketing: W What does I_D_V_I_D_N_M_E_ stand for ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer um which is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah ri okay . {gap} these are requirement specification . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: And I'm marketing . +Project Manager: Yeah , there you go . {vocalsound} So {gap} {disfmarker} User Interface Designer , that's that's +User Interface: That's me . Okay . +Project Manager: that's you , so you gotta {gap} you go , you're you're gonna be the one that's working out what what buttons we need . Um . +User Interface: Right . Right . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer , you are the one {gap} , you know , you're gonna be working out kind of box it goes in , I guess so , um whether it's {gap} what goes into the box , somehow . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Har how it works an +Project Manager: And in marketing {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: {vocalsound} These are requirement specification . +Project Manager: User requirements specifications . +Marketing: So what the user requires +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you think our two kind of overlap , because {disfmarker} +Marketing: in a remote . +Project Manager: Right , okay , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it does seem like our our responsibilities have some overlap . +Marketing: I guess that's what it says . +Project Manager: You two {vocalsound} you two are gonna be just , I think , you just double up , you know , you {disfmarker} working together . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: You're the one that's gotta go and find out {disfmarker} do th do the research , see what people want in a remote , what buttons are used more often , and s stuff like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , we've been warned to finish the meeting now . Okay . Okay everyone , well done . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good meeting . +User Interface: Alright , see you in thirty minutes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} , do we take these off ? +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} +","The conversation involves a project team comprising a Project Manager, Marketing representative, Industrial Designer, and User Interface Designer. They kick off with a check on some unclear logistics and start with an icebreaker, drawing their favorite animals and sharing characteristics they admire. + +The Project Manager outlines the agenda, which includes opening, acquaintance, tool training, project plan discussion, and closing. The project's aim is to develop a new remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly. The process includes functional design, individual work, and various meetings. Tool training involves using a whiteboard, and each participant draws their favorite animal. + +The Project Manager first draws a squirrel and describes it as ""cute and stupid."" The Industrial Designer prefers an elephant for its size and memory, while Marketing likes cats due to their cuddliness and perceived healing abilities. The User Interface designer's favorite is a liger, inspired by the movie Napoleon Dynamite. + +Moving on to the project's financial aspects, they discuss that the selling price should be 25 Euros with a profit aim of 50 million Euros and that production cost cannot exceed 12.50 Euros per unit. They touch on their experiences with remote controls, which will inform the new design. + +The meeting delves into the remote control's functionalities, considering aspects like ergonomics, simplicity, aesthetics, and potential features suited for different users (kids, adults, disabled). They ponder whether the remote should manage multiple devices or focus on being an excellent TV remote due to cost concerns. + +Ideas include a remote that's simple on one side and complex on the other, possibly with sliding or flipping components to regulate different devices or protect the buttons. They also consider emphasizing a lock function for safety and unintentional button presses. + +The session ends with the Project Manager reminding the team to focus on feasible ideas within budget. They agree to gather more concrete ideas in the next meeting. + +In summary, the team held an initial meeting to brainstorm ideas for a new remote control, taking into account user-friendliness, finances, functions, and aesthetics. They shared personal experiences with remote controls and considered both functional and inventive designs, knowing they need to flesh out more feasible options at their next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Right , so start of the first meeting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . Right , so agenda of the first meeting . Where we uh {disfmarker} We have twenty five minutes for this meeting . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We uh are to get acquainted . So does everyone want to say who they are ? {gap} that seem sensible ? +Marketing: Yeah . I'm Robin . I'm the Marketing Manager . +User Interface: I'm Louisa . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nick . I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: And I'm Alastair and I'm the project leader . {vocalsound} Alright okay , so tool training . Um . {vocalsound} Project plan . So does anyone have any uh thoughts as to the tool training that uh is required ? +Industrial Designer: Tool training +User Interface: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by tool training . +Project Manager: Neither am I {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I see , so we shouldn't really be {disfmarker} Oh right okay , so . So we have the project team , which is to um {vocalsound} basically to come up with a new r remote control device . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh we have uh {disfmarker} the starting base was the original {vocalsound} which has been in existence now for a period of time . And uh our idea is to uh to make the new remote control device uh more user friendly than the previous one , and to {vocalsound} to be trendier , to be with it , and therefore to uh to get a bigger market share and bigger audience . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So um {vocalsound} method of doing this is uh split up as you can see into uh {vocalsound} the functional design , the conceptional design , and the detailed design . So um {vocalsound} in each of these uh phases we'll uh basically be handing over to yourselves , the designers of this uh this device . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: And uh having uh meetings so that we can uh during the course of the day um come up with a better better inst implement than we had before . And therefore um have a successful uh conclusion to the day . Um and you'll be doing uh various designs uh throughout the day to meet this end . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , okay . +Project Manager: So we've got tool training . Try out whiteboard . Uh . {vocalsound} So we will um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right so everyone's to uh supposedly uh draw their favourite animal over on the white board over there . I guess this is uh make sure the whiteboard works . So uh I don't know who wishes to go first . +Industrial Designer: Okay {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you wish to go f Have a first bash at uh whatever . +User Interface: I don't mind . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Ah uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's see . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Good job I got pockets today . +Project Manager: But now you you uh you'll move out from the microphone and the camera . +Marketing: Your microphone's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I take it that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are we supposed to do this right now , do you think , or ? +Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} I would guess so . Or {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You've lost uh your microphone there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical problems . +User Interface: Oh . Right here we go . +Project Manager: I mean you designers are meant to come up with these sort of things . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think that I would have to say that my favourite animal is the cat . Little smiley cat there . Um and this would be because they're very independent , uh they're very intelligent , compared to dogs maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} and they can be very very affectionate . Some people don't think so but I know very affectionate cats . Um . Um and they can look after themselves . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , yeah . I'll I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: Shall I rub that out , actually ? +Project Manager: I don't see as there's any need to . There's plenty of space . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I mean whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can have have a whole menagerie . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Shall I see if I can get across without just tangling everything . Okay . +Project Manager: We've had more time to prepare over this side , +Industrial Designer: There's one . +Project Manager: so we've all stuck our bits and pieces in our pockets . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Didn't think of that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay uh +Project Manager: The three pens are underneath . +Industrial Designer: pens are over here . I'll try the red pen . Okay . Um . {vocalsound} I'm gonna go for the bear which I'm {gap} be able to draw very well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You get marks for artistic impression . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'll have a bash at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ooh ooh {gap} I lost it there . I think I've just knocked the microphone . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you're just doing the face . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We'll g then we'll go for a a s small small bear {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and I like my animal that looks nothing like a bear because um I dunno maybe because there's so many cartoon characters made up after the bear like the jungle book characters and stuff like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Hello . Um I'm gonna go for the dog , and I'm gonna draw one badly as well . Uh . {gap} looks like it's going to be a dachshund or something . +User Interface: That's quite good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . There's my dog . Um {vocalsound} I like dogs because they're very loyal . And they're always happy , so whenever whenever you're feeling sort of a bit a bit down or tired , they're always coming up and they're always um quite excited . So um you can always have a lot of fun with a dog . And they're also good for exercise as well . You can sorta get out and they they sorta never get tired . And and when they're tired they're quite cute as well , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , that's why I like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right , um . {vocalsound} Well I've not actually had too many pets uh over my uh time 'cause to be honest with you uh {gap} I'm not too keen on them anyway . Not to worry . So what my daughters have got at the moment is they've got uh a few fish and so hopefully um won't prove too difficult to draw . Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: As you can see that my artist artistic work is useless as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway um . {vocalsound} And uh one of the best uh things about fish is that they don't really take uh too much looking after because uh with most of the animals if you're going away on holiday or whatever , you've gotta spend money or get a friend or whatever to look after them for you . Whereas if you got fish , you just gotta put the food in a a a dripper feed which feeds them over the uh couple of weeks that you're away and uh change the water every couple of months , and buy in a few plants , so . Other than the fact that they keep dying , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh fish are uh {vocalsound} are not are are are reasonable pets in that uh they're low maintenance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Okay , uh if we're still all with us . Right okay , so . Work has been done on uh this uh project where by um twenty five Euros is uh the uh expected uh selling price . That information has come from our marketing manager here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So we're looking to sell internationally , not just in Europe . We're looking at um having our production costs limited to uh twelve and an half Euro per unit . And therefore making a profit margin of uh {disfmarker} well not actually a profit margin it's uh {disfmarker} because obviously you're gonna have overheads and various other costs to uh take uh from uh from that to give you your profit margin per unit . And so depending what the uh the overhead uh costs are will determine uh how many units we're uh looking to sell or projecting to sell at this point in time . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Experience with remote control , first ideas . New remote . So I guess we're looking at um having a discussion at this point in time to help uh you um folks design our our new model as it were . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: So uh any any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Um I {gap} with some remote controls the buttons were a little small so they're quite hard to press so maybe we make something with uh easy to press buttons . As that is the main function . +Project Manager: Okay , so so basically we're looking for some um {disfmarker} we're looking for a device that is um robust and and therefore uh won't get damaged too easily . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um we're looking for a device that is uh {disfmarker} What was the other things you said there ? +Industrial Designer: Um sort of easy to use so the buttons are accessible . +Project Manager: Easy to use . Use . +Industrial Designer: {gap} is easy to use and see . +Project Manager: And see . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh . +User Interface: Can I just check ? {vocalsound} Is this just a television remote ? Because a lot of um systems are kind of T_V_ video combined now , or T_V_ D_V_D_ combined . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And one of the most annoying things is having like five remotes in the house . So if you've got a combined system , it could be a combined remote . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Or is it just a television that we're supposed to be doing ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Oh I w um basically I'll get back to you on that . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: But it seems to me sensible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'cause {disfmarker} as you rightly said , there's nothing more annoying than having three or four devices littered about the uh about the room . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So a device for for all remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Sorry , you go . You go . +Marketing: I've Okay . Yeah . Um one of the things um we found from the market research is that people often get confused by the number of buttons on them as well . 'Cause there's quite often lots and lots . And um sometimes uh they sort of {disfmarker} remote controls defeat their own purpose because you're sat in the chair and the remote is somewhere else in the room . So {disfmarker} whereas in the past you'd have to get up to change the channel , now you have to get up to sort of pick up the remote . So so I don't we need to sort of maybe think about how um we could maybe uh develop a remote control which moves around the room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Comes to your whistle . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's that's maybe something for the future when you can talk to your television , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But is it {disfmarker} in a sense it's r um mutually exclusive . You can't have both the th the one device and then have few buttons on it to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you want you want simplicity as well , you want any idiot to be able to use it . Whilst at the same time you want , as you rightly said , one remote for all . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And so these are probably mutually exclusive options +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm you could argue that experience of using devices and similar devices as people get more and more used to using remotes , therefore they're more {gap} with handling them , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: therefore you can make them more complicated as time goes on . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we could um have better instructions with the remote . Or are we just doing the design of the remote control itself , or sort of the instructions that would come with it ? +Project Manager: {gap} Better instructions . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean we've done some research um about sort of you know what the cutting edge sort of hand held devices are , and a lot of them sort of use you know they're like they're like mini laptops . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's possible that we could devise a system where where you're you're basically sort of holding a a miniature computer which is controlling all your your sort of your television , your stereo , and where {disfmarker} you know if you buy a new thing then it sort of {disfmarker} you can link it to that as well , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well we've got five minutes before the end of the meeting . So uh we have to uh start winding up . Um is there {disfmarker} Next meeting in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} Right , so we've got I_D_ the {disfmarker} Come on , where's my {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you just click return it should be okay . It'll get rid of the message . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or not . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If you hit just hit return and it should get rid of the message . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh there we go . +Marketing: Oh you've got {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what I was looking for . Right . So we've got function {disfmarker} Oh what happened to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that might be back to the start . Um if you grab the kind of uh slide to the left and pull it down ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} slide four {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Right . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so we've got um the working design for I_D_ . For U_I_D_ the technical functions design . Marketing , the user requirement specification . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your person by your personal coach . So . Are we all clear what objectives we're looking to meet in the next thirty minutes ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I guess I'll try and write up some minutes of uh this meeting to uh to give it to you for the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , yes . +User Interface: I'm not exactly clear on what we're designing the rem remote for . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is this a mun multi-functional one or do we decide that ourselves as we go away and work on it ? +Industrial Designer: I think you just said at the start it was a television remote control , +Project Manager: Television remote control . +Industrial Designer: so maybe we should just stick to that unless we get told otherwise . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: That's true , 'cause during during the course of our day we might make decisions based on information or meetings that would change {vocalsound} where we're going . +Marketing: Okay cool . +Project Manager: But at this point in time I think you're right that uh {disfmarker} shall we make it just a T_V_ . Okay ? So we will depart . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We will stay here and uh and break off . And I'll do minutes and and we'll see you in half and hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay cheers . +Project Manager: Okay . Right s +","The team's inaugural meeting, led by the project manager Alastair, commenced with a brief introduction from team members including Robin, the Marketing Manager, Louisa, the User Interface Designer, and Nick, the Industrial Designer. The meeting was set to run for just twenty-five minutes, with the central aim of acquainting team members and discussing the early stages of developing a new, user-friendly, and trendy remote control device aimed at capturing a larger market share. + +Discussions initially veered towards clarifying tool training requirements, which seemed to perplex both the team and Alastair. The conversation quickly shifted to outlining the project's scope. The new remote was earmarked for enhancement over its predecessor, emphasizing improved usability and a stylish design aligned with current trends. Alastair divided the development process into phases: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design, and indicated that the designers would be heavily involved throughout to refine the product. + +To ensure that they had the necessary equipment for their collaboration, the group undertook a seemingly impromptu 'tool training' exercise involving drawing their favorite animals on a whiteboard, an effort to ensure the whiteboard's functionality. Through this exercise, individual team members expressed their personal preferences, with Louisa illustrating a cat and espousing their traits, Nick sketching a bear inspired by cartoon characters, Robin opting for a loyal and energetic dog, and Alastair opting for low-maintenance fish, which he humorously noted often keep dying. + +The meat of the discussion began when Alastair revealed the project's commercial constraints: a target retail price of twenty-five Euros and production costs capped at twelve and a half Euros per unit. This would determine projected sales figures and required profit margins, not accounting for non-direct costs. The discourse veered toward the new remote's specifications. Nick suggested user-friendly buttons; Alastair emphasized the need for device robustness and visibility; Louisa queried whether the remote would control just a television or a suite of multimedia devices, a question unresolved by Alastair. + +Marketing insights from Robin signified a consumer preference for fewer buttons, criticizing excessive complexity, but highlighted the paradox of seeking device simplicity alongside multifunctionality. The idea of a singular device capable of controlling multiple gadgets was tentatively entertained, as was Louisa's whimsical suggestion for a self-moving remote accessible via a whistle. + +Ideas such as incorporating a similitude to mini-laptop usability and articulating clear instructions were floated. As the meeting approached its end, Alastair described the next phase: the Industrial Designer (ID) would handle the working design, the User Interface Designer (UID) would look after technical functions, while the Marketing team would craft a user requirement specification. + +In the remaining thirty minutes before the subsequent gathering, the group anticipated receiving specific instructions from their respective coaches. Alastair committed to drafting a record of the meeting, though Louisa voiced uncertainty about the remote's definitive functionality—whether multi-use or TV-exclusive. Nick suggested adhering to their original understanding of designing a TV remote, pending further guidance, underlining the fluidity of the project's trajectory owing to evolving decisions and information. + +As the meeting concluded, roles were clarified, and the team agreed to reconvene in half an hour, armed with a more focused approach towards developing their envisioned TV remote control." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD B: OK . We 're on . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: OK , so uh {vocalsound} had some interesting mail from uh Dan Ellis . Actually , I think he {disfmarker} he {vocalsound} redirected it to everybody also so uh {vocalsound} the PDA mikes uh have a big bunch of energy at {disfmarker} at uh five hertz uh where this came up was that uh I was showing off these wave forms that we have on the web and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} I just sort of hadn't noticed this , but that {disfmarker} the major , major component in the wave {disfmarker} in the second wave form in that pair of wave forms is actually the air conditioner . +Grad C: Huh . +Professor A: So . So . I {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I have to be more careful about using that as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as a good illustration , uh , in fact it 's not , of uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the effects of room reverberation . It is isn't a bad illustration of the effects of uh room noise . {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} on uh some mikes uh but So . And then we had this other discussion about um {vocalsound} whether this affects the dynamic range , cuz I know , although we start off with thirty two bits , you end up with uh sixteen bits and {vocalsound} you know , are we getting hurt there ? But uh Dan is pretty confident that we 're not , that {disfmarker} that quantization error is not {disfmarker} is still not a significant {vocalsound} factor there . So . So there was a question of whether we should change things here , whether we should {vocalsound} change a capacitor on the input box for that or whether we should +PhD B: Yeah , he suggested a smaller capacitor , right ? +Professor A: Right . But then I had some other uh thing discussions with him +PhD B: For the P D +Professor A: and the feeling was {vocalsound} once we start monk monkeying with that , uh , many other problems could ha happen . And additionally we {disfmarker} we already have a lot of data that 's been collected with that , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: A simple thing to do is he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he has a {disfmarker} I forget if it {disfmarker} this was in that mail or in the following mail , but he has a {disfmarker} a simple filter , a digital filter that he suggested . We just run over the data before we deal with it . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um The other thing that I don't know the answer to , but when people are using Feacalc here , uh whether they 're using it with the high - pass filter option or not . And I don't know if anybody knows . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} I could go check . +Professor A: But . Yeah . So when we 're doing all these things using our software there is {disfmarker} um if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's based on the RASTA - PLP program , {vocalsound} which does both PLP and RASTA - PLP {vocalsound} um then {vocalsound} uh there is an option there which then comes up through to Feacalc which {vocalsound} um allows you to do high - pass filtering and in general we like to do that , because of things like this and {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty {disfmarker} it 's not a very severe filter . Doesn't affect speech frequencies , even pretty low speech frequencies , at all , but it 's +PhD B: What 's the {pause} cut - off frequency it used ? +Professor A: Oh . I don't know I wrote this a while ago +PhD B: Is it like twenty ? +Professor A: Something like that . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean I think there 's some effect above twenty but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's mild . So , I mean it probably {disfmarker} there 's probably some effect up to a hundred hertz or something but it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty mild . I don't know in the {disfmarker} in the STRUT implementation of the stuff is there a high - pass filter or a pre pre - emphasis or something in the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Uh . I think we use a pre - emphasis . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we want to go and check that in i for anything that we 're going to use the P D A mike for . {vocalsound} uh He says that there 's a pretty good roll off in the PZM mikes so {vocalsound} we don't need {disfmarker} need to worry about them one way or the other but if we do make use of the cheap mikes , {vocalsound} uh we want to be sure to do that {disfmarker} that filtering before we {vocalsound} process it . And then again if it 's uh depending on the option that the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our software is being run with , it 's {disfmarker} it 's quite possible that 's already being taken care of . uh But I also have to pick a different picture to show the effects of reverberation . uh +PhD B: Did somebody notice it during your talk ? +Professor A: uh No . +PhD B: Huh . +Professor A: Well . uh Well . If they made output they were {disfmarker} they were , you know {disfmarker} they were nice . +PhD B: Didn't say anything ? +Professor A: But . {vocalsound} I mean the thing is it was since I was talking about reverberation and showing this thing that was noise , it wasn't a good match , but it certainly was still uh an indication of the fact that you get noise with distant mikes . uh It 's just not a great example because not only isn't it reverberation but it 's a noise that we definitely know what to do . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So , I mean , it doesn't take deep {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a new {disfmarker} bold new methods to get rid of uh five hertz noise , so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} uh But . So it was {disfmarker} it was a bad example in that way , but it 's {disfmarker} it still is {disfmarker} it 's the real thing that we did get out of the microphone at distance , so it wasn't {vocalsound} it w it w wasn't wrong it was inappropriate . So . {vocalsound} So uh , but uh , Yeah , someone noticed it later pointed it out to me , and I went "" oh , man . Why didn't I notice that ? "" +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: um . So . {vocalsound} um So I think we 'll change our {disfmarker} our picture on the web , when we 're @ @ . One of the things I was {disfmarker} I mean , I was trying to think about what {disfmarker} what 's the best {vocalsound} way to show the difference an and I had a couple of thoughts one was , {vocalsound} that spectrogram that we show {vocalsound} is O K , but the thing is {vocalsound} the eyes uh and the {vocalsound} the brain behind them are so good at picking out patterns {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} from noise {vocalsound} that in first glance you look at them it doesn't seem like it 's that bad uh because there 's many features that are still preserved . So one thing to do might be to just take a piece of the spec uh of the spectrogram where you can see {vocalsound} that something looks different , an and blow it up , and have that be the part that 's {disfmarker} just to show as well . You know . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: i i Some things are going to be hurt . um {vocalsound} Another , I was thinking of was um {vocalsound} taking some spectral slices , like uh {disfmarker} like we look at with the recognizer , and look at the spectrum or cepstrum that you get out of there , and the {disfmarker} the uh , um , {vocalsound} the reverberation uh does make it {disfmarker} does change that . And so maybe {disfmarker} maybe that would be more obvious . +PhD B: Hmm . +Grad C: Spectral slices ? +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: W w what d what do you mean ? +Professor A: Well , I mean um all the recognizers look at frames . So they {disfmarker} they look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: So like one instant in time . +Professor A: Yeah , look at a {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: So it 's , yeah , at one point in time or uh twenty {disfmarker} over twenty milliseconds or something , {vocalsound} you have a spectrum or a cepstrum . +Grad C: OK . +Professor A: That 's what I meant by a slice . +Grad C: I see . +Professor A: Yeah . And {vocalsound} if you look at {disfmarker} +PhD B: You could just {disfmarker} you could just throw up , you know , uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} some MFCC feature vectors . You know , one from one , one from the other , and then , you know , you can look and see how different the numbers are . +Professor A: Right . Well , that 's why I saying either {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , either spectrum or cepstrum +PhD B: I 'm just kidding . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I think the thing is you wanna {disfmarker} +PhD B: I don't mean a graph . I mean the actual numbers . +Professor A: Oh . I see . Oh . That would be lovely , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . "" See how different these {vocalsound} sequences of numbers are ? "" +Professor A: Yeah . Or I could just add them up and get a different total . +PhD B: Yeah . It 's not the square . +Professor A: OK . Uh . What else {disfmarker} wh what 's {disfmarker} what else is going on ? +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah , at first I had a remark why {disfmarker} I am wondering why the PDA is always so far . I mean we are always meeting at the {vocalsound} beginning of the table and {vocalsound} the PDA 's there . +Professor A: Uh . I guess cuz we haven't wanted to move it . We {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we could move us , +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: and . +PhD F: OK . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD F: Well , anyway . Um . Yeah , so . Uh . Since the last meeting we 've {disfmarker} we 've tried to put together um {vocalsound} the clean low - pass um downsampling , upsampling , I mean , Uh the new filter that 's replacing the LDA filters , and also {vocalsound} the um delay issue so that {disfmarker} We considered th the {disfmarker} the delay issue on the {disfmarker} for the on - line normalization . Mmm . So we 've put together all this and then we have results that are not um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} very impressive . Well , there is no {vocalsound} real improvement . +Professor A: But it 's not wer worse and it 's better {disfmarker} better latency , +PhD F: It 's not {disfmarker} +Professor A: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . Well . Actually it 's better . It seems better when we look at the mismatched case but {vocalsound} I think we are like {disfmarker} like cheated here by the {disfmarker} th this problem that {vocalsound} uh in some cases when you modify slight {disfmarker} slightly modify the initial condition you end up {vocalsound} completely somewhere air somewhere else in the {disfmarker} in the space , {vocalsound} the parameters . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . The other system are for instance . For Italian is at seventy - eight {vocalsound} percent recognition rate on the mismatch , and this new system has eighty - nine . But I don't think it indicates something , really . I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it means that the new system is more robust +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: or {disfmarker} It 's simply the fact that {disfmarker} Well . +Professor A: Well , the test would be if you then tried it on one of the other test sets , if {disfmarker} if it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Y +Professor A: Right . So this was Italian , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: So then if you take your changes +PhD F: It 's similar for other test sets +Professor A: and then {disfmarker} +PhD F: but I mean {vocalsound} from this se seventy - eight um percent recognition rate system , {vocalsound} I could change the transition probabilities for the {disfmarker} the first HMM and {pause} it will end up to eighty - nine also . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: By using point five instead of point six , point four {vocalsound} as in the {disfmarker} the HTK script . +Professor A: Uh - huh . Yeah . +PhD F: So . Well . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah I looked at um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} looked at the results when Stephane did that +PhD F: Well . Eh uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: and it 's {disfmarker} it 's really wo really happens . +PhD F: This really happens . +PhD B: I mean th the only difference is you change the self - loop transition probability by a tenth of a percent +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: and it causes ten percent difference in the word error rate . +Professor A: A tenth of a per cent . +PhD B: Yeah . From point {disfmarker} +PhD F: Even tenth of a percent ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry +PhD F: Well , we tried {disfmarker} we tried point one , +PhD B: f for point {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} You change at point one +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD B: and n not tenth of a percent , one tenth , +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: alright ? Um so from point five {disfmarker} so from point six to point five and you get ten percent better . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it 's what you basically hypothesized in the last meeting {vocalsound} about uh it just being very {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I think you mentioned this in your email too {disfmarker} it 's just very um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm , yeah . +PhD B: you know get stuck in some local minimum and this thing throws you out of it I guess . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well , what 's {disfmarker} what are {disfmarker} according to the rules what {disfmarker} what are we supposed to do about the transition probabilities ? Are they supposed to be point five or point six ? +PhD B: I think you 're not allowed to {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's supposed to be point six , for the self - loop . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Point {disfmarker} It 's supposed to be point six . +PhD B: Yeah . But changing it to point five I think is {disfmarker} which gives you much better results , but that 's {vocalsound} not allowed . +Professor A: But not allowed ? Yeah . OK . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , but even if you use point five , I 'm not sure it will always give you the better results +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: on other test set or it +PhD B: Right . We only tested it on the {disfmarker} the medium mismatch , +PhD F: on the other training set , I mean . +PhD B: right ? You said on the other cases you didn't notice {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But . I think , yeah . I think the reason is , yeah , I not I {disfmarker} it was in my mail I think also , {vocalsound} is the fact that the mismatch is trained only on the far microphone . Well , in {disfmarker} for the mismatched case everything is um using the far microphone training and testing , whereas for the highly mismatched , training is done on the close microphone so {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's clean speech basically so you don't have this problem of local minima probably and for the well - match , it 's a mix of close microphone and distant microphone and {disfmarker} Well . +PhD B: I did notice uh something {disfmarker} +PhD F: So th I think the mismatch is the more difficult for the training part . +PhD B: Somebody , I think it was Morgan , suggested at the last meeting that I actually count to see {vocalsound} how many parameters and how many frames . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And there are uh almost one point eight million frames of training data and less than forty thousand parameters in the baseline system . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it 's very , very few parameters compared to how much training data . +Professor A: Well . Yes . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . And that {disfmarker} that says that we could have lots more parameters actually . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I did one quick experiment just to make sure I had everything worked out and I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh f for most of the um {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for all of the digit models , they end up at three mixtures per state . And so I just did a quick experiment , where I changed it so it went to four and um {vocalsound} it it {disfmarker} it didn't have a r any significant effect at the uh medium mismatch and high mismatch cases and it had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was just barely significant for the well - matched better . Uh so I 'm r gonna run that again but {vocalsound} um with many more uh mixtures per state . +Professor A: Yeah . Cuz at forty thou I mean you could you could have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , easily four times as many {vocalsound} parameters . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . And I think also {vocalsound} just seeing what we saw {vocalsound} uh in terms of the expected duration of the silence model ? when we did this tweaking of the self - loop ? The silence model expected duration was really different . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: And so in the case where {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} it had a better score , the silence model expected duration was much longer . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: So it was like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was a better match . I think {vocalsound} you know if we make a better silence model I think that will help a lot too um for a lot of these cases so but one one thing I {disfmarker} I wanted to check out before I increased the um {vocalsound} number of mixtures per state was {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} default training script they do an initial set of three re - estimations and then they built the silence model and then they do seven iterations then the add mixtures and they do another seven then they add mixtures then they do a final set of seven and they quit . Seven seems like a lot to me and it also makes the experiments go take a really long time I mean to do one turn - around of the well matched case takes like a day . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so {vocalsound} you know in trying to run these experiments I notice , you know , it 's difficult to find machines , you know , compute the run on . And so one of the things I did was I compiled HTK for the Linux {vocalsound} machines +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: cuz we have this one from IBM that 's got like five processors in it ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and so now I 'm {disfmarker} you can run stuff on that and that really helps a lot because now we 've got {vocalsound} you know , extra machines that we can use for compute . And if {disfmarker} I 'm do running an experiment right now where I 'm changing the number of iterations ? {vocalsound} from seven to three ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: just to see how it affects the baseline system . And so if we can get away with just doing three , we can do {vocalsound} many more experiments more quickly . And if it 's not a {disfmarker} a huge difference from running with seven iterations , {vocalsound} um , you know , we should be able to get a lot more experiments done . +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD B: And so . I 'll let you know what {disfmarker} what happens with that . But if we can {vocalsound} you know , run all of these back - ends f with many fewer iterations and {vocalsound} on Linux boxes we should be able to get a lot more experimenting done . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So . So I wanted to experiment with cutting down the number of iterations before I {vocalsound} increased the number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . Sorry . So um , how 's it going on the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . You {disfmarker} you did some things . They didn't improve things in a way that convinced you you 'd substantially improved anything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But they 're not making things worse and we have reduced latency , right ? +PhD F: Yeah . But actually {disfmarker} um actually it seems to do a little bit worse for the well - matched case and we just noticed that {disfmarker} Yeah , actually the way the final score is computed is quite funny . It 's not a mean of word error rate . It 's not a weighted mean of word error rate , it 's a weighted mean of improvements . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So . Which means that {vocalsound} actually the weight on the well - matched is {disfmarker} Well I well what what {disfmarker} What happened is that if you have a small improvement or a small if on the well - matched case {vocalsound} it will have uh huge influence on the improvement compared to the reference because the reference system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite good for {disfmarker} for the well - ma well - matched case also . +PhD B: So it {disfmarker} it weights the improvement on the well - matched case really heavily compared to the improvement on the other cases ? +PhD F: No , but it 's the weighting of the {disfmarker} of the improvement not of the error rate . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah , and it 's hard to improve on the {disfmarker} on the best case , cuz it 's already so good , right ? +PhD F: Yeah but {pause} what I mean is that you can have a huge improvement on the H {disfmarker} HMK 's , uh like five percent uh absolute , and this will not affect the final score almost {disfmarker} Uh this will almost not affect the final score because {vocalsound} this improvement {disfmarker} because the improvement {vocalsound} uh relative to the {disfmarker} the baseline is small {disfmarker} +Professor A: So they do improvement in terms of uh accuracy ? rather than word error rate ? +PhD F: Uh . Uh improvement ? +Professor A: So {disfmarker} +PhD F: No , it 's compared to the word er it 's improvement on the word error rate , +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: yeah . Sorry . +Professor A: So if you have uh ten percent error and you get five percent absolute uh {vocalsound} improvement then that 's fifty percent . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: OK . So what you 're saying then is that if it 's something that has a small word error rate , {vocalsound} then uh a {disfmarker} even a relatively small improvement on it , in absolute terms , {vocalsound} will show up as quite {disfmarker} quite large in this . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Is that what you 're saying ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . But yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} it 's the notion of relative improvement . Word error rate . +PhD F: Yeah . Sure , but when we think about the weighting , which is point five , point three , point two , {vocalsound} it 's on absolute on {disfmarker} on relative figures , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: not {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: So when we look at this error rate +Professor A: No . That 's why I 've been saying we should be looking at word error rate uh and {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not at {vocalsound} at accuracies . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Mmm , yeah . Mmm , yeah . +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean uh we probably should have standardized on that all the way through . It 's just {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I mean , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that different , right ? I mean , just subtract the accuracy . +Professor A: Yeah but you 're {disfmarker} but when you look at the numbers , your sense of the relative size of things is quite different . +PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} Oh . Oh , I see . Yeah . +Professor A: If you had ninety percent uh correct {vocalsound} and five percent , five over ninety doesn't look like it 's a big difference , but {vocalsound} five over ten is {disfmarker} is big . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So just when we were looking at a lot of numbers and {vocalsound} getting sense of what was important . +PhD B: I see . I see . Yeah . That makes sense . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Um . +PhD F: Well anyway uh . So . Yeah . So it hurts a little bit on the well - match and yeah . +Professor A: What 's a little bit ? Like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like , it 's difficult to say because again um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I 'm not sure I have the um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hey Morgan ? Do you remember that Signif program that we used to use for testing signi ? Is that still valid ? I {disfmarker} I 've been using that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , it was actually updated . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Jeff updated it some years ago +PhD B: Oh , it was . Oh , I shoul +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh cleaned it up made some things better in it . So . +PhD B: OK . I should find that new one . I just use my old one from {vocalsound} ninety - two or whatever +Professor A: Yeah , I 'm sure it 's not that different but {disfmarker} but he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he uh {disfmarker} he was a little more rigorous , as I recall . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Right . So it 's around , like , point five . No , point six {comment} uh percent absolute on Italian {disfmarker} +Professor A: Worse . +PhD F: Worse , yep . +Professor A: Out of what ? I mean . s +PhD F: Uh well we start from ninety - four point sixty - four , and we go to ninety - four point O four . +Professor A: Uh - huh . So that 's six {disfmarker} six point th +PhD F: Uh . +PhD B: Ninety - three point six four , right ? is the baseline . +PhD F: Oh , no , I 've ninety - four . Oh , the baseline , you mean . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Well I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not talking about the baseline here . +PhD B: Oh . Oh . I 'm sorry . +PhD F: I uh {disfmarker} My baseline is the submitted system . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Ah , ah . +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Sorry . +PhD F: Oh yeah . For Finnish , we start to ninety - three point eight - four and we go to ninety - three point seventy - four . And for Spanish we are {disfmarker} we were at ninety - five point O five and we go to ninety - three - s point sixty one . +Professor A: OK , so we are getting hurt somewhat . +PhD F: So . +Professor A: And is that wh what {disfmarker} do you know what piece {disfmarker} you 've done several changes here . Uh , do you know what pie +PhD F: Yeah . I guess {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's the filter . Because nnn , well uh we don't have complete result , but the filter {disfmarker} So the filter with the shorter delay hurts on Italian well - matched , which {disfmarker} And , yeah . And the other things , like um {vocalsound} downsampling , upsampling , don't seem to hurt and {vocalsound} the new on - line normalization , neither . +PhD B: I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: I 'm really confused about something . If we saw that making a small change like , you know , a tenth , to the self - loop had a huge effect , {vocalsound} can we really make any conclusions about differences in this stuff ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Yeah that 's th Yeah . +PhD B: I mean , especially when they 're this small . I mean . +PhD F: I think we can be completely fooled by this thing , but {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Well , yeah . +PhD F: So . There is first this thing , and then the {disfmarker} yeah , I computed the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like , the confidence level on the different test sets . And for the well - matched they are around um {vocalsound} point six uh percent . For the mismatched they are around like let 's say one point five percent . And for the well - m uh HM they are also around one point five . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} OK , so you {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these degradations you were talking about were on the well - matched case +PhD F: So . +Professor A: Uh . Do the {disfmarker} does the new filter make things uh better or worse for the other cases ? +PhD F: Yeah . But . Uh . About the same . It doesn't hurt . Yeah . +Professor A: Doesn't hurt , but doesn't get a little better , or something . +PhD F: No . +Professor A: No . OK , so {vocalsound} um I guess the argument one might make is that , "" Yeah , if you looked at one of these cases {vocalsound} and you jiggle something and it changes {vocalsound} then uh you 're not quite sure what to make of it . But when you look across a bunch of these and there 's some {disfmarker} some pattern , um {disfmarker} I mean , so eh h here 's all the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if in all these different cases {vocalsound} it never gets better , and there 's significant number of cases where it gets worse , {vocalsound} then you 're probably {pause} hurting things , {vocalsound} I would say . So um {vocalsound} I mean at the very least that would be a reasonably prediction of what would happen with {disfmarker} with a different test set , that you 're not jiggling things with . So I guess the question is if you can do better than this . If you can {disfmarker} if we can approximate {vocalsound} the old numbers while still keeping the latency down . +PhD F: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh , so . Um . What I was asking , though , is uh {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's the level of communication with uh {vocalsound} the O G I gang now , about this and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , we are exchanging mail as soon as we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have significant results . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . For the moment , they are working on integrating {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} spectral subtraction apparently from Ericsson . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . And so . Yeah . We are working on our side on other things like {vocalsound} uh also trying a sup spectral subtraction but of {disfmarker} of our own , I mean , another {vocalsound} spectral substraction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Yeah . So I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's OK . It 's going {disfmarker} +Professor A: Is there any further discussion about this {disfmarker} this idea of {disfmarker} of having some sort of source code control ? +PhD F: Yeah . Well . For the moment they 're {disfmarker} uh everybody 's quite um {disfmarker} There is this Eurospeech deadline , so . +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: Um . And . Yeah . But yeah . As soon as we have something that 's significant and that 's better than {disfmarker} than what was submitted , we will fix {disfmarker} fix the system and {disfmarker} But we 've not discussed it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} this yet , yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Sounds like a great idea but {disfmarker} but I think that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} he 's saying people are sort of scrambling for a Eurospeech deadline . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: But that 'll be uh , uh done in a week . So , maybe after {vocalsound} this next one . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: Wow ! Already a week ! Man ! +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: You 're right . That 's amazing . +Professor A: Yeah . Anybo - anybody in the {disfmarker} in this group do doing anything for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: S +Professor A: Or , is that what {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah we are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We are trying to {disfmarker} to do something with the Meeting Recorder digits , +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} But yeah . Yeah . And the good thing is that {pause} there is this first deadline , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and , well , some people from OGI are working on a paper for this , but there is also the um {vocalsound} special session about th Aurora which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh which has an extended deadline . So . The deadline is in May . +Professor A: For uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , for Eurospeech ? +PhD F: For th Yeah . +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD F: So f only for the experiments on Aurora . So it {disfmarker} it 's good , +Professor A: Oh , a special dispensation . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: That 's great . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Where is Eurospeech this year ? +PhD F: It 's in Denmark . +Professor A: Aalborg {disfmarker} Aalborg uh +PhD B: Oh . +Professor A: So the deadline {disfmarker} When 's the deadline ? When 's the deadline ? +PhD F: Hmm ? I think it 's the thirteenth of May . +Professor A: That 's great ! It 's great . So we should definitely get something in for that . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: But on meeting digits , maybe there 's {disfmarker} Maybe . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Maybe . +PhD F: So it would be for the first deadline . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Nnn . +Professor A: Yeah . So , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think that you could certainly start looking at {disfmarker} at the issue uh but {disfmarker} but uh {vocalsound} I think it 's probably , on s from what Stephane is saying , it 's {disfmarker} it 's unlikely to get sort of active participation from the two sides until after they 've {disfmarker} +PhD B: Well I could at least {disfmarker} Well , I 'm going to be out next week but I could {pause} try to look into like this uh CVS over the web . That seems to be a very popular {vocalsound} way of {pause} people distributing changes and {disfmarker} over , you know , multiple sites and things +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: so maybe {vocalsound} if I can figure out how do that easily and then pass the information on to everybody so that it 's {vocalsound} you know , as easy to do as possible and {disfmarker} and people don't {disfmarker} it won't interfere with {comment} their regular work , then maybe that would be good . And I think we could use it for other things around here too . So . +Professor A: Good . +Grad C: That 's cool . And if you 're interested in using CVS , I 've set it up here , +PhD B: Oh great . +Grad C: so . +PhD B: OK . +Grad C: um j +PhD B: I used it a long time ago but it 's been a while so maybe I can ask you some questions . +Grad C: Oh . So . I 'll be away tomorrow and Monday but I 'll be back on Tuesday or Wednesday . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . Dave , the other thing , actually , is {disfmarker} is this business about this wave form . Maybe you and I can talk a little bit at some point about {vocalsound} coming up with a better {vocalsound} uh demonstration of the effects of reverberation for our web page , cuz uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} um I mean , actually the {disfmarker} the uh It made a good {disfmarker} good audio demonstration because when we could play that clip the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the really {vocalsound} obvious difference is that you can hear two voices and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the second one and only hear {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe we could just {pause} like , talk into a cup . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Some good reverb . +Professor A: No , I mean , it sound {disfmarker} it sounds pretty reverberant , but I mean you can't {disfmarker} when you play it back in a room with a {disfmarker} you know a big room , {vocalsound} nobody can hear that difference really . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: They hear that it 's lower amplitude and they hear there 's a second voice , +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: um {vocalsound} but uh that {disfmarker} actually that makes for a perfectly good demo because that 's a real obvious thing , that you hear two voices . +PhD B: But not of reverberation . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad C: A boom . +Professor A: Well that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's OK . But for the {disfmarker} the visual , just , you know , I 'd like to have uh {vocalsound} uh , you know , the spectrogram again , +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor A: because you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're visual {vocalsound} uh abilities as a human being are so good {vocalsound} you can pick out {disfmarker} you know , you {disfmarker} you look at the good one , you look at the cru the screwed up one , and {disfmarker} and you can see the features in it without trying to @ @ {disfmarker} +PhD B: I noticed that in the pictures . +Professor A: yeah . +PhD B: I thought "" hey , you know th "" I {disfmarker} My initial thought was "" this is not too bad ! "" +Professor A: Right . But you have to {disfmarker} you know , if you look at it closely , you see "" well , here 's a place where this one has a big formant {disfmarker} uh uh formant {disfmarker} maj major formants here are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are moving quite a bit . "" And then you look in the other one and they look practically flat . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So I mean you could {disfmarker} that 's why I was thinking , in a section like that , you could take a look {disfmarker} look at just that part of the spectrogram and you could say "" Oh yeah . This {disfmarker} this really distorted it quite a bit . "" +PhD B: Yeah . The main thing that struck me in looking at those two spectrograms was the difference in the high frequencies . It looked like {vocalsound} for the one that was farther away , you know , it really {disfmarker} everything was attenuated +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean that was the main visual thing that I noticed . +Professor A: Right . But it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} So . Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} clearly are spectral effects . Since you 're getting all this indirect energy , then a lot of it does have {disfmarker} have uh {vocalsound} reduced high frequencies . But um the other thing is the temporal courses of things really are changed , and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh we want to show that , in some obvious way . The reason I put the wave forms in there was because {vocalsound} uh they {disfmarker} they do look quite different . Uh . And so I thought "" Oh , this is good . "" but I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just uh {disfmarker} After {disfmarker} after uh they were put in there I didn't really look at them anymore , cuz I just {disfmarker} they were different . So {vocalsound} I want something that has a {disfmarker} is a more interesting explanation for why they 're different . Um . +Grad C: Oh . So maybe we can just substitute one of these wave forms and um {vocalsound} then do some kind of zoom in on the spectrogram on an interesting area . +Professor A: Something like that . Yeah . +Grad C: Uh - huh . +Professor A: The other thing that we had in there that I didn't like was that um {vocalsound} the most obvious characteristic of the difference uh when you listen to it is that there 's a second voice , and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} cuts that we have there actually don't correspond to the full wave form . It 's just the first {disfmarker} I think there was something where he was having some trouble getting so much in , or . I {disfmarker} I forget the reason behind it . But {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's the first six seconds or something {vocalsound} of it and it 's in {vocalsound} the seventh or eighth second or something where @ @ the second voice comes in . So we {disfmarker} we would like to actually see {vocalsound} the voice coming in , too , I think , since that 's the most obvious thing {pause} when you listen to it . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . Um . +PhD F: Uh , yeah . Yeah . I brought some {disfmarker} I don't know if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some {vocalsound} figures here . Well . I start {disfmarker} we started to work on spectral subtraction . And {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the preliminary results were very bad . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: So the thing that we did is just to add spectral subtraction before this , the Wall uh process , which contains LDA on - line normalization . And it hurts uh a lot . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: And so we started to look at {disfmarker} at um things like this , which is , well , it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So you have the C - zero parameters for one uh Italian utterance . +PhD D: You can @ @ . +PhD F: And I plotted this for two channels . Channel zero is the close mic microphone , and channel one is the distant microphone . And it 's perfectly synchronized , so . And the sentence contain only one word , which is "" Due "" And it can't clearly be seen . Where {disfmarker} where is it ? +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Where is the word ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} this is , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: oh , a plot of C - zero , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: the energy . +PhD F: This is a plot of C - zero , uh when we don't use spectral substraction , and when there is no on - line normalization . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So . There is just some filtering with the LDA and {vocalsound} and some downsampling , upsampling . +PhD B: C - zero is the close talking ? {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . +PhD B: uh the close channel ? +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD B: and s channel one is the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . So C - zero is very clean , actually . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: Uh then when we apply mean normalization it looks like the second figure , though it is not . Which is good . Well , the noise part is around zero +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And then the third figure is what happens when we apply mean normalization and variance normalization . So . What we can clearly see is that on the speech portion {vocalsound} the two channel come {disfmarker} becomes very close , but also what happens on the noisy portion is that the variance of the noise is {disfmarker} +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: This is still being a plot of C - zero ? OK . +PhD F: Yeah . This is still C - zero . +PhD B: Can I ask um what does variance normalization do ? w What is the effect of that ? +Professor A: Normalizes the variance . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: I mean +PhD F: It normalized th the standard deviation . +PhD B: y Yeah . +PhD F: So it {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand that , +PhD F: You {disfmarker} you get an estimate of the standard deviation . +PhD B: but I mean {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's +PhD B: No . +PhD F: um {disfmarker} +PhD B: No , I understand what it is , but I mean , what does it {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what is +PhD F: Yeah but . +PhD B: uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: What 's the rationale ? +PhD B: We Yeah . Yeah . Why {disfmarker} why do it ? +PhD F: Uh . +Professor A: Well , I mean , because {vocalsound} everything uh {disfmarker} If you have a system based on Gaussians , everything is based on means and variances . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So if there 's an overall {vocalsound} reason {disfmarker} You know , it 's like uh if you were doing uh image processing and in some of the pictures you were looking at , uh there was a lot of light uh and {disfmarker} and in some , there was low light , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: you know , you would want to adjust for that in order to compare things . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And the variance is just sort of like the next moment , you know ? So uh {vocalsound} what if um one set of pictures was taken uh so that throughout the course it was {disfmarker} went through daylight and night uh {vocalsound} um um ten times , another time it went thr I mean i is , you know , how {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much vari +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor A: Or no . I guess a better example would be {vocalsound} how much of the light was coming in from outside rather than artificial light . So if it was a lot {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if more was coming from outside , then there 'd be the bigger effect of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the change in the {disfmarker} So every mean {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} the parameters that you have , especially the variances , are going to be affected by the overall variance . +PhD B: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor A: And so , in principle , you {disfmarker} if you remove that source , then , you know , you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: I see . OK . So would {disfmarker} the major effect is {disfmarker} that you 're gonna get is by normalizing the means , +Professor A: That 's the first order but {disfmarker} thing , +PhD B: but it may help {disfmarker} First - order effects . +Professor A: but then the second order is {disfmarker} is the variances +PhD B: And it may help to do the variance . OK . +Professor A: because , again , if you {disfmarker} if you 're trying to distinguish between E and B +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: if it just so happens that the E 's {vocalsound} were a more {disfmarker} you know , were recorded when {disfmarker} when the energy was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was larger or something , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: or the variation in it was larger , {vocalsound} uh than with the B 's , then this will be {disfmarker} give you some {disfmarker} some bias . +PhD B: +Professor A: So the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's removing these sources of variability in the data {vocalsound} that have nothing to do with the linguistic component . +PhD B: OK . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Gotcha . OK . Sorry to interrupt . +Professor A: But the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} but let me as ask {disfmarker} ask you something . +PhD F: Yep . And it {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} +Professor A: i is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If you have a good voice activity detector , isn't {disfmarker} isn't it gonna pull that out ? +PhD F: Yeah . Sure . If they are good . Yeah . Well what it {disfmarker} it shows is that , yeah , perhaps a good voice activity detector is {disfmarker} is good before on - line normalization and that 's what uh {vocalsound} we 've already observed . But uh , yeah , voice activity detection is not {vocalsound} {vocalsound} an easy thing neither . +PhD B: But after you do this , after you do the variance normalization {disfmarker} I mean . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I don't know , it seems like this would be a lot easier than this signal to work with . +PhD F: Yeah . So . What I notice is that , while I prefer to look at the second figure than at the third one , well , because you clearly see where speech is . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD F: But the problem is that on the speech portion , channel zero and channel one are more different than when you use variance normalization where channel zero and channel one become closer . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: But for the purposes of finding the speech {disfmarker} +PhD F: And {disfmarker} Yeah , but here {disfmarker} +PhD B: You 're more interested in the difference between the speech and the nonspeech , +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD B: right ? +PhD F: Yeah . So I think , yeah . For I th I think that it {disfmarker} perhaps it shows that {vocalsound} uh the parameters that the voice activity detector should use {disfmarker} uh have to use should be different than the parameter that have to be used for speech recognition . +Professor A: Yeah . So basically you want to reduce this effect . +PhD F: Well , y +Professor A: So you can do that by doing the voi voice activity detection . You also could do it by spect uh spectral subtraction before the {vocalsound} variance normalization , right ? +PhD F: Yeah , but it 's not clear , yeah . +Professor A: So uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: We So . Well . It 's just to +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: the {disfmarker} the number that at that are here are recognition experiments on Italian HM and MM {vocalsound} with these two kinds of parameters . And , {pause} well , it 's better with variance normalization . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So it does get better even though it looks ugly . +PhD F: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . but does this have the voice activity detection in it ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: Um . +Professor A: So . +Grad E: OK . +PhD B: Where 's th +PhD F: But the fact is that the voice activity detector doesn't work on channel one . So . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Where {disfmarker} at what stage is the voice activity detector applied ? Is it applied here or a after the variance normalization ? +PhD F: Hmm ? +Professor A: Spectral subtraction , I guess . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's applied before variance normalization . So it 's a good thing , +PhD B: Oh . +PhD F: because I guess voice activity detection on this should {disfmarker} could be worse . +PhD B: Yeah . Is it applied all the way back here ? +PhD F: It 's applied the um on , yeah , something like this , +PhD B: Maybe that 's why it doesn't work for channel one . +PhD F: yeah . Perhaps , yeah . +Professor A: Can I {disfmarker} +PhD F: So we could perhaps do just mean normalization before VAD . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Can I ask a , I mean {disfmarker} a sort of top - level question , which is {vocalsound} um "" if {disfmarker} if most of what the OGI folk are working with is trying to {vocalsound} integrate this other {disfmarker} other uh spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} why are we worrying about it ? "" +PhD F: Mm - hmm . About ? Spectral subtraction ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: It 's just uh {disfmarker} Well it 's another {disfmarker} They are trying to u to use the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the Ericsson and we 're trying to use something {disfmarker} something else . And . Yeah , and also to understand what happens because +Professor A: OK . +PhD F: uh fff Well . When we do spectral subtraction , actually , I think {vocalsound} that this is the {disfmarker} the two last figures . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . It seems that after spectral subtraction , speech is more emerging now uh {vocalsound} than {disfmarker} than before . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Speech is more what ? +PhD F: Well , the difference between the energy of the speech and the energy of the n spectral subtrac subtracted noise portion is {disfmarker} is larger . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Well , if you compare the first figure to this one {disfmarker} Actually the scale is not the same , but if you look at the {disfmarker} the numbers um {vocalsound} you clearly see that the difference between the C - zero of the speech and C - zero of the noise portion is larger . Uh but what happens is that after spectral subtraction , {vocalsound} you also increase the variance of this {disfmarker} of C - zero . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And so if you apply variance normalization on this , it completely sc screw everything . Well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . Uh . Yeah . So yeah . And what they did at OGI is just {vocalsound} uh they don't use on - line normalization , for the moment , on spectral subtraction and I think {disfmarker} Yeah . I think as soon as they will try on - line normalization {vocalsound} there will be a problem . So yeah , we 're working on the same thing but {vocalsound} I think uh with different {disfmarker} different system and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . I mean , i the Intellectually it 's interesting to work on things th uh one way or the other +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm just wondering if um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the list of things that there are to do , if there are things that we won't do because {vocalsound} we 've got two groups doing the same thing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Um . Just {disfmarker} just asking . Uh . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , +PhD B: There also could be {disfmarker} I mean . I can maybe see a reason f for both working on it too +PhD F: uh . +PhD B: if {vocalsound} um you know , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you work on something else and {disfmarker} and you 're waiting for them to give you {vocalsound} spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean it 's hard to know whether {vocalsound} the effects that you get from the other experiments you do will {vocalsound} carry over once you then bring in their spectral subtraction module . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's almost like everything 's held up waiting for this {vocalsound} one thing . I don't know if that 's true or not , but I could see how {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I don't know . +PhD B: Maybe that 's what you were thinking . +Professor A: I don't know . {vocalsound} I mean , we still evidently have a latency reduction plan which {disfmarker} which isn't quite what you 'd like it to be . That {disfmarker} that seems like one prominent thing . And then uh weren't issues of {disfmarker} of having a {disfmarker} a second stream or something ? That was {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} There was this business that , you know , we {disfmarker} we could use up the full forty - eight hundred bits , and {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . But I think they ' I think we want to work on this . They also want to work on this , so . Uh . {vocalsound} yeah . We {disfmarker} we will try MSG , but um , yeah . And they are t I think they want to work on the second stream also , but more with {vocalsound} some kind of multi - band or , well , what they call TRAP or generalized TRAP . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Um . So . +Professor A: OK . Do you remember when the next meeting is supposed to be ? the next uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: It 's uh in June . +Professor A: In June . OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . Um . Yeah , the other thing is that you saw that {disfmarker} that mail about uh the VAD {disfmarker} V A Ds performing quite differently ? That that uh So um . This {disfmarker} there was this experiment of uh "" what if we just take the baseline ? "" +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: set uh of features , just mel cepstra , and you inc incorporate the different V A And it looks like the {disfmarker} the French VAD is actually uh better {disfmarker} significantly better . +PhD B: Improves the baseline ? +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah but I don't know which VAD they use . Uh . If the use the small VAD I th I think it 's on {disfmarker} I think it 's easy to do better because it doesn't work at all . So . I {disfmarker} I don't know which {disfmarker} which one . It 's Pratibha that {disfmarker} that did this experiment . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Um . We should ask which VAD she used . +PhD D: I don't @ @ . He {disfmarker} Actually , I think that he say with the good VAD of {disfmarker} from OGI and with the Alcatel VAD . And the experiment was sometime better , sometime worse . +PhD F: Yeah but I {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} I think you were talking about the other mail that used VAD on the reference features . +Professor A: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: And on that one , uh the French one is {disfmarker} was better . +PhD D: I don't remember . +Professor A: It was just better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean it was enough better that {disfmarker} that it would {vocalsound} uh account for a fair amount of the difference between our performance , actually . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So . {vocalsound} Uh . So if they have a better one , we should use it . I mean . You know ? it 's {disfmarker} you can't work on everything . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , so we should find out if it 's really better . I mean if it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} compared to the small or the big network . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: And perhaps we can easily improve if {disfmarker} if we put like mean normalization before the {disfmarker} before the VAD . Because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} as you 've {pause} mentioned . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: H Hynek will be back in town uh the week after next , back {disfmarker} back in the country . So . And start {disfmarker} start organizing uh {vocalsound} more visits and connections and so forth , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} uh working towards June . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Also is Stephane was thinking that {vocalsound} maybe it was useful to f to think about uh {vocalsound} voiced - unvoiced {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: to work uh here in voiced - unvoiced detection . +PhD F: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And we are looking {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the uh signal . +PhD F: Yeah , my feeling is that um actually {vocalsound} when we look at all the proposals , ev everybody is still using some kind of spectral envelope +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: and um it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: No use of pitch uh basically . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah , well , not pitch , but to look at the um fine {disfmarker} at the {disfmarker} at the high re high resolution spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . Well , it {disfmarker} +PhD F: So . We don't necessarily want to find the {disfmarker} the pitch of the {disfmarker} of the sound but uh {disfmarker} Cuz I have a feeling that {vocalsound} when we look {disfmarker} when we look at the {disfmarker} just at the envelope there is no way you can tell if it 's voiced and unvoiced , if there is some {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's easy in clean speech because voiced sound are more low frequency and . So there would be more , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} there is the first formant , which is the larger and then voiced sound are more high frequencies cuz it 's frication and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: But , yeah . When you have noise there is no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you have a low frequency noise it could be taken for {disfmarker} for voiced speech and . +Professor A: Yeah , you can make these mistakes , +PhD F: So . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD B: Isn't there some other +PhD F: S +PhD B: uh d +PhD F: So I think that it {disfmarker} it would be good {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah , well , go {disfmarker} go on . +PhD B: Uh , I was just gonna say isn't there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} aren't {disfmarker} aren't there lots of ideas for doing voice activity , or speech - nonspeech rather , {comment} um by looking at {vocalsound} um , you know , uh {vocalsound} I guess harmonics or looking across time {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well , I think he was talking about the voiced - unvoiced , though , +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: right ? So , not the speech - nonspeech . +PhD B: Yeah . Well even with e +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: uh w ah you know , uh even with the voiced - non {pause} voiced - unvoiced +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: um {disfmarker} I thought that you or {pause} somebody was talking about {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well . Uh yeah . B We should let him finish what he w he was gonna say , +PhD F: So . +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD B: So go ahead . +PhD F: Um yeah , so yeah , I think if we try to develop a second stream well , there would be one stream that is the envelope and the second , it could be interesting to have that 's {disfmarker} something that 's more related to the fine structure of the spectrum . And . Yeah , so I don't know . We were thinking about like using ideas from {disfmarker} from Larry Saul , have a good voice detector , have a good , well , voiced - speech detector , that 's working on {disfmarker} on the FFT and {vocalsound} uh +Professor A: U +PhD F: Larry Saul could be an idea . We were are thinking about just {vocalsound} kind of uh taking the spectrum and computing the variance of {disfmarker} of the high resolution spectrum {vocalsound} and things like this . +Professor A: So u s u OK . So {disfmarker} So many {vocalsound} tell you something about that . Uh we had a guy here some years ago who did some work on {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} making use of voicing information uh to {vocalsound} help in reducing the noise . +PhD F: Yeah ? +Professor A: So what he was doing is basically y you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you do estimate the pitch . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And um you {disfmarker} from that you {disfmarker} you estimate {disfmarker} or you estimate fine harmonic structure , whichev ei either way , it 's more or less the same . But {vocalsound} uh the thing is that um you then {vocalsound} can get rid of things that are not {disfmarker} i if there is strong harmonic structure , {vocalsound} you can throw away stuff that 's {disfmarker} that 's non - harmonic . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And that {disfmarker} that is another way of getting rid of part of the noise +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: So um that 's something {vocalsound} that is sort of finer , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: brings in a little more information than just spectral subtraction . Um . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And he had some {disfmarker} I mean , he did that sort of in combination with RASTA . It was kind of like RASTA was taking care of convolutional stuff +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and he was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and got some {disfmarker} some decent results doing that . So that {disfmarker} that 's another {disfmarker} another way . But yeah , there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor A: Right . There 's all these cues . We 've actually back when Chuck was here we did some voiced - unvoiced uh {vocalsound} classification using a bunch of these , +PhD F: But {disfmarker} +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh works OK . Obviously it 's not perfect but um {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But the thing is that you can't {disfmarker} given the constraints of this task , we can't , {vocalsound} in a very nice way , feed {pause} forward to the recognizer the information {disfmarker} the probabilistic information that you might get about whether it 's voiced or unvoiced , where w we can't you know affect the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the uh distributions or anything . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But we {disfmarker} what we uh {disfmarker} I guess we could Yeah . +PhD B: Didn't the head dude send around that message ? Yeah , I think you sent us all a copy of the message , where he was saying that {disfmarker} I I 'm not sure , exactly , what the gist of what he was saying , but something having to do with the voice {vocalsound} activity detector and that it will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that people shouldn't put their own in or something . It was gonna be a {disfmarker} +Professor A: That {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} OK . So that 's voice activity detector as opposed to voicing detector . +PhD F: They didn't . +Professor A: So we 're talking about something a little different . +PhD F: Mmm . +PhD B: Oh , I 'm sorry . +Professor A: Right ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I missed that . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: I guess what you could do , maybe this would be w useful , if {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} if you view the second stream , yeah , before you {disfmarker} before you do KLT 's and so forth , if you do view it as probabilities , and if it 's an independent {disfmarker} So , if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not so much {vocalsound} envelope - based by fine - structure - based , uh looking at harmonicity or something like that , um if you get a probability from that information and then multiply it by {disfmarker} you know , multiply by all the voiced {vocalsound} outputs and all the unvoiced outputs , you know , then {vocalsound} use that as the +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} take the log of that or {vocalsound} uh pre pre uh {disfmarker} pre - nonlinearity , +PhD F: Yeah . i if {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh and do the KLT on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on that , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: then that would {disfmarker} that would I guess be uh a reasonable use of independent information . So maybe that 's what you meant . And then that would be {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah , well , I was not thinking this {disfmarker} yeah , this could be an yeah So you mean have some kind of probability for the v the voicing +Professor A: R Right . So you have a second neural net . +PhD F: and then use a tandem system +Professor A: It could be pretty small . Yeah . If you have a tandem system and then you have some kind of {disfmarker} it can be pretty small {disfmarker} net {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: we used {disfmarker} we d did some of this stuff . Uh I {disfmarker} I did , some years ago , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: and the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing is to use information primarily that 's different as you say , it 's more fine - structure - based than {disfmarker} than envelope - based +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh so then it you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can pretty much guarantee it 's stuff that you 're not looking at very well with the other one , and uh then you only use for this one distinction . +PhD F: Alright . +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and so now you 've got a probability of the cases , and you 've got uh the probability of the finer uh categories on the other side . You multiply them where appropriate and uh {vocalsound} um +PhD F: I see , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: if they really are from independent {pause} information sources then {vocalsound} they should have different kinds of errors +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and roughly independent errors , and {vocalsound} it 's a good choice for {disfmarker} +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . Yeah , that 's a good idea . +PhD F: Yeah . Because , yeah , well , spectral subtraction is good and we could u we could use the fine structure to {disfmarker} to have a better estimate of the noise but {vocalsound} still there is this issue with spectral subtraction that it seems to increase the variance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: um Well it 's this musical noise which is annoying if you d you do some kind of on - line normalization after . +Professor A: Right . +PhD F: So . Um . Yeah . Well . Spectral subtraction and on - line normalization don't seem to {disfmarker} to go together very well . I +Professor A: Or if you do a spectral subtraction {disfmarker} do some spectral subtraction first and then do some on - line normalization then do some more spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean , maybe {disfmarker} maybe you can do it layers or something so it doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't hurt too much or something . +PhD F: Ah , yeah . +Professor A: But it {disfmarker} but uh , anyway I think I was sort of arguing against myself there by giving that example +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: uh I mean cuz I was already sort of {vocalsound} suggesting that we should be careful about not spending too much time on exactly what they 're doing In fact if you get {disfmarker} if you go into uh {disfmarker} a uh harmonics - related thing {vocalsound} it 's definitely going to be different than what they 're doing and uh uh +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: should have some interesting properties in noise . Um . {vocalsound} I know that when have people have done {pause} um sort of the obvious thing of taking {vocalsound} uh your feature vector and adding {pause} in some variables which are {vocalsound} pitch related or uh that {disfmarker} it hasn't {disfmarker} my impression it hasn't particularly helped . Uh . Has not . +PhD F: It {disfmarker} it i has not , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: yeah . +Professor A: But I think uh {pause} that 's {disfmarker} that 's a question for this uh you know extending the feature vector versus having different streams . +PhD F: Oh . Was it nois noisy condition ? the example that you {disfmarker} you just +Professor A: And {disfmarker} and it may not have been noisy conditions . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I don't remember the example but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was on some DARPA data and some years ago and so it probably wasn't , actually +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . But we were thinking , we discussed with Barry about this , and {vocalsound} perhaps {vocalsound} thinking {disfmarker} we were thinking about some kind of sheet cheating experiment where we would use TIMIT +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD F: and see if giving the d uh , this voicing bit would help in {disfmarker} in terms of uh frame classification . +Professor A: Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you just do it with Aurora ? +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Just any i in {disfmarker} in each {disfmarker} in each frame +PhD F: Yeah , but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} B but we cannot do the cheating , this cheating thing . +Grad E: We 're {disfmarker} +Professor A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: We need labels . +Professor A: Why not ? +PhD F: Well . Cuz we don't have {disfmarker} Well , for Italian perhaps we have , but we don't have this labeling for Aurora . We just have a labeling with word models +Professor A: I see . +PhD F: but not for phonemes . +PhD D: Not for foreigners . +Grad E: we don't have frame {disfmarker} frame level transcriptions . +Professor A: Um . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Professor A: But you could {disfmarker} I mean you can {disfmarker} you can align so that {disfmarker} It 's not perfect , but if you {disfmarker} if you know what was said and {disfmarker} +PhD B: But the problem is that their models are all word level models . So there 's no phone models {pause} that you get alignments for . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Oh . +PhD B: You {disfmarker} So you could find out where the word boundaries are but that 's about it . +Professor A: Yeah . I see . +Grad E: S But we could use uh the {disfmarker} the noisy version that TIMIT , which {vocalsound} you know , is similar to the {disfmarker} the noises found in the TI - digits {vocalsound} um portion of Aurora . +PhD F: Yeah . noise , yeah . Yeah , that 's right , yep . Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I guess we can {disfmarker} we can say that it will help , but I don't know . If this voicing bit doesn't help , uh , I think we don't have to {disfmarker} to work more about this because {disfmarker} +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: Uh . It 's just to know if it {disfmarker} how much i it will help +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD F: and to have an idea of how much we can gain . +Professor A: Right . I mean in experiments that we did a long time ago +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: and different ta it was probably Resource Management or something , um , I think you were getting {pause} something like still eight or nine percent error on the voicing , as I recall . And um , so um +Grad E: Another person 's voice . +Professor A: what that said is that , sort of , left to its own devices , like without the {disfmarker} a strong language model and so forth , that you would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you would make significant number of errors {vocalsound} just with your uh probabilistic machinery in deciding +PhD B: It also {disfmarker} +Professor A: one oh +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} though I think uh there was one problem with that in that , you know , we used canonical mapping so {vocalsound} our truth may not have really been {pause} true to the acoustics . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD B: So . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: Yeah . Well back twenty years ago when I did this voiced - unvoiced stuff , we were getting more like {vocalsound} ninety - seven or ninety - eight percent correct in voicing . But that was {vocalsound} speaker - dependent {vocalsound} actually . We were doing training {vocalsound} on a particular announcer +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and getting a {vocalsound} very good handle on the features . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we did this complex feature selection thing where we looked at all the different possible features one could have for voicing and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and exhaustively searched {vocalsound} all size subsets and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that particular speaker and you 'd find you know the five or six features which really did well on them . +PhD B: Wow ! +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then doing {disfmarker} doing all of that we could get down to two or three percent error . But that , again , was speaker - dependent with {vocalsound} lots of feature selection +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and a very complex sort of thing . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor A: So I would {disfmarker} I would believe {vocalsound} that uh it was quite likely that um looking at envelope only , that we 'd be {vocalsound} significantly worse than that . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD F: And the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} the SpeechCorders ? what 's the idea behind ? Cuz they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} Oh , they don't even have to detect voiced spe speech ? +Professor A: The modern ones don't do a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a simple switch . +PhD F: They just work on the code book +Professor A: They work on the code book excitation . +PhD F: and find out the best excitation . +Professor A: Yeah they do {vocalsound} analysis - by - synthesis . They try {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they try every {disfmarker} every possible excitation they have in their code book and find the one that matches best . +PhD F: Yeah . Mmm . Alright . Yeah . So it would not help . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor A: Uh . O K . +PhD B: Can I just mention one other interesting thing ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Um . One of the ideas that we {pause} had come up with last week for things to try to {vocalsound} improve the system {disfmarker} Um . Actually I {disfmarker} I s we didn't {disfmarker} I guess I wrote this in after the meeting b but {vocalsound} the thought I had was um looking at the language model that 's used in the HTK recognizer , which is basically just a big {vocalsound} loop , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: right ? So you {disfmarker} it goes "" digit "" +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and then that can be {disfmarker} either go to silence or go to another digit , which {disfmarker} That model would allow for the production of {vocalsound} infinitely long sequences of digits , right ? +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So . I thought "" well I 'm gonna just look at the {disfmarker} what actual digit strings do occur in the training data . "" +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: And the interesting thing was it turns out that there are no sequences of two - long or three - long digit strings {pause} in any of the Aurora training data . So it 's either one , four , five , six , uh up to eleven , and then it skips and then there 's some at sixteen . +Professor A: But what about the testing data ? +PhD B: Um . I don't know . I didn't look at the test data yet . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean if there 's some testing data that has {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has two or three {disfmarker} +PhD B: So . Yeah . But I just thought that was a little odd , that there were no two or three long {disfmarker} Sorry . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just for the heck of it , I made a little grammar which um , you know , had it 's separate path {pause} for each length digit string you could get . So there was a one - long path and there was a four - long and a five - long +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and I tried that and it got way worse . There were lots of deletions . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , I {disfmarker} I didn't have any weights of these paths or {disfmarker} I didn't have anything like that . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And I played with tweaking the {vocalsound} word transition penalties a bunch , but I couldn't go anywhere . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: But um . I thought "" well if I only allow {disfmarker} "" Yeah , I guess I should have looked at {disfmarker} to see how often there was a mistake where a two - long or a three - long path was actually put out as a hypothesis . Um . But . +Professor A: Hmm . +PhD B: So to do that right you 'd probably want to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} allow for them all but then have weightings and things . So . I just thought that was a interesting {vocalsound} thing about the data . +Professor A: OK . So we 're gonna read some more digit strings I guess ? +PhD B: Yeah . You want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor A: Sure . +","In a recent academic meeting, an interesting discussion unfolded regarding issues and potential improvements to a speech recognition project. The conversation was dominated by Professor A and PhD B, with contributions from Grad E, Grad C, and PhD F. It began with Professor A sharing the information he received from Dan Ellis relating to PDA microphones having a surplus of energy at five hertz. This revelation came from inspecting waveform graphics online where initially unnoticed, the major component in the second waveform was noise from an air conditioner, rather than room reverberation as previously thought. + +The group grappled with the consequences of this discovery, questioning the illustration's efficacy in demonstrating room reverberation effects and its potential impact on the effectiveness of their software. A suggestion from Dan included implementing a digital filter to process the data, leading to a broader debate on the utility of high-pass filtering within their system, the current dynamic range, and potential alterations, such as changing capacitors in the input box. + +Professor A elaborated on another aspect of their concerns—whether software like Feacalc, which is applied to the PDA microphone data, incorporates high-pass filtering options consistently. Grad E offered to verify this technical detail. However, a pressing need to select a new example that accurately represents reverberation effects became apparent. Despite the flawed example during a presentation, it still highlighted noise artifacts with distant microphones. + +PhD B revealed some skepticism about their tests due to the sensitivity of the results to minor parameter modifications, such as transition probabilities in their models, indicating the potential for being misled by such shifts. This concern extended to assessing the impact of spectral subtraction on system performance. The conversation shifted focus to address practical concerns, like managing the distance of PDAs during meetings and exploring software alternatives such as Linux machines for improved computation. + +As the meeting progressed, PhD F introduced the group's work on clean low-pass filtering, downsampling, and upsampling, lamenting the absence of remarkably positive outcomes — yet stress was laid on the reduction of latency as a silver lining. The group considered the significance of a discrepancy between training and test conditions, with PhD F noting dramatic score variations solely from altering transition probabilities in their Hidden Markov Models (HMM). + +The discussion veered towards the planned publication for Eurospeech, emphasizing the necessity of meeting the impending deadline. Additionally, the topic of source code control emerged, leading PhD B to suggest leveraging version control systems (CVS) accessible over the web to streamline collaborative efforts across institutions. + +Turning to the nuances of signal processing, the conversation delved into spectral subtraction challenges, the impact of mean and variance normalization on voice activity detection (VAD), and the aspiration to harness TIMIT's noisy recordings for experimental improvements. The possibility of employing a secondary feature stream focusing on finer spectral details was contemplated, with aspirations of refining noise estimates and combating the pervasive issues introduced by conventional spectral subtraction. + +Finally, as the meeting drew to a close, a perplexing observation about the distribution of digit string lengths in the training data highlighted potential areas for language modeling refinements. The dialogue concluded with acknowledgments of the intricate work ahead and the need for discerning efforts that capitalize on discreet aspects of the acoustic signal for more robust speech recognition." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Good morning , again . +Industrial Designer: One question . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Send . +User Interface: Choose a number ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Submit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep yep yep yep . +Project Manager: All set ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Good . Okay . Let's see what we can find here . Okay . A very warm welcome again to everyone . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um here we are already at our uh functional design meeting . Um and this is what we are going to do . The opening , which we are doing now , um and the special note , I'm project manager but on the meetings I'm also the secretary , which means I will make uh minutes as I did of the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh I also put these as fast as possible in the uh project folder , so you can see them and review what we have discussed . Um if I'm right , there are three presentations , I guess each one of you has prepared one ? Good . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: And um we will also take a look at new project requirements , um if you haven't heard about them yet . And then of course we have to take a decision on the remote control functions and we have some more time , forty minutes . But I think we will need it . Um well I don't know who wants to go first with his presentation . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . Okay . I'll go first yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can go first , okay . +User Interface: Well . +Marketing: Well , shall I go first with the users ? +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well okay no problem . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is there an order ? I haven't {disfmarker} +User Interface: everybody already has his presentation , +Marketing: Ja precies , ja precies , ja precies +User Interface: {vocalsound} so you can adjust it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So . Huh ? Okay , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And one question , uh your name Denni , is it with a +Marketing: E_I_E_ . +Project Manager: I_E_ {disfmarker} E_I_E_ , okay . Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , um I wanted to explain the working design of the remote control . It's possibly very handy if you want to uh design one of those . Um {vocalsound} well so it basically works uh as I uh uh r wrote down uh in this uh little uh summary . Uh when you press a button , {vocalsound} uh that's when you do pr for example when you uh want to turn up the volume , um a little connection is made uh the the rubber uh {vocalsound} button just presses on a +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: on a little print plate uh which uh makes uh uh {vocalsound} a connection that uh gives the chips , uh which is uh mounted beneath those uh that plastic of a rubber button . Uh senses that a connection has been made , and know and knows what button you pressed , becau uh for example the the volume up or volume down button . Um uh the the chip uh makes a Morse code uh like uh signal which uh then is si uh signalled {vocalsound} to uh several transistors which makes uh which sends the signal to a little let . You know what a let is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} And that makes uh the the infra-red lights signal which is sent to the television set . Uh which has a sensor in it to uh sense uh the signal of the infra-red . That's basically uh how it works . Um the findings uh uh that I found uh searching up some uh detailed information about the remote controls , are that uh they are very easy to produce , uh it is pis uh it's possible to uh make them in mass production because it is as eas it is as easy as uh printing a page , uh just uh fibreglass plate um is b uh is uh covered with uh some uh coatings and uh uh {vocalsound} and chips . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh and the technology's already available , we don't have to find out how remote controls uh have to work or uh how that how uh to make some chips that are possible to uh to to transmit those uh signals . Uh I made a little uh uh animation of {vocalsound} about how a tran our uh remote controller works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Oh right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Animation . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we tel +User Interface: There is something turning . +Industrial Designer: There . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a little bug it's in the in the smart board . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Uh well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the sub-component , I suppose that you understand what a sub-component is , is f in this example it's the button . Uh when it is pressed down , um , the switch is ter is uh is switched on , so with uh the wire is sent to the to the chip in uh co-operation with the battery of course , because to make uh a a signal possible you have to have some sort of uh li uh a d ad uh electronic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Infrared light . +Industrial Designer: Yes , uh , okay . Um w after it's being composed by the chip uh the signal uh is transported uh to the infra-red bulb , and from there it signals a Morse code-like signal to the to the b to the bulb in uh in the television set . Okay . S Uh I wrote down some personal preferences about uh the remote control . Of course it is very handy if the remote control is hand held , so you don't have to uh uh wind it up or something , or just is it's it's very light to uh to make uh to use it . Uh I personally uh pref prefer that uh it would be p uh come available in the various colours , and uh easy to use buttons . But I suppose that the one of the other team members uh uh thought of that uh too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've got it there too . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it is possible for several designs and um easy to use b uh sorry , easy to use buttons . Perhaps soft touch , uh touch screen uh buttons because uh the rubber buttons are always uh uh they uh slightly uh they can be slightly damaged , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh so the numbers on the buttons are not possible uh to read anymore . And uh well as I said uh before th uh we can uh make several designs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well , that's my contribution to this meeting , and uh +Marketing: To this meeting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: two of these this meeting . So . +User Interface: Shall I go uh next ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Please . +User Interface: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Smoking . +User Interface: Well uh , my name's {gap} , and I looked at uh technical functions design of the remote . Uh I did this by uh looking at examples of other remote controls , of how they uh they look , and information from the web that I found . Um well what I found was that uh th the actual use of the remote control is to send messages to television set , how you uh d what you described uh just early . And this can be all sorts of medsa messages , turn it on , turn it off , uh change the channel , adjust volume , that kind of thing . Uh play video , teletext , but also t uh play C_D_ if you use it your C_D_ player the remote control will that one . There are some uh examples of remote controls . You can see they are very different . The one has got all the functions that you could possibly need and an lot of uh buttons etcetera . And the other is uh more user friendly , little with big buttons . And uh not n all the the the the stuff you can do with it , but uh the the essential stuff is there . Um {vocalsound} I guess you could better y you should look at a a user centred uh approach , because the customers have to use them and and if they don't think it's usable they won't uh buy it . A lot of buttons they may think from I don't need s as much as that . Uh , well perf personal preferences is is uh a simple remote , with uh the basic functions that you can need that you could use . But uh keep in mind the new functions of T_V_ what we discussed earlier , split screen and uh is that a function that you should have ? Because all the T_V_s will have them . Or because of only a few and isn't really necessary . And then uh make it {disfmarker} I would make so that you can could uh use it on more than one appliance . If you have one that uh uh does with the vi the the video , it could also work with uh with the stereo , because play is play and stop stop and that sort of thing . The shu c you could reuse the buttons so that you don't have to have a lot of buttons for uh anything . And it should be a user friendly , clear buttons , and not too much . And that is my presentation . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . Check . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You must still have it open . +Marketing: Kijke {gap} 'Kay , so . {vocalsound} We're going to j discuss the functional requirements of the remote , that m that means that functions user n want to have on the remote control , or just {disfmarker} Yeah , and the users , actually . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The methods I I prefer is we're going to look which section of the users we are going to focus a l on more . Are the younger people going to buy the remote control or the elderly people ? And then {disfmarker} tho that section we're going to focus and adjust the remote more to that section than the whole user section . Okay . Some data . Younger people , from sixteen to thir forty five um years are more interested in fj features like L_C_D_ screens , speech recognition e etcetera . And we possess about two third of the market from in that range of age . The elderly people , from forty five years to sixty five years are not that much interested in features , and we possess less than two third , that's two fifth , of the market share in that area . {gap} Goed so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: 'Kay . Findings . Fifty percent of the users lose their remote often . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we don't have to make it very small , like uh like a mobile phone or something , but some somewhat bi bigger than small , so you don't lose it that much anymore . {vocalsound} Seventy five percent of the users also find it ugly , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and fif seventy five of the users zap a lot , so the buttons sh should be that small , or shouldn't be that complex because we have to search for the buttons , which one are you going to use . Next . Important issues about the remote . I think it would be better with a personal reference , but okay . Remote control has to have to have a low power usage , because s w seventy five percent of the users only zap one time an hour , so the power usage is also one one time an hour , or so , with a high power usage we would use a lot of but batteries . The volume button and the channel buttons are the two most important buttons on the remote control , so those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} those have to h be find very easily . And have to be somewhat like bigger etcetera . It has also be {disfmarker} have to find easily when the label is gone . My colleague also announced it that labels should be scratched off +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: or would be s uh {gap} senden {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . {vocalsound} So uh if that's k uh if that's the problem , you also have to find it easily on the remote . Buttons . Like what all colleagues said , have to have to be minimalized . or should be covered , or in L_C_D_ screen . L_C_D_ screen is easy because we have the L_C_D_ screen , we have the various options . Put one option and then you have the all the buttons of that options , so the other options would be gone . And you don't see the buttons . So L_C_D_ screens should be easy , but an L_C_D_ screen , the problem with the L_ sc L_C_D_ screen is that elderly people fr from forty five to for sixty five years don't use the L_C_D_ screen a lot . So we have to that keep that in mind that if you're going to implement L_C_D_ screen , you don't have to make it that hard to learn or to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh L_C_D_ screen as in uh touch screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , touch screen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The last but not least , younger people are more critical about the features . Because they use the remote control often more often , and are more technical than the ol older people . And the older people spend more money , and easily on a remote control . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: So we have to keep in mind to to focus not a lot {disfmarker} not that much on the younger pep younger people , but also somewhat on the elderly people . And on my personal preferences , I don't have any mo more time to come with that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like I said , L_C_D_ screen is easily to use +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because you have {disfmarker} you can implement a lot of buttons in one remote with not that much buttons . And it should be easy to use . Especially the volume buttons , the channel buttes buttons and the number buttons to zap through the channels . And that is it . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: Oh right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well thank you all , huh . {vocalsound} I dunno uh did everyone receive an email with uh the new project requirements ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . Res I did not . +Project Manager: No ? Well , +User Interface: Perhaps the rest ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: then I think it's a good thing that I made a separate slide of them +Marketing: Ja , {gap} +Project Manager: so you can all read them . Oh , well not in this presentation . Hmm +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should be in there . Well , I can tell you them uh from my laptop . Um teletext does {disfmarker} has become outdated since the popularity of the internet . +User Interface: Oh . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's uh the first thing we I think we should pay less attention to uh teletext . Uh the remote control should only be used for the television , otherwise the project becomes more complex , which endangers the time to market , and of course would make it more costly , I think . Um our current customers are within the age group of forty plus , and new product should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty , and you talked about that before . And uh a last point , but also very important , our corporate image should stay recognisable in our products , which means that our uh corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design . So we have to keep that in mind . Um well uh according to our agenda it's then time to take a decision on the remote control functions . So , who has any idea about what should be on it , and what shouldn't ? +User Interface: Well you said it should only uh work with one appliance ? +Marketing: Be television . +User Interface: Or with one uh d che only the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Only be used for television . +User Interface: And the video also , or not uh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well it says only for television here , huh . +Marketing: Only the television . +User Interface: Oh . Alright . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Makes it a lot easier , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So yeah , then you can yeah . Requirements , no ? Functions . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then it should have uh on , off , +Industrial Designer: Yeah for {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Standby options , +Marketing: Yeah , the basics then by a volume , channel , one till two zero numbers on it , +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Uh yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And per perhaps uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: oh teletext doesn't have to be ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Um other functions . +User Interface: Well uh uh yes yes s sh A button where you can uh change from one number to two numbers . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I had {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Two s two two digits , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Can you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oh okay . +User Interface: Don't know if that's got a name , +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean . Yeah . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it's I think it's easy to implement a button with a s s what which especially do that , because some T_V_s , if you press the t one and then the two , it be between five secs it make twelve , +Industrial Designer: It makes it twelve , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . S +Industrial Designer: Indeed . Okay . +Marketing: and that's that's not relaxed +Industrial Designer: Well , not really {vocalsound} +Marketing: to user . +Industrial Designer: And and there are some models that don't uh accommodate that function . So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: d uh wh the Philip's television makes it possible in that indeed to uh press one and then two to make uh the uh tj to reach channel twelve . +Marketing: So that it {vocalsound} easy and fast . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh all the television makes uh use of those button where you first press that button and then press two digits to uh to get +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , so you should have that one on . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , think so . +Marketing: Our main targets' age are ? were ? Forty five plus , or ? +User Interface: Mute misschien also . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: new product should reach a market with customers that are younger than forty , and now we have current customers uh of forty plus . +Marketing: Forties , okay because {vocalsound} because younger people as Uh younger people have now , sixteen till to twenty five age , are f eighty one percent interested in L_C_D_ screen . From twenty six to thirty five have sixty six percent , and thirty six to forty five , fifty five percent , so I think to um {disfmarker} Because on most recog remote controls um the print plate will be broken how much , two years . You have to press h very hard to go to the next channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: With the L_C_D_ screen it's easier because you only have to wipe the screen to uh {disfmarker} for fingerprint , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we could yeah . But I think that uh that collides with our mission to make it very cheap . +Marketing: and then you can use it again . +Industrial Designer: Because L_C_D_ screens are very expensive . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: A touch screen uh probably uh even more . +Marketing: Yeah but a {disfmarker} you don't know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: true , true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But uh {disfmarker} Well um is it possible to make an L_C_D_ screen uh , how was the information ? +Marketing: Yeah , it only says that this perce percentage like L_C_D_ screen . Because , yeah and it says that younger age between sixteen and forty five highly interesting features more critical . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should we should focus on that L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And if the only f Yeah , because our target is sixteen to forty five . +User Interface: But , do you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh will we not uh exceed our uh our uh production uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah you don't know how much it costs . Yeah , you don't know how much it costs , the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Is it possible to find out , anyway ? +Marketing: No , I don't have any costs here , +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Marketing: I only have percentages . +User Interface: But if you would do an L_C_D_ screen do we have don don't you have any buttons ? Or because if it only directs at the T_V_ , then you only have uh I don't know what you want to do with the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , an L_C_D_ screen's just like uh like a drawn here . Um just uh displays several buttons , +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: for example um if you wanted the minimal uh use b uh buttons , such as channel and volume , you just h uh displays four buttons on the screen +User Interface: Oh right , so you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's possible to p uh press them down , just like a touch screen . +User Interface: Oh , yeah alright . So you can adjust which buttons you want on that s screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can make it possible to do that , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if you want to adjust , like for example , adjust the audio settings , you press audio on the touchscreen +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: and you get the buttons for audio settings , +User Interface: Yeah alright , oh right . +Marketing: so the other buttons are gone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So we're going for an L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: Yeah . Would be yeah . +Marketing: I think it's the most easier thing , +Industrial Designer: That's my uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And hoping that when we produce a lot it won't be too expensive . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well we had twelve fifty , I guess , for uh production ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Any guesses ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I suppose wi if the mar if our um {vocalsound} if the i if the young people are interested in L_C_D_ screens , we should make 'em . +Marketing: Highly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if that is our d uh market share to uh and our goal to uh deliver those uh remote controls {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But he also said that we should not only focus on the younger people , but also on the older , and will they use it if it only has an L_C_D_ screen ? +Marketing: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Um , s forty six to forty five , thirty three percent , and sixty fifty six to sixty five twelve percent . +User Interface: Oh , so still a little bit people {disfmarker} +Marketing: But our our our what's it , project requirements are the new products should be reached for new markets , to customers that are younger than forty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's right . But you don't want to alienate the other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that not now , but , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if they also buy it then it's alright . I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , but market share fro for for forty years and younger is higher than that of sixty five and younger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , so L_C_D_ it is ? +User Interface: An Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . It's treasure . +Project Manager: And what else ? +Industrial Designer: I hope we uh h and let's hope to reach those uh those sales . +Marketing: Yeah , i i if it {disfmarker} Yeah , if it costs {disfmarker} gets too much , too expensive , then yeah , we should be sticking to rubber buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , can you um uh s I think that that they will send you some information about uh the cost of L_C_D_ uh screens . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: N nothing , no costs at all . +User Interface: But perhaps later , +Industrial Designer: Uh so if you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if you uh you receive an email about that , uh can you post it in the {disfmarker} or shouldn't we post that in uh our projects mail uh folder . +Marketing: Yeah , in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think that should yeah {disfmarker} I think we all get the costs of everything . +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Because you are the the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: Yeah , okay , I'll I'll post it . +Industrial Designer: I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well perhaps we should have a backup plan that we would use buttons if it's uh {vocalsound} too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . But for now it's L_C_D_ . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , L_C_D_ , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have the seventy five percent of users find it r ugly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The L_C_D_ ? Oh that's a bit of a problem . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , and eighty percent of the users would spend more money with a when a remote would look fancy . +User Interface: Oh , that's a bit of a problem . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Tha i l i it'll look fancy with L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's looks fancy one yeah , of L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , but they don't they don't like it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: They think it's ugly . When it has an L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , just a {disfmarker} the plain remotes , not not specific L_C_D_ remotes . +User Interface: Oh , alright , I thought that you said that . +Project Manager: Yeah , and maybe you can make something fancy out of an L_C_D_ remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because it's new , as far as I know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And then not {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: And then you have the other thing , that seventy five percent zap a lot , but that's not a f question with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Um . Yeah . +Marketing: Only thing you have to do is wipe the screen off once each time , to get all the fingerprints off it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay , what else does our remote need ? +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mute button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think . And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} The most important things on a f on an on an uh remote control are channel selection , volume con selection , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and power s power usage . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And a teletext , but that is not of the question . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} But shouldn't you put a button of {disfmarker} for teletext on the {disfmarker} for the people who want to use it ? +Marketing: Other things are {disfmarker} Sorry ? +User Interface: Remembering we have got a big remote that you have to fill . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it could be . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah , and we could make an a a separate menu on the L_C_D_ uh screen for teletext . +Marketing: Yeah , teletext . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And there's also a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And other other less important things are screen settings , audio settings , and channel settings , +User Interface: Yeah , they are less important , but I think they should be there , +Marketing: Less important . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah , should be there , +Industrial Designer: A sh +Marketing: but not press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but in a sub sub-menu or something like that . +Marketing: Yeah , sub-menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think it's also important to uh make it possible to um how do you call it in English , uh , to not use batteries , and use ac uh bat uh {gap} batteries to uh to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Like with a with a mouse , you have not , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah sure . Indeed . So uh you can mount uh the the the uh +Marketing: Yeah , in a breath it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh the remote control to um +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Charted . +User Interface: We should think of the twelve fifty we have +Industrial Designer: to refill the {disfmarker} +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: I don't know how much that's going to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we don't we don't have any costs now , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , +Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because i uh when you get an L_C_D_ screen , you run it on batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the batteries will be uh empty very soon , very fast . +Marketing: Yeah e e power supply is one of the most important things . +User Interface: You should {disfmarker} Perhaps you should be able to to switch the control off . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have an L_C_D_ screen that's burns all the time I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: You shouldn't on and off because that's ver extra , that you have t first you have to turn the remote on , and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's it's not that easy because I don't think people will like it who who uh that you have to turn it on first and then use it , +User Interface: Nee that's that's uh yeah . +Marketing: so I think it's better when th the T_V_ shuts down , the remote shuts down . +User Interface: But then you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And go to standby mode when you don't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah au automac matically , that it {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , automatically . After two minutes or three minutes , something like that . +Marketing: Yeah . After two minutes , yeah two three minutes , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And maybe a low battery indicator ? On the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then b that uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: before an hour when its get again gets empty . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then you have plenty of time to recharge it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: of put it in a recharger . Charger . +Project Manager: So we are going for the for the recharger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's {gap} . Uh . +User Interface: If it's sensible . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , because when you're watching T_V_ , you're zapping and you have to put it in a recharger , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , b when the batteries are low {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , +Marketing: and I don't think it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: when you when you're done with s uh w uh watching your television , you have to put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , but then we have to be sure that the the the the batteries go {vocalsound} hours , six hours , five , six hours , then . +User Interface: But you'll also forget to put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course . +User Interface: because you throw it on the couch +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you have a problem . +User Interface: and you don't remember . +Industrial Designer: But you also forget to buy batteries , +User Interface: Yeah . That's right . +Industrial Designer: and then you can you can't use it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or we have to be sure that the batteries last couple of days when they're recharged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I think the batteries should should w should work a lot longer than a couple of days , +Marketing: So . +User Interface: or not ? +Marketing: Yeah because you have b +User Interface: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: but you have L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: High power usage . +Industrial Designer: High power user cell , i uh it should be uh a standard move to to put your remote control in the charger when you're done watching television , +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: that's also a a a great advantage because you can't lose it anymore . Because you are obliged to uh put it in the charger and not to uh leave it in a couch uh between some cushions . +Marketing: True . Yeah . Yeah . True . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , you made a point there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But then you also have to s have somewhere where you can put a remo recharger near your couch +Project Manager: Yeah , also . +User Interface: because otherwise you have to walk a long way when you twoft want to turn on the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , otherwise all your {disfmarker} yeah . Just a small device {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah . I think everything has it for and {disfmarker} I guess . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it hasn't {disfmarker} It doesn't have to be big . +Marketing: Plug it in , that's it . Yeah , like a {disfmarker} like telephone charger or something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah just just a cable , or a even a a a a a charger where you can mount it on . Something like that , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just u +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , well I've +Marketing: It has to be easy to use also , or things . Uh market share , speaker re speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah , you have some more +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: points . +Industrial Designer: Functional designs uh for the elderly uh you could make it possible to enlarge the screen , +Marketing: I think . +Industrial Designer: so make it possible to not uh display uh a button at ten points +Marketing: Also . +Industrial Designer: uh , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think that this should be standard . Large button {disfmarker} large buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but it is uh one of the functions you have to uh specify . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because we can look at uh uh perhaps uh forty buttons at a screen , but the elderly only look at two buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: And you said something about speech recognition ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition ? +Marketing: it says also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Twelve Euro +User Interface: twelve fifty , twelve fifty . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: twelve Euro fifty . +Marketing: Twelve . That's an {disfmarker} also ninety one percent sixteen to twenty five , twenty six to thirty five years , seventy six percent , and thirty six to forty five , thirty five percent . +User Interface: So it's pretty big . +Industrial Designer: Well , spread it by a big market . +Marketing: But then I I I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Even bigger than for L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} W I know let's do a speech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: let's leave out all the remote controls and just put a {vocalsound} microphone on top of the television to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Ninety . Twenty five . +User Interface: You can clap or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} channel . +Industrial Designer: Turn volume up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hey , that that's an idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now you shouldn't say the wrong thing , I dunno {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that should {disfmarker} it has to be remote control , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} twelve . +User Interface: But they want to talk into the remo remote control , or something , +Industrial Designer: Sure why not why not {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is this only would you would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . It's the only thing it says . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +User Interface: Oh , but do we want to implement that , or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think an L_C_D_ screen {vocalsound} should be suf sufficient . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: But when you look at the percentages {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it says a lot , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Speech recognition scores even higher , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Perhaps the options should be uh {disfmarker} Why not ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well , +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: maybe because of the cost , but uh nobody knows uh how much uh it will cost uh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's hope uh to have some uh d +User Interface: I know {vocalsound} +Marketing: No I think I think it's better to have L_ L_C_D_ screen , because in the area of tw thirty six to forty five , we have about thirty percent of the market share in in our hands , and fifty five of those people want L_C_D_ screen and thirty five want speech recognition . So I think it's better to keep it with L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: But would it be useful to imple implement both ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: On one remote ? +Marketing: Yeah , if the costs al allow it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I dunno . +User Interface: I don't know if that can be done with the cost of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Nee . +User Interface: With that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If it should be done , if it could be done , I won't matter . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: We should do it . Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: but how would you like to implement that , that you say volume up , and then it goes up , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: or ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Certain systems already exist , I think . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Then you also have to have different languages if we go international . Then uh it's y {vocalsound} it's yours to do a French and Dutch and English +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . True . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But that should also be with f should be also with L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This should be uh accommodated with some software , uh , uh . Yeah . +Marketing: Because then I think in Chinese is different written , volume is different written than um Swahili or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . Swahili . Swahili . +User Interface: Yeah you can use icons for the +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: a speaker and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ja , well possible . +Industrial Designer: Indeed . +User Interface: But if that's better than language for the for the remote . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So we want to uh yeah it's international uh okay . +User Interface: Then it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay , what else ? +Project Manager: So , no speech recognition ? Or {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , if it could be done , we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Y it should be done . If it could be done , should be done . +Marketing: we have to keep {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and then we have different languages . +User Interface: Yeah , that should be uh anything matters . +Industrial Designer: That's not so difficult at all , +Project Manager: Okay , just make a separate remote for each uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because I already use on several voice operated systems , and they are all possible to uh not all , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , you sh you should to adjust the thing . +Marketing: I think it's difficult . Every language of dialects {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think it's very differen difficult . +User Interface: And you have to speak the {disfmarker} so that it can understand . +Marketing: Yeah . I think it can't be implemented , but maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You could use that n as an option , if you have money left , or something . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , 's an option , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure , indeed . +Marketing: Fifty Euro cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's do speech . +Industrial Designer: For speech recognition . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we only do this when we have enough money left . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I've written down an an on or off button , volume selection , channel selection , uh the digits from one to zero , huh . Um {disfmarker} or from zero to nine . Uh a digits button to switch uh between one and two digits , mute button , a separate menu for teletext , a battery indicator . Um we're going to use a docking station and uh probably L_C_D_ and if there's enough money , speech recognition . And uh the possibility to uh enlarge buttons or to have large buttons +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: in general . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} With uh teletext if {disfmarker} it wasn't ver very important , it was but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: You also now have colours . I don't know if we should implement that . Yeah , +Marketing: Curved ? +User Interface: when you press the red button , you go to page one hundred two , and when you press the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . +User Interface: I don't know if we should implement that , +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: because it says that teletext not really important , +Industrial Designer: S Shortcuts . Uh . +User Interface: but yeah , the shortcut , and you can't go to sport . +Marketing: I think we should {disfmarker} we could that {disfmarker} we could also implement a audio settings , screen settings and channel settings , but as sub-menus . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: D Mainly if you turn the uh remote control on , you have to u you have to see from one till zero , channel and volume . And if you want to use teletext screen or audio , then you can press it . +Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah , just just sub-menu . Yeah . +Marketing: It should be available but not +User Interface: 'Cause it should be there . +Industrial Designer: Not directly uh available . +Marketing: not {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , so not too much teletext support , but in a separate menu , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So actually it is there but it's just not r ready there . +Marketing: Yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Directly available . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So does it confuse uh the user ? +User Interface: You'll have to search for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They'd have to be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I'll search um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If you want to use teletext , you can push the teletext button and then the options uh become available . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: The sign of it . +Project Manager: Okay , but no more buttons or functions , or ? +User Interface: I guess not . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Uh , no . What else can you do with a television ? +User Interface: We've got anon +Project Manager: Aren't we forgetting something very important ? +User Interface: Have got got two examples here , but I don't think there's anything we're missing . +Marketing: Uh play , pause , doesn't n need to be there . +User Interface: Well , we don't have the video orders {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , so this is your presentation . We could check the other remote controls with technical functions . +User Interface: Yeah , you could look here all the the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which ones were yours ? +User Interface: Uh th th th th I don't know , technical functions . +Marketing: Techni +User Interface: {vocalsound} They're a bit small , you can {disfmarker} we should stretch them , because {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ping . +Marketing: Ja ja ja ja ja . Technical functions . Yeah okay . +User Interface: I guess we've got them all . +Marketing: Uh I think I go to have volume , mute but I {disfmarker} Yeah {gap} . Very slow . Yeah , the zoom buttons . +User Interface: And for a T_V_ ? Can you zoom in a T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yeah , b wide screen , high screen , different things you have , +User Interface: Or that you can put 'em on uh on on wide and {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah different uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But that should also be a sub then , a sub uh menu thing . +Industrial Designer: Menu . +Marketing: Yeah it should be available , but then in separate screen settings or something . +User Interface: Yeah , so we should also implement se screen settings . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , screen settings , audio settings , teletext settings you have . +User Interface: Oh right . Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings . +User Interface: Yeah , so you can program the {disfmarker} +Marketing: So those four , and of course the main . +User Interface: Yeah , so the first you see the main , and the other ones you can uh go to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Like tap screens or something +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or , I dunno . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope we can do this . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There are a lot of options depending uh on what kind of television you got . +Marketing: Yeah , if uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you don't got a wide screen television you don't need the uh the screen settings +Marketing: No , you don't yu a no you then you don't no ni don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh for uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: then you don't use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and if the television does not support such uh operations +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We don't have to use that top . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you leave it alone . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or it could be possible to have a a standard version of the remote , an expanded version . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . And do we want them in different colours , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And and the buttons , should they have colours ? +Marketing: Colours . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Colours I think the main colour of the remote control is uh the colour of the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Oh but we don't have any buttons . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I Because we don't want a lot a devi yeah a device self s g +Marketing: Yeah , then defines itself . Because uh how many percent ? Eighty percent ? +User Interface: They think it's ugly , right ? +Marketing: Would spend more money if it looks fancy . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so use uh very uh lot of peo {vocalsound} +User Interface: Perhaps you can uh make adjustable fronts , like with the telephones {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Adjust with phones , yes {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Twelve Euro fifty . Well , make it available in different colours , you mean ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Red , white , blue , black . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And a see-through uh +Marketing: Rasta colours . +Industrial Designer: Grey . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah sea view , yes , Simpson's versions and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , see through version . Yeah . If you press a button , it turns green . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: Leave . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's the +User Interface: A disco version . +Project Manager: signal for las final five minutes . +User Interface: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Um so I have uh the things I just read . Um then we have uh separate menus for teletext , screen settings , audio settings , and what else ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Channel settings ? +User Interface: Oh yeah , right . +Project Manager: Channel settings . +User Interface: So you can program the T_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Perhaps you should you'd throw them on on in one pile . So , options , and then you sub them . +Marketing: Yeah . Could be possible . +User Interface: Otherwise you have all those teletext , perhaps teletext not , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or like uh you have a menu button , you press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we said teletext also a separate menu . +User Interface: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , or otherwise you have a menu button , press menu then you have uh main uh menu search uh all the all the settings . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but we can work that out later , I guess . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , no problem . Yep . +Project Manager: So we're having a a general menu with the most used functions , uh teletext , screen settings , audio settings , channel settings , and maybe there are options for the remote itself ? Like uh large icons or small icons +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: and I don't know what else , +Marketing: Um , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: I think b because we don't have a lot of buttons on the one screen , +User Interface: Or do we have any buttons ? On the remote . +Marketing: I think the buttons {disfmarker} Yeah , but but or like you have +User Interface: Which one ? +Marketing: you only have channel button or volume button . Those buttons you can you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but on the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: But that's also in the L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: huh ? +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we don't have any normal buttons +Marketing: Yeah , th +User Interface: that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , no normal buttons , yeah . +User Interface: No , alright . +Marketing: Maybe only the on and o on and off button . +User Interface: Yet on and off is p is perhaps you kno +Project Manager: But we don't need a special {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh not button {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't need a special options menu for the remote itself . +User Interface: No , no . +Marketing: Mm , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh well , you should be able to set which T_V_ you have . If you have {disfmarker} if you have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah sure , of course you need uh a settings button , uh or a settings option for the remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . But isn't idea to use uh uh what you said , uh normal on and off button for the T_V_ , that you don't have to use a {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no , because we we discussed that you could charge it , otherwise is {disfmarker} it it jumps to stand-by mode automatically . +User Interface: Yeah but but not for the remote but for the T_V_ , that you use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but a T_V_ of course , th that's the {disfmarker} I think that's a best thing is that to implement that one in the menu with the volume and channel . +User Interface: But a not as normal button , in the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Well maybe there should be a separate button apart from the L_C_D_ , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: because you can't turn it on when the L_C_D_ is off . So how do you turn the thing on ? There has to be a on button on the remote , +User Interface: No you just tap I think . +Project Manager: huh ? +Industrial Designer: Just tap it . +Marketing: Yeah , you tap . +Project Manager: Tap the thing . Okay . +Marketing: Touch screen , yeah then it's turn {disfmarker} turn off , turn on . +Project Manager: And then the television is on also , or just the remote ? +Marketing: No , just the remote . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: A television don't have to be on , that one you can {vocalsound} press on , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should be in standby mode , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah stand-by , then press on remote , press on and then T_V_ should be available . Or not . +User Interface: Yeah a yeah . I don't know whether it's handy to have a n a normal on button , a r just uh rubber uh for for T_V_ , +Marketing: Separate . +User Interface: so you can turn it on and then you can choose the channel . Otherwise you {disfmarker} I don't know whether or not that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A A A normal button on the remote control , +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . To turn it on . +Industrial Designer: or norm ? +User Interface: Of or you should put it in the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because uh when you touch the L_C_D_ screen when it is in standby mode , it should pop on . +User Interface: Yeah , I have , +Project Manager: Okay , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Wh uh why would it be a a need to have a normal button ? +User Interface: Well I I guess if you use the L_C_D_ screen , you first have to search where is the on button , then you uh you you then turn it , and then the T_V_ goes on . But if you have a normal on button on the on the remote , then you do the on , and then you search the channel which you want . +Marketing: Yeah , but I think the re the remote control , if you press tap the screen , it always should jump to the screen which has the volume button , channel button , and of course of also the on and off button . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: I think it looks a lot more fancy if you use uh if you don't have any buttons on the s on on remote control . +User Interface: Yeah , I think so too . Otherwise y wet e k Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So actually we're going to create a a button-less uh remote . No buttons at all . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well that's might be a unique selling point , huh for a remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} If we can afford it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , well I guess we have to +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , if we can afford it . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: postpone further discussion to uh our next meeting , because we're running out of time . Um for now , we're having a lunch break , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and then there will be uh half an hour for the uh next share of individual work . I will uh write uh minutes , if I can create them out of this . And uh put them in the the project documents uh folder . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And here are the individual actions for the for the other roles . And of course specific instructions will be sent to you again by your uh personal coach . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Luckily as we are . Okay , well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you very much , for now , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh have a nice lunch , huh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Lunch . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Food . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Should we put this back in our rooms , or uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , think so . +User Interface: Yeah . +","A project team, comprised of a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface expert, and Marketing representative, conducts a functional design meeting to decide on the features for a new remote control. After discussing various presentations and reviewing customer demographics, preferences, and new project requirements, the team deliberates on essential remote control functions: on/off, volume/channel selection, numeric keypad, mute, teletext menu, screen/audio/channel settings, and possibly an LCD screen with no physical buttons. They consider implementing a rechargeable battery with a docking station and a low battery indicator. The team aims to make the remote user-friendly and visually appealing, with potential customization options such as various colors or designs. They also address the possibility of adding speech recognition if it is financially viable. The meeting ends with the decision to further discuss these points in a subsequent gathering and the Project Manager commits to summarizing the meeting minutes and actions for follow-up." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: That should hopefully do the trick , um . 'Kay . Sorry about the small delay . Falling a little bit behind schedule . And that's uh fifteen twenty five . Okay . So just to try and roughly go over what we agreed in the last one , um we're gonna go for something uh uh how was it ? Uh The new black , I believe . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um something that looks good 'cause that seems to be in preference to actual functionality in the end , though we should never avoid functionality , of course . Uh many of our components are gonna be standard , off the shelf , but it seemed like we were gonna require at least an advanced chip and we were still very much for the idea of using an L_C_D_ display . Um other things were we were hoping to use rubber , most likely gonna be double curved , etcetera . Okay . So um due to your hard work , we might as well let the uh two designers go first , and uh show us the prototype . +User Interface: Okay , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Quite how the best way to do this is , I'm not sure , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I think if we both step up +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh outline our ideas . Okay . Now do {disfmarker} uh doing the prototype gave us a bit more insight into the ergonomics of the design . Um for one thing , it turned out that the only point at which it needs to be articulated for handedness is um is h i is down here for the uh L_E_D_ . As it turned out , the whole thing transfers from the right to left hand fairly well from the point of view of operating the uh function buttons and joystick , though it might be an idea to be able to a adjust the positions for the base of the joystick just a little bit for uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} ju just a thought . You could simply have a slightly ovoid shaped joystick that could then just be turn uh twisted round , so that the uh sticky uh so that the bit that sticks out a bit more is on one side or the other . But as you as you see with the uh {vocalsound} with holding it in the left hand , the L_ uh the L_C_D_ is nowhere useful , so that would need to be articulated uh if we're going to retain {gap} ergonomic design . Um now I I got your note about uh keeping the cost down . +Project Manager: I'm afraid yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We'll go into that a bit more , +User Interface: {gap} this design could be done with um with uh plastic casing . +Project Manager: but please go on . +User Interface: Though I would recommend around the grip part here in the middle , having maybe just a rubber grip over that which would allow for a slightly more sort of bio-morphic form , and a bit more ergonomic as well . As for the um as for the single curve , um well this edge and this edge , like I say it would be nice to have some curvature to it , but it's not absolutely necessary . Really the curve that's most needed is the underside so that the jo so that the joystick rests over the the edge of the hand like this . Um and you have the uh transmitter here and a wee speaker for the uh for the uh for the uh fi uh for the remote control finder . So . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any further comments ? +Industrial Designer: Um obviously it's gonna be bulkier than how it looks , because it's gonna be flat on one side , so the L_C_D_ will be s sticking down like this , won't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause it {disfmarker} you can't get it curved . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean the +Industrial Designer: Uh because of costs . +User Interface: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's plastic as well , so it won't be as comfortable on the hand . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean with the with the rubber design it could i you know it could pretty much mould very much to the to the user's hand . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: One nice wee feature if we could if we could still do the rubber , I though of was to have {gap} the uh rubber extend beyond the end of the uh {vocalsound} of the rigid substructure . So it has a wee sort of tail that you just drape over your wrist so it stays in position nicely . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Lovely . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . Great . Um . +Marketing: Right . Yeah I've got a {disfmarker} if you load up my evaluation document . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent work . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Uh evaluation . {vocalsound} Basic point uh have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by . {vocalsound} Um then we will {disfmarker} it's a seven s um seven seven step kinda evaluation process . So um not seven steps , seven scale . So after we've finished doing all the ratings for each criteria , we average that and that will give us some type of uh confidence in our prototype . And uh the criteria {gap} based on Real Reactions' kinda goals and policies , marketing strategies , and also those I put together from the user requirements phase . 'Kay . Um if you flip the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So , those are the criteria . And uh perhaps I could have put 'em a bit better , but you notice a few things that we've totally abandoned , which means {vocalsound} that uh the product will score very badly on some of those points . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Put it mildly . So we have um true ? One , t Seven , eight , oh . Fourth . Okay , so we have to go through each point . If we imagine it's actually straight , and just give it a a score . So um how well would you say the prototype is uh how well have we realised the dream of being able to stop remotes from from being lost , or to be able to find them once they are lost . I mean , uh is the homing thing still {disfmarker} the locator , is that still {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's still part of the design . +Marketing: Sure . And Adam , we can keep that in ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I believe so . So I mean I don't think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'cause that would mean doing something about the human element , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: but I'd like to think that we've done something about finding the damn thing once we have . +Marketing: T +User Interface: Mm . Mm . And making it a bright colour helps +Marketing: Sure . +User Interface: with the {disfmarker} personally I would have gone for purple {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Bright colour . So we still have that noise thing , yeah ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Os on a scale of one to seven , how would you guys rate it for finding {gap} finding it once it's lost ? +User Interface: I'd say number one . +Marketing: Number one ? +Industrial Designer: One . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Number number one for the first criteria . +User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th {gap} I mean something I've found with uh w w with say tr trying to find uh a cordless phone or a m mobile , you can hear it , but you can't quite pin it dow pin down where it is . +Marketing: Yeah you can tell what room the mobile is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bu +Industrial Designer: What about {disfmarker} what if the the volume on the T_V_'s turned up massively and uh you just wanna turn down the volume {gap} can't find remote . Suppose you have to go to the T_V_ and do it manually . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . Um +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like y you wouldn't hear the speaker {gap} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here , um well what we'll do is +Marketing: You wanna say something ? +Project Manager: um if we can look at the criteria you're gonna evaluate , and then we'll come back to the product evaluation if that's alright . +Marketing: That's fine . +Project Manager: Yeah , is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh that's that's fine . +Project Manager: Um so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you've covered ? And then we'll come back pretty much promptly to this . +Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I wanna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I is there any of these criteria that need any explaining ? Or is there anything that yous thought tha really would stand out compared to the others ? +Marketing: Um , a few . {vocalsound} Something I neglected from my initial research is that Real Reactions has a a goal strategy that all of the products be inspired by material fashion , and clothing fashion . That is why fruit and veg being popular in the home and in clothing was important and they want all their products to be somehow inspired by current trends in fashion . So they say we put the fashion in electronics , well they really mean it they they're very big on fashion , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so . That's this bit right here . And uh this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody ? I guess it's just the same as saying easy to use interface , so it's kinda condensed into one . And we can come back to it , you said . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly . Um . Okay . Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do . Um most of it stems from the use of the L_C_D_ which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well . Um the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a L_C_D_ , at which point we've removed a large part of how we were gonna interface , {gap} require more buttons , etcetera . Or what we did was that we um we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure . Um changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the um proposed costs and we're just scraping it in , we've got point two of a Euro left over there . So we're just managing it really . Even then as well , um there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I've used what I think's appropriate . With any luck that won't mean that we've incurred more cost than we can actually afford to . It blows a lot of our really good ideas kind of slightly to one side , for example the possibility of having a U_S_B_ connection is definitely not viable now . Um . +Marketing: Different languages ? +Project Manager: That should still be viable . We've got an advanced chip , we've got the use of the L_C_D_ . So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um but what's something we need to decide on is how we're gonna go from here . {vocalsound} We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be . Um . We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and uh show you if you wish um . I really think as m much as it pains me is that we might have to go with plastic and some kind of solid design , possibly meaning that the L_C_D_ wouldn't be in this perfect place . It might be s stuck like slightly between what would be good for left handed and what would be good for a right handed person . +User Interface: Mm-hmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h {vocalsound} is have it um circular and have it s {vocalsound} so that the uh the pink {gap} actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So that uh th +Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions , unfortunately . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Do you have any data on how much um different prints cost ? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design um ? +Project Manager: Um b b b da is {disfmarker} you mean on the plastic , or ? +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Let's have a look . You now have as much information as I do . {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So as you can see here , for example , the battery really not very little choice in that one . We've gone for one of the cheaper options as well . Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we're gonna do what we're needing to . I've said single curved . We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it . Um plastic for some reason incurs no cost , which I've had to very much make advantage of , despite the fact that rubber's only got a value of two Euros per unit . Problem comes here as you can see in the interface . Um if I've read this thing correctly , then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it's not per push button . That might make sense , because then a numeric keypad would come in at um what , four point five Euros , which is an awful lot , so that could well be wrong . Even if we save point five there , it would just mean that we're most likely placing it in actually just gaining a colour for the unit , which has had to be put to one side . As you can see , the use of an L_C_ display um advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it's an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that wasn't quite what I think they had in mind with a joystick . +Marketing: Why would why would that be more expensive than an individual push button and scroll wheel together ? That's quite significantly expensive . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} that's something you'll have to take up with the bean counters . Um +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: as you can see I mean that's taken up well over half of the price . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So um I'm very much open to suggestions of where we go , but because we need to shed what was four Euros off of the um the price of for what we really desired , this one comes in under price as you can see , but this was the one that sacrificed the material for the case and for the actual case design . +Marketing: We don't even have uh speakers here . The {disfmarker} like uh we uh {disfmarker} what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that ? Have we factored that in ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no , we haven't , not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Transmitter , receiver , speakers . Plus the extra device itself that's gonna be on a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is that gonna be a button , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That'll {gap} it literally would just be a button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We might have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's too expensive {gap} isn't it ? +Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing {disfmarker} Mm . Oh good call , I missed that . +Marketing: I I mean it's not on here , but um . +Project Manager: {gap} that's a very valid point . +Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Well that's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: So if we're gonna go with the L_C_ display , then that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: What's a hand dyna dynamo ? You have to wind it up ? +Project Manager: I believe so , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the um the fashion statement and such , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technology . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Fashion . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the L_C_D_ on the remote now . +Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , and joystick , yeah . +Project Manager: Which I'm defining as scroll wheel . Um . +Marketing: And we couldn't replace the joystick , right ? Because we would need four extra buttons to replace it , up down left and right , and that would be more expensive than a {disfmarker} but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah it's just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be , that that's what I've labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ basically is the big selling point of +Project Manager: If we remove the L_C_ display , we could save ourselves +Industrial Designer: the remote . +Project Manager: a fair amount . Which you could {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But that's what makes it uh original though , +User Interface: Mm . I think {gap} if we remove the the L_C_ display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: and we just {gap} we could just put our branding on any other remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Um . Uh k +Project Manager: It's a shame . We should possibly have {disfmarker} If we could've increased the price we could've manufactured that and we could've got something far closer to what we were hoping to . +Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that {disfmarker} I mean it's a bit ridiculous that they're gonna charge us what is it , like this much money for three million if we're gonna buy three million components , +Project Manager: Again , you'll have to argue with the accountants on that one . +Marketing: you know . +Project Manager: Um but for the purposes of this meeting , I'm {disfmarker} we're gonna have to stick with these figures . +Marketing: Mm . 'Kay . +Project Manager: So , I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we're gonna keep the L_C_ display 'cause it's about what really separates us , {vocalsound} despite the cost it's gonna incur . Um +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: are people maybe not happy with , but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case , to keep the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Um yeah {gap} I mean one thing , I mean ho uh how much extra would it be to to keep I mean {vocalsound} keep the um the articulation ? +Project Manager: It's hard to tell . Um I would say that you're at least gonna take double curved , +User Interface: This is what I'm wondering . +Project Manager: and even then I'm not quite sure if that's incorporating the idea of articulation . +User Interface: Oh +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: no , I think I I it d that it needn't require it to be double curved . +Industrial Designer: It can be s yeah , it can still be single curved , +User Interface: It's uh it's just {vocalsound} it's just {vocalsound} it's just that the case would come in t {vocalsound} would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Single curved with articulation ? +Industrial Designer: You just {gap} . +Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface ? 'Cause like we {disfmarker} do we have re restrictions on software ? +Industrial Designer: That's what we need for the joystick I think though . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah , I mean +Marketing: Oh but there has to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: and {vocalsound} I mean the uh I mean if you look uh if you look closer at the uh at the prototype here , the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight . Um I mean {gap} yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the curves all o over {gap} hand , +User Interface: on the {gap} on the L_C_D_ I mean although we've done it with a curve it +Project Manager: is it ? +User Interface: could just as easily be done um without curves . The curve that's really needed is up here , +Marketing: {gap} joystick . +User Interface: to put uh to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand . +Marketing: Okay . Sure . Okay , my bad . +Project Manager: We wouldn't actually save a lot by reducing it anyway , so I mean for the purposes of this meeting maybe we can state that single curve still allows articulation . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Um unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal . +Marketing: So I think the product is not gonna perform so well for my criteria . +Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now . As long as {disfmarker} so are we gonna say {disfmarker} {gap} w we have to keep an eye on the time as well , but we're gonna say um single curved design {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , wait a minute . Sample speaker ? What is a sample speaker ? Is that somewhat similar to what we want ? +Project Manager: It could well be , +User Interface: Mm no +Project Manager: but at a cost of {disfmarker} +User Interface: that's that voice response thing that we got the email about . +Industrial Designer: Costs four . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But I thought it was just completely pointless . +Marketing: You got a email about voice response ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I did not , +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: so . +User Interface: B i basically it was {gap} saying that our labs had come up with a chip that you could , you know , say hello to , and it would say hello back in a friendly female voice {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah we'll definitely won't go with that one . +Marketing: We won't go with that one , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that's voice recognition , so . +Marketing: I mean I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Um . So , okay yeah , battery definitely , {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it looks like we're gonna get rid of the whole loca {vocalsound} locator thing . +Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros , um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe even slight well oh yeah , pretty much point two Euros , I'd say . So we'll leave that one for now . {gap} we'll just have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all ? +Project Manager: It's uh a case of um I'm uh slightly unsure . One {disfmarker} point five of a Euro for one push button doesn't sound quite right . So maybe it's a case of a push button is maybe one or more . Um . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: At which point if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was {gap} for a case . Or had you already incorporated that ? +Marketing: Oh , special colour for the case . +Project Manager: Well you got point five there . It's literally a case of whether or not this is correct . I'm not quite sure if they're {disfmarker} I don't think they mean point five Euros per button . +User Interface: Okay , well +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: l let's say that and then we can have our special coloured case +Project Manager: So +User Interface: and then we at least have {disfmarker} make it a little harder to lose . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: Because most m most remotes are a fairly dingy colour that gets camouflaged under any pile of crap in a living room . +Marketing: W what's the default colour ? White or black ? +Project Manager: Black's probably the normal colour you'd say , +User Interface: Or grey . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: I quite like that colour that you're fetching there , +User Interface: Yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's uh definitely for make it glow in the dark even better . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So will we go with that then ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's not and we can see {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we'll come back to uh your evaluation +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: which you're probably now going to pan us but there we go . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just to give you an idea , um you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well , I'm not sure how much time . We've not hit the five minute mark warning yet , +Marketing: Right okay . Okay . +Project Manager: but . +Industrial Designer: Think it's ten minutes left . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ten . +Marketing: 'Kay . Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost . Um . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Special colour . +Marketing: Special colour . +Project Manager: Mm mm four ? +Marketing: Uh uh four . +Project Manager: Three ? Mm . +User Interface: Three . I think we can do three . +Marketing: Three if we're being generous , I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Th the special colour doesn't {disfmarker} would I think make a difference . +Marketing: Think we're being generous here with three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: It makes it stand out from {disfmarker} you know it's lost in a big pile of crap , it stands out from the rest of the crap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons . We're down to t two buttons , is it ? +User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick . +Project Manager: Two buttons . +Marketing: Okay , so that's a one . You know , +User Interface: Totally . +Marketing: where that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say we're doing well there . +Marketing: Okay , that was good . Easy to use interface , buttons menu , menus {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's yeah that's good . {vocalsound} 'Kay that's {disfmarker} we're not doing so badly . Um {vocalsound} easy to use {disfmarker} oh okay , let's forget that one . Fancy looking . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} As he models the {disfmarker} +User Interface: It doesn't get much fancier . +Marketing: Sure . And we could do whatever we like with the L_ L_C_D_ . Yeah let's just assume it's a good L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe I was panicking for no reason . +Industrial Designer: Are we going one on {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: I'd say we go two , 'cause like f the fanciest would be the double curved . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wouldn't it ? +Marketing: w maybe you'd be a bit too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah . There we go . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: With the articulators . With bells on it . +Marketing: that's m that's that's better too . More accurate numbers . Technologically innovative . Well , we're getting rid of the locator thing +Project Manager: Which is a shame . +Marketing: which which +User Interface: Mm . I'd give it a three for this {disfmarker} for that . +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No need for teletext . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean the menus thing is something you don't normally see on um on a remote , +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} you see it in a lot of other places . +Marketing: Yeah , mobile phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And y what you're doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You say three ? I might go as far as two on that . Three . +User Interface: I'd give it a three . +Project Manager: I'd be tempted with three , yeah . +Marketing: Three . Okay . +Project Manager: We'll get panned on the next one , anyway . +Marketing: Okay . Materials that people find pleasing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , w +Marketing: Sponginess is what they really would have wanted , apparently . +Project Manager: It is , yeah . Don't blame them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um because of the way that we've minimalised the number of buttons and such . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Plastic , it sucks . But it's no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have . +Marketing: That's true . It's not a step backwards . +Industrial Designer: {gap} five ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I'd s I I'd give it a six , to be honest . +Industrial Designer: Six ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay let's give it a six . +Industrial Designer: Six , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , that's totally thrown everything off balance . Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion . W we could . What colour were we gonna make it ? +Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , +User Interface: Um we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause we had yellow . If I were buying one , I'd go for purple . Leopard print would be cool . +Marketing: But um by this I think it's more a case of fruit and veg , {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we gotta {gap} . I'd say the colour of the border there world {disfmarker} you'd find that , {gap} that's that'd stand out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Like yellow , yeah . It would also help keep the the product placement s +Industrial Designer: Logo , brand . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Is it inspired by {gap} clothing fashion ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Th th they're referring to the fruit and veg thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Is this like a banana type colour ? Could we stretch {disfmarker} no still , it's not shaped like a banana is {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's kinda {disfmarker} {gap} i +Project Manager: It's kind o it +User Interface: it won't be when it's been +Project Manager: probably {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh is that 'cause it's flat ? +User Interface: budgeted . +Marketing: What is {disfmarker} what fruit or veg is flat ? +User Interface: I I think s I I think this isn't {disfmarker} not particularly fruit and veggie . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow courgette . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I mean it's probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg , so , {vocalsound} what , four ? +Marketing: Four ? Oh that's it's very ambitious , +Project Manager: Is that being too generous ? +User Interface: Mm . I'd {vocalsound} I'd I don't think fruit and veg is the sole criterion . {vocalsound} Is the sole criterion for being um fashion {gap} fashionable or inspired by current fashions . +Marketing: yeah , um . +Project Manager: Oh dear , {gap} . +Marketing: Sure . Inspired by {gap} . +User Interface: Um I'd g I'd rate I'd rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually . +Industrial Designer: Well this this what we're gonna t this is their motto , like . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And we're we're not doing well on it . +Marketing: This is their strategy . I m imagine we actually had some money invested in this and the amount that we invest is gonna be proportional to the marks . Might {disfmarker} we might wanna be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one . +Project Manager: What would you think yourself ? +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} I mean it's it's not at all , right ? {vocalsound} In any way or shape or form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it's kind of curved +Marketing: We didn't m +Project Manager: and we can make it yellow , and that's pretty much banana like . +Marketing: Okay , the the yellow banana like thing is I think is okay . +Project Manager: Si it's got a curve to it . +Marketing: Right five . Is that {vocalsound} sound reasonable ? +Project Manager: Am I {disfmarker} do you think I'm stretching the uh the use of the banana ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'll go with five . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} Yeah . 'Kay , so we have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven . So five , seven , ten , sixteen , twenty one . Which gives us an average of three . It's {disfmarker} well this would be in the middle . So we it's it's not bad . It's in the good section . +Project Manager: It's not bad and considering the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} don't pick the pen . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oops . Sorry . {vocalsound} I'm I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Y oh and you've knocked batteries out . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um right okay it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S bad design , that thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in , to have a positive {disfmarker} you know , even based on the four of us being heavily biased , um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} it was gonna be quite hard to get anything standing out I'd say possibly , based on um the the cost features . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . +Marketing: Even if we were to increase this entire thing by by seven , we were to go down a grade to to four , we would have to do {disfmarker} I mean we didn't we weren't that kinda optimistic too optim overly optimistic . You know like we didn't we didn't add we didn't subtract a whole seven points from these things , so I think we're definitely on the good bit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven , that's still only three extra points over seven . You know , it's {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: Mm . Personally , I think given that the product um only replaces a single remote control +Marketing: we did it w it was okay . It was good . +User Interface: that you've already got , are people really gonna shell out twenty five Euros for something that's only marginally good ? +Industrial Designer: Well , it depends who your {disfmarker} who's {disfmarker} what the target people are , like you'd say maybe the fashion conscious +Project Manager: Maybe it's been targeted {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: women would be going , oh look at that , 's cool , it looks like a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's yellow , looks like a banana , it's cool it's gotta {disfmarker} look good in the sitting room . +Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket . +Industrial Designer: Rather than the L_C_D_ whereas uh more technical like like more uh people in with the latest technology {gap} it's good , it's got an L_C_D_ screen 's only got two buttons and a joystick . So , which which kind of people would be more likely to buy it ? +Project Manager: Probably the people technologically . They're usually the ones that buy pointless stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone , and she's had it for a long time , you know . She uses it to make phone calls and that's it . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick , I mean that'll probably be the first one she decides not to buy , you know . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: She'd be like is this a remote control , I don't {disfmarker} how do you use it , and stuff like that . So even if it is really user friendly to us , but we're used to using menus all the time . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . I s {vocalsound} I suppose one thing is that b because it's technically innovative , um for someone who's sort of technophobic , the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Um . +Marketing: I think it's totally uh radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But like radical good , maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Um don't know how lo much longer we've got . At least five minutes I think . Um quickly we'll pop onto project evaluation . Um . So , we've got these uh four criteria here for uh satisfaction . Does anybody want to um um do you have any opinions on any of them ? For example um {disfmarker} we'll work backwards I suppose . The ability to work on this project using the technology we've been presented with . Um {gap} people made good use of the uh pen and paper ? +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: I would say {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: got notes and doodles . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrote nearly a page , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but not {gap} . +Project Manager: I'm not quite sure what the advantage for us using a digital pen might be . +User Interface: Well I think this is a {disfmarker} I think the digital pen's mostly for the benefit of the uh +Marketing: I think tracking . +User Interface: of the researchers studying this . It's all p goes into their corpus . +Project Manager: It must {disfmarker} +User Interface: Though it would have been nice to be able to transfer the um transfer our n our paper notes onto the uh computer ourselves . +Marketing: Yeah , that woulda been pretty good . +Project Manager: It does seem like the paper's still a heavy consideration for taking notes . So maybe this is literally just a way around it . Um I dunno . How are people satisfied with the teamwork we've managed to display today ? +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: I'd {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Good . +Marketing: yeah I liked it , yeah . +Project Manager: Leadership . As much as can be leadered in this uh thing . +Industrial Designer: Very good . +Marketing: I li yeah , top marks . +Project Manager: Um last one we've got is room for creativity . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Unti uh uh until uh until accounts came along , +Project Manager: Now , I think we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} squish . +Industrial Designer: We're burs bursting with creativity . +Marketing: yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: We we're not lacking in ideas , you know it's {disfmarker} that was not the problem . +Project Manager: I think of {disfmarker} in the end , ideas that can be used {gap} sadly {gap} . Not so much that we weren't full of ideas , but of ones that are gonna allow us to actually build the thing . It's a bit of a pity . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I would have to agree on that . I think we needed a larger budget . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: If you're going to aim your a um product maybe at the technological kind of sector , then you can afford to maybe jack the price up slightly from what it is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Because they will pay outrageous cash to {gap} +User Interface: Mm . I mean I th {vocalsound} I mean I think to r retaining the s the more sort of bio-morphic form in the articulation would gain more in s uh would gain more profit in sales than it would lose in uh +Project Manager: first on the market . +User Interface: in added expense . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the price was like {disfmarker} it was twice the w assembly cost . And would it have to be twice that ? It could be like coulda had the assembly {gap} like maybe fifteen Euro . +Project Manager: It could even {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll still settle for twenty five {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: That's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I suppose these are all that will have to be taken up with a at a different group at I guess . As to a {gap} the costs involved . But I mean we've got a a prototype . +User Interface: Such as it is . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I dunno , I I think it's gone okay today , considering the information that we've had at our disposal , and um such . +Marketing: Maybe the counts wou woulda been better if we had a list or more {disfmarker} Yeah , to begin with . +Industrial Designer: In the beginning , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Probably would have {disfmarker} mean we could have come up with a lot more solid design in the end , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I would have to agree . It is very much a pity to um get so far into the stage and then find out that maybe some of your ideas are just a bit too expensive . Always hard to tell until you know the costs . Um . Okay . Are the costs within budget ? Well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: they are now that we have our slightly less than capable product . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We've evaluated it , and we can say that we came out with a value of three . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Actually I want th one thing I would say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean something that could perhaps be part of the product mm the um m product testing market research process would be to uh produce mock-ups of both versions and see just how much of a difference the over {gap} going over-budget um m would make to sales . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: And like response from consumers {gap} . +User Interface: And we could even you know , market two versions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wee cheapie version with the nice bio-morphic rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then the final one where you get to call it Hal . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: But we'll go into that later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure . +Project Manager: Right um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is there anything else that anybody would like to to add , um {gap} anything they think that's not been covered , before I quickly write up a final report . Um I dunno , I mean we've got a product . We maybe aren't as happy with it as we'd like to be , but we've got something we think we can maybe stick onto the the market and sell . And of course something we have been avoiding talking about 'cause of we've no information is selling them directly to the manufacturers . There is a huge market . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean we've briefly touched on it but we've no more knowledge then there's little we can say on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . So um unless anybody's got anything they'd like to add , we can maybe round this up slightly earlier than we'd need to and then we can finish up the writing and such . +User Interface: And I can get my bus . Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh thank you for your participation . +Marketing: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I was actually kind of upset you know at the budget , and that we had to cut a lot of stuff . It's like man , we we can't have the locator thing . And s yeah that's just bad . Do you think maybe {gap} the prices were were made ? +Project Manager: That {gap} a question we can ask {gap} . {vocalsound} +","During a meeting involving Project Management, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Design professionals discussing a product prototype development process, various challenges and ideas were deliberated upon with the primary objective of balancing the product's aesthetics, functionality, cost, and market viability. + +The initial conversation highlighted an apology from the Project Manager for a slight delay, acknowledging the project was falling behind schedule. The dialog segued into a review of prior agreements, including the team's preference for a design that was aesthetically appealing, sometimes even favoring looks over functionality, which, however, should not be neglected. The product in question would utilize standard components, an advanced chip, and an LCD display, intending to incorporate ergonomics, such as a double-curved rubber design. + +The User Interface specialist presented a prototype, mentioning insights into the product's ergonomics which showed that only minimal articulation was needed for handedness adjustments. An idea was proposed to slightly adjust the joystick's position to improve usability. A concern regarding the LCD's visibility when held in the left hand was raised, suggesting the need for an articulated design. Discussions around cost limitations led to a consideration of alternatives, such as a plastic casing instead of rubber, to reduce production costs while maintaining ergonomic design elements. + +The Marketing representative reviewed an evaluation document based on criteria derived from user requirements and company strategies. The evaluation process highlighted concerns over different aspects of the prototype, such as the homing function to find lost remotes, and whether the costs aligned with the company's goals and market strategy. + +When cost constraints became evident, the team deliberated on possible changes to the structure, exploring the switch to plastic and a single-curve design to bring costs within budget. Concerns were raised about how these cost-saving measures could impact the product's usability and distinctive features, like the LCD and ergonomic design. + +The team then discussed other features like the possibility of a USB connection, compatibility with multiple languages, and the potential to make the product inspired by current fashion trends. However, budget restrictions made it clear that compromises, such as omitting the USB connection, might have to be made. Meanwhile, the potential of the advanced chip maintaining multi-language capability provided some reassurance. + +The cost analysis portion of the discussion scrutinized every component cost, revealing that the LCD and associated chip were significant expenditures. As the team juggled the budget constraints, the pros and cons of different components and design choices were weighed, including the product's color scheme and potential savings in interface elements. + +The conversation shifted back to the product's marketing criteria evaluation, where scores were assigned based on various factors such as the likelihood of losing the remote, the number of buttons, ease of use, aesthetics, innovation, material feel, and the inspiration from fashion trends, which is a brand imperative for the company. + +Despite creative efforts and a desire to develop a technologically innovative and aesthetically appealing product, it became clear that the product's final design was shaped significantly by budgetary limits. The team realized the trade-offs between cost and features such as the locator function, which was deemed unaffordable, and the team's inability to fully embrace the company's fashion-forward strategy. + +The session concluded with a project evaluation, with participants expressing satisfaction with the teamwork and creativity shown, despite the limitations imposed by technology and budget. Ultimately, the team acknowledged the necessity to compromise in order to create a viable product ready for market, with the caveat that consumer testing for different versions could provide valuable insights into market preferences. + +In sum, the meeting was a reflection of the real-world difficulties encountered in product development, where the interplay between design aspirations, functional requirements, costs, and strategic alignment forms a complex tapestry that teams must navigate to achieve success." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Oops That's as far as it goes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Hi guys uh good morning everybody here . And uh I want to introduce myself , uh my name is uh Shrida Daseri and uh I'm a project manager for this new project which we are going to discuss now . So I want to introduce first of all uh the names and the colleagues here . And what you're uh drawing ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh sure my name is Agnes and I'm an user {disfmarker} usability user interface designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My name is Ed and I do accounting . +Project Manager: Uh how you spell your name uh ? +Marketing: E_D_ . +Project Manager: E_D_ okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: Do you also do marketing ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: So only accounting ? Okay . +Marketing: Accounting , yes . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: And I'm Christine , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and my role in this uh scenario is to be the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Industrial designer . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not really one . +Project Manager: So who is uh marketing , nobody in the market +Marketing: Marketing is uh , is me {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's you , okay . So thanks for coming for the meeting first of all , and uh we have a long time , just twenty-five minutes to discuss about uh this project and the the project initiation . First of all I want to ask uh Mister Ed about your uh marketing plan and your product plan and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I think that we'll see that throughout the day in how we're going to put this together as a marketing to to market the product . We'll have to see on a through discussion on where we're gonna go from here and from {disfmarker} with this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm but uh do you already have like a functional design or a technical design or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh for the moment not yet . +Project Manager: Oh for the moment not yet , okay , but uh what's what's your uh {disfmarker} do you have some project plan , something with you or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good question {vocalsound} . No , this is like I said that we have to be discussed between all of us and we'll go from there . We'll have to {disfmarker} simply we'll have to work on it together . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so uh by when you think you can uh give me some kind of uh project plan , okay , a discussion with uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Certainly by the next meeting . +Project Manager: By next meeting , okay that will be great . Uh Okay , so there's any questions or uh first of all about uh this project ? +Industrial Designer: What is the goal of the project ? +Project Manager: Uh the goal of the project I think maybe I'll uh hand out to the Ed , okay , so to explain uh what is the project because he's in the sales and the accounting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm in the sales I'm supposed to explain them what to do {vocalsound} . We have to define exactly what our product is , from uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so can you explain uh what exactly the product is ? +Marketing: From what I had in mind we're supposed to be marketing coffee , is that right ? +Project Manager: Oh I think uh , if I'm not wrong , we're making the remote control . +User Interface: Um I was wondering {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote controls , 'cause I had two different things . I had a first part of mine was to make a remote control for a new f remote control for television , and afterward I had a discussion about coffee so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: we'll start with the remote control for television then . So we're have to design something that is very user friendly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Something uh visual that has something that will will draw people to buy the product , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because I think everybody's experienced with uh remote controls , and some remote controls are are worth uh throwing out the window . Uh th most of them ar I don't know we're have to come up with a new idea on how to make it a lot easier to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause a lot of times uh spend uh half a day through the instruction book trying to figure out how to use it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh what abo uh Christine , what about your uh the industrial design plan ? Are you have a design already on this product or uh you're still working on the design ? +Industrial Designer: Um no , I I have not begun working on the design , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um I uh I actually didn't know we were designing a remote control , I thought we were designing a new monitor . Um the website I went to look at had some announcements about an introduction of a um uh some sort of a seven inch um monitor , and um I understood that that was the project goal . So um I'm glad I didn't d do any work um ahead of time because uh I clearly didn't understand the project goal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um I just did s see that we were starting a new project together and there was going to be a four member team composed of these people , and um that's about uh that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and I I read through the different steps , and what my responsibilities were relative to the steps . +Project Manager: So uh you'll be leading the team for your design team or how many members is working in the team , for the design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh for the industrial design ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um well , I would th think that depends on how much money you give us . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um because uh , you know , you can uh you can make it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have different choices with different financial models . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh before we talk about uh the finance , okay , uh do you have some idea how we can uh sell this product or project in the market and how much is going to benefit to the company and uh of course it's to the individual also . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , you know um , I kind of think that in general you have to do uh um y you have to have something that's very fashionable , that's uh very attractive {disfmarker} that um people see and recognize uh its goal , and uh they immediately wanna have it uh have one of their own . So it would {disfmarker} really would need to um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the iPod would be good , seems to have caught on fairly well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so um d uh you know , I don't care what it does , just so it looks cool . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh uh when you think you can give me like a kind of design on the functional design or the technical design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh I've got a lot of other projects I'm doing right now um and so I'll have to wait and see how those uh how those go . If they uh go quickly then uh it could be a month . If um if I run into any problems in my other projects it might be six months . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I need something in the writing , so like uh what's your functional design , what's your technical design , and uh how many people you need for this project , and what's the time frame you're looking , okay , and what is the budget , maybe uh initial budget you're looking , okay , and uh how is going to the market , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so you've you've had to meet with the marketing team and how they're going to market and what are the marketing strategic plan , okay , when are you going to introduce , okay , and by the time you introduce the product and uh you know there there would be a competition , okay , so I need some kind of uh uh the plan in the writing from you . Okay , and it's po +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And when would you like that ? +Project Manager: B as soon as possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh well if uh if we have enough time uh then d do you think um two weeks is a {disfmarker} is close enough ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh that would be good , because I need to go to the management and uh tell them what we are going to do , and uh what cost is , okay , and what's the time frame and what's the project plan , because uh without any uh documentations , I cannot go to the management and say , so we are going to do this and we need this much money , okay , so then it's it's difficult for me to say , okay , that's the reason I need uh some kind of plan from you , initially , okay , then we can have the further discussion again . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} are there other people who will be contributing to the plan ? +Project Manager: Yes , of course , if you need some help , uh so let me know . So , who are the people you need uh from the marketing or uh the technical side or uh the administration point of view , okay , to add in any documentation , or some technical point of view , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so just let me know so I can uh coordinate all the teams . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll get back to you on that . +Project Manager: Yes . Thank you . Okay . And uh Ed uh so what's {disfmarker} what do you think about uh this uh project for the remote control and d do you have some already planned something for your marketing strategy or uh the sales strategy ? +Marketing: Well not yet other than uh doing research and taking remote controls and looking what other companies have to do uh , what they're building , their designs , their ideas , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh also have to pinpoint which market we're gonna go into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It should be a fairly large market because uh the number of people that uh {disfmarker} the competition , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh th I agree it has to be something {disfmarker} it has to be something new , it has to be something that that draws people saying eh , I like this . Whether it works or not , they have to first say I like this , I like the design , and then it's gotta be simple to use . +Project Manager: Yes , so what I uh prefer maybe uh you need to interact uh more with the Christine , okay , because you know what she is going to do it , okay , and you know how to sell it . Okay , because uh she is doing the design , but you are the core because you are in the marketing , okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so because you need to sell {disfmarker} and you're the responsible for the all the money , the finance , okay , tomorrow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , what I prefer , okay , so you need to interact with the Christine more and uh within her team , okay , who is using the functional design or technical design , okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you need to come up with some kind of plan , okay , how we are going to do the {disfmarker} your sales plan , okay , th +Marketing: Do we already have a cost limit on this , th an idea of how much uh we want to market this for , how much it's gonna sell for , +Project Manager: Th That {disfmarker} that's +Marketing: that's up that's up to us to decide , eh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , that's {disfmarker} you have to decide , okay , so the best thing is you {disfmarker} uh both of uh the Christine and you discuss with yourself , okay , and come up with the cost , and how we are going to compete in the market , okay , in the the technically , or in the sales wise , okay , the commercial wise , okay . Then uh we have to design , okay , how long it will take the whole project , okay , how much is going to cost us , and how much we are going to benefit for the company . Okay , of course it's it's uh of benefit for everybody individually . Okay , so I think it's uh maybe if we can uh give me some kind of your uh the sales plan , okay , including the technical what uh she's going to talk to you within the team , okay , then it will help me to discuss with the management for further , okay , and put it in the the proper project plan . Okay , and if you need uh any coordination in between uh compared to the maybe the some technical vendors or commercial vendors , okay , depends if you want to have some uh uh marketing plan or technical plan , okay , so you let me know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Project Manager: Okay , I can coordinate , +Marketing: Very good . +Project Manager: or maybe uh , you are my coordinator , am I right ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Between uh all the coor +User Interface: Well , no , not exactly . I mean my job from what I understood was to look at the usability requirements and make sure that the product is usable , it's acceptable to the people who are gonna use it and look at the best ways to do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think I'll have to interact with Christine and discuss with her , so that she's not designing something that my studies will show right off the bat that it's not going to work , +Project Manager: Th Christine , yeah {vocalsound} . Which is {disfmarker} +User Interface: and so it's sort of {disfmarker} it's a loop that feeds in , but I don't think necessarily that I'm in a coordinating position for it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah , so basically you need to interact with Christine more , okay , for the user acceptability , okay , and the testing , okay , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then you will {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which will also feed into the marketing , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because depending on what users want , depends on how you sell it , what tag lines you attach to it , how you try to make it more attractive to users . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I think all three groups will need to interact quite a bit . Um , and then I guess build the plan based on all of that , because I think you need to take all the factors into account . +Project Manager: Yep . But what I request , okay , {gap} keep Ed in the loop , okay , in between your uh meeting and Christine meeting , because uh he should know what's happening . +User Interface: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} . Yeah , we can C_C_ him on any discussions or documents that are passed around . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay and please please copy all the mails , okay , all the discussions to me , okay , so I need to submit to the management . +User Interface: Sure . No problem . +Project Manager: So any questions for uh time being ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So , the immediate next step is to start determining the functional design , or +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . To come up with the functional design and uh to discuss with Ed , okay , and how it's going to be work , and uh first of all with your user acceptance , okay , how it looks like and how it's going to be work in the market , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so then we can discuss about uh further things . So , we'll meet when the {disfmarker} we'll discuss on the further meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? Thanks for coming . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you mind um at the conclusion of our meeting could could you send us a copy of your slides ? +Project Manager: Yes , I will . Yes . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah , that would be useful . +Project Manager: I'll copy , uh le let us keep all the emails and all the copies , okay , share each other , okay , so you know everybody what's happening , okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: And if anything you need anytime so please either you can call me , or just send me email , or uh just come and uh knock my door , okay , so I'm available here . It's good ? Okay , thanks for coming and uh I wish you a nice time then . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , see you later . Bye . +User Interface: Thank you . +","In a project meeting led by project manager Shrida Daseri, team members introduce themselves: Agnes as the user interface designer, Ed in marketing and accounting, and Christine as the supposed industrial designer. Ed is tasked with developing a marketing plan, and he mentions the need to discuss further the project, acknowledging no current functional or technical design is in place. The goal of the project seems to be creating a remote control, but there is initial confusion regarding whether it is for coffee or TVs. Christine has not begun designing and misunderstood the project as creating a monitor. Shrida requests a project plan including design, budget, and market strategy from the team, highlighting the importance of coordination and communication between marketing, design, and user interface to meet the project's needs, compete in the market, and benefit the company. The meeting adjourns with Shrida asking to be kept in the loop through shared emails and documents." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our scrutiny session on Estyn's annual report 2018-19. I'm very pleased to welcome Meilyr Rowlands, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Estyn; Jassa Scott, strategic director at Estyn; and Claire Morgan, strategic director at Estyn. Thank you all for attending. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. We'll go straight into questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Bore da. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the papers upfront, in which you say that the most striking feature of the education system, looking forward, of course is the curriculum and the change that that's bringing. How can we be sure that, during this period of change, standards don't slip? And also, from the point of view of scrutiny, will we be back in a situation where we're being told, 'You can't compare one set of results against the previous year's results, because of the nature of the change'? +Meilyr Rowlands: Bore da, bawb. Thank you for the invitation to come here. I think that's a good question. I think any kind of major educational reform has got risks attached to it, particularly if those changes were made too quickly. I think this process of reform has been going on in the background for a few years now, so I think there is a track record of standards and provision not slipping. We've seen small incremental improvements. So, overall, I think we can be fairly confident that standards won't slip during this period of preparation. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask: is that based on your evidence around primary schools, where the sort of ethos that we've seen in the curriculum has been already articulated through the foundation phase? +Meilyr Rowlands: The track record I'm talking about is across the board, so it's very difficult to think of anything that's actually got worse over the last three or four years, so it's difficult to say that standards of provision is slipping. It might not be improving as quickly as we would like, but the purpose of major curriculum and, more generally, educational reform is to make sure that we do get a more substantial sort of improvement. I think we should congratulate the profession for the work they've been doing. A large number of schools and teachers and leaders have been part of preparing the new curriculum and all the associated work, as well as doing the day job. I think their commitment and their engagement with curriculum reform, and engagement with wider education reform, is to be congratulated. So, I think going forward, we must make sure that that is continued; that this process that's called co-construction—engaging with the profession, making sure that they're behind all the changes—continues. I think that's what's going to make sure that we don't see any slippage. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and on that point of comparing year on year, we will be able to make those comparisons legitimately then? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, in terms of our inspection outcomes and our inspection work, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great, thank you. Can I just ask you then about the difference in preparedness between primary and secondary schools, which I've just mentioned previously, and also what your views are on the impact of funding for schools on that as well? Because we're in a situation where a number of primary schools have got surplus funds, sometimes that's because of end of year additional funds just being magicked up, but there is a serious worry that so many secondary schools are in deficit and that, overall, secondary schools are in deficit. Is there a correlation between those two positions, that secondary schools may be less ready for this than primary schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's probably true to say that secondary schools have a greater challenge than primary schools generally in terms of preparedness for the new curriculum. I think that's why we welcomed the phasing in of the new curriculum. With any sort of education reform, you've got that danger of people wanting to see change as soon as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand you need time to pilot things, to make sure that people have the right professional learning and make sure that there's opportunity for evaluation and thinking and so forth. So, we've got to get that balance right. +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, that could be difficult to do if a school doesn't have money to create that space, couldn't it? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. You raised two issues, I think. One, about the difference between primary and secondary: I think what I'm saying there is I think the fact that the new curriculum is going to be brought in for all the years in primary, but it's going to be phased in year by year for secondary is a recognition of that difference. In terms of funding, probably everyone in this room, and certainly me included, would like to see more money for the education system—any educationalist would like to see that. But, you know, that is a decision for local and central Government to decide how much they can afford. I think there is an argument for saying that the funding has become more challenging for schools over time. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, just to keep it on track, are you finding that that's having an impact on secondary schools particularly—their ability to make space to get their heads around the curriculum? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think you can make that straightforward correlation. But if you do look at surpluses and reserves, they have been more or less constant for primary schools over a long period of time, but they have declined for secondary schools. So, I think there probably is an argument for saying that we need to look at the funding of secondary schools in particular because, overall, they're in deficit now. So, I think there is an argument for looking at that. The other thing that's worth saying about funding is that even a small decrease in real terms can be disproportionately time consuming to manage. So, you know, if you have a large school and you have to maybe make one member of staff redundant, it can have a real big effect on the morale in the school. But also the time it takes for the headteacher and the senior staff to make those decisions can take their eye off the educational ball because they're looking at these financial and staffing issues. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Siân might develop that a little bit further on. The final question from me is: there's a general concern about the number of teachers that we have in the system at the moment, particularly at secondary level and in particular subjects as well. How do you think we can improve that? What impact is it likely to have on the ability of secondary schools to really get a grip on this? +Meilyr Rowlands: Obviously, the most important resource for the education system is the teachers. So, it is a concern that recruitment is getting more and more difficult and that targets for initial teacher training are not being hit. And we're not seeing them hit, if I remember correctly, even in primary, let alone secondary. So, there is a challenge, and I think we've got to look at this in the round. We've got to make sure that we have both a long-term strategy and a shorter term strategy for this. So, long term, we've got to make sure that education is an attractive option for young people and more mature people to want to go into. So, that is partly to do with workload and staff well-being. I think there's a general acceptance now that that needs to be higher up on the agenda, that people need to take that seriously, and there's work going on regarding the workload issue. +Suzy Davies AM: I suppose what I'm coming to, and I will finish with this, Chair, is, we're asking our existing workforce to undertake a fair bit of continuous professional development—let's call it that—in order to get ready for this curriculum when they've barely got time for lunch as it is. Do you think that's going to have an impact on the ability of secondary schools to get to grips with this, albeit that there'll be a phasing in? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think it will have an effect, but I think it'll have a positive effect. I think the new curriculum, one of the things about the new curriculum is that it re-professionalises the profession. It gives back agency and ownership to teachers. I think it's really important. And one of the reasons why teaching maybe hasn't been that attractive a profession is that teachers in the past have just been delivering a set curriculum, and now they've got a much more creative part in deciding for themselves how to teach something and what to teach. So, I think that is a very important part of attracting intelligent people into the profession. There are short-term things we need to do, of course, as well. I think we need to have a much more varied set of routes into teaching, so I welcome some of the part-time Open University courses, for example. So, there are lots of ways—we were talking about maybe converting people from primary into secondary, particularly in Welsh-medium, where there's a shortage. So, all those kinds of varied routes, I think, into teaching, are important as well. +Suzy Davies AM: Degree apprenticeships, potentially. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I think it's well worth exploring that. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian now has some questions on secondary schools causing concern. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just before going on to that, just to pick up on that last point that you made about the shortage of teachers and losing teachers during the first year of their training. Has Estyn done any themed work on that particular issue, or do you intend to do anything on that? Also, looking at the financial incentives and how they compare with the situation in England, for example; do we need, perhaps, to think about financial incentives, not just for specific subjects, but for going to schools where there are particular issues, perhaps? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, yes, there are currently discussions ongoing between us and the Government about working in those early years for teachers. It's possible that we will be undertaking work in the near future on that. I know that Professor Mick Waters is looking at this currently, and we've had the discussion with him. And I think we would welcome the opportunity to look at this particular period. Now, we are, of course, looking at initial teacher training, but we haven't looked at the first couple of years for many a year. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Right, thank you very much. And for your information, I've commissioned a piece of work on that particular issue, and that work will be published in due course. So, I hope to have a discussion with you about that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you very much. Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the secondary schools, that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it, rather than the primary sector. How much of a concern is it to you that children’s chances of going to a secondary school that is good or better appear to be 50:50, and that, indeed, over 10 per cent of secondary schools are judged to be failing and 12 per cent are under Estyn review? How much of a concern is that to you? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it is of concern to us, of course. I hope that we will have an opportunity to talk about the positive aspects of the education system in Wales, because there are a number of good things we can report also. The primary sector, the special sector, post-16—there are many sectors that are doing well, and I think a story that's particularly positive this year is that we have seen pupil referral units improving. We have seen examples of excellent practice in that sector for the first time in many a year, and we've also seen excellent practice in independent special schools, which is also a sector—. Because these are two sectors where there are very, very vulnerable children in attendance. So, I think that's very encouraging. But, you're right, of course, the biggest concern for the system, I would say, is secondary schools, and that is an issue of leadership, and also of the quality of the teaching and learning. Those are the recommendations that we make most often in our inspection reports. So, I believe that there is a need to find a long-term solution, as I mentioned previously, and also a short-term solution to this problem. In the long term, to improve the quality of teaching and learning—well, that’s the main aim of the new curriculum. So, I am confident that that strategy is the right strategy. It will take time, as we mentioned previously; it will take longer in secondary schools, and that's for a number of reasons, and I have discussed the challenges that are additional for secondary schools in previous annual reports. So, there are many reasons why secondary schools find it more difficult, possibly, than primary schools. The children themselves are older and they have greater challenges. Life is more complicated for them, possibly. It’s more difficult to engage with the parents of older children than younger children, and that’s an important factor. That’s one of the reasons why I believe it’s important that we do have community schools that ensure that the parents are part of the school’s life and take an interest in the education of their children. We also know that qualifications take a very prominent role in secondary schools’ mindsets, and, in some cases, perhaps excessively so. So, we need to ensure that those qualifications are reformed as a result of the reform of the curriculum, and, of course, Qualifications Wales is carrying out that work currently. And also, we need to change the measures that we use to measure the schools’ successes. Now, there is work ongoing on that as well. But there are all kinds of variations and differences between the primary and secondary sectors. In primary schools, for example, the greatest and most obvious difference, I would say, is that you’ve got one teacher who looks after a child for a whole year, and that teacher can identify the needs of the pupil very well over a period of time, getting to know the child and, possibly, the family very well. It’s much more complicated for secondary school to do that; there have to be systems put in place for that. So, there are many long-term things that we need to respond to. But in the short term, what is important is that those schools that cause concern receive much more support, and that is why I am glad and do welcome what's being piloted currently, which is a system of supporting these schools, the multi-agency approach, that is. So, that is something that we have been calling for for quite a long period of time and piloted ourselves a few years ago. So, I'm very glad that we are doing this in secondary schools throughout Wales. I believe there are about 12 schools that are in that pilot scheme. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You said previously that it's a cause of concern for you that these schools that are failing or underachieving are not identified early enough. Are there signs that that's improving? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, one of the things that's very positive about this pilot scheme is that it's not just the schools that are officially causing concern that are a part of the pilot scheme, that is, the schools that we have identified, through inspections, as needing to be put in a statutory category. So, there are schools involved in the pilot scheme that the authorities and the consortia have identified themselves as schools that are at risk of causing concern. I believe that it's fair to say that we have not reached a point yet where we have a system of agreed criteria in relation to identifying these schools yet. I think that there has been initial work that has been commissioned or that is about to arrive in relation to that, and the types of measures you would expect us to take account of would be dissatisfaction from parents, staff leaving, a change in leadership. We use surveys with the children, for instance, and that gives you quite a good idea of whether a school is possibly facing difficulties. So, there's not one single criteria alone that will tell you, 'This is a school that is at risk of causing concern', but taken together, having a set of criteria that everyone has agreed would be a good way of monitoring schools, I believe. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, we'll be coming on to that middle tier later on, and perhaps that's where the problem lies, namely that if there isn't an agreed system from consortia and yourselves, perhaps that's where the focus needs to be. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would say that it's not the identification of the schools that is the greatest problem. The greatest problem is ensuring that there is support for them and that the support is multi-agency support, where all the agencies that support these schools are working together. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, how long does it take, therefore, for a school to move from an improvement category, in terms of special measures, to be escalated then? Because one sees sometimes that there's an excellent school, and within five years' time, it's in the red. So, there's a great deal of variance in that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would be something quite unusual—to move from excellent to red. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, gradually, perhaps. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. Perhaps Claire can respond to this. +Claire Morgan: On average, secondary schools that are in need of special measures take just over two years, on average. Some are shorter; some are quite a considerable amount longer. It's a little less for schools that go into significant improvement. With primary schools, of course, it's much shorter because the issues are far less complex; it's easier to bring about improvements in teaching. When you've got large numbers of staff, you've got large secondary schools, it takes time to actually bring about those improvements, but it is a long time, just over two years, when you think that some pupils, maybe in key stage 4 for the two years—. Certainly, we want to see schools coming out of category much quicker, and this is where the multi-agency approach certainly is a positive step. All partners involved in supporting the school are involved in these improvement boards. They focus on bringing about improvement in the areas of the school that are weakest, and it is the responsibility of everybody involved—that is: ourselves, the regions, local authorities, the schools themselves and their governing bodies—to look at how they can best support the school to bring about that improvement. So, it's getting an agreement on what the issues are, and then planning the support so that we avoid duplication, but that we support the school in the areas they need more support. And we hope that this then will accelerate the improvement of the schools that find themselves in category. But, as Meilyr already said, there are some schools involved in that particular pilot that are at danger of causing serious concern. So, the pilot is trying out those two different approaches as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. And just finally from me, for the time being at least, the financial situation; we've spoken about that already this morning. If you could—. If funding was injected into the system tomorrow, say, what would you spend it on? What aspects would benefit from that additional funding? +Meilyr Rowlands: Were you asking about something specific there? +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the schools themselves, if you were a school leader, what would you— +Meilyr Rowlands: Oh, if I were a school leader. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. How would you use any additional funding that would flow into the school? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's difficult to make that decision, because every school is different. It is important, of course, that leaders do have the power and the ability to make those decisions themselves. But, certainly, in the short term, the type of thing I would have thought would be to prepare for the new curriculum. That means freeing up teachers to think about what the new curriculum means to them. The schools that have been a part of developing the curriculum have been in a fortunate position in that they've had plenty of time to think about this. So, it's now time—and this was the chief message of my annual report this year—for every school in Wales to start to think. Because I think that the new curriculum is truly an opportunity to take a forward step in terms of how we teach and learn within schools. But that means that time is needed for schools to think this through and, in that thinking, to contact the community, to talk to their children as well, to see what the community in its broader sense would like to see being in the new curriculum, because it's up to every school. Although the new curriculum sets a framework, it is up to each and every school to decide what they're going to teach, and what they're teaching in order to prepare their young people for this new world that we have in the twenty-first century. Therefore, to give you a somewhat superficial answer, I would be setting time aside for the training of teachers. +Jassa Scott: Can I just add one thing there? I think what we've seen over the years recently is that local authorities, to some extent, have safeguarded the funding that goes to the schools, but the effect of that is that we've seen less funding going into some of the local authority services; for example, those services that support well-being, that promote attendance, and that perhaps support behaviour and assistance for schools. So, I think that all of those factors contribute to how schools can support and assist their pupils, and to improve themselves. So, I think that side of things is important as well—in the school or in the local authority, if funding is available, it should be allocated to all of those things so that those services can also support the children to succeed. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on to the middle tier, if I can just ask about the quality of teaching? There's been a consistent message from Estyn that that is the weakest part of the system in Wales. The Government recognises that and has invested a very significant amount of money in that area, yet it's still an issue again in your annual report. You haven't said whether it's getting better or going in the right direction. What is your assessment of whether we are seeing the improvements we need to see in the quality of teaching? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, in nearly all the elements of our framework, the picture is fairly similar. So, in terms of quality of teaching, we have seen gradual but quite small-scale improvements in primary. So, you can feel that that is going in the right direction. In secondary, it's more or less level; we haven't seen it getting particularly better or particularly worse. One of the things that's really important to realise is that the curriculum is about the quality of teaching. It is about the teaching and learning; those are two sides of the same coin, if you like. What's important is the learning experience that our pupils get in school. From the perspective of the pupil, it's the learning; from the perspective of the teacher, it's the teaching. They are two sides to the same coin. I think there's no doubt and I think there's general agreement that, in order to have a step change in the quality of teaching and learning—. I think it was Einstein who said that if you keep on doing the same thing, you'll get the same result. So, you're going to have to change something, and what's changing is the curriculum. I think there's general consensus that this is the right approach to improve the quality of teaching. And that's exactly what all schools need to do now: to think how does this new curriculum affect them in their particular school, in their particular circumstances, in the context of their particular children. How can they use this opportunity now to improve the teaching and learning in their school? +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It does cause one concern, because if the teaching and learning standards just stay the same in the secondary sector, and we know that 12 per cent of secondary schools are under Estyn review and 11 per cent of them are in special measures, we're talking about half of the schools almost, and no improvement in the teaching quality in general. So, there is a major cohort of children captured in that situation, and then there's a new curriculum that comes in. I see the opportunities, but these schools that are doing well are going to go, 'Wow, up there', but schools are there in the bottom layer and one is genuinely concerned about those children in those schools. Isn't that where the focus should be and any additional funding that's allocated? You talked about releasing teachers for training, but perhaps it's in those particular schools that we need to focus. +Meilyr Rowlands: I do agree that the best schools will welcome the opportunities and that their standards will improve even more. But then, with regard to the other schools, in a way, there are two very broad categories, which are those that need only a little support just to help them to improve—. And I believe that the new curriculum and the general support that's going to be surrounding that will be the solution for those schools. It's going to be an opportunity for the quality of the teaching and the learning to improve. But you're right to say that there is another smaller cohort that has a much greater need for support, and they're going to find coping with the new curriculum difficult, because they'll also have many other problems. So, I do agree—. And you're not talking about a huge number of schools—some 200 secondary schools is what we have in Wales, so that percentage is relatively small, the number is relatively small—but they need much greater support. That is why this pilot scheme of the multi-agency approach of supporting those schools is important. I do believe that you're right to say that there are funding implications to supporting those schools. I don't think it's enormous, but certainly there's a certain amount of funding that is needed to offer those schools that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. The Minister recently told the committee that a number of recent Estyn inspections of local authorities' education services have been disappointing. Do you agree? That, of course, is based on the inspections carried out under the current cycle. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, indeed. I think we've done nine inspections of local authorities' education services so far this cycle. We've got another two this academic year. We'll have done half of them by the end of the academic year. We'll then evaluate how things have gone. But of those nine we've put three into category—we've identified them as causing concern—and they're Pembrokeshire, Powys and Wrexham. So, we do have concerns about those authorities. So, we'll be supporting those authorities, moving forward. But I think a common factor in those inspections was secondary schools. So, we've talking quite a bit about secondary schools this morning, and I think that, again, is a factor in those local authorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You say that the proportion of secondary schools causing concern is a challenge for several local authorities and for the system as a whole. Which local authorities are these—you've probably named them all—and have these been inspected yet under the current cycle? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think you're taking about three secondary schools in a category in Pembrokeshire, Wrexham and Torfaen. So, we've inspected Pembrokeshire and Wrexham already, but we haven't inspected Torfaen yet. And two schools in a category in Powys, Newport and Gwynedd. And we've inspected Powys and Newport, but we haven't inspected Gwynedd yet. So, in answer to your question: we've inspected most of those, but not all of them. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What is your latest assessment of how well the regional consortia are supporting and driving school improvement? Does this vary across the different regions? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly does vary, but I'll ask Jassa to go into more detail. +Jassa Scott: We haven't directly inspected the regional consortia since—I think 2017 was the last time we did some direct monitoring with them. But I think, over the last three years, we do feel that they've improved their knowledge. They're still relatively new in the big scheme of things. So, they did take a little while to embed, and I think that came across when we did the work that we did with them back in 2017. But, more recently, they've improved their knowledge of individual schools' strengths and areas for improvement, and they are using this knowledge better to support and challenge schools, and particularly schools causing concern. But obviously, as we've been talking about this morning, there's still work to do. I think they've prioritised well the work that schools are doing around literacy and numeracy, but their support for schools to develop digital competence has been a bit weaker. Even though we've had the framework as an early part of the curriculum developments there, we haven't seen quite the focus that we've seen on other areas. I think for schools causing concern, what we found—and we do look at their work through our local authority inspection, so we are getting some first-hand evidence of their impact through that—they're not always focused, in those schools causing concern, on improving teaching and learning, so actually getting in and looking and working with teachers and with staff to actually make improvements there. I think, generally, their support for secondary schools has had less impact across the consortia than it has for primary schools, and I think sometimes that's because they're struggling to recruit appropriate specialists, to support with secondary, or perhaps they don't have the depth of strong practice that we talked about earlier within their region. So, they're having to work a bit harder to find effective practice, to share practice and to get the secondary expertise and knowledge to support those schools. We will be, over the next year, looking specifically at the work of consortia to support curriculum reform work. Well, we think we will be—we haven’t had our remit letter yet. But that's one of the areas we've discussed, about doing some specific work on over the next year to look in a bit more depth. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what is the cycle of inspections for regional consortia, and how robust are those inspections? What areas do you cover? +Jassa Scott: Well, regional consortia aren't actually statutory entities at the moment, and we don't have specific inspection powers relating to regional consortia. What we have are powers to inspect school improvement. So, on each of our local authority inspections, there will be, usually, an area that we're looking at that relates to school improvement, and that would involve us looking at the work of the consortia that the local authority has commissioned. What we've agreed with Welsh Government is that, over the next few years, we will take a thematic approach. So, the first area that we've said is that we'll look specifically at how each of them is supporting curriculum reform, and report on that. So, that will report specifically on the different ones, but it wouldn't be the same as doing an inspection of their work at this time. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should they be on a statutory footing? +Jassa Scott: Well, I think that's something to be discussed over the next few years. There's, obviously, local government legislation that has been debated recently, which has the potential to create corporate joint committees, and school improvement was one of the areas that is being considered there. So, there may be an opportunity, if that's created, to think how we then adapt inspection to look specifically at that. So, I think there is an opportunity. I think we do get a handle on their work through the local authority and, ultimately, it's looking at what that consortia brings to that local authority and to the schools and the pupils in that area that's the important bit, I think, ultimately, to see the impact there. So, we are looking at them in that way, and then taking that thematic approach, but we'll keep reviewing it over the next couple of years. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are Estyn's views on the latest position regarding regional working in south-west and mid Wales? Would it be preferable for school improvement advisers to be based in the consortium, Education through Regional Work, rather than each local authority employing their own, as is the case at present? +Meilyr Rowlands: If I can just go back to the last question as well, what we did in order to inspect regions was we paused our local authority inspection cycle back in 2014, I think, for about three years. So, then, we spent time looking at regions, basically, because we didn't have the resource to do both at the same time. So, we're in negotiation with Welsh Government currently, so that, going forward, we can look at local authorities and regions at the same time. If regions become statutory entities, that would be in legislation, and then you could have legislation that gives us directly the powers to inspect them, which we don't currently have. So, we have to, effectively, wait for Welsh Government to ask us to do that work. But, as Jassa said, currently, what we intend to do in the short is to do some thematic work on that. In terms of ERW, they were the region that, at the end of the last cycle of regional inspections, we were still monitoring. We are concerned about their progress, particularly in the light of recent developments. So, for example, the chair of the joint committee has resigned, the managing director remains a temporary appointment and there are no clear plans for a permanent leadership. Some of the leadership team have left—the capacity has gone down—and various staff that were appointed last summer have already left. The budget has not been agreed and certain key meetings—executive board and joint committee meetings—have been cancelled. So, we are particularly worried about ERW, and, because of that, we will be going in to visit them in April—next month—and we'll be visiting all of the authorities to make sure that they do have a plan for an appropriate school improvement service going forward. But, Jassa, probably, can say a little bit more about our plans there. +Jassa Scott: Yes, I think you asked a specific question about, you know, which is better. I think our view has been that, generally, the local authorities are too small to deliver that whole range of school improvement services, particularly given the national reform agenda at the moment. We felt last summer, when we went to ERW, that they'd managed to reach the best possible model, given the constraint they've placed, collectively, on themselves—that they want to deliver aspects of school improvement locally, through the local authorities, and have some central capacity. So, we felt that, given that they wanted to do some locally and some centrally, enough thought had been put into that structure last summer and that it could be workable. There were key aspects such as support for secondary schools causing concern and there was some capacity centrally that could support areas such as Powys. Unfortunately, as Meilyr has described, some of those aspects have since been disbanded or those staff who were on secondment have gone back, so I think it is a key risk, particularly for some of those authorities you've talked about that are causing concern, such as Powys or Pembrokeshire—that they haven't necessarily got that local capacity to support their schools causing concern. So, you've got some concerns within school capacity and you've got concerns about local authority capacity, and what you don't have there now is that collective capacity centrally that might support them. So, that's why we're going to go and do a slightly more detailed link visit to try to understand how they are mitigating the risks that we see are arising as a result of some of those things that have happened recently. Our understanding is that there's a joint committee meeting of ERW on 19 March, so, hopefully, after that point, we'll have a little bit more information about how they're planning to manage that collective set of services going forward—it's a little bit of an unknown at the moment. +Meilyr Rowlands: You were asking, 'Would it be better for every authority to have their own team?' But, before regions were invented, if you like, we were saying consistently that they tended to be too small. What happened in practice was that authorities did come together voluntarily to have joint advisory services. So, you had Cynnal in the north west, you had the Education and School Improvement Service, you had Gwent—so, they naturally did come together in groups, maybe a little bit smaller than the current regions, but they, of their own accord, produced something not very dissimilar to a region. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, did you have a supplementary? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just on ERW. Does the fact that there is a dispute on the highest level feed down to the school and to the children? Are the children in south-west and mid Wales affected by this? Are standards decreasing in that part of Wales? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it's difficult to say directly, but we have inspected nine authorities and two of those are in that area, so, the lack of support at that level, as Jassa was saying, may be the reason why those authorities are suffering difficulties. +Jassa Scott: And it is clear that many people across that area are expending energy and time discussing these issues. Any reorganisation does take energy out of the system, so it is clear that that time isn't then being spent, perhaps, on investment in improving schools and supporting staff in schools. So, as Meilyr says, it's not clear, but a lot of energy is being expended in that particular discussion that is ongoing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? And I've got to be honest, up in the north, I know that there are concerns about regional consortia, and when local authorities are under pressure financially, it questions, sometimes, the value of regional consortia. So, what disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think we've talked in general terms and we feel that local authorities probably are too small on their own. In general terms, you can't say that any particular authority couldn't, maybe, put things together in such a way that it's effective. Also, it has a knock-on effect on the rest of the consortium, if one withdraws. I don't know whether, Jassa, you've got anything to add to the general points we've made. +Jassa Scott: I mean, I think, what you've alluded to there, it has the potential to be a destabilising factor across the whole of the national model that we've got for supporting school improvement at a time where Welsh Government are kind of relying heavily on that consortium model to help support curriculum reform and to drive professional learning and be the conduit for lots of the aspects of reform that we've talked about. So, I think that potential risk of any destabilising across the system is a disadvantage generally. I think—. Clearly, we've talked about that capacity at a local level. There is that aspect of what that means in terms of the joint capacity across the other authorities there. And I think it's just what I've already talked about in terms of being a distraction at a crucial time for support where schools need to feel that they're confident in where they need to go for support. I should say that we're planning, as part of that visit that we do in April, to survey schools in that region about the support that they're getting, be that from their authority or from the central teams in ERW. That's something we did at the time when we did the inspections previously, and we thought it would be helpful to get some first-hand views of any disadvantages or impact that they might be feeling, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. And then, finally, for me:what involvement has Estyn had with the strategic education delivery group chaired by Professor Dylan Jones and what are your expectations for how it will improve the work of the middle tier? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've been members of that group right from the beginning. I personally am on it and colleagues are on it as well, and I'm a member of the sub-group that does some of the background work for that group as well, and Estyn has given several presentations to that group. I think the group is important. I remember commenting the first time it met that it was welcoming. The rather obvious thing is that you get all the strategic educational organisations together in one room, but it had never been done before, as far as I know. So, it was a really important step forward for that to happen. I'm a very firm believer in making those relationships, building those relationships, so that people understand what each of us contributes to the whole of the education system. We need to have that forum to be able to make sure that we're clear about what each of our roles is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, all. In your report you talked about in early settings where skills development is less effective, that children begin to feel at a very early age that they can't do certain things. I don't know whether that is anecdotal evidence or is that specific outcome-based evidence—whatever, it's quite worrying. But what do you think the long-term effect on a child's development has in that respect? +Claire Morgan: It's probably worth saying that skill development is a strength in about three quarters of our schools—primary schools and early years settings. But in a minority of schools and settings, as you've picked up, children are often introduced to things too early. So, they're introduced to phonics, they're introduced to learning to read, when they're not at that developmental stage. And really, long term, it means the children lose confidence, because if they're introduced to these things too early they don't succeed, they tend to need additional support, and it can give them a negative impression, it can give them negative thoughts about their ability. So, we need to address that, and really it's about— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, what sort of age range are we talking about here? +Claire Morgan: These would be children from three to five. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Claire Morgan: So, this is very, very early on. +Dawn Bowden AM: And is there something, then, in that—and I don't think there's much we can do about that, but it may be in terms of the way that the schools or the early learning settings address this—you will have children at a very young age that have almost a year's difference in their age group, so they're born just before 1 September or just after 1 September? So, that's a huge gap, isn't it, at that point in their development? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that not being addressed in a way that those children are being taught and approached at that age? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Right, okay. That's fine. In terms of reading and literacy skills, we still remain quite low in the Programme for International Student Assessment ratings for reading, and I know there is a particular concern about the impact on boys in that regard. What do you think are the most pressing priorities that face them around reading and literacy? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think literacy has been, and still is, and still needs to be a top priority. I mean, literacy clearly is something that underpins the rest of education, so it really does need to be a top priority. I think it has been a high priority, but we need to continue prioritising it. We've seen some improvements over the years. For example, we've given a lot of attention to writing over the years, and making sure that children get the opportunity to write in an extended way, not just short sentences, but having the opportunity to have extended writing, and there's some evidence that that now is beginning to have an effect. But almost ironically, the same sort of issue is true of reading. So, it's not just reading small little snippets—we need to encourage children to have a love for reading and read whole books. So, I gave a little bit of attention to that in the annual report—that that needs attention. I think the other thing I would emphasise is that this is not just for the foundation phase, it's not just for very young children—it's really important at key stage 2 and in secondary school. One of the things we have been worried about, and I think there was some reflection of this in PISA, is that there are strengths in reading in Wales. So, PISA, for example, said that children in Wales are very good at comparing lots of little snippets, but what they're saying, and they're saying this themselves, is that the love of books is decreasing, and the number of children who read regularly whole books. So, I think there is something there for teachers to set and model a good example, to show their own interest in reading, to encourage children to read themselves. +Dawn Bowden AM: It's probably a wider societal problem as well, isn't it? I'm thinking about gaming, electronic gaming, computers. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. I think there is some sort of link with the digital world, and the way people read—the actual technique of reading, is evolving. But I think reading is so important, and developing a complex vocabulary is so important in being able to communicate, in order to get a good job, to have enjoyment out of life—all of those things are so important. We ourselves are going to give this quite a lot of priority in future, so we're doing a major piece of work on language acquisition, which will cover some of this next year. Every year one of our thematics is the major bit of work we do, and we try to support that with a conference. So, that will be the focus that we give to our work next year—it is on language acquisition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you for that. Just one other supplementary on that, I guess, is whether you have a good idea of how many young people are coming out of school at 16—so, those that are not staying on to do A-levels—and are coming out with an inability to read or white. Do we know what the figure is for that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I can't tell you that off the top of my head, but I'm sure that there will be evidence. That's not something we inspect as such. +Dawn Bowden AM: No, no, but there should be evidence around that. Okay. +Jassa Scott: There has been a shift in that there's been continued emphasis in post-16 education and training around literacy and picking that up. For example, anyone who's studying in a further education college will have to do resits. There's an aim to try and get everyone to a basic level. In apprenticeships they'll use essential skills and so on to try and get that basic level of literacy as well, so there is an emphasis. I think one of the worrying indications, maybe, that post-16 sectors find is that sometimes even when learners are coming out with a basic qualification in a GCSE, potentially in English or a literature subject, they don't necessarily have a really good foundation of some of the basic skills as well. So, there is a lot of work to do in this area. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, all right. Could I just move you on—? Sorry— +Meilyr Rowlands: The only thing I would add to that is, I guess, it's quite small, the number of people who don't have basic reading. I think one of the things we need to emphasise is that learning reading is something you do throughout your life, and what we need to do is to develop, in particular, pupils' higher level reading skills. The fact that they can just read isn't the end of the story; they need to be developing those higher level reading skills and continuing to widen the range of things they read, and be able to develop their vocabulary at a higher level. +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension, I guess. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry? +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension as well. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes—those higher level skills of comprehension and inference and those sorts of things. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, okay. Can I just move you on, then, to numeracy and whether you can tell us if you're satisfied with the progress in numeracy, because I think we were doing better on the PISA results in maths in Wales than we did previously? So, what are your thoughts on that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is a fairly clear good news story here. PISA shows improvements and a lot of that can be attributed, I think, to the new GCSE mathematics numeracy. I think there's much less predictability in that work; you can't approach it in a formulaic way, either the pupils or the teachers in terms of teaching it. There's much more problem solving. It's about applying what you've learnt in the core mathematics lessons to new situations in subjects across the curriculum. I think that that GCSE numeracy has built on the work that's been done lower down on the national numeracy framework, which has the same philosophy of applying that mathematics knowledge in a problem-solving situation. That has been a really good news story, really. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's something to be positive about, anyway. That's good. My final question, Chair, is: in your view, to what extent is Wales on track to meet the target of 500 points in each of the domains in the 2020-1 cycle for PISA? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that that target is somewhat arbitrary, but assuming that we continue on this journey that we are on—the current change programme of the new curriculum and so forth—I think we would expect to see those improvements we've seen in science and in mathematics to continue. We've talked about reading and I think we will be giving more attention to reading. I think the education system more generally, hopefully, will give more attention to reading. So, I would hope to see improvements there as well. The only other thing I would add is that there is some research that indicates or suggests that the effect of schools is greater on mathematics and science than on reading, and the reason for that is you don't do a lot mathematics or science in the home. But the attitude towards reading is very much dependent on family and community factors, more so, maybe, than mathematics and science. So, I think that's another reason why I think a community-school approach is really important. You need to get everybody on board; it's not just what the teacher does in the classroom—it's important that the whole family and the community thinks that reading is important. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just on numeracy, it was interesting because one of the schools in my constituency have actually contacted my office and a number of other organisations across the constituency to ask us how we use maths in our work. So, they're obviously trying to relate that now to everyday life and working, which I thought was quite good. +Meilyr Rowlands: That's good. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around progress of specific groups of pupils. If I can start and ask you how concerning is it that the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and other pupils has not narrowed in the last 10 years, especially given the £475 million pupil deprivation grant investment. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think secondary schools and the issue of poverty were the two things I've noted in the annual report. So, I think it is a concern to us. I think it is worth also remembering that compared to other countries, for example, in PISA, we do compare quite well in terms of equity. There's also an argument that maybe poverty and austerity have increased, so that we're in a way running to keep still. And I think also, as I was suggesting about the reading, poverty really is a social phenomenon. Schools can't solve that on their own. So, there are a lot of caveats to be made around the fact that that poverty gap hasn't closed, but that's not to say that schools can't do something about it, and I've suggested in the annual report a sort of a two-pronged approach. One is the new curriculum. I think there is evidence in the international research that teaching and learning, better teaching and learning, helps disadvantaged poor pupils disproportionately. So, they gain more from it that their peers. So, I think improving teaching and learning, and we discussed that earlier this morning about how the new curriculum is really all about improving the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. So, that's one approach, and then the other approach, which I've also mentioned earlier, is having a community-focused approach to schools. The schools that do more successfully tackle the poverty gap are the schools that take that kind of approach. It means helping the pupils. It means helping their families. It's about making pupil well-being really high on the agenda. It's very difficult for children to do well in school if they've got all kinds of things happening in their background. So, it's important that schools can maybe signpost those families to other services that can support them and help them. So, it's quite a complex—. It's challenging for schools to go down this route, and I think the more help we can give schools to take that approach, the better. But the schools that do do it do benefit a lot from it. They have better engagement from parents, from the families, and that then reflects back on the work of the children. +Jassa Scott: And we've just published a collection of good practice about how schools support vulnerable learners, and we'll be teasing out the aspects around community-focused schools a lot more in a report that we'll publish in the next couple of months. So, we've kind of drilled down and looked at what some schools are doing in that area in a bit more detail. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just quickly. Obviously, I think we've all been to schools where the PDG is actually used to engage parents more for exactly the reasons you say. But I just wanted to interrogate the deprivation gap a little bit, because, of course, even though, as you say, there's perhaps more equity in Wales, one of the reasons for that is because our children from better-off backgrounds do less well, and considerably less well than their peers in the other parts of the United Kingdom. So, whereas their attainment gaps are pretty dreadful, that's one of the reasons—that our better-off children aren't doing as well as perhaps they might do. Is that a concern as well? We don't want this rush to the middle, do we? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's essential that all groups of pupils do as well as they possibly can, absolutely. So, it's not quite the same issue, but we've talked about the importance of making sure that more able and talented children do well. +Suzy Davies AM: They're not the same. +Meilyr Rowlands: They're not the same, clearly, because you have more able and talented children from poor backgrounds. Differentiation is a challenge for schools, but it's absolutely essential that all groups of children do as well as they possibly can. So, in things like PISA, in terms of reading, for example, we can't just say it's that group that needs to improve—all the groups need to improve. And I think that's why something like the new curriculum gives schools more scope to tailor their teaching and learning to the particular groups that they have, whether they’re more able, whether they're advantaged or whether they're disadvantaged. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Lynne. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Pupils' confidence in their school's ability to help them with their emotional and mental well-being is much less at secondary school and that's been a consistent theme as well from your reports. Why do you think that is? +Jassa Scott: Yes, you're right. As we mentioned earlier, we do pupil surveys before all our inspections, and across a number of those indicators, like, 'How well does the school listen? Do adults in school care about me? How well does the school deal with bullying?'—quite a lot those ones around well-being do tail off. Nine out of 10 pupils at key stage 2 have that confidence, down to half at key stage 4, as you say. And I think there are a number of factors that we think contribute to that: I think one of the factors is that pupils face, sometimes, more challenges as they get older in those teenage years, but they also become more reflective and perhaps more discerning. And I think what we find in secondary schools is perhaps secondary school pupils notice sometimes the differences between their everyday life that they experience in school and perhaps the messages that they're getting about well-being in terms of their lessons, in terms of assemblies and in terms of school policies and so on. So, they are probably more discerning in noticing those differences and maybe there are some of those differences also there in primary school, but the pupils don't notice. I think we've already touched upon things like the differences in the way that, at primary school, you would tend to have a go-to adult, which is your teacher. The best secondary schools find ways to make sure that pupils do feel that level of support and feel there are trusted people, but it's more of a challenge to make sure that that happens, because of the way they're operating. We still have some concerns about personal and social education and the health and well-being support, which we've made a recommendation about in the past in some of our thematic reports, but also recently in some of our secondary school inspection reports. And I think I already touched upon the fact that sometimes, when the budget is tight, it can be some of those—they're not peripheral in their importance, but they're not the teacher in the classroom: well-being support assistants and so on and family liaison workers—staff in the school who perhaps really support that pastoral care that the school as a whole can provide—it may be that those are the roles that are less prevalent at times of less funding. So, I think there are some great members of staff doing a really good job, but perhaps they're not those members of staff who can support teachers and support pupils in creating that kind of caring environment. Maybe there a fewer of them around. So, I think there's not an obvious answer and part of it is that they do become more discerning and perhaps more vocal in those responses generally, as they get older. So, you might have a truer reflection of opinions than perhaps—. And that might explain some of the difference with primary, where, generally, they're quite positive about everything across most of the schools that we ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, it's not that secondary schools—because you've said that in a previous inspection report—are just not as good at prioritising mental health and well-being. +Jassa Scott: I think there's an element that it's more of a challenge for a secondary school to provide an effective set of support from that whole-staff awareness of some of the challenges. And one of the pieces of work we've done recently is around adverse childhood experiences, and we have found that primary schools have taken that and embraced it. Once you've trained your staff, then they've got that knowledge. They're the ones who are working day to day with the schools. Secondary schools haven't always taken a whole-school approach to that. They might have trained a set of staff. So, maybe not every member of staff has the same level of understanding, but also those staff aren't spending the same amount of time with pupils. So, in terms of getting to know pupils, picking up on signs that they may be struggling, or that there might be concerns—it's much more of a challenge. You've got to work a lot harder as a secondary school to make sure that staff have that knowledge and that you've got the tracking systems that can put those different bits of  information together to actually mean that you can target support where it's needed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm just thinking again about specific groups of pupils. Obviously, we've had one case in north Wales, in an independent school, where there were serious concerns. What's that done to your desire to monitor and check what's going on in these independent schools? Are they regulated sufficiently? +Jassa Scott: I'll pick up on that as well. Just to explain how we work with independent schools, initially, to give the context. So, there are different kinds of independent schools. So, some have boarding provision, and where they have boarding provision, Care Inspectorate Wales would look at the boarding side of it, we'd look at the educational side of it. There are others where they may have a linked children's home, which can be another room in the same house, or it can be a number of miles away, and similarly there CIW would look at the residential aspects of the care and we'd look at the school. So, I think, there's a focus in the independent school standards regulations, which is a minimum that all schools have to meet to maintain a registration. There is a focus in that on how that school looks after and cares for its pupils, and there are focuses on that element of boarding provision where relevant, and the national minimum standards that the care inspectorate look at that have aspects around supporting well-being as well. What we do find in our inspections is that, overall, we generally find that pupils' well-being develops, they make good progress, and that care, support and guidance that schools give is good. What we mean by that, really, practically, is that they are developing their resilience and their self-esteem. In special schools, this might mean particularly that those pupils learn to manage their anxieties better so that they improve their behaviour, which may be one of the reasons why they're in that specialist setting. In mainstream independent schools, what we find is that people develop their tenacity, their curiosity for learning—their resilience in that way. But there are shortcomings sometimes. For example, there was one school where we found that they weren't making appropriate referrals to child and adolescent mental health services. So, these schools do operate independently by their nature, and their awareness, perhaps, of some of the guidance and support that is out there—sometimes, maybe, there can be more to be done, and I think we've talked to Welsh Government about that. +Suzy Davies AM: What's Estyn's role in that—to bring that level of awareness to those schools? +Jassa Scott: I think we do through our inspection guidance, and the independent school standards do refer to Welsh Government guidance—it's something like 'Keeping learners safe', which is a really key document, which supports safeguarding and caring across schools. That's regularly discussed and talked about and referred to with those schools. So, I think the other area is that sometimes we don't have the intelligence about what—. So, for example, if there's been a safeguarding referral from a school, we don't necessarily always get that information, which means that when we do go to inspect, we may not have the full picture to help us tailor our inspection activity. So, that's something we've raised— +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—be brief and brief in answers. +Suzy Davies AM: Al right, okay. Do you mind if I move on to the next question? +Lynne Neagle AM: We're going to have to skip those, I'm afraid, and talk to the last set of questions, just because of the time pressures. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to ask in Welsh, please. What role, if any, did Estyn have in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest review of progress in school improvement when they visited Wales in late 2019? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we were interviewed. Therefore, the three of us had an interview with the OECD officials and we offered evidence to them. And I think that, when the report is published, you will see that the OECD does draw on our broader evidence and will be quoting our reports—the annual report and some of our thematic reports. That is the part that we played in that work. +Hefin David AM: Thanks. How significant a role do you believe the national evaluation and improvement resource will play in raising school standards? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that it's very important. It's Claire who has been specifically tasked with that, so I'll ask Claire to speak about it. +Claire Morgan: I think working together with the practitioners, the regions and representatives from local authorities is a great opportunity to develop a national approach, because we know across Wales there's some excellent practice, but we know there are schools that struggle to bring about improvement. So, this national resource has the potential to provide schools with detailed guidance on how they can approach not only self-evaluation, but, more importantly, how they can bring about that improvement. So, it will be a resource that develops over time. It's starting—we're piloting currently with around 40 schools. Half of those have been involved in developing the tools and approaches right from the start, and 22 new schools have come on board this year. But we anticipate that there will be lots of tools and approaches within that resource that schools can use to improve the quality of self-evaluation throughout the school, primaries, secondaries, PRUs and special schools. But it will focus on establishing a culture within the school that focuses on improvement, that establishes a reflective culture where all staff are involved in development. So, we're hoping that this tool—it's still currently in development, but we hope that that will support schools really well. +Hefin David AM: So, it's an evolving piece of work. +Claire Morgan: Yes, it is. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with regard to comparison of performance, does the lack of comparative attainment data raise difficulties when you're inspecting and drawing conclusions and standards in schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not really, no. I think there was a bit of a myth that a lot of this performance data was just for Estyn, but actually it never has been. When we inspect, we look at a whole range of aspects of the work. We look at standards, we look at teaching and learning in the classroom, we look at well-being, we look at care support and guidance, we look at leadership, we look at all of these things, and we look at it based on first-hand evidence—what we actually see in the classroom. So, we're quite happy to continue to inspect schools, and we in fact support having less emphasis on data because, although data is useful, and we hope that schools will continue to analyse their data and use that data to help them self-improve and self-evaluate, we don't actually need it and it has actually created a bit of a high-stakes culture. So, I think stepping back from that culture is a good idea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for your attendance? As usual, you'll receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. But thank you very much again for coming in this morning. +Meilyr Rowlands: Diolch yn fawr—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a ministerial update on the emotional and mental health of children and young people in Wales—next steps for 'Mind over matter'. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government regarding teachers' pay and pensions, and paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education from us regarding the school funding review. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Can I then propose under Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Great. Okay. Thank you. +","Lynne Neagle AM chaired a Children, Young People and Education Committee session focusing on scrutiny of Estyn's annual report 2018-19. There were concerns about standards not slipping during educational reform, specifically the curriculum change, and the different levels of preparedness between primary and secondary schools, coupled with the impact of school funding. Meilyr Rowlands, the Chief Inspector, assured that there had been gradual improvements and shared confidence that standards wouldn't slip, recognizing the profession's contributions. The discussion highlighted the importance of teacher engagement in reforms and the challenge for secondary schools in preparation for the new curriculum. The financial struggles of secondary schools were acknowledged, stressing the time-consuming nature of managing even small budget decreases. + +The session also delved into teacher recruitment issues, the need for a varied approach to welcoming people into the teaching profession, and touched on concerns about secondary schools where a significant percentage were judged to be failing or under Estyn review. Funding was debated, with a focus on how any additional funds would be ideally spent on preparing for the new curriculum and supporting schools requiring greater assistance. + +The committee discussed Estyn's role in reviewing regional consortia and local authorities, expressing particular concern about the situation with ERW (Education through Regional Work) in south-west and mid Wales. Issues within regional consortia could impact schools and the level of support they receive. + +The talks extended to Estyn's involvement with the OECD's recent review of school improvement in Wales and the development of a national evaluation and improvement resource, which could potentially raise school standards by providing detailed guidance on self-evaluation and improvement strategies. + +Finally, there were questions on how Estyn inspections handle the lack of comparative attainment data and whether the absence of such data poses difficulties in assessing school standards. Rowlands clarified that Estyn's inspections rely on a range of evidence observed firsthand, not just data, and supported moving away from a high-stakes culture focused on comparative data." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults—we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues—diabetes is often cited—cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices. +Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already. +Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed? +Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target—we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on—but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question—'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?' +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target. +Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too? +Nathan Cook: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process—and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn—we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions—that's the point we need to consult on. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan? +Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of £8 million to £10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy. +Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is—what the goal is? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for? +Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to—? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the £7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? +Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure? +Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about £56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated—. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures. +Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised £150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was £520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential—£150 million. +Nathan Cook: On a UK level. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential? +Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing £8 million to £10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Siân moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to—? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from—. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference—it's a personal view—is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying, 'Here's a sugar levy', and 'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.' Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful. +Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask— +Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter.] +Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that? +Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see—and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister? +Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as—I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Siân Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us—. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask—sorry to interrupt—how up to date is that? +Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year. +Nathan Cook: The data was published last week. +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows—. It's not getting radically worse—there's always statistical variation in these things—but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking. +Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11—at age 11 or 12., that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation—the point that was made earlier. +Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be—. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data? +Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years—what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to,  but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation? +Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got—we need to deploy them all. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know—. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system—and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that? +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question—a really important question—about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now—some London boroughs are now—experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes—. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would—it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well. +Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and—. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we—enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours—that's exactly why we need the consultation. +Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having—you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right—obviously, parents have a role in this, or families—there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at. +Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask: 'you're the accountable person—why has something worked, or not worked?' We will need to know that at some point. +Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools—I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented—the school came and some of the children came and presented—to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was, 'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway. +Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce—education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old—. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one? +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today. +Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours? +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair? +Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like? +Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So—I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question. +Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales—we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well. +Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team—I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that—? I felt completely alienated in school. +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences. +Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key? +Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports. +Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do. +Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think—. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity. +Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education? +Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils? +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a— +Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet. +Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer. +Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would—. +Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is—. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research? +Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember—? You must have seen on tv—I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales—parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools? +Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that £56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows? +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations—the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer? +Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it. +Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people? +Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that. +Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that. +Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have—and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we—the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes—Healthy Working Wales, et cetera—that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far. +Nathan Cook: Can I just say—? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms—broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms—about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind—I'm a public health professional—and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation? +Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about, 'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?' That's true for adults and it's true for children as well. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again. +Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children’s mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children’s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +","The meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee began with Chair Lynne Neagle AM welcoming everyone and noting the apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant with no substitutions. She asked members for any declarations of interest, of which there were none. The committee then moved on to scrutinize the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' draft strategy. + +Dr. Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government, were present to discuss the strategy, which targets all ages but with a focus on children and young people. Dr. Atherton emphasized the gravity of obesity and its impact on future generations, citing the importance of addressing the problems that overweight and obesity bring. The draft strategy involved engagement with children and youth, including working with schools and youth ambassadors, as well as developing a children and young people's version of the consultation. + +The committee discussed leadership issues, with Dr. Atherton and Nathan Cook indicating that targets to reduce obesity could be considered post-consultation and that resourcing for the plan is crucial, albeit challenging to quantify until final action items from the consultation are determined. They mentioned the possibility of utilizing current investments in obesity-related services more effectively and pondered over setting targets for Wales, which could be framed as challenges or ambitions. + +Members of the committee raised several points about using the planning system to restrict unhealthy food vendors near schools, the importance of sports in schools, and ensuring school facilities are properly equipped to promote community sport and physical activity. The utilization of the 'sugar tax' funds and the implications for obesity initiatives were also discussed. + +Questions were posed about the clinical obesity pathway for children and young people, the importance of the first 1,000 days of a child's life, and the impact of socio-economic factors on families' ability to make healthy choices. The discussion recognized the role of education and the current health system in addressing obesity and the potential need for legislative measures. + +The committee agreed to send a consultation response representing children's perspectives and moved on to papers to note—letters and communications from various stakeholders regarding CAMHS tier 4 provision, qualifications for the new curriculum, and Brexit implications for children. After going through the papers, the Chair motioned to move the meeting into a private session, and the public portion of the meeting concluded." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first . +User Interface: Mm . We're the first ones . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Marketing Expert , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you found your spots . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bling bling . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone ? +Industrial Designer: Hi . +User Interface: Hello , good day . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , we have to talk in English , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . My screen is gone . +Project Manager: It's called black . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Kick-off meeting , wow . It's uh looks uh nice . +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow . {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but not a lot . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough . +Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Very nice . +Project Manager: Okay let's get started . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance , tool training , uh how to use the things here . Uh project plan discussion , and yeah then the rest of the meeting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control , that's both original , trendy and user-friendly . So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hope you have good ideas . I don't . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best . +Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom . Uh functional design , +Industrial Designer: Not yet . +Project Manager: then we do some in individual work , then we have a meeting to discuss the results , etcetera etcetera . And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up . Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard . Um uh we should take some practice . I have some instructions now to do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work . So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar . You see it next . Um we have a pen . And we can use this pen to perform . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Operations . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't always work . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so you can draw . +Marketing: Draw . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width , etcetera etcetera . Okay ? +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay . Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal . Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , Julian . +User Interface: Um yeah . +Industrial Designer: Different pen widths , how do you do that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh with the format menu . +Industrial Designer: Oh okay . +Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe . Yeah . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Are you serious ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: four legs . Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Giraffe's yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format . +Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing ? Or +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so y you must save it at the end +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you can press the next button , which is uh {disfmarker} yeah . I'll show you . +User Interface: That's some spots . +Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu . +Project Manager: Yeah . In file menu . +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: No . +Marketing: then m make a new one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I can take forever on this . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Okay . Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal . +Project Manager: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe . +Project Manager: A giraffe okay . Yeah I see a long neck +User Interface: Yeah , that's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye . +Project Manager: Okay . That's nice of you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh . +User Interface: Hey . Come on . +Marketing: Some leaf to eat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah pretty good . Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: The next ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Then uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +User Interface: Here you go . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Thanks . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other ? +Project Manager: Yeah sorry , introduction and get acquainted +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: That's the idea , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Your line broke . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow , +Marketing: It's not that fast . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I see . It misses the spot . +Project Manager: {gap} pressure . +Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle . No . {vocalsound} I'm kidding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why a turtle ? +Industrial Designer: Because of its shell . +Marketing: Because it's slow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow . +User Interface: 'Cause it's so +Project Manager: You were slow too +User Interface: 'cause it's green . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too . +Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Does it have legs ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah sure . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's more like a tank . Yeah that's fins +Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs . With sharp nails on . +Marketing: but I don't know where . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Some spots . Ah some eye . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is . {vocalsound} Does it have ears ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe . +Marketing: Can you erase ears +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: There's a a gum , +Marketing: Yeah ? Alright . +Project Manager: gum to {gap} . +Marketing: Eraser . +Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: He said it was slow . +Marketing: I dunno . I it just came into my mind . So there's no particular reason +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I {gap} pen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Marketing: That's my turtle . +Project Manager: Your turn Niels . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The next +Marketing: here . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Makes new paper . +Marketing: Here you go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right ? Let's see . +Project Manager: Orange . +Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this ? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh . +User Interface: A rabbit I think . +Project Manager: Kangaroo . +User Interface: Kangaroo . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually . +User Interface: Fox . +Marketing: A fox yeah . +Project Manager: Dog . +Marketing: Firefox . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Cat . +Industrial Designer: Aye . {vocalsound} It's a cat . +Project Manager: It's a cat . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through . +Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Why a cat ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno . They're my favourite pets . +Project Manager: You have some uh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already . Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen , +Industrial Designer: st Oh shit . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse my language . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Sure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face . But you get the idea . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: It's a cat . It's my favourite uh pet animal , 'cause they're cute , they're independent and cuddly , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay . You get idea +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project . {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros . Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros . Uh that's quite a big amount of money . And the production cost should be the half of the selling price . Okay +Industrial Designer: So we have to s +Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We should get started . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes . Um +Marketing: Okay . Great . +Project Manager: we each have a specific task , as I saw in my mail . I didn't know if you received the same mail . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I guess so . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design . Am I correct ? +Industrial Designer: True . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions . Right ? Yeah ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself , um what I had to do , 'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So I had to uh , {vocalsound} I dunno , make an overview for myself about what I have to do , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase , I think was the functional . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design , which you said . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work ? And well I basically had two points . Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example , I have batteries to supply energy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far . +Project Manager: Yeah I got another point . It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo . +User Interface: Yeah . Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's very common . +User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function . You d you already told that . And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume . That are the the basic options for a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I kept it global 'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that . I mean , you wanna ch ch flip the channel +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English . Uh {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Same I believe {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do ? +Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective , um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled ? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean , what functions do they have . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings ? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search . For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support , and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions ? +Project Manager: Yep . Yes . +Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported . Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users . What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control ? Um especially for future users , +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters , because they they use new technology first , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add . +Project Manager: Okay . And you can get that information ? +Marketing: I think I can get that information , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . That would be very handy . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are ? +Marketing: No n not specifically . +Project Manager: No ? +Marketing: More to how to get them +Project Manager: No okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Obviously . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons , not not uh very small buttons , but not the the also the big big buttons , but just normal buttons . It has to be a small unit . It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah , you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house . So it has n has not to be l yeah , gigantic uh machine . +Project Manager: Big , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that ? +User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be , uh yeah um yeah , quite a big distance . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . From the other end of the room or something ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment . Um I think the best is to go to work . +Industrial Designer: Whoa . Is that you +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Any more points to discuss ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we can go ahead with what we have . I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder . Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design , etcetera etcetera . And it seems you get more information by email . So {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: that was it for me . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , in the project folder . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The pro okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm writing very fast . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Hope it's readable . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion ? +Marketing: I guess so . +Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session ? +User Interface: Yeah . Do we only have to to do uh phase one , the functional design uh ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Because then we have a {disfmarker} +User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Y you do some individual work , +Marketing: We're just working the three phases . +Project Manager: we have meeting , individual work , meeting . And at the end of the day we have a final meeting . And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so make it good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . We'll do our best . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I depend on you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already 'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in . +Project Manager: Yeah ? If you can mix it it's okay . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean , is it gonna be a multimedia control centre ? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} That is my question also +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part . +Marketing: Requirements . Yeah . +Project Manager: As to what they want . Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . True . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff , +Marketing: Unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I have to f put the components into the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I would first m +Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in , it's kind of hard . +Marketing: Yeah well +Project Manager: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: I I was {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker} +Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there , which I know , there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you can switch to your video +Project Manager: Hmm , +Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video . +Project Manager: the C_D_ player . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre , because that's getting very popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control . So with the switch , one single switch {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean , but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_ . +Marketing: records and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well , +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Whatever , I'll just put my ideas in uh in here +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting . +Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video . And um reserve the possibility to add other features . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're di dismissed . +User Interface: Can we leave now +Marketing: Half an hour . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Alright let's move on . +Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah see you later . +User Interface: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Thank you . +Marketing: Well good luck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} +","At the beginning of the dialogue, there appear to be non-verbal vocal sounds between the User Interface and Marketing team members, possibly indicating acknowledgment or hesitation as they try to articulate their thoughts. Marketing proudly claims they are the first, likely referring to a particular aspect of their project or initiative, with User Interface confirming that affirmation. + +As the Project Manager joins the conversation, they acknowledge Marketing's ""spots,"" which could be interpreted as areas of expertise or responsibility within the team. A call for movement to the meeting room suggests the transition to a more formal collaboration space, where the Industrial Designer joins and mentions the need to speak in English, implying a multilingual team environment. + +Once settled, Marketing expresses concern about a missing screen, leading the Project Manager to pun on the color 'black' potentially joking about the screen being off or malfunctioning. The User Interface then expresses excitement about the kick-off meeting, complimenting the nice look of it, likely referring to the presentation or setup of the meeting room. + +The Industrial Designer voices concerns about being slow and unprepared for the task ahead. The concept of being ""slow"" becomes a recurring theme, later echoed in a drawing exercise involving animal representation. Continuing with the meeting, the Project Manager outlines the agenda, which includes opening acquaintances, tool training, project plan discussions, and practical applications of the smartboard and whiteboard in the room. + +As the meeting progresses, it becomes clear that the project involves developing a new remote control that aims to be original, trendy, and user-friendly. The Project Manager has modestly disclosed having no ideas, while the User Interface team member assures they did their best, indicating a level of preparation. + +The Project Manager then guides the team through the use of a smart board tool for conducting individual exercises, such as drawing animals to reflect personal characteristics or team roles. This activity appears to be a creative icebreaker aimed at team-building and familiarization with the collaboration technology available. + +The team members attempt to use the drawing tool, experimenting with different colors and pen widths as they explain their animal choices. A giraffe, turtle, and cat are among the creatures depicted, each holding a metaphorical significance chosen by the respective team members. For example, the turtle was drawn to symbolize slowness. + +The drawing exercise transitions into a more business-focused discussion about the financial aspect of the project, highlighting a target profit of fifty million euros and a production cost at half the selling price. The dialogue becomes more technical as the User Interface Designer details the required functional specifications, followed by Marketing's contribution on user requirements and market research needed to make the remote control a success. + +The meeting concludes with assigning tasks based on the project plan that includes product design, technical functions, and user requirements. The focus is on a working design that is user-friendly with essential functions and the flexibility to add more features later on. The Project Manager emphasizes the product's simplicity for ease of use. + +The team acknowledges the need for effective communication and coordination to incorporate potential multimedia control functions, considering the product might extend beyond simply controlling a TV or video player. + +The Project Manager plans to summarize the meeting's discussion and place notes in the project folder, stressing the importance of each team member's input. There's an acknowledgment that the rest of the meeting will be dictated by the computer's timing or automated scheduling software. + +The dialogue closes with the team expressing readiness to move on to their respective tasks, wishing each other good luck and casually joking about dismissals. The meeting captures a snapshot of creative ideation, team collaboration, and the early stages of managing a project with its technical and financial implications. +" +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees—pupils who are eligible for free school meals. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to—in challenge advisers' discussions in schools—we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that, 'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.' Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school—it's an ethos for the whole school—but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an 'Ever 2' concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional £40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional £40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the £40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that £40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over £90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done—because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say, 'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.' Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying, 'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,' because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say, 'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.' +Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have? +Kirsty Williams AM: We've— +Ruth Conway: Sorry—I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that 'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions' on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it—that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been—. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been—well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next. +Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said, 'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step—we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children. +Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the—. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: There is also another very good example—and I take what you say about where there are small numbers—but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions. +Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it—with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer—on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it—. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus—one in five—by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's— +Hefin David AM: Why, do you think? +Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject. +Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability? +Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children. +Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns? +Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is—while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic—we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city—so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium—you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils. +Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years' time, when we will be looking back in two years' time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the— +Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance. +Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours—not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning— +Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then. +Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey—only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder—can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators—they're in their second year this year—to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have—not concerns. 'Concerns' isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail. +Steve Davies: I think the challenge that—. One of the rationales for shifting—not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support—was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools—the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents—historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically, 'How do I need to support them?' So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely. +Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation— +Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what— +Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn— +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017. +Mark Reckless AM: November 2017. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move. +Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because— +Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle. +Lynne Neagle AM: —both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for. +Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of, 'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family, 'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.' +Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need. +Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others—. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions. +Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask? +Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support—even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas—. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying, 'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget' is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying, 'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them, 'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go, 'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.' So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school—when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think, 'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?' If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection—how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to. +Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again—and I've said this a lot—after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well—this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic. +Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do— +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good. +Julie Morgan AM: —in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they? +Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all. +Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training. +Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions? +Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well. +Steve Davies: And investment in well-being— +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission—to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay— +Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because— +Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive. +Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality—how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity—again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools—but that expertise is available to all our schools. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering— +Kirsty Williams AM: In what way? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything— +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would—not that I want to argue with Estyn— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you— +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again—gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress—how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of—well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have. +Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over £10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department? +Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to—. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about—Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon—I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take—. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this. +Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations— +Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year—not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum. +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out—not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board. +Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off—not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over—so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then—that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us. +Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry. +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by 'the figurehead' you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme? +Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations. +Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow—with Professor Ainscow himself. +Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings— +Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year. +Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions. +Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us, 'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he? +Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary. +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you—and I'm absolutely confident—is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia—. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt. +Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area. +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer. +Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all—in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can—like Mark talked about, the expertise—how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools. +Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers. +John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute—. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial. +John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people—in some cases, it has been reported to me—it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence—that there sometimes was a conflict: 'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.' Or, a local education authority said to me, 'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.' Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one. +Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting—[Inaudible.]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them—and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this—it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions—I can't remember which ones—so he's established relationships—[Interruption.] Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Central south. +Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working. +Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes—for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16. +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report. +John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members—you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG—because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record—can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken? +Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3—another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5—a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The conversation is a committee meeting where Lynne Neagle AM welcomed everyone, including Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division, to discuss the targeting of the pupil development grant (PDG). Llyr Gruffydd AM raised concerns about how the PDG is targeted beyond those eligible for free school meals and its focus on low-attaining pupils receiving free meals. + +Kirsty Williams AM emphasized that targeted individual interventions should benefit only those children eligible for free school meals, but universal interventions may also be implemented if they disproportionately benefit these children. She provided examples of good practices, such as at Brynteg County Primary School and a project in Pembrokeshire. Williams also highlighted the significance of the PDG in supporting more able and talented children from lower-income backgrounds. + +Llyr Gruffydd AM questioned the sufficiency of guidance for using the PDG and the effectiveness of current measures to ensure proper utilization. Williams mentioned the appointment of new PDG regional advisers to enhance strategic advice and ensure consistent practice. + +Darren Millar AM brought up concerns about funding and suggested possible strategies for making PDG allocations more flexible. Williams acknowledged the potential need for flexibility while also ensuring responsiveness to changing conditions in schools. + +The discussion also involved the eligibility for free school meals as a measure for PDG targeting, how schools' PDG usage is monitored, and how the funding impacts attendance rates and exclusion rates among free school meal-eligible pupils. The impact of PDG on looked-after and adopted children was discussed, with suggestions for potential adjustments in PDG eligibility. + +Lastly, the conversation covered the effectiveness of the Schools Challenge Cymru program, with Williams acknowledging mixed results across schools and emphasizing the importance of applying learned lessons to all schools. She also addressed how Welsh Government is engaging with experts to improve educational outcomes and the significance of tracking student progress. + +Summary: +In a committee meeting, Kirsty Williams AM discussed the targeted funding through the PDG aimed at improving educational outcomes for pupils eligible for free school meals. She highlighted successful interventions and the importance of evidence-based universal approaches. Discussions included PDG guidance, monitoring effective use, and its impact on attendance and exclusion rates among vulnerable pupils. The committee also reviewed the Schools Challenge Cymru program's effectiveness and strategies for enhancing overall school improvement efforts." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good to see you all again . Let's see if that comes up . This is our functional design meeting . Um . Just a sec while my PowerPoint comes up . Et voila . Okay . Mm um we put the fashion in electronics . Let's start . Okay , our agenda today um {disfmarker} just check the time , it's twelve thirteen . Um . I'm gonna do an opening , talk about um {disfmarker} did you all get the minutes ? I e-mailed them to you . I'm also putting 'em {disfmarker} them in the shared folder . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: So um then I {disfmarker} we'll talk about our general objectives +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and have your three presentations . Um I'll talk about the new project requirements I've just received , and then we have to make a decision on our remote control functions . Finally we'll just close . We're starting this meeting at approximately twelve thirteen and we have forty minutes . So {disfmarker} First of all the functional design objectives . Uh we need to keep in mind the user requirement specification , what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , the {gap} functions design , what effects the apparatus should have , and the working design , how the apparatus actually works to fulfil its function . Okay , three presentations , um you can go in any order you choose um . +Marketing: {gap} Mm shall we go in the order that you just did it ? +Project Manager: Sure , please do . +Marketing: I dunno . How do I hook my screen up ? +Industrial Designer: I think , you might have to disconnect Rose . +Project Manager: Yes I do . Yeah . +User Interface: Well there's a wee a wee plug just just that one there +Marketing: Where does it go ? Mm-hmm . Hmm , I'm not supposed to move this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah that's it , yep . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: And then you have to press function F_ eight +Project Manager: Function , F_ eight , yeah . +User Interface: I think it is on your laptop . +Project Manager: The blue one , F_N_ . +Marketing: Where's function ? No signal . +Project Manager: Is it plugged in all the way and you screwed it in and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ah , wait , 's screw in . +Industrial Designer: I I think you just have to push it in really hard . +Marketing: Push the screw . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , got it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Mm alright +Project Manager: It's taking it a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: I've never attached to anything . +Industrial Designer: Mm , neither have I . +Project Manager: 'Kay there you go . +Marketing: Alright , so , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: I don't know if you guys are able to get access to um the report that was online or if I'm the only one who is . But , I don't even know how to play this . No . +Project Manager: Press the little presentation . It's the um {disfmarker} it looks like a Y_ kind of {disfmarker} over there above Draw . There , that one , there you go . +Marketing: Alright . So we're just gonna talk a little bit about the functional requirements that people specified when they were asked . Um I guess Real Reaction did some market research . They had a hundred subjects and their usability lab and they watched them watch T_V_ and recorded the frequency that they used particular buttons and the relevance that those buttons had . What they found was they analysed people's desires and needs . Focusing on their desires , um people specifically said that they thought remotes were ugly {vocalsound} , seventy five per cent of the a hundred subjects noted that and that they {disfmarker} more importantly though , eighty per cent said that they would be willing to pay more for a fancier looking remote . I don't know anything beyond what fancy means , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: but that's particularly of use to us , I think . Um also they did some questions on voice recognition and found that the desire for voice recognition was inversely related to age , so younger people were more inclined to want something with voice recognition , whereas the older people in the like sixty and above segment or so did not really think that they would pay more money for voice recognitions . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um people also had certain frustrations , that I think that we could try to take into consideration with our design . That being people k um frustrated with losing their remotes . I think , over fifty percent of the people mentioned that that was their biggest frustration . People are also frustrated with the difficulty it is to learn how to use a remote and I think that ties back to what you were saying before +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: just that there's too many buttons , it just needs to be easy to use . It also mentioned something called R_S_I_ and I was hoping someone might be able to inform me as to what R_S_I_ is , +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: because I don't know . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Repetitive strain injury . +Marketing: What ? Ah . There we go . +User Interface: So if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wow . People do not like that . So I guess sort of the carpal tunnel type thing , people do not like that , um the repetitive use , I guess , caused a strain . Um looking at the needs people specified , the problem right now is that people's remotes are not matching their operating behaviour . People are only using ten per cent of the buttons that they have offered to them on their remote . And what people do most often is changing the channel and changing the volume . People also zap like to change the channel , about um sixty five per cent during an hour of use . So we really just need to focus in on those volumes and channel changers rather than things like the audio settings , the screen settings and the channel settings , because they're used much more infrequently and probably just complicate what's going on . So I think that some things that we might wanna think about , the idea of an L_C_D_ screen was brought up although they didn't have any details on what people's preferences on that were , so I dunno know if that's coming to me later , or something like that . But something for us to consider also just the phenomenon that less is more when it comes to the buttons on the remote or what we wanna make easiest to use , make sure that , you know , something like an audio setting isn't given as much importance and visibility on the remote as something like channel changing that's used a lot more often . And basically in order for us to win over to the consumer we just need to focus on what it looks like , that it has a fancy appeal and that it's not ugly {vocalsound} and that it feels like the way they're gonna use it , so it doesn't give them any hand injuries or things like that . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Thank you very much . That was that was great . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} 's move on to the next presentation um on effects . Was that you ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: Yeah , have I unscrewed it ? +Project Manager: Push . User interface , right . Interface . +Marketing: Here we go . +User Interface: Cheers . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . And I think that's in the shared , if I did it right , if anyone wants to look at it . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Okay , great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Here we go . Right so I'm gonna talk about the technical technical functions design of the remote control um . We need to start by considering what a remote control actually is . It's a device that allows us to produce certain effects on our television , so i it's basically a communication device . We we tell the remote control what we want to do , it sends a message to the television saying change the channel , change the volume , uh yeah , adjust these settings , adjust the brightness . Um how do we actually go about designing a new television remote control ? First thing to do is to come up with the design specifications . We need to know what our final product is gonna be like , so we need a a clear idea of exactly what this product does , uh how it works , and what the end-user is gonna want from this product . Um . Oh , a way I'd suggest that we could go about this is by designing uh several different prototypes of user interfaces for this product , um and then uh trying to get some feedback uh about +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: h how well these particular prototypes work , uh sorta find out what people think of 'em . Um using a remote control is is quite a subjective experience . Um , +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and different different people sort of prefer different things . Um we should remember that remote controls are a a fairly standard piece of equipment . When a users using a remote control , he or she expects the buttons to be in certain places . So in some sense we're gonna we're gonna have to aim for a device which is fairly conventional in design uh so that we're not completely shocking people . But I think within that there is also room for us to introduce novel ideas uh and to make something that's that's perhaps a little bit different , something that stands out . Um also in in designing the user interface we need to consider practicalities . Uh the first of these is is technological ye uh what can we do with the current state of technology as it is . The second is is economic , uh we need to find a balance between features and price . So as you mentioned things like voice recognition would would add to the price uh but it would also im improve the design of the product . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: So I had a look on the {disfmarker} on the web uh to see if I could find a few examples of existing television remote controls . In analysing these we can consider what what things {disfmarker} what's good about them , uh what things do they get right , what's bad about them , what's wrong with 'em , um how we can improve on the designs that that that I found and what can we do to make our product stand out from from the large majority of remote controls . Here's two examples uh probably at the extreme ends of the spectrum . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um on the left here we've got uh an engineering-based design for a remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so it's one that's got lots of buttons , it's it's fully featured , everything you might possibly want to do is there , you know , it's got forward , backwards , up , down , channel numbers , volume , uh freeze frame . Yeah , it's it's fully featured and it might take a while to get to learn to use it , but once you've learned it you can {disfmarker} you can do whatever you want with your T_V_ . The one on the right is a lot more basic . It's just got the essential functions of the T_V_ changing the channel , play , stop , volume . It would be a lot quicker to learn to use it , but again th it's it's swings and roundabouts . There are disadvantages , you can't use it say to to freeze the television picture . Uh there's a lot of features that are missing from that remote control . So we've got to to find our {disfmarker} find a way of striking a balance between the two . Um as I said before , remote controls are subjective , different people want want different things . Um personally wa what I want from a remote control is a device that's simple , it it's easy to use , uh it's got big buttons for doing the things I do most often , changing the volume , changing the channel . It it does everything that I need it to uh , as I said before , I'm quite lazy , I don't wanna walk across the room just to adjust my television . I also want something that that looks cool , um and that that feels good , that's ergonomically designed . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Thank you very much . That was very useful . {vocalsound} It's funny to see the {vocalsound} drastic difference between those two remotes . {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And neither of them were very pretty , you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that could be our selling point . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: A fashion fashion remote . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think there's there's certainly a market for technology that looks cool . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And I think that's that's why companies like Apple've 've 've made a lot of progress . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , I really can't see what I'm doing , so does anyone have a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} there it is . +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha , look at that , showing up already . +Project Manager: Lovely . +Marketing: So wait , did it let you go on the Internet or was that just what it let you see ? +User Interface: Uh that was just on the d on the company web site , yeah . +Marketing: Okay . 'Cause I was like googling +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then I'm like wait {vocalsound} it won't let me google . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright um {disfmarker} No , how do I play again ? +Project Manager: Um the {disfmarker} it's right above Draw . There are three thingy if {disfmarker} it's way at the bottom . Under three icons +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Project Manager: and it's the one that looks like a desk . Yeah , that one . There are Y_s {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is our working design presentation . Um I had a bit of {disfmarker} some issues with this , because I wasn't able to find everything I needed , but I guess that's {disfmarker} we're still in early stages . Um so , yeah , this is this . Though th the thing about working design is the {disfmarker} what we're trying to do as a working design is figure out how the aparata apparatus can fulfil its function . Um one of the examples that kept coming up for me is that a coffee grinder . It works because it converts electrical energy to grinding the beans and then you put the bean through a filter and that filters out , and then you get coffee at the end that's nice and hot because of the combination of electrical energy and then the other things that are brought in to make it work . Don't know if I'm explaining that very well , but {disfmarker} how do I get to the next s ah . So h the method as um working designers figure out what you need to make it fulfil this practical function , what what needs to be done and how do we convert all the elements to make that done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So wha the easiest thing to do is to break down all the points at which you need something to happen . So you make a schematic of the way that the the energy is converted tsh towards this practical function . And then I think the easiest thing to do is gonna be work on each task separately . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You just press {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah , just click . That'll be fine . +Industrial Designer: So the findings that I got uh very {disfmarker} just very briefly is that you have a choice of the way that the information is projected to the receiver and in my opinion infra-red is the best way to do that 'cause you don't need a sight line . So that's one thing we're gonna work on . Um the user interface is critical here , because a lot of the things that happen in a remote control happen through the chip that controls {disfmarker} that converts the electrical energy into data , which then goes through the infra-red , so the the chip that uh I think Ian is designing , is gonna be crucial . And really it all comes down to the to the user , because they're the one that's controlling most of the working design . So the components that we find here are the energy source , you know the battery or whatever that's gonna m make it work , then the chip , which converts the data , the user that's controlling the chip , and the infra-red bulb that's gonna let us move the data to the receiver . So you have four main components and they are designed sort of like this . You have your energy source right there which then um brings uh energy or information to the chip , which is also controlled by the users . You have energy going to the user who's controlling the chip {disfmarker} ooh 's not what I wanted to do uh uh . +Project Manager: Um yeah use that thing {gap} you can go back , previous . +Industrial Designer: Previous . Sorry about that , guys . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pardon . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Oh , well . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's just get back to my schematic here . +Project Manager: Ye Double click on it . With the right {disfmarker} with the left hand one . +Industrial Designer: W yeah , yeah . I think it's frozen . Here . Don't show me that tip again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we are . +Industrial Designer: There we are . Sorry about this , guys . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm kind of pathetic with things like this . Um alright . So you have your energy source , your user interface who's controlling the chip , the chip also uses the energy , and the chip through the use of the user interface is gonna control the switch which will work your infra-red bulb , which will then bring the data to the receiver . So hopefully that makes sense for everyone in my kind of garbled way . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: This is the the parts of the working design that need to be figured out . And {vocalsound} personal preferences , besides the fact that I can't spell , we need a long-lasting energy source , people don't wanna be changing it a lot . We need a chip that works well with the user interface , that isn't too complicated . We need a straightforward interface , like Ian was saying , simple , not overwhelming it with information and we need a reliable and clear infra-red signal , so that you're not waving your remote around +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and having to get frustrated and go do it by hands . So that's pretty much it for the working design . +Project Manager: Excellent . {gap} So , um . +Industrial Designer: Rose , do you think you can give me a hand with this ? +Project Manager: Yes , absolutely . Ah I can never tell which way to turn these things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Lefty loosey , righty tighty , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: What's up ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lefty loosey , righty tighty . +User Interface: Lefty loosey . Uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Never heard that before , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +User Interface: that's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll think of that every time now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's gonna stick in your head . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's a good one it'll stick with you . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . Um I have nothing on my screen . Just a sec . Here we are . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Ooh , +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , it's fine . +Industrial Designer: no signal . +Project Manager: Okay , requirements . We have a couple new requirements that I was just e-mailed right before the meeting and that we have to keep in in um in mind as we're creating this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: We didn't bring it up yet , or at all in the meetings so far , but we're not gonna work with teletext because um {disfmarker} well it {disfmarker} that's been taken over by the internet , so we're not gonna worry about um {disfmarker} we're not gonna worry about that . +Marketing: What's teletext ? +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's a British thing . +Marketing: Oh . Oh , +User Interface: You don't have it in the States ? +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no . W d could {disfmarker} would you care to explain it ? +User Interface: Oh , I didn't realise . Um yeah , it's like a {disfmarker} I suppose it's kind of similar to a very very basic web browser . Um you have like you have uh numbers on your remote control , uh y and you type in the page number you want , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so like you type a hundred on your remote control and this this kind of index appears on the television screen with just some some text and some very blocky looking graphics on it . And you just type numbers to go to different pages and it gives you information , mostly rather boring stuff like what's on T_V_ next and share prices and that kind of thing . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} Lottery numbers and sport scores . +User Interface: Yep , news headlines . +Industrial Designer: But if you ever see the T_V_ saying like go to page one sixty on Ceefax now , that's what they're talking about . +Project Manager: How ? +User Interface: It's earl it's pretty old technology . +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: It's like nineteen eighties . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That explains a lot . +Industrial Designer: I have no idea why we don't have it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: Interesting . Okay um , well , we're not gonna {disfmarker} the management has decided we're not gonna work with that . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay um and we're also gonna w like your question earlier um whether this is going to be t for television , video , or etcetera . Just for television . That's what we're focused on . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Um otherwise becomes to complex , we wanna get this out um very quickly . We only have a a short amount of time . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um and finally there's more marketing , I think , um , our corporate image has to be recognisable . So while we're gonna make it look pretty we need to use our colour and our slogan i in the new design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So what's our corporate image like ? It's {disfmarker} It's kind of yellow colour with uh we put fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Looks like , yeah , kind of a yellow and black and we have that {disfmarker} the emphasis on the R_s in um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's like double R_ . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: But it's , yeah , we put the um fashion in electronics . So we gotta keep that in that in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so we want something that looks good +Project Manager: Yep . Yep . +Industrial Designer: and is yellow . +Project Manager: Yeah , or {vocalsound} ha maybe some buttons could be yellow . Like , we can we can play around with it a little bit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . Okay , we need to talk about our functions and our target group . We need to decide who our target group is . You um in your analysis of different market um {disfmarker} of the marketing , you identified that different groups wanted different things +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: or had certain preferences , for example that um that older people didn't really care for um voice recognition , but younger people did . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um and so who are we aiming this at ? +Industrial Designer: Well if we're gonna say that function um fashion {disfmarker} we put the fashion in in electronics then you {disfmarker} automatically , I think , a sort of younger group that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} who's gonna be attracted to this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , I do think , who's gonna have the money to buy that also , that one ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . It's gonna be twenty five Euro remember , so um it has to be avai marketable to um whomever it is . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} is it something that's gonna be sold separately from the television or is it something that comes w with a television ? 'Cause that would affect the way that we market it . +Project Manager: Well at least right now what we're doing is um deciding on just the remote itself , so it will probably be sold separately , twenty five Euro by itself . +User Interface: Right . Right , okay . +Marketing: The only break-down that I was given in terms of age was the voice activation and basically there's a big jump , after thirty five people don't really care if it has voice , so it's like basically fifteen to thirty five that think that that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I dunno I'm gonna be given any other numbers broken down in terms of age later , but if that's sort of the only quality that we have that is divided into age then we would wanna stick between the fifteen and thirty five range . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's probably uh a population w quite a little bit of disposable income for use on technology anyway , so that might be a fairly good target group for us . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now , those are {disfmarker} that's all specific for speech recognition . Are we gonna use that as one of our functions ? +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I I would say no , because it's gonna add too much to the price . Especially if we are marketing it as a separate product , people are gonna be paying +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: uh , well , uh we've got a price limit of {disfmarker} was it twelve twelve and a half Euros for {disfmarker} to produce it ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: To produce it , yeah . +Project Manager: To produce it , yes . +User Interface: And I wonder if we can get voice recognition into that twelve and a half Euros without having to make too many other compromises . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But what else are we gonna put , I mean not that I'm really gung-ho about it , I don't know what else you can put in a remote to make it technologically advanced though . So like other than just making it look good , how is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I mean it can look really great and still have the same up-n-down buttons +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} right . +Marketing: and why's anyone gonna buy a new remote ? +Industrial Designer: Well but why are we why are we aiming for a technological advancement ? Everything we're talking about is ease of use and simple and that doesn't necessarily mean more technology , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's a good thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: in fact it could use {disfmarker} it could mean , not . If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they might be overwhelmed with with remotes that have too many buttons and too much technology . +Marketing: If someone's looking to buy a new remote , don't they want like an upgrade ? I dunno . +Project Manager: Upgrade ? Well , we can look for {disfmarker} we can look at upgrade or we can look at um user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , simplification . +Project Manager: Simplification , +Industrial Designer: They could have a crap remote +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: that came with their T_V_ that's just impossible to use , or maybe it broke , or maybe they're just missing it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , mm . And we also need to talk about if we're only gonna have the very simple ones or also have the other ones just separate somehow or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} I mean this may be too complicated , but , I wish I had something to explain it , like if it was just a simple , either this way or this way , that had like the main buttons and then you could like pull something out , kind of and like you got the rest the buttons , +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Marketing: but the rest of them like went in . +User Interface: The remote {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know what I'm saying ? +Project Manager: Kind of pull out of the side . +User Interface: There are remote controls like that , yeah . Like some T_V_s they have a sort of uh a sliding screen on the remote control of it +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: that hides all the complicated buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So if you wanna do something complicated like programme your television or re-tune it , then you you open up this little hatch or or slide the screen down +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and there's all the {disfmarker} all the special buttons . +Marketing: 'Cause then 's like people who don't wanna ever look at them , never even have to see them +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and if you like get the instruction manual that comes with it and you just don't even read it then you'll never even know that those things can pull out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And you're a happy person and everyone else doesn't have to have like two remotes , one that has the easy ones and one that has +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: more complicated ones , +User Interface: I think that's a good idea , yeah . +Marketing: but 's all still in one . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um we have to be careful that that that doesn't impede um the chip transmitting information , but um that's gonna be mostly technological thing . Um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay um , so what are we emphasising ? I {disfmarker} what in this project ? +User Interface: Si simplicity and fashion . +Project Manager: Simplicity and fashion . +Marketing: I think simplicity , fashion . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Project Manager: Okay , those are very good goals , I think , um that we have to keep in mind in {disfmarker} with everything we do . Simplicity and fashion and , yeah , {disfmarker} or usability speci however you wanna say that , which includes um an emphasis on making the infra-red very functional , so that you don't have to travel around a lot . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: What can you do to like make the infra-red more functional , like why would it not be ? I'm just wondering . +Project Manager: I think it's a lot {vocalsound} to do with battery , but that's just my {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The battery and that {disfmarker} I think that the chip takes the data and presents it well , without sort of scattering . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So 's just the quality of the chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think so . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The quality {vocalsound} uh quality of all the components really , I mean , we can't really do anything {disfmarker} shoddy work , 'cause it's +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: gonna be visible down the line . +Project Manager: So our target group , we're saying , fifteen to thirty five ? +Marketing: Well , I dunno how useful that number is if we're not doing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S voice recognition , which I kind of I kind of feel like voice recognition is not necessary in a remote control , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . I don't . +Project Manager: like it might be necessary for a T_V_ but not for the remote c , you know . +User Interface: It's , yeah , it's pretty it's pretty high-tech . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Seems a little bit {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it might be too expensive . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And if the whole idea is you're using a remote then why would you have voice , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like you know what I mean and then it's like you wouldn't need a remote you'd just talk to your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's for , like , the ultimately lazy people , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: who can't even be bothered to pick up the remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: I +Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} I mean if I get m more numbers , I'll e-mail you before the next meeting in terms of ages . But this doesn't divide up anything and there was only a hundred subjects also , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which isn't , I mean , really isn't that representative , especially if it's a hundred subjects that th they then can subdivide into age groups that means there's very few in each age group , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but I th I think regardless we're we're aiming for the under sixty five or something . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Under sixty five , okay , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: that's a good start . Um . I'd say we're {disfmarker} uh can we narrow it down to maybe um teenagers and families ? 'Cause that would go up to like fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Or like single professionals or something . +Project Manager: Okay , single {disfmarker} +Marketing: Twenty to like fifty five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno . +Project Manager: It's it's hard to narrow it down . +Industrial Designer: It's really hard to figure out right now . +User Interface: I think the product appeals across a quite a broad range of ages . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I mean , we we said simplicity is is one of the features , so it's going to appeal to people , maybe people who have problems with technology , you know , people who get scared by having lots of buttons , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and that might be older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but then we've also got fashion , which is something that definitely appeals to younger people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well maybe we don't have to defi define the target group by the demographic of age , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: maybe we can define it by like the demographic of like h t how much money they have to spend or something like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah aim for a {disfmarker} an income group . +Industrial Designer: That's a good point . +Marketing: like , well +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: obviously it has to be someone who owns a television , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and like how recently have they bought their television like that sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So maybe it's more useful to d d to define objectives like fashion and simplicity than to find specific target group as far as age is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , t probably . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because , yeah , things so different will appeal to different people , but {disfmarker} Okay . Um oh , there're a couple functions {disfmarker} do we want something so that {disfmarker} do we want some kind of thing to find it if it's lost ? Like a button on a T_V_ you can press +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and it'll ring or something , I don't know like {disfmarker} or beep ? +Marketing: H I mean , like I said before , fifty per cent of of the fru f like frustration someone can have that was the biggest one and half the people said that happened and we all mentioned it before we knew about it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And if we're talking about making something easy that sort of goes along with it so it wouldn't be like a random thing to sort of add in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It would be relevant to like the overall goal I think , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll probably be good . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , we have to {disfmarker} we have about four minutes left to define our functions . So let's do that quickly . Um so we want something to keep it from getting lost . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And {vocalsound} we want um we want large buttons for the essential things . Large , accessible buttons for the essentials . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We want a possibility to um to get um a possibility to get the extra functions . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Which are kind of hidden away in some way or well not hidden but they're uh they're not as prominent as the main features . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um , yeah , hidden way . And we also want it to be fashionable , which I'm not sure if that's a function so much as a um yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} on your coffee table , it's not like an eye sore , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: Okay , do it . Any other essential functions that we need ? Battery ? Do we need a long-life battery ? +Industrial Designer: Battery battery use . Yeah , but I think that goes in with simplicity and ease of use really . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But we might as well . +Marketing: So you never have to change the battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: We should maybe investigate whether it needs a battery at all . I suspect the remote control does need a battery , +Project Manager: Yeah , I would imagine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but I dunno if you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just 'cause it is an electronic device , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} I think it does . I don't I don't think of a way you can operate a chip and convert that much data without without one . +User Interface: Yeah , without the energy , yeah . +Industrial Designer: But you could maybe have it in a little charging station like a mobile phone , or like a little cradle for your iPod . +User Interface: Yeah , that's that's possible . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could maybe do that instead . +Project Manager: Charging . +Industrial Designer: So you don't ha you got like a rechargeable battery . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , that might contribute to less people losing it too if it {vocalsound} it stays in one place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We have to think about um space in living-rooms , too , like 'cause they're {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean , would you put it on top of the T_V_ ? I don't know , just think {disfmarker} okay , that's {vocalsound} that's a good idea , we'll keep it . Think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's just off the top of my head . +Project Manager: And maybe fun . Okay . Um 'kay we're gonna conclude now , has everyone said their functions and {disfmarker} 'kay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um after the meeting we're gonna each complete a sks um a questionnaire and a summaries {disfmarker} summary . I don't know what summarisation . Um and then we'll have our lunch break . After that we have thirty minutes of individual work . Um I'll make sure to put up um the minutes and the project documentation and including these PowerPoint slides . If everyone could do that as well , that'd be great . Um you each have individual actions , I_ um I_D_ Industrial Design you've your components concept , User Interface , the user interface concept , market trend wa watching . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And as as per last time you'll get specific incrat instructions from your personal coach e-mailed to you . And hopefully , I hope , next time you'll be able to access more of the web site that they they seem to tell you that you could . It's kinda frustrating , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , who knows . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Be sure to note any frustrations or any um issues that come up in your um in your um summary . +Industrial Designer: Okay +Project Manager: Mm 'kay ? +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Great seeing y'all . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you um {disfmarker} were you able to like put yours in the group folder ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , I just did that . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Hopefully it is there for people . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Looks like there are um {disfmarker} looks like there's a second one kind of of mine that's {disfmarker} that I didn't do , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's from like an earlier project , I think so um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Where is that ? Yours is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Under the shared folder , I don't know it might not even be under yours as well . +Industrial Designer: Technical . So +Project Manager: Projects . +Industrial Designer: in there we have technical functions presentation , working design presentation and the functional requirements . At least that's what I have in . +Marketing: I only have three , I just have like our three . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I have as well , R Rose {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . You don't have mine ? +Industrial Designer: So . +Marketing: No , but that's 'cause I think yours is in the e-mail separate , like it's not on the server . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But if I open it and then save it , probably will be there . Oh wait , never mind you can't save it to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Well I'll figure that out in the meantime . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +","The transcript captures a meeting between a project manager and team members who are working on the design of a fashionable and user-friendly electronic remote control. The project manager kicks off the meeting with a discussion of the agenda, emphasizing the importance of reviewing the previously sent minutes and accessing shared documents. + +They press forward with an outline of functional design objectives, emphasizing user requirements and how the product should function and work. Marketing offers insights from market research, highlighting consumer preferences such as a desire for aesthetically pleasing remotes and voice recognition features, with a notable age-related divide in these preferences. They also note the demand for easier-to-learn remotes due to common frustrations such as losing the remote or difficulty in navigating numerous buttons. + +The User Interface presenter reflects on the design principles needed for a remote, factoring in both technological capabilities and cost constraints. Issues such as the balance of functionality and the importance of conforming to certain conventional expectations are contemplated, while still aiming for a unique, standout design. Examples of existing remotes are critically evaluated, discussing their pros and cons, to glean potential insights and improvements. + +The Industrial Designer then discusses the working design aspect, focusing on how the apparatus can effectively perform its intended functions. The importance of the interface between the user and the controls, as well as the method of signal transmission (e.g., infra-red), is underscored. They emphasize the need for high-quality chips, user interaction, and reliable infra-red signals, presenting a schematic to outline these concepts. + +Following the presentations, the project group delves into a discussion about the new project requirements recently received in an email. There is a collective decision to discard outdated features such as teletext in favor of focusing solely on controls for television use. Emphasizing the corporate image, they agree that the remote's design should incorporate the company's yellow-and-black color scheme and a catchy slogan, aligning the product's aesthetics with their brand identity. + +The team further deliberates on the target demographic and functions for the remote. Although initially considering age-related marketing, the conversation shifts towards catering to a more general, technologically-concerned consumer base with a focus on simplicity and high-fashion elements. Ideas such as hidden buttons for complicated features and how to prevent the remote from getting lost are brainstormed. In defining the functions, they opt for user-friendly interfaces, the possibility of additional hidden buttons for complex operations, and maintaining the chic appeal of the product. + +The project manager outlines next steps, such as filling out questionnaires and documenting individual thoughts and frustrations for improvement. Each team member is assigned clear, actionable tasks such as devising concepts for their respective components. It is emphasized that they should bring any issues to light during their progress reviews. + +The conversation ends with the team members coordinating on how best to share and save their documents in the shared folder, ensuring everyone has access to all necessary materials for the project. The meeting adjourns, leaving the team with a sense of direction and clear objectives to move forward with the innovative remote control design project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wouldn't wanna be Project Manager . {vocalsound} Uh , what we going to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , once again I'm uh gonna take minutes . So , um no presentation for me . Uh , first we have a prototype presentation by G_ and G_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Afterwards some uh +User Interface: Yo . +Marketing: J_ and J_ . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: eval eval evalu +Industrial Designer: Evaluation . +Project Manager: evaluation +User Interface: Evaluation criteria . +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: s {vocalsound} sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh evaluation crit criteria . Uh , in combination with the finance I um {vocalsound} uh I received uh a an uh an Excel uh file +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: which we have to fill in later on . Um , you see . Uh , and then we must see uh if we uh stay under the twelve and a half Euro . +Marketing: Hmm . Interesting . Ah , okay . +Project Manager: So , that's uh that's a big +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oops . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . That's gonna be t problem . +Project Manager: l so let's uh wait it uh um +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have we have must {disfmarker} uh , +User Interface: Some creative uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we must have uh some time for that uh because it will be uh {disfmarker} yeah , quite a lot of mathematics . +User Interface: Oh . Yeah . +Project Manager: And after that , uh uh an evaluation of uh the process how we uh how we have done it here with the SMARTboard , with the with our laptops , with the {disfmarker} all uh all this . And uh afterwards , uh we closing . Once again , forty minutes , so uh let's start . +User Interface: Ok okay . +Project Manager: I would g give the word to um G_ and G_ for the prototype presentation . +User Interface: Shall I give a short introduction and then uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well sure . +Marketing: J_ and J_ . +Project Manager: J_ and J_ . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} J_ and J_ , okay . +Marketing: Jane and Jane . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay guys , take it away . +User Interface: Take it away . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , this was our first concept . We decided to use a single touch-screen . So , we've worked out this concepts , how to how to hold it , where to put the buttons and and stuff . And um , well , we began with uh with a form of shape , that is uh is easy to hold w in one hand , left or right handed . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , we made i it a little bit less thick and uh it has some ar artistic meaning . No ? This uh isn't nothing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Idea maybe uh is better . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , during the meeting I showed you the concept of uh placing the buttons on top , usable with your thumb , and uh the menu structure , uh if necessary , with your other hand , so it's just gonna hold it easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it has to be acce accessible with your uh other hand too , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we began uh working out a concept . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh well , and as you saw , we would just have the basic remote with the panel L_C_D_ uh screen . Well , these would be the main buttons , h you could uh change them later on in your own profile if you want to . But , well it's standard they will be delivered with this kind of uh set-up . We have the {gap} more advanced menu uh setting right here . We have the sub-menus and stu stuff . We made a top {disfmarker} oh , or a front view . Just so like you wanna uh back view . As you can see , this uh {disfmarker} there , there are uh two uh weird bumps in it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} This is for uh the added uh effect of uh well uh y youth and dynamic . And uh this is for the artistic effect . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , what we figured is uh we'll show you a picture {gap} later on {gap} you have more b a better idea after that . But , idea is for to stay in balance with these two uh {disfmarker} with these two . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so when you put it on the table , it will just {gap} lay down . It won't {vocalsound} uh roll around or stuff . But it will lie more in your hand like an old telephone maybe , or like these old uh phones . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Y you you may get the idea . So thi this is about uh how we figured it should be . The s panel we g you would hide with some more uh rubber layers , like we discussed early on . Uh , you would s you wouldn't see the uh straight panel , but more fluidly and round . +User Interface: Yeah , the panel just uh of course goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But the overlaying layer is uh a little bit uh curved and stuff . +Project Manager: No , okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh , in these bumps you could actually uh {gap} put some electronics uh that would {disfmarker} you can make a more thinner uh design , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that would actually look very nice , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh , about the colour , what have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , we added that this um can be held with your hands for this {disfmarker} maximum is om yeah , one and a half centimetres . So , you have room here for your battery and maybe even other um electronic chips . S and you can just be the the layer of the touchscreen and some {disfmarker} have some wires underneath it to make it as uh thin as possible in the middle for good grip . +Marketing: Okay . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , f uh , as colours , do you do you have the picture in uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Now , well this is the idea about uh the bumps . Uh , you can see there's a v a very uh youthful uh dynamic uh exterior . It uh {disfmarker} you just want to hold it you uh you are young and uh dynamic like us . +Marketing: 'S l {disfmarker} it's like an uh Easter egg . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like an e but this is for children . We we want a more adult version . But , this is like a remote control for children . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's called a weemote {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . A weemote . +Marketing: Weemote . +Project Manager: Weemote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Hey , that's actually a brilliant uh marketing stand . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait what I w got in mind . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So this actually basic the idea . We we just want to build a more uh adult vers adult version of of this . +Project Manager: Yeah , I can imagine that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and for colours , we we figured starting with basic colours like uh white or metallic grey . Those are the technological colours actually , +User Interface: Yeah . It would be best to to appeal to a broad public and make the covers exchangeable , +Industrial Designer: so it d +User Interface: so the young people will buy an orange and a red and blue and a purple , +Industrial Designer: Or blue or whatever . +User Interface: but when the o older people uh go in the shop and they see uh an orange um remote control , it would be less appealing than a white one . And young people , we think , are a little bit more flexible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: they think , ah I'll buy for a couple of Euros some noi nice hip uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Maybe it's an idea to sell it without a cover , so that you can pick a cover in the in the shop . +User Interface: Well , um I think a cover is necessary , 'cause als otherwise you'll just have the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: So , there must be some cheap standard cover , um maybe white or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . +User Interface: that's could comes with it and you can buy , so we can make extra money . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh you d you mustn't forget that uh our target aim is younger people . +Marketing: Oui okay . +Project Manager: Uh , we had decided to uh put uh some flashy fruity colours in it , uh and uh in the survey from uh Milan and Paris uh it uh it came out that uh uh the d the older people are uh more willing to uh to spend money on extra features . So I think uh it will be a better idea to have some uh flashy fruity colours as as a standard , +User Interface: Okay . The other way around , you mean . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Oh yeah . +Project Manager: and for the people who uh really want uh a more sophisticated , more traditional look , they're willing to pay uh that . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: They want uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they want more luxury stuff , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but they have the money to do it and they want to b to buy that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , maybe it's an idea to put that as an extra and not as a standard . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , maybe {disfmarker} yeah , perhaps you're right . Uh , I I would I would actually agree with this sounds logical . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: An another idea . Uh , maybe we could uh develop a cover uh with wood style . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They'll please the elder users as well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well yeah , a colour of {disfmarker} a wood style , a white c and uh a couple of h hip uh fruity colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: And lea uh l delivered standard with a fruity colour , but not too not too much . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Not not too uh {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: This is banana and mango , not not purple or p orange and yellow . +Marketing: Yeah , exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah . But , the mai I think th uh the standard must be some kind of uh uh attractive flashy colours . +Marketing: Yeah . Or blue or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not too , but w a little , +User Interface: Ah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because that's our aim . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: li like like this like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This isn't this isn't too much , is it ? +User Interface: Yeah , okay . No . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I f +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well , the buttons don't have to be uh all uh all of {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} The buttons , +Marketing: Well I I I think so . +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , except for the buttons it's {disfmarker} it could be a standard model . +Project Manager: yeah . It {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh something like this would be nice . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's that's it from us . +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: 'Kay , it's my time now . +User Interface: It's my turn . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The Marketing Expert . +Industrial Designer: Uh-oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: During the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} During the design uh design life-cycle we uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we made lot of requirements and trend analysis and stuff . Um , now is the time to uh evaluate our prototype concept to uh to the past requirements . {vocalsound} So we are going to evaluate the design according to the past user requirements and trends analysis . Um , we're going to do that with a seven point scale . Opening a Word document now . Okay . One {disfmarker} oh , okay , uh I have to expla explain something . We have to uh be consensive about about things . So , it has to be a group uh group decision . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: so we gon we gonna evaluate the +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} We're going to vote . We {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the the thing we {gap} saw . +Marketing: yeah ? The prototype . +Project Manager: Okay , just saw . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , one . The remote control is designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Seven is false . +Project Manager: Uh , true . {vocalsound} Sorry . +Marketing: Yeah , b one or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , one I think . +Industrial Designer: Why ? +Marketing: Most true ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's not just uh designed for people under the age of forty . It's also designed for people above forty . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so a o one is appropriate ? +User Interface: No no , a little more in the middle . +Marketing: Or , more like a four . +User Interface: No , uh three or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I have {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two or three , because it's not just {disfmarker} uh the qu question is aimed at is it designed for people with age below forty . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's also designed for people of age above forty . So , +Marketing: Ah , exactly . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: I'll say it's about three . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: it will be primary appealing to to m minus forty , but also appealing to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Three . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . But also for {disfmarker} yeah , okay . Uh , second . The remote control is beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , acco according to us , it's one ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's the marketing uh angle on television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: We have a wonderful {disfmarker} +Marketing: p s Of c of course you have to be uh very positive and uh enthusiastic about your own product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , it's also fancy then . +Marketing: Three . Uh , the remote control looks fancy . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: One ? +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Of course . We have a perfect remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Good . Four . The remote control has big , clear channel switching buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah yeah , oh they have to agree but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Leads to user face , yeah . +User Interface: I'm the User Interface uh Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Daniel . Uh , teletext buttons and volume buttons ? +User Interface: Um , uh no . +Project Manager: No teletext buttons . Teletext is in the menu . +User Interface: You you've different menu . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , false . +Marketing: False ? +User Interface: And volume is impo +Marketing: And volume ? +Project Manager: Volume is true . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: Uh , hmm . +Marketing: Big and clear ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the they are big and clear . {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , big and clear . +Project Manager: Yeah , big and clear . +User Interface: But you could make a teletext button uh six . +Marketing: Hey . +User Interface: Otherwise , the people who read this uh are gonna think we have no teletext button . +Marketing: Hey . Hide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but but the teletext button . Yeah , you can ch That's in a menu . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , it's w yeah , it {disfmarker} it it +Marketing: yeah , it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it isn't entirely unclear , +Marketing: J +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} So , I wouldn't give it a seven . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: I would give it a more a five or a six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don I don't know . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: What do you think , uh Mister Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , I agree . I was thinking very black and white . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Black and red . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you J_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , don't forget to save it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Red . Okay . Volume . The remote control is easy to be found . +User Interface: Uh well , when we put in fancy colours , yeah +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it has these {disfmarker} all these fruity colours and it has a strange shape . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , if you so if you have {vocalsound} trouble finding it {disfmarker} +User Interface: But , um it it's not making any sound uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: have we deciding ? +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} If you put uh your normal uh remote control under your bed , or you throw this remote control under your bed , is it better findable ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} It'll make a difference . We have the better re {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah , I think so . My remote control's black . +Marketing: A li little bit maybe ? +User Interface: A little bit , but {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , we p we can do it glow in the dark . +Marketing: Four ? +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fi +Project Manager: So , if it's in the dark place , you still see it glowing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} K yeah . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fo fo yeah fo five is {gap} . +Marketing: Ah , I I I think five . It's it's {disfmarker} it doesn't really make a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , then uh then I'll go for four . +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because uh four is between three and uh uh also between between true and false . +User Interface: Yeah , okay , you're right . +Industrial Designer: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , but five is between four and six . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so I'll I'll go for four . +Project Manager: Ah , you must see it as uh , w uh according to uh the the other uh remote controls , there may uh uh be there in your uh T_V_ room , this one will stand out , I think . +Industrial Designer: Wha +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B_ . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that that's a better question actually . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: Exa I think that that's what it's about . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: If your uh fifteen remotes in a drawer , uh you find it , yeah ? +Project Manager: If it {disfmarker} if this lying on your couch , you're you're {disfmarker} you think what's that for kinda orange uh thing . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but the survey under users was that they uh really lost it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like , no not uh not seeing it , but lost it in the house or something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Uh , but when you lost it you're just not {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , if i if you see a strange shape lying somewhere , uh then you'd uh recognise it as , whoa , that is strange . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's our remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , mostly when you lose your remote control , it it's under your {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . Yeah , I I agree , I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , what is that . Uh , +User Interface: Most of times when you lose it you're sitting on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Eight , the remote control has fresh , fruity colours . +Project Manager: True . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um I would call uh {disfmarker} choose two , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'cause we decided not to make two f uh fresh colours , as it would not {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , not too flashy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: The remote control is made of soft material . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , rubber , is kind of soft . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not too soft we have decided . +User Interface: kinda soft , but but not this {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: Three ? +Project Manager: Three , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah yeah , easy to use , +Project Manager: Easy to use . One . +User Interface: {vocalsound} very afford . +Marketing: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , can it be zero ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , {vocalsound} I don yeah , it is kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Top easy to use ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not the most easy to use {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , you can do two , because um +Industrial Designer: No . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It can be easier . +User Interface: it can be easier . But then you're l +Industrial Designer: It could {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Jus just with ten buttons , that's the easiest . +User Interface: yeah , but then you'll lose {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: function f yeah , functionality and our fancy uh look , so . +Industrial Designer: Functional ability . +Marketing: Yeah , but the most uh easy to use is just with one button +User Interface: But {disfmarker} It is r it is rather easy to use , because you have the primary buttons always visible . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: on t {vocalsound} Yeah , okay , but easy n not not the most easy to use , I think . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No , it's it {disfmarker} I I'll go for two . My vote's on two . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . Yeah , two . +User Interface: Yeah , m mine too . +Marketing: We also have to compare it to the uh to the remote controls on the market nowadays . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but waits just a minutes . Inspiration . +Project Manager: What's the time ? We also have uh to do the evaluation , uh the production costs and uh stuff . +User Interface: These are the m regular remotes . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , I'm uh hurrying . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , eleven . The remote control is innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes , true , one . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You're agree , Tim ? +Marketing: A very {disfmarker} of course . +Project Manager: You haven't seen a more innovative uh thing in uh Paris ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: The remote control has m remova {vocalsound} removable {gap} from Multilux . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , one . Very multifunctional . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: The remote control , i it has speech recognition . +Project Manager: False . +Industrial Designer: Yes , +Marketing: False . +Industrial Designer: it {disfmarker} +User Interface: This is used with speech recognition , this . +Marketing: The remote control has built-in games ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . But uh , maybe make it two , because the games are in a sub-menu and not uh {disfmarker} it's not an entire game . +Project Manager: Yeah , but they are built in , so it's one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they are built in . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not down . +Marketing: And the last , paren {vocalsound} parental advisory function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You really like the parental advisory . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Freak . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes , {vocalsound} I do . +User Interface: Th did you make this or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bu +Marketing: Save as . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , he made it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} It changes it maybe . +Marketing: Okay , I will uh +User Interface: Oh yay . +Marketing: do the the math . +User Interface: Oh dear . +Marketing: Now it's your turn . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , we have now to c uh to calculate the production cost . If it's under uh twelve and half Euro , then it's uh ok uh okay . But i is it {disfmarker} if it is b Huh ? No , this isn't right . Okay so , {gap} . Redesign . +User Interface: If they're under twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , if they under {disfmarker} Yeah . No . Oh yeah . Yeah , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? Cau 'cause {disfmarker} so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: sorry . Yeah , if the costs are under twelve and a half Euro , uh then we uh can uh ra uh move on to the project evaluation , as we have uh experienced it . Otherwise , we have uh do uh have to do a little uh redesign uh thingy . So {disfmarker} Uh , we have to fill in the numbers of the component uh components . We have to uh fil uh , want to uh do it in and uh see uh if we stay under the twelve and a half Euro . So , do we have uh a hand dynamo ? No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: That's zero . +Industrial Designer: Me , too . +User Interface: Battery , yes . One . +Project Manager: Battery , one ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Kinetic , one ? +User Interface: Kinetic , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , solar cells , zero . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh simple chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , n no . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No ? No , advanced chip . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Sample sensor sample speaker ? +User Interface: No , the advanced chip is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: Advanced chip is three . +Project Manager: Three ? +Marketing: Three Euros , yep . +Project Manager: Yeah uh , but it it's one one thing , it's three Euro . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have one . We have one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , one piece , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Uh , what's the sample sensor ? +Industrial Designer: No , sev zero . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Well , that's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Speech recognition , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , you give it a sample , uh one . +Industrial Designer: yeah , speech recognition +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and s +Project Manager: Zero . Uh , uncurved flat . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: A zero . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But is it s it's not made from a single uncurved thingy and then uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You {disfmarker} no . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No . No . +Marketing: Thingy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no ? Okay . {vocalsound} So it's only uh once double-curved . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: Yes , +User Interface: 'cause um the layer around it fits around the bubbles on the o on the uh the back of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: three . Eight . +Project Manager: Okay . We're now in a problem , 'cause uh we have uh reached eleven Euro yet . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , we don't have anything else . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , go on . Just go on . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just go on . Then we'll see uh {disfmarker} we'll we'll see uh wha how much we are over budget . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Could you step a little to the right ma +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Uh , rubber . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You . +Industrial Designer: Zero . +Project Manager: Titanium , no ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: And zero . Special uh {disfmarker} is the special colour ? +Project Manager: Special colour ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . No , this is a standard colour . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we want to make uh the wood colours , uh that uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} S +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , this is a special colour . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , if if you're honest , we'll uh type one , special colour . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but but D but Daniel , tha that's that's another brand . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's an add-on . +Project Manager: Yeah , one . +Marketing: That's another article to sell . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we we going to {disfmarker} yeah yeah , that's true . But yeah , it's it's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , j maybe we'll finish uh the the list first and then look back , aye ? +Marketing: That doesn't account for this . Producing this . +Project Manager: Okay , the push-button , no . +User Interface: No . Scroll wheel , no . +Project Manager: Scroll-wheel , no . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} No . +Project Manager: No . Oh , no . Yes , one . +User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , button , no . +User Interface: One , yeah . +Project Manager: No , the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Mm , is it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we don't have a s +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: These three . +Project Manager: no . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well , we're only four Euro over budget . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . So , um what's the thing we can change ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . No . +Industrial Designer: Well , other case , we can make it single-curved or uncurved . +Project Manager: Uh , can I uh I say something ? +User Interface: Mm , single-curves . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , can I say something uh as Project Manager ? +Marketing: Yeah , of course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: The kinetic thing , can we just skip it , +User Interface: Just cut off the kine yeah . +Project Manager: because uh you have to shake it , but that's not really innovative . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay , sure . +User Interface: yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah , we just put a good battery it it . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mobile phones nowadays . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Daniel . Daniel , +Project Manager: Yo . Sorry , +Marketing: what do you think about {disfmarker} Here . +Project Manager: yeah , yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What do you think about uh putting a battery in it , but also selling like uh the covers , a docking station +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: just apart from the from the thing , so that you can uh put uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} rechargeable batteries in it and just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: But you can use rechargeable batteries anyway , just you s you have to recharge them manual . +Project Manager: Yeah , and not really {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} if you forget about the kinetic , +Marketing: Just an idea . +User Interface: Yeah , that's a cost reduc +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: well if we do that , we shall {gap} . +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: well you you can go from double-curved to single-curved . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Industrial Designer: And that would solve the budget problem . +Project Manager: Uh , b but i but the single-curved is just {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , so we have to bake the ba back flat , and then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No , it's it's just one curve and not a back uh curved I think . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's just {disfmarker} yeah well , the single-curve that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: So that's wh tha that's one option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Or are these two curves ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then w yeah , and then we could have it , but uh {disfmarker} it's its' well it's it's r it is the main point of the the the the look . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what else uh do we have to cut out ? No advanced chip , uh that's a little bit of problem . +Industrial Designer: We going to cut {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , tho uh that that can be done . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So uh , +User Interface: Although , can we make it with a regular chip ? +Project Manager: okay , a little less uh conversation . +User Interface: Curvy . +Marketing: Hey , those ar arcs , why are there for ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The blue blue uh +Project Manager: Fill in {gap} {disfmarker} Just a +User Interface: Explanation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: explanation . +User Interface: Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I can delete it for you if you want . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , no no . +Project Manager: So , if we do this , uh we're on uh twelve and a half Euro . And we're done . +User Interface: Yeah , but does it fit with our design ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh well , the only uh thing that don't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do we have to u adapt it ? It's single-curves . +Project Manager: Yeah , single-curved , but there's a curve in it . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: W Could we just make the bubbles uh cut off the back , and then we're uh has {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we just make it flat . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But , you do l +Marketing: But , wha 'Kay , look , what is the uh {disfmarker} If you make it double-curved , it costs one Euro more . +User Interface: More . Yeah . You make it optional . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} No , but does it have a lot of extra uh {gap} +Industrial Designer: Function . +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: fun function more like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Worth , does it have added worth ? +User Interface: Uh , there's an a a athe aesthetic value , but not functionality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's really a static value . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , uh aesthetic . I mean , uh you make like eleven and a half Euros profit instead of twelve and a half . But {disfmarker} I don't know if twelve and a half is uh a fixed uh fixed price . +Project Manager: Yeah , it is . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well let's assume it is . +Marketing: No , we can't go above that . +Industrial Designer: We we should assume it i that it is . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I I figured that the kinetic would be a marketing promotion . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: R if you uh promote a kinetic um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} kinetic remote control , I mean , that would b sell better than an {disfmarker} a normal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do you think ? Well , now you can shake your remote {gap} control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: No , well , y I mean uh , y you can go into your neighbour and tell him , ha , my k uh remote control is kinetic . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Kinetic . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You have standard old battery control uh remote con +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: What a what about all the m the environment freaks ? +User Interface: Yeah , but it doesn't fit in our co cost profile . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Not freaks , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: the envi No . +Industrial Designer: True . +Marketing: I I think it's it's {disfmarker} It look like this one . +User Interface: You ma can make an an especialised extra gold version . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Who {disfmarker} because if you want to go to kinetic , you're uh you're on thirteen and a half and you must go to flat , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think now it's it's more of uh a compromise +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And if you make the single curve ha just a big curve , {vocalsound} then it's uh then it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , just one big curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , one big good curve . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I was going to uh say nasty words , but I don't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is strange by the way . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wood is m is is is cheaper than rubber . We thought that wood would be more expensive . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh , this uh American figures . You just cut down some trees . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . But uh that {disfmarker} this is this is it ? Yeah . Okay , this is it . +Marketing: This is it . +User Interface: Whoever makes uh a remote control out of titanium . +Project Manager: I'm gonna save it . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but you can't use double uh curves for titanium . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: That's one of the functionability uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well , considering we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah no , we have to do all those hours again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go back . One back ? Costs on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No redesign . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , we were above , so we did a little redesign {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: We sue . {vocalsound} We {vocalsound} Yeah , we'll start her all o all over again . +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um now uh it's about time to uh talk about uh this project . Uh , some uh things . Were there uh room for uh {disfmarker} was there room for creativity in our meetings or in your individual meetings ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . I I didn't think so . That {disfmarker} there was a lot of room for it . But , that's mainly because uh of the information that was delivered to us . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It was just fixed information and get your stuff from there , and I couldn't go on on i on the internet and search my own stuff . Bu +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , yeah , yeah . That's true . I agree with that . +Industrial Designer: Well , I th I think you two , {vocalsound} uh especially you and uh and uh Daniel , you d you you both had uh the less creative uh roles in the project . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: For us , there was a lot of creativity . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I think m +User Interface: We could just sign up an uh remote if we liked . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Industrial Designer: I think Jeroen and I , we had a more design {disfmarker} we could have more {disfmarker} we had more room for creativity than than you two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh how about the leadership ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ha . +Marketing: Leadership was uh crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Crappy . {vocalsound} Cra +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah , the leadership wasn't crappy , it was the leader that was crappy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . No , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} leadership was okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're done . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , example of crappy leadershi +Marketing: No , leadership was uh +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it was good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , I thought uh the first meeting was a little bit of unstructured meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , you could have {disfmarker} but uh , it was your first , no uh no disrespect or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could have uh structure it a l little bit more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So like , I I was talking most of the time the first meeting meeting , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: You could of said , shut up you fool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I notice it too . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was a I was also very uh unhappy , uh very unsatisfied uh about the +Marketing: About me . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} about the first meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh I hope uh uh the the the other meetings uh +Industrial Designer: Try to learn from your mistake . {vocalsound} And we will never do it again . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you made up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: get better and uh I think the the last two meetings uh also we we reached uh some good decisions about uh talk {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it {disfmarker} you did better . +User Interface: Yeah , more more consensus . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Ev everybody w was agreeing every {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Much more constructive . +Project Manager: Okay , so uh that's cool . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , teamwork ? Well , maybe that's uh only {disfmarker} Yeah well , it's for us , because uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we work together on a project , but everybody has his own task . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah and it's wo more like presentation and some points were discussed . +User Interface: So , it is a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But , really teamwork were you two uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . No {disfmarker} Well , it went okay . +Marketing: Two guys . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that went w it went well . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: It's it's just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Stupid stupid pen , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No hard feelings . +Industrial Designer: Nah . Yeah , we we had some trouble with the pen , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Now you you must push a little while . +User Interface: Yeah , but but draw something uh difficult . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but us {disfmarker} +User Interface: D uh just write your name right now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Try to write your name , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: in in writing letters , of course , yeah ? Yeah , normally , uh this uh {disfmarker} the w Block letter sign it , yeah ? +Project Manager: O Just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just just write your name in in one line . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: If it's a little bit too small {disfmarker} {gap} bit quicker now . +Project Manager: You can be {disfmarker} you can go quicker , 'cause then it it won't notice it . +User Interface: It didn't {disfmarker} Uh he he knows how it works , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: I follow the Master class for the SMARTboard , so I think that's the that's the main issue . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um , so uh about this one you were uh you're dealing with , +Marketing: Means . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um the the the the digital pen . +User Interface: Y well , yeah . Th the i The idea is great , but it doesn't work properly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: Digital pen , I thought uh th the first time I did individual work , I used it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But , a and the first two meetings I brought it with me , but I didn't use it at all after the first the first meeting . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I have it working . But , uh yeah , well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's not real real use for me . +Industrial Designer: No , it doesn't have that much added value to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nee . As uh as I said a m a c few moments ago , it {disfmarker} I would like , myself , to write with a normal pen , because must um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's almost the same concept , but you can just sim more simply put it on our scanner . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I it's the same concept as the pen , where you f have to download the software or s uh very uh slow . +Project Manager: M yeah . Yeah . And it is still your own handwriting uh popping up in uh Word . +User Interface: Yes . No , and it doesn't give any added value . +Project Manager: No , uh that's true . No . +Marketing: Not really , no . +Project Manager: And uh the SMARTboard is uh useful , but the the pen is I uh {gap} {disfmarker} not user-friendly , I think . +User Interface: Yeah , not user-friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Be it it takes a lot of time to draw things and to write things , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and it's it's not very precise . +Project Manager: and that's the {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're trying to m to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , like when you do this . +User Interface: Yeah , it may um {disfmarker} Yeah , and tr try to wri write your name uh in a in a normal uh size , yeah . Smaller . +Marketing: Smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , smaller . Just like when you're writing on a letter . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not th the the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} when you {gap} at a foreign audience , you b don't gonna wr uh write uh small . +User Interface: No , a as you saw on on this drawing , just open open this one or that one . It's uh th it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , uh we had more problems even here when we trying to draw these buttons , it's almost impossible to get clear uh {gap} when you're uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh . Sorry . +Project Manager: But maybe there's some function with {disfmarker} no , it isn't . With uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: And the eraser was another problem . It w t is is this large . {vocalsound} And when you try to erase this line , y {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , I'm gonna erase my uh name . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm gonna erase my name there . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a big uh big eraser . +Marketing: Okay . New ideas ? +User Interface: M Abo What kind of new ideas ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Well , the the idea of the touch-screen is uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Do you ? +User Interface: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Go on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New ideas about uh the working of this software , about about the project , about the remote controls or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Mm , yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: I don't know what what I mean . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Did you heard what he said ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Know what I mean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't {vocalsound} I don't know what I mean . {vocalsound} Oh , I have some figure . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: The eva the evaluation , +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: the mm the mean uh number is uh one point eight one point eight six . +Project Manager: That's interesting . +Marketing: So that's fairly uh fairly good , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: because what does it mean ? +User Interface: So true . +Marketing: Uh , that uh +Project Manager: All the mo yeah , are between one and two . +Marketing: all the requirements uh are true or very true , right . Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Thank you , expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the new ideas found for uh wi with working with this uh software ? +User Interface: Not really , just they have to improve it . +Project Manager: Not really , yeah ? +User Interface: Uh , the concept is okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: but it has to be quicker . Uh , it is still opening my programme , n almo almost uh my entire computer is locked up during the process +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it , yeah , just takes too many time . People will still feel the need to to write it quickly on uh a page and not download it and save it , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You had expected it to to be uh more more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: More user-friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause when you use a pen , you can just draw like you d draw normally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and you do +Marketing: May maybe the idea you proposed is uh a screen here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And draw it , and it's it's placed over there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that l +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Would be easier . Or at least when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't have to adapt to the technology , just you can write in the way you normally write . And now you have to um keep constantly in mind that you're drawing on this screen . +Marketing: Hmm ? No . +User Interface: And that's a very bad concept . +Project Manager: Yep , yep . Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Ah , very bad . +User Interface: Nah , okay , I I {disfmarker} it's my opinion that I {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} I think this is better than regular flip-overs , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , it's can be saved easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But if you're in normal flip-over {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} a lot of people write text . There's no text option . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: And writing text {disfmarker} uh , yeah , you've gotta really do your best to write some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and and maybe some uh functions for uh {vocalsound} uh uh circle or uh a square . You have to draw it yourself now . +User Interface: Yeah . Or maybe even insert picture . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have uh some presentation , and you have some f +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or text function . Just t t type text , and that that would be uh excellent . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but insert image isn't available ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} 'Cause then you could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Here . Picture from scanner , clip-art . +Project Manager: Yeah , that that can be done already . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: But not the the the the predefined uh squares I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hyperlink ? Hey , what if you do like hyperlink ? +User Interface: With uh W_W_ dot Google dot com . +Marketing: Type type it ? +User Interface: Oh yeah . Maybe {gap} . +Marketing: Re Real Reaction dot N_L_ . +Project Manager: Hmm ? Sorry ? +Marketing: Yes , is {disfmarker} now is okay . Okay ? +User Interface: You'll just make a link in {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Well , that's nice . +User Interface: There's one way to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay , double-click it . +User Interface: Maybe if if you're not using the eraser {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here . oh . Oh , sorry . +Marketing: You're erasing . +User Interface: Something else th Yeah , arrow . +Project Manager: Yeah . Here , that . +Marketing: Double-click it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: as you saw , you have a little uh {disfmarker} Oh , you can {disfmarker} Yeah , thank you . You can go uh +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: there . So there the the the functionality is there , but it's not it's not ideal , +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's it's very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: it costs a lot of time to uh +User Interface: To use , yeah . +Project Manager: to use . And that's a pity , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh if you have uh thirty , forty minutes uh for this kind of things , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and we are now with four people , +User Interface: And that's m +Project Manager: but it {disfmarker} well , imagine you are here {disfmarker} you're with the ten people and everyone uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's mostly the case , from the {disfmarker} over here with the managements you get two minutes to make your case , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and if you have to do all this kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Two minutes of drawing , yeah . +User Interface: You'll rather use PowerPoint and work it out in advance . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And th the one or two things you have to draw when you're there , just use a flip-board . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: What I really miss also is uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} is a d is a turtle {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: is a decision uh decision system like um {disfmarker} With the evaluation , you have to Polls like , what do you want , a one , a two , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe a a l a little application like uh uh {vocalsound} give your own number and click one two three four five six seven . +Project Manager: Yeah , just like he said with the with the {disfmarker} a screen which you can write , also uh a kind of voting uh mechanism . +Marketing: Yeah , j ju ju yeah , v voting application . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Just a little group group decision application . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh , {gap} problem is , well you can't discuss anything {disfmarker} well you you ca uh you can , but you will discuss a lot less than l like we did now . We {disfmarker} I mean uh w w w one one person s maybe said three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But , well uh I {disfmarker} we said {disfmarker} uh , no I w th think two , because this and this , and then you can react uh on it . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you you put a three on it , uh just {vocalsound} figure well , everybody knows what I'm knowing , so they'll all just put a two on . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . But , uh you can still discuss about it , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it would {disfmarker} {gap} yeah . +Marketing: but but click it in an application , that's a lot easier to process . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay , the {disfmarker} for processing part . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The digit . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then uh , I think the idea of one person entering it and the rest uh discussing it , that uh isn't that bad idea , actually . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not that your opinion isn't valued , but but still . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yo , manager . +Marketing: That's it ? +Project Manager: Uh well , just about , +User Interface: When are w +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: When are we going to produce it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , tomorrow ? Uh , the costs are within the budget . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: Uh , the project is evaluated . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But , before we going to celebrate , uh I have uh a little question which you can't answer , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: because uh there must be some kind of end report . I am busy with the end report right now . You might thinking what the hell was he doing uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What is an end report ? +Project Manager: Uh about all the meetings , what we have decided , a r r a report of this day . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , that must be made , but I don't know , {vocalsound} here is uh standing uh whoa , we can celebrate now , but the end report is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , you ha you have ten minutes left , I uh read . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: You have now ten minutes left to finish up the end report . +Project Manager: Okay well , that uh that can be done . Maybe we can do it uh together . You can see what I've uh {disfmarker} yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I I s I will uh put it on a story-board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: You can see it . Because I think it will uh it must be uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} You you already made a beta version , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's a three uh {gap} with seventy five uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Pages . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , just about . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yikes . {vocalsound} Seventy five pages . +Project Manager: Well , just a moment . End report . +Marketing: Okay , Daniel . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want a chair maybe ? +User Interface: A chairman . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no no , +Marketing: Hey ? +Project Manager: I'm just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: you can s you can read it and uh {disfmarker} here here it is . End report . +Industrial Designer: So you you finished it actually , and so we just have to read it and say yes or no ? +Project Manager: Well , this not nit it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: read-only . But it's not uh fully finished yet . +Marketing: Five minutes for finishing . +Project Manager: Um , this is about the functional design , the things {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +Marketing: Management Expert , you have to change that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . I'm uh {disfmarker} when I said it , I remember I had it here . +Marketing: Marketing . +User Interface: It's a read-only version . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can save it u the {disfmarker} under another name . +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Marketing Expert , okay . Um about the three functions where {disfmarker} uh which are most used and uh which must uh immediately be visible on our uh remote control . Um , it must be uh simple to use , very clear what to do , and at the younger people . So , this is really about wh uh what kind things uh must be in it and uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe um the {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I understand you , I can talk a little bit Dutch . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , you have to put {disfmarker} uh , switch channels uh at the top , because that's the most used function and teletext at the second {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oka okay , okay , I {disfmarker} I really {vocalsound} didn't knew that . +Marketing: Oh nay , a volume changing , second . +Project Manager: So , this one's first . +Marketing: S switch , yes . +Project Manager: You go there and you go there . So , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , go on . +Project Manager: Well , maybe I can then do it one two three . +Marketing: Yes , very good . +User Interface: One two three . +Project Manager: If the order is in uh {disfmarker} is is uh important , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the word for {gap} . +Marketing: The order . +Project Manager: Uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then the conceptual design . Uh , well all the things we have uh discussed , uh the energy , which uh turn out to be uh batteries , so that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Well , okay , maybe you can add it later that we decided in the end because of the cost . +Project Manager: Yeah , because {disfmarker} yeah . Uh , he here it is still double-curve , the rubber , the flashy , the fruity , the removable . +Marketing: Single-curves . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , the buttons +Industrial Designer: It's not double . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Hmm ? +User Interface: A single-curved . +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's not double anymore , eh ? +Project Manager: Not double anymore . +Marketing: No , okay . +Project Manager: Nay but that {disfmarker} this is what um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Was initial , the plan . The initial plan . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the added functions like Tetris snake , it's under the parental control , the touch-screen . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's uh just a summary of what uh we had discussed uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: On thing uh {disfmarker} One small thing uh , the added functions . Uh , was it included in the cost ? I don't think so , eh ? +User Interface: Ah , it's very cheap . +Project Manager: Uh , it's very cheap , +Industrial Designer: It's very cheap . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you you maybe you you you you come at uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , it's it's not very cheap , but that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's very necessary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: no , but it's a development inside corporation . Like , uh w we don't have to buy parental control . Our own people can make that , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , but it still has some {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it it has some cost , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . Okay , but so we can discuss that uh +User Interface: He'll do it in his free time . So uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we can discuss that kind of things I think with the with the the board of uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Of directur or directors . +Project Manager: What's it what's the company called ? I just keep forgetting it . +Marketing: Real Reaction . +Project Manager: Real Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Real Reaction , yeah . +User Interface: You can ask your personal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so uh anybody uh misses something here about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , the end conclusion . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's that's what I'm gonna write b between now . +Marketing: Okay . Still the end conclusion . That's all , I think . +Project Manager: But , i in here nothing uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um , the decision to make um the buttons on the top , and the menu on the +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: on the bottom . And clearly {disfmarker} Yeah , touch-screen you've mentioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , touch-screen I've mentioned . +Marketing: Yeah , but but the the decisions are put in the uh conclusion , I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Why we decided to use a flat uh L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Okay , this n yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , well I gonna redesign uh something now . No . +Marketing: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Party party {gap} . +Project Manager: Because I think it will {disfmarker} Oh , five minutes from {disfmarker} to finish meeting . +User Interface: Oh , before you change anything maybe you um save it first . +Marketing: Save it . +User Interface: You can't {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: you can select file and export and then those J_ PEG files . +Marketing: Yeah , but then you had the same thing . +User Interface: Well , eight . And we have uh , {gap} another blank one . +Marketing: Example of children remote . +User Interface: Did we change anything ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh wait . Wait . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a new uh {vocalsound} commercial logo . +Marketing: Hmm . That's a pity . +User Interface: Don't save it , aye ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that's cool , Tim . Finish meeting now . +User Interface: Uh , +Project Manager: Well , I'm I'm +User Interface: why are only the first five SMARTboard files +Project Manager: I'm going to finish my end report . +User Interface: saved ? +Industrial Designer: Okay , um hereby is {disfmarker} the meeting is finished . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You declare . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I am the one who can say that . Yeah ? Hereby the meeting is finished . Yeah . +","The summary of the conversation: + +The team, including a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing Expert, and User Interface Expert, discusses the development and evaluation of a remote control prototype. They are working with a budget constraint of 12.5 Euros per unit, which influences their design choices, particularly around the materials and features such as kinetic versus battery-powered energy. + +They review the prototype's functional structure, aiming for simplicity, and touch upon various elements like energy sources, buttons, aesthetics, removable parts, and additional functions like games and parental control. The group struggle with using their digital tools, finding the SMARTboard pen unprecise and the software slow. + +The team goes through the evaluation of the prototype concept against the past user requirements and trends analysis, using a Word document and a seven-point scale to vote on several factors. + +During the conversation, they face difficulties staying within budget due to the prototype's double-curved design. After considering the elimination of the kinetic energy option, they eventually decide to simplify the design to a single-curved structure to meet the cost target. + +There's a discussion about the possible new features and improvements to the SMARTboard technology to make it more user-friendly and efficient, such as adding text functions, decision applications for polls, and quick shortcuts for drawing shapes. + +Finally, the meeting concludes with the Project Manager needing to finalize and write the end report reflecting all the decisions made during the conversations." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , well I think we're ready to begin . Right , my name's Adam Duguid , we're here because of real reaction , um , we have in the group +Marketing: Oh , Ebenezer Ademesoye . Would you like me to spell that ? +Project Manager: Um , yeah , +Marketing: S +Project Manager: go for it mate . +Marketing: Um , N_E_Z_ +Project Manager: N_ E_ Z_ . +Marketing: E_R_ . +Project Manager: Ebenezer . And your role is ? +Marketing: I'm the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: You're the Marketing Expert , okay . Next we have ? +Industrial Designer: Tarik Rahman . T_A_R_I_K_ . +Project Manager: T_ R_ I_ K_ . And your role in this is ? +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . And , lastly we have ? +User Interface: Uh , Dave Cochrane . +Project Manager: And you're going to be the User Interface , +User Interface: User Interface Defin Designer , yes . +Project Manager: is it ? Designer . Okay . Right . This is the agenda for today's meeting . As you can see , w opening , acquaintance , tool training , project plan discussion , and closing . Um , we already got n through opening , and partially through acquaintance . So , the reason we're here , we're gonna design a new remote control , as you probably all know . The very broad overview is original , trendy , and user-friendly . Course , we'll have to go into a bit more um detail than that , but uh {vocalsound} personally I think that the original is gonna be a very key aspect to this design . Um , there's a lot of remote controls out there anyway , so we're gonna need something that's really gonna set it apart . This is how today seems to be going to work . We're gonna have the three kay phases , as you've probably already been told , the functional , architectural , and the detailed design . Um {disfmarker} First one's gonna be covering the user requirement spec , technical functions , working design . Second seems to be conceptual components , properties , materials , and the last one is a detailed analysis of our design so far . Of course , you've all got the similar emails , I believe , right . {vocalsound} What can I say ? Ebenezer , you wanna have a {disfmarker} you wanna draw your favourite animal {vocalsound} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure . {vocalsound} Whiteboard . 'Kay . S okay . I will make this quick , since we don't have much time . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} 'Kay , so it's not the best picture in the world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Here we have an elephant . First point , begins with an E_ , same like Ebenezer . Also , elephants have a very good memory , much like myself , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I can't remember back when I used to live back in Nigeria , but I think I used to have a pet elephant . So elephants are big , strong and gentle , and they have great memories , and they begin with the letter E_ , just like Ebenezer . +Project Manager: Brilliantly done . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Tarik , would you like to have a shot at a bit of artistry ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Oh , um , +Marketing: Oh . Oh {vocalsound} oh +Project Manager: you can clip them to your belt . +Industrial Designer: Do we take them off ? +Marketing: I think you ga +Industrial Designer: Oh right , +Project Manager: You should also l um have your {disfmarker} the lapel mic on as well . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: The little {disfmarker} The the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah-ha . +Marketing: Oh that's good , we can clip them on . Okay . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now where do I put the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just um somewhere {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yep , the {gap} , it's just across there , that's it . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Is this supposed to be clipped as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: It'll follow you if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . There you go . +Project Manager: You can probably just stick it in your pocket for now , I wouldn't worry too much . Should have good range . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , destroying your elephant here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh , here we have a tiger . Uh {disfmarker} I've always loved tigers . They're just {disfmarker} they're big , they're biggest cats , uh I did a project on cats in the wild when I was a kid and uh it was my favourite cat , just 'cause it was {disfmarker} looks the best , the stripes , orange . My dad used to talk about {disfmarker} he's from Bangladesh so he used to tell me all about them when he was {disfmarker} when I was a kid . And uh they're just the most feared of of uh animals in the wild . So uh that's why I like them . Didn't say an anything about me really but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent , thank you very much . Dave , if you'd like to uh have a dash . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um , the monkey , um . The one f uh {disfmarker} in fact this is a {gap} somewhat oblique reference in fact to uh {disfmarker} well my {disfmarker} I have a three uh three y year old daughter who h who who who is affectionately known as Miss Monkey . Um , monkeys have attitude . Which I think is a good thing . And I mean fr {vocalsound} and from uh from the point of view of sort of the study of human evolution they and other primates are terribly interesting . Um , so I like monkeys . And and th th th th thi thi this one seems to have perhaps more attitude than most . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cheers . Hardly what I'd call the best drawing in the world but it'll do for now . Also not quite as feared as your average tiger , but uh cats are one of my favourite animals , they're very independent , they're snotty as hell at the best of times , and uh , what can you say , you got to love those qualities in an animal . Right . I think we've all managed to master the whiteboard there by looks of it , so , on to it . Project finance . As you can see , twelve point five Euros per unit . That's not a terrible lot as far as I'm aware , and we're hoping to sell them for twenty five . If we're aiming for fifty million Euros we're gonna have to be selling an awful lot of them . +Marketing: Oh , that was profiting , that was an amount , so that's the amount made , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: Well , fifty million , and if you're making twelve point five Euros on each one , then , awful lot need to be sold . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Now we better actually just get on with the uh the meat of the project . So I'm gonna guess that we've all used remote controls . Any ideas of where you think a new remote control could go into this market ? +User Interface: Well , one thing I'm aware of is , th there uh um at the sort of v very high price end of the market there's there's a em emerging market for sort of touch screen L_C_D_ remotes that can be uh programmed in m much more sophisticated ways than sort of conventional models , so you get the sort of you get um you {vocalsound} you can redesign the interface to your own needs , you can programme in macros , and you get a much greater degree um um I mean you get in these sort of {vocalsound} three in one , five in one , whatevers , but you can get integration between the different uh the the the diff the different things that it's designed to control , to a much greater extent , and you can have one uh you know one macro to turn the uh you know turn the T_V_ to the right channel , get the uh re uh rewind the tape in the V_C_R_ and get it to play once it's rewound , for instance . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um b it occurs to me there might be a niche for uh for a remote that aimed towards some of that sort of functionality but using a just conventional push button design . And therefore putting it into a um well much lower price bracket . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah , tha that's true , with the price range we're looking at , going for a touch screen would probably be possibly out of our {disfmarker} +User Interface: Absolutely prohibitive , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: But you think uh again something to control multiple units in uh a simple fashion . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean I wouldn't like to say you g {vocalsound} I mean you get ones that you can switch between multiple units , but something that could um operate between multiple units in a more integrated fashion . Some {gap} and ideally something into which it would have some at least limited facility for {vocalsound} um running macros . +Project Manager: Would the the idea something along the lines of , one on button would turn on say the video recorder , the T_V_ , maybe the sound system as well , all in one go , is that kind of {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance , um let's say oh oh um , or um you know you pr uh you press uh say the play button for the D_V_D_ player and it turns the T_V_ on and onto the right channel as well , um +Project Manager: Okay , that sounds like a a good strong idea . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Any takes on this ? +Marketing: Well um I've noticed that uh gaming c is becoming quite popular with television , um when I was younger we used to e play games using our cable , using the cable subscribed the cable providers , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but our remote controls would get worn out really easily , and {vocalsound} the remote control was not a great kind of keyboar , um keypad , for playing games . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So perhaps one that was more um specialised for game playing or interactive television . They they've recently brought out this new remote control , for people to set their favourite channels , or um to record things . Instead of people entering in what time things start , you simply stri slide a bar to say what time it begins , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and slide another bar to say what time it ends , you know that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I've heard {disfmarker} I've seen the bar-code design before , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , it's it's taken out the {disfmarker} Y you don't have to be uh really clever to use a remote control . I think for gaming , you know you want you want some big buttons for up , down , left and right , shoot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , you wanna be able to change angles in interactive television , so you need buttons to change the television angle , the camera angles and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Okay , well +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: we're beginning to run out of time now , so , we've got a couple of ideas , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} we'll have to work fast , um , alright as you can see we've got thirty minutes until the next meeting , so {vocalsound} we'll have to try and decide on some of the basic functionality , um , how the user interface might work , that'll be a key aspect especially if the idea of um some kind of macros facility because you have to program it , you have to have a lot of response back , or at least some kind . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And we're gonna maybe n try and have to figure out +Marketing: What the user wants uh . +Project Manager: what the user wants , yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , right . Has anybody got anything they'd like to add at this stage , anything they think that might have been missed so far ? +Industrial Designer: Well when you're talking about gaming and stuff , do you think they should have some sort of stick on it , rather than buttons ? +Marketing: Oh . Okay , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Like uh control pads , you know of games , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or is that a bit ridiculous ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I don't see why not , almost everybody is probably used to a console by now , and all of them incorporate small keypads on them , in fact even the mobile phones these days are beginning to use them as well , so it's probably an interface that most people are used to . Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and that could allow n easy navigation , used as a joystick as well . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . The other key feature that uh that would be a good idea built into it is t is is to make something you know fairly sort of ergonomic , something that just fits {vocalsound} fits as comfortably as possible into the hand . But of course , uh al al also allows for {gap} the possibility of a more sort of slightly unconventional or attractive uh sha shape for it overall , {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So , +User Interface: A curve , +Project Manager: small , stylish , and something that's just a little different . +User Interface: mm-hmm . Something sort of sort of sl slightly sort of biomorphic in form , {vocalsound} uh which it would need to be to sort of conform to the shape of the hand more efficiently anyway . +Project Manager: Okay . That's definitely something that we should be able to do quite easily . I would I would have hoped so anyway . Um , right . I'd say we finish this one up , we get started , I'll get in , I'll write up what we've um kind of quickly done , and I'll get that out to everybody . Yeah ? +Marketing: 'Kay . So . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: Um , as far as I'm aware we leave the microphones here , um unless we get told otherwise , and just take the laptops with us . +","In a meeting led by Project Manager Adam Duguid, marketing expert Ebenezer Ademesoye, industrial designer Tarik Rahman, and user interface designer Dave Cochrane discuss the design of a new remote control. The key features desired are originality, trendiness, and user-friendliness, with a focus on distinctive design to set it apart in a crowded market. The team outlines a three-phase plan covering user requirements, conceptual components, and detailed design analysis. They also discuss project finance, targeting a sales price of 25 Euros per unit for a profit margin of 12.5 Euros each, aiming for a total profit of 50 million Euros. Creative ideas are proposed, such as integrating gaming capabilities, custom programmable buttons, and an ergonomic, biomorphic shape for ease of use. The team must work quickly to establish basic functionalities and user interface concepts before the next meeting. They conclude the meeting with the intention of distributing a summarized version of what has been discussed via email. The meeting participants are also reminded to leave the microphones and only take their laptops as they depart." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Alright , that did nothing . Okay . Welcome to the meeting everyone . Just gonna attempt to make this into a slide show . Sorry guys . +Marketing: You may have to do the function F_ eight thing . +Project Manager: I did . Twice . +Marketing: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This'll just take a moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay okay {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or it won't . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay we'll have to deal with it like this then . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . Um . This is the first meeting uh for developing our , our new product . {gap} I'm Heather , I'm your Project Manager . +Industrial Designer: Hello . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So um . So that was the opening . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The first thing we'll do is get acquainted with one another . If everyone could go around and explain their role and um , and their name . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . My name's Poppy . I'm the Industrial Designer for this project . Um , I'm going to be responsible for the functional design phase . Also the conceptual design and the detailed design for the final product . +Project Manager: Nice to meet you Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My name's Tara and I'm the User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I will also be responsible for the functional design phase , the conceptual design phase and the detailed design phase of the user interface design . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Hi , I'm Genevieve . I'm the Marketing Expert . I'm an expert at marketing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , I'll be telling you guys about the user requirement specifications for our new product . Um , I'll be doing some trend-watching in the conceptual design , and product evaluation for the design phase . +Project Manager: Alright I'm Heather and I've I said I'm your Project Manager , um Well you can pretty much read what it is that I'm doing . But um um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . And uh tool training is one thing that we're going to be doing today , um um as well as planning the project , how we're going to , uh , create this product , and , um , discuss , um , our aims and objects of this , Which brings us to our next subject , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: is , um , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: as a team we're going to be designing and creating a new kind of remote control . Um , we want this to be a marketable product that can be trendy , um , a completely new style , so that , um , can really appeal to a , to a generation that doesn't want a simple plain kind of , uh , channel-changer . And , um , it needs to be user-friendly for , um , maybe , for an example , for people that , um , can't see the numbers as well , or , um , perhaps an ergonomic design . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So this is a television remote control ? +Project Manager: Yes , it's a television remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . I believe I should be taking minutes on this right now . So , alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um , yeah . Um , the way that we're going to go about this is , um , we'll have a time where we can , um come up with new ideas alone , and , and work on the project and then , um , after we've brainstormed and , and thought about , we can come together in a meeting and , and discuss what , what um , what kind of functional design we want to use . Same with conceptual design and detailed design . So , um , making sure that it , it's usable , that as a , um {disfmarker} and that it's , it's feasible to create , and uh , to come up with a concept of it want , what we want it to look like . Um , tool training . Is , is everyone , um {disfmarker} {gap} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Got those notes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Great . Great . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Um One thing that , uh , we're going to do is become more acquainted with the , the tools that we have access to for our project . Um , one of them is our whiteboard . And , um , as a sort of team-building moment , um , I , I'd like us to , um , try out the whiteboard by expressing our favourite animal and the charac characteristics of that animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , why that , why that should be your favourite animal . So , um , I , I'm assuming that we should do that now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} With our microphones still attached to our bodies . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Gosh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay , what's my favourite animal ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do come up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} to go first . {vocalsound} Oh , +Project Manager: This is a team-building time +Industrial Designer: are we all doing it individually ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: where , um , {vocalsound} , +Industrial Designer: Okay , let's stand up and support you {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay cool , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My favourite animal , which changes all the time , okay , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right now it is an elk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: An elk ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: alright , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A vicious {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And it goes like {disfmarker} Yeah it's got like big antlers , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . Looks kinda like , like it has holly growing out of its head . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Do you have elk where you come from ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You do . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: We have moose too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we have moose and we have deer . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have sheep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} 'Kay , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sheep . Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: cows . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's a great elk . +Marketing: Uh-oh , we have a good artist . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: That is really good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm quite {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is my {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , very shapely . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Brilliant . +Project Manager: That's a sketching of my my elk , and it , it is my favourite animal right now , 'cause it is a large beautiful majestic creature , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that um , that um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In a way it looks kind of awkward , because it's on spindly legs and it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it can really overcome harsh terrain , and although it's gorgeous it's also very dangerous , because it has um strong antlers , and uh it can really combat its enemies , even like it it's a it's an herbivore but , uh , it can really defend itself . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . Okay . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , I'm gonna take minutes while , um , you guys express your favourite animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll go next . I am a big animal lover . like all sorts of animals , but for the moment I'm gonna draw a cat , in memory of my poor cat that died recently . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be a bit of a strange drawing , but never mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not as artistic as Heather's drawing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Bit more cartoon style . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I like cats because they're so independent , and they always seem to be doing what they want to be doing . Um , but that doesn't mean they're completely not sociable , 'cause they enjoy interacting with humans as well , and they seem to enjoy the good things like sunshine and , um , running around outside as well as being inside , and enjoying their food , and generally just , they just seemed so cool and {vocalsound} they just know what they're doing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I reckon they're sort of , they got it sorted . They know what they want . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Basically , that's why I like cats . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'll rub that out . There you go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . I think my favourite animal would be a dog , but I'm not really sure {vocalsound} how to draw one . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: I , I've never drawn a dog , I don't think . I'm tempted to draw a snail 'cause I draw them sometimes {vocalsound} and they're really easy to draw . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , +Project Manager: I forget her name . +User Interface: right it's gonna be a really funny dog , 'cause I'm not sure how to draw a dog . +Marketing: Tara +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or Tara . +Industrial Designer: Well there are loads of different types of dogs , so I'm sure it'll represent one kind of dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a cartoon dog I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A s I don't ev Oh , oh well . {vocalsound} It's a scary cartoon dog . That {disfmarker} This , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that does not look like a dog . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks kinda like a person . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We can pretend . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm sorry . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's Pinocchio . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} How do you draw a dog ? I suppose it has a lon Oh my god . Right . Yous know what it's supposed to be . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a dog . {vocalsound} . Um , I like dogs because , um , they're so good to humans , like they can be trained to be police dogs and seeing-eye dogs , and they're just such friendly animals . And , like they're more of a companion than cats . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's true . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I've nothing against cats . Cats don't really like me , so I can't like them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But they're just so friendly and warm and nice animals , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} that don't look like that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alrighty . I feel like a robot . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Um , well I guess I had the most time to think about it . I'm going to draw a butterfly , because I saw a butterfly yesterday , that seemed to be like the symbol of Spring arriving . And it was actually the prettiest butterfly I've ever seen out in the wild , and I though that was pretty cool in Scotland . It was like , well it was a little pointier than that . At first I thought it was a dead leaf . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then it landed on the wall next to me . But this part was all brown and then it has these big blue dots like this . And then it kinda {disfmarker} there was a green , I think it was a green ring , and there was like red going out like this . +Project Manager: It's kinda like a peacock . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it kinda was actually , 'cause it was {disfmarker} This part of the body was really dull , and then it was the most colourful exotic butterfly ever , and I'm like , wow this is the middle of Scotland in like March . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I thought that was pretty cool . And it landed by a wall and let me look at it for about two minutes . I wish I'd had my camera . So that's gonna be my favourite animal because after all the snow it seemed to say that like Spring is finally here . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Very nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: Great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh , what do we {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Do you hear the eraser buzzing while you do that ? +Marketing: Yes I do . {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Yea {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , now that we know how to use the whiteboard , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um , the next , um , thing we need to address is our financial department , to meet our our budget , um {disfmarker} or not meet our budget but more , um , like what kind of , uh , selling range we'll be looking at , um , wanna make this um {gap} selling price of twenty five Euros . And so we have to , um , come up with a way to , to create a , a uh remote control , where um we can {disfmarker} like the price to create it will be significantly less . Um , we'd like to , um to , uh , make fifty million Euro . I'm assuming that's what the M_ means . Um , and make it for an international market . Um , one thing we'd have to think about internationally is in the design of , um , like different kinds of , uh , V_C_R_s . Things like that , depending on which country you are . Another thing for the design team to think about . Um , we want it to cost , uh , absolute maximum of twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Marketing: Okay , so we'll have a hundred percent profit then ? Twelve fifty . +Project Manager: I'm bad at math . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . {vocalsound} Um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so now that , um , that is underway , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it is discussion time . So this is time for us to bring our initial ideas , any um suggestions that you may have so far , a um your personal experiences with remote controls , and um , um , areas you see that , uh , could be improved in your experience with them . Does anyone have any initial thoughts ? +Marketing: I find that in the dark it's often hard to know what button you're pushing . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . So what's something we could , uh , do to remedy that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I always find that in our house the remote control always goes missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's always , where is the remote control ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So maybe if you could have some kind of tracking {vocalsound} device for the remote control or some signal that you could find out where it was . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I dunno , some kind of alarm . You can press a button on your wall , {gap} signal , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a great idea . It's a great idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause it always gets lost . +User Interface: Do yous not find that , um , {vocalsound} like , there's a lot of , um , buttons on your remote control , and you don't know what half of them do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that you don't use half of them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know what they do . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . There's some remote controls where there's kind of a hidden panel , so all those buttons that you don't really use unless you're programming or something . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is . Yeah . +Marketing: So you just have like the number buttons , power button , T_V_ video button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Anything about , um , the look of the , uh , remote control that you might have ideas about . Maybe it could be , instead of like a standard rectangular shape , it could be , um , something more interesting like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Any ideas will do that you have at this point . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Could be shaped like a conch , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can hold it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A novelty . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you know . Be like a shell-shaped remote . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are we going into kind of novelty factors here . Like , I've seen phones like a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if it's a trendy original , um , aspect we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: I mean , you're the designers , you c , you can um decide what kind of , um , direction you wanna go in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but at this point in the , in the first meeting it can be any ideas that we just throw out there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I suppose , if we're he heading to have it , like make a huge profit out of this , it needs to be quite a universally accepted thing . Like , a novelty thing might only sell a few things rather than , like , a general kind of more acceptable {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But we don't wanna go towards boring , 'cause that wouldn't sell either . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , hmm . +Project Manager: And the key issue here is , is being trendy and original . Um , that does not necessarily mean it needs to be outrageous . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Okay we have five minutes left . So , just to cover {disfmarker} We have one more thing . Um , like you can go over your ideas , of course , in your own personal times . Um , our next meeting will be in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have half an hour to , uh , think about what you want to present . Or not present but bring to the meeting . Um , I_D_ , whatever that stands for . +Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Interface ? +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: That's me . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , industrial . +Project Manager: I have to remember these things . Um . You'll be beginning your , your working design . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , U_I_D_ the technical functions design will , will be worked on the next thirty minutes . Um , {vocalsound} maybe how this can be achieved , and , um , we need the user requirements from the manag Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , you will get specific instructions , um , of what to do in the next half an hour . And I'll see you in half an hour , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {gap} +","In a recent team meeting, the various specialists assembled to kick off the development process for a new, cutting-edge television remote control. The meeting, led by Project Manager Heather, faced an initial hiccup as technical difficulties prevented the creation of a slideshow presentation. Despite these challenges, the team moved forward, with each member introducing themselves and their respective roles in the project. + +Poppy, the Industrial Designer, described her responsibilities, which included overseeing the functional, conceptual, and detailed design phases of the product. Tara, the User Interface Designer, echoed similar duties, focusing specifically on the user interface aspects. Genevieve, the Marketing Expert, outlined her tasks which ranged from establishing user requirements to trend watching and product evaluation during the design phase. + +Following the introductions, Heather provided an overview of the project's goals, emphasizing the need to create an innovative, marketable, and user-friendly remote control. The new remote was envisaged to cater to a contemporary audience, providing functionality to those with visibility challenges or ergonomic needs. + +The team discussed budgetary constraints, aiming for a selling price of 25 Euros per unit and a goal to realize a net revenue of 50 million Euros; highlighting the need for the production cost to not exceed 12.50 Euros to ensure a viable profit margin. + +Heather proposed a tool training exercise to foster team cohesion, using the whiteboard to share drawings and stories of their favorite animals. This creative task was designed to help the team become more familiar with their digital whiteboard while also providing a moment of informal bonding. Each team member took turns sketching and sharing, recounting anecdotes about elks, cats, dogs, and butterflies, which helped lighten the atmosphere and potentially stimulate out-of-the-box thinking. + +Once the ice-breaking activity concluded, the meeting shifted to a more focused discussion about challenges faced with current remote controls, such as difficulty identifying buttons in the dark and the tendency for remotes to get misplaced. Ideas of including a tracking system or an alarm within the remote were suggested to address the latter issue. The group also recognized the common problem of remote controls having too many confusing buttons and discussed the possibility of a hidden panel for less frequently used functions. + +The session included brainstorming design aspects, such as the remote control's shape, considering both trendy and practical considerations. All were encouraged to present any initial thoughts, based on personal experiences with remote controls and any aspect they felt could be improved. + +Before concluding the meeting, Heather reaffirmed the upcoming assignments for each team member. Poppy would begin working on the initial design concepts, Tara would address technical functions, and Genevieve would lay out user requirements specific to marketing. With only thirty minutes until their next meeting, time was of the essence for the team to consolidate their ideas and prepare for the next phase of discussion. + +The meeting underlined the importance of cross-functional collaboration and the blend of creative and practical inputs necessary to drive the project forward. While technical snags and a tight schedule set a challenging pace, the team demonstrated a willingness to collaborate and innovate, laying the groundwork for the development of their unconventional television remote control project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Everybody found his place again ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: That's nice . Okay so this is our second meeting . And uh still failing ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh now we're going um into the functional design . Um important thing of this phase is that we're going to uh try to get an agreement about the user requirements , technical function design , and the working design . So that we can move onto the second uh phase . But first this phase . Um first an announcement . There's a little adaptation in the air conditioning system . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There's our {vocalsound} ghost mouse again . That that means that you can have a little trouble with , little trouble with the air conditioning , that's because of this uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's in wing C_ and E_ . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So it should be over in a in a while , couple of days . But it's going to be cold anyway , so {vocalsound} I don't think you're gonna need it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Then our agenda . Now first the opening . Uh this time I will take the minutes . Uh you're going to have a presentation . All of you . Um and we've got forty minutes for the whole uh prese for the whole uh presentations . So uh I suggest we take about seven minutes per presentation , and then we can have a little discussion about the new project requirements uh which have been sent to me . And then the decision on the control functions uh which we wanna include and those which we don't wanna include . So we've got forty minutes for all of it . So I suggest um let's start with the first presentation . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Um who wants to be first ? +Marketing: Think I'll go first . +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just maybe it's easier if you um {disfmarker} Yeah I think you will tell {gap} your presentation as well . Just which function you have and what you're gonna talk about . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . My name is Freek Van Ponnen . I'm the Market Expert . But you already knew that . Um I've done some research . We have we uh have been doing research in a usability lab where we observed um users operating remote controls . Uh we let them fill out a questionnaire . We had one hundred of these uh test subjects . Uh in addition we did some market research . Uh see what the market consists of . What ages are involved . Well these are three quite astonishing results , I thought . Um remotes are being considered ugly . F uh seventy five percent of the um people questioned uh indicated that they thought their remote were was ugly . Um and an additional eighty percent indicated that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control . So {disfmarker} Um in addition remotes were not very functional . Fifty percent of the people indicated they only loo used about ten percent of the buttons on a remote control . And fifty percent of the people indicated that their remote tended to get lost in their room . So +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: some things . Then we did some research to the most relevant functions . Channel selection and volume selection um both got a ten on a scale of one to ten for relevancy . The power button got a nine . And teletext got a six and a half . So these are the most most uh important functions on a remote control . Then there are some one-time use function . That's what I like to call them . That uh audio settings , video settings , and channel settings buttons . Which are not really used very frequently , but are still considered to be of some importance . Um channel selection was also indicated to be used very frequently . One hundred and sixty eight times per hour . Then these are the {disfmarker} This is the market . Um sixty percent of the market consists of users between the ages sixteen and forty f six . Um {disfmarker} Main characteristic of this group is that they're very critical on the remote control . Um they like to use new f new functions . But they also are very critical . They won't spend their money very easily . So {disfmarker} Um the users of forty six to sixty five years cons The make up forty percent of the market . They are not really very interested in features . But they do tend to spend their money a lot easier . What I think this indicates for our um design . I think we should make a remote for the future . And this means we would um have to focus on the age ages sixteen to forty five . Uh this also makes up most the biggest part of the market , so that will also be where our main profit would be gettable . Um this would mean we would have to make a fancy design . Um {disfmarker} The results also indicated that um about one quarter of the people questioned thought that the remote control caused R_S_ R_S_I_ . Um this is certainly something to take into account . And thirty four percent thought that it was hard to learn a n how to operate a new control , remote control . So these are two factors that I think should be included in the design . Besides of course that the remote must look very nice . And the functionality {disfmarker} As a lot of people indicated , they only use about ten percent of the buttons , I think we should make very few buttons . Uh this will also be uh beneficial to the design of the remote . Uh I think the most frequently used buttons should be emphasised . Especially the channel selection and audio uh selection buttons . 'Cause they're used most and so they should be robust . They shouldn't break down easily . Um {disfmarker} Then as mo as a lot of people indicated that their um remote got lost in the room , it might be and I say might be because it would um certainly boost the uh production costs a lot . But it might be a good idea to make a docking station . And this would , could get a button in it which would send a signal to the remote which would then beep . So you'd know where it is in the room . And in addition to this it could um recharge the batteries in the remote if you put it in . Then um a surprisingly great deal of people w indicated that um an L_C_D_ screen in the remote control would be preferred . This was um mostly people in the age of sixteen to twenty five . But up till forty five it remains feasible . This would also greatly increase the production costs but I think these are just some small factors we could consider . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: That would be all . +Project Manager: Thank you . So anybody have um any questions until now ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: About functional requirements ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: that's clear . {gap} Now to the second . +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh okay . Um I've been looking at uh the user interface of it . Um f for the techno f functions uh of of it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah you can take your time . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: We've got uh plenty of time , +User Interface: Mm ? +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: you should go to the top thingy . Slide show . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . There it is . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +User Interface: Um yeah . I think uh we uh must use the general functions uh of the uh remote control . Uh uh I've do I've uh done a little uh research on the internet and {gap} not much information about it , {gap} {disfmarker} Um about uh interface but uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} Yeah I I've been thinking about a simple manner uh to put a lot of functions uh uh in one um in one uh remote control . Uh so uh you've got a lot of devi uh devices like uh D_V_D_ uh uh television , uh stereo . So um {disfmarker} But uh it must be uh user-friendly . So um uh you c you can't put a a lot of uh functions uh in one uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah . In one um remote control . +Project Manager: One remote . +User Interface: But um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Um yeah . Got uh many functions in one uh remote control , um but um yeah you can see , this is uh quite simple uh remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um few uh buttons but uh {disfmarker} This uh re uh remote control got a a lot of uh buttons . Um uh people uh don't like it , uh so um {disfmarker} Well what uh I was uh thinking about was um uh keep the general functions uh like they are . So uh like uh the on-off uh button . Uh keep it uh yeah l like a red button . Uh everybody everybody knows it so uh uh you don't have to change that . Um {disfmarker} My personal uh preferences um . Use a display for uh specific uh functions of the different uh device . So um {disfmarker} Wh what I was th uh thinking about was um you've got um {disfmarker} Uh this the remote control uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh you got here the general functions , uh like uh the on-off button uh sound uh {vocalsound} I dunno um {disfmarker} And um here you've got a s kind of a display . It's a touchscreen . So um yeah you got a general f uh f the functions of the device uh for a D_V_D_ player or uh so um the pl yeah um f for uh playing uh reverse uh {gap} . And um you got here uh real buttons for uh selecting uh a device . So um this button is for a D_V_D_ or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} So um for every um device you've got a uh a f a b a part uh display of a part buttons . So uh you you never got uh all the buttons uh on w one device . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So uh that's uh my uh idea about it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh let's see . Uh yeah . So a touchscreen . Uh and um th the buttons uh the real buttons uh we have to use um . We better c um uh use uh quite uh large buttons uh for um yeah . Everybody uh have to use it so {disfmarker} Uh ol even even old people um young people . So uh we must keep uh buttons uh quite s uh simple and quite large . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh yeah . That was uh my uh part of it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anybody has questions about the technical functions ? +Industrial Designer: Well +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: I think if we are gonna use a touchscreen uh we're gonna go way above the twelve and a half Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: N I I don't think so . Uh you got uh quite a cheap uh touchscreen . S um it's uh not uh in colour or something . +Project Manager: Touchscreen . +User Interface: Uh it's just uh um one colo Uh yeah . Uh I seen uh w uh something on the internet uh not today but uh a few uh weeks ago . Uh you got uh yeah quite an uh a kind of uh touchscreen um and it's uh {vocalsound} for uh twenty uh Euros or uh less uh . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So it's possible . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . That's nice . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it would certainly make a fancy design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} It wouldn't be very robust . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's very fragile and you can get scratches on it . +Marketing: That is true . +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Project Manager: Uh maybe we can first um listen to your presentation ? +Marketing: We would have to look into that . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} And then we {gap} have a little discussion about the requirements and uh design . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: That's {gap} . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's going to {disfmarker} Uh it's not too much . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay I've got a presentation about the working design . Um first about how it works . It's really simple of course . Everybody knows how a remote works . The user presses a button . The remote determines what button it is , uses the infrared to send a signal to the T_V_ . The T_V_ switches to the frequency , or what function it is . So we've got um the the plate . It gots conductive disks for every button . When the user presses a button , a signal got sent , goes to the LED and transmits tranmi transmits its to the T_V_ . It's a very simple device , technically speaking . So this is a schematic overview . You've got the buttons . The power source . And uh when a button gets pressed , its goes to the chip . The chip uh controls the infrared bulb and perf perhaps a normal bulb . When you press a button you can actually see your pressed button . Well um I think we should use default materials , simple plastics . Keep the inner workings simple , so it's robust . Uh I think we should focus on aesthetics , the design and the user interface , because if you're going to use high-tech materials the price is going to go sky-high . And uh you only have to design a remote once , and if you use high-tech materials it come back in every product . So it's , in my idea , it's uh it's gonna be smart to invest in di in design and not in uh in the product itself . That's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay now I hope everybody has a little bit more insight in the functions we all have and what we are doing right now . Um I'm the Project Manager so I'm here to mess things up and uh tell you some new uh requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um that's , we've uh got to design a um remote which is only suitable for T_V_ . Um that's because {vocalsound} uh it will be too complex +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and the time to market will be too big , if we wanna have it uh for more functions . So it has to be simple . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh another point is we have to skip the teletext , because in the world of uh upcoming internet uh we think teletext is going to be uh a thing of the past . And uh it's a function we don't need in our remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um internet is also mentioned {gap} in a function we can use . Uh maybe also on televisions it will be available as well . Another one is uh the customer is uh forty plus . Uh that's the the market we have to to to target , because we are going to develop a new product which is specially designed for the younger customers . Um this is uh a bit pity for the Marketing uh Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because he was uh aiming on the the younger persons . So we have to find a market which is above forty plus uh but which will suit our uh remote control , and the other way round . And we have to be very uh attent in uh putting the corporate image uh in our product . So it has to be visible in our design , in the way our device works . And uh we have to be uh very clear on this point as well . So I suggest let's have a discussion on the control functions . Yeah . +Marketing: So is there any discussion possible about the new product requirement ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we can see if we can find a way uh between the functions we wanna use and the market we wanna reach with our product . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Yeah 'cause you're you're saying that teletext is gonna be an old feature and it's not gonna be used anymore anyway pretty soon . And new T_V_s will have internet access on them . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But I think if you're targeting people of forty plus , the chance that they will have a T_V_ with internet access within the next like twenty years is very slim . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: In addition people indicated that teletext simply was an important feature for the remote control . So I think it's pretty dumb to put no teletext feature on it . I'm pretty much against it . +Project Manager: Against the no teletext ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides that , I think the market for forty plus is like pretty small . But I mean if I s if I see this , it's {disfmarker} I think we're just gonna go for another +Project Manager: Yeah it's it is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} forty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Standard remote . +Marketing: pretty +Project Manager: No I think we can +Marketing: and not innovative +Project Manager: I think we can do a lot with the design and the simple buttons +Marketing: remote control . +Project Manager: which were also mentioned . Uh if we put a lot of effort in those , we can make a remote control with uh just two or three buttons . Or just a remote which is suitable for the market we wanna reach because it is forty percent of the market . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um if you look in Holland at the whole generation of forty plus , fifty plus , it it's the the biggest share of the of the whole population now . +Marketing: Yes but it's not the biggest part of the market . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: And besides that , they're not very critical so {disfmarker} I mean they don't really care what the remote control is like . They'll just pretty much take the first thing they see and which looks acceptable . +Project Manager: But don't you think that if we make a remote which is uh typically made for this market , that people think {gap} {disfmarker} the people think that's the the device I've looked for although I didn't realise it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's try it . +Marketing: No . I think that would be the case in the sixteen to forty five age category . because they are critical and they they want to have a fancy remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: People of forty plus , I mean they want it to work , but as soo as soon as it works it's okay with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I think that if we're {disfmarker} If we put our marketing right um we can sell this just like um {disfmarker} I don't know if you've heard about it in the news , the the elderly mobile phone ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . It's a big success . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if we if we make a remote control just l with that idea in mind , we could make tons of money , I think . +Project Manager: Very big success . +Marketing: I haven't heard of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh . I think so as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We don't have to focus on on on the on the design then but on functionality . We just change our focus on the project , and I think we can uh we can sell this . +Project Manager: Uh I simply think um +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: uh that the new products we are gonna make , uh spef specifically design , are designed for uh younger people , uh so maybe we can focus ourself on the elderly people . And I think we have to um see what requirements we need for those um remote controls . {vocalsound} 'Cause what you told is the channel selection is important . Volume selection , power and teletext . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . But obviously the board tends to disagree . +Project Manager: No we we haven't voted yet , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think teletext can be uh um can be a function as well . But only if uh if it won't higher the the cost , because I don't know if it will be a lot more money to implement teletext as well , but I don't think it will be a problem . Or is teletext a {disfmarker} +User Interface: But um deaf people need uh teletext for uh for subtitles . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . So I suggest uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it'd definitely be a bad idea not to include teletext . +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Is anybody um really against teletext ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No ? Just that , that we just keep the teletext . I think that's a good idea as well , especially for the subtitles . Maybe we can make that um another point of advantage in our remote control , if we uh make a k a button ex for example for big subtitles , which is instantly on the remote control . For elderly people they can think , oh I wanna have subtitles , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and they push the button and they get the big subtitles . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's a good idea . +Project Manager: Um so I think teletext can v can be very useful in our advantage . Um {disfmarker} Functionality should be few buttons , you said . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: I think uh that's very important we have a few buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So to keep it simple . +Marketing: But I don't think that's really an issue any more 'cause {disfmarker} Well might be . +User Interface: If it's only for televi +Marketing: But I mean it , if it's only for T_V_ you're not gonna need a lot of buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: You need a one to zero button , next channel , previous channel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: volume up , volume down , and some teletext buttons but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But do you need {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we can s we can skip the display , +Marketing: I think if you if you only l +User Interface: so uh we don't need it . +Project Manager: But do you need the buttons for one to zero . +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: Maybe c we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think if you're gonna include teletext you do . I think many people like to use that . +Project Manager: Maybe we can use uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you should , if you want to switch from channel one to like thirty five , you don't wanna push the next channel button thirty five times . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , maybe we can implement the scroll button ? Or a joystick like ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: There are other ways too . Just look if you look at telephones . The Sony telephone has a scroll button which is very useful in searching names or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: That's true but um I don't think there are many T_V_s that can switch channels that fast . And so you would need like the T_V_ would need an a function where you can actually view all channels and scroll through it . And I dunno if many channels would do have that . If many T_V_s have that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And besides that it's um {disfmarker} If we're gonna focus on elderly people they'll have to adapt . They're not used to using scroll buttons . +Project Manager: That's right . +Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should s stick to the basic layout . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the numbers yeah . Yeah they can see how much buttons there are going to be on on the display , and if it's too much we can uh reconsider it . But I think there won't be very much buttons . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or there don't have to be a lot . +Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker} I think if you're gonna make a remote control only to operate a T_V_ , you there's not much you can gain on um having as few buttons as possible . 'Cause I think there are pretty many remote controls that can only operate a T_V_ , which already only have the minimum number of buttons . I don't think there's much to be gained in that area . +Project Manager: The number of buttons ? +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's very important in the in the design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You can make a very fancy design uh with putting the buttons on the right places . And if you have less buttons you can do a lot more with {disfmarker} +Marketing: That is true but I think there's simply not much to gain on the competition when you when you're making a remote control only for to operate only the T_V_ . +Project Manager: To operate only the T_V_ yeah . +Marketing: 'Cause if you have a a remote control only to operate a T_V_ there's simply not a lot of buttons required . There's not a lot of functions required so most existing remote controls simply don't have a lot of buttons either . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: So I think it would be very hard to actually gain on the competition here . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would that would cost a a big marketing expedition +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: which was one of the arguments to make it only for the T_V_ because we didn't have the time to market a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . So you suggest we could better um focus on for example the docking station . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh like other functions . Instead of f of less buttons . +Marketing: Maybe . Well yeah I think , mean we obviously need a good way to position all the buttons and {disfmarker} But I don't think we should spend very much time in that . +Project Manager: Mm . No . Do you think the docking station will uh is allowed in the budget we have ? +Industrial Designer: It should be possible yes . If it's not too fancy . +Project Manager: 'Cause it can be {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: And if the remote stays rather small , it should be possible +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Because I think that's uh {disfmarker} That's a good advantage point as well . If we have a fancy-looking docking station +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: or very {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: That's a nice requirement . Docking station . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we're just gonna focus on the extras ? +Project Manager: I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah I think maybe we should do some research into what elderly people like to have in a +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like to have extra in a new remote control . +Project Manager: That's a good point . Um {disfmarker} You said they easily get lost as well . +Marketing: Yes well fifty percent of the people indicated that remote control tended to get lost . +Project Manager: Yeah . So maybe we should implement the audio sign , or something . +Marketing: Yeah that was what I suggested . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like with your key-chain , if you whistle it goes uh it makes a sound . +Marketing: You have it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Hm . +Marketing: you have it's on some phones too , which have a docking station . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And you just press a button and the phone goes ringing . +Project Manager: Yeah . So +Marketing: So you know where it is . +Project Manager: audio signal should be possible as well . I think it's not too expensive . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh another point is the L_C_D_ screen . Um I don't know if that will rise the cost too much , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y i um I think we'll have to choose between the docking station or the screen , 'cause +Project Manager: Yeah . It will be too much as well . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: I think since a lot of people indicated that a new remote control is hard to learn , and we're focusing on elderly people here which tend to have a hard time understanding new devices , it might be a good idea to have just a little screen on it , which would explain a button if you press it . Which would tell you what it does . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And it wouldn't have to be touchscreen or a very expensive screen , +Project Manager: Based . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Marketing: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just the L_C_D_ . Oh just the normal screen . +Marketing: Just a small screen +Project Manager: That's a good idea . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: with two {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Some extra info . Feedback . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a good idea as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I dunno if that would +Project Manager: As the small screen . +Marketing: that would fit into the costs . +Project Manager: Extra button info . I think that should be possible as well . Um {vocalsound} let's see what did we say . Mm . More . Should be fancy to , fancy design , easy to learn . Few buttons , we talked about that . Docking station , L_C_D_ . Um general functions {disfmarker} Yeah . 'Kay . And default materials . I think that's a good idea as well , because um elderly people don't mind if it's a titanium cover or just a plastic one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So that doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: So I think we nee +Marketing: I think probably elderly people would be a little bit more careful with their remote controls than youngsters . +Project Manager: Uh let's um specify the target group . Because are we talking about elderly elderly people or people from forty to eighty . Because I think what we're going to design now is for people above sixty , maybe . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh what do we want ? If we want um a {gap} with uh for example the the telephone for elderly people , we can +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: target the real elderly people . +Marketing: I think that would be a {disfmarker} If we should do something like that it would be a , I think it would be really good for uh for the image of the company . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And I think , I think there would be a good market for it . +Project Manager: So that's the {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we're able to really bring an innovative product . +Project Manager: {gap} Now you're talking about sixty to eighty for example . +Marketing: Yeah the really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Sixty . +Marketing: But I'd have to look into that a little more . +Project Manager: Okay . And different cultures . Are we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't think they have different television sets uh +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in uh every country . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We've got five minutes left {vocalsound} just now . +User Interface: So 'Kay . +Project Manager: Small warning . +Marketing: 'Kay . And with uh the little screen in it , {gap} which explains the buttons . You could {disfmarker} I think we n it would be a lot easier to +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} +Marketing: adapt it to different cultures . +Project Manager: Yeah . In different languages , you know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: or you have to put a language button in it , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: but that will be a bit unnecessary I think . +User Interface: No . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better to put it on different markets with it all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . So +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's the the target . Uh then a few small things . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh okay . I will put the minutes in the project uh project document folder . {vocalsound} Um what we're going to do for the next meeting is the Industrial Designer will do the components concept , User Interface Designer the user interface concept , and the trend-watching . So just keep in mind the things we've said about the target group , {vocalsound} uh requirements , and the trends which are uh going on . And uh specific instructions will be sent to you by uh the personal coach . So um +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I thank you for this meeting . And I think we have a lunch-break now . +Marketing: That's good . +Project Manager: So that's a good thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +During the second meeting led by the Project Manager, the team discussed the functional design of a remote control, focusing on user requirements, technical function design, and working design. An announcement about a temporary issue with the air conditioning in wing C and E was made before the meeting's agenda commenced. + +Marketing shared research findings, revealing that users find most remote controls ugly and would pay more for aesthetically pleasing ones. They also discovered that users generally utilize a small number of buttons and often lose their remotes. Channel and volume selection were deemed the most relevant functions. + +The User Interface Designer suggested a simple design with few buttons and possibly incorporating a touchscreen, while discussing the importance of a user-friendly design for multiple devices. + +The Industrial Designer advocated using standard materials to keep costs low, prioritizing aesthetics and user interface over high-tech materials. + +Challenges discussed include focusing on a market of users aged forty plus, incorporating or excluding teletext, considering the needs of the elderly, and ensuring the product reflects the corporate image. Other points considered were using default materials, implementing a docking station, adding an audio signal for locating the remote, and possibly including a simple, informative screen. + +The Project Manager concluded the meeting by noting the focus will be on a remote control solely for TV with a simple design. The project team members were assigned to develop concepts for the next meeting, with specific instructions to come from a personal coach. The meeting then adjourned for a lunch break." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , is everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah I'd to just put on my microphone here and I'll be right with you . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} I take it you all have received instructions as to what you were supposed to do +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and um I think the Marketing Manager probably should go first , addressing the needs and desires . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay you want me to start right now ? +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , could you um put my slides up 'cause I think it might be helpful if uh we looked at the slides at the same time . +Project Manager: Okay . You're participant four . +Marketing: I'm participant four I believe . Yes uh-huh . +Project Manager: Okay , and now I can uh full screen . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Open . +Project Manager: Uh , okay , okay . +Marketing: There we go . Okay well I think we have introduced ourselves , +Industrial Designer: And then full screen . +Marketing: so the functional requirements are {disfmarker} is {vocalsound} is part of my goal but why don't we pass right to the second slide . Cause that's where m my discussion starts . Right well um since I'm in charge of trying to figure out what we should put on this thing since I have to try to sell it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} I thought that the method I should follow would be gather suggestions from everybody , and th the reason I just put that there like that is that uh in the init in the initial stage I think I should just be open to lots of suggestions . You know you can say anything you want no matter how silly it sounds you know it should run your car , it should heat up your motor if should um turn on your C_D_ {vocalsound} whatever you want it to do {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: um and then as we go on what we'll have to do is accept and eliminate these suggestions according to um design and budget feasibility . So I'll be coming to you um frequently as the Industrial Expert to tell me how hard it's gonna be to add a feature or how expensive it's gonna be or if your time , if it takes five years to develop this it's just something we can't do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Hmm hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So in the beginning just have a big puddle of things that we {disfmarker} anybody can th throw anything in +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then just weed things out that can't be done for one reason or another , and then the things that seem the most attractive that to uh to a customer we'll try to then prioritise those . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: So that was um what I meant there , and as I said on the slide there consulting the Industrial Engineer about that and the other thing is timing is really gonna be as important as money , because if we're gonna sell this thing , I think the best time to sell it is as a Christmas present . Twenty five Euros makes a nice little present , and we want it to be an impulse purchase , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: we want somebody to see it and think it's , gee I just gotta have that . And take out their wallet and buy it . So it's gotta be really attractive and it {disfmarker} but it's gotta go to market by September , 'cause anything that you don't already have out there in September showing it around , isn't gonna sell for Christmas . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} and then I'll be coming to you as the User Interface person to try to tell me from your point of view what are the most friendly features that we could put on it and try to prior help me with that prioritising of uh of the features and of the the look and the colour +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and I'll be coming back to you to help weed out those suggestions from that point of view . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So I'll be coming to you for how much is it gonna cost us and how long is it gonna take you , +Industrial Designer: Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: and I'll be coming to you to tell me what's gonna make somebody take out their wallet you know , +User Interface: What features . +Marketing: what what's what's gonna really be what they call a sizzle , +User Interface: S sellable . Yes {vocalsound} . +Marketing: 'cause we gotta sell this sizzle {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A lot of times the thing that works the best from an engineering point of view isn't the thing that somebody's really just gonna take out their wallet and buy for Christmas for for their child or for their husband or whatever . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay can we go to the next slide please ? Alright I I already did a little bit of research after our first meeting where we threw out some ideas and it looks to me that within the budget that we're looking at the uh the whole house idea really isn't gonna be possible . So I'd like your suggestions to come back to the other slide where I was saying we we could suggest anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'd like the suggestions to be really specific , so that we'll have a list of things we can cross off , not something like you know whole house control what'll be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} And then I found on the internet from from my research that some extended electronic entertainment control should be possible . At the budget that we're looking at and at the price point we're looking at , we should be able to make it work the T_V_ , the V_C_R_ , the stereo set um maybe something else cute like a coffee pot or one other appliance or maybe a lamp . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay , can can I at this point interject um something ? +Marketing: I have to wind up ? Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Um we have received instruction from higher up that certain things should not be uh considered . Um the one thing for example {disfmarker} something to eliminate maybe that's the teletext , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: because that's sort of outdated with the internet , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and according to to higher management the {disfmarker} it should only control the T_V_ , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: mostly because they feel that it's too comp complex a task to um to to include other things , +Industrial Designer: Complicated , yeah , of course . +Project Manager: and they are concerned with the time to market . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , so that's something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the third thing that they wanna make sure um that their {disfmarker} that the corporate image is being maintained , and that the corporate colour and design are being used on the product , so that it's easy that that that they can be easily identified as a product of of of the company , and that there's no mistake that it could be somebody else who is bringing this out . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So I just wanted to interject this here so we're not getting too much off track here with uh with the things we wanna look at . These were instructions from higher up so we have to eliminate uh these things , so it's only gonna be T_V_ , +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but the one thing maybe that could be um eliminated is the teletext uh idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Alright , thanks for that . Um alright now {vocalsound} other things that I found out on {disfmarker} in my research is that the complaints that people have about the remote controls that are out there now . 'Cause a lot of them take too much time to learn how to use , and that was thirty four percent but even more important the thing that we did address in our last meeting that frequently it's lost somewhere in the room . Um so those are two things that we definitely do wanna address , uh we wanna s make it as simple as possible , we wanna make it um obvious and intuitive to use , and then the things about finding it we talked about the {disfmarker} a light emitting thing as well as uh maybe a beep , and I think that those are things after my research that we definitely wanna try to incorporate . 'Kay can we go to the next slide please ? Okay , so , my personal preferences in this um project are really have to concentrate on the sizzle . That is the selling point , the thing that's gonna make it an impulse purchase . Uh because once there's no be-back , well in sales they always say you know , be-backs don't come back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If somebody says , oh I'll come back and get it next week you're dead . They're never gonna come back and buy it . You've gotta make it attractive enough so they buy it now now now w now is a big word in in my book for selling this thing . And , in order to make it really sellable we've gotta shorten the learning curve , make sure it's really intuitive and easy to use . We have to have as few buttons as possible , because more buttons is more confusion , so that's why I'm saying , simplicity is good . Finding it's important , obviously you can't use it if you can't find it . So we've gotta concentrate on the features that help you find it , and I've already said this several times but I put it down in writing here , it should be an attractive impulse purchase at twenty five Euros . So it has to have enough value that when somebody looks at it they say , uh twenty five Euros I'm not gonna take that . Has to be so great that they're gonna say , uh twenty five Euros isn't much . Um and then maybe a motto , like we put fashion in electronics might be something we can use in our marketing campaign . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay that's uh about it for me right now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . And uh who would be next , uh , I guess that would be you . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah 'kay . +Project Manager: You want me to get your slide show up ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And you are number three ? +Industrial Designer: Number two , +Project Manager: Number two . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh can you make it uh full screen please ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Industrial Designer: No , it's like a well you you have to press here . The cup cup shape here ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: The thir third . +Project Manager: There , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly . Uh so today I'm going to talk about the working design of the remote controller . Um can you go to the next sli slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: The metal is like uh in a remote controller you have a chip integrated circuit which is like a brain of the remote controller . It takes the power from a battery say a battery it it can be a elec an electric supply like you have to uh like uh switch connec connect connect your remote controller to uh power supply from the you know electricity or something like that . It should be a battery because uh uh remote controller should be like you you you should take it t to wherever you want and then um uh th +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: this integrated circuitry takes energy from the power source and whatever like if you press a button it's like a input for the remote controller and it takes the input and it it transforms into a infro infrared bits and it sends it into the device , like a T_V_ or a air conditioner , something like that so . Uh a remote controller is specifically designed to a single device . If you want to design it for multiple devices then you should make all the devices compatible with the frequency like uh th the remote controller it sends some bits some uh waves like with a particular frequency the device should know what the frequency is . It should re re recognise the uh waves which are coming from the remote controller and it should take the action like if you press a button channel or something like that then uh the remote uh remote controller will send a send a se {vocalsound} send a signal , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Signal . +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ it should translate that into like change the channel or something like that , change the volume control +User Interface: Receive . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh so uh I think it's hard to design a remote controller for multiple uh devices . +User Interface: Multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yo and it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah well that's already been eliminated by management , so we're off the hook {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah {disfmarker} but it's so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Um . So uh user interface controls the chip and accordingly the messages like there should be a user user in interface like you know switch pad or something like that buttons should be there . So uh you can control whatever you want , you want to change the channel you want to control the volume you you want to uh mute uh mute the uh T_V_ or you want to have a child lock or you want to do some operations there's a {disfmarker} there should be some device to tell what to do to the uh in uh integrated circuit so that the integrated circuit can s send the signals and T_V_ can perform the actions . +Marketing: Mm okay . +Industrial Designer: So can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I I just would like to uh add some extra features to the remote controller um I think these are the very simple features and uh they don't take much uh uh much of the um um investment also , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it's like el the text or buttons which uh which are there on the uh remote controller they {disfmarker} those we can make uh um like fluorescent uh they'll be like light emitting if it is dark so that you can find your remote controller if it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And ther there should be a beep if many buttons are pressed if suppose a child is playing with the remote controller and a and she she or he is pressing the buttons all at the time then there should be a beep saying that it's {disfmarker} this this is not a a you know a a action , there can be no action taking to that so . And there should be a child lock , like uh uh you should be able to lock your remote controller so that uh um whatever buttons are pressed by a child they can't be like y you i you if you have ki kids and all then they'll be pl playing with the remote controllers so can lock the remote controller . If make it useable for more than one device it's a it's hard but I think it's possible +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah well that has been e that has been eliminated , so that's that's unfortunately a moot point now . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it uh +Marketing: Well we already eliminated that . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: Eliminated . +Industrial Designer: so it's it's okay , yeah , yeah . And uh different shapes that we can do like uh we can have you know a all animals shapes or you know comfortable uh whi which can fit into your hands +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and um so that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now that's good from a marketing point of view , the fun {disfmarker} the fun shape . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah and colours also , different colours , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm colours . +Marketing: And that {disfmarker} you you say that won't add too much to the budget ? +Industrial Designer: No no no , it won't uh I don't think it will be like , +Marketing: To d the shape is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you can have you know for uh if you want ther there to be more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It just build a mould basically and uh you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Industrial Designer: It's it's just a s shape so it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: As the budget we're looking at if you build one mould I don't think that's going to make a big difference whether it's gonna be square or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Do you think there's any chance of um having ser in {disfmarker} having basically the same machine with the same buttons but maybe several different shapes ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that is also possible I uh yeah I I yeah . +Project Manager: Oh yes . +Marketing: Is that gonna be a possible ? +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause that might help with the marketing . +Project Manager: I think we will have to look at the budget on that +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think in principle that that would be {disfmarker} that would be kind of fun , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Because we had something sort of sexy for adults and we could have something sort of +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Silly for children . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for children , yeah exactly . +Marketing: silly for children +Project Manager: Like an animal or {disfmarker} +Marketing: or a little animal shape or in a {disfmarker} or a little elephant so they can remember where it is . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like a doll , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And and the butto buttons also I think if you want to have more features in your remote controller then there should be more buttons . If there are more buttons then it will be more complicated . If you have less features then your remote controller won't be attractive , so I think uh we need to make some buttons which are {disfmarker} which are like um uh f in uh in intended for two or three operations , like if you press one button in one mode then it will change the channel , if you press the other button in another mode it will change the colour . So if you want to have less buttons we can have that option but I think it will complicate the matter more I think so . +Marketing: Mm . Well , I think {disfmarker} I think that that's something that we'll have to discuss um with the User Interface person +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yep , yeah . +Marketing: because I think there's a lot of argument to be made for one button for one feature . Because I think one of the things were complaining about in my {disfmarker} what I found out in my research is when they complained about how hard it is to learn a new one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The changing modes was something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's like you know {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: I mean you and I , all f all four of us we work with computers all the time , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: changing modes is nothing for us , but people who {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , a little elderly , a little arthritic hand you know , +Marketing: {vocalsound} N and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and and it's a small button and and it {disfmarker} they don't press it exactly +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know something else happens n not their favourite channel comes up but something else +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: and they're very frustrated you know . +User Interface: Something else . +Marketing: And that's {disfmarker} and that's the kind of thing people learn by feel , and um {vocalsound} you don't feel the mode change . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah you don't {vocalsound} us yeah yeah , usually . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So um maybe having buttons be various shapes might be a help too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah shapes also , different shapes . +Marketing: You know , like the {disfmarker} a triangle is for the volume and a square is for changing channels , so that people can uh develop a tactile sense of it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that will {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Channels . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: But we'll get to that with you . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah , and also text should be very clear so that there there won't be any ambiguities and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's right , yeah . Now that's a good point . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: So yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh display clock i if you want more features then we can display a clock it I I don't think it will take any money extra money because anyway we have an integrated circuit I think we can just definitely fit that feature into the circuit so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's that's a good {disfmarker} that's a good one , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we display a clock . +Marketing: because the clock would be really friendly , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and and when is your favourite show coming on +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and then you can just see your remote controller yeah yeah yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're sitting there already or maybe you have no other uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , and a lot of time there's not a clock on the screen , and you have to go somewhere but you just wanna look at the news for a minute . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's that's good , the clock is good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh can you go to the next slide please ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh components uh the main components we need for uh it ha like buttons and uh underneath that there should be switch . And uh bulbs . Like uh we can have a bulb like whenever we are operating a remote controller or uh whenever the T_V_ is on suppose , +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: then the remote controller should automatically have a b s light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Then it will be like if you switch on your T_V_ through anoth another source , not from {disfmarker} through a remote remote controller and you you lost your remote controller maybe you can find with the light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can have that . Whenever the T_V_ is on , remote controller will have a light . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then uh infrared bulbs . Um this is like uh when it is dark . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And battery , there should be a battery for power supply , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and a chip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: chip which is like a brain to the remote controller which does all the operations , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and wires connecting all chips , which is uh lights , everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so there should be wires . And uh uh of course there should be a case where we can keep all the things and , you know different shapes or whatever it is there should be a case to put to give a shape . +User Interface: To keep the remote ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Case . +User Interface: A case holder . A holder {disfmarker} remote holder . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , holder . +Project Manager: Holder , yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um uh can you move onto the next slide . Um next sli slide please . Um I have referred the site uh the homepage of the um our website , uh from where I have uh uh I got s few points . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's it , that's it from me now . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} um we should visit this site and have a look at uh what's up there ? Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Well , you don't have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's not like that , I have referred the page to get new ideas or like what can be the working design to how it works and all and so and so . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . So it might be helpful if we had a look at that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if you want . Yeah , it's okay . +Marketing: Okay , thank you . Could you go back to that slide where she had that uh s slide up Betsy ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's actually there now , there on the screen . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , okay , thank you . +Project Manager: And Francine ? +User Interface: Participant two . +Project Manager: You are number two ? +User Interface: Yes . No no , I'm three . +Project Manager: You're three . Would you want it full full screen ? +User Interface: I can make it full ? Yes yes yes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm ? Okay . +User Interface: Okay . As uh User Interface Designer I did a little research to find out what are the features which a user would like to have on their remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah can you please go onto the next slide ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I found out that uh but uh the main purpose of a remote is to uh f control the function of a television at a far off distance at remote distance . Now for that , uh a remote controller should have a switch on off button by which a user can sit anywhere in the room in front of the T_V_ and he can control the functionalities different functionalities of the T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There should be a signal uh something like a radio wave or a infrared light or a LED which can be used to change the different functionalities in the television if the user wants to uh change the channels or increase the volume he can change it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now there should be some timer to set for viewing a particular a particular programme or switching on and off a uh a particular programme according to the user choice . +Project Manager: On the on on the remote . Yeah , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . So if if he want to view a particular programme at say nine o'clock he can set the time , and the T_V_ will automatically it will switch on at that particular time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Right . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So he can use that kind of uh uh properties of features and then there should be a child lock system if a particular channel is not to be viewed by a particular uh for a certain age , then the parents can lock that particular channel so that the ch children cannot view that channel . +Project Manager: Yes . By your child , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh the uh the uh and the {disfmarker} one of the feature a user would like to have is the compactness of the co remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh t the remote should be compact and it should ha it should have as many buttons as possible for controlling different functionalities of the T_V_ television . And um uh as uh uh this is my personal preference that it should be in the shape of a T_ in alphabet for more compactability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And uh and uh and it is one more point which I noted it down , like uh the material which which which is used for remotes should be human friendly it should not cause any skin disease or something some al allergy to either children or to um ad adult person . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it should have an uh it can have an alarm clock a a person if some if somebody wants to get up at around eight eight P_M_ then he can set the time and it can be used as an alarm clock , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and I don't think it will cost much to set an alarm clock inside a remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: If there is a clock then there can be a alarm clock . +User Interface: Yes , +Marketing: And an alarm clock , yeah that should {disfmarker} that should be okay . +User Interface: and as John Reece said the buttons can be , uh can me we can use the fluorescence to light up the buttons so different uh buttons will glow differently . So in even in the dark the user can know what buttons to use to switch on a particular channel . And uh uh the design of the uh um remote should be in such a way that there should not be any sharp projections so that if a child plays with a remote , he uh he should not be harmed in any way . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And findings , uh I found out uh y um on different sites that uh there are different remotes which can be used , there are remotes which use the infrared for controlling the different functionalities , there are remotes which use the radio waves to control the functions and there are uh {disfmarker} So uh there you have different uh types of remotes for different light source which are used {disfmarker} which can be used for controlling the different functionalities of a television . Next slide . And these are my few personal preferences like it can be used for a multipurpose use . Not , uh no uh like it can {disfmarker} it can be used as a T_V_ control as plus an alarm clock to set an alarm a timing and it should have a child lock , and then to save electricity uh there should not be uh much s move uh lots of circuits and all that . And if a person if if if parents wants the television to be switched off by ten o'clock then it should be switched off ten o at ten o'clock automatically , so that nobody else comes later and use it . +Industrial Designer: It's like a t okay , it's like a timer {gap} it's like a lock to the television . +Project Manager: Timer , yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Timer . Yeah and then you can use a timer as well . Yes . Yeah that's it . +Project Manager: Uh okay , now I have {disfmarker} On my slide show basically we already {disfmarker} we have already done the agenda , and uh on the closing uh basically there will be lunch break and all that . However uh the decision we have to take in this meeting is who is our target group . And uh what function , working design , how how does it work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: So these are the two things we should come up wit with . So uh the first thing is pro maybe a little easier on uh who is our target group . Um . I guess in many ways everybody . Everybody who has a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm , T_V_ , yeah . +User Interface: T_V_ television we was . +Project Manager: Yeah , and I think today there are probably not many people who don't have a T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Don't T_V_ , yeah . +Project Manager: There are a few but in general not . {vocalsound} Now , talking about the target group which is in a sense everybody , but I think within the target group we have subgroups . We have {disfmarker} we have earlier it was mentioned about um for example elderly people who have limited function with their fingers and hands , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so I think that's uh one group that's certainly important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we have just the nervous people who can never press a little button on anything um unless it's really very clear . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how much we want to cater to children's use . I mean that's a question um whether that's important that children can really use it or not . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So this {disfmarker} these are just some thoughts I have on it , and um I dunno what you feel about whether we can just say we have one target group and for this one target group we're gonna design this one thing {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: or whether we're looking at what we like we we talking about different shapes , whether that different shape also includes maybe different uh buttons uh for different groups . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well you know there's the old motto , children under six never shop alone . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if you've designed something that's very attractive to children um the mummy please mummy please um you know we want it now we wanna go to the store and see it um that has uh a lot of marketing pull . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That has a lot of {disfmarker} that has a lot of appeal but I think uh I'm I'm talking about the functionality now on it whether we're looking at different groups . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: I think the children issue can be addressed with the shape and with colours . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You know , like you make it nice and pink , fluorescent , banana colour or whatever {vocalsound} you know +User Interface: Different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: You can make a banana shaped one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , for example you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: But the question is really , who is our target group . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do we look at one target group ? {vocalsound} And with the twenty five Euros you know can we can we afford to have uh I'm asking the technical people here whether um to look at sort of subgroups with maybe different buttons for each group how much would that throw us out of the cost we are supposed to respect ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Respect . Mm . +User Interface: Okay . No uh generally we can we can design a remote which is mainly for people with uh f age from ten to um forty +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: and and then we can add on uh specific functional buttons for children as well as the elderly people or the people wit with who have nervous problems , yes . +Project Manager: With with {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: We can design different remotes for different people , like for aged people there will be big buttons and you know . +Project Manager: Well that's that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: But in a family {disfmarker} in a family there will be a aged person , children and a middle aged but they cannot buy three different remotes . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah . Children and everybody , yeah . +User Interface: They would like to buy just one and um just one which can be used all the three uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course that we can do , but specifically if y if like elderly people want big buttons then you can't really make a bi big remote controller so maybe specifically you can design a big con remote controller for elderly and for children , like in a different you know . +Marketing: What about the electronics ? That's not really gonna change much , is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Cost effective . +Industrial Designer: No , it it doesn't cost , yeah . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {vocalsound} that w that won't change much , will it uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Doesn't doesn't doesn't matter . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The the quest the question to be addressed here is only who is the target group and how will it function , +Marketing: I d I wouldn't think so . +Project Manager: and I think the how will it function is probably the question of the buttons you know , within the target group or subgroups . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: The question is only whether our budget will allow to have more than one design in a sense . I mean the basic design I understand will be the same , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but the question is how much will that set us back if let's say {vocalsound} uh forty percent we make large buttons and the rest we make regular buttons for example . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that remains to s to be seen but {vocalsound} uh the target group as a whole is is basically everybody with a T_V_ . +Marketing: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and can we {disfmarker} can we is it even feasible to make one one remote control with something for everyone , or would we have to use the same electronics and make three different shapes ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well that's that's the question . +Marketing: Um the same electronics and basically all that's gonna be different is the plastic case . +Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm . +Marketing: And in that case we could probabl moulded plastic isn't all that expensive is it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh no . Mm , I I I don't think no . It's not . +Marketing: Um you as an industrial person ? +Project Manager: Well maybe there's {disfmarker} there's an idea you know t the new for example new portable phones ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: They have like removable plastic cases , so you can have a striped one or you can have a fluorescent blue one , or whatever , +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and maybe something like that , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: that in each package you know you have {disfmarker} you you have {disfmarker} you have for example uh {vocalsound} you have let's say a fluorescent blue on it but then you have uh another colour or stripe whatever that already comes in a package . +Marketing: Well there's a real idea yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: And then if people really want more colours they can buy it separately . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , like for mobile phones we have uh different you know covers , like designs and all so that w we can have that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's right , +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} but like if if then everybody is is is tired of the fluorescent blue and of the striped or whatever they have as another one in the package , +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Project Manager: then they can go to the store and for a few uh Francs or Euros whatever they can buy +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: An alternate package . +Project Manager: an alternate package with another two colours in it you know for example you know . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: But uh yeah I I have a doubt like will it be cost wise effective if we {disfmarker} if we design a remote having all the uh different features for different people or designing three different um remotes for three different categories of people . +Project Manager: Well I think {disfmarker} I think the idea here is to uh to to d design one remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I think we can only aff {gap} , yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: and what the only change is gonna be um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: the funct d t yeah uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cosmetic . +User Interface: Of th okay . +Project Manager: the functional {vocalsound} functional cosmetics if you want to put it that way , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: um having maybe larger buttons or buttons that light up or buttons that are slightly differently shaped for people uh either for children um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Five minutes that was I guess tha that's the old message . +Marketing: Warning , finish meeting now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Um um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we may have to come back to one or two of these points at our next meeting but um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: But I think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we do some more research , maybe we {gap} . +Project Manager: I I think to sum it up the target group is basically everybody . If money permits we can address some features for some subgroups within that . +User Interface: Okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm yeah , +Project Manager: Do we agree , do we ? +Industrial Designer: I think maybe seventy percent is a unique uh uh remote controller and thirty percent is yeah it's sort of like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay but we have to l +Project Manager: Do we agree on on that in principle , like money will tell whether we will be able to do that or not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , of course , yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? So now I understand it's lunch break . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um . So that's what we will do . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So hank you very much . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: And we'll see you after lunch . +","Project Manager initiated a meeting with the Industrial Designer, Marketing, and User Interface team members to discuss the functionality and design of a new remote control. Marketing emphasized the importance of collecting a wide range of suggestions that are feasible by design and budget. They highlighted that the product must have an attractive ""sizzle"" for impulse purchases, be user-friendly, and ready for the Christmas market at 25 Euros. The Industrial Designer discussed technical aspects and suggested features like a light-emitting button and a beep for lost remotes. User Interface talked about creating a design that would suit users of different ages, from children to the elderly, and include features like timer setting, child lock, and compactness. Project Manager interjected with instructions from higher management that the remote should primarily control TVs and maintain the corporate image. The team agreed the target group is broad, but subgroups may have specific needs that should be considered within budget constraints. They concluded that they might return to these points in the next meeting and then proceeded to take a lunch break." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so . If we can't , we can't . But uh we 're gonna try to make this an abbreviated meeting cuz the {disfmarker} the next {disfmarker} next occupants were pushing for it , so . Um . So . Agenda is {disfmarker} according to this , is transcription status , DARPA demos XML tools , disks , backups , et cetera and +Grad H: Does anyone have anything to {pause} add to the agenda ? +Professor B: OK . Should we just go in order ? Transcription status ? Who 's {disfmarker} that 's probably you . +Postdoc A: I can do that quickly . Um I hired several more transcribers , They 're making great progress . +Professor B: Seven ? +Postdoc A: Seve - several , several . +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc A: And uh {disfmarker} and uh , uh I 've been uh finishing up the uh double checking . I hoped to have had that done by today but it 's gonna take one more week . +Grad H: Um +PhD D: I g +Grad H: as a somewhat segue into the next topic , um could I get a hold of uh the data even if it 's not really corrected yet just so I can get the data formats and make sure the information retrieval stuff is working ? +Postdoc A: Certainly . Yeah I mean , it 's in the same place it 's been . +Grad H: So can you just {disfmarker} Oh , it is . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . No change . +Grad H: OK . Just {disfmarker} So , "" transcripts "" is the sub - directory ? +Postdoc A: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . Uh - huh . +Grad H: OK . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll probably just make some copies of those rather than use the ones that are there . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then just {disfmarker} we 'll have to remember to delete them once the corrections are made . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK , wh +PhD D: I also got anot a short remark to the transcription . I 've uh just processed the first five EDU meetings and they are chunked up so they would {disfmarker} they probably can be sent to IBM whenever they want them . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD F: Well the second one of those +PhD D: Yep . It 's already at IBM , +PhD F: is already at IBM . +PhD D: but the other ones {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's the one that {pause} we 're waiting to hear from them on . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: These are separate from the ones that {disfmarker} +PhD F: As soon as {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I mean , these are {disfmarker} +PhD F: They 're the IBM set . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad H: It 's this one . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Good . +PhD F: Yeah . And so as soon as we hear from Brian that this one is OK +Grad H: Is my mike on ? Yeah . +PhD F: and we get the transcript back and we find out that hopefully there are no problems matching up the transcript with what we gave them , then uh we 'll be ready to go and we 'll just send them the next four as a big batch , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD F: and let them work on that . +Grad H: And so we 're doing those as disjoint from the ones we 're transcribing here ? +PhD F: Yes , exactly . +Grad H: OK , good . +PhD F: We 're sort of doing things in parallel , that way we can get as much done a at once . +Grad H: Yeah , I think that 's the right way to do it , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: especially for the information retrieval stuff . Anything else on transcription status ? +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: DARPA demos , we had the submeeting the other day . +Grad H: Right , which uh {disfmarker} So I 've been working on using the THISL tools to do information retrieval on meeting data and the THISL tools are {disfmarker} there 're two sets , there 's a back - end and a front - end , so the front - end is the user interface and the back - end is the indexing tool and the querying tool . And so I 've written some tools to convert everything into the right for file formats . And the command line version of the indexing and the querying is now working . So at least on the one meeting that I had the transcript for uh conveniently you can now do information retrieval on it , do {disfmarker} type in a {disfmarker} a string and get back a list of start - end times for the meeting , +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what kind of uh {disfmarker} what does that look like ? The string that you type in . +Grad H: uh of hits . +PhD F: What are you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} are they keywords , or are they {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Keywords . +PhD F: OK . I see . +Grad H: Right ? And so {disfmarker} and then it munges it to pass it to the THISL IR which uses an SGML - like format for everything . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: And then does it play something back or that 's something you 're having to program ? +Grad H: Um , right now , I have a tool that will do that on a command line using our standard tools , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: but my intention is to do a prettier user interface based either {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so that 's the other thing I wanted to discuss , is well what should we do for the user interface ? We have two tools that have already been written . Um the SoftSound guys did a web - based one , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: um , which I haven't used , haven't looked at . Dan says it 's pretty good +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: but it does mean you need to be running a web server . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And so it {disfmarker} it 's pretty big and complex . Uh and it would be difficult to port to Windows because it means porting the web server to Windows . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Uh the other option is Dan did the Tcl - TK THISL GUI front - end for Broadcast News +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: which I think looks great . I think that 's a nice demo . Um and that would be much easier to port to Windows . And so I think that 's the way we should go . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} Can I ask a question ? So um as it stands within the {disfmarker} the Channeltrans interface , it 's possible to do a find and a play . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: You can find a searched string and play . So e Are you {disfmarker} So you 're adding like um , I don't know , uh are they fuzzy matches or are they {pause} uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: It 's a sort of standard , text - retrieval - based {disfmarker} So it 's uh term frequency , inverse document frequency scoring . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then there are all sorts of metrics for spacing how far apart they have to be and things like that . So it {disfmarker} it 's +Postdoc A: It 's a lot more sophisticated than the uh the basically Windows - based {disfmarker} +Grad H: i it 's like doing a Google query or anyth anything else like that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: So i it uses {disfmarker} So it pr produces an index ahead of time so you don't {disfmarker} you 're not doing a linear search through all the documents . Cuz you can imagine if {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} if we have the sixty hours ' worth you do {disfmarker} wouldn't wanna do a search . +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . Good . +Grad H: Um you have to do preindexing and so that {disfmarker} these tools do all that . And so the work to get the front - end to work would be porting it {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} uh to get it to work on the UNIX systems , our side is just rewriting them and modifying them to work for meetings . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So that it understands that they 're different speakers and that it 's one big audio file instead of a bunch of little ones and just sorta things like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So what does the user see as the result of the query ? +Grad H: On which tool ? +PhD F: THISL . +Grad H: The THISL GUI tool which is the one that Dan wrote , Tcl - TK +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: um you type in a query and then you get back a list of hits and you can type on them and listen to them . Click on them rather {comment} with a mouse . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Mmm +PhD F: So if you typed in "" small heads "" or something you could +Grad H: Right , you 'd get {disfmarker} +PhD F: get back a uh uh {comment} something that would let you click and listen to some audio where that phrase had occurred +Grad H: something {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 'd get to listen to "" beep "" . +PhD F: or some +Professor B: That was a really good look . It 's too bad that that couldn't {vocalsound} come into the {disfmarker} +Grad H: You couldn't get a video . +PhD G: Guess who I practice on ? +Postdoc A: At some point we 're gonna have to say what that private joke is , that keeps coming up . +Professor B: Yeah . And then again , maybe not . So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that soun that sounds reasonable . Yeah , it loo it {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my recollection of it is it 's {disfmarker} it 's a pretty reasonable uh demo sort of format . +Grad H: Right . +PhD F: Yeah that sounds good . +Grad H: And so I think there 'd be minimal effort to get it to work , minimally +PhD F: That sounds really neat . +Grad H: and then we 'd wanna add things like query by speaker and by meeting and all that sort of stuff . Um Dave Gelbart expressed some interest in working on that so I 'll work with him on it . And it {disfmarker} it 's looking pretty good , you know , the fact that I got the query system working . So if we wanna just do a video - based one I think that 'll be easy . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: If we wanna get it to Windows it 's gonna be a little more work because the THISL IR , the information retrieval tool 's {disfmarker} um , I had difficulty just compiling them on Solaris . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So getting them to compile on Windows might be challenging . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But you were saying that {disfmarker} that the uh {disfmarker} that there 's that set of tools , uh , Cygnus tools , that {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . It certainly helps . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad H: Um , I mean without those I wouldn't even attempt it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: But what those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} what those do is provide sort of a BSD compatibility layer , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: so that the normal UNIX function calls all work . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And you have to have all the o +Grad H: Um , But the problem is that {disfmarker} that the THISL tools didn't use anything like Autoconf and so you have the normal porting problems of different header files and th some things are defined and some things aren't and uh different compiler work - arounds and so on . So the fact that um it took me a day to get it c to compile under Solaris means it 's probably gonna take me s significantly more than that to get it to compile under Windows . +Professor B: How about having it run under free BSD ? +PhD E: Well what you need {disfmarker} +Grad H: Free BSD would probably be easier . +PhD E: All you need to do is say to Dan "" gee it would be nice if this worked under Autoconf "" and it 'll be done in a day . +Grad H: That 's true . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? +Grad H: Actually you know I should check because he did port it to SPRACHcore +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: so he might have done that already . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wouldn't be surprised . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I 'll check at that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it would {disfmarker} what would serve {disfmarker} would serve both purposes , is if you contact him and ask him if he 's already done it . +PhD E: What I {disfmarker} +PhD F: How does it play ? +Grad H: Yeah , right . +Professor B: If he has then you learn , if he hasn't then he 'll do it . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc A: Wow . +PhD F: I hope he never listens to these meetings . +Grad H: That 's right . So , and I 've been corresponding with Dan and also with uh uh , SoftSound guy , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's amazing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Blanking on his name . +Professor B: Tony Robinson ? +PhD F: Tony Robinson ? +Grad H: Do I mean Tony ? I guess I do . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: James Christie . +Grad H: Or S or Steve Renals . +Professor B: Steve Renal - Steve Renals . +Grad H: Which one do I mean ? +PhD E: Steve Renals is not SoftSound , is he ? +Professor B: No . +Grad H: My brain is not working , +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't remember who I 've been corresponding with . +PhD E: Steve wro i it 's Ste - Steve Renals wrote THISL IR . +Grad H: Then it 's Steve Renals . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD E: OK . +Grad H: So uh just getting documentation and uh and f and formats , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so that 's all going pretty well , +Professor B: Assuming we 're {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: What about issues of playing sound files @ @ between the two platforms ? +Grad H: I think we 'll be OK with that . Um we have {disfmarker} Well , that 's a good point too . +PhD E: Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a crazy idea {pause} actually . +Grad H: I don't know . +PhD E: Why don't you try and merge {pause} Transcriber {pause} and THISL IR ? They 're both Tcl interfaces . +Grad H: Well this is one of the reasons {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} one of the reasons that I 'm gonna have uh Dave Gelbart {disfmarker} Gelbart {disfmarker} Having him volunteer to work on it is a really good thing because he 's worked on the Transcriber stuff +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: and he 's more familiar with Tcl - TK than I am . +PhD E: And then you get {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} then you get the Windows media playing for free . +Grad H: Well that 's Snack , not {disfmarker} not Transcriber . +PhD E: Right . But the point is that the Transcriber uses Snack and then you can {disfmarker} but you can use a {disfmarker} a lot of the same functionality and it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think THISL {disfmarker} THISL GUI probably uses Snack . And so my intention was just to base it on that . +PhD E: Yeah . Well my thought was is that it would be nice {disfmarker} it would be nice to have the running transcripts um eh you know , from speaker to speaker . +Grad H: And if it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? Do you have {disfmarker} you have , you know , a speaker mark here and a speaker mark here ? +Grad H: Right , we 'll have to figure out a user interface for that , so . +PhD E: Right . Well that {disfmarker} eh my thought was if you had like Multitrans or whatever do it . Or whatever . +Grad H: Yeah . It might be fairly difficult to get that to work in {comment} the little short segments we 'd be talking about and having the search tools and so on . We {disfmarker} we can look into it , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: The thing I was asking about with , um , free BSD is that it might be easier to get PowerPoint shows running in free BSD than to get this other package running in {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I mean we have to {disfmarker} I have to sit down and try it before I make too many judgments , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so uh Um My experience with the Gnu compatibility library is really it 's just as hard and just as easy to port to any system . Right ? The Windows system isn't any harder because it {disfmarker} it looks like a BSD system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: It 's just , you know , just like all of them , the "" include "" files are a little different and the function calls are a little different . +Professor B: Right . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} it might be a little easier but it 's not gonna be a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . So there was that demo , which was one of the main ones , then we talked about um some other stuff which would basically be um showing off the {disfmarker} the Transcriber interface itself and as you say , maybe we could even merge those in some sense , but {disfmarker} but um , uh {disfmarker} and part of that was showing off what the speech - non uh nonspeech {comment} stuff that Thilo has done {pause} s {pause} looks like . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can I ask one more thing about THISL ? So with the IR stuff then you end up with a somewhat prioritized um {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Grad H: ranked . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD G: So another idea I w t had just now actually for the demo was whether it might be of interest to sh to show some of the prosody uh {vocalsound} work that Don 's been doing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um actually show some of the features and then show for instance a task like finding sentence boundaries or finding turn boundaries . Um , you know , you can show that graphically , sort of what the features are doing . It , you know , it doesn't work great but it 's definitely giving us something . +Professor B: Well I think at {disfmarker} at the very least we 're gonna want something illustrative with that +PhD G: I don't know if that would be of interest or not . +Professor B: cuz I 'm gonna want to talk about it and so i if there 's something that shows it graphically it 's much better than me just having a bullet point +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: pointing at something I don't know much about , +PhD G: I mean , you 're looking at this now {disfmarker} +Professor B: so . +PhD G: Are you looking at Waves or Matlab ? +Grad C: Um yeah I 'm starting to and um {disfmarker} Yeah we can probably find some examples of different type of prosodic events going on . +PhD G: Yeah def +Professor B: S so when we here were having this demo meeting , what we 're sort of coming up with is that we wanna have all these pieces together , to first order , by the end of the month +PhD G: I +Professor B: and then that 'll give us a week or so . +Grad C: Ooo . The end of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh , the end of this month or next month ? Oh , you mean like today ? +Grad H: This month . +Professor B: Ju +PhD G: Oh . +Professor B: June . June . June . +PhD G: Next month . +Grad H: Oh sorry , next month . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Sorry . +Grad H: Today isn't June first , +PhD F: There 's another one . +Grad H: is it . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll give us {disfmarker} that 'll give us a week or so to uh {disfmarker} to port things over to my laptop and make sure that works , +PhD E: Exactly . +PhD G: Sorry . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD G: I think , I mean eh where {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I mean I 'll be here . +PhD G: Yeah if d if Don can sort of talk to whoever 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: cuz we 're doing this anyway as part of our {disfmarker} you know , the research , visualizing what these features are doing +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: and so either {disfmarker} it might not be integrated but it {disfmarker} it could potentially be in it . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , this is to an audience of researchers +PhD G: Could find some . +Professor B: so I mean , you know , to let s the goal is to let them know what it is we 're doing . +PhD G: I mean it 's different . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't think anyone has done this on meeting data so it might be neat , you know . +Professor B: Yeah . Good . Done with that . XML tools ? +Grad H: Um . So I 've been doing a bunch of XML tools where you {disfmarker} we 're sort of moving to XML as the general format for everything and I think that 's definitely the right way to go because there are a lot of tools that let you do extraction and reformatting of XML tools . Um . So yet again we should probably meet to talk about transcription formats in XML because I 'm not particularly happy with what we have now . I mean it works with Transcriber but it {disfmarker} it 's a pain to use it in other tools uh because it doesn't mark start and end . +PhD F: Start and end of each {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh {disfmarker} Utterance . +PhD F: Utterance . Just marks {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So it 's implicit in {disfmarker} in there +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: but you have to do a lot of processing to get it . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad H: And so {disfmarker} and also I 'd like to do the indirect time line business . Um but regardless , I mean , w that 's something that you , me , and Jane can talk about later . Um , but I 've installed XML tools of various sorts in various languages and so if people are interested in doing {disfmarker} extracting any information from any of these files , either uh information on users because the user database is that way {disfmarker} I 'm converting the Key files to XML so that you can extract m uh various inf uh sorted information on individual meetings +Grad C: Cool . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and then also the transcripts . And so l just let me know there {disfmarker} it 's mostly Java and Perl but we can get other languages too if {disfmarker} if that 's desirable . +PhD G: Oh , quick question on that . Is {disfmarker} do we have the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the seat information ? In {disfmarker} in the Key files now ? +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: The seat information is on the Key files for the ones which +Postdoc A: Ah . +PhD G: Oh in {disfmarker} For the new one +Grad H: it 's been recorded , +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: yeah . +Professor B: Seat ? +PhD G: Great . Sea - yeah . +Grad H: Where {disfmarker} where you 're sitting . +Professor B: Oh ! Not {disfmarker} not the quality or anything . No . +PhD D: n +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: OK . I see . +Grad H: "" It 's pretty soft and squishy . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Oh , but that might just be me . Um . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: That 's more seat information than we wanted . +PhD G: Never mind . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD G: I 'm just trying to figure out , you know , when Morgan 's voice appears on someone 's microphone are they next to him or are they across from him ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Maybe we should bleep that out . +Professor B: Mmm , yeah . +PhD F: Wait a minute , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: how {disfmarker} how w eh where is it in the Key file ? +Grad H: Right . The square bracket . +PhD G: Cuz I mean I haven't been putting it in and {disfmarker} in by {disfmarker} +Grad H: You haven't been putting it in . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc A: Well bu +PhD G: I have not . +Grad H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits ? +Professor B: Some of these are missing . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Aren't they ? +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits forms ? +Professor B: Some fall out of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well it +Grad H: Yeah so we can go back and fill them in for the ones we have . +Grad C: Ooo . +PhD G: I mean they 're on th right , these , but I just hadn't ever been putting it in the Key files . +PhD F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I never {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I don't think Chuck was either +PhD F: I never knew we were supposed to put it in the Key file . +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +Grad H: I had told you guys about it +PhD F: Oh really ? +PhD G: Oh , so we 're both sorry . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean this is why I wanna use a g a tool to do it rather than the plain text +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: because with the plain text it 's very easy to skip those things . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: So . Um if you use the Edit - key , or Key - edit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Edit - key . +Grad H: I think it 's Edit - key , {comment} command {disfmarker} Did I show you guys that ? +PhD D: Yep . +PhD F: You mentioned it , +Grad H: I did show it to you , +PhD F: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: but I think you both said "" no , you 'll just use text file "" . +PhD F: Text . +Grad H: Um it has it in there , a place to fill it in . +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , and so if you don't fill it in , you 're not gonna get it in the meetings . +PhD G: So if {disfmarker} Right . Well I {disfmarker} I just realized I hadn't been doing it +Grad H: So . +PhD G: and probably {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Grad C: u +Grad H: Yeah and then the other thing also that Thilo noticed is , on the microphone , on channel zero it says hand - held mike or Crown mike , +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Grad H: you actually have to say which one . +PhD G: I know {disfmarker} Yeah , I usually delete the {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . I didn't do that either . +PhD G: I don't , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: maybe I forgot to d +PhD F: Takes me no time at all to edit these . +PhD G: But it 's almost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah that 's cuz you kn +PhD F: I 'm not doing anything . +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I know why . +PhD G: And I was {disfmarker} I was looking at Chuck 's , like , "" oh what did Chuck do , OK I 'll do that "" . So . +Grad H: And then uh also in a couple of places instead of filling the participants under "" participants "" they were filled in under "" description "" . +Professor B: Ah , OK . +PhD G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so that 's also a problem . So anyway . +PhD G: We will do better . +Grad H: That 's it . Oh uh also I 'm working on another version of this tool , the {disfmarker} the one that shows up here , {comment} that will flash yellow if the mike isn't connected . And it 's not quite ready to go yet because um it 's hard to tell whether the mike 's connected or not because the best quality ones , the Crown ones , {comment} are about the same level if they 're off and no one 's o off or if they 're on and no one 's talking . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad H: Um these {disfmarker} these ones , they are much easier , there 's a bigger difference . So I 'm working on that and it {disfmarker} it sorta works and so eventually we will change to that and then you 'll be able to see graphically if your mike is dropping in or out . +Grad C: Will that also include like batteries dying ? Just a any time the mike 's putting out zeros basically . +Grad H: Yep . Yep . Yep . +PhD F: But with the screensaver kicking in , it {disfmarker} +PhD D: But +Grad H: Now {disfmarker} +PhD D: y yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'll turn off the screensaver too . +Grad C: Oops . Speaking of which . +Grad H: Um the other thing is as I 've said before , it is actually on the thing . There 's a little level meter but of course no one ever pays attention to it . So I think having it on the screen is more easy to notice . +Postdoc A: It would be nice if {disfmarker} if these had little light indicators , little L E Ds for {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh buzzer . +Postdoc A: Yeah , a buzzer . +Grad H: "" Bamp , bamp ! "" +Professor B: Small shocks +Postdoc A: Yeah . Actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: administered to the {disfmarker} OK . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , disk backup , et cetera ? Um I spoke with Dave Johnson about putting all the Meeting Recorder stuff on non - backed - up disk to save the overhead of backup and he pretty much said "" yeah , you could do that if you want "" but he thought it was a bad idea . In fact what he said is doing the manual one , {comment} doing uh NW archive to copy it {comment} is a good idea and we should do that and have it backed up . He w he 's a firm believer in {disfmarker} in lots of different modalities of backup . I mean , his point was well taken . This data cannot be recovered . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: And so if a mistake is made and we lose the backup we should have the archive and if then a mistake is made and we lose the archive we should have the backup . +Professor B: Well I guess it is true that even with something that 's backed up it 's not gonna {disfmarker} if it 's stationary it 's not going to go through the increment it 's not gonna burden things in the incremental backups . +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} just the monthly full . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , so the monthly full will be a bear but {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . But he said that {disfmarker} that we sh shouldn't worry too much about that , that we 're getting a new backup system and we 're far enough away from saturation on full backups that it 's w probably OK . +Professor B: Really ? +Grad H: And uh , so the only issue here is the timing between getting more disks and uh recording meetings . +Professor B: So I guess the idea is that we would be reserving the non - backed - up space for things that took less than twenty - four hours to recreate or something like that , right ? +Grad H: Things that are recreatable easily and also {disfmarker} Yeah , basically things that are recreatable . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: The expanded files and things like that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: They take up a lot more room anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh but we do need more disk . +Professor B: So we can get more disk . Yeah . So . +Grad H: Yeah . And I {disfmarker} I think I agree with him . I mean his point was well taken that if we lose one of these we cannot get it back . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't think there was any other et cetera there . +Professor B: Well I was allowing someone else to come up with something related that they had uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I thought you guys were gonna burn C Ds ? +Grad H: Um unfortunately {disfmarker} we could burn C Ds but first of all it 's a pain . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Because you have to copy it down to the PC and then burn it and that 's a multi - step procedure . And second of all the {disfmarker} the write - once burners as opposed to a professional press don't last . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I think burning them for distribution is fine but burning them for backup is not a good idea . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Grad H: Cuz th they {disfmarker} they fail after a couple years . +PhD E: Alright . +Postdoc A: I do have uh uh {disfmarker} It 's a different topic . Can I add one top topic ? We have time ? I wanted to ask , I know that uh that Thilo you were , um , bringing the Channeltrans interface onto the Windows machine ? And I wanted to know is th +PhD D: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Basically it 's done , +Postdoc A: It 's all done ? That 's g wonderful . Great . +PhD D: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yes , since Tcl - TK runs on it , basically things 'll just work . +PhD D: Yeah it {disfmarker} Yeah , it was just a problem with the Snack version and the Transcriber version but it 's solved . +Postdoc A: Does {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} does that mean , I {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Postdoc A: maybe I should know this but I don't . Does this mean that the {disfmarker} that this could be por uh ported to a Think - Pad note or some other type of uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , basically uh I did install it on my laptop and yeah +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +PhD D: it worked . +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +Professor B: Hmm ! Good . CrossPads ? CrossPads ? +Grad H: Uh got an email from uh James Landay who basically said "" if you 're not using them , could you return them ? "" So he said he doesn't need them , he just periodically w at the end of each term sends out email to everyone who was recorded as having them and asks them if they 're still using them . +Professor B: So we 've never used them . +Postdoc A: We used them once . +Professor B: Once ? +Grad H: We {disfmarker} we used them a couple times , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Couple times . +PhD F: Them ? There 's more than one ? +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: i +Grad H: Yeah , we have two . Um . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Grad H: My opinion on it is , first , I never take notes anyway so I 'm not gonna use it , um and second , it 's another level of infrastructure that we have to deal with . +Postdoc A: And I have {disfmarker} uh so my {disfmarker} my feeling on it is that I think in principle it 's a really nice idea , and you have the time tags which makes it better tha than just taking ra raw notes . On the other hand , I {disfmarker} the down side for me was that I think the pen is really noisy . So you have ka kaplunk , kaplunk , kaplunk . And I {disfmarker} and I don't know if it 's audible on the {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I sort of thought that was a disadvantage . I do take notes , I mean , I could be taking notes on these things and I guess the plus with the CrossPads would be the time markings but {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: Uh , what is a CrossPad ? +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} it 's a regular pad , just a regular pad of paper but there 's this pen which indicates position . +Grad C: Thank you . +Professor B: And so you have time and position stuff stored +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: so that you can {disfmarker} you have a record of whatever it is you 've written . +PhD D: OK . +Grad H: And then you can download it and they have OCR and searching and all sorts of things . +PhD D: OK . OK . +Grad H: So i if you take notes it 's a great little device . +Postdoc A: Could {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad H: But I don't take notes , +Professor B: And one of the reasons that it was brought up originally was because uh we were interested in {disfmarker} in higher - level things , +Grad H: so . +Professor B: not just the , you know , microphone stuff but also summarization and so forth and the question is if you were going to go to some gold standard of what wa what was it that happened in the meeting you know , where would it come from ? And um I think that was one of the things , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: right ? And so the {disfmarker} it seemed like a neat idea . We 'll have a {disfmarker} you know , have a scribe , have somebody uh take good notes and then that 's part of the record of the meeting . And then we did it once or twice and we sort of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , and then just sort of died out . +Professor B: probably chose the wrong scribe but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah that 's right . +Postdoc A: Well I did it one time +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc A: but um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: u but I guess the {disfmarker} the other thing I 'm thinking is if we wanted that kind of thing I wonder if we 'd lose that much by having someone be a scribe by listening to the tape , to the recording afterwards and taking notes in some other interface . +PhD F: I mean we 're transcribing it anyways , why do we need notes ? +Postdoc A: Oh it 's la it 's useful , +Grad H: Because that 's summary . +Postdoc A: have a summary and high points . +Professor B: Summary . +PhD G: I think {disfmarker} there 's also {disfmarker} there 's this use that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Summarize it from the transcription . +PhD G: the {disfmarker} Well , what if you 're sitting there and you just wanna make an X and you don't wanna take notes and you 're {disfmarker} you just wanna +PhD F: Doodle . +PhD G: get the summary of the transcript from this time location like {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and then while you 're bored you don't do anything and once in a while , maybe there 's a joke and you put a X and {disfmarker} {comment} But {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in other words you can use that just to highlight times in a very simple way . Also with {disfmarker} I was thinking and I know Morgan disagrees with me on this but suppose you have a group in here and you wanna let them note whenever they think there might be something later that they might not wanna distribute in terms of content , they could just sort of make an X near that point or a question mark that sort of alerts them that when they get the transcript back they c could get some red flags in that transcript region and they can then look at it . So . I know we haven't been using it but I w I can imagine it being useful just for sort of marking time periods +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: which you then get back in a transcript +Postdoc A: Well . +Professor B: I guess {disfmarker} so , you know , what {disfmarker} what makes one think i is maybe we should actually schedule some periods where people go over something later +PhD G: so . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and put some kind of summary or something uh you know , some {disfmarker} there 'd be some scribe who would actually listen , w who 'd agreed to actually listen to the whole thing , not transcribe it , but just sort of write down things that struck them as important . But {disfmarker} then you don't {disfmarker} you don't have the time reference uh that you 'd have if you had it live . +PhD G: Right . And you don't have a lot of other cues that might be useful , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: How do you synchronize the time in the CrossPad and the time of the recording ? +PhD G: so . +Grad H: I mean that was one of the issues we talked about originally and that that 's w part of the difficulty is that we need an infrastructure for using the time {disfmarker} the CrossPads and so that means synchronizing the time {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: You know you want it pretty close and there 's a fair amount of skew because it 's a hand - held unit with a battery +Postdoc A: Well when {disfmarker} when I d +Grad H: and so you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: so you have to synchronize at the beginning of each meeting all the pads that are being used , so that it 's synchronized with the time on that and then you have to download to an application , and then you have to figure out what the data formats are and convert it over if you wanna do anything with this information . +Postdoc A: w Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Why {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so there 's a lot of infrastructure which +Postdoc A: There is an alternative . +Grad H: unless someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: There is an alternative , I mean , it 's still , there 's uh {disfmarker} you know , your point stands about there be {disfmarker} needing to be an infrastructure , but it doesn't have to be synchronized with the little clock 's timer on it . You c I mean , I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} when I did it I synchronized it by voice , by whispering "" one , two , three , four "" onto the microphone +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: and uh , you know . +Grad H: Well , but then there 's the infrastructure at the other end +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: which someone has to listen to that and find that point , +Postdoc A: Yeah , it 's transcribed . It 's in the transcript . +Grad H: and then mark it . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc A: Well it 's in the transcript . +PhD G: Well , could we keep one of these things for another year ? Would h I mean is there a big cau +Grad H: We can keep all {disfmarker} both of them for the whole whole year . +PhD G: just {disfmarker} just in case we {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean , it 's just {disfmarker} +PhD G: even maybe some of the transcribers who might be wanting to annotate uh f just there 's a bunch of things that might be neat to do but I {disfmarker} it might not be the case that we can actually synchronize them and then do all the infrastructure but we could at least try it out . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} one thing that we might try um is on some set of meetings , some collection of meetings , maybe EDU is the right one or maybe something else , we {disfmarker} we get somebody to buy into the idea of doing this as part of the task . I mean , +PhD G: Right . +Professor B: uh part of the reason {disfmarker} I think part of the reason that Adam was so interested in uh the SpeechCorder sort of f idea from the beginning is he said from the beginning he hated taking notes and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: and so forth so and {disfmarker} and Jane is more into it but eh uh you know I don't know if you wanna really do {disfmarker} do this all the time so I think the thing is to {disfmarker} to get someone to actually buy into it and have at least some series of meetings where we do it . Um {disfmarker} and if so , it 's probably worth having one . The p the {disfmarker} the problem with the {disfmarker} the more extended view , all these other you know with uh quibbling about particular applications of it is that it looks like it 's hard to get people to um uh routinely use it , I mean it just hasn't happened anyway . But maybe if we can get a person to {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I don't think it has to be part of a what everybody does in a meeting but it might be a useful , neat part of the project that we can , you know , show off as a mechanism for synchronizing events in time that happen that you just wanna make a note of , like what Jane was talking about with some later browsing , just {disfmarker} just as a convenience , even if it 's not a full - blown note taking substitute . +PhD E: Well if you wanted to do that maybe the right architecture for it is to get a PDA with a wireless card . And {disfmarker} and that way you can synchronize very easily with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the meeting because you 'll be synchroni you can synchronize with the {disfmarker} the Linux server and uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: So what kind of input would you be {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: so {disfmarker} so , I mean , if you 're not worried about {disfmarker} +Grad H: Buttons . +PhD G: You 'd just be pressing like a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} well you have a PDA and may and you could have the same sort of X interface or whatever , I mean , you 'd have to do a little eh a little bit of coding to do it . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But you could imagine , +PhD G: Yeah , that be good . +PhD E: I mean , if {disfmarker} if all you really wanted was {disfmarker} you didn't want this secondary note - taking channel but just sort of being able to use m markers of some sort , a PDA with a l a wireless card would be the {disfmarker} probably the right way to go . I mean even buttons you could do , sort of , I mean , as you said . +Grad H: I mean for what {disfmarker} what you 've been describing buttons would be even more convenient than anything else , +PhD G: M right . +PhD E: Right . +PhD G: That would be fine too . +Grad H: right ? You have the {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , I don't have , you know , grandiose ideas in mind but I 'm just sort of thinking well we 've {disfmarker} we 're getting into the next year now and we have a lot of these things worked out at {disfmarker} in terms of the speech maybe somebody will be interested in this and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I like this PDA idea . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I do like the idea of having a couple buttons +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'm sure there would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: where like one {disfmarker} one button was "" uh - oh "" and then another button was "" that 's great "" and another button "" that 's f "" +PhD G: Or like this is my "" I 'm supposed to do this "" kind of button , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: like "" I better remember to {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Action item . +PhD G: Yeah something like that or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean I think the CrossPad idea is a good one . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +Grad H: It 's just a question of getting people to use it and getting the infrastructure set up in such a way that it 's not a lot of extra work . I mean that 's part of the reason why it hasn't happened is that it 's been a lot of extra work for me +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Well , and not just for you . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: But it 's also , it has this problem of having to go from an analog to a d a digital record too , +PhD G: W +Postdoc A: doesn't it ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well it 's digital but it 's in a format that is not particularly standard . +Postdoc A: But I mean , say , if i if {disfmarker} if you 're writing {disfmarker} if you 're writing notes in it does {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it can't do handwriting recognition , right ? +Professor B: No , no , but it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just storing the pixel informa position information , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: it 's all digital . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm thinking is that the PDA solution you h you have it already without needing to go from the pixelization to a {disfmarker} to a {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . You don't have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: The transfer function is less errorful , +Postdoc A: Oh , nicely put . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: yes . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Well it also {disfmarker} it 's maybe realistic cuz people are supposed to be bringing their P D As to the meeting eventually , right ? That 's why we have this little {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} I don't wanna cause more work for anyone but I can imagine some interesting things that you could do with it and so if we don't have to return it and we can keep it for a year {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} w we don't {disfmarker} we certainly don't have to return it , as I said . All {disfmarker} all he said is that if you 're not using it could you return it , if you are using it feel free to keep it . The point is that we haven't used it at all and are we going to ? +Professor B: So we have no but {disfmarker} uh by I {disfmarker} I would suggest you return one . Because we {disfmarker} we you know , we {disfmarker} we haven't used it at all . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: OK . +PhD G: We c +Professor B: We have some aspirations of using them +PhD G: One would probably be fine . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Maybe we could do like a student project , you know , maybe someone who wants to do this as their main like s project for something would be cool . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . I mean if we had them out and sitting on the table people might use them a little more +Professor B: Maybe Jeremy could sit in some meetings and press a button when there {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody laughed . +Grad H: although there is a little {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} yeah , that 's not a bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Jeremy 's gonna be an {disfmarker} he 's a new student starting on modeling brea breath and laughter , actually , which sounds funny but I think it should be cool , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: so . +Grad H: Sounds breathy to me . +PhD G: OK . "" Ha - ha - ha . "" +Grad H: Breath and lau "" ha - ha - ha - ha "" . "" Ha - ha - ha - ha . "" +Professor B: Well dear . +Grad H: Um . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad H: That reminded me of something . Oh well , too late . It slipped out . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: You 're {disfmarker} you 're gonna tease me ? +Grad H: Oh , equipment . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Ordered {disfmarker} Uh , well I 'm always gonna do that . W uh {disfmarker} {comment} We ordered uh more wireless , and so they should be coming in at some point . +PhD G: Great . +Grad H: And then at the same time I 'll probably rewire the room as per Jane 's suggestion so that uh the first N channels are wireless , eh are the m the close - talking and the next N are far - field . +Professor B: You know what he means but isn't that funny sounding ? "" We ordered more wireless . "" It 's like wires are the things so you 're wiring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we ordered more absence of the thing . +PhD G: That 's a very philosophical statement from Morgan . +Grad H: wired less , wired more . +PhD G: I just {disfmarker} it 's sort of a anachronism , I mean it 's like {disfmarker} It 's great . +Professor B: Anyway . +Grad H: Should we do digits ? Do we have anything else ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff going on uh between uh Andreas and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Dave and Chuck and others with various kinds of runs uh um {disfmarker} recognition runs , trying to figure things out about the features but it 's {disfmarker} it 's all sort of in process , so there 's not much to say right now . Uh why don't we start with our {disfmarker} our esteemed guest . +PhD E: OK . Alright . +Grad H: So just the transcript number and then the {disfmarker} then the {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} Yes , this is number two for me today . +Professor B: See all you have to do is go away to move way up in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +PhD G: We could do simultaneous . Initiate him . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we could . +Grad H: Should we do simultaneous ? +PhD G: Well , I 'm just thinking , are you gonna try to save the data before this next group comes in ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , absolutely . +PhD G: Yeah , so we might wanna do it simultaneous . +Grad H: I mean you hav sorta have to . +Professor B: Well OK , so let 's do one of those simultaneous ones . +PhD G: Right , so {disfmarker} so we might n we might need to do that actually . +Professor B: That sounds good . +Grad H: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Everybody ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: A one . +PhD G: You have to plug your ears , by the way uh Eric , +Grad H: Well I have to , +PhD D: You don't have to . +PhD E: OK , alright . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} or you start laughing . +Grad H: I don't know about other people . +Professor B: OK , a one and a two and a three . OK , babble , take five . +","In this academic meeting transcript, the participants are engaged in a time-constrained discussion with a range of important topics on the agenda, amidst interruptions and informal exchanges. The meeting involves PhD students (denoted PhD E, PhD D, PhD F, and PhD G), a Professor (Professor B), Postdoctoral researchers (Postdoc A), and Graduate students (Grad H and Grad C), who come together to address ongoing projects and administrative matters pertinent to their research. + +The meeting starts with an acknowledgment of the urgency due to the next meeting participants pushing for the room. Professor B sets the agenda, touching upon issues concerning transcription status, DARPA demos, XML tools, disks, backups, etc. Grad H inquires if anyone has additional points to contribute to the agenda but receives no additional input. + +Postdoc A quickly updates on the transcription status, mentioning the hiring of more transcribers and progress being made, although double-checking the transcripts will take an additional week. This update transitions into discussions about the data format and accessibility for Grad H’s information retrieval work. + +PhD D contributes a remark on transcription, noting that the first five meetings’ transcriptions are chunked up and can be sent to IBM as soon as requested, with the second meeting transcription already at IBM awaiting feedback. The discussion then moves towards coordinating the disjoint efforts of transcription between the in-house team and IBM. + +Grad H dives deeper into their work with THISL tools for information retrieval on meeting data and the progress made on indexing and querying tools. A conversation ensues about the user interface's details, choosing between web-based tools and front-end options for information retrieval interfaces. The team debates the merits and logistics of incorporating features such as term frequency-inverse document frequency scoring into their retrieval systems. + +Additional discussions revolve around the technical aspects of porting certain tools onto different platforms and operating systems, such as issues compiling tools on Solaris and Windows, and possible solutions including using the Cygnus toolset to provide a BSD compatibility layer for UNIX function calls. + +A point about DARPA demos leads to conversations about utilizing the THISL tools and the graphical representation of various prosodic features. There's also mention of efforts to visualize sentence and turn boundaries using prosody, potentially as a highlight for researchers during a demo presentation. + +The meeting proceeds with Grad H detailing the transition towards XML as the standard format for various data types and their work on XML tools that would facilitate information extraction from various files related to user databases, Key files, and transcripts. A question arises about including seat information in the Key files, leading to a realization that some participants have been omitting this data and that a potential tool developed by Grad H could help remedy the oversight. + +An interjection about disk backup leads to a discussion about backing up the Meeting Recorder data with multiple safety nets, considering its irreplaceable nature. A recommendation to reserve non-backed-up space for data that can be easily recreated is considered alongside a potential reorganization of the recording setup based on microphones. + +Lastly, there is a brainstorming session regarding the utilization of CrossPads, portable digital notepads that could be integrated into their system to facilitate real-time, time-stamped notes during meetings. The group contemplates various alternatives to the CrossPad, such as utilizing PDAs or implementing a button system that could mark important events. Concerns are raised about the practical difficulties and the degree of use of the CrossPads. + +The transcripts wind down with the group acknowledging the need for better management of equipment and storage solutions, with Professor B suggesting that one of the CrossPads could be returned due to underutilization. + +The meeting concludes with the group engaging in a simultaneous exercise of reciting their respective transcript numbers, a tradition or routine at the end of their discussions, likely to tag and organize the session's recordings systematically." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh welcome back after lunch , I hope uh you had a good lunch together . For uh this meeting the main agenda okay uh to discuss about the conceptual design meeting . Okay and the agenda will be the opening and uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} the product manager or secretary that's me and uh the presentations from the Christine and uh Agnes and from Mister Ed . And finally in this meeting we have to decide +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we are to take a decision on the remote control concept and uh the functional design So we have forty minutes , I think it's uh little bit uh low , but I I hope we can finish it up {vocalsound} so I'll handle to the the functional team , to the Christine , okay , to discuss about uh the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh , if you could open the PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +Project Manager: You're number two . 'Kay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Components design , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can we put it in slide show mode ? Yeah . +Project Manager: The next one . +Industrial Designer: Right here , is that little {disfmarker} that one , yes please . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll take the mouse . {vocalsound} So uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we were looking he specifically at the components uh {disfmarker} the following components , uh the case , the power supply , uh the means of communications with the television set . In instance we had talked about using some sort of speech recognition , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you have to have microphone {disfmarker} well no you don't actually I haven't {disfmarker} have to have microphone in the device , but um maybe you do have it a a way {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it has to it has to hear the speaker +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um , so it could be in the television set , could be in the device , but somewhere you have to put the microphone , um and a w a way of making beeps or sounds so you can find it when it's gets lost . Um so the other w thing that we {disfmarker} So . Our method for going about this is we've looked at uh the histo hi historical record , what's worked , what hasn't and then we also um {disfmarker} we wanted to evaluate some new materials +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we contacted manufacturing for their input because , course , we m might {vocalsound} come up and choose the material that then manufacturing didn't have the technologies or capabilities to offer us , so uh this is the approach that we took during our um {disfmarker} our research . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um for the case , um we told we were making a specifica specific assumption that it would be curved in design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Course , you know , I wanted it to be expandable and shrinkable , but um that uh doesn't seem to b be one of the choic non-option we can uh {disfmarker} we can really seriously explore , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so then we were thinking about um rubber , but um unfortunately that's been eliminated because of the heat uh factor +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and th um there might be some {vocalsound} problems with the m uh how it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh goes with the board . {vocalsound} Uh and uh then th plastic also has this problem of melting and it's brittle {disfmarker} it gets brittle after a while , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um we still had titanium and and wood available , but um unfortunately uh uh titanium's also been eliminated uh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the m people in manufacturing said that you couldn't make d curved cases out of titanium , although how {vocalsound} Apple did it with th PowerBook I'm not su quite sure but uh nevertheless um they've eliminated all of our options except wood . +User Interface: {vocalsound} At least it's environmentally friendly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , {vocalsound} this is our finding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And a as she said , it's an environmentally friendly uh material , so we're {disfmarker} we're {vocalsound} currently uh proposing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh we'll get to all my personal preferences in just a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So then there's this other matter of the chips and um well we could use a simple design on the board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} uh these simple chips , but that's only works for the bu you don't get very much um intelligence with this simple one . And um then there was the regular which {vocalsound} I regret that I've forgotten exactly why I'm eliminating that one . Uh the other option was this advanced chip on print , {vocalsound} and uh we liked th we we found that it it includes this infrared sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which w 'member the beam was {disfmarker} that was an important component of finding the right chip . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh manufacturing has told us that they've um uh recently developed a uh a sensor and a speaker that would uh be integrated into this advanced chip on print , so uh we we uh now jumping right to our personal preferences um I I'd really think we should , you know , use some of uh some really exotic woods , like um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know uh , well you guys come from tropical countries so you can kinda think of some trees and some nice woods . I think that people will might really want to design their own cases , you see , they could do sort of a {disfmarker} this um three-dimensional design on the internet , and then they could submit their orders , kinda like you submit a custom car order , you know , and you can choose the colour and the size of the wheels and the colours of the leather and things like that , and then I uh think we should go with the solar cells as well as the um microphone and speaker on the advanced chip . So this is the findings of our research +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and my recommendations um for the new remote control w um would be to have um have it be made out of wood . Do you have any problems with that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back uh one slide ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure , how do I {disfmarker} Oh , I know , let's see . +User Interface: Thank you . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's go back up here . +Project Manager: Yes , uh {gap} question , uh , what's mean exactly , advanced chip on print ? What's the meaning of that ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's um um a multiple uh chip design um {vocalsound} and it's uh maybe printed on to the circuit board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I could find out more about that uh before the next fi next meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , is it means it's on the {disfmarker} yeah is it on a micro-proc micro-processor based or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know , but I'll find out more at our next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , tha that would be great , so if you find out from the technology background , okay , so that would be good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +User Interface: Why was the plastic eliminated as a possible material ? +Industrial Designer: Because um it gets brittle , cracks {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um We want {disfmarker} we expect these um {vocalsound} uh these remote controls to be around for several hundred years . So . {vocalsound} Good ex {vocalsound} {gap} Good expression . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Whic +Marketing: Wow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} good expression . Well after us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know , speak for yourself , I'm planning to be around for a while . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Although I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think with wood though you'd run into the same types of problems , wouldn't you , I mean it chips , it if you drop it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh it's {disfmarker} I'm not su {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {gap} so you're not convinced about the the wood , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} you're what ? +Marketing: Actually , I'm ready to sell it . +User Interface: I think {vocalsound} if you re if you use really good quality wood , then it might work , +Marketing: I'm ready to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You think ? {vocalsound} And you could {disfmarker} you could sell oils with it , to take care of it . +User Interface: but you can't just use {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y {vocalsound} no no no , the o the only w the only wood you can use are the ones that are hard , extremely hard wood , +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: but there are some very pretty woods out there {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I'm glad you {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's actually very innovative idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorr having a hard time keeping wi control over my face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's actually a very innovative n different idea that uh you know you can choose your colour of wood , your type of wood . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The stain . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean it's {disfmarker} each person is gonna have their own personalised , individualised speech recognition remote control in wood , that's not on the market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it it's looks good the the design the functional design uh , what about yo you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , in terms of comments on this or in terms of my own {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , in t yes , in term in terms of comments first {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In turns of wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: She works in the cubicle next to me so she's uh she was already a little bit prepared for this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Y yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Luckily Ed was not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wood ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can get the quality materials then {vocalsound} it shouldn't influence the design principles too much , which you'll see with my presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: One thing we'd have to check though is what the users {disfmarker} whether {disfmarker} how quickly the novelty wears off of having uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Yeah , you wouldn't wanna have to have splinters in your hand while you're using your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah , for example . {vocalsound} So , have to see how kid-friendly it is and and all that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really good if your dog gets ahold of it , they can use it {vocalsound} {gap} for teething . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They do that anyway with the rubber and plastic , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they do it with other materials as well , yeah . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} , and chew 'em up . And chew 'em up . +Project Manager: Okay then , uh , let's move to Agnes . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm sorry . +Project Manager: S you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are in participant three . +User Interface: One point three , yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: I think so , yeah . Yeah , that's the one . So , it's a very short presentation , 'cause I'm actually gonna draw you the layout on the board so if you want to just go straight to the second slide , um , which basically shows , sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I took the ideas that we were talking about last time um and tried to put that into the remote control so the things that y you can actually see on it are the on off switch , volume and channel control , the menu access button , ergonomic shape , which I completely agree with Christine's idea to have it sort of molded , so it's slightly more ergonomic and comfortable to hold than the r standard very straight remote controls . And actually the other thing with the wood if we take your customising idea , is that people can actually do sort of quasi-measurements on their hand size , so if someone has larger hands , you have a wider remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , my hand is uh different size than yours for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So , that's actually a really good idea for customi customisability . Um , one thing I thought might be kind of interesting is to put a flip screen on it , just like you have on flip phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that you don't have this case where someone sits on the remote control or accidentally puts their hand on it , especially if you have little kids around , they're not pressing the buttons while you're trying to watch a T_V_ show and accidentally change the channel or turn it off . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And also {vocalsound} um you had issues with the batteries running out , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I thought maybe we could put a little battery life-light on it that kind of goes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as your battery is {disfmarker} starts to die . And in terms of invisible features , audio and um tactile feedback on button presses and , like you said , speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , in terms of what this thing would actually look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Despite working in interface design , I'm not the greatest artist in the world , so you'll have to forgive me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You'd have something like this with an on-off switch fairly big , sort of in the corner and by itself , so you don't accidentally turn your T_V_ off while you're trying to manoeuvre other buttons . And then you have sort of one of those toggle displays for , oops , channels and volume , sort of for surfing channels and then volume , so the volume would be the up and down , 'cause volume goes up and down and then channels left to right . And then here you'd have your sort of standard , telephonish number pad . {vocalsound} And then on one side you would have an access to the menu on your T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and on the other side a way to turn off the voice control . So that if the user doesn't want to use their voice , they can just turn it off and you don't have the remote control accidentally changing things on you . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , so again you can have a little L_C_D_ light somewhere , the flip {vocalsound} thing and {disfmarker} Have I forgotten anything ? I don't think so . So , as you can see , it's a very very simple design , +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: which is one of the things I really wanted to keep , is keep it simple , not have too many buttons , not have too many functionalities thrown into it . Think the design can pretty much carry over to everything , although with the wood the flip screen might have to do something slightly different . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A hinge . Be like a copper hinge or you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But you also have to d start watching out for the weight , 'cause depending on how much the the flip screen will add to the weight of the remote control , you don't want it to start getting too heavy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: But that's the general layout with the general functionalities , if we come up with something else . As you can see , there's still lots of space on the actual remote control and if you do it customisably , {vocalsound} you can make this thing fairly small or fairly o large , depending on personal preferences . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So , that's pretty much {vocalsound} all I had to say , I mean , everything else in terms of design issues . Um the centering of the key pad and {vocalsound} the channel is just depending on where your thumb is and you tend to use the the volume control and uh the browsing more than the actual number pad , so that would be sort of in direct line of where your thumb goes when you are holding the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the number pad a little bit lower 'cause it's used less frequently . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So once we decide exactly what we want , then we can figure out the exact positioning , but more or less I think it should go along those lines . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's your , uh , the comments or uh s +Marketing: Simple design . It's what consumers want . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: It's almost like , Houston , we have a product here . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Problem is obviously gonna be cost . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , I also have a f {vocalsound} very simple presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because for the marketing point you have to see what the consumers want . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I also have uh copied a different type of remote . If you can find me , where I'm at . {vocalsound} There should only be one in here . {gap} trend watch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: It's being modified . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're stealing our product . {vocalsound} We've been giving simple {vocalsound} questionnaires in different areas because th {gap} obviously we have to see what the com consumers are looking for today , 'cause uh trends change very very quickly . In six months maybe this idea is already gone out the window , so it's gonna be a question how fast we can act . Uh they already erased the rest of mine , huh . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , no . +Industrial Designer: f go to findings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no , no no . {vocalsound} 'Cause I had another comment there . Uh the market trend . This is what we know from the last uh {disfmarker} from the {vocalsound} questionnaires from the the {disfmarker} all the p surveys we've done , fancy and feel-good , that's what we've been looking for , something that feels good in the hand , that's easy to use . Looking for next generation of innovation , because all the remotes out there now , they're all very similar , they all do the same thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we have to have something completely different . Okay ? Easy to use , has always has become {disfmarker} has become another major interest that uh , with the whiteboard we can see that it's a remote that's easy to use . And I think this is another thing that's interesting is the consumers actually willing to pay the price for exciting tel technology . So even if we have a product that may be more expensive , if it comes out right , if they {gap} look {disfmarker} it looks and feels good and has technology . The second two , you can see the last one is a very easy simple design . {vocalsound} The second one , there is about uh forty-five thousand different buttons on it , which makes it fairly hard to read , uh very hard to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The first one , I see {vocalsound} that they put in a display . Now there's something else uh with the little flip-up , now we're adding all kinds of things in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but with the little flip-up , if you have a little display on the flip-up that when you close it everything is locked . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe the display also makes it easier to use , because sometimes when you're looking for buttons , maybe if you see a display {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Context-sensitive instructions , depending on what the tel what mode the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ or something else is in . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay Because I've seen {disfmarker} mostly the standard ones , +User Interface: Especially you might need something like that for training the speech recognition and +Marketing: yeah . Now you have it {disfmarker} now you have one with the very simple also . The idea is simple , but with a display , so you can see what you're doing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe if we can incorporate the easiness of use , trendy , fancy , feels good , {vocalsound} uh with a display , wood , designer wood , designer colours +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , maybe what you could do is when somebody orders the device id you could send them like um {vocalsound} a uh {vocalsound} uh b some sort of a foam rubber um ball , +Marketing: , we might've {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they would squeeze it , and it would take the shape of their hand . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's really molded to to your specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To t {vocalsound} an and then you would know like {vocalsound} um what the geometry of their hands would be and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: How hard they squeeze ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes {vocalsound} you'd know what kind of wood to get . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Resistance resistance , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But th for that you'd also have to do sort of an average across families and things like that if {disfmarker} unless everyone has their own personal remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right , that's right , you wouldn't wanna go too far down that . Oh that {disfmarker} that actually would uh increase the um {disfmarker} the revenues we could expect , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The sales , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} Yeah . I hope so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , but incorporating the three uh obviously it'd be something totally new on the market , totally different +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and from {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , already the customisability is a really good sort of new gimmick . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although , what it {disfmarker} was it uh {disfmarker} it was uh Nokia that came out with this changeable colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right , you take it apart , and put on another face , take it off and put on another face +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , mm . +User Interface: And that took off , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then they sold millions , millions . So . So say with the f with the findings , with the research , easy to use something totally new . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We have to come up with something totally new that is not on the market . +Industrial Designer: We'd also have to wor um consider that uh who we were gonna get to make these custom cases in terms of manufacturing processes , we might wanna um learn about um {vocalsound} labour laws . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know in different countries and stuff wher so we can do it cheap , but you don't wanna exploit uh labour in um third world countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So actually you could turn it y turn around and say that you're uh par the reason the cost is high for the device is because um you're paying a a working wage to the person who made the device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we can get a production in , uh {vocalsound} , countries like , uh , India +Industrial Designer: Cost of living is low . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yes , yes , countries like India or China or Malaysia , so you can go a better features and better price and you can sell more . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good , well th that'd be something that manufacturing would have to um explore more +Project Manager: Yeah , {vocalsound} yeah , so Yes . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: and to where {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where w Where it would be manufactured is is another step . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: We're here to design , come up with a nice product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes uh , but uh that that we can that we can talk about the production later , okay , depends on the the quantity , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we don't need to have our own uh fabric factory or something , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we can have a tie-up with who the do the fabric , okay , for the different uh electronics items , then we can have a business tie-up and to get {disfmarker} to cut the cost , okay , to sell more . So , but uh le let's decide first about the components concept and uh interface concept , okay , if is acceptable for both of you , what uh Ed was talking . And your design {vocalsound} whether you want with the display or without display or just a simple , so +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I think it depends , I mean I think it's a good idea , but we need to really think about how useful it's gonna be because theoretically with the T_V_ you already have a big display {vocalsound} right in front of you . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So , if we're trying to keep costs down , then maybe sacrificing the display is a way to go . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it depends on how much putting a display costs and what it would be used for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: very specifically what it would be used for , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'cause if it's only used for one little thing , then putting in a big display case or a big display that's probably expensive just to do the training on the chip for the speech recognition or whatever , may not be the most cost-efficient way to go , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's just sort of speculation , I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What do you think Ed ? Do you {disfmarker} he liked the display in one of the concepts that you showed , um , do you know how much it costs , um , to to add a little display like this uh ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . No +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you wanna take an action item to go find out ? +Marketing: {gap} no p spec {vocalsound} It's 'cause we have to find out cost on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Marketing: Um , no that's no problem . I'm here for the {vocalsound} pushing it after it's made . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I will market it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Once we get a price on it then we can market it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the {vocalsound} the advanced chip on print is what um what we've {vocalsound} we've deci we've determined +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the uh engineering industrial design is the recommendation , and um I think we've kinda come to some agreement regarding um this concept of a wooden case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A customisable and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice beautiful mahogany red wooden case . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the buttons , would {disfmarker} Would the buttons be wood too , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I don't think so , no , +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: I think they could be rubber like they are now , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: so you have that tactile experience of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Don't looks nice uh . Yeah , so uh what we'll do is , uh , we will stick with the the simple design for time being until uh th Ed find outs about the how much it's cost to the extra , in case we go for the display . Okay . So +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe what you can do is uh , both of you , you can come up with the the prototype , okay , the model . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um are we done with this meeting ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I hope , if {disfmarker} is it okay if uh they will come up with the prototype design , okay . Then they can show you how it looks like , and then we can uh submit to the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I will submit to the management . Okay ? Then meantime you can come up with the price , how much it's cost as extra for uh the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: An and the marketing strategy , that's very important , okay . +Industrial Designer: And a marketing strategy . +Marketing: And marketing strategy , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . How much you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: how mu how much how much you can sell extra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course you'll make money too , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it it's not only pay-out , you make money too , your commission . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , any questions ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So , by next meeting , so , please come up with the the prototype , okay , then uh , then we can proceed from there . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So thanks for all your uh efforts and coming for the meeting again , and see you soon then . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . +","In a post-lunch meeting, the team discusses the conceptual design of a new remote control. The Project Manager leads the meeting, with presentations from Christine and Agnes, as well as comments from Marketing and the User Interface designer. They deliberate on design elements such as the case material, with wood being the final choice due to other materials being unsuitable because of issues like heat sensitivity or brittleness. The design is intended to pair an ergonomic shape with simplicity while incorporating new technology like speech recognition and advanced chips. Marketing highlights consumer desires for innovation and willingness to pay for new technology. One idea is for customizable wooden cases, based on the user's hand measurements. The project involves determining manufacturing processes and considering ethical labor practices. The prototype is yet to be finalized, considering whether to have a display screen or keep it simple, factoring in cost implications. The team agrees to create a prototype to further refine the concept with Marketing developing a strategy to promote the product once it is defined." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Education for our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Kevin Palmer, who is deputy director, pedagogy, leadership and professional learning; and Andrew Clark, deputy director, further education and apprenticeships division. So, thank you all for attending, and we're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, Cabinet Secretary, we'll go straight to questions. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the first questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair, and bore da. I was going to ask some general questions about the value of the baccalaureate. Could you give us your views on how the Welsh bac is valued by learners and teachers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Julie, and thank you very much for your question. Firstly, I'd like to begin by saying that I as the Cabinet Secretary value the qualification very much indeed. I believe that it helps ensure that we are able to give our young people in Wales a broad and balanced curriculum, recognising the need to develop knowledge and skills in core subjects but recognising also that the purpose of education is to help prepare our children for further study and the world of work, and I believe that the skills challenge element of the baccalaureate does just that. I meet with young people and teachers all the time who tell me about the positive experiences they have had studying for the Welsh bac, and much of that was evidenced in Qualifications Wales's review into the Welsh baccalaureate. They did focus group work with a representative sample, and many of the learners expressed the fact that they have enjoyed studying for the qualification and have gained a great deal from it. I meet regularly with individuals who have been able to use their bac to successfully gain a place at university, so I believe there's a huge value for Welsh young people being able to study this particular qualification alongside the more traditional qualifications that perhaps we're all used to. I think the challenge is that, given that many people are very familiar with what a GCSE is and, as parents, we will know what that is and many of us will have done—some of us are so old we'll have done O-levels. We know what those traditional qualifications look like, and therefore a new qualification—there's always a job of work to do to communicate that, if people aren't used to it, but I value it hugely. I think that, whilst there is always room for improvement—and, of course, you'll be aware of the review that Qualifications Wales undertook and that has suggested ways in which we can further improve and refine the qualification, but I think it is a valuable piece of work for Welsh young people to undertake. +Julie Morgan AM: It's great that you've been around listening to learners and what they have said about it. Have you had any negative feedback? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, occasionally, of course, we do have concerns raised with us, and those concerns are similar to the ones that have been raised in the Qualifications Wales review. So, for instance, we sometimes have concerns about how some students balance the Welsh bac with other qualifications they may be taking. Some teachers feed back around the workload issues associated with the Welsh baccalaureate. For some students, there may be concerns about the nature of the Welsh bac and whether that can impact negatively on their well-being. And, obviously, that's why Qualifications Wales have undertaken this piece of work so that we can refine, if necessary, that qualification and how we continue to look at how we ensure my belief that taking the Welsh bac should be the norm for students but also recognising that, in some cases, there needs to be flexibility to ensure that the well-being of the student is not compromised. +Julie Morgan AM: And so would you say that it's valued by learners more or less at key stage 4 or post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, the vast majority of students I meet report very positively about the opportunities that are afforded for studying at that level. Occasionally, we hear from students who I believe think that in studying the subject they may be compromising their chances because they want to do additional A-levels, and I'm sure we'll come on to, later on, whether universities, and whether the Russell Group universities in particular, value the qualification. But I feel that there are particular strengths. And I think what's really important, and, in talking to universities, since the qualification became graded, rather than just a pass/fail qualification—I think that added rigour since 2015 has been particularly important in ensuring that there's real value in students undertaking that work. +Julie Morgan AM: And what about the effect that the leadership in the school has on the way that the bac is received? Have you—? +Kirsty Williams AM: As always, Julie, leadership is crucial, and students' experiences can be very coloured by the attitude towards the teacher delivering that particular course. And, therefore, we need to continue, alongside the WJEC and Qualifications Wales, to ensure that the Welsh bac is communicated to children in a positive way, the benefits are explained to children and their parents, and, also, we need to ensure that those who are tasked with teaching Welsh bac in their schools or colleges feel confident in their ability to do so and to ensure that students have a really positive experience of that qualification, because if you're being taught by someone who is telling you, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this', then, obviously that's going to colour how you feel about it. And, if I'm honest, I recently attended a youth forum, where young people from the county were discussing all sorts of issues—everything from the environment to their experience in school—and I was struck by the group of year 12 and year 13 students. I specifically asked them about the bac—I always take the opportunity to ask them about their experience of the baccalaureate. One school, the group of students said, 'It's fantastic. We really enjoy it. It's really valuable. I'm learning a lot.' Students from a school seven miles away—just seven miles away—said, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this.' And I suspect that that has got more to do with how that is being delivered in their institutions than it has about the quality of the qualification. So, we need to keep ensuring that those who are tasked with this see it as important, communicate that to students, and have the confidence and the ability to deliver a really positive experience. +Julie Morgan AM: I think our experiences in the committee are very similar. Within the same room, actually, we've had two completely different sets of views. So, what do you intend to do to try to ensure that there's consistent support and enthusiasm for the bac from the leaders? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we have the design group of Qualifications Wales looking to address some of the issues that arose out of the report around ensuring that, especially from a teacher workload perspective, it's not too onerous in terms of assessment. So, there's that to do to make sure that we're not asking children to duplicate and do things over and over and over again, which, of course, for any of us, would be wearing and we would question to the value of. So, there's the design group looking at the qualification itself. We are ensuring, as part of our professional learning for teachers that—. There are existing opportunities via the regional consortia for support for teaching of the qualification. The WJEC has resources and support available, but we will look, as we roll out our national approach to professional learning, at that the professional learning needs of those already in the system are addressed. Of course, our accreditation for our new initial teacher education is predominantly addressed at being able to deliver the new curriculum, but, if you think about the elements of 'Successful Futures' and the skills and the knowledge and the pedagogy associated with that, it's very much in line with the Welsh baccalaureate challenge certificate. So, actually, there are opportunities via initial teacher education as well, and we continue to need to look to work with our partners to be able to reinforce why this is a worthwhile qualification. And I have to say I think the best people to do that—. It's not me. I'd like to see past students of the Welsh baccalaureate being able to talk about their own experiences and why it's made a difference to them. I come across individuals for whom their place at university has been secured by that Welsh baccalaureate, and, all of a sudden, if that's what's got you your place, it becomes a lot more valuable than perhaps it was six months before. We need to make sure that students are aware, and teachers and school leaders are aware, of the importance that this qualification has. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, did you have a supplementary? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. I've got one on IT, but I'll leave that one. I just want to go back to Julie's question about whether there was a different perspective or a different sense of value for students who are post 16 and those who are pre 16. When one of the college leaders here was asked whether he had people coming to him in his FE college who've been through the pre-16 bac and had heard evidence or had stories of, basically, those children cobbling together their bac in the last four weeks of term before they got there, he said that yes, that is his experience. Does that worry you at all, because, of course, the whole purpose of bac is to teach skills over a period of time, and its purpose cannot be fulfilled by getting it all done in the last term of—which year am I in?—year 11, in order to satisfy the curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Obviously, that's not the experience that we would want young people to have, and, as someone who has had a daughter just finish year 11, that's certainly not the experience that my daughter had in her particular school, and I have another daughter who has just gone into year 10, where the Welsh bac has started in year 10 and it is a a two-year course in which elements are undertaken. Obviously, we will need to address, as part of the design group and the work that Qualifications Wales is doing, how that is playing out in individual schools. But that would not be a positive experience; we want this to be taken in exactly the same way as we would expect a GCSE to be taught over a period of two years. But, Andrew, I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add from the college perspective. +Andrew Clark: I think it is variable. I think that it will depend on the feeder schools to the colleges and it'll depend upon the delivery models that are in existence in those schools. It's been around as a qualification now for about a decade, I think. There have been differences in the way that the subject has been—sorry, not the subject, the qualification has been delivered. And I think it'll be helped by a recent review by Qualifications Wales, because they're doing a survey at the moment as to different delivery models in different locations, and that, perhaps, will inform more even practice as we move forwards. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, and Estyn and consortia are looking at it as well. I don't want to cut across questions, so, thank you. +Andrew Clark: No, but it's a known issue, if you like, that various people are attempting to address and bring a more uniform mode of delivery across the nation. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some more detailed questions now on understanding, from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just to drill down rather deeper into the issue of the variability in the way in which the Welsh bac is provided, could you explain why you think that this inconsistency is happening, and then what the impact of the inconsistency and variability is on the value that learners attach to the bac and their understanding of it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the variability can be perhaps explained by the fact that it's a new type of qualification, the fact that different schools have adopted it at different rates— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Ten years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, over that time, there were some early adopters who have done it in a certain way, there are some people who've come later to it, who may be doing it in a different way. And, as I said, it's quite a different departure from traditional O-levels, from GCSE-type subjects, where there is a programme of work and a syllabus. So, it is a different nature of qualification, and, therefore, as Andrew has just alluded to, schools have approached it in a different way. We are alert to that and Qualifications Wales, crucially, is alert to that, and we are looking to ensure greater consistency in how it is delivered in individual schools. We're also aware, in the school setting, in pre 16, there are some concerns about the onerousness of the workload associated with the evaluation of the students' work. Now, clearly, there is a difference between onerous and rigorous. We wrote the qualification to be a rigorous qualification for the students, but we don't want it to be jeopardised by the evaluation of it being too onerous. So, there's that balance to be struck. Again, that's one of the issues that the design group and Qualifications Wales are looking at. That process is a really important process, so there is the design group, but working alongside the design group, who they are testing the messages and testing their thoughts with, is a stakeholder group, and there is also a practitioners group. So, that work by the design group is being tested with those people who have an interest: business, for instance, the world of work—is this qualification really giving students the skills that are valued by potential employers?—but it's also testing its thinking with the practitioners, those people who will be charged with the delivery of the qualification, and I think that's really important to be able to get an understanding of the challenges of making sure there's a consistency, and what are the barriers to that, and what steps need to be taken to ensure a greater level of consistency in delivery. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is there a correlation between consistency in general? Because we know that there's polarisation in the secondary school sector between the good schools and the not-so-good schools. And is there a correlation between—if the schools are good according to Estyn, or excellent, are they also good, excellent at delivering the bac? Is it a fundamental inconsistency across the sector that's causing this inconsistency? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know. I don't have that data to hand, but, of course, from next year, the bac will be a dedicated performance measure for schools. So, actually, we will be looking specifically at completion of the bac as part of the wider set of school performance measures. So perhaps we will be in a better position once that's formally established to be able to track progress. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because some of the evidence we've heard is that if the leadership is good around the bac in the school, well, everything else follows from that. So, it makes sense to me that it could be. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. As I said, I don't have the figures to hand, but, as I said, from next year, the bac actually becomes a formal part of the performance measures for schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. I'll turn, therefore, to the understanding of employers of the Welsh bac and the skills challenge certificate. From the evidence that we've had, it appears that there is a problem in this area, that is, employers generally don't value the qualification. Is that your experience, and how can we improve that? How can we elicit more engagement from employers of all sizes with the value of the baccalaureate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the first thing to say is my understanding of the development of the bac is that employers' voices were reflected and they were part of the process that drew up the qualification in the first place. You'll be aware of the review by Qualifications Wales that found that many employers say that the skills that are developed through the baccalaureate are exactly the kinds of skills that they want young people to be acquiring whilst at school, that put them in a good place for looking for employment later. I would agree with you, Siân, and not just in terms of the bac, there are lots of reasons why we need greater working between education and employers. I sit down with employer organisations to try and explore better ways in which we can work together—everything from ensuring that children have work experience opportunities through to, for instance, what more some of our companies could do to take up governors' roles, for instance, in our local schools, so that employer voice and that business voice are heard at a school management level. I think these things are really important. It's something that's sometimes difficult. There are some excellent examples of really good practice where local employers work really closely with schools. I think of Sony in Bridgend doing a really, really, really good job working with their local schools. In other areas, where you haven't got such a big employer, it can be difficult, can't it, for a small business that is trying to do their small business to think about, 'Oh my goodness, I've got to do something to help improve the education system as well.' So, I'm always looking at new ways in which we can get that working together. As I said, the Qualifications Wales design group has a stakeholder group that is helping them with their review into the qualification at the moment, but there are really good examples where employers and other organisations are working together. We also need to continue, I think, to communicate more clearly with employers the nature of the qualification. Again, because it's relatively new, and the brands of the GCSE and A-level are so strong, people know what they are, unless you've either done the Welsh bac yourself or you have a son or a daughter, or a grandson or granddaughter who has gone through the process, you're probably going to be less familiar, and we need to continue to work together with the WJEC and Qualifications Wales as a Government to better communicate the value of the qualification. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you agree that there is a specific piece of work that needs to be done around employers and that the Government should be leading that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and we are working closely with, as I said, Qualifications Wales to develop a joint communication plan, and we continue, as I said, as part of Qualifications Wales's review into the nature of the qualification—employers' voices are being heard as part of that particular piece of work. But more generally, yes, I think there's more that we can do to better engage employers with the education system in lots and lots of different ways. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Not just on the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move off this section, the variability that the committee has seen has been quite pronounced, really. We've been to a school where they've got a passionate and dedicated Welsh bac school leader, but then we've spoken to other schools where it's tagged on to a variety of teachers' roles, and that clearly has an impact on the way it's being taught. You said in your answer to Siân that you're trying to ensure more consistency in the delivery of it, and you referred to the performance measures; are the performance measures the main vehicle by which you're going to ensure consistency, or are you planning to issue any more guidance to schools on how it should be delivered on the ground? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to reflect the work that Qualifications Wales is undertaking. Professional learning, I think, has a role to play as well as performance measures. So it's not just one thing that we can do that will change this, it is a number of things—everything from the communications plan to making sure that teachers who find themselves responsible for delivering this feel confident and have had the professional learning opportunities to give them the skills so that they do a great job in delivering a positive experience to students. The performance measures, of course, as we know—sometimes in schools, it is those that make schools focus on something. So there's a wide variety of ways in which I think we can look to ensure more consistency. But, in the end, I think it is professional learning and teacher training, ITE, that will make the biggest difference. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. And just on understanding, one of the things the young people in Crickhowell told us was that they thought the name should be changed. They felt that it wasn't reflective of exactly what the qualification is and that maybe having something that was clearer would be better. Is that something you've considered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, I need to declare an interest, because that's the school my daughter goes to, and I don't know if she was the one— +Lynne Neagle AM: She wasn't. Angharad wasn't there. +Kirsty Williams AM: She wasn't the one who said that. Certainly, I'd have to reflect. My gut instinct tells me that one of the issues that we have is developing an understanding of the brand and what that qualification is, and if we move away from 'Welsh bac' and suddenly start to call it something else, I think that could be even harder and set us back from where we are. So, that's not to dismiss it, and I would want to reflect on those views, but I think if one of the issues that we've got is developing a better understanding of the qualification; if we were to suddenly change the name of it, that might have the unintended consequence of making that job even harder. But, obviously, if the committee was to make a recommendation, we would—I'm happy to reflect on that evidence, but, as I said, my gut instinct would tell me that there could be an unintended consequence of moving away from that brand. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You touched on this once or twice in answers to questions about how rigorous the qualification is. We've had mixed evidence, I would suggest, from groups of stakeholders. We've heard people say that the Welsh bac has no rigour, that pupils are spoon-fed. We've heard that the Welsh bac is passively marked, the grades are inflated, that there's little rigour in the sampling and moderation, there's a confusion about how the SCC is graded, and I know that's something you talked about, actually, that introducing the grading system is improving the rigour. I suppose my question to you is: if the Welsh bac is being seen in this way by stakeholders, how are going to address that? To what extent is that a real problem? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think making it a graded qualification has been really important, and I make no apologies for this qualification being rigorous—no apologies for that at all. That's how it should be, and that's how you create value, by ensuring that a qualification is rigorous. What's really important is that it's not just me saying that it's rigorous; there is an independent process that benchmarks qualifications. The fact is that at advanced level—because I don't know if you're making these observations about the pre-16 Welsh bac, or whether we're talking about the advanced level qualification—that is the equivalent of an A-level. It's been benchmarked against A-levels. It has a UCAS tariff associated with it. It is used by universities as a means of qualification that gains entrance into a university in just the same way as an A-level is. So, therefore, I don't have any concerns about the rigour of the qualification. In terms of spoon-feeding, one of the reasons why universities like the qualification is that it's very difficult, for instance, in the individual project work to be spoon-fed. It is very demanding of individual students, and it's very difficult in a way. That's one of the reasons why it's valuable, isn't it, because it teaches a different set of skills? Because if you're doing a traditional, say, history A-level or a science A-level, there's a very strict syllabus and a course, there's a textbook and people are taught to that particular syllabus; with the Welsh bac, it is individual students that have to think, for instance, of their own individual project. You can't get those off a shelf, and you can't necessarily just find that information easily. There's real skill involved in being able to do that well and get graded well for that. So, I do not have concerns about the rigour. I do have concerns about some of the feedback by Qualifications Wales about the onerousness of the evaluation and what that means for teacher workload, which is one of the things that Qualifications Wales is looking at. But in terms of rigour and people being spoon-fed, then I don't share those concerns. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, because those were concerns, in the main, that were articulated by people delivering the Welsh bac—by teachers. So, I suppose the question then comes back to some of the other points that were being raised about the consistency, because that may well be from those teachers in schools where they're not taking the bac as seriously as some others are. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, there would be—. There is a professional responsibility for those teachers delivering that qualification to ensure that the ethos of that qualification and the skills—. It would potentially be a disservice to students if that qualification was being delivered in that way. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I think what I was trying to do was to highlight the different opinions, because we also heard from teachers who were saying that those involved with teaching and studying understood absolutely its rigour, so it was the mixed message, I guess, I was just trying to test out with you. Similarly, on the skills challenge certificate, again we've heard from various stakeholders about whether, in fact, this is considered to be an equivalent qualification. We've heard people say that it is different—it's not the same as an A-level—so, therefore you can't absolutely hold it up and say it's the same as an A-level. It requires different skills, and so on and so forth. So, just your thoughts and views on that, really, as an equivalent qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not a question of if this is an equivalent qualification; this is an equivalent qualification. There is a rigorous process that is undertaken to evaluate these qualifications independent of the Government, and it's not a question. Is it a different model and a different way of studying? Yes, of course it is, and that's why we do it. That's why I want children and young people to do both sets of qualifications, because it does engage and expand the acquisition of knowledge and skills. So, yes, it's different. Is it equivalent? Yes, it is, and that's why, since the graded qualification came in, it is regarded by independent bodies as an equivalent to an A-level, and it has a tariff for UCAS in the same way as A-levels would have tariffs. You only have to speak to the institutes of higher education who use this qualification as a way of setting grades—you know, offers—for students that they see that in the same way as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy's got a supplementary before we go on to talk in detail about universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Because I just want to go back to this element of spoon-feeding at post 16, where you said it's actually very difficult for that to occur, because, obviously, we're talking about the personal project, and so forth. We heard evidence in one of the schools sessions we did that baccalaureate students were being offered a very short and narrow list of subjects on which they could do their personal project, which actually limited the scope of what they were able to do. And we've also heard separately—it may have been with the colleges, I can't quite remember now—that some students were being told, 'On your personal project, just put in what you did for your GCSE-level baccalaureate, and add a few paragraphs.' I'm wondering how easy it is to disguise spoon-feeding at post 16 when we've got two instances there that, to me, suggest it's more about the convenience of the teachers, who perhaps may not be very enthusiastic about the bac, rather than making sure those children get the best out of the qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And that would be really disappointing. And, again, if I can use my own personal family experience, my daughter has tried that on with her Welsh bac teacher. She's in a different school from where she did her earlier bac, and she said, 'Oh, well, I'll just rehash my ""Votes at 16"" that I did last year', and the Welsh bac teacher has said, 'Under no circumstances are you to do that—no, that's not allowed.' This is about using your individual project, linked to something that maybe you hope to study at university, to get the value out of this qualification, and for you to be able to use this in your personal statement, and potentially in an interview. So, again, I guess what this does is show that there's a variation, but certainly, where it is being delivered well, then that practice would not be encouraged, because it would be seen to be— +Suzy Davies AM: It's gaming. +Kirsty Williams AM: —denuding the students of the very valuable experience the qualification has to offer. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Cheers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some questions now on how universities view it. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: We've had an online survey response, which was quite a stark comment, not from the vice-chancellor's office, but from a member of staff within Cardiff University. And it said: 'The Welsh Bacc is not a fair substitute for a full A-level, and should not be regarded as such. I consider it to be a disadvantage for Welsh students, compared with their English counterparts.' Can you reflect on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't agree. +Hefin David AM: Do you think that that's a view that's held within universities, and are you concerned about that? Because it is a view that's obviously held within Cardiff University. +Kirsty Williams AM: No; I would say that that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University— +Hefin David AM: Who has influence over students. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University. And, actually, Cardiff University—indeed, all Welsh universities—accept the Welsh baccalaureate as an A-level equivalent. I think it is really important to reflect on the wide range of opportunities at higher education that the Welsh bac affords individuals. That means that it is deemed as an equivalent to A-level for the vast majority of universities, to get in to some of the most competitive courses, such as dentistry, medicine, veterinary science. So, those courses where we know there's a high demand and high competition for places, there are institutions that are using that, including Cardiff to get into their medical degree. +Hefin David AM: Nick Brazil, the deputy principal of Gower College, said about 50 per cent of the Russell Group don't value the Welsh bac. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know where he's getting that from. I have made it a personal commitment to establish this with universities. I have visited both Cambridge and Oxford. I spoke again to Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Southampton, St Andrews, only last week, who were exhibiting at the Seren conference. I specifically took the opportunity to meet with those universities and to talk to them about how they feel about the Welsh bac. They have a high regard for the Welsh baccalaureate in a variety of ways. First of all, for many of those universities, for many of their courses, they use the Welsh bac as an equivalent to an A-level. If they don't, there are some courses, for instance, where they will lower their offer to gain a place at that university if the Welsh bac is passed at a certain level. So, for instance, rather than maybe offering a Welsh student A, A, B, they would offer a Welsh student A, B, B, plus a Welsh bac, thus giving students two opportunities to gain a place at that university, either with or without their Welsh bac qualification. Even for those universities that don't use the Welsh baccalaureate as a formal part of their offer—and this is the conversation I had again last week with Oxford and Cambridge—they value it as part of a student's personal statement; they value it as part of the interview process in which a student may or may not then be offered a place at that university; and they also recognise that the skills learnt by students whilst undertaking the Welsh baccalaureate are exactly the skills that those students need to make a successful transition from A-level work to university-type work, which, if you can imagine, is very much based on individual research and being able to guide your own learning. So, I just don't recognise that in some way Welsh students are being disadvantaged. The message I get consistently from universities is that there are significant advantages to Welsh learners taking this qualification. +Hefin David AM: Okay. You can not recognise it, but that is contrary to the evidence that we've received. I'm not saying that the evidence is conclusive, but it actually demonstrates inconsistency. So, would you go so far as to accept instead then that there is an inconsistency in the way that universities use the Welsh bac as a tool for application? +Kirsty Williams AM: You would know better than anybody, Hefin, that universities are autonomous institutions and they set their own methods of entry into those institutions. What I'm telling you is that the evidence that I have received from universities is that, whilst there is a variety of approaches to how they regard the qualification in terms of offers, consistently, absolutely across the board, all universities tell me that the Welsh baccalaureate is a valuable qualification and does not disadvantage Welsh students. +Hefin David AM: If the committee were to produce a report based on the evidence we've received, that would be contrary to what you've just said. So, I think we'd end up in a debate in which we are setting out different points of view. So, would you therefore commit to exploring that perspective? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, I would argue that I have indeed explored that perspective because I have taken the trouble to find out first-hand—not via my officials, but first-hand—from those institutions, their views. So, this is not something that is hearsay; I have undertaken to ascertain the views of those universities. We have written to all vice-chancellors—last year—with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. Qualifications Wales has an individual whose specific job it is to ensure that universities across the United Kingdom understand the value of Welsh qualifications. That will become increasingly important as we see a divergence between English and Welsh qualifications. But I have to say that the evidence that I have from universities is that the Welsh baccalaureate, whilst it may be used in different ways in terms of an offer, the consistency from all universities is that it is a valuable qualification. If you've heard differently from admissions tutors and from the universities officially, rather than from somebody who has e-mailed in, then I would be pleased to look at that evidence, because it would be in stark contrast to what I am being told by universities. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin is not referring to an e-mail— +Hefin David AM: No, I've said that. +Lynne Neagle AM: —we did do a survey and we've also taken oral evidence. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and it's representing the evidence that we received. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I'm presenting you with the evidence that I've received. +Hefin David AM: But it will be presented to you as a submission from this committee, no doubt. Let's look at some admissions offers instead then. You do concede that there is inconsistency with how admissions offers are made with regard to the skills challenge certificate. How would you suggest that that is addressed? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, each individual institution and university the length and breadth of the UK have different ways in which they make offers to individuals. What is absolutely clear to me, and if the concern is around the type of institution—. So, for instance, it is accepted as a third-grade offer in Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, the London School of Economics—some of the highest performing universities and Russell Group universities. It is accepted as a fourth qualification or amends the offer in places like Bath University, and it is accepted in tariff-point offers in places like Hull and the University of the West of England. So there is a variety of ways in which universities use the qualification, and that is their prerogative—that's their prerogative as institutions. They will have different ways in which they recruit and how they offer places, just like different universities will have different views on unconditional offers. You know, there's a difference in universities there, isn't there? Some universities don't have unconditional offers at all; other universities— +Hefin David AM: So, what you're saying is that the problem isn't connected to the Welsh bac, it's connected with just the way that universities make offers, and the Welsh bac has got nothing to do with it. +Kirsty Williams AM: I’m saying there is a variety. Just like any other qualification, there is a variety in how universities use qualifications for offers. What I’m saying to you is that, in the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, what they say is that there is certainly no detriment to any Welsh student undertaking this qualification. They value the qualification. They think it is useful. It develops a set of skills that help students to make that transition into higher education. And therefore, I think it is a myth—I would go as far as to say that it’s a myth—that Welsh students are disadvantaged in any way by taking this qualification. Sorry, Andrew. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Andrew Clark: Could I just add to that response? There are, obviously, differences in the way that universities treat the skills challenge certificate and the Welsh baccalaureate, which is the prime focus of this. The attitude of the universities has changed significantly since that was a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that has made a difference. +Andrew Clark: And even those who do not make it part of their offer consider it exceedingly valuable in the way that young people are prepared to go to university and, therefore, as part of their personal statement, as part of their interview, the activity that the young person has taken by means of the skills challenge certificate is definitely recognised, even by those who don’t actually make it part of their offer. So, we’re still on a journey—that graded qualification has only been taught for a couple of years, but the journey is taking us to the right place, towards the right destination. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, it isn’t just about variable admissions practices across universities; it is to deal with the skills challenge certificate as well, which needed changing in order to improve that. +Andrew Clark: But that was changed in September 2015. When it was a 'yes'/'no' qualification, I think they held it in less regard than they do now that it is a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that’s the conversation we had with some of our Russell Group universities. +Andrew Clark: And that was an important shift three years ago. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, last question, then: are you absolutely confident that any concerns we are offering are nothing really to worry about? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to continue to communicate to all audiences the importance of this and the value of this qualification. But I am confident that the university sector, in its wide variety of forms, regards the Welsh baccalaureate qualification as a valuable endeavour for Welsh students to undertake, and they certainly don’t regard it as a detriment to students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân wants to come in on this, and then I've got a question from Suzy on Seren. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just that the committee, of course, has been trying to gain evidence on this sector from the universities themselves, but Universities Wales, which represents the interests of universities in Wales, has rejected the committee's invitation to submit any oral or written evidence. So, can you see the dilemma we're in? We are hearing a few things coming from some universities, we hear what you're saying, but we can't get to the root of the matter because the universities themselves aren't willing to come to speak to us. Are you also disappointed that they have rejected our invitation to come and speak to us? +Hefin David AM: Where's the enthusiasm, Chair? Where's the enthusiasm? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And perhaps that's a sign that they don't want to be drawn into this argument between the Government and us as a committee. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it’s a matter for individual universities to decide whether they want to participate in the work of this committee. I would urge them to do so. All Welsh universities regard the Welsh baccalaureate as an equivalent to A-level, and all universities use it as part of their offer—Welsh universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but you see what our dilemma is, though, because if we can’t actually ask them directly, it's a bit difficult for us to actually probe this and to help move things on? Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's a matter for them, and maybe the Chair would like to take that up with Universities Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: We have had quite an extensive dialogue with them about it. Suzy on Seren. +Suzy Davies AM: So, just briefly, you’ve said several times that having a Welsh bac qualification is an advantage and certainly no detriment, and that it’s valued by universities. But advantage isn't the same as equivalence, and we have had evidence from—I think it was Cardiff University, again, where they had students with two A-levels and a bac who were actually performing as weaker students. So, even though on the face of it you've got three A-levels, those particular students aren't matching up to the expectations of a student with three A-levels. I do want to challenge what you said about the students who are involved in the Seren network about the baccalaureate being accepted for things like veterinary medicine and medicine itself. We've had evidence from FE colleges, which are now significant players in producing our Seren-style students, if you like, that they are exempting their students from doing the bac because it's a distraction, effectively. What's your comment on that? Because if this is a question of communication, which I suspect you're about to tell me, one of the axioms of good communication is you can have the best marketing in the world, but if the product you're selling isn't highly valued then you're actually just doubling the problem. So, can you explain to me why FE is exempting their highest flyers from doing the bac? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think sometimes colleges make the decision that four or five A-levels is of an advantage, and therefore, if you're asking students to carry that workload, which is a considerable workload, that's the preferred route for more able and talented students. Again, what is quite clear in all the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, is that this is a myth. What universities tell me they want is not necessarily students with four or five A-levels; they want students with three really exceptional grades at A-level and a Welsh baccalaureate. I think that's really, really an important message to get across—that it is not necessary to do four or five A-levels if you aspire to go to these Russell Group universities, or if you decide you want to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. As I said, in the conversations that we have had—and there is actually some research, and I will let the committee have links to the research. There is some research to suggest that those students who have been involved in project-based work—and, of course, that's not just the Welsh baccalaureate, that would be the EPQ, which is a qualification that is rapidly gaining traction in England. That is an extended project—research based—qualification, very similar to the individual project element of the Welsh baccalaureate. The EPQ in England is seen as a qualification taken by more able and talented students, and what we see in some of the research that is coming forward is that those students who have engaged in that type of work, project-based work, individual-led, research-based work—those skills are the skills that are really attuned to the nature of university-type work. Therefore, that is valued by universities and there is some indication to say that there is a correlation between the students who have undertaken that work and their potential success at undergraduate level. They also tell me that there is a link between, for instance, being able then to use those skills to gain work experience, placements and internships in the private sector and in the world of work, because, as I said, those types of skills are really, really valuable and therefore that's why they value the qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just add—? It's great that they're telling you, why aren't they telling FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think it's really important that FE colleges understand that there is a myth around the fact that these universities are looking for four or five A-levels, and if that's the reason why then colleges are not allowing students or dissuading students from taking the Welsh bac, I think we need to reflect on what's important to those universities—which is the right A-levels. I think it's really, really important that students are given the best advice about the A-levels they need to take, facilitating subjects to get into a university, and the value of the skills and knowledge they will acquire through the Welsh bac as an assistance to them going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Actually, it's your set of questions next on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll try and keep this on the shorter side, if that's okay, everybody. You say in your evidence that you expect universal adoption, basically, by 2020, I think it is, or it might be 2019. What do you think universal adoption actually means? What does it look like? Does it mean 100 per cent adoption? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is means is that I expect all institutions to be in a position to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate. I believe it should be an entitlement to all Welsh students to be able to study this qualification, and I believe we should work to the situation where it becomes the norm to take the Welsh baccalaureate. I also recognise that in some individual cases, there may be very good reasons why perhaps this is not aligned to the well-being of that particular student. But when I talk about universal adoption, I expect all our institutions to be in a position to deliver the qualification, and I believe it should be an entitlement for Welsh students to be able to undertake this qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: But not an obligation—that's the bit I'm trying to get at. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it should become the norm, and if there are exceptions to that, and there could well be for very legitimate reasons, I think that that flexibility should be allowed. But I think, for those students who are not doing that Welsh baccalaureate, there should be evidence as to why that decision has been taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, so there's a presumption. I think the performance measures, probably, are likely to sharpen the minds of some school leaders, so I won't pursue that. But can you tell me what lesson you may have learnt from the universal obligation for students to study Welsh language in schools when those schools weren't particularly ready to offer a quality course? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've rehearsed earlier, it is important that all of our schools and colleges are in a position to deliver this qualification well and deliver a really positive experience to learners. That's why there is existing support available, and via our new professional learning programmes there will be more support available for teachers to ensure that they have the skills and the confidence to deliver the qualification in a high-quality manner. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's going to take some time. Would you consider pausing the presumption of universal roll-out until you're absolutely sure that all institutions are able to offer the bac to the quality that you would like to see it delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not at this stage. I have no intention of pausing. We have evidence that schools are already delivering the qualification really well— +Suzy Davies AM: But you know that we've had evidence, and you must have as well, that not all schools are doing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: What we do know is that some schools struggle to deliver existing qualifications. I don't know why we would turn round and say that this qualification needs to be stopped when we wouldn't stop other qualifications, and we'd say, 'Well, there we are, we haven't got a 100 per cent guarantee that every single school is delivering this particular qualification especially well, therefore we're going to denude the opportunity of students to study that particular subject.' What we're saying is, 'There is a responsibility on us, on individual schools and on our regional consortia to endure that there is professional learning in place so that all schools are in a position to deliver the qualification well.' +Suzy Davies AM: Isn't it irresponsible to ask students to be obliged to take a qualification that's badly delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is irresponsible is not to invest in professional learning to ensure that all schools are in a position to deliver it well. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, I agree with you on that, actually, which is why I was a bit confused when you had some in-year additional money in this year's budget that was being given out to consortia rather than to schools to improve the ability of their teachers to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate in certain schools. Can you tell me whether the money—I think it was about £5 million that was going to the consortia in-year—will you will offer them suggestions that that is used for improving baccalaureate teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that is available is going via consortia to schools. Individual schools are best placed to understand the professional learning needs of their staff. And if that school understands that they have particular professional learning needs for the Welsh baccalaureate, then I would expect the money to be spent on that. Where a school is doing the Welsh baccalaureate particularly well, then the school might identify other areas where they look to seek improvement. Therefore, it is for the individual school to assess the professional learning needs of their staff. We can't second-guess that, and therefore it has to be right that school leaders are able to plan the professional learning of their staff accordingly. +Suzy Davies AM: I completely accept that and, as I say, it's not for all schools, but bearing in mind we're facing evidence of polarisation of delivery, I'm just wondering whether there wasn't a letter suggesting that they may want to focus on this in the schools that aren't delivering this well at the moment. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, that's a conversation to be had between challenge advisors in our regional consortia who are aware of the strengths and weaknesses in individual schools, in conjunction with the leadership of those schools, to discuss how that professional learning money is best spent. There isn't a school that is fantastic at everything, nor is there a school that is not good at anything, if you know what I mean. There are strengths and weaknesses in all schools. It is for the regional consortia, via challenge advisers, and the headteacher, to have that conversation about what the professional learning needs are for that particular school, to ensure that all their teachers, across the length and breadth of the curriculum, are in a position to deliver good-quality lessons. But we can't second-guess that. +Kevin Palmer: Can I just make a further comment? I'll be this afternoon meeting with the regional consortia, Estyn, the universities, and the rest of what we call 'the middle tier' to discuss with them the configuration of a national curriculum for professional learning, premised on the priorities that are emerging from our current work with pioneer schools. And the shifts in pedagogy that you all know is found behind some of these issues, with the delivery of the Welsh bac, those shifts in pedagogy are right at the core of the national approach to professional learning—so, things like project-based learning, the kinds of things you talked about today, moving away from a spoon-feeding model, not just for the Welsh bac but actually right across the curriculum. The new curriculum requires us to move in these new directions. So, it's absolutely true to say that each individual school is different, each individual practitioner is different, but we must give the regions and the HEIs, as it were, a menu of things, and guidance around where there are clearly weaknesses in schools. Those weaknesses need to be addressed. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that we're going forward towards Donaldson, and I'm sure that you will be getting questions on that at some time in the future. I'm more concerned about this bac that's been around for 10 years, and there's still, as far as we can tell from the evidence that we've had, poor delivery in some schools, where there's the prospect of obligation on the horizon. That was the thing that was worrying me. Anyway, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the issue of the difference between entitlement and obligation is a very important one and is a concern to students. You were saying it's an entitlement, not an obligation, but we have had very clear evidence from colleges that some of them are making young people do it, and schools are making young people do it. So, what do you say to those schools that are insisting on their pupils doing the Welsh bac at post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I hope that it becomes the norm that at post-16 level students take the Welsh baccalaureate, because I think it is of huge value. There may be circumstances that mean that the well-being of that student could be compromised by making them do this qualification. There could be a whole host of reasons why it is not suitable for a child to take this qualification, and therefore there has to be some flexibility in the system, and we have to trust in the professional leadership of our colleges and our headteachers to make that decision in the round, with the pupil and their parents, about what's in the best interests of those pupils. But I do think a situation where, perhaps, an entire cohort of students are suddenly deemed it's unsuitable for, I find that very hard to believe, but there could well be circumstances, for a whole host of reasons, where that particular qualification—. And we would not want to jeopardise the well-being of a student by forcing them to do a qualification that wasn't in their best interests, and we need to have the flexibility in the system to allow school leaders to make that decision, but they should also then be accountable for that decision. +Lynne Neagle AM: But do you recognise there's maybe a case for strengthening guidance, then, on this? Because, we've had teachers tell us that they have insisted on pupils doing this, and then the parents have rung Welsh Government, and they felt undermined, then. So, do you think there's a case for strengthening the guidance or clarifying what the position is to schools and colleges? +Kirsty Williams AM: Very happy to do that. As I said, from time to time, parents do indeed contact Welsh Government, and in that contact there is a whole variety of reasons why that parent feels the Welsh baccalaureate is not in the best interests of those children. Sometimes, that can go from the extreme of, 'I want my child to do five A-levels and I think that's in their best interest to get into Oxford and Cambridge'—I would argue that that is a myth, around the need to do that many A-levels—through to, 'Actually, my child has a range of learning needs, and actually this qualification isn't suited to them. Making them go out and do voluntary work in an organisation with people that don't understand their needs and they are unfamiliar with could jeopardise my child's ability and my child's well-being.' So, there's a whole range of reasons why sometimes people have concerns about the Welsh baccalaureate. Some of those are very legitimate concerns. Sometimes, they're based on information that, perhaps, isn't correct, or the myths around, 'I need to do five A-levels if I want to go to Cambridge'. Schools, then, have some flexibility. I'm aware of a case last year where a parent felt very concerned that the students were also having to study for entrance exams into Cambridge. A conversation was had with the school. They were able to allow the student extra time to study for that qualification and pick up their Welsh bac work later on in the academic year. So, they were able to be flexible in the delivery of that qualification. I'm very pleased to say that we've had correspondence from said parent to say that his son went on to do exceptionally well in his A-levels and his Welsh baccalaureate and gained his place at Cambridge University, and that's about having the flexibility, even at a school level, to be able to respond to the needs of individual students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me on this, then. As you know, mental health and the emotional health of our children and young people is a very core issue for this committee, and Estyn have said that studying the skills challenge certificate alongside three or four A-levels is a significant factor in causing stress for some young people. How do you respond to that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would be the first to acknowledge that studying A-levels can be a very stressful time. That's because students, rightly, regard those qualifications as high stakes and as having a profound effect on the opportunities for the rest of their lives. So, the mere fact of studying A-levels can be a really stressful time for students because they understand how important they are, and students want to do well and they want to be able to move on to the next stage, either of work or of university. We also know—and Estyn reflects this—that students are also often trying to combine that with part-time jobs. These students are of an age when they want to be out and about and earning some of their own money and being a bit more independent. So, that adds added pressure to them. So, undoubtedly, this is a stressful time in young people's lives and we need to ensure that there is support in school to support young people through this time to make sure that students are making the right choices in terms of their A-levels and the qualifications that they're doing so they're not having to do more because they're under the impression that, by doing more, that's going to make them more likely to succeed. What we know, actually, is it's about the quality of what you do rather than the entirety of what you do that's important to universities, and we need to make sure that students are getting really good information, advice and guidance and support at what is a challenging time in their lives, because, of course, it comes on top of working really hard for your GCSEs and then you have, the following year, AS-level examinations and A-level examinations after that. So, these are stressful times in children's lives and they realise the importance of these as high-stakes qualifications. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: This is about the wider impact of studying the Welsh bac on other curriculum subjects and education provision, and we've had representations in that it is causing some concerns. So, do you have any concerns about the effect that the Welsh bac may be having on wider education provisions, such as the narrowing of the curriculum at key stage 4? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. Obviously, schools are responsible for planning their local curriculum offer, and that needs to meet the needs of their learners, and it also needs to meet the needs of the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure 2009. So, there should be a wide variety of choices available. I believe that the skills challenge certificate actually does ensure that there is a broad curriculum and that children are exposed to different learning opportunities. And so, rather than narrowing it, I believe the Welsh bac helps us to make sure that there is an expansive curriculum, and that lots of different issues are explored in the skills challenge certificate that ensure not just academic skills are developed, but, actually, knowledge and skills of a wider range of subjects about you and your place in the world is available via this qualification. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, to what extent do you think that the Welsh bac should be give priority over other curriculum subjects? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't think it's—. It shouldn't be at the expense of other subjects. It should be part of that wide range of opportunities that are afforded to students, and I don't think it's more important or less important than other aspects of what we already ask schools to deliver. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about where we've taken representations that there's a lack of capacity in terms of all the extra pressures of studying the Welsh bac along with other qualifications? I went to a school in Bangor, and, again, as has been said here, it's very polarised, the evidence that we're taking—either some have found it very easy or some, including teachers, have found it extremely difficult to fit everything in, and they do believe that there is a lack of capacity there. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the onerous nature and the consequences of workload for teachers is acknowledged by the Qualifications Wales work and review into the qualification, and that is one of the things that we're looking to address so that the assessment arrangements and workload implications for teachers are not too onerous. And, if there is any element of duplication—students being asked to do things over and over—then that needs to be addressed as well, and that's why there is this review by the design group. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, how do you respond to concerns that learners are avoiding studying the Welsh bac— where they can, that is—by attending institutions in England or institutions that do not offer Welsh-medium provision? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's interesting, isn't it, about where children choose to study and whether they are motivated by the avoidance of the Welsh bac? People make decisions about where to study for a whole host of reasons, and it's difficult sometimes to quantify what those are. So, for instance, we often hear this along the border that, because—. The geography is not easy, but it can be relatively easy to go across into the English system and therefore you don't have to do this. Now, the reasons for that could be very variable. It could be about the nature of the offer. We know that, in some of our rural schools, the secondary sixth forms aren't able to offer a wide variety of A-levels, and perhaps, by going to a different institution, a larger institution across the way, then you can get that combination of the A-levels you want to do, which simply isn't possible if you do it in your home school. Or, we do have some consortia arrangements where A-levels are delivered across a wide variety of schools, which require students to travel. Some students don't want to do that; they don't want to do their A-levels in three different schools, but they'd rather go to an institution where they can do it all under one roof. And that means, sometimes, moving across the border or, in the area I live, children making the decision to go to Merthyr college, because its a lovely, beautiful new building, the facilities are absolutely fantastic and a wide variety of A-levels is available under one roof. We looked at, in particular, also, the perception of quality. So, if we take the example of King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, a school where, in the past, there have been, I think, within the community, some concerns about the quality of that school—whether it's regarded as a good school. And, from that particular location, you can quite easily get to Hereford college—a college that has a fantastic offer, does very, very well and has a beautiful building. What we do, if we look at the tracking of the students who have been retained in King Henry VIII, as that school has been on its improvement journey and has done better and better and better, the number of students that they are retaining into their sixth form has grown. So, the perception is, 'This is a good school, I'm going to get a good-quality experience here', and more and more students are choosing to stay in that school than perhaps make the decision to travel somewhere else. We also have to recognise that, for some students, staying in the sixth form isn't what they want to do; they want a different experience, they want to go to an FE college. They want a different experience. So, we have to take into consideration that students could be motivated by a wide variety of subjects, and there's no hard-and-fast evidence that it is avoidance of the bac that is the sole driver for some of these choices. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, on this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The evidence that we've had from one of the teaching unions—robust and clear evidence—is that this is happening, that is, that young people are leaving Wales to go over the border to schools in England in order to avoid the Welsh bac. That's exactly what was said to us. But you don't accept that evidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not saying that I don't accept it. I'm saying that I think there are a wide variety of reasons why students make decisions about where to study. I'm not aware of any comprehensive piece of work that has looked at those motivations, and I think there could be a whole host of reasons why children are deciding to move across the border. Perhaps the Welsh bac is an easy one to place that hook on, and that's easier to acknowledge, isn't it, than saying that perhaps students are making that choice for other reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions, then, are on teacher learning from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Actually, I've asked the question that I wanted to ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, you don't want to— +Suzy Davies AM: By all means you ask the others I had. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You have referred to training already. The committee's got two concerns, really. One is about preparedness in ITE to teach the Welsh bac, so I don't know if you want to expand on how teachers are being skilled up at that level to deliver the Welsh bac effectively. +Kirsty Williams AM: In the accreditation process, which has not been without its pain, and some significant decisions made in that regard, the criteria for the ITE programmes note that, and I'm going to quote it: 'Teachers should be able to help children and young people to make links across their learning, bringing together different aspects to examine, for example, important topics such as citizenship, enterprise, financial capability and sustainability.' So, the prime driver for our ITE reforms, obviously, is the preparedness for 'Successful Futures', but in preparing our teachers to be in a position to successfully deliver that, those are also the pedagogical principles and that shift in pedagogy that we see aligned to the Welsh baccalaureate. So, it is actually a part of the accreditation process that the curriculum that the new ITE providers will have to deliver—ensuring that teachers have those skills and have that confidence to be able to deliver their teaching in a way that, as I said, ensures that we successfully deliver on Donaldson, but also on the same pedagogical principles that are needed for the successful delivery of the Welsh bac. +Suzy Davies AM: In the pre-Donaldson period, then, bearing in mind what you've just said, do you expect to see a surge in improvement on how the baccalaureate is taken up by those schools that are currently less keen on it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I hope that we will see increased numbers of students taking the qualification and an increase in the quality of that experience for young people. As we discussed earlier, we're not just waiting for the new graduates to come out of our ITE providers. There's a whole cohort of the workforce already out there. They should be given an equal opportunity to ensure that they have the skills to deliver on our curriculum reforms and our reform qualifications, and every time the previous Government has brought in a reformed qualification there have been specific resources made available to ensure that teachers are in a position to do that. So, when we changed to maths numeracy, a new qualification that was to be examined, there was specific resource made available for the professional learning for teachers to make sure that they were in a position to do that, and that's exactly the same as the offer that we have available for teachers who are delivering the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And you've already said about continuing professional development, that this is going to be a core part of the CPD. Is there anything that you want to add on that? Is it going to be fully integrated into the professional learning offer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. There is already—I don't want to make the impression that there's not already support available out there. There is already support out there via regional consortia for professional learning with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate. There is existing support available from the WJEC with regard to Welsh baccalaureate, and it will continue, as we drive forward our national approach to professional learning. And, increasingly, there are interesting ways in which we're supporting students, so I don't know if Members are aware of the new MOOC. The University of Bath, one of the Russell Group universities, delivered a MOOC for the extended project qualification in England. +Lynne Neagle AM: What's a MOOC? [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: So, it is an online—a massive open online course. So, it's a course that is delivered free of charge, and it's delivered by information technology. So, the University of Bath have done this MOOC to support students with the EPQ. They have just launched, in conjunction with Aberystwyth University, a bilingual MOOC for the individual project for Welsh bac. It's our understanding it is the first ever Welsh-medium MOOC, we think; we're not aware of any others. And this resource is there for students to give them advice on how they do choose the thesis for their individual project: how do you go about, then, undertaking good independent research; how do you reference properly, to ensure that you do that correctly? And we've seen over 1,000 students already sign up for the MOOC. So, increasingly, there are lots and lots of new resources out there for both teachers and students to make the most of. And the fact that Bath and Aberystwyth have worked together on this, I believe, shows their commitment and a demonstration of their support for this qualification, otherwise why would the University of Bath bother, if they weren't interested in it? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me. I've written to you about a young constituent who moved institutions and resat the Welsh bac, but wasn't able, because of the WJEC policy, to obtain a higher grade in it, because they've got a policy that the grade is capped when you resit it. Given what the committee's been told about the variability in the way this is taught in institutions in Wales, do you think it's fair that young people shouldn't be able to go and resit it somewhere else and get a better grade? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, given that Welsh Ministers are independent of the qualification system, I would want to be careful about what I said, because it is for the WJEC and Qualifications Wales to regulate this. But, clearly, we would want to reflect on making sure that students have an opportunity, and a fair opportunity. Andrew, I don't know if you've got any observations that you'd like to make. +Andrew Clark: No, not really. I think it's an individual case, this one— +Lynne Neagle AM: But it could apply to lots of young people, couldn't it? I mean, that's the point here. I know it's a constituent's case and I don't normally raise those in the Chair, but I think, given what we've learned about variability, it is a valid issue for young people in Wales, really. +Andrew Clark: Yes, whether it's particularly related to the Welsh baccalaureate, though, I'm not so certain. And I think that would be a better question to ask the WJEC, perhaps, and Qualifications Wales, because it's a deliberate act that that activity is at arm's length from Welsh Ministers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and her officials for attending? We've had a very useful discussion this morning, which will inform our report on this. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, but thank you again for your attendance. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Llywydd to the First Minister on the role of the Assembly in the process of legislating for Brexit. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning with additional information following the meeting on 8 November. Are Members happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make a comment on the first of those letters, the one from the Llywydd? I recommend to Assembly Members that they read that again if they can, because, actually, it's an important issue that is easily lost in the other things that we talk about with Brexit, and that is the role of this Assembly in scrutinising secondary legislation falling out of Brexit. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask a question? Was that a reflection of all the Chairs? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. It came to the panel of Chairs— +Hefin David AM: And it was obviously unanimous— +Lynne Neagle AM: —and we agreed that we wanted that letter sent. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4 is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People, and Education Committee met to discuss the status of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting, and Cabinet Secretary for Education Kirsty Williams AM, alongside officials Kevin Palmer and Andrew Clark, provided evidence. The committee sought to understand the value of the Welsh Bac from the viewpoints of students, teachers, and employers, as well as its acceptance by universities, particularly those within the Russell Group. + +Kirsty Williams asserted that the Welsh Bac is a valued and rigorous qualification that provides students with a broad and balanced curriculum, preparing them for further study and employment. Concerns were raised about the balance of studying the Welsh Bac alongside other qualifications, the workload for teachers, and the well-being of students. Despite these issues, the Welsh government planned for the qualification to be universally adopted by 2020 as the norm. + +Differences in the delivery and reception of the Welsh Bac by schools and the leadership of those institutions were noted, with some inconsistencies in the enthusiasm and support from leaders affecting its perceived value. Kirsty Williams acknowledged the need for a consistent delivery approach and outlined efforts to improve professional learning for teachers and refine the qualification based on a Qualifications Wales review. + +Admissions offers from universities were discussed, with evidence suggesting some variability in how they value the Welsh Bac; however, Kirsty Williams confidently stated that the qualification is considered advantageous and is accepted by most universities as equivalent to an A-level. + +Concerns about the wider impact of studying the Welsh Bac, such as the narrowing of the curriculum at key stage 4 and students potentially avoiding it by attending institutions outside Wales, were also discussed. Kirsty Williams believed various motivations led students to choose where to study, and not solely the Welsh Bac. Regarding future initial teacher education (ITE), plans were in place to ensure teachers are trained to deliver a curriculum in line with the pedagogical principles of both the Welsh Bac and the new 'Successful Futures' guidelines. + +The committee session concluded with the agreement to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting and noted additional papers, including one on the Assembly's role in scrutinizing Brexit-related secondary legislation." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. I'm pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division at Welsh Government; and Emma Gammon, lawyer for Welsh Government. Thank you for attending this morning and welcome to the committee. I'm just going to run through the procedures that we're going to follow now. As I said, the purpose of the meeting is to undertake Stage 2 proceedings on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. For these proceedings, Members should have copies of the marshalled list of amendments, the groupings of the amendments for debate and the voting order for the amendments. The marshalled list of amendments is the list of all amendments tabled, marshalled into the order in which the sections appear in the Bill. The order in which we consider amendments will be the default order—that is, sections 1 to 3 and the long title. You will see from the groupings list that amendments have been grouped to facilitate debate. However, the order in which they're called and moved for decision is dictated by the marshalled list. Members will, therefore, need to follow the two papers, although I will advise Members when I call them whether they're being called to speak in the debate or to move their amendments for a decision. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. Members who wish to speak in a particular group should indicate to me in the usual way. I will call the Deputy Minister to speak on each group. For the record, in accordance with the convention agreed by the Business Committee, as Chair I will move amendments in the name of the Deputy Minister. For expediency, I will assume that the Deputy Minister wishes me to move all of her amendments, and I will do so at the appropriate place in the marshalled list. Deputy Minister, if you do not want a particular amendment to be moved, please indicate to me at the relevant point in proceedings. In line with our usual practice, legal advisers to the committee and the Deputy Minister are not expected to provide advice on the record. If Members wish to seek legal advice during proceedings, please do so by passing a note to the legal adviser and, if necessary, we can adjourn. My intention is to try to dispose of all amendments during today's meeting. I will call a short break in proceedings at an appropriate time, if necessary. Okay, thank you. So, we will proceed, then, to group 1, which is the duty to promote public awareness. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 1 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendment and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. My amendments 1 and 4 will place a duty on Welsh Ministers to provide information and increase awareness about the change in the law to ensure that the public are made aware of how the law will change as a result of the defence of reasonable punishment being abolished and that physical punishment would be prohibited once the Act commences. I tabled these amendments in response to this committee's recommendation—this was a recommendation from this committee in the Stage 1 report, so I have responded to that. I've already made a commitment to a high-intensity awareness-raising campaign over approximately six years from Royal Assent, should the Bill be passed. I've considered amendments 1A to 1E, which have been tabled by Janet Finch-Saunders, and which relate to the duty to raise awareness. Amendment 1A introduces a reference to public understanding. We don't think, actually, that this adds anything to the Government amendment, which already mentions awareness. It makes the awareness-raising duty open-ended with no time limit, which is not necessary. By commencement, messaging around the change in the law will be embedded. The awareness-raising campaign will continue for a number of years. Therefore, an ongoing duty referring specifically to the law change would not be required. I understand, of course, that the awareness-raising campaign needs to be comprehensive, well planned and to reach out to all those people and all those communities who need to be aware of the law change, and understand how to respond to it. But I don't think it's helpful or necessary to highlight specific groups, such as visitors to Wales, on the face of the Bill—that's the approach taken in amendment 1E—as it risks placing too much emphasis on certain groups at the expense of others. In relation to children, the committee will know that I'm fully committed to children’s rights, and that Welsh Ministers are already under a duty to have due regard to the rights of children whenever they exercise their functions. An additional due regard requirement, such as the one set out in amendment 1D, relating specifically to the need to promote awareness among children is not needed. This would be part and parcel of the Welsh Government approach to putting children’s rights at the heart of our policy making. Similarly, I don't think it's necessary for the Bill to set out specifically the topics that need to be covered in the awareness-raising campaign, as is suggested in amendments 1B and 1C. That level of detail, I don't think, is for the face of the Bill. Information required about parenting support will be considered by the parenting expert group, under the auspices of the Bill’s strategic implementation group, working with my officials and the expert stakeholder group on the awareness-raising campaign. And, really, their thinking should not be constrained in any way by specifications on the face of the Bill. I think we always need to bear in mind that what the Bill does is remove a defence to an existing criminal offence; it does not create a new offence. And in this context, it doesn't make sense for this Bill to contain a provision requiring the provision of information about how a person may raise concerns if it appears to them that a child is being physically punished. As I set out in my letter to this committee responding to recommendation 15 on this point, safeguarding is everyone’s business, and, as now, the public have a role in highlighting to relevant services if they are concerned about a child. I'm asking for the support of Members for amendments 1 and 4, and I ask Members to reject amendments 1A to 1E because this would place unnecessary provisions on the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Are there other Members who wish to speak? Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I wish to speak to amendments 1A to 1E, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment on the duty to promote public awareness. While we believe it is absolutely imperative that the public are made aware of this controversial change in the law, the Deputy Minister's amendment lacks a number of key points that the committee were actually keen to address at Stage 1. An important thread runs throughout each and every amendment that I've tabled within this group—that of a sustained awareness campaign, which not only stretches beyond the implementation of the Bill, but serves as a duty for future administrations. Amendment 1A: primarily, amendment 1A changes amendment 1 to include the promotion of understanding changes to the law. I don't think it's enough for the Welsh Government to say that the public should be made aware of the coming into force of section 1 and that a public awareness campaign needs to be sustained until the Welsh Government's objectives have been achieved. Despite the fact that it is intended to change behaviour, the consequences of this law are far greater than that of organ donation or prohibiting smoking indoors. Instead of an opt-out system or a civil offence, this law will remove a defence for parents, information on which could be there on their records for the rest of their lives, potentially separate parents, and could affect employment chances. As such, whilst we agree with the necessity of the awareness campaign, it is important too that the Welsh Government take stock and ensures that parents are not penalised due to a weak awareness campaign. The witnesses we heard before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands— +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, Dawn is asking if you'll take an intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: I just wanted to know—could you give us examples of any other piece of legislation where there's been indefinite public awareness campaigns once it's been passed? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: There's a lot of legislation. The first Assembly term when I was here— +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, what I'm asking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'm trying to respond— +Dawn Bowden AM: What I'm asking for is: can you give us specific examples of where there have been indefinite public awareness campaigns running indefinitely past the enactment of a piece of legislation? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The very first term that I was an Assembly Member, we passed 25 pieces of separate legislation. Even today, as I sit here, the public are not aware of many of those pieces of legislation. This particular piece of legislation will have a profound effect on the parenting of children in Wales. So, therefore, I think there is a necessity for both children and parents to become involved, and I shall speak now— +Dawn Bowden AM: With respect, Chair, that's not the question I asked. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: —to my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: I can call you in the debate, if you'd like to make a more substantive contribution on this. Yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The witnesses who we heard from before this committee also noted the necessity of ensuring that the public understands the implications. And that's what we're talking about here, Members—the implications of removing this defence. Strikingly, the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent stated the following: 'the potential for public resistance to the Bill through misunderstanding or confusion over it implications may pose the largest barrier to its implementation.' If you are intent on removing the defence of reasonable punishment, it is therefore not unreasonable to ensure that law-abiding parents fully understand the ramifications of this Bill. Additionally, the committee found that while the current Welsh Government's intention to deliver a public awareness campaign was beyond doubt, future Governments may have less of a commitment. This places further weight on the fact that the Welsh Government should be under a duty to promote awareness and understanding of the Bill beyond its commencement. Furthermore, the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill quite clearly notes that, under section 2, the Scottish Ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1 on the abolition for the defence of reasonable punishment. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister can respond as to the reasons why the Welsh Government has deviated from this course of action in their amendment. [Interruption.] Should our amendment be agreed— +Lynne Neagle AM: Are you taking an intervention? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: No. I'd rather crack on, to be honest. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I can call you in the debate, Hefin. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should our amendment to be agreed, we also request that a printing change be made to ensure that the new heading reflects promoting awareness of the changes to the law made by section 1. Amendment 1B: amendment 1B is in line with the committee's recommendation 9, which stated that, as part of a public awareness campaign, there should be details about the support available to parents to use alternatives to physical punishment when disciplining their children. During evidence at Stage 1, the witnesses we saw before the committee raised serious concerns about harder-to-reach groups who needed to be made aware of removing the defence. For example, Children in Wales, Action for Children and Play Wales stated that some families and communities may be harder to reach with information and support. Welsh Government needs to make sure that they receive the information they need. Now, while the Deputy Minister states that she would work hard to ensure that harder-to-reach groups receive this information, a duty to provide information on alternatives to physical punishment would ensure that future Welsh Governments would maintain a successful awareness-raising campaign. I note the Deputy Minister accepted the recommendation, through our amendment, but this does not explicitly include a duty to provide details about support for parents. As will be expanded upon later, the Deputy Minister has relied upon the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign to be delivered alongside awareness raising. However, this is only an online resource and she must be clear about what other avenues will be available to parents who do not have access to the internet or are part of harder-to-reach groups. Amendment 1C: amendment 1C supports the committee's recommendation 15 that explains that the Welsh Government should ensure clear advice is provided on what people can do if they have seen or learned of a child being physically assaulted. We urged, at Stage 1, that although many professionals were already under a duty to report concerns about physical punishment, regardless of the Bill, other witnesses raised concerns that it could create the potential for claims of abuse that are unfounded. In particular, some were worried that children, who may not realise the implications of reporting, could make allegations that are actually untrue. While we would expect the awareness-raising campaign to include the consequences of false accusations, this could also be reflected among adults, if the public are not sufficiently made aware of how they can report and in what situations they can report a case of assault. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got several speakers. I've got Suzy Davies first, then Dawn Bowden. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Minister, and thank you, Janet, for that. I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage that the majority of the amendments that are being made and articulated by Janet there are based on committee recommendations, and those recommendations were made after taking evidence from the public at large, but also you as well. So, that suggests that, at that stage, we weren't reassured by the offer that you were making because we felt the need to put these recommendations into our report. Now, I recognise that you've moved some way on some of these amendments, and we'll been talking about that through the course of the debates on other groups. But the one thing to bear in mind here is this is legislation, now—that means that this is the instrument of the Assembly, not of Government, and if this Assembly feels that the face of the Bill is unclear on the minimum requirements of a public awareness campaign, then we have the right to suggest the things that we would like to see in that public awareness-raising campaign. The list that Janet has given is a minimum. The reason these have been tabled individually and independently is that some may be acceptable where others may not be, so it will be disappointing to hear that you're rejecting them all, and the reason they need to go on the face of the Bill is that, if you are going to introduce specifics via regulation, at the moment we have no reassurance about how you're going to do that—about what input the Assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could have in designing that public awareness-raising campaign. Unless you accept some amendments in other groups, that is the position with this Bill: the influence of the Assembly will be zero over the content of an awareness-raising campaign. In terms of it being non-time limited, I think the amendment has been tabled in the way it has not to oblige you to an everlasting, never-ending campaign of awareness raising. But if you bear in mind that, seven years after the introduction of this Bill, there's going to be some reporting on the effectiveness of the Bill, what is the point of doing that if you don't then have an obligation, should the reports require it to be necessary, to continue promoting the changes in the law? I accept that that can't go on for centuries, but to actually limit it to two years on an issue that is so sensitive, and which has a reach beyond our boundaries, I think is genuinely a mistake. Finally, you mention that safeguarding is everyone's business. I think that's true, but I think Janet Finch-Saunders was right to say that members of the public, ordinary individuals, not professionals, will need assurance that they're doing the right thing. The amendment as listed is not even there to encourage people to do that, although that can be read in that way, but it is to help them be certain that they are doing the right thing. If this is going to be up to the individual, as you've said, and the committee itself wasn't reassured that individuals would know what to do, perhaps I can ask you to consider at Stage 3, if you're going to reject this amendment, how you can reassure members of the public that, if they are going to intervene on the back of this law, they're making things better, not worse. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Dawn. +Dawn Bowden AM: My comments, really, relate to ongoing awareness-raising campaigns, which I think all of us would want to see, and would appreciate in any changes in legislation. My point, really, is that we have a plethora of legislation that this Assembly has passed in the last 20 years, and I'm not aware of any legislation where, on the face of the Bill we have ongoing awareness-raising campaigns on an indefinite basis. It seems to me that, for some reason, you seem to be wanting to take a completely different approach to this piece of legislation. From what the Deputy Minister is saying—and perhaps I will get some clarity on this—there will be an amendment to the legislation that will say that we have an awareness campaign. That awareness campaign can be the subject of consultation with interested parties in terms of what needs to be included in it. It could also, I assume, Deputy Minister, be an awareness campaign that can be written into a set of guidance for future use. But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe that any piece of legislation requires ongoing and indefinite awareness-raising campaigns, and particularly in relation to visitors to Wales. Again, we have other pieces of legislation in Wales that are not applicable in the other parts of the UK. I am not aware that there is a necessity for awareness-raising campaigns with visitors coming into Wales on the raft of the other pieces of legislation that we have that they don't. And similarly, when we go to visit countries that have different legislation, we don't necessarily know what legislation we're going into when we visit that country—you just go there and you accept that you go to a different country and you abide by their laws. So, my key point, Chair, is just the necessity of an ongoing, endless awareness campaign being written onto the face of the Bill. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Dawn. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: My comments follow logically from Dawn Bowden's comments, particularly in relation to amendments 1D and 1E. What you would be doing is that this Senedd, if this was on the face of the Bill, the duty on Ministers, would be putting the duty on Ministers in law beyond the life of the fifth Senedd, into the next Senedd term, and putting that duty on those newly elected Ministers after that, which, in principle, would be against the principles of binding— +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin, are you taking an intervention from Suzy? +Hefin David AM: Yes, happy to. +Suzy Davies AM: When you've finished your point. +Hefin David AM: I'm happy to take it now, because I was going to sum up by agreeing with the point you made, actually. +Suzy Davies AM: I'd love that. You referred to this potentially binding Ministers in future Assemblies; at the moment, we've got an implementation period and a five-year reporting period that takes any reporting on this Act into the Assembly after next. I'm wondering if you're going to have any comments on that when we come to the amendment to change that later on. +Hefin David AM: Well, when we get to that amendment, I'll make comments if I feel it necessary. But at this point in time, we're talking about amendments 1D and 1E, and particularly in relation to 1D and 1E it just isn't necessary, given the fact that—I won't call it a concession, because I think you made a reasonable point about the Minister making a statement at Stage 3, and I think Dawn Bowden actually supported that as well. That, therefore, makes those amendments unnecessary. Given that, in these circumstances, it is unnecessary to bind Ministers in future Parliaments. And that's my key point, really, which is why I wouldn't vote for those two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. I just want to speak against amendment 1A and also amendment 1B. I don't believe that there is a need for an indefinite campaign, as is outlined in 1A. I agree entirely that there is a need for a campaign during the period of change, and therefore I'm very glad to see that the Government has brought forward amendment 1, and I do hope that there will be a real push during the period of change. In terms of amendment 1B, I do have sympathy with what is being said here, but I believe that any kind of information or campaign in terms of enabling parents to learn about alternatives to physical punishment should be the subject of continual far-reaching work by the Government, through various programmes, and it should not be an addition on the face of this Bill, which deals with a small change to the common law. And then, on 1D also, if I may—I don't agree with this either. Again, I believe that there is a need to promote awareness amongst children, but that should happen through the children's rights convention, as part of a broader programme to promote children's rights. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Siân. I call on the Deputy Minister to speak, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much for your contributions to the debate and your comments on these amendments today. I just want to re-emphasise that it is as a result of the recommendation from this committee that we are putting this duty to have the awareness campaign on the face of the Bill, and I absolutely recognise the crucial role awareness raising has to play in supporting the implementation of the Bill. I'm very grateful for and appreciate the committee's interest and the work that you've done in this area of work. But I do think that these amendments are unnecessary. If we go through them, amendment 1A is really open-ended on promoting public awareness. We're committed to a high-intensity awareness over six years from Royal Assent, and there is an expert stakeholder group supporting us with the development of the awareness campaign. All the points that you've been making will be being considered by that group. I think the level of detail on the face of the Bill is not needed. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Would you just take an intervention on that just to help me understand? A two-year awareness-raising campaign—how have you concluded that— +Julie Morgan AM: Six-year. +Suzy Davies AM: I thought it was two years before section 1 comes into force. +Julie Morgan AM: We've got six years from Royal Assent. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, so it is going to continue beyond section 1 coming into force— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Oh yes, it's going to continue. +Suzy Davies AM: That's very helpful. +Julie Morgan AM: Definitely, yes. So, I don't think that's needed, amendment 1A. Amendment 1B, about support available to parents and how to access it—again, this level of detail is not required on the face of the Bill. I just want to emphasise we have got this expert implementation group, who are working on all aspects of this Bill, many of whom represent organisations who gave evidence to this committee. The Bill is a simple one, with a clear purpose. It aims to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. I think lots of these amendments are very helpful and interesting, but would be discussed and would be acted on in the normal pathway of planning and development, and they're not required on the face of the Bill. So, I'm not putting them down, I'm just saying that we don't need them to be there on the face of the Bill. And then amendment 1C—the information about how to raise concerns—I do repeat that safeguarding is everybody's business, and the same issues apply now as will after this defence has been removed. Amendment 1D—Ministers to have regard to the need to promote awareness among children—now, children's rights are absolutely enshrined in our policy making, and the entire Bill is about protecting the rights of children. So, it is unnecessary duplication. So, we hope that the Bill will remain focused. Again, in terms of visitors, the level of detail is simply not required on the face of the Bill. Our awareness-raising campaign will be comprehensive. And then to pick up a few of the other points that were raised, revisions to the impact assessments are being considered as part of my commitment to update the explanatory memorandum ahead of Stage 3. So, there will be more details on the regulatory impact assessment. The issue that was raised about the Scottish Bill, that it refers to 'understanding'—now, the Scottish Bill was not a Government Bill, it was a private Member's Bill, and our view is that nothing is added by adding the 'understanding'; 'awareness' is sufficient. So, basically, I think that the points made have been very useful, but I urge committee members to accept my amendments, but to reject those proposed by Janet Finch-Saunders, as they are unnecessary provisions in terms of what the awareness-raising duty needs to achieve. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 1, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1A? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection. I therefore take a vote by show of hands. The question is that amendment 1A be agreed. All those in favour, please raise your hands. All those against. There voted two in favour, four against. So, amendment 1A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1B? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 1B be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1B. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 1B is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. All those in favour of amendment 1C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1C is not agreed. Janet, do you want to move amendment 1D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 1D be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, as there's an objection, I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1D, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1D is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 1E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The question is that amendment 1E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 1E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 1E is not agreed. If amendment 1 is not agreed, amendment 2C and amendment 4 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 1? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. I move amendment 1 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 1 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we have an objection, so we'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 1. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 1 is agreed. We'll move on now then to group 2, which relates to the duty to report on the effect of the legislation. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 2 in the Deputy Minister's name, and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments, and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. The amendments in this group are to do with the post-implementation review of the Bill, and I believe there was also a committee recommendation to this end from your committee, so you strongly influenced this amendment. It's clear from Members' contributions to this group and recommendations by the committee at Stage 1 that they share my commitment to the importance of post-implementation review of the effect of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment. I've already provided assurance that I agree with the importance placed on such a review, both in the explanatory memorandum and during Stage 1 scrutiny. I also made a commitment to bring forward a Government amendment to put a duty to undertake a post-implementation review on the face of the Bill. I have done this with amendment 2. Amendment 5 sets out that this provision will come into force the day after Royal Assent. As I said in my responses to the Stage 1 committee report, and as set out in the explanatory memorandum, the post-implementation review of this Bill will not be a single piece of work, but a continuous programme of work during the years following the commencement of section 1. Firstly, we will continue to conduct attitudinal surveys, which will be used to track changes in attitude towards the physical punishment of children and prevalence of parents reporting that they use physical punishment. The surveys will also be used to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness-raising campaign. Secondly, through a dedicated task and finish group, we are working with organisations to put in place arrangements to establish robust methods for capturing meaningful data relating to the Bill and to consider the possible impact on services. Turning to amendment 2C, this amendment would require Welsh Ministers to prepare and lay before the Assembly a report on the effect of their promotion of public awareness before section 1 is commenced. This amendment is unnecessary and is in conflict with what I think is a priority for the implementation of this Bill: that is, given certainty on the commencement date and in enabling us to work towards this with our partners and stakeholders. I also think this amendment is not required because, as I've already stated, we are preparing to assess the effectiveness of our awareness raising. In June, I shared the findings of a representative survey, which establishes a baseline on public awareness and opinion towards physical punishment of children and the proposed legislation. I shared this with the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Deputy Minister. I open it up for discussion now, then. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. I speak to amendments 2C, excluding 2D, to 2K, which relate to the Deputy Minister's amendment 2 on preparing a published report on the effect of abolishing the defence of reasonable punishment. Again, I must stress the importance of getting this right due to the controversial and long-lasting effects of removing the defence of reasonable punishment. Amendments 2E to 2K outline what we would expect to be within this report, and we would wish to see a commitment from the Deputy Minister to ensure the National Assembly for Wales is fully apprised and able to scrutinise the result of this report. Amendment 2C requests that the Welsh Government prepare a report on the awareness-raising campaign and lays it before the Assembly before section 1 commences. As I have outlined under my amendments in group 1, the understanding of the public about the implications of the Bill cannot be sidelined. Although the Deputy Minister has repeated her commitment to a public awareness campaign, we, as the National Assembly for Wales, must be able to scrutinise its effectiveness before section 1 begins. As I noted under amendments 1B to 1E, there are specific groups of people who need to be evaluated on their understanding of the Bill's effect. I'm sure that the Deputy Minister will agree that the harder-to-reach groups are undoubtedly the most vulnerable to any negative impacts that the Bill will have because of the greater potential of a lack of awareness. It is, therefore, important for the Assembly to be able to determine whether the awareness-raising campaign has had a positive effect on these groups of people. As will also be elaborated under amendment 2D, it is extremely important that we, as the Parliament of Wales, are fully apprised of the awareness-raising campaign's impact. Before we implement what will be a criminal offence, it is vital that we ensure that those affected are not adversely impacted because of a poorly targeted awareness campaign. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Deputy Minister would commit to an independent evaluation of the awareness campaign's effects before section 1 commences. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, first of all, can I just say thank you for your opening remarks about the possibility of perhaps doing some work around amendment 2B? I'll come to that a little bit later, if I may. I just want to begin by commenting briefly on what you said about why you'll be rejecting amendment 2C here. I actually don't think that this amendment should affect or jeopardise the commencement date in any way at all. It's an operational requirement to get this work done before the commencement date that's in the draft Bill at the moment. So, failing to meet that would be as a result of operations not going well, rather than anything intrinsic in the Bill, so I'm not sure I can accept your argument on that. And, on 2D—very pleased to hear that you'd be willing to introduce something about 'laying' rather than 'publishing' at Stage 3, but, in the spirit of recognising that this is the legislature, perhaps I could encourage you just to accept the amendment at this stage, because it doesn't make any difference. Your amendment is going to pass, and this amendment to it would be—I think the gesture there would be very much appreciated. I'll be speaking mainly to amendments 2A and 2B, but I want to begin, again, by thanking you for moving some way on this and considering amendments to the Bill on the issue of reporting, because I know you were keen to avoid amendments in the name of simplicity; you mentioned it earlier. But this is not a newid bychan, I'm afraid, Siân; the terms and the effect of this Bill are quite extensive, and it does need the reassurances, if you like, necessary to mitigate potentially disproportionate effects of this Bill on families where parents' actions had been lawful up until this point in statute. It does need statutory underpinning. So, I am grateful to you for accepting this duty. I know that you're sincere that you want this duty to report to show that the Bill is effective in stopping smacking as a punishment, and also that it is not as harmful to parents as perhaps some of us fear. But, if this were me bringing forward this Bill, I think I'd want to show the world that I was doing the right thing a lot sooner than you appear to wish to do. Amendment 2 means that the efficacy of the Bill will not formally be assessed until seven years after it has passed. There are Acts on the statute book that have lasted a lot less time than that. If you're relying on the two-year period before section 1 comes into operation to do much of the heavy lifting on the culture change, and I think that is what you're expecting—you know, showing a reduction in the incidence of physical punishment, reducing the number of, and indeed the likelihood of, parents putting themselves in the path of criminal liability once those two years are up—I really would have thought you'd want people to know sooner, or as soon as the first possible opportunity on that. Waiting five years, I think, will diminish the ability of you to prove the efficacy of those initial two years, and this is why I'm grateful to you for your offer, because there may be a way where we can overcome that. If the trend of culture change is continuing after year 3—so, basically, in the first year after section 1 comes into effect—that's great, but there's a possibility it's going to reverse. Again, I don't think I'd want to wait five years to find that out. For myself, I think one year would probably be enough, but I think three years is a reasonable compromise, as opposed to five years, for a reporting period. I think seven years is just way too long for a formal evaluation of a Bill's effectiveness. I can't see the reason for quite that length of time—I know you've talked about New Zealand—but neither can the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee. I think that's worth pointing out. When they took the step of recommending this duty to evaluate and report, they also took the step of suggesting a three-year reporting period being more in keeping with other post-legislative scrutiny. That's something I think we perhaps need to bear in mind now, as we enter this period of the consolidation of law. Five/seven years is really something of an outlier, and while that might have been appropriate, perhaps, in New Zealand, I don't think that fits in with our timetables generally here in Wales, and, of course, there are other countries that have introduced this over a period of years, and I note that you haven't drawn on them in order to support your argument. So, can I urge Members and the Minister to consider the arguments behind these amendments? I don't think it's going to reassure anyone—you may want to intervene at this point, Hefin—that we not only won't hear in this Assembly, we won't hear in the next Assembly, about the formal evaluation of this, unless I follow— +Hefin David AM: I won't intervene; I'll speak. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? +Hefin David AM: Yes, I'll make the point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, I've got— +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, I'll take the intervention. +Lynne Neagle AM: No, he doesn't want to make an intervention— +Hefin David AM: I won't do an intervention; I'll speak. +Lynne Neagle AM: —he'll make a contribution. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, apologies— +Hefin David AM: Just to say— +Suzy Davies AM: I'll wait. +Hefin David AM: Well, let me put the intervention—. I'll do it as an intervention, then. I just feel that—I take your point, and I was expecting it. The point I was making about 1D and 1E is they close down choices to Ministers in future Assemblies. An evaluative practice would actually open up those choices and give future Parliaments more options with regard to this Bill, so I think it's entirely consistent. I don't think the Minister, in putting in amendment 2, was trying to undermine my argument. Actually, I think she's being constructive by doing that, and I think amendment 2 is a practical amendment that's quite helpful, and its consequence will be to open up choices to future Parliaments, whereas my objection to 1D and 1E is they close those down. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, as I say, I think, actually, the Deputy Minister's offer of a three-year interim period might be part of a resolution to this. Because I'm not 100 per cent sure I accept your argument, either, because it closes it down for the interim period if we don't move on with the Deputy Minister's suggestion—which I'll talk about now, actually. Because I am tempted to accept your offer. It absolutely makes sense and it's clearly made with the best good faith here. But I need some clarity on what you would allow this Assembly to do in helping define the terms of that interim report. Because you've been very clear that you don't want to accept the things that Janet Finch-Saunders has been talking about in a final report, and yet I can tell you we want to hear about these things. So, if you're in a position where you can give a commitment at Stage 3 not only to introduce an interim report, but that you will consult with, perhaps, this committee—I'll leave it to you—on the contents of that interim report, what we would want to see tested, then I'll be minded not to move amendment 2B. If you can't give me that reassurance, then I'm going to move it anyway and we'll return to it at Stage 3, if you don't mind. Just a final point on this issue of reporting within three months rather than as soon as practicable, and I do take your point that there may be a misalignment with reporting periods from the organisations you hope to talk to. Again, at Stage 3, I'm happy if you want to make three months six months, or something like that, but 'as soon as practicable' is open ended, and what you think is practicable may be very different from what I or my constituents think is practicable. So, I don't want to stick with what is practicable; I would like you to put a date on this. If it's a case that you think six months is long enough for data gathering and reporting from third parties, I think that's fairly reasonable as well, but I'm not minded to allow you to just keep this open ended. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, I welcome adding to the Bill through amendment 2, and what you've said today also, that you're willing to provide an interim report and bring an amendment forward to allow that through the Bill, and to lay a report before the Assembly. I am interested in what Suzy is saying, and have a lot of sympathy with trying to tie it down to specific time periods, and not say 'when it will be practicable'. Therefore, I would encourage you not to move your amendments if you have the confirmation that you want to hear this morning from the Minister regarding these issues. +Suzy Davies AM: I would like to. Thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Any other Members? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, just to start off on that point, I think your suggestion about how we consult and discuss, I think I'm very happy to accept that. So, I'm happy to discuss that with you, and with the committee, before the third Stage. So, I hope you will consider removing—. +Suzy Davies AM: No, genuinely I am. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. Well, just to go on to cover some of the points that have been raised, on the issue of training now, I think Janet raised a number of points about training, and we do have an operations, procedures, processes and training task and finish group as part of our implementation work, and they are considering guidance and training requirements. There are many professional bodies represented on that group, many of whom I think have given evidence here today, and they've really got a chance to have their say. The officials are also looking at training as part of the revision of the explanatory memorandum at Stage 3, so there will be more information about training there. But we have this group looking at it, and it is very key. Generally, I think that all the contributions are very helpful, and I know they're meant in the spirit of trying to improve the legislation. I can't support amendments 2A, 2C, and amendments 2E to 2K, because these amendments make little difference in terms of practical effect to what we have in the Bill already, or they're covered by the Government amendments that I've moved. But I do hope the committee is reassured that we are committed to undertaking a very thorough, multifaceted review of the impact of the legislation that includes tracking public attitudes and considering impacts on public services. Now, tracking the public attitudes will be going along at regular points, so there's no question there of having to wait; we'll be having regular reporting of public attitudes. +Suzy Davies AM: Would you take an intervention there, Deputy Minister? Thank you very much. Of course, I appreciate that you will not be supporting these amendments, but can you give us some indication of how many of the areas of interest to us you will be reporting on? So, even if this is not a statutory commitment, what exactly from our list, our wish list here, would you be prepared to include in your evaluation? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I would actually have thought all of them. All the areas you've raised are very relevant, I think. Obviously, this is not a statutory thing I'm saying, but— +Suzy Davies AM: No, no, and this is not a— +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, but considering those points you've put forward, I think all of them have got a great deal of relevance. We will certainly be reporting to the group to consider any of the ideas that you've suggested and, in particular with the data collection and the monitoring task and finish group, which is about developing methods to collect data, we will be putting forward some of the suggestions that you've made on those issues. So, I don't see any problem with that at all. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Julie Morgan AM: So, as I say, I can't support the amendments. I'm hopeful you may withdraw the two amendments—I think one of yours and it was one of Janet's, wasn't it—so that we could work together on those before the next stage. Because I am sympathetic to your views on these matters, and I think they do reflect some of the discussions in the committee as well. So, I'd be happy to work with you to bring forward the amendments at Stage 3. In line with the recommendations of the Finance Committee, further details of the costs associated with the post-implementation review will be provided in a revised regulatory impact assessment at Stage 3. So, I think at this point I would ask that Members reject the non-Government amendments and agree to my amendments 2 and 5, which will ultimately achieve the same policy aim without the need for unnecessary detail on the Bill, with the exception, obviously, of those two amendments, which I'm prepared to look at a way of moving forward on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Deputy Minister. Before disposing of amendment 2, we will deal with the amendments to that amendment. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2C? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2C be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2C, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2C is lost. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2A? +Suzy Davies AM: I move amendment 2A, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2A, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2A is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2D? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2E? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2E be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2E, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2E is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2F? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2F be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2F? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2F is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2G? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2G be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, can I see all those in favour of amendment 2G? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against, and amendment 2G is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2H? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2H be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so can I see all those in favour of amendment 2H? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2H is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2I? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2I be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay. Can I see all those in favour of amendment 2I? All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2I is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2J? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2J be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. Can I see all those in favour of 2J? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2J is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 2K? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 2K be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I'll therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 2K? All those against? So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 2K is not agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 2B? +Suzy Davies AM: In view of the Deputy Minister's reassurances, I won't move this amendment today, but obviously I reserve the right to bring something back if we can't reach consensus. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Does any other Member wish to move amendment 2B? Okay, no. Thank you. We'll move on, then. If amendment 2 is not agreed, amendment 5 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 2? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The question is that amendment 2 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 2— +Suzy Davies AM: Objection. +Lynne Neagle AM: You're objecting? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Right, we'll therefore take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 2 is agreed. That takes us on to group 3, which relates to the regulation-making powers in the Bill. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 3 in the name of the Deputy Minister. I move amendment 3 in the Deputy Minister's name and call on the Deputy Minister to speak to her amendments and the other amendments in this group. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Members will note that I've brought forward an amendment to provide certainty on the date of commencement of the core provision in the Bill, which is obviously to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment. And that is going to be debated under group 5. So, we're obviously debating that after we deal with these particular technical issues—these are technical issues here, basically. As a consequence of proposing to remove the power for a Welsh Minister to make an Order for commencement, the power to make transitory, transitional or saving provisions in connection with section 1 of the Bill coming into force would also be removed. So, I'm not seeking here to add any new powers to the Bill; amendment 3 will simply add this existing power back onto the face of the Bill where amendments 7 and 8 remove it, and amendment 6 will bring the power into force the day after Royal Assent. In fact, removing the power for the Welsh Ministers to commence the provision in section 1 by Order means the statutory instrument will actually do less than originally intended. These amendments are technical in nature and while I acknowledge that the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee raised the issue of what procedure should be applied, their report did not call for any change to no procedure being applied. The absence of an Assembly procedure does not mean that Ministers' decisions in relation to transitional powers cannot be scrutinised by the Assembly. Any concerns about the Welsh Ministers' proposals could be put to me in the Senedd. This was a point made to CLAC and, as I say, their final conclusion was that no procedure is the appropriate procedure for such a power. For those reasons, I encourage Members to reject amendment 3A from Suzy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Well perhaps, Deputy Minister, I can begin by saying that one person's technical issue is another person's essential part of the legislative procedure and a keen element in scrutiny. But I thank you for noting the Assembly's observations on the ministerial powers granted in this Bill—this time by CLAC, as you say. Moving this—and I'm glad actually that amendment 8, I think it was, has removed an Order provision and we're moving into an area where at least statutory instruments do feature here. I have to say that amendment 3A is something of a probing amendment, and I'll explain why now. Your amendment 3 seeks to give a familiar range of powers in connection with the coming into force of section 1, but it's actually in a substantive part of section 1 itself now—it's not a separate commencement power. And, actually, I've been listening to the rest of this debate, and thinking that, if you're going to be introducing an awareness campaign and a report, the chances are you're going to need some regulatory powers to introduce some of the aspects of both those policy areas, I think. And I'm wondering whether the—what is it—transitory, transitional and saving provisions are actually enough powers for you under the course of this Bill. I'm wondering whether you want to consider actually amending this to give yourself the more usual unrestricted power to make regulations in order for you to get section 1 implemented, bearing in mind that it has now been amended from that original, very short and simple—or at least simple in terms of drafting—initial draft. As I say, in anticipation of you rejecting amendments in group 1 I tabled this, in order to make sure that an opportunity remains for the Assembly to bring anything you may wish to introduce under section 1, when it comes into effect, onto the floor of the Assembly. Because while I completely accept that you've acknowledged that statutory instrument is the process for introducing things from now on, it's still possible to do that without procedure, and so I have no idea whether you think what you introduce would be better suited to be introduced by a negative or affirmative procedure. Amendment 3A is a holding position, which we will return to you in Stage 3, because I think, again, this is an area where it might be valuable for us to discuss quite what kind of powers you're looking for, because I think you probably need something that's beyond transitional, transitory and saving. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Suzy, have you finished? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Are there any other Members who wish to speak on this group? No. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: I thank Suzy for that input. We don't actually think it's necessary to have wider powers, but we will keep this under review and at Stage 3, I think that—. When I was looking at this, I was concerned to know what the transitory powers—what we would actually need to do at that stage, but I can understand that there may be links to other Bills in ways that we are not anticipating at the moment that would make it necessary to have those powers. So, basically, I don't think it is necessary to have wider powers, but I can assure you that we'll keep that in review coming up to Stage 3. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask a question on the back of that? +Lynne Neagle AM: Will you take a brief intervention at the end, Minister? +Suzy Davies AM: Will you take the briefest intervention before your full stop? +Julie Morgan AM: I was going to end there, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Right, okay, well, just before your full stop, would you just confirm that you're happy for us to discuss this before Stage 3? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, very happy. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Before disposing of amendment 3, we will deal with the amendment to that amendment. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 3A? +Suzy Davies AM: I'll move it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3A be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, I'll take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour of amendment 3A. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 3A is not agreed. If amendment 3 is not agreed, amendment 6 will fall. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 3? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 3 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 3 is therefore agreed. The committee will now break for 10 minutes and reconvene at 11.05 a.m. Can I welcome Members back? We will move on to group 4, which relates to the duty to ensure sufficient funding. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 11 in the name of Janet Finch-Saunders. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 11 and to speak to her amendments. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I speak to both amendments in this group. As I outlined under amendments 2I and 2J, there are ongoing concerns about the potential costs for Welsh devolved authorities and the lack of quantifiable costs within the regulatory impact assessment. Now, it was absolutely clear from evidence that we received in this committee that unknown costs would be challenging and potentially problematic. As I have mentioned previously, these concerns would doubtless be most keenly felt in our hard-pressed social services. Furthermore, the Welsh Local Government Association stated that there must be a commitment that whatever the costs are, those costs are met, because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. Now, during evidence, the Deputy Minister, when asked about the reliance on a limited number of reporting of cases likely to happen and the potential for a degree of unknown costs stated: 'we are doing our very best to prepare to cover all eventualities that we can anticipate.' But you couldn't commit to a broad figure, instead telling us that: 'we have to rely on what the people who run those organisations are telling us.' And: 'We have to measure it as we go along.' Given that devolved authorities need to plan their budgets for these changes, we only think it is fair for the Welsh Government to provide sufficient funding to alleviate the cost implications of this Bill. Now, while amendment 11 makes reference to costs borne by local authorities and health boards, I note that amendment 12 takes this further by including other devolved authorities that are not funded by Welsh Government. Anticipating the Deputy Minister's response that few under this category, if any at all, would be affected by the Bill, we are pursuing a principle here, and it is agreement to the principle of providing sufficient funding that we are seeking from you as the Deputy Minister. Now, these are just two examples of Welsh Government legislation to date that have been underfunded. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013: last year, the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee found that the Wales annual spend on walking and cycling is half that of England's and one sixth of Holland's. Furthermore, the committee highlighted that the passing of the Act put a requirement on local authorities to continuously improve active travel routes, but were constrained by the funding made available to them. The Minister at the time announced a three-year funding settlement of £60 million. Now, my local authority and other authorities that have done some monitoring on the active travel Act—they simply were not awarded sufficient funding to actually allow the active travel Act to become a meaningful piece of legislation, and the same goes with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This month, the auditor general has raised concerns that the public services boards created under the Act were limited in their work and impact due to the lack of dedicated funding. Outside of the Welsh Government's regional grant that cannot be spent on projects, councils often contribute through officer time or facilities, but resources and capacity to support those PSBs remain a key risk, as partners don't have the capacity to take on more. The reason that I wanted these amendments placed in here is I genuinely do not believe that you've even envisioned what, or even estimated the likely cost to be borne by the organisations, and certainly our local authorities and health boards, the impact this Bill is going to have. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Are there other Members who would like to speak in this group, please? No. Okay. I call the Deputy Minister, then. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I can understand that the Member is concerned about the impact of this Bill on public services, but you will see from the explanatory memorandum and from the raft of impact statements published with the Bill that we've done a thorough and extremely diligent job of considering the potential impacts of this Bill before introduction. And as far as we're aware, no other country has done more than us to consider the impacts of similar legislation, and also comprehensively prepared for implementation. We've explored the published data, which is available from other countries, on the impact of measures they've taken to prohibit the physical punishment of children. We've also spoken to a range of stakeholders in Ireland, New Zealand and Malta, who have legal systems similar to our own. And in these countries, there is no evidence that public services have been overwhelmed following law reform. And stakeholders have been clear when giving evidence to this committee that they do not consider there will be runaway costs, and I think we should trust their judgment on this. In fact, as this committee notes in its Stage 1 report, those delivering services on the front line have said, without exception, that 'this Bill will improve their ability to protect children living in Wales because it will make the law clear.' Sally Jenkins of the Association of Directors of Social Services said to this committee: 'In terms of thresholds for children’s services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that’s likely to happen.' That's from the front line. Jane Randall, chair of the National Independent Safeguarding Board Wales, said: 'there's no expectation that there's going to be a huge increase in the number of referrals coming through to local authority social services, I think it would be dealt with within their existing resources.' And Dr Rowena Christmas, Royal College of General Practitioners, said: 'I can't see it's going to lengthen consultations. I can't see that it's going to increase the number of consultations, and I don't think it's going to increase the number of referrals I make to the health visitor or to social services, because if I was worried, I'd make those referrals now regardless of the Bill.' I just want to say again that the Bill is removing a defence to an offence of common assault, which has formed part of the common law of England and Wales for a very long time. And social services already receive and investigate reports of children being assaulted, including from health and education, so it's not a whole new area of costly activity for any of them. I do think that the evidence that you had at your committee did highlight those points. As I've already pointed out when discussing group 2 amendments, we're working with organisations to put in place arrangements to collect data about the possible impact on their services, and this will be analysed as part of the post-implementation review of the legislation. Welsh Government can consider with relevant organisations how best to manage any impact on workloads or resources and any cost implications. I can assure you that work to update the regulatory impact assessment has continued, and I've asked officials to prepare a revised RIA, as recommended at Stage 2, and I expect to share an updated RIA with you in advance of Stage 3. Serious consideration is being given on how to provide more detailed estimates of the unknown costs to public services arising from the Bill, but I think you should be reassured by the evidence that was given, particularly to this committee, from the professionals at the front line. What the amendments are proposing is outside the normal funding arrangements that operate within Government, and it's not clear why, in the context of the evidence heard at Stage I, such provisions are necessary. I'm sure that Members will agree that future Governments need to be able to consider, within the context of the budget-setting process, what the priorities are, and these considerations would need to be made within the context at that time, for example taking into account any issues that there are—UK Government actions, what happens in relation to Brexit, or any other unforeseen impacts on the economy or Welsh society. All those issues would have to be taken into account. Furthermore, as is the case now, the National Assembly for Wales scrutinises the Welsh Government budget annually, so it would be able to make an argument for additional funding for public bodies, should it consider that this is required. I do think all the evidence has shown that we do not anticipate that there will be a huge increase of a demand for funding, so I urge Members to reject these amendments, which I believe are unnecessary. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Chair, could I ask a question? +Lynne Neagle AM: You can reply to the debate now, Janet, yes. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I'd like to ask a question of the Deputy Minister. When we were taking evidence, at an earlier stage, I noticed that part of the stakeholder group—there was some liaison going on with social services departments across Wales. Now, we have 22 local authorities. At that time, the numbers mentioned were quite small—I think only a handful. What discussions have taken place with our local authorities in terms of their social services departments in terms of the lead, the cabinet members, or, indeed, the head of service? I can speak from my own experiences, when going around my constituency, but when I've spoken to some of the family support groups, and, indeed, the departments themselves, they are very concerned about the financial impact that this is going to have on the provision. They're already overstretched, and they see this as another burden—primarily another financial burden. So, how much have you engaged with them? +Julie Morgan AM: There's been extensive engagement. We've had meetings with the Association of Directors of Social Services, and they're represented on all our groups, and we're working very closely with them, because, of course, they represent all the local authorities. But I have to say, when I've been going round and meeting lots of different groups, the first thing they say is, 'I'm so glad that you're doing this', and they haven't mentioned any financial implications. But, obviously, we will be very aware of—we are looking at any more evidence that comes up. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. So, I'll still move my amendments. I'm disappointed, really. I was hoping to see some commitment to—this Bill was going to go through, and it's one that could be implemented fully, because sufficient resources were there. I'm not convinced about that, and I know that other organisations are not also. So, I move my amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 11 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I therefore take a vote by show of hands. All those in favour. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 11 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 12? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 12 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] All those in favour of amendment 12. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 12 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 4? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I move amendment 4 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 4 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 4, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 4 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to proceed to a vote on amendment 5? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 5 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 5 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 5, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against, and amendment 5 is agreed. Deputy Minister, do you want to move to a vote on amendment 6? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 6, then, in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 6 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 6 is therefore agreed. This takes us, then, to the fifth and final group, which relates to commencement. The lead amendment in the group is amendment 9 in the name of Suzy Davies. And I call Suzy Davies to move amendment 9 and to speak to the amendment and the other amendments in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, Chair. Amendment 9 is actually consequential on amendment 10 passing, but it's the lead amendment in the group, so I'll move it to begin the debate. Minister, I'm speaking here now to amendments 10 and 15 specifically. You've said repeatedly, and I believe you, that you do not wish to criminalise parents but just to stop them physically punishing their children. You could have chosen to try and achieve this through awareness raising and civil enforcement, but by choosing to remove the defence to a criminal act you have entered the arena of criminal law, where the logical consequence is opening parents up to liability—not necessarily getting prosecuted, but liability to prosecution, not just liability to civil sanctions. I'm sure you'd prefer parents not to be prosecuted, but that decision does not and cannot lie with you. You, like us, have no agency in this, because the powers and the duties of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service sit outside our competence. You cannot and we cannot, by law or otherwise, instruct either of them in the delivery of your policy intention of not criminalising parents. You've acknowledged to this committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that revised CPS charging guidance and any other guidance on, for example, out-of-court disposals, are key to delivering your policy objectives. You'll remember how concerned this committee was when we learned that your advisory group—the strategic implementation group, is it—was only in the early stages of discussing what these guidelines might look like. So, you're actually asking us to pass law when we have no control over how parents might be punished for smacking their children—no control of the regard given to the relevance of force, the frequency of the offence, any prior conviction, any prior reporting, not even the views of the child in how they might be sentenced, or thresholds that would be appropriate for cautions and other out-of-court disposals; no guidance to the police on thresholds for arrest, let alone charging. And you argue that the rights of the child are what matter, and I agree with you here, but everybody, adult or child, has a right to natural justice and proportionate remedy or censure, and you are in no position to offer us any comfort on these matters at this stage. Now, CLAC recommended that any revised guidance be made available to AMs before Stage 3. I anticipate that that's unlikely, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's why Janet and I have tabled amendments 10 and 15, which prevent you bringing section 1 into force until that CPS guidance has been fully updated to take into account the change in the law and until pathways away from prosecution have been devised and agreed. That reflects our recommendation 4, this committee's recommendation, as well as CLAC's recommendation 1. It gives your strategic implementation board time to consider how it can get around the other fundamentally worrying issue of the effect of recording reports of apparent physical punishment, even if those reports ultimately prove unfounded. And you have not addressed these in your own amendments. I have to say, Minister, I think these points are so serious that I would have liked to have tabled amendments preventing you seeking Royal Assent for this Bill until the Assembly has seen drafts of the range of official guidance needed for the police and CPS. I'd have sought a Report Stage, if I could, so that we could consider that evidence. But I'm therefore asking you to support the amendments we have tabled, 10 and 15, so that we can bring some damage limitation to a process that you ultimately cannot control once this Bill has passed. Now, I know you've got the numbers to pass this Bill, whether you accept amendments or not, but I just hope you can see the danger in pushing forward with a Bill that changes a person's relationship with the criminal law when you have no legal control over the consequences of that, and you're inviting this Assembly to fall into the same trap. I therefore urge the Assembly to avoid this recklessness by supporting these two amendments. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Suzy. Are there other Members who wish to speak? No. Janet, do you want to speak? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, I wish to speak to amendments 14 and 16. Amendment 14, however, is consequential to amendment 16 passing. Amendment 16 prevents this from commencing until parenting support services have been established by the Welsh Government. As was clear during the committee's evidence sessions, present Welsh Government support programmes for parents have insufficient coverage. For example, the capacity and reach of the Healthy Child Wales programme came under question on its role in awareness raising, with health representatives acknowledging that universality had not been achieved, with 53.2 per cent of children in Wales reported as being contacted. Furthermore, existing parenting support is often only available as part of a targeted programme in specific areas, such as Flying Start, and even the children's commissioner noted that much more is needed to support parents to find alternatives to disciplining their children. Now, the Deputy Minister mentioned the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign as part of proposals on a wider package of support for children and their parents. However, the Deputy Minister was challenged on this fact, that this is an online campaign only, and could only respond that the mapping exercise she will undertake. Consequently, it should be remembered that this Bill will affect all parents. Therefore, the Deputy Minister needs to assure the committee and the public that universal support will be provided before the removal of the defence occurs. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Janet. Deputy Minister. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Chair. I've listened to what stakeholders and committees have said about the importance of ensuring sufficient time is available prior to the change in the law to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment during Stage 1. As a result, I have brought forward amendments in this group to provide certainty around the date for the change in the law. My amendment 7 will remove the power to commence this core provision of the Bill by Order of the Welsh Ministers and ensure that the defence of reasonable punishment is abolished at the end of a two-year period beginning the day after Royal Assent. That was done to give certainty on the length of time. Up to then, we'd always said 'up to two years'—well, we're giving two years. This certainty will allow key partners, including the police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service, to plan for changes to guidance, training and data-collection systems more effectively. It'll also provide a focus for our awareness-raising campaign. My amendment 8 in this group has the consequence of removing the power to make transitional provision, which is replaced by my amendments 3 and 6, and we discussed those in the previous group. I've listened to the arguments put forward by Suzy Davies and Janet Finch-Saunders for the amendments in this group that they have tabled. These amendments are all about making the commencement of the Bill conditional on something else happening, whether it's waiting for the revision of Crown Prosecution Service guidance, or the establishment of a pathway for diversion from the criminal justice system, or for the provision of parenting support services. And, really, I don't think that we should be going down that road. As I set out in my letter of response to the Stage 1 report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, we've got good working relations with the CPS through the strategic implementation group, and we work very closely with them. But the CPS are an independent body, as Suzy Davies has said in her contribution, not answerable to Welsh Ministers or this legislature, and it's not appropriate for a Minister or the National Assembly to seek to influence the CPS guidelines. We're discussing the issues with the CPS in the implementation group. And, in fact, I think that these amendments—Suzy's amendments in particular—wouldn't just seek to influence the CPS, but would actually give power to a non-devolved body on the way that we legislate in Wales. So, I don't think we should make it conditional on those guidelines being decided. I think you have to rely on the fact that we have got this very good relationship, very close working relationship. And I know they did give evidence to your committee, I believe, the CPS. And I think legislating to effectively give a non-devolved body a power to commence, or not, Assembly legislation would be highly unusual and would raise great uncertainty, I think, if we did go down that track, because I think this is very important Welsh legislation, which does have broad support across the Assembly. And I don't think we should allow non-devolved bodies to be the final arbiters of commencement of our legislation. So, I don't support those amendments. I think the CPS is entirely independent of Government, and must be entirely independent of Government, and will make its own decisions about how and when it will revise its guidance. In addition, you suggest we allow the UK Government to have a say in when Welsh legislation is commenced in an area that was specifically devolved to the Assembly. The test applied by the proposed amendments as to when commencement could lawfully occur is uncertain. If these amendments passed, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to judge when section 1 could be commenced. This contravenes what stakeholders and committees have asked for, and raises huge uncertainty, which potentially jeopardises the Bill. And I want to assure you again, not only do we have good working relations with the CPS, but also very good working relationships with the police, who are, of course, the other non-devolved body who have great involvement and interest in these issues. The work we do in these groups should not affect the timing of the Bill's commencement. In fact, it's the other way round. My amendment to provide a two-year period between Royal Assent and commencement means these groups can plan their work to a known timescale and deliver in good time before the law comes into force. And then, when it comes to parenting support, the committee knows that I've committed to reviewing the existing provision of parenting support, and work is already under way through the parenting expert group on this very issue. I have already said I will expand the age range of the 'Parenting: Give it Time' campaign, and I think—. I know Janet Finch-Saunders has made the point that it is an online facility. It is very widely used. It is a very successful tool. But, of course, the universal services are also there. For example, the universal service of the health visitors is absolutely crucial, and that is a service that is for every child. And, of course, the health visitors welcome this legislation very strongly. And the expert group is considering what it'll recommend for the future, and it needs the time to be able to do that, to support the Bill as well as to support parenting more widely. So, as I said, I think these are important points that you have raised, but I don't think they are appropriate. So, I therefore urge the committee not to support amendments 9 and 10, nor 13, 14 and 15. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy to reply to the debate. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Deputy Minister, as well. I'm disappointed that you haven't seen what's behind Janet Finch-Saunders's final amendment there, actually. Maybe it's something we'll raise again with you at Stage 3, or maybe in the conversations that we have between now and then. But I want to go back to amendments 10 and 15 that I've raised and your assertion that we're giving, or attempting to give, power to the CPS here. We are not. This amendment is drafted very specifically and in full knowledge that we have no legislative competence in this area. And this is why I go back to where my contribution to this started, and it's your choice to try and resolve the problem of—or, sorry, to try and protect children's rights through the medium of a change to the criminal law rather than the many opportunities that were available to you through the civil law and over which you would have had complete competence. This Bill—and, actually, you've said a couple of times in your response today that it's important that it's commenced on a certain date. My argument is: it shouldn't be commenced at all unless you are absolutely certain about how it is likely to affect the parents who will now be captured by the removal of the defence. And, while I claim no mischief on the part of the CPS or the police—obviously I don't—there is nothing you can do that would prevent the CPS, should they wish to do it, or indeed the police with their own guidelines, putting in place something that is wholly disproportionate to the offence that is now being released by the removal of a defence. And, because of that, I ask you to consider, or balance, actually, two important things here: one is the rights of the child, obviously at the forefront of your argument on this, which I would argue could be completely and safely protected through the use of civil law on this occasion; and, actually, the rights of the child again to have a good relationship with parents over whose future they will have no say—or at least you cannot allow them to have any say in how those parents might be treated in terms of sentencing. The relationship between parents and children obviously is different in every family, but that's something you ought to protect in what you're trying to do here, and by leaving it open, as you say, to completely different—sorry, undevolved, two undevolved authorities to make decisions about how that relationship could be affected deeply worries me. I know this isn't going to stop your Bill going forward, but I really want you to consider my arguments and how you might try and address them at Stage 3, because leaving, effectively, the delivery of your policy objectives to somebody over whom you have no control, despite your great relationship with them, should worry us all as a legislature. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you, Suzy. Do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 9? +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, because of the voting order—. Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 9 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 9, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 9 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 13? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 13 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 13, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 13 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 14? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 14 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 14, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 14 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to move to a vote on amendment 7? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 7 in the name of the Deputy Minister. The question is that amendment 7 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 7, please show. All those against. So, there voted four in favour, two against. Amendment 7 is agreed. Suzy, do you wish to move amendment 10? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, please. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 10 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 10, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 10 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 15? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 15 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, we'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 15, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 15 is not agreed. Janet, do you wish to move amendment 16? +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I move. +Lynne Neagle AM: The question is that amendment 16 be agreed. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We have an objection, so I'll take a vote. All those in favour of amendment 16, please show. All those against. So, there voted two in favour, four against. Amendment 16 is not agreed. Deputy Minister, do you wish to proceed to a vote on amendment 8? +Julie Morgan AM: I do. +Lynne Neagle AM: I move amendment 8, then, in the name of the Minister. The question is that amendment 8 be agreed. Does any Member object? Amendment 8 is therefore agreed. Well, that has brought us to the end of our amendments, so can I thank the Deputy Minister and her officials for their attendance? As usual, you will be sent a transcript of the meeting to check for factual accuracy. This completes Stage 2 proceedings. Stage 3 begins tomorrow, and the relevant date of Stage 3 proceedings will be published in due course. Standing Orders make provision for the Deputy Minister to prepare a revised explanatory memorandum, taking account of the amendments agreed today. The revised memorandum will be laid at least five working days before Stage 3 proceedings. Thank you very much. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you all very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, following our meeting on 2 October. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services updating the committee on the 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales' strategy. And paper to note 3 is a letter from myself to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services regarding early childhood education and care, following the session that we held on 2 October. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee convened to discuss amendments related to the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Stage 2 proceedings. Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, alongside her support staff, attended to participate in the debate over the proposed amendments. + +The session started with an introduction by Chair Lynne Neagle AM, explaining the protocol and voting order for amendment considerations. Julie Morgan AM then spoke in favor of her amendments aimed at placing a duty on Welsh Ministers to inform the public about the change in the law regarding the abolition of the defense of reasonable punishment and to conduct a public awareness campaign. + +Janet Finch-Saunders AM and Suzy Davies AM proposed their own amendments, seeking to secure an indefinite awareness campaign, ensure public understanding before the commencement of the bill, and provide details about support for parents on alternatives to physical punishment. Their amendments also looked to include detailed requirements in the legislation for such aspects and a report on the effectiveness of awareness before the implementation of the bill. + +Debate ensued with various members discussing the feasibility, necessity, and impact of the amendments on public awareness campaigns, issues about indefinite awareness campaign obligations, legislative procedures, funding, and commencement of the bill. The Deputy Minister disagreed with placing these detailed requirements in the bill, arguing that ongoing discussions with stakeholders and advisory groups were sufficient to manage implementation effectively. + +Janet Finch-Saunders AM specifically raised concerns about the financial implications of the bill for local authorities and health boards, calling for assurances on sufficient funding to support the bill's implementation. The Deputy Minister, while acknowledging the concerns, asserted confidence in the preparedness for the bill's impact based on extensive engagement with stakeholders and evidence from other countries. + +The committee voted on various amendments, with several of Janet Finch-Saunders AM’s and Suzy Davies AM’s amendments being rejected by votes of two in favor and four against. Deputy Minister Julie Morgan AM's amendments were agreed upon by the committee, with votes generally four in favor and two against. + +The meeting concluded with formalities about Stage 3 proceedings and an agreement to meet in private for the remaining part of the session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So we come to the third meetings . I have {gap} good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so in the last meeting we have discussed the functional design and now we will talk about the conceptual design . So we will talk about some specific details . +Industrial Designer: Okay so I think I will do my presentation on the components concept so can you please uh open uh {disfmarker} I'm participant two . +Project Manager: This {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Components design . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Okay so uh the first thing uh I have done is to to made a review together with the uh manufactural uh department and have which components was uh available to build a remote control . So for energy sources we have we have to choose between the solar energy , hand dynamo and uh kinetic um well uh kinetic uh technique {vocalsound} to to store the energy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We also um {vocalsound} we also can put a regular battery in the in the remote control . Now {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh this is what we have decided in the last meeting . But if we use battery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah b uh f well uh I meant uh by by battery I meant uh I will not have a uh a wire between the remote control and the energy source but uh I didn't fou we didn't decide yet which kind of battery we will put inside the the remote . So uh it's a point to discuss . Then uh the case material we have uh uh also several choices , like wood , rubber , titanium or latex . {vocalsound} But uh well it's not a a re uh well a real issue for the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} from the technical uh point of view . Concerning the interface uh we can we can put mm just simple buttons or scrolls or buttons uh much more complicated , but it also requires that the chip to process the button is more complicated so . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh this is the last point , the choice of chips . So what I have f found is that I think basic battery or kinetic uh energy uh collection is the is the better way to provide energy because I think solar energy wi won't work {vocalsound} in a cluttered uh {vocalsound} uh environment . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So um so I think we can start with these two main things . For the case uh well uh I think that uh titanium is um is a good choice because it's trendy and it's uh it's uh well it's modern and uh user are are are {disfmarker} mm will be uh very happy to have a {vocalsound} a a nice remote . For the interface uh I think that we can ach achieve uh all the desired functionalities by s just uh using uh rubber buttons , simple buttons and th thus this allow to use a regular chip {vocalsound} that are uh well cheaper . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And s so uh we can move to the next slide . +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: What is this single curved {disfmarker} what does it mean ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh uh i i it's uh it's the the shape of the um of the remote . +User Interface: So it's it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You you will have the {disfmarker} well um the the curve will fit into your hand when you grab the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yo l yeah . When you hold on it , it is comfortable to hold . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's more confog f comfortable that if these uh it's completely flat . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . And the battery , is it kind of a rechargeable or it doesn't matter ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the um that's the point . The kinetic one is uh y you can recharge uh by the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: That that's what it means by kinetic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and by {disfmarker} well by just by moving the ar uh your arm the mm well the remote will uh accumulate energy . +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I d I don't know it's {disfmarker} if it is feasible because I don't know if yet if if the user will move enough to provide the remote um all the necessary energy . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Okay . Yeah . Yeah . We we might check with our R_ and D_ department to see if they have this product {vocalsound} ready for market . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} yeah and so can you go to the next slide please . So and uh that's uh that summarize well what I have said . +User Interface: Mm mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wha +Industrial Designer: So uh you're right we can uh see in our uh R_ and D_ uh {vocalsound} if the kinetic metal is sufficient to provide enough energy . +User Interface: Ah the department . Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's it . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} So I um keep in touch with the R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I take care , it's all right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So the titanium case is the normal case that {disfmarker} I'll show you some pictures that I have and you tell me whether they are titanium case or not . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All right . Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause I am not very sure , plastic , titanium or whatever . There's another point I want to make , is that the uh {disfmarker} well you've seen them I le na my presentation that um I point out some {disfmarker} why buttons are not the mm not the only ways you can {vocalsound} use {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , maybe n +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} So the user interface is uh i it uses the aspect uh of a computer system , a programme which can be seen or heard or otherwise perceived by the human user +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and the commands and mechanism the user uses to control its operation and input data . So you s this gives you the ways to input data and we have uh {disfmarker} we are more {disfmarker} we emphasise more on the graphical user interface here . The idea is to represent buttons as figures , diagrams , symbols and on so you you can easily when you look at the symbols you understand what it is doing . +Project Manager: What's the function of this button . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . So . +Project Manager: I think it makes the the interface really {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ea easy to use . So next one . +Project Manager: Graphical user interface {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} function five . So I can use the button , the mouse maybe . +Project Manager: A graphical user interface emphasise the use of pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . So next line . So the {disfmarker} here are some examples . So they cluster the buttons together . They group them into col they colour them and uh they have different forms as well . Mm but this interface are kind of confusing . Uh basically there are too many buttons . Right . Next one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So some people are propose voice recognition and so {disfmarker} ah by the way I receive an email from the from one our departments saying that the voice recognition has been used in the coffee machine {vocalsound} for this by a company +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: when you tell the {disfmarker} you say good morning coffee machine and the machine are reply to you . So I just got an email saying that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm mm . +User Interface: And it seems like this voice recognition technology is ready to be used so we might consider that , supposedly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah fine . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next one . Mm so somebody {disfmarker} some people use uh some people use a spinning wheel th with the L_C_ display so instead of using the mm buttons you have a L_C_D_ screen and then there you can u you can use that as buttons , you can use that as real {disfmarker} so so that could be an option as well . Touch screen , I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Next one . And some people propose a scroll button . Integrated with push buttons or you may have scroll button instead of p just the push button . Like the one we have here . Uh , next one . So mm +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so there are a few aspects that I collected here . So s basically this deals with special users , children , handicapped people , old people , and uh mm and prog basically they are programmable , specially for children . And uh mm {disfmarker} yeah yeah . And then they also secure uh covers , to protect uh secure and hidden programming and battery covers that will protect your settings . So {disfmarker} But we don't have to integrate all these complicated features . I'm just saying that the {disfmarker} currently in the market there are there are control there are remote controllers f {gap} customisable for different people . Yeah , so that's the point . The next one . And uh you see this is the one where you have the protection cover . Mm maybe useful for children , they migh you you they only see the buttons outside . And for adults wh where you have more control you can see the one inside . So the adults might wanna have a key to lock that to pr so children will not touch the button inside . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: S a good idea . +User Interface: The next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this guy {disfmarker} this is another company that provides big buttons . At {disfmarker} I see that that is useful for old people and then you don't get it lost . But for our product we don't need a big one because you have voice recognition e eventually with use . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And you can call your remote controller if you don't know where it is . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} T_V_ remote controller where are you ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then , he will beeps and to say that I am here , {vocalsound} for example . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We should include speech synthesis in this case , no ? +User Interface: Is it possible ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as Norman say if uh there is uh already a commercial product available who t who do this we we can check uh to integrate it i into our uh new remote control . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . And uh , this is another one where you can uh {disfmarker} the the the part that's a V_ standing for the volume . So there's a up arrow and a down arrow . But you the see that in the V_ , the V_ appears to be the down arrow on the top {disfmarker} on the top up arrow {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: up arrow there's a V_ like as as if it's turning down so it's confusing interface , so I wanna avoid this kind of thing in the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: And here are {disfmarker} is uh here is a s short summary that I summary that I compiled after the findings I found . Big buttons are convenient , voice recognition helps , push buttons , scroll buttons , spinning wheels can be used as navigation tools . And uh user customisable is important and finally simplicity simplicity is the key . Yeah . So {vocalsound} we have many concepts there +Industrial Designer: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we have to choose later on which ones are important to be used . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And basically uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I {vocalsound} I think you it's it's it's fine you have uh reviewed all all the possibilities +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh uh well uh i if we consider that uh the user interface is displayed on the T_V_ screen I don't think we nee uh we need much buttons in the remote +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we we just have to navigate and to have a okay or enter key or things like that , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: because uh adding wheels or scrolls uh makes the thing more complicated and more expensive also , so . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Or maybe we can include the user manual in the in the remote control {gap} and we should have just a button like help and you say uh and you ik you press the button help and maybe you see the the user m might in the in the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's a good idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: To have a help button . +User Interface: A help button . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So you are display on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: On T_V_ T_V_ screen . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} on the T_V_ screen . +Industrial Designer: On the T_V_ screen . On the T_V_ screen the uh how to use your remote . +Project Manager: So just you push the button +User Interface: Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and we will {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +User Interface: So that eliminates all the complicated documentation {gap} , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . So wi +Marketing: But people are often enough looking at the help , +Project Manager: If the if {disfmarker} +Marketing: once they see the help button they say oh this is a complicated stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} In the case where they need help , in the case where they need help . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a psychology . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In a marketing point of view . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And let us see what the market demands . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We could just go to my presentation . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} uh wel well I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's just for user customizable , for kids or old people . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it just showed us the remote with an cap which could be used for kids and if you remove the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: Same remote with some {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can be used by both kids and old people . +Marketing: Both yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Well uh what I s propose is that uh you know a remote controller , i {vocalsound} it could be a cube , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: is uh a small device that uh looks like a cube and maybe you can just change the {vocalsound} um the buttons , if you ch turn one side you get one one buttons , you turn the other side you get the other buttons , so for maybe new generation people who get used to the computer they want lots of controls . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe for kids , kids they like uh t no l they like to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Small {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So le le let's see what uh what {vocalsound} people want . +User Interface: Let's see the market demand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And then we can decide what what we can {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: What what {gap} market {disfmarker} yes yes . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: So we just made an marketing survey of what people need from our remotes and how it could be special from the other remotes . And we got the best on the responses from the questionnaires . Uh we also have some prizes for the most creative solutions . And we found the following solutions which we could {disfmarker} which would be helpful for our design . So seventy percent of the users , they find their remote controls very ugly , they don't find it pleasant to use in the size or usage or anything . And eighty percent of the people they are always l I mean they are willing to spend more money if the remote control would look fancy . And the current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . And seventy five percent of the users said they zap a lot . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And fifty percent say they use only ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so the rest of the ninety percent of the buttons they're not used most of the times . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes . +Marketing: So this were the findings which we found . And also they cited frustrations with the present remote controls . Most of {disfmarker} fifty percent of the time the remote controls are lost somewhere in the room and people are always searching for them {vocalsound} rather than watching the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And by the time they found the remote control the program is finished . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} they're frustrated a lot {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um if the remote control is too complicated it takes much time to learn the functionality of it . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm , the functionalities yeah . +Marketing: So you can just see the percentage , fifty percent people they responded that they always lose their remotes and thirty four percent they say that it's quite difficult to learn if it's too complex . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: So keeping in view all these findings and the frustrations I think this should be the solution for them . We should have an L_C_D_ on the rem remote control . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well mm w well I I I don't really see the advantage of having uh L_C_D_ on the on the remote control if we have a a a big screen and uh display on the screen . +User Interface: Big screen . +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm ? +Industrial Designer: yeah of course it's fancy trendy and so on but it's it's expensive to produce {vocalsound} and it's not really {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean as our survey says that people are willing to pay more if their remotes are fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we have a L_C_D_ on the remote , rather than looking onto the T_V_ you just look into a remote and navigate it . It's the same menu as we have saw that iPod remote control . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm . The thing {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: We just {vocalsound} play around +Industrial Designer: Yeah but when you play with the iPod you don't have {vocalsound} a big screen in front of you , s +Project Manager: You can use this screen instead of the big se screen , +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: instead of use the {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: If you re-use the existing screen , we element {disfmarker} eliminate the L_C_D_ , after all the L_C_D_ just to display +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and if you have the colourful screen you can make the display colourful , fancy , as fancy as the one on the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: maybe even better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean this were the points which we got from the market demands . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So +Industrial Designer: So I th I I {vocalsound} well I think we we can focus on the uh on the fancy look on the uh +User Interface: Yeah . More on a fancy design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's fine . +Industrial Designer: on the speech recognition if the technology is available +Marketing: Yeah . I mean that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but well I think L_C_D_ will uh will uh make us spend a lot of money for not so big results . +User Interface: Mm . Remember we have a s budget for the cost of producing the remote controller . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So i is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah we have uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: so the thing is you can find out how much an L_C_D_ will cost and then we'll decide again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean that should be found out by the Industrial Designers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh maybe you can find out the price and tell us next time {gap} . Is i if i +Industrial Designer: So price of uh L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it's always good to have an voice recognition for the remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah . And also the cost for the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Mm . It's for {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ask our R_ and D_ department . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's just for small vocabulary . We {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it's o only for a limited vocabulary , +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And ho +Marketing: say eighty commands or so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +User Interface: And also the scroller button , how much will it cost . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well uh compared to the to s the simpl simpler simplest button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Push push {gap} . +Marketing: Mm , the scroll button , {gap} from the survey we never see that people would like to have some scrolling button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah I think that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because they they just they're just frightened to use the scrollings or {vocalsound} help button . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I I I think that uh well uh as we have seen in the in the presentation uh well uh about uh uh fifty percent of the of the percent n choose the button +User Interface: Don't use the buttons . +Industrial Designer: so uh I think to have uh five uh simple button is sufficient for our functionality . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: It doesn't mean that the other buttons are not necessary or important . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Important . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But they are just less used compar +Marketing: They're not used much . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: But the uh the thing is is i is that we can add a functionality on the on the T_V_ screen +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like uh a a list of function +User Interface: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: and then you choose with the with the button to {disfmarker} well you navigate +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . So so the at most {disfmarker} more power uh . +Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe we can u uh or maybe we can uh make this the ten percent of button more bigger than the others . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if i i if we if we could have a a a display uh g a user interface that is very complete on the T_V_ screen {vocalsound} I think that just five buttons are sufficient , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: one to go up left right down and uh enter +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and you you you just select the functionality you want to access or things like that . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to to switch to a channel to another uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be like this , as the people say , if they have a L_C_D_ on the remote not on the television . Because when you have the L_C_D_ onto the television screen you miss the picture in the background , we are most focused on the commands . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have then L_C_D_ in the remote , you just have a menu , and increasing and lower these signs here to change the programs and this menu when you press the menu , in the L_C_D_ displays as you go on pressing the menu it faster displays volume , then the program , then the brightness , contrast and all the stuff . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Yeah but if you look at the L_C_D_ you you don't look at the T_V_ screen +Marketing: And accordingly you can just increase or decrease . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} i i it's not really worth to get {disfmarker} to have the image if you don't look at , so . +User Interface: I if {disfmarker} Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: And I think it's increases the cost of the the remote control if you use L_C_D_ . I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that has to be checked out . +User Interface: I think that there's no contradiction here , because if there are few buttons , you don't have to look at your your controller any more because you know where the buttons are , so if you wanna control the screen d sh sharpness you just say sharpness +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you t turn {disfmarker} you just press lef increase or decrease button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and the same for the volume and the channel , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you had the speech recognition there you just shout your channel , just tell your channel and then you don't even have to look at the butto at the controller so finally that wil eliminates the the need for L_C_D_ , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: with the help of speech recogniser you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean , {gap} better if we could just check all the cost with L_C_D_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and also with the speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then we could find which would would be a more suitable in this case . +User Interface: Mm . Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . A and {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the third problem was to find the remote control . Always , so fifty percent of the people say they lose the remotes . +Industrial Designer: Well so we we can think about a well a a vocal command like uh find +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} when the remote control uh hears fine well yeah just uh to make him beep or t +Project Manager: You will listen to a peep , {vocalsound} special peep . +User Interface: Where {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right , that's exactly what I mean by voice commander . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or it could be also something like this , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: uh it's always boring to change the batteries of the remotes control , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: so we have some one charger there and whenever we don't use the remote control we put it in the charger . +User Interface: Put it back at the charge . +Industrial Designer: Put {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And when we're using that t remote and if we misplace somewhere , in the charger we have a small button , and just by pressing the button in the charger the uh remote control beeps , wherever it is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And that's a good idea , that's simple , like in phones . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I mean it doe it also doesn't require a voice command , +Project Manager: But you don't you don't have to move the the charger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because there are problems with a voice command . +User Interface: Hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} Th yeah . Mm yeah . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: You have to keep it {gap} . +Marketing: I mean charger would be fixed +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because it's always with electricity plugged . +Industrial Designer: Yeah if there if there uh there is nuff not enough battery . Also and uh uh the remote is lost . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . There's {disfmarker} mm . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: That {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} what we can do is we can program a function whereby when you press the switch off T_V_ button , the off button , the remote there be s uh instruction on the screen , please charge charge me . You never get it lost +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh every time you're off the computer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the T_V_ you are asked the the command the T_V_ com remote controller would tell you to put it back to where {disfmarker} to the charger . +Marketing: It's an good reminder , +User Interface: Yeah . So you will never get lost {gap} {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe for some people {gap} {vocalsound} lazy people . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah because everything is programmed inside . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So it's it's uh it's all about strategy , y +Marketing: And of course the final point is a fancy look . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: As we have seen earlier the remotes which were displayed by Norman they weren't fancy , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I mean mm very big or something with lot of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should have something {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the last one with the um {vocalsound} yeah with the two parts was uh {gap} original , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: With uh two two two parts controller . +Marketing: I mean {gap} uh I mean uh I mean uh you see if it's like that even a kid who wants to have a control he could just plug it and {vocalsound} use it , you can't avoid him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: But you can have an button for child lock . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So just by pressing the button with some code , you t you put a lock onto the remote , so that he can't use even {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well we can think about uh having uh on the on the on the user interface when you switch on the T_V_ you can uh well write a code or choose a category , if it is kids , uh things like that . +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Or maybe you have to to show some specific programmes for kids and then just just {disfmarker} yeah just push uh kids button so it's automatically +User Interface: Mm . {gap} these are probl yeah . Mm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} . So if he {gap} . +Marketing: I think these other four points they're the market demands and so it's for the user interface design and industrial design to just think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So for mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So for my part I will check the prices the um the prices difference uh of what to use , where to use , and s uh and so on . +Marketing: Yeah I think it should be clearer for us in the next meeting that th uh these {gap} could be included . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} I think we need to define also a s the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: because uh if you want {gap} uh say we can sort by channels or sort by T_V_ programs , you have to decide a category of vocabularies for them . If numbers , they're easy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but if {gap} name the channel by by name {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we can we can have just numbers for channels and you can say to your remote control like uh sports and then on the T_V_ you have a list with with uh uh well with sports program playing now +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , we have a problem there . You see uh if you have a voice commands and you are s you are watching a score on uh {disfmarker} basketball score or something , and if the score comes twenty four thirty five , you've just say twenty five +Project Manager: Yeah it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: and suddenly {vocalsound} the screen the channel goes to twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: That's right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: So I think there should be a prefix to some numbers {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well but well e every possible word uh has a probability to come about of the T_V_ so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean the the {disfmarker} you just check all the probability that saying T_V_ twenty five and just ordinary twenty five . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Ordinary twenty five you almost there's a probability of being said around sixty seventy percent +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but well {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: and T_V_ twenty five I dunno it will be round about one or two percent . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So it's better to have some prefix {gap} before the number . +User Interface: But I I I think that the user would like wou would like to associate the channel or call the channel rather than than the numbers . +Marketing: Yeah something , some code . +User Interface: You say numbe channel number five of the T_V_ correspond to something else in the channel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: So some people may want to say , I want to see this channel . +Industrial Designer: Mm mm . Well I {disfmarker} +Marketing: That will be too big . +Project Manager: Or just {disfmarker} +Marketing: And it will be difficult for the vocabulary also . +User Interface: Yeah . Check with the v R_ and D_ department the capability of recogniser . +Project Manager: It's difficult to to just say the the name of the channel . It will be difficult to say just the name of the channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: Because you have to s t uh a ch +User Interface: Well , it's convenient for the user . +Project Manager: yeah but you have to to have all the name of the channel in your vocabulary . +Marketing: Als might be you just forgot the channel name , you kno only know the number . +Project Manager: Or maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or maybe the user can create his own vocabulary , +User Interface: The {disfmarker} uh uh mm . {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: just pronouncing the the name of channels and include in the vocabulary . +User Interface: I I think that I have {disfmarker} mm mm {vocalsound} I think there's another way you can do is that uh you can uh {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} when the user ch press a button to choose the channel for example , then what you can do is that the {disfmarker} you can make the T_V_ screen to split them into small little little squares of images where you you you have a snapshot of every channel , so let's say it's a four by four matrix of the images , so now what you do is f looking at the all the sixteen channels available at one time , you just use the control button uh , you just you you just choose the the option you want +Marketing: Yeah , the {gap} . +User Interface: and then you just hit the button and then you go to that channel . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or lets the user create his own vocabulary of channel . +User Interface: Mm . So you you don't use the speech recogniser in that way . +Project Manager: No . Just you have uh in the beginning you have uh t you have to train {disfmarker} you have to create the vocabulary by yourself . +User Interface: Oh , okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well I uh I also {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By associating each channel with the name or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I I also think about uh another problem , if if there is uh more than one person who is watching T_V_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for each one has his own . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the s well the the speech uh r recogniser should be able to distinguish between the two . +Marketing: Yeah yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Because uh I remember when I was a {vocalsound} young child with my sister we {disfmarker} yeah we always want to w to watch different emission at the at the same time +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Or you have to s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I wanna watch this , I wanna watch that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so it's a pr it could be a problem if uh if well if someone passes by when you are watching T_V_ and say oh T_V_ thirty {vocalsound} and just run , s +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: A and in the same lines we would have a {disfmarker} one more problem . If we are using the television in the different environments , say in the factories or in the shops where there is a lot of noise and this voice commands if they fail to work , that would bring a bad name {disfmarker} bad uh reputation for our company . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we should specify some pre-requirements if we want to use a voice commands , say that it should be used in an silent homely environment or s something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Or we can switch on or switch off the the special {gap} , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right that should be an option . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} well I think that's a good uh a good option because it's simple and uh simple to implement also , so . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I think these are the practical problems . So we need to take care of them in the design . +Project Manager: Maybe we'll discuss them in next meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's time to close this meeting . +User Interface: Well , you you stay a five minutes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh it came there on three minutes back so we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think we can just press the okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Thanks for your collaborations . +Industrial Designer: So I see ya . +Marketing: Okay . See you another thirty minutes . +","During the third meeting of a multidisciplinary team, a project manager opens the discussion with an Industrial Designer present to review conceptual designs for a remote control after having previously discussed functional design elements in their last session. Despite some initial inaudible and indiscernible parts of the conversation, the Industrial Designer shares their research and collaboration with the manufacturing department to determine which components are available for building the remote control. + +The Industrial Designer presents various energy source options for the remote, including solar energy, hand dynamo, kinetic techniques, and conventional batteries, noting that the choice of power source is still up for discussion. The team considers different materials for the case, such as wood, rubber, titanium, and latex, ultimately leaning towards titanium due to its modern and trendy appeal, which they think will please users. Interface options also go under scrutiny, with choices ranging from simple rubber buttons to more complicated designs that would require advanced chips. + +A User Interface representative and someone from the Marketing department join the conversation intermittently, mainly making vocalizations, indicating either agreement or a desire to comment. As the discussion progresses, the Industrial Designer suggests that a basic battery or kinetic energy collection might be the most suitable methods to power the remote, particularly in cluttered environments where solar energy might not be effective. + +The User Interface expert questions the significance of a single curved design aspect, aiming to understand its ergonomic benefits. The designer explains its comfort in the user's hand compared to a flat design. The topic of rechargeable batteries versus disposable ones is brought up, with interest in the possibility of kinetic recharging but also concern about its practical feasibility. + +Moving forward, the interaction turns attention to the interface of the remote, weighing the simplicity against feature richness. The possibility of integrating voice recognition is discussed as a contemporary feature, which may come with its own set of challenges and opportunities. The Industrial Designer supports using simple buttons to keep the design efficient and cost-effective but mentions a need to check with the R&D department on the viability of incorporating certain technologies like voice recognition. + +The Project Manager, User Interface, and Marketing teams further discuss the various user interface options, such as graphical indicators for functions, integration with T.V. screen interfaces, and special features for particular user demographics like children and the elderly. The conversation includes ideas like a cube-shaped remote with different functionality on each side, speech synthesis features, and the challenge of making a remote that stands out in the market as fancy yet intuitive to use. + +Marketing insights reveal user dissatisfaction with current remote design aesthetics and a willingness to spend more for a stylish remote. Users also express frustration with the complexity of too many buttons, frequently losing remotes, and difficulty in learning advanced controls. The possibility of an LCD screen on the remote, voice recognition commands with pre-set vocabularies, and simplified navigation are debated, including suggestions to create larger buttons for frequently used functions and employing buttons to create child-safe modes. + +The team concludes that they will need to weigh the costs and benefits of technologies like LCD displays and voice recognition. They consider integrating the help functions directly onto the T.V. screen to simplify user assistance. The idea of a charging station resembling phone chargers where the remote could emit a beeping sound to locate it when lost is also suggested. + +The meeting ends on a collaborative note, with team members agreeing to evaluate specific features and functionalities further. They will compare prices, discuss vocabulary sets for speech recognition, and look into the user interfaces of other industry players to ensure they craft a remote that reflects both innovation and practicality. The conversation highlights the complexity of modern product design and the interplay between design aspirations, market demands, functionality requirements, and technological advancements." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: It's Play-Doh . +Project Manager: Play-Doh's edible . Did you know that ? It's definitely {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because kids {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I used to eat it . +User Interface: I've , I've definitely eaten it before . I didn't know was edible . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's it's chew proof . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But um , it's it's made edible 'cause , yeah . It's made edible 'cause kids eat it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and if it's wasn't edible then {disfmarker} Well , normal babies . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually that makes sense , because I remember like , peopl I dunno if my Mom ever did it but I remember other people's Moms making like home-made Play-Doh where you just like make the {gap} colouring and make some sort of sort of dough . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh yeah it is , yeah . Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Everybody everybody ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's have your um {disfmarker} let's get {gap} have the uh presentation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We've got some {gap} . +Industrial Designer: We've got a cool prototype . +User Interface: Yeah , it's pretty exciting . So , everything uh that we wanted we wanted it to be ergonomic and to be made out of rubber , very simple and easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Double curved . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: yeah , double curved , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um but also something that was gonna jump out at people , something that would be different uh , separate it from the other remotes out on the market . So uh I think if you put this in the palm of your hand , you'll see what a nice thing we have going here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That is cool . +User Interface: So , basically , if you hold it like that , the one on your thumb , yeah , {vocalsound} the thumb button is the power button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Your index finger is channel up , middle finger is channel down , ring finger is volume up , your pinkie is volume down . +Marketing: What's the big blue thing ? +User Interface: That's the lock button , has a L_ L_ on it +Marketing: Oh cool . +User Interface: and then the M_ is a mute button . And then it also has digit +Project Manager: {gap} what button ? Um . Oh mute . +User Interface: For muting the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And mute . +User Interface: Um and then then you can also {disfmarker} there's a numeric keypad on the top so you can key directly to the to the channel if you want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So it's really basic functionalities as far as what keys are available , but we think it's very comfortable and very innovative and it looks different . +Project Manager: That certainly does . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So all the , I mean the important keys are right at your f f you know right at uh at a convenient place for you to to access them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Which is ant anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: So you don't you {disfmarker} Yeah . It should be . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And it's also conformable to the size of your hand . I mean if that's too big , it's a rubber remote , so you can , you know +Project Manager: Yeah . 'S great . +User Interface: change that . So d does that uh what {disfmarker} mesh with what you guys were hoping and for and expecting or does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it's so cute . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I have one thing about it , but it's a small thing , but it'd mean we'd have to make a right-handed one and a left-handed one . +Industrial Designer: Oh right , yeah . +User Interface: Ah , that's good thinking , yeah . +Project Manager: But , that's I don't see why that's not possible . +User Interface: Yeah , if we build rocket ships why can't we build left-handed and right-handed uh remotes . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} They make left-handed scissors , you know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I didn't I didn't think about that , but I'd {disfmarker} yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , but then but then you can learn to use your right h like I was just thinking if there's left-handers and right-handers in the family , what , they have two remotes ? +Project Manager: Yes s +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know I know people who have left-handed and right-handed people in the family and they all use the computer {vocalsound} for the whole {disfmarker} the same computer the fes family and they have a mouse , and everybody is using right-handed mouse . +Project Manager: Mm . Sure . Sure . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm sure they'll be able to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I mean it's only pressing buttons , you don't have to do anything , you know , extraordinary . I think everybody can press a button with their left and right hand so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine d are you right handed ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Imagine you're doing it with your left hand , I don't think it's too {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But we can have both uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Have them in stock . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Make 'em more appealing as well . +Project Manager: But um other than that , I mean uh and that's um , you know , that's just something , I think I think it's great , yeah , great idea . +User Interface: Do you think it says {vocalsound} R_R_ ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} I think it does . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's , well , if the R_R_ motto is , we bring fashion to to electronics , I'd say that could be quite fashionable . +User Interface: Fashion to electronics . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's got the b the black and yellow and blue . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Plus red , which is sort of a a fruit and vegetable uh uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There you go . +User Interface: So that's that's {vocalsound} our end of things wha uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , very good , yeah . +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's come up with what we've you know , the things that's what we've {disfmarker} what we were looking at doing , hasn't it , {gap} all seems to be there . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well done . +Marketing: And all the playing around is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um before we move on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I'm just {disfmarker} do you wanna plug in ? +Project Manager: I need that cable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . Yeah . Um . One thing I do need to do {disfmarker} we need to look at , is the costs . +User Interface: The costs , was that what you said ? +Industrial Designer: Play-Doh is very cheap . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {gap} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Play-Doh won't last very long everybody'll go like , oops , it's gone . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But it's edible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Chew proof . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , they'll buy more of them if you eat them , {gap} . +User Interface: That was the main criteria from the last meeting , it had to be chew proof . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh right . {vocalsound} Okay , now I think we'll do this {disfmarker} I could do {disfmarker} you know , I can do this o on my own or I could do it with you , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh ho-ho . +Project Manager: but it's just easy enough to go through it with you , so we're going for the kinetic power . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the electronics , we decided on it being just a simple , the easiest thing that's inside it . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} the case , we've gone for the double curved . Um and it's made out of rubber . {vocalsound} The interface is push-buttons . And button supplements well they're in diff special colours , aren't they ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {gap} special colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's better for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Special form , yeah , they're a special form there in shapes and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah , I mean , {vocalsound} these these ones on the side are curved kind of , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And special material . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . Um . Are they made out of any special material ? +Industrial Designer: Rubber . +Project Manager: No they're not . They're not made out of wood or titanium or rubber or anything , they're just simple {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons are rubber . +Marketing: Well they're rubber , aren't they ? +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So let's see if that comes within budget . And it does . That is gonna cost uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: We're under budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's gonna cost ten ten Euro seventy cents a unit to make . And our target was it had to come in at under twelve fifty . +User Interface: That's cool . Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , +User Interface: And we're actua actually making a better profit than we expected . +Project Manager: this is all very very good . The bosses will be very pleased . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , let's just save this so I can e-mail it to you . Uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Save it in {gap} save it in the uh {vocalsound} my documents . +Marketing: It's already saved , I think . +Project Manager: Splendid . Okay . So uh , that's {gap} done with this with this um doodah , so you're {gap} . Gonna do {disfmarker} what you were gonna do , +Marketing: Thank you . Mm . +Project Manager: your evaluation . +Marketing: Oh , yeah . This is where we all get to {vocalsound} I get to write on the , oops , on the board . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . 'S function {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ eight . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} I love the smell of that Play-Doh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I cou {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: have some have some . +Marketing: Okay . So , {vocalsound} evaluation . We're gonna do it all together so we evaluate each criteria . I've got the criterias . And we have to do it on a scale of one to seven , one being true , so it's it's more like it's {disfmarker} fits the criteria , and seven being as in it doesn't fit the criteria . And the criterias are , and I'll draw this up on the board {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so we have a box {disfmarker} {gap} . And this is false , this is just like to keep you informed . So seven's here and one's here and then you've got in the middle . {vocalsound} So the first criteria . Do you all get what we're doing ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , cool . Okay , first criteria , look and feel . So the does remote look and feel fashionable to what we talked about ? As it {disfmarker} is it colour-wise and is it spongy ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So what mark should we give for that ? +Project Manager: I would give it a seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: As in it's not . +Project Manager: Oh sorry , one , d yeah . +User Interface: Oh , sorry , one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A one . +Marketing: A one a one . So I'll just write criteria criteria one we get one . Second criteria , new technology . Have we implemented new technology ? As in the new high-tech {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , the kinetic thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . That was our main technological innovation w every everything else was fairly simple , but the fact that we used the kinetic energy was new . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: So it's {gap} . So we'll give it a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's ergonomic , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's not {disfmarker} that's that's a design that's a des that's a design thing , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but that's not a technological thing , that's another thing , i that's another marketing thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . True . +Project Manager: So on the technical side of it it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I'd say it's about a a twoish ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's about in the mid in the middle somewhere , +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: maybe , yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: Three . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe three , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} three . So criteria three is is it easy to use ? +Project Manager: Easy to use . +Marketing: I think it's a one , I think . +Project Manager: I'd say it's I wouldn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: not if you're left-handed it's not . I would give it a I would give it a two , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Two , +Project Manager: 'cause i i it i it i it is more geared for right-handed people than left-handed people , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But if we make a right-handed and a left-handed then ? +User Interface: If we're gonna have one left-handed and one right-handed then I would give it a one , but otherwise otherwise a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Give it a t give it a two . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , criteria four is costs . {gap} +Project Manager: Cost . It's come in under budget . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 's great . +Project Manager: So that's a definite one . +User Interface: Yeah . That was great . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Amount of buttons . +Marketing: Like the amount of buttons , +Project Manager: Contains only the necessary buttons . +Marketing: 'cause people like a lot le like {disfmarker} So it's a one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um criteria six . R_S_I_ is it good against ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes s yeah . +Marketing: Yes . Very good . +Project Manager: So it's anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: It's one . And criteria seven , which is the last one , does it get lost ? +Industrial Designer: It's yellow . +Marketing: Is it easy to get lost ? +Project Manager: I don't think it's gonna get lost easily . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is very bright , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No ? But it is smallish . +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: It's not the kinda thing that's gonna slip like between a couch cushion or something , you know . Maybe it will . Uh . +Industrial Designer: T +Marketing: Mm . I think i it would , could be , could get lost . +User Interface: You think it could lost {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} two . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean it's not fully it's not fully {disfmarker} like you can't say {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I mean +Marketing: I mean , it's not a one , definitely . +Project Manager: I mean , you could still flush it down the toilet theoretically , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Yeah , anything , I mean . Okay . It's bigger than the average mobile , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But , yeah , it can get lost . +Marketing: The mobiles get lost all the time . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay , yeah , two is fine . +Marketing: But then you ring 'em and you find them . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . So , that's that . So that's the evaluation , so I'd say {disfmarker} Yay . +Project Manager: Alright it's all all systems go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We've , we've done well . +Marketing: It's like {vocalsound} {gap} like a number one . Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Number one product . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We can't fail . +Marketing: All done , thanks . We fitted all the criterias . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well done , Reissa . +Marketing: So that's that one . +Project Manager: Okay , I I think um I just wanna put in as Project Manager the you know , little bit of praise for everybody here for how they've worked on it , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know , both individually and as a team . You know you've w everyone's come up with their own individual ideas in their own different departments , um and then come together and worked in , you know , integrally , you know , at the right times , psp , you know , especially you two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all , you know , gone very very well +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: and and and be you know , has been good communication going on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , during our design I mean there was some s some heated heated discussion , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but we we kept {disfmarker} we tried to keep it cool and and +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did you have to go down to the the corporate squash court and bash a few balls about ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: just just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We just had to we just had to squeeze our product a little bit and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fantastic . +Industrial Designer: It is {gap} . +User Interface: Now you guys have been a a great team . Think we're the we're the envy of all the of all the other R_R_ teams , {gap} . +Marketing: {gap} been cool . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} So +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I , you know , and I think we've co we have come we've come up with something new , something that hasn't been done before , we haven't {disfmarker} we're not just rehashing an old design . +Marketing: In four diff in in four meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Funny , all designer meetings could be this quick . +Project Manager: You know , maybe this isn't a simulation , maybe this is actually {disfmarker} so it's like Sony or someone like that they're they're just , yeah , {gap} they get {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah I think they're actually trying to find ideas for a ideal remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're using our ideas . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , {gap} two years' time this will be on the market . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ex exactly that product +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um thum {disfmarker} we'll go , yeah , we designed that and no-one will believe us . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But um {disfmarker} +User Interface: So at this stage , I mean , is this the last meeting of the project ? We don't uh have another one after it's gone gone to marke market or something ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I think when this meeting's finished like officially , there b we'll get a uh questionnaire to fill in . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Y Oh really ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or six , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just start summarising now . {vocalsound} You can reply to the same message . +Project Manager: I haven't got message . +Marketing: See summary , there . If you just reply to that one . +User Interface: So there's no way to like predict what our {disfmarker} 'Cause we had a {disfmarker} we originally had a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} As far as our financial uh um goals , we had a specific number for profits that we wanted . It was fifty mil fifty million {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was it was it fifty or five ? +User Interface: I don't remember . But there's not a way to compute that , I mean , since we saved on the on the production cost , do we know how much we're making on profit ? +Project Manager: It gets handed over to another department . +Marketing: Depends how much we sell . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: What our what our project was was to come up with the product , basically . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} the for the {disfmarker} and just basically is it it come {disfmarker} can {disfmarker} is it within budget . When it c when it comes to all the other things of how to sell it and , you know , the b the profits and all that that's other departments {disfmarker} it's another team that actually work out the mai the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But we have a vested interest {gap} +Project Manager: oh yeah , the {disfmarker} all the guys in the profit sharing , yeah . +User Interface: prof profit sharing {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Yeah , that's it . You know , we've we've we've made i we've made +Marketing: We finished an hour earlier . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've designed the product , we've ma we've got the prototype , it's within budget , it's {disfmarker} does everything that we wanted it to do . It's new , it's it's um something that uh {vocalsound} that isn't out there already . +User Interface: I think actually {disfmarker} and one advantage of of this is that after the uh , you know , after this fad of fruit and vegetables passes this will still be c a cool remote , you know . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We're not we're not you know , tying tying our cart to that one horse {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Well , this is very marketable in that it is it's it's something that's kind of new and looks a bit quirky for people who want that , +Marketing: Definitely . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} that it's um , hang on , I wrote it down here somewhere {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no I thi I put it in one of my e-mails that I sent off . Um that , you know , it's marketable in the sense that it's {disfmarker} whilst all these other remotes uh actually do give you repetitive strain injury , our one does the complete opposite , you know , +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: so that's something that's new , which is one of the criteria they asked us to come up with something with something new . +User Interface: Mm . It make watching T_V_ healthy . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if you're not having a good time with the T_V_ , you can f throw it about , you know . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's fine , it's kid proof . +Marketing: Just don't sh don't throw it at any of the ornaments and break them . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Well , you can break the ornaments , but you won't break that . +Marketing: No {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . So all in all , I think we've done very well . +Industrial Designer: Mm yep . +Project Manager: Well done everybody . +User Interface: Right , you too . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: Um . Drinks are on the company . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: In the corporate bar that's next to the corporate swimming pool on the top floor that we're that've all just gained access to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Glad to hear that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's it . +User Interface: That's it . +Project Manager: Well , as far as I t as far as I know . Um . +Marketing: Yep . We haven't got the five minute left thing yet . +Project Manager: No . Anyone wanna play I spy ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess it's probably better that we wrap it up than have five minutes of silence . Should we call the day then ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess . I mean we're gonna get asked to fill out another questionnaire . +User Interface: Uh , right . +Project Manager: Um . It's probably gonna be the same as one we've done before . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I'm not the authority to say that it is . +Marketing: In {gap} project . +Project Manager: Um how does everyone feel about the technology that's been used in this ? The sort of using of the the pens and writing on these special pads and all that ? +Marketing: I love it . {vocalsound} I love it . {vocalsound} I think it's cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Being all wired up and a vibrating pen and {disfmarker} it's cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Being watched . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Your moment to shine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wow . +Project Manager: I thi you know , I'd I'd n yeah , as we said earlier , I've not {disfmarker} never seen that before . {gap} something that t the whiteboard +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: thingy , {vocalsound} that's great . Um , but a p a pen with a camera on it , I don't think it's such a new thing . I mean it's i or in such a new idea . It would be different if it was sort of hand writing recognition stuff , but as it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's literally that'll come up on a computer screen as a picture file rather than actual text . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Right , I think they do want to do hand writing recognition on that , it's just the first step . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Logitech . +User Interface: I guess we should end this , since we're off off topic . So . Shall we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Meeting adjourned . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +","The team from various departments, including Marketing, Project Management, Industrial Design, and User Interface, discuss the prototype of a new remote that they've been working on. They remark that Play-Doh is edible, which is relevant as many of them ate it as kids, relating this to the need for children-friendly designs. + +The new remote is intended to be ergonomic, made out of rubber, and has a simple design with essential functionalities. It features a double-curved shape to stand out from other remotes on the market and is intentionally colorful. The remote has buttons for power, channel and volume controls, a lock button, a mute button, and a numeric keypad, strategically placed to fit under designated fingers for ease of use. + +The team also discusses the need for both right-handed and left-handed versions. They note that it’s a cool, innovative product that fits the company motto of bringing fashion to electronics and has been designed to be anti-RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). Importantly, the product comes in under the target production budget of €12.50 per unit, costing only €10.70. + +In their evaluation, the team rates the remote on various criteria such as look and feel, new technology implementation, ease of use, cost, number of buttons, RSI prevention, and risk of getting lost. The scores are generally low (favorable), indicating the product meets the criteria well. + +The project manager praises the team for their individual contributions and their collaboration. There is a discussion on the process they have been through, including the use of writing technologies during their meetings. Finally, the team appears satisfied with the results, and the project manager ends the meeting by offering celebratory drinks, compliments of the company." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Gareth Rogers: Good morning, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Unfortunately, the Chair is unable to attend today, so in accordance with Standing Order 17.22 I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for the duration of today's meeting. +Julie Morgan AM: I nominate John Griffiths. +Gareth Rogers: Thank you. +Darren Millar AM: I'll second that nomination. +Gareth Rogers: As there's only one nomination, I declare that John Griffiths has been appointed as temporary Chair. Thank you, John. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Thank you all very much, and item 1 on our agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received apologies from Hefin David and Lynne Neagle. There are no substitutions. Are there any declarations of interest? No. We will move on then to item 2, and our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education, and our first evidence session. I'm very pleased to welcome the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales here today, and Dr David Blaney as chief executive, and Bethan Owen, director of institutional engagement. Welcome to you both. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. If it's okay with you, we'll move straight to questions, and Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Good morning. Bore da. I wondered if we could start off with you telling us what evidence you can see that the Brexit process has had any impact on Welsh higher education so far. +Dr David Blaney: Can I preface the response by just reminding you that we are, by contract and by role, apolitical, and a lot of the judgments about the impact of Brexit essentially reflect where people sit politically in terms of whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We're not going to go there, obviously, today, so we'll stick to the facts as we can see them, and hopefully we'll be able to help you, but there are areas where we are unable to help. That's part of the reason. +John Griffiths AM: We certainly do not expect you to enter the political fray in any way. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. But even in terms of your assessment of whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, a good impact or a bad impact, some of that inevitably in the end becomes a matter of your politics on it, so we will be as careful as we can be on that. In terms of the impact of Brexit on higher education, clearly, the significance here is about the contribution that higher education can make to Wales. So, we fund provision; we don't fund providers, technically, although obviously there's not much provision without providers. So, we are interested in the sustainability of higher education providers, but fundamentally the issue is: what does the HE system in Wales do for Wales, and what impact might Brexit have on the capacity of the system to continue to deliver for Wales? So, we know that universities make annually about £5 billion of impact; 50,000 jobs. Of course, in Wales, all of that economic impact is really very significant, and uncertainty about the relationships and the arrangements with Europe is one of the most significant issues confronting university management at the moment. That has an impact in a number of ways. We can identify at the moment the extent to which the HE sector in Wales is exposed to sources of income that are located from the EU, so EU students, structural funds, and EU research funding, and so on, from the EU. We can identify some of that, but, actually, what happens in the future is much harder to be clear about. We are beginning to see some impact in terms of applications from EU students and I'll ask Bethan to share some details on that in a moment. We're also beginning to pick up, only anecdotally, some signs that there are increasing difficulties in the UK sector, and the Welsh sector as part of that, in playing in some of the EU collaborative research activities. And that, I think, just reflects the extent to which EU partners consider that British partners might be a stable partner as we go through this transition period. We don't have data on that—that's anecdotal—but there are signs that some of those relationships are beginning to become a little bit more difficult. In terms of the financial impact of that, clearly, if it is accepted that the UK is a net contributor to the EU then, presumably, some of the money—we're almost immediately straight into politics if you're not careful—but some of the money will be available back to the UK, and the extent to which Wales benefits or not from that returned money is a function of the political relationship between the Welsh Government and Her Majesty's Government. It's not necessarily the case that Wales will always lose out in that relationship, but that will become a matter of politics. There's a broader dimension, which is about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy and how much tax revenue there is and all of that. I think it's very hard for us to be definitive about how that's going to play out. I think that depends on the deal and how it all unfolds over the next several years. But we can certainly anticipate some turbulence and exactly how that plays for institutions remains to be seen. We can touch later on on the extent to which they are sighted on this and preparing for it. So, in terms of recruitment, Bethan. +Bethan Owen: This is based on the UCAS applications and the report that was published at the end of June, 30 June. The European Union-domiciled applicants to Wales have decreased by 8 per cent, which contrasts with a 2 per cent increase for English institutions, and non-EU—so international students, not from Europe—have also decreased by 9 per cent to Welsh institutions, again contrasting with a 7 per cent increase in England. So, those are the signs of changes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I then just ask you what you see as the main pressures on the Welsh higher education sector at the moment? +Bethan Owen: The funding position would be the main pressure. The recommendations made by Sir Ian Diamond in his review of higher education funding and student finance are in the process of being implemented, and the changes to the student finance arrangements will take effect from this September. However, the recommendations for re-establishing funding at Welsh institutions are expected to take quite a bit longer. That funding, when it returns to institutions, is intended to re-establish funding for higher cost provision, both full time and part time; reinstate funding for innovation; and maintain, at the very least, the research funding in real terms. Universities, in the meantime, are trying to minimise the cost reductions that they're making in order to maintain the infrastructure, so that when the funding comes they can get the best value out of it. We have announced our funding allocations for 2018-19. For the research and teaching grant, though, we are still funding at a lower level—£12.5 million less—then the starting point for the Diamond report, the 2015-16 starting report. But we expect to be able to start introducing funding from 2019-20 to make a start on implementing Diamond. And it's probably important to note that the Diamond recommendations predated Brexit, therefore the challenges introduced by Brexit are in addition to those that the Diamond report was addressing. The other pressures relate to student recruitment. I mentioned the EU and international students. There is also the start of a reduction, both in Welsh-domiciled and English-domiciled applications to Wales. Enrolments are obviously the key important number, which we'll see later. And the other pressures include pay and pension costs, not least the issues around the universities superannuation scheme pension fund, where there's potentially a significant increase in cost. Increased student expectations for modern facilities and infrastructure bring a requirement for capital expenditure and borrowing, which bring their own pressures. And finally, the uncertainty about potential consequences that could arise from the review in England of fees and funding—the Augar review. +John Griffiths AM: In terms of European Union students and enrolment, is Wales forecast to do less well than England and, if so, why might that be? +Bethan Owen: They are not forecasting it. It's very difficult until the enrolments are made, and it's also very hard to see—the data that we see is the UCAS data. Institutions also recruit directly, so until we see the actual recruitment—. I think the arrangements that have changed from 2018-19 also impact on EU students. So, now, they have to find the full fee, whereas previously they were getting the grant in the same way as Welsh students. So, I'm speculating that that might be having an impact as well on EU students' appetite to come. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. First of all Llyr, then Mark. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, that's straight into what I was going to ask, really, about what you think the factors are that led to this 8 per cent or 9 per cent drop in EU students applying to study in Wales, where we see a 2 per cent increase in England. Is that it, or are there other things that you've taken into account? What's your assessment of the reasons behind this? +Dr David Blaney: It's very difficult to be definitive about the reasons, but I think there are probably two. The one that Bethan has already indicated, which is the change in student support arrangements for EU students, will have an effect of perturbation. That's probably relatively temporary—let's hope it is—as that settles down because, actually, the deal for EU students coming into Wales is no worse than that coming into England. Ours would be better because the fee level is slightly lower, but we do struggle in Wales in terms of the Anglocentric nature of the media and so on. So, getting the messages out is a challenge. The other dimension is that when you're in a highly competitive recruitment market, you have to do what you can to look attractive. Part of that is about being able to invest in facilities, and particularly buildings and kit, and the relative levels of investment between Wales and England over quite a long period of time now probably have an impact on that. Certainly, anecdotally I know, from my own family, that a lot of the choices have been made in terms of the state of repair of campuses and so on. There's something rational about that, isn't there? If you've got a system that is relatively better invested, then you're likely to have a better student experience because the resources are likely to be better. So, that's not irrational. We saw a sort of similar but opposite effect when the £9,000 fee maximum limit came in, and some institutions, mostly in England—there was one in Wales—chose to pitch their fee levels really quite low, relative to that £9,000, and caught a cold in the student recruitment market because fee levels denote quality in the student mind. So, the price sensitivities work quite differently. So, again, if you've got a relatively better invested part of the system, then that might well be one of the reasons why it looks more attractive. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That latter factor would affect the whole of the cohort, not just the international recruitment, of course. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. Yes, indeed. The implementation of the Diamond recommendations is crucial to that because that's re-balancing where the policy of investment goes. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. And Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: If I heard you correctly earlier, you said that the applications from non-EU students were also down by 8 per cent or 9 per cent. So, forgive me a certain scepticism about the explanation of the fall in the EU students being that they did get the fee grant and now they do not. If that's the explanation, why are we seeing the same fall in non-EU applications? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think the Welsh domiciled are also now having to face the prospect of finding a loan for the whole of the fee. So, that would potentially account for that. There's also a demographic dimension here with the downturn in the 18-year-old school-leaver profile, and that actually is happening in Wales at a slightly later point than in England. +Mark Reckless AM: But this is non-EU students, and I think you said, Bethan, an 8 per cent or 9 per cent fall in them as well. +Dr David Blaney: International non-EU. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. +Bethan Owen: There's also a mix effect. I gave a number that was for all English institutions that there will be differential impacts on. +Mark Reckless AM: All English or all Welsh? +Bethan Owen: Well, I contrasted the Welsh position with the English position where they were seeing growth. If you look, then—and we don't have the detailed information, but, again, what UCAS publish is some analysis by tariff. They analyse by type of institution—in other words, the grades that you need to get into institutions—and there is a trend for growth being in the higher tariff institutions. So, there's a mix effect in there as well, and I think there's undoubtedly an element of perception of how welcome overseas and international students are, and that's something that we know the sector are working on with Government. +Mark Reckless AM: Why would that affect Wales more than England? Do you think there's been perhaps too great a negativity about Brexit in the sector? +Bethan Owen: I think it's the mix of institutions that we have. So, we only have sector information published at the moment. When we look at the mix of institutions that we have, we will probably see a differential impact between Cardiff University and others. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Mark? Sorry, David, did you want to add anything? +Dr David Blaney: I was just going to say that we would expect to see quite differential performance in the English sector, so the overall numbers are being brought up by substantial increased performance with some of that sector, and it's a question of how many of that type of institution you have in Wales. +Mark Reckless AM: So, performance is increasing amongst the English universities, but not amongst the Welsh, you think. +Dr David Blaney: I think performance is increasing, but increasing substantially with some of the English sector, not all of it. So, you get an average for the sector that is increased performance, but actually the stronger players within that sector, with the stronger international profiles, are bringing that up, and we have fewer in Wales that have that sort of presence. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Would it be fair to say, then, that the universities over the border in England are better at selling themselves internationally than our Welsh institutions? Or is it just this fact that we've got fewer very high tariff universities versus the English market? +Dr David Blaney: I suspect, and this is speculation—I suspect that it's a bit of both. I think some of it is to do with the mix of different types of institution. I would then come back to the point I was making about the Anglocentric nature of the UK media. If you're looking overseas, I think Wales has to work harder to penetrate the consciousness. +Darren Millar AM: But, forgive me, don't international students just look at the UK as a whole? How are we comparing to Scotland, for example, or Northern Ireland, in terms of their universities? Do you have a comparative figure for Scottish universities? +Bethan Owen: I haven't got that one with me for now, but there will be one in the data. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, we could get that. +Bethan Owen: Again, it's a combination of being part of the UK but differentiating, and the ability to differentiate the strengths of Wales, so attracting those students to Wales specifically, on top of the UK draw. +Dr David Blaney: So, in terms of the efforts that have been made, there's a programme now that is being run by the sector in Wales—it's 'Study in Wales'. It's relatively recent; you could argue that we could have got there earlier. But that is a determined collective effort to present Wales as a good place to study, with particular messages about what distinguishes studying in Wales from studying more broadly in the UK. In a sense, that is responding to the need to increase the presence of Wales in an international market. So, that sort of initiative I think is very good, very welcome. It will take a while to actually have an impact, but I think that's exactly the sort of work the sector need to be doing more of. +Mark Reckless AM: What are those messages on why prospective students should study in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: One of them in particular is relative safety. We know that one of the considerations, particularly for parents of overseas students, is are they going to go to a safe environment, and we know that the perception of international students who study in Wales is that this is a comfortable and safe place to be. That's partly a function of the size of our larger cities—quite a lot smaller than many of the cities in England. So, that's a key message. Being part of a UK system is also an important message there as well. So, we've got a UK-quality system, a UK degree, and the strength of that brand is available in Wales, but it's available in a way that is safer and more supportive, I think is the messaging that's coming through. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. We'd better move on, I think, hadn't we? Darren, then. +Darren Millar AM: I just wonder to what extent you have been able to plan in your financial forecasts for the next few years ahead for the potential impacts of Brexit. What have you built in, if anything? +Bethan Owen: In terms of our funding, we receive our funding annually, but the sector provides us with financial forecasts, and we use those for monitoring sustainability. So, the last full forecasts that we had were in July 2017. We are due to receive a full forecast at the end of this month, and we obviously have updated information from institutions. +Darren Millar AM: And they're three-year forecasts that come through to you, aren't they? +Bethan Owen: They are four plus the current year. So, we've got numbers to 2019-20 at the moment, and expect to go to 2020-21. +Darren Millar AM: And what are the universities expecting? What do they anticipate? +Bethan Owen: Well, for 2017-18, which is the year we're about to end now, they were expecting £38 million income from European students, and approximately £91 million from the various European programme funding sources, and that's about 8 per cent of the total income—£1.5 billion—of the sector. The forecasts are assuming that that continues, albeit that institutions have various scenarios that they have for all sorts of scenarios that we can all speculate on, and, as I mentioned earlier, the balancing act of maintaining infrastructure and resources and staff in the short term is where we are at the moment, or where the sector is at the moment. And there are also signs that the banks and lending institutions are becoming a bit more risk-averse in providing borrowing to institutions, and of more differentiation between individual institutions being made than has possibly been the case in the past. The sector made an operating deficit, again looking at all Welsh institutions collectively last year, 2016-17, of £17 million. That's before other gains and losses. And we're expecting a similar collective level of deficit for this financial year, if not slightly higher. Now, these are managed deficits and we are not currently seeing critical short-term cash availability issues in the sector. However, the increase in funding from Diamond is a key part of enabling the sector to return to longer-term financial sustainability. Short-term challenges can be met if there's a reasonable prospect of future funding. You can manage in the short-term, but there comes a point when the big cost reductions and infrastructure reductions have to be made. And, again, having mentioned the pressures on pay, pensions and other challenges, it is difficult to gauge whether, if those factors come into play as well, some of these cost reductions may have to be made before funding comes in to replace—either Diamond funding or the European replacement funding. +Darren Millar AM: So, would it be fair to say that, in terms of the funding arrangements, and, in terms of the student numbers, one reason why we've got this recruitment problem is this lack of investment in the capital infrastructure that we've seen in recent years because of the financing arrangements from the Welsh Government, and the fee regime that we had previously, and the student finance regime that we had previously, not getting more cash into our Welsh universities perhaps, and that, over the next few years, there's going to have to be much more significant investment in capital if we're to raise the game and be more competitive, yes? +Bethan Owen: Yes, that would be fair to say. +Darren Millar AM: So, to what extent are they planning for more capital investment in those financial strategies that they've been preparing and presenting to you? +Bethan Owen: They are all planning for capital investment. They are in different positions in terms of capacity to borrow and the assumptions. This year, 2018-19, is the first time that we've had capital funding in our remit letter—so, we've got £10 million of capital funding, which is very welcome, with a prospect of a further £20 million. So, that we will be allocating shortly. That will make a difference, particularly to those institutions who are not finding it as easy to borrow from financial institutions. Some of our larger institutions have borrowed—Cardiff University issued a bond. However, there are internal governance processes that are putting tight restrictions and expectations of what that money will be invested in. But they all have plans to do it and they need the confidence that their forecasts and long-term future funding prospects are secure enough that they can get the confidence of borrowers then, and service the costs of those borrowers. +Darren Millar AM: So, the Diamond dividend you've mentioned a few times. What clarity is there from the Welsh Government at the moment in terms of how much they anticipate the Diamond dividend will be, and what proportion of that is going to be released to HEIs in the future? +Bethan Owen: I was very carefully not describing it as a dividend—a re-establishing of funding that we had in the past for higher cost and innovation and maintaining research funding. The timescales are difficult, because we have an annual remit letter, and we can work with Welsh Government officials, and they can only give us a sense of when they think the funding will be released. But 2018-19 is the start of the system, and because of cohort protection—so, protecting those students who came in on a different deal to the deal from 2018-19—in the early years there is an element of double cost; there's a cost of seeing out the old system and the different cost of implementing the new system. So, at the moment, we're certainly not in a position to tell the sector with any degree of certainty what funding would be beyond what we've allocated for 2018-19, with some sense of what 2019-20 numbers we're working with because we allocate our money over an academic year—so, by definition, we've already made assumptions of four months of the 2019-20 funding, albeit that's not approved yet in the budgetary process. +Darren Millar AM: But you're not being given a steer at all as to what you expect the additional resource that you might have to make available to Welsh universities might be as a result of Diamond. You must have some idea. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that officials have been as helpful as they can be with us, in terms of the planning assumptions we make and indications about whether or not we are being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. So, I think they're being very helpful; as Bethan said, they're constrained by the process—they can't pre-empt a budget process. And you folks will be fully aware of that, of course. The other question I think you asked was how much of the money released by the new arrangements will come into higher education. At the moment, we are expecting all of it to come into higher education, as the product of the arrangement between the current Cabinet Secretary and the current First Minister. The extent to which any changes there cause that to come under threat is something I can't judge at the moment. But we have had in our remit letter from the Cabinet Secretary a clear indication that we can expect our resource to grow over the next few years, as the Diamond process unfolds. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. I'm just going to bring in Llyr at this stage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bethan said in an earlier answer that, I think, the financial forecasting from universities forecast something pretty consistent in terms of what they're hoping to be receiving in income, for example. But we've already discussed the near 10 per cent drop, potentially, in international applications. So, does that tally, really, or are they going to be recruiting additional students from the UK market or—? What's the plan? +Bethan Owen: I was reflecting on the last point when we had consistent information across the sector. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, they may need to revisit that in the light of this. +Bethan Owen: I'm expecting that the forecast that we get at the end of this month will reflect the reduced applications we've seen, and an element of that will be reflected in reduced improvements as well. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, we don't really know, then, whether—it's unlikely that they are going to expect a consistent fee income, really. +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say we would expect them to respond to what they're seeing in the UCAS process. Even if they didn't, they would all, in any case, have sensitivities for what they would do if things don't come out in the way they hope. And if they didn't have that then we would be on their case, of course, because we want them to be properly sighted. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thanks. +John Griffiths AM: And we have to stick to the Brexit impact. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Can I just ask, in terms of the impact of Brexit, have you done any assessment of what you think might happen, or have any of the institutions made available to you any assessments of what they think is likely to happen to their individual institutions, going forward? You've mentioned scenarios earlier on, David, so what scenarios have you set out? +Dr David Blaney: There's a Welsh Government HE Brexit working group, which is chaired by one of the Government directors, and we sit on that. And we have provided that group with early summaries of the risks and the potential impact, in terms of the exposure of the sector to EU-sourced funding. We have, as part of that working group, explored those issues that it would be really very helpful for either the Welsh Government to try to put in place or for the Welsh Government to persuade UK Government to do. And I think, in our submission, we identified a number of areas of what we would consider to be a helpful action, and that has been worked through that working group. We know that it has informed Welsh Government's position, in terms of what it does and also in terms of the conversations that they have with Her Majesty's Government. Beyond that, what we haven't done in that working group is share the work that institutions are doing individually to look at how they would respond to different scenarios. We are not able to do that here either because, inevitably, they would have varying degrees of unpalatability and they would have to be managed very, very carefully. You take cost out, which is essentially the response, you actually take people's jobs out, and all of that has to be managed carefully. So, that's not really a matter for public consideration, but we do know that the institutions are looking at a range of scenarios on what they would do. Bethan mentioned earlier on that the current deficit for the sector is a managed deficit—it's not something that has taken them by surprise. They are responding to what they see as the dip between where Diamond was reporting and where the money starts flowing. Similarly, I think we're comfortable that there is a managed approach to the scenarios that they're testing within institutions. So, they will do what they need to do to sustain themselves. The bigger issue really, in a public policy context, is the potential damage for the sector to be able to deliver for Wales in terms of research and skills development and all the other contributions. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're confident that they're taking a robust approach to planning for various scenarios, going forward, are you, as individual HEIs? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and as the deal becomes more clear politically, then they will obviously have greater clarity in terms of which of these scenarios they need to work up more fully, but they are sighted on it. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. Can I just ask about fee and access plans, and how Brexit might impact them? To what extent do you think that they could be impacted? +Dr David Blaney: I think there are two dimensions to maybe touch upon there. Fee and access plans are approved annually by us. They are approved in advance of the recruitment cycle for the year that they apply to. So, we're just in the process now of finalising our consideration of fee and access plans for the 2019-20 academic year. So, there's quite a long lead time. We, as part of that process, go through similar—we look at their financial sustainability, which is based on their forecasts—data to the stuff we've just been discussing. And also, of course, the fee plans themselves make assumptions about how many students of different types, from different domains, are going to be recruited. So, clearly, if there is a continuing downward pressure on EU student recruitment, then that will reduce the amount of fee income that's going to come in, unless they can find other students, and that will reduce the amount of investment in the various activities that are identified in the fee plans. In terms of process, we have two things that we can do. If institutions are becoming aware that the basis upon which they've submitted a fee plan is fundamentally different from the reality, then they can come into us for a change to their fee plan. So, we have a change process. If it's not fundamentally different, but there are always differences between what you plan and what happens three years later—. We also monitor after the event and, if there are differences, we would then obviously require institutions to explain those differences. If they've had fewer students and less investment, we would need to understand that. Conversely, if they'd had more students, and potentially more investment, we'd want to know what they'd spent it on, and if they've done different things, we'd want to understand that as well. So, we do challenge through a monitoring process. The only other thing that's perhaps worth saying is that, in the 2019-20 fee and access plans—they're not published yet, so I can't give you the full detail—five universities have made reference to Brexit and the Brexit impact, and things they want to do through their fee and access plan to try and address some of those issues, so they're in there as well. +Darren Millar AM: But we've already said, haven't we, that it may be nothing to do with Brexit, this dip in EU recruitment, because there are other factors like the attractiveness of the estates and the environment that young people might be educated in? But they're making assumptions that it's linked to Brexit, are they? +Dr David Blaney: Not really. I think they're making assumptions that it could be. There are things they want to do to enhance and to protect student mobility, and some of that will be funded through fee plan investment. So, the Brexit conversation between the EU and the UK Government might or might not sustain Erasmus engagement, and if it doesn't, then they need to find other ways of trying to support that sort of thing. So, that's what we're beginning to see in the fee plans. It's them thinking about how else we can do this stuff. +John Griffiths AM: Okay, Darren? Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: You mentioned the fee and access report. What else do you do to assure yourselves that Welsh higher education institutions are effectively planning for Brexit? +Bethan Owen: We've touched on contingency plans, but, in an environment of uncertainty, I think it's difficult for any of us to know what the right scenario is. I think rather than looking at worst-case scenarios, what the sector is also focusing on is the promotion and looking for additional or increased sources of funding. So, we touched on strengthening the Global Wales engagement in order to sell Wales, so more focus on marketing Wales overseas, but also within the UK. The other area where the sector is working at a UK level very hard is making the arguments to UK Government for maintaining access to the successor to Horizon 2020, which is arguably a larger part of the whole funding infrastructure—students is one part, but the whole funding infrastructure for maintaining research capacity. So, working with UK universities to make arguments at UK Government level for maintaining access to those sources of funding is also a part of what the institutions are doing. We mentioned the Welsh Government's HE Brexit group. That group, which is the Welsh Government group, is being advised by members on it, and that's informing Welsh Government officials when they engage with UK Government as well. +Mark Reckless AM: Do universities seek your advice on what the risks and, indeed, opportunities of Brexit may be and what you think they should be doing to plan for them, or is your role more one of monitoring what they do as opposed to advising what they should do? +Bethan Owen: They are autonomous institutions and ultimately their governing bodies are responsible for ensuring their sustainability. It's not a relationship where we would advise and direct, but it is a relationship where we would question the scenarios if we consider from our experience that we would have expected other scenarios to have been tested. It's that nature of conversation, rather than directing. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand you don't direct, of course, but my question was about advising. You're overseeing, or monitoring—or whatever you like to describe the role as—quite a number of institutions, and presumably you therefore have particular expertise within your organisation, and I just wondered whether higher education institutions are doing enough to draw on that. +Bethan Owen: I think we can advise—we can advise based on data and information that we can see. We can advise based on our judgment. The big thing in this whole Brexit scenario is the uncertainty and the extent to which our speculation is better informed than the governing bodies or the sector collectively is probably the issue. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's right. So, there's a relationship with the sector and there's a relationship with individual institutions, and they are different. So, we have engagement collectively with the sector. Bethan meets with the finance directors, and I meet with the vice-chancellors. We actually have the sector and the funding council together on the Welsh Government's group. So, some of these conversations are happening in various ways, where we're all gaining intelligence about what might be a sensible set of planning assumptions. Then, if we see an institution that is manifestly giving signs of not being sighted on some of these risks, either through their forecast or through other assurance activity, we will challenge. We have an annual cycle, with two points in the year where we reassess the overall risks of individual institutions, and that's based on a whole range of hard data but also a range of soft data. Our links into institutions are many and varied. We have lots of conversations and we take all of that in the round and form an assessment about the financial sustainability of the institutions but also the extent to which we think their governance and management arrangements are properly sighted and facing properly the challenges that they face. In some ways, we say it's not about the challenges they face; it's about how they face the challenges. Our alarm bells really ring when we get the sense that, actually, either an executive or a governing body hasn't really noticed. We're not in that place, I'm really pleased to say. I'm not worried about short-term crisis with any of the institutions. There are medium-term real challenges, both because of Brexit and because of other contextual factors, but at the moment the sector is a managed sector, which is good. It's not always like that, but we're in, I think, a good place at the moment. So, our role is definitely to challenge where we don't think they are making sensible assessments, but it's not to say that their assessment is wrong and ours is right; it's just to have a conversation about, 'Why have you done this and what has informed your thinking?' It's slightly more one step back and slightly more subtle, but it is, as you imply, us using the intelligence we gain from all of those conversations when we talk to individual institutions as well. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. We had evidence last week from some of the higher education institutions, including Cardiff University, and it's very interesting, in relation to Erasmus+ and the mobility funding for students that, I think, only 40 per cent of the mobility funding in Cardiff is paid for by Erasmus+. I note that you've been consulting on national measures for higher education performance and that one possibility is using international mobility as a performance indicator. I was just wondering whether you might go further and expect universities to actually make commitments to funding international mobility from their own fee incomes as part of that. +Bethan Owen: Again, reflecting on the latest fee and access plans, seven of the universities are referring to mobility—either they have targets in them or are explaining what their plans are—so they are including an element of it from their own income and fee and access income. However, Erasmus is such a well-established and long-term plan—if we were looking at a scenario where that infrastructure wasn't available, to implement anything similar to that would be much less efficient and much more costly. And to enable an infrastructure that allowed—. Ideally, you'd want something that all Welsh institutions could take part in, and that takes some investment and some co-ordinating. And, equally, you need to have the arrangements with your overseas and European institutions. I think it's easy to underestimate the accumulation of time that has gone into establishing Erasmus. So, I think replacing it would be a challenge. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And the point was made clearly last week that the brand is internationally recognised. When you enter into Erasmus+, you know exactly what you're going to get, and all of that. But there have been criticisms as well about degrees of flexibility and this, that and the other, so I'm just wondering whether—and there is presumably going to be some change on that front although I'm hoping we can buy into it, as others have done who aren't in the EU—that emphasis on encouraging institutions to look more proactively at funding their own mobility efforts would be positive. +Dr David Blaney: I think the— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Sorry—especially if it means that they do more of it. +Dr David Blaney: Indeed. I think the Welsh sector is definitely committed to trying to find ways of promoting and resourcing that sort of mobility. There are signs that some of the restrictive elements of the Erasmus programme are going to change anyway, because that's under development and that's positive. There have been positive noises as part of the Brexit negotiations about wanting to carry on being able to access the Erasmus programme. Nothing is agreed until it's all agreed apparently, so we'll have to see on that one. That would be far better, I think, as Bethan indicates, than trying to replace it with a made-in-Wales only, but you could have a made-in-Wales on top. All of these challenges also create opportunities because they stimulate thinking, and so the fact that seven of the eight universities are already now using their fee plans as a vehicle for thinking about this is positive, and I think we can take that on from there. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because that 40/60 split struck me as being the opposite to what I perceived the situation to be. A key part of your role is to work in partnership with students, so I'd just like to ask what work have you done with students, in terms of maybe protecting their interests as the Brexit scenario evolves? +Dr David Blaney: Well, as you say, we do work with students. We were the first of the funding councils in the UK to have a memorandum of understanding with the National Union of Students in Wales. We work very closely with them and the president of NUS is an observer on our council. So, we have close links with NUS Wales and we're very proud of that, and it's very productive. They don't have a vote, but they do have a voice and it really matters. We we're, again, ahead of the rest of the UK in requiring all HE providers to have student charters and there are elements of student protection within the student charter. The UK-wide quality code also has elements in it where arrangements have to be specified about the protection of student interests. That is particularly, in essence, around circumstances where a provider gets into difficulties and they might wish to close a course or something more drastic and then what arrangements are in place to make sure that those students who are in train are protected. So, that is there and we've worked hard with the sector and with NUS Wales to get those measures in place. There's more development work in train at the moment, so we've asked Universities Wales to construct a protection that takes account of the approach to protecting the student interests in higher education. We're also requiring further education institutions who are regulated and deliver higher education to do similar or the same, and that's very important. The students who are HE students in FE are absolutely not second-best, and they should have the same protections. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But is all this a general piece of work? It's not Brexit-specific, although, no doubt, it may—. +Dr David Blaney: I think that's fair to say, yes. The other dimension around Brexit is the immigration status of EU students, and that's, kind of, beyond our pay scale—that's a UK Government issue. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is that something that you have a view on? +Dr David Blaney: It's clearly in the interest of the enrichment of the curriculum and the student experience for students in Welsh institutions to be able to have students from other EU countries in the mix. So, it would be nice to find ways of continuing to facilitate that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Now, of course, you have a statutory duty as well to assess the academic quality of the work in our higher education institutions, and I'm just wondering what potential impacts you think that Brexit might have on that particular aspect. +Dr David Blaney: I think there are possibly a couple of things to say, and one, in a sense, echoes what I was just saying in the final part of my previous response, which is that part of the quality of the student experience is the richness that you get from having students in your cohort who have different backgrounds and different perspectives. So, if there is a continuing reduction in the number of EU students coming into Welsh institutions, then that richness deteriorates. That doesn't mean to say that the base or the threshold standard of what's required for a degree will come under pressure, it's just about the richness on top of that, which will be, in a sense, a quality-enhancement issue. That would be something that we would wish to try to protect against, but in the end you can't force EU students to come—you have to try and look attractive, and we've touched on that. The baseline requirement assessment of quality will not be affected by Brexit, except in so far as the machinery we use to discharge our statutory responsibility, which is through the Quality Assurance Agency, which themselves are accredited with European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European machinery for higher education quality. And there's a set of standards around that, and we would obviously wish not to be in a position where our ability to use and adhere to those standards is adversely impacted upon. Those standards will still exist, and it will be possible for the British system to adhere to them, even if they're not actually able to play in the same way. Then the only other thing I would say is that one of the factors that can cause the quality of the learning and teaching experience to be likely to become inadequate is when institutions come under financial pressure, just because their capacity to maintain the same sort of student experience can get under pressure. So, clearly, we will be looking for and making sure that institutions manage the financial pressures, if there are any—and there are some at the moment, as we've described—and manage those carefully. And in all of that, we will expect institutions to do their duty to make sure that the commitments they've already made to students are carried through. So, where students have already started on the course, they need to be able to finish that course—you can't just pull the plug out. So, all of that comes into the arrangements for quality as well. So, we'll be keeping an eye on that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. A lot of what you've told us in the last three quarters of an hour or so will have costs attached, depending on the impacts. Certainly, we're in choppy waters as a sector anyway, and the risk is that things will be even more choppy, if you'll excuse that level of political interpretation, over the years to come. I'm just wondering what advice you might have given the Welsh Government in terms of what level of transition funding, or Brexit transition funding, might be required by the sector, and if you have, what the Welsh Government might have told you. +Bethan Owen: I mentioned earlier that, obviously, we've provided information in terms of the assumptions that the sector are making on income. So, for the year 2017-18, that was £129 million. I think the extent to which that needs to be replaced or supported with transition funding depends absolutely on what the final arrangements for Brexit are, but it's an appropriate point to refer to the report that Professor Graeme Reid has produced, commissioned by Welsh Government. That was, and has, provided advice and recommendations for supporting research and innovation in the transition period. But, again, the Reid recommendations in that report build on the Diamond recommendations, and as soon as Diamond is in place—and Reid is providing recommendations in addition, to establish funding on the basis that the funding needs to be available in Wales to maintain and develop and strengthen the research and innovation infrastructure that we have. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you not worried, though, that the clock is ticking and that we really don't know what the situation is at this point? +Dr David Blaney: Do you mean the Brexit situation? +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The Brexit clock, yes. +Dr David Blaney: Uncertainty is unhelpful, because as I've said several times, the sector is a managed sector at the moment. I don't think there's—. We're not seeing maverick stuff, but actually you can only manage, really, what you can see and what you can reasonably predict. So, the longer the uncertainty persists, the more difficult that is for institutional management and, indeed, for the rest of the machinery to support them. So, yes, the sooner we get clarity, the better for everybody, I imagine. +Darren Millar AM: Chair, can I just ask a question? +John Griffiths AM: Yes, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: In terms of uncertainty, though, we've still got this uncertainty over whether the extra cash that the Government's going to have to spend as a result of Diamond being implemented is coming to the HE sector. They've given a political commitment, but you've got absolutely no other assurance of the sums of money that are coming in. We've got the reform of tertiary education arrangements in Wales, which are also under way, so it's a bit of a perfect storm for you, isn't it, really, with all of these three things happening at the same time? +Dr David Blaney: We're certainly kept busy. +Darren Millar AM: But two of those things are in the gift of the Welsh Government to sort out for you, aren't they? +Dr David Blaney: Well, the policy on the reform of the post-compulsory sector absolutely is a Welsh Government policy. The extent to which they can pre-empt a budgetary process and give us clear sight of the amount of money in future years is—. Well, again, it's not for me to comment. My understanding is that that's difficult for them to do, and I would repeat what I said earlier: officials have been as helpful as I think they can be in respect of that. I mean, you're right, we've only got a political commitment between two people currently in post. It would be great to have that firmer. I'm not sure how that could be done. +Darren Millar AM: I mean, that statement about the savings accrued from Diamond being reinvested wholly into the HE sector has not been repeated, frankly, has it, since the coalition deal was struck? +Dr David Blaney: No, but it hasn't been rescinded either, so—. +Darren Millar AM: No, but there have been opportunities—repeated opportunities—in the Chamber, where the Cabinet Secretary's been asked to repeat that commitment, and the First Minister's been asked to repeat that commitment and has not given that commitment. That must concern you, and must concern your university sector even more than, perhaps, some of the elements of Brexit that we're discussing. +Dr David Blaney: Bethan has outlined earlier on in this session the fact that institutions are currently running deficit budgets in order not to lose the infrastructure on the assumption that the Diamond money will come in. If anything were to cause significant perturbation, either to the timeline of that or to it coming in at all, then there would be much more of what Medwin Hughes calls 'houskeeping' that would be required, and that would be significant. So, at the moment—I don't like the expression 'valley of death', but there is a valley to cross, and I think the sector is reasonably confident about how wide and how deep that valley is. There's a demographic valley as well. So, there are several valleys that they're crossing—the metaphor fails, doesn't it, really, but I think you get the drift? So, there are a number of challenges and they can see their way out of some of those challenges, but if any one of these starts to get significantly disrupted, then that would be a real issue for them. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could I go on to ask about other barriers to Welsh universities gaining more funding from UK research councils? What would you say those barriers are? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think there are a couple of things, really, to say. The first one—and we'll sound like a stuck record if we're not careful—is that there's an issue about investment and the Reid report makes this very clear. So, he has reaffirmed research that had been done previously that identifies that, actually, the quality of the research base in Welsh universities and the productivity of that Welsh research base are both good, there's just not enough of them, and that, in the end, is a product of investment decisions. They have particularly looked at the deficit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas, and I always say that research is not just STEM. I mean, STEM is important, and I'm not denying the deficit in that area, but we have to also remember that the research agenda for Wales is not just STEM—it's arts, humanities, it's social sciences. If you look at the impact on public policy that could come from social science research—tremendous. And we're very good at it in Wales. The Welsh impact in its research is better than anywhere else in the UK, so that's good. So, they do very well, and we just really need to invest a little bit further—so continue to do very well, but put it on a broader front. If you want to be able to play into the UK-wide research funding, then the investment has two dimensions to it. One is just having enough researchers to be able to play into those increasingly larger projects rather than small-scale projects. If you haven't got the critical mass, it's very hard to make the case that you can play. And the second thing is that UK-wide research pots nearly always fund at about 80 per cent of the total cost of the research, and the other 20 per cent is meant to be found from the core research funding for the university, and if you're in a situation where your core research funding is not competitive, then you're not going to be competitive at getting that money. So, that's, kind of, straightforward. There are other things. I think it's fair to say that the Welsh sector has not been sufficiently focused on getting in on the conversations with the research councils, making sure they're in the various committees and so on. We are intending to do a bit of work to see if we can systematise that a bit better—that engagement—because there's no doubt about it: it's not to say that this system is in any way inappropriate, but the more you're in the conversations, the more likely you are to be better placed to respond to the research challenges that come up. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. One final question: in terms of the researcher collaborations and networks that exist, do you see potential difficulties after Brexit for the continuation and enhancement of those, and are there any particular lessons to learn from Sêr Cymru II? +Dr David Blaney: I think that there are two things to say here as well. First of all, the Brexit deal might or might not impact adversely on the capacity of Welsh and, indeed, UK research infrastructure to play into broader collaborative activity across Europe, and, in a sense, that's a function of the deal whatever the deal looks like, and we'll have to wait and see. But we've mentioned playing into Horizon Europe, and being able to continue with that would be an important part of that capacity. It's not just the money, it's being in the club and it's the signalling that we're in the game. So, all of that would be important. And then the other part of my response to this would be that, actually, Wales will need to continue to be good at the research it does, so maintaining the quality, maintaining the impact, and hopefully growing the critical mass. The Sêr Cymru initiative has been quite important in doing that, because it's been very focused, capturing key research players, and the attractiveness that that has then to other researchers around them, and to industry collaboration, and they have been areas of real strength that we've invested in. And I think they are already showing dividends in terms of the capacity to win more research funding, and to establish an even stronger presence in the international research market. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Just one further point, from Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just very briefly, one of the pieces of feedback that the committee members received at a stakeholder engagement event, which took place prior to this inquiry starting, to receive oral evidence, was about the research funding that is available from the charitable sector, and how poorly Wales does in attracting some of that research. I think we had some figures from the British Heart Foundation, which said they have £100 million a year available for research grants, or something like that, and we're getting 1 per cent of that coming into Wales, which is obviously pretty low down. I appreciate that research into the type of activity that they want to put their money into, Wales may not be particularly good at, and there may be other opportunities with other charities and partnerships. What work are you doing in order to build the capacity that Wales has to attract more of that charitable sector research funding into Wales? +Bethan Owen: One of the issues is the capacity to engage with that funding, because of the overhead issue that David mentioned. Charitable funding at the moment doesn't attract any overhead funding. Again, that could be built in to our funding, if we had the capacity to increase our quality-related research funding. There is an element in England. +Darren Millar AM: But that pressure's the same in other parts of the UK, is it not? So the overhead funding is still an issue in England, and in other places. +Bethan Owen: There is an increased contribution, and I think it's an element that was increased this year to acknowledge that. But there will be differentiation between different charities. I'm fairly certain that some of our institutions will be very strong with the cancer charities, possibly not the heart foundation. And some of that will reflect on focusing on our strengths, but to have that fuller picture. +Darren Millar AM: So, this gearing issue that you mentioned earlier on, for every £1 that somebody else puts on the table, they can draw in another £4 on top, because that £1 will cover the overheads, whereas the rest of the research cash—. +Dr David Blaney: That's exactly it. So, the more you're able to invest—. You know, we sometimes get into a conversation about the unhypothecated nature of our research funding, but actually that creates a flexibility and the infrastructure investment that allows institutions to be able to respond to these other opportunities. Without that, they can't do it, because if you're not careful, you've got institutions engaging in UK-wide or charity-based research activities where they're actually having to pay for it themselves—they're running at a loss. +Darren Millar AM: So that's the main problem; it's not that Welsh universities aren't doing their best to get this cash in. Or is it a bit of both? +Dr David Blaney: I think, in the main, universities and researchers will get their cash from wherever they can, so I don't think it's a lack of appetite. +Darren Millar AM: Okay. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Well, thank you, both, for coming in to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a draft of the transcript, to check for accuracy. Diolch yn fawr. Okay then, the next item is item 3, papers to note, the first of which is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on the school organisation code. The second is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee regarding scrutiny of the Welsh Government's draft budget for the forthcoming financial year, which we will be discussing under item 6 on the agenda. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on parental attitudes towards managing young children's behaviour. And the final paper to note, paper to note 5, is a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the children and family delivery grant, which we will discuss later on in private session, if Members are content. Okay. Are you content to note those papers on that basis? Okay. Thanks very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting, and also for items 1 and 2 of the 20 September meeting. Is the committee content? Yes. Thank you very much. We will move then into private session. +","In today's session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Gareth Rogers opened the meeting by announcing that the Chair could not attend, so per Standing Order 17.22, John Griffiths was nominated and seconded without opposition to serve as temporary Chair. The meeting progressed to discuss the impact of Brexit on higher and further education in Wales. + +Among the members of the panel were Dr. David Blaney, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and Bethan Owen, Director of Institutional Engagement from the same organization. They were called upon to provide evidence on the challenges and repercussions that Brexit has imposed on Welsh higher education. + +Dr. Blaney prefaced his remarks by asserting their apolitical stance, emphasizing that their focus would be strictly on the facts, as many implications of Brexit on higher education relate to one's political perspective. He highlighted several critical aspects, such as the financial vulnerability of universities due to uncertain relationships with Europe, potential reductions in the number of EU students, and how Brexit might influence research funding and collaborative efforts. He also pointed out the significance of higher education to the economic and societal fabric of Wales. + +There was specific concern about the decrease in applications from EU students to Welsh institutions, with reports indicating a decline contrasting with an increase in applications to English institutions. Both Dr. Blaney and Bethan Owen mentioned the importance of continuous funding and investment in universities to manage operational deficits and maintain high-quality infrastructure to be competitive and attractive to students. + +The committee inquired about various contingencies and planning efforts in place within Welsh universities to navigate the uncertain landscape posed by Brexit. Particular attention was given to safeguarding academic quality, sustaining research collaborations, and maintaining the international mobility of students. + +The panel discussed the financial landscape of Welsh universities in light of Brexit, the Diamond Review, and the implementation of subsequent funding arrangements. Concerns were raised regarding the potential misalignment between the universities' financial forecasts and the actual revenue, given the observed reduction in international applicants. + +Additionally, the panel touched on the negotiations around UK participation in the future Horizon Europe program, the potential for alternative mobility programs should Erasmus+ no longer be available, and the statutory quality assurance responsibilities of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales post-Brexit. + +The session concluded with the committee unanimously agreeing to move into a private session for the remainder of the meeting, including for items 1 and 2 of the forthcoming meeting on September 20." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , that's not gonna work . {vocalsound} Oh , alright . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Um alright . +Marketing: Uh , uh , um . +Project Manager: I'll just put that there . Uh as you all know we're here to create a brand new fantastic remote . Uh I'm Nick Debusk , I'm the Project Manager . Uh we'll just get started with everyone kind of letting each other know who they are and what you're doing , what your what your role is um . Go ahead . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I am Corinne Whiting and I will be the Marketing Expert and in each of the three phases I will have a different role . In the function design phase I will be talking about user requirement specification , and this means what needs and desires are to be fulfilled , and I'll be doing research to figure this out . In the conceptual design phase I will be dealing with trend watching and I'll be doing marketing research on the web . And then finally in the um detailed design phase I will be doing product evaluation and so I will be collecting the requirements and ranking all the requirements to see how we did . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Hiya , I'm Ryan . Um I'm the User Interface Designer . Um likewise I've three different roles for each stage of design . Um the functional design is looking at the tex technical functions of a remote control . Um in the concept design , the user interface , how the user reacts with the the product . And the detailed design um {vocalsound} sort of like the user interface design , what they might be looking for , uh things like fashions , what makes wha how we're gonna make it special . That's about it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . {vocalsound} I'm Manuel and I'm the Industrial Designer in in this project um . In the functional design phase I'm {disfmarker} I'll be dealing mostly with the requirements , um we'll discuss what the prog what functions the the product has to fulfil and so and so on . Um I suppose we'll work pretty much together on that one . Um um in the conceptual design um I'll be pro mostly dealing with properties and materials um of our product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And uh the detailed design {disfmarker} in the detailed design I'll be concerned with the look and feel of the product itself , um so we're pretty much working together obviously on the design front here . Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um so we've got our opening , our our agenda is the opening , uh acquaintance which we've kinda done . Uh tool training , project plan discussion and then closing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh grand total of twenty five minutes we have here . Um so we are putting together a new remote control . Um we want it to be something original . Um of course we're a {disfmarker} not only a electronics company but a fashion um conscious electronics company , so we want it to be trendy um and we want it to be easy to use . {vocalsound} Um we've got the functional design , conceptual design and detailed design um which basically is is the three of you um . And w uh {vocalsound} well um functional design um . Um do we have {disfmarker} um any ideas of of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe d let's just throw out some ideas of what kind of remote control we want to have , and then we can go into how we're gonna design it and and how we're gonna do the detailing on it . +User Interface: Yeah . Well uh s function of remote control is just just {disfmarker} you know , change channels is its main function . +Project Manager: So we want it to be um a T_V_ remote or {disfmarker} I I mean do we want it to to do other things besides just be a a television remote ? +User Interface: Oh right . I suppose you c try make it a universal remote +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: for {disfmarker} could work on all sort of electrical products in in one person's house . But , you know , they all sorta have the same role changing channels , volumes and then programming . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think they all work on the same prin principle as well sorta like {disfmarker} I don't actually know . {gap} But is it just infra-red ? Is that standard ? +Project Manager: I I think {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , r universal remote . +User Interface: Ye yeah . +Project Manager: Um this is my first uh go-round with creating a remote control , +Marketing: Huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ours too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we're all in the same boat here . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um one thing I thought of with the remote control is you always lose 'em . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So if there's a g a way of finding it quite easily , I thought that'd be quite good quite a good feature . +Marketing: Mm . Ch +Project Manager: So we should we should set our remote control up to where it has a uh +Marketing: Like a tracking device ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: like a tracking device or or like a a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh you can get those key {disfmarker} well you could whistle or make a noise +Project Manager: It makes a noise , +User Interface: and it'd beep . +Project Manager: there's a button on the T_V_ that you press +Industrial Designer: Mm , mm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Be good . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Generally , all remotes are sort of quite similar in their appearance . +Project Manager: Yeah . Do we want {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just long . +Project Manager: so they're kinda like long and rectangular . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we want something crazy ? +User Interface: Black usually . +Project Manager: You know , we want something new that's gonna stand out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Lot more modern . +Project Manager: A m a modern {disfmarker} so our remote should be {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think so . Maybe sorta spherical or something . A ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe like user-friendly , like a little +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , where you can use both hands , like a little keyboard type thing . +User Interface: People {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I thought maybe , because people always tend to throw a remote control about the place to one another {disfmarker} if it was in a ball , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: and maybe the actual controls are inside or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Well there are of course certain restrictions , you can't have it be any form and fulfil all functions at the same time , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so there are always the {disfmarker} some restrictions we have to apply here . Um however um one question is how stable is that thing supposed to be , that refers to the material , pretty much um . What are we gonna build that thing out of ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: How sturdy is it gonna be ? Do we want it to last longer or rather have people whatever , have to buy one every half a year ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} yeah , so we want it to be sturdy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: we want it to to hold up to somebody's child , you know , throwing it across the room or , as you said , people kinda throw it , so ball-shaped , uh you know , if it were ball-shaped maybe , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: then it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It could be cased on the outside and t everything could be inside . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um so we want it to be modern , fun , sturdy , um {disfmarker} So our form and our function . Um we want it to be um easy to find . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What else {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} what else do we want it to to do ? So we want it to be universal . It's something that we're supposed to sell for about twenty five Euros um and you know , goals for profits are I think somewhere around uh fifty million Euros , what they wanna make on it , so . +Marketing: Mm . Also since we're partners of the International Remote Control Association , maybe we wanna make it something that would globally appeal . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: That's more on the research end , but {disfmarker} the marketing . +Project Manager: So marketing , you know , how {disfmarker} maybe uh marketing , you could s find out what is the most universally um appealing {vocalsound} remote control out there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And maybe as far as design goes , maybe we could have different ones for different target audiences , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: 'cause maybe one won't apply to all of the countries we're targeting . +User Interface: Ye Small . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you guys have any ideas for what it should look like ? Maybe we could draw it up on the on the board over there . Some ideas ? We want it to be a b a ball , +User Interface: {gap} I'd {disfmarker} I could draw sorta the ball idea . +Project Manager: you know , we'll draw up we'll draw up the ball and maybe th um where the buttons are located . +User Interface: My original idea was just simply sort of a sphere , where maybe you {disfmarker} this is where it's connected together , and then when you open it out , it could fol it could be maybe flip , like a flip phone , and then when you fold it out the middle {disfmarker} Maybe a hinge that'll have to be the strongest part of it . If that {disfmarker} if we did use a hinge , or if it was just two parts , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you'd have just sorta you you you know , your buttons . Thing is inside I think , sometimes remotes have too many buttons , so maybe as simple as possible , um as few buttons inside as possible . Um , I dunno , what's the idea for . Just something {disfmarker} maybe if you ha if it had like if some kind of like light or something or lights around it . It's looking a bit like something out of Star Wars at the moment though , to be fair . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But yeah . +Marketing: Futuristic . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That was that was a sorta simple idea I had +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: and then you know you could {gap} about {disfmarker} Right , it would almost be like a ball . So that was just just an idea I had . I don't know whether anybody else has other ideas ? +Industrial Designer: Right . One problem you'd get with this design is um {disfmarker} the ball is a nice idea because of it's stability really , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but of course , since it's a ball , it'll roll , so we'd have to have it flat on one side at least , down here somewhere , +User Interface: Yeah . Maybe f yeah . +Industrial Designer: take away that part . That's one of the big issues . Also also you risk the hinges here . That's that's um a problem . +User Interface: Yeah , that's g that's a good idea . Yeah . The idea {disfmarker} it didn't have to necessarily be f a hinge , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's that's {vocalsound} interesting of course , +User Interface: that was just one idea though . +Industrial Designer: but that's of course a weak point , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How would we go about um making you know {disfmarker} getting rid of our weak points ? What {disfmarker} I mean would we just have a flat spot on the bottom of the ball ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not to put you on the spot , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} E No no , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: uh uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: What did you say your title was again ? +Industrial Designer: N n +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You're the the Industrial Designer . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I'm your Industrial Designer , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so i b well , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the point is that {vocalsound} well maybe {disfmarker} I dunno . The shape is perhaps not the most ideal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: As as stable as it is , there must be a compromise between um stability and design here , so . +User Interface: Well I I suppose that things become {gap} design . But I mean i +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was trying to think of like the design of others . I can't think of anything other than a long rectangle for remote , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: maybe small , sort of fatter ones , but there's nothing being done sort of out of left field , yeah . +Project Manager: It's not new , it's not innovative , it's {disfmarker} you know , everybody does long remote because it's easy , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's it's stable um . +Marketing: 'Kay , I'll draw something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , go ahead . +Marketing: My idea was just to have it be kind of like a keyboard type shape , you know , like video games +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: l so . But maybe {disfmarker} I mean that would be kinda big and bulky . We could also try to do the hinge thing , so it could like flip out that way . I don't know . {vocalsound} That's my idea . +User Interface: I think definitely doing something different +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I mean maybe design something , that's sort of like {vocalsound} suppose not everybody's everybody's hand's the same , but something that would maybe fit in the hand easier . +Project Manager: Something with a grip . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , with a grip . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Because even {disfmarker} I suppose even with the ball +User Interface: It still might be hard to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it still not the ho easiest thing to hold , yeah . +Project Manager: it might not be the easiest to hold onto um . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: So perhaps the the joystick {disfmarker} the the keyboard idea might work better . +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: But then again , people like to use one hand to flip and one hand to hold their soda , so maybe maybe we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} True . +User Interface: It's d yeah . I think it's definitely got to be a a one-handed a one-handed job . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I feel like I'm just shooting everything down here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You're the boss , you're {vocalsound} allowed to . +Industrial Designer: Well with the one-handed design you also have the the problem of the size w 'cause you know from cell phones , they can be too small . So if the remote is too small it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: if it's small it probably looks better , but may not be th as functional . So for that there's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , so +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: unfortunately we've got about five minutes here {vocalsound} to come up with our um remote control idea and start rolling with it . Um we've talked about our experiences with remote control and um we've got a couple ideas um . Let's see here . What if we had what if we had not only um {disfmarker} say we went with the ball the ball function um , but maybe we give it sort of grips along the side s um to make it easier to hold on to . So you know um s so it's easier to hold onto that way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course that'll then remove some of our our ball . Unless this unless this part were raised , so say the cover flips over and covers that part . So the grip is {disfmarker} No , that wouldn't work either um . But if we're gonna make it flat on the bottom , then that eliminates our ball anyways . So if it were flat on the bottom and then had the sorta grips on the side here I guess , um and then {vocalsound} flat uh {disfmarker} And then we have the problem with the hinge . So if we're flat on the bottom , it's not gonna roll away , it'll stay where we want . +Industrial Designer: The question is also , I dunno , d do you really always want to open that thing when you have to use it ? +Project Manager: Mm , that's true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's probably going to lie around opened all the time anyway , so I don't know if a lid is a good idea . From stabil stability point of view uh it certainly is , but also you have to face it and take into account the more of these things break by accident , uh the more we sell . So it's {disfmarker} don't make it too stable {vocalsound} uh . +Project Manager: So we don't have it flip open . We just have a ball {disfmarker} +User Interface: But then maybe to go back to the to th s something along those things then . +Industrial Designer: To the other design . +Project Manager: Okay , so then we forget the ball . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks cool though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks cool , but it's really not {disfmarker} it's not functional um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} functional . +Project Manager: So we've got our sort of keyboard kind . What if we flipped it around here , so that it were um {disfmarker} Sorry , that doesn't look anything like what you {vocalsound} had there . Um so it's up and down , you hold it this way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Course then it's it's like the rectangular {vocalsound} again , only with a couple of jutting out points . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Right . +Project Manager: But it's one-handed um . +Industrial Designer: Question is what makes those game pads functional ? W I think that's pretty much the form for full hand . So it's a round shape underneath that makes it comfy , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: right , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: makes it nice , so that's the essential part . Except for that I think we'll not {disfmarker} probably not get a get away from some longer design . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause you also have to know which way around to point this thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: You know , all +Project Manager: because it doesn't have a cord , like joysticks do . +Industrial Designer: that dif batteries {disfmarker} right , and {disfmarker} Batteries go weak as well , so um after a while you have to point it towards the uh towards the equipment you wanna control with it , right ? So , have to m show which is the front , which is the back . +Project Manager: Is it possible to have it to where it would work with a like a sensor on either side ? So that either way you're pointing it it would work . +Industrial Designer: I suppose you could do that . O of course the more technology you stick in that , the more it'll cost , so . +Project Manager: More expensive and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Course you can do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean of course it'll be evident after a while or {disfmarker} if you look at it , it'll it'll be evident which way around to point it , since you have the the numbers and the and the {vocalsound} the buttons and stuff , +Project Manager: True . +Industrial Designer: but um it's rather about an instinctual thing , +User Interface: Put it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like you just grab it , you don't have to s look at it , you know , which way around to point it . Otherwise the design of {disfmarker} or the the point of putting two sensors on both sides um would probably work . +User Interface: Even if you designed it {disfmarker} in some {disfmarker} in a way that you know , isn't a rectangle , but still pointed in a direction that had definite points . So if that's your thing and you got something like that instead , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: and there's your s you kn you know which way you're gonna pointing it . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry to interrupt , but we have a warning to finish . +Project Manager: Are we out of time ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , well , just to finish up , should we s go with this plan , start making some {disfmarker} Are good ideas , what are not . +Industrial Designer: Let's . +User Interface: Does it say {disfmarker} what does it say for n +Industrial Designer: Obviously {disfmarker} +User Interface: it says on there what we need to do for the next meeting , I think . +Project Manager: Uh . Must finish now , so . +User Interface: T +Project Manager: And then marketing will look and see what uh what people want . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Okay . And Project Manager will design a better meeting for next {vocalsound} time around , be a little bit more prepared . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And uh alright , good meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","A team led by Project Manager Nick Debusk is brainstorming the design of a new, innovative remote control. Marketing expert Corinne Whiting will explore user requirements, trends, and evaluate the product. Ryan, the User Interface Designer, will focus on the technical and interactive aspects. Industrial Designer Manuel will handle materials and the product's appearance. The group aims to create a remote that is original, trendy, easy to use, sturdy, and possibly ball-shaped with a universal appeal. They consider a tracking feature to locate the remote, the practicality of different shapes, materials, and the need for it to be profitable with a target price point of €25 and profit goals of €50 million. The meeting closes without a final design, agreeing to further explore the ideas presented." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi Kate . {vocalsound} Okay , carry on . +Industrial Designer: Just just carry on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright um this is the beginning of the third meeting , the conceptual design meeting . Um our agenda should be um that we're opening the meeting , I have {disfmarker} the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point . Um and we should each have a presentation to make . Um we have certain decisions to make and we have forty minutes total . It's twenty five after two at the moment , so forty minutes is five after three , {vocalsound} um which I'll be keeping an eye on the clock for us . Okay . {vocalsound} Um there are the decisions we have to turn to , but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting . Right um as we remember , I opened the meeting , the four of us were present , the meeting {disfmarker} the first meeting's minutes were reviewed and approved . Um Sarah , you presented a marketing research report um which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds uh it has to be hand-held , power , channel , volume , number keys , possibly a speech recognition . And then Steph did a second presentation um that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use . I think all of us agreed with those things . Kate presented a working design of {disfmarker} going after {disfmarker} going over the basics on the whiteboard um that it should be a simple mass-produced device , because of the twelve and a half Pence cost . Um but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point . Um and the new requirements that it for {disfmarker} be for T_V_ only um and that it include the l so slogan and colour of the uh corporate design be included . Um {vocalsound} the corporate image . So we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense , that were decision makers . Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_ , but it still should meet those parameters . Um and that the function we agreed was volume , power , numbers , enter , channels , a way to move between channels , easy to use and hand-held . {vocalsound} Um at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition , what what do the current ones sell for . Um and Steph was gonna look at ec ergonomics . Kate was gonna look at cost and feasibility of the various possibilities that we discussed . And I was to type up these minutes and work on the final report . Is this a fair presentation of what our last meeting was ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . So we're ready to close that and go back to our {disfmarker} That one . Right . We're up to the point of the {disfmarker} Go back . Um {vocalsound} the three presentations . So we're going to pull the plug on me and turn to Sarah . Is that okay ? Is that alright with everybody else ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Especially since Kate asked to be last . {vocalsound} Sarah , I'm sorry if I misspelled your name , I didn't know whether it was S_A_R_A_ or {vocalsound} S_A_R_H_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I respond to either . +Project Manager: You respond to whatever you get , huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No worries . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did you do your {disfmarker} Hit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} +Project Manager: Ah , there it is . Ta-da . +Marketing: Okay , first thing I want to address is um one of the points that Florence brought up , which was uh current cost of the competition devices , similar to the ones that Stephanie uh showed us and and they're uh twenty to sixty Euros , depending on uh branding . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Some of them that have a higher brand recognition are on the more expensive end . But I think that with the current um price that we're searching for , we're well within , even on the lower end , of the uh of the market . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm going to move on to more interesting um {vocalsound} more vibrant things . {vocalsound} So , I investigated the remote control market in greater detail , and my uh {disfmarker} the theme of what I was to work on was uh trend watch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm glad to see the marketing budget is being so well spent on {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know that you all are a distance from cutting edge marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you know , I'm just gonna try to cloak it in really professional terms here . What's hot , fruit and veg . Spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this is all over the catwalks , Paris , Milan , and I'm talking about clothing , furniture , shoes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is really interesting change from past years , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it is much more organic , um some would say approachable . {vocalsound} And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control , we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset . So . {vocalsound} I also did a little research on um {vocalsound} what again are the most important priorities in uh decision making about uh purchasing . Fancy . Functional is out . And f the fancy , and that's exactly the term , I'm I'm thinking polished , elegant , {vocalsound} you know , kind of innovative , but a cut above . This is twice as important as the next finding , which is technologically innovative . This is interesting , 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important , but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with um with uh technologically {vocalsound} superior fabrics or uh , you know , designed in interesting substances . Ease of use . Again , pretty low , I mean it's the top three , but each of the uh fancy and technologically innovative are far more important . So I think we should cloak the streamlined remote control device in a series of {vocalsound} fruit {vocalsound} fruit themed sleeves . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that's a good idea . Don't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It sounds like the the uh covers that they use for the remote , you know , your t your cell phone . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . I was thinking though that instead of having something uh like patterned , you know , so , you know , something similar to a summer dress . {gap} you know , it would have like fruit and veg , is that we actually make these spongy . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They could be {disfmarker} ini initially I thought we could start with kind of um fruit that would suit kind of uh a long uh hand-held , so banana , pineapple and pear . Um it could actually {disfmarker} the sleeve could {vocalsound} take up a lot of the {vocalsound} development and the remote control , we'd just need to get reductionist on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: They could be interchangeable , they're spongy , that goes back to ergonomic , and the youngsters love 'em , fun for the whole family , everyone can have their own . So what we're talking about is changing . this concept . Everyone has a T_V_ remote , but then we add in the fact that they could each have their own individual fruit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what's hot on the catwalks . {vocalsound} So , this is my {disfmarker} This is what I'm thinking . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh mm . In most families , don't {disfmarker} isn't the remote {disfmarker} is a remote . +Marketing: Y yeah , but I think I think what this would allow is perhaps a person in the family who had the most opinion about it {disfmarker} we all need a remote , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising , I'm thinking the teenager , the {disfmarker} someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So when your dad's sitting there , overriding your decision , going no we're gonna watch this , you can bring out your own remote and be like zap , no we're gonna watch this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . W and {vocalsound} plus I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Well actually some households do have three and four T_V_s +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: and they would have a remote for each one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +Marketing: Yeah . So this is an idea and I I {disfmarker} you know , this is exactly what the research has uh has shown . So I really open this up to uh any other feedback . This {vocalsound} spongy fruit and veg . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Spongy is gonna be difficult , I'm afraid . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} And as for as for um well budgeting as well , if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I just have my ear to the market , guys . {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is this {gap} to the market {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean basically we can make these things out of wood , titanium , plastic or rubber . I suppose rubber is the closest to spongy , +Marketing: Is spongiest , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: That would add {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking titanium myself . +User Interface: I was thinking titanium , I was thinking it's just {disfmarker} I have been influenced by pictures of iPods , and they're also minimalist and shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} They are and they they would fulfil the uh first um priority , which is fancy . I think many of us would associate those with fancy . Something else we could do is uh call it something that's fruit and veg oriented . We could call it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The name . +Project Manager: Are we talking about the device itself or the c or a cover for the device that would be an interchangeable cov cover as a separate product ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well it would be uh a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management +User Interface: Yeah , but it's kind of pointless , isn't it ? +Project Manager: and perhaps go to another group to actually design as a separate product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That , you know , that might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's delegate . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wo would that be agreeable ? +Marketing: And then we could keep it titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} W w would it be helpful if um I described the components a bit , because I think it would give you um {disfmarker} maybe bring this discussion back to Earth of what we can actually physically do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna be next or you want Kate to go next ? +User Interface: I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll move the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can even have them in different flavours as well . {vocalsound} So that if you just wanna sit there and chew on the remote , it could be like pear flavour , +Marketing: Yeah . Or s or smelly . Scratchy +User Interface: yeah . Scratch and sniff . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well I was really thinking a lot about the I_ uh the iMac kind of gel gem tone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , well +Marketing: It's hot on the streets , guys . +Industrial Designer: I I I think some of this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you , but I'm afraid this is the real world . {vocalsound} So um I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate , and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division , who have told me what's actually available , you know , what the current state of the art in components is , and some of the exciting new things they've got , but I'm not sure that it's quite what you want um . Now this isn't a very good overhead , but this is just to show you , this is the innards of a remote control um . I really need a pen or something but uh {disfmarker} does my mouse work ? No . Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , can you see my little mouse pointer ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . This is this is the a a {vocalsound} a remote that's been opened up +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and that's the the back of the interface . And this is a push-button one , so you see these little little buttons here , they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here . Um {vocalsound} and we {disfmarker} that's the basic construction that we've got to got to accommodate . We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that um talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver . So um I wan I wanna go through not not just addressing the um {vocalsound} uh the the points that you made , Sarah , but um {vocalsound} doing my presentation in the order I wrote it . {vocalsound} So first of all um I wanna talk about what possibilities we've got for the energy source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable um little compartment . We can have a hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A wind-up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: a wind-up , yeah , {vocalsound} which I think is quite an interesting concept for a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} for a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but i it maybe is {disfmarker} doesn't quite go with the um the fruit and veg . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remember , we only have forty minutes +Industrial Designer: where um {vocalsound} you you actually get the energy by moving the device , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which is quite a ni a nice and neat one . You have to {disfmarker} it means that if it's sitting there for a long time it probably won't work , but you have to sort of throw it between your hands every now and then , it'll work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or we we had talked about solar power , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I thing that we agreed that that's not so good in the dark . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case . It can be made of plastic , rubber , wood o if you like , {vocalsound} or titanium . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber , but um {vocalsound} I'm gonna come back to the advantages of titanium , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and basically it can have a flat surface , a curved surface or a double curved surface , but I think if we wanna use standard components , we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what does the interface look like ? Um well push button , that's that's the one we're all familiar with . {vocalsound} Um we can have scroll buttons and the the scroll button can incorporate a push , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down , change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something . {vocalsound} Um you can have multiple scroll buttons , um this is maybe getting a little bit complicated , but um it's it {disfmarker} the technology is there . And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote , but this will increase the cost . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um the electronics that actually makes the device work , we've basically got three , simple , regular , advanced , and the price goes up as we choose each of this . If we want the nice cheap one , the simple , then we can only have push buttons . All the other fancy interface designs go out the window , I'm afraid . Um pay a little bit more for a regular chip and you can have scroll buttons . If you want the advanced chip it obviously costs more , but it {disfmarker} that's what you need if you want the L_C_D_ display . And the manufacturing devision tell me that they have recently developed um sample sensor sample speaker devices . Now I don't know what that is , but I think they think it's quite important and we might want to incorporate it somewhere . Um ou our real expertise is in push buttons , I have to say , but maybe you think that's old technology . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} well I I think we've got two options . We can either go for a really cheap model , keep all of the costs down , um which {vocalsound} means a flat plastic case with an ordinary battery and simple push buttons . Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer , I think it , um won't necessarily l uh look like a pineapple , but um that {vocalsound} may or may not be a good thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons , and it could have the the company's new development of the um sample sensor and speaker . {vocalsound} So , thank you . +Marketing: That sounds good . Any idea {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you you mentioned that there would be a cost difference . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Um do you have any idea if if this could {disfmarker} if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty ? +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I don't have that information available . Um manufacturing didn't actually give {disfmarker} attach any prices to any of this , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . Because , you know what , I'm being quite serious when I say that that um the things I mentioned are hot . But I think the important thing might be to choose one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah mm-hmm . +Marketing: You know , if if what you're telling me is is um some of these things aren't just f aren't feasible , maybe we could something about naming , we could call it , you know , Blackberry . +User Interface: Bear bear in mind it has to be the colours and styles of the company , +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Banana ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , well let's see then . +User Interface: But um I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's just what I'd understood we'd be doing . That's before I heard about all this hot tips about the future , fruit-wise . +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: We we could we could do um a double curved rubber one , +Marketing: I'm trying to streamline mine a little bit . +Industrial Designer: which would allow um say a banana , but um unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that , we have to have a push button as the interface , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we can't do anything fancier . +User Interface: Shall we wait 'til I've 'til I've showed you what {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} my extensive presentation {vocalsound} on what sort of interfaces are available . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . Thank you , Kate . +Project Manager: Thank you , Kate . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You did seem to include just in more detail what I've got though . So {vocalsound} so mine's a bit pointless . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: F_N_ and F_ eight , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yes . There we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have it on mine though . +Marketing: Oh I think um Florence resolved it by +Industrial Designer: I If you do F_ uh F_N_ F_ eight again , it's {disfmarker} it'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do it again . +Marketing: F_ eight again . +Project Manager: Keep doing it until you get it in both {disfmarker} you get it there , you get it yours without that one , +Industrial Designer: I think it {disfmarker} yeah , you you will do an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you get it with both . +User Interface: Should I do it again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This time it should come up both . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right then . I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: just that my method was to look at the , well , my my inspirations , which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing , including M_P_ three players , uh like you know , hi-fi remotes , not just television and these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones , um what functions we actually need , and then how to group and arrange these on the actual the actual plastic or rubber hand-held piece . {vocalsound} Uh I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel , which {disfmarker} Well , I couldn't find a {disfmarker} the picture of the iPod w only linked to a web browser , so I couldn't copy and paste it , but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right . It has uh scroll wheels without without a display , but they they scroll like a computer mouse . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I was thinking that uh {vocalsound} um a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it um and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen . Like I guess an existing Sky or cable one does . Like , you know , you press enter and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment , and you can do {disfmarker} you can scroll along and it'll show you what's on in the next half hour , and you scroll up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen . Uh but I'm also equally taken with this chunky plastic kiddie remote , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice , big , easy buttons to press , but still quite simple and quite cost effective . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple , uh not fancy but not totally minimalist , I mean just pretty simple plastic , probably , I was thinking , yellow and black , just because that's the company's colours , with very very few buttons , but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen , like , you know , {vocalsound} just small along the bottom instead of instead of having the iPod style display screen on the actual remotes , which is far too expensive . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And when you've got a screen sitting there in front of you , you might as well have it appearing uh on the screen in front of you , it doesn't obscure much of the actual picture you're watching . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And so on that you can , just much in the same way as an existing Sky remote , scroll along , scroll up and down . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd I'd certainly support that idea . +User Interface: And uh and I definitely support uh the use of plastic and or rubber . I mean titanium would be great , but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey . If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic , then I think titanium's too futuristic . +Industrial Designer: It's difficult to make fancy shapes in it as well , we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately . +User Interface: Yeah . Whereas a plastic's so cheap and easy and mouldable and everything else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea , 'cause um {vocalsound} otherwise we're we're putting up the price not only for putting {disfmarker} building the L_C_D_ in , but for the electronics as well . +User Interface: And it's a little bit pointless as well I think . +Industrial Designer: There is that . +User Interface: Like when when when you've got when you've got the screen there , it doesn't have to be anything fancy , +Marketing: It's a duplication . +User Interface: just a little menu showing {disfmarker} yeah , a menu , you go into one menu and then it can have your different options , whether you wanna change the settings or the you know , your information about programme that's on at the moment . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think that's to taxing to uh s engineer . {vocalsound} Um . But as for actually arranging them {disfmarker} let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one . And I quite like it , 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons that quite nicely uh spaced out , so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle . Up , down , left , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want scroll buttons in that as well ? +User Interface: I I was thinking not actually scroll , like a like mouse scroll , but you know , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I can't quite d uh describe it . {gap} you see on the one on the right , down at the bottom , is the mouse . Yeah , see where the mouse is , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like this s style thing where you c have up , down , left and right . And enter in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: so you pick your menu and then {disfmarker} your different options and when when you click on each one , it {disfmarker} you can go into a new menu for that . I'm getting a bit uh specific here . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Really we'd have to use something to show you , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think I think that's a g nice clean design , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's playing to our strengths which are in push button technology . +Marketing: {vocalsound} To uh m make it . +User Interface: If {disfmarker} I don't think I can get it up on the screen . Ah here we go . Right . +Marketing: Oh nice . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: the iPod spinning wheel is uh really complicated . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does scroll , but it is hugely complicated . What else have we got ? +Marketing: Mm . Wow . +User Interface: Them , they're terrible . But they all have this this feature of this uh {disfmarker} It's not quite a scroll wheel , but it's a kind of selection in this circle , +Project Manager: It's a selection wheel . +User Interface: which I think is a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: But we can implement it with simple push buttons , which is much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah , like up , down , left and right . Which is good . And then and then {disfmarker} Yeah , so I mean either a channel up and down , volume up and down , next appearing programmes up and down , {vocalsound} uh and then also {vocalsound} when you get into the different menus on the screen , it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So all you really need is these four buttons with the enter in the middle . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Industrial Designer: In fact {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Look at look at this one . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's really nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost impossible to misplace or l or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do you think with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Might take up your whole living room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It seems that that uh you guys are quite keen on the plastic , perhaps the {disfmarker} something reminiscent of the child's remote . Do you think we could put it in a in a fruit colour ? And have it abstract . You know , +User Interface: Possibly . +Marketing: we could call {vocalsound} like a fruit name , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it would be a little more abstract . +Industrial Designer: Mm . We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather {disfmarker} if you feel {disfmarker} if you like the spongy {disfmarker} +User Interface: That also is possible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm just just throwing out ideas . +Project Manager: Or call it a or call it a banana and have it in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just something else I need to bring to your attention is have you have you seen these on a remote ? This is actually the volume up and down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} they both say V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which , when you first look at it , {vocalsound} you expect that to be the down , because it looks like a downward pointing arrow , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: but it's actually the V_ to indicate that it's the volume , so uh we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Nice . Good point . +User Interface: But we wouldn't have a specific volume up and down . If we're having the scroll wheel , then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: But then , that's complicated . +Project Manager: I wanna thank you all for all your presentations . We have about ten minutes left , in which time we have to make some decisions on the remote control concepts . Um and I think you all have been self-stimulating of working together . Um we need to come up with some specifics of the components , um the materials , things like making the decision on the energy um and the case and the interface type things . So {vocalsound} let's {disfmarker} Mm . Right . They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use , which {disfmarker} the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery , kinetic or solar . Um this is where Kate's expertise comes in , and our decision making will be a little bit guided by Kate at this point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} You were saying that the kinetic would be useful , that is you just have to move it some and you'd be able to use it um as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or um keep replacing the batteries . Um or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day , that it'll die on you , and no way to do it . That's the day you wanna use the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um so what's our pleasure here , what would be the cost consequences of each of the three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh unfortunately I don't have costing information . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I i in terms of workability , I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but I'm sorry I don't figures on the difference in cost . +Project Manager: What's the uh feelings of the group on the kinetic ? +Marketing: I've used kinetic in terms of watches and it's very very uh handy , you don't even notice um that it's there . +User Interface: It sounds great . I've never come across it before , but it sounds fantastic . Sounds like it could be g a really good economical {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it would make the whole thing a lot lighter , more convenient . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: It could tie in with the fanciful design +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: as uh , you know , {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause it's really a quite attractive thought , +Marketing: throw the banana , you know , just gotta keep it moving . +User Interface: isn't it ? It's like {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible . +User Interface: a good selling point . +Marketing: Be +User Interface: But it does depend how much I mean how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs . +Project Manager: It costs . {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: And and how much you do have to keep it moving , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm conscious that watching T_V_ can be quite a sed sedentary activity . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But I could market that as a um as a {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I was thinking actually a a cost saver down the road , in terms of battery , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do your exercises while you're watching the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah , m more more environmentally friendly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . You know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: kind of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thanks for the reminder for five minutes to finish , thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision . +Industrial Designer: I'd {disfmarker} that that's something I maybe should have covered . Um chip on print is just a manufacturing technique +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: um and I would certainly recommend it , I think , because I'm not sure I have an alternative . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What about the ca +Industrial Designer: I i it it's just the way that the the the uh th the way it's ac it's actually built +Project Manager: yeah . Oh , the way we {gap} uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: and you you print onto the circuit board like you might print onto paper . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Um what about the case ? I think they're talking there about do we want wood , plastic , titanium or rubber , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think we've discussed not having titanium . One , it's too expensive , um and second , it won't do this double um curves . Um we've sort of eliminated wood . We said plastic or rubber . What's the pleasure ? +Industrial Designer: Well if if Sarah's keen on a spongy feel , the the rubber that we're talking about is the same as you have in those little stress balls , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's exactly what I was thinking . I'm sold . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: What about you ? +User Interface: Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside , and then a kind of spongy Yeah , s thick spongy cover , +Marketing: Mm . Kind of like an internal egg . +Project Manager: Cover . +User Interface: so it feels like the whole thing's spongy , but actually you're not damaging anything by squeezing it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Plastic inside . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Because I mean you could just get carried away with the with the tac +Industrial Designer: I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible , but I agree , it's uh {disfmarker} sounds like a nice idea if it is . +User Interface: Yeah . Well you do get a bit carried away with things that are tactile , you just wanna stroke them and squeeze them , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And with sports on television . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: You know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the next part they want is the user interface concept . +Industrial Designer: I should I should r {gap} +Marketing: I su +Project Manager: I'm sorry to push you , but we only have a couple minutes to {vocalsound} finish with . +Marketing: Then I'll just say I support either {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that . +Project Manager: Okay , and it says interface . What type and what supplements ? +User Interface: Just copy the one on the left . {vocalsound} No um a scroll {disfmarker} Well , like four buttons , up , down , left and right with enter in the middle , that will correspond to a menu on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Which I think technically is just push button and uh I'd certainly support that that +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: that brings the cost down quite a lot +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} like push buttons with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's something that we're an ex the company's an expert on . +User Interface: So push buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} that's that . Um this is gonna sound weird , but the next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Whew . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they actually want a look and feel design , user interface design , you can look and see this as well as I can . Marketing they want product evaluation . +User Interface: No , it's still it's still plugged in on mine actually . +Marketing: No we can't , actually . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh my , I'm sorry . +Marketing: That's why I was looking over your shoulder +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Sorry about that . missed that one . This ought to be fun trying to get this thing to work . Ah , ta-da . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now it's gone again . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: You know , I think the the company's s next project should to design a better overhead device that switches immediately . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , because I can't even see mine . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +User Interface: Oh yes . +Project Manager: these are {vocalsound} the individual actions . Yeah , right . Um the look and feel design is for Kate , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: uh Steph gets the user interface design , you get product {vocalsound} evaluation . Um the two of you {vocalsound} get to play with a Pla modelling clay um to do a prototype . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Uh and everybody gets individual instructions in the usual way . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else we need to do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Project Manager: Go to it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Play-Doh . +Project Manager: And that's the end of this meeting . That's for her benefit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's really all I got , guys . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +During the third conceptual design meeting, the team reviewed the minutes from the last meeting and discussed the target market, design, and functionalities of a new remote control. The target demographic is 15 to 35-year-olds with disposable income, and the device needs to include functions such as power, channel, volume, numbers, and possibly speech recognition. The design should be simple and mass-produced with a cost limit of 12.5 pence, possibly featuring rechargeable batteries, a docking station, and corporate branding. + +Marketing presented their findings, suggesting a trendy approach involving fruit and veg colors and spongy materials due to their current popularity in fashion and furniture. This idea extended to having a remote with interchangeable 'fruit-themed sleeves.' + +The Industrial Designer discussed the practical components, including energy options (standard batteries, kinetic, and solar), materials for the case (plastic, rubber, wood, titanium), and interface designs. They highlighted the limitations and advantages of each, emphasizing the push-button technology's effectiveness and cost-efficiency. + +User Interface echoed the need for simplicity but suggested a minimal number of buttons corresponding to an on-screen menu, advocating for clear and easy-to-use designs. + +In the final part of the meeting, the group needed to make decisions on the energy source, case material, and user interface. They leaned towards kinetic energy for its novelty and eco-friendliness and favored a rubber case with a spongy feel that could still protect the internal components. For the interface, they decided on a simple button layout with up, down, left, right, and enter buttons to navigate an on-screen menu. + +Finally, they delegated tasks for the next meeting, with each member assigned to further develop the design, user interface, and marketing evaluation. The session concluded with a reminder of their tight schedule as the next meeting was approaching shortly." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay we all all set ? Right . Well this is the uh final detailed design meeting . Um we're gonna discuss the look and feel design , the user interface design , and we're gonna evaluate the product . And the end result of this meeting has to be a decision on the details of this remote control , like absolute final decision , um and then I'm gonna have to specify the final design in the final report . So um just from from last time to recap , we said we were gonna have a snowman shaped remote control with no L_C_D_ display , no need for talk-back , it was hopefully gonna be kinetic power and battery uh with rubber buttons , maybe backlighting the buttons with some internal L_E_D_s to shine through the casing , um hopefully a jog-dial , and incorporating the slogan somewhere as well . Anything I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay um so uh if you want to present your prototype go ahead . +User Interface: Uh-oh . This is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer , made in Japan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , there are a few changes we've made . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , well look at the expense sheet , and uh it turned to be quite a lot expensive to have open up and have lots of buttons and stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so instead we've um {disfmarker} this is gonna be an L_C_D_ screen , um just a a very very basic one , very small um with access to the menu through the the scroll wheel and uh confirm um button . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Uh , apart from that , it's just pretty much the same as we discussed last time . +Industrial Designer: And there isn't uh d it doesn't open up to the advanced functions ? the advanced functions are still hidden from you , but they're hidden in the sense that um they're not in use . +Marketing: Where are they ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're in the L_C_D_ panel and the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Ah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w what kind of thing uh is gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ panel just displays um functionally what you're doing . If you're using an advanced function right , like um c brightness , contrast , whatever , it will just say {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know it's like it only has four columns , it's a very simple L_C_D_ like , whereas many {disfmarker} the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay cool . +Marketing: Right , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: It might even be one , a bit more complex L_C_D_ panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the , you know , the the symbols of the various functions . +Marketing: Okay +Project Manager: Oh right okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , and what is this here ? +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That's a number pad . +Marketing: Okay so the number pad is {disfmarker} 'Kay , great . +Project Manager: Where are we gonna have the slogan ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're al along this {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know , just like right inside there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Industrial Designer: You have this space here , and then you have this thing on the side as well , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause slogans are usually quite small , right , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: they're not like huge +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they're s +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Say a button's about +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Looks good . +Industrial Designer: say a button's about this size , right , so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan , say even for that . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if this isn't to scale , what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so we reckon maybe that'll be about the same size as the palm of your hand . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button , so one two three four centimetres . Plus maybe half o five +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: six seven eight , +Marketing: About nine in total . +Project Manager: Six , seven , eight , nine , ten . +Industrial Designer: about yeah nine total . +Project Manager: So we're talking about ten centimetres . +Marketing: That sounds good . Yeah . +Project Manager: That would be good . So ten centimetres in height . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Nine , ten . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: That'd be good , in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually , so that would be {disfmarker} that sounds like a really good size , if you see it there . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's great and it's very bright as well . So um okay . +Marketing: Mm . Is it possible {disfmarker} uh I'm just gonna bring up the idea of colours . Is these are these the colours that {disfmarker} of production , or is this just what we had available ? +User Interface: Well I'm {disfmarker} We're gonna have again the the sort of the foggy um yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report . +User Interface: But um {vocalsound} this button um , because it's red it's sort of very prominent , we're gonna use it as uh {disfmarker} it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it'll send a stand-by signal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um apart from that it's gonna be used as a confirm button for the L_C_D_ screen +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and you use this as a jog-dial . +Project Manager: Okay so that's like an okay button , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh we've discussed how h high it is , but how wide is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: How high is it ? +Industrial Designer: No as in the height , but what about the width ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh oh +User Interface: Didn't put five centimetres . +Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Do we need five ? I don't think five is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: be about th three and a half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there okay . +User Interface: Something by there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So you can power on and off , what else can you do ? +Marketing: Three and a half . +User Interface: Um you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , were gonna have the volume control here , but um because we've got the the L_C_D_ and the jog-dial we just thought we'd um use that as the volume . +Project Manager: Okay jog-dial for volume . And what else do you do with the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um you can use it for um more advanced functions like contrast , colour and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Contrast , brightness , +User Interface: Um yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and anything else ? +User Interface: Um just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions , um we didn't actually go through and specify the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they ? +User Interface: Uh what can a T_V_ do ? +Industrial Designer: Okay things like um brightness , contrast , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um maybe tuning the channels . +Project Manager: Okay channel tuning . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: That's a good one . +Industrial Designer: What else ? Um the various inputs . Are you having a V_C_R_ , are you having {disfmarker} you know which input do you have ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay auxiliary inputs . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: probably colour or sharpness . +Industrial Designer: Yep , colour , sharpness . Um a lot of these things will have to be um free and open for users to define them . +Project Manager: Sharpness . Okay what about uh sound settings +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: ? Uh d can you change any of those at all ? +Marketing: Audio . +Industrial Designer: Audio , we have like your basic y your base , your mid-range , your high range . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: {gap} the the balance hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep , left-right balance , um maybe even pre-programmed sound modes , like um the user could determine like a series of sound modes , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and then what could happen would be um when you click on that then it would go to that setting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is there anything else at all it can do ? That {disfmarker} 'cause that's that's fine . Just need to know so I can write it down . Okay um right I g I guess that's it , so we can now um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing , and see if we need to um if we need to rethink anything at all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um for this first part here power-wise , have we got battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery . +Project Manager: Do we have kinetic as well ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: just battery . +Industrial Designer: We need an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's because of cost restraints is it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah advanced chip . +Project Manager: um what about the electronics here ? +Industrial Designer: We need an advanced chip I think , yep . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Let me just confirm that . Yes I think so . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um the case , what does it mean by single and double , do you know ? +User Interface: Um I think single would just be sort of one sort of oval whereas double is this sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we want double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Um . +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: Is there any rubber at all in the buttons or any +Industrial Designer: I think we're gonna have to skip the rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: um and we wanted special colours didn't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So I'll have to put that {disfmarker} Oh no wait we {disfmarker} ho how many colours have we got there ? +Industrial Designer: For the case itself , one colour . It's one special colour . +Project Manager: Just one colour , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause the case unit itself , the rest of our components go on top of it . +Project Manager: Okay so interface-wise , is it this third option we have , the two of them there ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . One and the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: Okay and then buttons , we have what , two colours ? +Industrial Designer: How many {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um we have um got some push buttons as well . +Marketing: Or even clear . +Industrial Designer: We've got push buttons as well . +Project Manager: Like uh oh wait so push button and integrated scroll wheel push +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: So I reckon we've got one button for this thing 'cause it's just one big sheet of rubber . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I'm not sure if that counts but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay let's just be safe and put like say four buttons for that one . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um and maybe a special colour for the buttons , so maybe four again . +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: You can see we're we're all very far beyond the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w why are we arriving at the number four ? Where does the number four come from ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that's one button by its the complexity of twelve buttons . +Project Manager: Okay right , +Industrial Designer: So we're just estimating that yeah it would be less . +Project Manager: so we're writing down four . {vocalsound} Okay . How about these ? Are we wanting them in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: no they're just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: is everything gonna be plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're w w quite far over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna have to go . Um we're at sixteen point eight and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh how mm-hmm {disfmarker} how are we going to achieve this high-end product if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we h something has to go to the tune of two point t three Euro , +Marketing: We only have very sparse {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so let me see , what are we {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two point three ? Four point three no ? +Project Manager: oh yes sorry , four point three . My maths is all out . +User Interface: Well we could take out ones by making it single curved , just fill in those bits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How much would that save us ? +Marketing: And then where is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How much would that save us ? +Industrial Designer: That will only save you one . +User Interface: That is one . +Industrial Designer: The other thing could be that um you could take away the L_C_D_ panel and the advanced chip together , +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: um because when you do something on the T_V_ , the T_V_ responds and reacts as well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so the user could be looking at the T_V_ and pushing his thing so we may not need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's fair enough , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so when we scroll we need just some way to get the T_V_ to respond , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which I think is a technically doable thing so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w what's our reviewed suggestion ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um take away the L_C_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . And the advanced chip goes away as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: To be replaced with a +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Project Manager: regular chip . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So what that means is that um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And so we've got point three to get rid of . Um and we ha where are the four {disfmarker} the four push buttons are where exactly now ? +Industrial Designer: The twelve buttons that you see there {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Twelve buttons . +User Interface: That's um one piece of rubber but it's gonna have twelve button things underneath so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Functionally you're gonna have to intercept {disfmarker} So four is a good estimate for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you can't actually cut {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's like three times the number of buttons , four , eight , twelve . +Project Manager: Like is is that one big button or is it twelve buttons , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} It needs to be more than one big button because if you open up your phone , underneath there's actually one button underneath , it's just that the panel itself is a single panel . +Project Manager: how can it be something in between ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well we have point three to get rid of somewhere . +Industrial Designer: We just report that it has to be over budget {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or the colours , you could take away s colours for th for the buttons . +Project Manager: No can do . +Marketing: Yeah we could just go with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah w +Industrial Designer: Normal coloured buttons . +Project Manager: Well do you want colour differentiation here ? +Industrial Designer: No that's not the button we're talking about . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry yeah then . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the buttons only refer to the pad so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Should we take that off uh ? +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey it's back to the original . +Project Manager: That's it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so then these just become normal coloured buttons , so that might be some some way of cutting the cost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , ach that's a shame . {vocalsound} Um right , so take away that completely ? Ah . And now we're under budget . So we do have point five Euro to play with if we wanted . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about with embossing the logo , isn't that going to cost us some money ? +Project Manager: Doesn't say so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . That's a freebie . +User Interface: Reckon that probably counts as a special form for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that's a good idea . Just one ? Does that mean that one button has a special form or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {gap} there's just one button so +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: handy {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well well there we go . So I'm just gonna have to redraw this now . So we're not gonna have the L_C_D_ anymore , and we'll just gonna have an on t on the T_V_ it'll show you what you're doing , which I think is fair enough , and so this is gonna be one big thing here . Um . +Marketing: Was the goal in your in your prototype design that it be as low profile as possible ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by profile ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sort of flat as possible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: You see I envision it as being um quite deep +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: sort of {vocalsound} deep enough to be comfy to hold in your hands rather than being wide and flat . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I was thinking , to +Industrial Designer: We didn't have enough Play-Doh to make it three D_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , okay . Yeah alright yeah fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , just thought I'd ask . +Industrial Designer: So there's one more dimension to the thing which we need to to add , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you might want to add in the report , length , width , and height . +Project Manager: Right okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just to well to be thorough then , width-wise we're looking at about what three centimetres or something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and then so height-wise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: How how tall do you envisage it being ? About that big ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Yeah it works , yeah . +Project Manager: About two centimetres , okay . +Marketing: Two's not very high at all though . +Industrial Designer: This is about this is about two . +Marketing: Maybe a bit higher ? +Industrial Designer: Slightly more than two , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: See , about that thick . +Project Manager: Okay . Ach , that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe closer to three even or two and a half . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we'll s we'll say two point five . Okay um so we have it within cost anyway . Um so yeah project evaluation is this point . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right uh . Okay so can we close that ? This is what it's {disfmarker} the final spec that it's gonna be . Someone is gonna have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah that's fine that's fine . +Marketing: Um it's probably just {disfmarker} I dunno if it's worth getting into , but um just in in that we want this to be stylish , should we think a little bit more out of the box in terms of a button grid , because I've seen there's lots of devices out there that that instead of taking your standard nine nine square grid , and they have it sort of stylized or in different concept that that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's something that's very hard to catch , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you you restrict the number of people who wanna try something . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +Industrial Designer: The the look and the colour is something which is cool , +Marketing: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: but I think that there's also that factor of if it's too unfamiliar +Marketing: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: then um {disfmarker} because when you put it on the shelf {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about button shape ? Square buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah button shape might be a good idea to change , rather than rather than positioning , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I think positioning is {disfmarker} we're kinda engrained into the the telephone kind of +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: pad . +Project Manager: Right um . So at this point we uh , let me see , discuss uh how satisfied we all are with um with these four points , with the room for creativity in the project , and leadership and teamwork , and the stuff we had around us I guess . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um , let me see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you want me to d um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you want me to do my um design evaluation last ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should do the design evaluation first . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I wasn't really sure what that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: , yeah go for that first . I wasn't entirely sure what uh {disfmarker} who was supposed to be doing that , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y you go for it . +Marketing: Sure . Um , alright so the way this works , I'm gonna need to plug into PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: I'll try and do it as quick as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , this is um {disfmarker} I'll just go over your head if that's okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think you need the power , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's okay that's okay . +Marketing: I don't need the PowerPoint ? +Industrial Designer: No , the power cord itself . +Marketing: Oh {gap} course , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so then you have a bit more freedom to {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah that's true . Let me get that . A bit more . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: You you still have your blue fingers . +Marketing: so what this is is a set-up for us to um uh use a kind of a like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is it ? +Industrial Designer: You killed a monster . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The idea is that I've set up {disfmarker} I've reviewed all of the um the points of discussion from the beginning , and used that as a criteria of evaluation for the um uh for the current design uh th or the plan , and uh so we can review that . Uh I think it's gonna end up being sort of elementary because we're sort we're in n we're not gonna probably use it to change anything but {disfmarker} Doesn't seem like it's going , does it ? +Project Manager: Oh there it is . +Marketing: Yeah , okay great . Uh and I'm gonna write up our results on the board , so this'll be a way for us to go through and decide if we're um {disfmarker} sort of review where we stand with it . Okay , so um {disfmarker} So to sort of b bring together two things , sort of design goals and also the market research that we had , uh when we rate this , one is v high in in succeeding or fitting to our original aim and seven is low , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: okay . So these i these i th are the {disfmarker} and um we've been asked to uh to collectively rate this , so what we can do is try and just y work on a consensus system so we just come to an agreement . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? So the first one uh , stylish look and feel . +Industrial Designer: I rate that pretty highly . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean compared to most remote controls you see that's pretty good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno like a six or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does anybody else think ? +Marketing: Yeah um me uh my only reservation with it was that we basically went with yellow because it's the company's colour , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I don't know if yellow's gonna really be a hit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm seeing five then . +Marketing: What do you guys think ? +Project Manager: I would say five or six . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm fine with that . +Project Manager: David ? +Marketing: Okay let's go with five then . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Fi oh uh just actually the opposite . +Industrial Designer: It's one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Oh yes +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: sorry then +Marketing: So it meant three , +Project Manager: , then I would say two or three . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait , what's the scale , one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , one is high . +User Interface: One's high-ish isn't it ? Ah , okay so yeah , two or three . +Marketing: 'Kay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's upside-down . +Marketing: Let's go with two point five then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , um {vocalsound} control {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: high tech innovation . +Project Manager: Well it has the wee jog-dial +Marketing: We had to remove {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so we've had to remove a few of our features we wanted , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but jog-dial +Industrial Designer: Say it's more +Project Manager: I'd go with three or four , +Marketing: 's good . +User Interface: Eight +Industrial Designer: medium , +Project Manager: maybe three . +User Interface: three . +Industrial Designer: but going towards a little bit higher than medium kind of thing . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah about three , okay . +Marketing: three ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Style reflects a fruit inspired colour , design . +Industrial Designer: Lemon . +Marketing: I shouldn't have said colour , but just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , the blue the blue colours and {disfmarker} don't re don't actually represent the colour , +Project Manager: Well that's kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorta . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: except for the b the the red button , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they {disfmarker} because for want of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But the yellow , I mean it could be a lemon yellow colour , +Marketing: Right . Yeah , could be . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the yellow is more representative of the colour , +Project Manager: couldn't it ? +Industrial Designer: but the button itself , the blue can be anything else . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay so we'll go two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay , and um design is simple to use , simple in features . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean it's really basic looking isn't it ? +Marketing: F f yeah f fairly basic , +Project Manager: I mean I'd give that nearly a one . +Marketing: you guys think ? +User Interface: Yeah {gap} one . +Industrial Designer: Yep , that's fine . +Marketing: Yeah , one ? Okay . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} soft and spongy , have we achieved that ? We've used mostly plastic in the end so it's going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's about five . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Five ? That's really low . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we have to use uh plastic +Project Manager: Yeah I suppose mm 'kay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it's probably gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , company logo . +Marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it ? Was that an option ? +Industrial Designer: I think it'll be cost prohibitive , +User Interface: I think I'd probably increase the cost . +Marketing: It would cost more than plastic . +User Interface: We've only got {vocalsound} like what , ten cents left so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay , logo , we've got it in there , haven't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Yep . Gonna have that on the side , aren't we , like there or something ? +Marketing: Huh . And um it's within budget , yep . It is , isn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so we can say then that uh out of a possible {disfmarker} or what would be our goal here ? +Project Manager: Out of forty nine , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , out of forty nine with with zero being the highest . We are at uh two , seven , eight , ten , fifteen point five . +Project Manager: 'S pretty good . +Marketing: So it's pretty good . Translates to something like about approximately seventy two percent efficacy of our original goal . Right ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: I think 'cause if you turn that into a hundred it would be about +Project Manager: Twice that , +Marketing: about thirty one , +Project Manager: about thirty one . +Marketing: and then invert that , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So yeah ab well yeah about sixty nine , seventy percent yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , about seventy , yeah seventy percent . +Project Manager: It's pretty good . +Marketing: Okay , good . That was just a little formality for us to go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep , oh hundred pound pen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry {vocalsound} {vocalsound} alright . +Project Manager: Nobody saw it , honestly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The cameras did . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Is that you all have all finished , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's that's me . I did have one other um one other frame I thought , I mean I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information , I thought okay in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design , revisiting our original goals . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not something I need to p push through , but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions , um sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Could our design involve a series of colours so that it's more of like a line where we have like sort of the , I don't know like the harvest line or the vibrant , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: I dunno the {gap} {disfmarker} Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones , lime green , lemon . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's just discussion . I mean obviously we can just abandon this , it's fine . I'm just thinking about what we originally set out to do . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Um , yep so there . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , great um are you submitting the the um evaluation criteria or am I ? I don't know what your instructions have been . +Marketing: Um , I think to record it and uh I haven't been asked to submit it yet . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because if you're submitting it anyway then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I will , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay great . +Industrial Designer: It keeps getting too big . +Project Manager: Cool . Um right , uh well next up then , because we've done finance , is the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay I'm I'm listening I'm just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing , so I'm playing with the Play-Doh as well . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just in case you're wondering {vocalsound} , why is he still playing with the Play-Doh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Just about right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_E_G_O_ Lego {vocalsound} . {gap} +User Interface: My leg . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . Um well do you wanna um just individually say what you think about about these four points and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or not those four points , my four points , sorry , forgotten that . {vocalsound} You got a different uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Yep . I like those printer cables that just have the two little butterfly clips like that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , they're good aren't they , yeah . +Marketing: It's really quick . +Project Manager: Right okay , +Marketing: To use . +Project Manager: um yeah here we are . Uh as a note we'll do this alphabetically . {vocalsound} Um do you wanna start Andrew ? +Marketing: Sure , um so what is it you're asking of me now ? +Project Manager: I don't know , just um your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them . +Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well , is it {disfmarker} uh okay I'll just go through your system then . The the room uh is fairly institutional , but um the main thing is , I think um our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to um have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion , you know , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity , whereas in reality as we've gone through this , it's not really the centre point of creativity , it's more just a +Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? +Marketing: d debating {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah but that's just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there , the room , it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave , and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then , you know . +Project Manager: But I don't I don't think it means the room as in this room . I think it means like you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , oh right right , oh right okay room for creativ +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh right I just looked up and saw okay whiteboard , digital pens , the room . +Project Manager: Room . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I dunno do you th I think it means um I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . Huh . Yeah . Yeah I th okay on th um yeah dif answering the question uh in those terms I'd say that actually there's sort of a tease of creativity because we're asked to work through this , but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of um okay fashion trends , say fruit and vegetable colour scheme , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but then i then we're told okay use the co company company colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So what do we do . We're told okay um think in terms of style and look and feel and technology , but build something for twelve and a half pounds , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so actually the creativity was more more of like a um a f sort of a f formality then an actual {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You feel like you're caged within whatever y +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah within the constraints +Industrial Designer: It's like a balloon in a cage , it can only go so big and not hit the side . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The constraints do come in very fast . +Project Manager: Okay uh do you know what , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: actually let's take each point and everybody discuss it , I think . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So still on the topic of room for creativity uh next up is Craig . +User Interface: Um I agree with his point it's um it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right , gotta cut everything out 'cause we don't have enough money . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings um are more brainstorming sessions than meetings , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so time is also a very s um strong factor , and structure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to {disfmarker} allows ideas to get tossed , um to be evaluated , and to be reviewed , and to get feedback and come back . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that , I think that's a very big thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think the fact that we're wearing these things restricts {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: I feel it 'cause I wear m my glasses , right , and that but that irritates me right +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it it it does actually you know affect how , w whether you feel comfortable to communicate . +Marketing: Yeah . New creativity . +Industrial Designer: I feel like I'm hiding behind the equipment , rather than the equipment is helping me , and you know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere , the atmosphere is very relaxed , but the the gear +Project Manager: Yeah , but actual environment ? +Industrial Designer: yeah you know that creates boundaries to that um +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and the time the time given also restricts {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very good . Um what about leadership ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if that means like , if I did a good job or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really know . +Marketing: Yeah , well well I mean my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction , encouragement {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that , do you think maybe ? +Marketing: Yeah from {disfmarker} and you as well I think , just sort of acting as team leader . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um yeah I think I think it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Marketing: I think it's good . I mean my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of um gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation , but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you know , innovative thought with . In in reality I think here the the different elements of leadership such as the the original b briefing and then the personal coach and the and then you know having having you with your {disfmarker} the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a {vocalsound} quite a con confining framework to work within . And so it is leadership almost to the point of sort of disempowering the the the team member , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . +Marketing: But it's not bad leadership , it's just sort of s fairly strong , you know . It turns it turns the individual into more of like a um sort of a predetermined mechanism , as opposed to a sort of a free {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , oh yeah , without without a doubt . +Industrial Designer: I think controlling is not the right word , I think the interactions are very structured . +Marketing: Yeah maybe not co confining . +Industrial Designer: I think structure is probably what you're saying that , each individual is structured to one particular task , and one parti rather than controlling . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think there's a sense of control 'cause all the decisions have been made in terms of a , like a consensus right , we go around and we think about it , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that you know process actually says you have to do it in a certain way . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't tell you , you know , some ways that you might wanna be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know , not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh what about teamwork ? +Marketing: Um did , you wanna comment Craig ? +User Interface: Uh , reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them , that would've been a lot easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate , +Marketing: Fully agree . +Industrial Designer: but um it just comes back to us so slow in the email +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: um it it doesn't have a , you know , a messenger will go {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did uh did you guys get the email I sent you ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's alright . +User Interface: Not just yet . +Project Manager: I was wondering if that got there okay . +Marketing: Yeah , got the email . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um so um to s to to summarize the teamwork issue , saying that if we could communicate outside the meeting , you know just like quick questions , quick thoughts , whatever , it probably would be bit easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the tools that they were given , the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they don't support collaboration , I think that's the word . +Marketing: Yeah , in it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: They don't support the team working together , you know , +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Marketing: exactly . Yeah , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: they're still very individual tools . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean sort of taking upon that idea , w the way I see this i is that it's uh the the s the structure in which we've we've approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of um divided , and then the work went on in isolation +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I I don't know what you guys did while you were together , maybe that was a bit different , +Industrial Designer: We had Play-Doh fun {vocalsound} . +Marketing: but um yeah , but um but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said okay , first thing we have to do is come up with um let's say um a design concept , and we sit here together and do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: well that's what teamwork is . To s to say okay go off and don't talk to each other , it's actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Um not that we haven't done I think the best we could have done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'm not dissatisfied with it . +Project Manager: Right , uh anything else to say on teamwork at all ? +Industrial Designer: No , not really . +Project Manager: Okay , um what about the you know how we used the whiteboard , the digital pens , the projector , stuff like that ? Um did anybody think anything was like really useful , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: anything was pretty un f {vocalsound} unsupportive ? +Marketing: I think the whiteboard , for me , is the kind of thing I would use all the time , but it's um not quite as useful as to us as it could have been , maybe just in the way that we we use it , in the sense that once we have an idea out there or while work was going on in between meetings , that could have been up on a board uh you know as opposed to in like in text . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , and then we could then keep our ideas sort of building on that . I know that people who design cars and you know in aviation they quite often just have a simple like fibreglass prototype and it's completely you know um abs abstract from the final product , but they use it as a kind of a context to sort of walk around and puzzle and and point and discuss +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . And point at ? Yeah . +Marketing: and and and in a way everybody's {disfmarker} as we discuss things in the {disfmarker} in theoretically and out of our notebooks , we're just {disfmarker} we're actually just each of us discussing something that's in each of our own minds . It wasn't until we had this here , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craig's paper and I'm like , now I know what he's thinking 'cause I saw his book . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: But the b the b whiteboard could've actually been this kind of continuing um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process woulda been a good idea ? +Marketing: Think could be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think um the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think that m um is also does you know hinder us and things I think . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know in the centre of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare , whereas I can imagine if I'd been encouraged to use Paintbrush , for example , or whatever , I would've actually used it , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: um 'ca you know , just 'cause that's sorta how we {disfmarker} what we were set up to to use while we had our time . +Project Manager: Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that there were too many PowerPoints in the meetings {vocalsound} . 'Cause the plug-in and the plugging spent {disfmarker} we spent a lot of time doing that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints , I don't think , you know , we needed to actually {disfmarker} it could have , we could have gone through it {gap} verbally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , not quite . +Industrial Designer: especially my slides , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I felt that they just you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to having to present them . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the digital pens , did you find them easy enough to use ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep clunky . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure , yeah . +User Interface: Oh they're a bit clunky . +Industrial Designer: Agreed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Clunky , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well , 'cause you're half way through a thought , and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I know , I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff , didn't click note on one , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page , but then did click note , and so I'm quite worried that I've just written over the top of it or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but they'll have my paper anyway um and haven't done that since . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive , everybody knows how to use it , we don't {gap} have to worry . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: So I think the pen's good . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's about the best thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And o on the topic of the technology , it just occurred to me that we actually didn't need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It just occurred to me that they all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we only needed one computer and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We only actually needed one computer . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: If there had been a fifth , that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time . +User Interface: Good point . +Industrial Designer: And the computer may not um be conducive to a meeting because um you tend to look at your computer and wanna have the urge to check something , you know , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's useful but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I think too many computers are just distracting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually , like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um I don't know about anybody else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} what else uh any wh I do I'm not really sure what they're looking for when they say new ideas found . Um I don't know is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is this for the project or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you think of like anything else that would have been helpful today at all ? +Marketing: Well , the w main one for me is that uh the process na in a natural f context would not have been interrupted by this necessity to discommunicate ourselves from each other . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah if we just had uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , that's kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea , well you know it's kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you're told you must now work away from your team . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah I I dunno I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do , and you can spend a lot of time talking about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design , I thought there {disfmarker} maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but um {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I really thi i I think maybe if we'd like all been working in the one room , and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just to have like something written down , just like you know a a milestone if you like um rather than having meetings , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: There you go . Um so in closing , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I haven't got my five minutes to go . Thin Oh there it i Five minutes to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wonderful . Okay um are the costs within the budget , yes they are . And is the project evaluated , yes it is . So now celebrate {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have Ninja Homer . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} So now we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well apparently now I write the final report . What are you guys doing now ? +User Interface: Do we know what the other ones are ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: You dunno ? +User Interface: Oh wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That is lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hey yeah , I said Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What did you call it ? +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . See it looks like Homer Simpson +Marketing: Huh , huh . +Industrial Designer: but it's electronic so it's made in Japan . +Project Manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything ? +Marketing: Logo . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's just a logo . +Project Manager: Just a logo and then like Ninja Homer , +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you wanna print on the side of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite nice . +Marketing: Fashion technology or something . +Industrial Designer: You can wear Homer , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you can throw Homer when you're frustrated , doh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm , hmm , hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no , that's cool , it's got {disfmarker} I'm kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's clunky . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm slightly gutted that we couldn't get plastic and rubber , I think that would have been nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah well , maybe from now on real reaction should give us more money . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I did learn something new , Play-Doh is useful . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: No it is it is . +Project Manager: Play-Doh s +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is useful and in in in in in in in um conceptualizing , in being creative . +Marketing: Huh . Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause like you say , it's something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for . +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like we were playing with the Play-Doh and the ideas came with the Play-Doh rather than with everything else . +Project Manager: Did they ? +Industrial Designer: You might wanna write that down . It's just , I'm just fiddling with the Play-Doh , and I'm going yeah yeah it's kinda cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Play-Doh . +Marketing: No , it's true , yeah . +User Interface: Guess I'd forgot how good s Play-Doh smells . +Project Manager: Yeah , it smells funny doesn't it . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . And some Play-Dohs are actually I think edible aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No , all Play-Doh is edible . +Project Manager: Yeah like the stuff for {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think they're all non-toxic 'cause it's aimed for like two-year-olds . +Project Manager: I think it has to be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's just wheat , it's the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah um so to +Marketing: Wow , hmm . +Project Manager: wha what are your summarising words about Play-Doh ? +Industrial Designer: It's helpful to the creative process . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um it engages all your senses not just your sight , but your sense of feel your sense of touch . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And it helps you to understand +Marketing: Taste . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} dimension as well . I think that that's very helpful because it it starts to pop up , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas on a piece of paper , on a computer , on a board , um even with a three D_ graphic thing it still , it requires a lot of +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yep . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not very tangible . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} tangible , that's a nice word . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: It becomes tangible . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Tangible . Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't know if there's anything else we needed to discuss . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: That that's about it really . Just sit still I guess for a little while . +Marketing: Do we retreat to our , to continue our +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably do it here as long as we don't collaborate . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: r reporting or what i +Project Manager: Well I dunno . Um I'm sure the little uh the little thing'll pop up any minute now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can we turn off the microphones ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah if the meeting's over then yeah I guess so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +The meeting was a final detailed design meeting to make a decision on the specifics of a snowman-shaped remote control. The Project Manager reiterated the importance of finalizing the design of the remote control for inclusion in their final report. Highlights from the previous meeting were recapped, including the decision for no LCD display, no talk-back, kinetic power in addition to battery power, rubber buttons, button backlighting with internal LEDs, a jog-dial, and incorporating the slogan. + +The User Interface and Industrial Designer presented their prototype, although there were some changes due to expense, such as simplifying the design to include a very basic LCD screen. Concerns about hidden advanced functions were addressed with these functions being accessed through the jog-dial and displayed on the small LCD panel. + +Discussing dimensions of the remote control, the team estimated it would be approximately the size of the palm of a hand, about ten centimeters in height. Cost considerations and technical feasibility led to abandoning the use of rubber in favor of plastic, keeping within a budget constraint. They finalized that the remote would have button backlighting, a jog-dial for various controls including volume and advanced TV functions, and a slogan on the remote but omitted the kinetic power option due to cost. + +After deciding on the final design elements and reviewing financials, the team struggled to keep the design within the allowed budget. They made some further adjustments, such as removing the advanced chip and LCD panel, and employing a standard chip and a simpler button color setup, to meet their financial constraints. + +The team had a design evaluation session where they rated the design based on its stylish look, high-tech innovation, simplicity, and other criteria, ultimately estimating a roughly 70% success rate in meeting their original design goals. + +The project manager asked team members for feedback on creativity, leadership, teamwork, and the use of technology like whiteboards, digital pens, and PowerPoint during the meeting. The consensus was that more flexibility and a less structured approach might have boosted creativity and teamwork, and that too many PowerPoints were used, which was not as conducive to team collaboration. + +They ended on a light-hearted note discussing the benefits of using Play-Doh as a creative tool and acknowledged that it had been helpful in the design process. The session closed with the project manager tasked to prepare the final report and everyone reflecting that they worked well within some tight constraints." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay we all all set ? Right . Well this is the uh final detailed design meeting . Um we're gonna discuss the look and feel design , the user interface design , and we're gonna evaluate the product . And the end result of this meeting has to be a decision on the details of this remote control , like absolute final decision , um and then I'm gonna have to specify the final design in the final report . So um just from from last time to recap , we said we were gonna have a snowman shaped remote control with no L_C_D_ display , no need for talk-back , it was hopefully gonna be kinetic power and battery uh with rubber buttons , maybe backlighting the buttons with some internal L_E_D_s to shine through the casing , um hopefully a jog-dial , and incorporating the slogan somewhere as well . Anything I've missed ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Okay um so uh if you want to present your prototype go ahead . +User Interface: Uh-oh . This is it ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer , made in Japan . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , there are a few changes we've made . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , well look at the expense sheet , and uh it turned to be quite a lot expensive to have open up and have lots of buttons and stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so instead we've um {disfmarker} this is gonna be an L_C_D_ screen , um just a a very very basic one , very small um with access to the menu through the the scroll wheel and uh confirm um button . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Uh , apart from that , it's just pretty much the same as we discussed last time . +Industrial Designer: And there isn't uh d it doesn't open up to the advanced functions ? the advanced functions are still hidden from you , but they're hidden in the sense that um they're not in use . +Marketing: Where are they ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're in the L_C_D_ panel and the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Ah , right . +Industrial Designer: Okay 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w what kind of thing uh is gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ panel just displays um functionally what you're doing . If you're using an advanced function right , like um c brightness , contrast , whatever , it will just say {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Okay . +Industrial Designer: You know it's like it only has four columns , it's a very simple L_C_D_ like , whereas many {disfmarker} the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay cool . +Marketing: Right , 'kay . +Industrial Designer: It might even be one , a bit more complex L_C_D_ panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the , you know , the the symbols of the various functions . +Marketing: Okay +Project Manager: Oh right okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , and what is this here ? +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That's a number pad . +Marketing: Okay so the number pad is {disfmarker} 'Kay , great . +Project Manager: Where are we gonna have the slogan ? +Industrial Designer: Um they're al along this {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know , just like right inside there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay cool . +Industrial Designer: You have this space here , and then you have this thing on the side as well , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause slogans are usually quite small , right , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: they're not like huge +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so they're s +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Say a button's about +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Looks good . +Industrial Designer: say a button's about this size , right , so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan , say even for that . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So if this isn't to scale , what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so we reckon maybe that'll be about the same size as the palm of your hand . {gap} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button , so one two three four centimetres . Plus maybe half o five +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: six seven eight , +Marketing: About nine in total . +Project Manager: Six , seven , eight , nine , ten . +Industrial Designer: about yeah nine total . +Project Manager: So we're talking about ten centimetres . +Marketing: That sounds good . Yeah . +Project Manager: That would be good . So ten centimetres in height . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Nine , ten . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um {vocalsound} . +Marketing: That'd be good , in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually , so that would be {disfmarker} that sounds like a really good size , if you see it there . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's great and it's very bright as well . So um okay . +Marketing: Mm . Is it possible {disfmarker} uh I'm just gonna bring up the idea of colours . Is these are these the colours that {disfmarker} of production , or is this just what we had available ? +User Interface: Well I'm {disfmarker} We're gonna have again the the sort of the foggy um yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report . +User Interface: But um {vocalsound} this button um , because it's red it's sort of very prominent , we're gonna use it as uh {disfmarker} it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it'll send a stand-by signal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um apart from that it's gonna be used as a confirm button for the L_C_D_ screen +Industrial Designer: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and you use this as a jog-dial . +Project Manager: Okay so that's like an okay button , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh we've discussed how h high it is , but how wide is it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: How high is it ? +Industrial Designer: No as in the height , but what about the width ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh oh +User Interface: Didn't put five centimetres . +Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing . +Industrial Designer: Do we need five ? I don't think five is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: be about th three and a half . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there okay . +User Interface: Something by there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: So you can power on and off , what else can you do ? +Marketing: Three and a half . +User Interface: Um you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , were gonna have the volume control here , but um because we've got the the L_C_D_ and the jog-dial we just thought we'd um use that as the volume . +Project Manager: Okay jog-dial for volume . And what else do you do with the jog-dial ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um you can use it for um more advanced functions like contrast , colour and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Contrast , brightness , +User Interface: Um yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , and anything else ? +User Interface: Um just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions , um we didn't actually go through and specify the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they ? +User Interface: Uh what can a T_V_ do ? +Industrial Designer: Okay things like um brightness , contrast , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: um maybe tuning the channels . +Project Manager: Okay channel tuning . +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: That's a good one . +Industrial Designer: What else ? Um the various inputs . Are you having a V_C_R_ , are you having {disfmarker} you know which input do you have ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay auxiliary inputs . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Marketing: probably colour or sharpness . +Industrial Designer: Yep , colour , sharpness . Um a lot of these things will have to be um free and open for users to define them . +Project Manager: Sharpness . Okay what about uh sound settings +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: ? Uh d can you change any of those at all ? +Marketing: Audio . +Industrial Designer: Audio , we have like your basic y your base , your mid-range , your high range . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: Um . +User Interface: {gap} the the balance hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep , left-right balance , um maybe even pre-programmed sound modes , like um the user could determine like a series of sound modes , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and then what could happen would be um when you click on that then it would go to that setting . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: is there anything else at all it can do ? That {disfmarker} 'cause that's that's fine . Just need to know so I can write it down . Okay um right I g I guess that's it , so we can now um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing , and see if we need to um if we need to rethink anything at all . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um for this first part here power-wise , have we got battery ? +Industrial Designer: The battery . +Project Manager: Do we have kinetic as well ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: just battery . +Industrial Designer: We need an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And that's because of cost restraints is it ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah advanced chip . +Project Manager: um what about the electronics here ? +Industrial Designer: We need an advanced chip I think , yep . +Project Manager: Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Let me just confirm that . Yes I think so . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay um the case , what does it mean by single and double , do you know ? +User Interface: Um I think single would just be sort of one sort of oval whereas double is this sort of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we want double-curved ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . Um . +Industrial Designer: Plastic . +Project Manager: Is there any rubber at all in the buttons or any +Industrial Designer: I think we're gonna have to skip the rubber . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: um and we wanted special colours didn't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So I'll have to put that {disfmarker} Oh no wait we {disfmarker} ho how many colours have we got there ? +Industrial Designer: For the case itself , one colour . It's one special colour . +Project Manager: Just one colour , okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause the case unit itself , the rest of our components go on top of it . +Project Manager: Okay so interface-wise , is it this third option we have , the two of them there ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . One and the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: Okay and then buttons , we have what , two colours ? +Industrial Designer: How many {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um we have um got some push buttons as well . +Marketing: Or even clear . +Industrial Designer: We've got push buttons as well . +Project Manager: Like uh oh wait so push button and integrated scroll wheel push +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: So I reckon we've got one button for this thing 'cause it's just one big sheet of rubber . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I'm not sure if that counts but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay let's just be safe and put like say four buttons for that one . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay um and maybe a special colour for the buttons , so maybe four again . +Project Manager: Four . +User Interface: You can see we're we're all very far beyond the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So w why are we arriving at the number four ? Where does the number four come from ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that's one button by its the complexity of twelve buttons . +Project Manager: Okay right , +Industrial Designer: So we're just estimating that yeah it would be less . +Project Manager: so we're writing down four . {vocalsound} Okay . How about these ? Are we wanting them in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: no they're just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: is everything gonna be plastic ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay . So we're w w quite far over . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we're gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna have to go . Um we're at sixteen point eight and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh how mm-hmm {disfmarker} how are we going to achieve this high-end product if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we h something has to go to the tune of two point t three Euro , +Marketing: We only have very sparse {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so let me see , what are we {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Two point three ? Four point three no ? +Project Manager: oh yes sorry , four point three . My maths is all out . +User Interface: Well we could take out ones by making it single curved , just fill in those bits . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: How much would that save us ? +Marketing: And then where is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How much would that save us ? +Industrial Designer: That will only save you one . +User Interface: That is one . +Industrial Designer: The other thing could be that um you could take away the L_C_D_ panel and the advanced chip together , +Project Manager: One . +Industrial Designer: um because when you do something on the T_V_ , the T_V_ responds and reacts as well , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so the user could be looking at the T_V_ and pushing his thing so we may not need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's fair enough , yeah . +Industrial Designer: so when we scroll we need just some way to get the T_V_ to respond , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: which I think is a technically doable thing so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So w what's our reviewed suggestion ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um take away the L_C_ display ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . And the advanced chip goes away as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: To be replaced with a +Industrial Designer: Regular chip . +Project Manager: regular chip . +Industrial Designer: Yep . So what that means is that um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And so we've got point three to get rid of . Um and we ha where are the four {disfmarker} the four push buttons are where exactly now ? +Industrial Designer: The twelve buttons that you see there {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Twelve buttons . +User Interface: That's um one piece of rubber but it's gonna have twelve button things underneath so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Functionally you're gonna have to intercept {disfmarker} So four is a good estimate for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you can't actually cut {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's like three times the number of buttons , four , eight , twelve . +Project Manager: Like is is that one big button or is it twelve buttons , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} It needs to be more than one big button because if you open up your phone , underneath there's actually one button underneath , it's just that the panel itself is a single panel . +Project Manager: how can it be something in between ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: well we have point three to get rid of somewhere . +Industrial Designer: We just report that it has to be over budget {vocalsound} , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or the colours , you could take away s colours for th for the buttons . +Project Manager: No can do . +Marketing: Yeah we could just go with um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah w +Industrial Designer: Normal coloured buttons . +Project Manager: Well do you want colour differentiation here ? +Industrial Designer: No that's not the button we're talking about . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry yeah then . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the buttons only refer to the pad so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Should we take that off uh ? +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hey it's back to the original . +Project Manager: That's it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um so then these just become normal coloured buttons , so that might be some some way of cutting the cost . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , ach that's a shame . {vocalsound} Um right , so take away that completely ? Ah . And now we're under budget . So we do have point five Euro to play with if we wanted . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So I reckon {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: How about with embossing the logo , isn't that going to cost us some money ? +Project Manager: Doesn't say so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . That's a freebie . +User Interface: Reckon that probably counts as a special form for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah that's a good idea . Just one ? Does that mean that one button has a special form or {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think {gap} there's just one button so +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: handy {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Well well there we go . So I'm just gonna have to redraw this now . So we're not gonna have the L_C_D_ anymore , and we'll just gonna have an on t on the T_V_ it'll show you what you're doing , which I think is fair enough , and so this is gonna be one big thing here . Um . +Marketing: Was the goal in your in your prototype design that it be as low profile as possible ? +Industrial Designer: What do you mean by profile ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sort of flat as possible . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: You see I envision it as being um quite deep +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: sort of {vocalsound} deep enough to be comfy to hold in your hands rather than being wide and flat . +Marketing: Yeah that's what I was thinking , to +Industrial Designer: We didn't have enough Play-Doh to make it three D_ . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sure , okay . Yeah alright yeah fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , just thought I'd ask . +Industrial Designer: So there's one more dimension to the thing which we need to to add , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you might want to add in the report , length , width , and height . +Project Manager: Right okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So just to well to be thorough then , width-wise we're looking at about what three centimetres or something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and then so height-wise {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: How how tall do you envisage it being ? About that big ? +Industrial Designer: Two . +User Interface: Yeah it works , yeah . +Project Manager: About two centimetres , okay . +Marketing: Two's not very high at all though . +Industrial Designer: This is about this is about two . +Marketing: Maybe a bit higher ? +Industrial Designer: Slightly more than two , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: See , about that thick . +Project Manager: Okay . Ach , that is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe closer to three even or two and a half . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay we'll s we'll say two point five . Okay um so we have it within cost anyway . Um so yeah project evaluation is this point . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Right uh . Okay so can we close that ? This is what it's {disfmarker} the final spec that it's gonna be . Someone is gonna have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah that's fine that's fine . +Marketing: Um it's probably just {disfmarker} I dunno if it's worth getting into , but um just in in that we want this to be stylish , should we think a little bit more out of the box in terms of a button grid , because I've seen there's lots of devices out there that that instead of taking your standard nine nine square grid , and they have it sort of stylized or in different concept that that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's something that's very hard to catch , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you you restrict the number of people who wanna try something . +Marketing: Sure , okay . +Industrial Designer: The the look and the colour is something which is cool , +Marketing: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: but I think that there's also that factor of if it's too unfamiliar +Marketing: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: then um {disfmarker} because when you put it on the shelf {disfmarker} +Marketing: What about button shape ? Square buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah button shape might be a good idea to change , rather than rather than positioning , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I think positioning is {disfmarker} we're kinda engrained into the the telephone kind of +Marketing: Yeah . Sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: pad . +Project Manager: Right um . So at this point we uh , let me see , discuss uh how satisfied we all are with um with these four points , with the room for creativity in the project , and leadership and teamwork , and the stuff we had around us I guess . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Um , let me see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you want me to d um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you want me to do my um design evaluation last ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should do the design evaluation first . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I wasn't really sure what that was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: Evaluation . +Project Manager: , yeah go for that first . I wasn't entirely sure what uh {disfmarker} who was supposed to be doing that , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: but y you go for it . +Marketing: Sure . Um , alright so the way this works , I'm gonna need to plug into PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: I'll try and do it as quick as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um , this is um {disfmarker} I'll just go over your head if that's okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think you need the power , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's that ? +Industrial Designer: No , that's okay that's okay . +Marketing: I don't need the PowerPoint ? +Industrial Designer: No , the power cord itself . +Marketing: Oh {gap} course , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so then you have a bit more freedom to {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah that's true . Let me get that . A bit more . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Industrial Designer: You you still have your blue fingers . +Marketing: so what this is is a set-up for us to um uh use a kind of a like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is it ? +Industrial Designer: You killed a monster . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The idea is that I've set up {disfmarker} I've reviewed all of the um the points of discussion from the beginning , and used that as a criteria of evaluation for the um uh for the current design uh th or the plan , and uh so we can review that . Uh I think it's gonna end up being sort of elementary because we're sort we're in n we're not gonna probably use it to change anything but {disfmarker} Doesn't seem like it's going , does it ? +Project Manager: Oh there it is . +Marketing: Yeah , okay great . Uh and I'm gonna write up our results on the board , so this'll be a way for us to go through and decide if we're um {disfmarker} sort of review where we stand with it . Okay , so um {disfmarker} So to sort of b bring together two things , sort of design goals and also the market research that we had , uh when we rate this , one is v high in in succeeding or fitting to our original aim and seven is low , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: okay . So these i these i th are the {disfmarker} and um we've been asked to uh to collectively rate this , so what we can do is try and just y work on a consensus system so we just come to an agreement . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay ? So the first one uh , stylish look and feel . +Industrial Designer: I rate that pretty highly . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean compared to most remote controls you see that's pretty good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I dunno like a six or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What does anybody else think ? +Marketing: Yeah um me uh my only reservation with it was that we basically went with yellow because it's the company's colour , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and I don't know if yellow's gonna really be a hit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I'm seeing five then . +Marketing: What do you guys think ? +Project Manager: I would say five or six . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yep I'm fine with that . +Project Manager: David ? +Marketing: Okay let's go with five then . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Fi oh uh just actually the opposite . +Industrial Designer: It's one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Oh yes +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: sorry then +Marketing: So it meant three , +Project Manager: , then I would say two or three . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: Wait , what's the scale , one to seven , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , one is high . +User Interface: One's high-ish isn't it ? Ah , okay so yeah , two or three . +Marketing: 'Kay {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's upside-down . +Marketing: Let's go with two point five then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , um {vocalsound} control {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: high tech innovation . +Project Manager: Well it has the wee jog-dial +Marketing: We had to remove {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , so we've had to remove a few of our features we wanted , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but jog-dial +Industrial Designer: Say it's more +Project Manager: I'd go with three or four , +Marketing: 's good . +User Interface: Eight +Industrial Designer: medium , +Project Manager: maybe three . +User Interface: three . +Industrial Designer: but going towards a little bit higher than medium kind of thing . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah about three , okay . +Marketing: three ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Style reflects a fruit inspired colour , design . +Industrial Designer: Lemon . +Marketing: I shouldn't have said colour , but just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , the blue the blue colours and {disfmarker} don't re don't actually represent the colour , +Project Manager: Well that's kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorta . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: except for the b the the red button , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they {disfmarker} because for want of a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But the yellow , I mean it could be a lemon yellow colour , +Marketing: Right . Yeah , could be . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the the yellow is more representative of the colour , +Project Manager: couldn't it ? +Industrial Designer: but the button itself , the blue can be anything else . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Okay so we'll go two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay , and um design is simple to use , simple in features . +Project Manager: Well yeah , I mean it's really basic looking isn't it ? +Marketing: F f yeah f fairly basic , +Project Manager: I mean I'd give that nearly a one . +Marketing: you guys think ? +User Interface: Yeah {gap} one . +Industrial Designer: Yep , that's fine . +Marketing: Yeah , one ? Okay . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} soft and spongy , have we achieved that ? We've used mostly plastic in the end so it's going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price . +User Interface: Yeah I think it's about five . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Five ? That's really low . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we have to use uh plastic +Project Manager: Yeah I suppose mm 'kay . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: so it's probably gonna be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , company logo . +Marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it ? Was that an option ? +Industrial Designer: I think it'll be cost prohibitive , +User Interface: I think I'd probably increase the cost . +Marketing: It would cost more than plastic . +User Interface: We've only got {vocalsound} like what , ten cents left so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: Okay , logo , we've got it in there , haven't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Yep . Gonna have that on the side , aren't we , like there or something ? +Marketing: Huh . And um it's within budget , yep . It is , isn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so we can say then that uh out of a possible {disfmarker} or what would be our goal here ? +Project Manager: Out of forty nine , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , out of forty nine with with zero being the highest . We are at uh two , seven , eight , ten , fifteen point five . +Project Manager: 'S pretty good . +Marketing: So it's pretty good . Translates to something like about approximately seventy two percent efficacy of our original goal . Right ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Marketing: I think 'cause if you turn that into a hundred it would be about +Project Manager: Twice that , +Marketing: about thirty one , +Project Manager: about thirty one . +Marketing: and then invert that , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So yeah ab well yeah about sixty nine , seventy percent yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , about seventy , yeah seventy percent . +Project Manager: It's pretty good . +Marketing: Okay , good . That was just a little formality for us to go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep , oh hundred pound pen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry {vocalsound} {vocalsound} alright . +Project Manager: Nobody saw it , honestly . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The cameras did . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Is that you all have all finished , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's that's me . I did have one other um one other frame I thought , I mean I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information , I thought okay in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design , revisiting our original goals . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not something I need to p push through , but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions , um sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Could our design involve a series of colours so that it's more of like a line where we have like sort of the , I don't know like the harvest line or the vibrant , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: I dunno the {gap} {disfmarker} Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones , lime green , lemon . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's just discussion . I mean obviously we can just abandon this , it's fine . I'm just thinking about what we originally set out to do . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Um , yep so there . That's all . +Project Manager: Okay , great um are you submitting the the um evaluation criteria or am I ? I don't know what your instructions have been . +Marketing: Um , I think to record it and uh I haven't been asked to submit it yet . +Project Manager: Okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because if you're submitting it anyway then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I will , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay great . +Industrial Designer: It keeps getting too big . +Project Manager: Cool . Um right , uh well next up then , because we've done finance , is the project evaluation . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay I'm I'm listening I'm just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing , so I'm playing with the Play-Doh as well . +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just in case you're wondering {vocalsound} , why is he still playing with the Play-Doh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Just about right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: L_E_G_O_ Lego {vocalsound} . {gap} +User Interface: My leg . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right , okay . Um well do you wanna um just individually say what you think about about these four points and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or not those four points , my four points , sorry , forgotten that . {vocalsound} You got a different uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Yep . I like those printer cables that just have the two little butterfly clips like that . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , they're good aren't they , yeah . +Marketing: It's really quick . +Project Manager: Right okay , +Marketing: To use . +Project Manager: um yeah here we are . Uh as a note we'll do this alphabetically . {vocalsound} Um do you wanna start Andrew ? +Marketing: Sure , um so what is it you're asking of me now ? +Project Manager: I don't know , just um your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them . +Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Well , is it {disfmarker} uh okay I'll just go through your system then . The the room uh is fairly institutional , but um the main thing is , I think um our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to um have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion , you know , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity , whereas in reality as we've gone through this , it's not really the centre point of creativity , it's more just a +Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? +Marketing: d debating {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah but that's just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there , the room , it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave , and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then , you know . +Project Manager: But I don't I don't think it means the room as in this room . I think it means like you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , oh right right , oh right okay room for creativ +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh right I just looked up and saw okay whiteboard , digital pens , the room . +Project Manager: Room . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I dunno do you th I think it means um I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry . Huh . Yeah . Yeah I th okay on th um yeah dif answering the question uh in those terms I'd say that actually there's sort of a tease of creativity because we're asked to work through this , but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of um okay fashion trends , say fruit and vegetable colour scheme , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but then i then we're told okay use the co company company colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So what do we do . We're told okay um think in terms of style and look and feel and technology , but build something for twelve and a half pounds , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so actually the creativity was more more of like a um a f sort of a f formality then an actual {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You feel like you're caged within whatever y +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah within the constraints +Industrial Designer: It's like a balloon in a cage , it can only go so big and not hit the side . +Marketing: the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The constraints do come in very fast . +Project Manager: Okay uh do you know what , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: actually let's take each point and everybody discuss it , I think . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So still on the topic of room for creativity uh next up is Craig . +User Interface: Um I agree with his point it's um it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right , gotta cut everything out 'cause we don't have enough money . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings um are more brainstorming sessions than meetings , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so time is also a very s um strong factor , and structure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to {disfmarker} allows ideas to get tossed , um to be evaluated , and to be reviewed , and to get feedback and come back . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that , I think that's a very big thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think the fact that we're wearing these things restricts {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: I feel it 'cause I wear m my glasses , right , and that but that irritates me right +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it it it does actually you know affect how , w whether you feel comfortable to communicate . +Marketing: Yeah . New creativity . +Industrial Designer: I feel like I'm hiding behind the equipment , rather than the equipment is helping me , and you know . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere , the atmosphere is very relaxed , but the the gear +Project Manager: Yeah , but actual environment ? +Industrial Designer: yeah you know that creates boundaries to that um +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and and the time the time given also restricts {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Very good . Um what about leadership ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if that means like , if I did a good job or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't really know . +Marketing: Yeah , well well I mean my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction , encouragement {disfmarker} +Project Manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that , do you think maybe ? +Marketing: Yeah from {disfmarker} and you as well I think , just sort of acting as team leader . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um yeah I think I think it's +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me . +Marketing: I think it's good . I mean my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of um gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation , but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you know , innovative thought with . In in reality I think here the the different elements of leadership such as the the original b briefing and then the personal coach and the and then you know having having you with your {disfmarker} the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a {vocalsound} quite a con confining framework to work within . And so it is leadership almost to the point of sort of disempowering the the the team member , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . +Marketing: But it's not bad leadership , it's just sort of s fairly strong , you know . It turns it turns the individual into more of like a um sort of a predetermined mechanism , as opposed to a sort of a free {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , oh yeah , without without a doubt . +Industrial Designer: I think controlling is not the right word , I think the interactions are very structured . +Marketing: Yeah maybe not co confining . +Industrial Designer: I think structure is probably what you're saying that , each individual is structured to one particular task , and one parti rather than controlling . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I don't think there's a sense of control 'cause all the decisions have been made in terms of a , like a consensus right , we go around and we think about it , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that you know process actually says you have to do it in a certain way . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't tell you , you know , some ways that you might wanna be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know , not the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , uh what about teamwork ? +Marketing: Um did , you wanna comment Craig ? +User Interface: Uh , reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them , that would've been a lot easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate , +Marketing: Fully agree . +Industrial Designer: but um it just comes back to us so slow in the email +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: um it it doesn't have a , you know , a messenger will go {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did uh did you guys get the email I sent you ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's alright . +User Interface: Not just yet . +Project Manager: I was wondering if that got there okay . +Marketing: Yeah , got the email . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay , um so um to s to to summarize the teamwork issue , saying that if we could communicate outside the meeting , you know just like quick questions , quick thoughts , whatever , it probably would be bit easier . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the tools that they were given , the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they don't support collaboration , I think that's the word . +Marketing: Yeah , in it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: They don't support the team working together , you know , +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Oh right , okay . +Marketing: exactly . Yeah , I mean if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: they're still very individual tools . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean sort of taking upon that idea , w the way I see this i is that it's uh the the s the structure in which we've we've approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of um divided , and then the work went on in isolation +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I I don't know what you guys did while you were together , maybe that was a bit different , +Industrial Designer: We had Play-Doh fun {vocalsound} . +Marketing: but um yeah , but um but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said okay , first thing we have to do is come up with um let's say um a design concept , and we sit here together and do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: well that's what teamwork is . To s to say okay go off and don't talk to each other , it's actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Um not that we haven't done I think the best we could have done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'm not dissatisfied with it . +Project Manager: Right , uh anything else to say on teamwork at all ? +Industrial Designer: No , not really . +Project Manager: Okay , um what about the you know how we used the whiteboard , the digital pens , the projector , stuff like that ? Um did anybody think anything was like really useful , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: anything was pretty un f {vocalsound} unsupportive ? +Marketing: I think the whiteboard , for me , is the kind of thing I would use all the time , but it's um not quite as useful as to us as it could have been , maybe just in the way that we we use it , in the sense that once we have an idea out there or while work was going on in between meetings , that could have been up on a board uh you know as opposed to in like in text . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , and then we could then keep our ideas sort of building on that . I know that people who design cars and you know in aviation they quite often just have a simple like fibreglass prototype and it's completely you know um abs abstract from the final product , but they use it as a kind of a context to sort of walk around and puzzle and and point and discuss +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . And point at ? Yeah . +Marketing: and and and in a way everybody's {disfmarker} as we discuss things in the {disfmarker} in theoretically and out of our notebooks , we're just {disfmarker} we're actually just each of us discussing something that's in each of our own minds . It wasn't until we had this here , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craig's paper and I'm like , now I know what he's thinking 'cause I saw his book . +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: But the b the b whiteboard could've actually been this kind of continuing um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process woulda been a good idea ? +Marketing: Think could be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think um the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and I think that m um is also does you know hinder us and things I think . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know in the centre of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare , whereas I can imagine if I'd been encouraged to use Paintbrush , for example , or whatever , I would've actually used it , +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: um 'ca you know , just 'cause that's sorta how we {disfmarker} what we were set up to to use while we had our time . +Project Manager: Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that there were too many PowerPoints in the meetings {vocalsound} . 'Cause the plug-in and the plugging spent {disfmarker} we spent a lot of time doing that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints , I don't think , you know , we needed to actually {disfmarker} it could have , we could have gone through it {gap} verbally , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: No , not quite . +Industrial Designer: especially my slides , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I felt that they just you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: as opposed to having to present them . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What about the digital pens , did you find them easy enough to use ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep clunky . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure , yeah . +User Interface: Oh they're a bit clunky . +Industrial Designer: Agreed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Clunky , okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well , 'cause you're half way through a thought , and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I know , I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff , didn't click note on one , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page , but then did click note , and so I'm quite worried that I've just written over the top of it or something , +Marketing: Hmm . Hmm . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but they'll have my paper anyway um and haven't done that since . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive , everybody knows how to use it , we don't {gap} have to worry . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: Mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: So I think the pen's good . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's about the best thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And o on the topic of the technology , it just occurred to me that we actually didn't need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It just occurred to me that they all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah we only needed one computer and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We only actually needed one computer . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: If there had been a fifth , that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time . +User Interface: Good point . +Industrial Designer: And the computer may not um be conducive to a meeting because um you tend to look at your computer and wanna have the urge to check something , you know , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: it's useful but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I think too many computers are just distracting . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually , like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: um I don't know about anybody else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} what else uh any wh I do I'm not really sure what they're looking for when they say new ideas found . Um I don't know is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is this for the project or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: could you think of like anything else that would have been helpful today at all ? +Marketing: Well , the w main one for me is that uh the process na in a natural f context would not have been interrupted by this necessity to discommunicate ourselves from each other . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah if we just had uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , that's kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea , well you know it's kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you're told you must now work away from your team . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah I I dunno I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do , and you can spend a lot of time talking about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design , I thought there {disfmarker} maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but um {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I really thi i I think maybe if we'd like all been working in the one room , and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: just to have like something written down , just like you know a a milestone if you like um rather than having meetings , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: There you go . Um so in closing , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I haven't got my five minutes to go . Thin Oh there it i Five minutes to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wonderful . Okay um are the costs within the budget , yes they are . And is the project evaluated , yes it is . So now celebrate {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have Ninja Homer . +Marketing: So it {disfmarker} So now we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well apparently now I write the final report . What are you guys doing now ? +User Interface: Do we know what the other ones are ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: You dunno ? +User Interface: Oh wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: That is lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hey yeah , I said Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What did you call it ? +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . See it looks like Homer Simpson +Marketing: Huh , huh . +Industrial Designer: but it's electronic so it's made in Japan . +Project Manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything ? +Marketing: Logo . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's just a logo . +Project Manager: Just a logo and then like Ninja Homer , +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: right okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you wanna print on the side of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think it's quite nice . +Marketing: Fashion technology or something . +Industrial Designer: You can wear Homer , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: you can throw Homer when you're frustrated , doh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm , hmm , hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh no , that's cool , it's got {disfmarker} I'm kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's clunky . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm slightly gutted that we couldn't get plastic and rubber , I think that would have been nice . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah well , maybe from now on real reaction should give us more money . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I did learn something new , Play-Doh is useful . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: No it is it is . +Project Manager: Play-Doh s +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It is useful and in in in in in in in um conceptualizing , in being creative . +Marketing: Huh . Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause like you say , it's something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for . +Project Manager: Really ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like we were playing with the Play-Doh and the ideas came with the Play-Doh rather than with everything else . +Project Manager: Did they ? +Industrial Designer: You might wanna write that down . It's just , I'm just fiddling with the Play-Doh , and I'm going yeah yeah it's kinda cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Play-Doh . +Marketing: No , it's true , yeah . +User Interface: Guess I'd forgot how good s Play-Doh smells . +Project Manager: Yeah , it smells funny doesn't it . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . And some Play-Dohs are actually I think edible aren't they ? +Industrial Designer: No , all Play-Doh is edible . +Project Manager: Yeah like the stuff for {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think they're all non-toxic 'cause it's aimed for like two-year-olds . +Project Manager: I think it has to be , yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's just wheat , it's the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah um so to +Marketing: Wow , hmm . +Project Manager: wha what are your summarising words about Play-Doh ? +Industrial Designer: It's helpful to the creative process . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um it engages all your senses not just your sight , but your sense of feel your sense of touch . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And it helps you to understand +Marketing: Taste . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} dimension as well . I think that that's very helpful because it it starts to pop up , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: whereas on a piece of paper , on a computer , on a board , um even with a three D_ graphic thing it still , it requires a lot of +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yep . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not very tangible . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} tangible , that's a nice word . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Industrial Designer: It becomes tangible . +Marketing: mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Tangible . Okay uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . I don't know if there's anything else we needed to discuss . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: That that's about it really . Just sit still I guess for a little while . +Marketing: Do we retreat to our , to continue our +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably do it here as long as we don't collaborate . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: r reporting or what i +Project Manager: Well I dunno . Um I'm sure the little uh the little thing'll pop up any minute now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can we turn off the microphones ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah if the meeting's over then yeah I guess so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +The project team convened for their final detailed design meeting to make the last decisions on a remote control's design features, costs, and specifications before finalizing the design in a report. The snowman-shaped remote initially planned with kinetic and battery power, rubber buttons, and backlighting underwent changes due to cost constraints; it now featured a small basic LCD, a menu accessed through a scroll wheel and a confirmation button, without opening up for advanced functions hidden within the menu system. + +Cost evaluation revealed that implementing all desired features would exceed the set budget, so compromises were made, such as removing the LCD panel and advanced chip to cut costs. The team discussed dimensions, confirming a final height of around ten centimeters and resolving to reduce the depth to accommodate cost restraints. + +Consensus was reached on the prototype's capabilities and final cost adjustments, resulting in a simpler project while staying under budget. Throughout the meeting, team members also reflected on the effect of the structured process and tools on their creativity, leadership, teamwork, and idea generation, suggesting that a more open and less constrained environment would have been conducive to collaboration and creativity. They highlighted the benefits of using tangible materials like Play-Doh in the creative process. + +The meeting concluded with final evaluations and a brief discussion on the next steps, with the project manager set to write the final report." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Hi everybody and welcome to our kick-off meeting um for our new product that we're gonna be designing . Um I'm Mandy and I'm the Project Manager . And I know all your names again , Courtney , Fenella and Amber . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so first let's go through this PowerPoint . I wonder what button I press ? +User Interface: Just do it on the {gap} arrow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , or how about I just click ? Okay , here is our agenda for this meeting . Um we're gonna start with our opening which was our introductions . {vocalsound} We're gonna get to know each other a little bit better . Um tool training , we're going to , I guess , figure out what to do on this project with our individual roles . Um we're gonna make a project plan and then have some time for discussion and close up the meeting . Okay , here is our project . We're gonna make a new remote control that's um original , trendy and also user-friendly . And how we are going to do it is each of us is going to um {disfmarker} We're gonna have {disfmarker} discuss the functional design first , {vocalsound} how is it gonna be used , what's the actual goal here , it has to operate T_V_ , blah blah blah . And we're going to do individual work on that and then meet . Same thing with conceptual design . Just the basic overview of the project and then we're going to do individual work , meet . That's pretty much the the whole process for today . And then the detailed design , just more in-depth , get the actual schematics of the remote . Okay . Alright . First we're gonna start off by using our tools . And the whiteboard thing , do you guys wanna give that a try even though the ink wasn't working or do you wanna do it on here . +Industrial Designer: I think we should forgo the whiteboard since we can't actually see what we're writing . +Marketing: We could {disfmarker} Yeah , we could on here . +Project Manager: Alright , let's go forward then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right now so we're all gonna draw our favourite animal and then sum up our favourite characteristics of that animal . Even if you are not a good drawer like me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Artistic skills , nil . +User Interface: Fine . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Bless you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I draw like I'm in grade five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh do I . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay , about one more minute . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And who would like to start us off ? +Marketing: I'll go . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um this is my picture . I drew fish {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I like fish , because uh , you know , their whole water-vascular system thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's pretty cool , and um they've got a pretty good habitat and they are pretty sometimes , sometimes vicious but that's okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Only if they're piranhas . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , they they're easy , you know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants to go next ? +Industrial Designer: I'll go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I drew a kitty . It's pretty much impossible to tell that's a cat , but I love cats . +Marketing: No I I see it . +Project Manager: No , it looks like a cat . +User Interface: No , I kne I knew . +Marketing: Yeah , it does look like a cat . +Industrial Designer: I love cats because they're independent , uh they pretty much know what they want , they get it , they move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love cats , too . I'm a cat person . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I'm allergic to cats . +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I'm allergic to cats , too . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you're around one {disfmarker} +User Interface: In my next life . +Project Manager: I had a roommate who was um allergic , but if she was around my cat forever she became used to it , you know , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , if you're around them for a long period of time {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's weird . Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I still can't sleep with them in my room . +Marketing: Oh , yeah , this summer I , oh I had to live with cats . It was crazy . +Project Manager: Okay , Fenella ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , I drew a badger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Badger . Good choice . +Industrial Designer: Yay . +Marketing: Cool . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , yeah . +Project Manager: Why a badger ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh I dunno , they're grumpy and nocturnal and {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you trying to suggest something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , a little bit like the {disfmarker} Yes . Um . {vocalsound} And then , if you know Wind in the Willows {gap} badger . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah and then uh I don't know if you know Brian {gap} . He's Liverpudlian writer . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Um {gap} , that kind of books . Badgers are cool in that one too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And I'm last . 'Kay . Look at my sad sad giraffe . +Marketing: No , that's good . +Project Manager: No , no , no , it ends up looking like some kind of a dinosaur , but whatever . I don't know even much about giraffes , but I just love the way they look . They're just such odd creatures , you know . I I like that they're so unique and individual , I guess . I don't know much about their behaviour or anything , though . Only seen a couple in zoos . +Marketing: You don't really have to , I mean , if you like 'em {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you can appreciate the way they look . Okay . Alright . Guess we're getting straight back into business here . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um the selling price for our remote is going to be twenty-five Euro , and our profit aim is fifty million Euro . We're going to make this an international product marketed in the States , in Europe , in Asia . And um our production cost to make that profit is gonna be a max of twelve fifty Euro per remote . Okay . So we're gonna talk for a little while . Um here are some topics that we might be able to discuss . Expe our experiences with remote controls um , our first ideas about this new remote , anything that you can bring to the table for this project . So . +User Interface: Now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . You wanna start us off ? Anybody have anything to offer ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , we wanna make a multifunctional remote , right ? +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: One remote for everything . +User Interface: And everything being {disfmarker} Wait , we have what , sound system , T_V_ , D_V_D_ , V_H_S_ , uh TiVo ? +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Um . I think they'll be phasing V_H_S_ out shortly . +Marketing: Yeah , TiVo . +Project Manager: TiVo . +User Interface: But it's still there , so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: if po if we're gonna do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It needs to be compatible 'cause universal remote controls are never universal . +Project Manager: They're never universal . That's right . Esp e especially if you buy a a not big product , D_V_D_ player , say , usually it doesn't work if it's not one of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or if it's not like a Sony , if it's like a {disfmarker} I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Something from Sam's club . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to figure it how to cover all the different variances in signals . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what we need an insanely good instruction booklet , because you always have to reconfigure all your contraptions to go with the remote anyways . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Kay , and um another thing that I think is important is the d the design of the product , how it feels in your hand . If it's just flat and kind of boring th those don't {disfmarker} Nobody wants to buy those any more . They want the ergonomic ones . +Marketing: They want like the flashy lights . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh like this came from Las Vegas . +Project Manager: Ones that ones that look high-tech , too . +User Interface: But at the same time are simple . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: So that people like my mother can use it . +Industrial Designer: What about something with the curvature like that matches the curvature of a hand ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Anybody have any experiences with remote controls that they can remember that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just bad ones . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah {gap} . {vocalsound} That's true . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: What kinda battery would we want to use ? Because battery changing is usually {disfmarker} +User Interface: D Double A_ . +Marketing: Double A_ . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Do some of them use triple A_s though ? +Marketing: Yeah some use triple A_s . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Some but {disfmarker} +Marketing: So double or triple ? +User Interface: Yeah , I guess then it's {disfmarker} If we need to do triple A_ we can , but most people usually have double A_s around . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . But that has to do with the size of it too . Well , w as long as we know that issue is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Here we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , if we want it to be more thin , then we'd probably wanna go with a triple A_ . +Project Manager: Triple A . But +Industrial Designer: Can you {gap} with a small lithium battery ? +Project Manager: it's okay , we don't have to decide about it now , just as long as we remember battery type and size is important . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hey . Anything else ? Alright . Moving along . Oh , we're closing the meeting . Next meeting is gonna start in thirty minutes . Here's what we're going to do . Um the I_D_ , which is who ? Okay , you're going to think about the working design . What do you think that means ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And U_I_D_ , the technical fun functions design , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: making sure it does everything that we need the remote to do , the functionality of it , operating all those different things . Okay . And the marketing person , that's Courtney , is going to do the user requirements specification . I guess that means specifying um what exactly the user is going to be looking for . Right ? I would think so . Okay . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And you're gonna get more specific instructions emailed to you in just a little while . Okay , so does anybody have anything they wanna say before we close the meeting ? Okay . This meeting is officially over . +","Project Manager Mandy briefed the team on the agenda for the meeting, where the team will discuss roles, create a project plan, and discuss the design process for creating a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The team discussed bypassing the use of a malfunctioning whiteboard, opting instead to use alternative tools. To warm up, they each drew their favorite animals, sharing the traits they admire in those animals. The group then transitioned into discussing the project specifics: the remote's selling price (twenty-five Euro), the profit goal (fifty million Euro), its international market, and the production cost cap (twelve fifty Euro per remote). They covered initial ideas about the remote, emphasizing the need for multifunctionality, universal compatibility, ease of instruction, ergonomic design, and simplicity. Battery type and size were also noted as important considerations. The meeting concluded with the assignment of tasks related to working design (Industrial Designer), technical functions design (User Interface), and user requirements specification (Marketing). More specific instructions were to be emailed, and the next meeting was scheduled to start in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: OK we 're on and we seem to be working . +PhD C: Yes . +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: We didn't crash {disfmarker} we 're not crashing anymore +PhD C: One , two , three , four , f +Grad B: and it really bothers me . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: No crashing . +PhD G: I do . I crashed when I started this morning . +Grad B: You crashed {disfmarker} crashed this morning ? I did not crash this morning . +PhD C: Yeah ? +Professor A: Oh ! Well maybe it 's just , you know , how many t u u u u how many times you crash in a day . +PhD G: Really ? Yeah . Maybe , yeah . +Professor A: First time {disfmarker} first time in the day , you know . +PhD G: Or maybe it 's once you 've {pause} done enough meetings {comment} it won't crash on you anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: No ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's a matter of experience . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Self - learning , yeah . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's great . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Do we have an agenda ? Liz {disfmarker} Liz and Andreas can't sh can't {disfmarker} uh , can't come . +Grad B: I do . +Professor A: So , they won't be here . +Grad B: I have agenda and it 's all me . +PhD G: Did {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz no one sent me anything else . +PhD G: Did they send , uh , the messages to you about the meeting today ? +Grad B: I have no idea but I just got it a few minutes ago . +PhD G: Oh . +Grad B: Right when you were in my office it arrived . +PhD G: Oh . OK , cuz I checked my mail . I didn't have anything . +Grad B: So , does anyone have any a agenda items other than me ? I actually have one more also which is to talk about the digits . +Professor A: Uh , right , so {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I was just gonna talk briefly about the NSF ITR . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , great . +Professor A: Uh , and then , you have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Can w +Professor A: I mean , I won't say much , but {disfmarker} {comment} uh , but then , uh , you said {disfmarker} wanna talk about digits ? +Grad B: I have a short thing about digits and then uh I wanna talk a little bit about naming conventions , although it 's unclear whether this is the right place to talk about it . So maybe just talk about it very briefly and take the details to the people who {disfmarker} for whom it 's relevant . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I could always say something about transcription . I 've been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well if we {disfmarker} Yeah , we shouldn't add things in just to add things in . I 'm actually pretty busy today , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: so if we can {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor A: a short meeting would be fine . +Postdoc F: This does sound like we 're doing fine , yeah . That won't do . +Grad B: So the only thing I wanna say about digits is , we are pretty much done with the first test set . There are probably forms here and there that are marked as having been read that weren't really read . So I won't really know until I go through all the transcriber forms and extract out pieces that are in error . So I wa Uh . Two things . The first is what should we do about digits that were misread ? My opinion is , um , we should just throw them out completely , and have them read again by someone else . You know , the grouping is completely random , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: so it {disfmarker} it 's perfectly fine to put a {disfmarker} a group together again of errors and have them re - read , just to finish out the test set . +Postdoc F: Oh ! By {disfmarker} throw them out completely ? +Grad B: Um , the other thing you could do is change the transcript to match what they really said . So those are {disfmarker} those are the two options . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But there 's often things where people do false starts . I know I 've done it , where I say {disfmarker} say a {disfmarker} +Grad B: What the transcribers did with that is if they did a correction , and they eventually did read the right string , {comment} you extract the right string . +PhD G: Oh , you 're talking about where they completely read the wrong string and didn't correct it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . And didn't notice . Which happens in a few places . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , and s and you 're talking string - wise , you 're not talking about the entire page ? +Grad B: Correct . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I get it . +Grad B: And so the {disfmarker} the two options are change the transcript to match what they really said , but then {disfmarker} but then the transcript isn't the Aurora test set anymore . I don't think that really matters because the conditions are so different . And that would be a little easier . +PhD G: Well how many are {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how often does that happen ? +Grad B: Mmm , five or six times . +PhD G: Oh , so it 's not very much . +Grad B: No , it 's not much at all . +PhD G: Seems like we should just change the transcripts +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD G: to match . +Professor A: Yeah , it 's five or six times out of {pause} thousands ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Four thousand . +Professor A: Four thousand ? +PhD C: Four thous Ah ! Four thousand . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , I would , uh , {vocalsound} tak do the easy way , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's kinda nice {disfmarker} I mean , wh who knows what studies people will be doing on {disfmarker} on speaker - dependent things +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: and so I think having {disfmarker} having it all {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: the speakers who we had is {disfmarker} is at least interesting . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} um , how many digits have been transcribed now ? +Grad B: Four thousand lines . And each line is between one and about ten digits . +PhD G: Four thousand lines ? +Grad B: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't compute the average . I think the average was around four or five . +Professor A: So that 's a couple hours of {disfmarker} of , uh , speech , probably . +PhD G: Wow . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Professor A: Which is a yeah reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable test set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And , Jane , I do have a set of forms which I think you have copies of somewhere . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , true . +Grad B: Oh you do ? Oh OK , good , good . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , I was just wond I thought I had {disfmarker} had all of them back from you . And then the other thing is that , uh , the forms in front of us here that we 're gonna read later , were suggested by Liz +Postdoc F: No , not yet . +Grad B: because she wanted to elicit some different prosodics from digits . And so , uh , I just wanted people to , take a quick look at the instructions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Eight eight two two two nine . +Grad B: and the way it wa worked and see if it makes sense and if anyone has any comments on it . +Professor A: I see . And the decision here , uh , was to continue with uh the words rather than the {disfmarker} the numerics . +Grad B: Uh , yes , although we could switch it back . The problem was O and zero . Although we could switch it back and tell them always to say "" zero "" or always to say "" O "" . +Postdoc F: Oh {disfmarker} +Professor A: Or neither . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But it 's just two thing {disfmarker} ways that you can say it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right ? +Grad B: Sure . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} um , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: that 's the only thought I have because if you t start talking about these , you know u tr She 's trying to get at natural groupings , but it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing natural about reading numbers this way . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I mean if you saw a telephone number you would never see it this way . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the problem also is she did want to stick with digits . I mean I 'm speaking for her since she 's not here . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , um , the other problem we were thinking about is if you just put the numerals , {comment} they might say forty - three instead of four three . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , if there 's space , though , between them . I mean , you can {disfmarker} With {disfmarker} when you space them out they don't look like , uh , forty - three anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Well , she and I were talking about it , +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: and she felt that it 's very , very natural to do that sort of chunking . +Professor A: She 's right . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a different problem . I mean it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an interesting problem {disfmarker} I mean , we 've done stuff with numbers before , and yeah sometimes people {disfmarker} If you say s "" three nine eight one "" sometimes people will say "" thirty - nine eighty - one "" or "" three hundred {disfmarker} three hundred eighty - nine one "" , or {disfmarker} I don't think they 'd say that , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but th +Grad B: Not very frequently +Professor A: no {disfmarker} +Grad B: but , {vocalsound} they certainly could . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , th thirty - eight ninety - one is probably how they 'd do it . +Grad B: So . I mean , this is something that Liz and I spoke about +Professor A: But {disfmarker} I see . +Grad B: and , since this was something that Liz asked for specifically , I think we need to defer to her . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . Well , we 're probably gonna be collecting meetings for a while and if we decide we still wanna do some digits later we might be able to do some different ver different versions , +Grad B: Do something different , +Professor A: but this is the next suggestion , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor A: so . OK . OK , so uh e l I guess , let me , uh , get my {disfmarker} my short thing out about the NSF . I sent this {disfmarker} actually this is maybe a little side thing . Um , I {disfmarker} I sent to what I thought we had , uh , in some previous mail , as the right joint thing to send to , which was "" M {disfmarker} MTG RCDR hyphen joint "" . +Grad B: It was . Joint . Yep . +Professor A: But then I got some sort of funny mail saying that the moderator was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's {disfmarker} That 's because they set the one up at UW {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: +Grad B: that 's not on our side , that 's on the U - dub {comment} side . +Professor A: Oh . +Grad B: And so U - UW set it up as a moderated list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: And , I have no idea whether it actually ever goes to anyone so you might just wanna mail to Mari +Professor A: No {disfmarker} no , th I got {disfmarker} I got , uh , little excited notes from Mari and Jeff and so on , +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , good . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: So the moderator actually did repost it . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Cuz I had sent one earlier {disfmarker} Actually the same thing happened to me {disfmarker} I had sent one earlier . The message says , "" You 'll be informed "" and then I was never informed but I got replies from people indicating that they had gotten it , so . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: It 's just to prevent spam . +Professor A: I see . Yeah so O {disfmarker} OK . Well , anyway , I guess {disfmarker} everybody here {disfmarker} Are y are {disfmarker} you are on that list , right ? So you got the note ? +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah ? OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , so this was , uh , a , uh , proposal that we put in before on {disfmarker} on more {disfmarker} more higher level , uh , issues in meetings , from {disfmarker} I guess higher level from my point of view . Uh , {vocalsound} and , uh , meeting mappings , and , uh {disfmarker} so is i for {disfmarker} it was a {vocalsound} proposal for the ITR program , uh , Information Technology Research program 's part of National Science Foundation . It 's the {pause} second year of their doing , uh , these grants . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} a lot of them are {disfmarker} some of them anyway , are larger {disfmarker} larger grants than the usual , small NSF grants , and . So , they 're very competitive , and they have a first phase where you put in pre - proposals , and we {disfmarker} we , uh , got through that . And so th the {disfmarker} the next phase will be {disfmarker} we 'll actually be doing a larger proposal . And I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope to be doing very little of it . And {disfmarker} uh , {vocalsound} which was also true for the pre - proposal , so . Uh , there 'll be bunch of people working on it . So . +Grad B: When 's {disfmarker} when 's the full proposal due ? +Professor A: Uh , I think April ninth , or something . So it 's about a month . +PhD E: p s +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . And they said end of business day you could check on the reviewer forms , +PhD G: u +Grad B: is that {disfmarker} +PhD G: Tomorrow . +Professor A: Tomorrow . March second , I said . +PhD E: Tomorrow ? +Grad B: I 've been a day off all week . +PhD C: Tomorrow . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: I guess that 's a good thing cuz that way I got my papers done early . +PhD G: It would be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that 's amazing you showed up at this meeting ! +Grad B: It is . It is actually quite amazing . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: It 'll be interesting to see the reviewer 's comments . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . My favorite is was when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when one reviewer says , uh , "" you know , this should be far more detailed "" , and the nex the next reviewer says , "" you know , there 's way too much detail "" . +Grad B: Yep . Or "" this is way too general "" , and the other reviewer says , "" this is way too specific "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: "" This is way too hard "" , "" way too easy "" . +Professor A: We 'll see . Maybe there 'll be something useful . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well it sounded like they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the first gate was pretty easy . Is that right ? That they didn't reject a lot of the pre - proposals ? +Professor A: Do you know anything about the numbers ? +Grad B: No . Just {disfmarker} just th +PhD G: It 's just from his message it sounded like that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I said something , yeah . +PhD G: Gary Strong 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: I +PhD G: there was a sentence at the end of one of his paragraphs +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: I should go back and look . I didn't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's true . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Mmm . He said the next phase 'll be very , competitive +PhD E: Very {disfmarker} very , +PhD G: because we didn't want to weed out much in the first phase . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Well we 'll have to see what the numbers are . +Grad B: Or something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . But they {disfmarker} they have to weed out enough so that they have enough reviewers . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: So , uh , you know , maybe they didn't r weed out as much as usual , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's usually a pretty {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly not {disfmarker} I 'm sure that it 's not down to one in two or something of what 's left . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I 'm sure it 's , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: How {disfmarker} how many awards are there , do you know ? +Professor A: Well there 's different numbers of w awards for different size {disfmarker} They have three size grants . This one there 's , um {disfmarker} See the small ones are less than five hundred thousand total over three years and that they have a fair number of them . Um , and the large ones are , uh , boy , I forget , I think , more than , uh , more than a million and a half , more than two million or something like that . And {disfmarker} and we 're in the middle {disfmarker} middle category . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think we 're , uh , uh , I forget what it was . But , um {disfmarker} Uh , I don't remember , but it 's {pause} pr probably along the li I {disfmarker} I could be wrong on this yeah , but probably along the lines of fifteen or {disfmarker} that they 'll fund , or twenty . I mean when they {disfmarker} Do you {disfmarker} do you know how many they funded when they f in {disfmarker} in Chuck 's , that he got last year ? +PhD G: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: I thought it was smaller , that it was like four or five , wasn't it ? +Professor A: Well they fund {disfmarker} +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't remember . +Professor A: yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh it doesn't matter , we 'll find out one way or another . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean last time I think they just had two categories , small and big , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and this time they came up with a middle one , so it 'll {disfmarker} there 'll be more of them that they fund than {disfmarker} of the big . +PhD G: If we end up getting this , um , what will it mean to ICSI in terms of , w wh where will the money go to , what would we be doing with it ? +Professor A: Uh . +Grad B: Exactly what we say in the proposal . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I mean uh which part is ICSI though . +Professor A: You know , it {disfmarker} i None of it will go for those yachts that we 've talking about . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} Dang ! +Professor A: Um , well , no , I mean it 's {disfmarker} u It {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's just for the research {disfmarker} to continue the research on the Meeting Recorder stuff ? +Professor A: It 's extending the research , right ? Because the other {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah it 's go higher level stuff than we 've been talking about for Meeting Recorder . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah the other things that we have , uh , been working on with , uh , the c with Communicator {disfmarker} uh , especially with the newer things {disfmarker} with the more acoustically - oriented things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are lower level . And , this is dealing with , uh , mapping on the level of {disfmarker} of , um , the conversation {disfmarker} of mapping the conversations +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Professor A: to different kind of planes . So . Um . But , um . So it 's all it 's all stuff that none none of us are doing right now , or none of us are funded for , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it would be new . +PhD G: So assuming everybody 's completely busy now , it means we 're gonna hafta , hire more students , or , something ? +Professor A: Well there 's evenings , and there 's weekends , and {disfmarker} Uh . Yeah , there {disfmarker} there would be {disfmarker} there would be new hires , and {disfmarker} and there {disfmarker} there would be expansion , but , also , there 's always {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for everybody there 's {disfmarker} there 's always things that are dropping off , grants that are ending , or other things that are ending , so , +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {vocalsound} continual need to {disfmarker} to bring in new things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but there definitely would be new {disfmarker} new {disfmarker} new , uh , students , +PhD G: I see . +Professor A: and so forth , both at {disfmarker} at UW and here . +Grad B: Are there any students in your class who are {vocalsound} expressing interest ? +Professor A: Um , not {pause} clear yet . Not clear yet . +Grad B: Other than the one who 's already here . +Professor A: I mean we got {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} yeah , two of them are {disfmarker} two in the c There 're {pause} two in the class already here , and then {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , then there 's a third who 's doing a project here , who , uh {disfmarker} But he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't be in the country that long , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and , maybe another will end up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor A: Actually there is one other guy who 's looking {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's that guy , uh , Jeremy ? {comment} I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Anyway , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's all I was gonna say is that {disfmarker} that that 's {disfmarker} you know , that 's nice and we 're sorta preceding to the next step , and , {vocalsound} it 'll mean some more work , uh , you know , in {disfmarker} in March in getting the proposal out , and then , it 's , uh , you know {disfmarker} We 'll see what happens . Uh , the last one was {disfmarker} that you had there , {comment} was about naming ? +Grad B: Yep . It just , uh {disfmarker} we 've been cutting up sound files , in {disfmarker} for ba both digits and for , uh , doing recognition . And Liz had some suggestions on naming and it just brought up the whole issue that hasn't really been resolved about naming . So , uh , one thing she would like to have is for all the names to be the same length so that sorting is easier . Um , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: same number of characters so that when you 're sorting filenames you can easily extract out bits and pieces that you want . And that 's easy enough to do . And I don't think we have so many meetings that that 's a big deal just to change the names . So that means , uh , instead of calling it "" MR one "" , "" MR two "" , you 'd call it "" MRM zero zero one "" , "" MRM zero zero two "" , things like that . Just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're all the same length . +Postdoc F: But , you know , when you , do things like that you can always {disfmarker} as long as you have {disfmarker} uh , you can always search from the beginning or the end of the string . +Grad B: The problem is that they 're a lot of fields . +Postdoc F: You know , so "" zero zero two "" {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad B: so we {disfmarker} we have th we 're gonna have the speaker ID , the session , uh {disfmarker} uh , information on the microphones , +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , your example was really {disfmarker} +Grad B: information on the speak on the channels and all that . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: i +Grad B: And so if each one of those is a fixed length , the sorting becomes a lot easier . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad D: She wanted to keep them {vocalsound} the same lengths across different meetings also . So like , the NSA meeting lengths , {comment} all filenames are gonna be the same length as the Meeting Recorder meeting names ? +Grad B: Yep . And as I said , the it 's {disfmarker} we just don't have that many that that 's a big deal . +PhD G: Cuz of digits . +Grad B: And so , uh , um , at some point we have to sort of take a few days off , let the transcribers have a few days off , make sure no one 's touching the data and reorganize the file structures . And when we do that we can also rationalize some of the naming . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I would think though that the transcribe {disfmarker} the transcripts themselves wouldn't need to have such lengthy names . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc F: So , I mean , you 're dealing with a different domain there , and with start and end times and all that , and channels and stuff , +Grad B: Right . So the only thing that would change with that is just the directory names , +Postdoc F: so , it 's a different {pause} set . +Grad B: I would change them to match . So instead of being MR one it would be MRM zero zero one . But I don't think that 's a big deal . +Postdoc F: Fine . Fine . +Grad B: So for {disfmarker} for m the meetings we were thinking about three letters and three numbers for meeting I Ds . Uh , for speakers , M or F and then three numbers , For , uh {disfmarker} and , uh , that also brings up the point that we have to start assembling a speaker database so that we get those links back and forth and keep it consistent . Um , and then , uh , the microphone issues . We want some way of specifying , more than looking in the "" key "" file , what channel and what mike . What channel , what mike , and what broadcaster . Or {disfmarker} I don't know how to s say it . So I mean with this one it 's this particular headset with this particular transmitter w {pause} as a wireless . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad B: And you know that one is a different headset and different channel . And so we just need some naming conventions on that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , uh , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: that 's gonna become especially important once we start changing the microphone set - up . We have some new microphones that I 'd like to start trying out , um , once I test them . And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll need to specify that somewhere . So I was just gonna do a fixed list of , uh , microphones and types . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So , as I said {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: That sounds good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , {pause} {vocalsound} since we have such a short agenda list I guess I wi I will ask how {disfmarker} how are the transcriptions going ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the news is that I 've {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} s So {disfmarker} in s um {disfmarker} So I 've switched to {disfmarker} Start my new sentence . I {disfmarker} I switched to doing the channel - by - channel transcriptions to provide , uh , the {disfmarker} uh , tighter time bins for {disfmarker} partly for use in Thilo 's work and also it 's of relevance to other people in the project . And , um , I discovered in the process a couple of {disfmarker} of interesting things , which , um , one of them is that , um , it seems that there are time lags involved in doing this , uh , uh , using an interface that has so much more complexity to it . And I {disfmarker} and I wanted to maybe ask , uh , Chuck to help me with some of the questions of efficiency . Maybe {disfmarker} I was thinking maybe the best way to do this in the long run may be to give them single channel parts and then piece them together later . And I {disfmarker} I have a script , I can piece them together . I mean , so it 's like , I {disfmarker} I know that I can take them apart and put them together and I 'll end up with the representation which is where the real power of that interface is . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And it may be that it 's faster to transcribe a channel at a time with only one , uh , sound file and one , uh , set of {disfmarker} of , uh , utterances to check through . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: I 'm a little confused . I thought that {disfmarker} that one of the reason we thought we were so much faster than {disfmarker} than , uh , the {disfmarker} the other transcription , uh , thing was that {disfmarker} that we were using the mixed {pause} file . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . OK . But , um , with the mixed , when you have an overlap , you only have a {disfmarker} a choice of one start and end time for that entire overlap , which means that you 're not tightly , uh , tuning the individual parts th of that overlap by different speakers . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Postdoc F: So someone may have only said two words in that entire big chunk of overlap . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And for purposes of {disfmarker} of , uh , things like {disfmarker} well , so things like training the speech - nonspeech segmentation thing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Th - it 's necessary to have it more tightly tuned than that . +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc F: And w and w and , you know , is a It would be wonderful if , uh , it 's possible then to use that algorithm to more tightly tie in all the channels after that but , um , you know , I 've {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} So , I I don't know exactly where that 's going at this point . But m I was experimenting with doing this by hand and I really do think that it 's wise that we 've had them start the way we have with , uh , m y working off the mixed signal , um , having the interface that doesn't require them to do the ti uh , the time bins for every single channel at a t uh , through the entire interaction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Um , I did discover a couple other things by doing this though , and one of them is that , um , um , once in a while a backchannel will be overlooked by the transcriber . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: As you might expect , +Professor A: Sure . +Postdoc F: because when it 's a b backchannel could well happen in a very densely populated overlap . And if we 're gonna study types of overlaps , which is what I wanna do , an analysis of that , then that really does require listening {comment} to every single channel all the way through the entire {comment} length for all the different speakers . Now , for only four speakers , that 's not gonna be too much time , but if it 's nine speakers , then that i that is more time . So it 's li you know , kind of wondering {disfmarker} And I think again it 's like this {disfmarker} it 's really valuable that Thilo 's working on the speech - nonspeech segmentation because maybe , um , we can close in on that wi without having to actually go to the time that it would take to listen to every single channel from start to finish through every single meeting . +PhD E: Yeah , but those backchannels will always be a problem I think . Uh especially if they 're really short and they 're not very loud and so it {disfmarker} it can {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it will always happen that also the automatic s detection system will miss some of them , so . +Postdoc F: OK . Well so then {disfmarker} then , maybe the answer is to , uh , listen especially densely in places of overlap , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're not being overlooked because of that , and count on accuracy during the sparser phases . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Cuz there are large s spaces of the {disfmarker} That 's a good point . There are large spaces where there 's no overlap at all . Someone 's giving a presentation , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: or whatever . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} that 's a good thought . And , um , let 's see , there was one other thing I was gonna say . I {disfmarker} I think it 's really interesting data to work with , I have to say , it 's very enjoyable . I really , not {disfmarker} not a problem spending time with these data . Really interesting . And not just because I 'm in there . No , it 's real interesting . +Professor A: Uh , well I think it 's a short meeting . Uh , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're still in the midst of what you 're doing from what you described last time , I assume , +PhD C: Is true . +Postdoc F: +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: I haven't results , eh , yet +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: but , eh , I {disfmarker} I 'm continue working with the mixed signal now , {comment} after the {disfmarker} the last experience . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and I 'm tried to {disfmarker} to , uh , adjust the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to improve , eh , an harmonicity , eh , detector that , eh , I {disfmarker} I implement . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: But I have problem because , eh , I get , eh , eh , very much harmonics now . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , harmonic {disfmarker} possi possible harmonics , uh , eh , and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} to find , eh , some kind of a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of h of help , eh , using the energy to {disfmarker} to distinguish between possible harmonics , and {disfmarker} and other fre frequency peaks , that , eh , corres not harmonics . And , eh , I have to {disfmarker} to talk with y with you , with the group , eh , about the instantaneous frequency , because I have , eh , an algorithm , and , I get , mmm , eh , t t results {disfmarker} similar results , like , eh , the paper , eh , that I {disfmarker} I am following . But , eh , the {disfmarker} the rules , eh , that , eh , people used in the paper to {disfmarker} to distinguish the harmonics , is {disfmarker} doesn't work well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure that i {vocalsound} eh , the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} o to {disfmarker} ob the way to obtain the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency is {pause} right , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's not right . Eh , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I haven't enough file feeling to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to distinguish what happened . +Professor A: Yeah , I 'd like to talk with you about it . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} If I don't have enough time and y you wanna discuss with someone else {disfmarker} some someone else besides us that you might want to talk to , uh , might be Stephane . +PhD C: Yeah . I talked with Stephane and {disfmarker} and Thilo +Professor A: Yeah and {disfmarker} and Thilo , yeah . +PhD C: and , +Professor A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD C: they {disfmarker} nnn they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {comment} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {vocalsound} didn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 'm not too experienced with {vocalsound} harmonics +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: they think that {comment} the experience is not enough to {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Is {disfmarker} is this the algorithm where you hypothesize a fundamental , and then get the energy for all the harmonics of that fundamental ? +PhD C: No , no it 's {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD G: And then hypothesize a new fundamental and get the energy {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , that 's wh +PhD C: No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't proth process the {disfmarker} the fundamental . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I , ehm {disfmarker} I calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate using the FFT . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} The algorithm said that , eh , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} if you change the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , eh , nnn {disfmarker} the X - the frequency "" X "" , eh , using the in the instantaneous frequency , you can find , eh , how , eh , in several frequencies that proba probably the {disfmarker} the harmonics , eh , +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: the errors of peaks {disfmarker} the frequency peaks , eh , eh , move around {pause} these , eh {disfmarker} eh frequency harmonic {disfmarker} the frequency of the harmonic . And , {vocalsound} eh , if you {disfmarker} if you compare the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , {vocalsound} eh , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the , eh , continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh , filters , that , eh {disfmarker} that , eh , they used eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it probably too , you can find , {vocalsound} eh , that the instantaneous frequency {vocalsound} for the continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} the output of the continuous filters are very near . And in {pause} my case {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} equal with our signal , {vocalsound} it doesn't happened . +Professor A: Yeah . I 'd hafta look at that and think about it . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I haven't worked with that either so I 'm not sure {disfmarker} The way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the simple - minded way I suggested was what Chuck was just saying , is that you could make a {disfmarker} a sieve . You know , y you actually say that here is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's hypothesize that it 's this frequency or that frequency , and {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe you {disfmarker} maybe you could use some other cute methods to , uh , short cut it by {disfmarker} by uh , making some guesses , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , I would , uh {disfmarker} I mean you could make some guesses from , uh {disfmarker} from the auto - correlation or something but {disfmarker} but then , given those guesses , try , um , uh , only looking at the energy at multiples of the {disfmarker} of that frequency , and {disfmarker} and see how much of the {disfmarker} take the one that 's maximum . Call that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Using the energy of the {disfmarker} of the multiple of the frequency . +Professor A: Of all the harmonics of that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Do you hafta do some kind of , uh , low - pass filter before you do that ? +PhD C: I don't use . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: But , I {disfmarker} I know many people use , eh , low - pass filter to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the pitch . +Professor A: No . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD C: I don't use . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD E: To get the pitch , yeah . +PhD C: But the harmonic , no . +PhD G: But i But the harmonics are gonna be , uh , uh , I don't know what the right word is . Um , they 're gonna be dampened by the uh , vocal tract , right ? The response of the vocal tract . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Yeah ? +PhD G: And so {disfmarker} just looking at the energy on those {disfmarker} at the harmonics , is that gonna {disfmarker} ? +Professor A: Well so the thing is that the {disfmarker} This is for , uh , a , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: I m what you 'd like to do is get rid of the effect of the vocal tract . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And just look at the {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the signal coming out of the glottis . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh , well , yeah that 'd be good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But , uh {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I don't know that you need to {disfmarker} +Grad B: Open wide ! +Professor A: but I don't need you {disfmarker} know if you need to get rid of it . I mean that 'd {disfmarker} that 'd be nice but I don't know if it 's ess if it 's essential . Um , I mean {disfmarker} cuz I think the main thing is that , uh , you 're trying {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - huh . +Professor A: wha what are you doing this for ? You 're trying distinguish between the case where there is , uh {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there are more than {disfmarker} uh , where there 's more than one speaker and the case where there 's only one speaker . +Grad B: Sorry . +Professor A: So if there 's more than one speaker , um {disfmarker} yeah I guess you could {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} yeah you 're {disfmarker} so you 're not distinguished between voiced and unvoiced , so {disfmarker} so , i if you don't {disfmarker} if you don't care about that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: See , if you also wanna {vocalsound} just determine {disfmarker} if you also wanna determine whether it 's unvoiced , {vocalsound} then I think you want to {pause} look {disfmarker} look at high frequencies also , because the f the fact that there 's more energy in the high frequencies is gonna be an ob sort of obvious cue that it 's unvoiced . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: But , i i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean i i but , um , other than that I guess as far as the one person versus two persons , it would be {pause} primarily a low frequency phenomenon . And if you looked at the low frequencies , yes the higher frequencies are gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a spectral slope . The higher frequencies will be lower energy . But so what . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's w +PhD C: I will prepare for the next week eh , all my results about the harmonicity and {pause} will {disfmarker} will try to come in and to discuss here , because , eh , I haven't enough feeling to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to u {vocalsound} many time to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to understand what happened with the {disfmarker} with , eh , so many peaks , eh , eh , and {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I see the harmonics there many time but , eh , {vocalsound} there are a lot of peaks , eh , that , eh , they are not harmonics . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , I have to discover what {disfmarker} what is the {disfmarker} the w the best way to {disfmarker} to {comment} {disfmarker} to {comment} c to use them +Professor A: Well , but {disfmarker} yeah I don't think you can {disfmarker} I mean you 're not gonna be able to look at every frame , so I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I really {disfmarker} I I really thought that the best way to do it , and I 'm speaking with no experience on this particular point , but , {vocalsound} my impression was that the best way to do it was however you {disfmarker} You 've used instantaneous frequency , whatever . {comment} However you 've come up {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} with your candidates , you wanna see how much of the energy is in that +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: as coppo as opposed to all of the {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} the total energy . And , um , if it 's voiced , I guess {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so y I think maybe you do need a voiced - unvoiced determination too . But if it 's voiced , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: um , and the , uh {disfmarker} e the fraction of the energy that 's in the harmonic sequence that you 're looking at is relatively low , then it should be {disfmarker} then it 's more likely to be an overlap . +PhD C: Is height . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is the idea {disfmarker} the idea I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had to {disfmarker} to compare the {disfmarker} the ratio of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the energy of the harmonics with the {disfmarker} eh , with the , eh , total energy in the spectrum and try to get a ratio to {disfmarker} to distinguish between overlapping and speech . Mmm . +Professor A: But you 're looking a y you 're looking at {disfmarker} Let 's take a second with this . Uh , uh , you 're looking at f at the phase derivative , um , in {disfmarker} in , uh , what domain ? I mean this is {disfmarker} this is in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in bands ? Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , no , no . +Professor A: Just {disfmarker} just overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} o i w the band {disfmarker} the band is , eh , from zero to {disfmarker} to four kilohertz . And I {disfmarker} I ot I {disfmarker} +Professor A: And you just take the instantaneous frequency ? +PhD C: Yeah . I u m t I {disfmarker} I used two m two method {disfmarker} two methods . Eh , one , eh , based on the F {disfmarker} eh , FTT . to FFT to {disfmarker} to obtain the {disfmarker} or to study the harmonics from {disfmarker} from the spectrum directly , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and to study the energy and the multiples of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: frequency . And another {disfmarker} another algorithm I have is the {disfmarker} in the {pause} instantaneous frequency , based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the FFT to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate in the time . Eh , uh n the d I mean I {disfmarker} I have two {disfmarker} two algorithms . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: But , eh , in m {pause} i in my opinion the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the behavior , eh , was {disfmarker} th it was very interesting . Because I {disfmarker} I saw {vocalsound} eh , how the spectrum {pause} concentrate , eh , +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD C: around the {disfmarker} the harmonic . But then when I apply the {disfmarker} the rule , eh , of the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {pause} the instantaneous frequency of the ne of the continuous filter in the {disfmarker} the near filter , the {disfmarker} the rule that , eh , people propose in the paper doesn't work . And I don't know why . +Professor A: But the instantaneous frequency , wouldn't that give you something more like the central frequency of the {disfmarker} you know , of the {disfmarker} where most of the energy is ? I mean , I think if you {disfmarker} Does i does it {disfmarker} Why would it correspond to pitch ? +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: When {vocalsound} first I {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} I calculate , eh , using the FFT , +Postdoc F: Di - digital camera . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Keep forgetting . +PhD C: I get the {disfmarker} {pause} the spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and I represent all the frequency . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} when ou I obtained the instantaneous frequency . And I change {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the @ @ , using the instantaneous frequency , here . +Professor A: Oh , so you scale {disfmarker} you s you do a {disfmarker} a scaling along that axis according to instantaneous {disfmarker} +PhD C: I use {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: It 's a kinda normalization . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Because when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: eh , when i I {disfmarker} I use these {disfmarker} these frequency , eh , the range is different , and the resolution is different . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And I observe more {disfmarker} more or less , thing like this . And the paper said that , eh , these frequencies are probably , eh , harmonics . +Professor A: I see . Huh . +PhD C: But , eh , they used , eh , a rule , eh , based in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} because to {disfmarker} to calculate the instantaneous frequency , they use a Hanning window . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And , they said that , eh , if {pause} these {pause} peak are , eh , harmonics , the f instantaneous frequency , of the contiguous , eh {disfmarker} w eh eh , filters are very near , or have to be very near . But , eh , phh ! I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don I I {disfmarker} and I don't know what is the {disfmarker} what is the distance . And I tried to {disfmarker} to put different distance , eh , to put difference , eh {disfmarker} eh , length of the window , eh , different front sieve , Pfff ! and I {disfmarker} I not sure what happened . +Professor A: OK , yeah well I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm not following it enough . I 'll {comment} probably gonna hafta look at the paper , but {disfmarker} which I 'm not gonna have time to do in the next few days , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm curious about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , uh , OK . +Postdoc F: I I did i it did occur to me that this is {disfmarker} uh , the return to the transcription , that there 's one third thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to ex raise as a to as an issue which is , um , how to handle breaths . So , I wanted to raise the question of whether people in speech recognition want to know where the breaths are . And the reason I ask the question is , um , aside from the fact that they 're obviously very time - consuming to encode , uh , the fact that there was some {disfmarker} I had the indication from Dan Ellis in the email that I sent to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and you know about , that in principle we might be able to , um , handle breaths by accessi by using cross - talk from the other things , be able that {disfmarker} in principle , maybe we could get rid of them , so maybe {disfmarker} And I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , I mean we had this an and I didn't {disfmarker} couldn't get back to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but the question of whether it 'd be possible to eliminate them from the audio signal , which would be the ideal situation , +Professor A: I don't know {disfmarker} think it 'd be ideal . +Postdoc F: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - uh . +Professor A: We - See , we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with real speech and we 're trying to have it be as real as possible +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: and breaths are part of real speech . +Postdoc F: Well , except that these are really truly {disfmarker} I mean , ther there 's a segment in o the one I did {disfmarker} n the first one that I did for {disfmarker} i for this , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: where truly w we 're hearing you breathing like {disfmarker} as if we 're {disfmarker} you 're in our ear , you know , and it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I y i I mean , breath is natural , but not +Professor A: It is {disfmarker} but it is if you record it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Except that we 're {disfmarker} we 're trying to mimic {disfmarker} Oh , I see what you 're saying . You 're saying that the PDA application would have {disfmarker} uh , have to cope with breath . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Well +PhD E: No . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: An - any application may have to . +Grad B: The P D A might not have to , +PhD E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad B: but more people than just PDA users are interested in this corpus . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so mean you 're right +Postdoc F: OK , then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} I have two questions . +Grad B: we could remove it , +Postdoc F: Yeah ? +Grad B: but I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} we don't wanna w remove it from the corpus , {pause} in terms of delivering it because the {disfmarker} people will want it in there . +Professor A: Yeah . If it gets {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , so maybe the question is notating it . Yeah ? +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} i Right . If {disfmarker} if it gets in the way of what somebody is doing with it then you might wanna have some method which will allow you to block it , but you {disfmarker} it 's real data . You don't wanna b but you don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: If s you know , if there 's a little bit of noise out there , and somebody is {disfmarker} is talking about something they 're doing , that 's part of what we accept as part of a real meeting , even {disfmarker} And we have the f uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fan and the {disfmarker} in the projector up there , and , uh , this is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is actual stuff that we {disfmarker} we wanna work with . +Postdoc F: Well this is in very interesting +Professor A: So . +Postdoc F: because i it basically has a i it shows very clearly the contrast between , uh , speech recognition research and discourse research because in {disfmarker} in discourse and linguistic research , what counts is what 's communit communicative . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} breath , you know , everyone breathes , they breathe all the time . And once in a while breath is communicative , but r very rarely . OK , so now , I had a discussion with Chuck about the data structure +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and the idea is that the transcripts will {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} get stored as a master there 'll be a master transcript which has in it everything that 's needed for both of these uses . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And the one that 's used for speech recognition will be processed via scripts . You know , like , Don 's been writing scripts +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} and , uh , to process it for the speech recognition side . Discourse side will {vocalsound} have this {disfmarker} this side over he the {disfmarker} we we 'll have a s ch Sorry , not being very fluent here . But , um , this {disfmarker} the discourse side will have a script which will stri strip away the things which are non - communicative . OK . So then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's think about the practicalities of how we get to that master copy with reference to breaths . So what I would {disfmarker} r r what I would wonder is would it be possible to encode those automatically ? Could we get a breath detector ? +Grad B: Oh , just to save the transcribers time . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you just have no idea . I mean , if you 're getting a breath several times every minute , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and just simply the keystrokes it takes to negotiate , to put the boundaries in , to {disfmarker} to type it in , i it 's just a huge amount of time . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oops . +Professor A: Wh - what {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And you wanna be sure it 's used , and you wanna be sure it 's done as efficiently as possible , and if it can be done automatically , that would be ideal . +Professor A: what if you put it in but didn't put the boundaries ? +Postdoc F: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor A: So you just know it 's between these other things , +Postdoc F: Well , OK . So now there 's {disfmarker} there 's another {disfmarker} another possibility +Professor A: right ? +Postdoc F: which is , um , the time boundaries could mark off words {comment} from nonwords . And that would be extremely time - effective , if that 's sufficient . +Professor A: Yeah I mean I 'm think if it 's too {disfmarker} if it 's too hard for us to annotate the breaths per se , {vocalsound} we are gonna be building up models for these things and these things are somewhat self - aligning , so if {disfmarker} so , {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} i i if we say there is some kind of a thing which we call a "" breath "" or a "" breath - in "" or "" breath - out "" , {vocalsound} the models will learn that sort of thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} but you do want them to point them at some region where {disfmarker} where the breaths really are . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . But that would maybe include a pause as well , +PhD G: Well , there 's a there 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and that wouldn't be a problem to have it , uh , pause plus breath plus laugh plus sneeze ? +Professor A: Yeah , i You know there is {disfmarker} there 's this dynamic tension between {disfmarker} between marking absolutely everything , as you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and marking just a little bit and counting on the statistical methods . Basically the more we can mark the better . But if there seems to be a lot of effort for a small amount of reward in some area , and this might be one like this {disfmarker} Although I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd be interested to h get {disfmarker} get input from Liz and Andreas on this to see if they {disfmarker} Cuz they 've - they 've got lots of experience with the breaths in {disfmarker} in , uh , uh , their transcripts . +Grad B: They have lots of experience with breathing ? +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: Actually {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} yes they do , but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can handle that without them here . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , you were gonna say something about {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think , um , one possible way that we could handle it is that , um , you know , as the transcribers are going through , and if they get a hunk of speech that they 're gonna transcribe , u th they 're gonna transcribe it because there 's words in there or whatnot . If there 's a breath in there , they could transcribe that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's what they 've been doing . So , within an overlap segment , they {disfmarker} they do this . +PhD G: Right . But {disfmarker} Right . But if there 's a big hunk of speech , let 's say on Morgan 's mike where he 's not talking at all , um , don't {disfmarker} don't worry about that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So what we 're saying is , there 's no guarantee that , um {disfmarker} So for the chunks that are transcribed , everything 's transcribed . But outside of those boundaries , there could have been stuff that wasn't transcribed . So you just {disfmarker} somebody can't rely on that data and say "" that 's perfectly clean data "" . Uh {disfmarker} do you see what I 'm saying ? +Postdoc F: Yeah , you 're saying it 's {disfmarker} uncharted territory . +PhD G: So I would say don't tell them to transcribe anything that 's outside of a grouping of words . +Professor A: That sounds like a reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable compromise . +PhD E: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that quite co corresponds to the way I {disfmarker} I try to train the speech - nonspeech detector , as I really try to {disfmarker} not to detect those breaths which are not within a speech chunk but with {disfmarker} which are just in {disfmarker} in a silence region . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And they {disfmarker} so they hopefully won't be marked in {disfmarker} in those channel - specific files . +Professor A: u I {disfmarker} I wanted to comment a little more just for clarification about this business about the different purposes . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: See , in a {disfmarker} in a way this is a really key point , that for speech recognition , uh , research , uh , um , e a {disfmarker} it 's not just a minor part . In fact , the {disfmarker} I think I would say the core thing that we 're trying to do is to recognize the actual , meaningful components in the midst of other things that are not meaningful . So it 's critical {disfmarker} it 's not just incidental it 's critical for us to get these other components that are not meaningful . Because that 's what we 're trying to pull the other out of . That 's our problem . If we had nothing {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: if we had only linguistically - relevant things {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we only had changes in the spectrum that were associated with words , with different spectral components , and , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't have noise , we didn't have convolutional errors , we didn't have extraneous , uh , behaviors , and so forth , and {vocalsound} moving your head and all these sorts of things , then , actually speech recognition i i isn't that bad right now . I mean you can you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the technology 's come along pretty well . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason we still complain about it is because is {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have more realistic conditions then {disfmarker} then things fall apart . +Postdoc F: OK , fair enough . I guess , um , I {disfmarker} uh , what I was wondering is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} at what level does the breathing aspect enter into the problem ? Because if it were likely that a PDA would be able to be built which would get rid of the breathing , so it wouldn't even have to be processed at thi at this computational le well , let me see , it 'd have to be computationally processed to get rid of it , but if there were , uh , like likely on the frontier , a good breath extractor then , um , and then you 'd have to {disfmarker} +Professor A: But that 's a research question , you know ? And so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , see and that 's what I wouldn't know . +Professor A: that {disfmarker} And we don't either . I mean so {disfmarker} so the thing is it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} right now it 's just raw d it 's just data that we 're collecting , and so {vocalsound} we don't wanna presuppose that people will be able to get rid of particular degradations because that 's actually the research that we 're trying to feed . So , you know , an and maybe {disfmarker} maybe in five years it 'll work really well , +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and it 'll only mess - up ten percent of the time , but then we would still want to account for that ten percent , so . +Postdoc F: I guess there 's another aspect which is that as we 've improved our microphone technique , we have a lot less breath in the {disfmarker} in the more recent , uh , recordings , so it 's {disfmarker} in a way it 's an artifact that there 's so much on the {disfmarker} on the earlier ones . +Professor A: Uh - huh . I see . +PhD G: One of the {disfmarker} um , just to add to this {disfmarker} one of the ways that we will be able to get rid of breath is by having models for them . I mean , that 's what a lot of people do nowadays . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And so in order to build the model you need to have some amount of it marked , so that you know where the boundaries are . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} I mean , I don't think we need to worry a lot about breaths that are happening outside of a , you know , conversation . We don't have to go and search for them to {disfmarker} to mark them at all , but , I mean , if they 're there while they 're transcribing some hunk of words , I 'd say put them in if possible . +Postdoc F: OK , and it 's also the fact that they differ a lot from one channel to the other because of the way the microphone 's adjusted . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: Should we do the digits ? +Grad B: Yep . OK . +PhD C: OK . +Grad D: Mmm . Alright . +","The conversation, which takes place in an academic setting, involves several individuals likely participating in a project meeting or research discussion. The participants can be categorized into three groups: Professor A, who appears to be leading the discussion, PhDs and postdocs (notably PhD C, PhD G, PhD E, and Postdoc F), and a graduate student designated as Grad B. The content of the meeting seems to revolve around technical and administrative aspects of research, including discussion of system crashing issues, meeting agendas, issues with digit strings in a dataset, and planning for an NSF proposal. + +Initially, the discussion starts with minor technical difficulties that are quickly resolved. PhD G mentions experiencing a crash earlier, leading to a light conversation about system stability, which then transitions into the meeting's agenda. + +Grad B reveals that they have the meeting's agenda and mentions an issue related to digit strings that need to be addressed. There is an in-depth discussion surrounding the process for addressing errors within a set of digit readings. There is a consensus that the incorrect digit strings should be either thrown out or corrected in the transcripts. + +Moving on, Professor A brings up the topic of an NSF ITR proposal, including previous mail correspondence and future steps. There seems to be some confusion regarding an email list moderation. The deadlines for the proposal and reviewer feedback are mentioned, and Professor A hopes for minimal involvement in writing the larger proposal due to busyness. + +Grad B also brings up a point regarding naming conventions for files within their research dataset, which ties into the organization of their work, particularly with respect to a test set they're working on and suggestions from another team member, Liz. + +The participants then move to a more technical discussion, with Postdoc F suggesting talking about transcription issues. There is a sense of balancing the meeting's productiveness with the participants' busy schedules, where a shorter meeting is preferred. + +Continuing the digit-related discussion, Grad B explains the process and the options for dealing with misread digits within their data. The group debates the merits of re-reading misread digits versus simply changing transcripts to reflect what was actually said. + +The technical discussion extends to transcription conventions, how to handle breaths captured in audio recordings, and whether these non-speech elements should be included or marked in the transcript. The group grapples with practical considerations versus the integrity of data used for linguistics and speech recognition research, reflecting a tension between exhaustive marking and statistical modeling. + +Professor A emphasizes the importance of capturing real speech, including ""non-meaningful"" elements like breaths for speech recognition research. This stands in contrast to the discourse and linguistic research perspective Postdoc F expresses, where the focus is on communicative components. + +PhD G suggests a compromise for transcribers to mark breaths within speech chunks they are transcribing but not to go out of their way to search for them outside of these segments. + +Toward the end of the meeting, Grad B suggests it might be time to conduct the reading of the digits, indicating a shift from discussion to a task-oriented end to the meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our scrutiny session on Estyn's annual report 2018-19. I'm very pleased to welcome Meilyr Rowlands, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Estyn; Jassa Scott, strategic director at Estyn; and Claire Morgan, strategic director at Estyn. Thank you all for attending. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. We'll go straight into questions from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Bore da. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the papers upfront, in which you say that the most striking feature of the education system, looking forward, of course is the curriculum and the change that that's bringing. How can we be sure that, during this period of change, standards don't slip? And also, from the point of view of scrutiny, will we be back in a situation where we're being told, 'You can't compare one set of results against the previous year's results, because of the nature of the change'? +Meilyr Rowlands: Bore da, bawb. Thank you for the invitation to come here. I think that's a good question. I think any kind of major educational reform has got risks attached to it, particularly if those changes were made too quickly. I think this process of reform has been going on in the background for a few years now, so I think there is a track record of standards and provision not slipping. We've seen small incremental improvements. So, overall, I think we can be fairly confident that standards won't slip during this period of preparation. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask: is that based on your evidence around primary schools, where the sort of ethos that we've seen in the curriculum has been already articulated through the foundation phase? +Meilyr Rowlands: The track record I'm talking about is across the board, so it's very difficult to think of anything that's actually got worse over the last three or four years, so it's difficult to say that standards of provision is slipping. It might not be improving as quickly as we would like, but the purpose of major curriculum and, more generally, educational reform is to make sure that we do get a more substantial sort of improvement. I think we should congratulate the profession for the work they've been doing. A large number of schools and teachers and leaders have been part of preparing the new curriculum and all the associated work, as well as doing the day job. I think their commitment and their engagement with curriculum reform, and engagement with wider education reform, is to be congratulated. So, I think going forward, we must make sure that that is continued; that this process that's called co-construction—engaging with the profession, making sure that they're behind all the changes—continues. I think that's what's going to make sure that we don't see any slippage. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and on that point of comparing year on year, we will be able to make those comparisons legitimately then? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, certainly, in terms of our inspection outcomes and our inspection work, yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's great, thank you. Can I just ask you then about the difference in preparedness between primary and secondary schools, which I've just mentioned previously, and also what your views are on the impact of funding for schools on that as well? Because we're in a situation where a number of primary schools have got surplus funds, sometimes that's because of end of year additional funds just being magicked up, but there is a serious worry that so many secondary schools are in deficit and that, overall, secondary schools are in deficit. Is there a correlation between those two positions, that secondary schools may be less ready for this than primary schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's probably true to say that secondary schools have a greater challenge than primary schools generally in terms of preparedness for the new curriculum. I think that's why we welcomed the phasing in of the new curriculum. With any sort of education reform, you've got that danger of people wanting to see change as soon as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand you need time to pilot things, to make sure that people have the right professional learning and make sure that there's opportunity for evaluation and thinking and so forth. So, we've got to get that balance right. +Suzy Davies AM: Sorry, that could be difficult to do if a school doesn't have money to create that space, couldn't it? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. You raised two issues, I think. One, about the difference between primary and secondary: I think what I'm saying there is I think the fact that the new curriculum is going to be brought in for all the years in primary, but it's going to be phased in year by year for secondary is a recognition of that difference. In terms of funding, probably everyone in this room, and certainly me included, would like to see more money for the education system—any educationalist would like to see that. But, you know, that is a decision for local and central Government to decide how much they can afford. I think there is an argument for saying that the funding has become more challenging for schools over time. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I ask, just to keep it on track, are you finding that that's having an impact on secondary schools particularly—their ability to make space to get their heads around the curriculum? +Meilyr Rowlands: I don't think you can make that straightforward correlation. But if you do look at surpluses and reserves, they have been more or less constant for primary schools over a long period of time, but they have declined for secondary schools. So, I think there probably is an argument for saying that we need to look at the funding of secondary schools in particular because, overall, they're in deficit now. So, I think there is an argument for looking at that. The other thing that's worth saying about funding is that even a small decrease in real terms can be disproportionately time consuming to manage. So, you know, if you have a large school and you have to maybe make one member of staff redundant, it can have a real big effect on the morale in the school. But also the time it takes for the headteacher and the senior staff to make those decisions can take their eye off the educational ball because they're looking at these financial and staffing issues. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Siân might develop that a little bit further on. The final question from me is: there's a general concern about the number of teachers that we have in the system at the moment, particularly at secondary level and in particular subjects as well. How do you think we can improve that? What impact is it likely to have on the ability of secondary schools to really get a grip on this? +Meilyr Rowlands: Obviously, the most important resource for the education system is the teachers. So, it is a concern that recruitment is getting more and more difficult and that targets for initial teacher training are not being hit. And we're not seeing them hit, if I remember correctly, even in primary, let alone secondary. So, there is a challenge, and I think we've got to look at this in the round. We've got to make sure that we have both a long-term strategy and a shorter term strategy for this. So, long term, we've got to make sure that education is an attractive option for young people and more mature people to want to go into. So, that is partly to do with workload and staff well-being. I think there's a general acceptance now that that needs to be higher up on the agenda, that people need to take that seriously, and there's work going on regarding the workload issue. +Suzy Davies AM: I suppose what I'm coming to, and I will finish with this, Chair, is, we're asking our existing workforce to undertake a fair bit of continuous professional development—let's call it that—in order to get ready for this curriculum when they've barely got time for lunch as it is. Do you think that's going to have an impact on the ability of secondary schools to get to grips with this, albeit that there'll be a phasing in? +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think it will have an effect, but I think it'll have a positive effect. I think the new curriculum, one of the things about the new curriculum is that it re-professionalises the profession. It gives back agency and ownership to teachers. I think it's really important. And one of the reasons why teaching maybe hasn't been that attractive a profession is that teachers in the past have just been delivering a set curriculum, and now they've got a much more creative part in deciding for themselves how to teach something and what to teach. So, I think that is a very important part of attracting intelligent people into the profession. There are short-term things we need to do, of course, as well. I think we need to have a much more varied set of routes into teaching, so I welcome some of the part-time Open University courses, for example. So, there are lots of ways—we were talking about maybe converting people from primary into secondary, particularly in Welsh-medium, where there's a shortage. So, all those kinds of varied routes, I think, into teaching, are important as well. +Suzy Davies AM: Degree apprenticeships, potentially. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, I think it's well worth exploring that. Yes. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian now has some questions on secondary schools causing concern. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Just before going on to that, just to pick up on that last point that you made about the shortage of teachers and losing teachers during the first year of their training. Has Estyn done any themed work on that particular issue, or do you intend to do anything on that? Also, looking at the financial incentives and how they compare with the situation in England, for example; do we need, perhaps, to think about financial incentives, not just for specific subjects, but for going to schools where there are particular issues, perhaps? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, yes, there are currently discussions ongoing between us and the Government about working in those early years for teachers. It's possible that we will be undertaking work in the near future on that. I know that Professor Mick Waters is looking at this currently, and we've had the discussion with him. And I think we would welcome the opportunity to look at this particular period. Now, we are, of course, looking at initial teacher training, but we haven't looked at the first couple of years for many a year. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Right, thank you very much. And for your information, I've commissioned a piece of work on that particular issue, and that work will be published in due course. So, I hope to have a discussion with you about that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Thank you very much. Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: In terms of the secondary schools, that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it, rather than the primary sector. How much of a concern is it to you that children’s chances of going to a secondary school that is good or better appear to be 50:50, and that, indeed, over 10 per cent of secondary schools are judged to be failing and 12 per cent are under Estyn review? How much of a concern is that to you? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it is of concern to us, of course. I hope that we will have an opportunity to talk about the positive aspects of the education system in Wales, because there are a number of good things we can report also. The primary sector, the special sector, post-16—there are many sectors that are doing well, and I think a story that's particularly positive this year is that we have seen pupil referral units improving. We have seen examples of excellent practice in that sector for the first time in many a year, and we've also seen excellent practice in independent special schools, which is also a sector—. Because these are two sectors where there are very, very vulnerable children in attendance. So, I think that's very encouraging. But, you're right, of course, the biggest concern for the system, I would say, is secondary schools, and that is an issue of leadership, and also of the quality of the teaching and learning. Those are the recommendations that we make most often in our inspection reports. So, I believe that there is a need to find a long-term solution, as I mentioned previously, and also a short-term solution to this problem. In the long term, to improve the quality of teaching and learning—well, that’s the main aim of the new curriculum. So, I am confident that that strategy is the right strategy. It will take time, as we mentioned previously; it will take longer in secondary schools, and that's for a number of reasons, and I have discussed the challenges that are additional for secondary schools in previous annual reports. So, there are many reasons why secondary schools find it more difficult, possibly, than primary schools. The children themselves are older and they have greater challenges. Life is more complicated for them, possibly. It’s more difficult to engage with the parents of older children than younger children, and that’s an important factor. That’s one of the reasons why I believe it’s important that we do have community schools that ensure that the parents are part of the school’s life and take an interest in the education of their children. We also know that qualifications take a very prominent role in secondary schools’ mindsets, and, in some cases, perhaps excessively so. So, we need to ensure that those qualifications are reformed as a result of the reform of the curriculum, and, of course, Qualifications Wales is carrying out that work currently. And also, we need to change the measures that we use to measure the schools’ successes. Now, there is work ongoing on that as well. But there are all kinds of variations and differences between the primary and secondary sectors. In primary schools, for example, the greatest and most obvious difference, I would say, is that you’ve got one teacher who looks after a child for a whole year, and that teacher can identify the needs of the pupil very well over a period of time, getting to know the child and, possibly, the family very well. It’s much more complicated for secondary school to do that; there have to be systems put in place for that. So, there are many long-term things that we need to respond to. But in the short term, what is important is that those schools that cause concern receive much more support, and that is why I am glad and do welcome what's being piloted currently, which is a system of supporting these schools, the multi-agency approach, that is. So, that is something that we have been calling for for quite a long period of time and piloted ourselves a few years ago. So, I'm very glad that we are doing this in secondary schools throughout Wales. I believe there are about 12 schools that are in that pilot scheme. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You said previously that it's a cause of concern for you that these schools that are failing or underachieving are not identified early enough. Are there signs that that's improving? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, one of the things that's very positive about this pilot scheme is that it's not just the schools that are officially causing concern that are a part of the pilot scheme, that is, the schools that we have identified, through inspections, as needing to be put in a statutory category. So, there are schools involved in the pilot scheme that the authorities and the consortia have identified themselves as schools that are at risk of causing concern. I believe that it's fair to say that we have not reached a point yet where we have a system of agreed criteria in relation to identifying these schools yet. I think that there has been initial work that has been commissioned or that is about to arrive in relation to that, and the types of measures you would expect us to take account of would be dissatisfaction from parents, staff leaving, a change in leadership. We use surveys with the children, for instance, and that gives you quite a good idea of whether a school is possibly facing difficulties. So, there's not one single criteria alone that will tell you, 'This is a school that is at risk of causing concern', but taken together, having a set of criteria that everyone has agreed would be a good way of monitoring schools, I believe. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, we'll be coming on to that middle tier later on, and perhaps that's where the problem lies, namely that if there isn't an agreed system from consortia and yourselves, perhaps that's where the focus needs to be. +Meilyr Rowlands: I would say that it's not the identification of the schools that is the greatest problem. The greatest problem is ensuring that there is support for them and that the support is multi-agency support, where all the agencies that support these schools are working together. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, how long does it take, therefore, for a school to move from an improvement category, in terms of special measures, to be escalated then? Because one sees sometimes that there's an excellent school, and within five years' time, it's in the red. So, there's a great deal of variance in that. +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, that would be something quite unusual—to move from excellent to red. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, gradually, perhaps. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. Perhaps Claire can respond to this. +Claire Morgan: On average, secondary schools that are in need of special measures take just over two years, on average. Some are shorter; some are quite a considerable amount longer. It's a little less for schools that go into significant improvement. With primary schools, of course, it's much shorter because the issues are far less complex; it's easier to bring about improvements in teaching. When you've got large numbers of staff, you've got large secondary schools, it takes time to actually bring about those improvements, but it is a long time, just over two years, when you think that some pupils, maybe in key stage 4 for the two years—. Certainly, we want to see schools coming out of category much quicker, and this is where the multi-agency approach certainly is a positive step. All partners involved in supporting the school are involved in these improvement boards. They focus on bringing about improvement in the areas of the school that are weakest, and it is the responsibility of everybody involved—that is: ourselves, the regions, local authorities, the schools themselves and their governing bodies—to look at how they can best support the school to bring about that improvement. So, it's getting an agreement on what the issues are, and then planning the support so that we avoid duplication, but that we support the school in the areas they need more support. And we hope that this then will accelerate the improvement of the schools that find themselves in category. But, as Meilyr already said, there are some schools involved in that particular pilot that are at danger of causing serious concern. So, the pilot is trying out those two different approaches as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. And just finally from me, for the time being at least, the financial situation; we've spoken about that already this morning. If you could—. If funding was injected into the system tomorrow, say, what would you spend it on? What aspects would benefit from that additional funding? +Meilyr Rowlands: Were you asking about something specific there? +Sian Gwenllian AM: In the schools themselves, if you were a school leader, what would you— +Meilyr Rowlands: Oh, if I were a school leader. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. How would you use any additional funding that would flow into the school? +Meilyr Rowlands: It's difficult to make that decision, because every school is different. It is important, of course, that leaders do have the power and the ability to make those decisions themselves. But, certainly, in the short term, the type of thing I would have thought would be to prepare for the new curriculum. That means freeing up teachers to think about what the new curriculum means to them. The schools that have been a part of developing the curriculum have been in a fortunate position in that they've had plenty of time to think about this. So, it's now time—and this was the chief message of my annual report this year—for every school in Wales to start to think. Because I think that the new curriculum is truly an opportunity to take a forward step in terms of how we teach and learn within schools. But that means that time is needed for schools to think this through and, in that thinking, to contact the community, to talk to their children as well, to see what the community in its broader sense would like to see being in the new curriculum, because it's up to every school. Although the new curriculum sets a framework, it is up to each and every school to decide what they're going to teach, and what they're teaching in order to prepare their young people for this new world that we have in the twenty-first century. Therefore, to give you a somewhat superficial answer, I would be setting time aside for the training of teachers. +Jassa Scott: Can I just add one thing there? I think what we've seen over the years recently is that local authorities, to some extent, have safeguarded the funding that goes to the schools, but the effect of that is that we've seen less funding going into some of the local authority services; for example, those services that support well-being, that promote attendance, and that perhaps support behaviour and assistance for schools. So, I think that all of those factors contribute to how schools can support and assist their pupils, and to improve themselves. So, I think that side of things is important as well—in the school or in the local authority, if funding is available, it should be allocated to all of those things so that those services can also support the children to succeed. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on to the middle tier, if I can just ask about the quality of teaching? There's been a consistent message from Estyn that that is the weakest part of the system in Wales. The Government recognises that and has invested a very significant amount of money in that area, yet it's still an issue again in your annual report. You haven't said whether it's getting better or going in the right direction. What is your assessment of whether we are seeing the improvements we need to see in the quality of teaching? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think, in nearly all the elements of our framework, the picture is fairly similar. So, in terms of quality of teaching, we have seen gradual but quite small-scale improvements in primary. So, you can feel that that is going in the right direction. In secondary, it's more or less level; we haven't seen it getting particularly better or particularly worse. One of the things that's really important to realise is that the curriculum is about the quality of teaching. It is about the teaching and learning; those are two sides of the same coin, if you like. What's important is the learning experience that our pupils get in school. From the perspective of the pupil, it's the learning; from the perspective of the teacher, it's the teaching. They are two sides to the same coin. I think there's no doubt and I think there's general agreement that, in order to have a step change in the quality of teaching and learning—. I think it was Einstein who said that if you keep on doing the same thing, you'll get the same result. So, you're going to have to change something, and what's changing is the curriculum. I think there's general consensus that this is the right approach to improve the quality of teaching. And that's exactly what all schools need to do now: to think how does this new curriculum affect them in their particular school, in their particular circumstances, in the context of their particular children. How can they use this opportunity now to improve the teaching and learning in their school? +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It does cause one concern, because if the teaching and learning standards just stay the same in the secondary sector, and we know that 12 per cent of secondary schools are under Estyn review and 11 per cent of them are in special measures, we're talking about half of the schools almost, and no improvement in the teaching quality in general. So, there is a major cohort of children captured in that situation, and then there's a new curriculum that comes in. I see the opportunities, but these schools that are doing well are going to go, 'Wow, up there', but schools are there in the bottom layer and one is genuinely concerned about those children in those schools. Isn't that where the focus should be and any additional funding that's allocated? You talked about releasing teachers for training, but perhaps it's in those particular schools that we need to focus. +Meilyr Rowlands: I do agree that the best schools will welcome the opportunities and that their standards will improve even more. But then, with regard to the other schools, in a way, there are two very broad categories, which are those that need only a little support just to help them to improve—. And I believe that the new curriculum and the general support that's going to be surrounding that will be the solution for those schools. It's going to be an opportunity for the quality of the teaching and the learning to improve. But you're right to say that there is another smaller cohort that has a much greater need for support, and they're going to find coping with the new curriculum difficult, because they'll also have many other problems. So, I do agree—. And you're not talking about a huge number of schools—some 200 secondary schools is what we have in Wales, so that percentage is relatively small, the number is relatively small—but they need much greater support. That is why this pilot scheme of the multi-agency approach of supporting those schools is important. I do believe that you're right to say that there are funding implications to supporting those schools. I don't think it's enormous, but certainly there's a certain amount of funding that is needed to offer those schools that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. The Minister recently told the committee that a number of recent Estyn inspections of local authorities' education services have been disappointing. Do you agree? That, of course, is based on the inspections carried out under the current cycle. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes, indeed. I think we've done nine inspections of local authorities' education services so far this cycle. We've got another two this academic year. We'll have done half of them by the end of the academic year. We'll then evaluate how things have gone. But of those nine we've put three into category—we've identified them as causing concern—and they're Pembrokeshire, Powys and Wrexham. So, we do have concerns about those authorities. So, we'll be supporting those authorities, moving forward. But I think a common factor in those inspections was secondary schools. So, we've talking quite a bit about secondary schools this morning, and I think that, again, is a factor in those local authorities. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You say that the proportion of secondary schools causing concern is a challenge for several local authorities and for the system as a whole. Which local authorities are these—you've probably named them all—and have these been inspected yet under the current cycle? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think you're taking about three secondary schools in a category in Pembrokeshire, Wrexham and Torfaen. So, we've inspected Pembrokeshire and Wrexham already, but we haven't inspected Torfaen yet. And two schools in a category in Powys, Newport and Gwynedd. And we've inspected Powys and Newport, but we haven't inspected Gwynedd yet. So, in answer to your question: we've inspected most of those, but not all of them. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. What is your latest assessment of how well the regional consortia are supporting and driving school improvement? Does this vary across the different regions? +Meilyr Rowlands: It certainly does vary, but I'll ask Jassa to go into more detail. +Jassa Scott: We haven't directly inspected the regional consortia since—I think 2017 was the last time we did some direct monitoring with them. But I think, over the last three years, we do feel that they've improved their knowledge. They're still relatively new in the big scheme of things. So, they did take a little while to embed, and I think that came across when we did the work that we did with them back in 2017. But, more recently, they've improved their knowledge of individual schools' strengths and areas for improvement, and they are using this knowledge better to support and challenge schools, and particularly schools causing concern. But obviously, as we've been talking about this morning, there's still work to do. I think they've prioritised well the work that schools are doing around literacy and numeracy, but their support for schools to develop digital competence has been a bit weaker. Even though we've had the framework as an early part of the curriculum developments there, we haven't seen quite the focus that we've seen on other areas. I think for schools causing concern, what we found—and we do look at their work through our local authority inspection, so we are getting some first-hand evidence of their impact through that—they're not always focused, in those schools causing concern, on improving teaching and learning, so actually getting in and looking and working with teachers and with staff to actually make improvements there. I think, generally, their support for secondary schools has had less impact across the consortia than it has for primary schools, and I think sometimes that's because they're struggling to recruit appropriate specialists, to support with secondary, or perhaps they don't have the depth of strong practice that we talked about earlier within their region. So, they're having to work a bit harder to find effective practice, to share practice and to get the secondary expertise and knowledge to support those schools. We will be, over the next year, looking specifically at the work of consortia to support curriculum reform work. Well, we think we will be—we haven’t had our remit letter yet. But that's one of the areas we've discussed, about doing some specific work on over the next year to look in a bit more depth. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what is the cycle of inspections for regional consortia, and how robust are those inspections? What areas do you cover? +Jassa Scott: Well, regional consortia aren't actually statutory entities at the moment, and we don't have specific inspection powers relating to regional consortia. What we have are powers to inspect school improvement. So, on each of our local authority inspections, there will be, usually, an area that we're looking at that relates to school improvement, and that would involve us looking at the work of the consortia that the local authority has commissioned. What we've agreed with Welsh Government is that, over the next few years, we will take a thematic approach. So, the first area that we've said is that we'll look specifically at how each of them is supporting curriculum reform, and report on that. So, that will report specifically on the different ones, but it wouldn't be the same as doing an inspection of their work at this time. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Should they be on a statutory footing? +Jassa Scott: Well, I think that's something to be discussed over the next few years. There's, obviously, local government legislation that has been debated recently, which has the potential to create corporate joint committees, and school improvement was one of the areas that is being considered there. So, there may be an opportunity, if that's created, to think how we then adapt inspection to look specifically at that. So, I think there is an opportunity. I think we do get a handle on their work through the local authority and, ultimately, it's looking at what that consortia brings to that local authority and to the schools and the pupils in that area that's the important bit, I think, ultimately, to see the impact there. So, we are looking at them in that way, and then taking that thematic approach, but we'll keep reviewing it over the next couple of years. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. And what are Estyn's views on the latest position regarding regional working in south-west and mid Wales? Would it be preferable for school improvement advisers to be based in the consortium, Education through Regional Work, rather than each local authority employing their own, as is the case at present? +Meilyr Rowlands: If I can just go back to the last question as well, what we did in order to inspect regions was we paused our local authority inspection cycle back in 2014, I think, for about three years. So, then, we spent time looking at regions, basically, because we didn't have the resource to do both at the same time. So, we're in negotiation with Welsh Government currently, so that, going forward, we can look at local authorities and regions at the same time. If regions become statutory entities, that would be in legislation, and then you could have legislation that gives us directly the powers to inspect them, which we don't currently have. So, we have to, effectively, wait for Welsh Government to ask us to do that work. But, as Jassa said, currently, what we intend to do in the short is to do some thematic work on that. In terms of ERW, they were the region that, at the end of the last cycle of regional inspections, we were still monitoring. We are concerned about their progress, particularly in the light of recent developments. So, for example, the chair of the joint committee has resigned, the managing director remains a temporary appointment and there are no clear plans for a permanent leadership. Some of the leadership team have left—the capacity has gone down—and various staff that were appointed last summer have already left. The budget has not been agreed and certain key meetings—executive board and joint committee meetings—have been cancelled. So, we are particularly worried about ERW, and, because of that, we will be going in to visit them in April—next month—and we'll be visiting all of the authorities to make sure that they do have a plan for an appropriate school improvement service going forward. But, Jassa, probably, can say a little bit more about our plans there. +Jassa Scott: Yes, I think you asked a specific question about, you know, which is better. I think our view has been that, generally, the local authorities are too small to deliver that whole range of school improvement services, particularly given the national reform agenda at the moment. We felt last summer, when we went to ERW, that they'd managed to reach the best possible model, given the constraint they've placed, collectively, on themselves—that they want to deliver aspects of school improvement locally, through the local authorities, and have some central capacity. So, we felt that, given that they wanted to do some locally and some centrally, enough thought had been put into that structure last summer and that it could be workable. There were key aspects such as support for secondary schools causing concern and there was some capacity centrally that could support areas such as Powys. Unfortunately, as Meilyr has described, some of those aspects have since been disbanded or those staff who were on secondment have gone back, so I think it is a key risk, particularly for some of those authorities you've talked about that are causing concern, such as Powys or Pembrokeshire—that they haven't necessarily got that local capacity to support their schools causing concern. So, you've got some concerns within school capacity and you've got concerns about local authority capacity, and what you don't have there now is that collective capacity centrally that might support them. So, that's why we're going to go and do a slightly more detailed link visit to try to understand how they are mitigating the risks that we see are arising as a result of some of those things that have happened recently. Our understanding is that there's a joint committee meeting of ERW on 19 March, so, hopefully, after that point, we'll have a little bit more information about how they're planning to manage that collective set of services going forward—it's a little bit of an unknown at the moment. +Meilyr Rowlands: You were asking, 'Would it be better for every authority to have their own team?' But, before regions were invented, if you like, we were saying consistently that they tended to be too small. What happened in practice was that authorities did come together voluntarily to have joint advisory services. So, you had Cynnal in the north west, you had the Education and School Improvement Service, you had Gwent—so, they naturally did come together in groups, maybe a little bit smaller than the current regions, but they, of their own accord, produced something not very dissimilar to a region. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, did you have a supplementary? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just on ERW. Does the fact that there is a dispute on the highest level feed down to the school and to the children? Are the children in south-west and mid Wales affected by this? Are standards decreasing in that part of Wales? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, it's difficult to say directly, but we have inspected nine authorities and two of those are in that area, so, the lack of support at that level, as Jassa was saying, may be the reason why those authorities are suffering difficulties. +Jassa Scott: And it is clear that many people across that area are expending energy and time discussing these issues. Any reorganisation does take energy out of the system, so it is clear that that time isn't then being spent, perhaps, on investment in improving schools and supporting staff in schools. So, as Meilyr says, it's not clear, but a lot of energy is being expended in that particular discussion that is ongoing. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? And I've got to be honest, up in the north, I know that there are concerns about regional consortia, and when local authorities are under pressure financially, it questions, sometimes, the value of regional consortia. So, what disadvantages could there be from Neath Port Talbot's intention to withdraw from regional working via ERW? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think we've talked in general terms and we feel that local authorities probably are too small on their own. In general terms, you can't say that any particular authority couldn't, maybe, put things together in such a way that it's effective. Also, it has a knock-on effect on the rest of the consortium, if one withdraws. I don't know whether, Jassa, you've got anything to add to the general points we've made. +Jassa Scott: I mean, I think, what you've alluded to there, it has the potential to be a destabilising factor across the whole of the national model that we've got for supporting school improvement at a time where Welsh Government are kind of relying heavily on that consortium model to help support curriculum reform and to drive professional learning and be the conduit for lots of the aspects of reform that we've talked about. So, I think that potential risk of any destabilising across the system is a disadvantage generally. I think—. Clearly, we've talked about that capacity at a local level. There is that aspect of what that means in terms of the joint capacity across the other authorities there. And I think it's just what I've already talked about in terms of being a distraction at a crucial time for support where schools need to feel that they're confident in where they need to go for support. I should say that we're planning, as part of that visit that we do in April, to survey schools in that region about the support that they're getting, be that from their authority or from the central teams in ERW. That's something we did at the time when we did the inspections previously, and we thought it would be helpful to get some first-hand views of any disadvantages or impact that they might be feeling, really. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. And then, finally, for me:what involvement has Estyn had with the strategic education delivery group chaired by Professor Dylan Jones and what are your expectations for how it will improve the work of the middle tier? +Meilyr Rowlands: We've been members of that group right from the beginning. I personally am on it and colleagues are on it as well, and I'm a member of the sub-group that does some of the background work for that group as well, and Estyn has given several presentations to that group. I think the group is important. I remember commenting the first time it met that it was welcoming. The rather obvious thing is that you get all the strategic educational organisations together in one room, but it had never been done before, as far as I know. So, it was a really important step forward for that to happen. I'm a very firm believer in making those relationships, building those relationships, so that people understand what each of us contributes to the whole of the education system. We need to have that forum to be able to make sure that we're clear about what each of our roles is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Morning, all. In your report you talked about in early settings where skills development is less effective, that children begin to feel at a very early age that they can't do certain things. I don't know whether that is anecdotal evidence or is that specific outcome-based evidence—whatever, it's quite worrying. But what do you think the long-term effect on a child's development has in that respect? +Claire Morgan: It's probably worth saying that skill development is a strength in about three quarters of our schools—primary schools and early years settings. But in a minority of schools and settings, as you've picked up, children are often introduced to things too early. So, they're introduced to phonics, they're introduced to learning to read, when they're not at that developmental stage. And really, long term, it means the children lose confidence, because if they're introduced to these things too early they don't succeed, they tend to need additional support, and it can give them a negative impression, it can give them negative thoughts about their ability. So, we need to address that, and really it's about— +Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, what sort of age range are we talking about here? +Claire Morgan: These would be children from three to five. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Claire Morgan: So, this is very, very early on. +Dawn Bowden AM: And is there something, then, in that—and I don't think there's much we can do about that, but it may be in terms of the way that the schools or the early learning settings address this—you will have children at a very young age that have almost a year's difference in their age group, so they're born just before 1 September or just after 1 September? So, that's a huge gap, isn't it, at that point in their development? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Is that not being addressed in a way that those children are being taught and approached at that age? +Claire Morgan: Yes. +Dawn Bowden AM: Right, okay. That's fine. In terms of reading and literacy skills, we still remain quite low in the Programme for International Student Assessment ratings for reading, and I know there is a particular concern about the impact on boys in that regard. What do you think are the most pressing priorities that face them around reading and literacy? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think literacy has been, and still is, and still needs to be a top priority. I mean, literacy clearly is something that underpins the rest of education, so it really does need to be a top priority. I think it has been a high priority, but we need to continue prioritising it. We've seen some improvements over the years. For example, we've given a lot of attention to writing over the years, and making sure that children get the opportunity to write in an extended way, not just short sentences, but having the opportunity to have extended writing, and there's some evidence that that now is beginning to have an effect. But almost ironically, the same sort of issue is true of reading. So, it's not just reading small little snippets—we need to encourage children to have a love for reading and read whole books. So, I gave a little bit of attention to that in the annual report—that that needs attention. I think the other thing I would emphasise is that this is not just for the foundation phase, it's not just for very young children—it's really important at key stage 2 and in secondary school. One of the things we have been worried about, and I think there was some reflection of this in PISA, is that there are strengths in reading in Wales. So, PISA, for example, said that children in Wales are very good at comparing lots of little snippets, but what they're saying, and they're saying this themselves, is that the love of books is decreasing, and the number of children who read regularly whole books. So, I think there is something there for teachers to set and model a good example, to show their own interest in reading, to encourage children to read themselves. +Dawn Bowden AM: It's probably a wider societal problem as well, isn't it? I'm thinking about gaming, electronic gaming, computers. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely. I think there is some sort of link with the digital world, and the way people read—the actual technique of reading, is evolving. But I think reading is so important, and developing a complex vocabulary is so important in being able to communicate, in order to get a good job, to have enjoyment out of life—all of those things are so important. We ourselves are going to give this quite a lot of priority in future, so we're doing a major piece of work on language acquisition, which will cover some of this next year. Every year one of our thematics is the major bit of work we do, and we try to support that with a conference. So, that will be the focus that we give to our work next year—it is on language acquisition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you for that. Just one other supplementary on that, I guess, is whether you have a good idea of how many young people are coming out of school at 16—so, those that are not staying on to do A-levels—and are coming out with an inability to read or white. Do we know what the figure is for that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I can't tell you that off the top of my head, but I'm sure that there will be evidence. That's not something we inspect as such. +Dawn Bowden AM: No, no, but there should be evidence around that. Okay. +Jassa Scott: There has been a shift in that there's been continued emphasis in post-16 education and training around literacy and picking that up. For example, anyone who's studying in a further education college will have to do resits. There's an aim to try and get everyone to a basic level. In apprenticeships they'll use essential skills and so on to try and get that basic level of literacy as well, so there is an emphasis. I think one of the worrying indications, maybe, that post-16 sectors find is that sometimes even when learners are coming out with a basic qualification in a GCSE, potentially in English or a literature subject, they don't necessarily have a really good foundation of some of the basic skills as well. So, there is a lot of work to do in this area. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, all right. Could I just move you on—? Sorry— +Meilyr Rowlands: The only thing I would add to that is, I guess, it's quite small, the number of people who don't have basic reading. I think one of the things we need to emphasise is that learning reading is something you do throughout your life, and what we need to do is to develop, in particular, pupils' higher level reading skills. The fact that they can just read isn't the end of the story; they need to be developing those higher level reading skills and continuing to widen the range of things they read, and be able to develop their vocabulary at a higher level. +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension, I guess. +Meilyr Rowlands: Sorry? +Dawn Bowden AM: And their comprehension as well. +Meilyr Rowlands: Absolutely, yes—those higher level skills of comprehension and inference and those sorts of things. +Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, okay. Can I just move you on, then, to numeracy and whether you can tell us if you're satisfied with the progress in numeracy, because I think we were doing better on the PISA results in maths in Wales than we did previously? So, what are your thoughts on that? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think there is a fairly clear good news story here. PISA shows improvements and a lot of that can be attributed, I think, to the new GCSE mathematics numeracy. I think there's much less predictability in that work; you can't approach it in a formulaic way, either the pupils or the teachers in terms of teaching it. There's much more problem solving. It's about applying what you've learnt in the core mathematics lessons to new situations in subjects across the curriculum. I think that that GCSE numeracy has built on the work that's been done lower down on the national numeracy framework, which has the same philosophy of applying that mathematics knowledge in a problem-solving situation. That has been a really good news story, really. +Dawn Bowden AM: That's something to be positive about, anyway. That's good. My final question, Chair, is: in your view, to what extent is Wales on track to meet the target of 500 points in each of the domains in the 2020-1 cycle for PISA? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that that target is somewhat arbitrary, but assuming that we continue on this journey that we are on—the current change programme of the new curriculum and so forth—I think we would expect to see those improvements we've seen in science and in mathematics to continue. We've talked about reading and I think we will be giving more attention to reading. I think the education system more generally, hopefully, will give more attention to reading. So, I would hope to see improvements there as well. The only other thing I would add is that there is some research that indicates or suggests that the effect of schools is greater on mathematics and science than on reading, and the reason for that is you don't do a lot mathematics or science in the home. But the attitude towards reading is very much dependent on family and community factors, more so, maybe, than mathematics and science. So, I think that's another reason why I think a community-school approach is really important. You need to get everybody on board; it's not just what the teacher does in the classroom—it's important that the whole family and the community thinks that reading is important. +Dawn Bowden AM: Just on numeracy, it was interesting because one of the schools in my constituency have actually contacted my office and a number of other organisations across the constituency to ask us how we use maths in our work. So, they're obviously trying to relate that now to everyday life and working, which I thought was quite good. +Meilyr Rowlands: That's good. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around progress of specific groups of pupils. If I can start and ask you how concerning is it that the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and other pupils has not narrowed in the last 10 years, especially given the £475 million pupil deprivation grant investment. +Meilyr Rowlands: Yes. I think secondary schools and the issue of poverty were the two things I've noted in the annual report. So, I think it is a concern to us. I think it is worth also remembering that compared to other countries, for example, in PISA, we do compare quite well in terms of equity. There's also an argument that maybe poverty and austerity have increased, so that we're in a way running to keep still. And I think also, as I was suggesting about the reading, poverty really is a social phenomenon. Schools can't solve that on their own. So, there are a lot of caveats to be made around the fact that that poverty gap hasn't closed, but that's not to say that schools can't do something about it, and I've suggested in the annual report a sort of a two-pronged approach. One is the new curriculum. I think there is evidence in the international research that teaching and learning, better teaching and learning, helps disadvantaged poor pupils disproportionately. So, they gain more from it that their peers. So, I think improving teaching and learning, and we discussed that earlier this morning about how the new curriculum is really all about improving the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. So, that's one approach, and then the other approach, which I've also mentioned earlier, is having a community-focused approach to schools. The schools that do more successfully tackle the poverty gap are the schools that take that kind of approach. It means helping the pupils. It means helping their families. It's about making pupil well-being really high on the agenda. It's very difficult for children to do well in school if they've got all kinds of things happening in their background. So, it's important that schools can maybe signpost those families to other services that can support them and help them. So, it's quite a complex—. It's challenging for schools to go down this route, and I think the more help we can give schools to take that approach, the better. But the schools that do do it do benefit a lot from it. They have better engagement from parents, from the families, and that then reflects back on the work of the children. +Jassa Scott: And we've just published a collection of good practice about how schools support vulnerable learners, and we'll be teasing out the aspects around community-focused schools a lot more in a report that we'll publish in the next couple of months. So, we've kind of drilled down and looked at what some schools are doing in that area in a bit more detail. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just quickly. Obviously, I think we've all been to schools where the PDG is actually used to engage parents more for exactly the reasons you say. But I just wanted to interrogate the deprivation gap a little bit, because, of course, even though, as you say, there's perhaps more equity in Wales, one of the reasons for that is because our children from better-off backgrounds do less well, and considerably less well than their peers in the other parts of the United Kingdom. So, whereas their attainment gaps are pretty dreadful, that's one of the reasons—that our better-off children aren't doing as well as perhaps they might do. Is that a concern as well? We don't want this rush to the middle, do we? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think it's essential that all groups of pupils do as well as they possibly can, absolutely. So, it's not quite the same issue, but we've talked about the importance of making sure that more able and talented children do well. +Suzy Davies AM: They're not the same. +Meilyr Rowlands: They're not the same, clearly, because you have more able and talented children from poor backgrounds. Differentiation is a challenge for schools, but it's absolutely essential that all groups of children do as well as they possibly can. So, in things like PISA, in terms of reading, for example, we can't just say it's that group that needs to improve—all the groups need to improve. And I think that's why something like the new curriculum gives schools more scope to tailor their teaching and learning to the particular groups that they have, whether they’re more able, whether they're advantaged or whether they're disadvantaged. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Lynne. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Pupils' confidence in their school's ability to help them with their emotional and mental well-being is much less at secondary school and that's been a consistent theme as well from your reports. Why do you think that is? +Jassa Scott: Yes, you're right. As we mentioned earlier, we do pupil surveys before all our inspections, and across a number of those indicators, like, 'How well does the school listen? Do adults in school care about me? How well does the school deal with bullying?'—quite a lot those ones around well-being do tail off. Nine out of 10 pupils at key stage 2 have that confidence, down to half at key stage 4, as you say. And I think there are a number of factors that we think contribute to that: I think one of the factors is that pupils face, sometimes, more challenges as they get older in those teenage years, but they also become more reflective and perhaps more discerning. And I think what we find in secondary schools is perhaps secondary school pupils notice sometimes the differences between their everyday life that they experience in school and perhaps the messages that they're getting about well-being in terms of their lessons, in terms of assemblies and in terms of school policies and so on. So, they are probably more discerning in noticing those differences and maybe there are some of those differences also there in primary school, but the pupils don't notice. I think we've already touched upon things like the differences in the way that, at primary school, you would tend to have a go-to adult, which is your teacher. The best secondary schools find ways to make sure that pupils do feel that level of support and feel there are trusted people, but it's more of a challenge to make sure that that happens, because of the way they're operating. We still have some concerns about personal and social education and the health and well-being support, which we've made a recommendation about in the past in some of our thematic reports, but also recently in some of our secondary school inspection reports. And I think I already touched upon the fact that sometimes, when the budget is tight, it can be some of those—they're not peripheral in their importance, but they're not the teacher in the classroom: well-being support assistants and so on and family liaison workers—staff in the school who perhaps really support that pastoral care that the school as a whole can provide—it may be that those are the roles that are less prevalent at times of less funding. So, I think there are some great members of staff doing a really good job, but perhaps they're not those members of staff who can support teachers and support pupils in creating that kind of caring environment. Maybe there a fewer of them around. So, I think there's not an obvious answer and part of it is that they do become more discerning and perhaps more vocal in those responses generally, as they get older. So, you might have a truer reflection of opinions than perhaps—. And that might explain some of the difference with primary, where, generally, they're quite positive about everything across most of the schools that we ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: So, it's not that secondary schools—because you've said that in a previous inspection report—are just not as good at prioritising mental health and well-being. +Jassa Scott: I think there's an element that it's more of a challenge for a secondary school to provide an effective set of support from that whole-staff awareness of some of the challenges. And one of the pieces of work we've done recently is around adverse childhood experiences, and we have found that primary schools have taken that and embraced it. Once you've trained your staff, then they've got that knowledge. They're the ones who are working day to day with the schools. Secondary schools haven't always taken a whole-school approach to that. They might have trained a set of staff. So, maybe not every member of staff has the same level of understanding, but also those staff aren't spending the same amount of time with pupils. So, in terms of getting to know pupils, picking up on signs that they may be struggling, or that there might be concerns—it's much more of a challenge. You've got to work a lot harder as a secondary school to make sure that staff have that knowledge and that you've got the tracking systems that can put those different bits of  information together to actually mean that you can target support where it's needed. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm just thinking again about specific groups of pupils. Obviously, we've had one case in north Wales, in an independent school, where there were serious concerns. What's that done to your desire to monitor and check what's going on in these independent schools? Are they regulated sufficiently? +Jassa Scott: I'll pick up on that as well. Just to explain how we work with independent schools, initially, to give the context. So, there are different kinds of independent schools. So, some have boarding provision, and where they have boarding provision, Care Inspectorate Wales would look at the boarding side of it, we'd look at the educational side of it. There are others where they may have a linked children's home, which can be another room in the same house, or it can be a number of miles away, and similarly there CIW would look at the residential aspects of the care and we'd look at the school. So, I think, there's a focus in the independent school standards regulations, which is a minimum that all schools have to meet to maintain a registration. There is a focus in that on how that school looks after and cares for its pupils, and there are focuses on that element of boarding provision where relevant, and the national minimum standards that the care inspectorate look at that have aspects around supporting well-being as well. What we do find in our inspections is that, overall, we generally find that pupils' well-being develops, they make good progress, and that care, support and guidance that schools give is good. What we mean by that, really, practically, is that they are developing their resilience and their self-esteem. In special schools, this might mean particularly that those pupils learn to manage their anxieties better so that they improve their behaviour, which may be one of the reasons why they're in that specialist setting. In mainstream independent schools, what we find is that people develop their tenacity, their curiosity for learning—their resilience in that way. But there are shortcomings sometimes. For example, there was one school where we found that they weren't making appropriate referrals to child and adolescent mental health services. So, these schools do operate independently by their nature, and their awareness, perhaps, of some of the guidance and support that is out there—sometimes, maybe, there can be more to be done, and I think we've talked to Welsh Government about that. +Suzy Davies AM: What's Estyn's role in that—to bring that level of awareness to those schools? +Jassa Scott: I think we do through our inspection guidance, and the independent school standards do refer to Welsh Government guidance—it's something like 'Keeping learners safe', which is a really key document, which supports safeguarding and caring across schools. That's regularly discussed and talked about and referred to with those schools. So, I think the other area is that sometimes we don't have the intelligence about what—. So, for example, if there's been a safeguarding referral from a school, we don't necessarily always get that information, which means that when we do go to inspect, we may not have the full picture to help us tailor our inspection activity. So, that's something we've raised— +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—be brief and brief in answers. +Suzy Davies AM: Al right, okay. Do you mind if I move on to the next question? +Lynne Neagle AM: We're going to have to skip those, I'm afraid, and talk to the last set of questions, just because of the time pressures. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to ask in Welsh, please. What role, if any, did Estyn have in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest review of progress in school improvement when they visited Wales in late 2019? +Meilyr Rowlands: Well, we were interviewed. Therefore, the three of us had an interview with the OECD officials and we offered evidence to them. And I think that, when the report is published, you will see that the OECD does draw on our broader evidence and will be quoting our reports—the annual report and some of our thematic reports. That is the part that we played in that work. +Hefin David AM: Thanks. How significant a role do you believe the national evaluation and improvement resource will play in raising school standards? +Meilyr Rowlands: I think that it's very important. It's Claire who has been specifically tasked with that, so I'll ask Claire to speak about it. +Claire Morgan: I think working together with the practitioners, the regions and representatives from local authorities is a great opportunity to develop a national approach, because we know across Wales there's some excellent practice, but we know there are schools that struggle to bring about improvement. So, this national resource has the potential to provide schools with detailed guidance on how they can approach not only self-evaluation, but, more importantly, how they can bring about that improvement. So, it will be a resource that develops over time. It's starting—we're piloting currently with around 40 schools. Half of those have been involved in developing the tools and approaches right from the start, and 22 new schools have come on board this year. But we anticipate that there will be lots of tools and approaches within that resource that schools can use to improve the quality of self-evaluation throughout the school, primaries, secondaries, PRUs and special schools. But it will focus on establishing a culture within the school that focuses on improvement, that establishes a reflective culture where all staff are involved in development. So, we're hoping that this tool—it's still currently in development, but we hope that that will support schools really well. +Hefin David AM: So, it's an evolving piece of work. +Claire Morgan: Yes, it is. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, with regard to comparison of performance, does the lack of comparative attainment data raise difficulties when you're inspecting and drawing conclusions and standards in schools? +Meilyr Rowlands: Not really, no. I think there was a bit of a myth that a lot of this performance data was just for Estyn, but actually it never has been. When we inspect, we look at a whole range of aspects of the work. We look at standards, we look at teaching and learning in the classroom, we look at well-being, we look at care support and guidance, we look at leadership, we look at all of these things, and we look at it based on first-hand evidence—what we actually see in the classroom. So, we're quite happy to continue to inspect schools, and we in fact support having less emphasis on data because, although data is useful, and we hope that schools will continue to analyse their data and use that data to help them self-improve and self-evaluate, we don't actually need it and it has actually created a bit of a high-stakes culture. So, I think stepping back from that culture is a good idea. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for your attendance? As usual, you'll receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. But thank you very much again for coming in this morning. +Meilyr Rowlands: Diolch yn fawr—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a ministerial update on the emotional and mental health of children and young people in Wales—next steps for 'Mind over matter'. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government regarding teachers' pay and pensions, and paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education from us regarding the school funding review. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Can I then propose under Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Great. Okay. Thank you. +","The conversation is a detailed discussion on educational reform and standards in Wales, specifically focusing on the scrutiny of Estyn's annual report for 2018-19. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting, with Meilyr Rowlands (Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Estyn), Jassa Scott (strategic director at Estyn), and Claire Morgan (strategic director at Estyn) present to provide information and answer questions. + +Suzy Davies AM initiated the conversation with observations about the significant changes brought on by the new curriculum and its potential impact on educational standards. While recognizing risks associated with rapid reforms, the Estyn representatives showed confidence that standards would not slip due to incremental improvements seen over the years and the preparation process already underway. + +The discussion extended to primary versus secondary school readiness for curriculum changes, the impact of funding deficits in secondary schools, disparities in preparedness, and a greater challenge for secondary schools in adapting to reforms. Concerns were raised regarding the financial constraints schools face and their ability to make room for adjustments necessary for the new curriculum. + +Recruitment and retention of teachers, particularly at the secondary level and in specific subjects, was noted as a considerable concern. The dialog emphasized the need for a long-term strategy to make teaching an attractive profession, reduce workload, ensure well-being, and create varied routes into teaching. + +Sian Gwenllian AM raised issues about the number of secondary schools causing concern, the financial circumstances of schools, and the correlations between school deficits and preparedness for curriculum changes. The conversation touched upon the need for multi-agency support for schools to improve swiftly and respond to their specific issues effectively. + +Discussions also addressed the roles and effectiveness of local authorities and regional consortia in supporting school improvements, the involvement of Estyn with the latest OECD review in Wales, the national evaluation and improvement resource's role, and challenges related to comparative attainment data for inspections. + +The conversation concluded with the committee resolving to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education committee this morning. We've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian and there is no substitute this morning. Can I ask if Members have got any declarations of interest they'd like to make, please? No? Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning, then, is a further session on our follow-up on our 'Mind over matter' report. I'm very pleased to welcome Carol Shillabeer, who is chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, and who manages the Together for Children and Young People programme. Thank you very much for attending, and thank you for the written update that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground that we want to cover this morning, so if it's okay we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start and ask you if you're satisfied with the progress that's been made since the programme was established in 2015. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much for that question, Chair. I've got to say 'yes', in many regards. So, the key focus of the programme in the early stages was about improving access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services. We developed the windscreen model—or we lifted the windscreen model. Other models that are very similar have been talked about as well, and our big focus was on ensuring that we could make immediate progress around access to specialist CAMHS. It's some years ago now since this committee did the original report, and obviously Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and the Wales Audit Office had done reports in the past, and I think there was a need for a programme that could focus on action. You'll see in the written update that we covered quite a large number of areas, and so therefore had to make a prioritisation. The prioritisation was at the specialist CAMHS end. We have provided the committee with a red, amber or green rating of where we feel that we were, and that was just before submission of the evidence. Overall I would say we have made progress. I recognise you recognise that in your 'Mind over matter' report, and that is pleasing. What I would say, though, is that there's a still a lot to be done. Certainly over the last nine months or so, we've seen a real momentum around the whole-school approach work, which we're not actually leading now as a programme, although we facilitated the workshop held in September. But that's got a real momentum, and the absolute priority now is the early help and enhanced support part of the work moving forward, and I'm sure we will come on to that in more detail. But we know there is more community workforce in specialist CAMHS, we know we're seeing children in a shorter time frame, and we know we're accepting more referrals, so our indicators are telling us we are making progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And you referred to the work on the whole-school approach, which is very welcome, and I recognise that the programme has been involved in driving that as well. But I'm sure you'll also recognise the emphasis that the committee has placed on this being a whole-system approach to children and young people's mental health, and we feel very strongly that if any of the areas get out of balance, then it will jeopardise the progress in other parts of the programme. Are there any particular areas where you feel you haven't made enough progress that you'd like to draw the committee's attention to? +Carol Shillabeer: This is maybe about what the programme's done, but really around the broader sense as well. I'm going to be very straight and say we should have made more progress on psychological therapies. I'm disappointed that we haven't. I'm assured that we've got capacity in place now and the drive in place to get the Matrics Cymru framework developed for children and young people. I've had discussions with the national psychological therapies committee, who have owned this, and we're working together more on this area. That's not to say for one minute that health boards and local areas haven't been working on psychological therapy service provision and changing the models, but that is an area we should have made, I think, earlier progress on. There's been a general reflection from myself and the Together for Children and Young People programme board over the phase of the programme. I think we started very strongly; I think we probably had a bit of a lull in the middle, if I'm truthful about that—we had a change of personnel, and we really gathered a momentum over the last year or 18 months, and that has helped to push us from a focus on specialist CAMHS into that whole-school approach. But, if I could just agree with your comments about the whole system, it has to be the whole system and that's why the real focus now on early help and enhanced support is critical. If I can just say, in case I don't get a chance to say this later, I was delighted to see the focus on youth work yesterday, because what is clear is for that part, the early help and enhanced support, this isn't just about the NHS and it's not just about education, it's about every part of the system, really, which does make it more complex. But I just wanted to say that I think that youth work has perhaps not have the recognition that it's needed and yesterday was a positive step. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on early help and enhanced support from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. In terms of local primary mental health support services, what is your understanding of the issues leading to some health boards not meeting the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 targets for assessment and therapy for children and young people, and how much of this is due to an increase in demand? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thanks very much. So, it's important to say, I think, at the outset, just by way of reminder, that the target, quite rightly, changed for children and young people. The target changed some years ago for adults, so it was only right that there was an equalisation around children. So, the services were working, a couple of years ago, with significant demand and then a change in the standard. I think you're absolutely right; your question alludes to the fact that some health boards are struggling to maintain the full performance around seeing children, particularly within the 28 days. I would say—. And we've had some discussion about whether the impact of the mental health Measure has actually drawn perhaps some of the workforce, the staff, who would have been working at that earlier stage in local primary mental health, into a bit more of the secondary element, which is why the review being undertaken by the NHS delivery unit into primary care CAMHS is so critical, because, actually, if we don't have—and I believe we don't have—enough capacity in that part of the system, then referrals will move towards the more specialist end of this. So, I think we will have seen, by the evidence submission, that demand has increased, not just in Wales but in the UK, and it has increased significantly. We are doing reasonably well at meeting that demand—so, we have more contacts, more staff, shorter access times, so that is a good news story. We've not got it completely sustained at this stage, and therefore the focus of the delivery unit's primary care CAMHS report is what more can we do in that part of the system to help to see children and young people or provide consultation and liaison to others and support people at that level of intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I know, from my own experience as a constituency AM, I have families who tell me that they can't get into the early interventions and eventually things just become so—they end up in the more specialist ones and believe that that's—. And I don't like to put it in resource terms, but it's false economy in terms of the impact on the child and the family, but, obviously, in terms of cost as well. Do you find that that's a common theme across Wales? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think that the thrust of that is absolutely right. So, we absolutely need to see children and families at the earliest intervention and that's why this is a whole system, not compartmentalised. I think there have been really good attempts in a couple of areas of that greater reach out and that earlier help—hot clinics and those sorts of initiatives that help people not to get in a long queue for specialist CAMHS, but can be supported, often by telephone, at that earlier stage. My sense of where we go next, in terms of, you know, you talk about early help and enhanced support for all the 'missing middle', as you referred to it in your report, is to make sure we've got a fully joined-up, multi-agency team approach to that. And I think that will need some resourcing to support that, yet to be fully determined. But yesterday's announcement about youth work, the Government's commitment to primary care, CAMHS, et cetera—that's all going to be very helpful to prevent those young people having to go into specialist CAMHS. And just a final note on that, if I may—at the beginning of the programme, we had a report from Hafal called 'Making Sense' and there were 10 key asks, if you like, of the system and the service from young people who had experience of the service. They said, 'Please don't medicalise it'—I'm paraphrasing now, of course—'Please don't medicalise it; please focus on supporting teachers and others who can support us at an earlier stage and then, when we really need help, please ensure that it is there at that more specialist level.' That's been a bit of a guiding principle for the programme. So, that reflects the questions that you were asking, really. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. What are the outcomes of the stakeholder workshop held last week on early help and enhanced support? And how are the actions going to be taken forward and implemented? And also, given that the Together for Children and Young People programme comes to an end in October of this year, who, in your view, is best placed to forward this work stream, and what will be the biggest challenges? It's a bit of a long question, so, break it up however you like. +Carol Shillabeer: That's absolutely fine. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And what will be the biggest challenges that they will face? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, I think that's helpfully laid out in three stages. So, you're absolutely right, there was a highly successful workshop last week really focusing on early help and enhanced support. It brought all of the agencies together, which was—and actually had a bit of a waiting list, apparently, for places. So, there was a lot of demand and a lot of interest in this. In relation to the next steps, there is a planning group reflection in early July, in terms of the outcomes of the workshop or the outputs of the workshop, and there are three commitments that have been made to this stage. One is that we develop those values-led approaches that will bring multiple agencies together to have that common purpose. The second one is to develop the ingredients for successful working in this area, and then, thirdly, to determine or propose priorities and sequencing of next steps. So, that's the next stage of that. I'm pretty sure we'll come on shortly—or hopefully—to the potential of the regional partnership boards. There is some work that we are doing as a programme with the children's commissioner in terms of working more with the regional partnership boards in taking forward this work. So, that will run alongside. But during the summer, then, we will be developing that framework approach, and we will be participating in the Association of Directors of Social Services conference in September, and then a follow-up workshop in October on this matter. On your question of 'Well, what happens after the programme?' we are currently working on legacy arrangements for the programme. I'm pretty secure on the specialist CAMHS element. That will move, most likely, to the CAMHS network, which is part of the NHS mental health network. I actually chair the mental health network and that's one part of that. The whole-school approach element is already settled in Government and we've got a connection in to that. The question that's outstanding is where the early help and enhanced support and the neurodevelopmental will go. I am currently in discussions with Welsh Government officials around that. I can be very clear of my own view that there needs to be a confident and clear legacy arrangement for this work. We cannot afford that we've come so far for this not now to proceed. I think there's a huge momentum behind this. I don't see there would be any obstacles—I hope—in getting that commitment translated into a strong approach, as we move forward. So, I'm not in a position to say, 'And the legacy arrangements will be—', but I am in a position to say that I'm having those discussions with Welsh Government officials. They know my view that we've got to put something in place that is strong and secure as we move forward, and I believe that they are supportive of that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, I think those two questions have been touched on, the remaining questions. We are going to discuss in more detail the legacy arrangements, but if I could just ask on psychological therapies: you referred to the fact that you were a bit disappointed with progress in this area, and the area hasn't been directly led on by the Together for Children and Young People programme. Do you think that means now that there is more of a threat to progress in this area, because, you know, we've got different compartmentalising of actions, and this is absolutely key, isn't it, really? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think there's—. There is some refinement to be done, I think, in making sure the connections are there. So, I think, as we move to programme end, we'll want to be absolutely assured that there are no strands left hanging, so to speak. I am confident—I mentioned the mental health network board that I chair—that we have those strands nailed down, but recognising that the early help and enhanced support and the provision of psychological support is beyond the NHS. So, this will be an area that needs to be very much seen as a key part of that. My own sense is that—. There's been quite a lot of other developments through the life of the programme. So, in the evidence that I've provided, you'll see the First 1000 days, all the adverse childhood experiences work, the Cymru Well Wales partnership, et cetera, et cetera. So, there is a bit of what I would call tidying up of the landscape to be done, and this is the ideal opportunity to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on specialist CAMHS—if I can just ask about the impact of the specialist CAMHS framework, and how effective you feel that has been in promoting a consistent delivery of care for young people. +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. Without wanting to go back too far in history, I remember coming into this area back in 2014 as I was asked to establish a CAMHS network. My observation was there wasn't really a strong and well-connected clinical community in this area. When we spin forward five years, I can confidently say that there is a strong and well-connected clinical community around specialist CAMHS. The programme has helped; the emphasis and the focus of the programme has helped to bring people together with that more common endeavour to understand, actually, there is a good case for consistency in the main, with local variation. There has been a case for much greater learning between organisations. If I just give you an example—you'll know that the community intensive service teams were put in place in 2015-ish. Some areas have them, but a lot of areas didn't. We do have inconsistency in that, but the consistent part is there is a service now right the way across Wales for more intensive support to children and young people and their families in their own homes, which helps to prevent admissions and then, where there are admissions, helps to support people to be at home. They're all called slightly different things. So, I might have referred in my papers to CITT, CATT, COT and CITE. So, they've all got slightly different names and they've got slightly different opening hours. The key thrust of this is that there is a backbone, if you like, of a consistent approach with that local variation. We have to check. So, things like frameworks for improvement—there is a coming together of the clinicians and the professionals to agree what that framework for improvement is. That then gets implemented, with some local variation. So, I think the process of moving in that way has been extremely helpful. There will be some variation. We want some variation, to some extent, as places try new things and evaluate new things. So, if I just refer to the previous question that I had, and I talked about hot clinics and different ways of reaching out; that's been tried in one area, been evaluated—let's see the spread of that. So, you'll know my view on internet counselling, for example; I feel that is quite a strong offer for children—not necessarily in the specialist end. If that works in one area, why aren't we rolling that out to other areas? So, I think the framework for improvement has provided a vehicle for those clinicians and professionals to come together. It's in a stronger place—a much stronger place—than it was five years ago. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. You've referred to there being some inconsistencies in terms of crisis care, but are you able to assure the committee that all young people are now getting at least a consistent service, especially in terms of interventions in the instances of young people self-harming. Wherever you live in Wales, is that help there for you now? +Carol Shillabeer: Well, in your work to produce the 'Mind over matter' report, I clearly listened to the views from the police and the recommendations in relation to the police. We've taken that as a further piece of work under the specialist CAMHS umbrella, to truly understand what the experiences of the police are and what some of the root issues may be in relation to that. For example, is it that because the CIT, CAT, COT, CITE—the community intensive service—closes at 10 o'clock in a certain area, that actually it's after that that the network of support isn't as strong, and, if that is the case, what are we going to do about that? There's certainly potential in working more regionally or even working between adults' and children's in terms of the crisis resolution services that work beyond those hours. So, we are taking an extra look at this, because I could not be 100 per cent confident that, throughout the 24-hour period, we've got this fully settled. I continue to hear some stories from the police that they are picking up young people and feeling that they've not got that solid place to go, and we're following those through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Hefin David on neurodevelopmental services. +Hefin David AM: I think, Chair, I should have declared an interest here, as my daughter has been diagnosed with autism and is currently going through the process of receiving neurodevelopmental speech and language support particularly. We're seeing an increase in neurodevelopmental referrals, and that will increase further in the future. Can you give us an explanation as to why this demand is growing and how we're going to meet capacity to deliver and for support for those children? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you. They're very big questions in terms of 'why'. I'm not sure that anyone really knows why, if I'm honest, although there is a lot of academic research going on. What we do know is that we are starting to see the scale of those referrals coming through. So, in the information provided, I refer to the NHS digital prevalence report in England, which indicates that about 5.5 per cent of two to four-year-olds have a mental disorder. Now, that sounds a bit shocking when we say that, but that's in the international classification scaling, and, of that, certainly, 2.5 per cent is around autism. I can just testify, in real life, that demand is absolutely growing. So, if I just take my own health board for a moment, we usually have about 75 referrals per year. Last year we had 300. So, that has felt very difficult to manage. If I can just give you a sense of what we've done so far and then what I think is next, I want to recognise the work of Dr Cath Norton and the steering group that's been established on neurodevelopmental issues under the programme. They had a standing start. They've done a lot of very, very good work. We now have seven teams in place across Wales. We now have a national pathway. We now have a community-of-practice-type environment, and we're really getting into this. Good progress has been made. More people have been seen. More people have been assessed. So, we have made progress. But I've got a long list of considerations that I think respond to your question. One is that most referrals that come through, the clinicians tell me, are seeking support to move through what they perceive to be a gateway for educational support. So, that is often the reason why people come. Now, that is obviously going to be linked to the whole-school approach and how we can support that. Demand is outstripping supply. So, our clinical teams are concerned about how do they keep up. So, if I just take my own example of 300 in the last year, we're looking to try and put some additional capacity in to support seeing those families, but also then to understand what the long-term trajectory is going to be. Because we've put these teams in, because we've got the new pathway, has that opened a gate and we've got a lot of backlog or is that the pattern? +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask a question there? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. +Hefin David AM: So, with regard to the 75 to 300 increase—in the space of a year was that? +Carol Shillabeer: In a year, yes. +Hefin David AM: Did you anticipate that or was that something that just came totally unexpected? +Carol Shillabeer: I think we anticipated a few more, and just to say that in my— +Hefin David AM: But not on that scale. +Carol Shillabeer: No, not on that scale. And in my own health board—I'm just referring to my own, and I'm happy to share the information on this—we already had a service in place. So, it wasn't as if we had nothing in place previously. We had a NICE-compliant service already in place, but we knew we needed to expand that, which we have done, but we didn't anticipate 300. So, this is happening not just across Wales, actually, but across the UK—so, this greater recognition, the desire for families coming forward to access that support and them seeing this as a route, which is really important. What I would also say, and this is part of the bigger picture that we need to consider going forward, is that only about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of those families that come forward have what I would call or the clinicians would call a diagnosis—so, a threshold or whatever term you want to use that takes people through to that educational support. So, we've got a lot of people who are under that threshold, but that's a lot of people who still need help and support. I'm trying to very fairly and, I hope, appropriately represent the very strong views coming from the group—the workstream under the programme. We've got to tackle all of that. It's not going to be good enough for us just to focus our attention on those children and young people and their families who reach a threshold, because there are needs elsewhere as well, and some of that will overlap with the early help and enhanced support. Some of that overlaps with learning disability services. Can I just mention a few more things, as I'm on roll on neurodevelopmental? +Hefin David AM: It's up to the Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, go on. +Carol Shillabeer: Is that all right? Sorry, I know it's a very long answer. There is a concern from the neurodevelopmental group to get across that whilst there has been a lot of focus on autism—and we recognise the private Member's Bill—there are other neurodevelopmental presentations and there's a real—. Having the broadest view would be advised by them, and I think they're particularly keen to understand what a future vision and what we call, say, a 'perfect world' would look like. That's the piece of work that we're wanting to do now. In terms of giving advice at the end of the programme and into legacy arrangements, about what the big, big things are, we are still needing to tackle. +Hefin David AM: I mean, I personally took a very personal decision when it came to the Member's Bill on autism you were talking about—and that was the advice I received. You need to look at the wider symptoms that are presented beyond autism and other neurological conditions. So, I'm glad you said that, because it gives me—. Because I didn't vote for that Bill, and I'm glad you said that because it gives me some personal reassurance there. But what I do have concerns about is if the increase wasn't anticipated to the extent that it was and that the Together for Children and Young People programme has a duty to review capacity, after October who's going to make sure that that capacity's reviewed on a strategic basis? +Carol Shillabeer: So, I should have probably added in that we've got a piece of work under way at the moment—Welsh Government commissioned it—by a person called Patrick Holton, and he is specifically looking at the demands on capacity in relation to neurodevelopmental. I think getting that slightly more independent view of what we think the trends are going to be over the long term will mean we can plan for the long term. We know that money's been put into this and it has had an important impact, but we now need to be planning for the next three, five, 10 and many years beyond that. There is the integrated autism service. I think there are some conversations, when I talk about the landscape being quite busy, about the sense of where this links as we support people through their lives with a neurodevelopmental issue. So, it's not just about a childhood thing; as people move through, we've got to get much better at that long-term planning. So, that piece of work is really important. We will get the report of that over the next couple of months in order for this sort of perfect-world picture that we want to try to describe to be informed by that. It also connects to the early help and enhanced support, because recognising if we just say half of the people who come for an assessment don't meet a threshold for a certain category, that's a lot of people who will need help and support to manage and cope with their condition and their situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. If we can just move on now to in-patient care, and if I can just ask you what the programme has been doing to address some of the challenges and opportunities we face in terms of CAMHS in-patient care, particularly in light of the restrictions that are in place in Abergele and Tŷ Llidiard. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you very much for that question. Again, quite a lot of progress has been made in the early part of the programme around in-patients, and you are very well aware of the challenges over the last year or 18 months in relation to both units. I think, certainly, there is some recovery in the position in north Wales, and the programme did a peer review visit to north Wales, which I think was very helpful. In terms of where the programme has been on this issue, there is some work under way, at quite an advanced stage, around the art of the possible around enhancing the scope of the services. This was quite a tricky thing to start off when you're in a position where, actually, there've been some restrictions, to then ask the service to think about going even further, but we really wanted to see what the art of the possible would be if we could attract the right workforce, get the right environment, et cetera, et cetera—so, that piece of work, the review of the specification about what could be possible. Clearly, we work very closely with Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee as the commissioner, so we don't commission that. We neither performance manage those environments. But, if I can just say, probably the most important part of moving forward now is the longer term work between health and social care in terms of having a much more integrated and joined up approach for children. We believe there would probably be about 100 children who have experienced care in multiple settings. We haven't got that mature approach in terms of these being joined-up teams; we've got social care and we've got healthcare. There is a growing appetite to do something different. There is a meeting with the children's commissioner on 9 July to explore that. I've previously had conversations with the chief inspector of Care Inspectorate Wales, for example, and we have now got, I think, a consensus growing that we need to do something very different for children and young people who are in this sort of need for the future. We also know that there've been some high-profile legal cases as well. So, we've got to move to that step now. It has been largely successful, the work that has taken place over recent years, but not without its key challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, just briefly on the new specification that WHSSC are developing, that will enable admissions at weekends and out of hours. How concerned should we be about that being a challenge, particularly in Abergele, where staffing has been a major issue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think we need to be very mindful of ensuring that the right workforce are in place before that gets implemented. The peer review highlighted the challenge of the physical environment, where the unit is, the challenge across north Wales of the workforce. These are issues well known by the health board, by the way, so it wasn't a surprise to them. But that dialogue about how do we ensure that we've got the right workforce, because that unit, potentially, could—you know, it's an isolated unit, and they’ve been risk-managing. They've been managing the types of young people that they can take bearing in mind the workforce that they've got available, and that's been entirely the right thing to do. But the downside of that is it's not as accessible as we would want. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin David has got some questions on workforce now. +Hefin David AM: Yes. With regard to the increased CAMHS posts that have been made available between 2016 and 2018—a 62 per cent increase in CAMHS posts—we know that there's likely to be labour market demand, high labour market demand, in those instances, so are the vacancy rates higher in Wales than elsewhere, given the increase in those posts to be filled? +Carol Shillabeer: So, you're absolutely right. There's been quite a lot of investment, and there have been quite a lot of new recruits coming to the service. We had in the early days a situation where we were largely robbing Peter to pay Paul, to be quite frank. So, as new services were being developed, people would move from one part of the system to the other. So, in the early days there was little net gain. That has improved slightly, but we're in a national context, particularly around nursing and around some specialties in medicine, of a national shortage, so this is not a quick fix. We are starting to see a greater diversity of workforce. So, if I can mention psychology assistants, for example, my own health board is employing more psychology assistants as part of a skill mix team, rather than going to where we might have been more traditionally based. We see some of that through the NHS benchmarking, particularly with England. They have more of that. We're perhaps a little bit— +Hefin David AM: More of what? +Carol Shillabeer: They have more skill mix in their workforce. We're catching up a bit more on that now. +Hefin David AM: Just to clarify there, what you're referring to—there are more nursing and medical staff in the Wales system and more psychological staff, experts, in the UK picture. Is that—? +Carol Shillabeer: In the England picture. So, England had a programme called IAPT, which is about psychological therapies, and had therefore looked at the skill mix. Some of that was—. We've chatted to colleagues in England, trying to learn—we're all trying to make improvements in this area, of course; it's a UK and international issue—what were their experiences of this psychological therapies approach. Because of their vacancies they had to skill mix, and because of the money that they had available—they didn't have as much of a cash injection as perhaps we've been able to secure. So, they skill mixed much earlier; we're skill mixing now. We're using different types of roles, for example. And if I can just make a plea, really, around recognising the input of the third sector—so, it doesn't always have to be an NHS-employed person to work in service provision, direct front-line service provision, and the third sector are offering a significant contribution in a number of areas of our services. And that is one that we will need to cultivate, because, to be quite frank, our recruitment challenges won't be solved overnight. We've recognised that the commissioning numbers for nursing and other professionals have gone up over recent times, but, with the training time, it's not a quick fix. +Hefin David AM: Does the workforce profile remain different, or are they starting to—? +Carol Shillabeer: They're starting to come together. There is a—graph 13 in terms of the CAMHS profile. Each year we do the NHS benchmarking, and we can see where we are compared to others, and I would expect over the next year or two that we see a bit more narrowing. +Hefin David AM: So, if you compare a child in Wales with a child in England in the last two years who's been through this, would they have had a different experience as a result, and different clinical advice as a result, or is there consistency despite the difference in workforce profile? +Carol Shillabeer: That's quite a big question. Hand on heart, could I tell you I absolutely know the detail of that? No, I couldn't. The practice in this area is guided by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, so it's pretty much guided. We would expect all of our practitioners to be able to work to NICE guidance. When you skill mix a team, you enable the right referrals to go to the right person, so you wouldn't necessarily have a child or young person with particularly complex needs—well, you would match them to the right practitioner for their needs. So, it does—. And we've seen some of that; if I just make reference to the panel approach in Gwent that's been developed, a multi-agency panel come together, a referral comes in, it's then about matching the right service and the right person to the needs that are being presented. So, we can be much more flexible in relation to that, and we have to be careful to use the right resource for the right person, because, if we've got a resource that is highly specialist, we want them to be dealing with those children and young people. +Hefin David AM: And one of the things you're able to do—because there's a lot about the labour market you can't control, but one of the things you can control is workforce development and ongoing workforce development. You've mentioned communities of practice. What other things are being done in addition, and how do the communities of practice work might be a good question, but what else is being done in order to upskill and develop and grow the existing workforce that is presented to you? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. So, there's a couple of things around—. I think there's a huge focus on staff retention now, not just in Wales but across the UK. So, we've got recruitment but we've got retention. What are the factors that affect retention? Actually, well-being, well-being at work—and you'll know that within 'A Healthier Wales' the focus on staff engagement, staff well-being, has been laid out—the ability to work well in teams and the culture of organisations and services, and, then, as you rightly say, training and development and career opportunities. So, the developments over the last few years have brought training opportunities and career development opportunities as well. I think the community of practice—it's something that has become a bit of a standard now across these areas—actually brings people together doing collective audit, doing collective reflection on service improvement, and being very clear about learning from one another. And, if you're a clinician, that gives you a lot of motivation to keep driving forward. So, I think we have the fundamental building blocks in place, but there is more to do around the environment in which our practitioners and our staff operate. +Hefin David AM: What about the Welsh language in the health board? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much. There are two elements, if I may, just on that. In your report of last year you highlighted the need to do further work on the use of the Welsh language, and have we got enough Welsh language practitioners where we need them. We are doing that piece of work. I'm pleased to say that, over the last few years, I think all health boards have really stepped up in terms of being able to understand the levels of Welsh speaking amongst employed staff and where their Welsh-speaking communities are. We're particularly looking at it in terms of in-patient CAMHS and community intensive services, because, particularly when people are feeling at their most vulnerable, they would choose the language they wish to choose. So, we know we need to respond to that. So, we will be in a position to, by the end of this programme, provide that position statement on what happens next. I would also say, of course, we've got the Welsh language standards that we are all working on at the moment, and we've got a very clear programme of when we have to be compliant with those standards. So, that element is very high on the priority list. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy Davies has a question about looked-after children. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, everything you've been speaking about already, particularly about workforce development, applies to children in care as well, where there's other work also going on in terms of support. Can you give us some indication about how the programme intersects, then, with the outcomes for the children in care work programme? +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. So, we have one of our members of the programme board also sitting on the outcomes for children ministerial group, which is good. So, we've got that cross-link. We also have a director of social services on our programme board and, obviously, they're very clearly linked in to the outcomes for children. I just made reference to, under the question on specialist CAMHS in-patients, the need to bring those services together, and that, really, is the need for much stronger working between the outcomes for children group and the Together for Children and Young People programme and the constituent parts. So, I'm confident that that has been pegged now. We've got a way forward and there is a consensus that we need to do things together on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Can you just perhaps give us an example of how that then looks on the ground? Because it's great that people are talking together, but how would that affect, I don't know, individual members of the workforce, or, indeed, the children we're talking about? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. So, if I just give an example of a unit in south Wales that is a social care unit, we've been having discussions about, 'Well, actually, shouldn't you have a psychologist and good access to psychological therapies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?' So, we haven't yet got an agreed position on how we're going to do this, but the position is that something needs to be done, and there is an appetite for and an understanding of the case for change, I believe. But what it will mean, I think, in practice, is that you get much more fluid roles moving across sectors, or we could be designing services that are fully integrated. Now, there may be challenges in that, but, you know, let's get them out on the table. So, in terms of this seamless health and social care system for Wales, this is one of the tests of that, I would say: can we, within the next five years, 10 years, really bring that together? That will take quite a lot of work and commitment. On the looked-after children specifically, we have picked that up, particularly following your previous report, looking specifically at the assessment of young people who are care experienced who are in the system. Absolutely, part of the health assessment is emotional health and mental health. We are questioning whether that needs to be a greater part and what the level of support needs to be, particularly because of the backgrounds of children that have led them to be in those circumstances. That's a core piece of work under the early help and enhanced support work stream, and we'll be ensuring that that is complete by the end of the programme. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And you're confident that that will reach children who are being fostered and perhaps don't have very frequent looked-after children reviews, because, from all other perspectives, things are going fairly well. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. And, of course, there's the edge-of-care work that the Government have been supporting, and, certainly in my own area, under the regional partnership board, we have a Start Well programme, which is the old Children and Young People's Partnership programme, where there's a significant investment in supporting children and young people, families, on the edge of care, which does pick up fostering. +Suzy Davies AM: Ah, lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn has a question on transition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. We've heard, not necessarily just in the context of this report, because we've heard similar evidence around transition arrangements in another committee report when we did the suicide prevention, and I've in fact only recently—well, just this week, actually—met with community mental health teams in my constituency, and there is still some concern about transitional arrangements from children into adult services. Now, I know we had the—. The transition guidance was published a couple of years ago now, and the programme was involved in developing that guidance. But what's your assessment of the impact that it's had? Because we clearly are still seeing people falling through the gaps, aren't we? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you for that. You're absolutely right; we developed that guidance and we are currently in the process of the evaluation of that. And, in particular, I know that the children's commissioner is very focused on transition, not just around children in receipt of emotional mental health support, but children in paediatric wards, and there is a working group with Welsh Government looking at this. The children's commissioner has used our guidance to put that on the table to say, 'Well, if this works, this needs to be considered as a model for using elsewhere'. But the big question there is 'if'. So, we do want to get evaluation. If I were just to give an estimate of where I think this will land, I think it will have made improvements, but there may well be some further work to do in enhancing, supporting, auditing that every child is supported in line with that guidance. So, I talked about community practice and clinical audit: is this something that we make, then, a mandatory audit, each year, that we do that double check? Because it's one of those things where we know when a child is 14, 15, 16, 17, so what's stopping us? If indeed the evaluation says it's not happening everywhere, it's not happening early enough, what is stopping us? We really need to get underneath that. So, my sense will be it will show us, it will be better, but there's some further work to do, and following that up in terms of audit and making sure that we've got a systematic approach to dealing with those who haven't had the guidance fully implemented, because it can make a real difference. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and it seems to me—you've just talked about having a systematic approach, and it does seem to me that it is a systematic process, isn't it? So, it shouldn't be difficult. I know we're talking about in the health service things shouldn't be difficult and they are, and one of the gripes—I had a meeting with the community health team—was the problems of the new IT systems and so on—let's not go there at the moment. But, really, this is just about referring children and having a smooth transition from the service being provided to them as a child and then just shifting it over to the adult services. It shouldn't be difficult. It's really difficult to get my head around why that is such a problem and why that needs to be so difficult. +Carol Shillabeer: Can I add one other dimension in, which I think is going to be quite interesting? We talk about transitions being an issue—and we know it's not just in mental health, but it's elsewhere—then you start to think, 'What if we could reduce transitions?', so you reduce the number of transitions and you manage them better. We are doing a piece of work with Government on the potential to explore what a 0-25-type service would be. We know that in different places they have approached that—in Australia and places in the UK. There are probably some pros and cons, but should we be moving to a 0-25. That is moving the transition at the age of 25, but at least it's not at the eighteenth birthday. What's the argument around what adolescent, young people and young adults services are, for example? That piece of research and understanding— +Dawn Bowden AM: You could probably have a gradual transition, then, couldn't you? +Carol Shillabeer: Quite potentially. I've got some people who have joined my own health board who've worked in that 0-25-type service, and we're catching up—'Tell me what was good about it? Tell me what was not so good about it? What did the young people themselves think about that?'. Because if we can manage down the numbers of transitions, there really should be no excuse not to get transitions right, then. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some really important questions now about legacy, because throughout the session this morning you've referred to ongoing work, really, and that is a major concern for the committee. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair, we are a little bit worried that this programme is coming to an end in a matter of months when perhaps its work's not been completed. Obviously, we've got the Welsh Government's strategy for mental health running until 2022, which is a few years longer. Can you tell me whether you think your programme needs to continue, perhaps even if it's just for the same length of time as Together for Mental Health, or is its work done and it needs to be picked up now by a different system? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. Can I just say, I've given this so much thought over the time, because I think you might have asked me this question when I came previously? There are two ways to look at this. I'm absolutely sure that the issue of children's emotional and mental health will be one that will be with us for a very long time. We have made a lot of progress, I think, as a society, in talking about this now. We talk about mental health so much more than we ever used to. When I was a child, we never talked about it. I talk to my own children and say, 'What's going on in your lives at school?', and they talk about this. This is not an issue, if you like, that I believe you can pick up and solve literally in five years. This is one for the long term for us. So, on the one hand, I think my view last year was that, when you have a programme of work, you should have a start, a middle and end, really—otherwise it's not a programme of work, it's almost forever—and there is a moment to refresh and reflect on whether that mechanism has done all it should and it should move into a different mechanism. So, my position last year was, 'This will have been running for five years—we've done a lot of work and made progress on specialist CAMHS, we have made progress on the whole-school approach and there is a different mechanism for this' et cetera. My position now is I want to just be really sure and secure that there is a strong arrangement going forward that takes this work, if this programme is going to close. +Suzy Davies AM: Are you sure? +Carol Shillabeer: Not yet. So, I think, in an earlier question I indicated dialogue going on between myself and Welsh Government officials. I don't think there's a barrier—people aren't saying, 'No, it all needs to just stop; we've solved the issue', but the exact nature of the legacy arrangements, particularly for early help and enhanced support, are not yet fully determined, or for neurodevelopmental. If it was a choice between nothing being there and continuing this programme, I would be supporting continuing the programme. I don't think we can stop now. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I don't think any of us would disagree with that, but I suppose there might be a level of concern that the Welsh Government's preferred route from now on would be through the regional partnership boards and public services boards. You mentioned that you've done that work in Gwent, down in the south-east of your patch there. It's quite difficult for us to try and get a picture of how that will work successfully for the whole of Wales. I know you've got your experience in Gwent, but have you thought a bit more about how it might look elsewhere, if that's the route that Government decides to pursue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think the key question in my own mind is: are the regional partnership boards yet ready and mature enough to take this forward? I'm the chair of the Powys regional partnership board, so I should declare that. There's a lot being asked of the regional partnership boards at the moment— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, we'll be asking them to go with the 'Mind over matter' report, to make sure that that's delivered upon. +Carol Shillabeer: There's a lot, you know, 'A Healthier Wales'—. Everyone does feel that the regional partnership boards are a route to really secure multi-agency working, so there is quite a high expectation. My understanding—and this is a rather informal understanding—is that different RPBs are in different places. So, some have retained what used to be the old children and young people partnerships, and perhaps where they have been retained, they may be in a more progressed position. Some are looking to have to re-establish those. So, my sense of this is that, I think, possibly the RPBs aren't yet in that position to be ready. Our piece of work on early help and enhanced support, in terms of your earlier question about what's the commitment—that feels that that may well be another year or 18 months of development work, alongside the RPB development work, to get that ready, before we can then more confidently say where we can hand over. +Suzy Davies AM: You may not feel able to say it, then, but would be wrong in saying that, actually, it would be quite a good idea to extend the current programme, just to make sure that anyone else who might be able to run on with component parts of it is in the position to do that to our satisfaction? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm happy to respond to it. My sense is that, whether it's the programme or whether it's something else, something needs to be there. The next stage is really multi-agency, so it may well be that the programme currently has been NHS-led—maybe it needs to be led elsewhere, maybe not. I think there's a view that this needs to continue. I'm less wedded to it having to be the Together for Children and Young People programme. It may be seen as a convenient mechanism—it's already established, we've got a programme team et cetera, so it may be seen as a ready sort of solution. I'm not wedded to that. What I feel strongly about is that we've got to have the right mechanism to take it forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just push you on one thing there? You mentioned, perhaps, the NHS could lead on the work, for example. Is there a risk of fragmentation if we start looking—? I'm just thinking—I mean, we've got the elements here: we've got the NHS, there's the whole-school approach, early help and enhanced support and intervention, as you mentioned earlier. If that goes to one of the players in that multi-agency approach, is there a risk that they might become too dominant, inadvertently—? +Carol Shillabeer: If I can just clarify—apologies if I wasn't clear. I said the current programme has been NHS-led, and that might be a reason to change. +Suzy Davies AM: To mix it up a bit. Oh, right, okay. Anything else you want me to pursue on that—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just clarify for the record, Carol—because we put this to the Minister last week—are you looking at asking the regional partnership boards to take this work over from October 2019? Are you saying clearly to the committee that you do not feel that all regional partnership boards are ready for that challenge at this point? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm saying that on a more, if you like it, uniformed and informal basis, we're doing some work with the children's commissioner now in terms of—. I know the children's commissioner's very interested in how RPBs are managing, developing and dealing with the issues of children and young people's concerns. We're working with her to understand and to mirror alongside her the understanding of the RPBs. What I would say is that there has been some preparatory work by Government around supporting RPBs. So, for example, in the integrated care fund guidance last year, there was a specific reference to child and adolescent emotional mental health, which I welcomed. I've also welcomed, literally last week, a letter to all RPB chairs giving an allocation of £200,000 per RPB to support this further work in terms of child and adolescent emotional and mental health and the early help and support element. So, all of these things are in the right direction. My sense, and I need to stress it's a sense because we haven't done that piece of work, is different RPBs are in different places. So, how confident can we be at the October date that we could hand over? My sense is, just to safeguard, having a mechanism in place for the next 12 to 18 months to guide this through might be advisable, and that's what I'm talking to officials about. +Lynne Neagle AM: And that would either be an extension of the Together for Children and Young People programme or something else. Okay, thank you. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Because I think there is a question, isn't there, about whether the RPBs will make this enough of a priority? I'm a bit nervous that it might get lost in that huge amount of work you said they might have. Just a final question from me: how are you establishing what the young people themselves think about the end of the programme? Are they bothered about the structure of this at all or are they just concerned that they're getting help? How's the stakeholder group feeding into this? +Carol Shillabeer: I've not been blown over in the rush of people saying, 'Don't go anywhere.' [Laughter.] It's a really important matter for young people. I know that later on you're meeting with the Youth Parliament, you're having a joint session, which is fantastic. We've had contact with the Youth Parliament because we know it's one of their top three issues. So, it runs in the vein of that this is going to be a long-term matter for young people, I think. Whether they have a specific view on the programme, I don't know. I've not heard that. But I'm pretty sure they will be vocal in saying, 'We have to have these developments continue.' It is a major issue, we're not there yet—maybe some progress has been made but there's still a lot to do—and I think we'll need to be able to respond to that. +Suzy Davies AM: Anything particularly you want in addition to that? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I think that's fine. And if I can just say that it was really great last week at the early help and enhanced day to see young people so central to the day all the way through. It was very, very important and very welcome. +Suzy Davies AM: Carol, thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. we have come to the end of our time. We had a lot of things that we wanted to cover with you. We might need to drop you a line about a couple of things that we haven't covered, but can I thank you for your attendance this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you, all. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Youth Parliament—invitation to engagement events. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Education clarifying some issues around the Welsh network of healthy schools scheme, following the task and finish group. Paper to note 3: letter from the Minister for Education on the implementation of the Diamond reforms, and that's ahead of our session on 4 July. Papers to note 4 and 5 are a letter from me to the children's commissioner and the Minister for Education seeking the update we agreed on the issue of elective home education. And then paper to note 6, paper to note 7 and paper to note 8 are all letters regarding the concerns that we discussed about the expectation of a target being set for looked-after children, to the First Minister, Children's Commissioner for Wales and the Association of Directors of Social Services. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","Summary: + +The Children, Young People and Education Committee discusses the 'Mind over matter' report follow-up with Carol Shillabeer, CEO of Powys Teaching Health Board, about the Together for Children and Young People programme, which improves access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Progress has been made, but there is recognition of ongoing challenges and further work needed, especially in early help and enhanced support. The committee explores various topics: transitions, workforce development, Welsh language services, care for looked-after children, neurodevelopmental services, and inpatient care concerns. With the impending end of the Together for Children and Young People programme in October, there is uncertainty about legacy arrangements, and whether the regional partnership boards are prepared to take over this work. Discussions with officials about secure legacy plans are ongoing, as there is consensus that support for children’s mental health needs to continue in some form. There was a clear indication that there is concern among committee members regarding the future of this work once the programme concludes." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . So , uh You can fill those out , uh {pause} after , actually , so So , I got , uh {pause} these results from , uh , Stephane . Also , um , I think that , uh {pause} um {pause} we might hear later today , about other results . I think s that , uh , there were some other very good results that we 're gonna wanna compare to . But , {vocalsound} r our results from other {disfmarker} other places , yeah . +PhD A: I I 'm sorry ? I didn't +Professor D: Um , I got this from you +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and then I sent a note to Sunil about the {disfmarker} cuz he has been running some other systems +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: other than the {disfmarker} the ICSI OGI one . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +Professor D: So {pause} um , I wan wanna {disfmarker} wanna see what that is . But , uh , you know , so we 'll see what it is comparatively later . But {pause} it looks like , um +PhD A: M yeah . +Professor D: You know most of the time , even {disfmarker} I mean even though it 's true that the overall number for Danish {disfmarker} we didn't improve it If you look at it individually , what it really says is that there 's , um , uh Looks like out of the six cases , between the different kinds of , uh , matching conditions {pause} out of the six cases , there 's basically , um , a couple where it stays about the same , uh , three where it gets better , and one where it gets worse . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , go ahead . +PhD A: Y Actually , uh , um , for the Danish , there 's still some kind of mystery because , um , um , when we use the straight features , we are not able to get these nice number with the ICSI OGI one , I mean . We don't have this ninety - three seventy - eight , we have eight +PhD E: Eighty - nine forty - four . +PhD A: yeah . Uh , so , uh , that 's probably something wrong with the features that we get from OGI . Uh , and Sunil is working on {disfmarker} on trying to {disfmarker} to check everything . +Professor D: Oh , and {disfmarker} and we have a little time on that {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} actually so +PhD A: Hmm ? +Professor D: We have a little bit of time on that , actually . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: We have a day or so , so When {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when do you folks leave ? +PhD A: Uh , Sunday . +Professor D: Sunday ? So So , uh Yeah , until Saturday midnight , or something , we have W we {disfmarker} we have time , yeah . Well , that would be good . That 'd be good . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Uh , and , you know , i u when whenever anybody figures it out they should also , for sure , email Hynek because Hynek will be over there {vocalsound} telling people {vocalsound} what we did , so he should know . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Good , OK . So , um So , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll hold off on that a little bit . I mean , even with these results as they are , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not that bad . But {disfmarker} but , uh , um And it looks like the overall result as they are now , even without , you know , any {disfmarker} any bugs being fixed is that , uh , on the {disfmarker} the other tasks , we had this average of , uh , forty uh {disfmarker} nine percent , or so , improvement . And here we have somewhat better than that than the Danish , and somewhat worse than that on the German , but I mean , it sounds like , uh , one way or another , the methods that we 're doing can reduce the error rate from {disfmarker} from mel ceptrum {pause} down by , you know {pause} a fourth of them to , uh , a half of them . Somewhere in there , depending on the {pause} exact case . So So that 's good . I mean , I think that , uh , one of the things that Hynek was talking about was understanding what was in the other really good proposals and {disfmarker} and trying to see if what should ultimately be proposed is some , uh , combination of things . Um , if , uh {disfmarker} Cuz there 's things that they are doing {pause} there that we certainly are not doing . And there 's things that we 're doing that {pause} they 're not doing . And {disfmarker} and they all seem like good things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So +PhD E: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: How much {disfmarker} how much better was the best system than ours ? +Professor D: So Well , we don't know yet . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , first place , there 's still this thing to {disfmarker} to work out , and second place {disfmarker} second thing is that the only results that we have so far from before were really development set results . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: So , I think in this community that 's of interest . It 's not like everything is being pinned on the evaluation set . But , um , for the development set , our best result was a little bit short of fifty percent . And the best result of any system was about fifty - four , where these numbers are the , uh , relative , uh , reduction in , uh , word error rate . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor D: And , um , the other systems were , uh , somewhat lower than that . There was actually {disfmarker} there was much less of a huge range than there was in Aurora one . In Aurora one there were {disfmarker} there were systems that ba basically didn't improve things . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And here the {disfmarker} the worst system {pause} still reduced the error rate by thirty - three percent , or something , in development set . +PhD C: Oh , wow . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so , you know , sort of everybody is doing things between , well , roughly a third of the errors , and half the errors being eliminated , {vocalsound} uh , and varying on different test sets and so forth . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So I think Um {pause} It 's probably a good time to look at what 's really going on and seeing if there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a way to combine the best ideas while at the same time not blowing up the amount of , uh , resources used , cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's critical for this {disfmarker} this test . +PhD C: Do we know anything about {disfmarker} who {disfmarker} who 's was it that had the lowest on the dev set ? +Professor D: Um , uh , the , uh , the there were two systems that were put forth by a combination of {disfmarker} of , uh , French Telecom and Alcatel . And , um they {disfmarker} they differed in some respects , but they e em one was called the French Telecom Alcatel System the other was called the Alcatel French Telecom System , {vocalsound} uh , which is the biggest difference , I think . But {disfmarker} but there 're {disfmarker} there 're {disfmarker} there 're some other differences , too . Uh , and {disfmarker} and , uh , they both did very well , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: you know ? So , {vocalsound} um , my impression is they also did very well on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} the , uh , evaluation set , but , um , I {disfmarker} I we haven't seen {disfmarker} you 've - you haven't seen any final results for that +PhD C: And they used {disfmarker} the main thing that {disfmarker} that they used was spectral subtraction ? +Professor D: yeah . +PhD C: Or +Professor D: There is a couple pieces to it . There 's a spectral subtraction style piece {disfmarker} it was basically , you know , Wiener filtering . And then {disfmarker} then there was some p some modification of the cepstral parameters , where they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , actually , something that 's close to cepstral mean subtraction . But , uh , the way the mean is adapted {disfmarker} um , it 's signal dependent . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm , uh So , basically , the mean is adapted during speech and not during silence . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: But it 's very close to {disfmarker} to cepstral mean subtraction . +Professor D: But some people have done {vocalsound} {pause} exactly that sort of thing , of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean it 's not {disfmarker} To {disfmarker} to look in {pause} speech only , to try to m to measure these things during speech , +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: that 's p that 's not that uncommon . But i it it {disfmarker} so it looks like they did some {disfmarker} some , uh , reasonable things , uh , and they 're not things that we did , precisely . We did unreasonable things , {vocalsound} which {disfmarker} because we like to try strange things , and {disfmarker} and , uh , and our things worked too . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: And so , um , uh , it 's possible that some combination of these different things that were done would be the best thing to do . But the only caveat to that is that everybody 's being real conscious of how much memory and how much CPU they 're using +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: because these , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , standards are supposed to go on cell phones with m moderate resources in both respects . +PhD C: Did anybody , uh , do anything with the models as a {disfmarker} an experiment ? Or +Professor D: Uh , they didn't report it , if they did . +PhD C: N nobody reported it ? +Professor D: Yeah . I think everybody was focused elsewhere . Um , now , one of the things that 's nice about what we did is , we do have a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a filtering , which leads to a {disfmarker} a , uh {disfmarker} a reduction in the bandwidth in the modulation spectrum , which allows us to downsample . So , uh , as a result of that we have a reduced , um , transmission rate for the bits . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That was misreported the first time out . It {disfmarker} it said the same amount because for convenience sake in the particular way that this is being tested , uh , they were repeating the packets . So it was {disfmarker} they were s they {disfmarker} they had twenty - four hundred bits per second , but they were literally creating forty - eight hundred bits per second , {vocalsound} um , even though y it was just repeated . +PhD C: Oh . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: So , uh , in practice +PhD C: So you could 've had a repeat count in there or something . +Professor D: Well , n I mean , this was just a ph phoney thing just to {disfmarker} to fit into the {disfmarker} the software that was testing the errors {disfmarker} channel errors and so on . +PhD C: Oh . Oh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} so in reality , if you put this {disfmarker} this system in into , uh , the field , it would be twenty - four hundred bits per second , not forty - eight hundred . So , um , so that 's a nice feature of what {disfmarker} what we did . Um , but , um , well , we still have to see how it all comes out . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Um , and then there 's the whole standards process , which is another thing altogether . +PhD C: When is the development set {disfmarker} I mean , the , uh , uh , test set results due ? Like the day before you leave or something ? +Professor D: Uh , probably the day after they leave , but we 'll have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we 'll have to stop it the day before {comment} we leave . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . So +PhD C: Huh . +Professor D: I think tha I think the {disfmarker} the meeting is on the thirteenth or something . +PhD A: Yeah , this Tuesday , yeah . +Professor D: And , uh , they , uh Right . And the {disfmarker} the , uh , results are due like the day before the meeting or something . So +PhD A: Yeah , probably , well +Professor D: I th I think {disfmarker} I I think they are , +PhD A: Yeah , well +Professor D: yeah . So {pause} {vocalsound} um , since we have a bit farther to travel than {vocalsound} some of the others , {vocalsound} uh , we 'll have to get done a little quicker . But , um , I mean , it 's just tracing down these bugs . I mean , just exactly this sort of thing of , you know , why {disfmarker} why these features seem to be behaving differently , uh , in California than in Oregon . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor D: Might have something to do with electricity shortage . Uh , we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't have enough electrons here and Uh , but , um Uh , I think , you know , the main reason for having {disfmarker} I mean , it only takes w to run the {disfmarker} the two test sets in {disfmarker} just in computer time is just a day or so , right ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: So +PhD A: it 's very short interval . +Professor D: yeah . So , I think the who the whole reason for having as long as we have , which was {pause} like a week and a half , is {disfmarker} is because of bugs like that . So Huh So , we 're gonna end up with these same kind of sheets that have the {pause} the percentages and so on just for the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so there are two more columns in the sheets , +Professor D: Oh , I guess it 's the same sheets , +PhD A: two . Yeah , it 's the same sheets , +Professor D: yeah , yeah {disfmarker} +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: just with the missing columns filled in . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 'll be good . So , I 'll dis I 'll disregard these numbers . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's good . +PhD A: So , Hynek will try to push for trying to combine , uh , different things ? Or Hmm ? +Professor D: Uh , well that 's {pause} um yeah I mean , I think the question is "" Is there {disfmarker} is there some advantage ? "" I mean , you could just take the best system and say that 's the standard . But the thing is that if different systems are getting at good things , um , a again within the constraint of the resources , if there 's something simple that you can do Now for instance , uh , it 's , I think , very reasonable to have a standard for the terminal 's side and then for the server 's side say , "" Here 's a number of things that could be done . "" So , um , everything that we did could probably just be added on to what Alcatel did , and i it 'd probably work pretty well with them , too . So , um , uh , that 's one {disfmarker} one aspect of it . And then on the terminal 's side , I don't know how much , um , memory and {disfmarker} and CPU it takes , but it seems like the filtering {pause} Uh , I mean , the VAD stuff they both had , right ? And , um , so {disfmarker} and they both had some kind of on - line normalization , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +Professor D: Of sorts , yeah ? So {disfmarker} so , it seems like the main different there is the {disfmarker} is the , uh , filtering . And the filtering {disfmarker} I think if you can {disfmarker} shouldn't take a lot of memory to do that Uh , and I also wouldn't think the CPU , uh , would be much either for that part . So , if you can {disfmarker} if you can add those in {pause} um {pause} then , uh , you can cut the data rate in half . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So it seems like the right thing to do is to {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} on the terminal 's side , take what they did , if it {disfmarker} if it does seem to generalize well to German and Danish , uh , take what they did add in a filter , and add in some stuff on the server 's side and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and that 's probably a reasonable standard . Um {pause} Uh +PhD A: They are working on this already ? Because {disfmarker} yeah , Su - Sunil told me that he was trying already to put some kind of , uh , filtering in the {vocalsound} {pause} France Telecom . +Professor D: Yeah , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that 's what That would be ideal {disfmarker} would be is that they could , you know , they could actually show that , in fact , a combination of some sort , {vocalsound} uh , would work even better than what {disfmarker} what any of the systems had . And , um , then it would {disfmarker} it would , uh {pause} be something to {disfmarker} to discuss in the meeting . But , uh , not clear what will go on . Um , I mean , on the one hand , um , sometimes people are just anxious to get a standard out there . I mean , you can always have another standard after that , but {vocalsound} this process has gone on for a while on {disfmarker} already and {disfmarker} and people might just wanna pick something and say , "" OK , this is it . "" And then , that 's a standard . Uh , standards are always optional . It 's just that , uh , if you disobey them , then you risk not being able to sell your product , or {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} um And people often work on new standards while an old standard is in place and so on . So it 's not final even if they declared a standard . The other hand , they might just say they just don't know enough yet to {disfmarker} to declare a standard . So you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you will be {disfmarker} you will become experts on this and know more {disfmarker} far more than me about the tha this particular standards process once you {disfmarker} you go to this meeting . So , be interested in hearing . So , uh , I 'd be , uh , interested in hearing , uh , your thoughts now I mean you 're almost done . I mean , you 're done in the sense that , um , you may be able to get some new features from Sunil , and we 'll re - run it . Uh , but other than that , you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically done , right ? So , uh , I 'm interested in hearing {disfmarker} hearing your thoughts about {pause} where you think we should go from this . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean , we tried a lot of things in a hurry , and , uh , if we can back off from this now and sort of take our time with something , and not have doing things quickly be quite so much the constraint , what {disfmarker} what you think would be the best thing to do . +PhD A: Uh , well Hmm Well , first , uh , to really have a look at {disfmarker} at the speech {pause} {vocalsound} from these databases because , well , we tried several thing , but we did not really look {vocalsound} at what what 's happening , and {vocalsound} where is the noise , and +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Eh +Professor D: It 's a novel idea . Look at the data . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Or more generally , I guess , what {disfmarker} what is causing the degradation . +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . Actually , there is one thing that {disfmarker} well {pause} Um , generally we {disfmarker} we think that {vocalsound} most of the errors are within phoneme classes , and so I think it could be interesting to {disfmarker} to see if it {disfmarker} I don't think it 's still true when we add noise , and {vocalsound} so we have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess the confusion ma the confusion matrices are very different when {disfmarker} when we have noise , and when it 's clean speech . And probably , there is much more {pause} between classes errors for noisy speech . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} so , um Yeah , so perhaps we could have a {disfmarker} a large gain , eh , just by looking at improving the , uh , recognition , not of phonemes , but of phoneme classes , simply . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And {vocalsound} which is a s a s a simpler problem , perhaps , but {disfmarker} which is perhaps important for noisy speech . +Professor D: The other thing that strikes me , just looking at these numbers is , just taking the best cases , I mean , some of these , of course , even with all of our {disfmarker} our wonderful processing , still are horrible kinds of numbers . But just take the best case , the well - matched {pause} uh , German case after {disfmarker} er well - matched Danish after we {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: the kind of numbers we 're getting are about eight or nine {pause} uh {pause} p percent {pause} error {pause} per digit . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: This is obviously not usable , +PhD A: No . +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Sure . +Professor D: I mean , if you have ten digits for a phone number {comment} I mean , every now and then you 'll get it right . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , {vocalsound} um So , I mean , the other thing is that , uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} a and {disfmarker} and also , um {pause} part of what 's nice about this is that this is , uh , {vocalsound} um {pause} a realistic {disfmarker} almost realistic database . I mean , it 's still not people who are really trying to accomplish something , but {disfmarker} but , uh , within the artificial setup , it isn't noise artificially added , you know , simulated , uh , additive noise . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's real noise condition . And , um , {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the training {disfmarker} the training , I guess , is always done on the close talking +PhD A: No , actually {disfmarker} actually the well - matched condition {pause} is {pause} still quite di still quite difficult . +Professor D: No ? +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} they have all these data from the close mike and from the distant mike , {vocalsound} from different driving condition , open window , closed window , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and they take all of this and they take seventy percent , I think , for training and thirty percent for testing . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , training is done {vocalsound} on different conditions and different microphones , and testing also is done {pause} on different microphone and conditions . So , probably if we only take the close microphones , {vocalsound} I guess the results should be much much better than this . +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Oh , OK , +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: that explains it partially . Wha - what about i in {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , so {disfmarker} there is this , the mismatched is , um {pause} the same kind of thing , +Professor D: go ahead . +PhD A: but {pause} the driving conditions , I mean the speed and the kind of road , is different for training and testing , is that right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD A: And the last condition is close microphone for training and distant for testing . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , OK , +PhD A: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s so {disfmarker} +Professor D: so I see . So , yeah , so the high {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} right {disfmarker} so the highly mismatched {vocalsound} case {pause} is in some sense a good model for what we 've been , you know , typically talking about when we talk about additive noise in {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} and i i k it does correspond to a realistic situation in the sense that , {vocalsound} um , people might really be trying to , uh , call out telephone numbers or some or something like that , in {disfmarker} in their cars +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: and they 're trying to connect to something . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um +PhD A: Actually , yeah , it 's very close to clean speech training because , well , because the close microphone {vocalsound} and noisy speech testing , +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: Yeah . And the well - matched condition {pause} is what you might imagine that you might be able to approach , if you know that this is the application . You 're gonna record a bunch on people in cars and so forth , and do these training . And then , uh , when y you sell it to somebody , they will be a different person with a different car , and so on . So it 's {disfmarker} this is a an optim somewhat optimistic view on it , uh , so , you know , the real thing is somewhere in between the two . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , uh , but +PhD A: But the {disfmarker} I mean , the {pause} th th +Professor D: Even the optimistic one is +PhD A: it doesn't work . +Professor D: Yeah , +PhD A: It {disfmarker} +Professor D: right . Right , it doesn't work . So , in a way , that 's , you know , that 's sort of the dominant thing is that even , say on the development set stuff that we saw , the , uh , the numbers that , uh , that Alcatel was getting when choosing out the best single numbers , {vocalsound} it was just {disfmarker} you know , it wasn't good enough for {disfmarker} for {pause} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} for a real system . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , {vocalsound} um So , uh , we still have stuff to do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , and , uh I don't know So , looking at the data , where , you know {disfmarker} what 's the {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's th what 's characteristic i e yeah , I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's a good thing . Does a any you have any thoughts about what else {vocalsound} y you 're thinking that you didn't get to that you would like to do if you had more time ? Uh +PhD E: Oh , f a lot of thing . Because we trying a lot of s {pause} thing , and we doesn't work , {vocalsound} we remove these . Maybe {vocalsound} we trying again with the articulatory feature . I don't know exactly because we tried {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} one experiment that doesn't work . Um , forgot it , something {pause} I don't know exactly +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: because , tsk {comment} {vocalsound} maybe do better some step the general , {vocalsound} eh , diagram . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I don't know exactly s to think what we can improve . +Professor D: Yeah , cuz a lot of time it 's true , there were a lot of times when we 've tried something and it didn't work right away , even though we had an intuition that there should be something there . And so then we would just stop it . Um And , uh , one of the things {disfmarker} I don't remember the details on , but I remember at some point , when you were working with a second stream , and you tried a low - pass filtering to cepstrum , in some case you got {disfmarker} +PhD E: MSG Yeah . +Professor D: Well , but it was {comment} an MSG - like thing , but it wasn't MSG , right ? Uh , you {disfmarker} y I think in some case you got some little improvement , but it was , you know , sort of a small improvement , and it was a {disfmarker} a big added complication , so you dropped it . But , um , that was just sort of one try , right ? You just took one filter , threw it there , +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: right ? And it seems to me that , um , if that is an important idea , which , you know , might be , that one could work at it for a while , as you 're saying . +PhD A: Hmm . +Professor D: And , uh Uh , and you had , you know , you had the multi - band things also , and , you know , there was issue of that . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: Um , Barry 's going to be , uh , continuing working on multi - band things as well . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We were just talking about , um , {vocalsound} some , uh , some work that we 're interested in . Kind of inspired by the stuff by Larry Saul with the , uh {pause} uh , learning articulatory feature in {disfmarker} I think , in the case of his paper {disfmarker} with sonorance based on , uh , multi - band information where you have a {disfmarker} a combination of gradient learning an and , uh , EM . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um , and {pause} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um , so , I think that , you know , this is a , uh {disfmarker} this is a neat data set . Um , and then , uh , as we mentioned before , we also have the {disfmarker} the new , uh , digit set coming up from recordings in this room . So , there 's a lot of things to work with . Um and , uh what I like about it , in a way , is that , uh , the results are still so terrible . Uh {pause} {vocalsound} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} I mean , they 're much better than they were , you know . We 're talking about thirty to sixty percent , uh , error rate reduction . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really great stuff to {disfmarker} to do that in relatively short time . But even after that it 's still , you know , so poor that {disfmarker} that , uh , no one could really use it . So , um I think that 's great that {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} and y also because again , it 's not something {disfmarker} sometimes we 've gotten terrible results by taking some data , and artificially , you know , convolving it with some room response , or something {disfmarker} we take a very {disfmarker} Uh , at one point , uh , Brian and I went downstairs into the {disfmarker} the basement where it was {disfmarker} it was in a hallway where it was very reverberant and we {disfmarker} we made some recordings there . And then we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we , uh {disfmarker} uh , made a simulation of the {disfmarker} of the room acoustics there and {disfmarker} and applied it to other things , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and uh But it was all pretty artificial , and {disfmarker} and , you know , how often would you really try to have your most crucial conversations in this very reverberant hallway ? Um {pause} So , uh {pause} This is what 's nice about the Aurora data and the data here , is that {disfmarker} is that it 's sort of a realistic room situation {pause} uh , acoustics {disfmarker} acoustic situation , both terms in noise and reflections , and so on and n n And , uh , uh , with something that 's still relatively realistic , it 's still very very hard to do very well . So Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , so d well Actually , this is {disfmarker} tha that 's why we {disfmarker} well , it 's a different kind of data . We 're not {disfmarker} we 're not used to work with this kind of data . That 's why we should have a loo more closer look at what 's going on . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Yeah . So this would be the first thing , and then , of course , try to {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} kind of debug what was wrong , eh , when we do Aurora test on the MSG {pause} particularly , and on the multi - band . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Uh +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . No , I {disfmarker} I think there 's lots of {disfmarker} lots of good things to do with this . So Um So let 's {disfmarker} I guess {pause} You were gonna say something else ? Oh , OK . What do you think ? +PhD C: About +Professor D: Anything +PhD C: About other experiments ? Uh , now , I 'm interested in , um , uh {pause} looking at the experiments where you use , um {pause} uh , data from multiple languages to train the neural net . And I don't know how far , or if you guys even had a chance to try that , but {pause} that would be some it 'd be interesting to me . +PhD A: Yeah , but +Professor D: S b +PhD A: Again , it 's the kind of {disfmarker} of thing that , uh , we were thin thinking {disfmarker} thinking that it would work , but it didn't work . And , eh , so there is kind of {disfmarker} of {pause} not a bug , but something wrong in what we are doing , perhaps . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +PhD A: Uh , something wrong , perhaps in the {disfmarker} just in the {disfmarker} the fact that the labels are {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: well +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: What worked best is the hand - labeled data . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um Uh , so , yeah . I don't know if we can get some hand - labeled data from other languages . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: It 's not so easy to find . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: But {pause} that would be something interesting t to {disfmarker} to see . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . Also , uh , {vocalsound} I mean , there was just the whole notion of having multiple nets that were trained on different data . So one form of different data was {disfmarker} is from different languages , but the other Well , i in fact , uh , m in those experiments it wasn't so much combining multiple nets , it was a single net that had different +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So , first thing is would it be better if they were multiple nets , for some reason ? Second thing is , never mind the different languages , just having acoustic conditions rather than training them all up in one , would it be helpful to have different ones ? So , um That was a question that was kind of raised by Mike Shire 's thesis , and on {disfmarker} in that case in terms of reverberation . Right ? That {disfmarker} that sometimes it might be better to do that . But , um , {vocalsound} I don't think we know for sure . So , um Right . So , next week , we , uh , won't meet because you 'll be in Europe . Whe - when are you two getting back ? +PhD E: Um , I 'm +PhD A: You on Friday or S on Saturday or {pause} ? +PhD E: Sunday +PhD A: S oh yeah , Sunday , yeah . +PhD E: because it 's {disfmarker} it 's less expensive , the price {disfmarker} the price the ticket . +PhD C: +Professor D: Yeah , that 's right . You 've gotta S have a Saturday overnight , right ? +PhD A: I 'll be back on Tuesday . +Professor D: Tuesday . +PhD C: Where {disfmarker} where 's the meeting ? +Professor D: Uh , Amsterdam , I think , yeah ? +PhD A: Yeah , Amsterdam . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . Yep . Um {pause} So , we 'll skip next week , and we 'll meet two weeks from now . And , uh , I guess the main topic will be , uh , you telling us what happened . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , so Yeah , well , if we don't have an anything else to discuss , we should , uh , turn off the machine and then say the real nasty things . +PhD C: Should we do digits first ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , yeah , digits . +Professor D: Oh yeah , digits ! Yeah . Good point . Yeah , good thinking . Why don't you go ahead . +PhD C: OK . OK . +","Summary: + +Professor D received results from Stephane and is expecting more results later that day to compare with their own, which he discusses with PhD A and others. While some results showed improvement, there were issues with features behaving differently in California than in Oregon, which they attributed to possible bugs. There's a bit of time for them to sort these out as they have until Saturday midnight, and are awaiting final results due before an upcoming meeting. They also talked about emailing Hynek with any updates as he will be sharing their findings elsewhere. + +PhD A mentioned problems with the Danish features not performing as expected and that Sunil is checking everything. There is discussion on adjusting various aspects of their system based on comparisons with the French Telecom and Alcatel systems, especially spectral subtraction techniques and adaptations to cepstral mean subtraction. PhD A and Professor D discuss the possibility of improvements by considering confusion between classes of phonemes, rather than individual phonemes, in noisy speech. + +Professor D expressed interest in broader topics for future research, like looking directly at data, exploring why certain features don't match between locations, and considerations for the standards process. They also touch on the need to keep memory and CPU usage in mind, as their standards could potentially be implemented in mobile devices with limited resources. PhD C brings up the idea of using multi-language data to improve neural net training, and PhD A adds that hand-labeled data seem to work the best. + +The group plans to skip their next meeting due to travel for some of the members to a meeting in Amsterdam and decide to reconvene the following week to discuss the outcomes of the meeting. They conclude the meeting by reminding each other to work on digit recognition tasks." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: Is it starting now ? +PhD E: Yep . +Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hello ? +Professor B: Whatever we say from now on , it can be held against us , right ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Professor B: and uh +Grad A: It 's your right to remain silent . +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held , if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what 's going on +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and +PhD E: Yeah , that 's usually what we do . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what 's going on , what 's the latest uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . OK . So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what 's happening in Aurora in general , at least what from my perspective . +PhD E: Yeah . That would be great . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so , I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting , +PhD D: Uh o +Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really , but we are competitors . Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . It seemed like there were still some issues , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: right ? that they were trying to decide ? +Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there 're plenty of issues . +PhD E: Like the voice activity detector , +Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals , which was French Telecom Alcatel , and us both had uh voice activity detector . And I said "" well big surprise , I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago , except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either , cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because that 's buying us the most uh thing . And everybody said "" Well but this is not fair . We didn't know that . "" And of course uh the {disfmarker} it 's not working on features really . And be I agreed . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: I said "" well yeah , you are absolutely right , I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer , uh to account for these long silences , because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing . "" And so then ev ev everybody else says "" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector , or we have to do something about it "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We said uh "" yeah "" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case , uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data , we probably will use a different set of tricks . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done , because French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , now everybody has access to our code , so everybody is going to copy what we did . "" Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code , and everybody always had access to our code . We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that . We thought that people are honest , that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate , or something , +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: right ? I mean , if you find our technique useful , we are very happy . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying "" no , no , no , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them , "" which probably is also true . I mean , you know , it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that . But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad , as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run , because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code . So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say "" well listen this is what you stole from me "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know ? +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: "" so let 's deal with that "" . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So I don't see the problem . The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims "" well we fulfilled the conditions . We are the best . Uh . We are the standard . "" And e and other people don't feel that , because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data , essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech , because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Ah . +Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms , but I assume so . Because uh we would fight for that , really . uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up . And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker} +PhD E: But wait a minute , I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases . +Professor B: It uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh , but you still have that with the MFCC . +Professor B: Y yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And so , so now they want to say "" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition , and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed . And so last time uh during the meeting , I just uh brought up the issue , I said "" well you know uh quite frankly I 'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision . For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying "" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less "" , but maybe we should discuss that . And everybody said "" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there "" and I said "" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things . "" Then they said "" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited . "" However , there is only ten or fifteen lines , so people can't even con you know participate . So eh they agreed , and so they said "" OK , we will discuss that . "" Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said "" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So now officially , Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support , uh I think QualComm is uh saying , too "" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet . We should at least try once again , one more round . "" +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So this is where we are . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call , so we 'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes . +PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems , the well - matched , and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , that 's what {disfmarker} that 's a g very good uh point , because David says "" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways . "" So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh yeah , if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition , or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago . So {disfmarker} +PhD E: And they 're the {disfmarker} staying the same ? +Professor B: Well , of course people will not like it . Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have solution . Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen . But it 's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And I don't think we did . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Basically , I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made , and {disfmarker} and everything . So , so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is . So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected , like noise separation . Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically , which would be a l uh , f more robust to noise , and so far not much uh success . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested , instead of using Fourier spectrum , from Fourier transform , use the spectrum from LPC model . Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum , so it may be m naturally more robust in noise . And I thought "" well , that makes sense , "" but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker} +PhD E: You haven't tried that yet ? +Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much . Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So . {comment} I mean , uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data . +PhD E: Oh ! +Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: right ? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: And it was working at the time . It was kind of like one of these things , you know , but if you think about it , it 's actually pretty ingenious . So well , you know , just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant , C , to every {disfmarker} every value . +PhD E: Well you 're {disfmarker} you 're basically y Yeah . So you 're making all your training data more uniform . +Professor B: Exactly . And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy , it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you 'll s then you 're clean recognition goes down , but I mean it 's yet to be seen how much , it 's a very simple technique . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes indeed it 's a very simple technique , you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT , {pause} add constant , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: you know ? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum . That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum , what you can s start doing , you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum . Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero . That 's what we want to try . I have a visitor from Brno . He 's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty . pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he 's {disfmarker} so he 's looking into that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition . This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns . +PhD E: Hmm ! What is that ? +Professor B: Ah , you don't know about TRAPS ! +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar , I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name , but , what it is , is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC , mel cepstrum , uh , everything starts with a spectral slice . Uh so if you s So , given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing , and you have a spectrogram . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can say "" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency "" , and what you get is then , that you get a p {pause} vector . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme . Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector . And you can try to classify based on that . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it 's a very different vector , very different properties , we don't know much about it , but the truth is {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . But you have many of those vectors per phoneme , +Professor B: Well , so you get many decisions . +PhD E: right ? Uh - huh . +Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions . Exactly , that 's what {disfmarker} yeah , that 's what it is . +PhD E: Hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition , you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct . You know , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis , so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it 's much better than chance . +PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands ? +Professor B: That 's another thing . Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum . For various reasons . But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time . +Grad A: Are they adjacent , or are they s +Professor B: Adjacent , adjacent . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that . Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about , will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands , and also experiments with release of masking , which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands , across bands . And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers ? +Professor B: It 's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number , {pause} time t +PhD E: Yeah but what 's the number ? Is it just the {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's a spectral energy , logarithmic spectral energy , +PhD E: it 's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval . +Professor B: yeah . Yes , yes . Yes , yes . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And that 's what {disfmarker} that 's what I 'm saying then , so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector . It 's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum , or something . But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: for instance a question is like "" how correlated are the elements of this vector ? "" Turns out they are quite correlated , because I mean , especially the neighboring ones , right ? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So there 's a very high correlation . So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it . So we 're thinking about de - correlating them . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Then the question is uh "" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions "" , or to what extent ? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on . So we are learning quite a lot about that . And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using , +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension ? So we somehow made arbitrary decision , "" yes "" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that 's what 's happening in recognition . Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands , but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands . That 's what masking experiments tell you . But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions , you compare what 's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what 's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands . And that 's how you make uh decisions . That 's why the articulatory events , which uh F F Fletcher talks about , they are about two critical bands . You need at least two , basically . You need some relative , relative relation . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else , what 's happening but it 's what 's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood . So if you are making decision what 's happening at one kilohertz , you want to know what 's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz , but you don't much care what 's happening at three kilohertz . +PhD E: So it 's really w It 's sort of like saying that what 's happening at one kilohertz depends on what 's happening around it . It 's sort of relative to it . +Professor B: To some extent , it {disfmarker} that is also true . Yeah . But it 's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance , {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands , recognition can discard it . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is what 's happening {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Hey ! +Professor B: Hey ! OK , we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here . +PhD E: Hey Stephane . +Professor B: Yeah , I think so . Yeah ? +PhD E: Yep . Sure . Go ahead . +Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band , that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you 're making about a signal within a critical band . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated . If the noise is modulated , with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band , the amount of masking is less . The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So the s m masking curve , normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here , so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band , so the amount of maching is increasing . And when you e hit a certain point , which is a critical band , then the amount of masking is the same . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's the famous experiment of Fletcher , a long time ago . Like that 's where people started thinking "" wow this is interesting ! "" So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But , if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise , the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band , the masking goes down . So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that 's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what 's happening in the neighboring bands . But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad , you are not increasing much more , so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is , then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it 's not helping you much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program . +PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate , +Professor B: Probably not . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: Well , maybe , most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules . +PhD E: Yeah . Ah . +Professor B: like because uh uh +PhD E: Latency and things . +Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because uh we don't know any better , yet , than to use the neural net classifiers , uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors , so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that , and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors , and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So this is uh what 's happening . Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month 's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years , I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no . So he 's in India . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is he getting married or something ? +Professor B: Uh well , he may be looking for a girl , for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask . I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged . +PhD E: Right . Well , I mean , I 've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month , they come back married , +Professor B: Yeah . I know . I know , I know , +PhD E: you know , huh . +Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife . And she 's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker} +PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish , +Professor B: Oh yeah . We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition , the technology , and he was involved there . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me . +PhD E: When he knew you were happy , +Professor B: Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I said "" well , yeah , OK "" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out . +PhD E: huh ? +Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that , though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he 's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served , though one year he was getting masters . So . So . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation ? June or something ? +Professor B: Which ? Speaker recognition ? +PhD E: No , for uh Aurora ? +Professor B: Uh there , we don't know about evaluation , next meeting is in June . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together . +PhD E: Oh , OK . Are people supposed to rerun their systems , +Professor B: Nobody said that yet . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I assume so . Uh yes , uh , but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data . +PhD E: Hmm . Wow . +Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff . But I uh , yeah , what I think would be of course extremely useful , if we can come to our next meeting and say "" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement . If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how "" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it 's impossible . +PhD E: Hmm . Do you know what the new baseline is ? Oh , I guess if you don't have {disfmarker} +Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline . +PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector ? +Professor B: u Yes . Yes . But I assume that it will be similar , I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be . +PhD E: Similar , yeah . +Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz if it is worse , then we will raise the objection , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: we say "" well you know how come ? "" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector , which we don't claim even that it 's wonderful , it 's just like one of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: We get this sort of improvement , how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data ? +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it could be even better , +Professor B: I think so . +PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating , it 's using the alignment of the speech recognition system , +Professor B: Yeah . C yeah uh +PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel , and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel . +Professor B: and on clean speech data . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines ? So they must have run already something . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . And Harry said "" Yeah . But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet , that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try . "" +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So there 's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion . Because Nokia was objecting , with uh QualComm 's {disfmarker} we basically supported that , we said "" yes "" . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Now everybody else is saying "" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind . "" uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now . +PhD E: Wow . +Professor B: Ericsson 's laying off twenty percent of people . +Grad A: Wow . +PhD E: Where 's uh Guenter going ? +Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule , the technical college not too far from Aachen . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: So it 's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , not quite a university , not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it 's not Aachen University , but it 's a good school and he {disfmarker} he 's happy . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Hmm ! +Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well , he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis , but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They think about survival . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So . So . But this is being now discussed right now , and it 's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through , that we will still stick to fifty percent . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement . yet , wi with the current system . Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent , from the new baseline . +Professor B: Uh , but not {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline , which is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yes . Yes . We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there , right . +PhD C: Well . We are around fifty , fifty - five . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number ? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines , it 's just a quick c comp co computation ? +PhD C: Yeah . I don't know exactly if it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh - huh . I think it 's about right . +PhD C: Yeah , because it de it depends on the weightings +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah . But . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . How 's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week ? +PhD C: Yeah , finally we {disfmarker} we 've not finished with this . We stopped . +PhD D: More or less it 's finished . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English , and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail , something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD D: but it 's more or less ready . +PhD C: Yeah . Well , we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments , +PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography . +PhD C: but +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it 's not , yeah , finished yet . Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments ? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Right . We 've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters , and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all . You can remove it from the vector , it doesn't hurt . +PhD E: Really ? ! That has no effect ? +PhD C: Um . +PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline ? or in uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No , in the proposal . +PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh , uh - huh . +Professor B: So we were just discussing , since you mentioned that , in {disfmarker} it w +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning , we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: which is , like , "" imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient , which you are using in your vector , in some general power . +PhD E: In some what ? +Professor B: General pow power . Like sort of you take a s power of two , or take a square root , or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root , that effectively makes your model half as efficient . Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model , right ? computes the mean . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it 's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function . +PhD E: You 're compressing the range , +Professor B: So you 're compressing the range of this coefficient , so it 's becoming less efficient . +PhD E: right ? of that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . So . Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor , you know , uh in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: you know , just compress the whole vector . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And I said "" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements , like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances , we were doing this liftering of parameters , right ? +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition . And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody , but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter , or triangle lifter , basic number of lifters . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And . But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f +PhD E: Insertions . +Professor B: Insertions , deletions , or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: The only of course problem is that there 's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y +PhD E: Oh . Uh - huh . You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , you need a lot of graduate students , and a lot of computing power . +PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm , that basically tries random permutations of these things . +Professor B: I know . Exactly . Oh . If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike , right ? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM , that 's what {disfmarker} maybe that 's what somebody would be doing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Oh , I mean , I mean the places which have a lot of computing power , so because it is really it 's a p it 's a {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants . +PhD E: You know actually , I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad . I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once , +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: right ? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Absolutely . And hev everything is fixed . +PhD E: So . +Professor B: Everything is fixed . Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker} +PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training ? or only recognition ? +Professor B: For both , you would have to do . Yeah . +PhD E: You would do it on both . +Professor B: You have to do bo both . +PhD E: So you 'd actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because essentially you are saying "" uh this feature is not important "" . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Or less important , so that 's {disfmarker} th that 's a {disfmarker} that 's a painful one , yeah . +PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try , it would require a training and a recognition ? +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but wait a minute . You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model . You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature . You don't have to retrain it . +PhD E: Oh . So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves , you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models . +Professor B: You just multiply . Yeah . Yep . You modify the Gaussian in the model , but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power , but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model , all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant . +PhD E: Uh - huh . But why {disfmarker} if you 're {disfmarker} if you 're multi if you 're altering the model , why w in the test data , why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients ? +Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model . You have uh only data . But in a {disfmarker} in a tr +PhD E: No . But you 're running your data through that same model . +Professor B: That is true , but w I mean , so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes , that C - one is not important , you can do two things . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer , in the model , you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh +PhD E: Mm - hmm . All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one , you put them to zero . +Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it . But what I 'm proposing now , if it is important but not as important , you multiply it by point one in a model . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +PhD E: But what are you multiplying ? Cuz those are means , right ? +Grad A: You 're multiplying the standard deviation ? +PhD E: I mean you 're {disfmarker} +Grad A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math , I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah , I think you 'd have to modify the standard deviation or something , so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower . +Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively , that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly . That 's what you do . That 's what you do , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Effectively you , you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model , you put a constant . S yeah effectively what you 're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation . Right ? +Grad A: The spread , +PhD E: Oop . +Grad A: right . +PhD E: Sorry . +Professor B: Yeah , the spread . +Grad A: It 's the same {disfmarker} same mean , +PhD E: So . +Grad A: right ? +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower , {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: unless it 's exactly right on the mean . +Professor B: Your als No . By making it narrower , +PhD E: Right ? +Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker} +PhD E: I mean there 's {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're allowing for less variance . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yes , so you making this particular dimension less important . Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian , right ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions , or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important , uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful , less important , what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model . But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes , but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it . That becomes uh th gets less variance , subsequently becomes less important . +PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data ? +Professor B: That would be very bad , because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh , that wouldn't work . Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important . After you train the model , you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially , that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model , you don't have to retrain the model . You train it on the original vector . But after , you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model , and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data . s by the same amount . +PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say , C - one , couldn't you , in your test data , uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model ? So that effectively , the C - one never really contributes to the score ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: No , that would be a severe mismatch , +PhD E: Do you know what I 'm say +Professor B: right ? what you are proposing ? N no you don't want that . +PhD E: Yeah , someth +Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely . Your likelihood would be low , right ? Because you would be providing severe mismatch . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . But what if you set if to the mean of the model , then ? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data , you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had . +Professor B: No that would be very good match , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That you would {disfmarker} +PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well , yeah , but we have several means . So . +Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying , +PhD C: Right ? +Grad A: Saying . +Professor B: but uh , {vocalsound} no , no I don't think that it would be the same . I mean , no , the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean , that would {disfmarker} No , you can't do that . Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck , you can't do that . +PhD E: Oh , that 's true , right , yeah , because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: you can't do that . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But what you can do , I 'm confident you ca +PhD E: +Professor B: well , I 'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record , right ? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now , is {pause} what you can do , is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is . So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one , you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two . And you will compress your test data by square root . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match . Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square , f fourth root . Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is , based on training , then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} +PhD E: You 're talking about the standard deviation ? +Professor B: yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one . Then it becomes more important . In the overall score , I believe . +PhD C: Yeah , but , at the {disfmarker} +PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean , also ? +Professor B: No . +PhD C: No . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: But I think it 's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation . So . I think it 's maybe it 's the contrary . If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter , you have to increase it 's variance . +Professor B: Yes . Right . Yes . +PhD D: Multiply . +Professor B: Exactly . Yeah . So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around , +PhD C: Hmm . That 's right . OK . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right . +PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: And now you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're changing that by squaring it . Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four . But your model still has a mean of two . So even though you 've expended the range , your mean doesn't match anymore . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Let 's see . +PhD E: Do you see what I mean ? +PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features , which are computed once for all , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: but you just tune the model . So . You have your features . You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: Yeah . You would have to modify the mean in the model . I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you . Yeah . Yeah , but I mean , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's i it 's do - able , +PhD C: Well . +PhD E: Yeah , so y +Professor B: right ? I mean , it 's predictable . Uh . Yeah . +PhD E: It 's predictable , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , it 's predictable . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: Yeah . But as a simple thing , you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance . +PhD C: Just adjust the model , yeah . +PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you 're talking about , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: right ? +Professor B: It might be . +PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , because if you had a huge variance , you 're dividing by a large number , {comment} you get a very small contribution . +Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , it becomes more flat +Grad A: Right . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , the sharper the variance , the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Yeah , you know actually , this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN . We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing , was spitting out zeros . So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering , we were getting groups uh of features +Professor B: p Pretty new outliers , interesting outliers , right ? +PhD E: yeah , with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance . +Professor B: Variance . +PhD E: So , when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it , we got a great score . I mean it was just , {nonvocalsound} you know , incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score , and so that was throwing everything off . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So . {vocalsound} So that 's a way , yeah , yeah {disfmarker} That 's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah , n That 's interesting . So in fact , that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining . +Professor B: Yeah . No . No . +PhD C: No , that 's right . So it 's +PhD E: So that means it 's just +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: just tuning the models and testing , actually . +PhD E: recognitions . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: It would be quick . +PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models , make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make , and rerun recognition . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think , and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker} +Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble . +PhD E: That 's an interesting idea , actually . For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah . Huh ! +Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK 's set up on the new Linux boxes ? +PhD E: That 's right . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Hey ! +PhD E: In fact , and {disfmarker} and they 're just t right now they 're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box . +Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy , +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: Yeah . Absinthe . +Professor B: Well , you know , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: Absinthe . We 've got five processors on that . +Grad A: Oh yeah . +Professor B: that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's a good thing +Grad A: That 's right . +Professor B: because then y you just write the "" do "" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing . +PhD E: And two gigs of memory . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad A: Pretend , yeah . +PhD E: Exactly . Yeah . +PhD D: Go fishing . +PhD E: See how many cycles we used ? +Professor B: Yeah . Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are , right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , since it is on the record , I can't say uh which company it was , but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion , there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said "" wh why are you hitting this carriage return ? "" And he said "" well you know , we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract . And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use . "" It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing . +PhD E: Oh , my gosh ! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project . +PhD E: Yeah . How {disfmarker} Idle time . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out . +PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's this thing that 's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water ? +Professor B: Yeah , I know , right . +PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: That 's an interesting experiment . +Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia , right ? so we were watching for American airplanes , coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower , pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right ? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village +PhD E: Ugh ! +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above , and so that was the only work which they had . They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o ' clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call , "" this plane is uh uh passing "" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub . And they were calling from the pub . And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made , and when they screwed up , they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore . And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane . At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there , right ? And the pub owner says "" oh my {disfmarker} four o ' clock , OK , quickly p pick up the phone , call that there 's a plane flying . "" +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: There was no plane for some reason , +PhD E: And there wasn't ? +Professor B: it was downed , or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble . But . {vocalsound} But uh . +PhD E: Huh ! Well that 's {disfmarker} that 's a really i +Professor B: So . So . Yeah . +PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe I could set that up . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: And we 'll just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with . But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures . It might be that uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Maybe . +PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one . +Professor B: Because you see , I mean , what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it 's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable , +PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker} +Professor B: right ? How do we {disfmarker} +PhD E: Wh - yeah , when the data matches that , then you get really {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: How do we know , especially when it comes to noise ? +PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like , I 've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients , the numbers seem to get smaller , right ? So d +PhD C: They {disfmarker} t +PhD E: I mean , just naturally . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , th that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: They have smaller means , also . Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . Exactly . And so it seems like they 're already sort of compressed . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD E: The range {pause} of values . +Professor B: Yeah that 's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance . Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast , I believe , as the index of the cepstral coefficients . I think you can show that uh uh analytically . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients . +PhD E: Hmm . Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD E: +Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah . When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center . Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley . I 'm sure that it 's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here , like , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know , nowadays , yeah . It 's actually do - able , almost . +PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to "" Aurora - inhouse "" , does that go up to you guys also ? +Professor B: I don't think so . No . +PhD C: No . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: So we should do that . +PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh no . We don't have . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD E: Oh ! Maybe we should set that up . That would make it much easier . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , that would make it easier . +PhD E: So maybe just call it "" Aurora "" or something that would {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right , and it goes to everybody +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . Maybe we can set that up . +Professor B: Because what 's happening naturally in research , I know , is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered , right ? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this , is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution , but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Oh , there 's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report . Lucash , I think , uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system . reasonably uh good one , because he 's doing it for Intel , but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything . Cuz Intel 's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways . +PhD E: Hmm ! +Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use . Just uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Because Morgan 's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy . He says "" well you know it 's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing , in quotes , except which is not s is not the same . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles , another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles . So . And {disfmarker} And then it 's difficult to c compare . +PhD C: What about Harry ? Uh . We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments . +Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software . Yeah . They sent the release . +PhD C: And use this Intel version . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone ? uh some amount of money , not much . Not much I can say on a microphone . Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work . And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it , which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries , but in the process , Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets +PhD E: Hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing , including MLP , trained MLP is one piece of uh software . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Wow ! +Professor B: Is it useful ? +Grad A: Ye - Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad A: I mean , I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission . +Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That 's what he was saying , right . He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when , and {disfmarker} and so that 's where he started and that 's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up , +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well , the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries , +Professor B: uh e ev +PhD C: because if it 's the case , it 's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture . +Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker} +PhD C: Ah yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries , I think they are available free of f freely . But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe . +Professor B: Yeah , on Intel architecture , may not run in SUN . +PhD C: I 'm {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible . That 's why Intel of course is distributing it , +PhD C: Well . +Professor B: right ? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I don't know . I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker} +Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in . Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC 's now , with Intel . In that way Intel succeeded with us , because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . So . So we run everything on Intel . +PhD E: Wow ! +Professor B: And {disfmarker} +PhD E: Hmm . Does anybody have anything else ? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . I have to take my glasses {disfmarker} +PhD E: So . Hynek , I don't know if you 've ever done this . +Professor B: No . +PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn , {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits , the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So you don't say "" eight hundred and fifty "" , you say "" eight five oh "" , and so forth . +Professor B: OK . OK . So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then ? +PhD E: Um . Sure . +","The conversation involves Professor B, PhD E, PhD D, and Grad A, discussing a range of topics related to their research work. Professor B starts by questioning the formality of the meetings and mentions how everyone usually shares updates on their work. He suggests he could report on developments in Aurora from his perspective. + +Professor B also recalls the Amsterdam meeting where they recognized themselves as competitors instead of friends, which was a revelation due to leading proposals having voice activity detectors. There's mention of French Telecom Alcatel and the use of voice activity detectors being crucial for significant improvements in their work. There was some concern among the group that the competition was not fair since everyone wasn't aware of these advancements. + +The conversation moves on to the issue of new evaluation criteria and the realization that meeting the original fifty percent improvement goal might not be possible with existing systems, prompting a potential relaxation of this target. Discussions with companies like Nokia and Qualcomm reveal a hesitancy to lower the standard improvement requirements. + +PhD E inquires about the weighting of different systems, and Professor B explains the complications around it. They discuss creating better initial estimates of the mel spectrum to be more robust to noise and other techniques for handling noisy speech data. Prof. B also mentions a method called TRAPS (Temporal Patterns), a recognition approach based on temporal patterns of energy for given frequencies. + +Later in the conversation, they discuss administrative and operational matters, such as communication between different parts of the group and sharing software written by Lucash for the Aurora-2 system, funded by Intel. + +Toward the end of the discussion, Professor B and PhD E explore the idea of modifying model variances to test the importance of different features without the need for retraining models. They touch on the notion of compressing ranges of feature values and altering statistical models to reflect feature importance. They propose an experiment to adjust model variances and see how it affects recognition scores. + +Towards the end, PhD C suggests setting up a universal mailing list for better communication on the Aurora project. Lastly, they prepare to read some digits, with Professor B volunteering to start. + +Overall, the conversation covers technical aspects of speech recognition research, collaborative efforts, methods for improving recognition performance, and practical matters related to their work on the Aurora project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or you get it . Okay . +User Interface: No I don't think so it has to be like that yeah and you have to adjust the length . Okay , and then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we uh {disfmarker} we will wait for Anna , a few minutes . +User Interface: Yeah , s yeah , um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm {vocalsound} . Yours is well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think you can put anywhere you want , actually . I thin +Industrial Designer: Yeah but the the mic should not {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not a directional mic , anyway . +Project Manager: I think it should work like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: So I will try to get my presentation running . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Can't help you with that . +User Interface: Last . +Project Manager: It's no matter . +Industrial Designer: Okay , it's y yeah . +Project Manager: No problem . Ah yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then press uh al +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: This . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: You know ? +Project Manager: Just try . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On this normal {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh oh . +User Interface: Alt F_ five . +Project Manager: Good . Doesn't appear on the screen here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Wow . Amazing . It's working {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: Hold that . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes and you can put can clip it uh on your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Mm . +Project Manager: Somewhere . So , {vocalsound} good morning , everyone . Um {disfmarker} Welcome at uh {disfmarker} at the kick off meeting of our uh latest project . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hope you all have been uh updated about it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: So . Yes . +Project Manager: So w we will try to structure this uh meeting with an a with an agenda uh as presented here . Um after the opening we will tr get acquainted to each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: See what our roles are in this project . So , um {disfmarker} We have been provided with uh some uh w technical tools to uh {disfmarker} to communicate and to well , learn from each other's plans uh as I can say um so w we will also try to uh to get acquainted to this tools so they are also new to me I don't know whether you worked with them before . Um then we will come to the uh to the to the actual project plan . You all know I hope {vocalsound} how it's about uh the uh new r remote control we are going going to design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Total . +Project Manager: Uh then we will uh discuss uh , well , how it should be and uh {disfmarker} wh what uh what our new product should look lite {disfmarker} like . And uh well then uh after some twenty five minutes I hope uh we can end this meeting . So . Um basically this is about a uh a new c remote control . Um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} When you design a new product you of {disfmarker} uh you of course want it to be original . Be uh {disfmarker} we want to be distinguished , mm ? People uh want to uh when they look at the shelf want to think , well that's the product I I need . So it needs to be trendy . I mean trendy is what people want , so then I w they will buy our product . But then , uh , it also should work uh user friendly and uh otherwise people uh uh well it will not be uh be rated very well in consumer uh articles and like that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , the general outline of uh new project will be we first uh go through a functional design phase . Um {disfmarker} You all get uh um certain task uh in this uh in this phase and uh then we will meet again and uh discuss this functional design . And the same holds for the uh ph two phases uh after this , the conceptual design and after that a a more detailed design in which the the final project should get its definite shape . Alright , but first we will do some uh tool training . In all in front of you uh you see uh the uh notebooks and w uh n note blocks and we have here a a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a white-board . +User Interface: Whitebo +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um well it should work uh {disfmarker} I've read it from my uh from some colleague that it should work with some kind of toolbar . I didn't find out yet how it work , but maybe one of you did , so {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Under documents in the shared folder . Okay . +Project Manager: Yes . Do {disfmarker} Do we have to say something about that ? I I I'm not fully updated about this shared folder uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I guess we'll have a shared folder uh with documents that we can share . And uh , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes well we will then find out ho how it works . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Um . Well , this seems to me , yes , some computer program but I didn't find it yet . So , we'll come to that later . So , uh now we will try out the white-board we have here . So , I would suggest uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Each of us is going . +Project Manager: Well , yes , um we uh we should try to t to draw on it and then well it should be smart some way . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not really sure how this works , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , shall I start ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: a good idea Mael . +User Interface: you can start it you know . +Marketing: I think for us it's just like a normal whiteboard , but they'll be recording what we write down . +Industrial Designer: So , i +User Interface: No they will record through that . There's a sensor over there +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: which is going to record the strokes that you make . +Marketing: But for us it's just like a normal whiteboard . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Actually , I think I cannot go with uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} D doesn't it work ? Maybe someo Maybe {disfmarker} maybe Anna , maybe you can start . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then he can maybe find out to get his cord right . +Marketing: I have to draw . +Project Manager: So um {disfmarker} L Why don't you draw uh {vocalsound} your favourite animal on on th on the white-board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: M my {disfmarker} my favourite animal . {vocalsound} Sorry this is all tangled up here . +Project Manager: Oh , I see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's better . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yes . Mm . So draw it . We will try to guess what it is . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I'm a very bad drawer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Weird . Um . You're not gonna be able to guess from my drawing . I'm a bad drawer . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They're ears , by the way . +User Interface: 's a cat . +Marketing: No . Um close though . Okay so {disfmarker} like a pet animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like a cat . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's like a cat , so I guess it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , not a cat though . +Project Manager: What is this now ? +User Interface: Ah you forget about it . +Industrial Designer: You're on the knife . +User Interface: Yeah , uh I think it's fine . I just don't want to carry it off . Man , this wires , eh ? We need a wireless microphone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know ? Pro specially we should next project we should take l like that . +Marketing: Okay . So . +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: It's not a cat , +Project Manager: that's the cat . +Marketing: it's a dog . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Mael . +Project Manager: It's a dog . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: So but that's also kind of cat , +User Interface: Oh +Project Manager: isn't it ? +User Interface: the dog doesn't have a tail ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's got a tail then . +Project Manager: B bo both predators . +User Interface: Yeah , sure , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: I thought so . The dogs have a tail . +Marketing: So do cats . +Project Manager: So , thank you . Uh d did you uh work out cord ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you guessed cats without a tail . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think I will go without {disfmarker} without it , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: It'll still not extend , right ? It's not up to that . +Marketing: Okay , there you go . So what favourite characteristics . Uh . Dogs are always friendly and loyal and fun . A horse ? +User Interface: It's a horse . +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is why you're the designer . And I'm marketing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes , yes this is {disfmarker} Yes definitely a horse . Yes . Oh very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I suppose it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah I think you can put that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . That's it . {vocalsound} A blue and black zebra {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Can {disfmarker} you can meet them in Africa , I think . Yes . Very good . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: The very rare blue zebras . Yes . +User Interface: {gap} I'll tell to get it off my {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ma Matthew ? +User Interface: Uh ? Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: You got a lot of room here . +Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: You can probably reach . +User Interface: Oh y it's not for that . +Marketing: No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: I hope you have some space in your uh the horse of uh Mael . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . So what should I draw ? Mm . He has already to do cat . +Marketing: I took a dog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um . A mouse ? +Project Manager: This looks likes a cat who has been driven over . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we should sum up its favourite charas characteristics , right ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , the moustache . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} that's definitely a cat . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah . And i Th They like to sleep , that's why you said you they are like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's quite , you know {disfmarker} relaxed situation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} She has the small legs . +Project Manager: Th thank you , Matthew . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Thank you , Matthew . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a very big rat . Or a very small cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Perfect . {vocalsound} Oh a rat , okay . +Project Manager: Yes , this is certain uh {disfmarker} some contribution to our project . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: And you , {gap} +Marketing: Your turn . +Project Manager: So . Let's see . Which animal has not been drawn yet . So you've all drawn land animals , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so why not draw an animal from the water . +Industrial Designer: A bird . Okay , in the water . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah I don't know what that is . It's a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit hard to guess . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Put it colours . Maybe it would help us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: The cat is going to eat the fish or the rat ? +Industrial Designer: With different pen widths . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.$ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , it's a shark now . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a shark , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , yes , why not ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good idea . +User Interface: Ah it's a baby shark , it looks to me , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you know it's going to eat the cat rather than the cat eating the fish , no ? +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Now it's a swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Why not . A swordfish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You have some in {disfmarker} in Australia , right ? +Marketing: Swordfish . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , maybe . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +Marketing: I've never seen one , no . +Industrial Designer: Oh well . Yeah . +Project Manager: I hope it still works . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . So I dunno if we need to spend time on that , actually {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: You should go for the next one it seems to me . +Project Manager: W Well , this uh this tool seemed to work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's continue to uh {disfmarker} to the real stuff . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Project Manager: Um our project uh finance uh thing . Uh when we are {disfmarker} and when w you are uh going to design w uh we must keep in mind that the selling price of the product uh will be about twenty five Euros , so when designing a project uh I also look at you uh Mael , keep in mind uh uh uh {disfmarker} People uh +User Interface: Twenty four . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: want to get the feeling this is a twenty five Euro project uh pr um product . +Industrial Designer: Per remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah ? Per project . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . Um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: more interesting for our company {vocalsound} of course , p uh profit aim , about fifty million Euro . So we have to sell uh quite a lot of this uh {vocalsound} um things . Uh we will try to uh to get at a international market uh so um it will be I think mainly Europe and uh Northern America , +User Interface: Ah yeah , the sale man , four million . +Project Manager: maybe some uh Asian countries . Um also important for you all is um the the product uh production cost must be maximal uh twelve uh twelve Euro and fifty cents . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's half of the selling price , if I am good in mathematics . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . Uh um I mean we still have to uh to make a profit , huh ? +User Interface: They have to sell at least four million to make a profit {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You all have to be paid . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Excuse me ? +User Interface: Ah we have to make {disfmarker} we have to sell at least four million to make our own profit . Fifty mill +Industrial Designer: Oh you're g very good in mathematics . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , indeed . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Four million . +Project Manager: So uh well I think w when we are working on the international market , uh in principle it has enough customers +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh so when we have a good product we uh we could uh meet this this aim , I think . So , that about finance . And uh now just let have some discussion about what is a good remote control and uh well keep in mind this this first point , it has to be original , it has to be trendy , it has to be user friendly . Um , maybe someone can mention some additional uh prerequisites for a good remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Of course it should have a on off button . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , well i it should have the the the the expected functionality uh of a remote control . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , s and it depends what application you are using it for . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You might need uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We wer we were thinking television . Uh . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: We are targ targeting the television set . So , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you need to record the channels . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} You need to browse the {disfmarker} browse the channels in upward downward way , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes , yes . Th th that's very handy I {disfmarker} I always miss it and {disfmarker} on some remote controls that you can go channel up or down ins instead of retyping the number , especially when you have a lot of channels . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And uh just before starting the detailed discussion , maybe we are the marketing guy ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm marketing . +User Interface: Marketing . +Industrial Designer: th So you are the marketing . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And you are in the u use user interface uh design . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So just {disfmarker} yeah I wanted to to be sure . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: And I I'm the the industrial designer +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Because I I don't know you very well , actually , but yeah . +User Interface: I'm Matthew . You know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mael . +User Interface: Matth s uh +Industrial Designer: Happy to meet you . +Marketing: Anna . +User Interface: Anna . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . It's very uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A and I'm Nanne . +User Interface: And um uh Matthew , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thi think you know me , +Industrial Designer: Uh so yeah uh {disfmarker} Just uh on your web page but uh yeah not uh {disfmarker} not face to face . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: yeah ? right yeah . +Project Manager: So . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S s +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Are there some other very important things to to do {disfmarker} well , +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I +Project Manager: to specify in this first phase of of the project . So the browse function , as you m mentioned . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Oth yeah . +User Interface: And uh , you'd need the usual ones , like the changing the volume , changing the the channel and then {disfmarker} you uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Today we have uh um teletext and all those things . Tomorrow you might have a some more functions which might come through that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Like what ? Like internet on the on T_V_ ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah I_P_O_ or . Now we are looking for television things or I_P_ . For example personal video recorder and all those stuffs are coming up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . But we can't really design for something that hasn't been invented yet . +User Interface: Yeah . Ah it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's coming up , actually . The personal video recorder and all those things it is coming up . +Project Manager: Mm , well uh I I think {disfmarker} Uh w y you two should {disfmarker} should , I think , think this over uh w espec what , what functionality . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Actually , yeah +User Interface: Let's {disfmarker} Let's take {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: w {vocalsound} Of course , and first before um designing the func well thinking about the functionalities , we need to know what are the user requirements . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um then if they need internet , then we would be able to to p to propose something with uh uh T_V_ over I_P_ . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . Yeah . But {disfmarker} Ninety percent of the time , ninety nine percent of the time , people will be using the main functions , the volume , the different channels , so we can have all the fancy things as well but the main controls need to be very obvious and very easy to use . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . Keep k keep in mind i it's a {disfmarker} it's a twenty five Euro unit , so uh uh the the very fancy stuff uh w we can leave that out , I think . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So twenty five Euro you expect a quite , well normal but good functioning user friendly remote control . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Oh in that case you can you always hook up with uh someone who is providing that and you know , {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you sell their product as well as your product with them , you know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . So try and get T_V_ manufacturers to {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but w w we want to design a new one . {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's okay , yeah I understand . So we need some numbering buttons , some teletext things +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} Yeah , the main is browsing . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , but but but ab about the spec the buttons , the buttons uh that will be on it . I I think we can discuss that in the in the next meeting . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh I would like to get this wrapped up and go to an end of this meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , we are alread mm . Mm . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: you know now the basic {disfmarker} the basic things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: well just {disfmarker} just for the next meeting , um +User Interface: L +Project Manager: well , uh , you wor yes , work on a design , keep it general , I mean {disfmarker} so w we will be still fle flexible with maybe adding some functions . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um you will be working on {disfmarker} on technical function design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: And uh you {disfmarker} and you and uh uh uh well , think about requirements , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: eh ? Does it need internet , or or do do we stay at basic basic television uh interface . +User Interface: Stam . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , uh I think we should now all go work uh uh at this +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you will be informed via email and other kind of communication . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So next meeting will be in uh {disfmarker} in thirty minutes uh . +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: K keep it in mind . +","The transcript you provided appears to be a fragmented and informal exchange amongst a team comprising a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a User Interface Designer, and someone from Marketing during the kickoff meeting of a new project. The project in question seems to involve the design of an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control with a targeted selling price of around twenty-five Euros. The team aims to penetrate the international market, primarily focusing on Europe and North America, with an ambitious profit target of fifty million Euros. For the product to be viable, it must be produced at a maximum cost of twelve Euros and fifty cents. + +The fragmentary conversation suggests various stages of the meeting's progression, beginning with initial technical difficulties relating to setting up a presentation and the usage of a smart whiteboard. The Project Manager suggests a tool training session to familiarize team members with the technical equipment provided for the project, signifying that using some of these tools was new to the team. + +A significant portion of the discussion revolves around establishing the roles within the project. The industrial designer appears to be a newcomer, trying to acquaint himself with the team members, represented by Matthew (User Interface), Anna (Marketing), and Mael (not clear, possibly also an Industrial Designer or another role). The project manager, Nanne, orchestrates the discussion and outlines the meeting’s agenda. + +The agenda covers several important aspects of the project. Firstly, Nanne emphasizes the need to design a product that stands out on the shelves and meets consumer expectations for an original and user-friendly remote control. They also touch upon the financial constraints, stressing that the remote should both be appealing at the twenty-five Euro price point and produce significant profit margins, with an estimated two-Euro margin per unit sold. + +Additionally, the team delves into what functionalities a good remote control should offer, grounded in discussion about the primary use case related to television control. They consider the addition of standard functions such as channel browsing, volume control, and teletext, while also entertaining the idea of future functionalities like internet over TV or personal video recording for potential integration. + +The meeting eventually steers towards preparing for the subsequent phases of the project. The Project Manager instructs the team members to come up with a general design concept, suggesting an openness to adjusting functionalities as the project develops. In terms of user requirements, the debate touches upon whether to include internet connectivity, given the product’s economic constraints and the main functionalities necessary for a television remote control. + +In conclusion, the discussion was largely preparatory, setting the stage for further development of the project. The team concurs to follow up on action items and reconvene for their next meeting in thirty minutes, anticipating further email communication and coordination. This initial meeting reflects the typical early stage of a product design effort, with members brainstorming functionality, establishing roles, considering user requirements, and outlining a product's financial targets and market positioning." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Here we go . Alright , the agenda for thi oh . Alright . Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers . And then we will evaluate it , given the criteria that um that we gave gave it . And um talk about our finances , whether we were under or over our budget . I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made , given our options . And um evaluate the product , as a group . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation . Do you need the um PowerPoint for this ? +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . I just got a few slides , so show them . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Do you want to present it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , here we are . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with . It's a pretty simple design . It's um based on a mango ? Yeah . And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: On ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango . Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ . +User Interface: and this'll be the power point , the on off button kind {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: I'm sorry . +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_ ? +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . +Marketing: Oh . Okay . +User Interface: And then the other one is the power . And uh we just have a simple design . We wanted it all to be +Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held . +User Interface: accessible from your thumb +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb . +Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button . +User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake , wasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just need the nought . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Right no , that's a zero . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off . {vocalsound} Sorry . I was in charge of the numbers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . +User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus . +Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven , +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one , three or something . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . You press a plus button ? +User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah . +Project Manager: Oh okay . I've never heard of that kind before . +User Interface: Well we just thought , we have all the numbers here , so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote , if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve , you press one , and then you go to channel one , and then two then you'd just go to channel two , instead of twelve . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh , there's no e +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve , or two plus two is channel twenty two . +User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two ? +User Interface: No no , th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers . These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press , it'll go to that channel right away . 'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards . +User Interface: Yeah . Oh no . Uh , the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine . +Project Manager: Yeah I know , but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five , channel sixty five , if I press the six it'll go to channel six , and then I'll press the plus , and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five ? +Marketing: Sixty . +User Interface: You p Oh . No you press the plus first . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind , we can further define that . +User Interface: what do you think is simpler ? +Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first , in like on the way to channel sixty five . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem . But I was just wondering +Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do . +Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think . +User Interface: Oops . Yeah . +Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's like a five second input time . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . If you don't put it {disfmarker} +Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And channel , +User Interface: A channel . +Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it , like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Channel up volume up . Okay cool . +Project Manager: C_ and V_ . +User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , where um where's the power button ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_ . +Marketing: It's the R_ . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so it's all accessible . Without m taking your hand off the remote . +Industrial Designer: We deci +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Ergonomic , definitely ergonomic . +User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But yeah , no I mean it's a different movement +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it , I mean , we've made this out of Play Doh , which is representing the , you know , the rubber , and the spongy rubberness . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The spon yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um 'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . I would . +Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: My goodness . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go . +Industrial Designer: And you ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: . Oh it's nice . Oh I think I killed the five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I did . +Project Manager: And something hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I killed the four . Oh god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: O Okay , as for the colours , we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype . +User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah . +Marketing: Oh it smells good . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that , seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway , that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use . Or the combination . Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme , the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit , like banana could be black and yellow , watermelon red and green , +Project Manager: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in +User Interface: 'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish . +Project Manager: Yeah . It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would . +Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme , like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black . +Project Manager: Okay yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon , you know , m probably appealing to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Kinda Christmas , you know . +Industrial Designer: yeah , seasonal . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Apple green , brown , more kinda trendy , you know , khaki {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of , +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device , I mean you don't need to use both hands , one hand to hold this and type in with the other , you can just use your thumb . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it . +Project Manager: Alright , thank you very much . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good work everyone . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . And so now that we've we have a prototype , uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute . +Marketing: You want the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'm gonna check that out for a second . +Marketing: I have one . +Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What time is it anyw +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right . Evaluation criteria is next in line . +Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay . That's me . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Hello . Oh there we go . Okay . Come on my computer . Come on . {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties . +Project Manager: Just press um function eight again . +Marketing: Should I press it again ? Last time I did that it sh Okay . You're right . +Project Manager: And then again I think . One more time . +Marketing: Oh . Still not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it . Um , we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen . Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings , um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were , um , back to our kick-off meeting this morning . Um , and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do . Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false . So basically the lower p the lower the points the better . {vocalsound} Okay so question number one . Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops . Sorry . Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um , I'll do it on the whiteboard . I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh . +Marketing: Okay so number one . Do we have a fancy look-and-feel ? +Industrial Designer: Feel I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy , but it's definitely different . +Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah . +Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it . I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek +Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black ? +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red , black and yellow , and orange . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way , anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . A metallic-y finish we were thinking . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Polished . Okay {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look . +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well , potato , mango , fruit and veg . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's very different . It's what ? +Project Manager: It's mango . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine . Potato's fine . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is , fruit or vegetable depends on your mood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Totally . It's really adaptable . +Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two . +Project Manager: Yeah . I would say two . Personally . +User Interface: I w I'd say two I think . +Marketing: It's a two ? +Industrial Designer: For the +Marketing: Okay , +User Interface: Fanciness . +Marketing: and p +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker} +Marketing: One being true . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two , three . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing , like that . Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative ? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber , the use of the L_E_D_ . +Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons , it's all pushbuttons , +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control , so if we're thinking about the rest of the market , it's sort of probably halfway . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is , like we said . +Project Manager: Yeah . I'd say maybe three . +User Interface: I'll go for three as well . +Marketing: Yeah . And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this , because then that would've defeated the purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Though it was our specification . +User Interface: No . Wouldn't be simple , yeah . +Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three , but I think we actually reached our goal . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that . Okay question number three . Uh , will it be easy to use ? +Project Manager: I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah very . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think one for that . +Marketing: Yeah . S Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . One . +Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you can't really get confused with that . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Th +Marketing: I mean , there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system . +Project Manager: The plus number thing . +User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah . +Marketing: But once that's figured out , it should be fine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Number four . Is this a good-looking remote ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this . +Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor . +Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom , kind of . +User Interface: But the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent . +Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess . +Marketing: Whoops . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Should just not touch it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Don't worry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed . {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter . Or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands . +Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now . What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room ? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa ? +Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat , and then the rest is like +Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: round . +User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh . That's true . +Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think . We c we could handle it I think . +Industrial Designer: Thing is like that , it's not going anywhere particularly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom , so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here , so it sits up . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like that . +User Interface: Oh that would be nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though . It'd be annoying . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , it's less um , what's th ha . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay we're done designing . +Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Details , details . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on . +Marketing: Okay . So , is this a good-looking remote ? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . You would though , 'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think , it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay . I think maybe a two . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that , +Marketing: I mean I gue yeah , it's personal taste , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour , I'm not happy with those colours . +Marketing: Okay , so should we say two for that ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Uh , question number five . What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product ? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy . +User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way , that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So people don't just see it and think , uh , this is so simplistic , I don't want to spend twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We have to market it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it . +Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy , shaker-style-y , whoo , +User Interface: And the kinetic energy part . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Durable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: ooh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know , those'll be firmly on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus . {vocalsound} You're +Marketing: No , I guess , I don't know much about the remote control industry , how much your average sells for , +User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one . +Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am , aren't I ? +User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound , aren't they ? About ten pounds . Fifteen ? +Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries . So in the long term this can actually save you money . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oh . Exactly . Exactly . +Marketing: So we'll market it that way too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good point . +Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options , it'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I would give it a two still though . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay number six . Can someone read it out ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um yeah . So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I think it does very well . +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} +Marketing: we said {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah , because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing . +User Interface: The zap {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're clearly there , easy to use . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average , 'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But they're not you and I really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So . Okay so one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Number seven . C Heather could you push it down ? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost ? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly . +Project Manager: We have the alarm system . +Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented ? +User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system , the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: l lights on and , or flash as well . But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen 'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm . +User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing . +Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up . +User Interface: Yeah . The light {disfmarker} it will . +Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But when the alarm's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Awesome . Awesome . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh , that would be brilliant . +Marketing: Here I am . +User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the thing is , if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I mean , when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went . But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something , there wouldn't be any point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm , but it would light up . +User Interface: It would have to be in the market +Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Alarm , +User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it . +Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself . +User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . It w yeah . +Marketing: But yeah , it'll be there . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Whoo . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We can give it a one , because compared to every other remote ever m ever made , this one will be easier to find . +Project Manager: Yeah , totally . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No problem , mm . +Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear . +Marketing: Question number eight . Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new ? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult . +Project Manager: Totally . +Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah , it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do . +User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple , +Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +User Interface: won't it ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons , I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button ? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's just like channel six , six , enter . +User Interface: That kind of annoys me though , when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros . +User Interface: I don't know why . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You could just press six enter , +User Interface: Oh okay . Right . +Project Manager: And then like twelve , enter . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter , y +Marketing: or one two enter . +User Interface: Alright , aye . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward . Yeah . Good {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: I'd say w yeah one . +Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Mm . +Marketing: Question number nine . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Uh , will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_ , which was repeated strain injury ? +Industrial Designer: Injury . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , which affected over a quarter of users . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: S +Project Manager: I think so . It's like right in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's what I was thinking . +User Interface: yeah . I don't think it will f +Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: the biology . +Project Manager: But it is soft . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's soft , +Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um +Marketing: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_ , +Marketing: And people could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know what other options there are . +Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's true . +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean , you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So , one or two do you think ? +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I'd say t +Industrial Designer: yeah , I think too . +User Interface: two . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two okay . Okay number ten . Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo ? +Project Manager: Yes we did . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that +Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker} +User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It won't stand out . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour . +Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , yeah the colours are yellow and grey . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Gray , yeah . +Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one . +User Interface: Yeah , could be grey . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though , +User Interface: Yeah that's right , +Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: we didn't even rea +Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers , and see if we can get away with just the R_R_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . I think this is the +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Perhaps a metallic +Project Manager: Mm , yeah . +User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey , and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal . No ? +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: That isn't rubber . +Marketing: And the buttons in the middle . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay So , do you think that's more of a three then ? Three , four ? +Industrial Designer: Four I think . Well I don't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Four ? +Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hum . +Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it , so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , and final question . {vocalsound} Um , did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies , desire for sponginess . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Following that briefing we did . +Project Manager: But maybe more like two 'cause there's no like pictures of fruit , it's just sort of naming it by a fruit . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: With the with the colours . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: No , uh , are the plates interchangeable ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: they are ? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: okay . Okay , so that's something that's kind of in the making too , like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: I think w yeah , I think one . Well that was our brief and we followed the brief . +Industrial Designer: The thing is , I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from , I don't know if you'd instantly say mango . +User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . There we go . That would be great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation , do we average them out sorta thing ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes we do . So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that ? +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: A two for fashion ? +Project Manager: I would say two . +User Interface: Yeah . Two . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , so our average there , five , six , eight , ten , eleven , twelve , thirteen , fifteen , nineteen , twenty one , divided by eleven +Project Manager: One point nine or something ? +User Interface: It's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things . Um , between one and two . +Industrial Designer: Between one and two . +Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic . +User Interface: Close to two . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's very good 'cause the highest we coulda got is one . +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: Does that seem right then ? +User Interface: Yeah , 'cause we've a four to bring down . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , aye . +Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , should've added five . +Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator ? +Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine . Ooh . +Industrial Designer: Oh wow . Well done . +User Interface: Yay . +Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls . +Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Alright , now with that over and done with , our next step is to see if we are under budget . And um my computer's frozen . And now it's not . Okay . So um in our shared folder , if everyone could go there right now , um I'm going to um steal a cable . +Marketing: Sorry . Are you gonna do that ? Okay . +Project Manager: Um it's it's um +User Interface: Is that the project document ? +Project Manager: it's an Excel file . Oh . +Industrial Designer: Production costs . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay there we go . Um , production costs . And um I have to access that as well . One moment . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on ? Great . It's blinking at me . It's locked for editing . Read only . I'm gonna open up a second one then 'cause it's locked for editing . I have the original in my um my email account . +Marketing: Oh is it locked 'cause I'm in it ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now . +Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay . +Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it ? +Project Manager: No . No , I was hoping that you guys could . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , there we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay here we go . So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing . So um if you can look up at the screen , um the large screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think . Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip . +User Interface: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , it's cur it's double curved , so its curved all around . +Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah . +Project Manager: That's another three . We're already at five . Um , we're using plastic and rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free , we're at eight . Um {disfmarker} S +User Interface: What about a special colour ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Are we using that ? +Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind . So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: right ? Well one colour for the case , one colour for the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , we have push button interface , so that's inexpensive . And um we have a special colour for the button , and we also have a special form . And a special material . +User Interface: And a special material . Yeah . +Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget . +Industrial Designer: Oof . +Project Manager: Hurray . +Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good work guys . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . 'S good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros . +User Interface: That's good . +Project Manager: Awesome . And back to our PowerPoint . So we've {disfmarker} 'Kay . Yes we are . So we need to do a product evaluation , again , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno . A different extension of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: A project ? Is is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause we're talking about leadership , teamwork . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it . +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity ? +Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Pushed for creativity ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time , or materials , yeah , to go about our design task . +User Interface: The ma Or materials . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ye Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials . But you were allowed m creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional . Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess , but m +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen , and like solar power backup and everything , then we wouldn't have been able to afford that . +Marketing: When we can down to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity . +User Interface: Creativity . +Project Manager: Right +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: But yeah . The fruit and veg idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Leadership ? Is this me being like , guys do you like me ? Um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership , I think we stayed on task . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we did . We've , uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended . A pro um a product within the budget . I think that's a sign of good leadership +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine . +Marketing: And the timing was good . We never were pushed for time , or sat around doing nothing , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Good timing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: And project manager of course . +Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork . I think we are well-suited to our roles . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright how were our means ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'cause that was all the red we had . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype , we wouldn't have been able to . +User Interface: Yeah , it c it might've been bigger . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory ? +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . The computer programmes are good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It could be really straightforward for the computer . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays +Marketing: Yeah . I don't think there was anything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Uh me too . +Marketing: They'll probably still be there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: New ideas found . I don't really know what that means . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Through discussion . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Just about each different {gap} . Got new ideas from each other . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not sure , new ideas found . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other , which was cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , worked well . +User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Each other's {gap} +Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way ? +Industrial Designer: Sorry ? +Marketing: Does it have smart materials ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well mm , did it come into the into {disfmarker} +User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs . {vocalsound} +User Interface: If it can be afforded . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay ? Well with that achieved , our last slide is our closing slide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget . It's evaluated generally positively . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Then we celebrate +Industrial Designer: Uh . Fantastic . +User Interface: Yay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_ ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , brilliant . +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , bye . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Conclusion ? Dadada . +","The meeting focused on prototype presentation, financial evaluation, and product assessment. The prototype, inspired by a mango shape, featured a simple design with palm-held accessibility, company logo, and an infrared LED light. A power button was integrated into the design along with innovative strategies to enter channels above nine. A mistake with a number button was identified and resolved. Various color options were discussed, with fruit and vegetable themes influencing the naming of the color combinations. + +After the presentation, the team assessed the prototype against specified criteria, such as ease of use, technological innovation, aesthetic appeal, and whether it would be easy to find if lost. The team's average score from the evaluation was around 1.9 out of 7, indicating a positive reception. + +Financially, the team determined the production costs to be within the budget of 20 Euros, acknowledging the challenge of constraints such as resources and time. + +In assessing team dynamics, the group reflected on their creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, and the discovery of new ideas during the project. Despite some resource limitations, the team found the process largely successful and educational, and they were content with the outcomes. The meeting concluded with reminders for final questionnaire completion and the necessity of a post-meeting summary." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Well hi everyone again . +User Interface: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Hello . +Marketing: Hello +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and so here we go . Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote +User Interface: Designer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_ . It should have nine channel buttons , a next button , volume buttons , subtitle buttons , switch to control features , colour contrast , sharpness etcetera . It should have a memory switch , a mute button in case the telephone rings or something . Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote . Um . {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons , colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons . Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she , she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote . The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue . She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong , not using any harmful materials , should be recyclable and should be colourful . Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant . She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated . Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor , diode transistor , resonator , and if possible a rechargeable battery . Uh and of course a circuit board . And how it would works , you press the button , the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore . Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases . The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition , has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small , easy to use and it should be eye catching . From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does . To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on . Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter . So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home . Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel . She feels that's really what people want today . And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser , the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip , should be trendy design , compact and strong , and should have buttons . And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting . Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Just the look like , the button part I'll explain . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made . This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: oops , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als +Marketing: Oh that's good , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: no , that's nice and friendly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led , for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote . Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , +Marketing: Yeah , okay , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: on the side of the model . Then we have included one to nine buttons +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels . Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: What kind of button ? +User Interface: Menu button . +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh menu th menu , uh one one . +User Interface: Yes , menu {disfmarker} +Marketing: Menu button . {vocalsound} +User Interface: At the centre +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour , sharpness , brightness +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Of the screen . Mm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: of this uh picture . We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button . Now this is uh a special , special feature which we have included . Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel , if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel . It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button . +Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap , this button . +Marketing: Yeah , mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay , okay . +User Interface: And at the end , it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So this is our proposed model . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Tell , yeah . +User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised , right ? +Marketing: The buttons are all raised +Project Manager: Are raised , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around , turn it upside down , move it up , up and down , +Project Manager: Right . Or have two hands to operate it , yeah . +Marketing: I really like that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You really did a good job on that , my little designers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place . That's that's a really good good thing . +Project Manager: Yes , and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Abs okay . +Marketing: The colour's very attractive . Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute +User Interface: No , these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here , are the mute buttons . +Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute ? +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Marketing: So you can push either one ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter . +Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me ? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes , yes . +Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker} +User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels . +Marketing: F f okay . +User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels . +Marketing: Right , very good . Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I have one question +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons , like that people know , or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what ? +User Interface: Yes , it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , which can be easily recognised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols 'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , and also {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols , text or something so that people kn +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text . +Marketing: Symbols on it . Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself , +Project Manager: That's right . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay , mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: A shell shape . +Marketing: For the snail , yeah , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: Right , mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes , snail shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +Marketing: He goes right back into his shell . +Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course , yeah . +Marketing: you know that would , that would really work . +Project Manager: Now what , what are our special features for the marketing ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And then , and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use . +Marketing: Yep +Project Manager: You know . +Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical . I think we have to , we have to dwell on on on the appearance . +Project Manager: Colours . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the +Project Manager: Cutest . +Marketing: cutest remote control on the block . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image , play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think those are the two things to push . The look and the voice recognition . They're gonna be our two selling points . +Project Manager: Okay , now uh having said that {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation , aren't I ? +Project Manager: No , now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , there is a production evaluation . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Is that you ? +Marketing: Yeah , that's me . +Project Manager: But that's after the financing . +Marketing: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: See ? Fi see ? +Marketing: Sorry , sorry . Mm-mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Okay , we had looks and voice recognition . Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is . Okay uh energy source we say that's battery , right ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's right . +Project Manager: Okay , now . So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What ? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected . Well , that's nice . She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work . Hmm . +Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , okay yeah , okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's see . Okay , one , okay . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Oh go away . Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh electronics , simple chip on print ? Is that's what we're using ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: One of those ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . Okay , one . Uh regular chip on print . No . That's all we need , the one +Industrial Designer: No . Yeah . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} case , uncurved flat , single curved , double curved . +Marketing: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Single curve ? Mm . +Marketing: I guess it's double curved . +Project Manager: Double curved ? One of those ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Case materi s supplements . Plastic we said , right ? +User Interface: Plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh wood , rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Rubber , because we're gonna have the soft buttons . +Project Manager: Uh but , yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material . +Project Manager: That's just for the case material , +User Interface: Is this for the case ? Yes . +Project Manager: so special colours though , we having that , +Marketing: Oh okay , the mm-hmm , mm' kay . +Project Manager: right ? +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel , no . Integrated scroll wheel , L_C_ display ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No , +Project Manager: Button . +Marketing: 'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all , right ? +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , button supplement special colour ? +User Interface: Speci Yes +Project Manager: Special form ? +User Interface: Yes d we do have special form . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: And special material , rubber , wood , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means . +Industrial Designer: Uh , I think that's the price . +Project Manager: That's the price . +User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine +Project Manager: Mm ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n +Project Manager: Eight , eight point two . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nine points , +Project Manager: hmm ? +User Interface: okay , yes . +Project Manager: Eight point two , right ? So , we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . I guess I should save this I suppose , huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . Uh-huh huh huh . +User Interface: On the desktop . +Project Manager: I just tried that . My documents , computer . +Industrial Designer: AMI . +Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is , yes . +Industrial Designer: AMI should for +Project Manager: Okay , fine . Save . Okay good , so that's the good news . We gonna be popular . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation . +Marketing: Okay , I'll take my file down so you can bring it up . 'Kay should be able to get it now . 'Kay , why don't you move just to the next slide right away . +Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah right away . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay , well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question , will it sell ? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course , but maybe we just need to get a few . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups , we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it , we think it's good , we're gonna get behind it and sell it . Um , next slide please . Okay , now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype . I wanted the shape to be biomorphic , I didn't want anything with angles and all square , I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that . The size is small , the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted . We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible , we'll have the soft buttons +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and the way this is shaped , even though it's gonna be hard plastic , it feels good in your hand so that's nice . And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features , in other words , the look , the feel um and the shape , that's what people are gonna get in the store . +User Interface: Fee selling . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: They don't have a television in the store , they can't play with it . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points . So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please . Okay , so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one . That's really , really excellent shape . The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the , for the marketing , these aren't i in how I feel . I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven . I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: And our colour I think is great . The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there . And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible . And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality , obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it . +Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that , too . +Marketing: Well , um we had what , eight eight euros twenty as our cost ? +Project Manager: Eight , eight twenty , yes . +Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend . +Industrial Designer: We have um four euros , yeah +Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well um that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished , as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that . I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price , the the the problem is quality . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} . +Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , still . +Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features , okay ? +Industrial Designer: Included , yeah . Hmm , +User Interface: Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: hmm +Project Manager: So to beware of that . You wanna go to this next slide , marketing expert ? +Marketing: Uh , well I isn't this my last slide ? +Project Manager: I dunno . +Marketing: Maybe . +Project Manager: Yes it is . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Go ahead . I think that was my last slide , yeah . Um . Mm okay . And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard . Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now , so if you put my last slide back up there . +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that , um . +Project Manager: Why ? Wh why you need that up ? +Marketing: Hmm ? Well because I can't remember what I put on there . {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here . +Project Manager: I think you can make it there . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . You ready . So now we're all supposed to say what we think . Um okay so on shape I gave it a one . Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst . +User Interface: Worse , okay . +Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is ? +User Interface: One . +Marketing: One , okay , and Be Betsy ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even my {disfmarker} yeah , shape is one . +Marketing: Okay , uh-huh one , okay . And how about on size ? On size {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four . +Marketing: I gave it a four , yeah , I feel it's just average . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno . I think I would give it at least a two . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: One . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , even I think it is one . It's quite small . +Marketing: Okay . Okay {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're the designer , of course you wanna give it a one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour ? +Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Colour , I gave it a one . +Project Manager: One . +Marketing: I really like all those nice bright , warm colours . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours . One . +User Interface: One . Yes . +Marketing: One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: One , one , one , okay . And how about the feel ? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand . +Project Manager: Uh , I think I would give it a two . +Marketing: Okay , I gave it a three , two , +User Interface: I'll give three . +Marketing: yeah ? Three . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two , +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Two . +Marketing: Two , okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh three , mm-hmm . +Marketing: Three ? Okay . Well , um . It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product . Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe , heaven forbid , having another meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product . Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate ? +Project Manager: Uh . Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity . Um . Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy ? +User Interface: We can always improve , yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah , include some more buttons and uh um +User Interface: Yes , features . +Industrial Designer: yeah features . We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller . Uh I think they are quite big , so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case . If we want to have more features than that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , definitely . +User Interface: Yes . Voices . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons , instead of having two mute buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , definitely , yeah , two mu mute buttons . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control . Maybe we can put that all on one button . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that . +Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't , with this particular item , we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . No . +Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process ? Uh , um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created ? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy . +Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too , yeah um , +Project Manager: Um an +Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy . +Marketing: it's something I think I can market . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project ? Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job , Miss leader . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , yes you've done a good job . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , definitely . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good , I think we really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team , yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used ? We used whiteboard , we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more , yeah , +User Interface: Whiteboard more , yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , probably . +Marketing: we didn't use that enough . +Project Manager: Yes , we could . Uh , it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , I think so , I think absolutely , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas ? +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , many . +Marketing: I think we were we were very good , yeah , mm . +Project Manager: I think we we did , uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Are the costs within budget ? Yes , yes . Uh is the project evaluated ? Yes . +Marketing: Yes , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um then celebration . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Celebration . +User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes , yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of 'em we have champagne . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much . Um , I think this was very good and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible . Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Okay . Watch I I have my cord behind you here . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I always get it on here , but getting it off is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left ? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: They say it's forty minutes . +Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later +Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time , whenever we felt we were finished . +Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace . {vocalsound} Oh , there we go . +","The described interaction is a multifaceted business meeting involving several key figures, including a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing expert. These participants are engaging in an evaluation and design discussion about developing a new and innovative remote control. The meeting commences with the Project Manager's review of the minutes from the previous assembly. + +In summary, during the prior meeting, it was established that aesthetics would play a critical role in the design of the new remote, as mentioned by the User Interface Designer. Practical features such as nine-channel buttons, a next button, volume controls, subtitle buttons, and adjustments for color contrast, sharpness, etc., were discussed. Additional functions like a memory switch, mute button, child-friendly design with simple, colorful star or other shaped buttons, and possibly an oversized remote were also brought up. A standout desire from the User Interface Designer was the integration of speech recognition for added convenience. + +The Industrial Designer presented her ideas that included a durable and environmentally friendly plastic case that should be recyclable and vibrant. She also proposed a sophisticated and temperature-resistant integrated circuit board, incorporating a timer or alarm facility. She stressed the viability of an inexpensive and efficient design that includes resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, and resonators, with a focus on the potential for a rechargeable battery. + +The Marketing expert suggested conducting market research, focusing on the need for an attractive, small, and user-friendly remote that stands out. Emphasizing the importance of beating the competition to market, she advised prioritizing one or two standout features that could anchor the advertising campaign. She also expressed a preference for a fruit and vegetable design with a soft touch, speculating that consumers desire such trends. The decisive feature settled in the meeting was a speech recognizer, making the remote trendy, compact, strong, battery-powered, and button-based. + +Following the recap, the Industrial Designer introduced a prototype model, a snail-shaped remote with a blue and yellow color palette and rubber buttons for a softer touch. The LED used in the design was green, distinguishing it from usual infrared ones, and the overall design aimed for compactness and fit for ease of hand use. The User Interface Designer outlined the incorporated features: on-off switch, mute button, numerically designated buttons for channels, volume control, scrolling buttons for programming, a central menu button with functionalities for adjusting screen properties, and a novel 'swapping button' that allows users to switch between recently viewed channels with a flexible elongated shape. The remote also included an inbuilt voice recognizer. + +The collective review of the prototype by the Marketing and the Project Manager highlighted the remote's ergonomic design, which allows single-hand operation and raised buttons that are easily accessible. The Marketing expert appreciated the distinct location of the power button and the intuitive usability facilitated by the layout. The group also discussed additional modeling aspects and materials, such as using plastic for the case and a rubber texture for the buttons. + +Financing and cost considerations were addressed with the Project Manager demonstrating a pre-calculated budget on a slide, showing that the design was well within the financial constraints. There was, however, some concern about the cost of integrating the voice recognition feature, which was not fully accounted for in the budget. + +The Marketing expert then presented a production evaluation, advocating for market testing with diverse consumer groups and refinements based on their feedback. The expert stressed the importance of the remote's biomorphic shape, size, bright and warm colors, and soft feel to the marketing strategy, while acknowledging functionality as critical but secondary to aesthetic and tactile factors. + +The group evaluated their performance, discussing creativity, leadership, teamwork, the utilization of tools like the whiteboard and slides during the meeting, finding new ideas, and cost management. They expressed content with the project's management and the collaborative effort, although they noted a few improvements that could enhance their process. + +In conclusion, they expressed confidence in their newly developed product, agreeing that they have created a potentially successful remote control that balances functionality, aesthetic appeal, and budget considerations. The session ends with a note that the project is ready to proceed, pending the Marketing expert’s board presentation and considerations of additional features, like the voice recognition integration. A light, humorous moment emerges as they play on the 'snail' design element for marketing – suggesting it as a 'rapid snail' in campaigns. Lastly, they anticipate a celebration for the successful launch of their product, with a tongue-in-cheek mention of upgrading from apple juice to champagne once their sales goals are met." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes , you can help me for the slide when {gap} +User Interface: Yep . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . Okay , welcome back . I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time . How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting . Okay , and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you . And it's in the , I think uh , in the sharing folder . And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects . So can you go to the next slide ? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening . Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management , what I'm going to do , and uh , of course , I'm doing the project management and secretary both , okay , to take the minutes of the meeting . And there are three presentations . One is uh new project requirements . And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions . And uh finally we are closing . Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes , so you have to be very quick . And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal , okay , and I have to discuss a few points on this . Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project . Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded , okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology . So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design . And the second one is about uh the remote control . Should be used only for the T_V_ . That's what our uh management says . And the third point , it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image , okay , with this new project or new product . Okay . {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes , can you go to the third slide ? +User Interface: No , this is the third slide . +Project Manager: Okay , {gap} . So , I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , do you wanna open the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sure . Um . You're participant s +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +User Interface: Two ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's it . +User Interface: Do you want the mouse , or do you want me to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes . Yeah , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements , and from my experience , I wanna uh , and from {vocalsound} research I did , uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button , you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it . Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them . So uh , I also , since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product , thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those , and , as I said in the first meeting , um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction , especially in the the uh the outside of the product +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance , and it is reliable , and so forth . {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth , so , I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic , which I kinda like the idea , 'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off , that might be interesting . And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off , and the sound on and off , and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today , uh fifty years later . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation , but it was uh sensitive to the sun , so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems . So , uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind . +Marketing: Fantastic . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find . And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off , you could use it for something else . And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer , I didn't really know what to do with this slide . But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this , and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board . {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this . So , uh {vocalsound} personal preferences , {vocalsound} um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here , and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it . I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme , be very colourful , or you could make it clear , and um kind of blend in with things , so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home . Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof , because uh sometimes they fall into cups +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and , you know , it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that . Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not , because half the time , I keep pushing on the remote control , and I don't know if it's actually understood my message , so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue . And uh , course I never wanna replace the battery . {vocalsound} So , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences , and that's my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah , let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility , other feature , like uh unbreakable . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , because uh especially today , you know , you have the family and the kids , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay , and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay , so if you can add the feature , okay , for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay , with unbreakable , okay , I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product , if I'm not wrong . Maybe you can uh add it in that . +Industrial Designer: Good idea . Good idea , I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes , very good . +Project Manager: Okay , uh thank you Christine , and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications , or any discussion on the functional design ? +User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials ? 'Cause , for example , in the unbreakable thing , doing something plastic would be harder , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: whereas having something like , I dunno , steel or titanium isn't really economically viable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Titanium . Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy , too , +Marketing: Titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: wouldn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No , I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback , I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these , but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts . +User Interface: Yeah . Sure , yeah . No , I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium . It's light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah +Marketing: Expensive . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: you know , nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is , so um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly , maybe if I can go back {vocalsound} . I know the project plan and the budget . So I can close this , {gap} not sure . Was in uh {disfmarker} S This . So let me see where is this file . +User Interface: That's Christine's . +Project Manager: This is Christine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And that's mine , I think . +Project Manager: That's yours , okay . Saving . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: In modified . +Marketing: I don't know , +Project Manager: Okay , uh +Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell . +Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail , okay ? The project may be the the project aim , okay . At the end of the day , the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro . Okay , and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side . Okay , that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market . Okay . Then uh you can come back with your feedback . And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion . This remote control , okay , it can be for like universal , to use for any T_V_ . Okay , and it will be slim , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat ? +Project Manager: Not fat . +Industrial Designer: Not fat , huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find , though . +Project Manager: Yep . But let's try it , okay , with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs , okay , the functional designs . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? So any other questions ? +Marketing: Uh from her side , I don't think uh there's too many more questions . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you Christine for uh time being , +Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so then uh Ed , so can you tell about {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah , from the marketing side , just to to give an idea what the management is looking for , I was looking for a a remote control to have a s +User Interface: S 'scuse me for one sec . +Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro , with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro . For what uh I think from what we're trying to find , we're tr we're looking for , I don't think that price is exactly in the market . Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys , uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five , eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Twenty-five Euros , uh that's that's a preson reasonable price . That's a market price right now . Now if we're gonna take a risk , and push this up a bit , make it more expensive , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now , +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell . Obviously the risk is there . Too expensive , they're not gonna buy . But , I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group , which always spends more money on trendy new things , speech recognition is requested . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? . +Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Obviously , we can't make a remote into a computer , but maybe simple commands . I dunno , louder , softer , on , off . That might be a possibility , even though it costs more , to be the first on the market to produce this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use . So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly . {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands , say remote , and there's a beep beep beep , and they can find it through , you know , ten tons of newspapers , magazines , whatever you have at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , in the cost that uh the management is looking for , that's not gonna be possible . But if it's trendy , if it's fancy , it's got some colour to it , if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use , if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control , like I said , louder , softer , change channel , on , off , remote , it goes beep beep , I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset 'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on . So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea , with the ideas of the industrial uh design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But , price obviously we have to talk about . +Project Manager: Yep . So what do you think about uh the design {gap} ? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design , uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition ? +Marketing: Speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh training is always an issue with uh commands . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process , uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost . Not sure how . {vocalsound} But um anyway , um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life . And um so , maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it . So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh , you know , gets uh , from the light , um a a solar cell inside there +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things . +User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition , yeah , it's a great feature , but if you're watching T_V_ , there's a lot of ambient sound , and it's words . It's not just , you know , noises like something hitting . It's actual speech , so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech , and the the user's speech . Otherwise , you can say remote . +Industrial Designer: Off . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing , all of a sudden , you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies , because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_ . {vocalsound} So , I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems , then yeah , it'd be a really good marketing gimmick . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: But , I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation . +Industrial Designer: Very good point . +Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition , 'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom , and it calls up Mom . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: 'Kay the radio can be on and everything . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition , if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television . If somebody's speaking on the se the television , they're not gonna stop and say remote , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: okay . So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . Yeah . No , I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements . +Marketing: Like the t like the telephone . No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home , and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: so well , that's kinda cute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , what I can uh suggest to you , Christine , okay , uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback , or some training , okay , about uh this facility , especially for the speech recognition , I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_ , okay , because they're already in this uh speech recognition part , okay . And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them , some kind of a technical tie-up . Okay , and uh if you want , I can coordinate , okay , to get some information , okay , and uh you can uh let me know , okay , so what kind of uh the details you require okay , to add this feature in this project . I don't think it's uh the difficult . And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop , apart from uh what {gap} today . +Industrial Designer: Okay , we'll find that out . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: From from your side uh , you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: What do they want ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} , a risk , take a risk on the market ? Something that's gonna cost more , but could very easily s make a boom in the market ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . +Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different , has to be total totally new . Something that nobody has right now . +Project Manager: Yeah but +Marketing: And it's gonna cost . +Project Manager: but end of the day , you're the sales guy , so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit , +Marketing: Sure . Sure . +Project Manager: okay . And uh , so I don't mind to convince , okay , the management to spend some more money on the project , okay , if you can make out of +Marketing: Obviously . +Project Manager: the money from this project . +Marketing: If the bottom line is positive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , okay I don't mind to convince the the management , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: The management says , okay , so they they don't want certain facilities , which it's already worked , okay , they want something uh new , okay . I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree , I don't think they'll say no for that , okay . And uh I hope I can convince the management on that , okay . So if you have any uh new ideas , okay , for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special , okay , coordination , okay , between any uh technical companies , which you can uh hide their technology backup , okay , for your uh functional design or technical design , okay , then I am ready to do that . And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um well , I mean , maybe if I go through my presentation , you can sort of see what the user perspective is , and how it ties into the other two comments . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so you are finish , Ed , uh so I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay , I'll uh hand over to Agnes . Just gonna close this . T Uh where are you , here ? +User Interface: Mm participant three . +Project Manager: Participant three . +User Interface: Nope , here {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , so I'll {disfmarker} yep . Okay . +User Interface: Good . +Project Manager: Is it okay ? +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Alri +User Interface: Yeah , and that's fine . Okay . So , basically , the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products . So , in our case , existing remote controls . And then , what the good ideas are , and what the bad ideas are , and why they're bad and good , which isn't always as obvious . We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad , but when you look , technically , at how it works , sometimes that's not the case . Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep , 'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work . Um and then what the remote control should look like , obviously , once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are . So , in terms of the functionalities that we need , you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off . You need to change channels , both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing . You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever . So , the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls , in general . The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do . Um often , you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done , um which you don't necessarily always remember , especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often . And that the buttons are too small . So , here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side , you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The buttons , in a lot of cases , are tiny . Um they're hard to see , and okay , they're labelled , but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much . Whereas , on the other side , you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed . And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it . So , I would be inclined to go sort of towards this , in terms of design , rather than this . And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons , then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons . So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit , or to a minimum , sorry , make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed , so like the on button being really obvious one , the channel changing and the volume , and to keep the design basically sleek and simple . +Project Manager: Click mm . +User Interface: Which , I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably . Um so , that's pretty much it , an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , it's um , seems {vocalsound} very understandable . Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction , +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , that's true . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So uh , you know , but that's okay . That's why we're all here at the table , so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh , when you hold it , is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal 'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about , th th the look and the feel , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh , you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , that's definitely a very important factor , especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases , I think . +Industrial Designer: First . Yep . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Okay , so I don't have any questions . Sounds good . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help , for time being , on this uh subjects , okay , so please come back to me , +User Interface: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh Christine , maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim , okay , and to add some features , like we are talking about , the speech recognition and all . +User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table , but do we actually want to incorporate all of them , or have we missed anything ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide , maybe that would provide some guidance ? +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us . +Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab +Marketing: Individual actions . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept , supposed to work on the user interface concept , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends . Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach . I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now +User Interface: I thought {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process , that's my suggestion . +Project Manager: Okay , that will be great . {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , I I'm just thinking in terms of time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: like if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , now I'm objecting . No , I mean , I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away ? I mean , it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features , um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use , maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting , +Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker} +User Interface: guess {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'cause w our meeting time has run out . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: and , you know , we can't hang out here +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and talk about this , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Okay , what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break , okay , then uh we can discuss furthermore , okay , with our areas , and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting . So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting , and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then . Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Thank you very much . +Marketing: Agreed . {vocalsound} +","The conversation revolves around a functional design meeting led by a Project Manager, involving a User Interface (UI) designer, an Industrial Designer, and a Marketing representative. + +The Project Manager expresses that the aim of the meeting is to discuss the project at hand, especially focusing on the design of a new remote control. They emphasize the need to share important documents and collaborate. They lay out a meeting agenda discussing project management, new project requirements, decisions on remote control functions, and closing remarks within a tight 40-minute timeframe. The Project Manager also shares insights about the project, like eliminating teletext due to obsolescence and using the remote exclusively for TV. Additionally, the importance of establishing a marketing and corporate image with this new product is highlighted. + +The Industrial Designer suggests focusing on user requirements, such as turning the TV on/off with a large button and making the remote easy to find. They discuss a brief history of remote controls and the necessity for the new design to be visually appealing, user-friendly, and incorporating features such as waterproofing and an indicator for the remote's operation status. The idea of unbreakable and inflating remote controls is also brought up. + +The Marketing representative discusses price points and market trends, highlighting a demand for trendy, cutting-edge features like speech recognition among younger consumers. They indicate a price gap between production cost and potential retail price, with suggestions on how to make the product more appealing yet maintain a reasonable price point. + +The UI designer focuses on improving the existing remote control designs by reducing the number of buttons and making them larger and strategically placed. They emphasize the importance of user-friendliness and interface intuitiveness. + +Throughout the discussion, participants touch on various additional features and improvements such as speech recognition, solar charging, waterproofing, and making the remote unbreakable. The importance of integrating new technologies and market trends into the product design is repeatedly discussed. However, there is also consideration of practicality, cost, market risks, and the overall user experience. + +Towards the end, they decide to take some time after the meeting to prioritize features to avoid wasting time on redundant functionalities. The meeting concludes with the Project Manager suggesting they reconvene after a lunch break to continue discussions and advises everyone to share information in a shared folder for collaboration. The manager also offers to coordinate with tech companies for technical support, especially concerning speech recognition technology." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Je croix que c'est dommage de le {disfmarker} it will be sad to destroy this prototype . It really looks like a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It is a banana . +Project Manager: It is a banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It is the essence of bananas . I would be confused with this thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How is everyone ? +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: So we are here for the detailed design meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we will uh {disfmarker} I will first present what we are going to do in this meeting . Then uh I've {disfmarker} I will also take notes during this meeting and I will send you uh a summary then as usual . We will then look at the evaluation criteria of the prototype presented by uh our two colleagues that make good work . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh then we will see the financial aspects and the cost of the product . Then we will uh evaluate the product . And uh end with the conclusion of this project and see whether it fits with {disfmarker} it fulf if it fulfil the requirement or not . So +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: d let's start with the cost aspect so so I look at the aspect discussed last time , that is to say uh to have a standard battery , {vocalsound} to have a yellow banana shaped uh case with uh a rubber material around it +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: to be uh to feel spongy , +User Interface: Like a banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh also at the different aspect like having a wheel etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the cost ended to be ten point seven Euros . So which is uh good , because we had a price gap of twelve point five Euros . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So for the financial aspect it's okay , we can uh {disfmarker} we can continue with this product uh as if , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and we are now going to see the project evaluation with uh our marketing expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . So uh you can have my project in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . You have a presentation ? +Marketing: Uh yeah just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Participant four , yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Four . Evaluation . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So you can go . We can go through . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So I made an evaluation and the the evaluation criteria is made according to {vocalsound} the users' requirements and the market trends we talked about uh during the previous uh meetings . So you can go through and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: okay so uh we have uh six points . We we talked about before . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So we we want to have a product fancy look and feel , technologically innovative , easy to use , fashion , {vocalsound} easy to find in a room , and robust , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh and uh uh I have a scale of uh seven points . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So I go through all the uh all the points here , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and uh according to what you think about the this project you can uh mm make a one point , two point or seven point . Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And after we ha we have an an average , and uh we see . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} okay ? {vocalsound} Uh so uh fancy look and feel , what do you think ? +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe you can presen {vocalsound} +Marketing: F between o one and seven . +Project Manager: okay . Maybe {disfmarker} {vocalsound} hold it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think it's uh very uh very nice . What do you think ? +User Interface: I give it a {disfmarker} I give it a five . +Project Manager: Yeah . So it's between one and seven ? Seven is the highest uh ? +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Seven is the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I will give a six . +Industrial Designer: I will give a a five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And you ? +Marketing: {gap} sorry . +User Interface: Do you vote uh Christine ? +Marketing: {gap} eh ? +User Interface: Do you also vote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just want to see something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we all have to agree on a common {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , we can {gap} very easily {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I think uh {gap} {vocalsound} and need to {gap} as well {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: No problem . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is your {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh I don't know if you {disfmarker} we ha we have to put uh one uh f If it's better or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One is most {gap} . +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Well , we can choose what we want . +Marketing: Um . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , let's say that seven is the best . +Marketing: Or maybe we can say s seven is the best mm {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . So so do note the grade we have five , six for me , +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: five . And what what's your choice ? +Marketing: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How much would you give on the fancy aspect , on the fashionable aspect ? +Marketing: Six {disfmarker} Uh s you can {disfmarker} how much what ? +Project Manager: How much would you {disfmarker} you don't answer to this uh questionnaire ? +Marketing: Oh yes I mm I dunno mm , I think six , it's a good uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it will have five point five average . +Project Manager: Five point five average . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Wa can {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well , does it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . So after , the technological aspect ? +Project Manager: Okay , techne technological aspect . +Marketing: So we we said uh we have uh a new technological uh thing with a wheel . +Project Manager: Yeah , we have the wheel . We also have the rubber material , +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: which make it uh like new also . I think I would give a five . +User Interface: It's {gap} four . +Project Manager: Four ? +Industrial Designer: A four also , because , except for the wheel , we don't have so much innovation . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The rubber is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh a four . I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: D are we including the voice {disfmarker} are you glu are we including the voice in the end or not ? Huh ? +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: No . Okay . +Project Manager: So +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: what's your uh grade ? +Marketing: Four . +Project Manager: Four ? So we have four , four f and five ? +Marketing: We can put four ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , four . Four , yeah , let's put four . +User Interface: For twenty five . +Marketing: Everyone is okay or {disfmarker} four poin Four . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Doesn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very easy to use . Do you think it's easy to use ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I give a seven , I think . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Project Manager: I would give a {disfmarker} I would give a seven as well . It's very easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Mm , six for me also . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Six point five . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: six point five . +Industrial Designer: Six six six point five . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Is it fashion ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: its its f its fruit fruit shape . +Marketing: Seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I would say seven . And is very very nice design . +Marketing: Yeah it's fashion , because it's a fruit , +User Interface: Yeah , we can we can put a seven here . +Marketing: and we say that the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , seven . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well , we hope . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Easy to find . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh easy to find in a room ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I lost my banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think you can't miss it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Yeah , I think it's cool . I think we can put a six here . +Marketing: We have the lightning , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we have {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} +Marketing: The lighting . +Project Manager: we don't sesh especially have the lightning +User Interface: {vocalsound} So you'll make the material transparent +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that it uh lights up completely , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it's yellow . It's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: I think it's very easy to {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seven ? +Project Manager: I would say seven . It's hard to miss it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Six . Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} is it robust ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's rubber , made of rubber , +Industrial Designer: Uh f yeah , it's ru it's rubber . +Project Manager: I think it's m it's uh more rubber than uh other remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah the only problem there might be {disfmarker} which {gap} know , i if it's very sensitive , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: they will , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it is uh {disfmarker} it is surrounded by rubber material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: So maybe we can put a six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Everybody is okay , six . +Industrial Designer: Six or five . Five {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Six is okay ? +User Interface: Six , yeah , for me . +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: S now {vocalsound} um so . +Project Manager: Tadada . We have to sum up everything . +User Interface: Twenty . +Marketing: Thirteen uh , twenty , twenty six point five , uh seven , thirty two , thirty six {gap} . +User Interface: Thirty . Thir +Marketing: That's that's okay ? Six . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six is a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . Uh if we say that seven it's uh it's the better , +Project Manager: Yeah , the be . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , the top {disfmarker} +Marketing: and when uh s six sit six are good {disfmarker} it's a good uh p product , I think . +Project Manager: Okay , so six is a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . So will become eight soon ? +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation , I think . It's very promising . +User Interface: Yeah , well it's a bit biased . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . +Marketing: We have a good price and uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this prototype is quite nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Good . +User Interface: Because I saw uh some phones that were banana shaped , uh wireless phones not mobile ones , wireless for the house , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +User Interface: uh quite big also , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and they were selling {gap} something like a hundred Euros , two hundred Euros . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just a {vocalsound} just a phone , wireless . +Project Manager: So having this at twenty five Euros is uh quite attractive , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But almo also the complexity between a phone and a remote control is not {disfmarker} cannot compare . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's much more complex , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , I think , we can summarise . So we have seen the prototype . It's very nice according to the work of our two designer . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the the financial aspect were okay . We we have the cost below uh our threshold and so we could sell at twenty five Euros and make i make profit . The the evaluation give satisfying result as well . So I think we can move to the last part of the meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the cost is in the budget , the evaluation is okay , so I th I think we can now uh open champagne and make a huge party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Start to eat banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know if it's provided by uh by the meeting staff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so congratulation . {vocalsound} Nice product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Congratulations to the team . Uh very well , we worked together fantastically . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it was a good collaboration uh . Aspect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what does the management say ? +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: What does the management say ? +Project Manager: I think we will have um much bigger project next time and a much bigger salary as well . +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: All it depends on who watch this meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: good guys {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so see you for next uh successful project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Fruits . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Mm . +","During a detailed design meeting with a project team, the Project Manager opened by discussing the intent to present the meeting plan, take notes, and send a summary afterward. They then discussed evaluating prototype criteria, financial aspects, and product costs, emphasizing a prototype that resembles a banana. + +The prototype in question costs 10.7 Euros, which is within their target price point. The team went through a marketing evaluation, which consisted of grading the prototype on various criteria such as fancy look and feel, technological innovation, ease of use, fashion, visibility, and robustness, on a scale of 1 to 7. The prototype received favorable evaluations, notably for being aesthetically pleasing (receiving a 5.5 average on that criteria), and being easy to use. + +Afterward, the project was deemed financially viable and received a positive evaluation overall, suggesting it was ready for the next steps or even celebration. The Project Manager hinted at potential larger projects and salary increases depending on the management's response to the project's success. The meeting closed with a sense of accomplishment and anticipation for future projects." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those joining via video conference, I would like to remind you that, when speaking, you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. I understand we don't have any ministerial announcements today, so we'll proceed to presenting petitions. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificate off at the table once the petition is presented. The first petition will be presented by Ms.May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, it's an honour to rise in meeting number 22 of the COVID-19 committee, otherwise known as something like the House of Commons. I'm here to present two petitions containing hundreds of signatures on the issue of the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the People's Republic of China, particularly the practice that's alleged of involuntary organ harvesting. The petitioners ask the Government of Canada to condemn this practice and to publicly call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in the People's Republic of China. The second petition is from residents throughout SaanichGulf Islands concerned about what was, at the time this petition was submitted, a future problem. It remains an issue, and I present it on behalf of petitioners who wish the Government of Canada not to put public funds into purchasing or maintaining the Trans Mountain pipeline or towards any expansion of the pipeline. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Chair, I rise to table two petitions. The first petition deals with the COVID-19 situation. The petitioners note the pandemic is having a devastating impact on many Canadians nationwide, especially those who have low to modest income, small business gig workers, freelancers, artists, film industry workers, non-salaried workers and individuals on fixed incomes such as seniors and those on disability. It further notes that rent, mortgage and utility payments are due at the end of each month, putting countless Canadians at risk of losing their housing. It is paramount there be safe self-isolation opportunities for all individuals in this country. To that end, the petitioners are calling for the government to immediately enact a nationwide rent freeze, eviction freeze, mortgage freeze and utility freeze, enforce mortgage deferrals for homeowners without penalty or interest charges from financial institutions and provide direct assistance in the form of a monthly, universal, direct payment of $2,000 per month for all, with an additional $250 per child immediately. The second petition deals with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. These petitioners join the hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to the expansion. Trans Mountain, in building the pipeline, brings massive environmental and economic risk with no substantial benefit to British Columbia or to local residents. Approximately 40,000 barrels of oil have already leaked from existing Kinder Morgan pipelines, including two major spills in Burnaby since 2007. I might note, Mr. Chair, that just this past weekend there was yet another spill to the tune of 1,195 barrels here in British Columbia. There is no known scientific technology to clean up the bitumen when there is a spill, and the number of tankers would go from eight to 34 per month into the Burrard Inlet. It puts at risk many residential neighbourhoods and the traditional territories of at least 15 first nations. +The Chair: May I interrupt for a moment, Ms. Kwan. I want to remind all members in the House that when presenting a petition, the idea is to be as concise as possible. Ms. Kwan, I'll let you wrap up, please. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The petitioners are calling for the government to immediately act to prevent this new oil pipeline from proceeding through British Columbia. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll now go to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Mr. Chair, I have four petitions to present today. The first petition reflects the outrage of my constituents at the ever-expanding order in council from the government banning more and more firearms. In particular, the petitioners highlight the failure of the government to act on the issue of illegal guns. The petitioners note that virtually all violent crimes committed in Canada, including the recent shooting in Nova Scotia, involve illegal firearms in the hands of those who are already not permitted to possess them. The petition has two asks. First of all, it asks that we reverse the order in council banning certain firearms, but also that we propose measures that will effectively address the illegal use of firearms by criminals while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. It also asks that we ensure that substantial changes to firearms laws in future actually be made by Parliament, not by the government acting in an unaccountable manner. The second petition deals with Bill C-8, which is the government's bill around conversion therapy. The petitioners support efforts to ban conversion therapy. They express concern about problems in the wording of the definition used in the legislation. They're asking the government to support amendments to fix the definition to address the issue of conversion therapy and ensure that the definition is correct and doesn't criminalize certain forms of counselling that individuals may voluntarily enter into. The third petition is regarding Bill S-204, a bill in the Senate that seeks to make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad to receive an organ without consent, dealing especially with the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in China. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and want to see it move forward. The final petition is with respect to Bill C-7. There's been much discussion in this House about the need to do better in terms of long-term care. Rather than working to do better in long-term care, unfortunately we've seen the government removing vital safeguards in the area of euthanasia. I think our focus should be on assisting life rather than removing safeguards that are required in association with the euthanasia regime. The petitioners are particularly concerned about the government's plan to remove a 10-day reflection period that normally takes place. That period can already be waived under certain circumstances, but Bill C-7 proposes to remove it entirely as well as reduce the number of witnesses involved. The petitioners are quite concerned about what's going on in Bill C-7 and call for it to be stopped or amended. +The Chair: Presenting petitions. We'll proceed to statements by members. We'll start off with Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Mr. Chair, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and an economic shock. Recent events have ripped open the wound of systemic racism in our country. Racialized and marginalized communities have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Thousands of seniors in long-term care facilities have died. It is clear that we need system change. In the past, governments have bailed out banks and corporations because they were too big to fail. It is time to bail out humanity and the planet. No one will be immune from the threat of climate change and mass extinction. Both are the result of the exploitation of the natural world in the name of the economy. Humans created the economy. We can choose to change it. We must protect our environment or perish. COVID-19 has demonstrated that together we can take courageous action for the common good. We need to do the same for the climate crisis, because humanity and our planet are too big to fail. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Spengemann. +Mr. Sven Spengemann (MississaugaLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today marks World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Underestimated and under-reported, elder abuse exists across the world. At risk of neglect and assault, many of the most vulnerable older persons reside in our long-term care facilities. They are the seniors who have built our country and shaped our communities, who have shown us resilience, courage and selflessness, who have made us stronger, and whose work and teachings continue to inspire us. They are parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends and mentors. We have not been there for them in the same way they've been there for us throughout their lives. The Canadian Forces report, alongside the climbing disproportionate death toll in our long-term care facilities, has reconfirmed the ugly, indefensible reality of elder abuse and neglect in Canada. In my community, we mourn the deaths of 68 seniors from one long-term care facility alone, Camilla Care. We must make the same unwavering commitment to older persons as they have shown to us. We must protect and uphold their human rights. We must do better. +The Chair: Before proceeding, I just want to bring up to the members in the background that we want to keep it as simple and as parliamentary as possible in keeping it neutral. We'll now move to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett (LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC): During these trying times, the residents of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes have risen to the challenge. They've made sacrifices and gone above and beyond to make the lives of their neighbours better and to keep our communities safe. It would be impossible to list everyone who has emerged as a community hero, but I'd like to highlight a few, like Lily, an eight-year-old from Elgin who raised funds for her local food bank by building and selling squirrel picnic tables, and Louise Boardman from Spencerville who's making masks for long-term care facilities and selling others in support of the Breast Cancer Action centre. The Knights of Columbus in Prescott raised funds and are distributing some $27,000 in support of charitable groups throughout the region. The Knights of Columbus in Kemptville are working overtime operating the local food bank. Who can forget our top-notch health care workers like Hannah and Mary at the Brockville COVID-19 testing centre? It is the people of LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes that make it so great. To everyone working to make a difference and to all of our essential workers, thank you. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, the Indian Act enshrined racism into Canadian law in 1876, and, through residential schools, the child welfare system, our legal system and our police, we criminalized and tore apart indigenous peoples. The deaths of Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi and the assault on Chief Allan Adam are recent examples of systemic racism within the RCMP. Sadly, the RCMP leadership has failed to acknowledge this reality and its root causes. These same systems negatively impact black Canadians. Anti-black racism has resulted in more young black men being jailed, children being streamed or excluded from schools and negative police interaction due to profiling. Black lives matter. No single Canadian is responsible for the prevalence of systemic racism; we all are. Collectively we build institutions that discriminate based on race. It is now time to reimagine and rework our institutions, starting with our police, to ensure that all Canadians can achieve their truest potential. +The Chair: Ms.Larouche, you have the floor. +Ms. Andranne Larouche (Shefford, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. June15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. I want to remind members of the link between abuse and the problems of economic dependency among seniors. Improving their purchasing power means reducing the risk of them falling victim to abusive people. That's why the increase in the old age security benefit and the guaranteed income supplement must be extended beyond the pandemic. In three weeks, our seniors will receive their first cheque, when they should be receiving their second. A date must also be announced for the new horizons for seniors program, which helps several groups develop projects to break the isolation of seniors. In closing, I would like to mention the organization Justice alternative et mdiation that during the pandemic, along with other organizations in Shefford, has set up the project Une histoire pour la tienne, which also serves to mark this day. It's a virtual meeting between young people and seniors, allowing them to exchange some inspiring life experiences. Since age prejudice is very much present, I applaud this project, which aims to make us understand each other better and judge each other less. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Sangha. +Mr. Ramesh Sangha (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Mr. Chair, in the time of this terrible crisis affecting all Canadians, when we are all thinking about how best to deal with it, let's all think about the people around us. Let's show our representation not only to those in the sector of sanctioned workers, but also to all those Canadians who day by day stand up and make a difference. Every day I am proud of the reactions of Canadians to this crisis. I want to acknowledge and celebrate all the contributions made by the people of Brampton Centre, all religious institutions, civil society and community organizations like Knights Table in my riding. We are all standing together to fight COVID-19. Let's continue working hard with that same spirit to get positive results out. Thank you very much. +The Chair: I will proceed to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Mr. Chair, whether graduating from elementary school, high school, Georgian College or graduating from colleges or universities across the country, I am proud of the accomplishments of all the graduates across BruceGreyOwen Sound. I would also like to congratulate and thank all the teachers and parents who have adapted to teaching online or from home and who have supported these graduates over the course of their academic careers. I'd like to extend special congratulations to Cameron Lovell, who just graduated from grade eight, as well as to Neebeesh and Neebin Elliott, originally from the Nawash unceded first nation on the Bruce Peninsula, who will be headed to Michigan State University, and to Jared Lumley from Owen Sound, who just graduated from my alma mater, the Royal Military College of Canada. The college motto of Truth, Duty, Valour is something all Canadians should aspire to live by. I wish all the best to these graduates on their next adventures. I and Canada cannot wait to see how their dreams and goals impact and change the world. I congratulate BruceGreyOwen Sound graduates. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Cormier. +Mr. Serge Cormier (AcadieBathurst, Lib.): Today I pay tribute to RichardLosier, an entrepreneur, visionary and builder who died on June9, 2020, surrounded by his family. Mr.Losier is a giant in the Acadian Peninsula business community. In1968, he co-founded St.Isidore Asphalte, a company that now has more than 200employees. He also launched many other businesses over the years. He was unifying and generous, a philanthropist who cared about young people and never missed an opportunity to improve their lives. I met Mr.Losier when I was 14years old, and I can say that he has been a positive influence in my life. Every time I met him, he gave me a lot of advice and encouragement, which I've never forgotten. Mr.Losier's legacy to his community is invaluable. His commitment remains an example for all of us to follow. Mr.Losier now joins his wife, Nolla. I offer my most sincere condolences to his children, Richard Jr., Ronald, Nathalie, Caroline and Stphane, and to his family and friends. Rest in peace, Mr.Losier. You will be greatly missed. Thank you for everything you've done for our region. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Dabrusin. +Ms. Julie Dabrusin (TorontoDanforth, Lib.): Hello from my community in east end Toronto. People talk about how a city the size of Toronto can be cold, but that's far from the truth in my community. I want to give a shout-out to our teachers, like Mr. Wong of Earl Grey Senior Public School, who delivered home-baked cookies and handwritten notes to all of his students, or Monsieur Steve, who's offering online French classes, or the teachers of Riverdale Collegiate, who paraded through our streets to celebrate our graduates. Our local Michael Garron Hospital put out a call for community members to sew masks and received over 60,000 masks, including those made by Lisa Tancre of Chartwell Avondale Retirement Residence. Michelle Beaton organized a front window scavenger hunt to entertain children and their families. Restaurants, even while facing adversity, have been generously donating food, like the members of the Leslieville BIA or Mezes. There are so many more stories of generosity that I could share, but I'm out of time. I thank everyone who has stepped up. We all appreciate all of their hard work. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Mr. Chair, on Saturday night, Calgarians, particularly those in the northeast, in my riding of Calgary Skyview, witnessed a devastating storm, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime. Homes, vehicles, community buildings and structures suffered significant damage due to large hail, floods and high winds. People acted quickly to seek shelter. I'm so grateful that there have been no reports of personal injury or loss of life. I went around the community yesterday to survey the damage. It is extensive. My heart aches for those who have been impacted by the storm in an already incredibly difficult time, but we are resilient. We know that in the coming weeks there will be a lot of cleanup required, both to personal property and in the community. I know my constituents, and we will help one another get through this together. I will work hard to do everything I can to help rebuild this community. +The Chair: Mr.Serr, you have the floor. +Mr. Marc Serr (Nickel Belt, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the people of West Nippissing who organized Pride activities to celebrate the LGBTQ community in June. This week, we are also celebrating National Public Service Week. I thank the public servants for their dedication to the Nickel Belt community and the Valley East and Rayside-Balfour areas. +The Chair: Next is Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Mr. Chair, when COVID-19 began spreading across Ontario, Markham, like many other communities, was unprepared. Our front-line health care workers did not have enough personal protective equipment to do their jobs safely. When Markham residents heard about these shortages, my office was flooded with calls from people who had PPE and wanted to donate. Since then my office has been able to deliver tens of thousands of PPE supplies to front-line health care workers and five masks to each family in need. This pandemic has shown that no matter what the challenge is, the Markham community will overcome it. Today, I would like to thank the front-line health care workers who are doing incredible work. I would also like to thank all those who have helped in Markham's hour of need. +The Chair: I understand we had a bit of a glitch there. I'm sorry. With the pause, we thought that was the end of it. Mr.Serr, I would ask you to continue. I understand you started to switch languages. Please continue. You have 30seconds. +Mr. Marc Serr: Thank you. I'm switching to English now. Thank you to our nurses, doctors, pharmacists, cashiers, janitors. Thank you to various retail workers and first responders dealing with COVID-19. You keep our communities safe and healthy, and you feed us. Your dedication and sacrifice are greatly appreciated. As we start to see local businesses reopen, it is important for all of us to remember to follow best practices outlined by local public health. Our front-line workers deserve our respect. It is important for all of us to respect social distancing, to protect all workers and their families. Together we can remain strong and united as we continue to face this challenge together. +The Chair: Again, my apologies for skipping over there, but now we'll to to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, in commemoration of Italian Heritage Month, I would like to pay tribute to the Colombo Lodge and Italian Cultural Centre in Kamloops, British Columbia. The Colombo Lodge was founded in 1914 and is an integral part of our community. Recently they began Colombo Cares take-home dinners with proceeds distributed to different non-profit organizations throughout the region. Last month they very generously gave away hundreds of dinners to Royal Inland Hospital staff and paramedics for their tireless work throughout the pandemic. In their own words they say, Colombo Lodge is very proud of the Italians that have made Kamloops their home. Community members of Italian ancestrypast and presenthave helped and continue to help Kamloops prosper as a giving, welcoming and inclusive community. Personally, I want to thank all members for their friendship and generosity over the years. Our community is forever grateful for their kindness. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to Mr. Harris. +Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East, NDP): Mr. Chair, many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are facing a serious financial crisis. Most people with disabilities are waiting to be included in the Liberals' promised program. Fish plant workers will need support to avoid a disastrous year. Many small businesses don't qualify for programs. Municipalities need emergency help to meet the crisis. People are worried about what will happen when the CERB runs out in two weeks' time, and the coming tourism season looks very grim. The province itself is in serious financial crisis due to the pandemic and the decline in oil prices. The federal government must overhaul and enhance the fiscal stabilization program to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and other oil-producing provinces through this crisis. Both the province and the oil and gas industry players have committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This is a challenge and an opportunity to transition to a sustainable energy future, but it will require significant investment and support by government to keep the industry strong and make this a just transition for workers. Much has been done. Much more needs to be done. +The Chair: Ms.Gaudreau, you have the floor. +Ms. Marie-Hlne Gaudreau (LaurentidesLabelle, BQ): Mr.Chair, all 44elected municipal officials in the riding of LaurentidesLabelle and I have sent a letter to the government asking that cellular and high-speed Internet networks be made available to all. The crisis has accelerated the demonstration of the need for these networks in daily life. The territorial complexity of the Laurentians means that there are areas where the signal is weak, unstable or non-existent. There is an urgent and essential need to change the infrastructure of the current networks. Also, because of the lockdown, Internet failures are being felt, and they prevent distance learning, telemedicine and teleworking, among other things. How can our municipalities develop economically if they can't provide their community with adequate communication tools? We are therefore calling on the government to put the interests of its people first by investing massively right now in the construction of high-speed Internet and cellular infrastructure. +The Chair: Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): I rise today to pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Great Britain and one of the greatest leaders history has ever known. In what can only be called a lifetime of service, Churchill's contributions to the Commonwealth and to the world are without equal. During the Second World War he led the allied forces in Europe against the tyranny and fascism of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi regime. When our world was in its darkest hour, Churchill's leadership was a beacon of hope and freedom. I am reminded of something he once said, All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. Sir Winston Churchill himself embodied all of these great things and will forever be a symbol of freedom, democracy and hope. +The Chair: Mr. Gerretsen. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to add my voice to the recognition and celebration of Pride Month, which is celebrated annually during June. Pride Month is important for Canadians because we can be proud of who we are and celebrate our diversity. This June is different from previous years as we cannot celebrate in person all together. However, I know the ongoing pandemic will not stop us from showing our love and support for the LGBTQ+ community. To celebrate Pride Month this year, my office distributed 3,000 pride maple leaf pins across the country; whoever asked received one. Although the majority was sent to constituents in my riding, over 500 pins were sent to the neighbouring ridings of LanarkFrontenacKingston, LeedsGrenvilleThousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, and HastingsLennox and Addington. It warms my heart to see so many Canadians showing their support. Happy Pride, everyone. +The Chair: We will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to take part in today's meeting of this parliamentary committee. Canada has been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic for three months now. The situation now seems to be improving, although we must remain vigilant. Economically, business people and the entire Canadian economy depend on government decisions. My question is very simple: when will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for his question. I agree with him that Canada and Canadians are doing an excellent and difficult job in the fight against coronavirus. As for the economy, our government is there for Canadians, for workers and for businesses, and it will continue to be. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians, business people and businesses want to know where the government is headed. When will the economic update take place? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, Canadians know that the government is there to support them. Eight +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Canadians and Quebeckers also know that the Government of Quebec will table its economic update this week. Why isn't the federal government doing the same? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to explain to hon. members and to Canadians what the government is doing for the economy +The Chair: We return to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, it is a real pleasure for me to explain to the minister and everybody in the House of Commons that today the Saskatchewan government will table its economic update. Why can't Ottawa do that? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to share with Canadians what our government is doing to support workers, businesses and the economy. Eight million Canadians have received the CERB, essential support for Canadian workers and their families. +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, 11 days ago the Newfoundland government tabled its own economic update. We see governments acting correctly for their people, except for the Liberal government, which cannot table an economic update. When will the Liberal government table an economic update, which Canadians would like to see? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I am delighted to share with the member opposite and with Canadians what we are doing practically that has meaning for Canadians. Let me talk about what we are doing for Canadian businesses. Nearly 670,000 Canadian businesses have received support +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: In Canada, the Quebec government will table its economic update this week. The Saskatchewan government tabled its economic update today. The Newfoundland government has tabled its economic update. Everybody is working hard in Canada, and the business community would like to know where the Liberal government is going. The question is crystal clear. When will the Liberal government table an economic update? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, Canadian workers and Canadian businesses want to know that our government is here to support them. I have shared with this House our support for Canadian workers through the CERB. I've spoken about the CEBA, and let me point out that more than $26 billion of support has been given through that essential program. Let me talk about the wage subsidy. More than 2.6 million +The Chair: We'll return to Mr. Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, this is starting to get interesting; the minister is revealing some of these expenses. Could the minister tell us how much the government has spent in the last three months? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I will continue in French by explaining what our government is doing for Canadians and workers +The Chair: Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr. Chair, this is a little bit concerning for all Canadians, because this government cannot say when they will table the economic update, cannot identify how much money they have spent in the last three months and cannot say what is the deficit of Canada. Is somebody in this government running this country correctly? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, absolutely we are running this country, and we are supporting our economy. In fact, we appreciate that Canada currently is experiencing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. That is why we have devoted nearly 11% of GDP to support Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms.Normandin. Ms.Normandin, you have the floor. +Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr.Chair, there are times when Quebec and the provinces are not just two solitudes, but they get along and speak as one, such as when the time comes to tell the government to mind its own business. On reading section91 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which sets out the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, nowhere do I find that the federal government must meddle by attaching conditions to health transfers. It is Quebec and the provinces that hire the medical personnel, doctors, nurses and caretakers. It is Quebec and the provinces that are responsible for purchasing the necessary equipment. It is Quebec and the provinces that know what is happening on the ground and what their needs are. Will the government do the only thing within its authority, which is to take the cheque, sign it and put it in the mail? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member for her question. We fully understand the importance of federal support for the provinces, especially in our national fight against the coronavirus. I agree with the hon. member that we must give financial support to the provinces, including Quebec absolutely. I would also like to point out the importance of the support of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are doing an important and excellent job in Quebec and Ontario today, right now. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I am glad to see that there is recognition of the importance of transferring this money. My question is whether it can be transferred unconditionally; that's what I'm asking. There's a state of emergency. In the past, we have seen that it takes a long time to negotiate conditions with the federal government. We saw it in the case of the Quebec City tramway, and we are still seeing it now in the case of transfers for housing in Quebec, for which there is no agreement and, therefore, no transfer of money. Will the federal government send the money free of conditions? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, the hon. member said in her first question that the only thing the federal government had to do on health care was to sign the cheques. I can't agree because, today, at this time, at the request of the Premier of Quebec, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today; they're there to save the lives of seniors +The Chair: We now return to Ms.Normandin. +Ms. Christine Normandin: It was indeed at Quebec's request. What I'm saying is that, at present, the provinces are unanimously asking that there be no conditions. It's urgent that the money be transferred. The federal government's job here is to sign the cheque and send it to the provinces. The government's job is also to make Parliament work. This is where there should be negotiations so that we can work, among other things, to send money to people living with disabilities, to make sure we fight CERB fraud and to make sure that court time limits are effective in the current crisis. Can the government focus on the issue in order to respect the provinces and transfer money for health care? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: I thank the hon. member for her question, Mr.Chair. I agree with the hon. member that the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are in Quebec today at the request of the Province of Quebec. That said, I hope that the hon. member will agree with me that being there for Quebec's seniors, that saving the lives of Quebec's seniors, is much more than simply signing cheques. I am very proud of the work the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces are doing. I think we all should thank these people who are working for Canada, for Quebec, and who are doing an important and excellent job. +Ms. Christine Normandin: Mr.Chair, I think the Deputy Prime Minister misunderstood me when I was talking about the importance of acting quickly. Negotiations between the government and the provinces take an awfully long time because the federal government decides to place conditions where there shouldn't be any. Right now, the only important thing is to transfer the money quickly so that it can be used in our hospitals and our long-term care facilities, where the need is desperate. Quebec and the provinces know exactly what their needs are. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr.Chair, I would like to point out the extent to which the federal government is there to support the provinces, including Quebec. We have increased funding to the provinces and territories by $500million to help them prepare for COVID-19 outbreaks. This funding is in addition to the $40billion that we already provide annually to the provinces and territories. That's a lot of money. It is strong endorsement +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Mr. Chair, systemic racism is killing people. It's killing black people and it's killing indigenous people. Recently, Rodney Levi was another victim of systemic racism. He was killed in New Brunswick by the RCMP. To deal with systemic racism, we need systemic change. Will the Liberal government commit to systemic change so that not another life is ever taken again? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I thank the member opposite for the extremely important question, and I'll take this opportunity to acknowledge the work that he has done for many years fighting racism in Canada. Our government absolutely acknowledges that systemic racism exists in Canada. It exists in all of our institutions, including the police and the RCMP. I agree with the member opposite that now is the moment to fight this +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister very much for the response, but there are some specific actions we need to take. There are movements. Black Lives Matter, as a movement, is calling for the defunding of police. What they're saying is we need to make better choices with how money is being spent. When someone is in need of a wellness check or a mental health check, money, financing and support should go to mental health workers and health care workers, not the police. Is the government prepared to fund and prioritize health care workers over the police? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the member quite rightly began his questions by speaking about systemic racism against indigenous people in Canada, and I would like to speak about that for a moment. I spoke to Perry Bellegarde this morning, because it is such a crucial issue. We can describe it as the original sin of our country. I absolutely agree that we need root and branch reform, including in how policing is done in Canada. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the Liberal government commit to a review of the use of force as outlined for the RCMP? Will the Liberals commit to that change? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety had many conversations last week with the RCMP. We all accept that +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, will the government commit to ensuring that de-escalation receives priority? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Let me continue, Mr. Chair. Systemic racism exists in all of our federal institutions, including the RCMP. It's time to put an end to it. Let me just say +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, I'm not getting an answer. Will the Prime Minister or the Liberal government commit to something simple and ensure that at the federal level, racial profiling, street checks and carding are expressly prohibited? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, sadly, I can't agree that rooting out systemic racism is going to be simple, but I can agree that racial profiling is absolutely inappropriate. It is not something that we should +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Well, I'm going to try to get another commitment from the government, because they don't seem able to commit to something as clear as ending racial profiling. We know that millions of Canadians in a couple of weeks are going to be faced with the reality of their CERB ending. These families are worried about how they're going to put food on the table, because they can't return to a job. Will the Liberal government commit today so that those families will have some concrete support, yes or no? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me be clear, as I was in my previous answer, that our government clearly is opposed to racial profiling. This is a wrong practice and we're very clear about our position there. Now when it comes to the CERB, I absolutely share the concern of the member opposite. The Canadian economy is in its direst state since the Great Depression. We know that all the jobs have not yet come back. We know that Canadian workers, Canadian families, continue to need +The Chair: We'll now pause for a short time to allow staff to change within the safety parameters for the COVID-19 virus, and as we resume, we will go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has mandated his ministers, and I quote, to govern in a positive, open and collaborative way. Ironically, as it stands, Parliament is currently closed for business. Opposition parties have little opportunity to hold the ruling party to account, private members' bills cannot be tabled and legislation cannot be debated. Can the Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau himself, help us understand how all of this fits into his definition of so-called open government? +The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Well, Mr. Chair, we're here, right? We're here, and the opposition is asking questions. They have the equivalent of eight question periods instead of five to ask questions. They have more time than before, so I don't know why they're not happy about it. +Ms. Rachael Harder: That's like when I'm asking for a full meal and your handing me a few jellybeans and saying, Why aren't you happy with that? Mr. Chair, here's the thing. It's like switching a light on and off when it's convenient for the Prime Minister and for the Liberal Party. That's what they want to do here. That's not Parliament. That's not democracy. When will Mr. Trudeau do the right thing, turn the lights on and get back to work for Canadians? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I'm really sorry to hear that my colleague's not working. I can assure you, Mr. Chair, on this side of the House, we're all actually working very hard and we're answering the questions from the opposition. Why? It's because it's extremely important. I sat there for seven years asking questions. I understand important +Ms. Rachael Harder: The member opposite knows very well that he is misleading the Canadian public. This is not true Parliament. This is simply a special committee. Here's the thing. On the Liberal Party website, under the platform commitment, it says that Parliament works best when its members are free to do what they have been elected to do, and that is be the voice for their communities and hold the government to account. This is a Liberal document. Did the Prime Minister forget that strengthening Parliament was part of his 2019 platform commitment? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for quoting our excellent platform. That was a very very good document. The thing is, I think we've reached a balance whereby MPs can come from different places, mostly around Ottawa, and ask questions; but also we can have colleagues from across the country asking questions. Why does my colleague think it is better to have only 35 MPs participating instead of 338? +Ms. Rachael Harder: Does the Prime Minister value democracy, or does he still look up to China's basic dictatorship? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, we're answering all the questions from the opposition, not only from the people in this room, but we're answering +The Chair: It's back to Ms. Harder now. +Ms. Rachael Harder: I'll ask the question again. Does the Prime Minister still value the basic dictatorship of China over Canada's democracy? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't know where the colleague wants to go from here, Mr. Chair. I'd like to know from her why it is not important to her that her colleagues participate directly. +Ms. Rachael Harder: Mr. Trudeau wrote to his ministers and said to them that they continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency. He went on to explain that This means...government that is open by default. We now have a parliament that is currently shut down. Mr. Trudeau has shut it down and has prevented us from being able to do to the good work that Canadians expect us to do. Is this Mr. Trudeau's idea of open by default? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, do they want to talk about shutting down Parliament? How about the time they prorogued Parliament twicenot only once, but twice? The Conservative government shut down Parliament twice. I was here. I was sitting on the other side of the aisle. It's quite the opposite now. We're taking all the questions. This place is open, and we're answering questions. +The Chair: One moment, please. I haven't acknowledged you yet, Ms. Harder. We've stopped the time there. I want to remind honourable members that questions and answers are being given, and we want to hear both sides. Please keep the heckling down. Ms. Harder, please proceed. +Ms. Rachael Harder: In 2014, the leader of the Liberal Party developed a policy resolution entitled Restoring Trust in Canada's Democracy. That's ironic, because right now, again, Parliament is currently shut down. We are prevented from being able to do the good work that we are expected to do. At the time, the Prime Minister said, Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces in their communities for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful prime minister that he once believed should not exist. Why did he change his mind? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, I'd like to know why my colleague wants to shut down the voices of her colleagues who could not speak and could not participate in this room. Mr. Chair, how would we vote on private members' bills, for example? As you know, it is not a government vote or a party vote; it's per row. You want to come back? Are you going to acceptMr. Chair, through youthat we have electronic voting, yes or no? +The Chair: We'll go on to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, we know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has champagne tastes and London flats, but it's his champagne mortgages that Canadians are concerned about. Specifically, why did the minister only disclose the complete extent of his personal debt to the Chinese government on June 4 of this year? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, as you know, since the minister entered politics, his two mortgages and other liabilities and assets have been fully disclosed to the Ethics Commissioner and placed on the online public registry. It's public, Mr. Chair. It's public. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Now it's public and it's terrible. When will the foreign affairs minister be here to answer these questions himself? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, it's always been public. We're in the middle of a pandemic here, trying to help Canadians, and the best they can do is ask questions about +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: When the minister owes over a million dollars to the Chinese government, people have a right to ask him questions. When will the Minister of Foreign Affairs show up? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The minister shows up every day, Mr. Chair. He shows up and works for Canadians. Once again, those are public documents. Everything the minister did is public. I still don't know why they ask +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, he doesn't even have to come to the House. All he has to do is appear on the screen. Where is the minister? Why is he hiding? Why won't he answer questions about his personal debt to the Chinese government? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, if he goes online he's going to get the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the minister is hiding. Let's ask some specific questions about their China policy. What is the impact on the decision-making? Three-quarters of Canadians don't want Huawei involved in our 5G network. Will the minister put the interests of Canadians ahead of the interests of his creditors and say no to Huawei? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, when it comes to 5G deployment, we are right now currently undergoing a comprehensive review. We have been absolutely clear with allies and with Canadians that we never have and never will compromise Canadians' national interests. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, that is not an answer, and it is completely out of step with what our allies have already recognized. Reports are emerging of multiple deadly viruses exported from Winnipeg's microbiology laboratory to the Wuhan Institute of Virology right before scientists were expelled for policy breaches. In spite of that, scientific co-operation between Canadian institutions and the military-affiliated Wuhan Institute of Virology is continuing. Why hasn't the government put in place new guidelines to prevent the export of sensitive pathogens and information to China? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, he's right that in 2019 the National Microbiology Laboratory shared lab samples with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The National Microbiology Laboratory routinely shares samples with other labs to help advance the international community's understanding of viruses and the research that is ongoing around those viruses. There are strict protocols in place for these transfers, and these samples were transported according to Canadian laws and regulations. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, I think Canadians would be concerned to hear that it's routine to transport viruses to Chinese military-affiliated labs. When Champagne was the parliamentary secretary for finance, the government decided to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, bankrolling Chinese state-controlled development projects in Asia with weak standards in labour, human rights and environment. Will the minister put Canadian taxpayers ahead of his personal creditors and support a pullout from the Communist Party-controlled development bank? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Once again, Mr. Chair, my colleague is trying to connect the dots, and I don't know exactly where he is going from here, but everything is public. There's a thing called Google. He can go on it and check the information. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, the public can listen to this. I'm sure this exchange will also be available on Google, and the public can draw their own conclusions. We have failures on 5G, failures when it comes to the transport of deadly viruses and failures when it comes to giving over $400 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It's clear that the Bank of China's investment in Minister Champagne is paying off. It's time for the minister to settle his debt with the Communist government and not settle it on the backs of Canadians. When will the minister be here in the House and answer questions about this mortgage? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: My colleague should be cautious with what he is saying in the House, Mr. Chair. This is serious stuff. He should be careful about what he says. The minister is actually working extremely hard for all Canadians and is doing his job correctly, Mr. Chair. We're talking about public information. Once again, let him go to Google and google it. That's it. +The Chair: Now we'll go to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Canada's ambassador to the United Nations sent a letter last week to all member states of the UN promising that Canada would consider providing more funding for UNRRA, the same UNRRA that is a front for Hamas, which allows weapons of terror to be stored in schools and provides textbooks that call for the destruction of Israel. Do these Liberals have no shame when it comes to their quest for a seat on the UN Security Council? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the honourable member for that question. We know that at this time Canada must show leadership in the face of global challenges. More than ever, Canada is playing a positive role by being a champion in diversity and inclusion, supporting the global fight against COVID-19, addressing climate change, leading peace and security efforts and helping the most vulnerable. A seat on the Security Council will allow Canada to be a strong voice for a fairer, more inclusive and prosperous +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barrett. +Mr. Michael Barrett: Mr. Chair, I received a letter from Bob Anderson this week, who's advocating for his neighbours like Jean Grevelding, who owns a cottage at Butternut Bay. Like many people, Jean is an American who owns a property on our side of the border. These people are taxpaying members of our communities. These folks have plans in place to follow all Canadian quarantine rules. They're concerned about leaving their properties uncared for over the summer. Will folks like Jean be allowed to cross the border to check on their properties this summer? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Of course, our priority is and always has been and always must be the protection of the health and safety of Canadians. That's why we put in place these restrictions for non-essential travel and have required, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, a 14-day quarantine. I don't know the specifics of the person for whom you advocate, but we want to make sure that if they come into Canada, it is for an essential purpose and that they do it safely and respect the quarantine that has been put in place. +Mr. Michael Barrett: With nine branches throughout my riding, the Royal Canadian Legion offers a great deal to veterans and rural communities alike. They have been experiencing hardship and a loss of revenue, to the point where they may be forced to shut their doors. The Zone G2 commander and local mayors such as Roger Haley have reached out to me expressing their dire need. Will the government offer support to Legions across the country so they can continue to carry out their vital work for our veterans? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Yes, we have done a lot to help support groups like the Legions. There is a $350-million emergency community support fund. If they're supplying any help to people regarding COVID, this fund is there. Indeed, we're doing everything we can to make sure that we help the Legions and other groups that do so much to help veterans right across the country. +Mr. Michael Barrett: On May 21, the minister stated that her team was working as quickly as it could to fill the gaps in CEBA. It has now been three weeks, and many business owners, such as mortgage broker Corinna Smith-Gatcke, are still left in the lurch amid the delays, which are pushing businesses closer to shutting their doors for good. Will these businesses have access to CEBA before it's too late for them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the honourable member for that really important question on our Canadian small businesses. Those businesses can absolutely have access to the loan at their financial institution this Friday, and I would encourage them to go and see their bank or credit union. I want businesses to know that nothing is more important for us than making sure they get the support they need during this difficult time. +Mr. Michael Barrett: The County Road 43 expansion project is critical for my riding and the region as a whole. This project will widen the road, increasing safety for the 18,000 motorists who travel the road every day. It's been 334 days since the provincial and local governments announced funding, but there has been nothing from this Liberal government. It's been 181 days since Minister McKenna told me her staff were reviewing the project. Today, there is still nothing, and for the last month the minister's team has not even found the time to respond to my request for an update. Will Minister McKenna finally stop with the delays and commit to funding this project today? +Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Infrastructure and Communities): Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, we work with provinces and territories to advance our infrastructure investments. We're making investments across the country. They are making a real difference in people's lives. We're always happy to work with members of Parliament, but they must also work with provinces and territories so that projects are advanced by them to our office. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall (YorktonMelville, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Through you, has Mr. MacAulay read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I apologize, but I'll have to ask my honourable colleague to repeat the question. +The Chair: Mrs. Wagantall, we'll freeze the time so that there's no extra time taken. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. My question was whether Mr. MacAulay has read ombudsman Dalton's May 2020 report, Financial Compensation for Canadian Veterans: A comparative analysis of benefit regimes. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate my honourable colleague's question. Of course, I appreciate Mr. Dalton's input and all that he has done for veterans. We've discussed it many times. I've done everything and worked with him in order to make sure that we bring the proper compensation to veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: As a result of that study, are the financial outcomes Canada seeks to provide for ill and injured veterans now clearly defined within the Department of Veterans Affairs? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as the member would know, I am to bring a report to the veterans affairs committee, and there are a number of things done in order to make sure that report is +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Then I would suggest that we get our committee up and going as it should be. Where are these financial directions published? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, of course, lockdown, but just under $90 million that the government put in supplementary estimates to make sure we address the backlog for Veterans Affairs. It's a major help +The Chair: We'll go back to Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Minister, are Canadian Armed Forces members provided with a copy of this document? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague would have to ask the Canadian Armed Forces that question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: There are three different providing lifetime benefits for ill and injured veterans. In Ombudsman Dalton's recent report, did any one of these three provide the best compensation in all nine scenarios that were studied? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Of course, as she knows, there's been a lot of work done in order to make sure that we provide the proper compensation to veterans. We're working very hard, with a lot of help from Mr. Dalton, to make sure that the appropriate +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mrs. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: In the undisclosed settlement of Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says ...Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure you that anybody is welcome to enter any discussion on compensation of veterans. We're always open to what we can do in order to make sure that we provide appropriate compensation. I don't think the term would be appropriate, but it would provide some compensation to veterans who truly deserve it. They defend our democracy +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. Oh, I'm sorry +Ms. Andranne Larouche: Mr.Chair, I have a point of order. The interpretation hasn't worked for a few interventions. It's difficult to follow the exchange between the hon. member and the minister. +The Chair: We're having a problem with the interpretation. Minister and Ms. Wagantall, you are joining us virtually. I'm wondering if you have the right language on at the bottom of your screen. We'll start with that for troubleshooting. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: I have English. +The Chair: Very good. Minister MacAulay, what do you have? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I have English, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: Very good. Then we'll check on our side. Ms.Larouche, did I understand correctly that the interpretation didn't work for both speakers? +Ms. Andranne Larouche: The sound didn't allow the interpreters to do their job. It seemed to be a problem with the sound. +The Chair: In that case, I would ask both members to maybe put their mike a little bit close to their mouth. We'll see how that works. I'm looking at the screen, and I notice the mike is a little bit far. Could we bend it in a little bit more? I appreciate that. Thank you for your patience. We'll give it another try. Ms. Wagantall, please go ahead. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: On a point of order, quite often while I'm trying to speak, there are lots of other voices in the background. +The Chair: I would ask everyone to please be on mute, as well as for anyone in the chamber to please refrain from speaking loudly. Just whisper among yourselves if you have something to say. We'll take this one from the top. We have a minute and 45 seconds left. Ms. Wagantall, please proceed with your next question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: You said next question, so we're not going backwards, Chair? +The Chair: Did we have an answer from Minister MacAulay? No? We'll go to Minister MacAulay to finish up the answer. We'll start at 27 seconds, freeze the clock and hear his answer. Then, because of all of the confusion, we'll start at one minute and 45 seconds when we get going again. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Should I repeat the question, sir? +The Chair: Please do. The clock is frozen. After we go through the question and the answer, we'll start the clock again. Mr. Wagantall, please repeat the question. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Thank you, Chair. In the undisclosed settlement to Sean Bruyea's legal case against Seamus O'Regan and the Liberal government, a joint statement says, Canadians, especially all Veterans and their families, are encouraged to enter the public debate about policies and programs that affect our Veterans and their families. Does Mr. MacAulay agree with this statement? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question and concern. Of course I agree. Anybody is quite open to indicate whatever they wish in order to make sure we provide as appropriate a compensation as possible. You can never totally compensate veterans truly for what they deserve, but we want to make sure we provide the best compensation possible. That's what we will do and want to do. +The Chair: Ms. Wagantall, we will start the clock again. You have one minute and 45 seconds remaining. Please proceed. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: If that's the case, is Minister MacAulay aware of the practice of red-flagging veterans' files? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I'm not aware. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Since the deputy minister has indicated that he runs the department, will the minister ask him for the names of veterans and the dates and the reasons that they are, or have been, red-flagged by VAC? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, I would certainly ask any veteran or anybody who has a concern to contact my office. I will do anything I can to make sure that the veterans +The Chair: We'll go back to Ms. Wagantall. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: Do the most ill and injured still receive from the pension up to $300,000 less for life? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Chair, as you know and as the Prime Minister indicated when the pension for life was put in place, it was stated that if anybody receives lessthe Prime Minister himself indicated it quite clearlythat must be adjusted. +Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: For veterans in similar circumstances, should the date of their application for compensation be a factor in determining whether they're treated equitably? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Yes, of course, the date is when the compensation would start. Of course, it's very important and very appropriate. +The Chair: Now we will proceed to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Retired Major Mark Campbell in my riding of Sturgeon RiverParkland lost both legs in the line of duty in Afghanistan. He is an avid sport shooter, but understandably, due to his disability, he is very limited in the kinds of firearms he can use, and all of these firearms have now been banned under the Liberal OIC. My question to the Minister of Public Safety is this: Did their department do a legal analysis and consider the section 15 charter rights of disabled Canadians not to be discriminated against when they passed their OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: Yes, there was a very thorough analysis done by the justice department to ensure that the prohibitions we put in place were, in fact, charter compliant. Let me also say, Mr. Chair, how important it was that we prohibited weapons that were not designed for sporting purposes at all. In fact, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat. They have no place in a civil society. We have prohibited them, and we believeand this has been echoed by many people across the countrythat this will make Canadians safer. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that the AR-15 is the most popular sporting rifle in Canada, and is he aware that disabled veterans like Major Mark Campbell are unable to participate in the sport of sport shooting because of his OIC? +Hon. Bill Blair: I can assure the member that what I am aware of is that the AR-15 and other weapons like them have been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions, such as at cole Polytechnique, at Dawson College, again at the Quebec mosque and in Moncton. The AR-15s in particular were also used at the terrible tragedy in places like Sandy Hook, where a bunch of kids were killed, so there is no place for +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, it has been months since the Liberals shut down this Parliament and months since the Minister of Finance should have presented a budget or at least an economic update to Canadians. Since then we have seen billions spent with little oversight and no plan. The minister says that he needs certainty before he can table a budget. Well, that didn't stop Stephen Harper and the Conservatives from tabling a budget in the depth of the last great recession. When are these Liberals finally going to take their job seriously and table an economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Mr. Chair, we're taking this very seriously. We're working for Canadians and bringing forward supports to make sure that businesses, workers and Canadians can put food on the table and pay their rent. We will continue to support Canadians, and when we have a clear projection to present, we will do that. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, the results are in, and businesses aren't happy with the so-called support programs from these Liberals. In fact, the oil and gas industry has been shut out of many of these economic programs. When is the government going to recognize that their business support plans have been an absolute failure with only a fraction of the billions promised being accessible to businesses? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, our government has taken swift and immediate action to support our sector throughout this challenging time. We had the BCAP, which is critically important to providing liquidity to support the SMEs that make up 85% of the jobs in our sector. It has taken an enormous team effort. People are working around the clock to get money where it needs to be. We are helping hard-working Canadians, small businesses and large businesses right across the country, but in particular in our energy sector. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to see the Minister of Natural Resources online. He tweeted recently to praise the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and the North West Redwater Partnership refinery in my riding. Can the minister tell us what, if any, support they have given to the innovative carbon capture and sequestration technology in this country? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Mr. Chair, we see carbon capture and sequestration as an integral part of lowering emissions, making emissions more competitive and making our oil and gas industry more competitive. We're seeing where the investment dollars are going. They are going to jurisdictions that are committed to lowering emissions. Obviously, this government is committing to net zero. +Mr. Dane Lloyd: I note that the minister couldn't name a single example of government support for carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technology. We have spent a lot of time talking about the COVID-19 pandemic, but Canadians are living with another horrific reality, that being the intensifying opioid overdose epidemic. Reports indicate that in the past four years, 14,000 Canadians have died, and the numbers during COVID-19 have been skyrocketing, with British Columbia seeing a 39% increase this year alone. I know this because I've lost a family member to a fentanyl overdose. When is the government going to take this scourge seriously and take action to save the lives of Canadians? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I share the member's deep sadness about the number of lives we've lost to opioid overdose. Our government has been steadily making it easier for people who live with substance use to access medications to treat substance use, such as prescription Suboxone and methadone. We have made it easier to rapidly establish safe injection sites in communities and have supported community-based projects that work with people who are using substances. We need to understand that this is a complex issue, and we need to support people to get the help they need. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes (AlgomaManitoulinKapuskasing, NDP)): The hon. member for Thrse-DeBlainville. +Ms. Louise Chabot (Thrse-De Blainville, BQ): MadamChair, I will come back to the bill introduced last week. As parliamentarians, we felt like we were watching a very bad play, as I imagine the public did. I say that it was theatre, even though it shouldn't be in this place. The government decided to stage a play and act alone and, unfortunately, there were several acts missing. A very important part of this bill was about supporting people with disabilities in this time of crisis. However, the government did not see fit to negotiate with the opposition parties, even though it is in a minority position. Despite this arrogance, the Bloc Qubcois proposed solutions. One of the things we proposed was to split the bill so that we could give this support to people with disabilities, but the Conservatives did not want to do that. We came back and asked for time to negotiate and give support to people with disabilities, but the government defeated the motion. We asked that the House be recalled today so that we could pass this part of the bill concerning support for people with disabilities, but we are still in the dark. Why are we abandoning people with disabilities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): I thank the hon. member for her question. We know this pandemic has deeply affected the lives and health of all Canadians and has disproportionately affected Canadians with disabilities in particular. From the very beginning, we've taken a disability-inclusive approach to our emergency response to ensure that Canadians with disabilities get the support they need. That is why we announced a one-time payment of $600 for persons with disabilities to address these expenses. This will go a long way toward helping Canadians with disabilities. We encourage and urge all parties in the opposition to support this measure. We're confident that this measure, along with other investments, will benefit Canadians with disabilities, and we hope to get the support of the other parties very soon. +Ms. Louise Chabot: MadamChair, I remind you that this measure wasn't passed because we weren't allowed to do so. A measure to help people with disabilities has been put in an omnibus bill. We've tried here, in the House, to provide the means to give that support, so I ask again, can the government be counted on to give a response to people with disabilities? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, it was absolutely not an omnibus bill. It contained assistance for the disabled, of course, but it also contained assistance for our seasonal workers, as well as a number of other measures that the Bloc Qubcois opposed. They refused to debate and, when the question of splitting the bill came up, the Conservatives refused to do that. That is why there is no bill at the moment, and that is very unfortunate. +Ms. Louise Chabot: It was a Bloc Qubcois proposal to split the bill. The government had not thought of it, but they found that it was a good idea. Let me return to the attack. This bill proposed changes to the wage subsidy program, it was supposed to make the CERB more flexible, it proposed fines for fraudsters and, since there was a little section about a benefit for the disabled, the government took it for granted that we would support it without any negotiations with the parties. However, we set one very important condition: that the Liberal Party must get its hands out of taxpayers' pockets in terms of the wage subsidy. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, as we listen to the Bloc Qubcois members, we might think that they invented peanut butter and apple pie. This bill contained a number of measures that all Quebeckers and all Canadians needed, but the Bloc Qubcois refused to debate it. No, we did not follow the Bloc Qubcois' example in splitting the bill; we had thought of it a long time previously. We have not been able to do that because of the Conservatives. Because of them, we cannot help those living with disabilities. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms.Chabot, you have 45seconds left. +Ms. Louise Chabot: We asked on a number of occasions for the House to be able to sit starting today to pass the part of the bill dealing with those with disabilities. What is the status of that, MadamChair? We have not heard about it since. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, my colleague knows very well that things are not as simple as that. There are procedural mechanisms unique to the House. I hope that, one day, we will be able to pass this bill and be able to provide assistance for those living with disabilities. I hope that the Conservatives will change their minds and give us their support. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Don Valley East, Ms. Ratansi. +Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Surrey Centre. Since 2015 our government has been focused on ensuring its policies mitigate the effects of climate change. Several measures have been implemented for phasing out coal, making polluters pay, providing climate incentives, investing in green technologies and much more, which all together have created a climate plan that is doing more to cut pollution than any other in Canada's history. In my riding of Don Valley East, many innovative businesses have benefited from these investments and initiatives. One area of particular interest is our government's work to protect 25% of Canada's land and 25% of its oceans by 2025. Our natural environment is something that Canadians and my constituents care about deeply. Could the minister update this House on the new conservation projects announced on June 5, World Environment Day, and on how our government is protecting our environment? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, protecting nature is an important part of how we will address climate change and the very real challenges it presents. That's why on June 5, World Environment Day, our government announced over 60 conservation projects under development across Canada. These projects are funded through the Canada Nature Fund's target 1 challenge initiative. They'll conserve Canadian nature and biodiversity and protect species at risk, enhance ecological integrity and connectivity, and enhance the size of Canada's vast network of protected areas. Nearly half of these projects are indigenous-led, with the aim of creating indigenous-protected conserved areas. Madam Chair, projects like these move us closer to our goal of protecting 25% of Canada's lands and oceans by 2025. By working together in partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, indigenous peoples and Canadians, together we can protect our natural environment for generations to come. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Ms. Ratansi, since you have 25 seconds left, we will go to the honourable member for Surrey Centre. +Mr. Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre, Lib.): Madam Chair, there are many small and medium-sized businesses in my riding of Surrey Centre. Many have been impacted by COVID-19. They saw a decrease in business or needed to close their doors completely in order to adhere to public safety measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. These measures helped keep our most vulnerable citizens safe and ensured that our hospital and health care providers did not become overwhelmed with a sharp spike in cases. Thanks to our government's COVID-19 emergency response, many of these businesses have been able to keep their employees and access important liquidity through the Canada emergency business account, which provides loans to small businesses and non-profits, and the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which is helping businesses to keep and rehire their employees while their revenues are down by providing up to 75% of wages for up to 24 weeks. As we begin to reopen the economy and Canadians across the country return to the job market, those benefits will be even more important to help businesses and industries rehire their staff and make important adjustments to align with public health guidelines to gradually increase their operations. Can the minister please update the committee on how many Canadian businesses have taken advantage of CEBA and CEWS since applications for each have been opened? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, I want to begin by thanking the member for Surrey Centre for all the work he does to support his constituents and small businesses. Canadians across the country need to know our government has been working tirelessly and will continue to work tirelessly on their behalf. This is why we put in place the important programs to help them get through this crisis during this difficult time, programs such as the wage subsidy program. We know that in so many businesses the employees are often like extended family members. The wage subsidy has helped these businesses keep their employees on the payroll and are now helping in their rehiring as they slowly and safely restart. There are 348,000 businesses being helped with the wage subsidy program, and this means that 2.6 million workers are being helped. Businesses are also being helped through the interest-free $40,000 loan they can access through CEBA to help stay afloat and pay their expenses during this crisis. I'm pleased to inform this House that to date more than 669,000 +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for St. John's East. +Mr. Jack Harris: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for LondonFanshawe. Madam Chair, with so many recent reports and videos of police using force, sometimes deadly force, and violence against indigenous and black people in Canada, I've called for the public safety committee to reconvene. If the members agree, will the minister come to the committee and provide concrete answers as to how the government intends to address racism inherent in Canada's law enforcement, and in particular the RCMP? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank my colleague for the question. It's perhaps the most important one facing Canada today. Madam Chair, indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes within the entire criminal justice system. In order to respond appropriately, I think it's necessary to begin by acknowledging the lived experience of people who've known bias and discrimination at the hands of the police and our courts and within our prisons. We remain committed to working with all racialized people and all of the members of this House to ensure that we work toward social justice for all Canadians, and I look forward to discussing the member's motion further with him. +Mr. Jack Harris: Will the minister and the government commit to facilitating such a meeting of this committee virtually? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the decisions of the committee are the committee's, so I'm sure that this will be a discussion within the committee, but if called, I will certainly be pleased to come with my officials to provide the committee with whatever support and information it needs to contribute to this very important discussion. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Harris, you have 40 seconds. +Mr. Jack Harris: In light of what we've seen with Chief Adam in Fort McMurray and the RCMP accepting that the actions were reasonable, will the minister commit to a full review of the use of force by the RCMP, in particular the philosophy, tactics and training that is given to RCMP officers in dealing with the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: I thank the member and I want to assure him, first of all, that this is work that is ongoing, not just in the RCMP but throughout the police community. May I also take this opportunity, Madam Chair, to say that I think all police training has to begin with one very important principle, and that's the preservation of all life and the respect for all Canadians. We also know the importance of de-escalation training. We're committed to continuing to work with indigenous communities, racialized communities and with police services and all participants in the criminal justice system to make sure that it is fair for all Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for LondonFanshawe, Ms. Mathyssen. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (LondonFanshawe, NDP): Madam Chair, we need more justice for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. They can't be asked to keep waiting. This government recognizes that systemic racism exists but refuses to collect race-based data that would allow us to quantify and truly address this injustice. We need data to protect Canadians. When will this government do the right thing and start collecting race-based data? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Madam Chair, our government agrees that it's important that we collect data, and that's exactly why, in the anti-racism secretariat and the anti-racism strategy, there is a commitment to have money go to Statistics Canada to collect race-based data. We look forward to working with all members to ensure it happens. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: Madam Chair, we know that Statistics Canada will start to collect job numbers based on race. This will allow us to identify systemic racism where it is and where we need to ensure a fair and more equal job market for black, indigenous and racialized people in Canada. Why is this government refusing to follow suit so we can tackle systemic racism everywhere, in every sector? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for her question. She's absolutely correct in her assessment that we need to collect more data, reliable data, data that will help us deal with some of the challenges we're seeing with systemic discrimination, but, more broadly, we want to make sure that we continue to engage with an anti-racism strategy that will allow us to collect that disaggregated data. That is why we allocated $6.2 million to that initiative through Statistics Canada, but we know we must do more and we will do more. +Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen: We know that all people are susceptible to catching COVID-19, but health authorities are clear that parts of cities like Montreal and Toronto have been more impacted than others. For black and racialized people living in these cities, this data is a matter of life and death. Will the government collect and share disaggregated data so we can identify and erase systemic racism, yes or no? +Hon. Bardish Chagger: Madam Chair, making decisions based on science and evidence is essential for our government. We took that practice from day one. It is exactly the step we will take moving forward and that's why we are making those investments to ensure that data exists. We are working across all departments. My mandate letter is public. I look forward to continuing to work not only with all ministers, departments and agencies, but all allies and all parties to get this work done. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney, the honourable member for BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. Last week, my plumber told me that, each time Justin Trudeau comes down the steps to make announcements totalling several billion dollars, he feels like someone is rifling through his pockets. My question is simple and goes to the Minister of Finance: where is this money coming from? +Hon. Mona Fortier: MadamChair, I would like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. Currently, the health and safety of Canadians are our top priorities. We have implemented an emergency economic plan to support Canadians, workers and companies. We will continue to support them during this crisis. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The answer I would have liked is simple: we are borrowing the money and we are going to have to pay it back one day. That is another Liberal craze: they borrow money, they make campaign promises, and off they go. Under the Conservative government, the Chantier Davie in Lvis had 1,700workers for the supply ship Asterix. In the election campaign, the Liberals promised icebreakers. When are the Liberals going to award the icebreaker contracts to the Chantier Davie? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): MadamChair, we are very proud of the Chantier Davie and we completely understand its role in the system. We are currently assessing those requests. We are going to establish the process for the polar ice-breaker, which is essential for the work of the Coast Guard in northern communities, and we are going to make sure that +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Blaney has the floor. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers do not need words; they need contracts and jobs. The same is true for young people who want to work. There is money in the Canada summer jobs program: in my constituency alone, $150,000has been approved. Companies want young people to work and want to hire them. What is the minister waiting for in order to confirm those positions? In my constituency, and everywhere else in the country, our young people want to work. What is the government waiting for in order to send some cash to the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are proud of the Canada summer jobs program. We are introducing flexibilities into the system to enable employers to be able to hire summer students. We recognize the importance of this program to provide both financial resources and necessary experience for young people. We believe in continuing to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. +Hon. Steven Blaney: The workers, the young people and the employers have been waiting for weeks. The money is available; where is the announcement? MadamChair, our young people are not the only ones who want to work. There are also the temporary foreign workers. Let me use Jessie Gito as an example; he has been working at Plate2000 in Saint-Anselme for years. When the time came to renew his work permit, he found out that he has to have some biometric tests. But he cannot get them because the offices are closed. Is the minister going to allow Jessie Gito and the thousands of other temporary foreign workers who want to work to be able to do so until the government biometric testing centres reopen? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, it is important for the honourable member to recognize that we are in the early recovery stage of the pandemic. Employers are slowly reopening businesses. We will ensure that we support both our students and our temporary foreign workers to make sure we get the recovery right. We will continue to invest in the Canada summer jobs program. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that employers are able to take advantage of the program and give opportunities to young people. +Hon. Steven Blaney: It is very simple. Jessie Gito is a foreign worker, who is in a company that provides an essential service. He needs a decision that will let him go to work, rather than staying home and doing nothing. Then, when the government's biometric testing centres are open again, he will gladly go to one. Young people want to work in agriculture as well, and the minister has told us that the government wants young people working and that their files will be processed as quickly as possible. She wants to create 700positions and she knows that people can fill in an application on a first-come first-served basis. Of those 700positions, how many have been confirmed to date? The good weather has arrived, the corn is starting to grow, and this is the time when farmers need the young workers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): MadamChair, the program for young workers in agriculture is open. I also encourage agricultural producers to register for it. This is a program that is not only intended to provide summer jobs, but also to interest young people in making a career in agriculture. As I have said before, the department is processing files as quickly as possible. Each employer will have an answer very shortly. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will now take a short break. Okay, we are ready to start again. We will go to the honourable member for BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Over the course of the pandemic, has the government been using all avenues possible to source much-needed PPE in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, we have been very clear that we have a made-in-Canada initiative that has engaged companies across the country. Over 700 companies have retooled and scaled up their operations for personal protective equipment to help front-line health care workers. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Madam Chair, I need to ask very quickly which ministry and minister are responsible for the sourcing of PPE in Canada. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, this is a collective effort. I work with the Minister of Health and the minister for procurement , and we coordinate with the provinces and territories to make sure there are appropriate levels of PPE to help front-line health care workers and essential workers across the country. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that clarification. That will make this question all the more pertinent. My riding of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte is the home of Southmedic Inc. Southmedic is a renowned medical supply business. For over 37 years, it has provided front-line health care workers with an extensive line of PPE and other essential products required when dealing with respiratory illnesses. This company specializes in respiratory illness equipment. Southmedic currently employs over 700 people, and it has been recognized as one of Canada's best-managed companies by Deloitte on numerous occasions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, both I and the member for BarrieInnisfil have been attempting to obtain some assistance for Southmedic from the federal government. Calls and emails were falling on deaf ears. In early May, I wrote a letter to Minister Anand outlining the situation. I received a letter back from the minister dated May 27 indicating that this issue of Southmedic falls under the mandate of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. I have heard nothing more. When will the federal government reach out and help this great Canadian company and therefore ensure that all front-line workers will have the proper PPE they require? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I'd like to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He knows full well that this is a very challenging time. That is why we had a call to action to engage Canadians right across the country. Since then, we've seen over 6,000 companies step up to offer solutions and ideas, and over 700 companies have retooled their efforts. I acknowledge that some companies are still engaging with the government, and we'll continue to explore all possible options to make sure we continue to procure the necessary levels of personal protective equipment to protect Canadians and to protect front-line health care workers. That has always been our priority. I want to thank the outstanding Canadian companies that have come forward and have helped us in this endeavour. We continue to look forward to working with them. +Mr. Doug Shipley: Thank you for that answer. Just to follow up, there's no retooling required at this company. They could have been up and going very quickly. They just needed a little assistance at the beginning. Moving on to a different issue, while walking to my office this morning, I stopped at my local small family-run coffee shop and was discussing the current economic situation with the two owners of the establishment. They indicated they are having a very tough time surviving this economic downturn. The only thing keeping them hopeful is that soon the public service will start returning to work, and therefore their business will begin to return. Could the government please give us some indication as to what the plans are for returning the civil service back to work safely, and when? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to answer this question. This is a very important topic, but I'd like to take the opportunity first to thank our public servants, who have worked very hard in the last few weeks, both personally and professionally. In fact, today is a wonderful day to say that, because today is the start of National Public Service Week. That's one more reason to thank them for their dedicated work. They are not going to go back to work. They've been at work for the last few monthsin different circumstances, but they have been working very hard to deliver the services and the support Canadians need and deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Next we'll go to the honourable member for SelkirkInterlakeEastman, Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions are for the Minister of National Defence. First of all, I want to thank the great men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces for the fantastic job they're doing in Operation LASER, serving on the front lines battling COVID-19. Can the Minister of National Defence give the House an update on exactly where we are at with the number of Canadian Armed Forces members who have been infected with COVID-19? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Madam Chair, I want to echo the member opposite's comments in thanking our Canadian Armed Forces members. Currently, we have 13 active cases in the Canadian Armed Forces, but in the long-term care facilities we currently have 50 cases. No member has been currently hospitalized. We have also conducted very thorough reviews of our protection protocols as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Through you, Chair, Minister Sajjan, does that number of active cases include the active cases that are in long-term care facilities right now in Operation LASER? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, as I stated, the 50 cases are strictly from the long-term care facilities. The 13 cases I mentioned are not in the long-term care facilities. Just to give the actual clarification, no member has been currently hospitalized. +Mr. James Bezan: In those numbers, Madam Chair, can Mr. Sajjan say how many of those cases in long-term care facilities are active and how many are recovered? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I don't have the exact number. What I can say to break it down further is that in Quebec we currently have 36 and in Ontario we have 14. As well, 36 of the members have been out of isolation. I'll get more details and pass them on directly to the member, Madam Chair. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Minister. Madam Chair, I have a quick question while we're still talking about Operation LASER. The President of the Treasury Board has said, The Canadian Armed Forces will be present as long as their presence is needed in Quebec. This contradicts what Prime Minister Trudeau is saying, which is that we have a hard deadline of June 26 for the withdrawal of our troops for Operation LASER. That means taking our troops out of our long-term care facilities. Minister, is June 26 the hard date for the winding down of Operation LASER? +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to clarify for the House. We've been in very extensive discussions with the Province of Quebec, with my counterpart Minister Guilbault, and we are working very diligently to ensure we have a sustained, appropriate response to the request from Quebec for assistance. That response will result in a transition from the currently deployed Canadian Armed Forces to the deployment of paid volunteers, trained personnel who will take on the important role of providing services to those Canadians who need our help in Quebec. +Mr. James Bezan: I'll go back to the Minister of National Defence. The Department of National Defence auditors have called out the Liberal government for mismanagement over the $553-billion investment in our Canadian military through the defence policy. Only three people have been assigned to oversee the rollout of this money. This is a $553-billion investment in our armed forces, and only three people are managing it. Could the minister tell us how that is even possible? Is this the reason that over 100 projects are currently behind schedule? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, first of all, I want to highlight the unprecedented investment that we're making in defence. We have conducted internal reviews of our procurement. The report the member opposite is talking about is from the previous year. This is the ongoing work we're doing to make sure that we make procurement better. When it comes to the management of this, it's conducted by me and the minister of procurement . We are working toward making our procurement even better. We have already streamlined some aspects of our procurement and we'll continue to do more as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Minister Sajjan, you've had this report since November of 2019. You've been rolling out this plan since 2017. Only three people are overseeing an expenditure of $553 billion. This is taxpayers' money. Are we going to see more cuts because you have been unable to actually roll out these dollars? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Madam Chair, I can assure you we're not going to be cutting. We'll be investing in our defence. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before I go to the next speaker, I want to remind members that they are to address their questions and comments directly through the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for Fort McMurrayCold Lake, Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga (Fort McMurrayCold Lake, CPC): Madam Chair, the Canada summer jobs program has many challenges. I've seen many indigenous communities in my riding rejected for funding even though they had received funding in previous years. Here are a few examples of communities that were rejected: Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Buffalo Lake Mtis Settlement and the Mtis Nation of Alberta, Region 1. The list goes on. Could the Prime Minister explain why so many indigenous communities have been denied funding from the Canada summer jobs program? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in supporting employers and young workers in our community across the country every year. We're working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and are supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We are introducing increased flexibilities into the Canada summer jobs program to hire youth, while also providing more supports to employers that deliver essential services to Canadians. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, that didn't really answer my question. Why are so many indigenous communities left out of the Canada summer jobs program? This is very important to my community and to communities throughout the province. Will the government investigate why these communities were rejected? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we, of course, value the important role that the Canada summer jobs program plays in all communities, including indigenous communities in Canada. I will certainly have an off-line conversation with the honourable member, if he so wishes, about a particular issue, but I can assure him that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had to assist employers to introduce flexibilities +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Yurdiga. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, in my riding, the City of Cold Lake has been in dispute with the federal government for many years over payment in lieu of taxes. My office has sent many letters over the years regarding the PILT dispute. Could the Minister of Public Services and Procurement give me a rough estimate of when I will receive a response from the minister's office to my first letter, from 2017, and my letters from 2018, 2019 and 2020? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will go to the minister, and we will come back with an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: How much longer does the minister intend to perpetuate the ongoing PILT dispute, which is in excess of $11 million, with the City of Cold Lake? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, once again, I can assure the honourable member that I will speak with the minister and get an answer to his question. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Well, do you know what? I've been writing letters to the department for many years. When you say you're going to get back to me, I really have a hard time believing that. Will the minister agree to follow the prior recommendations of the dispute advisory panel that were accepted by the minister? +Hon. David Lametti: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that I will check with the minister and that she will return to the member in due course. +Mr. David Yurdiga: Madam Chair, the drug Trikafta has been proven to increase the quality of life for 90% of cystic fibrosis patients. Two weeks ago, my office sent a letter to the Minister of Health about the boy in my riding named Cael, who through the special access program is able to get Trikafta in Canada. I requested that the minister use her powers to fast-track Trikafta for commercial use, but I have yet to receive a response back. When will the minister make a decision on Trikafta? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I'm glad to hear that Cael was able to access Trikafta through the special access program. In fact, that program is very helpful for people who are seeking access to medication that's not currently marketed in Canada. As the member opposite knows, Vertex has not applied to market Trikafta in Canada, but we look forward to their application, and I encourage him to write a letter to the manufacturer to also encourage them. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Vancouver Granville, Ms. Wilson-Raybould. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, Ind.): Thank you, Chair. I was very troubled to hear that a CBC radio host in the Yukon felt compelled to resign because, as an indigenous person, she could not speak her truth. While we know the Broadcasting Act states that the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect the linguistic duality and multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society and the special place of indigenous peoples, it would seem there are some challenges. Therefore, does the Minister of Heritage share the concern of some journalists that problems of systemic racism in Canada are still existing within the institution of the CBC, and will the government now acknowledge the need to recognize the jurisdiction of indigenous governments? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair; and I thank the member for this important question. As stated by the Prime Minister on numerous occasions, our government recognizes that systemic racism exists in Canada, and we have made a commitment to do everything we can to combat it in whichever organization of the Canadian government. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: Thank you. When I was in the government, and as a minister, I learned the term red meat issues. I understand these issues to be ones that challenge societal norms, that are not politically expedient to address because they can lose you votes, even though addressing them is morally right and a smart thing to do. Mostly these are issues addressing inequality and the most marginalized in our society. In the justice system, examples include mandatory minimum penalties, defunding police, and even investing in restorative justice. Red-meat issues often become defining issues for society and for governments as the world changes. Surely now these issues are politically less of a consideration than the tragic reality of even more slain indigenous Canadians at the hands of police, or thousands of indigenous people still incarcerated or living in poverty. Will this government please finally commit to the necessary work originally promised in 2015 and repeal in the justice system the vast majority of mandatory minimum penalties, assuring the necessary discretion for judges, and meaningfully invest in restorative justice measures? +Hon. David Lametti: Madame Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question, as well as for her work as Minister of Justice, and indeed my predecessor. This is an important time. This is a time when we recognize systemic racism. This is a time when we recognize systemic over-incarceration of indigenous peoples, of black peoples, in our criminal justice system. This is a time when we need to look at all potential options to reduce what is a shameful overrepresentation in our criminal justice system. Too often racialized peoples and indigenous peoples have experienced prejudice and systemic discrimination in our justice system, and that has to change. +Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould: I'll go on to another red meat issue. In British Columbia we are in the fifth year of the opioid overdose public health emergency crisis. Sadly, May marks the deadliest month of overdose-related deaths. We are halfway into the year and have currently passed 500 deaths caused by overdose. Many of the deaths are related to COVID-19 measures that have prevented people from accessing supervised consumption sites, so they are overdosing alone. While the provinces welcomed the federal backing of safe supply exemption back in March, it is to expire in September of 2020. Echoing the call of the chief coroner of B.C. and Dr. Henry, more is needed from the federal government, more action. Will the government provide the necessary supports to the province and help support safe supply initiatives in the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: It's been a pleasure to work with the Province of British Columbia on innovative ways to work on the tragic situation of opioid overdose. I remain committed to working with the province and in fact any province that wants to work towards solutions that treat people who use substances with the dignity they deserve. Madam Chair, this is a complex issue. We're working closely with our partners to make sure that we can prevent more lives from being lost. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for South OkanaganWest Kootenay, Mr. Cannings. +Mr. Richard Cannings (South OkanaganWest Kootenay, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for SkeenaBulkley Valley. In my riding, Theo's in Penticton is a beloved restaurant. They've been serving great food for 40 years, but now they're struggling, because they don't qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Why is that? The original owners retired last year and sold it to another operator. The new owner can't use a year-to-year comparison to apply for the wage subsidy because he didn't own the restaurant last spring. He is forced to use receipts from January and February, the darkest doldrums of the restaurant year, to compare with the results from May, traditionally one of their best months. Now he has to compete with other local restaurants that can access the subsidy. When will the government fix this inequity and let Theo's compete and survive? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency wage subsidy is supporting over 2.5 million workers across the country. To help even more businesses support their workers and rehire people as they reopen, our government is extending the CEWS, and we will continue to extend the CEWS for an additional 12 weeks to August 29 to ensure that Canadian workers continue to have the support they need during these very difficult times. By extending eligibility, our government is ensuring that more Canadian workers in more sectors have the support they need. +Mr. Richard Cannings: The owner just wants to be able to apply for the wage subsidy, and right now he cannot, and he will not be able to. Thousands of other businesses are hit that way as well. I'd like to move on to forestry. Canada's forest sector has been declared essential during this pandemic, but it's been hit hard after a very difficult 2019. Despite soft markets and thousands out of work, government support programs have left many Canadian forest product companies behind. In my riding, the pulp mill in Castlegar is closing for the month of July because local sawmills aren't producing enough wood chips. What is the government going to do to finally support Canadian forestry workers and communities? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The time is almost up, but I will allow for the answer from the honourable minister. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Thank you, Madam Chair. We have supported and we will continue to support the forestry sector, including through regional development programs. In fact, in Quebec, partnering with Les Bois Francs DV Inc., we have widened market access to our products and updated technology systems. In North Bay we've partnered with the Canadian Wood Council to promote the sector. In Vancouver we're working with FPInnovations to create the indigenous forest sector technical support program. We are supporting the forestry sector and its different needs region by region. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we go to the honourable member for SkeenaBulkley Valley, Mr. Bachrach. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach (SkeenaBulkley Valley, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to pick up where my colleague left off, with B.C.'s forest industry. What we've seen in B.C. are multiple rounds of mill shutdowns and start-ups, and in some cases this has made it difficult for forestry workers to qualify for EI. My question to the minister is this: Will the minister work to make the EI program more flexible for forestry workers, similar to what this government has done for oil and gas workers? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, in the oil and gas sector we have focused on workers. That has been key in the inactive and orphan well program, which we are working on with the provincial governments of Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta. The focus on workers has assured that success, and we will continue to focus on workers in all the industries, particularly our natural resource industry, as they go through this extraordinarily difficult time. +Mr. Taylor Bachrach: Madam Chair, reforestation is a very important part of the forest industry in the riding I represent, and people were keenly interested to hear this government's plan to plant two billion trees in the next 10 years. That's a lot of trees. I'm wondering if the minister could tell us how many trees are going to be planted under this program by the end of this season. +Hon. Seamus O'Regan: Madam Chair, this government is committed to two billion trees. We are working with forestry associations, the industry and with individual companies to ensure this tree-planting season will be one of the largest the country has ever seen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The floor goes to the honourable member for Rivire-du-Nord. +Mr. Rhal Fortin (Rivire-du-Nord, BQ): MadamChair, last week, the government introduced BillC-17 and the Minister of Justice sent us briefing notes in which he said that it was important to suspend a number of time limits and to extend others, and that the failure to do so could have important repercussions on Canadians, their families, their situations, their finances and their ability to exercise their rights. We in the Bloc Qubcois agree with that. When are we going to talk about it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, the contents of BillC-17 are clearly very important. We have addressed the mandatory time limits in federal legislation as well as certain time limits that courts may not be able to handle. It is very important that we address this issue. That is why the law +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Fortin, you have the floor. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we agree that it is important. I concur. The minister's briefing notes say that, among other things, when it comes to divorcewhich means children are involved people are waiting on custody rights, child support and visitation rights. The minister pointed out that the national security review would require consultations if no decision is made in the prescribed time frame. It could pose a national security risk. It is really a big deal. When are we going to debate it? +Hon. David Lametti: MadamChair, I completely agree with my honourable colleague. The issue needs to be addressed. That is why it is in the bill. That is another reason to debate the bill. I beseech my colleagues opposite to debate it with us. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, what a coincidence, because I beseech my colleague opposite to debate it with us. That is what we are asking. Last week, the leader of the Bloc Qubcois asked the Liberal government to debate BillC-17 today. He did not get an answer. It does not seem to matter. Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who is hardly a dimwit or greenhorn, told us that the justice system needs to be modernized. As recently as this past Saturday in LaPresse, Justice Wagner said that it is essential that the Criminal Code be amended to address the backlog of court proceedings. When will the Liberal government opposite pull up its socks, do its job, govern the federation, sit down with the opposition and discuss the vital matters in BillC-17? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, if I were my colleague, I would be a little embarrassed, because the bill was sent to the Bloc Qubcois several days in advance. They received a technical note several days in advance. We were all available to take questions. When we asked for the support of the Bloc Qubcois and the other parties to debate itwe were not even asking them to vote in favour of the billthey refused. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, we never refused to debate it. Actually, we were the ones who asked to debate it. What exactly does debate it mean? We set some conditions. For example, we asked the Liberals to put the money back into the wage subsidy fund and to commit to dip into it no longer. Are we asking too much of our colleagues opposite? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Can my colleague explain to me what the emergency wage subsidy has to do with a bill about justice? This is an absolutely fundamental piece of legislation. We wanted to debate it, but they refused to do so. +Mr. Rhal Fortin: MadamChair, I would like nothing better than to explain it to him, but I must remind him that he is the leader of the party in power, the party that is supposed to govern the country. So I do not know why he is asking me that. My party proposed that we debate this today but we did not get an answer. Meanwhile, court time limits are running out and people are losing rights. I am thinking of families, child support, child custody, labour law disputes in Federal Court, marine transportation, interprovincial transportation, aviation, banks, and those with grievances waiting for a Federal Court ruling. The whole system, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, everything is on hold because nobody in the government wants to do their job. We want to discuss BillC-17. When can we talk about it? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: MadamChair, we have done our job. We have introduced the bill. We informed them in advance. We told them they could ask us any questions they wanted. We asked for a debate in the House. However, when we asked the Bloc Qubcois if they wanted to debate the bill, they said no, instead of doing what they usually do and saying yes. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Essex, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis (Essex, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When the CERB runs out, many workers in my riding of Essex will not have sufficient hours to collect their EI benefits. In early July, the midnight shift at Chrysler will be eliminated. Because of the shutdown, a mom-to-be who had just returned to work in January, and several hundred of her fellow employees, may not have the 600 hours required for regular or EI parental benefits. Immediate action is needed. What is the government doing now to backstop these workers? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, the Canada emergency response benefit has been providing much-needed help to Canadian workers across the country who have stopped working due to COVID-19. We know that there is still a lot of uncertainty for many Canadian workers, and we know that many will be exhausting their benefits in the weeks to come. We will have more to share soon, as early as this week, on our continuing efforts to support Canadian workers and make sure that help is available during this +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Go ahead, Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Minister, for the answer. The EI system needs to be fixed. Even before the shutdown, the system was deeply flawed. Will this government commit to a complete review and overhaul of the EI system? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we have been there for Canadian workers. We will continue to make sure that we make the necessary investments in the EI delivery system and modernize it to continue to meet +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Small businesses have been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 shutdown. Many have already been forced into bankruptcy. Much uncertainty lies ahead. As the economy reopens, what is the government doing to help small businesses recover? +Hon. Mary Ng: Madam Chair, today we are seeing small businesses that have been helped, whether it is getting access to the small business loan, which some are also using in the restart as they are safely restarting, or getting help with their payroll, helping them keep their employees +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Employees are key to a small business's success. How will the government incentivize workers to return to their jobs when recalled? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister can give a brief answer. +Hon. Mary Ng: The Canada emergency wage subsidy is an excellent program to help those employees stay employed and for those employers who are looking at rehiring them right now during this restart process. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, many of my constituents are in a committed cross-border relationship and have not been able to see their partners in quite some time. The current restrictions are arbitrary. Denmark has found a fair resolution. Will Canada adopt the Danish model, and if not, why not? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, as we said from the outset, we've implemented restrictions at the U.S. border on non-essential travel with a single purpose in mind: to protect the health and safety of Canadians. As the member is aware, just last week we introduced new measures that allow people in family relationships to stay together as long as they commit to the necessary 14-day period of quarantine. We'll continue to work with families. Our intention is to keep people together, but mostly to keep people safe. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair, with regard to child care, as our economy continues to open, parents are facing a stark choice: Who will care for their children? What's the plan to provide access to child care so parents can confidently return to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, we are of course committed to continuing to make the record investments that we've been making in child care. Since 2015 we've created over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We're committed to creating an additional 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces. We will continue to invest in this sector because we understand that without investment +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Lewis. +Mr. Chris Lewis: Thank you, Madam Chair. It sounds as though this government has a desire to force parents to choose between their job and care for their child. Can the government please respond to that quote? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, nothing could be further from the truth. We are committed to the child care sector. Our investments and our results prove the opposite of what the member is asserting. Mr. Chris Lewis: Madam Chair +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I'm sorry. We're out of time. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","Summary: + +The session began with acknowledgment by the Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, reminding members of sound protocols for in-person and video conference participants. There were no ministerial announcements, so the committee proceeded with presenting petitions, touching upon issues such as the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. + +Various members presented petitions and issues, including concerns about the COVID-19 impact on Canadians, the need for a rent freeze and direct financial assistance, calls for action against the oil pipeline through British Columbia, the problem of illegal firearms, and the concern over changes to firearms laws, among other topics. + +Members engaged in discussions about systemic racism, the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, economic updates, assistance for veterans, problems with the Canada Summer Jobs program, the opioid crisis, and forest industry challenges. + +Questions were directed to various ministers regarding issues such as the return of civil servants to work, PPE sourcing in Canada, support for small businesses, EI support for workers in industries like forestry, returning to regular parliamentary sessions, and support for conserving Canada's lands and oceans. Concerns were raised about the need for legislative action on systemic racism, data collection practices, and support for people with disabilities. + +The session concluded with plans to adjourn until the following noon." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , good morning . This is our first team meeting . +User Interface: Good day . +Marketing: Morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: I'll be your Project Manager for today , for this project . My name is Mark {gap} will be giving this presentation for you to kick the project off . {vocalsound} That's my uh that's the agenda for today . Well , of course we're new to each other , so I'd like to get acquainted first . So let's do that first , I mean {disfmarker} Let's start with you , can you introduce yourself ? You're our Marketing Expert . +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} Um my name is Dirk , Dirk Meinfeld . Um I will be uh {gap} Pr Project {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert . And I will see what the user wants and uh what we can do uh with the new produ project {disfmarker} product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . And you are User Interface {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nick Broer , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: User Interface Designer . I'm going to uh look at the technical design from the uh user point of view . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay . +Industrial Designer: My name is Xavier Juergens , I'm the Industrial Designer , and there are three main questions that I have to find an answer to today . First one is uh what happens inside the apparatus , second is what is uh the apparatus made of , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and the third is what should it look like . +Project Manager: What should it look like ? Okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Oh , let's kick it off . Oh , there we go . So , our new project is about {disfmarker} we need design a remote control for television set , so , which has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . I took this off our corporate website . {disfmarker} I think well it sums up what we need to do . It's We're inspired by latest fashion , not only electronics , but also the latest trends in clothes and interior design . That's why our product will always fit in your home . So apparently we need to {vocalsound} um be very at um very open to what's currently hot in the market . So that's what you need to do to bring us the latest info and what people want . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So we put the fashion in electronics . So that's what we need to go for . Anyway , we'll take this project in three steps , three pha uh three phase of design . First step will be the functional design . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And that's basically what we're gonna do . Everybody has uh a piece of individual work and a meeting afterwards , so we can share information about {disfmarker} So I'm gonna keep this short , since we had a technical problem . So skip through this . Uh . Okay . Every meeting we {disfmarker} everybody can present their uh their views and everything , so to help with these , you have {disfmarker} we have the SMARTboards here . We can use a regular PowerPoint presentation . I'm supposed to give you an introduction on this doodling board , so it's {disfmarker} actually it's very easy . Like it says , very simple , you just take out the pen . Like you see here , I'll just take the {disfmarker} take {gap} here . That's it , you just put it on the board . You see a pen here . You go here , just like using a pen . You can just draw whatever you want . It's like the eraser , can erase whatever you want . And so it will be easy just to illustrate your views , if you wanna change the format , you just {vocalsound} either take out jus just like the pen , and whatever you want , your current colour , your line width , just to make the line bigger . So it should be really easy . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This is to take the {disfmarker} just take a new slide and back again . We're just gonna keep using this board all the time , so I think it will be {disfmarker} it's very clear for everyone , I suppose . So I'll take this out . {vocalsound} Okay . We'll use that later . Anyway . Yeah , just just just stuff that you wanna share , just put it in the in the project folder , like I put my presentation now . I'll put the the minutes of every meeting , I'll put them there too , so everybody can read up if they have to leave early or whatever . So next , been here . {vocalsound} Well , {gap} gonna give the electronic white-board uh a shot . So basic idea is we have a blank sheet . Just try whatever you want , and like it says , draw your favourite animal . I think the creative genius should go first . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The creative genius ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: So , draw us your favourite animal . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , I'm more into the technical aspects of drawing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I'm not really good at drawing animals , +Project Manager: Draw us a technical animal . +User Interface: but uh the animal which I {gap} {disfmarker} Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's still erasing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh format . Else my animal will be like king-size . I pretty much like {vocalsound} a dolphin , because of its uh its freedom basically . Let's see . A head . {gap} actually worked with this . It's like uh it's a very {disfmarker} Uh high-tech . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bit low-responsive though . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's what we don't want . +User Interface: Prefer pen and paper . +Project Manager: We want a high-responsive product . So {disfmarker} It looks more like nuclear bomb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice dolphin . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} {vocalsound} doesn't look like a nuclear bomb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: This thing isn't doing what I'm {disfmarker} What I want . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's go easy on it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , well it does look like a nuclear bomb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'll just finish up real soon , because I'm {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it doesn't really look like a dolphin , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway , +User Interface: but then again , this is all new for me . +Project Manager: it should {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} It's supposed to be a dolphin , you like the freedom that it {disfmarker} that it represents . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Like the ocean , like swimming . Do that in my spare time , so that's basically an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What do you like ? Okay . Well , +User Interface: Now we can forget this ever happened . +Project Manager: our Marketing Expert . Show us an animal . +Marketing: Um an animal . +Project Manager: {gap} Pick a {disfmarker} pick a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I like the elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: pick a clean sheet . Oh . Take a clean sheet first . +Marketing: What ? Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just press next . That's it . +Marketing: Oh yeah . Oh , a blank . Okay , next . Free , I like the elephant . It's big , it's strong , so uh uh {disfmarker} Oh , it's a little bit {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not really that responsive , no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to hold it , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} It's a beautiful animal . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , you have to p press it pretty hard . With a smile on it , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cute elephant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's very important . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh not to forget its tail . Oh . +Project Manager: It's a nice beard . +Marketing: Yeah , it's okay . Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And you was making comments on my dolphin . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I will beat the dolphin . {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Okay , so it's just a bee . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I suggest you make us the elephant in the market . The big and strong player in the market . This would be good . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , excellent . On to the next one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , you should press next . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Press next . Yeah , it's up there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Okay , well the animal I'd like to draw is a tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You picked a hard one , didn't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My drawing skills are really bad , so . +Marketing: Experience with the tiger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? They are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They are really bad , my drawing skills . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay uh-huh . +Project Manager: Sure looks smooth . +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how the legs should go , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh these are stripes . +User Interface: Got it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've picked this animal because it's very fast . It is uh it knows exactly what it wants . Uh it hardly ever wastes any resources . +Project Manager: What does it want ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well , basically uh it hunts for prey , but it does it always in a very well-thought way . Uh it knows exactly what it wants . It never kills an animal uh just for the killing , so it's very efficient . And it tries to do everything as fast as possible . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And it always goes for uh security , in seeking uh uh a hide spot and uh and doing everything , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: security , speed and efficiency is important . And I think uh those things we can use . +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: , I'm supposed to draw the animal next . Yay I introduce to the world the amazing ant . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh hard worker . +Project Manager: Great team-workers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do everything to Uh really small , but together they're really strong . So I'm gonna give it a smiley face . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Not sure where the p {gap} . Just put 'em here . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it need shoes . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just too lazy to draw it all black , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's the coolest ant ever . +User Interface: You've done this before , haven't you ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I love to draw ants . It's my hobby . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Anyway {disfmarker} Nah . {vocalsound} Just {disfmarker} I think it's very representative what we drew , I guess . Like you take {disfmarker} just take your freedom and use a a trendy interface that you design for us . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} Yeah . You're supposed to make i make it different from uh from what other people have , and just make it a little distinct . Anyway . {gap} another beep to stop the meeting . See . Warning . Finish meeting now . Uh put this down . Examples . Well I guess we have a little little time extra , but {disfmarker} Just a little quick discussion to to open open our work . So what do you guys think about {disfmarker} The first idea is just very short . I'll start with you . What are y What are your first ideas for the new product ? What {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I basically had a question . Do {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Are we going to introduce a multi remote control ? Is it just the T_V_ or do we want to in +Project Manager: The project I got was just for a T_V_ remote control . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Just for T_V_ remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess so . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Well , I was thinking about design remote control , with our uh motto and all . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh thing to keep in mind is that we need to stick to what people are familiar with . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: No rational changes or whatever , 'cause it {disfmarker} revolutionary changes , +Project Manager: Okay , so very intuitive design , I guess . +User Interface: yes . {vocalsound} Uh we might have to consider other design aspects of our product . So that was something I wanted to add , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: and perhaps some usability aspect . T_V_ is becoming central in most homes . Do we want people who are disabled in any way to uh , yeah , to be able to use it as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , we want {disfmarker} I suppose we want almost everyone to be using it . So {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I mean , really disabled people , yeah , {vocalsound} might be a problem , but I think it's a little {gap} take it into consideration . Um yeah . I think we really need to cut the meeting short . You have anything you wanna share quickly ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Only one thing uh that has to be added according to me is uh the the material it is made of , it should be something light . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} it speaks for itself , +Project Manager: It should be light , okay . +Industrial Designer: but some uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , let's see , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: where did I {disfmarker} Let's skip that . Oh , this is it . Sorry , I skipped this sheet . +Marketing: Selling price . +Project Manager: What do we {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} Quick {gap} {disfmarker} What we're going to {disfmarker} Selling price , twenty five Euros . That's for you . The production price , twelve and a half Euros , approximately . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Just go go for that . We'll reach the uh reach that profit . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , well that's not that much to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} international . +Project Manager: No , it's not much to work on . I'm sorry , I skipped it . {vocalsound} Anyways , that's {disfmarker} Yeah , this is it . Do you have anything you you came up with yet ? About uh marketing transfer , whatever ? +Marketing: Um about what ? Marketing ? +Project Manager: Marketing {gap} I'm not sure what you what you came up with yet . You have anything to share ? Or else we'll cut the meeting just cut the meeting short +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um no , not really yet , +Project Manager: since we're supposed to stop . +Marketing: but I've some ideas +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and I will uh say it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Anyways , the the personal coach will give you the your p your personal assignments and everything . So we'll just meet back in here thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sure we have that . +Industrial Designer: Good luck everyone . +Project Manager: Yeah , thanks for attending . +User Interface: Mm , good luck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll see you back here in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","The team held their first meeting led by Mark, the Project Manager. Each team member introduced themselves: Dirk Meinfeld is the Marketing Expert tasked with understanding user needs for the new product; Nick Broer is the User Interface Designer focused on the technical design from a user perspective; Xavier Juergens is the Industrial Designer concerned with the product's internals, materials, and appearance. + +Mark announced that the project goal is to design an original, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control, incorporating the latest fashion and design trends to ensure the product fits within the home environment. The team is to approach this project in three phases, starting with functional design. He emphasized the importance of being up-to-date with market trends and user desires. + +The PM introduced SMARTboards for presentations and collaboration, followed by guiding everyone through their initial use. The team struggled with responsiveness while attempting to draw their favorite animals, an exercise meant to foster creativity—Nick chose a dolphin, Dirk an elephant, Xavier a tiger, and Mark an ant. Despite the technical hiccups, the exercise highlighted each member’s values: freedom, strength, efficiency, and teamwork, respectively. + +Mark then segued into brief project discussions. They discussed the focus on TV remote control, the importance of intuitive design, considerations for users with disabilities, and material choices. The PM presented target production and selling prices; however, the meeting was then hurriedly cut short due to time constraints and technical issues. Mark advised that the personal coach would assign individual tasks and called for a follow-up meeting in thirty minutes." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Good morning . +User Interface: Good morning . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Marketing: Good morning . +Project Manager: Uh before I start with the with the meeting I have a few things to tell you about the the setting we're in , uh because we're uh being watched by uh Big Brother . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: By Big Brother ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: This uh {disfmarker} These are cameras , so are these . This thing uh that looks like a pie , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: are actually all microphones . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: So you must be careful with uh with uh all this . And uh as I can see you uh you have placed your laptops uh exactly on the place where it must be . And that has to do with the camera settings , so we don't have our uh laptops in front of the cameras . +Marketing: Of our faces . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Indeed . So they can see our faces . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Welcome at the kick-off meeting . My name is uh Danny Wolfs . {vocalsound} Uh this is the agenda for today . Uh first a little opening . Uh I will introduce myself , uh and uh I think it's very uh good to introduce uh yourself . Uh then uh a little bit of acquaintance , acquaintance to uh to to ourselves . So uh we get to know each other . Uh that will be done uh with a tool training from the he these two uh smart boards . Then the project plan . What we're going to do , and how we're going to do it . Uh and discussion about that and a little closing at the end . {vocalsound} Okay uh , my name is uh Danny Wolfs . I'm the Project Manager . What's your name ? +User Interface: I'm Juergen Toffs . I'm the User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: User interface , okay . +Industrial Designer: Hi , my name's uh {gap} . I'm the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Industrial , yes . +Marketing: I'm uh Tim {gap} . Um my function is the Marketing Expert . +Project Manager: Okay , thank you . First a little about the project aim . Uh the the the aim is to make a new remote control . Uh maybe you have read uh read the website . It's a very uh , yeah , very uh ambitious uh company . They uh they wanna do something else . I w Uh there must be a new remote control . Uh first of all uh it must be original , uh and trendy . That's two things really uh close to each other . But at the same time uh user-friendly . And they have uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that's uh very important uh for them . Uh there are three stages . There is a functional design . So uh what are we going uh to uh to do ? What are we going to uh uh make f uh kind of functions in the remote ? And why are we going to do it ? Then the conceptual design . How are going to do it ? {vocalsound} And that's uh really global . Uh because at the detailed design , how , part two , uh we go uh to dig in uh really about how the the te the technical of {disfmarker} If it's uh it's possible technical-wise . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh each stage is uh {vocalsound} uh is broken up in two uh two stages , individual work and a meeting . So it's uh it's very straightforward . {vocalsound} Okay , the tool training . We have two smart boards . {vocalsound} This one is for the presentations , the PowerPoint presentations or the Word presentation of whatever you uh you had . Uh and this is uh only for uh drawing . So uh we uh must let it uh stand on this uh this programme . {vocalsound} This is called a smart board +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speaks for itself . +Project Manager: thing uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it speaks for itself . Um and as you uh may have heard , the documents in the shared folder uh can be uh showed on this screen . Not in y the the My Documents . So if you wanna show something , put it in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} This uh is {gap} very straightforward , with the save , the print , the undo , the blank , the select , the pen . Well , I don't uh gonna explain it all , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because I think you know uh how it works . Um we must not forget uh everything we draw on here , uh all must be saved . We we may not delete anything . So uh if you have uh drawn something , save it . Never delete it . That's a very important uh thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh little uh little {vocalsound} kinda exercise to uh know each other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} At uh the white board on the left . Every uh every one of us uh must draw our favourite animal , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh tell uh tell us why we uh had uh chosen that animal . Uh important is that we use different colours , {vocalsound} and uh different pen widths . Widths . Widths . +Marketing: I have a question . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Marketing: Um this exercise , um did the company board tell you to do it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or uh did you just make it up yourself ? +Project Manager: No no no . It's uh it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I I I must do it . +Marketing: It's part of the introduction , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . 'Cause we uh really don't know each other , +Marketing: okay . +Project Manager: and uh it's kinda new . So getting used to each other , we can uh have a little fun then , before we uh dig in really to the hard stuff . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That kind of thing . Would you start with drawing your uh favourite animal ? +Marketing: Um , yeah . I don't know really how it works . But maybe you can show us first ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , okay . Yeah , okay . Drawing goes with uh this thing . Do not touch your hand on uh this little uh thingy here . That's uh important . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So hold it uh like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You g you get electrocuted or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , kinda . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} You must p p uh push a little uh {disfmarker} Good . Because {disfmarker} And uh wait uh wait a few seconds . It's not uh fully real-time , so uh watch it . +User Interface: Ach . {gap} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . Well I'm gonna paint in the red . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Ooph . +Project Manager: That's the background colour . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , undo . Um {disfmarker} The pen ? No . One minute please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's the one . Well , five . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} My favourite animal huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's like Pictionary ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , you can guess what it is . +Marketing: The the one who says it first {vocalsound} gets a raise . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} May uh paint uh next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a pork ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it's not an orc . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't see it uh at the ears ? +Marketing: Mm yeah , I have it at home . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an orc at home ? +User Interface: Very artistic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What's it called ? +Project Manager: Simba . 'Cause uh we have a cat at home +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: and he's called Simba . 'Cause he looks like the uh the the lion from The Lion King . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Miniature size ? +Project Manager: So we uh found it kinda cool to uh name it after a lion . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He's happy with us , so uh he's smiling . +User Interface: Wow . He does have body uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Huh . +Project Manager: No , only the face . Because we have we have twen twenty five minutes . So we uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . We have to speed up . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Remember you use uh different colours , and different pen widths . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , who wants to go next ? +Marketing: I {disfmarker} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So choose a colour , choose a pen width and draw a {disfmarker} +User Interface: You don't have to change the colour and the pen width during uh the drawing . +Marketing: Save it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to save it . +Project Manager: Save it , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've done it . New ? 'Kay . +User Interface: You have to draw uh push hard on the pen or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} Not really . +Project Manager: Kind of firm touch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +User Interface: Oh . Uh hmm . +Marketing: Yeah ? Okay . Open . Which one is it ? Smart board ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . And now ? Okay . Okay , thanks . 'Kay , I've speed up . 'Kay , that's fine . Line width . +Industrial Designer: By the way , why was your cat uh red ? +Project Manager: Because uh my cat is red uh at home . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I have red hair , so uh must be red . +User Interface: It's a very bloody cat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , yeah , sure . +User Interface: It's a frog . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , it's a turtle . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's an apple . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not an apple . +Industrial Designer: Must be a dog . {vocalsound} +User Interface: A dog ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . Colour . {vocalsound} Something like this . Smaller . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , it is a turtle . +Project Manager: It is a turtle . Why a turtle ? Why ? Tim ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} 'Cause I liked Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh ? +Project Manager: You watched it a lot ? +User Interface: It's uh inside its shell . You'll be uh finished sooner . +Marketing: No , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's a scared turtle . +Marketing: No no . {vocalsound} It's coming up . Mm . Uh . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , Tim . Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something like this . {vocalsound} Okay , you know {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very artistic . +Project Manager: Jurgen , you want to go next ? +User Interface: Yes {gap} . Okay . Wha Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah ? Here you go . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How did it work ? +Project Manager: Format ? And then you have the the current colour , +User Interface: Performance ? +Project Manager: you can change . So no red or green . +User Interface: And a pen ? +Project Manager: And uh line uh width . I had five . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Tim had {disfmarker} Uh Tim , what kinda line width did you have ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh the big lines were like nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . It's a dog . +User Interface: Well , very good . {vocalsound} I just uh thought I'd pick the easiest one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Why a dog ? You have a dog at home ? +User Interface: Well , we had a dog , a few years ago . +Project Manager: Had a dog ? +Marketing: Uh , it's p +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: And and it , {gap} yeah , when it died we didn't get a new one or something . +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's pretty good uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have an artistic uh inner middle . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} An artist . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh a Graphical User Designer , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Hey . +Marketing: Think you uh picked the wrong uh function . Wrong job . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . Can work together . Ah colour . +Project Manager: So I think you can see it's real uh really a easy programme to use . Not difficult at all . +Marketing: Wha +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: it's okay {gap} . +Project Manager: thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's enough , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: thanks . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Janus ? The last one ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thanks . +Marketing: I wonder . +Project Manager: Yeah . After a cat , a turtle and a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think he's gonna draw an elephant . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I figure I should do something like that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but I'm gonna do something much more difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-oh . +User Interface: Uh-oh . Oh , he is the artistic {gap} design . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna design a remote uh {vocalsound} remote control animal . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Remote control animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry . +User Interface: Well with the interface , it might be easier to ha to draw here and display there uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: That that might be easier . But at the other hand , uh a pen like that is easy to hold in your hand , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think it's easier to draw . +Project Manager: Better to draw with a with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . With a pen than with a mouse mouse . +User Interface: Than on the , with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I m I mean like uh like on here , drawing drawing uh . And then displaying on screen , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mouth . Oh , okay . Yeah . W with this paper it's too mu too expensive . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But what is he uh ? +User Interface: Too expensive , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it a rabbit ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you have a rabbit at home ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: It's a rabbit with uh broken legs ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: A green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it a white rabbit f It's the white rabbit from The Matrix . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , then yeah . +User Interface: There , the g white green rabbit . +Industrial Designer: So . +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's a little bit stoned there . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh I figured this is a pretty b good impression of a rabbit . +Marketing: Yeah . It will do . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} Uh well . +Project Manager: Okay . Finishing touch and then we're going further . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project Manager ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Where does the pen go ? Just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Have you been uh counting the time ? +Project Manager: Yeah , a little . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Let's go on then . +Project Manager: Well , I think the dog is the the most uh artistic . +Industrial Designer: Uh I figured the rabbit was actually the most uh impressive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't choose for youself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's selfish . Okay , now we're gonna dig into the to the serious stuff . +Marketing: It's pretty abstract . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the selling price for the remote will be uh twenty five Euro , and the production cost uh may not be more than uh twenty and a half Euro . So uh from my point of view , I don't think it's uh gonna be very uh very high tech , high definition , uh ultra modern uh kinda remote , for twelve uh fift uh twelve and a half Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the profit we must make with uh the new remote is uh fifty million Euro . So that's a lot . We have to sell uh a lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , how much is it ? +Marketing: Like how much ? +User Interface: Hundred million uh remotes or something ? +Project Manager: Uh I think uh w when the selling price is twenty five , uh uh you got two million , two million remotes . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Twenty million . Two million , oh yeah , two million . Yeah . +Project Manager: But our marketing range is uh , market range is international . So we have uh virtually the whole world we can sell uh we can sell our r remotes to . At least that uh countries which have uh a television . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So now it's time uh for us to uh going uh to discuss a little uh things . You can think about uh experience with a remote control uh yourself , at home . What you think might be uh a useful uh new feature . What uh what can distinguish our new trendy remote control from all the others . Um so uh let's uh let's uh discuss a little . I'm gonna join you at the table . {vocalsound} Well what what's the most uh important thing at a remote control ? +User Interface: Um well I think the most important thing of a remote control is that you can switch channels . And my opinion is you should keep it as basic as possible . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So not a not a remote control who uh uh which can uh can be used for television and a D_V_D_ and radio and {disfmarker} Or just only {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . I think so . Uh but I have some points . Can I show them on the on the big screen ? Maybe ? +Project Manager: If you have them on uh {disfmarker} I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , I can find {disfmarker} Uh . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh , in case you want it {disfmarker} This is a dead kind of fly . Between the the the , yeah , the the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Screen ? +Project Manager: Yeah , be The screens . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Is it possible to open pen drawings in this uh on this screen ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no . Only {disfmarker} All the drawings go there , at the left uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Uh but um which {disfmarker} The ones we made on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , that pen drawings . Uh no , I think uh when it is uh in Word and you have saved it in the Shared Documents folder , you can show it there . +User Interface: Oh , only in Word , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Okay , I have some uh points from marketing point of view . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um just the standard thing li things like uh intuitive , uh small , fairly cheap . Uh it's pretty cheap , twenty five Euros . Uh brand independent . Um I think , it doesn't have to matter uh which brand your T_V_ or other thing is . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . Five minutes . +Marketing: Five minutes ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , I'll wrap it up quickly . Um I personally think it has to be multi-purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh most of the remote c uh remote controls are uh just for one purpose . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And uh by making it multi-purpose , it uh has a new feature , adds a new feature to the market , and distinguish from uh from current products . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um maybe some other technology than infrared . Uh I rather find it very annoying um , like when someone is standing in front of the T_V_ then you can't switch it . Um {vocalsound} think about um sending it over radio waves or bluetooth . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: That might be a little bit uh expensive . Um {disfmarker} And something like an L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: For what purpose ? +Marketing: Um uh like I said here um {disfmarker} Maybe it's easy . It's nice as an added feature feature , that um , {vocalsound} when you're on a certain channel , you can see on the L_C_D_ screen uh what programmes are coming up or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So it be uh a multi-purpose uh very technically uh high uh +Marketing: From my point of view , yeah . +Project Manager: remote ? Yeah , it must be really uh innovative , technical-wise ? +Marketing: Yeah , it has to be uh {disfmarker} Yeah , our company is very uh good in making new innovative uh things . +Project Manager: Yeah . So yeah , I I agree with you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i i i i +Project Manager: So we must focus on things who are really uh really add something to uh to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To the current market . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Look , {vocalsound} you got some cheap uh remote controls there . They just uh {disfmarker} Yeah , you got a dozen of 'em . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: But when you enter a new market with a remote control and +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh wanna gain market share +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you have to do something special , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But we have to keep an eye that it's {disfmarker} Uh at the beginning of such a project , it's it's it's very uh cool to talk about , well , this would be cool , that would be cool . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh but we must not uh lose uh sight of the the user uh uh friendly uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And and the price . {gap} +Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} But but this is just from marketing uh aspect . +Project Manager: Yeah okay . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: I don't know anything about user interface or {vocalsound} design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} And that's because we have him . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and him . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And him . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , uh next meeting will start in thirty minutes . So uh you uh will have uh individual actions where I presume uh will be some feedback , uh via the m the mail . Um {vocalsound} the the the Industrial uh Designer has to uh look at the working design . {vocalsound} Uh the User Interface Designer has to look at the technical functions . So that's the thing we uh discussed . +User Interface: Yeah . Um one thing uh , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +User Interface: we must first agree on uh what we're going to m going to make . Do we {disfmarker} Are we going to use um it it for multiple systems ? Or uh {disfmarker} We should have some agreement on that before we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Um wha +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm uh I I don't think we have to be , we have to agree on that . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I figure we could get back to it on the next meeting actually . +Marketing: I think th that's a pha Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: That's a phase further . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ju just uh make some mock-ups , some some general ideas . +User Interface: Ah okay . +Marketing: And and then we can plan {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can plan further , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But maybe , because uh you are working on the user requirements , you are working on the technical functions , we uh must uh have a little or kinda uh uh uh {disfmarker} How do you call it ? Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Consensus on the , what we're gonna do . +Project Manager: Uh a little plan on on what we're going to do . So you don't uh uh come up with the user requirements who don't fit the the the the technical functions at all . Some basic things we co we want to going to do . Uh I think that's well uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Will come in handy . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . You decide . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: You're the Project Manager . +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} He says {disfmarker} +User Interface: if the technical functions have to be designed , I I've gotta know for what kind of machines they will be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or do we use it a text screen ? Or uh will it be with uh with bluetooth or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , th that's that's really a step further . But if you say uh {vocalsound} is it uh uh one way or multi-purpose , that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh tha that's a same step further . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Then looking at individual components , +Marketing: Uh . +Industrial Designer: so that's actually a f step further . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Like we all have a list of uh things that has to b that have to be in it , or how it has to be like . And then in the next meeting we decide +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can take it from there . +Marketing: w what it's gonna be . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I agree uh , we can take it from there . +Marketing: A And then you s then you can delete uh +Industrial Designer: Or edit . +Marketing: the o the obsolete uh details . +Project Manager: Okay . So uh +Marketing: I think . +Project Manager: each individually i individually uh must think on what's uh at uh his point of view is the most important . And uh then we're going to fit uh all the pieces together the next meeting . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I must finish off now , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so it's over . You uh will receive specific specific instructions uh by your personal coach . And I see you in uh thirty minutes . Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cheers . +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Be careful . +Marketing: Damn . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Success ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No . Come up . +","The team, consisting of a Project Manager (Danny Wolfs), a User Interface Designer (Juergen Toffs), an Industrial Designer, and a Marketing Expert (Tim), held a kick-off meeting to start a project for designing a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control with a target selling price of €25 and a production cost no higher than €20.50. The aim is to generate €50 million in profit by selling internationally. + +The meeting starts with introductions and a notice from the Project Manager about being mindful of cameras and microphones in the room. The Project Manager outlines the agenda, which includes tool training on smart boards for presentations and drawing. It is emphasized that all drawn content must be saved and not deleted. + +The team participates in an ice-breaking exercise, drawing their favorite animals on a smart board and explaining their choices. The Project Manager draws a cat, the Marketing expert a turtle because of his fondness for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the User Interface Designer a dog referencing a past pet, and the Industrial Designer a rabbit without specifying a reason. + +The team discusses the project's goal, with a focus on three stages: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The Marketing expert emphasizes the need for a multi-purpose, brand-independent remote that uses different technology from infrared, suggesting radio waves or Bluetooth and an LCD screen that displays program information. The User Interface Designer argues for simplicity and basic functionality, such as channel switching. + +The discussion concludes with an agreement that each team member will consider what features are most important from their perspective, and the next meeting will aim to integrate these ideas. + +The Project Manager indicates that specific instructions will follow from personal coaches, and the team agrees to reconvene in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Welcome back . +Industrial Designer: I'm sorry to be late . +Project Manager: Welcome back everybody . +User Interface: Yeah . Thanks . +Project Manager: So this meeting agenda will be the detailed design meeting . And uh opening and uh P_M_s {gap} of the meet minutes , uh prototype presentation from uh Christine and uh Agnes . +Industrial Designer: Agnes , yes . +Project Manager: Yes and uh evaluation criteria . The finance , it's uh from my side , from the management , and uh production evaluation . Then uh closing . So we have forty minutes to discuss and uh finalise and close the product and project and to move further , okay , so {disfmarker} Okay , let's talk about uh maybe first uh for the prototype . +User Interface: Mm , okay . +Project Manager: So I handle to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I've done a presentation , but it pretty much covers work that we've both done , so if I'm missing anything , Christine can just correct me . +Project Manager: So shall I go to {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Uh thank you , so you did a PowerPoint presentation , good for you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . S Okay , let's go to A_M_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not the biggest PowerPoint presentation in the world , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So in two or three or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Three . Um . {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably . Technical pa I would think . +User Interface: think it's the last one . No , then this is {vocalsound} the la yeah , that one , final design . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It is named appropriately , you just couldn't see the name . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay , can I have the mouse ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Thanks . Alright , so from {disfmarker} when we were discussing specifying the case in the last meeting , we decided that we wanted an ergonomic shape , the material that we chose was wood , and uh the colour would be customisable , 'cause you can stain the wood whatever colour . Um , so in terms of function , you have to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off , volume and channel control , menu control , voice recognition control , and we've incorporated the L_C_D_ screen on the flip panel as part of the design , if we figure out it's too expensive , well then you just take it off . {vocalsound} Um , so {vocalsound} to unveil our lovely product . This is our remote control , with the flip panel as you can see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you lift up the panel , you can see the lovely yellow L_C_D_ display . {vocalsound} Um , this is actually hard to do . The yellow button you have is the on off button , so it's really big , hard to miss . You have the the red um triangles are the toggles for changing the volume . So up {disfmarker} volume up , down {disfmarker} volume down . The green are the channel changing . {vocalsound} S And it's one of those very light , very touchable displays . And then you have the numeric pad in the dark blue at the bottom , and on the right-hand side you have the access to the menu on the T_V_ , and on the left-hand side you have the the the ability to turn off the voice recognition . So this is pretty much what we had on the white board the last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So . +Industrial Designer: Um and uh I could {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the d +User Interface: Additional feature on the back is that you can have your own customised backing and I suppose you could do the same thing on the flip case on the front . So that you can really make this a highly highly customisable remote control . +Industrial Designer: We haven't um uh specified where the speaker or the microphone will be placed . That depends on the uh s design of the circuit board inside and uh what room is left um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think the microphone is on on the top , uh on the middle , the {disfmarker} under the flip . +Industrial Designer: Yes , okay . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So that will be the safe , so p any {disfmarker} the chip {disfmarker} it's not on the chip because you need to have microphone {gap} to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I mean it depends on the design of the circuit board . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: But it shouldn't be under the flip either , because you can have the remote control closed , but you still might want to activate it by voice . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh it's it's {disfmarker} Yeah , but uh uh my opinion I think it's better under the flip because whenever you want to uh the talk , okay , so then you can speak then you can close it . But if you put it on the on the flip , okay , then uh technical I don't think it's uh feasible , 'cause most of the time you speak then it will be recognised . +User Interface: But if you've already got the remote control in your hand you need to open the flip to use the voice , why use the voice , why not just use your hand ? I mean the whole point of the voice is that if the remote control is sitting there and I'm too lazy to reach over and pick it up , I can just use my voice . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I've got my hand in the popcorn bowl and I'm holding my cup of Coca-Cola in the other hand . +User Interface: Yeah . And you don't wanna let go of either one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I don't wanna say . Louder . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I mean it doesn't have to be on the flip , it can be on the side somewhere . +Marketing: Can also be on the side . +Project Manager: Yeah , the sides maybe is good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , I mean I can pass this around if anyone wants to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . So it's maybe good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , y better you pass it around with a napkin . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , because y you can easily put a microphone on the side that would have no problem would haven't been {disfmarker} not be damaged or anything , and it'd be accessible all the time to voice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Yeah , exactly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's maybe good idea . S s +Industrial Designer: It's um {disfmarker} It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Compliments to the artist . +Industrial Designer: You need to work on the weight a little bit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Okay . S {vocalsound} I'm fine , I'm satisfi +User Interface: And maybe the shape of the buttons , +Project Manager: I'm satisfied . +User Interface: the little egg shapes aren't the most economical , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're glad you're satisfied . +Project Manager: Of course it's it's it's looks more heo heavy , but I think when it's completely {gap} maybe it's a less weight . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean this is plasticene . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: There's only so much you can do . We could have possibly made it a lot thinner as well . {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} And part of the thing is m a lot of people say that they don't like something that's too light , because they don't feel like they have enough control over it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So I mean maybe this is excessively heavy , but I think it needs to have some weight , +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: it needs to feel like you're still holding something . {vocalsound} So that's pretty much it for our presentation actually . +Project Manager: That's your uh prototype model ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , that's good , thank you very much . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So any comments or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the prototype is is very well within the design and ideas that we've we've talked about on the previous meetings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Now it goes into this next phase as the financial uh marketing uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes , that uh {disfmarker} So I'll come back to the {disfmarker} {gap} So evaluation criteria , I think uh that will be good , so then let's come to the finance uh , I have some uh calculations which I made uh as for uh the budget . So here you can uh look like uh the energy {gap} and uh {gap} dynamo and uh kinetic and solar cells . Uh it's optional , somewhat optional and Ed wants the chip on print , that's what uh we were talking about that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So then we have sample sensor and sample speaker , then uh we have the wood material , then special colour and push button . So it's uh {disfmarker} actually , our budget was uh twelve point five Euro , but uh it's coming to nine point nine five Euro , so we are under uh {disfmarker} below the budget , okay , so still we are saving some money . I think it's a good figure . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , great I {disfmarker} I'm surprised . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Congratulations . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Than thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we haven't come to mine yet , so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: . It's gonna cost a long way to c you know , cost a lot of money to market it , is it ? +Marketing: we're gonna have a bit of difference of opinion , yes . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe it's {disfmarker} for some money we can utilise for our uh marketing , for the sales , okay , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , it just depends on if we're gonna add a {vocalsound} o on this pr provisionary cost analysis , we do not have a L_C_ display . L_C_ display is gonna be very expensive , +User Interface: No we do , but it's not filled in . +Marketing: it's gonna be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not . +Industrial Designer: Thirty . +Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} it doesn't say . +User Interface: It's number thirty . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: We don't have the price up there , +User Interface: Oh , yeah , yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: you're right , sorry , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: okay , so if we add approximately two to three Euro per remote , now we're up around about twelve , twelve and a half as to what uh the company had initially uh requested . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So that means we can put the uh {disfmarker} the L_C_D_ in , yeah . +Marketing: Display in . But as far as production um I'm putting up a question because we're talking about profit also , and in mine you'll see uh {vocalsound} the problem with uh our survey , the p the possibility that how many units can be sold , what percentage of the market , etcetera etcetera because that {gap} has to be taken in into consideration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh this is just production cost , it is not uh advertising cost , it's not transportation cost uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so still uh we have twelve point five Euro . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that will inflate quite a bit the cost of the uh {disfmarker} the cost of the unit for the company . +Project Manager: Yes . {gap} Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yes . Yep . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: So to come up with what the company wants is a fifty million Pound profit , we're gonna have to go a long ways . +Project Manager: Yes . This we are talking about one unit , okay , so when it go into the quantity , okay , and the cost will come down . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Although customisation , because this is being done , you know , the on {disfmarker} on-order basis , it might be uh the the quantity won't m won't uh +Marketing: Slightly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's gonna be very hard to reduce . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: the circuit board will b you're right , would be in producing quantity , but the cost of the case would uh {vocalsound} be fixed at the {disfmarker} Uh you got some pretty cheap labour that can do this case for one Euro . +Marketing: That's not bad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's really {disfmarker} that's the cost of the material and lab wow , that's really outstanding . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} But anyhow , still we are under control , okay , so what uh I will do is I will try to negotiate with the vendors , okay , to get uh the production cost less , okay , so then we can save some money , okay , to put into th our marketing or uh you know the promotions , whatever , okay , so that uh I will look after . I will speak to the management and how to get uh you know some more uh cost down . +Marketing: If we can go to to my display . And we'll come back to yours +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: just to give everybody an idea of the market . So now I'm gonna scare everybody out of this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I'm still here . +Project Manager: You're in four ? +Marketing: {gap} Yep The four gives me {disfmarker} it's gotta be uh TrendWatch . +Project Manager: TrendWatch . +Industrial Designer: Is this the same one you did before ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It shouldn't be +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} no , I think it's the same one . +Marketing: if it's not {disfmarker} it's not the right one . No , no we g no , that's the same one . You have to go back and find another one . Whatever name it popped up under . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Functional . +Marketing: Uh functional , try functional , it might not be it either , but we'll see . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It looks like it , there's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} S Yeah . +Marketing: Yep , that's it . So we'll go screen by screen . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Although {vocalsound} since uh we need to have some type of idea on a market uh we had independent study that says it {disfmarker} this this market has an availability to absorb eight mi eight million units per year . Okay ? Our internal company evaluation puts it between eight to nine million which is approximately the same as the independent study . +Project Manager: Yep . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we continue , we'll look at the findings . Next screen . {vocalsound} Which means that uh if we have a target of two million would the company has to take twenty five percent of the market in the first year , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is actually a tremendous amount . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , no kidding . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No kidding , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mayb maybe they already expected something . +Marketing: So , if we put an inflated price of fifty Euro at a production cost that cannot exceed twenty-five Euro , okay , we're already in that that price , okay , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: with transport , promotion , labour , because we hav {gap} gi included the promotion in the cost , transport for the material to the stores or whatever how however we're gonna break this down between our our retailers . +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Marketing: Twenty-five percent of the market to get to two million units . At two million units , we have to have a profit of twenty-five Euro per unit to get to the fifty million unit Eu Euro profit . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Marketing: Okay ? So , obviously we w w I just did a run down the evaluation of the form , the fan uh the fancy stylishness of the {disfmarker} of the unit , the ease of use , speech recognition , cost , we've gone through these . Now , the company must evaluate the feasibility of being able to take enough of the market to justify in production . Or we project this over two years , but being that the market changes very very quickly , maybe there's no more interest in buying this thing in eighteen months from now . +Project Manager: Yes . Yep . Of course . +Marketing: So , now we have to come up with a decision . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Can the company sell two million units ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Can it sell it for fifty Euros ? +Industrial Designer: Could could I go to findings ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh um I would uh like to explore the possibility of using um alternative um delivery and sales channel which would be um to use the internet for promotion and ordering +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was thinking the same thing , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then to drop-ship the p product to the customer's residence . +User Interface: Directly . +Industrial Designer: That way you have no storage , you have no um {disfmarker} you do have transportation , still have the labour cost , +User Interface: Um-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but you don't have the transport to the uh point of sale . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: The point of sale is online . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: To the agents . +User Interface: Yeah . You can do a shipping centre somewhere , or strategically place shipping centres to minimise distance costs . +Industrial Designer: Right , like Amazon . In fact , we should sell through Amazon , +Project Manager: Yes . Or eBay , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: don't you think ? Or eBay , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Going with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To impro more profit and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: S Upscale technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , yes . +Industrial Designer: Ah , we we're do you know , selling a unique product uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . +User Interface: That actually makes more sense if we're gonna make it so highly customisable , 'cause on the web people can look at the different options they have , see maybe what other people have done , what the range of possibility as , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: There are several companies that have gone that way . +User Interface: whereas if you're in a store , you can't {disfmarker} unless you're a highly imaginative person , you may not really know what it is you want , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: whereas on the web , if you have a bunch of pictures , it can sort of trigger ideas and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . And you can even have an {disfmarker} a movie that you can rotate the object and look at the di the only thing that you're missing really is the weight . +User Interface: Yeah . The weight and feel . +Marketing: Weight , the feel of the product , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We're getting used to that . It's not quite like trying on a shoe , but people are getting used to buying things online that they can't touch before buying . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: There are several that have gone through with the watches , too . You can customise a watch , you can see how it is at the f at the end of the production , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you can change it uh {disfmarker} There's a lot of online that's {disfmarker} that is doing this now . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And when you're rotating , you'll look behind and look this way uh {disfmarker} it's possible to do with this , maybe there's a possibility of selling more than two million units in one year , which could {vocalsound} you know , feasibili feasibility uh lower the price of the unit . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can . +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: I don't think that's uh not possible , it's uh {disfmarker} okay then , l uh let's wait for the production , okay , then uh you can evaluate the product , so how it looks like technically and uh how it look like uh the real . +User Interface: What turnaround time do we have ? +Project Manager: T +User Interface: 'Cause I mean production evaluation can be very very quick or very very long . +Project Manager: Oh but {disfmarker} Yes it's it's very quick , of course . It will uh come back in two weeks , okay , it will be ready in two weeks . +Industrial Designer: Works for me . +Project Manager: For evaluation , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Prototypes , you mean . +Project Manager: Yes , the prototype uh {disfmarker} prototype product evaluation . +Industrial Designer: In um {disfmarker} We probably should do some market tests uh once we have the prototypes and do some orders and things like that and test-market it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Well , obviously . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm that'd have to be thrown out on the market for people to get an idea , +Project Manager: So you can take a minimum two weeks to a maximum four weeks . +Marketing: to see {disfmarker} get get their {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Think minimum two weeks if we're gonna develop prototypes and then try to take them to different places and see how people use {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: it's not a trivial task . +Project Manager: Yeah , because we we are not going to do it in uh our factory , okay , so we can give it a product evalua +User Interface: No no . We definitely shouldn't do it in our factory . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we'll do it in the other place , and I don't think it's take more than four weeks time . Or uh {disfmarker} Okay , so then the real production we will start once we product evaluation , okay , then uh it's approve from uh the technical team and uh your team , okay , uh from the management , then we can launch in the market . Hm ? +Industrial Designer: Any outstanding {disfmarker} {vocalsound} ? +Project Manager: S Any any other uh questions or uh comments to be discuss ? +Industrial Designer: No , I'm +User Interface: What ab +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} go ahead . +Marketing: I think we pretty much covered everything . +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Did you have something ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I was just wondering about if we're gonna do a product evaluation then what about time for redesign if the users come back and tell us no this is bad , this is bad , we want this done differently . +Project Manager: Okay uh , let's take like this . Let's proceed with this model , okay , for the for the marketing direction , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So no more changes will be made , okay , in this {disfmarker} the basic design . Okay ? So we will introduce m this model and uh let's introduce in the market and let's take the feedback from the customers , then we can uh go for the +Industrial Designer: Second generation . +Project Manager: second generation . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . There's no end , there's not limit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The problem is there might not be a second generation if the first generation flops for some silly reason that we haven't thought of . +Project Manager: Every every custom +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , then it may not be . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , every customer , okay , they have their own ideas , they have their own test , okay , so there's no end , there's no limit . +Marketing: Like people don't like wood . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , but there's a difference between releasing a product that has been minimally tested and fine-tuned to suit a general range of requirements versus releasing a product that we think will work but we don't really have anything to back it up . +Marketing: {gap} very specific . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that's the reason you are here for uh the design , okay , I hope you made a good design . +User Interface: Yes , but I'm not everybody . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean the whole point of user evaluation is to see what real people need . We have our own motivations in mind , we have our own ideas in mind , but that doesn't mean that that's what's gonna sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh see , we ought to take a few considerations , okay , one is the price consideration , one is future consideration , okay , like uh you can eat uh {disfmarker} you can all eat more chi I can eat more chilli , okay , so i it's a depends on the individual taste , you know , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so we have we have to balance somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah , of course . I'm just trying to point out that I think that your evaluation and redesign turnaround time is too short {disfmarker} well you have no redesign {disfmarker} not you personally , but in the project we have no redesign time and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Our project doesn't {disfmarker} um +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ed , d do you know what season of the year or time of the year is the most important for T_V_ remote control sales ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would it be the Christmas season by any chance ? +Project Manager: The sports time . +Industrial Designer: Sports season . Which sport season ? +Marketing: Right before the Eur {vocalsound} the World Cup . {vocalsound} World soccer . World Cup soccer , +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} so +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: they need those things that they have their hands g occupied and they need to be able to talk to the con remote control . +Project Manager: Football . +Industrial Designer: maybe what {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So I think what we need to do is perhaps to synchronise the final {disfmarker} the the launch of a user-tested device with some {gap} special event . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: And and then um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: so that gives us a little more time perhaps then we anticipated , because I don't know when the World Cup is , but I'm sure there's gonna be one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Or any major sports . +Industrial Designer: Or another {gap} m major sports event . Probably not the um the football games coming up the end of January . I think that might be a little too aggressive um , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but , so , I'm just ig uh pointing out a uh a strategy to uh do some additional user testing +Project Manager: Research . +Industrial Designer: pri and then to launch um at a a major sports event +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: or uh perhaps to uh also {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's actually good place to advertise it too . +Industrial Designer: And to work with motion pictures . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There might be some motion pictures that are coming out um {disfmarker} that are coming out on D_V_D_ that uh they need to have a m special remote control to work with it , so we could maybe work out a campaign with uh with Sony Pictures for example . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Maybe some management has got uh relationships there we can leverage . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yes , the {disfmarker} that of course uh I will convince the management to do that , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's just something to to keep in mind , 'cause it's really really important . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure , sure , yes . +User Interface: A lot of products have gone out there without being properly user-tested and completely flopped , when in fact it gets re-released a few years down the line with proper testing and it takes off like crazy . +Industrial Designer: Disposable diapers is an example of that in fact . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Really ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it is one of the first consumer products that was launched about thirty years {disfmarker} that was a disposable consumer product , +User Interface: {vocalsound} That I didn't know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh people {disfmarker} the market hadn't really {vocalsound} gotten on to the concept that you could use something and then throw it away , 'cause it wasn't uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but then when they re-launched them thirty years later , they were virtually the same design , +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but people had gotten the throw-away , you know , paper cups and napki y all kinds of things that they hadn't um {disfmarker} so , you're right , timing is very important , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but I think we've got a good product . +Project Manager: That's the reason Ed is here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think he can promote the the brand value and the product value . +Industrial Designer: That's right . It's gonna be very important to the company . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . We are behind the scene and he is the front screen , so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's on the big screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I'm the one who takes the heat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good luck , Ed . +Marketing: {vocalsound} If it's a flop , it's the marketer . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You look very relaxed , considering h you know , the uh the weight on your shoulders , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Yes . Stress . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so then uh let's come to the closing and uh are the costs within the budget +Marketing: Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and uh is the product evaluated , okay , so that will uh come soon . Okay for uh {disfmarker} but our time being , so thanks for all your efforts and great work and uh great design and uh let's leave it to the Ed for later for once production is over and the meantime let's celebrate . So let's meet up uh this evening to hang up for some party . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +Project Manager: 'S good . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Industrial Designer: Nice working with you . +Marketing: Thank you very much . +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you again for all . +User Interface: Thanks +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And see you in the evening for drinks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bye-bye . Yep , okay , see you later on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Bye . +","The meeting commenced with the Project Manager welcoming the participants back to the session, after which an apology was made by the Industrial Designer for being late. After the initial greetings, the Project Manager announced that the session's agenda was the detailed design meeting. The meeting would cover the opening, review of previous meeting minutes, a prototype presentation by Christine and Agnes, evaluation criteria, financial considerations presented by the Project Manager, and the production evaluation. The team had forty minutes allotted to discuss, finalize, and move forward with the product and project. + +The User Interface contributor confirmed readiness for the discussion of the prototype, and after a slight miscommunication, the presentation began. It was explained that the presentation would cover the collaborative work between two team members, and any missing details would be addressed by Christine. + +The User Interface presenter revealed details of their remote control design, focusing on its ergonomics, the customizable wooden material, and functional attributes like on/off capacity, volume and channel control, menu navigation, voice recognition, and an LCD screen on a flip panel - which could be removed if deemed too costly. + +Upon unveiling the prototype, the User Interface presenter described the layout of buttons, including a prominent on/off button, red triangles for volume control, green buttons for channel selection, a numeric pad in dark blue, and toggles for menu access and voice recognition. Notably, the back of the remote control allowed for customized designs, increasing the product's personalization potential. + +Questions arose about the placement of the microphone within the remote, with the consensus shifting towards a side placement, making it accessible even when the remote was closed. This consideration was vital as the idea behind voice recognition was convenience, especially when the user was otherwise occupied and couldn't physically interact with the remote. + +The financial feasibility of the product was then discussed, with the Project Manager sharing calculations indicating the project was currently under budget, saving some money from the initial 12.5 Euro budget. The financial conversation segued into marketing concerns, raising issues about production costs, advertising, transport, and overall profitability projections, with the target being a 50 million Pound profit. The discussion covered the company's ambitious goal to capture a sizeable market share swiftly. + +Looking forward, the possibility of using alternative sales channels, like the internet for promotion and direct shipping, was explored. It was suggested that aligning the product launch with popular sports events might be a strategic move, leveraging periods with high TV viewership. + +The meeting transitioned into the production evaluation phase, emphasising the importance of user testing and the potential requirement for redesign based on feedback. There was a brief debate over the proposed time frame, with the User Interface voice advocating for sufficient user testing to avoid a flop upon release. Marketing introduced potential strategies, including an in-depth customer evaluation and stresses on utilizing marketing and promotions wisely. + +The session concluded with an affirmation of the need to stay within budget, with the prototype soon to undergo evaluation. The team agreed to meet up for evening celebrations, highlighting the collaborative spirit and forward-looking stance as they anticipated the marketing and sales phase that would determine the product's success. + +Overall, the meeting encapsulated a cross-functional dialogue, balancing design, functionality, financial constraints, and marketing strategy in the pursuit of launching a customizable and ergonomically designed TV remote control, with the underlying goal of realizing a robust market entry and substantial profit margins." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello , uh this meeting we are it's fo should be focused on the conceptual design of the remote control . +Marketing: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Um the goal of this meeting is to reach a decision at the end on the concept and I think the last time we talked about an a lot and we had a rough idea of what is going to be , but uh in th at the end of this meeting we have to to reach a decision . So , uh we will have again three presentation , from all of you , and uh I hope it will be fast because I would like to have time to for long discussion and and decisions . So , who wants to start ? Okay . +User Interface: I s +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: No , no , you you can start . +Project Manager: So start , uh +Marketing: Okay , I'll start . Can you open my presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: please . +Project Manager: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: I'm number four . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Trend . Yep . Can you pass the mouse , please . {vocalsound} Oh okay , that's fine . +Project Manager: Turn . +Marketing: Okay . Um so basically I just want to presented to you {disfmarker} present to you some recent results we've had from um looking at uh um some remote control market research and some fashion trends around the world . Um the fashion trends we got from talking to our our contacts in the fashion industry based in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so f from our market research basically we've come to the conclusion that a fancy look and feel , um as opposed to a functional look and feel , is our number one priority . Um fancy is is is is the , you know , highest priority . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Secondly um that our remote control needs to be techn technologically innovative . Um so this is t number two priority but it's two times less important as the fancy criteria . Um and third thirdly the easiness of use is is the um is is important as well , but again two times less important as the technologically innovativeness of the remote control . {vocalsound} From our f fashion people in Paris and Milan , um we've discovered that this year um fruit the fruit and vegetable motif will be the most important thing in in clothes , shoes and furniture . So , {vocalsound} I'm pretty confident that our remote control fits into the furniture category . And also um the feel of material this year um is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so hopefully our remote control reflects that s in some way . +Industrial Designer: What does it mean , spongy ? +Marketing: Uh sort of um squishy . +Industrial Designer: Like soft , or something ? +Marketing: Um . Yeah soft , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like a uh like a sponge . +Project Manager: Like a sponge . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I will see . +Marketing: Um so in conclusion , we need a our remote control needs to be something that's really fancy , um has lots of technolog tech technology in it . {vocalsound} Um somehow would be good to have it related to fruit and vegetables with a spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that it's easy to use and from our last meeting our you know Fabian told us that w you know one of the requirements is that we have to reflect the look and feel of our {disfmarker} of th the Real Reaction company . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Easy to use , is it uh a as much as important than technology or fancy thing . It's less important , right ? +Marketing: Less important . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: So um fanciness first and then two ti you know , half as important as that is technology technology , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and half important as technology is easy to use . So . +Project Manager: {gap} So , Hamed , can you {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . The second one . Could you please show the presentation number three . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the biggest struggle will be the easy to use feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Number ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: This one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {gap} Just Could you please check if it is the first one or the second . Uh , n n no , it's the first one . The second one . +Project Manager: So it's not this one . +User Interface: Uh yeah . Okay . {gap} Okay . So I am going to talk about {disfmarker} a little bit about how this remote control should be appear to be more easy to use . I think uh I think the feature easy to use is more important than being fancy , but okay , we can discuss about it uh later . Um {vocalsound} generally , generally uh this remote control uh uh should be should be something , in my opinion , uh the first feature is just to be easy to use . So , the more frequent buttons should be larger , they should be placed in a good position uh uh inside the remote control . And uh s uh I can conclude like this , that we shouldn't need to learn how to use it . It should be {disfmarker} we shouldn't need to es open a a t book and uh start reading and uh learning how to use this uh this uh remote control . {vocalsound} Okay . So what I found out that uh as I said uh I think it's better to put uh more frequent uh uh uh ke uh buttons which are used more in the middle of the remote control , and they should be bigger in size . Uh the shape of remote control should be in a way which can {disfmarker} which should be taken easily in hand . It should not be completely like uh a cube . It should be it should have round edge , so uh then it's easier . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: And maybe uh just like some toys , some joystick which is easier to take inside the hand . And uh also f uh uh m because because customers doesn't like to buy lots of battery , it should not uh consume lots of energy . Okay . And my personal p uh preference is uh , as I said , uh just putting this buttons in a special places and covered some buttons which are not used uh that much like settings button , like mobile phone . Usually some mobile phone cover the dialling number part , so we can cover these buttons which are not used or uh number buttons for the for the for the can channels , and just put uh volume change or s ch can uh channel change buttons uh uh in the remote control . And if the user needed to do some more complex task uh he he can open the cover and then change settings or something like this . Uh . And also uh I think if we put some some some some some buttons inside of the remote control it can be used easier . Not on remote control . I dunno if I can explain well . But uh just inside . For example , a sliding or rolling uh uh d uh stuff , if we put it inside then we can easily manipulate with uh thumb . So it can be another uh preference . And uh I dunno but uh I think usage of a speech recogn uh r recogniser can be good . I know that it consumes lots of energy , but if we do it in some way that it asleeps when there is no sound and when it detects some sound it may consume less energy . And I think it's good because it's something new and usually young people like something new . So it may not be very useful but because it's new , people may buy it . Uh I personally think there should be a big difference between uh between something . Otherwise they prefer to buy something which is coming from a famous company , or . Okay . That's mine . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so good news from me uh uh for me from Hamed , but bad news from Bob obviously , because spongy design , I don't like it as {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so could you please , Fabien , open it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm person two . And which one , uh probably the first one . I'm not sure but check the first one . I {disfmarker} Most of the things I have to write myself on the board , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . Just {disfmarker} It's only this slide ? Yeah . This this is just uh one thing I wanted to mention and show you that I just uh I just found this , that our company uh developed a s a seven f seven fingers or I'll just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Inch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven seven inch T_ {disfmarker} T_F_T_ screen , which is good news for us , since we wanted to include a display there . Uh so I I probably draw it down raw scheme . +Project Manager: Oh , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: This is this is the stuff that I can use to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the {disfmarker} this will be like the overall scheme or overall requirements from the engineering point of view . Uh first thing is uh this will be the overall shape , no uh I'm not speaking about the real shape of the device , but the shape of the inside of the device . So there will be some circuit uh for the power . So , say power circuit here . Uh the main energy will be taken from batteries that we can uh uh {disfmarker} And if we decide to use the speech recognition stuff there , we must use additional source of energy , which I found the best is to use the solar cells which can which can uh supply everything . I was computing all the all the things related to the speech recognition , and it's okay to use just uh two batteries and solar cells , so . So no problem . There can be also solar cell . Uh the main board with all the circuits will take at least seven to seven centimetres , so this is my like hard requirement for the guys from the design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So at least seven to seven . It depends where you put your screen , because the screen is uh seven inch , so it depends on you where where you put it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It doesn't matter . Um it's just one cord from from the main board to the screen which can be elsewhere . So this will be T_F_T_ . And on the main board we have the um interface to the microphone , which is somewhere , say here . Interface to the microphone . Then the graphical card uh for the T_F_T_ and the third unit is the I_R_ . The good news is that we can uh we decided to use the infra-red unit because our company has also developed the chip for communication by the infra-red , including all the stuff inside , so it will be very cheap for us . So infra-red here . So the {disfmarker} once again the overall requirements , seven to seven centimetres for the board , which has to be {disfmarker} which can be spongy but has to be this size , and the T_F_T_ which is seven inches . Um I have to check what I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh from my point of view I don't care about the about the material used for the overall des uh ov all the device . +Project Manager: Can you fit any uh for example a T_F_T_ or any electronic device in a spongy thing , or is there any problem for that ? For example , put electronic card on a spongy thing , I can I can imagine it could be a problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A all these things in in uh in this box are okay to put in in any shape , basically . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But we have to take care of the T_F_T_ . Well , sponginess . Maybe it a good feature , since it takes {disfmarker} if it's around the T_F_T_ then it's good , because it's just keeps it safe , +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Well maybe it can have two shells , a hard shell inside and a spongy shell outside . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe put electronic in a box and a spongy thing around . {gap} maybe after . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's maybe related to the U_I_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ca Can I ask a question . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A Yeah , that's all from me . +Marketing: This seven inch T_F_T_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: how big is it in reality ? +Industrial Designer: Well , seven to seven inches . +Marketing: So like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's quite big . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh uh have we decided that we're gonna use this T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: No , I don't think it's seven by seven , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's seven {disfmarker} the diagonal is seven . +Industrial Designer: To be honest , I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually when they say seven inch I think it's the diagonal . +User Interface: Yeah yes {gap} . +Marketing: But I mean even even that is like this big . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I dunno I dun I dun One each {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: . But , yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , honestly speaking I was thinking that it was seven centimetres initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it's seven inches . But I I think we can we can cut it . +Marketing: You can cut the T_F_T_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no no problem , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because because because then the size of the graphic card will be one fourth . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's cut the T_F_T_ . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but no problem to to me to cut the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so for the same price we have four screens now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: These technical engineers , huh . +Marketing: So , what's the size of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Ah well this is like this is almost nothing . Seven to seven to at least well some three millimetres or something . +Marketing: Even from my perspective seven t seven centimetres by seven centimetres is still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we wanted the big buttons and stuff like that , you know . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} Can you hold that , or ? +Industrial Designer: Because if it's t too small we can we can lose it , at home , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What user wants . He wants a small remote control , or ? Uh uh with big buttons . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I thought that it it should fit in the hand or something . +Marketing: Yeah , a small c control that they can hold in hand . +Project Manager: It's difficult . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A sm +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is something that's seven centimetres square e easy to hold ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W I I think so . I if the roller buttons are on the side you don't have to catch it like that , but just like this , and you know follow follow {disfmarker} Well , that's that's no task for me , but well seven to seven at least yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe you can finish your presentation , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and afterwards we will discuss about all this . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +User Interface: Maybe this {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay thanks {gap} . +Project Manager: That's it . Okay . So . {vocalsound} {gap} No . Uh , so I think we have a lot {disfmarker} We have to take decision today , so I think we have to do some work to finalise our idea and take decisions . Uh first I think energy it's a key problem because uh it depend what can we have as feature if we use only batteries , for example , or something like that . Because can we have L_C_D_ and speech recognition with battery , and it's also r related to the size of the of the devi of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Not {disfmarker} J uh just a point to the energy th things . If we use the batteries , and the additional so solar cell , then it's okay for L_ uh speech recognition and L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so no problem in energy , I think . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But we have to use the solar cell . +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise not . +Project Manager: but using how many batteries , for example ? Are are what Maybe what is the size of the battery {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I was thinking just common A_A_ cells . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh one two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So like three to five centimetres , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno exactly , but . +Marketing: So if we use s solar cells , um where is the sun if someone's watching T_V_ inside ? +Industrial Designer: S Uh d doesn't need to be sun . It it's just the daylight , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: The television lights . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well I I suppose that I suppose that uh that this remote control won't be in the in the room like this , where there is light only when when there are people , but . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: At least when there is T_V_ you can get light from the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah from the T_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's enough , uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a it's a compromise , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At least it's new and maybe technology New technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's why I wanted to to include the speech recognition , because you wanted all the new things . +Marketing: It's it's quite innovative , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: And if you watch T_V_ outside it's {vocalsound} very useful . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think before talking about the other thing , it's important thing it's the case . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh what what are gonna be the size , because its weight drives the other {disfmarker} what we are going to use as features and so on . For example for the for the L_C_D_ , if we choose to have a small device , we cannot use this um a such a a a screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh the s the screen is okay , but the board , uh that's the problem . Well what what would you guess as a shape ? Or what what would be the shape ? +User Interface: Mm . I think I think their being uh large or small is not important . The only important thing is to be able to take it in uh inside hand easily . So let's say an average size , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and it should not be very heavy also . And I prefer to {disfmarker} is it shouldn't have a uniform shape , so in the middle it should be a little bit thinner , maybe maybe . So we c it's like like some joysticks . You can take uh some some joystick you can take inside hand easier because it's it's designed for your f uh taking into account your finger shape and your palm shape . So the general shape should be like this . I think uh seven centimetre by seven centimetre is a little bit large . So uh seven {disfmarker} not seven but let's say five by ten it's I think it's {disfmarker} that's my opinion . It's easier . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Which is the same area . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could you re could you redesign your board ? +Industrial Designer: Five to ten . Well that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , five five centimetres by ten centimetres . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's feasib Well one um um {disfmarker} How could we do it ? We could put the board next to , well , under the L_C_D_ and for example make the L_C_D_ be totally unrelated to the thing that you hold in your hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like holding something , and the L_C_D_ to be just on top of it , you know somehow . Well {disfmarker} But maybe let's stick to the s spongy thing , like one unit . +Project Manager: Oh . I've I s I think the easiest thing would be to to have a smaller L_C_D_ , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Well fi five to ten it would be feasible . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so five to ten , I I think it's it's feasible . +Project Manager: Okay . So we are agree with a small +Industrial Designer: I'll make it . +User Interface: {gap} Or uh or I don't know +Project Manager: L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fo Five by ten . +User Interface: but I don't want to now invent something new , because we didn't discuss about it . So using some L_C_D_s we can touch , so we can remove uh keys and just uh having uh , I dunno the name , L_C_D_ responding to fingers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Touching the screen . Something like +Project Manager: Tactile or something , yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Mm like tactile . +Marketing: Mm , touch screen . +Project Manager: Touch screen , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} But for now if we don't want to use such kind of screens I I think we using a a smaller screen is better , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The problem is we have a limit in a month of time , so we cannot do something very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's go for a small L_C_D_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so Yeah , so so just just give me the the the five by ten numbers that you find the best and send it me +User Interface: A smaller s +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , five by s ten . +Industrial Designer: and I will work it out . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so what about , so the case we talked about . Um something easy to use , you said something easy to use but how does that fit in a fashion way , like with fruit and vegetable , and about the colour and logo of the of the company and so on , now , can we do that ? My first idea is because our colour is more yellow , and the {disfmarker} it should be easy to take in a hand , I thought about banana , or something like that , which is fruits , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seven to ten banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A big banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Rather mango or something or . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's it's definitely the obvious choice , with the colour of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I mean what other what other fruit and vegetables {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it's just an idea . I dunno what you think about , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know of any any other fruit and vegetables that are yellow ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno if it can fit with the technology . You are the specialists of that . +Industrial Designer: You mean banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , but {disfmarker} If it's {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If it {disfmarker} If the banana is big enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then , yes . {vocalsound} But if you want to look at the screen {gap} , no . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think this {gap} is not good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The screen has to be {vocalsound} square ? Or it can be like a a shape , quite , uh with curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it can be whatever you want . +Project Manager: It could . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if it's square then we get four screens out of one by cutting just . But if you want some shape then we can only get like two screens out of seven to seven inches , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's like more more expensive to have shape like that . But I don't care . You know , if we fit this requirement . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I'd like a shaped screen . I think that's more important than saving a bit of money on on the T_F_T_ screen . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , m maybe the banana could be like a bit uh fatter than than the c c common one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it should remember banana , but it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to b to be uh uh really the size and exactly the shape of a banana . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like modified banana , okay . +Project Manager: So we are agree with the banana thing ? +Industrial Designer: Well it {disfmarker} we'll stick to banana , or ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , banana's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: So , {gap} the last point we decided it's infra-red , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , I think infra-red . +Project Manager: Everybody's agreed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Uh , so that's it I think about the concepts . You have other thing to add to this point , or uh no ? So , uh about the user interface , so we are going to use L_C_D_ . In the last meeting we talked about uh hidden buttons . I don't know what we are going to do with that . You talked about the buttons on the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like peeling of the banana you s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , peeling of the banana . +Project Manager: Mm what ? +Industrial Designer: It would be cool , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Peeling of the banana , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: should should discover the other buttons , which are hidden . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And you mean the first layer would be spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First layer obviously spo Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: w It's it's like silly , but the people will really appreciate it , yeah I think . +Project Manager: Is it is it possible to do that ? It would be a great idea , but is it possible technically ? +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like doing a spongy layer of the banana , and you open it . +Marketing: I think if we if we have a spongy layer on the outside of the banana then it's easy to make that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , to manipulate that to hav be a cover that you can pull off and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , some {disfmarker} Something like a plastic cover covering uh some interface , U_S_B_ interface as in the in uh digital camera . If you see it's like peeling . You open a plastic cover and you see some U_S_B_ interfaces , some some interfaces for adaptor . So keys can be uh buttons can be covered like this , with a plastic cover and uh when uh and when you open this cover it's like peeling a banana . So , something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you see that as a rigid thing , or like like a banana , something very soft , you can open like banana , or . +Industrial Designer: Well is it possible to make it soft ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah it's a lic like a plastic cover , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think if it's so then it's cool ? +Project Manager: So , I dunno what you think , Bob , but it would be great for users I think , and very good for marketing . +Marketing: I think for sure . Definitely . The softer the better . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Honestly speaking , I cannot imagine it , so far , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it will be terrible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . And setting buttons hidden in {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm , other remarks , or something , or . Something we didn't talk about yes yet , or . I think we are almost there {gap} . Uh maybe , how can we , if we have a soft thing , like this , and to open it we have to attach it somewhere , I dunno how to do that technically , or . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Pof . +Marketing: We could use Velcro . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Or uh ma maybe a magnetic +User Interface: Yes , yeah {gap} it's a good idea . +Marketing: thing . +Project Manager: Ma magnetic {gap} oh . +User Interface: Magnetic {gap} . Mm . Yeah or a {disfmarker} Yeah it can is it can be a plastic cover uh sticking to the to the all the stuff like uh with magnetic p uh magnetic uh magnetic uh {vocalsound} materials in the border , so it's it sticks like refrigerator door , completely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And when you try to open it , it will be opened easily . So you you can be sure that it will not be open while you're uh while while uh you are commonly using uh buttons on the banana . +Project Manager: Okay . And what would be the matter here of the first layer I mean ? Mm . Likes . Soft plastic , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I imagine some sort of vinyl thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: In a in a sort of a with a suede sort of feel . Maybe . +Industrial Designer: Well since since the since the things like the like the screen and um how to say that , solar cell has to be has to be like kept kept in the shape , we cannot b uh {disfmarker} So we need that the that the peeling {disfmarker} uh I dunno but we should we should take care of these two two things . So , if if uh the solar cell won't be visible while the banana is closed , then the material must be able to put the light inside , you know . So that we can reach the energy out of it {disfmarker} out of that . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . So you're saying is it possible to have a solar cell and this removable cover and +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but , well if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a and a banana . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno how to how to do it if if t if to if it's better to put the solar cell to the t to the peeling or outside it , or or inside . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then it must be some window there , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And something we forgot , maybe , uh about the speech recognition system , are we going to use it , or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , I think . I think so . +Marketing: I think it's important . +Project Manager: It i Yeah , it seems feasible , and it would be something very great . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} One of our p priorities is tech technology . +Project Manager: So we have the de design , the a good shape , new and so on , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we have also the technology thing w will be . And even the easy to use thing , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so it will be perfect . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we add also the speech recognition device . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: So , that great . We have decided everything . And think we are on a good way . So , um uh the next meeting will start in thirty minutes . Um , so uh the the Industrial Manager uh will uh will work on the look and feel design . The User Interface uh uh Mana uh Manager will work on the user interface device . And the the Marketing Expert will do the first project evaluation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , I hope you can do that in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh , yeah , I uh I think you should work together , s you uh Hamed and Peter , to work uh in a in a first prototype , and uh more about the shape and so on and how you can manage to put everything together . And um as usual you will receive some specific instructions on . So thank you all everybody , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you . +","The meeting commenced with the Project Manager explaining that the primary agenda was to focus on the conceptual design for a remote control and to reach a definitive decision on the concept by the end of the session. Representatives from Marketing, Industrial Design, and User Interface were present to give their inputs for a comprehensive design strategy. + +Marketing led the presentations, emphasizing the importance of creating a remote control that is not just functional but also possesses an aesthetic appeal—characterizing ""fancy look and feel"" as the top priority. Insights drawn from market research and fashion trends indicated that technological innovation and ease of use were also significant but of lesser importance than the fancy criterion. Notably, the Marketing representative introduced the notion that the upcoming trend would be fruit and vegetable motifs in fashion, which could be leveraged in the remote control design. Additionally, a 'spongy' feel to the material was identified as expected to trend in material textures. + +The Industrial Designer responded with curiosity about the sponginess and later expressed concerns over functionality, reconciling with the 'spongy' concept but facing potential difficulties in its practical application. Next, User Interface discussed the priority of user-friendliness in remote control designs. Suggested features included larger buttons for frequently used functions, ergonomic design for comfortable handholds, low energy consumption, use of speech recognition for innovation, and a possible cover for less frequently used buttons to maintain a clean interface. + +The Industrial Designer's presentation shed light on the engineering aspects, emphasizing a seven-by-seven-centimeter area for the main board and potential use of solar cells for increased energy efficiency. Concerns were voiced about compatibility with solar cells indoors and managing energy needs for features like speech recognition and LCD display. + +Discussions unfolded around the feasibilities and priorities of integration of a seven-inch TFT screen. There were also deliberations on cutting the screen to fit smaller dimensions and the emphasis on having a shaped screen rather than a strictly rectangular one, despite cost implications. The Project Manager proposed considering the company's color scheme (yellow) and integrating it with the fruit and vegetable trend, which led to the idea of a banana-shaped remote control, reflecting the company's aesthetic. + +The meeting moved into a more collaborative phase, with discussions on technical feasibility, innovation, and user interface. The prospect of a ""peeling banana"" design for accessing additional buttons was entertained, which would encompass a soft, spongy texture and potentially a magnetic or Velcro mechanism to secure the 'peel'. + +The Project Manager ensured that key decisions such as energy sources, product size, material feel, and inclusion of speech recognition were clarified and agreed upon before adjourning the meeting. Each department was tasked with progressing the design based on the decisions made during the meeting. A follow-up meeting was scheduled for thirty minutes later, with specific tasks assigned to Industrial Design and User Interface to begin prototyping and for Marketing to commence project evaluation. + +The meeting served to synergize the creative and technical aspects of product design, harnessing market trends, user experience considerations, and engineering constraints to converge toward a conceptual design for the remote control that would reflect the company’s brand and appeal to consumer sensibilities. The discussions illuminated the complexities of multidisciplinary collaboration and the iterative nature of translating conceptual ideas into tangible product designs, providing a snapshot of the product development process in action." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad H: st +Grad F: So we 're on . +Grad H: Yeah . That 's better . +Grad F: And , {comment} somewhere is my agenda . I think the most important thing is Morgan wanted to talk about , uh , the ARPA {pause} demo . +Professor D: Well , so , here 's the thing . Um , why don't we s again start off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Yeah , I 'll get it . I 'll get the door . Um , I think we want to start off with the agenda . And then , given that , uh , Liz and Andreas are gonna be {pause} ten , fifteen minutes late , we can try to figure out what we can do most effectively without them here . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} so , one thing is , yeah , talk about demo , +Grad F: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , IBM transcription status , +Professor D: IBM transcription . Uh , what else ? +Grad F: +Professor D: What 's SmartKom ? SmartKom ? +Grad F: Uh , we wanna talk about if w if we wanna add the data to the mar Meeting Recorder corpus . +PhD E: The data . The data which we are collecting here . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are we collecting here ? +PhD E: Data ? +Grad F: So why don't we have that on the agenda and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get to it and talk about it ? +PhD E: The SmartKom data ? +Professor D: Yeah , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , right . Uh . +Grad F: Uh , reorganization status . +Professor D: Reorganization status . +Postdoc A: Oh . Files and directories ? +Professor D: Files and directories . +Grad F: Yep . Uh - huh . Absinthe , which is the multiprocessor UNIX {disfmarker} Linux . I think it was {pause} Andreas wanted to talk about segmentation and recognition , and update on SRI recognition experiments . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: And then if ti if there 's time I wanted to talk about digits , but it looked like we were pretty full , so I can wait till next week . +Professor D: Right . OK . Well , let 's see . I think the a certainly the segmentation and recognition we wanna maybe focus on when An - Andreas is here since that was particularly his thing . +PhD E: And also the SmartKom thing should b +Professor D: SmartKom also , Andreas . Absinthe , I think also he has sort of been involved in a lot of those things . +Grad F: At least , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: yeah , he 'll t he 'll probably be interested . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: But . +Professor D: Um So , I mean , I think they 'll be inter I 'll be interested in all this , but {disfmarker} but , uh , probably , if we had to pick something {pause} that we would talk on for ten minutes or so while they 're coming here . Or I guess it would be , you think , reorganization status , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , I think , Chuck was the one who added out the agenda item . I don't really have anything to say other than that we still haven't done it . +PhD B: Well , I mean , I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just basically that {disfmarker} +Grad F: So . +PhD B: maybe I said {disfmarker} maybe we said this before {disfmarker} just that we met and we talked about it and we sort of have a plan for getting things organized and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} and I think a crucial part of that is the idea of {disfmarker} of not wanting to do it until right before the next level zero back - up so that there won't be huge number of {disfmarker} of added , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: That {disfmarker} that was basically it . Not {disfmarker} not much @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although Dave basically said that if we wanna do it , just tell him and he 'll do a d level zero then . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . Oh , excellent . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: Oh , good . +PhD B: Oh , so maybe we should just go ahead and get everything ready , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . So , I think we do need to talk a little bit about {disfmarker} Well , we don't need to do it during this meeting . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: We have a little more to discuss . But , uh , we 're {disfmarker} we 're basically ready to do it . And , uh , I have some web pages on ts {comment} more of the background . So , naming conventions and things like that , that I 've been trying to keep actually up to date . So . And I 've been sharing them with U - d UW folks also . +Postdoc A: I 'm sorry , you 've been what ? Showing them ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc A: Sharing them . +Grad F: Sharing them with the UW folks . +Postdoc A: OK . OK . +Professor D: OK . Well , maybe uh , since that {disfmarker} that was a pretty short one , maybe we should talk about the IBM transcription status . Someone can {vocalsound} fill in Liz and Andreas later . Uh +Grad F: OK . So , we , uh {disfmarker} we did another version of the beeps , where we separated each beeps with a spoken digit . Chuck came up here and recorded some di himself speaking some digits , and so it just goes "" beep one beep "" and then the phrase , and then "" beep two beep "" and then the phrase . And that seems pretty good . Um , I think they 'll have a b easier time keeping track of where they are in the file . +PhD E: And we have done that on the {pause} automatic segmentations . +Grad F: And we did it with the automatic segmentation , and I don't think {disfmarker} We ne we didn't look at it in detail . We just sent it to IBM . We {disfmarker} we sorta spot - checked it . +PhD B: I listened to {pause} probably , uh , five or ten minutes of it from the beginning . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: I sorta spot - checked here and there and it sounded pretty good . So . I think it 'll work . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: And , uh , we 'll just hafta see what we get back from them . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: And the main thing will be if we can align what they give us with what we sent them . I mean , that 's the crucial part . +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: And I think we 'll be able to do that at {disfmarker} with this new beep format . +Grad F: Yep . Well , I think it 's also they are much less likely to d have errors . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I mean , so the problem wi last time is that there were errors in the transcripts where they put beeps where there weren't any , or {disfmarker} and they put in extraneous beeps . +PhD B: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: And with the numbers there , it 's much less likely . +PhD B: Yeah , one interesting note is {disfmarker} uh , or problem {disfmarker} I dunno if this was just because of how I play it back , I say , uh , SND - play and then the file , every once in a while , @ @ {comment} uh , like a beep sounds like it 's cut into two beeps . +PhD E: Yeah . Into two pieces . +PhD B: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I dunno if that 's an , uh , artifact of playback {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD B: bu uh , I don't think it 's probably in the original file . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I recognize that , too . Yeah . +Grad F: Ha . That 's interesting . I didn't hear that . +PhD B: Yeah . But with this new format , um , that hopefully they 're not hearing that , and if they are , it shouldn't throw them . +PhD E: Yep . +PhD B: So . +Grad F: Well , maybe we better listen to it again , make sure , but , I mean , certainly the software shouldn't do that , +PhD B: Yeah . That 's what I thought . +Grad F: so . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I it 's probably just , you know , mmm , somehow the audio {pause} device gets hung for a second , +PhD E: Yeah . Some latency or something . +Grad F: Hiccups . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc A: As long as they have one number , and they know that there 's only one beep maximum {vocalsound} that goes with that number . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Yeah . The only {disfmarker} the only part that might be confusing is when Chuck is reading digits . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Well , you know , actually , are we having them {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {vocalsound} th +Grad F: "" Seven four eight beep seven beep {vocalsound} eight three two "" . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but are we having them do digits ? +Grad F: Yes . Because , uh , we don't {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} In order to cut them out we 'd have to listen to it . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we didn't cut those out . +PhD E: Yeah . They are not transcribed yet . So . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: And we wanted to avoid doing that , +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: so we {disfmarker} they are transcribing the digits . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} we can ignore it when we get it back , +Grad F: Although we could tell them {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we could tell them , if you hear someone reading a digits string just say "" bracket digit bracket "" +PhD B: huh . +Grad F: and don't bother actually computing the di writing down the digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 'd be great . That 'd be what I 'm having the transcribers here do , cuz it can be extracted later . +Grad F: Yep . And then I wanted to talk about {disfmarker} but as I said I {disfmarker} we may not have time {disfmarker} what we should do about digits . We have a whole pile of digits that haven't been transcribed . +Professor D: Le - let 's talk about it , because that 's {disfmarker} that 's something that I {disfmarker} I know Andreas is less interested in than Liz is , +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: so , you know . It 's good {disfmarker} +Grad F: Do we have anything else to say about transcription ? About IBM stuff ? +PhD B: Uh , Brian {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} sent bresset {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} sent Brian a message about {pause} {vocalsound} the meeting and I haven't heard back yet . So . I g hope he got it and hopefully he 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD B: maybe he 's gone , I dunno . He didn't even reply to my message . So . I should probably ping him just to make sure that he got it . +Grad F: Alright . So , we have a whole bunch of digits , if we wanna move on to digits . +Professor D: Actually , maybe I {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} one relate more related thing in transcription . So that 's the IBM stuff . We 've got that sorted out . Um , how 're we doing on the {disfmarker} on the rest of it ? +Postdoc A: We 're doing well . I {disfmarker} I hire {disfmarker} I 've hired two extra people already , expect to hire two more . +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um , {vocalsound} I 've prepared , um , uh , a set of five which I 'm {disfmarker} which I 'm calling set two , which are now being edited by my head transcriber , {vocalsound} in terms of spelling errors and all that . She 's also checking through and mar and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and monitoring , um , the transcription of another transcriber . You know , I mean , she 's going through and doing these kinds of checks . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And , I 've moved on now to what I 'm calling set three . I sort of thought if I do it in sets {disfmarker} groups of five , then I can have , like , sort of a {disfmarker} a parallel processing through {disfmarker} through the {disfmarker} the current . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and you indicated to me that we have a g a goal now , {vocalsound} for the {disfmarker} for the , um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} the , uh , DARPA demo , of twenty hours . So , I 'm gonna go up to twenty hours , be sure that everything gets processed , and released , and {disfmarker} {pause} {comment} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's what my goal is . Package of twenty hours right now , {vocalsound} and then once that 's done , move on to the next . +Professor D: Yeah , uh , so twenty hours . But I guess the other thing is that , um , that {disfmarker} that 's kinda twenty hours ASAP because the longer before the demo we actually have the twenty hours , the more time it 'll be for people to actually do cool things with it . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hiring people who , {vocalsound} uh , really are {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . OK . +Postdoc A: They would like to do it full - time , several of these people . And {disfmarker} and I don't think it 's {vocalsound} possible , really , to do this full - time , but , that {disfmarker} what it shows is motivation to do as many hours as possible . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: It 'll keep your accuracy up . Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: And they 're really excellent . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 's good . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Got a good core group now . +Professor D: Yeah , I mean , I guess the {disfmarker} So the difference if {disfmarker} if , um , if the IBM stuff works out , the difference in the job would be that they p primarily would be checking through things that were already done by someone else ? +Postdoc A: Again . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Is that most of what it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: And correcting . +Professor D: I mean {disfmarker} Correcting . +Grad F: Correcting . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll expect that they 'll have to move some time bins and do some corrections . +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} you know , I 've also d uh , discovered {disfmarker} So with the new transcriber I 'm {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Uh , lemme say that my , uh {disfmarker} So , um {disfmarker} At present , um , the people have been doing these transcriptions a channel at a time . And , that sort of , um , {vocalsound} is useful , and t you know , and then once in a while they 'll have to refer to the other channels to clear something up . OK . Well , {vocalsound} I realize that , um , w i we we 're using the pre - segmented version , and , um , the pre - segmented version is extremely useful , and wouldn't it be , useful also to have the visual representation of those segments ? And so I 've {disfmarker} {pause} uh , {pause} I , uh , uh , I 've {comment} trained the new one {disfmarker} uh , the new the newest one , {vocalsound} to , um , {vocalsound} use the visual from the channel that is gonna be transcribed at any given time . And that 's just amazingly helpful . Because what happens then , is you scan across the signal and once in a while you 'll find a blip that didn't show up in the pre - segmentation . +Grad F: Oh , right . +Postdoc A: And that 'll be something like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I it 's ver {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Grad F: I see what you mean . A backchannel , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Once in a while it 's a backchannel . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Sometimes it seems to be , um , similar to the ones that are being picked up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And they 're rare events , but you can really go through a meeting very quickly . You just {disfmarker} you just , you know , yo you s you scroll from screen to screen , looking for blips . And , I think that we 're gonna end up with , uh {pause} better coverage of the backchannels , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but at the same time we 're benefitting tremendously from the pre - segmentation because {vocalsound} there are huge places where there is just absolutely no activity at all . And , uh , the audio quality is so good {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they can {disfmarker} they can , um , scroll through that pretty quick ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Yeah . So I think that that 's gonna , also {pause} eh , {comment} you know , speed the efficiency of this part of the process . +Professor D: Hmm . OK . Uh , yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So let 's talk about the digits , since they 're not here yet . +Grad F: Uh , so , we have a whole bunch of digits that we 've read and we have the forms and so on , um , but only a small number of that ha well , not a small number {disfmarker} only a subset of that has been transcribed . And so we need to decide what we wanna do . And , uh , Liz and Andreas {disfmarker} actually they 're not here , but , they did say at one point that they thought they could do a pretty good job of just doing a forced alignment . And , again , I don't think we 'll be able to do with that alone , because , um , sometimes people correct themselves and things like that . But {disfmarker} so , I was just wondering what people thought about how automated can we make the process of finding where the people read the digits , doing a forced alignment , and doing the timing . +Professor D: Well , forced alignment would be one thing . What about just actually doing recognition ? +Grad F: Well , we {disfmarker} we know what they read , because we have the forms . +Professor D: No , they make mistakes . +Grad F: Right . But , the point is that we wanna get a set of clean digits . +PhD B: You 're talking about as a pre - processing step . +Professor D: Right . +PhD B: Right , Morgan ? +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure what I 'm talking about . I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we 're talking about digits now . And {disfmarker} and so , um , there 's a bunch of stuff that hasn't been marked yet . Uh . And , um , {vocalsound} there 's the issue that {disfmarker} that they {disfmarker} we know what {disfmarker} what was said , but do we ? +Grad F: I mean , so one option i +Professor D: Because people make mistakes and stuff . I was just asking , just out of curiosity , if {disfmarker} if with , uh {disfmarker} uh , the SRI recognizer getting one percent word error , uh , would we {disfmarker} would we do {pause} better {disfmarker} ? So , if you do a forced alignment but the force but the {disfmarker} but the transcription you have is wrong because they actually made mistakes , uh , or {vocalsound} false starts , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much less c {vocalsound} it 's {pause} much less common than one percent ? +Grad F: But that 's pretty uncommon . Um , if we could really get one percent on {disfmarker} +Professor D: We should be able to . +Grad F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} yeah , I guess if we segmented it , we could get one percent on digits . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So that 's just my question . I 'm not saying it should be one way or the other , but it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad F: But , Well , there {disfmarker} there 're a couple different of doing it . We could use the tools I 've already developed and transcribe it . Hire some people , or use the transcribers to do it . We could let IBM transcribe it . You know , they 're doing it anyway , and unless we tell them different , they 're gonna transcribe it . Um , or we could try some automated methods . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: And my {disfmarker} my tendency right now is , well , if IBM comes back with this meeting and the transcript is good , just let them do it . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Y you raised a point , kind of , uh , euphemistically {disfmarker} but , I mean , m maybe it is a serious problem . Ho - what will they do when they go {disfmarker} hear "" beep {pause} seven {pause} beep {pause} seven three five two "" {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you think they 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: It 's pretty distinct . +Professor D: Yeah ? +Grad F: The beeps are {pause} pre - recorded . +PhD B: It 'll {comment} only be a problem for m for mine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , it 'd be preceded by "" I 'm reading transcript so - and - so "" ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Postdoc A: So , I think if they 're processing it at {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , it 'll be {disfmarker} it will be in the midst of a digit string . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} I mean it {disfmarker} sure , there {disfmarker} there might be a place where it 's "" beep seven {pause} beep eight {pause} beep {pause} eight {pause} beep "" . But , you know , they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna macros for inserting the beep marks . And so , I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be a problem . We 'll have to see , but I don't think it 's gonna be a problem . +Professor D: OK . Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I dunno , I {disfmarker} I think that that 's {disfmarker} if they are in fact going to transcribe these things , uh , certainly any process that we 'd have to correct them , or whatever is {disfmarker} needs to be much less elaborate for digits than for other stuff . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: So , why not ? Sure . That was it ? +Grad F: That was it . Just , what do we do with digits ? +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: We have so many of them , {vocalsound} and it 'd be nice to {pause} actually do something with them . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna have them . Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD I: You mean there 're more than ten ? +Grad F: Anything else ? Your mike is a little low there . +Professor D: I in Berkeley , yeah . So , {vocalsound} uh {pause} You {disfmarker} you have to go a little early , right ? At twenty {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I can stay till about , uh , three forty . +Professor D: Alright . So le let 's make sure we do the ones that {disfmarker} that , uh , saved you . +PhD I: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So there was some {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} In {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} Adam 's agenda list , he had something from you about segmentation this last recognition ? +PhD I: Well , yeah . So this is just partly to inform everybody , um , and {disfmarker} and of course to get , um , input . +Grad F: Oops . +PhD I: Um , so , {nonvocalsound} uh , we had a discussion {disfmarker} Don and Liz and I had discussion last week about how to proceed with , uh , you know , with Don 's work , +PhD E: Ch +PhD I: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and , uh , one of the obvious things that occur to us was that we 're {disfmarker} since we now have Thilo 's segmenter and it works , you know , amazingly well , {vocalsound} um , we should actually basically re - evaluate the recognition , um , results using {disfmarker} you know , without cheating on the segmentations . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , that should be fairly {disfmarker} +PhD E: And how do we find the transcripts for those so that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . The references for {disfmarker} for {pause} those segments ? +PhD I: Oh , OK . So , there 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's not that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Why do you ask ? +Grad F: I could {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , actually , um , NIST has , um m a fairly sophisticated scoring program {vocalsound} that you can give a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time , +Grad F: Hand ones . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} You know , you basically just give two {pause} time - marked sequences of words , and it computes the um {disfmarker} the , {comment} uh {disfmarker} {comment} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD B: It does all the work for you . +PhD I: it does all the work for you . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So , it {disfmarker} we just {disfmarker} and we use that actually in Hub - five to do the scoring . Um . So what we 've been using so far was sort of a {pause} simplified version of the scoring . And we can {disfmarker} we can handle the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the type of problem we have here . +PhD E: So , basically you give some time constraints for {disfmarker} for the references and for {disfmarker} for the hypothesis , +PhD I: So , we ha Yeah . Right . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Maybe the {pause} start of your speech and the end of it , +PhD I: So do +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: or stuff like that . +PhD I: Right . It does time - constrained word - alignment . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So . So that should be possible . I mean that shouldn't be a problem . Uh , so that was the one thing , and the other was that , um {disfmarker} What was the other problem ? Oh ! That Thilo wanted to use {pause} the recognizer alignments to train up his , um , speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Um , so that we could use , uh {disfmarker} you know there wouldn't be so much hand {vocalsound} labelling needed to , uh {disfmarker} to generate training data for {disfmarker} for the speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . I 'm just in progress of {disfmarker} of doing that . So . +PhD I: And I think you 're in the process of doing that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: So , you can {disfmarker} {comment} you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 'll give you a lot more data , too . Won't it ? +PhD E: Yeah . So , it 's basically {disfmarker} s I think , eight meetings or something which {disfmarker} which I 'm using , and , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} before it was twenty minutes of one meeting . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} should {comment} be a little bit better . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: Great . +PhD I: That won't be perfect {disfmarker} the alignments aren't perfect , +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD I: but , um , it 's probably still better to have all this extra data , than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: We 'll see that . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD G: Actually , I had a question about that . If you find that you can {vocalsound} lower the false alarms that you get where there 's no speech , that would be useful {pause} for us to know . So , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: There were the false alarms . +PhD G: Yeah . So , {vocalsound} r right now you get f fal you know , false {disfmarker} false , uh , speech regions when it 's just like , um , {vocalsound} breath or something like that , +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yep . +PhD G: and I 'd be interested to know the {disfmarker} wha if you retrain um , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: do those actually go down or not ? Because {pause} of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . I 'll {disfmarker} can make {disfmarker} an can , like , make a c comparison of {disfmarker} of the old system to the {disfmarker} to the new one , and {pause} then {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , just to see if by doing nothing in the modeling of {disfmarker} just having that training data wh what happens . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Um another one that we had on Adam 's agenda {pause} that definitely involved you was s something about SmartKom ? +Grad F: Right . So , Rob Porzel {disfmarker} eh , Porzel ? and the , uh {disfmarker} Porzel {disfmarker} and the , uh , SmartKom group are collecting some dialogues . +PhD I: Porzel . Porzel . +Grad F: Basically they have one person sitting in here , looking at a picture , and a wizard sitting in another room somewhere . And , uh , they 're doing a travel task . And , uh , it involves starting {disfmarker} I believe starting with a {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's always the wizard , but it starts where the wizard is pretending to be a computer and it goes through a , uh , {vocalsound} speech generation system . +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , it 's changed to a synthesis for {disfmarker} for the first part now . +Grad F: Synthesis system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , and then , it goes to a real wizard and they 're evaluating that . And they wanted to use this equipment , and so the w question came up , is {disfmarker} well , here 's some more data . Should this be part of the corpus or not ? And my attitude was yes , because there might be people who are using this corpus for {pause} acoustics , as opposed to just for language . Um , or also for dialogue of various sorts . Um , so it 's not a meeting . Right ? Because it 's two people and they 're not face to face . +Professor D: Wait a minute . So , I just wanted to understand it , cuz I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} uh , hadn't quite followed this process . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . So , it 's wizard in the sen usual sense that the person who is asking the questions doesn't know that it 's , uh , a machi not a machine ? +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: At the beginning . +PhD I: Actually {disfmarker} actually , w w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We do this {disfmarker} I dunno who came up with it , but I think it 's a really clever idea . We simulate a computer breakdown halfway through the session , and so then after that , the person 's told that they 're now talking to a , uh {disfmarker} to a human . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's a human operator . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: But of course they don't know that it 's the same person both times . +PhD I: So , we {disfmarker} we collect {disfmarker} we collect both human - computer and human - human data , essentially , in the same session . +Professor D: You might wanna try collecting it the other way around sometime , saying that th the computer isn't up yet +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: and then {disfmarker} so then you can separate it out whether it 's the beginning or end kind of effects . +PhD I: That 's an idea . +Professor D: But , yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 's a good idea . +Grad F: "" I have to go now . You can talk to the computer . "" +PhD B: It 's a lot more believable , too , +Grad F: "" No ! "" +PhD B: if you tell them that they 're {disfmarker} the computer part is running on a Windows machine . And the whole breakdown thing kinda makes sense . +PhD I: O Just {disfmarker} just reboot it . +Grad F: Abort {disfmarker} abort , retry , fail ? +PhD G: So did they actually save the far - field {pause} data ? +PhD E: Yes . +Grad F: Well , this was {disfmarker} this was the question . +PhD G: Cuz at first they weren't {disfmarker} they weren't sa +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so they were saying they were not going to , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: and I said , "" well that 's silly , if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna try to do it for a corpus , there might be people who are interested in acoustics . "" +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Wow . +PhD E: No . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD E: projector {comment} We were not saying we are not {pause} doing it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor D: S +PhD E: We wer we just wanted to do {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , the {disfmarker} the question is do we save one or two far - field channels or all of them ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I see no reason not to do all of them . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: That {disfmarker} that if we have someone who is doing acoustic studies , uh , it 's nice to have the same for every recording . +PhD G: Nnn . Yeah . +PhD I: Hmm . +Professor D: So , what is the purpose of this recording ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: This is to get acoustic and language model training data for SmartKom. OK . +PhD I: It 's to be traini to b training data and development data for the SmartKom {pause} system . +PhD E: The English system ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Right . Right . +PhD B: Where does this {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: +PhD G: Maybe we can have him vary the microphones , too , +Professor D: Well , +PhD E: B +PhD G: or they 're different s speakers . +Grad F: Right . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so for their usage , they don't need anything . +Professor D: so why not {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD E: But {disfmarker} but I 'm not sure about the legal aspect of {disfmarker} of that . Is {disfmarker} is there some contract with SmartKom or something about the data ? +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: What they {disfmarker} or , is {disfmarker} is that our data which we are collecting here , +Professor D: We 've never signed anything that said that we couldn't use anything that we did . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +PhD I: We weren't supposed to collect any data . +PhD E: So . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Yeah , th th that was the question . +PhD I: This was all {disfmarker} +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: No that 's not a problem . +PhD E: Basically . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} L look , it seems to me that if we 're doing it anyway and we 're doing it for these {disfmarker} these purposes that we have , {vocalsound} and we have these distant mikes , we definitely should re should save it all as long as we 've got disk space , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and disk is pretty cheap . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: So should we save it ? +Grad F: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now th Yeah . So we save it because it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's potentially useful . And now , what do we do with it is {disfmarker} is a s separate question . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: I mean , anybody who 's training something up could {vocalsound} choose to put it {disfmarker} eh , to u include this or not . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I would not say it was part of the meetings corpus . It isn't . But it 's some other data we have , and if somebody doing experiment wants to train up including that then they can . Right ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I guess it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} begs the question of what is the meeting corpus . So if , at UW they start recording two - person hallway conversations is that part of the meeting corpus ? +Professor D: I think it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I th think the idea of two or more people conversing with one another is key . +Grad F: Well , this has two or more people conversing with each other . +Professor D: Nnn , well +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Grad F: They 're just not face to face . +PhD G: What if we just give it a {disfmarker} a name like we give these meetings a name ? +Professor D: No , it doesn't . Right ? It has {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , that was my intention . +PhD G: And then later on some people will consider it a meeting and some people won't , +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: That was my intention . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} s {vocalsound} so part of the reason that I wanted to bring this up is , {vocalsound} do we wanna handle it as a special case or do we wanna fold it in , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} Just give it a {vocalsound} title . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor D: I think it is a s +Grad F: we give everyone who 's involved as their own user ID , give it session I Ds , {vocalsound} let all the tools that handle Meeting Recorder handle it , or do we wanna special case it ? And if we were gonna special case it , who 's gonna do that ? +PhD E: So . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} it makes sense to handle it with the same infrastructure , since we don't want to duplicate things unnecessarily . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD I: But as far as distributing it , we shouldn't label it as part of this meeting corpus . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: We should let it be its own corp +Postdoc A: Well it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't see why not . It 's just a different topic . +Postdoc A: I ha I have an extra point , which is the naturalness issue . Because we have , like , meetings that have a reason . That 's one of the reasons that we were talking about this . And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} and this sounds like it 's more of an experimental setup . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 's got a different purpose . +Professor D: It 's scenario - based , it 's {disfmarker} it 's human - computer interface {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's really pretty different . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor D: But I I {disfmarker} I have no problem with somebody folding it in for some experiment they 're gonna do , but I don't think i it {disfmarker} it doesn't match anything that we 've described about meetings . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Whereas everything that we talked about them doing at {disfmarker} at UW and so forth really does . They 're actually talking {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . So w so what does that mean for how we are gonna organize things ? +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} Again , as {disfmarker} as I think Andreas was saying , {vocalsound} if you wanna use the same tools and the same conventions , there 's no problem with that . It 's just that it 's , you know , different directory , it 's called something different , it 's {disfmarker} you know . It is different . You can't just fold it in as if it 's {disfmarker} I mean , digits are different , too . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah , but those are folded in , +PhD I: It might also be potentially confusing . +Grad F: and it 's just {disfmarker} you just mark the transcripts differently . So {disfmarker} so one option is you fold it in , +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: and just simply in the file you mark somewhere that this is this type of interaction , rather than another type of interaction . +PhD I: Yeah , I th +Professor D: Well , I don I wouldn't call reading digits "" meetings "" . Right ? I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we were doing {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , but {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} I put it under the same directory tree . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , it 's in "" user doctor speech data MR "" . +PhD G: Can we just have a directory called , like , "" other stuff "" ? +Grad F: Other . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} or , I dunno . +Professor D: I mean , I don't care what directory tree you have it under . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and just , um , store it there . +Professor D: Right ? I mean that 's just a {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . My preference is to have a single procedure so that I don't have to think too much about things . +PhD I: Yes . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And , just have a marking . +Professor D: O - You {disfmarker} you can use whatever procedure you want that 's p convenient for you . +Grad F: If we do it any other way that means that we need a separate procedure , and someone has to do that . +Professor D: All I 'm saying is that there 's no way that we 're gonna tell people that reading digits is meetings . And similarly we 're not gonna tell them that someone talking to a computer to get travel information is meetings . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: Those aren't meetings . But if it makes it easier for you to pu fold them in the same procedures and have them under the same directory tree , knock yourself out . +PhD B: There 's a couple other questions that I have too , +Professor D: You know ? +PhD B: and {disfmarker} and {pause} one of them is , what about , uh , consent issues ? And the other one is , what about transcription ? Are {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Transcription is done in Munich . +PhD B: OK . So we don't have to worry about transcribing it ? +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So , w we will hafta worry about format . +PhD I: That 's a {disfmarker} that 's another argument to keep it separate , because it 's gonna follow the SmartKom transcription conventions and not the ICSI meeting transcription conventions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Ah . Good point . +Grad F: OK . Well , I didn't realize that . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Good point . But I 'm sure no one would have a problem with our folding it in for some acoustic modeling or {disfmarker} or some things . Um . Do we h do we have , uh , um , American - born folk , uh , reading German {disfmarker} German , uh , pla uh , place names and so forth ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Exactly . +Professor D: Yeah , great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: They {disfmarker} they even have a reading list . +PhD B: I bet that sounds good , huh ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's pretty funny . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: You can do that if you want . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I dunno if you want that . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: Heidelberg +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: Exactly +Grad F: Disk might eventually be an issue so we might {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we might need to , uh , {vocalsound} get some more disk pretty soon . +PhD I: Do you wanna be a subject ? +Professor D: Yeah , I be pretty good . +PhD I: We {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: We 're about {disfmarker} we 're about half {disfmarker} halfway through our disk right now . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD I: That was one of our concerns . +PhD B: Are we only half ? I thought we were more than that . +Grad F: We 're probably a little more than that because we 're using up some space that we shouldn't be on . So , once everything gets converted over to the disks we 're supposed to be using we 'll be probably , uh , seventy - five percent . +PhD B: Well , when I was looking for space for Thilo , I found one disk that had , uh , I think it was nine gigs and another one had seventeen . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD B: And everything else was sorta committed . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Were those backed - up or non - backed - up ? +PhD B: Those were non - backed - up . +PhD E: Non - back - up . +Grad F: Right . So that 's different . +PhD B: S oh , you 're talking about backed - up . +Grad F: I 'm much more concerned about the backed - up . The non - backed - up , +PhD B: I haven't looked to see how much of that we have . +Grad F: yeah , i is cheap . I mean , if we need to we can buy a disk , hang it off a s uh , workstation . If it 's not backed - up the sysadmins don't care too much . +Professor D: Yeah . So , I mean , pretty much anytime we need a disk , we can get it at the rate that we 're {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can {disfmarker} I shouldn't be saying this , but , you can just {disfmarker} you know , since the back - ups are every night , you can recycle the backed - up diskspace . +Grad F: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's risky . +Professor D: Yeah . You really shouldn't be saying {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Beep that out . +Professor D: Da - we had allowed Dave to listen to these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} these , {vocalsound} uh , recordings . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I me and there 's been this conversation going on about getting another file server , and {disfmarker} and {vocalsound} we can do that . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We 'll take the opportunity and get another big raft of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of disk , I guess . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's really the back - up issue rather than the file server issue . +PhD I: Well , I think {disfmarker} {comment} I think there 's an argument for having {disfmarker} you know , you could use our old file server for {disfmarker} for disks that have data that {pause} is very rarely accessed , and then have a fast new file server for data that is , um , heavily accessed . +Grad F: Yeah . My understanding is , the issue isn't really the file server . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: We could always put more disks on . +PhD I: Yeah . It 's the back it 's the back - up capaci +Grad F: It 's the back - up system . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} which is near saturation , apparently . So . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I think the file server could become an issue as we get a whole bunch more new compute machines . +Professor D: Soon . +PhD B: And we 've got , you know , fifty machines trying to access data off of Abbott at once . +Grad F: Well , we 're alright for now because the network 's so slow . +PhD I: I mean , I think {disfmarker} I think we 've raised this before and someone said this is not a reliable way to do it , but the {disfmarker} What about putting the stuff on , like , C - CD - ROM or DVD or something ? +Grad F: Yeah . That was me . I was the one who said it was not reliable . The - they {disfmarker} they wear out . +PhD I: OK . Oh , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD I: But they wear out just from sitting on the shelf ? +Grad F: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD I: Or from being {pause} read and read ? +Grad F: No . Read and write don't hurt them too much unless you scratch them . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Grad F: But the r the write once , and the read - writes , don't last . So you don't wa you don't wanna put ir un reproduceable data {pause} on them . +PhD I: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Wear out after what amount of time ? +Grad F: Year or two . +Postdoc A: Would it be {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Year or two ? +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Wow . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD I: But if that {disfmarker} then you would think you 'd {pause} hear much more clamoring about data loss +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , yeah , all the L +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I don't know many people who do it on CD . I mean , they 're {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} fo +Professor D: LDC - all the LDC distributions are on CD - ROM . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad F: They 're on CD , but they 're not {disfmarker} tha that 's not the only source . +PhD G: Like {disfmarker} +Grad F: They have them on disk . And they burn new ones every once in a while . But if you go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you go k +PhD I: But , you know , we have {disfmarker} +PhD G: But we have like thirty {pause} you know , from {pause} ten years ago ? +Professor D: We have all sorts of CD - ROMs from a long time ago . +PhD G: No . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah ! +Grad F: Well , th th OK . +PhD G: Ten years ago . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Ninety - one , and they 're still all fine . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Were they burned or were they pressed ? +PhD G: Uh , both . I 've burned them and they 're still OK . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the pressed ones last for +PhD G: I mean , usually they 're {disfmarker} +Grad F: well , not forever , they 've been finding even those degrade . +Professor D: Oh , I see . +Grad F: But , uh , the burned ones {disfmarker} I mean , when I say two or three years what I 'm saying is that I have had disks which are gone in a year . +PhD G: That 's what I {disfmarker} +Grad F: On the average , it 'll probably be three or four years . But , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you don't want to per p have your only copy on a media that fails . +PhD I: Mmm . +Grad F: And they do . Um , if you have them professionally pressed , y you know , they 're good for decades . +PhD I: So how about {disfmarker} ? So {disfmarker} so how about putting them on that plus , like on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on DAT or some other medium that isn't risky ? +Grad F: I think th um , we can already put them on tape . And the tape is hi is very reliable . +PhD I: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the {disfmarker} the only issue is then {pause} if we need access to them . So that 's fine f if we don't need access to them . +PhD I: Right . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if they last {disfmarker} Say , they actually last , like , five years , huh , in {disfmarker} in the typical case , and {disfmarker} and occasionally you might need to recreate one , and then you get your tape out , but otherwise you don't . Can't you just {disfmarker} you just put them on {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So you just archive it on the tape , and then put it on CD as well ? +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Oh . So you 're just saying put them on C Ds for normal access . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: What you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , you can do that but that 's pretty annoying , because the C Ds are so slow . +PhD G: See {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Mmm . +PhD B: What 'd be nice is a system that re - burned the C Ds every {vocalsound} year . +PhD G: H everytime it was a "" gonna "" {disfmarker} "" gonna die "" . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I mean , the C Ds are {disfmarker} are an op +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: It 's like {disfmarker} like dynamic ra DRAM . +PhD E: Just before . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Just before they be before it goes bad , it burns them in . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the CD is an alternative to tape . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: ICSI already has a perfectly good tape system and it 's more reliable . +Professor D: You know {disfmarker} I would think {disfmarker} +Grad F: So for archiving , we 'll just use tape . +PhD I: One {disfmarker} one thing I don't understand is , if you have the data {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you if the meeting data is put on disk exactly once , then it 's backed - up once and the back - up system should never have to bother with it , uh , more than once . +Grad F: Well , regardless {disfmarker} Well , first of all there was , um , a problem with the archive in that I was every once in a while doing a chmod on all the directories an or recursive chmod and chown , because {vocalsound} they weren't getting set correctly every once in a while , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I was just , {vocalsound} doing a minus R star , {vocalsound} not realizing that that caused {pause} it to be re - backed - up . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Ah . +Grad F: But normally you 're correct . But even without that , the back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but this back - up system is smart enough to figure out that something hasn't changed and doesn't need to be {pause} backed - up again . +Professor D: The b I think th the {disfmarker} at least the once tha that you put it on , it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it would {comment} {vocalsound} kill that . +Grad F: Sure , but we still have enough changed that the nightly back - ups are starting to take too long . +PhD I: OK . So {disfmarker} so then , if {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so then , let 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . +Grad F: It has nothing to do with the meeting . It 's just the general ICSI back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: Right . OK . Right . So , what if we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh , what {disfmarker} what do they call these , um {pause} high density {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well , why don't you have this {disfmarker} have a {disfmarker} this conversation with Dave Johnson tha rather than with me ? +PhD I: No , no . Because this is {pause} maybe something that we can do without involving Dave , and {disfmarker} and , putting more burden on him . How about we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , one of these high density tape drives ? And we put the data actually on non - backed - up disks . And we do our own back - up once and for all {disfmarker} all , and then {disfmarker} and we don't have to bother this @ @ up ? +Grad F: Actually , you know , we could do that just with the tape {disfmarker} with the current tape . +PhD I: I dunno what the these tapes {disfmarker} uh , at some point these {disfmarker} I dunno . What kind of tape drive is it ? +Grad F: I dunno but it 's an automatic robot so it 's very convenient . +PhD I: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Wh The o the one that we have ? +Grad F: You just run a program to restore them . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD I: But it might interfere with their back - up schedule , +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , we have s we {disfmarker} Don't we have our own ? +PhD I: eh . +Professor D: Something wi th that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't used by the back - up gang ? Don't we have something downstairs ? +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} +PhD B: What kinda tape drive ? +Professor D: Just in {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} no , but Andreas 's point is a good one . And we don't have to do anything ourselves to do that . They 're already right now on tape . +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: Right . So your {disfmarker} your point is , and I think it 's a good one , that we could just get more disk and put it there . +PhD I: Mmm . On an XH {disfmarker} uh , X {disfmarker} X whatever partition . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's not a bad idea . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's basically what I was gonna say , is that a disk is {disfmarker} is so cheap it 's es essentially , you know , close to free . And the only thing that costs is the back - up {pause} issue , {vocalsound} eh , to first order . +Grad F: So once it 's on tape {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Professor D: And we can take care of that by putting it on non - back {pause} up drives and just backing it up once onto this tape . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Good . It 's good . +PhD G: So , who 's gonna do these back - ups ? The people that collect it ? +Grad F: Uh Well , I 'll talk to Dave , and {disfmarker} and see what th how {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} what the best way of doing that is . +PhD B: It 's probably gonna n +Grad F: There 's a little utility that will manually burn a tape for you , and that 's probably the right way to do it . +PhD B: Yeah , and we should probably make that part of the procedure for recording the meetings . +PhD G: Well , s +Grad F: Yep . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's what I 'm wondering , if {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {pause} we 're g we 're gonna automate that . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: My intention is to {pause} do a script that 'll do everything . +PhD G: I mean , you don't have to physically put a tape in the drive ? +Grad F: No . It 's all tape robot , +PhD G: Or s ? s ? {comment} Oh , OK . +Grad F: so you just sit down at your computer and you type a command . +PhD G: So it 's just {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD I: Yeah , but then you 're effectively using the resources of the back - up system . Or is that a different tape robot ? +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: But not at the same time . +Grad F: But y but you would be anyway . +PhD B: No , no , no . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD B: He 's saying get a whole different drive . +Grad F: Because {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . See {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there 's no reason to do that . +PhD I: Yeah , just give a dedi +Grad F: It {disfmarker} we already have it there and it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I 'm saying is @ @ i if you go to Dave , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and ask him "" can I use your tape robot ? "" , he will say , "" well {pause} that 's gonna screw up our back - up operation . "" +Grad F: No , we won't . He 'll say "" if {disfmarker} if that means {pause} that it 's not gonna be backed - up standardly , great . "" +Professor D: He - I {disfmarker} Dave has {disfmarker} has promoted this in the past . So I don't think he 's actually against it . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely no problem . +PhD I: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: Alright . +Professor D: OK . +PhD I: Good . +PhD G: What about if the times overlap with the normal back - up time ? +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a utility which queues up . It just queues it up and {disfmarker} and when it 's available , it will copy it . +PhD G: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And then you can tell it to then remove it from the disk or you can , you know , do it a a few days later or whatever you wanna do , after you confirm that it 's really backed - up . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: NW {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: You saying NW archive ? +Grad F: NW archive . +Postdoc A: Yep {comment} {vocalsound} And if you did that during the day it would never make it to the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: That 's what it is . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: And then there wouldn't be this extra load . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} if he {disfmarker} you have to put the data on a {disfmarker} on a non - backed - up disk to begin with . +Postdoc A: Well , but you can have it NW archive to {disfmarker} you can have , {vocalsound} uh , a non - backed - up disk NW archived , +Grad F: Right . +PhD I: So that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} otherwise you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and it 'll never show up on the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: Right . And then it never {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Grad F: Right . Which I 'm sure would make ever the sysadmins very happy . +PhD I: Right . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: That 's what we should do . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: So , that means we 'll probably wanna convert all {disfmarker} all those files {disfmarker} filesystems to non - backed - up media . +PhD B: That sounds good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Um , another , thing on the agenda said SRI recognition experiments ? What 's that ? +PhD I: SRI recognition ? Oh . +Grad F: That wasn't me . +Professor D: Uh . +PhD I: Um . well , +Professor D: Who 's that ? +PhD I: we have lots of them . Uh , I dunno . Chuck , do you have any {disfmarker} any updates ? +PhD B: N I 'm successfully , uh , increasing the error rate . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's good . +Grad H: Mmm . +PhD I: Oh . +PhD G: Lift the Herve approach . +PhD B: Yeah . So , I mean I 'm just playing with , um , the number of Gaussians that we use in the {disfmarker} the recognizer , and {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , you have to sa you have to {pause} tell people that you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing {disfmarker} you 're trying the tandem features . +PhD B: Yes , I 'm using tandem features . +Grad F: Oh you are ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Cool . +PhD I: A and I 'm still tinkering with the PLP features . +Grad F: +Professor D: Yeah , I got confused by the results . It sai because {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} meeting before , {vocalsound} you said "" OK , we got it down to where they 're {disfmarker} they 're within a tenth of a percent "" . +PhD B: That was on males . +PhD I: Right . That was {disfmarker} that was before I tried it on the females . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD I: See , women are nothi are , trouble . +Professor D: It 's the women are the problem . OK . +PhD I: Right ? As we all know . So . +PhD G: Well , let 's just say that men are simple . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} {comment} so , when {disfmarker} So I {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I ha +Grad F: That was a quick response . +PhD I: So , we had reached the point where {disfmarker} +PhD G: I 'm well rehearsed . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: we had reached the point where , {comment} um , on the male portion of the {pause} development set , the , um {disfmarker} or one of the development sets , I should say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} the male error rate with , uh , ICSI PLP features was pretty much identical with , uh , SRI features . which are {pause} MFCC . So , um , then I thought , "" Oh , great . I 'll j I 'll {disfmarker} just let 's make sure everything works on the females . "" And the error rate {disfmarker} you know , there was a three percent difference . +Professor D: Oh . Uh - huh . +PhD I: So , +PhD G: Is there less training data ? +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , we don +PhD I: No , actually there 's more training data . +PhD G: This is on just digits ? +Professor D: No . +PhD I: No , no . +Grad F: No . +PhD B: Hub - five . +Grad F: It 's , uh , Swi +PhD G: Oh , sorry . OK . This is on {disfmarker} +PhD I: This is Hub - five . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Hub - five . Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Um , and the test data is CallHome and Switchboard . So , uh {disfmarker} so then {pause} um {disfmarker} Oh , and plus the {disfmarker} the vocal tract {pause} length normalization didn't {disfmarker} actually made things worse . So something 's really seriously wrong . So {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha ! OK . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So {disfmarker} but you see , now , between {disfmarker} between the males and the females , there 's certainly a much bigger difference in the scaling range , than there is , say , just within the males . And what you were using before was scaling factors that were just from the {disfmarker} the m the {pause} SRI front - end . And that worked {disfmarker} that worked fine . +PhD I: That 's true . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but now you 're looking over a larger range and it may not be so fine . +PhD I: Well , um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} d so the one thing that I then tried was to put in the low - pass filter , which we have in the {disfmarker} So , most {disfmarker} most Hub - five systems actually band - limit the {disfmarker} uh , at about , uh , thirty - seven hundred , um , hertz . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Although , you know , normally , I mean , the channel goes to four {disfmarker} four thousand . Right ? So , um {disfmarker} And that actually helped , uh {disfmarker} uh , a little bit . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Um {pause} and it didn't hurt on the males either . So , um {disfmarker} And I 'm now , uh , trying the {disfmarker} Oh , and suddenly , also the v the vocal tract length normalization only in the test se on the test data . So , you can do vocal tract length normalization on the test data only or on both the training and the test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And you expect it to help a little bit if you do it only on the test , and s more if you do it on both training and test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so the {disfmarker} It now helps , if you do it only on the test , and I 'm currently retraining another set of models where it 's both in the training and the test , and then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have , hopefully , even better results . So {disfmarker} But there 's {disfmarker} It looks like there will still be some difference , maybe between one and two percent , um , for the females . +Professor D: Huh . +PhD I: And so , um , you know , I 'm open to suggestions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And it is true that the , uh {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , we are using the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} it can't be just the VTL , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: because if you don't do VTL in both systems , uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the females are considerably worse in the {disfmarker} with the PLP features . +Professor D: No {disfmarker} no . I {disfmarker} I remember that . +Grad F: It 's much worse . Yeah . +PhD I: So there must be some {disfmarker} something else going on . +PhD G: Well , what 's the standard {disfmarker} ? Yeah , so I thought the performance was actually a little better on females than males . +Grad F: That 's what I thought , too . +PhD I: Um , {pause} that {pause} ye {comment} overall , yes , but on this particular development test set , they 're actually a little worse . But that 's beside the point . We 're looking at the discrepancy between the SRI system and the SRI system when trained with ICSI features . +PhD G: Right . I 'm just wondering if that {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have any indication of your standard features , +Grad F: What 's {disfmarker} Are the freq ? +PhD G: you know , if that 's also different {pause} or in the same direction or not . +Professor D: You 're {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} lemme ask a q more basic que +PhD G: Cuz {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , is this , uh {disfmarker} uh , iterative , Baum - Welch training ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Or is it Viterbi training ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: It 's Baum - Welch training . +Professor D: Baum - Welch training . And how do you determine when to {disfmarker} to stop iterating ? +PhD I: Um {disfmarker} Well , actually , we {disfmarker} we just basically do a s a fixed number of iterations . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD I: Uh , in this case four . Um , which {disfmarker} Eh , we used to do only three , and then we found out we can squeeze {disfmarker} And it was basically , we 're s we 're keeping it on the safe side . But you 're d Right . It might be that one more iteration {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} would help , but it 's sort of +Professor D: Or maybe {disfmarker} or maybe you 're doing one too many . +PhD I: you know . +Professor D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , but with Baum - Welch , there shouldn't be an over - fitting issue , really . +Professor D: Uh . {comment} Well , there can be . Sure . +Grad F: Well , you can try each one on a cross - validation set , +PhD I: Um . +Professor D: It d if you {disfmarker} if you remember some years ago Bill Byrne did a thing where he was {disfmarker} he was looking at that , +Grad F: can't you ? +Professor D: and he showed that you could get it . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: So . But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , um {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , yeah . We can {disfmarker} Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the easy one to check , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: because we save all the intermediate models +Grad F: Do you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: and we can {disfmarker} +Professor D: And in each case , ho +Grad F: What {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: um , I 'm sorry {disfmarker} in each case how do you determine , you know , the {disfmarker} the usual {pause} fudge factors ? The , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , language , uh , scaling , acoustic scaling , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: Um {pause} I uh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm actually re - optimizing them . Although that hasn't shown to make {pause} a big difference . +Professor D: OK . And the pru the question he was asking at one point about pruning , uh {disfmarker} Remember that one ? +PhD I: Pruning {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Well , he was {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} it looked like the probabil at one point he was looking at the probabilities he was getting out {disfmarker} at the likelihoods he was getting out of PLP versus mel cepstrum , and they looked pretty different , +PhD I: Pruning in the {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , the likelihoods were {pause} lower for the PLP . +Professor D: as I recall . +PhD G: Oh . +Professor D: And so , uh , there 's the question {disfmarker} +PhD I: I you mean {disfmarker} did you see this in the SRI system ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Was just looking through the log files , +PhD I: Um . Well , the likelihoods are {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can't directly compare them , because , for every set of models you compute a new normalization . And so these log probabilities , they aren't directly comparable +PhD B: Oh . +PhD I: because you have a different normalization constants for each model you train . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: But , still it 's a question {disfmarker} +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: if you have some threshold somewhere in terms of beam search or something , +PhD B: Well , yeah . That 's what I was wondering . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: W yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , if you have one threshold that works well because the range of your likelihoods is in this area {disfmarker} +PhD I: We prune very conservatively . I mean , as we saw with the meeting data , um {pause} we could probably tighten the pruning without really {disfmarker} So we we basically we have a very open beam . +Professor D: But , you 're only talking about a percent or two . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Here we 're - we 're saying that we there {disfmarker} gee , there 's this b eh , there 's this difference here . And {pause} it {disfmarker} See cuz , i i {comment} there could be lots of things . Right ? But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , um , let 's suppose just for a second that , uh , we 've sort of taken out a lot of the {disfmarker} the major differences , uh , between the two . +PhD I: Right . Course . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: I mean , we 're already sort of using the mel scale and we 're using the same style filter integration , and {vocalsound} and , well , we 're making sure that low and high {disfmarker} +PhD I: Actually , there is {disfmarker} the difference in that . So , for the PLP features we use the triangular filter shapes . And for the {disfmarker} in the SRI front - end we use the trapezoidal one . +Grad F: And what 's the top frequency of each ? +PhD I: Well , now it 's the same . It 's thirty {disfmarker} thirty to seven hundred and sixty hertz . +Grad F: Yeah . Exp - one 's triangular , one 's trapezoidal . So {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Before we {disfmarker} i i th with straight PLP , it 's trapezoidal also . +PhD I: Well {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But then we had a slight difference in the {disfmarker} in the scale . Uh , so . +PhD I: Since currently the Feacalc program doesn't allow me to change {pause} the filter shape independently of the scale . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD I: And , I did the experiment on the SRI front - end where I tried the {disfmarker} y where the standard used to be to use trapezoidal filters . You can actually continuously vary it between the two . And so I wen I swi I tried the trap eh , triangular ones . And it did slightly worse , but it 's really a small difference . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor D: Coup - Couple tenths of a percent or something . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad F: So it 's not just losing some {vocalsound} frequency range . +PhD I: Yeah , exactly . So , it 's not {disfmarker} I don't think the filter shape by itself will make a huge {comment} difference . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . So the oth {vocalsound} the other thing that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor D: So , f i We 've always viewed it , anyway , as the major difference between the two , is actually in the smoothing , that the {disfmarker} that the , um , {vocalsound} PLP , and {disfmarker} and the reason PLP has been advantageous in , uh , slightly noisy situations is because , {vocalsound} PLP does the smoothing at the end by an auto - regressive model , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and mel cepstrum does it by just computing the lower cepstral coefficients . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . So , um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD I: OK . So {pause} one thing I haven't done yet is to actually do all of this with a much larger {disfmarker} with our full training set . So right now , we 're using a {disfmarker} I don't know , forty ? I i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} eh {comment} it 's a f training set that 's about , um , you know , by a factor of four smaller than what we use when we train the full system . So , some of these smoothing issues are over - fitting for that matter . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And the Baum - Welch should be much less of a factor , if you go full {disfmarker} whole hog . +Professor D: Could be . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , w so , just um {disfmarker} so the strategy is to first sort of treat things {pause} with fast turn - around on a smaller training set and then , {vocalsound} when you 've sort of , narrowed it down , you try it on a larger training set . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so , we haven't done that yet . +Professor D: Now the other que related question , though , is {disfmarker} is , {vocalsound} uh , what 's the boot models for these things ? +PhD I: Th - th the boot models are trained from scratch . So we compute , um {disfmarker} So , we start with a , um , alil alignment that we computed with the b sort of the best system we have . And {disfmarker} and then we train from scratch . So we com we do a , you know , w um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We collect the {disfmarker} uh , the observations from those alignments under each of the feature sets that {disfmarker} that we {pause} train . And then , from there we do , um {disfmarker} There 's a lot of , actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The way it works , you first train a phonetically - tied mixture model . Um . You do a total of {disfmarker} First you do a context - independent PTM model . Then you switch to a context {disfmarker} You do two iterations of that . Then you do two iterations of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of context - dependent phonetically - tied mixtures . And then from that you {disfmarker} you do the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you go to a state - clustered model , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: and you do four iterations of that . So there 's a lot of iterations overall between your original boot models and the final models . I don't think that {disfmarker} Hmm . We have never seen big differences . Once I thought "" oh , I can {disfmarker} Now I have these much better models . I 'll re - generate my initial alignments . Then I 'll get much better models at the end . "" Made no difference whatsoever . It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} eh , i +Professor D: Right . Well , mis for making things better . +PhD I: the boot models are recur +Professor D: Yeah . But , this for making things worse . This it migh Th - the thought is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is possible {disfmarker} another possible {pause} partial cause is if the boot models {vocalsound} used a comple used a different feature set , that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But there are no boot models , in fact . You {disfmarker} you 're not booting from initial models . You 're booting from initial alignments . +Professor D: Which you got from a different feature set . +PhD I: That 's correct . +Professor D: So , those features look at the data differently , actually . +PhD I: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , you know , they {disfmarker} they will find boundaries a little differently , though {disfmarker} You know , all th all that sort of thing is actually slightly different . I 'd expect it to be a minor effect , +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm saying is {disfmarker} +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +PhD I: So , we e w f w For a long time we had used boot alignments that had been trained with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the same front - end but with acoustic models that were , like , fifteen percent worse than what we use now . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And with a dict different dictionary {disfmarker} with a considerably different dictionary , which was much less detailed and much less well - suited . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , {vocalsound} then we switched to new boot alignments , which {disfmarker} which now had the benefit of all these improvements that we 've made over two years in the system . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: And , the result in the end was no different . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: So , what I 'm saying is , the exact nature of these boot alignments is probably not {pause} a big factor in the quality of the final models . +Professor D: Yeah , maybe not . But {pause} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I st still see it as {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a history to this , too , +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: but I {disfmarker} uh , I don't wanna go into , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th I think it could be the things {pause} that it {disfmarker} the data is being viewed in a certain way , uh , that a beginning is here rather than there and so forth , +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: because the actual signal - processing you 're doing is slightly different . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: But , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} that 's probably not it . +PhD I: Yeah . Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I should really reserve , uh , any conclusions until we 've done it on the large training set , um , and until we 've seen the results with the {disfmarker} with the VTL in training . +Professor D: Yeah . At some point you also might wanna take the same thing and try it on , uh , some Broadcast News data or something else that actually has {disfmarker} has some noisy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} noisy components , so we can see if any conclusions we come to holds {vocalsound} across {pause} different data . +PhD I: So . Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , uh , with this , I have to leave . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: Hmm ! +Professor D: So , is there something quick about Absinthe {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: With this said . +Grad F: Uh . Just what we were talking about before , which is that I ported a Blass library to Absinthe , and then got {disfmarker} got it working with fast - forward , and got {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a speedup roughly proportional to the number of processors times the clock cycle . +PhD I: Oh . +Grad F: So , that 's pretty good . +PhD I: Oh ! Cool . +Grad F: Um , I 'm in the process of doing it for Quicknet , but there 's something going wrong and it 's about half the speed that I was estimating it should be , and I 'm not sure why . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But I 'll keep working on it . But the {disfmarker} what it means is that it 's likely that for net training and forward passes , we 'll {disfmarker} Absinthe will be a good machine . Especially if we get a few more processors and upgrade the processors . +PhD I: A few more processors ? How many are you shooting for ? +Grad F: There 're five now . It can hold eight . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Yeah , we 'll just go buy them , I guess . +Grad F: And it 's also five - fifty megahertz and you can get a gigahertz . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +PhD I: Can you mix {pause} t uh , processors of different speed ? +Grad F: I don't think so . I think we 'd have to do all {disfmarker} +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Probably just throw away the old ones , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Thank you {pause} for the box , +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'll just go buy their process . +Grad H: Hmm ! +PhD I: Maybe we can stick them in another system . I dunno . +Grad F: We 'd have to get a {disfmarker} almost certainly have to get a , uh , Netfinity server . +PhD I: I see . +Grad F: They 're pretty {disfmarker} pretty specialized . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Is {disfmarker} is Liz coming back , do you know , or {disfmarker} ? I dunno . Yeah . Oh , you don't . OK . Alright . Alright . See you . Um . Alright . So {disfmarker} Uh , they 're having tea out there . So I guess the other thing that we were gonna talk about is {disfmarker} is , uh , demo . And , um , so , these are the demos for the {pause} uh , July , uh , meeting {pause} and , um {disfmarker} DARPA mee +Grad F: July what ? Early July ? Late July ? +Professor D: Oh , I think it 's July fifteenth . +Postdoc A: Sixteen to eighteen , I think . +Professor D: Is that it ? +Postdoc A: Roughly . +Professor D: Yeah , sixteenth , eighteenth . Yeah . So , we talked about getting something together for that , but maybe , uh {disfmarker} maybe we 'll just put that off for now , given that {disfmarker} But I think maybe we should have a {disfmarker} a sub - meeting , I think , uh , probably , uh , Adam and {disfmarker} and , uh , Chuck and me should talk about {disfmarker} should get together and talk about that sometime soon . +Grad F: Over a cappuccino tomorrow ? +Professor D: Yeah {comment} something like that . Um , uh , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll involve Dan Ellis at some {disfmarker} some level as well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . OK . The {disfmarker} the tea is {disfmarker} is going , so , uh , I suggest we do , uh {disfmarker} uh , a unison . +Grad F: A unison digits ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Gets our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Which is gonna be a little hard for a couple people because we have different digits forms . +PhD E: Oops . +Grad F: We have a {disfmarker} I found a couple of old ones . +Professor D: Oh . +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor D: Well , that 'll be interesting . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have you done digits before ? +Professor D: No . +Grad C: I haven't done it . +Grad F: OK . So , uh , the idea is just to read each line {pause} with a short pause between lines , +Grad C: Alright . +Grad F: not between {disfmarker} And , uh , since we 're in a hurry , we were just gonna read everyone all at once . So , if you sorta plug your ears and read {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: So first read the transcript number , and then start reading the {pause} digits . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad F: OK ? One , two , three . +Professor D: OK we 're done . +Grad F: And {disfmarker} +","In a meeting discussion, the group covers several topics including Morgan's interest in discussing the ARPA demo, transcription statuses with IBM, the addition of SmartKom data to the meeting corpus, reorganization status, Absinthe (a multiprocessor UNIX/Linux system), and SRI recognition experiments. Professor D also suggests having a sub-meeting to plan for a demo at a DARPA meeting in July. The meeting concludes with the members reading digits in unison for transcription purposes, despite having different digit forms." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here , 'kay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: And we can start meeting . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} . +Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting ? +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um as you can see here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you . I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Next . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also . +Project Manager: Yes . Indeed . +Industrial Designer: Right ? Okay . +Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Um . W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them . Um , we will see in which order we will handle them of . Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager , I try to work them out , they were quite abstract , and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it . Uh Um about the functions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target ? +Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh the customers , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: the customers , indeed yes . Think that's that's important matter . +Marketing: That's the big question yeah . +Project Manager: Uh . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch . Good . Um . Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations ? +Marketing: No , I don't . +Project Manager: You don't have presentation ? +Marketing: I wasn't . No . +Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh +Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything . +Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so , a hundred people , just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control . Um . It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you , I've just got a web page with some data on it . Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls . Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Um . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot , so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television . Uh . Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons , so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said ? +Marketing: I have an a web page yes . +Project Manager: Yes , mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh . Uh about this . +Marketing: Yep . Yep , sure . Mm-hmm . So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control . Um , power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour . Um , channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings , audio settings , which are only used very infrequently . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour , so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used . Um . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room , so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users . Um . +Project Manager: Yes yes , I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control , they want something that's easier to use straight away , more intuitive perhaps . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one . Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn . Okay . +Marketing: Um . And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap} +Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that . +User Interface: {gap} . What do you mean there ? +Marketing: For R_S_I_ ? Respet Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . They think that or do their doctor the doctor says ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh ? +Marketing: Yeah . That's what the report says yeah . +Project Manager: So mm . +Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually , if I email it to you now . +User Interface: You can disconnect it there +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker} +User Interface: no ? +Marketing: Oh no , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay . +Marketing: Um , s hang on . +Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah . You can connect this one . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: All to your computer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well . +Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this . It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you . It's just a web link . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about , which is interesting , is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute . +Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control . +Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker} +Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful . +Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that ? +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +Marketing: Yes , I'll just get this up . +Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well potentially yeah , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech . +Marketing: I think even for interesti +Industrial Designer: Okay . Interesting idea . +Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well . You wanna have both options . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is , my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound , so say where it is . But the these are all quite fancy features +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well it would be f +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: No you can't . +Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is , maybe you know ? +User Interface: Oh . Well , {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on , off , one , two , twenty three , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , +User Interface: It's it's going to be li +Project Manager: that that that that's mm . +User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case +Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts +User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . So +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker} +Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control , who would pay more for it , um . Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more , it goes down from there , seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five , thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five , um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Okay it's uh decline . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: But we sh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Decline with age , mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product , um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yes . We will talk about it later . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Did you get the email ? +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep , that one . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Just follow that link . +Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us +Marketing: It'll be in a different window , yep . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Okay perfect . .. . +Marketing: Mm . So that's the figure that I was just talking about there , with the different demographics . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm I okay +Project Manager: Oh , +Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , y y you can move , uh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair ? +Project Manager: Yes . You can you can sa take my chair . +Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's a channel selection , a module {gap} , this and this function , +Marketing: Sorry ? Oh . +User Interface: go to the {gap} . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer . And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control . Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction , how does it work , so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit , the chip , that can compose messages , usually uh through a um infrared bit +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages , alright . So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product . I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design . So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound} . Uh we want an on off button , it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important , and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: right . So the components I quickly draw here , is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver . This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design , uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me +Marketing: You drew it a long time ago ? +Industrial Designer: you know . +Project Manager: Is huh +Marketing: Ninety one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that +Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component ? +Industrial Designer: So . So +Project Manager: I mean , are they cheap , or are they uh reliable ? What were your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design , uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components +Project Manager: Yes . It it it's more clear now I think . +Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma +Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver , I mean can you can you get back to it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh , the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it . So we we must adapt to the to the receiver . +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah . +Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Mm . Mm . Yes . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um . Okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Thank you . +User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies . +Industrial Designer: The frequencies ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Of course yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful , +Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah . +User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem , like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound} , so basically {gap} through all the things . +Industrial Designer: That can control o other things . Yeah . +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account +Marketing: That's handy . +Project Manager: Yeah yes +Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud , you can just turn it off . +Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah . I like that idea . +Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh okay . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay so voila . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay , voila , mm so mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Oh . I {disfmarker} Uh , sorry ? I know where it is . +User Interface: It's on the desktop . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Technical function . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well . So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do , I think my last presented what is going inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yep . +User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it . So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set , as Mael has pointed , and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver . So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys , people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone , and it sends a message to the T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household , actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on , off button and play , uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option . And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine , but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows , but uh uh . Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option , it can without any , it's a very simple thing , um which which you can vouch {vocalsound} . And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and , but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market . And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people . And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . How would that work ? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_ , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use ? +User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster , browse slow , you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities . +User Interface: It's the next generation thing , +Project Manager: Mm yes , +User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there , +User Interface: It's goi +Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop . +User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . So +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . That's fair enough . Mm . But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here . That's , +User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote , +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario , I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me . +Marketing: Mm . Because y +Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mean , you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects +Marketing: Mm . Yep . +Project Manager: yes . +User Interface: Yeah . So {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation . +Project Manager: Mm . Very well . +User Interface: Well . So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand , video over-demand or what we call it as , it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies , you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies , and then you select those list . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: basically you go off , it downloads the movie , it gives for you +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_ . +Project Manager: Good . +User Interface: And thi this is going to come . +Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it , it's streamed uh online uh yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: Um , so u um +User Interface: so . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you . Um +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: So we should think about it um . Do we include it , and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used , well very much , but it's it is still used . Um +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: further yes we must think , uh do we stay uh to to television only , the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh , or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s ? +Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders . Um , furthermore , uh , w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: uh which well +Industrial Designer: Fourteen +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty . +Industrial Designer: or for O okay . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um therefore , {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs , so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image , so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys , you know right now if you take it you have like zero , one , two , three like a keys separately , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you press on the top , it takes one number , you press on the bottom it takes another number , and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually +Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting , especially if we're going after a younger market , +User Interface: Yeah so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . Yes yes +Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things , +Project Manager: mo +Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that , you know , product . +Marketing: that's , +Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah , there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones , not too many pretty remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm mm . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . .. . +User Interface: Okay , it works . Fine . So , for example you have uh presently uh keys like one , two , three like this , actually , and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that +Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . {gap} +Project Manager: Uh thank you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay . How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way ? +Project Manager: Mm well +Marketing: 'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all +Project Manager: I think fi five min +User Interface: Forty minutes ? +Marketing: and it's a very important issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so . {vocalsound} too sorry , so we basically don't change the uh original order of them +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing , so if you press on the top it takes the one , it takes the three , uh four , sorry four here uh five and six , +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: for you don't have too many keys +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Which I think is quite tricky . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course they have already one . So our our our remote control has to be better . +Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause it's only a low market , it's a cheap-end remote control , we can't beat modern functionality , we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it , th the design of it but that's not a big seller , if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just 'cause it looks pretty , they have to actually need it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing . +Project Manager: Mm . I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . But why are they buying one in the first place ? +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed . So that will be about functionality {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote . I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote , otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product , because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality . +Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , we can't , with the price range . We We're not building a universal remote , we're not building a high end product . +Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_ +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And um {disfmarker} But yeah +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . If we're getting into universal remote territory , we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot . +Project Manager: I don't know . I don't know whether that's necessary . +Industrial Designer: Ye +Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker} +Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well , th for long term . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive . +Marketing: And quite complicated to use , +Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between , +Marketing: yes . +Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Not as flexible maybe , yeah , but s +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on . +Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group . +Marketing: Okay . So they're {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes . Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Yep . I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is . Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range , or are we kind of middle to bottom ? I don't know . +Project Manager: Uh well +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So d Do you agree ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah +User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin +Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control . +User Interface: Uh yeah , that's that's what we needed basically . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . Okay . +User Interface: Uh that's needed right now . And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market , we really need that . +Marketing: Yeah . So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices , being able to switch between them , there may be stereo , V_C_R_ and T_V_ . +User Interface: Actu +Industrial Designer: Yes . Exactly . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote , but not at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know , where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them . +Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you ? Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market . +Marketing: Mm-hmm yep . +User Interface: Voila {vocalsound} . Hmm . +Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in +User Interface: So . Well . +Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now . We can we'll we'll go +Industrial Designer: Oh +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then . +User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: W yes , +User Interface: for the {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh +User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting . But you will be informed via the computer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Cool . So see you later . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect . +","The meeting involved the project manager, a marketing representative, an industrial designer, and a user interface specialist. The agenda was to discuss the previous meeting notes, user requirements, new requirements from the account manager, and to make a decision about the target group and functionality for a remote control project. + +The marketing representative shared research findings, indicating that most users find their remote controls ugly, would pay for better aesthetics, and that there is a desire for easier-to-use, intuitive controls. There's interest in speech recognition features, particularly among the younger demographic. Many users also only utilize a small fraction of the available buttons, and there’s a common issue with remote controls getting lost in the room. + +The industrial designer talked about the functional design of the remote control, with a focus on simplicity and efficiency over fancy, underutilized features. The designer suggested specific technical components for the remote control and a 'large view' design which included an on/off button, channel buttons, and other basic functions. + +The user interface specialist discussed the perspective of the user's interaction with the remote, advocating for an approach that anticipates future changes in technology and user behavior. This could include integrating the functionalities of both standard TV and more sophisticated remotes, aiming to be prepared for eventual integration with devices like set-top boxes and streaming services. + +The project manager presented points from the account manager, highlighting trends such as the decline of teletext due to internet usage, and the need to appeal to younger customers. The discussion concluded with a consensus toward aiming for a universal-type remote control that would be a mid-range product price-wise—an affordable option that is more functional than basic remotes but not as complex or expensive as high-end universal remotes. They agreed to consider this direction further after lunch and to reconvene in thirty minutes. + +In summary, the team discussed research findings about user preferences for aesthetics and simplicity in remote controls, considered the technical and functional design implications, and moved towards defining their target market and creating a universal-type remote control that balances functionality and cost." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello . +Marketing: Hey guys . +User Interface: Hi . +Industrial Designer: Hi . +Project Manager: Hi . +Industrial Designer: I see my bunny is still standing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: No one drawing it . +Project Manager: It's too beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah , true . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I figured uh that much . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Too wicked . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A minute please , my uh laptop is uh {disfmarker} oh , there it is , thank you . So welcome back . {vocalsound} At the functional design meeting um the plan is uh that uh each one of you , so not me but only you uh will uh present uh the the things you worked on uh the last uh half hour . I will uh take minutes and will put uh the minutes that I have uh at the end of the session in the shared folder . {vocalsound} Also the minutes of the previous session are also in the shared folder now , so you can read that uh now or afterwards . Um {vocalsound} uh I had an email from the from the management board +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh , I don't know if you a al also uh received it , but there were four points uh which uh I think are very important . First one is uh they think that uh teletext teletext becomes outdated uh and internet will be the the main uh focus . {vocalsound} Uh second one is also important uh , because it's one of the discussion points of the previous session . Uh the remote control shou should onl only be used for the television , so it uh not gonna it's not gonna be a multi-purpose remote control , so uh that's one thing to keep in mind . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh second , and I think that's important for the Marketing uh Expert , uh the current uh customers uh are in the age group group of uh forty years and older , but with this uh new remote uh they uh will uh {disfmarker} would like to reach uh a group uh younger than uh forty . Uh and uh I think to keep in mind , but not really uh for now is that they uh want the the the slogan and the and the logo uh to uh to be recognised more in the remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have uh forty minutes , so I think uh not more than ten minutes uh uh per presentation uh each , and please uh use uh all the the the facilities so that you have either SMARTboards , the the Word files , what you uh {disfmarker} whatever you want . So uh Tim , can you start ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} 'Kay , welcome . I have some uh new findings on uh Marketing Expert level , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I will show you . {vocalsound} The method I used was um giving orders to our usability lab uh to do a questionnaire . Um {vocalsound} one hundred respondents were involved and my marketing uh department generated a report with a lot of results . Um , these were a couple of findings , first page of three . Um , we have three audiences of {disfmarker} two audiences , {vocalsound} I'm sorry . Uh the first one , this scale , from sixteen to forty five {gap} age . Uh the second one is from sixty four {disfmarker} uh forty six to sixty five . Um , as you can see here , the market share for the first audience is about sixty percent {disfmarker} um sixty five . Uh second audience audience is uh thirty five percent . Mm {vocalsound} and some interests from the from the age groups , uh it seems like the young users of remote controls really like the fancy uh new technology stuff , like uh an L_C_D_ screen on the remote control , um speech recognition . I don't think that's uh really appropriate . Um , {vocalsound} and when you see uh the audience , the age is going up uh {disfmarker} Yeah , they don't really want it anymore , at least the new technologies . Second findings {vocalsound} out of the questionnaire um are the opinion {vocalsound} the opinions uh of the audience about current remote controls . First point is , seventy five percent of the users find the most repo remote controls very ugly , uh and eighty percent of the users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . So that's maybe something for the User Interface uh Designer . Okay , third findings . According to the frequency of use versus importance investigation , um {vocalsound} following buttons are most important . Um , I will tell something about the way this uh this test was , yeah , done . Um , {vocalsound} persons were asked uh what the buttons were uh they use most , how much an hour , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and uh in the second table the importance of those buttons . Um , when you multiply them , you get the {disfmarker} these three points . Switching channels , um yeah , that's pretty uh pretty normal , that's what you do with a remote control . Um the second , teletext , uh and the third , uh volume controls . Um , I think it's good uh that we know what the user want {disfmarker} wants , uh at least the these three points have to be uh very clear . +Project Manager: But it's strange that the the manage board {disfmarker} the management board said that the teletext will be uh outdated by the internet . So that that's strange . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Yeah , okay , but uh at the moment uh teletext is {disfmarker} Yeah , th the best thing you can get uh on T_V_ , like getting information . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . Yeah . +Marketing: So uh , when you ask people , what do they use , {vocalsound} they use teletext and not the internet on a remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: That's ridiculous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: That's a ne i it {disfmarker} It's a new technology , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's not incorporated right now . Okay , my personal preferences . Um , I think we should aim at the uh audience from sixteen to forty five . {vocalsound} Mm , first of all um it's the biggest share , the biggest audience , sixty five percent . Uh second , I think you will get the most revenue from i from it . Um , yeah , people from sixteen to forty five watch a lot of T_V_ , more than uh people who are el uh elder . Um {vocalsound} second point , {vocalsound} we have to impro improve the most used functions , as I said here , switching channels , teletext and volume controls . Third point um that came out of the uh {disfmarker} of the questionnaire , uh people used to uh get lost off the remote controller , so maybe it's an idea for us uh to design ex kind of placeholder uh on side of the , yeah , of the T_V_ +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a cool idea . +Marketing: where you can put the the remote control in . {vocalsound} Um , that's about it , I think . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: When you mentioned uh improving functions , what uh what do you mean by that what what are you think about ? +Marketing: Uh not not the r not the functions , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh , the funtionability . +Marketing: but uh it came out that a lot of buttons weren't even used uh on a remote control . So you can have a remote control full of buttons , a hundreds hundreds of buttons , but if you don't use them , yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , so focusing more on the used buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , they have to be on it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: j just to t to get it done if necessary , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but um the most used buttons uh have to be bigger or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could you use perhaps uh one button for multiple functions , like example pressing it in longer makes it switch to an different function for example . +Marketing: Yeah , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Just for the minor functions perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ma perhaps , just just an idea . +Marketing: Just to get less buttons on the remote control , to make it easier and quicker to learn . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? 'Kay , that's it . +Project Manager: Thank you , Tim . {vocalsound} Janus , can you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah yeah , I'll go , sure . Right uh , I'll be uh explaining a bit about uh working design about uh the project . Well uh what I did was I dissected uh uh current remote controls and um I viewed how how they w looked , how they worked , uh what kind of components are involved , and how they are connected together . And uh after that I put up a scheme about how uh these things are organised and I'll show it to you in in a in a few seconds . And I'll explain a bit about uh how it works and how we could uh build one and why I think several possibilities uh that we discussed in the earlier meeting falls off . Um right . Uh well what I did was uh I I checked uh remote controls and the uh remote controls of today are all infrared , not like all probably know . And the thing about that is um the remote controls uh have to act as a T_V_ or uh a stereo or something , and those uh have a transmitter that's also focused on infrared , so if we want to uh build uh mm a remote control uh with Bluetooth for instance then uh the T_V_ should have Bluetooth too in order to communicate , so that would mean extra cost for the user and thus uh that's that wouldn't mean a a cheap uh remote control for us . So that's probably why most controls are still infrared . Furthermore they all have uh a a very simple structure , so that would probably uh mean lower costs and uh i that could mean for us a good thing uh 'cause uh well we we should be able to build a relatively cheap uh {gap} a cheap uh remote . Well uh as I mentioned ready , we have some Bluetooth {disfmarker} Well it may be possible , but uh I figured it wouldn't be possible in {disfmarker} within our budget , but that's not for me to decide , but that's maybe something for marketing to look into . F because uh {disfmarker} well my personal opinion is uh is not to do uh Bluetooth {gap} or or radio waves , {vocalsound} although {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you think about uh incorporating Bluetooth or a radio uh receiver uh in the place-holder next to the T_V_ , connected to the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , actually I have t +Marketing: So it's in the wrong product . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I actually {disfmarker} I figured that would be that would be rather nice , but then you'd still have the uh {disfmarker} the infrared function . So in in theory you'd actually just move the problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh what I did uh think about was when you mentioned about the uh the cup-holder , is why not uh introduce a speech function like where is the remote . If somebody says , where is the remote , then it goes uh beep uh beep beep beep or something , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno , maybe uh maybe something to look into , I dunno uh what the cost {gap} that something like that would be . But it may be uh may be something to explore . Uh I'll I'll just explain a bit of the components . Uh first you have the energy source . The energy source would be a battery , simple uh battery uh that you can find anywhere . I figured that would be best , 'cause when the battery uh stops functioning uh we could just uh use {disfmarker} you could just go out and buy a new one . So we didn't {disfmarker} and we don't have to do all uh {disfmarker} to be too complicated about that . Uh the energy source is connected to the infrared button , but uh the infrared button uh works only via the chip and the subcomponent to uh the switch {disfmarker} there is a switch uh between these . When the switch is pressed in a w on this this case it switches a button , when a button is prush pushed in , uh a electric current goes through here , and in uh {disfmarker} immediately , a l a bulb lights up uh displaying to the user that something has happened . That's uh that's so the h user won't be um thinking , well uh did the button be pressed , w what happened uh . Or I press button but nothing's happening on the T_V_ , so is is something wrong or something . So that's just to uh to to explain the {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} to to uh make it clearer to the user . Uh w well the signal goes via chip that's translated into uh electric sig uh electronic signals and then it's processed and then it's sent to the infrared bulb where it will be uh uh received on the receiving end . And those uh interpreted by the device , well in this case the television . Uh well my personal preferences here , well we have to keep it simple . Not too many uh gadgets and functions , just like you said uh {disfmarker} well the most users n uh you have a lot of buttons and you u u use {disfmarker} you don't use them , so why why should we invent uh {disfmarker} w spend more time on those . Uh I I think we should stick by {disfmarker} with infrared transmitting and uh no receiving . So uh no input from the television . So I think we shouldn't be uh spending time on um teletext and st things like that , because when you uh want teletext on uh infrared you'd have to build in a receiver too , and so in order to receive the signals from uh what's on T_V_ and such . So I figure that would be uh spending too much money and time and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , yeah , maybe another problem uh , I think current T_V_s can even send infrared . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but what should we uh s I I I f I agree with you , but should we spend money or {disfmarker} and time on building a receiver into the uh remote control ? +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause that would be {disfmarker} I mean extra components , extra designs , um larger g uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: These all uh all stuff that we have to take in account . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I I {disfmarker} my personal opinion is no no no receiver at all . Um , well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we should uh look into the design and the functionability . Like I said , uh use one button for instance for m multiple functions , or well uh just hide the few buttons o of switching it open or something , the usual uh {gap} stuff . And uh don't overbuild , we shouldn't make a big uh remote control for simple functions , but we we should stick to the basics . So that was my uh my personal opinion . And that was my uh my presentation uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , thank you Janus . +User Interface: Okay . Yes , +Project Manager: You do ? +User Interface: I can go ahead . +Project Manager: The last presentation . You have plenty of time , +User Interface: Last presentation . Okay . +Project Manager: Tim and uh Janus don't uh talk to ten minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so uh take your time . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you take your time too long I will uh eventually uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: warn you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I'm going to give a presentation abut some of the technical functions of these design and uh usability functions . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um what's my opinion about what's most important to combine the design , technical possibilities and the user friendliness in one , so if you um going to design a remote that looks good , that shouldn't weigh over the uh {disfmarker} if it's possible to make , of course , but also the user friendliness , so tha that's that's some of the main points . And another one is um the use um of many functions will will make it more difficult , so use as as little functions as possible or at least don't display them all at once on the same remote . If you have fifty functions you don't want fifty buttons uh t uh to be shown at the same time , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: 'cause when you visit an internet uh site you don't want fifty links uh to see , but maybe use a hierarch hierarchy uh structure . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh well one of the ideas was maybe uh use touch screen , but s I don't know in how far that is possible , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: since we are sticking to uh um infrared and and the remote cannot receive anything , but uh we might uh consider that . Um well , of course I I hope this is all clear to you . If you {disfmarker} you can use remote like this with all the functions , {gap} many functions , but {disfmarker} Well , your thumb is a little bigger than th it than this . You have to be very careful what you push , +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and um if you're looking for teletext you'll be uh searching for half an hour from uh um {disfmarker} yeah well , where is it ? Where the hell {disfmarker} he here I guess and , yeah , when you have to uh use something else . So just keep it simple , make clear buttons , easy to use . For example if you want to use a play and back and stop , that's very important . Um well this was because of our last discussion , if multiple machines are used , create easy switch between the machines , but um it's no longer uh applying . {vocalsound} Well yeah , I prefer to use it only for T_V_ and um n uh not to give too many options and and if possible , uh the buttons should give {vocalsound} a dr direct action , not first select {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh you you just said um uh you wanted to to combine more functions in one , so uh +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: you you want to keep it simple , +User Interface: and so that's where the difficulties lie . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I think that if you want to do that , then you can't escape the the fact that there will be buttons uh which give s uh more options than one . +User Interface: Yeah , this {disfmarker} so that's the thing you have to weigh against each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Do we want to use a few options and might not be so or original , or uh multi-purpose as we thought , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: or do we want to use um many buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So um weighing those factors . +Marketing: Hmm {gap} it's maybe an option uh if you use an L_C_D_ {vocalsound} or a touch screen um , that in the middle are the the main keys , like displayed on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh yeah . +User Interface: The {gap} doesn't {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . Yeah , this ? No ? Yeah . {vocalsound} Something like that . Okay , just uh in the middle the general functions , like play , uh channel switching , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then uh at the top or at the bottom , some menus like uh settings or {disfmarker} that you can drop down . +User Interface: Yeah , but when all the questions I had {disfmarker} Do we want to use uh a menu display on the T_V_ ? Or um does have to f everything uh be in remotes ? 'Cause if you use a memory display on the T_V_ , you can simply push uh a more menu and then select the options you want to have and press okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so that's my recommendation , if you use many options in one buttle {disfmarker} button , um display the menu on the T_V_ +Marketing: Nah . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and don't um use combination of t of two buttons at the same time or pressing buttons three times for five seconds , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: is too complicated for most users . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think so too , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and that's partly because um uh a lot of T_V_s have different menus , and when you have a particular menu uh at your device , uh it could be that don't correspond to the menu what's actually on T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah , that will be a problem . +Industrial Designer: Well +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you d you have to {gap} keep in mind that uh several T_V_s uh don't even have a menu structure , or they have a very simple menu structure , so you have to keep in mind that not all uh d not {disfmarker} our remote won't be able to work on all televisions . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And that would be uh a considerable problem . +User Interface: So if we have to stick with current technologies and uh um well yeah , the restrictions of what's uh is on the market today , um you should keep it s at this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Use big clear buttons . Not too many . So maybe we'll loose a few option uh options , but I think i this is more important . Um {vocalsound} especially the important buttons , um if you want to switch channel , change your volume , uh use teletext , it uh it has to work at once and more advanced options may be put it s somewhere away on the remote , behind uh a little uh little thing or a touch screen . +Industrial Designer: Not embed Yeah , but then with something like a touch screen could {disfmarker} could make more menu up {disfmarker} pop up or something . +User Interface: And yeah , if you want to uh uh s put {gap} on stand-by or change the channel , that should always be possible to do . Not first change menu options or switch something . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , well yeah , as you already told , give some feedback . If the user is pushing a button he should know if the television or n at least remote is reacting and not just that the batteries may be low . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And um , well , my conclusion is uh is uh less is more , keep it simple . So uh maybe we should just ease down on the functionality to uh to keep it accessible on t because you all know , if there are a lot of function {gap} on the the television , some you you'll never know uh and never use , and therefore it's uh important +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: if you want to change the volume or channel that is always accessible and easy and other functions um that are not so important {disfmarker} um well you {disfmarker} we should consider just not using them or at least putting them somewhere on the remote where they're not in the way for the for the most important functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh , I think the idea uh about uh touch screen um is very good . Um , because recently uh I saw news item on T_V_ um about uh new telephones uh for elder people . Um , they have like a touch screen with uh really big pictures on it like uh uh call uh hang-up , um and that's a big ad advantage I think , because one the one hand uh you make the remote control compatible for elder users just by uh scaling up the pictures or something . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's uh very visual intended . {vocalsound} What was I to say more ? +User Interface: Maybe that's an option . Um keep the primary buttons visible . Uh make a remote that fits easily in the hands +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and for some design issues uh well , put a logo on it and maybe use it uh in some aesthetic uh aesthetic form . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh th the important buttons m make them always accessible and pushable and clear +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and maybe use a touch screen , or if that's uh will become too difficult just uh like televi some o older telephones use a l uh maybe it's possible to to flip them open and uh just expand the number of options that are normally visible . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but if you pick the the idea , the left idea +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: then what's gonna be displayed on the touch screen ? +Industrial Designer: The extra functions . +User Interface: The extra functions , you uh you just see a menu from system functions or teletext functions , and you just choose one , +Marketing: Yeah , but l like menu functions or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and then all all the options will become available +Marketing: Ah okay . +User Interface: and you just c s yeah t scroll through them . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wouldn't it be better to make just one big touch screen , uh one one small uh touch screen uh applet +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: and uh I'll just make um {disfmarker} uh let's say fifteen buttons on it , and uh we have three of those , uh actually just uh menus with sub-menus , with {disfmarker} or sub-items , sub-functions . +User Interface: Well um +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: then I'd like to make a proposal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you make one big touch screen , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +User Interface: use the same concept as here , keep the buttons always available +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and use the lower part of the touch screen for the rest . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: like like the iPod idea that that we just saw . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You just have a f a few selected buttons and uh a few menus , and with this idea you could actually make uh several {disfmarker} you can also improve uh later on . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh I think that will be great . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So you think it's will be better to have a t kinda total touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I wou I would actually go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Jirun ? +User Interface: Okay , I agree , but I think it's very important that they always um make the same buttons accessible , so use just for special options a part of the touch screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +User Interface: And so um an elder designer picks up th the {disfmarker} of +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: an elder parents or grandparent picks up the remote from the little child and who's all in the systems functions , you'll have to have the possibility to turn off the T_V_ or to switch the channel without um well using all the menu structures to get back to the primary functions . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I had another uh idea about maybe parental control . Um , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like building in uh some kind of PIN code uh which allows uh parents to switch to all channels , uh +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but children uh {disfmarker} if children don't don't know the PIN code , they can't switch to uh violent uh channels or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah wh Is that possible to use or no ? +Industrial Designer: That is possible , that {disfmarker} well that actually depends on the television , +Marketing: Th there's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , yeah well , +Industrial Designer: but I think {disfmarker} I figure that would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: does it have to depend on the television ? +Marketing: Ju just a simple log-in , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Well , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: y you s you see the fi uh thing is when you buy a remote , you you set the uh channels , the the channels are different on each te television , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: they aren't set in a preset order , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so uh if you uh lock on a remote , uh let's say channel fifteen , well channel fifteen on this television is different than channel fifteen on the other television , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: so that would be uh that would be actually the main concern . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I think that he means that um maybe by some option uh {disfmarker} make sure that um remote control and the T_V_ match , and then after that you can um use some s insert some passwords as being apparent that the children cannot use this uh {disfmarker} change the settings of the T_V_ , like colour and then volume +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th that kind of stuff , but maybe um if you log in first as a parent um , you address the the channels +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: and like uh oh , that's channel fifteen , that's uh vi violent channel , +User Interface: Oh , something like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: uh m my ki my kids uh {disfmarker} I don't want my kids to watch that , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then you set the priority to only parents , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well b but make it a separate option in the menu , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would b +Marketing: for example . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that . +User Interface: so that it's it's dif dis displayed from uh {disfmarker} displayed here , +Marketing: Yeah okay , but but {disfmarker} yeah , that's just +User Interface: so uh parents uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's an a an added feature . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . But let's not uh go too wide about the {disfmarker} those things , that's that why we're here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , {vocalsound} th th those things are nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's a nice idea , but I think that's we wel {vocalsound} later in the stage . I've one little question about um a total touch screen or uh um a p +Marketing: Partial . +Project Manager: yeah , a partial , uh because I think uh elderly people may be uh not used to uh a touch screen , so they want the the the normal functions like teletext , volume changing , um uh to be uh , yeah , kinda traditionals +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and uh {vocalsound} the the the the other functions , the more difficult functions uh to be uh maybe on the touch screen , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but to keep this as uh normal as possible , to keep it accessible . +Marketing: Yeah , but but if you display it on L_C_D_ screen with r r really big numbers +User Interface: Yeah , you can de display it on the on the old style . +Marketing: that's just as e just as easy . +Industrial Designer: Uh . I I do {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can display actual buttons on the touch screens . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Uh I do agree , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because well , it's just not the same when you touch a touch screen +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: or when you touch a button , but well we have to look at what's our target uh audience . +Marketing: Yeah , it's different . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: W we are aiming for younger people +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and they they chose {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , age b below forty . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , that's a good point . Yep . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's probably uh a {disfmarker} +Marketing: And th those young people , yeah . Y you saw it in my marketing report , they like the new fancy stuff , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . They like the fancy stuff , yeah . That's true . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} A touch screen , like Microsoft al already developed something like that for uh uh multi-media applications . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I th I think we can do that too . +Project Manager: Mm {disfmarker} Yeah . Okay , as you can see uh the minutes from the second meeting , this one , are uh {vocalsound} are done . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Done . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I've uh added the {disfmarker} this uh four things from the management board just to keep in mind . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um each time I uh I had a sort of uh summary on what you told and uh what you personal think . Uh so that can be uh can be read out . Uh a f a few things I uh I noticed uh were um {disfmarker} Moment . Ooh . Uh th the the main points in uh this uh uh in this uh meeting is I think uh how uh it's going to look uh with uh {disfmarker} we must keep it simple , but have the opportunity to uh have more options and have them uh hidden or something , so they don't {disfmarker} uh you don't have a big uh thing full of uh buttons or uh {disfmarker} um and uh the point that uh you uh wanna use one uh controller uh for uh uh hypothetically {vocalsound} each television , so you must uh the the the the functions , know , like the menus or the the parental control must be all uh by the {disfmarker} done by the remote control and not by the television . I think that's the point what uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we discussed . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , some of them . The menus uh are not identical for all th for all T_V_s , so you have to display it on one uh T_V_ . +User Interface: Well you can use um {disfmarker} when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh how do you call it , s um synchronized , the um remote and the T_V_ , +Marketing: Yeah , but that's not possible . +User Interface: then there's always , there are always uh possibilities to change the colour and the brightness and the volume +Marketing: Mm-hmm , mm yeah . +User Interface: and um well maybe we can look out if there's options that the remote um in its memory can see what kinda T_V_ it is , from {disfmarker} ah , it's a Philips , this and this and that , and then give the options that are capable {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} capable from the t +Project Manager: Yeah , but you have uh uh an {disfmarker} +Marketing: Add th that that's an opportunity {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah , but you have an international market range , so you have I think a big range of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well there are universal d um um remotes +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and they all have a functionality for all the T_V_s , uh so this wouldn't be a extra feature to incorporate the men menus of these . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's not too complex to do it . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Well they uh they all have to be programmed to fit your T_V_ +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that that is bit of a tricky job . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I actually use one of those when {disfmarker} They are they are kinda kinda troublesome , but but the thing is whe when you uh start uh building something like this you have to build a receiver into the uh t into the remotes , because uh in order for the remote to process something from the T_V_ , like uh to synchronise and you have to send and receive , +User Interface: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . Oh um mo +Industrial Designer: and that's well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +User Interface: no , you can just say uh the c +Marketing: {vocalsound} He he he he me he means just just one other thing . +Project Manager: Just build it in . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , with the current remote controls , the universal ones , um you have to press {disfmarker} yeah , you have to press a code for T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yes . +User Interface: In codes , y you you get a b a book with codes . You look up , I have a Philips H_ fifty five +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and it says press code four five five +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , okay , yeah , sure , uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you press code four five five on the {disfmarker} uh in the remote +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: and it displays all your uh menu options . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah yeah , sure , that would be possible , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Now we uh just connect uh the T_V_ type uh to a set of options , in {disfmarker} just just in the memory , +User Interface: Memory in the in the remote . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Profiles . +Marketing: so that if you {disfmarker} yeah , like profile , so that if you uh touch in like uh one four one zero kind of T_V_ uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: the memory uh pops up the options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , that would be possible . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I th don't think that's uh {disfmarker} that takes a lot of storage space or some just varia variables . +Industrial Designer: No , that wouldn't be uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , well um +Industrial Designer: Yeah , a few variables . +User Interface: if you look at the um manuals from universal uh remotes , there are maybe um three four hundreds T_V_s at maximum . If you have all of them , all the old and new T_V_s summed up , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: so uh I think uh it is possible {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Ah it is . It is definitely po +Marketing: But , on the other hand on the other hand , uh if you have a remote and buy a new T_V_ that isn't incorporated in the remote {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have five minutes to go . +User Interface: Yeah . Well then you have to buy a new one , it's very good for marketing +Marketing: New remote ? +User Interface: Maybe , or an update , software update . +Marketing: A firmware upgrade or something , +User Interface: Firmware update , you say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , firmware upgrade . +Marketing: but from where ? Ah . Maybe w +Industrial Designer: That's maybe the cup holder . +Marketing: No m may no , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: maybe we can incorporate some kind of uh U_S_B_ or a firewire connection , so that you can uh connect it to the P_C_ and download the newest firmware from uh from the internet . +Industrial Designer: Well , not everybody has uh has uh a P_C_ at home . Well the most most people have , +User Interface: Well , at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but not not everybody +User Interface: uh you can go back to the shop +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like a s kind of service centre . +User Interface: Yeah , ser o +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe something like service cen +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and they can download it for you . +Industrial Designer: Or you could {disfmarker} well you could s actually look at the place-holder you talked about earlier , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and you could probably uh make a connection to uh an telephone line or a internet connection . +User Interface: Yeah . Well already digital information is sent t to the the standards , T_V_ uh connections , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: you can see what's uh programme is on on the new uh channels , so maybe j they {disfmarker} we can send that information along with standard T_V_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well then then it's be uh back to the building a receiving uh {disfmarker} well uh if it's actually worth it to build it in , +User Interface: Receiving . Oh yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we could actually look at {disfmarker} into it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} I dunno , it it would be uh bringing more costs {gap} uh with with it +User Interface: Difficult . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I I think it's uh most cheap or cheapest to just do the updates uh at the service centre or at the shop . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , uh s I think some {disfmarker} I think it's good idea , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be probably best , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Like when you when you buy a T_V_ you just ask {disfmarker} well I'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's it's it's not a lot of work , just one uh docking station where you put it in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: press start , bling bling , updated . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that would be best , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} You don't buy a T_V_ every week , new teev so . +User Interface: Okay , let's uh save this in the meanwhile uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No no . Exactly , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um m for which one are we going ? {gap} My mistake . +Marketing: Let's vote . +User Interface: That one or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my vote goes out to the right {gap} . +User Interface: Your vote and your {disfmarker} +Marketing: My vote too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And your vote ? +User Interface: Well , I was uh doubting about which one to take , but uh you've convinced me that uh if you di display buttons about the same as they would look on a normal um remote all elderly people will know what to do . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And also like a clapping uh li like device that uh pops open . +User Interface: Opens up is too difficult +Industrial Designer: Flips open . +User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh too difficult , um maybe uh it's easier to break it . +Project Manager: N yeah . +User Interface: Break it , I don't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , th th th that i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: It's very sensitive . +User Interface: Oh so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Like my telephone , it's uh it's sensitive too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay well uh it's almost at the end . So we have now a lunch break , finally , +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} Uh after the lunch break uh it's back to uh individual work , once again uh thirty minutes . Uh I will put my minutes {disfmarker} uh I have updated them so uh s they're updated in the shared folder too . +Marketing: Thirty minutes ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes , the {disfmarker} +Marketing: How minutes ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Failure . Uh {vocalsound} uh the specifi uh specific instructions for the next uh meeting you will {disfmarker} all will receive uh at the uh the the email . I don't think I can uh say much about it , so uh uh wait for your email and uh hopefully you get it done uh in the in the thirty minutes , and I w will see you after the lunch break and the thirty minutes . +Marketing: One question , +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: uh how late do we have to get back {disfmarker} be back here ? +Project Manager: Uh well uh thirty minutes . +User Interface: A quarter to one maybe ? +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Thirty minutes lunch break ? +Project Manager: Thirty minutes lunch break , yeah . Oh . Forty five ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I thought forty five . +Project Manager: Uh then would it be uh one o'clock . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Or we we ask our personal coach . Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . Thank you , uh that was a very uh good session I think , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we uh we {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , is it possible to store this on the share documents or what {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: Uh ye well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Save as . +Project Manager: Yeah , because uh all uh things are uh stored in smart board dot uh X_D_K_ +Marketing: Yeah , v +Project Manager: and that's in {disfmarker} +Marketing: But but you can open a {disfmarker} from your pr from your laptop . +User Interface: 'Kay , save it as an image on the res +Marketing: Yeah , maybe . Save as . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Export . Maybe not export function . +Marketing: No . Export . +Project Manager: Well I can I can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Export H_T_M_L_ . +User Interface: No , and use an image if possible . +Marketing: Huh , image ? +User Interface: J_ PEG . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} G_ {disfmarker} yeah , J_ PEG . +User Interface: J_ PEG . Yeah , it's better +Marketing: Paper size A_ four . Uh screen size . In this directory . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: N oh . +User Interface: Oh yeah , it's not connected to the +Project Manager: You all uh have the the questionnaire again about uh the after work . +User Interface: to our P_C_s . +Marketing: No ? Yeah , it is connected . +User Interface: It's connected ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think so . +Project Manager: Deskt Huh . No . +Industrial Designer: To room . I'll just uh saved in my documents . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} in my own uh {disfmarker} in my own messenger . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It gives the na Oh . Yes . +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Okay , nice . +Project Manager: thank you . +User Interface: The questionnaire , fill in {disfmarker} uh we fill out d after lunch or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well , it's it's simply filling {disfmarker} oh no , it's uh it's also filling out {disfmarker} no , I'd do it after lunch I think . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Aye , cheers . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm hungry , so do it after lunch . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank you all . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: You're welcome . +User Interface: We can leave the P_C_ on I think , yeah and return to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well I bring it to my uh personal room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , bring to {disfmarker} I gotta bring it home . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: To my exave executive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: My executive uh big room with the with the panting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A big office . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Aye . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +","Summary of Conversation: + +During a functional design meeting, team members from the industrial design, marketing, user interface, and project management departments engaged in a lengthy dialogue about the development and features of a remote control. + +The management board had highlighted four key points for the team to consider: + +1. Teletext is becoming outdated, with the internet set to become the main focus. +2. The remote control should only be used with the television and not serve multiple purposes. +3. The target demographic is under 40 years old, which is a shift from the current user base of 40+. +4. The slogan and logo should be more recognizable on the remote. + +Marketing discussed findings from consumer research, highlighting three key buttons on the remote: channel switching, teletext, and volume controls. It was suggested that buttons be large and clear, with essential functions prioritized and non-essential functions reduced. Marketing also discussed age demographics and preferences, as well as suggesting a placeholder to prevent loss of the remote. + +Industrial Design dissected current remote controls, focusing on their infrared technology and suggesting keeping functionality simple, aligned with the primary user requirements. The idea of a remote that could detect its location and a ""find me"" feature was explored. + +User Interface discussed technical possibilities and emphasized the importance of user-friendliness and clear, large buttons. A touchscreen option was considered, with the need to balance simplicity with functionality. + +Throughout the meeting, the team brainstormed features, including touchscreens, feedback mechanisms, and options for updating remote functionalities for new TV models. Despite touching on high-tech possibilities, there was an inclination to prioritize simplicity and essential functions for ease of use. There was also a suggestion of added features like parental control through PIN codes. + +The meeting concluded with an agreement to pursue a design that balances traditional buttons with innovative features via a touchscreen and to consider both updates and user experience in the final product design. The project manager confirmed that minutes and action items would be stored in a shared folder and provided further details via email. The team was given thirty minutes for individual work after a lunch break and would reconvene for subsequent discussions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh welcome back after lunch , I hope uh you had a good lunch together . For uh this meeting the main agenda okay uh to discuss about the conceptual design meeting . Okay and the agenda will be the opening and uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} the product manager or secretary that's me and uh the presentations from the Christine and uh Agnes and from Mister Ed . And finally in this meeting we have to decide +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we are to take a decision on the remote control concept and uh the functional design So we have forty minutes , I think it's uh little bit uh low , but I I hope we can finish it up {vocalsound} so I'll handle to the the functional team , to the Christine , okay , to discuss about uh the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So uh , if you could open the PowerPoint presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm number two . +Project Manager: You're number two . 'Kay +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Components design , there we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh can we put it in slide show mode ? Yeah . +Project Manager: The next one . +Industrial Designer: Right here , is that little {disfmarker} that one , yes please . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll take the mouse . {vocalsound} So uh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we were looking he specifically at the components uh {disfmarker} the following components , uh the case , the power supply , uh the means of communications with the television set . In instance we had talked about using some sort of speech recognition , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you have to have microphone {disfmarker} well no you don't actually I haven't {disfmarker} have to have microphone in the device , but um maybe you do have it a a way {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it has to it has to hear the speaker +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um , so it could be in the television set , could be in the device , but somewhere you have to put the microphone , um and a w a way of making beeps or sounds so you can find it when it's gets lost . Um so the other w thing that we {disfmarker} So . Our method for going about this is we've looked at uh the histo hi historical record , what's worked , what hasn't and then we also um {disfmarker} we wanted to evaluate some new materials +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we contacted manufacturing for their input because , course , we m might {vocalsound} come up and choose the material that then manufacturing didn't have the technologies or capabilities to offer us , so uh this is the approach that we took during our um {disfmarker} our research . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um for the case , um we told we were making a specifica specific assumption that it would be curved in design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Course , you know , I wanted it to be expandable and shrinkable , but um that uh doesn't seem to b be one of the choic non-option we can uh {disfmarker} we can really seriously explore , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so then we were thinking about um rubber , but um unfortunately that's been eliminated because of the heat uh factor +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and th um there might be some {vocalsound} problems with the m uh how it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh goes with the board . {vocalsound} Uh and uh then th plastic also has this problem of melting and it's brittle {disfmarker} it gets brittle after a while , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so um we still had titanium and and wood available , but um unfortunately uh uh titanium's also been eliminated uh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the m people in manufacturing said that you couldn't make d curved cases out of titanium , although how {vocalsound} Apple did it with th PowerBook I'm not su quite sure but uh nevertheless um they've eliminated all of our options except wood . +User Interface: {vocalsound} At least it's environmentally friendly . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , {vocalsound} this is our finding . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And a as she said , it's an environmentally friendly uh material , so we're {disfmarker} we're {vocalsound} currently uh proposing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh we'll get to all my personal preferences in just a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So then there's this other matter of the chips and um well we could use a simple design on the board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} uh these simple chips , but that's only works for the bu you don't get very much um intelligence with this simple one . And um then there was the regular which {vocalsound} I regret that I've forgotten exactly why I'm eliminating that one . Uh the other option was this advanced chip on print , {vocalsound} and uh we liked th we we found that it it includes this infrared sender , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which w 'member the beam was {disfmarker} that was an important component of finding the right chip . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh manufacturing has told us that they've um uh recently developed a uh a sensor and a speaker that would uh be integrated into this advanced chip on print , so uh we we uh now jumping right to our personal preferences um I I'd really think we should , you know , use some of uh some really exotic woods , like um , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you know uh , well you guys come from tropical countries so you can kinda think of some trees and some nice woods . I think that people will might really want to design their own cases , you see , they could do sort of a {disfmarker} this um three-dimensional design on the internet , and then they could submit their orders , kinda like you submit a custom car order , you know , and you can choose the colour and the size of the wheels and the colours of the leather and things like that , and then I uh think we should go with the solar cells as well as the um microphone and speaker on the advanced chip . So this is the findings of our research +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and my recommendations um for the new remote control w um would be to have um have it be made out of wood . Do you have any problems with that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back uh one slide ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure , how do I {disfmarker} Oh , I know , let's see . +User Interface: Thank you . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Let's go back up here . +Project Manager: Yes , uh {gap} question , uh , what's mean exactly , advanced chip on print ? What's the meaning of that ? +Industrial Designer: I think it's um um a multiple uh chip design um {vocalsound} and it's uh maybe printed on to the circuit board . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh I could find out more about that uh before the next fi next meeting . +Project Manager: Yeah , is it means it's on the {disfmarker} yeah is it on a micro-proc micro-processor based or uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know , but I'll find out more at our next meeting . +Project Manager: Okay , tha that would be great , so if you find out from the technology background , okay , so that would be good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Sounds good . +User Interface: Why was the plastic eliminated as a possible material ? +Industrial Designer: Because um it gets brittle , cracks {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um We want {disfmarker} we expect these um {vocalsound} uh these remote controls to be around for several hundred years . So . {vocalsound} Good ex {vocalsound} {gap} Good expression . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Whic +Marketing: Wow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} good expression . Well after us . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know , speak for yourself , I'm planning to be around for a while . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Although I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think with wood though you'd run into the same types of problems , wouldn't you , I mean it chips , it if you drop it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh it's {disfmarker} I'm not su {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {gap} so you're not convinced about the the wood , yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} you're what ? +Marketing: Actually , I'm ready to sell it . +User Interface: I think {vocalsound} if you re if you use really good quality wood , then it might work , +Marketing: I'm ready to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You think ? {vocalsound} And you could {disfmarker} you could sell oils with it , to take care of it . +User Interface: but you can't just use {disfmarker} +Marketing: No y {vocalsound} no no no , the o the only w the only wood you can use are the ones that are hard , extremely hard wood , +User Interface: Yeah , exactly , yeah . +Marketing: but there are some very pretty woods out there {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I'm glad you {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's actually very innovative idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorr having a hard time keeping wi control over my face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , it's actually a very innovative n different idea that uh you know you can choose your colour of wood , your type of wood . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The stain . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean it's {disfmarker} each person is gonna have their own personalised , individualised speech recognition remote control in wood , that's not on the market . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it it's looks good the the design the functional design uh , what about yo you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , in terms of comments on this or in terms of my own {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , in t yes , in term in terms of comments first {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In turns of wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: She works in the cubicle next to me so she's uh she was already a little bit prepared for this {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Y yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Luckily Ed was not . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wood ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can get the quality materials then {vocalsound} it shouldn't influence the design principles too much , which you'll see with my presentation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: One thing we'd have to check though is what the users {disfmarker} whether {disfmarker} how quickly the novelty wears off of having uh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Yeah , you wouldn't wanna have to have splinters in your hand while you're using your {disfmarker} +User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah , for example . {vocalsound} So , have to see how kid-friendly it is and and all that , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really good if your dog gets ahold of it , they can use it {vocalsound} {gap} for teething . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They do that anyway with the rubber and plastic , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , they do it with other materials as well , yeah . +Marketing: so {vocalsound} , and chew 'em up . And chew 'em up . +Project Manager: Okay then , uh , let's move to Agnes . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm sorry . +Project Manager: S you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You are in participant three . +User Interface: One point three , yeah +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Project Manager: This one ? +User Interface: I think so , yeah . Yeah , that's the one . So , it's a very short presentation , 'cause I'm actually gonna draw you the layout on the board so if you want to just go straight to the second slide , um , which basically shows , sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I took the ideas that we were talking about last time um and tried to put that into the remote control so the things that y you can actually see on it are the on off switch , volume and channel control , the menu access button , ergonomic shape , which I completely agree with Christine's idea to have it sort of molded , so it's slightly more ergonomic and comfortable to hold than the r standard very straight remote controls . And actually the other thing with the wood if we take your customising idea , is that people can actually do sort of quasi-measurements on their hand size , so if someone has larger hands , you have a wider remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , my hand is uh different size than yours for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So , that's actually a really good idea for customi customisability . Um , one thing I thought might be kind of interesting is to put a flip screen on it , just like you have on flip phones , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so that you don't have this case where someone sits on the remote control or accidentally puts their hand on it , especially if you have little kids around , they're not pressing the buttons while you're trying to watch a T_V_ show and accidentally change the channel or turn it off . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And also {vocalsound} um you had issues with the batteries running out , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I thought maybe we could put a little battery life-light on it that kind of goes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as your battery is {disfmarker} starts to die . And in terms of invisible features , audio and um tactile feedback on button presses and , like you said , speech recognition . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , in terms of what this thing would actually look like {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Despite working in interface design , I'm not the greatest artist in the world , so you'll have to forgive me . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You'd have something like this with an on-off switch fairly big , sort of in the corner and by itself , so you don't accidentally turn your T_V_ off while you're trying to manoeuvre other buttons . And then you have sort of one of those toggle displays for , oops , channels and volume , sort of for surfing channels and then volume , so the volume would be the up and down , 'cause volume goes up and down and then channels left to right . And then here you'd have your sort of standard , telephonish number pad . {vocalsound} And then on one side you would have an access to the menu on your T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and on the other side a way to turn off the voice control . So that if the user doesn't want to use their voice , they can just turn it off and you don't have the remote control accidentally changing things on you . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um , so again you can have a little L_C_D_ light somewhere , the flip {vocalsound} thing and {disfmarker} Have I forgotten anything ? I don't think so . So , as you can see , it's a very very simple design , +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: which is one of the things I really wanted to keep , is keep it simple , not have too many buttons , not have too many functionalities thrown into it . Think the design can pretty much carry over to everything , although with the wood the flip screen might have to do something slightly different . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A hinge . Be like a copper hinge or you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . But you also have to d start watching out for the weight , 'cause depending on how much the the flip screen will add to the weight of the remote control , you don't want it to start getting too heavy . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: But that's the general layout with the general functionalities , if we come up with something else . As you can see , there's still lots of space on the actual remote control and if you do it customisably , {vocalsound} you can make this thing fairly small or fairly o large , depending on personal preferences . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: So , that's pretty much {vocalsound} all I had to say , I mean , everything else in terms of design issues . Um the centering of the key pad and {vocalsound} the channel is just depending on where your thumb is and you tend to use the the volume control and uh the browsing more than the actual number pad , so that would be sort of in direct line of where your thumb goes when you are holding the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the number pad a little bit lower 'cause it's used less frequently . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So once we decide exactly what we want , then we can figure out the exact positioning , but more or less I think it should go along those lines . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's your , uh , the comments or uh s +Marketing: Simple design . It's what consumers want . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: It's almost like , Houston , we have a product here . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Problem is obviously gonna be cost . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay , I also have a f {vocalsound} very simple presentation , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because for the marketing point you have to see what the consumers want . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I also have uh copied a different type of remote . If you can find me , where I'm at . {vocalsound} There should only be one in here . {gap} trend watch . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure . +Marketing: It's being modified . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} They're stealing our product . {vocalsound} We've been giving simple {vocalsound} questionnaires in different areas because th {gap} obviously we have to see what the com consumers are looking for today , 'cause uh trends change very very quickly . In six months maybe this idea is already gone out the window , so it's gonna be a question how fast we can act . Uh they already erased the rest of mine , huh . +Industrial Designer: No , +User Interface: No , no . +Industrial Designer: f go to findings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No no , no no . {vocalsound} 'Cause I had another comment there . Uh the market trend . This is what we know from the last uh {disfmarker} from the {vocalsound} questionnaires from the the {disfmarker} all the p surveys we've done , fancy and feel-good , that's what we've been looking for , something that feels good in the hand , that's easy to use . Looking for next generation of innovation , because all the remotes out there now , they're all very similar , they all do the same thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we have to have something completely different . Okay ? Easy to use , has always has become {disfmarker} has become another major interest that uh , with the whiteboard we can see that it's a remote that's easy to use . And I think this is another thing that's interesting is the consumers actually willing to pay the price for exciting tel technology . So even if we have a product that may be more expensive , if it comes out right , if they {gap} look {disfmarker} it looks and feels good and has technology . The second two , you can see the last one is a very easy simple design . {vocalsound} The second one , there is about uh forty-five thousand different buttons on it , which makes it fairly hard to read , uh very hard to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The first one , I see {vocalsound} that they put in a display . Now there's something else uh with the little flip-up , now we're adding all kinds of things in , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but with the little flip-up , if you have a little display on the flip-up that when you close it everything is locked . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe the display also makes it easier to use , because sometimes when you're looking for buttons , maybe if you see a display {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Context-sensitive instructions , depending on what the tel what mode the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ or something else is in . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay Because I've seen {disfmarker} mostly the standard ones , +User Interface: Especially you might need something like that for training the speech recognition and +Marketing: yeah . Now you have it {disfmarker} now you have one with the very simple also . The idea is simple , but with a display , so you can see what you're doing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So maybe if we can incorporate the easiness of use , trendy , fancy , feels good , {vocalsound} uh with a display , wood , designer wood , designer colours +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know , maybe what you could do is when somebody orders the device id you could send them like um {vocalsound} a uh {vocalsound} uh b some sort of a foam rubber um ball , +Marketing: , we might've {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they would squeeze it , and it would take the shape of their hand . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's really molded to to your specific {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To t {vocalsound} an and then you would know like {vocalsound} um what the geometry of their hands would be and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: How hard they squeeze ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes {vocalsound} you'd know what kind of wood to get . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Resistance resistance , right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But th for that you'd also have to do sort of an average across families and things like that if {disfmarker} unless everyone has their own personal remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right , that's right , you wouldn't wanna go too far down that . Oh that {disfmarker} that actually would uh increase the um {disfmarker} the revenues we could expect , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The sales , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} Yeah . I hope so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , but incorporating the three uh obviously it'd be something totally new on the market , totally different +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and from {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , already the customisability is a really good sort of new gimmick . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although , what it {disfmarker} was it uh {disfmarker} it was uh Nokia that came out with this changeable colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right , you take it apart , and put on another face , take it off and put on another face +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , mm . +User Interface: And that took off , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: and then they sold millions , millions . So . So say with the f with the findings , with the research , easy to use something totally new . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: We have to come up with something totally new that is not on the market . +Industrial Designer: We'd also have to wor um consider that uh who we were gonna get to make these custom cases in terms of manufacturing processes , we might wanna um learn about um {vocalsound} labour laws . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know in different countries and stuff wher so we can do it cheap , but you don't wanna exploit uh labour in um third world countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So actually you could turn it y turn around and say that you're uh par the reason the cost is high for the device is because um you're paying a a working wage to the person who made the device . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we can get a production in , uh {vocalsound} , countries like , uh , India +Industrial Designer: Cost of living is low . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yes , yes , countries like India or China or Malaysia , so you can go a better features and better price and you can sell more . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good , well th that'd be something that manufacturing would have to um explore more +Project Manager: Yeah , {vocalsound} yeah , so Yes . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: and to where {disfmarker} +Marketing: Where w Where it would be manufactured is is another step . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: We're here to design , come up with a nice product . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes uh , but uh that that we can that we can talk about the production later , okay , depends on the the quantity , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So we don't need to have our own uh fabric factory or something , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so we can have a tie-up with who the do the fabric , okay , for the different uh electronics items , then we can have a business tie-up and to get {disfmarker} to cut the cost , okay , to sell more . So , but uh le let's decide first about the components concept and uh interface concept , okay , if is acceptable for both of you , what uh Ed was talking . And your design {vocalsound} whether you want with the display or without display or just a simple , so +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} I think it depends , I mean I think it's a good idea , but we need to really think about how useful it's gonna be because theoretically with the T_V_ you already have a big display {vocalsound} right in front of you . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So , if we're trying to keep costs down , then maybe sacrificing the display is a way to go . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean it depends on how much putting a display costs and what it would be used for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: very specifically what it would be used for , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'cause if it's only used for one little thing , then putting in a big display case or a big display that's probably expensive just to do the training on the chip for the speech recognition or whatever , may not be the most cost-efficient way to go , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but that's just sort of speculation , I mean . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What do you think Ed ? Do you {disfmarker} he liked the display in one of the concepts that you showed , um , do you know how much it costs , um , to to add a little display like this uh ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . No +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you wanna take an action item to go find out ? +Marketing: {gap} no p spec {vocalsound} It's 'cause we have to find out cost on it . +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Sorry about that . +Marketing: Um , no that's no problem . I'm here for the {vocalsound} pushing it after it's made . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I will market it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Once we get a price on it then we can market it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the {vocalsound} the advanced chip on print is what um what we've {vocalsound} we've deci we've determined +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the uh engineering industrial design is the recommendation , and um I think we've kinda come to some agreement regarding um this concept of a wooden case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A customisable and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice beautiful mahogany red wooden case . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What about the buttons , would {disfmarker} Would the buttons be wood too , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I don't think so , no , +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: I think they could be rubber like they are now , +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . +Industrial Designer: so you have that tactile experience of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Don't looks nice uh . Yeah , so uh what we'll do is , uh , we will stick with the the simple design for time being until uh th Ed find outs about the how much it's cost to the extra , in case we go for the display . Okay . So +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: maybe what you can do is uh , both of you , you can come up with the the prototype , okay , the model . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um are we done with this meeting ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I hope , if {disfmarker} is it okay if uh they will come up with the prototype design , okay . Then they can show you how it looks like , and then we can uh submit to the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I will submit to the management . Okay ? Then meantime you can come up with the price , how much it's cost as extra for uh the display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: An and the marketing strategy , that's very important , okay . +Industrial Designer: And a marketing strategy . +Marketing: And marketing strategy , thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . How much you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Fired . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: how mu how much how much you can sell extra . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of course you'll make money too , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it it's not only pay-out , you make money too , your commission . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so , any questions ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So , by next meeting , so , please come up with the the prototype , okay , then uh , then we can proceed from there . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So thanks for all your uh efforts and coming for the meeting again , and see you soon then . Okay ? +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Thank you . +","This transcript captures a project management meeting focused on the conceptual design of a new remote control product. The Project Manager reconvenes the team after lunch and outlines the agenda, assigning roles and indicating that a key decision needs to be made about the remote control's conceptual and functional design within a tight 40-minute timeframe. + +The Industrial Designer, tasked with discussing the components concept, starts by requesting to view a PowerPoint presentation in slideshow mode. While navigating the technical hiccups of the presentation, they discuss various components such as the case, power supply, and communication means with the television set. A debate ensues over incorporating speech recognition functionality, considering where to place the necessary microphone and the need for an audible location feature to find the remote when it's misplaced. + +The team critically examines material options for the remote's case, dismissing rubber and plastic due to heat resistance and durability issues. Wood and titanium remain under consideration, but manufacturing feedback suggests challenges with creating curved designs from titanium, leaving wood as a seemingly viable, environmentally friendly option. The Industrial Designer endorses wood and introduces the idea of custom-designed cases that could be ordered online by consumers in a similar fashion to custom car orders. They also advocate for the inclusion of solar cells and integrated speakers and sensors on the advanced chip. + +The Marketing representative supports the focus on a key decision: the concept of the remote control. The User Interface specialist emphasizes the need for a simple, ergonomic design that caters to user comfort and efficiency. Potential features such as flip screens to prevent accidental button presses and a battery life indicator are discussed. + +During the discourse, the group deliberates various technical aspects, such as the feasibility of using wood considering its proneness to chipping and the innovative aspect of customizable remote control cases. A discussion about the advanced chip on print technology arises, emphasizing the need for further investigation to understand its implementation fully. + +There is also a practical analysis of potential materials for the remote, an examination of market trends, and discussions around consumer preferences, cost, and technological viability. The team contemplates innovative features like personalization based on hand geometry, the use of high-quality hard woods, and the environmental and ethical aspects of manufacturing locations and labor laws. + +Market trends suggest that the success of the remote control might hinge on a unique, simple design that offers a feel-good experience. However, aspects like ensuring durability, considering weight, and maintaining cost-effectiveness remain points of contention. + +The Project Manager pushes for decisions on the components and interface concepts, with a view toward creating a prototype. Following that, the meeting concludes with tasks assigned to investigate costs and marketing strategies for the new product design, emphasizing collaboration between the design and marketing teams. + +In conclusion, the meeting was a blend of creative brainstorming, technical analysis, discussion of market insights, and a deliberate effort toward defining actionable steps for the development of a remote control that embodies innovation, user customization, and environmental consciousness, all within the constraints of cost and manufacturing capabilities." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education committee this morning. We've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian and there is no substitute this morning. Can I ask if Members have got any declarations of interest they'd like to make, please? No? Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning, then, is a further session on our follow-up on our 'Mind over matter' report. I'm very pleased to welcome Carol Shillabeer, who is chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, and who manages the Together for Children and Young People programme. Thank you very much for attending, and thank you for the written update that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground that we want to cover this morning, so if it's okay we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start and ask you if you're satisfied with the progress that's been made since the programme was established in 2015. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much for that question, Chair. I've got to say 'yes', in many regards. So, the key focus of the programme in the early stages was about improving access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services. We developed the windscreen model—or we lifted the windscreen model. Other models that are very similar have been talked about as well, and our big focus was on ensuring that we could make immediate progress around access to specialist CAMHS. It's some years ago now since this committee did the original report, and obviously Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and the Wales Audit Office had done reports in the past, and I think there was a need for a programme that could focus on action. You'll see in the written update that we covered quite a large number of areas, and so therefore had to make a prioritisation. The prioritisation was at the specialist CAMHS end. We have provided the committee with a red, amber or green rating of where we feel that we were, and that was just before submission of the evidence. Overall I would say we have made progress. I recognise you recognise that in your 'Mind over matter' report, and that is pleasing. What I would say, though, is that there's a still a lot to be done. Certainly over the last nine months or so, we've seen a real momentum around the whole-school approach work, which we're not actually leading now as a programme, although we facilitated the workshop held in September. But that's got a real momentum, and the absolute priority now is the early help and enhanced support part of the work moving forward, and I'm sure we will come on to that in more detail. But we know there is more community workforce in specialist CAMHS, we know we're seeing children in a shorter time frame, and we know we're accepting more referrals, so our indicators are telling us we are making progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And you referred to the work on the whole-school approach, which is very welcome, and I recognise that the programme has been involved in driving that as well. But I'm sure you'll also recognise the emphasis that the committee has placed on this being a whole-system approach to children and young people's mental health, and we feel very strongly that if any of the areas get out of balance, then it will jeopardise the progress in other parts of the programme. Are there any particular areas where you feel you haven't made enough progress that you'd like to draw the committee's attention to? +Carol Shillabeer: This is maybe about what the programme's done, but really around the broader sense as well. I'm going to be very straight and say we should have made more progress on psychological therapies. I'm disappointed that we haven't. I'm assured that we've got capacity in place now and the drive in place to get the Matrics Cymru framework developed for children and young people. I've had discussions with the national psychological therapies committee, who have owned this, and we're working together more on this area. That's not to say for one minute that health boards and local areas haven't been working on psychological therapy service provision and changing the models, but that is an area we should have made, I think, earlier progress on. There's been a general reflection from myself and the Together for Children and Young People programme board over the phase of the programme. I think we started very strongly; I think we probably had a bit of a lull in the middle, if I'm truthful about that—we had a change of personnel, and we really gathered a momentum over the last year or 18 months, and that has helped to push us from a focus on specialist CAMHS into that whole-school approach. But, if I could just agree with your comments about the whole system, it has to be the whole system and that's why the real focus now on early help and enhanced support is critical. If I can just say, in case I don't get a chance to say this later, I was delighted to see the focus on youth work yesterday, because what is clear is for that part, the early help and enhanced support, this isn't just about the NHS and it's not just about education, it's about every part of the system, really, which does make it more complex. But I just wanted to say that I think that youth work has perhaps not have the recognition that it's needed and yesterday was a positive step. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on early help and enhanced support from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. In terms of local primary mental health support services, what is your understanding of the issues leading to some health boards not meeting the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 targets for assessment and therapy for children and young people, and how much of this is due to an increase in demand? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thanks very much. So, it's important to say, I think, at the outset, just by way of reminder, that the target, quite rightly, changed for children and young people. The target changed some years ago for adults, so it was only right that there was an equalisation around children. So, the services were working, a couple of years ago, with significant demand and then a change in the standard. I think you're absolutely right; your question alludes to the fact that some health boards are struggling to maintain the full performance around seeing children, particularly within the 28 days. I would say—. And we've had some discussion about whether the impact of the mental health Measure has actually drawn perhaps some of the workforce, the staff, who would have been working at that earlier stage in local primary mental health, into a bit more of the secondary element, which is why the review being undertaken by the NHS delivery unit into primary care CAMHS is so critical, because, actually, if we don't have—and I believe we don't have—enough capacity in that part of the system, then referrals will move towards the more specialist end of this. So, I think we will have seen, by the evidence submission, that demand has increased, not just in Wales but in the UK, and it has increased significantly. We are doing reasonably well at meeting that demand—so, we have more contacts, more staff, shorter access times, so that is a good news story. We've not got it completely sustained at this stage, and therefore the focus of the delivery unit's primary care CAMHS report is what more can we do in that part of the system to help to see children and young people or provide consultation and liaison to others and support people at that level of intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I know, from my own experience as a constituency AM, I have families who tell me that they can't get into the early interventions and eventually things just become so—they end up in the more specialist ones and believe that that's—. And I don't like to put it in resource terms, but it's false economy in terms of the impact on the child and the family, but, obviously, in terms of cost as well. Do you find that that's a common theme across Wales? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think that the thrust of that is absolutely right. So, we absolutely need to see children and families at the earliest intervention and that's why this is a whole system, not compartmentalised. I think there have been really good attempts in a couple of areas of that greater reach out and that earlier help—hot clinics and those sorts of initiatives that help people not to get in a long queue for specialist CAMHS, but can be supported, often by telephone, at that earlier stage. My sense of where we go next, in terms of, you know, you talk about early help and enhanced support for all the 'missing middle', as you referred to it in your report, is to make sure we've got a fully joined-up, multi-agency team approach to that. And I think that will need some resourcing to support that, yet to be fully determined. But yesterday's announcement about youth work, the Government's commitment to primary care, CAMHS, et cetera—that's all going to be very helpful to prevent those young people having to go into specialist CAMHS. And just a final note on that, if I may—at the beginning of the programme, we had a report from Hafal called 'Making Sense' and there were 10 key asks, if you like, of the system and the service from young people who had experience of the service. They said, 'Please don't medicalise it'—I'm paraphrasing now, of course—'Please don't medicalise it; please focus on supporting teachers and others who can support us at an earlier stage and then, when we really need help, please ensure that it is there at that more specialist level.' That's been a bit of a guiding principle for the programme. So, that reflects the questions that you were asking, really. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. What are the outcomes of the stakeholder workshop held last week on early help and enhanced support? And how are the actions going to be taken forward and implemented? And also, given that the Together for Children and Young People programme comes to an end in October of this year, who, in your view, is best placed to forward this work stream, and what will be the biggest challenges? It's a bit of a long question, so, break it up however you like. +Carol Shillabeer: That's absolutely fine. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And what will be the biggest challenges that they will face? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, I think that's helpfully laid out in three stages. So, you're absolutely right, there was a highly successful workshop last week really focusing on early help and enhanced support. It brought all of the agencies together, which was—and actually had a bit of a waiting list, apparently, for places. So, there was a lot of demand and a lot of interest in this. In relation to the next steps, there is a planning group reflection in early July, in terms of the outcomes of the workshop or the outputs of the workshop, and there are three commitments that have been made to this stage. One is that we develop those values-led approaches that will bring multiple agencies together to have that common purpose. The second one is to develop the ingredients for successful working in this area, and then, thirdly, to determine or propose priorities and sequencing of next steps. So, that's the next stage of that. I'm pretty sure we'll come on shortly—or hopefully—to the potential of the regional partnership boards. There is some work that we are doing as a programme with the children's commissioner in terms of working more with the regional partnership boards in taking forward this work. So, that will run alongside. But during the summer, then, we will be developing that framework approach, and we will be participating in the Association of Directors of Social Services conference in September, and then a follow-up workshop in October on this matter. On your question of 'Well, what happens after the programme?' we are currently working on legacy arrangements for the programme. I'm pretty secure on the specialist CAMHS element. That will move, most likely, to the CAMHS network, which is part of the NHS mental health network. I actually chair the mental health network and that's one part of that. The whole-school approach element is already settled in Government and we've got a connection in to that. The question that's outstanding is where the early help and enhanced support and the neurodevelopmental will go. I am currently in discussions with Welsh Government officials around that. I can be very clear of my own view that there needs to be a confident and clear legacy arrangement for this work. We cannot afford that we've come so far for this not now to proceed. I think there's a huge momentum behind this. I don't see there would be any obstacles—I hope—in getting that commitment translated into a strong approach, as we move forward. So, I'm not in a position to say, 'And the legacy arrangements will be—', but I am in a position to say that I'm having those discussions with Welsh Government officials. They know my view that we've got to put something in place that is strong and secure as we move forward, and I believe that they are supportive of that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, I think those two questions have been touched on, the remaining questions. We are going to discuss in more detail the legacy arrangements, but if I could just ask on psychological therapies: you referred to the fact that you were a bit disappointed with progress in this area, and the area hasn't been directly led on by the Together for Children and Young People programme. Do you think that means now that there is more of a threat to progress in this area, because, you know, we've got different compartmentalising of actions, and this is absolutely key, isn't it, really? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think there's—. There is some refinement to be done, I think, in making sure the connections are there. So, I think, as we move to programme end, we'll want to be absolutely assured that there are no strands left hanging, so to speak. I am confident—I mentioned the mental health network board that I chair—that we have those strands nailed down, but recognising that the early help and enhanced support and the provision of psychological support is beyond the NHS. So, this will be an area that needs to be very much seen as a key part of that. My own sense is that—. There's been quite a lot of other developments through the life of the programme. So, in the evidence that I've provided, you'll see the First 1000 days, all the adverse childhood experiences work, the Cymru Well Wales partnership, et cetera, et cetera. So, there is a bit of what I would call tidying up of the landscape to be done, and this is the ideal opportunity to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on specialist CAMHS—if I can just ask about the impact of the specialist CAMHS framework, and how effective you feel that has been in promoting a consistent delivery of care for young people. +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. Without wanting to go back too far in history, I remember coming into this area back in 2014 as I was asked to establish a CAMHS network. My observation was there wasn't really a strong and well-connected clinical community in this area. When we spin forward five years, I can confidently say that there is a strong and well-connected clinical community around specialist CAMHS. The programme has helped; the emphasis and the focus of the programme has helped to bring people together with that more common endeavour to understand, actually, there is a good case for consistency in the main, with local variation. There has been a case for much greater learning between organisations. If I just give you an example—you'll know that the community intensive service teams were put in place in 2015-ish. Some areas have them, but a lot of areas didn't. We do have inconsistency in that, but the consistent part is there is a service now right the way across Wales for more intensive support to children and young people and their families in their own homes, which helps to prevent admissions and then, where there are admissions, helps to support people to be at home. They're all called slightly different things. So, I might have referred in my papers to CITT, CATT, COT and CITE. So, they've all got slightly different names and they've got slightly different opening hours. The key thrust of this is that there is a backbone, if you like, of a consistent approach with that local variation. We have to check. So, things like frameworks for improvement—there is a coming together of the clinicians and the professionals to agree what that framework for improvement is. That then gets implemented, with some local variation. So, I think the process of moving in that way has been extremely helpful. There will be some variation. We want some variation, to some extent, as places try new things and evaluate new things. So, if I just refer to the previous question that I had, and I talked about hot clinics and different ways of reaching out; that's been tried in one area, been evaluated—let's see the spread of that. So, you'll know my view on internet counselling, for example; I feel that is quite a strong offer for children—not necessarily in the specialist end. If that works in one area, why aren't we rolling that out to other areas? So, I think the framework for improvement has provided a vehicle for those clinicians and professionals to come together. It's in a stronger place—a much stronger place—than it was five years ago. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. You've referred to there being some inconsistencies in terms of crisis care, but are you able to assure the committee that all young people are now getting at least a consistent service, especially in terms of interventions in the instances of young people self-harming. Wherever you live in Wales, is that help there for you now? +Carol Shillabeer: Well, in your work to produce the 'Mind over matter' report, I clearly listened to the views from the police and the recommendations in relation to the police. We've taken that as a further piece of work under the specialist CAMHS umbrella, to truly understand what the experiences of the police are and what some of the root issues may be in relation to that. For example, is it that because the CIT, CAT, COT, CITE—the community intensive service—closes at 10 o'clock in a certain area, that actually it's after that that the network of support isn't as strong, and, if that is the case, what are we going to do about that? There's certainly potential in working more regionally or even working between adults' and children's in terms of the crisis resolution services that work beyond those hours. So, we are taking an extra look at this, because I could not be 100 per cent confident that, throughout the 24-hour period, we've got this fully settled. I continue to hear some stories from the police that they are picking up young people and feeling that they've not got that solid place to go, and we're following those through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Hefin David on neurodevelopmental services. +Hefin David AM: I think, Chair, I should have declared an interest here, as my daughter has been diagnosed with autism and is currently going through the process of receiving neurodevelopmental speech and language support particularly. We're seeing an increase in neurodevelopmental referrals, and that will increase further in the future. Can you give us an explanation as to why this demand is growing and how we're going to meet capacity to deliver and for support for those children? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you. They're very big questions in terms of 'why'. I'm not sure that anyone really knows why, if I'm honest, although there is a lot of academic research going on. What we do know is that we are starting to see the scale of those referrals coming through. So, in the information provided, I refer to the NHS digital prevalence report in England, which indicates that about 5.5 per cent of two to four-year-olds have a mental disorder. Now, that sounds a bit shocking when we say that, but that's in the international classification scaling, and, of that, certainly, 2.5 per cent is around autism. I can just testify, in real life, that demand is absolutely growing. So, if I just take my own health board for a moment, we usually have about 75 referrals per year. Last year we had 300. So, that has felt very difficult to manage. If I can just give you a sense of what we've done so far and then what I think is next, I want to recognise the work of Dr Cath Norton and the steering group that's been established on neurodevelopmental issues under the programme. They had a standing start. They've done a lot of very, very good work. We now have seven teams in place across Wales. We now have a national pathway. We now have a community-of-practice-type environment, and we're really getting into this. Good progress has been made. More people have been seen. More people have been assessed. So, we have made progress. But I've got a long list of considerations that I think respond to your question. One is that most referrals that come through, the clinicians tell me, are seeking support to move through what they perceive to be a gateway for educational support. So, that is often the reason why people come. Now, that is obviously going to be linked to the whole-school approach and how we can support that. Demand is outstripping supply. So, our clinical teams are concerned about how do they keep up. So, if I just take my own example of 300 in the last year, we're looking to try and put some additional capacity in to support seeing those families, but also then to understand what the long-term trajectory is going to be. Because we've put these teams in, because we've got the new pathway, has that opened a gate and we've got a lot of backlog or is that the pattern? +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask a question there? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. +Hefin David AM: So, with regard to the 75 to 300 increase—in the space of a year was that? +Carol Shillabeer: In a year, yes. +Hefin David AM: Did you anticipate that or was that something that just came totally unexpected? +Carol Shillabeer: I think we anticipated a few more, and just to say that in my— +Hefin David AM: But not on that scale. +Carol Shillabeer: No, not on that scale. And in my own health board—I'm just referring to my own, and I'm happy to share the information on this—we already had a service in place. So, it wasn't as if we had nothing in place previously. We had a NICE-compliant service already in place, but we knew we needed to expand that, which we have done, but we didn't anticipate 300. So, this is happening not just across Wales, actually, but across the UK—so, this greater recognition, the desire for families coming forward to access that support and them seeing this as a route, which is really important. What I would also say, and this is part of the bigger picture that we need to consider going forward, is that only about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of those families that come forward have what I would call or the clinicians would call a diagnosis—so, a threshold or whatever term you want to use that takes people through to that educational support. So, we've got a lot of people who are under that threshold, but that's a lot of people who still need help and support. I'm trying to very fairly and, I hope, appropriately represent the very strong views coming from the group—the workstream under the programme. We've got to tackle all of that. It's not going to be good enough for us just to focus our attention on those children and young people and their families who reach a threshold, because there are needs elsewhere as well, and some of that will overlap with the early help and enhanced support. Some of that overlaps with learning disability services. Can I just mention a few more things, as I'm on roll on neurodevelopmental? +Hefin David AM: It's up to the Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, go on. +Carol Shillabeer: Is that all right? Sorry, I know it's a very long answer. There is a concern from the neurodevelopmental group to get across that whilst there has been a lot of focus on autism—and we recognise the private Member's Bill—there are other neurodevelopmental presentations and there's a real—. Having the broadest view would be advised by them, and I think they're particularly keen to understand what a future vision and what we call, say, a 'perfect world' would look like. That's the piece of work that we're wanting to do now. In terms of giving advice at the end of the programme and into legacy arrangements, about what the big, big things are, we are still needing to tackle. +Hefin David AM: I mean, I personally took a very personal decision when it came to the Member's Bill on autism you were talking about—and that was the advice I received. You need to look at the wider symptoms that are presented beyond autism and other neurological conditions. So, I'm glad you said that, because it gives me—. Because I didn't vote for that Bill, and I'm glad you said that because it gives me some personal reassurance there. But what I do have concerns about is if the increase wasn't anticipated to the extent that it was and that the Together for Children and Young People programme has a duty to review capacity, after October who's going to make sure that that capacity's reviewed on a strategic basis? +Carol Shillabeer: So, I should have probably added in that we've got a piece of work under way at the moment—Welsh Government commissioned it—by a person called Patrick Holton, and he is specifically looking at the demands on capacity in relation to neurodevelopmental. I think getting that slightly more independent view of what we think the trends are going to be over the long term will mean we can plan for the long term. We know that money's been put into this and it has had an important impact, but we now need to be planning for the next three, five, 10 and many years beyond that. There is the integrated autism service. I think there are some conversations, when I talk about the landscape being quite busy, about the sense of where this links as we support people through their lives with a neurodevelopmental issue. So, it's not just about a childhood thing; as people move through, we've got to get much better at that long-term planning. So, that piece of work is really important. We will get the report of that over the next couple of months in order for this sort of perfect-world picture that we want to try to describe to be informed by that. It also connects to the early help and enhanced support, because recognising if we just say half of the people who come for an assessment don't meet a threshold for a certain category, that's a lot of people who will need help and support to manage and cope with their condition and their situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. If we can just move on now to in-patient care, and if I can just ask you what the programme has been doing to address some of the challenges and opportunities we face in terms of CAMHS in-patient care, particularly in light of the restrictions that are in place in Abergele and Tŷ Llidiard. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you very much for that question. Again, quite a lot of progress has been made in the early part of the programme around in-patients, and you are very well aware of the challenges over the last year or 18 months in relation to both units. I think, certainly, there is some recovery in the position in north Wales, and the programme did a peer review visit to north Wales, which I think was very helpful. In terms of where the programme has been on this issue, there is some work under way, at quite an advanced stage, around the art of the possible around enhancing the scope of the services. This was quite a tricky thing to start off when you're in a position where, actually, there've been some restrictions, to then ask the service to think about going even further, but we really wanted to see what the art of the possible would be if we could attract the right workforce, get the right environment, et cetera, et cetera—so, that piece of work, the review of the specification about what could be possible. Clearly, we work very closely with Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee as the commissioner, so we don't commission that. We neither performance manage those environments. But, if I can just say, probably the most important part of moving forward now is the longer term work between health and social care in terms of having a much more integrated and joined up approach for children. We believe there would probably be about 100 children who have experienced care in multiple settings. We haven't got that mature approach in terms of these being joined-up teams; we've got social care and we've got healthcare. There is a growing appetite to do something different. There is a meeting with the children's commissioner on 9 July to explore that. I've previously had conversations with the chief inspector of Care Inspectorate Wales, for example, and we have now got, I think, a consensus growing that we need to do something very different for children and young people who are in this sort of need for the future. We also know that there've been some high-profile legal cases as well. So, we've got to move to that step now. It has been largely successful, the work that has taken place over recent years, but not without its key challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, just briefly on the new specification that WHSSC are developing, that will enable admissions at weekends and out of hours. How concerned should we be about that being a challenge, particularly in Abergele, where staffing has been a major issue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think we need to be very mindful of ensuring that the right workforce are in place before that gets implemented. The peer review highlighted the challenge of the physical environment, where the unit is, the challenge across north Wales of the workforce. These are issues well known by the health board, by the way, so it wasn't a surprise to them. But that dialogue about how do we ensure that we've got the right workforce, because that unit, potentially, could—you know, it's an isolated unit, and they’ve been risk-managing. They've been managing the types of young people that they can take bearing in mind the workforce that they've got available, and that's been entirely the right thing to do. But the downside of that is it's not as accessible as we would want. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin David has got some questions on workforce now. +Hefin David AM: Yes. With regard to the increased CAMHS posts that have been made available between 2016 and 2018—a 62 per cent increase in CAMHS posts—we know that there's likely to be labour market demand, high labour market demand, in those instances, so are the vacancy rates higher in Wales than elsewhere, given the increase in those posts to be filled? +Carol Shillabeer: So, you're absolutely right. There's been quite a lot of investment, and there have been quite a lot of new recruits coming to the service. We had in the early days a situation where we were largely robbing Peter to pay Paul, to be quite frank. So, as new services were being developed, people would move from one part of the system to the other. So, in the early days there was little net gain. That has improved slightly, but we're in a national context, particularly around nursing and around some specialties in medicine, of a national shortage, so this is not a quick fix. We are starting to see a greater diversity of workforce. So, if I can mention psychology assistants, for example, my own health board is employing more psychology assistants as part of a skill mix team, rather than going to where we might have been more traditionally based. We see some of that through the NHS benchmarking, particularly with England. They have more of that. We're perhaps a little bit— +Hefin David AM: More of what? +Carol Shillabeer: They have more skill mix in their workforce. We're catching up a bit more on that now. +Hefin David AM: Just to clarify there, what you're referring to—there are more nursing and medical staff in the Wales system and more psychological staff, experts, in the UK picture. Is that—? +Carol Shillabeer: In the England picture. So, England had a programme called IAPT, which is about psychological therapies, and had therefore looked at the skill mix. Some of that was—. We've chatted to colleagues in England, trying to learn—we're all trying to make improvements in this area, of course; it's a UK and international issue—what were their experiences of this psychological therapies approach. Because of their vacancies they had to skill mix, and because of the money that they had available—they didn't have as much of a cash injection as perhaps we've been able to secure. So, they skill mixed much earlier; we're skill mixing now. We're using different types of roles, for example. And if I can just make a plea, really, around recognising the input of the third sector—so, it doesn't always have to be an NHS-employed person to work in service provision, direct front-line service provision, and the third sector are offering a significant contribution in a number of areas of our services. And that is one that we will need to cultivate, because, to be quite frank, our recruitment challenges won't be solved overnight. We've recognised that the commissioning numbers for nursing and other professionals have gone up over recent times, but, with the training time, it's not a quick fix. +Hefin David AM: Does the workforce profile remain different, or are they starting to—? +Carol Shillabeer: They're starting to come together. There is a—graph 13 in terms of the CAMHS profile. Each year we do the NHS benchmarking, and we can see where we are compared to others, and I would expect over the next year or two that we see a bit more narrowing. +Hefin David AM: So, if you compare a child in Wales with a child in England in the last two years who's been through this, would they have had a different experience as a result, and different clinical advice as a result, or is there consistency despite the difference in workforce profile? +Carol Shillabeer: That's quite a big question. Hand on heart, could I tell you I absolutely know the detail of that? No, I couldn't. The practice in this area is guided by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, so it's pretty much guided. We would expect all of our practitioners to be able to work to NICE guidance. When you skill mix a team, you enable the right referrals to go to the right person, so you wouldn't necessarily have a child or young person with particularly complex needs—well, you would match them to the right practitioner for their needs. So, it does—. And we've seen some of that; if I just make reference to the panel approach in Gwent that's been developed, a multi-agency panel come together, a referral comes in, it's then about matching the right service and the right person to the needs that are being presented. So, we can be much more flexible in relation to that, and we have to be careful to use the right resource for the right person, because, if we've got a resource that is highly specialist, we want them to be dealing with those children and young people. +Hefin David AM: And one of the things you're able to do—because there's a lot about the labour market you can't control, but one of the things you can control is workforce development and ongoing workforce development. You've mentioned communities of practice. What other things are being done in addition, and how do the communities of practice work might be a good question, but what else is being done in order to upskill and develop and grow the existing workforce that is presented to you? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. So, there's a couple of things around—. I think there's a huge focus on staff retention now, not just in Wales but across the UK. So, we've got recruitment but we've got retention. What are the factors that affect retention? Actually, well-being, well-being at work—and you'll know that within 'A Healthier Wales' the focus on staff engagement, staff well-being, has been laid out—the ability to work well in teams and the culture of organisations and services, and, then, as you rightly say, training and development and career opportunities. So, the developments over the last few years have brought training opportunities and career development opportunities as well. I think the community of practice—it's something that has become a bit of a standard now across these areas—actually brings people together doing collective audit, doing collective reflection on service improvement, and being very clear about learning from one another. And, if you're a clinician, that gives you a lot of motivation to keep driving forward. So, I think we have the fundamental building blocks in place, but there is more to do around the environment in which our practitioners and our staff operate. +Hefin David AM: What about the Welsh language in the health board? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much. There are two elements, if I may, just on that. In your report of last year you highlighted the need to do further work on the use of the Welsh language, and have we got enough Welsh language practitioners where we need them. We are doing that piece of work. I'm pleased to say that, over the last few years, I think all health boards have really stepped up in terms of being able to understand the levels of Welsh speaking amongst employed staff and where their Welsh-speaking communities are. We're particularly looking at it in terms of in-patient CAMHS and community intensive services, because, particularly when people are feeling at their most vulnerable, they would choose the language they wish to choose. So, we know we need to respond to that. So, we will be in a position to, by the end of this programme, provide that position statement on what happens next. I would also say, of course, we've got the Welsh language standards that we are all working on at the moment, and we've got a very clear programme of when we have to be compliant with those standards. So, that element is very high on the priority list. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy Davies has a question about looked-after children. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, everything you've been speaking about already, particularly about workforce development, applies to children in care as well, where there's other work also going on in terms of support. Can you give us some indication about how the programme intersects, then, with the outcomes for the children in care work programme? +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. So, we have one of our members of the programme board also sitting on the outcomes for children ministerial group, which is good. So, we've got that cross-link. We also have a director of social services on our programme board and, obviously, they're very clearly linked in to the outcomes for children. I just made reference to, under the question on specialist CAMHS in-patients, the need to bring those services together, and that, really, is the need for much stronger working between the outcomes for children group and the Together for Children and Young People programme and the constituent parts. So, I'm confident that that has been pegged now. We've got a way forward and there is a consensus that we need to do things together on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Can you just perhaps give us an example of how that then looks on the ground? Because it's great that people are talking together, but how would that affect, I don't know, individual members of the workforce, or, indeed, the children we're talking about? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. So, if I just give an example of a unit in south Wales that is a social care unit, we've been having discussions about, 'Well, actually, shouldn't you have a psychologist and good access to psychological therapies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?' So, we haven't yet got an agreed position on how we're going to do this, but the position is that something needs to be done, and there is an appetite for and an understanding of the case for change, I believe. But what it will mean, I think, in practice, is that you get much more fluid roles moving across sectors, or we could be designing services that are fully integrated. Now, there may be challenges in that, but, you know, let's get them out on the table. So, in terms of this seamless health and social care system for Wales, this is one of the tests of that, I would say: can we, within the next five years, 10 years, really bring that together? That will take quite a lot of work and commitment. On the looked-after children specifically, we have picked that up, particularly following your previous report, looking specifically at the assessment of young people who are care experienced who are in the system. Absolutely, part of the health assessment is emotional health and mental health. We are questioning whether that needs to be a greater part and what the level of support needs to be, particularly because of the backgrounds of children that have led them to be in those circumstances. That's a core piece of work under the early help and enhanced support work stream, and we'll be ensuring that that is complete by the end of the programme. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And you're confident that that will reach children who are being fostered and perhaps don't have very frequent looked-after children reviews, because, from all other perspectives, things are going fairly well. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. And, of course, there's the edge-of-care work that the Government have been supporting, and, certainly in my own area, under the regional partnership board, we have a Start Well programme, which is the old Children and Young People's Partnership programme, where there's a significant investment in supporting children and young people, families, on the edge of care, which does pick up fostering. +Suzy Davies AM: Ah, lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn has a question on transition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. We've heard, not necessarily just in the context of this report, because we've heard similar evidence around transition arrangements in another committee report when we did the suicide prevention, and I've in fact only recently—well, just this week, actually—met with community mental health teams in my constituency, and there is still some concern about transitional arrangements from children into adult services. Now, I know we had the—. The transition guidance was published a couple of years ago now, and the programme was involved in developing that guidance. But what's your assessment of the impact that it's had? Because we clearly are still seeing people falling through the gaps, aren't we? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you for that. You're absolutely right; we developed that guidance and we are currently in the process of the evaluation of that. And, in particular, I know that the children's commissioner is very focused on transition, not just around children in receipt of emotional mental health support, but children in paediatric wards, and there is a working group with Welsh Government looking at this. The children's commissioner has used our guidance to put that on the table to say, 'Well, if this works, this needs to be considered as a model for using elsewhere'. But the big question there is 'if'. So, we do want to get evaluation. If I were just to give an estimate of where I think this will land, I think it will have made improvements, but there may well be some further work to do in enhancing, supporting, auditing that every child is supported in line with that guidance. So, I talked about community practice and clinical audit: is this something that we make, then, a mandatory audit, each year, that we do that double check? Because it's one of those things where we know when a child is 14, 15, 16, 17, so what's stopping us? If indeed the evaluation says it's not happening everywhere, it's not happening early enough, what is stopping us? We really need to get underneath that. So, my sense will be it will show us, it will be better, but there's some further work to do, and following that up in terms of audit and making sure that we've got a systematic approach to dealing with those who haven't had the guidance fully implemented, because it can make a real difference. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and it seems to me—you've just talked about having a systematic approach, and it does seem to me that it is a systematic process, isn't it? So, it shouldn't be difficult. I know we're talking about in the health service things shouldn't be difficult and they are, and one of the gripes—I had a meeting with the community health team—was the problems of the new IT systems and so on—let's not go there at the moment. But, really, this is just about referring children and having a smooth transition from the service being provided to them as a child and then just shifting it over to the adult services. It shouldn't be difficult. It's really difficult to get my head around why that is such a problem and why that needs to be so difficult. +Carol Shillabeer: Can I add one other dimension in, which I think is going to be quite interesting? We talk about transitions being an issue—and we know it's not just in mental health, but it's elsewhere—then you start to think, 'What if we could reduce transitions?', so you reduce the number of transitions and you manage them better. We are doing a piece of work with Government on the potential to explore what a 0-25-type service would be. We know that in different places they have approached that—in Australia and places in the UK. There are probably some pros and cons, but should we be moving to a 0-25. That is moving the transition at the age of 25, but at least it's not at the eighteenth birthday. What's the argument around what adolescent, young people and young adults services are, for example? That piece of research and understanding— +Dawn Bowden AM: You could probably have a gradual transition, then, couldn't you? +Carol Shillabeer: Quite potentially. I've got some people who have joined my own health board who've worked in that 0-25-type service, and we're catching up—'Tell me what was good about it? Tell me what was not so good about it? What did the young people themselves think about that?'. Because if we can manage down the numbers of transitions, there really should be no excuse not to get transitions right, then. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some really important questions now about legacy, because throughout the session this morning you've referred to ongoing work, really, and that is a major concern for the committee. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair, we are a little bit worried that this programme is coming to an end in a matter of months when perhaps its work's not been completed. Obviously, we've got the Welsh Government's strategy for mental health running until 2022, which is a few years longer. Can you tell me whether you think your programme needs to continue, perhaps even if it's just for the same length of time as Together for Mental Health, or is its work done and it needs to be picked up now by a different system? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. Can I just say, I've given this so much thought over the time, because I think you might have asked me this question when I came previously? There are two ways to look at this. I'm absolutely sure that the issue of children's emotional and mental health will be one that will be with us for a very long time. We have made a lot of progress, I think, as a society, in talking about this now. We talk about mental health so much more than we ever used to. When I was a child, we never talked about it. I talk to my own children and say, 'What's going on in your lives at school?', and they talk about this. This is not an issue, if you like, that I believe you can pick up and solve literally in five years. This is one for the long term for us. So, on the one hand, I think my view last year was that, when you have a programme of work, you should have a start, a middle and end, really—otherwise it's not a programme of work, it's almost forever—and there is a moment to refresh and reflect on whether that mechanism has done all it should and it should move into a different mechanism. So, my position last year was, 'This will have been running for five years—we've done a lot of work and made progress on specialist CAMHS, we have made progress on the whole-school approach and there is a different mechanism for this' et cetera. My position now is I want to just be really sure and secure that there is a strong arrangement going forward that takes this work, if this programme is going to close. +Suzy Davies AM: Are you sure? +Carol Shillabeer: Not yet. So, I think, in an earlier question I indicated dialogue going on between myself and Welsh Government officials. I don't think there's a barrier—people aren't saying, 'No, it all needs to just stop; we've solved the issue', but the exact nature of the legacy arrangements, particularly for early help and enhanced support, are not yet fully determined, or for neurodevelopmental. If it was a choice between nothing being there and continuing this programme, I would be supporting continuing the programme. I don't think we can stop now. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I don't think any of us would disagree with that, but I suppose there might be a level of concern that the Welsh Government's preferred route from now on would be through the regional partnership boards and public services boards. You mentioned that you've done that work in Gwent, down in the south-east of your patch there. It's quite difficult for us to try and get a picture of how that will work successfully for the whole of Wales. I know you've got your experience in Gwent, but have you thought a bit more about how it might look elsewhere, if that's the route that Government decides to pursue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think the key question in my own mind is: are the regional partnership boards yet ready and mature enough to take this forward? I'm the chair of the Powys regional partnership board, so I should declare that. There's a lot being asked of the regional partnership boards at the moment— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, we'll be asking them to go with the 'Mind over matter' report, to make sure that that's delivered upon. +Carol Shillabeer: There's a lot, you know, 'A Healthier Wales'—. Everyone does feel that the regional partnership boards are a route to really secure multi-agency working, so there is quite a high expectation. My understanding—and this is a rather informal understanding—is that different RPBs are in different places. So, some have retained what used to be the old children and young people partnerships, and perhaps where they have been retained, they may be in a more progressed position. Some are looking to have to re-establish those. So, my sense of this is that, I think, possibly the RPBs aren't yet in that position to be ready. Our piece of work on early help and enhanced support, in terms of your earlier question about what's the commitment—that feels that that may well be another year or 18 months of development work, alongside the RPB development work, to get that ready, before we can then more confidently say where we can hand over. +Suzy Davies AM: You may not feel able to say it, then, but would be wrong in saying that, actually, it would be quite a good idea to extend the current programme, just to make sure that anyone else who might be able to run on with component parts of it is in the position to do that to our satisfaction? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm happy to respond to it. My sense is that, whether it's the programme or whether it's something else, something needs to be there. The next stage is really multi-agency, so it may well be that the programme currently has been NHS-led—maybe it needs to be led elsewhere, maybe not. I think there's a view that this needs to continue. I'm less wedded to it having to be the Together for Children and Young People programme. It may be seen as a convenient mechanism—it's already established, we've got a programme team et cetera, so it may be seen as a ready sort of solution. I'm not wedded to that. What I feel strongly about is that we've got to have the right mechanism to take it forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just push you on one thing there? You mentioned, perhaps, the NHS could lead on the work, for example. Is there a risk of fragmentation if we start looking—? I'm just thinking—I mean, we've got the elements here: we've got the NHS, there's the whole-school approach, early help and enhanced support and intervention, as you mentioned earlier. If that goes to one of the players in that multi-agency approach, is there a risk that they might become too dominant, inadvertently—? +Carol Shillabeer: If I can just clarify—apologies if I wasn't clear. I said the current programme has been NHS-led, and that might be a reason to change. +Suzy Davies AM: To mix it up a bit. Oh, right, okay. Anything else you want me to pursue on that—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just clarify for the record, Carol—because we put this to the Minister last week—are you looking at asking the regional partnership boards to take this work over from October 2019? Are you saying clearly to the committee that you do not feel that all regional partnership boards are ready for that challenge at this point? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm saying that on a more, if you like it, uniformed and informal basis, we're doing some work with the children's commissioner now in terms of—. I know the children's commissioner's very interested in how RPBs are managing, developing and dealing with the issues of children and young people's concerns. We're working with her to understand and to mirror alongside her the understanding of the RPBs. What I would say is that there has been some preparatory work by Government around supporting RPBs. So, for example, in the integrated care fund guidance last year, there was a specific reference to child and adolescent emotional mental health, which I welcomed. I've also welcomed, literally last week, a letter to all RPB chairs giving an allocation of £200,000 per RPB to support this further work in terms of child and adolescent emotional and mental health and the early help and support element. So, all of these things are in the right direction. My sense, and I need to stress it's a sense because we haven't done that piece of work, is different RPBs are in different places. So, how confident can we be at the October date that we could hand over? My sense is, just to safeguard, having a mechanism in place for the next 12 to 18 months to guide this through might be advisable, and that's what I'm talking to officials about. +Lynne Neagle AM: And that would either be an extension of the Together for Children and Young People programme or something else. Okay, thank you. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Because I think there is a question, isn't there, about whether the RPBs will make this enough of a priority? I'm a bit nervous that it might get lost in that huge amount of work you said they might have. Just a final question from me: how are you establishing what the young people themselves think about the end of the programme? Are they bothered about the structure of this at all or are they just concerned that they're getting help? How's the stakeholder group feeding into this? +Carol Shillabeer: I've not been blown over in the rush of people saying, 'Don't go anywhere.' [Laughter.] It's a really important matter for young people. I know that later on you're meeting with the Youth Parliament, you're having a joint session, which is fantastic. We've had contact with the Youth Parliament because we know it's one of their top three issues. So, it runs in the vein of that this is going to be a long-term matter for young people, I think. Whether they have a specific view on the programme, I don't know. I've not heard that. But I'm pretty sure they will be vocal in saying, 'We have to have these developments continue.' It is a major issue, we're not there yet—maybe some progress has been made but there's still a lot to do—and I think we'll need to be able to respond to that. +Suzy Davies AM: Anything particularly you want in addition to that? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I think that's fine. And if I can just say that it was really great last week at the early help and enhanced day to see young people so central to the day all the way through. It was very, very important and very welcome. +Suzy Davies AM: Carol, thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. we have come to the end of our time. We had a lot of things that we wanted to cover with you. We might need to drop you a line about a couple of things that we haven't covered, but can I thank you for your attendance this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you, all. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Youth Parliament—invitation to engagement events. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Education clarifying some issues around the Welsh network of healthy schools scheme, following the task and finish group. Paper to note 3: letter from the Minister for Education on the implementation of the Diamond reforms, and that's ahead of our session on 4 July. Papers to note 4 and 5 are a letter from me to the children's commissioner and the Minister for Education seeking the update we agreed on the issue of elective home education. And then paper to note 6, paper to note 7 and paper to note 8 are all letters regarding the concerns that we discussed about the expectation of a target being set for looked-after children, to the First Minister, Children's Commissioner for Wales and the Association of Directors of Social Services. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","The Children, Young People and Education committee met to discuss various matters related to children and young people's education and mental health, with a focus on the 'Mind over matter' report follow-up. The session included an evaluation of the Together for Children and Young People programme, which began in 2015 to improve access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Carol Shillabeer, chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, acknowledged progress made, particularly related to specialist CAMHS, but noted there is more to be done, especially around psychological therapies and early help support systems. There was also a discussion on transitioning services from child to adult care, and the need for a future vision, particularly regarding neurodevelopmental services. + +The committee expressed concern about the upcoming end of the programme and its legacy arrangements. There was uncertainty whether regional partnership boards (RPBs) could assume responsibility by the October deadline, as not all RPBs may be ready to handle the work effectively. The committee emphasized the importance of a consistent approach to ensure services for children, including those who are looked-after or dealing with mental health issues, continue without interruption. Meetings with youth representatives, including the Welsh Youth Parliament, were mentioned as important for understanding the perspectives of young people regarding these transitions. + +The committee reviewed several letters relating to these issues and discussed the need for clarity and coordination moving forward, particularly concerning the role RPBs might play. A follow-up by officials on legacy arrangements for the programme and other areas, such as workforce development and the implementation of transition guidance, was expected." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders, and also from Dawn Bowden, and I'd like to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, who is substituting for Dawn Bowden. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to our evidence session for our inquiry on school improvement and raising standards. I'd like to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Steve Davies, director of education. Thank you both for attending and for your detailed paper in advance of the meeting. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay. If I can just start by asking you: to what extent is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development still involved in the Welsh Government's school improvement journey? +Kirsty Williams AM: First of all, can I thank the committee for their invitation this morning, and their interest in this particular area? As you will be aware, on coming into office, the director and I agreed to ask the OECD to do a rapid review of the state of Welsh education at the beginning of this Assembly term. They did that, and the feedback from that work informed the publication and content of the national mission. I was very clear in the national mission that I would invite the OECD back to review our progress against that mission, and that has happened in the tail end of last year, and the OECD will publish their latest report on Welsh education next month now, in March. So, the expectation is that the report will be published on 23 March, and my intention is to make a statement to the Chamber on 24 March. The nature of that review is part of our ongoing development of self-evaluation. So, we talk a lot about self-evaluation in the school system. Actually, the continuing relationship with OECD is about self-evaluation of the entirety of the system and Welsh Government. We don't want to accept our own orthodoxy and just be in a bubble where we are constantly listening to ourselves and those people who might want to agree with us or tell us what we want to hear. So, the OECD is our best attempt of having some external verification of where we are. That's a risk for Ministers and for Government, because we want them to give an honest evaluation of where we are, but that's a really important tool for me, to ensure that we're constantly testing ourselves. The nature of that review is that the OECD were able to talk to whoever they felt it was important to talk to, so that included practitioners on the ground, elements of the middle tier, as well as Welsh Government. And I know, Chair—I hope you'll be pleased to hear this—that the reports of this committee have formed parts of their review, looking at how the Senedd itself has contributed to and has held the Government to account. So, as I said, we expect our report to be published towards the end of March. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, Minister. Can I ask about the powers under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, to ask you to tell us about the use of those powers either by Welsh Government or by local authorities, and how effective you feel that legislation has been? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, as you'll be aware, local authorities have quite extensive powers of intervention in schools if they feel that is necessary. If I'm honest, I think there's a mixed picture, with some local authorities using those powers not on a regular basis, but obviously demonstrating a willingness to use those powers. There are other local authorities who don't seem to have used them. Since that legislation came into being, there have been a number of reasons, because of course a local authority has to give a reason for using those powers of intervention. They usually focus on standards, but sometimes they focus on a breakdown in governance arrangements, perhaps, or a failure or a breakdown in financial management. So, sometimes the budgetary issues trigger an intervention power. And the types of interventions that have been used have included, in some cases, appointing additional governors to governing bodies, or suspending a school's delegated budget so the local authority takes on, then, financial control of that particular school, or sometimes applying to the Welsh Government to entirely replace a governing body and establish an intervention board. So, if I can give you an example of where that's been used and has been successful, in Flintshire. They applied to Welsh Government for two interim executive boards, in Sir Richard Gwyn Catholic High School and in Ysgol Trefonnen. They applied to us. Those governing bodies were dissolved. The IEBs were put in place and both of those schools, which had been in special measures, moved quite rapidly, actually, out of special measures. Perhaps the most recent example of this is one that the Chair will know very well in her own constituency of Torfaen, in Cwmbran High School, where Torfaen has intervened in that case. The Welsh Government has not used those powers to date. My expectation always is that local authorities should be the first port of call, and I would encourage—and we always encourage—local authorities to take a proactive approach to intervention and to use those powers. But it's my belief that it is they who are best placed initially to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Minister. Can I ask, then, about the national evaluation and improvement resource and how significant a role that will play in the raising of school standards, and how you feel it's evolved since it was first conceived? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, this brings us back to the principle of self-evaluation and something, if we're honest, we've not been very good at. If you look at a number of chief inspectors' reports into the Welsh education system, self-evaluation has always been identified as something that is missing or underdeveloped in our system to date, hence, then, the work to establish not a new approach, but a more robust approach to self-evaluation. We've done that in conjunction, again, with the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. It's really important, throughout the entirety of our reform journey that that's done in co-construction, because we want this resource to be usable in schools. So, it's all very well having a conceptual idea and people outside the classroom working on it, but if it's of no practical use to a school leadership team, then we won't see the impact. So, it's—. We're in phase 2 at the moment, where we're doing—. So, the initial resource has been developed by the OECD, middle tier and practitioners. We're in the testing phase at the moment and having it evaluated itself, with a view to introducing that resource across the system at the start of the new academic year, in September 2020. I truly believe that, if we're to make progress in Welsh education, we have to develop the skills within our system to have robust self-evaluation. This resource gives us continuity of approach right the way across Wales. So, it's not left to an individual school to come up with a system; it's right the way across the system. My hope would be that those principles could then be applied to local education authorities, to regional school improvement services and Welsh Government as part of a whole-system approach to self-evaluation. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add, Steve. +Steve Davies: Just to add that the other critical partners are Estyn themselves. +Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, yes, sorry. +Steve Davies: So, they have played a critical role and, as we know, as the Minister has said in the past, she may introduce policy and practice, but if Estyn are part of it then schools, usually, because they recognise that it will be part of the inspection process—it gives it greater push and support around it. So, they've been key players within it. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I think, if I just say as well, that the external perception of what that's about is really important. It's not a test of school readiness for reform, it is a genuine attempt for a school to evaluate their strengths, their weaknesses and where they need to go next. It's not an Estyn checklist. And because of the word 'toolkit'—the feedback was that it gave the impression of a checklist, 'Just do this and check list'. So, we're actually going to change the name of that resource. So, it'll be called the national evaluation and improvement resource, rather than the toolkit, because, as I said, the feedback was that 'toolkit' gave the impression of a checklist exercise, and it's got to be about more than that if it's going to be meaningful. So, it'll be changed to an 'improvement resource'. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Before I bring Suzy in, can I just welcome Siân Gwenllian, who is joining us via video-conference in north Wales? Morning, Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Can you hear me? +Lynne Neagle AM: We can, yes. We can hear you very nicely, thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Only a very quick one. It's about the development of the— +Kirsty Williams AM: The resource. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, the resource, thank you—about whether there were any conflicting ideas in the process of development that made it quite difficult to zone in on something that school leadership teams, in particular, could rely on. Were there differences of opinion on what this should look like? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not that I'm aware of from the practitioners that I've spoken to who have been part of that. So, for instance, Suzy, you will know the very small school of Gladestry. The head of Gladestry has been involved in this process, and she said that she'd really enjoyed the process of working alongside Estyn and the OECD as a school leader to be able to shape it. But I'm not aware that there's been conflict in that process. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not suggesting that there has been; I'm just interested as to how it had worked, that's all. +Steve Davies: Chair, I think, inevitably, when you bring stakeholders together, they're not going to be in total agreement as to how it's going to work, and I think initially one of the challenges was having Estyn there as part of the facilitation group. There are always some concerns that, actually, it's coming from a to inspect, oral, judgmental tick box. So, we had some early day challenges where we had to convince—and, ultimately, Estyn convinced them—that they were there to help and support as opposed to to inspect, and that the model that was developed, as the Minister said, was not going to be a tick box, 'You are good at this part of self-evaluation', it was to build the skillsets up. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. So, it's got their full confidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and I think again, also, what—. You know, four years into the job, what I've reflected on as well is there is this sometimes a feeling out there that the Minister says all the right stuff, but you're not actually going to do it, so, when you talk about a new approach to doing things, you're not actually serious about it. So, trying to build that confidence that we are serious about developing a new system around self-improvement, which is different from accountability—sometimes, the practitioners are like, 'Oh, yes, we've heard it all before but it never actually happens.' And I think that's been a part of the constant—not pressure, but the responsibility on Welsh Government is in following through. So, we said that we were going to do this in the national mission, and we are going to do it. I'm really proud that there or thereabouts, a few months either way, we've actually kept to the timetable as outlined in the national mission, and that helps build confidence within the sector that we are committed to that programme and we're going to do what we say we're going to do. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: And a final question from me: how effective do you think the investment in school standards has been in this Assembly term, as opposed to the approach taken in the last Assembly term, where there was the protection put in place for core school budgets? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think, first of all, it's important that, whilst this additional resource is specifically targeted at school standards, that is only a part of a much wider education budget, a budget that—you know—is incredibly complex. And so it is really challenging to be able to draw straight lines—you know, 'We did this and it's resulted in that'—given that we're looking at the entirety of school funding here. What's been really important is that, if you drill down into what that money has been spent on, 50 per cent of it has been directed towards professional learning in one form or another to support our teaching professionals. And that's been really important to me. I've said it time and time again: an education system cannot exceed the quality of the people who stand in front of our children day in, day out to work with them and teach them. Therefore, that investment in staff and investment in the professional learning of our staff and support for them I think is making a difference already but, importantly, will continue to make a difference. But I think it is really challenging to be able to say, 'Well, we spent this bit of money and it definitely led to that', because it's such a complex picture. But that money, the way it's been spent, has been driven by evidence. And, again, what we do know from international best practice, what do we know that works in driving up standards, and then how can we align the money that we've got to supporting that? And, as I said, 50 per cent of that money has gone directly to simply supporting the professional learning of those who work with our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to talk now a bit about schools causing concern with questions from Huw Irranca-Davies. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If I can, just first of all, zoom in on the way in which we actually decide which schools need what support. So, one of the interesting questions for us is how do we use the different systems out there. So, we've got the school categorisation system, which we're familiar with. We've also got Estyn inspection reports, then we've got other intelligence, including local intelligence on the ground. How do you decide from that? How is it decided what schools need support, need challenge? How do we do that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you're right: what we have is a variety of ways in which we can identify schools that need support, or need to be challenged on their practice. But it's important not to confuse them either. So, our primary route to doing this is our school categorisation system. Sometimes, and perhaps this is inevitable—. That system is primarily there as a triage system around identifying where our resource should be spent. So, our school improvement service—it's a risk-based approach, so they can evaluate where they need to put their time, effort and resource. Sometimes, it's used by other people for other things, but that is not its primary purpose; its primary purpose there is not one of accountability, it is one of identifying risk and aligning that then to the support that is available. Estyn—now that is part of that accountability system. That is our method of holding schools and their governing bodies to account for their practice and for the work that they do. Both systems, of course, are evolving. So, how we do categorisation has changed over a period of time. The elements that go into making that judgment around the levels of support have changed, and, of course, the Estyn inspection regime is also changing. At the moment, schools are only inspected once every seven years. We're moving to a system where Estyn will be more regularly in schools. So, they are two systems, but they are different and they look at different things. But our categorisation system is how we look for those ways of identifying support for schools. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: And you've made, with feedback over the last few years, adjustments to the way that the categorisation system works. Are you content with where it is now, or do you see more adjustments being made? Have you got things in front of you that you're getting feedback on saying 'Well, we need to tweak this again a little bit'? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that system has evolved over time. So, when it started, it was just a tool around secondary schools. Now, it covers the breadth of schools. Initially, on coming into office, when I first came in, it was purely driven by data, and it was also done in quartiles. So, there was a certain number of schools that had to be in the bottom, which drove practitioners mad. They were like 'Ah, every year, there's going to be some of us that have to be in the bottom quartile', because of the way in which it was arranged, which seemed very unfair to them. So, we've changed that. It's not just purely driven on data now; there are other judgments—the professional judgments of our challenge advisers are taken into account. And I would expect that situation to continue to evolve to align itself to our curriculum reform, and our changes in self-evaluation. So, it's not a fixed point. I expect that that system will continue to evolve and change, so that it complements and assists in the reform journey as other parts of the system change. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Thanks for that. I think, for any impartial reader of the way that the trends have been going on this, there is some good news within that, in that, certainly, those schools that might have been identified as have been okay but coasting along, seem to be moving up the categories, although we still do have that—. Well, it's what the system is there to do, it's to identify those schools that do need that additional support. And I like your analogy of a triage system—'You're fit; keep on doing what you're doing and do it well; you need more support, we'll put the support in.' But, can I turn to those schools that are causing significant concern, and how we identify them? The Estyn chief inspector's conclusions at the end of the 2017-18 report that these schools are not being identified early enough—there's a need to do something urgently about these concerns, particularly in secondary schools. Have we addressed that? Are you content that we've addressed that concern? Was he right? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, the chief inspector is absolutely right—absolutely right. I've got no beef with that statement at all. In some ways, when a school goes into special measures, in a way, that's a failure of the system, because that should have been identified sooner. So I've got no beef, as I said, with the chief inspector saying that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: So just to ask, bearing in mind the earlier discussion we were having, how is it that we don't identify those schools? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's it—you're quite right. Undoubtedly, what categorisation has done is led to a greater understanding, I think, on behalf of local education authorities' and school improvement services' knowledge about their schools. I think knowledge around schools is greatly enhanced by that process. But we are not there yet in terms of necessarily, then, moving those schools more quickly, once they've been identified as needing the highest level of support to see improvement. And secondary schools is a particular, particular challenge. So you will have seen from the last publication of categorisation data that our primary sector continues to improve—more and more and more of our primary schools are in a green rating, which is very satisfying to me. But we have got more of an issue with secondary schools, and we have a particular issue with the same schools being identified in that level of categorisation. So even though we've identified them as needing that extra help, they are not moving at pace away from that system. So there are two things that we are doing at the moment. The first is, we are, again, looking at different sets of data that can give us even earlier warning systems that things are going wrong in a school—and perhaps Steve will explain later. For instance, staff sickness, and carefully monitoring staff sickness, because there is a direct correlation between high levels of staff sickness in a school and what is going on in the school. And Steve can explain some of this work later. But we're piloting a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. Each local authority has been asked to identify two of their high schools that they are particularly worried about. And we have a new multi-agency approach, working with those schools to try and move them more forward. So it's two from each region, a multi-agency panel, working with the school. And that multi-agency panel includes the school itself, the local authority, the regional consortia school improvement staff, Estyn and Welsh Government—as a multi-agency panel to support improvement in that school. So, for instance, what would normally happen, Estyn would come in, Estyn would make a judgment on the school—requiring special measures or urgent improvement—and Estyn would go away. They'd go away for six months, and then they'd come back in six months, and they'd make another judgment, 'No, still not good enough', and disappear for six months. We're saying—Estyn and the Welsh Government have agreed that's not the best approach; Estyn need to be part of the solution, rather than just coming and making a judgment. The initial feedback from this trial is very, very positive. Actually, we've had local authorities coming to us and saying, 'Can we put more schools in? Rather than just having two of our high schools, can we engage more in this project and this pilot?' It's being evaluated by Cardiff Metropolitan University and Swansea University, so we're having some academic overview to see, actually, does this approach work, can we evidence it—that it actually makes a difference? And it's actually—I'd like to claim all the credit for it, but it's actually not dissimilar to something that's happening in Scotland as well. But we knew that carrying on doing the same old thing clearly wasn't moving these schools, we needed a new approach, and this is what we're doing at the moment. So it's relatively new, but the initial feedback is positive. Steve, I don't know— +Steve Davies: I think your important point is about, 'What about the schools that are sliding in that direction?' And it's bringing together what we know from Estyn, but also, critically, local authorities have knowledge of their schools, and so do consortia. We've got to be better at bringing those together. So, the Minister gave the example of staff sickness—not always a trigger, but it's one of those. If you look at movement of pupils out of a school, you can look at complaints, you can look at, actually, emerging increased use of HR resources that a school pulls on a local authority. None of these have been pushed up into the public domain, but they're important antennae. The point the Minister made about Estyn as well is, historically, when they go into special measures, Estyn, at the end of that week, call in, historically, either the region or the local authority, they will feed back to one of them, and then they go away. So, they are staying with it. So, we are brining together the knowledge. But, as the Minister said, we want to keep a very clear distinction between the accountability and the transparency to the public, to parents, with the very detailed collective work of that multi-agency group to actually make that difference over time. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Okay. So, does that—. I'd love to go further, but time is against us. Does that deal with the issue of the schools that have been identified in those categories of requiring significant improvement and requiring special measures? Are those the ones that will be identified now, or is that above and beyond that again? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those are the ones that are primarily at the forefront of our minds, but this way of sharing data better, to step in earlier, is part of our attempt to address what the chief inspector says about stepping in early—not waiting until a school gets into special measures and a formal judgment from Estyn of that, but actually using that intelligence to get support in there earlier. The three elements that that multi-agency approach look at are: what are the fundamentals that need addressing in this school? What is the capacity of the school itself to be able to address those fundamentals? And, what extra support needs to go into that senior management team and the governing body to get those fundamentals addressed? And actually, what does sustainable improvement look like? Because, again, one of the issues, sometimes, that happens is, a school goes into a category with Estyn, there's a big push and a big, 'We must do something' and the school comes out, but actually, that improvement is not sustainable. It's the low-hanging fruit; it's the easy wins that have been achieved, but actually, perhaps some of the fundamental challenges underlying in that school haven't been addressed in that process. So, this is about what will sustainable improvement look like in six months, what's it going to look like in 12 months and what's it going to look like in 18 months. So, actually, a more strategic, longer term approach to real change in a school rather than, perhaps, some of the easy-to-fix items that make a school as if it's doing better, but we really haven't tackled some of the underlying problems that make that school vulnerable to slipping back. Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a couple of supplementaries on—. Sorry? +Kirsty Williams AM: Does that make sense? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. We've got a couple of supplementaries on this, first from Suzy and then from Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Chair. Obviously, I'm pleased to hear that this work is being done, but I'm wondering—. What strikes me, in the recent past, at least, particularly as we've got the usual suspects in this category—. I've got to ask myself why it is that councils have been reluctant, perhaps, to step in with these schools earlier, particularly as they've got consortia or middle-tier support as well. Has there been a deficit in that space that has meant that councils don't feel equipped to step in? I just don't really get it why they've been reluctant to step in so far. If they've been nervous about doing it, because they don't feel that they've got the tools to do it, then I think that's pretty important, because as you were saying, we were talking about fundamentals; surely, councils have been able to deal with fundamentals, and more importantly, consortia up until now. Because, obviously, we're asking these players to give us evidence at some point, so perhaps I'd like to challenge them on how come we're here now. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. +Suzy Davies AM: I'm not laying this at your door. +Kirsty Williams AM: And rightly so. I guess each local authority will have an explanation for each individual school, I suspect. What's crucial to me is that we have to—. I see our job as corralling the collective effort, and I think, for too long in the system, there has been a lack of co-ordination. So, this is about bringing and corralling a collective effort to address this, going forward, in more sustainable way. And I think it does come back to this issue around self-evaluation and a willingness to be open, honest and upfront about some of the challenges that we've got. It's not easy, is it? It's not easy to accept or to acknowledge sometimes when things are— +Suzy Davies AM: That they don't know how to do this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that they're going badly, or perhaps they don't know exactly how to make the difference. So this approach, as I said, is a new way of trying to coral that collective effort across the board. But, I don't know if Steve—because you've done other roles in the system, so perhaps you've got a different insight. +Steve Davies: I think you're right. The variation across the country, across local authorities—. There are some local authorities that we've worked with and we identify have taken the appropriate action. There are others that we're working with, and yes, at its best, it's done as a joint exercise where they use their regional school improvement service to help in the identification that there is a need for this. They take advice as to what the action is, whether it is, as the Minister said, in the more significant areas, a board, or whether a warning notice comes in terms of standards or finance. So, we're working with them and we're working with the Welsh Local Government Association to share that practice. An example of that work is: we have done a development training session for cabinet members for education, and scrutiny leads for education across Wales, and all 22 local authorities came to that and engaged with that. That was partly about self-improvement, but it was also about where significant issues arise, you have to constructively confront them. And that comes with what the region knows, and increasingly, we're looking to have it consistently across 22 local authorities, so they are collecting all the additional data that we referred to earlier, so they can legitimately hold a mirror up and say, 'This is a real concern that we have. We're not punishing you, but we're registering the seriousness, and we want you to address it.' And we're making progress. I believe it's genuinely more consistent now, but I'd be lying if I said that there was consistency across all 22 local authorities. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'm conscious of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got a supplementary from Siân, then back to Huw. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because you are moving to a more sophisticated approach in terms of identifying problems sooner, and so can offer the support earlier, is it time to think about moving away from the system of categorisation entirely? That is, has the categorisation system reached the end of its usefulness, and is the multi-agency approach, this more sophisticated approach, a better way, ultimately, of being able to assist schools in moving forward? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, Siân, as I said earlier, the categorisation system has evolved over time, and my expectation is that it will continue to evolve, because it has to be consistent with our overall approach to school improvement and raising standards. I expect OECD will have feedback for us on this important part of our system, and we'll wait to see exactly what they say about it, but as I said in answer to Huw Irranca-Davies earlier, I haven't got a closed mind; we've demonstrated over the last four years our willingness to change the system to make it a smarter system, and we will continue to keep that under review, as we move forward. If I could just go back briefly, it doesn't sound like a very exciting thing, does it, when we say we've been doing work with the WLGA, with cabinet members, but also scrutiny, because that's a really important part of the jigsaw as well, is actually local government scrutiny of the performance of your education portfolio holder and the leadership of your council. So this is about trying to up the ante on all sides, so that those issues around 'What are you doing in your local authority to use the powers that you have?' You know, sometimes, making sure that everybody in that authority—those in power and those who are there to hold those in power to account—have the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding to do that appropriately. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Huw, briefly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, briefly. I only have one final question. We've talked a lot about early identification; getting in there and then managing the improvement, this triage approach there, and then getting some grip of it, as well, in doing all of that. But my question now is on what we currently have. I won't touch on the primary schools, but let's just look at secondary schools—11 per cent of secondary schools inspected in the last two academic years judged as unsatisfactory, needing urgent improvement. There will always be secondary schools and primary schools that hit moments of crisis for one reason or another, but 11 per cent to me, and to any layperson, would seem unreasonably high. Are you—? It would be daft to ask you if you're content. What is a level that you would be content with of having schools in red category in Wales? +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right. Schools will need different levels of support at different points, and sometimes, it's not because of a crisis. So, for instance, in my region, we do have an increase in the number of schools in the amber category. That's because we've seen in that particular region a number of headteachers retire because they've reached retirement age, and there are new headteachers. Well, that is a moment of risk in the school—when senior leadership changes. Nothing else has changed in that school, but the simple fact that you have a new leader, sometimes in those cases it might be their first headship. That means that that school is going to need a little bit of extra support, so it isn't always just a crisis that needs extra support, there are just general things that happen in the life of a school that could lead to it. But you're absolutely right—we have a particular challenge in the secondary sector where we have not been able to move individual schools forward at pace. And 11 per cent is not acceptable to me, Huw, which is why we have introduced this new pilot to address those schools where, persistently, we have concerns about their ability to move forward. If we'd have carried on doing the same thing, I suspect we would have just carried on getting the same result—hence the need for a new approach to those schools that are causing concern. +Steve Davies: Very briefly, the things we talked about earlier was how we measure the performance of schools, particularly at GCSEs, with a narrow focus. As was said earlier, some of these are the same groups—they trip in and then they don't come out. Our belief is, from research, that they concentrate on squeezing the pips to get the grades up in some small areas for a period of time, and you can do that by targeting and immersing them. Estyn can tick the box to say your grades have got better, but we haven't handled the serious underpinning issues—leadership, teaching and learning, and bringing those together. As the Minister said, what does sustainable improvement look like in six, 12, 18 months? It isn't just, as important as they are, getting those exam grades up a bit. They're the fundamental—. And if they're all agreed as the indicators at the outset, we're more likely—. So it's multi-agency; it's not a little activity, it's a major strategy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin David has some questions now on the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: I'd like to consider the work of the consortia. In 2016, your election manifesto very clearly said that you wanted to abolish regional consortia—three words in it. Why haven't you done it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Because, given that you're such a keen student of my manifesto, you'll also know that— +Hefin David AM: It was only three words. +Kirsty Williams AM: The Liberal Democrat manifesto also said that we supported major local government reform and a major reduction in the number of local government units. That hasn't happened. I have to say genuinely, my experience over the last four years has proven to me the value of regional working, and in the absence of significant local government reform, I think it's absolutely vital that we have scale in school improvement services—scale that I don't think can be delivered across 22 individual local authorities. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, if there was local government reform, you would abolish the consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think if there was significant local government reform and we could demonstrate that those units had such a scale that they could perform the functions of regional consortia, then I think it would be inevitable that any education Minister would look to see whether there was an opportunity to change structures. But in the absence of that, Hefin, I have been absolutely convinced whilst doing this job that you need larger units to be able to carry out successful school improvement work, and I think it would be reckless to advocate the system going back to school improvement being organised in 22 different ways. +Hefin David AM: Okay. Do you think that the work of the four consortia has been consistent and effective? +Kirsty Williams AM: The school improvement services? +Hefin David AM: The four consortia. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as with individual local education authorities, there are some regional consortia services that have performed really highly—and that's not me saying that, that's Estyn, but gives us assurance around that—and there are others that need to improve. I think the consortia themselves would admit that they, since their establishment, have found new ways of working. Initially, they were very separate entities that did things their own way. Increasingly, over recent years, we have seen those consortia working together on a national approach, but delivered on a regional basis. So I think they themselves have evolved over time. But we are constantly looking for optimum delivery from those particular organisations, but as I said, I think it would be absolutely reckless to go back to a situation where school improvement services were being delivered individually on 22 different bases. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I'm happy to accept that you've changed your opinion there; that's no problem at all. But with regard to the four consortia, and we'll take Education through Regional Working as an example, it does things differently to the other three. Is that a cause for concern, or do you think that's entirely appropriate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, ERW does things differently, but then so does the Education Achievement Service. EAS is constituted in a different way to the Central South Consortium. What I'm interested in is not necessarily how they are constituted and organised, I'm interested in the effectiveness of that organisation to deliver for children and for teachers. ERW has got particular challenges, and we continue to work with those in ERW to address those, but increasingly, as I said, what we are seeing the regional consortia do is develop a national approach to school improvement services but deliver that on a regional basis so that there is greater consistency in terms of delivery. +Hefin David AM: Are you happy that, within the ERW area, local authorities employ their own improvement advisers, rather than doing it in the way that the others do? +Kirsty Williams AM: We have discussed this at length with them. My preference would be for school improvement officers to be employed in the centre, and we continue to have those discussions, but what's really important to understand is that the regional consortia are not a beast of the Government; they are a beast of the local authorities that have worked together to create a school improvement service that meets their needs. So we can't impose that solution, and we continue to discuss with ERW what is the optimal way, and they continue to discuss with their constituent local authorities about how that should be organised. +Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that Neath Port Talbot have given notice that they want to withdraw from regional working? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's really disappointing that Neath Port Talbot have published that notice. What's important for me is to understand—not for me, it will be important for Estyn. It will be really important for us to understand how Neath Port Talbot intend to support their schools and their teachers if they were to withdraw from ERW, especially at what is a very, very critical time. The regional consortia have a key role to play in supporting systems with the introduction of the curriculum. I would want to know from Neath Port Talbot how they are going to do that without being part of that organisation. And, of course, there's the added complexity that so much of our money is channelled through to schools via the regional consortia. So, I would want to understand from Neath Port Talbot how they're going to safeguard their schools and make sure that the children who are receiving their education in Neath Port Talbot are not disadvantaged if they were to follow through on that decision. +Hefin David AM: Do you feel that it's your role to intervene in that area and instruct Neath Port Talbot and ERW as to how they should resolve this issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I would be seeking assurances— +Hefin David AM: What does that mean, though, 'seeking assurances'? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Neath Port Talbot would need to demonstrate to me how they're going to address these issues. If they're not part of ERW and their schools and their children are not going to be in receipt of the support from ERW, as I said, especially at this critical time, how are they intending to do that? I haven't seen those plans, but if they were to push forward and follow through on the notice, I would want to see them and I suspect Estyn would want to see them also. +Hefin David AM: Okay, just last issue on that: you're just waiting to see what Neath Port Talbot do next, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we have written to Neath Port Talbot to ask them to demonstrate to us, if they were to pull out of ERW, how they're going to meet their functions. I have not heard back from them. +Hefin David AM: Steve, did you want to say something? +Steve Davies: Obviously—[Inaudible.]—that point. We wrote to them last Friday, and we are awaiting their response now. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, that's where we are. Okay. There was the document in 2015—'National model for regional working'. Is that the current document? Are there plans to change or update it, or is that exactly where we stand? +Kirsty Williams AM: So, that is the current model. Some work was undertaken in 2017 and 2018 to look to update that model and revise that model. Some specific recommendations were put forward about additional services that could be organised on a regional basis; primarily, that is a specialist human resources resource. We know that, because of austerity in some local authorities, HR departments have been really stretched. Education HR is a specialist service, it's not generic. It's often a service that—. I see that as part of a school improvement service. Support for governors also has been stretched within individual local authorities. So, a proposal was put forward to include specialist HR and governor support as part of the regional model. That was rejected by local government. Our local authorities did not want to include that in the regional model. However, I must say, having presented that evidence, some of our local authorities, even though there wasn't a national agreement to put that into the national model, have pooled their resources, and those services are being delivered and supported on a regional basis. So, for instance, the Education Achievement Service now provide specialist HR resource, and EAS and Central South provide governor support. So, although we weren't successful in persuading local government to adopt a new national model, local authorities in those areas saw the value of moving that way. +Hefin David AM: So, with that in mind, and perhaps I'll put this to Steve Davies, everything the Minister just said, and also the line in the document— 'The implementation of this model will change over time'— is it time to go back to that document and review it from a procedural point of view? +Steve Davies: I don't think it's necessarily timely to go back and have a complete review of it. But, certainly, we are in ongoing discussions with the Welsh Local Government Association, both in terms of work with local authorities, and the type of intervention in schools. So, we keep a constant watch as to which areas that we believe we could develop further. We are not currently intending to do a wholesale review of that. As the Minister touched on earlier, there is some work to get consistency across the current area, particularly, as we just mentioned, in relation to ERW work. So, it's getting a consistent approach at that level, and sharing the practice. I think what is emerging, as the Minister said, is that there are two regions who have already made this shift to pool services. I think the two other regions are seeing and will see the benefits of that, and instead of forcing it through, we'd expect that to evolve. But we're not, at this stage, looking to a wholesale review of the national model. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. +Hefin David AM: And Professor Dylan Jones's strategic delivery group seems to have had quite a warm welcome in the sector. Is it fair to say that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I believe so. I'm very grateful to Dylan for his hard work and his skill in chairing that group, and I think it's been welcomed by all, so that we can get that clarity and consistency about the roles and responsibilities of the individual partners and players in the middle tier. +Hefin David AM: And when will the work be completed, and what will the outcomes be? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the group is currently engaging with Steve and other officials on agreeing a plan, but also, crucially, that plan is there to support the successful implementation of the curriculum, so that we're very clear about the roles and responsibilities in the middle tier in this crucial phase following the publication. We have to move now from the publication into a relentless focus on implementation. The history of devolution is full of fantastic documents, and, shall I say, patchy implementation. The work that has gone into that curriculum is too important for implementation to be left to chance. It's too important. It's too good to be left to chance. So, everything now is a relentless focus on successful implementation. +Hefin David AM: Yes, but I'm thinking that the strategic delivery is reviewing the role of the middle tier. So, you know, what do we expect to see from it, notwithstanding the kind of softly, softly approach that you've already talked about? +Steve Davies: It was set up, actually, about 18 months ago—just under. It was set up to build collective efficacy, because what people out there are seeing is that there's a confusion of roles, in what the regions are doing, and it was building that collective efficacy so everyone was behind the wheel. So, they've been looking at who is doing what for the last 18 months, and exploring and making some changes themselves. It's not just what they do with Government or what they do with each other; it's just happened that it's timely, because one of the key bits of feedback we believe we will get from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is we have had co-construction, we'd had collective effort, but we need to do more, particularly within the middle tier. This is not controlled by Government, it is arm's length from Government, and it's not their job to get it ready for the new curriculum—that's a key part of it. This group will have an ongoing role; it's not a task and finish group. It does feed back in to the Minister but there's no formal mechanism by which they have to report. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's very clear. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got supplementaries from Suzy, then Siân. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, please. +Suzy Davies AM: I think this is a really interesting evidence session. What I'm about to say, I say it even though I'm a big localist: it all seems to be heading in one direction of a national service. Is the strategic group even thinking in these terms, obviously building in local accountability? But it'll just make it so much easier in terms of accountability and consistency to monitor what the middle tier does, if it's a national service, like the National Adoption Service. Local delivery, national service—is it heading in that direction? +Kirsty Williams AM: That's not the intention of setting the group up. As Steve just said, I receive feedback from Dylan, because I meet Dylan in this particular capacity on a planned basis. He is there to give me advice on the middle tier, and to give me advice on what he thinks Welsh Government needs to do. But I've not had that conversation with him about a national service. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I was going to raise has been answered already, that is that, from what I can see, the work that Professor Dylan Jones is doing has evolved somewhat. I felt that, originally, the idea was to look at the middle tier in terms of any kind of duplication that was happening, and where it was possible to tighten up the people going into schools from different directions. But it appears that it has evolved to be something that's much more than that, and that it is placing a focus on the curriculum and other aspects of the educational system. Is there a risk for them to lose focus in that sense? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. I think they are very, very clear around establishing roles and responsibilities for each of the players and to be very clear about the expectations that each part of the middle tier can have of each other, as to what they can expect from their partners in the middle tier. And absolutely, it is about making sure that there isn't duplication, that people aren't second-guessing each other's work, and there are clear demarcations about who does what in the system, and, as I said, knowing that you can rely on your colleague in the middle tier to do the bit that they are responsible for. So, I don't think there's a question of it losing focus. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a lot of areas to cover so we are going to have to pick up our pace a bit. The next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thinking about you as a Minister trying to see what the long-term trends are with regard to raising standards and improving educational attainment, is that difficult, because the performance measures have changed, haven't they? We can't compare like-for-like now, because of the changes that have been made in the way that performance is measured. So, to begin with, is that a challenge, to see whether progress has been made? And secondly, what evidence do you as Minister use to look at the long-term trends? +Kirsty Williams AM: The first thing to say, with regard to changes to performance measures—you're right that change to those does make it, in some cases, more difficult to look at trends over a period of time. But those changes are made for really good reasons. If we change a performance measure, it is done to ensure that it is in the best interests of learners. And I think the best interests of learners always trumps the ease of comparison. I understand that, for researchers and for opposition Members, even for Ministers, it would be simpler to have the same set of measures over a period of time. But if we know that those things are driving behaviours that are unhelpful to children, and not in the best interests of children, then we have to change them, even thought that then does create challenges in different areas. With regard to what do we look at, there are a number of ways that we gain data and look at data in the system: everything from the categorisation system we spoke of earlier, and trends in categorisation; we look at Estyn reports; we continue to look at examination results. But we're trying to develop a broader range of data and statistics that give us a whole picture of the education performance, rather than narrowing down on one simple indicator that tells you one thing but doesn't tell you everything. But I don't know, Steve, if there's anything further that you'd like to add. +Steve Davies: It's going back to what the Member raised earlier, in terms of the range of things that you look at—things that can make a difference. So, when Estyn review schools, or we're looking to develop national frameworks for things like mental health and well-being, which look to the practice that enables raising standards, it's collecting that information, both at a national level, through the annual review of Estyn, as well as our engagement with regions and local authorities. So, it's looking at the evidence base that goes beyond, but impacts on data. And, inevitably, we will use the Programme for International Student Assessment, and any other external assessments that come through organisations like the OECD. And even where we've changed the performance measures, we still have, at national level, the ongoing data. So, if you looked at level 2 plus, we believe it is important that children get five good GCSEs—for higher education and for employment. So, we've not lost sight of those at a national level—we're not using them as a narrow set of performance measures for individual schools. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we look at—level 2 plus is a good example. We know that a relentless focus on that single measure, as a way of judging the system, leads to a set of behaviours in schools. It narrows the focus onto a certain part of the cohort, it narrows the curriculum, when we know that children— +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm not challenging the fact that you've changed the performance measures—I understand that, and having a broader way of looking is better in the long run. I'm just saying, because there's been this change, it makes it more of a challenge—whilst accepting why you've made the changes, but it does present more of a challenge, presumably, because you have to look at more indicators, and take evidence from different places. But I take it that you're confident that the trajectory is going in the right way. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, I think we are making improvements. But you're right: it does make it more challenging. But those changes are being made for the right reasons, as I said, whether that be at level 2 plus. Look at English literature. I understand why perhaps a performance measure around English was introduced, but the effect of that was that significant numbers of children—and, it must be said, usually children who are entitled to free school meals—were suddenly not sitting English literature GCSE. We've changed that performance measure, and guess what? Last year, we saw a significant increase in the number of children that were sitting English literature GCSE. For standards of literacy and oracy, I think studying literature is really, really important, before we even get into the joy of introducing children to the written word and the love of reading. So, we make changes. Yes, it causes challenges, but we're making those changes because we believe that they are in the best interest of children, and that has to trump ease of comparison. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Why have you decided to ask the consortia, Estyn and so on not to report on local data or regional level data? How do we then come to conclusions about what is working if it isn't presented on a local authority and regional basis? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think the thing to say about the communications from Welsh Government, Estyn, and the WLGA is it's not about not communicating the data, it's about challenging people on how that data should be used. So, the data is still available, but it's a challenge to them about how to use that data. So, for instance, when we're presenting data that compares local authority to local authority, you could have a local authority that says, 'There we go, I'm above the national average. I don't need to worry about the education in my local authority, because I'm above the average, or I'm better than my neighbour.' That doesn't necessarily mean that everything is right in your local education authority. Perhaps your children should be doing even better than what you're presented with. So, actually, it's not about hiding data; it's about how you use the data appropriately. And sometimes, how we were presenting data in the past was lulling some people into a false sense of security about the performance of their system. So, it's about how you use data, and that's what the communication from Welsh Government and the WLGA and Estyn was about: think very carefully about this data and what it's telling you about your system, and don't be lulled into a false sense of security that you may be doing brilliantly. Or, perhaps, looking at your data, you may think, 'Oh, my goodness me, we're not doing very well at all', but, actually, more careful consideration of that might show that your school's impact on those children is really, really a positive one. So, you've got to use that data in the context. So, it's not about less data. If anything, it's about more data and, crucially for me, it's about more intelligent use and interrogation of that data, about truly what it's telling you about your system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But again, the Welsh Government—. You have continued to publish the local and regional level data. So, doesn't that contradict what you've been telling the consortia and everyone else? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at all. As I said, we're not in the business of trying to hide data—I believe absolutely in full transparency. And in terms of level 2 data, I think I'm not moving away from the point that I think it's really important that more and more children get five really good GCSEs. I think it's important for their life chances. It is about how that data is used, not about hiding data or making that data not available. +Steve Davies: Can I, very briefly—? We didn't just send a letter out collectively. We've now carried out training jointly with WLGA and Estyn on how to use that data. So, it's not just looking where your LA is; it's also not looking at whether your school's better than average for the authority. And it is well received, and it should broaden the approach of scrutiny committees to beyond what historically was, if I'm honest, looking at the league table for their authority or looking at the league table of local authorities. It's not that they shouldn't be looking at that, but they need to dig much, much deeper underneath it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go on now to Suzy. I'm going to appeal for brief questions and brief answers so that we can cover the rest of the questions. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll shorten these questions, okay. We know why you got rid of the old measures. We've got interim measures now. What are they telling you about the success you've had in trying to avoid the bad behaviour? Short answers. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's impossible. [Laughter.] I think it's inevitable: whatever kind of measures we put in place, people will look to maximise their success in those measures, and I don't think we'll ever come up with a system where those measures are absolutely perfect. What's really important to me is that we're really, really, really challenging schools to look at the performance of all of their children, rather than just at a very, very narrow cohort around those C/D boundaries, which we knew was detrimental, potentially, to more able and talented children and really pushing those Bs to As and those As to A*s, and children for whom actually just getting in to school on a daily basis is an achievement, and the school has done well to provide that. So, our new capped 9 makes sure that there is breadth across a range of subjects, rather than just focusing on a narrower and narrower bunch of subject opportunities for children, and our new third-third-third system enables schools to really look at their performance. So if their capped 9 score is high, what's driving that? Is it because the bottom third of the cohort is doing really well, and the impact on those children is above and beyond what could be expected, but actually, you're not doing very well for your more able and talented; you're not pushing them on? Alternatively, maybe your capped 9 score is because your MAT children are doing incredibly well, but actually, you're not really making the progress for the middle tier of those children. It allows us to have a greater focus on the performance of our FSM children—where they really are within that system. So, it's a much more granular—. And crucially for me, it looks at the impact for every child, because every child has to matter in the system, and what we had before was a narrowing of curriculum choice and a narrowing on a certain cohort of children. +Suzy Davies AM: So are the permanent measures likely to be pretty similar to what you've got now? Because the research—I don't know if the research is complete yet. When will you be publishing the new permanent evaluation? +Kirsty Williams AM: Sue, you're right: they're interim measures at the moment, and we will need to make sure that the performance measures are aligned to the new curriculum. That, potentially, of course—. Because Wales's review of qualifications potentially has an impact on what those finally will look like, so that work is ongoing at the moment, and unless Steve can tell me off the top of his head when we expect that to be completed by, I will send you a note. But they're interim at the moment, because we need to align them to the new curriculum. +Suzy Davies AM: I think we understand that. [Inaudible.]—date. +Steve Davies: No, no. This is not a quick fix. This is a two to three-year research base. The new qualifications for the new curriculum will not start until 2025. They have to be in place for 2022. There's a three-year roll on. I would expect the broad structure of the interim measures to continue over that time. There will be some tweaks for consistency. It's what's wrapped around those interim measures that I touched on earlier: the other evidence that we bring to bear about the effectiveness of a school, but we do want to say to schools that on the whole, broadly speaking, the interim measures will carry on for two, three years. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, and the reason I asked that is right at the beginning of this session, the Minister said to the Chair that this £100 million that's going into school improvements will be going into things that work. We need some evidence that the interim measures are going to work as well, so when are they going to be evaluated? +Steve Davies: Well, we've only just used them for one year. +Suzy Davies AM: That's what I'm asking you. +Steve Davies: We've signalled that they're only going to be in place for three years. We are carrying out our own review of the impact of those and that's been built in, but I expect the OECD report—because it is an extensive report—to give us feedback on how those things are working now, and some steer, as they did with the last report, as to the direction we would want to go into. +Kirsty Williams AM: And what I'm also interested in is those performance management measures around schools. Yes, they're about outcomes for children, but actually are about a broader suite of behaviours within that school, so, yes, qualifications and grades are an important part of a performance measure, but actually, I have other expectations of schools, above and beyond simply qualifications. And so, we would want our permanent set of performance measures to look at a wider set of behaviours within a school, and I think because—. Exams are important—of course they are, qualifications are important—but the way in which those schools achieve those results are also important. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Would you anticipate that including well-being, then? +Suzy Davies AM: In a whole-school approach. +Kirsty Williams AM: I absolutely—and we need to find a way of how we can truly measure that. Sometimes, children's well-being is influenced by lots of things outside the control of a school. So, I don't want schools to be held accountable for things that they have no control over, because of the circumstances in which a child may be living. But, absolutely: well-being and how the culture of the school addresses well-being is really important to me. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy. Move on to PISA, please. +Suzy Davies AM: How useful is PISA for you in helping school improvement? I know that it's not always the thing that you enjoy watching or looking out for. But, genuinely, how useful is it? +Kirsty Williams AM: It is one of a range of tools that we need to look at. Siân, quite rightly, talked about consistency. PISA is one thing where there is a level of consistency, so it will continue to be, I think, an important part of how we test how our system is doing. +Suzy Davies AM: We know that you are a little bit encouraged, but we are not out of the woods yet. You mentioned this in Plenary when we talked about PISA. How confident are you that we are on track for meeting these targets that were set before your time, or do you think that having those targets is helpful? Is it setting up aspirations that are incapable of being met within a period of time? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, those long-term targets of a score around 500 are part of 'Our National Mission', and we have to keep the pressure on to strive. They are testing, but we have to keep the pressure on to strive to reach them. In some cases, I can be quite encouraged. If we look at reading scores for girls, we are almost there, but that just demonstrates what a journey we've got with our boys to address. For me, one of the ways in which we will reach those targets and achieve them is further progress on our more able and talented children. Although we are now performing at an OECD average, I will be the first person to admit that, although we have seen an improvement in the higher level skills of our more able and talented children, we do not perform at an OECD average with regard to those level 6 and level 5 scores. +Suzy Davies AM: Even within the UK, really, we are quite far behind. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, I think that's where we really need to push on. That's one of the reasons why we have introduced a more able and talented budget to support that, and our Seren programme, which is delivering fantastic results post-16. That's why we're introducing the principles of Seren earlier into children's careers, bringing it down from year 9 upwards, to be able to drive improvements. So, I think that that's the area that we are particularly keen to work on: making sure that more of our children perform at the OECD average at level 5 and level 6. Clearly, we've got more work to do on reading. We are working with southern Ireland, who have consistently done well with reading scores, to look to see what lessons we can learn to press on with there with reading. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. My final question on this. You recognise it as a priority, particularly for boys. Does that mean that the focus will then drift slightly from maths, where there has been some success; and drift from science, where the encouragement of more people to take GCSE science has reduced the number of high-level passes? +Kirsty Williams AM: First, we have to have a system that is capable of doing all of those of things at the same time. We can't accept a system that says, 'Well, we can do a bit over here, but that means we have to—.' We have to have a system, Suzy, that can drive improvements at all levels. That's my expectation. +Suzy Davies AM: The balloon needs to be bigger not just squeezing it at one end. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, yes. That's my expectation of this system. You have to deliver across all of these. We have seen some progress. As I've said, it's far from perfect, and we've got more work to do, but we have to deliver across all three domains, as we did last time. And I'm not going to make any apologies for changing the performance indicators around science. It was a travesty that there were children who never had the opportunity to sit a science GCSE. We don't have to make assumptions about the nature of many, many, many of those children. We have seen a significant increase in the number of children who are having the opportunity to sit GCSE science and who are passing GCSE science. So, I'm not going to make any apologies about that. One of the reasons that I suspect we have ended up with poor science scores is because of the previous policy around science entries and science qualifications. Again, one of the reasons that we have changed it isn't just solely because we need to do better in PISA, but I think that by changing it, we will see an impact on PISA. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: The final set of questions is from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to discuss an issue that I know is important to you, namely closing the attainment gap between pupils who are eligible for free school meals and those who are not eligible for free school meals. Unfortunately, the problem persists, doesn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. We are not where we need to be in terms of the performance, not only of our children on free school meals, but the performance of our looked-after children, and the performance of some children from some ethnic minority groups. So, we will continue to look to support those learners in a variety of ways, again looking to amend our practice on the basis of evidence that is given to us from our experts who are there to advise us. There is clearly more that we need to do. There has been some progress in some areas, but it is not where I would want it to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, this is despite the fact that there is £475 million that has been invested in the pupil development grant, for this exact purpose of closing the attainment gap. But, the problem persists, and in some places, it's deteriorating. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, I am not shying away from any assumption or declaration that we need to do better. But, I do think that we need to acknowledge where progress has been made. If we go back to look at what PISA has said about our performance, the PISA results show that pupils in Wales are relatively more able to overcome the disadvantage of their background than is the average in OECD countries. So, our children are doing better in that, and that gives me encouragement. That's not me saying that; that's there. If we look at pupils who are eligible for free school meals, they do score below their better-off counterparts in PISA by some 34 points. The gap in England is 40 points. So, again, that gap is smaller here in Wales. If we look at basic levels of qualifications, back in—. It's difficult to make comparisons because of all the reasons we have talked about, but if we look back to 2006 and we look at the very basic level of qualifications, which is a level 1 qualification, we have seen a jump from 9.4 per cent of children in 2006 achieving a level 1 qualification to over 18 per cent. So, there is progress. There is evidence that the resources that we are spending are making a difference. But, clearly, we are not where we would want to be. That's why we will continue to focus those resources on those children, where we need it. But, we need to do that earlier. Sticking plasters in years 10 and 11 aren't going to cut it. We need to get this right for those children, the moment that they come into a nursery and the moment that they start their formal education at the age of 5. That's how we are going to make the difference. Providing catch-up, of course, we need to do for those kids; we can't throw those year 10s and year 11s to the wind. We have to support those children. But, we will see real improvement when we get in there earlier. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But I'm sure that that is a disappointment to you, because it has been a personal priority for you as well. In terms of minority ethnic learners, while there are some groups within that category who are achieving, there is underachievement happening here as well, isn't there? It's not consistent across the minority ethnic group. Is that something that you will be focusing upon? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that's why we have committed to maintaining a ring-fenced grant to local authorities of some £10 million, to support education of our minority ethnic children. But, again, you are right, you are absolutely right, Siân. We need a much more sophisticated conversation about what is really going on in attainment across minority ethnic groups so that we can best target that resource and have a conversation about what the differences are. You are absolutely correct: there is a real mixed picture. If we look at black Welsh girls entitled to free school meals, they perform almost at the national average for all children—not FSM children; the national average for all children. Black Welsh boys don't, but neither do white Welsh boys. So, there is a really complex picture here, and I really welcome a debate about acknowledging the various levels of performance of BAME children, and where the gaps in performance lie. You are quite right: it is a complex picture in the system. I'm committed to continuing to support educational opportunities, and that's why have ring-fenced the minority ethnic achievement grant. There are some interesting data there. Some children are doing very, very well; others, we need to concentrate on. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, this will need to be the last question, I'm afraid. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Sorry? +Lynne Neagle AM: This is going to have to be the last question. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. In terms of looked-after children, which is one of the groups where attainment isn't where we would like it to be, there was some improvement in 2016 at key stage 4, but it has been disappointing. Do we know what's been happening in 2019? +Kirsty Williams AM: The 2019 data will be published next month, and there has been significant activity. You are right: in recent years, the data have been poor and not where we would want it to be. That's why we have had a reformed approach to PDG LAC; the employment of PDG LAC co-ordinators across the regions. We've identified new resource in the new financial year to test new approaches, so, for instance, virtual school approaches, where we know, in other systems, that has worked. But, we expect the next set of data around the performance of this particular group of learners in March. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, and you hope to see progress. +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't want to speculate, but I hope so. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We have come to the end of our time, so can I thank you, Minister, and your official for attending this morning? We have had a wide-ranging and very detailed discussion that will be very useful for the committee. As usual, you will be sent a transcript following the meeting to check for accuracy, but thank you again, both of you, for your attendance this morning. Diolch yn fawr. Okay. Item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from ERW providing additional information following the evidence session on 16 January. Paper to note 2 is a letter from Central South Consortium, similarly providing additional information following the evidence session. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales regarding children's rights in Wales, following up on some additional information there. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales, providing additional information following the annual report scrutiny session in January. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +",The committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Oh right okay . {vocalsound} I cover myself up . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I feel like Madonna with one of these on . I said I feel like Madonna with one of these on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I've always wanted one of these , I really have . {vocalsound} Where do you buy 'em from ? {vocalsound} They're {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . Hello everybody . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Back again for another wonderful meeting . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is uh everyone ready ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Almost . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , we c we can hold on for a minute . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh my gosh . {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I figured with the spam thing , if you can't beat it , join in . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: That's the kind of spam that everybody likes to receive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Are you ready ? Okay , right , well , I take it that you are all ready now . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um alright first off we'll just uh recap from our last meeting . Um {vocalsound} which was we got together just to basically decide on {disfmarker} well to talk about what it is that we were actually uh supposed to be doing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and who we all are and stuff like that , mm get bit more of an idea together of what's going on . {vocalsound} Um what we are gonna talk about in this meeting is um now that we know what it is that we are doing , now we know that it's a T_V_ remote and stuff and you guys have just been off doing some some uh R_ and D_ for that , that's research and development for those that haven't heard that before , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: see I'm learning all sorts of new technologi terms in technology today . Um yeah , we're gonna hear your uh th three little presentations , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whether they be on computer or on the whiteboard or whatever you want . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} Do you have any preference uh of order ? +Project Manager: Um I'd like to um hear +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: o I'd like to hear who's g who's on the um from from uh Catherine actually first . I want {disfmarker} what I'd like to hear about is uh if we've finally decided on um what sort of energy we're gonna be using and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Batteries . +User Interface: I think she is still finishing her {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no no no , it's fine I'm just preparing . +Project Manager: It's just that {disfmarker} yeah , let's let's hear from you first . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Where is that thing ? +User Interface: Okay , it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's here . +Industrial Designer: Oh sorry , couldn't see . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Would that work ? +Project Manager: Get yourself in position . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so that's me again . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so um for the energy sources we can have a basic battery , a hand dynamo which is {disfmarker} which was used uh in the fifties for torches , if you remember that kind of {disfmarker} which wouldn't be v wouldn't be v v +Project Manager: I don't think any of us remember the fifties . +User Interface: Is it like a crank thing or something {gap} . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . It wouldn't be very fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a kinetic provision of energy , which is used on some watches these days . So if you have just a bit of gentle movement that {disfmarker} it will give it the energy to work . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Or you can use solar cells , but I'm not sure about that indoors , really , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , there's sometimes combinations , I mean , like calculators do combinations of battery with {disfmarker} but also using some solar power . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do {gap} sol solar panel things , do they have to work from the sun or can they work from a light bulb ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Does anybody know ? +Industrial Designer: I dunno actually . +User Interface: Uh I think , it has to be on the on the solar energy , but I don't know . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . Um . Think the the uh what would cost the less would be the basic battery , really . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And uh if we want something fancier , I think the kinetic provision of energy could be nice , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but I don't know if it's worth the cost . So we've got to discuss that . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay , jolly good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} For the case of the remotes itself , um they can be a general case , which is just a flat one . You can have uh a curved one or a double curved one , if you know what I mean , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's a double curved one ? +Industrial Designer: You know , kind of more ergonomic , that kind of suits the palm of your hand , that kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um then the case material itself , so it can be uh uh either plastic or latex , uh rubber , wood , or titanium . And th for each of them you have uh cases where {disfmarker} for example titanium , you can't use it for {disfmarker} if you if we're choosing a double curved case , we can't choose titanium . And if we are choosing um solar cells then we can't choose latex for the case material , so we just have to take that into account . But if we're choosing just the flat case then we can go for anything . And I think we discussed earlier on the R_ S_ I_ problem thing , so we could uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that might be an idea of using the rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it should , you know {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's have a squeezable remote . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And also it doesn't break as easily maybe , +Project Manager: {gap} when a T_V_ programme's got one {gap} +Industrial Designer: I dunno {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: watching the match and {gap} your team's just lost , you can fuzz it across the room and it'll bounce off the wall back at you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like that idea . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So rubber would be {disfmarker} Okay . +Marketing: I think rubber's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Rubber , we're all we're all going {disfmarker} we're all liking that idea ? You think you can market that ? +Marketing: But after my after my fashion thing , I think you'll realise that rubber is more {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ooh , we like rubber , ooh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh s so if d +Marketing: People . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay . And then there are the push-buttons , so you can have basic push-buttons or a scroll-wheels , like you have on a mouse , um or you could have um L_C_D_ , which gives you a display . Um scroll buttons , as well . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: So if you use a rubber double curved case , you must use rubber push-buttons . So if we're going for rubber then we have to decide for the case . Um and if we choose double curved then we have to go for rubber push-buttons . +Project Manager: Well , we're gonna go with {gap} I think we've decided that it's gonna be a rubber case so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So it's a constraint . Yeah , but is it a double curved one or not ? {vocalsound} If it's not a double curved , then we've got the choice for the push-buttons , if it's a double curve , we've gotta go for rubber push-buttons . If that makes sense . +Project Manager: {gap} push buttons instead of the wheel ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} . +User Interface: If it's rubber , isn't it malleable anyway , {gap} it doesn't matter if it's double {disfmarker} I mean isn't a rubber case , mean it's completely flexed , I mean , it it flexes to whatever they want it to ? Mean so what's the difference between a normal rubber case and a rubble doub double {disfmarker} rubber double curved case ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} rubble double double . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but na le you see , you've got , okay , the energy that's one thing , +Project Manager: I'll have a Big Mac , please . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: then you have the case is uh , whether it's flat or curved . And that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we don't care if it's rub rubber or not , but then we've decided that we going for rubber for the case material . So if we've chosen rub rubber and if now we have the choice for the case whether it's flat , single curved or double curved . And I'm just saying if it {disfmarker} if we choose it to be double curved then we need to go {disfmarker} I dunno why , but we need to go for uh rubber push-buttons . So , either {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno we just need to decide on the on the case . +Project Manager: Let's have rubber push buttons , hey . +User Interface: Okay . Go rubber . Go rubber the whole way . +Industrial Designer: Let's go crazy . {vocalsound} And then , do I have a last slide ? Yes , I do . Um so the push-buttons themselves they can be just simple or they can be {disfmarker} so that's just the electronics between the but behind the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and the price that go with it with it , so the simple push-buttons are gonna be the cheapest . Uh if we get a scroll-wheel , that's a higher price range . If we get an advanced chip which is um used for the L_C_D_ , the display thing , then that's even more expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Simple , yeah . Chip on print . It's a bit {gap} . {vocalsound} Okay , uh what I'm not understanding here +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} is uh , okay , advanced chip on print , which I presume is like one P_C_B_ and that's got all the electronics on one board including the um infra-red sender ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The infra-red . Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . Um what a what alternatives do we have to that ? {vocalsound} Y um {vocalsound} what alternatives do we have to the chip on print ? +Industrial Designer: Well , if if it's not chip on print then , I guess , you get different chip components , and you build them separately and doesn't include the infra-red . It's less expensive mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} so it sounds {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Technically speaking , it's not as advanced , but it does the job , too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , why would we not go for that ? If it's something that's inside the the unit . {vocalsound} I it doesn't affects whether the customer's gonna buy it or not . +Industrial Designer: Fo It doesn't , yeah , yeah , yeah . Totally . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we wanna go for an i i all {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So let's not go for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so long as it works , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: you know . So let's not let's uh not bother with the chip on print . +Industrial Designer: So it's either um the scroll-wheel or the push-buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . S yeah , push buttons . +Marketing: What about the just developed uh sample sensor ? +User Interface: I think push-buttons is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What about what ? +Marketing: G there , the sample sensor , sample speaker thing . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , what do we need a speaker for in a remote control unit ? +Marketing: Mm , I dunno . Be cool . +Industrial Designer: It'd be it'd be cool , but they are saying they've just developed it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Channel two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm just guessing . But it's gonna be the most expensive option , probably and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: S +User Interface: Th the the {vocalsound} speech recognition um option is {disfmarker} it doesn't seem really very promising for us uh , +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not something that we wanna t go into with this product . +User Interface: 'cause uh {disfmarker} The yeah the example that they're already using it for is with the coffee machine , where , basically , you can program a sample wi um {disfmarker} That when you say something it will give a response , and you program the response as well . Just uh clips of tha that you record yourself . So you can program your coffee-maker that when you say , good morning , to it it says , hello Rick , or whatever . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But , I mean , it's not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hm . +User Interface: it would be one thing if it was speech recognition where you say something and it turns the T_V_ on like , turn the T_V_ on , and i turns {disfmarker} comes on , but it's not that . It just gives you a it just gives you a verbal response . +Marketing: Oh , it just gives an answer . +User Interface: So , yeah , I mean , like what's the point of saying , Hello remote , I mean , hello , how how are you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , then then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just if you are really lonely , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I thought I thought it was {disfmarker} when they said {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , if you're really lonely , it is it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I thought when they said , voice recognition , they meant um like , +Industrial Designer: Channel five . And then it switches on . +Marketing: channel five , and it will change . +User Interface: No , tha that w that w that would be more promising . +Marketing: Like you talk to it . Can I have channel five ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It it's just a remote that talks to you . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} I mean to certain cues . +Marketing: Oh , then {gap} forget about it . Oh right okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so I'll go back , maybe , to the previous slide and we can decide for each problem , what we should choose . So for the energy source , do we go for the battery or the {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah , I'm fine with the basic battery . +Project Manager: Basic battery . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: It's cheap , it's cheerful , it's worked , does work . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheaper option . Are you happy with that ? +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . So we'll go for the battery . Then the case , do you want it flat or curved or sing or double curved ? +Project Manager: We were go we were going with the late with the the R_S_I_ rubber , weren't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , so we want it rub rubber double curved . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The the {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it will look like something like this . +Industrial Designer: Double ? +Project Manager: The double whopper , please . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so then if we use double curved case , then we have to u choose rubber push-buttons , +Project Manager: Yep , but {disfmarker} we're going for the simple buttons . +User Interface: So rubber rubber keys , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that's fine ? +Project Manager: And it's cheapest all round , it sounds kinda funky , and we can also market it +Industrial Designer: P +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: as i 'cause we were s saying earl you were saying earlier in your research that um the the people have the R_ {disfmarker} people were getting the {disfmarker} complaining about R_S_I_ , and this is anti-R_S_I_ . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's another marketing point that we can use . +Marketing: Well the rubber push-buttons {gap} . Don't you have to move your {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But anything is gonna have buttons . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Even if it's a jog wheel , it's still repetitive . You {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I thought they would give an option of flat buttons or a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You see , you can still get {disfmarker} it does you still get repetitive strain injury , whether you are pressing a button or pressing a flat bit of screen . +Industrial Designer: That they don't . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's the v it's the fact that you are pressing the same {disfmarker} doing the same movement . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: It's not actually what you are doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the fact that this this rubber i is actually used in these anti-R_S_I_ ps specific {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , the rubber's good . +User Interface: We're giving them a way to burn off steam , basically , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so they can sit there and go like {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Not that watching T_V_ should be that stressful . +Project Manager: And you know , yeah , you can fuzz it across the room and throw it at throw it at your children {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah , I guess T_V_ can be stressful , yeah , if you're watching sports . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , that's me done . +Project Manager: Okay , Gabriel . Let's um let's let's hear from you about the um it's {disfmarker} the interface . +User Interface: Alright . Alright . Yeah , some of what I have to say ties into what Catherine was just talking about . +Project Manager: Great . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +User Interface: Okay , so I'm continuing with the user interface uh topic . And so basically I consulted with our manufacturing division . It sounded like Catherine was also speaking with them . Uh I also took uh Reissa's marketing findings from the last meeting into consideration um , 'cause I think that's that's crucial as far as uh what keys we're going to inc inclu what buttons we are going to include and and how they're laid out . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh and so the manufacturing division uh sent some some samples of of uh interface components that we might be interested in using that have been used in other products , uh like the coffee machine . So I already mentioned the speech recognition interface . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I guess , we we basically vetoed that idea . It's it's pointless . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's just a sample sensor sample output . It would just be probably the most expensive part of our remote without any actual interesting functionality as far as operating the T_V_ . Uh so yeah , they they also give the uh {disfmarker} they they suggested the idea of using a spinning wheel like you use on the side of an M_P_ three player like iPod . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um so we've already addressed that and I think that would actually be worse for something like R_S_I_ I mean you got that thumb movement that you're constantly doing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um the other suggestion , +Marketing: That does get annoying . +User Interface: and I I have a feeling that we're interested in in something more general , but they suggested uh , you know , going i a little bit into a a niche , like either gearing our remote towards kids , where you could have {gap} lot of colours um , the keys might be you know , funny or or {gap} , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: or uh something for the elderly , where the remote's very large and the buttons are very large and there's only a few buttons . But you know we can we can discuss this , but it sounded like from our last meeting we really wanted something that was general , but done well . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh {gap} um {disfmarker} So , the key layout and design are really crucial . You don't want uh you want people to be able to quickly access the buttons that they use a lot without uh always pressing the wrong one um . And I didn't mention that we need a power button {gap} in our last {disfmarker} I can give you an example here of uh , {gap} good layout and bad layout +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh from our manufacturing department . So this would be an example of bad layout , where you have volume up and volume down , but they have a V_ on both of them , so uh +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: it's sort of confusing for the user . Uh this is the example of the giant remote that's impossible to lose . +Project Manager: Do we have an uh example of a good one ? {gap} {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And for {disfmarker} something for kids . Yeah . Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And so , yeah , I th I think my personal preferences of {disfmarker} we've all kind of talked about and seemed to be on the same page um . Uh so I was against the speech recognition and against going uh towards anything in in a niche sense . I think it should be more general . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I didn't I didn't think the spinning-wheel or the uh L_C_ display were were crucial for us . And , yeah , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Okay . Well let's um {disfmarker} so w what are our definite decisions on this then as a team ? The um {disfmarker} The the um the interface type we're going for {disfmarker} +User Interface: So we're {disfmarker} we're not gonna have any sort of display I think uh . +Project Manager: Just the simple s simple straight set of buttons . +User Interface: So , yeah , it's just gonna be just gonna be push-buttons . Um . I think we shall have a limited number of buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: ideally , I mean a a power , channel up , channel down , volume up , volume down , and a numerical keypad . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Uh . And some sort of {disfmarker} it will either have a a lock button like we mentioned or or a cover or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I guess it's to the point where we need to decide about that . +Project Manager: Okay , and we're not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Well now that we've decided on our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} Are we gonna hav hav {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} are we d +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: have we decided on whether w we're gonna s supplement it with anything , you know , colours or particular gimmicky bits to it , we're not we're just gonna go for something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um it seems like we wouldn't wanna make it too busy and too sort of gaudy , +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe we can {disfmarker} +User Interface: but um {disfmarker} Yeah , I would say mayb maybe a couple of colours like uh like a black with with yellow and somewhere , like maybe the R_R_ can be yellow , or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . Okey-dokey . Yeah , I don't have any other questions on this . Let's move over to {disfmarker} +User Interface: I I guess {vocalsound} the fact uh also that we are having a rubber case uh would prevent us from having the cover function that we thought of before . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: I mean , 'cause uh s so if we wanna have a lock of some sort it would have to be a button . +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: But I think that should be {disfmarker} I mean um , I can speak with the button department , but uh I think that it should be easy to have a button that just prevents prevents the other uh the other buttons from operating . +Project Manager: Yeah , the button that just does that , yeah . +User Interface: So that should be simple . +Project Manager: Cool . +Marketing: Right . Well , I'm just basically letting you know what's happening in the markets +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: and what the fashions are for next year . Um . So yes {vocalsound} , so from looking at this year's trends and fashions +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and also recent investigation that we've done in the remote control market , we have found that for the remote control market {vocalsound} these are like most important aspects like that we really need to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: which we've already probably discussed . Um {vocalsound} the most important aspect is look and feel . So the remote control has to look and feel fancier than the ones that already {disfmarker} that we already have . So it has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , why should people buy this when they're already got a remote that came with the T_V_ ? +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Exactly . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um second , uh it should be technologically innovative innovative . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's that mean ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Technologically it should be like um work , basically , I guess . It should work . +User Interface: Well it should be it should be maybe cutting edge in some sense , +Marketing: Should {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean have something that's little more technologically advanced than what's on the market . +Marketing: That's new . +Project Manager: Okay , now the trouble is is we've already decided that we're going with the stuff that works already , that's cheap . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Actually , I mean , these first two points we've already sort of gone away from , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause our rubber one is not fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: I mean it's different , but I wouldn't say like a rubber remote is fancy . If that's what people want then we {disfmarker} maybe we're going in the wrong direction . And it's it's not technologically innovative either . +Project Manager: Maybe we could um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , {gap} no loose {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: That's why I was thinking , Bluetooth , 'cause if you like put up Bluetooth , and it's like a Bluetooth remote control , everybody's gonna like , oh , 'cause Bluetooth is the in thing nowadays , like it really is {vocalsound} , like people {disfmarker} and um when it comes to marketing like that's what people go for , they don't really care whether , you know , at the end of the day whether it works properly or not . +Project Manager: Of course , they do . +Marketing: Well , they do , but it's like it's not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One hundred per cent , that's your first thing , you go , oh I'm not gonna buy that , 'cause I dunno if it works or not . +Marketing: Yeah , but it looks good . If it looks good and it's {disfmarker} it can just be there for decoration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , well , what do you two think about this ? +User Interface: So is is the advantage of Bluetooth that you can just like synchronise it with other +Marketing: But like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , what {disfmarker} I don't understand what m +User Interface: electronics ? +Marketing: You could always insert , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's basically what it allows you to do , +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: right ? +Project Manager: and it {disfmarker} this is just gonna {gap} {disfmarker} all this is being used for is your television . +Marketing: Yeah , but , I mean , people like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It would {disfmarker} that would mean you'd need a television that has Bluetooth in it , which no no television does , +Marketing: Well , if you're looking at {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if you {gap} looking at something that's going to be bought by people , you have to make it new , you have to make it state of the art . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: does it ? That would mean we'd have to make a television as well . +Industrial Designer: Bluetooth would , for example , enable you , I think , to um um connect {disfmarker} for example you if you get a w call on your mobile phone , but your mobile phone is downstairs or something , you would get on your television you're being called by this person right now . Things like that . +Project Manager: No , that would be your telephone {gap} in with your television . +Industrial Designer: No i +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} that wouldn't be the remote so much , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and i +Industrial Designer: No , but if you get Bluetooth on the remote , you'd be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , the televi the television would have to be a Bluetooth compatible , basically . +Industrial Designer: I with the television , yeah . {gap} I was just trying to find an advantage . Wha what w what advantage would you get for the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Well , it doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: An and there is no there is no such thing +Marketing: Like it doesn't have to be , you know , Bluetooth , that was just an idea , but like it needs do something that , you know , is new . Whether it's a battery {disfmarker} it could be something really really minor , you know , like {disfmarker} but I think we are really keeping to what is already out there , and people've already seen it , people've already got it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: If we want something new , we need to move away from what we already have and um just go creative . +Industrial Designer: Maybe the kinetic mo provision of energy then . It's been done for watches , but I haven't seen that for remotes , yet . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah , this {disfmarker} that's that's very good . +Marketing: And then you can market it . Never have to change a battery again . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Change the batteries ever again . +Project Manager: And and this is all tying in very nicely . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The fact that it's made out of this rubber , we can throw it about . Th we should encourage people to throw their remote controls about , because it charges itself up by doing it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well , and in little characters you say , yeah , but not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , so can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah , by the squeezing it the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think , safety s +User Interface: Yeah , we can make the squeezing of the rubber be the be the generating {disfmarker} like the energy generator . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's a great idea . Well done . +Marketing: Yeah . Third most important aspect {vocalsound} uh is it's easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} we're all about that . +Marketing: And I think we've all um worked that out . Um okay , in the fashion , how it's supposed to look . Next year's fashion i very much in fruit and vegetables are thm are like the theme for cloths , shoes and furniture . {vocalsound} So next year people will be buying {vocalsound} , I found this really funny {vocalsound} , you know , strawberry shaped chairs , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so we could have keys that are like a b like a broccoli key and a uh and an avocado key on them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I wanna watch the pineapple channel . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rubber things . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} and as it's rubber the feel which is in this year is spongy , so it's it's not quite spongy , but spongy , I would say is {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well spongy , that's where {gap} . Yeah , we're we're ahead of the game there . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great for us . +Marketing: yeah , so we're in . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And so personal {gap} what I was just saying like move away from the current remote controls uh like the look and the feel of the current ones and change the look and feel , while still keeping to the company's image , basically . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} . I had to say {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we're moving in the right direction like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , yeah , no , this i this is good , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: so through all that we've {disfmarker} we go we're {disfmarker} right , we're gonna go go back to um going with the kinetic thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +User Interface: Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: that's great , using the spongy rubber that we were talking about that anti-R_S_I_ you can {disfmarker} as you squeeze it you are not only therapeuticising yourself , you are charging the batteries {vocalsound} , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: and um I'm not sure about the buttons being in the shape of fruit though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No vegetables . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know how we incorporate {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We don't have to follow every trend , I guess . +Marketing: Maybe make it like fruity colours or something . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Some sort . Or {disfmarker} +User Interface: The power button could be like a big apple or something . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah , but Apple would sue you for that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , this is true {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: They don they don't own {vocalsound} all images of apples . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} sued the Beatles so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , we'll make it a uh pomegranate , a big pomegranate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , okay , it seems like the only thing that we haven't really finally um agreed on is its image . Like , yeah , we're we're saying no we don't want it to be fruit and vegetables , but we dunno what it should be , +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: or like are we going {disfmarker} yeah it looks slick , but what do what do we mean by slick sort of thing ? +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think , if it's rubber it needs to be +Project Manager: I mean you said earlier on i {vocalsound} it should be funky . +Marketing: different . I think , it's {disfmarker} it should be {disfmarker} I mean , what do you associate with rubber ? You know like +Project Manager: {vocalsound} L keep it clean , keep it clean . {vocalsound} +Marketing: really different colours basically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , sor I sorry , I used the wrong word , what do you associate with the mate the material {vocalsound} that material ? {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um like I'm just thinking bright colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Bright natural colours , nothing too {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bright , but not too bright . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Bright , but too {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like no lime green or bright yellow or bright pink . Wanna make it different colours so {vocalsound} anybody can choo like like {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like the volume buttons should be the {disfmarker} all the same colour and the d and the the channel buttons should be one colour and stuff like that , do you mean ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . And on the back of it have the logo . +Project Manager: Okay , what {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Project Manager: Okay . Tha +User Interface: The one thing I'm wondering about , I hope that we're not going like too much down a gimmicky road of of having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean we {disfmarker} that's we we {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean if somebody go goes into the store they're gonna see like three or four normal remotes , and then a big spongy pink t tomato uh remote . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is the remote control tomato . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean {vocalsound} what are ninety per cent of people gonna take ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I can say in this country , you'll get , you know , lots of people wanting something really funky and cool . Like {disfmarker} and kids will be walking in with their parents saying , Mummy I wanna buy that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And uh parents will see the will see the pro as well , because it's um like kids won't break it , it's not breakable if you throw it around . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Especially with younger kids , you know they can pick it up and and {disfmarker} Yeah . The only thing is is that really small kids might chew on it , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , it's it's gotta be chew proof . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} I'm gonna write that down . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: so it's rea it's quite +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's quite like um user friendly +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and also for different families , like like family use as well , so for little kids and for old ki like teenagers will like it , I think . Especially maybe younger girls if it's in pink they'll be like {gap} pink remote control for their room something . +Project Manager: So , what are you saying , maybe we should market it in different colours for different {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so we could do like the pink range , the blue range , the green range , the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: So like you walk in , you're like , oh I like that remote control , because it's so bright , and then , and then the shop assistant comes up and says , oh what colour would you like ? and then they go like , oh I can choose the colour {vocalsound} wow . So it puts , I think , even the customer into more control over what they're buying instead of , you've got all colour it's either that or nothing . So they also get to pick . Well , personally I like walking into a shop and choosing a colour . +User Interface: Yeah I mean , that that seems to work well with for products like iPod , +Marketing: It's um {disfmarker} +User Interface: where , you know , you have a variety of colours , that people feel like they're customising it when they buy it , even , you know , just just by the fact of choosing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Although I'd be curious to see how many uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: D you've got the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You know , there are some colours that I wouldn I would never choose , and I would be curious how many people choose that colour . +Project Manager: Well that's that can be down to bit of market researching you know , +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: if that's easy enough to find out what colours are more popular . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And produce less of the silly colours , maybe . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Alright . Well um , we'll {disfmarker} alright let's {disfmarker} what we're gonna aim to get together by the next meeting then um {vocalsound} is from you Catherine wi your y y you know you're gonna be working on the the look and feel design . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: Um Gabriel , you're gonna be working on , you know {disfmarker} come up with the the user interface design . Then basically , you two are gonna be working together on this . You won't be going off to your separate offices . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Um and I think you are gonna get a chance to play with some clay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh right . +Project Manager: I think , yeah , it's gonna {vocalsound} you know , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: come up ki you know , be ab for the next meeting be able to come in and show us some some i some physical ideas . 'Cause at the moment , uh you know , it's it's hard . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: We were kinda going , yeah , it's gotta feel nice , it's gotta look cool and that it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: you know now we can actually start , you know , s some sort of physical something or other . +User Interface: That sounds good . +Project Manager: Um and you're gonna be working on the product evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Evaluation . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} And I {vocalsound} will be uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: talking to the bosses , basically , and uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: f fielding off some more spam and uh +Industrial Designer: Great . +Project Manager: that's it really . Keeping things t well , uh you know , ho hopefully uh keeping things together . Um . Yeah , that's {disfmarker} This is this is uh good . So we know for definite we know we've we've now got some definite things going on . We definitely know how it's powered , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: we definitely know that um it's gonna be a simple buttons , we're not gonna be going for the new technological chip on print expensive things , so we've we're keeping the costs down . It's this rubber casing that we can sell as um fun and funky . Don't know of any other remote controls that are made out of this stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: People , you know , people are saying , oh , standard stuff gives you repetitive strain injury , well this remote control is designed to do the complete opposite , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's supposed to fix it rather than cause it . Um . {gap} you know , we're gonna we we're gonna as a sort of extra something on it , you know what what extra things {disfmarker} are there extra things this product have ? We'll look into this lock key +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: facility , although whether or not it happens , {vocalsound} or is possible , I don't know , but something to look into . Okay . I think that's um {disfmarker} well done everybody . Anyone have any uh any questions , +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: everyone know what they're doing ? 'Cause if you don't , you'll {disfmarker} I'm sure you'll soon get an e-mail about it . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , I think we all know what we need to do now . +Marketing: S This gives you all the details ? +Project Manager: Okay . right well . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's um we're we've still couple of minutes until our meeting's due to finish . But um I got a note saying that you two who are gonna be working together {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so bef before you all disappear off just +User Interface: Okay , I'll stay in here . +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} um . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hold hold fire . Um . +User Interface: Does the pay-raise immediately come into effect on our next pay-check , or is that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I think , it's uh , yeah , I think , it's gonna be par part more of a profit sharing on the product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So we're buying fut I mean , we're getting futures in the company {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think i I think that's I think that's the way it's gonna happen at the moment . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So we really have a incentive to make this remote work . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: I'd like to share in the coffee machine profits , because that's really doing well . +Project Manager: I want a share in the space rocket . Did you {gap} see that this k that this company {gap} we've made a spaceship . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: This company has its its fingers in a lot of different pots . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , we're definitely not in the money making department . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +User Interface: Well I I did notice looking at {disfmarker} I mean , they told you that they wanted whatev our product to represent the the R_R_ brand and and to be immediately noticeable . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I mean , if you look like at the coffee maker at the at the corporate web page , it's not obvious . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: R_R_ . Well it is to us , because we we worked worked here for years and we use that coffee machine , but it's {disfmarker} doesn't have the colour scheme of of the of the company anywhere on it obviously it's just sil silver and black . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Project Manager: And the spaceship doesn't have the R_ {vocalsound} {gap} have a massive R_ and R_ down the side of it +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Doesn't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} I still want one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um I've just had a sign flashing up saying , finish the meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Right , well , I guess that's us . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's not telling {disfmarker} it's not saying do anything in particular just yet . So maybe you should go back to your own offices . +User Interface: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Are we taking these off ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it says you two {disfmarker} +","In this meeting, the team discusses the design and marketing strategies for a new TV remote control. The conversation opens with casual banter, comparing the remote to Madonna and related accessories. The team then quickly moves into the main business, with the Project Manager asking if everyone is ready to begin. + +During the discussion, they explore various ideas for the remote, including energy sources like basic batteries, hand dynamos, kinetic power, and solar cells. The conversation shows a preference for simplicity and cost-effectiveness, leading to the choice of basic batteries. + +The Industrial Designer also presents case designs, with options like flat, curved, or double-curved (ergonomic) forms, and different materials like plastic, latex, rubber, wood, or titanium. Buttons are another topic of discussion, considering options like basic buttons, scroll wheels, and LCD. + +Marketing insights highlight the importance of appearance and technological innovation, pushing for a remote that stands out from the market. Despite initial inclinations to avoid fanciness and high-tech features for cost reasons, the team agrees on a rubber, possibly double-curved case with simple push-buttons to prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI). The kinetic energy source suggestion aligns well with this material, as a spongy, fun-to-squeeze remote could also generate power. + +Close to finalizing decisions, the team contemplates a unique selling point: a fun, funky rubber casing that is different and user-friendly. They discuss tapping into color trends and offering a range of colors for the product, catering to different preferences. The user interface should be simple and feature a limited number of buttons for essential functions. + +As they wrap up the meeting, they decide to revisit the technological aspects like Bluetooth but recognize its limitations, mainly the necessity of Bluetooth-enabled TVs. They aim to maintain the R&R brand while ensuring their product stands out. The team assigns tasks for the next meeting: the Industrial Designer will work on design, the User Interface expert on interface design, and Marketing on product evaluation. + +In conclusion, the team aligns on producing a rubber-cased, kinetically-powered TV remote control with a simple interface, potentially in multiple color options, catering to trends while ensuring ease of use and brand alignment." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +PhD A: It 's not very significant . +Professor B: Uh , channel one . Yes . +Grad D: Channel three . +Professor B: OK . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Channel three . +PhD A: Ta +Grad D: Channel three . Alright . +Professor B: OK , did you solve speech recognition last week ? +Grad E: Almost . +Professor B: Alright ! Let 's do image processing . +PhD C: Yes , again . +PhD A: Great . +PhD C: We did it again , Morgan . +Professor B: Alright ! +Grad E: Doo - doop , doo - doo . +PhD A: What 's wrong with {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: OK . It 's April fifth . Actually , Hynek should be getting back in town shortly if he isn't already . +PhD C: Is he gonna come here ? +Professor B: Uh . Well , we 'll drag him here . I know where he is . +PhD C: So when you said "" in town "" , you mean {pause} Oregon . +Professor B: U u u u uh , I meant , you know , this end of the world , yeah , {vocalsound} is really what I meant , +PhD C: Oh . +Grad E: Doo , doo - doo . +Professor B: uh , cuz he 's been in Europe . +Grad E: Doo - doo . +Professor B: So . +PhD C: I have something just fairly brief to report on . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Um , I did some {pause} experim uh , uh , just a few more experiments before I had to , {vocalsound} uh , go away for the w well , that week . +Professor B: Great ! +PhD C: Was it last week or whenever ? Um , so what I was started playing with was the {disfmarker} th again , this is the HTK back - end . And , um , I was curious because the way that they train up the models , {vocalsound} they go through about four sort of rounds of {disfmarker} of training . And in the first round they do {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's three iterations , and for the last three rounds e e they do seven iterations of re - estimation in each of those three . And so , you know , that 's part of what takes so long to train the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the back - end for this . +Professor B: I 'm sorry , I didn't quite get that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's four and there 's seven and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . Uh , maybe I should write it on the board . So , {vocalsound} there 's four rounds of training . Um , I g I g I guess you could say iterations . The first one is three , then seven , seven , and seven . And what these numbers refer to is the number of times that the , uh , HMM re - estimation is run . It 's this program called H E +Professor B: But in HTK , what 's the difference between , uh , a {disfmarker} an inner loop and an outer loop in these iterations ? +PhD C: OK . So what happens is , um , at each one of these points , you increase the number of Gaussians in the model . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , right ! This was the mix up stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . The mix up . +Professor B: That 's right . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: I remember now . +PhD C: And so , in the final one here , you end up with , uh {disfmarker} for all of the {disfmarker} the digit words , you end up with , uh , three {pause} mixtures per state , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh , in the final {pause} thing . So I had done some experiments where I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to play with the number of mixtures . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But , um , uh , I wanted to first test to see if we actually need to do {pause} this many iterations early on . +Grad E: Uh , one , two , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And so , um , I {disfmarker} I ran a couple of experiments where I {vocalsound} reduced that to l to be three , two , two , {vocalsound} uh , five , I think , and I got almost the exact same results . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} but it runs much much faster . So , um , I {disfmarker} I think m {pause} it only took something like , uh , three or four hours to do the full training , +Professor B: As opposed to {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Good . +PhD C: as opposed to wh what , sixteen hours or something like that ? I mean , it takes {disfmarker} you have to do an overnight basically , the way it is set up now . +PhD F: Yeah . It depends . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , uh , even we don't do anything else , doing something like this could allow us to turn experiments around a lot faster . +Professor B: And then when you have your final thing , do a full one , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: And when you have your final thing , we go back to this . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: So , um , and it 's a real simple change to make . I mean , it 's like one little text file you edit and change those numbers , and you don't do anything else . +PhD F: Oh , this is a {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And then you just run . +PhD F: OK . +PhD C: So it 's a very simple change to make and it doesn't seem to hurt all that much . +PhD A: So you {disfmarker} you run with three , two , two , five ? That 's a +PhD C: So I {disfmarker} Uh , I {disfmarker} I have to look to see what the exact numbers were . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I thought was , like , three , two , two , five , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but I I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll double check . It was {vocalsound} over a week ago that I did it , +PhD A: OK . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so I can't remember exactly . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: But , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um , but it 's so much faster . I it makes a big difference . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So we could do a lot more experiments and throw a lot more stuff in there . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's great . +PhD C: Um . Oh , the other thing that I did was , um , {vocalsound} I compiled {pause} the HTK stuff for the Linux boxes . So we have this big thing that we got from IBM , which is a five - processor machine . Really fast , but it 's running Linux . So , you can now run your experiments on that machine and you can run five at a time and it runs , {vocalsound} uh , as fast as , you know , uh , five different machines . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So , um , I 've forgotten now what the name of that machine is but I can {disfmarker} I can send email around about it . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: And so we 've got it {disfmarker} now HTK 's compiled for both the Linux and for , um , the Sparcs . Um , you have to make {disfmarker} you have to make sure that in your dot CSHRC , {vocalsound} um , it detects whether you 're running on the Linux or a {disfmarker} a Sparc and points to the right executables . Uh , and you may not have had that in your dot CSHRC before , if you were always just running the Sparc . So , um , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: uh , I can {disfmarker} I can tell you exactly what you need to do to get all of that to work . But it 'll {disfmarker} it really increases what we can run on . +Grad E: Hmm . Cool . +PhD C: So , {vocalsound} together with the fact that we 've got these {pause} faster Linux boxes and that it takes less time to do {pause} these , um , we should be able to crank through a lot more experiments . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: So after I did that , then what I wanted to do {comment} was try {pause} increasing the number of mixtures , just to see , um {disfmarker} see how {disfmarker} how that affects performance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: So . +Professor B: Yeah . In fact , you could do something like {pause} keep exactly the same procedure and then add a fifth thing onto it +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that had more . +PhD C: Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad E: So at {disfmarker} at the middle o where the arrows are showing , that 's {disfmarker} you 're adding one more mixture per state , +PhD C: Uh - huh . Uh , +Grad E: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: let 's see , uh . It goes from this {disfmarker} uh , try to go it backwards {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} at this point it 's two mixtures {pause} per state . So this just adds one . Except that , uh , actually for the silence model , it 's six mixtures per state . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , so it goes to two . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Um . And I think what happens here is {disfmarker} +Professor B: Might be between , uh , shared , uh {disfmarker} shared variances or something , +PhD C: Yeah . I think that 's what it is . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh , yeah . It 's , uh {disfmarker} Shoot . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can't remember now what happens at that first one . Uh , I have to look it up and see . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +PhD C: Um , there {disfmarker} because they start off with , uh , an initial model which is just this global model , and then they split it to the individuals . And so , {vocalsound} it may be that that 's what 's happening here . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I have to look it up and see . I {disfmarker} I don't exactly remember . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: So . That 's it . +Professor B: Alright . So what else ? +PhD A: Um . Yeah . There was a conference call this Tuesday . Um . I don't know yet the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what happened {vocalsound} Tuesday , but {vocalsound} the points that they were supposed to discuss is still , {vocalsound} uh , things like {vocalsound} the weights , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , this is a conference call for , uh , uh , Aurora participant sort of thing . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Do you know who was {disfmarker} who was {disfmarker} since we weren't in on it , uh , do you know who was in from OGI ? Was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} was {disfmarker} was Hynek involved or was it Sunil +PhD A: I have no idea . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Mmm , I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , you don't know . OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD A: Um , yeah . So the points were the {disfmarker} the weights {disfmarker} how to weight the different error rates {vocalsound} that are obtained from different language and {disfmarker} and conditions . Um , it 's not clear that they will keep the same kind of weighting . Right now it 's a weighting on {disfmarker} on improvement . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Some people are arguing that it would be better to have weights on uh {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to combine error rates {pause} before computing improvement . Uh , and the fact is that for {disfmarker} right now for {pause} the English , they have weights {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they combine error rates , but for the other languages they combine improvement . So it 's not very consistent . Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . The , um {disfmarker} Yeah . And so {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} this is a point . And right now actually there is a thing also , {vocalsound} uh , that happens with the current weight is that a very non - significant improvement {pause} on the well - matched case result in {pause} huge differences in {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the final number . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And so , perhaps they will change the weights to {disfmarker} +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: How should that be done ? I mean , it {disfmarker} it seems like there 's a simple way {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Uh , this seems like an obvious mistake or something . +Professor B: Well , I mean , the fact that it 's inconsistent is an obvious mistake . +PhD C: Th - they 're {disfmarker} +Professor B: But the {disfmarker} but , um , the other thing {disfmarker} +PhD A: In +Professor B: I don't know I haven't thought it through , but one {disfmarker} one would think that {vocalsound} each {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it 's like if you say what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the best way to do an average , an arithmetic average or a geometric average ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It depends what you wanna show . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Each {disfmarker} each one is gonna have a different characteristic . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it seems like they should do , like , the percentage improvement or something , rather than the {pause} absolute improvement . +PhD A: Tha - that 's what they do . +Professor B: Well , they are doing that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: No , that is relative . But the question is , do you average the relative improvements {pause} or do you average the error rates and take the relative improvement maybe of that ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And the thing is it 's not just a pure average because there are these weightings . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: It 's a weighted average . Um . +PhD A: Yeah . And so when you average the {disfmarker} the relative improvement it tends to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to give a lot of {disfmarker} of , um , {vocalsound} importance to the well - matched case because {pause} the baseline is already very good and , um , i it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Why don't they not look at improvements but just look at your av your scores ? You know , figure out how to combine the scores +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: with a weight or whatever , and then give you a score {disfmarker} here 's your score . And then they can do the same thing for the baseline system {disfmarker} and here 's its score . And then you can look at {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , that 's what he 's seeing as one of the things they could do . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: It 's just when you {disfmarker} when you get all done , I think that they pro I m I {disfmarker} I wasn't there but I think they started off this process with the notion that {vocalsound} you should be {pause} significantly better than the previous standard . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , so they said "" how much is significantly better ? what do you {disfmarker} ? "" And {disfmarker} and so they said "" well , {vocalsound} you know , you should have half the errors , "" or something , "" that you had before "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's , uh , But it does seem like +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: i i it does seem like it 's more logical to combine them first and then do the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Combine error rates and then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: But there is this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} is this still this problem of weights . When {disfmarker} when you combine error rate it tends to {pause} give more importance to the difficult cases , and some people think that {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , yeah ? +PhD A: well , they have different , {vocalsound} um , opinions about this . Some people think that {vocalsound} it 's more important to look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to have ten percent imp relative improvement on {pause} well - matched case than to have fifty percent on the m mismatched , and other people think that it 's more important to improve a lot on the mismatch and {disfmarker} So , bu +PhD C: It sounds like they don't really have a good idea about what the final application is gonna be . +PhD A: l de fff ! Mmm . +Professor B: Well , you know , the {disfmarker} the thing is {vocalsound} that if you look at the numbers on the {disfmarker} on the more difficult cases , {vocalsound} um , if you really believe that was gonna be the predominant use , {vocalsound} none of this would be good enough . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Nothing anybody 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: whereas {vocalsound} you sort of with some reasonable error recovery could imagine in the better cases that these {disfmarker} these systems working . So , um , I think the hope would be that it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , it would work well {pause} for the good cases and , uh , it would have reasonable {disfmarker} reas {vocalsound} soft degradation as you got to worse and worse conditions . Um . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was thinking about it in terms of , if I were building the final product and I was gonna test to see which front - end I 'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I wanted to use , I would {vocalsound} try to {pause} weight things depending on the exact environment that I was gonna be using the system in . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} No . +PhD C: If I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , no {disfmarker} well , no . I mean , {vocalsound} it isn't the operating theater . I mean , they don they {disfmarker} they don't {disfmarker} they don't really {pause} know , I think . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean , I th +PhD C: So if {disfmarker} if they don't know , doesn't that suggest the way for them to go ? Uh , you assume everything 's equal . I mean , y y I mean , you {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think one thing to do is to just not rely on a single number {disfmarker} to maybe have two or three numbers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: you know , +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and say {vocalsound} here 's how much you , uh {disfmarker} you improve {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the relatively clean case and here 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or well - matched case , and here 's how {disfmarker} here 's how much you , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So not {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +PhD C: So not try to combine them . +Professor B: Yeah . Uh , actually it 's true . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , I had forgotten this , uh , but , uh , well - matched is not actually clean . What it is is just that , u uh , the training and testing are similar . +PhD C: The training and testing . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: So , I guess what you would do in practice is you 'd try to get as many , {vocalsound} uh , examples of similar sort of stuff as you could , and then , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} So the argument for that being the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the more important thing , {vocalsound} is that you 're gonna try and do that , {vocalsound} but you wanna see how badly it deviates from that when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when the , uh {disfmarker} it 's a little different . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Um , +PhD C: so you should weight those other conditions v very {disfmarker} you know , really small . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} No . That 's a {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} that 's an arg +PhD C: I mean , that 's more of an information kind of thing . +Professor B: that 's an ar Well , that 's an argument for it , but let me give you the opposite argument . The opposite argument is you 're never really gonna have a good sample of all these different things . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I mean , are you gonna have w uh , uh , examples with the windows open , half open , full open ? Going seventy , sixty , fifty , forty miles an hour ? On what kind of roads ? +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: With what passing you ? With {disfmarker} uh , I mean , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that you could make the opposite argument that the well - matched case is a fantasy . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: I think the thing is is that if you look at the well - matched case versus the po you know , the {disfmarker} the medium and the {disfmarker} and the fo and then the mismatched case , {vocalsound} um , we 're seeing really , really big differences in performance . Right ? And {disfmarker} and y you wouldn't like that to be the case . You wouldn't like that as soon as you step outside {disfmarker} You know , a lot of the {disfmarker} the cases it 's {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , that 'll teach them to roll their window up . +Professor B: I mean , in these cases , if you go from the {disfmarker} the , uh {disfmarker} I mean , I don't remember the numbers right off , but if you {disfmarker} if you go from the well - matched case to the medium , {vocalsound} it 's not an enormous difference in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} the training - testing situation , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's a really big {vocalsound} performance drop . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so , um {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean the reference one , for instance {disfmarker} this is back old on , uh {disfmarker} on Italian {disfmarker} uh , was like {pause} six percent error for the well - matched and eighteen for the medium - matched and sixty for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for highly - mismatched . Uh , and , you know , with these other systems we {disfmarker} we {vocalsound} helped it out quite a bit , but still there 's {disfmarker} there 's something like a factor of two or something between well - matched and medium - matched . And {vocalsound} so I think that {vocalsound} if what you 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if the goal of this is to come up with robust features , it does mean {disfmarker} So you could argue , in fact , that the well - matched is something you shouldn't be looking at at all , that {disfmarker} that the goal is to come up with features {vocalsound} that will still give you reasonable performance , you know , with again gentle degregra degradation , um , even though the {disfmarker} the testing condition is not the same as the training . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So , you know , I {disfmarker} I could argue strongly that something like the medium mismatch , which is you know not compl pathological but {disfmarker} I mean , what was the {disfmarker} the medium - mismatch condition again ? +PhD A: Um , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Medium mismatch is everything with the far {pause} microphone , but trained on , like , low noisy condition , like low speed and {disfmarker} or {pause} stopped car and tested on {pause} high - speed conditions , I think , like on a highway and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's still the same {disfmarker} same microphone in both cases , +PhD A: Same microphone but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: but , uh , it 's {disfmarker} there 's a mismatch between the car conditions . And that 's {disfmarker} uh , you could argue that 's a pretty realistic situation +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and , uh , I 'd almost argue for weighting that highest . But the way they have it now , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} They {disfmarker} they compute the relative improvement first and then average that with a weighting ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And so then the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that makes the highly - matched the really big thing . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so , u i since they have these three categories , it seems like the reasonable thing to do {vocalsound} is to go across the languages {pause} and to come up with an improvement for each of those . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just say "" OK , in the {disfmarker} in the highly - matched case this is what happens , in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} m the , uh {disfmarker} this other m medium if this happens , in the highly - mismatched {pause} that happens "" . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh , you should see , uh , a gentle degradation {pause} through that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . But {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: I think that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I gather that in these meetings it 's {disfmarker} it 's really tricky to make anything {vocalsound} ac {vocalsound} make any {comment} policy change because {vocalsound} {vocalsound} everybody has {disfmarker} has , uh , their own opinion +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , but there is probably a {disfmarker} a big change that will {vocalsound} be made is that the {disfmarker} the baseline {disfmarker} th they want to have a new baseline , perhaps , which is , um , MFCC but with {vocalsound} a voice activity detector . And apparently , {vocalsound} uh , some people are pushing to still keep this fifty percent number . So they want {vocalsound} to have at least fifty percent improvement on the baseline , but w which would be a much better baseline . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And if we look at the result that Sunil sent , {vocalsound} just putting the VAD in the baseline improved , like , more than twenty percent , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: which would mean then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} mean that fifty percent on this new baseline is like , well , more than sixty percent improvement on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} o e e uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: So nobody would {pause} be there , probably . Right ? +PhD A: Right now , nobody would be there , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Good . Work to do . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Professor B: So whose VAD is {disfmarker} Is {disfmarker} is this a {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Uh , they didn't decide yet . I guess i this was one point of the conference call also , but {disfmarker} mmm , so I don't know . Um , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Oh . +Professor B: Oh , I {disfmarker} I think th that would be {vocalsound} good . I mean , it 's not that the design of the VAD isn't important , but it 's just that it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it does seem to be i uh , a lot of {pause} work to do a good job on {disfmarker} on that and as well as being a lot of work to do a good job on the feature {vocalsound} design , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: if we can {pause} cut down on that maybe we can make some progress . +PhD A: M Yeah . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: But I guess perhaps {disfmarker} I don't know w {vocalsound} Yeah . Uh , yeah . Per - e s s someone told that perhaps it 's not fair to do that because the , um {disfmarker} to make a good VAD {pause} you don't have enough to {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} the features that are {disfmarker} the baseline features . So {disfmarker} mmm , you need more features . So you really need to put more {disfmarker} more in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the front - end . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: So i +Professor B: Um , +PhD A: S +Professor B: sure . But i bu +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} I 'm confused . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Wha - what do you mean ? +PhD A: Yeah , if i +Professor B: So y so you m s Yeah , but {disfmarker} Well , let 's say for ins see , MFCC for instance doesn't have anything in it , uh , related to the pitch . So just {disfmarker} just for example . So suppose you 've {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} what you really wanna do is put a good pitch detector on there and if it gets an unambiguous {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , oh . I see . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: if it gets an unambiguous result then you 're definitely in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a voice in a , uh , s region with speech . Uh . +PhD C: So there 's this assumption that the v the voice activity detector can only use the MFCC ? +PhD A: That 's not clear , but this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} e +Professor B: Well , for the baseline . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so if you use other features then y But it 's just a question of what is your baseline . Right ? What is it that you 're supposed to do better than ? +PhD C: I g Yeah . +Professor B: And so having the baseline be the MFCC 's {pause} means that people could {pause} choose to pour their ener their effort into trying to do a really good VAD +PhD C: I don't s But they seem like two {pause} separate issues . +Professor B: or tryi They 're sort of separate . +PhD C: Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Unfortunately there 's coupling between them , which is part of what I think Stephane is getting to , is that {vocalsound} you can choose your features in such a way as to improve the VAD . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And you also can choose your features in such a way as to prove {disfmarker} improve recognition . They may not be the same thing . +PhD C: But it seems like you should do both . +Professor B: You should do both +PhD C: Right ? +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and I {disfmarker} I think that this still makes {disfmarker} I still think this makes sense as a baseline . It 's just saying , as a baseline , we know {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: you know , we had the MFCC 's before , lots of people have done voice activity detectors , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you might as well pick some voice activity detector and make that the baseline , just like you picked some version of HTK and made that the baseline . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: And then {pause} let 's try and make everything better . Um , and if one of the ways you make it better is by having your features {pause} be better features for the VAD then that 's {disfmarker} so be it . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , uh , uh , uh , at least you have a starting point that 's {disfmarker} um , cuz i i some of {disfmarker} the some of the people didn't have a VAD at all , I guess . Right ? And {disfmarker} and +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: then they {disfmarker} they looked pretty bad and {disfmarker} and in fact what they were doing wasn't so bad at all . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But , um . +PhD C: Yeah . It seems like you should try to make your baseline as good as possible . And if it turns out that {pause} you can't improve on that , well , I mean , then , you know , nobody wins and you just use MFCC . Right ? +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , it seems like , uh , it should include sort of the current state of the art {vocalsound} that you want {disfmarker} are trying to improve , and MFCC 's , you know , or PLP or something {disfmarker} it seems like {vocalsound} reasonable baseline for the features , and anybody doing this task , {vocalsound} uh , is gonna have some sort of voice activity detection at some level , in some way . They might use the whole recognizer to do it {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} rather than {vocalsound} a separate thing , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but they 'll have it on some level . So , um . +PhD C: It seems like whatever they choose they shouldn't , {vocalsound} you know , purposefully brain - damage a part of the system to {pause} make a worse baseline , or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well , I think people just had +PhD C: You know ? +Professor B: it wasn't that they purposely brain - damaged it . I think people hadn't really thought through {vocalsound} about the , uh {disfmarker} the VAD issue . +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and then when the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the proposals actually came in and half of them had V A Ds and half of them didn't , and the half that did did well and the {vocalsound} half that didn't did poorly . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD A: Yeah . So we 'll see what happen with this . And {disfmarker} Yeah . So what happened since , um , {vocalsound} last week is {disfmarker} well , from OGI , these experiments on {pause} putting VAD on the baseline . And these experiments also are using , uh , some kind of noise compensation , so spectral subtraction , and putting on - line normalization , um , just after this . So I think spectral subtraction , LDA filtering , and on - line normalization , so which is similar to {vocalsound} the pro proposal - one , but with {pause} spectral subtraction in addition , and it seems that on - line normalization doesn't help further when you have spectral subtraction . +PhD C: Is this related to the issue that you brought up a couple of meetings ago with the {disfmarker} the {vocalsound} musical tones +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I have no idea , because the issue I brought up was with a very simple spectral subtraction approach , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: and the one that {vocalsound} they use at OGI is one from {disfmarker} from {vocalsound} the proposed {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora prop uh , proposals , which might be much better . So , yeah . I asked {vocalsound} Sunil for more information about that , but , uh , I don't know yet . Um . And what 's happened here is that we {disfmarker} so we have this kind of new , um , reference system which {vocalsound} use a nice {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a clean downsampling - upsampling , which use a new filter {vocalsound} that 's much shorter and which also cuts the frequency below sixty - four hertz , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: which was not done on our first proposal . +Professor B: When you say "" we have that "" , does Sunil have it now , too , +PhD A: I No . +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: Because we 're still testing . So we have the result for , {vocalsound} uh , just the features +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: and we are currently testing with putting the neural network in the KLT . Um , it seems to improve on the well - matched case , um , {vocalsound} but it 's a little bit worse on the mismatch and highly - mismatched {disfmarker} I mean when we put the neural network . And with the current weighting I think it 's sh it will be better because the well - matched case is better . Mmm . +Professor B: But how much worse {disfmarker} since the weighting might change {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how much worse is it on the other conditions , when you say it 's a little worse ? +PhD A: It 's like , uh , fff , fff {comment} {vocalsound} {pause} um , {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {pause} ten percent relative . Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Um . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But it has the , uh {disfmarker} the latencies are much shorter . That 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh - y w when I say it 's worse , it 's not {disfmarker} it 's when I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , compare proposal - two to proposal - one , so , r uh , y putting neural network {vocalsound} compared to n not having any neural network . I mean , this new system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD A: because it has {vocalsound} um , this sixty - four hertz cut - off , uh , clean {vocalsound} downsampling , and , um {disfmarker} what else ? Uh , yeah , a good VAD . We put the good VAD . So . Yeah , I don't know . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} j uh , uh {disfmarker} pr +Professor B: But the latencies {disfmarker} but you 've got the latency shorter now . +PhD A: Latency is short {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Isn't it +PhD A: And so +Professor B: So it 's better than the system that we had before . +PhD A: Yeah . Mainly because {pause} {vocalsound} of {pause} the sixty - four hertz and the good VAD . +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: And then I took this system and , {vocalsound} mmm , w uh , I p we put the old filters also . So we have this good system , with good VAD , with the short filter and with the long filter , and , um , with the short filter it 's not worse . So {disfmarker} well , is it {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: it 's in {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's all fine . +PhD A: Yes . Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: But what you 're saying is that when you do these {disfmarker} So let me try to understand . When {disfmarker} when you do these same improvements {vocalsound} to proposal - one , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh , on the {disfmarker} i things are somewhat better , uh , in proposal - two for the well - matched case and somewhat worse for the other two cases . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So does , uh {disfmarker} when you say , uh {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} The th now that these other things are in there , is it the case maybe that the additions of proposal - two over proposal - one are {pause} less im important ? +PhD A: Yeah . Probably , yeah . +Professor B: I get it . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} So , yeah . Uh . Yeah , but it 's a good thing anyway to have {vocalsound} shorter delay . Then we tried , um , {vocalsound} to do something like proposal - two but having , um , e using also MSG features . So there is this KLT part , which use just the standard features , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD A: and then two neura two neural networks . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm , and it doesn't seem to help . Um , however , we just have {vocalsound} one result , which is the Italian mismatch , so . Uh . We have to wait for that to fill the whole table , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . There was a {vocalsound} start of some effort on something related to voicing or something . Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} yeah . So basically we try to , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , find {vocalsound} good features that could be used for voicing detection , uh , but it 's still , uh {disfmarker} on the , um {disfmarker} t +PhD F: Oh , well , I have the picture . +PhD A: we {disfmarker} w basically we are still playing with Matlab to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to look at {disfmarker} at what happened , +PhD C: What sorts of {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: what sorts of features are you looking at ? +PhD F: We have some {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we would be looking at , um , the {pause} variance of the spectrum of the excitation , +PhD F: uh , um , this , this , and this . +PhD A: something like this , which is {disfmarker} should be high for voiced sounds . Uh , we {disfmarker} +PhD C: Wait a minute . I {disfmarker} what does that mean ? The variance of the spectrum of excitation . +PhD A: Yeah . So the {disfmarker} So basically the spectrum of the excitation {vocalsound} for a purely periodic sig signal shou sh +Professor B: OK . Yeah , w what yo what you 're calling the excitation , as I recall , is you 're subtracting the {disfmarker} the , um {disfmarker} the mel {disfmarker} mel {disfmarker} {vocalsound} mel filter , uh , spectrum from the FFT spectrum . +PhD A: e That 's right . Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have the mel f filter bank , we have the FFT , so we {pause} just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not really an excitation , +PhD A: No . +Professor B: but it 's something that hopefully tells you something about the excitation . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's right . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: We have here some histogram , +PhD A: E yeah , +PhD F: but they have a lot of overlap . +PhD A: but it 's {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} Yeah . So , well , for unvoiced portion we have something tha {vocalsound} that has a mean around O point three , and for voiced portion the mean is O point fifty - nine . But the variance seem quite {vocalsound} high . +PhD C: How do you know {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So {disfmarker} Mmm . +PhD C: How did you get your {pause} voiced and unvoiced truth data ? +PhD A: We used , uh , TIMIT and we used canonical mappings between the phones +PhD F: Yeah . We , uh , use {pause} TIMIT on this , +PhD A: and +PhD F: for {disfmarker} +PhD A: th Yeah . +PhD F: But if we look at it in one sentence , it {disfmarker} apparently it 's good , I think . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , so it 's noisy TIMIT . That 's right . Yeah . +Grad E: It 's noisy TIMIT . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: It seems quite robust to noise , so when we take {disfmarker} we draw its parameters across time for a clean sentence and then nois the same noisy sentence , it 's very close . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . So there are {disfmarker} there is this . There could be also the , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the maximum of the auto - correlation function or {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +PhD C: Is this a {disfmarker} a s a trained system ? Or is it a system where you just pick some thresholds ? Ho - how does it work ? +PhD A: Right now we just are trying to find some features . And , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} Yeah . Hopefully , I think what we want to have is to put these features in s some kind of , um {disfmarker} well , to {disfmarker} to obtain a statistical model on these features and to {disfmarker} or just to use a neural network and hopefully these features w would help {disfmarker} +PhD C: Because it seems like what you said about the mean of the {disfmarker} the voiced and the unvoiced {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} that seemed pretty encouraging . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Well , yeah , except the variance was big . +PhD C: Right ? +PhD A: Yeah . Except the variance is quite high . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Well , y +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Well , y I {disfmarker} I don't know that I would trust that so much because you 're doing these canonical mappings from TIMIT labellings . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Right ? So , really that 's sort of a cartoon picture about what 's voiced and unvoiced . So that could be giving you a lot of variance . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , i it {disfmarker} it may be that {disfmarker} that you 're finding something good and that the variance is sort of artificial because of how you 're getting your truth . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . But another way of looking at it {vocalsound} might be that {disfmarker} I mean , what w we we are coming up with feature sets after all . So another way of looking at it is that {vocalsound} um , the mel cepstru mel {pause} spectrum , mel cepstrum , {vocalsound} any of these variants , um , give you the smooth spectrum . It 's the spectral envelope . By going back to the FFT , {vocalsound} you 're getting something that is {pause} more like the raw data . So the question is , what characterization {disfmarker} and you 're playing around with this {disfmarker} another way of looking at it is what characterization {vocalsound} of the difference between {pause} the raw data {pause} and this smooth version {pause} is something that you 're missing that could help ? So , I mean , looking at different statistical measures of that difference , coming up with some things and just trying them out and seeing if you add them onto the feature vector does that make things better or worse in noise , where you 're really just i i the way I 'm looking at it is not so much you 're trying to f find the best {disfmarker} the world 's best voiced - unvoiced , uh , uh , classifier , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: but it 's more that , {vocalsound} you know , uh , uh , try some different statistical characterizations of that difference back to the raw data +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and m maybe there 's something there that {pause} the system can use . +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , but ther more obvious is that {disfmarker} Yeah . The {disfmarker} the more obvious is that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} well , using the {disfmarker} th the FFT , um , {vocalsound} you just {disfmarker} it gives you just information about if it 's voiced or not voiced , ma mainly , I mean . But {disfmarker} So , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: this is why we {disfmarker} we started to look {pause} by having sort of voiced phonemes +Professor B: Well , that 's the rea w w what I 'm arguing is that 's Yeah . I mean , uh , what I 'm arguing is that that {disfmarker} that 's givi you {disfmarker} gives you your intuition . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But in {disfmarker} in reality , it 's {disfmarker} you know , there 's all of this {disfmarker} this overlap and so forth , +Grad E: Oh , sorry . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} But what I 'm saying is that may be OK , because what you 're really getting is not actually voiced versus unvoiced , both for the fac the reason of the overlap and {disfmarker} and then , uh , th you know , structural reasons , uh , uh , like the one that Chuck said , that {disfmarker} that in fact , well , the data itself is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that you 're working with is not perfect . +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , what I 'm saying is maybe that 's not a killer because you 're just getting some characterization , one that 's driven by your intuition about voiced - unvoiced certainly , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it 's just some characterization {vocalsound} of something back in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the almost raw data , rather than the smooth version . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And your intuition is driving you towards particular kinds of , {vocalsound} uh , statistical characterizations of , um , what 's missing from the spectral envelope . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , obviously you have something about the excitation , um , and what is it about the excitation , and , you know {disfmarker} and you 're not getting the excitation anyway , you know . So {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I would almost take a {disfmarker} uh , especially if {disfmarker} if these trainings and so forth are faster , I would almost just take a {vocalsound} uh , a scattershot at a few different {vocalsound} ways of look of characterizing that difference and , uh , you could have one of them but {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and see , you know , which of them helps . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . OK . +PhD C: So i is the idea that you 're going to take {pause} whatever features you develop and {disfmarker} and just add them onto the future vector ? Or , what 's the use of the {disfmarker} the voiced - unvoiced detector ? +PhD A: Uh , I guess we don't know exactly yet . But , {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} Yeah . Th +PhD C: It 's not part of a VAD system that you 're doing ? +PhD F: No . +PhD A: Uh , no . No . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +PhD A: No , the idea was , I guess , to {disfmarker} to use them as {disfmarker} as features . +PhD C: Features . I see . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it could be , uh {disfmarker} it could be {vocalsound} a neural network that does voiced and unvoiced detection , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but it could be in the {disfmarker} also the big neural network that does phoneme classification . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor B: But each one of the mixture components {disfmarker} I mean , you have , uh , uh , variance only , so it 's kind of like you 're just multiplying together these , um , probabilities from the individual features {pause} within each mixture . So it 's {disfmarker} so , uh , it seems l you know {disfmarker} +PhD C: I think it 's a neat thing . Uh , it seems like a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . Yeah . I mean , {vocalsound} I know that , um , people doing some robustness things a ways back were {disfmarker} were just doing {disfmarker} just being gross and just throwing in the FFT and actually it wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't so bad . Uh , so it would s and {disfmarker} and you know that i it 's gotta hurt you a little bit to not have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a spectral , uh {disfmarker} a s a smooth spectral envelope , so there must be something else that you get {pause} in return for that {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: that , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} So . +PhD C: So how does {disfmarker} uh , maybe I 'm going in too much detail , but {vocalsound} how exactly do you make the difference between the FFT and the smoothed {pause} spectral envelope ? Wha - wh i i uh , how is that , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Um , we just {disfmarker} How did we do it up again ? +PhD F: Uh , we distend the {disfmarker} we have the twenty - three coefficient af after the mel f {vocalsound} filter , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and we extend these coefficient between the {disfmarker} all the frequency range . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And i the interpolation i between the point {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} give for the triang triangular filter , the value of the triangular filter and of this way we obtained this mode this model speech . +PhD A: S +Professor B: So you essentially take the values that {disfmarker} th that you get from the triangular filter and extend them to sor sort of like a rectangle , that 's at that m value . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . I think we have linear interpolation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So we have {disfmarker} we have one point for {disfmarker} one energy for each filter bank , +PhD F: mmm Yeah , it 's linear . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: Oh . +PhD A: which is {pause} the energy {pause} that 's centered on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the triangle {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . At the n at the center of the filter {disfmarker} +PhD C: So you {disfmarker} you end up with a vector that 's the same length as the FFT {pause} vector ? +PhD A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD C: And then you just , uh , compute differences +PhD F: Yeah . I have here one example if you {disfmarker} if you want see something like that . +PhD A: Then we compute the difference . +PhD C: and , +PhD A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: uh , sum the differences ? +PhD A: So . And I think the variance is computed only from , like , two hundred hertz to {pause} one {disfmarker} to fifteen hundred . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Two thou two {disfmarker} {comment} fifteen hundred ? +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because {disfmarker} +PhD F: No . +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: Two hundred and fifty thousand . +PhD A: Fifteen hundred . Because {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . Two thousand and fifteen hundred . +PhD A: Above , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it seems that {disfmarker} Well , some voiced sound can have also , {vocalsound} like , a noisy {pause} part on high frequencies , and {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Well , it 's just {disfmarker} +Professor B: No , it 's {disfmarker} makes sense to look at {pause} low frequencies . +PhD C: So this is {disfmarker} uh , basically this is comparing {vocalsound} an original version of the signal to a smoothed version of the same signal ? +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . So i so i i this is {disfmarker} I mean , i you could argue about whether it should be linear interpolation or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or zeroeth order , but {disfmarker} but +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Professor B: at any rate something like this {pause} is what you 're feeding your recognizer , typically . +PhD C: Like which of the {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: No . Uh , so the mel cepstrum is the {disfmarker} is the {disfmarker} is the cepstrum of this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this , uh , spectrum or log spectrum , +PhD A: So this is {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . Right , right . +Professor B: whatever it {disfmarker} You - you 're subtracting in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {vocalsound} power domain or log domain ? +PhD A: In log domain . Yeah . +PhD F: Log domain . +Professor B: OK . So it 's sort of like division , when you do the {disfmarker} yeah , the spectra . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: It 's the ratio . +Professor B: Um . Yeah . But , anyway , um {disfmarker} and that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: So what 's th uh , what 's the intuition behind this kind of a thing ? I {disfmarker} I don't know really know the signal - processing well enough to understand what {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what is that doing . +PhD A: So . Yeah . What happen if {disfmarker} what we have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} what we would like to have is {pause} some spectrum of the excitation signal , +Professor B: Yeah . I guess that makes sense . Yeah . +PhD A: which is for voiced sound ideally a {disfmarker} a pulse train +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: and for unvoiced it 's something that 's more flat . +PhD C: Uh - huh . Right . +PhD A: And the way to do this {vocalsound} is that {disfmarker} well , we have the {disfmarker} we have the FFT because it 's computed in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the system , and we have {vocalsound} the mel {vocalsound} filter banks , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and so if we {disfmarker} if we , like , remove the mel filter bank from the FFT , {vocalsound} we have something that 's {pause} close to the {pause} excitation signal . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD A: It 's something that 's like {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a a train of p a pulse train for voiced sound +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh ! OK . Yeah . +PhD A: and that 's {disfmarker} that should be flat for {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I see . So do you have a picture that sh ? +PhD A: So - It 's {disfmarker} Y +PhD C: Is this for a voiced segment , +PhD A: yeah . +PhD C: this picture ? What does it look like for unvoiced ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD A: You have several {disfmarker} some unvoiced ? +PhD F: The dif No . Unvoiced , I don't have +PhD A: Oh . +PhD F: for unvoiced . +Professor B: Yeah . So , you know , all {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm sorry . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} between {disfmarker} +PhD A: This is another voiced example . Yeah . +PhD F: No . But it 's this , +PhD A: Oh , yeah . This is {disfmarker} +PhD F: but between the frequency that we are considered for the excitation {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . +PhD F: for the difference and this is the difference . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: This is the difference . OK . +PhD A: So , of course , it 's around zero , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Sure looks {disfmarker} +PhD A: but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD A: Well , no . +PhD C: Hmm . +PhD A: It is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . Because we begin , {vocalsound} uh , in fifteen {vocalsound} point {disfmarker} the fifteen point . +PhD C: So , does {disfmarker} does the periodicity of this signal say something about the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD F: Fifteen p +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Pitch . +PhD A: It 's the pitch . +PhD C: the pitch ? +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: That 's like fundamental frequency . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , i t t +PhD C: OK . I see . +Professor B: I mean , to first order {vocalsound} what you 'd {disfmarker} what you 're doing {disfmarker} I mean , ignore all the details and all the ways which is {disfmarker} that these are complete lies . Uh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you know , what you 're doing in feature extraction for speech recognition is you have , {vocalsound} uh , in your head a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a simplified production model for speech , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: in which you have a periodic or aperiodic source that 's driving some filters . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . This is the {disfmarker} the auto - correlation {disfmarker} the R - zero energy . +PhD A: Do you have the mean {disfmarker} do you have the mean for the auto - correlation {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , first order for speech recognition , you say "" I don't care about the source "" . +PhD F: For {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Well , I mean for the {disfmarker} the energy . +PhD F: I have the mean . +Professor B: Right ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: And so you just want to find out what the filters are . +PhD C: Right . +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: The filters {vocalsound} roughly act like a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a an overall resonant {disfmarker} you know , f some resonances and so forth that th that 's processing excitation . +PhD F: Here . +PhD A: They should be more close . +PhD F: Ah , no . This is this ? More close . Is this ? And this . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So they are {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} there is less difference . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So if you look at the spectral envelope , just the very smooth properties of it , {vocalsound} you get something closer to that . +PhD A: This is less {disfmarker} it 's less robust . +PhD F: Less robust . Yeah . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . +Professor B: And the notion is if you have the full spectrum , with all the little nitty - gritty details , {vocalsound} that that has the effect of both , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: and it would be a multiplication in {disfmarker} in frequency domain +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so that would be like an addition in log {disfmarker} {vocalsound} power spectrum domain . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so this is saying , well , if you really do have that {vocalsound} sort of vocal tract envelope , and you subtract that off , what you get is the excitation . And I call that lies because you don't really have that , you just have some kind of {vocalsound} signal - processing trickery to get something that 's kind of smooth . It 's not really what 's happening in the vocal tract +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so you 're not really getting the vocal excitation . +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: That 's why I was going to the {disfmarker} why I was referring to it in a more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a more , uh , {vocalsound} uh , {vocalsound} conservative way , when I was saying "" well , it 's {disfmarker} yeah , it 's the excitation "" . But it 's not really the excitation . It 's whatever it is that 's different between {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh . This moved in the {disfmarker} +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , stand standing back from that , you sort of say there 's this very detailed representation . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You go to a smooth representation cuz this typically generalizes better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , but whenever you smooth you lose something , so the question is have you lost something you can you use ? +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: Um , probably you wouldn't want to go to the extreme of just ta saying "" OK , our feature set will be the FFT "" , cuz we really think we do gain something in robustness from going to something smoother , but maybe there 's something that we missed . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So what is it ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: And then you go back to the intuition that , well , you don't really get the excitation , but you get something related to it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And it {disfmarker} and as you can see from those pictures , you do get something {vocalsound} that shows some periodicity , uh , in frequency , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and also in time . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's really neat . +Professor B: so , +PhD C: So you don't have one for unvoiced {pause} picture ? +PhD F: Uh , not here . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: No , I have s +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: But not here . +Professor B: But presumably you 'll see something that won't have this kind of , uh , uh , uh , regularity in frequency , uh , in the {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . +PhD F: Not here . +PhD C: I would li I would like to see those {pause} pictures . +PhD F: Well , so . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I can't see you {comment} now . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: I don't have . +PhD C: And so you said this is pretty {disfmarker} doing this kind of thing is pretty robust to noise ? +PhD A: It seems , yeah . Um , +PhD C: Huh . +PhD F: Pfft . Oops . The mean is different {vocalsound} with it , because the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the histogram for the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the classifica +PhD A: No , no , no . But th the kind of robustness to noise {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD A: So if {disfmarker} if you take this frame , {vocalsound} uh , from the noisy utterance and the same frame from the clean utterance {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD C: You end up with a similar difference +PhD A: Y y y yeah . We end up with {disfmarker} +PhD C: over here ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: OK . Cool ! +PhD F: I have here the same frame for the {pause} clean speech {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , that 's clean . +PhD F: the same cle +PhD C: Oh , OK +PhD F: But they are a difference . +PhD A: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Because here the FFT is only with {vocalsound} two hundred fifty - six point +PhD C: Oh . +PhD F: and this is with five hundred {pause} twelve . +PhD A: Yeah . This is kind of inter interesting also +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: because if we use the standard , {vocalsound} uh , frame length of {disfmarker} of , like , twenty - five milliseconds , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} what happens is that for low - pitched voiced , because of the frame length , y you don't really have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't clearly see this periodic structure , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because of the first lobe of {disfmarker} of each {disfmarker} each of the harmonics . +PhD C: So this one inclu is a longer {disfmarker} Ah . +PhD A: So , this is like {disfmarker} yeah , fifty milliseconds or something like that . +PhD F: Fifty millis Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah , but it 's the same frame and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Oh , it 's that time - frequency trade - off thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Right ? I see . Yeah . +PhD A: So , yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh . Oh , so this i is this the difference here , for that ? +PhD F: No . This is the signal . This is the signal . +PhD A: I see that . Oh , yeah . +PhD F: The frame . +PhD C: Oh , that 's the f the original . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD F: This is the fra the original frame . +PhD A: So with a short frame basically you have only two periods +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: and it 's not {disfmarker} not enough to {disfmarker} to have this kind of neat things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: And here {disfmarker} No , well . +PhD A: Yeah . So probably we 'll have to use , {vocalsound} like , long f long frames . Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: That 's interesting . +Professor B: Yeah , maybe . Well , I mean it looks better , but , I mean , the thing is if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} if you 're actually asking {disfmarker} you know , if you actually j uh , need to do {disfmarker} place along an FFT , it may be {disfmarker} it may be pushing things . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Would you {disfmarker} would you wanna do this kind of , uh , difference thing {vocalsound} after you do spectral subtraction ? +PhD A: Uh , {vocalsound} maybe . +PhD F: No . Maybe we can do that . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: Hmm . The spectral subtraction is being done at what level ? Is it being done at the level of FFT bins or at the level of , uh , mel spectrum or something ? +PhD A: Um , I guess it depends . +Professor B: I mean , how are they doing it ? +PhD A: How they 're doing it ? Yeah . Um , I guess Ericsson is on the , um , filter bank , +PhD F: FFT . Filter bank , +PhD A: no ? It 's on the filter bank , +PhD F: yeah . +PhD A: so . So , yeah , probably {disfmarker} I i it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: So in that case , it might not make much difference at all . +PhD C: Seems like you 'd wanna do it on the FFT bins . +Professor B: Maybe . I mean , certainly it 'd be better . +PhD C: I I mean , if you were gonna {disfmarker} uh , for {disfmarker} for this purpose , that is . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: What else ? +PhD A: Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah , that 's all . So we 'll perhaps {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} try to convince OGI people to use the new {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the new filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: OK . Uh , has {disfmarker} has anything happened yet on this business of having some sort of standard , uh , source , +PhD A: Uh , not yet +Professor B: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: but I wi I will {vocalsound} call them and {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD A: now they are {disfmarker} I think they have more time because they have this {disfmarker} well , Eurospeech deadline is {vocalsound} over +PhD C: When is the next , um , Aurora {pause} deadline ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's , um , in June . Yeah . +PhD C: June . +Professor B: Early June , late June , middle June ? +PhD A: I don't know w +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: OK . Um , and {pause} he 's been doing all the talking but {disfmarker} but {vocalsound} these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he 's {disfmarker} he 's , uh {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor B: This is {disfmarker} this by the way a bad thing . We 're trying to get , um , m more female voices in this record as well . So . Make sur make sure Carmen {vocalsound} talks as well . Uh , but has he pretty much been talking about what you 're doing also , and {disfmarker} ? +PhD F: Oh , I {disfmarker} I am doing this . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD F: Yeah , yeah . I don't know . I 'm sorry , but I think that for the recognizer for the meeting recorder that it 's better that I don't speak . +Professor B: Yeah , well . +PhD F: Because {disfmarker} +Professor B: You know , uh , we 'll get {disfmarker} we 'll get to , uh , Spanish voices sometime , and {vocalsound} we do {disfmarker} we want to recognize , {vocalsound} uh , you too . +PhD F: After the {disfmarker} after , uh , the result for the TI - digits {vocalsound} on the meeting record there will be foreigns people . +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , no . +PhD C: Y +Professor B: We like {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} w we are {disfmarker} we 're in the , uh , Bourlard - Hermansky - Morgan , uh , frame of mind . Yeah , we like high error rates . It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: That way there 's lots of work to do . So it 's {disfmarker} Uh , anything to talk about ? +Grad D: N um , not not not much is new . So when I talked about what I 'm planning to do last time , {vocalsound} I said I was , um , going to use Avendano 's method of , um , {vocalsound} using a transformation , um , {vocalsound} to map from long analysis frames which are used for removing reverberation to short analysis frames for feature calculation . He has a trick for doing that {pause} involving viewing the DFT as a matrix . Um , but , uh , um , I decided {vocalsound} not to do that after all because I {disfmarker} I realized to use it I 'd need to have these short analysis frames get plugged directly into the feature computation somehow +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and right now I think our feature computation is set to up to , um , {vocalsound} take , um , audio as input , in general . So I decided that I {disfmarker} I 'll do the reverberation removal on the long analysis windows and then just re - synthesize audio and then send that . +Professor B: This is in order to use the SRI system or something . Right ? +Grad D: Um , or {disfmarker} or even if I 'm using our system , I was thinking it might be easier to just re - synthesize the audio , +Professor B: Yeah ? +Grad D: because then I could just feacalc as is and I wouldn't have to change the code . +Professor B: Oh , OK . Yeah . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} um , certainly in a short {disfmarker} short - term this just sounds easier . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , longer - term if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if it turns out to be useful , one {disfmarker} one might want to do something else , +Grad D: Right . That 's true . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} Uh , uh , I mean , in {disfmarker} in other words , you {disfmarker} you may be putting other kinds of errors in {pause} from the re - synthesis process . +Grad D: But {disfmarker} e u From the re - synthesis ? Um , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad D: O - OK . I don't know anything about re - synthesis . Uh , how likely do you think that is ? +Professor B: Uh , it depends what you {disfmarker} what you do . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , uh , um {disfmarker} Don't know . But anyway it sounds like a reasonable way to go for a {disfmarker} for an initial thing , and we can look at {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at exactly what you end up doing and {disfmarker} and then figure out if there 's some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something that could be {disfmarker} be hurt by the end part of the process . +Grad D: OK . +Professor B: OK . So that 's {disfmarker} That was it , huh ? +Grad D: That {disfmarker} Yeah , e That 's it , that 's it . +Professor B: OK . OK . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Um , anything to {pause} add ? +Grad E: Um . Well , I 've been continuing reading . I went off on a little tangent this past week , um , looking at , uh , {vocalsound} uh , modulation s spectrum stuff , um , and {disfmarker} and learning a bit about what {disfmarker} what , um {disfmarker} what it is , and , uh , the importance of it in speech recognition . And I found some {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some , uh , neat papers , {vocalsound} um , historical papers from , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} Kanedera , Hermansky , and Arai . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they {disfmarker} they did a lot of experiments where th where , {vocalsound} um , they take speech {vocalsound} and , um , e they modify {vocalsound} the , uh {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they measure the relative importance of having different , um , portions of the modulation spectrum intact . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And they find that the {disfmarker} the spectrum between one and sixteen hertz in the modulation {vocalsound} is , uh {disfmarker} is im important for speech recognition . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , this sort of goes back to earlier stuff by Drullman . +Grad E: Um . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , uh , the {disfmarker} the MSG features were sort of built up {vocalsound} with this notion {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Right . +Professor B: But , I guess , I thought you had brought this up in the context of , um , targets somehow . +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: But i m +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Professor B: i it 's not {disfmarker} I mean , they 're sort of not in the same kind of category as , say , a phonetic target or a syllabic target +Grad E: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: or a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um , I was thinking more like using them as {disfmarker} as the inputs to {disfmarker} to the detectors . +Professor B: or a feature or something . Oh , I see . Well , that 's sort of what MSG does . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? So it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: S +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Anyway , we 'll talk more about it later . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: We can talk more about it later . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: So maybe , {vocalsound} le +PhD C: Should we do digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . Let you {disfmarker} you start . +Grad D: Oh , OK . +Grad E: L fifty . +PhD A: Right . +","During the meeting, participants discussed progress on various projects related to speech and image processing. They considered the significance of work, updates on individual experiments, and technical details of those experiments. There were discussions about channel selection, speech recognition improvements from the previous week, image processing shifts, and training iterations for models. PhD C reported on experiments related to hidden Markov model training optimizations, and the discussion shifted focus to the HTK backend, model training rounds, and the reduction of required iterations. The use of Gaussian mixtures and the impact on training time were also explored. There was mention of HTK being compiled for Linux, which would speed up experiments. + +PhD A contributed by raising a point on weighting different error rates and the possibility of changing weights for the final system. The discussion also included inconsistent methodologies between languages and conditions, the implication of various averaging methods (arithmetic vs. geometric), and the importance of improvement versus absolute performance scores. Professor B emphasized the challenges of making policy changes in meetings with diverse opinions and the practical implications of choosing averages and weightings. + +The conversation included updates on experiments utilizing spectral subtraction and normalization techniques. PhD A reported on various proposals and the effects of different filters and systems, including latency impacts. There was a technical explanation of signal processing involving the difference between raw FFT data and a smoothed version, with a focus on potential features such as the variance of the spectrum of the excitation signal for robust speech recognition in noisy conditions. + +Participants engaged in detailed discussions around the excitation signal, its relation to the spectral envelope, and statistical measures of the FFT compared to mel spectral values. PhD C and F engaged in an exchange about the difference between voiced and unvoiced segments. There was also a tangential discussion on modulation spectrum analysis. + +Towards the end of the meeting, participants transitioned to a task related to recognizing spoken digits." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh good afternoon . This is our third meeting already . +Marketing: Good afternoon . +Project Manager: I hope you enjoyed your lunch . {vocalsound} I did anyway . {vocalsound} Um let's see . Presentation three . Okay this is um the second phase uh we're going to discuss today . It's the conceptual design meeting . And a few points of interest in this meeting um are the conceptual specification of components . Uh conceptual specification of design . And also trend-watching . Um these are hopefully the points you addressed in uh your pre uh presentations you're going to show me in a few minutes . Um but first I'll show you the agenda . Uh first the opening . Then we have three presentations . Uh after that we have to come to a decision on remote control concepts . How we're going to make it . And then we're closing . We have about forty minutes . Uh so I suggest let's get started . Uh did someone encounter any problems during the preparation ? No ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: Everything fine ? +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: That's nice . Then a little uh thing about the last meeting . Uh these are the points um we agreed on . The requirements and the target market . Uh requirements are uh teletext , docking station , audio signal , small screen , with some extras that uh button information . And we are going to use default materials . Um does somebody have any comments on these requirements ? Maybe ? No ? These are just the the things we thought of , so maybe if you figured something else or thought of something else , just let me know . And maybe we can uh work it out . And we're going to target uh sixty to to eighty year old customers . So now everybody knows what we're do we're doing , um I suggest let's get started with the presentations . So shall we keep the same uh line-up as uh last time ? +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll start off then . +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Doh . 'Kay I'm uh gonna inform you about the trend-watching I've done over the past few days . Um we've done some market research . We distributed some more enquetes , questionnaires . And um besides that um I deployed some trend-watchers to Milan and Paris to well get all of the newest trends . And I've consulted some additional trend-watch trend-watchers , after the original trend-watchers return , about what the the best design would be . Um okay these are some overall findings . Um most important thing is the fancy design . Um the research indicated that that was by far the most important factor . Um innovativeness was about half as important as the fancy design . By innovativeness this means um functions which are not featured in other remote controls . Um about half of , half as important as the innovativeness was the was easy to use . Um for our um group , we're focusing on the people of sixty to eighty y years old , this is um , these factors are slightly more equal . 'Kay these are some more group specific findings . Uh the older people prefer dark colours . Uh they like recognisable shapes , and familiar material . And our surveys have indicated that especially wood is pretty much the material for older people . Um this is , this image will give you a little bit of an impression about um the look-and-feel that um the remote should have . Um this leads us to some personal preferences . Uh the remote control and the docking station should uh blend in in the in the room . Um so this would mean no uh eye-catching designs . Just keep it simple and {disfmarker} Well the docking station and small screen would be our main points of interest , because this would be the {disfmarker} These would uh be the innovativeness in the remote control . So this would be very important that we {vocalsound} at least include these features . Um well the trend-watchers I consulted advised that it b should be , the remote control and the docking station should be telephone-shaped . So you could imagine that uh the remote control will be standing up straight in the docking station . This is not really {disfmarker} This is pretty much a new shape to uh older people . So they would prefer uh a design where the remote control just lies flat in the docking station . So it would be kinda more telephone-shaped . Um besides that we would advise um to bring two editions , one with a wood-like colour and maybe feel , and one with a grey-black colour . The wood-like for the more uh exclusive people . People with more money . Uh the grey-black colour for well people with less means . That would be all . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . Any questions about the the trends ? +Marketing: Any questions ? +Project Manager: Mayb +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No ? Okay , we go on to the next one . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} 'kay um yeah . {gap} uh some uh research uh a about um designing of an interface . Um the uh last meeting uh we had a about um uh using a f few buttons . So uh um uh that's w what I what I want to uh uh to do in uh our design . So um finding an attractive uh way to control uh the remote control . Um the uh {disfmarker} I found some uh something about uh speech uh recognition . So maybe uh we can uh use uh that . Um {disfmarker} Uh and uh using a little uh display . So um findings . Um yeah just um we have just to focus on the primary um functions . So uh only uh buttons uh for uh sound , um for uh on-off , um uh shifting u up uh sa uh ca channel or uh down shifting down . Um uh let's see . Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh {gap} we uh need some uh new a attractive functions uh uh which attract uh uh people for using it . So uh it's uh like a speak uh speech uh recognition and um a special button for selecting uh subtitles . Just uh what we uh mentioned uh last uh meeting . Um and yeah overall um user-friendly . So uh using uh large large buttons . Um {disfmarker} It's uh possible to uh uh to make um quite cheap uh system for uh speech uh recognition . Um you can think about um uh when you lost your um remote control , you can uh call it and um it gives an um sig signal . So uh uh yeah . And and uh for uh shifting up a sen uh c ch channel or uh for um uh putting out uh sound or something , you can uh just give a sign uh say um sound off or {disfmarker} A and uh yeah . Television uh put the sound off uh put the sound off uh . Um {disfmarker} Let's see . Uh yeah . I was thinking about the special uh button for uh subtitles , um just one button to keep it uh simple . Uh one push on the button uh you get uh uh small uh subtitles . Um double push push um , if double click , um so uh you get uh big uh subtitles , for uh people uh um uh which c f uh who can't uh read small uh subtitles . So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah and w we have to keep uh in general buttons uh so um we've got um the buttons we have to use . The on-off , sound on-off , sound higher or lower , um the numbers , uh zero to uh uh nine . Um the general buttons m more general b one button for shifting up and shifting down uh channel . Um also we want to uh use a little d display uh for um for displaying the uh the functions of the buttons . And um we can uh build in a function f which uh shows the channel or some uh which the t television is on . So um made a little uh picture of uh it . Um {disfmarker} See . Um yeah . Just um we can put uh the on-off button uh over in this uh corner , um almost uh e all uh remote controls uh are using a on-off button on that place . Um so uh people uh will uh recognise uh um the button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} D display uh of it , it's uh just a small display . Uh um you can put it uh on top . Um it's uh most uh uh place where people uh , most of {gap} looks at . So uh um and a special uh button for shifting up uh and uh shifting down uh channel , um it's uh on place where um the thumb of of the {disfmarker} So you you can uh easily uh shift up or shift down . Um it's uh quite uh handy place . So um and uh all the f functions for subtitle uh one button , uh for sound uh {disfmarker} Uh and uh for our design , um uh we have to discuss about it uh I think uh so uh the form of it so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Project Manager: Uh thank you . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . About the components design . Um for the energy source we can use a basic battery or , a as an optional thing , a kinetic energy , like in a watch , which you just shake and it produces energy . But if we choose for that option , the docking station would c become obsolete . So I don't think it's really an option . Uh for the casing , uh the uh manufacturing department can deliver uh a flat casing , single or double curved casing . It's really up the the design that we're gonna use . It's uh doesn't uh imply any technical restrictions . Uh as a case supplement , we could um , I thought of that l later , uh a rubber uh belt , like a anti-slip . Uh for the b buttons , we can use plastic or rubber . And the chip-set , um it says simple here , but it should be advanced , because we're using an L_C_D_ uh screen . And as uh the trend-watcher presentation showed , um people like wood , but it raises the price and it doesn't really fit the image , unless we would start two product lines . Form should follow function overall . Um well the kinetic energy source is rather fancy . But depends on what we want . I think we should disc discuss that . Um for the case , uh the supplement and the buttons , it really depends on the designer . And the chip-set uh really should be advanced because otherwise uh it would really be a simple uh remote control . And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . Thank you . So that brings us to the discussion about our concepts . Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . So these are the points we have to discuss . Um first I think we can talk about the energy source , since that's um has a pretty big influence on production price , uh and image . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so uh f I think first of all we have to see uh it is possible to introduce kinetic energy in our budget , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yes w there there are four options . We could use the basic normal battery . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh a hand dynamo . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't think that's {vocalsound} really an option . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You don't wanna swing before you can watch television . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells . But not every room is very light +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so it's not a very good option . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Or the kinetic energy . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: And how exactly does the kinetic energy work ? +Industrial Designer: Well y you basically shake your remote , and then it powers up . +Marketing: You just {disfmarker} You use it and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: Okay . Well personally I don't think that older people like to shake their remote control before they use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's true . +Marketing: And besides that you mentioned it would make the docking station obsolete . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: And I think our docking station could be one of the marketing issues with which we can um get great popularity for our product . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But +Marketing: Um wel +User Interface: what's the function ? Yeah f for loading up uh the batteries {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah you could load up the batteries , +User Interface: B b +Marketing: you could um insert the find the lost remote control function in there . +User Interface: Okay but uh it won't use uh much e energy uh I I believe . Uh it's uh just a small display so I believe uh it will run on one battery for um six months or f or or more . So I believe one battery uh is just enough . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh well I think uh elderly people just like to have everything in place . +Marketing: That's true . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I don't think they they like uh remotes just laying everywhere in their rooms . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So maybe a docking station will help them give the remote a place . +User Interface: Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +Project Manager: And also what you said . Um you can introduce voice recognition by uh finding back your remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I think it's um more efficient and cheaper to put it in the docking station . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So you have a but button on your docking station which you can push , and then it starts beeping . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we can we can still use the voice recognition , but maybe then for only the the channels . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh . +Project Manager: That's safe . +Marketing: I'm wondering um what will the voice recognition mean for the production price ? +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good point . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't have any information on pricing . So I'll have to ask the manufacturing department . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause in our earlier um market research , if you'd allow me to go to the flat board , SMARTboard . +Project Manager: Yeah , sure . Go ahead . +Marketing: Um so it was open here . Um we also um asked if w they would , if people would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Well you can see here , our target group would not do that . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: So if that would increase the price for which we're selling our remote control +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I would greatly advise not to do it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I think that would be better to uh insert in our other product , that is meant for the +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: younger people . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: But that would also go for the L_C_D_ screen then I guess . It's a bit higher percentage , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um well this is Yeah but this is here the question was , would you prefer it . So that doesn't really mean they wouldn't pay extra for it . And on top of that the L_C_D_ screen would um help in making the remote control easier to use . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And I think a voice recognition function would not make the remote control much easier to use . +Project Manager: Easier to use ? No , I think that's a good point . +User Interface: But uh is uh our uh research um about um bi large uh L_C_D_ sh uh display , or uh just a small one uh we want to uh use ? +Marketing: Um well this was for like an L_C_D_ screen like you would have on a on the the most advanced mobile phones . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So pretty large . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I personally think the L_C_D_ screen we wanna use , with the extra information , I think nobody has anything against it . Because it's just uh some extra information , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: and it's easy to ignore as well . So if you don't wanna use it you just don't use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And um yeah I think the um {disfmarker} Maybe we have to uh discard the voice recognition . Because it will increase cost uh signifi uh significantly . And I don't think the {disfmarker} I don't think it will be a lot easier to use , as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that brings us back to the energy . If we don't have the voice recognition , it will it won't use a lot of energy to use . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So in that case we could use kinetic uh energy , but I think just a simple battery which you can reload on a docking station is just as good . And much cheaper as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And that's the best choice . +Project Manager: Okay let me just choose for the battery . That brings us to the chip . +Industrial Designer: Well there isn't any choice there because we're using the the the the display . +Project Manager: Just the advanced . +Industrial Designer: So it's gotta be advanced . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , advanced chip . And then we get to the point of the case . Um which brings us a little bit back to marketing as well . Uh if we wanna choose for wood or the black and grey . Or both ? Um as we saw there is not {disfmarker} Yeah wood is a lot more expensive to produce . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um but I think it will attract elderly people who wanna have something exclusive , which they can show off to their grandkids . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Look I've got a new remote control , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I dunno . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I think most important factor there is the wooden colour . So it wouldn't actually have to be wood , +Project Manager: Yeah . That's right . +Marketing: if it's just +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: wood-coloured . +Project Manager: But with colour was a lot more expensive ? Or ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I dunno . +Project Manager: You don't know ? +Industrial Designer: I'll have to uh research . +Project Manager: I think so because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: It's a lot more difficult to to handle and to to get in the right shape . +User Interface: Mm . Uh is it possible uh to make um changeable uh case . So um uh you 'cause uh {disfmarker} Yeah with uh mobile phones uh uh so uh like the Nokia mobile phones , uh when you can change the case of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So +Project Manager: Change the cases . Yeah . +User Interface: maybe it's possible uh possibility . So um um you have just to make one um standard um remote control , and um yeah you can sell uh few uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You can sell the cases . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that's a very good option . Because um then you can advertise as well with the {disfmarker} Give your grandfather a new case for his remote control , or whatever . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's a {disfmarker} it's something extra , it's something other remotes don't have , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: which we can get a great advantage point . +Marketing: Yeah that is true . +Project Manager: So and then you can make them with colour . Black and grey , other colours as well . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . We would have to look carefully into the design though . +Project Manager: Costs . +Marketing: 'Cause we would have to make one w uh control which would fit in with a wooden cover and a plastic cover . The more original one , or the more standard one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you suggest we should design two different telephones on which you can apply , yeah {vocalsound} remote controls , on which you can apply different case covers , for example . +Marketing: Well I wouldn't design a telephone +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well no I think w we should just , we should then just design one um +Project Manager: Remote . +Marketing: one remote , but it would have to be fancy with either the wood cover or the plastic one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: So , but that shouldn't be too much of a problem . +Project Manager: So everybody's okay with the changing covers ? I think that's a good uh good option . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Changing case covers . +Marketing: Um I heard our Industrial Designer talk about uh flat , single and double curved . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Could you explain that a little more ? +Industrial Designer: Well the the general like most older remotes are flat , just straight . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh our d manufacturing department can also deliver single curved or double curved ca curved cases . +Marketing: And what would single curved and double curved mean ? +Industrial Designer: Um it would just only affect the form , for as far as I know . So it's j really just up to the design department what we're gonna use . It doesn't really matter for the price or the functionality . +Marketing: Okay . So we can pretty much just do whatever we want . +Industrial Designer: Pick one you like , yes . +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . That's good . +Project Manager: Uh but the form has to be um {disfmarker} It has to {disfmarker} It's has to be possible to stand up ? Or just only to lie down ? +Marketing: No just to lie down . +User Interface: {gap} okay . +Project Manager: And the the cover of the the docking station is also +Marketing: We'll go for that . +Project Manager: on top of the television then ? Or not ? +Marketing: Well or besides it . +Project Manager: And you can just yeah then click it in . That's okay . Um so the interface . What type of interface do we want to use ? Um maybe you can make a little drawing of it on the +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: on the the board . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Does somebody have ideas for a form or +User Interface: Uh we can just use the regular form of it , but it's um not quite uh fancy . So um {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Um you uh said you wanted to put the um changing channels button on the right side , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so you could , so your thumb would be easily {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Well uh I think that was a very good point 'cause I pointed out earlier that a lot of remotes cause R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: So that would be great for that . Um I thought maybe we could just make one of those buttons on both the left and the right side . +User Interface: For uh {disfmarker} Uh for {disfmarker} +Marketing: For left-handed users also . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah we Is it possible to um program it s so uh you got on the left side uh or on the right side uh buttons for for shifting u up and shifting up ? And on the uh other uh {vocalsound} uh o other side uh buttons for uh shifting , uh for for the sound ? Or {disfmarker} Or isn't it ? +Marketing: For the volume . Um well +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: that could {gap} Yeah we could do that but I'm not sure if that would be very good for the easy , ease of use . +Project Manager: Usabili Yeah ease of use will be a lot more difficult , +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: and then it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But if we would make um a changing channels and changing volume button on both sides , that would certainly yield great options for the design of the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: 'Cause it could be made all symmetrical and stuff . +User Interface: Yeah +Project Manager: But you have extra buttons . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So people can get confused . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: That is true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially if they have the same writings on it . +User Interface: See um yeah . Or we have to make a left uh {disfmarker} For lefties +Project Manager: Can't we make uh {disfmarker} Can't we make a remote which you can flip over and use on the same +User Interface: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: functions as the normal one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Then you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Let's see if I ca A blank one . And then you get {disfmarker} Here's a little L_C_D_ screen . Uh now I have to think . It's a plus and a min . No it's not very handy I think . Because the plus and the min will be opposite +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: and all kinds of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No that's not gonna work . I guess . Maybe we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it a problem that left-handed persons use a different hand ? I think the functions are that basic that nobody should have any problems with uh choosing a channel +Marketing: Yeah . That is true . +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's just uh u using uh your thumb . +Project Manager: Y yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So um it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think we could just uh leave it a normal shape . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh but maybe we have to make it a l a bit more fancy . In one or ano another way . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we should start by by choosing a case . Because that's the basis you're building on . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yeah +Industrial Designer: So I could draw them out . +Project Manager: just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's look at the flat case . Oh . It's from the side so it's rather normal . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The the single curved so I'm not really sure what they're gonna look like , but I think it's something like this . So this type should be better for you or better {disfmarker} Should prevent repetitive strain injury a bit . +Project Manager: Easier ? +Industrial Designer: And the double curved s looks something like this I guess . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So th those are the three options we have . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I suggest um the single curved , because maybe the curve is pretty good to put the the screen in . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Uh so that elderly people can uh use the remote control and at the same time look easily at the screen , because it's a bit , it has a bit of a angle . +User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Do you say this um {disfmarker} S uh {disfmarker} Uh you got like uh sort of a {disfmarker} I believe {disfmarker} {gap} There ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So um you want to put a display over here ? Or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah . I think so . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh +Project Manager: But now it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: we can make it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have it upside down or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Do you have it +User Interface: That's the top . +Project Manager: this that's top ? Okay . +User Interface: So uh this top . This down . Um maybe it's possible to uh make this side like um {disfmarker} Let's see . Um {disfmarker} Colour uh okay . Uh to make this side um like mm the right colour . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um bit like so uh um in the form of your hand . So um {disfmarker} Uh it's an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So so the remote control have to um lay in your hand . So uh it's possib um yeah for s so and +Project Manager: So get your mouse . Yeah . +User Interface: And to put uh the the buttons for um changing uh the channel uh over here uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good one . But I think it's better to put the screen uh on top . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh rem +Project Manager: So just flip it a hundred and eighty degrees around then you get {disfmarker} {gap} here . +User Interface: Yeah but this place um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If you can have this one , you turn it like this . And then flip it upside down . +User Interface: Uh it's {disfmarker} Yeah I dunno um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because uh maybe your hand is in the way , if you have the display here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: It's more logical to have it on top as well +Project Manager: I think i +Industrial Designer: because , like on your mobile phone , it's always above . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On top . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh maybe you should just s start on a blank page . +Project Manager: {gap} . So +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: then we get {disfmarker} Here's {disfmarker} That's the curve . +User Interface: Five minutes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Here the display , and then buttons . Yeah and then we can have a little bit off here and here maybe . Just that's for left hand and right hand users . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And then h the rest of the buttons over here . +User Interface: Yeah . But um the on-off button , um still on the top uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah still here +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: jus +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Marketing: And I'd prefer the corners to be round . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . 'Kay . +Project Manager: Should be more bit more friendly , +Marketing: Think that would be better . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Friendly on the eye . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Supplements . That's okay . Where's my mouse ? Then {disfmarker} We've got a general idea of the concepts and the materials we're going to use . So now for the next meeting uh we'll have to look at the look-and-feel design . It's important that the corporate design image uh is going to be in the remote . So check out the corporate website maybe . The user interface design , it's the same story . And product evaluation . So the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer are going to work together on this one . But you're going to get your instructions I think sended by the coach . So just um I will put these um minutes on the in the folder . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: And then we're going to uh try to finish our project , and uh make a good design for all the grandfathers and grandmothers , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which are {disfmarker} Uh let's see . I'm not sure if you're going to start right away to work together or {disfmarker} I think you're going to fill in the questionnaires first . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then you'll get a message . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's uh basically it . Maybe this one ? Then we can save this one in the folders group . Uh yes , it's here . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} SMARTboard , there it it . So if you wanna have a look at it , it's over there in the projects folder . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And then I guess we'll start in thirty minutes again . Thank you . +Marketing: Very good . +User Interface: Okay . +","Summary: + +The project team held their third meeting to discuss the second phase of the conceptual design for a new remote control, focusing on users aged sixty to eighty. The agenda included an opening, three presentations, a decision on remote control concepts, and a closing within a forty-minute time frame. + +The Marketing team presented their trend-watching results, emphasizing the importance of fancy design, innovativeness, and ease of use, noting older users' preference for dark colors, familiar shapes, and wood material. They suggested two editions, one wood-like and the other grey-black, to cater to different economic statuses. + +The User Interface presentation proposed a design with a limited number of buttons for essential functions, speech recognition, and an LCD display. The suggestion included a lost remote control locator function, simplifying channel and volume control, and using large buttons for usability. + +The Industrial Designer discussed component options, such as energy sources like basic batteries or kinetic energy, various casings, and the necessity of an advanced chipset due to the LCD screen. They also mentioned the idea of a case supplement, such as an anti-slip rubber belt. + +During the discussion, the team decided that a standard battery recharged on a docking station would be the most suitable energy source, considering the target market's preferences and the docking station's potential marketing benefits. Voice recognition was dismissed as potentially increasing production costs without enhancing ease of use. + +The team explored changing case covers as a unique selling point, providing the ability to personalize the remote with different colors or materials. They agreed on a user-friendly design with large buttons, an easy-to-read display at the top, and a form that would be comfortable in the hand. + +The project manager tasked the team with further refining the design to align with the corporate image and prepare for product evaluation. The user interface and industrial designer were to collaborate on this task. The meeting was concluded with plans to reconvene in thirty minutes and to share the minutes and concept drawings in the project folder." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , all set ? Welcome to the conceptual design meeting . +User Interface: Uh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: The agenda . The opening . I'll again be the secretary and make minutes , take minutes , uh and it will be three presentations , just like the last meeting . So um , {vocalsound} who wants to start off ? Technical uh designer again ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Again . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah . Uh , before we begin it , I want to say I've I've put the minutes of the uh second meeting in the shared folder , but they're still not uh quite okay . It uh it uh still some technical difficulties so the the first part of the minutes are very hard to read , because there are two documents that uh were layered over each other . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But uh , from now on I won't use my pen anymore , so will be p just {vocalsound} ordinary keyboard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh , may be better , yeah . +Marketing: Keyboard work . Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it {gap} will will be more uh easy for you to read the minutes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay , when we talk about uh components design , um it's really about the material and the {disfmarker} and uh uh really the stuff we build uh the remote controls of . Um , a remote control consist of uh components and the components of a remote control consist of uh properties and material . We have to choose th uh these uh wisely and it could affect uh uh a kind of grow of {disfmarker} in uh in buying uh the remote controls . Um , the components of a remote control are of course uh the case . Uh the properties of the case , um it has to be solid uh in hard material like uh hard plastic uh with soft rubber for uh falling and and uh uh {disfmarker} yeah , it feels uh good in your hand . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm the buttons has to be uh solid too , and the material is soft rubber . Uh I've got a uh email from the possibilities of Real Reaction . Um uh they're telling me that um when we build uh a remote control of um of plastic or rubber , the uh buttons have to be uh rubber too . Mm {disfmarker} It's okay . Yeah . I when we use a rubbled {disfmarker} a doubled curved case , we must use a rubber push-buttons to {disfmarker} uh the the rubber double-curved case is a is a t uh three-dimensional uh curve in the in the design , which is uh necessary when we want to be trendy . Uh {disfmarker} Um +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: the energy source , uh I've got a lot of possibilities for that too . Um , uh the basic battery , which I thi prefer because of its uh its non uh non-depending of of of uh um {disfmarker} Uh here you have to have a hand uh {disfmarker} yeah , kinetic uh energy . Also in uh this one , like in the watches , but a remote control can lie on a table for a day , and then you push uh a button and {disfmarker} so you don't have to uh walk with it all the all the time . Mm , solar cells are also uh a bit weird for uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um uh also the case material , uh I think that plastic is the is the best with rubber , because uh wood or titanium would also be a bit weird . +User Interface: Oh titanium is probably trendy , I think . {gap} . +Marketing: That's true , I guess . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , maybe a little bit expensive . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Uh , they don't tell anything about the cost of uh titanium . +Marketing: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Um the chip {disfmarker} uh the chip set uh and the board is uh all off the shelf . Also , the speaker in the remote control , when we want to retrieve it . Um , the base station is also off the shelf , all the materials and the components are uh just available in uh in our uh factory . Mm , I've told about uh the three first points . Mm , the simple electronical chip uh is is available uh with the LED transmitter uh transmitter . Uh , it's all uh off the shelf and even the speaker and the wireless retriever are all uh available in our company . Um , another possibility . I uh yeah , I looked up on was uh the L_C_D_ displays . Could be uh something special to our uh remote control , and it's possible , but it only cost a bit more , but maybe it can be uh within the limits of twenty five Euros . +Project Manager: Twelve and a half . Actually {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , production cost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I th I got an email with uh some examples and it {disfmarker} these were were the most trendiest one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You see uh a covers , which can be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What are those , t tooth uh brushes , or so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , I don't know . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's actually kind of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: well , it resembles the design I had in mind for this proj +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: You know the the cartoonish {vocalsound} Alessi kind of design . +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe we can uh bri uh bring a couple of uh couple of types of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And we can we can steal their ideas . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: maybe a kind of uh whole uh um a whole set of uh different uh remote controls . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring a whole line uh with uh with a {gap} huge variety of uh +Project Manager: Well , it's a possibility , too . +Industrial Designer: uh house uh stuff . +User Interface: Different colours also . +Industrial Designer: Like uh {vocalsound} maybe radios and uh television also uh in this in this {disfmarker} in the same style , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-uh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that'll be for the future , I guess . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next time we're here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes , because we have to uh {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have to bring the logo and all the stuff uh back into it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: {gap} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I shall go to the next slide . Um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , I still don't have any information about user requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I was thinking about just uh the basic functions and I got uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , we decided upon that in the last meeting . Didn't we ? +User Interface: Yeah , but but then wh I don't know when there are new user requirements . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Well , tha I didn't receive any new requirements or somethi +User Interface: I ha I ha I have the I have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +User Interface: nothing . +Project Manager: no , but we decided to use only b basic functions only . +User Interface: Well , I have here a couple of basic functions I could think of . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I dunno if they're {disfmarker} maybe a little bit more , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we {disfmarker} maybe we can think of that later . W just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: these are the ones you already summed up in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I I uh {vocalsound} well , I pointed them out here , just to make it a little bit easier . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um Another function uh is {disfmarker} of course we already discuss it on the side . Um , I don't know what costs of it . Uh , I've no idea about it . Uh , I was also looking for what you said , for {disfmarker} I got an email uh uh about uh L_C_D_ in in in front of the remote control . I don't know if that's a good idea , or maybe it's a little bit too much for twelve and a half . Production . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If we got already uh something like a base . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That might get redundant also maybe . I don't know what kind of information it would {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I don't know . I d I uh ju I was just thinking about it . Then I got a pop-ups to go to the meeting . But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring t uh uh teletext to the t {vocalsound} to the remote control . {vocalsound} +User Interface: The remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Then you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} a little uh too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} A little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then you've got a flag s {vocalsound} Very big R_C_ . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} That's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was not a good idea . +User Interface: A little bit too big , I think . Exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um , yeah . Well , the functions are are not more to discuss , I think . +Project Manager: No . No . +User Interface: It's it's just the base things we already discussed that the {disfmarker} no V_C_R_ or that kind of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: uh , so that's very easy . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you do mention the next and previous uh button . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Well , that's next channel . I mean {gap} next channel . +Marketing: Next channel , previous channel . +Project Manager: Oh , okay , o okay okay . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} oh , I I got an email with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with an uh a remote control with a base . +Project Manager: Huh . +User Interface: So , it's uh just an idea . And I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh thinked of the button sizes and I'm not sure uh if they have to be big or uh just small {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you're the expert . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think it depends on the function . +User Interface: Well , I'm not a e I'm the expert for user-friendly , but not for trendiness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Maybe it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , if you save uh {disfmarker} Perhaps uh s tiny buttons aren't user-friendly , then we wouldn't im implement that of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: okay , that's your point . Um , yeah . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I've nothing to {vocalsound} s +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , w when we only use basic functions , we have the possibility to make the buttons larger . +Marketing: Oh , that's right . +User Interface: Uh , with a little bit larger , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I thought so , but maybe with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , I think we already agreed upon the fact that the the the skip buttons and the cha and the volume buttons , th th those two have {disfmarker} yeah , they have to be large . +User Interface: Yeah , that groups . +Project Manager: Uh , I mean th th the the two two basic buttons , you know , the {disfmarker} to skip channels and to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Large ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know why , but I think that is {disfmarker} that's t trendy too , +User Interface: Most {disfmarker} the most used uh buttons . +Marketing: Those are probably the the th +Project Manager: because that's the mo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you know , it's uh acc acc um accentu uh , how do you say it ? It puts an extra accent on the the on the simplicity of our remotes to j to make these two most basic functions extra big , like t +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: True . Yeah . +Marketing: Those are probably the b four most most used buttons on the th in the remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . And you want to acc accentuate that , you know . +Industrial Designer: You did the research . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's from your research . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry ? Yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Uh , that was all y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: uh personal preference I didn't have . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I didn't had any time left . +Project Manager: No uh , that's coo it's cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You don't care . No , {vocalsound} sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh . Go away . +User Interface: It's there . +Marketing: Come on . +User Interface: Yeah , click on it . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Couple time . +Marketing: Oh , great . Well , I've done some research again about trends on the internet . Um I've done some investigation , and uh well I uh got some information from fashion watchers from Paris and uh Milan . {vocalsound} Some uh some findings {disfmarker} the most important thing is fancy look and feel of the remote control . Uh , well , we were going to imply that , so that's nice . The second important thing is uh innovative technology in the R_C_ . Uh , our market really likes really likes that . And uh the third point there in this uh order if {disfmarker} of importance , the third point , is a high ease of use . And uh , well , for the idea , I've put some trends uh for the market of elderly people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Dark colours , simple recognisable shapes . So we probably won't do that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The younger market likes uh {disfmarker} Well , {gap} the {gap} themes of of this year are uh surprisingly fruits and vegetables and spongy material . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I found this image , which is uh {disfmarker} Well , it symbolises the idea of fruits and vegetables . I don't see the spongy part in it . But with a little bit of fancy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well maybe c {vocalsound} then we have to do something with Sponge Bob then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Exactly . I got some ideas {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well , yeah , pictures isn't really good word , but um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: some symbols of fruits or vegetables maybe . Uh , catchy colours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit is uh yellow , green , red , whatever . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , remote controls in in catchy colours . +Project Manager: It doesn't stroke with the with the dark colours . +Marketing: Uh , no , we don't want dark colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not the dark colours ? Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , I just put them there to uh , yeah , uh for general idea . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And uh , the docking st +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh I think the spongy material is is very irritating for the uh remote control itself . But to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} To implement some spongy thing , maybe we can do it in the in the docking station . At the bottom of the docking station or whatever . And uh , we could bring one line with a dark colour uh to um uh p uh yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh uh v how do you say ? +Project Manager: For diversity or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , also a bit for elderly people who are a little bit crazy and want {vocalsound} maybe want a little younger design but still the dark colour . +User Interface: Well , how uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean it it it reaches a different market uh , but it it it doesn't cost really much effort to b to uh bring uh like a black R_C_ on the market or whatever . Yes . +User Interface: But how do we use uh fruits and vegetables in Christ's {vocalsound} sake with {vocalsound} remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , but I I I think that uh our design already resembles so a piece of fruit . +Marketing: Yeah , there's there's always a +User Interface: Uh , make it a banana ? +Project Manager: It's like a pear or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well there there's always empty space of course on a remote control . I mean I think this part of the R_C_ uh well {vocalsound} the upper the upper part or whatever is uh is not not used with buttons , I guess . +Project Manager: No , I don't think you have to do it like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you you can put some fruity things {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it that doesn't have to remind you , you know , like explicitly of s our f of a of a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like the the the the round curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , of course not . +Project Manager: And so y I I think this {disfmarker} y it already sem resembles uh something like a pear to me or something . +Marketing: Especially i +User Interface: Yeah , but th {vocalsound} yeah , but that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah , exactly . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we make it little bit greenish . +Project Manager: You do get the idea , eh ? The fruity kind of round {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: A {vocalsound} and we could use {vocalsound} one of these for the uh w what is it ? +Project Manager: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah , I don't know . +Industrial Designer: Grapes . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh , this is a b yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} Wha whatever . +User Interface: But d don't we need a creative artist or something like that to m make it to feel like a a a a vegetable or fruit ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Of course we have uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: we have a very big uh the s +Marketing: Yeah . Well , w we can uh {disfmarker} w we can we can produce multiple uh multiple things . +Industrial Designer: For a big team of artists . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of d design team , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is then the uh pear . I don't know the English word , so forget it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's pear , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And um , maybe , yeah , a b a banana is uh is n {vocalsound} not easy for a remote control , but m yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh but I think we don't have to make +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: we can't make all uh ten designs . We have to make one design I th I I think . +Project Manager: No , but I think it's it's already what we were were up to . +Marketing: Mayb maybe two or three . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh , it's {disfmarker} it doesn't have to resemble uh what I already said , a specific piece of fruit , but just , you know , like a fruity thing going on . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . No sure , but but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} it looks fruity to me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: B but that's great , and and and what I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , but I do like the {disfmarker} +Marketing: what what I was saying , the catchy colours {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah , I do like uh the f uh to {disfmarker} the idea of making a a y uh , a catchy colour design and a d because I do {disfmarker} I think a dark colour would be nice too . +Industrial Designer: But pictures of fruit , vegetables vegetables {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe it's too much , you know . +User Interface: But , we we have to um {disfmarker} There have to be the the the the firm colours , our own uh colours has to be in it . +Marketing: Yeah , uh not really . Pictures was a was a bad word , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , but what are the {disfmarker} This is yellow . +Marketing: Well we c yeah . +User Interface: Yellow , a Real Reaction . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put a logo on top of it . +Project Manager: But I don't think our our company colours are this fashionable . +Marketing: Yeah , sure . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe we can if if we got our docking station over here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} We uh f +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's really fruity . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't draw with this thing , but I'll try . +User Interface: A yellow do +Marketing: If this is our docking station , we can make our logo over here . +User Interface: Uh , yeah . +Marketing: It doesn't work . And then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , and the button then . +Industrial Designer: With a strawberry on top . +Project Manager: Yeah , on uh n uh on the bottom of the remote you can do {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , the button button over here or whatever , +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: I don't know . On the front , of course , because else you can't find it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Well , that were my ideas a little bit . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I'll close 'em down . Um , go away . +Project Manager: Okay , you {disfmarker} can you open the conceptual design presentation ? +Marketing: Conceptual design , yes . +Project Manager: See what was on the agenda . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Lazy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The agenda . +Project Manager: This is his own remote . Because um , maybe we can start with the technical uh functions , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't think it's there {disfmarker} uh , yeah um , do we want to um use an L_C_D_ display , for example ? +Marketing: Well , it's nice , of course . But I don't I don't know what to display on it . +Industrial Designer: Only if we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Me neither . +Industrial Designer: Maybe maybe we can make a T_V_ guide on it , for the channel you're on . +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but it's so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but it should be li like this big , and I don't think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , no , only the T_V_ channel with the {disfmarker} with uh with {vocalsound} uh four programmes . +Project Manager: I don't think we should do it . +Industrial Designer: You can uh zap through them with the page up page down button . +Marketing: Yes sure , but it it has to to show an entire title of a programme or at least a q a quite quite large part of it and then you get a very large L_C_D_ screen , because {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it can {disfmarker} On your {disfmarker} No , on your mobile phone you can y you can read text also . So why not on your remote ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} no . I do I think it's a bit redundant , actually . +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . +Project Manager: And it's also not {disfmarker} I don't th even think it it looks s like sexy or something , +User Interface: Well well what would you display on it then ? +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , programme uh information or or or or g or a guide +Marketing: Programme information . +User Interface: But is it {disfmarker} isn't that a already on T_V_ , a lot of new T_V_s ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: on t on teletext , yes . Also on the internet . +Marketing: Well a lot a lot of T_V_s indeed show uh when you uh zap to a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you're already watching the T_V_ , you're not gonna watch your remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but you also want to know what's next . +Marketing: But then we also uh w need to bring out a line of T_V_s which we were planning to , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we also have to {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: but whatever . Because the T_V_ has to send information back to the R_C_ , and I don't know if that's possible . +Industrial Designer: Yes , that's uh really possible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , yes , o of course it's possible , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you gotta uh implement it in the T_V_s , and I don't think everyone's gonna buy a Real Reaction T_V_ within a month after the release of our uh remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I really understand you want to make your job more exciting {vocalsound} by putting an L_C_D_ in it , +User Interface: And I also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I I really don't think it's a good n goo because it also doesn't stroke with {disfmarker} we wanted uh c When we talk about the materials , uh it's a good idea to use these plastic materials with soft rubber stuff on it . It was our idea , you know , to give it a more sturdy look and that you ca like you can throw with it . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But I don't think a L_C_D_ display fits in that image . You know , it's like more vulnerable , and it adds nothing really , you know . +Marketing: That's true , that's true , it breaks f yeah , it it it's not very solid , it's uh frag fragile . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . You could make it , but it's just {disfmarker} it it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it's coherent with the design we're after . +Marketing: No . No . I don't think so ei either . +Project Manager: But that's my opinion . Well , you you y Okay , we can vote for it . You want the L_C_D_ display . I don't want to and {vocalsound} he doesn't , so it's up to him . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we wanna {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Marketing: {vocalsound} . Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've read somewhere that I've got some kind of veto veto uh rights . +User Interface: {vocalsound} . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bastard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I can also say {disfmarker} +User Interface: We can {gap} you away . +Project Manager: But did we skip the {disfmarker} Yeah , you could do {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m but what what i so what i but do you think we should {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't know . Uh , uh I {disfmarker} i if it's it's a simple p +Project Manager: We're not even sure what what information we want to display on it . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that that's right , +Industrial Designer: No uh um {disfmarker} +User Interface: and uh I also have to think about new functions , maybe buttons or something like that to control it . Kind of L_C_D_ or something or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yes , you can use uh buttons uh uh w that are already uh on the remote control for double functions . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess . +User Interface: But how does it display then ? W when I go to the second channel , what what does it show me ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you push a button . The title and the information about the programme . +User Interface: About that programme ? +Industrial Designer: But but uh {disfmarker} yeah , what he said was right , about the televisions , they have to be uh customised to the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nah , that's not gonna work . +Industrial Designer: But maybe in future it will be a giant hit , and when you are the first +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh , well uh I've seen it done before . +Industrial Designer: you have the biggest uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you know th like the the bigger rem uh universal remotes , they have d L_C_D_ displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then it's very functional to indicate which {disfmarker} what uh uh device you are controlling . So it's {disfmarker} that that's what I've seen . +Industrial Designer: Yes , you can put uh a little L_C_D_ display on it with uh with lots of information . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , if you uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: But it just {disfmarker} it j it doesn't doesn't match with the {gap} our whole basic concept . +Industrial Designer: But uh I haven't thought about it . But whe but when you put a a a transparent uh plastic uh uh screen on top of it , it i it isn't vulnerable . +Project Manager: Well yeah , yeah , okay . That's maybe not the most important , +Industrial Designer: You can throw with it and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it's just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it fashion ? +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: When when you put uh maybe a colour L_C_D_ t uh screen on it , it's very special and very trendy to have uh a remote control from {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know . That's not up to you . That's up to market if i if it's trendy . +Project Manager: Yeah , well do you ha do you have to {disfmarker} {gap} You haven't looked after the trendiness of L_C_D_ displays , have you ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Because our our motto is we put fashion {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , I think it's uh I think it's pretty trendy , to be honest , uh but um I don't know if if if {disfmarker} well , I'm coming back to the costs again , but I think uh we gotta build a b pretty cheap design to to stay within our limits . And I think uh especially colour L_C_D_ , which is indeed pretty trendy . But I don't think {disfmarker} Uh , I think it will be too expensive . +Industrial Designer: But uh I've got a {disfmarker} the email with uh with the possibilities . {vocalsound} And L_C_D_ was a possibility for the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: So why don't we use it . +Project Manager: Yeah , but we're gonna {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , did it say a price also uh for for uh monogramme uh L_C_D_ or uh coloured L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , if you want to be trendy you have to be coloured . Coloured {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah really , +User Interface: If you have black and white or something , or grey , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: if y if you c i +Project Manager: Then uh then you better don't {disfmarker} yeah , d +Marketing: I in in two thousand and four you can't uh put something on the market which is a monogramme . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , but it doesn't sa say anything about a colour or {disfmarker} But , mm , I alf I also got a possibility to put uh a scroll button on it . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh uh I really don't feel the whole idea of an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: I didn't think that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm sorry . It can't co you cannot convince me . I don't know how {disfmarker} well how to {disfmarker} with you guys , but {disfmarker} I don't really feel it . We already {disfmarker} we're uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It's too much uh maybe uh with with the L_C_D_ and the docking station and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we already have the the th th th base station gadgets , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and want {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} uh uh , do {disfmarker} it has to be a simple design , which sturdy , which soft {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , but o on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we've we've gotta find a balance , of course . +User Interface: With one thing special . +Marketing: And I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not a whole package of specialty . +Project Manager: I don't think {disfmarker} I j uh , and really , I don't see how the the L_C_D_ display is gonna add anything , you know , on a design level . Uh , I think it's slicker to have no L_ CEDs . +Industrial Designer: No , when y +Project Manager: Y we want to {disfmarker} it's simplicity , w you have two big buttons and you can do whatever you want with these two buttons , so you don't need an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: But it look {disfmarker} Yes , but that remote controls are already on the market . The simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It doesn't fit in our philosophy uh behind the whole remote . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but but when you want to have something special {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but we already have the docking station , which is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes , but you had a picture of it from another company . +User Interface: And uh the {disfmarker} +Marketing: We have a pear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} It has to be developed , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} no , but it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's our that's our killer feature . +User Interface: It's just an it's just an idea . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's our {disfmarker} what makes it special . +User Interface: It's a it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , it was already made . Tha the remote control on the docking station . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're gonna develop our own r n docking station . +User Interface: True . +Marketing: Is that so ? Was it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it wasn't just a prototype ? +User Interface: Well uh I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes , he have a picture of it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Exactly , I've never seen it in a store . +Project Manager: Uh , but re we really have to cut this off , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I re I know you {disfmarker} I I I I {vocalsound} I get the idea you really like it , you know , the the L_C_D_ thing , but I I think it's it's not a good idea , and we have already mentioned all the arguments . I don't {disfmarker} uh , do you guys agre How do you guys think ? I d +User Interface: No , it's too much . +Marketing: I think it's a little too much , yeah . +User Interface: It's overdone . +Project Manager: Okay , we s skip the {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , maybe you can do something if we are at your own place , or make it make it make it happen in your basement or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Democratically . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mayb {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will rule the world with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . But for the technical part . The m material , I think uh it was a good idea to use the plastic and uh the rubber . Uh +Industrial Designer: Yes , maybe a bit of a cushion is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah , p Exactly . This is what it w Yeah , but it it was already what we're uh we're after , you know , to give it uh , you know , the soft touch in your hands +Marketing: Yeah , for the spongy uh feel . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: With a spongy Bob feel . +Project Manager: and also to , know , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , that is y the b airbag kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Like a b yes . +Project Manager: You can st throw it at your little brother's head . +User Interface: Yeah , you just can drop it . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , airbag . If you drop it if you drop it the airbag comes out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . No no no , not that comfy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but then we have to look that it uh w uh will not um be too childish to see . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Yeah . Okay , that's a that's a good point . And that's why I like the dark t col dark colour bit , you know , because it may be {disfmarker} the design uh , it's uh maybe it is a bit of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But not black I think . +Project Manager: it's a bit nineties maybe , what we're what we're up to rat fun to this point . +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Well if if it's fruit and vegetables , it have to be colourful . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's that's true , but but it has to be a little big solid . +Marketing: Yeah , b yeah , that's what w I I was pointing at . +User Interface: But can we ge uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It mustn't be too , n you know , th too overwhelming , then when you put it on your {gap} just {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we combine it or something ? Uh with uh yellow and black ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , maybe so . +User Interface: Make it a bee ? {vocalsound} A bee . {vocalsound} +Marketing: What ? Oh , a bee . Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , uh I don't like the yellow and black combination {gap} . But it is our company colours . Apparently . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} it's our {disfmarker} yeah . We we have to use yellow . +Industrial Designer: Yes , real real good colours . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: I don't like yellow , and uh maybe {disfmarker} I don't know . +Marketing: Well , we can as as I +Industrial Designer: But that's not really fruity . +Marketing: draw really nicely over there . {vocalsound} We can put the logo on our uh on our base station . Uh , yeah . And maybe very very tiny on the remote control itself . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: But , i +Project Manager: Okay , but what {disfmarker} uh , what are other tef technical things we have to discuss ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh fronts of the {disfmarker} We can have uh different uh uh fronts of the +Project Manager: Should we do that ? +Industrial Designer: telephone . +Project Manager: I don't think you {disfmarker} we should do that . Maybe just bring it out in different colours , +User Interface: Different fronts . +Project Manager: but not af that you can switch fronts afterwards , that's also too much . +Marketing: Yeah . I guess that's that's enough . +Project Manager: People don't wanna spend more money on their remote {vocalsound} control , I guess . +Marketing: That's way too Nokia . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , you can you can l uh let choose the customer which colour he wants , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Are these designs ? +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . Just bring more designs on the market . +User Interface: Yeah , Three three or four uh four uh colours , or something like that . +Project Manager: But uh , without {disfmarker} gon uh +Marketing: Why not , yeah . +Project Manager: okay . So , are we through the technical part then ? +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . So we uh agreed upon uh n uh well , not u unanimously or how you call it , but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well , yeah , +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} this a real uh young young and dynamic uh uh styles . +User Interface: the {disfmarker} Three to one . {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The materials you uh mentioned in your your personal preferences were all {disfmarker} were quite okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yes . +Project Manager: O o only only the last point your {disfmarker} +User Interface: And tita uh titanium , is {disfmarker} uh is is it a no ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: no titanium's not not out of question , I guess . +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} It's just like that , th this titanium . +Industrial Designer: But also w Yes , b bu but when we use s soft +Project Manager: But is it possible to use both the the plastic and so uh soft things and t p titanium , as well ? +Industrial Designer: mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: Makes it in a homogeneous uh design . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No , not all , not all of them . +Industrial Designer: But it it {disfmarker} then it uh {disfmarker} you can't throw it it . It will uh make a huge noise or break other stuff +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It will it will break other stuff w {vocalsound} when it's plastic , as well . +Industrial Designer: when you throw with uh titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with your remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: titanium is a bit uh it's a bit harder . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: No , but uh uh , you should ma Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But also on the colours , the young {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , think of the possibilities and make it in {disfmarker} completely titanium . Well would it be more trendy ? More chic ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it I think it does . +User Interface: Uh , I think titanium nowadays is way more often used than plastic . +Industrial Designer: Yes , but a titanium remote control , when you're uh watching T_V_ uh or your hands are a little bit sweaty , and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: In trendy things . +Marketing: Yeah , o On the other hand , if you want to make fruit {disfmarker} fruity stuff with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . It's cold in the winter . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I I really like the idea of the the the plastic and the big kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But the question is i then it's , you know , is is {disfmarker} it fits in our s philosophy to make it uh sturdy and simple and uh , know , like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Industrial Designer: Sports and gaming . Define +Project Manager: When you make it titanium , it becomes more like some kind of gadget you actually don't need . And when it's big and plastic , it's like some fun stuff you can always have around . It's always fun to have something big and plastic around . +User Interface: You have that uh M_P_ three player of Nike , I saw . +Marketing: Yes . Yeah . +User Interface: Isn't that titanium with a little bit of rubber ? +Industrial Designer: Yes , it's w but it is uh plastic . +User Interface: Isn't it {disfmarker} Is plastic ? Well , it's titanium looking . +Industrial Designer: Yes , w we can do that on the on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: What ? +User Interface: Yeah , he is . Here he is . Uh , the {disfmarker} I don't know if you know the M_P_ three player of Nike . 'Kay , uh that that's very uh with rubber , so it's very +Marketing: Oh , yeah . Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah , that's beautiful . +Marketing: Yeah , I see . +Industrial Designer: We can make this as a style too . +Marketing: Yeah , but but but {disfmarker} +User Interface: rough . +Industrial Designer: Uh , this is uh just a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , maybe th maybe this is an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I th I think that's difficult , because uh that's different material , and then you gotta have like uh uh uh two material lines of of of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , we c we can make it from the same kind of plastic . +Marketing: Yeah , if it's just a colour uh which you uh which you change then , I guess it's it's nice to have one of these . +Project Manager: No , I do like the idea of maybe a t titanium kind {disfmarker} type of body w and then with s plastic colouration {gap} around it . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You know , like the the soft stuff , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I don't know if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: I don't have the information . Uh , I I didn't got it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But you can't make the plastic give uh the ti titanium look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} True . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: But make it just like shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , true . +Project Manager: Maybe we should uh shou +Industrial Designer: Like the M_P_ three player . +User Interface: Yeah , maybe that's good idea , yeah . But if you want to la uh yeah , last longer than two weeks or something like that , you can maybe {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh and +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe we sh should we t {gap} I don't know if we should talk about {disfmarker} uh , how how much time have we got left ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , in a lot of other uh +User Interface: I don't know . +Project Manager: Forty minutes . +User Interface: What time does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: in a lot of other product uh categories like uh even in b in bags industry . Uh , they began with uh t typical uh leather bags , but then they became stylish , with all all si all sort of colours , and w kind of fon {disfmarker} of uh of fronts , like we can use on the telephone and it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Like Eastpack uh began a revolution with it with all this uh kind of bags and and colours and and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} You putting in different colours . +Industrial Designer: Yes , and and styles . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: They have uh also uh a kind of uh um uh roses on it , a and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah , but w yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , it is . It's a possibility . But , let's think about the bas +Industrial Designer: Then we can always uh use the same design for a greater resemblance , but with new uh with new colours , new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . New prints on it . Yep . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yes . +Project Manager: But wha th our basic idea {disfmarker} y I mean , you gonna {disfmarker} we're probably gonna have like two type of materials , like the d d b the plastic uh enclosure and then the the pads that surround it . And and pro and lights . We have to incorporate the lights too . But , uh do w gonna {gap} gonna {disfmarker} are we going to give it a two-tone colour look , like the the plastic mould is in in one colour and the s the cushion pads around it are in another colour ? Is that the idea ? Is that a good idea ? +Marketing: How do you mean ? Th th the uh base in a in another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many colours are we {disfmarker} how many colours are we gonna {disfmarker} we're uh uh f uh f +User Interface: The rubber . +Project Manager: Only five minutes left , by the way . How many colours are we gonna give it ? +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Like two-tone colour ? T +Industrial Designer: There there are three uh components three components type . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh no , not too much I think . +Industrial Designer: You have the buttons , the the case uh itself , and the rubber and th +Marketing: How the buttons {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: I think maybe the case itself should be in one colour and then the rubber of the buttons , {vocalsound} and the cushions as well should be in another colour . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: Or you just make uh one colour , uh maybe with a a z a kind of like a big wave or something like uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , but not more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: In in another colour . +Project Manager: Well , yeah , it's {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Not more than two colours I think . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: It's a g a little bit too flashy . +Marketing: No , definitely not . +Project Manager: Maybe we should talk about it on a l in a later meeting . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or or when you use the buttons as black , it {disfmarker} you can use two colours as well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes , definitely . +Project Manager: Okay . But we have to uh think of some other uh important things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} oh yeah , the the functionalities of the the buttons . +User Interface: The funct yeah , I was I was thinking about th the st do we still want a joystick idea . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I think that's too vulnerable . +Project Manager: I think this is okay , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} so we have the basic . Then we have the numbers . We have the power button . We have we have a teletext button . +User Interface: The volume , teletext and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And maybe want to access a a menu or something . Most T_V_s have a menu . +Marketing: Yeah , but that's that's {disfmarker} I was thinking that's gotta be on the television . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but I think you ha I really need a menu button . +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah yeah , b +Project Manager: That's just i the only button {disfmarker} only {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but wha what kind of menu ? +Project Manager: You know , I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is uh {disfmarker} isn't that different from every television ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , I think most T_V_s have an uh a menu nowadays to access the uh uh screen settings . And so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah , if it's c if {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it's okay to to add a menu button for uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But that that covers all the all the other settings . It covers everything then . +Marketing: and if the T_V_ doesn't have a menu , then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then you have to put uh up and down and uh left and right {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , you can use the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you can put that on the two eight four and six or whatever . +Project Manager: And you al can also use the normal skip buttons for that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Th in that way we have like only the numbers , the power button , skip and volume , and then uh uh ten uh rem +Marketing: Mm , yeah . A mute and a teletext and a menu . +Project Manager: uh yeah , mute . A teletext and a menu , and then then i that's it . +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: It's all we need . +Marketing: That's all . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , uh another stuf some stuff {vocalsound} about the the the design of the docking station . +Marketing: Great . Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , that's not mu not much functions . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something important about a s uh , no , uh which sh uh should remind us of the remote itself , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , in one colour . +Marketing: Are we gonna do something with the uh spongy thing there ? +Project Manager: Just use {disfmarker} I think the spongy thing already um comes forward in the in the in the cushions , pads and things on the s uh side . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true , that's true . +Project Manager: And we will make it spongy and {disfmarker} and uh and uh well , the fruity thing is just the shape should be fru i did {disfmarker} I think this is kind of fruity , you know . Just round shapes with uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , it's kinda fruity , and with th with catchy colours uh uh w +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but we're gonna have to {disfmarker} we really have to think {disfmarker} I think colours is very important , because it has to be flashy , but {disfmarker} and but it d it doesn't have to be annoying , that when you uh , know , some things is just over the top , and when you have it on your table for more than two weeks , you {disfmarker} {gap} it just gets annoying , because it's so big and flashy . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Project Manager: Uh , it has to be some level of subtlety , but we have to {disfmarker} still have to think of how we manage to uh to get to that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Guess we're through then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I guess so . +Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} I think also we just {disfmarker} so we have to do something with colour but also , I I think we have to keep the dark colour thing in mind . I think that's uh adds to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: too much colour maybe m um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Too much colour , i it uh {disfmarker} when you got it in a living room , it's too much maybe +Project Manager: But our des design experts will uh work that out . +Marketing: Yea yeah . +User Interface: . It has to be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , well I think the meeting will be over within a minute . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: So we will wrap up . +Marketing: Something like that . +Project Manager: Or is there anything we'd like to discuss ? That's right . +Marketing: I guess not . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you , guys ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No ? +Project Manager: Okay . Well , you will read the minutes uh in the {disfmarker} you can find them in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , okay , yeah . +Marketing: In the shared folder . +Project Manager: pro probably . Yeah {disfmarker} uh no , for su for sure because I'm will now type them out . +Industrial Designer: What are we going to do now ? +Project Manager: Uh , y yeah . +Marketing: You'll see in you email , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope so . And the other thing is that you don't have kind of prototype or something like that . You see a kinda prototype you can {disfmarker} a little bit more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I will make one in the next uh twenty minutes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Construct one , yeah . +Project Manager: But {gap} toilet paper roll and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: With you laptop ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh my God . +Marketing: Alright , shall we get back to work ? +Project Manager: Yep . I was waiting for the l last message , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Great . +User Interface: Well you are . We're not . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Bastard . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Back to the pen . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Marketing: You lazy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","Project Team Members convened for a conceptual design meeting led by the Project Manager. They experienced issues with unreadable meeting minutes due to technical difficulties. Discussions involved component designs, especially materials and feel for a remote control, with suggestions of hard plastic and soft rubber for durability and user comfort. Cost considerations for features like LCD displays were addressed, and the production cost was discussed to remain within budgetary constraints. + +The User Interface Designer had no new user requirements to report, and the Industrial Designer presented ideas about component materials and potential energy sources for the remote, while mentioning the off-the-shelf availability of internal parts. Marketing presented trend research suggesting a fancy look and feel with innovative technology for the remote control, appealing to both young and elderly markets. + +Discussions also touched upon color choices for the remote's design, with ideas of incorporating company colors or fruity, catchy colors. The possibility of a docking station was suggested to complement the remote control with potential use of spongy material. There was a debate over including an LCD display, with concerns about added costs, functionality, and cohesiveness with the overall design concept. + +Technical aspects, such as button placement and functions, including the necessity of a menu button, were deliberated. The meeting concluded without a resolution on some items, agreeing to revisit certain ideas, like color choices and the LCD display, at a later time." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh , making a profit of fifty million Euros . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright so twenty five . +User Interface: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: So , it's go gonna have to be be pretty damn trendy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I've {disfmarker} The only the only remote controls I've used usually come with the television , and they're fairly basic . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , I was thinking that as well , I think the the only ones that I've seen that you buy are the sort of one for all type things where they're , +User Interface: Yeah the universal ones . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: yeah . So presumably that might be an idea to put into . +Industrial Designer: But but to sell it for twenty five you need a lot of neat features . For sure . +Marketing: Slim . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh 'cause I mean , what {disfmarker} uh twenty five Euros , that's about I dunno , fifteen Pounds or so ? And that's quite a lot for a remote control . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , it's about that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well my first thoughts would be most remote controls are grey or black . As you said they come with the T_V_ so it's normally just your basic grey black remote control {gap} functions , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: so maybe we could think about colour ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Make {disfmarker} that might make it a bit different from the rest at least . Um , and as you say , we need to have some kind of gimmick , so um I thought maybe something like if you lose it and you can whistle , +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} The the keyrings , yeah yeah . +User Interface: you know those things ? Because we always lose our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah uh , +Project Manager: Okay , that's cool . +Marketing: being as a Marketing Exper Expert I will like to say like before deciding the cost of this remote control or any other things we must see the market potential for this product like what is the competition in the market ? What are the available prices of the other remote controls in the prices ? +Project Manager: {gap} Okay . +Marketing: What speciality other remote controls are having and how complicated it is to use these remote controls as compared to other remote controls available in the market . So before deciding or before finalising this project , we must discuss all these things , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: and apart from this , it should be having a good look also , because people really li uh like to play with it when they are watching movies or playing with {gap} or playing with their C_D_ player , M_P_ three player like any electronic devices . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They really want to have something good , having a good design in their hands , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: so , yes , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: all this . +Industrial Designer: Uh , what do we think a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So , we're looking for {disfmarker} {gap} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: What do we think a good size would be for this ? {gap} +Project Manager: We're {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Cause I I know as you add more buttons to the remote it sometimes gets so big and clunky +Project Manager: Sorry , carry on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and there's just like a hundred buttons on it , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: or you could have a really small slim one but then you could lose it easily . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . Then you lose it , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Kind of um , maybe more like a P_D_A_ kind of , just hand held , like , +Project Manager: For for uh +User Interface: 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: remember we're trying to make it for twelve Euros fifty . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . No , I wasn't , no sorry I wasn't thinking of the screen of like a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay well right we'll have to um {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: but +Project Manager: we're k having another meeting in half an hour so um +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: we should all look into a bit uh , oh actually , no , we'll allocate . So you do the looking around at other remote controls . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , if you could maybe come up with sort of shapes and suggested shades or whatever , and you could look into um {vocalsound} basically how how it's made I_E_ like how you make it all in one , how {disfmarker} what sort of materials are available to you whatever . And obviously , other instructions will come from the personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Which will probably just usurp what I said so {disfmarker} +User Interface: So you want me to look at shapes and everything you said ? +Project Manager: Shapes and colours and {disfmarker} um basically how to make it attractive . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: And you look at competition and design . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: we have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wait for emails ? +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , groovy . And no doubt we'll get um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh no , {gap} . +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: Sorry +Project Manager: We'll get um warnings for next meetings as well . +User Interface: it's okay . Okay , cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I shall {disfmarker} I can't imagine these {gap} are worth much . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Fashion into electronic . Okay . +","A team is discussing the design and market considerations for a new remote control with a target profit of fifty million Euros. The Project Manager suggests the product should be trendy to stand out at a 25 Euro retail price, which is considered high for a remote control. The User Interface designer suggests incorporating color to make it unique and adding a feature like a whistle-responsive locator to differentiate it from standard black or grey remotes. The Marketing expert emphasizes the need to analyze the competition and market prices, and to ensure the remote has a good design and usability. The Industrial Designer considers the importance of the remote's size, balancing functionality with a comfortable design to prevent it from becoming too large or easily lost. + +To proceed, the Project Manager assigns tasks: they instruct the User Interface designer to research shapes and colors to make the remote attractive, the Industrial Designer to look into materials and construction methods, and Marketing to analyze competition and design. The team agrees to further collaboration via emails and future meetings, acknowledging that guidance from a personal coach may adjust their current directions. They conclude the meeting with the intent to incorporate fashion into the electronics of the remote control." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Right first time this time . Nu There we go . It's not that complicated , but I get it wrong every time . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so we are just waiting for Matthew {gap} . +Marketing: For Matthew , yep . +Project Manager: Mm . Uh {disfmarker} So I suggest we start the meeting uh without Matthew uh +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: he's uh obviously late for some reason . {vocalsound} Good . Um . Today uh we will uh talk about uh conceptual design . I hope uh you both did some uh some work uh concerning a uh conceptual design . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um this will be the uh agenda for the meeting uh {gap} . Uh I will take some minutes uh again . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we will have the presentations of y of you different team members , +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and then try to come to decisions uh about the concepts uh you have presented . So and that uh will uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: we have some uh forty minutes uh to complete this uh . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So um who has the fir do you ha Anna do you have your presentation ready ? +Marketing: I have a presentation , I'm just making this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah the {disfmarker} Matthew it is it's important that Matthew yeah is here +Project Manager: Okay . Ah +Industrial Designer: because it's really a a team uh project with a team +Project Manager: there is Matthew . +Industrial Designer: and if someone is not here then we cannot {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay {vocalsound} it's good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay I'll just email you this file , my presentation . +Project Manager: So . Good . Do {gap} presentation ready ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm I'm just emailing it to you . +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So did you manage uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah I sent you the slides , you didn't see them ? +Project Manager: Oh yes I see him , good yes . +User Interface: Okay . {gap} . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Okay it should've gone through to you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay mm yes I have it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Okay so this is just a presentation on uh the trends that we're gonna use to make the product stand out from the rest of the products out there at the moment . Um can I just put this on ? So we have to work out a way {disfmarker} what we can do with our product to make it stand out and make it so people wanna buy it . Um . This is {disfmarker} to do this I will not remove my microphone . {vocalsound} We basically used um some focus group surveys which I went through with you last time , the main results of that , and um some research on the current design um and fashion trends that are out there at the moment um , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and as part of this {disfmarker} The important aspects that came out were things that we've already discussed really . The most important by far was the look and feel of it . It needs to be something that's very different from everything else out there . It needs to stand out {vocalsound} . It needs to be not functional like the rest of the things out there at the moment . Most people find remote controls boring at the moment , we need to have something that looks interesting , that looks exciting , that will stand out . People will wanna buy it . Um {disfmarker} That was twice as i important as the next item on here which is that it has to be technologically innovative {disfmarker} has to have something else , apart from just the look of it . People have to then think about it and say {gap} got something there that I want . That's a really cool feature , and it has to make them wanna buy it again . Third on the list , and again innovative was twice as important as this last um aspect , it has to be easy to use . So they have to be able to {disfmarker} be able to look at it and have some intuitive idea of how to use it um . Drawing on the fashion trends at the moment , uh fruit and vegetables um . This is basically talking about just the the feel of it , so probably not the smell of it , but the bright colours , um eye-catching , really bold designs , and a spongy feel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um I had a talk to the design people about this , but having a remote that's tactile , that feels different , that would be really cool . That would make it stand out . Um . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So can you repeat and be more precise about what you just said ? +Project Manager: Spongy feel ? +Industrial Designer: Uh about the feeling yeah uh yo +Marketing: Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: ma make it not necessar sp spongy is the current thing . Spongy is the current texture , but basically there are no reports no remotes at the moment which are spongy or tactile at all , so if we make it like maybe furry or soft or something , that'll be something that sets it apart , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: rather than just bare plastic which they all are at the moment . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So as far as the design goes , the very most important aspect was the design , to the customers . So going with the fruit and vegetable idea , we've got the bright colours , so makes it stand out , the oranges and the the bright yellows and the florescent colours , part of the fruit and vegetables um . Going back to the idea of taking inspiration from mobile phones , they've all got those {disfmarker} a lot of them have the changeable covers , so they can choose what colour the outside is . That's one way of looking at it um . Textured feel we just talked about . Maybe it's another way of doing that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So if it's part of the the changeable covers then may maybe they can choose a different texture , a spongy one or a soft one or something like that . So they can choose it li as they want to to maybe {disfmarker} to fit in with their decor in their living room , or just what they like , their sports team or whatever . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a very good idea , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um and yeah , still taking the inspiration from the mobile phone design so functionality , the way the mobile phones work , the way the keypad looks . Also just the way that a lot of industrial design is going into mobile phones at the moment . They're big selling items . People put a lot of thought into that so we can leverage off that , and we can start using some of their ideas . Um back to technological in in innovation , not quite as important , but still a big issue . Um we talked about having a way of finding a remote control if it's been lost , uh that's one thing we could look at . There are other aspects like L_C_D_ screens and speech recognition which weren't {disfmarker} I don't think , in my personal opinion , gonna be worth the extra expense and the extra effort that will go into them . I think we're better doing something basic like this +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which is very important and very {disfmarker} will be a really cool feature to put in . And {disfmarker} {gap} use . I had no real specific ideas for this , maybe we just , the basic idea of having your core functions big and at the top maybe , by themselves , +Project Manager: Mm . Yes well +Marketing: and then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: maybe Matthew can can give some more information on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} and then th th the finer details of buttons you don't use as much either hidden away or completely separate . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yep {vocalsound} and that's the presentation . +User Interface: Voila . +Project Manager: Okay good , that's very clear . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah very clear . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So does anyone have any comments or ideas on that ? I think you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe we yes well we maybe {vocalsound} can decide later on um {vocalsound} the l the the look and feel of uh I've {disfmarker} it was a good idea maybe to to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: To let the people choose , {gap} you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes the the the there are changeable covers , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but on the other hand I I don't know whether my superiors would be so glad with it because {vocalsound} you have to introduce a complete uh uh new l line of uh of supplies +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: uh it would be uh very complicated uh organisational {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well we're selling so many units of this . This is gonna be a mass marketed product , we can afford to have two or three different designs at least . +Project Manager: Hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah a range of uh yeah , a set of three , four different aspects . +Marketing: Mm mm . +Project Manager: Yes . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Sure that fits the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes {gap} and of course it will be a we we get a {disfmarker} if it works we can get uh after-sales +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean that would {gap} would be very good I mean those covers could go for for three , five Euro {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's a very good idea um {disfmarker} And then uh maybe uh we can go a th Matthew's presentation because +User Interface: Yeah +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: s +Project Manager: the {disfmarker} +User Interface: then we could discuss later like {disfmarker} we can put all ideas together . +Project Manager: Together indeed uh , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It should be easier with that . +Project Manager: because you ma might have some some information on the the easy to use , +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I agree . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , yeah . +Project Manager: what you were already mentioning . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And your part is very related to mine +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because when you suggest something then it has to be integrated inside . +User Interface: Yeah so {vocalsound} I'll I'll go with that actually +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Okay so m so {vocalsound} then the the idea of uh having a remote is generally you have uh different keys and uh different structures , different forms , and uh they could be like buttons and um they could be of uh a varying sizes if you want to to uh basically emphasize a particular key more than the other , and uh maybe like you can have different colours for example having the r red for the on off switching on and off the button . So this this is the general trend to ha the method they do . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So what I have found was that uh currently uh the {gap} they are mostly that the T_V_ , V_C_R_ , music system operated ones actually , and they are very specific to each other , but there are some common keys for example if you want to follow the V_C_R_ and if you want to follow the uh g uh s some uh soundtrack on the w w see they have the common thing actually you can have +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} There is also um a speech recognition to store channel information , names , like {disfmarker} You can basically {disfmarker} if you have a multiple functionality , say T_V_ , V_C_R_ or something I say it to the T_V_ and the {gap} T_V_ , and you can programme the keys if you want to , certain keys are even the channel information {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . I like the idea though of having speech recognition for like the n the name of a channel like B_B_C_ , rather than having to remember the the number of it on the keypad . That's a good idea . +User Interface: Yeah yeah so you you you can just uh because uh as more and more channels come then you have more and more problems to remember the v v exact channel numbers ex exactly , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: even if you arrange it by {disfmarker} however you arrange it , you still have the problem to remember exactly which channel you want to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Yeah I really like that idea . +Industrial Designer: So what functionalities do you suggest for that ? For facing this problem ? +User Interface: So it it it's like it {gap} limited one . In the present market I saw it that says something like they are looking for {vocalsound} eighty word thing , eighty word , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which shouldn't be th that difficult to implement , like eighty to hundred word . Basically you want you don't want to store all the channels in the remote control , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you want to st store your favourite channel . +Marketing: Maybe ten channels , yeah at the most . +User Interface: Yeah some ten twelve channel information . You know you don't want to st store all the hundred channel information into that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh basically uh it depends like the remote with L_C_D_ display for browsing because you have multiple functionalities for example you are watching a movie , and uh uh you are {vocalsound} having a universal remote control and you want to uh you don't know really which functionality is {gap} now , so I am using the T_V_ so every time I use it , it could be like , for example I can use a simple toggle switch , and a display , so I press it so the display says , okay , I'm in T_V_ or D_V_D_ or whatever it is , instead of having three keys separately for four keys , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Oh yeah yeah yeah mm . +User Interface: to model the functionalities will increase actually , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and for you and you might want {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: you don't want separate keys for all of them . You can't . And uh well there can be children friendly where you can programme your remote so that they they are not allowed uh to browse certain channels which you can block them , and you can operate them . So these are the things presently which are seen in the market scenarios at present . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I personally would look at {vocalsound} things like having a u universal remote , is uh um is a good idea , like instead of having {gap} unusual ones for all of them you can think of having , um with multiple functionality possibly with speech recognition . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I got a mail from the the coffee machine interface unit that uh they have uh integrated the s speech recognition into a into the coffee machine , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm b +User Interface: and so if you say hello coffee machine , it say hi Joe , or something like that , you know , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But a coffee machine , there's not too many words they'd be using with that it's a it's a small vocabulary . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you you won't be using it , so it's a limited vocabulary mm thing , and very isolated word +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +User Interface: and it's uh it is interesting , and basically storing the channel through voice or other ways of programming your keys , on the display for the browsing +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: which is again {disfmarker} and maybe having something like a blinking thing , like uh it could indicate you're uh {disfmarker} it it could indicate what is cal like the uh whether uh you you have enough battery in your in your uh remote , the blinking . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: At the same time , if it's a dark room , it can be used to locate the remote also +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And you want okay {disfmarker} for coming back to one point +Marketing: Two thirty five supposed to finish . +Industrial Designer: y you want to let the user to programming the keys ? Some of them ? +User Interface: Yeah you can let them to do that . +Industrial Designer: And uh isn't that too difficult for the {disfmarker} we want w I don't know if we still want the um R_C_ to be easy to use , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: that's the {gap} compromise . +User Interface: N no but the {disfmarker} if you give {disfmarker} it d depends on the easiness like the user how much effort he can put . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Like for example uh I would like to store in certain way , so if you want to give the full freedom to the user +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: or you want to keep some constraints and let the user use it with that constraint . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm . I think you can do it both ways . +User Interface: So it de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You can have it so it's easy {gap} they can pick it up and use it straight away without doing anythi without customizing it , +Industrial Designer: A standard . +Marketing: or if they want to they have the option of using these extra features . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um yes but but I do {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe you can {vocalsound} give a hand to us because I I'm not sure whether that that we can implement that for twelve Euro and fifty cents . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: I'm sorry to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Every time I have to come down on this price again +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: to {vocalsound} so this might be a little limiting for your creativity , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: but it's it's it's the real {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have to consider it . S so {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we think these ideas {vocalsound} an and my uh sp speech recognition , I mean maybe it's possible for for twelve Euro but then then it will be at cost of other functionality we might implement like the uh uh the the the furry uh {vocalsound} uh case of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm yeah like {vocalsound} I would say that for programming uh keys , you said , uh it could be uh easily uh done within the the package of twel twelve Euros , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but for the A_S_R_ system , uh I'm not sure if it's feasible to have this +User Interface: We well we can still look at {disfmarker} we can talk with the coffee unit +Industrial Designer: We {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can uh check how much how much they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah i if if it's a low vocabulary it's already implemented , +User Interface: yeah yeah +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: and w how much it's cost , maybe with a f cheap chip . +User Interface: Maybe we can come {vocalsound} we we can talk to them , and we can come with that , +Project Manager: Mm mm . +User Interface: you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And also well you can think of having uh since you have a {disfmarker} you know something {gap} maybe if you added little bit of {gap} display , you might need the {disfmarker} to che keep checking the battery , so you really need a some {vocalsound} kind of indicator , +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: so it could be a blinking option of L_E_D_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: it could actually be used to detect also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: If it's in a dark room you can basically detect it also . +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: I like the idea too of being able to use the remote in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: so either having the buttons so you can feel the difference between them or if they if they light up or something . +User Interface: No actually {vocalsound} i if i it is like {disfmarker} you know it tells you um , it can be for two purposes , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: like if you have an L_C_D_ display and all those things it's not going to be the standard remote , +Marketing: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: which is having uh which need just uh six six volt uh th sorry three volts um of D_C_ . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It may need more actually , so y you you may need to check your battery usage it {disfmarker} and then you need that , some functionality to indicate the battery limit . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: And then if the battery limit is indicated , if it could be ind indicated through a blinking something +Industrial Designer: It's true . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: and it can change the colour depending on your uh {disfmarker} how much is the battery , well that is good enough to even locate even if you want to . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You know . +Project Manager: 'Kay good . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I don't know how if if I have time to talk about the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm yes um I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have time some more ? Yep . +Project Manager: Yes yes you can you can still . We have time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure you can you know {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . So what I'm gonna present here is very uh um yeah basic knowledge about the all the the components that are inside a a R_C_ a remote control , and how is it manufactured h what is the process , just to explain you . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So the method is {disfmarker} ther there is a a set of components in a in a remote control like {gap} , and uh what cost {disfmarker} the the components in themself do not cost a lot but the the way to assemble everything costs obviously , and I will uh show you my preferences uh uh at the end . So there are two uh different types of uh um {disfmarker} Two different ways of using the the components for making a a remote control . +Project Manager: Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh the basic way is to use a an integrated circuit and some uh transistors with an {gap} that aims at communicating uh uh the message and to to send the message to the um to the led that will uh transmit to the receiver . And uh yeah the other components and the circuit board {gap} buttons , infrared {vocalsound} , led , etcetera , for the components um . So you {gap} finding , just to say that the chip can detect uh when a key is pressed , and then it translate to the key , to a sequence , something like morse code , as you know , uh with a different sequence for each key , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh uh that's , with the components we will use , we will have different uh messages , different sequences , and the chips sends that signal signal to the transistor that amplify to make it stronger um . So electronic parts are assembled onto uh printed boards uh because it's easier to mass produce and assemble . And uh so I think {vocalsound} for our design we want some b uh programmable uh you know V_ V_L_S_I_ or F_P_G_A_ uh high technology , +User Interface: Yeah mm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is important , and also we'll use uh yeah like in any uh high-tech uh devices a chip of fi fibreglass to {gap} them and connect them . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So my personal design {vocalsound} we need to find a solution what um what is the material of the cover we want to use . If it's plastic +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or you said that yeah you had some ideas uh like fruit , veg or {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well well +Industrial Designer: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: m m maybe m maybe we can give the uh the uh the case a very uh uh normal a v very normal case but , with the changeable covers to fancy it up . +Industrial Designer: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So like a normal cheap plastic case which can be covered up in , for instance , a wooden case . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Mm just have a yeah {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah like they do in with cars I think . Yeah inside the car +Marketing: Just the veneer on it , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . So they also emailed me that uh they have {vocalsound} available a bunch of different buttons , a scroll wheels , integrated push buttons s such as a {gap} computer mouse . And uh very cheap L_C_D_s , so liquid crystal displays , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so I'm wondering , I think we might be able to integrate L_C_D_ into our R_C_ . And the final point okay is um we have {disfmarker} yeah there are some uh compromise to to do . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we have to know that the push button requires a simple chip , but the scroll wheel uh and that kind of higher high-tech stuff needs more money um which is a higher price range alright . And the display requires an advanced chip , which in turns is more expensive than the regular chip , but {vocalsound} I think uh with twelve Euros um and if it's uh uh made for mm four million uh items , then I think w we could be able to handle that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So to {vocalsound} to sum up um we need {vocalsound} yeah so I I just said that the components uh the list of components uh has to be uh yeah listed and um and um assembly is a an important process that has to be taken into account . And uh for the designing of the cove uh uh cover layout then it's better to to to maybe see that with uh the the U_R_ exp U_R_I_ Expert +User Interface: Sorry . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that we can {disfmarker} it's really a team-working uh . So +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I I cannot design something without your agreement , +Project Manager: No of course . +User Interface: Yeah so +Industrial Designer: right ? +User Interface: of course for example uh I wanted to know like if you want to have a a fo if you want to have the L_C_D_ display over there , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: or if you want to store a programmes with a keys {disfmarker} What kind of things you'll need inside your thin inside {disfmarker} W wh what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's kind of um simple {gap} pro progra programmable device , and we have to insert . +User Interface: W what {disfmarker} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think we could insert one that could underlie several functions +User Interface: Okay so +Industrial Designer: of {disfmarker} +User Interface: in that case you can even look at the technology what the mobile phone is trying to use with the {gap} card . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah , for customizing and yeah . +User Interface: Yeah where they do all the wi with with them actually . How f cost effective it would be to put that car chip into it and do the programmable things . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah good idea . +Project Manager: So I f I think we we should come to some decisions now uh a about this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I understand uh when we want a display we need a expensive chip , but when we want a scrolling wheel w we also need the expensive chip , so can we use same chip , so with one expensive chip we can uh implement several complicated uh or advanced features . +Industrial Designer: Exactly yeah that's a very good idea , +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: we could have uh one main chip uh that could handle , uh it's called F_P_G_A_ chip , that could handle both uh like scrolling wheels as well as uh L_C_D_ +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: when the more expensive chip you mentioned there is is possible in the in the given budget , uh maybe we should go for for the more expensive chip , so all features uh which you mentioned can be implemented based on the same chip . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: D well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you think that's feasible ? +User Interface: Well I don't know if it'll fit into our cost of twelve point five Euro you know . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} You th you think it's possible . +User Interface: Is it possible to fit in to that ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah also thinking , I think both uh {disfmarker} if we had a budget of twenty twenty uh Euros , it will be okay , +User Interface: Sorry . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but uh {disfmarker} {gap} . +Marketing: Well maybe we need specific costings then . Actually do maybe two designs and then cost them out and see which one is gonna fit in our budget better . +Project Manager: Mm yes +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's an excellent idea . +Project Manager: wh when you make a {vocalsound} a design ca you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} next meeting you can give an quite an exact cost price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That w that would be a very good idea . +Industrial Designer: because right now I don't have {gap} price in in head +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but for next meeting I'm sure yeah be able to do that . +Project Manager: Good good . +User Interface: Yeah that's uh that's something which I wanted to ask you also , like what will be the each individually the cost of it . For example if f if you want to put wood {disfmarker} I wouldn't suggest for wood +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh {gap} 'cause it's {disfmarker} I think it's m much easier to use a plastic or a rubber {gap} rather than wood . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I agree on that . Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: It will be much ch much expensive th though it's the most natural thing , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes but I can I think uh I think we can just use more cheap plastic for a kind of basic edition , and then people can fancy it up with with more expensive materials +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: which which come with a with another price . +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we can give a preference to them , but it is {gap} but with plastic or the rubber or whatever it is {disfmarker} it's much better with that rather than going for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do do you agree ? +Marketing: Mm yeah sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but i it's a detailed uh yeah yeah uh plastic versus uh wood , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and we need maybe to centre our description on uh the the really the what buttons what uh functionality we want to offer to the user , and maybe with uh {vocalsound} graphs or I don't know uh {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: User Interface Designer you could maybe uh help us on that . +Project Manager: Ma I I think uh for next meeting we c {vocalsound} you two can present a real design . Uh so drawing it on the board . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yea +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +Project Manager: And then we now sh only have to t to decide the general function uh . So um {disfmarker} Let let's say next meeting w {vocalsound} you produce two designs , one one one less advanced and one more advanced and with the cost price . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah sure . Yeah we will uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh furthermore we go for the for the uh basic plastic case +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: which can be later uh fancied up with uh with addit uh additional uh , how do you call them , these like like mobile telephones you can put a cover over it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: But that that that that can be done later . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We now can concentrate on the on the basic remote control . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah customized . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: Okay {vocalsound} {gap} . We can give them smooth keys , you know . Smooth keys with bigger s uh {disfmarker} So that you know {disfmarker} The the problem most of the time we've seen , the keys is that it's small , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: and every time we have to be very {disfmarker} but if i the {disfmarker} if we if we go to a different ways of designing those keys , then you can merge them together +Marketing: So is there any of these that you're looking at particularly +User Interface: to {disfmarker} +Marketing: or is this just ideas ? +User Interface: Oh you can actually , for example , if you see , they are they are they are quite small over here , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and uh {vocalsound} now you can , for example , as I was {gap} if you make them big , it may change the look of the thing also to the people . +Marketing: Hmm . Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: At the same time , it is m more uh like it would be more interesting for people who are having this R_S_I_ and all {gap} problem . +Marketing: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Yes yes yes bi big keys is is good thing I think . +User Interface: Uh big keys may better {gap} for them actually and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You see ? +Industrial Designer: I agree yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and not too m too many keys of course yeah . +Marketing: Mm well +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: one I've had before , a r r remote control we have at home is one that's actually got a cover on the bottom +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: so the bottom bit is just , covers half the keys most of the time , and then you can slide the cover back to get to the the more advanced keys . +Project Manager: Mm mm mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm w but then you have still have uh when you don't {gap} use it you have such a a an extent of your remote control +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: which you don't use . So maybe it's possible uh , I don't know whether you can can indicate this , that you can elsewhere open your remote control and on the inside are uh buttons you don't use that much . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . Um yeah I've seen that before too . Anoth another like b +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: it flips up and then you've got another layer of buttons underneath . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . Yeah so it's something like this , the model here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: s {gap} you can put the keys {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: But I've seen also with keys and buttons on the top of here as well . +Industrial Designer: That's what you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes I I th that's what I mean +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: so I mean something like like a book . +Marketing: I like this one . I like the shape of this one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Can we have {disfmarker} can we think about maybe having a a non-recta non non-rectangular one , so with not just the straight little box +Industrial Designer: Yeah I like also this one . +Marketing: that's a {disfmarker} maybe curved or something . +User Interface: Yeah , mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the point is w maybe we need to also to make a decision on how how how big we want to be and how many buttons like n we should {vocalsound} dec decide numbers or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm mm 'kay . Is this for the next meeting though ? +User Interface: We should make a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we might be out of time out of time for this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +User Interface: Yeah that {disfmarker} yeah next meeting we should be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ju just make two designs , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah that would depend upon us actually . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: and the we we can decide decide between th those designs . +Marketing: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah okay . +Project Manager: I think that would be a good idea . So +Industrial Designer: Perfect . +Project Manager: anyone uh any questions for now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no . I don't have . +Marketing: No . So is this {disfmarker} is there anything else I need to do from a marketing point of view for the next meeting ? +Project Manager: Um yes I come to that uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe it would be interesting if you could look um for the cost inventories of other devices , if you're using speech recognition or something like that . +Project Manager: Yes well m maybe uh , I don't know whether that's possible , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: maybe you can start evaluating uh their work somehow . +Marketing: Okay well is this {vocalsound} me designing a way to evaluate it so {disfmarker} Thinking about how to set up test groups and things ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know whether that's possible uh in the given time +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: but a as far as possible . +Marketing: Okay . Yep . +Project Manager: So uh you two will be together w working on a o on two prototypes +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and further instructions will be uh will be sent to you by uh by email . +Industrial Designer: Two or three prototypes ? +User Interface: Two . +Project Manager: Two . +User Interface: One for like cost and the one with like higher-end +Industrial Designer: Two ? +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm {gap} and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: so that then we can be easily comparing them +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: or you know find a compromise between both of them , +Industrial Designer: and find maybe a compromise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +User Interface: yeah that's how it is . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Perfect yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Okay let's call this to an end . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks guys . +Industrial Designer: Thanks . +User Interface: So we are done for now . {gap} . +","This conversation involves a project team discussing the design and features of a new remote control. The Marketing representative emphasizes the importance of distinct design, technological innovation, and ease of use, based on focus group surveys and current trends. The Industrial Designer shares insights on the manufacturing process and component costs, suggesting the possibility of integrating advanced features like scrolling wheels and LCD displays while considering budget constraints. The User Interface expert proposes ideas like speech recognition for channel naming and child-lock features. The Project Manager stresses the importance of adhering to the €12.50 cost limit and suggests creating two designs for the next meeting: a basic version and a more advanced version with exact cost listings. They also talk about customizable covers, like mobile phones, to make the design stand out. The team agrees to develop two design prototypes and considers how to incorporate large, easy-to-use buttons and possibly non-rectangular shapes. They plan to present these two designs in the next meeting and to further discuss the pricing and technical feasibility then." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Yeah . That's okay . That's okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Am I starting now ? Anytime ? Oh sorry . 'Kay , um . Alright , welcome back fro to the second meeting . And um I hope you had a productive last thirty minutes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , and um , I'll be taking minutes on this one , and um {disfmarker} Being hooked up to the PowerPoint for this meeting isn't very necessary for uh myself , because it'll be more about uh , what you guys are bringing to the meeting today . Um , so , the first presentation we'll be looking at is Poppy's presentation . And , um {disfmarker} So , sorry ? So , um , take it away Poppy . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , do I need to {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: It's , it's plugged in . So , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: plugged in . +User Interface: F_ eight , w . Function F_ eight . +Industrial Designer: F_ okay . Function F_ eight . Sorry about this guys . +Project Manager: No problem . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {gap} is on . Right . {gap} Okay . I will take this time just to apologise . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I , I only , uh , received my emails later on . 'Cause I was too busy carried away doing my own thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which is not obviously not a very good part of a team-working thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But there we go . +Project Manager: I'm sure it's fine . +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was looking at how we're going to go about the working design , and what we actually need to do , and what the remote control needs to do . And it needs to um allow a person to have a portable desi device , so they can control the television from wherever they are . They don't need to actually manually touch the television set . So , it gives them much more flexibility , and allows them to be where they want to be . Um , from {disfmarker} Uh , on a functional side of things , we found out that wh from our previous meeting , we decided that there're certain points that will make our product unique . Um , one is the visibility in the dark , which was um Genevieve's idea . So we need to think about how we could bring this in um technically . And we could use illuminated buttons , which we are all familiar with when we're using a mobile phone , or um something fam familiar . A automatically , um lights up at first touch . Or we could use fluorescent materials which would just um take in the light during the day , and then as soon as they go off they would glow in the dark . Um , also we could use um an alarm . So if we lost the um remote control , perhaps there could be a button on the television set itself , which you could press , and then an alarm from the handset would sound where it was , hopefully in the room . Maybe behind a cushion or somewhere . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so that would work . Um , oop . Go back there . Um , another thing I think we d missed out on on the last meeting was the fact that we should consider the environmental impact of our design . Um , from previous researches I've carried out on other projects , um we've learnt about smart materials where um um specific alloys of metals have a shape memory . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So they can be heated and um and cooled , and they change the shape of um the metal . So , for example , a screw that's holding something together could expand and it would force all the components apart . So um , the benefits of this for our product would be that when it came to the end of its product life , if it was heated , um everything would spring apart . So , all the um individual components could be easily separated , and then some could be reused , some could be recycled , and I think that would be very important for products now . Especially 'cause there's much uh responsibility for all the um companies who are coming up with like new designs . 'Cause all , we all know that our resources are being limited , and we have to be very environmentally conscious . +Project Manager: Right , um , one question . This , um , self-destructible uh metal , it allows for recycling materials ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that , um , someone could have this product for as long as they felt that they wanted it , and then once they contribute it , then that company can break down the part , the parts better ? +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} And then {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah they would , um you would make the , the product as you normally would , apart from the , the bits that hold it all together would be made out of this shape-memory alloy . And that's the part that would um allow all the other parts to be separated at the end . I mean , the user would return the p product to the company , 'cause it's the product's responsibility to get rid of what they've made . Um , and then the company could then just use , make use of this shape-memory alloys to split up the components , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then either reuse some bits , and other bits which are obviously gonna wear out with time , or not usable , they might be like be able to put into scrap metal . Something like the case , if it's scratched or something , you would want to reuse it , but you might be able to melt it down and reuse it again somewhere else . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Would we be the company that would break down these , or uh metals ? Or would we contribute to another group ? +Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could probably empl em employ a , a side company or something to do that for us . But it would be our responsibility to get that done and to dispose of the products that we made . For a certain percentage at least . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Not every , not a hundred percent of everything we produce , +Project Manager: Okay . This sounds like a really great idea . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: One thing we have to consider is our uh one hundred percent um turnover goal that we have for our financial sector . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so we'll have to investigate how much that will cost us , cost the company , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: um 'cause it sounds very labour-intensive . You would have to hire a number of people , and it might be more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Well I {disfmarker} the fact of the shape-memory alloys is that they , they don't need to be manually de um deconstructed . Like , you don't have to individually um unscrew all the screws . Because of this , their properties are smart material . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: All you need is just the heat , so they self-destruct themselves . +Project Manager: Alright . We'll still have to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: So I suppose it does need like high contact , yeah , you know high uh quality machinery , and very specific machinery , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . I like the environmental approach . Um , we'll have to see if that can meet our financial goals as well . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . Um also there is um components . This'll be how it uh will actually work . But I haven't put this plan together yet . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , could you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There we go +Project Manager: Those were um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: . Sorry , should I go back . This would actually show the circuit diagram . Although I haven't come up with the final circuit yet . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So I just {gap} put all those components in . +Project Manager: So those are what , um , we'll c construct the remote . Those are all the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I it just shows what sort of energy source . It could be a battery , like rechargeable probably . Um , an' yeah , well how the infrared will actually be sent through the chip to be received by the chip on the television set itself . +Project Manager: Alright . Great . +Industrial Designer: Okay ? So , now is it F_ eight again to escape ? Or escape ? There we go . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright . Thank you very much . And , um , the next presenter will be Tara . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There you go Tara . +User Interface: Thanks . Can you see ? +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Do you think {disfmarker} Is it uh , function eight yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Function F_ eight . +Project Manager: Function F_ eight . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: The one at the top . +User Interface: Oh right . Okay . +Marketing: That looks right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . I'm the User {vocalsound} um User Interface Designer . Uh , the technical functions design of the apparatus is the effect the apparatus should have . Um , in this case it's the function of the remote control , which is to send messages to the television , television set . By taking inspiration from other similar designs , we'll try and come up with an original trendy remote control , which is sellable international . There're two functional design options . A multifunctional remote control , which can be used for several entertainment devices . And a single function remote control , used specifically for the television . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm sorry , what was that last one . Multifunctional and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sorry . Um , a single function just for the television itself . +Marketing: Ch Oh , I see . +User Interface: Yeah . Um , multifunctional controls can be difficult to use , as the multitude of buttons can be confusing . A single function remote control is simpler to use , but it means you have to have other remote controls for your other entertainment devices . +Marketing: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um , I think that a single function remote control would be preferable , because it's easier to use . It'd be more compatible with a range of television sets , making it more internationally sellable . Um , it will make an original design more obtainable , as we have less functional necessities to include in the design . And it would be more profitable as it would be more simplistic . And less functions would have to be included . So it would be cheaper to make . And probably more sellable just because it's more compatible with a r a wider range of devices . Does anyone have any questions ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So as far as we know , um , a single function television remote control is us usable internationally ? +User Interface: Well , it's just that , when we're creating it , we're , we have to make it um compatible with different brands of devices . +Marketing: {gap} Right . +User Interface: And it would be easier to make it compatible with just different brands of television devices rather than other ent , +Marketing: D_V_D_s and V_C_R_ ? +User Interface: yeah , +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: other entertainment devices . +Project Manager: Does everyone agree with this ? Does anyone object and , and find the multifunctional might be a better way to go ? +Industrial Designer: Um , {vocalsound} I was just wondering about the , what , what Genevieve said before , about having like some hidden controls like having the outer casing . And that would probably , um , I d , well well what you said before about it being a more profitable simplistic design . I suppose having that would complicate it a lot more . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And limit the design {gap} . Do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think I agree with the single design thing for now , because we're trying to do so much , that if we're trying to make a unique , user-friendly , dadada , and it's also multi also multifunctional , um , we're gonna go over budget for one thing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . That's true . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And with this we'll have more room in the budget probably to make a more original design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: We'll have more money to go into the design side of it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Sounds great . +Marketing: Mm , 'kay . +Project Manager: Alright , well , um , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: are you ready for your presentation Genevieve ? +Marketing: Yes I am . +Project Manager: Fabulous . Except you're not hooked up to the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm not hooked up , but other than that , completely ready . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great . +Marketing: Okay . Okay . Oh . I just lost my microphone . +Project Manager: {gap} No problem , +Marketing: Just a moment . +Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So I'll be discussing the functional requirements of this remote control . Um , and I'll give you a little briefing on what that means exactly . Um , if you all remember from the email we got before our very first uh kick-off meeting , with the coffee machine ? The functional requirements of that was to produce hot coffee quickly . Um , so what I'll be talking about now is the equivalent for a remote control . Um , so basically what needs and desires are to be fulfilled . Um , I've done some marketing research , a lot of interviews with remote control users , um , and some internet research . And I'll show you my findings . Oh , and firstly I wanted to remind you about our company motto and purpose . So we believe in providing international market with fashionable products . Um , hence our motto , we put the fashion in electronics . So I think that should be our priority here . Um , and we should also be looking to trends in clothing and interior design . Not just in electronic fashion . So that it's something that fits in the household . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , what was that last thing that you just said ? +Marketing: Um , we should be looking towards trends in both clothing and interior design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Any trends that are going on in , in the public , even media , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: you know who's famous , what T_V_ shows are being watched , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: um , to influence our remote control . Okay , so the findings . Um , seventy five percent of users of remote controls find them ugly . Which is a , quite a significant number . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , the other twenty five percent didn't specify if they love them or found them , you know , neutral . Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user . +Project Manager: I'm sorry , that eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy . You mean that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control ? +Marketing: Yeah , they're willing , they're willing to spend money on a remote control with personality . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: As opposed to your basic , you know , oval black , all same size button remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so it is something that people care about . It's not , it's not ignored in the household . Um , seventy five percent of remote control users said that they zap a lot . Zapping meaning they go through channels a lot . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're you know thumb-masters . Um , and fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons . That A very small amount . Thought that was interesting . +Project Manager: Alright , so it might be very appealing if , um , we have very concise buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {gap} the single function . +Project Manager: And another thing with um lots of surfing , we'd probably have to work on something that could be um a lot more durable , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because I find with um channel-changers that , um , a lot of the numbers get rubbed down if they're printed on the button . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And actually to go with that , I'm gonna give you some statistics on the uh relevancy of the buttons , how much they're used . And uh how important the uh users find them . So the power button , obviously , in an hour is only used once . Hopefully the person's not turning on and off the T_V_ . Um , but the relevance of that button is nine out of ten . So people wanna be able to turn on the T_V_ with the remote control . Um , as opposed to standing up and turning on the television set . Channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times on average per hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's a huge amount . This is the most important button . Um , so obviously when commercials come on they're changing it , so as you said we want a durable button that's not gonna run down . Relevance of that button , our users found was uh ten , ten out of ten . Uh , ditto for volume selection , so ten out of ten . And it's used on average four times an hour . Not as much as channel selection , but still significant . Um , audio settings is used on average zero point eight times an hour . Relevance is two . Screen settings , which means brightness , colour etcetera , zero point five times an hour . Um , and relevance of one point five . We're getting to specific statistics here . Teletext , um , now I'm not too clear on what that is . I don't know if you can help me . Flipping pages . +User Interface: It's um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is that {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's like the news . Or like information . +User Interface: It has {disfmarker} T_V_ has like information , it has information on holidays , the news , entertainment . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and what's on . +Marketing: So like a running banner , underneath {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's a button that you press , and then you , uh , like a menu pops up . +User Interface: No , li Yeah . +Project Manager: I haven't used it before +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: It's like {disfmarker} +User Interface: And you have page numbers like for the menu , and you press the page numbers with your remote , and it , it'll come up . +Industrial Designer: It's like very basic internet . Sort of , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Very basic internet , yeah . +Industrial Designer: um {disfmarker} +User Interface: But you have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Like tells you the weather , and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . But you have no interaction back with it , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Like the internet you can send emails and {disfmarker} You've no interaction . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's just information that um , like television timetables , what's on , what's on now , what's on next , on every channel , and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . Well I guess I'm not with it , because I wasn't {disfmarker} But it's , it's being used fourteen times an hour . Um , and has a r a high relevance of six point five . So it looks like something that we're gonna want to do some research on and include on our remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , channel settings . Zero point zero one times an hour . Relevance of three . Channel settings . +User Interface: Uh , probably just tuning in the channels , would it be ? +Marketing: P Sorry . Changing the channels ? +User Interface: Tuning them in at the very start . You know if you get a new T_V_ set , you tune in all the channels , +Industrial Designer: To get the right reception and picture , I suppose . +User Interface: do you th do you think ? +Marketing: Oh , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Um , so it's not used very often , but people still find it relevant . Okay . Um , biggest frustrations of uh the people that we interviewed . Remote controls are often lost somewhere . So that was already discussed by Poppy . How we could have a , an alarm system so that people can find it . Um , takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So it should be very user-friendly , you know . People know what to do very quickly . Um , remote controls are bad for R_S_I_ . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +User Interface: Repeti Uh . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: I think . +Marketing: Is that what it is ? People with arthritis and such ? +Project Manager: That's rather sad . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , maybe our +Industrial Designer: Oh , I'm guessing that's what it is . I'm not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . I think it is . +Marketing: designers can look into that . Um , buttons that don't require , you know , very firm pushing , if they respond . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: But we'll have to also avoid , you know , buttons responding to the slightest touch as well . That's a problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It is . +Marketing: Okay . Did you guys uh get that one down ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Um {vocalsound} okay , here's some ideas for you . A large percentage of the public would pay for voice recognition on the remote controls . So I'll show you some numbers here . Um , so the youngest age group , fifteen to twenty five . Ninety one point two percent said that they would pay extra money to have voice recogni voice recognition included on their remote control . Um , and you can see that number decreases a bit with ol s Interestingly enough , twenty five to thirty five is the lowest amount . Um , that would , are willing to pay extra . So I guess we're gonna have to figure out what age group we're , we're targeting , and if and if voice recognition is something we wanna look into . And if we have the budget for it . Um , if we are targeting young adults , it looks like something that would pay off . Seeing as ninety percent , over ninety percent would pay for it . +Project Manager: I agree with um {disfmarker} if we're targeting young adults then it would be something we should look into . Um , financially and and functionally . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um , and especially if we are um trying to be trendy , go with fashions , things like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um , ages like from thirty five to sixty five which show lower numbers probably won't be as concerned . +Marketing: So that , that's a whole other field of research . I don't know if it'd be , if we'd still have a remote , or if you're talking to your television and saying change channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um and depending on how many members you have in households . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it m it may be too complicated for us , but it's something to keep in mind anyway . +Project Manager: Yeah . And something that might further complicate it is that the T_V_ makes noise itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Wonder if it would have {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And if there was conversation in the room at the same time , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: although in theory it doesn't tend to be when you're watching television , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} {gap} could be very difficult to get the specific uh design . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . If we're looking for a simplistic design , if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We need to decide if that is our um intention is , is a simplistic design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Mm . +Project Manager: Um , because if , if it is then I think voice , um voice-activated {disfmarker} +Marketing: It looks like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , and that would sort of negate the whole remote control thing , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because if people can activate the television with their voice then they won't be using a , they won't be talking into a remote , I'm sure . +Marketing: It'd be like the ultimate remote . {gap} Um {vocalsound} okay . And th the last thing here was a , an L_C_D_ screen . So , I mean voice recognition might be a little too extreme for us . Not practical . Um an L_C_D_ screen though might be something that , you know , you can shift through pages kind of li the way this PowerPoint is working . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that you don't have so many buttons to deal with . +Project Manager: Um , I don't know what an L_C_D_ screen is . +Marketing: Oh sorry , just , just a screen , like a computer screen . S Or like um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mobile phone . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Or {disfmarker} Like an alarm clock . You'd have an L_C_D_ versus just a , a normal clock . +Industrial Designer: What , what would appear on the screen ? +Project Manager: I have no idea still . {vocalsound} I'm sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh just like an electronic screen . As opposed to just buttons . There would be like a little , like on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , on the remote . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . Like on the top of a cellphone , the the little L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , now that's , I , I dunno exactly what exactly we'd put on there . I guess the channel that you're on , the v the volume setting . +User Interface: Yeah . Could it it {disfmarker} It would be good if it had the actual programme that was on , and what was next . But that would probably be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like linked in with the teletext , +User Interface: Yeah . That would be good , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or sort of like an teletext at your fingers , without having to access that through the television . +User Interface: Yeah . Might be quite expensive to do that though . +Industrial Designer: Mm , Yeah . Could be . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I guess that's something we can all take back to our respective research . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , and finally , whoops , my personal preferences and thoughts . Um , I think our priority really should be unique design . Um , we want something that people want in their home . Every remote control looks the same , so uh in my opinion it should be , um , user-friendly and unique . So the other stuff might be a little too , a little too gadgety for some people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , I th myself , voice recognition kind of scares me off . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So if we're , if we're aiming to make this an international university , universally accepted product {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , and for all , the other thing is like age market . I mean if we wanted to concentrate on fifteen to twenty five years olds , we could go for the fancy stuff . But if we wanna make fifty million , and and have everyone want this remote control , we should maybe stick to the basics . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And we should keep in mind that fifteen to twenty five year olds might not have twenty five Euros to spend on a remote control . Like their priorities might not be a fancy remote control , when they're just starting out +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and , yeah . +Marketing: Right . And we have to keep in mind the , the reliability of our research . I mean , you know , a sixteen year old boy would say , yeah I'd pay extra for voice recognition , until they realise that's three months allowance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um , so I I think , I think the older generations we should be catering to a bit more . +User Interface: Early twenties , that's the kind of age group . +Project Manager: Yeah . And if one of the largest , uh , or most complained about thing is that it takes so long to get to know how to use a remote control , +User Interface: Twenties . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm sure that something like an L_C_D_ screen or remote control would be just furthering that problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Complicated jus complicating things even fo Mm . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . That's it for the market research . +Project Manager: Okay . Before we go into uh more discussion on {gap} we want this design to look like , I've received some information from the management that will affect some of our decisions . Um , for one thing , because {disfmarker} Having controls with D_V_D_ , V_C_R_ , that sort of thing , would really complicate the design of the remote control . Um , we've decided not to include them and make it a specific , just a specific television um function . Which is good as , as we've sort of decided that we would like to go with that anyway . Um , for many reasons . So um we have that decision sort of made for us . Another thing that might um affect other decisions is that um the management feels that teletext is outdated , because more people are using the internet now . And so uh we won't concern ourselves with um navigating the teletext option . +Industrial Designer: Can I just interrupt ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Would you like to plug in your {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Maybe we can do the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , sure . +Industrial Designer: Have you got a PowerPoint or not ? +Project Manager: Yeah I do . I'm looking at {disfmarker} looking at it right now . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thanks . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you . +Marketing: Oh , come back screen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Were they , was the management suggesting use of the internet rather than teletext , or just avoiding both altogether ? +Project Manager: Um , well , I mean we don't have the resources or or possibility of using the internet with the remote control , +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: but um they were just pretty much saying that the teletext would not be used . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright , and another thing . This is for the design , the design of the product is that um we wanna create , um more of a sense that people know that this is from our company . So , um , all the remote controls must have our um {disfmarker} We'll incorporate our logo and colour in in some way . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: So , um , perhaps um our logo on the bottom , or wherever you feel like it would look good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Um , it doesn't have to be the colour of our um of our company +Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but , another thing is that , um +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we need to , we probably would have to have that colour and , and logo decided upon . Um , I'm assuming that we already have one , but for the purposes of this meeting I , I wasn't offered a , like a type of logo or colour , so if that could be um somewhere on the design so that we can be recognisable . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Work on that . +Marketing: It's probably R_ R_R_ in yellow . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: The little R_ R_ yellow thing ? Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think . +Project Manager: Real Reaction ? Okay . Um , yes , those are the changes . Um , so , now we need to discuss , um and come to a decision on our remote control functions , of , of how this is going to be . I'm just going to look at my notes for a second . Um , we have to decide on a target group and the functions of the remote control . So , um , we already know that it'll just be for the television . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: It'll {disfmarker} It won't have teletext . But um , you know , we could discuss um those other options that you brought up , Genevieve . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Okay , so I {disfmarker} Are we going to write off the L_C_D_ option ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that how most people feel about that ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , no teletext , and no voice recognition . +User Interface: I think it would be annoying though if {disfmarker} I don't use teletext that much , but if it was on your T_V_ , you'd want to be able to use it , if {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but another thing is that if we're reaching an international crowd , um , I know for one that in North America there is no such thing as teletext , so it'd be really superfluous . +User Interface: You'd {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: So is it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Never heard of it . +User Interface: Okay . Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . I don't know about other countries besides the U_K_ . +User Interface: Right . +Project Manager: Do you know if anywhere else has it ? +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +User Interface: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: More research required , I think . +User Interface: I don't know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if {disfmarker} Was it a management decision that we're having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It was a management decision , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: so it's , it's pretty much out of our hands at this point . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Okay then . +Project Manager: 'Kay . So , I guess we're looking at something rather simple . +Marketing: Um , well I guess , just from my findings it looks like we wanna minimise buttons . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: Minimal {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the {disfmarker} What was the word they used ? F findability is important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . I think we should definitely go ahead with the alarm system idea that you had . +Industrial Designer: Yeah okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I'm sure that could be inex inexpensive because we could use the same kind of infrared +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The same signalling . +Project Manager: the same signal through that and it could just like make a little beeping noise . +Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not that expensive to do . +Industrial Designer: Or vibrate just the same as a mobile phone . Like you just a , a buzz or something . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Okay . I like that idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Would you be able to , um , put the little device anywhere ? {vocalsound} 'Cause uh isn't our remote control for all T_V_s , so +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: you'd ha +Industrial Designer: Do you mean the the link between the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , with the button that you pressed . +Project Manager: Yeah . The button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well , if the button was actually on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Minor detail there . +User Interface: C 'cause then it would only be a applicable to one T_V_ set , so it would need to be something that you could stick somewhere , or something . +Industrial Designer: Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it would have t +Industrial Designer: Maybe something adhesive that you could like stick onto the back of any set that would be um yeah not very obtrusive . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Obviously something small that's {disfmarker} Yeah , that's a good point . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Then it wouldn't , it probably wouldn't be able to use {disfmarker} It would be able to use the same reception on the remote c control I guess , but the actual device would have to have its own infrared signaller . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Would it need a battery then ? +Project Manager: Maybe , um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Pr probably . +Project Manager: Probably , I mean . +Industrial Designer: Unless it could be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's your department you'll have to sort that out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , unless some way , it could have some universal connection to like the socket , the same socket that the T_V_'s supplied from . I mean the power for the T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So , mm , more research into that one . +Project Manager: Yeah , you'll have to investi Do some research on that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: alright ? Great . Um , alright , and I'm sure that , um um , the glow-in-the-dark , fluorescent , whatever , system , um is a go ahead . Is everyone interested in that ? +Industrial Designer: Y +Marketing: On the buttons ? +User Interface: I I like the light up suggestion . I think that would be better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause you know the way fluorescent lights lose their brightness after certain time , so +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} it doesn't {disfmarker} +User Interface: I would go for {disfmarker} +Marketing: It could it could be a tactile thing as well . Um right , if w if we're minimising buttons , we might be able to make them actually larger . And there's something on it . S you know like up arrow down arrow for , for volume . +Industrial Designer: Like a raised {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , and I don't know what we could do for , for channels . S +User Interface: Well just the numbers could be embossed , couldn't it ? Like raised . +Marketing: The numbers themselves . +User Interface: Yeah . Could be raised . +Marketing: But then the like up button and down button for the channel , channel changing . +User Interface: Just little arrows , that you could feel , maybe ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: I just thought that {gap} it , it might be sucking more battery power , if there , if it is a light up . I'm not sure . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: But I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also y , uh Heather you mentioned before , um like how it should be accessible to everybody . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , so like big b um buttons , {gap} for people you are visually impaired . The glow-in-the-dark or light up won't make any difference anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So like you say tactile might be better , because it'd be more available to everybody . +User Interface: That , I think that's good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Could we somehow {disfmarker} We could , may , possibly , sorry , incorporate them both so that the buttons could maybe be in the shape of the numbers themselves and be made out of some glow-in-the-dark material . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: 'Cause I d I don't think that glow-in-the-dark material , um , like the actual soft plastic , um , costs that much more than other colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No , it's not these days . +User Interface: No , I wouldn't say so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I mean , it's quite easily accessible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I guess the other option , referring to the battery thing is , you know how cellphones will t light up for fifteen seconds or something , when you're s and then it goes , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: That's good {disfmarker} Yeah that a good idea . +Marketing: so if , if you're like changing the volume during a movie . I know , I'm thinking of mostly when you're watching a movie you turn all the lights off right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And you don't want to turn on the lights , {vocalsound} to turn it down , because there's suddenly an explosion , and it's gonna wake up the baby . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Um , so if you touch the button , it kind of reactivates it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It lights up for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: That , yeah , that's a good idea . +Marketing: On self timer . +Industrial Designer: So self-timed lighting . +Project Manager: Alright we have five minutes left +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um , I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um , for the meeting , but I think we should discuss this light subject a little bit more before we close . Um , what was {disfmarker} I missed the last moment , reading that . What were you talking about with the lighting up buttons ? +Marketing: Oh , just if it was kinda the same way that a cell You know how a cellphone will light up for about ten , fifteen seconds when you touch a button , after having not touched it for a while . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Um , if instead of a constant light up on the , on the remote control , if it lights up for ten seconds when it's touched again . +Project Manager: Mm . So it could be any button that would be pressed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , and you , you touch it and it just kind of lights up a bit , and it gives a faint glow . +Industrial Designer: So , self-timed {disfmarker} +Marketing: So if you have all the lights off in your living room , you'll , you'll temporarily see it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Because usually you're not fooling around for it for more than what ten seconds . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's probably feasible . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , do you think that we should do the lighting up thing , and the glow-in-the-dark thing , and the shape of the numbers ? Do we have to kind of decide what we're gonna do with this . +Industrial Designer: I think the shape of the numbers is a really good idea . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: And I think that's un unique as well . +User Interface: Yeah . For visually impaired , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean , I haven't seen that . And as you're saying like numbers can wear off if they're just sort of like painted on , you know printed . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . And it could {gap} , if it's that softer rubber material it'll be , maybe , um , uh , better for people with um els no +Industrial Designer: {gap} durable . +Project Manager: what's it called , R_S_I_ , what was it that we were talking about ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Oh right , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah instead of like hard buttons . +Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did we want to go for the glow-in-the-dark look ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or did we want to go for the lighting up instantly ? +User Interface: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like should we do both ? Or we can have one or the other ? Because it might , for , for our design purposes , I mean , the lighting up thing might be better because glow-in-the-dark material has a funny kinda colour . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And it might not go with different like face plates that we might come up with . +Marketing: I was gonna say , {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . It the {disfmarker} it might be perceived as tacky , glow-in-the-dark . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's kind of like Eighties neon-style . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um , whereas we're trying to be trendy and fashionable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah there are now like loads , or a huge range of different colours that it could light up in as well , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: which could like link in with the company colours . Like it could be blue or green or yellow , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or like we've just limited t with the , just ordinary phosphorescent so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . Alright . So we've decided on lighting up things . +User Interface: I was thinking though , if it was glow-in-the-dark , you could put the um Real Reaction symbol as glow-in-the-dark , and then it would be constantly advertised . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Every time the , that it lit up , you c that could light up as well . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or , or the , whate +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: But with the same thing , I mean . If you touch the button and then it could be , it could be lit up as well . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Is {disfmarker} Are you okay with that ? Okay . Cool . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Alright . So I think that um that completes most of our um our more uh practical decisions . +Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And now it's up to designing . And um making sure that this can be feasible . And do you have anything {disfmarker} +Marketing: What um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you have anything to say ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh sorry . Yeah well , I was just gonna throw out there the thought about um personalising the remote control . Um , it , you , 'cause you mentioned face plates . So I I dunno if there's something that diff , you know like five different face plates . I dunno if this will start making it more complicated , but it could increase the popularity of the , of the remote . Um +Industrial Designer: Okay . Like you can have changeable um mobile covers or something . +User Interface: Oh yeah . Interchangeable thing ? +Marketing: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like an iPod or something ? +User Interface: That would be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Exactly , like an iPod . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Exactly . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Or , or like mobile ph . +Project Manager: Like a cellphone ? Yeah . +Marketing: And I dunno if we'd want to go with like T_V_ show themes or something . Like a Bart Simpson faceplate . +User Interface: Yeah , and then that would be uh more profitable like as a sideline to the remote as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Y Could buy extra {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Accessories . +Marketing: Exactly . You could start out with three , and if , if we hit it big then we can add some on . +Industrial Designer: Person {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well , that's great . +User Interface: That's a good idea . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . I think that we should incorporate that . +Industrial Designer: Interchangeable . +Project Manager: 'Cause that wouldn't be very expensive at all . +Industrial Designer: Um , als +Project Manager: You'd just get one mould , +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: throw some plastic in it , you know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Interchan And also possible {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we could gain out of that by advertising certain T_V_ shows , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Well , that might be com problematic with um copyright issues . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So , if it takes off then we'll , we'll , we'll try that out . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But if we , there is {disfmarker} +User Interface: If w +Industrial Designer: Yeah . We could {disfmarker} Um , the environmental factor , we didn't bring that up again . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We'll have to do more research . Like as of yet , that has nothing to do with , um , the way it'll look . Um , does it need to be reached a de +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need to reach a decision on that right now ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because we need to investigate the financial implications . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Is it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Let's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Does it need to be uh decided on now ? Or should we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we could probably leave that 'til later on , then . +Project Manager: Okay . Good . Alright then . Anyone else have anything more to say before we close ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Alright , well . Let's have lunch and we'll discuss this later . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +","Meeting participants discuss a remote control's design and functionality. The Industrial Designer apologizes for late engagement due to personal distractions but presents ideas like illuminated buttons, an alarm for locating lost remotes, and environmentally-friendly disassembling using shape-memory alloys. The Project Manager confirms they will focus solely on television functionality without teletext. User Interface Designer prefers a single-function, user-friendly, and internationally compatible remote. Marketing highlights the importance of aesthetics and research shows consumers would pay for fancier remotes. They also discuss button durability, minimizing buttons due to limited use, and the potential appeal of voice recognition and LCD screens among different ages, although concerns about practicality and user-friendliness are raised. Management has decided to make a TV-specific remote without teletext and to include company branding in the design. The team deliberates various design aspects, including buttons that light up on touch and changeable faceplates for personalization. Environmental and financial factors for disassembly need further research. The meeting will close, with the intention to continue discussions later." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: As usual . +Grad B: Yes . Whew ! I almost forgot {pause} about the meeting . I woke up twenty minutes ago , thinking , what did I forget ? +Grad D: It 's great how the br brain sort of does that . +Grad E: Something 's not right here . +Grad B: Internal alarms . +Grad D: OK . So the news for me is A , my forthcoming travel plans +Grad B: Yes . +Grad D: in two weeks from today ? Yeah ? More or less ? I 'll be off to Sicily and Germany for a couple , three days . +Grad B: Now what are y what are you doing there ? I forgot ? +Grad D: OK , I 'm flying to Sicily basically to drop off Simon there with his grandparents . And then I 'm flying to Germany t to go to a MOKU - Treffen which is the meeting of all the module - responsible people in SmartKom , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: and , represent ICI and myself I guess there . And um . That 's the mmm actual reason . And then I 'm also going up to EML for a day , and then I 'm going to {vocalsound} meet the very big boss , Wolfgang Walster , in Saarbruecken and the System system integration people in Kaiserslautern and then I 'm flying back via Sicily pick up my son come back here on the fourth of July . And uh . +Grad E: What a great time to be coming back to the +Grad B: God bless America . +Grad E: You 'll see maybe {disfmarker} see the fireworks from your plane coming in . +Grad D: And I 'm sure all the {disfmarker} the people at the airport will be happy to work on that day . +Grad E: Yeah . You 'll get even better service than usual . +Grad B: Wait , aren't you flying on Lufthansa though ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Alitalia . +Grad B: Oh . Well then the {disfmarker} you know , it 's not a big deal . Once you get to the United States it 'll be a problem , but +Grad D: Yeah . And um , that 's that bit of news , and the other bit of news is we had {disfmarker} you know , uh , I was visited by my German project manager who A , did like what we did {disfmarker} what we 're doing here , and B , is planning to come here either three weeks in July or three weeks in August , to actually work . +Grad B: On {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: With us . +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: And we sat around and we talked and he came up {disfmarker} we came up {disfmarker} with a pretty strange idea . And that 's what I 'm gonna lay on you now . And um , maybe it might be ultimately the most interesting thing for Eva because she has been known to complain about the fact that the stuff we do here is not weird enough . +Grad C: OK . +Grad D: So this is so weird it should even make you happy . +Grad C: Uh . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Oh great . +Grad D: Imagine if you will , {vocalsound} that we have a system that does all that understanding that we want it to do based on utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It should be possible to make that system produce questions . So if you have the knowledge of how to interpret "" where is X ? "" under given conditions , situational , user , discourse and ontological {vocalsound} conditions , you should also be able to make that same system ask "" where is X ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: in a sper certain way , based on certain intentions . So in instead of just being able to observe phenomenon , um , and , guess the intention we might be able just to sort of give it an intention , and make it produce an utterance . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: Well , like in AI they generally do the take in , and then they also do the generation phase , like Nancy 's thing . Or uh , you remember , in the {disfmarker} the hand thing in one - eighty - two , like not only was it able to recognize but it was also to generate based upon situations . You mean that sort of thing ? +Grad D: Absolutely . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And once you 've done that what we can do is have the system ask itself . And answer , understand the answer , ask something else , and enter a dialogue with itself . So the {disfmarker} the ba basic {disfmarker} the same idea as having two chess computers play against each other . +Grad E: Except this smacks a little bit more of a schizophrenic computer than AI . +Grad D: Yeah you c if you want , you can have two parallel {vocalsound} machines um , asking each other . What would that give us ? Would A be something completely weird and strange , and B , i if you look at all the factors , we will never observe people let 's say , in wheelchairs under {disfmarker} you know , in {disfmarker} under all conditions , +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: you know , when they say "" X "" , and there is a ride at the goal , and the parking is good , we can never collect enough data . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not possible . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Grad D: But maybe one could do some learning . If you get the system to speak to itself , you may find n break downs and errors and you may be able to learn . And make it more robust , maybe learn new things . And um , so there 's no {disfmarker} no end of potential things one could get out of it , if that works . And he would like to actually work on that with us . +Grad B: Well then , he probably should be coming back a year {pause} from now . +Grad D: So Yeah , I w See the {disfmarker} the generation bit , making the system generate {disfmarker} generate something , {comment} is {disfmarker} shouldn't be too hard . +Grad B: Well , once the system understands things . +Grad E: Yeah . No problem . +Grad B: I just don't think {disfmarker} I think we 're probably a year away from getting the system to understand things . +Grad D: Yeah . Well , if we can get it to understand one thing , like our "" where is "" run through we can also , maybe , e make it say , or ask "" where is X ? "" Or not . +Grad E: Mmm , I don't know . e I 'm sort of {disfmarker} have the impression that getting it to say the right thing in the right circumstances is much more difficult than getting it to understand something given the circumstances and so on , you know , I mean just cuz it 's sort of harder to learn to speak correctly in a foreign language , rather than learning to understand it . Right ? I mean +Grad D: +Grad E: just the fact that we 'll get {disfmarker} The point is that getting it to understand one construction doesn't mean that it will n always know exactly when it 's correct to use that construction . Right ? +Grad D: It 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I 've done generation and language production research for fo four {disfmarker} four and a half years . And so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you 're right , it 's not the same as the understanding . It 's in some ways easier and some ways harder . nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: But , um , I think it 'd be fun to look at it , or into that question . +Grad E: Nnn , yeah . +Grad D: It 's a pretty strange idea . And so that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad B: The basic idea I guess would be to give {disfmarker} allow the system to have intentions , basically ? Cuz that 's basically what needs to be added to the system for it . +Grad D: Well , look at th eee , I think even {disfmarker} think even {disfmarker} What it {disfmarker} would be the {disfmarker} the prior intention . So let 's uh {disfmarker} uh , let 's say we have this {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well we 'd have to seed that , I mean . +Grad D: No . Let 's {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} we have some {disfmarker} some top - down processing , given certain setting . OK , now we change nothing , and just say ask something . Right ? +Grad B: +Grad D: What would it ask ? +Grad B: It wouldn't know what to ask . I mean . +Grad D: It shur +Grad B: Unless it was in a situation . We 'd have to set up a situation where , it didn't know where something was and it wanted to go there . +Grad D: Yeah ! +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Which means that we 'd need to set up an intention inside of the system . Right ? Which is basically , "" I don't know where something is and I need to go there "" . +Grad D: Eh , n +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Ooh , do we really need to do that ? Because , +Grad B: Well , no I guess not . Excel +Grad D: s It 's {disfmarker} i I know it 's {disfmarker} it 's strange , but look at it {disfmarker} look at our Bayes - net . If we don't have {disfmarker} Let 's assume we don't have any input from the language . Right ? So there 's also nothing we could query the ontology , but we have a certain user setting . If you just ask , what is the likelihood of that person wanting to enter some {disfmarker} something , it 'll give you an answer . +Grad B: Sure . +Grad D: Right ? That 's just how they are . And so , @ @ whatever that is , it 's the generic default intention . That it would find out . Which is , wanting to know where something is , maybe nnn {disfmarker} and wanting {disfmarker} I don't know what it 's gonna be , but there 's gonna be something that +Grad E: Well you 're not gonna {disfmarker} are you gonna get a variety of intentions out of that then ? I mean , you 're just talking about like given this user , what 's the th what is it {disfmarker} what is that user most likely to want to do ? +Grad D: Well you can observe some user and context stuff and ask , what 's the posterior probabilities of all of our decision nodes . +Grad E: And , have it talk about {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: You could even say , "" let 's take all the priors , let 's observe nothing "" , and query all the posterior probabilities . It - it 's gonna tell us something . Right ? +Grad B: Well , it will d r assign values to all the nodes . Yes . +Grad D: And {disfmarker} Yes . And come up with posterior probabilities for all the values of the decision nodes . Which , if we have an algorithm that filters out whatever the {disfmarker} the best or the most consistent answer out of that , will give us the intention ex nihilo . And that is exactly what would happen if we ask it to produce an utterance , it would be b based on that extension , ex nihilo , which we don't know what it is , but it 's there . So we wouldn't even have to {disfmarker} t to kick start it by giving it a certain intention or observing anything on the decision node . And whatever that {disfmarker} maybe that would lead to "" what is the castle ? "" , +Grad B: I 'm just {disfmarker} +Grad D: or "" what is that whatever "" . +Grad B: I guess what I 'm afraid of is if we don't , you know , set up a {pause} situation , {comment} we 'll just get a bunch of garbage out , like you know , everything 's exactly thirty percent . +Grad D: No {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mmm . +Grad D: Yeah . So what we actually then need to do is {disfmarker} is write a little script that changes all the settings , you know , go goes through all the permutations , which is {disfmarker} we did a {disfmarker} didn't we calculate that once ? +Grad B: Well that was {disfmarker} that was absurdly low , in the last meeting , +Grad D: It 's a {disfmarker} +Grad C: Uh , +Grad B: cuz I went and looked at it cuz I was thinking , that could not be right , and it would {disfmarker} it was on the order of twenty output nodes and something like twenty {disfmarker} +Grad C: And like thirty input nodes +Grad B: thirty input nodes . +Grad C: or some {disfmarker} +Grad B: So to test every output node , uh , would at least {disfmarker} Let 's see , so it would be two to the thirty for every output node ? Which is very th very large . +Grad D: Oh ! That 's n +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: that 's {disfmarker} that 's nothing for those neural guys . I mean , they train for millions and millions of epochs . +Grad B: Well , I 'm talking about +Grad D: So . +Grad B: Oh , I was gonna take a drink of my water . I 'm talking about billions and billions and billions and a number {disfmarker} two to the thirty is like a Bhaskara said , we had calculated out and Bhaskara believes that it 's larger than the number of particles in the universe . And if i +Grad E: I don't know if that 's right or not . Th - that 's big . That 's just {disfmarker} That 's uh {disfmarker} It 's a billion , right ? +Grad B: Two to the thirty ? Well , two to the thirty is a billion , but if we have to do it two to the twenty times , then that 's a very very large number . +Grad E: Right . Argh . Oh , OK . Yeah . Yeah , that 's big . +Grad B: Cuz you have to query the node , for every a uh , or query the net two to the twenty times . +Grad E: Sure . Alright . +Grad B: Or not two to th excuse me , twenty times . +Grad E: OK . So , is it t comes to twenty billion or something ? +Grad B: Yes . As far as {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's pretty big , though . +Grad B: That 's @ @ {disfmarker} That 's big . Actually {disfmarker} Oh ! We calculated a different number before . How did we do that ? +Grad C: Hmm . +Grad E: I remember there being some other one floating around . But anyway , uh . +Grad C: I don't really know . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's g Anyway , the point is that given all of these different factors , it 's uh e it 's {disfmarker} it 's still going to be impossible to run through all of the possible situations or whatever . +Grad C: Ooo , it 's just big . +Grad E: But I mean , this 'll get us a bit closer at least , right ? I mean . +Grad B: If it takes us a second to do , for each one , and let 's say it 's twenty billion , {comment} then that 's twenty billion seconds , which is {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Eva , do the math . +Grad C: Can't . +Grad E: Long ! +Grad C: +Grad B: Hours and hours and hours and hours . But we can do randomized testing . +Grad E: Tah - dah ! +Grad B: Which probabilistically will be good enough . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So , it be it it 's an idea that one could n for {disfmarker} for example run {disfmarker} run past , um , what 's that guy 's name ? You know ? He - he 's usually here . Tsk . J J Jer - Jerj +Grad E: Here in the group ? Jerry Feldman . +Grad D: Oh , yeah . That 's the guy . We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we g +Grad B: Wait , who ? +Grad E: Yeah , i that would the g the bald guy . +Grad B: Oh ! My advisor ! +Grad D: And um . so this is just an idea that 's floating around and we 'll see what happens . And um , hmm , what other news do I have ? Well we fixed some more things from the SmartKom system , but that 's not really of general interest , Um , Oh ! Questions , yeah . I 'll ask Eva about the E Bayes and she 's working on that . How is the generation XML thing ? +Grad B: I 'm gonna work on that today and tomorrow . +Grad D: OK . No need to do it today or tomorrow even . Do it next week or {disfmarker} +Grad B: I 'm gonna finish it today , uh hopefully . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: I wanna do one of those things where I stay here . Cuz uh , if I go home , I can't finish it . I 've tried about five times so far , where I work for a while and then I 'm like , I 'm hungry . So I go home , and then I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: I 'm not going back . +Grad B: Yeah . Either that or I think to myself , I can work at home . And then I try to work at home , but I fail miserably . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Like I ended up at Blakes last night . +Grad E: Non - conducive . +Grad B: No . I almost got into a brawl . But I did not finish the uh , But I 've been looking into it . I th @ @ It 's not like it 's a blank slate . I found everything that I need and stu and uh , +Grad D: But st +Grad B: At the b uh furthermore , I told Jerry that I was gonna finish it before he got back . So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: That 's approaching . He 's coming back when ? Uh next {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , I think {disfmarker} we think we 'll see him definitely on Tuesday for the next {disfmarker} Or , no , wait . The meetings are on Thursday . +Grad D: Maybe . +Grad B: Maybe . +Grad D: Who knows . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Well , we 'll see him next week . +Grad E: Alright . +Grad D: That 's good . Yeah . The paper . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: I was thinking about that . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: I think I will try to work on the SmartKom stuff and I 'll {disfmarker} if I can finish it today , I 'll help you with that tomorrow , if you work on it ? I don't have a problem with us working on it though ? So . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} +Grad D: So you would say it 's funky cool . +Grad B: I mean we just {disfmarker} I mean it wouldn't hurt to write up a paper , cuz then , I mean , yeah {disfmarker} I was talking with Nancy and Nancy said , you don't know whether you have a paper to {pause} write up until you write it up . So . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Well +Grad B: And since Jerry 's coming back , we can run it by him too . So . +Grad D: Yep . Um , what 's your input ? +Grad E: Well , um , I don't have much experience with uh , conference papers for compu in the computer science realm , and so when I looked at what you had , which was apparently a complete submission , I just sort of said what {disfmarker} just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I didn't really know what to do with it , like , this is the sort of the basic outline of the system or whatever , or {disfmarker} or "" here 's an idea "" , right ? That 's what that paper was , "" here 's {disfmarker} here 's one possible thing you could do "" , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: short , eight pages , and I just don't know what you have in mind for expanding . Like I 'd {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I didn't do is go to the web site of the conference and look at what they 're looking for or whatever . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Well , it seems to me that um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Wait , is this a computer science conference or is it a {disfmarker} +Grad D: Um , well it 's more {disfmarker} It 's both , right ? It 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of t cognitive , neural , psycho , linguistic , but all for the sake of doing computer science . So it 's sort of cognitive , psycho , neural , plausibly motivated , architectures of natural language processing . So it seems pretty interdisciplinary , and I mean , w w the keynote speaker is Tomasello and blah - blah - blah , +Grad E: Right . Oh , yeah . +Grad D: so , W the {disfmarker} the question is what could we actually do and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and keep a straight face while doing it . +Grad B: Well , I really can't keep a straight face doing anything . +Grad D: And i My idea is , +Grad E: Setting that aside . +Grad D: well , you can say we have done a little bit and that 's this , and uh sort of the rest is position paper , "" we wanna also do that "" . Which is not too good . Might be more interesting to do something like let 's assume um , we 're right , we have as Jerry calls it , a delusion of adequacy , and take a "" where is X "" sentence , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and say , "" we will just talk about this , and how we cognitively , neurally , psycho - linguistically , construction grammar - ally , motivated , envision uh , understanding that "" . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: So we can actually show how we parse it . That should be able to {disfmarker} we should be able to come up with , you know , a sort of a {disfmarker} a parse . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's on , just {disfmarker} just put it on . +Grad A: I 'm OK . +Grad B: Did Ben harass you ? +Grad A: Yes . +Grad B: Good . +Grad A: Was he supposed to harass me ? +Grad B: Yes . +Grad A: Well , he just told me that you came looking for me . +Grad D: You don +Grad B: Oh . +Grad D: +Grad A: figure this out . +Grad D: You will suffer in hell , you know that . +Grad E: Backwards . There 's a s diagram somewhere which tells you how to put that {disfmarker} +Grad A: I know , I didn't understand that either ! +Grad B: No wait . You have to put it on exactly like that , +Grad D: This is it . Yeah . +Grad B: so put that {disfmarker} those things over your ears like that . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: See the p how the plastic things ar arch out like that ? There we go . +Grad A: OK . It hurts . +Grad B: It hurts . It hurts real bad . +Grad A: It does ! I 'm sorry I didn't mean to {disfmarker} +Grad E: But that 's what you get for coming late to the meeting . +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , oh these are all the same . OK ! th this is not very {pause} on target . +Grad B: Is your mike on ? +Grad C: An +Grad A: Shoot . +Grad D: Yeah , it is . +Grad B: OK . +Grad A: Alright , you guys can continue talking about whatever you were talking about before . +Grad E: Um , +Grad D: We 're talking about this um , alleged paper that we may , just , sort of w +Grad A: Oh ! Which Johno mentioned to me . Uh - huh . +Grad D: Yeah . And I just sort of brought forth the idea that we take a sentence , "" Where is the Powder - Tower "" , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and we {disfmarker} we p pretend to parse it , we pretend to understand it , and we write about it . +Grad E: Hmm . About how {vocalsound} all of these things {disfmarker} +Grad A: What 's the part that 's not pretend ? The writing ? +Grad D: OK , then we pretend to write about . +Grad E: The submitting to a major international conference . {comment} {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Tha - {vocalsound} Which conference is it for ? +Grad D: It 's the whatever , architectures , eh you know , where {disfmarker} There is this conference , it 's the seventh already international conference , on neu neurally , cognitively , motivated , architectures of natural language processing . +Grad A: Oh . Wow . Interesting . +Grad D: And the keynote speakers are Tomasello , MacWhinney ? +Grad A: Whinney . {comment} MacWhinney. Uh - huh . +Grad D: We - MacWhinney , I think . +Grad E: +Grad A: So , interesting , both , like , child language people . +Grad D: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: So maybe you wanna write something too . +Grad A: Yeah , maybe I wanna go . Um , why are they speaking at it if it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . {vocalsound} Mmm . +Grad A: is {disfmarker} is it normally like {disfmarker} like , dialogue systems , or , you know , other NLP - ish things ? +Grad D: No no no no no no no no . It 's {disfmarker} it 's like a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , it 's cognitive . OK . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . Even neuro . +Grad A: And uh , both learning and like , comprehension , production , that kinda stuff . +Grad D: Psycho . You could look at the web site . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . I don't know about it . +Grad D: And the ad and {disfmarker} and the deadline is the fifteenth of June . +Grad A: Yeah that 's pretty soon . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hey . Plenty of time . +Grad E: Why , we 've got over a week ! +Grad D: It would be nice to go write two papers actually . Yeah . And one {disfmarker} one from your perspective , and one from our peve per per +Grad A: Mm - hmm . I mean , th that 's the kinda thing that maybe like , um , the general uh con sort of like NTL - ish like , whatever , the previous simulation based pers {comment} maybe you 're talking about the same kind of thing . A general paper about the approach here would probably be appropriate . And good to do at some point anyway . +Grad D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Well , I {disfmarker} I also think that if we sort of write about what we have done in the past six months , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we could sort of craft a nice little paper that {pause} if it gets rejected , which could happen , doesn't hurt +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: because it 's something we eh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Having it is still a good thing . +Grad D: having it is a good {disfmarker} good thing . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: It 's a nice exercise , it 's {disfmarker} I usually enjoy writing papers . It 's not {disfmarker} I don't re regard it as a painful thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . It 's fun . +Grad D: And um , we should all do more for our publication lists . And . It just never hurts . And Keith and - or Johno will go , probably . +Grad B: Will I ? +Grad A: When is it and where ? +Grad D: In case of {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm ! +Grad D: It 's on the twenty second of September , in Saarbruecken Germany . +Grad A: Ah , it 's in Germany . Ah , OK . I s I see . Tomasello 's already in Germany anyway , so makes sense . OK . +Grad E: Just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Um . OK . So , is the {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Are you just talking about you know , the details of how to do it , or whether to do it , or what it would be ? +Grad E: What would one possibly put in such a paper ? +Grad D: What to write about . +Grad A: Or what to write about ? +Grad D: What is our {disfmarker} what 's our take home message . What {disfmarker} what do we actually {disfmarker} Because I mean , it {disfmarker} I don't like papers where you just talk about what you plan to do . I mean , it 's obvious that we can't do any kind of evaluation , and have no {disfmarker} you know , we can't write an ACL type paper where we say , "" OK , we 've done this +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and now we 're whatever percentage better than everybody else "" . You know . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: It 's far too early for that . But uh , we {disfmarker} we can tell them what we think . I mean that 's {disfmarker} never hurts to try . And um , maybe even {disfmarker} That 's maybe the time to introduce the {disfmarker} the new formalism that you guys have cooked up . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Are in the process of {disfmarker} +Grad A: How many pages ? +Grad B: don't they need to finish the formalism ? +Grad D: It 's just like four pages . +Grad A: Four pages ? +Grad D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not even a h +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK , so it 's a little thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: Well , you said it was four thousand lines ? +Grad E: Oh . +Grad B: Is that what you s +Grad A: OK . Four pages is , like , really not very much space . +Grad D: I don't know w Did you look at it ? Yeah , it depends on the format . +Grad E: Oh my gosh . Oh , I thought you were {disfmarker} I thought we were talking about something which was much more like ten or something . +Grad D: No that 's {disfmarker} I mean that 's actually a problem . It 's difficu it 's more difficult to write on four pages than on eight . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: And it 's also difficult to {disfmarker} even if you had a lot of substance , it 's hard to demonstrate that in four pages , basically . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . +Grad E: That would be hard . +Grad A: I mean it 's still {disfmarker} it 's still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well I uh maybe it 's just four thousand lines . I do I don't {disfmarker} They don't want any {disfmarker} They don't have a TeX f style @ @ guide . +Grad A: Uh - huh , uh - huh . +Grad D: They just want ASCII . Pure ASCII lines , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: whatever . Why , for whatever reason , +Grad A: Not including figures and such ? +Grad D: I don't know . I don't know . Very unspecific unfortunately . +Grad A: OK . Well , +Grad D: We 'll just uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would say that 's closer to six pages actually . Four thousand lines of ASCII ? +Grad D: OK then . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Four thousand lines . I mean . Isn't a isn't it about fifty s fifty five , sixty lines to a page ? +Grad D: I d don't quote me on this . This is numbers I {disfmarker} I have from looking o +Grad B: How many characters are on a line ? +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: ASCII ? +Grad D: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} wh wh what should we {disfmarker} should {disfmarker} should we uh , um , discuss this over tea and all of us look at the web ? Oh , I can't . I 'm wizarding today . +Grad A: OK , look at the web page ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad A: Wha - w +Grad D: Look at the web page and let 's talk about it maybe tomorrow afternoon ? +Grad A: More cues for us to find it are like , neural cons +Grad D: Johno will send you a link . +Grad A: Oh , you have a link . OK . OK . +Grad B: I got an email . +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: By the way , Keith is comfortable with us calling him "" cool Keith "" . +Grad A: Oh . Cool . Keith . +Grad E: He {disfmarker} he decided {vocalsound} I 'm chilling in the five - one - O . +Grad A: Cool , "" cool Keith "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Excellent . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: That 's a very cool T - shirt . +Grad E: Thank you . +Grad D: And I 'm also flying {disfmarker} +Grad E: I got this from the two one two . +Grad A: New York ? Excellent . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Yes ? +Grad D: I 'm flying to Sicily next {disfmarker} in a w two weeks from now , +Grad A: Oh , lucky you . +Grad D: w and a week of business in Germany . I should mention that for you . And otherwise you haven't missed much , except for a really weird idea , but you 'll hear about that soon enough . +Grad A: The idea that you and I already know about ? That you already told me ? Not that {disfmarker} OK . +Grad D: No , no , no . Yeah , that is something for the rest of the gang to {disfmarker} to g +Grad E: The thing with the goats and the helicopters ? +Grad D: Change the watchband . It 's time to walk the sheep . +Grad C: like +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Um . Did you catch that allusion ? It 's time to walk the sheep ? +Grad E: No . +Grad D: It 's a a uh presumably one of the Watergate codes they uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . +Grad D: Anyways , th um , um , don't make any plans for spring break next year . That 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad D: That 's the other thing . We 're gonna do an int EDU internal workshop in Sicily . +Grad A: That 's what {disfmarker} That 's what he says . +Grad D: I 've already got the funding . +Grad A: I kn That 's great ! +Grad D: So , I mean . +Grad A: Does that mean {disfmarker} Does that mean you 'll get {disfmarker} you 'll fly us there ? +Grad E: We 'll see . +Grad D: No , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's what it means . +Grad A: Hhh ! OK , cool . Uh - a a +Grad B: And he 'll put us up , too . +Grad E: Huh . +Grad A: I know {disfmarker} I know about that part . I know about the {disfmarker} the almond trees and stuff . Not joking . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: Name a vegetable , OK . {vocalsound} Oh , um , kiwi ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm , too easy . +Grad A: Coconut . +Grad D: Ki +Grad A: Pineapple . See ? Mango ? OK . OK . Too easy ? +Grad D: Too easy . Yeah , mangos go everywhere . +Grad A: Really ? +Grad D: So do kiwi . +Grad A: Oh . OK , but I was trying to find something that he didn't grow on his farm . +Grad D: But coconut anana pineapple , that 's {disfmarker} that 's tricky , yeah . +Grad A: Sorry . Anyway . Cantaloupe . +Grad E: So , but we have to decide what , like , sort of the general idea of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Potatoes . So . Sorry ! +Grad E: Um , I mean , we 're gonna have an example case um , right ? I m the {disfmarker} the point is to {disfmarker} like this "" where is "" case , or something . +Grad D: Yeah , maybe you have {disfmarker} It would be kind of {disfmarker} The paper ha would have , in my vision , a nice flow if we could say , well here is th the {disfmarker} th here is parsing if you wanna do it c right , here is understanding if you wanna do it right , and you know {disfmarker} without going into technical {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But then in the end we 're not doing like those things right yet , right ? Would that be clear in the paper or not ? +Grad D: That would be clear , we would {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: I {disfmarker} I mailed around a little paper that I have {disfmarker} +Grad A: It would be like , this is the idea . Oh , I didn't get that , +Grad D: w we could sort of say , this is {disfmarker} +Grad A: did I ? Oops . Did I ? +Grad D: No , +Grad A: Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Grad B: No , y I don't think you got it . +Grad D: See this , if you if you 're not around , and don't partake in the discussions , and you don't get any email , +Grad A: I 'm sorry . I 'm sorry , I 'm sorry . Sorry . +Grad D: and +Grad A: OK , go on . So parsing done right {vocalsound} is like chicken done right . +Grad D: Su So we could {disfmarker} we could say this is what {disfmarker} what 's sort of state of the art today . Nuh ? +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And say , this is bad . Nuh ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: And then we can say , uh well what we do is this . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: Parsing done right , interpretation done right , example . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . And +Grad A: And how much to get into the cognitive neural part ? +Grad B: That 's the only {disfmarker} That 's the question mark . +Grad D: We +Grad B: Don't you need to reduce it if it 's a {disfmarker} or reduce it , if it 's a cognitive neuro {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well , you don't have t I mean the conference may be cognitive neural , doesn't mean that every paper has to be both . Like , NLP cognitive neural . +Grad D: Yeah , and you can {disfmarker} you can just point to the {disfmarker} to the literature , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: you can say that construction - based You know {disfmarker} +Grad A: So i so this paper wouldn't particularly deal with that side although it could reference the NTL - ish sort of , like , um , approach . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: The fact that the methods here are all compatible with or designed to be compatible with whatever , neurological {disfmarker} neuro neuro - biol su stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Yeah , I guess four pages you could {disfmarker} I mean you could definitely {disfmarker} it 's definitely possible to do it . It 's just {disfmarker} It 'd just be small . Like introducing the formalism might be not really possible in detail , but you can use an example of it . +Grad E: Well , l looking at {disfmarker} yeah , looking at that paper that {disfmarker} that you had , I mean you know , like , you didn't really explain in detail what was going on in the XML cases or whatever you just sorta said well , you know , here 's the general idea , some stuff gets put in there . You know , hopefully you can {disfmarker} you can say something like constituents tells you what the construction is made out of , you know , without going into this intense detail . +Grad A: Yeah , yeah . So it be like using the formalism rather than you know , introducing it per se . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So . +Grad E: Give them the one paragraph whirlwind tour of w w what this is for , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And people will sort of figure out or ask about the bits that are implicit . +Grad D: Yeah . So this will be sort of documenting what we think , and documenting what we have in terms of the Bayes - net stuff . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And since there 's never a bad idea to document things , no ? +Grad A: That 's th that 's definitely a good idea . +Grad D: That would be my , uh {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we should sketch out the details maybe tomorrow afternoon - ish , if everyone is around . I don't know . You probably wouldn't be part of it . +Grad E: I think so . +Grad D: Maybe you want ? Think about it . Um , You may {disfmarker} may ruin your career forever , if you appear . +Grad B: Yeah , you might get blacklisted . +Grad D: And um , the uh , other thing , yeah we actually {disfmarker} Have we made any progress on what we decided , uh , last week ? I 'm sure you read the transcript of last week 's meeting in red so sh so you 're up to dated {disfmarker} caught up . +Grad A: No . Sorry . +Grad D: We decided t that we 're gonna take a "" where is something "" question , and pretend we have parsed it , and see what we could possibly hope to observe on the discourse side . +Grad B: Remember I came in and I started asking you about how we were sor going to sort out the uh , decision nodes ? +Grad A: Yes ! What 'd you say ? +Grad B: I remember you talking to me , just not what you said . +Grad A: I do remember you talking to me . Um , a few more bits . +Grad B: Well , there was like we needed to {disfmarker} or uh , in my opinion we need to design a Bayes {disfmarker} another sub - Bayes - net {disfmarker} You know , it was whether {disfmarker} it was whether we would have a Bayes - net on the output and on the input , +Grad A: Oh . +Grad B: or whether the construction was gonna be in the Bayes - net , +Grad A: Oh , yeah . OK . +Grad B: a and outside of it , +Grad A: OK . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So that was {disfmarker} was that the question ? Was that what {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well that was related to what we were talking about . +Grad D: Should I introduce it as SUDO - square ? +Grad B: Yeah sure . +Grad D: We have to put this in the paper . If we write it . This is {disfmarker} this is my only constraint . The {disfmarker} th So . The SUDO - square {nonvocalsound} is , {vocalsound} "" Situation "" , "" User "" , "" Discourse "" , right ? "" Ontology "" . +Grad E: Oh I saw the diagram in the office , +Grad A: Oh my god , that 's amazing ! +Grad D: Mmm . Yeah . Whatever . +Grad A: No way . +Grad E: Way ! +Grad D: Is it ? +Grad A: Someone 's gonna start making Phil Collins jokes . +Grad D: Yeah . Hmm ? +Grad A: Sorry . +Grad B: What ? +Grad E: Oh , god , I hope not . +Grad A: You guys are too young . +Grad E: You know like "" Sussudio "" , +Grad A: Yeah , come on . +Grad E: that horrible , horrible song that should never have been created . +Grad B: Oh , oh , oh , oh . +Grad A: I know , that was horrible . Sussudio . +Grad B: I 've blocked every aspect of Phil Collins out of my mind . +Grad C: What ? +Grad A: I 'm sorry , I haven't . Not on purpose . +Grad E: in here +Grad D: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Well , also he 's talking about suicide , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's not a notion I wanna have evoked . +Grad A: No , he 's not . Really ? +Grad D: He is . +Grad A: Oops . {comment} I didn't really listen to it , +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad A: I was too young . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: Anyway . +Grad E: It sounds too rocking for that . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Anyway . So , what 's going on here ? So what are {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +Grad D: So , +Grad E: Was wollte der Kuenstler uns damit sagen ? +Grad A: Stop excluding me . +Grad D: OK , so we have tons of little things here , +Grad A: I can't believe that that 's never been thought of before . +Grad D: and we 've +Grad B: Wait , what are the dots ? I don't remember what the dots were . +Grad E: Those are little bugs . +Grad A: Cool Keith . +Grad D: OK . +Grad A: +Grad D: You know , these are our , whatever , belief - net decision nodes , and they all contribute to these {pause} {nonvocalsound} things down here . +Grad B: Oh , oh . +Grad A: Wait , wait , what 's the middle thing ? +Grad D: That 's EDU . +Grad E: That 's a c +Grad D: e e Our e e e +Grad A: But wh I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: You . We . Us . +Grad A: But what is it ? +Grad D: Well , in the moment it 's a Bayes - net . And it has sort of fifty not - yet - specified interfaces . OK . Eh {pause} I have taken care that we actually can build little interfaces , {nonvocalsound} to other modules that will tell us whether the user likes these things and , n the {disfmarker} or these things , and he {disfmarker} whether he 's in a wheelchair or not , +Grad A: OK . Is that supposed to be the international sign for interface ? +Grad D: I think so , yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . OK . +Grad B: I 'd {disfmarker} I 'd never seen it before either . +Grad A: OK . Just t Cool . +Grad D: Mmm . So . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Cuz things fit onto that , see ? +Grad A: Cool . +Grad E: In a vaguely obscene fashion . +Grad D: No , this is a RME core by agent design , I don't know . +Grad A: That 's so great . +Grad D: There 's maybe a different +Grad E: So wait , what a what are these letters again , Situr - {comment} Situation , User , Discourse and +Grad D: Situation , user , d ontology . +Grad A: User ? +Grad E: Ontology . +Grad A: What about the utterance ? +Grad C: Discourse . +Grad D: That 's here . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , discourse . So that 's not like context , OK . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Discourse is all things linguistic , yeah . +Grad D: So this {disfmarker} this includes the {disfmarker} the current utterance plus all the previous utterances . +Grad A: Interesting , uh - huh . User . +Grad D: And for example w i s I Irena Gurevich is going to be here eh , end of July . +Grad A: User . +Grad D: She 's a new linguist working for EML . And what she would like to do for example is great for us . She would like to take the ent ontolog +Grad C: Ouch . +Grad D: So , we have discussed in terms of the EVA {disfmarker} +Grad A: Grateful for us ? +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you just say grateful for us ? OK , sorry . Anyway . +Grad D: Think of {disfmarker} back at the EVA vector , and Johno coming up with the idea that if the person discussed the {disfmarker} discussed the admission fee , in {disfmarker} eh previously , that might be a good indication that , "" how do I get to the castle ? "" , actually he wants to enter . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or , you know , "" how do I get to X ? "" discussing the admission fee in the previous utterance , is a good indication . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: +Grad D: So we don't want a hard code , a set of lexemes , or things , that person 's you know , sort of filter , or uh search the discourse history . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So what would be kind of cool is that if we encounter concepts that are castle , tower , bank , hotel , we run it through the ontology , and the ontology tells us it has um , admission , opening times , it has admission fees , it has this , it has that , and then we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we make a thesaurus lexicon , look up , and then search dynamically through the uh , discourse history for {pause} occurrences of these things in a given window of utterances . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And that might , you know , give us additional input to belief A versus B . Or E versus A . +Grad A: So it 's not just a particular word 's {disfmarker} OK , so the {disfmarker} you 're looking for a few keys that you know are cues to {disfmarker} sorry , a few specific cues to some intention . +Grad B: You can dynamically look up keys , yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Uh , so , wait {disfmarker} so um , since this {disfmarker} since this sort of technical stuff is going over my head , +Grad B: And then grep , basically . +Grad E: the {disfmarker} the point is that you uh {disfmarker} that when someone 's talking about a castle , you know that it 's the sort of thing that people are likely to wanna go into ? Or , is it the fact that if there 's an admission fee , then one of the things we know about admission fees is that you pay them in order to go in ? And then the idea of entering is active in the discourse or something ? And then +Grad D: Well +Grad E: blah - blah - blah ? +Grad D: the {disfmarker} the idea is even more general . +Grad E: I mean . +Grad D: The idea is to say , we encounter a certain entity in a {disfmarker} in a in a utterance . So le let 's look up everything we {disfmarker} the ontology gives us about that entity , what stuff it does , what roles it has , what parts , whatever it has . Functions . And , then we look in the discourse , whether any of that , or any surface structure corresponding to these roles , functions aaa {comment} has ever occurred . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad D: And then , the discourse history can t tell us , "" yeah "" , or "" no "" . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And then it 's up for us to decide what to do with it . t So i +Grad E: OK . So {disfmarker} No , go ahead . +Grad D: So , we may think that if you say um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} "" where is the theater "" , um , whether or not he has talked about tickets before , then we {disfmarker} he 's probably wanna go there to see something . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Or "" where is the opera in Par - Paris ? , +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: yeah ? Lots of people go to the opera to take pictures of it and to look at it , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: and lots of people go to attend a performance . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And , the discourse can maybe tell us w what 's more likely if we know what to look for in previous statements . And so we can hard code "" for opera , look for tickets , look for this , look for that , +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad D: or look for Mozart , look for thi "" but the smarter way is to go via the ontology and dynamically , then look up u stuff . +Grad E: OK . But you 're still doing look up so that when the person {disfmarker} So the point is that when the person says , "" where is it ? "" then you sort of say , let 's go back and look at other things and then decide , rather than the other possibility which is that {pause} all through discourse as they talk about different things {disfmarker} You know like w prior to the "" where is it "" question they say , you know , "" how much does it cost to get in , you know , to {disfmarker} to see a movie around here "" , um , {vocalsound} "" where is the closest theater "" {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is that by mentioning admission fees , that just sort of stays active now . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: You know . That becomes part of like , their sort of current ongoing active conceptual structure . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And then , um , over in your Bayes - net or whatever , when {disfmarker} when the person says "" where is it "" , you 've already got , you know since they were talking about admission , and that evokes the idea of entering , um , then when they go and ask "" where is it "" , then you 're Enter node is already active +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: because that 's what the person is thinking about . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean that 's the sort of cognitive linguistic - y way , +Grad D: Yeah , e ultimately that 's also what we wanna get at . +Grad E: and probably not practical . +Grad D: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's the correct way . So , of course we have to keep memory of what was the last intention , and how does it fit to this , and what does it tell us , in terms of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're examining . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: And furthermore , I mean we can idealize that , you know , people don't change topics , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: but they do . But , even th for that , there is a student of ours who 's doing a dialogue act um , recognition module . +Grad E: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: So , maybe , we 're even in a position where we can take your approach , which is of course much better , as to say how {disfmarker} how do these pieces {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . And much harder to r program . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: And much harder to p to program . +Grad D: Yeah . How {disfmarker} how do these pieces fit together ? Uh - huh . And um . But , OK , nevertheless . So these are issues but we {disfmarker} what we actually decided last week , is to , and this is , again , for your benefit {disfmarker} is to um , pretend we have observed and parsed an utterance such as "" where is the Powder - Tower "" , or "" where is the zoo "" , and specify um , what {disfmarker} what we think the {disfmarker} the output uh , observe , out {disfmarker} i input nodes for our Bayes - nets for the sub sub - D , for the discourse bit , should be . So that {disfmarker} And I will {disfmarker} I will then {comment} {vocalsound} come up with the ontology side uh , bits and pieces , so that we can say , OK we {disfmarker} we always just look at this utterance . That 's the only utterance we can do , it 's hard coded , like Srini , sort of hand parsed , hand crafted , but this is what we hope to be able to observe in general from utterances , and from ontologies , and then we can sort of fiddle with these things to see what it actually produces , in terms of output . +Grad E: Uh +Grad D: So we need to find out what the "" where is X "" construction will give us in terms of semantics and {vocalsound} Simspec type things . +Grad A: Just {disfmarker} OK . Just "" where is X "" ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Or any variants of that . +Grad D: Yeah . No ! Um , look at it this way , i Yeah . What did we decide . We decided sort of the {disfmarker} the prototypical "" where is X "" , where you know , we don't really know , does he wanna go there , or just wanna know where it is . +Grad E: Well we were +Grad D: So the difference of "" where is the railway station "" , versus where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} "" where is Greenland "" . Nuh ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Uh s I was just dancing , sorry . +Grad D: We 're not videotaping any of this . So . +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} ah {disfmarker} +Grad E: So , um , we 're supposed to {disfmarker} I mean we 're talking about sort of anything that has the semantics of request for location , right ? actually ? Or , I mean , anyway , the node in the uh {disfmarker} the ultimate , uh , in {disfmarker} in the Bayes - net thing when you 're done , the {disfmarker} the node that we 're talking about um , is one that says "" request for location , true "" , or something like that , right ? Um , and {disfmarker} and exactly how that gets activated , you know , like whether we want the sentence "" how do I get there ? "" to activate that node or not , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of the issue that sort of the linguistic - y side has to deal with , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , but it {disfmarker} Yea - Nnn Well actually more {disfmarker} m more the other way around . We wanted something that represents uncertainty uh we in terms of going there or just wanting to know where it is , for example . Some generic information . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: And so this is prototypically @ @ found in the "" where is something "" question , surface structure , +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: We +Grad D: which can be p you know , should be maps to something that activates both . I mean the idea is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: I don't {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright , OK . +Grad B: Hhh . I guess . I don't {disfmarker} +Grad D: let 's have it fit nicely with the paper . +Grad B: I don't see unde how we would be able to distinguish between the two intentions just from the g utterance , though . +Grad D: The {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , uh bef or , before we don't {disfmarker} before we cranked it through the Bayes - net . I mean . +Grad D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we wouldn't . That 's exactly what we want . +Grad B: We would ? +Grad D: We want to get {disfmarker} No . We wouldn't . +Grad B: OK , but then so basically it 's just a {disfmarker} for every construction we have a node in the net , right ? And we turn on that node . +Grad D: Yeah . What {disfmarker} what is this gonna {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oy . +Grad D: Exactly . What is the uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad B: And then given that we know that {pause} the construction {pause} has these two things , we can set up probabilities {disfmarker} we can s basically define all the tables for ev for those {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it should be {disfmarker} So we have um , i let 's assume we {disfmarker} we call something like a loc - X node and a path - X node . And what we actually get if we just look at the discourse , "" where is X "" should activate or should {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Hmm . Should be both , whereas maybe "" where is X located "" , we find from the data , is always just asked when the person wants to know where it is , and "" how do I get to "" is always asked when the person just wants to know how to get there . Right ? So we want to sort of come up with what gets uh , input , and how inter in case of a "" where is "" question . So what {disfmarker} what would the outcome of {disfmarker} of your parser look like ? And , what other discourse information from the discourse history could we hope to get , squeeze out of that utterance ? So define the {disfmarker} the input into the Bayes - net {vocalsound} based on what the utterance , "" where is X "" , gives us . So definitely have an Entity node here which is activated via the ontology , +Grad A: s +Grad D: so "" where is X "" produces something that is s stands for X , whether it 's castle , bank , restroom , toilet , whatever . And then the ontology will tell us {disfmarker} +Grad A: That it has a location or something like that ? {disfmarker} or th the ontology will tell us where actually it is located ? +Grad D: No . Not at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: Where it is located , we have , a user proximity node here somewhere , +Grad A: OK . OK . +Grad D: e which tells us how far the user {disfmarker} how far away the user is in respect to that uh entity . +Grad A: OK . So you 're talking about , for instance , the construction obviously involves this entity or refers {disfmarker} refers to this entity , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and from the construction also you know that it is a location {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} or a thing {disfmarker} thing that can be located . Right ? Ontology says this thing has a location slot . Sh - and that 's the thing that is being {disfmarker} that is the content of the question that 's being queried by one interpretation of "" where is X "" . And another one is , um , path from current {disfmarker} user current location to {comment} that location . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So . So is the question {disfmarker} I mean it 's just that I 'm not sure what the {disfmarker} Is the question , for this particular construction how we specify that that 's the information it provides ? Or {disfmarker} or asked for ? b Both sides , right ? +Grad D: Yeah , you don't need to even do that . It 's just sort of what {vocalsound} what would be @ @ {comment} observed in uh {disfmarker} in that case . +Grad A: Observed when you heard the speaker say "" where is X "" , or when {disfmarker} when that 's been parsed ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So these little circles you have by the D ? Is that {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +Grad D: That 's exactly what we 're looking for . +Grad B: I d I just {disfmarker} I don't like having {disfmarker} characterizing the constructions with location and path , or li characterizing them like that . Cuz you don't {disfmarker} It seems like in the general case you wouldn't know how {disfmarker} how to characterize them . +Grad D: You wouldn't . +Grad B: I mean {disfmarker} or , for when . There could be an interpretation that we don't have a node for in the {disfmarker} I mean it just seems like @ @ has to have uh {disfmarker} a node for the construction and then let the chips fall where they may . Versus uh , saying , this construction either can mean location or path . And , in this cas and since {disfmarker} since it can mean either of those things , it would light both of those up . +Grad D: It 's the same . +Grad B: Thoughts ? Questions ? +Grad E: I 'm thinking about it . +Grad D: It will be the same . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: So I think r in here we have "" I 'll go there "" , right ? +Grad B: Answers ? +Grad D: And we have our Info - on . So in my c my case , this would sort of make this {pause} happy , and this would make the Go - there happy . What you 're saying is we have a Where - X question , Where - X node , that makes both happy . Right ? That 's what you 're proposing , which is , in my mind just as fine . So w if we have a construction {pause} node , "" where is X "" , it 's gonna both get the po posterior probability that {disfmarker} it 's Info - on up , +Grad B: Mmm , yeah . +Grad D: Info - on is True - up , and that Go - there is True - up , as well . Which would be exactly analogous to what I 'm proposing is , this makes {disfmarker} uh makes something here true , and this makes something {disfmarker} also something here true , and this makes this True - up , and this makes this True - up as well . +Grad E: I kinda like it better without that extra level of indirection too . You know with {disfmarker} with this points to this points to that , and so on because {vocalsound} I don't know , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: Is - uh , +Grad D: Yeah , because we get {disfmarker} we get tons of constructions I think . Because , you know , mmm people have many ways of asking for the same thing , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , sure . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} +Grad A: So un +Grad B: I change I changed my mind actually . +Grad A: So I agree with that . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I have a different kinda question , might be related , which is , OK so implicitly everything in EDU , we 're always inferring the speaker intent , right ? Like , what they want either , the information that they want , or {disfmarker} It 's always information that they want probably , of some kind . Right ? Or I {disfmarker} I don't know , or what 's something that they {disfmarker} +Grad D: The system doesn't massage you , no . No . +Grad A: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} OK . So , um , let 's see . So I don't know if the {disfmarker} I mean i if th just there 's more s here that 's not shown that you {disfmarker} it 's already like part of the system whatever , but , "" where is X "" , like , the fact that it is , you know , a speech - act , whatever , it is a question . It 's a question that , um , queries on some particular thing X , and X is that location . There 's , like , a lot of structure in representing that . +Grad D: Yep . Yeah . +Grad A: So that seems different from just having the node "" location - X "" and that goes into EDU , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . {vocalsound} Precisely . That 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: So tha is that what you 're t talking about ? +Grad D: So , w Exactly . We have su we have specified two . +Grad A: wh what kinds of structure we want . +Grad D: OK , the next one would be here , just for mood . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: The next one would be what we can squeeze out of the uh I don't know , maybe we wanna observe the uh , um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh the length of {disfmarker} of the words used , and , or the prosody +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: and g a and t make conclusions about the user 's intelligence . +Grad A: OK . So in some ways {disfmarker} +Grad D: I don't know , +Grad A: um , so in some ways in the other sort of parallel set of mo more linguistic meetings we 've been talking about possible semantics of some construction . +Grad D: yeah . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Right ? Where it was the simulation that 's , according to it {disfmarker} you know , that {disfmarker} that corresponds to it , and as well the {disfmarker} as discourse , whatever , conte infor in discourse information , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: such as the mood , and , you know , other stuff . So , are we looking for a sort of abbreviation of that , that 's tailored to this problem ? Cuz that {disfmarker} that has , you know , basically , you know , s it 's in progress still it 's in development still , but it definitely has various feature slots , attributes , um , bindings between things {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . U that 's exactly r um , why I 'm proposing {disfmarker} It 's too early to have {disfmarker} to think of them {disfmarker} of all of these discourse things that one could possibly observe , +Grad A: Uh - huh . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so let 's just assume +Grad A: For the subset of {disfmarker} +Grad D: human beings are not allowed to ask anything but "" where is X "" . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: This is the only utterance in the world . What could we observe from that ? +Grad A: OK . That exactly "" where is X "" , +Grad D: In ter +Grad A: not the {disfmarker} the choices of "" where is X "" or "" how do I get to X "" . Just "" where is X "" . +Grad D: Just {disfmarker} just "" where is X "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: And , but you know , do it {disfmarker} do it in such a way that we know that people can also say , "" is the town hall in front of the bank "" , so that we need something like a w WH focus . Nuh ? Should be {disfmarker} should be there , that , you know , this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} whatever we get from the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Wait , so do , or do not take other kinds of constructions into account ? +Grad D: Well , if you {disfmarker} if you can , oh definitely do , +Grad A: OK . Where possible . OK . +Grad D: where possible . Right ? If i if {disfmarker} if it 's not at all triggered by our thing , then it 's irrelevant , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and it doesn't hurt to leave it out for the moment . Um , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK . Um , it seems like for instance , "" where is X "" , the fact that it might mean um , "" tell me how to get to X "" , like {disfmarker} Do y So , would you wanna say that those two are both , like {disfmarker} Those are the two interpretations , right ? the {disfmarker} the ones that are location or path . So , you could say that the s construction is a question asking about this location , and then you can additionally infer , if they 're asking about the location , it 's because they wanna go to that place , in which case , the {disfmarker} you 're jumping a step {disfmarker} step and saying , "" oh , I know where it is +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: but I also know how to get {disfmarker} they wanna seem {disfmarker} they seem to wanna get there so I 'm gonna tell them "" . So there 's like structure +Grad E: Right , th this {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that this is sort of like semantically ambiguous between these two . +Grad A: i do you kn sort of uh , that {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It 's really about this but why would you care about this ? Well , it 's because you also want to know this , or something like that right ? +Grad A: So it 's like you infer the speaker intent , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and then infer a plan , a larger plan from that , for which you have the additional information , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: you 're just being extra helpful . +Grad D: Yep . +Grad A: Um . +Grad D: Think {disfmarker} Uh , well this is just a mental exercise . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad D: If you think about , focus on this question , how would you design {pause} that ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Is it {disfmarker} do you feel confident about saying this is part of the language already to {disfmarker} to detect those plans , and why would anyone care about location , if not , you know and so forth . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad D: Or do you actually , I mean this is perfectly legitimate , and I {disfmarker} I would not have any problems with erasing this and say , that 's all we can activate , based on the utterance out of context . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . And just by an additional link {disfmarker} Oh . +Grad D: What ? +Grad A: Right , +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: like , +Grad D: And then the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the miracle that we get out the intention , Go - there , happens , based on what we know about that entity , about the user , about his various beliefs , goals , desires , blah - blah - blah . +Grad A: with context and enough user information , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad D: Absolutely fine . But this is the sort of thing , I {disfmarker} I propose that we think about , +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: so that we actually end up with um , um , nodes for the discourse and ontology so that we can put them into our Bayes - net , never change them , so we {disfmarker} all there is is "" where is X "" , and , Eva can play around with the observed things , and we can run our better JavaBayes , and have it produce some output . And for the first time in th in {disfmarker} in the world , we look at our output , and um {disfmarker} and see uh whether it {disfmarker} it 's any good . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: You know ? I mean , +Grad E: Here 's hoping . +Grad D: Hmm ? +Grad E: Here 's hoping . Right ? Now cross your fingers . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I mean , for me this is just a ba matter of curiosity , I wanna {disfmarker} would like to look at uh , what this ad - hoc process of designing a belief - net would actually produce . +Grad E: Yeah . {comment} Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad D: If {disfmarker} if we ask it where is something . And , maybe it also h enables you to think about certain things more specifically , um , come up with interesting questions , to which you can find interesting answers . And , additionally it might fit in really nicely with the paper . Because if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want an example for the paper , I suggest there it is . +Grad E: Um - hmm . Yeah . +Grad D: So th this might be a nice opening paragraph for the paper as saying , "" you know people look at kinds of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} at ambiguities "" , and um , in the literature there 's "" bank "" and whatever kinds of garden path phenomenon . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And we can say , well , that 's all nonsense . A , A , uh these things are never really ambiguous in discourse , B , B , don't ever occur really in discourse , but normal statements that seem completely unambiguous , such as "" where is the blah - blah "" , actually are terribly complex , and completely ambiguous . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: And so , what every everybody else has been doing so far in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} you know , has been completely nonsensical , and can all go into the wastepaper bin , and the only {disfmarker} +Grad E: That 's always a good way to begin . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the only {disfmarker} +Grad B: I am great . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: All others are useless . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's good . +Grad D: Nice overture , but , you know , just not really {disfmarker} OK , I 'm eja exaggerating , but that might be , you know , saying "" hey "" , you know , some stuff is {disfmarker} is actually complex , if you look at it in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the vacuum +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and {disfmarker} and ceases to be complex in reality . And some stuff that 's as {disfmarker} that 's absolutely straightforward in the vacuum , is actually terribly complex in reality . Would be nice sort of , uh , also , nice , um bottom - up linguistics , um , type message . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . True . +Grad D: Versus the old top - down school . I 'm running out of time . OK . +Grad B: When do you need to start wizarding ? +Grad D: At four ten . OK , this is the other bit of news . The subjects today know Fey , so she can't be here , and do the wizarding . So I 'm gonna do the wizarding +Grad E: Huh . +Grad D: and Thilo 's gonna do the instructing . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad D: Also we 're getting a {disfmarker} a person who just got fired uh , from her job . Uh a person from Oakland who is interested in maybe continuing the wizard bit once Fey leaves in August . And um , she 's gonna look at it today . Which is good news in the sense that if we want to continue , after the thir thir after July , we can . We could . And , um {disfmarker} and that 's also maybe interesting for Keith and whoever , if you wanna get some more stuff into the data collection . Remember this , we can completely change the set - up any time we want . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . OK . +Grad D: Look at the results we 've gotten so far for the first , whatever , fifty some subjects ? +Grad A: Fifty ? You 've had fifty so far , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad D: No , we 're approaching twenty now . +Grad A: OK . +Grad D: But , until Fey is leaving , we surely will hit the {disfmarker} some of the higher numbers . +Grad A: Yeah . Hmm . +Grad D: And um , so that 's cool . Can a do more funky stuff . +Grad E: Sure . Yeah , I 'll have to look more into that data . Is that around ? Like , cuz that 's pretty much getting posted or something right away when you get it ? +Grad D: Um . +Grad E: Or {disfmarker} ? I guess it has to be transcribed , huh ? +Grad D: We have uh , eh found someone here who 's hand st hand transcribing the first twelve . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: First dozen subjects +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad D: just so we can build a {disfmarker} a language model for the recognizer . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: But , um {disfmarker} So those should be available soon . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: The first twelve . And I can ch ch st e +Grad E: You know {disfmarker} I mean you know that I {disfmarker} that I looked at the first {disfmarker} the first one and got enough data to keep me going for , you know , probably most of July . So . {vocalsound} But , um . Yeah , a probably not the right way to do it actually . +Grad D: But you can listen to {disfmarker} a y y y You can listen to all of them from your Solaris box . +Grad E: OK . +Grad D: If you want . +Grad E: Right . +Grad D: It 's always fun . +","Grad E, Grad B, Grad D, Grad C, and Grad A discuss their interpretations and understanding of a hypothetical user asking a system the question ""Where is X?"". They deliberate over how a computational system could decipher such an ambiguous question—whether the user wants to know the location of X or directions to X. They also consider the potential use of an AI-generated decision-making model (Bayesian network) to output an accurate response to the user's query by integrating variables like user information (if they're in a wheelchair), prior discourse, and entity ontology (properties related to X). + +Grad D mentions travel plans, including visiting Sicily and Germany for various meetings and picking up his son. Grad E and Grad B bring up the idea of seeing fireworks while flying back on the Fourth of July. Grad D also discusses an abnormal concept brought up by a German project manager that might be of interest to Grad E, who thinks their projects are not weird enough. This new concept involves getting an AI system to produce questions and enter into a dialogue with itself, something Grad E suggests is more akin to a schizophrenic computer. + +There's also discussion about a German project manager favoring their work and planning to visit to work with them. The conversation touches on generating a system that understands and produces content, dealing with the complexities of language generation and understanding. They consider bringing in external participants for collaborative research efforts. + +Towards the end, they shift attention to drafting a paper, considering what to write about and how to incorporate interdisciplinary elements that cover cognitive, neuroscientific, and computer science perspectives. They conclude planning to flesh out details for the paper and to explore more about their project data, along with other logistical topics like continuing data collection after one of their team members, Fey, leaves." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? +Darren Millar AM: Yes, I have a declaration of interest, Chair. I understand that my daughter features in one of the videos that is going to be used to contribute evidence to this inquiry. And, in addition, I'm a governor of one of the schools that features in the video. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you, Darren. So, item 2, then, today is our first session on the provision of textbooks and learning resources for pupils, which is a video of interviews with young people and teachers. The committee team has been out to take video evidence around Wales, and we're now going to watch the results of that on the screen. Okay. Well, I'm sure that the committee would want me to place on record our thanks to the young people and the teachers who took part in that very helpful and informative video. We'll move on now then to our evidence session, and I'm very pleased to welcome Gareth Pierce, chief executive of the WJEC, Mike Ebbsworth, assistant director educational support, WJEC, Philip Blaker, chief executive of Qualifications Wales, and Emyr George, associate director general qualifications at Qualifications Wales. So, thank you all of you for attending and thank you for the papers that you provided in advance as well. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions now, and if I can just start by asking you to outline what you see as your role in ensuring that students and teachers in Wales have the resources that they need to pass general qualifications and what you think the role of commercial publishers and Welsh Government is. +Philip Blaker: Shall I start? So, Qualifications Wales is the regulator of the awarding bodies, so we regulate awarding bodies. Our powers are structured around the regulating of awarding bodies. We don't regulate commercial publishers nor the provision of textbooks within that. In regulating the awarding body, our primary focus is also on the design of the qualifications and then the delivery of the assessment. So, it's much more around the assessment side than teaching resources. That said, when we are going through the design of the qualifications, we go through an approval process, so we develop approval criteria and we ask WJEC to submit their specifications against those approval criteria and sample assessment materials as well. So, our focus is very much on making sure that teachers are able, through the sample assessment materials and the specifications, to have a good understanding of what is going to be expected of them in the examinations and of their pupils in the examinations. So, that's setting out the knowledge, skills and understandings that will be assessed by WJEC when those exams are sat. We have in the past pulled together groups of people to look at issues like resources. So, during the last round of approvals, we pulled together interested parties in Welsh Government, regional consortia and WJEC to look at resources that would be available with a view to facilitating the discussion about who would be best placed to fill the gaps where there may be perceived to be gaps in resources. Our other primary role is in maintaining standards. So, as the regulator of qualifications, what we want to do is we want to make that the awards of qualifications—so, the grades that people get—are fair. One of the things we do is set out the way in which the awarding bodies will set grades—so, the awarding process, the methods that will be used—and then we monitor WJEC's award of grades against those processes. During a period of change, we prescribe the use of comparable outcomes as the primary approach, largely because comparable outcomes are designed for circumstances like this, where there's a change in a specification particularly, because there are any number of reasons, including resources, why performance may be different from one year to the next, but comparable outcomes is there to ensure that, all things being equal, if the cohorts have the same ability, the same grade should be awarded from one year to the next. We do recognise that there have been delays in textbooks. Much of that has been related to the timelines that we've all had to deliver new specifications against, which have been far from ideal for everybody involved. We think that particularly our role moving forward will be looking at the timelines for reforms that will be necessary for the new curriculum to make sure that this situation isn't repeated and that there is sufficient time in future reforms to allow for greater system readiness. In terms of the roles of others, Welsh Government have a role at the moment in terms of grant funding of translation of materials into Welsh medium. And there is, through the common model at the moment—and this is a model that is common between England and Wales—a reliance on commercial publishers to provide textbooks. Now, that's something that probably needs to be looked at in the future in terms of potential different models for how that might be achieved and also, potentially, around a paradigm shift in what's expected of those materials. So, I think that sets out Qualification Wales's position in particular. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. The WJEC does provide what's required in a regulatory sense, and there are two things there—the specification, which tends to be very comprehensive in providing guidance in terms of drawing up a programme of teaching, and also exemplar assessments, which include marking, and those go to the regulator before they are published. So, those samples go to the regulator. The WJEC also do invest a great deal in resources that we produce digitally in both languages simultaneously. Each new course has substantial teaching guidance, which includes a great deal of useful information for teachers and pupils. And we run a professional development programme for teachers that is free of charge when courses are new, and then annually there is some charge for those events. They are face-to-face events, or, increasingly, they are webinars. The WJEC also encourages publishers to take an interest in providing textbooks. We don't have a commercial agreement with publishers. Indeed, the regulations as they stand in Wales, Northern Ireland and England preclude examination bodies from having commercial links with providers of textbooks, but that is something that emerges from the three-nation regime that existed in terms of qualifications. So, that is one point that we noted as something that needs to be considered for Wales as we move forward, whether it would be possible—. As we are not talking about examination boards competing with each other in Wales for GCSE and A-levels, in passing, that is something that I would want to suggest may deserve review. We encourage publishers to take an interest. At the moment, these tend to be England-based—Hodder Education and Illuminate Education, for example—and then the Welsh Government does provide funding to the WJEC to support the process of providing Welsh-language versions for those textbooks. So, we use that funding to provide editorial support to the process, and also to pay for translation costs, and we give significant guidance in terms of terminology. We have a language services team including excellent editors and translators within the WJEC, and we work closely with external translators too, and we use translation technology increasingly, which facilitates a great many things. Beyond that, I think the WJEC does see the need for flexibility, particularly when difficulties arise, and you heard there of some of the methods used by Mike and others to get digital resources available earlier than the print versions. And I should also note perhaps that, as the WJEC is very much involved with stakeholders, we feel that we do have a contribution to make in terms of ideas for the future. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We heard in the video that teachers are spending a lot of their time actually translating materials. What is your view on that as a good use of teachers' time in Wales? +Gareth Pierce: I think the question of translation is an interesting one. There was talk about pupils translating and teachers translating. I think perhaps we need to understand what causes the need for that because, as I mentioned earlier, there are so many resources available digitally in both languages at the same time. Perhaps an interesting question is: is that source useful for teachers, being able to draw resources from two sources? Another interesting question, I think, is—. The Welsh language, of course, is a language that is used in an educational context, but we are in a big world that's an English language world. I'm very aware that many of the websites we refer to in our resources and many of the case studies, as was mentioned in that video—they are available in English only. Therefore, I think another interesting question is: can we discover what those additional resources are that are worth translating? And, certainly, it would be very unfortunate if there were a dozen Welsh-medium schools, for example, translating material from the same website independently of each other. If there are a few websites, or a few case studies, in this big external digital world that are worth translating, shouldn't we able to source those early? Because I don't think it's a good use of teachers' time. But I also think that the use of both languages is an interesting one. What is the vision in terms of teaching in a Welsh-medium class, in particular, perhaps, in the A-level classes? I'm sure that some teachers feel that there is a way of enriching the teaching by referring to terms in both languages, as well as explaining those terms in their own language. But the impression I got from the video was that there was quite a lot of mechanical translating happening, and perhaps there is a need to understand more of the context. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just to pick up on your point on the additional materials, whose role would it be to asses this or to take that overview, and then to respond to the demand? +Gareth Pierce: Mike, in the WJEC, has conversations about resources in the team he's part of. +Mike Ebbsworth: Yes. That is extremely important—to identify, as Gareth has just said, those materials that need to be translated, and not everything needs to. We've made a lot of use recently of speaking with teachers and the consortia, and ensuring then that we are focusing on those things that need that attention. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But would you—? The question I'm asking is: would you still see that as a core part of your work, although it's not necessarily essential in terms of the provision that you're required to provide? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, we invest substantially from the WJEC budget into digital resources. So, through the types of conversations that Mike mentioned, in terms of identifying needs, deciding on priorities with teachers in individual subject areas, that can provide very useful information for us in terms of prioritisation. Of course, the digital packages that we create are already based on conversations with teachers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, it's already happening to a certain extent. +Gareth Pierce: Well, yes, but we could always go a step further. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do we need further resources for that? +Gareth Pierce: Well, it's an interesting question. The WJEC is doing as much as we can— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Why isn't it happening to the extent that it needs to happen, then? +Gareth Pierce: One can always do more, of course. The WJEC is trying to use its budget prudently, and most of our funding comes from payments made by schools and colleges in terms of taking assessments. So, we do have a budget, but it's not a bottomless pit. So, we do need to make choices within the substantial budget we have in terms of the work that Mike is undertaking. +Mike Ebbsworth: There is a need to be careful as well in identifying resources and needs, and that those are suited towards the requirements. Quite often a teacher—and I've been a teacher myself—has this idea that there is a need to have everything. But, certainly, that's not always the case. Quite often, the focus is on different things. There has been a move towards different means of assessment over recent years, and we've moved our resources towards that to meet the needs of teachers on how to undertake that sort of assessment. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in on any of this? +Philip Blaker: I'm just going to say one thing. Teachers will want to be creative in the use of resources, and, in doing that, they'll potentially want to adapt resources from either language. I think one of the things that we would be quite keen to try and establish moving forward is what is the common core that should by default be available bilingually, and then what sits around that that would be for schools to use creatively and adapt. And what I wouldn't want to see is a default position where all materials were bilingual—a wide range of resources that might be created from all sorts of diverse, different channels—because that may inhibit the creation of some of those materials that may be more creative, which could then be used by teachers as they see appropriate. But I think it is reasonable to expect for that core, common body of knowledge to be available bilingually by default, and for teachers not to have to spend time translating that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. A final question from me, then. The £500,000 funding for Welsh-medium educational resource that's in the budget for 2018-19—are you able to share any information with the committee as to how that's going to be spent? +Gareth Pierce: Tthe WJEC has some information in terms of that budget. It is a Welsh Government budget, and they have annual discussions with us as to what resources we are likely to be working on along with publishers, and where we would like to make a claim against that grant to pay for the editorial and translation costs that we will have incurred. Now, there have been conversations recently about possible support from that grant for some research work into the use of various materials and resources, and also, although this would be a very small part, a contribution towards seminars for publishers. But that isn't a full picture of the £500,000; I think you would have to ask the Welsh Government about the exact allocation of that total fund. But there may be some flexibility. We've just started this financial year; I'm sure there is some flexibility in their thinking in terms of the use of some of this resource. Do you want to add anything, Mike? +Mike Ebbsworth: Certainly. We have contributed a list of publications, for example, that are ongoing, and they're aware of that, and a percentage of that funding then will go towards ensuring that those are there through the medium of Welsh. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Darren Millar. +Darren Millar AM: This is a huge mess, isn't it? It's a huge mess, which is causing lots of pressure and extra work for teachers, lots of pressure and extra work for learners, and is affecting the well-being of students, at a time when they need to be mentally fit, in order to go through the general stress that learners face when they have exams coming up. We know that the problems are not confined to Welsh-medium resources; they're also being experienced in English language resources as well, particularly in terms of the availability of textbooks. You've both mentioned—both of your organisations have mentioned that there needs to be some sort of common core of resources available for learners and teachers, and I would agree with you on that front. But isn't a textbook a pretty basic element of anybody's toolkit for supporting a child getting through the information that they need to learn, and swot up on, in advance of exams? +Gareth Pierce: I think that the evidence is that different learners see their requirements differently. And I agree that a textbook is part of the picture that should be available. But I think the evidence also shows that not every young person will use them; perhaps the teacher uses them. There is an emphasis, for example, from one pupil there, on that traditional model of revision, namely class notes and his own revision notes, but that he personally also wanted a textbook. So, certainly, the content of a textbook is going to be important, and that that's available in some form or other. It was very interesting to know, for example, that when he was describing the traditional model of revision, he felt that he'd had quite a lot of the content of the textbook through the classroom notes. Much of that digital content, of course, corresponds to the content areas of a textbook, but it's just in a different form. But, in general, there should be a textbook. And some of our frustration as well is that the timetables of some individual publishers don't always get us to the point where there is a textbook available in time. That doesn't happen so often in English medium, but we know about that gap in time in the Welsh provision. +Darren Millar AM: Well, it's happened fairly regularly in the English-medium textbook world, hasn't it? My daughter—she featured in that video—has got her RS qualifications coming up, and she only had a textbook over the Easter period. I mean, it's completely unacceptable. And many others in that video are also being affected. You mentioned digital resources; not everybody's got access to digital resources in their own homes, even, in Wales. So, aren't we giving a significant disadvantage to those learners who might need the traditional 'swotting up from a textbook' method of revision and benefit from that? +Mike Ebbsworth: We do ensure that those digital resources include things that the teachers can also print. Most of these are resources for teachers so that the teachers can adapt them for their own use, to suit the learners who are in front of them at any given time. But certainly there are materials there. If there are activities, then those activities can be printed off and handed to pupils so that they can take them home. So, I would be sceptical about that comment. We are thinking of the totality, ultimately. +Gareth Pierce: I think you're right that the availability of technology is an important part of this big picture. The young people talk about websites and blogs, and we're talking about digital resources, so being able to reach those resources, I think, is vital in Wales. It's interesting to note two contradictory remarks from the teaching associations in the letters. One praises what's available digitally, whereas another teaching organisation sees this as more work for teachers. As Mike said, we've created those resources that can be adapted. One teaching organisation says that it just creates more work, while another organisation says that the digital resource is something that's very valuable. Of course, the headteacher at the end was praising the fact that, in a situation of crisis or unacceptable timetables, we have succeeded in creating some resources that will be in the textbook later, but available digitally at an early stage. But I agree with your core comment that technology is vital, and access to that, and also the content of a textbook in some form is vital as well. +Darren Millar AM: Mr Blaker, you would agree that a textbook should be an essential core piece of the resource pack available for each qualification. +Philip Blaker: I think we wouldn't want to underplay the desirability of textbooks, recognising that different learners have different learning styles and may look to different resources. I think what I'd like to raise is a wider concern about textbooks in their current model, which is very much around the fact that every time there's a change in a specification, there's a new textbook, which is designed around that specification and is endorsed by an awarding body, which is a nice model for a publisher, because every time there's a change, there's an opportunity for a new textbook. There are two concerns that I'd like to raise on that. First, the focus on teaching and learning. Ofsted and also Estyn have raised concerns about the focus in teaching on teaching to the test as a common concern in both nations. I have a concern that having a textbook that is endorsed by the awarding body and is designed specifically around that specification may lead to some of that tendency. And also, there's the sustainability of the model. We know that we're about to go into another round of reforms associated with the curriculum change. That's going to lead to another round of textbooks that may need to be focused on qualifications. I think I'd much rather see that textbooks are seen as a curriculum resource that are broader than, perhaps, the model of endorsement and the current model of publication suggest. +Darren Millar AM: So, you don't think that a textbook for each subject should be a core resource for pupils who are learning in advance of examinations. +Emyr George: I'd just like to pick you up on that. I think a textbook for each subject is absolutely an essential part of the broad range of resources that you'd want to see available for people to choose what they prefer, but on a subject, perhaps, rather than a specific specification, because I think there's a tendency to conflate the two, and much of the underlying content that is assessed in one specification, or a new updated specification, will remain unchanged. It is true that there may be a different focus or emphasis, or a different style of questioning, but that can be picked up more nimbly through supplementary digital resources, for example, which can highlight that change, particularly to a teacher, so that they can shape their lesson planning around that. What we are looking at here are reformed GCSEs and reformed A-levels in subjects that are well-established, traditional subjects, and so whilst it is not necessarily the ideal, I think it's important to remember that there is already a good deal of pre-existing resources, including textbooks, out there in schools already. We're not for a moment saying that that is the situation that we would want everybody to be in. I think it might be preferable if the textbook was perfectly bespoke to the course and didn't contain any extraneous material, but that perhaps is an ideal picture and I think we do need to remember that there are already many resources out there that are available to teachers and to students. +Darren Millar AM: But of course, unlike their peers in perhaps other parts of the UK, we have teachers who are having to go meticulously through some of these other resources that might be available to determine whether they're appropriate for use in the classroom, given that the specification is different in terms of the new qualifications. Can I just ask you about the disadvantage that some learners might face as a result of the lack of textbooks? Mr Blaker, I note that you sought to reassure the committee in some of your opening remarks about the fact that equivalent outcomes are what you aim to achieve in discussion with the WJEC in terms of the outcome of assessments, and I think that that's a very positive thing. But, how do you differentiate between the different learning styles of individual students who are in that cohort to ensure that the disadvantage that one faces because they're somebody who relies particularly heavily on textbook-type learning, traditional sort of swotting up for examinations, versus someone who is much more digitally aware and able to use digital resources—? How do you make sure that it's fair to the cohort as a whole, while still enabling some of these individuals for whom textbooks are important not to face disadvantage within that cohort? +Philip Blaker: The systems that are in place are very much around making sure that awarding is fair across the whole cohort. It's very difficult—in fact, it would be impossible—to unpick all of the different factors that might affect performance, because you could well have a textbook that's been available for some time, it may be somebody's preferred leaning style to use a textbook, but did they use that textbook effectively? You know, did they open it in revision or did they not open it in revision? So, there are so many different factors that can affect individual performance. I think it's impossible to unpick a particular aspect like the availability of resources. Motivation would be one thing, an individual learner's motivation in the subject. The biggest input would be the quality of teaching. I think evidence has been provided to you by the regional consortia, which we saw yesterday. They particularly wanted to stress this point I think; that the quality of teaching is probably the most dominant and the most important factor in relation to a learner's ultimate performance in the examination. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but you also understand that someone who doesn't have the resources that they feel are best suited to them face some element of a greater disadvantage than others for whom, perhaps, textbooks are less important. +Gareth Pierce: I think also, perhaps, related to that, it is important to mention digital literacy here. Every young person in Wales, I would hope, taking GCSE or A-level, should have that digital literacy in order to source the valuable materials available—that they should have those skills. Then, they have the choice whether they go down the digital route, or do they do as Mike suggested—much of the digital material can be printed—or do they then turn to textbooks, in the hope that those would be available? That would then allow for a pupil's personal learning choice to be reflected. It's also important for teachers to confirm that their ways of teaching do support these alternative approaches taken by pupils. Not every pupil will choose to learn or revise in exactly the same way. So, the flexibility for the pupil is very important, I think. +Darren Millar AM: I understand that, but I've got people in my constituency who haven't even got a broadband link at home, so there's a digital disadvantage as well. Can I just ask you about the reason why this has taking so long to sort out? It was back in 2015 that concerns were first raised about the availability of textbooks in both English and Welsh for the new qualifications. We're three years on, what on earth has been happening in the interim and why is it taking so long? If you've got these resources digitally, why can't they just be compounded into textbooks pretty straightforwardly? +Gareth Pierce: I think the main reason for that is that there are three series of reforms of qualifications that have happened. There were some in 2015, other subjects in 2016, and other subjects in 2017. Those three cycles of reform have all suffered from the short timetable that was between approving a qualification and publishers being able to start the work. Perhaps an interesting comparison would be a subject being taught for the first time in 2015—where that subject has reached now in terms of resources. I would hope that each one of those subjects have more available now in terms of resources, and therefore we are adding each year—not textbooks but digital resources. There are more past papers available, of course. We are working on sample work at the request of teachers. So, every subject is moving on over a period of time of five to six years while that specification is being studied. But those same difficulties have, unfortunately, affected 2015 subjects and 2017 subjects, and that's why we're discussing the same thing in 2018. +Darren Millar AM: So, it's the scale of the challenge and the volume of the work? +Gareth Pierce: Yes. +Philip Blaker: I think Gareth, in the evidence that he has provided to the committee previously, has said about the timeline, the schedule, for reforms. Now, that's a schedule that we inherited and was largely dominated by the schedule for reforms in England. Now that we've reached a point of divergence in GCSEs and A-levels, between England and Wales, it gives us much more agency in the future to establish a timeline that doesn't place the pressures on the system. So, Gareth has quite rightly pointed out that there are three waves of reforms, but the pressures that build up in the first wave are consequential onto the next wave and the wave after that. So, the whole system has been pressured both from a regulatory perspective of the approval process, the awarding body preparing its submissions to use, and then system readiness thereafter. +Darren Millar AM: That timeline was obviously set by the Welsh Government. I assume that advice was given by WJEC and Qualifications Wales and your predecessor organisation to the Welsh Government at that time protesting about the timescale that you were being expected to abide by. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and similarly in England, the examination boards working in England would have provided the same advice to the Government there. And, of course, the Welsh Government programme was associated with the reform programme in England, in particularly for those A-level subjects, where there was a strong influence from the universities across the UK in terms of what they wanted to see differently in the A-level subjects. So, England and Wales have run on a very short timetable common to both countries, and I would say that every exam board and every publisher has seen this very challenging in Wales and England. But our advice is that there is a real need for between 18 months and two years from completing a specification that has been approved, then being able to work with teachers on what their needs and requirements will be, thinking about what the teaching programme will be, and then starting to work with publishers and get resources available—ideally, with a year of preparation then for the teacher before they start teaching. So, as they will know what resources will be available, we'll be able to discuss the use of those resources in our professional development programmes, and then that timeline is convenient for everybody. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Darren, I've got to bring Llyr in now. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Estyn, NAHT, UCAC, NASUWT, WJEC and Qualifications Wales have pointed to the way in which the Government has managed the reforms that have been happening over the past few years as one of the things that has led to some of these difficulties. You mentioned the fact that they come wave upon wave. Well, what about the tsunami of curriculum reform that we're currently facing? That is, how confident can we be that the situation won't deteriorate as the new curriculum is introduced—rather than improve? +Gareth Pierce: That is a very key question, isn't it? We have started to discuss this, specifically in particular in a forum that includes publishers in Wales, with the Welsh Government around the table and Qualifications Wales around the table. I think one of the very interesting questions and important questions is: what will the nature of the information available in April 2019 be in terms of the new curriculum? At what level of detail will it be? To what extent will it be adapted again after April 2019? Is it detailed enough, really, for teachers to start discussing their programmes of teaching, and that we then still have a role with publishers, even though this is for this curriculum and not for qualifications? WJEC has a tradition of publishing resources over the key stages and other key stages as well. I think there is a need to discuss the implications of the timetable as it starts to appear, because there is a need to start teaching the new curriculum in September 2022. If we're talking about a year of preparation, that brings us back to September 2021. If we're talking about working on resources available for that preparation year, we're talking about September 2020. So, the timetable does appear already tight, particularly if there's something that's not quite certain about that curriculum statement in 2019, and that there is a lot of work to turn that into teaching programmes. So, I think it is a key question, and I can't be confident at the moment that this is going to work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Did you want to come in, Philip? +Philip Blaker: I think one of the big differences is it's a tsunami we can see coming. So, young people will be assessed for the first time, assuming linear exams, in the summer 2027, which is some way away, and, actually, given the reform process historically, this is probably the most foresight we've seen of a big change like this. There is a big dependency on the curriculum and the curriculum being described in such a way that we can relate qualifications to that curriculum, because qualifications should relate to the curriculum rather than drive the curriculum, so we do need to see something coming out of that. I think, for us, once we've seen the curriculum, and we've got better sight of it, we'll be able to plan things out. We've already started engagement with awarding bodies over the possible supply chain for these new qualifications, and, ultimately, there'll be a go/no-go decision that would need to be made, probably in 2023, which would be that if the conditions don't appear right for safe implementation, then we would make a recommendation to Welsh Government that these reforms are delayed in terms of the qualification, not in terms of the curriculum, for a year to allow the system to be able to catch up. So, we're starting to plan out not only the whole of the process, but also thinking about where we might have to make key decisions. +Gareth Pierce: Just one very brief comment in that context: I think that the comment of the consortia jointly is important there. They emphasise, in the context of the curriculum, the importance of the autonomy of teachers in interpreting and providing, therefore I think we truly need to discuss that. Does that suggest that there won't be so much need for national resources, or are those resources required to support that autonomy in any case? We need to discuss that at an early stage and in detail, I think. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, certainly, and one is concerned that that conversation isn't already happening, but, yes, okay, you've made that point clearly. If I could return, therefore, to the commercial issue—clearly, there is a shortage of providers in Wales, and we are reliant on others. You suggested that the WJEC may be interested in stepping up and taking some sort of role if regulations were changed. I assume that that would be something that you would be eager to see happening in terms of the change to regulation in that context. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we've been part of starting that discussion amongst publishers in Wales. Certainly, there is interest. I think that I haven't described correctly the purpose of a seminar to encourage interest: the interest is there, but there needs to be an understanding of what the implications are of working towards that kind of timetable, what the implications are of working in two languages, what kind of business model, perhaps, would be suitable for the publishers in Wales, how much certainty could be given to them that there is a period of work, because they would want to build their teams, and develop skills within those teams, and to have enough certainty that this is worth doing. And therefore, those are the sort of issues that we're starting a discussion on, in the hope of having a discussion in June to move that forward. Of course, Welsh Government, Qualifications Wales and other stakeholders are part of this discussion, not only WJEC, but we've been part of initiating that discussion. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is this developing at the pace that you would like to see it developing? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I think, and there is some enthusiasm. For example, a number of publishers in Wales are within an association describing itself as Cwlwm Cyhoeddwyr Cymru. Myrddin ap Dafydd is chair of Cwlwm at the moment, and there is enthusiasm and vision, certainly. So, there's a wonderful opportunity, I think, for Wales to interpret these possibilities swiftly and then hopefully take action on them. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we're talking here not just about translating but developing resources, and the point, I think, is an important one around some of the evidence that we've received about the importance of developing resources naturally bilingually from the very beginning, rather than having to translate something. Because there have been comments that translations are clunky, difficult to follow and not—I'm not saying that they're not fit for purpose, but certainly don't facilitate teaching, perhaps, as easily as one would wish. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, I would agee, and that begins with the authors, doesn't it? We must have the authors— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, the expertise, and the same capacty with the publishers as well. +Gareth Pierce: Yes, and we do want to nurture authors within Wales, particularly given that the new curriculum has to do justice to a Welsh dimension within the curriculum in so many different subjects. So, we need authors who can be developed, and authors who would be willing to work with the publishers. That's a very specific theme within one of the ideas of the seminars with publishers. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Would that market be viable without any sort of subsidy, if it were to develop bilingually? Or do we have to accept that they have to have an element of public subsidy? +Gareth Pierce: Our view in the WJEC is that subsidy will be necessary. But we could rethink the model for the subsidy, perhaps. At the moment, the subsidy is described as a subsidy for the Welsh-medium version. Why not rethink that and think of a subsidy for producing resources in two languages for the Welsh curriculum? And perhaps we would need a little more funding for that. But there will be organisations such as the WJEC who will still be interested in contributing, because we are a charity, and within our mission is investment in various things that supports education in Wales. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But in terms of where we are now, resources have to be translated. I struggle at times to understand why it takes so much time to translate a resource. I would like to know better, perhaps, what the main barriers are in that sense. But also, how long is acceptable to wait for a translation, in your view? +Mike Ebbsworth: We've done a great deal of work recently, over recent years, to ensure that that delay between having an English version and a Welsh version is reduced. We are highly aware of the fact that the best-case scenario is that the Welsh and the English are available simultaneously. In those terms, we've taken huge steps forward with the publishers that we've named this morning, so that we have discussed translation as the textbook is being produced. There is a risk there, of course. The nature of books is that the author may change his or her mind, or edit as he or she is writing. Well, with that model, we would have to ensure that we approved as we moved forward, chapter by chapter perhaps, so that there would be no changes to be made from then on. At the end of the process, then, the publishers in England have agreed to hold the English version back for a period of time until the Welsh version is available, and then to publish both simultaneously. Unless that timetable is followed throughout the process, there are inherent risks in that process, of course, as I've mentioned in terms of translation as we author materials, and in ensuring that that timetable is stuck to. +Gareth Pierce: And perhaps there is a need to emphasise that the process is translation and editing as a package, and that sometimes the same amount of time goes on the editing, how the Welsh works in terms of diagrams and things that aren't text necessarily—pictures and so forth. So, eight weeks, I think, is the time that we've succeeded in agreeing with the publishers so that we can turn around the Welsh version in that period of time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Darren. +Darren Millar AM: I just want to ask about this eight-week delay. So, you’re telling us, Mr Ebbsworth, that the WJEC has agreed with Hodder and Illuminate that, in future, even if an English textbook is available for publication, and it’s already late, you will further delay the availability of that textbook so that it can be published on the same day as the Welsh-medium textbook? +Mike Ebbsworth: We can only work on those books that are in the process of being developed. Naturally, if something is late in English, then that timetable would be affected in terms of a decision that will ultimately have to be taken. But that's the hope: that when new textbooks are produced in English and authored in English, we would look at that eight-week period as a turnaround. +Darren Millar AM: I understand the point that you made earlier about the chapter-by-chapter approach, which seems much more equitable. But to suggest that you will delay books that could be available for students and could be available for teachers to be able to access by two months because you haven't got the systems in place to be able to produce them on the same day, seems to be wholly inappropriate. Can I ask, also, why on earth it isn't possible to produce Welsh-medium textbooks first and then translate them to English on occasions? +Mike Ebbsworth: We're entirely open to that and to that sort of model. +Darren Millar AM: So, why has that never ever been done? +Gareth Pierce: Well, of course, it would happen with subjects that stem from Wales, but I think the problem is that we work with publishers and those publishers and their authors, therefore, tend to work through the medium of English. But, just to be clear, this idea of delaying an English version is something that the Welsh Government is eager for us to experiment with, but not with textbooks that are already late. They are within the new programme of textbooks that are contained within the grant that you mentioned of £500,000. So, in a way, this is an experiment and the Welsh Government wants to look at this as one way of responding to the complaint that there are different timetables available. +Darren Millar AM: So, you're being forced to do this by the Welsh Government, rather than— +Gareth Pierce: Well, we've agreed to do it in discussion with them. +Darren Millar AM: So, are you happy with that approach? +Gareth Pierce: Well, as long as the textbook isn't late in the first place, then yes; it's worth trying. There is a challenge on the eight weeks, there is a challenge in the publisher sticking to the timetable in terms of the English version first of all, but we are willing to use this as a test bed, and we're working on two specific textbooks on this. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the committee is struggling with this idea, so what do you understand to be the rationale behind that, then? Is it that both sets of pupils should be equally disadvantaged? +Gareth Pierce: Well, no, in a way, it uses the same principle as we have regarding our use of digital resources. With the digital materials, the intention is that things are available in time and that they're available in both languages at the same time. So, trying to imitate that with printed text is what we're trying to do, but not with texts that are already late. So, if these books keep to the timetable, then they will be available in time in both languages, but that the English version has stayed before going out on the shelves. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that's to say that the English version will be completed eight weeks beforehand so that you have eight weeks for translation. +Mike Ebbsworth: Well, ultimately, I may have used the wrong words in saying that we're holding the English back. The English version would still be in the process, just as the Welsh version would be, and then they would catch up as they approach the date for publication and printing. There is an element of editing the English as well as the Welsh and that would happen in that eight-week period. So, a draft form might be available, and we do ensure that our draft versions are available on our secure website as soon as possible, but then that has to be held up before publication. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. John. +John Griffiths AM: Just on that, Chair, it's nonetheless the case, as we've heard, I think, and as the letter to the committee from Kirsty Williams has made clear, that there might be a situation where the English-language version of a textbook could be made available, but it isn't made available because there isn't a Welsh-language version. And, as the Chair said, is that about putting those students in Wales on the same footing, and if so, how does that relate to the fact that these students, including those who could have had earlier access to the English-language version, are competing with students over the border, as we heard on the video earlier, for those precious university places? Doesn't it place the English-language student using the English-language version at a potential disadvantage, compared to students over the border? +Gareth Pierce: I think this is a point for Qualifications Wales to a certain extent, but applicants for qualifications in Wales are assessed as a national cohort, if truth be told, so, each piece of information we have on the standards is evaluated for that national cohort. The standards stem from the three-nation system. So, in discussion with Qualifications Wales, we ensure that there is no disadvantage to any cohort in Wales in any subject, be that because of a textbook being unavailable or for any other reason. +Philip Blaker: Certainly, from a comparable outcomes perspective, the fewer differences that there are that are differential—. So, the idea of textbooks being available in English and Welsh at different times could potentially create another dimension in terms of disparity. So, if we're looking at it strictly speaking from a comparable outcomes perspective, it makes the awarding easier if everybody's on a common playing field. It's worth remembering—we provided some evidence in our original letter particularly looking at religious studies on the basis that religious studies was a subject that had been mentioned. This subject has already been awarded at AS-level last year, so it has gone through an award and will go through the full A-level award this year. The comparable outcomes approach did protect those learners last year, in the absence of a textbook, and we saw stability in the results that came out of the cohort level. Similarly, with other subjects that have gone through reforms, we've seen it with the GCSEs that were awarded last year, ASs that were awarded last year and A-levels that were awarded last year: we saw good comparability year on year. +Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then, Darren. Is that okay, John? +Darren Millar AM: Just a very brief follow-up on that, at the cohort level, yes, you suggest that there is some evidence that students were protected, but what you don't know and can't tell, because you're not able to drill down to the individual student level, is whether children, young people, were disadvantaged as a result of their learning style being more textbook orientated than that of their peers. +Philip Blaker: I guess we're in a situation where there's no evidence either way that that— +Darren Millar AM: The absence of evidence doesn't mean that it didn't happen. +Philip Blaker: No, but there is no evidence to suggest that. We have no positive evidence to suggest that. +Darren Millar AM: Well, I think you've seen plenty of evidence about the stress that it's causing, and the concern that learners have about their outcomes. I think it would be very interesting, actually, to take some teacher assessments and expected grades and compare those to the actual grade outcomes. Is that something that Qualifications Wales could do on a sample basis? +Philip Blaker: Historically, that sort of evidence has been very unreliable. Gareth would probably have a stronger view on that than me. Predicted grades used to be provided. Certainly, back in my day at an awarding body they were provided, and there tended to be a very low correlation between the predicted grade and the actual achieved grade. I don't know if you've got anything on that, Gareth. +Gareth Pierce: No, we agree with you that the comparisons are not that reliable, because there are so many factors. But I think, at the end of the day, what we see is, yes, I agree there is evidence of stress, but I think there's also evidence of young people and their teachers really using the available resources and the available skills in approaching revision and preparation, and tending to do that very well. That's the evidence that we've got, for example, in the AS religious studies last year, that the cohort did extremely well in fact. We can't disagree that there's evidence of stress, but I think we can also point towards resilience and excellent approaches to drawing together the various sources that they've got: classroom notes, revision notes, as they mentioned, and the various other materials that they referred to. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. John. +John Griffiths AM: Coming back to the effect of the lack of resources, we heard on the video, as you've just mentioned, Gareth, that pupils were experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety, and it affected their well-being in terms of their perception that they might be disadvantaged by the lack of resources, as we discussed. We know exam time is very, very stressful—I'm sure all of us would agree with that—in general, without any additional problems or perceptions of problems. So, with that sort of background, would you accept then that some students have been negatively affected by the lack of suitable support materials for general qualifications? I know we've discussed this in terms of it being difficult, perhaps, to show cause and effect, but I think most people watching that video would clearly come to the view that some students have been negatively impacted. Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: I'd have to agree. There is evidence of their concern, isn't there? But as Philip said, what we don't have is evidence that that anxiety then has an impact on their attainment, because there are so many factors, there are so many different kinds of resources that they've referred to—even those who want to see textbooks, they're also talking about so many other materials that are available to them. Of course, it's also clear that they are conscientious young people who have worked hard, so you have a picture there of young people who are concerned, yes, and as you've said, examinations are a stressful time in general, but they are also young people who are doing their level best, and usually do get the results that they have worked for. That's the evidence that we have: the results tend to be achieved. +John Griffiths AM: Okay. Coming back again to matters that we've already discussed, but just to put to you in a fairly focused way, would you accept that it isn't fair that some pupils are not having the support material that others are having, depending on whether their particular subject is involved and the language that they're studying through? Would you accept that that is a basic unfairness in the system as it currently exists? +Gareth Pierce: Ideally, resources, digital accessibility and digital literacy should be available for every pupil on an equal basis. But I think perhaps if we analysed this in much detail, different individuals would be able to say, 'There are different types of unfairness.' You referred earlier to the digital inequalities. Is there an economic inequality? There is some evidence from the teaching unions that suggests that not every school is in the same situation as each other in terms of buying the resources that are available. So, I think your question drives at a very important point: what sort of inequality could be having an impact on young people in terms of their achievement during their school time? Ideally, each one of those elements of potential inequality should be levelled. So, I don't think I can go any further than acknowledging that any inequality is unfair, but there are so many different kinds and the textbook is not the only one, and therefore we're not going to be able to analyse the impact of that on its own. +John Griffiths AM: Could I put to you, finally then, what Estyn have said about reported delays in the production and distribution of educational resources such as textbooks, marking criteria and specimen papers, that that delay has impeded the ability of teachers to plan adequately, and that this effect on their ability to plan adequately is very likely to have had an impact on pupils' achievement? Would you accept that? +Gareth Pierce: It's interesting—they link three quite different things there, don't they? We've discussed the textbooks in some detail. When they refer to sample assessments, we have to provide those within the regulatory time frame, and they have to be approved. So, in every subject there are sample assessments and marking schemes, and they are statutorily available, in a way. When they talk about exemplars, there are different interpretations of that. One request that we receive often from schools is for exemplars in terms of the work of pupils that has been assessed and marked by us. Of course, they're not available until the young people have taken those exams for the very first time. We can make them available digitally, and through various other methods. But in some subjects the demand has been so strong that we have worked with schools in order to ensure that work is produced by pupils before that first examination, is marked by us, and is then made available. So, we can respond to that demand when it arises. I would like to have a conversation with Estyn, indeed, to interpret on a more detailed level some of the things that they refer to. +Emyr George: May I offer a comment on that quote from Estyn? They talk about a reduction in attainment and that, to some extent, brings us back to the point in terms of the comparable outcomes method that we're talking about. That method is based on research and evidence that says that in a period of change to an exam or qualification, we know that performance in an exam can fall, and that is due to a number of different factors. Teachers aren't as familiar with the specification and the requirements of the exam. There are fewer past assessment resources available; there aren't any past papers, for example. Certainly, knowing that you're the first to sit that exam perhaps raises your concerns about that examination, and examinations are a matter of concern already. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between those factors, but what we know on the whole is that they come together to have an impact on pupils' performance in an exam, and that's why, when it comes to awarding qualifications for the first time and looking at the grades, we look very carefully at what that the mark means in terms of the grade in order to try as best as we can, on the level of the whole national cohort, to eliminate as much unfairness as possible because they are the first cohort to sit the exam. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just make a brief comment on the sample assessments? Now, interestingly, when the English, Welsh, maths, and maths and numeracy GCSEs were new, the Welsh Government were very eager that we invest in more sample assessment materials. We had to produce one for the regulator, but they wanted to see us produce far more, and we did that. But there are risks inherent in that, too. If we create more and more sample assessments, then does that create more risk of teaching to the test? And every time we produce one of these, of course, we are using robust assessment ideas, and they're out there to be used for test purposes. So, we need to be careful that we don't weaken the real assessment by providing too many of the examiners' good ideas in the sample material. So, it's an interesting theme, but it would be interesting to have a further conversation with Estyn on that. +Philip Blaker: I just wanted to say, looking towards—. Reforms always throw up issues like this. It's almost an inevitability of any change that there will be impact. I think what we need to do is we need to think about the future reforms, particularly knowing that we've got some on the radar already, and to think about what this paradigm is and how we can isolate some of these factors in the future. So, if we look at resources and if we look particularly at textbooks as being a curriculum resource, rather than a qualification resource, I think we can change the timeline to which some of those materials are produced. So, going back to when I studied my A-levels in the 1980s, there was this common body of knowledge that was an A-level textbook in biology that wasn't focused around an individual awarding body. When we talked to unions about this on Monday, they said, 'Yes, when we used to teach many years ago, there were curriculum resources like that, and then when a particular topic or a particular area of content dropped out of the qualification, we either did or didn't teach it according to whether it was in the curriculum'. That's a little bit worrying by virtue of the fact there might have been a component of that subject that didn't get taught because it was no longer in the text, despite the fact that it was in the common body of knowledge. But I think if we can shift this paradigm—and I would really like to a shift in the paradigm for resources particularly, away from the focus on the qualification and into more of a focus on the curriculum—then that provides an opportunity for, I would suggest, a much healthier model in the future. There are various ways of doing that. In the United States, for example, there are some states within the United States that produce a state textbook. Now, that can have issues, particularly if it's politically orientated—so, if politicians are seen to have a strong influence in the content that's taught. But if there is independence in that state model, then I think that can be quite strong model. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, they've actually tried to de-emphasise textbooks. So, Hong Kong, which is a very high-performing jurisdiction, is trying to move away from that model in the future. +Gareth Pierce: Could I just add very, very briefly— +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, because I want to bring Hefin in. +Gareth Pierce: I know that, in our letter to you, we emphasised that this is not just to do with the body of knowledge. The assessment objectives have shifted in many subjects towards analysis and evaluation. So, therefore, we really do need resources that support that way of working, and I'm sure that lots of the young people we've heard from—what they're really doing in their revision is actually not just studying the content, but thinking about how they respond analytically and evaluatively. In fact, an interesting question for us as an awarding body to debate with the qualifications regulator, maybe, is whether some of the content should actually be able to be taken into the assessment hall. Do young people need to remember all these terms and their precise definitions, sometimes in both languages if they've learnt it in that way? Shouldn't some of the reference material be more and more available in the assessment arena? And then you are really getting towards analysis and interpretation and evaluation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I want to welcome these particular comments, because having come from a higher education background, what I've tried to deliver in my courses are textbook-free modules, where you're relying on academic journal articles and you're piecing together the story yourself, based on the curriculum you develop yourself. So, curriculum-focused resources are very welcome. I fear that students who are nurtured on a textbook diet, when they go to university, they are not expected to repeat what's in the textbook; they're expected to do exactly as Gareth says and analyse and combine information into a discursive argument. So, therefore, I'm interested to know how you've worked with higher education to develop that approach. I also welcome what you've just said too. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I ask for brief answers, please? +Gareth Pierce: Yes, well some of the people who provide ideas into our digital resources certainly are either teachers who are very well aware of that progression to HE and therefore what their learners want or, in some cases, they are HE people themselves. We do draw on a body of expertise, and we are more than willing to emphasise the importance of that approach to the support resources we provide. +Hefin David AM: I think the difficulty and the difference is that, at HE level, the kind of journal articles that are available are probably not consumable at GCSE level. That's part of the problem you have with that approach. +Gareth Pierce: Yes. And I think, interestingly—I know we've pointed towards some of our religious studies resources as examples—I think some of the websites we point to are quite ambitious. They would be described as scholarly, and I think some of the young people on the video made that point, didn't they—that they need to engage with that material to understand some themes? But we need to assist them in doing so. We need to almost make those scholarly items that are worth including in their curriculum accessible and user friendly for them at their point of learning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Philip. +Philip Blaker: It was just one point. We recently published a report on the Welsh baccalaureate and skills challenge certificate, and I think it's relevant to pull in at this point that the independent study that pupils would be expected to do through the skills challenge certificate in doing their project work is really designed to try and draw out some of those skills that would be relevant in higher education. Through the reforms that we are starting to think about for the skills challenge certificate, there's a real opportunity to start honing some of those skills, particularly at the advanced level bacc, to make people really HE-ready so that they're better able to engage with that different style of learning. So, I think there's a huge opportunity that shouldn't be diminished within the advanced Welsh bacc. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Last questions from Mark then. +Mark Reckless AM: Gareth, can I just put to you—? On the Estyn criticism, I think you've answered one aspect of their criticism that WJEC did not make as many sample assessment materials available as schools would have liked early on in the reform process, and I understand your position there, but they went on and said, 'At times the sample assessment materials were provided with incorrect mark schemes' and also, 'It would be helpful if the WJEC ensure that all necessary resources were made available before the start date of each qualification.' Do you have a response to those points? +Gareth Pierce: Again, probably, I'd like a conversation with them about any problems with the specimen assessments and their mark schemes, because if they are the statutory regulatory ones they would have gone through Philip's team as well or his Welsh Government predecessors as regulators, depending on which qualifications they were. Obviously, we need to be spot-on with those. Very occasionally, somebody will identify an error, and obviously we then correct them, because these are available digitally online. So, if there is a problem, we want to hear about it and then we can correct it. But, yes, I agree with their fundamental premise, that ideally the whole package of resources should be available before teaching starts, including, as we mentioned earlier, so we can draw on that set of resources in the events we run as WJEC free of charge for teachers leading up to the first teaching. We need that information ourselves as well so we can talk about the use of these valuable resources in an appropriate pedagogical context in that preparatory year. So, the ideal is that everything is there 12 months ahead. +Mark Reckless AM: So, what mechanism do you have for picking up on this type of criticisms from Estyn and having that conversation with them? Has that not happened? +Gareth Pierce: We have met with Estyn a couple of times recently, actually—once when they were beginning their review of the key stage 4 qualifications that had been in place for two years and a bit, and also when they were planning a review of some of the A-level work. Because we do have regular meetings with them, we will have an opportunity to explore their comments here I'm sure. +Mark Reckless AM: Looking at the structure and the relationship between Qualifications Wales and the WJEC—. I understand in the model in England—you've got Ofqual, the regulator, and you have various competing exam boards, some I think with for-profit motivation. We don't have that in Wales; there is a sole regulator and a single, dominant examination board. Does that mean that there's significant overlap and potentially cost duplication between the work of the two bodies, particularly given WJEC is a charity and seems to have many of the same objectives as you in Qualifications Wales have? +Philip Blaker: The roles are very distinct, so I'd tell you there's no overlap. What we try and do is try and make sure that there's a good connection between the work that we do. WJEC has very clear responsibilities around the delivery of qualifications. We have a role in monitoring to ensure that those qualifications are delivered securely and fairly. I would say a strength of the Welsh model is that there is an independent regulator and a single awarding body largely, because much of the work that Ofqual would need to do in terms of its maintenance of standards is about ensuring that the competition between awarding bodies doesn't lead to what's been termed in the past as a race to the bottom in terms of standards. Now, the opportunity that we have in Wales is, where we have a single awarding body, we can have a close and good working relationship with WJEC, but guarding very strongly to make sure that we keep that regulatory distance to make sure that we preserve our role as the regulator and look at WJEC as one of our regulated bodies. +Gareth Pierce: Can I make a general point? Perhaps the important opportunity in Wales is to look anew at how national and regional organisations, such as the consortia, can collaborate to make a success of the broad range of resources and CPD that will be required to support the new curriculum, and also the next set of qualifications that will be reformed. We've referred to many organisations today, but there are others. The Welsh Books Council, for example, is part of this discussion. The Learned Society of Wales is a player that wants to introduce ideas into the Welsh dimension of the curriculum. There was mention of the HE sector earlier. Teachers' associations have very specific comments to make on some of these areas. There is a great opportunity for us to come together and to have a national approach. There will be a need for some financial resource from the Welsh Government—yes, certainly—and the WJEC can provide some resources, but I think we all want to collaborate in order to ensure the success of the next round of resources. +Mark Reckless AM: But doesn't that national approach and collaboration preclude the model that Philip was talking about earlier, where we had textbooks based on the curriculum, and there's that core, but that was separate from what the exam body decided to do and the textbook wasn't there for the particular exam approach? If you have a single, dominant exam board, and you have a Welsh curriculum that's developed with that board, how do you then have this separation between textbook and exam? +Philip Blaker: So, if we look at qualification, a qualification should be based on the curriculum that's being offered, because learning should be based around the curriculum, and the role of the qualification is to measure attainment against knowledge of that curriculum—knowledge, skills and understanding, the dispositions that that curriculum is trying to develop. So, I think there are two very distinct things. Now, of course, what will inevitably happen is once the curriculum is known and developed, there will be a level of detail that comes across from what the qualification is looking for. I think what we're trying to say is, from an educational perspective, what we'd like to see is a broader focus on the curriculum and less of a narrow focus on the qualification and some of the problems that that can drive, so that, if a learner is well-versed in the curriculum and has been taught well and has acquired the knowledge, skills and dispositions that the curriculum is trying to create, they should succeed in the qualification. +Mark Reckless AM: And you suggested earlier that, if need be, the qualification could be pushed back a year, but not the curriculum. Does that mean that it would be possible to teach the new curriculum while keeping the old qualification? +Philip Blaker: It would be possible. +Mark Reckless AM: But satisfactory? +Philip Blaker: Because, if we're looking at qualifications predominantly being 14 to 16, what Professor Donaldson said at the very beginning, with 'Successful Futures', was, actually, if the curriculum is preparing people better for that qualification stage, so that they're better versed as learners and better able to perform in those qualifications and we see a rise of attainment—. Ideally, you'd be in a position where you've got GCSEs that have been reformed to marry up to any change, but I don't see there being a huge problem in itself of a delay if we think that is the right thing to do. Clearly, we consider that to be a sub-optimal thing. We would much rather be in a position of having reforms, but, equally, I'd want to see any reforms delivered safely, and I wouldn't want to compromise fairness and safety of delivery of those qualifications on the basis of a timeline. But I think all too often the case is that a timeline dominates over doing what is the right thing and I think as we get further into this we'll have to really assess and keep a grip of what's the right thing to do. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly, Darren. +Darren Millar AM: Just on this issue of shaping the curriculum and making sure that we've got textbooks that can be used to support the delivery of the curriculum—. So, obviously, the WJEC's interested in the examinations and the qualifications. That's your role as well in terms of Qualifications Wales. So, who should be responsible for developing these curriculum resources? +Philip Blaker: I think, for a new model, that needs to be determined. Welsh Government has a role in curriculum at the moment. They have responsibility for curriclum and they've already started work with the seminar last year, and then drawing people together now to look at a new model for the future. I think we need to evolve that approach, and I think Welsh Government taking a lead on some of this thinking about how things might be prepared for the future is probably a good position to be in at the moment. +Darren Millar AM: Are there any other models that you can point us to in terms of how these things are done elsewhere? +Philip Blaker: Yes, there are models where you can have—. For example, in Northern Ireland, you have the regulator, the awarding body and the curriculum body all under one roof. So, you can have a position where everything is tied together as it is in Northern Ireland with the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment. Equally, if you look at somewhere like Hong Kong, you have very distinct bodies that are looking after each individual component. So, there are lots of different models that can be developed. But, of course, in Wales, and also previously in England, the qualifications regulator has also had a responsibility for curriculum. So, there has been that model in the past in Wales. +Gareth Pierce: Just very briefly. +Lynne Neagle AM: Really quickly, please. +Gareth Pierce: Just one thing very briefly, in terms of the WJEC. I mentioned earlier that, in the past, the WJEC has produced a fair few resources in collaboration with publishers in key stage 3 and even at primary stages. Certainly, key stage 3 is closely linked to GCSE, and, therefore, if the WJEC continues to be a player—as I hope it will—in the area of resources for GCSE and A-level, then the WJEC is also well positioned in terms of our investment in editing, translating and the use of technology to contribute to key stage 3 most certainly and perhaps even the primary stages. So, I'm sure that the WJEC would want to offer itself as a national organisation that wants to contribute as best we can in this area. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. Well, we're out of time, so can I thank you very much for attending this morning and for answering all our questions? I think it's been a very useful and informative session. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, following the meeting. But thank you very much, again, for your attendance. +Gareth Pierce: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 4 is papers to note. In view of the time, can I ask whether Members are happy to note all those papers in a block? Can I just flag that I would like to return to paper to note 3, which is the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education on minority ethnic, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller learners, when we go into private, if that's okay with Members? Item 5, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. +","In the meeting of the Children, Young People, and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle AM welcomed participants and noted no apologies for absence. Darren Millar AM declared an interest as his daughter appeared in a video under discussion and he is a governor at one of the featured schools. + +The committee discussed the provision of textbooks and learning resources, with testimonies from young people and teachers through a video. Gareth Pierce (WJEC Chief Executive) and Mike Ebbsworth (WJEC Assistant Director) outlined their roles, stressing their focus on assessment and regulation rather than direct provision of teaching resources. They highlighted the WJEC’s investment in digital resources in both English and Welsh and their intent to guide publishers on resource creation without direct commercial agreements. + +Philip Blaker (Chief Executive of Qualifications Wales) emphasized regulating awarding bodies, maintaining examination standards, and ensuring fairness in qualification awards, acknowledging the delay in textbooks due to tight reform timelines. He emphasized the need for future reforms to allow sufficient preparation time. + +The discussion acknowledged the critical role of digital resources, the importance of textbooks, and the varying needs and learning styles of students. The WJEC representatives and Philip Blaker acknowledged the stress and potential disadvantage faced by some students due to the lack of resources, committing to work towards earlier resource availability and addressing disparities. + +Darren Millar AM voiced concerns about delayed textbooks and the eight-week timeline for translating English language textbooks into Welsh, questioning the rationality and fairness in delaying the release of English versions. The WJEC representatives explained this as an attempt to experiment and address complaints about differing timelines for resource availability in both languages. + +The committee inquired about the collaboration with higher education for resource development and discussed alternative models for resource creation that prioritize the curriculum over examinations, considering the imminent curriculum reform in Wales. + +The session concluded with agreement from the WJEC representatives on the necessity to work collectively with national organizations and the Welsh Government to successfully prepare for future resources and qualification reforms, with consideration for all stakeholders involved. The committee resolved to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh 'kay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So so so . +User Interface: Put on your mic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So you forgot how this works again ? +User Interface: Boss . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Boss . +Marketing: Maybe . Maybe maybe maybe . +Project Manager: Okay so we're here to talk about the detailed design of the product , 'kay ? +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: And here's the agenda for this meeting . Uh I'm just gonna open , say a few boring words to start with again , and start taking minutes afterwards . You guys are gonna give us a presentation of our wonder product that I can see some demonstrations of over there . Looks cool . And then we're gonna evaluate it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bra +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we're gonna talk about finance , and I've got a lovely Excel spreadsheet that I knocked up in the last five minutes for this . And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hmm you knocked it up ? +Project Manager: yep . And {vocalsound} we're gonna evaluate the product and close . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Got forty minutes to do this in . We should be fine . Let's try and keep this one on schedule . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Your thing is in {disfmarker} where is it ? Is it in {disfmarker} +User Interface: Three , three . +Industrial Designer: Thi third third third . The end product thingy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Who wants it ? +User Interface: Pedro can have it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: I'll help talk . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah so what we ended up with . Production costs estimated by our manufacturing department and um the research department , which is us , is uh fifteen point eight Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: someone forgot the {vocalsound} units there +User Interface: Unit price . +Industrial Designer: yeah , uh unit price {disfmarker} unit production price cost thing . Um we implemented the basic functions , which is just T_V_ functions plus the locator , which was one of the marketing things , cradle , scroll wheel for uh the {vocalsound} the channels , and uh we implemented the f the the way of putting the new and revolutionary zapping , your favourite channels functionality , in the scroll . +Project Manager: Zapping your favourite channels , eh ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Scrolling through your favourites list . +Project Manager: Oh okay okay . +Industrial Designer: Zapping you know zapping . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay okay , that's favourites . +Industrial Designer: Maybe it's just a Portuguese thing {vocalsound} . And um yeah that was the result . +Project Manager: Ah 'kay . I like the the the the logo on there as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's very prominent {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It is very prominent . So this is the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} here I'll give you the {disfmarker} so this is the cradle unit , and this is the actual remote itself . Um so the scroll bar is {disfmarker} or the scroll wheel is this this green little scrolly guy here , um and then the volume controls are here and here . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh you've got the keypad which is the numbers uh f from zero to nine and then ten . This is the power button . Uh we have our um {vocalsound} we have the enter button and uh what was the other button here ? This is the teletext . +Industrial Designer: Start s the the start uh to to to +User Interface: The programme button , +Industrial Designer: programme yeah . +Project Manager: Ah , okay I see . +User Interface: yeah the programme button . So this bl this button will be used both for the favourites and for programming {vocalsound} your uh the um the type of television you wanna use . So um the plastic is the white area of this {disfmarker} of the model here , and the red area is like a rubber covering . +Project Manager: It's pretty cool . +User Interface: So you can see that when it lays like this or like this {disfmarker} and the buttons are all gonna be rubber , so it's pretty hard to actually damage it um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that {disfmarker} could that be easy to {disfmarker} for the scroll wheel to be rotated if it lands on it ? +User Interface: Yeah that might be a possible a mi uh possible problem , but if you drop it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not helping {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Oh well I guess it depends on the stiffness a little of it . +User Interface: Yeah and it depends on if it's sliding , but I think it's pretty ergonomic . You can feel it . +Project Manager: Mm . Feels good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I take it that this is gonna be slightly lighter in the final design as well . +User Interface: Yeah of course . Well this is clay {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it's kinda cool . You have to reach a little bit don't you . +User Interface: Yeah the the power button is a bit of a reach , but I think we might scale down the final model a bit . +Project Manager: Ah yeah that wouldn't make sense . +User Interface: {vocalsound} These {disfmarker} this is a bit larger than it would be , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's cool . I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: Don't have no one to handle that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And hold it so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wh what's the marketing perspective ? +Marketing: oh that's {disfmarker} oh I like it . I mean you guys gave me more than I was asking for , so I'm happy because we've got some really marketable features in this . Yeah I think it's good . Good good good job . +User Interface: Mm Pedro can demonstrate the the paging ability . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So you ha you have like the the base station with um the little button for the where's my remote . +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh pla +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The locator function . +Marketing: I'm ha +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's great . That's great . It's a great feature . +User Interface: Um beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm it's impressing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wicked isn't it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let me get it , +User Interface: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: if I press this button {disfmarker} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I see . That's pretty cool . Hang on . {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} be shut up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you can take this ho take this home with you tonight and you can push that and he'll be across town {disfmarker} +User Interface: Beep beep beep {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I plan to do that as well . +User Interface: okay . Um no no no tha that's alri +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So the the two blue {disfmarker} are are those for the the it to charge off of {disfmarker} in ? +User Interface: Exactly that's exactly what those are for . +Project Manager: Ah okay okay . +User Interface: And um there's one other feature that we were debating , but we decided to go against it , is um {disfmarker} you could +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: beep beep beep {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we were thinking that it might be interesting to have a trigger button here because you have this finger {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} it's the right shape isn't it ? +User Interface: it it's it kinda feels like there should be something there , but we couldn't figure out what button is important enough to put there . And we we don't wanna accidentally be hitting the power button like that so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But maybe if you had a trigger plus the scroll then that would get past the the problem of it landing and scrolling , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: 'cause then it would need to be hit on both sides {gap} . +User Interface: Right . So maybe in a final design phase we might tweak that a little bit , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I can see that . +Project Manager: But it's definitely got options for like different types of models and things as well based on that , hasn't it ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yep I like . Good job . +Project Manager: So is that the the final colour scheme as well or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no . +User Interface: Oh no this is {vocalsound} just what we had to work with at the time . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So we'll leave the colour scheme up to the marketing people . +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Careful . +Project Manager: It came off . The scroll wheels , {gap} a problem with them not being sort of {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't think the user interface guy wants to touch it anymore . +Marketing: Well I mean of course , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My my s my suggestion is we're gonna go go to the silvers and blacks like most of the televisions . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: You know some blend of silvers and blacks . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Beep beep beep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay enough of that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well i it's cool guys . 'Kay so are we done with the this presentation ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ja . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now now . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So you're not gonna find my uh my folder up there I gotta do mine up at the board . +Project Manager: Have you ? Okay . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Can I not get your get at stuff from your shared folder now ? +Marketing: No it's not in there because I had the computer problem and I I I cou I couldn't create it . +Project Manager: Oh I see I see . +Marketing: I couldn't create it in the PowerPoint , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I think I've got this really strange cable . So what I had , basically going from the PowerPoint format , is that uh yeah yeah I like this a lot . Is this one of the tests is to see how we can adapt to s changing situations in the in the meeting room ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So what we had is we had the method . That's not how you spell method , is it ? +User Interface: No way . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No A_ {vocalsound} . {gap} . {vocalsound} So this doesn't go so fast this way . And when I speak about method I speak about the marketing of the product huh . And uh to me with this product we got uh {disfmarker} we got {vocalsound} basically three things to market . We've got the features , we have the uh characteristics , and we have the {vocalsound} I I don't know what we would call the other part {disfmarker} what we call you know the the {vocalsound} the corp corporate {disfmarker} Help me . The the corporation stands behind the product , okay . So the features I think {vocalsound} we got the scroll , we've got the uh the locator , we've got the durability , we've got the dependability , +Industrial Designer: It fell off . +Marketing: we've got you know the features that make this a unique product . Um +User Interface: Beep beep beep . +Marketing: {vocalsound} the characteristics I talk about , we have reliability , we have comfort , we have ergonomics , we have environmentally s sensitive . Uh and the corporation , we're talking about {disfmarker} we're we're a new we're a new company . We're wanting to make a name for ourself . We're wanting you to uh find our product so we're gonna give you a good product at a fair price . One thing I would want to to see is uh is can we can we get a lifetime uh guarantee on this product , a normal use guarantee , which means that this product , for the for the life of of {disfmarker} the life use , if it should have a technical problem , that we could re replace it at no cost ? That was something I would be interested in . Um so {vocalsound} yeah without uh going into great details , we have a we have a product , it has the features and the characteristics , and the background , I believe , to make it marketable I believe at a cost of of of thirty thirty five to to fifty Euros . We're gonna be competitive , and we're gonna we're gonna have a market niche . Um w +Project Manager: Do you {disfmarker} would you a argue that that we're better going for the higher cost than bringing it down into twenty f five as we probably could , but lowering our profit margins ? +Marketing: That that would be uh that would be I think a decision best made by corporate um I I m for my evaluation , based on what our competition is , I th I think that that we can go after this and and and go after more of the uh exclusivity sense than the mass market sense . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm sh I'm sure open to to market this in either direction . But you guys came up with a great product , and at that cost I think it uh {disfmarker} there's nobody else that's putting this this combination of of ingredients together . The only limitations I see to this is that we're focused on television only . Uh that's the only that's the only drawback I see to this . But with all of these other features I think people c {vocalsound} one thing I'm I'm hoping for is people are not gonna even notice . There's gonna be somebody going home and say oh sh this thing doesn't work for my D_V_D_ and my {disfmarker} but I like these other things , so they keep it , they don't take it back . +Project Manager: And we're actually quite open to be able to expand the product for a later version with those features quite simply anyway , aren't we ? Th there's no fundamentally different technology to do that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well one of one of the thoughts that I had is can can this unit be be produced in a way that makes it upgradable ? +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: You know uh like like a um a sim card in a in a um in a telephone . You know is there a card in th can we make a card and so after {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we need we need we need s some more buttons if it would to work on some other stuff , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm , but you follow what I'm s I'm s +Industrial Designer: We we w yeah we could get another version of it that actually works . But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause if if we can make this unit upgradable then we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah but then we talk about changing the warranty concept and everything , but that's that was just an idea I had . Uh to me the only additions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , the plus there's the the risk of making it unusable as well , or making it less {disfmarker} b because at the moment it's actually very straightforward to look at all the buttons , you know what they do , it's very simple , and it just works . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm there's a risk of that . +Marketing: Yep . But anyway that's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay so we can talk about finance now . So I have a little spreadsheet for us where {disfmarker} I I was wondering , you {disfmarker} when you talked about the fifteen point eight Euros , I was wondering how you came up with that figure ? +User Interface: Well , that was just just our technical team added up the um production costs of the individual units . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay so I have bit of a spreadsheet here for this . {vocalsound} Now +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Very co very colf colourful . +Project Manager: I've made a f few assumptions here in that I'm assuming that our power adaptor we can make for a cost of four Euros , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Project Manager: equivalent to solar cells , which I think is probably fair considering that we have in-house manufacturing of power adaptors already . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} and I'm assuming that the locator beacon , the you know the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: beep beep beep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can be made for {disfmarker} it sounded different that time {disfmarker} uh can be made for a similar price to uh an L_C_ display , +User Interface: Oh , sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh an uh {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh do you think that's fair coming from a {disfmarker} m the manufacturing ? +User Interface: Yeah um I do think we that we we {vocalsound} uh don't need the events chip on print , we only need the uh the regular chip on print , +Project Manager: {gap} . Okay . +User Interface: so there may have been a m miscalculation in there . +Project Manager: Yep . Okay . So we're down to sixteen point four , yeah . +User Interface: And we and we have a single-curved uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is that a single-curved rather than a double-curved ? +User Interface: Uh I think that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're not entirely sure what single-curve versus double-cur +Marketing: {vocalsound} We've got a we've got a curve and a droop . I don't know whether that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: It's single-curved , +Project Manager: You think ? Okay +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: I'm {gap} convinced . But we save one Euro that way , yeah ? So we come {disfmarker} bring it down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Fifteen point four . +User Interface: See it's a little bit more than f single-curved . So yeah it's fifteen point eight , that's where we came up with it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well hang on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do don't speak so {disfmarker} it's in here , in that {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: w do we have any {disfmarker} we have special form don't we ? +User Interface: Yeah we do . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So that's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Ah . What do you know {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: But the the the {disfmarker} we haven't talked about any special colour though uh I don't th +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh it's {vocalsound} a that's not very special , it's pretty {disfmarker} +Project Manager: if we're going for greys and silvers then I don't think we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} O okay so we're {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} If th {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Push-button , scroll wheel , we're {disfmarker} basically we have uh th +Industrial Designer: We don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: is this intended to be a button as well or just a scroll ? +User Interface: That's a scroll . +Industrial Designer: It's a scroll . +Project Manager: Just a scroll ? It's not one of the scrolls where , for example , with this one you could push it down to be a button ? +User Interface: Uh no we just use it as a scroll . +Marketing: Ooh . +Project Manager: Okay then we have fifteen point eight Euros . +User Interface: It was a pretty accurate estimate I would say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It wasn't bad . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: We're wicked . Awesome . +Project Manager: Okay so we're on to the {disfmarker} +User Interface: S 's kind of s frighteningly accurate {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We're on to the pat-on-the-back part of the presentation , where we have a look at the criterias th that Paul {vocalsound} the criterion criteria that Paul has has given us {vocalsound} , and we can use that to tell {disfmarker} How's it going ? {vocalsound} Anyone got any thoughts ? +User Interface: What ? +Project Manager: How how have we done today ? +User Interface: I think we did pretty well . +Project Manager: I think we did pretty well too . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: That looks pretty spectacular . +Marketing: No , I think we come up with a with a attractive marketable um product and and concept . +Project Manager: Any other chang uh thoughts ? Okay so th th what about um room for creativity ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is it the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: That was mm-hmm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Sh I think there was plenty of room . +Project Manager: I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think we we ended up being quite creative there . +User Interface: We got a couple innovative i +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Couple innovative ideas . +Marketing: well we we we kinda broke {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we kinda at least adjusted every every criteria they gave us +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: because we d we still have the the teletext capability in this thing right , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: we raised the price of it , we've added two t new technology to it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So you know you know if this thing flies then we've we've adjusted or broken every every idea they gave us . +Project Manager: Not every idea necessarily , +Industrial Designer: Basically . +Project Manager: it's still a remote control {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: Uh no yeah but {disfmarker} we did we did break with the specs a little bit I guess , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But I like {disfmarker} I mean when I say we have we had {disfmarker} I believe we have room for creativity 'cause w this is {disfmarker} we did it . +Project Manager: 'Kay leadership , what do we report back to the bosses ? No th th I think they were r reasonably flexible with us over the whole changing the specs thing . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: It was more of a teamwork thing then really leadership based project was +Project Manager: I agree . +Industrial Designer: Teamwork . +Marketing: Cohesive yeah . +Project Manager: Synergy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} There was a lot of synergy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes synergistic yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Teamwork , yeah he is uh . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: What did we think of the meeting room , I guess is an important thing here . Mm . +User Interface: These cables suck {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Yeah , this falls off +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and uh the white board worked really well without any pro +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: D you must have very long shirts . That's way far down lapel mic . +Project Manager: Mm-mm , lapel . Wha okay , oh , alright {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Lapel lapel lapel {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Lapel . +Industrial Designer: That's almost a crotch {vocalsound} mi cr {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's it's down , it's quite close . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You know you know what they're gonna have on the recording in there from that microphone is your lunch digesting you know th {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Keep it , keep it calm . {vocalsound} Oh dear {vocalsound} . No more pizza for me {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh dear oh dear {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So yeah the the pen came in alright and it's a little uncomfortable to use but I guess it works . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause this is {disfmarker} you were using it o upside down . Still that {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's our boss {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nah , I'm I'm not convinced of that at all . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I've been wor I've been wondering about that all day , but see these look like they're {disfmarker} that looks the oth that looks like it would be that way around , +Industrial Designer: Use them like that . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: but it feels more comfortable , wh what you call upside-down . +User Interface: Pedro's right . +Project Manager: I don't care . Uh okay so that data might be slightly invalid . What new ideas have we found ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh wel +Marketing: New ideas f uh for the product or for the the the the environment or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well let's do both then . +Marketing: what are we ta +Project Manager: Uh for the product ? +User Interface: Well we had the favourites list , and the scroll bar , and we have the cradle , and the r uh remote call feature . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Yeah we came up with quite a bit . +Industrial Designer: Bunch of new ideas . +Project Manager: And for the meeting room , Has anyone got any more {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah comfortable headsets would be nice . +Project Manager: Yeah less sore on the ears . +Marketing: Well I I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: clearly remote control microphones would be the would be a nice solution to all these cables , but I'm sure that there's there's some justification for these things that I don't know about . And of course I did not have so much fun with my computer this afternoon . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's not been uh it's not been cooperating so well , but {vocalsound} I don't think that's the that's avoidable . +Industrial Designer: Coulda been worse . +Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} Are the costs within the budget ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm n {vocalsound} no . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh hang on it really {disfmarker} that's something we {disfmarker} that the costs were under twelve fifty Euros . No requirements are changed . We're still under twenty Euros to build , so we're good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And the costs within the budget ? Not the original budget , but they are now . Is the project evaluated ? Mm I think so yeah , then celebration as it says . +Industrial Designer: Hooray . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Free coke provided at the cafeteria . +Project Manager: Oh I don't know how that got there . +User Interface: All right . +Project Manager: Uh anyway . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who wrote that one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Thank +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: So we need to close this meeting , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah bravo . Congratulations . +User Interface: Good job guys . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Marketing: S I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on so let's close this and come back and {disfmarker} 'kay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on too . Oh . +","In this lengthy and descriptive summary, a team comprising roles such as Project Manager, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer engage in a meeting to discuss and evaluate the design and features of a new product, presumably a remote control device. The session unfolds with a sense of informality and collaboration among the team members. + +The Project Manager initiates the meeting by setting out the agenda, which involves presenting and evaluating the new product with a cool-looking prototype at hand. They also mention financial discussions to be carried out with aid from a hastily prepared Excel spreadsheet. The meeting battles with some mild chaos, marked by interruptions, sound effects, and missing dialogue markers indicating disfluencies or inaudible elements in the conversation. + +The Industrial Designer talks about production costs estimated at 15.8 Euros per unit and outlines the basic functions of the product, including traditional TV functions, a locator, a cradle, and a scroll wheel. A unique feature, ""zapping"" through favorite channels using the scroll, is also introduced. + +The Project Manager expresses their liking for the prototype, particularly appreciating the prominent logo placement. The User Interface team member describes the features in detail, including the scroll wheel, volume controls, keypad, power button, and teletext functionality. They also discuss the design, which involves a combination of plastic and rubber for durability, and they address potential issues, such as the scroll wheel being accidentally activated if the remote is dropped. + +The discussion then shifts to the financial aspect, where the Project Manager refers to the Excel spreadsheet. They scrutinize costs associated with various components like the power adapter, locator beacon, and display, aiming for cost-effectiveness without compromising the product's integrity. + +Marketing shares their perspective, commending the team for exceeding expectations with marketable features. The marketing strategy includes targeting exclusive markets rather than a mass market approach, with a proposed price range of 35 to 50 Euros. They open up the discussion on the possible upgradeability of the device in the future, comparing it to a sim card in a phone. + +As the meeting progresses, the team evaluates the product against provided criteria, discussing creativity, leadership, and the meeting room setup, which includes nuisances like falling cables. They consider the potential of newer ideas they have found, such as a remote call feature, favorites list, and a cradle. + +The conversation continues to pivot between the product's features and the meeting room's practicality, with suggestions for improvements like more comfortable headsets and remote control microphones to mitigate cabling issues. + +Eventually, the team confirms that their costs are within the new budget, even though they exceed the original figure of 12.50 Euros. As they close the meeting, the Project Manager jokingly notes a line about free coke provided at the cafeteria and expresses gratitude to the team, with each team member acknowledging the others' efforts through verbal congratulations. + +Overall, the meeting reflects a dynamic interplay of technical discussions, financial considerations, and creative brainstorming, with the team displaying a communal spirit despite the cramped meeting environment and other minor setbacks." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Jack Sargeant and I'm very pleased to welcome Jayne Bryant back, who is substituting for Jack today. Are there any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay, thank you. Item 2, then, this morning, is our sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning: Sally Jenkins, who is chair of All Wales Heads of Children’s Services and is here representing the Association of Directors of Social Services; Alastair Birch, who is senior system leader for equalities and safeguarding at Pembrokeshire County Council, who is here representing the Association of Directors of Education Wales; and Councillor Huw David, who is the Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for health and social care and leader of Bridgend County Borough Council. So, thank you all for attending this morning. We're very pleased to have you here. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so, if you're happy, we'll go straight into questions and I'll start just by asking about your general support for the Bill, which is outlined in the evidence. Can you just explain why you think the current law is ineffective or unclear? +Alastair Birch: Bore da—bore da, bawb. So, I'm Alastair Birch. The statement, really, from ADEW is that the rights of the child should be educated and achieved, really, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The current legislation has been criticised, obviously, by the UN concerning the defence of reasonable punishment still being within our current legislation. So, we will always—ADEW will always—advocate that the rights of the child be upheld, so that is really the fundamental aspect in terms of the statement from ADEW, and the position of ADEW is that the rights of the child are fundamental in this process. And there are certain articles—. I know that the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 made sure that article 3 and article 4, article 12 and article 37 were a focus in terms of making sure that the best interests of the child were put first, that children expressing their views and opinions was a priority. And we know, for safeguarding purposes, that the express opinions of the child and the voice of the child are a fundamental aspect of any safe environment, whether it be a school or college. So, that is—the position is really following that legal position under the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Nothing to add at this stage, no? +Sally Jenkins: I'll just add, on behalf of ADSS and on behalf of children's services and social services more widely, for us, this is not a change in our position, this is not new; this is a position that we, on behalf of the leaders of social services across Wales, have taken over many years, going back 20, 25 years. I think what we would say is that we really welcome this Bill and we welcome the proposed change for the clarity it would bring—the clarity that it would bring for children, for parents and for professionals. I think what we would recognise is that this is a very little-used piece of legislation, so it's rare, it's not as if this is something that is going to cast great change across the scene for children and families in Wales, but what it will do is represent a change in the reality of how we care and nurture our children. I would echo absolutely what Alastair has said in terms of the rights of the child, but equally, in terms of all of our policies in Wales in terms of promoting well-being for children, this has to be key. So, for us, this is about a natural progression of change in how we care for our children in Wales. For children's services at the very sharp end of this world, for us, it brings a true clarity. This continues with an ambiguity in how we treat our children and how we care for our children, and the shift for us brings that very much needed clarity. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The committee has already heard different views about whether there's clear evidence that physical punishment is harmful to children. What evidence does the work of social services provide about whether physical punishment is actually harmful? +Sally Jenkins: Obviously, what you'll all be aware of is that, as part of the consultation for this Bill, the Public Policy Institute did a further piece of research to look at the impact of physical punishment on children. A number of things that we know—we know from across the world that the evidence is that introducing legislation or changing legislation in this way improves children's positions within their families. What we know is that children themselves, as Alastair has already referred to, really find physical punishment demeaning and harmful, and for children it is an emotionally damaging experience. Now, there may be disagreement about that, there will be different views on that, but that's the voice of the child in this debate. The voice of the child is very clear that physical punishment is for them harmful. I think what we would also say is that, in the world that we work in, it's part of a continuum, and, whilst this is an element of how children are cared for, what we see is a continuum where an acceptance of how we treat children in a particular way perpetuates throughout our work. By changing this, it helps that shift to that absolute recognition that our children must be cared for in a way that is physically safe in all dimensions for them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've had evidence from the equal protection network that the reasonable punishment defence undermines child protection and fails to protect children because it permits an arbitrary level of violence, which invades children's physical integrity, making it a potential pathway to more serious physical or sexual abuse, and you did refer to that just now. Is there anything you want to add on that? +Sally Jenkins: I would echo that. I think there is something in this that is about our culture, about how we see our children. It is about how we see our smallest and most vulnerable people, and if it is acceptable it opens the door to those other, more extreme versions of violence, which then complicates the issue for us. This is about clarity, and, whilst there is an argument that this is a small episode for a child, it's not a small episode for a child, it is a major episode for a child, and I think absolutely, as you said, the potential for it then to lead on, and over gradation and time to increase the risk for children, is clearly there. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question from me: your written evidence emphasises the need for greater clarity around the definition of what constitutes corporal punishment, but that contrasts with what we've been told by the children's commissioner and the equal protection network, who've emphasised the importance of simplicity in the Bill. How do you respond to that view, and is what you're calling for essential to be on the face of the Bill? +Sally Jenkins: It's not essential for it to be on the face of the Bill. What we would like to see is discussion within the implementation phase for that nuancing. Absolutely agree in terms of simplicity—I think that is really important—and I've already mentioned clarity. What we don't want to do is further confuse the position. We know that the legislation in different countries has done that, and there are ways that you can do it, but what we would welcome is an opportunity during the implementation phase for discussion. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Huw David: And, as a principle, obviously we would welcome full involvement, and we know there's the commitment from Welsh Government to full involvement in the implementation, because, as with every piece of legislation, implementation is the most important part, and we would want to ensure there is that commitment to a major awareness-raising campaign, and there is that from Welsh Government, because we need to take families, carers and parents with us on this. Also we need to ensure that there is that support available to parents and carers that do sometimes struggle with parenting, and that needs to be a universal offer across Wales. If we're to progress with this, that has to be an option that is offered to every parent in Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. +Sally Jenkins: Local authorities have already been very heavily involved in terms of looking at this Bill and exploring what the issues are and the discussions and looking at what the implications from a local authority perspective will be, as Huw describes, both in terms of the awareness raising, early support and intervention and prevention services for families against the backdrop of the current issues that we have in local government, but also awareness raising—because absolutely it is key that families come with us on this journey. This is not an imposition. This is embracing a culture and a value system for our children. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got some questions now from Dawn Bowden on the implementation of the Bill. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. So, you've pre-empted me, Huw. +Huw David: Right. Sorry. I've got good eyesight; I can't see—. [Laughter.] +Dawn Bowden AM: You've already said, obviously, that you're looking towards working with Welsh Government in terms of its implementation. What's been your role so far in terms of the implementation of the Bill—local authorities generally, now? Have you had a role? Has Welsh Government been involving you in discussions around the introduction of the Bill so far? +Huw David: Yes. So, obviously we were consulted—a key consultee—but also our officials have worked very closely with Welsh Government officials to make sure this is implemented successfully, if it is progressed. +Sally Jenkins: Our involvement with this, from a social services perspective, goes back over two years, directly in working towards this point, never mind the history in terms of work towards this area. But, very directly in relation to this Bill, we were first involved at least two years ago, to recollect, and that was in a series of workshops with other agencies, for example Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru and the police, and looking in real depth at what the implications would be for us as agencies to look at what the likely trajectory would be in terms of our pathways for referral into our services and what that might mean for us. And then particularly, for example, with CAFCASS Cymru in relation to private law, what the fallout might be, and then what, if anything—and that's the discussion that we need to have—that could mean for children's services in particular, given the pressures that we're already under. So, we've been in constant, I suppose, involvement in terms of the Bill already, as part of the consultation, in terms of the focus groups and in terms of direct work with Welsh Government officials to take this forward. And we are absolutely committed to continuing with that work. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. You touched there on the pressures that you're already under, which we fully appreciate, but you also mentioned in answers to Lynne Neagle earlier on that you welcomed the Bill in terms of its clarity. So, are you confident that the Bill can be implemented without any major impact on your capacity to deal with it? +Sally Jenkins: We've done—. A number of local authorities—my own included, Newport City Council, has done some work to look at what the likely impact would be and then actually to look at what some of that costing would need to be. Further work is needed on that area, and that needs to be carried out during the implementation phase. I think what we've done is we've looked internationally at what the impact has been elsewhere when similar legislation has been introduced to try and gauge, but that's difficult to do in terms of comparable nations and size and also different systems. And obviously our approach in terms of children and pedagogy is very different from some of the nations that have already done this. I wouldn't like to say one way or the other, because I think, in terms of that culture shift, it could be a double impact on us in terms of increased referrals because of increased awareness, but it could also be, I suppose, as Huw alludes to, that, if we're looking at ensuring greater awareness of preventative services and support services for parents, actually people coming to the fore and asking us for those services as well. So, at this stage, I think what we would want to say is that we continue to be fully involved in the implementation phase, to look at what the cost implications for that could be, and not just for the local authorities but also the police, CAFCASS Cymru, for third sector organisations involved in preventative services. I don't think any of that should undermine the position in terms of children and their rights within our society. So, a difficult answer, in the sense that— +Dawn Bowden AM: No, I understand. What you're saying is that this is a piece of legislation that, in your view, is a good piece of legislation. It's setting out to, hopefully, achieve what the purpose of it is and you will deliver what you need to. Can I ask you whether, then, you've also given thought to the impact on—we've talked about social services, but the impact on other services, like housing, education and so on? You're obviously coming at it from slightly different angles in other sections. +Alastair Birch: We are part of the universal service for children, and we very much work in co-operation with the WLGA and our social care colleagues, and we've been part of that consultation. In terms of education, the main changes, or adaptations, would be around training and awareness. And, in terms of the Bill, there needs to be the clarity—ambiguity would be bad—in terms of making sure that safeguarding leads within all schools have the right training and support. So, really, that's the key element there, and then obviously the preventative services for the parents that schools can signpost, and sometimes possibly even host, in terms of being community schools. These positive parenting approaches that—. I have colleagues who have worked in that area for many years and see the benefits in how those positive parenting approaches make a difference to families. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, from your point of view, it's awareness raising, is it? +Alastair Birch: It's awareness raising; it's making sure that professionals are fully briefed on necessary changes, that there's very little ambiguity, that we are aware that—. We still have that duty to report whenever there is any safeguarding concern. That'll still be part of the all-Wales child protection procedures. That won't change, and that duty is always going to be there for all our professionals. But that awareness raising and training will be the key, and then, obviously, working in co-operation with our colleagues. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, I understand that. Have you been given an indication of how long you've got between Royal Assent and implementation, and whether you've thought through any of the key milestones that need to be implemented? +Sally Jenkins: There's a group proposed that would be a strategic leadership group in the steering group that we're part of, which is now laying out what would happen after Royal Assent if that is given. So, we will work towards that. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question, Chair, is about some of the responses we've had to this committee that say that the state should not get involved in family life—I'm sure you've heard those views—unless it's in the most serious circumstances. To what extent do you think that this Bill undermines the existing local authority responsibilities, or don't you? +Huw David: The state's paramount role is to protect children from harm. That is our legal responsibility, it's our moral responsibility, and we will discharge that. And there is obviously a view—it's a view that is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—that physical punishment, physical harm to a child is harm to a child, and we should be preventing that and act to prevent that. That would be the position of the Welsh Local Government Association, and we also respect the mandate that Members of the National Assembly for Wales have too. And we believe that children can be raised by parents without recourse to physical punishment, effectively, and we'd support parents in that. We do not believe that in the 50 nations across the world where such legislation exists that the state is interfering in family life unnecessarily. We believe this action reflects a cultural change, a sea change that's taken place in Wales over the last 30 to 40 years, where the vast majority of parents now say that they do not use it themselves, they do not support it, and we believe this is actually a reflection of what has happened in Welsh society. We support Assembly Members in the view that the natural progression of that is that children's rights are protected across Wales. +Dawn Bowden AM: So, I've got largely positive feedback from you in terms of the Bill and its intentions, and so on. Do you foresee any unintended consequences for this Bill? +Huw David: If we implement it carefully, if we implement it with the right resources, then I hope not. I think not. But as with every piece of legislation, it is about the implementation, it is about the cultural change as well, and that's why I cannot overstress the importance of making sure that resources are made available, because our social services departments—children's social services in particular—are overstretched. They are at breaking point—make no bones about it—and they are dealing with children who are facing serious harm and neglect. We are having record numbers of contacts from police, from teachers, from doctors and, of course, from children themselves who are experiencing that harm and neglect. And obviously, we want to focus our energy and our attention on those children. Equally, though, we don't want to lose sight of those families and children that are experiencing significant problems, but who we want to support through our early intervention and prevention programmes, and that is why it is important that there is investment in those programmes, so that children do not end up in that terrible position where we have to, for their safety, take them from their birth families to protect them. And the reality is, in Wales, that we are doing that to more children than we've done for a long time, and the numbers are growing across Wales. And that is only because of the most appalling neglect and abuse, because there is no way that any judge would permit us to act to make a child safe if it was not for that fact, and the facts are there. So, I don't want that focus to be lost, but, of course, we welcome and understand the need to progress this piece of legislation. +Dawn Bowden AM: That rise that you talk about here, is that due to more interventions, greater awareness, more incidents? I'm trying to link this to the Bill in terms of whether the Bill is actually going to give you more work to do in those areas. +Sally Jenkins: On the reasons for the rise in the numbers of looked-after children in Wales, which are higher than those in England, and also the numbers of contacts that we have across the local authorities, the work of the care crisis review, which was completed last year; the work of Isabelle Trowler, who's the chief social worker in England; countless research and reports that have taken place in the last 18 months; and currently the public law working group, under the auspices of the president of the family court, would all indicate that it's multifactorial. So, what you have is a range of reasons that have led to the increasing numbers of children becoming looked after across England and Wales. What you can't do is identify a single reason. There have been headlines that have said, 'Is it increased austerity?' That is clearly a part of this. Is it in Wales an increased awareness of adverse childhood experiences and the emphasis of the impact on children of, for example, domestic abuse? Is it because of our understanding of what happens to children in those households? All of that research would say it's all of those things. And then, when you also add in changes in our practice with our colleagues in the judiciary, changes in our police service, but also changes in our preventative services, you've got that whole range of elements. And there is going on across the local authorities and Welsh Government a huge amount of work to try to address and understand that, and then to ameliorate that. Children who need to be in care for safety need to be in care, but what we have to do is get to a point where fewer children come into care and we're able to protect them, firstly, and secondly where those children who are in care are cared for in a way that delivers the best possible outcomes for them. So, there is no simple answer unfortunately. I think, in terms of this Bill and unintended consequences, I agree absolutely with everything that Huw has said. My job is around children at that far end, but what this Bill does is it brings clarity. It brings a clarity even for those children at that very far end. It takes away even that point of discussion that this could possibly be okay, and I think that's important to hang on to. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Sorry. +Alastair Birch: One unintended consequences is that I think that there will be an increased focus on the UNCRC. And, in terms of children having a discussion around this point, children need to be part of that discussion. It's something that affects them. And a key aspect of education is the voice of the child. It has become significantly—. It's changed completely in the last 10 years, and it is one of the key things in terms of us driving improvements. +Dawn Bowden AM: Would that be something that you would be looking to do in schools? +Alastair Birch: Anything that improves the voice of the child in any educational context is good and it's very powerful for the children. And it improves their educational experiences, encouraging the opportunities for them to discuss the issues, the adverse childhood experiences that they encounter, which are significant, and it's our educational professionals that are facing this day-in, day-out. They've become a very highly trained workforce, they're ACE aware, they're trauma aware, and anything that focuses, even increases, their professionalism and understanding around a particular point, and also—. So it's a positive unintended consequence, shall we say, that it could reinvigorate some of the voice of the child discussion within various contexts. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some specific questions now on implementation for social services, from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. If this Bill becomes law, would you encourage members of the public to contact social services departments if they do see a child being smacked? +Sally Jenkins: We already encourage members of the public to contact social services or the police, depending on the circumstances. Interestingly, I'm picking— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What, if a child is being smacked now? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. If a child is being smacked now, we would ask that people contact. We have a duty to report, as professionals. But if you were walking out, and you saw something happening to a child, in the same way as if you saw something to an adult. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Right. +Sally Jenkins: So, I think that the challenge is about—we've all probably, sadly, witnessed incidents in the doctor's reception, or in a supermarket, and we've failed to do something about it. And I think we then walk away and feel pretty guilty about that, realistically, when you see something happening to a child in a particular circumstance. I think we can't ignore the fact that a child is being assaulted in those circumstances. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Thank you. A campaign opposing this Bill, Be Reasonable Wales, have said that 'If the law is changed, the consequences for parents will be considerable.' It also says, 'Anyone accused or convicted of assaulting a child—under the new definition—' so, I suppose you could argue, a minor tap— 'will be subject to long-term social services involvement in their family and social stigma.' To what extent is this accurate, and, also, will thresholds for social services intervention change if the Bill is enacted? +Sally Jenkins: There are a number of parts to that. Firstly, in terms of long-term social services intervention in a family's life, I think, for people to be fully aware of the very few numbers of families where we have long-term intervention currently, even where there is what would be perceived as very significant abuse. What we do is we go in for short periods in families' lives, to support them to work with their strengths, to work with them and their family members. It's not about us going into families, whatever some of the public perception may be. Our aim is to get in and get out. So, in terms of long-term intervention, what we want is for families to find their own solutions. We want families to be able to work with each other, and together, and local community support, and preventative services, to be able to address issues. This is not about punitive approaches from social services. So, that's the first element. In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen. Because we also know that this is actually quite a rare occurrence currently; this is not a defence that's being used with great frequency, this is not something that is happening. And if we look at the data, we know that the incidents of children, and the number of parents who now recognise this as an acceptable form of punishment, has steadily declined over the last 15 to 20 years. So it's diminishing as it is. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, on that one then, is there a need for legislation that will—obviously there'll be resources for the Welsh Government and there'll be resources out of hours and things like that—is there a need for legislation if, as you say, natural behaviour and the culture is changing? Let's be honest, as you've rightly pointed out, in social services—I know in my own authority—in your own authority, you're saying that even now you're working with the police, on systematic failings within the system. +Sally Jenkins: Two things. Firstly, we want legislation that reflects our society—we don't want the two to be out of kilter. That would be my first natural response: surely our legislation should be reflective of what our world is. It shouldn't be that we've got these rather confusing elements running in parallel, and that continues to perpetuate a lack of clarity and the ambiguity that we currently see. I think the other element is that, again, this is about potentially an accelerating of that awareness and that culture in our society, about how we care for our children. We've got there naturally; we've got there by the change that's happened in Wales over the last 15 to 20 years. What this does is to continue with that change and continue with that awareness and understanding of how we positively, from a strength-based approach, should care for our children, bearing in mind what's required of us in terms of the UNCRC. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Are there any comments from anyone else? +Huw David: Simply to say that I think that, in terms of that clarity for the very vulnerable children out there who are currently being assaulted—seriously assaulted and abused by their parents, which goes on on a daily basis—that is already covered by existing legislation. But at the moment, they don't know, because they could be being told—and they probably are being told—by their parents that's it's okay, that they can smack their child and that that's acceptable. They don't know the difference. A young child is not going to know that difference and there is confusion about what is—. And if you asked most parents, and in fact lots of professionals, they would not be able to tell you, and probably most of you wouldn't be able to tell me exactly where is the threshold— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, where's that line. +Huw David: Well, at the moment, we don't know where that line is. That vulnerable child, at home, being abused by their parents, does not know where that line is. And they should know where that line is because then they can pick up the phone to Childline or they can talk to a professional and ask them where that line is. So, that would be a step forward. I do recognise, though, that what we don't want to do—and the last thing any of us want to do—is criminalise parents who are bringing up their children. That is why we're saying there needs to be an emphasis on the support programmes that are available to parents. And to be clear, there is no way that we want long-term involvement in any child's life, but particularly not in the lives of children who have been smacked by their parents. That is not going to be the result of this legislation, trust me, because we don't want to be involved in—we haven't got the resources to be involved in children's lives. The social worker or the police officer—if they become involved, then there would be a proportionate response to that, and there'll also be a test about whether or not that is progressed. So, if there is an allegation—if this legislation is passed—then that will be looked into and a consideration will be made about whether any action will be taken, and as with any allegation of the law being broken, there would be a proportionate response, as there is now. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the next question does relate to the practical response to that. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. Can you outline the practical ways in which social services' interaction with parents will change as a result of this proposed law and do you envisage that all referrals to the police will be automatically referred to social services for an assessment? Who's going to make those decisions? +Sally Jenkins: That will be part of the implementation phase about that decision making. Interestingly, the number of referrals that we currently get from the police that we take absolutely no action on is extraordinary. So, we get a very, very large number of—. It will be happening now; sitting in the civic centre in Newport City Council will be a whole host of social workers taking in the public protection notifications from overnight. It's 10 o'clock, so they're assessing them now, as we speak. And an awful lot of those will have no further action from the local authority. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But will they be investigated? +Sally Jenkins: No. There will be no action. There are countless referrals made by agencies to local authorities that we take no action on. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, if there's an increase as a result of greater awareness— +Sally Jenkins: What happens is there is a paper assessment of them. There's a look at what's happened, who's involved, what the police have reported, and there's work being done with the police to improve that. Because one of the things that we want to get to is actually where we're not using huge amounts of time to look at that, but what comes to us is what we act on. So, there is work going on with a number of police authorities to look at how you improve that process. But I suppose, to pick up, each incident will be looked at, each one will be assessed in a way that is proportionate, as Huw says, to look at what's happened and then investigated. +Lynne Neagle AM: Sally, can you give us a couple of examples of what kind of things might have come in that you would then take no action on? +Sally Jenkins: We get countless referrals, for example, where there's been a domestic abuse incident overnight where a child wasn't present in the property and we then haven't taken action. It’ll be where the level of harm that’s perceived to happen to that child is below the threshold for intervention from children's services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I’m pretty cynical about assessment, because, you know, I have people come in who are benefit claimants where, when they’ve been assessed, the whole process has been very flawed and I’ve had to fight and fight and fight on their behalf. So— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: But if you're struggling now with those assessments— +Sally Jenkins: Assessment processes within social services are as laid out in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. So, we have within what we carry out, I suppose, that kind of initial look, that look at the information, what else do we know about that family— +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And are they qualified people that are doing this? +Sally Jenkins: Yes, absolutely. +Huw David: And, in fact, in lots of places in Wales now, it’s a multi-agency assessment. So, it’s a joint assessment carried out with police professionals and health professionals. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, what proportion currently would you not be taking any action on, if a report came in of some domestic abuse where a child had perhaps been smacked? +Sally Jenkins: If something came in to us where a child had been smacked and there was something clearly there, we would look at it. We would clearly look at it and we would take some sort of action. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Even now, before the legislation? +Sally Jenkins: Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can you ask a final question? And I'm going to have to appeal for brief answers, because we've got a lot of ground to cover. +Huw David: Just very quickly, there may be no action from social services, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t offer support. So, the expectation is that support is offered in those circumstances from family support services, for example— +Sally Jenkins: Or prevention. +Huw David: —or prevention services. So, we would not say, if we were aware, for example, that there was domestic abuse at a home, ‘There’s no role for children’s social services’, because there may be an assessment that that child may not be at immediate risk of harm, but we would obviously recognise that there are causes for concern there and we would offer that support. So, just to be clear about that. And that’s a process that happens in every social services department in the UK, and it’s happened for a very long time, and, in fact, it’s reflective of the legislation that you have laid down as Assembly Members. +Lynne Neagle AM: And are those services there, Huw? Because I’m very acutely aware of the pressure on local government. Are the services there? Is there sufficient resource in things like Families First? Because what I’m hearing on the ground is that eligibility is changing for even those preventative services. +Huw David: There’s not enough of those services, and, obviously—you may have heard me saying this before—I think we need to invest more in those services, and I hope you invest more in the services, because, obviously, prevention is better than cure. And those pressures that Sally talked about earlier are pressures that are not going away; they’re only increasing by the day, actually, and I would want us to be able to offer those services now. Because that example of a child that perhaps is in a home where there is domestic abuse—we’ll probably have another referral off them in a couple of months’ time, and that could escalate. And what I’d rather do is provide support to that family and try and stop that family breaking down so that, in six months, we're not going back and saying that we've got to take this child into care because the domestic abuse has worsened and that child is at risk. But those services need additional investment. +Sally Jenkins: I appreciate that time is of the essence, but, just really quickly in relation to that, it’s not just social services. So, for example, there are developments like Encompass, which is a piece of work that is being rolled out across Gwent and across other areas, which is where the police automatically notify the school overnight of an incident, not expecting the school to do anything per se, but to be aware, to be able to offer care for that child. +Alastair Birch: Can I add to that? Operation Encompass I know in Gwent has been operational, and we started it in Pembrokeshire 18 months ago. We as a local authority—and it’ll be education that will contact the school around the domestic incident happening, and the school as part of that protocol will provide a level of universal service support for that child when they come in, before 9 o’clock, so that professionals are aware of the needs of the welfare of that child at that point. So, you know, schools play a key role in the universal service of this and we work very closely with our social care colleagues on that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Janet, your last question, please. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The Bill's explanatory memorandum refers to an estimate of 274 offences annually where lawful chastisement was used as a defence or considered. It says there is also potential to create extra demand on out-of-hours social services teams due to the time that the offences were reported, and in order to support safeguarding measures. Have you assessed how this Bill will impact on emergency and out-of-hours local authority services? +Sally Jenkins: We have considered that, and again I think that's something that we would very much want to look at as part of implementation. We have out-of-hours provision, we have emergency duty teams already across Wales that operate 24/7. There's no doubt that they exist and they work very closely with our police colleagues. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Are they overstretched at the moment? +Sally Jenkins: I think in the same way as all of social services is. If we were offered additional resource, we are going to take that. But are they working in a way that protects children day in, day out, and vulnerable adults? Yes, they are, and they will continue to do so. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We've got some specific questions now on the impact on education from Jayne Bryant. +Jayne Bryant AM: Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Alastair, you've already mentioned about awareness raising and training, which will be key with educational professionals. How confident are you that teachers and others working in those educational settings will be clear about how to support the implementation of this Bill, if enacted? +Alastair Birch: Training requirements for all professionals in education settings are clear. The universal tier 1 training is there, and all local authorities in Wales will implement that. In that level of general safeguarding awareness and training, the infinite emphasis is on the duty to report. That will remain the same. The thresholds for social care, that's their responsibility. That duty to report will always be there. It says in 'Keeping learners safe', which is the bible in terms of education professionals, that there's a responsibility on the professional to make that referral and for that universal service. So, the more specialist safeguarding leads within the schools, who have become highly skilled professionals in terms of understanding what might be significant harm—because that's what we're talking about—they understand the legalities when a referral needs to be made. There's always the collation of safeguarding information, where there might be just general concerns about neglect and other areas, which combined would create a picture that there might be significant neglect or significant harm to the child, and then that referral would be made to the child care assessment team or the police. So, that awareness—it needs to be clear for educational professionals that that duty to report is always there. If they believe that that significant harm has happened then that report then goes to the child care assessment team. They will make the judgment on the threshold because they are the professionals. They have the multi-agency awareness of how that meets the threshold. But in terms of education, it'll be that awareness, making sure that there's clarity. If there's anything that professionals need to be trained additionally on, it'll need to go into 'Keeping learners safe', which at the moment is being rewritten. So, there would have to be some new possible information there relating to this. But as long as there's clarity, and once that implementation phase and the discussion has happened, as long as it's clear for professionals that the duty is always there and they feel a significant harm, then that report will always be there and will always need to be made. It's making sure—and I'll echo what my colleague said, Huw—that the services are key for families. Schools are absolutely fundamental in that support for the families. They have those relationships with the families. I know there was discussion around professional trust. On a daily basis, professionals are working on that trust with parents, because they are the ones that can engage with those families. The family support officers that are working on the ground with highly complex families, with multiple leads and supporting the children—they are fundamental, and investment in that level of support would also help our colleagues as well. So, anything that's preventative. That is already happening in schools and is effective, and is shown to be effective, and has an evidence base—we'd always support that that would continue to be invested in. So, that's really my answer. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay. And you were saying about how important trust is as well, but do you think that there's a risk that those in education settings will have a key role in referring more parents to social services, which some have said could cause potential harm to relationships and cause mistrust? +Alastair Birch: I don't think it's a matter of mistrust—it's a matter of, you know, if a professional believes, based on the evidence that they have, because they're working with that child every day, that there is significant harm to that child, they are under a duty to report that to social care. So, part of the work is with families, and most of the referrals we make are with parental consent. That consent is a key element of this, and conversation with our social care colleagues is usually, 'You need to speak to the parents again and have a conversation with them.' Some of the NFAs—the ones that don't get referred at threshold—it will come back to school for, possibly, some support from the family or a team around the family or some other aspect. So, I don't think—. The trust in the professionals—it's actually more important that we are seen to be upholding our duties under the all-Wales safeguarding procedures. That's what engenders trust in a professional workforce. +Jayne Bryant AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. We're going to move on now to some questions about the importance of awareness raising from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. In looking at your written evidence, you say that we must make it very clear to parents, guardians and the public that this legislation is not trying to criminalise parents, and that is clearly very important for you. How do you think we should do that and who should be doing that work? +Sally Jenkins: I think that's really broad. Obviously, colleagues in education, colleagues in social care, colleagues in preventative services, but also Welsh Government and the National Assembly, in terms of those drivers in relation to that awareness raising are really, really key. If you look at some of the other campaigns that have been run, notably in relation to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, and echoing some of those building campaigns that have been done to raise awareness—I think those would be really good models to begin to consider in terms of how this is taken forward with awareness. We also know that there are a number of routes that we can go through in terms of raising awareness. We have existing preventative services, we have all our universal services, we have the regional safeguarding boards and the national safeguarding boards. So, there are a number of avenues that we could then explore. In terms of not wishing to criminalise, I think if we look at the numbers, they are very, very small. And I think one of the things we need to hold on to in this is a sense of proportion about what is or isn't likely to happen once or if this Bill ever gets to the point of Royal Assent—they are small numbers who currently use this defence. It is about that wider issue of awareness raising, and using all of those avenues will help us to do that in the broadest sense. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you, therefore, believe that this needs to be on the face of the Bill? That is, you don't say this in your evidence. I'd like to know your opinion on that. Scotland is going to be making it a duty for Scottish Ministers to raise awareness of the impact of the Bill. So far, the Welsh Government says that we don't need to do that in Wales. Wouldn't it make it clearer for you if it was a clear duty on the face of the Bill, for example as it was with the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013? There was a duty in that Act for Ministers to promote transplantation. Surely, that awareness raising aspect would be clearer for everyone if it was on the face of the Bill. Do you have an opinion on that? +Huw David: Well, Welsh Government have given that commitment, and I know the Welsh Government honour every commitment that they make—[Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: That's why I'm asking. +Huw David: I don't know whether that is necessary—I'm not a legislator. I think that there's obviously an inherent interest in Welsh Government raising awareness, because we have to raise awareness effectively for this to be successful, otherwise we will have parents who feel that they're being criminalised, and that's the last thing we want. I think it's worthy of consideration, but, as I say, I'm not a legislator or a lawyer, so I don't know what implications that will have long term. But to be fair to Welsh Government, I think that commitment is one that I'm sure will be honoured, because Welsh Government will want to make a success of this Bill if it does receive Royal Assent. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. But is it clear who would pay for all of that? +Huw David: I've suddenly changed my mind—[Laughter.] I think it should be a duty on Welsh Government Ministers—absolutely. I don't need to check with lawyers or legislators. There we go. And that's the WLGA position; I don't need to ask the other 21 leaders on that either. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: Wouldn't it make it clearer if there was a clear duty on the face of the Bill that awareness raising had to happen? It would be clearer, then, for local authorities and people in the front-line services what needs to happen. +Sally Jenkins: I'm going to echo Huw. [Laughter.] +Sian Gwenllian AM: I thought you might. Okay, fine. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're moving on now, then, to the contentious issue of resources and we've got some questions from Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Sally Jenkins, you said that the purpose of the Bill is to bring clarity and to remove what is a little-used defence. Isn't this an expensive way of doing that? +Sally Jenkins: I don't think so, no. I think that our children deserve the best legislation. +Hefin David AM: But introducing this legislation diverts finances from other areas of children's services—or doesn't? +Sally Jenkins: Well, I would say, no, I don't think it will divert resources from children's services. Firstly, going back to the comment made, I think, proportionally, this is a very small number of cases. It's a very small number of existing cases that go through in terms of prosecution, or consideration for prosecution. We know that it's likely, from some of the work that we've already done, that it's not opening floodgates for a sudden sea of referrals to children's services—that's not the way this is going to be, because the numbers are not out there because of the changes that have already happened in Welsh family life and Welsh society. So, I think as part of the implementation phase, we need to have a really clear understanding of the trajectory of those costs and what's likely to happen over the first six months, 12 months in terms of people's awareness and understanding and what is referred and how that's worked. But in terms of a huge number, no, I don't anticipate it being that. +Hefin David AM: But the costs wouldn't just be directed to the number of referrals and the number of cases raised, it's the cost around that, with training of staff, awareness—all those extra additional costs that always come with legislation. Is it too much? Is it—? +Sally Jenkins: No. And I agree with that—that there clearly are—but if you think, many of those things will be aligned with work we are already doing, but it brings a clarity to that work. So, our teachers, our social workers, our health workers, our police officers already get substantial training around child protection, around safeguarding, around adverse childhood experiences and around a trauma-informed approach to children. What this does is it layers a clarity on that. But rather than having a part of that training, which has to deal with this as an aspect—that is no longer there; it is a clear message for all professions. +Hefin David AM: I fully appreciate that, and in the briefing note you've given us, you've outlined the pressures on social services. So, do you think this is another way of getting money into social services? +Sally Jenkins: If this was a way of getting money into—. I can think of better ways, but I don't think this is it. No, I mean, I absolutely do not think that. I think this is a clear commitment to the rights of children in Wales; this is not about levering additional resources into children's services. Oh that it was so simple. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And, do you think those costs are quantifiable? +Sally Jenkins: I think we are currently looking at work and are doing work across my own local authority and across two others to look at breaking down those costs, not just for local authority, but also for health, for police and for Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service Cymru. So, there is work currently taking place to try to quantify those costs. +Hefin David AM: Okay. I think there was a bit about local authorities that Siân— +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân Gwenllian has got a question on resources. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just to carry on from that, in a way. The explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Bill talks about the unknown costs for different agencies. You mentioned there that you're doing work around trying to identify some of those costs, but wouldn't it be useful if the explanatory memorandum did explain more about any unknown or unidentified costs, partly in order to calm some of those fears around that? Giving a title 'unidentified costs'—is that good enough? +Sally Jenkins: I think, clearly, that is a challenge, and that is work that we are participating in and are committed to completing with Welsh Government, to look at what those costs are. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then they can be added into this. +Huw David: I think this is where it would be helpful in the committee's deliberations and where our concern would be, because the reality is we're not going to know what the costs are until it's actually implemented, because we haven't implemented this before. And, therefore, I think there needs to be a commitment that, whatever the costs are, those costs are met because it is legislation that is being led by the National Assembly for Wales. And whilst we don't see it as levering in additional resources, we don't think it should be at the expense of current service provision to vulnerable families in Wales, and therefore it's important that it is properly and fully resourced. +Sian Gwenllian AM: What I would argue on that is that you have to try and forecast. You say it's difficult to forecast how much this is going to cost, but we have to try and forecast that, and part of the argument for trying to have projections is to show that, perhaps, it's not going to cost that much, and that would add to the argument that, 'Okay, this is going to be fine to do and it's not going to put too much pressure on us'. Or we need to know that this is going to cost a lot to do it effectively, and therefore you have to make your argument, then, 'Well, we can't afford that, the money has to come from somewhere else.' We have to get the costs, surely. +Huw David: Yes, and we will work very closely with Welsh Government to try and establish those costs as quickly as possible. There will be some costs that we will be able to identify. So, for example, a campaign, an awareness-raising campaign, the marketing, if you like, but some of the other costs will be more difficult to establish in terms of the resource implications for front-line workers. I expressed a view that we need to see some additional investment in some of those programmes that are not targeted directly at families that would be impacted by this but support all families across Wales that have different needs, and some of that provision is universal. Obviously, my view is the more we put into that, the better. So, there's no limit to that, but I suspect Welsh Government will take a very different view to that. But I think that is something where we need to see a commitment to some additional resources. But I don't put an upper limit on that, because I don't think there's an authority in Wales, and I don't think there's a charity, a police service or a health board in Wales that doesn't think that we need to do more of that and could offer more of that if the resources were available. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you all for attending and for answering all of our questions? It's been a really useful and informative discussion. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again, all of you, for coming. +Huw David: And thank you for your questions and engagement. We welcome the opportunity. +Alastair Birch: Thank you very much. +Sally Jenkins: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Housing and Local Government—additional information for our inquiry into school funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services on in-patient child and adolescent mental health services provision, and I would like to briefly return to that when we go into private. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then: can I propose a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","This meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee has begun with Chair Lynne Neagle welcoming attendees and noting apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and Jack Sargeant. Jayne Bryant has stepped in as a substitute for Jack. The absence of declarations of interest from members was confirmed before moving on to the main agenda item: the sixth scrutiny session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. + +The committee is joined by witnesses Sally Jenkins, representing the Association of Directors of Social Services and chair of All Wales Heads of Children’s Services; Alastair Birch, representing the Association of Directors of Education Wales and senior system leader for equalities and safeguarding at Pembrokeshire County Council; and Councillor Huw David, leader of Bridgend County Borough Council and the Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for health and social care. They are present to discuss their support for the Bill and their views on the current law's profound limitations regarding the defence of reasonable punishment for children in Wales. + +Alastair Birch emphasizes the paramount importance of upholding the rights of the child as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, highlighting the UN’s criticisms of the current legislation, which still includes the defence of reasonable punishment. The committee is reminded that the true interests of children, their ability to express views, and the importance of a safe environment must be prioritized in alignment with the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011. + +Sally Jenkins adds that this position is longstanding and the Bill’s proposed change provides much-needed clarity for children, parents, and professionals. She elaborates on what constitutes a rarity in practical terms, explaining that the Bill represents a critical shift in the culture of child care and nurturing in Wales. Furthermore, she notes the evidence suggesting that physical punishment is harmful to children, reinforcing the views of children who find such punishment emotionally damaging. Jenkins also touches upon the continuum of harm, indicating that allowing physical punishment opens the door to more extreme violence and abuse, underscoring the need for cultural change and clear legal standards. + +Alastair Birch also discusses the importance of ensuring that safeguarding and child protection training within educational settings are adapted to align with this legislative change, allowing for a continual focus on the welfare of the child. + +Questions from the committee members seek to further unearth the potential impact of the Bill, including possible resource implications for social services if its passage results in increased referrals. Sally Jenkins acknowledges that while implementation may see a short-term rise in referrals, the overall effect on workloads is not expected to be significant, especially given the decline in the use of physical punishment in Welsh family life. However, the committee expresses concerns about the need for adequate resource provisioning and the importance of effective implementation without overburdening existing services. + +Discussions also touch upon the need for a robust public awareness campaign and the provision of support to families to ensure that the culture surrounding parenting continues to evolve towards non-violent methods. Concerns about potentially unintended consequences, such as increased mistrust between state agencies and families, are raised, yet the prevailing sentiment remains that the Bill largely reflects a positive and necessary cultural shift supported by evidence and rooted in the protection of children's rights. + +Lastly, the committee moves to note additional information received for their inquiry into school funding and an update on in-patient child and adolescent mental health services provision, before concluding the public portion of the meeting with plans to enter a private session. + +[This summary provides an overview of the discussion points and sentiments expressed during the session, capturing the key elements of dialogue and inquiry related to the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, observed concerns about services, resources, and the broader implications for professional training and public perception.]" +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education committee this morning. We've received apologies for absence from Siân Gwenllian and there is no substitute this morning. Can I ask if Members have got any declarations of interest they'd like to make, please? No? Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning, then, is a further session on our follow-up on our 'Mind over matter' report. I'm very pleased to welcome Carol Shillabeer, who is chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, and who manages the Together for Children and Young People programme. Thank you very much for attending, and thank you for the written update that you provided in advance to the committee. We've got a lot of ground that we want to cover this morning, so if it's okay we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start and ask you if you're satisfied with the progress that's been made since the programme was established in 2015. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much for that question, Chair. I've got to say 'yes', in many regards. So, the key focus of the programme in the early stages was about improving access to specialist child and adolescent mental health services. We developed the windscreen model—or we lifted the windscreen model. Other models that are very similar have been talked about as well, and our big focus was on ensuring that we could make immediate progress around access to specialist CAMHS. It's some years ago now since this committee did the original report, and obviously Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and the Wales Audit Office had done reports in the past, and I think there was a need for a programme that could focus on action. You'll see in the written update that we covered quite a large number of areas, and so therefore had to make a prioritisation. The prioritisation was at the specialist CAMHS end. We have provided the committee with a red, amber or green rating of where we feel that we were, and that was just before submission of the evidence. Overall I would say we have made progress. I recognise you recognise that in your 'Mind over matter' report, and that is pleasing. What I would say, though, is that there's a still a lot to be done. Certainly over the last nine months or so, we've seen a real momentum around the whole-school approach work, which we're not actually leading now as a programme, although we facilitated the workshop held in September. But that's got a real momentum, and the absolute priority now is the early help and enhanced support part of the work moving forward, and I'm sure we will come on to that in more detail. But we know there is more community workforce in specialist CAMHS, we know we're seeing children in a shorter time frame, and we know we're accepting more referrals, so our indicators are telling us we are making progress. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And you referred to the work on the whole-school approach, which is very welcome, and I recognise that the programme has been involved in driving that as well. But I'm sure you'll also recognise the emphasis that the committee has placed on this being a whole-system approach to children and young people's mental health, and we feel very strongly that if any of the areas get out of balance, then it will jeopardise the progress in other parts of the programme. Are there any particular areas where you feel you haven't made enough progress that you'd like to draw the committee's attention to? +Carol Shillabeer: This is maybe about what the programme's done, but really around the broader sense as well. I'm going to be very straight and say we should have made more progress on psychological therapies. I'm disappointed that we haven't. I'm assured that we've got capacity in place now and the drive in place to get the Matrics Cymru framework developed for children and young people. I've had discussions with the national psychological therapies committee, who have owned this, and we're working together more on this area. That's not to say for one minute that health boards and local areas haven't been working on psychological therapy service provision and changing the models, but that is an area we should have made, I think, earlier progress on. There's been a general reflection from myself and the Together for Children and Young People programme board over the phase of the programme. I think we started very strongly; I think we probably had a bit of a lull in the middle, if I'm truthful about that—we had a change of personnel, and we really gathered a momentum over the last year or 18 months, and that has helped to push us from a focus on specialist CAMHS into that whole-school approach. But, if I could just agree with your comments about the whole system, it has to be the whole system and that's why the real focus now on early help and enhanced support is critical. If I can just say, in case I don't get a chance to say this later, I was delighted to see the focus on youth work yesterday, because what is clear is for that part, the early help and enhanced support, this isn't just about the NHS and it's not just about education, it's about every part of the system, really, which does make it more complex. But I just wanted to say that I think that youth work has perhaps not have the recognition that it's needed and yesterday was a positive step. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now on early help and enhanced support from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. In terms of local primary mental health support services, what is your understanding of the issues leading to some health boards not meeting the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 targets for assessment and therapy for children and young people, and how much of this is due to an increase in demand? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thanks very much. So, it's important to say, I think, at the outset, just by way of reminder, that the target, quite rightly, changed for children and young people. The target changed some years ago for adults, so it was only right that there was an equalisation around children. So, the services were working, a couple of years ago, with significant demand and then a change in the standard. I think you're absolutely right; your question alludes to the fact that some health boards are struggling to maintain the full performance around seeing children, particularly within the 28 days. I would say—. And we've had some discussion about whether the impact of the mental health Measure has actually drawn perhaps some of the workforce, the staff, who would have been working at that earlier stage in local primary mental health, into a bit more of the secondary element, which is why the review being undertaken by the NHS delivery unit into primary care CAMHS is so critical, because, actually, if we don't have—and I believe we don't have—enough capacity in that part of the system, then referrals will move towards the more specialist end of this. So, I think we will have seen, by the evidence submission, that demand has increased, not just in Wales but in the UK, and it has increased significantly. We are doing reasonably well at meeting that demand—so, we have more contacts, more staff, shorter access times, so that is a good news story. We've not got it completely sustained at this stage, and therefore the focus of the delivery unit's primary care CAMHS report is what more can we do in that part of the system to help to see children and young people or provide consultation and liaison to others and support people at that level of intervention. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. I know, from my own experience as a constituency AM, I have families who tell me that they can't get into the early interventions and eventually things just become so—they end up in the more specialist ones and believe that that's—. And I don't like to put it in resource terms, but it's false economy in terms of the impact on the child and the family, but, obviously, in terms of cost as well. Do you find that that's a common theme across Wales? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think that the thrust of that is absolutely right. So, we absolutely need to see children and families at the earliest intervention and that's why this is a whole system, not compartmentalised. I think there have been really good attempts in a couple of areas of that greater reach out and that earlier help—hot clinics and those sorts of initiatives that help people not to get in a long queue for specialist CAMHS, but can be supported, often by telephone, at that earlier stage. My sense of where we go next, in terms of, you know, you talk about early help and enhanced support for all the 'missing middle', as you referred to it in your report, is to make sure we've got a fully joined-up, multi-agency team approach to that. And I think that will need some resourcing to support that, yet to be fully determined. But yesterday's announcement about youth work, the Government's commitment to primary care, CAMHS, et cetera—that's all going to be very helpful to prevent those young people having to go into specialist CAMHS. And just a final note on that, if I may—at the beginning of the programme, we had a report from Hafal called 'Making Sense' and there were 10 key asks, if you like, of the system and the service from young people who had experience of the service. They said, 'Please don't medicalise it'—I'm paraphrasing now, of course—'Please don't medicalise it; please focus on supporting teachers and others who can support us at an earlier stage and then, when we really need help, please ensure that it is there at that more specialist level.' That's been a bit of a guiding principle for the programme. So, that reflects the questions that you were asking, really. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. What are the outcomes of the stakeholder workshop held last week on early help and enhanced support? And how are the actions going to be taken forward and implemented? And also, given that the Together for Children and Young People programme comes to an end in October of this year, who, in your view, is best placed to forward this work stream, and what will be the biggest challenges? It's a bit of a long question, so, break it up however you like. +Carol Shillabeer: That's absolutely fine. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And what will be the biggest challenges that they will face? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, I think that's helpfully laid out in three stages. So, you're absolutely right, there was a highly successful workshop last week really focusing on early help and enhanced support. It brought all of the agencies together, which was—and actually had a bit of a waiting list, apparently, for places. So, there was a lot of demand and a lot of interest in this. In relation to the next steps, there is a planning group reflection in early July, in terms of the outcomes of the workshop or the outputs of the workshop, and there are three commitments that have been made to this stage. One is that we develop those values-led approaches that will bring multiple agencies together to have that common purpose. The second one is to develop the ingredients for successful working in this area, and then, thirdly, to determine or propose priorities and sequencing of next steps. So, that's the next stage of that. I'm pretty sure we'll come on shortly—or hopefully—to the potential of the regional partnership boards. There is some work that we are doing as a programme with the children's commissioner in terms of working more with the regional partnership boards in taking forward this work. So, that will run alongside. But during the summer, then, we will be developing that framework approach, and we will be participating in the Association of Directors of Social Services conference in September, and then a follow-up workshop in October on this matter. On your question of 'Well, what happens after the programme?' we are currently working on legacy arrangements for the programme. I'm pretty secure on the specialist CAMHS element. That will move, most likely, to the CAMHS network, which is part of the NHS mental health network. I actually chair the mental health network and that's one part of that. The whole-school approach element is already settled in Government and we've got a connection in to that. The question that's outstanding is where the early help and enhanced support and the neurodevelopmental will go. I am currently in discussions with Welsh Government officials around that. I can be very clear of my own view that there needs to be a confident and clear legacy arrangement for this work. We cannot afford that we've come so far for this not now to proceed. I think there's a huge momentum behind this. I don't see there would be any obstacles—I hope—in getting that commitment translated into a strong approach, as we move forward. So, I'm not in a position to say, 'And the legacy arrangements will be—', but I am in a position to say that I'm having those discussions with Welsh Government officials. They know my view that we've got to put something in place that is strong and secure as we move forward, and I believe that they are supportive of that. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Janet, I think those two questions have been touched on, the remaining questions. We are going to discuss in more detail the legacy arrangements, but if I could just ask on psychological therapies: you referred to the fact that you were a bit disappointed with progress in this area, and the area hasn't been directly led on by the Together for Children and Young People programme. Do you think that means now that there is more of a threat to progress in this area, because, you know, we've got different compartmentalising of actions, and this is absolutely key, isn't it, really? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think there's—. There is some refinement to be done, I think, in making sure the connections are there. So, I think, as we move to programme end, we'll want to be absolutely assured that there are no strands left hanging, so to speak. I am confident—I mentioned the mental health network board that I chair—that we have those strands nailed down, but recognising that the early help and enhanced support and the provision of psychological support is beyond the NHS. So, this will be an area that needs to be very much seen as a key part of that. My own sense is that—. There's been quite a lot of other developments through the life of the programme. So, in the evidence that I've provided, you'll see the First 1000 days, all the adverse childhood experiences work, the Cymru Well Wales partnership, et cetera, et cetera. So, there is a bit of what I would call tidying up of the landscape to be done, and this is the ideal opportunity to do that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on specialist CAMHS—if I can just ask about the impact of the specialist CAMHS framework, and how effective you feel that has been in promoting a consistent delivery of care for young people. +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. Without wanting to go back too far in history, I remember coming into this area back in 2014 as I was asked to establish a CAMHS network. My observation was there wasn't really a strong and well-connected clinical community in this area. When we spin forward five years, I can confidently say that there is a strong and well-connected clinical community around specialist CAMHS. The programme has helped; the emphasis and the focus of the programme has helped to bring people together with that more common endeavour to understand, actually, there is a good case for consistency in the main, with local variation. There has been a case for much greater learning between organisations. If I just give you an example—you'll know that the community intensive service teams were put in place in 2015-ish. Some areas have them, but a lot of areas didn't. We do have inconsistency in that, but the consistent part is there is a service now right the way across Wales for more intensive support to children and young people and their families in their own homes, which helps to prevent admissions and then, where there are admissions, helps to support people to be at home. They're all called slightly different things. So, I might have referred in my papers to CITT, CATT, COT and CITE. So, they've all got slightly different names and they've got slightly different opening hours. The key thrust of this is that there is a backbone, if you like, of a consistent approach with that local variation. We have to check. So, things like frameworks for improvement—there is a coming together of the clinicians and the professionals to agree what that framework for improvement is. That then gets implemented, with some local variation. So, I think the process of moving in that way has been extremely helpful. There will be some variation. We want some variation, to some extent, as places try new things and evaluate new things. So, if I just refer to the previous question that I had, and I talked about hot clinics and different ways of reaching out; that's been tried in one area, been evaluated—let's see the spread of that. So, you'll know my view on internet counselling, for example; I feel that is quite a strong offer for children—not necessarily in the specialist end. If that works in one area, why aren't we rolling that out to other areas? So, I think the framework for improvement has provided a vehicle for those clinicians and professionals to come together. It's in a stronger place—a much stronger place—than it was five years ago. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. You've referred to there being some inconsistencies in terms of crisis care, but are you able to assure the committee that all young people are now getting at least a consistent service, especially in terms of interventions in the instances of young people self-harming. Wherever you live in Wales, is that help there for you now? +Carol Shillabeer: Well, in your work to produce the 'Mind over matter' report, I clearly listened to the views from the police and the recommendations in relation to the police. We've taken that as a further piece of work under the specialist CAMHS umbrella, to truly understand what the experiences of the police are and what some of the root issues may be in relation to that. For example, is it that because the CIT, CAT, COT, CITE—the community intensive service—closes at 10 o'clock in a certain area, that actually it's after that that the network of support isn't as strong, and, if that is the case, what are we going to do about that? There's certainly potential in working more regionally or even working between adults' and children's in terms of the crisis resolution services that work beyond those hours. So, we are taking an extra look at this, because I could not be 100 per cent confident that, throughout the 24-hour period, we've got this fully settled. I continue to hear some stories from the police that they are picking up young people and feeling that they've not got that solid place to go, and we're following those through. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got some questions now from Hefin David on neurodevelopmental services. +Hefin David AM: I think, Chair, I should have declared an interest here, as my daughter has been diagnosed with autism and is currently going through the process of receiving neurodevelopmental speech and language support particularly. We're seeing an increase in neurodevelopmental referrals, and that will increase further in the future. Can you give us an explanation as to why this demand is growing and how we're going to meet capacity to deliver and for support for those children? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you. They're very big questions in terms of 'why'. I'm not sure that anyone really knows why, if I'm honest, although there is a lot of academic research going on. What we do know is that we are starting to see the scale of those referrals coming through. So, in the information provided, I refer to the NHS digital prevalence report in England, which indicates that about 5.5 per cent of two to four-year-olds have a mental disorder. Now, that sounds a bit shocking when we say that, but that's in the international classification scaling, and, of that, certainly, 2.5 per cent is around autism. I can just testify, in real life, that demand is absolutely growing. So, if I just take my own health board for a moment, we usually have about 75 referrals per year. Last year we had 300. So, that has felt very difficult to manage. If I can just give you a sense of what we've done so far and then what I think is next, I want to recognise the work of Dr Cath Norton and the steering group that's been established on neurodevelopmental issues under the programme. They had a standing start. They've done a lot of very, very good work. We now have seven teams in place across Wales. We now have a national pathway. We now have a community-of-practice-type environment, and we're really getting into this. Good progress has been made. More people have been seen. More people have been assessed. So, we have made progress. But I've got a long list of considerations that I think respond to your question. One is that most referrals that come through, the clinicians tell me, are seeking support to move through what they perceive to be a gateway for educational support. So, that is often the reason why people come. Now, that is obviously going to be linked to the whole-school approach and how we can support that. Demand is outstripping supply. So, our clinical teams are concerned about how do they keep up. So, if I just take my own example of 300 in the last year, we're looking to try and put some additional capacity in to support seeing those families, but also then to understand what the long-term trajectory is going to be. Because we've put these teams in, because we've got the new pathway, has that opened a gate and we've got a lot of backlog or is that the pattern? +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask a question there? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. +Hefin David AM: So, with regard to the 75 to 300 increase—in the space of a year was that? +Carol Shillabeer: In a year, yes. +Hefin David AM: Did you anticipate that or was that something that just came totally unexpected? +Carol Shillabeer: I think we anticipated a few more, and just to say that in my— +Hefin David AM: But not on that scale. +Carol Shillabeer: No, not on that scale. And in my own health board—I'm just referring to my own, and I'm happy to share the information on this—we already had a service in place. So, it wasn't as if we had nothing in place previously. We had a NICE-compliant service already in place, but we knew we needed to expand that, which we have done, but we didn't anticipate 300. So, this is happening not just across Wales, actually, but across the UK—so, this greater recognition, the desire for families coming forward to access that support and them seeing this as a route, which is really important. What I would also say, and this is part of the bigger picture that we need to consider going forward, is that only about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of those families that come forward have what I would call or the clinicians would call a diagnosis—so, a threshold or whatever term you want to use that takes people through to that educational support. So, we've got a lot of people who are under that threshold, but that's a lot of people who still need help and support. I'm trying to very fairly and, I hope, appropriately represent the very strong views coming from the group—the workstream under the programme. We've got to tackle all of that. It's not going to be good enough for us just to focus our attention on those children and young people and their families who reach a threshold, because there are needs elsewhere as well, and some of that will overlap with the early help and enhanced support. Some of that overlaps with learning disability services. Can I just mention a few more things, as I'm on roll on neurodevelopmental? +Hefin David AM: It's up to the Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, go on. +Carol Shillabeer: Is that all right? Sorry, I know it's a very long answer. There is a concern from the neurodevelopmental group to get across that whilst there has been a lot of focus on autism—and we recognise the private Member's Bill—there are other neurodevelopmental presentations and there's a real—. Having the broadest view would be advised by them, and I think they're particularly keen to understand what a future vision and what we call, say, a 'perfect world' would look like. That's the piece of work that we're wanting to do now. In terms of giving advice at the end of the programme and into legacy arrangements, about what the big, big things are, we are still needing to tackle. +Hefin David AM: I mean, I personally took a very personal decision when it came to the Member's Bill on autism you were talking about—and that was the advice I received. You need to look at the wider symptoms that are presented beyond autism and other neurological conditions. So, I'm glad you said that, because it gives me—. Because I didn't vote for that Bill, and I'm glad you said that because it gives me some personal reassurance there. But what I do have concerns about is if the increase wasn't anticipated to the extent that it was and that the Together for Children and Young People programme has a duty to review capacity, after October who's going to make sure that that capacity's reviewed on a strategic basis? +Carol Shillabeer: So, I should have probably added in that we've got a piece of work under way at the moment—Welsh Government commissioned it—by a person called Patrick Holton, and he is specifically looking at the demands on capacity in relation to neurodevelopmental. I think getting that slightly more independent view of what we think the trends are going to be over the long term will mean we can plan for the long term. We know that money's been put into this and it has had an important impact, but we now need to be planning for the next three, five, 10 and many years beyond that. There is the integrated autism service. I think there are some conversations, when I talk about the landscape being quite busy, about the sense of where this links as we support people through their lives with a neurodevelopmental issue. So, it's not just about a childhood thing; as people move through, we've got to get much better at that long-term planning. So, that piece of work is really important. We will get the report of that over the next couple of months in order for this sort of perfect-world picture that we want to try to describe to be informed by that. It also connects to the early help and enhanced support, because recognising if we just say half of the people who come for an assessment don't meet a threshold for a certain category, that's a lot of people who will need help and support to manage and cope with their condition and their situation. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. If we can just move on now to in-patient care, and if I can just ask you what the programme has been doing to address some of the challenges and opportunities we face in terms of CAMHS in-patient care, particularly in light of the restrictions that are in place in Abergele and Tŷ Llidiard. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you very much for that question. Again, quite a lot of progress has been made in the early part of the programme around in-patients, and you are very well aware of the challenges over the last year or 18 months in relation to both units. I think, certainly, there is some recovery in the position in north Wales, and the programme did a peer review visit to north Wales, which I think was very helpful. In terms of where the programme has been on this issue, there is some work under way, at quite an advanced stage, around the art of the possible around enhancing the scope of the services. This was quite a tricky thing to start off when you're in a position where, actually, there've been some restrictions, to then ask the service to think about going even further, but we really wanted to see what the art of the possible would be if we could attract the right workforce, get the right environment, et cetera, et cetera—so, that piece of work, the review of the specification about what could be possible. Clearly, we work very closely with Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee as the commissioner, so we don't commission that. We neither performance manage those environments. But, if I can just say, probably the most important part of moving forward now is the longer term work between health and social care in terms of having a much more integrated and joined up approach for children. We believe there would probably be about 100 children who have experienced care in multiple settings. We haven't got that mature approach in terms of these being joined-up teams; we've got social care and we've got healthcare. There is a growing appetite to do something different. There is a meeting with the children's commissioner on 9 July to explore that. I've previously had conversations with the chief inspector of Care Inspectorate Wales, for example, and we have now got, I think, a consensus growing that we need to do something very different for children and young people who are in this sort of need for the future. We also know that there've been some high-profile legal cases as well. So, we've got to move to that step now. It has been largely successful, the work that has taken place over recent years, but not without its key challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, just briefly on the new specification that WHSSC are developing, that will enable admissions at weekends and out of hours. How concerned should we be about that being a challenge, particularly in Abergele, where staffing has been a major issue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think we need to be very mindful of ensuring that the right workforce are in place before that gets implemented. The peer review highlighted the challenge of the physical environment, where the unit is, the challenge across north Wales of the workforce. These are issues well known by the health board, by the way, so it wasn't a surprise to them. But that dialogue about how do we ensure that we've got the right workforce, because that unit, potentially, could—you know, it's an isolated unit, and they’ve been risk-managing. They've been managing the types of young people that they can take bearing in mind the workforce that they've got available, and that's been entirely the right thing to do. But the downside of that is it's not as accessible as we would want. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Hefin David has got some questions on workforce now. +Hefin David AM: Yes. With regard to the increased CAMHS posts that have been made available between 2016 and 2018—a 62 per cent increase in CAMHS posts—we know that there's likely to be labour market demand, high labour market demand, in those instances, so are the vacancy rates higher in Wales than elsewhere, given the increase in those posts to be filled? +Carol Shillabeer: So, you're absolutely right. There's been quite a lot of investment, and there have been quite a lot of new recruits coming to the service. We had in the early days a situation where we were largely robbing Peter to pay Paul, to be quite frank. So, as new services were being developed, people would move from one part of the system to the other. So, in the early days there was little net gain. That has improved slightly, but we're in a national context, particularly around nursing and around some specialties in medicine, of a national shortage, so this is not a quick fix. We are starting to see a greater diversity of workforce. So, if I can mention psychology assistants, for example, my own health board is employing more psychology assistants as part of a skill mix team, rather than going to where we might have been more traditionally based. We see some of that through the NHS benchmarking, particularly with England. They have more of that. We're perhaps a little bit— +Hefin David AM: More of what? +Carol Shillabeer: They have more skill mix in their workforce. We're catching up a bit more on that now. +Hefin David AM: Just to clarify there, what you're referring to—there are more nursing and medical staff in the Wales system and more psychological staff, experts, in the UK picture. Is that—? +Carol Shillabeer: In the England picture. So, England had a programme called IAPT, which is about psychological therapies, and had therefore looked at the skill mix. Some of that was—. We've chatted to colleagues in England, trying to learn—we're all trying to make improvements in this area, of course; it's a UK and international issue—what were their experiences of this psychological therapies approach. Because of their vacancies they had to skill mix, and because of the money that they had available—they didn't have as much of a cash injection as perhaps we've been able to secure. So, they skill mixed much earlier; we're skill mixing now. We're using different types of roles, for example. And if I can just make a plea, really, around recognising the input of the third sector—so, it doesn't always have to be an NHS-employed person to work in service provision, direct front-line service provision, and the third sector are offering a significant contribution in a number of areas of our services. And that is one that we will need to cultivate, because, to be quite frank, our recruitment challenges won't be solved overnight. We've recognised that the commissioning numbers for nursing and other professionals have gone up over recent times, but, with the training time, it's not a quick fix. +Hefin David AM: Does the workforce profile remain different, or are they starting to—? +Carol Shillabeer: They're starting to come together. There is a—graph 13 in terms of the CAMHS profile. Each year we do the NHS benchmarking, and we can see where we are compared to others, and I would expect over the next year or two that we see a bit more narrowing. +Hefin David AM: So, if you compare a child in Wales with a child in England in the last two years who's been through this, would they have had a different experience as a result, and different clinical advice as a result, or is there consistency despite the difference in workforce profile? +Carol Shillabeer: That's quite a big question. Hand on heart, could I tell you I absolutely know the detail of that? No, I couldn't. The practice in this area is guided by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, so it's pretty much guided. We would expect all of our practitioners to be able to work to NICE guidance. When you skill mix a team, you enable the right referrals to go to the right person, so you wouldn't necessarily have a child or young person with particularly complex needs—well, you would match them to the right practitioner for their needs. So, it does—. And we've seen some of that; if I just make reference to the panel approach in Gwent that's been developed, a multi-agency panel come together, a referral comes in, it's then about matching the right service and the right person to the needs that are being presented. So, we can be much more flexible in relation to that, and we have to be careful to use the right resource for the right person, because, if we've got a resource that is highly specialist, we want them to be dealing with those children and young people. +Hefin David AM: And one of the things you're able to do—because there's a lot about the labour market you can't control, but one of the things you can control is workforce development and ongoing workforce development. You've mentioned communities of practice. What other things are being done in addition, and how do the communities of practice work might be a good question, but what else is being done in order to upskill and develop and grow the existing workforce that is presented to you? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. So, there's a couple of things around—. I think there's a huge focus on staff retention now, not just in Wales but across the UK. So, we've got recruitment but we've got retention. What are the factors that affect retention? Actually, well-being, well-being at work—and you'll know that within 'A Healthier Wales' the focus on staff engagement, staff well-being, has been laid out—the ability to work well in teams and the culture of organisations and services, and, then, as you rightly say, training and development and career opportunities. So, the developments over the last few years have brought training opportunities and career development opportunities as well. I think the community of practice—it's something that has become a bit of a standard now across these areas—actually brings people together doing collective audit, doing collective reflection on service improvement, and being very clear about learning from one another. And, if you're a clinician, that gives you a lot of motivation to keep driving forward. So, I think we have the fundamental building blocks in place, but there is more to do around the environment in which our practitioners and our staff operate. +Hefin David AM: What about the Welsh language in the health board? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you very much. There are two elements, if I may, just on that. In your report of last year you highlighted the need to do further work on the use of the Welsh language, and have we got enough Welsh language practitioners where we need them. We are doing that piece of work. I'm pleased to say that, over the last few years, I think all health boards have really stepped up in terms of being able to understand the levels of Welsh speaking amongst employed staff and where their Welsh-speaking communities are. We're particularly looking at it in terms of in-patient CAMHS and community intensive services, because, particularly when people are feeling at their most vulnerable, they would choose the language they wish to choose. So, we know we need to respond to that. So, we will be in a position to, by the end of this programme, provide that position statement on what happens next. I would also say, of course, we've got the Welsh language standards that we are all working on at the moment, and we've got a very clear programme of when we have to be compliant with those standards. So, that element is very high on the priority list. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy Davies has a question about looked-after children. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, everything you've been speaking about already, particularly about workforce development, applies to children in care as well, where there's other work also going on in terms of support. Can you give us some indication about how the programme intersects, then, with the outcomes for the children in care work programme? +Carol Shillabeer: Thanks very much for that. So, we have one of our members of the programme board also sitting on the outcomes for children ministerial group, which is good. So, we've got that cross-link. We also have a director of social services on our programme board and, obviously, they're very clearly linked in to the outcomes for children. I just made reference to, under the question on specialist CAMHS in-patients, the need to bring those services together, and that, really, is the need for much stronger working between the outcomes for children group and the Together for Children and Young People programme and the constituent parts. So, I'm confident that that has been pegged now. We've got a way forward and there is a consensus that we need to do things together on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Can you just perhaps give us an example of how that then looks on the ground? Because it's great that people are talking together, but how would that affect, I don't know, individual members of the workforce, or, indeed, the children we're talking about? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. So, if I just give an example of a unit in south Wales that is a social care unit, we've been having discussions about, 'Well, actually, shouldn't you have a psychologist and good access to psychological therapies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?' So, we haven't yet got an agreed position on how we're going to do this, but the position is that something needs to be done, and there is an appetite for and an understanding of the case for change, I believe. But what it will mean, I think, in practice, is that you get much more fluid roles moving across sectors, or we could be designing services that are fully integrated. Now, there may be challenges in that, but, you know, let's get them out on the table. So, in terms of this seamless health and social care system for Wales, this is one of the tests of that, I would say: can we, within the next five years, 10 years, really bring that together? That will take quite a lot of work and commitment. On the looked-after children specifically, we have picked that up, particularly following your previous report, looking specifically at the assessment of young people who are care experienced who are in the system. Absolutely, part of the health assessment is emotional health and mental health. We are questioning whether that needs to be a greater part and what the level of support needs to be, particularly because of the backgrounds of children that have led them to be in those circumstances. That's a core piece of work under the early help and enhanced support work stream, and we'll be ensuring that that is complete by the end of the programme. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And you're confident that that will reach children who are being fostered and perhaps don't have very frequent looked-after children reviews, because, from all other perspectives, things are going fairly well. +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. And, of course, there's the edge-of-care work that the Government have been supporting, and, certainly in my own area, under the regional partnership board, we have a Start Well programme, which is the old Children and Young People's Partnership programme, where there's a significant investment in supporting children and young people, families, on the edge of care, which does pick up fostering. +Suzy Davies AM: Ah, lovely. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn has a question on transition. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Thank you, Chair. We've heard, not necessarily just in the context of this report, because we've heard similar evidence around transition arrangements in another committee report when we did the suicide prevention, and I've in fact only recently—well, just this week, actually—met with community mental health teams in my constituency, and there is still some concern about transitional arrangements from children into adult services. Now, I know we had the—. The transition guidance was published a couple of years ago now, and the programme was involved in developing that guidance. But what's your assessment of the impact that it's had? Because we clearly are still seeing people falling through the gaps, aren't we? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes, thank you for that. You're absolutely right; we developed that guidance and we are currently in the process of the evaluation of that. And, in particular, I know that the children's commissioner is very focused on transition, not just around children in receipt of emotional mental health support, but children in paediatric wards, and there is a working group with Welsh Government looking at this. The children's commissioner has used our guidance to put that on the table to say, 'Well, if this works, this needs to be considered as a model for using elsewhere'. But the big question there is 'if'. So, we do want to get evaluation. If I were just to give an estimate of where I think this will land, I think it will have made improvements, but there may well be some further work to do in enhancing, supporting, auditing that every child is supported in line with that guidance. So, I talked about community practice and clinical audit: is this something that we make, then, a mandatory audit, each year, that we do that double check? Because it's one of those things where we know when a child is 14, 15, 16, 17, so what's stopping us? If indeed the evaluation says it's not happening everywhere, it's not happening early enough, what is stopping us? We really need to get underneath that. So, my sense will be it will show us, it will be better, but there's some further work to do, and following that up in terms of audit and making sure that we've got a systematic approach to dealing with those who haven't had the guidance fully implemented, because it can make a real difference. +Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, and it seems to me—you've just talked about having a systematic approach, and it does seem to me that it is a systematic process, isn't it? So, it shouldn't be difficult. I know we're talking about in the health service things shouldn't be difficult and they are, and one of the gripes—I had a meeting with the community health team—was the problems of the new IT systems and so on—let's not go there at the moment. But, really, this is just about referring children and having a smooth transition from the service being provided to them as a child and then just shifting it over to the adult services. It shouldn't be difficult. It's really difficult to get my head around why that is such a problem and why that needs to be so difficult. +Carol Shillabeer: Can I add one other dimension in, which I think is going to be quite interesting? We talk about transitions being an issue—and we know it's not just in mental health, but it's elsewhere—then you start to think, 'What if we could reduce transitions?', so you reduce the number of transitions and you manage them better. We are doing a piece of work with Government on the potential to explore what a 0-25-type service would be. We know that in different places they have approached that—in Australia and places in the UK. There are probably some pros and cons, but should we be moving to a 0-25. That is moving the transition at the age of 25, but at least it's not at the eighteenth birthday. What's the argument around what adolescent, young people and young adults services are, for example? That piece of research and understanding— +Dawn Bowden AM: You could probably have a gradual transition, then, couldn't you? +Carol Shillabeer: Quite potentially. I've got some people who have joined my own health board who've worked in that 0-25-type service, and we're catching up—'Tell me what was good about it? Tell me what was not so good about it? What did the young people themselves think about that?'. Because if we can manage down the numbers of transitions, there really should be no excuse not to get transitions right, then. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some really important questions now about legacy, because throughout the session this morning you've referred to ongoing work, really, and that is a major concern for the committee. Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you, Chair, we are a little bit worried that this programme is coming to an end in a matter of months when perhaps its work's not been completed. Obviously, we've got the Welsh Government's strategy for mental health running until 2022, which is a few years longer. Can you tell me whether you think your programme needs to continue, perhaps even if it's just for the same length of time as Together for Mental Health, or is its work done and it needs to be picked up now by a different system? +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you for that. Can I just say, I've given this so much thought over the time, because I think you might have asked me this question when I came previously? There are two ways to look at this. I'm absolutely sure that the issue of children's emotional and mental health will be one that will be with us for a very long time. We have made a lot of progress, I think, as a society, in talking about this now. We talk about mental health so much more than we ever used to. When I was a child, we never talked about it. I talk to my own children and say, 'What's going on in your lives at school?', and they talk about this. This is not an issue, if you like, that I believe you can pick up and solve literally in five years. This is one for the long term for us. So, on the one hand, I think my view last year was that, when you have a programme of work, you should have a start, a middle and end, really—otherwise it's not a programme of work, it's almost forever—and there is a moment to refresh and reflect on whether that mechanism has done all it should and it should move into a different mechanism. So, my position last year was, 'This will have been running for five years—we've done a lot of work and made progress on specialist CAMHS, we have made progress on the whole-school approach and there is a different mechanism for this' et cetera. My position now is I want to just be really sure and secure that there is a strong arrangement going forward that takes this work, if this programme is going to close. +Suzy Davies AM: Are you sure? +Carol Shillabeer: Not yet. So, I think, in an earlier question I indicated dialogue going on between myself and Welsh Government officials. I don't think there's a barrier—people aren't saying, 'No, it all needs to just stop; we've solved the issue', but the exact nature of the legacy arrangements, particularly for early help and enhanced support, are not yet fully determined, or for neurodevelopmental. If it was a choice between nothing being there and continuing this programme, I would be supporting continuing the programme. I don't think we can stop now. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, I don't think any of us would disagree with that, but I suppose there might be a level of concern that the Welsh Government's preferred route from now on would be through the regional partnership boards and public services boards. You mentioned that you've done that work in Gwent, down in the south-east of your patch there. It's quite difficult for us to try and get a picture of how that will work successfully for the whole of Wales. I know you've got your experience in Gwent, but have you thought a bit more about how it might look elsewhere, if that's the route that Government decides to pursue? +Carol Shillabeer: Yes. I think the key question in my own mind is: are the regional partnership boards yet ready and mature enough to take this forward? I'm the chair of the Powys regional partnership board, so I should declare that. There's a lot being asked of the regional partnership boards at the moment— +Suzy Davies AM: Well, we'll be asking them to go with the 'Mind over matter' report, to make sure that that's delivered upon. +Carol Shillabeer: There's a lot, you know, 'A Healthier Wales'—. Everyone does feel that the regional partnership boards are a route to really secure multi-agency working, so there is quite a high expectation. My understanding—and this is a rather informal understanding—is that different RPBs are in different places. So, some have retained what used to be the old children and young people partnerships, and perhaps where they have been retained, they may be in a more progressed position. Some are looking to have to re-establish those. So, my sense of this is that, I think, possibly the RPBs aren't yet in that position to be ready. Our piece of work on early help and enhanced support, in terms of your earlier question about what's the commitment—that feels that that may well be another year or 18 months of development work, alongside the RPB development work, to get that ready, before we can then more confidently say where we can hand over. +Suzy Davies AM: You may not feel able to say it, then, but would be wrong in saying that, actually, it would be quite a good idea to extend the current programme, just to make sure that anyone else who might be able to run on with component parts of it is in the position to do that to our satisfaction? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm happy to respond to it. My sense is that, whether it's the programme or whether it's something else, something needs to be there. The next stage is really multi-agency, so it may well be that the programme currently has been NHS-led—maybe it needs to be led elsewhere, maybe not. I think there's a view that this needs to continue. I'm less wedded to it having to be the Together for Children and Young People programme. It may be seen as a convenient mechanism—it's already established, we've got a programme team et cetera, so it may be seen as a ready sort of solution. I'm not wedded to that. What I feel strongly about is that we've got to have the right mechanism to take it forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just push you on one thing there? You mentioned, perhaps, the NHS could lead on the work, for example. Is there a risk of fragmentation if we start looking—? I'm just thinking—I mean, we've got the elements here: we've got the NHS, there's the whole-school approach, early help and enhanced support and intervention, as you mentioned earlier. If that goes to one of the players in that multi-agency approach, is there a risk that they might become too dominant, inadvertently—? +Carol Shillabeer: If I can just clarify—apologies if I wasn't clear. I said the current programme has been NHS-led, and that might be a reason to change. +Suzy Davies AM: To mix it up a bit. Oh, right, okay. Anything else you want me to pursue on that—? +Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just clarify for the record, Carol—because we put this to the Minister last week—are you looking at asking the regional partnership boards to take this work over from October 2019? Are you saying clearly to the committee that you do not feel that all regional partnership boards are ready for that challenge at this point? +Carol Shillabeer: I'm saying that on a more, if you like it, uniformed and informal basis, we're doing some work with the children's commissioner now in terms of—. I know the children's commissioner's very interested in how RPBs are managing, developing and dealing with the issues of children and young people's concerns. We're working with her to understand and to mirror alongside her the understanding of the RPBs. What I would say is that there has been some preparatory work by Government around supporting RPBs. So, for example, in the integrated care fund guidance last year, there was a specific reference to child and adolescent emotional mental health, which I welcomed. I've also welcomed, literally last week, a letter to all RPB chairs giving an allocation of £200,000 per RPB to support this further work in terms of child and adolescent emotional and mental health and the early help and support element. So, all of these things are in the right direction. My sense, and I need to stress it's a sense because we haven't done that piece of work, is different RPBs are in different places. So, how confident can we be at the October date that we could hand over? My sense is, just to safeguard, having a mechanism in place for the next 12 to 18 months to guide this through might be advisable, and that's what I'm talking to officials about. +Lynne Neagle AM: And that would either be an extension of the Together for Children and Young People programme or something else. Okay, thank you. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Because I think there is a question, isn't there, about whether the RPBs will make this enough of a priority? I'm a bit nervous that it might get lost in that huge amount of work you said they might have. Just a final question from me: how are you establishing what the young people themselves think about the end of the programme? Are they bothered about the structure of this at all or are they just concerned that they're getting help? How's the stakeholder group feeding into this? +Carol Shillabeer: I've not been blown over in the rush of people saying, 'Don't go anywhere.' [Laughter.] It's a really important matter for young people. I know that later on you're meeting with the Youth Parliament, you're having a joint session, which is fantastic. We've had contact with the Youth Parliament because we know it's one of their top three issues. So, it runs in the vein of that this is going to be a long-term matter for young people, I think. Whether they have a specific view on the programme, I don't know. I've not heard that. But I'm pretty sure they will be vocal in saying, 'We have to have these developments continue.' It is a major issue, we're not there yet—maybe some progress has been made but there's still a lot to do—and I think we'll need to be able to respond to that. +Suzy Davies AM: Anything particularly you want in addition to that? +Lynne Neagle AM: No, I think that's fine. And if I can just say that it was really great last week at the early help and enhanced day to see young people so central to the day all the way through. It was very, very important and very welcome. +Suzy Davies AM: Carol, thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. we have come to the end of our time. We had a lot of things that we wanted to cover with you. We might need to drop you a line about a couple of things that we haven't covered, but can I thank you for your attendance this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. +Carol Shillabeer: Thank you, all. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Youth Parliament—invitation to engagement events. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Education clarifying some issues around the Welsh network of healthy schools scheme, following the task and finish group. Paper to note 3: letter from the Minister for Education on the implementation of the Diamond reforms, and that's ahead of our session on 4 July. Papers to note 4 and 5 are a letter from me to the children's commissioner and the Minister for Education seeking the update we agreed on the issue of elective home education. And then paper to note 6, paper to note 7 and paper to note 8 are all letters regarding the concerns that we discussed about the expectation of a target being set for looked-after children, to the First Minister, Children's Commissioner for Wales and the Association of Directors of Social Services. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you very much. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","The session began with Lynne Neagle AM, chairing the Children, Young People and Education committee meeting, extending a warm welcome and announcing the absence of Siân Gwenllian AM. Members were asked to declare any interests, with none arising, the committee moved on to its intended agenda: following up on the 'Mind over Matter' report, dedicated to the progress in mental health services for children and young people in Wales since its launch in 2015. Carol Shillabeer, CEO of Powys Teaching Health Board and lead for the Together for Children and Young People program, was present to report on the progress and provided a written update in advance. + +Carol Shillabeer acknowledged the positive strides made, especially regarding access to specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), citing their adoption of the windscreen model, which determined the prioritization tasks focusing on specialist CAMHS initially due to historical reports and the committee's previous work. Nevertheless, Shillabeer addressed that much work remains, noting momentum in initiatives like the whole-school approach, recognizing that more action is imperative, especially concerning early help and enhanced support. + +Questions moved onto the significant role of a whole-system approach, which the committee emphasized for balance and sustained progress across the program. Shillabeer candidly pointed out areas in need of progress, particularly psychological therapies, and stressed the importance of multi-agency collaboration in driving the 'early help' component. + +On the topic of CAMHS targets and performance, especially regarding the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 and the increase in referral demands, Shillabeer discussed the ongoing review by the NHS delivery unit focused on primary care CAMHS. She also addressed the challenge of local variability in service provision, underlining the need for multi-agency teamwork, resourcing, and recognition of the contributions from the third sector and other non-NHS entities. + +Moreover, the session covered particulars about neurodevelopmental services, the surge in demand, and the necessity for comprehensive support that extends beyond just meeting diagnostic thresholds. Shillabeer reflected on the need for striding towards a ""perfect world"" vision to encompass longer-term strategic planning for neurodevelopmental issues. + +Moving onto CAMHS in-patient services, Shillabeer described efforts to enhance and streamline such services amidst staffing and operational challenges, emphasizing the necessity for robust health and social care integration for children requiring such assistance. + +Establishing workforce development to address growing service demands was a key theme, stressing the cultivation of a diverse workforce, considering regional linguistic requirements, and fostering staff well-being. Collaboration with the third sector and interdisciplinary work were spotlighted as imperatives for effecting quality mental health support. + +Attention turned to the looked-after children and the importance of cohesive support measures consistent with the outcomes for children program, and the topic of transition to adult services and the notion of significantly reducing transition numbers. + +Finally, the committee discussed the future of the Together for Children and Young People program—with regard to wrapping up in October 2019, the potential of regional partnership boards to continue the work, and the indispensable need to ensure robust legacy arrangements to continue addressing the critical needs of children and adolescent mental health issues in Wales." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So uh good morning . +User Interface: Morning . +Marketing: Morning . +Project Manager: I see you all find your places . +Industrial Designer: Morning . +Project Manager: Is everybody sitting on the right place ? Yeah ? +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I guess so . So {disfmarker} Let's see . First I will introduce myself . I don't know if uh {disfmarker} if everybody knows me , so I'm Bart , +Marketing: My name's Frank . +Project Manager: hello . Hello . +User Interface: I'm {gap} . +Project Manager: Bart . Hello . Hello . Bart . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Welcome . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh let's see . Uh let's start off um with a little presentation . Uh Now first I'll tell you a little bit about the setting . You can see there are a few cameras here . They'll record uh our actions and you'll have wires and microphones that will record your voice . Uh there are also some microphones there but th um you don't have to pay a lot of attention on those , because it will uh disappear when you don't attend to it . So is there a project documents folder ? There are some notes in it already I see , some documents . Uh I'll start with the presentation kick off . Is being modified by the administrator . Uh okay {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm , that's interesting . +Project Manager: Let's do it read only . Well I don't know if you've noticed , but uh we're working for Real Reaction . Uh it's a company in uh electronics . We put fashion in electronics , uh we make it work , uh we put a lot of effort in design and in the product itself . I'm Bart {gap} the project manager so I'll direct you through the project . This is our agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we have our opening acquaintance , tool training , project plan description closing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh maybe I can sit down , then I can take some notes or {disfmarker} Let's see . Maybe you can take the minutes once in a while . +Marketing: Sure . +Project Manager: I dunno it's not a lot of work , but just uh if you hear something uh you can write down , just write it down . Uh as you can see uh it's the opening , aquaintance tool training . Aquaintance is a point we've done a bit . Um have you all seen the corporate website already ? Yeah . +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Yep . Visit it . +Project Manager: Have you seen any flaws in it ? I think I found one . {vocalsound} No ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Can't say I paid much attention to it , +Project Manager: I can see if it works this way . No , it doesn't work here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay no problem . But um on the corporate information side there's a th uh {disfmarker} there was Real Remote instead of Real Reaction . +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Real Remote is not really the company we're {disfmarker} we are , but it's just a little {gap} fault . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} Uh our project aim is as you can see a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy , and user friendly . So these are uh the points why uh we also hired you . {vocalsound} We've got the Marketing Expert for uh the trendy and user friendly look . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And Industrial Designer uh there's also user friendly and a bit original . {vocalsound} And we've got our User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: He's also uh {disfmarker} That's about the new remote control . Uh project method um is uh there are three phases we are going through . First is functional des uh design , individual work , meetings . After the functional design , then the conceptual design and the detailed design . {vocalsound} I had some role indications on here . But I think you know it already by yourself . The Industrial Designer is going to work on the working design , uh components design and a bit of the look and feel design . Uh the User Interface Designer is going to do the technical function design , user interface concept and user interface design . {vocalsound} And the marketing expert is doing a little bit of user requirement specification , trend watching and project {disfmarker} uh product ev evaluation . So that's a bit what you're going to do . But that will be all worked out in uh other meetings . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we've got our first tool training . {vocalsound} We are going to work with a lot of high-tech tools here , so it's ab it's handy if we have a little bit of training first . As you can see we've got the smart boards here and here in the white board . Um in the white board here there's a little tool bar on this side . Here are some functions . You can save . N uh these functions we don't have anything to do with , only undo , you can undo a little uh piece of drawing . A blank new document for each person . Uh select a pen , eraser . Capture we don't have to do anything with . Uh then we've got our pen . This pen . It's really funny because you can draw with it on this page um in the {disfmarker} think it is form of . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: You can also select the current colour and the line width . But then first you have to select the pen function . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But we're going to work with it in a minute . So okay . Uh that's very simple and it's easy to uh draw your findings and drawings on there . {vocalsound} Uh then a short thing about documents . We've got our shared folder , project {gap} project {disfmarker} what was it ? Project documents {gap} I think . But all you will found that already because there are a lot of documents in it already , so it will be okay . And these are available on the smart boards as well , so if you have a document you wanna show , just open it from the folder . +User Interface: Okay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Here is a simple tool bar . It's what I just said , it's save , print , move back or forward one page . You can switch between the different drawings . And then we're going to try out the white board . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So as you can see we g all {vocalsound} going to draw a animal . {vocalsound} Just to uh uh just to get a bit familiar with it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mouse wasn't running away . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That was interesting . +Project Manager: Is everybody {disfmarker} is anybody playing with the mouse ? No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Innocent . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going to uh draw animal . {vocalsound} And uh just sum up a few of its favourite characteristics . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the only thing we have to uh look after is that we use different colours , and different line width . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's {disfmarker} I can start from now . I will . You can use this pen by holding it like a like a little child . Because if you hold it like this , the sensors will get blocked and then the drawing won't get good . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Another thing is you have to be uh a bit slow . 'Cause if you're going to draw like really fast then um the pen won't hold up . So we choose form of current colour uh I think grey is appropriate . Then the line width . I think seven will be nice . Now you'll see my drawing capabilities . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: These are not very much , but uh {disfmarker} Uh , see you have to do it real slow . {vocalsound} Oh {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: Ah I was trying to draw a dolphin , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I think his nose has to be a little bit {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But it's close . +Marketing: I'm thinking about a swordfish . +Project Manager: So what {disfmarker} yeah it's {disfmarker} this is bit of the swordfish . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , he hasn't got an eye . +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Woah . {vocalsound} Now we've got another function . We've got the eraser . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you can undo this easily . +Marketing: Meat . +Project Manager: Ah it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And I've got to write down a few of its characteristics . Uh is {disfmarker} They've got no text tool , no . Uh . {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is typically a undo action , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Pen . Maybe you have to hold it a bit upside-down . I think that's it because if you wan ar are going to do it like this then it will be a stripe . But I don't know , I'm just trying . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This is not my work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: okay . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to use {disfmarker} Oh . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . I think it's a {disfmarker} it wants to draw a {disfmarker} another animal ? I don't know . It lives for the fun . So {disfmarker} It's my characteristic uh characteristic about the dolphin . It lives for the fun . So now I'm gonna hand over the pen on the new blank sheet to you . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Go ahead . +Marketing: Thank you . Okay . Gonna use a different line width . And I'm gonna draw in black . There . 'Kay , I'm not much of an artist , but here we go . +Project Manager: Maybe it's easier to draw the smaller line width , I think . Because this is going a lot better than uh I did . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: A sheep . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is my um {disfmarker} Hmm . Sheep . +Project Manager: It's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: With of course +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh . +Marketing: little blue dot they always get sprayed on their butts . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a real dead sheep , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There . +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} For recognition , +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah , I see . {vocalsound} Um maybe you can also write your name somewhere . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: On just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: They are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Come on . You have to go really slow when you're writing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They're brilliant animal animals . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's just a little me thingy . So . Guess I'll pass the pen to our User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Nice . +User Interface: Okay . Um I'm just gonna draw its uh head , but mm {disfmarker} Let's see . Mm . Uh . {gap} Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sweet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Interesting . +User Interface: You know what that is ? Or who ? +Industrial Designer: Garfield . +Marketing: A rabbit ? +User Interface: Ah okay , yeah . +Marketing: Garfield . Yeah . +User Interface: Just a {disfmarker} Mm . Guess . So uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . That's enough . {vocalsound} Um , you say a blank , +Project Manager: Yeah , just a blank sheet . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Well I was gonna draw a cat too , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll just try something else . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Something different than Garfield . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mine is a bit more skinny . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , it's pretty skinny cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: And the most interesting tail . +Project Manager: Is your cat , or did you find him on the street ? {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it's supposed to be a cat . I like cats because uh they are uh independent . +Project Manager: Ah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The pen . So . +Project Manager: Okay . That's pretty clear . So everybody knows how to work with the white board now ? So if you have any ideas or if you wanna draw anything on the white board , just ask +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The pen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and go ahead . It's pretty uh easy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S {gap} +Marketing: We're being haunted . +Project Manager: haunted white board . {vocalsound} So we've got the tool uh introduction . We move along to the project finance . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um as you can see , we um for our remote control , a selling price is uh twenty five Euros . Our selling price . Uh our profit aim is fifty million Euros . Uh that's the least we have to get from our remote controls , so we have to work together to reach our aims . Uh we can do it international , so we have to focus on different kind of users , different kind of cultures , and different kind of trends as well . Um but that's all in the later stadium . Our production cost um can be maximal twelve and a half Euros , so that's also a point we have to keep in mind , that we won't make remote controls with small televisions inside , and stuff like that . It won't work . So just try to remember these points . Selling price twenty five , profit aims fifty million um , but more important is the int international market we're trying to focus on . And production cost uh maximal twelve and a half Euros . So that's leads us to our little discussion . We've got about five or ten minutes left for discussion . So I'm gonna sit down , I think . It's easier . +Marketing: Yeah , you got a message . +Project Manager: I've got a message . Five minutes . Okay , +User Interface: Five minutes , okay . +Project Manager: that's uh good timing . {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So just on a side note , why is it my laptop is only giving me a black screen ? +User Interface: Mm ? +Project Manager: Uh maybe you have to say the magic word . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: Does it do anything ? +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Maybe you have to just clap it down ? Mm back up again . No slide show . Hmm . +Marketing: It's off now . +Project Manager: It's off . Now you have to put it back o Oh yeah . You'll be okay , I think . +Marketing: Well , it was on , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's those laptops . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , there we are . +Project Manager: Nice . Okay . {vocalsound} But so mm does everybody has um experiences with uh remote controls , and I mean not the ordinary mote controls , but also a little bit different ones ? Like you can use for other ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Oh really ? +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: You ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , me neither . +Marketing: Well , we have a kind of broad T_V_ at home , and a D_V_D_ player , so we got like a lot of remote controls , one for the T_V_ , one for the video recorder , one for the D_V_D_ player . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Marketing: And I think it's {disfmarker} it would be best to just make one remote control that can operate them all . +Project Manager: Yep . Yeah +User Interface: Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: I've I've got one at home . And you can uh program I think eight different devices in it , and you can use it for your television , anything else . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: And it also operates on infra-red , so you have to got the little device inside your room , and then you can operate it from the third or th or second floor . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: Oh +Project Manager: So that's pretty handy when you have a video recorder or D_V_D_ player downstairs and you've got a link to your T_V_ on the second floor . So that's a pretty handy um +Marketing: really . +User Interface: Hmm . Oh . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: thing . {vocalsound} Um but only the I think that if you can put different kind of devices in one remote control , it makes it a lot easier as well . It's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: That's good to remember . +Marketing: So I think you can take minutes again . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's nice , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Since it's your job . +Project Manager: So we've {disfmarker} we want different functions +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: uh and we can maybe see if we can do something with the infra-red . But I don't know if that will exceed the production costs . So that uh that's something we have to find out , I think . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . But that would be really good if we could do that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And other functions for a remote control ? Maybe we can make it uh uh +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um . Think it has to be shock proof +User Interface: Sure , yeah . +Marketing: 'cause +Project Manager: Shock proof . +Marketing: my remote control tends to fall a lot . +User Interface: Waterproof , or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sure . +User Interface: Uh , you never no know uh , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I w I mean uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Waterproof . Okay . So these are our um a few things we can think of . Um I will put the minutes from this meeting uh in our project folder . +User Interface: 'Kay . +Marketing: Yeah , one other little thing . Thought it might be handy to put a battery status display on it . +Project Manager: That's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: So you can see +Project Manager: battery stays . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Marketing: how much is left in the battery . But they'll also really drag up the production costs , so think we'll have to see about that too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: But maybe just a little LED , I don't know . +Project Manager: That's an idea as well . Other ideas ? Quick ideas . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: They were all mentioned , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Any questions about this uh presentation ? Kick off presentation . +Marketing: Um . Nope , don't think so . +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay , then I'll put the minutes from this meeting in the project folder , and then we can all work . Finish meeting now . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And we can all work uh on our own projects . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Aye sir . +Project Manager: Okay then I'll meet you in about a half an hour , I think . +Marketing: Half an hour . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So good luck . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +","The meeting commenced with the Project Manager, Bart, greeting and introducing himself to the team members Frank from Marketing, a User Interface Designer, and an Industrial Designer. He informed them that they were working for Real Reaction, an electronics company that emphasizes design, and they were tasked to create a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. Bart outlined the project phases: functional design, individual work, and meetings leading to conceptual and detailed design. He explained the roles of each team member, linking them to aspects of the design and marketing process. + +The team was introduced to high-tech tools such as smart boards and a shared documents folder for the project. They practiced using a whiteboard, drawing different animals and discussing their attributes, as a familiarization exercise with the interactive technology. + +In terms of project finances, Bart briefed the team on the selling price of the remote (25 Euros), the profit aim of 50 million Euros, and a maximal production cost of 12.5 Euros per unit. He emphasized the importance of considering the international market and various users and cultures. + +The meeting proceeded with discussions about personal experiences with remote controls, suggesting potential features like shock-proofing, waterproofing, infra-red capability, and a battery status indicator, while being wary of production costs. + +The session ended with Bart noting the key discussion points for the minutes, reminding the team of the focus on diverse functional requirements, and scheduling the next meeting to continue the project work." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} I g yeah . Time is it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fourteen twenty six . +Project Manager: Okay . Lovely to see you all again . Um {vocalsound} it's our conceptual design meeting and it's starting at approximately fourteen twenty five and so we have forty minutes for this one again and so we'll go just after three o'clock . Um okay {vocalsound} our agenda , we're gonna do an opening , I'm gonna review the minutes of the last meeting , then we'll have your three presentations um and then we'll have to make a decision on the remote control concepts , and finally we'll close . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: opening . Um these are our minutes from r the functional design . We decided our target group is the focus on who can afford it , because we have international appeal and we said it's for all age groups , different um functions of it . Our main objectives were simplicity and fashion . {vocalsound} And s um in specific functions are something to keep the remote from getting lost , large buttons for the essential functions , a possibility for extra functions , like a sliding a sliding piece {vocalsound} and a long-life battery or a charging station . Okay , now three presentations . I'd like to do it in this order , first do the conceptual specification of components , properties and materials {vocalsound} um and then the conceptual specification of user interface {vocalsound} and finally trend watching . +Industrial Designer: That would be me . +User Interface: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Well . +Project Manager: Mm . 'kay . Function F_ eight it . There we go . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Um I'm very excited by this one actually guys I uh had a lot of fun doing it . Components design . This is where you look at what does it take to make a remote control and what should we make our specific remote control out of . {vocalsound} Um . So , we need to examine each element separately , but we're designing a full thing , so you wanna keep it integrated as a whole . The main elements of remote controls in general , and therefore ours as well , are the case , the buttons , the circuit board with the chip and the battery . These are all things that we had sort of addressed before , but I'm gonna take each one a little bit separately here as we figure out what they should be made of and what they should look like . The case , uh the options that I've gotten from headquarters about what we can do , um there's there's the shape of a case , we could do a flat sh a flat case , a curved case or maybe even a double double-curved case . I haven't seen any pictures of what this exactly looks like yet , just keep that in mind , but these are the options that we have from manufacturing and we can make our case out of plastic , the m the main base will be plastic , but we have all these sort of fashion and technological elements we can add in , wood , latex , titanium , rubber or other coloured types of plastic . That would be our case . Um buttons , for buttons we have um pushbuttons , which is what Real Reaction uses the most often , but we also have scror scroll wheels , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: which can have integrated pushbuttons , or we could go all high-tech and have an L_ L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} Um circuit board and chip we can have a simple one , a regular one or an advanced one , depending on what our other needs are . And then battery I think is where things get most exciting . We're talking about long-life batteries here . {vocalsound} Um we can we can have your sort of basic double A_ batteries , but we also have these options of um {vocalsound} using a kinetic battery , like are used in high-tech watches , where you just have to move it a little bit to get it to power up . Um so simple movements like pushing buttons would recharge the battery . Or a solar battery , although there are slight um {vocalsound} complications with solar batteries as in we can't use a latex case if we have a solar battery . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or um something they only described as the type of battery you find in torches from about fifty years ago , flashlights . Not quite sure what that is , but that's the description that I received , so that's what I'm passing on to you . {vocalsound} So those are our options . Um personal preferences that I was thinking through {disfmarker} here's what we've been talking about all through , fashion and simplicity . So if we're going for fashion in our cases , I think that what we're gonna wanna look at is a curved or a double-curved case , probably with a variety of design elements . Maybe titanium , maybe some wood . We're gonna have to investigate that better when I get specifics of the actual materials , but that's sort of what I have in mind . And we wanna go for simplicity . Probably pushbuttons , but I'm sort of intrigued by the idea of a scroll scroll wheel , if anyone has anything +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: any ideas on that ? I mean I know the iPods and things right now have touch scroll um buttons which are exactly like what they're describing , so that might be something we wanna look into . And I'm really intrigued by the idea of a kinetic battery . {vocalsound} Solar I don't think would be such a good idea , because how often are you sure that your remote control will get a certain amount of light . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But this idea of the kinetic , that you don't have to replace , and that a simple just shaking it around will make it work , I think that that m would be a very interesting thing . But I think we'd also wanna go for e a simple chip or regular chip to keep our costs down . Uh we really only need a regular or advanced chip t if we're gonna start using an L_C_D_ . So I think we want to be aware of not making things overly t technological if they don't need to be , 'cause that'll keep our manufacturing price way down . That's what I have for options . Um I'd appreciate anyone's input , but that's what I'm seeing for the future of the the look of this thing . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Is double-curved like {disfmarker} would be like two hands kind of thing ? +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure . I haven't received any specific +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: visuals of this yet . +Marketing: 'Cause I'm imagining like double-curved is like , you know , like two sides that curve +Industrial Designer: This is what I'm sort of {disfmarker} +Marketing: and then like one curve would just be like a single vertical-ish kind of looking thing , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . I'm not sure , +Marketing: but I've no idea . +Industrial Designer: but I'll let you know as soon as I get any pictures . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: Yeah , I wonder {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I know if we do have a double-curved case , it can't have any titanium in it . But the titanium , they were quite {disfmarker} they're marketing quite hard to us as being used in the space programme , so that could be quite interesting . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Space-age remote . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Just an interesting marketing kind of element . +Industrial Designer: Just all things to keep in mind . Yeah . {vocalsound} That's about all I have to do , guys . I hope I didn't go through that too quickly . +Project Manager: Uh just a real quick question um the weight of these different elements , have you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , n +Project Manager: no idea , okay . +Industrial Designer: no idea , no idea . Um I'm assuming that a kinetic battery isn't gonna take up that much weight , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and that a tita titanium is very light , I know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: um but other than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: that's really basic , I mean , that's all I have gotten so far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Alright ? Any other questions ? +User Interface: Uh-huh . Don't think so . +Industrial Designer: No ? Okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: I have save this in the uh shared projects , if anyone wants to look +Project Manager: Thank you , perfect . +Industrial Designer: and I have c considerable notes on the topic as well , if anyone needs any more information . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Thanks . +Project Manager: Um if you made notes yourself you can put those on our um {disfmarker} underneath our {disfmarker} oh , uh in your book , +Industrial Designer: Just in my notebook , +Project Manager: then don't worry about that . +Industrial Designer: but if anyone has any specific questions , don't hesitate to email me or something . Alright ? Uh I guess I can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay now we're um concepts concepts of user interface . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , um . This one's so much tighter than the other one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I know . +Project Manager: Okay . Nope . There we go . Here you are . +User Interface: Jess . +Industrial Designer: G oh , geez . +User Interface: Alright , so I'm gonna describe the the concept of the user interface of this des device . Um we've talked about uh the two essential properties of the user interface . We want it to be simple and we want it to be fashionable . Um other {disfmarker} we've also got to remember that this is a device that serves as a useful purpose . Uh we want people to be able to use it s as a remote control , so we need to determine what the essential functions of the d of the device are and make sure that we include {disfmarker} that we've included all of those and that we actually end up with a device that is going to be useful to people . We have a number of different choices for a design concept um and s that's that's something that that I'll show you some examples of um , but essentially we need to choose how how is this device going to work , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: how how {disfmarker} what kind of model is there going to be for user interaction with this device . Uh once we've chosen a a concept for it , we can then design the features around the concept , making sure that we get all the essential functions in the device and uh the extra functions and the more advanced features . And of course we also have to make it look cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So basically , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's what we don't want . {vocalsound} M we don't want lots of buttons , uh complicated features . We want something that looks nice and simple . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Here's a a fairly simple device . This is an an iPod from Apple . Um I think the main thing to notice about it is it just has four buttons . It's very minimalistic in its design . Uh you use these four buttons to m to move around a range of settings on the small L_C_D_ screen . Um {vocalsound} the thing I like about this is that it's very very quick to access the main features . Uh you can just about make out uh that the button {disfmarker} three buttons are uh previous track , next track and play pause . They're the main the main features of the iPod , the things you will use a all the time . Um then if you want to do anything more advanced , you go into the little menu on the L_C_D_ screen and you use the buttons just to scroll around and and find the more advanced features that you want . So I think that's that's a good a good kind of model that we could have . Um {vocalsound} here's a another example . This is uh {disfmarker} it's an interesting idea and I think i it looks pretty cool . Um it's certainly got novelty value . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Uh it's nice and colourful , it's nice and bright . Uh it's also something that you can kind of feel your way around . The buttons are are different shapes and and you can sort of {disfmarker} yeah if you're watching T_V_ in the dark or whatever , you can work out which button's which and basically , yeah it's ith it's fun . So I {vocalsound} I like I like this idea of just having buttons for the features that you use most often . So you'd need a few buttons to select your favourite channels . I mean most people , when they watch T_V_ , they have two hundred and fifty channels on their T_V_ and they watch of 'bout four of them at the most . So , you have buttons for your favourite channel , changing the volume , which is something you do all the time when you're watching T_V_ , and the button to switch it off , in case you get bored . Um other features , things like adjusting the brightness , tuning the T_V_ , uh I don't know what else you do with a T_V_ . Um but these are these are all necessary functions . Uh you can't have a t there's no point having a television that you can't tune or that you can't set the contrast , so we need to find a way of including these somehow . Um and one other suggestions I'd make is to in is to include in a menu system , a bit like on the iPod . So we'd either have a small L_C_D_ display on the device itself , or uh have a dis a menu display that comes up on your television and can b be controlled through the device . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And that would allow you to access access the advanced features uh whilst keeping a very small and simple set of buttons for the features that you use most often . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: So you'd be advocating an L_C_D_ then ? +User Interface: I think that's {vocalsound} that's one way to go , yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um I mean there are there are advantages and disadvantages if you if you have an L_C_D_ display , it's it's nice , because it's {disfmarker} it it lets you just sort of sit there and st and control your television from your armchair . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: There are disadvantages , an an L_C_D_ display would have to be quite small , 'cause we're we're {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right +User Interface: well we're {disfmarker} I assume we're gonna be making quite a small device . Um it would also have to have uh a kind of backlighting in it , 'cause you ten you tend to watch T_V_ in the dark , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: but you need to be able to see your L_D_D_ L_C_D_ display . The alternative is to have a {vocalsound} an on-screen display on your television that you control through your remote control . Uh a bit like a bit like how they have these um digital boxes where you you press the buttons and it comes up with your {disfmarker} this thing of watch lo what's on each channel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: I mean that that's also a good idea . It's it can it does have it's problems as well , if you've got a small T_V_ and you're sitting on the other side of a room , it's hard to read the little text that comes up . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh but that's a that's a design decision that we can make . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: I do think that um one of the important features for a remote is seeing a menu and seeing what's on . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and so +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: like favourite channels is is applicable , but I think th that you do need to have some kind of function where it's {disfmarker} um you have t you can see the title of the show or possibly a description of it . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} Are you are you tak +Project Manager: Like I I know I use that often enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Wait , but is that separate from what he was saying ? +Project Manager: Well +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: if it if it was a L_ L_C_D_ on th on the remote , I don't know that you could f that you'd be able to see a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No , I think I think we're talking menu like contrast and tuning the V_C_R_ or something if I've understood you correctly , rather than menu as what's on . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that that would be one of the features , yes . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that would be more specifically a digital box , +User Interface: But it's it's it's something to bear in mind is that if we put a display on the remote control the c uh communication is one way , +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +User Interface: so you can't have the televisions and information back to the remote control , at least I don't think you can . +Industrial Designer: Oh , good point . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Um I'm not sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , now we're moving on to market . Marketing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should I plug that in ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Is that going on ? Okay . +Marketing: Maybe it's just not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh that should be alright , actually . +Marketing: Is it on ? Ri What F_ do you have to press , +Project Manager: Eight . +Marketing: five ? I just keep pressing lots of 'em . Well , I don't know how relevant all of this gonna be . {vocalsound} If anything , the {gap} that they gave me . +Project Manager: Oops , it's not plugged in , quite in well enough . +Industrial Designer: No signal . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: There we are . +Industrial Designer: Oop , there we go . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Okay , so we're gonna look a little bit at trend watching . {vocalsound} Basically , I was given um an executive summary that was a market investigation on remote controls that was recently conducted , and then also some fashion watchers in Paris and Milan commented on some things that are gonna be going on this year . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So first um they had people {disfmarker} they ranked um the important aspects of r remote controls , and right now i d they're saying that currently there's a functional look and feel preference , but that really , over the next year it it that's gonna be switching to fancy look and feel remotes , so that just goes back to the whole desire of our c Real Reaction company wanting to focus on fashion and so , even though we're stressing , when we're talking , we've all been talking about this like simplicity and easy to use idea , they're sort of wanting us to remember that the number one thing for everyone is that it's fancy look and feel . And as these are ranked , the top one is doubly important to the second one , which is doubly important to the third one , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: so just to take that weight into account . {vocalsound} The second thing that was mentioned as important was the technological innovations . That would be like if we use something like the space material or the L_C_D_ screen , things like that . And then ease of use was the third most important , whi so really , no matter what , we need to focus the most on fancy look and feel , according to this . I don't know how much we agree with that . {vocalsound} And then {vocalsound} the fashion watch talks about that this year's top trend for clothes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: shoes and furniture is fruits and vegetables and tha that there's a preference for spongy , {vocalsound} tight material . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S sweet . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And so that brings us to my personal preferences . Who wants a spongy remote or one with {vocalsound} fruit and vegetable padding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Personally , I don't really think that I want one that's gonna go out of style or go stale , excuse the pun , um in a year , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} even though this is coming from us as , you know , trend watch , market research , I don't know how much of it we necessarily {vocalsound} wanna take away . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Also , considering that the d research b has been carried out by Real Reaction , I'm a little hesitant as to {vocalsound} like , how these questions may have been worded , and if necessarily this whole fashion to technology y edas ease of use is necessarily the right ranking . Personally , like I might reverse it , but if we're working for this company then I guess no matter what , we have to stress fashion the most . {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it doesn't necessarily need to be a spongy material . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} there's all kinds of scope for imagination in that one though . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I don't have a lot of notes to share if you want them , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that pretty much sums it up . So yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , do we have any {disfmarker} s some questions for this , let's see um . +Marketing: Yeah , what can I possibly enlighten on ? +Project Manager: Um do you have any ideas how to possibly use these ? Um how to how to use a fruit or vegetable or um or the spongy material at all ? +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Like could we make a s like could we make a spongy remote ? It would be easier on the hands . +Industrial Designer: If it's latex {disfmarker} if it's latexy {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's kind of {disfmarker} and then it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um , mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we would have to find a way to protect like the chip and all that , +User Interface: A kind of thing that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: An uh I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} th {vocalsound} my understanding of a latex case is that it's in fact hard to protect stuff inside , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: but that it's covered with the latex , which is spongier and softer on your hands . It's {disfmarker} there's something to be said , I mean we we got that thing earlier from you about um not wanting it to {disfmarker} R_ R_ repetitive stress injuries and things +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: Yeah , so something , m m instead of a necess +Industrial Designer: something grippable , I mean we don't we don't we don't wanna go spongy , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah , grip , I'm thinking grip more than like sinking into your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: you know , i and I think I'm envisioning more like , you know , the material that you have when you sit on like a bicycle , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that it doesn't hurt when you're sitting down for a long time , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: like I'm imagining that sort of thing , I don't know what th that material's called . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think that given the list of materials I w I was forwarded it's {disfmarker} that seems doable . {vocalsound} could we go in fruit and vegetable colours ? We could colour-co-ordinate them , +Project Manager: F for sure , or maybe like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: um couple main ones being like , I dunno , lemons or strawberries or something . +Industrial Designer: The buttons could be fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: Could they be smelly ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I Is it supposed to be shaped like a vegetable ? Uh like uh I dunno , like uh carrots or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh God . +Project Manager: I don't know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or carrot shaped , +Industrial Designer: it's quite easy to s shape thing like carrot +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: isn't it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Maybe , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Like large button , +Industrial Designer: Or maybe the buttons could be shaped like different fruits . +User Interface: or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that's what I was thinking of , yeah . +Marketing: What about the idea of like a round remote ? Instead of like a vertical up and down one . Like in terms of holding it . Like that's a f shape of a fruit . +Industrial Designer: {gap} be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Kind of like a potato . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Might {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'd be harder to f bu uh buttons I think . +Project Manager: would you think you you {disfmarker} do you think you'd be able to hold it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just to tie it in a little . +Project Manager: 'Cause I think the reason they're long is {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: It'd be harder to press button . +Project Manager: Harder to push . +User Interface: Depends . When you when you use a remote , do you press the buttons with your thumb , usually ? Or your fingers ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I usually hold it in one hand . Maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Or maybe you want something that's shaped like a mobile phone , so you you hold it in one hand , and you press the buttons with your thumb . +Project Manager: But then the buttons would have to be very small . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's ts how I tend to do it . +Project Manager: Don't you think ? +Industrial Designer: No +Marketing: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: just thumb-sized . +Marketing: 'cause otherwise your fingers can't move around . +Industrial Designer: Jus +Project Manager: But I mean in order to get to all of them , +Marketing: But I like i +Project Manager: you know . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: They would have to be within a certain amount of space with each other . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +User Interface: But if you've only got like four or five buttons anyway , then it's it's not so much a problem , perhaps . +Industrial Designer: Right . I When I'm when I'm pressing buttons on my iPod , that's how I do it , hold it and press the four . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So you hold it in one hand and you press you press the buttons with your thumb +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or in and use my thumb or my pointer finger on the touch scroll wheel . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} And you find that works quite well ? +Marketing: I love the idea of the wheel like the iPod . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Is that {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause th +User Interface: The button on an iPod , is it {disfmarker} what is it , is it just four buttons or is it li more like a scroll thing ? +Marketing: It's like five , +Project Manager: It's a scroll , yeah , it's a wheel . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} wel well {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause there's one in the middle . +Industrial Designer: yeah , it would {disfmarker} I mean each version of it has been a little bit different , +Project Manager: The one I have doesn't have the four on i like around it , I don't think . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh yeah , you had one of the in-between ones , when they weren't doing that anymore . Ts and you press the centre button , +User Interface: Right . +Industrial Designer: that's that's your all-purpose select button right there . +User Interface: Oh , I see , right , yeah . Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Since it's the one in the centre that's not marked , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , that's quite a good design . +Marketing: I think why it would be good for us is 'cause like you could have the same wheel sort of effect for like channel flipping and then the other one could be like for volume . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like just the idea of like those {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh uh +Marketing: so few buttons for main things , +Industrial Designer: t +Marketing: but then how you could go back to the menu and like , I dunno if we would want it on the screen there or on the actual T_V_ . I kind of am wanting to say on the T_V_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause if you're changing the brightness , don't you wanna see it happening , kind of ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And then you could still have that available . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think an {vocalsound} L_C_D_ screen might be good in theory , but not as useful in practice . +User Interface: I think it could be difficult in practice , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . Also z yeah , 'cause you would be z looking down at the L_C_D_ screen , than back up at your T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and people don't wanna do that . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay um we have we've about fifteen minutes left , +Industrial Designer: Oh we probably have to get going , don't we ? +Project Manager: so I'm I'm gonna continue with my pres presentation . Um I've one more slide before we close , but in that slide is when we need to make decisions about this {disfmarker} these kinds of things , so I'll just bring that up and show you all +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Project Manager: before we move on . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Could {disfmarker} Could we uh could we have changeable covers like for your mobile ? In different fruit and vegetable colours , +Marketing: If I get any more information of fruits and vegetables , I'll let you know . +User Interface: Like , to make it different fruits . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it's possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , and then like the the covers could be spongy latex +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +Project Manager: wherea but the actual model could be titanium . +Industrial Designer: And you could co-ordinate with your house {vocalsound} or whatever . All these options . +User Interface: I think maybe th the packaging , it should be like a lemon and the the packaging is like the peel . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +User Interface: So instead of opening the box you just kind of peel it , and the remote control's inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , +Project Manager: Ah hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Don't know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: there we go . The iPod packaging is me like was so {disfmarker} that was like half the fun . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It's like the way it all comes all cute . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Options . +Marketing: Lemons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: components concept . Energy , chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Uh-hu oh , oh yes . +Project Manager: G +Industrial Designer: Right , I had sort of skipped over that hoping it wouldn't get {disfmarker} be necessary but um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's th th this is the agenda they gave me . So can you just explain what that is real quick ? +Industrial Designer: Alright , so um decisions , what the {disfmarker} okay deci decisions on energy I'm thinking is based on the battery . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um I dunno , what do people think about this kinetic battery idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's awesome . I think it's really cool . +Industrial Designer: Am I {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean , it would t totally take care of our problem of not wanting to change batteries . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , um I think it's good , as as long as we consider the the cost and the uh how reliable it is , +Industrial Designer: Right , I haven't gotten any {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as far as I know , the technology is good . +Marketing: Costs . +Industrial Designer: yeah , any more information on cost other than it's more expensive than a regular battery , but um but if we're using a an i a cheaper chip , then it'll even out , I think . +Marketing: But over time {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Um circuit boards . Um yeah , I got a whole bunch of information on how circuit boards are produced . They're {vocalsound} they're thin fibreglass with copper wires etched on to them , and di I think they're quite easily printed on by machine , which is chip on print is where the machine prints on the wires and solders it all together for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't really know what to tell you as far as decisions . I wasn't really given any options , I was just given that this is how they're done . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um yeah , I can't can't really tell you . I can I can tell you a whole lot about how it works . But I don't know any decisions on {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If they're if they're really options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I'm sorry , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I did f +User Interface: Al all circuit boards are pretty much the same , I think . Uh it's fairly fairly standard . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um okay , then we'll move on to the case . Um oh bu I guess maybe if we decided on like a simple , a regular , or an advanced chip , maybe . +Industrial Designer: Right . Well okay , here's the here's the thing on the chips that I that I got . Um simple , regular , advanced chip on print . The chip on print includes an infrared sensor , so we don't have to worry about that . Um , {vocalsound} 'kay , the pushbutton {disfmarker} if we're gonna have pushbuttons , they require a simple chip , but a scroll wheel requires a regular chip , and an L_C_D_ requires advanced . Do we want a scroll wheel , or do we just want pushbuttons ? +User Interface: Um I don't think we ne really need the scroll whe wheel . I mean it might be nice for changing the volume . +Project Manager: It would be nice for changing the volume , +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but I don't know how useful it'd be for changing the channel . 'Cause you don't have control over numbers +User Interface: I don't think it would really work . +Marketing: Yeah , it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you really need buttons for changing a channel . +Industrial Designer: th it'd be it'd be handy for going through if there was an on-screen menu of your channel choices , than you can scroll down on the scroll . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But if you c if you could scroll through the channels , and then the volume would just be +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left for the meeting , so . +Marketing: and the volume would just be like the same way , forward and backward as {disfmarker} I'm just thinking like it would make it much like sleeker sort of looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: And otherwise , no matter how may buttons we have , we're gonna have like , you know , black with red sticking out and th no {disfmarker} it's gonna inevitably sort of start looking like those group of sort of ugly ones that we saw stacked up . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So , have a scroll for volume ? +Industrial Designer: F or for all those secret functions ? +Project Manager: F +Industrial Designer: When you get on the on-screen menu of all your functions that your remote could do for you without the buttons and you could have a scroll wheel to go through those menus . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} yeah , I think a scroll wheel would be nice , but it's not necessary . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . So we could either go with a simple or a regular chip , depending {disfmarker} and maybe we could table that decision for later . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: I think w well {disfmarker} I think when we go on to the une userface , we're gonna have to decide {disfmarker} the interface we're gonna have to decide um whether we're gonna have a scroll or not . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Well , let's think about that while we talk about the case . +Project Manager: Okay , let's do case . +Industrial Designer: Uh I'm kinda liking the idea of latex , if if spongy is the in thing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm a little um I'm a little hesitant about it , because I'm worried about protecting the stuff on the inside . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh could it be hard , and then something around it ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , everything I've {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I would be more okay with like a titanium actual thing and then maybe like a mobile phone kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: N oh wha what I've what I've seen , just not related to this , but of latex cases before , is that {vocalsound} there's uh like a hard plastic inside , and it's just covered with the latex . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Not too thick a layer of latex , just enough to be grippable , like bike handles or or anything that you've seen like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: The inside is hard . I don't think we need to worry about protecting the circuit board , +Project Manager: Ge o +Industrial Designer: I think that that's done for us . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: 'Kay . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we uh we do want latex . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Latex . Um and probably in colours , maybe fruity , vegetable colours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Fruity colours . {vocalsound} Okay um let's go to the ufe user interface then we'll come back to the chip I suppose . +Industrial Designer: Oh and we want a curved case , yeah ? Or a double-curved ? +Project Manager: Well , we don't really know what the difference is , right ? +Marketing: I'm thinking curved of some sort . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We don't really know what the difference {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um okay , interface , the type and the supplements . So push or scroll , +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: right ? Or both ? +User Interface: Yep . Um {disfmarker} And I think if we wanna keep our costs down , we should just go for pushbuttons , 'cause then we can have a a simple chip and it's simpler , it's it's cheaper to make pushbuttons than it is a scroll button . +Industrial Designer: Good point . +User Interface: So in terms of uh in terms of uh economics it's probably better to have pushbuttons . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And if we had a sc an on-screen um kind of thing that you could scroll through , like you can use your buttons to scroll through things . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's uh {vocalsound} it's it's fairly simple . +Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker} yeah . For channel surfing I think a scroll {disfmarker} an actual {disfmarker} like an iPod's kind of scroll thing would be too fast , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I say pushbuttons at least unless we get any information but I have no idea how much more expensive a scroll wheel is than than a pushbutton , but it's gotta be some more expensive , so I think it might be better to put our money into the stuff like the kinetic battery and the cool case +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Is that okay with you ? +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How you feeling ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . And let's like see if we get anything else . I mean I'm not like hard-sold on the scroll wheel , it's more just to give it a different kind of look , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but if it's gonna be in a latex type thing and that's gonna look cool , then that's probably gonna have a bigger impact than the scroll wheel . +Project Manager: It might be cool enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're gonna go with um type pushbuttons , and then supplements , +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: how are we gonna do that ? +User Interface: Uh what do you mean by supplements , exactly ? +Project Manager: Um I assume that's what else we're gonna {disfmarker} like h ha the um the additional buttons we can use . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we're gonna have like a menu button , +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: so that we can access on-screen things then ? +User Interface: Yep . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , um so we're doing an on-screen menu that we can scroll through . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Um in {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So what are what are our buttons gonna be ? +User Interface: Yeah . On off , +Industrial Designer: On off {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh volume , favourite channels , uh and menu . +Industrial Designer: So like one through five , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah +Marketing: Like a radio type sorta situation ? +User Interface: about {disfmarker} yeah like {disfmarker} yeah , a bit like radio presets . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Pre-set channels and then we're gonna need um numbers one through zero , right ? +User Interface: Uh we wouldn't even need the numbers . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: I think maybe numbers seems {disfmarker} is kind of old-fashioned . +Project Manager: Well , but in order to pre-set a cha oh I guess you can just hold it down when you get to one when you're scrolling through . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , you can just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and you need some kind of , I dunno , sort of up down kind of button , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , up down . +User Interface: but the volume control could double for that , for example . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , um finishing the meeting now . Um our next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um you each have things to do , look and feel design , user interface design , product evaluation , and you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . You'll get specific instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . +Project Manager: Um did we decide on a chip ? Let's go with a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: Simple chip . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: We are done . Thank you everyone . Oh I di these are already in our shared folder , so . +Industrial Designer: Okay , cool . Clay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Clay . I wasn't expecting that . {vocalsound} +","In this meeting, the project team, led by the Project Manager, assembled for a conceptual design session aiming to deliberate and decide on key aspects of a new remote control design that their company, Real Reaction, is developing. The meeting began at approximately 14:25 with the target duration of 40 minutes and was scheduled to conclude just after three o'clock. + +The meeting's agenda involved an opening address, review of the minutes from the last meeting, three presentations, and a decision-making segment concerning the remote control concepts, culminating in the closing of the session. + +The Project Manager initiated the session by reviewing the minutes from the prior meeting, highlighting targeted customer groups, international appeal, objectives of simplicity and fashion, and specific functions for the remote control including methods to prevent misplacement, large buttons for essential functions, options for additional functions like a sliding piece, and long-life batteries or charging stations. + +The first presentation, delivered by the Industrial Designer, focused on the conceptual specification of components, including the case's potential shapes and materials, such as plastic with fashion and technological embellishments like wood, latex, titanium, rubber, or colored plastics. The discussion extended to buttons, encompassing pushbuttons and potentially incorporating scroll wheels or LCD screens. For circuit boards and chips, the options varied from simple to advanced, and battery choices included standard AA, kinetic that recharges through motion, solar, which posed certain limitations, and an unspecified type likened to vintage flashlights. The designer expressed a preference for a curved case with a mix of materials, simplicity in design with pushbuttons or possibly incorporating a scroll wheel, and an intriguing kinetic battery to avoid frequent replacements while maintaining a basic chip to control manufacturing costs. Marketing raised concerns about the double-curved design but was left without clarity due to lack of visuals. + +The second presentation came from the User Interface team. They reiterated the importance of simplicity and fashion, along with functionality and usability. They stressed that the remote should only incorporate essential functions with a user-friendly design. Examples compared included the iPod, with its minimalist design and small screen for optional settings, and another remote with novelty value due to its colorful buttons. Concepts like a small LCD display on the remote or an on-screen menu display were put forth to access advanced features while maintaining a straightforward button layout for frequent usage. + +Marketing provided the third presentation with insights into market trends, underscoring a shift towards remotes with a fancy look and feel, technology innovations, and ease of use, ranked in order of importance. Fashion trends pointing to materials with fruit and vegetable motifs and spongy textiles were mentioned; however, the relevance to remote control design was debated. + +As the meeting progressed, design decisions began to crystallize - with considerations for latex as a material for the case due to current trends, possibly fruit or vegetable-themed colors; opting for a simpler chip to minimize costs, thereby enabling pushbuttons instead of a scroll wheel; and focusing on a user-friendly interface with an on-screen menu for extra functions, which could eliminate the need for numerous buttons. The idea of changeable covers to fit with home decor was proposed, and imaginative packaging, potentially fruit-shaped, was also thrown into the creative mix. The team shared a keen interest in the kinetic battery as an innovative offering. + +Concluding the session, the agenda shifted towards executing their look and feel design, user interface, product evaluation, and prototyping with modeling clay, guided by personal coaches. The team established a consensus on several features, including a simple chip and a latex case with pushbuttons, emphasizing the remote's streamlined and fashionable design that meets the company's objectives and market expectations. + +The Project Manager wrapped up the meeting, ensuring that the materials were accessible in the shared folder and that the team was equipped for their follow-up tasks, setting the stage for the next meeting, which was scheduled to follow in half an hour." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hello , uh this meeting we are it's fo should be focused on the conceptual design of the remote control . +Marketing: Hello . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Hello . +Project Manager: Um the goal of this meeting is to reach a decision at the end on the concept and I think the last time we talked about an a lot and we had a rough idea of what is going to be , but uh in th at the end of this meeting we have to to reach a decision . So , uh we will have again three presentation , from all of you , and uh I hope it will be fast because I would like to have time to for long discussion and and decisions . So , who wants to start ? Okay . +User Interface: I s +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: No , no , you you can start . +Project Manager: So start , uh +Marketing: Okay , I'll start . Can you open my presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: please . +Project Manager: Uh . {gap} +Marketing: I'm number four . +Project Manager: This one ? +Marketing: Trend . Yep . Can you pass the mouse , please . {vocalsound} Oh okay , that's fine . +Project Manager: Turn . +Marketing: Okay . Um so basically I just want to presented to you {disfmarker} present to you some recent results we've had from um looking at uh um some remote control market research and some fashion trends around the world . Um the fashion trends we got from talking to our our contacts in the fashion industry based in Paris and Milan . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so f from our market research basically we've come to the conclusion that a fancy look and feel , um as opposed to a functional look and feel , is our number one priority . Um fancy is is is is the , you know , highest priority . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Secondly um that our remote control needs to be techn technologically innovative . Um so this is t number two priority but it's two times less important as the fancy criteria . Um and third thirdly the easiness of use is is the um is is important as well , but again two times less important as the technologically innovativeness of the remote control . {vocalsound} From our f fashion people in Paris and Milan , um we've discovered that this year um fruit the fruit and vegetable motif will be the most important thing in in clothes , shoes and furniture . So , {vocalsound} I'm pretty confident that our remote control fits into the furniture category . And also um the feel of material this year um is expected to be spongy . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Um so hopefully our remote control reflects that s in some way . +Industrial Designer: What does it mean , spongy ? +Marketing: Uh sort of um squishy . +Industrial Designer: Like soft , or something ? +Marketing: Um . Yeah soft , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like a uh like a sponge . +Project Manager: Like a sponge . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . I will see . +Marketing: Um so in conclusion , we need a our remote control needs to be something that's really fancy , um has lots of technolog tech technology in it . {vocalsound} Um somehow would be good to have it related to fruit and vegetables with a spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that it's easy to use and from our last meeting our you know Fabian told us that w you know one of the requirements is that we have to reflect the look and feel of our {disfmarker} of th the Real Reaction company . Um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's it . +Project Manager: Easy to use , is it uh a as much as important than technology or fancy thing . It's less important , right ? +Marketing: Less important . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: So um fanciness first and then two ti you know , half as important as that is technology technology , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and half important as technology is easy to use . So . +Project Manager: {gap} So , Hamed , can you {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . The second one . Could you please show the presentation number three . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the biggest struggle will be the easy to use feature . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . Number ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll see . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Three . +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: This one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . {gap} Just Could you please check if it is the first one or the second . Uh , n n no , it's the first one . The second one . +Project Manager: So it's not this one . +User Interface: Uh yeah . Okay . {gap} Okay . So I am going to talk about {disfmarker} a little bit about how this remote control should be appear to be more easy to use . I think uh I think the feature easy to use is more important than being fancy , but okay , we can discuss about it uh later . Um {vocalsound} generally , generally uh this remote control uh uh should be should be something , in my opinion , uh the first feature is just to be easy to use . So , the more frequent buttons should be larger , they should be placed in a good position uh uh inside the remote control . And uh s uh I can conclude like this , that we shouldn't need to learn how to use it . It should be {disfmarker} we shouldn't need to es open a a t book and uh start reading and uh learning how to use this uh this uh remote control . {vocalsound} Okay . So what I found out that uh as I said uh I think it's better to put uh more frequent uh uh uh ke uh buttons which are used more in the middle of the remote control , and they should be bigger in size . Uh the shape of remote control should be in a way which can {disfmarker} which should be taken easily in hand . It should not be completely like uh a cube . It should be it should have round edge , so uh then it's easier . +Industrial Designer: Exactly . +User Interface: And maybe uh just like some toys , some joystick which is easier to take inside the hand . And uh also f uh uh m because because customers doesn't like to buy lots of battery , it should not uh consume lots of energy . Okay . And my personal p uh preference is uh , as I said , uh just putting this buttons in a special places and covered some buttons which are not used uh that much like settings button , like mobile phone . Usually some mobile phone cover the dialling number part , so we can cover these buttons which are not used or uh number buttons for the for the for the can channels , and just put uh volume change or s ch can uh channel change buttons uh uh in the remote control . And if the user needed to do some more complex task uh he he can open the cover and then change settings or something like this . Uh . And also uh I think if we put some some some some some buttons inside of the remote control it can be used easier . Not on remote control . I dunno if I can explain well . But uh just inside . For example , a sliding or rolling uh uh d uh stuff , if we put it inside then we can easily manipulate with uh thumb . So it can be another uh preference . And uh I dunno but uh I think usage of a speech recogn uh r recogniser can be good . I know that it consumes lots of energy , but if we do it in some way that it asleeps when there is no sound and when it detects some sound it may consume less energy . And I think it's good because it's something new and usually young people like something new . So it may not be very useful but because it's new , people may buy it . Uh I personally think there should be a big difference between uh between something . Otherwise they prefer to buy something which is coming from a famous company , or . Okay . That's mine . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so good news from me uh uh for me from Hamed , but bad news from Bob obviously , because spongy design , I don't like it as {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so could you please , Fabien , open it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm person two . And which one , uh probably the first one . I'm not sure but check the first one . I {disfmarker} Most of the things I have to write myself on the board , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . Just {disfmarker} It's only this slide ? Yeah . This this is just uh one thing I wanted to mention and show you that I just uh I just found this , that our company uh developed a s a seven f seven fingers or I'll just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Inch . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , seven seven inch T_ {disfmarker} T_F_T_ screen , which is good news for us , since we wanted to include a display there . Uh so I I probably draw it down raw scheme . +Project Manager: Oh , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: This is this is the stuff that I can use to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so the {disfmarker} this will be like the overall scheme or overall requirements from the engineering point of view . Uh first thing is uh this will be the overall shape , no uh I'm not speaking about the real shape of the device , but the shape of the inside of the device . So there will be some circuit uh for the power . So , say power circuit here . Uh the main energy will be taken from batteries that we can uh uh {disfmarker} And if we decide to use the speech recognition stuff there , we must use additional source of energy , which I found the best is to use the solar cells which can which can uh supply everything . I was computing all the all the things related to the speech recognition , and it's okay to use just uh two batteries and solar cells , so . So no problem . There can be also solar cell . Uh the main board with all the circuits will take at least seven to seven centimetres , so this is my like hard requirement for the guys from the design . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So at least seven to seven . It depends where you put your screen , because the screen is uh seven inch , so it depends on you where where you put it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It doesn't matter . Um it's just one cord from from the main board to the screen which can be elsewhere . So this will be T_F_T_ . And on the main board we have the um interface to the microphone , which is somewhere , say here . Interface to the microphone . Then the graphical card uh for the T_F_T_ and the third unit is the I_R_ . The good news is that we can uh we decided to use the infra-red unit because our company has also developed the chip for communication by the infra-red , including all the stuff inside , so it will be very cheap for us . So infra-red here . So the {disfmarker} once again the overall requirements , seven to seven centimetres for the board , which has to be {disfmarker} which can be spongy but has to be this size , and the T_F_T_ which is seven inches . Um I have to check what I wanted to {disfmarker} Uh from my point of view I don't care about the about the material used for the overall des uh ov all the device . +Project Manager: Can you fit any uh for example a T_F_T_ or any electronic device in a spongy thing , or is there any problem for that ? For example , put electronic card on a spongy thing , I can I can imagine it could be a problem . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A all these things in in uh in this box are okay to put in in any shape , basically . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: But we have to take care of the T_F_T_ . Well , sponginess . Maybe it a good feature , since it takes {disfmarker} if it's around the T_F_T_ then it's good , because it's just keeps it safe , +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Well maybe it can have two shells , a hard shell inside and a spongy shell outside . +Marketing: So +Project Manager: Okay . Maybe put electronic in a box and a spongy thing around . {gap} maybe after . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's maybe related to the U_I_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Ca Can I ask a question . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: A Yeah , that's all from me . +Marketing: This seven inch T_F_T_ screen , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: how big is it in reality ? +Industrial Designer: Well , seven to seven inches . +Marketing: So like that . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's quite big . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh uh have we decided that we're gonna use this T_F_T_ screen ? +Project Manager: No , I don't think it's seven by seven , +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it's seven {disfmarker} the diagonal is seven . +Industrial Designer: To be honest , I was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Usually when they say seven inch I think it's the diagonal . +User Interface: Yeah yes {gap} . +Marketing: But I mean even even that is like this big . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} I dunno I dun I dun One each {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: . But , yeah , {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , honestly speaking I was thinking that it was seven centimetres initially , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it's seven inches . But I I think we can we can cut it . +Marketing: You can cut the T_F_T_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , no no problem , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: because because because then the size of the graphic card will be one fourth . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So let's cut the T_F_T_ . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but no problem to to me to cut the screen . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So so for the same price we have four screens now {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: These technical engineers , huh . +Marketing: So , what's the size of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Ah well this is like this is almost nothing . Seven to seven to at least well some three millimetres or something . +Marketing: Even from my perspective seven t seven centimetres by seven centimetres is still {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we wanted the big buttons and stuff like that , you know . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} Can you hold that , or ? +Industrial Designer: Because if it's t too small we can we can lose it , at home , you know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What user wants . He wants a small remote control , or ? Uh uh with big buttons . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: I thought that it it should fit in the hand or something . +Marketing: Yeah , a small c control that they can hold in hand . +Project Manager: It's difficult . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A sm +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But is something that's seven centimetres square e easy to hold ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W I I think so . I if the roller buttons are on the side you don't have to catch it like that , but just like this , and you know follow follow {disfmarker} Well , that's that's no task for me , but well seven to seven at least yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So maybe you can finish your presentation , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and afterwards we will discuss about all this . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} Oh , okay . +User Interface: Maybe this {gap} . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay thanks {gap} . +Project Manager: That's it . Okay . So . {vocalsound} {gap} No . Uh , so I think we have a lot {disfmarker} We have to take decision today , so I think we have to do some work to finalise our idea and take decisions . Uh first I think energy it's a key problem because uh it depend what can we have as feature if we use only batteries , for example , or something like that . Because can we have L_C_D_ and speech recognition with battery , and it's also r related to the size of the of the devi of the device ? +Industrial Designer: Not {disfmarker} J uh just a point to the energy th things . If we use the batteries , and the additional so solar cell , then it's okay for L_ uh speech recognition and L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so no problem in energy , I think . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But we have to use the solar cell . +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise not . +Project Manager: but using how many batteries , for example ? Are are what Maybe what is the size of the battery {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I was thinking just common A_A_ cells . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh one two {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So like three to five centimetres , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I dunno exactly , but . +Marketing: So if we use s solar cells , um where is the sun if someone's watching T_V_ inside ? +Industrial Designer: S Uh d doesn't need to be sun . It it's just the daylight , you know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: The television lights . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well I I suppose that I suppose that uh that this remote control won't be in the in the room like this , where there is light only when when there are people , but . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: At least when there is T_V_ you can get light from the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah from the T_ {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I don't think it's enough , uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's a it's a compromise , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: At least it's new and maybe technology New technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's why I wanted to to include the speech recognition , because you wanted all the new things . +Marketing: It's it's quite innovative , yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: And if you watch T_V_ outside it's {vocalsound} very useful . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I think before talking about the other thing , it's important thing it's the case . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh what what are gonna be the size , because its weight drives the other {disfmarker} what we are going to use as features and so on . For example for the for the L_C_D_ , if we choose to have a small device , we cannot use this um a such a a a screen . +Industrial Designer: Uh the s the screen is okay , but the board , uh that's the problem . Well what what would you guess as a shape ? Or what what would be the shape ? +User Interface: Mm . I think I think their being uh large or small is not important . The only important thing is to be able to take it in uh inside hand easily . So let's say an average size , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: and it should not be very heavy also . And I prefer to {disfmarker} is it shouldn't have a uniform shape , so in the middle it should be a little bit thinner , maybe maybe . So we c it's like like some joysticks . You can take uh some some joystick you can take inside hand easier because it's it's designed for your f uh taking into account your finger shape and your palm shape . So the general shape should be like this . I think uh seven centimetre by seven centimetre is a little bit large . So uh seven {disfmarker} not seven but let's say five by ten it's I think it's {disfmarker} that's my opinion . It's easier . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Which is the same area . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could you re could you redesign your board ? +Industrial Designer: Five to ten . Well that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , five five centimetres by ten centimetres . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's feasib Well one um um {disfmarker} How could we do it ? We could put the board next to , well , under the L_C_D_ and for example make the L_C_D_ be totally unrelated to the thing that you hold in your hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Like holding something , and the L_C_D_ to be just on top of it , you know somehow . Well {disfmarker} But maybe let's stick to the s spongy thing , like one unit . +Project Manager: Oh . I've I s I think the easiest thing would be to to have a smaller L_C_D_ , if it's possible . +Industrial Designer: Well fi five to ten it would be feasible . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so five to ten , I I think it's it's feasible . +Project Manager: Okay . So we are agree with a small +Industrial Designer: I'll make it . +User Interface: {gap} Or uh or I don't know +Project Manager: L_C_D_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fo Five by ten . +User Interface: but I don't want to now invent something new , because we didn't discuss about it . So using some L_C_D_s we can touch , so we can remove uh keys and just uh having uh , I dunno the name , L_C_D_ responding to fingers . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Touching the screen . Something like +Project Manager: Tactile or something , yeah . +User Interface: {disfmarker} Mm like tactile . +Marketing: Mm , touch screen . +Project Manager: Touch screen , yeah . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} But for now if we don't want to use such kind of screens I I think we using a a smaller screen is better , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The problem is we have a limit in a month of time , so we cannot do something very new . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So let's go for a small L_C_D_ . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , so Yeah , so so just just give me the the the five by ten numbers that you find the best and send it me +User Interface: A smaller s +Project Manager: Yeah okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: So , five by s ten . +Industrial Designer: and I will work it out . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Um so what about , so the case we talked about . Um something easy to use , you said something easy to use but how does that fit in a fashion way , like with fruit and vegetable , and about the colour and logo of the of the company and so on , now , can we do that ? My first idea is because our colour is more yellow , and the {disfmarker} it should be easy to take in a hand , I thought about banana , or something like that , which is fruits , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Seven to ten banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A big banana . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Rather mango or something or . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's it's definitely the obvious choice , with the colour of our company . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I mean what other what other fruit and vegetables {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But it's just an idea . I dunno what you think about , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you know of any any other fruit and vegetables that are yellow ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I dunno if it can fit with the technology . You are the specialists of that . +Industrial Designer: You mean banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , but {disfmarker} If it's {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} If it {disfmarker} If the banana is big enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then , yes . {vocalsound} But if you want to look at the screen {gap} , no . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think this {gap} is not good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The screen has to be {vocalsound} square ? Or it can be like a a shape , quite , uh with curves . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , it can be whatever you want . +Project Manager: It could . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But if it's square then we get four screens out of one by cutting just . But if you want some shape then we can only get like two screens out of seven to seven inches , so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's like more more expensive to have shape like that . But I don't care . You know , if we fit this requirement . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} I'd like a shaped screen . I think that's more important than saving a bit of money on on the T_F_T_ screen . +Project Manager: Okay +Industrial Designer: Okay {disfmarker} +Project Manager: okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , m maybe the banana could be like a bit uh fatter than than the c c common one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it should remember banana , but it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to b to be uh uh really the size and exactly the shape of a banana . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Like modified banana , okay . +Project Manager: So we are agree with the banana thing ? +Industrial Designer: Well it {disfmarker} we'll stick to banana , or ? +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , banana's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: So , {gap} the last point we decided it's infra-red , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , I think infra-red . +Project Manager: Everybody's agreed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Sure . +Project Manager: Uh , so that's it I think about the concepts . You have other thing to add to this point , or uh no ? So , uh about the user interface , so we are going to use L_C_D_ . In the last meeting we talked about uh hidden buttons . I don't know what we are going to do with that . You talked about the buttons on the side {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like like peeling of the banana you s {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , peeling of the banana . +Project Manager: Mm what ? +Industrial Designer: It would be cool , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Peeling of the banana , you know , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: should should discover the other buttons , which are hidden . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And you mean the first layer would be spongy . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First layer obviously spo Yeah , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: w It's it's like silly , but the people will really appreciate it , yeah I think . +Project Manager: Is it is it possible to do that ? It would be a great idea , but is it possible technically ? +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like doing a spongy layer of the banana , and you open it . +Marketing: I think if we if we have a spongy layer on the outside of the banana then it's easy to make that , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: you know , to manipulate that to hav be a cover that you can pull off and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , some {disfmarker} Something like a plastic cover covering uh some interface , U_S_B_ interface as in the in uh digital camera . If you see it's like peeling . You open a plastic cover and you see some U_S_B_ interfaces , some some interfaces for adaptor . So keys can be uh buttons can be covered like this , with a plastic cover and uh when uh and when you open this cover it's like peeling a banana . So , something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but do you see that as a rigid thing , or like like a banana , something very soft , you can open like banana , or . +Industrial Designer: Well is it possible to make it soft ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah it's a lic like a plastic cover , so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I think if it's so then it's cool ? +Project Manager: So , I dunno what you think , Bob , but it would be great for users I think , and very good for marketing . +Marketing: I think for sure . Definitely . The softer the better . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Honestly speaking , I cannot imagine it , so far , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but it will be terrible . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . And setting buttons hidden in {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm , other remarks , or something , or . Something we didn't talk about yes yet , or . I think we are almost there {gap} . Uh maybe , how can we , if we have a soft thing , like this , and to open it we have to attach it somewhere , I dunno how to do that technically , or . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Pof . +Marketing: We could use Velcro . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . +Marketing: Or uh ma maybe a magnetic +User Interface: Yes , yeah {gap} it's a good idea . +Marketing: thing . +Project Manager: Ma magnetic {gap} oh . +User Interface: Magnetic {gap} . Mm . Yeah or a {disfmarker} Yeah it can is it can be a plastic cover uh sticking to the to the all the stuff like uh with magnetic p uh magnetic uh magnetic uh {vocalsound} materials in the border , so it's it sticks like refrigerator door , completely . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And when you try to open it , it will be opened easily . So you you can be sure that it will not be open while you're uh while while uh you are commonly using uh buttons on the banana . +Project Manager: Okay . And what would be the matter here of the first layer I mean ? Mm . Likes . Soft plastic , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I imagine some sort of vinyl thing . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: In a in a sort of a with a suede sort of feel . Maybe . +Industrial Designer: Well since since the since the things like the like the screen and um how to say that , solar cell has to be has to be like kept kept in the shape , we cannot b uh {disfmarker} So we need that the that the peeling {disfmarker} uh I dunno but we should we should take care of these two two things . So , if if uh the solar cell won't be visible while the banana is closed , then the material must be able to put the light inside , you know . So that we can reach the energy out of it {disfmarker} out of that . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm . So you're saying is it possible to have a solar cell and this removable cover and +Industrial Designer: It is possible , but , well if it {disfmarker} +Marketing: And a and a banana . +Industrial Designer: I dunno . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: I dunno how to how to do it if if t if to if it's better to put the solar cell to the t to the peeling or outside it , or or inside . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But then it must be some window there , you know . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And something we forgot , maybe , uh about the speech recognition system , are we going to use it , or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes , I think . I think so . +Marketing: I think it's important . +Project Manager: It i Yeah , it seems feasible , and it would be something very great . +Marketing: I think {disfmarker} One of our p priorities is tech technology . +Project Manager: So we have the de design , the a good shape , new and so on , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and we have also the technology thing w will be . And even the easy to use thing , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so it will be perfect . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So we add also the speech recognition device . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: So , that great . We have decided everything . And think we are on a good way . So , um uh the next meeting will start in thirty minutes . Um , so uh the the Industrial Manager uh will uh will work on the look and feel design . The User Interface uh uh Mana uh Manager will work on the user interface device . And the the Marketing Expert will do the first project evaluation . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So , I hope you can do that in thirty minutes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And uh , yeah , I uh I think you should work together , s you uh Hamed and Peter , to work uh in a in a first prototype , and uh more about the shape and so on and how you can manage to put everything together . And um as usual you will receive some specific instructions on . So thank you all everybody , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and see you in thirty minutes . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Thank you . +","Summary: +The team meeting involves discussions about the design and features of a new remote control. The Marketing representative prioritizes aesthetics and technological innovations, citing market research and fashion trends. They suggest the remote should feature a 'fancy look' with a spongy texture, in line with fashion trends for fruits and vegetables motifs. User Interface emphasizes easy use, with accessible buttons. Industrial Designer agrees with the importance of ease of use and suggests additional features for convenience and energy efficiency, such as including a speech recognition function. The Project Manager organizes the discussion and stresses the need to finalize the concept during the meeting. The team aligns on a banana-themed, spongy remote control with hidden buttons (""peel"" to access), solar cells for power, a smaller LCD screen, and speech recognition technology. They also need to ensure the design reflects the Real Reaction company brand. The meeting concludes with action points for each member to prepare for the next session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Professor F: We can say the word "" zero "" all we want , +PhD G: I 'm doing some +Professor F: but just {disfmarker} +PhD G: square brackets , coffee sipping , square brackets . +PhD B: That 's not allowed , I think . +Postdoc C: Cur - curly brackets . +Grad E: Is that voiced or unvoiced ? +Grad A: Curly brackets . +PhD B: Curly brackets . +Professor F: Curly brackets . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Well , correction for transcribers . +PhD G: Mmm ! {comment} {vocalsound} Gar - darn ! +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Channel two . +Grad A: Do we use square brackets for anything ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: These poor transcribers . +Professor F: u +Postdoc C: Not ri not right now . I mean {disfmarker} No . +PhD D: There 's gonna be some zeros from this morning 's meeting because I noticed that +Professor F: u +PhD D: Barry , I think maybe you turned your mike off before the digits were {disfmarker} Oh , was it during digits ? Oh , so it doesn't matter . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: It 's still not a good idea . +PhD B: So it 's not {disfmarker} it 's not that bad if it 's at the end , but it 's {disfmarker} in the beginning , it 's {pause} bad . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah , you wanna {disfmarker} you wanna keep them on so you get {pause} good noise {disfmarker} noise floors , through the whole meeting . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting . Hmm . +Professor F: Uh , I probably just should have left it on . Yeah I did have to run , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Is there any way to change that in the software ? +Grad A: Change what in the software ? +Grad E: Where like you just don't {disfmarker} like if you {disfmarker} if it starts catching zeros , like in the driver or something {disfmarker} in the card , or somewhere in the hardware {disfmarker} Where if you start seeing zeros on w across one channel , you just add some {vocalsound} random , @ @ {comment} noise floor {disfmarker} like a small noise floor . +Grad A: I mean certainly we could do that , but I don't think that 's a good idea . We can do that in post - processing if {disfmarker} if the application needs it . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Manual post - processing . +Professor F: Well , I {disfmarker} u I actually don't know what the default {comment} is anymore as to how we 're using the {disfmarker} the front - end stuff but {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} when we use the ICSI front - end , +Grad A: As an argument . +Professor F: but um , there is an {disfmarker} there is an o an option in {disfmarker} in RASTA , which , um , {vocalsound} in when I first put it in , uh , back in the days when I actually wrote things , uh , {vocalsound} I {pause} did actually put in a random bit or so that was in it , +Grad E: OK . +Professor F: but {vocalsound} then I realized that putting in a random bit was equivalent to adding uh {disfmarker} adding flat spectrum , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: and it was a lot faster to just add a constant to the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to the spectrum . So then I just started doing that +Grad E: Mmm . OK . +Professor F: instead of calling "" rand "" {comment} or something , +Grad E: Right . +Professor F: so . So it d it does that . Gee ! Here we all are ! +Grad A: Uh , so the only agenda items were Jane {disfmarker} was Jane wanted to talk about some of the IBM transcription process . +Professor F: There 's an agenda ? +Grad A: I sort of {vocalsound} condensed the three things you said into that . And then just {disfmarker} I only have like , this afternoon and maybe tomorrow morning to get anything done before I go to Japan for ten days . So if there 's anything that n absolutely , desperately needs to be done , you should let me know now . +Professor F: Uh , and you just sent off a Eurospeech paper , so . +PhD G: Right . I hope they accept it . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: I mean , I {disfmarker} both actu as {disfmarker} as a submission and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , as a paper . Um {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well yeah , you sent it in {pause} late . +Professor F: Yeah , I guess you {disfmarker} first you have to do the first one , +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor F: and then {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: We actually exceeded the delayed deadline by o another day , so . +PhD B: Oops . +Professor F: Oh they {disfmarker} they had some extension that they announced or something ? +PhD G: Well yeah . Liz had sent them a note saying "" could we please {pause} have another "" {comment} {pause} I don't know , "" three days "" or something , and they said yes . +PhD D: And then she said "" Did I say three ? +Grad A: Oh , +PhD D: I meant four . "" +Grad A: that was the other thing uh , +PhD G: But u +Grad A: uh , Dave Gelbart sent me email , I think he sent it to you too , {comment} that um , there 's a special topic , section in si in Eurospeech on new , corp corpors corpora . And it 's not due until like May fifteenth . +Professor F: Oh this isn't the Aurora one ? +Grad A: No . +Professor F: It 's another one ? +Grad A: It 's a different one . +PhD B: No it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh ! +Grad A: And uh , +Professor F: Oh ! +PhD B: I got this mail from {disfmarker} +Grad A: I s forwarded it to Jane as I thought being the most relevant person . Um {disfmarker} So , I thought it was highly relevant {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: have you {disfmarker} did you look at the URL ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . I think so too . Um , I haven't gotten over to there yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but what {disfmarker} our discussion yesterday , I really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanna submit one . +PhD B: Was this {pause} SmartKom message ? I think {pause} Christoph Draxler sent this , +Postdoc C: Yeah . And , you offered to {disfmarker} to join me , if you want me to . +Grad A: I 'll help , +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: but obviously I can't , really do , most of it , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah , that 's right . +PhD G: I think several people {disfmarker} sent this , +Grad A: so . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +PhD G: yeah . +Grad A: But any {disfmarker} any help you need I can certainly provide . +Professor F: Well , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there were some interesting results in this paper , though . For instance that Morgan {disfmarker} uh , accounted for fifty - six percent of the Robustness meetings in terms of number of words . +Grad A: Wow . +Postdoc C: In {disfmarker} in terms of what ? In term +PhD G: Number of words . +Postdoc C: One ? Wow ! OK . +Grad A: That 's just cuz he talks really fast . +Postdoc C: Do you mean , +Professor F: n No . +Grad A: I know +PhD B: Oh . Short words . +Postdoc C: because {disfmarker} is it partly , eh , c correctly identified words ? Or is it {disfmarker} or just overall volume ? +PhD G: No . Well , according to the transcripts . +Grad A: But re well regardless . I think it 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's in all of them , +Postdoc C: Oh . OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: I mean , we didn't mention Morgan by name +Grad A: and he talks a lot . +PhD G: we just {disfmarker} +Grad A: One participant . +Professor F: Well {disfmarker} we have now , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} something about {disfmarker} +Grad A: Did you identify him as a senior {pause} member ? +PhD G: No , we as identify him as the person dominating the conversation . +Professor F: Well . +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: I mean I get these AARP things , but I 'm not se really senior yet , but {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right +Professor F: Um , +PhD G: Hmm . +Professor F: but uh , other than that delightful result , what was the rest of the paper about ? +PhD G: Um , well it was about {disfmarker} it had three sections +Professor F: You sent it to me but I haven't seen it yet . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} three kinds of uh results , if you will . Uh , the one was that the {disfmarker} just the {disfmarker} the amount of overlap +Grad A: The good , the bad , and the ugly . +PhD G: um , s in terms of {disfmarker} in terms of number of words and also we computed something called a "" spurt "" , which is essentially a stretch of speech with uh , no pauses exceeding five hundred milliseconds . Um , and we computed how many overlapped i uh spurts there were and how many overlapped words there were . {vocalsound} Um , for four different {pause} corpora , the Meeting Recorder meetings , the Robustness meetings Switchboard and CallHome , and , found {disfmarker} and sort of compared the numbers . Um , and found that the , uh , you know , as you might expect the Meeting Recorder {pause} meetings had the most overlap uh , but next were Switchboard and CallHome , which both had roughly the same , almost identical in fact , and the Robustness meetings were {disfmarker} had the least , so {disfmarker} One sort of unexpected result there is that uh two - party telephone conversations have {vocalsound} about the same amount of overlap , +Grad A: I 'm surprised . +PhD G: sort of in gen you know {disfmarker} order of magnitude - wise as , uh {disfmarker} as face - to - face meetings with multiple {disfmarker} +Grad A: I have {disfmarker} I had better start changing all my slides ! +PhD G: Yeah . Also , I {disfmarker} in the Levinson , the pragmatics book , {comment} in you know , uh , textbook , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} I found this great quote where he says {vocalsound} you know {disfmarker} you know , how people {disfmarker} it talks about how uh {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how people are so good at turn taking , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} they 're so good that {vocalsound} generally , u the overlapped speech does not {disfmarker} is less than five percent . +Postdoc C: Oh , that 's interesting . Yeah . +PhD G: So , this is way more than five percent . +Grad E: Did he mean face {disfmarker} like face - to - face ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD G: Well , in real conversations , +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: everyday conversations . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: It 's s what these conversation analysts have been studying for years and years there . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , of course , no , it doesn't necessarily go against what he said , cuz he said "" generally speaking "" . In order to {disfmarker} to go against that kind of a claim you 'd have to big canvassing . +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD B: And in f +PhD G: Well , he {disfmarker} he made a claim {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +Grad A: +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we have pretty limited sample here . +PhD B: Five percent of time or five percent of what ? +Grad A: Yeah , I was gonna ask that too . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Exactly . +PhD G: Well it 's time . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: It 's {disfmarker} i it 's not against his conclusion , +PhD G: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but still {disfmarker} but still {disfmarker} u +Postdoc C: it just says that it 's a bi bell curve , and that , {vocalsound} you have something that has a nice range , in your sampling . +PhD G: Yeah . So there are slight {disfmarker} There are differences in how you measure it , but still it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You know , the difference between um {disfmarker} between that number and what we have in meetings , which is more like , {vocalsound} you know , close to {disfmarker} in meetings like these , uh {disfmarker} you know , close to twenty percent . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But what was it like , say , in the Robustness meeting , for instance ? +PhD G: That {disfmarker} +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Robustness meeting ? It was {vocalsound} about half of the r So , {vocalsound} in terms of number of words , it 's like seventeen or eigh eighteen percent for the Meeting Recorder meetings and {vocalsound} about half that for , {vocalsound} uh , the Robustness . +Professor F: Maybe ten percent ? +Grad A: But I don't know if that 's really a fair way of comparing between , multi - party , conversations and two - party conversations . Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's just something {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I just wonder if you have to normalize by the numbers of speakers or something . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: Then {disfmarker} Yeah , then normalize by {disfmarker} by something like that , +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's a good point . +PhD G: Well , we didn't get to look at that , +PhD B: yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: but this obvious thing to see if {disfmarker} if there 's a dependence on the number of uh {disfmarker} participants . +Postdoc C: Good idea . +Grad A: I mean {disfmarker} I bet there 's a weak dependence . I 'm sure it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a real strong one . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Right . +Grad A: Right ? Because you +PhD D: Cuz not everybody talks . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: You have a lot of {disfmarker} a lot of two - party , subsets within the meeting . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: Well regardless {disfmarker} it 's an interesting result regardless . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} Right . +Postdoc C: Yes , that 's right . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker} and we also d computed this both with and without backchannels , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so you might think that backchannels have a special status because they 're essentially just {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh - huh . So , did {disfmarker} we all said "" uh - huh "" and nodded at the same time , +PhD G: R right . +Grad A: so . +PhD G: But , even if you take out all the backchannels {disfmarker} so basically you treat backchannels l as nonspeech , as pauses , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: you still have significant overlap . You know , it goes down from maybe {disfmarker} For Switchboard it goes down from {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} f um {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know {disfmarker} f fourteen percent of the words to maybe {vocalsound} uh I don't know , eleven percent or something {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a dramatic change , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: so it 's {disfmarker} Anyway , so it 's uh {disfmarker} That was {disfmarker} that was one set of {pause} results , and then the second one was just basically the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the stuff we had in the {disfmarker} in the HLT paper on how overlaps effect the {pause} recognition performance . +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: Nope . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And we rescored things um , a little bit more carefully . We also fixed the transcripts in {disfmarker} in numerous ways . Uh , but mostly we added one {disfmarker} one number , which was what if you {pause} uh , basically score ignoring all {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the conjecture from the HLT results was that {vocalsound} most of the added recognition error is from insertions {vocalsound} due to background speech . So , we scored {vocalsound} all the recognition results , {vocalsound} uh , in such a way that the uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh by the way , who 's on channel four ? You 're getting a lot of breath . +PhD B: Yeah . I j was just wondering . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad E: That 's me . +PhD G: uh , well Don 's been working hard . +Grad E: That 's right . +PhD G: OK , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so if you have the foreground speaker speaking here , and then there 's some background speech , may be overlapping it somehow , um , and this is the time bin that we used , then of course you 're gonna get insertion errors here and here . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: Right ? So we scored everything , and I must say the NIST scoring tools are pretty nice for this , where you just basically ignore everything outside of the , {vocalsound} uh , region that was deemed to be foreground speech . And where that was we had to use the t forced alignment , uh , results from s for {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} That 's somewhat {disfmarker} that 's somewhat subject to error , but still we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , Don did some ha hand - checking and {disfmarker} and we think that {disfmarker} based on that , we think that the results are you know , valid , although of course , some error is gonna be in there . But basically what we found is after we take out these regions {disfmarker} so we only score the regions that were certified as foreground speech , {comment} {vocalsound} the recognition error went down to almost {vocalsound} uh , the {pause} level of the non - overlapped {pause} speech . So that means that {vocalsound} even if you do have background speech , if you can somehow separate out or find where it is , {vocalsound} uh , the recognizer does a good job , +Grad A: That 's great . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: even though there is this back +Grad A: Yeah , I guess that doesn't surprise me , because , with the close - talking mikes , the {disfmarker} the signal will be so much stronger . +PhD G: Right . Right . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Um , +Grad A: What {disfmarker} what sort of normalization do you do ? +PhD G: so {disfmarker} Uh , well , we just {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} we do {disfmarker} u you know , vit +Grad A: I mean in you recognizer , in the SRI recognizer . +PhD G: Well , we do uh , VTL {disfmarker} {vocalsound} vocal tract length normalization , w and we uh {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we uh , {vocalsound} make all the features have zero mean and unit variance . +Grad A: Over an entire utterance ? +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or windowed ? +PhD G: Over {disfmarker} over the entire c over the entire channel . +PhD B: Don't {pause} train {disfmarker} +PhD G: Over the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +PhD G: but you know . Um , now we didn't re - align the recognizer for this . We just took the old {disfmarker} So this is actually a sub - optimal way of doing it , +Grad A: Right . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: right ? So we took the old recognition output and we just scored it differently . So the recognizer didn't have the benefit of knowing where the foreground speech {disfmarker} a start +Professor F: Were you including the {disfmarker} the lapel {pause} in this ? +PhD G: Yes . +Professor F: And did the {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did the la did the {disfmarker} the problems with the lapel go away also ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Um , it {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor F: fray for {disfmarker} for insertions ? +PhD G: It u not per {disfmarker} I mean , not completely , but yes , +Professor F: Less so . +PhD G: dramatically . So we have to um {disfmarker} +Professor F: I mean , you still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well I should bring the {disfmarker} should bring the table with results . Maybe we can look at it {pause} Monday . +Professor F: I would presume that you still would have somewhat higher error with the lapel for insertions than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yes . It 's {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yes . Yeah . +Professor F: Cuz again , looking forward to the non - close miked case , I think that we s still {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: I 'm not looking forward to it . +Professor F: i it 's the high signal - to - noise ratio +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: here that {disfmarker} that helps you . +PhD G: u s Right . So {disfmarker} so that was number {disfmarker} that was the second set of {disfmarker} uh , the second section . And then , {vocalsound} the third thing was , we looked at , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , what we call "" interrupts "" , although that 's {disfmarker} that may be {vocalsound} a misnomer , but basically {vocalsound} we looked at cases where {disfmarker} Uh , so we {disfmarker} we used the punctuation from the original transcripts and we inferred the beginnings and ends of sentences . So , you know {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Di - did you use upper - lower case also , or not ? +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: U upper lower case or no ? +PhD G: Hmm ? +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: No , we only used , you know , uh periods , uh , question marks and {pause} exclamation . And we know that there 's th that 's not a very g I mean , we miss a lot of them , +Postdoc C: Yeah . That 's OK but {disfmarker} +PhD G: but {disfmarker} but it 's f i i +Postdoc C: Comma also or not ? +PhD G: No commas . No . And then {vocalsound} we looked at locations where , uh , if you have overlapping speech and someone else starts a sentence , you know , where do these {disfmarker} where do other people start their {vocalsound} turns {disfmarker} not turns really , but you know , sentences , +PhD B: Ah . +PhD G: um {disfmarker} So we only looked at cases where there was a foreground speaker and then at the to at the {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} the foreground speaker started into their sentence and then someone else started later . +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end ? +PhD G: OK ? And so what {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +PhD G: Sorry ? +PhD B: Somewhere in between the start and the end of the foreground ? +PhD G: Yes . Uh , so that such that there was overlap between the two sentences . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: So , the {disfmarker} the question was how can we {disfmarker} what can we say about the places where the second or {disfmarker} or actually , several second speakers , {vocalsound} um {pause} start their {pause} "" interrupts "" , as we call them . +PhD D: Three words from the end . +Grad A: At pause boundaries . +PhD G: w And we looked at this in terms of um {disfmarker} +Grad A: On T - closures , only . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so we had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we had um u to {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for the purposes of this analysis , we tagged the word sequences , and {disfmarker} and we time - aligned them . Um , and we considered it interrupt {disfmarker} if it occurred in the middle of a word , we basically {disfmarker} you know , considered that to be a interrupt as if it were at {disfmarker} at the beginning of the word . So that , {vocalsound} if any part of the word was overlapped , it was considered an interrupted {pause} word . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: And then we looked at the {disfmarker} the locatio the , {vocalsound} um , you know , the features that {disfmarker} the tags because we had tagged these word strings , {comment} {vocalsound} um , that {disfmarker} that occurred right before these {disfmarker} these uh , interrupt locations . +PhD B: Tag by uh +PhD G: And the tags we looked at are {vocalsound} the spurt tag , which basically says {disfmarker} or actually {disfmarker} Sorry . End of spurt . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} whether there was a pause essentially here , because spurts are a {disfmarker} defined as being you know , five hundred milliseconds or longer pauses , and then we had things like discourse markers , uh , backchannels , uh , disfluencies . um , uh , filled pauses {disfmarker} So disfluen the D 's are for , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} the interruption points of a disfluency , so , where you hesitate , or where you start the repair there . Uh , what else do we had . Uh , repeated {disfmarker} you know , repeated words is another of that kind of disfluencies and so forth . So we had both the beginnings and ends of these {disfmarker} uh so , the end of a filled pause and the end of a discourse marker . And we just eyeballed {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} we didn't really hand - tag all of these things . We just {pause} looked at the distribution of words , and so every {vocalsound} "" so yeah "" , and "" OK "" , uh , and "" uh - huh "" were {disfmarker} were the {disfmarker} were deemed to be backchannels and {vocalsound} "" wow "" and "" so "" and {vocalsound} uh "" right "" , uh were um {disfmarker} {pause} Not "" right "" . "" Right "" is a backchannel . But so , we sort of {disfmarker} just based on the lexical {disfmarker} {vocalsound} um , identity of the words , we {disfmarker} we tagged them as one of these things . And of course the d the interruption points we got from the original transcripts . So , and then we looked at the disti so we looked at the {pause} distribution of these different kinds of tags , overall uh , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and particularly at the interruption points . And uh , we found that there is a marked difference so that for instance after {disfmarker} so at the end after a discourse marker or after backchannel or after filled pause , you 're much more likely to be interrupted {vocalsound} than before . OK ? And also of course after spurt ends , which means basically in p inside pauses . So pauses are always an opportunity for {disfmarker} So we have this little histogram which shows these distributions and , {vocalsound} um , +PhD D: I wonder {disfmarker} +PhD G: you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} No big surprises , but it is {pause} sort of interesting from {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's nice to actually measure it though . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: I wonder about the cause and effect there . In other words uh {pause} if you weren't going to pause you {disfmarker} you will because you 're g being interrupted . +PhD G: Well we 're ne +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: Right . There 's no statement about cause and effect . +PhD D: Yeah , right . No , no , no . +PhD G: This is just a statistical correlation , +PhD D: Right , I {disfmarker} I see . Yeah . +PhD G: yeah . +Professor F: But he {disfmarker} yeah , he 's {disfmarker} he 's right , y I mean maybe you weren't intending to pause at all , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You were intending to stop for fifty - seven milliseconds , +PhD G: Right . +Professor F: but then Chuck came in +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: and so you {vocalsound} paused for a second +PhD G: Right . Anyway . {comment} So , +Professor F: or more . +PhD G: uh , and that was basically it . And {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} so we wrote this and then , {vocalsound} we found we were at six pages , and then we started {vocalsound} cutting furiously +PhD B: Oops . +PhD G: and {vocalsound} threw out half of the {vocalsound} material again , and uh played with the LaTeX stuff and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Made the font smaller and the narrows longer . +PhD G: uh , and {disfmarker} until it fi +PhD B: Font smaller , yeah . +PhD G: No , no . W well , d you couldn't really make everything smaller +PhD B: Put the abstract end . +PhD G: but we s we put {disfmarker} Oh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Took out white space . +PhD G: you know the {disfmarker} the gap between the two columns is like ten millimeters , +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: so I d shrunk it to eight millimeters and that helped some . And stuff like that . +PhD D: Wasn't there {disfmarker} wasn't there some result , Andreas {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I thought maybe Liz presented this at some conference a while ago about {vocalsound} uh , backchannels +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: uh , and that they tend to happen when uh {pause} the pitch drops . You know you get a falling pitch . And so that 's when people tend to backchannel . +PhD G: Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh - i i do you rem +PhD G: y We didn't talk about , uh , prosodic , uh , properties at all , +PhD D: Right . Right . But {disfmarker} +PhD G: although that 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I take it that 's something that uh Don will {disfmarker} will look at +Grad E: Yeah , we 're gonna be looking at that . +PhD G: now that we have the data and we have the alignment , so . This is purely based on you know the words +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I have a reference for that though . Uh - huh . +PhD D: Oh you do . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD D: So am I recalling correctly ? +PhD G: Anyway , so . +Postdoc C: Well , I didn't know about Liz 's finding on that , +PhD D: About {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: but I know of another paper that talks about something +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: that {disfmarker} +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: I 'd like to see that reference too . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: It made me think about a cool little device that could be built to uh {disfmarker} to handle those people that call you on the phone and just like to talk and talk and talk . And you just have this little detector that listens for these {vocalsound} drops in pitch and gives them the backchannel . And so then you {vocalsound} hook that to the phone and go off +Grad A: Yeah . Uh - huh . +PhD D: and do the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} do whatever you r wanna do , +PhD G: Oh yeah . Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: while that thing keeps them busy . +PhD G: There 's actually {disfmarker} uh there 's this a former student of here from Berkeley , Nigel {disfmarker} Nigel Ward . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Sure . +PhD G: Do you know him ? +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: He did a system uh , in {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he lives in Japan now , and he did this backchanneling , automatic backchanneling system . +Professor F: Right . +PhD G: It 's a very {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh ! +PhD G: So , exactly what you describe , +PhD D: Huh . +PhD G: but for Japanese . And it 's apparently {disfmarker} for Japa - in Japanese it 's really important that you backchannel . It 's really impolite if you don't , and {disfmarker} So . +Professor F: Huh . Actually for a lot of these people I think you could just sort of backchannel continuously and it would {pause} pretty much be fine . +PhD D: It wouldn't matter ? Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . That 's w That 's what I do . +PhD D: Random intervals . +Grad A: There was {disfmarker} there was of course a Monty Python sketch with that . Where the barber who was afraid of scissors was playing a {disfmarker} a tape of clipping sounds , and saying "" uh - huh "" , "" yeah "" , "" how about them sports teams ? "" +PhD G: Anyway . So the paper 's on - line and y I {disfmarker} I think I uh {disfmarker} I CC ' ed a message to Meeting Recorder with the URL so you can get it . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Printed it out , haven't read it yet . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD G: Um , uh one more thing . So I {disfmarker} I 'm actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} about to send Brian Kingbury an email saying where he can find the {disfmarker} the s the m the material he wanted for the s for the speech recognition experiment , so {disfmarker} but I haven't sent it out yet because actually my desktop locked up , like I can't type anything . Uh b so if there 's any suggestions you have for that I was just gonna send him the {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is it the same directory that you had suggested ? +PhD G: I made a directory . I called it um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: He still has his Unix account here , you know . +PhD G: Well this isn't {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: He does ? +Postdoc C: And he {disfmarker} and he 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but he has to {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I 'd hafta add him to Meeting Recorder , I guess , +PhD G: he prefe he said he would prefer FTP +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD G: and also , um , the other person that wants it {disfmarker} There is one person at SRI who wants to look at the {vocalsound} um , you know , the uh {disfmarker} the data we have so far , +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD G: and so I figured that FTP is the best {pause} approach . So what I did is I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} @ @ {comment} I made a n new directory after Chuck said that would c that was gonna be a good thing . Uh , so it 's "" FTP {vocalsound} {pause} pub +Grad A: Pub real . +PhD G: real "" {disfmarker} Exactly . MTGC {disfmarker} What is it again ? CR {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ask Dan Ellis . +Professor F: u R D {disfmarker} RDR , yeah . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} Yeah . Right ? The same {disfmarker} the same as the mailing list , +Professor F: Yeah , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} +Professor F: the {disfmarker} {pause} No vowels . +PhD G: Yeah . Um , +Professor F: Yeah +PhD G: and then under there {disfmarker} Um actually {disfmarker} Oh and this directory , {vocalsound} is not readable . It 's only uh , accessible . So , {vocalsound} in other words , to access anything under there , you have to {vocalsound} be told what the name is . +Grad A: Right . +PhD G: So that 's sort of a g {vocalsound} quick and dirty way of doing access control . +Professor F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , and the directory for this I call it I "" ASR zero point one "" because it 's sort of meant for recognition . +Professor F: So anyone who hears this meeting now knows the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Beta ? +PhD G: And then {disfmarker} then in there I have a file that lists all the other {vocalsound} files , so that someone can get that file and then know the file names and therefore download them . If you don't know the file names you can't {disfmarker} +Professor F: Is that a dash or a dot in there ? +PhD G: I mean you can {disfmarker} +Grad A: Don't {disfmarker} don't {disfmarker} don't say . +PhD G: Dash . Anyway . So all I {disfmarker} all I was gonna do there was stick the {disfmarker} the transcripts after we {disfmarker} the way that we munged them for scoring , because that 's what he cares about , and {disfmarker} um , and also {disfmarker} and then the {disfmarker} the {pause} waveforms that Don segmented . I mean , just basically tar them all up f I mean {disfmarker} w for each meeting I tar them all into one tar file and G - zip them and stick them there . +Grad A: I uh , put digits in my own home directory {disfmarker} home FTP directory , +PhD G: And so . +Grad A: but I 'll probably move them there as well . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +PhD D: So we could point Mari to this also for her {vocalsound} March O - one request ? +PhD G: OK . Yeah . March O - one . +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh ! +PhD D: You n Remember she was {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh she wanted that also ? +PhD D: Well she was saying that it would be nice if we had {disfmarker} they had a {disfmarker} Or was she talking {disfmarker} Yeah . She was saying it would be nice if they had eh {pause} the same set , so that when they did experiments they could compare . +PhD G: Right , but they don't have a recognizer even . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad E: Um {disfmarker} I +PhD G: But yeah , we can send {disfmarker} I can CC Mari on this so that she knows {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . So , for the thing that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: That 's good . +PhD D: We need to give Brian the beeps file , +PhD G: Right . +PhD D: so I was gonna probably put it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can put it in the same place . Just put in another directory . +PhD D: Yeah , it I 'll make another directory . +PhD G: Well , make ano make another directory . +PhD D: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD G: You don't n m +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: And , Andreas , um , sampled ? +PhD G: Yeah . They are ? +Grad E: I think so . Yeah . Um , so either we should regenerate the original {vocalsound} versions , {comment} {pause} or um , we should just make a note of it . +PhD G: OK . Oh . Beca - Well {disfmarker} OK , because in one directory there 's two versions . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's the first meeting I cut both versions . Just to check which w if there is a significant difference . +PhD G: OK . And so I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} OK so {disfmarker} but for the other meetings it 's the downsampled version that you have . +Grad E: They 're all downsampled , yeah . +PhD G: Oh , OK . Oh that 's th important to know , OK so we should probably {disfmarker} uh {pause} give them the non - downsampled versions . +Grad E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . Alright , then I 'll hold off on that and I 'll wait for you um {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably by tomorrow +PhD G: gen +Grad E: I can {disfmarker} I 'll send you an email . +PhD G: OK . Alright . OK . Yeah , definitely they should have the full bandwidth version , +Grad E: Yeah , because I mean {disfmarker} I I think Liz decided to go ahead with the {pause} downsampled versions cuz we can {disfmarker} There was no s like , r significant difference . +PhD G: yeah . OK . Well , it takes {disfmarker} it takes up less disk space , for one thing . +Grad E: It does take up less disk space , and apparently it did even better {pause} than the original {disfmarker} than the original versions , +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: which you know , is just , probably random . +PhD G: Right . Yeah , it was a small difference +Grad E: But , um {pause} they probably w want the originals . +PhD G: but yeah . Yeah . OK . OK , good . Good that {disfmarker} Well , it 's a good thing that {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , I think we 're losing , Don and Andreas at three - thirty , right ? OK . +Grad E: Hey mon hafta booga . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor F: So , that 's why it was good to have Andreas , say these things but {disfmarker} So , we should probably talk about the IBM transcription process stuff that {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . So , um you know that Adam created um , a b a script to generate the beep file ? +Professor F: Hmm . +Postdoc C: To then create something to send to IBM . And , um , you {disfmarker} you should probably talk about that . But {disfmarker} but you were gonna to use the {pause} originally transcribed file because I tightened the time bins and that 's also the one that they had already {vocalsound} in trying to debug the first stage of this . And uh , my understanding was that , um {disfmarker} I haven't {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I haven't listened to it yet , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: but it sounded very good and {disfmarker} and I understand that you guys {vocalsound} were going to have a meeting today , before this meeting . +Grad A: It was just to talk about how to generate it . Um , just so that while I 'm gone , you can regenerate it if you decide to do it a different way . So uh , Chuck and Thilo should , now more or less know how to generate the file +Postdoc C: Excellent . OK . +Grad A: and , {vocalsound} the other thing Chuck pointed out is that , um , {vocalsound} since this one is hand - marked , {vocalsound} there are discourse boundaries . Right ? So {disfmarker} so when one person is speaking , there 's breaks . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Whereas Thilo 's won't have that . So what {disfmarker} what we 're probably gonna do is just write a script , that if two , chunks are very close to each other on the same channel we 'll just merge them . +Postdoc C: Oh ! OK . Ah , interesting . Yeah . Yeah . Oh , sure . Yeah , sure . Makes sense . +Grad A: So , uh , and that will get around the problem of , the , {vocalsound} you know "" one word beep , one word beep , one word beep , one word beep "" . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Ah ! Clever . Yes . Clever . Yeah . Excellent . +PhD D: Yeah , in fact after our meeting uh , this morning Thilo came in and said that {vocalsound} um , there could be {pause} other differences between {vocalsound} the uh {pause} already transcribed meeting with the beeps in it and one that has {pause} just r been run through his process . +Postdoc C: And that 's the purpose . Yeah . +PhD D: So tomorrow , {vocalsound} when we go to make the um {pause} uh , chunked file {vocalsound} for IBM , we 're going to actually compare the two . So he 's gonna run his process on that same meeting , +Postdoc C: Great idea ! +PhD D: and then we 're gonna do the beep - ify on both , and listen to them and see if we notice any real differences . +PhD G: Beep - ify ! +Postdoc C: OK , now one thing that prevented us from apply you {disfmarker} you from applying {disfmarker} Exactly . The training {disfmarker} So that is the training meeting . OK . +PhD D: Yeah , w and we know that . Wel - uh we just wanna if {disfmarker} if there 're any major differences between {vocalsound} doing it on the hand +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . Oh , interesting . Ah ! +Grad A: Hmm . +Postdoc C: OK . Interesting idea . Great . +PhD G: So this training meeting , uh w un is that uh {pause} some data where we have uh very um , {vocalsound} you know , accurate {pause} time marks ? for {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I went back and hand - marked the {pause} ba the bins , I ment I mentioned that last week . +PhD G: OK , yeah . +PhD D: But the {disfmarker} but there 's {disfmarker} yeah , but there is this one issue with them in that there 're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there are time boundaries in there that occur in the middle of speech . +PhD G: Because {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} Like when we went t to um {disfmarker} When I was listening to the original file that Adam had , it 's like you {disfmarker} you hear a word then you hear a beep {vocalsound} and then you hear the continuation of what is the same sentence . +Grad A: That 's on the other channel . That 's because of channel overlap . +PhD D: Well , and {disfmarker} and so the {disfmarker} th +Postdoc C: Hmm . +Grad A: It 's {disfmarker} i +PhD D: So there are these chunks that look like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that have uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean that 's not gonna be true of the foreground speaker . That 'll only be if it 's the background speaker . +PhD D: Right . So you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll have a chunk of , you know , channel {vocalsound} A which starts at zero and ends at ten , and then the same channel starting at eleven , ending at fifteen , and then again , starting at sixteen , ending at twenty . Right , so that 's three chunks where {vocalsound} actually we w can just make one chunk out of that which is A , zero , twenty . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Grad A: That 's what I just said , +Postdoc C: Sure . Sure . +Grad A: yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear . +Postdoc C: Yeah , I thought that was {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {vocalsound} if you were to use these , you have to be careful not to pull out these individual {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: Oh ! I mean it {disfmarker} Right , I mean w I mean what I would {disfmarker} I was interested in is having {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a se having time marks for the beginnings and ends of speech by each speaker . +Grad A: Well , that 's definitely a problem . +PhD G: Uh , because we could use that to fine tune our alignment process +Grad A: Battery . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: to make it more accurate . +PhD B: Battery ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} uh , it {disfmarker} I don't care that you know , there 's actually abutting segments that we have to join together . That 's fine . +PhD D: OK . +PhD G: But what we do care about is that {vocalsound} the beginnings and ends um {pause} are actually close to the speech {vocalsound} inside of that +PhD D: Yeah , I think Jane tightened these up by hand . +PhD G: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD G: OK , so what is the {disfmarker} sort of how tight are they ? +Professor F: Uh , it looks much better . +PhD B: Yeah . Looks good . +Postdoc C: They were , um , reasonably tight , but not excruciatingly tight . +PhD G: Oh . +Postdoc C: That would 've taken more time . I just wanted to get it so tha So that if you have like "" yeah "" {comment} in a {disfmarker} swimming in a big bin , then it 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: No , no ! I don +Grad A: Let me make a note on yours . +PhD G: actually I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} it 's f That 's fine because we don't want to {disfmarker} th that 's perfectly fine . In fact it 's good . You always want to have a little bit of pause or nonspeech around the speech , say for recognition purposes . Uh , but just {disfmarker} just u w you know get an id I just wanted to have an idea of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of how much extra you allowed um {disfmarker} so that I can interpret the numbers if I compared that with a forced alignment segmentation . +Postdoc C: I can't answer that , +PhD G: So . +Postdoc C: but {disfmarker} but my main goal was {pause} um , in these areas where you have a three - way overlap {vocalsound} and one of the overlaps involves "" yeah "" , {vocalsound} and it 's swimming in this huge bin , {vocalsound} I wanted to get it so that it was clo more closely localized . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Right . But are we talking about , I don't know , {pause} a {vocalsound} {pause} tenth of a second ? a {disfmarker} ? You know ? How {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} how much extra would you allow at most {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} I wanted it to be able to {disfmarker} l he be heard normally , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: so that if you {disfmarker} if you play {pause} back that bin and have it in the mode where it stops at the boundary , {vocalsound} it sounds like a normal word . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: It doesn't sound like the person {disfmarker} i it sounds normal . It 's as if the person could 've stopped there . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And it wouldn't have been an awkward place to stop . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Now sometimes you know , it 's {disfmarker} these are involved in places where there was no time . And so , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} there wouldn't be {pause} a gap afterwards because {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: I mean some cases , there 're some people {pause} um , who {disfmarker} who have very long {pause} segments of discourse where , {vocalsound} you know , they 'll {disfmarker} they 'll breath {pause} and then I put a break . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But other than that , it 's really pretty continuous and this includes things like going from one sentence into the {disfmarker} u one utterance into the next , one sentence into the next , um , w without really stopping . I mean {disfmarker} i they , i you know in writing you have this {vocalsound} two spaces and a big gap +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: you know . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {pause} {vocalsound} i some people are planning and , you know , I mean , a lot {disfmarker} we always are planning {pause} what we 're going to say next . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: But uh , in which case , the gap between {pause} these two complete syntactic units , {vocalsound} um , which of course n spoken things are not always complete syntactically , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but it would be a shorter p shorter break {vocalsound} than {vocalsound} maybe you might like . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: But the goal there was to {pause} not have {vocalsound} the text be so {disfmarker} so crudely {pause} parsed in a time bin . I mean , because {vocalsound} from a discourse m purpose {pause} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's more useful to be able to see {disfmarker} and also you know , from a speech recognition purpose my impression is that {vocalsound} if you have too long a unit , it 's {disfmarker} it doesn't help you very much either , cuz of the memory . +PhD G: Well , yeah . That 's fine . +Postdoc C: So , that means that {vocalsound} the amount of time after something is variable depending partly on context , but my general goal {vocalsound} when there was {pause} sufficient space , room , pause {pause} after it {pause} to have it be {pause} kind of a natural feeling {pause} gap . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: Which I c I don't know what it would be quantified as . You know , Wally Chafe says that {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} in producing narratives , the spurts that people use {vocalsound} tend to be , {vocalsound} uh , that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what would be a pause might be something like two {disfmarker} two seconds . +PhD G: Mmm . +Postdoc C: And um , that would be , you know one speaker . The discourse {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the people who look at turn taking often do use {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: I was interested that you chose uh , {vocalsound} you know um , {comment} the {disfmarker} you know that you use cuz I think that 's a unit that would be more consistent with sociolinguistics . Yeah . +PhD G: Well we chose um , you know , half a second because {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you go much larger , you have a {disfmarker} y you know , your {disfmarker} your statement about how much overlap there is becomes less , {vocalsound} um , precise , +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because you include more of actual pause time into what you consider overlap speech . Um , so , it 's sort of a compromise , +PhD B: Yeah . {comment} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I also used I think something around zero point five seconds for the speech - nonspeech detector {disfmarker} +PhD G: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's also based {disfmarker} I mean Liz suggested that value based on {vocalsound} the distribution of pause times that you see in Switchboard and {disfmarker} and other corpora . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +PhD B: for the minimum silence length . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . I see . +PhD B: So . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: OK . +Postdoc C: In any case , this {disfmarker} this uh , meeting {pause} that I hand {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hand - adjusted two of them I mentioned before , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: and I sent {disfmarker} I sent email , +PhD G: OK , +Postdoc C: so {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} so at some point we will try to fine - tune our forced alignment +Postdoc C: And I sent the {comment} {pause} path . +PhD G: maybe using those as references because you know , what you would do is you would play with different parameters . And to get an object You need an objective {vocalsound} measure of how closely you can align the models to the actual speech . And that 's where your your data would be {pause} very important to have . So , I will {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah and hopefully the new meetings {pause} which will start from the channelized version will {disfmarker} will have better time boundaries {pause} and alignments . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right . +Postdoc C: But I like this idea of {disfmarker} uh , for our purposes for the {disfmarker} for the IBM preparation , {vocalsound} uh , n having these {pause} joined together , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc C: and uh {disfmarker} It makes a lot of sense . And in terms of transcription , it would be easy to do it that way . +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: The way that they have with the longer units , +PhD G: Yeah . +Postdoc C: not having to fuss with adding these units at this time . +PhD B: Yeah . Whi - which could have one drawback . If there is uh a backchannel in between those three things , +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: the {disfmarker} the n the backchannel will {disfmarker} will occur at the end of {disfmarker} of those three . +Postdoc C: Yes . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} and in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the previous version where in the n which is used now , {vocalsound} there , the backchannel would {disfmarker} would be in - between there somewhere , so . +Postdoc C: I see . +PhD B: That would be more natural +Postdoc C: Yeah . Well , +PhD B: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: that 's {disfmarker} that 's right , but you know , thi this brings me to the other f stage of this which I discussed with you earlier today , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: which is {vocalsound} the second stage is {vocalsound} um , w what to do {pause} in terms of the transcribers adjustment of these data . I discussed this with you too . Um , the tr so the idea initially was , we would get {vocalsound} uh , for the new meetings , so the e EDU meetings , that {vocalsound} Thilo ha has now presegmented all of them for us , on a channel by channel basis . And um , so , I 've assigned {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've assigned them to our transcribers and um , so far I 've discussed it with one , with uh {disfmarker} And I had a {pause} about an hour discussion with her about this yesterday , we went through {vocalsound} uh EDU - one , at some extent . And it occurred to me that {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} that {vocalsound} basically what we have in this kind of a format is {disfmarker} you could consider it as a staggered mixed file , we had some discussion over the weekend a about {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at this other meeting that we were all a at {disfmarker} um , {vocalsound} about whether the tran the IBM transcribers should hear a single channel audio , or a mixed channel audio . And um , {vocalsound} in {disfmarker} in a way , by {disfmarker} by having this {disfmarker} this chunk and then the backchannel {vocalsound} after it , it 's like a stagal staggered mixed channel . And um , {vocalsound} it occurred {pause} to me in my discussion with her yesterday that um , um , the {disfmarker} {pause} the {disfmarker} the maximal gain , it 's {disfmarker} from the IBM {pause} people , may be in long stretches of connected speech . So it 's basically a whole bunch of words {vocalsound} which they can really do , because of the continuity within that person 's turn . So , what I 'm thinking , and it may be that not all meetings will be good for this , {comment} but {disfmarker} but what I 'm thinking is that {vocalsound} in the EDU meetings , they tend to be {vocalsound} driven by a couple of dominant speakers . And , if the chunked files focused on the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} then , when {disfmarker} when it got s patched together when it comes back from IBM , we can add the backchannels . It seems to me {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} um , you know , the backchannels per - se wouldn't be so hard , but then there 's this question of the time {pause} @ @ {comment} uh , marking , and whether the beeps would be {vocalsound} uh y y y And I 'm not exactly sure how that {disfmarker} how that would work with the {disfmarker} with the backchannels . And , so um {disfmarker} And certainly things that are {vocalsound} intrusions of multiple words , {vocalsound} taken out of context and displaced in time from where they occurred , {vocalsound} that would be hard . So , m my {vocalsound} thought is {pause} i I 'm having this transcriber go through {vocalsound} the EDU - one meeting , and indicate a start time {nonvocalsound} f for each dominant speaker , endpoi end time for each dominant speaker , and the idea that {vocalsound} these units would be generated for the dominant speakers , {vocalsound} and maybe not for the other channels . +Grad A: Yeah the only , um , disadvantage of that is , then it 's hard to use an automatic method to do that . The advantage is that it 's probably faster to do that than it is to use the automated method and correct it . So . +Postdoc C: Well , it {disfmarker} +Grad A: We 'll just have to see . +Postdoc C: OK . I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I think um , you know , the original plan was that the transcriber would adjust the t the boundaries , and all that for all the channels but , {vocalsound} you know , that is so time - consuming , and since we have a bottleneck here , we want to get IBM things that are usable s as soon as possible , then this seemed to me it 'd be a way of gett to get them a flood of data , which would be useful when it comes back to us . And um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh also , at the same time she {disfmarker} when she goes through this , she 'll be {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} If there 's anything that {vocalsound} was encoded as a pause , but really has something transcribable in it , {vocalsound} then she 's going to {vocalsound} uh , make a mark {disfmarker} w uh , so you know , so {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} that bin would be marked as it {disfmarker} as double dots and she 'll just add an S . And in the other {disfmarker} in the other case , if it 's marked as speech , {vocalsound} and really there 's nothing transcribable in it , then she 's going to put a s dash , and I 'll go through and it {disfmarker} and um , you know , with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} with a substitution command , get it so that it 's clear that those are the other category . I 'll just , you know , recode them . But um , {vocalsound} um , the transcribable events {pause} that um , I 'm considering in this , {vocalsound} uh , continue to be {vocalsound} laugh , as well as speech , and cough and things like that , so I 'm not stripping out anything , just {disfmarker} just you know , being very lenient in what 's considered speech . Yeah ? +PhD D: Jane ? In terms of the {disfmarker} this new procedure you 're suggesting , {vocalsound} um , u what is the {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's not that different . +PhD D: So I 'm a little confused , because how do we know where to put beeps ? Is it {disfmarker} i d y is it {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Transcriber will do it . +Postdoc C: So what it {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} what it involves is {disfmarker} is really a s uh , {vocalsound} uh , the original pr procedure , but {vocalsound} only applied to {pause} uh , a certain {pause} strategically chosen {pause} s aspect of the data . +Grad A: We pick the easy parts of the data basically , +Postdoc C: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: and transcriber marks it by hand . +Postdoc C: You got it . +Grad A: And because {disfmarker} +PhD D: But after we 've done Thilo 's thing . +Grad A: No . +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: Oh , after . Oh , OK , +Postdoc C: Yes ! +Grad A: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't understand that . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah ! +Grad A: OK . +PhD B: So , I 'm @ @ {disfmarker} now I 'm confused . +Postdoc C: OK . We start with your presegmented version {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK , and I 'm leaving . +Grad E: Yeah , I have to go as well . +PhD G: So , um {disfmarker} +Grad A: OK , leave the mikes on , and just put them on the table . +Grad E: OK . Thanks . +Postdoc C: We start with the presegmented version {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let me mark you as no digits . +PhD B: You start with the presegmentation , r {vocalsound} yeah ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . And then um , {vocalsound} the transcriber , {vocalsound} instead of going painstakingly through all the channels and moving the boundaries around , and deciding if it 's speech or not , but not transcribing anything . OK ? Instead of doing that , which was our original plan , {vocalsound} the tra They focus on the dominant speaker {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . They just {vocalsound} do that on {pause} the main channels . +Postdoc C: Yeah . So what they do is they identify who 's the di dominant speaker , and when the speaker starts . +PhD D: OK . +PhD B: Yeah ? OK . +Postdoc C: So I mean , you 're still gonna {disfmarker} +PhD B: And you just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So we 're {disfmarker} It 's based on your se presegmentation , that 's the basic {pause} thing . +PhD B: and you just use the s the segments of the dominant speaker then ? For {disfmarker} for sending to {disfmarker} to IBM or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . Exactly . +PhD D: So , now Jane , my question is {vocalsound} when they 're all done adjusting the w time boundaries for the dominant speaker , {comment} have they then also erased the time boundaries for the other ones ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . Uh No . No , no . Huh - uh . S +PhD D: So how will we know who {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's {disfmarker} that 's why she 's notating the start and end points of the dominant speakers . So , on a {disfmarker} you know , so {vocalsound} i in EDU - one , i as far as I listened to it , you start off with a {disfmarker} a s section by Jerry . So Jerry starts at minute so - and - so , and goes until minute so - and - so . And then Mark Paskin comes in . And he starts at {vocalsound} minute such - and - such , and goes on till minute so - and - so . OK . And then {vocalsound} meanwhile , she 's listening to {vocalsound} {pause} both of these guys ' channels , determining if there 're any cases of misclassification of speech as nothing , and nothing as speech , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . OK . +Postdoc C: and {vocalsound} a and adding a tag if that happens . +PhD D: So she does the adjustments on those guys ? +Postdoc C: But you know , I wanted to say , his segmentation is so good , that {vocalsound} um , the part that I listened to with her yesterday {vocalsound} didn't need any adjustments of the bins . +PhD B: On that meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So far we haven't . So this is not gonna be a major part of the process , at least {disfmarker} least not in {disfmarker} not on ones that {disfmarker} that really {disfmarker} +PhD D: So if you don't have to adjust the bins , why not just do what it {disfmarker} for all the channels ? +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm ? +PhD D: Why not just throw all the channels to IBM ? +Postdoc C: Well there 's the question o of {pause} whether {disfmarker} Well , OK . She i It 's a question of how much time we want our transcriber to invest here {vocalsound} when she 's gonna have to invest that when it comes back from IBM anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: So if it 's only inserting "" mm - hmm ""s here and there , then , wouldn't that be something that would be just as efficient to do at this end , instead of having it go through I B M , then be patched together , then be double checked here . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} But then we could just use the {disfmarker} the output of the detector , and do the beeping on it , and send it to I B +PhD D: Without having her check anything . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: Right . +Postdoc C: Well , I guess {disfmarker} +Grad A: I think we just {disfmarker} we just have to listen to it and see how good they are . +PhD B: For some meetings , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sure it {disfmarker} i n +Postdoc C: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm open to that , it was {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah , if it 's working well , +PhD B: That 's {disfmarker} And some {disfmarker} on some meetings it 's good . +Professor F: that sounds like a good idea since as you say you have to do stuff with the other end anyway . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well yea OK , good . I mean the detector , this {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , I mean we have to fix it when it comes back anyhow . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Now , you were saying that they {disfmarker} they differ in how well they work depending on channel s sys systems and stuff . +PhD B: Yeah . So we should perhaps just select meetings on which the speech - nonspeech detection works well , +Postdoc C: But EDU is great . +PhD B: and just use , {vocalsound} those meetings to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to send to IBM and , do the other ones . +Grad A: Release to begin with . +Postdoc C: How interesting . You know {disfmarker} +Professor F: What 's the problem {disfmarker} the l I forget . Is the problem the lapel , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh , it really depends . Um , my {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my impression is that it 's better for meetings with fewer speakers , and it 's better for {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for meetings where nobody is breathing . +Professor F: Oh , +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor F: the dead meetings . +PhD B: get {disfmarker} That 's it . +PhD D: So in fact this might suggest an alternative sort of a {disfmarker} a c a hybrid between these two things . +Grad A: No , the undead meeting , yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . Yeah ? +PhD D: So the {disfmarker} the one suggestion is you know we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we run Thilo 's thing and then we have somebody go and adjust all the time boundaries +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah ? +PhD D: and we send it to IBM . The other one is {vocalsound} we just run his thing and send it to IBM . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: There 's a {disfmarker} a another possibility if we find that there are some problems , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: and that is {vocalsound} if we go ahead and we {vocalsound} just run his , and we generate the beeps file , then we have somebody listen beeps file . +PhD B: Yeah . And erase {disfmarker} +PhD D: And they listen to each section and say "" yes , no "" whether that section is +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Is intelligible . +PhD D: i i intelligible or not . And it just {disfmarker} You know , there 's a little interface which will {disfmarker} for all the "" yes "" - es it {disfmarker} then that will be the final {vocalsound} beep file . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Blech . +Postdoc C: That 's interesting ! Cuz that 's {disfmarker} that 's directly related to the e end task . +Grad A: Stress test . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: Yeah . I mean it wouldn't be that much fun for a transcriber to sit there , hear it , beep , yes or no . +PhD B: Nope . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: But it would be quick . +Professor F: It would be {disfmarker} kind of quick but they 're still listening to everything . +PhD D: But there 's no adjusting . And that 's what 's slow . There 's no adjusting of time boundaries . +Postdoc C: Well , {vocalsound} eh , listening does take time too . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . I don't know , I {disfmarker} I think I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm really tending towards {disfmarker} +Grad A: One and a half times real time . +Professor F: I mean , {vocalsound} what 's the worst that happens ? Do the transcribers {disfmarker} I mean as long as th on the other end they can say there 's {disfmarker} there 's something {disfmarker} conventions so that they say "" huh ? "" +PhD D: Yeah . Right . They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +Professor F: and then we can flag those later . +PhD D: Yeah . That 's true . +Professor F: i i It {disfmarker} i +PhD D: We can just catch it at the {disfmarker} catch everything at this side . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Well maybe that 's the best way to go , +Postdoc C: How interesting ! +PhD D: just {disfmarker} +Grad A: I mean it just depends on how {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well EDU {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: Sorry , go ahead . +PhD B: u u u +Postdoc C: So I was gonna say , EDU - one is good enough , +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: maybe we could include it in this {disfmarker} in this set of uh , this stuff we send . +PhD B: Yeah there 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think there are some meetings where it would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} It 's possible like this . +Grad A: Yeah I {disfmarker} I think , we won't know until we generate a bunch of beep files automatically , listen to them and see how bad they are . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We won't be able to s include it with this first thing , +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm . Oh , OK . +PhD D: because there 's a part of the process of the beep file which requires knowing the normalization coefficients . +Postdoc C: Oh , I see . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So a +Grad A: That 's not hard to do . Just {disfmarker} it takes {disfmarker} you know , it just takes five minutes rather than , taking a second . +PhD D: OK +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So . I just hand {disfmarker} hard - coded it . +PhD D: Right , except I don't think that {disfmarker} the c the instructions for doing that was in that directory , right ? I {disfmarker} I didn't see where you had gener +Grad A: No , but it 's easy enough to do . +PhD B: What {disfmarker} +Professor F: But I {disfmarker} but I have a {disfmarker} +PhD B: Doing the gain ? It 's no problem . Adjusting the gain ? +PhD D: n Doing th No , getting the coefficients , for each channel . +PhD B: Yeah , that 's no problem . +Postdoc C: Know what numbers . +PhD D: OK . So we just run that one {disfmarker} +Grad A: There are lots of ways to do it . +PhD B: We can do that . +Grad A: I have one program that 'll do it . You can find other programs . +PhD B: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I used it , so . +PhD D: We just run that +Grad A: Yep . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: J - sound - stat ? OK . +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: Minus D , capital D . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I have {pause} another suggestion on that , which is , {vocalsound} since , really what this is , is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is trying to in the large , send the right thing to them and there is gonna be this {disfmarker} this post - processing step , um , why don't we check through a bunch of things by sampling it ? +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: Right ? In other words , rather than , um , uh , saying we 're gonna listen to everything {disfmarker} +Grad A: I didn't mean listen to everything , I meant , just see if they 're any good . +Professor F: Yeah . So y you do a bunch of meetings , you listen to {disfmarker} to a little bit here and there , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor F: if it sounds like it 's almost always right and there 's not any big problem you send it to them . +PhD D: Send it to them . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +Professor F: And , you know , then they 'll send us back what we {disfmarker} w what {disfmarker} what they send back to us , +Postdoc C: Oh , that 'd be great . +Professor F: and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll fix things up and {vocalsound} some meetings will cost more time to fix up than others . +Grad A: We should {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And we should just double - check with Brian on a few simple conventions on how they should mark things . +PhD B: Sure . +PhD D: OK . When they {disfmarker} when there 's either no speech in there , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: or {vocalsound} something they don't understand , +Postdoc C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: things like that . +Grad A: Yeah , cuz @ @ uh what I had originally said to Brian was well they 'll have to mark , when they can't distinguish between the foreground and background , +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: because I thought that was gonna be the most prevalent . But if we send them without editing , then we 're also gonna hafta have m uh , notations for words that are cut off , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and other sorts of , uh , acoustic problems . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: They do already . +PhD D: And they may just guess at what those cut - off words are , +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: but w I mean we 're gonna adjust {disfmarker} everything when we come back {disfmarker} +Grad A: But what {disfmarker} what we would like them to do is be conservative so that they should only write down the transcript if they 're sure . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: And otherwise they should mark it so that we can check . +PhD B: Mark it . Sure . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: Well , we have the unintelligibility {pause} convention . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc C: And actually they have one also , +Grad A: Right . +Postdoc C: which {disfmarker} +Professor F: i Can I maybe have {disfmarker} have an order of {disfmarker} it 's probably in your paper that I haven't looked at lately , but {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Certainty . +Professor F: Uh , an order of magnitude notion of {disfmarker} of how {disfmarker} on a good meeting , how often uh , do you get segments that come in the middle of words and so forth , and uh {disfmarker} in a bad meeting how {vocalsound} often ? +PhD B: Uh . +Postdoc C: Was is it in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what is the t +Professor F: Well he 's saying , you know , that the {disfmarker} the EDU meeting was a good {disfmarker} good meeting , +Postdoc C: In a good meeting , what ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +Professor F: right ? +Postdoc C: Oh I see , +Professor F: Uh , and so {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so it was almost {disfmarker} it was almost always doing the right thing . +Postdoc C: the characteristics . +Professor F: So I wanted to get some sense of what {disfmarker} what almost always meant . And then , uh in a bad meeting , {vocalsound} or p some meetings where he said oh he 's had some problems , what does that mean ? +Postdoc C: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor F: So I mean does one of the does it mean one percent and ten percent ? Or does it mean {vocalsound} five percent and fifty percent ? +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Professor F: Or {disfmarker} Maybe percentage isn't the right word , +Postdoc C: Just +PhD B: Yeah th +Professor F: but you know how many {disfmarker} how many per minute , or {disfmarker} You know . +PhD B: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the problem is that , nnn , the numbers Ian gave in the paper is just uh , some frame error rate . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's not really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What will be effective for {disfmarker} for the transcribers , is {disfmarker} They have to {disfmarker} yeah , in in they have to insure that that 's a real s spurt or something . And {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} the numbers {disfmarker} Oops . Um {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Hmm ! +PhD B: Let me think . So the {pause} speech {disfmarker} the amount of speech that is missed by the {pause} detector , for a good meeting , I th is around {pause} or under one percent , I would say . But there can be {disfmarker} Yeah . For {disfmarker} yeah , but there can be more {disfmarker} There 's {disfmarker} There 's more amount speech {disfmarker} uh , more amount of {disfmarker} Yeah well , the detector says there is speech , but there is none . So that {disfmarker} that can be a lot when {disfmarker} when it 's really a breathy channel . +Professor F: But I think that 's less of a problem . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: They 'll just listen . It 's just wasted time . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: And th and that 's for a good meeting . Now what about in a meeting that you said we 've {disfmarker} you 've had some more trouble with ? +PhD B: I can't {comment} really {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} {pause} Tsk . {comment} I {pause} don't have really representative numbers , I think . That 's really {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I did {pause} this on {disfmarker} on four meetings and only five minutes of {disfmarker} of every meet of {disfmarker} of these meetings so , {vocalsound} it 's not {disfmarker} not that representative , but , it 's perhaps , Fff . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's perhaps then {disfmarker} it 's perhaps five percent of something , which s uh the {disfmarker} the frames {disfmarker} speech frames which are {disfmarker} which are missed , but um , I can't {disfmarker} can't really tell . +Professor F: Right . So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So i Sometime , we might wanna go back and look at it more in terms of {vocalsound} how many times is there a spurt that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh , interrupted ? +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Something like that ? +Postdoc C: The other problem is , that when it {disfmarker} when it uh d i on the breathy ones , where you get {vocalsound} {vocalsound} breathing , uh , inti indicated as speech . +Professor F: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: And I guess we could just indicate to the transcribers not to {pause} encode that if they {disfmarker} We could still do the beep file . +Professor F: Yeah again I {disfmarker} I think that that is probably less of a problem because if you 're {disfmarker} if there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} if a {disfmarker} if a word is {disfmarker} is split , then they might have to listen to it a few times to really understand that they can't quite get it . +Postdoc C: OK . OK . +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: Whereas if they listen {nonvocalsound} to it and there 's {disfmarker} don't hear any speech I think they 'd probably just listen to it once . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: So there 'd {disfmarker} you 'd think there 'd be a {disfmarker} a factor of three or four in {disfmarker} in , uh , cost function , +Postdoc C: OK . +Professor F: you know , between them or something . +PhD B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} but I think that 's {disfmarker} n that really doesn't happen very often that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a word is cut in the middle or something . That 's {disfmarker} that 's really not {disfmarker} not normal . +Professor F: So {disfmarker} so what you 're saying is that nearly always what happens when there 's a problem is that {disfmarker} is that uh , there 's {vocalsound} some uh , uh nonspeech that uh {disfmarker} that is b interpreted as speech . +PhD B: That is marked as speech . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: Well then , we really should just send the stuff . +Postdoc C: That would be great . +Professor F: Right ? Because that doesn't do any harm . +PhD B: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor F: You know , if they {disfmarker} they hear you know , a dog bark and they say what was the word , they {comment} you know , they {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , I als I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Ruff ruff ! +PhD B: Yeah I also thought of {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there are really some channels where it is almost {comment} um , only bre breathing in it . And to {disfmarker} to re - run 's +Professor F: Yeah ? +PhD B: Eh , um . Yeah . I 've got a {disfmarker} a {pause} P - a {pause} method with loops into the cross - correlation with the PZM mike , and then to reject everything which {disfmarker} which seems to be breath . +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: So , I could run this on those breathy channels , and perhaps throw out {disfmarker} +Grad A: That 's a good idea . +Postdoc C: Wow , that 's a great idea . +Professor F: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} I th Again , I think that sort of {disfmarker} that that would be good , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and what that 'll do is just cut the time a little further . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: But I think none of this is stuff that really needs somebody doing these {disfmarker} these uh , uh , explicit markings . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Excellent . Oh , I 'd be delighted with that , I {disfmarker} I was very impressed with the {disfmarker} with the result . Yeah . +Professor F: Yeah , cuz the other thing that was concerning me about it was that it seemed kind of specialized to the EDU meeting , and {disfmarker} and that then when you get a meeting like this or something , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and you have a b a bunch of different dominant speakers +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , interesting . +Professor F: you know , how are you gonna handle it . +Postdoc C: Oh yeah . +Professor F: Whereas this sounds like a more general solution +Postdoc C: Oh yeah , I pr I much prefer this , +Professor F: is {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: I was just trying to find a way {disfmarker} Cuz I {disfmarker} I don't think the staggered mixed channel is awfully good as a way of handling overlaps . +Professor F: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Well good . That {disfmarker} that really simplifies thing then . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: And we can just , you know , get the meeting , process it , put the beeps file , send it off to IBM . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: You know ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: With very little {pause} work on our side . +PhD B: Process it , hear into it . I would {disfmarker} +PhD D: Do what ? +PhD B: Um , {pause} listen to it , and then {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or at least sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Well , sample it . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Sample it . +Professor F: I {disfmarker} I would just use some samples , +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor F: make sure you don't send them three hours of "" bzzz "" {comment} or something . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD B: No . +PhD D: Yeah . Right . +PhD B: That won't be good . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah that would be very good . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: And then we can you know {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 'll oughta be a good way to get the pipeline going . +Postdoc C: Oh , I 'd be delighted . Yeah . +PhD B: And there 's {disfmarker} there 's one point which I {comment} uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , which {disfmarker} which I r {vocalsound} we covered when I {disfmarker} when I r listened to one of the EDU meetings , +Professor F: Great . +PhD B: and that 's {vocalsound} that somebody is playing sound from his laptop . +Grad A: Uh - huh +PhD B: And i {vocalsound} the speech - nonspeech detector just assigns randomly the speech to {disfmarker} to one of the channels , so . Uh - I haven't - I didn't think of {disfmarker} of s of {vocalsound} this before , +Grad A: What can you do ? +PhD B: but what {disfmarker} what shall we do about s things like this ? +Postdoc C: Well you were suggesting {disfmarker} You suggested maybe just not sending that part of the meeting . +Grad A: Yep . Mmm . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} +PhD B: But , sometimes the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the laptop is in the background and some {disfmarker} somebody is {disfmarker} is talking , and , {vocalsound} that 's really a little bit confusing , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: It 's a little bit confusing . +Professor F: That 's life . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: I mean , {comment} what 're we gonna do ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Even a hand - transcription would {disfmarker} +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Do you {disfmarker} +Professor F: Yeah . +Grad A: a hand - transcriber would have trouble with that . +PhD B: Yeah , +Grad A: So . +PhD B: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a second question , "" what {disfmarker} what will different transcribers do with {disfmarker} with the laptop sound ? "" +Postdoc C: Would you {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} +Professor F: What was the l what was the laptop sound ? +Postdoc C: Yeah , go ahead . +Professor F: I mean was it speech , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor F: or was it {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 's speech . +Professor F: Great . +Postdoc C: Well , so {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} So my standard approach has been if it 's not someone close - miked , then , they don't end up on one of the close - miked channels . They end up on a different channel . And we have any number of channels available , +Professor F: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: I mean it 's an infinite number of channels . +PhD B: But , +Postdoc C: So just put them on some other channel . +PhD B: when thi when this is sent to {disfmarker} to the I M - eh , I B M transcribers , I don't know if {disfmarker} if they can tell that 's really {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Yeah , that 's right . +Grad A: Yeah cuz there will be no channel on which it is foreground . +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Well , they have a convention , in their own procedures , {vocalsound} which is for a background {pause} sound . +Grad A: Right , but , uh , in general I don't think we want them transcribing the background , cuz that would be too much work . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Right ? For it {disfmarker} because in the overlap sections , then they 'll +PhD D: Well I don't think Jane 's saying they 're gonna transcribe it , but they 'll just mark it as being {disfmarker} there 's some background stuff there , +Grad A: But that 's gonna be all over the place . +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD D: right ? +Grad A: How w how will they tell the difference between that sort of background and the dormal {disfmarker} normal background of two people talking at once ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I think {disfmarker} I think it 'd be easy to to say "" background laptop "" . +Grad A: How would they know that ? +PhD D: But wait a minute , why would they treat them differently ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Well because one of them {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because otherwise it 's gonna be too much work for them to mark it . They 'll be marking it all over the place . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , I s background laptop or , background LT {vocalsound} {vocalsound} wouldn't take any time . +Grad A: Sure , but how are they gonna tell bet the difference between that and two people just talking at the same time ? +Postdoc C: And {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Oh , you can tell . Acoustically , can't you tell ? +PhD B: It 's really good sound , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh is it ? Oh ! +Professor F: Well , I mean , isn't there a category something like uh , "" sounds for someone for whom there is no i close mike "" ? +PhD B: Yeah that would be very important , +Grad A: But how do we d how do we do that for the I B M folks ? +Postdoc C: Yeah . +PhD B: yeah . +Grad A: How can they tell that ? +PhD D: Well we may just have to do it when it gets back here . +Grad A: Yes , that 's my opinion as well . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: So we don't do anything for it {disfmarker} with it . +Postdoc C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +Grad A: And they 'll just mark it however they mark it , +Postdoc C: That sounds good . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad A: and we 'll correct it when it comes back . +PhD B: So th +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: there was a category for @ @ {comment} speech . +Postdoc C: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , the default . +Postdoc C: Yeah , s a +Grad A: No , not default . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: Well , as it comes back , we have a uh {disfmarker} when we can use the channelized interface for encoding it , then it 'll be easy for us to handle . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc C: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but if {disfmarker} if out of context , they can't tell if it 's a channeled speak uh , you know , a close - miked speaker or not , {vocalsound} then that would be confusing to them . +PhD B: OK . +Grad A: Right . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: I don't know , I {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Either way would be fine with me , I don't really care . +Professor F: Yeah . So . Shall we uh , do digits and get out of here ? +Grad A: Yep . +Postdoc C: I have o I have one question . Do you think we should send the um {disfmarker} that whole meeting to them and not worry about pre - processing it ? +Professor F: Yes ma ' +Postdoc C: Or {disfmarker} Uh , what I mean is {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we should {vocalsound} leave the {vocalsound} part with the audio in the uh , beep file that we send to IBM for that one , or should we {vocalsound} start after the {disfmarker} that part of the meeting is over in what we send . +Professor F: Which part ? +PhD B: With {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: So , the part where they 're using sounds from their {disfmarker} from their laptops . +PhD B: with the laptop sound , or {disfmarker} ? just {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: w If we have speech from the laptop should we just uh , excise that from what we send to IBM , or should we {vocalsound} i give it to them and let them do with it what they can ? +PhD D: I think we should just {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's gonna be too much work if we hafta {vocalsound} worry about that I think . +Postdoc C: OK , that 'd be nice to have a {disfmarker} a uniform procedure . +PhD D: Yeah , I think if we just {disfmarker} m send it all to them . you know . +Grad A: Worry about it when we get back . +Postdoc C: Good . And see how well they do . +PhD D: Let {disfmarker} Yeah , worry about it when we get back in . +Postdoc C: And give them freedom to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to indicate if it 's just not workable . +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: Yeah , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: OK , +Professor F: Yeah . +Postdoc C: excellent . +Professor F: Cuz , I wouldn't {disfmarker} don't think we would mind {pause} having that {pause} transcribed , if they did it . +Grad A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , e +Grad A: As I say , we 'll just have to listen to it and see how horrible it is . +Postdoc C: Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: Sample it , rather . +Postdoc C: OK . Alright . +PhD B: I think that {disfmarker} that will be a little bit of a problem +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc C: That 's great . +PhD B: as it really switches around between {vocalsound} two different channels , I think . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , and {disfmarker} and they 're very {disfmarker} it 's very audible ? on the close - talking channels ? +PhD B: What {disfmarker} what I would {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: Oh well . I mean , it 's the same problem as the lapel mike . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} +Postdoc C: Oh , interesting . +PhD B: Comparable , yeah . +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD B: OK . +Postdoc C: OK , alright . Digits . +Professor F: Let 's do digits . +Postdoc C: OK , so we read the transcript number first , right ? +Grad A: Are we gonna do it altogether or separately ? +PhD B: So {disfmarker} What time is it ? +Professor F: Uh , {vocalsound} why don't we do it together , +Postdoc C: Uh , quarter to four . +PhD B: Oh , OK . +Professor F: that 's {disfmarker} that 's a nice fast way to do it . +Postdoc C: Mm - hmm . +Professor F: One , two , three , go ! +Postdoc C: It 's kind of interesting if there 're any more errors in these , {vocalsound} than we had the first set . +Grad A: Nnn , yeah , I think there probably will be . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD D: Do you guys plug your ears when you do it ? +Grad A: I do . +PhD B: No . +Postdoc C: I usually do . +PhD D: I do . +PhD B: I don't . +Postdoc C: I didn't this time . +PhD D: You don't ? +PhD B: No . +Professor F: I haven't been , +PhD D: How can you do that ? +Professor F: no . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor F: Uh , concentration . +PhD B: Perhaps there are {vocalsound} lots of errors in it +PhD D: Gah ! +Grad A: Total concentration . Are you guys ready ? +PhD D: You hate to have your ears plugged ? +Professor F: Yeah . +PhD D: Really ? +","The summary described a transcript of a group conversation involving multiple participants, including a professor, PhD candidates, a postdoc, and graduate students, discussing various topics related to transcription, data processing, and the upcoming submission of a paper. They are in a meeting setting, engaging in a technical debate about the handling of audio recordings, particularly focusing on transcription conventions, the challenges of accurately capturing overlapping speech, and the strategies to edit and mark recordings before sending them to a transcription service (referred to as IBM). + +The group initially discusses technicalities of recording – issues with microphone placement, the management of non-verbal sounds and transcriber's notations like ""curly brackets"" for disfluencies, how to handle zero markings in audio files, and data processing considerations. Professor F mentions corrections for transcribers and talks about the default settings they use for the front-end processor. There are also mentions of technical aspects such as the use of square and curly brackets, adding constant noise floors, and the application of random bits in the software to handle silences. + +A significant part of the discussion revolves around a recent paper submitted for a conference and its findings on the amount of overlap in conversations, turn-taking, spurt length, and the associated recognition errors. They discuss the peculiarity that telephone conversations have about the same amount of overlap as face-to-face meetings, which contradicts previous assumptions. PhD G presents the findings, explaining the correlation between conversational cues like discourse markers and the likelihood of being interrupted. + +During the meeting, Grad A brings up that they have limited time before traveling to Japan and inquires if there are any critical tasks to complete before leaving. It is mentioned that a Eurospeech paper has been submitted late, leading to hopeful yet apprehensive feelings about its acceptance. + +The group is also informed about a special topic section in an upcoming conference, raising the point that they may need to prepare additional submissions. They share the information about who might be interested in collaborating on such submissions and discuss the relevance of certain emails they received related to conference proceedings. + +Furthermore, the discussion touches on broader research themes, such as designing efficient transcription processes, accounting for the presence of dominant speakers in meetings, and optimizing the segmentation of speech for machine learning and analysis. The conversation also returns to the substantial contributions of one participant called Morgan, accounting for a significant portion of verbal content in some of their meetings. + +The participants continuously address the practicality of their transcription and recording methods, considering the limitations and accuracy of their equipment and the importance of preserving voice quality in recordings. They explore the possibility of improvements through software changes and amendments for noise levels, and they emphasize the significance of maintaining a consistent noise floor for speech recognition accuracy. + +In the end, the group goes through a ritual of reading out digits for presumably calibrating or testing their recording system, indicating a close attention to detail in their data collection processes. The meeting demonstrated the complexities and collaborative efforts involved in speech analysis research, highlighting the intersection of linguistic theory, data processing techniques, and the pragmatics of managing a diverse research team with an array of ongoing projects and deadlines." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: OK we 're on and we seem to be working . +PhD C: Yes . +Professor A: OK . +Grad B: We didn't crash {disfmarker} we 're not crashing anymore +PhD C: One , two , three , four , f +Grad B: and it really bothers me . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: No crashing . +PhD G: I do . I crashed when I started this morning . +Grad B: You crashed {disfmarker} crashed this morning ? I did not crash this morning . +PhD C: Yeah ? +Professor A: Oh ! Well maybe it 's just , you know , how many t u u u u how many times you crash in a day . +PhD G: Really ? Yeah . Maybe , yeah . +Professor A: First time {disfmarker} first time in the day , you know . +PhD G: Or maybe it 's once you 've {pause} done enough meetings {comment} it won't crash on you anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: No ? +Postdoc F: Yeah . +PhD G: It 's a matter of experience . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Self - learning , yeah . +Professor A: That 's {disfmarker} that 's great . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Do we have an agenda ? Liz {disfmarker} Liz and Andreas can't sh can't {disfmarker} uh , can't come . +Grad B: I do . +Professor A: So , they won't be here . +Grad B: I have agenda and it 's all me . +PhD G: Did {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz no one sent me anything else . +PhD G: Did they send , uh , the messages to you about the meeting today ? +Grad B: I have no idea but I just got it a few minutes ago . +PhD G: Oh . +Grad B: Right when you were in my office it arrived . +PhD G: Oh . OK , cuz I checked my mail . I didn't have anything . +Grad B: So , does anyone have any a agenda items other than me ? I actually have one more also which is to talk about the digits . +Professor A: Uh , right , so {disfmarker} so I {disfmarker} I was just gonna talk briefly about the NSF ITR . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Oh , great . +Professor A: Uh , and then , you have {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Can w +Professor A: I mean , I won't say much , but {disfmarker} {comment} uh , but then , uh , you said {disfmarker} wanna talk about digits ? +Grad B: I have a short thing about digits and then uh I wanna talk a little bit about naming conventions , although it 's unclear whether this is the right place to talk about it . So maybe just talk about it very briefly and take the details to the people who {disfmarker} for whom it 's relevant . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I could always say something about transcription . I 've been {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} uh , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: Well if we {disfmarker} Yeah , we shouldn't add things in just to add things in . I 'm actually pretty busy today , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: so if we can {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor A: a short meeting would be fine . +Postdoc F: This does sound like we 're doing fine , yeah . That won't do . +Grad B: So the only thing I wanna say about digits is , we are pretty much done with the first test set . There are probably forms here and there that are marked as having been read that weren't really read . So I won't really know until I go through all the transcriber forms and extract out pieces that are in error . So I wa Uh . Two things . The first is what should we do about digits that were misread ? My opinion is , um , we should just throw them out completely , and have them read again by someone else . You know , the grouping is completely random , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: so it {disfmarker} it 's perfectly fine to put a {disfmarker} a group together again of errors and have them re - read , just to finish out the test set . +Postdoc F: Oh ! By {disfmarker} throw them out completely ? +Grad B: Um , the other thing you could do is change the transcript to match what they really said . So those are {disfmarker} those are the two options . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: But there 's often things where people do false starts . I know I 've done it , where I say {disfmarker} say a {disfmarker} +Grad B: What the transcribers did with that is if they did a correction , and they eventually did read the right string , {comment} you extract the right string . +PhD G: Oh , you 're talking about where they completely read the wrong string and didn't correct it ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . And didn't notice . Which happens in a few places . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Ah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Well , and s and you 're talking string - wise , you 're not talking about the entire page ? +Grad B: Correct . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I get it . +Grad B: And so the {disfmarker} the two options are change the transcript to match what they really said , but then {disfmarker} but then the transcript isn't the Aurora test set anymore . I don't think that really matters because the conditions are so different . And that would be a little easier . +PhD G: Well how many are {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} how often does that happen ? +Grad B: Mmm , five or six times . +PhD G: Oh , so it 's not very much . +Grad B: No , it 's not much at all . +PhD G: Seems like we should just change the transcripts +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD G: to match . +Professor A: Yeah , it 's five or six times out of {pause} thousands ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: Four thousand . +Professor A: Four thousand ? +PhD C: Four thous Ah ! Four thousand . +PhD G: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , I would , uh , {vocalsound} tak do the easy way , +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: yeah . +Grad B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: It {disfmarker} it 's kinda nice {disfmarker} I mean , wh who knows what studies people will be doing on {disfmarker} on speaker - dependent things +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: and so I think having {disfmarker} having it all {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: the speakers who we had is {disfmarker} is at least interesting . +PhD G: So you {disfmarker} um , how many digits have been transcribed now ? +Grad B: Four thousand lines . And each line is between one and about ten digits . +PhD G: Four thousand lines ? +Grad B: I didn't {disfmarker} I didn't compute the average . I think the average was around four or five . +Professor A: So that 's a couple hours of {disfmarker} of , uh , speech , probably . +PhD G: Wow . +Grad B: Yep . Yep . +Professor A: Which is a yeah reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable test set . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And , Jane , I do have a set of forms which I think you have copies of somewhere . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , true . +Grad B: Oh you do ? Oh OK , good , good . +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , I was just wond I thought I had {disfmarker} had all of them back from you . And then the other thing is that , uh , the forms in front of us here that we 're gonna read later , were suggested by Liz +Postdoc F: No , not yet . +Grad B: because she wanted to elicit some different prosodics from digits . And so , uh , I just wanted people to , take a quick look at the instructions +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Eight eight two two two nine . +Grad B: and the way it wa worked and see if it makes sense and if anyone has any comments on it . +Professor A: I see . And the decision here , uh , was to continue with uh the words rather than the {disfmarker} the numerics . +Grad B: Uh , yes , although we could switch it back . The problem was O and zero . Although we could switch it back and tell them always to say "" zero "" or always to say "" O "" . +Postdoc F: Oh {disfmarker} +Professor A: Or neither . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But it 's just two thing {disfmarker} ways that you can say it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Right ? +Grad B: Sure . +Postdoc F: Oh . +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} um , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: that 's the only thought I have because if you t start talking about these , you know u tr She 's trying to get at natural groupings , but it {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing natural about reading numbers this way . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I mean if you saw a telephone number you would never see it this way . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the problem also is she did want to stick with digits . I mean I 'm speaking for her since she 's not here . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: But , um , the other problem we were thinking about is if you just put the numerals , {comment} they might say forty - three instead of four three . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Mmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Well , if there 's space , though , between them . I mean , you can {disfmarker} With {disfmarker} when you space them out they don't look like , uh , forty - three anymore . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: Well , she and I were talking about it , +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: and she felt that it 's very , very natural to do that sort of chunking . +Professor A: She 's right . It 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's a different problem . I mean it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's an interesting problem {disfmarker} I mean , we 've done stuff with numbers before , and yeah sometimes people {disfmarker} If you say s "" three nine eight one "" sometimes people will say "" thirty - nine eighty - one "" or "" three hundred {disfmarker} three hundred eighty - nine one "" , or {disfmarker} I don't think they 'd say that , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but th +Grad B: Not very frequently +Professor A: no {disfmarker} +Grad B: but , {vocalsound} they certainly could . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Uh , th thirty - eight ninety - one is probably how they 'd do it . +Grad B: So . I mean , this is something that Liz and I spoke about +Professor A: But {disfmarker} I see . +Grad B: and , since this was something that Liz asked for specifically , I think we need to defer to her . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . Well , we 're probably gonna be collecting meetings for a while and if we decide we still wanna do some digits later we might be able to do some different ver different versions , +Grad B: Do something different , +Professor A: but this is the next suggestion , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor A: so . OK . OK , so uh e l I guess , let me , uh , get my {disfmarker} my short thing out about the NSF . I sent this {disfmarker} actually this is maybe a little side thing . Um , I {disfmarker} I sent to what I thought we had , uh , in some previous mail , as the right joint thing to send to , which was "" M {disfmarker} MTG RCDR hyphen joint "" . +Grad B: It was . Joint . Yep . +Professor A: But then I got some sort of funny mail saying that the moderator was going to {disfmarker} +Grad B: It 's {disfmarker} That 's because they set the one up at UW {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: +Grad B: that 's not on our side , that 's on the U - dub {comment} side . +Professor A: Oh . +Grad B: And so U - UW set it up as a moderated list . +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: Oh , OK . +Grad B: And , I have no idea whether it actually ever goes to anyone so you might just wanna mail to Mari +Professor A: No {disfmarker} no , th I got {disfmarker} I got , uh , little excited notes from Mari and Jeff and so on , +Grad B: and {disfmarker} +Professor A: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK , good . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: So the moderator actually did repost it . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Cuz I had sent one earlier {disfmarker} Actually the same thing happened to me {disfmarker} I had sent one earlier . The message says , "" You 'll be informed "" and then I was never informed but I got replies from people indicating that they had gotten it , so . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: It 's just to prevent spam . +Professor A: I see . Yeah so O {disfmarker} OK . Well , anyway , I guess {disfmarker} everybody here {disfmarker} Are y are {disfmarker} you are on that list , right ? So you got the note ? +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah ? OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , so this was , uh , a , uh , proposal that we put in before on {disfmarker} on more {disfmarker} more higher level , uh , issues in meetings , from {disfmarker} I guess higher level from my point of view . Uh , {vocalsound} and , uh , meeting mappings , and , uh {disfmarker} so is i for {disfmarker} it was a {vocalsound} proposal for the ITR program , uh , Information Technology Research program 's part of National Science Foundation . It 's the {pause} second year of their doing , uh , these grants . They 're {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} a lot of them are {disfmarker} some of them anyway , are larger {disfmarker} larger grants than the usual , small NSF grants , and . So , they 're very competitive , and they have a first phase where you put in pre - proposals , and we {disfmarker} we , uh , got through that . And so th the {disfmarker} the next phase will be {disfmarker} we 'll actually be doing a larger proposal . And I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I hope to be doing very little of it . And {disfmarker} uh , {vocalsound} which was also true for the pre - proposal , so . Uh , there 'll be bunch of people working on it . So . +Grad B: When 's {disfmarker} when 's the full proposal due ? +Professor A: Uh , I think April ninth , or something . So it 's about a month . +PhD E: p s +Professor A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yep . And they said end of business day you could check on the reviewer forms , +PhD G: u +Grad B: is that {disfmarker} +PhD G: Tomorrow . +Professor A: Tomorrow . March second , I said . +PhD E: Tomorrow ? +Grad B: I 've been a day off all week . +PhD C: Tomorrow . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: I guess that 's a good thing cuz that way I got my papers done early . +PhD G: It would be interesting {disfmarker} +Professor A: So that 's amazing you showed up at this meeting ! +Grad B: It is . It is actually quite amazing . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: It 'll be interesting to see the reviewer 's comments . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . My favorite is was when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when one reviewer says , uh , "" you know , this should be far more detailed "" , and the nex the next reviewer says , "" you know , there 's way too much detail "" . +Grad B: Yep . Or "" this is way too general "" , and the other reviewer says , "" this is way too specific "" . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: "" This is way too hard "" , "" way too easy "" . +Professor A: We 'll see . Maybe there 'll be something useful . And {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well it sounded like they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} the first gate was pretty easy . Is that right ? That they didn't reject a lot of the pre - proposals ? +Professor A: Do you know anything about the numbers ? +Grad B: No . Just {disfmarker} just th +PhD G: It 's just from his message it sounded like that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . I said something , yeah . +PhD G: Gary Strong 's {disfmarker} +Professor A: I +PhD G: there was a sentence at the end of one of his paragraphs +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: I should go back and look . I didn't {disfmarker} I don't think that 's true . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Mmm . He said the next phase 'll be very , competitive +PhD E: Very {disfmarker} very , +PhD G: because we didn't want to weed out much in the first phase . +PhD E: yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: Well we 'll have to see what the numbers are . +Grad B: Or something like that , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . But they {disfmarker} they have to weed out enough so that they have enough reviewers . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: So , uh , you know , maybe they didn't r weed out as much as usual , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's usually a pretty {disfmarker} But it {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's certainly not {disfmarker} I 'm sure that it 's not down to one in two or something of what 's left . +Grad B: Right . +Professor A: I 'm sure it 's , you know {disfmarker} +Grad B: How {disfmarker} how many awards are there , do you know ? +Professor A: Well there 's different numbers of w awards for different size {disfmarker} They have three size grants . This one there 's , um {disfmarker} See the small ones are less than five hundred thousand total over three years and that they have a fair number of them . Um , and the large ones are , uh , boy , I forget , I think , more than , uh , more than a million and a half , more than two million or something like that . And {disfmarker} and we 're in the middle {disfmarker} middle category . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I think we 're , uh , uh , I forget what it was . But , um {disfmarker} Uh , I don't remember , but it 's {pause} pr probably along the li I {disfmarker} I could be wrong on this yeah , but probably along the lines of fifteen or {disfmarker} that they 'll fund , or twenty . I mean when they {disfmarker} Do you {disfmarker} do you know how many they funded when they f in {disfmarker} in Chuck 's , that he got last year ? +PhD G: I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: I thought it was smaller , that it was like four or five , wasn't it ? +Professor A: Well they fund {disfmarker} +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor A: they {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't remember . +Professor A: yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh it doesn't matter , we 'll find out one way or another . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean last time I think they just had two categories , small and big , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and this time they came up with a middle one , so it 'll {disfmarker} there 'll be more of them that they fund than {disfmarker} of the big . +PhD G: If we end up getting this , um , what will it mean to ICSI in terms of , w wh where will the money go to , what would we be doing with it ? +Professor A: Uh . +Grad B: Exactly what we say in the proposal . +PhD G: I {disfmarker} I mean uh which part is ICSI though . +Professor A: You know , it {disfmarker} i None of it will go for those yachts that we 've talking about . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} Dang ! +Professor A: Um , well , no , I mean it 's {disfmarker} u It {disfmarker} +PhD G: It 's just for the research {disfmarker} to continue the research on the Meeting Recorder stuff ? +Professor A: It 's extending the research , right ? Because the other {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah it 's go higher level stuff than we 've been talking about for Meeting Recorder . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah the other things that we have , uh , been working on with , uh , the c with Communicator {disfmarker} uh , especially with the newer things {disfmarker} with the more acoustically - oriented things are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are lower level . And , this is dealing with , uh , mapping on the level of {disfmarker} of , um , the conversation {disfmarker} of mapping the conversations +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Right , right . +Professor A: to different kind of planes . So . Um . But , um . So it 's all it 's all stuff that none none of us are doing right now , or none of us are funded for , so it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it would be new . +PhD G: So assuming everybody 's completely busy now , it means we 're gonna hafta , hire more students , or , something ? +Professor A: Well there 's evenings , and there 's weekends , and {disfmarker} Uh . Yeah , there {disfmarker} there would be {disfmarker} there would be new hires , and {disfmarker} and there {disfmarker} there would be expansion , but , also , there 's always {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for everybody there 's {disfmarker} there 's always things that are dropping off , grants that are ending , or other things that are ending , so , +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: there 's {disfmarker} there 's a {vocalsound} continual need to {disfmarker} to bring in new things . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yep . +PhD G: Right . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} but there definitely would be new {disfmarker} new {disfmarker} new , uh , students , +PhD G: I see . +Professor A: and so forth , both at {disfmarker} at UW and here . +Grad B: Are there any students in your class who are {vocalsound} expressing interest ? +Professor A: Um , not {pause} clear yet . Not clear yet . +Grad B: Other than the one who 's already here . +Professor A: I mean we got {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} yeah , two of them are {disfmarker} two in the c There 're {pause} two in the class already here , and then {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} uh , then there 's a third who 's doing a project here , who , uh {disfmarker} But he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't be in the country that long , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and , maybe another will end up . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor A: Actually there is one other guy who 's looking {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's that guy , uh , Jeremy ? {comment} I think . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Anyway , yeah that 's {disfmarker} that 's all I was gonna say is that {disfmarker} that that 's {disfmarker} you know , that 's nice and we 're sorta preceding to the next step , and , {vocalsound} it 'll mean some more work , uh , you know , in {disfmarker} in March in getting the proposal out , and then , it 's , uh , you know {disfmarker} We 'll see what happens . Uh , the last one was {disfmarker} that you had there , {comment} was about naming ? +Grad B: Yep . It just , uh {disfmarker} we 've been cutting up sound files , in {disfmarker} for ba both digits and for , uh , doing recognition . And Liz had some suggestions on naming and it just brought up the whole issue that hasn't really been resolved about naming . So , uh , one thing she would like to have is for all the names to be the same length so that sorting is easier . Um , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: same number of characters so that when you 're sorting filenames you can easily extract out bits and pieces that you want . And that 's easy enough to do . And I don't think we have so many meetings that that 's a big deal just to change the names . So that means , uh , instead of calling it "" MR one "" , "" MR two "" , you 'd call it "" MRM zero zero one "" , "" MRM zero zero two "" , things like that . Just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're all the same length . +Postdoc F: But , you know , when you , do things like that you can always {disfmarker} as long as you have {disfmarker} uh , you can always search from the beginning or the end of the string . +Grad B: The problem is that they 're a lot of fields . +Postdoc F: You know , so "" zero zero two "" {disfmarker} +Grad B: Alright , +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Grad B: so we {disfmarker} we have th we 're gonna have the speaker ID , the session , uh {disfmarker} uh , information on the microphones , +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , your example was really {disfmarker} +Grad B: information on the speak on the channels and all that . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Postdoc F: i +Grad B: And so if each one of those is a fixed length , the sorting becomes a lot easier . +Postdoc F: OK . +Grad D: She wanted to keep them {vocalsound} the same lengths across different meetings also . So like , the NSA meeting lengths , {comment} all filenames are gonna be the same length as the Meeting Recorder meeting names ? +Grad B: Yep . And as I said , the it 's {disfmarker} we just don't have that many that that 's a big deal . +PhD G: Cuz of digits . +Grad B: And so , uh , um , at some point we have to sort of take a few days off , let the transcribers have a few days off , make sure no one 's touching the data and reorganize the file structures . And when we do that we can also rationalize some of the naming . +Postdoc F: I {disfmarker} I would think though that the transcribe {disfmarker} the transcripts themselves wouldn't need to have such lengthy names . +Grad B: Right . +Postdoc F: So , I mean , you 're dealing with a different domain there , and with start and end times and all that , and channels and stuff , +Grad B: Right . So the only thing that would change with that is just the directory names , +Postdoc F: so , it 's a different {pause} set . +Grad B: I would change them to match . So instead of being MR one it would be MRM zero zero one . But I don't think that 's a big deal . +Postdoc F: Fine . Fine . +Grad B: So for {disfmarker} for m the meetings we were thinking about three letters and three numbers for meeting I Ds . Uh , for speakers , M or F and then three numbers , For , uh {disfmarker} and , uh , that also brings up the point that we have to start assembling a speaker database so that we get those links back and forth and keep it consistent . Um , and then , uh , the microphone issues . We want some way of specifying , more than looking in the "" key "" file , what channel and what mike . What channel , what mike , and what broadcaster . Or {disfmarker} I don't know how to s say it . So I mean with this one it 's this particular headset with this particular transmitter w {pause} as a wireless . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD E: Yep . +Grad B: And you know that one is a different headset and different channel . And so we just need some naming conventions on that . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: And , uh , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +Grad B: that 's gonna become especially important once we start changing the microphone set - up . We have some new microphones that I 'd like to start trying out , um , once I test them . And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll need to specify that somewhere . So I was just gonna do a fixed list of , uh , microphones and types . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad B: So , as I said {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: That sounds good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , {pause} {vocalsound} since we have such a short agenda list I guess I wi I will ask how {disfmarker} how are the transcriptions going ? Yeah . +Postdoc F: The {disfmarker} the news is that I 've {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker} s So {disfmarker} in s um {disfmarker} So I 've switched to {disfmarker} Start my new sentence . I {disfmarker} I switched to doing the channel - by - channel transcriptions to provide , uh , the {disfmarker} uh , tighter time bins for {disfmarker} partly for use in Thilo 's work and also it 's of relevance to other people in the project . And , um , I discovered in the process a couple of {disfmarker} of interesting things , which , um , one of them is that , um , it seems that there are time lags involved in doing this , uh , uh , using an interface that has so much more complexity to it . And I {disfmarker} and I wanted to maybe ask , uh , Chuck to help me with some of the questions of efficiency . Maybe {disfmarker} I was thinking maybe the best way to do this in the long run may be to give them single channel parts and then piece them together later . And I {disfmarker} I have a script , I can piece them together . I mean , so it 's like , I {disfmarker} I know that I can take them apart and put them together and I 'll end up with the representation which is where the real power of that interface is . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And it may be that it 's faster to transcribe a channel at a time with only one , uh , sound file and one , uh , set of {disfmarker} of , uh , utterances to check through . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: I 'm a little confused . I thought that {disfmarker} that one of the reason we thought we were so much faster than {disfmarker} than , uh , the {disfmarker} the other transcription , uh , thing was that {disfmarker} that we were using the mixed {pause} file . +Postdoc F: Oh , yes . OK . But , um , with the mixed , when you have an overlap , you only have a {disfmarker} a choice of one start and end time for that entire overlap , which means that you 're not tightly , uh , tuning the individual parts th of that overlap by different speakers . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Postdoc F: So someone may have only said two words in that entire big chunk of overlap . +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And for purposes of {disfmarker} of , uh , things like {disfmarker} well , so things like training the speech - nonspeech segmentation thing . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Th - it 's necessary to have it more tightly tuned than that . +Professor A: OK . +Postdoc F: And w and w and , you know , is a It would be wonderful if , uh , it 's possible then to use that algorithm to more tightly tie in all the channels after that but , um , you know , I 've {disfmarker} th the {disfmarker} So , I I don't know exactly where that 's going at this point . But m I was experimenting with doing this by hand and I really do think that it 's wise that we 've had them start the way we have with , uh , m y working off the mixed signal , um , having the interface that doesn't require them to do the ti uh , the time bins for every single channel at a t uh , through the entire interaction . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: Um , I did discover a couple other things by doing this though , and one of them is that , um , um , once in a while a backchannel will be overlooked by the transcriber . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: As you might expect , +Professor A: Sure . +Postdoc F: because when it 's a b backchannel could well happen in a very densely populated overlap . And if we 're gonna study types of overlaps , which is what I wanna do , an analysis of that , then that really does require listening {comment} to every single channel all the way through the entire {comment} length for all the different speakers . Now , for only four speakers , that 's not gonna be too much time , but if it 's nine speakers , then that i that is more time . So it 's li you know , kind of wondering {disfmarker} And I think again it 's like this {disfmarker} it 's really valuable that Thilo 's working on the speech - nonspeech segmentation because maybe , um , we can close in on that wi without having to actually go to the time that it would take to listen to every single channel from start to finish through every single meeting . +PhD E: Yeah , but those backchannels will always be a problem I think . Uh especially if they 're really short and they 're not very loud and so it {disfmarker} it can {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it will always happen that also the automatic s detection system will miss some of them , so . +Postdoc F: OK . Well so then {disfmarker} then , maybe the answer is to , uh , listen especially densely in places of overlap , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: just so that they 're {disfmarker} they 're not being overlooked because of that , and count on accuracy during the sparser phases . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Cuz there are large s spaces of the {disfmarker} That 's a good point . There are large spaces where there 's no overlap at all . Someone 's giving a presentation , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: or whatever . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a good {disfmarker} that 's a good thought . And , um , let 's see , there was one other thing I was gonna say . I {disfmarker} I think it 's really interesting data to work with , I have to say , it 's very enjoyable . I really , not {disfmarker} not a problem spending time with these data . Really interesting . And not just because I 'm in there . No , it 's real interesting . +Professor A: Uh , well I think it 's a short meeting . Uh , you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're still in the midst of what you 're doing from what you described last time , I assume , +PhD C: Is true . +Postdoc F: +Professor A: and {disfmarker} +PhD C: I haven't results , eh , yet +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: but , eh , I {disfmarker} I 'm continue working with the mixed signal now , {comment} after the {disfmarker} the last experience . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} and I 'm tried to {disfmarker} to , uh , adjust the {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to improve , eh , an harmonicity , eh , detector that , eh , I {disfmarker} I implement . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: But I have problem because , eh , I get , eh , eh , very much harmonics now . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , harmonic {disfmarker} possi possible harmonics , uh , eh , and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to {disfmarker} to find , eh , some kind of a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of h of help , eh , using the energy to {disfmarker} to distinguish between possible harmonics , and {disfmarker} and other fre frequency peaks , that , eh , corres not harmonics . And , eh , I have to {disfmarker} to talk with y with you , with the group , eh , about the instantaneous frequency , because I have , eh , an algorithm , and , I get , mmm , eh , t t results {disfmarker} similar results , like , eh , the paper , eh , that I {disfmarker} I am following . But , eh , the {disfmarker} the rules , eh , that , eh , people used in the paper to {disfmarker} to distinguish the harmonics , is {disfmarker} doesn't work well . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure that i {vocalsound} eh , the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} o to {disfmarker} ob the way to obtain the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency is {pause} right , or it 's {disfmarker} it 's not right . Eh , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I haven't enough file feeling to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to distinguish what happened . +Professor A: Yeah , I 'd like to talk with you about it . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if , uh {disfmarker} If I don't have enough time and y you wanna discuss with someone else {disfmarker} some someone else besides us that you might want to talk to , uh , might be Stephane . +PhD C: Yeah . I talked with Stephane and {disfmarker} and Thilo +Professor A: Yeah and {disfmarker} and Thilo , yeah . +PhD C: and , +Professor A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +PhD C: they {disfmarker} nnn they {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {comment} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they {vocalsound} didn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: I 'm not too experienced with {vocalsound} harmonics +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: they think that {comment} the experience is not enough to {disfmarker} +PhD E: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Is {disfmarker} is this the algorithm where you hypothesize a fundamental , and then get the energy for all the harmonics of that fundamental ? +PhD C: No , no it 's {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} No . No . +PhD G: And then hypothesize a new fundamental and get the energy {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah , that 's wh +PhD C: No . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't proth process the {disfmarker} the fundamental . I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I , ehm {disfmarker} I calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate using the FFT . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} The algorithm said that , eh , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} if you change the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , eh , nnn {disfmarker} the X - the frequency "" X "" , eh , using the in the instantaneous frequency , you can find , eh , how , eh , in several frequencies that proba probably the {disfmarker} the harmonics , eh , +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: the errors of peaks {disfmarker} the frequency peaks , eh , eh , move around {pause} these , eh {disfmarker} eh frequency harmonic {disfmarker} the frequency of the harmonic . And , {vocalsound} eh , if you {disfmarker} if you compare the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , {vocalsound} eh , {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of the , eh , continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh , filters , that , eh {disfmarker} that , eh , they used eh , to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: it probably too , you can find , {vocalsound} eh , that the instantaneous frequency {vocalsound} for the continuous , eh , {vocalsound} eh {disfmarker} the output of the continuous filters are very near . And in {pause} my case {disfmarker} i in {disfmarker} equal with our signal , {vocalsound} it doesn't happened . +Professor A: Yeah . I 'd hafta look at that and think about it . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor A: It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} I haven't worked with that either so I 'm not sure {disfmarker} The way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the simple - minded way I suggested was what Chuck was just saying , is that you could make a {disfmarker} a sieve . You know , y you actually say that here is {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's hypothesize that it 's this frequency or that frequency , and {disfmarker} and , uh , maybe you {disfmarker} maybe you could use some other cute methods to , uh , short cut it by {disfmarker} by uh , making some guesses , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: but {disfmarker} but uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , I would , uh {disfmarker} I mean you could make some guesses from , uh {disfmarker} from the auto - correlation or something but {disfmarker} but then , given those guesses , try , um , uh , only looking at the energy at multiples of the {disfmarker} of that frequency , and {disfmarker} and see how much of the {disfmarker} take the one that 's maximum . Call that the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But {disfmarker} +PhD C: Using the energy of the {disfmarker} of the multiple of the frequency . +Professor A: Of all the harmonics of that . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Do you hafta do some kind of , uh , low - pass filter before you do that ? +PhD C: I don't use . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: But , I {disfmarker} I know many people use , eh , low - pass filter to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to get , eh , the pitch . +Professor A: No . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD C: I don't use . To get the pitch , yes . +PhD E: To get the pitch , yeah . +PhD C: But the harmonic , no . +PhD G: But i But the harmonics are gonna be , uh , uh , I don't know what the right word is . Um , they 're gonna be dampened by the uh , vocal tract , right ? The response of the vocal tract . +Professor A: Yeah ? +PhD C: Yeah ? +PhD G: And so {disfmarker} just looking at the energy on those {disfmarker} at the harmonics , is that gonna {disfmarker} ? +Professor A: Well so the thing is that the {disfmarker} This is for , uh , a , um {disfmarker} +PhD G: I m what you 'd like to do is get rid of the effect of the vocal tract . Right ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: And just look at the {disfmarker} at {disfmarker} at the signal coming out of the glottis . +Professor A: Yeah . Uh , well , yeah that 'd be good . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: But , uh {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I don't know that you need to {disfmarker} +Grad B: Open wide ! +Professor A: but I don't need you {disfmarker} know if you need to get rid of it . I mean that 'd {disfmarker} that 'd be nice but I don't know if it 's ess if it 's essential . Um , I mean {disfmarker} cuz I think the main thing is that , uh , you 're trying {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - huh . +Professor A: wha what are you doing this for ? You 're trying distinguish between the case where there is , uh {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where there are more than {disfmarker} uh , where there 's more than one speaker and the case where there 's only one speaker . +Grad B: Sorry . +Professor A: So if there 's more than one speaker , um {disfmarker} yeah I guess you could {disfmarker} I guess {disfmarker} yeah you 're {disfmarker} so you 're not distinguished between voiced and unvoiced , so {disfmarker} so , i if you don't {disfmarker} if you don't care about that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: See , if you also wanna {vocalsound} just determine {disfmarker} if you also wanna determine whether it 's unvoiced , {vocalsound} then I think you want to {pause} look {disfmarker} look at high frequencies also , because the f the fact that there 's more energy in the high frequencies is gonna be an ob sort of obvious cue that it 's unvoiced . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor A: But , i i uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I mean i i but , um , other than that I guess as far as the one person versus two persons , it would be {pause} primarily a low frequency phenomenon . And if you looked at the low frequencies , yes the higher frequencies are gonna {disfmarker} there 's gonna be a spectral slope . The higher frequencies will be lower energy . But so what . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's {disfmarker} that 's w +PhD C: I will prepare for the next week eh , all my results about the harmonicity and {pause} will {disfmarker} will try to come in and to discuss here , because , eh , I haven't enough feeling to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to u {vocalsound} many time to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to understand what happened with the {disfmarker} with , eh , so many peaks , eh , eh , and {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I see the harmonics there many time but , eh , {vocalsound} there are a lot of peaks , eh , that , eh , they are not harmonics . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um , I have to discover what {disfmarker} what is the {disfmarker} the w the best way to {disfmarker} to {comment} {disfmarker} to {comment} c to use them +Professor A: Well , but {disfmarker} yeah I don't think you can {disfmarker} I mean you 're not gonna be able to look at every frame , so I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean I {disfmarker} I really {disfmarker} I I really thought that the best way to do it , and I 'm speaking with no experience on this particular point , but , {vocalsound} my impression was that the best way to do it was however you {disfmarker} You 've used instantaneous frequency , whatever . {comment} However you 've come up {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} with your candidates , you wanna see how much of the energy is in that +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor A: as coppo as opposed to all of the {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} the total energy . And , um , if it 's voiced , I guess {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so y I think maybe you do need a voiced - unvoiced determination too . But if it 's voiced , +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: um , and the , uh {disfmarker} e the fraction of the energy that 's in the harmonic sequence that you 're looking at is relatively low , then it should be {disfmarker} then it 's more likely to be an overlap . +PhD C: Is height . Yeah . This {disfmarker} this is the idea {disfmarker} the idea I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I had to {disfmarker} to compare the {disfmarker} the ratio of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the energy of the harmonics with the {disfmarker} eh , with the , eh , total energy in the spectrum and try to get a ratio to {disfmarker} to distinguish between overlapping and speech . Mmm . +Professor A: But you 're looking a y you 're looking at {disfmarker} Let 's take a second with this . Uh , uh , you 're looking at f at the phase derivative , um , in {disfmarker} in , uh , what domain ? I mean this is {disfmarker} this is in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in bands ? Or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , no , no . +Professor A: Just {disfmarker} just overall {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} o i w the band {disfmarker} the band is , eh , from zero to {disfmarker} to four kilohertz . And I {disfmarker} I ot I {disfmarker} +Professor A: And you just take the instantaneous frequency ? +PhD C: Yeah . I u m t I {disfmarker} I used two m two method {disfmarker} two methods . Eh , one , eh , based on the F {disfmarker} eh , FTT . to FFT to {disfmarker} to obtain the {disfmarker} or to study the harmonics from {disfmarker} from the spectrum directly , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and to study the energy and the multiples of +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: frequency . And another {disfmarker} another algorithm I have is the {disfmarker} in the {pause} instantaneous frequency , based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the FFT to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to calculate the {disfmarker} the phase derivate in the time . Eh , uh n the d I mean I {disfmarker} I have two {disfmarker} two algorithms . +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: But , eh , in m {pause} i in my opinion the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the instantaneous frequency , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the behavior , eh , was {disfmarker} th it was very interesting . Because I {disfmarker} I saw {vocalsound} eh , how the spectrum {pause} concentrate , eh , +Professor A: Oh ! +PhD C: around the {disfmarker} the harmonic . But then when I apply the {disfmarker} the rule , eh , of the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} {pause} the instantaneous frequency of the ne of the continuous filter in the {disfmarker} the near filter , the {disfmarker} the rule that , eh , people propose in the paper doesn't work . And I don't know why . +Professor A: But the instantaneous frequency , wouldn't that give you something more like the central frequency of the {disfmarker} you know , of the {disfmarker} where most of the energy is ? I mean , I think if you {disfmarker} Does i does it {disfmarker} Why would it correspond to pitch ? +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I not sure . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: When {vocalsound} first I {disfmarker} {pause} {vocalsound} I calculate , eh , using the FFT , +Postdoc F: Di - digital camera . +PhD C: the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Keep forgetting . +PhD C: I get the {disfmarker} {pause} the spectrum , +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and I represent all the frequency . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} when ou I obtained the instantaneous frequency . And I change {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the @ @ , using the instantaneous frequency , here . +Professor A: Oh , so you scale {disfmarker} you s you do a {disfmarker} a scaling along that axis according to instantaneous {disfmarker} +PhD C: I use {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: It 's a kinda normalization . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Because when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: eh , when i I {disfmarker} I use these {disfmarker} these frequency , eh , the range is different , and the resolution is different . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And I observe more {disfmarker} more or less , thing like this . And the paper said that , eh , these frequencies are probably , eh , harmonics . +Professor A: I see . Huh . +PhD C: But , eh , they used , eh , a rule , eh , based in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} because to {disfmarker} to calculate the instantaneous frequency , they use a Hanning window . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: And , they said that , eh , if {pause} these {pause} peak are , eh , harmonics , the f instantaneous frequency , of the contiguous , eh {disfmarker} w eh eh , filters are very near , or have to be very near . But , eh , phh ! I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don I I {disfmarker} and I don't know what is the {disfmarker} what is the distance . And I tried to {disfmarker} to put different distance , eh , to put difference , eh {disfmarker} eh , length of the window , eh , different front sieve , Pfff ! and I {disfmarker} I not sure what happened . +Professor A: OK , yeah well I {disfmarker} I guess I 'm not following it enough . I 'll {comment} probably gonna hafta look at the paper , but {disfmarker} which I 'm not gonna have time to do in the next few days , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm curious about it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: Um , uh , OK . +Postdoc F: I I did i it did occur to me that this is {disfmarker} uh , the return to the transcription , that there 's one third thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to ex raise as a to as an issue which is , um , how to handle breaths . So , I wanted to raise the question of whether people in speech recognition want to know where the breaths are . And the reason I ask the question is , um , aside from the fact that they 're obviously very time - consuming to encode , uh , the fact that there was some {disfmarker} I had the indication from Dan Ellis in the email that I sent to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: and you know about , that in principle we might be able to , um , handle breaths by accessi by using cross - talk from the other things , be able that {disfmarker} in principle , maybe we could get rid of them , so maybe {disfmarker} And I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know , I mean we had this an and I didn't {disfmarker} couldn't get back to you , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: but the question of whether it 'd be possible to eliminate them from the audio signal , which would be the ideal situation , +Professor A: I don't know {disfmarker} think it 'd be ideal . +Postdoc F: cuz {disfmarker} +PhD G: Uh - uh . +Professor A: We - See , we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with real speech and we 're trying to have it be as real as possible +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor A: and breaths are part of real speech . +Postdoc F: Well , except that these are really truly {disfmarker} I mean , ther there 's a segment in o the one I did {disfmarker} n the first one that I did for {disfmarker} i for this , +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc F: where truly w we 're hearing you breathing like {disfmarker} as if we 're {disfmarker} you 're in our ear , you know , and it 's like {disfmarker} it 's like {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . +Postdoc F: I y i I mean , breath is natural , but not +Professor A: It is {disfmarker} but it is if you record it . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: Except that we 're {disfmarker} we 're trying to mimic {disfmarker} Oh , I see what you 're saying . You 're saying that the PDA application would have {disfmarker} uh , have to cope with breath . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad B: Well +PhD E: No . +Postdoc F: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: An - any application may have to . +Grad B: The P D A might not have to , +PhD E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad B: but more people than just PDA users are interested in this corpus . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} so mean you 're right +Postdoc F: OK , then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} I have two questions . +Grad B: we could remove it , +Postdoc F: Yeah ? +Grad B: but I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} we don't wanna w remove it from the corpus , {pause} in terms of delivering it because the {disfmarker} people will want it in there . +Professor A: Yeah . If it gets {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , so maybe the question is notating it . Yeah ? +Professor A: Yeah {disfmarker} i Right . If {disfmarker} if it gets in the way of what somebody is doing with it then you might wanna have some method which will allow you to block it , but you {disfmarker} it 's real data . You don't wanna b but you don't {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK , well {disfmarker} +Professor A: If s you know , if there 's a little bit of noise out there , and somebody is {disfmarker} is talking about something they 're doing , that 's part of what we accept as part of a real meeting , even {disfmarker} And we have the f uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the fan and the {disfmarker} in the projector up there , and , uh , this is {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} this is actual stuff that we {disfmarker} we wanna work with . +Postdoc F: Well this is in very interesting +Professor A: So . +Postdoc F: because i it basically has a i it shows very clearly the contrast between , uh , speech recognition research and discourse research because in {disfmarker} in discourse and linguistic research , what counts is what 's communit communicative . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And {disfmarker} breath , you know , everyone breathes , they breathe all the time . And once in a while breath is communicative , but r very rarely . OK , so now , I had a discussion with Chuck about the data structure +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and the idea is that the transcripts will {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} get stored as a master there 'll be a master transcript which has in it everything that 's needed for both of these uses . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: And the one that 's used for speech recognition will be processed via scripts . You know , like , Don 's been writing scripts +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and {disfmarker} and , uh , to process it for the speech recognition side . Discourse side will {vocalsound} have this {disfmarker} this side over he the {disfmarker} we we 'll have a s ch Sorry , not being very fluent here . But , um , this {disfmarker} the discourse side will have a script which will stri strip away the things which are non - communicative . OK . So then the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let 's think about the practicalities of how we get to that master copy with reference to breaths . So what I would {disfmarker} r r what I would wonder is would it be possible to encode those automatically ? Could we get a breath detector ? +Grad B: Oh , just to save the transcribers time . +Postdoc F: Well , I mean , you just have no idea . I mean , if you 're getting a breath several times every minute , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: and just simply the keystrokes it takes to negotiate , to put the boundaries in , to {disfmarker} to type it in , i it 's just a huge amount of time . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oops . +Professor A: Wh - what {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc F: And you wanna be sure it 's used , and you wanna be sure it 's done as efficiently as possible , and if it can be done automatically , that would be ideal . +Professor A: what if you put it in but didn't put the boundaries ? +Postdoc F: Well , but {disfmarker} +Professor A: So you just know it 's between these other things , +Postdoc F: Well , OK . So now there 's {disfmarker} there 's another {disfmarker} another possibility +Professor A: right ? +Postdoc F: which is , um , the time boundaries could mark off words {comment} from nonwords . And that would be extremely time - effective , if that 's sufficient . +Professor A: Yeah I mean I 'm think if it 's too {disfmarker} if it 's too hard for us to annotate the breaths per se , {vocalsound} we are gonna be building up models for these things and these things are somewhat self - aligning , so if {disfmarker} so , {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} i i if we say there is some kind of a thing which we call a "" breath "" or a "" breath - in "" or "" breath - out "" , {vocalsound} the models will learn that sort of thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} but you do want them to point them at some region where {disfmarker} where the breaths really are . So {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: OK . But that would maybe include a pause as well , +PhD G: Well , there 's a there 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: and that wouldn't be a problem to have it , uh , pause plus breath plus laugh plus sneeze ? +Professor A: Yeah , i You know there is {disfmarker} there 's this dynamic tension between {disfmarker} between marking absolutely everything , as you know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and marking just a little bit and counting on the statistical methods . Basically the more we can mark the better . But if there seems to be a lot of effort for a small amount of reward in some area , and this might be one like this {disfmarker} Although I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'd be interested to h get {disfmarker} get input from Liz and Andreas on this to see if they {disfmarker} Cuz they 've - they 've got lots of experience with the breaths in {disfmarker} in , uh , uh , their transcripts . +Grad B: They have lots of experience with breathing ? +PhD G: I {disfmarker} +Professor A: Actually {disfmarker} Well , {vocalsound} yes they do , but we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can handle that without them here . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , uh , you were gonna say something about {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I think , um , one possible way that we could handle it is that , um , you know , as the transcribers are going through , and if they get a hunk of speech that they 're gonna transcribe , u th they 're gonna transcribe it because there 's words in there or whatnot . If there 's a breath in there , they could transcribe that . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc F: That 's what they 've been doing . So , within an overlap segment , they {disfmarker} they do this . +PhD G: Right . But {disfmarker} Right . But if there 's a big hunk of speech , let 's say on Morgan 's mike where he 's not talking at all , um , don't {disfmarker} don't worry about that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: So what we 're saying is , there 's no guarantee that , um {disfmarker} So for the chunks that are transcribed , everything 's transcribed . But outside of those boundaries , there could have been stuff that wasn't transcribed . So you just {disfmarker} somebody can't rely on that data and say "" that 's perfectly clean data "" . Uh {disfmarker} do you see what I 'm saying ? +Postdoc F: Yeah , you 're saying it 's {disfmarker} uncharted territory . +PhD G: So I would say don't tell them to transcribe anything that 's outside of a grouping of words . +Professor A: That sounds like a reasonable {disfmarker} reasonable compromise . +PhD E: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that quite co corresponds to the way I {disfmarker} I try to train the speech - nonspeech detector , as I really try to {disfmarker} not to detect those breaths which are not within a speech chunk but with {disfmarker} which are just in {disfmarker} in a silence region . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD E: And they {disfmarker} so they hopefully won't be marked in {disfmarker} in those channel - specific files . +Professor A: u I {disfmarker} I wanted to comment a little more just for clarification about this business about the different purposes . +PhD E: But {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: See , in a {disfmarker} in a way this is a really key point , that for speech recognition , uh , research , uh , um , e a {disfmarker} it 's not just a minor part . In fact , the {disfmarker} I think I would say the core thing that we 're trying to do is to recognize the actual , meaningful components in the midst of other things that are not meaningful . So it 's critical {disfmarker} it 's not just incidental it 's critical for us to get these other components that are not meaningful . Because that 's what we 're trying to pull the other out of . That 's our problem . If we had nothing {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah . +Professor A: if we had only linguistically - relevant things {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we only had changes in the spectrum that were associated with words , with different spectral components , and , uh , we {disfmarker} we didn't have noise , we didn't have convolutional errors , we didn't have extraneous , uh , behaviors , and so forth , and {vocalsound} moving your head and all these sorts of things , then , actually speech recognition i i isn't that bad right now . I mean you can you know it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} the technology 's come along pretty well . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason we still complain about it is because is {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when you have more realistic conditions then {disfmarker} then things fall apart . +Postdoc F: OK , fair enough . I guess , um , I {disfmarker} uh , what I was wondering is what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} at what level does the breathing aspect enter into the problem ? Because if it were likely that a PDA would be able to be built which would get rid of the breathing , so it wouldn't even have to be processed at thi at this computational le well , let me see , it 'd have to be computationally processed to get rid of it , but if there were , uh , like likely on the frontier , a good breath extractor then , um , and then you 'd have to {disfmarker} +Professor A: But that 's a research question , you know ? And so {disfmarker} +Postdoc F: Yeah , well , see and that 's what I wouldn't know . +Professor A: that {disfmarker} And we don't either . I mean so {disfmarker} so the thing is it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} right now it 's just raw d it 's just data that we 're collecting , and so {vocalsound} we don't wanna presuppose that people will be able to get rid of particular degradations because that 's actually the research that we 're trying to feed . So , you know , an and maybe {disfmarker} maybe in five years it 'll work really well , +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: and {disfmarker} and it 'll only mess - up ten percent of the time , but then we would still want to account for that ten percent , so . +Postdoc F: I guess there 's another aspect which is that as we 've improved our microphone technique , we have a lot less breath in the {disfmarker} in the more recent , uh , recordings , so it 's {disfmarker} in a way it 's an artifact that there 's so much on the {disfmarker} on the earlier ones . +Professor A: Uh - huh . I see . +PhD G: One of the {disfmarker} um , just to add to this {disfmarker} one of the ways that we will be able to get rid of breath is by having models for them . I mean , that 's what a lot of people do nowadays . +Professor A: Right . +Grad B: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: And so in order to build the model you need to have some amount of it marked , so that you know where the boundaries are . +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD G: So {disfmarker} I mean , I don't think we need to worry a lot about breaths that are happening outside of a , you know , conversation . We don't have to go and search for them to {disfmarker} to mark them at all , but , I mean , if they 're there while they 're transcribing some hunk of words , I 'd say put them in if possible . +Postdoc F: OK , and it 's also the fact that they differ a lot from one channel to the other because of the way the microphone 's adjusted . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc F: OK . +Professor A: Should we do the digits ? +Grad B: Yep . OK . +PhD C: OK . +Grad D: Mmm . Alright . +","During a meeting, participants discuss various technical issues about an ongoing project. Key topics addressed include: concerns about system crashes, establishing naming conventions, handling data and agenda management, dealing with transcription processes, and identifying appropriate ways to mark non-linguistic sounds like breathing in recordings for speech recognition research. Additionally, they consider the complexity of dealing with various frequencies and harmonics in signal processing. The group aims to reconcile the needs of both the speech recognition and discourse research communities in their approach to data collection and annotation." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Um welcome to our second meeting . This is the functional design meeting . And I hope you all had a good individual working time . Okay , let's get started . Okay , here's the agenda for the meeting . After the opening um I am going to fulfil the role of secretary , take the meeting minutes . And we're gonna have three presentations , one from each of you . Then we're gonna discuss some new project requirements . Um gonna come to a decision on the functions of the remote control . And then we're gonna close up the meeting . And we're gonna do this all in about forty minutes . {gap} Okay . First I want to discuss the goals of this meeting . First we need to determine the user requirements and the question that we can ask ourselves is what needs and desires are to be fulfilled by this remote control . And then we're going to determine the technical functions , what is the effect of the apparatus , what actually is it supposed to do , what do people pick up the remote and use it for . And then lastly we're going to determine its working design , how exactly will it perform its functions , that's the whole technical side of {disfmarker} 'Kay I'll just give you a minute , 'cause it looks like you're making some notes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . Oh , well let's go ahead and , +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} back , previous . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what I wanna do right now is hear from all three of you , on your research that you just did . Who would like to start us off ? 'Kay . +User Interface: I don't mind going first . +Project Manager: Okay . Um do you have a PowerPoint or no ? +User Interface: Yeah , it's in the {disfmarker} should be in the m Project . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Do you want us to do our PowerPoints now or {disfmarker} +User Interface: You know you could you could do it yourself actually . +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you send it ? +Project Manager: Save it in the project documents . +User Interface: Put it in Project Documents , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm . This one ? +User Interface: Sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Great . +User Interface: Okay . Um well , the function {vocalsound} of a remote control , as what uh we've been informed , is basically to send messages to the television set , for example , switch it on , switch it off , go to this channel , go to channel nine , turn the volume up , etcetera . Um some of the considerations is just um for example the what it needs to include it's the numbers , you know , zero to nine , so you can move to a channel , the power button on slash off , the channel going up and down , volume going up and down , and then mute , a mute function . And then functions for V_H_S_ , D_V_D_ , for example , play , rewind , fast-forward , stop , pause , enter . And enter would be for like , you know , the menus . {vocalsound} And then other menus for D_V_ as well as T_V_ , whether that means like um we can go and decide the brightness of the screen , things like that , all the more complicated functions of menus . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And we can decide if that's what we want , {gap} , um if we want to include that on the remote , if that's something that would stay on the T_V_ itself , for example . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: These are two examples . Um and you can see on the left , it's got a lot more buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't know if you can read it , but it says , step , go to , freeze , um slow , repeat , program , mute , and so those are some of the buttons and so it gives you an idea of s one example . And then on the right , it's a lot more simpler , it's got volume , it's got the play the like circle set , which is play , rewind , but it's also what is {disfmarker} fast-forward is also like next on a menu . So you have functions that are d uh duplicating . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: And you have a mute button and then the numbers and the eject , and the power button . So that gives you two different kinds , a more complex and more simple version . Okay . +Project Manager: Ready . +User Interface: And then lastly , it's just the questions that we want to consider like what functions do we want it to include , and how simple , complex it should be ? And what functions it needs to complete . Uh , what are needed to complete insulation process , 'cause , you know , that's something that also has to be considered and it's gonna be hopefully a one-time thing , when you set it up it should be set to go , but we have to include the functions that can allow it to set up i in the first place . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So that's it . +Project Manager: Alright . Very good presentation . Thank you . You speak with such authority on the matter . +User Interface: Mm . Left . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Who would like to um follow that one up ? Now , that we've discussed {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can go . +Project Manager: Okay . Do you want me to run it or you wanna {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , you should run it . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Functional requirements . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm yes . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Alright . Now we have Courtney with the functional requirements . +Marketing: Yes , okay so we tested a hundred subjects in our lab , and we just we watched them and we also made them fill out a questionnaire , and we found that the {vocalsound} users are not typically happy with current remote controls . Seventy five percent think they're ugly . Eighty percent want {disfmarker} they've {disfmarker} are willing to spend more , which is good news for us um if we make it look fancier , and basically w we just need something that really I mean there's some other points up there , but they {disfmarker} it needs to be snazzy and it {disfmarker} but yet simple . +User Interface: {gap} Wait . +Marketing: So that's really what we need to do . And we need we need it to be simple , yet it needs to be high-tech looking . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And that meaning what ? +Marketing: Like {disfmarker} They like I guess use the buttons a lot . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: I don't know . It's from my uh research . +Project Manager: Okay , what do you m +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: My team wasn't very clear . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm sorry . +User Interface: Only use ten percent of the buttons . +Project Manager: What do you mean by um the current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user , like they have to press the buttons . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's okay . I I think it's like the engineering versus user , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: whereas like the engineering she showed that the engineering ones are more complex +Project Manager: Oh , right . +Marketing: and users don't really need all of the buttons that are contained on there , because they only use ten percent of the buttons really . +Project Manager: The buttons . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: We only use ten per cent of our brains . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good point . +Project Manager: It works . +Marketing: It's a necessary evil . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ready for the next slide ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And so people say that they typically lose it , as you yourself know , because you probably lose your remote control all the time , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: much like any small appliance like a cellphone , +User Interface: Lost . +Marketing: and they {disfmarker} we need something simple , because most people , well thirty four percent say that it's just too much time to learn how to use a new one , and we don't want to go {disfmarker} we don't want to vary too far from the normal standard remote , +User Interface: S +Marketing: but I mean they do need to be able to identify it , and R_S_I_ , I'm not very sure what that is . +Project Manager: It's okay . It's very important . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes , it is important for the remote control world . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wait , is that like your {disfmarker} ergonomics like your hand movements or something ? +Marketing: Sh +Project Manager: Could be , yeah . +Marketing: Uh possibly . +Industrial Designer: Do we really need t to provide more information on what R_S_I_ is ? +User Interface: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: Uh yeah , that's what my web site said , I +User Interface: Channel , volume , power . +Project Manager: I think that's a pretty good guess though . +Marketing: don't know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I would assume so . +User Interface: It's like if you're holding it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think we're supposed to know it as remote control experts . +Project Manager: Yeah . It's okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But also s so the channel , the volume and the power buttons are the most important on our company website you can find like the specific statistics concerning to how much each button is used , but those are the definitely the top ones . +Project Manager: Okay . Next slide ? +Marketing: Yes . And so personally I think that we need a modern eye-catching design , but it it really needs to be simple . So saying from y your slide , your presentation , the engineering versus the user-specified remotes , I think that we should go with something that's more user-friendly . +Project Manager: User-friendly . +Marketing: Where the engineering ones , the boxes , tend to make it look more complicated than it really is . Um the functionality of the product really needs to be considered as to like what type of buttons do we really need on it . And it needs to be open to a wide range of consumers , so even though we need a small number of buttons , we also need to take in {disfmarker} like are most people going to be using it for a D_V_D_ player , a TiVo , what what exactly are we using it for , as well as the age range . So we need a hip , but not a corny marketing scheme for promoting our product . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: And also we found {disfmarker} our team found that speech recognition is {disfmarker} it's like an up-and-coming thing they really {disfmarker} consumers are really interested in it , and since our findings found that people are willing to pay more money for a remote for it to be more high-class we could consider it . +Project Manager: And so just to {disfmarker} just to clarify by speech recognition you mean they would say , channel five , and the thing would go to channel five ? +Marketing: I guess so , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} to just say , where are you , and thing beeps , you know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , that'd be lovely . +Marketing: Yeah , I guess we can interpret it like , we can just try out different types of speech recognition within our remote programme . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Didn't they {disfmarker} um didn't our rival companies manufacture a remote that you would press the button on the T_V_ and it would {disfmarker} the remote would beep so if you have lost it {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kinda like what the remote phone used to do . +Project Manager: Mm . Oh , yeah , that's true . +User Interface: You know like go to the base . +Project Manager: We could definitely include that if we wanted to . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: If it's within our price . Okay . Are we ready for our last presentation , Amber ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'm just trying to move it . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . I think it should be there , working design . +User Interface: Working design . +Project Manager: There we go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Uh I didn't get a chance to complete this one , 'cause some of the tools that I was given were frustrating . +Project Manager: Oh my bad . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh that's fine . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , so method method of our design , I think I just start listing th some of the things that we actually need to put into this . +User Interface: Help me . +Industrial Designer: We need a power source , we're gonna need a smart chip if we're gonna make it multi-functional . Um extra functions will probably need an additional chip . Either that or the smart chip will have to be extremely smart . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What exactly is a smart chip ? +Industrial Designer: Usually a smart chip is just a chip that's been programmed and designed so that it can complete a fair range of functions . +User Interface: Well , how much extra would the additional chip be ? Is that gonna push us over our production costs ? +Industrial Designer: I wouldn't think so , 'cause we could probably get it from like , in bulk , from a a newer company . And they tend to sell their chips pretty cheap . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Um yep , nothing here . +Project Manager: That's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um power source , I figured , batteries , 'cause they're easily available . Typically a remote has either two double A_s or four triple A_s , sometimes three . Uh it really kinda depends on the size of the actual remote itself . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um a large on-off button , {vocalsound} demographically we're moving towards an older generation of people , so a large on-off button would probably be good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Selection button for various entertainment devices , so you want something that will permit you to select the D_V_D_ player or the T_V_ or the stereo system . Um smart chip that perverts {disfmarker} uh that permits , sorry , universal application again , something that'll allow us to skip over between devices , and that's kinda it . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh this is my fifty second design . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Power source over here . We're gonna have a switch obviously between the power source and the rest of it , and you're gonna need the switch . Um extra bulb could just be for flashiness , um subcomponent which would be like a way of diverting the power to different parts of the the device . Um the chip and of course the infra-red bulb , so it can communicate with the various devices that it needs to talk to . +Marketing: So what exactly we are looking at , is this like the front of the remote ? +Industrial Designer: This is just like a rough schematic . +Project Manager: So this would be the front ? +Industrial Designer: So this is the internal workings . +Project Manager: So the red would be the front of the remote though , right ? +Marketing: Oh okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah , that's gonna be what's communicating with the T_V_ , but the other bulb , I think , is good to just to indicate , I'm doing something , it's sort of like a reassurance . +Project Manager: The l {vocalsound} the light up kind of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so you don't have to stare at that infra-red , +Marketing: Like that we know the battery's working . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause you know when the battery starts dying in your remote currently , you have to actually stare at that bulb and go , okay , when I push this button , is it working ? +Project Manager: Hmm . It'd probably be lighting up the key too , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: We can skip that whole thing . +Project Manager: right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you can put it in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The buttons . +Marketing: Yeah , and that's good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: We should make it glow in the dark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , definitely . 'Kay nex R Ready ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it . +Project Manager: 'Kay , any p 'Kay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +Project Manager: Anything you wanna add for personal preferences though , you f you said already that we needed a large on-off button , you think . Anything else ? +Industrial Designer: I think that that's a good idea , because you know that's one of the most important buttons . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Well , should it be larger buttons in general , you know like uh the examples that I had , they were swi quite small . So should we try and go for something that has l larger buttons ? +Marketing: I think we should . Like I think that would be in a as in {disfmarker} like in {disfmarker} for the design , sorry , um . I think we should definitely go with buttons that don't look like a normal remote , 'cause most remotes have small square buttons , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: I think we should do something like maybe bigger and round like bubbles . +User Interface: Ovals . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay , let's talk about all of our {disfmarker} We'll come to decision later about all the components that we need to include , let's um wrap up this one , and {vocalsound} I'm gonna go back to my PowerPoint , 'cause we need to discuss the new project requirements which you might've already seen flashed up on the screen a bit earlier . {vocalsound} Wait , come back . Alright . Sorry , let's go through this . Alright . Here we go . New product requirements . First it's only going to be a T_V_ remote . We're trying not to over-complicate things . So no D_V_D_ , no TiVo , no stereo . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: It's not gonna be multi-functional . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Hey . And we th need to promote our company more , so we need to somehow include our colour and our company slogan on the remote . We're trying to get our name out there in the world . Okay . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: And you know what teletext is ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} in States we don't have it , but um it's like they just have this channel where just has news and weather , kind of sports , +User Interface: I know . +Marketing: What is it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's very um bland looking , it's just text on the screen , +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: not even {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's like black , black and white kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , just black with just text . +Marketing: Like running along the bottom ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You can also get the kind of the T_V_ guide so {disfmarker} +User Interface: It'll give you the sports . +Marketing: Wait , is it like the Weather Channel where it's got like the ticker running on the bottom or something ? +Project Manager: Kind of . +User Interface: Except the entire screen . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the whole screen . +Industrial Designer: It's the entire screen is just running information at random . +Project Manager: So anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can pick sports , you can pick the news , you entertainment , +Industrial Designer: Seemingly . +User Interface: you know it's like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: So it's like a separate channel from like what you're watching ? +Project Manager: Right . But it's becoming out-dated now , because of the Internet . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Nobody needs to go to the teletext channel to check the news , {vocalsound} and we have twenty four hour news channels now too , so {disfmarker} Those are our new product requirements . Alright . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So , do we have to include the company colour within that ? +Project Manager: Yes . It's part of the logo . Okay . +User Interface: Company colour being yellow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What we're going to do right now is come to some decisions , definitive that we can all agree on , about um the target group and the functions and just definite things that we need to do and then we'll close up the meeting . So . Alright . {gap} Whatever . Okay . So our target group is {disfmarker} You mentioned um older people ? Would it just be universal for everyone , you think ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Because I think even if something has large buttons , as long as they are not childishly large , like even technically {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's gonna make it nicer . Yeah . +Project Manager: non-technically challenged people are gonna use it . I mean they want something user-friendly , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm well , even if we kept the regular standard size of remote , if we reduced the buttons down to the ones that people are saying that they use the most often and a couple extra , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'cause they're saying they only use ten per cent of them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: then we should be able to accommodate fairly decent sized buttons . +Project Manager: Okay , so we want um for our target group would we say , I mean , young and old , all age ranges , all um , not kids obviously , right ? Or kids ? +Marketing: No , kids need to know how to use a remote , I would think . +Industrial Designer: Most of them will intuitively pick it up though . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: They gotta change between Disney Channel , Cartoon Network . +Project Manager: Okay , so we're going to go anywhere from kids to adult in the age range {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think we need it all . +Project Manager: Um what about technic technical um specifications , like how how technically literate are these people who are going to be using our remote ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um I would say we should say dumber than the average person . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We should go for the lowest denominator . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right , okay . So so they need no technical experience to operate {disfmarker} +User Interface: High school educated . +Industrial Designer: {gap} how 'bout little to no , because there is no way that you are gonna be able to make it no . +Project Manager: Okay . And we also need to determine the specific functions of this , just to get it all out on paper . So we said it needs to send messages to the T_V_ , needs to change the channel , turn on and off , just basic simple stuff like this . So if you have something just say it and we'll add it to my meeting minutes . +User Interface: Well it's channel , on-off button , volume , mute . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , volume . +Marketing: And channel . Yeah . Those are the most important ones . +Project Manager: Right . And we wanna keep um {disfmarker} I'll make a note here that we wanna keep the number of buttons down . Correct , because people only use ten percent . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Hey , what else ? +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: Um . +Industrial Designer: Do we want this thing to be able to be found easily ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think so . What do you {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sure , yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: A finding kind of device or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And +Marketing: I need {disfmarker} we we need a like homing device . +Project Manager: Yeah , ho homing device . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: like if this is gonna get lost underneath the coach , how are we going to accommodate the quick ability to find it ? +User Interface: Oh right yeah okay . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: Tracking . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Because people really are looking for a remote that's more high-tech . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: What if we gave it a charger ? And on the charger , just like a phone , like you get a portable phone and it's got a charger , and if you d leave your phone somewhere , you push the button to find it , and it finds th the phone beeps for you . +User Interface: But you got a base . +Marketing: Do you think people'll really go for that though ? +Industrial Designer: It's useful for the remote phone . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Would that add to our costs at all , I wonder ? +Marketing: I would think so , because you'd have to develop a base . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: Well , if you have the base , you could start putting in a charger and then you have a different kind of battery . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable batteries are cheaper usually . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . I I think we can make a decision about that later . Uh we'll still put that as a point that we need to discuss . So that would include battery source {disfmarker} Power source rather . Is it going to have a charger , or is it going to be run strictly off batteries ? And we also need to deal with the issue you mentioned of speech recognition , if we want that . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Well , then we could {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do w +User Interface: If we have the speech recognition then we can start aiming at a like another kind of more handicapped disabled uh demo demographic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Well , th there's the people who desire speech recognition , there's the different demog demographics have different desires , I don't know if you guys ge +Project Manager: You could um {disfmarker} we could hook it up . +Marketing: It wouldn't copy onto the the thing 'cause it's black , +Project Manager: Oh . +Marketing: but all the different age groups have different desires for speech recognition . So {vocalsound} basically older people don't really care . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: It's really the people twenty five to thirty five . I feel those are the people that really watch a lot of T_V_ though . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: They're the ones that get addicted to soap operas and +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And if and if we introduced it when they're this age , they're going to probably always buy a remote that has {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: just sitcoms and stuff . Right . +User Interface: Well , then then do you put the voice recognition {disfmarker} do you put the r like receiver on the actual television , in the base , or in the actual remote , +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: 'cause then you've already got remote in your hand , why you just gonna speak to the remote , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: whereas if you just speak in general and you don't have to have the remote in your hand and like talk at it . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} and the speech recognition could be part of the lost and found device , too . If we said , find remote , locate remote , or something . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: A certain phrase then it could beep . I dunno . Just throwing it out there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Still {gap} fifteen minutes . +Project Manager: Okay , anything else we wanna discuss ? +User Interface: Um . Well , do we wanna include the numbers like zero through nine ? Can we conceive of leaving them out ? +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Wait , on the remote itself ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: Yeah , like you have one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight , nine , zero . +Project Manager: How how , +Marketing: Well , we definitely need those . +Project Manager: yeah , how would you leave those out ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Well , I don't know , I mean , if you can {gap} like well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Unless you could say the channel . +User Interface: I don't know , if there's just a way of leaving them out ? +Industrial Designer: I think people would find that too foreign . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's true . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And also remember that in this day in age we need , you know , like a hundred button , too . +Marketing: You definitely need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I used to have a remote that did not even go up past like fifty . {vocalsound} So I couldn't {disfmarker} whenever I got cable , I had to get a new T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: It's when we get satellite . +Project Manager: Mm . {gap} get your own remote , or digital cable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Um . I guess , we're gonna discuss the project financing later , making sure that we can fit all of the stuff that we want to on our budget . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause I don't have any material pricing information available to me at the moment , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: 'Kay . And don't forget we need to include the colour of our company and the logo . +User Interface: The colour being yellow ? +Marketing: Wait . +Project Manager: I'm guessing . And the R_R_ . +User Interface: And how do we {disfmarker} +Marketing: I feel like a ye I feel like a yellow one would be too garish . +Industrial Designer: R_ the double R_ . +Project Manager: We could just have the logo in yellow , +User Interface: Can't make it entirely {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or maybe a yellow light for the keys . +Industrial Designer: Or is the l +Marketing: Or put like stripes , oh yeah , yellow lights . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} yellow could be and it could {disfmarker} doesn't have to be huge . +User Interface: Well if you have like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Hang on . If you have this sort of strip kind of down at the bottom {gap} the base of it , just like yellow with the R_R_ . +Project Manager: Right . So we've simplified , we don't need all those um play , fast-forward , rewind , +User Interface: Right , yeah . +Project Manager: or no menu buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we've pretty much pared it down to on-off , volume , mute , channel up and down , um the numbers {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um can we go back to {disfmarker} I'm gonna look really quickly back at those +User Interface: Two examples . +Project Manager: examples and see if there is anything . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Which one is yours , technical functions or functional requirement ? +User Interface: Oh , it's a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , audi audio settings and screen settings , we need those like audio settings mono , stereo , pitch , screen settings like brightness , colour , or do we just want that accessed accessed from the television itself ? +Project Manager: The T_V_ . I think that that's fine just for the T_V_ . I mean how often does the average user need to do that kind of stuff ? +User Interface: Well , the other option is sort of like down at the bottom , like farther away , you just have this sort of box inset where it's like the buttons that you don't use as much , but occasionally you will use . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: and so it's like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , 'cause we need to {disfmarker} we definitely need to have buttons for like sub-titles and things like that . It's 'cause the foreign film market is expanding and stuff , and like on television like I know f k living in Los Angeles it's tons of Spanish network television if it has English sub-titles it's definitely helpful . +Project Manager: Couldn't we do that all through one button , something , a menu button , that pops up with a menu on the T_V_ that says , you know , audio , video , whatever , language , +User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} well , I don't know . +Project Manager: you know ? +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: So we need up , down , and side-to-side buttons . +Project Manager: For the menus . +User Interface: Well , that could be {disfmarker} No you could just double up with like the channel or the volume buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's true . +User Interface: Channel is just up and down . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . Okay , yeah . +User Interface: And then add a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that looks mayb you know . +Marketing: Such as , yeah , the one the one over there on the left the engineering centred one . +Project Manager: Y right , right right right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: That one ? +User Interface: So we just have it like {disfmarker} add a menu button then for the various things needed , +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: including v voice recognition if we have any like settings for voice recognition now +Project Manager: In the middle perhaps . +User Interface: included in the menu . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Ooh , I just got an idea for a design . +Project Manager: {gap} good . Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up in this meeting ? +Industrial Designer: I had something , but I forgot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} get out of here . Let's go back to the meeting closure then and see what we need to do next . Mm . Alright . After this meeting we're gonna be sent a questionnaire and summary again which we need to reply to that e-mail . And then we're gonna have lunch break . And after lunch thirty minutes of individual work time . Um I'm gonna put the minutes {disfmarker} I put the minutes for the first meeting already in the project documents folder , if you'd like to review them . And I'm gonna type up the minutes for this one as well . Um here's what we're each going to do . The I_D_ is going to work on the components concept , um U_I_D_ the user interface concept , and you're going to do some trend watching . 'Kay . Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . And if anybody has anything they would like to add ? No ? Okay , well , this meeting is officially over . Thank you all . +","In a project meeting, the Project Manager began by assigning roles, highlighting the agenda, and setting goals to determine user requirements, technical functions, and the working design of a TV remote control. Presentations were made by team members on user interface research, marketing findings, and industrial design considerations. Key discussion points included simplifying the remote to include only essential buttons like power, channel, and volume control, considering a “find my remote” function, options for accessibility like speech recognition, and keeping the design user-friendly. New project requirements were introduced, such as the remote being exclusively for TV and incorporating company branding. Decisions were made on target demographics, technical literacy level, and button functionality. Post-meeting tasks were assigned and further instructions were to be provided by personal coaches before the team adjourned." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , so . If we can't , we can't . But uh we 're gonna try to make this an abbreviated meeting cuz the {disfmarker} the next {disfmarker} next occupants were pushing for it , so . Um . So . Agenda is {disfmarker} according to this , is transcription status , DARPA demos XML tools , disks , backups , et cetera and +Grad H: Does anyone have anything to {pause} add to the agenda ? +Professor B: OK . Should we just go in order ? Transcription status ? Who 's {disfmarker} that 's probably you . +Postdoc A: I can do that quickly . Um I hired several more transcribers , They 're making great progress . +Professor B: Seven ? +Postdoc A: Seve - several , several . +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc A: And uh {disfmarker} and uh , uh I 've been uh finishing up the uh double checking . I hoped to have had that done by today but it 's gonna take one more week . +Grad H: Um +PhD D: I g +Grad H: as a somewhat segue into the next topic , um could I get a hold of uh the data even if it 's not really corrected yet just so I can get the data formats and make sure the information retrieval stuff is working ? +Postdoc A: Certainly . Yeah I mean , it 's in the same place it 's been . +Grad H: So can you just {disfmarker} Oh , it is . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . No change . +Grad H: OK . Just {disfmarker} So , "" transcripts "" is the sub - directory ? +Postdoc A: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . Uh - huh . +Grad H: OK . So I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll probably just make some copies of those rather than use the ones that are there . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then just {disfmarker} we 'll have to remember to delete them once the corrections are made . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: OK , wh +PhD D: I also got anot a short remark to the transcription . I 've uh just processed the first five EDU meetings and they are chunked up so they would {disfmarker} they probably can be sent to IBM whenever they want them . +Grad C: Cool . +PhD F: Well the second one of those +PhD D: Yep . It 's already at IBM , +PhD F: is already at IBM . +PhD D: but the other ones {disfmarker} +PhD F: That 's the one that {pause} we 're waiting to hear from them on . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD F: Yeah . +Postdoc A: These are separate from the ones that {disfmarker} +PhD F: As soon as {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I mean , these are {disfmarker} +PhD F: They 're the IBM set . +PhD D: Yep . +Grad H: It 's this one . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Good . +PhD F: Yeah . And so as soon as we hear from Brian that this one is OK +Grad H: Is my mike on ? Yeah . +PhD F: and we get the transcript back and we find out that hopefully there are no problems matching up the transcript with what we gave them , then uh we 'll be ready to go and we 'll just send them the next four as a big batch , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +PhD F: and let them work on that . +Grad H: And so we 're doing those as disjoint from the ones we 're transcribing here ? +PhD F: Yes , exactly . +Grad H: OK , good . +PhD F: We 're sort of doing things in parallel , that way we can get as much done a at once . +Grad H: Yeah , I think that 's the right way to do it , +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: especially for the information retrieval stuff . Anything else on transcription status ? +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . +Grad H: OK . +Professor B: DARPA demos , we had the submeeting the other day . +Grad H: Right , which uh {disfmarker} So I 've been working on using the THISL tools to do information retrieval on meeting data and the THISL tools are {disfmarker} there 're two sets , there 's a back - end and a front - end , so the front - end is the user interface and the back - end is the indexing tool and the querying tool . And so I 've written some tools to convert everything into the right for file formats . And the command line version of the indexing and the querying is now working . So at least on the one meeting that I had the transcript for uh conveniently you can now do information retrieval on it , do {disfmarker} type in a {disfmarker} a string and get back a list of start - end times for the meeting , +PhD F: What {disfmarker} what kind of uh {disfmarker} what does that look like ? The string that you type in . +Grad H: uh of hits . +PhD F: What are you {disfmarker} are you {disfmarker} are they keywords , or are they {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Keywords . +PhD F: OK . I see . +Grad H: Right ? And so {disfmarker} and then it munges it to pass it to the THISL IR which uses an SGML - like format for everything . +PhD F: I see . +Professor B: And then does it play something back or that 's something you 're having to program ? +Grad H: Um , right now , I have a tool that will do that on a command line using our standard tools , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: but my intention is to do a prettier user interface based either {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so that 's the other thing I wanted to discuss , is well what should we do for the user interface ? We have two tools that have already been written . Um the SoftSound guys did a web - based one , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: um , which I haven't used , haven't looked at . Dan says it 's pretty good +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: but it does mean you need to be running a web server . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: And so it {disfmarker} it 's pretty big and complex . Uh and it would be difficult to port to Windows because it means porting the web server to Windows . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: Uh the other option is Dan did the Tcl - TK THISL GUI front - end for Broadcast News +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: which I think looks great . I think that 's a nice demo . Um and that would be much easier to port to Windows . And so I think that 's the way we should go . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} Can I ask a question ? So um as it stands within the {disfmarker} the Channeltrans interface , it 's possible to do a find and a play . +Grad H: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: You can find a searched string and play . So e Are you {disfmarker} So you 're adding like um , I don't know , uh are they fuzzy matches or are they {pause} uh {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: It 's a sort of standard , text - retrieval - based {disfmarker} So it 's uh term frequency , inverse document frequency scoring . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: Um and then there are all sorts of metrics for spacing how far apart they have to be and things like that . So it {disfmarker} it 's +Postdoc A: It 's a lot more sophisticated than the uh the basically Windows - based {disfmarker} +Grad H: i it 's like doing a Google query or anyth anything else like that . +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: So i it uses {disfmarker} So it pr produces an index ahead of time so you don't {disfmarker} you 're not doing a linear search through all the documents . Cuz you can imagine if {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} if we have the sixty hours ' worth you do {disfmarker} wouldn't wanna do a search . +Postdoc A: Hm - mmm . Good . +Grad H: Um you have to do preindexing and so that {disfmarker} these tools do all that . And so the work to get the front - end to work would be porting it {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} uh to get it to work on the UNIX systems , our side is just rewriting them and modifying them to work for meetings . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So that it understands that they 're different speakers and that it 's one big audio file instead of a bunch of little ones and just sorta things like that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: So what does the user see as the result of the query ? +Grad H: On which tool ? +PhD F: THISL . +Grad H: The THISL GUI tool which is the one that Dan wrote , Tcl - TK +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: um you type in a query and then you get back a list of hits and you can type on them and listen to them . Click on them rather {comment} with a mouse . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Mmm +PhD F: So if you typed in "" small heads "" or something you could +Grad H: Right , you 'd get {disfmarker} +PhD F: get back a uh uh {comment} something that would let you click and listen to some audio where that phrase had occurred +Grad H: something {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you 'd get to listen to "" beep "" . +PhD F: or some +Professor B: That was a really good look . It 's too bad that that couldn't {vocalsound} come into the {disfmarker} +Grad H: You couldn't get a video . +PhD G: Guess who I practice on ? +Postdoc A: At some point we 're gonna have to say what that private joke is , that keeps coming up . +Professor B: Yeah . And then again , maybe not . So , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that soun that sounds reasonable . Yeah , it loo it {disfmarker} my {disfmarker} my recollection of it is it 's {disfmarker} it 's a pretty reasonable uh demo sort of format . +Grad H: Right . +PhD F: Yeah that sounds good . +Grad H: And so I think there 'd be minimal effort to get it to work , minimally +PhD F: That sounds really neat . +Grad H: and then we 'd wanna add things like query by speaker and by meeting and all that sort of stuff . Um Dave Gelbart expressed some interest in working on that so I 'll work with him on it . And it {disfmarker} it 's looking pretty good , you know , the fact that I got the query system working . So if we wanna just do a video - based one I think that 'll be easy . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: If we wanna get it to Windows it 's gonna be a little more work because the THISL IR , the information retrieval tool 's {disfmarker} um , I had difficulty just compiling them on Solaris . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: So getting them to compile on Windows might be challenging . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But you were saying that {disfmarker} that the uh {disfmarker} that there 's that set of tools , uh , Cygnus tools , that {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . It certainly helps . +PhD F: Uh - huh . +Grad H: Um , I mean without those I wouldn't even attempt it . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: But what those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} what those do is provide sort of a BSD compatibility layer , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: so that the normal UNIX function calls all work . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: And you have to have all the o +Grad H: Um , But the problem is that {disfmarker} that the THISL tools didn't use anything like Autoconf and so you have the normal porting problems of different header files and th some things are defined and some things aren't and uh different compiler work - arounds and so on . So the fact that um it took me a day to get it c to compile under Solaris means it 's probably gonna take me s significantly more than that to get it to compile under Windows . +Professor B: How about having it run under free BSD ? +PhD E: Well what you need {disfmarker} +Grad H: Free BSD would probably be easier . +PhD E: All you need to do is say to Dan "" gee it would be nice if this worked under Autoconf "" and it 'll be done in a day . +Grad H: That 's true . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? +Grad H: Actually you know I should check because he did port it to SPRACHcore +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: so he might have done that already . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wouldn't be surprised . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I 'll check at that {disfmarker} +Professor B: But it would {disfmarker} what would serve {disfmarker} would serve both purposes , is if you contact him and ask him if he 's already done it . +PhD E: What I {disfmarker} +PhD F: How does it play ? +Grad H: Yeah , right . +Professor B: If he has then you learn , if he hasn't then he 'll do it . +Grad H: Right . +Postdoc A: Wow . +PhD F: I hope he never listens to these meetings . +Grad H: That 's right . So , and I 've been corresponding with Dan and also with uh uh , SoftSound guy , uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: It 's amazing . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Blanking on his name . +Professor B: Tony Robinson ? +PhD F: Tony Robinson ? +Grad H: Do I mean Tony ? I guess I do . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: James Christie . +Grad H: Or S or Steve Renals . +Professor B: Steve Renal - Steve Renals . +Grad H: Which one do I mean ? +PhD E: Steve Renals is not SoftSound , is he ? +Professor B: No . +Grad H: My brain is not working , +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't remember who I 've been corresponding with . +PhD E: Steve wro i it 's Ste - Steve Renals wrote THISL IR . +Grad H: Then it 's Steve Renals . +Professor B: Oh , OK . +PhD E: OK . +Grad H: So uh just getting documentation and uh and f and formats , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so that 's all going pretty well , +Professor B: Assuming we 're {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right . +PhD F: What about issues of playing sound files @ @ between the two platforms ? +Grad H: I think we 'll be OK with that . Um we have {disfmarker} Well , that 's a good point too . +PhD E: Here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a crazy idea {pause} actually . +Grad H: I don't know . +PhD E: Why don't you try and merge {pause} Transcriber {pause} and THISL IR ? They 're both Tcl interfaces . +Grad H: Well this is one of the reasons {disfmarker} This is the {disfmarker} one of the reasons that I 'm gonna have uh Dave Gelbart {disfmarker} Gelbart {disfmarker} Having him volunteer to work on it is a really good thing because he 's worked on the Transcriber stuff +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: and he 's more familiar with Tcl - TK than I am . +PhD E: And then you get {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} then you get the Windows media playing for free . +Grad H: Well that 's Snack , not {disfmarker} not Transcriber . +PhD E: Right . But the point is that the Transcriber uses Snack and then you can {disfmarker} but you can use a {disfmarker} a lot of the same functionality and it 's {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I think THISL {disfmarker} THISL GUI probably uses Snack . And so my intention was just to base it on that . +PhD E: Yeah . Well my thought was is that it would be nice {disfmarker} it would be nice to have the running transcripts um eh you know , from speaker to speaker . +Grad H: And if it doesn't {disfmarker} +PhD E: Right ? Do you have {disfmarker} you have , you know , a speaker mark here and a speaker mark here ? +Grad H: Right , we 'll have to figure out a user interface for that , so . +PhD E: Right . Well that {disfmarker} eh my thought was if you had like Multitrans or whatever do it . Or whatever . +Grad H: Yeah . It might be fairly difficult to get that to work in {comment} the little short segments we 'd be talking about and having the search tools and so on . We {disfmarker} we can look into it , +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Professor B: The thing I was asking about with , um , free BSD is that it might be easier to get PowerPoint shows running in free BSD than to get this other package running in {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah , I mean we have to {disfmarker} I have to sit down and try it before I make too many judgments , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: so uh Um My experience with the Gnu compatibility library is really it 's just as hard and just as easy to port to any system . Right ? The Windows system isn't any harder because it {disfmarker} it looks like a BSD system . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: It 's just , you know , just like all of them , the "" include "" files are a little different and the function calls are a little different . +Professor B: Right . +Grad H: So I {disfmarker} it might be a little easier but it 's not gonna be a lot easier . +Professor B: OK . So there was that demo , which was one of the main ones , then we talked about um some other stuff which would basically be um showing off the {disfmarker} the Transcriber interface itself and as you say , maybe we could even merge those in some sense , but {disfmarker} but um , uh {disfmarker} and part of that was showing off what the speech - non uh nonspeech {comment} stuff that Thilo has done {pause} s {pause} looks like . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Can I ask one more thing about THISL ? So with the IR stuff then you end up with a somewhat prioritized um {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm , +Postdoc A: Excellent . +Grad H: ranked . +Postdoc A: Excellent . Yeah . +PhD G: So another idea I w t had just now actually for the demo was whether it might be of interest to sh to show some of the prosody uh {vocalsound} work that Don 's been doing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Um actually show some of the features and then show for instance a task like finding sentence boundaries or finding turn boundaries . Um , you know , you can show that graphically , sort of what the features are doing . It , you know , it doesn't work great but it 's definitely giving us something . +Professor B: Well I think at {disfmarker} at the very least we 're gonna want something illustrative with that +PhD G: I don't know if that would be of interest or not . +Professor B: cuz I 'm gonna want to talk about it and so i if there 's something that shows it graphically it 's much better than me just having a bullet point +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: pointing at something I don't know much about , +PhD G: I mean , you 're looking at this now {disfmarker} +Professor B: so . +PhD G: Are you looking at Waves or Matlab ? +Grad C: Um yeah I 'm starting to and um {disfmarker} Yeah we can probably find some examples of different type of prosodic events going on . +PhD G: Yeah def +Professor B: S so when we here were having this demo meeting , what we 're sort of coming up with is that we wanna have all these pieces together , to first order , by the end of the month +PhD G: I +Professor B: and then that 'll give us a week or so . +Grad C: Ooo . The end of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Oh , the end of this month or next month ? Oh , you mean like today ? +Grad H: This month . +Professor B: Ju +PhD G: Oh . +Professor B: June . June . June . +PhD G: Next month . +Grad H: Oh sorry , next month . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD G: Sorry . +Grad H: Today isn't June first , +PhD F: There 's another one . +Grad H: is it . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll give us {disfmarker} that 'll give us a week or so to uh {disfmarker} to port things over to my laptop and make sure that works , +PhD E: Exactly . +PhD G: Sorry . +Professor B: yeah . +PhD G: I think , I mean eh where {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I mean I 'll be here . +PhD G: Yeah if d if Don can sort of talk to whoever 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: cuz we 're doing this anyway as part of our {disfmarker} you know , the research , visualizing what these features are doing +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: and so either {disfmarker} it might not be integrated but it {disfmarker} it could potentially be in it . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , this is to an audience of researchers +PhD G: Could find some . +Professor B: so I mean , you know , to let s the goal is to let them know what it is we 're doing . +PhD G: I mean it 's different . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} +PhD G: I don't think anyone has done this on meeting data so it might be neat , you know . +Professor B: Yeah . Good . Done with that . XML tools ? +Grad H: Um . So I 've been doing a bunch of XML tools where you {disfmarker} we 're sort of moving to XML as the general format for everything and I think that 's definitely the right way to go because there are a lot of tools that let you do extraction and reformatting of XML tools . Um . So yet again we should probably meet to talk about transcription formats in XML because I 'm not particularly happy with what we have now . I mean it works with Transcriber but it {disfmarker} it 's a pain to use it in other tools uh because it doesn't mark start and end . +PhD F: Start and end of each {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh {disfmarker} Utterance . +PhD F: Utterance . Just marks {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So it 's implicit in {disfmarker} in there +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad H: but you have to do a lot of processing to get it . +PhD F: Right . Right . +Grad H: And so {disfmarker} and also I 'd like to do the indirect time line business . Um but regardless , I mean , w that 's something that you , me , and Jane can talk about later . Um , but I 've installed XML tools of various sorts in various languages and so if people are interested in doing {disfmarker} extracting any information from any of these files , either uh information on users because the user database is that way {disfmarker} I 'm converting the Key files to XML so that you can extract m uh various inf uh sorted information on individual meetings +Grad C: Cool . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: and then also the transcripts . And so l just let me know there {disfmarker} it 's mostly Java and Perl but we can get other languages too if {disfmarker} if that 's desirable . +PhD G: Oh , quick question on that . Is {disfmarker} do we have the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the seat information ? In {disfmarker} in the Key files now ? +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: The seat information is on the Key files for the ones which +Postdoc A: Ah . +PhD G: Oh in {disfmarker} For the new one +Grad H: it 's been recorded , +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: yeah . +Professor B: Seat ? +PhD G: Great . Sea - yeah . +Grad H: Where {disfmarker} where you 're sitting . +Professor B: Oh ! Not {disfmarker} not the quality or anything . No . +PhD D: n +Grad H: Right . +Professor B: OK . I see . +Grad H: "" It 's pretty soft and squishy . "" +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Oh , but that might just be me . Um . +PhD G: Alright . +Professor B: That 's more seat information than we wanted . +PhD G: Never mind . +PhD E: Hmm . +PhD G: I 'm just trying to figure out , you know , when Morgan 's voice appears on someone 's microphone are they next to him or are they across from him ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Maybe we should bleep that out . +Professor B: Mmm , yeah . +PhD F: Wait a minute , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: how {disfmarker} how w eh where is it in the Key file ? +Grad H: Right . The square bracket . +PhD G: Cuz I mean I haven't been putting it in and {disfmarker} in by {disfmarker} +Grad H: You haven't been putting it in . +PhD G: Right . +Postdoc A: Well bu +PhD G: I have not . +Grad H: Oh , OK . +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits ? +Professor B: Some of these are missing . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} +Professor B: Aren't they ? +Postdoc A: Isn't it always on the digits forms ? +Professor B: Some fall out of {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well it +Grad H: Yeah so we can go back and fill them in for the ones we have . +Grad C: Ooo . +PhD G: I mean they 're on th right , these , but I just hadn't ever been putting it in the Key files . +PhD F: Yeah I {disfmarker} I never {disfmarker} +PhD G: And I don't think Chuck was either +PhD F: I never knew we were supposed to put it in the Key file . +PhD G: cuz {disfmarker} +Grad H: I had told you guys about it +PhD F: Oh really ? +PhD G: Oh , so we 're both sorry . +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +PhD G: So {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean this is why I wanna use a g a tool to do it rather than the plain text +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: because with the plain text it 's very easy to skip those things . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: So . Um if you use the Edit - key , or Key - edit {disfmarker} +PhD D: Edit - key . +Grad H: I think it 's Edit - key , {comment} command {disfmarker} Did I show you guys that ? +PhD D: Yep . +PhD F: You mentioned it , +Grad H: I did show it to you , +PhD F: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: but I think you both said "" no , you 'll just use text file "" . +PhD F: Text . +Grad H: Um it has it in there , a place to fill it in . +PhD G: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Grad H: Yeah , and so if you don't fill it in , you 're not gonna get it in the meetings . +PhD G: So if {disfmarker} Right . Well I {disfmarker} I just realized I hadn't been doing it +Grad H: So . +PhD G: and probably {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Grad C: u +Grad H: Yeah and then the other thing also that Thilo noticed is , on the microphone , on channel zero it says hand - held mike or Crown mike , +PhD G: Yeah . Right . +Grad H: you actually have to say which one . +PhD G: I know {disfmarker} Yeah , I usually delete the {disfmarker} +Grad H: So . +PhD F: Oh ! OK . I didn't do that either . +PhD G: I don't , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: maybe I forgot to d +PhD F: Takes me no time at all to edit these . +PhD G: But it 's almost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah that 's cuz you kn +PhD F: I 'm not doing anything . +Grad H: I {disfmarker} I know why . +PhD G: And I was {disfmarker} I was looking at Chuck 's , like , "" oh what did Chuck do , OK I 'll do that "" . So . +Grad H: And then uh also in a couple of places instead of filling the participants under "" participants "" they were filled in under "" description "" . +Professor B: Ah , OK . +PhD G: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so that 's also a problem . So anyway . +PhD G: We will do better . +Grad H: That 's it . Oh uh also I 'm working on another version of this tool , the {disfmarker} the one that shows up here , {comment} that will flash yellow if the mike isn't connected . And it 's not quite ready to go yet because um it 's hard to tell whether the mike 's connected or not because the best quality ones , the Crown ones , {comment} are about the same level if they 're off and no one 's o off or if they 're on and no one 's talking . +Grad C: Huh . +Grad H: Um these {disfmarker} these ones , they are much easier , there 's a bigger difference . So I 'm working on that and it {disfmarker} it sorta works and so eventually we will change to that and then you 'll be able to see graphically if your mike is dropping in or out . +Grad C: Will that also include like batteries dying ? Just a any time the mike 's putting out zeros basically . +Grad H: Yep . Yep . Yep . +PhD F: But with the screensaver kicking in , it {disfmarker} +PhD D: But +Grad H: Now {disfmarker} +PhD D: y yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'll turn off the screensaver too . +Grad C: Oops . Speaking of which . +Grad H: Um the other thing is as I 've said before , it is actually on the thing . There 's a little level meter but of course no one ever pays attention to it . So I think having it on the screen is more easy to notice . +Postdoc A: It would be nice if {disfmarker} if these had little light indicators , little L E Ds for {disfmarker} +Grad H: Uh buzzer . +Postdoc A: Yeah , a buzzer . +Grad H: "" Bamp , bamp ! "" +Professor B: Small shocks +Postdoc A: Yeah . Actually {disfmarker} +Professor B: administered to the {disfmarker} OK . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad H: OK , disk backup , et cetera ? Um I spoke with Dave Johnson about putting all the Meeting Recorder stuff on non - backed - up disk to save the overhead of backup and he pretty much said "" yeah , you could do that if you want "" but he thought it was a bad idea . In fact what he said is doing the manual one , {comment} doing uh NW archive to copy it {comment} is a good idea and we should do that and have it backed up . He w he 's a firm believer in {disfmarker} in lots of different modalities of backup . I mean , his point was well taken . This data cannot be recovered . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: And so if a mistake is made and we lose the backup we should have the archive and if then a mistake is made and we lose the archive we should have the backup . +Professor B: Well I guess it is true that even with something that 's backed up it 's not gonna {disfmarker} if it 's stationary it 's not going to go through the increment it 's not gonna burden things in the incremental backups . +Grad H: Just {disfmarker} just the monthly full . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor B: Yeah , so the monthly full will be a bear but {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah . But he said that {disfmarker} that we sh shouldn't worry too much about that , that we 're getting a new backup system and we 're far enough away from saturation on full backups that it 's w probably OK . +Professor B: Really ? +Grad H: And uh , so the only issue here is the timing between getting more disks and uh recording meetings . +Professor B: So I guess the idea is that we would be reserving the non - backed - up space for things that took less than twenty - four hours to recreate or something like that , right ? +Grad H: Things that are recreatable easily and also {disfmarker} Yeah , basically things that are recreatable . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: The expanded files and things like that . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: They take up a lot more room anyway . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Uh but we do need more disk . +Professor B: So we can get more disk . Yeah . So . +Grad H: Yeah . And I {disfmarker} I think I agree with him . I mean his point was well taken that if we lose one of these we cannot get it back . +Professor B: OK . +Grad H: I don't think there was any other et cetera there . +Professor B: Well I was allowing someone else to come up with something related that they had uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I thought you guys were gonna burn C Ds ? +Grad H: Um unfortunately {disfmarker} we could burn C Ds but first of all it 's a pain . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: Because you have to copy it down to the PC and then burn it and that 's a multi - step procedure . And second of all the {disfmarker} the write - once burners as opposed to a professional press don't last . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad H: So I think burning them for distribution is fine but burning them for backup is not a good idea . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Grad H: Cuz th they {disfmarker} they fail after a couple years . +PhD E: Alright . +Postdoc A: I do have uh uh {disfmarker} It 's a different topic . Can I add one top topic ? We have time ? I wanted to ask , I know that uh that Thilo you were , um , bringing the Channeltrans interface onto the Windows machine ? And I wanted to know is th +PhD D: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Basically it 's done , +Postdoc A: It 's all done ? That 's g wonderful . Great . +PhD D: yeah . Yeah . +Grad H: Yes , since Tcl - TK runs on it , basically things 'll just work . +PhD D: Yeah it {disfmarker} Yeah , it was just a problem with the Snack version and the Transcriber version but it 's solved . +Postdoc A: Does {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} does that mean , I {disfmarker} +PhD D: So . +Postdoc A: maybe I should know this but I don't . Does this mean that the {disfmarker} that this could be por uh ported to a Think - Pad note or some other type of uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , basically uh I did install it on my laptop and yeah +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +PhD D: it worked . +Postdoc A: Wonderful . +Professor B: Hmm ! Good . CrossPads ? CrossPads ? +Grad H: Uh got an email from uh James Landay who basically said "" if you 're not using them , could you return them ? "" So he said he doesn't need them , he just periodically w at the end of each term sends out email to everyone who was recorded as having them and asks them if they 're still using them . +Professor B: So we 've never used them . +Postdoc A: We used them once . +Professor B: Once ? +Grad H: We {disfmarker} we used them a couple times , +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Couple times . +PhD F: Them ? There 's more than one ? +Grad H: but {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: i +Grad H: Yeah , we have two . Um . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} +Grad H: My opinion on it is , first , I never take notes anyway so I 'm not gonna use it , um and second , it 's another level of infrastructure that we have to deal with . +Postdoc A: And I have {disfmarker} uh so my {disfmarker} my feeling on it is that I think in principle it 's a really nice idea , and you have the time tags which makes it better tha than just taking ra raw notes . On the other hand , I {disfmarker} the down side for me was that I think the pen is really noisy . So you have ka kaplunk , kaplunk , kaplunk . And I {disfmarker} and I don't know if it 's audible on the {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I sort of thought that was a disadvantage . I do take notes , I mean , I could be taking notes on these things and I guess the plus with the CrossPads would be the time markings but {disfmarker} I don't know . +PhD D: Uh , what is a CrossPad ? +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's um {disfmarker} it 's a regular pad , just a regular pad of paper but there 's this pen which indicates position . +Grad C: Thank you . +Professor B: And so you have time and position stuff stored +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: so that you can {disfmarker} you have a record of whatever it is you 've written . +PhD D: OK . +Grad H: And then you can download it and they have OCR and searching and all sorts of things . +PhD D: OK . OK . +Grad H: So i if you take notes it 's a great little device . +Postdoc A: Could {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Grad H: But I don't take notes , +Professor B: And one of the reasons that it was brought up originally was because uh we were interested in {disfmarker} in higher - level things , +Grad H: so . +Professor B: not just the , you know , microphone stuff but also summarization and so forth and the question is if you were going to go to some gold standard of what wa what was it that happened in the meeting you know , where would it come from ? And um I think that was one of the things , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: right ? And so the {disfmarker} it seemed like a neat idea . We 'll have a {disfmarker} you know , have a scribe , have somebody uh take good notes and then that 's part of the record of the meeting . And then we did it once or twice and we sort of {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep , and then just sort of died out . +Professor B: probably chose the wrong scribe but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yeah that 's right . +Postdoc A: Well I did it one time +Grad H: Yep . +Postdoc A: but um {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: u but I guess the {disfmarker} the other thing I 'm thinking is if we wanted that kind of thing I wonder if we 'd lose that much by having someone be a scribe by listening to the tape , to the recording afterwards and taking notes in some other interface . +PhD F: I mean we 're transcribing it anyways , why do we need notes ? +Postdoc A: Oh it 's la it 's useful , +Grad H: Because that 's summary . +Postdoc A: have a summary and high points . +Professor B: Summary . +PhD G: I think {disfmarker} there 's also {disfmarker} there 's this use that {disfmarker} +PhD F: Summarize it from the transcription . +PhD G: the {disfmarker} Well , what if you 're sitting there and you just wanna make an X and you don't wanna take notes and you 're {disfmarker} you just wanna +PhD F: Doodle . +PhD G: get the summary of the transcript from this time location like {disfmarker} you know , and {disfmarker} and then while you 're bored you don't do anything and once in a while , maybe there 's a joke and you put a X and {disfmarker} {comment} But {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in other words you can use that just to highlight times in a very simple way . Also with {disfmarker} I was thinking and I know Morgan disagrees with me on this but suppose you have a group in here and you wanna let them note whenever they think there might be something later that they might not wanna distribute in terms of content , they could just sort of make an X near that point or a question mark that sort of alerts them that when they get the transcript back they c could get some red flags in that transcript region and they can then look at it . So . I know we haven't been using it but I w I can imagine it being useful just for sort of marking time periods +Grad H: Right . +PhD G: which you then get back in a transcript +Postdoc A: Well . +Professor B: I guess {disfmarker} so , you know , what {disfmarker} what makes one think i is maybe we should actually schedule some periods where people go over something later +PhD G: so . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and put some kind of summary or something uh you know , some {disfmarker} there 'd be some scribe who would actually listen , w who 'd agreed to actually listen to the whole thing , not transcribe it , but just sort of write down things that struck them as important . But {disfmarker} then you don't {disfmarker} you don't have the time reference uh that you 'd have if you had it live . +PhD G: Right . And you don't have a lot of other cues that might be useful , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: How do you synchronize the time in the CrossPad and the time of the recording ? +PhD G: so . +Grad H: I mean that was one of the issues we talked about originally and that that 's w part of the difficulty is that we need an infrastructure for using the time {disfmarker} the CrossPads and so that means synchronizing the time {disfmarker} +PhD G: +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +Grad H: You know you want it pretty close and there 's a fair amount of skew because it 's a hand - held unit with a battery +Postdoc A: Well when {disfmarker} when I d +Grad H: and so you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad H: so you have to synchronize at the beginning of each meeting all the pads that are being used , so that it 's synchronized with the time on that and then you have to download to an application , and then you have to figure out what the data formats are and convert it over if you wanna do anything with this information . +Postdoc A: w Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Why {disfmarker} +Grad H: And so there 's a lot of infrastructure which +Postdoc A: There is an alternative . +Grad H: unless someone {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: There is an alternative , I mean , it 's still , there 's uh {disfmarker} you know , your point stands about there be {disfmarker} needing to be an infrastructure , but it doesn't have to be synchronized with the little clock 's timer on it . You c I mean , I {disfmarker} when I {disfmarker} when I did it I synchronized it by voice , by whispering "" one , two , three , four "" onto the microphone +Grad H: Hmm . +Postdoc A: and uh , you know . +Grad H: Well , but then there 's the infrastructure at the other end +PhD E: Right . +Grad H: which someone has to listen to that and find that point , +Postdoc A: Yeah , it 's transcribed . It 's in the transcript . +Grad H: and then mark it . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad H: So . +Postdoc A: Well it 's in the transcript . +PhD G: Well , could we keep one of these things for another year ? Would h I mean is there a big cau +Grad H: We can keep all {disfmarker} both of them for the whole whole year . +PhD G: just {disfmarker} just in case we {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean , it 's just {disfmarker} +PhD G: even maybe some of the transcribers who might be wanting to annotate uh f just there 's a bunch of things that might be neat to do but I {disfmarker} it might not be the case that we can actually synchronize them and then do all the infrastructure but we could at least try it out . +Professor B: Well {disfmarker} one thing that we might try um is on some set of meetings , some collection of meetings , maybe EDU is the right one or maybe something else , we {disfmarker} we get somebody to buy into the idea of doing this as part of the task . I mean , +PhD G: Right . +Professor B: uh part of the reason {disfmarker} I think part of the reason that Adam was so interested in uh the SpeechCorder sort of f idea from the beginning is he said from the beginning he hated taking notes and {disfmarker} +Grad H: Yep . +Professor B: and so forth so and {disfmarker} and Jane is more into it but eh uh you know I don't know if you wanna really do {disfmarker} do this all the time so I think the thing is to {disfmarker} to get someone to actually buy into it and have at least some series of meetings where we do it . Um {disfmarker} and if so , it 's probably worth having one . The p the {disfmarker} the problem with the {disfmarker} the more extended view , all these other you know with uh quibbling about particular applications of it is that it looks like it 's hard to get people to um uh routinely use it , I mean it just hasn't happened anyway . But maybe if we can get a person to {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah I don't think it has to be part of a what everybody does in a meeting but it might be a useful , neat part of the project that we can , you know , show off as a mechanism for synchronizing events in time that happen that you just wanna make a note of , like what Jane was talking about with some later browsing , just {disfmarker} just as a convenience , even if it 's not a full - blown note taking substitute . +PhD E: Well if you wanted to do that maybe the right architecture for it is to get a PDA with a wireless card . And {disfmarker} and that way you can synchronize very easily with the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the meeting because you 'll be synchroni you can synchronize with the {disfmarker} the Linux server and uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: So what kind of input would you be {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: so {disfmarker} so , I mean , if you 're not worried about {disfmarker} +Grad H: Buttons . +PhD G: You 'd just be pressing like a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} +PhD E: Well {disfmarker} well you have a PDA and may and you could have the same sort of X interface or whatever , I mean , you 'd have to do a little eh a little bit of coding to do it . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: But you could imagine , +PhD G: Yeah , that be good . +PhD E: I mean , if {disfmarker} if all you really wanted was {disfmarker} you didn't want this secondary note - taking channel but just sort of being able to use m markers of some sort , a PDA with a l a wireless card would be the {disfmarker} probably the right way to go . I mean even buttons you could do , sort of , I mean , as you said . +Grad H: I mean for what {disfmarker} what you 've been describing buttons would be even more convenient than anything else , +PhD G: M right . +PhD E: Right . +PhD G: That would be fine too . +Grad H: right ? You have the {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , I don't have , you know , grandiose ideas in mind but I 'm just sort of thinking well we 've {disfmarker} we 're getting into the next year now and we have a lot of these things worked out at {disfmarker} in terms of the speech maybe somebody will be interested in this and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I like this PDA idea . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I do like the idea of having a couple buttons +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: Well I 'm sure there would {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: where like one {disfmarker} one button was "" uh - oh "" and then another button was "" that 's great "" and another button "" that 's f "" +PhD G: Or like this is my "" I 'm supposed to do this "" kind of button , +Postdoc A: Yeah . +PhD G: like "" I better remember to {disfmarker} "" +Grad H: Action item . +PhD G: Yeah something like that or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And then {disfmarker} +Grad H: I mean I think the CrossPad idea is a good one . +Postdoc A: Uh - huh . +Grad H: It 's just a question of getting people to use it and getting the infrastructure set up in such a way that it 's not a lot of extra work . I mean that 's part of the reason why it hasn't happened is that it 's been a lot of extra work for me +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . +Postdoc A: Well , and not just for you . +Grad H: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: But it 's also , it has this problem of having to go from an analog to a d a digital record too , +PhD G: W +Postdoc A: doesn't it ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad H: Well it 's digital but it 's in a format that is not particularly standard . +Postdoc A: But I mean , say , if i if {disfmarker} if you 're writing {disfmarker} if you 're writing notes in it does {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it can't do handwriting recognition , right ? +Professor B: No , no , but it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just storing the pixel informa position information , +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: it 's all digital . +Postdoc A: I {disfmarker} I guess what I 'm thinking is that the PDA solution you h you have it already without needing to go from the pixelization to a {disfmarker} to a {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . You don't have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: The transfer function is less errorful , +Postdoc A: Oh , nicely put . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: yes . +PhD G: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Well it also {disfmarker} it 's maybe realistic cuz people are supposed to be bringing their P D As to the meeting eventually , right ? That 's why we have this little {disfmarker} I don't know what {disfmarker} I don't wanna cause more work for anyone but I can imagine some interesting things that you could do with it and so if we don't have to return it and we can keep it for a year {disfmarker} I don't know . +Grad H: Well {disfmarker} w we don't {disfmarker} we certainly don't have to return it , as I said . All {disfmarker} all he said is that if you 're not using it could you return it , if you are using it feel free to keep it . The point is that we haven't used it at all and are we going to ? +Professor B: So we have no but {disfmarker} uh by I {disfmarker} I would suggest you return one . Because we {disfmarker} we you know , we {disfmarker} we haven't used it at all . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad H: OK . +PhD G: We c +Professor B: We have some aspirations of using them +PhD G: One would probably be fine . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Maybe we could do like a student project , you know , maybe someone who wants to do this as their main like s project for something would be cool . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yep . I mean if we had them out and sitting on the table people might use them a little more +Professor B: Maybe Jeremy could sit in some meetings and press a button when there {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody laughed . +Grad H: although there is a little {disfmarker} +PhD G: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} yeah , that 's not a bad {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +PhD G: Jeremy 's gonna be an {disfmarker} he 's a new student starting on modeling brea breath and laughter , actually , which sounds funny but I think it should be cool , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: so . +Grad H: Sounds breathy to me . +PhD G: OK . "" Ha - ha - ha . "" +Grad H: Breath and lau "" ha - ha - ha - ha "" . "" Ha - ha - ha - ha . "" +Professor B: Well dear . +Grad H: Um . +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad H: That reminded me of something . Oh well , too late . It slipped out . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: You 're {disfmarker} you 're gonna tease me ? +Grad H: Oh , equipment . +PhD G: OK . +Grad H: Ordered {disfmarker} Uh , well I 'm always gonna do that . W uh {disfmarker} {comment} We ordered uh more wireless , and so they should be coming in at some point . +PhD G: Great . +Grad H: And then at the same time I 'll probably rewire the room as per Jane 's suggestion so that uh the first N channels are wireless , eh are the m the close - talking and the next N are far - field . +Professor B: You know what he means but isn't that funny sounding ? "" We ordered more wireless . "" It 's like wires are the things so you 're wiring {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} we ordered more absence of the thing . +PhD G: That 's a very philosophical statement from Morgan . +Grad H: wired less , wired more . +PhD G: I just {disfmarker} it 's sort of a anachronism , I mean it 's like {disfmarker} It 's great . +Professor B: Anyway . +Grad H: Should we do digits ? Do we have anything else ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor B: I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff going on uh between uh Andreas and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and Dave and Chuck and others with various kinds of runs uh um {disfmarker} recognition runs , trying to figure things out about the features but it 's {disfmarker} it 's all sort of in process , so there 's not much to say right now . Uh why don't we start with our {disfmarker} our esteemed guest . +PhD E: OK . Alright . +Grad H: So just the transcript number and then the {disfmarker} then the {disfmarker} +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} Yes , this is number two for me today . +Professor B: See all you have to do is go away to move way up in the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Oh . +PhD G: We could do simultaneous . Initiate him . +Professor B: We {disfmarker} we could . +Grad H: Should we do simultaneous ? +PhD G: Well , I 'm just thinking , are you gonna try to save the data before this next group comes in ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah , absolutely . +PhD G: Yeah , so we might wanna do it simultaneous . +Grad H: I mean you hav sorta have to . +Professor B: Well OK , so let 's do one of those simultaneous ones . +PhD G: Right , so {disfmarker} so we might n we might need to do that actually . +Professor B: That sounds good . +Grad H: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Everybody ready ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor B: A one . +PhD G: You have to plug your ears , by the way uh Eric , +Grad H: Well I have to , +PhD D: You don't have to . +PhD E: OK , alright . +PhD G: or {disfmarker} or you start laughing . +Grad H: I don't know about other people . +Professor B: OK , a one and a two and a three . OK , babble , take five . +","In the meeting, there was a push for a quick session due to the upcoming occupants. The agenda mentioned by Professor B included transcription status, DARPA demos, XML tools, disks, backups, etc. Postdoc A reported hiring several more transcribers and finishing the double-checking by the following week. Grad H requested access to uncorrected data for information retrieval purposes, to which Postdoc A confirmed the location remained unchanged. + +PhD D updated that the first five EDU meetings had been processed and were ready for IBM, with one already sent and the rest awaiting feedback. Grad H discussed using THISL tools for information retrieval and creating tools for converting data into the right formats. Debate ensued about the user interface for the demo, with suggestions for using either a web-based interface that ran a web server or a Tcl-TK THISL GUI for compatibility with Windows. + +Further discussions regarded XML tools for format conversion and data extraction, with Grad H mentioning the transition to XML as a general format and offering his assistance with XML tools in various languages. There were considerations about backups, where Grad H talked about securing data through multiple modes of backup, citing a discussion with Dave Johnson who recommended regular NW archive backups. + +Finally, the usage of CrossPads for time-stamped note-taking was debated, with the consensus being that the idea was theoretically good but it required too much extra work and infrastructure. Suggestions were made to try PDA with wireless cards or buttons that could synchronize with the meeting time for highlighting important moments. It was decided to return one CrossPad to James Landay since they weren't being used and keep the other for potential future use. The meeting concluded with a simultaneous digits session, where attendees voiced their transcript numbers all at once to save time before the next group came in." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay everybody is ready ? {vocalsound} Good morning again . So , today we are going to have a f second meeting . Oh Michael , hi . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: You're late . You have a good reason for that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very good {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} Okay , let's have a look to the agenda today . {vocalsound} So , we are going to have a meeting about the functional design . Um so first before starting I w just going to uh to go quickly to {disfmarker} through the minutes of previous meeting . So uh {vocalsound} basically we we are not decided if w we should go for a universal or specific uh uh remote control , but I have new um new i inputs for {disfmarker} about that topics . I goin I'm going to share with you . {vocalsound} And uh basically we decided to um to uh go to individual actions for each of you uh so um Industrial Designer should wor was supposed to work on th on th on the working design . You showed us {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: you ar you you prepare something for us ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: The U_I_ guy also uh work on that , yeah , and for the mar our Marketing Expert should deliver some specs . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Alright {vocalsound} so {vocalsound} so we are going to go through three of your individual presentations . But first I would like quickly to uh to decide of {disfmarker} to give a name to the project . So , I just put d quickly Remo , but if you have any o other names that we co could decide for just to to keep something fun for our project we we should {disfmarker} we could discuss quickly . Any ideas ? +User Interface: Uh the Powerstick . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Powerstick , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What else ? What else ? +Marketing: Uh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Maybe a Spanish name would work well . +Marketing: Mm I was thinking of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Especially if we're selling into the U_S_ market becasue there's a lot of Spanish speakers there . Maybe something that sounds cool in English but sounds funny in Spanish . +Marketing: Mando . +User Interface: Mando . +Project Manager: Mango ? Mango ? +User Interface: What is that ? +Marketing: Mando . +Project Manager: Mando . M_A_ ? M_A_ ? +Marketing: A*_N_ yeah D_O . +Project Manager: M_ D_O_ . Mm , okay . +Marketing: It doesn't it doesn't sound cool for me , +Project Manager: What does it mean ? Oh . +Marketing: but maybe for a Spanish {disfmarker} for I {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +User Interface: What does it mean in Spanish ? +Marketing: Control . +User Interface: Control . +Project Manager: Hmm . Nice . +User Interface: Okay . 'Cause it also {disfmarker} like in English it sounds like you know the man's tool you know because you know men like to have control of the remote +Marketing: But {disfmarker} mm , yeah . +User Interface: so it might {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mando sounds Latino . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: The Mando . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's go for Mando ? Yeah ? No objection ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: And we could have some like you d you could have the fonts you know special , so you have man in like in in uh in one o in one font and then the O_ as like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is {disfmarker} +User Interface: Although you don't wanna cut uh cut women out of the uh potential buyers though , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: do you ? So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah they are the most T_V_ watcher . So we should be careful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I think this is more a question of of {disfmarker} +User Interface: Marketing . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah +Project Manager: I I think this is more a question of of look and feel . +Marketing: it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something that should be addressed later We should we should go to other {disfmarker} for the other topics . +Marketing: Yeah because if the product will be international {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well that's the thing . We need to know who we're selling it to before we can really decide on a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah okay , so let's stick f to Man Mando for the name +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: and we'll see for the for the look and feel later . So let's go for the three presentations right now . So , who want to start ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So maybe we could start with the market , yeah . +Marketing: Maybe maybe I should uh start . Yeah . Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so I have your slides somewhere ? +Marketing: Yeah . Should be in participant four . +Project Manager: Participant four . {vocalsound} This one ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: S that's coming . Uh {gap} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: okay . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Okay so yeah I will I will give a brief outline about what I what I prepared for this meeting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: For the functional requirements and especially for the for the user requirements . I prepare a marketing report and we have to find the weaknesses and and the the improvements we could do to the current remote controls . And also I di I did a study with {disfmarker} for the incorporation of new technologies it seems that the remote controls have been {disfmarker} have remained the same for the last five , ten years . There is no no significant difference between the the b the first new controls and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Sh next slide ? +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} more {disfmarker} most of the people think that remote controls are ugly , thoroughly . So and they they admit that the the they should uh s they would uh spend more money in a fancier remote control , which is which is good and it's interesting point . Also the people are worried about about the R*_S_I_ disease , which is if you repeat the sa the same movement , which is not a {disfmarker} with a not very appropriate device , you you will have problems whe when you will get old . So s people are uh are worried about the the shape of the of the remote control . They are also {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they get angry very often because they lost the remote control very often , so I think it would be a good point to to l to to find a a solution to {disfmarker} any beep any alarm or something incorporated to {disfmarker} with the remote control every time it it get lost . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And also I found that young people {disfmarker} the the younger people are the more interested they are in incorporating new technologies in the in the remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in my opinion the Mando {disfmarker} this Mando shouldn't be very small because the smaller it is , the more like {disfmarker} the the liklier it is to get lost . Liklier or more likely ? +User Interface: More likely . {gap} +Marketing: {gap} likely . Okay . Uh {vocalsound} people also complain because they they they all have the same size of the buttons for buttons who w which are not very use like f uh memorising channels or or this kind of actions which are not very often but {vocalsound} they they shouldn't they shouldn't have the same importance in the in the uh in the remote cont in the remote control . Also the z the design should fit the hand shape . So it may be interesting to to think in a {disfmarker} in both prototypes , for right and left handed people . +User Interface: Well th the on the thing is though , most remote controls are used by more than one person . So unless you're kind of targeting single people you know you're gonna maybe +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: cut out some {disfmarker} a lot of your market . +Marketing: I dunno I th Anyway I think it could be int interesting to to release some {disfmarker} a a small fraction of of this remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe it could be a universal design . +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: A universal design , which is which is good for both the hands . +User Interface: Still shaped for yeah for your hand but not for a particular hand , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? That's right , whether it's left hand or right hand , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but but {vocalsound} don't you think that the two points are clashing , one thing you are saying design should fit the hand shape and it should not be very small ? +Marketing: Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: The first and the third point , they are clashing . +User Interface: Well it can still be a {gap} , you can still extend past the hand . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Marketing: Like uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So fitting the hand doesn't mean much then . +User Interface: Well it means {disfmarker} like , this remote here is kind of {disfmarker} is very thin and long so instead of having {disfmarker} you know you might have it kind of {disfmarker} a bit bigger +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , like {disfmarker} +User Interface: or , you know , with maybe some some finger molds or something . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it means design should be similar to the traditional ones ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Little sleek , longer ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And it should fit the hand . +Marketing: No no I was thinking of so like something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something with the shape of the palm ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: Some finger grips maybe . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You could even have some buttons like you know on the sides and everything , +Project Manager: On the sides . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . It sh it shouldn't it shouldn't be symmetric symmetrical . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hm mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not anymore . That's what {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: And then finally {disfmarker} +Marketing: And finally , the incorporation of a L_C_D_ or a speech recognition system in the remote control could also be interesting , but I don't know if the budget would be large enough . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . First I'm just wondering about the L_C_D_ stuff because uh because {disfmarker} +Marketing: But most of {disfmarker} yeah most of the young people to thirty to thirty years old were really interested in this kind of technology . +Project Manager: Yeah , so maybe it's a good time for me to uh {vocalsound} to bring you to some new uh new informations . We had the new requirements from the {disfmarker} so uh from the head offices of the company , and so they wanted {disfmarker} so they want to um {disfmarker} they would like to be restricted to T_V_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , I dunno if you had this information already . No , +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: so they want us to restrict the remote control to T_V_ only because of time limitations . Um they want also uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Actually this marketing report is restricted to T_V_ remote controls . +Project Manager: Excellent . So we have also to focus more on the internet aspects because well well te teletext is outdated now and uh finally , {vocalsound} it should be clear that the corporate image , that means colours and logos of the co our company should be clearly inde identified in the product . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I was still uh I was still working on this uh twenty five Euro price point because I think actually having looked at some of the remotes out there , this is quite a low uh price if if we're {disfmarker} maybe I can get to this in my presentation though , +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . Sure sure . +User Interface: but um yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe we can jump to your presentations , right now . +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay so let's keep in mind about tha that that {disfmarker} this last point about L_C_D_ and speech uh reco +User Interface: Yeah . I think even even if it was within budget do a speech reco rec system it might be a bit difficult because if you think {disfmarker} if you're watching T_V_ you're gonna have a lot of this uh background noise from the T_V_ which might interfere with the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sorry , what is your {gap} ? +User Interface: Uh participant three . You might have some background noise from the T_V_ which will make the speech recognition much uh harder , so . +Marketing: Yeah but you should be able to activate or disactivate , so {disfmarker} yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh you press a press a button to talk , and the the T_V_ the T_V_ {vocalsound} sound turns off . {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah uh channel fifty . +Industrial Designer: No it could be command control kind of thing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It requir recognises particular sequence and then it gets activated . Means you say {disfmarker} you should say like does that , remote control being on or be on kind of thing , and then remote control comes in the picture for the speech recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because this kind of thing means speech is there from the T_V_ also . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So there should be something command controlled , you start and then you stop . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's like V_I_ editor , you are having two modes similarly . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's just lying idle . +Project Manager: Okay Michael . +User Interface: Okay , so , could I describe the mouse maybe {gap} be easier to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: could I use the mouse , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um yeah . +User Interface: Mm . Thanks . Okay . +Project Manager: The wheel doesn't work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Great {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay so um while uh researching this this topic I first of all just thought of a couple of things that I would like to see in a remote , and just uh looked to see if they're actually available in any current remotes , and then also searched for which are the top-rated uh remote controls on Epinions dot com , which is a a you know a a customer um written basically review site . So um there's a pretty wide range of uh remote controls these days and and uh this remote control on the right here is is one of the more extravagant , but it's not really {disfmarker} it's by no means uh mm you know {vocalsound} on it's own in being so expensive . There are a lot of expensive remote controls out there . +Project Manager: {gap} Looks like a P_D_A_ {gap} ? +User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah it doe it's {disfmarker} well basically all the functions uh are controlled through through the L_C_D_ screen except for the really really kind of main functions , which have a couple of of their own buttons . Um and if you look at a lot of the universal remotes out um on the market , I know we're working on television remote , but a lot of the universal remotes out there have uh have these L_C_D_ screens which kind of helps when you're using multiple uh devices I suppose because you can have multiple kind of functions {disfmarker} d different functions on the screen at different times . But um the thing that I find most interesting about this remote control , and it's kind of difficult to uh to see in the slide , but it has a scroll wheel on it , which is kind of like uh a mouse scroll wheel , which I think is {disfmarker} it's a really kind of important design aspect um is {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} 'Cause the thing is what a {vocalsound} what we {disfmarker} the presen this presentation we had is what we want the remote control to actually do . And obviously the the simplest thing that a remote control does is it just change the change the channel . +Industrial Designer: Change the channels . +User Interface: Now um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: uh the {disfmarker} I think that a scroll wheel is actually pretty a pretty handy way of of changing the channel . 'Cause I know when I um when I use the remote to change the channel I very rarely use the numbers on the on the pad . I usually use the up and down +Industrial Designer: Mmm-hmm mm-hmm . Yeah yeah . +User Interface: because most channels are you know two digit numbers and you have to press you know a special button to enter a two-digit number , and then two numbers , so that's just uh {disfmarker} it's annoying . So I think a scroll wheel is is quite handy . Now um the the scroll wheel is is much more useful if you have an L_C_D_ screen , and this brings us to the the point you were mentioning before about the internet uh capability . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: One possibility , if we {disfmarker} now we need to still talk about the price point because obviously a lot of this stuff can't be done for twenty five Eu uh Euro , but one possibility is to download program information into the L_C_D_ screen so that instead of actually saying I want to I want to go to channel thirty seven because I know this programme's on , you know , often you don't know what ch what channel it's on , or you don't know what's on . If you have a list of of programs on your L_C_D_ screen you just scroll to that program rather than to a channel . So if you think about {disfmarker} it's kind of like a {disfmarker} you know in mobile phones now you don't use {disfmarker} you don't remember people's phone number , you remember their name and you go find that name and ring it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So this would be pretty {disfmarker} kind of a handy thing to have , but um we we really need t to discuss the price . So , I mean there are {vocalsound} there are uh cheaper {disfmarker} this is another multi kinda purpose remote control where it's it's it's very simple , there's only a few buttons , but al each of those buttons does something different in a different context . So this is something else we might wanna consider , is really kind of limiting the number of buttons , because this is the top rating uh universal remote control on on Epinions . It it's really uh maybe worth thinking about limiting the number of buttons as much as as possible um because really I think people want to be able to find the button they're looking for without even looking at the remote control . And {gap} was saying before about having different size buttons for different you know frequently used uh tasks , but I think also you know the location and and shape of the buttons is important , but also the number of buttons . So if you have too many buttons it it it increases the the difficulty of finding the one you want . +Industrial Designer: But there is one problem {gap} then the user has to understand each of that functionality . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah well we w +Industrial Designer: Because the same button is doing too many things . +User Interface: Yeah well we will have a bit of a simpler uh task in that we're only doing uh a television remote control . Um I think maybe one option is to have you know a little flip-open um door that uh that you have hidden most of the time , but contains the extra buttons like , say , the number buttons for instance . Um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I I would {disfmarker} if I had my perfect remote control , I'd probably just have no numbers at all on it because they're just in the way . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: They don't really do anything . Maybe you know I {disfmarker} although I do also find flip-open doors a bit of a pain because sometimes they can break off or or whatever , but maybe a door that you can you can permanantly remove or permanantly have on would be good . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} but I think definitely you need to to keep the buttons down to a minimum , but not not let that kind of interfere with the functionality of of the device . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: H I think I think that the tr the transition to this to this new remote control shouldn't be very very abrupt very hard because w if people see a remo see the {disfmarker} see a remote control without numbers mm they will think it's very difficult to learn very difficult to {disfmarker} very different build {disfmarker} very different to the traditional {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It does sampling out of the {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well I guess that depends on how you market it . If you {vocalsound} if you have the right advertisement showing how how how easy it is and how you can , you know , navigate to a program without the numbers , then people might say that looks pretty easy . +Marketing: If y +Project Manager: Okay , can you continue , please Mi ? +User Interface: So , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: yep . Um okay , so , I think um one of the really kind of useful things you can do with with internet connectivity would be to have this {disfmarker} a programme driven interface rather than the channel number . So if we can have a higher priced uh remote control I think that would really be worth uh {disfmarker} something that would be worth implementing . Um mm there's the L_C_D_ screen , um which maybe maybe is too expensive , um but I think also at the scroll wheel , I haven't mentioned it here , the scroll wheel could be used without an L_C_D_ screen , just for changing channel numbers easily . I think even that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I mean , that would be a fairly cheap thing , compared to an L_C_D_ screen , to implement , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: um but I think that would be quite useful as well . And the other thing , you say we need to we need to keep it just television , but I think one {disfmarker} maybe one option , since this is supposed to be a kind of a fashionable device , is you know there's a certain kind of cool or wow factor that you can kind of {disfmarker} you can have with technology , and maybe we wanna make it something that's {vocalsound} extensible to do other tasks . Say you have like um {vocalsound} a little another little kind of base unit that can also receive signals as well as the television where you can , say uh , change the lighting in the room . You know that would be something maybe you could sell as an extra , so that it doesn't have to be part of the initial development , but , you know , later on you could you can you know you {disfmarker} also , selling the potential of the device . Then you say potentially you can then do other cool stuff like change the lights , I dunno , close the windows , whatever , turn the heating on , and um , I think that's something we may need to have as as {disfmarker} at least as an optional extra to to kinda make our product cool , since we say we're putting the fashion in electronics . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . Okay , thanks . {vocalsound} {gap} you want to go ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . So {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So most of the things which we are discussing about is speech recognition uh , that means on my own I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: This one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , it should be . +Project Manager: Great . No , not that one . {gap} you are two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay so the working design is uh user i interface could be of two types , one is the usual press buttons which are there so that the user feels that he is knoing {disfmarker} doing some he is knowing about that technology . So he is pretty comfortable if he wants to get this , and on top of that there there could be a speech recognition technology also being {disfmarker} sitting on the on the remote . So the old kind of users who don't want to have any changes , it can it can be useful for them , and the new users , as uh our Marketing Expert was saying , they can use the new gizmo which is speech recognition kind of thing . +Project Manager: Okay , sorry to interrupt you , but we have seen before that there is a new way of interacting that use wheel . +Industrial Designer: That's right . So anyway , that didn't come into my mind , +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: so th that is a possibility . These could be other kind of interfaces . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Means we can have , depending on the cost , how much we can afford , we can have different kind of interfaces . So spe buttons are something which is very {disfmarker} everybody is familiar with . So if you go to the market and you say that buttons are there the people know what it is , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and on top of that if we are having extra functionality people are willing to shell that twenty-five Euros money which we are thinking . Otherwise we are just like others in the market . So anyway that is the first , user interface could be of more than one type , and uh yeah that means we can do the on-line changes which which cannot be done now actually . So apart from the speech , we can have the scroll kind of thing with the buttons . Now for buttons , normal requirements like bit coding and all those things are required . And for voice , limited vocabulary automatic speech recognition system is required and we require a microphone also to be sitting there on the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . That increases the the cost also . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's right . But uh means we have to see how much {disfmarker} what kind of microphones and stuff like that . +Project Manager: Do you think that performance of such systems are enough to to target well {disfmarker} of such technologies is enough ? +Industrial Designer: Uh yes , if it is limited vocabulary usually it's enough . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we we can uh target , means we can target ninety five percent accuracy or somewhere ninety seven perc +Project Manager: Well wh uh I imagine also that the microphone will be an ambiance um a um an ambience microphones +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: because you are not going to speak into into th into the remote control . +Industrial Designer: That's right . No it it could be little d yeah it could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So it could be s a few centimetres . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well one one other thing that that speech recognition could really blow out the price for is uh when you want to sell into other markets , though , +Industrial Designer: That's right . That's right . +User Interface: because , I'm not sure exactly where we're gonna sell this , but I presume it's not gonna just be English speaking countries . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So then you have to s you know , you have to train models for {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . Uh it's more like , means there are different speech technologies which are existing so D_T_W_ could be kind of which is the easiest . So you have to store some templates on the on the on the chip itself , and {vocalsound} it's just dynamic time warping where you try to find out what it is , instead of having a model which has to be trained and being a micro-controller . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay we shou we should discuss this la later after after after this this uh slide . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +Project Manager: This is a this is a this is a a very important uh issue in discussion . +Industrial Designer: So we can That's right . Yep . +Project Manager: Okay , next . Uh that finished ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: No ? +Industrial Designer: No no . Components . +Project Manager: Components ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , will you go to the next slide ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes sure . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah so this is the design which we are thinking so . We are having a power button and the switch {vocalsound} , which is not much , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and then we are having the {gap} which is to indicate whether the power is on or not . And then there are two kind of things which can be {disfmarker} so one is the button interface which has not been shown because because of lack of time {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we could not put that . So now where the A_S_R_ decoder is sitting , similarly there are different kind of interfaces which could be there . So there is A_S_R_ decoder which could be there , and then there could be another scroll button scroll scroller , and then there could be buttons , and all of them they will just do the decoding and put it in the math put it in the proper message format . And then there is there is the chip which is sitting , the green one , and it converts it into bit codes , and that bit codes are sent by the infrared device to the receiver . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So this is the easiest design the there could be . So th an A_S_R_ decoder we can have things in {gap} . To have different technologies . So this was the {disfmarker} my personal preference was that we can have A_S_R_ sitting there on the remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You know I guess you could actually train the remote control as you're using it by saying you know {vocalsound} turn volume up , and you press the uh press the button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: like uh s people teach sign language to kids f well , by speaking and doing {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as soon as you try to put the microchip kind of thing or something the price will go up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So these are the slight problems . +Project Manager: So your your opinion is that we should go for special condition technologies ? +Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} yeah the reason is that if we go into the market means {disfmarker} though I don't have much idea , but as he {disfmarker} the uh Marketing Expert presentation was {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure if you can sell a a speech recognition remote control for twenty five Euros everyo {vocalsound} everyone will s will buy it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Actually I'm not so sure +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So if we go with just the {disfmarker} +User Interface: because I'm the {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm sure . +User Interface: you know if I was using a remote control to , say , turn the volume up because I can't hear it very well , I don't really want to you know drown out what people are saying by talking you know when I'm when I'm {disfmarker} instead of pressing up on on a remote control . You know if there's some there's some dialogue all of a sudden that I can't hear , I'm trying to actually find out what's being said , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so maybe speech recognition gets in the way more than it helps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but you know the the average frequency of pushing buttons , it's about {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends if it's a remote control th +Marketing: it's about eighty eighty eighty pushes per hour , or something like that . +User Interface: Maybe if the remote control is something that y you don't actually have to pick up anymore , that would be a a useful feature of the speech recogntion . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: If you can leave it sitting on the table and you don't actually have to find it , then that could be {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay gentlemens , we have to take some deci decisions right now . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Um so if I if I kind of summarise everything we've de we we said . We are targeting T_V_ . {vocalsound} We need {vocalsound} we need to have um um remote control which is fanc fancy , which is uh which is easy to to hand not too small , not too big . Um we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: With a good shape for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: or good shape , yes . We should bring new technologies for young peoples , and uh as we have uh also requirements to to use uh to to push thr toward the internet . Maybe this is something we can stick to it . And um {vocalsound} also , a very interesting things I I I've seen on on on the {disfmarker} one of the comp o our competitor is this wheel that we can use to navigate . So so my feeling is that re regarding costs budget we have an an an target price , it's not possible to go s to go to L_C_D_ {vocalsound} and also to go to automatic speech recognition technologies . Uh first m m why not to go to L_C_D_ . Because um in fact as we are targeting uh T_V_ {disfmarker} in fact we can use T_V_ screen as a screen to feedback {disfmarker} to to give some feedback informations about what we could have . +User Interface: Well it depends though {disfmarker} well it depends . If we we don't {disfmarker} unless we have some input some video input to the T_V_ or we have control over the T_V_ then we can't actually display that . Like if we if we produce the T_V_s then then yeah we can put you know menus up up there , but otherwise we need to actually have some kind of {disfmarker} something sitting in between the video signal and the and the T_V_ to superimpose those those menus . So that's an extra +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right . Don don't you ha +User Interface: cost . +Project Manager: don't we have contacts with uh people on T_V_ or or {gap} well systems that exist that we can use ? +User Interface: Well this is this is another que we still haven't really defined the remote . Are we still {disfmarker} you say we're focusing on T_V_ , but is it still a kind of like a universal remote in that it's a replacement remote control , or is this something for our own line of of televisions ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause that really makes a big difference . 'Cause {vocalsound} even if we have contacts we can't really produce a remote control that can bring up menus on other other companies' T_V_s . It's just there are too many T_V_s out there . It's it's not really gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . That's good point . What's what cou what could be the cost of uh {disfmarker} well , could we fit the the targets uh in terms of cost uh if we go s to L_C_D_ on the remote control ? +User Interface: For twenty five Euro ? {vocalsound} I think it's impossible . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's not possible . It's impossible . +User Interface: But but I dunno , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I think um it would be good to know if there is any leverage in that {disfmarker} any leeway in that um that twenty five Euro because for twenty five Euro I think all we can really do is provide a very basic remote control , and that seems to be kind of against the philosophy of our company which is you know putting the fashion into electronics . So I would I would like to know if there's any chance of of increasing the uh +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: of increasing the unit price . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you mean yo you mean we we should target something maybe which is {disfmarker} which would be more expensive but re really fancy in terms to um {disfmarker} in terms to had {disfmarker} to have really an added value ? +Marketing: What would be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Okay , +User Interface: because {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: so regarding the automatic speech recognition , I think this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Wha but what would be {disfmarker} one question , what would be the goal of putting an L_C_D_ in a remote control ? +User Interface: Well th +Marketing: What what kind of information ? +User Interface: 'Cause you can have things like the programme name instead of the channel numbers , like an interactive programme guide . +Marketing: Yeah but mo most of the T_V_s nowadays show the show the +Project Manager: They have tele teletext . Well , because they have teletext on it . +Marketing: the n +Project Manager: Th th you have a teletext sin signal that you can that you can uh that you can get thr through the channel . +Marketing: Yeah but yeah most of the T_V_s have teletext nowadays . +Project Manager: They have t most of them have teletext , but we want to get rid {disfmarker} well one of our requirements is to uh to move to teletext to uh to the use of internet . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So to to uh +User Interface: You can get a lot more information on it . +Project Manager: to browse more easily the teletext . For instance through uh through your remote control . +Marketing: So what would what would appear in the in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: So you could have the name of the programme , you could have um the start time you know where it's up to . +Project Manager: The ti the start time , all the p all the programmes you could have uh {disfmarker} o +User Interface: You could have a l even a little image of you know the c you know the the m the main actors or something +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: so you can quickly just kind of {disfmarker} even without reading {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I don't know if this information is available from teletext , also . +User Interface: Well no , but there are the electronic programme guides out there . They may not have pictures , but maybe they do . +Industrial Designer: Are {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's {disfmarker} dependi it also depends on the country . +Project Manager: Well because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} for the same reason that we cannot uh {gap} informations on the T_V_ {gap} . We c we couldn't grab information information which is not there . +User Interface: No but I mean with the internet you have flexibility of where you get your information from . So it may be possible that there are people out there providing that . Uh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so that mean w w we need an in an extra internet connection to use the remote control , if you want to browse , in addition to the T_V_ , or uh or it should be a special T_V_ connected to {disfmarker} +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Well I I think if we're gonna {disfmarker} I think we would definitely need the internet connection because even with y I don't think you could even get teletext information from the T_V_ onto the remote control , especially if we don't control the T_V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno . We need to find that out . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} We need to close the meeting . Um {vocalsound} so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} just a small thing , +Project Manager: Very quickly . +Industrial Designer: what kind of market we are targeting ? Is it that we are targeting the replacement remote market , or what ? So the remote has gone bad and the person wants to buy a new remote or {disfmarker} because the cost of L_C_D_ thing could be as high as the T_V_ itself . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: That is very important . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , well people go to buy another remote control when they broke n broke their {gap} , +User Interface: If it's a really small T_V_ maybe {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Broke . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: and they want to go t for universal one , and they take the fanciest they can have . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: So this is {disfmarker} that we z that that we should target . So the com the um {vocalsound} the uh {vocalsound} the committment is the following , we don't go for speech recognition technology . The L_C_D_ is still on disc is still open to discussion . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It is up to you to go through this um {vocalsound} uh this way and to to report report me back next meeting . So +Marketing: I think that the speech recognition technology would be cheaper the {disfmarker} than the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: It's it's cheaper as compared to the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , but not sure . Maybe it's cheaper , but we have no {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because with the L_C_D_ you need more requirements . You need a internet connection . You need m more things . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But +User Interface: Well the thing is I think I think the type of peop +Marketing: for the speech recognition you you don't need anything . You just say channel fifty , and that's it . +User Interface: I think the type of people that are gonna want to buy a very stylish rem r remote control with lots of new technologies are the kinda people that are gonna have you know a wireless internet connection maybe , or a {disfmarker} you know . +Marketing: But then we should move to another target b because at twenty five Dollars , +Industrial Designer: Means th yeah twenty five Euros is {disfmarker} yeah , that's right . +User Interface: Well this is what we need to find out . +Marketing: it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Can we can we increase the the price point of this remote control ? 'Cause otherwise we need {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay this is {gap} {disfmarker} this is an open question for you . Yeah . This is uh up to you to tell us . But I'm definitely not keen on to to {disfmarker} +Marketing: To move to another target ? +Project Manager: no no no , I'm no I'm definit definitely not keen on going to speech recognition technologies . I'm not confident enough . I'm not sure that that we'll have a product really that work . I uh that work {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's kind of hard to guarantee that you're gonna {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's real yeah . How to guarantee such performances is really hard . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} the expert uh said ninety five percent {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well this is still {disfmarker} is is very bad . +User Interface: Ninety five percent is not good enough though . {gap} +Project Manager: So , this is the end of this discussion . Next meeting uh here are the task you have to work on . Um {vocalsound} so you have to work on the component uh concept . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh you have to work on user interface , and you have to go through a trend watching . Okay . So the question is still open about the L_C_D_ thing . Um uh we {disfmarker} I hope that next meeting we will uh we'll take some um decision that direction . Thanks . Bye . +User Interface: Yep . +","Meeting Summary: + +- The project team discussed the development of a new remote control, with the Project Manager highlighting the need to decide between a universal or specific design and mentioning new inputs on the topic. +- Team members reported on individual tasks: the Industrial Designer worked on the design, the UI specialist on the user interface, and the Marketing Expert on specifications. +- A discussion was held to name the project, resulting in 'Mando' being chosen. +- The Marketing Expert's presentation emphasized the need for a desirable design, considering ergonomics, the perception of the product's attractiveness, solutions for frequently losing remotes, and the incorporation of new technologies, especially for younger users. +- The UI presenter suggested fewer buttons, possibly implementing a scroll wheel for channel changes and potentially an LCD screen to show programs instead of channel numbers, although concerned about the cost relative to the budget. +- The Industrial Designer discussed the remote's user interface types, and proposed speech recognition technology, acknowledging the associated costs and suggesting the need for a microphone component. +- Price concerns were continually discussed, with emphasis on the project's financial limitations and whether providing a more expensive but feature-rich product would match the company philosophy of fashionable electronics. +- The Project Manager directed the decision to not pursue automatic speech recognition due to performance concerns and potential costs, with the possibility of including an LCD screen still open for further evaluation. + +Next steps involve further exploration of the LCD screen possibility and individual work on components, user interface, and trend watching for the next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Good afternoon again . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we should have our final meeting about the detail designed of {disfmarker} detail design of the product of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} So here is the agenda for today . Uh uh just going to go quickly through the minutes of the last last uh meeting then we have a p presentation of prototype of you two , sounds interesting . And we'll have um {vocalsound} presentation of evaluation crit criteria by ou our Marketing Experts . Then we'll have to go through finance evaluation of the of the cost of the thing and um hopefully uh we should fit the target o tw of twelve point five uh uh Euro . {vocalsound} Okay . So let's go . Uh if I go quickly through the minutes of the last meeting . {vocalsound} So we went through th uh w we took this following decisions . No L_C_D_ , no speech recognition technology , okay , we went through a b to a banana look and feel for the remote control . We went through the use of wheels and but buttons . {vocalsound} And also the use of a basis station for battery ch charging and uh also to um call the to call the mot mote remote control when it is lost . Okay . Um . Good . So guys let {gap} this uh wonderful thing . +Industrial Designer: Okay so we can go to the slides . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Sorry . Um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Number three . Oh number two sorry . +Project Manager: Which is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So final design . Final design . Okay so Michael you can go ahead . +User Interface: Yeah so uh following our decision to uh make a yellow {disfmarker} well to make a banana +Project Manager: Yeah can you show it to the the camera maybe . +User Interface: remote {disfmarker} okay so we actually have a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can pull it out first , maybe . +User Interface: We've {disfmarker} well first first of all we made a an attractive {vocalsound} base station uh with a banana leaf uh look and feel um and uh +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: bana sit {disfmarker} the banana sits in there k you know nicely weighted so that it's not gonna tip over and um this is the remote itself , it's kind of it's it's ergonomic , it fits in the hand uh rather well . We've got the two uh {vocalsound} uh scroll wheels here which you know one on the the left for the uh volume and the one on the right for for the channel and uh underneath {vocalsound} we have the uh the turbo button which is in like a nice uh trigger position for you know for pressing quite naturally . +Project Manager: What's the use uh of the t turbo button already ? +User Interface: This is when you when you uh are scrolling the uh {disfmarker} through the channels you can tell it to to skip th past channels that you {disfmarker} quickly rather th +Project Manager: Ah yeah yeah an then you stop when you stop it stops . +User Interface: Yeah . Well when you stop scrolling the wheel it stops . But normally with uh {disfmarker} it will just uh s stay on each station briefly so you can see the the picture . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: And we we do have one more functionality . If you take the banana as such and uh you press the turbo button , so it switch ons the switch ons the T_V_ . +User Interface: The T_V_ yeah . +Project Manager: Which one ? +User Interface: The s the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: The turbo button . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So rather than having uh an extra button for um for the on off switch you just use the turbo button . +Industrial Designer: Additional button . +Marketing: What this button for ? +User Interface: This is a teletext button . So once you press that then you get teletext +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and you can use the the channel selector scroll wheel as uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: To navigate it through th through teletext . +User Interface: To navigate yeah . +Marketing: But if you want to go to page seven hundred ? +Industrial Designer: That's right , that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} with the wheel it's easy . +Marketing: How man +User Interface: Well then you can you you have like a little uh number selection thing , you press the {gap} the the teletext button uh to move between uh the fields and then you can just scroll the number back and forth so you have s you go {disfmarker} you scroll to seven and then zero zero and then you can uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't understand it . Can you repeat it ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well you can you can press press the teletext button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then you then you can you can f +Industrial Designer: So then then both the scroll buttons they are for teletext browsing . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you can tele +Marketing: Ah okay okay . Okay . Okay okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , +User Interface: Mm uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: once you press the teletext button then the scroll buttons they are more for teletext , they are no more for channel or vol volume . +Marketing: Okay . I see . I see . Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the infrared uh port . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: Also the top of the banana . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So . And then we have +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: in the uh in the base station we have the the button at the front for uh for calling the uh the banana . +Project Manager: Calling . Excellent . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the the leaves plays the roles of of antennas ? +User Interface: Actually they do . +Project Manager: Oh . +User Interface: That's that's yeah that's uh that's form and function in the one in the one uh object . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So it always means , whatever the rays goes by they they get reflected and then you are having a better coverage . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's like antennas . +User Interface: Yeah . So . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: But yeah that's um that's just like {disfmarker} that's an attractive um base station . +Project Manager: Great . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So . +Project Manager: So , what else ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And for the power source we are having solar cells and rechargeable batteries and this and uh the basis station is going to have the input from the mm power line for for charging the batteries . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is it really weight ? Is it light or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is very light . +Project Manager: Yeah , they're light . +User Interface: It's it's uh it's about the weight of a banana . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: You know , to give you the correct look and feel . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Ok +Industrial Designer: And we have put these different colours so that people don't mistake them mistake it as a banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Otherwise it's you know a child comes and so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Yeah yeah yeah , I see . I under I understand . +User Interface: I think a child would try to eat it anyway , so maybe we should +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: consider that . {gap} maybe health and safety aspects . +Project Manager: Ah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Oh we didn't think of that yet . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So for the power source , apparently you still {disfmarker} you you want to use both solar cells and batteries . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh you mean {disfmarker} okay . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't really know if the solar cells are actually necessary any more if you have a recharging base station . +Project Manager: Yeah , where are going to {disfmarker} where are you are you going to place them ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . It'll It'll be always at top somewhere at there . +User Interface: If I was gonna place them I'd put them on the on the top here since that's like uh the black bit +Project Manager: You have enough surface ? You {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but yeah I don't I really don't think it's necessary to have the solar cells anymore . +Industrial Designer: Yeah because now we are having rechargeable batteries +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so that that is {gap} . +Project Manager: What will be the autonomy ? Roughly ? +User Interface: The what sorry ? +Project Manager: The autonomy . Autonomy . +User Interface: What do you mean ? +Project Manager: Uh I mean how long does i how how how long can it be held off a station ? +Marketing: How long the {disfmarker} how long the bit the batteries long . +User Interface: Ah . Ah . A long time . +Project Manager: Yeah . A long {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No no no , +Industrial Designer: Eight to ten eight to ten hours . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it can {disfmarker} it should be weeks . +Industrial Designer: N most {disfmarker} no most of the time it's not being used . +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but y people don't like to put it back in the base station all the time people leave wanna leave it on the couch so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So when when you are making it on {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's used only when you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm-hmm . No eight or eight or ten hours of working . +User Interface: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: If you are just leaving like that it'll be much longer . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . F weeks . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +Project Manager: Right . Next slide ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we are having the speakers regular chip for control . Pricing is {disfmarker} was a factor so that's why we have gone for a regular chip only not the advanced chip . And uh that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} Okay . Those really sounds very good . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing else to add ? +User Interface: It seems to be falling over . +Marketing: I l yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I like I like it . Maybe the the thing that convince me the less is the {vocalsound} the multifunctional buttons . Looks a bit {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You want to have more functional buttons ? +Marketing: Looks a bit puzzled uh I dunno how to say {vocalsound} that . +Industrial Designer: You are not convinced . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} the the b the buttons change h h their function depending if y it's teletext or not {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Not not many , we we want to keep it simple . So that this button fo is for teletext which is usually also the case , that usually there is a teletext button and once you press that , the channel buttons , they baco become the scrolling buttons . +Marketing: And the volume button will will become {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's up to you , means . +Project Manager: Well in fact b both will be {disfmarker} could be useful , navigating through teletext . +Industrial Designer: Now that {disfmarker} Means let's say this this can move the the larger digits and this can move the smaller digits . +User Interface: Or can move between positions in the in the number . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: And what about people who want to use digits ? Butto real buttons ? +Project Manager: Wow . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So there was there was a constraint that the surface area which we have on this banana on one side because of the shape . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we are targeting a segment which is which is just very trendy kind of thing , they they don't care about the buttons any more . And anyway {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Because have you thought about configuration and all this kind of uh stuff ? +User Interface: It's all automatic . +Marketing: It's all automatic . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay yeah it's fine . +Project Manager: Very good uh yeah {disfmarker} +Marketing: W we are living in a wonderful world . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} you th yeah . +User Interface: Uh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bananas everywhere . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Automatically configure {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So we have to go through now evaluations . +Industrial Designer: Evalua yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So your slides are ready ? +Marketing: S +Project Manager: Uh you're four I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So this is one , which one is this one ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . I {vocalsound} I const I constructed a a list of criteria based on the on the general user requirements . And each criteria is {vocalsound} will be evaluated it's uh logical criteria so we must users must say i if it's true or is {disfmarker} or if it's false in a in a scale ranging from zero to seven . +Industrial Designer: Why this strange factor of seven ? +Marketing: Because i I'm sorry . Sorry . +Industrial Designer: Usually I have seen that scales are from one to ten . +Marketing: Ah yeah . It's from {disfmarker} sorry , it's from one to seven . It's from from one to seven sorry . Because it should be an even it should be an even uh scale , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Num number {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and five is too short and nine is too long . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm a I I'm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay fine , got the idea . +Project Manager: So to have {disfmarker} in order to have enough granularity {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry ? +Project Manager: it's in order to have enough granularity in the evaluation . +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The variance is mi it's is minimal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , great . +Marketing: I'm um answering your question . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that's the criteria I I found more useful . I think I sh I {vocalsound} I could write the criteria in the on the whiteboard ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Sure . +Marketing: And we all four could range +Industrial Designer: Okay . Yeah yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: could evaluate the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: So you can say fancy , handy . Handy . +Marketing: Okay let's let's evaluate if it's fancy or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's fancy , according to me . +Marketing: Seven but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S seven . +Industrial Designer: Seven . Seven by me . +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: I would say seven . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: It's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: So you can add seven plus six plus seven plus {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , wait . +User Interface: Yeah uh five . +Project Manager: What do you say seven ? Five ? +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Five , maybe maybe maybe six it's it's I guess it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , six point five . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Handy ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Again I'll give seven . +Project Manager: Seven . +User Interface: I'd give it a six like I'd I think it's probably more handy than my current remote , 'cause of the scroll wheels +Marketing: Six . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: but maybe loses the point for not having you know the extra buttons when you reall if you do need them for some reason but you know you can always use your other remote . +Project Manager: So seven , seven , +Industrial Designer: Seven for me . +Project Manager: six , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Six . +Project Manager: six point five . Functional . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'll give five . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Well it depends when you say functional , do you mean it does what we want it to do , or d does what it does , you know , can it make you coffee ? +Marketing: Everything ar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh for a remote control , does he have all the {gap} +User Interface: You know . +Marketing: Mm everything {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: you could expect . +Marketing: It's compared to the all +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: remote controls . +User Interface: That's before {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's right . The standards . What is available in the market off the shelf . +User Interface: Yeah . I have to say four . +Marketing: Actually I don't know what are the r the real specification of a of a universal remote contro +User Interface: Well it's not a universal remote . Remember we're focus we're supposed to focus just on T_V_s . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah it's not an univer but it's for all kind of T_V_s ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Well all T_V_s but only T_ {disfmarker} only T_V_s I guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's universal but for T_V_s . {vocalsound} So s uh four ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: Five ? +User Interface: Four . +Project Manager: Four . +Marketing: Four . Four . +Industrial Designer: So four point two ? +User Interface: Just four . +Project Manager: Four . +Industrial Designer: {gap} four . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Obviously there are some outliers so {disfmarker} +Marketing: So four ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay cool ? Cool device . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There I'll give it seven . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It means cool features , like new features actually . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: For a T_V_ the most important feature which I felt was the locator which is a cool feature . And then the scroll buttons are again cool features . We don't have L_C_D_ for it but that we decided we don't want to have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Seven . +Marketing: I would say five . +User Interface: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Six . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Seven . +Project Manager: Plus six , I say {disfmarker} I said seven . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So it's six . +User Interface: S yeah . +Marketing: You said seven ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'Cause it's five five seven seven so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Uh , okay , definitely easy to use . +Industrial Designer: Definitely seven . +User Interface: Seven . +Project Manager: Seven . Seven . And you ? Outl you are not lik outlier . +Marketing: Five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Seven {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Sorry , I have them {disfmarker} +User Interface: Alright , now here's the sixty million Dollar question , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: well , twenty five twenty five Euro question . +Project Manager: Of course I'll buy the {gap} banana . {gap} +User Interface: What do you what do you guys reckon ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of cour Of course the most difficult question for the end . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I'll say five . +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . {vocalsound} Cheap . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I find it quite cheap {vocalsound} actually . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . If i i it depends , if you live in in Switzerland or you live in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , so the target price is for all Europe , or only for rich countries ? {vocalsound} It's more targeting U_K_ or {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . Wha the initial specifications were for the whole all Europe or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So this is selling costs , not production costs . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah this is the the initial specifications . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah sure . Um {disfmarker} Five . +Marketing: I would say six . It's quite cheap actually . +User Interface: I'd say two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Aw , should be nice in your {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't want a banana on my {vocalsound} living room table , a banana remote . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but it's really handy actually if you see . +User Interface: It is handy , it's handy , but it it's terrible . +Industrial Designer: It's it's so handy . And then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's kitsch . +Industrial Designer: Anyb anybody who comes here {vocalsound} {disfmarker} anybody who comes to your home he'll at least ask once what is this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah , but it's not a positive thing . +Industrial Designer: It's a very positive thing if you see like that {vocalsound} . +User Interface: Well , you know , it's it's handy , it's ergonomic , but it's a banana . +Project Manager: Well , don't forget well , don't for don't forget who we're targeting also who are f f who are wh +Industrial Designer: Youngsters . +Project Manager: yeah , youngst youngst +User Interface: Yeah but it says I , I would buy this , so . +Marketing: Actually maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} if you would be young . +Marketing: Yeah {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Not telling that you are young . Li li like a teenager for instance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , it's I . I would buy {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay you're you're crazy teenager and you like fun things . +Industrial Designer: You want to flaunt . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} with your girlfriend or something . +Project Manager: Yeah , you want to show the beautiful banana you have . {gap} +User Interface: S s +Industrial Designer: Or might be it does some other kind of thing but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Still I I'd say two . I don't think I {disfmarker} at any stage in my life I would want a banana remote control , really . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah , crazy . +Project Manager: Okay so you s you give {disfmarker} +User Interface: I can say , maybe there is a market for it , I dunno . +Project Manager: oh yeah yeah I know I know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So you say two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I say five . +Project Manager: F I d I say five . You say ? +Marketing: I change the question . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's the new question ? +Industrial Designer: And you have saved it ? +Marketing: So yeah upload the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You'll have to reload . +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , so , it depends if uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah it's two different situations . If you really need an universal remote control or if you would change your remote control for a n for a new one . +Project Manager: Yeah that's two different question . +User Interface: If I had t if I had to spend twenty five Euro , if that was like my limit , maybe I would buy it . Because the other twenty five Euro remote controls are probably gonna look +Project Manager: Ugly . +User Interface: worse than a banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They're not going to be as {disfmarker} And they they might not be a as easy as this {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it {disfmarker} yeah this is gonna f you know handy to use . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So ? What now ? What range ? +Project Manager: I stick to five . +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: Although it still has it still has the word of course at the beginning {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I go slightly up . Six . +Marketing: Six . +User Interface: so I dunno . Um . +Project Manager: W we have six , five {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd give it I'd give it a +Project Manager: Three {vocalsound} +User Interface: I give it a four now . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Six ? Six ? +Project Manager: So we are six , five , four {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six , five , four . +Marketing: Six , so it's uh five point five , or less . +Project Manager: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So and last question , will I change my rem change my remote control from Mando banana . Um , zero . No uh we can't . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Actually yeah , I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well if {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No uh let's say I'll put two . +User Interface: I'd say three , I mean my remote control is kinda {disfmarker} at home is pretty terrible . If it was {disfmarker} change my remote control of my D_V_D_ player for a Mando banana then I would be more inclined to +Project Manager: It's for the T_V_ . +User Interface: but uh {disfmarker} 'cause it's really bad but uh {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'd say a three . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I'll still give it five . Yeah . +Marketing: Five ? +Project Manager: Two three five two three fi and two . +Marketing: {gap} You are romantic , really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's somewhere three point five I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say two . +Project Manager: So it's r Yeah , three point five . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Who is the outlier ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh wh {vocalsound} you said five ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no you say five , he is the outlier . +Industrial Designer: No I said five . +Project Manager: Okay just just do a sum . +Marketing: I don't know if {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's not very promising but you know we're not young trendsetters . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No because there are more {disfmarker} yeah , we shouldn't sum like that . +Project Manager: Well maybe we should we should uh have a look globally glob +Marketing: Because the the last two questions is much more important than the rest actually . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Otherwise we wouldn't {disfmarker} we will not sell . +User Interface: Is there some some formula you're using that says you have to sum them up ? +Marketing: Uh no I didn't {gap} anything . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well just leave it at that then . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Project Manager: So maybe maybe w we can we should stick to general feeling . We can had uh have a {disfmarker} out of these numbers , which which is that well we should go for it . +Marketing: Yeah , the uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Problem with connectors ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to sum +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's it's funny . {vocalsound} +Marketing: o I think it's not {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think it it kind of you just lose information if you sum it , so . +Project Manager: Okay . So let's move uh let's move on . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , {gap} now now we have to mm to estimate {vocalsound} uh the cost okay . So I prepare an Excel sh uh an Excel sheet . Um well we are going to calculate the production costs . We should we should be below twelve point five . So I already uh put some pu some numbers here , okay . We are going to go through {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so this is the number the mm number of components we need for this thing . So it appears that there were things that we didn't thought about . Uh and also things that I uh I d I forget to uh to put like solar cells . +User Interface: Well we decided against the solar cells so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Oh yeah finally we say no . +Industrial Designer: Solar cells , yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah , we said no to that . +Project Manager: Okay so let's let's go let's go let go through all the lines . So hand dynamo . This something we didn't thought about . But {disfmarker} +User Interface: You mean , charging it by shaking the banana . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think rechargeable batteries will take care of the power thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so we we stick to battery , one . +Industrial Designer: To bring the cost {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: No kinetic also . I don't I don't see the difference between kinetic and dynamo . +User Interface: Well maybe dynamo is like you have to actually {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah you have to {disfmarker} ah okay I see so kinetic is really uh shaking the banana . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: S +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Crazy . Okay . So those banana is falling . Let's go ahead . So we we st only have one for battery . Uh then for electronics um so I didn't put anything for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: So we have the regular chip on the print , which is one . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's it . +Project Manager: Okay . No {disfmarker} so we hin +Industrial Designer: And we have sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah so one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . {gap} the cost of that is very high . +Project Manager: Ooh ye ye ye the cost is increasing . So we are {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well actually that that {disfmarker} no that sample speaker is not {disfmarker} we we're not using that , we're just using the the very beep {disfmarker} simple beep , +Project Manager: The beep . +User Interface: that s that sample thing is like the voice recording and everything . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: That's what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay so I'll remove it . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: S +User Interface: I say that {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So don't we need a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And we have sev +Project Manager: Oh there is no listing for r radio frequency thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we we'll put some extras , if there is something . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . We'll see later . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so in {disfmarker} for the case um {vocalsound} I put single curved . +Industrial Designer: Okay . To reduce the cost , it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , wait a second , +Project Manager: Because we have two things . +User Interface: no , it's it's double curved , it's got a c , it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh it's got all the directions +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: so don't worry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well d yeah it's monotonic {vocalsound} but +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's got a {gap} direction . {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's got {disfmarker} but if you hold it if you hold it that way that's two curved , one on this side , one on that side , but they're opposite sides . +Project Manager: Well . What a {disfmarker} what i if I put one here . +User Interface: This is actually {disfmarker} I mean this probably +Marketing: Actually what's the differen +User Interface: this probably actually costs more than three +Project Manager: Yeah so let's put one here in the {gap} then instead of single +User Interface: if you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: oka all right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So we stick to plastic , it cost nothing . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That's right . +User Interface: Well {gap} {disfmarker} no didn't we say we wanted to do a rubber {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , it's too {disfmarker} no . +User Interface: {gap} if you drop it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive . +Project Manager: It's too expensive . We're already at eleven . +User Interface: Well when {disfmarker} okay . Well we we'll come back we'll come back and see if we can fit it in . +Project Manager: Okay so I put rubber one . Okay so special colour , yellow . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh for the interface we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We don't have any push buttons . +User Interface: No , we have two push buttons . +Project Manager: We have three . +Industrial Designer: No that is a scroll wheel itself , it'll be put in that . +User Interface: Huh . +Project Manager: No no . We have two scroll , and we have three push buttons . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay , okay . +User Interface: Uh . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay it's gonna have to be plastic . +Marketing: Actually whe whe when you wrote regular chip you should put two , because there is another chip here . +Project Manager: No it's {gap} no chip . This is just radio frequency {gap} . Th This is no chip . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but +Industrial Designer: No . There's no chip there . +Marketing: you need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It just emits the signal . +Project Manager: It's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the receiver accepts it and that's it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Fo i it does nothing actually ? +Project Manager: No . Just {disfmarker} only {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Just se sends the signal , that's it . +User Interface: It's a recharger thing and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay w we didn't think a thought about uh integrated scroll wheel push buttons . +User Interface: Well I actually did um think about it myself {vocalsound} but I thought you know {disfmarker} because you could potentially you know you could be pushing it down as you scroll it for a {disfmarker} instead of a turbo button +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: but you know the turbo button does add that extra class . +Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: You know . So I mean if we're if we're over budget then maybe we could we could rethink that . +Project Manager: Okay . So no L_C_D_ , so for {disfmarker} we have no button supplements , right ? +Industrial Designer: Yep . No . +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} well in fact could we could not we consider this button as a button supplement because {disfmarker} oh no , these are these are for colours , co and special forms , special colours and special materials . +User Interface: Yeah . No we're not {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: we don't need anything special for the buttons . +Project Manager: Okay so we are over budget . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So first thing which we should take care of is , +User Interface: Make it plastic instead of rubber . +Industrial Designer: instead of rubber , let it be plastic . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then we're basically o on budget except for you know ten cents . +Industrial Designer: And uh that much money will be required for the base station , which is not there . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So mayb in fact n we have to put two here +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: because it cost nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well pl the base station is made out of m many units of {vocalsound} plastic . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So might be ninety centimes for the the remaining things which {disfmarker} the cord and everything which'll go {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Exactly exactly so we have margin for that stuff . +User Interface: Does that include charging circuitry and everything ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe . Okay good . Wha +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: So what do we do with the extra profits ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um we'll invest in R_ and D_ . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The next fruit . +Project Manager: Yeah . So well we're under the the the cost . So we can go to {disfmarker} through to project evaluation . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay so now we have a product which nobody would would buy . Would {disfmarker} yeah , would buy . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +User Interface: No we have a product which none of us would buy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah because th th the evaluation project {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is different . Which is different . None of us will buy it . +User Interface: No it's people in in in Milan and uh in Paris that are gonna buy it . +Marketing: Ah would buy , yeah . +User Interface: We're n +Marketing: Massively , yeah . +User Interface: yeah . We're not in Milan or Paris . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Uh you have been in Milan a couple of times , so . +Project Manager: This is a battery . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Actually there were a lot of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And you said the lowest {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is what we {disfmarker} which you can mm {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S Detachable battery . +Project Manager: It did {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: That's 'cause I'm sick of Milan . +Marketing: Yeah , for the batteries {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Extra battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay so um {vocalsound} project process . +Project Manager: Exac {vocalsound} Well in fact I I did not know {vocalsound} I didn't know really what to say here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If uh if you have any ideas of what we can we can say . So I don't I don't I don't understand what what they mean by satisfaction um and for and for example . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Should it be more like um like a status of of the {disfmarker} these meetings in fact . +User Interface: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah well in fact uh we we use a little bit the white board and the digital pen , not that much . +User Interface: I dunno I think we had a fair bit of creativity . +Project Manager: Oh yeah it's really creative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And uh but I think one thing we m missed out of this whole process was a um {vocalsound} like a focus group with the actual people we're targeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We needed some of these kind of young trendsetters to come in and play with the banana and you know see if they +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They like that . +User Interface: see if they like it . +Project Manager: Yeah maybe we should go through , yeah an uh evaluation . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Because yeah the evaluation for us is is kind of pointless . +Industrial Designer: Biased . +Project Manager: So maybe you should we should do a kinda evaluation {vocalsound} in the streets like asking to young peoples well , do you like to have a banana as a remote control . +User Interface: Yeah . Because it it would also be interesting to uh you to know find out if we have a market in really young children as well , to see you know how to how to market this thing . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'Cause you know if {disfmarker} well I mean maybe you don't wanna give all your kids their own remote because they'll be changing the channel all the time but you know maybe in some households where there is you know a T_V_ for each kid , then you know , banana remote control could be fun for them as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Might have to draw a face on it . So but I think that's something we need to to work on next time is really finding out more about the target market . +Project Manager: Yep . Any any new ideas we could uh we could investigate next time ? Dunno , oranges ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . The cost of the thing can be made more than might be . Because I think it's just the optimal , what we have done for the cost which we are looking forward to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . I think there are ways we could maybe simplify the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Interface . +User Interface: Well just the the the circuit board that we're using inside , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I'm not sure really how complicated our um +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: our needs are . I mean all we have is two push buttons and two scrollers , do we really need an integrated circuit to +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: you know to process that . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So more general remote control instead of just focusing on uh on T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: That's right . +Marketing: The complexity shouldn't be much higher . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: For {disfmarker} you said if it good for D_V_D_ then I would {disfmarker} +User Interface: And also fo you know for mood lighting and and stuff , that would be rather cool . I think that's actually something that should be in version two , is the ability to you know to control things other than the T_V_ +Industrial Designer: Integrate . +User Interface: and not just electronic equipment but you know the whole environment of the room . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Very good . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} What else ? +Project Manager: Well done . I think we we can go +Industrial Designer: Okay . Home ? +Project Manager: home . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Happily satisfied . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe maybe we can hassle the the production department to to make a a real prototype that we can use at home to to evaluate . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} Okay so thanks very much . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Bye . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thank you . +Marketing: Bye . +","During a project meeting held to finalize the design details of a remote control product, various team members from different departments gathered to discuss and evaluate the project status and elements. The Project Manager initiated the meeting with a customary agenda that involved a quick recap of the previous meeting's minutes and the set decisions, which included no LCD or speech recognition, a ""banana look and feel,"" the use of scroll wheels and buttons, and a base station for battery charging and locating the lost remote. + +The Industrial Designer and User Interface addressed the visual and ergonomic aspects of the prototype, including its distinctive banana shape and corresponding base station with a banana leaf design. The remote had an ergonomic feel and featured dual scroll wheels for volume and channel control and a turbo button, designed to allow rapid scrolling through channels. The button just beneath served as a power toggle, and the remote control had additional functions, such as the teletext button that allowed navigation through teletext pages. + +Marketing raised concerns about the remote's button functionality and clarity of operation regarding entering specific teletext pages. The team discussed the feasibility of the user input modes and the design's functionality versus its appeal. Another feature highlighted was the infrared port at the top of the banana-shaped remote. + +Regarding materials, the discussion touched upon the option between rubber and plastic for the remote's construction, favoring plastic to stay within budget constraints. The base station's role as a charging unit and the ergonomics of the remote were discussed, as well as its power source which included solar cells and rechargeable batteries. + +The Project Manager turned the discussion towards cost evaluation, emphasizing the need to meet the target selling price of 12.5 Euros. The team reviewed the Excel sheet listing the potential costs associated with different components, aiming to remain below the budget ceiling. + +The marketing representative's use of a seven-point scale for evaluating customer criteria sparked discussion on why such a scale was chosen. The evaluation criteria were meant to assess aspects such as the product's appeal (fancy), practicality (handy), functionality, cool features, ease of use, and customer willingness to buy. + +While the meeting underscored the product's innovative design, the team also acknowledged their own potential biases and the need for feedback from the targeted young and trendy demographic. The team considered additional features for a second version of the product, including broader control capabilities and integration with a room's entire environment, not just the TV. + +The meeting closed with the project appearing to be in a favorable position regarding the budget. Still, there was acknowledgment that further market research and a focus group evaluation would be needed to ensure the product truly resonated with its intended audience. The Project Manager concluded the session by suggesting to solicit the production department for a working prototype, allowing team members to trial the product at home. The anticipation was to return home content with the progress, yet aware that further development and evaluation were imminent." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 23rd meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. A reminder to all members that in order to avoid issues with sound, members participating in person should not also be connected to the video conference. For those of you who are joining via video conference, I will remind you that when speaking you should be on the same channel as the language you are speaking, and please use your headsets. As usual, please direct your remarks through the chair. As I understand, there are no ministerial announcements today. We will now proceed to presenting petitions. I remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of this special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, I ask that they please come and drop their signed certificates off at the table once the petition is presented. I would ask members to be very brief and concise, and to summarize the exact content of the petition. We will continue. The first person presenting a petition today is Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I present two petitions this morning. The residents of SaanichGulf Islands are calling on the government to simplify the process for protection of marine protected areas. It's a multi-layered communication process. The marine protected area first proposed in the 1970s for the southern Strait of Georgia, now called the Salish Sea, has been awaiting designation for so long that it was originally endorsed by Jacques Cousteau. That gives us a sense for why petitioners are calling for a simplified and more rapid process. The second petition is from petitioners who are very concerned about our obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and our commitments under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action. They specifically reference the RCMP violation of UNDRIP in its actions on Wet'suwet'en territory and ask the government to commit to actually living the principles embodied in UNDRIP. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Hardie. +Mr. Ken Hardie (FleetwoodPort Kells, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am presenting a petition on behalf of the one in a million Canadians who suffer severe and adverse effects from vaccinations. GuillainBarre syndrome is very debilitating, and this petition seeks the setting up of a no-fault accident or compensation system to help offset the loss of work, the loss of wages and the loss of quality of life that many of these people suffer. I'm pleased to present this petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. +The Chair: Mr.Trudel, you have the floor. +Mr. Denis Trudel (LongueuilSaint-Hubert, BQ): Mr.Chair, culture is the soul of a people. Over the past 20years or so, culture, especially music, has never been as accessible as it is now. Paradoxically, creators' incomes have never been so low. The advent of digital technology has completely overturned the system for distributing the wealth generated by creators for the benefit of various Web stakeholders, many of whom are billionaires. This petition addresses these problems and proposes realistic solutions. The first is to set a minimum royalty model for streaming platforms for artists. The second is to update the existing private copying system. The third is for Internet and cell phone providers who sell their services as direct access to culture to share their profits with artists. The fourth is that the GAFAMs have to pay taxes on their services. Six thousand people have already signed the first version of this petition, launched last month by musician JordanOfficer and supported by singer BarbaraSecours. As an artist, I am proud to present this petition today because the issues it raises are fundamental to the survival of Quebec culture. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have four petitions to present today. I will be as brief as you suggested, although I will observe that if some members are going on longer during petitions than they normally do, it might be because the government has taken away so many of the tools that opposition members normally have for raising important issues in the House. The first petition deals with the issue of euthanasia and long-term care. The petitioners are concerned that instead of focusing on improving medically assisted life, something that we know is a major issue in light of recent revelations, the government has put so much time and legislative energy into efforts to continually further expand euthanasia in Canada and remove vital safeguards. The second petition speaks to the ongoing conversations happening in Canada around systemic discrimination and systemic racism. I think we do need to reflect on systemic discrimination. This petition deals specifically with Bill 21 in Quebec and raises concerns. The reality of the way that bill applies is that people from certain backgrounds who wish to practise their faith are not able to fully participate in Canadian society if they are employed in the public service. This petition asks the government to provide a response on that issue, something it hasn't done in response to past petitions on this. The third petition deals with the issue of firearms. The petitioners want to see the government take a strong response in dealing with illegal guns and gun smuggling. The petition notes that the vast majority of firearms-related crimes in Canada involves illegal guns. At the same time, the petitioners are concerned that the government has the wrong focusthat is, harassing law-abiding firearms ownerswithout putting in place substantial measures to deal with illegal guns. The petitioners want to see the reversal of the order in council from May 1 and strong measures to deal with illegal firearms. The fourth and final petition deals with Bill S-204, a bill that would make it a criminal offence for a Canadian to go abroad and receive an organ from a person who has not consented to giving that organ. It would also create a mechanism by which someone could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they were involved in organ harvesting and trafficking. The petitioners are supportive of Bill S-204 and of similar bills in previous parliaments and would like to see us pass that bill as soon as possible. +The Chair: Presenting petitions, Mr. Lamoureux. +Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is with pleasure that I table another petition by the residents of Winnipeg North. These residents have signed a petition asking the Government of Canada, and in fact all members of Parliament, to put a high priority on assisting our poorest seniors. The increases to the GIS by $200, and $300 to the OAS, have been well received. They just want to highlight how important it is to support our seniors, in particular the poorest of our seniors. +The Chair: For members present in the Chamber, a reminder that they are asked to bring their petitions to the table. We'll now proceed to statements by members. We'll go to Ms. Atwin for the first one. +Mrs. Jenica Atwin (Fredericton, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day of acknowledgement and a day of celebration of the beautiful diversity of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. I wish to recognize the leadership of Chief Shelley Sabattis of the Welamukotuk First Nation in Oromocto, New Brunswick. Each year she and her council, volunteers and staff go above and beyond to show appreciation for their members and to demonstrate pride and culture while promoting well-being. We gather in an event where all are welcome to take part, from traditional hand drum-making with elders to moose meat and tacos. This year we will celebrate a bit differently, but we will still stay connected, virtually and in spirit, to the vast network of indigenous peoples and allies. We need each other now more than ever. May we come together in song and stories and in solidarity. We will remember those who are not among us. I hope all of Canada will join us in observing National Indigenous Peoples Day. Mawiyapasuwok: let us come together. Nit liech. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Beech. +Mr. Terry Beech (Burnaby NorthSeymour, Lib.): Mr. Chair, COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge for all communities across Canada, but as we do our part to flatten the curve, I often think about those who suit up every morning to serve on the front lines of our health care system. My mother is a home care worker and my sister is a nurse. Even before the crisis, they would often share the hardships they faced on a day-to-day basis. It's a tough job at the best of times. In a pandemic, these jobs are life-threatening. I think we can all agree that these workers deserve more than our good wishes. They deserve a raise. That is why we have worked with the provinces to implement pandemic pay. In British Columbia more than 250,000 front-line workers are eligible for this program. That works out to a pay increase of about $4 an hour. It's a small show of our appreciation for their difficult and priceless contribution to our country. Share this message and say thanks to our front-line workers, participate in the 7 p.m. cheer, and order a pizza for your local nurses. It's the least we can do. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Shipley. +Mr. Doug Shipley (BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been living in difficult times. Slowly, we are getting back to some resemblance of normalcy, although unfortunately not soon enough for some of our great summer festivals. It will not be normal in BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte this summer without the iconic Boots and Hearts weekend music festival, Kempenfest, Oro World's Fair, the Elmvale Fall Fair, or the Midhurst Autumnfest. Canada Day celebrations have been cancelled, but we can still celebrate the great nation we call home. Because of the lack of Canada Day celebrations, I've created Happy Canada Day lawn signs that are available through my constituency office, free to all residents of BarrieSpringwaterOro-Medonte. I'm also hosting a drive-through party on Canada Day at the Royal Canadian Legion on St. Vincent Street in Barrie. All are welcome to attend. There will be cupcakes for all. Please drop by the legion between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and we can celebrate Canada Day safely together. Thank you and have a great summer. +The Chair: Now we'll go on to Ms. Young. +Ms. Kate Young (London West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Among the countless ordinary Canadians who have stepped up to do extraordinary work during COVID-19, I wish to draw attention to our teachers. Teachers have always had a special place in my heart. My father was a teacher, and my daughter-in-law, Kelly Webb, is one now. I'm certain that my colleagues can all easily remember a teacher in their past who played an important role in helping them achieve their potential. I remember my grade 12 English teacher, Vince Weaver, at Westminster Secondary School in London. He made me realize that I could do so much more than I believed. Across the country, as schools closed, teachers did not stop their work. Some took their classes online. Others found innovative ways to continue engaging with their students. This is not the school year anyone imagined, and what the next one will look like is unclear, but our teachers in London West and across Canada have shown that no matter what, they will be there to help our next generation shine. +The Chair: Before proceeding to the next presenter, I just want to remind the honourable members in the chamber that I realize that the six-foot limit makes it harder to whisper to each other, but we're hearing a bit of rumble, so I just want you to try to whisper at your best. Mr.Bergeron, you have the floor. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron (Montarville, BQ): Mr.Chair, on July1st, we will be celebrating one of the most important events for the riding of Montarville: the 175thanniversary of the city of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. The theme Proud of our traditions will be the focus of this celebration for the people of Montarville. This is a good illustration of the rich history of this municipality nestled in the western foothills of Mont-Saint-Bruno. The seigneury of Montarville was granted in1710 to the illustrious former governor of Trois-Rivires, PierreBoucher. The parish of Saint-Bruno, which took root there and in which a village grew, became a municipal corporation in1845. To this day, it is one of the most prosperous localities, with a strong sense of belonging, a very dynamic community life and jealously preserved natural environments. A whole program had been drawn up for the celebration, but the current health crisis has taken over some of the planned activities, which has in no way diminished the pride and festive spirit of the people of Montarville. On July1st, we will have a good reason to be proud, in spite of everything. Happy 175thanniversary to Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Mr. Maloney. +Mr. James Maloney (EtobicokeLakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me to take a moment to highlight an initiative that I started early on during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Heroes of EtobicokeLakeshore is an opportunity for citizens in my riding to recognize the contributions of those in their community who make life a bit easier. I'm pleased with the number of nominations I received that honour everyone from front-line workers to businesses that are innovating in these difficult times to volunteers who are finding new ways to reach out. I think of Daniel Lauzon who set up Food for Now, a mobile service that helps take care of the homeless. I think of Toni Varone, who helped his business clients by forgiving their rents, or young Lucas, who wanted to thank his teachers. I've been moved and inspired by the countless stories of generosity, strength, resiliency, kindness, incredible character and creativity. I want to thank all the heroes, as well as the people who nominated them. Keep them coming. Stay safe, everyone, and I wish you happy Canada Day early. +The Chair: We'll now move on to Ms. Wong. +Hon. Alice Wong (Richmond Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, it gives me great pleasure to thank a local Richmond-based charity, the Social Diversity for Children Foundation, SDC, for its hard work both in raising funds for the purchase of personal protective equipment and in distributing this PPE to long-term care facilities and individual seniors' homes in the lower mainland of B.C. The COVID-19 relief fund is supported by a dozen other non-profits, businesses and community groups. Over the past two months, SDC has been to 32 seniors homes and senior-related organizations. In total, it has delivered masks to 7,000 care workers, staff and seniors. It is amazing to have witnessed how the younger generation have gotten involved in caring for the elderly at this very challenging time. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Damoff. +Ms. Pam Damoff (Oakville NorthBurlington, Lib.): Mr. Chair, June is ALS Awareness Month, and 79 years after Lou Gehrig died from ALS little has changed. There's still no cure, and those with ALS typically die within five years of diagnosis. On June 21, Canadians will gather virtually to raise funds for ALS Canada in the Walk to End ALS. In Halton, normally we meet each year at Bronte Creek Provincial Park on the May long weekend to raise funds for ALS Canada. This year I will virtually join Tim's Titans, a team formed to honour Tim Robertson, my friend who died in 2016 after living with ALS for 13 years. I have a T-shirt, with a picture of Lou Gehrig, that says, Great Player...Lousy Disease and Tim's Titans...Great Team! ALS...Still a Lousy Disease. Join me on June 21 for the virtual Walk to End ALS to raise funds to support patients and their families and for ALS research. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Khera. +Ms. Kamal Khera (Brampton West, Lib.): Mr. Chair, on Saturday our community stood and marched in solidarity against anti-black racism. The peaceful protests that we're seeing across the country and around the world were not triggered by an isolated incident. They are fuelled by decades of ineffective action against something that is so insidious and deeply entrenched in our history, systems and institutions. For us, that is the racial inequality faced by Canada's indigenous and black communities. Anti-black racism is real. It exists right here in Canada, in our communities, including in Brampton. It exists when racialized students at McCrimmon Middle School are called McCriminals. It exists when a shocking report exposes the Peel District School Board's failure to work fairly with the black community. It exists when D'Andre Campbell, who was fighting mental illness, loses his life at the hands of the police. It is clear that we need reform. We need to dismantle the systems that allow this privilege and oppression to take form, and address the unconscious bias plaguing our institutions. We'll need to be bold, and the time to do that is now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Lloyd. +Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon RiverParkland, CPC): Mr. Chair, a few months ago I rose in the House on the eve of our closure due to COVID-19. I told Canadians we must not give in to fear, that we would carry on and get through this crisis stronger than ever. Today, in this city and across Canada, Canadians are enjoying a beer on their favourite patios. Businesses are reopening, jobs are returning and our lives are starting to feel a bit normal again. Canadians pulled together, and because of that we did not see the devastating death toll that many had predicted. Life may be returning to normal, but unfortunately, here in this chamber of democracy, the people's voices continue to be shut down. There is no good reason for Parliament to be suspended today. In the words of my grandfather, it's time for the Liberals to get with the program and bring back the House. +The Chair: We will now proceed with Ms. Jones. +Ms. Yvonne Jones (Labrador, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from in-person learning to virtual classrooms, COVID-19 has drastically changed the lives of students across the country, especially those in post-secondary education who are worried about covering costs like tuition or rent this coming fall. Our government recognized that students should not have to worry or put their futures on pause during this difficult time. That's why last month the federal government introduced the Canada emergency student benefit. If you're a high school student headed to a post-secondary school, or a current post-secondary student or a recent graduate, you can receive the Canada emergency student benefit every four weeks and have the financial support that you need to save for school. We also doubled Canada student grants and loans, enhanced the student loan program, increased supports for indigenous post-secondary education and introduced the Canada student service grant for those who wish to pursue it. Our government is here to help all students get the support they need to pursue their future goals successfully. I wish them all the very best, and I wish all of you, my colleagues and those across Canada, a very happy National Indigenous Peoples Day, which is coming up on June 21. +The Chair: I want to remind the honourable members to keep to their 60 seconds so that we don't go over the time. I'm sure it would be a lot easier for everyone if we stuck to that limit. We will now go to Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison (Parry SoundMuskoka, CPC): Mr. Chair, I rise today to once again implore the government to do something about the horrible lack of access to and crazy cost of rural Internet service. Right now, too many areas of my riding have no access to rural Internet service at all, and those who can get service are paying through the nose. I've even heard constituents say that during this pandemic, they are having to choose between feeding their kids and educating them. Over the last few weeks, Conservatives have been consulting with rural Canadians, and the results are in. My constituents are tired of fancy political promises. They are frustrated beyond belief by the new challenges created by this pandemic. They are absolutely fed up with having their pleas ignored. All we want is affordable and reliable Internet service. Is that too much to ask of the government? +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. MacGregor. +Mr. Alistair MacGregor (CowichanMalahatLangford, NDP): Mr. Chair, these last few months have been incredibly challenging for the residents of CowichanMalahatLangford, who have been forced to deal with the economic and social consequences of COVID-19. The pandemic has laid bare the inadequacies of our social safety net, the weakness in our supply chains and the dependence of our society on essential workers, who often work long hours for low wages, putting themselves and their families at risk. We've also been forced to confront the systemic inequality, poverty and racism that continue to hold so many people back from achieving their full potential. I will not dishonour the sacrifice that so many have made during this time by allowing us to go back to the status quo that got us here in the first place. I will not apologize for demanding that the most vulnerable in our society get the supports and opportunities they need to live with dignity, and I will not relent from pushing my political colleagues to summon the courage necessary to implement policies that lead to environmental, economic and social justice. +The Chair: I now give the floor to Mr.Blaney. +Hon. Steven Blaney (BellechasseLes EtcheminsLvis, CPC): Mr.Chair, here is a beautiful story, the story of a woman from Bellechasse, a courageous young mother from Saint-Malachie, Marie-ChristineGoupil. With three children, including the eldest daughter with a disability, and realizing that her daughter with a disability had special clothing needs, she decided to go into business to meet the needs of other parents who, like her, were facing their child's clothing challenges. Last week, she presented her Handy clothing collection on the show Dans l'il du dragon. It was a very emotional moment for the audience and the dragons. They were so touched that they decided to give her the amount she wanted without diluting her shares. The video of her presentation has already been viewed over 1million times on social networks. Marie-ChristineGoupil has discovered a passion for entrepreneurship and has moved and inspired many people with her passionate and courageous attitude. Congratulations, Ms.Goupil, your example makes us proud. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I lend my voice to the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec-Labrador, GhislainPicard, whose message is as follows: There have been no fewer than 14reports and conclusions of commissions of inquiry since1967 highlighting major problems in relations between law enforcement agencies and indigenous people. Each time, the conclusions have been overwhelming and highlight a disturbing reality. The justice system has failed indigenous people. Are you going to respond, as you too often do, by moving on to the next one, or are you going to do what we expect you to do, which is to recognize that the justice system discriminates against indigenous people and that we have no less right to security than the rest of the population? In three months, police interventions have claimed more victims among our members than the pandemic. But it is not enough to simply take a knee and denounce racism. It's about standing up and taking action. Those are the words of GhislainPicard. +The Chair: We'll now continue with Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): Over the last few months, Canada's democracy has been disregarded and an autocracy has been resurrected in its place. By refusing to hold regular parliamentary sittings, Mr. Trudeau is sending a strong message to the Canadian public that he alone is the one who matters. In 2014, he professed that Canadians want their Members of Parliament to be effective voices for their communities in Ottawa, and not merely mouthpieces for an all-too-powerful Prime Minister. As it stands, however, he has shut down Parliament. Effectively, he has stripped us, the opposition, of our privileges and our powers. Sadly, Mr. Trudeau has become the all-too-powerful Prime Minister that he once warned against. A government that does not allow for effective opposition is not functioning in the best interest of Canadians; it is operating in the best interest of itself and, even more so, the interest of the Prime Minister. Canadians deserve to flourish in a democracy, not merely survive under the autocracy that this Prime Minister has created. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Zahid. +Mrs. Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would like to recognize the work of Agincourt Community Services Association and its tireless executive director, Lee Soda, who have been serving our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under more pressure than ever, their staff and volunteers continue to serve a community whose need was great even before the crisis. Their food bank helps over 4,000 people weekly. They have opened outdoor washrooms and hand-washing stations for vulnerable communities and are delivering groceries and other essentials to vulnerable seniors. ACSA is a bridge between those who can help and those who need help, and they are just one example of how our community has come together to meet this challenge. There are restaurants and businesses donating meals to front-line workers, residents answering the call to stock the food bank shelves and neighbours looking in on the vulnerable and isolated. I am so proud of our community's spirit. Scarborough is strong. +The Chair: We'll now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings twice in order to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. The first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chair, for months Conservatives have been pointing out flaws in Liberal government programs that are preventing Canadians from getting the help they need. The Prime Minister has refused to make these very technical changes to get more help to Canadians who need it. For example, on the wage subsidy, more than two-thirds of the money allocated for that program has lapsed because businesses don't qualify. I have a simple question. Will the Prime Minister change the program to allow companies who have made acquisitions to access the wage subsidy to keep more people working? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Lib.): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning we knew that as we rolled out measures, we would need to improve them and tweak them, and that's exactly what we've been doing over the past three months. We needed to make measures happen quickly for Canadians, and we did that. But we continued to improve them, to make additions and amendments so that more people could get the help they needed, including with the proposed legislation last week that expanded the reach of the wage subsidy to more businesses. Unfortunately, the Conservatives didn't even want us to debate that particular piece of legislation. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Actually, Mr. Chair, it was the Liberals who said no to the motion to allow this Parliament to sit to debate that motion, and even in that legislation they refused to allow businesses who have made acquisitions to access the program. Now, when we look at the rent relief program, it is so difficult to apply for it that many landlords are refusing to bother, leaving even more small businesses to fall through the cracks. In fact, of the $3 billion allocated to the rent relief program, only $39 million has been paid out. That's less than 2%. Now, the Prime Minister is still using talking points from April. It's now June and he has refused to fix these programs and has successfully talked out the calendar on the days that the House of Commons could meet to discuss these programs. When will he make these changes to get more help to Canadians who need it? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this pandemic, we have constantly been updating and expanding our various programs. We recognize, in conversations with the premiers, how important it is to make sure that we're working together, the provinces and the federal government, on issues like rent subsidies where commercial rent is indeed a provincial jurisdiction. Many provinces have moved forward with the eviction bans that are necessary to go along with this, and we'll continue to work with provinces to make sure that we're getting Canadians the help they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Canadians cannot wait. He has run down the clock on parliamentary sittings and he still refuses to make these changes to get more help to Canadians. Today, we learned that Telus has installed Huawei technology in downtown Ottawa. There are over 80 sites across the national capital region with Huawei technology installed. Some of these sites are very near sensitive government institutions, like government departments, the National Research Council, RCMP headquarters and the Bank of Canada. How long has the Prime Minister known that Huawei technology has been installed in the Ottawa area? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, first off, on the issue of Parliament, it has been meeting four times a week over the past many weeks, and members of the opposition have been able to continue to ask questions on COVID-19 and a broad range of subjects. Moreover, every two weeks the finance department puts forward at the finance committee the full transparent measures that we've taken, so that parliamentarians can study them. We are continuing to work in this crisis. At the same time +Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC): Answer the question. The Chair: I'm sorry? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: in regard to Huawei technology there are strict rules for companies to follow and we assume they will all follow those. +The Chair: We'll pause for a second and stop the clock. I want to remind the honourable members who are joining us virtually that heckling really does disrupt the whole session. Your face does come up and we do see who it is, so I just want to make sure that you're aware of that. Now we'll go back to Mr. Scheer. We have a minute and 10 seconds left. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister is bragging about accountability and transparency. Will he table an economic update before the House rises? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, throughout this unprecedented pandemic, we have been open and transparent about all of the measures we've put forward. We've updated the finance committee +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: That's a long way of saying no, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has pursued a policy of appeasement in pursuit of a personal vanity product at the UN. In the process, he's cozied up to dictators and human rights violators. He's abandoned Israel and committed funding to UNRWA, an organization whose schools have been used as storage facilities for Hamas rockets against Israeli civilians, and whose facilities have served as breeding grounds for racism and anti-Semitism. He has apologized for the Iranian regime when it shot down a plane full of Canadian citizens, and he refuses to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity. What's the point of having a seat at the table if you have to sell out Canadian principles to get there? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we see that the Conservatives have kept with the Harper approach to international diplomacy. The failed presence of Canada on the world stage was an embarrassment for many Canadians for many years. That's why, when we took office five years ago, we demonstrated the kind of leadership on values that Canadians expected. We will continue to work around the world to defend multilateralism. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This being a committee, we can have a point of order during what would have been question period. I am not sitting that far away from the Prime Minister, and I'm sorry, but Andrew Scheer used to be the Speaker of the House and should show better decorum. +The Chair: We have a point of order from Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis: Mr. Chair, on the same point of order, it is disgusting for the leader of the Green Party to use decorum as an excuse to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition in the middle of critical lines of questioning. The leader of the Green Party knows the rules of the House and shouldn't be abusing them to advance a partisan agenda. +The Chair: We're getting into debate. I do want to point out that the time had run out. We're now moving on to the next line of questions. On a point of order, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: I appreciate the honourable leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, for that reminder. When I was Speaker I always appreciated her help and advice about how to improve decorum in here. I just want to say to the member, and to all members, that the reason that I cannot control myself is that the Prime Minister used the word embarrassment in answering a foreign affairs question, and it just made me think of the India trip. +The Chair: I believe we're getting into debate and arguments. Mr.Blanchet, you have the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Mr.Chair, while the Greens and the Conservatives are saying that they'll be waiting outside after the meeting, I will ask a question. The Prime Minister has extended the Canada emergency response benefit, and that's good news, but it's not enough. Last week in the House, the government said it was urgent to fight fraud. For us, it was also urgent to adjust the CERB to the needs of the tourism, arts and agriculture sectors. Farmers are going to be seriously under-resourced. So what happened to the urgency of reforming the CERB? Why is the government refusing to talk to the opposition parties? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I am very pleased to hear the hon. member finally align himself with the positions of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, the Bloc is a week late. It should have let us debate these concerns in the House last week. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: It seems to me that the word alignment here is a fantasy. We have unequivocally proposed to extend the debate to reach an agreement, which brings me to my second question. Last week, the issue of assistance to people with disabilities was also a pressing concern, and it's even more so a week later. The Bloc proposed to extend the discussions and split the government's bill in two to help people with disabilities. Why is the government refusing this assistance to people with disabilities, when it could have been debated with the opposition in a civilized and proper way in a Parliament in which it has a minority? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: That was exactly what we wanted, but unanimous consent of the Chamber was required to debate this matter, and the Conservative Party of Canada voted against it. Unfortunately, we are going to have to find a different way to help people with disabilities. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the idea is so good and wonderful, why not start over and open the dialogue now? What's stopping the Prime Minister from being a rallying point and inviting us to take to each other and resolve the problem, rather than saying that he is going to pack up his toys and go home? The people with disabilities are the ones who will pay the price. Where was the Prime Minister on October21,2019? He received a minority mandate from Quebeckers and Canadians. Why is he behaving like something between a prime minister with a majority and a monarch by divine right? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I've heard the Conservative Party and the Bloc Qubcois throw their accusations around. They don't point out that the House of Commons did indeed give its consent to extend the mandate of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic until the end of June. Three parties agreed, which was the right thing to do in the context of this minority government. We've been working with the other parties. However, as they did not get the results they wanted, they complained. Unfortunately, they too are part of a minority Parliament and must respect the voice of the majority of parliamentarians, just as we do. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I might have been tempted, but that's unlikely to happen because the Prime Minister isn't me, he's him. It's therefore up to him to bring people together, open a dialogue and recall Parliament. All we were asking for was the opportunity to talk for an hour or two. However, suddenly he doesn't want to play anymore. It's not working anymore, and there's something a bit strange about that. In addition, the government wants to buy the right to interfere in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions for $14billion. However, Quebec and a number of provinces are refusing to allow it to interfere in their jurisdictions and are asking that this money be paid to them unconditionally. Is the Prime Minister trying to take advantage of the crisis or is he trying to create a constitutional crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, the safety of Canadians is the responsibility of all levels of government. That's why we have proposed a $14billion agreement to ensure that all Canadians across the country experience a safe re-opening of the economy. This is a proposal that we are working on with the provinces because we know that there are needs across the country, including early childhood centres, screening and support for municipalities. The federal government wants to be there to help the provinces. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr.Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Indigenous leaders have expressed a lack of confidence in the RCMP commissioner's ability to tackle full-scale systemic racism, but the Prime Minister has expressed his confidence in the commissioner. What's that based on? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past two years, Commissioner Lucki has made significant strides forward on an issue where there is still much more to do. We know that systemic racism exists in all of our institutions across this country +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: This is the same RCMP commissioner who just recently said that they couldn't explain what systemic racism was. Now the Prime Minister says that he has confidence, when indigenous leaders express their lack of confidence. Why does the Prime Minister believe that the RCMP commissioner can tackle systemic racism in the RCMP? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, systemic racism is something that touches every corner of our country, every corner of our institutions. It requires people to understand and move forward in coordinated ways with partners. The commissioner is committed to doing that, alongside members of our government. We will do that together and work with indigenous communities and black +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, recent events have made it abundantly clear that to tackle the systemic racism at the level of the RCMP, we need a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP. Is the Prime Minister committed to a full-scale overhaul of the RCMP to root out systemic racism? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: As I've said many times, Mr. Chair, I am committed to addressing systemic racism in this country and taking significant, bold actions to reduce the amount of discrimination that indigenous peoples, that racialized Canadians face on a daily basis. We have much work to do, but we will do it together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Black Lives Matter has been calling for governments to defund the police. What it's saying is that we need to be better at where we spend our money, investing in communities and not policing. Will the Prime Minister commit to a review of the RCMP budget to allocate resources to community services and not to policing? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past years we have been investing more directly and more money in community organizations, in the black community, and working with indigenous partners on the path to reconciliation. We have been investing in the kinds of community-based programs and solutions that are part of the solution. We know there is much more to do, and we will continue to look at all of our expenditures to make sure we're doing the right things. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, over the past few years, while the Prime Minister has been in office, the RCMP budget has increased by 31%. More money is going towards policing. In recent events we've seen people who needed a health care response to a health care crisis been killed by the RCMP. Does the Prime Minister believe that we need to be investing in a health care response instead of a police response for people who are faced with a crisis? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite well knows that it's not an either-or. We need to make sure that our systems across the board, from our police systems to our judicial systems, to our health care systems, to our community systems, are actually addressing the systemic discrimination issues that are embedded within them That is exactly what we are going to continue to do in the coming years. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, with regard to the CERB extension, can the Prime Minister guarantee that everyone who is receiving CERB payments now will continue to do so without any gaps throughout the summer? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I am happy to highlight that many Canadians who were on the CERB are now returning to work. Many more who are on the CERB now will be returning to work in the coming weeks. We know that as the economy gets back to work, people will want to +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Can the Prime Minister assure people who need it that they will continue to receive the CERB over the summer, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: We are very pleased to point out that we are going to extend the Canada emergency response benefit for at least another eight weeks, because a lot of people are going to need it. Even if they want to work, there aren't enough jobs for everyone. So we'll be there for them, as we have been from the beginning. +The Chair: We're going to pause and suspend proceedings just for a few moments to allow our support staff to substitute for one another in a healthy and safe way. We'll now proceed with Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Mr. Chair, it was really a surprise in the middle of a pandemic to see the Prime Minister at his first campaign stop last week in Ottawa. Certainly the game plan has become very transparent. He has a daily report show and he wants to sideline Parliament, dominate the news cycle and keep everyone in the dark about the state of the economy. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, there is no reason that he cannot provide the fiscal update during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the PBO has published a number of reports himself. Why won't the Prime Minister provide a fiscal update so we can all understand the state of our economy, or is that just not part of his campaign playbook? +Hon. Mona Fortier (Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada's economy is in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've been clear about that. We will continue to be open and transparent about the actions that we are taking to support families, businesses, workers, our health care system and our economy. This includes biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic measures. Once it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. We are in this together, and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to support Canadians. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Chair, Canada's economy was in trouble prior to the COVID, with some of the worst numbers since 2009. Government revenues in March dropped by 7.2%, and it's shameful and, quite frankly, it's outrageous that they refuse to provide Parliament and Canadians with an economic update. Households during this challenging time know how much money is coming in and they know how much money is going out. The picture is not pretty, but they know what the picture is. Can the finance minister at least reveal the projected revenue decline in quarters one and two? +Hon. Mona Fortier: The Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We've known this for three months. We've continued to be open and transparent about the measures we've put in place for Canadians, workers and businesses. In fact, we have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of our plan's measures. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a comprehensive update to Canadians +The Chair: We go back to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Other governments have managed to provide updates for their citizens and carry out their responsibilities, but of course this government has sidelined Parliament with simply a question-but-no-answer period. Let's try something else. The forestry industry was in crisis even before the pandemic, with mills closing down and thousands of jobs lost. Eight weeks ago, Minister Freeland said, I have had many discussions with leaders in our forestry sector and the provinces about what we can do to support the industry today. Meanwhile, we've had support going to the arts and we've had support going to fisheries, just to name a few, but arguably for the industry that was having some of the most numerous challenges, it has been radio silence. That was eight weeks ago today. Can the government at least commit to releasing an updated softwood lumber transition plan before we rise? +Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Chair, we remain committed, of course, to the forestry industry and seeing it through this pandemic and this very uncertain time. The expanding market opportunities program, for instance, has helped Canada's forestry sector diversify, create jobs and open new markets. We've had new construction projects that are active today, using Canadian wood in key markets like Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Tomorrow this House will vote on our government's investment of $20.97 million for this program. It's part of our budget 2019 commitment to invest $251 million over three years, and I hope the opposition will support us in that. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: It was stated in a major newspaper this morning that this government is like a sexy sports carvroom, vroom, vroombut with a history of breakdowns and major repairs. I think that might describe what has been happening. For forestry, it has been eight weeks and there has been nothing. There is another area that Deputy Prime Minister Freeland did talk about. We were talking about the U.S. softwood lumber duties that are being held in the United States. It's billions of dollars being held with the U.S. treasury. In April, she acknowledged that these duties are a real issue for the softwood lumber industry. What's been done since that time? +Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Mr. Chair, Canada's forestry industry supports good middle-class jobs in communities across our country. The sector is also an essential link in the medical equipment supply chain, and we thank them for all the work they're doing. We're aware of the immense pressures faced by this sector, especially at this time, and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland and others are taking that seriously and working through this issue. As our government has said repeatedly, we firmly believe that the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwarranted, and we will pursue all means in order to +The Chair: Before continuing, I want to remind honourable members who are at home to make sure that the boom on their headsets is down. It just makes a better pickup. We heard everything, but it was a little distant. That's for everyone's benefit. We're now going to continue with Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, before I ask my question, I'd like to pay tribute to the Minister of Justice, particularly to his versatility. Today, he talked about forests. Yesterday, the Minister of Justice talked about Davie and indigenous affairs. Really, this minister is very versatile. My question is directly for the Minister of Finance. I like Mr.Lametti very much, but I'd like Mr.Morneau to answer my question. Yesterday, in a Senate parliamentary committee, the Minister of Finance half-opened the door to an economic update. Based on what he said, it seems that, as we speak, a committee of the Department of Finance is working on an economic update. Could Mr.Morneau tell Canadians when he is going to table this economic update? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, as we know, the Canadian economy is going through a period of extraordinary uncertainty. As soon as it's possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide a full update to Canadians. Right now, we can say that we have supported workers, businesses and Canadians with the emergency measures we have put in place. We will continue to do so, because we need to be sure that Canadians can get through this crisis. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I thought it was too good to be true. The Minister of Finance is opening the door, and the Minister of Small Business is closing it. We don't know when the economic update will take place, yet all across Canada, provinces are doing economic updates. Could Mr.Morneau explain to Canadians why he is unable to give one? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, since the beginning of the crisis, we have implemented the economic action plan to respond to COVID-19, and we've provided immediate assistance to Canadians, businesses and workers. Over 2.5million jobs were protected by the Canada emergency wage subsidy. In addition, 8.4million Canadians +The Chair: We are returning to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, next Friday, the Quebec minister of finance, EricGirard, will give an economic update. If EricGirard can give one for Quebec, why can't BillMorneau give one for Canada? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr.Chair, once again, we have been open and transparent from the outset. We have devoted our energy to support Canadians, workers and businesses. We will continue to do so. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I cannot judge the quality of the work done by the provinces, but what I do know is that Quebec, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland have also made efforts to support their residents economically. Those provinces are able to table economic updates. Yesterday, Saskatchewan even tabled a budget. Why is Bill Morneau unable to table an economic update for all Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Let me repeat for my hon. colleague that we are going through extraordinarily uncertain times. We have continued to be open and transparent. We have reported biweekly to Parliament on the total cost and status of the measures in our economic response plan. Once again, as soon as clear economic projections can be provided, we will provide an update +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The minister talks about the total cost of the government's economic expenditures. So I ask the question: so far, over the past three months, how much has the pandemic cost Canadians? +Hon. Mona Fortier: As I said earlier, it is important to note that we have put forward measures, including the wage subsidy, which have helped more than 2.5million +The Chair: Mr.Deltell has the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I have been trying for four minutes to get anything remotely resembling an answer, and I'm getting absolutely nothing. I am not asking questions for myself; I am asking questions for Canadians. Why are the government and the Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, not able to table an economic update when some provinces are able to? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that we have provided interest-free loans to businesses. More than 669,000loans have been approved. We have continued to support businesses and Canadians during this time +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have time for a very brief question. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The only thing that distinguishes the provinces that table economic updates and the current government is political will. Why does Bill Morneau not have the political will to tell Canadians the truth? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Once again, we have been open and transparent. As soon as it is possible to provide clear economic projections, we will provide Canadians with a full update. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya (MarkhamUnionville, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. COVID-19 has sparked and spurred anti-Asian racism. These are not just racist comments online; Asian Canadians have been attacked. What is the government doing to combat anti-Asian racism? +Hon. Bardish Chagger (Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth): Mr. Chair, since our government took office in 2015, we have been making investments and working with communities. The difference between our government and the previous government is that we will actually consult with Canadians, including black Canadians, including Asian Canadians, to respond to the challenges, including with an anti-racism secretariat and an anti-racism strategy. It will take all of us. I appreciate the member's question, so that we can also work together. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, one business owner I know in Markham has operated for 20 years. Now she's looking at over $9,000 in rent due on June 24. COVID-19 has crippled her sales and she's going to go out of business. Her landlord has no interest in the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. How can the government say this program is working? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, this program was made possible by working with the provinces, and we will continue to encourage landlords and tenants to work together to make sure they have relief for this very difficult time in which they're living. We're continuing to monitor the CECRA program and we will make it possible for businesses to have access to the program. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, the government business rent relief program has been a total disaster. Even the government's own numbers show it is a failure. As of June 8, less than 2% of the $3 billion budgeted has been spent. What is it going to take for the government to admit that the program is a disaster and needs changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we know our government has been working closely with the provinces and territories to deliver the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. Although the tenant-landlord relationship is ultimately the responsibility of the provinces and territories, our government has stepped up to provide support through the tools we have and through CMHC so that small businesses can get the rent relief they need. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, according to the government, there are around 1.1 million small businesses in Canada. At committee, we were told only around 5,500 of them are receiving COVID-19 rent relief. That number is shameful. When will the Liberal government wake up and make the changes? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we welcome the steps some provinces and territories have taken to further protect commercial tenants. We will continue to monitor this program closely and ensure that Canada's small businesses are supported during this challenging time. We will continue to monitor to see +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Saroya. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, there was no answer. When can the government make these changes? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable colleague that we are doing everything and will continue to do everything to help small businesses in our country. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, on May 27 the CBSA seized 65 small handguns at Pearson airport, the largest firearms seizure on record. It is clear that smuggled handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals. Why is the Prime Minister focusing on an ineffective municipal ban? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would point out that gun violence in any of our communities is unacceptable, and it's important that governments and communities take steps to prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals. That's why we do important work at our border to keep guns from being smuggled into our country, but it also necessitates additional work. I don't think you can talk about gun violence without talking about stronger gun control. That's why our government has taken a very strong position and will strengthen gun control to keep Canadians safe. +The Chair: Mr. Saroya, you may have a 10-second question, if that's possible, please. +Mr. Bob Saroya: Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has not stopped gun violence in the GTA. My constituents are concerned about shootings minutes away from their homes. We know the Liberals' gun ban won't change anything, but a focus on smuggled guns and criminals will. When will they make that change? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, stronger gun control laws are an effective tool, and that's been told to us by police leadership and communities across the country. We're also making investments in borders and law enforcement. Most importantly, we're making investments in communities and in kids to keep communities safe. I look forward to the member's strong support of those measures when we bring them forward. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the U.S. and the U.K. began their second round of free trade negotiations yesterday. Does the government intend to have a trade agreement in place before the U.K. tariffs come into effect on January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the U.K. is a strong partner of Canada, as is the European Union, and we're looking forward to continuing that strong relationship +The Chair: We'll now go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the negotiations with the U.K., when will the minister publish her goals and objectives for this agreement? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we're going to continue to work to ensure that any future agreement is going to be based on the best interests of Canadians, and we will +The Chair: We will go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Can the minister confirm whether they've entered into negotiations with the U.K. at this point? +Hon. Mary Ng: Our government is analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule the U.K. has put out. I want to assure Canadians +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, during the CUSMA negotiations, a deal was struck between the Liberal Party and the NDP that the government would notify this House 90 days before it starts any negotiations on any trade agreement. When will the minister notify this House? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that we will absolutely be sharing information. Right now, we are analyzing the most-favoured-nation tariff regimes schedule put out by the U.K. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, any meaningful attempts to reform the WTO needs buy-in from the United States. I think all countries agree on that. Has the minister discussed a WTO reform with the USTR, the United States trade representative? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, the Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group, and any decisions will be taken together. Of course, any meaningful reform must include the U.S. +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Has the U.S. been invited to the Ottawa Group meetings? +Hon. Mary Ng: The Ottawa Group is a consensus-based group limited to WTO members who are committed to bringing forward ideas and proposals +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Just as with any other trade agreement, the minister has committed to this House that she will publish the list of goals and responsibilities for the negotiations. When will she publish the list for the Ottawa Group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I'm thrilled that we had an excellent meeting of the Ottawa Group yesterday where, as a group, we agreed to take concrete action. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Will the minister be releasing a list of Canada's objectives we would like to see the new WTO's director-general pursue prior to the upcoming DG election? +Hon. Mary Ng: We published an action statement from the Ottawa Group yesterday. I would encourage the member opposite to have a look. I'm certainly happy to send it to him. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Going back to economic prosperity, we know that the U.S. has been having talks with other countries around the world. Has Canada yet been invited to this group? +Hon. Mary Ng: I'm pleased to continue to pursue the objectives of trade diversification. I would remind the member that we have access to a billion and a half customers through our very robust +Mr. Randy Hoback: A billion and a half customers is fine if you have a functioning WTO, but if you don't have a functioning WTO, then a billion and a half customers may not be fully accessible to our suppliers, manufacturers and agriculture producers. Can the minister confirm that she's in discussions with the U.S. in joining this economic prosperity group? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to assure the honourable member that nothing is more important than standing up and helping create markets for our Canadian businesses and to help our small businesses get more export-ready so that they can grow into the international marketplace. This is work that we've committed to do, and we will keep working on it, particularly +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Yesterday Saskatchewan presented a budget. Not only did they present the budget, but they'll also actually debate the budget and pass the budget in Parliament. There's full accountability. Why won't this government do the same? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr. Chair, the House is sitting in this hybrid format so that people can participate in the House on the screens. I'm sure my colleague is happy to see that his own colleagues are able to ask questions and participate. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will say that this is no substitute for Parliament, but I appreciate the opportunity. New Brunswick families and businesses are rapidly making adjustments to manage and live with the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses here are opening and services are being offered. Families are preparing for summer and even planning ahead for a new school year in September. We have a lot of work ahead of us. One notable absence is Service Canada. When does the government plan on opening its service counters to assist Canadians again? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen (Minister of Families, Children and Social Development): Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to the benefits that they rely on through Service Canada. We have redeployed over 3,000 additional staff to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to their benefits. We've established a 1,500-agent call centre to make sure that people can get access to the phone lines to get the help they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Service Canada is about more than providing COVID-19 information and benefits. Provincial governments are working hard to adjust to Canada's new normal by opening up businesses and front-line government services. When will we see Service Canada play its role and open its service counters in our communities? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Mr. Chair, we're currently working with our world-class public health experts to determine how best to reopen the Service Canada network for the public. Make no mistake: Our Service Canada employees have gone above and beyond to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to the services that they rely on and the benefits that they need. +Mr. John Williamson: Please don't hide behind health experts when the Prime Minister is appearing in the middle of large protests, yet is afraid to bring back the Parliament of Canada to do its business. In fact, the New Brunswick legislature is open for regular business. Bills are being studied, opposition input is being heard and MLAs are voting on legislation, not rubber-stamping government bills. By comparison, our Parliament is stuck in pretending it cannot function like other law-making assemblies. Canadians are in the dark about our country's finances. When will the government table an economic update so taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Chair, nobody's hiding. Nobody's doing anything like that. The only reason my colleague is able to ask a question and I'm able to answer his question is that he's right there on the screen. We have this hybrid format that cares for MPs across the country, not only the ones sitting in the House. +Mr. John Williamson: This is no substitute for Parliament. I will ask my question again. When will the government table an economic update so that taxpayers understand what was spent, what is owed by our kids and grandchildren, and what the government's fiscal footing looks like in today's environment? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for his question. Canada's economy is still in a period of extraordinary uncertainty due to COVID-19. We have been open and transparent about the measures we have been providing to support families, businesses and workers. Even our health care +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Williamson. +Mr. John Williamson: Except you have not. The Auditor General is underfunded. We have no idea about the total of government spending. Again I will ask when the government will table an economic update so that we can have an understanding of what the government's fiscal footing looks like. +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have included biweekly reports to Parliament on the full cost and status of our economic response plan measures since the beginning. I have said, and I will continue to say, that when it is possible to provide a clear economic projection, we will provide an update. +Mr. John Williamson: What is the full cost to date of the government's COVID-19 relief measures, as the minister just claimed the government has provided to Parliament? +Hon. Mona Fortier: Mr. Chair, we have provided support for workers, and 2.5 million Canadians have been helped through the Canadian wage subsidy. We have provided businesses with some loans, and 669,000 businesses have applied for these loans. Even for the CERB, we have over eight million Canadians who have applied. +The Chair: We will now continue with Mr.Bergeron. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: Mr.Chair, as the leader of the Bloc Qubcois mentioned a few moments ago, the government promised $14billion to Quebec and the provinces, but in targeted transfers. That is very little compared to the considerable expenses incurred to deal with the current crisis. But Quebec and the provinces don't just want this money to be transferred unconditionally, they also want a real discussion on a permanent increase in health care transfers. PremierLegault was rightly concerned about the feds' interference into provincial jurisdictions. The federal government, which does not manage any hospitals or long-term care centres, must stop playing armchair quarterback and transfer the money to the only governments with jurisdiction over health, that is, Quebec and the provinces. Will it do so without delay and without nitpicking? +The Honourable Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr.Chair, we know that the Government of Quebec is working hard to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and we are here to support them. As part of this co-operation, we have developed health and safety recommendations for workplaces, we have purchased medical equipment for workers and we have supported the province in developing its reopening program. We are continuing this important partnership to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and all Canadians. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: The co-operation is so effective that the money is staying in the federal government's coffers. In fact, when the federal government wants to impose conditions, it always takes longer. We see it with housing, for which Quebec has not received a dime of the $1.4billion it is owed. We have also seen it with infrastructure funds, particularly for public transit, water systems and water treatment. The health crisis is now. The needs are now. The much needed reopening of our economy is now. Will the government finally transfer the money without messing around or quibbling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I am pleased to confirm to my colleague that there is no messing around, no quibbling, nothing of the kind. There is co-operation between two levels of government. It is natural to have discussions with all the provinces and with Quebec. I myself am taking part in some discussions and several of my colleagues are taking part in others. There is a clear willingness on the part of the federal government to co-operate with Quebec and all the provinces. That is what we are doing and that is perhaps what the Bloc Qubcois does not like. It likes bickering, but for the time being, there is none. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: We don't want to bicker, we want the money to be paid out. It is not complicated, for heaven's sake! We do not want a blank cheque. Right now, the money remains in the federal government's coffers. There is $1.4billion that should be paid to Quebec for social housing and is sitting in the federal government's coffers. We are waiting for money for water treatment and water systems, but it is sitting in the federal government's coffers. It's almost July. We are wasting precious months for construction. What is the government waiting for to pay out the money so that we can get our economy rolling? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: The federal government is a very active partner. We are discussing and working with Quebec on infrastructure projects. We are continuing our discussions and negotiations on the housing agreement. Nothing is at a standstill. We are discussing and co-operating for the well-being of all Quebeckers. +Mr. Stphane Bergeron: MadamChair, things are definitely at a standstill, because the money is owed and has not been paid out. Months are going by while construction is not taking place. We need to reopen the economy. We need more flexibility in the gas tax program and Quebec's contribution to allow municipalities to undertake work on city halls, community centres and fire stations. We need the federal government to contribute to funding public transit operations, which have become a real financial drain because of the drop in ridership. What is the federal government waiting for to provide real help instead of just talking? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: When it comes to just talking, the Bloc Qubcois has a lot of experience, I admit. We, in the government, are working and co-operating. We are not waiting with our arms folded, we are discussing a series of issues with Quebec. We do more than discuss, we work and we co-operate. We are working on projects, not only in infrastructure, but in a number of other areas. Just think of the co-operation of our armed forces in the CHSLDs, for example. We are here for Quebeckers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Your time has run out, Mr.Bergeron. We'll go now to Ms. Khalid, from MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with the member for GlengarryPrescottRussell. During a consultation with the business community in Mississauga, the concerns of businesses, big and small, included the need for stable, affordable and safe child care. With the lack of such child care spaces, an economic recovery plan post-COVID cannot be effective until and unless we make sure that people are able to get back to work. I've heard from parents across Mississauga that they're being forced to stay home because of inadequate child care and that they have to choose between putting food on the table and keeping family safe. More and more employers are realizing that good employees are unable to contribute to their business growth because of this challenge. Now more than ever, we need to find long-term sustainable solutions for Canadians who face challenges with regard to child care. I ask our Minister of Families, Children and Social Development this: What is our strategy to tackle this ever-growing need for a national child care plan? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I thank the honourable member for her question and for her important advocacy and work on this important issue. We understand that child care is important to our economic recovery and our social infrastructure. We know the pressure that COVID-19 has placed on families, especially parents. That is why we're committed to continuing to work with provinces and territories to renew our agreements on early learning and child care, and to provide, at the earliest opportunity, $400 million in support. In addition to that, the Prime Minister has already indicated that child care will be part of the $14-billion pledge to provinces and territories to assist them with respect to COVID-19 recovery efforts. Over the next decade, we will continue to invest $7.5 billion, and together we have achieved the goal of over 40,000 affordable child care spaces. We are also committed to continuing to create over 250,000 before-school and after-school child care spaces for kids under the age of 10. We will continue to work with our partners in the provinces and territories to ensure that Canadians can continue to have access to safe, quality and affordable child care. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has the floor. +Mr. Francis Drouin (GlengarryPrescottRussell, Lib.): MadamChair, small businesses play a fundamental role in the Canadian economy. In an article in LaPresse, the Minister of Economic Development warned us that the economic crisis caused by severe lockdown measures could have more serious consequences in small municipalities than in large cities. Based on discussions with the chambers of commerce in my riding, it is clear that federal government assistance will be essential for the reopening of the economy, specifically for the rural economy. In fact, I would like to acknowledge the work of the Prescott-Russell community development corporation , under the leadership of John Candie. After announcing almost $57million to help SMEs adopt e-commerce, how does the minister plan to help SMEs and the business community in our rural areas? +Hon. Mlanie Joly (Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages): MadamChair, I also thank my colleague from GlengarryPrescottRussell for his important question. Yes, our regions are important and the entrepreneurs in those regions are creative and daring. They take risks, but they are currently facing huge challenges. So we are here for them. We understand their anxiety and we want to help them. That is why we have decided to invest heavily in rural economic development. It is also why we have doubled the budget of CFDCs and Community Futures organizations across the country. In southern Ontario we have reinvested over $260million in the regional economic development agency FedDev. In the great riding of GlengarryPrescottRussell, which I am particularly fond of and where there is a very good member of Parliament, there is an additional $1million for entrepreneurs in the region. We have been, we are and we will be at your side. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for GlengarryPrescottRussell has 36seconds left. No? Then we'll go to the honourable member for ElmwoodTranscona. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie (ElmwoodTranscona, NDP): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for Victoria. Madam Chair, Krystal is a community worker in Winnipeg. She has been working from home since late March, taking care of her child, who is out of school, and caring for her father, who is living with her and vulnerable to COVID-19. Her employer called her up recently and asked her to physically return to work or to take a leave. As a parent and a care provider to a vulnerable person, she's not comfortable with physically returning to work. Service Canada won't give Krystal a straight answer as to whether going on leave and collecting CERB would count as refusing a reasonable job offer. With Bill C-17 looming in the background, Krystal is worried about jail time and fines if she does right by her child and her father by applying for CERB. Can Krystal reasonably refuse to go back to work and collect CERB, or will she be considered a fraudster? That's my question for the minister that is specific to Krystal's case. As well, what is the minister doing to provide clear direction to Canadians and to Service Canada agents so that people can get a clear answer before making their decision about returning to work? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for his important question. We recognize that Canadian workers will face various different situations, including those who are ineligible for the Canada emergency support benefit. We'll continue to work with workers to make sure they're able to be supported throughout this pandemic. The fact of the matter is that every province has workplace health and safety regulations that must be supported. We understand that workers have the right not to work in unsafe situations. We also understand that many Canadians do want to go back to work; and in fact many have. We will make sure that we support Canadians throughout this recovery process. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 47 seconds left, and that includes the answer. +Mr. Daniel Blaikie: Madam Chair, that answer is really not good enough, because the problem here is that Krystal needs to know whether she can continue receiving CERB or not. That's a federal government decision, and she needs to know whether the federal government is going to accuse her of fraud and put her in jail or assess fines against her if she refuses to go back to work because she wants to take care of her child and her father. What is the minister's answer to that? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has 20 seconds to respond. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I can assure the honourable member that if a Canadian has to take care of a loved one due to circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, they are indeed eligible to receive the CERB and remain receiving that benefit. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): As we deal with the global pandemic, we cannot lose sight of the ongoing climate emergency. Canada has missed every single climate target it set, and we need to break the cycle of empty promises. Canadians want their government to be accountable, and environmental groups such as Ecojustice, CAN-Rac, Environmental Defence and West Coast Environmental Law, as well as the government's own climate institute, are all calling for legally binding climate targets. When will the government put its climate targets into law with legally binding milestones so we never miss another target again? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Madam Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for her question. I totally agree with her when it comes to the environment. It is a priority not only for us as a government, but it should be a priority for all Canadians. That is why we have put measures in place to put a price on pollution through carbon pricing. That is why we have a comprehensive plan that also includes significant investments in clean technology, which will help reduce our carbon footprint. I am confident that these measures will enable us to not only meet but exceed our 2030 target and also allow us to achieve our net-zero 2050 target. +Ms. Laurel Collins: That didn't answer my question. I asked when. Empty promises won't get us any closer to meeting our climate targets. Can the minister tell us when his government will introduce climate accountability laws? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I think the fundamental issue here is having a plan when it comes to the environment. I'm confident that the measures that we have takenputting a price on pollution, investing in clean technology, and other key measures to reduce our carbon footprint, including the investment in infrastructureunderpin a plan +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to the honourable member for Victoria. +Ms. Laurel Collins: This government is not meeting its targets, but it is meeting with oil and gas lobbyists. The pandemic has made us reflect on our priorities. Are we going to choose a just recovery with good, sustainable jobs for Canadian workers, or are we going to keep subsidizing oil and gas companies to the tune of billions, subsidies that we know are ending up in the pockets of CEOs and shareholders? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will have a brief answer from the minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Madam Chair, this is the fundamental difference between us and the NDP. We fundamentally believe that the entire economy needs to work together, including the energy sector, to enable us to achieve those 2030 and 2050 targets. We are going to work together to support our workers, including in the energy sector, to reduce our carbon footprint. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Now we will go to the honourable member for SaskatoonGrasswood, Mr. Waugh. +Mr. Kevin Waugh (SaskatoonGrasswood, CPC): Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was last here in May, I was on my way back to Saskatoon from Toronto, and there was actually someone on my flight who tested positive for COVID-19. I was never informed of it by the airline. I found out two weeks later. The report was in the news media. Why hasn't the government put rules in place requiring airlines to reach out to individuals like me who may have been exposed to COVID on their flights? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, it's hard to speculate on what happened from such a vague description of his experience, but I will say that we have every confidence in local public health, which is doing the hard and heavy lifting of contact tracing and working very closely with all kinds of different sectors, including airline sectors, to make sure that close contacts of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are found, are traced and are isolated. I assume that the member took appropriate precautions on the flight and I hope that he continues to do so. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it was reported that the individual on my plane who had COVID was actually connecting in Toronto from an international flight. The Prime Minister announced last week that they would begin mandating temperature checks for those bound for Canada in July. Will international travellers be tested when they land in Canada, or will they be relying on the tests that take place in other countries? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, this is a very important question, because the protection and safety of all Canadiansin particular, Canadian travellersis a high priority for our government. We've been working very closely with the airlines. At the current time, we are putting temperature screening in place. That will initially be done primarily by the airlines that are in the best position to do it at this point in time. We are also now going to be including CATSA, the people who do the security screening, so that when people enter the airport, they will also be screened. We believe that is going to be the most effective measure to keep all travellers safe. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, last week five of the largest professional sports leagues in North America put out a statement of support for my private member's bill, the safe and regulated sports betting act. Given the struggles that clubs and leagues are facing due to COVID-19, including having no fans at all in the stands for the foreseeable future, the legalization of sports betting would be a welcome opportunity not only to engage fans but to generate much-needed revenue. Will the government commit now to supporting the sports and gaming industries by supporting my private member's bill, Bill C-218? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I've had the opportunity on many occasions to speak to members of Parliament and also to mayors and councillors and people living in border communities where there are casinos. They've raised this issue a number of times. We've listened very carefully to the concerns that have been expressed by them. I would like to advise the member that I look forward to the opportunity for a careful examination of his bill. We are at all times concerned about maintaining the integrity of the gaming industry within our community. That's the best way to protect Canadians. At the same time, we will examine his bill with all of the necessary attention to make sure it's given full consideration. +Mr. Kevin Waugh: Madam Chair, it's the first time in history that we've had the five professional leagues in this country joining together for this bill. Newspapers rely, as we all know, on advertising for a significant portion of their revenue. This includes the usual flyers as well as in-paper ads. I've heard major concerns from a number of newspapers in this country about competition they're receiving today from Canada Post, which is offering massive free postage services. In fact, I have one of their ads here, which says that the first 6,000 pieces of postage are 100% free. If the government is genuine about wanting to ensure that newspapers and journals can succeed in this country, why are you allowing Canada Post to use its monopoly power to actually threaten local newspapers in this country? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Canadian Heritage): Thank you, Madame Chair, and I thank the member opposite for his question. As you well know, a healthy news and media sector in Canada is a priority for our government, which is why we have put in place a number of measures before COVID-19 and during COVID-19, and we will continue to be there for them after this crisis has gone by. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Before we go on, we will be taking a break to do a bit of a changeover. I also want to remind members to address their questions and comments to the chair. We will go now to the honourable member for BruceGreyOwen Sound, Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff (BruceGreyOwen Sound, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Mr. Blair stated yesterday here in the House that the AR-15 has been used in mass killings in Canada on many occasions. Mr. Blair, please provide just one specific instance in which an AR-15 was used in a mass killing in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member to address questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may respond. +Hon. Bill Blair: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I think this is an excellent opportunity to point out to the member opposite how important it is to actually listen to what was said. If you go back and review that tape, and I would invite you to do so, you'll see that I said the AR-15 and other weapons like themreferring of course to military-style assault weaponshave been used in mass killings, and I actually cited a number of examples. Madam Chair, I think it would be very useful if the member's questions were based on facts. +Mr. Alex Ruff: I can remind Mr. Blair that I actually have watched the video a couple of times, and he specifically states that the AR-15 was used in mass killings in Canada, yet he has yet to provide one. My additional question is to Mr. Blair. Out of the recently banned firearms on May 1, how many have been or are still currently in use by the Canadian Armed Forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: That's an excellent question, Madam Chair, because it's very important to provide Canadians with clarity. We have prohibited these firearms for non-law enforcement and non-military use. The military uses weapons that were actually designed for soldiers to use in combat to shoot other soldiers. That's the appropriate use of such weapons, Madam Chair. They're not things to be played with in civilian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As a soldier for 25 years, I'll remind Mr. Blair that none of the currently prohibited firearms would be used in the Canadian Armed Forces. I asked him a question on whether any of them is being or ever has been used in the Canadian Armed Forces. Are any of the recently banned firearms still in use, or have they ever been in use, in any military in the world? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, I think it's important to also recognize that the basic origin, the provenance of the weapons that we have prohibited, was in their original design. They were designed for military use for various military forces around the world. As I've said previously, they were designed for soldiers to use in combat to kill other soldiers. They're very efficient in their design for killing people. They have no purpose in Canadian society. +Mr. Alex Ruff: As someone who has used many military-style firearms and who is actually involved in helping define what we purchase in the military, I would use none of the ones that are currently prohibited. I have a question, Chair, for Minister MacAulay. Can he please confirm whether Veterans Affairs has a plan to address the claims backlog, yes or no? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Madam Chair, I appreciate my honourable colleague's question, and yes, we've indicated that it's a major priority. That's why I'm so pleased that the supplementary estimates contained just under $90 million to address hiring more staff, improving the process and making sure that we attack the backlog in an appropriate manner. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Madame Chair, does that plan exist in written form? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Well, Madam Chair, I can assure you that it's in the supplementary estimates, and of course, this money is +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The question is about the plan, not how much money has been allocated. I am asking for the written plan on how to address the backlog. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Chair, I can tell my honourable colleague that the money is in the supplementary estimates, and with the money we're able to attack this problem in an appropriate manner, and that's what is important for our veterans. +Mr. Alex Ruff: The deputy minister committed on March 10 that a written plan would be provided to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs within a month and made public. Did the deputy minister or the department provide the minister that plan within a month? +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: Madame Chair, I'm sure my honourable colleague wants an appropriate plan and he would be fully aware this just under $90 million would make a big difference in the plan to attack the backlog. We +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We'll go back to Mr. Ruff. +Mr. Alex Ruff: Thank you, Chair. Therefore, my question is, if the deputy minister in the department provided him with an appropriate plan or a written plan, why is he questioning how appropriate that plan is? I have complete confidence in the deputy minister's ability to produce a written plan. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may give a brief answer, please. +Hon. Lawrence MacAulay: I can assure my honourable colleague that with the appropriate funding, we will address the backlog in Veterans Affairs. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go now to the honourable member for Parry SoundMuskoka, Mr. Aitchison. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is about summer camps again. Three weeks ago, I asked this government if the finance minister would meet with the beleaguered summer camp sector. Summer camps, which are a social and economic mainstay in Parry SoundMuskoka and all of northern Ontario, have been crippled by the global pandemic. It's costing millions of jobs, and some camps are actually in danger of folding. Aside from a brief follow-up conversation over the phone with the junior minister, there has still been no action from this government. When will the Minister of Finance meet with summer camps to find a solution? +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: Madam Chair, I recognize the honourable member's important question and his focus on summer camps. We recognize the importance of looking at that and paying attention to the needs of that community. We will continue to engage with them, as we have, to ensure and find ways in which we can get their feedback and find ways in which we can support them. That work is ongoing, and I assure the honourable member that our focus is on the kids and on ensuring that they have access to summer camps for this year. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I don't know why you need to find ways to get feedback. The summer camps association has given lots of feedback and my office has given lots of feedback, so I don't see what's confusing about this. However, I've become accustomed to not really getting answers to questions, so I will go to the next one. The Ontario government's regional reopening plan permits cruise boats to resume on Georgian Bay, yet the federal government is refusing to allow these vessels to operate until July 1. Therefore, small businesses such as the Island Queen cruiser in Parry Sound, which has only a very few precious weeks to operate in the first place, is losing yet another two weeks because of federal inaction. This not only hurts the cruise boat industry but also hurts tourism and small businesses all through our area. Will the Minister of Transport take a regional approach himself by lifting the federal ban on Georgian Bay, just like the Province of Ontario has done? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister may reply. Is there a response? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, there is. I apologize for the confusion. Let me respond, if I may, on behalf of the Minister of Transport. There have been a number of very important discussions with the provinces, in particular with the Province of Ontario, around provisions regarding pleasure craft. There are certain restrictions that will come to an end on June 30. We're working very closely with our provincial counterparts to address this issue, but we want to ensure that it will be done safely. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: Madam Chair, I actually gave the minister a heads-up that I would be asking that question. He sent me an email today saying he was not going to be able to be in the House, and it's great of him to do that. He said that whoever was going to fill in for him would have an answer, but again, that was not really an answer. The next issue I would like to bring this government's attention to is the deplorable state of rural Internet service in Parry SoundMuskoka. Quite simply, there are too many gaps in service, and what is available is generally way too expensive. We have families trying to work and teach their kids from home on unreliable and outrageously expensive Internet service, and we have too many small businesses that either cannot access or afford reliable Internet services. Today Greg Rickford, the Ontario energy minister, and Laurie Scott, Ontario Minister of Infrastructure, announced $2.3 million for seven northern Ontario broadband projects. Minister, will when your government get serious and become a reliable partner for the Government of Ontario and the private sector to deliver this crucial modern-day infrastructure to rural Canadians? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I remind the member that he needs to address the questions and comments to the chair. The honourable minister may reply. +Hon. Maryam Monsef (Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development): Madam Chair, in the best of times, life without access to high-speed Internet is hard. During a pandemic, the challenges are that much more pronounced. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting a million more Canadian households to this essential service, but until we achieve universal access our work is not done. We will work with our partners, including provinces across the country, to connect every Canadian household to high-quality Internet access that is affordable and reliable. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member has 30 seconds. +Mr. Scott Aitchison: I think I can squeeze something in here, then. I'm wondering, then, Madam Chair, since the Province of Ontario has used the Northern Ontario Heritage Corporation Fund to make this announcement, what about using FedNor to make the same kind of announcement, and partner with the province? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable minister has a brief answer. +Hon. Mlanie Joly: Obviously we believe in the importance of northern Ontario; that's why we nearly doubled the budget of FedNor. We will continue to invest in businesses and people all around Parry Sound, Muskoka and northern Ontario. If my colleague has specific projects in mind, please come and see me and let's have a conversation. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for Montmagny-L'Islet-KamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, Mr.Gnreux, has the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux (MontmagnyL'IsletKamouraskaRivire-du-Loup, CPC): Thank you, MadamChair. I will continue along the same lines as my colleague. During this pandemic, we are realizing the extent to which reliable high-speed Internet service is needed for Canada's economy. There are still places where telework is not possible today because of the lack of adequate coverage. However, since2015, the government has committed to addressing the situation through three new programs. Benot Pilotto, who is the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth, in my riding, wrote to me a few days ago. That is why I am asking you what concrete results the government plans to achieve for our rural areas by the end of the year. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: At the best of times, life without high-speed Internet access is difficult. During a pandemic, the difficulties are even greater. Our government's unprecedented investments are already connecting an additional one million Canadian households to this essential service. However, until we achieve universal access, our job is not done. We are working +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am simply asking the minister to tell me when the mayor of Saint-Onsime-d'Ixworth will be able to tell his residents when the Internet will be available in his municipality. It is not complicated. What does the government plan to do so that rural municipalities across Canada can have access to the Internet as soon as possible? What is its plan? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: We are working with partners across the country to ensure that every Canadian household is connected to a high-quality, accessible and affordable high-speed Internet service. Madam Chair, I assure my colleagues that we share the same goal, and we will work with all our partners across the country to ensure every Canadian household has access +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr.Gnreux, you have the floor. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, I am still not getting a specific answer. According to the government's plan, when will rural Canadian businesses and households be connected? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I would ask the honourable minister to provide a brief answer. +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, those plans are under way, and we will have more to share in the coming days. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: It seems that the Minister of Rural Economic Development plans to announce a new plan this week. Can she tell us how this program will differ from the Connect to Innovate program, which is already in place? Can the minister tell us whether her program will solve the problem of the 25square kilometre hexagonal zones, which unfortunately make many projects ineligible for the CRTC's broadband fund? +Hon. Maryam Monsef: Madam Chair, I'm pleased to share with my colleague that the model he's referring to, the hexagon model, is no more. Our maps are much more precise now to ensure that we do not leave Canadians behind. +Mr. Bernard Gnreux: MadamChair, this year, the Canada summer jobs program is a real fiasco. I think all my colleagues will agree with me. On May13, 100jobs were announced in my riding; on May20, 16jobs were announced; on May27, 13jobs were announced; on June3, 12jobs were announced; and on June10, only one job was announced. As we speak, an amount of $100,000 is still to be confirmed in my riding. Can we have an announcement, once and for all? Let's stop the piecemeal announcements and finally confirm the remaining jobs today so that our organizations can have young people before the summer starts on the weekend. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable minister. +Hon. Ahmed Hussen: MadamChair, I thank the honourable member for his question. We recognize the important role that the Canada summer jobs program is playing in supporting employers and young workers in communities right across the country. Our government is working very hard to help employers adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, and at the same time is supporting young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment. We've introduced flexibilities into the program to ensure that more young workers have opportunities to get employed. The honourable member also has to understand that we're in the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such it will take some time for businesses to equip themselves to hire students. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for NanaimoLadysmith, Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Madam Chair. In the first five months of this year, 554 B.C. residents died from opioid overdoses. They were teachers, construction workers, business owners, family members, neighbours and friends. Addiction is a health and social issue, but criminalization creates stigma, so people hide their drug use and die alone. Access to a safe supply of drugs and safe injection sites saves lives and puts addicts in daily contact with people who can help them. Will this government end the war on drugs by decriminalizing them, providing a safe supply and reallocating resources from policing addicts to providing treatment for them? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Madam Chair, I think it's really important we make sure that when we speak about people who use substances, we remove stigmatizing language like the word addict. We can stand together, as this government has, with people who use substances and their families to ensure a range of options for people who are struggling with addiction, who are using substances in a way that is harming their health and their communities. As you know, we have restored harm reduction to the Canadian drugs and substances strategy. We've made it easier for people to access safe supplies of substances. We've increased access to treatment and the variety of treatment through federal transfers to provinces and territories. Madam Chair, we're working with communities to make sure there are more community-based approaches to treating +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go back to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the Geneva Convention considers both tear gas and pepper spray to be chemical weapons and prohibits their use in war, yet our police forces use these weapons on Canadian civilians. These weapons are indiscriminate and can affect peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders. Will the government prohibit the use of these weapons and require police to use de-escalation techniques to keep legal protests peaceful? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, the right to peaceful protest in this country is a constitutionally protected right. We want to ensure it's always respected. At the same time, Madam Chair, we recognize that the use of even less than lethal force can have significant impacts on people's safety. This is a highly regulated substance in Canada. It's prohibited for non-police use, and for the police it is and should be highly regulated. The RCMP have advised me they have not used tear gas in nine years. We'll continue to monitor it to ensure that peaceful protest is always respected. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, in 2012 the RCMP spent $14 million on 18 armoured personnel carriers. One's parked at the Nanaimo detachment. I can't imagine why we have weapons of war like this for policing civilians. Will the government rein in the RCMP budget and end wasteful spending on militarizing our civilian police forces? +Hon. Bill Blair: Madam Chair, it's a very important tradition that our Canadian police are not militarized. At the same time, we've seen a number of tragedies when police have responded to situations in which people were armed with weapons designed for soldiers to kill soldiers, and they've been used to kill police officers. The militarization of our society, so strongly promoted by some, is the direct consequence of the militarization of the police. As we remove these weapons from our society and prohibit them, we'll make it safer for everyone and we can then move away from such a model of policing. +Mr. Paul Manly: Madam Chair, the government spent $4.5 billion to buy an old, leaky pipeline. Since 1961, there have been 82 reported spills from the Trans Mountain pipeline. Over 1.5 million litres of crude oil has spilled into the surrounding environment. This weekend, the Trans Mountain pipeline leaked again, dumping 190,000 litres of oil. How much is this spill going to cost Canadian taxpayers to clean up? How much contingency funding has been budgeted to repair the environmental destruction from spills? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Madam Chair, I want to thank the honourable colleague for his question. He full well knows that the acquisition that we made with regard to the TMX initiative is a reflection of the fact that we want this initiative to move forward in a sustainable manner and in a manner that protects the environment. I'll continue to work with my colleagues to endeavour to make sure that we have the appropriate processes in place to protect the environment and at the same time create good-quality, middle-class jobs for Canadians. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for RosemontLa PetitePatrie, Mr.Boulerice, has the floor. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (RosemontLa Petite-Patrie, NDP): Thank you, MadamChair. The Black Lives Matter movement is right to discuss systemic racism in our societies. In Montreal, the city and the police department have recognized this, and measures will be put in place. The Liberal government, once again, is all talk and no walk. Although it spends $10million a day, we see no attempt to reform or change the RCMP. If the Prime Minister really wants to act, why is he delaying the action plan in response to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? +Hon. Bill Blair: Let me assure this House and the member opposite that we're not dragging our feet. This is an important issue. Indigenous people, black Canadians and other racialized people are far too often experiencing systemic racism and disparate outcomes through the criminal justice system. It's incumbent upon all of us who work within the criminal justice system to take the steps and actions necessary to produce more equitable outcomes. All police services, including the RCMP, must be committed to ensuring that the people they're sworn to serve and protect are always treated with dignity and respect. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: MadamChair, why are the Liberals taking indigenous children to court to challenge the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling in their favour? +Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Indigenous Services): Madam Chair, as the honourable member knows full well, a number of cases are pending, and we are currently negotiating with the parties. We are making progress, and I would be delighted to tell the member and the House about it in response to a later question. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: We've been asking questions about it for months, and as I see it, we should keep doing so. The Prime Minister's new pipeline, which taxpayers were forced to buy with their hard-earned money, has leaked. Some 190,000litres of oil spilled, and we can't even make the company pay for it because the Liberals bought the pipeline. Trans-Mountain, KeystoneXL and the resumption of gas exploration and development off the coast of Newfoundland and Labradorare these the projects the Liberals had in mind for their green recovery? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. Our priority was to protect the health and safety of Canadians throughout the pandemic, especially when it comes to the environment. That's why environmental and climate change laws aimed at protecting the environment, human health and conservation will remain in force. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Across Quebec, the cultural community is going through a harrowing time. Unions, associations, artists and creators have all taken part in public demonstrations recently to condemn the lack of a specific plan for the living arts, performing arts and festival sector. What is the government waiting for? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'd like to thank the member for his question. However, I strongly disagree with him. We haven't waited to develop a plan for the arts and culture sector. We listened to the community and we tailored our supports, as they were announced. We have an emergency plan for the arts and culture sector. We were asked to adapt the CERB to take royalties into account, and we did. We were asked to extend the CERB, and we did. We are fully aware that the recovery will take longer in the arts and culture sector. We have been there, we are there and we will be there for the arts and culture sector. +Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: Well, that wasn't at all what the artists and creators who were out demonstrating in the streets a few days ago thought. They were protesting on the weekend. The CERB extension announced by the government only brings us to September, but the cultural community is expecting the worst in the fall. What is the government's long-term plan to support creators and their entire teams? +Hon. Steven Guilbeault: I'm not so sure those who were protesting last week had issues with our government, but we'd certainly be happy to speak with them. As for a long-term plan, we are currently consulting arts and culture stakeholders to contemplate together how the government can help the sector in response to the ongoing crisis. We are working on finding solutions, but until we have long-term solutions, we have seen to it that our artists and organizations have access to funding until September. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The honourable member for BeauportLimoilou, Mrs.Vignola, has the floor. +Mrs. Julie Vignola (BeauportLimoilou, BQ): Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Montcalm. According to the latest news, Seaspan Shipyards will be spending an additional $1.5billion to build two ships. Why? Because the ships were ordered in 2011 and still haven't been delivered. Davie built the Asterix without going over budget because it delivered the ship on time. Davie is currently the top shipyard, representing 50% of Canada's shipbuilding capacity. Why isn't Davie being awarded its fair share of contracts? +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): I'd like to thank the member for her question. Davie is certainly a strong and trusted partner that works very hard to help our government get results for Canadians. Building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for cost estimates to change throughout the procurement project. It's important to make sure additional funding is available for the joint support ships project to ensure the navy's vessels are delivered. +Mrs. Julie Vignola: We are talking about $1.5billion, here. In the beginning, eight years ago, the project was supposed to cost $2.6billion. There can't be much missing when the cost overrun is double the initial estimate. Why haven't the ships been delivered yet? Why is Davie still not seen as a trusted partner? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Minister, please keep your answer brief. +Hon. Anita Anand: Once again, I would point out that building a new class of ships is highly complex, and it's not unusual for the cost estimate to change for a procurement project as large as this one. I know that Davie works very hard, and we also believe it is an outstanding partner. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): It is now over to the honourable member for Montcalm, Mr.Thriault. +Mr. Luc Thriault (Montcalm, BQ): Madam Chair, in Quebec, 12,000people have begun their training to work in residential and long-term care centres. They will be ready for duty in mid-September. In the meantime, we need the support of the army, which is helping us save lives. The dedication of the members of the armed forces is paramount, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks. The government extended their mission until June26, which is only 10days away. What does the army have to do right now that is more important than helping our caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, I'm glad my fellow member recognizes the fundamental role the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have played and continue to play in residential and long-term care centres and many other areas in support of our seniors. We are in talks with the Quebec government. The discussions around providing continued assistance to Quebec are quite positive and productive. That assistance can take many forms, including the Red Cross. We will be there for our seniors, Madam Chair. +Mr. Luc Thriault: We are short 12,000people, so if the Red Cross wants to help us, all the better. We'll take all the help we can get. Barely 800members of the military are still in Quebec. I repeat my question: What does the army have to do 10days from now that is more important if it's not to help caregivers save lives? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, all the members of the military are still in Quebec. They have done absolutely incredible work and are continuing to do so. The people at the Canadian Red Cross are well-trained paid workers who can perform the same work in partnership with the members of the armed forces, who can stay in Quebec as well. Right now, we are working with the Quebec government and discussing how we can keep the measure in place until September15. +Mr. Luc Thriault: Madam Chair, our nurses and orderlies are exhausted. They're at the end of their ropes. Now is the time to thank them, not the time to turn our backs on them. It's not the time for dilly-dallying or discussions. It's the time to tell them that we will be there to help them until the end. I will repeat my question. What does the army have to do that is more important than helping caregivers save the lives of those who built Quebec? +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is asked to keep his answer brief. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: Madam Chair, the Government of Canada is there and will continue to be there to help the people who built Quebec. The Government of Canada will work with the Quebec government to make that happen. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): We will go to the honourable member for Red DeerMountain View, Mr. Dreeshen. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen (Red DeerMountain View, CPC): Thank you so much. Madam Chair, on May 14 I asked the Minister of Agriculture when the Liberal government would put aside its usual campaign rhetoric and recognize the very detrimental impact the carbon tax is having on farmers across this country. Minister Bibeau proudly noted that according to their data, the average cost of the carbon tax per farm across Canada is $210 to $819. We know that these numbers are completely unfounded and are not based on any factual evidence. The fact is that the Liberal government's own Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that at $25 per tonne, the cost for an 855-acre crop farm in Alberta is well over $6,000. The office came up with that using the government's statistics from the 2016 agricultural census. Madam Chair, the evidence is right in front of the minister. When will this Liberal government come clean with Canadians and recognize the disastrous impact the carbon tax is having on Canada's critical agriculture and agri-food sector? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Madam Chair, our pollution pricing policy is designed to grow a clean economy. To support this sector, we have put in place the following measures. Emissions from livestock and crop production are not priced. Farm fuels and fuels from cardlock facilities are exempt, and there is a partial rebate for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. We will do a review of our pollution pricing system in 2020, focused on competitiveness issues in trade-exposed industries such as agriculture. It is also important to remember that this is about tackling climate change and that 100% of the revenues stay in the province. We will continue to support our farmers and food processors as they provide an essential service across Canada. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau keeps talking about wanting to protect Canadians' environment. Well, the truth is that Canada's farmers, ranchers and processors have for years demonstrated their ability to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and to safeguard the environment through the adoption of new technologies, education and innovative management practices, but the government ignores these efforts. Will the minister at the very least admit to Canadians that Canadian farmers are unable to pass on the cost of the carbon tax to consumers and instead have to absorb those extra costs out of their own pockets? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madam Chair, allow me to explain again our government's position on pollution pricing. The price and method were developed so we could build an increasingly clean economy. We put a number of measures in place to help the agriculture sector. Emissions from animal and plant production aren't taxed. Farm fuels and fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are also +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have another question. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): I am watching the time, Mr. Dreeshan. You have a couple more seconds. +Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you. Madam Chair, Minister Bibeau has repeatedly asked stakeholders to send her data about the impacts of the carbon tax on farmers, so this is exactly what they have been doing. The Atlantic Grains Council, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, Producteurs de grains du Qubec and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association issued a joint statement at the beginning of this year in which they estimated that the cumulative indirect inflation of carbon tax on farm costs will be $14.50 an acre this year, with that cost escalating by more than double by 2022 to almost $30 an acre. These are huge numbers. Why does the Liberal government continue to ignore the facts presented to it and continue to misrepresent the truth to Canadians? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Madame Chair, I can assure you that we have paid close attention to all the information that has been provided to us and that our calculation was also based on this information provided by provinces and different stakeholders. Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Our government has been very open and transparent about our pollution pricing plan. The department used data from stakeholders and provinces Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Thank you very much, Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau:as well as the 2019 agricultural tax data to estimate the average cost of pollution pricing associated with grain drying at up to 0.4% of overall operating costs. It is important to remember that we have put in place many special provisions Mr. Earl Dreeshen: Madam Chair Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: like exempting farm fuel and providing other financial supports for farmers. +The Acting Chair (Mrs. Carol Hughes): Mr. Dreeshen, I am watching the time, and the minister is allowed to answer for the same amount of time that you used to ask the question. Therefore, I would hope that we would allow her to finish. She has finished, and unfortunately the time is up. The committee now stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon. +","**Summary:** + +The 23rd meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic was called to order by Chair Hon. Anthony Rota. Announcements included instructions for successfully participating in the video conference and a reminder that any presented petitions must be pre-certified. MPs presented various petitions concerning protection of marine areas, UNDRIP principles, compensation for vaccination side effects, creators' income and royalty models, euthanasia, systemic discrimination, illegal guns, organ harvesting, and support for economically disadvantaged seniors. + +Discussions touched on topics like Huawei's presence in Ottawa, accountability and transparency from the government, assistance for various sectors, and the pursuit of a seat at the UN. Questions were raised on policies, programs, and budget-related concerns, including subsidies, health and safety, and government assistance to sectors such as rural broadband, agriculture, and culture. + +Specific concerns were voiced about support for summer camps, Canada's shipbuilding contracts, addressing the opioid crisis, decentralizing the police force, RCMP budget, and the carbon tax's impact on farmers. Responding members of the government provided assurances of ongoing work and commitment to addressing the raised issues. + +The meeting concluded with an adjournment until the following day at noon." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad H: st +Grad F: So we 're on . +Grad H: Yeah . That 's better . +Grad F: And , {comment} somewhere is my agenda . I think the most important thing is Morgan wanted to talk about , uh , the ARPA {pause} demo . +Professor D: Well , so , here 's the thing . Um , why don't we s again start off with {disfmarker} with , uh , Yeah , I 'll get it . I 'll get the door . Um , I think we want to start off with the agenda . And then , given that , uh , Liz and Andreas are gonna be {pause} ten , fifteen minutes late , we can try to figure out what we can do most effectively without them here . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} so , one thing is , yeah , talk about demo , +Grad F: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} uh , IBM transcription status , +Professor D: IBM transcription . Uh , what else ? +Grad F: +Professor D: What 's SmartKom ? SmartKom ? +Grad F: Uh , we wanna talk about if w if we wanna add the data to the mar Meeting Recorder corpus . +PhD E: The data . The data which we are collecting here . +Professor D: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what are we collecting here ? +PhD E: Data ? +Grad F: So why don't we have that on the agenda and we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get to it and talk about it ? +PhD E: The SmartKom data ? +Professor D: Yeah , right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , right . Uh . +Grad F: Uh , reorganization status . +Professor D: Reorganization status . +Postdoc A: Oh . Files and directories ? +Professor D: Files and directories . +Grad F: Yep . Uh - huh . Absinthe , which is the multiprocessor UNIX {disfmarker} Linux . I think it was {pause} Andreas wanted to talk about segmentation and recognition , and update on SRI recognition experiments . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: And then if ti if there 's time I wanted to talk about digits , but it looked like we were pretty full , so I can wait till next week . +Professor D: Right . OK . Well , let 's see . I think the a certainly the segmentation and recognition we wanna maybe focus on when An - Andreas is here since that was particularly his thing . +PhD E: And also the SmartKom thing should b +Professor D: SmartKom also , Andreas . Absinthe , I think also he has sort of been involved in a lot of those things . +Grad F: At least , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: yeah , he 'll t he 'll probably be interested . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: But . +Professor D: Um So , I mean , I think they 'll be inter I 'll be interested in all this , but {disfmarker} but , uh , probably , if we had to pick something {pause} that we would talk on for ten minutes or so while they 're coming here . Or I guess it would be , you think , reorganization status , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , I think , Chuck was the one who added out the agenda item . I don't really have anything to say other than that we still haven't done it . +PhD B: Well , I mean , I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} just basically that {disfmarker} +Grad F: So . +PhD B: maybe I said {disfmarker} maybe we said this before {disfmarker} just that we met and we talked about it and we sort of have a plan for getting things organized and {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} and I think a crucial part of that is the idea of {disfmarker} of not wanting to do it until right before the next level zero back - up so that there won't be huge number of {disfmarker} of added , +PhD B: Right . +Postdoc A: uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: That {disfmarker} that was basically it . Not {disfmarker} not much @ @ {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although Dave basically said that if we wanna do it , just tell him and he 'll do a d level zero then . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Uh - huh . Oh , excellent . +Grad F: So . +Postdoc A: Oh , good . +PhD B: Oh , so maybe we should just go ahead and get everything ready , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . So , I think we do need to talk a little bit about {disfmarker} Well , we don't need to do it during this meeting . +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: We have a little more to discuss . But , uh , we 're {disfmarker} we 're basically ready to do it . And , uh , I have some web pages on ts {comment} more of the background . So , naming conventions and things like that , that I 've been trying to keep actually up to date . So . And I 've been sharing them with U - d UW folks also . +Postdoc A: I 'm sorry , you 've been what ? Showing them ? +Professor D: OK . +Postdoc A: Sharing them . +Grad F: Sharing them with the UW folks . +Postdoc A: OK . OK . +Professor D: OK . Well , maybe uh , since that {disfmarker} that was a pretty short one , maybe we should talk about the IBM transcription status . Someone can {vocalsound} fill in Liz and Andreas later . Uh +Grad F: OK . So , we , uh {disfmarker} we did another version of the beeps , where we separated each beeps with a spoken digit . Chuck came up here and recorded some di himself speaking some digits , and so it just goes "" beep one beep "" and then the phrase , and then "" beep two beep "" and then the phrase . And that seems pretty good . Um , I think they 'll have a b easier time keeping track of where they are in the file . +PhD E: And we have done that on the {pause} automatic segmentations . +Grad F: And we did it with the automatic segmentation , and I don't think {disfmarker} We ne we didn't look at it in detail . We just sent it to IBM . We {disfmarker} we sorta spot - checked it . +PhD B: I listened to {pause} probably , uh , five or ten minutes of it from the beginning . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , really ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: I sorta spot - checked here and there and it sounded pretty good . So . I think it 'll work . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: And , uh , we 'll just hafta see what we get back from them . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: And the main thing will be if we can align what they give us with what we sent them . I mean , that 's the crucial part . +Grad F: Right . +PhD B: And I think we 'll be able to do that at {disfmarker} with this new beep format . +Grad F: Yep . Well , I think it 's also they are much less likely to d have errors . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I mean , so the problem wi last time is that there were errors in the transcripts where they put beeps where there weren't any , or {disfmarker} and they put in extraneous beeps . +PhD B: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: And with the numbers there , it 's much less likely . +PhD B: Yeah , one interesting note is {disfmarker} uh , or problem {disfmarker} I dunno if this was just because of how I play it back , I say , uh , SND - play and then the file , every once in a while , @ @ {comment} uh , like a beep sounds like it 's cut into two beeps . +PhD E: Yeah . Into two pieces . +PhD B: Yeah , and I {disfmarker} I dunno if that 's an , uh , artifact of playback {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD B: bu uh , I don't think it 's probably in the original file . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: I recognize that , too . Yeah . +Grad F: Ha . That 's interesting . I didn't hear that . +PhD B: Yeah . But with this new format , um , that hopefully they 're not hearing that , and if they are , it shouldn't throw them . +PhD E: Yep . +PhD B: So . +Grad F: Well , maybe we better listen to it again , make sure , but , I mean , certainly the software shouldn't do that , +PhD B: Yeah . That 's what I thought . +Grad F: so . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I it 's probably just , you know , mmm , somehow the audio {pause} device gets hung for a second , +PhD E: Yeah . Some latency or something . +Grad F: Hiccups . +PhD E: Yeah ? +Postdoc A: As long as they have one number , and they know that there 's only one beep maximum {vocalsound} that goes with that number . +PhD B: or {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Yeah . The only {disfmarker} the only part that might be confusing is when Chuck is reading digits . +PhD B: Right . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Well , you know , actually , are we having them {disfmarker} +PhD B: So {vocalsound} th +Grad F: "" Seven four eight beep seven beep {vocalsound} eight three two "" . +Postdoc A: Yeah , but are we having them do digits ? +Grad F: Yes . Because , uh , we don't {disfmarker} we didn't {disfmarker} In order to cut them out we 'd have to listen to it . +PhD B: We {disfmarker} we didn't cut those out . +PhD E: Yeah . They are not transcribed yet . So . Yeah . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: And we wanted to avoid doing that , +Postdoc A: OK . +Grad F: so we {disfmarker} they are transcribing the digits . +Postdoc A: OK . +PhD B: We can {disfmarker} we can ignore it when we get it back , +Grad F: Although we could tell them {disfmarker} {comment} {vocalsound} we could tell them , if you hear someone reading a digits string just say "" bracket digit bracket "" +PhD B: huh . +Grad F: and don't bother actually computing the di writing down the digits . +PhD B: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 'd be great . That 'd be what I 'm having the transcribers here do , cuz it can be extracted later . +Grad F: Yep . And then I wanted to talk about {disfmarker} but as I said I {disfmarker} we may not have time {disfmarker} what we should do about digits . We have a whole pile of digits that haven't been transcribed . +Professor D: Le - let 's talk about it , because that 's {disfmarker} that 's something that I {disfmarker} I know Andreas is less interested in than Liz is , +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: so , you know . It 's good {disfmarker} +Grad F: Do we have anything else to say about transcription ? About IBM stuff ? +PhD B: Uh , Brian {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} sent bresset {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} sent Brian a message about {pause} {vocalsound} the meeting and I haven't heard back yet . So . I g hope he got it and hopefully he 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD B: maybe he 's gone , I dunno . He didn't even reply to my message . So . I should probably ping him just to make sure that he got it . +Grad F: Alright . So , we have a whole bunch of digits , if we wanna move on to digits . +Professor D: Actually , maybe I {disfmarker} One {disfmarker} one relate more related thing in transcription . So that 's the IBM stuff . We 've got that sorted out . Um , how 're we doing on the {disfmarker} on the rest of it ? +Postdoc A: We 're doing well . I {disfmarker} I hire {disfmarker} I 've hired two extra people already , expect to hire two more . +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc A: And , um , {vocalsound} I 've prepared , um , uh , a set of five which I 'm {disfmarker} which I 'm calling set two , which are now being edited by my head transcriber , {vocalsound} in terms of spelling errors and all that . She 's also checking through and mar and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and monitoring , um , the transcription of another transcriber . You know , I mean , she 's going through and doing these kinds of checks . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And , I 've moved on now to what I 'm calling set three . I sort of thought if I do it in sets {disfmarker} groups of five , then I can have , like , sort of a {disfmarker} a parallel processing through {disfmarker} through the {disfmarker} the current . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Postdoc A: And {disfmarker} and you indicated to me that we have a g a goal now , {vocalsound} for the {disfmarker} for the , um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} the , uh , DARPA demo , of twenty hours . So , I 'm gonna go up to twenty hours , be sure that everything gets processed , and released , and {disfmarker} {pause} {comment} and that 's {disfmarker} that 's what my goal is . Package of twenty hours right now , {vocalsound} and then once that 's done , move on to the next . +Professor D: Yeah , uh , so twenty hours . But I guess the other thing is that , um , that {disfmarker} that 's kinda twenty hours ASAP because the longer before the demo we actually have the twenty hours , the more time it 'll be for people to actually do cool things with it . +Postdoc A: Mm - hmm . Good . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hiring people who , {vocalsound} uh , really are {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . OK . +Postdoc A: They would like to do it full - time , several of these people . And {disfmarker} and I don't think it 's {vocalsound} possible , really , to do this full - time , but , that {disfmarker} what it shows is motivation to do as many hours as possible . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: It 'll keep your accuracy up . Yep . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: And they 're really excellent . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , that 's good . +Postdoc A: Yeah . Got a good core group now . +Professor D: Yeah , I mean , I guess the {disfmarker} So the difference if {disfmarker} if , um , if the IBM stuff works out , the difference in the job would be that they p primarily would be checking through things that were already done by someone else ? +Postdoc A: Again . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Is that most of what it {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: And correcting . +Professor D: I mean {disfmarker} Correcting . +Grad F: Correcting . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll expect that they 'll have to move some time bins and do some corrections . +Postdoc A: And I {disfmarker} you know , I 've also d uh , discovered {disfmarker} So with the new transcriber I 'm {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Uh , lemme say that my , uh {disfmarker} So , um {disfmarker} At present , um , the people have been doing these transcriptions a channel at a time . And , that sort of , um , {vocalsound} is useful , and t you know , and then once in a while they 'll have to refer to the other channels to clear something up . OK . Well , {vocalsound} I realize that , um , w i we we 're using the pre - segmented version , and , um , the pre - segmented version is extremely useful , and wouldn't it be , useful also to have the visual representation of those segments ? And so I 've {disfmarker} {pause} uh , {pause} I , uh , uh , I 've {comment} trained the new one {disfmarker} uh , the new the newest one , {vocalsound} to , um , {vocalsound} use the visual from the channel that is gonna be transcribed at any given time . And that 's just amazingly helpful . Because what happens then , is you scan across the signal and once in a while you 'll find a blip that didn't show up in the pre - segmentation . +Grad F: Oh , right . +Postdoc A: And that 'll be something like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I it 's ver {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Grad F: I see what you mean . A backchannel , or {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: Once in a while it 's a backchannel . +PhD E: Yep . +Postdoc A: Sometimes it seems to be , um , similar to the ones that are being picked up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc A: And they 're rare events , but you can really go through a meeting very quickly . You just {disfmarker} you just , you know , yo you s you scroll from screen to screen , looking for blips . And , I think that we 're gonna end up with , uh {pause} better coverage of the backchannels , +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: but at the same time we 're benefitting tremendously from the pre - segmentation because {vocalsound} there are huge places where there is just absolutely no activity at all . And , uh , the audio quality is so good {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So they can {disfmarker} they can , um , scroll through that pretty quick ? +Postdoc A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: That 's great . +Postdoc A: Yeah . So I think that that 's gonna , also {pause} eh , {comment} you know , speed the efficiency of this part of the process . +Professor D: Hmm . OK . Uh , yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So let 's talk about the digits , since they 're not here yet . +Grad F: Uh , so , we have a whole bunch of digits that we 've read and we have the forms and so on , um , but only a small number of that ha well , not a small number {disfmarker} only a subset of that has been transcribed . And so we need to decide what we wanna do . And , uh , Liz and Andreas {disfmarker} actually they 're not here , but , they did say at one point that they thought they could do a pretty good job of just doing a forced alignment . And , again , I don't think we 'll be able to do with that alone , because , um , sometimes people correct themselves and things like that . But {disfmarker} so , I was just wondering what people thought about how automated can we make the process of finding where the people read the digits , doing a forced alignment , and doing the timing . +Professor D: Well , forced alignment would be one thing . What about just actually doing recognition ? +Grad F: Well , we {disfmarker} we know what they read , because we have the forms . +Professor D: No , they make mistakes . +Grad F: Right . But , the point is that we wanna get a set of clean digits . +PhD B: You 're talking about as a pre - processing step . +Professor D: Right . +PhD B: Right , Morgan ? +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Is that what you 're {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not quite sure what I 'm talking about . I mean {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean , uh , we 're talking about digits now . And {disfmarker} and so , um , there 's a bunch of stuff that hasn't been marked yet . Uh . And , um , {vocalsound} there 's the issue that {disfmarker} that they {disfmarker} we know what {disfmarker} what was said , but do we ? +Grad F: I mean , so one option i +Professor D: Because people make mistakes and stuff . I was just asking , just out of curiosity , if {disfmarker} if with , uh {disfmarker} uh , the SRI recognizer getting one percent word error , uh , would we {disfmarker} would we do {pause} better {disfmarker} ? So , if you do a forced alignment but the force but the {disfmarker} but the transcription you have is wrong because they actually made mistakes , uh , or {vocalsound} false starts , it 's {disfmarker} it 's much less c {vocalsound} it 's {pause} much less common than one percent ? +Grad F: But that 's pretty uncommon . Um , if we could really get one percent on {disfmarker} +Professor D: We should be able to . +Grad F: Well , I guess {disfmarker} yeah , I guess if we segmented it , we could get one percent on digits . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So that 's just my question . I 'm not saying it should be one way or the other , but it 's {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} +Grad F: But , Well , there {disfmarker} there 're a couple different of doing it . We could use the tools I 've already developed and transcribe it . Hire some people , or use the transcribers to do it . We could let IBM transcribe it . You know , they 're doing it anyway , and unless we tell them different , they 're gonna transcribe it . Um , or we could try some automated methods . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: And my {disfmarker} my tendency right now is , well , if IBM comes back with this meeting and the transcript is good , just let them do it . +Professor D: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Y you raised a point , kind of , uh , euphemistically {disfmarker} but , I mean , m maybe it is a serious problem . Ho - what will they do when they go {disfmarker} hear "" beep {pause} seven {pause} beep {pause} seven three five two "" {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} you think they 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: It 's pretty distinct . +Professor D: Yeah ? +Grad F: The beeps are {pause} pre - recorded . +PhD B: It 'll {comment} only be a problem for m for mine . +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , it 'd be preceded by "" I 'm reading transcript so - and - so "" ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Postdoc A: So , I think if they 're processing it at {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , it 'll be {disfmarker} it will be in the midst of a digit string . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} I mean it {disfmarker} sure , there {disfmarker} there might be a place where it 's "" beep seven {pause} beep eight {pause} beep {pause} eight {pause} beep "" . But , you know , they {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} they 're gonna macros for inserting the beep marks . And so , I {disfmarker} I don't think it 'll be a problem . We 'll have to see , but I don't think it 's gonna be a problem . +Professor D: OK . Well , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I dunno , I {disfmarker} I think that that 's {disfmarker} if they are in fact going to transcribe these things , uh , certainly any process that we 'd have to correct them , or whatever is {disfmarker} needs to be much less elaborate for digits than for other stuff . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: So , why not ? Sure . That was it ? +Grad F: That was it . Just , what do we do with digits ? +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: We have so many of them , {vocalsound} and it 'd be nice to {pause} actually do something with them . +Professor D: Well , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna have them . Yeah , I {disfmarker} +PhD I: You mean there 're more than ten ? +Grad F: Anything else ? Your mike is a little low there . +Professor D: I in Berkeley , yeah . So , {vocalsound} uh {pause} You {disfmarker} you have to go a little early , right ? At twenty {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I can stay till about , uh , three forty . +Professor D: Alright . So le let 's make sure we do the ones that {disfmarker} that , uh , saved you . +PhD I: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So there was some {disfmarker} Uh {pause} {vocalsound} In {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} Adam 's agenda list , he had something from you about segmentation this last recognition ? +PhD I: Well , yeah . So this is just partly to inform everybody , um , and {disfmarker} and of course to get , um , input . +Grad F: Oops . +PhD I: Um , so , {nonvocalsound} uh , we had a discussion {disfmarker} Don and Liz and I had discussion last week about how to proceed with , uh , you know , with Don 's work , +PhD E: Ch +PhD I: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and , uh , one of the obvious things that occur to us was that we 're {disfmarker} since we now have Thilo 's segmenter and it works , you know , amazingly well , {vocalsound} um , we should actually basically re - evaluate the recognition , um , results using {disfmarker} you know , without cheating on the segmentations . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , that should be fairly {disfmarker} +PhD E: And how do we find the transcripts for those so that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . The references for {disfmarker} for {pause} those segments ? +PhD I: Oh , OK . So , there 's actually {disfmarker} +PhD E: It 's not that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Why do you ask ? +Grad F: I could {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , actually , um , NIST has , um m a fairly sophisticated scoring program {vocalsound} that you can give a , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a time , +Grad F: Hand ones . +PhD G: Well {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} You know , you basically just give two {pause} time - marked sequences of words , and it computes the um {disfmarker} the , {comment} uh {disfmarker} {comment} you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD B: It does all the work for you . +PhD I: it does all the work for you . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So , it {disfmarker} we just {disfmarker} and we use that actually in Hub - five to do the scoring . Um . So what we 've been using so far was sort of a {pause} simplified version of the scoring . And we can {disfmarker} we can handle the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the type of problem we have here . +PhD E: So , basically you give some time constraints for {disfmarker} for the references and for {disfmarker} for the hypothesis , +PhD I: So , we ha Yeah . Right . +PhD E: and {disfmarker} Yeah , OK . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Maybe the {pause} start of your speech and the end of it , +PhD I: So do +PhD E: OK . +PhD G: or stuff like that . +PhD I: Right . It does time - constrained word - alignment . +PhD E: OK . +PhD I: So . So that should be possible . I mean that shouldn't be a problem . Uh , so that was the one thing , and the other was that , um {disfmarker} What was the other problem ? Oh ! That Thilo wanted to use {pause} the recognizer alignments to train up his , um , speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Um , so that we could use , uh {disfmarker} you know there wouldn't be so much hand {vocalsound} labelling needed to , uh {disfmarker} to generate training data for {disfmarker} for the speech detector . +PhD E: Yeah . I 'm just in progress of {disfmarker} of doing that . So . +PhD I: And I think you 're in the process of doing that . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: So , you can {disfmarker} {comment} you can {disfmarker} +PhD B: It 'll give you a lot more data , too . Won't it ? +PhD E: Yeah . So , it 's basically {disfmarker} s I think , eight meetings or something which {disfmarker} which I 'm using , and , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} before it was twenty minutes of one meeting . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: So {disfmarker} should {comment} be a little bit better . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: Great . +PhD I: That won't be perfect {disfmarker} the alignments aren't perfect , +PhD E: Yeah . But {disfmarker} +PhD I: but , um , it 's probably still better to have all this extra data , than {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: We 'll see that . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD G: Actually , I had a question about that . If you find that you can {vocalsound} lower the false alarms that you get where there 's no speech , that would be useful {pause} for us to know . So , um {disfmarker} +PhD E: There were the false alarms . +PhD G: Yeah . So , {vocalsound} r right now you get f fal you know , false {disfmarker} false , uh , speech regions when it 's just like , um , {vocalsound} breath or something like that , +PhD E: OK . Yeah . Yep . +PhD G: and I 'd be interested to know the {disfmarker} wha if you retrain um , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: do those actually go down or not ? Because {pause} of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah . I 'll {disfmarker} can make {disfmarker} an can , like , make a c comparison of {disfmarker} of the old system to the {disfmarker} to the new one , and {pause} then {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah , just to see if by doing nothing in the modeling of {disfmarker} just having that training data wh what happens . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Um another one that we had on Adam 's agenda {pause} that definitely involved you was s something about SmartKom ? +Grad F: Right . So , Rob Porzel {disfmarker} eh , Porzel ? and the , uh {disfmarker} Porzel {disfmarker} and the , uh , SmartKom group are collecting some dialogues . +PhD I: Porzel . Porzel . +Grad F: Basically they have one person sitting in here , looking at a picture , and a wizard sitting in another room somewhere . And , uh , they 're doing a travel task . And , uh , it involves starting {disfmarker} I believe starting with a {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's always the wizard , but it starts where the wizard is pretending to be a computer and it goes through a , uh , {vocalsound} speech generation system . +PhD E: Yeah . Actually , it 's changed to a synthesis for {disfmarker} for the first part now . +Grad F: Synthesis system . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , and then , it goes to a real wizard and they 're evaluating that . And they wanted to use this equipment , and so the w question came up , is {disfmarker} well , here 's some more data . Should this be part of the corpus or not ? And my attitude was yes , because there might be people who are using this corpus for {pause} acoustics , as opposed to just for language . Um , or also for dialogue of various sorts . Um , so it 's not a meeting . Right ? Because it 's two people and they 're not face to face . +Professor D: Wait a minute . So , I just wanted to understand it , cuz I {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} uh , hadn't quite followed this process . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . So , it 's wizard in the sen usual sense that the person who is asking the questions doesn't know that it 's , uh , a machi not a machine ? +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: At the beginning . +PhD I: Actually {disfmarker} actually , w w the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} We do this {disfmarker} I dunno who came up with it , but I think it 's a really clever idea . We simulate a computer breakdown halfway through the session , and so then after that , the person 's told that they 're now talking to a , uh {disfmarker} to a human . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: It 's a human operator . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: But of course they don't know that it 's the same person both times . +PhD I: So , we {disfmarker} we collect {disfmarker} we collect both human - computer and human - human data , essentially , in the same session . +Professor D: You might wanna try collecting it the other way around sometime , saying that th the computer isn't up yet +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: and then {disfmarker} so then you can separate it out whether it 's the beginning or end kind of effects . +PhD I: That 's an idea . +Professor D: But , yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: That 's a good idea . +Grad F: "" I have to go now . You can talk to the computer . "" +PhD B: It 's a lot more believable , too , +Grad F: "" No ! "" +PhD B: if you tell them that they 're {disfmarker} the computer part is running on a Windows machine . And the whole breakdown thing kinda makes sense . +PhD I: O Just {disfmarker} just reboot it . +Grad F: Abort {disfmarker} abort , retry , fail ? +PhD G: So did they actually save the far - field {pause} data ? +PhD E: Yes . +Grad F: Well , this was {disfmarker} this was the question . +PhD G: Cuz at first they weren't {disfmarker} they weren't sa +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so they were saying they were not going to , +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: and I said , "" well that 's silly , if {disfmarker} if we 're gonna try to do it for a corpus , there might be people who are interested in acoustics . "" +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD I: Wow . +PhD E: No . +PhD G: Or {disfmarker} +PhD E: projector {comment} We were not saying we are not {pause} doing it . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor D: S +PhD E: We wer we just wanted to do {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , the {disfmarker} the question is do we save one or two far - field channels or all of them ? +PhD G: Right . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I see no reason not to do all of them . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: That {disfmarker} that if we have someone who is doing acoustic studies , uh , it 's nice to have the same for every recording . +PhD G: Nnn . Yeah . +PhD I: Hmm . +Professor D: So , what is the purpose of this recording ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: This is to get acoustic and language model training data for SmartKom. OK . +PhD I: It 's to be traini to b training data and development data for the SmartKom {pause} system . +PhD E: The English system ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Right . Right . +PhD B: Where does this {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: +PhD G: Maybe we can have him vary the microphones , too , +Professor D: Well , +PhD E: B +PhD G: or they 're different s speakers . +Grad F: Right . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so for their usage , they don't need anything . +Professor D: so why not {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD E: But {disfmarker} but I 'm not sure about the legal aspect of {disfmarker} of that . Is {disfmarker} is there some contract with SmartKom or something about the data ? +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: What they {disfmarker} or , is {disfmarker} is that our data which we are collecting here , +Professor D: We 've never signed anything that said that we couldn't use anything that we did . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? OK . OK . +PhD I: We weren't supposed to collect any data . +PhD E: So . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD E: So . Yeah , th th that was the question . +PhD I: This was all {disfmarker} +PhD E: If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: No that 's not a problem . +PhD E: Basically . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} L look , it seems to me that if we 're doing it anyway and we 're doing it for these {disfmarker} these purposes that we have , {vocalsound} and we have these distant mikes , we definitely should re should save it all as long as we 've got disk space , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and disk is pretty cheap . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: So should we save it ? +Grad F: And then {disfmarker} +Professor D: Now th Yeah . So we save it because it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's potentially useful . And now , what do we do with it is {disfmarker} is a s separate question . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: I mean , anybody who 's training something up could {vocalsound} choose to put it {disfmarker} eh , to u include this or not . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} I would not say it was part of the meetings corpus . It isn't . But it 's some other data we have , and if somebody doing experiment wants to train up including that then they can . Right ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I guess it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} begs the question of what is the meeting corpus . So if , at UW they start recording two - person hallway conversations is that part of the meeting corpus ? +Professor D: I think it 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I th think the idea of two or more people conversing with one another is key . +Grad F: Well , this has two or more people conversing with each other . +Professor D: Nnn , well +PhD E: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Grad F: They 're just not face to face . +PhD G: What if we just give it a {disfmarker} a name like we give these meetings a name ? +Professor D: No , it doesn't . Right ? It has {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean , that was my intention . +PhD G: And then later on some people will consider it a meeting and some people won't , +Postdoc A: Well this {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: That was my intention . So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} s {vocalsound} so part of the reason that I wanted to bring this up is , {vocalsound} do we wanna handle it as a special case or do we wanna fold it in , +PhD G: and {disfmarker} Just give it a {vocalsound} title . +Postdoc A: Oh . +Professor D: I think it is a s +Grad F: we give everyone who 's involved as their own user ID , give it session I Ds , {vocalsound} let all the tools that handle Meeting Recorder handle it , or do we wanna special case it ? And if we were gonna special case it , who 's gonna do that ? +PhD E: So . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} it makes sense to handle it with the same infrastructure , since we don't want to duplicate things unnecessarily . +PhD E: It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: I think {disfmarker} +PhD I: But as far as distributing it , we shouldn't label it as part of this meeting corpus . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: We should let it be its own corp +Postdoc A: Well it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} well , because {disfmarker} +Grad F: I don't see why not . It 's just a different topic . +Postdoc A: I ha I have an extra point , which is the naturalness issue . Because we have , like , meetings that have a reason . That 's one of the reasons that we were talking about this . And {disfmarker} and those {disfmarker} and this sounds like it 's more of an experimental setup . +Professor D: Yeah . +Postdoc A: It 's got a different purpose . +Professor D: It 's scenario - based , it 's {disfmarker} it 's human - computer interface {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's really pretty different . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Professor D: But I I {disfmarker} I have no problem with somebody folding it in for some experiment they 're gonna do , but I don't think i it {disfmarker} it doesn't match anything that we 've described about meetings . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Whereas everything that we talked about them doing at {disfmarker} at UW and so forth really does . They 're actually talking {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . So w so what does that mean for how we are gonna organize things ? +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor D: You can {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} Again , as {disfmarker} as I think Andreas was saying , {vocalsound} if you wanna use the same tools and the same conventions , there 's no problem with that . It 's just that it 's , you know , different directory , it 's called something different , it 's {disfmarker} you know . It is different . You can't just fold it in as if it 's {disfmarker} I mean , digits are different , too . Right ? +Grad F: Yeah , but those are folded in , +PhD I: It might also be potentially confusing . +Grad F: and it 's just {disfmarker} you just mark the transcripts differently . So {disfmarker} so one option is you fold it in , +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: and just simply in the file you mark somewhere that this is this type of interaction , rather than another type of interaction . +PhD I: Yeah , I th +Professor D: Well , I don I wouldn't call reading digits "" meetings "" . Right ? I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we were doing {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , but {disfmarker} but , {vocalsound} I put it under the same directory tree . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , it 's in "" user doctor speech data MR "" . +PhD G: Can we just have a directory called , like , "" other stuff "" ? +Grad F: Other . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} or , I dunno . +Professor D: I mean , I don't care what directory tree you have it under . +PhD G: And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and just , um , store it there . +Professor D: Right ? I mean that 's just a {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . My preference is to have a single procedure so that I don't have to think too much about things . +PhD I: Yes . +PhD G: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And , just have a marking . +Professor D: O - You {disfmarker} you can use whatever procedure you want that 's p convenient for you . +Grad F: If we do it any other way that means that we need a separate procedure , and someone has to do that . +Professor D: All I 'm saying is that there 's no way that we 're gonna tell people that reading digits is meetings . And similarly we 're not gonna tell them that someone talking to a computer to get travel information is meetings . +Grad F: Right . +Professor D: Those aren't meetings . But if it makes it easier for you to pu fold them in the same procedures and have them under the same directory tree , knock yourself out . +PhD B: There 's a couple other questions that I have too , +Professor D: You know ? +PhD B: and {disfmarker} and {pause} one of them is , what about , uh , consent issues ? And the other one is , what about transcription ? Are {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Transcription is done in Munich . +PhD B: OK . So we don't have to worry about transcribing it ? +Professor D: Alright . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: So , w we will hafta worry about format . +PhD I: That 's a {disfmarker} that 's another argument to keep it separate , because it 's gonna follow the SmartKom transcription conventions and not the ICSI meeting transcription conventions . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Ah . Good point . +Grad F: OK . Well , I didn't realize that . That 's {disfmarker} that 's a {disfmarker} +Professor D: Good point . But I 'm sure no one would have a problem with our folding it in for some acoustic modeling or {disfmarker} or some things . Um . Do we h do we have , uh , um , American - born folk , uh , reading German {disfmarker} German , uh , pla uh , place names and so forth ? Is that {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: Exactly . +Professor D: Yeah , great . +PhD E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: They {disfmarker} they even have a reading list . +PhD B: I bet that sounds good , huh ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's pretty funny . +PhD I: Yeah . +PhD E: You can do that if you want . +PhD B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: I dunno if you want that . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: Yeah . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +Professor D: Heidelberg +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +PhD I: Exactly +Grad F: Disk might eventually be an issue so we might {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we might need to , uh , {vocalsound} get some more disk pretty soon . +PhD I: Do you wanna be a subject ? +Professor D: Yeah , I be pretty good . +PhD I: We {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: We 're about {disfmarker} we 're about half {disfmarker} halfway through our disk right now . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD I: That was one of our concerns . +PhD B: Are we only half ? I thought we were more than that . +Grad F: We 're probably a little more than that because we 're using up some space that we shouldn't be on . So , once everything gets converted over to the disks we 're supposed to be using we 'll be probably , uh , seventy - five percent . +PhD B: Well , when I was looking for space for Thilo , I found one disk that had , uh , I think it was nine gigs and another one had seventeen . +Grad F: Yep . +PhD B: And everything else was sorta committed . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Were those backed - up or non - backed - up ? +PhD B: Those were non - backed - up . +PhD E: Non - back - up . +Grad F: Right . So that 's different . +PhD B: S oh , you 're talking about backed - up . +Grad F: I 'm much more concerned about the backed - up . The non - backed - up , +PhD B: I haven't looked to see how much of that we have . +Grad F: yeah , i is cheap . I mean , if we need to we can buy a disk , hang it off a s uh , workstation . If it 's not backed - up the sysadmins don't care too much . +Professor D: Yeah . So , I mean , pretty much anytime we need a disk , we can get it at the rate that we 're {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can {disfmarker} I shouldn't be saying this , but , you can just {disfmarker} you know , since the back - ups are every night , you can recycle the backed - up diskspace . +Grad F: Yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's risky . +Professor D: Yeah . You really shouldn't be saying {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD I: I didn't say that . +Grad F: Beep that out . +Professor D: Da - we had allowed Dave to listen to these {disfmarker} {vocalsound} these , {vocalsound} uh , recordings . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah , I me and there 's been this conversation going on about getting another file server , and {disfmarker} and {vocalsound} we can do that . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: We 'll take the opportunity and get another big raft of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of disk , I guess . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's really the back - up issue rather than the file server issue . +PhD I: Well , I think {disfmarker} {comment} I think there 's an argument for having {disfmarker} you know , you could use our old file server for {disfmarker} for disks that have data that {pause} is very rarely accessed , and then have a fast new file server for data that is , um , heavily accessed . +Grad F: Yeah . My understanding is , the issue isn't really the file server . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: We could always put more disks on . +PhD I: Yeah . It 's the back it 's the back - up capaci +Grad F: It 's the back - up system . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} which is near saturation , apparently . So . +PhD B: I think {disfmarker} I think the file server could become an issue as we get a whole bunch more new compute machines . +Professor D: Soon . +PhD B: And we 've got , you know , fifty machines trying to access data off of Abbott at once . +Grad F: Well , we 're alright for now because the network 's so slow . +PhD I: I mean , I think {disfmarker} I think we 've raised this before and someone said this is not a reliable way to do it , but the {disfmarker} What about putting the stuff on , like , C - CD - ROM or DVD or something ? +Grad F: Yeah . That was me . I was the one who said it was not reliable . The - they {disfmarker} they wear out . +PhD I: OK . Oh , OK . +Grad F: Yeah . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} th +PhD I: But they wear out just from sitting on the shelf ? +Grad F: Yep . Absolutely . +PhD I: Or from being {pause} read and read ? +Grad F: No . Read and write don't hurt them too much unless you scratch them . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Grad F: But the r the write once , and the read - writes , don't last . So you don't wa you don't wanna put ir un reproduceable data {pause} on them . +PhD I: Uh - huh . +PhD B: Wear out after what amount of time ? +Grad F: Year or two . +Postdoc A: Would it be {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Year or two ? +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Wow . +Postdoc A: Hmm . +PhD I: But if that {disfmarker} then you would think you 'd {pause} hear much more clamoring about data loss +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , yeah , all the L +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I don't know many people who do it on CD . I mean , they 're {disfmarker} the most {disfmarker} fo +Professor D: LDC - all the LDC distributions are on CD - ROM . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad F: They 're on CD , but they 're not {disfmarker} tha that 's not the only source . +PhD G: Like {disfmarker} +Grad F: They have them on disk . And they burn new ones every once in a while . But if you go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you go k +PhD I: But , you know , we have {disfmarker} +PhD G: But we have like thirty {pause} you know , from {pause} ten years ago ? +Professor D: We have all sorts of CD - ROMs from a long time ago . +PhD G: No . +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah ! +Grad F: Well , th th OK . +PhD G: Ten years ago . +PhD I: Right . +PhD G: Ninety - one , and they 're still all fine . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad H: Were they burned or were they pressed ? +PhD G: Uh , both . I 've burned them and they 're still OK . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the pressed ones last for +PhD G: I mean , usually they 're {disfmarker} +Grad F: well , not forever , they 've been finding even those degrade . +Professor D: Oh , I see . +Grad F: But , uh , the burned ones {disfmarker} I mean , when I say two or three years what I 'm saying is that I have had disks which are gone in a year . +PhD G: That 's what I {disfmarker} +Grad F: On the average , it 'll probably be three or four years . But , uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you don't want to per p have your only copy on a media that fails . +PhD I: Mmm . +Grad F: And they do . Um , if you have them professionally pressed , y you know , they 're good for decades . +PhD I: So how about {disfmarker} ? So {disfmarker} so how about putting them on that plus , like on a {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on DAT or some other medium that isn't risky ? +Grad F: I think th um , we can already put them on tape . And the tape is hi is very reliable . +PhD I: OK . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the {disfmarker} the only issue is then {pause} if we need access to them . So that 's fine f if we don't need access to them . +PhD I: Right . Well , if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if they last {disfmarker} Say , they actually last , like , five years , huh , in {disfmarker} in the typical case , and {disfmarker} and occasionally you might need to recreate one , and then you get your tape out , but otherwise you don't . Can't you just {disfmarker} you just put them on {disfmarker} ? +Grad H: So you just archive it on the tape , and then put it on CD as well ? +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Grad F: Oh . So you 're just saying put them on C Ds for normal access . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Right . +PhD B: What you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . I mean , you can do that but that 's pretty annoying , because the C Ds are so slow . +PhD G: See {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad H: Yeah . +PhD I: Mmm . +PhD B: What 'd be nice is a system that re - burned the C Ds every {vocalsound} year . +PhD G: H everytime it was a "" gonna "" {disfmarker} "" gonna die "" . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , I mean , the C Ds are {disfmarker} are an op +PhD E: Yeah . +PhD I: It 's like {disfmarker} like dynamic ra DRAM . +PhD E: Just before . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD G: Just before they be before it goes bad , it burns them in . +Grad F: The {disfmarker} the CD is an alternative to tape . +Grad H: Yeah . +Grad F: ICSI already has a perfectly good tape system and it 's more reliable . +Professor D: You know {disfmarker} I would think {disfmarker} +Grad F: So for archiving , we 'll just use tape . +PhD I: One {disfmarker} one thing I don't understand is , if you have the data {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you if the meeting data is put on disk exactly once , then it 's backed - up once and the back - up system should never have to bother with it , uh , more than once . +Grad F: Well , regardless {disfmarker} Well , first of all there was , um , a problem with the archive in that I was every once in a while doing a chmod on all the directories an or recursive chmod and chown , because {vocalsound} they weren't getting set correctly every once in a while , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and I was just , {vocalsound} doing a minus R star , {vocalsound} not realizing that that caused {pause} it to be re - backed - up . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Ah . +Grad F: But normally you 're correct . But even without that , the back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but this back - up system is smart enough to figure out that something hasn't changed and doesn't need to be {pause} backed - up again . +Professor D: The b I think th the {disfmarker} at least the once tha that you put it on , it would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it would {comment} {vocalsound} kill that . +Grad F: Sure , but we still have enough changed that the nightly back - ups are starting to take too long . +PhD I: OK . So {disfmarker} so then , if {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so then , let 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: So . +Grad F: It has nothing to do with the meeting . It 's just the general ICSI back - up system is becoming saturated . +PhD I: Right . OK . Right . So , what if we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh , what {disfmarker} what do they call these , um {pause} high density {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Well , why don't you have this {disfmarker} have a {disfmarker} this conversation with Dave Johnson tha rather than with me ? +PhD I: No , no . Because this is {pause} maybe something that we can do without involving Dave , and {disfmarker} and , putting more burden on him . How about we buy , uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh , one of these high density tape drives ? And we put the data actually on non - backed - up disks . And we do our own back - up once and for all {disfmarker} all , and then {disfmarker} and we don't have to bother this @ @ up ? +Grad F: Actually , you know , we could do that just with the tape {disfmarker} with the current tape . +PhD I: I dunno what the these tapes {disfmarker} uh , at some point these {disfmarker} I dunno . What kind of tape drive is it ? +Grad F: I dunno but it 's an automatic robot so it 's very convenient . +PhD I: Is it {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Wh The o the one that we have ? +Grad F: You just run a program to restore them . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: The {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD I: But it might interfere with their back - up schedule , +PhD G: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , we have s we {disfmarker} Don't we have our own ? +PhD I: eh . +Professor D: Something wi th that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't used by the back - up gang ? Don't we have something downstairs ? +Postdoc A: Well they {disfmarker} +PhD B: What kinda tape drive ? +Professor D: Just in {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad F: Well {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} no , but Andreas 's point is a good one . And we don't have to do anything ourselves to do that . They 're already right now on tape . +PhD I: Right . +Grad F: Right . So your {disfmarker} your point is , and I think it 's a good one , that we could just get more disk and put it there . +PhD I: Mmm . On an XH {disfmarker} uh , X {disfmarker} X whatever partition . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's not a bad idea . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , that 's basically what I was gonna say , is that a disk is {disfmarker} is so cheap it 's es essentially , you know , close to free . And the only thing that costs is the back - up {pause} issue , {vocalsound} eh , to first order . +Grad F: So once it 's on tape {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Professor D: And we can take care of that by putting it on non - back {pause} up drives and just backing it up once onto this tape . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: Oh . Yeah . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Good . It 's good . +PhD G: So , who 's gonna do these back - ups ? The people that collect it ? +Grad F: Uh Well , I 'll talk to Dave , and {disfmarker} and see what th how {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} what the best way of doing that is . +PhD B: It 's probably gonna n +Grad F: There 's a little utility that will manually burn a tape for you , and that 's probably the right way to do it . +PhD B: Yeah , and we should probably make that part of the procedure for recording the meetings . +PhD G: Well , s +Grad F: Yep . +PhD G: Yeah . That 's what I 'm wondering , if {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well {pause} we 're g we 're gonna automate that . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: My intention is to {pause} do a script that 'll do everything . +PhD G: I mean , you don't have to physically put a tape in the drive ? +Grad F: No . It 's all tape robot , +PhD G: Or s ? s ? {comment} Oh , OK . +Grad F: so you just sit down at your computer and you type a command . +PhD G: So it 's just {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD I: Yeah , but then you 're effectively using the resources of the back - up system . Or is that a different tape robot ? +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: But not at the same time . +Grad F: But y but you would be anyway . +PhD B: No , no , no . +Grad F: Right ? +PhD B: He 's saying get a whole different drive . +Grad F: Because {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . See {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there 's no reason to do that . +PhD I: Yeah , just give a dedi +Grad F: It {disfmarker} we already have it there and it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , I 'm saying is @ @ i if you go to Dave , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and ask him "" can I use your tape robot ? "" , he will say , "" well {pause} that 's gonna screw up our back - up operation . "" +Grad F: No , we won't . He 'll say "" if {disfmarker} if that means {pause} that it 's not gonna be backed - up standardly , great . "" +Professor D: He - I {disfmarker} Dave has {disfmarker} has promoted this in the past . So I don't think he 's actually against it . +Grad F: Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's definitely no problem . +PhD I: Oh , OK . Alright . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: Alright . +Professor D: OK . +PhD I: Good . +PhD G: What about if the times overlap with the normal back - up time ? +Grad F: Um , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} it 's just a utility which queues up . It just queues it up and {disfmarker} and when it 's available , it will copy it . +PhD G: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: And then you can tell it to then remove it from the disk or you can , you know , do it a a few days later or whatever you wanna do , after you confirm that it 's really backed - up . +PhD G: OK . +Grad F: NW {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc A: You saying NW archive ? +Grad F: NW archive . +Postdoc A: Yep {comment} {vocalsound} And if you did that during the day it would never make it to the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: That 's what it is . +Professor D: OK . +Grad F: Right . +Postdoc A: And then there wouldn't be this extra load . +PhD I: Well , it {disfmarker} if he {disfmarker} you have to put the data on a {disfmarker} on a non - backed - up disk to begin with . +Postdoc A: Well , but you can have it NW archive to {disfmarker} you can have , {vocalsound} uh , a non - backed - up disk NW archived , +Grad F: Right . +PhD I: So that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} otherwise you don't {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Postdoc A: and it 'll never show up on the nightly back - ups . +Grad F: Right . And then it never {disfmarker} +PhD I: Right . Right . +Grad F: Right . Which I 'm sure would make ever the sysadmins very happy . +PhD I: Right . +Postdoc A: Yeah . +Grad F: So , I think that 's a good idea . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: That 's what we should do . +PhD I: OK . +Grad F: So , that means we 'll probably wanna convert all {disfmarker} all those files {disfmarker} filesystems to non - backed - up media . +PhD B: That sounds good . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Um , another , thing on the agenda said SRI recognition experiments ? What 's that ? +PhD I: SRI recognition ? Oh . +Grad F: That wasn't me . +Professor D: Uh . +PhD I: Um . well , +Professor D: Who 's that ? +PhD I: we have lots of them . Uh , I dunno . Chuck , do you have any {disfmarker} any updates ? +PhD B: N I 'm successfully , uh , increasing the error rate . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's good . +Grad H: Mmm . +PhD I: Oh . +PhD G: Lift the Herve approach . +PhD B: Yeah . So , I mean I 'm just playing with , um , the number of Gaussians that we use in the {disfmarker} the recognizer , and {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , you have to sa you have to {pause} tell people that you 're {disfmarker} you 're doing {disfmarker} you 're trying the tandem features . +PhD B: Yes , I 'm using tandem features . +Grad F: Oh you are ? +PhD B: And {disfmarker} +Grad F: Cool . +PhD I: A and I 'm still tinkering with the PLP features . +Grad F: +Professor D: Yeah , I got confused by the results . It sai because {disfmarker} uh , the {pause} meeting before , {vocalsound} you said "" OK , we got it down to where they 're {disfmarker} they 're within a tenth of a percent "" . +PhD B: That was on males . +PhD I: Right . That was {disfmarker} that was before I tried it on the females . +Professor D: Oh . +PhD I: See , women are nothi are , trouble . +Professor D: It 's the women are the problem . OK . +PhD I: Right ? As we all know . So . +PhD G: Well , let 's just say that men are simple . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} {comment} so , when {disfmarker} So I {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I ha +Grad F: That was a quick response . +PhD I: So , we had reached the point where {disfmarker} +PhD G: I 'm well rehearsed . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: we had reached the point where , {comment} um , on the male portion of the {pause} development set , the , um {disfmarker} or one of the development sets , I should say {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} the male error rate with , uh , ICSI PLP features was pretty much identical with , uh , SRI features . which are {pause} MFCC . So , um , then I thought , "" Oh , great . I 'll j I 'll {disfmarker} just let 's make sure everything works on the females . "" And the error rate {disfmarker} you know , there was a three percent difference . +Professor D: Oh . Uh - huh . +PhD I: So , +PhD G: Is there less training data ? +PhD I: uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , we don +PhD I: No , actually there 's more training data . +PhD G: This is on just digits ? +Professor D: No . +PhD I: No , no . +Grad F: No . +PhD B: Hub - five . +Grad F: It 's , uh , Swi +PhD G: Oh , sorry . OK . This is on {disfmarker} +PhD I: This is Hub - five . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Grad F: Hub - five . Yeah . +PhD I: Yeah . Um , and the test data is CallHome and Switchboard . So , uh {disfmarker} so then {pause} um {disfmarker} Oh , and plus the {disfmarker} the vocal tract {pause} length normalization didn't {disfmarker} actually made things worse . So something 's really seriously wrong . So {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha ! OK . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So {disfmarker} but you see , now , between {disfmarker} between the males and the females , there 's certainly a much bigger difference in the scaling range , than there is , say , just within the males . And what you were using before was scaling factors that were just from the {disfmarker} the m the {pause} SRI front - end . And that worked {disfmarker} that worked fine . +PhD I: That 's true . Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , but now you 're looking over a larger range and it may not be so fine . +PhD I: Well , um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} d so the one thing that I then tried was to put in the low - pass filter , which we have in the {disfmarker} So , most {disfmarker} most Hub - five systems actually band - limit the {disfmarker} uh , at about , uh , thirty - seven hundred , um , hertz . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Although , you know , normally , I mean , the channel goes to four {disfmarker} four thousand . Right ? So , um {disfmarker} And that actually helped , uh {disfmarker} uh , a little bit . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: Um {pause} and it didn't hurt on the males either . So , um {disfmarker} And I 'm now , uh , trying the {disfmarker} Oh , and suddenly , also the v the vocal tract length normalization only in the test se on the test data . So , you can do vocal tract length normalization on the test data only or on both the training and the test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And you expect it to help a little bit if you do it only on the test , and s more if you do it on both training and test . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so the {disfmarker} It now helps , if you do it only on the test , and I 'm currently retraining another set of models where it 's both in the training and the test , and then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have , hopefully , even better results . So {disfmarker} But there 's {disfmarker} It looks like there will still be some difference , maybe between one and two percent , um , for the females . +Professor D: Huh . +PhD I: And so , um , you know , I 'm open to suggestions . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And it is true that the , uh {disfmarker} that the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , we are using the {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} it can't be just the VTL , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD I: because if you don't do VTL in both systems , uh , you know , the {disfmarker} the females are considerably worse in the {disfmarker} with the PLP features . +Professor D: No {disfmarker} no . I {disfmarker} I remember that . +Grad F: It 's much worse . Yeah . +PhD I: So there must be some {disfmarker} something else going on . +PhD G: Well , what 's the standard {disfmarker} ? Yeah , so I thought the performance was actually a little better on females than males . +Grad F: That 's what I thought , too . +PhD I: Um , {pause} that {pause} ye {comment} overall , yes , but on this particular development test set , they 're actually a little worse . But that 's beside the point . We 're looking at the discrepancy between the SRI system and the SRI system when trained with ICSI features . +PhD G: Right . I 'm just wondering if that {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you have any indication of your standard features , +Grad F: What 's {disfmarker} Are the freq ? +PhD G: you know , if that 's also different {pause} or in the same direction or not . +Professor D: You 're {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} lemme ask a q more basic que +PhD G: Cuz {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , is this , uh {disfmarker} uh , iterative , Baum - Welch training ? +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Or is it Viterbi training ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: It 's Baum - Welch training . +Professor D: Baum - Welch training . And how do you determine when to {disfmarker} to stop iterating ? +PhD I: Um {disfmarker} Well , actually , we {disfmarker} we just basically do a s a fixed number of iterations . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD I: Uh , in this case four . Um , which {disfmarker} Eh , we used to do only three , and then we found out we can squeeze {disfmarker} And it was basically , we 're s we 're keeping it on the safe side . But you 're d Right . It might be that one more iteration {vocalsound} would {disfmarker} would help , but it 's sort of +Professor D: Or maybe {disfmarker} or maybe you 're doing one too many . +PhD I: you know . +Professor D: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , but with Baum - Welch , there shouldn't be an over - fitting issue , really . +Professor D: Uh . {comment} Well , there can be . Sure . +Grad F: Well , you can try each one on a cross - validation set , +PhD I: Um . +Professor D: It d if you {disfmarker} if you remember some years ago Bill Byrne did a thing where he was {disfmarker} he was looking at that , +Grad F: can't you ? +Professor D: and he showed that you could get it . +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: So . But {disfmarker} {comment} but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but , um {disfmarker} +PhD I: Well , yeah . We can {disfmarker} Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's the easy one to check , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: because we save all the intermediate models +Grad F: Do you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: and we can {disfmarker} +Professor D: And in each case , ho +Grad F: What {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: um , I 'm sorry {disfmarker} in each case how do you determine , you know , the {disfmarker} the usual {pause} fudge factors ? The , uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the , uh , language , uh , scaling , acoustic scaling , uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: Um {pause} I uh {disfmarker} {comment} I 'm actually re - optimizing them . Although that hasn't shown to make {pause} a big difference . +Professor D: OK . And the pru the question he was asking at one point about pruning , uh {disfmarker} Remember that one ? +PhD I: Pruning {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Well , he was {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} it looked like the probabil at one point he was looking at the probabilities he was getting out {disfmarker} at the likelihoods he was getting out of PLP versus mel cepstrum , and they looked pretty different , +PhD I: Pruning in the {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Yeah , the likelihoods were {pause} lower for the PLP . +Professor D: as I recall . +PhD G: Oh . +Professor D: And so , uh , there 's the question {disfmarker} +PhD I: I you mean {disfmarker} did you see this in the SRI system ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Was just looking through the log files , +PhD I: Um . Well , the likelihoods are {disfmarker} +PhD B: and {disfmarker} +PhD I: You can't directly compare them , because , for every set of models you compute a new normalization . And so these log probabilities , they aren't directly comparable +PhD B: Oh . +PhD I: because you have a different normalization constants for each model you train . +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor D: But , still it 's a question {disfmarker} +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Professor D: if you have some threshold somewhere in terms of beam search or something , +PhD B: Well , yeah . That 's what I was wondering . +Professor D: or {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: W yeah . I mean {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: I mean , if you have one threshold that works well because the range of your likelihoods is in this area {disfmarker} +PhD I: We prune very conservatively . I mean , as we saw with the meeting data , um {pause} we could probably tighten the pruning without really {disfmarker} So we we basically we have a very open beam . +Professor D: But , you 're only talking about a percent or two . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right ? Here we 're - we 're saying that we there {disfmarker} gee , there 's this b eh , there 's this difference here . And {pause} it {disfmarker} See cuz , i i {comment} there could be lots of things . Right ? But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , um , let 's suppose just for a second that , uh , we 've sort of taken out a lot of the {disfmarker} the major differences , uh , between the two . +PhD I: Right . Course . Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor D: I mean , we 're already sort of using the mel scale and we 're using the same style filter integration , and {vocalsound} and , well , we 're making sure that low and high {disfmarker} +PhD I: Actually , there is {disfmarker} the difference in that . So , for the PLP features we use the triangular filter shapes . And for the {disfmarker} in the SRI front - end we use the trapezoidal one . +Grad F: And what 's the top frequency of each ? +PhD I: Well , now it 's the same . It 's thirty {disfmarker} thirty to seven hundred and sixty hertz . +Grad F: Yeah . Exp - one 's triangular , one 's trapezoidal . So {disfmarker} +PhD I: No , no . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Before we {disfmarker} i i th with straight PLP , it 's trapezoidal also . +PhD I: Well {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But then we had a slight difference in the {disfmarker} in the scale . Uh , so . +PhD I: Since currently the Feacalc program doesn't allow me to change {pause} the filter shape independently of the scale . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD I: And , I did the experiment on the SRI front - end where I tried the {disfmarker} y where the standard used to be to use trapezoidal filters . You can actually continuously vary it between the two . And so I wen I swi I tried the trap eh , triangular ones . And it did slightly worse , but it 's really a small difference . +Grad F: Hmm . +Professor D: Coup - Couple tenths of a percent or something . +PhD I: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad F: So it 's not just losing some {vocalsound} frequency range . +PhD I: Yeah , exactly . So , it 's not {disfmarker} I don't think the filter shape by itself will make a huge {comment} difference . +Professor D: Yeah . Right . So the oth {vocalsound} the other thing that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor D: So , f i We 've always viewed it , anyway , as the major difference between the two , is actually in the smoothing , that the {disfmarker} that the , um , {vocalsound} PLP , and {disfmarker} and the reason PLP has been advantageous in , uh , slightly noisy situations is because , {vocalsound} PLP does the smoothing at the end by an auto - regressive model , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and mel cepstrum does it by just computing the lower cepstral coefficients . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . So , um {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +PhD I: OK . So {pause} one thing I haven't done yet is to actually do all of this with a much larger {disfmarker} with our full training set . So right now , we 're using a {disfmarker} I don't know , forty ? I i it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} eh {comment} it 's a f training set that 's about , um , you know , by a factor of four smaller than what we use when we train the full system . So , some of these smoothing issues are over - fitting for that matter . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And the Baum - Welch should be much less of a factor , if you go full {disfmarker} whole hog . +Professor D: Could be . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , w so , just um {disfmarker} so the strategy is to first sort of treat things {pause} with fast turn - around on a smaller training set and then , {vocalsound} when you 've sort of , narrowed it down , you try it on a larger training set . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: And so , we haven't done that yet . +Professor D: Now the other que related question , though , is {disfmarker} is , {vocalsound} uh , what 's the boot models for these things ? +PhD I: Th - th the boot models are trained from scratch . So we compute , um {disfmarker} So , we start with a , um , alil alignment that we computed with the b sort of the best system we have . And {disfmarker} and then we train from scratch . So we com we do a , you know , w um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We collect the {disfmarker} uh , the observations from those alignments under each of the feature sets that {disfmarker} that we {pause} train . And then , from there we do , um {disfmarker} There 's a lot of , actually {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The way it works , you first train a phonetically - tied mixture model . Um . You do a total of {disfmarker} First you do a context - independent PTM model . Then you switch to a context {disfmarker} You do two iterations of that . Then you do two iterations of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of context - dependent phonetically - tied mixtures . And then from that you {disfmarker} you do the {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you go to a state - clustered model , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD I: and you do four iterations of that . So there 's a lot of iterations overall between your original boot models and the final models . I don't think that {disfmarker} Hmm . We have never seen big differences . Once I thought "" oh , I can {disfmarker} Now I have these much better models . I 'll re - generate my initial alignments . Then I 'll get much better models at the end . "" Made no difference whatsoever . It 's {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} eh , i +Professor D: Right . Well , mis for making things better . +PhD I: the boot models are recur +Professor D: Yeah . But , this for making things worse . This it migh Th - the thought is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is possible {disfmarker} another possible {pause} partial cause is if the boot models {vocalsound} used a comple used a different feature set , that {disfmarker} +PhD I: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But there are no boot models , in fact . You {disfmarker} you 're not booting from initial models . You 're booting from initial alignments . +Professor D: Which you got from a different feature set . +PhD I: That 's correct . +Professor D: So , those features look at the data differently , actually . +PhD I: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: I mean , you know , they {disfmarker} they will find boundaries a little differently , though {disfmarker} You know , all th all that sort of thing is actually slightly different . I 'd expect it to be a minor effect , +PhD I: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but , what I 'm {disfmarker} what I 'm saying is {disfmarker} +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +PhD I: So , we e w f w For a long time we had used boot alignments that had been trained with a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the same front - end but with acoustic models that were , like , fifteen percent worse than what we use now . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD I: And with a dict different dictionary {disfmarker} with a considerably different dictionary , which was much less detailed and much less well - suited . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD I: And so , {vocalsound} then we switched to new boot alignments , which {disfmarker} which now had the benefit of all these improvements that we 've made over two years in the system . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: And , the result in the end was no different . +Professor D: Right . +PhD I: So , what I 'm saying is , the exact nature of these boot alignments is probably not {pause} a big factor in the quality of the final models . +Professor D: Yeah , maybe not . But {pause} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} I st still see it as {disfmarker} I mean , {vocalsound} there 's {disfmarker} there 's a history to this , too , +PhD I: Yeah . +Professor D: but I {disfmarker} uh , I don't wanna go into , +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I th I think it could be the things {pause} that it {disfmarker} the data is being viewed in a certain way , uh , that a beginning is here rather than there and so forth , +PhD I: Yeah . Right . +Professor D: because the actual signal - processing you 're doing is slightly different . +PhD I: Right . +Professor D: But , {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} that 's probably not it . +PhD I: Yeah . Anyway , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I should really reserve , uh , any conclusions until we 've done it on the large training set , um , and until we 've seen the results with the {disfmarker} with the VTL in training . +Professor D: Yeah . At some point you also might wanna take the same thing and try it on , uh , some Broadcast News data or something else that actually has {disfmarker} has some noisy {disfmarker} {vocalsound} noisy components , so we can see if any conclusions we come to holds {vocalsound} across {pause} different data . +PhD I: So . Yeah . Right . +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD I: And , uh , with this , I have to leave . +Professor D: OK . +Grad H: Hmm ! +Professor D: So , is there something quick about Absinthe {pause} that you {disfmarker} ? +PhD I: With this said . +Grad F: Uh . Just what we were talking about before , which is that I ported a Blass library to Absinthe , and then got {disfmarker} got it working with fast - forward , and got {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a speedup roughly proportional to the number of processors times the clock cycle . +PhD I: Oh . +Grad F: So , that 's pretty good . +PhD I: Oh ! Cool . +Grad F: Um , I 'm in the process of doing it for Quicknet , but there 's something going wrong and it 's about half the speed that I was estimating it should be , and I 'm not sure why . +PhD I: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But I 'll keep working on it . But the {disfmarker} what it means is that it 's likely that for net training and forward passes , we 'll {disfmarker} Absinthe will be a good machine . Especially if we get a few more processors and upgrade the processors . +PhD I: A few more processors ? How many are you shooting for ? +Grad F: There 're five now . It can hold eight . +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: Yeah , we 'll just go buy them , I guess . +Grad F: And it 's also five - fifty megahertz and you can get a gigahertz . +PhD I: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +PhD I: Can you mix {pause} t uh , processors of different speed ? +Grad F: I don't think so . I think we 'd have to do all {disfmarker} +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Probably just throw away the old ones , and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yep . +Professor D: Thank you {pause} for the box , +PhD I: Oh , OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I 'll just go buy their process . +Grad H: Hmm ! +PhD I: Maybe we can stick them in another system . I dunno . +Grad F: We 'd have to get a {disfmarker} almost certainly have to get a , uh , Netfinity server . +PhD I: I see . +Grad F: They 're pretty {disfmarker} pretty specialized . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD I: OK . +Professor D: Is {disfmarker} is Liz coming back , do you know , or {disfmarker} ? I dunno . Yeah . Oh , you don't . OK . Alright . Alright . See you . Um . Alright . So {disfmarker} Uh , they 're having tea out there . So I guess the other thing that we were gonna talk about is {disfmarker} is , uh , demo . And , um , so , these are the demos for the {pause} uh , July , uh , meeting {pause} and , um {disfmarker} DARPA mee +Grad F: July what ? Early July ? Late July ? +Professor D: Oh , I think it 's July fifteenth . +Postdoc A: Sixteen to eighteen , I think . +Professor D: Is that it ? +Postdoc A: Roughly . +Professor D: Yeah , sixteenth , eighteenth . Yeah . So , we talked about getting something together for that , but maybe , uh {disfmarker} maybe we 'll just put that off for now , given that {disfmarker} But I think maybe we should have a {disfmarker} a sub - meeting , I think , uh , probably , uh , Adam and {disfmarker} and , uh , Chuck and me should talk about {disfmarker} should get together and talk about that sometime soon . +Grad F: Over a cappuccino tomorrow ? +Professor D: Yeah {comment} something like that . Um , uh , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe we 'll involve Dan Ellis at some {disfmarker} some level as well . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um . OK . The {disfmarker} the tea is {disfmarker} is going , so , uh , I suggest we do , uh {disfmarker} uh , a unison . +Grad F: A unison digits ? +Postdoc A: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Gets our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Which is gonna be a little hard for a couple people because we have different digits forms . +PhD E: Oops . +Grad F: We have a {disfmarker} I found a couple of old ones . +Professor D: Oh . +Grad H: Hmm . +Professor D: Well , that 'll be interesting . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have you done digits before ? +Professor D: No . +Grad C: I haven't done it . +Grad F: OK . So , uh , the idea is just to read each line {pause} with a short pause between lines , +Grad C: Alright . +Grad F: not between {disfmarker} And , uh , since we 're in a hurry , we were just gonna read everyone all at once . So , if you sorta plug your ears and read {disfmarker} +Grad C: OK . +Grad F: So first read the transcript number , and then start reading the {pause} digits . +Grad C: Sure . +Grad F: OK ? One , two , three . +Professor D: OK we 're done . +Grad F: And {disfmarker} +","In a collaborative meeting involving a number of academics, a variety of topics are discussed concerning ongoing projects and administrative matters. The group, comprising graduate students, a professor, a postdoctoral researcher, and a PhD candidate, initially struggles with setting an agenda due to the absence of a couple of participants. They deliberate on the discussions that can proceed without Liz and Andreas, who are running late. + +Key topics on the agenda include a demonstration related to the ARPA project, IBM transcription status, and the incorporation of SmartKom data into the Meeting Recorder corpus. The team considers how their collected data could be integrated and discusses the possibility of handling SmartKom data, which involves dialogues collected during a wizard-of-Oz experiment for a travel task, with the same infrastructure as the existing corpus or as a separate entity. + +The group addresses reorganization status, contemplating the logistics of file and directory restructuring. The matter of Absinthe, a multiprocessor Unix/Linux system, is brought up along with updates on SRI recognition experiments that involve manipulating Gaussian mixtures in an acoustic model and exploring the processing of male and female speech. + +Grad F expresses interest in discussing digits, a dataset of spoken digits, and contemplates various methods for transcribing and processing the data, including the potential for automated methods or outsourcing to IBM. + +The conversation shifts into a more technical discussion, with Grad F sharing his efforts to port a Blass library to Absinthe, yielding promising results for net training and forward passes on the system. The group also discusses potential issues related to larger datasets and the implications for model training and system performance. The topic of recognition experiments is explored with a specific focus on the disparities between male and female error rates using various feature sets. Suggestions are made about considering additional iterations, cross-validating models, and the impact of the initial alignments derived from different feature sets. + +As the meeting proceeds, the team also contemplates how to manage and archive their growing data efficiently, with discussions around disk space, backups, tape drives, and data longevity on various storage mediums such as CDs and DVDs. + +Towards the end of the meeting, they prepare for a DARPA demo scheduled for July and propose a smaller sub-meeting to hash out the details of the demo with key participants. + +The meeting concludes with a group unison reading of digits, a standard practice for collecting spoken digit data, although with some complications due to the variation in the digit forms held by the participants." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay Right {vocalsound} Um well this is the kick-off meeting for our our project . Um {vocalsound} and um this is just what we're gonna be doing over the next twenty five minutes . Um so first of all , just to kind of make sure that we all know each other , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm Laura and I'm the project manager . {vocalsound} Do you want to introduce yourself again ? +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Hi , I'm David and I'm supposed to be an industrial designer . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I'm Andrew and I'm uh our marketing +User Interface: Um I'm Craig and I'm User Interface . +Marketing: expert . +Project Manager: Great . Okay . {vocalsound} Um so we're designing a new remote control and um {disfmarker} Oh I have to record who's here actually . So that's David , Andrew and Craig , isn't it ? And you all arrived on time . Um yeah so des uh {vocalsound} design a new remote control . Um , as you can see it's supposed to be original , trendy and user friendly . Um so that's kind of our our brief , as it were . Um and so there are three different stages to the design . Um I'm not really sure what what you guys have already received um in your emails . What did you get ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I just got the project announcement about what the project is {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Designing a remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's about it , didn't get anything else . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , that's that's it . +Project Manager: Is that what everybody got ? +Industrial Designer: Did you get the same thing ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . So we're gonna have like individual work and then a meeting about it . And repeat that process three times . Um and at this point we get try out the whiteboard over there . Um . {vocalsound} So uh you get to draw your favourite animal and sum up your favourite characteristics of it . So who would like to go first ? +Marketing: I will go . That's fine . +Project Manager: Very good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} This one here , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Very nice . Alright . My favourite animal is like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} A beagle . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um charac favourite characteristics of it ? Is that right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , right , well basically um high priority for any animal for me is that they be willing to take a lot of physical affection from their family . And , yeah that they have lots of personality and uh be fit and in robust good health . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So this is blue . Blue beagle . My family's beagle . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lovely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Well , my favourite animal would be a monkey . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Then they're small cute and furry , and uh when planet of the apes becomes real , {vocalsound} I'm gonna be up there with them . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: There's too much gear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can take as long over this as you like , because we haven't got an awful lot to discuss . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ok oh we do we do +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't feel like you're in a rush , anyway . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I coulda told you a whole lot more about beagles . +Project Manager: Ach {gap} why not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Boy , let me tell you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We might have to get you up again then . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what mine is . I'm gonna have to think on the spot now . +Marketing: Impressionist . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Can't draw . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um . +Project Manager: Is that a whale ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , well anyway , I don't know , it's just the first animal I can think off the top of my head . Um . Yes . Big reason is 'cause I'm allergic to most animals . Allergic to animal fur , +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: so um fish was a natural choice . Um , yeah , and I kind of like whales . They come in and go {vocalsound} eat everything in sight . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And they're quite harmless and mild and interesting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . God , I still don't know what I'm gonna write about . Um . +Marketing: Superb sketch , by the way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Tail's a bit big , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I was gonna choose a dog as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I'll just draw a different kind of dog . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: M my favourite animal is my own dog at home . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} That doesn't really look like him , actually . He looks more like a pig , actually . Ah well . +Marketing: I see a dog in there . +Project Manager: Do you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh that's very good of you . +Marketing: Yep . {vocalsound} Now I see a rooster . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +Marketing: What kind is it ? +Project Manager: Um he's a mixture of uh various things . Um and what do I like about him , um {disfmarker} That's just to suggest that his tail wags . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um he's very friendly and cheery and always pleased to see you , and very kind of affectionate and um {vocalsound} uh and he's quite quite wee as well so you know he can {disfmarker} doesn't take up too much space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um and uh {disfmarker} And he does a funny thing where he chases his tail as well , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is quite amusing , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Is he aware that th it's his own cha tail he's chasing ? +Project Manager: It is . I think it is . He only does it after he's had his dinner +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and um he'll just all of a sudden just get up and start chasing his tail 'round the living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's an after dinner dog then . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah , so uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Probably when he was little he got lots of attention for doing it and has forever been conditioned . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . {vocalsound} Right , um where did you find this ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just down here ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um what are we doing next ? Uh um . Okay , uh we now need to discuss the project finance . Um so according to the brief um we're gonna be selling this remote control for twenty five Euro , um and we're aiming to make fifty million Euro . Um so we're gonna be selling this on an international scale . And uh we don't want it to cost any more than uh twelve fifty Euros , so fifty percent of the selling price . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , can we just go over that again ? +Project Manager: Sure . +Marketing: Uh , so bas at twel Alright , yeah . Okay . So cost {disfmarker} like production cost is twelve fifty , +Project Manager: All together . +Marketing: but selling price is {disfmarker} is that wholesale or retail ? Like on the shelf . +Project Manager: Um I dunno . I imagine {disfmarker} That's a good question . +Marketing: Our sale our sale anyway . +Project Manager: I imagine it probably is our sale actually +Marketing: Yeah , okay okay . +Project Manager: because it's probably up to the the um the retailer to uh sell it for whatever price they want . Um . +Marketing: Okay . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But I {disfmarker} I don't know , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: I mean do you think the fact that it's going to be sold internationally will have a bearing on how we design it at all ? +Marketing: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Think it will ? Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Marketing: Well right away I'm wondering if there's um th th uh , like with D_V_D_ players , if there are zones . +Project Manager: Oh yeah , regions and stuff , yeah . +Marketing: Um f frequencies or something +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: um as well as uh characters , um different uh keypad styles and s symbols . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well for a remote control , do you think that will be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: I suppose it's depends on how complicated our remote control is . +Marketing: I don't know . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does make sense from maybe the design point of view 'cause you have more complicated characters like European languages , then you need more buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , possibly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And then a and then al the other thing international is on top of the price . I'm thinking the price might might appeal to a certain market in one region , whereas in another it'll be different , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What , just like in terms of like the wealth of the country ? +Marketing: Just a chara just a characteristic of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Like how much money people have to spend on things like ? +Marketing: Just {disfmarker} Or just like , basic product podi positioning , the twenty five Euro remote control might be a big hit in London , might not be such a big hit in Greece , who knows , +Project Manager: Aye , I see what you mean , yeah . +Marketing: something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Marketing . Good marketing thoughts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep . +Project Manager: Oh gosh , I should be writing all this down . Um . +Marketing: Right away I'm making some kind of assumptions about what what information we're given here , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: thinking , 'kay trendy probably means something other than just basic , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: something other than just standard . Um so I'm wondering right away , is selling twenty five Euros , is that sort of the {disfmarker} thi is this gonna to be like the premium product kinda thing or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . Like how much does , you know , a remote control cost . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: Well twenty five Euro , I mean that's um that's about like eighteen pounds or something , isn't it ? Or no , is it as much as that ? +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Sixteen seventeen eighteen pounds . +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , I'd say so , yeah . +Project Manager: Um , I dunno , I've never bought a remote control , so I don't know how how good a remote control that would get you . Um . +Marketing: No . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But yeah , I suppose it has to look kind of cool and gimmicky . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um right , okay . Let me just scoot on ahead here . Okay . Um well d Does anybody have anything to add to uh to the finance issue at all ? Thin +Marketing: Do we have any other background information on like how that compares to other +Project Manager: No , actually . That would be useful , though , +Marketing: other {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: wouldn't it , if you knew like what your money would get you now . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah , interesting thing about discussing um production of a remote control for me is that l as you point out , I just don't think of remote controls as somethin something people consciously assess in their purchasing habits . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: It's just like getting shoelaces with shoes or something . +Project Manager: Oh . Five minutes to end of meeting . +Marketing: It just comes along . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . We're a bit behind . +Marketing: Do you know what I mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like so sort of like how do you I I mean one one way of looking at it would be , well the people producing television sets , maybe they have to buy remote controls . Or another way is maybe people who have T_V_ sets are really fed up with their remote control and they really want a better one or something . +User Interface: I know um {disfmarker} My parents went out and bought um remote controls because um they got fed up of having four or five different remote controls for each things the house . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Right . Right . +User Interface: So um for them it was just how many devices control . +Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker} Right , so in function one of the priorities might be to combine as many uses {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Right , so do you think that should be like a main design aim of our remote control d you know , +Marketing: I think so . +Project Manager: do your your satellite and your regular telly and your V_C_R_ and everything ? +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . Yeah . Well like um , maybe what we could use is a sort of like a example of a successful other piece technology is palm palm pilots . They're gone from being just like little sort of scribble boards to cameras , M_P_ three players , telephones , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: everything , agenda . So , like , I wonder if we might add something new to the to the remote control market , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: such as the lighting in your house , or um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or even like , you know , notes about um what you wanna watch . Like you might put in there oh I want to watch such and such and look a +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Oh that's a good idea . So extra functionalities . +Marketing: An Yeah . Like , p personally for me , at home I've I've combined the um the audio video of my television set and my D_V_D_ player and my C_D_ player . So they w all work actually function together but I have different remote controls for each of them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So it's sort of ironic that that then they're in there um you know , the sound and everything it's just one system . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But each one's got its own little part . +Project Manager: Um okay , uh I'd wel we're gonna have to wrap up pretty quickly in the next couple of minutes . Um I'll just check we've nothing else . Okay . Um so anything else anybody wants to add about what they don't like about remote controls they've used , what they would really like to be part of this new one at all ? +Industrial Designer: And you keep losing them . +Project Manager: You keep losing them . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Finding them is really a pain , you know . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Industrial Designer: I mean it's usually quite small , or when you want it right , it slipped behind the couch +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or it's kicked under the table . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: W You get those ones where you can , if you like , whistle or make a really high pitched noise they beep . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You know . +Marketing: That's just really good id Yep . +Project Manager: There {disfmarker} I mean is that something we'd want to include , do you think ? +Marketing: Uh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dunno . +Marketing: sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I remember when the first remote control my my family had was on a cable . Actually had a cable between it and the T_V_ +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and big like buttons that sort of like , like on a blender or something . +Project Manager: My goodness . +Marketing: And um , you know , when I think about what they are now , it's better , but actually it's still kind of , I dunno , like a massive junky thing on the table . +Project Manager: Still feels quite primitive . +Marketing: Maybe we could think about how , could be more , you know , streamlined . S +Project Manager: Maybe like a touch screen or something ? +Marketing: Something like that , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Or whatever would be technologically reasonable . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay . Well I guess that's up to our industrial designer . +Marketing: 'Cause it could b it could it could be that f it could be that functionally that doesn't make it any better , but that just the appeal of of not having {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It looks better . +Marketing: You know , these days there's a r pe things in people's homes are becoming more and more like chic , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Um , nicer materials +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and might be +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: be worth exploring anyway . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Right , well um so just to wrap up the next meeting's gonna be in thirty minutes . So that's about um about ten to twelve by my watch . Um so inbetween now and then , um as the industrial designer , you're gonna be working on you know the actual working design of it +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so y you know what you're doing there . Um for user interface , technical functions , I guess that's you know like what we've been talking about , what it'll actually do . Um and uh marketing executive , you'll be just thinking about what it actually {disfmarker} what , you know , what requirements it has to has to fulfil and you'll all get instructions emailed to you , I guess . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , so it's th the functional design stage is next , I guess . {vocalsound} And uh and that's the end of the meeting . So I got that little message a lot sooner than I thought I would , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Before we wrap up , just to make sure we're all on the same page here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um , do we {disfmarker} We were given sort of an example of a coffee machine or something , +Project Manager: Uh-huh , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? Well , um are we at ma right now on the assumption that our television remote control may have features which go beyond the television ? Or are we keeping sort of like a a design commitment to television features ? +Project Manager: Th Okay , well just very quickly +Marketing: I I don't know . +Project Manager: 'cause this {disfmarker} we're supposed to finish now . Um I guess that's up to us , +Marketing: Yep . Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: I mean you probably want some kind of unique selling point of it , so um , you know {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think one factor would be production cost . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because there's a cap there , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so um depends on how much you can cram into that price . Um . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I think that that's the main factor . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Right , okay , we'll that's that's the end of the meeting , then . Um +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: thank you all for coming . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +","This conversation is a project kick-off meeting led by the project manager, Laura. The team, including Andrew from marketing, David the industrial designer, and Craig from the user interface, introduces themselves and discuss the brief for designing a new trendy and user-friendly remote control. They firstly verified that everyone received the project announcement via email. Laura explained that the process includes individual work and meetings repeated three times, and then gave an icebreaker activity where the team members draw their favorite animals. + +The team touches on various aspects of the remote control project including sales targets, costs, international marketing considerations, and potential design features to make the product stand out; such as universal control capabilities or adding new functionalities like home lighting controls or note-taking features for TV programming. They discuss market positioning and how the product would appeal differently in various regions. + +There is also a financial aspect of the project mentioned, aiming to sell the remote control for 25 Euros, seeking to make 50 million Euros, and preferring the production cost not to exceed 12.50 Euros, which is 50% of the selling price. + +The conversation shifts towards potential technical and design features of the remote control and what the team dislikes about current remotes they have used, such as losing them easily. Laura suggests adding a locator function like a beeping response to a whistle. They talk about incorporating more functionalities, similar to how palm pilots evolved to incorporate multiple features. + +The team expresses concerns about keeping track of market competitiveness and how to make the remote not just functional but also appealing aesthetically in the modern tech-conscious home. They finally wrap up the meeting setting the agenda for the next meeting focusing on the functional design stage where each will work on their respective tasks and email instructions will be sent. Andrew from marketing raises a final question regarding whether the remote control features should extend beyond TV, which remains an open item for discussion. The meeting adjourns with plans to reconvene in 30 minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} We {disfmarker} we had a meeting with , uh {disfmarker} with Hynek , um , in {disfmarker} in which , uh , uh , Sunil and Stephane , uh {vocalsound} summarized where they were and {disfmarker} and , uh , talked about where we were gonna go . So that {disfmarker} that happened sort of mid - week . Uh . +PhD E: D did {disfmarker} did you guys get your code pushed together ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Yeah . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it was updated yesterday , +PhD E: Cool . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: You probably received the mail . +PhD E: Oh , right , I saw {disfmarker} I saw the note . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: What was the update ? +PhD A: What was the update ? So there is th then {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} all the new features that go in . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: The , um , noise suppression , the re - synthesis of speech after suppression . These are the {disfmarker} +PhD E: Is the , um {disfmarker} the CVS mechanism working {pause} well ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Are {disfmarker} are people , uh , up at OGI grabbing code uh , via that ? +PhD D: Uh , I don't think {disfmarker} I don't think {disfmarker} +PhD E: Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: I don't know if they use it , but . +PhD D: Yeah , I I don't think anybody up there is like {pause} working on it right now . +PhD E: Uh - huh . Mmm . +Professor B: I think it more likely that what it means is that when Sunil is up there {vocalsound} he will grab it . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . So right now nobody 's working on Aurora there . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: They 're {disfmarker} Yeah . They 're working on a different task . +PhD E: I see . I see . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: But what 'll happen is {disfmarker} is he 'll go back up there and , uh , Pratibha will come back from {disfmarker} from , uh , the east coast . Uh . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and I guess actually , uh , after Eurospeech for a little bit , uh , he 'll go up there too . So , actually everybody {vocalsound} who 's working on it {comment} will be up there for at least a little while . So they 'll remotely access it {vocalsound} from there . +PhD E: So has {disfmarker} Has anybody tried remotely accessing the CVS using , uh , uh , SSH ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Um , I don't know if Hari did that or {disfmarker} You d +PhD D: I {comment} can actually do it today . I mean , I can just log into {disfmarker} +PhD E: Have you tried it yet ? +PhD D: No , I didn't . So I I 'll try it today . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Good idea . +PhD A: Actually I {disfmarker} I tried wh while {disfmarker} when I installed the {pause} repository , I tried from Belgium . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I logged in there and I tried {pause} to import {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah ? It worked good ? +PhD A: Yeah , it works . +PhD E: Oh , good ! +PhD A: But it 's {disfmarker} So , right now it 's the mechanism with SSH . +PhD D: Oh . +PhD E: Great ! +PhD A: I don't {pause} s I didn't set up {disfmarker} You can also set up a CVS server {pause} on a new port . It 's like well {pause} uh , a main server , or d You can do a CVS server . +PhD E: Yeah . Right . Then that 's using the CVS password mechanism and all that , +PhD A: But . Yeah , right . +PhD E: right ? +PhD A: But I didn't do that because I was not sure about {pause} security problems . I {disfmarker} I would have to {disfmarker} +PhD E: So w when you came in from Belgian {disfmarker} {comment} Belgium , using SSH , uh , was it asking you for your own {pause} password into ICSI ? So if yo you can only do that if you have an account at ICSI ? +PhD A: Right . Yeah . +PhD E: OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: Cuz there is an {disfmarker} a way to set up anonymous CVS right ? +PhD A: Yeah , you ha in this way you ca you have to set up a CVS server but then , yeah , you can access it . +PhD E: So that {disfmarker} Oh , OK . +PhD A: you {disfmarker} you can set up priorities . +PhD E: So the anonymous mechanism {disfmarker} +PhD A: You can access them and mostly if you {disfmarker} if y the set the server is set up like this . +PhD E: OK . Because a lot of the open source stuff works with anonymous CVS and I 'm just wondering {disfmarker} Uh , I mean , for our transcripts we may want to do that . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , for this stuff I don't think we 're {pause} quite up to that . I mean , we 're still so much in development . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Yeah , +Professor B: We want to have just the insiders . +PhD E: yeah , yeah . Oh , I wasn't suggesting for this . I 'm {pause} thinking of the Meeting Recorder {comment} stuff +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: but . Yeah . OK . Cool . +Professor B: Yeah . So , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: What 's new ? +Professor B: Well , I mean , I think maybe the thing to me might be {disfmarker} I me I 'm sure you 've just been working on {disfmarker} on , uh , details of that since the meeting , right ? And so {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm , since the meeting , well , I {disfmarker} I 've been {disfmarker} I 've been train training a new VAD and a new {pause} feature net . +Professor B: That was {disfmarker} that was Tuesday . OK . +PhD A: So they should be ready . Um . +Professor B: But I guess maybe the thing {disfmarker} since you weren't {disfmarker} yo you guys weren't at that {disfmarker} that meeting , might be just {disfmarker} just to , um , sort of recap , uh , the {disfmarker} the conclusions of the meeting . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: Oh , great . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: You 're talking about the meeting with Hynek ? +Professor B: Yeah . Cuz that was sort of , uh {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we 'd sort of been working up to that , that {disfmarker} that , uh , he would come here this week and {disfmarker} and we would sort of {disfmarker} +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Since he 's going out of town like now , and I 'm going out town in a couple weeks , uh , and time is marching , sort of , given all the mu many wonderful things we could be working on , what {disfmarker} what will we actually focus on ? +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , uh {disfmarker} and what do we freeze ? And , you know , what do we {disfmarker} ? So , um . I mean , this {pause} software that these guys created was certainly a {disfmarker} a key part . So then there 's something central and there aren't at least a bunch of different versions going off in {disfmarker} in ways that {pause} differ {pause} trivially . Uh , um , and , um , +PhD E: Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} that 's nice . +Professor B: and then within that , I guess the idea was to freeze a certain set of options for now , to run it , uh , a particular way , and decide on what things are gonna be experimented with , as opposed to just experimenting with everything . So keep a certain set of things constant . So , um . Uh , maybe describe roughly what {disfmarker} what we are keeping constant for now , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Yeah . Well . So we 've been working like six weeks on {disfmarker} on the noise compensation and we end up with something that seems reasonable . Um . +PhD E: Are you gonna use {disfmarker} which of the two techniques ? +PhD A: So finally it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um , Wiener filtering on FFT bins . And it uses , uh , two steps , smoothing of the transfer function , the first step , that 's along time , which use recursion . And {vocalsound} after this step there is a further smoothing along frequency , which use a sliding window of twenty FFT bins . Mmm . And , uh {disfmarker} +PhD E: So this is on the {disfmarker} uh , before any mel scaling has been done ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: This is {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was {disfmarker} +Professor B: This {disfmarker} this smoothing is done on the estimate , um , of what you 're going to subtract ? Or on the thing that has already had something subtracted ? +PhD A: Yeah . Uh , {vocalsound} it 's on the transfer function . So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , it 's on the transfer function for the Wiener filter . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD A: Yeah , so basically we tried {vocalsound} different configuration within this idea . We tried u u applying this on mel bands , having spectral subtraction instead of wiener filtering . Um . Well , finally we end up with {pause} this configuration that works , uh , quite well . So we are going to fix this for the moment and work on the other aspects of {vocalsound} the whole system . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Actually , let me int eh , Dave isn't here to talk about it , but let me just interject . This module , in principle , i I mean , you would know whether it 's {vocalsound} true in fact , is somewhat independent from the rest of it . I mean , because you {disfmarker} you re - synthesize speech , right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um . Uh , well you don't {disfmarker} I guess you don't re - synthesize speech , but you could {disfmarker} +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we do not fo +Professor B: Uh , but you could . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well , we do , but we don't {disfmarker} don't re - synthesize . In {disfmarker} in the program we don't re - synthesize and then re - analyze once again . We just use the clean FFT bins . +Professor B: But you have a re - synthesized thing that you {disfmarker} that 's an {disfmarker} an option here . +PhD A: This is an option that {disfmarker} then you can {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I gu I guess my point is that , um , i in some of the work he 's doing in reverberation , one of the things that we 're finding is that , uh , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for an artificial situation , we can just deal with the reverberation and his techniques work really well . But for the real situation uh , problem is , is that you don't just have reverberation , you have reverberation in noise . And if you don't include that in the model , it doesn't work very well . So in fact it might be a very nice thing to do , to just take the noise removal part of it and put that in front of what he 's looking at . And , uh , generate new files or whatever , and {disfmarker} and , uh , uh {disfmarker} and then do the reverberation part . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Anyway . +PhD E: So Dave hasn't {pause} tried that yet ? +Professor B: No , no . He 's {disfmarker} I mean , e +PhD E: I guess he 's busy with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , prelims , right . +Grad C: Pre - prelim hell . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but {disfmarker} but , you know , that 'll {disfmarker} uh , it 's clear that we , uh {disfmarker} we are not {disfmarker} with the real case that we 're looking at , we can't just look at reverberation in isolation because the interaction between that and noise is {disfmarker} is considerable . And that 's I mean , in the past we 've looked at , uh , and this is hard enough , the interaction between channel effects and {disfmarker} and , uh {disfmarker} and additive noise , uh , so convolutional effects and {disfmarker} and additive effects . And that 's hard enough . I mean , I don't think we really {disfmarker} I mean , we 're trying to deal with that . In a sense that 's what we 're trying to deal with in this Aurora task . And we have , uh , the , uh , uh , LDA stuff that in principle is doing something about convolutional effects . And we have the noise suppression that 's doing something about noise . Uh , even that 's hard enough . And {disfmarker} and the on - line normalization as well , in that s category . i i There 's all these interactions between these two and that 's part of why these guys had to work so hard on {disfmarker} on juggling everything around . But now when you throw in the reverberation , it 's even worse , because not only do you have these effects , but you also have some long time effects . And , um , so Dave has something which , uh , is doing some nice things under some conditions with {disfmarker} with long time effects but when it 's {disfmarker} when there 's noise there too , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's pretty hard . So we have to start {disfmarker} Since any {disfmarker} almost any real situation is gonna have {disfmarker} uh , where you have the microphone distant , is going to have both things , we {disfmarker} we actually have to think about both at the same time . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , um {disfmarker} So there 's this noise suppression thing , which is sort of worked out and then , uh , maybe you should just continue telling what {disfmarker} what else is in the {disfmarker} the form we have . +PhD A: Yeah , well , {vocalsound} the , um , the other parts of the system are the {disfmarker} the blocks that were already present before and that we did not modify a lot . +Professor B: So that 's {disfmarker} again , that {disfmarker} that 's the Wiener filtering , followed by , uh {disfmarker} uh , that 's done at the FFT level . Then {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , th then the mel filter bank , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: then the log operation , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the filtering is done in the frequency domain ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . And then the mel and then the log , and then the +PhD A: Then the LDA filter , +Professor B: LDA filter . +PhD A: mmm , then the downsampling , +Professor B: And then uh downsample , +PhD A: DCT , +Professor B: DCT , +PhD A: then , um , on - line normalization , +Professor B: on - line norm , +PhD A: followed by {pause} upsampling . Then finally , we compute delta and we put the neural network also . +Professor B: Right , and then in parallel with {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} a neural net . And then following neural net , some {disfmarker} probably some orthogonalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} Um . +PhD A: And finally frame dropping , which um , {vocalsound} would be a neural network also , used for estimated silence probabilities . And the input of this neural network would be somewhere between log {pause} mel bands or one of the earlier stages of the processing . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . So that 's sort of {disfmarker} most of this stuff is {disfmarker} yeah , is operating parallel with this other stuff . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . So the things that we , um , uh , I guess we sort of {disfmarker} uh , There 's {disfmarker} there 's some , uh , neat ideas for {vocalsound} V A So , I mean , in {disfmarker} I think there 's sort of like {disfmarker} There 's a bunch of tuning things to improve stuff . There 's questions about {pause} various places where there 's an exponent , if it 's the right exponent , or {pause} ways that we 're estimating noise , that we can improve estimating noise . And there 's gonna be a host of those . But structurally it seemed like the things {disfmarker} the main things that {disfmarker} that we brought up that , uh , are {disfmarker} are gonna need to get worked on seriously are , uh , uh , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a significantly better VAD , uh , putting the neural net on , um , which , you know , we haven't been doing anything with , the , uh , neural net at the end there , and , uh , the , uh , {vocalsound} opening up the second front . Uh . +PhD E: The other half of the channel ? +Professor B: Yeah , yeah , I mean , cuz we {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} we have , uh , uh , half the {disfmarker} the , uh , data rate that they allow . +PhD E: That what you mean ? +Professor B: And , uh , so the initial thing which came from , uh , the meeting that we had down south was , uh , that , um , we 'll initially just put in a mel spectrum as the second one . It 's , you know , {pause} cheap , easy . Uh . There 's a question about exactly how we do it . We probably will go to something better later , but the initial thing is that cepstra and spectra behave differently , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so . Um , {comment} I think Tony Robinson used to do {disfmarker} I was saying this before . I think he used to do mel , uh , spectra and mel cepstra . He used them as alternate features . Put them together . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD E: So if you took the system the way it is now , the way it 's fro you 're gonna freeze it , and it ran it on the last evaluation , where it would it be ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . It , uh , +PhD E: In terms of ranking ? +PhD A: Ri - right now it 's second . +PhD D: Second . +PhD A: Um . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Although you {disfmarker} you know , you haven't tested it actually on the German and Danish , have you ? +PhD A: No , we didn't . No , um . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So on the ones that you did test it on it would have been second ? +Professor B: Yeah . Would it {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} When you 're saying second , you 're comparing to the numbers that the , uh {disfmarker} that the best system before got on , uh {disfmarker} also without German and Danish ? +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , OK . +PhD D: And th the ranking actually didn't change after the German and Danish . So , yeah . +Professor B: Well ranking didn't before , but I 'm just asking where this is to where theirs was without the German and Danish , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: So . +PhD E: Where {disfmarker} where {disfmarker} where were we actually on the last test ? +Professor B: Oh , we were also esp essentially second , although there were {disfmarker} there were {disfmarker} I mean , we had a couple systems and they had a couple systems . And so , I guess by that {pause} we were third , but I mean , there were two systems that were pretty close , that came from the same place . +PhD E: Uh - huh . I see . OK . +Professor B: Uh , so institutionally we were {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we were second , with , uh , the third {disfmarker} third system . +PhD E: We 're {disfmarker} so this second that you 're saying now is system - wide second ? +Professor B: See {disfmarker} Uh , no I think it 's also institutional , isn't it ? +PhD E: Still institutionally second ? +Professor B: Right ? I mean , I think both of their systems probably {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh , we are between their two systems . So +Professor B: Oh , are we ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} It is a triumph . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Is it ? +PhD D: Their {disfmarker} their first system is fifty - four point something . And , uh , we are fifty - three point something . +PhD A: But everything is {pause} within the range of one {disfmarker} one percent . +PhD D: And their second system is also fifty - three point something . Yeah , one percent . +Professor B: Yeah , so {disfmarker} so basically they 're all {disfmarker} they 're all pretty close . +PhD E: Oh , wow ! +PhD A: So . +PhD E: That 's very close . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and , {vocalsound} um , you know , in some sense we 're all doing fairly similar things . Uh , I mean , one could argue about the LDA and so forth but I {disfmarker} I think , you know , in a lot of ways we 're doing very similar things . But what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} +PhD E: So how did they fill up this {disfmarker} all these {disfmarker} these bits ? I mean , if we 're u +Professor B: Um , why are we using half ? Well , so you could {disfmarker} you c +PhD E: Yeah . Or how are they using more than half , I guess maybe is what I {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} uh , you guys are closer to it than me , so correct me if I 'm wrong , but I {disfmarker} I think that what 's going on is that in {disfmarker} in both cases , some kind of normalization is done to deal with convola convolutional effects . Uh , they have some cepstral {pause} modification , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: right ? In our case we have a couple things . We have the on - line normalization and then we have the LDA RASTA . And {pause} they seem to comple complement each other enough and be different enough that they both seem to help {disfmarker} help us . But in any event , they 're both doing the same sort of thing . But there 's one difference . The LDA RASTA , uh , throws away high modulation frequencies . And they 're not doing that . +PhD E: So th So {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that if you throw away high modulation frequencies , then you can downsample . +Grad C: Get down . +PhD E: I see . I see . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: So what if you didn't {disfmarker} So do you explicitly downsample then ? Do we explicitly downsample ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD E: And what if we didn't do that ? Would we get worse performance ? +PhD A: Um {pause} Yeah , not better , not worse . +Professor B: I think it doesn't affect it , does it ? +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So I think the thing is , since we 're not evidently throwing away useful information , let 's try to put in some useful information . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: And , uh , so I {disfmarker} you know , we {disfmarker} we 've found in a lot of ways for quite a while that having a second stream uh , helps a lot . So that 's {disfmarker} that 's put in , and you know , it may even end up with mel spectrum even though I 'm saying I think we could do much better , just because it 's simple . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . And you know , in the long run having something everybody will look at and say , "" oh , yeah , I understand "" , is {disfmarker} is very helpful . +PhD E: So you would {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} You 're thinking to put the , uh , mel spectrum in before any of the noise removal stuff ? or after ? +Professor B: Well , that 's a question . I mean , we were talking about that . It looks like it 'd be straightforward to {disfmarker} to , uh , remove the noise , um , and , uh , +PhD E: Cuz that happens before the mel conversion , right ? +Professor B: Yeah . So , I mean , to do it after the mel conversion {disfmarker} uh , after the noise removal , after the mel conversion . There 's even a question in my mind anyhow of whether th you should take the log or not . Uh . I sort of think you should , but I don't know . +PhD A: What about norm normalizing also ? +Professor B: Right . Uh . Well , but normalizing spectra instead of cepstra ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , probably . Some kind would be good . You know ? I would think . +PhD D: Well , it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} so it actually makes it dependent on the overall energy of the {disfmarker} uh , the frame . +Professor B: If you do or don't normalize ? +PhD D: If yo if you don't normalize and {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you don't normalize . +Professor B: Right . Yes , so I mean , one would think that you would want to normalize . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} w w My thought is , uh , particularly if you take the log , try it . And then if {disfmarker} if normalization helps , then y you have something to compare against , and say , "" OK , this much effect "" {disfmarker} I mean , you don't want to change six things and then see what happens . You want to change them one at a time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So adding this other stream in , that 's simple in some way . And then {pause} saying , oh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} particularly because we 've found in the past there 's all these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these different results you get with slight modifications of how you do normalization . Normalization 's a very tricky , sensitive thing and {pause} you learn a lot . So , I would think you would wanna {pause} have some baseline that says , "" OK , we don't normalize , this is what we get "" , when we do this normalization , when we do that normalization . But {disfmarker} but the other question is {disfmarker} So I think ultimately we 'll wind up doing some normalization . I agree . +PhD E: So this second stream , will it add latency to the system +Professor B: No , it 's in parallel . +PhD E: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Para +Professor B: We 're not talking about computation time here . +PhD E: S +Professor B: We 're ta I think we 're pretty far out . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's just in terms of what data it 's depending on . It 's depending on the same data as the other . +PhD E: Same data . +Professor B: So it 's in parallel . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +Grad C: So with this , uh , new stream would you train up a VAD on both {disfmarker} both features , somehow ? +PhD D: No , I guess the VAD has its own set of features . +Grad C: OK . that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: I mean , which could be this {disfmarker} one of these streams , or it can be something derived from {pause} these streams . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +PhD A: And there is also the idea of using TRAPS , maybe , for the VAD , which , um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , that 's also {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , Pratibha apparently showed , when , she was at IBM , that it 's a good idea . So . +Grad C: Would {disfmarker} would that fit on the handset , or {disfmarker} ? Oh ! +PhD A: I have no idea . +Grad C: OK . +PhD D: Well , it has t I mean the {disfmarker} th +PhD A: It would have to fit but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah , if it has to fit the delays and all this stuff . +Professor B: Well , there 's the delays and the storage , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: yeah . But I don't think the storage is so big for that . +Grad C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I think th the biggest we 've run into for storage is the neural net . Right ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . Um . And so I guess the issue there is , are we {disfmarker} are we using neural - net - based TRAPS , and {disfmarker} and how big are they ? So that 'll {disfmarker} that 'll be , you know , an issue . +Grad C: Oh , right . +Professor B: Maybe they can be little ones . +Grad C: Yeah . Cuz sh Right . +Professor B: Mini - TRAPS . +Grad C: Cuz she also does the , uh {disfmarker} the correlation - based , uh , TRAPS , with without the neural net , just looking at the correlation between {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . And maybe for VAD they would be OK . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's true . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Or a simple neural net , right ? I mean , the thing is , if you 're doing correlation , you 're just doing a simple {disfmarker} uh , uh {disfmarker} uh , dot product , you know , with some weights which you happened to learn from this {disfmarker} learn from the data . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And so , uh , putting a nonlinearity on it is , {pause} you know , not that big a deal . It certainly doesn't take much space . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So , uh , the question is , how complex a function do you need ? Do you need to have an added layer or something ? In which case , uh , potentially , you know , it could be big . So . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , uh {disfmarker} So what 's next ? Maybe s s remind us . +PhD E: So the meeting with Hynek that you guys just had was to decide exactly what you were gonna freeze in this system ? Is that {disfmarker} ? Or was there {disfmarker} ? Were you talking about what t new stuff , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: What to freeze and then what to do after we froze . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: Yeah . And like I was saying , I think the {disfmarker} you know , the basic directions are , uh , uh {disfmarker} I mean , there 's lots of little things , such as improve the noise estimator but the bigger things are adding on the neural net and , uh , the second stream . And then , uh , improving the VAD . Uh . So . +PhD D: So , I 'll , um {disfmarker} I 'll actually {disfmarker} after the meeting I 'll add the second stream to the VAD and maybe I 'll start with the feature net in that case . It 's like , you 're looking at the VAD , right ? +PhD A: Uh , yeah . I I 've a new feature net ready also . +PhD D: I 'll {disfmarker} For the VAD ? +PhD A: No , uh . Well p two network , one VAD and one {pause} feature net . +PhD D: Oh , you already have it ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: OK , so just figure how to take the features from the final {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD A: Um . But , yeah , I think there are plenty of issues to work on for the feature net @ @ . +Grad C: Feature net . +PhD E: What about the , um {disfmarker} uh , the new part of the evaluation , the , uh , Wall Street Journal part ? +Professor B: Right . Right . Um . Have you ever {disfmarker} ? Very good question . Have you ever worked with the Mississippi State h uh , software ? +PhD A: Sorry . +PhD E: No . Not yet . +Professor B: Oh . Well you {disfmarker} you may be called upon to help , uh , uh , on account of , uh , all the work in this stuff here has been , uh , with small vocabulary . +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . So what {disfmarker} how is the , uh , interaction supposed to happen ? Uh , I remember the last time we talked about this , it was sort of up in the air whether they were going to be taking , uh , people 's features and then running them or they were gonna give the system out or {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Oh , so they 're gonna just deliver a system basically . +PhD D: Yeah , yeah . +Professor B: Do we already have it ? +PhD D: Yeah , th I {disfmarker} I guess it 's almost ready . +PhD E: Uh - huh . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} That 's what {disfmarker} So they have released their , uh , document , describing the system . +Professor B: Maybe you could , uh , point it {pause} at Chuck , +PhD E: I see . +Professor B: because , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD D: Sure . +PhD E: So we 'll have to grab this over CVS or something ? +PhD D: It - no , it 's just downloadable from their {disfmarker} from their web site . +PhD E: Is that how they do it ? OK . +Professor B: Cuz one of the things that might be helpful , if you 've {disfmarker} if you 've got time in all of this is , is if {disfmarker} if these guys are really focusing on improving , uh , all the digit stuff , uh , maybe {disfmarker} and you got the front - end from them , maybe you could do the runs for the {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and , you know , iron out hassles that {disfmarker} that you have to , uh , tweak Joe about or whatever , +PhD E: Sure . +Professor B: because you 're more experienced with running the large vocabulary stuff . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: S +PhD D: So I 'll point you to the web site and the mails corresponding . So I +PhD E: And it {disfmarker} but it 's not ready yet , the system ? +PhD D: Uh , I {disfmarker} I think they are still , uh , tuning something on that . So they 're like , d they 're varying different parameters like the insertion penalty and other stuff , and then seeing what 's the performance . +PhD E: Are those going to be parameters that are frozen , nobody can change ? Or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Uh , w I guess there is , uh , time during which people are gonna make suggestions . +PhD E: Oh , but everybody 's gonna have to use the same values . +PhD D: After that . +PhD E: Oh ! Interesting . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So these sugges these {disfmarker} this , uh , period during which people are gonna make suggestions is to know whether it is actually biased towards any set of features or {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so I th th certainly the thing that I would want to know about is whether we get really hurt , uh , on in insertion penalty , language model , scaling , sorts of things . +PhD E: Using our features . +Professor B: Yeah , yeah . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , in which case , um , H Hari or Hynek will need to , you know , push the case {pause} more about {disfmarker} about this . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um . +PhD E: And we may be able to revisit this idea about , you know , somehow modifying our features to work with {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . In this case , that 's right . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: That 's right . Um , some of that may be , uh , a last minute rush thing because if the {disfmarker} if our features are changing {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . But , um . Yeah , the other thing is that even though it 's months away , uh , it 's starting to seem to me now like November fifteenth is right around the corner . And , um , if they haven't decided things like this , like what the parameters are gonna be for this , uh , when "" deciding "" is not just somebody deciding . I mean , in fact there should be some understanding behind the , uh , {vocalsound} deciding , which means some experiments and {disfmarker} and so forth . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it seems pretty tight to me . +PhD E: So wha what 's the significance of November fifteenth ? +Professor B: That 's when the evaluation is . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So , yeah , so after {disfmarker} But , you know , they may even decide in the end to push it off . It wouldn't , you know , entirely surprise me . But , uh , due to other reasons , like some people are going away , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping it 's not pushed off for {vocalsound} a l a long while . That would be , uh {disfmarker} put us in an awkward position . But {disfmarker} Anyway . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Great . Yeah , I think that 'll be helpful . There 's {disfmarker} there 's not anybody OGI currently who 's {disfmarker} who 's , uh , working with this and {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Is {disfmarker} is this part of the evaluation just a small part , or ho how important is this to the overall {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's , um {disfmarker} it depends how badly {vocalsound} you do . I mean , I think that it {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} Uh . +PhD D: b +PhD E: This is one of those things that will be debated afterwards ? +Professor B: Yeah . Well , I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} Conceptually , it {disfmarker} my impression , again , you guys correct me if I 'm wrong , but {pause} my impression is that , um , they want it as a double check . That you haven't come across {disfmarker} you haven't invented features which are actually gonna do badly for a {disfmarker} a significantly different task , particularly one with larger vocabulary . And , um , but it 's not the main emphasis . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: I mean , the truth is , most of the applications they 're looking at are pretty small vocabulary . +PhD E: Mmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a double check . So they 'll probably assign it some sort of low weight . +PhD E: Seems to me that if it 's a double check , they should give you a one or a zero . Y you passed the threshold or you didn't pass the threshold , and they shouldn't even care about what the score is . +Professor B: Yeah . But , I mean , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll see what they come up with . Uh , but in {disfmarker} in the current thing , for instance , where you have this well - matched , moderately - matched , and {disfmarker} and mis highly - mismatched , uh , the emphasis is somewhat on the {disfmarker} on the well - matched , but it 's only a {disfmarker} a marginal , +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: right ? It 's like forty , thirty - five , twenty - five , or something like that . So you still {disfmarker} if you were way , way off on the highly - mismatched , it would have a big effect . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And , um , it wouldn't surprise me if they did something like that with this . So again , if you 're {disfmarker} if you get {disfmarker} If it doesn't help you much , uh , for noisy versions of this {disfmarker} of large vocabulary data , then , uh , you know , it may not hurt you that much . +PhD E: Oh . +Professor B: But if it {disfmarker} if you don't {disfmarker} if it doesn't help you much at all , um , or to put it another way , if it helps some people a lot more than it helps other people , uh , if their strategies do , then {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . So is this , uh {disfmarker} ? Uh , Guenter was putting a bunch of Wall Street Journal data on our disks . +Professor B: That 's it . +PhD E: So that 's the data that we 'll be running on ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: I see . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . So {pause} we have the data , just not the recognizer . OK . +PhD E: So this test may take quite a while to run , then . May - judging by the amount of data that he was putting on . +Professor B: Uh , well there 's training and test , right ? +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I guess , I 'm not sure . +Professor B: No , I mean , if it 's like the other things , there 's {disfmarker} there 's data for training the H M Ms and {disfmarker} and data for testing it . +PhD E: I just {disfmarker} +Professor B: So I wouldn't {disfmarker} So it {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . So there 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: So , training the recognizer , but , um Um . But I think it 's trained on clean and {disfmarker} Is it trained on clean and {disfmarker} and test on {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: The Wall Street ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Apparently , no . It 's training on a range between ten and twenty DB , I think , and testing between five and fifteen . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: That 's what I got {pause} on {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: It 's , uh {disfmarker} It 's like a medium {disfmarker} medium - mismatch condition , sort of . +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor B: I see . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So the noise is {disfmarker} There is a range of different noises also {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} which are selected randomly and added randomly , uh , to the files . And there are noises that are different from the noises used {pause} on TI - digits . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . I mean , I wouldn't imagine that the amount of testing data was that huge . They probably put training {disfmarker} uh , almost certain they put training data there too . Maybe not . So . That 's that . Anybody have anything else ? +PhD E: Uh , one {disfmarker} one last question on that . When did they estimate that they would have that system available for download ? +PhD D: Um , I guess {disfmarker} I guess one {disfmarker} some preliminary version is already there . +PhD E: Oh , so there 's w something you can download to just learn ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's already there . Yeah . +PhD E: OK , +PhD D: But they 're actually parallel - y doing some modifications also , I think . +PhD E: good . +PhD D: So I guess the f final system will be frozen by middle of , like , one more week maybe . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: Oh , well that 's pretty soon . +PhD D: Yeah , that 's just one more . +Grad C: Is this their , um , SVM recognizer ? +PhD D: No , it 's just a straightforward HMM . +Professor B: You know , their {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} They have a lot of options {pause} in their recognizer and {disfmarker} and the SVM is one of the things they 've done with it , but it 's not their more standard thing . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Uh - huh . +Professor B: For the most part it 's {disfmarker} it 's Gaussian mixtures . +Grad C: Oh , OK . Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: It 's just a HMM , Gaussian mixture model . +Grad C: Gaussian mixture HMM . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , the SVM thing was an HMM also . It was just a {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it was like a hybrid , like {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Yeah , this is a g yeah , this i +Professor B: what ? +PhD D: yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD E: So , just so that I understand , they 're providing scripts and everything so that basically , uh , you {disfmarker} you push a button and it does training , and then it does test , and everything ? Is that {pause} the idea ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} yeah , I {disfmarker} I guess something like that . It 's like {vocalsound} {disfmarker} as painless as possible , +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: is what {disfmarker} Do they provide all the scripts , everything , and then {disfmarker} Just , +PhD E: I see . Hmm . Somehow yo there 's hooks to put your features in and {disfmarker} +PhD D: ju Yeah , I th I think . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: Hmm . Yeah , um . In fact , I mean , if you look into it a little bit , it might be reasonable {disfmarker} You know Joe , right ? Yeah . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Just to sort of ask him about the issue of , um , different features having different kinds of , uh , scaling characteristics and so on . So that , you know , w w possibly having entirely different optimal values for {disfmarker} for the usual twiddle factors and what 's {disfmarker} what 's the plan about that ? +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So sh shall we , like , add Chuck also to the mailing lists ? It may be better , I mean , in that case if he 's going to {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Because there 's a mailing list for this . +Professor B: Is that OK ? +PhD E: Yeah , that 'd be great . +PhD D: Yeah , I guess maybe Hari or Hynek , one of them , has to {pause} send a mail to Joe . Or maybe if you {disfmarker} +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I could send him an email . +PhD D: Well , yeah , to add or maybe wh +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I know him really well . +PhD D: Yeah , so that 's just fine . +PhD E: I {disfmarker} I was just talking with him on email the other day actually . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Uh , yeah , and just , um , se maybe see . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +PhD E: About other things , but . +Professor B: Do you have Hari 's , uh {disfmarker} ? +PhD E: I have Hari 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , so maybe just CC Hari and say that you 've just been asked to handle the large vocabulary part here , and , uh , you know , +PhD E: OK . Would it be better if I asked Hari to ask Joe ? +Professor B: Uh . Why don't you just ask Joe but CC Hari , and then in the note say , "" Hari , hopefully this is OK with you "" . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: And then if Joe feels like he needs a confirmation , Hari can answer it . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: That way you can get started asking {comment} Joe quickly while he 's {disfmarker} while he 's maybe still , you know , putting in nails and screws and Yeah . +PhD D: And there is an , uh , archive of all the mails that has been {vocalsound} gon that has gone , uh , between these people {disfmarker} among these people . So just you can see all this {pause} mails in the ISIP web site {disfmarker} +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: Mississippi web site . +PhD E: OK . Is that a password controlled {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: Yeah , it 's password protected . +PhD E: OK . +PhD D: So , like {disfmarker} like , it 's , like {disfmarker} +Professor B: Have you thought about {pause} how long {pause} would be uh , most useful for you to go up to OGI ? +PhD A: I don't know , uh . We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} For September , we can set up a work schedule and we can maybe work independently . And then at some point it maybe be better to work together again . +Professor B: Oh , so you 're {disfmarker} you 're imagining more that you would come back here first for a while and then {disfmarker} and then go up there ? +PhD A: I {disfmarker} +Professor B: I mean , it 's to you . +PhD A: Maybe , yeah . +Professor B: I ju you guys are Well , y anyway , you don't have to decide this second but thi think about it {disfmarker} about what {disfmarker} what you would think would be the {disfmarker} the best way to work it . I 'll +PhD A: But , uh {pause} Huh . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: support it either way , so . +PhD A: Mm - hmm Right . +Professor B: OK . Uh . Got anything to tell us ? +Grad C: Um . Well , I 've been reading some literature about clustering of data . Just , um , I guess , let me put it in context . OK , so we 're talking about discovering intermediate categories to , um {disfmarker} to classify . And , uh , I was looking at some of the work that , uh , Sangita was doing on these TRAPS things . So she has , um {disfmarker} she has temporal patterns for , um , a certain set of phonemes , from {disfmarker} from TIMIT , right ? the most common phonemes . And each one of them has {disfmarker} has a {disfmarker} a nice pattern over time , a one {disfmarker} one second window . And it has {disfmarker} has these patterns . Um , so she has , um a TRAP for each one of the phonemes , um , times fifteen , for each of the fifteen critical bands . And , um , {vocalsound} she does this agglomerative hierarchical clustering which {disfmarker} which basically , um , is a clustering algorithm that , uh , starts with many , many , many different points {disfmarker} many different clusters {disfmarker} uh , corresponding to the number of data , uh , patterns that you have in the data . And then you have this distance mej metric which , uh , measures how {disfmarker} how closely related they are . And you start , um {vocalsound} by merging the patterns that are most closely related . +PhD E: And you create a tree . +Grad C: And y yeah , yeah , a dendrogram tree . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um . +PhD E: And then you can pick , uh , values anywhere along that tree to fix your set of clusters . +Grad C: Right , usually it 's when , um {disfmarker} when the sol similarity measures , um , don't go down as much . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And so , uh {disfmarker} so you stop at that point . And what she found was , sh um , was there were five broad , um {disfmarker} broad categories , uh , corresponding to , uh , things like , uh , fricatives and , uh , vocalic , um , and , uh , stops . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And , uh , one for silence and {disfmarker} and another one for schwa {disfmarker} schwa sounds . Um , and , um , I was thinking about ways to {disfmarker} to generalize this because w you 're {disfmarker} it 's sort of like a {disfmarker} it 's not a completely automatic way of clustering , because yo beforehand you have these {disfmarker} these TRAPS and you 're saying that {disfmarker} that these frames correspond to this particular phoneme . Um , and that 's {disfmarker} that 's constraining your {disfmarker} your clustering to {disfmarker} to the set of phonemes that you already have . Um , whereas maybe we want to just take {disfmarker} take a look at , um , arbitrary windows in time , um , of varying length , um , and cluster those . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And I 'm thinking if we {disfmarker} if we do that , then we would probably , um , at some point in the clustering algorithm find that we 've clustered things like , OK , thi this is a transition , um , this is a relatively stable {disfmarker} stable point . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , and I 'm hoping to find other things of {disfmarker} of similarity and maybe use these things as the intermediate , um {disfmarker} intermediate categories that , uh , um , I 'll later classify . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Are you looking at these in narrow bands ? +Grad C: Um , right . F um , I 'm {disfmarker} +Professor B: Cuz that 's what you 're gonna be using , right ? +Grad C: Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I haven't exactly figured out , um , the exact details for that but , uh , the {disfmarker} the representation of the data that I was thinking of , was using , um , critical band , um , energies , {vocalsound} um , over different lengths of time . So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , it seems somehow that needs th uh , there 's a couple things that I wonder about with this . I mean , so one is {disfmarker} is , {pause} again , looking at the same representation , +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: I mean , if you 're going for this sort of thing where you have {pause} uh , little detectors that are looking at narrow bands , then what you 're going to be looking for should be some category that you can find with the narrow bands . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} that seems to be kind of fundamental to it . Um , and then the other thing , uh , is {disfmarker} that I wonder about with it , and {disfmarker} and don't take this in the wrong way , like I {disfmarker} I know what I 'm doing or anything , +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: but , I mean . {vocalsound} Um , just wondering really . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , the sort of standard answer about this sort of thing is that if you 're trying to find {pause} the right system in some sense , whether you 're trying by categories or {disfmarker} or parameters {pause} um , and your goal is discrimination , then having choices based on discrimination as opposed to , um , unsupervised nearness of things , um , is actually better . +Grad C: Hmm . +Professor B: Um , and I don't know if that {disfmarker} I mean , since you 're dealing with issues of robustness , you know , maybe {disfmarker} maybe this isn't right , but it 'd be something I 'd be concerned about . Because , for instance , you can imagine , uh , uh , i i if you remember from {disfmarker} from , uh {disfmarker} from your {disfmarker} your quals , John Ohala saying that , uh , "" buh "" {comment} and "" puh "" {comment} differed , uh , not really cuz of voicing but because of aspiration . I mean , in as far as wha what 's really there in the acoustics . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , um , if you looked {disfmarker} if you were doing some coarse clustering , you probably would put those two sounds together . And yet , I would gue I would guess that many of your recognition errors were coming from , uh , um , pfft , {comment} screwing up on this distinction . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , in fact , it 's a little hard because recognizers , to first order , sort of work . And the reasons we 're doing the things we 're doing is because they don't work as well as we 'd like . And since they sort of work , uh , it means that they are already doing {disfmarker} if you go and take any recognizer that 's already out there and you say , "" how well is it distinguishing between {pause} schwas and stops ? "" +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Boy , I bet they 're all doing nearly perfectly on this , right ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So these {disfmarker} these big categories that differ in huge obvious ways , we already know how to do . So , what are we bringing to the party ? I mean , in fact what we wanna do is have something that , particularly in the presence of noise , uh , is better at distinguishing between , uh , categories that are actually close to one another , and hence , would probably be clustered together . +Grad C: Mmm . +Professor B: So that 's th that 's the hard thing . I mean , I understand that there 's this other constraint that you 're considering , is that you wanna have categories that , uh {disfmarker} that would be straightforward for , say , a human being to mark if you had manual annotation . And it 's something that you really think you can pick up . But I think it 's also essential that you wanna look at what are the {vocalsound} confusions that you 're making and how can you come up with , uh , categories that , uh , can clarify these confusions . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , the standard sort of way of doing that is take a look at the algorithms you 're looking at , but then throw in some discriminative aspect to it . Y y this is more like , you know , how does LDA differ from PCA ? I mean , they 're the same sort of thing . They 're both orthogonalizing . +Grad C: Right . +Professor B: But , you know {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , um , this is a little harder because you 're not just trying to find parameters . You 're actually trying to find the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the categories themselves . Uh , so a little more like brain surgery , I think on yourself . Uh . So , uh +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Um , anyway . That 's my {pause} thought . +Grad C: OK . +Professor B: You 've been thinking about this problem for a long time actually . I mean , well {disfmarker} W actually , you stopped thinking about it for a long time , but you used to think about it {vocalsound} a lot . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: And you 've been thinking about it more now , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: these categories . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: I guess {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} um , it 's not clear to me how to reconcile , you know , what you 're saying , which I think is right , with {pause} the way I 've been looking at it . That it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's all not very clear to me . But it seems to me that the desire {disfmarker} the desirable feature to have is something that , um , is bottom - up . You know , however we do that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: And and so I guess what I don't understand is how to do that and still be discriminative , because to be discriminative you have to have categories and the only categories that we know of to use are sort of these human {disfmarker} human sig significant {disfmarker} categories that are significant to humans , like phonemes , things like that . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: But that 's sort of what you want to avoid . And so that feels {disfmarker} I don't know how to get out of this . +Professor B: Well , here 's a {disfmarker} here 's a , uh , uh Here 's a generic and possibly useless thought , which is , {vocalsound} um , what do you really {disfmarker} I mean , in a sense the only s s systems that make sense , uh , are ones that {disfmarker} that have something from top - down in th in them . Right ? Because if e even the smallest organism that 's trying to learn to do anything , if it doesn't have any kind of reward for doing {disfmarker} or penal penalty for doing anything , then it 's just going to behave randomly . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So whether you 're talking about something being learned through evolution or being learned through experience , it 's gotta have something come down to it that gives its reward or , you know , at least some reinforcement learning , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: right ? +PhD E: So the question is , how far down ? +Professor B: And +PhD E: We could stop at words , but we don't , right ? We go all the way down to phonemes . +Professor B: Right , but I me I {disfmarker} I think that maybe in some ways part of the difficulty is {disfmarker} is trying to deal with the {disfmarker} with these phonemes . You know , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and i it 's almost like you want categories if {disfmarker} if our {disfmarker} if our , uh , um , {vocalsound} metric of {disfmarker} of goodness , uh , i if our {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: correction {disfmarker} if our metric of badness {vocalsound} is word error rate then , um , maybe we should be looking at words . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for very nice , uh , reasons we 've looked for a while at syllables , and they have a lot of good properties , but i i i if you go all the way to words , I mean , that 's really {disfmarker} I mean , d w In many applications you wanna go further . You wanna go to concepts or something , or have {disfmarker} have {disfmarker} have concepts , actions , this sort of thing . +PhD E: Yeah . But words would be a nice {disfmarker} +Professor B: But , words aren't bad , yeah . And {disfmarker} and +PhD E: Yeah , so the common {disfmarker} right , the common wisdom is you can't do words because there 's too many of them , right ? So you have to have some smaller set that you can use , uh , and {disfmarker} and so everybody goes to phonemes . But the problem is that we {disfmarker} we build models of words in terms of phonemes and these models are {disfmarker} are really cartoon - ish , right ? So when you look at conversational speech , for example , you don't see the phonemes that you {disfmarker} that you have in your word models . +Professor B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but we 're not trying for models of words here . See , so her here 's maybe where {disfmarker} If the issue is that we 're trying to come up with , um , some sort of intermediate categories which will then be useful for later stuff , uh , then {pause} maybe it doesn't matter that we can't have enough {disfmarker} +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , what you wanna do is {disfmarker} is build up these categories that are {disfmarker} that are best for word recognition . +PhD E: Right . Right . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and somehow if that 's built into the loop of what the categories {disfmarker} I mean , we do this every day in this very gross way of {disfmarker} of running o a thousand experiments +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: because we have fast computers and picking the thing that has the best word error rate . +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: In some way {disfmarker} I mean , we derive that all the time . In some ways it 's really not {comment} a bad {disfmarker} bad thing to do because it tells you in fact how your adjustments at the very low level affect the {disfmarker} the final goal . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um , so maybe there 's a way to even put that in in a much more automatic way , +PhD E: Right . +Professor B: where you take , you know , something about the error at the level of the word or some other {disfmarker} it could be syllable {disfmarker} but in some large unit , +PhD E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: uh , and uh {disfmarker} yeah , you may not have word models , you have phone models , whatever , but you sort of {pause} don't worry about that , and just somehow feed it back through . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , so that 's , uh , wh what I called a useless comments because I 'm not really telling you how to do it . But I mean , it 's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's {disfmarker} it 's , you know {disfmarker} it +PhD E: No , but I think the important part in there is that , you know , if you want to be discriminative , you have to have uh , you know , categories . +Professor B: Right . +PhD E: And I think this {disfmarker} the important categories are the words , and {pause} not the phones . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD E: Maybe . And so {disfmarker} Right . If you can put the words in to the loop somehow for determining goodness of your sets of clusters {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Now , that being said , I think that {disfmarker} that if you have something that is , um {disfmarker} i Once you start dealing with spontaneous speech , all the things you 're saying are {disfmarker} are really true . +PhD E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: If you {pause} have read speech that 's been manually annotated , like TIMIT , then , you know , i i you the phones are gonna be right , actually , {vocalsound} for the most part . +PhD E: Yeah . Yeah , +Professor B: So {disfmarker} so , uh , it doesn't really hurt them to {disfmarker} to do that , to put in discrimination at that level . +PhD E: yeah . +Professor B: Um , if you go to spontaneous speech then it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , uh , the phones are {disfmarker} uh , you know , it 's gonna be based on bad pronunciation models that you have of {disfmarker} +PhD E: +Professor B: and , um {disfmarker} And it won't allow for the overlapping phenomenon +PhD E: Mmm . So it 's almost like there 's this mechanism that we have that , you know , when {disfmarker} when we 're hearing read speech and all the phonemes are there you know , we {disfmarker} we deal with that , but {disfmarker} but when we go to conversational , and then all of a sudden not all the phonemes are there , it doesn't really matter that much to us as humans because we have some kind of mechanism that allows for these word models , whatever those models are , to be {pause} munged , you know , and {disfmarker} and it doesn't really hurt , and I 'm not sure how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how to build that in . Uh . +Professor B: Yeah , I mean , I guess the other thing i is {disfmarker} is to think of a little bit {disfmarker} I mean , we when y when you start looking at these kind of results I think it usually is {disfmarker} is pretty intuitive , but start looking at um , what are the kinds of confusions that you do make , uh , you know , between words if you want or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or , uh , even phones in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in read speech , say , uh , when there is noise . You know , so is it more across place or more across manner ? Or is it cor you know , is it {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , I know one thing that happens is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you , uh , you lose the , um , uh , low energy phones . I mean , if there 's added noise then low energy phones {vocalsound} sometimes don't get heard . And if that {disfmarker} if that is {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} uh , if that turns it into another word or {disfmarker} or different {disfmarker} you know , or another pair of words or something , then it 's more likely to happen . But , um , I don't know , I w I would {disfmarker} I would guess that you 'd {disfmarker} +Grad C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: W I don't know . Anyway , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD E: I think part of the difficulty is that a l a lot of the robustness that we have is probably coming from a much higher level . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD E: You know , we understand the context of the situation when we 're having a conversation . And so if there 's noise in there , you know , our brain fills in and imagines what {disfmarker} what should be there . +Professor B: Well that {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah . We 're {disfmarker} we 're doing some sort of prediction of what {disfmarker} +PhD E: Yeah , exactly . +Professor B: Oh , sure , that 's really big . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , but I mean , even if you do um , uh , diagnostic rhyme test kind of things , you know , where there really isn't an any information like that , uh , people are still better in noise than they {disfmarker} than they are in {disfmarker} in , uh {disfmarker} uh , than the machines are . +PhD E: Hmm . +Professor B: So , I mean , that 's {disfmarker} i Right . We can't {disfmarker} we can't get it at all without any language models . Language models are there and important but {disfmarker} but , uh {disfmarker} Uh . If we 're not working on that then {vocalsound} we should work on something else and improve it , but {disfmarker} especially if it looks like the potential is there . So {disfmarker} Should we do some digits ? +PhD E: Yeah . +Professor B: Since we 're here ? +PhD E: Go ahead , Morgan . +Professor B: OK . +PhD E: OK . +Professor B: That 's all folks . +","In a recorded conversation among academics and researchers, the discussion revolves around the progress and future steps for a project dealing with speech processing and recognition. Professor B initiates the conversation by referring to a recent meeting with a colleague named Hynek, where Sunil and Stephane presented updates on their current work and discussed future plans. + +PhD E inquires about whether the programming code has been successfully integrated, to which PhD D confirms with an affirmative response, making it clear that the code was updated the previous day. PhD A and E talk about receiving and noticing an email regarding this update, which appears to contain information about new features such as noise suppression and speech re-synthesis post-suppression. + +A brief discussion arises concerning the usage and functionality of the CVS (Concurrent Versions System) and SSH (Secure Shell) for remotely accessing and managing the project’s code, particularly when team members are at different locations, like OGI (Oregon Graduate Institute). The utilization of these tools for version control is emphasized when considering members who are not currently active in the project but might require code access in the future, specifically Sunil and Pratibha upon their return. + +Professor B probes further about the software updates, prompting PhD A to explain the recent advancements in detail. They've worked on noise compensation for approximately six weeks and have come to a working configuration using Wiener filtering on FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) bins, involving a two-step smoothing process. Despite experimenting with various approaches, this setup yielded well-performing results, and the team decides to freeze this part of the work to focus on other system aspects. + +PhD E questions which noise reduction technique will be employed, prompting a technical explanation of the chosen Wiener filtering method from PhD A. The team deliberates on the order of operations within their signal processing procedure, discussing the possibility of independent modules, such as the neural net, and how their outputs might be utilized in subsequent processes. + +The group's reasoning behind using certain system features is discussed, particularly how word error rates are considered when choosing or adjusting these features. Professor B shares insights regarding the need to maintain a certain amount of control over the set of options within their system in order to focus on important experiments. The goal is to refine the noise estimation, neural net integration, and possibly exploit a secondary data stream. + +As the conversation progresses, the dialog shifts to a consideration of the speech recognizer's performance on an evaluation set. They discuss how their system could potentially rank if the recent changes and optimizations were applied to the previous evaluation datasets. Rankings from past tests are mentioned, and there is a brief interjection from Grad C about the complexity of their ranking when considering other systems. + +The discussion expands to address the involvement of a Mississippi State software piece in their evaluation, raising questions about its potential to process larger-scale data, such as the Wall Street Journal dataset. Chuck (PhD E) is suggested to assist with the large vocabulary evaluation component of the project, and it is decided that he will be added to relevant mailing lists for further communication. + +As the meeting nears its completion, the topic turns to clustering analysis of speech data and the notion of intermediate classifications for speech recognition. Grad C shares his thoughts on the use of hierarchical clustering to find broad phonetic categories and the possibility of extending such methodologies to broader data representations for more general clustering. Professor B and PhD E then exchange ideas on the implications of creating discriminative categories for recognition that are more closely tied to words rather than phonemes, acknowledging the traditional reliance on phonemes, despite their challenges in spontaneous speech. + +The overall dialogue portrays a collaborative, detail-oriented examination of a speech recognition project, emphasizing code integration, feature optimization, remote access coordination, evaluation planning, and methodical strategizing for categorization within signal processing and machine learning frameworks." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: Oops That's as far as it goes {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Hi guys uh good morning everybody here . And uh I want to introduce myself , uh my name is uh Shrida Daseri and uh I'm a project manager for this new project which we are going to discuss now . So I want to introduce first of all uh the names and the colleagues here . And what you're uh drawing ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh sure my name is Agnes and I'm an user {disfmarker} usability user interface designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} My name is Ed and I do accounting . +Project Manager: Uh how you spell your name uh ? +Marketing: E_D_ . +Project Manager: E_D_ okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: Do you also do marketing ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: So only accounting ? Okay . +Marketing: Accounting , yes . +Project Manager: And ? +Industrial Designer: And I'm Christine , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and my role in this uh scenario is to be the industrial designer . +Project Manager: Industrial designer . +Industrial Designer: But I'm not really one . +Project Manager: So who is uh marketing , nobody in the market +Marketing: Marketing is uh , is me {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: It's you , okay . So thanks for coming for the meeting first of all , and uh we have a long time , just twenty-five minutes to discuss about uh this project and the the project initiation . First of all I want to ask uh Mister Ed about your uh marketing plan and your product plan and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I think that we'll see that throughout the day in how we're going to put this together as a marketing to to market the product . We'll have to see on a through discussion on where we're gonna go from here and from {disfmarker} with this . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm but uh do you already have like a functional design or a technical design or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh for the moment not yet . +Project Manager: Oh for the moment not yet , okay , but uh what's what's your uh {disfmarker} do you have some project plan , something with you or {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good question {vocalsound} . No , this is like I said that we have to be discussed between all of us and we'll go from there . We'll have to {disfmarker} simply we'll have to work on it together . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay , so uh by when you think you can uh give me some kind of uh project plan , okay , a discussion with uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Certainly by the next meeting . +Project Manager: By next meeting , okay that will be great . Uh Okay , so there's any questions or uh first of all about uh this project ? +Industrial Designer: What is the goal of the project ? +Project Manager: Uh the goal of the project I think maybe I'll uh hand out to the Ed , okay , so to explain uh what is the project because he's in the sales and the accounting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm in the sales I'm supposed to explain them what to do {vocalsound} . We have to define exactly what our product is , from uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , so can you explain uh what exactly the product is ? +Marketing: From what I had in mind we're supposed to be marketing coffee , is that right ? +Project Manager: Oh I think uh , if I'm not wrong , we're making the remote control . +User Interface: Um I was wondering {disfmarker} +Marketing: Remote controls , 'cause I had two different things . I had a first part of mine was to make a remote control for a new f remote control for television , and afterward I had a discussion about coffee so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: we'll start with the remote control for television then . So we're have to design something that is very user friendly . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Something uh visual that has something that will will draw people to buy the product , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because I think everybody's experienced with uh remote controls , and some remote controls are are worth uh throwing out the window . Uh th most of them ar I don't know we're have to come up with a new idea on how to make it a lot easier to use , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause a lot of times uh spend uh half a day through the instruction book trying to figure out how to use it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: And uh what abo uh Christine , what about your uh the industrial design plan ? Are you have a design already on this product or uh you're still working on the design ? +Industrial Designer: Um no , I I have not begun working on the design , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and um I uh I actually didn't know we were designing a remote control , I thought we were designing a new monitor . Um the website I went to look at had some announcements about an introduction of a um uh some sort of a seven inch um monitor , and um I understood that that was the project goal . So um I'm glad I didn't d do any work um ahead of time because uh I clearly didn't understand the project goal . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Um I just did s see that we were starting a new project together and there was going to be a four member team composed of these people , and um that's about uh that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and I I read through the different steps , and what my responsibilities were relative to the steps . +Project Manager: So uh you'll be leading the team for your design team or how many members is working in the team , for the design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh for the industrial design ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um well , I would th think that depends on how much money you give us . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um because uh , you know , you can uh you can make it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have different choices with different financial models . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh before we talk about uh the finance , okay , uh do you have some idea how we can uh sell this product or project in the market and how much is going to benefit to the company and uh of course it's to the individual also . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , you know um , I kind of think that in general you have to do uh um y you have to have something that's very fashionable , that's uh very attractive {disfmarker} that um people see and recognize uh its goal , and uh they immediately wanna have it uh have one of their own . So it would {disfmarker} really would need to um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} something like the iPod would be good , seems to have caught on fairly well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so um d uh you know , I don't care what it does , just so it looks cool . +Project Manager: Okay , but uh uh when you think you can give me like a kind of design on the functional design or the technical design ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well , uh I've got a lot of other projects I'm doing right now um and so I'll have to wait and see how those uh how those go . If they uh go quickly then uh it could be a month . If um if I run into any problems in my other projects it might be six months . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh I need something in the writing , so like uh what's your functional design , what's your technical design , and uh how many people you need for this project , and what's the time frame you're looking , okay , and what is the budget , maybe uh initial budget you're looking , okay , and uh how is going to the market , okay , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so you've you've had to meet with the marketing team and how they're going to market and what are the marketing strategic plan , okay , when are you going to introduce , okay , and by the time you introduce the product and uh you know there there would be a competition , okay , so I need some kind of uh uh the plan in the writing from you . Okay , and it's po +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And when would you like that ? +Project Manager: B as soon as possible . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh well if uh if we have enough time uh then d do you think um two weeks is a {disfmarker} is close enough ? +Project Manager: Yes I think uh that would be good , because I need to go to the management and uh tell them what we are going to do , and uh what cost is , okay , and what's the time frame and what's the project plan , because uh without any uh documentations , I cannot go to the management and say , so we are going to do this and we need this much money , okay , so then it's it's difficult for me to say , okay , that's the reason I need uh some kind of plan from you , initially , okay , then we can have the further discussion again . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} are there other people who will be contributing to the plan ? +Project Manager: Yes , of course , if you need some help , uh so let me know . So , who are the people you need uh from the marketing or uh the technical side or uh the administration point of view , okay , to add in any documentation , or some technical point of view , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so just let me know so I can uh coordinate all the teams . +Industrial Designer: Okay , I'll get back to you on that . +Project Manager: Yes . Thank you . Okay . And uh Ed uh so what's {disfmarker} what do you think about uh this uh project for the remote control and d do you have some already planned something for your marketing strategy or uh the sales strategy ? +Marketing: Well not yet other than uh doing research and taking remote controls and looking what other companies have to do uh , what they're building , their designs , their ideas , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh also have to pinpoint which market we're gonna go into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It should be a fairly large market because uh the number of people that uh {disfmarker} the competition , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: uh th I agree it has to be something {disfmarker} it has to be something new , it has to be something that that draws people saying eh , I like this . Whether it works or not , they have to first say I like this , I like the design , and then it's gotta be simple to use . +Project Manager: Yes , so what I uh prefer maybe uh you need to interact uh more with the Christine , okay , because you know what she is going to do it , okay , and you know how to sell it . Okay , because uh she is doing the design , but you are the core because you are in the marketing , okay , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so because you need to sell {disfmarker} and you're the responsible for the all the money , the finance , okay , tomorrow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So , what I prefer , okay , so you need to interact with the Christine more and uh within her team , okay , who is using the functional design or technical design , okay , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and uh you need to come up with some kind of plan , okay , how we are going to do the {disfmarker} your sales plan , okay , th +Marketing: Do we already have a cost limit on this , th an idea of how much uh we want to market this for , how much it's gonna sell for , +Project Manager: Th That {disfmarker} that's +Marketing: that's up that's up to us to decide , eh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , that's {disfmarker} you have to decide , okay , so the best thing is you {disfmarker} uh both of uh the Christine and you discuss with yourself , okay , and come up with the cost , and how we are going to compete in the market , okay , in the the technically , or in the sales wise , okay , the commercial wise , okay . Then uh we have to design , okay , how long it will take the whole project , okay , how much is going to cost us , and how much we are going to benefit for the company . Okay , of course it's it's uh of benefit for everybody individually . Okay , so I think it's uh maybe if we can uh give me some kind of your uh the sales plan , okay , including the technical what uh she's going to talk to you within the team , okay , then it will help me to discuss with the management for further , okay , and put it in the the proper project plan . Okay , and if you need uh any coordination in between uh compared to the maybe the some technical vendors or commercial vendors , okay , depends if you want to have some uh uh marketing plan or technical plan , okay , so you let me know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very good . +Project Manager: Okay , I can coordinate , +Marketing: Very good . +Project Manager: or maybe uh , you are my coordinator , am I right ? +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Between uh all the coor +User Interface: Well , no , not exactly . I mean my job from what I understood was to look at the usability requirements and make sure that the product is usable , it's acceptable to the people who are gonna use it and look at the best ways to do that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So I think I'll have to interact with Christine and discuss with her , so that she's not designing something that my studies will show right off the bat that it's not going to work , +Project Manager: Th Christine , yeah {vocalsound} . Which is {disfmarker} +User Interface: and so it's sort of {disfmarker} it's a loop that feeds in , but I don't think necessarily that I'm in a coordinating position for it . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah , so basically you need to interact with Christine more , okay , for the user acceptability , okay , and the testing , okay , +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: then you will {disfmarker} +User Interface: Which will also feed into the marketing , +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because depending on what users want , depends on how you sell it , what tag lines you attach to it , how you try to make it more attractive to users . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: So I think all three groups will need to interact quite a bit . Um , and then I guess build the plan based on all of that , because I think you need to take all the factors into account . +Project Manager: Yep . But what I request , okay , {gap} keep Ed in the loop , okay , in between your uh meeting and Christine meeting , because uh he should know what's happening . +User Interface: Yeah , of course {vocalsound} . Yeah , we can C_C_ him on any discussions or documents that are passed around . +Project Manager: Yes . Okay and please please copy all the mails , okay , all the discussions to me , okay , so I need to submit to the management . +User Interface: Sure . No problem . +Project Manager: So any questions for uh time being ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +User Interface: So , the immediate next step is to start determining the functional design , or +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Okay . To come up with the functional design and uh to discuss with Ed , okay , and how it's going to be work , and uh first of all with your user acceptance , okay , how it looks like and how it's going to be work in the market , okay , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: so then we can discuss about uh further things . So , we'll meet when the {disfmarker} we'll discuss on the further meeting . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: It's okay ? Thanks for coming . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Would you mind um at the conclusion of our meeting could could you send us a copy of your slides ? +Project Manager: Yes , I will . Yes . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , yeah , that would be useful . +Project Manager: I'll copy , uh le let us keep all the emails and all the copies , okay , share each other , okay , so you know everybody what's happening , okay ? +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: And if anything you need anytime so please either you can call me , or just send me email , or uh just come and uh knock my door , okay , so I'm available here . It's good ? Okay , thanks for coming and uh I wish you a nice time then . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +User Interface: Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , see you later . Bye . +User Interface: Thank you . +","During a morning meeting within a collaborative team, Shrida Daseri, introducing herself as the project manager, facilitates the discussion about a new project that the team will be developing. The gathering consists of various team members with distinct roles including Agnes, a user interface designer; Ed, an individual who initially identifies himself as handling accounting but also responsible for marketing; and Christine, who is the industrial designer for the project, albeit she mentions she isn’t one in reality. + +A point of confusion arises amongst the team members regarding their individual roles and the overarching goal of the project. For instance, Ed first claims to be in accounting but later identifies with marketing and sales, causing some uncertainty around his actual responsibilities. Christine, the industrial designer, mistakenly thought the project involved creating a new monitor due to information on a website, and she expresses relief that she hadn't started work based on that assumption. + +The conversation reveals a lack of clarity and preparation as the team has yet to discuss and determine fundamental aspects such as a marketing plan, design plans for the product, or a solid project goal. Shrida, as the project manager, nudges Ed for marketing insights but discovers that no concrete strategies are in place yet; moreover, he seems to have mixed communication on whether the product was supposed to be a coffee-related item or a remote control for televisions. + +Shrida seeks to establish project goals and parameters by asking about existing designs and plans, prompting Christine to point out the necessity of financial support for her design processes. In the midst of budget conversations, it is suggested that the product should be fashionable and immediately appealing, much like the iPod’s success in the market. Nonetheless, Christine admits her design work hasn’t started due to her current commitments to other projects, indicating she could take anywhere from a month to six months to present a functional or technical design based on her workload. + +The project manager emphasizes the importance of having plans in writing to share with company management and secure funding. Shrida expects proposals detailing team requirements, timeframes, budgets, and market strategies at the upcoming meeting. + +Throughout the discussion, the team identifies a critical need for interdepartmental collaboration, such as between marketing (Ed) and industrial design (Christine), to ensure that the product is not only well-designed but also viable in the market. Moreover, the user interface specialist, Agnes, points out that her role is crucial for ensuring the product’s usability meets consumer preferences, which is a critical input for both the design and marketing strategies. + +The meeting winds down with the project manager asking the team members to keep each other, especially Ed, in the communication loop, sharing emails and discussions to keep the entire team informed of the developments. There is also a request for the copy of the project manager’s slides for the benefit of all members. The project manager offers her availability for any questions and extends an open-door policy to the team before concluding the meeting and wishing them well." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So in last meeting we have discussed the conceptual design and we asked you to prepare a prototype for the for the remote control . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {gap} . {vocalsound} So let's see the {disfmarker} what did you prepare . +User Interface: Yeah , so can you go out to the shared folder ? Mm the shared folder . +Project Manager: Sh share folder for th your presentation ? +User Interface: Yes . We have a presentation . +Project Manager: Because I have here {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {gap} So I got the participant uh three . W uh {vocalsound} . Three . It's the final design , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay just one {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S so so I discussed with Guillaume . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Right . {vocalsound} And uh {vocalsound} so we have {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and we we are both agreed on some two versions of the prototypes , because we were no not decided whether we wanted to have an L_C_D_ or not because it's too expensive . So we come up with two versions . One with and one without L_C_D_s . Um but both comes with a charger and then detachable and uh or {gap} control module . And detachable big buttons for all people um . So {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S okay so I'll show you the the two prototypes {vocalsound} . Here we have the first one with the beautiful uh L_C_D_ um display . You you can s here . And you can uh just um browse into the the navigation menu by uh joystick joystick-like uh button . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You can uh choose the direction and if you just push on it it's considered like a enter function . +User Interface: Mm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: You have on the mm on the side here the microphone for the {vocalsound} for the speech recognition system here . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And here the the switch that control if you want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Why you why you you put it in the the side ? +Industrial Designer: Well I I I think uh it's the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not a good place maybe {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: No i i it's the all around camer uh microphone isn't it . The the microphone picks up the speeches from anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Is it an only a single mic or a microphone array ? +Industrial Designer: Well so it's a microphone array . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it's very costly , microphone array {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's just a single microphone , and you {disfmarker} I I think uh we we put it here because I think when you when you are browsing your L_C_D_ you will be close to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: well it's better to to to place it here th than here , for instance . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And here is a little switch that control if you want the the speaker uh recognition system to um to be on or off . And uh so this remote control comes up with its charger . +Project Manager: How much does it cost this one ? +Industrial Designer: Well this this prototype is um made for about uh well fi fi fifteen fifteen dollars +User Interface: For the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Fifteen dollars ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} fifteen dollars , +Project Manager: Ah it's above it's above the budget . +Industrial Designer: but uh well it's not it's not uh {disfmarker} yeah , but uh it's just a prototype and if we uh if we optimises the um the uh {disfmarker} voila . +Marketing: The cost would be le reduced . +Industrial Designer: Yeah the {gap} and the the production costs we we can achieve uh about ten dollars . {gap} +User Interface: Mm . Hmm . +Project Manager: How many b battery is there ? +Industrial Designer: How many , excuse me ? +Project Manager: Battery . +Industrial Designer: Well uh f battery , we use uh about uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Is it n the two A_A_s batteries in it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: A_A_ rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: Rechargeable of course , +User Interface: Yeah rechargeable batteries . +Industrial Designer: because we have the charger . +User Interface: We have the charger so it's no problem . +Industrial Designer: Yeah and you just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So one one battery ? +Industrial Designer: On uh yeah one battery . +Marketing: Is that two or one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's kinetic reserve . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Actually uh it's a flexible thing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You just n uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Now what is the whole day rating for that ? +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} excuse me ? +Marketing: Whole day's rating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: What type of battery ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah it's just a r uh simple battery a rechargeable uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: if you uh like it's exist . +Marketing: Something like a two A_ , A_ three size batteries ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So and if you want to charge the battery you just put the remote control like that to plug in the the charger +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh leave it uh alone , it's alright . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} At uh {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then the next time you pick it , oh +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it works {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I forgot to tell you there is only a single button there , b this button {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah just explain the button uh Norman . +User Interface: yeah alright . This button is like the mouse {disfmarker} is like a joystick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: you can move in three hundred and sixty degrees of direction so you can make a turn and it {disfmarker} the additi functions associated to all the actions you ma you have a click you have a double click all in a single button {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can move up , down , left , right , or you can do a swing . So a swing to the left , a swing to the right defines other functions . So even though it's a single button , but it is pretty s flexible because of the three hundred and sixty degree movement {vocalsound} . +Marketing: And the L_C_D_ is this one , on the remote ? +User Interface: Yeah . This is the version y that comes with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Here I present another version without the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's not a good idea because after maybe one or two months of function is {gap} getting destroyed . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: If you +User Interface: Uh okay this is new prototype uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we have the the second version also with the different uh button configuration . The second version is also simpler , we d uh we had just uh I have to put the microphone also {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So basically th it's the same uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh-huh and also the switch . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Basically it's the same uh things uh uh as uh I presented before . But here we have uh we have uh four buttons for navigation . Press one button uh acting as a a enter button . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So um yeah according to what you said it's more robust to the user . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And uh it's also cheaper to produce . We can produce uh such remote control for about uh four dollars . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No four dollars , it's {vocalsound} {gap} good . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think you forgot a point here to have an button to find the charger , +User Interface: Oh no +Marketing: because that's a major that's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: th actually th we'll come to that point in our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's it's embed in the uh speech recognition system . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: and if you disable speech recognition system then ? +User Interface: W w I'll I'll come to that point later on . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so Norman will explain to you {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: And we will we will serve the charger with this ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah of course mm {gap} . +User Interface: Th they {vocalsound} either these with the {disfmarker} uh the the charger any +Project Manager: With the remote control . +User Interface: in either versions you they they ha they use the same charger yeah . +Project Manager: Okay so the price of the charger included in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh it's a standard module so you should get it for a cheap price uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Thank thank you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so mm-hmm . +User Interface: It's that same charger that you can use for the hand-phone but uh again depends on the types . I think we have to investigate more on that , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The price should be below twelve and a half Euro . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah +Project Manager: Well that's {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} +User Interface: but as the Marketing Manager says , people is willing to {disfmarker} people are willing to pay more for good design . +Project Manager: We have we have just {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah people are willing to pay more , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but the company is not willing to invest more at the moment . +Project Manager: The price of selling is twenty five Euros . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And the price of production {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright please uh go on Norman with the special features {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we'll we'll come up to that , the the the thing that makes this the controller cheap is that it is modular so you want more function you pay more . If you want less function i i if you want a reasonable price you pay for the functions that you add on to the system , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so is uh modular . +Project Manager: That's for this basis function and if you want more you pay more . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: for example the L_C_D_ , you can take it you can put it {disfmarker} put it back in , or you can use the other one , +Marketing: Something like customised . Yeah +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: or {vocalsound} the speech recogniser with the microphone yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You want a microphone to put in the {vocalsound} speech recogniser you don't wan you pay less for the system you see {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm okay . +User Interface: It's pretty flexible in the yeah price {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {gap} You also have the the the two other modules for the parental control +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah yeah you should present that . +Industrial Designer: that that you ca you can add up {vocalsound} to the {disfmarker} to your remote control +Marketing: And this is other one ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: i i if you uh if you want to to have more more power on what you do , and uh which channel you want to choose and so on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: H here is just the the the module for the kids and th if the parents want to watch T_V_ , up {disfmarker} they come up with their modules , +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +Industrial Designer: they just plug in it +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they can have all the control they want here . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We also have this module for uh old people with big buttons , clearly labelled , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and it acts like the previous one , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you just plug in and it works . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: the i the idea the the conceptual idea is that simplicity and powerful . Simplicity meaning that we have few buttons , powerful is that all the controls with {vocalsound} the one you saw we saw earlier in the meetings with lots of buttons n but here you only have few buttons but you retain the mm the same powerful functionalities . But in addition with simplicity . So that's the best idea , the cond that that's our uh an innovation um uh i in this uh design here {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay now we come to other important features that I did not tell you . The first one is the speech recogniser , again it's detachable or add-on . And then we also have security feature for example this here {disfmarker} oop {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: it's very robust {gap} , it doesn't break and the material , what's the material again ? +Industrial Designer: The titanium +Project Manager: Titanium . +Industrial Designer: and so it's very uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Again uh and the battery life is uh is an is an endurable one , again because this is A_A_ batteries you can choose the types of battery you want . +Marketing: Yeah that's fine . +User Interface: Lithium-ion may be a good one , but you can replace it with cheaper one , again you pay for what you get , and then um y the other p points are robust and misplacement reminder . So when you finish watching your T_V_ {vocalsound} and you the you t you turn off the T_V_ , uh and then there's this message coming out that uh please put that back to the charger , so so that's the {disfmarker} or is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: that's the reminder part . Yeah and um {disfmarker} And it also use a programmable channel and vocabulary , so we didn't define the vocabulary so it's up to the user to define +Marketing: Mm hmm hmm hmm . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} sorry ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then uh because of the chil because children are using the device so we have also a a {gap} of T_V_ programmes by genre , and this can be used by the adult or by the children . So instead of choosing the channel you are choosing the T_V_ contents of the night . So it's pretty powerful , and that's that's why the num buttons are reduced , because of this feature . Yeah . And {vocalsound} and for the materials that is cheap to produce I think uh it's quite clear from {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: And also like the {gap} and the fancy designs yeah . +Project Manager: What what's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe we can improve more on the design but {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What's the price to p to produce ? +User Interface: {disfmarker} uh this is the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well so the price to produce {disfmarker} For uh the simplest one , say we start from four dollars to produce such a device . +Project Manager: With with with the charge ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's about it {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} without without the charger +Marketing: With the charger ? +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's about uh well two dollars to produce uh the microphone and speech recognition systems . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Two dollars for the uh for the add-on modules , and finally three dollars for the charger . So if you uh sum up uh everything wi with the L_C_D_ {vocalsound} , which costs two dollar , you have two plus four plus four plus two plus two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We don't have charger . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think we can use Excel {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's about {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't have all the options {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: so the total cost if you if you want all the fuct functionalities will be about uh fifteen dollars . +Project Manager: Charger we don't have charger here either . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: No it's +Industrial Designer: But it's just if you want all functionalities . +Project Manager: it's below the the the budget . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Project Manager: It's below the bu the budget . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah it's a nice input +Project Manager: We {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we have an other inputs from the l public demands . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: I think we will just have a rough look and then we can make our statements , and we can finalise the product based on this discu +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I think we can just go to my presentation then . We can wind up . Or we could uh come to some f uh final conclusions . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So the marketing made an evaluation criteria and these were some of the findings , and uh in the market the people are not really interested with L_C_D_ , without L_C_D_ , with speech recognition interface , or without speech recognition interface , but most of the people what they are interested is {disfmarker} first thing is , they want to have an fancy look and feel , it should be very fancy with colourful and uh very handy to hold . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is it should be much more technologically innovative . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Of course in that we could put L_C_D_ or recognition to be more technologically innovative . And the third one is easy to use . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well I think that the technical in innovation is is in the product itself since we haven't yet a remote who are allowing to to choose interactively with the T_V_ screen uh uh with just four buttons . +Marketing: Okay and if we go to the next slide , here you can find {disfmarker} these are the latest fashion updates , and so this {disfmarker} in Paris and Milan {gap} they have detected this trends that the this year it's going to be an year of fruit and vegetable , so people are really interested to see if they have an remote in the shape of the fruit or a vegetable , or whatever they like . +User Interface: Spongy spongy . Mm mm . +Marketing: So I think it should be much more customised to make a different uh shapes . +User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} mm . +Marketing: And the second thing is , and if the material , they really do not want it to be very hard , as in the case of very pl plastic or titanium , it should be somewhat spongy . +User Interface: But the the problem is that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it robust to mishandling ? +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: We have {disfmarker} you should find a material that is robust at the same time spongy {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: A sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah so uh {vocalsound} so finally we have these three criterias . +User Interface: Spongy {vocalsound} . +Marketing: One is fancy look , second is innovative , and third is easy to use . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the f uh three criteria on which we are going to build our remote . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} and we have an evaluation criteria for each one of these , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: say that we have a seven point scale , from one to seven , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and for each of the product you could just give me the scale according to this . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So now you have with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ , +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: so on this scale , if it is true , if it is {disfmarker} if it has a fancy look you could just tell me one , or if it is false , it doesn't {disfmarker} it looks uh {disfmarker} it doesn't look much fancy , then you could just tell me seven . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We can make our study on this and {disfmarker} +User Interface: so is the e evaluation depending on us or other users ? +Marketing: No no we have {disfmarker} you have designed two products now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: one is with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: But who will give the scoring uh we ourself or or a third party ? +Project Manager: You . +Marketing: According to you , no according to you designers , how will feel {disfmarker} does it uh with L_C_D_ and without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay let us make this L_ and without L_C_D_ . On on this scale the L_C_D_ remote control . How do you look {disfmarker} how does it look ? +User Interface: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: D is it very fancy or doesn't look much fancy ? +Industrial Designer: Well it doesn't look much fancy I'll I'll say three or four . +Marketing: And you both agree for that ? +Project Manager: And you ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can improve on the design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Som someone um commented this is like a the stone age uh {gap} {vocalsound} design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's it it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um we have been focused all all this {vocalsound} time on the {vocalsound} on the technical aspect , functional aspect , but also the simplicity . +Industrial Designer: Technical aspects . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: As for the design maybe we c should hire a designer to help {vocalsound} . +Marketing: So I take three on {disfmarker} with L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah a three . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ how would you rate it ? +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Uh four . I think it's it's uh more easy to make f fancy things when it's not complicated +Marketing: Four . +Industrial Designer: so removing the L_C_D_ um gives us a li more liberty to to have a fancy look . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: And in the sense of innovativeness , with L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Well it's it's the same for both so {vocalsound} I will give a five , six . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Five with L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well five also uh {disfmarker} Norman please . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: from the innovation aspect I feel that uh what is most innovative of our prototype compared to the existing prototypes that we saw l in the last meeting is that um {vocalsound} the retrieval of T_V_ programmes by content , because uh that is really innovative , and for now {disfmarker} and another innovation we have is simplicity and {disfmarker} simplicity , few buttons , we've uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} A lot of functionalities . +Industrial Designer: With lot of functionalities . +User Interface: So that is uh that is uh for both th +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Our gi I think that the our our product is uh has the best in all {disfmarker} well this is a biased judgement {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: because we designed them . +Marketing: No no according to design aspect we want to know how would you feel the innovativeness ? +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Uh the innovation is v is very high I think . +Project Manager: For L_C_D_ . +Marketing: With L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: And without L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Mm for both it's the the same innovations . +User Interface: For both . It's the same innovation . So maybe I can put six to seven . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} six , let's go for six . +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Both . +Marketing: No actually uh to make it with L_C_D_ you make more efforts . So I {disfmarker} there is high innovativeness included if you make it with L_C_D_ y +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: then when it is without L_C_D_ there is not much innovativeness . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Uh no innovative yeah . +User Interface: Uh uh uh there w there was a there was a issue here is that what are what is the display on the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: So we can't go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Talk about {disfmarker} +User Interface: We haven't really uh determined {vocalsound} what are {disfmarker} actually actually +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean that what you are sayin that's what the design {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's good to have a L_C_D_ but what are we gonna display on a L_C_D_ ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's like this , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean on the L_C_D_ , according to what I understand from your model is , you have a joystick here , and you have L_C_D_ , you just press your joystick , you get here a programme . +Project Manager: So let's remove it . +User Interface: Yeah ? Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but you have the same programme on the T_V_ screen . +Marketing: Uh then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes exactly . +Project Manager: This is the problem . +Marketing: No on the T_V_ you don't it doesn't display on the T_V_ now . +Industrial Designer: If you have the L_C_D_ , but if n +Marketing: L_C_D_ ? Then uh there is no meaning in having it on the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or then again you have a channels , volume and all the stuff and what a +User Interface: But you cannot display all on a L_C_D_ . +Marketing: I mean that depends upon your design , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Anyway for for the users who who who opt for L_C_D_ {vocalsound} we'll give them the give them the L_C_D_ , +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: we give what the customer uh wants , right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ you want to put it fi the same level of innovativeness ? And which {gap} do you recommend e easy to use , with L_C_D_ or without L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I think both are really easy to use because there are few button buttons , +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and uh well t p the menu are clear , well-organised , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well with little knowing of the technology you can you can easily use the product +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so I will give a six for the easy to use . +User Interface: Yeah I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No it's just if I I see the the f the rate I think it's better to do it without L_C_D_ . +User Interface: sorry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because that's with L_C_D_ just will increase the price , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and I thi i they have the same rate so without L_C_D_ it will be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or we can just go back to the previous slide uh where we ha we have a few updates . So I mean in the product design you could just amend it to make some few changes +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: according to fruit and vegetable or a spongy touch +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: without L_C_D_ and without speech recognition . Even then our product is going to be very good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper to produce . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} S {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh if the the {disfmarker} well if we have less technology we have more liberty to uh for the shape and uh things like that so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . I have another thing to say about the easy to use aspect . I think the easy to use uh aspect is different for different people . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For the young generation easy to use may be very complicated +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: because uh they w they wants lot of controls with lots of buttons . For kids they want simply the {gap} s similarit for the old people they want simplicity , +Marketing: Yeah yeah that's right . +User Interface: so that's why {vocalsound} we have the parental module . Uh we can ha have {disfmarker} build a more complex design if if they want it , but but uh what I'm trying to say here is that the um {disfmarker} we have different sets of buttons for different kinds of people . So in terms of easy to use I think it's very user customisable . User customisation is very important yeah . Yeah +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Six . +Marketing: So without L_C_D_ I just take it five ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: W uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you want it to be six ? +User Interface: I think it's the same . +Industrial Designer: Um six . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes as you say , with better uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Without L_C_D_ . +Marketing: S s oh I think it's better to have this without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . And to improve the the look . +Marketing: As our Programme Manager s Pro Project Manager says that without L_C_D_ it is going to reduce the cost also , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: and it's going to be much simpler to use . +Industrial Designer: Yes and to give us more liberty to have a fancy look so +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so let's go back to our laboratory and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} To improve on the design . +Project Manager: What a what what about the sys speech recognition ? +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: {gap} what about the integration of speech recognition ? +User Interface: Huh ? The speech recogniser is a add-on module . Right ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's going to be an optional . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: If somebody wants to buy it they can have it , otherwise no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah so it's optional with the {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: It's an optional . +Industrial Designer: It's optional yeah , since well according to this study uh people more {vocalsound} likes more to have a spongy uh {vocalsound} remote control than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think it will be {disfmarker} I think i +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think it will be better if we have all these modules in the same remote control , because maybe parents will lose these uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean if you have an add-ons , the kids may just uh hide the parental module +Project Manager: Yeah . Or ma yeah . +Marketing: and so that their parents can't use it {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Or maybe parents they can for forget where they put it or , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: so mayb better if you have all this in the same {disfmarker} +Marketing: In the same set , yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: and and individual buttons to make them work . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The problem is if i we are bla if a customer wants a certain component , and doesn't want the parental control because it's a couple who do not have children {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when you sell the product in the market you could meet any kind of people , and not all people will need all the functionalities we propose to them . So we might lose the customer because of this . I don't know , +Project Manager: So you mean that even if these modules will be will be functional {disfmarker} uh will be optional . +User Interface: what do you think uh ? Yes exa what do you think , I don't know . You are Marketing Manag {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean how to how to how to make a marketing survey that uh how many married couple {disfmarker} or how many couples have a T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or to the number or singles who have a television . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So based on that I think {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} But the the question is n does those modularity increase the production cost or decrease the production cost ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it inc increase . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well you can {gap} {disfmarker} if you had uh something li +Project Manager: I think it i increases . +Industrial Designer: Oh no , +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: because if you if you add uh something {disfmarker} well yeah maybe because it's three different pieces uh to to to build but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: But you can make it on a single P_C_ with three different options . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's I think it's cheaper if you if you already built the all the {vocalsound} functionalities um on the same module , but uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: On the same P_C_B_ +User Interface: Well well the other aspect is that if {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} when they have the ar existing product you you gonna maintain the the {disfmarker} you're gonna keep the same customer , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah yeah . +User Interface: because the same customer will come back to buy other add-ons . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: So so {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean you could just provide with an optional {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah i i so if don't don't buy now they can buy i in the future . So in in that way you're actually keeping the cus the same customer , attracting them to come back in again and again . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's something like a Microsoft product {vocalsound} update . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and we we we we we we don't want that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We're not trying to follow the Microsoft and we don't want to the m {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Updates and we sell it . We make updates and sell it {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah well if the buyers can be up the th would be {disfmarker} can be upgraded , it would be a good thing right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , it depends on the v production . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh what's the idea about uh the shape of the remote controls ? +Industrial Designer: Well so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh can they be made into a fruit and vegetable types ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: Do you require different types of P_C_B_s and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah but we are also the um well the components will have to change because uh we have to deal with the shape and um {disfmarker} but I don't think it will uh increase the cost too much so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Or uh it could be like this {disfmarker} the P_C_B_ would be the same for all , but only the exterior uh shape is different o for all . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh well but it's a bit complicated to {disfmarker} if if if you need machines to {disfmarker} different machines to um ah well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . What we can change is to propose the {vocalsound} customers with skins . For example the i the mobile phones nowaday , they sell different kinds of skin +Marketing: Yeah , yeah that's right . +User Interface: and then people just feel that oh I have a new skin and looks better . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah we can have the same global shape +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh add on skins and with with this uh tex spongy texture uh things like that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah you can pl in what material would that be in uh ? +Industrial Designer: Sponge . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think you need to look into the material . +User Interface: Yeah or furry like a pet dog kind of thing {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So we finished the prototype uh presentation if you have uh something else to say . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think the Project Manager would be interested to look about the financial issues in making these models . +Project Manager: {gap} Project evaluation project satisfaction , for example . I don't know , we have to ask these question . We have to give answers so {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} I suppose that you {gap} this criteria , is it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Project evaluation . {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Room for creativity . This room is a bit small , but {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} but I think it's okay for us to work with . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I feel it's fine , we know we don't need uh {disfmarker} I think it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah mm . +Industrial Designer: That was good . +Marketing: This is fine for making a presentat for project presentations . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah anyway we have the laboratory nearby to build our modules so it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And the leadership was excellent . +Project Manager: Yeah I think so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Good job {vocalsound} good job . +Industrial Designer: Fine yes uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He gave you the liberty to talk as you wants {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Uh the teamwork was very very good . I was really {disfmarker} I am very satisfying to work with with you . +Industrial Designer: Very democratic . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Thank you {gap} {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Alright . +Marketing: And new ideas found . Any new ideas to make these presentations more interactive and more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Come up with new product {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Less fancy . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean uh what type of product would you think {disfmarker} could we make this more interesting ? +User Interface: Mm we {disfmarker} I I know something , we need more cakes , more biscuits on the table while we have meetings . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah and also more well uh {vocalsound} more seriously I think it's it's a good idea to have uh clear clear points whenever we do a meeting +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: uh prior to the meeting to have uh well a list with the points who will be discussed or things like that , but I think it's alright . We achieved uh project goal I think . +Marketing: Yeah +Project Manager: De +Marketing: that is within the budget . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's w yes , more or less . +Marketing: And the evaluation was {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Without without L_C_D_ , without speech recognition , it will be simple . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . So . +Marketing: And the next is celebration . +Industrial Designer: So uh coffee machine . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} free free coffee +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright then , we finished ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah thank you for your work and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah thank you , thank you very much . +User Interface: Thank you very much . +","The conversation revolves around a project team discussing the development of a new remote control. The team members include an Industrial Designer, a Project Manager, a User Interface expert, and a Marketer. They review a prototype remote that they previously discussed, which has two versions: one with an LCD and one without due to cost concerns. The remote includes features like a joystick navigation button, speech recognition system with a microphone array, big buttons for the elderly, and a charger. The initial prototype cost is above budget, but they hope to reduce production costs. + +Discussions touch on the placement and cost of the microphone array, battery type and life, and charging methods. There's also talk about optional features like speech recognition to cater to different user needs, making it a modular system. The team considers fancy designs and materials like spongy textures to appeal to the market trends and to accommodate the functional aspects such as parental control modules for different user types. + +Finally, they debate whether to include an LCD and speech recognition, with the Project Manager expressing a preference for omitting the LCD to reduce costs and complexity. The marketer introduces market trends that suggest a desire for customizable and technologically innovative products with easy usability. The conversation concludes with reflective questions about the project's evaluation, satisfaction, leadership, team dynamics, and possible improvements for future meetings." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad C: Now can you give me the uh {pause} remote T ? +Professor D: OK , so Eva , co uh {disfmarker} could you read your numbers ? +Grad A: Go ahead and read . OK . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Alright . +Professor D: Yeah , let 's get started . Um {disfmarker} Hopefully Nancy will come , if not , she won't . +Grad B: Uh , Robert , do you uh have any way to turn off your uh screensaver on there so that it 's not going off every {disfmarker} uh , it seems to have about at two minute {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , I 've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it 's not that I didn't try . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: and um I {disfmarker} I told it to stay on forever and ever , but if it 's not plugged in it just doesn't obey my commands . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: It has a mind . +Grad B: Got it . +Grad C: But I I just {disfmarker} You know , sort of keep on wiggling . +Undergrad E: Wants to conserve . +Grad B: Yeah , OK . +Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} we 'll just be m m working on it at intensity so it doesn't happen . We 'll see . Should we plunge right into it ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So , would you like to {disfmarker} +Professor D: I think so . +Grad C: So what I 've tried to do here is list all the decision nodes that we have identified on this {pause} side . Commented and {disfmarker} what they 're about and sort of {disfmarker} the properties we may um give them . And here are the uh {disfmarker} tasks to be implemented via our data collection . So all of these tasks {disfmarker} The reading is out of these tasks more or less imply that the user wants to go there , sometime or the other . And analogously for example , here we have our EVA um {disfmarker} intention . And these are the data tasks where w we can assume the person would like to enter , view or just approach the thing . Analogously the same on the object information we can see that , you know , we have sort of created these tasks before we came up with our decision nodes so there 's a lot of things where we have no analogous tasks , and {pause} that may or may not be a problem . We can change the tasks slightly if we feel that we should have data for e sort of for every decision node so {disfmarker} trying to im um {disfmarker} implant the intention of going to a place now , going to a place later on the same tour , or trying to plant the intention of going sometime on the next tour , or the next day or whenever . +Professor D: Right , right . +Grad C: But I think that might be overdoing it a little . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . So let me pop up a level . And uh s s make sure that we 're all oriented the same . So What we 're gonna do today is two related things . Uh one of them is to work on the semantics of the belief - net which is going to be the main inference engine for thi the system uh making decisions . And decisions are going to turn out to be parameter choices for calls on other modules . so f the natural language understanding thing is uh , we think gonna only have to choose parameters , but You know , a fairly large set of parameters . So to do that , we need to do two things . One of which is figure out what all the choices are , which we 've done a fair amount . Then we need to figure out what influences its choices and finally we have to do some technical work on the actual belief relations and presumably estimates of the probabilities and stuff . But we aren't gonna do the probability stuff today . Technical stuff we 'll do {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} another day . Probably next week . But we are gonna worry about all the decisions and the things that pert that contribute to them . And we 're also , sort of uh in the same process , going to work with Fey on what there should be in the dialogues . So One of the s steps that 's coming up real soon is to actually get subjects uh {disfmarker} in here , and have them actually record like this . Uh record dialogues more or less . And {disfmarker} depending on what Fey sort of provokes them to say , we 'll get information on different things . +Grad C: Well how people phrase different intentions more or less , +Professor D: So {disfmarker} Fo - v yeah people with the {disfmarker} phrase them +Grad C: huh ? +Professor D: and so {disfmarker} Uh for , you know , Keith and people worrying about what constructions people use , uh {disfmarker} we have some i we have some ways to affect that by the way the dialogues go . So what Robert kindly did , is to lay out a table of the kinds of uh {pause} things that {disfmarker} that might come up , and , the kinds of decisions . So the uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} on the left are decision nodes , and discreet values . So if {disfmarker} if we 're right , you can get by with um just this middle column worth of decisions , and it 's not all that many , and it 's perfectly feasible technically to build belief - nets that will do that . And he has a handout . +Grad C: Yeah . Maybe it was too fast plunging in there , because j we have two updates . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: Um you can look at this if you want , these are what our subject 's going to have to fill out . Any comments I can {disfmarker} can still be made and the changes will be put in correspondingly . +Undergrad E: m {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . +Grad C: Let me summarize in two sentences , mainly for Eva 's benefit , who probably has not heard about the data collection , at all . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Or have you heard about it ? +Grad A: Not that much you didn't . +Grad C: No . OK . We were gonna put this in front of people . They give us some information on themselves . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: Then {disfmarker} then they will read uh {disfmarker} a task where lots of German words are sort of thrown in between . And um {disfmarker} and they have to read isolated proper names And these change {disfmarker} +Professor D: S I don't see a release +Grad C: No , this is not the release form . This is the speaker information form . +Professor D: Got it . OK , fine . OK . +Grad C: The release form is over there in that box . +Professor D: Alright , fair enough . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And then they gonna have to f um um choose from one of these tasks , which are listed here . They {disfmarker} they pick a couple , say three {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh six as a matter of fact . Six different things they sort of think they would do if they were in Heidelberg or traveling someplace {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} and they have a map . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: Like this . Very sketchy , simplified map . And they can take notes on that map . And then they call this computer system that works perfectly , and understands everything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} +Grad B: This is a fictional system obviously , +Grad C: The comp Yeah , the computer system sits right in front of you , +Grad B: huh . +Grad C: that 's Fey . +Undergrad E: I 've {disfmarker} I understand everything . +Professor D: And she does know everything . +Undergrad E: Yes I do . +Grad C: And she has a way of making this machine talk . So she can copy sentences into a window , or type really fast and this machine will use speech synthesis to produce that . So if you ask "" How do I get to the castle "" then a m s several seconds later it 'll come out of here "" In order to get to the castle you do {disfmarker} "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: OK ? And um {disfmarker} And then after three tasks the system breaks down . And Fey comes on the phone as a human operator . And says "" Sorry the system broke down but let 's continue . "" And we sort of get the idea what people do when they s think they speak to a machine and what people say when they think they speak to a human , or know , or assume they speak to a human . +Grad A: OK . Huh . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: That 's the data collection . And um {disfmarker} And Fey has some thirty subjects lined up ? Something ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And they 're {disfmarker} r ready uh {disfmarker} to roll . +Undergrad E: And more and more every day . +Grad C: And we 're gonna start tomorrow at three ? four ? one ? +Undergrad E: Tomorrow , well we don't know for sure . Because we don't know whether that person is coming or not , +Grad C: OK . Around four - ish . +Undergrad E: but {disfmarker} +Grad C: And um we 're still l looking for a room on the sixth floor because they stole away that conference room . Um {disfmarker} behind our backs . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , there are these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} oh , I see , we have to {disfmarker} Yeah , it 's tricky . We 'll {disfmarker} let 's {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} we 'll do that off - line , OK . +Grad C: Yeah , but I {disfmarker} i i it 's happening . David and {disfmarker} and Jane and {disfmarker} and Lila are working on that as we speak . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . That was the uh {disfmarker} the data collection in a nutshell . And um {disfmarker} I can report a {disfmarker} so I did this but I also tried to do this {disfmarker} so if I click on here , Isn't this wonderful ? we get to the uh {disfmarker} uh belief - net just focusing on {disfmarker} on the g Go - there node . uh {disfmarker} Analogously this would be sort of the reason node and the timing node and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And what w what happened is that um design - wise I 'd sort of n noticed that we can {disfmarker} we still get a lot of errors from a lot of points to one of these sub Go - there User Go - there Situation nodes . So I came up with a couple of additional nodes here where um whether the user is thrifty or not , and what his budget is currently like , is going to result in some financial state of the user . How much will he {disfmarker} is he willing to spend ? Or can spend . Being the same at this {disfmarker} just the money available , which may influence us , whether he wants to go there if it is {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} charging tons of dollars for admission or its gonna g cost a lot of t e whatever . Twenty - two million to fly to International Space Station , you know . just {disfmarker} Not all people can do that . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: So , and this actually turned out to be pretty key , because having specified sort of these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} intermediate level Um and sort of noticing that everything that happens here {disfmarker} let 's go to our favorite endpoint one is again more or less {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} then the situation nodes contributing to the {disfmarker} the endpoint situation node , which contributes to the endpoint and so forth . um {disfmarker} I can now sort of draw straight lines from these to here , meaning it g of course goes where the sub - S {disfmarker} everything that comes from situation , everything that comes from user goes with the sub - U , and whatever we specify for the so - called "" Keith node "" , or the discourse , what comes from the {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} parser , construction parser , um will contribute to the D and the ontology to the sub - O node . And um one just s sort of has to watch which {disfmarker} also final decision node so it doesn't make sense {disfmarker} t to figure out whether he wants to enter , view or approach an object if he never wants to go there in the first place . But this makes the design thing fairly simple . And um now all w that 's left to do then is the CPG 's , the conditional probabilities , for the likelihood of a person having enough money , actually wanting to go a place if it costs , you know this or that . And um {disfmarker} OK . and once um Bhaskara has finished his classwork that 's where we 're gonna end up doing . You get involved in that process too . And um {disfmarker} And for now uh the {disfmarker} the question is "" How much of these decisions do we want to build in explicitly into our data collection ? "" So {disfmarker} Um , one could {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} think of {disfmarker} you know we could call the z see or {disfmarker} you know , people who visit the zoo we could s call it "" Visit the zoo tomorrow "" , so we have an intention of seeing something , but not now {disfmarker} but later . +Professor D: Right . Yeah . Yeah , so {disfmarker} let 's s uh s see I th I think that from one point of view , Uh , um , all these places are the same , so that d d That , um {disfmarker} in terms of the linguistics and stuff , there may be a few different kinds of places , so I th i it seems to me that We ought to decide you know , what things are k are actually going to matter to us . And um , so the zoo , and the university and the castle , et cetera . Um are all big - ish things that um {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} have different parts to them , and one of them might be fine . +Grad C: Hmm . Hmm , hmm . Yeah {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the reason why we did it that way , as a {disfmarker} as a reminder , is uh {disfmarker} no person is gonna do all of them . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad C: They 're just gonna select u um , according to their preferences . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad C: "" Ah , yeah , I usually visit zoos , or I usually visit castles , or I usually {disfmarker} "" And then you pick that one . +Professor D: Right , no no , but {disfmarker} but s th point is to {disfmarker} to y to {disfmarker} build a system that 's got everything in it that might happen you do one thing . +Undergrad E: They 're redundant . +Professor D: T to build a system that um {disfmarker} had the most data on a relatively confined set of things , you do something else . And the speech people , for example , are gonna do better if they {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} things come up uh {disfmarker} repeatedly . Now , of course , if everybody says exactly the same thing then it 's not interesting . So , all I 'm saying is i th there 's {disfmarker} there 's a kind of question of what we 're trying t to accomplish . and {disfmarker} I think my temptation for the data gathering would be to uh , you know {disfmarker} And each person is only gonna do it once , so you don't have to worry about them being bored , so if {disfmarker} if it 's one service , one luxury item , you know , one big - ish place , and so forth and so on , um {disfmarker} then my guess is that {disfmarker} that the data is going to be easier to handle . Now of course you have this I guess possible danger that somehow there 're certain constructions that people use uh when talking about a museum that they wouldn't talk about with a university and stuff , um {disfmarker} but I guess I 'm {disfmarker} I uh m my temptation is to go for simpler . You know , less variation . But I don't know what other people think about this in terms of {disfmarker} +Grad B: So I don't exactly understand {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: like I I {disfmarker} I guess we 're trying to {disfmarker} limit the detail of our ontology or types of places that someone could go , right ? But who is it that has to care about this , or what component of the system ? +Professor D: Oh , well , uh {disfmarker} th I think there are two places where it comes up . One is uh {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} th these people who are gonna take this and {disfmarker} and try to do speech with it . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Lots of pronunciations of th of the same thing are going to give you better data than l you know , a few pronunciations of lots more things . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: That 's one . +Grad B: So we would rather just ask {disfmarker} uh have a bunch of people talk about the zoo , uh and assume that that will {disfmarker} that the constructions that they use there will give us everything we need to know about these sort of zoo , castle , whatever type things , these bigger places . +Professor D: Bigger {disfmarker} Y yeah thi well this is a question for {disfmarker} +Grad B: And that way you get the speech data of people saying "" zoo "" over and over again or whatever too . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . So this is a question for you , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and , you know , if we {disfmarker} if we do , and we probably will , actually try to uh build a prototype , uh probably we could get by with the prototype only handling a few of them anyway . So , Um {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yeah , the this was sort of {disfmarker} these are all different sort of activities . Um But I think y I {disfmarker} I got the point and I think I like it . We can do {disfmarker} put them in a more hierarchical fashion . So , "" Go to place "" and then give them a choice , you know either they 're the symphony type or opera type or the tourist site guide type or the nightclub disco type person and they say "" yeah this is {disfmarker} on that "" go to big - ish place "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: this is what I would do . "" And then we have the "" Fix "" thing , and then maybe "" Do something the other day "" thing , so . My question is {disfmarker} I guess , to some extent , we should {disfmarker} y we just have to try it out and see if it works . It would be challenging , in {disfmarker} in a sense , to try to make it so {disfmarker} so complex that they even really should schedule , or to plan it , uh , a more complex thing in terms of OK , you know , they should get the feeling that there are these s six things they have to do and they sh can be done maybe in two days . +Professor D: Well {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad C: So they make these decisions , +Professor D: Well I think th th +Grad C: "" Can I go there tomorrow ? "" +Professor D: yeah . +Grad C: or {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} influences +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Well , I think it 's easy enough to set that up if that 's your expectation . So , the uh system could say , "" Well , uh we 'd like to {disfmarker} to set up your program for two days in Heidelberg , you know , let 's first think about all the things you might like to do . So there {disfmarker} th i i in {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I 'm sure that if that 's what you did then they would start telling you about that , and then you could get into um various things about ordering , if you wanted . +Grad C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah , but I think this is part of the instructor 's job . And that can be done , sort of to say , "" OK now we 've picked these six tasks . "" "" Now you have you can call the system and you have two days . "" +Professor D: I 'm sorry . +Grad C: And th w +Professor D: No , we have to help {disfmarker} we have to decide . Fey will p carry out whatever we decide . But we have to decide you know , what is the appropriate scenario . That 's what we 're gonna talk about t yeah . +Grad C: Yep , yep . +PhD F: But these are two different scenarios entirely . I mean , one is a planner {disfmarker} The other , it kind of give you instructions on the spot +Grad C: Yeah , but th the {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I 'm not really interested in sort of "" Phase planning "" capabilities . But it 's more the {disfmarker} how do people phrase these planning requests ? So are we gonna masquerade the system as this {disfmarker} as you said simple response system , "" I have one question I get one response "" , or should we allow for a certain level of complexity . And a I w think the data would be nicer if we get temporal references . +Professor D: Well , so Keith , what do you think ? +Grad B: Well , um it seems that {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , off the top of my head it kinda seems like you would probably just want , you know , richer data , more complex stuff going on , people trying to do more complex sets of things . I mean {pause} you know , if our goal is to really sort of be able to handle a whole bunch of different stuff , then throwing harder situations at people will get them to do more linguistic {disfmarker} more interesting linguistic stuff . But I mean {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure Uh , because I don't fully understand like what our choices are of ways to do this here yet . +Grad C: I mean w we have tested this and a y have you heard {disfmarker} listen to the f first two or th as a matter of fact the second person is uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was faced with exactly this kind of setup . +Grad B: I started to listen to one and it was just like , um , uh , sort of depressing . +Grad C: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: I thought I 'd just sort of listen to the beginning part and the person was just sort of reading off her script or something . And . +Grad C: Oh , OK . That was the first subject . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: First one wasn't very good . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: So um , I {disfmarker} +Grad C: Um , it is {disfmarker} already with this it got pretty {disfmarker} with this setup and that particular subject it got pretty complex . +Undergrad E: Although {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Maybe {disfmarker} I suggest we make some fine tuning of these , get {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} run through ten or so subjects +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and then take a breather , and see whether we wanna make it more complex or not , depending on what {disfmarker} what sort of results we 're getting . +Grad B: Right . Yeah . It {disfmarker} In fact , um , I am just you know {disfmarker} today , next couple days gonna start really diving into this data . I 've basically looked at one of the files {disfmarker} you know one of these {disfmarker} l y y y you gave me those dozens of files and I looked at one of them which was about ten sentences , found fifteen , twenty different construction types that we would have to look for and so on and like , "" alright , well , let 's start here . "" Um . So I haven't really gone into the , you know {disfmarker} looked at all of the stuff that 's going on . So I don't really {disfmarker} Right , I mean , once I start doing that I 'll have more to say about this kind of thing . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: And y and always {disfmarker} +Professor D: But well th but you did say something important , which is that um you can probably keep yourself fairly well occupied uh {disfmarker} with the simple cases for quite a while . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Although , obviously th so {disfmarker} so that sa s does suggest that {disfmarker} Uh , now , I have looked at all the data , and it 's pre it 's actually at least to an amateur , quite redundant . +Grad B: Yeah , Yeah . +Professor D: That {disfmarker} that it was {disfmarker} it was very stylized , and quite a lot of people said more or less the same thing . +Grad B: I um {disfmarker} I did sort of scan it at first and noticed that , and then looked in detail at one of them . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: But yeah , yeah I noticed that , too . +Professor D: So , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna do more than that . +Grad C: And with this we 're getting more . No question . +Professor D: OK . Right . So {disfmarker} +Grad C: uh w do we wanna get going beyond more , which is sort of the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well , OK , so let 's {disfmarker} let 's take {disfmarker} let 's I {disfmarker} I think your suggestion is good , which is we 'll do a b uh {disfmarker} a batch . OK . And , uh , Fey , How long is it gonna be till you have ten subjects ? Couple days ? Or thr f a A week ? Or {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a feel for th +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean I s I think can probably schedule ten people , uh , whenever . +Professor D: Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's up to you , I mean I j I {disfmarker} uh e We don't have any huge time pressure . It 's just {disfmarker} when you have t +Undergrad E: How long will it be ? +Professor D: Yeah . +Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would say maybe two weeks . +Professor D: Oh , OK . So let 's do this . Let 's plan next Monday , OK , to have a review of what we have so far . +Grad C: This means audio , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: and {disfmarker} Huh ? +Grad C: no transcriptions of course , yeah . +Professor D: No , we won't have the transcriptions , but what we should be able to do and I don't know if , Fey , if you will have time to do this , but it would be great if you could , um , not transcribe it all , but pick out uh , some stuff . I mean we could lis uh {disfmarker} just sit here and listen to it all . Are you gonna have the audio on the web site ? OK . +Grad C: Until we reach the gigabyte thing and David Johnson s ki kills me . And we 're gonna put it on the web site . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , we could get {disfmarker} I mean , you can buy another disk for two hundred dollars , right ? I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like {disfmarker} OK . So , we 'll take care of David Johnson . +Grad C: No , he {disfmarker} uh , he {disfmarker} he has been solving all our problems or {disfmarker} is wonderful , +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Take {disfmarker} care of him . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: so s +Professor D: Alright . So we 'll buy a disk . But anyway , so , um , If you {disfmarker} if you can think of a way {disfmarker} to uh , point us to th to interesting things , sort of as you 're doing this or {disfmarker} or something uh , make your {disfmarker} make notes or something that {disfmarker} that this is , you know , something worth looking at . And other than that , yeah I guess we 'll just have to uh , listen {disfmarker} although I guess it 's only ten minutes each , right ? Roughly . +Undergrad E: Well , I guess . I 'm not sure how long it 's actually going to take . +Grad C: The reading task is a lot shorter . That was cut by fifty percent . And the reading , nobody 's interested in that except for the speech people . +Professor D: Right . No , we don't care about that at all . +Grad C: So . It 's actually like five minutes dialogue . +Professor D: I b My guess is it 's gonna be ten . +Grad C: Ten minutes is long . +Professor D: People {disfmarker} I understand , but people {disfmarker} people {disfmarker} you know uh {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: It feels like a long time +Grad C: Yeah . +Undergrad E: but . +Grad C: It feels like forever when you 're doing it , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: but then it turns out to be three minutes and forty five seconds . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Could be . OK . I was thinking people would , you know , hesitate and {disfmarker} Whatever . Whatever it is we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll deal with it . +Grad C: Yeah , it 's not {disfmarker} And it 's fun . +Professor D: OK , so that 'll be {disfmarker} that 'll be {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the web page . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: That 's great . Um But anyway {disfmarker} yeah , so I think {disfmarker} it 's a good idea to start with the sort of relatively straight forward res just response system . And then if we want to uh {disfmarker} get them to start doing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} multiple step planning with a whole bunch of things and then organize them an um tell them which things are near each other and {disfmarker} you know , any of that stuff . uh {disfmarker} You know , "" Which things would you like to do Tuesday morning ? "" +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: So yeah I {disfmarker} th that seems {disfmarker} pretty straight forward . +Undergrad E: But were you saying that {disfmarker} +Grad C: I need those back by the way . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: That 's for {disfmarker} +Professor D: I 'm sorry , Fey , what ? +Undergrad E: That w maybe one thing we should do is go through this list and sort of select things that are categories and then o offer only one member of that category ? +Professor D: That 's what I was suggesting for the first round , yeah . +Undergrad E: OK . +Grad B: So rather than having zoo and castle . +Undergrad E: And then , I mean , they could be alternate versions of the same {disfmarker} If you wanted data on different constructions . +Professor D: They could , but i but i uh tha eh they c yeah , but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Like one person gets the version with the zoo as a choice , and the other person gets the {disfmarker} +Professor D: You could , but i but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think in the short run , {disfmarker} +Grad C: And no , th the per the person don't get it . I mean , this is why we did it , because when we gave them just three tasks for w part - A and three tasks for part - B a +Professor D: Right . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Well no , they could still choose . They just wouldn't be able to choose both zoo and say , touring the castle . +Grad C: Exactly . This is limiting the choices , but yeah . Right . OK , sorry . But um I {disfmarker} I think this approach will very well work , but the person was able to look at it and say "" OK , This is what I would actually do . "" +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: OK . +Undergrad E: He was vicious . +Grad C: OK , we gotta {disfmarker} we gotta disallow uh {disfmarker} traveling to zoos and uh castles at the same time , sort of {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: I mean there {disfmarker} they are significantly different , but . +Grad C: But no , they 're {disfmarker} I mean they 're sort of {disfmarker} this is where tour becomes {disfmarker} you know tourists maybe a bit different +Undergrad E: Yeah , I guess so . +Grad C: and , um , these are just places where you {disfmarker} you enter um , much like here . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: But we can uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , in fact if y if y if you use the right verb for each in common , like at you know , "" attend a theater , symphony or opera "" is {disfmarker} is a group , and "" tour the university , castle or zoo "" , +Grad C: mm - hmm Yeah . +Professor D: all of these d do have this kind of "" tour "" um {disfmarker} aspect about the way you would go to them . And uh , the movie theater is probably also uh {disfmarker} e is a "" attend "" et cetera . +Grad C: Attend , yeah . +Professor D: So it may turn out to be not so many different kinds of things , +Grad C: Hmm , mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then , what one would expect is that {disfmarker} that the sentence types would {disfmarker} uh their responses would tend to be grouped according to the kind of activity , you would expect . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: But I mean i it seem that um {disfmarker} there is a difference between going {disfmarker} to see something , and things like "" exchange money "" or "" dine out "" +Professor D: Oh , absolutely . Yeah . +PhD F: uh {disfmarker} @ @ function , yeah . +Grad C: Yeah , this is where {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} th the function stuff is definitely different and the getting information or g stuff {disfmarker} yeah . OK . But this is open . So since people gonna still pick something , we we 're not gonna get any significant amount of redundancy . And for reasons , we don't want it , really , in that sense . And um we would be ultimately more interested in getting all the possible ways of people asking , oh , for different things with {disfmarker} or with a computer . And so if you can think of any other sort of high level tasks a tourist may do just always {disfmarker} just m mail them to us and we 'll sneak them into the collection . We 're not gonna do much statistical stuff with it . +Professor D: We don't have enough . +Grad C: No . But it seems like since we {disfmarker} since we are getting towards uh subject {disfmarker} uh fifty subjects and if we can keep it up um to a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} sort of five four - ish per week rate , we may even reach the one hundred before Fey t takes off to Chicago . +Undergrad E: That means that one hundred people have to be interested . +Grad B: Good luck . +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , um , these are all f people off campus s from campus so far , +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +Undergrad E: Yeah . +Professor D: So we {disfmarker} yeah we don't know how many we can get next door at the {disfmarker} uh shelter for example . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor D: Uh for ten bucks , probably quite a few . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's right . +Professor D: Yeah . So , alright , so let 's go {disfmarker} let 's go back then , to the {disfmarker} the chart with all the decisions and stuff , and see how we 're doing . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Do {disfmarker} do people think that , you know this is {disfmarker} is gonna {disfmarker} um cover what we need , or should we be thinking about more ? +Grad C: Okay , in terms of decision nodes ? I mean , Go - there is {disfmarker} is a yes or no . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: Right ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yep . +Grad C: I 'm also interested in th in this "" property "" uh line here , so if you look at {disfmarker} sorry , look at that um , timing was um {disfmarker} I have these three . Do we need a final differentiation there ? Now , later on the same tour , sometimes on the next tour . +Grad B: What 's this idea of "" next tour "" ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's sort of next day , so you 're doing something now and you have planned to do these three four things , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and you can do something immediately , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: you could sort of tag it on to that tour +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} OK . +Grad C: or you can say this is something I would do s I wanna do sometime l in my life , basically . +Grad B: OK . OK . So {disfmarker} so this tour is sort of just like th the idea of current s round of {disfmarker} of touristness or whatever , +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah , probably between stops back at the hotel . +Grad B: OK . Got it . +Professor D: I mean if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you wanted precise about it , uh you know , +Grad B: Got it . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} and I think that 's the way tourists do organize their lives . +Grad B: Sure , sure , sure . +Professor D: You know , "" OK , we 'll go back to the hotel and then we 'll go off +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} "" +PhD F: So all tours {disfmarker} b a tour happens only within one day ? +Professor D: Yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: It {disfmarker} +PhD F: So the next tour will be tomorrow ? +Professor D: Right . For this . +Grad B: OK . Just to be totally clear . OK . +Grad C: Well , my visit to Prague there were some nights where I never went back to the hotel , so whether that counts as a two - day tour or not we 'll have to {vocalsound} think . +Grad B: You just spend the whole time at U Fleku or something , +PhD F: Yeah . +Professor D: I {disfmarker} w we will {disfmarker} we will not ask you more . +Grad B: ri +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right . +Undergrad E: That 's enough . +Grad C: I don't know . What is the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the English co uh um cognate if you want , for "" Sankt Nimmerlandstag "" ? +Grad B: Keine Ahnung +Grad C: Sort of "" We 'll do it on {disfmarker} when you say on that d day it means it 'll never happen . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: Do you have an expression ? Probably you sh +Grad B: Not that I know of actually . +Grad C: Yeah , when hell {disfmarker} Yep , we 'll do it when hell freezes over . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: So maybe that should be another {vocalsound} property in there . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Yeah . Yeah . +Undergrad E: Never . +Professor D: No . +Grad C: OK . Um , the reason why {disfmarker} why do we go there in the first place IE uh {disfmarker} it 's either uh {disfmarker} for sightseeing , for meeting people , for running errands , or doing business . Entertainment is a good one in there , I think . I agree . +Grad B: So , business is supposed to uh , be sort of {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like professional type stuff , right , or something like that ? +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . Um . +Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} this w this is uh an old uh Johno thing . He sort of had it in there . "" Who is the {disfmarker} the tour is the person ? "" So it might be a tourist , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: it might be a business man who 's using the system , who wants to sort of go to some {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , or {disfmarker} or both . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah , I mean like for example my {disfmarker} my father is about to travel to Prague . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: He 'll be there for two weeks . He is going to uh {disfmarker} He 's there to teach a course at the business school but he also is touring around and so he may have some mixture of these things . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mmm . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Sure . Right . +Grad C: He would {disfmarker} +PhD F: What ab What do you have in mind in terms of um {disfmarker} socializing ? What kind of activities ? +Grad C: Eh , just meeting people , basically . "" I want to meet someone somewhere "" , which be puts a very heavy constraint on the "" EVA "" +PhD F: Oh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , because then if you 're meeting somebody at the town hall , you 're not entering it usually , you 're just {disfmarker} want to approach it . +Grad B: So {disfmarker} I mean , does this capture , like , where do you put {disfmarker} "" Exchange money "" is an errand , right ? But what about uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Mm - hmm +Grad B: So , like "" Go to a movie "" is now entertainment , "" Dine out "" is {disfmarker} +PhD F: Socializing , I guess . +Professor D: No , I I well , I dunno . Let {disfmarker} Let {disfmarker} well , we 'll put it somewhere , +Grad B: So I mean {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I would say that if "" Dine out "" is a special c uh {disfmarker} if you 're doing it for that purpose then it 's entertainment . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} we 'll also as y as you 'll s further along we 'll get into business about "" Well , you 're {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} this is going over a meal time , do you wanna stop for a meal or pick up food or something ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's different . That 's {disfmarker} that 's sort of part of th that 's not a destination reason , that 's sort of "" en passant , "" right . +Grad B: Right . +Grad C: That goes with the "" energy depletion "" function , blech . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Right , yeah . +Grad C: OK , "" endpoint "" . +Grad B: "" Tourist needs food , badly "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Endpoint "" is pretty clear . Um , "" mode "" , uh , I have found three , "" drive there "" , "" walk there "" uh {disfmarker} or "" be driven "" , which means bus , taxi , BART . +Professor D: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . Yep . +Professor D: Obviously taxis are very different than buses , but on the other hand the system doesn't have any public transport {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the planner system doesn't have any public transport in it yet . +Grad C: So this granularity would suffice , I think w if we say the person probably , based on the utterance we on the situation we can conclude wants to drive there , walk there , or use some other form of transportation . +Grad B: H How much of Heidelberg can you get around by public transport ? I mean in terms of the interesting bits . There 's lots of bits where you don't really I 've only ev was there ten years ago , for a day , so I don't remember , but . I mean , like the {disfmarker} sort of the tourist - y bits {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - Well , +Grad C: Everywhere . +Grad B: is it like {disfmarker} +Professor D: you can't get to the Philosophers ' Way very well , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but , I mean there are hikes that you can't get to , but {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: but I think other things you can , if I remember right . +Grad A: So is like "" biking there "" {disfmarker} part of like "" driving there "" , +Grad C: Yeah , um we actually {disfmarker} biking should be {disfmarker} should be a separate point because we have a very strong bicycle planning component . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: So . +Professor D: Oh ! +Undergrad E: Mmm g that 's good . +Grad C: Um . +Professor D: Put it in . +Grad C: Bicycles c should be in there , but , will we have bic I mean is this realistic ? I mean {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , we can leave it out , I guess . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: We can {disfmarker} we can sort of uh , drive {disfmarker} +Grad B: I would {disfmarker} I would lump it with "" walk "" because hills matter . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: Right ? You know . Things like that . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Skateboards right , anyway . +PhD F: Right . +Professor D: Scooters , +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: right ? +Grad C: OK , "" Length "" is um , you wanna get this over with as fast as possible , +Professor D: Alright . +Grad C: you wanna use some part of what {disfmarker} of the time you have . Um , they can . But we should just make a decision whether we feel that they want to use some substantial or some fraction of their time . +Professor D: Ye +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: You know , they wanna do it so badly that they are willing to spend uh {disfmarker} you know the necessary and plus time . And um {disfmarker} And y you know , if we feel that they wanna do nothing but that thing then , you know , we should point out that {disfmarker} to the planner , that they probably want to use all the time they have . So , stretch out that visit for that . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Wow {disfmarker} It seems like this would be really hard to guess . I mean , on the part of the system . It seems like it {disfmarker} I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're talking about rather than having the user decide this you 're supposed t we 're supposed to figure it out ? +Professor D: w well +Grad C: Th - the user can always s say it , but it 's just sort of we {disfmarker} we hand over these parameters if we make {disfmarker} if we have a feeling that they are important . +Grad B: Overrider +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And that we can actually infer them to a significant de degree , or we ask . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: And par yeah , and part of the system design is that if it looks to be important and you can't figure it out , then you ask . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But hopefully you don't ask you know , a all these things all the time . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Or {disfmarker} eh so , y but there 's th but definitely a back - off position to asking . +Grad B: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Grad C: And if no {disfmarker} no part of the system ever comes up with the idea that this could be important , no planner is ever gonna ask for it . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: y so {disfmarker} And I like the idea that , you know , sort of {disfmarker} Jerry pushed this idea from the very beginning , that it 's part of the understanding business to sort of make a good question of what 's s sort of important in this general picture , what you need t +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: If you wanna simulate it , for example , what parameters would you need for the simulation ? And , Timing , uh , uh , Length would definitely be part of it , "" Costs "" , "" Little money , some money , lots of money "" ? +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Actually , maybe uh F {comment} uh so , F Yeah , OK . Hmm ? +Grad B: You could say "" some "" in there . +PhD F: I must say that thi this one looks a bit strange to me . Um {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} It seems like appropriate if I go to Las Vegas . Well {disfmarker} but I decide k kind of how much money uh I 'm willing to lose . But a I as a tourist , I 'll just paying what 's {disfmarker} what 's more or less is required . +Professor D: Well , no . I think there are {disfmarker} there 're different things where you have a ch choice , +Undergrad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: for example , uh this t interacts with "" do am I do oh are you willing to take a taxi ? "" +Grad B: Dinner . +Professor D: Or uh , you know , if {disfmarker} if you 're going to the opera are you gonna l look for the best seats or the peanut gallery +PhD F: The best seat or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right . +Professor D: or , you know , +Grad B: OK . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: whatever ? S so I think there are a variety of things in which um {disfmarker} Tour - tourists really do have different styles eating . Another one , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: you know . +Undergrad E: Right . +PhD F: Right , that 's true . +Grad C: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what my sort of sentiment is they 're {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I once had to write a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a charter , a carter for a {disfmarker} a student organization . And they had {disfmarker} wanted me to define what the quorum is going to be . And I looked at the other ones and they always said ten percent of the student body has to be present at their general meeting otherwise it 's not a {disfmarker} And I wrote in there "" En - Enough "" people have to be there . And it was hotly debated , but people agreed with me that everybody probably has a good feeling whether it was a farce , a joke , or whether there were enough people . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And if you go to Turkey , you will find when people go shopping , they will say "" How much cheese do you want ? "" and they say "" Ah , enough . "" And the {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} this used all over the place . Because the person selling the cheese knows , you know , that person has two kids and you know , a husband that dislikes cheese , so this is enough . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um so the middle part is always sort of the {disfmarker} the golden way , right ? So you can s you can be really {disfmarker} make it as cheap as possible , or you can say "" I want , er , you know , I don't care "" +Grad B: Money is no object . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Money is no object , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: or you say "" I just want to spend enough "" . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Or the sufficient , or the the appropriate amount . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: But , Then again , this may turn out to be insufficient for our purposes . But well , this is my first guess , +Grad B: I mean y Yeah . +Grad C: in much the same way as how {disfmarker} how d you know {disfmarker} should the route be ? Should it be the easiest route , even if it 's a b little bit longer ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: No steep inclinations ? Go the normal way ? Whatever that again means , er {disfmarker} or do you {disfmarker} does the person wanna rough it ? +Grad B: Mm - hmm . I mean {disfmarker} th so there 's a couple of different ways you can interpret these things right ? You know {disfmarker} "" I want to go there and I don't care if it 's really hard . "" Or if you 're an extreme sport person , you know . "" I wanna go there and I insist on it being the hard way . "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Right ? you know , so I assume we 're going for the first interpretation , +Undergrad E: Right . +Grad B: right ? Something like {disfmarker} I 'll go th I mean {disfmarker} I 'd li I dunno . It 's different from thing to {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , I think he was going for the second one ar actually . +Grad B: Yeah ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor D: Anyway , we 'll sort th yeah , we 'll sort that out . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad C: Well , this is all sort of um , top of my head . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No {disfmarker} no research behind that . Um {disfmarker} "" Object information "" , "" Do I {disfmarker} do I wanna know anything about that object ? "" is either true or false . And . if I care about it being open , accessible or not , I don't think there 's any middle ground there . Um , either I wanna know where it is or not , I wanna know about it 's history or not , or , um I wanna know about what it 's good for or not . Maybe one could put scales in there , too . So I wanna know a l lot about it . +Professor D: Yeah , now ob OK , I 'm sorry , go ahead , what were you gonna say ? +Grad C: One could put scales in there . So I wanna know a lot about the history , just a bit . +Professor D: Yeah , right well y i w if we {disfmarker} w right . So "" object "" becomes "" entity "" , right ? +Grad C: Yep , that 's true . +Professor D: Yeah , but we don't have to do it now . +Grad C: Yep . That was the wrong shortcut anyhow . +Professor D: And we think that 's it , interestingly enough , that um , you know , th or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something very close to it is going to be uh {disfmarker} going to be enough . And {disfmarker} +Undergrad E: Still wrong . +Grad C: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Alright , so um {disfmarker} So I think the order of things is that um , Robert will clean this up a little bit , although it looks pretty good . And {disfmarker} +Grad C: What , well this is the part that {disfmarker} +Professor D: Huh ? +Grad C: this is the part that needs the work . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , so {disfmarker} right , so {disfmarker} So , um In parallel , uh {disfmarker} three things are going to happen . Uh Robert and Eva and Bhaskara are gonna actually {disfmarker} build a belief - net that {disfmarker} that , um , has CPT 's and , you know , tries to infer this from various kinds of information . And Fey is going to start collecting data , and we 're gonna start thinking a about {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} what constructions we want to elicit . And then w go it may iterate on uh , further data collection to elicit {disfmarker} +Grad B: D Do you mean {disfmarker} Do you mean eliciting particular constructions ? Or do you mean like what kinds of things we want to get people talking about ? Semantically speaking , eh ? +Professor D: Well , yes . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Both . Uh , and {disfmarker} Though for us , constructions are primarily semantic , right ? +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean from my point of view I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to care about the syntax , so you know {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well that too , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but um {disfmarker} You know if th if we in {disfmarker} if we you know , make sure that we get them talking about temporal order . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK , that would be great and if th if they use prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses or whatever , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Right . OK . +Professor D: um {disfmarker} W You know , whatever form they use is fine . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: But I {disfmarker} I think that probably we 're gonna try to look at it as you know , s what semantic constructions d do we {disfmarker} do we want them to uh do direc +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: you know , um , "" Caused motion "" , I don't know , something like that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Uh But , Eh - uh this is actually a conversation you and I have to have about your thesis fantasies , and how all this fits into that . +Grad B: Got it . Yeah . Uh Yeah . OK . +Professor D: But uh {disfmarker} +Grad C: Well , I will tell you the German tourist data . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Because I have not been able to dig out all the stuff out of the m ta thirty D V +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Um {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that roughly the equivalent of {disfmarker} of what I 've seen in English or is it {disfmarker} +Grad C: No , not at all . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Dialogues . SmartKom {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: SmartKom {disfmarker} Human . Wizard of Oz . +Grad B: OK . Same {disfmarker} OK , that . Got it . Like what {disfmarker} What have I got now ? I mean I have uh what {disfmarker} what I 'm loo what I {disfmarker} Those files that you sent me are the user side of some interaction with Fey ? +Grad C: A little bit of data , I {disfmarker} +Grad B: Is that what it is ? Or {disfmarker} ? +Grad C: With nothing . +Grad B: Just talking into a box and not hearing anything back . +Professor D: No , no . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: Yep . Some data I collected in a couple weeks for training recognizers and email way back when . +Grad B: OK . OK . +Grad C: Nothing to write home about . +Grad B: OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} see this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} ontology node is probably something that I will try to expand . Once we have the full ontology API , what can we expect to get from the ontology ? And hopefully you can sort of also try to find out , you know , sooner or later in the course of the summer what we can expect to get from the discourse that might , you know {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: not the discourse , the utterance as it were , uh , +Professor D: mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: in terms of uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Right , but we 're not expecting Keith to actually build a parser . +Grad B: Right , Right . +Grad C: No , no , no , no , no . +Professor D: OK . We are expecting Johno to build a parser , +Grad C: Uh , this is {disfmarker} Yes . +Grad B: By the end of the summer , too . +Professor D: but that 's a {disfmarker} No . +Grad C: No . +Professor D: No . Uh {disfmarker} He 's g he 's hoping to do this for his masters ' thesis s by a year from now . +Grad C: But it 's sort of {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right . Hmm . Still , pretty formidable actually . +Professor D: Eh - absolutely . Uh {disfmarker} limited . I mean , you know , the idea is {disfmarker} is , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: Well , the hope is that the parser itself is , uh , pretty robust . But it 's not popular {disfmarker} it 's only p only {disfmarker} +Grad B: Right , Right . Existence proof , you know . Set up the infrastructure , +Professor D: Right . It 's only popula +Grad B: yeah . +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: Um sometime , I have to talk to some subset of the people in this group , at least about um what sort of constructions I 'm looking for . I mean , you know obviously like just again , looking at this one uh thing , you know , I saw y things from {disfmarker} sort of as general as argument structure constructions . Oh , you know , I have to do Verb Phrase . I have to do uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} unbounded dependencies , you know , which have a variety of constructions in {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} instantiate that . On the other hand I have to have , you know , there 's particular uh , fixed expressions , or semi - fixed expressions like "" Get "" plus path expression for , you know , "" how d ho how do I get there ? "" , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" How do I get in ? "" , "" How do I get away ? "" +Professor D: Right . +Grad B: and all that kind of stuff . Um , so there 's a variety of sort of different sorts of constructions +Professor D: Absolutely . +Grad B: and it {disfmarker} you know it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of like anything goes . Like {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK , so this is {disfmarker} I think we 're gonna mainly work on with George . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: OK , and hi let me f th {disfmarker} say what I think is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} so the idea is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} first of all I misspoke when I said we thought you should do the constructions . Cause apparently for a linguist that means to do completely and perfectly . So what I {disfmarker} yeah , OK , {disfmarker} So what {disfmarker} what I meant was "" Do a first cut at "" . +Grad B: er {disfmarker} that 's what Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: OK , Because uh {disfmarker} we do wanna get them r u perfectly {disfmarker} but I think we 're gonna have to do a first cut at a lot of them to see how they interact . +Grad B: Of course . Right , exactly . Now it {disfmarker} w we talked about this before , right . And I {disfmarker} I me it would it would be completely out of the question to really do more than , say , like , oh I don't know , ten , over the summer , +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad B: but uh , but you know obviously we need to get sort of a general view of what things look like , so yeah . +Professor D: Right . So the idea is going to be to do {disfmarker} sort of like Nancy did in some of the er these papers where you do enough of them so you can go from top to bottom {disfmarker} so you can do f you know , f f uh {disfmarker} have a complete story ov of s of some piece of dialogue . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And that 's gonna be much more useful than having all of the clausal constructions and nothing else , or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something like that . +Grad B: Yeah . Sure . Yeah . +Professor D: So that the {disfmarker} the trick is going to be t to take this and pick a {disfmarker} some sort of lattice of constructions , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: so some lexical and some phrasal , and {disfmarker} and , you know , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: whatever you need in order to uh , be able to then , uh , by hand , you know , explain , some fraction of the utterances . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: And so , exactly which ones will partly depend on your research interests and a bunch of other things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Sure . OK . But I mean in terms of the s th sort of level of uh {disfmarker} of analysis , you know , these don't necessarily have to be more complex than like the "" Out of "" construction in the BCP paper where it 's just like , you know , half a page on each one or something . +Professor D: Correct . Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . V a half a page is {disfmarker} is what we 'd like . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: And if {disfmarker} if there 's something that really requires a lot more than that then it does and we have to do it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} +Grad B: For the first cut , that should be fine , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad C: We could sit down and think of sort of the {disfmarker} the ideal speaker utterances , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: and I mean two or three that follow each other , so , where we can also sort of , once we have everything up and running , show the tremendous , insane inferencing capabilities of our system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So , you know , as {disfmarker} as the SmartKom people have . This is sort of their standard demo dialogue , which is , you know , what the system survives and nothing but that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: Um , we could also sor sort of have the analogen of o our sample sentences , the ideal sentences where we have complete construction coverage and , sort of , they match nicely . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the "" How do I get to X ? "" , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: you know , that 's definitely gonna be uh , a major one . +Grad B: Yeah . That 's about six times in this little one here , so uh , {vocalsound} yeah . +Grad C: Yep . +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: "" Where is X ? "" might be another one which is not too complicated . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad C: And um "" Tell me something about X . "" +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: And hey , that 's {disfmarker} that 's already covering eighty percent of the system 's functionality . +Professor D: Ye - Right , but it 's not covering eighty percent of the intellectual interest . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad C: No , we can w throw in an "" Out of Film "" construction if you want to , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , no , no . Well the {disfmarker} th the thing is there 's a lot that needs to be done to get this right . +Grad C: OK . +Professor D: OK , I th We done ? +Grad C: I have one bit of news . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: Um , the action planner guy has wrote {disfmarker} has written a {disfmarker} a p lengthy {disfmarker} proposal on how he wants to do the action planning . +Professor D: Good . +Grad C: And I responded to him , also rather lengthy , how he should do the action planning . And {disfmarker} +Professor D: "" Action planning "" meaning "" Discourse Modeling "" ? +Grad C: Yes . And I tacked on a little paragraph about the fact that the whole world calls that module a dis disc dialogue manager , +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: and wouldn't it make sense to do this here too ? +Professor D: Right . +Grad C: And also Rainer M Malaka is going to be visiting us shortly , most likely in the beginning of June . +Professor D: Uh - huh , I 'll be gone . +Grad C: Yeah . He - he 's just in a conference somewhere and he is just swinging through town . +Professor D: Sure , OK . +Grad C: And um {disfmarker} m making me incapable of going to NAACL , for which I had funding . But . No , no Pittsburg this year . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad C: When is the uh Santa Barbara ? +Professor D: S +Grad C: Who is going to ? uh should a lot of people . That 's something I will {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} sort of enjoy . +Professor D: Probably should go . That was {disfmarker} that 's one you should probably go to . +Grad C: Yep . +Grad B: How much does it cost ? +Grad C: There 's +Grad B: I haven't planned to go . +Professor D: Uh , probably we can uh {disfmarker} pay for it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: Um a student rate shouldn't be very high . So , if we all decide it 's a good idea for you to go then you 'll {disfmarker} we 'll pay for it . +Grad B: Right . Sure . +Undergrad E: Then you can go . +Professor D: I mean I {disfmarker} I don't have a feeling one way or the other at the moment , +Grad B: OK . +Professor D: but it probably is . OK , great . +Grad B: Thanks . +","The discussion involves Grad C, Professor D, and others planning a research project involving decision nodes and related tasks for a system that assists users, such as tourists. Grad C details the proposed decision nodes and their properties. They discuss the implications of different choices (e.g., costs, timing) and how the system might infer user intentions. Grad B mentions working on speech data and constructions. Professor D suggests focusing on semantic constructions. The group also talks about collecting data, building a belief net, and considering what features to test in dialogues with subjects. There's mention of a future visitor, Rainer Malaka, and a conference in Santa Barbara." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Hi Kate . {vocalsound} Okay , carry on . +Industrial Designer: Just just carry on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright um this is the beginning of the third meeting , the conceptual design meeting . Um our agenda should be um that we're opening the meeting , I have {disfmarker} the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point . Um and we should each have a presentation to make . Um we have certain decisions to make and we have forty minutes total . It's twenty five after two at the moment , so forty minutes is five after three , {vocalsound} um which I'll be keeping an eye on the clock for us . Okay . {vocalsound} Um there are the decisions we have to turn to , but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting . Right um as we remember , I opened the meeting , the four of us were present , the meeting {disfmarker} the first meeting's minutes were reviewed and approved . Um Sarah , you presented a marketing research report um which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds uh it has to be hand-held , power , channel , volume , number keys , possibly a speech recognition . And then Steph did a second presentation um that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use . I think all of us agreed with those things . Kate presented a working design of {disfmarker} going after {disfmarker} going over the basics on the whiteboard um that it should be a simple mass-produced device , because of the twelve and a half Pence cost . Um but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point . Um and the new requirements that it for {disfmarker} be for T_V_ only um and that it include the l so slogan and colour of the uh corporate design be included . Um {vocalsound} the corporate image . So we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense , that were decision makers . Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_ , but it still should meet those parameters . Um and that the function we agreed was volume , power , numbers , enter , channels , a way to move between channels , easy to use and hand-held . {vocalsound} Um at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition , what what do the current ones sell for . Um and Steph was gonna look at ec ergonomics . Kate was gonna look at cost and feasibility of the various possibilities that we discussed . And I was to type up these minutes and work on the final report . Is this a fair presentation of what our last meeting was ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . So we're ready to close that and go back to our {disfmarker} That one . Right . We're up to the point of the {disfmarker} Go back . Um {vocalsound} the three presentations . So we're going to pull the plug on me and turn to Sarah . Is that okay ? Is that alright with everybody else ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Especially since Kate asked to be last . {vocalsound} Sarah , I'm sorry if I misspelled your name , I didn't know whether it was S_A_R_A_ or {vocalsound} S_A_R_H_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I respond to either . +Project Manager: You respond to whatever you get , huh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: No worries . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , did you do your {disfmarker} Hit {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} +Project Manager: Ah , there it is . Ta-da . +Marketing: Okay , first thing I want to address is um one of the points that Florence brought up , which was uh current cost of the competition devices , similar to the ones that Stephanie uh showed us and and they're uh twenty to sixty Euros , depending on uh branding . +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: Some of them that have a higher brand recognition are on the more expensive end . But I think that with the current um price that we're searching for , we're well within , even on the lower end , of the uh of the market . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Marketing: But I'm going to move on to more interesting um {vocalsound} more vibrant things . {vocalsound} So , I investigated the remote control market in greater detail , and my uh {disfmarker} the theme of what I was to work on was uh trend watch . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And {vocalsound} +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I'm glad to see the marketing budget is being so well spent on {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know that you all are a distance from cutting edge marketing research , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so you know , I'm just gonna try to cloak it in really professional terms here . What's hot , fruit and veg . Spongy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this is all over the catwalks , Paris , Milan , and I'm talking about clothing , furniture , shoes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is really interesting change from past years , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it is much more organic , um some would say approachable . {vocalsound} And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control , we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset . So . {vocalsound} I also did a little research on um {vocalsound} what again are the most important priorities in uh decision making about uh purchasing . Fancy . Functional is out . And f the fancy , and that's exactly the term , I'm I'm thinking polished , elegant , {vocalsound} you know , kind of innovative , but a cut above . This is twice as important as the next finding , which is technologically innovative . This is interesting , 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important , but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with um with uh technologically {vocalsound} superior fabrics or uh , you know , designed in interesting substances . Ease of use . Again , pretty low , I mean it's the top three , but each of the uh fancy and technologically innovative are far more important . So I think we should cloak the streamlined remote control device in a series of {vocalsound} fruit {vocalsound} fruit themed sleeves . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think that's a good idea . Don't you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Y yeah , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It sounds like the the uh covers that they use for the remote , you know , your t your cell phone . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . I was thinking though that instead of having something uh like patterned , you know , so , you know , something similar to a summer dress . {gap} you know , it would have like fruit and veg , is that we actually make these spongy . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: They could be {disfmarker} ini initially I thought we could start with kind of um fruit that would suit kind of uh a long uh hand-held , so banana , pineapple and pear . Um it could actually {disfmarker} the sleeve could {vocalsound} take up a lot of the {vocalsound} development and the remote control , we'd just need to get reductionist on it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: They could be interchangeable , they're spongy , that goes back to ergonomic , and the youngsters love 'em , fun for the whole family , everyone can have their own . So what we're talking about is changing . this concept . Everyone has a T_V_ remote , but then we add in the fact that they could each have their own individual fruit . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's what's hot on the catwalks . {vocalsound} So , this is my {disfmarker} This is what I'm thinking . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh mm . In most families , don't {disfmarker} isn't the remote {disfmarker} is a remote . +Marketing: Y yeah , but I think I think what this would allow is perhaps a person in the family who had the most opinion about it {disfmarker} we all need a remote , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising , I'm thinking the teenager , the {disfmarker} someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers . +User Interface: {vocalsound} So when your dad's sitting there , overriding your decision , going no we're gonna watch this , you can bring out your own remote and be like zap , no we're gonna watch this . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . W and {vocalsound} plus I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Well actually some households do have three and four T_V_s +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: and they would have a remote for each one , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so . +Marketing: Yeah . So this is an idea and I I {disfmarker} you know , this is exactly what the research has uh has shown . So I really open this up to uh any other feedback . This {vocalsound} spongy fruit and veg . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Spongy is gonna be difficult , I'm afraid . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} And as for as for um well budgeting as well , if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I just have my ear to the market , guys . {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Is this {gap} to the market {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I mean basically we can make these things out of wood , titanium , plastic or rubber . I suppose rubber is the closest to spongy , +Marketing: Is spongiest , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: That would add {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I was thinking titanium myself . +User Interface: I was thinking titanium , I was thinking it's just {disfmarker} I have been influenced by pictures of iPods , and they're also minimalist and shiny . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} They are and they they would fulfil the uh first um priority , which is fancy . I think many of us would associate those with fancy . Something else we could do is uh call it something that's fruit and veg oriented . We could call it uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} The name . +Project Manager: Are we talking about the device itself or the c or a cover for the device that would be an interchangeable cov cover as a separate product ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well it would be uh a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management +User Interface: Yeah , but it's kind of pointless , isn't it ? +Project Manager: and perhaps go to another group to actually design as a separate product . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That , you know , that might be {disfmarker} +User Interface: Let's delegate . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wo would that be agreeable ? +Marketing: And then we could keep it titanium . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} W w would it be helpful if um I described the components a bit , because I think it would give you um {disfmarker} maybe bring this discussion back to Earth of what we can actually physically do . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , maybe . Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Do you wanna be next or you want Kate to go next ? +User Interface: I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next . +Project Manager: Okay , we'll move the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You can even have them in different flavours as well . {vocalsound} So that if you just wanna sit there and chew on the remote , it could be like pear flavour , +Marketing: Yeah . Or s or smelly . Scratchy +User Interface: yeah . Scratch and sniff . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh well I was really thinking a lot about the I_ uh the iMac kind of gel gem tone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , well +Marketing: It's hot on the streets , guys . +Industrial Designer: I I I think some of this um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you , but I'm afraid this is the real world . {vocalsound} So um I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate , and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division , who have told me what's actually available , you know , what the current state of the art in components is , and some of the exciting new things they've got , but I'm not sure that it's quite what you want um . Now this isn't a very good overhead , but this is just to show you , this is the innards of a remote control um . I really need a pen or something but uh {disfmarker} does my mouse work ? No . Um {disfmarker} oh yeah , can you see my little mouse pointer ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . This is this is the a a {vocalsound} a remote that's been opened up +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and that's the the back of the interface . And this is a push-button one , so you see these little little buttons here , they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here . Um {vocalsound} and we {disfmarker} that's the basic construction that we've got to got to accommodate . We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that um talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver . So um I wan I wanna go through not not just addressing the um {vocalsound} uh the the points that you made , Sarah , but um {vocalsound} doing my presentation in the order I wrote it . {vocalsound} So first of all um I wanna talk about what possibilities we've got for the energy source . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable um little compartment . We can have a hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} A wind-up . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: a wind-up , yeah , {vocalsound} which I think is quite an interesting concept for a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sorry {disfmarker} for a remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but i it maybe is {disfmarker} doesn't quite go with the um the fruit and veg . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remember , we only have forty minutes +Industrial Designer: where um {vocalsound} you you actually get the energy by moving the device , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: which is quite a ni a nice and neat one . You have to {disfmarker} it means that if it's sitting there for a long time it probably won't work , but you have to sort of throw it between your hands every now and then , it'll work . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Or we we had talked about solar power , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but I thing that we agreed that that's not so good in the dark . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Now I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case . It can be made of plastic , rubber , wood o if you like , {vocalsound} or titanium . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber , but um {vocalsound} I'm gonna come back to the advantages of titanium , +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and basically it can have a flat surface , a curved surface or a double curved surface , but I think if we wanna use standard components , we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , what does the interface look like ? Um well push button , that's that's the one we're all familiar with . {vocalsound} Um we can have scroll buttons and the the scroll button can incorporate a push , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down , change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something . {vocalsound} Um you can have multiple scroll buttons , um this is maybe getting a little bit complicated , but um it's it {disfmarker} the technology is there . And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote , but this will increase the cost . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um the electronics that actually makes the device work , we've basically got three , simple , regular , advanced , and the price goes up as we choose each of this . If we want the nice cheap one , the simple , then we can only have push buttons . All the other fancy interface designs go out the window , I'm afraid . Um pay a little bit more for a regular chip and you can have scroll buttons . If you want the advanced chip it obviously costs more , but it {disfmarker} that's what you need if you want the L_C_D_ display . And the manufacturing devision tell me that they have recently developed um sample sensor sample speaker devices . Now I don't know what that is , but I think they think it's quite important and we might want to incorporate it somewhere . Um ou our real expertise is in push buttons , I have to say , but maybe you think that's old technology . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} well I I think we've got two options . We can either go for a really cheap model , keep all of the costs down , um which {vocalsound} means a flat plastic case with an ordinary battery and simple push buttons . Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer , I think it , um won't necessarily l uh look like a pineapple , but um that {vocalsound} may or may not be a good thing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons , and it could have the the company's new development of the um sample sensor and speaker . {vocalsound} So , thank you . +Marketing: That sounds good . Any idea {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you you mentioned that there would be a cost difference . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: Um do you have any idea if if this could {disfmarker} if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty ? +Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I don't have that information available . Um manufacturing didn't actually give {disfmarker} attach any prices to any of this , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . Because , you know what , I'm being quite serious when I say that that um the things I mentioned are hot . But I think the important thing might be to choose one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah mm-hmm . +Marketing: You know , if if what you're telling me is is um some of these things aren't just f aren't feasible , maybe we could something about naming , we could call it , you know , Blackberry . +User Interface: Bear bear in mind it has to be the colours and styles of the company , +Marketing: That's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Banana ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , well let's see then . +User Interface: But um I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: It's just what I'd understood we'd be doing . That's before I heard about all this hot tips about the future , fruit-wise . +Marketing: Yeah . But {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: We we could we could do um a double curved rubber one , +Marketing: I'm trying to streamline mine a little bit . +Industrial Designer: which would allow um say a banana , but um unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that , we have to have a push button as the interface , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we can't do anything fancier . +User Interface: Shall we wait 'til I've 'til I've showed you what {disfmarker} well , {vocalsound} my extensive presentation {vocalsound} on what sort of interfaces are available . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Mm . Thank you , Kate . +Project Manager: Thank you , Kate . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: You did seem to include just in more detail what I've got though . So {vocalsound} so mine's a bit pointless . Right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: F_N_ and F_ eight , did you say ? +Project Manager: Yes . There we go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: I don't have it on mine though . +Marketing: Oh I think um Florence resolved it by +Industrial Designer: I If you do F_ uh F_N_ F_ eight again , it's {disfmarker} it'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do it again . +Marketing: F_ eight again . +Project Manager: Keep doing it until you get it in both {disfmarker} you get it there , you get it yours without that one , +Industrial Designer: I think it {disfmarker} yeah , you you will do an {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and then you get it with both . +User Interface: Should I do it again ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Maybe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This time it should come up both . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Right then . I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: just that my method was to look at the , well , my my inspirations , which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing , including M_P_ three players , uh like you know , hi-fi remotes , not just television and these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Uh having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones , um what functions we actually need , and then how to group and arrange these on the actual the actual plastic or rubber hand-held piece . {vocalsound} Uh I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel , which {disfmarker} Well , I couldn't find a {disfmarker} the picture of the iPod w only linked to a web browser , so I couldn't copy and paste it , but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right . It has uh scroll wheels without without a display , but they they scroll like a computer mouse . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: So I was thinking that uh {vocalsound} um a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it um and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen . Like I guess an existing Sky or cable one does . Like , you know , you press enter and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment , and you can do {disfmarker} you can scroll along and it'll show you what's on in the next half hour , and you scroll up +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen . Uh but I'm also equally taken with this chunky plastic kiddie remote , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice , big , easy buttons to press , but still quite simple and quite cost effective . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple , uh not fancy but not totally minimalist , I mean just pretty simple plastic , probably , I was thinking , yellow and black , just because that's the company's colours , with very very few buttons , but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen , like , you know , {vocalsound} just small along the bottom instead of instead of having the iPod style display screen on the actual remotes , which is far too expensive . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: And when you've got a screen sitting there in front of you , you might as well have it appearing uh on the screen in front of you , it doesn't obscure much of the actual picture you're watching . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: And so on that you can , just much in the same way as an existing Sky remote , scroll along , scroll up and down . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I'd I'd certainly support that idea . +User Interface: And uh and I definitely support uh the use of plastic and or rubber . I mean titanium would be great , but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey . If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic , then I think titanium's too futuristic . +Industrial Designer: It's difficult to make fancy shapes in it as well , we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately . +User Interface: Yeah . Whereas a plastic's so cheap and easy and mouldable and everything else . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Uh {vocalsound} then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea , 'cause um {vocalsound} otherwise we're we're putting up the price not only for putting {disfmarker} building the L_C_D_ in , but for the electronics as well . +User Interface: And it's a little bit pointless as well I think . +Industrial Designer: There is that . +User Interface: Like when when when you've got when you've got the screen there , it doesn't have to be anything fancy , +Marketing: It's a duplication . +User Interface: just a little menu showing {disfmarker} yeah , a menu , you go into one menu and then it can have your different options , whether you wanna change the settings or the you know , your information about programme that's on at the moment . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I don't think that's to taxing to uh s engineer . {vocalsound} Um . But as for actually arranging them {disfmarker} let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one . And I quite like it , 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons that quite nicely uh spaced out , so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle . Up , down , left , right . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Do you want scroll buttons in that as well ? +User Interface: I I was thinking not actually scroll , like a like mouse scroll , but you know , a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I can't quite d uh describe it . {gap} you see on the one on the right , down at the bottom , is the mouse . Yeah , see where the mouse is , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: like this s style thing where you c have up , down , left and right . And enter in the middle , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: so you pick your menu and then {disfmarker} your different options and when when you click on each one , it {disfmarker} you can go into a new menu for that . I'm getting a bit uh specific here . +Marketing: {gap} +User Interface: Really we'd have to use something to show you , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I think I think that's a g nice clean design , +User Interface: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's playing to our strengths which are in push button technology . +Marketing: {vocalsound} To uh m make it . +User Interface: If {disfmarker} I don't think I can get it up on the screen . Ah here we go . Right . +Marketing: Oh nice . +User Interface: Well , +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Hmm . +User Interface: the iPod spinning wheel is uh really complicated . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: It does scroll , but it is hugely complicated . What else have we got ? +Marketing: Mm . Wow . +User Interface: Them , they're terrible . But they all have this this feature of this uh {disfmarker} It's not quite a scroll wheel , but it's a kind of selection in this circle , +Project Manager: It's a selection wheel . +User Interface: which I think is a really good idea . +Industrial Designer: But we can implement it with simple push buttons , which is much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah , like up , down , left and right . Which is good . And then and then {disfmarker} Yeah , so I mean either a channel up and down , volume up and down , next appearing programmes up and down , {vocalsound} uh and then also {vocalsound} when you get into the different menus on the screen , it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: So all you really need is these four buttons with the enter in the middle . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And that's it . +Industrial Designer: In fact {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Look at look at this one . +Industrial Designer: Oh that's really nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Almost impossible to misplace or l or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do you think with um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Might take up your whole living room . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It seems that that uh you guys are quite keen on the plastic , perhaps the {disfmarker} something reminiscent of the child's remote . Do you think we could put it in a in a fruit colour ? And have it abstract . You know , +User Interface: Possibly . +Marketing: we could call {vocalsound} like a fruit name , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it would be a little more abstract . +Industrial Designer: Mm . We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather {disfmarker} if you feel {disfmarker} if you like the spongy {disfmarker} +User Interface: That also is possible . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Just {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm just just throwing out ideas . +Project Manager: Or call it a or call it a banana and have it in yellow . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Uh just something else I need to bring to your attention is have you have you seen these on a remote ? This is actually the volume up and down , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but {vocalsound} they both say V_ on them , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which , when you first look at it , {vocalsound} you expect that to be the down , because it looks like a downward pointing arrow , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: but it's actually the V_ to indicate that it's the volume , so uh we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Nice . Good point . +User Interface: But we wouldn't have a specific volume up and down . If we're having the scroll wheel , then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: But then , that's complicated . +Project Manager: I wanna thank you all for all your presentations . We have about ten minutes left , in which time we have to make some decisions on the remote control concepts . Um and I think you all have been self-stimulating of working together . Um we need to come up with some specifics of the components , um the materials , things like making the decision on the energy um and the case and the interface type things . So {vocalsound} let's {disfmarker} Mm . Right . They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use , which {disfmarker} the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery , kinetic or solar . Um this is where Kate's expertise comes in , and our decision making will be a little bit guided by Kate at this point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The {disfmarker} You were saying that the kinetic would be useful , that is you just have to move it some and you'd be able to use it um as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or um keep replacing the batteries . Um or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day , that it'll die on you , and no way to do it . That's the day you wanna use the T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Um so what's our pleasure here , what would be the cost consequences of each of the three ? +Industrial Designer: Oh unfortunately I don't have costing information . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I i in terms of workability , I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic , +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +Industrial Designer: but I'm sorry I don't figures on the difference in cost . +Project Manager: What's the uh feelings of the group on the kinetic ? +Marketing: I've used kinetic in terms of watches and it's very very uh handy , you don't even notice um that it's there . +User Interface: It sounds great . I've never come across it before , but it sounds fantastic . Sounds like it could be g a really good economical {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: it would make the whole thing a lot lighter , more convenient . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: It could tie in with the fanciful design +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: as uh , you know , {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause it's really a quite attractive thought , +Marketing: throw the banana , you know , just gotta keep it moving . +User Interface: isn't it ? It's like {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible . +User Interface: a good selling point . +Marketing: Be +User Interface: But it does depend how much I mean how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs . +Project Manager: It costs . {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: And and how much you do have to keep it moving , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause I'm conscious that watching T_V_ can be quite a sed sedentary activity . +Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: But I could market that as a um as a {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I was thinking actually a a cost saver down the road , in terms of battery , you know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Do your exercises while you're watching the T_V_ . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: True , yeah , m more more environmentally friendly . +User Interface: Yeah , that's what I was thinking as well . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . You know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: kind of the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Thanks for the reminder for five minutes to finish , thanks . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh right , okay , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision . +Industrial Designer: I'd {disfmarker} that that's something I maybe should have covered . Um chip on print is just a manufacturing technique +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: um and I would certainly recommend it , I think , because I'm not sure I have an alternative . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What about the ca +Industrial Designer: I i it it's just the way that the the the uh th the way it's ac it's actually built +Project Manager: yeah . Oh , the way we {gap} uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: and you you print onto the circuit board like you might print onto paper . +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Um what about the case ? I think they're talking there about do we want wood , plastic , titanium or rubber , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I think we've discussed not having titanium . One , it's too expensive , um and second , it won't do this double um curves . Um we've sort of eliminated wood . We said plastic or rubber . What's the pleasure ? +Industrial Designer: Well if if Sarah's keen on a spongy feel , the the rubber that we're talking about is the same as you have in those little stress balls , so it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's exactly what I was thinking . I'm sold . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: What about you ? +User Interface: Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside , and then a kind of spongy Yeah , s thick spongy cover , +Marketing: Mm . Kind of like an internal egg . +Project Manager: Cover . +User Interface: so it feels like the whole thing's spongy , but actually you're not damaging anything by squeezing it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Plastic inside . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Because I mean you could just get carried away with the with the tac +Industrial Designer: I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible , but I agree , it's uh {disfmarker} sounds like a nice idea if it is . +User Interface: Yeah . Well you do get a bit carried away with things that are tactile , you just wanna stroke them and squeeze them , +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And with sports on television . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: You know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um the next part they want is the user interface concept . +Industrial Designer: I should I should r {gap} +Marketing: I su +Project Manager: I'm sorry to push you , but we only have a couple minutes to {vocalsound} finish with . +Marketing: Then I'll just say I support either {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that . +Project Manager: Okay , and it says interface . What type and what supplements ? +User Interface: Just copy the one on the left . {vocalsound} No um a scroll {disfmarker} Well , like four buttons , up , down , left and right with enter in the middle , that will correspond to a menu on the screen . +Industrial Designer: Which I think technically is just push button and uh I'd certainly support that that +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: that brings the cost down quite a lot +User Interface: I'd {disfmarker} like push buttons with {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and it's something that we're an ex the company's an expert on . +User Interface: So push buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , um {vocalsound} that's that . Um this is gonna sound weird , but the next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Whew . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And they actually want a look and feel design , user interface design , you can look and see this as well as I can . Marketing they want product evaluation . +User Interface: No , it's still it's still plugged in on mine actually . +Marketing: No we can't , actually . +Project Manager: Oh . Oh my , I'm sorry . +Marketing: That's why I was looking over your shoulder +Project Manager: Oh , okay . Sorry about that . missed that one . This ought to be fun trying to get this thing to work . Ah , ta-da . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Now it's gone again . +Project Manager: Ah . +Industrial Designer: You know , I think the the company's s next project should to design a better overhead device that switches immediately . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes , because I can't even see mine . Next meeting starts in thirty minutes , +User Interface: Oh yes . +Project Manager: these are {vocalsound} the individual actions . Yeah , right . Um the look and feel design is for Kate , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: uh Steph gets the user interface design , you get product {vocalsound} evaluation . Um the two of you {vocalsound} get to play with a Pla modelling clay um to do a prototype . +User Interface: Great . +Project Manager: Uh and everybody gets individual instructions in the usual way . +Marketing: Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anything else we need to do ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't think so . +Project Manager: Go to it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Play-Doh . +Project Manager: And that's the end of this meeting . That's for her benefit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} That's really all I got , guys . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","Project Manager leads the third meeting about a remote control design with the Industrial Designer, User Interface, and Marketing team. They review minutes, confirm prior decisions about the target market and product functionality, and discuss cost and market research results. The discussions include: + +- Target market: 15-35-year-olds with disposable income or bundled with TVs. +- Functions: volume, power, channels, numbers, easy to use, speech recognition considered. +- Design: simple and mass-produced, possibly with rechargeable batteries and a dock. +- Marketing trends: vibrant, trendy designs like spongy fruit-themed covers. + +Decisions to make involve choosing materials, components, and price, staying mindful of ergonomic design and corporate image/color integration. There's a suggestion to model the remote in rubber for a spongy feel, kinetic energy for the power source, a simple user interface with a scroll wheel or buttons, and utilize a kinetic energy source if feasible and cost-effective. The meeting ends with tasks being assigned for the next session, which is to start in 30 minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our evidence session with the Cabinet Secretary for Education for our inquiry into the status of the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Kevin Palmer, who is deputy director, pedagogy, leadership and professional learning; and Andrew Clark, deputy director, further education and apprenticeships division. So, thank you all for attending, and we're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, Cabinet Secretary, we'll go straight to questions. +Kirsty Williams AM: Of course. +Lynne Neagle AM: And the first questions are from Julie Morgan. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much, Chair, and bore da. I was going to ask some general questions about the value of the baccalaureate. Could you give us your views on how the Welsh bac is valued by learners and teachers? +Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Julie, and thank you very much for your question. Firstly, I'd like to begin by saying that I as the Cabinet Secretary value the qualification very much indeed. I believe that it helps ensure that we are able to give our young people in Wales a broad and balanced curriculum, recognising the need to develop knowledge and skills in core subjects but recognising also that the purpose of education is to help prepare our children for further study and the world of work, and I believe that the skills challenge element of the baccalaureate does just that. I meet with young people and teachers all the time who tell me about the positive experiences they have had studying for the Welsh bac, and much of that was evidenced in Qualifications Wales's review into the Welsh baccalaureate. They did focus group work with a representative sample, and many of the learners expressed the fact that they have enjoyed studying for the qualification and have gained a great deal from it. I meet regularly with individuals who have been able to use their bac to successfully gain a place at university, so I believe there's a huge value for Welsh young people being able to study this particular qualification alongside the more traditional qualifications that perhaps we're all used to. I think the challenge is that, given that many people are very familiar with what a GCSE is and, as parents, we will know what that is and many of us will have done—some of us are so old we'll have done O-levels. We know what those traditional qualifications look like, and therefore a new qualification—there's always a job of work to do to communicate that, if people aren't used to it, but I value it hugely. I think that, whilst there is always room for improvement—and, of course, you'll be aware of the review that Qualifications Wales undertook and that has suggested ways in which we can further improve and refine the qualification, but I think it is a valuable piece of work for Welsh young people to undertake. +Julie Morgan AM: It's great that you've been around listening to learners and what they have said about it. Have you had any negative feedback? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, occasionally, of course, we do have concerns raised with us, and those concerns are similar to the ones that have been raised in the Qualifications Wales review. So, for instance, we sometimes have concerns about how some students balance the Welsh bac with other qualifications they may be taking. Some teachers feed back around the workload issues associated with the Welsh baccalaureate. For some students, there may be concerns about the nature of the Welsh bac and whether that can impact negatively on their well-being. And, obviously, that's why Qualifications Wales have undertaken this piece of work so that we can refine, if necessary, that qualification and how we continue to look at how we ensure my belief that taking the Welsh bac should be the norm for students but also recognising that, in some cases, there needs to be flexibility to ensure that the well-being of the student is not compromised. +Julie Morgan AM: And so would you say that it's valued by learners more or less at key stage 4 or post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think that, as I said, the vast majority of students I meet report very positively about the opportunities that are afforded for studying at that level. Occasionally, we hear from students who I believe think that in studying the subject they may be compromising their chances because they want to do additional A-levels, and I'm sure we'll come on to, later on, whether universities, and whether the Russell Group universities in particular, value the qualification. But I feel that there are particular strengths. And I think what's really important, and, in talking to universities, since the qualification became graded, rather than just a pass/fail qualification—I think that added rigour since 2015 has been particularly important in ensuring that there's real value in students undertaking that work. +Julie Morgan AM: And what about the effect that the leadership in the school has on the way that the bac is received? Have you—? +Kirsty Williams AM: As always, Julie, leadership is crucial, and students' experiences can be very coloured by the attitude towards the teacher delivering that particular course. And, therefore, we need to continue, alongside the WJEC and Qualifications Wales, to ensure that the Welsh bac is communicated to children in a positive way, the benefits are explained to children and their parents, and, also, we need to ensure that those who are tasked with teaching Welsh bac in their schools or colleges feel confident in their ability to do so and to ensure that students have a really positive experience of that qualification, because if you're being taught by someone who is telling you, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this', then, obviously that's going to colour how you feel about it. And, if I'm honest, I recently attended a youth forum, where young people from the county were discussing all sorts of issues—everything from the environment to their experience in school—and I was struck by the group of year 12 and year 13 students. I specifically asked them about the bac—I always take the opportunity to ask them about their experience of the baccalaureate. One school, the group of students said, 'It's fantastic. We really enjoy it. It's really valuable. I'm learning a lot.' Students from a school seven miles away—just seven miles away—said, 'Oh, I don't know why we're having to do this.' And I suspect that that has got more to do with how that is being delivered in their institutions than it has about the quality of the qualification. So, we need to keep ensuring that those who are tasked with this see it as important, communicate that to students, and have the confidence and the ability to deliver a really positive experience. +Julie Morgan AM: I think our experiences in the committee are very similar. Within the same room, actually, we've had two completely different sets of views. So, what do you intend to do to try to ensure that there's consistent support and enthusiasm for the bac from the leaders? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, we have the design group of Qualifications Wales looking to address some of the issues that arose out of the report around ensuring that, especially from a teacher workload perspective, it's not too onerous in terms of assessment. So, there's that to do to make sure that we're not asking children to duplicate and do things over and over and over again, which, of course, for any of us, would be wearing and we would question to the value of. So, there's the design group looking at the qualification itself. We are ensuring, as part of our professional learning for teachers that—. There are existing opportunities via the regional consortia for support for teaching of the qualification. The WJEC has resources and support available, but we will look, as we roll out our national approach to professional learning, at that the professional learning needs of those already in the system are addressed. Of course, our accreditation for our new initial teacher education is predominantly addressed at being able to deliver the new curriculum, but, if you think about the elements of 'Successful Futures' and the skills and the knowledge and the pedagogy associated with that, it's very much in line with the Welsh baccalaureate challenge certificate. So, actually, there are opportunities via initial teacher education as well, and we continue to need to look to work with our partners to be able to reinforce why this is a worthwhile qualification. And I have to say I think the best people to do that—. It's not me. I'd like to see past students of the Welsh baccalaureate being able to talk about their own experiences and why it's made a difference to them. I come across individuals for whom their place at university has been secured by that Welsh baccalaureate, and, all of a sudden, if that's what's got you your place, it becomes a lot more valuable than perhaps it was six months before. We need to make sure that students are aware, and teachers and school leaders are aware, of the importance that this qualification has. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, did you have a supplementary? +Suzy Davies AM: Yes. I've got one on IT, but I'll leave that one. I just want to go back to Julie's question about whether there was a different perspective or a different sense of value for students who are post 16 and those who are pre 16. When one of the college leaders here was asked whether he had people coming to him in his FE college who've been through the pre-16 bac and had heard evidence or had stories of, basically, those children cobbling together their bac in the last four weeks of term before they got there, he said that yes, that is his experience. Does that worry you at all, because, of course, the whole purpose of bac is to teach skills over a period of time, and its purpose cannot be fulfilled by getting it all done in the last term of—which year am I in?—year 11, in order to satisfy the curriculum? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Obviously, that's not the experience that we would want young people to have, and, as someone who has had a daughter just finish year 11, that's certainly not the experience that my daughter had in her particular school, and I have another daughter who has just gone into year 10, where the Welsh bac has started in year 10 and it is a a two-year course in which elements are undertaken. Obviously, we will need to address, as part of the design group and the work that Qualifications Wales is doing, how that is playing out in individual schools. But that would not be a positive experience; we want this to be taken in exactly the same way as we would expect a GCSE to be taught over a period of two years. But, Andrew, I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add from the college perspective. +Andrew Clark: I think it is variable. I think that it will depend on the feeder schools to the colleges and it'll depend upon the delivery models that are in existence in those schools. It's been around as a qualification now for about a decade, I think. There have been differences in the way that the subject has been—sorry, not the subject, the qualification has been delivered. And I think it'll be helped by a recent review by Qualifications Wales, because they're doing a survey at the moment as to different delivery models in different locations, and that, perhaps, will inform more even practice as we move forwards. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, and Estyn and consortia are looking at it as well. I don't want to cut across questions, so, thank you. +Andrew Clark: No, but it's a known issue, if you like, that various people are attempting to address and bring a more uniform mode of delivery across the nation. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some more detailed questions now on understanding, from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just to drill down rather deeper into the issue of the variability in the way in which the Welsh bac is provided, could you explain why you think that this inconsistency is happening, and then what the impact of the inconsistency and variability is on the value that learners attach to the bac and their understanding of it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think the variability can be perhaps explained by the fact that it's a new type of qualification, the fact that different schools have adopted it at different rates— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Ten years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, over that time, there were some early adopters who have done it in a certain way, there are some people who've come later to it, who may be doing it in a different way. And, as I said, it's quite a different departure from traditional O-levels, from GCSE-type subjects, where there is a programme of work and a syllabus. So, it is a different nature of qualification, and, therefore, as Andrew has just alluded to, schools have approached it in a different way. We are alert to that and Qualifications Wales, crucially, is alert to that, and we are looking to ensure greater consistency in how it is delivered in individual schools. We're also aware, in the school setting, in pre 16, there are some concerns about the onerousness of the workload associated with the evaluation of the students' work. Now, clearly, there is a difference between onerous and rigorous. We wrote the qualification to be a rigorous qualification for the students, but we don't want it to be jeopardised by the evaluation of it being too onerous. So, there's that balance to be struck. Again, that's one of the issues that the design group and Qualifications Wales are looking at. That process is a really important process, so there is the design group, but working alongside the design group, who they are testing the messages and testing their thoughts with, is a stakeholder group, and there is also a practitioners group. So, that work by the design group is being tested with those people who have an interest: business, for instance, the world of work—is this qualification really giving students the skills that are valued by potential employers?—but it's also testing its thinking with the practitioners, those people who will be charged with the delivery of the qualification, and I think that's really important to be able to get an understanding of the challenges of making sure there's a consistency, and what are the barriers to that, and what steps need to be taken to ensure a greater level of consistency in delivery. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is there a correlation between consistency in general? Because we know that there's polarisation in the secondary school sector between the good schools and the not-so-good schools. And is there a correlation between—if the schools are good according to Estyn, or excellent, are they also good, excellent at delivering the bac? Is it a fundamental inconsistency across the sector that's causing this inconsistency? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't know. I don't have that data to hand, but, of course, from next year, the bac will be a dedicated performance measure for schools. So, actually, we will be looking specifically at completion of the bac as part of the wider set of school performance measures. So perhaps we will be in a better position once that's formally established to be able to track progress. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Because some of the evidence we've heard is that if the leadership is good around the bac in the school, well, everything else follows from that. So, it makes sense to me that it could be. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. As I said, I don't have the figures to hand, but, as I said, from next year, the bac actually becomes a formal part of the performance measures for schools. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Fine. I'll turn, therefore, to the understanding of employers of the Welsh bac and the skills challenge certificate. From the evidence that we've had, it appears that there is a problem in this area, that is, employers generally don't value the qualification. Is that your experience, and how can we improve that? How can we elicit more engagement from employers of all sizes with the value of the baccalaureate? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the first thing to say is my understanding of the development of the bac is that employers' voices were reflected and they were part of the process that drew up the qualification in the first place. You'll be aware of the review by Qualifications Wales that found that many employers say that the skills that are developed through the baccalaureate are exactly the kinds of skills that they want young people to be acquiring whilst at school, that put them in a good place for looking for employment later. I would agree with you, Siân, and not just in terms of the bac, there are lots of reasons why we need greater working between education and employers. I sit down with employer organisations to try and explore better ways in which we can work together—everything from ensuring that children have work experience opportunities through to, for instance, what more some of our companies could do to take up governors' roles, for instance, in our local schools, so that employer voice and that business voice are heard at a school management level. I think these things are really important. It's something that's sometimes difficult. There are some excellent examples of really good practice where local employers work really closely with schools. I think of Sony in Bridgend doing a really, really, really good job working with their local schools. In other areas, where you haven't got such a big employer, it can be difficult, can't it, for a small business that is trying to do their small business to think about, 'Oh my goodness, I've got to do something to help improve the education system as well.' So, I'm always looking at new ways in which we can get that working together. As I said, the Qualifications Wales design group has a stakeholder group that is helping them with their review into the qualification at the moment, but there are really good examples where employers and other organisations are working together. We also need to continue, I think, to communicate more clearly with employers the nature of the qualification. Again, because it's relatively new, and the brands of the GCSE and A-level are so strong, people know what they are, unless you've either done the Welsh bac yourself or you have a son or a daughter, or a grandson or granddaughter who has gone through the process, you're probably going to be less familiar, and we need to continue to work together with the WJEC and Qualifications Wales as a Government to better communicate the value of the qualification. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you agree that there is a specific piece of work that needs to be done around employers and that the Government should be leading that. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and we are working closely with, as I said, Qualifications Wales to develop a joint communication plan, and we continue, as I said, as part of Qualifications Wales's review into the nature of the qualification—employers' voices are being heard as part of that particular piece of work. But more generally, yes, I think there's more that we can do to better engage employers with the education system in lots and lots of different ways. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Not just on the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move off this section, the variability that the committee has seen has been quite pronounced, really. We've been to a school where they've got a passionate and dedicated Welsh bac school leader, but then we've spoken to other schools where it's tagged on to a variety of teachers' roles, and that clearly has an impact on the way it's being taught. You said in your answer to Siân that you're trying to ensure more consistency in the delivery of it, and you referred to the performance measures; are the performance measures the main vehicle by which you're going to ensure consistency, or are you planning to issue any more guidance to schools on how it should be delivered on the ground? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to reflect the work that Qualifications Wales is undertaking. Professional learning, I think, has a role to play as well as performance measures. So it's not just one thing that we can do that will change this, it is a number of things—everything from the communications plan to making sure that teachers who find themselves responsible for delivering this feel confident and have had the professional learning opportunities to give them the skills so that they do a great job in delivering a positive experience to students. The performance measures, of course, as we know—sometimes in schools, it is those that make schools focus on something. So there's a wide variety of ways in which I think we can look to ensure more consistency. But, in the end, I think it is professional learning and teacher training, ITE, that will make the biggest difference. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. And just on understanding, one of the things the young people in Crickhowell told us was that they thought the name should be changed. They felt that it wasn't reflective of exactly what the qualification is and that maybe having something that was clearer would be better. Is that something you've considered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, I need to declare an interest, because that's the school my daughter goes to, and I don't know if she was the one— +Lynne Neagle AM: She wasn't. Angharad wasn't there. +Kirsty Williams AM: She wasn't the one who said that. Certainly, I'd have to reflect. My gut instinct tells me that one of the issues that we have is developing an understanding of the brand and what that qualification is, and if we move away from 'Welsh bac' and suddenly start to call it something else, I think that could be even harder and set us back from where we are. So, that's not to dismiss it, and I would want to reflect on those views, but I think if one of the issues that we've got is developing a better understanding of the qualification; if we were to suddenly change the name of it, that might have the unintended consequence of making that job even harder. But, obviously, if the committee was to make a recommendation, we would—I'm happy to reflect on that evidence, but, as I said, my gut instinct would tell me that there could be an unintended consequence of moving away from that brand. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You touched on this once or twice in answers to questions about how rigorous the qualification is. We've had mixed evidence, I would suggest, from groups of stakeholders. We've heard people say that the Welsh bac has no rigour, that pupils are spoon-fed. We've heard that the Welsh bac is passively marked, the grades are inflated, that there's little rigour in the sampling and moderation, there's a confusion about how the SCC is graded, and I know that's something you talked about, actually, that introducing the grading system is improving the rigour. I suppose my question to you is: if the Welsh bac is being seen in this way by stakeholders, how are going to address that? To what extent is that a real problem? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think making it a graded qualification has been really important, and I make no apologies for this qualification being rigorous—no apologies for that at all. That's how it should be, and that's how you create value, by ensuring that a qualification is rigorous. What's really important is that it's not just me saying that it's rigorous; there is an independent process that benchmarks qualifications. The fact is that at advanced level—because I don't know if you're making these observations about the pre-16 Welsh bac, or whether we're talking about the advanced level qualification—that is the equivalent of an A-level. It's been benchmarked against A-levels. It has a UCAS tariff associated with it. It is used by universities as a means of qualification that gains entrance into a university in just the same way as an A-level is. So, therefore, I don't have any concerns about the rigour of the qualification. In terms of spoon-feeding, one of the reasons why universities like the qualification is that it's very difficult, for instance, in the individual project work to be spoon-fed. It is very demanding of individual students, and it's very difficult in a way. That's one of the reasons why it's valuable, isn't it, because it teaches a different set of skills? Because if you're doing a traditional, say, history A-level or a science A-level, there's a very strict syllabus and a course, there's a textbook and people are taught to that particular syllabus; with the Welsh bac, it is individual students that have to think, for instance, of their own individual project. You can't get those off a shelf, and you can't necessarily just find that information easily. There's real skill involved in being able to do that well and get graded well for that. So, I do not have concerns about the rigour. I do have concerns about some of the feedback by Qualifications Wales about the onerousness of the evaluation and what that means for teacher workload, which is one of the things that Qualifications Wales is looking at. But in terms of rigour and people being spoon-fed, then I don't share those concerns. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, because those were concerns, in the main, that were articulated by people delivering the Welsh bac—by teachers. So, I suppose the question then comes back to some of the other points that were being raised about the consistency, because that may well be from those teachers in schools where they're not taking the bac as seriously as some others are. +Kirsty Williams AM: And, of course, there would be—. There is a professional responsibility for those teachers delivering that qualification to ensure that the ethos of that qualification and the skills—. It would potentially be a disservice to students if that qualification was being delivered in that way. +Dawn Bowden AM: And I think what I was trying to do was to highlight the different opinions, because we also heard from teachers who were saying that those involved with teaching and studying understood absolutely its rigour, so it was the mixed message, I guess, I was just trying to test out with you. Similarly, on the skills challenge certificate, again we've heard from various stakeholders about whether, in fact, this is considered to be an equivalent qualification. We've heard people say that it is different—it's not the same as an A-level—so, therefore you can't absolutely hold it up and say it's the same as an A-level. It requires different skills, and so on and so forth. So, just your thoughts and views on that, really, as an equivalent qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: It's not a question of if this is an equivalent qualification; this is an equivalent qualification. There is a rigorous process that is undertaken to evaluate these qualifications independent of the Government, and it's not a question. Is it a different model and a different way of studying? Yes, of course it is, and that's why we do it. That's why I want children and young people to do both sets of qualifications, because it does engage and expand the acquisition of knowledge and skills. So, yes, it's different. Is it equivalent? Yes, it is, and that's why, since the graded qualification came in, it is regarded by independent bodies as an equivalent to an A-level, and it has a tariff for UCAS in the same way as A-levels would have tariffs. You only have to speak to the institutes of higher education who use this qualification as a way of setting grades—you know, offers—for students that they see that in the same way as well. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy's got a supplementary before we go on to talk in detail about universities. +Suzy Davies AM: Is that okay? Because I just want to go back to this element of spoon-feeding at post 16, where you said it's actually very difficult for that to occur, because, obviously, we're talking about the personal project, and so forth. We heard evidence in one of the schools sessions we did that baccalaureate students were being offered a very short and narrow list of subjects on which they could do their personal project, which actually limited the scope of what they were able to do. And we've also heard separately—it may have been with the colleges, I can't quite remember now—that some students were being told, 'On your personal project, just put in what you did for your GCSE-level baccalaureate, and add a few paragraphs.' I'm wondering how easy it is to disguise spoon-feeding at post 16 when we've got two instances there that, to me, suggest it's more about the convenience of the teachers, who perhaps may not be very enthusiastic about the bac, rather than making sure those children get the best out of the qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And that would be really disappointing. And, again, if I can use my own personal family experience, my daughter has tried that on with her Welsh bac teacher. She's in a different school from where she did her earlier bac, and she said, 'Oh, well, I'll just rehash my ""Votes at 16"" that I did last year', and the Welsh bac teacher has said, 'Under no circumstances are you to do that—no, that's not allowed.' This is about using your individual project, linked to something that maybe you hope to study at university, to get the value out of this qualification, and for you to be able to use this in your personal statement, and potentially in an interview. So, again, I guess what this does is show that there's a variation, but certainly, where it is being delivered well, then that practice would not be encouraged, because it would be seen to be— +Suzy Davies AM: It's gaming. +Kirsty Williams AM: —denuding the students of the very valuable experience the qualification has to offer. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Cheers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We've got some questions now on how universities view it. Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: We've had an online survey response, which was quite a stark comment, not from the vice-chancellor's office, but from a member of staff within Cardiff University. And it said: 'The Welsh Bacc is not a fair substitute for a full A-level, and should not be regarded as such. I consider it to be a disadvantage for Welsh students, compared with their English counterparts.' Can you reflect on that? +Kirsty Williams AM: I don't agree. +Hefin David AM: Do you think that that's a view that's held within universities, and are you concerned about that? Because it is a view that's obviously held within Cardiff University. +Kirsty Williams AM: No; I would say that that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University— +Hefin David AM: Who has influence over students. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that is a view held by an individual in Cardiff University. And, actually, Cardiff University—indeed, all Welsh universities—accept the Welsh baccalaureate as an A-level equivalent. I think it is really important to reflect on the wide range of opportunities at higher education that the Welsh bac affords individuals. That means that it is deemed as an equivalent to A-level for the vast majority of universities, to get in to some of the most competitive courses, such as dentistry, medicine, veterinary science. So, those courses where we know there's a high demand and high competition for places, there are institutions that are using that, including Cardiff to get into their medical degree. +Hefin David AM: Nick Brazil, the deputy principal of Gower College, said about 50 per cent of the Russell Group don't value the Welsh bac. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't know where he's getting that from. I have made it a personal commitment to establish this with universities. I have visited both Cambridge and Oxford. I spoke again to Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Southampton, St Andrews, only last week, who were exhibiting at the Seren conference. I specifically took the opportunity to meet with those universities and to talk to them about how they feel about the Welsh bac. They have a high regard for the Welsh baccalaureate in a variety of ways. First of all, for many of those universities, for many of their courses, they use the Welsh bac as an equivalent to an A-level. If they don't, there are some courses, for instance, where they will lower their offer to gain a place at that university if the Welsh bac is passed at a certain level. So, for instance, rather than maybe offering a Welsh student A, A, B, they would offer a Welsh student A, B, B, plus a Welsh bac, thus giving students two opportunities to gain a place at that university, either with or without their Welsh bac qualification. Even for those universities that don't use the Welsh baccalaureate as a formal part of their offer—and this is the conversation I had again last week with Oxford and Cambridge—they value it as part of a student's personal statement; they value it as part of the interview process in which a student may or may not then be offered a place at that university; and they also recognise that the skills learnt by students whilst undertaking the Welsh baccalaureate are exactly the skills that those students need to make a successful transition from A-level work to university-type work, which, if you can imagine, is very much based on individual research and being able to guide your own learning. So, I just don't recognise that in some way Welsh students are being disadvantaged. The message I get consistently from universities is that there are significant advantages to Welsh learners taking this qualification. +Hefin David AM: Okay. You can not recognise it, but that is contrary to the evidence that we've received. I'm not saying that the evidence is conclusive, but it actually demonstrates inconsistency. So, would you go so far as to accept instead then that there is an inconsistency in the way that universities use the Welsh bac as a tool for application? +Kirsty Williams AM: You would know better than anybody, Hefin, that universities are autonomous institutions and they set their own methods of entry into those institutions. What I'm telling you is that the evidence that I have received from universities is that, whilst there is a variety of approaches to how they regard the qualification in terms of offers, consistently, absolutely across the board, all universities tell me that the Welsh baccalaureate is a valuable qualification and does not disadvantage Welsh students. +Hefin David AM: If the committee were to produce a report based on the evidence we've received, that would be contrary to what you've just said. So, I think we'd end up in a debate in which we are setting out different points of view. So, would you therefore commit to exploring that perspective? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, I would argue that I have indeed explored that perspective because I have taken the trouble to find out first-hand—not via my officials, but first-hand—from those institutions, their views. So, this is not something that is hearsay; I have undertaken to ascertain the views of those universities. We have written to all vice-chancellors—last year—with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate qualification. Qualifications Wales has an individual whose specific job it is to ensure that universities across the United Kingdom understand the value of Welsh qualifications. That will become increasingly important as we see a divergence between English and Welsh qualifications. But I have to say that the evidence that I have from universities is that the Welsh baccalaureate, whilst it may be used in different ways in terms of an offer, the consistency from all universities is that it is a valuable qualification. If you've heard differently from admissions tutors and from the universities officially, rather than from somebody who has e-mailed in, then I would be pleased to look at that evidence, because it would be in stark contrast to what I am being told by universities. +Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin is not referring to an e-mail— +Hefin David AM: No, I've said that. +Lynne Neagle AM: —we did do a survey and we've also taken oral evidence. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and it's representing the evidence that we received. +Kirsty Williams AM: And I'm presenting you with the evidence that I've received. +Hefin David AM: But it will be presented to you as a submission from this committee, no doubt. Let's look at some admissions offers instead then. You do concede that there is inconsistency with how admissions offers are made with regard to the skills challenge certificate. How would you suggest that that is addressed? +Kirsty Williams AM: Hefin, each individual institution and university the length and breadth of the UK have different ways in which they make offers to individuals. What is absolutely clear to me, and if the concern is around the type of institution—. So, for instance, it is accepted as a third-grade offer in Bristol, Edinburgh, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, the London School of Economics—some of the highest performing universities and Russell Group universities. It is accepted as a fourth qualification or amends the offer in places like Bath University, and it is accepted in tariff-point offers in places like Hull and the University of the West of England. So there is a variety of ways in which universities use the qualification, and that is their prerogative—that's their prerogative as institutions. They will have different ways in which they recruit and how they offer places, just like different universities will have different views on unconditional offers. You know, there's a difference in universities there, isn't there? Some universities don't have unconditional offers at all; other universities— +Hefin David AM: So, what you're saying is that the problem isn't connected to the Welsh bac, it's connected with just the way that universities make offers, and the Welsh bac has got nothing to do with it. +Kirsty Williams AM: I’m saying there is a variety. Just like any other qualification, there is a variety in how universities use qualifications for offers. What I’m saying to you is that, in the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, what they say is that there is certainly no detriment to any Welsh student undertaking this qualification. They value the qualification. They think it is useful. It develops a set of skills that help students to make that transition into higher education. And therefore, I think it is a myth—I would go as far as to say that it’s a myth—that Welsh students are disadvantaged in any way by taking this qualification. Sorry, Andrew. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Andrew Clark: Could I just add to that response? There are, obviously, differences in the way that universities treat the skills challenge certificate and the Welsh baccalaureate, which is the prime focus of this. The attitude of the universities has changed significantly since that was a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that has made a difference. +Andrew Clark: And even those who do not make it part of their offer consider it exceedingly valuable in the way that young people are prepared to go to university and, therefore, as part of their personal statement, as part of their interview, the activity that the young person has taken by means of the skills challenge certificate is definitely recognised, even by those who don’t actually make it part of their offer. So, we’re still on a journey—that graded qualification has only been taught for a couple of years, but the journey is taking us to the right place, towards the right destination. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, it isn’t just about variable admissions practices across universities; it is to deal with the skills challenge certificate as well, which needed changing in order to improve that. +Andrew Clark: But that was changed in September 2015. When it was a 'yes'/'no' qualification, I think they held it in less regard than they do now that it is a graded qualification. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that’s the conversation we had with some of our Russell Group universities. +Andrew Clark: And that was an important shift three years ago. +Hefin David AM: Okay. So, last question, then: are you absolutely confident that any concerns we are offering are nothing really to worry about? +Kirsty Williams AM: We will need to continue to communicate to all audiences the importance of this and the value of this qualification. But I am confident that the university sector, in its wide variety of forms, regards the Welsh baccalaureate qualification as a valuable endeavour for Welsh students to undertake, and they certainly don’t regard it as a detriment to students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Siân wants to come in on this, and then I've got a question from Suzy on Seren. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, just that the committee, of course, has been trying to gain evidence on this sector from the universities themselves, but Universities Wales, which represents the interests of universities in Wales, has rejected the committee's invitation to submit any oral or written evidence. So, can you see the dilemma we're in? We are hearing a few things coming from some universities, we hear what you're saying, but we can't get to the root of the matter because the universities themselves aren't willing to come to speak to us. Are you also disappointed that they have rejected our invitation to come and speak to us? +Hefin David AM: Where's the enthusiasm, Chair? Where's the enthusiasm? +Sian Gwenllian AM: And perhaps that's a sign that they don't want to be drawn into this argument between the Government and us as a committee. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it’s a matter for individual universities to decide whether they want to participate in the work of this committee. I would urge them to do so. All Welsh universities regard the Welsh baccalaureate as an equivalent to A-level, and all universities use it as part of their offer—Welsh universities. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but you see what our dilemma is, though, because if we can’t actually ask them directly, it's a bit difficult for us to actually probe this and to help move things on? Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's a matter for them, and maybe the Chair would like to take that up with Universities Wales. +Lynne Neagle AM: We have had quite an extensive dialogue with them about it. Suzy on Seren. +Suzy Davies AM: So, just briefly, you’ve said several times that having a Welsh bac qualification is an advantage and certainly no detriment, and that it’s valued by universities. But advantage isn't the same as equivalence, and we have had evidence from—I think it was Cardiff University, again, where they had students with two A-levels and a bac who were actually performing as weaker students. So, even though on the face of it you've got three A-levels, those particular students aren't matching up to the expectations of a student with three A-levels. I do want to challenge what you said about the students who are involved in the Seren network about the baccalaureate being accepted for things like veterinary medicine and medicine itself. We've had evidence from FE colleges, which are now significant players in producing our Seren-style students, if you like, that they are exempting their students from doing the bac because it's a distraction, effectively. What's your comment on that? Because if this is a question of communication, which I suspect you're about to tell me, one of the axioms of good communication is you can have the best marketing in the world, but if the product you're selling isn't highly valued then you're actually just doubling the problem. So, can you explain to me why FE is exempting their highest flyers from doing the bac? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think sometimes colleges make the decision that four or five A-levels is of an advantage, and therefore, if you're asking students to carry that workload, which is a considerable workload, that's the preferred route for more able and talented students. Again, what is quite clear in all the conversations that I have had with Russell Group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, is that this is a myth. What universities tell me they want is not necessarily students with four or five A-levels; they want students with three really exceptional grades at A-level and a Welsh baccalaureate. I think that's really, really an important message to get across—that it is not necessary to do four or five A-levels if you aspire to go to these Russell Group universities, or if you decide you want to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. As I said, in the conversations that we have had—and there is actually some research, and I will let the committee have links to the research. There is some research to suggest that those students who have been involved in project-based work—and, of course, that's not just the Welsh baccalaureate, that would be the EPQ, which is a qualification that is rapidly gaining traction in England. That is an extended project—research based—qualification, very similar to the individual project element of the Welsh baccalaureate. The EPQ in England is seen as a qualification taken by more able and talented students, and what we see in some of the research that is coming forward is that those students who have engaged in that type of work, project-based work, individual-led, research-based work—those skills are the skills that are really attuned to the nature of university-type work. Therefore, that is valued by universities and there is some indication to say that there is a correlation between the students who have undertaken that work and their potential success at undergraduate level. They also tell me that there is a link between, for instance, being able then to use those skills to gain work experience, placements and internships in the private sector and in the world of work, because, as I said, those types of skills are really, really valuable and therefore that's why they value the qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just add—? It's great that they're telling you, why aren't they telling FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think it's really important that FE colleges understand that there is a myth around the fact that these universities are looking for four or five A-levels, and if that's the reason why then colleges are not allowing students or dissuading students from taking the Welsh bac, I think we need to reflect on what's important to those universities—which is the right A-levels. I think it's really, really important that students are given the best advice about the A-levels they need to take, facilitating subjects to get into a university, and the value of the skills and knowledge they will acquire through the Welsh bac as an assistance to them going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thanks. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Actually, it's your set of questions next on universal adoption. +Suzy Davies AM: I'll try and keep this on the shorter side, if that's okay, everybody. You say in your evidence that you expect universal adoption, basically, by 2020, I think it is, or it might be 2019. What do you think universal adoption actually means? What does it look like? Does it mean 100 per cent adoption? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is means is that I expect all institutions to be in a position to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate. I believe it should be an entitlement to all Welsh students to be able to study this qualification, and I believe we should work to the situation where it becomes the norm to take the Welsh baccalaureate. I also recognise that in some individual cases, there may be very good reasons why perhaps this is not aligned to the well-being of that particular student. But when I talk about universal adoption, I expect all our institutions to be in a position to deliver the qualification, and I believe it should be an entitlement for Welsh students to be able to undertake this qualification. +Suzy Davies AM: But not an obligation—that's the bit I'm trying to get at. +Kirsty Williams AM: I think it should become the norm, and if there are exceptions to that, and there could well be for very legitimate reasons, I think that that flexibility should be allowed. But I think, for those students who are not doing that Welsh baccalaureate, there should be evidence as to why that decision has been taken. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay, so there's a presumption. I think the performance measures, probably, are likely to sharpen the minds of some school leaders, so I won't pursue that. But can you tell me what lesson you may have learnt from the universal obligation for students to study Welsh language in schools when those schools weren't particularly ready to offer a quality course? +Kirsty Williams AM: As we've rehearsed earlier, it is important that all of our schools and colleges are in a position to deliver this qualification well and deliver a really positive experience to learners. That's why there is existing support available, and via our new professional learning programmes there will be more support available for teachers to ensure that they have the skills and the confidence to deliver the qualification in a high-quality manner. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's going to take some time. Would you consider pausing the presumption of universal roll-out until you're absolutely sure that all institutions are able to offer the bac to the quality that you would like to see it delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: Not at this stage. I have no intention of pausing. We have evidence that schools are already delivering the qualification really well— +Suzy Davies AM: But you know that we've had evidence, and you must have as well, that not all schools are doing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: What we do know is that some schools struggle to deliver existing qualifications. I don't know why we would turn round and say that this qualification needs to be stopped when we wouldn't stop other qualifications, and we'd say, 'Well, there we are, we haven't got a 100 per cent guarantee that every single school is delivering this particular qualification especially well, therefore we're going to denude the opportunity of students to study that particular subject.' What we're saying is, 'There is a responsibility on us, on individual schools and on our regional consortia to endure that there is professional learning in place so that all schools are in a position to deliver the qualification well.' +Suzy Davies AM: Isn't it irresponsible to ask students to be obliged to take a qualification that's badly delivered? +Kirsty Williams AM: What is irresponsible is not to invest in professional learning to ensure that all schools are in a position to deliver it well. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, I agree with you on that, actually, which is why I was a bit confused when you had some in-year additional money in this year's budget that was being given out to consortia rather than to schools to improve the ability of their teachers to deliver the Welsh baccalaureate in certain schools. Can you tell me whether the money—I think it was about £5 million that was going to the consortia in-year—will you will offer them suggestions that that is used for improving baccalaureate teaching? +Kirsty Williams AM: The money that is available is going via consortia to schools. Individual schools are best placed to understand the professional learning needs of their staff. And if that school understands that they have particular professional learning needs for the Welsh baccalaureate, then I would expect the money to be spent on that. Where a school is doing the Welsh baccalaureate particularly well, then the school might identify other areas where they look to seek improvement. Therefore, it is for the individual school to assess the professional learning needs of their staff. We can't second-guess that, and therefore it has to be right that school leaders are able to plan the professional learning of their staff accordingly. +Suzy Davies AM: I completely accept that and, as I say, it's not for all schools, but bearing in mind we're facing evidence of polarisation of delivery, I'm just wondering whether there wasn't a letter suggesting that they may want to focus on this in the schools that aren't delivering this well at the moment. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, that's a conversation to be had between challenge advisors in our regional consortia who are aware of the strengths and weaknesses in individual schools, in conjunction with the leadership of those schools, to discuss how that professional learning money is best spent. There isn't a school that is fantastic at everything, nor is there a school that is not good at anything, if you know what I mean. There are strengths and weaknesses in all schools. It is for the regional consortia, via challenge advisers, and the headteacher, to have that conversation about what the professional learning needs are for that particular school, to ensure that all their teachers, across the length and breadth of the curriculum, are in a position to deliver good-quality lessons. But we can't second-guess that. +Kevin Palmer: Can I just make a further comment? I'll be this afternoon meeting with the regional consortia, Estyn, the universities, and the rest of what we call 'the middle tier' to discuss with them the configuration of a national curriculum for professional learning, premised on the priorities that are emerging from our current work with pioneer schools. And the shifts in pedagogy that you all know is found behind some of these issues, with the delivery of the Welsh bac, those shifts in pedagogy are right at the core of the national approach to professional learning—so, things like project-based learning, the kinds of things you talked about today, moving away from a spoon-feeding model, not just for the Welsh bac but actually right across the curriculum. The new curriculum requires us to move in these new directions. So, it's absolutely true to say that each individual school is different, each individual practitioner is different, but we must give the regions and the HEIs, as it were, a menu of things, and guidance around where there are clearly weaknesses in schools. Those weaknesses need to be addressed. +Suzy Davies AM: I accept that we're going forward towards Donaldson, and I'm sure that you will be getting questions on that at some time in the future. I'm more concerned about this bac that's been around for 10 years, and there's still, as far as we can tell from the evidence that we've had, poor delivery in some schools, where there's the prospect of obligation on the horizon. That was the thing that was worrying me. Anyway, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think the issue of the difference between entitlement and obligation is a very important one and is a concern to students. You were saying it's an entitlement, not an obligation, but we have had very clear evidence from colleges that some of them are making young people do it, and schools are making young people do it. So, what do you say to those schools that are insisting on their pupils doing the Welsh bac at post 16? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I hope that it becomes the norm that at post-16 level students take the Welsh baccalaureate, because I think it is of huge value. There may be circumstances that mean that the well-being of that student could be compromised by making them do this qualification. There could be a whole host of reasons why it is not suitable for a child to take this qualification, and therefore there has to be some flexibility in the system, and we have to trust in the professional leadership of our colleges and our headteachers to make that decision in the round, with the pupil and their parents, about what's in the best interests of those pupils. But I do think a situation where, perhaps, an entire cohort of students are suddenly deemed it's unsuitable for, I find that very hard to believe, but there could well be circumstances, for a whole host of reasons, where that particular qualification—. And we would not want to jeopardise the well-being of a student by forcing them to do a qualification that wasn't in their best interests, and we need to have the flexibility in the system to allow school leaders to make that decision, but they should also then be accountable for that decision. +Lynne Neagle AM: But do you recognise there's maybe a case for strengthening guidance, then, on this? Because, we've had teachers tell us that they have insisted on pupils doing this, and then the parents have rung Welsh Government, and they felt undermined, then. So, do you think there's a case for strengthening the guidance or clarifying what the position is to schools and colleges? +Kirsty Williams AM: Very happy to do that. As I said, from time to time, parents do indeed contact Welsh Government, and in that contact there is a whole variety of reasons why that parent feels the Welsh baccalaureate is not in the best interests of those children. Sometimes, that can go from the extreme of, 'I want my child to do five A-levels and I think that's in their best interest to get into Oxford and Cambridge'—I would argue that that is a myth, around the need to do that many A-levels—through to, 'Actually, my child has a range of learning needs, and actually this qualification isn't suited to them. Making them go out and do voluntary work in an organisation with people that don't understand their needs and they are unfamiliar with could jeopardise my child's ability and my child's well-being.' So, there's a whole range of reasons why sometimes people have concerns about the Welsh baccalaureate. Some of those are very legitimate concerns. Sometimes, they're based on information that, perhaps, isn't correct, or the myths around, 'I need to do five A-levels if I want to go to Cambridge'. Schools, then, have some flexibility. I'm aware of a case last year where a parent felt very concerned that the students were also having to study for entrance exams into Cambridge. A conversation was had with the school. They were able to allow the student extra time to study for that qualification and pick up their Welsh bac work later on in the academic year. So, they were able to be flexible in the delivery of that qualification. I'm very pleased to say that we've had correspondence from said parent to say that his son went on to do exceptionally well in his A-levels and his Welsh baccalaureate and gained his place at Cambridge University, and that's about having the flexibility, even at a school level, to be able to respond to the needs of individual students. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me on this, then. As you know, mental health and the emotional health of our children and young people is a very core issue for this committee, and Estyn have said that studying the skills challenge certificate alongside three or four A-levels is a significant factor in causing stress for some young people. How do you respond to that? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would be the first to acknowledge that studying A-levels can be a very stressful time. That's because students, rightly, regard those qualifications as high stakes and as having a profound effect on the opportunities for the rest of their lives. So, the mere fact of studying A-levels can be a really stressful time for students because they understand how important they are, and students want to do well and they want to be able to move on to the next stage, either of work or of university. We also know—and Estyn reflects this—that students are also often trying to combine that with part-time jobs. These students are of an age when they want to be out and about and earning some of their own money and being a bit more independent. So, that adds added pressure to them. So, undoubtedly, this is a stressful time in young people's lives and we need to ensure that there is support in school to support young people through this time to make sure that students are making the right choices in terms of their A-levels and the qualifications that they're doing so they're not having to do more because they're under the impression that, by doing more, that's going to make them more likely to succeed. What we know, actually, is it's about the quality of what you do rather than the entirety of what you do that's important to universities, and we need to make sure that students are getting really good information, advice and guidance and support at what is a challenging time in their lives, because, of course, it comes on top of working really hard for your GCSEs and then you have, the following year, AS-level examinations and A-level examinations after that. So, these are stressful times in children's lives and they realise the importance of these as high-stakes qualifications. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: This is about the wider impact of studying the Welsh bac on other curriculum subjects and education provision, and we've had representations in that it is causing some concerns. So, do you have any concerns about the effect that the Welsh bac may be having on wider education provisions, such as the narrowing of the curriculum at key stage 4? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. Obviously, schools are responsible for planning their local curriculum offer, and that needs to meet the needs of their learners, and it also needs to meet the needs of the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure 2009. So, there should be a wide variety of choices available. I believe that the skills challenge certificate actually does ensure that there is a broad curriculum and that children are exposed to different learning opportunities. And so, rather than narrowing it, I believe the Welsh bac helps us to make sure that there is an expansive curriculum, and that lots of different issues are explored in the skills challenge certificate that ensure not just academic skills are developed, but, actually, knowledge and skills of a wider range of subjects about you and your place in the world is available via this qualification. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, to what extent do you think that the Welsh bac should be give priority over other curriculum subjects? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I don't think it's—. It shouldn't be at the expense of other subjects. It should be part of that wide range of opportunities that are afforded to students, and I don't think it's more important or less important than other aspects of what we already ask schools to deliver. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: What about where we've taken representations that there's a lack of capacity in terms of all the extra pressures of studying the Welsh bac along with other qualifications? I went to a school in Bangor, and, again, as has been said here, it's very polarised, the evidence that we're taking—either some have found it very easy or some, including teachers, have found it extremely difficult to fit everything in, and they do believe that there is a lack of capacity there. +Kirsty Williams AM: And the onerous nature and the consequences of workload for teachers is acknowledged by the Qualifications Wales work and review into the qualification, and that is one of the things that we're looking to address so that the assessment arrangements and workload implications for teachers are not too onerous. And, if there is any element of duplication—students being asked to do things over and over—then that needs to be addressed as well, and that's why there is this review by the design group. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay, thanks. And then, how do you respond to concerns that learners are avoiding studying the Welsh bac— where they can, that is—by attending institutions in England or institutions that do not offer Welsh-medium provision? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's interesting, isn't it, about where children choose to study and whether they are motivated by the avoidance of the Welsh bac? People make decisions about where to study for a whole host of reasons, and it's difficult sometimes to quantify what those are. So, for instance, we often hear this along the border that, because—. The geography is not easy, but it can be relatively easy to go across into the English system and therefore you don't have to do this. Now, the reasons for that could be very variable. It could be about the nature of the offer. We know that, in some of our rural schools, the secondary sixth forms aren't able to offer a wide variety of A-levels, and perhaps, by going to a different institution, a larger institution across the way, then you can get that combination of the A-levels you want to do, which simply isn't possible if you do it in your home school. Or, we do have some consortia arrangements where A-levels are delivered across a wide variety of schools, which require students to travel. Some students don't want to do that; they don't want to do their A-levels in three different schools, but they'd rather go to an institution where they can do it all under one roof. And that means, sometimes, moving across the border or, in the area I live, children making the decision to go to Merthyr college, because its a lovely, beautiful new building, the facilities are absolutely fantastic and a wide variety of A-levels is available under one roof. We looked at, in particular, also, the perception of quality. So, if we take the example of King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, a school where, in the past, there have been, I think, within the community, some concerns about the quality of that school—whether it's regarded as a good school. And, from that particular location, you can quite easily get to Hereford college—a college that has a fantastic offer, does very, very well and has a beautiful building. What we do, if we look at the tracking of the students who have been retained in King Henry VIII, as that school has been on its improvement journey and has done better and better and better, the number of students that they are retaining into their sixth form has grown. So, the perception is, 'This is a good school, I'm going to get a good-quality experience here', and more and more students are choosing to stay in that school than perhaps make the decision to travel somewhere else. We also have to recognise that, for some students, staying in the sixth form isn't what they want to do; they want a different experience, they want to go to an FE college. They want a different experience. So, we have to take into consideration that students could be motivated by a wide variety of subjects, and there's no hard-and-fast evidence that it is avoidance of the bac that is the sole driver for some of these choices. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, on this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: The evidence that we've had from one of the teaching unions—robust and clear evidence—is that this is happening, that is, that young people are leaving Wales to go over the border to schools in England in order to avoid the Welsh bac. That's exactly what was said to us. But you don't accept that evidence. +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not saying that I don't accept it. I'm saying that I think there are a wide variety of reasons why students make decisions about where to study. I'm not aware of any comprehensive piece of work that has looked at those motivations, and I think there could be a whole host of reasons why children are deciding to move across the border. Perhaps the Welsh bac is an easy one to place that hook on, and that's easier to acknowledge, isn't it, than saying that perhaps students are making that choice for other reasons. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions, then, are on teacher learning from Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Actually, I've asked the question that I wanted to ask. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, you don't want to— +Suzy Davies AM: By all means you ask the others I had. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. You have referred to training already. The committee's got two concerns, really. One is about preparedness in ITE to teach the Welsh bac, so I don't know if you want to expand on how teachers are being skilled up at that level to deliver the Welsh bac effectively. +Kirsty Williams AM: In the accreditation process, which has not been without its pain, and some significant decisions made in that regard, the criteria for the ITE programmes note that, and I'm going to quote it: 'Teachers should be able to help children and young people to make links across their learning, bringing together different aspects to examine, for example, important topics such as citizenship, enterprise, financial capability and sustainability.' So, the prime driver for our ITE reforms, obviously, is the preparedness for 'Successful Futures', but in preparing our teachers to be in a position to successfully deliver that, those are also the pedagogical principles and that shift in pedagogy that we see aligned to the Welsh baccalaureate. So, it is actually a part of the accreditation process that the curriculum that the new ITE providers will have to deliver—ensuring that teachers have those skills and have that confidence to be able to deliver their teaching in a way that, as I said, ensures that we successfully deliver on Donaldson, but also on the same pedagogical principles that are needed for the successful delivery of the Welsh bac. +Suzy Davies AM: In the pre-Donaldson period, then, bearing in mind what you've just said, do you expect to see a surge in improvement on how the baccalaureate is taken up by those schools that are currently less keen on it? +Kirsty Williams AM: I hope that we will see increased numbers of students taking the qualification and an increase in the quality of that experience for young people. As we discussed earlier, we're not just waiting for the new graduates to come out of our ITE providers. There's a whole cohort of the workforce already out there. They should be given an equal opportunity to ensure that they have the skills to deliver on our curriculum reforms and our reform qualifications, and every time the previous Government has brought in a reformed qualification there have been specific resources made available to ensure that teachers are in a position to do that. So, when we changed to maths numeracy, a new qualification that was to be examined, there was specific resource made available for the professional learning for teachers to make sure that they were in a position to do that, and that's exactly the same as the offer that we have available for teachers who are delivering the Welsh bac. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And you've already said about continuing professional development, that this is going to be a core part of the CPD. Is there anything that you want to add on that? Is it going to be fully integrated into the professional learning offer? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. There is already—I don't want to make the impression that there's not already support available out there. There is already support out there via regional consortia for professional learning with regard to the Welsh baccalaureate. There is existing support available from the WJEC with regard to Welsh baccalaureate, and it will continue, as we drive forward our national approach to professional learning. And, increasingly, there are interesting ways in which we're supporting students, so I don't know if Members are aware of the new MOOC. The University of Bath, one of the Russell Group universities, delivered a MOOC for the extended project qualification in England. +Lynne Neagle AM: What's a MOOC? [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: So, it is an online—a massive open online course. So, it's a course that is delivered free of charge, and it's delivered by information technology. So, the University of Bath have done this MOOC to support students with the EPQ. They have just launched, in conjunction with Aberystwyth University, a bilingual MOOC for the individual project for Welsh bac. It's our understanding it is the first ever Welsh-medium MOOC, we think; we're not aware of any others. And this resource is there for students to give them advice on how they do choose the thesis for their individual project: how do you go about, then, undertaking good independent research; how do you reference properly, to ensure that you do that correctly? And we've seen over 1,000 students already sign up for the MOOC. So, increasingly, there are lots and lots of new resources out there for both teachers and students to make the most of. And the fact that Bath and Aberystwyth have worked together on this, I believe, shows their commitment and a demonstration of their support for this qualification, otherwise why would the University of Bath bother, if they weren't interested in it? +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Just one final question from me. I've written to you about a young constituent who moved institutions and resat the Welsh bac, but wasn't able, because of the WJEC policy, to obtain a higher grade in it, because they've got a policy that the grade is capped when you resit it. Given what the committee's been told about the variability in the way this is taught in institutions in Wales, do you think it's fair that young people shouldn't be able to go and resit it somewhere else and get a better grade? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, given that Welsh Ministers are independent of the qualification system, I would want to be careful about what I said, because it is for the WJEC and Qualifications Wales to regulate this. But, clearly, we would want to reflect on making sure that students have an opportunity, and a fair opportunity. Andrew, I don't know if you've got any observations that you'd like to make. +Andrew Clark: No, not really. I think it's an individual case, this one— +Lynne Neagle AM: But it could apply to lots of young people, couldn't it? I mean, that's the point here. I know it's a constituent's case and I don't normally raise those in the Chair, but I think, given what we've learned about variability, it is a valid issue for young people in Wales, really. +Andrew Clark: Yes, whether it's particularly related to the Welsh baccalaureate, though, I'm not so certain. And I think that would be a better question to ask the WJEC, perhaps, and Qualifications Wales, because it's a deliberate act that that activity is at arm's length from Welsh Ministers. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and her officials for attending? We've had a very useful discussion this morning, which will inform our report on this. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, but thank you again for your attendance. +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Llywydd to the First Minister on the role of the Assembly in the process of legislating for Brexit. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning with additional information following the meeting on 8 November. Are Members happy to note those? +Suzy Davies AM: Can I just make a comment on the first of those letters, the one from the Llywydd? I recommend to Assembly Members that they read that again if they can, because, actually, it's an important issue that is easily lost in the other things that we talk about with Brexit, and that is the role of this Assembly in scrutinising secondary legislation falling out of Brexit. +Hefin David AM: Can I ask a question? Was that a reflection of all the Chairs? +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes. It came to the panel of Chairs— +Hefin David AM: And it was obviously unanimous— +Lynne Neagle AM: —and we agreed that we wanted that letter sent. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4 is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Okay. +","In summary, the Children, Young People and Education Committee held a session where they discussed the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification with various stakeholders, including Cabinet Secretary for Education Kirsty Williams AM. The discussion focused on the value, impact, and perception of the Welsh bac among learners, teachers, employers, and universities. There was dialogue about the differences in how institutions delivered the bac, concerns about workload and well-being of students, and the variable ways in which universities consider the Welsh bac for admissions. The Committee expressed the need for consistency in the delivery of the Welsh bac and raised issues about the readiness of teachers and institutions to effectively deliver the qualification. There were also mentions of additional resources and support being provided for professional learning regarding the Welsh bac implementation, as well as discussing the broader implications of the requirement for students to study the Welsh bac on educational provision and curriculum choices. The committee looked forward to improvements in delivery as reforms in initial teacher education progress. There was also recognition of the need for flexibility in cases where the well-being of a student might be compromised and discussion around the Welsh Government and WJEC policies on resits and grading for the qualification. Finally, the committee noted certain documents, including a letter from the Llywydd concerning the role of the Assembly in Brexit legislation, and committee members were encouraged to take note of this important issue." diff --git a/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_val.csv b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_val.csv new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5a5283 --- /dev/null +++ b/tiny_titans/qmsum_synthetic/qmsum_i_val.csv @@ -0,0 +1,61731 @@ +input,output +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All set ? Okay . Cool . Right . So um basically I'm just gonna go over real quickly um some news I've just got from the board on how we're supposed to do with this um {vocalsound} remote control . And then I'm gonna turn over to you guys to make brief presentations um on what you've found and then we'll have a bit of discussion . So basically uh what I've just found out from the board I dunno if you guys got this email as well but it needs to be television only . So no {disfmarker} we're not doing D_V_D_ , we're not doing anything else , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: it's just gonna be a television remote . {vocalsound} Um it also needs to have the company colours included in it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so that's red and black . And it has to have the slogan , case you guys forget the slogan it's , we put fashion in electronics . Um and no teletext . I'm not sure what teletext is but I'm assuming you guys do , so we don't wanna include that um in this particular design . {vocalsound} For reasons that I don't really know . There's {disfmarker} but it's the board so there you go . So basically um given those guidelines which will have some effect on how we design we'll discuss it later I mean 'cause it's television only we'll be able to change our uh {vocalsound} um well we can s sacrifice more function for a better television remote . {vocalsound} Anyway . So I'm gonna turn over to the Industrial Designer uh to go ahead and make a presentation on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . So do I unplug this bit here ? +Project Manager: Oh , right yeah . +Marketing: Gotta plug you in . +Project Manager: Yep . Might have to hit function F_ eight but it looks like it's gonna come up . Yep . Cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Right . That's page one of my presentation . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Very nice . For your first PowerPoint it's lovely . +Industrial Designer: So the uh method . We're gonna have to understand how remote controls work and res uh successfully complete this project . Um remote control works as follows . This is all pretty basic stuff you guys . Um sends message to another system , so there's an energy source involved in that like a battery or solar power , something along those lines , there's an integrated circuit , which is the microchip , um and that actually compose the messages and usually the way a a remote control works is it sends infrared bits to another system . A user interface controls the chip , basically that's the casing and the buttons and um accordingly the messages as well . So my findings , um I just did a preliminary study here and uh I found that too much metal in remote design could potentially cause interference with the ability of the remote to send commands . And too much metal can cause remotes to behave unexpectedly by receiving false signals . Um too much metal is used sometimes and people pick up radio signals and the like , and there's also the possibility of the remote catching on fire and injuring the customer , just think of those lawsuits , that'd be really bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Therefore I suggest primarily plastic construction . Um , components . Just some ideas that I had , um , energy source , it's kinda hip to be eco friendly so I thought maybe we could do something with solar power with an alkaline battery backup . Um the user interface , I was {disfmarker} since we can't use metal I was thinking maybe a high grade recycled plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The chip , um , silicon based chip I don't really see any way around that , we can't really be different in that respect . Um , the sender well I'm thinking infrared 'cause it is the industry standard , multi channel , that's a word I made up , I don't really know what it means . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Fair enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh PAL and N_T_S_C_ compatible and uh probably a two hundred foot range . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and the receiver of course is any number of electronic devices . Um but in this case it'll only be T_V_s . Um personal preferences , I really think that we should use plastic as opposed to metal , um , the company simply can't afford this kinds of lawsuits +Marketing: Fine . +Industrial Designer: which adm admittedly is gonna come at the cost of a certain aesthetic value , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is is there a way that we can use um modern types of polymers , or mo modern types of plastics +Industrial Designer: 'cause we were thinking {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that maybe do have some kind of aesthetic value um like if a white {disfmarker} like if we talk about like well like on the lapt on these laptops and other ones they use a a pretty nice , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: It needs , yeah . +Project Manager: you can do i is there some kind of nice colo der quality plastic that we can work with ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that shouldn't be a problem . Um for example the plastic they have on your laptop there is something that's perfectly possible for us to do . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Great . Thank you very much Nathan . {vocalsound} Um if next we can have the um User Interface Developer go ahead and make a brief presentation that'd be great as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S plug yourself in here . Mm . {vocalsound} Um hit function F_ eight real quickly , hold down {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Looks like you're in okay . +Industrial Designer: Is it plugged in well ? There it goes . Computer adjusting . +User Interface: Th +Project Manager: There you go . Sweet . +Marketing: There you go . +User Interface: Well so . Here we have a uh my technical functions design presentation . Um so a few of the requirements we need here . Uh we n basically need to operate an electronic device , it needs to be universal um and possibly uh operate several different types of devices although we now uh find that uh that that's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah sorry I couldn't get that g to use before . +User Interface: Um so some of my findings . Um basically wanna send messages uh to a television set . Um that would be any number of different things uh such as switch on the television , uh switch to the next channel , that sort of thing , I think we're all quite uh quite uh intelligent and know know what a normal remote control does . Um {vocalsound} now some of the other things I found is a a complicated remote control sorry that we can't quite see my red there very well +Project Manager: Oh yeah look at that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh this remote control has many functions um so it can do a lot of things but it uh it is quite complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and most users will find it uh find that they won't use most of the functions because they don't know how to use them and don't wanna take the time to learn how to do it . As you also notice it's quite a boring design . Um . Another remote control , slightly different , it's a simpler remote control uh many less buttons but uh has many fewer functions , um m much easier for the user to manipulate and use . Um it also has a bit of a cheap look and it's also quite boring . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: my personal preferences . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Revolutionise the idea of uh a remote control . Um so attain the functionality of a complicated device but use a simple formatted display uh for the user to to work with . And I was gonna add another uh slide here but I didn't quite have time there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Um . Just incorporating some of the ideas that we had previously like uh having multiple face but it's uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . Thanks for that Ron . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay +Marketing: Does that mean I'm up ? +Project Manager: yep that's you . +Marketing: I think so . Okay . +User Interface: I can plug you in . +Marketing: Oh that would be perfect . Thank you . Slide show up and running . +Project Manager: Give it a little bit . +Marketing: Or not . Uh . Oh there we go . Perfect . Okay . So this is me . Um basically I was looking through some marketing reports that we've got and we had a usability test where we were actually sort {disfmarker} like watching a hundred people {vocalsound} use T_V_ remotes and see what it is that they're using and then they filled out a questionnaire about what they like and what they don't about their general T_V_ remote control practices . Um pretty much through testing we were finding out that most of the time , everybody's used to using changing the channel , turning it on , using the volume , m the majority of the time that's all that's going on , the other functions happen , for some people they're important , but the primary uses are really really basic . Um and so big complicated remotes like one we saw in the last presentation are really not the general public's use , they're not using a lot of it , they don't need it , they even find it frustrating when there are all those buttons that they don't know what to do with . {vocalsound} And um we also found out that uh fifty percent of our people , their {disfmarker} the worst thing about a remote is how often they lose it . And then they can't find it in the room . So I think what we were talking about with a pager or something , will really come into play with a lot of these people . {vocalsound} Um there's also a survey about what they liked about remotes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and pretty much they all think they're hideous and not very useful , and the younger demographics are all really interested in voice recognition options . I don't know if that's something we're ready to look into technically , that's up to the design people , but it is s something worth thinking about , especially since the younger demographic's obviously the one that's gonna keep growing , so if that's the direction we're headed in it's something to think about . Um but basically it really is the primary functions and getting it to look nice , which are the standards . {vocalsound} So it's a good start for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's great . Thank you Sarah . Right . So um +Marketing: Need to unplug this ? +Project Manager: yep I'll just uh switch that back here . +Marketing: Need it back . +Project Manager: I'll finish up with just a bit of discussion plan on for the next phase . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right so I think we've covered most of these important questions through this um {vocalsound} through you guys's presentations um {vocalsound} we've got uh y the Industrial Designer suggests uh or pretty much emphatically suggested that we need to go with plastic . {vocalsound} Um Sarah , she's recommended that we go for simpler functions , so fewer functions um but we need to decide who are we selling this to , you s your stats suggested that seventy five percent of people under thirty five wanted , thought about voice control , +Marketing: Oh right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so do we wanna go for that , or do we want to go for an older demographic , and my thought is {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} we've got w if we're gonna go for a sleek look I mean we are putting the fashion in electronics {vocalsound} um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We're not catering to the pensioners of the world I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So maybe this {disfmarker} we should look into this younger demographic . Um . So +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh we need to wonder ah h about how we make it better and smaller and faster um think we're constrained to plastics very well , we've got this idea , Ron was saying we need to think about uh revolutionising the way it's looking um , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: which might be easier given that we're going for simpler function and that we're only going for a telly . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so um . How {disfmarker} th this voice operation thing is {disfmarker} I think is a good idea um assuming that it's doable , um at least for the basic controls , maybe we can balance it that way , you know we can see . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay you can't say record alias tonight at seven P_M_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we might be able to say um {vocalsound} volume up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . I think it would be possible to uh combine the locator device and the voice recognition technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . That could work . I like that . +Industrial Designer: With a simple command like locate . And then it could start to beep +Marketing: Yeah . Something very basic . +Industrial Designer: and +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: therefore be found . +User Interface: Sounds good . +Marketing: Is that only gonna be within our two hundred foot range then ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah I think that's very doable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The difficulty wh would be in um I think like i you couldn't speak into the remote that you're trying to find . 'Kay you have something that picks up a voice from far away {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a good point . +Project Manager: If it's hidden under the couch {disfmarker} but then again you have this wee {disfmarker} this wee thing you know that's just a little chip or whatever that has the page button , maybe that could be voice activated too . +User Interface: A little sticky pad to stick on top of your uh television . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And you just say something to {disfmarker} into that +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: finds your {disfmarker} +Marketing: K {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or an isolated magnet or something like , or you know something that wouldn't interfere I don't know that'd be the technical thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} yeah I like that , I like that , the voice recognition for the paging system . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other thing is we might be able to handle the simplicity of a remote control and kind of put the more complicated things into a voice control . So it could be sold to both the younger market and the older market . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: And the younger market could use kind of the voi voice control method and the older market might might k +Marketing: Making it just an option ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: exactly and might consider the older market could use the simpler design with the traditional buttons and what not . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Are we still thinking about this screen {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh go ahead . +Marketing: Go ahead . The uh if we're gonna do this touch pad screen thing , it would be still , do we know if that's an option technically right now to that ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'S definitely an option technically . I've looked into uh costs of uh touch screen methods and what not , +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: they seem to be uh you know almost as cheap as a button method at this point . +Marketing: We're doing okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it seems like an interesting option especially because then you could have like your primary screen just be these you know four or five basic functions , you can have +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: menu options or something to have all these other complicated voice recognition , settings , things that you're not gonna use every day and that a lot of people aren't gonna use but it is an option there for this hi-tech market that sort of re is the sleek thing we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Gotta wonder though , if we're adding so much technology to this one remote , are we still gonna be able to meet out twelve pou our twelve fifty Euro you know goal for selling these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: True . Worth looking into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It seems like , we're not gonna be able to handle all these functions with just one microchip . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The microchip is probably the most expensive part of the the whole mechanism . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just something to consider . +Project Manager: Absolutely . Mm 'kay um well yeah I guess we'll cross that bridge um in a la slightly later stages of development um but yeah I know , that's perfectly viable question . Mm 'kay um so I'm seeing that we're gonna just basically focus on this young demographic group , aim it at them , but then in a sense that its bells and whistles are available for anybody who wants them but basically we'll make a sleek simple functioned um uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I think this voice recognition thing is a we've got a market for it uh I don't think there's too many , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: we'd more or less be cornering the market on it as well , we don't have many um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I appear to have lost my microphone . Mm . {vocalsound} Right um we don't have many people {vocalsound} or there's not very many competitors out there that do that so cool . Um right . I guess we've c we've touched on most of this . The idea of a paging function , a touch screen , and face plates . Um . The thing with {disfmarker} I see {vocalsound} would there not be a {vocalsound} we'd have to maybe sacrifice the face plates for a touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not sure that's sincerely correct , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think if you kind of take the example of a mobile phone that uh trying to pass a portion of the device is not interchangeable whereas the surrounding portions are interchangeable . +Marketing: Mm . Just the casing . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We could have the casing , the the face plates . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Back to the uh the cost {disfmarker} the material . {vocalsound} We have to ask whether we're going to include a certain number of face plates with the package ? That's something I w for {disfmarker} say we're including three or four face plates , it's gonna drive the cost up . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the other question is , if we do include them are we really in a position to evaluate that market ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We haven't done any tests on face plates and whether {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See if there {disfmarker} if there's even interest out there . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Off the top of my head it sounds kind of like a gimmick that wouldn't really go anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause then ha you would have to {disfmarker} who all +Marketing: Mm . Right . +Project Manager: it's not like with cell phones like where you have a {disfmarker} you know Nokia model X_ and then ten people make face plates for it , we'd be just our model of pho of t remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well in the publicity of a face plate on a phone is you have it out and around , it is sort of emblematic whereas you're just sit at home , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so unless somebody comes over to watch T_V_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well hopefully some people have people coming t over to w to hang out at your house +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . True . True . +User Interface: and most people have their televisions in the living room . Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright well we can {disfmarker} we can discuss that one further when we think about um whether th when we do costs and so forth , um . +Marketing: Yeah . Oh yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} True , if plastic is dead cheap and if we're making the whole thing out of plastic anyway um {vocalsound} yeah we'll cross that bridge later um but yeah we will have to evaluate what's most important . Um I think we've had a bit of discussion already on this thing , n s there any other questions comments that came up in these presentations ? +User Interface: Well have we confirmed that we're gonna go ahead with a uh touch screen um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think that would be best . Let's based on what sh on what you guys have all said to me let's go for a plastic built or uh b plastic cased 'cause tha tha that's easy on the cost , try to look for some kind of high quality recycled plastic as you recommended and I think that's a great idea . With a touch screen for the basic functions . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} And we'll yeah tha let's provisionally {disfmarker} let's go for a touch screen one with several submenus um for possible extra stuff that one basically put the channel and the on and off switch on the touch screen . Um do we have {disfmarker} Mm wait a minute it occurs to me that if we have a touch screen people are going to have to recharge their remote controls . {vocalsound} Yet at the same time that might help for this whole complaint of it being lost . +Marketing: True . 'Cause it would have a docking base ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But then again that costs as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So these new lithium batteries they last twenty years {vocalsound} even with the touch screen ? +Project Manager: Do they ? Okay . +User Interface: Those new ones . +Industrial Designer: Can we afford to include one of those ? +Marketing: Can we afford that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And will somebody buy it if we don't ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I don't think yeah I can't see anybody buying a lap a remote control that they have to plug in so we'd have to see some kind of new battery technology . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so let's go with a um touch screen {vocalsound} with um some kind of {disfmarker} you know with with some kind of cutting edge battery technology {disfmarker} +Marketing: For twelve Euros ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well hey you know well it's it's worth looking into , if not we can always default to just doing a a well presented plastic simple +Marketing: It is . Fair enough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know so {disfmarker} you know . Well yeah I mean +Marketing: The basics . +Project Manager: you can put the {disfmarker} we could I I dunno I mean I suppose we could put the the basics on the centre easiest you know , you know people know the channel and volume function make them large and easy to get at and then the the other the other bits and bobs you know go through menu um w we'll do the aesthetics . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so we'll {gap} touch screen and the battery , focus on um {vocalsound} uh presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} it's th uh with this voice recognition option as well um just as for the simple functions the um the on off , channels , volume , um +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and um a small paging function . Even if you can't do voice recognition for the paging you know just some kind of simple button that's just a I guess another infrared signal to the remote control and while {disfmarker} to emit some kind of paging . Just a beep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um right so any comments ? Thoughts before we break into {disfmarker} go into the next round of individual work on this . +Industrial Designer: Since we're doing uh touch screen , do we wanna look into the possibility of people being able to input different types of skins for the you know the actual interface part of it and things like that ? Or is it just gonna be one touch screen for everybody . +User Interface: Be interesting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What what would be on that touch screen ? 'Cause you said earlier that we have to think about company colours and um +Marketing: {vocalsound} And {gap} oh . +Industrial Designer: logo or something or motto , I can't remember exactly what you said . +Marketing: Yeah the {vocalsound} the fashion +User Interface: We put fashion into electronics . +Marketing: do . Yeah . +Project Manager: W it's my understanding that if you were going to do a skin you'd need to have some way for people to download or import skins into the remote control . +Marketing: Right , and then you're dealing with ports and cords and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I think perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S too much . +Project Manager: good idea but yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that that one m might just be um and they just {disfmarker} yeah I think that one might just be out of the range for this particular {disfmarker} +Marketing: For now . +Project Manager: a P_D_A_ would {disfmarker} they would {disfmarker} makes a lot of sense for a P_D_A_ 'cause you're gonna be using it to connect up to things anyway but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: Think we just need to come up with a nice black and red interface on the touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Nice . +Industrial Designer: That'd be okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh I I'm I'm in agreement with that , I'm wondering how we're gonna get uh we put fashion into electronics onto this device . +Marketing: Um . Well but if we're gonna use a touch screen where it's gonna come on like on your cell phone it'll have your your carrier provider name come up first like while it's loading +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and then it goes away , perhaps it could be like a temporary {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Comes on every time you turn it on and then that's it 'cause it is a bit much to have it like engraved on the back or something I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . True . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm hoping for a subliminal maybe half a millisecond as it turns on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I know I d it seems like it would suffice to have just the R_R_ on there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Jus +Marketing: Yeah you would think . +Project Manager: But apparently not . +Marketing: But . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: People aren't gonna want their remote to boot up and to see flashing things come on . +Marketing: If it comes from above . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They just want it to be on and ready to go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well fair enough . Um and yeah that would help the battery life too and if it {disfmarker} the remote they do have to press a button for the remote to turn on . But then again who wants to turn on a remote control . Kind of if i +User Interface: Well all you have to do is touch the screen and it automatically goes on . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: to wake up okay or go into like a dormant mode . +User Interface: Yep . Goes into a sleep mode . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah I like that I like the idea of um putting the logo in the boot up screen , nice . Um . Um cool so any last things before we break ? Alright . Fair enough . Sounds good . +Marketing: We're good ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna save th a copy of this in case you guys need any reminders . I'm gonna save a copy of this and the minutes that I'll do it in a second and put them in the shared folder for later reference . +User Interface: I've put my files in the shared folder as well . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's fab guys . Cool . +","The meeting begins with the Project Manager addressing a gathering of the project team, setting the stage for a detailed discussion about the development of a new television remote control. The team's composition includes a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a Marketing Specialist, and a User Interface Developer. + +The Project Manager informs the team about directives from the company's board. It has been decided that the remote will be exclusively for televisions, scrapping any plans for DVD functionality. Further stipulations include the incorporation of company colors, red and black, and the company's slogan, ""We put fashion in electronics."" Moreover, the Product Manager conveys the board's decision to exclude teletext features from the remote, without offering an explicit rationale. + +As the meeting progresses, each team member has the opportunity to present findings and offer suggestions pertinent to their area of expertise. + +The Industrial Designer recommends a primarily plastic construction to circumvent potential issues associated with metal, such as signal interference, safety hazards, and legal complications. The Designer also proposes eco-friendly energy sources like solar power with battery backup and emphasizes the inclusion of an energy-efficient, silicon-based microchip and an infrared signal sender for the remote. + +During the Marketing Specialist’s presentation, findings from usability tests reveal consumers primarily use basic functions like changing the channel and adjusting volume. The study also indicates a high incidence of users misplacing their remotes. As a result, the Marketing Specialist contemplates including a paging system to help users locate the remote when lost. Additionally, they mention a growing interest among the younger demographic for voice recognition technologies in remote controls. + +The User Interface Developer contributes by citing the importance of striking a balance between functionality and simplicity. They suggest designing a remote that maintains essential functionalities in an uncomplicated format, which could appeal to both older and younger users. + +Throughout the meeting, the Project Manager facilitates and steers the discussions toward convergence on several critical decisions regarding the remote's design and functionality. The team agrees on developing a remote targeting a younger demographic with a stylish and sleek, yet simple and functional design, possibly with voice recognition for basic commands and a paging feature for easy location of the remote. + +In the latter half of the meeting, the team debates technological feasibilities, cost implications, and aesthetic considerations of touch screens, advanced battery technology, interchangeable faceplates, and the possibility of downloadable interface skins. The discussion underscores the necessity to maintain a balance between innovative features and affordability. + +Towards the end, the Project Manager summarizes the decisions, emphasizing a focus on the young adult market while accommodating the possibility for additional features accessible through submenus. The remote will be fashioned from high-quality, recycled plastic with a touchscreen interface for basic functions, and the team will explore voice activation and paging functionality. The integration of the company slogan into the remote's startup screen is also considered. + +The meeting concludes with a resolution to reconvene after individuals conduct further research and development within their domains. The Project Manager assures that a summary of the meeting's minutes, along with all presentations, will be saved in a shared folder for future reference, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and documentation in this multifaceted project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All set ? Okay . Cool . Right . So um basically I'm just gonna go over real quickly um some news I've just got from the board on how we're supposed to do with this um {vocalsound} remote control . And then I'm gonna turn over to you guys to make brief presentations um on what you've found and then we'll have a bit of discussion . So basically uh what I've just found out from the board I dunno if you guys got this email as well but it needs to be television only . So no {disfmarker} we're not doing D_V_D_ , we're not doing anything else , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: it's just gonna be a television remote . {vocalsound} Um it also needs to have the company colours included in it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so that's red and black . And it has to have the slogan , case you guys forget the slogan it's , we put fashion in electronics . Um and no teletext . I'm not sure what teletext is but I'm assuming you guys do , so we don't wanna include that um in this particular design . {vocalsound} For reasons that I don't really know . There's {disfmarker} but it's the board so there you go . So basically um given those guidelines which will have some effect on how we design we'll discuss it later I mean 'cause it's television only we'll be able to change our uh {vocalsound} um well we can s sacrifice more function for a better television remote . {vocalsound} Anyway . So I'm gonna turn over to the Industrial Designer uh to go ahead and make a presentation on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . So do I unplug this bit here ? +Project Manager: Oh , right yeah . +Marketing: Gotta plug you in . +Project Manager: Yep . Might have to hit function F_ eight but it looks like it's gonna come up . Yep . Cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Right . That's page one of my presentation . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Very nice . For your first PowerPoint it's lovely . +Industrial Designer: So the uh method . We're gonna have to understand how remote controls work and res uh successfully complete this project . Um remote control works as follows . This is all pretty basic stuff you guys . Um sends message to another system , so there's an energy source involved in that like a battery or solar power , something along those lines , there's an integrated circuit , which is the microchip , um and that actually compose the messages and usually the way a a remote control works is it sends infrared bits to another system . A user interface controls the chip , basically that's the casing and the buttons and um accordingly the messages as well . So my findings , um I just did a preliminary study here and uh I found that too much metal in remote design could potentially cause interference with the ability of the remote to send commands . And too much metal can cause remotes to behave unexpectedly by receiving false signals . Um too much metal is used sometimes and people pick up radio signals and the like , and there's also the possibility of the remote catching on fire and injuring the customer , just think of those lawsuits , that'd be really bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Therefore I suggest primarily plastic construction . Um , components . Just some ideas that I had , um , energy source , it's kinda hip to be eco friendly so I thought maybe we could do something with solar power with an alkaline battery backup . Um the user interface , I was {disfmarker} since we can't use metal I was thinking maybe a high grade recycled plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The chip , um , silicon based chip I don't really see any way around that , we can't really be different in that respect . Um , the sender well I'm thinking infrared 'cause it is the industry standard , multi channel , that's a word I made up , I don't really know what it means . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Fair enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh PAL and N_T_S_C_ compatible and uh probably a two hundred foot range . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and the receiver of course is any number of electronic devices . Um but in this case it'll only be T_V_s . Um personal preferences , I really think that we should use plastic as opposed to metal , um , the company simply can't afford this kinds of lawsuits +Marketing: Fine . +Industrial Designer: which adm admittedly is gonna come at the cost of a certain aesthetic value , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is is there a way that we can use um modern types of polymers , or mo modern types of plastics +Industrial Designer: 'cause we were thinking {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that maybe do have some kind of aesthetic value um like if a white {disfmarker} like if we talk about like well like on the lapt on these laptops and other ones they use a a pretty nice , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: It needs , yeah . +Project Manager: you can do i is there some kind of nice colo der quality plastic that we can work with ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that shouldn't be a problem . Um for example the plastic they have on your laptop there is something that's perfectly possible for us to do . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Great . Thank you very much Nathan . {vocalsound} Um if next we can have the um User Interface Developer go ahead and make a brief presentation that'd be great as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S plug yourself in here . Mm . {vocalsound} Um hit function F_ eight real quickly , hold down {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Looks like you're in okay . +Industrial Designer: Is it plugged in well ? There it goes . Computer adjusting . +User Interface: Th +Project Manager: There you go . Sweet . +Marketing: There you go . +User Interface: Well so . Here we have a uh my technical functions design presentation . Um so a few of the requirements we need here . Uh we n basically need to operate an electronic device , it needs to be universal um and possibly uh operate several different types of devices although we now uh find that uh that that's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah sorry I couldn't get that g to use before . +User Interface: Um so some of my findings . Um basically wanna send messages uh to a television set . Um that would be any number of different things uh such as switch on the television , uh switch to the next channel , that sort of thing , I think we're all quite uh quite uh intelligent and know know what a normal remote control does . Um {vocalsound} now some of the other things I found is a a complicated remote control sorry that we can't quite see my red there very well +Project Manager: Oh yeah look at that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh this remote control has many functions um so it can do a lot of things but it uh it is quite complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and most users will find it uh find that they won't use most of the functions because they don't know how to use them and don't wanna take the time to learn how to do it . As you also notice it's quite a boring design . Um . Another remote control , slightly different , it's a simpler remote control uh many less buttons but uh has many fewer functions , um m much easier for the user to manipulate and use . Um it also has a bit of a cheap look and it's also quite boring . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: my personal preferences . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Revolutionise the idea of uh a remote control . Um so attain the functionality of a complicated device but use a simple formatted display uh for the user to to work with . And I was gonna add another uh slide here but I didn't quite have time there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Um . Just incorporating some of the ideas that we had previously like uh having multiple face but it's uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . Thanks for that Ron . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay +Marketing: Does that mean I'm up ? +Project Manager: yep that's you . +Marketing: I think so . Okay . +User Interface: I can plug you in . +Marketing: Oh that would be perfect . Thank you . Slide show up and running . +Project Manager: Give it a little bit . +Marketing: Or not . Uh . Oh there we go . Perfect . Okay . So this is me . Um basically I was looking through some marketing reports that we've got and we had a usability test where we were actually sort {disfmarker} like watching a hundred people {vocalsound} use T_V_ remotes and see what it is that they're using and then they filled out a questionnaire about what they like and what they don't about their general T_V_ remote control practices . Um pretty much through testing we were finding out that most of the time , everybody's used to using changing the channel , turning it on , using the volume , m the majority of the time that's all that's going on , the other functions happen , for some people they're important , but the primary uses are really really basic . Um and so big complicated remotes like one we saw in the last presentation are really not the general public's use , they're not using a lot of it , they don't need it , they even find it frustrating when there are all those buttons that they don't know what to do with . {vocalsound} And um we also found out that uh fifty percent of our people , their {disfmarker} the worst thing about a remote is how often they lose it . And then they can't find it in the room . So I think what we were talking about with a pager or something , will really come into play with a lot of these people . {vocalsound} Um there's also a survey about what they liked about remotes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and pretty much they all think they're hideous and not very useful , and the younger demographics are all really interested in voice recognition options . I don't know if that's something we're ready to look into technically , that's up to the design people , but it is s something worth thinking about , especially since the younger demographic's obviously the one that's gonna keep growing , so if that's the direction we're headed in it's something to think about . Um but basically it really is the primary functions and getting it to look nice , which are the standards . {vocalsound} So it's a good start for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's great . Thank you Sarah . Right . So um +Marketing: Need to unplug this ? +Project Manager: yep I'll just uh switch that back here . +Marketing: Need it back . +Project Manager: I'll finish up with just a bit of discussion plan on for the next phase . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right so I think we've covered most of these important questions through this um {vocalsound} through you guys's presentations um {vocalsound} we've got uh y the Industrial Designer suggests uh or pretty much emphatically suggested that we need to go with plastic . {vocalsound} Um Sarah , she's recommended that we go for simpler functions , so fewer functions um but we need to decide who are we selling this to , you s your stats suggested that seventy five percent of people under thirty five wanted , thought about voice control , +Marketing: Oh right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so do we wanna go for that , or do we want to go for an older demographic , and my thought is {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} we've got w if we're gonna go for a sleek look I mean we are putting the fashion in electronics {vocalsound} um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We're not catering to the pensioners of the world I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So maybe this {disfmarker} we should look into this younger demographic . Um . So +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh we need to wonder ah h about how we make it better and smaller and faster um think we're constrained to plastics very well , we've got this idea , Ron was saying we need to think about uh revolutionising the way it's looking um , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: which might be easier given that we're going for simpler function and that we're only going for a telly . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so um . How {disfmarker} th this voice operation thing is {disfmarker} I think is a good idea um assuming that it's doable , um at least for the basic controls , maybe we can balance it that way , you know we can see . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay you can't say record alias tonight at seven P_M_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we might be able to say um {vocalsound} volume up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . I think it would be possible to uh combine the locator device and the voice recognition technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . That could work . I like that . +Industrial Designer: With a simple command like locate . And then it could start to beep +Marketing: Yeah . Something very basic . +Industrial Designer: and +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: therefore be found . +User Interface: Sounds good . +Marketing: Is that only gonna be within our two hundred foot range then ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah I think that's very doable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The difficulty wh would be in um I think like i you couldn't speak into the remote that you're trying to find . 'Kay you have something that picks up a voice from far away {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a good point . +Project Manager: If it's hidden under the couch {disfmarker} but then again you have this wee {disfmarker} this wee thing you know that's just a little chip or whatever that has the page button , maybe that could be voice activated too . +User Interface: A little sticky pad to stick on top of your uh television . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And you just say something to {disfmarker} into that +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: finds your {disfmarker} +Marketing: K {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or an isolated magnet or something like , or you know something that wouldn't interfere I don't know that'd be the technical thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} yeah I like that , I like that , the voice recognition for the paging system . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other thing is we might be able to handle the simplicity of a remote control and kind of put the more complicated things into a voice control . So it could be sold to both the younger market and the older market . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: And the younger market could use kind of the voi voice control method and the older market might might k +Marketing: Making it just an option ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: exactly and might consider the older market could use the simpler design with the traditional buttons and what not . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Are we still thinking about this screen {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh go ahead . +Marketing: Go ahead . The uh if we're gonna do this touch pad screen thing , it would be still , do we know if that's an option technically right now to that ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'S definitely an option technically . I've looked into uh costs of uh touch screen methods and what not , +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: they seem to be uh you know almost as cheap as a button method at this point . +Marketing: We're doing okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it seems like an interesting option especially because then you could have like your primary screen just be these you know four or five basic functions , you can have +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: menu options or something to have all these other complicated voice recognition , settings , things that you're not gonna use every day and that a lot of people aren't gonna use but it is an option there for this hi-tech market that sort of re is the sleek thing we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Gotta wonder though , if we're adding so much technology to this one remote , are we still gonna be able to meet out twelve pou our twelve fifty Euro you know goal for selling these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: True . Worth looking into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It seems like , we're not gonna be able to handle all these functions with just one microchip . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The microchip is probably the most expensive part of the the whole mechanism . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just something to consider . +Project Manager: Absolutely . Mm 'kay um well yeah I guess we'll cross that bridge um in a la slightly later stages of development um but yeah I know , that's perfectly viable question . Mm 'kay um so I'm seeing that we're gonna just basically focus on this young demographic group , aim it at them , but then in a sense that its bells and whistles are available for anybody who wants them but basically we'll make a sleek simple functioned um uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I think this voice recognition thing is a we've got a market for it uh I don't think there's too many , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: we'd more or less be cornering the market on it as well , we don't have many um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I appear to have lost my microphone . Mm . {vocalsound} Right um we don't have many people {vocalsound} or there's not very many competitors out there that do that so cool . Um right . I guess we've c we've touched on most of this . The idea of a paging function , a touch screen , and face plates . Um . The thing with {disfmarker} I see {vocalsound} would there not be a {vocalsound} we'd have to maybe sacrifice the face plates for a touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not sure that's sincerely correct , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think if you kind of take the example of a mobile phone that uh trying to pass a portion of the device is not interchangeable whereas the surrounding portions are interchangeable . +Marketing: Mm . Just the casing . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We could have the casing , the the face plates . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Back to the uh the cost {disfmarker} the material . {vocalsound} We have to ask whether we're going to include a certain number of face plates with the package ? That's something I w for {disfmarker} say we're including three or four face plates , it's gonna drive the cost up . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the other question is , if we do include them are we really in a position to evaluate that market ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We haven't done any tests on face plates and whether {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See if there {disfmarker} if there's even interest out there . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Off the top of my head it sounds kind of like a gimmick that wouldn't really go anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause then ha you would have to {disfmarker} who all +Marketing: Mm . Right . +Project Manager: it's not like with cell phones like where you have a {disfmarker} you know Nokia model X_ and then ten people make face plates for it , we'd be just our model of pho of t remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well in the publicity of a face plate on a phone is you have it out and around , it is sort of emblematic whereas you're just sit at home , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so unless somebody comes over to watch T_V_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well hopefully some people have people coming t over to w to hang out at your house +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . True . True . +User Interface: and most people have their televisions in the living room . Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright well we can {disfmarker} we can discuss that one further when we think about um whether th when we do costs and so forth , um . +Marketing: Yeah . Oh yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} True , if plastic is dead cheap and if we're making the whole thing out of plastic anyway um {vocalsound} yeah we'll cross that bridge later um but yeah we will have to evaluate what's most important . Um I think we've had a bit of discussion already on this thing , n s there any other questions comments that came up in these presentations ? +User Interface: Well have we confirmed that we're gonna go ahead with a uh touch screen um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think that would be best . Let's based on what sh on what you guys have all said to me let's go for a plastic built or uh b plastic cased 'cause tha tha that's easy on the cost , try to look for some kind of high quality recycled plastic as you recommended and I think that's a great idea . With a touch screen for the basic functions . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} And we'll yeah tha let's provisionally {disfmarker} let's go for a touch screen one with several submenus um for possible extra stuff that one basically put the channel and the on and off switch on the touch screen . Um do we have {disfmarker} Mm wait a minute it occurs to me that if we have a touch screen people are going to have to recharge their remote controls . {vocalsound} Yet at the same time that might help for this whole complaint of it being lost . +Marketing: True . 'Cause it would have a docking base ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But then again that costs as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So these new lithium batteries they last twenty years {vocalsound} even with the touch screen ? +Project Manager: Do they ? Okay . +User Interface: Those new ones . +Industrial Designer: Can we afford to include one of those ? +Marketing: Can we afford that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And will somebody buy it if we don't ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I don't think yeah I can't see anybody buying a lap a remote control that they have to plug in so we'd have to see some kind of new battery technology . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so let's go with a um touch screen {vocalsound} with um some kind of {disfmarker} you know with with some kind of cutting edge battery technology {disfmarker} +Marketing: For twelve Euros ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well hey you know well it's it's worth looking into , if not we can always default to just doing a a well presented plastic simple +Marketing: It is . Fair enough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know so {disfmarker} you know . Well yeah I mean +Marketing: The basics . +Project Manager: you can put the {disfmarker} we could I I dunno I mean I suppose we could put the the basics on the centre easiest you know , you know people know the channel and volume function make them large and easy to get at and then the the other the other bits and bobs you know go through menu um w we'll do the aesthetics . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so we'll {gap} touch screen and the battery , focus on um {vocalsound} uh presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} it's th uh with this voice recognition option as well um just as for the simple functions the um the on off , channels , volume , um +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and um a small paging function . Even if you can't do voice recognition for the paging you know just some kind of simple button that's just a I guess another infrared signal to the remote control and while {disfmarker} to emit some kind of paging . Just a beep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um right so any comments ? Thoughts before we break into {disfmarker} go into the next round of individual work on this . +Industrial Designer: Since we're doing uh touch screen , do we wanna look into the possibility of people being able to input different types of skins for the you know the actual interface part of it and things like that ? Or is it just gonna be one touch screen for everybody . +User Interface: Be interesting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What what would be on that touch screen ? 'Cause you said earlier that we have to think about company colours and um +Marketing: {vocalsound} And {gap} oh . +Industrial Designer: logo or something or motto , I can't remember exactly what you said . +Marketing: Yeah the {vocalsound} the fashion +User Interface: We put fashion into electronics . +Marketing: do . Yeah . +Project Manager: W it's my understanding that if you were going to do a skin you'd need to have some way for people to download or import skins into the remote control . +Marketing: Right , and then you're dealing with ports and cords and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I think perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S too much . +Project Manager: good idea but yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that that one m might just be um and they just {disfmarker} yeah I think that one might just be out of the range for this particular {disfmarker} +Marketing: For now . +Project Manager: a P_D_A_ would {disfmarker} they would {disfmarker} makes a lot of sense for a P_D_A_ 'cause you're gonna be using it to connect up to things anyway but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: Think we just need to come up with a nice black and red interface on the touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Nice . +Industrial Designer: That'd be okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh I I'm I'm in agreement with that , I'm wondering how we're gonna get uh we put fashion into electronics onto this device . +Marketing: Um . Well but if we're gonna use a touch screen where it's gonna come on like on your cell phone it'll have your your carrier provider name come up first like while it's loading +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and then it goes away , perhaps it could be like a temporary {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Comes on every time you turn it on and then that's it 'cause it is a bit much to have it like engraved on the back or something I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . True . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm hoping for a subliminal maybe half a millisecond as it turns on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I know I d it seems like it would suffice to have just the R_R_ on there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Jus +Marketing: Yeah you would think . +Project Manager: But apparently not . +Marketing: But . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: People aren't gonna want their remote to boot up and to see flashing things come on . +Marketing: If it comes from above . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They just want it to be on and ready to go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well fair enough . Um and yeah that would help the battery life too and if it {disfmarker} the remote they do have to press a button for the remote to turn on . But then again who wants to turn on a remote control . Kind of if i +User Interface: Well all you have to do is touch the screen and it automatically goes on . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: to wake up okay or go into like a dormant mode . +User Interface: Yep . Goes into a sleep mode . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah I like that I like the idea of um putting the logo in the boot up screen , nice . Um . Um cool so any last things before we break ? Alright . Fair enough . Sounds good . +Marketing: We're good ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna save th a copy of this in case you guys need any reminders . I'm gonna save a copy of this and the minutes that I'll do it in a second and put them in the shared folder for later reference . +User Interface: I've put my files in the shared folder as well . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's fab guys . Cool . +","The project team, including a Project Manager, Marketing Specialist, Industrial Designer, and User Interface Developer, has convened to discuss and make decisions about the design and features of a remote control product that they are working on. + +The Project Manager quickly updates the team with guidelines from the board. The remote control must be TV-only, incorporating the company colors (red and black), include the slogan ""We put fashion in electronics,"" and should not include teletext functionality. + +The Industrial Designer presents first, suggesting plastic construction to avoid metal-related issues like interference and extra cost. He proposes incorporating eco-friendly energy sources like solar power with an alkaline battery backup and focuses on infrared tech for the remote's function. + +Marketing insights reveal that most people use basic functions like changing channels, volume control, and dislike losing remotes. A paging system to find lost remotes and consideration for voice recognition are suggested since many younger demographic users are interested in such technology. + +Suggestions for simple, user-friendly designs like a touch screen interface are made by the User Interface Developer, keeping basic functionalities easily accessible while providing options for more advanced functions. + +The Project Manager aligns the team towards a youthful market demographic, looking to integrate voice recognition for primary functions and a paging system. The possibility of a high-quality, recycled plastic touch screen remote with an advanced battery life is discussed, with the aim of keeping the design within budget constraints. + +Complications like balancing cost, incorporating touch screen technology, and the feasibility of different advanced options are debated. The team contemplates various features such as interchangeable face plates versus a fixed design supporting the company's branding, and how to integrate the slogan into the device without being excessive. + +The discussion ends with an agreement to continue working on the ideas and to share files in a shared folder for later reference. The minute will be saved by the Project Manager for the team to reflect on the points discussed during the meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mike . Mike - one ? +PhD B: Ah . +Professor D: We 're on ? Yes , please . I mean , we 're testing noise robustness but let 's not get silly . OK , so , uh , you 've got some , uh , Xerox things to pass out ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: That are {disfmarker} +PhD A: um . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm sorry for the table , but as it grows in size , uh , it . +Professor D: Uh , so for th the last column we use our imagination . OK . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD B: Uh , do you want @ @ . +Professor D: This one 's nice , though . This has nice big font . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Let 's see . Yeah . Chop ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: So +Professor D: When you get older you have these different perspectives . I mean , lowering the word hour rate is fine , but having big font ! +PhD A: Next time we will put colors or something . +Professor D: That 's what 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: Yeah . It 's mostly big font . OK . +PhD A: OK , s so there is kind of summary of what has been done {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Go ahead . +PhD A: It 's this . Summary of experiments since , well , since last week +Professor D: Oh . OK . +PhD A: and also since the {disfmarker} we 've started to run {disfmarker} work on this . Um . {pause} So since last week we 've started to fill the column with um {vocalsound} uh features w with nets trained on PLP with on - line normalization but with delta also , because the column was not completely {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: well , it 's still not completely filled , +Professor D: +PhD A: but {pause} we have more results to compare with network using without PLP and {pause} finally , hhh , {comment} um {pause} ehhh {comment} PL - uh delta seems very important . Uh {pause} I don't know . If you take um , let 's say , anyway Aurora - two - B , so , the next {disfmarker} t the second , uh , part of the table , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {pause} when we use the large training set using French , Spanish , and English , you have one hundred and six without delta and eighty - nine with the delta . +Professor D: a And again all of these numbers are with a hundred percent being , uh , the baseline performance , +PhD A: Yeah , on the baseline , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: but with a mel cepstra system going straight into the HTK ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . So now we see that the gap between the different training set is much {pause} uh uh much smaller +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's out of the way . +PhD A: But , actually , um , for English training on TIMIT is still better than the other languages . And Mmm , {pause} Yeah . And f also for Italian , actually . If you take the second set of experiment for Italian , so , the mismatched condition , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um {pause} when we use the training on TIMIT so , it 's multi - English , we have a ninety - one number , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and training with other languages is a little bit worse . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} Oh , I see . Down near the bottom of this sheet . +PhD A: So , +Professor D: Uh , {comment} {pause} yes . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: And , yeah , and here the gap is still more important between using delta and not using delta . If y if I take the training s the large training set , it 's {disfmarker} we have one hundred and seventy - two , +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: and one hundred and four when we use delta . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . {pause} Even if the contexts used is quite the same , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because without delta we use seventeenths {disfmarker} seventeen frames . Uh . Yeah , um , so the second point is that we have no single cross - language experiments , uh , that we did not have last week . Uh , so this is training the net on French only , or on English only , and testing on Italian . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And training the net on French only and Spanish only and testing on , uh TI - digits . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And , fff {comment} um , yeah . What we see is that these nets are not as good , except for the multi - English , which is always one of the best . Yeah , then we started to work on a large dat database containing , uh , sentences from the French , from the Spanish , from the TIMIT , from SPINE , uh from {comment} uh English digits , and from Italian digits . So this is the {disfmarker} another line {disfmarker} another set of lines in the table . Uh , @ @ with SPINE +Professor D: Ah , yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {pause} uh , actually we did this before knowing the result of all the data , uh , so we have to to redo the uh {disfmarker} the experiment training the net with , uh PLP , but with delta . But +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um this {disfmarker} this net performed quite well . Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's better than the net using French , Spanish , and English only . Uh . So , uh , yeah . We have also started feature combination experiments . Uh many experiments using features and net outputs together . And this is {disfmarker} The results are on the other document . Uh , we can discuss this after , perhaps {disfmarker} well , just , @ @ . Yeah , so basically there are four {disfmarker} four kind of systems . The first one , yeah , is combining , um , two feature streams , uh using {disfmarker} and each feature stream has its own MPL . So it 's the {disfmarker} kind of similar to the tandem that was proposed for the first . The multi - stream tandem for the first proposal . The second is using features and KLT transformed MLP outputs . And the third one is to u use a single KLT trans transform features as well as MLP outputs . Um , yeah . Mmm . You know you can {disfmarker} you can comment these results , +PhD B: Yes , I can s I would like to say that , for example , um , mmm , if we doesn't use the delta - delta , uh we have an improve when we use s some combination . But when +PhD A: Yeah , we ju just to be clear , the numbers here are uh recognition accuracy . +PhD B: w Yeah , this {disfmarker} Yeah , this number recognition acc +PhD A: So it 's not the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Again we switch to another {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes , and the baseline {disfmarker} the baseline have {disfmarker} i is eighty - two . +Professor D: Baseline is eighty - two . +PhD B: Yeah +PhD A: So it 's experiment only on the Italian mismatched for the moment for this . +Professor D: Uh , this is Italian mismatched . +PhD A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah , by the moment . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: And first in the experiment - one I {disfmarker} I do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I use different MLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and is obviously that the multi - English MLP is the better . Um . for the ne {disfmarker} rest of experiment I use multi - English , only multi - English . And I try to combine different type of feature , but the result is that the MSG - three feature doesn't work for the Italian database because never help to increase the accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , eh , actually , if w we look at the table , the huge table , um , we see that for TI - digits MSG perform as well as the PLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but this is not the case for Italian what {disfmarker} where the error rate is c is almost uh twice the error rate of PLP . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , um {vocalsound} uh , well , I don't think this is a bug but this {disfmarker} this is something in {disfmarker} probably in the MSG um process that uh I don't know what exactly . Perhaps the fact that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there 's no low - pass filter , well , or no pre - emp pre - emphasis filter and that there is some DC offset in the Italian , or , well , something simple like that . But {disfmarker} that we need to sort out if want to uh get improvement by combining PLP and MSG +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because for the moment MSG do doesn't bring much information . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And as Carmen said , if we combine the two , we have the result , basically , of PLP . +Professor D: I Um , the uh , baseline system {disfmarker} when you said the baseline system was uh , uh eighty - two percent , that was trained on what and tested on what ? That was , uh Italian mismatched d uh , uh , digits , uh , is the testing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: and the training is Italian digits ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So the "" mismatch "" just refers to the noise and {disfmarker} and , uh microphone and so forth , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? So , um did we have {disfmarker} So would that then correspond to the first line here of where the training is {disfmarker} is the uh Italian digits ? +PhD B: The train the training of the HTK ? +Professor D: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes . Ah yes ! +Professor D: Yes . +PhD B: This h Yes . Th - Yes . +Professor D: Yes . Training of the net , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So what that says is that in a matched condition , {vocalsound} we end up with a fair amount worse putting in the uh PLP . Now w would {disfmarker} do we have a number , I suppose for the matched {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't mean matched , but uh use of Italian {disfmarker} training in Italian digits for PLP only ? +PhD B: Uh {pause} yes ? +PhD A: Uh {pause} yeah , so this is {disfmarker} basically this is in the table . Uh {pause} so the number is fifty - two , +PhD B: Another table . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Fifty - two percent . +PhD A: Fift - So {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No . +Professor D: No , fifty - two percent of eighty - two ? +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of uh {pause} eighteen {disfmarker} +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: of eighteen . +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's error rate , basically . +PhD B: It 's plus six . +PhD A: It 's er error rate ratio . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh this is accuracy ! +PhD A: Uh , so we have nine {disfmarker} nine {disfmarker} let 's say ninety percent . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oy ! {comment} OK . Ninety . +PhD A: Yeah . Um {comment} which is uh {comment} what we have also if use PLP and MSG together , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: eighty - nine point seven . +Professor D: OK , so even just PLP , uh , it is not , in the matched condition {disfmarker} Um I wonder if it 's a difference between PLP and mel cepstra , or whether it 's that the net half , for some reason , is not helping . +PhD A: Uh . P - PLP and Mel cepstra give the same {disfmarker} same results . +Professor D: Same result pretty much ? +PhD A: Well , we have these results . I don't know . It 's not {disfmarker} Do you have this result with PLP alone , {comment} j fee feeding HTK ? +Professor D: So , s +PhD A: That {disfmarker} That 's what you mean ? +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD A: Just PLP at the input of HTK . +PhD B: yeah yeah yeah yeah , at the first {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So , PLP {disfmarker} +Professor D: Eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um , so adding MSG +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: um {disfmarker} Well , but that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's without the neural net , +PhD A: Yeah , that 's without the neural net +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: and that 's the result basically that OGI has also with the MFCC with on - line normalization . +Professor D: But she had said eighty - two . +PhD A: This is the {disfmarker} w well , but this is without on - line normalization . +Professor D: Right ? Oh , this {disfmarker} the eighty - two . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD A: Eighty - two is the {disfmarker} it 's the Aurora baseline , so MFCC . Then we can use {disfmarker} well , OGI , they use MFCC {disfmarker} th the baseline MFCC plus on - line normalization +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sorry , I k I keep getting confused because this is accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , sorry . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . So this is {disfmarker} I was thinking all this was worse . OK so this is all better +PhD B: Yes , better . +Professor D: because eighty - nine is bigger than eighty - two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm all better now . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: So what happ what happens is that when we apply on - line normalization we jump to almost ninety percent . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , when we apply a neural network , is the same . We j jump to ninety percent . +PhD B: Nnn , we don't know exactly . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} whatever the normalization , actually . If we use n neural network , even if the features are not correctly normalized , we jump to ninety percent . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So we go from eighty - si eighty - eight point six to {disfmarker} to ninety , or something . +PhD A: Well , ninety {disfmarker} No , I {disfmarker} I mean ninety It 's around eighty - nine , ninety , eighty - eight . +Professor D: Eighty - nine . +PhD A: Well , there are minor {disfmarker} minor differences . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And then adding the MSG does nothing , basically . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Uh For Italian , yeah . +Professor D: For this case , right ? +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: Alright . So , um {disfmarker} So actually , the answer for experiments with one is that adding MSG , if you {disfmarker} uh does not help in that case . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: But w Yeah . +Professor D: The other ones , we 'd have to look at it , but {disfmarker} And the multi - English , does uh {disfmarker} So if we think of this in error rates , we start off with , uh eighteen percent error rate , roughly . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {pause} and {pause} we uh almost , uh cut that in half by um putting in the on - line normalization and the neural net . +PhD A: Yeah +Professor D: And the MSG doesn't however particularly affect things . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: And we cut off , I guess about twenty - five percent of the error . Uh {pause} no , not quite that , is it . Uh , two point six out of eighteen . About , um {pause} sixteen percent or something of the error , um , if we use multi - English instead of the matching condition . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Not matching condition , but uh , the uh , Italian training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: We select these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these tasks because it 's the more difficult . +Professor D: Yes , good . OK ? So then you 're assuming multi - English is closer to the kind of thing that you could use since you 're not gonna have matching , uh , data for the {disfmarker} uh for the new {disfmarker} for the other languages and so forth . Um , one qu thing is that , uh {disfmarker} I think I asked you this before , but I wanna double check . When you say "" ME "" in these other tests , that 's the multi - English , +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} it 's a part {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: but it is not all of the multi - English , right ? It is some piece of {disfmarker} part of it . +PhD A: Or , one million frames . +Professor D: And the multi - English is how much ? +PhD B: You have here the information . +PhD A: It 's one million and a half . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , so you used almost all You used two thirds of it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: you think . So , it it 's still {disfmarker} it hurts you {disfmarker} seems to hurt you a fair amount to add in this French and Spanish . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I wonder why Yeah . Uh . +Grad C: Well Stephane was saying that they weren't hand - labeled , +PhD A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: the French and the Spanish . +PhD B: The Spanish . Maybe for that . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's still {disfmarker} OK . Alright , go ahead . And then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . Mmm , with the experiment type - two , I {disfmarker} first I tried to to combine , nnn , some feature from the MLP and other feature {disfmarker} another feature . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And we s we can {disfmarker} first the feature are without delta and delta - delta , and we can see that in the situation , uh , the MSG - three , the same help nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then I do the same but with the delta and delta - delta {disfmarker} PLP delta and delta - delta . And they all p but they all put off the MLP is it without delta and delta - delta . And we have a l little bit less result than the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the baseline PLP with delta and delta - delta . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe if {disfmarker} when we have the new {disfmarker} the new {pause} neural network trained with PLP delta and delta - delta , maybe the final result must be better . I don't know . +PhD A: Actually , just to be some more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do This number , this eighty - seven point one number , has to be compared with the +Professor D: Yes , yeah , I mean it can't be compared with the other +PhD A: Which number ? +Professor D: cuz this is , uh {disfmarker} with multi - English , uh , training . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So you have to compare it with the one over that you 've got in a box , which is that , uh the eighty - four point six . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but I mean in this case for the eighty - seven point one we used MLP outputs for the PLP net +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and straight features with delta - delta . And straight features with delta - delta gives you what 's on the first sheet . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Not t not +PhD A: It 's eight eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: tr No . No . No . +PhD B: Yes . +Professor D: Not trained with multi - English . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , but th this is the second configuration . +PhD B: No , but they {disfmarker} they feature @ @ without {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we use feature out uh , net outputs together with features . So yeah , this is not {disfmarker} perhaps not clear here but in this table , the first column is for MLP and the second for the features . +Professor D: Eh . {comment} Oh , I see . Ah . So you 're saying w so asking the question , "" What {disfmarker} what has adding the MLP done to improve over the , +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} Yeah so , actually it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it decreased the {disfmarker} the accuracy . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: Because we have eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: And even the MLP alone {disfmarker} What gives the MLP alone ? Multi - English PLP . Oh no , it gives eighty - three point six . So we have our eighty - three point six and now eighty - eighty point six , +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: that gives eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Eighty - s I thought it was eighty Oh , OK , eighty - three point six and eighty {disfmarker} eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Eighty - three point six . Eighty {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Is th is that right ? Yeah ? +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} but maybe if we have the neural network trained with the PLP {pause} delta and delta - delta , maybe tha this can help . +PhD A: Perhaps , yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing , but see the other thing is that , um , I mean it 's good to take the difficult case , but let 's {disfmarker} let 's consider what that means . What {disfmarker} what we 're saying is that one o one of the things that {disfmarker} I mean my interpretation of your {disfmarker} your s original suggestion is something like this , as motivation . When we train on data that is in one sense or another , similar to the testing data , then we get a win by having discriminant training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: When we train on something that 's quite different , we have a potential to have some problems . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , if we get something that helps us when it 's somewhat similar , and doesn't hurt us too much when it {disfmarker} when it 's quite different , that 's maybe not so bad . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So the question is , if you took the same combination , and you tried it out on , uh {disfmarker} on say digits , +PhD A: On TI - digits ? OK . +Professor D: you know , d Was that experiment done ? +PhD A: No , not yet . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . Uh , then does that , eh {disfmarker} you know maybe with similar noise conditions and so forth , {comment} does it {disfmarker} does it then look much better ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so what is the range over these different kinds of uh {disfmarker} of tests ? So , an anyway . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And , with this type of configuration which I do on experiment using the new neural net with name broad klatt s twenty - seven , uh , d I have found more or less the same result . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , it 's slightly better , +PhD B: Little bit better ? +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: Slightly better . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly bet better . Yes , is better . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and you know again maybe if you use the , uh , delta {pause} there , uh , you would bring it up to where it was , uh you know at least about the same for a difficult case . +PhD B: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , so perhaps let 's {disfmarker} let 's jump at the last experiment . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD A: It 's either less information from the neural network if we use only the silence output . +PhD B: i +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: It 's again better . So it 's eighty - nine point {disfmarker} point one . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and we have only forty {disfmarker} forty feature +PhD A: So . +PhD B: because in this situation we have one hundred and three feature . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . And then w with the first configuration , I f I am found that work , uh , doesn't work {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: uh , well , work , but is better , the second configuration . Because I {disfmarker} for the del Engli - PLP delta and delta - delta , here I have eighty - five point three accuracy , and with the second configuration I have eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Um , by the way , there is a another , uh , suggestion that would apply , uh , to the second configuration , um , which , uh , was made , uh , by , uh , Hari . And that was that , um , if you have {disfmarker} uh feed two streams into HTK , um , and you , uh , change the , uh variances {disfmarker} if you scale the variances associated with , uh these streams um , you can effectively scale {pause} the streams . Right ? So , um , you know , without changing the scripts for HTK , which is the rule here , uh , you can still change the variances +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: which would effectively change the scale of these {disfmarker} these , uh , two streams that come in . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} yeah . +Professor D: And , um , so , um , if you do that , for instance it may be the case that , um , the MLP should not be considered as strongly , for instance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And , um , so this is just setting them to be , excuse me , of equal {disfmarker} equal weight . Maybe it shouldn't be equal weight . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor D: Right ? You know , I I 'm sorry to say that gives more experiments if we wanted to look at that , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um , you know on the other hand it 's just experiments at the level of the HTK recognition . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's not even the HTK , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I guess you have to do the HTK training also . +PhD B: so this is what we decided to do . +Professor D: Uh , do you ? Let me think . Maybe you don't . Uh . Yeah , you have to change the {disfmarker} No , you can just do it in {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} once you 've done the training {disfmarker} +Grad C: And then you can vary it . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , the training is just coming up with the variances so I guess you could {disfmarker} you could just scale them all . +PhD A: Scale +Professor D: Variances . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} i th I mean the HTK models are diagonal covariances , so I d Is it {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's uh , exactly the point , I think , that if you change {disfmarker} um , change what they are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's diagonal covariance matrices , but you say what those variances are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , that {disfmarker} you know , it 's diagonal , but the diagonal means th that then you 're gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna internally multiply it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , {vocalsound} uh , i it im uh implicitly exponentiated to get probabilities , and so it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to affect the range of things if you change the {disfmarker} change the variances {pause} of some of the features . +PhD A: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD B: do ? +Professor D: So , i it 's precisely given that model you can very simply affect , uh , the s the strength that you apply the features . That was {disfmarker} that was , uh , Hari 's suggestion . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So . So it could just be that h treating them equally , tea treating two streams equally is just {disfmarker} just not the right thing to do . Of course it 's potentially opening a can of worms because , you know , maybe it should be a different {vocalsound} number for {disfmarker} for each {vocalsound} kind of {pause} test set , or something , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So I guess the other thing is to take {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} if one were to take , uh , you know , a couple of the most successful of these , +PhD A: Yeah , and test across everything . +Professor D: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , try all these different tests . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . Uh . +PhD A: So , the next point , yeah , we 've had some discussion with Steve and Shawn , um , about their um , uh , articulatory stuff , um . So we 'll perhaps start something next week . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , discussion with Hynek , Sunil and Pratibha for trying to plug in their our {disfmarker} our networks with their {disfmarker} within their block diagram , uh , where to plug in the {disfmarker} the network , uh , after the {disfmarker} the feature , before as um a as a plugin or as a anoth another path , discussion about multi - band and TRAPS , um , actually Hynek would like to see , perhaps if you remember the block diagram there is , uh , temporal LDA followed b by a spectral LDA for each uh critical band . And he would like to replace these by a network which would , uh , make the system look like a TRAP . Well , basically , it would be a TRAP system . Basically , this is a TRAP system {disfmarker} kind of TRAP system , I mean , but where the neural network are replaced by LDA . Hmm . {vocalsound} Um , yeah , and about multi - band , uh , I started multi - band MLP trainings , um mmh {comment} Actually , I w I w hhh {comment} prefer to do exactly what I did when I was in Belgium . So I take exactly the same configurations , seven bands with nine frames of context , and we just train on TIMIT , and on the large database , so , with SPINE and everything . And , mmm , I 'm starting to train also , networks with larger contexts . So , this would {disfmarker} would be something between TRAPS and multi - band because we still have quite large bands , and {disfmarker} but with a lot of context also . So Um Yeah , we still have to work on Finnish , um , basically , to make a decision on which MLP can be the best across the different languages . For the moment it 's the TIMIT network , and perhaps the network trained on everything . So . Now we can test these two networks on {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with delta and large networks . Well , test them also on Finnish +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: and see which one is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the best . Uh , well , the next part of the document is , well , basically , a kind of summary of what {disfmarker} everything that has been done . So . We have seventy - nine M L Ps trained on one , two , three , four , uh , three , four , five , six , seven ten {disfmarker} on ten different databases . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the number of frames is bad also , so we have one million and a half for some , three million for other , and six million for the last one . Uh , yeah ! {comment} As we mentioned , TIMIT is the only that 's hand - labeled , and perhaps this is what makes the difference . Um . Yeah , the other are just Viterbi - aligned . So these seventy - nine MLP differ on different things . First , um with respect to the on - line normalization , there are {disfmarker} that use bad on - line normalization , and other good on - line normalization . Um . With respect to the features , with respect to the use of delta or no , uh with respect to the hidden layer size and to the targets . Uh , but of course we don't have all the combination of these different parameters Um . s What 's this ? We only have two hundred eighty six different tests And no not two thousand . +Professor D: Ugh ! I was impressed boy , two thousand . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Ah , yes . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: I say this morning that @ @ thought it was the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Alright , now I 'm just slightly impressed , OK . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , basically the observation is what we discussed already . The MSG problem , um , the fact that the MLP trained on target task decreased the error rate . but when the M - MLP is trained on the um {disfmarker} is not trained on the target task , it increased the error rate compared to using straight features . Except if the features are bad {disfmarker} uh , actually except if the features are not correctly on - line normalized . In this case the tandem is still better even if it 's trained on {disfmarker} not on the target digits . +Professor D: Yeah . So it sounds like {vocalsound} yeah , the net corrects some of the problems with some poor normalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: But if you can do good normalization it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so the fourth point is , yeah , the TIMIT plus noise seems to be the training set that gives better {disfmarker} the best network . +Professor D: So So - Let me {disfmarker} bef before you go on to the possible issues . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , on the MSG uh problem um , I think that in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} um , in the short {pause} time {pause} solution um , that is , um , trying to figure out what we can proceed forward with to make the greatest progress , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , much as I said with JRASTA , even though I really like JRASTA and I really like MSG , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I think it 's kind of in category that it 's , it {disfmarker} it may be complicated . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And uh it might be {disfmarker} if someone 's interested in it , uh , certainly encourage anybody to look into it in the longer term , once we get out of this particular rush {pause} uh for results . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: But in the short term , unless you have some {disfmarker} some s strong idea of what 's wrong , +PhD A: I don't know at all but I 've {disfmarker} perhaps {disfmarker} I have the feeling that it 's something that 's quite {disfmarker} quite simple or just like nnn , no high - pass filter +Professor D: Yeah , probably . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . {pause} My {disfmarker} But I don't know . +Professor D: There 's supposed to {disfmarker} well MSG is supposed to have a an on - line normalization though , right ? +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} There is , yeah , an AGC - kind of AGC . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , but also there 's an on - line norm besides the AGC , there 's an on - line normalization that 's supposed to be uh , yeah , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: taking out means and variances and so forth . So . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: In fac in fact the on - line normalization that we 're using came from the MSG design , +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . But this was the bad on - line normalization . Actually . Uh . Are your results are still with the bad {disfmarker} the bad {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe , may {disfmarker} No ? With the better {disfmarker} +PhD A: With the O - OLN - two ? +PhD B: No ? +PhD A: Ah yeah , you have {disfmarker} you have OLN - two , +PhD B: Oh ! Yeah , yeah , yeah ! With "" two "" , with "" on - line - two "" . +PhD A: yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Professor D: "" On - line - two "" is good . +PhD A: So it 's , is the good yeah . +PhD B: yeah . Yep , it 's a good . +Professor D: "" Two "" is good ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , "" two "" is bad . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , actually , it 's good with the ch with the good . +Professor D: OK . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . It 's probably something simple uh , i if {disfmarker} if uh someone , you know , uh , wants to play with it for a little bit . I mean , you 're gonna do what you 're gonna do +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but my {disfmarker} my guess would be that it 's something that is a simple thing that could take a while to find . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm . I see , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . {comment} And the other {disfmarker} the results uh , observations two and three , Um , is +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's pretty much what we 've seen . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} what we were concerned about is that if it 's not on the target task {disfmarker} If it 's on the target task then it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it helps to have the MLP transforming it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If it uh {disfmarker} if it 's not on the target task , then , depending on how different it is , uh you can get uh , a reduction in performance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And the question is now how to {disfmarker} how to get one and not the other ? Or how to {disfmarker} how to ameliorate the {disfmarker} the problems . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , because it {disfmarker} it certainly does {disfmarker} is nice to have in there , when it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when there is something like the training data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So , {pause} the {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} Yeah , the reason is that the {disfmarker} perhaps the target {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the task dependency {disfmarker} the language dependency , {vocalsound} and the noise dependency {disfmarker} +Professor D: So that 's what you say th there . I see . +PhD A: Well , the e e But this is still not clear because , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we have enough result to talk about the {disfmarker} the language dependency . Well , the TIMIT network is still the best but there is also an the other difference , the fact that it 's {disfmarker} it 's hand - labeled . +Professor D: Hey ! Um , just {disfmarker} you can just sit here . Uh , I d I don't think we want to mess with the microphones but it 's uh {disfmarker} Just uh , have a seat . Um . s Summary of the first uh , uh forty - five minutes is that some stuff work and {disfmarker} works , and some stuff doesn't OK , +PhD A: We still have uh {pause} this {disfmarker} One of these perhaps ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , I guess we can do a little better than that but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think if you {disfmarker} if you start off with the other one , actually , that sort of has it in words and then th that has it the {pause} associated results . +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: OK . So you 're saying that um , um , although from what we see , yes there 's what you would expect in terms of a language dependency and a noise dependency . That is , uh , when the neural net is trained on one of those and tested on something different , we don't do as well as in the target thing . But you 're saying that uh , it is {disfmarker} Although that general thing is observable so far , there 's something you 're not completely convinced about . And {disfmarker} and what is that ? I mean , you say "" not clear yet "" . What {disfmarker} what do you mean ? +PhD A: Uh , mmm , uh , {comment} I mean , that the {disfmarker} the fact that s Well , for {disfmarker} for TI - digits the TIMIT net is the best , which is the English net . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But the other are slightly worse . But you have two {disfmarker} two effects , the effect of changing language and the effect of training on something that 's {pause} Viterbi - aligned instead of hand {disfmarker} hand - labeled . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . Um . Yeah . +Professor D: Do you think the alignments are bad ? I mean , have you looked at the alignments at all ? What the Viterbi alignment 's doing ? +PhD A: Mmm . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . Did - did you look at the Spanish alignments Carmen ? +PhD B: Mmm , no . +Professor D: Might be interesting to look at it . Because , I mean , that is just looking but um , um {disfmarker} It 's not clear to me you necessarily would do so badly from a Viterbi alignment . It depends how good the recognizer is +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the engine is that 's doing the alignment . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , perhaps it 's not really the {disfmarker} the alignment that 's bad but the {disfmarker} just the ph phoneme string that 's used for the alignment +Professor D: Aha ! +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: The pronunciation models and so forth +PhD A: I mean {pause} for {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} It 's single pronunciation , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha . +PhD A: French {disfmarker} French s uh , phoneme strings were corrected manually +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: so we asked people to listen to the um {disfmarker} the sentence and we gave the phoneme string and they kind of correct them . But still , there {disfmarker} there might be errors just in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the ph string of phonemes . Mmm . Um . Yeah , so this is not really the Viterbi alignment , in fact , yeah . Um , the third {disfmarker} The third uh issue is the noise dependency perhaps but , well , this is not clear yet because all our nets are trained on the same noises and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought some of the nets were trained with SPINE and so forth . So it {disfmarker} And that has other noise . +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Results are only coming for {disfmarker} for this net . Mmm . +Professor D: OK , yeah , just don't {disfmarker} just need more {disfmarker} more results there with that @ @ . +PhD A: Yeah . Um . So . Uh , from these results we have some questions with answers . What should be the network input ? Um , PLP work as well as MFCC , I mean . Um . But it seems impor important to use the delta . Uh , with respect to the network size , there 's one experiment that 's still running and we should have the result today , comparing network with five hundred and {pause} one thousand units . So , nnn , still no answer actually . +Professor D: Hm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the training set , well , some kind of answer . We can , we can tell which training set gives the best result , but {vocalsound} we don't know exactly why . Uh , so . +Professor D: Uh . Right , I mean the multi - English so far is {disfmarker} is the best . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: "" Multi - multi - English "" just means "" TIMIT "" , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So uh That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So . And {disfmarker} and when you add other things in to {disfmarker} to broaden it , it gets worse {pause} uh typically . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Then uh some questions without answers . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training set , um , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: uh , training targets {disfmarker} +Professor D: I like that . The training set is both questions , with answers and without answers . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: It 's sort of , yes {disfmarker} it 's mul it 's multi - uh - purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training s Right . So {disfmarker} Yeah , the training targets actually , the two of the main issues perhaps are still the language dependency {vocalsound} and the noise dependency . And perhaps to try to reduce the language dependency , we should focus on finding some other kind of training targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And labeling s labeling seems important uh , because of TIMIT results . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh . For moment you use {disfmarker} we use phonetic targets but we could also use articulatory targets , soft targets , and perhaps even , um use networks that doesn't do classification but just regression so uh , train to have neural networks that um , um , uh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: does a regression and well , basically com com compute features and noit not , nnn , features without noise . I mean uh , transform the fea noisy features {vocalsound} in other features that are not noisy . But continuous features . Not uh uh , hard targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , that {pause} seems like a good thing to do , probably , not uh again a short - term sort of thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean one of the things about that is that um it 's {disfmarker} e u the ri I guess the major risk you have there of being {disfmarker} is being dependent on {disfmarker} very dependent on the kind of noise and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . f But , yeah . +Professor D: Uh . But it 's another thing to try . +PhD A: So , this is w w i wa wa this is one thing , this {disfmarker} this could be {disfmarker} could help {disfmarker} could help perhaps to reduce language dependency and for the noise part um we could combine this with other approaches , like , well , the Kleinschmidt approach . So the d the idea of putting all the noise that we can find inside a database . I think Kleinschmidt was using more than fifty different noises to train his network , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So this is one {vocalsound} approach and the other is multi - band {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , that I think is more robust to the noisy changes . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So perhaps , I think something like multi - band trained on a lot of noises with uh , features - based targets could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could help . +Professor D: Yeah , if you {disfmarker} i i It 's interesting thought maybe if you just trained up {disfmarker} I mean w yeah , one {disfmarker} one fantasy would be you have something like articulatory targets and you have {pause} um some reasonable database , um but then {disfmarker} which is um {vocalsound} copied over many times with a range of different noises , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} Cuz what you 're trying to {pause} do is come up with a {disfmarker} a core , reasonable feature set which is then gonna be used uh , by the {disfmarker} the uh HMM {pause} system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So , um , yeah . The future work is , {pause} well , try to connect to the {disfmarker} to make {disfmarker} to plug in the system to the OGI system . Um , there are still open questions there , where to put the MLP basically . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: And I guess , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real open question , I mean , e u there 's lots of open questions , but one of the core quote {comment} "" open questions "" for that is um , um , if we take the uh {disfmarker} you know , the best ones here , maybe not just the best one , but the best few or something {disfmarker} You want the most promising group from these other experiments . Um , how well do they do over a range of these different tests , not just the Italian ? +PhD A: Mmm , +Professor D: Um . And y +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: y {pause} Right ? And then um {disfmarker} then see , {pause} again , how {disfmarker} We know that there 's a mis there 's a uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a loss in performance when the neural net is trained on conditions that are different than {disfmarker} than , uh we 're gonna test on , but well , if you look over a range of these different tests um , how well do these different ways of combining the straight features with the MLP features , uh stand up over that range ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real question . And if you know that {disfmarker} So if you just take PLP with uh , the double - deltas . Assume that 's the p the feature . look at these different ways of combining it . And uh , take {disfmarker} let 's say , just take uh multi - English cause that works pretty well for the training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And just look {disfmarker} take that case and then look over all the different things . How does that {disfmarker} How does that compare between the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So all the {disfmarker} all the test sets you mean , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: All the different test sets , +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: and for {disfmarker} and for the couple different ways that you have of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of combining them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . {pause} How well do they stand up , over the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . And perhaps doing this for {disfmarker} cha changing the variance of the streams and so on {pause} getting different scaling {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's another possibility if you have time , yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , so thi this sh would be more working on the MLP as an additional path instead of an insert to the {disfmarker} to their diagram . +Professor D: +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . Perhaps the insert idea is kind of strange because nnn , they {disfmarker} they make LDA and then we will again add a network does discriminate anal nnn , that discriminates , +Professor D: Yeah . {pause} It 's a little strange +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm ? +Professor D: but on the other hand they did it before . +PhD A: Mmm . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Professor D: Um the +PhD A: yeah . And because also perhaps we know that the {disfmarker} when we have very good features the MLP doesn't help . So . I don't know . +Professor D: Um , the other thing , though , is that um {disfmarker} So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we wanna get their path running here , right ? If so , we can add this other stuff . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: as an additional path right ? +PhD A: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the way we want to do {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz they 're doing LDA {pause} RASTA . +PhD A: The d What ? +Professor D: They 're doing LDA RASTA , +PhD A: Yeah , the way we want to do it perhaps is to {disfmarker} just to get the VAD labels and the final features . +Professor D: yeah ? +PhD A: So they will send us the {disfmarker} Well , provide us with the feature files , +Professor D: I see . I see . +PhD A: and with VAD uh , binary labels so that we can uh , get our MLP features and filter them with the VAD and then combine them with their f feature stream . So . +Professor D: I see . So we {disfmarker} So . First thing of course we 'd wanna do there is to make sure that when we get those labels of final features is that we get the same results as them . Without putting in a second path . +PhD A: Uh . You mean {disfmarker} Oh , yeah ! Just re re retraining r retraining the HTK ? +Professor D: Yeah just th w i i Just to make sure that we {pause} have {disfmarker} we understand properly what things are , our very first thing to do is to {disfmarker} is to double check that we get the exact same results as them on HTK . +PhD A: Oh yeah . Yeah , OK . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , I don't know that we need to r +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} Do we need to retrain I mean we can just take the re their training files also . But . {pause} But , uh just for the testing , jus just make sure that we get the same results {pause} so we can duplicate it before we add in another {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +Professor D: Cuz otherwise , you know , we won't know what things mean . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . OK . And um . Yeah , so fff , LogRASTA , I don't know if we want to {disfmarker} We can try {pause} networks with LogRASTA filtered features . +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD A: Mmm . I 'm sorry ? Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! You know , the other thing is when you say comb I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I 'm interrupting . {comment} that u Um , uh , when you 're talking about combining multiple features , um {disfmarker} Suppose we said , "" OK , we 've got these different features and so forth , but PLP seems {pause} pretty good . "" If we take the approach that Mike did and have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , one of the situations we have is we have these different conditions . We have different languages , we have different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different noises , Um {pause} If we have some drastically different conditions and we just train up different M L Ps {pause} with them . +PhD A: +Professor D: And put {disfmarker} put them together . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} What Mike found , for the reverberation case at least , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , who knows if it 'll work for these other ones . That you did have nice interpolative effects . That is , that yes , if you knew {pause} what the reverberation condition was gonna be and you trained for that , then you got the best results . But if you had , say , a heavily - reverberation ca heavy - reverberation case and a no - reverberation case , uh , and then you fed the thing , uh something that was a modest amount of reverberation then you 'd get some result in between the two . So it was sort of {disfmarker} behaved reasonably . Is tha that a fair {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you think it 's perhaps better to have several M L Yeah but {disfmarker} +Professor D: It works better if {pause} what ? +PhD A: Yea +Professor D: I see . Well , see , i oc You were doing some something that was {disfmarker} So maybe the analogy isn't quite right . You were doing something that was in way a little better behaved . You had reverb for a single variable which was re uh , uh , reverberation . Here the problem seems to be is that we don't have a hug a really huge net with a really huge amount of training data . But we have s f {pause} for this kind of task , I would think , {pause} sort of a modest amount . I mean , a million frames actually isn't that much . We have a modest amount of {disfmarker} of uh training data from a couple different conditions , and then uh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} and the real situation is that there 's enormous variability that we anticipate in the test set in terms of language , and noise type uh , and uh , {pause} uh , channel characteristic , sort of all over the map . A bunch of different dimensions . And so , I 'm just concerned that we don't really have {pause} um , the data to train up {disfmarker} I mean one of the things that we were seeing is that when we added in {disfmarker} we still don't have a good explanation for this , but we are seeing that we 're adding in uh , a fe few different databases and uh the performance is getting worse and uh , when we just take one of those databases that 's a pretty good one , it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better . And uh that says to me , yes , that , you know , there might be some problems with the pronunciation models that some of the databases we 're adding in or something like that . But one way or another {pause} we don't have uh , seemingly , the ability {pause} to represent , in the neural net of the size that we have , um , all of the variability {pause} that we 're gonna be covering . So that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping that um , this is another take on the efficiency argument you 're making , which is I 'm hoping that with moderate size neural nets , uh , that uh if we {disfmarker} if they look at more constrained conditions they {disfmarker} they 'll have enough parameters to really represent them . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: So doing both is {disfmarker} is not {disfmarker} is not right , you mean , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I just sort of have a feeling {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i e The um {disfmarker} I think it 's true that the OGI folk found that using LDA {pause} RASTA , which is a kind of LogRASTA , it 's just that they have the {disfmarker} I mean it 's done in the log domain , as I recall , and it 's {disfmarker} it uh {disfmarker} it 's just that they d it 's trained up , right ? That that um benefitted from on - line normalization . So they did {disfmarker} At least in their case , it did seem to be somewhat complimentary . So will it be in our case , where we 're using the neural net ? I mean they {disfmarker} they were not {disfmarker} not using the neural net . Uh I don't know . OK , so the other things you have here are uh , trying to improve results from a single {disfmarker} Yeah . Make stuff better . OK . Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah . And CPU memory issues . Yeah . We 've been sort of ignoring that , haven't we ? +PhD A: Yeah , so I don't know . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: But we have to address the problem of CPU and memory we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , but I li Well , I think {disfmarker} My impression {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you folks have been looking at this more than me . But my impression was that {vocalsound} uh , there was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a strict constraint on the delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: but beyond that it was kind of that uh using less memory was better , and {vocalsound} using less CPU was better . Something like that , +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . So , yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} I don't know . We have to get some reference point to where we {disfmarker} Well , what 's a reasonable number ? Perhaps be because if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's too large or {disfmarker} large or @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , well I don't think we 're {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} completely off the wall . I mean I think that if we {disfmarker} if we have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean the ultimate fall back that we could do {disfmarker} If we find uh {disfmarker} I mean we may find that we {disfmarker} we 're not really gonna worry about the M L You know , if the MLP ultimately , after all is said and done , doesn't really help then we won't have it in . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If the MLP does , we find , help us enough in some conditions , uh , we might even have more than one MLP . We could simply say that is uh , done on the uh , server . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it 's uh {disfmarker} We do the other manipulations that we 're doing before that . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: So I think the key thing was um , this plug into OGI . Um , what {disfmarker} what are they {disfmarker} What are they gonna be working {disfmarker} Do we know what they 're gonna be working on while we take their features , +PhD A: They 're {disfmarker} They 're starting to wor work on some kind of multi - band . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So . Um {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} that was Pratibha . Sunil , what was he doing , do you remember ? +PhD B: Sunil ? +PhD A: Yeah . He was doing something new or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't re I didn't remember . Maybe he 's working with {pause} neural network . +PhD A: I don't think so . Trying to tune wha networks ? +PhD B: Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: I think they were also mainly , well , working a little bit of new things , like networks and multi - band , but mainly trying to tune their {disfmarker} their system as it is now to {disfmarker} just trying to get the best from this {disfmarker} this architecture . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor D: OK . So I guess the way it would work is that you 'd get {disfmarker} There 'd be some point where you say , "" OK , this is their version - one "" or whatever , and we get these VAD labels and features and so forth for all these test sets from them , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then um , uh , that 's what we work with . We have a certain level we try to improve it with this other path and then um , uh , when it gets to be uh , January some point uh , we say , "" OK we {disfmarker} we have shown that we can improve this , in this way . So now uh {pause} um {pause} what 's your newest version ? "" And then maybe they 'll have something that 's better and then we {disfmarker} we 'd combine it . This is always hard . I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used to work {pause} with uh folks who were trying to improve a good uh , HMM system with uh {disfmarker} with a neural net system and uh , it was {pause} a common problem that you 'd {disfmarker} Oh , and this {disfmarker} Actually , this is true not just for neural nets but just for {disfmarker} in general if people were {pause} working with uh , rescoring uh , N - best lists or lattices that come {disfmarker} came from uh , a mainstream recognizer . Uh , You get something from the {disfmarker} the other site at one point and you work really hard on making it better with rescoring . But they 're working really hard , too . So by the time {pause} you have uh , improved their score , they have also improved their score +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: and now there isn't any difference , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: because the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So , um , I guess at some point we 'll have to +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're integrated a little more tightly than happens in a lot of those cases . I think at the moment they {disfmarker} they say that they have a better thing we can {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} e e +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: What takes all the time here is that th we 're trying so many things , presumably uh , in a {disfmarker} in a day we could turn around uh , taking a new set of things from them and {disfmarker} and rescoring it , +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . Yeah , perhaps we could . +Professor D: right ? So . Yeah . Well , OK . No , this is {disfmarker} I think this is good . I think that the most wide open thing is the issues about the uh , you know , different trainings . You know , da training targets and noises and so forth . +PhD A: Mmm . So we {disfmarker} we can for {disfmarker} we c we can forget combining multiple features and MLG perhaps , +Professor D: That 's sort of wide open . +PhD A: or focus more on the targets and on the training data and {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I think for right now um , I th I {disfmarker} I really liked MSG . And I think that , you know , one of the things I liked about it is has such different temporal properties . And um , I think that there is ultimately a really good uh , potential for , you know , bringing in things with different temporal properties . Um , but um , uh , we only have limited time and there 's a lot of other things we have to look at . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it seems like much more core questions are issues about the training set and the training targets , and fitting in uh what we 're doing with what they 're doing , and , you know , with limited time . Yeah . I think {pause} we have to start cutting down . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . And then , you know , once we {disfmarker} Um , having gone through this {pause} process and trying many different things , I would imagine that certain things uh , come up that you are curious about uh , that you 'd not getting to and so when the dust settles from the evaluation uh , I think that would time to go back and take whatever intrigued you most , you know , got you most interested uh and uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and work with it , you know , for the next round . Uh , as you can tell from these numbers uh , nothing that any of us is gonna do is actually gonna completely solve the problem . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So . So , {comment} there 'll still be plenty to do . Barry , you 've been pretty quiet . +Grad C: Just listening . +Professor D: Well I figured that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what were you involved in in this primarily ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} helping out {vocalsound} uh , preparing {disfmarker} Well , they 've been kind of running all the experiments and stuff and I 've been uh , uh w doing some work on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} preparing all {disfmarker} all the data for them to {disfmarker} to um , train and to test on . Um Yeah . Right now , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm focusing mainly on this final project I 'm working on in Jordan 's class . +Professor D: Ah ! +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . Right . What 's {disfmarker} what 's that ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} I 'm trying to um {disfmarker} So there was a paper in ICSLP about um this {disfmarker} this multi - band um , belief - net structure . {comment} This guy did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh basically it was two H M Ms with {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a dependency arrow between the two H M +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: And so I wanna try {disfmarker} try coupling them instead of t having an arrow that {disfmarker} that flows from one sub - band to another sub - band . I wanna try having the arrows go both ways . And um , {vocalsound} I 'm just gonna see if {disfmarker} if that {disfmarker} that better models {pause} um , uh asynchrony in any way or um {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! OK . Well , that sounds interesting . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . Anything to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you wanted to {disfmarker} No . OK . Silent partner in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the meeting . Oh , we got a laugh out of him , that 's good . OK , everyone h must contribute to the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our sound {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound files here . OK , so speaking of which , if we don't have anything else that we need {disfmarker} You happy with where we are ? +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Know {disfmarker} know wher know where we 're going ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think so , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . You {disfmarker} you happy ? +PhD B: +Professor D: You 're happy . OK everyone {pause} should be happy . OK . You don't have to be happy . You 're almost done . Yeah , yeah . OK . +Grad E: Al - actually I should mention {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} {comment} um , about the Linux machine "" Swede . "" +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad E: So it looks like the um , neural net tools are installed there . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: And um Dan Ellis {comment} I believe knows something about using that machine so +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: If people are interested in {disfmarker} in getting jobs running on that maybe I could help with that . +PhD A: Yeah , but I don't know if we really need now a lot of machines . Well . we could start computing another huge table but {disfmarker} yeah , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well . Yeah , I think we want a different table , at least +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +Professor D: Right ? I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's some different things that we 're trying to get at now . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , as far as you can tell , you 're actually OK on C - on CPU uh , for training and so on ? Yeah . +PhD A: Ah yeah . I think so . Well , more is always better , but mmm , I don't think we have to train a lot of networks , now that we know {disfmarker} We just select what works {pause} fine +Professor D: OK . OK . +PhD A: and try to improve this +PhD B: Yeah . to work +Professor D: And we 're OK on {disfmarker} And we 're OK on disk ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's OK , yeah . Well sometimes we have some problems . +PhD B: Some problems with the {disfmarker} +Professor D: But they 're correctable , uh problems . +PhD A: Yeah , restarting the script basically +PhD B: You know . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . Yeah , I 'm familiar with {vocalsound} that one , OK . Alright , so uh , {comment} {vocalsound} since uh , we didn't ha get a channel on for you , {comment} you don't have to read any digits but the rest of us will . Uh , is it on ? Well . We didn't uh {disfmarker} I think I won't touch anything cuz I 'm afraid of making the driver crash which it seems to do , {pause} pretty easily . OK , thanks . OK , so we 'll uh {disfmarker} I 'll start off the uh um connect the {disfmarker} +PhD A: My battery is low . +Professor D: Well , let 's hope it works . Maybe you should go first and see so that you 're {disfmarker} OK . +PhD B: batteries ? +Grad C: Yeah , your battery 's going down too . +Professor D: Transcript uh two {disfmarker} +Grad C: Carmen 's battery is d going down too . +Professor D: Oh , OK . Yeah . Why don't you go next then . OK . Guess we 're done . OK , uh so . Just finished digits . Yeah , so . Uh Well , it 's good . I think {disfmarker} I guess we can turn off our microphones now . +Grad C: Just pull the batteries out . +","In the conversation, Professor D, PhD students A and B, and Grad student C discuss various aspects of their current research experiments. They talk about testing noise robustness, the importance of having a large, readable font on their documents, and the preference for English training on TIMIT over other languages. They delve into the technicalities of their experiments, discussing the use of delta features and the comparison of error rates with different training sets across various languages and conditions. They evaluate the gap between training sets and the impact of different approaches to features and normalization. + +Professor D emphasizes the need for readability and points out the importance of recognizing language and noise dependencies in their experiments. PhD A suggests incorporating colors in future documents for clarity, and they both agree on the critical role of big font sizes. They also discuss the summary of experiments and the need to address the incomplete filling of the last column, perhaps using their imagination for the missing parts. + +They touch upon the usage of MLP (Multilayer Perceptrons), the comparison between different feature sets like MSG (Modulation Spectrum Features) and PLP (Perceptual Linear Prediction), and the importance of delta features for achieving accuracy in recognition tasks. PhD B contributes by noting improvements when combining different features and the relevance of accuracy numbers. There is a detailed comparison of various error rates and accuracy percentages for different language training sets and MLP outputs, with a focus on English and Italian results. + +The group covers the challenge of handling multiple languages and noise types, the significance of data labeling, and the prospect of employing other training targets like articulatory or soft targets, with a special emphasis on reducing language dependency. They also consider combining multiple features and the impact of delta features, as well as potential improvements to be made in future experiments. + +Towards the end of the conversation, Professor D prompts the students to think about the practicality of their experiments in terms of CPU and memory constraints and the need to address efficiency. They also discuss the possibility of integrating their work with that of OGI researchers and the importance of comparing their results and methodologies. Professor D underscores the wide-open nature of training targets and features, expressing intent to streamline their focus given the limited time. The conversation concludes with PhD A and PhD B reading digits to connect their discussion to a practical task, alluding to issues like low battery life on their recording devices." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 12th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be the first hybrid meeting of the committee. Some members will be participating via videoconference and some will be participating in person. This follows the order made by the House on May26,2020. Members who have already participated in a virtual meeting of the special committee may actually not notice any change, except for the fact that some members are also participating from the floor of the House. An additional rubric, that of statements by members, was also added to the proceedings of the committee. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up in the chamber on either side of the Speakers chair. Sound amplification for virtual interventions will be available, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor sound or interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. Please also direct your remarks through the Chair. Thank you. For those of you joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by videoconference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their microphone and state that they have a point of order. Those in the chamber can simply rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. Next we'll move on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on to petitions. We'll be presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificates off at the table once the petitions are presented. First on our list for presenting petitions is Ms. May, who is joining us virtually. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, what an honour to be the first voice coming to you from the screens on either side of the Speaker of the House. I speak to you from SaanichGulf Islands on the traditional territory of the WSNEC people. Hych'ka Siem. I'm presenting a petition, number 431-00215, and it has been certified. The petitioners call on this House to take note of the fact that Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does not include the provision of necessary prescription medications. They note that the system across Canada is a patchwork that leaves three million Canadians unprepared and uninsured to be able to purchase necessary medications. They call on the House assembled to put in place a system of universal national pharmacare, bringing down the cost of drugs through bulk purchasing. I think I'll call that a summary, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. +The Chair: The next petition will be presented by Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions before the committee today. The first petition is in support of Bill S-204. This Senate public bill, been put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan in the Senate, would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad to receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It also has a mechanism by which somebody could be deemed inadmissible to Canada for being involved in the horrible practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill has been before various Parliaments for over 10 years, and petitioners are hopeful that this Parliament will be the one that finally takes action to address forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The second petition is put forward by folks who are concerned about Bill C-7, particularly the efforts by the government through Bill C-7 to remove vital safeguards that are currently associated with Canada's euthanasia regime. Petitioners are not happy about the fact that the government is trying to eliminate the 10-day reflection period and remove other safeguards that only four short years ago the government thought were essential for the euthanasia and assisted suicide system that they were putting in place. The petitioners call on the government to address that, and they are not supportive of these particular efforts to remove vital safeguards from that regime. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Is anyone else presenting petitions? Seeing none, we'll move on to statements by members. We will now proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15minutes. Each statement will be for one minute. The first will be from Mr.Samson. Mr.Samson, you have the floor. +Mr. Darrell Samson (SackvillePrestonChezzetcook, Lib.): Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honour to be presenting an S. O. 31. This spring has been a difficult one for Nova Scotia and the communities of SackvillePrestonChezzetcook. While residents have banded together to tackle the challenges presented by COVID-19, we have also had to mourn the passing of three remarkable local women: RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson, well known by many in Cole Harbour and the surrounding areas; our own Sub-Lieutenant Abbigail Cowbrough, who was based out of 12 Wing Shearwater; and Captain Jenn Casey of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. All three women died in the line of duty in separate tragic events while serving our country. These three brave women, who served with honour on land, at sea and in the air, represent the absolute best of us. Heidi, Abbigail and Jenn were inspirational and will not be forgotten. Thank you. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada needs a prime minister who will create jobs and opportunity, but instead we have a prime minister who is piling up crippling national debt. Yesterday the PBO predicted the federal deficit this year will hit over $252 billion. That is almost equivalent to an average year of government spending before the Liberal government. After five years with this debt, Prime Minister, Canada's national debt is set to hit $1 trillion, with almost nothing to show for it. Industries from coast to coast are either closed or are struggling. Canadian workers need and deserve a prime minister who supports our energy sector and gets our natural resources and agriculture products to market, who supports small business and will make our tax system encourage job creation and growth, and who will bring advanced manufacturing jobs to Canada and keep the automotive industry growing. Most importantly, we need a Conservative prime minister who will get the government finances under control after the massive debt left by this prime minister. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I speak today with a very heavy heart. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we've seen a disproportionate number of deaths in long-term care homes. I'm thankful for the Canadian Armed Forces who were deployed to the Altamont care home in my riding and four other facilities across the GTA. The CAF have brought forward horrifying allegations in the operation of these homes. They include residents being given expired or improper doses of medication; not being cleaned or changed for a prolonged period of time; being forcibly fed, causing choking; being bed-bound for weeks; receiving inadequate nutrition, and much more. Mr. Chair, I call upon Premier Ford to place these five homes under a mandatory management order and to appoint a third party manager to address and rectify these violations. I also call upon the Premier to undertake an independent public inquiry into the tragedy we face in long-term care facilities across Ontario. Finally, Mr. Chair, we need to work with the provinces and territories to set national standards of care for the most vulnerable in our society. We can and must do better. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hesitate to interrupt colleagues, but I'm concerned about the petition practice, which, as I understand it, is to summarize a petition but not make a speech. I felt one of our colleagues was trespassing on our usual rules. +The Chair: I will remind honourable members that when a petition is presented, we're expected to give a prcis and make it as concise as possible. Thank you. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I would like to recognize the resilience of Quebeckers concerned for their jobs or their businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. They need us to plan for after the crisis, and we must do so now. To do so, we need the proper information. We need to know the status of the public finances. That is why the Bloc Qubcois is demanding that the government present an economic update, and that it do so before June17. This is not about making a spectacle. Everyone knows that the deficit will be huge. We had to provide the people with support and we all agree on that. But we have to know to what extent. We also have to know where we are starting from so that we can plan where we are going. This is about respecting the public, because they are the ones who will be paying the bill. In closing, I would like to remind the government that one group is not really contributing to the public purse at the moment. I am talking about the tech giants, the GAFAM group, that have never before been used to the extent that they are now, and that are still not paying a cent in tax in Canada. The Liberals promised to correct this injustice. Now is a great time for them to do so. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Sidhu. +Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, this week is National Paramedic Services Week. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Peel region police, paramedic and firefighting services for keeping Bramptonians safe. In my riding, organizations have stepped up to help our community. Organizations such as the Khalsa Aid Society, the Interfaith Council of Peel, the Brampton YMCA, the Prayer Stone Peoples Church, Unity in the Community, Ste. Louise Outreach Centre, Knights Table, the Yogi Divine Society, Vraj Community Service, Regeneration Brampton and many more have made our community stronger during this difficult time. I also have to address the report that came out yesterday from our brave Canadian Armed Forces. Like many Canadians, I was shocked by this report from the long-term care centres, including one in my riding. The examples of abuse described in the report are unacceptable. Our seniors deserve dignity and respect. We must find a solution. We need to fix this. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mrs. Stubbs. +Mrs. Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's oil and gas sector is in crisis, made worse by five years of bad policies, red tape and barriers to pipelines. Just in the last two months, we saw the largest production cut in Canadian history. Active rigs dropped by 92% and tens of thousands of oil and gas workers lost their jobs, adding to the 200,000 since 2015. Energy is Canada's biggest investor, and exporting could lead the recovery if there are actions, not just words. On March 25, the finance minister promised help in hours or days, not weeks, but he's letting Canadians down. Sixty-three days later, small oil and gas companies still can't apply for BDC loans, and last week's large employer loan terms are predatory, with interest rates escalating to 14% by year five. Those are payday loan rates. The required stock options being at record lows could make the government the largest shareholder. That's not emergency assistance; it's pandemic profiteering. Programs can't help workers if businesses can't or won't actually get the support. The Liberals' death-by-delay tactics are doing exactly what foreign activists in other countries want: to shut down Canada's oil. +The Chair: Ms.Bessette, the floor is yours. +Mrs. Lyne Bessette (BromeMissisquoi, Lib.): Mr.Chair, in times of crisis, we stick together. I can state that this is certainly the case in BromeMissisquoi. In the last weeks, I have been calling volunteer action centres in my constituency so that they can tell me their news. I would like to take the time that I have to highlight the work that community organizations are doing tirelessly in my constituency. The crisis has made us realize the extent to which food banks and meals-on-wheels can not only relieve hunger, but also relieve thousands of shut-in seniors of their loneliness. Let me also highlight the devotion of the volunteers giving generously of their time, particularly the initiative of Mabel Hastings in the volunteer aid centre in Mansonville. Like me, she sends out a daily newsletter to keep the public informed about the many resources available for their support. COVID-19 is bringing out the best in our community and I am certain that, together, we will get through it. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Virani. +Mr. Arif Virani (ParkdaleHigh Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, during the COVID-19 pandemic I have been inspired by the courageous work of so many essential workers. I want to thank everyone on the front lines for keeping us safe, keeping us fed and keeping our communities functioning. I want to make special note of one particular essential health care worker, a woman who is a quarantine manager with the Public Health Agency of Canada. I have personally seen her working tirelessly over the past three months to keep all of us safe. That woman is my wife, Suchita Jain. Suchi, I love you, I am very proud of you and I thank you for all of the sacrifices you are making. I want to highlight another woman from my riding of ParkdaleHigh Park, Rachelle LeBlanc. She is a local designer. When the pandemic broke, she saw the need for protective barriers for small shops in Parkdale, so she set about collecting donations. She then put her design talents to work and started designing free-standing protective shields. Rachelle's team has now delivered 25 free COVID protective shields to small shopkeepers in Parkdale, and the team is on track to building 100 more. It's the compassion of Canadians like Rachelle that gives meaning to the phrase we are all in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Godin, you have the floor. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Mr.Chair, the school year has been shattered and our graduating classes must be proud of what they have achieved amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Young men, young women, be proud of your accomplishments! You can believe in the future. Keep learning. It will give you tools that will serve you all your lives. What you have achieved in this extraordinary year will set you apart from the others. I invite you to be inspired by that and turn it to your advantage. The current government has the obligation to promote the values that will lead you to become involved in your communities. Your willingness to learn or to work makes you into better citizens. Knowledge and experience are irreplaceable and invaluable. I implore this government, which is unaware of the damage it is causing, to immediately announce all the positions that have already been approved under the Canada summer jobs program. Urgent action is needed. Let us have confidence in our organizations, our companies, and let us support our youth, a rich resource that we must equip and motivate. I congratulate all the young graduates in the beautiful constituency of PortneufJacques-Cartier. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Fergus. +Mr. Greg Fergus (HullAylmer, Lib.): Mr.Chair, this pandemic lets us see what Canadians are made of. This coming Saturday, May30, more than 2,000Christians of all denominations are coming together virtually for prayer and for action. When the going gets tough, Canadians get going. This could not be more true than with respect to what will be happening on May 30. This Saturday, in more than 2,000 churches and homes, thousands of faith-filled Canadians are gathering to pray and act on those prayers as part of Stand United Canada. They will gather through television, Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Then they are going to deliver much-needed support to at-risk Canadians who live in disadvantaged areas. This is faith in action. I'm sure I speak for all parliamentarians when I wish success to Stand United Canada. I hope it inspires more Canadians to follow in its footsteps. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): The best way to safeguard the truth is to allow people to speak freely, but from the very beginning of this pandemic, the Liberals have silenced dissent. Sadly, their short-sightedness has been to the detriment of Canadians. Early on, they propagated the notion that human-to-human transmission wasn't possible. They said that closing the borders wasn't necessary. They told us that wearing face masks wouldn't help. It is undeniable that the Liberal government has put Canadians in danger by silencing alternative points of view and has spread misinformation. Ironically, however, they have now gone ahead and crowned themselves the arbiters of truth. They are spending millions of dollars to censor what Canadians can and cannot say. They are determining what is true and what is not, what is right and what is wrong, what is in and what is out. When freedom of speech is repressed, it is safe to say that democracy is under siege. I call upon the government to restore the personal liberties that are granted under our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is Canada. We are not an autocracy; we are a democracy. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses have always been the cornerstone of communities across this country. They provide employment and economic stability and are always the first to support community functions and activities, but small businesses have been particularly hard hit due to COVID-19. They have shut their doors temporarily, and now many worry they'll never be able to open their doors again. With the season cancellations at the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music, businesses in the tourism, hospitality, accommodation and retail sectors in PerthWellington are struggling. Every day, I talk to small business owners who can't access the Canada emergency business account, and others who find the convoluted commercial rent assistance program to be out of reach. The program is needlessly complicated, frustratingly slow and excessively restrictive. Mr. Chair, the government needs to go back, fix these programs and ensure that support goes to the small businesses that need it. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians have been shaken by this pandemic. It has exposed the gaps in our health care system and our social safety net. It has shown how vulnerable we all are when disaster hits. It has brought us to a crossroads. We can go backwards to so-called business as usual, with horrific conditions in long-term care homes, widespread inequality and no real action on climate change, or we can build for better. In Victoria, people in the community, organizations and municipal leaders have been calling for a new way forward. The City of Victoria has a plan for reinvention, resilience and recovery. Organizations like Greater Victoria Acting Together; Common Vision, Common Action; and Kairos Victoria are exploring ideas for a sustainable and just recovery. We can build for better. We can invest in the infrastructure. We need to fight climate change, homelessness and inequality. We can build a Canada where we take better care of the planet and each other. +The Chair: We now move to Ms.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, in this time of pandemic, it is with heartfelt emotion that I want to highlight the excellent work of all the guardian angels at the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the entire staff, as well as the retirees who have come back to provide their assistance. I admire the managers, at all levels and in all services, working tirelessly so that their teams can answer the call in this difficult situation. My fellow managers and the management teams of the Support Program for the Autonomy of Seniors, both in home support and in residential care, you have my heartfelt congratulations for the herculean work you have done. My thoughts go particularly to Lyne Ricard and Vronique Proulx, managers working diligently with their teams of professionals to support the seniors living in intermediate resources, as we call them. I also warmly recognize the director of nursing services, Chantal Careau, who is facing the current challenge with passion and humanity. Once again, my congratulations go to the entire organization of the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest for their remarkable work in this difficult and very demanding time. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): During the worst of times, we see the best in people. Heroes are born, characters revealed, resiliency is sowed. I cannot say enough about my constituents in Foothillsfront-line health care workers, grocery store clerks, restaurateurs, farmersfor all they are doing to keep our community safe and healthy. I want to shine a light on some of our hidden heroes, such as Owen Plumb, a grade 9 student in Okotoks who is using his 3D printer to build PPE for front-line health care workers. He partnered with the Rotary Club and Evergreen Solutions in Okotoks to help with the manufacturing and assembly. There is also Sam Schofield, the volunteer president of the Pincher Creek Chamber of Commerce, overnight built a resiliency website for COVID-19 by building training tools for businesses throughout his area. He also helped develop the Foothills Business Recovery Taskforce, which is a resource for businesses throughout southern Alberta in my riding. Finally, to the employees of Cargill Foods in High River, I know this has been a very difficult time and that many of you have lost loved ones. I want to say thank you for tirelessly doing all you can to protect our food supply and keep food on our table. Each and every one of you is a hero. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Simms. +Mr. Scott Simms (Coast of BaysCentralNotre Dame, Lib.): Thank you, Chair. I would like to take this time to salute those who go above and beyond the call of duty to provide care and comfort to others. In my 16 years in the House of Commons I have never experienced anything like this, when we find our lives are at a standstill and there is so much sorrow felt by families who suffer from the effects of COVID-19. However, here are two examples of kindness right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Shanna and Fred Patey of Bishop's Falls, along with a few of their friends, spend hours next to the Trans-Canada Highway with just a barbeque and a cooler. They serve free meals for truckers crossing our province each and every day. So far they have provided over 1,500 meals. There is also Mitch Strickland of Grand Falls-Windsor, who owns Appy's Diner. He has continually provided food for the local hospital and other front-line workers through his donations. To all our front-line workers in grocery stores and delivery trucks, and to doctors, nurses, LPNs, paramedics, first responders and, of course, our brave women and men in the military, we will be forever grateful and blessed because of you. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: That's all the time we have today for Statements by Members. Before going on, I just want to remind all the members that it is a one-minute statement, so if you don't mind, please time it before coming in because we do have limited time. The other thing that has come up is that some of you just naturally speak very quickly. I'm not here to judge anybody's way of speaking, but try to consider the translators and interpreters to make sure that everyone understands what is said, because they are working diligently to try to get both languages out. In sum, there are two things: please slow down and please make sure the statement is confined to one minute. We now move to Questions to Ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow the employees who are providing support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Our first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the early days of the pandemic and the lockdown that followed, Canadians were told by this government that programs would be rolled out very quickly and that gaps and shortcomings would be changed as time went on. While many Canadians are being let down by this government's response and its unnecessarily rigid programs, Conservatives identified solutions weeks ago, yet here we are, two and a half months later, and many of these programs still have not been improved. I have a simple question for the Prime Minister. On April 26 the Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account could qualify for those types of programs. It's now May 27. Is the Prime Minister going to make that change? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr. Chair, we knew from the beginning of this pandemic that we did need to move extremely quickly, and that's what we did. We rolled out the Canada emergency response benefit extremely quickly. Eight million Canadians have had that as a replacement for paycheques lost because of COVID-19. We also moved forward on the wage subsidy and a range of other programs to support workers and small businesses. What we've done in terms of helping small businesses with the Canada emergency business account has had a massive impact on small businesses across the country, but we understand that certain companies and businesses have particularities that mean it's a little more difficult for them to qualify. We are working with them through their regional development agencies, and we encourage them to approach their local RDAs, which will be able to help them get the money they deserve. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these are very simple technical fixes that can be made by this government. There's no excuse for the delay. It's May 27. They've known about these problems for weeks. They're trying to get patted on the back for actions they took back in March, and yet they are letting so many Canadians down by not making these very simple changes. For example, companies that have acquired another company in the last year have employees whose jobs are threatened. The businesses are not allowed to qualify for the wage subsidy because their revenue is now counted together. We have identified this gap. Again, it's a simple question. Will companies that have acquired another company still be allowed to use the wage subsidy to keep workers on the job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I know that there are many different types of businesses across this country that need support. We have moved forward on supporting as many of them as we possibly can, and we continue to work on filling gaps. I know the member opposite has talked to me a number of times about a tractor company in his riding. I can assure you that finance officials are engaged with that company to see if there's a way to make sure we're getting them the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's actually a very simple fix. I can save him and his officials a lot of time. The government used the word amalgamation when it announced the changes to that program. He can make this very clear, and save a lot of work, just by including the word acquisition. Will he do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that finance officials are working closely with Brandt Tractor. They're continuing to work with a range of businesses across the country that, for various reasons, are not able to apply for the help we have now. We will continue to work to make sure people who need the help get it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's literally one word. We can email him the text. We can send him the page in the dictionary where that word is defined, if that would help. Another gap that is letting people down is in the rent relief program. The government has set the parameters to qualify for the rent relief program for companies that have experienced a 70% revenue loss. There are untold thousands of businesses that have experienced a 50%, 55%, 60% or 65% loss that are ineligible but have no capacity to pay the rent. We called on the government weeks ago to have a more flexible sliding scale to allow more companies to access this program to keep more people on the job and more businesses open. Will the government introduce some flexibility to this program to help more businesses survive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, our public servants and policy-makers have been moving creatively and quickly to try to get help to as many people as we possibly can, with our focus being on the people who need it the most. Obviously, this pandemic is affecting everyone and every business across the country in different ways, but our focus has been on ensuring that those who most need it are getting the help they can. We will, of course, continue to work with the parties opposite and all Canadians to ensure that we're getting help to everyone who needs it, but our focus has always been on the most vulnerable, first and foremost. +The Chair: The floor now goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. If the Liberal Party of Canada had not taken advantage of the emergency programs, would it have laid off all its staff? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we recognized that a number of organizations and companies were facing difficulties because of COVID-19. People work for those organizations, as accountants, receptionists, assistants or labourers, and those people need to be supported. We are supporting people all over the country through that program. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party one of those organizations in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Any company or organization that can demonstrate a significant drop in its income, whether that be in donations, receipts, profits +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we created specific criteria to help organizations in difficulty. Any organization experiencing those difficulties can apply. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the Magdalen Islands, fishing companies in difficulty and in need of assistance will not have the money that the Liberals are going to take. Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have invested in assistance for fishers all across the country. We recognize that it is a difficult situation because of COVID-19. We will be here for our fishers and for industries in difficulty. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I am not catching many answers, it seems to me. A company in Drummondville that manufactures isolation membranes is in difficulty because a federal program is inadequate. Compared to that company, is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, there are clear criteria for submitting applications under these programs. Companies and organizations that receive money qualify for those programs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the program criteria establish that the Liberal Party is an organization in difficulty, does that mean that the criteria to determine whether an organization is in difficulty are poorly designed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all through this pandemic, our priority has been to be here for workers in difficulty so that they do not lose their jobs. This applies to all organizations and companies in the country to the extent possible. That is what we are in the process of doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Given the answers from the Prime Minister, let me ask this question: is the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: No, Mr.Chair. We are doing important work for all Canadians, every day. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Restaurant owners on rue Ontario in Montreal feel that they will not make it through the crisis and that they will never open their doors again. They are in difficulty. By comparison, is the Liberal Party of Canada an organization in difficulty that will not open its doors again after the crisis? We can but hope. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established criteria for that program in order to help those working for various organizations. Any organization that receives the subsidy has qualified for it. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is there a consensus in the Liberal Party caucus that the Liberal Party is in difficulty as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are working every day to help Canadians and workers in difficulty. We are going to continue to do that work. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Does answering a question put the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, it is a pleasure to be here in the House and to answer questions from Canadians and from members of the opposition. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: You are going to answer a question from a Quebecker, I hope. Companies are struggling in Saguenay, in the Gasp, in Beloeil. Would those companies not deserve to be saved by the money that the supposedly struggling Liberal Party has taken? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I am always very happy to answer questions from all Canadians currently sitting in the House. We will be here to help workers in difficulty all across the country, including in Quebec. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the Prime Minister is so happy to answer questions, I hope he will be delirious with joy to answer this one. Is the Liberal Party in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established a program to help those working in organizations and who could lose their jobs because of COVID-19. We are here to help workers in organizations and companies all over the country. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The conditions of seniors as outlined by the military were appalling, but seniors need more than just compassionate words. They need action. Will the Prime Minister stop hiding behind excuses and actually show leadership to fix long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the Constitution of Canada is not an excuse. It lays out the divisions of powers and responsibilities, and we respect the provinces' jurisdiction over long-term care facilities. However, from the very beginning, we have indicated our willingness to support the provinces on this very important issue. We need to make sure our seniors right across the country are properly cared for, which is why we sent in the military and why we are there to help the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The former federal health minister, Dr. Philpott, said, We need to stop using jurisdiction as an excuse to not have federal leadership. That is a former federal health minister. Now, we know from the military report that staff were afraid to use vital equipment because of the cost. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past couple of days I've had very good conversations with the premiers of both Quebec and Ontario on this important issue. I look forward to discussing issues around long-term care with all the premiers of the provinces and territories tomorrow evening as well. This is something that Canadians have seen needs concerted action. We will be there to support the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Needles were reused and expired medication was used, according to military reports. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in the care of our seniors? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the contents of that report were deeply disturbing and troubling for all Canadians. That is why we are committed to working with the provinces to fix this situation. Ontarians and indeed people right across the country are deeply preoccupied by what they've seen going on. We need to fix this, and we will do that together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that cockroaches and flies were present and that food was rotten. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards so that long-term care is governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our priority right now is ensuring that we are supporting the provinces in their need to make sure that all seniors are protected right across the country in all those institutions. Going forward, we absolutely will need to have more conversations about how we can ensure that every senior across the country is properly supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that respecting the dignity of patients was not a priority. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards and for long-term care to be governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, all Canadians know we need to do better by our seniors. This is something we all take very seriously, and all orders of government will work together to make sure that right now, and going forward, we improve our systems. The federal government will be there to work with the provinces on making that happen. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has said that he's willing to work with the provinces. I'm saying that we need to see federal leadership. We need a commitment at the federal level that the Prime Minister will push for things that people need, which is to remove profit from long-term care and to establish national standards. Will the Prime Minister go beyond working with provinces and show some leadership? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I will always be here to stand up for Canadians in all different situations. We are going to work with the provinces, fully respecting jurisdictions, to make sure that, all across the country, Canadians in long-term care are supported as required and receive the services and the care they deserve. +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 30 seconds. Ask a brief question, please. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much. The COVID-19 crisis should not be used as an excuse to avoid presenting solutions to the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls committee, in particular by delaying action on the calls for justice. This is the same government that would not recognize it as a genocide, the same government that delayed the United Nations declaration legislation and the same government that is still taking indigenous kids to court. Will this government commit to core funding for indigenous services to help women and girls and ensure that the calls for justice are implemented without delay? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we continue to work very closely with partners on the calls for justice even as we act in many areas, including better funding for shelters and for victims of domestic violence. We will continue to work with those partners, but people will understand that many of those partners are very focused right now on helping front-line workers, not on establishing the report. We will continue to work with them on the report, but the COVID-19 situation has made that more difficult. +The Chair: I want to thank the honourable members who are shouting time, but I do have a timer here, and I am taking care of it. I appreciate the help, but I do want to remind them that I have the proper machinery here. We will now go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Chair. My question is to the Prime Minister. He was just talking about the tragic conditions in long-term care facilities in Ontario, and there was a report out from Quebec today. I want to commend the Canadian Armed Forces for witnessing these appalling conditions, putting it in the context of a report, and providing care to our loved ones in these long-term care facilities. The government is saying they didn't receive the report from the department until May 22, but this report came out on May 14. What happened to that report for eight days? +The Chair: We will go to the honourable minister. We seem to have a technical issue, Mr. Sajjan. We can't hear you. You might want to put down your bar and keep it down while you're speaking. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, I want to thank our Canadian Armed Forces members for the tremendous work they are doing. They did their duty, noted down their observations and reported them. While those observations were being reported directly to the managers, a report was being compiled. This report was given to me on the 21st. I then forwarded it to the Minister of Public Safety on the 22nd, and that report was then given to the provincial authorities very quickly afterwards. +Mr. James Bezan: I trust that you got the report on the 21st, but the report was written on the 14th, so what happened with that report for seven days? Why wasn't it acted upon? Could you just explain that? Our loved ones were at risk during that entire time. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as we stated, this report was done and given up through the chain of command, and the appropriate leadership did their due diligence. Once we received this report, it was forwarded to the appropriate authorities. Again, I want to commend our Canadian Armed Forces members for not only the tremendous work they are doing but also for doing their duty. +Mr. James Bezan: That report from Ontario documented appalling conditions, horrific care that was being given to the clients, and also the way that the staff conducted themselves. We know that there are 39 members of the Canadian Armed Forces currently infected with COVID-19. Minister, do you believe that the infection could have been transmitted from staff to our soldiers serving in long-term care facilities because proper protocols were not being followed? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to any type of activities that we send our Canadian Armed Forces on, we do our due diligence to make sure that we have the right protocols in place and the appropriate training. This is why we have taken the time to make sure our folks not only did the appropriate training but had the appropriate equipment. We have the right protocols in place, and we will make sure that our members who are infected by COVID will get the appropriate treatment as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Does the Minister of National Defence believe that our soldiers serving in Operation Laser, who have put themselves in harm's way in battling the COVID virus as a war, deserve to have hazard pay benefits? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to looking after Canadian Armed Forces personnel, yes, we are actually in the process as we speak of making sure that our members have the appropriate hazard pay. This is currently being drafted, and we will have more to say on this shortly. +Mr. James Bezan: I hope that means it's a yes. I do encourage the government to provide that compensation to our soldiers and troops serving in Operation Laser. I would finally like to come back to the issue of the timeline from May 14 to May 21, when that report was in the department for one week. Under our parliamentary system, ministers are accountable for the conduct of their departments. Will the minister take responsibility for that report sitting on someone's desk for seven days and not being turned over to the proper authorities? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear: When it comes to the observations that were made, those were immediately reported to the appropriate management of the care facilities and to the appropriate links within the province. At the same time, this report was being compiled and pushed up to the chain of command, and they did their due diligence. As I stated, it was given to us, and on the same day it was forwarded to the Minister of Public Safety, who immediately then sent it to the provincial authorities. +Mr. James Bezan: Was one of those authorities that this was sent to the RCMP? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as stated, this will not only be given to the proper authorities but the appropriate steps will be taken now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Yesterday it was revealed that the Minister of Digital Government has been promoting a fundraising campaign to sue Global News for their story criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. Why is the minister using her authority to support the Communist Party of China and threatening our media and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray (Minister of Digital Government): Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media right across the country. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is simply not acceptable. Like many members on all sides of the House.... WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with +The Chair: Now we'll go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister aware of the efforts that the United Front carries out on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to influence how Canadians view the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Thank you for that question. Mr. Chair, I want to just be clear. The participation in the WeChat group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister an active participant in the efforts by the Communists to muzzle a Canadian journalist and deprive Canadians of the facts about China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Muzzling journalists is never acceptable, and our government is very clear on that. I will say that the individual in question posted something outside of the guidelines of my WeChat group and is no longer +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk, I just want to point out that we do have interpreters listening and trying to interpret. They'd appreciate it.... +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: My questions are short. That's probably what it is. +The Chair: Take a deep breath. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, the Liberals can't shrug this off. The minister admitted to theBreaker that her own political staff manages this WeChat. This is someone who is paid by Canadian taxpayers. Why is the minister using tax dollars to help China attack Global News and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray: I think the member knows very well that the people who post on WeChat are free to post what they choose within certain guidelines. Those guidelines were ignored. That person is no longer part of my WeChat group. The post was completely unacceptable, and I do not share the views of the individual. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, Sam Cooper is an investigative Canadian journalist who has uncovered many different criminal rackets that can be linked back to Beijing. Has the minister apologized to Sam Cooper for attempting to shut down his work? +Hon. Joyce Murray: As we all know, community outreach is a very important part of the work of a member of Parliament. WeChat is one of many social media sites regularly used by members +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, when will the minister apologize to Sam Cooper and Global News? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Mr. Chair, I have been very clear that I do not share the views of the person who posted on my WeChat site, who operated outside of my +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in December 2018 the Liberals passed Bill C-76. This included provisions to prevent foreign interference in Canadian society. Does the government believe that Joyce Murray's actions have violated this portion of the act? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that we are always vigilant in any foreign interference in our national security or issues of political interference in our society. It's monitored carefully by the national security establishment, according to the law as it exists in this country, and we will remain vigilant. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in May 2019, the Liberals launched their digital charter. One of the principles was strong democracy, a commitment to defend freedom of expression. Will the Liberals hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated this part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we are absolutely committed to the rule of law and will always uphold it. I think, as the minister has made very clear, she was not involved in this process and has no control over the individual who posted that matter. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, unfortunately I don't believe that was a sufficient answer. This is really a yes or no. Will the government hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated their part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that our government remains committed to the rule of law and we will always work tirelessly to uphold the laws of this country. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is that a yes or a no? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I think it was very clear. We will always uphold the laws of Canada. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Still, was that a yes or a no? I'm not hearing a yes or a no. +Hon. Bill Blair: I am doing my very best, Mr. Chair, to answer the question for the House and to assure the member opposite that our government will always remain committed to the rule of law. That is unequivocal. +The Chair: We will now move on to the honourable member. The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am very happy and proud to be participating in this discussion in the House of Commons today. My question is very simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, we continue to be transparent with our measures. Of course, we want to make sure that our investments, our economy +The Chair: The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Let me ask my question to the honourable Minister of Finance once more, since he is talking about transparency. My question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, our economic situation is very fluid. We have made major investments and we are making sure that our economy is working. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the minister's answer is not fluid at all. But the question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, it is important to be transparent with our investments. We look at the investments and the figures every day. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the Minister of Finance may not know what the deficit is, but one great Canadian does know. And he knows that he knows. Could the Minister of Finance be very clear, very fluid and, above all, very transparent with Canadians? What is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I want to be very clear with Canadians: our economic situation is very difficult. The situation is fluid. We are making investments to ensure that our economy will be strong in the future. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, with all due respect to the Minister of Finance, let me point out that, though he is not very clear, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer was clear yesterday. The deficit is $260billion. That is the real number. Why does the government not have the courage to state it clearly, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer did yesterday? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we always want to be clear and transparent. It is very important for the situation to be stable in order to ensure our future. That is our economic approach. We are making investments now so that the situation becomes more stable. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I know that the Minister of Finance is very good with figures. But he is not able to give us one. Perhaps he could comment on the statement that the Parliamentary Budget Officer made yesterday, that the emergency assistance must have an end date, and if it does not, we are heading to levels of taxation that have not been seen in this country for generations. What is the government going to do to make sure that Canadians will not be overtaxed after this crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to make investments. That way, we will have a resilient economy in the future. That's very important. That way, we know that we'll have a good economy in the future. When we have more information, we will +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, will the minister commit not to raise taxes after the crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I have said several times that we do not have a plan to raise taxes. That's very important. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Finally a clear answer! However, I'm not convinced that he will apply it. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer himself has said that there isn't much ammunition left without shifting into a large structural deficit, which can lead directly to tax increases. If the Minister of Finance can't even say today what the deficit is today, how can he be credible when he says that he won't raise taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I think what's most important is that during this pandemic, Canadians and companies across the country need the Government of Canada's help. That is our approach. That way, we will have an economy that will function in the future. Of course, this is important for future generations. +Mr. Grard Deltell: When will there be an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, all observers are expecting an economic update to know where we're going. When will that happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we want our economic update to be accurate. That's why we are looking at information that allow us to make good forecasts. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam have created an economic prosperity group to diversify some of their key supply chains away from China. Canada has a free trade agreement with six of these seven countries. Why are we not part of this group? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for that question. Indeed, we have been working diligently with all of these countries to make sure that we are keeping global supply chains open during this critical time. I think everyone agrees that keeping supply chains open for medical goods, critical agriculture and essential goods is absolutely essential and +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, this government is refusing to come to terms with what COVID-19 will mean for the future of international trade. Why is Canada not at the table with our largest trading partner protecting the viability of our international supply chains and capitalizing on the opportunities of others doing the same? +The Chair: Before we go to the minister, one of the members has his mike still on, and I would ask that he turn it off. I am hearing background noise. The hon. minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has unprecedented access to a number of markets around the world because of the extraordinary agreements that we have made to provide access to customers in those international markets. During COVID-19, we have been working with our G20 partners. I have had two meetings with G20 trade ministers on the importance of keeping supply chains +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, is this payback for the Prime Minister snubbing these countries at the original TPP signing? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we have a CPTPP arrangement with these countries, and we are looking forward to making sure that we get Canadian businesses growing into those markets. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the U.K. will begin applying tariffs at the beginning of next year on Canadian exports such as seafood, beef and cars. These are the items that have had tariffs removed under CETA. Will the government commit to having a new trade agreement with the U.K. in place by January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we are monitoring the situation very carefully. The U.K., of course, is a very important trading partner for Canada. They are in discussions right now. I want to assure Canadian businesses that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the U.K. during this period while they go through Brexit. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, after CUSMA, this government guaranteed to the trade committee that they would publish the objectives of any new trade agreement. When will we see these objectives published and actually have a chance to view them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we look forward to working to ensure that those objectives are published as we get into future trade discussions. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the resignation of the WTO director-general at this unprecedented time is concerning for the international trade community. Is the government committed to supporting a DG candidate who is dedicated to the massive reforms needed to get the WTO functioning again? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for that good question. The Ottawa group, led by Canada, is working with like-minded countries on the reform of the WTO. We've been doing this work and we continue to do this work. I look forward to making sure that we are leading the way on those discussions with like-minded +The Chair: Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the President of the United States considered blocking cattle imports. Our beef producers don't need this. They need stability. Three-quarters of Canada's beef cattle exports go to the U.S. Has the government sought out and received assurances from the United States that no such action will apply to Canadian cattle? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, we have an excellent assurance of our trade with the United States, which is our new NAFTA trade agreement that we have negotiated, thanks to the unprecedented co-operation across this country. It is very important to the Canadian economy and Canadian producers. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, going forward post-COVID, there are a lot things that will be changing in supply chains. What is this government doing proactively to look at opportunities in these supply chains that Canadian businesses can take advantage of? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we continue to work with countries around the globe to ensure that Canada's supply chains and those global supply chains, particularly for essential goods, for agricultural products, for medical supplies, continue to remain open. We will keep doing this work. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, on the agriculture side, canola farmers would like to know the status of canola going into China. Can she update the House on that status? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I want to assure my colleague that we are continuing to work with our industry representatives, our allies and our trading partners in China. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senior Canadian bureaucrats received very credible reports in early January that China was procuring and hoarding PPE. As a member of cabinet, was the health minister aware? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning of the outbreak in early January we were aware of the challenges our health sector would face, and we immediately began to work with the provinces and territories to understand what the need would be and how we could best prepare. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: In April, the minister stated there were not enough supplies in the national emergency stockpile. Can she explain why she approved a donation of 16 tonnes of PPE for China on January 31, claiming it would not compromise our supply? She can't have it both ways. We don't have enough; we have enough and it won't compromise it. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, we are operating in a highly competitive global environment, and the reality is that we need to make sure we have multiple complementary supply chains operating at the same time, which we have been doing in the past weeks and months, to ensure our front-line health care workers have the supplies they need to keep Canadians safe. That's our priority. That's what we're working on. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Unfortunately, this question was directed to the health minister, referencing things she actually stated in terms of the availability of our supplies. Before the she signed off on the donationand it was the health minister who signed off on the donationdid she consult with the health ministers in the provinces and territories? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, provinces and territories have their own stockpiles, which of course they use to prepare for incidences of outbreak and other illnesses across their jurisdictions. We've worked very closely with the provinces and territories since the beginning of the outbreak to make sure we can provide any particular additional support. In fact, of all the requests made so far, we have been able to complete them. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Health care workers are now having to look at modified full-face snorkels as an alternative to N95 masks. Did it not occur to the minister that our hospitals and care homes could have used that PPE she shipped out, providing a longer opportunity for them to also get procurement done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, the equipment that was donated when China was in its outbreak was an important donation of nearly expired or expired goods that it was in desperate need of in its effort to try to contain the virus. As the member opposite knows, we've been able to work successfully with provinces and territories to ensure they have what they need. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Mr. Chair, I would suggest that during February and March our hospitals would have consumed that almost-expired product very efficiently, but I want to move on to another topic. When defending the sale of 22 seniors' homes to the Chinese government, the Prime Minister stated that we have a strong regulatory regime that imposes rigorous standards. He said that this regime ensures the care our seniors get is top quality. That was in 2017. Now he states he is saddened, shocked, disappointed and angered. Was the Prime Minister completely oblivious to the risks, or was he just too anxious to please the Chinese government when he sold those 22 homes? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the homes the member opposite is referring to are in the province of B.C., and I have to commend the province for the early work it did to protect seniors in those long-term care homes. The member opposite is trying to confuse the issue. As she knows, the review we did was entirely separate from the standards to which the province holds the care homes. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: The Prime Minister does not have authority over seniors' homes, which he has clearly stated, but he does have authority over the act in which he approved the sale. At 18 months, government had an obligation to make sure there was compliance. Was that done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the long-term care homes in each province fall within the jurisdiction of their own particular act, and those provinces and territories are responsible for fulfilling the inspections required under that act. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Under the Investment Canada Act, the government is obligated to review the sale for compliance. Four homes had to close. Since the government approved the sale, it is complicit in the care of our seniors in this country +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear that we understand how difficult this is for seniors. That is why we follow the appropriate steps, outlined under the Investment Canada Act, to make sure that any measures we take keep seniors and their well-being first and foremost. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you now have the floor. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Mr.Chair, during the pandemic, the government has given money to companies that don't pay a cent in tax because they use tax havens. We told the government that it didn't make sense. The government's response was that it is no big deal. During the pandemic, the government gave money to Air Canada, but Air Canada never reimbursed customers who did not get the services they paid for. We told the government that it did not make sense. The government's response was that it was no big deal. During the pandemic, the Liberal Party used the emergency wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. We told them that it did not make sense. The government responded that it was no big deal. Is the moral of the story that the government thinks that dipping into the pockets of taxpayers to spend money carelessly is no big deal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, the fight against tax evasion is a priority for our government. We will continue to target companies that use tax evasion schemes. Let me be clear: in everything we do, we will target companies and not innocent workers. Employees are employees, no matter who they work for. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, when I see that it's the Minister of National Revenue answering me, I don't feel like buying a lottery ticket. The Liberal Party used two airplanes in its last election campaign, which seems to indicate that it isn't short of money. However, the Liberals used the emergency wage subsidy. Why? Is it because they want taxpayers to fund a third airplane? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to protect employees across the country and in every economic sector that's experiencing a significant drop in income. That's the approach we've taken to protect people and to ensure that there will be jobs in the future. We will continue this approach. +Mr. Alain Therrien: It's especially important to protect the employees who work for the Liberals to ensure their re-election, yet the Liberal Party has raised more than $7million since the last election. Is the party in jeopardy? Can it go bankrupt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, as I said, our approach is to protect employees. We think that this principle is very important and that this approach must be maintained in order to have a better job market in the future. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, we still don't know exactly how much money the Liberals took from the cookie jar. We think they may have taken as much as $1million. How many SMEs could have been saved with the $1million that the Liberals took out of the jar and took away from SMEs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we appreciate the question. We are protecting hundreds of thousands of SMEs through the emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency response benefit and all our programs. We will continue this approach to help SMEs and their employees. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I will propose a choice of answers, or I won't get any. When did the government decide to use the emergency wage subsidy? Now here are three possible answers. The first possible answer is that when the Liberals brought in the emergency wage subsidy, they set parameters allowing them to use it. The second is that when the Liberals saw the Conservative Partywhich is as rich as they are, but also sanctimonious and self-righteoustake advantage of the subsidy, they thought they could do it too. The third possible answer is that the Liberals hadn't planned to use the subsidy, but they pounced on the cookie jar when they saw it, because that's what they do. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we continue to think it is very important to protect employees in every sector of the economy and across Canada. That's our approach, and I believe it's the right one to protect and preserve jobs across the country during a pandemic. +The Chair: We are now going to suspend the proceedings for a few seconds to allow the employees who provide support for the meeting to replace each other safely. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now resume the discussion. We'll continue with Ms. Khalid, the honourable member for MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for PickeringUxbridge. Mr. Chair, when the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces stepped in to provide support to five long-term care homes in Ontario at the request of the premier, they released a report that outlined their findings in detail. Military members witnessed residents' cries for help going unanswered. They saw force-feeding. They saw bug infestations, a lack of personal protective equipment and neglect. Canadians are shaken. They are appalled by the horrific conditions outlined in the military report. Almost 1,000 seniors so far have lost their lives in long-term care homes in Ontario alone, over 25 of them in my riding of MississaugaErin Mills. These deaths could have been prevented. Can the Minister of Health please update the House on how our federal government is working with the provinces and territories to prevent further tragic occurrences from happening at long-term care homes and to ensure that our most vulnerable seniors are properly looked after and cared for? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's such an important question. I believe all Canadians were deeply horrified to read the details from the Canadian Armed Forces on the conditions in long-term care homes in Ontario. What's happening to seniors in Ontario is completely unacceptable. The report is very troubling. Seniors deserve to live with dignity, with respect and with safety. While long-term care is provincially regulated, we know that we need to work together. The Government of Canada stands ready to support provinces and territories as they continue to respond to this crisis. I had a very good conversation with my provincial and territorial counterparts last night about the work we can do at a national level to support their important work. We also know that seniors want to stay at home longer. That's why our historic investment of $6 billion in home care was so important. We'll continue to work with the provinces and territories to ensure that they get the care and dignity they deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Ms. O'Connell. +Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (PickeringUxbridge, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will sadly report that my community of Pickering has experienced the largest number of deaths at a single COVID-19 outbreak location anywhere in this country. Seventy residents at Orchard Villa long-term care home died during this pandemic. It was a devastating blow to our community. Yesterday, we received the horrific report from the Canadian Armed Forces detailing what they witnessed at Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor in Brampton. The loved ones of those who have passed away, as well as the homes' workers, have asked for a full public inquiry from the Ontario government. I know that the responsibility for these facilities falls within provincial jurisdiction, but on behalf of our communities, can the Minister of Health update us on the work she is doing to ensure that the Ontario government takes action immediately and initiates a full, independent, non-partisan public inquiry and reverses its decision to create a government-led commission that won't even start until September? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I would say that all Canadians were shocked and horrified to hear about the conditions that existed in these particular care homes. We're so grateful to the members of the armed forces who not only improved conditions but also reported them quickly and appropriately to ensure amelioration of those conditions for those particular individuals. We also know that there are seniors all across the country who are struggling with care and with the appropriate level of care. We have to do better as a country. These are our loved ones. These are our parents and our grandparents. These are the people in our lives who have given so much to us. I stand committed to working with my provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure that we do better as a society. We know that there's a role we can play at the federal level with advice, with guidance, with support and, yes, with investments. We look forward to having those conversations about how best we can improve the care for all seniors amongst us. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Mr. Davies from Vancouver Kingsway. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians were horrified to hear the report yesterday from our armed forces about the appalling conditions experienced by seniors in our long-term care homes. Page after page detailed the filth, neglect, abuse and danger our seniors in care are exposed to on a daily basis. Shockingly they face injury and death through missed medications, expired medications, unsterile devices and violations of basic contagion rules to stop the spread of COVID-19. Given that evidence of possible criminal conduct was contained in the military's report, will the minister refer this matter to the RCMP for investigation immediately? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, thanks very much to the member for those expressions of concern, which we share. We understand in long-term care facilities both seniors and persons living with a disability face unique challenges, and the findings of this report are in fact deeply concerning and completely unacceptable. Considering the severity of this report, we promptly shared it with the Province of Ontario, and the Province of Ontario has initiated an investigation based on the report's findings. Their investigation includes alerting the province's chief coroner who has the authority to alert the police of jurisdiction. We will continue to work with the province to protect those living in long-term care facilities, and we continue to support them through the deployment of our outstanding Canadian Armed Forces and in our partnership with the Red Cross. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, that's a shocking answer considering there's clear evidence of criminal conduct and negligence in this. That this federal government is not taking immediate steps to refer this to the nation's RCMP is unacceptable. The seniors care crisis is a national problem. COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities across Canada's entire network of long-term care facilities. Not a single province or territory currently meets the benchmark of 4.1 hours of hands-on care per day. As a result Canada has the worst record of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care among 14 comparable countries, with over 80% of Canadian fatalities occurring in these facilities. Will this government move swiftly to establish binding national standards for long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite is exactly correct when he says that those who are hardest hit in terms of losing their lives and the negative effects of COVID are those who are living in long-term care homes. He's also correct when he indicates that COVID-19 has shown us what many of us have known for a long time, that we need to do better in long-term care and supports for seniors. As the member knows, we started those steps some four years ago or so when we began to make incredible investments in aging at home. We know that is one part of the solution, but we have to do better for those seniors who need a higher level of care. That's the work I'm doing now. I'm working with my colleagues at the provinces and territories to make sure that we come up with a solution that will truly result in better standards for all. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what we need is binding national standards, just like we set through the Canada Health Act in the health care sector generally. Gross fecal contamination, filthy medical equipment, insect infestations, ignoring patient cries for hourswe would never tolerate these conditions in Canada's hospitals. There's no reason to accept them in Canada's long-term care facilities. Will the minister move to bring long-term care facilities under the Canada Health Act, or similar legislation, with formal funds tied to acceptable standards of care for our seniors, just like we do for hospitals? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member shares the disgust and concern of so many Canadians across the country, not only those who have read the report but many of those who have struggled to provide care to elders in those long-term care homes, regardless of the province in which they live. We know we need to do better. We know that collectively, at all levels of government, we must do better for those people who cared for us and nurtured us all of those years. The member has my commitment that I will work with provinces and territories to find a solution forward to ensure that every person has the right to age with dignity and safety. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Davies, you have 15 seconds for another question, a short one, and leave time for a response. +Mr. Don Davies: Thank you, Mr. Chair. These failures are the product of systemic neglect often motivated by prioritizing profit over the provision of adequate care. Does the minister agree that we should not be putting profits above the health care needs of Canada's seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I believe that, when we commit to taking care of people, we must do so with the utmost care that is required. I know that provinces and territories have a lot of work to do. So do we, at the federal level, and obviously at the local level. We must all work together to protect those people in our lives who are most vulnerable, whether they be seniors, children or others. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move on to Mr. Schmale, HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock. Mr. Schmale, go ahead. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. According to Vaughn Palmer in an editorial in the Vancouver Sun regarding the secret Wet'suwet'en deal, Palmer writes: The hereditary chiefs calculated the two governments would sign despite the objections from the elected chiefs. They likewise got the terms they wanted in the MOU while giving up absolutely nothing. Just as they figured governments would keep the contents secret from the public. Can the minister describe another situation in which the federal government negotiated a secret deal of this magnitude with unelected people? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I thank the member for his ongoing concern and I want to remind him that actually it is in keeping with the Supreme Court decision of 1997 that we were to now begin those conversations with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who took the case to the Supreme Court. As we've said many times, this is not an agreement; this is an MOU that establishes the path forward for the substantive discussions towards a final agreement, which would describe the future governance and the implementation of Wet'suwet'en rights and title. It is about a shared commitment. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, if it is a shared commitment, why on the eve of the signing ceremony did the four elected chiefs denounce the hereditary chiefs for keeping them in the dark? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it's really important that the member understand that there was a process for the hereditary chiefs to go back to their communities and discuss with them. Any agreement after the good work that will happen now would have to go back and seek the approval of all of the communities. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, the Burns Lake Band members are openly wondering if they're still a band or if the few unelected hereditary chiefs will control everything now. Minister, can you assure them that going forward you will honour their concerns and take the time to listen? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I ask honourable members to still direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Actually, the honourable member knows that the next steps include the further and ongoing engagement by the Wet'suwet'en in their house groups and that will include the six elected chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en nation, their community members and many others. This is about going forward and making sure that any +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Cynthia Joseph, a chief councillor with the Hagwilget First Nation says the MOU between Ottawa, the province and the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs was only shared with her community members on May 9, two days after it was published in the media. Is this part of the open and transparent government all Canadians can expect of the Prime Minister? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Walking the path of reconciliation means that we work with our partners and there is a way that they do the work within their communities. It is going to be an agreement to begin the work, but any final agreement is going to have to be approved by all members of the nation in terms of developing a consensus for the agreement +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Does the minister have any concerns regarding claims by several former female hereditary chiefs that they were stripped of their hereditary status because they didn't agree with the men? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it is going to be really important that the work take place within the Wet'suwet'en nation to determine their future governance, to determine their way of working with Canada and to make sure +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. For some reason it seems to be a problem to stand up for these hereditary female chiefs who had their titles taken away. Does the minister plan on recognizing band council resolutions denying the authority of hereditary chiefs to sign any future agreements without consent of the elected chiefs and the 3,000 members within the Wet'suwet'en they represent? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member must understand that, as we begin the work, the nation will do its work and then we will come to the table to determine what the governance would be. Will it be a hybrid model like at Heiltsuk, like Ktunaxa, like some of the communities developing their constitutions, developing their laws and deciding how they will determine their own governance and that partnership with Canada? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The current restrictions on non-essential travel at the border do not prevent people from claiming refugee protection if they have family in Canada. Why is the minister refusing to allow married people to cross the border? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the honourable member for a very important question. We have heard from many constituents and members of Parliament from right across the country who are expressing concern about non-status spouses being denied entry into the country because their travel is deemed to be non-essential. I've recently been in touch with all of the provinces and territories because I think it's very important that we have their support for any changes +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: If I understand correctly, Mr.Minister, you are talking to provincial representatives, but a case like that of ChantalTremblay, for instance, is unacceptable. For two months now, she has been trying to bring her spouse to Canada, but it isn't working. Is there a way to issue a directive to border services officers that married spousesit's often marriages with Americanscan cross the border to join their spouses in Canada? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clearagain, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify thisit is never our intention to separate families, but at the same time, we have imposed appropriate and necessary restrictions on non-essential travel. Our border services officers inquire of everyone coming to that border about the nature of their travel, and for non-citizens who come to that border seeking entry into Canada, if their entry is deemed non-essential, then they exercise their discretion not to allow +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. Information from the Canada Border Services Agency has just come out. Since March21, 425,000people have flown into Canada. Among them were 295,000Canadians, which isn't a problem. However, 100,000foreigners have entered Canada, even though the border is supposedly closed. How does the minister explain the fact that 100,000people arrived in Canada by plane? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify. We have imposed very significant restrictions on non-essential travel, but of course there are circumstances where individuals come to this country and their entry into Canada is deemed essential. For example, someone who is providing medical services and coming into Canada to provide those services would be deemed essential, because there is a great need among Canadians for those services. It's dealt with on a case-by-case basis. As you can see by the numbers, we have had a very significant reduction in the travel of all non-Canadians to Canada over the past two months. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So the minister confirms that the 100,000people who arrived by air were providing a service considered essential to Canada. I'm not talking about the people who crossed the land border, but the people who came to Canada by air. +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can tell you is that at all points of entry, including our air borders, we apply the standard that the travel must be deemed essential, and that determination is utilized to see if a person is eligible to enter into the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: We're now learning that the Correctional Service of Canada's investigation into the murder of MarylneLevesque is suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Canadians aren't fooled; they know full well that it is a political decision. All the technological means are available to allow the investigation to continue. I'm proof of that today. Can the minister direct the Correctional Service of Canada to resume the investigation into the death of MarylneLevesque? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member for the question, because we know the concern of the people of Quebec, and the family of Ms. Levesque needs answers and deserves answers. That's why we asked the Parole Board and the Correctional Service of Canada to convene a board of investigation. Clearly, during COVID transmission, the ability to conduct that investigation and to interview all of the witnesses became extremely difficult and has been temporarily suspended, but at the very earliest opportunity we remain resolute to resume that investigation and get to the bottom of it to provide the answers that the family deserves. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have only 20seconds remaining. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, victims of crime are one of the segments of the population most affected by the crisis. As we know, the government refuses to allow victims of crime to participate in parole hearings. For the first time in its history, and to add insult to injury, the government has cancelled all activities related to Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, which was to take place next week. Why is the Prime Minister turning his back on victims? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, at the earliest days of COVID, until arrangements could be put in place, there were restrictions on victims participating. We have put the systems in place to allow victims to present their evidence virtually, either by video or by phone, to ensure that their voices are heard in these important things. We very much respect and support the role of victims in these determinations, and we're making every effort to ensure that they can participate. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now to Mr. Cumming, Edmonton Centre. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday I asked the Minister of Small Business how many business credit availability guarantees were issued by EDC, and I didn't get a number. Does she have an exact, finite, number of the guarantees today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for that question. Our government has taken swift and immediate action to support Canadian businesses through this time. Money from this program is flowing, and businesses across the country are receiving the important support that they need. +Mr. James Cumming: How many BCAP applications have been received so far? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these are large loans, and they require important due diligence and adjudication by the financial institutions. We will continue to be open and transparent as the accurate information becomes available. +Mr. James Cumming: How long does it take to be approved for a BCAP guarantee? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure the member that we're going to do everything possible to support businesses and workers during this very important time. +Mr. James Cumming: How many businesses have received funding under the BCAP co-lending program since March? +Hon. Mary Ng: The lending programs, particularly the program to help small businesses, have really helped lots of businesses. Over 630,000 loans have been issued, and this is really helping those +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Unfortunately, lots is not an answer for the businesses that I'm trying to talk to. Can you tell me, for the CEBA changes that were recently announced, when will we be able to see people who have income through a dividend able to apply? +Hon. Mary Ng: That's a very important question, Mr. Chair. There's nothing more important to me and to our government than getting these supports out to businesses. Those small businesses that will meet the expanded CEBA criteria are working very diligently with the financial institutions to make sure that they can get access to those loans as quickly as possible. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a day when that will happen? +Hon. Mary Ng: The financial institutions are working very hard to make sure that they can make this available to businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: When will a sole proprietor be able to go for those loans? +Hon. Mary Ng: We will work very hard and very diligently to make sure that these businesses and those sole proprietors are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Could they go on Monday? +Hon. Mary Ng: There is nothing more important than making sure these businesses weather the difficult time of COVID-19, and our measures are +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How about Tuesday? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think we will all agree that getting support to these businesses is absolutely crucial. Our commitment is always going to be to get support to these businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: I can't get a distinct answer on any of those questions. Can you tell me how much headroom is left on the CEBA program? +Hon. Mary Ng: Today, over 630,000 businesses have received the support to do things like pay for salaries, the 25% top-up for the wage subsidy, pay for rent and pay for insurance and utilities. This is what these loans are helping our small +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars are left in the program so businesses can have some certainty that the program will be available for some time? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think you will see that the businesses across the country that I have talked to really appreciate that the government has stepped up to help them during this difficult time. These include women with businesses, indigenous-owned businesses and those small businesses all across our communities, all across the country, that are getting the necessary help. We are going to keep +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars? It can't be that complicated. How many dollars? +Hon. Mary Ng: There are 630,000 businesses that are getting help, and thousands more businesses will be getting help with the expanded criteria. We're going to keep doing the work that we need to help our businesses across this country through this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: I heard from a constituent in my riding that they waited for over four hours on the portal for CECRA. Is there an issue with the portal, and if so, when will it be fixed? +Hon. Mary Ng: Making sure that businesses get the help for commercial rent support is absolutely crucial right now. We are going to endeavour to make sure that this help gets out to those small businesses. Applications have opened in a staggered way and +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one last short question, Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Finally, the Prime Minister yesterday said that a list of all organizations that have been receiving CEWS will be made public. When will that be done? +Hon. Mary Ng: We have committed to making sure that those companies taking the wage subsidy program will be listed publicly. We have committed to doing that and we will do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now go to Mr. d'Entremont from West Nova. Mr. d'Entremont, go ahead. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries, but I thought I would say this first. The Canadian Coast Guard is doing a search at this moment following the loss of a vessel off the coast of Newfoundland. From my community, which is a seafaring, fishing community, I just want to put my thoughts out there to the folks of Newfoundland. We are definitely thinking of them during this difficult time. My first question revolves around the lobster fishery. It's been open in Cape Breton since May 15, I believe. The weather has been good. The harvesters have been going at it every day. The price has dropped to $4.25 already. Unstable markets will probably cause it to drop even more. What is the minister doing to make sure the lobster industry survives? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my colleague for his comments with regard to the tragic accident off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where we saw the loss of life in a fishing accident. Of course, as coastal people, we are all in solidarity with the people of Newfoundland right now. We know that the fish and seafood sector has taken extreme hits because of COVID-19. We're working diligently to make sure we support the industry as best we can. We have made available over half a billion dollars to processors and harvesters to make sure they can weather this storm. We have made sure that the harvesters are able to access the harvester benefit as well as the grant, recognizing the unique nature of their business and how they are not able to access some of our other programs. We are continuing to monitor what is happening in the industry. We will continue to make sure we do everything we can to support the fish and seafood sector. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, to continue along this vein for a moment, we are still looking at unstable markets for a longer period of time. At this point, processors are being selective in what they're buying. They're not buying culls and other kinds of lobsters. The plants are filling up, and harvesters are worried that they might stop buying product before the season is complete. What can the fishermen expect, or what kinds of programs can they expect, if the season goes bust? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that this is a very challenging season for our harvesters. We also know that because of the decline in markets, we've had to make accommodations for the processing sector in order to help them be better able to support the harvesters. We have put in $62.5 million, which is allowing the processors to increase capacity in their refrigeration and freezers so that they will continue to be able to purchase product. As I said earlier, we will continue to monitor the situation and make sure we do everything possible to support our harvesters. This is a very difficult +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, I don't know whether this next question will go to the Minister of DFO or the Minister of Transport. Oakley Ryerson is a resident of West Nova. He is planning a career on the sea and wants to get his master class four. The problem is that he can't pass the eye exam. He needs full-colour vision. For those who are far-sighted or nearsighted, you just have to put on your glasses to correct it. You can actually fly airplanes. I don't know about space shuttles, but who knows? You can now wear colour-corrected lenses, but Transport Canada still does not recognize these for use. Can the Minister of Transport help Ryerson in attaining his chosen profession? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I appreciate the concern of my colleague for one of the residents in his riding. I would ask him to write to me and lay out the situation. We have medical standards with respect to a number of different kinds of transportation-related jobs for pilots, mariners and those kinds of occupations, which have to be respected. However, if he sends me the details, I will look into it personally. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. d'Entremont, you have another 20 to 25 seconds left. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the eligibility criteria for financial support include the need to demonstrate a significant loss of income during the months of March and April, yet several SMEs in the tourism industry can't qualify because their operations start with the tourist season, in late May or early June. What will the government do to help them? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, before accessing the emergency wage subsidy, applicants must meet important criteria. However, as we explained last week, we will be adjusting the wage subsidy until the end of August, and we will be reviewing the criteria. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're going to go to the west coast and the member for SaanichGulf Islands. Ms. May, go ahead. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is with regard to the urgent problem of mental health crises across Canada. My colleague, Jenica Atwin from Fredericton, held a press conference this morning in which she used the term echo pandemic. We will face an echo pandemic. We're already seeing increases in suicides on southern Vancouver Island. My question to the minister is this: Will we see direct funding to community mental health services as urgently requested by the Canadian Mental Health Association? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I read the honourable member's colleague's letter just today, and I want to reassure all members that we have invested in mental health supports for Canadians, obviously before the pandemic hit but certainly since we've been living with the pandemic. I'd like to remind all members to direct their constituents to the wellnesstogether.ca website and portal. There Canadians can find online resources, as well as connections to real and alive counsellors and other professionals who can help them with their various concerns. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This question relates to another current emergency: the climate emergency. This week it was reported that the concentration of greenhouse gases reached 417 parts per million. That's not just unprecedented over thousands of years; that's unprecedented over the last one million years. The temperatures in the Arctic broke 86F, 30C in the Arctic circle. The recognized parties in the House have established standing committees to work, but not the committee on the environment. We've asked for this in negotiations. When will the recognized parties remember the June 2019 emergency resolution that we are in a climate emergency, and start making sure that we hit 2020 commitments under the Paris Agreement to improve our targets? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's questions. I will remind her that we have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. We've also committed to surpassing the targets that we had originally set for 2030. We realize that along with the COVID pandemic, which is the major problem that exists in the world today, there is another problem as well that affects the entire planet, and that is the problem associated with climate change. We remain committed to achieving those targets. +Ms. Elizabeth May: My next question will be for Minister Blair, but as an aside, I will say that last answer completely fails to meet the legal requirements of the Paris Agreement to file a new target this year. To save some time, Minister Blair, let's pretend to go back to the questions from my colleague MP Paul-Hus and to your last answer. This is dealt with on a case-by-case basis by CBSA agents. There are thousands of them. They are exercising personal, subjective judgment. This is not acceptable. I'm begging the minister. Could the minister please put out a directive, advice to every CBSA agent on the ground, that when a non-status entry point sees a non-status direct relativehusband, wife, child of a Canadian citizenthat relative be deemed to be entering Canada for an essential purpose? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for bringing this issue forward again. It's an important one. We have been working very hard to ensure that we do everything possible to keep families together. At the same time, we've been working with the provinces and territories, listening to the concerns of Canadians about ensuring that travel across our international border, particularly with the United States, is limited to essential travel. As I've indicated, I've had a number of important conversations and necessary conversations with our provincial and territorial partners. I believe there is a consensus on the right way forward on this, and we're working very diligently to put it in place. I want to assure the member opposite that we have given very clear direction to our CBSA officers. I believe our border services officers have been doing an extraordinary job for us in the exercise of their discretion. At the same time, they have been doing the important work of ensuring the health and safety of Canadians at our border. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Kwan for Vancouver East. Ms. Kwan, go ahead. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Four out of the five homes listed in the armed forces report were for-profit. It is painfully clear that corporate profits are being put ahead of the well-being of seniors. Will the minister admit that the for-profit model is failing our loved ones and commit to getting profits out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite notes, nobody can read that report or hear those stories without feeling absolute horror and disgust and without demanding better for the elders in our lives. As I have mentioned many times in the House, our government remains committed to working with provinces and territories to ensure that every elder person in our community can age with dignity and in safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Minister, if that's the case, I will ask again. Will the minister make sure that the focus of long-term care homes is taking care of seniors and not taking care of owners' bank accounts? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member will obviously know, long-term care remains in the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, and there is legislation that rules them as such. As the member also knows, we have stood by Ontario and all of the other provinces and territories throughout this outbreak. The Prime Minister has been very clear +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Is the minister refusing to answer the question because she agrees that profit should come before care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I think it's unfortunate that the member is trying to place words in my mouth. What I do agree with, though, is that long-term care needs to be reformed, and I think all provinces and territories know, and all Canadians know, that we have to do a better job. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It's simple for the minister. She can just answer the question. Is she willing to defend for-profit care for our seniors? Is she in favour of for-profit private health care too? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: What I am willing to defend is the right for all Canadians to age with safety and dignity. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: To the minister, what is the difference? Why sell out the care of our seniors? Will she commit that she will take profit out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member opposite knows that the only way to actually reform long-term care is to work with provinces and territories, in fact, all levels of government, to ensure that the people who spent their lives caring for and nurturing us can end their lives with caring and nurturing +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I think the minister knows that what we need is national standards for seniors' care. The Revera long-term care homes are owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. Since the government owns these homes, has the military been sent in there to see what's happening to seniors under their care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we know that it is important to work with all of the provinces and territories under whose jurisdiction it falls to protect the seniors within those care homes. That's what we've been doing since the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus, and that's what we'll continue to do to protect the lives of seniors and strengthen their protection. We will, as I said, Mr. Chair, work with the provinces and territories to have a longer-term plan so that all seniors can age with dignity and safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The government has a clear responsibility here. What is the government doing to ensure the standards of care in these Revera homes that they own? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I have repeatedly said, the jurisdiction for care of long-term care homes falls within the provincial and territorial realm. However, that being said, Mr. Chair, we have been there for provinces and territories since the outbreak of the coronavirus, and as the member opposite has clearly or likely heard the Prime Minister say, we will stand with provinces and territories as all elders have the right to age with dignity +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I didn't hear an answer, Mr. Chair, so the answer is nothing, then. Do you think that the families of the seniors in these homes want to hear those excuses about jurisdictional issues? Does the minister not think that the families want to hear that the federal government is doing all it can to care for their parents? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would remind the members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quite frankly, I don't think that families care which level of government is responsible for caring for their elders. I think what they care about is that their elders are cared for. That's in fact what the Prime Minister believes. That's in fact what our government believes, and that's why we have willingly stepped up to say to provinces and territories that we will be there with you to make sure that all seniors in our lives have the right to age with dignity and care. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now give the floor to Mrs.Gill, from the riding of Manicouagan. Go ahead, Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Mr.Chair, my question is for the Prime Minister who, earlier, clearly told us that the government's assistance is intended for those who are most in need and most vulnerable. I come from a riding where a lot of people make their living from the tourism industry. I don't know if the PrimeMinister read the newspapers yesterday, but in Quebec, losses to the tune of $4billion are expected until March2021 in the tourism accommodation sector alone. The service sector will lose 93,000jobs. How can I justify to my constituents the fact that a political party, which does not need it, has already seen money from the emergency wage subsidy, when people in my riding don't yet have access to it because of the seasonal nature of their work? These people haven't seen the money that is available through these programs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We think it is very important to protect the country's employees in all sectors of the economy. Through this approach, there will be more jobs after the pandemic, and the economic situation will be better. We will continue this approach. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, this is the wrong approach. They are saying that they are protecting the jobs of the Liberal Party of Canada, which does not need the money. I'll ask a question similar to the previous one. Fishers in my riding did not qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Another program was created for them, which isn't quite the same and doesn't really meet their needs. A government whose political wingnot the parliamentary wingdoesn't really need money takes money from the fund, but leaves fishers to make do with less generous programs that don't meet their needs. What do I tell the fishers in my riding? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that many sectors of the economy across the country are facing challenges. That's why we have adopted an approach with consistent criteria for all employees in all sectors. We have also introduced specific measures to help certain sectors, such as the fishing industry. We will continue our approach because we believe it's the best way to protect employees and our economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I'm still not satisfied. The government is saying that the best way to proceed is to give money to the political wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, when there are people who are getting nothing. What am I supposed to tell seasonal workers, who have absolutely no assurances for their future? I can't go back to my riding and say I'm proud of the work the government is doing or our efforts in the House. It's true, the House is closed right now. I forgot. I have a very hard time accepting that the government is helping employees of the Liberal Party in preparation for the next election campaign, when communities in my region are dying because their economies revolve around a single industry. I can't tell them I'm not ashamed of what's going on as we speak. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we felt it was necessary to put emergency programs in place in response to the crisis during the pandemic. That is our approach. The emergency wage subsidy is a program that is clearly meant to ensure employees are protected and maintain their relationship with their employer. As for the Canada emergency response benefit, it means a lot to people who don't have a job. We are going to stick to our approach, which is to use consistent criteria to help all employees and all Canadians around the country struggling in any sector of the economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I think the honourable Minister of Finance lives in an ivory tower. No, he is not protecting all jobs. No, he is not protecting all sectors of the economy. Once again, I will say that a party that doesn't need money has already received subsidies. However, people who need that money, people who are actually losing money or who don't know if they'll even be working this summer are getting zilch. There is absolutely no justifying that. I'd at least like to know whether the government is ashamed of what it's doing. When people have a conscience, eventually, they want to make up for their mistakes. Are the Liberals going to return that money? Is the finance minister going to help all sectors of the economy, including tourism, fisheries and seasonal industries? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for her question. Our approach is based on consistent criteria. The emergency wage subsidy is meant for any sector of the economy where revenues have dropped by 30% or more. The measure is hugely important for organizations that are really struggling, because we can protect their workers. We are also providing the Canada emergency response benefit to other employees, meaning, those who have lost their income because of COVID-19. Consequently, we will keep up our approach to ensure we continue to fare as well as possible and the economy works well after the pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to our last group of interventions, and that will be from Ms. Jansen in CloverdaleLangley City. Ms. Jansen, go ahead. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen (CloverdaleLangley City, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to begin with a shout-out to the brave waiters and waitresses at our local Earls restaurant and Browns Socialhouse, who have been opened again for on-site dining this week. Here in B.C. we're beginning to find our new normal, and it was great to see how small businesses have so quickly adapted their establishments to keep their workers and patrons safe while allowing people to get back to the business of living. You guys rock. Thanks for taking the lead. Mr. Chair, here in my riding I recently had contact with the mayor of Langley City who was wondering if I had any way of accessing personal protective gear, because our local firefighters were running out of stock. Then again yesterday, I spoke with one of our local homeless shelters that is also looking for PPE. Dr. Tam is telling all Canadians to wear masks in public, but I'm wondering if the Minister of Public Service and Procurement could tell us where exactly we're going to get all those masks with the current shortage. +Hon. Anita Anand: I want to be clear that our priority as a federal government has been to respond to provincial and territorial requests for PPE that goes to front-line health care workers. That is our priority, and we've been procuring goods aggressively in domestic and international markets. We are now actively also exploring ways in which we can assist broader organizations across the country with PPE needs, and that is something that I'll continue to update the House on as we go forward. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: A Globe and Mail article revealed that government orders for N95 masks have steadily been dropping. We've gone from over 200 million ordered to 100 million, according to a federal source. Mr. Chair, the number of N95 masks ordered, as reported on the department's website, does continue to fall. Will the minister tell us why we seem to continue to struggle to supply PPE to Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand: It is no secret that we are in a global competition for N95 masks and other supplies, so the Government of Canada's approach is to diversify supply chains internationally and build up and retool domestic industry so that we can have these supplies going forward. In terms of the numbers on our web page, we have short-term and long-term contracts in place +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Jansen. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: Yes, I understand that a number of Chinese mask manufacturers have been nationalized, and products for Canadians have been confiscated by the CCP government. Is the drop in N95 orders due to, in actual fact, contracts being cancelled? +Hon. Anita Anand: On N95 masks, I would like to assure the member and the House that we have multiple contracts in place for the procurement of N95 masks, including with 3M in the United States, whose masks are crossing our border weekly over the next month. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: That didn't quite answer my question. Have any of our orders been cancelled by the nationalization of these manufacturers in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have an aide in place in China. We have our embassy and other firms actively ensuring that our supplies from the manufacturing source make their way to the warehouse. Over 40 flights have come to Canada with those masks and other supplies. Our supply chains are operating despite the global environment being highly competitive. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: We know many millions of N95 masks have arrived in Canada from China and have been substandard. What is the total number of substandard masks that have arrived? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as previously explained to the House, about eight million masks did not meet spec by the Public Health Agency of Canada and have been repurposed to some extent in other areas of the system. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: In a previous committee, the deputy minister advised us that Medicom was shoulder-tapped by the government to consider producing PPE. How many other companies did the government approach for this contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have operated in a very urgent way in order to procure supplies for front-line health care workers. We are now also moving to ensure that we have competitions run for the procurement of personal protective equipment. It's a multi-pronged approach, and our priority is to get supplies out to front-line health care workers in this time of crisis as quickly as possible. Thank you so much. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we adjourn, I think this another mark of accomplishment on behalf of the great team here at the House of Commons. There have been some great efforts, even since yesterday evening, to get this turned around for today. My compliments to all members joining us here in the House and to all members who have joined by virtual conference. The committee is now adjourned until noon tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned. +","The Chair of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic called the hybrid meeting to order, welcoming members participating via videoconference and in person. Following the order made by the House on May 26, 2020, statements by members were added to the committee procedures. The Chair provided guidance on how members should participate and the technical setup for those joining by videoconference. + +Ms. Elizabeth May (Green Party) presented a certified petition for universal national pharmacare, noting that Canada lacks necessary prescription medication coverage, leaving millions unprotected. + +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Conservative Party) presented two petitions: one supporting Bill S-204 against forced organ harvesting and trafficking, and another opposing the removal of safeguards from Canada's euthanasia regime through Bill C-7. + +Mr. Darrell Samson (Liberal Party) honored the memory of three local women from Nova Scotia who died in the line of duty serving the country. + +Mr. James Bezan (Conservative Party) criticized the mounting federal deficit projected by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) and called for support for various industries and responsible financial management. + +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (Liberal Party) expressed grave concern over the horrific allegations of negligence and abuse in long-term care homes and urged for mandatory management orders and an independent inquiry in Ontario. + +Ms. Elizabeth May raised a point of order about petition practices, reminding colleagues to summarize petitions concisely rather than making speeches. + +Mr. Martin Champoux (Bloc Québécois) advocated for an economic update before June 17 to inform public finances planning and criticized tech giants for not contributing taxes in Canada. + +Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Liberal Party) acknowledged Paramedic Services Week and community support in her area, also reacting to the distressing report on long-term care centres. + +Mrs. Shannon Stubbs (Conservative Party) emphasized the crisis faced by Canada's oil and gas sector due to unfavourable policies and slow government support. + +Mrs. Lyne Bessette (Liberal Party) praised community organizations for their efforts during the COVID-19 crisis and stressed information sharing. + +Mr. Arif Virani (Liberal Party) recognized essential workers and local initiatives providing protective barriers for small businesses in Parkdale. + +Mr. Jol Godin (Conservative Party) celebrated graduating students during the pandemic and urged government support for their future involvement in communities. + +Mr. Greg Fergus (Liberal Party) announced an event called Stand United Canada, where Christians join for prayer and support disadvantaged Canadians. + +Ms. Rachael Harder (Conservative Party) argued that the government is suppressing free speech through misinformation and censorship actions, urging for the protection of democratic principles. + +Mr. John Nater (Conservative Party) raised concerns about small business struggles, urging the government to revise support programs to make them more accessible. + +Ms. Laurel Collins (New Democratic Party) encouraged a sustainable and just recovery plan, prioritizing the fight against climate change, homelessness, and inequality. + +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (Bloc Québécois) commended healthcare workers at CISSS de la Montrégie-Ouest for their dedication amid the pandemic. + +Mr. John Barlow (Conservative Party) highlighted community heroes in his constituency contributing to the pandemic response. + +Mr. Scott Simms (Liberal Party) expressed gratitude to those who extended kindness to others, such as providing meals to truckers and front-line workers. + +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition) questioned the Prime Minister about the lack of improvements to rigid aid programs and criticized delays in making simple changes to support affected businesses. + +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister) defended the government's rollout of support programs and mentioned working on fulfilling gaps, highlighting ongoing discussions with various businesses. + +Mr. Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Québécois) questioned the Prime Minister on the Liberal Party's use of the emergency wage subsidy, insinuating improper use of aid intended for organizations in difficulty. + +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau reiterated the purpose of the subsidy to support workers in organizations facing significant income drops, regardless of the sector. + +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (New Democratic Party) addressed the issue of long-term care and the military's disturbing report, asking if the Prime Minister would call for a public inquiry and push for national standards akin to the Canada Health Act. + +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau emphasized respecting provincial jurisdiction but acknowledged the need to work together to support seniors and the vulnerable, mentioning having discussions with premiers. + +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence) explained the report timeline from the military on long-term care homes and confirmed the protocol for sharing the information with appropriate authorities. + +Ministers Joyce Murray, Bill Blair, and Bill Morneau also responded to various members' questions, covering topics such as mental health resources, international trade, pandemic support for different sectors, correctional service investigations, and immigration and border issues." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: I guess . +Grad A: OK , we 're on . So just make sure that th your wireless mike is on , if you 're wearing a wireless . +Grad E: Check one . Check one . +Grad A: And you should be able to see which one {disfmarker} which one you 're on by , uh , watching the little bars change . +Grad B: So , which is my bar ? Mah ! Number one . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad E: Sibilance . Sibilance . +Grad A: So , actually , if you guys wanna go ahead and read digits now , as long as you 've signed the consent form , that 's alright . +Grad E: Are we supposed to read digits at the same time ? +Grad A: No . No . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Each individually . We 're talking about doing all at the same time but I think cognitively that would be really difficult . {vocalsound} To try to read them while everyone else is . +Grad E: Everyone would need extreme focus . +Grad A: So , when you 're reading the digit strings , the first thing to do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Other way . We m We may wind up with ver We {disfmarker} we may need versions of all this garbage . +Grad B: For our stuff . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . So the first thing you 'd wanna do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . You can see the transcript ? There 's two large number strings on the digits ? So you would just read that one . And then you read each line with a small pause between the lines . And the pause is just so the person transcribing it can tell where one line ends and the other begins . And I 'll give {disfmarker} I 'll read the digit strings first , so can see how that goes . Um . Again , I 'm not sure how much I should talk about {pause} stuff before everyone 's here . +Professor C: Mmm . Well , we have one more coming . +Grad A: OK . Well , why don't I go ahead and read digit strings and then we can go on from there . +Professor C: OK . Well , we can start doing it . +Grad A: Thanks . So , uh , just also a note on wearing the microphones . All of you look like you 're doing it reasonably correctly , but you want it about two thumb widths away from your mouth , and then , at the corner . And that 's so that you minimize breath sounds , so that when you 're breathing , you don't breathe into the mike . Um . Yeah , that 's good . And uh {disfmarker} So , everyone needs to fill out , only once , the speaker form and the consent form . And the short form {disfmarker} I mean , you should read the consent form , but uh , the thing to notice is that we will give you an opportunity to edit a all the transcripts . So , if you say things and you don't want them to be released to the general public , which , these will be available at some point to anyone who wants them , uh , you 'll be given an opportunity by email , uh , to bleep out any portions you don't like . Um . On the speaker form just fill out as much of the information as you can . If you 're not exactly sure about the region , we 're not exactly sure either . So , don't worry too much about it . The {disfmarker} It 's just self rating . Um . And I think that 's about it . I mean , should I {disfmarker} Do you want me to talk at all about why we 're doing this and what this project is ? +Professor C: Um , yeah . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: No . There was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} Let 's see . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Does Nancy know that we 're meeting in here ? +Grad B: I sent an email . +Professor C: She got an emai she was notified . +Grad E: Oh yeah , she got an e Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Whether she knows {vocalsound} is another question . Um . So are the people going to be identified by name ? +Grad A: Well , what we 're gonna {disfmarker} we 'll anonymize it in the transcript . Um , but not in the audio . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: So the +Professor C: OK . So , then in terms of people worrying about , uh , excising things from the transcript , it 's unlikely . Since it {disfmarker} it does isn't attributed . Oh , I see , but the a but the {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , so if I said , "" Oh , hi Jerry , how are you ? "" , we 're not gonna go through and cancel out the "" Jerry ""s . +Professor C: Yeah . Sure . +Grad A: Um , so we will go through and , in the speaker ID tags there 'll be , you know , M - one O seven , M - one O eight . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , but uh , +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: um , it w uh , I don't know a good way of doing it on the audio , and still have people who are doing discourse research be able to use the data . +Professor C: OK . Mm - hmm . No , I {disfmarker} I wasn't complaining , +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: I just wanted to understand . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: Well , we can make up aliases for each of us . +Grad A: Yeah , I mean , whatever you wanna do is fine , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: but we find that {disfmarker} We want the meeting to be as natural as possible . So , we 're trying to do real meetings . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And so we don't wanna have to do aliases +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: and we don't want people to be editing what they say . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: So I think that it 's better just as a pro post - process to edit out every time you bash Microsoft . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Um , OK . So why don't you tell us briefly +Grad A: OK . So th +Professor C: your {disfmarker} give {disfmarker} give your e normal schpiel . +Grad A: Um . So this is {disfmarker} The project is called Meeting Recorder and there are lots of different aspects of the project . Um . So my particular interest is in the PDA of the future . This is a mock - up of one . Yes , we do believe the PDA of the future will be made of wood . Um . {comment} The idea is that you 'd be able to put a PDA at the table at an impromptu meeting , and record it , and then be able to do querying and retrieval later on , on the meeting . So that 's my particular interest , is a portable device to do m uh , information retrieval on meetings . Other people are interested in other aspects of meetings . Um . So the first step on that , in any of these , is to collect some data . And so what we wanted is a room that 's instrumented with both the table top microphones , and these are very high quality pressure zone mikes , as well as the close talking mikes . What the close talk ng talking mikes gives us is some ground truth , gives us , um , high quality audio , um , especially for people who aren't interested in the acoustic parts of this corpus . So , for people who are more interested in language , we didn't want to penalize them by having only the far field mikes available . And then also , um , it 's a very , very hard task in terms of speech recognition . Um . And so , uh , on the far field mikes we can expect very low recognition results . So we wanted the near field mikes to at least isolate the difference between the two . So that 's why we 're recording in parallel with the close talking and the far field at the same time . And then , all these channels are recorded simultaneously and framed synchronously so that you can also do things like , um , beam - forming on all the microphones and do research like that . Our intention is to release this data to the public , um , probably through f through a body like the LDC . And , uh , just make it as a generally available corpus . Um . {vocalsound} There 's other work going on in meeting recording . So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're working with SRI , with UW , Um . NIST has started an effort which will include video . We 're not including video , obviously . And uh {disfmarker} and then also , um , a small amount of assistance from IBM . Is also involved . Um . Oh , and the digit strings , this is just a more constrained task . Um . So because the general environment is so challenging , we decided to {disfmarker} to do at least one set of digit strings to give ourselves something easier . And it 's exactly the same digit strings as in TI - digits , which is a common connected digits corpus . So we 'll have some , um , comparison to be able to be made . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: OK , so when the l last person comes in , just have them wear a wireless . It should be on already . Um . Either one of those . And uh , read the digit strings and {disfmarker} and fill out the forms . So , the most important form is the consent form , so just be s be sure everyone signs that , if they consent . +Grad B: I 'm sure it 's pretty usual for meetings that people come late , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: so you will have to leave what you set . +Grad A: Right . And uh , just give me a call , which , my number 's up there when your meeting is over . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I 'm going to leave the mike here but it 's n {nonvocalsound} Uh , but I 'm not gonna be on so don't have them use this one . It 'll just be sitting here . +Grad B: Input ? Yeah . There we go . +Professor C: By the way , Adam , we will be using the , uh , screen as well . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , you know . Wow ! Organization . So you guys who got email about this {pause} oh f uh , Friday or something about what we 're up to . +Grad E: No . +Grad F: No . +Grad B: I got it . +Grad E: What was the nature of the email ? +Professor C: Oh , this was about {pause} um , inferring intentions from features in context , and the words , like "" s go to see "" , or "" visit "" , or some +Grad B: Wel - we I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't get it ? +Grad E: I don't think I did . +Professor C: I guess these g have got better filters . Cuz I sent it to everybody . You just blew it off . +Grad E: Ah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: It 's really simple though . So this is the idea . Um . We could pursue , um , if we thought it 's {disfmarker} it 's worth it but , uh , I think we {disfmarker} we will agree on that , um , to come up with a {disfmarker} with a sort of very , very first crude prototype , and do some implementation work , and do some {disfmarker} some research , and some modeling . So the idea is if you want to go somewhere , um , and focus on that object down {disfmarker} Oh , I can actually walk with this . This is nice . down here . That 's the Powder - Tower . Now , um , {vocalsound} we found in our , uh , data and from experiments , that there 's three things you can do . Um , you can walk this way , and come really , really close to it . And touch it . But you cannot enter or do anything else . Unless you 're interested in rock climbing , it won't do you no good standing there . It 's just a dark alley . But you can touch it . If you want to actually go up or into the tower , you have to go this way , and then through some buildings and up some stairs and so forth . If you actually want to see the tower , and that 's what actually most people want to do , is just have a good look of it , take a picture for the family , {comment} you have to go this way , and go up here . And there you have a vre really view {disfmarker} It exploded , the {disfmarker} during the Thirty years - war . Really uh , interesting sight . And um , these uh {disfmarker} these lines are , um , paths , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: or so That 's ab er , i the street network of our geographic information system . And you can tell that we deliberately cut out this part . Because otherwise we couldn't get our GIS system to take {disfmarker} to lead people this way . It would always use the closest point to the object , and then the tourists would be faced , you know , in front of a wall , but it would do them absolutely no good . So , {vocalsound} what we found interesting is , first of all , intentions differ . Maybe you want to enter a building . Maybe you want to see it , take a picture of it . Or maybe you actually want to come as close as possible to the building . For whatever reason that may be . +Grad E: What 's it {disfmarker} what 's it made out of ? +Grad B: Um , r red limestone . +Grad E: So maybe you would wanna touch it . +Grad B: Yeah , maybe you would want to touch it . Um . Okay , I {disfmarker} This , um {disfmarker} These intentions , we {disfmarker} w w we could , if we want to , call it the {disfmarker} the Vista mode , where we just want to {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} s get the overview or look at it , the Enter mode , and the , well , Tango mode . I always come up with {disfmarker} with silly names . So this "" Tango "" means , literally translated , "" to touch "" . So {disfmarker} But sometimes the {disfmarker} the Tango mode is really relevant in the {disfmarker} in the sense that , um , if you want to , uh {disfmarker} If you don't have the intention of entering your building , but you know that something is really close to it , and you just want to approach it , or get to that building . Consider , for example , the Post Office in Chicago , a building so large that it has its own zip code . So the entrance could be miles away from the closest point . So sometimes it m m m makes sense maybe to d to distinguish there . So , um , I 've looked , uh , through twenty some {disfmarker} Uh , I didn't look through all the data . um , and there {disfmarker} there 's uh , a lot more different ways in people {disfmarker} uh , the ways people phrase how to g get {disfmarker} if they want to get to a certain place . And sometimes here it 's b it 's a little bit more obvious {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} Maybe I should go back a couple of steps and go through the {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , OK come in , sit down . If you grab yourself a microphone . +Grad B: You need to sign some stuff and read some digits . +Professor C: Well , you can sign afterwards . +Grad B: O or later . +Grad E: You have to al also have to read some digits . +Professor C: Afterwards . +Grad D: OK . {comment} OK . Afterwards is fine . +Grad B: They are uncomfortable . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Really small ? OK . I see . OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: Thank you . +Grad B: OK , but that was our idea . +Professor C: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it it also has to be switched on , Nance . +Grad B: Is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: No , that one 's already on , I thought he said . +Professor C: It 's on ? OK , good . +Grad D: OK . It 's on . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . That was the idea . Um , people , when they w when they want to go to a building , sometimes they just want to look at it . Sometimes they want to enter it . And sometimes they want to get really close to it . That 's something we found . It 's just a truism . And the places where you will lead them for these intentions are sometimes ex in incredibly different . I {disfmarker} I gave an example where the point where you end up if you want to look at it is completely different from where {disfmarker} if you want to enter it . So , this is sort of how people may , uh {disfmarker} may phrase those requests to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a mock - up system at least that 's the way they did it . And we get tons of {disfmarker} of these "" how do I get to "" , "" I want to go to "" , but also , "" give me directions to "" , and "" I would like to see "" . And um , what we can sort of do , if we look closer a closer at the {disfmarker} the data {disfmarker} That was the wrong one . um , we can look at some factors that may make a difference . First of all , very important , and um , that {disfmarker} I 've completely forgot that when we talked . This is of course a crucial factor , "" what type of object is it ? "" So , some buildings you just don't want to take pictures of . Or very rarely . But you usually want to enter them . Some objects are more picturesque , and you {disfmarker} more f more highly photographed . Then of course the {disfmarker} the actual phrases may give us some idea of what the person wants . Um . Sometimes I found in the {disfmarker} Uh , looking at the data , in a superficial way , I found some s sort of modifiers that {disfmarker} that m may also give us a hint , um , "" I 'm trying to get to "" Nuh ? "" I need to get to "" . Sort of hints to the fact that you 're not really sightseeing and {disfmarker} and just f there for pleasure and so forth and so on . And this leads us straight to the context which also should be considered . That whatever it is you 're doing at the moment may also inter influence the interpretation of {disfmarker} of a phrase . So , this is , uh , really uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} My suggestion is really simple . We start with , um {disfmarker} Now , Let me , uh , say one more thing . What we do know , is that the parser we use in the SmartKom system will never differentiate between any of these . So , basically all of these things will result in the same XML M - three - L structure . Sort of action "" go "" , and then an object . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah ? and a source . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's way too crude to d capture those differences in intentions . So , I thought , "" Mmm ! Maybe for a deep understanding task , that 's a nice sort of playground or first little thing . "" Where we can start it and n sort of look {disfmarker} "" OK , we need , we gonna get those M - three - L structures . The crude , undifferentiated parse . Interpreted input . We may need additional part of speech , or maybe just some information on the verb , and modifiers , auxiliaries . We 'll see . And I will try to {disfmarker} to sort of come up with a list of factors that we need to get out of there , and maybe we want to get a g switch for the context . So this is not something which we can actually monitor , {vocalsound} now , but just is something we can set . And then you can all imagine sort of a {disfmarker} a constrained satisfaction program , depending on {disfmarker} on what , um , comes out . We want to have an {disfmarker} a structure resulting if we feed it through a belief - net or {disfmarker} or something along those lines . We 'd get an inferred intention , we {disfmarker} we produce a structure that differentiates between the Vista , the Enter , and the , um , Tango mode . Which I think we maybe want to ignore . But . That 's my idea . It 's up for discussion . We can change all of it , any bit of it . Throw it all away . +Grad F: Now @ @ this email that you sent , actually . +Professor C: What ? +Grad F: Now I remember the email . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Huh . Still , I have no recollection whatsoever of the email . I 'll have to go back and check . +Professor C: Not important . So , what is important is that we understand what the proposed task is . And , the {disfmarker} the i uh , Robert and I talked about this some on Friday . And we think it 's well - formed . So we think it 's a well - formed , uh , starter task for this , uh , deeper understanding in the tourist domain . +Grad F: So , where exactly is the , uh , deeper understanding being done ? Like I mean , s is it before the Bayes - net ? Is it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always all of it . So , in general it 's always going to be , the answer is , everywhere . Uh , so the notion is that , uh , this isn't real deep . But it 's deep enough that you can distinguish between these th three quite different kinds of , uh , going to see some tourist thing . And , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the quote "" deep "" that we 're trying to get at . And , Robert 's point is that the current front - end doesn't give you any way to {disfmarker} Not only doesn't it do it , but it also doesn't give you enough information to do it . It isn't like , if you just took what the front - end gives you , and used some clever inference algorithm on it , you would be able to figure out which of these is going on . So , uh , and this is {disfmarker} Bu - I in general it 's gonna be true of any kind of deep understanding , there 's gonna be contextual things , there 're gonna be linguistic things , there 're gonna be discourse things , and they gotta be combined . And , my idea on how to combine them is with a belief - net , although it may turn out that t some totally different thing is gonna work better . Um , the idea would be that {vocalsound} you , uh , take your {disfmarker} You 're editing your slide ? +Grad B: Yeah . As i a sort of , as I get ideas , uh w uh . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad B: So , discourse {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about that . Of course that needs to sort of go in there . +Professor C: Oh . I 'm sorry . OK . So . This is minutes {disfmarker} taking minutes as we go , in his {disfmarker} in his own way . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: Um , but the p the {disfmarker} Anyway . So the thing is , {vocalsound} i uh , d naively speaking , you 've {disfmarker} you 've got a {disfmarker} for this little task , a belief - net , which is going to have as output , the conditional pr probability of one of three things , that the person wants to {disfmarker} uh , to View it , to Enter it , or to Tango with it . Um . So that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the output of the belief - net is pretty well formed . And , then the inputs are going to be these kinds of things . And , then the question is {disfmarker} there are two questions {disfmarker} is , uh , one , where do you get this i {comment} information from , and two , what 's the structure of the belief - net ? So what are the conditional probabilities of this , that , and the other , given these things ? And you probably need intermediate nodes . I {disfmarker} we don't know what they are yet . So it may well be that , uh , for example , that , uh , knowing whether {disfmarker} Oh , another thing you want is some information abou I think , about the time of day . Now , they may wanna call that part of context . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But the time of day matters a lot . And , if things are obviously closed , then , you {disfmarker} +Grad B: People won't want to enter it . +Professor C: Pe - people don't wanna enter them . And , if it 's not obvious , you may want to actually uh , point out to people that it 's closed {disfmarker} you know , what they 're g going to is closed and they don't have the option of entering it . +Grad B: s b +Professor C: So another thing that can come up , and will come up as soon as you get serious about this is , that another option of course is to have a {disfmarker} more of a dialogue . So if someone says something you could ask them . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And {disfmarker} Now , one thing you could do is always ask them , but that 's boring . And it also w it also be a pain for the person using it . So one thing you could do is build a little system that , said , "" whenever you got a question like that I 've got one of three answers . Ask them which one you want . "" OK . But that 's , um , not what we 're gonna do . +Grad B: But maybe that 's a false state of the system , that it 's too close to call . +Professor C: Oh yeah . You want the {disfmarker} you want the ability to a You want the ability to ask , but what you don't wanna do is onl build a system that always asks every time , and i That 's not getting at the scientific problem , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and it 's {disfmarker} In general you 're {disfmarker} you know , it 's gonna be much more complex than that . a This is purposely a really simple case . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: I have one more point to {disfmarker} to Bhaskara 's question . Um , I think also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deep understanding part of it is {disfmarker} is going to be in there to the extent that we um , want it in terms of our modeling . We can start , you know , basic from human beings , model that , its motions , going , walking , seeing , we can mem model all of that and then compose whatever inferences o we make out of these really conceptual primitives . That will be extremely deep in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in my understanding . +Professor C: Yeah . S so {disfmarker} so the way that might come up , if you wanna {disfmarker} Suppose you wanted to do that , you might say , "" Um , as an intermediate step in your belief - net , is there a Source - Path - Goal schema involved ? "" OK ? And if so , uh , is there a focus on the goal ? Or is there a focus on the path ? or something . And that could be , uh , one of the conditiona you know , th the {disfmarker} In some piece of the belief - net , that could be the {disfmarker} the appropriate thing to enter . +Grad F: So , where would we extract that information from ? From the M - three - L ? +Professor C: No . No . See , the M - three - L is not gonna give th What he was saying is , the M - three - L does not have any of that . All it has is some really crude stuff saying , "" A person wants to go to a place . "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: The M - three - L is the old SmartKom output ? +Professor C: Right . M - three well , M - three - L itself refers to Multimedia Mark - up Language . +Grad E: OK . It 's just a language . Right , yeah . +Professor C: So we have th w we we we have to have a better w way of referring to {disfmarker} +Grad B: The parser output ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" Analyzed speech "" I think it 's what they call it , +Professor C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad B: really , oder {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: o th No , actually , intention lattices is what we 're gonna get . +Professor C: Is - i but they c they call it intention lattice , but tha +Grad B: In - in a intention lattice k Hypothesis . +Professor C: Anyway . +Grad B: They call it intention hypotheses . +Professor C: Right . So , th they 're gonna give us some cr uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} We can assume that y you get this crude information . About intention , and that 's all they 're going to provide . And they don't give you the kind of object , they don't give you any discourse history , if you want to keep that you have to keep it somewhere else . +Grad B: Well , they keep it . We have to request it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Nuh ? But it 's not in there . +Professor C: Well , they {disfmarker} they kee they keep it by their lights . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: It may {disfmarker} it may or may not be what {disfmarker} what we want . +Grad B: Yeah , or i +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , if someone says , "" I wanna touch the side of the Powder - Tower "" , that would {disfmarker} basically , we need to pop up Tango mode and the {disfmarker} and the directions ? +Professor C: If i if {disfmarker} Yeah , if it got as simple as that , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But it wouldn't . +Grad E: OK . But that doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} But we 'd have to infer a Source - Path - Goal to some degree for touching the side , right ? +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Uh , th the there is a p a point there if I understand you . Correct ? Um , because um , sometimes people just say things {disfmarker} This you find very often . "" Where is the city hall ? "" And this do they don't wanna sh see it on a map , or they don't wanna know it 's five hundred yards away from you , or that it 's to the {disfmarker} your north . They wanna go there . That 's what they say , is , "" Where is it ? "" . Where is that damn thing ? +Grad E: And the parser would output {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , that 's a {disfmarker} a question mark . sh A lot of parsers , um , just , uh {disfmarker} That 's way beyond their scope , is {disfmarker} of interpreting that . You know ? But um , still outcome w the outcome will be some form of structure , with the town hall and maybe saying it 's a WH focus on the town hall . But to interpret it , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know ? somebody else has to do that job later . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just trying to figure out what the SmartKom system would output , depending on these things . +Grad B: Um , it will probably tell you how far away it is , at least that 's {disfmarker} That 's even what Deep Map does . It tells you how far away it is , and {disfmarker} and shows it to you on a map . Because i we can not differentiate , at the moment , between , you know , the intention of wanting to go there or the intention of just know wanting to know where {disfmarker} where it is . +Grad D: People no might not be able to infer that either , right ? Like the fact {disfmarker} Like , I could imagine if someone came up to me and asked , "" Where 's the city hall ? "" , I might say , g ar "" Are you trying to get there ? "" Because how I describe um , t its location {disfmarker} uh , p probably depend on whether I think I should give them , you know , directions now , or say , you know , whatever , "" It 's half a mile away "" or something like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . It 's a granularity factor , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: because where people ask you , "" Where is New York ? "" , you will tell them it 's on the East Coast . +Grad D: Uh - huh . Yeah . Exactly . Right . Right . +Grad B: Y y eh {disfmarker} you won't tell them how to get there , ft you know , take that bus to the airport and blah - blah - blah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: But if it 's the post office , you will tell them how to get there . +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So th They have done some interesting experiments on that in Hamburg as well . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: So . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} i Go {disfmarker} go back to the {disfmarker} the uh , th +Grad B: So I w this is {disfmarker} "" onto "" is {disfmarker} is knowledge about buildings , +Professor C: Yeah , that slide . +Grad B: their opening times , and then t coupled with time of day , um , this should {disfmarker} You know . +Grad D: So that context was like , um , their presumed purpose context , i like business or travel , as well as the utterance context , like , "" I 'm now standing at this place at this time "" . +Professor C: Yeah , well I think we ought to d a As we have all along , d We {disfmarker} we 've been distu distinguishing between situational context , which is what you have as context , and discourse context , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which you have as DH , +Grad B: Nuh . +Professor C: I don't know what the H means . +Grad B: History . Discourse history . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Whatever . So we can work out terminology later . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're quite distinct . I mean , you need them both , but they 're quite distinct . And , so what we were talking about doing , a a as a first shot , is not doing any of the linguistics . Except to find out what seems to be {pause} useful . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason the belief - net is in blue , is the notion would be {disfmarker} Uh , this may be a bad dis bad idea , but the idea is to take as a first goal , see if we could actually build a belief - net that would make this three way distinction uh , in a plausible way , given these {disfmarker} We have all these transcripts and we 're able to , by hand , extract the features to put in the belief - net . Saying , "" Aha ! here 're the things which , if you get them out of {disfmarker} out of the language and discourse , and put them into the belief - net , it would tell you which of these three uh , intentions is most likely . "" And if {disfmarker} to actually do that , build it , um {disfmarker} you know , run it {disfmarker} y y run it on the data where you hand - transcribe the parameters . And see how that goes . If that goes well , then we can start worrying about how we would extract them . So {disfmarker} where would you get this information ? And , expand it to {disfmarker} to other things like this . But if we can't do that , then we 're in trouble . I mean th th i i if you can't do this task , um {disfmarker} +Grad B: We need a different , uh , engine . Machine , I mean . +Professor C: Uh , uh , yeah , or something . Well it {disfmarker} i I if it {disfmarker} if it 's the belief - nets , we we 'll switch to you know , logic or some terrible thing , but I don't think that 's gonna be the case . I think that , uh , if we can get the information , a belief - net is a perfectly good way of doing the inferential combination of it . The real issue is , do what are the factors involved in determining this ? And I don't know . +Grad B: Hmm . But , only w +Professor C: Hold on a s Hold on a second . +Grad B: Muh . +Professor C: So , I know . Uh , uh , is it clear what 's going on here ? +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Um , I missed the beginning , but , um I guess {disfmarker} could you back to the slide , the previous one ? So , is it that it 's , um {disfmarker} These are all factors that uh , a These are the ones that you said that we are going to ignore now ? or that we want to {vocalsound} take into account ? You were saying n +Professor C: Take them into account . But {disfmarker} but you don't worry about {disfmarker} h +Grad D: Take the {disfmarker} the linguistic factors too . Oh , how to extract these features . +Professor C: how to extract them . So , f let 's find out which ones we need first , +Grad D: OK . Got it . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . And {disfmarker} and it 's clear from the data , um , like , sorta the correct answer in each case . +Professor C: No . +Grad D: But l +Grad B: No . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Let 's go back to th Let 's go back to the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the slide of data . +Grad D: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the thing I 'm curious ab +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Like do we know from the data wh which {disfmarker} OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad B: Not from that data . But , um , since we are designing a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an , compared to this , even bigger data collection effort , {comment} um , we will definitely take care to put it in there , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: in some shape , way , form over the other , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: to see whether we can , then , get sort of empirically validated data . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Um , from this , we can sometimes , you know {disfmarker} an and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} but that {disfmarker} isn't that what we need for a belief - net anyhow ? is sort of {disfmarker} s sometimes when people want to just see it , they phrase it more like this ? But it doesn't exclude anybody from phrasing it totally differently , even if they still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: you know ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: But then other factors may come into play that change the outcome of their belief - net . So , um , this is exactly what {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Because y you can never be sure . And I 'm sure even i the most , sort of , deliberate data collection experiment will never give you data that say , "" Well , if it 's phrased like that , the intention is this . "" +Grad D: Sure . +Grad B: You know , because then , uh , you {disfmarker} +Grad D: u u I mean , the only way you could get that is if you were to give th the x subjects a task . Right ? Where you have {disfmarker} where your , uh , current goal is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: We Yeah ! That 's what we 're doing . +Grad D: +Grad B: But {disfmarker} but we will still get the phrasing all over the place . +Grad D: So that 's what you want ? OK . So you will know . +Grad B: I 'm sure that , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I guess , it 's just knowing the intention from the experimental subject . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: From that task , yeah . So , uh , I think you all know this , but we are going to actually use this little room +Grad D: +Professor C: and start recording subjects probably within a month or something . So , this is not any {disfmarker} lo any of you guys ' worry , except that we may want to push that effort to get information we need . So our job {vocalsound} is to figure out how to solve these problems . If it turns out that we need data of a certain sort , then the sort of data collection branch can be , uh , asked to do that . And one of the reasons why we 're recording the meeting for these guys is cuz we want their help when we d we start doing uh , recording of subjects . So , yeah {disfmarker} y you 're absolutely right , though . No , you {disfmarker} you will not have , and there it is , and , uh {disfmarker} But you know , y y the , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I think the other concern that has come up before , too , is if it 's {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I don't know if this was collected {disfmarker} what situation this data was collected in . Was it {disfmarker} is it the one that you showed in your talk ? Like people {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , no . No . +Grad D: But OK . So was this , like , someone actually mobile , like {disfmarker} s using a device ? +Grad B: Uh , N no , no not {disfmarker} i it was mobile but not {disfmarker} not with a w a real wizard system . So there were never answers . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . But , is it {disfmarker} I guess I don't know {disfmarker} The situation of {disfmarker} of collecting th the data of , like {disfmarker} Here you could imagine them being {disfmarker} walking around the city . as like one situation . And then you have all sorts of other c situational context factors that would influence w how to interpret , like you said , the scope and things like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: If they 're doing it in a {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm sitting here with a map and asking questions "" , I {disfmarker} I would imagine that the data would be really different . Um , so it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} It was never th th the goal of that data collection to {disfmarker} to serve for sat for such a purpose . So that 's why for example the tasks were not differentiated by intentionality , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: there was n there was no label , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know , intention A , intention B , intention C . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Or task A , B , C . Um I 'm sure we can produce some if we need it , um , that {disfmarker} that will help us along those lines . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But , you know , you gotta leave something for other people to model . So , to {disfmarker} Finding out what , you know , situational con what the contextual factors of the situation really are , you know is an interesting s interesting thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: u u Sort of I 'm , at the moment , curious and I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s w want to approach it from the end where we can s sort of start with this toy system that we can play around with , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so that we get a clearer notion of what input we need for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: what suffices and what doesn't . And then we can start worrying about where to get this input , what {disfmarker} what do we need , you know {disfmarker} Ultimately once we are all experts in changing that parser , for example , maybe , there 's just a couple three things we need to do and then we get more whatever , part of speech and more construction - type - like stuff out of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Grad B: It 's a m pragmatic approach , uh , at the moment . +Grad E: How exactly does the data collection work ? Do they have a map , and then you give them a scenario of some sort ? +Grad B: OK . Imagine you 're the {disfmarker} the subject . You 're gonna be in here , and somebody {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and you see , uh , either th the three - D model , or uh , a QuickTime animation of standing u in a square in Heidelberg . So you actually see that . Um . The uh , um , first thing is you have to read a text about Heidelberg . So , just off a textbook , uh , tourist guide , to familiarize , uh , yourself with that sort of odd - sounding German street names , like Fischergasse and so forth . So that 's part one . Part two is , you 're told that this huge new , wonderful computer system exists , that can y tell you everything you want to know , and it understands you completely . And so you 're gonna pick up that phone , dial a number , and you get a certain amount of tasks that you have to solve . First you have to know {disfmarker} find out how to get to that place , maybe with the intention of buying stamps in there . Maybe {disfmarker} So , the next task is to get to a certain place and take a picture for your grandchild . The third one is to get information on the history of an object . The fourth one {disfmarker} And then the g system breaks down . It crashes , And {disfmarker} +Grad D: a At the third ? Right then ? +Grad B: After the third task . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And then {disfmarker} Or after the fourth . Some find {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Forget that for now . And then , a human operator comes on , and {disfmarker} and exp apologizes that the system has crashed , but , you know , urges you to continue , you know ? now with a human operator . And so , you have basically the same tasks again , just with different objects , and you go through it again , and that was it . Oh , and one {disfmarker} one little bit {disfmarker} w And uh , the computer you are {disfmarker} you are being told the computer system knows exactly where you are , via GPS . When the human operator comes on , um , that person does not know . So the GPS is crashed as well . So the person first has to ask you "" Where are you ? "" . And so you have to do some {disfmarker} s tell the person sort of where you are , depending on what you see there . Um , this is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a bit that I d I don't think we {disfmarker} Did we discuss that bit ? Uh , I just sort of squeezed that in now . But it 's something , uh , that would provide some very interesting data for some people I know . So . +Grad D: So , in the display you can {disfmarker} Oh , you said that you cou you might have a display that shows , like , the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . a Additionally , y you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sort of a map type display . +Grad D: a w your perspective ? sort of ? +Grad B: Uh , two - D . +Grad D: And so , as you {disfmarker} +Grad B: n +Grad D: Oh , two - D . OK . +Grad B: Two - D . +Grad D: So as you move through it that 's - they just track it on the {disfmarker} for themselves +Grad B: Yeah . b y You don't {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: there . +Grad B: I don't know . I but y I don't think you really move , sort of . +Grad D: OK . So +Grad B: Yeah ? I mean that would be an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an enormous technical effort , unless we would {disfmarker} We can show it walks to , you know . We can have movies of walking , you walking through {disfmarker} through Heidelberg , and u ultimately arriving there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Maybe we wanna do that . Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I was just trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how ambitious the system is . +Grad B: The map was sort of intended to {disfmarker} You want to go to that place . You know , and it 's sort of there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And you see the label of the name {disfmarker} So we get those names , pronunciation stuff , and so forth , and we can change that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . So your tasks don't require you to {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} yo you 're told {disfmarker} So when your task is , I don't know , "" Go buy stamps "" or something like that ? So , do you have to respond ? or does your {disfmarker} Uh , what are you ste what are you supposed to be telling the system ? Like , w what you 're doing now ? or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , we 'll see what people do . +Grad D: There 's no {disfmarker} OK , so it 's just like , "" Let 's figure out what they would say under the circumstances "" . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and we will record both sides . I mean , we will record the Wi - the Wizard {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: I mean , in both cases it 's gonna be a human , in the computer , and in the operator case . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And we will re there will be some dialogue , you know ? So , you first have to do this , and that , +Grad D: Yep . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: see wh what they say . We can ins instruct the , uh , wizard in how expressive and talkative he should be . But um , maybe the {disfmarker} maybe what you 're suggesting {disfmarker} Is what you 're suggesting that it might be too poor , the data , if we sort of limit it to this ping pong one t uh , task results in a question and then there 's an answer and that 's the end of the task ? You wanna m have it more {disfmarker} more steps , sort of ? +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't know how much direction is given to the subject about what their interaction {disfmarker} I mean , th they 're unfamiliar w with interacting with the system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: All they know is it 's this great system that could do s stuff . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh yeah , but {disfmarker} to some extent this is a different discussion . +Grad D: Right ? So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we have to have this discussion of th the experiment , and the data collection , and all that sorta stuff +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: and we do have , um , a student who is a candidate for wizard . Uh , she 's gonna get in touch with me . It 's a student of Eve 's . FEY , Fey ? Spelled FEY . Do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , Fey Parrill . +Professor C: You know her ? +Grad D: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK . Sh - Is sh +Grad D: She started taking the class last year and then didn't {disfmarker} um , you know , didn't continue . I g She 's a g +Professor C: She 's graduated . +Grad D: Is she an undergradua She is a graduate , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I m I know her very , very briefly . I know she was inter you know , interested in aspect and stuff like that . +Professor C: OK . So , anyway , she 's looking for some more part time work w while she 's waiting actually for graduate school . And she 'll be in touch . So we may have someone , uh , to do this , and she 's got you know , some background in {disfmarker} in all this stuff . And is a linguist st and , so So . {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} So , Nancy , we 'll have an At some point we 'll have another discussion on exactly wha t t you know , how that 's gonna go . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And um , Jane , but also , uh , Liz have offered to help us do this , uh , data collection and design and stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: So , when we get to that we 'll have some people doing it that know what they 're doing . +Grad D: OK . I guess the reason I was asking about the sort of the de the details of this kind of thing is that , um , it 's one thing to collect data for , I don't know , speech recognition or various other tasks that have pretty c clear correct answers , but with intention {vocalsound} um , obviously , as you point out , there 's a lot of di other factors and {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure , um , how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} e the question of how to make it a t appropriate toy version of that {disfmarker} Um , it 's ju it 's just hard . So , I mean , obviously it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , uh , actually I guess that was my question . Is the intention implicit in the scenario that 's given ? Like , do the {disfmarker} +Grad D: It is , if they have these tasks that they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I just wasn't sure to what level of detail the task was . +Grad D: to {disfmarker} to give {disfmarker} Yeah , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: n No one is , at the moment . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , we that 's part of what we 'll have to figure out . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But , uh , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} The problem that I was tr gonna try to focus on today was , let 's suppose by magic you could collect dialogues in which , one way or the other , you were able to , uh , figure out both the intention , and set the context , and know what language was used . So let 's suppose that we can get that kind of data . Um . The issue is , can we find a way to , basically , featurize it so that we get some discrete number of features so that , uh , when we know the values to all those features , or as many as possible , we can w come up with the best estimate of which of the , in this case three little intentions , are most likely . +Grad D: w What are the t three intentions ? Is it to go there , to see it , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: To come as close as possible to it . +Professor C: Th - the terminology we 're using is to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it 's @ @ . +Professor C: Go back . To v +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: to View it . OK ? To Enter it . Now those {disfmarker} It seems to me those are cl you c you have no trouble with those being distinct . "" Take a picture of it "" you {disfmarker} you might well want to be a really rather different place than entering it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , for an object that 's at all big , uh , sort of getting to the nearest part of it uh , could be quite different than either of those . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Just sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , so now I understand the referent of Tango mode . I didn't get that before . +Grad E: See , I would have thought it was more of a waltz . +Grad B: S To "" Waltz "" it ? +Grad D: Yeah , like , how close are you gonna be ? +Professor C: Well . +Grad D: Like , {vocalsound} Tango 's really close . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz a tango {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Well , anyway . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: All these So , like , the question is how what features can {disfmarker} like , do you wanna try to extract from , say , the parse or whatever ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like , the presence of a word or the presence of a certain uh , stem , or {disfmarker} certain construction or whatever . +Professor C: Right . Is there a construction , or the kind of object , or w uh , anything else that 's in the si It 's either in the {disfmarker} in the s the discourse itself or in the context . So if it turns out that , whatever it is , you want to know whether the person 's uh , a tourist or not , OK ? that becomes a feature . Now , how you determine that is another issue . But fo for the current problem , it would just be , "" OK , if you can be sure that it 's a tourist , versus a businessman , versus a native , "" or something , uh , that would give you a lot of discriminatory power and then just have a little section in your belief - net that said , "" pppt ! "" Though sin f in the short run , you 'd set them , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and see ho how it worked , and then in the longer run , you would figure out how you could derive them . From previous discourse or w any anything else you knew . +Grad F: Right . So , how should {disfmarker} What 's the uh , plan ? Like , how should we go about figuring out these {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . So , first of all is , uh , do e either of you guys , you got a favorite belief - net that you 've , you know , played with ? JavaBayes or something ? +Grad F: Oh . No , not really . +Professor C: OK . Well , anyway . f Get one . OK ? So {disfmarker} y so one of th one of the things we wanna do is actually , uh , pick a package , doesn't matter which one , uh , presumably one that 's got good interactive abilities , cuz a lot of what we 're gonna be d You know , we don't need the one that 'll solve massive , uh , belief - nets quickly . d w These are not gonna get big in {disfmarker} in the foreseeable future . But we do want one in which it 's easy to interact with and , uh , modify . Because i that 's {disfmarker} A lot of what it 's gonna be , is , um , playing with this . And probably one in which it 's easy to have , um , what amounts to transcript files . So that if {disfmarker} if we have all these cases {disfmarker} OK ? So we make up cases that have these features , OK , and then you 'd like to be able to say , "" OK , here 's a bunch of cases "" {disfmarker} There 're even ones tha that you can do learning OK ? So you have all their cases and {disfmarker} and their results and you have a {disfmarker} algorithms to go through and run around trying to set the {disfmarker} the probabilities for you . Um , probably that 's not worth it . I mean , my guess is we aren't gonna have enough data that 's good enough to make the {disfmarker} these data fitting ones worth it , but I don't know . So I would say you guy the first task for you two guys is to um , pick a package . OK , and you wanna it s You know , the standard things you want it stable , you want it {disfmarker} yeah , @ @ . And , as soon as we have one , we can start trying to , uh , make a first cut at what 's going on . +Grad B: An - Nuh . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} what I like about it is it 's very concrete . OK ? We {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} we know what the outcomes are gonna be , and we have some {disfmarker} some data that 's loose , we can use our own intuition , and see how hard it is , and , importantly , what intermediate nodes we think we need . So it {disfmarker} if it turns out that just , thinking about the problem , you come up with things you really need to {disfmarker} You know , this is the kind of thing that is , you know , an intermediate little piece in your belief - net . That 'd be really interesting . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} and it may serve as a platform for a person , maybe me , or whoever , who is interested in doing some linguistic analysis . I mean , w we have the For - FrameNet group here , and we can see what they have found out about those concepts already , that are contained in the data , um , you know , to come up with a nice little set of features and um , maybe even means of s uh , extracting them . And {disfmarker} and that altogether could also be {disfmarker} uh , become a nice paper that 's going to be published somewhere , if we sit down and write it . And um {disfmarker} When you said JavaBayes belief - net you were talking about ones that run on coffee ? or that are in the program language Java ? +Professor C: No , th It turns out that there is a , uh {disfmarker} The new end of Java libraries . OK , and it turns out one called +Grad B: Mmm . OK . +Professor C: Which is one that fair {disfmarker} people around here use a fair amount . I have no idea whether that 's {disfmarker} The obvious advantage of that is that you can then , relatively easily , get all the other Java packages for GUIs or whatever else you might want to do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that i that 's I think why a lot of people doing research use that . But it may not be {disfmarker} I have no idea whether that 's the best choice an and there 're plenty of people around , students in the department who , you know , live and breathe Bayes - nets . So , uh , +Grad D: There 's the m tool kit that um , Kevin Murphy has developed , +Professor C: Right . It 's OK . +Grad D: which might be useful too . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: So , yeah , Kevin would be a good person to start with . +Grad D: And it 's available Matlab code . +Professor C: Nancy knows him well . I don't know I don't know whether you guys have met Kevin yet or not , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I know him . +Grad B: But i But since we all probably are pretty sure that , um , the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: For example , this th th the dialogue history is {disfmarker} is um , producing XML documents . M - three - L of course is XML . And the ontology that um , uh the student is {disfmarker} is constructing for me back in {disfmarker} in EML is in OIL and that 's also in XML . And so that 's where a lot of knowledge about bakeries , about hotels , about castles and stuff is gonna come from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Um , so , if it has that IO capability and if it 's a Java package , it will definitely be able {disfmarker} We can couple . +Professor C: Yeah . So , yeah , we 're sort of {nonvocalsound} committed to XML as the kind of , uh , interchange . But that 's , you know , not a big deal . +Grad B: Who isn't , nuh ? +Professor C: So , in terms of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} interchanging in and out of any module we build , It 'll be XML . And if you 're going off to queries to the ontology , for example , you 'll have to deal with its interface . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's fine an and um , all of these things have been built with much bigger projects than this in mind . So they {disfmarker} they have worked very hard . It 's kind of blackboards and multi - wave blackboards and ways of interchanging and registering your a And so forth . So , that I don't think is even worth us worrying about just yet . I mean if we can get the core of the thing to work , in a way that we 're comfortable with , then we ca we can get in and out of it with , uh , XML , um , little descriptors . I believe . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . Yeah , I like , for example , the {disfmarker} what you said about the getting input from {disfmarker} from just files about where you h where you have the data , have specified the features and so forth . +Professor C: I don't {disfmarker} I don't see {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's , of course , easy also to do with , you know , XML . +Professor C: Uh , you could have an X {disfmarker} yeah , you could make and XML format for that . Sure . +Grad B: So r +Professor C: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , you know , feature value XML format is probably as good a way as any . So it 's als Yeah , I guess it 's also worth , um , while you 're poking around , poke around for XML packages that um , do things you 'd like . +Grad F: Doesn't {disfmarker} does SmartKom system have such packages ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the lib M - three - L library does that . It 's also {disfmarker} +Professor C: And the question is , d you c you {disfmarker} you 'll have to l We 'll have to l That should be {disfmarker} ay We should be able to look at that {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , u u y um the {disfmarker} What I {disfmarker} What sort of came to my mind i is {disfmarker} was the notion of an idea that if {disfmarker} if there are l nets that can actually lear try to set their own , um , probability factors based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on input {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: which is in file format , if we , um , get really w wild on this , we may actually want to use some {disfmarker} some corpora that other people made and , for example , if {disfmarker} if they are in {disfmarker} in MATE , then we get X M L documents with discourse annotations , t you know , t from the discourse act down to the phonetic level . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , Michael has a project where {disfmarker} you know , recognizing discourse acts and he does it all in MATE , and so they 're actually annotating data and data and data . So if we w if we think it 's worth it one of these days , not {disfmarker} not with this first prototype but maybe with a second , and we have the possibility of {disfmarker} of taking input that 's generated elsewhere and learn from that , that 'd be nice . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: It 'd be nice , but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't wanna count on it . I mean , you can't {disfmarker} you can't run your project based on the speculation that {disfmarker} that the data will come , +Grad B: No , no , uh , just for {disfmarker} +Professor C: and you don't have to actually design the nets . +Grad B: Nuh . Just a back door that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think we should devote m +Professor C: Could happen . Yeah . So in terms of {disfmarker} of the , um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what the SmartKom gives us for M - three - L packages , it could be that they 're fine , or it could be eeh . You don't {disfmarker} You know , you don't really like it . So we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not abs we 're not required to use their packages . We are required at the end to give them stuff in their format , but hey . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Um , it 's , uh {disfmarker} It doesn't control what you do in you know , internally . +Grad B: +Grad E: What 's the time frame for this ? +Grad B: Two days ? Two , three days ? +Professor C: Huh ? Yeah bu w I 'd like that this {disfmarker} y yeah , this week , to ha to n to {vocalsound} have y guys , uh , you know , pick {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} y you know , belief - net package +Grad B: No . +Professor C: and tell us what it is , and give us a pointer so we can play with it or something . +Grad F: Sure . +Professor C: And , then as soon as we have it , I think we should start trying to populate it for this problem . Make a first cut at , you know , what 's going on , and probably the ea easiest way to do that is some on - line way . I mean , you can f figure out whether you wanna make it a web site or {disfmarker} You know , how +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} um , OK , I {disfmarker} t Yeah . I was actually more joking . With the two or three days . So this was {disfmarker} was a usual jo +Professor C: OK , I wasn't . +Grad B: Um , it will take as long as y y yo you guys need for that . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: But um , maybe it might be interesting if {disfmarker} if the two of you can agree on who 's gonna be the speaker next Monday , to tell us something about the net you picked , and what it does , and how it does that . +Professor C: Well , y Well , or both of them speak . +Grad F: Sure . +Grad B: Yeah , or you can split it up . +Professor C: We don't care . +Grad B: So , y +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: So that will be sort of the assignment for next week , is to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} for slides and whatever net you picked and what it can do and {disfmarker} and how far you 've gotten . Pppt ! +Professor C: Well , I 'd like to also , though , uh , ha have a first cut at what the belief - net looks like . Even if it 's really crude . OK ? So , you know , here a here are {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we 're supposed to @ @ about features and whatnot , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , as I said , what I 'd like to do is , I mean , what would be really great is you bring it in {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we could , uh , in the meeting , say , you know , "" Here 's the package , here 's the current one we have , "" uh , you know , "" What other ideas do you have ? "" and then we can think about this idea of making up the data file . Of , uh , you know , get a {disfmarker} t a p tentative format for it , let 's say XML , that says , l you know , "" These are the various scenarios we 've experienced . "" We can just add to that and there 'll be this {disfmarker} this file of them and when you think you 've got a better belief - net , You just run it against this , um {disfmarker} this data file . +Grad F: So we 'll be like , hand , uh , doing all the probabilities . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , unt until we know more . +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: And what 's the relation to this with {disfmarker} Changing the table so that the system works in English ? +Grad B: OK . So this is {disfmarker} Whi - while you were doing this , I received two lovely emails . The {disfmarker} the full NT and the full Linux version are there . I 've downloaded them both , and I started to unpack the Linux one {disfmarker} Uh , the NT one worked fine . and I started unta pack the Linux one , it told me that I can't really unpack it because it contains a future date . So this is the time difference between Germany . I had to wait until one o ' clock this afternoon before I was able to unpack it . Now , um {disfmarker} Then it will be my job to get this whole thing running both on Swede and on this machine . And so that we have it . And then um {disfmarker} Hopefully that {disfmarker} hoping that my urgent message will now come through to Ralph and Tilman that it will send some more documentation along , we {disfmarker} I control p Maybe that 's what I will do next Monday is show the state and show the system and show that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So the answer , Johno , is that these are , at the moment , separate . Uh , what one hopes is that when we understand how the analyzer works , we can both worry about converting it to English and worry about how it could ex extract the parameters we need for the belief - net . +Grad E: I guess my question was more about time frame . So we 're gonna do belief - nets this week , and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , yeah . I don't know . n None of this is i n Neither of these projects has got a real tight time - line , in the sense that over the next month there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a deliverable . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK . S so uh , it 's opportu in that sense it 's opportunistic . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , if we don't get any information for these guys f for several weeks then we aren't gonna sit around , you know , wasting time , trying to do the problem or guess what they {disfmarker} You know , just pppt ! go on and do other things . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} but the uh {disfmarker} This point is really {disfmarker} I think very , very valid that ultimately we hope that {disfmarker} that both will merge into a harmonious and , um , wonderful , um , state where we can not only do the bare necessities , IE , changing the table so it does exactly in English what it does in German , but also that we can sort of have the system where we can say , "" OK , this is what it usually does , and now we add this little thing to it "" , you know ? whatever , Johno 's and Bhaskara 's great belief - net , and we plug it in , and then for these certain tasks , and we know that navigational tasks are gonna be a core domain of the new system , it all {disfmarker} all of a sudden it does much better . Nuh ? Because it can produce better answers , tell the person , as I s showed you on this map , n you know , produce either you know , a red line that goes to the Vista point or a red line that goes to the Tango point or red line that goes to the door , which would be great . So not only can you show that you know something sensible but ultimately , if you produce a system like this , it takes the person where it wants to go . Rather than taking him always to the geometric center of a building , +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad B: which is what they do now . And we even had to take out a bit . Nancy , you missed that part . We had to take out a bit of the road work . So that it doesn't take you to the wall {vocalsound} every time . +Grad D: Oh , really ? +Grad B: So . Um {disfmarker} So this was actually an actual problem that we encountered , which nobody have {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} because car navigation systems don't really care . You know , they get you to the beginning of the street , some now do the house number . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: But even that is problematic . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: If you go d If you wanna drive to the SAP in Waldorf , I 'm sure the same is true of Microsoft , it takes you to the {disfmarker} the address , whatever , street number blah - blah - blah , you are miles away from the entrance . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad B: Because the s postal address is maybe a mailbox somewhere . Nuh ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but the entrance where you actually wanna go is somewhere completely different . So unless you 're a mail person you really don't wanna go there . +Grad D: Right , yeah . +Professor C: Probably not then , cuz y you probably can't drop the mail there anyway . +Grad B: Probably neither {disfmarker} e not even that . +Professor C: Yeah . Clear ? +Grad F: OK . Sounds good . +Grad E: The Powder - Tower is made of red limestone . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Do you wanna see a picture ? +Grad D: OK . Sure ! +Grad E: Sure ! +Grad B: Have to reboot for that though . +Grad D: Um . So , you two , who 'll be working on this , li are {disfmarker} are you gl will you be doing {disfmarker} Well , I mean are you supposed to just do it by thinking about the situation ? Can you use the sample data ? +Professor C: Of course they use the sample data . +Grad D: Is it like {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , ho is there more than {disfmarker} Is there a lot s of sample data that is beyond what you {disfmarker} what you have there ? +Grad B: There {disfmarker} there 's more than I showed , but um , um , I think this is sort of um , in part my job to look at that and {disfmarker} and to see whether there are features in there that can be extracted , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: and to come up with some features that are not you know , empirically based on {disfmarker} on a real experiment or on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on reality +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but sort of on your intuition of you know , "" Aha ! This is maybe a sign for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and this is maybe a sign for this . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , yeah . Later this week we should sort of get together , and sort of start thinking about that , hopefully . +Grad B: Talk features . Yep . +Professor C: OK . We can end the meeting and call Adam , and then we wanna s look at some filthy pictures of Heidelberg . We can do that as well . +Grad B: Well they had {disfmarker} they used the ammunition {disfmarker} They stored the ammunition in that tower . +Professor C: Uh , is that OK ? +Grad B: And that 's why , when it was hit by uh , a cannon ball , it exploded . +Professor C: Alright . Oh . Ni +Grad E: It exploded . That 's why they call it the Powder - Tower . +Grad B: Ahh . +Grad E: OK . I first thought it had something to do with the material that it {disfmarker} w that 's why I asked . +Grad D: That 's right , OK . +Grad B: Mmm . +","The conversation involves several graduate students (labeled Grad A, B, E, F, and D) and Professor C discussing a project revolving around wireless microphones, digit strings, consent forms, and acoustic data collection for speech and meetings, focusing on the development and implementation of belief nets, also known as Bayesian networks, for deeper understanding in the tourist domain. + +Grad A handles the technical instructions for the meeting, including setting up wireless microphones and informing participants about the consent forms which will protect their privacy in audio recordings. Professor C emphasizes the importance of anonymizing transcripts, and Grad A describes that those participating will have the chance to edit transcripts before they are made public. + +The discussion moves to topics related to the Meeting Recorder project. Grad A explains that the project aims to collect data on meetings and that there is a specific interest in a portable device that can enable information retrieval from recorded meetings, as well as speech recognition challenges associated with far field microphones. Grad A also discusses collaboration with other organizations and the use of digit strings to provide a more straightforward task against the challenging environment. + +Professor C shifts the focus to understanding what actions people intend to take when they express a desire to see or go somewhere (the tourist domain) and introduces a three-category system (View, Enter, Tango) for these intentions. Grad B explains the motivations behind each intention and how it affects where someone should be directed within a geographic information system. + +There's concern about the quality of data they're collecting and whether it truly reflects users' intentions, given the limitations of the SmartKom system parser and the challenges in understanding natural language queries. + +Grad A and Professor C discuss selecting a Bayesian network package for the project, discussing the criteria and the intention to have something ready for the next meeting. They assign Grad F and someone else the task of researching and presenting a suitable belief net package, with hopes of integrating this with the SmartKom system once it's converted for English use, thereby improving the system's ability to infer user intentions and provide accurate navigational assistance. + +Lastly, there is a side conversation about the Powder-Tower made of red limestone, which Grad B mentions was used to store ammunition and exploded when hit by a cannonball, hence the name." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh door is closed . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , let's begin . Because if we have as much time as the last uh meeting , we'll have to hurry up . +Marketing: I'm listening . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um well I'll start with the presentation again , the agenda . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Yo . So . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This one I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . Well alright . Um well , I'll show you the notes . It's not as uh interesting as it should be because we just uh had the meeting , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'll show them . We'll get your presentations again on the conceptual design . Um {disfmarker} Then we'll have to dec decide about the control , the remote control concepts . I've put a f uh a file in the project management folder , which says exactly uh what kind of decisions we should take . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} this time we exactly know what to decide about . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , great . +Project Manager: And then we'll close again . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Well these are some examples , but we'll talk about them later . We'll {vocalsound} first look at your uh presentations . Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Walter will uh start again this time ? +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: Yo . +Marketing: Alright , Trendwatch . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . I will speak about uh latest trends trends , latest fashion updates , and uh things we must not do . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh the trends . {vocalsound} It's very important that uh the control is fancy looking and good uh feeling . Uh this because of our last model was very functional , but {vocalsound} it uh people didn't like that , so our new mo model must be very good-looking . That's uh something you uh have to take a look at . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Marketing: And uh the feeling has to be very great . Also the menus and things like that they have to they have to feel great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there's a minus uh two times here , because this is the most important point . This is uh two times as less important , +Project Manager: Less . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh same for this one . {vocalsound} Um , technological technological innovations , that's uh regarded very highly too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh such as an uh L_C_D_ screen , uh speech uh acknowledgement , as we uh talked about earlier . +Project Manager: Well , yeah . +Marketing: So we have to have uh something like that , like we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_D_ and our uh our fronts . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Uh the last point is easy to use . Well I think that uh speaks for s for itself . I don't know who's uh who's going to look at that . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Well , easy to use uh s is a bit uh contradictionary with the first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I think that's your ta +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Functional is not an issue , and then easy to use . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +Project Manager: Well we have to choose one of them . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we have to go for the first one . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's the most important one . So {gap} we have to uh take that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it it {vocalsound} it isn't very important that {vocalsound} that it works easy . +User Interface: Well something fancy looking can be can be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it has to look great . +Project Manager: Yeah . We'll we'll look at uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: We'll see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you can make a very complicated uh uh remote anyway , so ease of use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's not a very comp complicated device . +Marketing: Yeah , right . But the most important thing is that it looks great and people say {gap} wow , that's real great uh great concept . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . Uh these are the new colours of this year . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it must be very bright , very colourful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: People like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we we have to think uh in this direction . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i set your mind to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Findings ? Fashion update ? Fruit and vegetables are cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh you think ? +Marketing: I am told . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The group we are targeting is uh very pleased with fruit and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we we we might cons consider in front of uh in in that sort of uh way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bananas . +Marketing: Uh furthermore uh material , that's your part , should be very strong . I was thinking of something like uh {vocalsound} well uh iron plate over it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: maybe in a colour or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that looks so f really flashy but it it is also strong . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: B +Marketing: And that's uh also for the younger public . +Project Manager: Well the the handy thing about our fronts is that we can follow these trends e ev every year . Th this year it's fruits but next year it's it's something totally different . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think we can all make the the fronts of titanium or something uh really thin . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So it looks very heavy but you can still uh use it very easily . +Project Manager: Yep , alright . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Well , the don'ts . Older people like dark colours and simple shapes . Well we don't want uh older people , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we want young people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So uh we're gonna turn that around . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: We're gonna have real uh cool shapes and lots of colours . Right ? +Project Manager: Wood is popular . Aha . +Marketing: Okay . We don't want wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , among the old people , yeah . +Marketing: Old people . So , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Alright . Nice , uh well {gap} show us . +Industrial Designer: Right , I am going to tell you something about the components design . Uh again I have uh put up the specification properties . This uh so um uh the different uh components of the of of the device . And the materials ? Um I have heard several things , so I uh I'll have to change that on the way . But uh the case ? Uh I suggested uh in the previous meeting hard plastic . But uh as you indicated uh it should be strong . +Marketing: Yeah , we should change that . +Industrial Designer: It should feel strong . So maybe plastic is not uh sufficient . +Project Manager: Well maybe it it it is , +Industrial Designer: We should move to uh something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it doesn't look strong . So maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Y Hard plastic i is of course uh pretty pretty tough , but it doesn't have a really really tough look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +Project Manager: But we still have to look at our price of course . Because uh if we want an L_C_D_ uh window etcetera uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Also {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . But we'll return to that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh the buttons of course rubber , I think everyone agrees . And electrical cables , copper is all pretty basic stuff . The chips made of silicon , I guess . I think that's the best uh way to do it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And infra infrared l LED is uh just a simple bulb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I've uh {vocalsound} had a few findings , made a few findings . Uh the target audience product style . Um it's uh um generally the case that uh senior and wealthy people above uh forty five years old uh like , as you said , uh particularly the traditional materials as such as wood and materials such as that . They also like straightforward shapes and luxurious style . But of course that's not our uh things this . So this is things we must not do . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And then we have uh young uh and dynamic uh people , which is of course our uh group , the people we aim at . Um under forty five years old . Uh they like soft materials uh with primary colours . Soft materials is of course uh agai again a bit a contradiction with uh our uh material choice of what you said , that uh it should be hard an and and and and strong looking . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they like soft materials , uh so we might uh we have to consider that . And also they like curved round shapes . So not uh too formal like like uh the older people want . And if uh also a finding but not very ap applicable here , that sports and gaming devices such as uh discmans for jogging and that those kind of devices , gaming devices , should define the characteristics of the device . But uh since we don't have a really a sports or gaming device , so we don't really have to consider that . +Project Manager: Sports uh , they're uh that uh are accessible on on your L_C_D_ uh window uh +User Interface: Soccer fronts . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: All the {gap} results ? +Industrial Designer: Well I also have um several examples of uh styles , +Marketing: We keep coming back to the fronts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you can get a clear picture of uh what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} these are the basic uh older older peoples' stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It was not very uh interesting uh , very classical looking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Nai . Uh no . +Industrial Designer: but that's n that's not what we want . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We have these kind of things . I don't know what exactly they are . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} Fruity . +Industrial Designer: It looks like {disfmarker} Well you know uh you recognise the shapes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's very primary colours , uh bright colours and uh round shapes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You also uh {vocalsound} see uh this device , it's not very round and {disfmarker} Fruity of course . Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's t terrible . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh well round shapes , primary colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can see it all here . And of course uh this famous device . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I think as you know something uh some devices like this . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So to give you an idea of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's got a strong look , this . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This has a strong look . Although it's plastic , it's it's grey to to to give it iron look . +Marketing: Yeah , it still has a strong look . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it's round . +Industrial Designer: That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then you are losing your fruity colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we have to make a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can make th th th that middle ring can you you can make another colour . So uh those kind of things you can you can combine . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Well we can't really make a round uh a round remote control . I don't think that's very practical , +Project Manager: No , it isn't . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} But uh it's important to to uh to think about the colour . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because if we make it grey or or silvery looking , it it does make it a lot more uh does make it looking a lot more stronger . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you look at this , it it doesn't look very very strong , +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: becau But this is plastic , and and this too , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it doesn't have to look strong . The the results are , the feel of the material is expected to be strongy . +Industrial Designer: The feel ? Uh alright . +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: So , if you ti +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it it doesn't have to be strong , also . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah yeah the feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You you {disfmarker} Maybe you should have uh some some coloured titanium or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only the feel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it it looks pretty but it feels strong . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: And I {disfmarker} Then I have some more findings . Um {vocalsound} uh about the energy energy source of the of the device , +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: uh I uh suggest uh the basic battery . I uh got some other um uh uh energy sources of course . But solar energy is not very practical inside a house , because you don't have a have a lot of uh sun . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh kinetic and and and dynamos are are not very practical , I think , for uh for a simple remote , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's a bit , oh , that's a bit uh {disfmarker} That's a bit uh much . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} No titanium . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I also suggest uh as a shape uh a double curved case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the disadvantage of that that you can use no titanium . That that's the information I received . If you use the curved case , uh a curved case , double curved then you can't use titanium . +Project Manager: What do you exactly mean with double curved ? +Industrial Designer: Now uh this uh to give it a more modern look . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And uh {vocalsound} now the the shape , yeah , {gap} a curved case . Um yeah I think uh sort of triangle-shaped bottom or something . Uh {gap} a more modern look not plain , long box style , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Project Manager: Double curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll draw it , +Project Manager: It it mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but maybe later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And it makes uh it gives it a more u user friendly shape , than if you have uh {gap} . Um anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um f as uh for the buttons , simple push buttons . No uh otherwi uh no um difficult scroll things or some uh things like that , because it makes more complex and expensive . And , uh as we agreed , we don't use a speaker or a sensor or um {vocalsound} uh speak uh speech uh controlled {vocalsound} device . +Marketing: Yeah right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because it makes it also more complex and expensive . But we do use an L_C_D_ screen , so we uh we do have to consider uh of we have to use a more advanced chip , which is more complex and expensive . But {disfmarker} It's worth the trouble I think , +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons can be made of an uh a soft material . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because people like that . +Project Manager: This soft material thing from uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh rubber is a soft material , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh soft enough . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: So that's uh basically what I want to talk about . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . We will take that . And then uh Mike ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well um nah the method um we will um include the buttons as we discussed uh earlier . Um an L_C_D_ s screen will be implemented . Um we must decide where , this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um there are new developments in speech recognition um systems , {vocalsound} um and they are already being uh used on uh coffee machines . And um well they're cheap , so we could use them now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} That's interesting . +User Interface: Um it's not really speech recognition , it's more um like you can um talk to the chip , uh record the message and record an answer , and then once you uh talk to the remote , then um he will a answer with the the prerecorded message that you left . So if I say hi Mike , and you have recorded uh hi Mike back , then you will get that . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah , I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . But you can also say that , when you say something , it does some function . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: No it doesn't does not do anything . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh . That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But i it's just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that that makes it cheap . +Project Manager: Yes . I understand . +User Interface: Yeah it's it's cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} it's just a an extra function , +Project Manager: But {vocalsound} it has no functionality for our remote at all . +Marketing: and it's cheap . +User Interface: No +Marketing: No but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but that's the gadget they want , or the gimmicks . +Marketing: Yeah , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it's n nice for young people . +Marketing: Young people love them . +User Interface: Yes , we we should really uh include that one , I think . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They like gadgets . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , ple Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: If it's cheap . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as I said uh earlier I think the uh L_C_D_ screen should be uh positioned at the lower end of the remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um the buttons for screen width and general settings and {gap} uh and that kind of stuff {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um we can also do let that kind of functions um be shown in the L_C_D_ screen , uh instead of uh extra buttons . +Project Manager: So you put a menu in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: I think young people and yeah w well every user would like that . Um the buttons um should be positioned uh positioned the same way as they are on a , well , conventional remote , I think . For the learnability and uh well to keep it recognisable . A voice recognition can be uh implemented . And uh I drew an example , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it did not work quite the well uh the way I wanted it to do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How {disfmarker} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Hmm ? Well I have the {disfmarker} I can draw it again , +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now ? +User Interface: and I know what I did wrong . I didn't tick the note bo box in the {gap} . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Marketing: How do you uh uh give input to the menu on the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um with the uh the up and down and and well buttons and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . So you have a menu button , and then you can go up and down . +Project Manager: But then we should also have an uh an Okay button . +User Interface: Well I will draw what I had drawn on the screen . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I shall draw this . If it uh works . +Industrial Designer: {gap} button , yeah . +Project Manager: Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} There is already a blank . Yes ? So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm so have I . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} You have to push hard . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suggest a banana shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because of the fruity uh fashion . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No m Next year that's out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright , yeah . Just a hunch . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these little buttons are a bit difficult to uh draw uh correct . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Those are the the cha the channel buttons of course ? +User Interface: Yeah just uh the numbers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then below is the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: These these will be bigger in the the real design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +User Interface: This must be the Okay button used to uh interact with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And with this you can uh , yes , go to through the menus +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that can Um the video button should be uh an apart button , +Marketing: You've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because you want it to uh t , yeah , to use it fast within one uh click . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And what's the menu button ? +User Interface: Um it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you you need a you need a speaker . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: For the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: This button can also be the Menu button , we use in the menus {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But how did {disfmarker} How do you get out of the menu then ? Yeah . +User Interface: Well we we can add another button here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe I you could j just do an an exit with Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh by pe pressing the menu button again . By pressing the menu button again , you go uh out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's usual the the the d kind of the way it works . +Project Manager: Yes , well but bec because when you {vocalsound} push Menu you get in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah ? +Project Manager: and then you have to push Okay when you get to a choice . +User Interface: Ah right . Well you you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But you can men you can press menu again to get out . +Project Manager: Well that's also the Okay button . That's you you should have uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , we we we should uh add uh a extra Menu button +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Or you can put in the L_C_D_'s uh window an option Get Out . +User Interface: and this the Okay button . +Marketing: Exit . +Project Manager: Exit {gap} . +User Interface: Ah once you have an extra Menu button , you don't need that that extra option . +Project Manager: Well , it's just a choice . +User Interface: You have uh redundancy . +Marketing: But we need a we need a a recording recording button for the speech uh part . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Or don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: if we decide to uh to implement that , maybe we should . +Industrial Designer: Why would you put it uh then , and where is the recording uh the microphone ? +User Interface: Well they that could be anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Where would you put it ? +User Interface: That's very small . It could be uh down here . {vocalsound} Um . Well , not here . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} yeah I suggest here . But that's just a little {vocalsound} gap . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Microphone , yeah . +Marketing: Right , and spea speaker at the back , or something . +User Interface: Well the speaker and the microphone , I think , are the same uh little hole thingy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh but uh we could uh d do , but it's perhaps more expensive , uh the speaker on the back or something . +User Interface: Well i Um there are a all already being implemented in in coffee machines , so they won't be uh very expensive . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay . +User Interface: This is my suggested design . +Project Manager: Well , okay , alright . Um then let's have a look at the decisions we are going to have to make . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yes . And oh I think as you can see so , the L_C_D_ screen does look better uh at the lower end , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} I agree . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , fine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: Move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh , um I had some uh examples . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I can live with it . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} I did not like it very much , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these are quite obvious , very ugly remote . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too big . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They do they don't look fruity enough . +User Interface: No , well th +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nei They're n they're not trendy . +Project Manager: They're all black . +User Interface: Yeah . Well not all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , that one I like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh this is for children but {vocalsound} th +Industrial Designer: Tho Yeah those {disfmarker} +Marketing: It doesn't look strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: But it doesn't uh the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: W but with the colours i it's a bit the way we're going to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ok Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Well this is a terrible {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Terrible . +Marketing: This is just crazy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it it must not look too childish of course huh ? +Project Manager: It's it's all too much buttons . +User Interface: Um this looks {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too many buttons . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . This uh these are the L_C_D_ screens . I think we should , if it's um possible , uh one with colours , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah th It's too expensive . +User Interface: I don't know uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , that's too expensive I think . +User Interface: Too expensive ? Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Nah . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Ha , even more . N +Project Manager: Mm no . {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: But are we going for a strange uh form ? +Project Manager: No , not very strange . +Marketing: 'Cause people like that . +Industrial Designer: Not not too strange . No . +Marketing: Not too strange . +Project Manager: It still has t +Marketing: You can make the the underside , you can make it more round , where the L_C_D_ is . +Project Manager: Yes . Th a a kind of bridge . So it f falls over the hand . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you know the No Nokia telephone , with uh the round uh thing at at the bottoms , s something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: You know ? {gap} +Project Manager: Well I have at home {vocalsound} a remote with a bridge . It's just a half round half half circle at {disfmarker} And then it falls exactly over the hand , and that's very nice . That's {disfmarker} It feels comfortable . +Marketing: Yeah , but people like something uh new you know . +Industrial Designer: Exotic yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , different . +Industrial Designer: We have t Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I will design it , we design it later . +Marketing: Y yis +Industrial Designer: So we'll get to that later I guess . +Marketing: Alright . Great . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . Um where did I put it ? Um conceptual phase , I think this is it . +Industrial Designer: The specific shape . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got this from our friends . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh yeah the conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Our sources . +Project Manager: These are a few examples which we have to decide about . All the the materials from the case , uh the electric cable that's all your uh your side of the story . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Your bag . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um now from the user interface , your uh package ? {vocalsound} Um where {disfmarker} No well , that's more like the buttons where they have to come . And um {disfmarker} B a bit of , yeah well , a bit of uh design . +User Interface: Yeah , this is what we've just done . Right ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we have to decide about these now . +Industrial Designer: But uh we should decide now . +User Interface: Ah right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh the trend-watching . +Marketing: Materials are the most , most impor +Project Manager: So as you said , fruity is in , well {gap} sells good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh these things . +Industrial Designer: So we have to uh put it in one uh document . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yes . Um so if we uh go through them {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Copy paste uh this story into a into a Word document , and then uh put the answers after the subjects . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not everything . +Industrial Designer: Well we have to decide all these things ? +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} all these examples are uh of a coffee machine . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} Why should I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we can uh override them ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well a case ? Uh that's me . Uh I suggest {disfmarker} Well what do I suggest actually ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what kind of properties should it have ? Well we just listened . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh s solid , +User Interface: I think we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Why don't we um use uh titanium or or a hard , yeah , some kind of metal for the uh the the whole remote except the front . +Marketing: Do you know the new uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That {disfmarker} Just like um most cell phones are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I understand . +Marketing: No {vocalsound} no {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So we have titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The front is the most important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the non-removable elements of the of the remote , so not the front , could be titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to give that uh strong look . +Project Manager: You know what ? +Industrial Designer: And then the front is made of plastic . And you can put that on and off , and switch it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But the feel of plastic isn't strong . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but you have titanium of course . +User Interface: No but you you have this {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh you have the best of both worlds . +Marketing: Yeah alright , alright . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah , you have the re remote in your hand like this . So you feel titanium . {gap} +Industrial Designer: And of course , yeah , you have the the the plastic front end . But you also have the titanium . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Fronts are are cheaper than when they're from plas +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , but yeah {vocalsound} you have to make a decision . +User Interface: And I don't know if you can make steel just any way you want it to . +Marketing: Yeah , but it it's expensive . +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh titanium I sh I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bendable . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Well , well the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bendable . +User Interface: Well any colour {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: According to my sources , uh it's it's totally possible to make an entire uh uh uh {disfmarker} Titanium is available , and uh we can uh make uh an entire remote out of it , if we want . +User Interface: Yeah , then you you paint it in the colour you want it . The plastic is is the colour you want it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Paint spray . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah alright . +User Interface: So {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: So , we're going for a titanium back and a plastic front ? +Project Manager: I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Titanium back , plastic front . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a nice trade-off . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well I am going to put it in here , uh because we can uh look . +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Um solid feel and trendy look . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: So material , um hard plastic for the front ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for the front and then titanium for the back . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the non-removable uh part . +Marketing: But then you have the problem , when you have a titanium back , you can't switch it . When you want an other colour on the front , it doesn't match . +User Interface: Well titanium is neutral . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know ? +Industrial Designer: The titan titanium isn't isn't v very {disfmarker} Yeah , i it doesn't uh {vocalsound} curves . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No uh I nei . {vocalsound} Titanium is very {disfmarker} No no no , but you know b Titanium is very basic colour , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it doesn't really matter if we have a purple front on it or a orange front . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if if you disagree , +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but I think it's doesn't matter very much . +User Interface: Our customers will use those uh funky uh trendy colours , +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: and they don't use uh wood . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Funky customers . +Industrial Designer: And even if it does uh doesn't match , it will uh {disfmarker} People like mm colours that don't match . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And well +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the electrical cable is just normal uh {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cop copper uh material . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The electrical cable uh does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's uh from uh our coffee uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah copper i just a ba basic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No we don't use an electrical cable . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah inside , but this is for the coffee uh machine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well inside the remote control we use a couple of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's not what's meant here , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So external . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh external ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well {gap} {vocalsound} A coffee grind doesn't have {disfmarker} Na ja . Never mind the coffee grind . +Project Manager: Well uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: all the all the inside work of our remote is uh standard work . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The chip is normal silicon . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh the buttons are normal , etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? So that's just easy . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we decide about that just by looking at our competitors and our {vocalsound} earlier uh remotes . The conceptual specification of the user interface ? Um well we have our beautiful drawing . +User Interface: Well I got a better one here +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: and I will um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can put that in uh into the shared folder , +User Interface: The shared folder . +Project Manager: and then I'll put it in our end report . +User Interface: I will work this out uh for the uh next meeting . +Project Manager: Yes , you can {disfmarker} Mm yeah . You can uh put some uh which button is what . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: the trend-watching {disfmarker} {gap} included these days . And what do we ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We thing that fruit and bright colours are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the front w +Marketing: I think we can launch a couple of packages . You can buy a different kind of of of machine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's the same thing , but with another front . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can also uh implement um we can also implement fronts from um movies that are very hot . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah that's the whole idea of the front . +Marketing: And you can you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh those kind of things . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: But that's for later on . The fronts y you can do anything with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but if you if you launch uh five different packages like iPod mini {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , right {disfmarker} For the uh initiative uh launch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the for the launch , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: It's good marketing . +Project Manager: Launch different lines at once . +Industrial Designer: So e th then a c couple of basic colours . Not not very uh {vocalsound} sim Not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , n not too heavy . You can always take another pick . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We should not give them the m the most lovely front when they buy it for the first time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They have to buy it later on . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} More basic . +Project Manager: We still have to make those fifty million , yeah ? {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Very boring , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well you can you can give them uh s s three or so , +Industrial Designer: The most boring fronts possible . +Project Manager: The most ugly . +User Interface: so that they can uh experiment with it and that they want more . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you you can have some basic colours , and then we come with the special patterns on them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Red red , blue and green you give them or something , +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you can give them {gap} uh other ones . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright . Um well the buttons etcetera , we get from Mike . Uh this fruit and bright colours , yeah well I think we'll have to in the next uh half an hour , we'll have to uh s s specify the different uh types we want to launch , when we uh {vocalsound} well introduce our remote . +Industrial Designer: Uh we still have to make {disfmarker} We have still have to make the es the the real basic design . {vocalsound} Because yeah we have the sketch but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . But we we must remember that {vocalsound} fancy look-and-feel is the most important thing . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Else it w won't sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I'll have to , before I get another warning for five minutes , I'm going to get {disfmarker} Where is my mouse ? Uh where is my mouse ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lost my mouse . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um this is it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , um this we have . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh basic stuff . Interface we have . Supplements , L_C_D_ . Maybe a a cheap voice recording . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we should do that . +Industrial Designer: The price ? +Project Manager: Yes . Alright . Individual actions . +Industrial Designer: We all agree on that . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Industry designer , {gap} . User Interface , Mike . You're going to work together on a prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +User Interface: Yeah , we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Together or uh {disfmarker} Yeah together . +Marketing: Yeah togeth {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what I got uh to hear . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} Yeah yeah , but how do I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But bu we stay we stay here or something ? +Project Manager: Yes well we'll get it to hear that I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think so . Th they're saying SMARTboard and that's it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can take the SMARTboard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the SMARTboard , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah right . {vocalsound} And take it to our rooms and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so you can uh you you are going to make a prototype , and y Well that's includes uh specifying the buttons etcetera . +User Interface: Ah , specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . So you'll get it on your em on your laptop . Um well you will go and do something else uh on the project {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Some {disfmarker} Some non functional tasks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Have fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah project evaluation . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , what are you going to do ? Uh I don't know what product evaluation exactly means , but uh you'll get uh the specifications . +Marketing: We don't have produ product yet , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so kind of difficult . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's why I uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How long do we still have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , can we talk about something else ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh no I don't know anything , but maybe uh anyone else uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} Ajax . Nah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Will we use uh round buttons or square ones for the for the numbers ? +Industrial Designer: Round I think . +Marketing: Um round . +User Interface: Yeah I I I also uh thought {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Round . +Industrial Designer: To make it as uh as round as possible . +User Interface: And these uh these s these buttons {vocalsound} uh are more uh triangle-ish shaped +Project Manager: Why does {disfmarker} +Marketing: Curvy . Yeah . +User Interface: with a square one in the middle . +Marketing: So you can see you have to up or down . +Project Manager: Ah f fuck you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But now I see the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this must be uh volume I think , +Project Manager: Heh ? +Marketing: and this programme . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We can't get {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well most of the time uh up and down is programme and left and right are volume , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well th th th th th that depends uh . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it depends , but {disfmarker} If you turn up the volume , you always see this thingy go up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well we uh {disfmarker} We we j we'll just give them an uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: We'll design it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they can give comments on it . +Project Manager: Ts +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: It doesn't work any more . We can't save them . So we'll just have them uh standing there . +Marketing: Yeah , I noticed . You can't uh click the corners . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit uh bit a pity . +Marketing: It's a real real great thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we still have uh more than five minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} I as Project Manager ha don't have a clue . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's start the design . +Project Manager: Oh we can uh decide how we implement {vocalsound} the feeling from our company into the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Um I think um {vocalsound} a logo , our company logo , and the slogan should be or could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Also the slogan ? On the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not ? {vocalsound} If there's enough space , {vocalsound} you can put uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I I'd say only the logo . +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: O Yeah . Me too . +User Interface: Too much text and it gets too too busy . +Industrial Designer: Well , our slogan is not very long . It's just a simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} it's quite a long phrase . +Industrial Designer: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: But we kree we keep adjusting to the fashion with our fronts . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You c {vocalsound} But you can put it on the back , on the titanium part . The logo and the and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah the logo should be on the top I think . +Marketing: Yeah , right . The logo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the top . Yeah . Well in in in the right top corner ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do . Well yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Right corner , yes . +Project Manager: And well you c On the back , you can put uh h {vocalsound} At the bottom , you can put the logo with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right corner , or maybe here in the middle ? +User Interface: {gap} uh the text ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just small . +User Interface: Uh yeah , at the back ? +Marketing: But the logo the logo shouldn't be exchangeable , when you get off the front . +User Interface: Well you c Well uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it should be hard on the on the on the board , +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you can remove the front . +User Interface: The logo can be on on every uh front . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but then you must uh really uh yeah {vocalsound} push it in or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Carved into the material . {vocalsound} No , you you can carve it into the titanium at the back . +Industrial Designer: I l I like the idea of the of the slogan on the on the on the thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} am I the only one , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on the backside . +Project Manager: Well , management would like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n n not not on the front side , I think . +Project Manager: The front side , no no l no slogan . +Industrial Designer: No not on the front , +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the back {disfmarker} Yes , you you can , yeah , push that in , +Industrial Designer: but on the backside . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} so that it is always be there . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a nice idea , {vocalsound} to make it more recognisable , that the next to the logo you have the slogan . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: To make more uh of an impression . +Marketing: But not too big . +Industrial Designer: Not too big . No , +Marketing: Just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: very small . Not {vocalsound} on the entire back , but uh just very small . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You have to make this titanium too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But readable enough of course . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yes , slogan from company on the back with logo +Industrial Designer: But we'll uh we'll take that uh with us into the design . +User Interface: Yeah I think over here the logo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Lo Uh yeah . Or maybe here in the middle , but we'll decide later . +Project Manager: and logo also on the front but not exchange uh {disfmarker} Uh ? Hmm ? {vocalsound} {gap} Uh when changing fronts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , that's decided . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you see a bit of the of the um of the uh titanium ? O on the front ? +Project Manager: Five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe if we make this this this lower part titanium , +User Interface: Yes we could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the front is the the upper part , and the the bit with the with the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So a bit of titanium between ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No no betwe +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a bit {disfmarker} Oh that that's that's pretty cool . +Industrial Designer: of between we can do but {disfmarker} But then you have two parts of front , two fronts that {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , they have two fronts , +Marketing: No no no no . +User Interface: that . You you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This enti entire bottom ? +Marketing: Else you you get problems with the L_C_D_ . Like dust in it and so things like that . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: When you exchange all the fronts and it's open . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I already have uh all kinds of uh filth between the mobile . +User Interface: No , you can you can just {disfmarker} And then not a straight line but uh some sort of wave or something . +Marketing: you can make it go round this corner too where the logo is . Because it has to be uh there all the time you know . +Industrial Designer: And then the lower part is titanium ? +User Interface: This is titanium . And this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's nice , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some kind of wei weight in it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Round forms . +User Interface: F front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like that bit of uh titanium also on the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . With the with the curved edge . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: A bit like uh a bit like your mobile phone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can show it . It also has the those {vocalsound} two distinct uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tada . +Industrial Designer: Mm bit like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: That uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So round where ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe a nice touch , yeah . +Marketing: So uh a little corner of titanium . We can't uh take a blank one . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice finishing touch you need . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Or can we ? +Project Manager: Yes , {gap} that also sounds uh pretty uh neat . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So this this is the exchangeable part . +Industrial Designer: I think I'm going to buy it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We want it . +User Interface: Yeah , this is the front . +Project Manager: And it's only f twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit too much , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's nothing . +Industrial Designer: No , no no no , but {vocalsound} I think uh this looks uh pretty nice actually . +Project Manager: The Phillips remote uh costs more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , because it's my design but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: My design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No our d our design , alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking all the credit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh you two are going to work together . You'll get your uh specifications on your uh laptop , and then uh {vocalsound} you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We'll stay here I guess ? +Marketing: But there's a problem . +Project Manager: Well I think we can , I just {gap} {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not relaxing . +User Interface: Well we can uh erase an animal I guess . Uh the fourth one . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah that's alright , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: But don't erase my cat . +Project Manager: Yeah , o +User Interface: Uh the fourth one is empty , isn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I want to preserve it . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} This one is empty . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to empty one huh ? +Project Manager: Oh , we have a {gap} one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What are you doing chief ? +Project Manager: So , you can uh draw a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah I think we have to wait ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Well I'll get a {disfmarker} I'll get the message . +Industrial Designer: until the until the beep goes . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't uh {disfmarker} Do we have to stay here , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or I think we have to return first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well you'll {disfmarker} Maybe you can uh keep your uh laptop here . {gap} +User Interface: Maybe . +Project Manager: Or get your mouse . Because it's little bit uh hard to work with these uh plates . +Industrial Designer: The high powers from above {vocalsound} will have to tell us , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I always have a mouse next to my laptop . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dream on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hate these {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I don't have a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , touch-pads , yeah . +Project Manager: Ugh . +Industrial Designer: We can uh do a touch-pad on our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No just kidding . Well we have uh b you have to have a bit of humour in the in the discussions too , +Marketing: You just have to push harder . +Industrial Designer: because it becomes too too too too stressy . +Project Manager: And in your remote control . So we put a touch pad on it , and say ha ha . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aha . This has no function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Half +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We know you'll you'll you'll hate it but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But uh th youth doesn't care about functio functionality , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But they do want some gadgets . So that's wha what we're doing . +Marketing: It's all about cool things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it will sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Bless you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we won't . Our bosses will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We've done too much in the previous meetings . +Industrial Designer: Too much ? +User Interface: Yes , we've got nothing to do now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's not bad , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Well they uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that's good . We all had uh our talk and we agree I guess on uh several thing , on most uh on things . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Its the best remote ever . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pinball . +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . Oh he's totally off again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No man . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you have to push harder . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But when I start here , it's here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but you you get really close to the screen with your hand , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Recalibrate it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Where's the good old chalk board with the the green board with the , how do you call it , chalk , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can better uh draw a design on this . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but we can't . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if i if that thing is recalibrated , we can draw a thing quick , and then before it uh {vocalsound} goes off again . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's go . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish the meeting now . Alright now we know what to do , so +User Interface: We'll stay here ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Message ? +User Interface: Or we'll get the email . +Industrial Designer: Maybe w maybe we maybe w m Can we get email here ? +Project Manager: No , get away . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Guess so . +Project Manager: Um I I'm not sure . Maybe you {disfmarker} Yeah . Well you'll have to work on this one . +User Interface: Well we'll wait a few seconds +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: and then we'll get an email . +Marketing: Alright . Have fun lads . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A happy hol happy holidays . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but you can scratch it off or something . It's better if you have it uh {disfmarker} +","A project meeting takes place involving a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing, and User Interface. They need to make decisions on the design and features of a new remote control, considering time constraints from previous meetings. Discussions mention the importance of a trendy, strong aesthetic and user-friendly experience, with consideration of materials like titanium and plastic for the design. Specific trends like bright colors and avoiding dark, simple shapes for a younger audience are noted. Some technological decisions such as the inclusion of an LCD screen are considered, along with avoiding complex features like sensors or vocal recognition to maintain cost-effectiveness. The meeting concludes with plans to finalize decisions and prototype designs, considering the company's brand slogan and logo placement for recognition." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Great man . Who starts ? +Project Manager: Well I'll uh start just with another presentation , so then we can uh look at th at the agenda uh for this meeting . +Marketing: Alright , great . Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I've put some uh new things in the in the map . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh oh . {vocalsound} This is it . I don't know the shortcut , so {disfmarker} Ah F_ five . Well our functional design meeting , that's the stage we're in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And you also ha all three of you have uh prepared something about it . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Well um in we'll uh just have a look at the at the notes from the previous meeting , what we uh thought we had dec decided . But uh {disfmarker} Uh then we'll uh look at uh the three uh presentations uh from you . I think you have prepared uh all three uh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we'll look at th the new project requirements we uh {disfmarker} I dunno . Y you also have uh received that mail , the new project requirements from our bosses ? +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I've received a mail with uh some additional requirements , +Marketing: No . You're the only one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'll have a look if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well I think we should show them before your presentations , because it's not really uh smart uh to uh to include some things uh we can't , because of the new requirements . Well um then we can make some decisions about our remote control functions . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We have to deb we have to decide it in this meeting what our function will be . And then uh we can discuss uh some more closely . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have forty minutes for this uh discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well uh {gap} the closing uh we'll not uh look at it yet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now I'll look at {gap} show {gap} this board . Um {disfmarker} Well uh notes , first meeting . Now . I gave a disc a a presentation . Uh we familiarised ourself with the boards and then we discussed some first ideas . So we said that uh we have to merge the strong points from our uh competitors , and uh look at their uh remote controls . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We should make it uh compatible with our new D_V_D_ and other releases we have , our technical releases . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Uh not too many one buttons . One recognisable button in the middle , where you do the most important functions with . And um well they can have two functions , because uh you have a D_V_D_ and a television . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the design has to fit the hand , be original , but also be familiar . {vocalsound} It's uh one of our ideas . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well that wa It's just thirty minutes ago , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's not quite uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But well I have to do it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , now it's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The materials uh well should be hard plastic with rubber from {gap} , and uh well the labelling of the buttons should be indestructible . It should be uh recognisable at all times . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be easily wiped out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well fronts were to be {gap} just like mobile telephones . And uh the technical aspects um {disfmarker} And also labelling of the buttons , the functions should be universal standards . Well that's just uh some ideas from the first meeting . It's quite logical al all of it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now the new project requirements , I'll just show them . I got this mail from uh our bosses . Well , teletext goes out . We will not use teletext . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe a new sort of thing , but n but not teletext . +Industrial Designer: I I disagree , but uh it's not uh t it's not my place to disagree I guess . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} the second is a bit sh pity because we just said we wanted to d include the D_V_D_ +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: and they don't want it , because of our time we have for this project . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +User Interface: Oh , that's a shame . +Project Manager: So that's a shame , because uh especially for the third requirement we want to reach people under the thirty years . Because uh we don't have those customers a lot at th at this point . Um well it's a bit pity because it's just those people want to have uh one remote control for all those technical devices they can uh reach it . +Marketing: Yeah . But let's forget about it . It's just time-consuming , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so we uh have to go on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well and uh our corporate image should stay rec recognisable in our products . So uh we have to uh use uh maybe a slogan , maybe a colour , and um {disfmarker} Yeah well uh on our remote controls the design has to be uh , well as we already said a actually , uh familiar . Uh not only just uh the shape but also our company . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we are a {vocalsound} real fashionable company . I read uh I read it on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I didn't know what company we were , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but we we design uh especially trendy uh trendy trendy stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it has to be uh a modern design . That's important to know , uh when you design a thing of course . +Project Manager: Yes . I I uh noted uh our uh slogan that we have , our company . It's uh we mm put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe that's a slogan we can put uh somewhere on our remote control or something . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright then um we're going to uh have three presentations . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You want to start ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I think I have to start . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh you have to start ? I didn't see anything about uh who had to start . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The order ? No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh no , no problem . +Project Manager: Well s then start . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I I just have to uh to think which file's mine , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I was uh bit in a hurry . +Project Manager: Okay . Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's this one . But I'm not sure . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} You already uh opened uh PowerPoint . +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah . S Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . This is it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , I'm going to tell you something about functional requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um to start with these points . Uh next sheet ? Um at first I tell you something about what people dislike about the current uh controls , because it's uh a smart thing to exclude those things . Uh , furthermore it's very important what they do like and what they do use . {vocalsound} Um then I tell something about um the most important issues . So we have to focus on those three thing three things . And in the end I'll um show you our target {vocalsound} audience or our target product users , customers . Well , {vocalsound} um the first findings are that people um think most controls are very kind of ug ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's seventy five per cent of the current users . They don't like it , so we might think about fronts in that section . Um {disfmarker} They also say , that's about uh I thought it was fifty per cent , uh that more money will be spent on uh better looking controls . So it's very important that you design a a nice looking control . {vocalsound} Um the current user uses his machine just about well all of the time for a few functions . Uh , almost every user uses it d the the control for just ten per cent of its capacity . So it's really important to make the the buttons for the common uh tasks kind of big or kind of uh flashy . Furthermore , it's uh {vocalsound} seventy five per cent of the users uh zaps a lot . Thus it might be uh might be smart to make a a big uh zapping button or something in the middle , so you can reach it with your thumb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can zap away . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . A lot of losers um users lose their controls in their {vocalsound} in their living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it might be sensible to make some kind of a button on your television , that's your um your control beeps or something , that you can find this very easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , maybe that's an idea . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: 'Cause it's uh a big {disfmarker} I think fifty per cent of the users loses his its control , within the same room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh ? +Project Manager: It should actually uh {disfmarker} It should actually be loose from the television , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: because it can also be used for other televisions . So if you deliver a small uh click-on device that you can put on your television , that bleeps to your remote control , everyone can use it . +Marketing: Yeah but what if you lose your click-on device ? +Project Manager: No you can click it on your television . +Marketing: Yeah but if someone d somebody else uses it in ano other room or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah in another room , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well yes . +Marketing: Nee but it it specifically says it's uh the the control is lost in the same room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Well a beeping device would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look at it , yeah . +Marketing: Uh furthermore the learning time is a problem . Uh thirty four thirty four per cent um thinks it's it's too uh too difficult to learn . So the the learning curve should be very short uh for the dumbest people should be able to use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh user uh expert should also consider manual a manual for the remote , of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but people don't read manuals . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read it ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} users to uh add one ? Do you think ? +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you should put more time in the in the design of uh pick up and use , than a manual . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes you should {disfmarker} You should could take a look at it and and and know how it how it's supposed to work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . Because they don't use it ? Alright . +Project Manager: Well there sh should always be a menu , +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: but it c can be very short . +Marketing: And it should be consistent with consistent with older remotes . +User Interface: Yeah but nobody reads a manual about a remote control , I think . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe for the {disfmarker} If you don't recognise a button who d who d who do I call uh wh when I don't know it ? +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah right . It sh it should be there , the manual . But but not to explain how the remote works . Only {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: And we don't have much time . So it's better to uh put our attention to the the design . So you can pick up and use it , than {disfmarker} I think . +Project Manager: Well we are a design team , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: we can say to some uh writer uh make a manual point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Isn't it part of the of the u +Marketing: Yeah right , right . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . No . Never mind . +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look . Um yes ? +Marketing: Next point . Um R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well that's about twenty per cent I thought . But uh the designer should uh take it uh {vocalsound} should uh {disfmarker} Wie zeg ik dat ? Yeah , consider the consequences of using your remote . +Industrial Designer: Consider the m Yeah . +Marketing: It should be a good in your hand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Right , this is the most important part . Um , we're {disfmarker} Like the requirements said , we're gonna specify of we're gonna target a younger audience . Um , {vocalsound} that's about sixty per cent of the market , so it's uh quite important . Um research shows that they like to have a little L_C_D_ screen on their on their uh zapping uh device . Uh {disfmarker} I thought it was the age between sixteen and twenty , ninety nine per cent of uh the people like that . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's very important we should definitely have that in our uh designs . +Project Manager: Well with twelve Euro fifty as production cost , we can't uh afford an L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's going to be expensive . Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Yeah but {vocalsound} they think it's really important . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we want to s If we have a big {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If we make lots of uh of the stuff , maybe we can uh buy it very cheap , I dunno . We have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we'll uh consider it uh . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh it's your your task to uh look into the costs uh of those uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll think abo we'll think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't have any information on that . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nigh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , we'll look we'll look into that later . Alright ? +Marketing: Right . And uh another thing is uh speech uh recognition . They also like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but research is very uh costly . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that's uh difficult to realise also . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it {vocalsound} it might be important for the sale . +Industrial Designer: We have very demanding clients . +Project Manager: It's not yet a standard uh development uh those so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No and we have customers in multiple uh countries I think . +Project Manager: We sh +Marketing: Well I do think L_C_D_ is more reachable than the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah absolutely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So we might consider L_C_D_ screens . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , alright . Well we'll consider both and and see what uh what what we can find , I think . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: We don't rule them out uh yet . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . Um , I think that's it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I think it is sensible to u uh to take this take these points into the notes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So you can {disfmarker} Right . +Project Manager: Well you {disfmarker} I c I can uh still see your presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: It's in the {disfmarker} Well uh next um I dunno who is next . +User Interface: Oh you go . +Industrial Designer: Shall I give a technical talk ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well go ahead . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh it is my task to uh explain uh or to point out a working design . +Project Manager: Yip . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have that here . Okay , how do you enlarge it , so that you can have the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: F_ F_ five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , the working design , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Next button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well alright uh , you know who I am and what I do . So uh we have this . It's a bit uh unclear because I wanted to copy paste something . It was originally in black and white +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: but it became black and purple . +Marketing: Purple {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But I think you can read it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . A bit . +Industrial Designer: Um well um I think it's important uh for you to realise the basic function of a remote control . Uh well you can see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you can select it . So it uh inverts . +Industrial Designer: {gap} And I then can select I can select on the dings {gap} It goes to the next page . +Marketing: {gap} the p the whole picture . +Project Manager: Click . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , uh never mind . +Industrial Designer: Well , you can read it , +User Interface: Yeah , go ahead . +Industrial Designer: it's not too difficult . Meanwhile , this is a schematic uh um view of uh how a basic remote control works . You have uh basically uh the energy , the power of the of the remote control , uh and the sender , w which is the LED , the the the the the the the the the bulb that sends the the infrared beam to the , no , to the set . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh the source is of course the user . Uh the user interface is um {vocalsound} uh the {vocalsound} the {gap} the buttons of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And the {vocalsound} the user interface sends uh the the different signals of the different buttons to the chip , and the chip uh sends it to the LED , and the LED sends it to the receiver . That's the that's the basic idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um well I have uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} put it in a in in in a {vocalsound} a couple of basic steps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the remote uh is basically just waiting for a user to press a key . It does nothing until uh of course uh the key is pressed . The key {gap} a signal to a chip , uh the chip senses the connection . {vocalsound} uh and recognise the key . So {vocalsound} well you understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The chip uh produces Morse code , um a specific code to indicate that specific button that is pressed , of course . And it uses transistors in the in the remote control to amplify and to send uh that signal again to the to the LED , which is the bulb , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now the LED produces an infrared beam and signals the , well it's uh very simple , and signals the uh signals to the sensor on the T_V_ set , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ set uh also recognises the the {vocalsound} the signal , and performs the assigned task . +Project Manager: So it is also why we have to have a button that says uh I'm now busy with a D_V_D_ uh if we had done that . And a button for T_V_ . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah bu Yeah , but we don't . Uh we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Exactly . Uh well this is uh the basic uh function of a remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've some couple of pictures here . It's a very basic one . And uh {gap} if we if we're going to add an uh an uh L_C_D_ screen to it , it uh won't look anything like this , but {disfmarker} This is very basic uh basically the the shape of um of a remote control . It has uh very little buttons and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it uh it's it's quite um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can easily recognise the buttons . They're uh far enough apart and an anything . It's not very um uh not very high-tech uh +User Interface: High tech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: indeed , and it's not very user-friendly . Uh if you look at the shape , it's uh just a simple long box uh shape . So we have to uh change a little bit uh to that , uh so that uh it becomes more user-friendly , and that uh problems like uh R_S_I_ and uh those kinds of thing don't don't oc don't occur . +Marketing: Right . Can I say something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um I have a table here about uh the l the relevance of the buttons . Uh the power button is used very much , channel selection , volume and teletext . Well teletext is not an option , so that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I think it's very important to make um the power , channel and volume buttons uh near to the thumb , so you can't have R_S_I_ uh consequences . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because they are the the most important buttons and you can immediately {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Make them big , make them easy to uh to press . +Project Manager: Well but but {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can also like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look and and search for them . +Project Manager: if you have um the most used buttons all in one place , and you keep making the same um well moves . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , I was thinking you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Right . +Project Manager: But if y if you would put it at a different place , then you have to move your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that's on of the things about R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Are some of the the the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . That's right . That's right . +Industrial Designer: Well you you can't have any uh every button {vocalsound} under the thumb , of course . +Marketing: We +Project Manager: No but the most important buttons m maybe you can just put them a bit apart so you would reject R_ R_S_I_ R_S_I_ . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . That's very important . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can make , for for channel changing , two little buttons on the side of the remote , so you can just do like this . Like some uh little uh Gameboy things or some +Project Manager: Yes I've saw that on m on mi mobile telephones they also have uh those buttons . +Marketing: But is that is that useable ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Do people , uh when they pick up a remote , know that they have to do that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's a f it's a new feature , +Project Manager: Well it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you can make make a double feature l like a button on the top and under it . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well also i if someone puts {vocalsound} picks up his uh remote {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but if you s say them up and down , they they'll understand it {gap} , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . If someone puts up i uh picks up his remote , and he picks up it he he touches the side then he's a already on the next channel . +User Interface: Eighty per cent would . +Industrial Designer: Well , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , he feels it immediately . +Project Manager: That's very irritating , I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , continue . +Industrial Designer: But in e in any case the the basic function should be uh indeed , and as you say at the thumb . +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a good idea , and uh and that the less important uh buttons , like the the the different channels , uh the numbers one two three four five as well , should be uh yeah well not in reach , because uh they don't use it uh all the time . Well it's uh pretty pretty {vocalsound} basically uh as you said . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And I have some pictures of the inside workings , but uh I don't want to get too technical , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because uh that's not uh very uh useful for you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's your part of the job . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: So yeah {gap} exactly {gap} this is uh how it uh looks from the inside . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And uh well that's about it I think . Oh yeah , I still have this . Oh I had to delete this , but I had to make a schematic uh of the of the new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I had too too little time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh don't uh don't look at it please . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think it's it's clear uh how it works . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: We understand . +Marketing: Yeah , it's clear . +Project Manager: Oh right , no . +Industrial Designer: Alright . That's the most important thing . +Project Manager: Nice . Then uh Mike can uh give the third presentation . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How late is did we start his presentation uh ? {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . I think uh w About twenty minutes ago ? +Project Manager: Wha Yeah . +Marketing: Losing time losing time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well then we have still the time , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we do have to come to a decision , right later on . +Marketing: Yeah right . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Well I thought um everybody on the website {vocalsound} uh would see the same thing , but obviously {vocalsound} that's not the case . +Marketing: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh there are different uh {disfmarker} We have all have different home pages , with different links . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Uh ? +User Interface: For instance you couldn't see this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah well . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Well I'm Mike {gap} , User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The the method ? Well {disfmarker} I used my own experience with remotes , took a good l look uh at the remotes on the corporate website , which are these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: These are already in use ? +User Interface: Yes , these are from from another uh manufacturer . +Marketing: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} This one is engineering-centred , so this one has the most functions and um things . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I like user-centred . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: I like user-centr centred uh {vocalsound} uh also the best . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . We also do that . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well , I thought uh that we uh reduce the the option to control the D_V_D_ also , and teletext and that kind of stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so I thought we we we would use more or need more buttons than this one . +Marketing: But we have to reject that , because of the requirements ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Th that's why this mm is not relevant any more I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I think this is about the maximum number of buttons uh we'll need . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I um I kinda like the shape . {vocalsound} I think this is what we talked about . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You can't really see uh the differ from different sides . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No I've {disfmarker} Well I showed it somewhere . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh you can draw it if you {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . I think we should go further with the idea of a removable front . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we can can uh yeah customise the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well absolutely , but i th they all have to have something about um the recognition from our company . So we cannot just uh make someone w +User Interface: Mm ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a front . It's not the the whole remote that changes , of course . +Project Manager: No but that's th the side they look uh look at is the front . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if y if you make a a front with just a a tiger on it , then uh our recognition is totally gone . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right +User Interface: Or you can you can can put the same symbol on on every remote . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a must . +User Interface: So l like Ericsson does {gap} every uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we must . +Industrial Designer: We can put it on the on the back side . +Marketing: We must have that . +Project Manager: Yeah well and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: S something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: It's recognisable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can make a symbol of the company right here . And {vocalsound} if you put a front on it , there's a hole on the front . So the symbol's always on +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so that you don't replace the symbol , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Something like that , +Project Manager: Or the th the the lowest part of the remote isn't changed by the front . +User Interface: in the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Those kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But let's not focus on the front {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well so uh uh like I said I thought we'd we'd use more function . If we we had to include more functions . But we don't . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . I think this is about the maximum number of buttons we need . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Maybe some less . Like eject we don't need , and some other buttons we don't need . I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mike , uh can you put uh that picture from me on the in the Word documents file ? In Map ? +User Interface: Yeah , I will . I think uh for the remote um uh less is more . {vocalsound} The less buttons the better the design . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We should go with that concept I think . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: I know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I've I've got another point . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Um there are two target audi audiences , and we've uh chose for the younger one . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Um , research has shown that um it's a high interested uh in features . They are high high interested in feature . But they are more critical . Fo Yeah , critical . +Industrial Designer: The younger uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} The younger audience . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we must um must design uh a control that really speaks to the people . +Project Manager: Well what if we um {disfmarker} I at I at home have a remote that has um the most familiar uh buttons on the top , and the bottom side of the front has a little clip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: a f a little uh {disfmarker} You can click away and then you have f much more functions that most people don't use but s some do do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think uh the most functions uh underneath that uh {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Clip aren't used much . +Project Manager: Well but because you say they their features are important , they want m um a lot , +Industrial Designer: No um mm usually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what kind of features ? Like L_C_D_ screens and voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {vocalsound} m most {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Most uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , look at these numbers . The newest features are , like I said , are uh L_C_D_ and uh speech uh control . Our audience , these people , are very like these uh features . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: You see ? So we must build in something , or they will to uh go to the concurrent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Competitors . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Our competitor . Yeah . +Marketing: The concurrent ? {vocalsound} Competitors , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , I do think we have to uh have some features . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well maybe w we could uh s +Marketing: Even though they cost a little more . +Project Manager: On um some uh calculators you have lo those little little L_C_D_ th that you can click on or something , +Marketing: Right . Right . +Project Manager: or that you can click uh out uh of the remote . And if if that's gives you a little bit of sta status information . +Marketing: Like a ticker-tape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which programme you are l watching or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Those kind of things , uh because you also have those uh those program recognition for your V_ V_C_R_s . And uh well if y if your remote picks that up also , you they can display which programme you're currently watching . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . So it it just signals the the different uh sig uh the different symbols on the screen you have , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh because if you change to s channel two you have two on the screen and two on your on your um on your L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For example . It it could be such a little uh th that you can click in and out and you and you have it . +User Interface: Yeah , we should keep that simple too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But should it uh really be uh clickable , uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well maybe . +Marketing: No not clickable . +User Interface: No , it should be uh integrated . +Industrial Designer: or {vocalsound} or just integrate inside to try to make it d more trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , no no no . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , just at at the top . So when you s {vocalsound} you sit like this you can can watch . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: I think it should be at the top . +User Interface: something like on um some radios in car . You {disfmarker} Where it's , yeah , walking to {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . It's a ticker-tape idea . +Project Manager: R_D_S_s or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's of course uh a bit more uh expensive than uh the basic uh calculator design , with the scrolling text and {vocalsound} that kind of thing . +User Interface: Wa Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's you got {disfmarker} It just means it's a script that's uh keeps it uh rolling , +Marketing: Well it's just one script . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's not uh {disfmarker} That's five minutes off uh implementing time I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , five minutes of ja ja for programming . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't think that's the issue . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright , we go with the L_C_D_ screen ? +Project Manager: Uh well I think so , yes . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we we we still need to know how much that will cost . +Marketing: 'Kay . Right , I don't know if I can find that , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're g No but we're we'll have to look into that . +User Interface: Or maybe you will get that information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um we can use this board again , I think . +Marketing: Next time . Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh we can put some um decisions about um the controls we want , th the issue . {vocalsound} Where is my presentation ? {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand what you're saying . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We should have a general idea of how it's gonna look . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} I mean we're all here now , I think . These I've already given you . So we have to decide on the different remote control functions . So we want to have a small L_C_D_ screen that's special . +Marketing: Right . At the top . +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we start with the most important parts ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: At the top or at the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ screen alright {gap} but we should start with the power button ? +Marketing: I think the top is more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you s How do you zap ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You just sit in your chair ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah but with with the L_C_D_ screen on the top it gets a bit unnatural . +Marketing: With the remote ? +Project Manager: That thing is terrible . +User Interface: 'Cause most remotes have some space left at the bottom . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that's where your hand ball might be . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , no Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: And then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll draw two , and then we'll see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should uh centralise the discussion here . {vocalsound} I dunno what uh you were talking about but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} we are busy with something {gap} . +Marketing: Um he thinks {disfmarker} Yeah , right . He thinks it's better to put the L_C_D_ at the bottom , and I think it's better at the top . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Why do you think it's better at the bottom ? +User Interface: Uh well because most uh remotes have um some space left at the bottom , and that way you can keep the shape recognisable for everybody . +Marketing: But your {disfmarker} +User Interface: I c +Industrial Designer: But you just can put uh the the the the the whole interface a bit down , so that there's room for the for the interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I d I think that's that's ugly but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the ticker {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ is like like small . {vocalsound} It's it's wide . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not not high . But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I th I think Mike Mike has a point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} I th +Industrial Designer: And and we can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because um when when uh when I use a remote I l I hate the buttons but buttons at the at the bottom . +User Interface: Yeah . Power button always {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: So and and I I like to use the ones on the top . +User Interface: Yeah , y you gotta zap like this or {vocalsound} you want to {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So when I u when I have to have an L_C_D_ s scr window {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . But {disfmarker} We're making a remote with {vocalsound} with a few functions you know . +Industrial Designer: Well {vocalsound} that's {vocalsound} a bit exaggerated . Well , I agree with you {gap} . It's it's also more recognisable . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: It looks more like a calculator to people , if you have the l the the the thing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes but we we we we don't want that . +User Interface: Yeah you don't want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't want them to look like a calculator . +User Interface: You want uh {disfmarker} Yeah it it it must be a remote . +Project Manager: We want to look it like our original but familiar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah w well , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh you don't have to throw uh um important aspe {vocalsound} important aspect like familiarity uh completely away , +Marketing: High-tech {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yea +Industrial Designer: uh because {vocalsound} I think it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a bic uh better uh white uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We White ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's still important to have it at the top , +Marketing: Width . +Project Manager: Width . Uh format yeah format ? Line width ? Width ? +Industrial Designer: because it's uh it's more familiar that way . +Marketing: {gap} Th that's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} When I draw here it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Oh . Huh ? +Project Manager: It's a bit off . +Marketing: Yeah , it's off . +Project Manager: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A little a little bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {vocalsound} it needs to be calibrated again . Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh let's uh talk about that later uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe you should another pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's uh better . {gap} You e you only have one pen for that screen . Yeah . +Marketing: Where ? +Project Manager: It's special pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , we have to make a decision now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because we don't have much time . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think we have uh a few functions , and we can put uh the L_C_D_ above it , and still have lots of room at the bottom , where you can put your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I agree . +Project Manager: I think it should be at the button , bottom . Bottom . The L_C_D_ . +User Interface: At the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well I'm the {vocalsound} I I'm the designer , so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In a few minutes {disfmarker} +Marketing: At the bot +User Interface: Oh yeah , oh yeah , I totally agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} We are two uh V_S_ two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but uh what what if we we first decide the different functions , +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's the boss . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then look at the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Great . +Industrial Designer: Uh we uh we were busy with that . +Project Manager: Because we have to decide this . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah we should uh summon the the different uh aspects of the thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , we have the power button . +Marketing: And moreover I think that you two should be uh come to consensus about the L_C_D_ s . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: It's uh your it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we have a power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course . Uh it's uh . Yeah . W wh +User Interface: No it's our job . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: For all of us I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: While you have to agree , I can say {gap} it's like this and {vocalsound} you must agree . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Marketing: Alright , let's keep it central . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have a power button , setting buttons , L_C_D_ window , the number buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The ten numbers ? Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Volume control . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh the mute button . +Industrial Designer: Well let's look at your uh design . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I h love that one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I think we we should use something like this um to um {disfmarker} The the channel up and channel down button ? {vocalsound} Yeah , in circle , you know ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . Well that's that's also design . +User Interface: And and a volume control also in it . +Project Manager: Yes . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well h ho +Industrial Designer: But th th on this remote th these controls are for something else , a D_V_D_ player or something . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . They are for some uh video uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , as I already said , we could drop some of these buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You should put that uh power button , channel and volume should have the most uh importance . +User Interface: Yeah . I think these should be in one big circle in the middle . +Marketing: Yeah , but what he said about R_S_I_ was {vocalsound} t kinda true . When {gap} {vocalsound} when you uh put them all in the same place , the most used buttons , you're doing the same thing all the time , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that's just what R_S_I_'s all about . So it might be smarter to put them a little more away from each other . +Project Manager: Apart . So people have to move their hand . And they get less uh complaints of R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's also not good to completely stay in one position constantly with one hand . +Project Manager: {gap} That's what I always do , +Industrial Designer: Y {gap} +Project Manager: because all my i important buttons are the same place . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's good to move uh from time to time . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: Yeah but people don't like it when their buttons are all over the place . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they need to be centred . +Industrial Designer: No but now y W would we have to choose a way in middle ? +Marketing: Frequency of uh button use . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um channels are uh most uh is most used within the hour . You can see . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Volume hardly . +Marketing: So the the {vocalsound} channel uh channel buttons should be far far apart , I think , up and down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No I don't think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Up and down far apart from each other ? +Industrial Designer: Far apart ? +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} You thinking uh about R_S_I_ ? +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y look at uh look at the frequency . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei not too much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other the other two uh frustrations are far more important . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can have the two buttons of up and down close together , but you don't have uh have to have volume control and and zapping button close together . +Project Manager: Well for example the power button , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they are used four times an hour , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If someone is constantly z zapping , it's not going to miss , that it that the power button is not right beside it . Because I have someone {disfmarker} But the buttons is way . +Marketing: Nei nei nei n I I totally agree . +Project Manager: So that one can be put away . +Marketing: But just {disfmarker} Yeah . Right . Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: The power button can uh be uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Power bu button should be left at the top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: And should and should be red . +Project Manager: Oh man , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: five minutes . {vocalsound} Yeah , well five minutes left . +Marketing: Right , just make some decisions . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The most important things we have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um how are we going to do it with those numbers ? +Industrial Designer: C c can you make you make {disfmarker} We can use uh the drawing board now , I think . Uh it it doesn't work well but {disfmarker} But it it would be pretty pretty uh nice if we could just draw a simple thing . +Project Manager: Well I have it here . Yeah well that's going to take too too much time . +Marketing: I do think you have to keep you have to keep it central now . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh you decide that , you decide that , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and {vocalsound} ready . +Project Manager: Well the L_C_D_ . Um you are Industrial , you are User Interface . So I think it's going to go to Mike . But you will have to make consensus with {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well consensus , um {disfmarker} We we can put it in the middle , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's a bit hard , because we are going to be uh individually . +Marketing: Nei . We're {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We're deciding now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Top or bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh yeah I I still think it's it's quite important though to uh to have it at the top , so +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . You say familiarity isn't important but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what if we're going to now decide about the functions , and the design comes into the next round ? Plus the d th the design round is still to come huh ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright these functions . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: As we we we we agreed , we do have a L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: The number f Well yes , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's enough . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: W the number function . Are we going to uh do it like uh on Mike's screen with uh one button that says I'm going to do a t two number digital ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: How do you want it to do then ? +User Interface: Well just when you push a one one and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's one two three four five six six seven eight nine zero . +Project Manager: It it has to r recognise one as {vocalsound} there could still come more . +User Interface: No , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} On most T_V_s if you uh press two numbers shortly after each other , {vocalsound} d it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , like that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: They'd recognise it . +Project Manager: Alright so no button for that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Th that's the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That that's very easy . Yeah . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay uh anyone any uh oth other functionalities of our uh remote ? +Industrial Designer: I think these are the the most important functions . +Marketing: Do you still have the pictures over there ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's about it . You do need the uh multi Or did uh {disfmarker} No , like this one . You do need them ? +Project Manager: No , we'd uh just said we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , alright uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Now okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um well because we can't integrate it with any other uh remotes , all those buttons on those pictures are uh irrelevant . So just for a television is that all we need ? +Marketing: Right . Yeah , it's most useable this way . +Industrial Designer: {gap} basic function . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teletext is gone . So all those buttons that {vocalsound} ar are to do with teletext {disfmarker} Oh screen placing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll have uh those uh buttons about uh {disfmarker} And uh the two important ones we're l f forgetting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's um {vocalsound} screen . You can make it wider and less wide . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the button that you can go to A_V_ for your video . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: I do think we have to put that underneath a clip . +Project Manager: Those two ? But it's just two , and we make a clip ? +Industrial Designer: Uh just two just two under uh under uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's a bit uh waste . +User Interface: We we can make {vocalsound} make uh a little row of like four buttons down here . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , right . +Project Manager: Or at the top . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your L_C_D_ screen is going to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you you can put uh two or three buttons under uh another section . +User Interface: Yeah alright then . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's too complicated . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You can just put it somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} They they aren't used much , not as much as those other , so you can put it somewhere {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , they can be small or round like buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah s bit smaller and s Well uh and and I think more at the bottom . Yeah . Yeah or at the top , yeah . What do you think uh those those buttons ? +Project Manager: Well I think they should in an in an isolated part of the remote . +Industrial Designer: Above or down ? And w where ? Well we design it later . We have it , and we design later where everything goes . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? Yes . Yes . Well any other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well if you {vocalsound} you take those th If you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Why go to video ? +Project Manager: Go to video , that's always on your remote control . To A_V_ uh to A_V_ A_V_ A_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can z you can zap t you can you can zap to the video channel from zero to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the video channel uh ? +User Interface: That's just zero . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well l n no not at not at my remote . +Industrial Designer: No no not always . Ze yeah zero is a different channel than uh the the video channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but you can can zap down {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but when you zap down zero you get to A_V_ . +Project Manager: Yes . I don't . +User Interface: Yes , I think th +Project Manager: I go to ninety-nine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , then you press ninety nine . +Marketing: Ah uh well whatever , {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I think go to video is an irrelevant button , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th that's the button uh {disfmarker} No . +Industrial Designer: But it's easy to go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you are at uh at channel uh fifty five and you want to uh go immediately to the video channel , you do you have to push a to to get below zero . +Project Manager: No you can ch push zero . Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's more easy to get to uh where the specific uh video channel button . +Project Manager: I I think that one button is uh {disfmarker} I use it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but if we're choosing to uh incorporate these buttons , you have to have uh channel setting , if you wa if you have a new T_V_ . You have to set the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right all th these uh different buttons you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: These buttons , I don't have buttons for channel setting uh especially on my remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well uh d different screen settings a Yeah , sk {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , I do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's incorporated with p m plus and down , uh those {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well y you must have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y you you you you have screen width . +User Interface: Yeah you yeah you have one one button from {vocalsound} s set frequency o or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then with plus and min minus you can uh adjust the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . That's the only one we put uh in there . +Project Manager: So we still {gap} have one uh four ? +Marketing: For a screen uh fu uh channel setting . +Project Manager: Ch ch +Industrial Designer: Yeah to uh oh yeah of course to configure the programme the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Programme , right . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh the Okay button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh you always have in the centre an Okay button , for your menu . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Menu button . +Industrial Designer: You should {disfmarker} Yeah . I think that's important . +Project Manager: Channel , setting , menu . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} And and the settings to change the brightness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We have to go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the settings to change the brightness and the contrast . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: So um Save . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Chief ? Chief ? +Project Manager: Yes see . +Industrial Designer: Th the menu menu button is also important . +Project Manager: Yes I have put it in . +Industrial Designer: Then you can uh {disfmarker} Where ? {vocalsound} I don't see it . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Oh Menu , alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think things like uh contrast and brightness should be um in the menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: In the menu . And you can uh then adjust it with the zapping buttons or something . +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Because uh the zapping buttons aren't used then if you are in the menu . +User Interface: Or the volume or something like that . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or the volume , yeah . +Project Manager: We're going to uh go to our uh rooms , and uh we'll have to decide s things on our own I think . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Your pen . +Marketing: Ah . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yes chief . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well see you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thought we'd uh lunch uh right now , or not ? +Project Manager: W w we have lunchtime , by the way , now uh so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is this is your thing . +User Interface: Yeah , lunch break . +Marketing: Ah . Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I am hungry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Get into my belly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . We didn't exactly do everything but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See you later mate . {vocalsound} +","During a project meeting, the team discussed functionalities and design aspects for a new remote control. The Marketing representative introduced findings from user research, which highlighted aesthetic appeal, ease of use, and important functions like zapping and power controls. The Industrial Designer outlined basic remote functions, emphasizing user-friendly and hand-compatible design to prevent RSI. They also mentioned the need to account for new requirements like targeting a younger audience and making the product recognizable to the company's brand. The Project Manager coordinated the discussion, considering new project requirements received via email and stressing the importance of deciding on remote control functionalities in the meeting. Debate included the placement and cost of an LCD screen, with a consensus needed between the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer. The meeting concluded without final decisions but set the direction for individual work on specific areas. The team planned to reconvene after a lunch break." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So , now um , {vocalsound} last time . Can you uh {vocalsound} push the button ? {vocalsound} One time please . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm still the secretary . Now uh , I ask you to presentate the prototype . One of your {disfmarker} you two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't care . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh this , you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes . The prototype . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yes , well uh this is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is it . +Project Manager: Well , thank you . Uh , now {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh it's uh it's yellow . And uh , this is rubber . And and and this too . The +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the sides . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: And the rest is hard plastic . And uh {disfmarker} We uh we had some uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We had a new idea {vocalsound} that that this can uh can be uh uh turned inside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then it covers the {disfmarker} these buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: until here or something . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: And then you can still use the the power button and the mute and the the joystick . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , you can still operate uh all the things . Because you don't always use the menu . And then it can break . +Project Manager: Okay . And the buttons ? +User Interface: Uh , well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Big . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Big buttons . And everything is blue , except the power button . And the mute . Of uh {disfmarker} yeah , and the mute and the the other button . {vocalsound} Yeah . Channel higher channel button . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the joystick is for the volume and the channels . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very obvious . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Up is channel up . Down is channel down . To the right is volume up . To the left is volume down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so if joystick and L_C_D_ . What's the R_R_ {gap} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: R_R_'s the l the the the the company uh logo . +Industrial Designer: The R_R_ ? +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on the rub rubber part . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes . That's about here . +Project Manager: So , what they say on the side is put fashion there . Yes . It's good . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So , that's it . That's prototype . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Now , the finance . {vocalsound} We don't know if it's {disfmarker} th it {disfmarker} if it's okay . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I'm gonna look . +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we change the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: Do we change the the order ? Or are we going to uh ev evaluate it first ? +Project Manager: Finance is um {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} No , first uh {disfmarker} Yes . We have to evaluate the product yet . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: That's uh um {disfmarker} {gap} That can be none . Um , we gonna do the evaluation now , together . But I have uh a introduction how it works . So , it will come up . Uh-oh . Okay . Um , yeah . Well , we uh {disfmarker} uh , I have um thinked a few evaluation uh criterias , uh based on um our marketing strategy , on uh the latest trends , on user preferences . Uh , we have a seven point scale from uh true , as well . To false , seven ? And on base of each c uh criteria , we need to um give a rating . We can uh {disfmarker} Well , it look like this . But we gonna uh do it here , they said . {vocalsound} So , you hope found out how to do it with a Word document . Yeah . Okay , yeah . Yeah . Um , well uh we have the Word document +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Criteria . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} {gap} So we open up that blank here . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Think I can {disfmarker} Uh , what this just an example . So , this not very important . But um , if I can get a number in here . Hmm . +Project Manager: No , it's okay . +Marketing: Well , uh we can't do that . +Industrial Designer: I'll get it . +Project Manager: Oh , it's okay . +Marketing: Um , so uh you have to think of it as uh the remote control is techno technologically innovative . Uh , and then we have to uh agree on the rating together . And in the end , we will c uh count an average of all rating . The first uh on each item . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , well technologically using , it's not uh {disfmarker} it doesn't contain many new features . Only the L_C_D_ . So , it {disfmarker} Um , I think I will give it a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , yeah {gap} , a four . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the scroll-button is something also uh new . What uh {disfmarker} not anoth uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not a lot of uh {disfmarker} a lot of uh remote controls have . I think technologically I'll give it an seven . Si six six . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , six . +Marketing: So now i I think you uh see it {gap} um its statement . +Industrial Designer: Oh , true or false . +Marketing: And you {gap} true or false . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'll I'll give it uh a t a two . +Marketing: And true is one . So , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Project Manager: You ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Me too . So it's a three . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , well {disfmarker} It's a one . {vocalsound} The first item . So , okay the second item . Um , this product is for all sorts of customers . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it's a statement which uh I disagree with , because we uh really aim uh at at young market and I think the way it looked uh c uh totally in yellow , it's not uh really aimed for all customers . It doesn't look like that . +Project Manager: So it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's uh a six . +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Mm , four . +Project Manager: Yes , it's for the younger g group . So it's uh half half of the people . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think it's four . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it still has l large buttons and not m many buttons . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , the colours are for young people , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but +Project Manager: Yes . So , I think it's four . +User Interface: older {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe version uh three point O_ uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has other colours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Four . Uh , okay . Mm . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: That's uh the motto of our company . Yeah , well do we do this with uh this product ? I um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think if we do this , as it's uh uh c uh it's really orientates on the design . Um , so I would give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Me too a two , because only the battery is not uh techin uh technologically high standard . But the rest of it is . So , I think a two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Two . +Project Manager: Uh , I say uh a five . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: It's not fashion , it's new . It must be a fashion . But it isn't . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it will be fashion . +Project Manager: Yes . It w If it's not a fashion we can put it in it . So , it must be a fashion . I think it's a five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Then make it th three . +Marketing: Okay . Yes , I'll think of that too . +Project Manager: No . Oh . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Three is okay . +Marketing: Yeah , agree ? +Project Manager: I use my feet though . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , we'll wait outside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A three . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The next element um is the product looks good . Well personally , I do not prefer a um remote control that's fully in yellow . So , I would give this a five . +Industrial Designer: I give it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . Yes , a one . I like it . +Project Manager: Well , I say three . So , counting then is two and a half . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to do our uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , well we gonna do the next part . Uh , yep . Uh uh , the next statement . It has not too much buttons . Um , yeah , I I have uh said is not because uh a low number is better . And in the end we calculate an average . So , um that's why it's a negative in it . Um , well this one of our aims not have too much buttons . So , um uh did we uh do that ? Well , uh if we go to {vocalsound} uh this fashion , I {disfmarker} We still have caused uh a lot of uh buttons for the numbers . But you can you can go for that . And um that way , you don't have a lot of buttons over . So , I would give this a two . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You ? +User Interface: One . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Me too . One . +Marketing: One . {vocalsound} Um , but {vocalsound} where where is the {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next , six . It does not get lost easily . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah , did we implement uh the sound ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just a small thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we did not . So , but can it get lost if it's such a thing ? +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yellow . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Looks like a pistol . +Project Manager: Yes . Not a not a normal shapes . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} It won't get between uh the pillows uh on the couch . +Project Manager: No . It won't get lost . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It won't . +Project Manager: A one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , o one . +Project Manager: Okay , a one . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: Okay , um well we aimed for the younger market . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Uh yeah , did we achieve that . I think with the way it looks and um it is designed , I will give it a two . +Project Manager: Yeah me {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Project Manager: That was our target . Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . There's a fancy look-and-feel . +Marketing: Uh , yes . That that was uh , yeah , one of the most important things that uh Trendwatch said . I didn't uh say it in my presentation . But um , well does it have that ? I would say yes . So um {disfmarker} Well , let's also give this a two . T +Industrial Designer: I gave this a one because of the rubber . It feels soft . Uh , it looks like a l uh uh b uh , a bit like a joystick . It's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , f very fancy {gap} trendy . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes , a one . +Project Manager: I say a two . It's a a bit personal . If it's fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think s two is better . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Two is okay . +Marketing: Okay . Two . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And um , then the last one I could think of , uh it goes with the latest trends . +Project Manager: No , it's new . Innovation . +Marketing: If we looked at the latest trends for the uh younger people , and they ate uh fruit and vegetables , well it has a um a nice colour , uh well compared to food but we didn't uh {disfmarker} We did not paint any uh fruit and vegetable on it for something like that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So , I would {disfmarker} did not give this uh a one or two . I {disfmarker} We'll go for a three . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I go for two because uh the the shapes are still round . Uh , the latest trends are soft things , you know , like uh I said in my presentation . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But the the colours are um basic , like yellow , red , um blue . Something what also younger people want . It's also a trend , so I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , three . +Project Manager: Me too . Three . +Marketing: A three . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So um , come back to the presentation now . So , we find yourself there , and now we have to calculate an average rating . +Project Manager: Effort is three , ten and twelve . Thirty , forty , fifty , {gap} . +Marketing: So , we will do that . Yes . +Project Manager: Twenty one . So , it's uh two and three nine two and one third . +Marketing: By nine . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , uh okay . {vocalsound} Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Come on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , nah . Okay . +Marketing: So uh , that's a pretty low rating , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's good . +Marketing: So , according to our uh own evaluation uh we did a good job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . Nah . How am I doing ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I closed your slide-show . +Project Manager: Back to my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which one was the last for you ? Uh , dreaming . +Project Manager: Yep . Next please . +Marketing: Next . Finance . +Project Manager: So , now uh we have a product . Very happy . But uh , is it cheap enough ? Um , so if uh {disfmarker} I'll have a look . We have a battery . One battery . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheapest there is . +Project Manager: Okay , one battery . Electronics . Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the most advanced . Chip-on-print . We have that one . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's the most advanced . +Project Manager: We have the simple , regular and advanced . +Industrial Designer: Advanced . +Project Manager: We have the adva advanced . 'Kay , so uncurved or flat . Nope . Single curved or double curved ? We have double curved . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have plastic , wood , rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} we have half rubber , half plastic . +User Interface: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: No titanium . Special colour . Yes , yellow . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Interface , push-button . Scroll-wheel , integrated scroll-wheel push push-button , or L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have the L_C_D_ We have two scroll-wheels ? Or one ? +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: And it's not really a s +Industrial Designer: Joystick uh thing . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's this one . Now , uh button supplement . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour . We already {disfmarker} Uh , that's the {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} for the buttons . The buttons are regular colour . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So , then uh {disfmarker} then then then then then then {disfmarker} Then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're not gonna make it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , no . It's too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Wh +Project Manager: So , we have to change something . +Industrial Designer: What what are the costs ? +Project Manager: Fifteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifteen . +Project Manager: Yeah , well uh when we lose one scroll-wheel , it's okay . 'Cause we can't lose the battery . We can't lose the advanced chip . We can't lose the double curve . We have rubber , special colour . +Marketing: {gap} . We would have uh n +Industrial Designer: A special colour . +Project Manager: Oh , no , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don't think it's a very special colour . +Project Manager: No , it's uh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Yellow ? Uh , is it a special colour ? +Marketing: For a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: I've {disfmarker} For a remote control , I think it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we would have uh uh normal buttons instead of uh the joystick . For up down left right . +Project Manager: Um , then we uh lose two Euros . Then we have thirteen Euros . Half a Euro too much . Exactly the special colours . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And what if we use only one sort of um {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} just only plastic or only rubber ? +Project Manager: That's one Euro . +Industrial Designer: One Euro discount . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I don't think that's good . Mm {disfmarker} I think we have to keep the L_C_D_ . If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we change the joyst uh the joystick thing into a button up , button down , button right , button left . +Project Manager: Yes . Then it's only thirteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then we'll lose fifty cent in what ? +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . Then you have {disfmarker} Or you have to cut this off . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} uh-uh . +Project Manager: Then it's not good anymore . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: So , wait . Okay . I'll have a look . {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And if you say it's just a r uh normal colour {disfmarker} it's a normal colour , wh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yellow rubber . +Industrial Designer: No one will see it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , normal . +Industrial Designer: Normal colour , and the the joystick away , and put the button up , button down , right , left . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And it's twelve Euros , I think . +Project Manager: One minute , please . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is it maximum . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's normal colour . But if you lose the joystick , it's still uh an advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . Uh , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Or it's then a regular ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , wait wait wait . +Marketing: The advanced chip was for the L_C_D_ wasn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So , the advanced is for the L_C_D_ and the regular for the joystick . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And what if we lose the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the L_C_D_ , then we have an uh regular chip and no L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , regular chip . But {disfmarker} Is it a good design ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah . Then you'll have to m uh see the menu on the television . And you don't have the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: If uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , the T_V_s has to uh {disfmarker} have to be up-to-date . +Marketing: If we have the n no buttons {disfmarker} If we have we have uh not a joystick but buttons , we would have {disfmarker} uh , we have thirteen Euros ? +Project Manager: Mm , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then uh we move the the colour . What will that be ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Huh . No knew that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so no joystick . Oh no , but we {disfmarker} then we get push-buttons from half a Euro . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then it's twelve Euro fifty , then it's okay . +Project Manager: Uh , yes , yes , yes , yes . No joystick . Push-buttons . No special colour . Twelve and a half Euros . Then it's okay . So , we have to change that a little bit . And you cannot use the red and green button . Because if you give them a s uh colour , +User Interface: Okay . All the same uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you have to pay point two Euros . +Industrial Designer: So , all the buttons has to {disfmarker} have to be the same colour . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But then the print on it will g um change it . Make it uh for everybody to see what button it is . Uh l How you call it ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . Recognisable . Like what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Recognisable , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Now we have to change that , but that's okay . Rubber . What's the normal colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , well that's clear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where's {gap} ? Yeah . So , now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the joystick away . And its buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . It is . But then it will be just that ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} still , he waited at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Now , uh project eva evaluation . Well {disfmarker} What do you think of it ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: About the +Project Manager: About the project . +Marketing: Project . +Industrial Designer: process . Went good . Uh {disfmarker} I think uh the creativity uh {vocalsound} was good enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have a gun instead of a remote control . Um {disfmarker} Uh leadership . Yeah , you were the project project manager , and uh had the final vote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah that was clear . Team-work okay . Everybody uh has something uh to say about it . And uh {disfmarker} no , uh o only the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the drawing uh was very difficult . But , nah . New ideas found . {vocalsound} Nope . +Project Manager: Okay . And you . +User Interface: Yeah , well the same . I I espe I especially uh liked the the means , the the SMARTboard and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} It brings up new ideas when you work with uh with it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think you have to compare it to if you would have a normal um normal project without laptops uh and without these devices . I think um {disfmarker} Well , the laptops if you have them out front of you , you sometimes looking at that instead of the presentation . Um , well uh the draw-board , well you can draw things . But it not really going very convenient . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , maybe it will be easier if you have a smaller monitor {gap} and uh you would also see there . And with a normal mouse . Um , and uh the project . Yeah , I agree on what was said uh mainly . Uh , yeah but you always have that some people are talking more than others . And maybe is then um the task of the the project manager to also uh ask more to the people uh less talking . To tell their opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , what do I have to say . I think it was good . Not too many discussions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: So , it's good for the speed . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we're ready . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good price . Evaluation ready . Ready . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} . +","Summary: + +The project team, consisting of a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing representative, were discussing a prototype of a new product. The User Interface Designer described the prototype as yellow, made partially of rubber with the rest being hard plastic. The device has the capability to cover certain buttons and still allows use of the power, mute, and joystick, which controls volume and channels. + +There was a debate about the size and color of the buttons, and the placement of the company logo. The team went through an evaluation process, rating different aspects like technological innovation, appeal to all customers, and design alignment with company fashion. The ratings were not always unanimous, with some disagreement and compromise needed. + +After the evaluation, the team discussed the financial aspects of the product. They had concerns about whether it was affordable due to features like the advanced chip, L_C_D_ display, and dual-curvature of the device. To reduce costs, the team considered removing the joystick, changing the color, or switching to a single material. Eventually, they settled for removing the joystick and special color, which brought the cost down to an acceptable level. + +The team reflected on their project process, discussing the creative aspects and decision-making. The use of technology like the SMARTboard and laptops brought about mixed opinions regarding their contribution to the project. + +Finally, the project was considered ready with an acceptable price point and evaluation completed. The team concluded the meeting on a satisfactory note, with an informal comment about grabbing a beer." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: I guess . +Grad A: OK , we 're on . So just make sure that th your wireless mike is on , if you 're wearing a wireless . +Grad E: Check one . Check one . +Grad A: And you should be able to see which one {disfmarker} which one you 're on by , uh , watching the little bars change . +Grad B: So , which is my bar ? Mah ! Number one . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad E: Sibilance . Sibilance . +Grad A: So , actually , if you guys wanna go ahead and read digits now , as long as you 've signed the consent form , that 's alright . +Grad E: Are we supposed to read digits at the same time ? +Grad A: No . No . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Each individually . We 're talking about doing all at the same time but I think cognitively that would be really difficult . {vocalsound} To try to read them while everyone else is . +Grad E: Everyone would need extreme focus . +Grad A: So , when you 're reading the digit strings , the first thing to do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Other way . We m We may wind up with ver We {disfmarker} we may need versions of all this garbage . +Grad B: For our stuff . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . So the first thing you 'd wanna do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . You can see the transcript ? There 's two large number strings on the digits ? So you would just read that one . And then you read each line with a small pause between the lines . And the pause is just so the person transcribing it can tell where one line ends and the other begins . And I 'll give {disfmarker} I 'll read the digit strings first , so can see how that goes . Um . Again , I 'm not sure how much I should talk about {pause} stuff before everyone 's here . +Professor C: Mmm . Well , we have one more coming . +Grad A: OK . Well , why don't I go ahead and read digit strings and then we can go on from there . +Professor C: OK . Well , we can start doing it . +Grad A: Thanks . So , uh , just also a note on wearing the microphones . All of you look like you 're doing it reasonably correctly , but you want it about two thumb widths away from your mouth , and then , at the corner . And that 's so that you minimize breath sounds , so that when you 're breathing , you don't breathe into the mike . Um . Yeah , that 's good . And uh {disfmarker} So , everyone needs to fill out , only once , the speaker form and the consent form . And the short form {disfmarker} I mean , you should read the consent form , but uh , the thing to notice is that we will give you an opportunity to edit a all the transcripts . So , if you say things and you don't want them to be released to the general public , which , these will be available at some point to anyone who wants them , uh , you 'll be given an opportunity by email , uh , to bleep out any portions you don't like . Um . On the speaker form just fill out as much of the information as you can . If you 're not exactly sure about the region , we 're not exactly sure either . So , don't worry too much about it . The {disfmarker} It 's just self rating . Um . And I think that 's about it . I mean , should I {disfmarker} Do you want me to talk at all about why we 're doing this and what this project is ? +Professor C: Um , yeah . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: No . There was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} Let 's see . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Does Nancy know that we 're meeting in here ? +Grad B: I sent an email . +Professor C: She got an emai she was notified . +Grad E: Oh yeah , she got an e Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Whether she knows {vocalsound} is another question . Um . So are the people going to be identified by name ? +Grad A: Well , what we 're gonna {disfmarker} we 'll anonymize it in the transcript . Um , but not in the audio . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: So the +Professor C: OK . So , then in terms of people worrying about , uh , excising things from the transcript , it 's unlikely . Since it {disfmarker} it does isn't attributed . Oh , I see , but the a but the {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , so if I said , "" Oh , hi Jerry , how are you ? "" , we 're not gonna go through and cancel out the "" Jerry ""s . +Professor C: Yeah . Sure . +Grad A: Um , so we will go through and , in the speaker ID tags there 'll be , you know , M - one O seven , M - one O eight . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , but uh , +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: um , it w uh , I don't know a good way of doing it on the audio , and still have people who are doing discourse research be able to use the data . +Professor C: OK . Mm - hmm . No , I {disfmarker} I wasn't complaining , +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: I just wanted to understand . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: Well , we can make up aliases for each of us . +Grad A: Yeah , I mean , whatever you wanna do is fine , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: but we find that {disfmarker} We want the meeting to be as natural as possible . So , we 're trying to do real meetings . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And so we don't wanna have to do aliases +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: and we don't want people to be editing what they say . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: So I think that it 's better just as a pro post - process to edit out every time you bash Microsoft . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Um , OK . So why don't you tell us briefly +Grad A: OK . So th +Professor C: your {disfmarker} give {disfmarker} give your e normal schpiel . +Grad A: Um . So this is {disfmarker} The project is called Meeting Recorder and there are lots of different aspects of the project . Um . So my particular interest is in the PDA of the future . This is a mock - up of one . Yes , we do believe the PDA of the future will be made of wood . Um . {comment} The idea is that you 'd be able to put a PDA at the table at an impromptu meeting , and record it , and then be able to do querying and retrieval later on , on the meeting . So that 's my particular interest , is a portable device to do m uh , information retrieval on meetings . Other people are interested in other aspects of meetings . Um . So the first step on that , in any of these , is to collect some data . And so what we wanted is a room that 's instrumented with both the table top microphones , and these are very high quality pressure zone mikes , as well as the close talking mikes . What the close talk ng talking mikes gives us is some ground truth , gives us , um , high quality audio , um , especially for people who aren't interested in the acoustic parts of this corpus . So , for people who are more interested in language , we didn't want to penalize them by having only the far field mikes available . And then also , um , it 's a very , very hard task in terms of speech recognition . Um . And so , uh , on the far field mikes we can expect very low recognition results . So we wanted the near field mikes to at least isolate the difference between the two . So that 's why we 're recording in parallel with the close talking and the far field at the same time . And then , all these channels are recorded simultaneously and framed synchronously so that you can also do things like , um , beam - forming on all the microphones and do research like that . Our intention is to release this data to the public , um , probably through f through a body like the LDC . And , uh , just make it as a generally available corpus . Um . {vocalsound} There 's other work going on in meeting recording . So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're working with SRI , with UW , Um . NIST has started an effort which will include video . We 're not including video , obviously . And uh {disfmarker} and then also , um , a small amount of assistance from IBM . Is also involved . Um . Oh , and the digit strings , this is just a more constrained task . Um . So because the general environment is so challenging , we decided to {disfmarker} to do at least one set of digit strings to give ourselves something easier . And it 's exactly the same digit strings as in TI - digits , which is a common connected digits corpus . So we 'll have some , um , comparison to be able to be made . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: OK , so when the l last person comes in , just have them wear a wireless . It should be on already . Um . Either one of those . And uh , read the digit strings and {disfmarker} and fill out the forms . So , the most important form is the consent form , so just be s be sure everyone signs that , if they consent . +Grad B: I 'm sure it 's pretty usual for meetings that people come late , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: so you will have to leave what you set . +Grad A: Right . And uh , just give me a call , which , my number 's up there when your meeting is over . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I 'm going to leave the mike here but it 's n {nonvocalsound} Uh , but I 'm not gonna be on so don't have them use this one . It 'll just be sitting here . +Grad B: Input ? Yeah . There we go . +Professor C: By the way , Adam , we will be using the , uh , screen as well . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , you know . Wow ! Organization . So you guys who got email about this {pause} oh f uh , Friday or something about what we 're up to . +Grad E: No . +Grad F: No . +Grad B: I got it . +Grad E: What was the nature of the email ? +Professor C: Oh , this was about {pause} um , inferring intentions from features in context , and the words , like "" s go to see "" , or "" visit "" , or some +Grad B: Wel - we I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't get it ? +Grad E: I don't think I did . +Professor C: I guess these g have got better filters . Cuz I sent it to everybody . You just blew it off . +Grad E: Ah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: It 's really simple though . So this is the idea . Um . We could pursue , um , if we thought it 's {disfmarker} it 's worth it but , uh , I think we {disfmarker} we will agree on that , um , to come up with a {disfmarker} with a sort of very , very first crude prototype , and do some implementation work , and do some {disfmarker} some research , and some modeling . So the idea is if you want to go somewhere , um , and focus on that object down {disfmarker} Oh , I can actually walk with this . This is nice . down here . That 's the Powder - Tower . Now , um , {vocalsound} we found in our , uh , data and from experiments , that there 's three things you can do . Um , you can walk this way , and come really , really close to it . And touch it . But you cannot enter or do anything else . Unless you 're interested in rock climbing , it won't do you no good standing there . It 's just a dark alley . But you can touch it . If you want to actually go up or into the tower , you have to go this way , and then through some buildings and up some stairs and so forth . If you actually want to see the tower , and that 's what actually most people want to do , is just have a good look of it , take a picture for the family , {comment} you have to go this way , and go up here . And there you have a vre really view {disfmarker} It exploded , the {disfmarker} during the Thirty years - war . Really uh , interesting sight . And um , these uh {disfmarker} these lines are , um , paths , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: or so That 's ab er , i the street network of our geographic information system . And you can tell that we deliberately cut out this part . Because otherwise we couldn't get our GIS system to take {disfmarker} to lead people this way . It would always use the closest point to the object , and then the tourists would be faced , you know , in front of a wall , but it would do them absolutely no good . So , {vocalsound} what we found interesting is , first of all , intentions differ . Maybe you want to enter a building . Maybe you want to see it , take a picture of it . Or maybe you actually want to come as close as possible to the building . For whatever reason that may be . +Grad E: What 's it {disfmarker} what 's it made out of ? +Grad B: Um , r red limestone . +Grad E: So maybe you would wanna touch it . +Grad B: Yeah , maybe you would want to touch it . Um . Okay , I {disfmarker} This , um {disfmarker} These intentions , we {disfmarker} w w we could , if we want to , call it the {disfmarker} the Vista mode , where we just want to {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} s get the overview or look at it , the Enter mode , and the , well , Tango mode . I always come up with {disfmarker} with silly names . So this "" Tango "" means , literally translated , "" to touch "" . So {disfmarker} But sometimes the {disfmarker} the Tango mode is really relevant in the {disfmarker} in the sense that , um , if you want to , uh {disfmarker} If you don't have the intention of entering your building , but you know that something is really close to it , and you just want to approach it , or get to that building . Consider , for example , the Post Office in Chicago , a building so large that it has its own zip code . So the entrance could be miles away from the closest point . So sometimes it m m m makes sense maybe to d to distinguish there . So , um , I 've looked , uh , through twenty some {disfmarker} Uh , I didn't look through all the data . um , and there {disfmarker} there 's uh , a lot more different ways in people {disfmarker} uh , the ways people phrase how to g get {disfmarker} if they want to get to a certain place . And sometimes here it 's b it 's a little bit more obvious {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} Maybe I should go back a couple of steps and go through the {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , OK come in , sit down . If you grab yourself a microphone . +Grad B: You need to sign some stuff and read some digits . +Professor C: Well , you can sign afterwards . +Grad B: O or later . +Grad E: You have to al also have to read some digits . +Professor C: Afterwards . +Grad D: OK . {comment} OK . Afterwards is fine . +Grad B: They are uncomfortable . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Really small ? OK . I see . OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: Thank you . +Grad B: OK , but that was our idea . +Professor C: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it it also has to be switched on , Nance . +Grad B: Is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: No , that one 's already on , I thought he said . +Professor C: It 's on ? OK , good . +Grad D: OK . It 's on . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . That was the idea . Um , people , when they w when they want to go to a building , sometimes they just want to look at it . Sometimes they want to enter it . And sometimes they want to get really close to it . That 's something we found . It 's just a truism . And the places where you will lead them for these intentions are sometimes ex in incredibly different . I {disfmarker} I gave an example where the point where you end up if you want to look at it is completely different from where {disfmarker} if you want to enter it . So , this is sort of how people may , uh {disfmarker} may phrase those requests to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a mock - up system at least that 's the way they did it . And we get tons of {disfmarker} of these "" how do I get to "" , "" I want to go to "" , but also , "" give me directions to "" , and "" I would like to see "" . And um , what we can sort of do , if we look closer a closer at the {disfmarker} the data {disfmarker} That was the wrong one . um , we can look at some factors that may make a difference . First of all , very important , and um , that {disfmarker} I 've completely forgot that when we talked . This is of course a crucial factor , "" what type of object is it ? "" So , some buildings you just don't want to take pictures of . Or very rarely . But you usually want to enter them . Some objects are more picturesque , and you {disfmarker} more f more highly photographed . Then of course the {disfmarker} the actual phrases may give us some idea of what the person wants . Um . Sometimes I found in the {disfmarker} Uh , looking at the data , in a superficial way , I found some s sort of modifiers that {disfmarker} that m may also give us a hint , um , "" I 'm trying to get to "" Nuh ? "" I need to get to "" . Sort of hints to the fact that you 're not really sightseeing and {disfmarker} and just f there for pleasure and so forth and so on . And this leads us straight to the context which also should be considered . That whatever it is you 're doing at the moment may also inter influence the interpretation of {disfmarker} of a phrase . So , this is , uh , really uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} My suggestion is really simple . We start with , um {disfmarker} Now , Let me , uh , say one more thing . What we do know , is that the parser we use in the SmartKom system will never differentiate between any of these . So , basically all of these things will result in the same XML M - three - L structure . Sort of action "" go "" , and then an object . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah ? and a source . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's way too crude to d capture those differences in intentions . So , I thought , "" Mmm ! Maybe for a deep understanding task , that 's a nice sort of playground or first little thing . "" Where we can start it and n sort of look {disfmarker} "" OK , we need , we gonna get those M - three - L structures . The crude , undifferentiated parse . Interpreted input . We may need additional part of speech , or maybe just some information on the verb , and modifiers , auxiliaries . We 'll see . And I will try to {disfmarker} to sort of come up with a list of factors that we need to get out of there , and maybe we want to get a g switch for the context . So this is not something which we can actually monitor , {vocalsound} now , but just is something we can set . And then you can all imagine sort of a {disfmarker} a constrained satisfaction program , depending on {disfmarker} on what , um , comes out . We want to have an {disfmarker} a structure resulting if we feed it through a belief - net or {disfmarker} or something along those lines . We 'd get an inferred intention , we {disfmarker} we produce a structure that differentiates between the Vista , the Enter , and the , um , Tango mode . Which I think we maybe want to ignore . But . That 's my idea . It 's up for discussion . We can change all of it , any bit of it . Throw it all away . +Grad F: Now @ @ this email that you sent , actually . +Professor C: What ? +Grad F: Now I remember the email . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Huh . Still , I have no recollection whatsoever of the email . I 'll have to go back and check . +Professor C: Not important . So , what is important is that we understand what the proposed task is . And , the {disfmarker} the i uh , Robert and I talked about this some on Friday . And we think it 's well - formed . So we think it 's a well - formed , uh , starter task for this , uh , deeper understanding in the tourist domain . +Grad F: So , where exactly is the , uh , deeper understanding being done ? Like I mean , s is it before the Bayes - net ? Is it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always all of it . So , in general it 's always going to be , the answer is , everywhere . Uh , so the notion is that , uh , this isn't real deep . But it 's deep enough that you can distinguish between these th three quite different kinds of , uh , going to see some tourist thing . And , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the quote "" deep "" that we 're trying to get at . And , Robert 's point is that the current front - end doesn't give you any way to {disfmarker} Not only doesn't it do it , but it also doesn't give you enough information to do it . It isn't like , if you just took what the front - end gives you , and used some clever inference algorithm on it , you would be able to figure out which of these is going on . So , uh , and this is {disfmarker} Bu - I in general it 's gonna be true of any kind of deep understanding , there 's gonna be contextual things , there 're gonna be linguistic things , there 're gonna be discourse things , and they gotta be combined . And , my idea on how to combine them is with a belief - net , although it may turn out that t some totally different thing is gonna work better . Um , the idea would be that {vocalsound} you , uh , take your {disfmarker} You 're editing your slide ? +Grad B: Yeah . As i a sort of , as I get ideas , uh w uh . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad B: So , discourse {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about that . Of course that needs to sort of go in there . +Professor C: Oh . I 'm sorry . OK . So . This is minutes {disfmarker} taking minutes as we go , in his {disfmarker} in his own way . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: Um , but the p the {disfmarker} Anyway . So the thing is , {vocalsound} i uh , d naively speaking , you 've {disfmarker} you 've got a {disfmarker} for this little task , a belief - net , which is going to have as output , the conditional pr probability of one of three things , that the person wants to {disfmarker} uh , to View it , to Enter it , or to Tango with it . Um . So that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the output of the belief - net is pretty well formed . And , then the inputs are going to be these kinds of things . And , then the question is {disfmarker} there are two questions {disfmarker} is , uh , one , where do you get this i {comment} information from , and two , what 's the structure of the belief - net ? So what are the conditional probabilities of this , that , and the other , given these things ? And you probably need intermediate nodes . I {disfmarker} we don't know what they are yet . So it may well be that , uh , for example , that , uh , knowing whether {disfmarker} Oh , another thing you want is some information abou I think , about the time of day . Now , they may wanna call that part of context . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But the time of day matters a lot . And , if things are obviously closed , then , you {disfmarker} +Grad B: People won't want to enter it . +Professor C: Pe - people don't wanna enter them . And , if it 's not obvious , you may want to actually uh , point out to people that it 's closed {disfmarker} you know , what they 're g going to is closed and they don't have the option of entering it . +Grad B: s b +Professor C: So another thing that can come up , and will come up as soon as you get serious about this is , that another option of course is to have a {disfmarker} more of a dialogue . So if someone says something you could ask them . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And {disfmarker} Now , one thing you could do is always ask them , but that 's boring . And it also w it also be a pain for the person using it . So one thing you could do is build a little system that , said , "" whenever you got a question like that I 've got one of three answers . Ask them which one you want . "" OK . But that 's , um , not what we 're gonna do . +Grad B: But maybe that 's a false state of the system , that it 's too close to call . +Professor C: Oh yeah . You want the {disfmarker} you want the ability to a You want the ability to ask , but what you don't wanna do is onl build a system that always asks every time , and i That 's not getting at the scientific problem , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and it 's {disfmarker} In general you 're {disfmarker} you know , it 's gonna be much more complex than that . a This is purposely a really simple case . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: I have one more point to {disfmarker} to Bhaskara 's question . Um , I think also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deep understanding part of it is {disfmarker} is going to be in there to the extent that we um , want it in terms of our modeling . We can start , you know , basic from human beings , model that , its motions , going , walking , seeing , we can mem model all of that and then compose whatever inferences o we make out of these really conceptual primitives . That will be extremely deep in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in my understanding . +Professor C: Yeah . S so {disfmarker} so the way that might come up , if you wanna {disfmarker} Suppose you wanted to do that , you might say , "" Um , as an intermediate step in your belief - net , is there a Source - Path - Goal schema involved ? "" OK ? And if so , uh , is there a focus on the goal ? Or is there a focus on the path ? or something . And that could be , uh , one of the conditiona you know , th the {disfmarker} In some piece of the belief - net , that could be the {disfmarker} the appropriate thing to enter . +Grad F: So , where would we extract that information from ? From the M - three - L ? +Professor C: No . No . See , the M - three - L is not gonna give th What he was saying is , the M - three - L does not have any of that . All it has is some really crude stuff saying , "" A person wants to go to a place . "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: The M - three - L is the old SmartKom output ? +Professor C: Right . M - three well , M - three - L itself refers to Multimedia Mark - up Language . +Grad E: OK . It 's just a language . Right , yeah . +Professor C: So we have th w we we we have to have a better w way of referring to {disfmarker} +Grad B: The parser output ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" Analyzed speech "" I think it 's what they call it , +Professor C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad B: really , oder {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: o th No , actually , intention lattices is what we 're gonna get . +Professor C: Is - i but they c they call it intention lattice , but tha +Grad B: In - in a intention lattice k Hypothesis . +Professor C: Anyway . +Grad B: They call it intention hypotheses . +Professor C: Right . So , th they 're gonna give us some cr uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} We can assume that y you get this crude information . About intention , and that 's all they 're going to provide . And they don't give you the kind of object , they don't give you any discourse history , if you want to keep that you have to keep it somewhere else . +Grad B: Well , they keep it . We have to request it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Nuh ? But it 's not in there . +Professor C: Well , they {disfmarker} they kee they keep it by their lights . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: It may {disfmarker} it may or may not be what {disfmarker} what we want . +Grad B: Yeah , or i +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , if someone says , "" I wanna touch the side of the Powder - Tower "" , that would {disfmarker} basically , we need to pop up Tango mode and the {disfmarker} and the directions ? +Professor C: If i if {disfmarker} Yeah , if it got as simple as that , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But it wouldn't . +Grad E: OK . But that doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} But we 'd have to infer a Source - Path - Goal to some degree for touching the side , right ? +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Uh , th the there is a p a point there if I understand you . Correct ? Um , because um , sometimes people just say things {disfmarker} This you find very often . "" Where is the city hall ? "" And this do they don't wanna sh see it on a map , or they don't wanna know it 's five hundred yards away from you , or that it 's to the {disfmarker} your north . They wanna go there . That 's what they say , is , "" Where is it ? "" . Where is that damn thing ? +Grad E: And the parser would output {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , that 's a {disfmarker} a question mark . sh A lot of parsers , um , just , uh {disfmarker} That 's way beyond their scope , is {disfmarker} of interpreting that . You know ? But um , still outcome w the outcome will be some form of structure , with the town hall and maybe saying it 's a WH focus on the town hall . But to interpret it , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know ? somebody else has to do that job later . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just trying to figure out what the SmartKom system would output , depending on these things . +Grad B: Um , it will probably tell you how far away it is , at least that 's {disfmarker} That 's even what Deep Map does . It tells you how far away it is , and {disfmarker} and shows it to you on a map . Because i we can not differentiate , at the moment , between , you know , the intention of wanting to go there or the intention of just know wanting to know where {disfmarker} where it is . +Grad D: People no might not be able to infer that either , right ? Like the fact {disfmarker} Like , I could imagine if someone came up to me and asked , "" Where 's the city hall ? "" , I might say , g ar "" Are you trying to get there ? "" Because how I describe um , t its location {disfmarker} uh , p probably depend on whether I think I should give them , you know , directions now , or say , you know , whatever , "" It 's half a mile away "" or something like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . It 's a granularity factor , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: because where people ask you , "" Where is New York ? "" , you will tell them it 's on the East Coast . +Grad D: Uh - huh . Yeah . Exactly . Right . Right . +Grad B: Y y eh {disfmarker} you won't tell them how to get there , ft you know , take that bus to the airport and blah - blah - blah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: But if it 's the post office , you will tell them how to get there . +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So th They have done some interesting experiments on that in Hamburg as well . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: So . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} i Go {disfmarker} go back to the {disfmarker} the uh , th +Grad B: So I w this is {disfmarker} "" onto "" is {disfmarker} is knowledge about buildings , +Professor C: Yeah , that slide . +Grad B: their opening times , and then t coupled with time of day , um , this should {disfmarker} You know . +Grad D: So that context was like , um , their presumed purpose context , i like business or travel , as well as the utterance context , like , "" I 'm now standing at this place at this time "" . +Professor C: Yeah , well I think we ought to d a As we have all along , d We {disfmarker} we 've been distu distinguishing between situational context , which is what you have as context , and discourse context , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which you have as DH , +Grad B: Nuh . +Professor C: I don't know what the H means . +Grad B: History . Discourse history . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Whatever . So we can work out terminology later . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're quite distinct . I mean , you need them both , but they 're quite distinct . And , so what we were talking about doing , a a as a first shot , is not doing any of the linguistics . Except to find out what seems to be {pause} useful . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason the belief - net is in blue , is the notion would be {disfmarker} Uh , this may be a bad dis bad idea , but the idea is to take as a first goal , see if we could actually build a belief - net that would make this three way distinction uh , in a plausible way , given these {disfmarker} We have all these transcripts and we 're able to , by hand , extract the features to put in the belief - net . Saying , "" Aha ! here 're the things which , if you get them out of {disfmarker} out of the language and discourse , and put them into the belief - net , it would tell you which of these three uh , intentions is most likely . "" And if {disfmarker} to actually do that , build it , um {disfmarker} you know , run it {disfmarker} y y run it on the data where you hand - transcribe the parameters . And see how that goes . If that goes well , then we can start worrying about how we would extract them . So {disfmarker} where would you get this information ? And , expand it to {disfmarker} to other things like this . But if we can't do that , then we 're in trouble . I mean th th i i if you can't do this task , um {disfmarker} +Grad B: We need a different , uh , engine . Machine , I mean . +Professor C: Uh , uh , yeah , or something . Well it {disfmarker} i I if it {disfmarker} if it 's the belief - nets , we we 'll switch to you know , logic or some terrible thing , but I don't think that 's gonna be the case . I think that , uh , if we can get the information , a belief - net is a perfectly good way of doing the inferential combination of it . The real issue is , do what are the factors involved in determining this ? And I don't know . +Grad B: Hmm . But , only w +Professor C: Hold on a s Hold on a second . +Grad B: Muh . +Professor C: So , I know . Uh , uh , is it clear what 's going on here ? +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Um , I missed the beginning , but , um I guess {disfmarker} could you back to the slide , the previous one ? So , is it that it 's , um {disfmarker} These are all factors that uh , a These are the ones that you said that we are going to ignore now ? or that we want to {vocalsound} take into account ? You were saying n +Professor C: Take them into account . But {disfmarker} but you don't worry about {disfmarker} h +Grad D: Take the {disfmarker} the linguistic factors too . Oh , how to extract these features . +Professor C: how to extract them . So , f let 's find out which ones we need first , +Grad D: OK . Got it . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . And {disfmarker} and it 's clear from the data , um , like , sorta the correct answer in each case . +Professor C: No . +Grad D: But l +Grad B: No . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Let 's go back to th Let 's go back to the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the slide of data . +Grad D: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the thing I 'm curious ab +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Like do we know from the data wh which {disfmarker} OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad B: Not from that data . But , um , since we are designing a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an , compared to this , even bigger data collection effort , {comment} um , we will definitely take care to put it in there , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: in some shape , way , form over the other , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: to see whether we can , then , get sort of empirically validated data . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Um , from this , we can sometimes , you know {disfmarker} an and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} but that {disfmarker} isn't that what we need for a belief - net anyhow ? is sort of {disfmarker} s sometimes when people want to just see it , they phrase it more like this ? But it doesn't exclude anybody from phrasing it totally differently , even if they still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: you know ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: But then other factors may come into play that change the outcome of their belief - net . So , um , this is exactly what {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Because y you can never be sure . And I 'm sure even i the most , sort of , deliberate data collection experiment will never give you data that say , "" Well , if it 's phrased like that , the intention is this . "" +Grad D: Sure . +Grad B: You know , because then , uh , you {disfmarker} +Grad D: u u I mean , the only way you could get that is if you were to give th the x subjects a task . Right ? Where you have {disfmarker} where your , uh , current goal is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: We Yeah ! That 's what we 're doing . +Grad D: +Grad B: But {disfmarker} but we will still get the phrasing all over the place . +Grad D: So that 's what you want ? OK . So you will know . +Grad B: I 'm sure that , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I guess , it 's just knowing the intention from the experimental subject . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: From that task , yeah . So , uh , I think you all know this , but we are going to actually use this little room +Grad D: +Professor C: and start recording subjects probably within a month or something . So , this is not any {disfmarker} lo any of you guys ' worry , except that we may want to push that effort to get information we need . So our job {vocalsound} is to figure out how to solve these problems . If it turns out that we need data of a certain sort , then the sort of data collection branch can be , uh , asked to do that . And one of the reasons why we 're recording the meeting for these guys is cuz we want their help when we d we start doing uh , recording of subjects . So , yeah {disfmarker} y you 're absolutely right , though . No , you {disfmarker} you will not have , and there it is , and , uh {disfmarker} But you know , y y the , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I think the other concern that has come up before , too , is if it 's {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I don't know if this was collected {disfmarker} what situation this data was collected in . Was it {disfmarker} is it the one that you showed in your talk ? Like people {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , no . No . +Grad D: But OK . So was this , like , someone actually mobile , like {disfmarker} s using a device ? +Grad B: Uh , N no , no not {disfmarker} i it was mobile but not {disfmarker} not with a w a real wizard system . So there were never answers . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . But , is it {disfmarker} I guess I don't know {disfmarker} The situation of {disfmarker} of collecting th the data of , like {disfmarker} Here you could imagine them being {disfmarker} walking around the city . as like one situation . And then you have all sorts of other c situational context factors that would influence w how to interpret , like you said , the scope and things like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: If they 're doing it in a {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm sitting here with a map and asking questions "" , I {disfmarker} I would imagine that the data would be really different . Um , so it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} It was never th th the goal of that data collection to {disfmarker} to serve for sat for such a purpose . So that 's why for example the tasks were not differentiated by intentionality , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: there was n there was no label , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know , intention A , intention B , intention C . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Or task A , B , C . Um I 'm sure we can produce some if we need it , um , that {disfmarker} that will help us along those lines . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But , you know , you gotta leave something for other people to model . So , to {disfmarker} Finding out what , you know , situational con what the contextual factors of the situation really are , you know is an interesting s interesting thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: u u Sort of I 'm , at the moment , curious and I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s w want to approach it from the end where we can s sort of start with this toy system that we can play around with , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so that we get a clearer notion of what input we need for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: what suffices and what doesn't . And then we can start worrying about where to get this input , what {disfmarker} what do we need , you know {disfmarker} Ultimately once we are all experts in changing that parser , for example , maybe , there 's just a couple three things we need to do and then we get more whatever , part of speech and more construction - type - like stuff out of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Grad B: It 's a m pragmatic approach , uh , at the moment . +Grad E: How exactly does the data collection work ? Do they have a map , and then you give them a scenario of some sort ? +Grad B: OK . Imagine you 're the {disfmarker} the subject . You 're gonna be in here , and somebody {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and you see , uh , either th the three - D model , or uh , a QuickTime animation of standing u in a square in Heidelberg . So you actually see that . Um . The uh , um , first thing is you have to read a text about Heidelberg . So , just off a textbook , uh , tourist guide , to familiarize , uh , yourself with that sort of odd - sounding German street names , like Fischergasse and so forth . So that 's part one . Part two is , you 're told that this huge new , wonderful computer system exists , that can y tell you everything you want to know , and it understands you completely . And so you 're gonna pick up that phone , dial a number , and you get a certain amount of tasks that you have to solve . First you have to know {disfmarker} find out how to get to that place , maybe with the intention of buying stamps in there . Maybe {disfmarker} So , the next task is to get to a certain place and take a picture for your grandchild . The third one is to get information on the history of an object . The fourth one {disfmarker} And then the g system breaks down . It crashes , And {disfmarker} +Grad D: a At the third ? Right then ? +Grad B: After the third task . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And then {disfmarker} Or after the fourth . Some find {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Forget that for now . And then , a human operator comes on , and {disfmarker} and exp apologizes that the system has crashed , but , you know , urges you to continue , you know ? now with a human operator . And so , you have basically the same tasks again , just with different objects , and you go through it again , and that was it . Oh , and one {disfmarker} one little bit {disfmarker} w And uh , the computer you are {disfmarker} you are being told the computer system knows exactly where you are , via GPS . When the human operator comes on , um , that person does not know . So the GPS is crashed as well . So the person first has to ask you "" Where are you ? "" . And so you have to do some {disfmarker} s tell the person sort of where you are , depending on what you see there . Um , this is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a bit that I d I don't think we {disfmarker} Did we discuss that bit ? Uh , I just sort of squeezed that in now . But it 's something , uh , that would provide some very interesting data for some people I know . So . +Grad D: So , in the display you can {disfmarker} Oh , you said that you cou you might have a display that shows , like , the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . a Additionally , y you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sort of a map type display . +Grad D: a w your perspective ? sort of ? +Grad B: Uh , two - D . +Grad D: And so , as you {disfmarker} +Grad B: n +Grad D: Oh , two - D . OK . +Grad B: Two - D . +Grad D: So as you move through it that 's - they just track it on the {disfmarker} for themselves +Grad B: Yeah . b y You don't {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: there . +Grad B: I don't know . I but y I don't think you really move , sort of . +Grad D: OK . So +Grad B: Yeah ? I mean that would be an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an enormous technical effort , unless we would {disfmarker} We can show it walks to , you know . We can have movies of walking , you walking through {disfmarker} through Heidelberg , and u ultimately arriving there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Maybe we wanna do that . Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I was just trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how ambitious the system is . +Grad B: The map was sort of intended to {disfmarker} You want to go to that place . You know , and it 's sort of there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And you see the label of the name {disfmarker} So we get those names , pronunciation stuff , and so forth , and we can change that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . So your tasks don't require you to {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} yo you 're told {disfmarker} So when your task is , I don't know , "" Go buy stamps "" or something like that ? So , do you have to respond ? or does your {disfmarker} Uh , what are you ste what are you supposed to be telling the system ? Like , w what you 're doing now ? or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , we 'll see what people do . +Grad D: There 's no {disfmarker} OK , so it 's just like , "" Let 's figure out what they would say under the circumstances "" . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and we will record both sides . I mean , we will record the Wi - the Wizard {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: I mean , in both cases it 's gonna be a human , in the computer , and in the operator case . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And we will re there will be some dialogue , you know ? So , you first have to do this , and that , +Grad D: Yep . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: see wh what they say . We can ins instruct the , uh , wizard in how expressive and talkative he should be . But um , maybe the {disfmarker} maybe what you 're suggesting {disfmarker} Is what you 're suggesting that it might be too poor , the data , if we sort of limit it to this ping pong one t uh , task results in a question and then there 's an answer and that 's the end of the task ? You wanna m have it more {disfmarker} more steps , sort of ? +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't know how much direction is given to the subject about what their interaction {disfmarker} I mean , th they 're unfamiliar w with interacting with the system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: All they know is it 's this great system that could do s stuff . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh yeah , but {disfmarker} to some extent this is a different discussion . +Grad D: Right ? So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we have to have this discussion of th the experiment , and the data collection , and all that sorta stuff +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: and we do have , um , a student who is a candidate for wizard . Uh , she 's gonna get in touch with me . It 's a student of Eve 's . FEY , Fey ? Spelled FEY . Do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , Fey Parrill . +Professor C: You know her ? +Grad D: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK . Sh - Is sh +Grad D: She started taking the class last year and then didn't {disfmarker} um , you know , didn't continue . I g She 's a g +Professor C: She 's graduated . +Grad D: Is she an undergradua She is a graduate , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I m I know her very , very briefly . I know she was inter you know , interested in aspect and stuff like that . +Professor C: OK . So , anyway , she 's looking for some more part time work w while she 's waiting actually for graduate school . And she 'll be in touch . So we may have someone , uh , to do this , and she 's got you know , some background in {disfmarker} in all this stuff . And is a linguist st and , so So . {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} So , Nancy , we 'll have an At some point we 'll have another discussion on exactly wha t t you know , how that 's gonna go . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And um , Jane , but also , uh , Liz have offered to help us do this , uh , data collection and design and stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: So , when we get to that we 'll have some people doing it that know what they 're doing . +Grad D: OK . I guess the reason I was asking about the sort of the de the details of this kind of thing is that , um , it 's one thing to collect data for , I don't know , speech recognition or various other tasks that have pretty c clear correct answers , but with intention {vocalsound} um , obviously , as you point out , there 's a lot of di other factors and {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure , um , how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} e the question of how to make it a t appropriate toy version of that {disfmarker} Um , it 's ju it 's just hard . So , I mean , obviously it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , uh , actually I guess that was my question . Is the intention implicit in the scenario that 's given ? Like , do the {disfmarker} +Grad D: It is , if they have these tasks that they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I just wasn't sure to what level of detail the task was . +Grad D: to {disfmarker} to give {disfmarker} Yeah , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: n No one is , at the moment . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , we that 's part of what we 'll have to figure out . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But , uh , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} The problem that I was tr gonna try to focus on today was , let 's suppose by magic you could collect dialogues in which , one way or the other , you were able to , uh , figure out both the intention , and set the context , and know what language was used . So let 's suppose that we can get that kind of data . Um . The issue is , can we find a way to , basically , featurize it so that we get some discrete number of features so that , uh , when we know the values to all those features , or as many as possible , we can w come up with the best estimate of which of the , in this case three little intentions , are most likely . +Grad D: w What are the t three intentions ? Is it to go there , to see it , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: To come as close as possible to it . +Professor C: Th - the terminology we 're using is to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it 's @ @ . +Professor C: Go back . To v +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: to View it . OK ? To Enter it . Now those {disfmarker} It seems to me those are cl you c you have no trouble with those being distinct . "" Take a picture of it "" you {disfmarker} you might well want to be a really rather different place than entering it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , for an object that 's at all big , uh , sort of getting to the nearest part of it uh , could be quite different than either of those . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Just sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , so now I understand the referent of Tango mode . I didn't get that before . +Grad E: See , I would have thought it was more of a waltz . +Grad B: S To "" Waltz "" it ? +Grad D: Yeah , like , how close are you gonna be ? +Professor C: Well . +Grad D: Like , {vocalsound} Tango 's really close . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz a tango {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Well , anyway . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: All these So , like , the question is how what features can {disfmarker} like , do you wanna try to extract from , say , the parse or whatever ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like , the presence of a word or the presence of a certain uh , stem , or {disfmarker} certain construction or whatever . +Professor C: Right . Is there a construction , or the kind of object , or w uh , anything else that 's in the si It 's either in the {disfmarker} in the s the discourse itself or in the context . So if it turns out that , whatever it is , you want to know whether the person 's uh , a tourist or not , OK ? that becomes a feature . Now , how you determine that is another issue . But fo for the current problem , it would just be , "" OK , if you can be sure that it 's a tourist , versus a businessman , versus a native , "" or something , uh , that would give you a lot of discriminatory power and then just have a little section in your belief - net that said , "" pppt ! "" Though sin f in the short run , you 'd set them , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and see ho how it worked , and then in the longer run , you would figure out how you could derive them . From previous discourse or w any anything else you knew . +Grad F: Right . So , how should {disfmarker} What 's the uh , plan ? Like , how should we go about figuring out these {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . So , first of all is , uh , do e either of you guys , you got a favorite belief - net that you 've , you know , played with ? JavaBayes or something ? +Grad F: Oh . No , not really . +Professor C: OK . Well , anyway . f Get one . OK ? So {disfmarker} y so one of th one of the things we wanna do is actually , uh , pick a package , doesn't matter which one , uh , presumably one that 's got good interactive abilities , cuz a lot of what we 're gonna be d You know , we don't need the one that 'll solve massive , uh , belief - nets quickly . d w These are not gonna get big in {disfmarker} in the foreseeable future . But we do want one in which it 's easy to interact with and , uh , modify . Because i that 's {disfmarker} A lot of what it 's gonna be , is , um , playing with this . And probably one in which it 's easy to have , um , what amounts to transcript files . So that if {disfmarker} if we have all these cases {disfmarker} OK ? So we make up cases that have these features , OK , and then you 'd like to be able to say , "" OK , here 's a bunch of cases "" {disfmarker} There 're even ones tha that you can do learning OK ? So you have all their cases and {disfmarker} and their results and you have a {disfmarker} algorithms to go through and run around trying to set the {disfmarker} the probabilities for you . Um , probably that 's not worth it . I mean , my guess is we aren't gonna have enough data that 's good enough to make the {disfmarker} these data fitting ones worth it , but I don't know . So I would say you guy the first task for you two guys is to um , pick a package . OK , and you wanna it s You know , the standard things you want it stable , you want it {disfmarker} yeah , @ @ . And , as soon as we have one , we can start trying to , uh , make a first cut at what 's going on . +Grad B: An - Nuh . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} what I like about it is it 's very concrete . OK ? We {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} we know what the outcomes are gonna be , and we have some {disfmarker} some data that 's loose , we can use our own intuition , and see how hard it is , and , importantly , what intermediate nodes we think we need . So it {disfmarker} if it turns out that just , thinking about the problem , you come up with things you really need to {disfmarker} You know , this is the kind of thing that is , you know , an intermediate little piece in your belief - net . That 'd be really interesting . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} and it may serve as a platform for a person , maybe me , or whoever , who is interested in doing some linguistic analysis . I mean , w we have the For - FrameNet group here , and we can see what they have found out about those concepts already , that are contained in the data , um , you know , to come up with a nice little set of features and um , maybe even means of s uh , extracting them . And {disfmarker} and that altogether could also be {disfmarker} uh , become a nice paper that 's going to be published somewhere , if we sit down and write it . And um {disfmarker} When you said JavaBayes belief - net you were talking about ones that run on coffee ? or that are in the program language Java ? +Professor C: No , th It turns out that there is a , uh {disfmarker} The new end of Java libraries . OK , and it turns out one called +Grad B: Mmm . OK . +Professor C: Which is one that fair {disfmarker} people around here use a fair amount . I have no idea whether that 's {disfmarker} The obvious advantage of that is that you can then , relatively easily , get all the other Java packages for GUIs or whatever else you might want to do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that i that 's I think why a lot of people doing research use that . But it may not be {disfmarker} I have no idea whether that 's the best choice an and there 're plenty of people around , students in the department who , you know , live and breathe Bayes - nets . So , uh , +Grad D: There 's the m tool kit that um , Kevin Murphy has developed , +Professor C: Right . It 's OK . +Grad D: which might be useful too . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: So , yeah , Kevin would be a good person to start with . +Grad D: And it 's available Matlab code . +Professor C: Nancy knows him well . I don't know I don't know whether you guys have met Kevin yet or not , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I know him . +Grad B: But i But since we all probably are pretty sure that , um , the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: For example , this th th the dialogue history is {disfmarker} is um , producing XML documents . M - three - L of course is XML . And the ontology that um , uh the student is {disfmarker} is constructing for me back in {disfmarker} in EML is in OIL and that 's also in XML . And so that 's where a lot of knowledge about bakeries , about hotels , about castles and stuff is gonna come from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Um , so , if it has that IO capability and if it 's a Java package , it will definitely be able {disfmarker} We can couple . +Professor C: Yeah . So , yeah , we 're sort of {nonvocalsound} committed to XML as the kind of , uh , interchange . But that 's , you know , not a big deal . +Grad B: Who isn't , nuh ? +Professor C: So , in terms of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} interchanging in and out of any module we build , It 'll be XML . And if you 're going off to queries to the ontology , for example , you 'll have to deal with its interface . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's fine an and um , all of these things have been built with much bigger projects than this in mind . So they {disfmarker} they have worked very hard . It 's kind of blackboards and multi - wave blackboards and ways of interchanging and registering your a And so forth . So , that I don't think is even worth us worrying about just yet . I mean if we can get the core of the thing to work , in a way that we 're comfortable with , then we ca we can get in and out of it with , uh , XML , um , little descriptors . I believe . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . Yeah , I like , for example , the {disfmarker} what you said about the getting input from {disfmarker} from just files about where you h where you have the data , have specified the features and so forth . +Professor C: I don't {disfmarker} I don't see {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's , of course , easy also to do with , you know , XML . +Professor C: Uh , you could have an X {disfmarker} yeah , you could make and XML format for that . Sure . +Grad B: So r +Professor C: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , you know , feature value XML format is probably as good a way as any . So it 's als Yeah , I guess it 's also worth , um , while you 're poking around , poke around for XML packages that um , do things you 'd like . +Grad F: Doesn't {disfmarker} does SmartKom system have such packages ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the lib M - three - L library does that . It 's also {disfmarker} +Professor C: And the question is , d you c you {disfmarker} you 'll have to l We 'll have to l That should be {disfmarker} ay We should be able to look at that {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , u u y um the {disfmarker} What I {disfmarker} What sort of came to my mind i is {disfmarker} was the notion of an idea that if {disfmarker} if there are l nets that can actually lear try to set their own , um , probability factors based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on input {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: which is in file format , if we , um , get really w wild on this , we may actually want to use some {disfmarker} some corpora that other people made and , for example , if {disfmarker} if they are in {disfmarker} in MATE , then we get X M L documents with discourse annotations , t you know , t from the discourse act down to the phonetic level . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , Michael has a project where {disfmarker} you know , recognizing discourse acts and he does it all in MATE , and so they 're actually annotating data and data and data . So if we w if we think it 's worth it one of these days , not {disfmarker} not with this first prototype but maybe with a second , and we have the possibility of {disfmarker} of taking input that 's generated elsewhere and learn from that , that 'd be nice . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: It 'd be nice , but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't wanna count on it . I mean , you can't {disfmarker} you can't run your project based on the speculation that {disfmarker} that the data will come , +Grad B: No , no , uh , just for {disfmarker} +Professor C: and you don't have to actually design the nets . +Grad B: Nuh . Just a back door that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think we should devote m +Professor C: Could happen . Yeah . So in terms of {disfmarker} of the , um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what the SmartKom gives us for M - three - L packages , it could be that they 're fine , or it could be eeh . You don't {disfmarker} You know , you don't really like it . So we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not abs we 're not required to use their packages . We are required at the end to give them stuff in their format , but hey . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Um , it 's , uh {disfmarker} It doesn't control what you do in you know , internally . +Grad B: +Grad E: What 's the time frame for this ? +Grad B: Two days ? Two , three days ? +Professor C: Huh ? Yeah bu w I 'd like that this {disfmarker} y yeah , this week , to ha to n to {vocalsound} have y guys , uh , you know , pick {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} y you know , belief - net package +Grad B: No . +Professor C: and tell us what it is , and give us a pointer so we can play with it or something . +Grad F: Sure . +Professor C: And , then as soon as we have it , I think we should start trying to populate it for this problem . Make a first cut at , you know , what 's going on , and probably the ea easiest way to do that is some on - line way . I mean , you can f figure out whether you wanna make it a web site or {disfmarker} You know , how +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} um , OK , I {disfmarker} t Yeah . I was actually more joking . With the two or three days . So this was {disfmarker} was a usual jo +Professor C: OK , I wasn't . +Grad B: Um , it will take as long as y y yo you guys need for that . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: But um , maybe it might be interesting if {disfmarker} if the two of you can agree on who 's gonna be the speaker next Monday , to tell us something about the net you picked , and what it does , and how it does that . +Professor C: Well , y Well , or both of them speak . +Grad F: Sure . +Grad B: Yeah , or you can split it up . +Professor C: We don't care . +Grad B: So , y +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: So that will be sort of the assignment for next week , is to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} for slides and whatever net you picked and what it can do and {disfmarker} and how far you 've gotten . Pppt ! +Professor C: Well , I 'd like to also , though , uh , ha have a first cut at what the belief - net looks like . Even if it 's really crude . OK ? So , you know , here a here are {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we 're supposed to @ @ about features and whatnot , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , as I said , what I 'd like to do is , I mean , what would be really great is you bring it in {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we could , uh , in the meeting , say , you know , "" Here 's the package , here 's the current one we have , "" uh , you know , "" What other ideas do you have ? "" and then we can think about this idea of making up the data file . Of , uh , you know , get a {disfmarker} t a p tentative format for it , let 's say XML , that says , l you know , "" These are the various scenarios we 've experienced . "" We can just add to that and there 'll be this {disfmarker} this file of them and when you think you 've got a better belief - net , You just run it against this , um {disfmarker} this data file . +Grad F: So we 'll be like , hand , uh , doing all the probabilities . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , unt until we know more . +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: And what 's the relation to this with {disfmarker} Changing the table so that the system works in English ? +Grad B: OK . So this is {disfmarker} Whi - while you were doing this , I received two lovely emails . The {disfmarker} the full NT and the full Linux version are there . I 've downloaded them both , and I started to unpack the Linux one {disfmarker} Uh , the NT one worked fine . and I started unta pack the Linux one , it told me that I can't really unpack it because it contains a future date . So this is the time difference between Germany . I had to wait until one o ' clock this afternoon before I was able to unpack it . Now , um {disfmarker} Then it will be my job to get this whole thing running both on Swede and on this machine . And so that we have it . And then um {disfmarker} Hopefully that {disfmarker} hoping that my urgent message will now come through to Ralph and Tilman that it will send some more documentation along , we {disfmarker} I control p Maybe that 's what I will do next Monday is show the state and show the system and show that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So the answer , Johno , is that these are , at the moment , separate . Uh , what one hopes is that when we understand how the analyzer works , we can both worry about converting it to English and worry about how it could ex extract the parameters we need for the belief - net . +Grad E: I guess my question was more about time frame . So we 're gonna do belief - nets this week , and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , yeah . I don't know . n None of this is i n Neither of these projects has got a real tight time - line , in the sense that over the next month there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a deliverable . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK . S so uh , it 's opportu in that sense it 's opportunistic . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , if we don't get any information for these guys f for several weeks then we aren't gonna sit around , you know , wasting time , trying to do the problem or guess what they {disfmarker} You know , just pppt ! go on and do other things . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} but the uh {disfmarker} This point is really {disfmarker} I think very , very valid that ultimately we hope that {disfmarker} that both will merge into a harmonious and , um , wonderful , um , state where we can not only do the bare necessities , IE , changing the table so it does exactly in English what it does in German , but also that we can sort of have the system where we can say , "" OK , this is what it usually does , and now we add this little thing to it "" , you know ? whatever , Johno 's and Bhaskara 's great belief - net , and we plug it in , and then for these certain tasks , and we know that navigational tasks are gonna be a core domain of the new system , it all {disfmarker} all of a sudden it does much better . Nuh ? Because it can produce better answers , tell the person , as I s showed you on this map , n you know , produce either you know , a red line that goes to the Vista point or a red line that goes to the Tango point or red line that goes to the door , which would be great . So not only can you show that you know something sensible but ultimately , if you produce a system like this , it takes the person where it wants to go . Rather than taking him always to the geometric center of a building , +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad B: which is what they do now . And we even had to take out a bit . Nancy , you missed that part . We had to take out a bit of the road work . So that it doesn't take you to the wall {vocalsound} every time . +Grad D: Oh , really ? +Grad B: So . Um {disfmarker} So this was actually an actual problem that we encountered , which nobody have {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} because car navigation systems don't really care . You know , they get you to the beginning of the street , some now do the house number . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: But even that is problematic . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: If you go d If you wanna drive to the SAP in Waldorf , I 'm sure the same is true of Microsoft , it takes you to the {disfmarker} the address , whatever , street number blah - blah - blah , you are miles away from the entrance . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad B: Because the s postal address is maybe a mailbox somewhere . Nuh ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but the entrance where you actually wanna go is somewhere completely different . So unless you 're a mail person you really don't wanna go there . +Grad D: Right , yeah . +Professor C: Probably not then , cuz y you probably can't drop the mail there anyway . +Grad B: Probably neither {disfmarker} e not even that . +Professor C: Yeah . Clear ? +Grad F: OK . Sounds good . +Grad E: The Powder - Tower is made of red limestone . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Do you wanna see a picture ? +Grad D: OK . Sure ! +Grad E: Sure ! +Grad B: Have to reboot for that though . +Grad D: Um . So , you two , who 'll be working on this , li are {disfmarker} are you gl will you be doing {disfmarker} Well , I mean are you supposed to just do it by thinking about the situation ? Can you use the sample data ? +Professor C: Of course they use the sample data . +Grad D: Is it like {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , ho is there more than {disfmarker} Is there a lot s of sample data that is beyond what you {disfmarker} what you have there ? +Grad B: There {disfmarker} there 's more than I showed , but um , um , I think this is sort of um , in part my job to look at that and {disfmarker} and to see whether there are features in there that can be extracted , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: and to come up with some features that are not you know , empirically based on {disfmarker} on a real experiment or on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on reality +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but sort of on your intuition of you know , "" Aha ! This is maybe a sign for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and this is maybe a sign for this . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , yeah . Later this week we should sort of get together , and sort of start thinking about that , hopefully . +Grad B: Talk features . Yep . +Professor C: OK . We can end the meeting and call Adam , and then we wanna s look at some filthy pictures of Heidelberg . We can do that as well . +Grad B: Well they had {disfmarker} they used the ammunition {disfmarker} They stored the ammunition in that tower . +Professor C: Uh , is that OK ? +Grad B: And that 's why , when it was hit by uh , a cannon ball , it exploded . +Professor C: Alright . Oh . Ni +Grad E: It exploded . That 's why they call it the Powder - Tower . +Grad B: Ahh . +Grad E: OK . I first thought it had something to do with the material that it {disfmarker} w that 's why I asked . +Grad D: That 's right , OK . +Grad B: Mmm . +","The provided text appears to be an informal transcript of a meeting involving several individuals who are discussing a project related to meeting recording, digit streams, microphone setup, form completion, and a separately mentioned project called Meeting Recorder. The participants include several individuals with ""Grad"" (likely graduate students) and ""Professor C"" designations, implying an academic setting. + +During the meeting, the participants perform technical checks to ensure their wireless microphones are functioning correctly, with Grad A overseeing this process. They are instructed to read digit strings individually, rather than simultaneously, for clear transcription. There is concern over the cognitive challenge of reading digits while others are doing the same. + +Grad A emphasizes that the participants should state which transcript they are reading from and maintain a small pause between the lines for the ease of transcription. A mention is made about privacy concerns, with Professor C discussing the anonymization of transcripts and how participants can edit the transcripts to omit parts they are uncomfortable with being released to the general public. + +There is a discussion about aliases and maintaining the natural flow of the meeting while recording. Grad A and Professor C discuss the consent forms participants need to fill out, including the option to edit out any unwanted content from the public release of the transcripts. The participants are required to fill out speaker forms, which include self-assessments of regional accents and other details. + +The purpose of the project, named Meeting Recorder, is explained by Grad A. The project is part of a wider effort involving other institutions and has multiple interests. Grad A's specific interest lies in the use of PDAs as a future tool for recording, querying, and information retrieval in impromptu meetings. The goal is to collect high-quality audio data from both tabletop and close-talking microphones to support various aspects of meeting research, including speech recognition. + +The participants discuss the challenges of speech recognition with far-field microphones and the desire to have data from both far-field and close-talking microphones. Grad A mentions the intention to publicly release the collected data through an organization like the LDC, with other collaborative efforts taking place in the field of meeting recording. + +The digit strings being read are part of a constrained task, set against the backdrop of more open-ended and challenging data collected from the general meeting environment. The digit strings provide a simpler dataset for comparison with a well-known corpus called TI-digits. + +There is discussion about the setup of the experiment, including arranging microphones, mentioning a microphone that should not be used, and making participants aware of the instructions regarding the digit strings and forms. + +Additionally, there is a detailed analysis of user intentions when navigating to a place, like the Powder-Tower mentioned in the text. Various intentions, such as touching the site (Tango mode), entering it (Enter mode), or viewing it (Vista mode) are discussed, along with how context and specific phrases may influence interpretation. The importance of using the correct navigational paths in a geographical information system (GIS) is highlighted, with adjustments made to prevent the system from leading users to the wrong access points. The meeting also delves into aspects like phrasing, the type of object being discussed, modifiers in language, and how these might convey a person's intentions. The concept of Source-Path-Goal schemas is mentioned in the context of designing an inference system to differentiate these intentions. + +The participants have a plan to work with a potential belief-net, a probabilistic model used to represent a set of variables and their probabilistic dependencies, to help infer user intentions from parsed language inputs provided by an existing system called SmartKom. They plan to find out how to obtain relevant information from these inputs for this purpose. + +The meeting ends with a task assigned for the coming week to pick out a belief-net package and report on it, with the expectation of combining this with the Meeting Recorder project in the future to enhance the capability of navigation tasks. + +Overall, the summary reflects a team engaged in a multidisciplinary research project that touches on speech recognition, acoustic data collection, consent and privacy in data release, user interaction with navigation systems, and the design of probabilistic models for understanding intentions in natural language processing applications. The project appears to be in the developmental stage, with team members assigned specific roles and tasks moving forward." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: So . OK . Doesn't look like it crashed . That 's great . +Grad G: So I think maybe what 's causing it to crash is I keep starting it and then stopping it to see if it 's working . And so I think starting it and then stopping it and starting it again causes it to crash . So , I won't do that anymore . +Postdoc B: And it looks like you 've found a way of uh mapping the location to the {disfmarker} without having people have to give their names each time ? +PhD A: Sounds like an initialization thing . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's like you have the {disfmarker} So you know that {disfmarker} +Grad G: No . +Postdoc B: I mean , are you going to write down {pause} that I sat here ? +Grad G: I 'm gonna collect the digit forms and write it down . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} So they should be right with what 's on the digit forms . OK , so I 'll go ahead and start with digits . u And I should say that uh , you just pau you just read each line an and then pause briefly . +Professor E: And start by giving the transcript number . +PhD A: Tran +PhD D: Transcript {disfmarker} Uh . OK , OK . +PhD A: Oh sorry , go ahead . +Professor E: So uh , you see , Don , the unbridled excitement of the work that we have on this project . +Grad H: OK . +Professor E: It 's just uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: Umh . +Professor E: Uh , you know , it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have {comment} that information . +Grad G: And I 'm surprised I sort of {disfmarker} I 'm surprised I forgot that , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's some +Grad G: but uh I think that would be a good thing to add . After I just printed out a zillion of them . +Professor E: Yeah , well , that 's {disfmarker} Um , so I {disfmarker} I do have a {disfmarker} a an agenda suggestion . Uh , we {disfmarker} I think the things that we talk about in this meeting uh tend to be a mixture of uh procedural uh mundane things and uh research points and um I was thinking I think it was a meeting a couple of weeks ago that we {disfmarker} we spent much of the time talking about the mundane stuff cuz that 's easier to get out of the way and then we sort of drifted into the research and maybe five minutes into that Andreas had to leave . So {vocalsound} uh I 'm suggesting we turn it around and {disfmarker} and uh sort of we have {disfmarker} anybody has some mundane points that we could send an email later , uh hold them for a bit , and let 's talk about the {disfmarker} the research - y kind of things . Um , so um the one th one thing I know that we have on that is uh we had talked a {disfmarker} a couple weeks before um uh about the uh {disfmarker} the stuff you were doing with {disfmarker} with uh um uh l l attempting to locate events , we had a little go around trying to figure out what you meant by "" events "" but I think , you know , what we had meant by "" events "" I guess was uh points of overlap between speakers . But I th I gather from our discussion a little earlier today that you also mean uh interruptions with something else +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: like some other noise . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor E: Yes ? You mean that as an event also . +PhD D: To +Professor E: So at any rate you were {disfmarker} you 've {disfmarker} you 've done some work on that +PhD D: right . +Professor E: and um then the other thing would be it might be nice to have a preliminary discussion of some of the other uh research uh areas that uh we 're thinking about doing . Um , I think especially since you {disfmarker} you haven't been in {disfmarker} in these meetings for a little bit , maybe you have some discussion of some of the p the plausible things to look at now that we 're starting to get data , uh and one of the things I know that also came up uh is some discussions that {disfmarker} that uh {disfmarker} that uh Jane had with Lokendra uh about some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some um uh work about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I {disfmarker} I don't want to try to say cuz I {disfmarker} I 'll say it wrong , but anyway some {disfmarker} some potential collaboration there about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} working with these data . +PhD C: Oh . Sure . +Professor E: So . So , uh . +Grad G: You wanna just go around ? +Professor E: Uh . {pause} Well , I don't know if we {disfmarker} if this is sort of like everybody has something to contribute sort of thing , I think there 's just just a couple {disfmarker} a couple people primarily um but um Uh , wh why don't {disfmarker} Actually I think that {disfmarker} that last one I just said we could do fairly quickly so why don't you {disfmarker} you start with that . +Postdoc B: OK . Shall I {disfmarker} shall I just start ? OK . +Professor E: Yeah , just explain what it was . +Postdoc B: Um , so , uh , he was interested in the question of {disfmarker} you know , relating to his {disfmarker} to the research he presented recently , um of inference structures , and uh , the need to build in , um , this {disfmarker} this sort of uh mechanism for understanding of language . And he gave the example in his talk about how {pause} um , e a I 'm remembering it just off the top of my head right now , but it 's something about how um , i "" Joe slipped "" you know , "" John had washed the floor "" or something like that . And I don't have it quite right , but that kind of thing , where you have to draw the inference that , OK , there 's this time sequence , but also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the causal aspects of the uh floor and {disfmarker} and how it might have been the cause of the fall and that um it was the other person who fell than the one who cleaned it and it {disfmarker} {comment} These sorts of things . So , I looked through the transcript that we have so far , {comment} and um , fou identified a couple different types of things of that type and um , one of them was something like uh , during the course of the transcript , um um , w we had gone through the part where everyone said which channel they were on and which device they were on , and um , the question was raised "" Well , should we restart the recording at this point ? "" And {disfmarker} and Dan Ellis said , "" Well , we 're just so far ahead of the game right now {pause} we really don't need to "" . Now , how would you interpret that without a lot of inference ? So , the inferences that are involved are things like , OK , so , how do you interpret "" ahead of the game "" ? You know . So it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {pause} i What you {disfmarker} what you int what you draw {disfmarker} you know , the conclusions that you need to draw are that space is involved in recording , +Grad G: Hmm , metaphorically . +Postdoc B: that um , i that {pause} i we have enough space , and he continues , like "" we 're so ahead of the game cuz now we have built - in downsampling "" . So you have to sort of get the idea that um , "" ahead of the game "" is sp speaking with respect to space limitations , that um that in fact downsampling is gaining us enough space , and that therefore we can keep the recording we 've done so far . But there are a lot of different things like that . +Grad G: So , do you think his interest is in using this as {pause} a data source , or {pause} training material , or what ? +Professor E: Well , I {disfmarker} I should maybe interject to say this started off with a discussion that I had with him , so um we were trying to think of ways that his interests could interact with ours +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and um uh I thought that if we were going to project into the future when we had a lot of data , uh and um such things might be useful for that in or before we invested too much uh effort into that he should uh , with Jane 's help , look into some of the data that we 're {disfmarker} already have and see , is there anything to this at all ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Is there any point which you think that , you know , you could gain some advantage and some potential use for it . Cuz it could be that you 'd look through it and you say "" well , this is just the wrong {pause} task for {disfmarker} for him to pursue his {disfmarker} "" +Grad G: Wrong , yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and uh I got the impression from your mail that in fact there was enough things like this just in the little sample that {disfmarker} that you looked at that {disfmarker} that it 's plausible at least . +Postdoc B: It 's possible . Uh , he was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} We met and he was gonna go and uh you know , y look through them more systematically +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and then uh meet again . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So it 's , you know , not a matter of a {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: But , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think it was optimistic . +Professor E: So anyway , that 's {disfmarker} that 's e a quite different thing from anything we 've talked about that , you know , might {disfmarker} might {disfmarker} might come out from some of this . +PhD C: But he can use text , basically . I mean , he 's talking about just using text +Postdoc B: That 's his major {disfmarker} I mentioned several that w had to do with implications drawn from intonational contours +PhD C: pretty much , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: and {pause} that wasn't as directly relevant to what he 's doing . He 's interested in these {disfmarker} these knowledge structures , +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah , interesting . +Postdoc B: inferences that you draw {pause} i from {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , he certainly could use text , but we were in fact looking to see if there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} is there something in common between our interest in meetings and his interest in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in this stuff . So . +Grad G: And I imagine that transcripts of speech {disfmarker} I mean text that is speech {disfmarker} probably has more of those than sort of prepared writing . I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it would or not , but it seems like it would . +Professor E: I don't know , probably de probably depends on what the prepared writing was . But . +Postdoc B: Yeah , I don't think I would make that leap , because i in narratives , you know {disfmarker} I mean , if you spell out everything in a narrative , it can be really tedious , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: so . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm just thinking , you know , when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're face to face , you have a lot of backchannel and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . That aspect . +Grad G: Yeah . And so I think it 's just easier to do that sort of broad inference jumping if it 's face to face . I mean , so , if I just read that Dan was saying "" we 're ahead of the game "" {comment} in that {disfmarker} in that context , +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad G: I might not realize that he was talking about disk space as opposed to anything else . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I had several that had to do with backchannels and this wasn't one of them . +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: This {disfmarker} this one really does um m make you leap from {disfmarker} So he said , you know , "" we 're ahead of the game , w we have built - in downsampling "" . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And the inference , i if you had it written down , would be {disfmarker} +Grad G: I guess it would be the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . But there are others that have backchannelling , it 's just he was less interested in those . +PhD F: Can I {disfmarker} Sorry to interrupt . Um , I f f f I 've {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} d A minute {disfmarker} uh , several minutes ago , I , like , briefly was {disfmarker} was not listening and {disfmarker} So who is "" he "" in this context ? +PhD C: Yeah , there 's a lot of pronoun {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . So I was just realizing we 've {disfmarker} You guys have been talking about "" he "" um for at least uh , I don't know , three {disfmarker} three four minutes without ever mentioning the person 's name again . +PhD C: I believe it . Yeah . Actually to make it worse , {comment} uh , Morgan uses "" you "" and "" you "" +PhD F: So this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} gonna be a big , big problem if you want to later do uh , you know , indexing , or speech understanding of any sort . +Grad G: It 's in my notes . +PhD C: with gaze and no identification , or {disfmarker} I just wrote this down . Yeah , actually . Cuz Morgan will say well , "" you had some ideas "" +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: You just wrote this ? +PhD C: and he never said Li - He looked {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , I think he 's doing that intentionally , +PhD C: Right , so it 's great . +Grad G: aren't you ? +PhD C: So this is really great +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: because the thing is , because he 's looking at the per even for addressees in the conversation , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I bet you could pick that up in the acoustics . Just because your gaze is also correlated with the directionality of your voice . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Could be . +Postdoc B: Can we +Professor E: Yeah . That would be tou +Grad G: Oh , that would be interesting . +PhD C: Yeah , so that , I mean , to even know um when {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , if you have the P Z Ms you should be able to pick up what a person is looking at from their voice . +Grad G: Well , especially with Morgan , with the way we have the microphones arranged . I 'm sort of right on axis and it would be very hard to tell . +PhD C: Right . +Grad G: Uh . +Postdoc B: Oh , but you 'd have the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Put Morgan always like this +Postdoc B: You 'd have fainter {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Wouldn't you get fainter reception out here ? +Professor E: Well , these {disfmarker} +Grad G: Sure , but I think if I 'm talking like this ? Right now I 'm looking at Jane and talking , now I 'm looking at Chuck and talking , I don't think the microphones would pick up that difference . +PhD C: But you don't have this {disfmarker} this problem . +Postdoc B: I see . +PhD C: Morgan is the one who does this most . +Grad G: So if I 'm talking at you , or I 'm talking at you . +Professor E: I probably been affect No , I th I think I 've been affected by too many conversations where we were talking about lawyers and talking about {disfmarker} and concerns about "" oh gee is somebody going to say something bad ? "" and so on . +Grad G: Lawyers . +Professor E: And so I {disfmarker} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm tending to stay away from people 's names even though uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I am too . +PhD C: Even though you could pick up later on , just from the acoustics who you were t who you were looking at . +Postdoc B: I am too . +Grad G: And we did mention who "" he "" was . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , but I missed it . +Grad G: Early in the conversation . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} it was uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Do {disfmarker} Sh - Can I say +Professor E: Yeah . No no , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} or is that just too sensitive ? +Professor E: No no , it isn't sensitive at all . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +Professor E: I was just {disfmarker} I was just {disfmarker} I was overreacting just because we 've been talking about it . +Postdoc B: And in fact , it is {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} it is sensitive . +PhD C: No , but that {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Professor E: It 's OK to {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} I came up with something from the Human Subjects people that I wanted to mention . I mean , it fits into the m area of the mundane , but they did say {disfmarker} You know , I asked her very specifically about this clause of how , um , you know , it says "" no individuals will be identified uh , "" in any publication using the data . "" OK , well , individuals being identified , let 's say you have a {disfmarker} a snippet that says , "" Joe s uh thinks such - and - such about {disfmarker} about this field , but I think he 's wrongheaded . "" Now I mean , we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be careful not to have the "" wrongheaded "" part in there , but {disfmarker} but you know , let 's say we say , you know , "" Joe used to think so - and - so about this area , in his publication he says that but I think he 's changed his mind . "" or whatever . Then the issue of {disfmarker} of being able to trace Joe , because we know he 's well - known in this field , and all this and {disfmarker} and tie it to the speaker , whose name was just mentioned a moment ago , can be sensitive . +Professor E: b But I {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So I think it 's really {disfmarker} really kind of adaptive and wise to not mention names any more than we have to because if there 's a slanderous aspect to it , then how much to we wanna be able to have to remove ? +Professor E: Yeah , well , there 's that . But I {disfmarker} I mean I think also to some extent it 's just educating the Human Subjects people , in a way , because there 's {disfmarker} If uh {disfmarker} You know , there 's court transcripts , there 's {disfmarker} there 's transcripts of radio shows {disfmarker} I mean people say people 's names all the time . So I think it {disfmarker} it can't be bad to say people 's names . It 's just that {disfmarker} i I mean you 're right that there 's more poten If we never say anybody 's name , then there 's no chance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of slandering anybody , +PhD C: But , then it won't {disfmarker} I mean , if we {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: It 's not a meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean we should do whatever 's natural in a meeting if {disfmarker} if we weren't being recorded . +Professor E: Yeah . Right , so I {disfmarker} So my behavior is probably not natural . +PhD C: "" If Person X {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: So . +Postdoc B: Well , my feeling on it was that it wasn't really important who said it , you know . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , if you ha since you have to um go over the transcripts later anyway , you could make it one of the jobs of the {pause} people who do that to mark +Grad G: Well , we t we t we talked about this during the anon anonymization . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: If we wanna go through and extract from the audio and the written every time someone says a name . And I thought that our conclusion was that we didn't want to do that . +Professor E: Yeah , we really can't . But a actually , I 'm sorry . I really would like to push {disfmarker} finish this off . +Postdoc B: I understand . No I just {disfmarker} I just was suggesting that it 's not a bad policy p potentially . +Professor E: So it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So , we need to talk about this later . +Professor E: Yeah , I di I didn't intend it an a policy though . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Professor E: It was {disfmarker} it was just it was just unconscious {disfmarker} well , semi - conscious behavior . I sorta knew I was doing it but it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I still don't know who "" he "" is . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I do I don't remember who "" he "" is . +PhD C: No , you have to say , you still don't know who "" he "" is , with that prosody . +Professor E: Ah . Uh , we were talking about Dan at one point {comment} and we were talking about Lokendra at another point . +Postdoc B: Yeah , depends on which one you mean . +Professor E: And I don't {disfmarker} I don't remember which {disfmarker} which part . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: It 's ambiguous , so it 's OK . +Professor E: Uh , I think {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , the inference structures was Lokendra . +PhD F: But no . The inference stuff was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was Lokendra . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: OK . That makes sense , yeah . +PhD C: And the downsampling must have been Dan . +Professor E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Good {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: It 's an inference . +Professor E: Yeah , you could do all these inferences , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I would like to move it into {disfmarker} into uh what Jose uh has been doing +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor E: because he 's actually been doing something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor E: So . {vocalsound} Right . +PhD F: As opposed to the rest of us . +PhD D: Well - {comment} {vocalsound} OK . I {disfmarker} I remind that me {disfmarker} my first objective eh , in the project is to {disfmarker} to study difference parameters to {disfmarker} to find a {disfmarker} a good solution to detect eh , the overlapping zone in eh speech recorded . But eh , {vocalsound} tsk , {comment} {vocalsound} ehhh {comment} In that way {comment} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I begin to {disfmarker} to study and to analyze the ehn {disfmarker} the recorded speech eh the different session to {disfmarker} to find and to locate and to mark eh the {disfmarker} the different overlapping zone . And eh so eh I was eh {disfmarker} I am transcribing the {disfmarker} the first session and I {disfmarker} I have found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events , eh besides the overlapping zones , eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the eh breaths eh aspiration eh , eh , talk eh , eh , clap , eh {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know what is the different names eh you use to {disfmarker} to name the {disfmarker} the {pause} n speech +PhD A: Nonspeech sounds ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Oh , I don't think we 've been doing it at that level of detail . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to m to label the {disfmarker} the different acoustic , but I prefer because eh I would like to {disfmarker} to study if eh , I {disfmarker} I will find eh , eh , a good eh parameters eh to detect overlapping I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test these parameters eh with the {disfmarker} another eh , eh acoustic events , to nnn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} to find what is the ehm {disfmarker} the false {disfmarker} eh , the false eh hypothesis eh , nnn , which eh are produced when we use the {disfmarker} the ehm {disfmarker} this eh parameter {disfmarker} eh I mean pitch eh , eh , difference eh , feature {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know {disfmarker} I think some of these um that are the nonspeech overlapping events may be difficult even for humans to tell that there 's two there . +Grad G: So it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , if it 's a tapping sound , you wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} or , you know , something like that , it 'd be {disfmarker} it might be hard to know that it was two separate events . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} You weren't talking about just overlaps +PhD D: Ye +Grad G: were you ? You were just talking about acoustic events . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I t I t I talk eh about eh acoustic events in general , +Grad G: Someone starts , someone stops {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: but eh my {disfmarker} my objective eh will be eh to study eh overlapping zone . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Eh ? {comment} n Eh in twelve minutes I found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events . +Professor E: How many overlaps were there uh in it ? No no , how many of them were the overlaps of speech , though ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh almost eh three hundred eh in one session +Grad G: Oh , God ! +PhD D: in five {disfmarker} eh in forty - five minutes . +PhD A: Three hundred overlapping speech {disfmarker} +PhD D: Alm - Three hundred overlapping zone . +Grad G: Ugh . +PhD C: Overlapping speech . +PhD D: With the overlapping zone , overlapping speech {disfmarker} speech what eh different duration . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Sure . +Postdoc B: Does this {disfmarker} ? So if you had an overlap involving three people , how many times was that counted ? +PhD D: Yeah , three people , two people . Eh , um I would like to consider eh one people with difference noise eh in the background , be +Professor E: No no , but I think what she 's asking is {pause} if at some particular for some particular stretch you had three people talking , instead of two , did you call that one event ? +PhD D: Oh . Oh . Yeah . I consider one event eh for th for that eh for all the zone . This {disfmarker} th I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider eh an acoustic event , the overlapping zone , the period where three speaker or eh {disfmarker} are talking together . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} So let 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: For +Grad G: So let 's say me and Jane are talking at the same time , and then Liz starts talking also over all of us . How many events would that be ? +PhD D: So - I don't understand . +Grad G: So , two people are talking , {comment} and then a third person starts talking . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Grad G: Is there an event right here ? +PhD D: Eh no . No no . For me is the overlapping zone , because {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you have s you have more one {disfmarker} eh , more one voice eh , eh produced in a {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a moment . +Professor E: I see . +Grad G: So i if two or more people are talking . +Professor E: OK . Yeah . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . We just wanted to understand how you 're defining it . +PhD D: Yeah . If +Professor E: So then , in the region between {disfmarker} since there {disfmarker} there is some continuous region , in between regions where there is only one person speaking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: And one contiguous region like that you 're calling an event . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: Is it {disfmarker} Are you calling the beginning or the end of it the event , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: or are you calling the entire length of it the event ? +PhD D: I consider the {disfmarker} the , nnn {disfmarker} the nnn , nnn {disfmarker} eh , the entirety eh , eh , all {disfmarker} all the time there were {disfmarker} the voice has overlapped . +Professor E: OK . +PhD D: This is the idea . But eh I {disfmarker} I don't distinguish between the {disfmarker} the numbers of eh speaker . Uh , I 'm not considering {vocalsound} eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} ehm {vocalsound} eh , the fact of eh , eh , for example , what did you say ? Eh at first eh , eh two talkers are uh , eh speaking , and eh , eh a third person eh join to {disfmarker} to that . For me , it 's eh {disfmarker} it 's eh , all overlap zone , with eh several numbers of speakers is eh , eh the same acoustic event . Wi - but {disfmarker} uh , without any mark between the zone {disfmarker} of the overlapping zone with two speakers eh speaking together , and the zone with the three speakers . +Postdoc B: That would j just be one . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} One . One . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Eh , with eh , a beginning mark and the ending mark . Because eh {vocalsound} for me , is the {disfmarker} is the zone with eh some kind of eh distortion the spectral . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD D: I don't mind {disfmarker} By the moment , by the moment . +Grad G: Well , but {disfmarker} But you could imagine that three people talking has a different spectral characteristic than two . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Yeah , but eh {disfmarker} but eh I have to study . {comment} What will happen in a general way , +Professor E: Could . +Grad G: So . You had to start somewhere . +Professor E: Yeah . We just w +PhD C: So there 's a lot of overlap . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know what eh will {disfmarker} will happen with the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: So . +Grad G: That 's a lot of overlap , +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor E: So again , that 's {disfmarker} that 's three {disfmarker} three hundred in forty - five minutes that are {disfmarker} that are speakers , just speakers . +Grad G: yeah , for forty - five minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Uh - huh . OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: But a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a th +Professor E: So that 's about eight per minute . +Postdoc B: But a thousand events in twelve minutes , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , {pause} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But that can include taps . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , but a thousand taps in eight minutes is a l in twelve minutes is a lot . +PhD D: General . +PhD C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider acoustic events eh , the silent too . +Postdoc B: Silent . +Grad G: Silence starting or silence ending {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , silent , ground to {disfmarker} bec to detect {disfmarker} eh because I consider acoustic event all the things are not eh speech . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: In ge in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a general point of view . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor E: OK , so how many of those thousand were silence ? +PhD C: Alright . +PhD D: in the per +PhD F: Not speech {disfmarker} not speech or too much speech . +PhD D: Too much speech . +Professor E: Right . So how many of those thousand were silence , silent sections ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh silent , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the {disfmarker} eh I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to do a stylistic study +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: and give you eh with the report eh from eh the {disfmarker} the study from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the session {disfmarker} one session . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that eh another thing . When eh {vocalsound} eh I w I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I was eh look at eh nnn , the difference speech file , um , for example , eh if eh we use the ehm {disfmarker} the mixed file , to {disfmarker} to transcribe , the {disfmarker} the events and the words , I {disfmarker} I saw that eh the eh speech signal , collected by the eh this kind of mike {disfmarker} eh of this kind of mike , eh are different from the eh mixed signal eh , we eh {disfmarker} collected by headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} It 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: But the problem is {vocalsound} the following . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I knew that eh the signal eh , eh would be different , but eh the {disfmarker} the problem is eh , eh we eh detected eh difference events in the speech file eh collected by {disfmarker} by that mike uh qui compared with the mixed file . And so if {disfmarker} when you transcribe eh only eh using the nnn {disfmarker} the mixed file , it 's possible {disfmarker} eh if you use the transcription to evaluate a different system , it 's possible you eh {disfmarker} in the eh i and you use the eh speech file collected by the eh fet mike , to eh {disfmarker} to nnn {disfmarker} to do the experiments {pause} with the {disfmarker} the system , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: its possible to evaluate eh , eh {disfmarker} or to consider eh acoustic events that {disfmarker} which you marked eh in the mixed file , but eh they don't appear in the eh speech signal eh collected by the {disfmarker} by the mike . +Grad G: Right . The {disfmarker} the reason that I generated the mixed file was for IBM to do word level transcription , not speech event transcription . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Oh , it 's a good idea . It 's a good idea I think . +Grad G: So I agree that if someone wants to do speech event transcription , that the mixed signals here {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , if I 'm tapping on the table , you it 's not gonna show up on any of the mikes , but it 's gonna show up rather loudly in the PZM . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I say eh that eh , eh , or this eh only because eh I c I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in my opinion , it 's necessary to eh {disfmarker} to eh {disfmarker} to put the transcription on the speech file , collected by the objective signal . +Grad G: So . +PhD D: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal collected by the {disfmarker} eh , the real mike in the future , in the prototype to {disfmarker} to eh correct the initial eh segmentation eh with the eh real speech +Professor E: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field , yeah . +PhD D: you have to {disfmarker} to analyze {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to process . Because I {disfmarker} I found a difference . +Professor E: Yeah , well , just {disfmarker} I mean , just in that {disfmarker} that one s ten second , or whatever it was , example that Adam had that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we passed on to others a few months ago , there was that business where I g I guess it was Adam and Jane were talking at the same time and {disfmarker} and uh , in the close - talking mikes you couldn't hear the overlap , and in the distant mike you could . So yeah , it 's clear that if you wanna study {disfmarker} if you wanna find all the places where there were overlap , it 's probably better to use a distant mike . +PhD F: That 's good . +Professor E: On the other hand , there 's other phenomena that are going on at the same time for which it might be useful to look at the close - talking mikes , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: But why can't you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , time aligned ? +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: If you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , you would hear Jane interrupting me , but you wouldn't hear the paper rustling . And so if you 're interested in {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I mean if you 're interested in speakers overlapping other speakers and not the other kinds of nonspeech , that 's not a problem , +Professor E: Some {comment} of it 's masking {disfmarker} masked . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Were you interrupting him or was he interrupting you ? +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: right ? +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Although the other issue is that the {pause} mixed close - talking mikes {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm doing weird normalizations and things like that . +PhD C: But it 's known . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the normalization you do is over the whole conversation +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: isn't it , over the whole meeting . +Grad G: Right . Yep . +PhD C: So if you wanted to study people overlapping people , that 's not a problem . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh I saw the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} eh but eh I eh {disfmarker} I have eh any results . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I saw the {disfmarker} the speech file collected by eh the fet mike , and eh eh signal eh to eh {disfmarker} to noise eh relation is eh low . It 's low . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: It 's very low . You would comp if we compare it with eh the headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that nnn {disfmarker} that eh , {vocalsound} ehm , pr probably , +Grad G: Did {disfmarker} Did you +PhD D: I 'm not sure eh by the moment , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably that eh a lot of eh , {vocalsound} eh for example , in the overlapping zone , on eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in several eh parts of the files where you {disfmarker} you can find eh , eh {vocalsound} eh , smooth eh eh speech eh from eh one eh eh talker in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: it 's probably in {disfmarker} in that eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in those files you {disfmarker} you can not find {disfmarker} you can not process because eh it 's confused with {disfmarker} with noise . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And there are {vocalsound} a lot of I think . But I have to study with more detail . But eh my idea is to {disfmarker} to process only {pause} nnn , this eh {disfmarker} nnn , this kind of s of eh speech . Because I think it 's more realistic . I 'm not sure it 's a good idea , but eh {disfmarker} +Professor E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad G: Well , it 's more realistic but it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be a lot harder . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 'd be hard , but on the other hand as you point out , if your {disfmarker} if i if {disfmarker} if your concern is to get uh the overlapping people {disfmarker} people 's speech , you will {disfmarker} you will get that somewhat better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Um , Are you making any use {disfmarker} uh you were {disfmarker} you were working with th the data that had already been transcribed . +PhD D: With {disfmarker} By Jane . +Professor E: Does it uh {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Now um did you make any use of that ? See I was wondering cuz we st we have these ten hours of other stuff that is not yet transcribed . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the transcription by Jane , t eh i eh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use to {disfmarker} to nnn , {vocalsound} eh to put {disfmarker} i i it 's a reference for me . But eh the transcription {disfmarker} eh for example , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not interested in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the words , transcription words , eh transcribed eh eh in {disfmarker} eh follow in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but eh eh Jane eh for example eh put a mark eh at the beginning eh of each eh talker , in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , um eh she {disfmarker} she nnn includes information about the zone where eh there are eh {disfmarker} there is an overlapping zone . But eh there isn't any {disfmarker} any mark , time {disfmarker} temporal mark , to {disfmarker} to c eh {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} e - heh , to label {comment} the beginning and the end of the {disfmarker} of the +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . Right , so she is {disfmarker} +PhD D: ta I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh we need this information to +Professor E: Right . So the twelve {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} it took you twelve hours {disfmarker} of course this included maybe some {disfmarker} some time where you were learning about what {disfmarker} what you wanted to do , but {disfmarker} but uh , it took you something like twelve hours to mark the forty - five minutes , your +Grad G: Twelve minutes . +PhD D: Twelve minutes . +Professor E: s Twelve minutes ! +PhD D: Twelve minutes . Twelve . +Professor E: I thought you did forty - five minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , forty - five minutes is the {disfmarker} is the session , all the session . +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor E: Oh , you haven't done the whole session . +PhD D: Yeah , all is the {vocalsound} the session . +Professor E: This is just twelve minutes . +PhD D: Tw - twelve hours of work to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to segment eh and label eh twelve minutes from a session of part {disfmarker} of f +Professor E: Oh . So {comment} let me back up again . So the {disfmarker} when you said there were three hundred speaker overlaps , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: that 's in twelve minutes ? +PhD D: No no no . I {disfmarker} I consider all the {disfmarker} all the session because eh I {disfmarker} I count the nnn {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} the overlappings marked by {disfmarker} by Jane , +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD D: in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {pause} fin in {disfmarker} in the {pause} forty - five minutes . +Professor E: OK . So it 's three hundred in forty - five minutes , but you have {disfmarker} you have time uh , uh marked {disfmarker} twelve minute {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the um overlaps in twelve minutes of it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD F: So , can I ask {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can I ask whether you found {disfmarker} uh , you know , how accurate uh Jane 's uh uh labels were as far as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , not just the overlaps , everything . +PhD F: you know , did she miss some overlaps ? or did she n ? +PhD D: But , by {disfmarker} by the moment , I {disfmarker} I don't compare , my {disfmarker} my temporal mark with eh Jane , but eh I {disfmarker} I want to do it . Because eh eh i per perhaps I have eh errors in the {disfmarker} in the marks , I {disfmarker} and if I {disfmarker} I compare with eh Jane , it 's probably I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can correct and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} to get eh eh a more accurately eh eh transcription in the file . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , also Jane {disfmarker} Jane was doing word level . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: So we weren't concerned with {comment} exactly when an overlap started and stopped . +PhD F: Right . Right . +PhD C: Well , not only a word level , but actually +PhD D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm expect I 'm not expecting {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , you didn't need to show the exact point of interruption , you just were showing at the level of the phrase or the level of the speech spurt , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , yeah , b yeah , I would say time bin . So my {disfmarker} my goal is to get words with reference to a time bin , {pause} beginning and end point . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} and sometimes , you know , it was like you could have an overlap where someone said something in the middle , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , yeah , w it just wasn't important for our purposes to have it that {disfmarker} i disrupt that unit in order to have , you know , a the words in the order in which they were spoken , it would have {disfmarker} it would have been hard with the interface that we have . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Now , my {disfmarker} a Adam 's working on a of course , on a revised overlapping interface , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's a good eh work , +Postdoc B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: but eh I think we need eh eh more information . +PhD F: No , of course . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD F: I expect you to find more overlaps than {disfmarker} than Jane +Grad G: Always need more for {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: No , no . I {disfmarker} I have to go to {disfmarker} +PhD F: because you 're looking at it at a much more detailed level . +PhD D: I want eh {disfmarker} I wanted to eh compare the {disfmarker} the transcription . +Professor E: I have {disfmarker} +Grad G: But if it takes sixty to one {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , I but I have a suggestion about that . Um , obviously this is very , very time - consuming , and you 're finding lots of things which I 'm sure are gonna be very interesting , but in the interests of making progress , uh might I s how {disfmarker} how would it affect your time if you only marked speaker overlaps ? +PhD D: Only . +Professor E: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Do not mark any other events , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: but only mark speaker {disfmarker} Do you think that would speed it up quite a bit ? +PhD D: OK . OK . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor E: Do y do you think that would speed it up ? Uh , speed up your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your marking ? +PhD D: nnn , I don't understand very . +Professor E: It took you a long time {pause} to mark twelve minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Oh , yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Now , my suggestion was for the other thirty - three {disfmarker} +PhD D: On - only to mark {disfmarker} only to mark overlapping zone , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , and my question is , if you did that , if you followed my suggestion , would it take much less time ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Sure . +Professor E: Yeah OK . +PhD D: Yeah sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea . +PhD D: Sure sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea , because it +PhD D: Sure , because I {disfmarker} I need a lot of time to {disfmarker} to put the label or to do that . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , I mean , we we know that there 's noise . +Grad G: And +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there 's uh continual noise uh from fans and so forth , and there is uh more impulsive noise from uh taps and so forth +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and something in between with paper rustling . We know that all that 's there and it 's a g worthwhile thing to study , but obviously it takes a lot of time to mark all of these things . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Whereas th i I would think that uh you {disfmarker} we can study more or less as a distinct phenomenon the overlapping of people talking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . +Professor E: So . Then you can get the {disfmarker} Cuz you need {disfmarker} If it 's three hundred uh {disfmarker} i i it sounds like you probably only have fifty or sixty or seventy events right now that are really {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and you need to have a lot more than that to have any kind of uh even visual sense of {disfmarker} of what 's going on , much less any kind of reasonable statistics . +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: Now , why do you need to mark speaker overlap by hand if you can infer it from the relative energy in the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , that 's {disfmarker} That 's what I was gonna bring up . +PhD C: I mean , you shouldn't need to do this p completely by hand , +Professor E: Um , OK , yeah . So let 's back up because you weren't here for an earlier conversation . +PhD C: right ? I 'm sorry . +Professor E: So the idea was that what he was going to be doing was experimenting with different measures such as the increase in energy , such as the energy in the LPC residuals , such as {disfmarker} I mean there 's a bunch of things {disfmarker} I mean , increased energy is - is sort of an obvious one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . In the far - field mike . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Um , and uh , it 's not obvious , I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do the dumbest thing and get {disfmarker} get it ninety percent of the time . But when you start going past that and trying to do better , it 's not obvious what combination of features is gonna give you the {disfmarker} you know , the right detector . So the idea is to have some ground truth first . And so the i the idea of the manual marking was to say "" OK this , i you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really here "" . +PhD A: But I think Liz is saying why not get it out of the transcripts ? +PhD C: What I mean is {pause} get it from the close - talking mikes . +Professor E: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: A or ge get a first pass from those , +Professor E: We t we t w we t we talked about that . +PhD C: and then go through sort of {disfmarker} It 'd be a lot faster probably to {disfmarker} +PhD F: And you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , that 's his , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we talked about that . s But so it 's a bootstrapping thing and the thing is , +PhD C: Yeah , I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: the idea was , i we i i we thought it would be useful for him to look at the data anyway , and {disfmarker} and then whatever he could mark would be helpful , +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: and we could {disfmarker} Uh it 's a question of what you bootstrap from . You know , do you bootstrap from a simple measurement which is right most of the time and then you g do better , or do you bootstrap from some human being looking at it and then {disfmarker} then do your simple measurements , uh from the close - talking mike . I mean , even with the close - talking mike you 're not gonna get it right all the time . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I wonder , because um {disfmarker} or how bad it is , +Professor E: Well +PhD C: be um , because that would be interesting +Grad G: I 'm working on a program to do that , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: especially because the bottleneck is the transcription . Right ? I mean , we 've got a lot more data than we have transcriptions for . We have the audio data , we have the close - talking mike , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: so I mean it seems like one kind of project that 's not perfect , but {disfmarker} um , that you can get the training data for pretty quickly is , you know , if you infer form the close - talking mikes where the on - off points are of speech , +Professor E: Right , we discussed that . +PhD C: you know , how can we detect that from a far - field ? +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad G: I 've {disfmarker} I 've written a program to do that , +PhD C: OK , I 'm sorry I missed the {disfmarker} +Grad G: and it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's OK . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing something very , very simple . It just takes a threshold , based on {disfmarker} on the volume , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Or you can set the threshold low and then weed out the false alarms by hand . +PhD C: Right , by hand . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: um , and then it does a median filter , and then it looks for runs . And , it seems to work , I 've {disfmarker} I 'm sort of fiddling with the parameters , to get it to actually generate something , and I haven't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} what I 'm working on {disfmarker} was working on {disfmarker} was getting it to a form where we can import it into the user interface that we have , {pause} into Transcriber . And so {disfmarker} I told {disfmarker} I said it would take about a day . I 've worked on it for about half a day , +Grad H: I have to go . +Grad G: so give me another half day and I we 'll have something we can play with . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: See , this is where we really need the Meeting Recorder query stuff to be working , because we 've had these meetings and we 've had this discussion about this , and I 'm sort of remembering a little bit about what we decided , +PhD C: Right . I 'm sorry . I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: but I couldn't remember all of it . +PhD C: It +Professor E: So , I think it was partly that , you know , give somebody a chance to actually look at the data and see what these are like , partly that we have e some ground truth to compare against , you know , when {disfmarker} when he {disfmarker} he gets his thing going , +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it 's definitely good to have somebody look at it . I was just thinking as a way to speed up you know , the amount of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That was {disfmarker} that was exactly the notion that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we discussed . +PhD C: OK . +Grad G: Thanks . +Postdoc B: Another thing we discussed was um that {disfmarker} +PhD C: It looks good . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: I 'll be in touch . Thanks . +Professor E: S See ya . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Was that um there m {pause} there was this already a script I believe uh that Dan had written , {comment} that uh handle bleedthrough , I mean cuz you have this {disfmarker} this close {disfmarker} you have contamination from other people who speak loudly . +Grad G: Yeah , and I haven't tried using that . It would probably help the program that I 'm doing to first feed it through that . It 's a cross - correlation filter . So I {disfmarker} I haven't tried that , but that {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it might be something {disfmarker} it might be a good way of cleaning it up a little . +Postdoc B: So , some thought of maybe having {disfmarker} Yeah , having that be a preprocessor and then run it through yours . +Grad G: Exactly . Yep . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but that 's a refinement +Postdoc B: That 's what we were discussing . +Professor E: and I think we wanna see {disfmarker} try the simple thing first , cuz you add this complex thing up uh afterwards that does something good y y yo you sort of wanna see what the simple thing does first . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: But uh , having {disfmarker} having somebody have some experience , again , with {disfmarker} with uh {disfmarker} with marking it from a human standpoint , we 're {disfmarker} I mean , I don't expect Jose to {disfmarker} to do it for uh f fifty hours of {disfmarker} {comment} of speech , but I mean we {disfmarker} {comment} if uh {disfmarker} if he could speed up what he was doing by just getting the speaker overlaps so that we had it , say , for forty - five minutes , then at least we 'd have three hundred examples of it . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Professor E: And when {disfmarker} when uh Adam was doing his automatic thing he could then compare to that and see what it was different . +PhD C: Oh yeah , definitely . +PhD A: You know , I did {disfmarker} I did uh something almost identical to this at one of my previous jobs , and it works pretty well . I mean , i almost exactly what you described , an energy detector with a median filter , you look for runs . And uh , you know , you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seemed like the right thing to do . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , you {disfmarker} you can get y I mean , you get them pretty close . +Grad G: That was with zero literature search . +PhD A: And so I think doing that to generate these possibilities and then going through and saying yes or no on them would be a quick way to {disfmarker} to do it . +Grad G: That 's good validation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Is this proprietary ? +PhD A: Uh . {comment} No . No . +Grad G: Yeah , do you have a patent on it ? +PhD A: It was when I was working for the government . +Professor E: Oh , then everybody owns it . It 's the people . +Postdoc B: Well , I mean , is this something that we could just co - opt , or is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Nah . +Postdoc B: No . OK . +Professor E: Well , i i i he 's pretty close , anyway . I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't take a long time . +Postdoc B: Right . I just thought if it was tried and true , then {disfmarker} {comment} and he 's gone through additional levels of {disfmarker} of development . +Grad G: Just output . Although if you {disfmarker} if you have some parameters like what 's a good window size for the median filter {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! {comment} I have to remember . I 'll think about it , and try to remember . +PhD F: And it might be different for government people . +Grad G: That 's alright . +Professor E: Yeah , good enough for government work , as they say . +PhD C: They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Di - dif different {disfmarker} different bandwidth . +PhD F: They +Grad G: I was doing pretty short , you know , tenth of a second , {comment} sorts of numbers . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know , it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to uh {disfmarker} So , uh , maybe we should move on to other {disfmarker} other things in limited time . +Postdoc B: Can I ask one question about his statistics ? So {disfmarker} so in the tw twelve minutes , um , if we took three hundred and divided it by four , which is about the length of twelve minutes , i Um , I 'd expect like there should be seventy - five overlaps . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Did you find uh more than seventy - five overlaps in that period , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: More than ? +Postdoc B: More than {disfmarker} How many overlaps in your twelve minutes ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh , not @ @ I Onl - only I {disfmarker} I transcribe eh only twelve minutes from the +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: but eh I {disfmarker} I don't co eh {disfmarker} I don't count eh the {disfmarker} the overlap . +Postdoc B: The overlaps . OK . +PhD D: I consider I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the three hundred is eh considered only you {disfmarker} your transcription . I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to finish transcribing . So . +Grad G: I b I bet they 're more , because the beginning of the meeting had a lot more overlaps than {disfmarker} than sort of the middle . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Middle or end . +Postdoc B: I 'm not sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Because i we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with the {disfmarker} Uh , in the early meetings , we 're recording while we 're saying who 's talking on what microphone , {comment} and things like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that seems to be a lot of overlap . +Postdoc B: I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think we could find that out . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that the beginning had more . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so I was gonna ask , I guess about any {disfmarker} any other things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that either of you wanted to talk about , especially since Andreas is leaving in five minutes , that {disfmarker} that you wanna go with . +PhD C: Can I just ask about the data , like very straightforward question is where we are on the amount of data and the amount of transcribed data , just cuz I 'm {disfmarker} I wanted to get a feel for that to sort of be able to know what {disfmarker} what can be done first and like how many meetings are we recording +Professor E: Right so there 's this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} There 's this forty - five minute piece that Jane transcribed . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: That piece was then uh sent to IBM so they could transcribe so we have some comparison point . Then there 's s a larger piece that 's been recorded and uh put on CD - ROM and sent uh to IBM . Right ? And then we don't know . +PhD C: How many meetings is that ? Like {disfmarker} how many {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? +Professor E: That was about ten hours , and there was about {disfmarker} +PhD C: t ten {disfmarker} It 's like ten meetings or something ? Uh - huh . +Grad G: Yeah , something like that . And then {disfmarker} then we +PhD A: Ten meetings that have been sent to IBM ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , I haven't sent them yet because I was having this problem with the {pause} missing files . +Professor E: Oh . Oh , that 's right , that had {disfmarker} those have not been sent . +PhD A: H how many total have we recorded now , altogether ? +Professor E: We 're saying about {pause} twelve hours . +Grad G: About twelve {pause} by now . Twelve or thirteen . +PhD C: Uh - huh . And we 're recording only this meeting , like continuously we 're only recording this one now ? or {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . No , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the biggest one {disfmarker} uh , chunk so far , +Grad G: Nope . +PhD A: It was the morning one . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: but there 's at least one meeting recorded of uh the uh uh natural language guys . +Grad G: Jerry . +PhD C: Do they meet every week , +Professor E: And then there {disfmarker} +PhD C: or every {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , they do . w w And we talked to them about recording some more and we 're going to , uh , we 've started having a morning meeting , today uh i starting a w a week or two ago , on the uh front - end issues , and we 're recording those , uh there 's a network services and applications group here who 's agreed to have their meetings recorded , +PhD C: Great . +Professor E: and we 're gonna start recording them . They 're {disfmarker} They meet on Tuesdays . We 're gonna start recording them next week . So actually , we 're gonna h start having a {disfmarker} a pretty significant chunk and so , you know , {vocalsound} Adam 's sort of struggling with trying to get things to be less buggy , and come up quicker when they do crash and stuff {disfmarker} things like that , now that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the things are starting to happen . So right now , yeah , I th I 'd say the data is predominantly meeting meetings , but there are scattered other meetings in it and that {disfmarker} that amount is gonna grow uh so that the meeting meetings will probably ultimately {disfmarker} i if we 're {disfmarker} if we collect fifty or sixty hours , the meeting meetings it will probably be , you know , twenty or thirty percent of it , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not eighty or ninety . But . +PhD C: So there 's probably {disfmarker} there 's three to four a week , +Grad G: That 's what we 're aiming for . +PhD C: that we 're aiming for . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: And they 're each about an hour or something . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad G: Although {disfmarker} Yeah . We 'll find out tomorrow whether we can really do this or not . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} OK . +Professor E: Yeah and th the {disfmarker} the other thing is I 'm not pos I 'm sort of thinking as we 've been through this a few times , that I really don't know {disfmarker} maybe you wanna do it once for the novelty , but I don't know if in general we wanna have meetings that we record from outside this group do the digits . +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Because it 's just an added bunch of weird stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: And , you know , we {disfmarker} we h we 're highly motivated . Uh in fact , the morning group is really motivated cuz they 're working on connected digits , so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: Actually that 's something I wanted to ask , is I have a bunch of scripts to help with the transcription of the digits . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: We don't have to hand - transcribe the digits because we 're reading them and I have those . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: And so I have some scripts that let you very quickly extract the sections of each utterance . But I haven't been ru I haven't been doing that . Um , if I did that , is someone gonna be working on it ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I think definitely s so Absolutely . +Grad G: I mean , is it something of interest ? +Professor E: Yeah , whoever we have working on the acoustics for the Meeting Recorder are gonna start with that . +Grad G: OK . I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in it , I just don't have time to do it now . +PhD F: I was {disfmarker} these meetings {disfmarker} I 'm sure someone thought of this , but these {disfmarker} this uh reading of the numbers would be extremely helpful to do um adaptation . +Grad G: So +PhD F: Um . +Grad G: Yep . Yep . +PhD C: Actually I have o +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I would really like someone to do adaptation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So if we got someone interested in that , I think it would be great for Meeting Recorder . +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things I wanted to do , uh , that I I talked to {disfmarker} to Don about , is one of the possible things he could do or m also , we could have someone else do it , is to do block echo cancellation , +Grad G: Since it 's the same people over and over . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to try to get rid of some of the effects of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field effects . Um , I mean we have {disfmarker} the party line has been that echo cancellation is not the right way to handle the situation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because people move around , and uh , if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not a simple echo , like a cross - talk kind of echo , but it 's actually room acoustics , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you can't really do inversion , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and even echo cancellation is going to uh be something {disfmarker} It may {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Someone may be moving enough that you are not able to adapt quickly and so the tack that we 've taken is more "" lets come up with feature approaches and multi - stream approaches and so forth , that will be robust to it for the recognizer and not try to create a clean signal "" . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , that 's the party line . But it occurred to me a few months ago that uh party lines are always , you know , sort of dangerous . It 's good {disfmarker} {vocalsound} good to sort of test them , actually . And so we haven't had anybody try to do a good serious job on echo cancellation and we should know how well that can do . So that 's something I 'd like somebody to do at some point , just take these digits , take the far - field mike signal , and the close uh mike signal , and apply really good echo cancellation . Um , there was a {disfmarker} have been some nice talks recently by {disfmarker} by Lucent on {disfmarker} on their b +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: the block echo cancellation particularly appealed to me , uh you know , trying and change it sample by sample , but you have some reasonable sized blocks . {comment} And um , you know , th +PhD A: W what is the um {disfmarker} the artifact you try to {disfmarker} you 're trying to get rid of when you do that ? +PhD F: Ciao . +Professor E: Uh so it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you have a {disfmarker} a direct uh {disfmarker} Uh , what 's the difference in {disfmarker} If you were trying to construct a linear filter , that would um {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm signing off . +Professor E: Yeah . that would subtract off {comment} the um uh parts of the signal that were the aspects of the signal that were different between the close - talk and the distant . You know , so {disfmarker} so uh um I guess in most echo cancellation {disfmarker} Yeah , so you {disfmarker} Given that um {disfmarker} Yeah , so you 're trying to {disfmarker} So you 'd {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} a distance between the close and the distant mikes so there 's a time delay there , and after the time delay , there 's these various reflections . And if you figure out well what 's the {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a least squares algorithm that adjusts itself {disfmarker} adjusts the weight so that you try to subtract {disfmarker} essentially to subtract off uh different uh {disfmarker} different reflections . Right ? So let 's take the simple case where you just had {disfmarker} you had some uh some delay in a satellite connection or something and then there 's a {disfmarker} there 's an echo . It comes back . And you want to adjust this filter so that it will maximally reduce the effect of this echo . +PhD A: So that would mean like if you were listening to the data that was recorded on one of those . Uh , just the raw data , you would {disfmarker} you might hear kind of an echo ? And {disfmarker} and then this {disfmarker} noise cancellation would get +Professor E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm saying {disfmarker} That 's a simplified version of what 's really happening . {comment} What 's really happening is {disfmarker} Well , when I 'm talking to you right now , you 're getting the direct sound from my speech , but you 're also getting , uh , the indirect sound that 's bounced around the room a number of times . OK ? So now , if you um try to r you {disfmarker} To completely remove the effect of that is sort of impractical for a number of technical reasons , but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} not to try to completely remove it , that is , invert the {disfmarker} the room response , but just to try to uh uh eliminate some of the {disfmarker} the effect of some of the echos . Um , a number of people have done this so that , say , if you 're talking to a speakerphone , uh it makes it more like it would be , if you were talking right up to it . So this is sort of the st the straight - forward approach . You say I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use this uh {disfmarker} this item but I want to subtract off various kinds of echos . So you construct a filter , and you have this {disfmarker} this filtered version uh of the speech um gets uh uh {disfmarker} gets subtracted off from the original speech . Then you try to {disfmarker} you try to minimize the energy in some sense . And so um {disfmarker} uh with some constraints . +PhD A: Kind of a clean up thing , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's a clean up thing . Right . +PhD A: OK . +Professor E: So , echo cancelling is {disfmarker} is , you know , commonly done in telephony , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's sort of the obvious thing to do in this situation if you {disfmarker} if , you know , you 're gonna be talking some distance from a mike . +PhD A: When uh , I would have meetings with the folks in Cambridge when I was at BBN over the phone , they had a um {disfmarker} some kind of a special speaker phone and when they would first connect me , it would come on and we 'd hear all this noise . And then it was uh {disfmarker} And then it would come on and it was very clear , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: you know . +Professor E: Right . So it 's taking samples , it 's doing adaptation , it 's adjusting weights , and then it 's getting the sum . So um , uh anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of a reasonable thing that I 'd like to have somebody try {disfmarker} somebody look {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and the digits would be a reasonable thing to do that with . I think that 'd be enough data {disfmarker} plenty of data to do that with , and i for that sort of task you wouldn't care whether it was uh large vocabulary speech or anything . Uh . {vocalsound} Um +Postdoc B: Is Brian Kingsbury 's work related to that , or is it a different type of reverberation ? +Professor E: Brian 's {comment} Kingsbury 's work is an example of what we did f f from the opposite dogma . Right ? Which is what I was calling the "" party line "" , which is that uh doing that sort of thing is not really what we want . We want something more flexible , uh i i where people might change their position , and there might be , you know {disfmarker} There 's also um oh yeah , noise . So the echo cancellation does not really allow for noise . It 's if you have a clean situation but you just have some delays , Then we 'll figure out the right {disfmarker} the right set of weights for your taps for your filter in order to produce the effect of those {disfmarker} those echos . But um if there 's noise , then the very signal that it 's looking at is corrupted so that it 's decision about what the right {disfmarker} you know , right {disfmarker} right uh {disfmarker} delays are {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} right delayed signal is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh is incorrect . And so , in a noisy situation , um , also in a {disfmarker} in a situation that 's very reverberant {disfmarker} {comment} with long reverberation times {comment} and really long delays , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of typically impractical . So for those kind of reasons , and also a {disfmarker} a c a complete inversion , if you actually {disfmarker} I mentioned that it 's kind of hard to really do the inversion of the room acoustics . Um , that 's difficult because um often times the {disfmarker} the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the system transfer function is such that when it 's inverted you get something that 's unstable , and so , if you {disfmarker} you do your estimate of what the system is , and then you try to invert it , you get a filter that actually uh , you know , rings , and {disfmarker} and uh goes to infinity . So it 's {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's that sort of technical reason , and the fact that things move , and there 's air currents {disfmarker} I mean there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} all sorts of reasons why it 's not really practical . So for all those kinds of reasons , uh we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of um , concluded we didn't want to in do inversion , and we 're even pretty skeptical of echo cancellation , which isn't really inversion , and um we decided to do this approach of taking {disfmarker} uh , just picking uh features , which were {disfmarker} uh will give you more {disfmarker} something that was more stable , in the presence of , or absence of , room reverberation , and that 's what Brian was trying to do . So , um , let me just say a couple things that I was {disfmarker} I was gonna bring up . Uh . Let 's see . I guess you {disfmarker} you actually already said this thing about the uh {disfmarker} about the consent forms , which was that we now don't have to {disfmarker} So this was the human subjects folks who said this , {comment} or that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: The a apparently {disfmarker} I mean , we 're gonna do a revised form , of course . Um but once a person has signed it once , then that 's valid for a certain number of meetings . She wanted me to actually estimate how many meetings and put that on the consent form . I told her that would be a little bit difficult to say . So I think from a s practical standpoint , maybe we could have them do it once every ten meetings , or something . It won't be that many people who do it {pause} that often , but um just , you know , so long as they don't forget that they 've done it , I guess . +Professor E: OK . Um , back on the data thing , so there 's this sort of one hour , ten hour , a hundred hour sort of thing that {disfmarker} that we have . We have {disfmarker} we have an hour uh that {disfmarker} that is transcribed , we have {disfmarker} we have twelve hours that 's recorded but not transcribed , and at the rate we 're going , uh by the end of the semester we 'll have , I don't know , forty or fifty or something , if we {disfmarker} if this really uh {disfmarker} Well , do we have that much ? +PhD C: Not really . It 's three to four per week . +Professor E: Let 's see , we have {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's what {disfmarker} You know , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh eight weeks , uh is {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's not a lot of hours . +Professor E: Eight weeks times three hours is twenty - four , so that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , so like thirty {disfmarker} thirty hours ? +PhD A: Three {disfmarker} Three hours . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean , is there {disfmarker} I know this sounds {pause} tough but we 've got the room set up . Um I was starting to think of some projects where you would use well , similar to what we talked about with uh energy detection on the close - talking mikes . There are a number of interesting questions that you can ask about how interactions happen in a meeting , that don't require any transcription . So what are the patterns , the energy patterns over the meeting ? And I 'm really interested in this {vocalsound} but we don't have a whole lot of data . So I was thinking , you know , we 've got the room set up and you can always think of , also for political reasons , if ICSI collected you know , two hundred hours , that looks different than forty hours , even if we don't transcribe it ourselves , +Professor E: But I don't think we 're gonna stop at the end of this semester . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right ? So , I th I think that if we are able to keep that up for a few months , we are gonna have more like a hundred hours . +PhD C: I mean , is there {disfmarker} Are there any other meetings here that we can record , especially meetings that have some kind of conflict in them {comment} or some kind of deci I mean , that are less well {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} uh , that have some more emotional aspects to them , or strong {disfmarker} +Grad G: We had some good ones earlier . +PhD C: There 's laughter , um I 'm talking more about strong differences of opinion meetings , maybe with manager types , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: I think it 's hard to record those . +PhD C: To be allowed to record them ? +Postdoc B: It 's also likely that people will cancel out afterwards . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah , people will get {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But I {disfmarker} but I wanted to raise the KPFA idea . +PhD C: OK . Well , if there is , anyway . +Professor E: Yeah , I was gonna mention that . +Grad G: Oh , that 's a good idea . That 's {disfmarker} That would be a good match . +Professor E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I 'd mentioned to Adam , and {disfmarker} that was another thing I was gonna talk {disfmarker} uh , mention to them before {disfmarker} {comment} that uh there 's uh {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it oc it occurred to me that we might be able to get some additional data by talking to uh acquaintances in local broadcast media . Because , you know , we had talked before about the problem about using found data , {comment} that {disfmarker} that uh it 's just set up however they have it set up and we don't have any say about it and it 's typically one microphone , in a , uh , uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so it doesn't really give us the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh characteristics we want . Um and so I do think we 're gonna continue recording here and record what we can . But um , it did occur to me that we could go to friends in broadcast media and say "" hey you have this panel show , {pause} or this {disfmarker} you know , this discussion show , and um can you record multi - channel ? "" And uh they may be willing to record it uh with {disfmarker} +PhD C: With lapel mikes or something ? +Professor E: Well , they probably already use lapel , but they might be able to have it {disfmarker} it wouldn't be that weird for them to have another mike that was somewhat distant . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: It wouldn't be exactly this setup , but it would be that sort of thing , and what we were gonna get from UW , you know , assuming they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they start recording , isn't {disfmarker} als also is not going to be this exact setup . +PhD C: Right . No , I think that 'd be great , if we can get more data . +Professor E: So , {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking of looking into that . the other thing that occurred to me after we had that discussion , in fact , is that it 's even possible , since of course , many radio shows are not live , {comment} uh that we could invite them to have like some of their {disfmarker} {comment} record some of their shows here . +Postdoc B: Wow ! +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} The thing is , they 're not as averse to wearing one of these head - mount I mean , they 're on the radio , +Grad G: Right , as we are . +PhD C: right ? So . {comment} Um , I think that 'd be fantastic +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: cuz those kinds of panels and {disfmarker} Those have interesting +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Th - that 's an {disfmarker} a side of style {disfmarker} a style that we 're not collecting here , so it 'd be great . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean , the other side to it was the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} which is where we were coming from {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you more about it later {comment} is that {disfmarker} is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh the radio stations and television stations already have stuff worked out presumably , uh related to , you know , legal issues and {disfmarker} and permissions and all that . I mean , they already do what they do {disfmarker} do whatever they do . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} so it 's another source . So I think it 's something we should look into , you know , we 'll collect what we collect here hopefully they will collect more at UW also and um {disfmarker} and maybe we have this other source . But yeah I think that it 's not unreasonable to aim at getting , you know , significantly in excess of a hundred hours . I mean , that was sort of our goal . The thing was , I was hoping that we could {disfmarker} @ @ in the {disfmarker} under this controlled situation we could at least collect , you know , thirty to fifty hours . And at the rate we 're going we 'll get pretty close to that I think this semester . And if we continue to collect some next semester , I think we should , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Yeah I was mostly trying to think , "" OK , if you start a project , within say a month , you know , how much data do you have to work with . And you {disfmarker} you wanna s you wanna sort of fr freeze your {disfmarker} your data for awhile so um right now {disfmarker} and we don't have the transcripts back yet from IBM right ? Do {disfmarker} Oh , do we now ? +Professor E: Well , we don't even have it for this f you know , forty - five minutes , that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: So um , not complaining , I was just trying to think , you know , what kinds of projects can you do now versus uh six months from now +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: and they 're pretty different , because +Professor E: Yeah . So I was thinking right now it 's sort of this exploratory stuff where you {disfmarker} you look at the data , you use some primitive measures and get a feeling for what the scatter plots look like , +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} Right . Right , right . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and meanwhile we collect , and it 's more like yeah , three months from now , or six months from now you can {disfmarker} you can do a lot of other things . +PhD C: Cuz I 'm not actually sure , just logistically that I can spend {disfmarker} you know , I don't wanna charge the time that I have on the project too early , before there 's enough data to make good use of the time . And that 's {disfmarker} and especially with the student +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: uh for instance this guy who seems {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh anyway , I shouldn't say too much , but um if someone came that was great and wanted to do some real work and they have to end by the end of this school year in the spring , how much data will I have to work with , with that person . And so it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: i Yeah , so I would think , exploratory things now . Uh , three months from now {disfmarker} Um , I mean the transcriptions I think are a bit of an unknown cuz we haven't gotten those back yet as far as the timing , but I think as far as the collection , it doesn't seem to me l like , uh , unreasonable to say that uh in January , you know , ro roughly uh {disfmarker} which is roughly three months from now , we should have at least something like , you know , twenty - five , thirty hours . +PhD C: And we just don't know about the transcription part of that , +Professor E: So that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah , we need to {disfmarker} I think that there 's a possibility that the transcript will need to be adjusted afterwards , +PhD C: so . I mean , it {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: and uh es especially since these people won't be uh used to dealing with multi - channel uh transcriptions . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So I think that we 'll need to adjust some {disfmarker} And also if we wanna add things like um , well , more refined coding of overlaps , then definitely I think we should count on having an extra pass through . I wanted to ask another a a aspect of the data collection . There 'd be no reason why a person couldn't get together several uh , you know , friends , and come and argue about a topic if they wanted to , right ? +Professor E: If they really have something they wanna talk about as opposed to something @ @ {disfmarker} I mean , what we 're trying to stay away from was artificial constructions , but I think if it 's a real {disfmarker} Why not ? Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , I 'm thinking , politically {disfmarker} +Grad G: Stage some political debates . +Postdoc B: You could do this , +PhD C: Well yeah , +Postdoc B: you know . You could . +PhD C: or just if you 're {disfmarker} if you ha If there are meetings here that happen that we can record even if we don't {pause} um have them do the digits , {comment} or maybe have them do a shorter {pause} digit thing {comment} like if it was , you know , uh , one string of digits , or something , they 'd probably be willing to do . +Grad G: We don't have to do the digits at all if we don't want to . +PhD C: Then , having the data is very valuable , cuz I think it 's um politically better for us to say we have this many hours of audio data , especially with the ITR , if we put in a proposal on it . It 'll just look like ICSI 's collected a lot more audio data . Um , whether it 's transcribed or not um , is another issue , but there 's {disfmarker} there are research questions you can answer without the transcriptions , or at least that you can start to answer . +Postdoc B: It seems like you could hold some meetings . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: You know , you and maybe Adam ? +PhD C: So . +Postdoc B: You {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could maybe hold some additional meetings , if you wanted . +PhD A: Would it help at all {disfmarker} I mean , we 're already talking about sort of two levels of detail in meetings . One is uh um without doing the digits {disfmarker} Or , I guess the full - blown one is where you do the digits , and everything , and then talk about doing it without digits , what if we had another level , just to collect data , which is without the headsets and we just did the table - mounted stuff . +PhD C: Need the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: You do , OK . +PhD C: I mean , absolutely , +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: yeah . I 'm really scared {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seems like it 's a big part of this corpus is to have the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: I see , OK . +PhD C: Um or at least , like , me personally ? I would {disfmarker} {comment} I {disfmarker} couldn't use that data . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . And Mari also , +PhD C: Um . +Postdoc B: we had {disfmarker} This came up when she she was here . That 's important . +PhD C: So it 's a great idea , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} b By the {disfmarker} by the way , I don't think the transcriptions are actually , in the long run , such a big bottleneck . +PhD C: and if it were true than I would just do that , but it 's not that bad {disfmarker} like the room is not the bottleneck , and we have enough time in the room , it 's getting the people to come in and put on the {disfmarker} and get the setup going . +Professor E: I think the issue is just that we 're {disfmarker} we 're blazing that path . Right ? And {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} d Do you have any idea when {disfmarker} when uh the {disfmarker} you 'll be able to send uh the ten hours to them ? +Grad G: Well , I 've been burning two C Ds a day , which is about all I can do with the time I have . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: So it 'll be early next week . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . So early next week we send it to them , and then {disfmarker} then we check with them to see if they 've got it and we {disfmarker} we start , you know asking about the timing for it . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: So I think once they get it sorted out about how they 're gonna do it , which I think they 're pretty well along on , cuz they were able to read the files and so on . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Right ? +Grad G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , who knows where they are . +PhD A: Have they ever responded to you ? +Grad G: Nope . +Professor E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} You know , so they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} you know , they 're volunteering their time and they have a lot of other things to do , +PhD C: What if {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , you {disfmarker} we can't complain . +Professor E: right ? But they {disfmarker} But at any rate , they 'll {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think once they get that sorted out , they 're {disfmarker} they 're making cassettes there , then they 're handing it to someone who they {disfmarker} who 's {disfmarker} who is doing it , and uh I think it 's not going to be {disfmarker} I don't think it 's going to be that much more of a deal for them to do thirty hours then to do one hour , I think . It 's not going to be thirty +Grad G: Yep . I think that 's probably true . +PhD C: Really ? So it 's the amount of {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just getting it going . +Grad G: It 's pipeline , pipeline issues . +PhD C: Right . What about these lunch meetings {disfmarker} +Grad G: Once the pipeline fills . +PhD C: I mean , I don't know , if there 's any way without too much more overhead , even if we don't ship it right away to IBM even if we just collect it here for awhile , {comment} to record you know , two or three more meeting a week , just to have the data , even if they 're um not doing the digits , but they do wear the headphones ? +Professor E: But the lunch meetings are pretty much one person getting up and {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I meant , um , sorry , the meetings where people eat their lunch downstairs , maybe they don't wanna be recorded , but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , and we 're just chatting ? +PhD C: Just the ch the chatting . +Grad G: Yeah , we have a lot of those . +PhD C: I actually {disfmarker} I actually think that 's {pause} useful {pause} data , um {pause} the chatting , +Grad G: Yeah , the problem with that is I would {disfmarker} I think I would feel a little constrained to {disfmarker} You know ? Uh , some of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD C: but {disfmarker} OK . You don't wanna do it , cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Grad G: You know , our "" soccer ball "" meeting ? +PhD C: Alright . +Grad G: I guess none of you were there for our soccer ball meeting . +PhD C: Alright , {comment} so I 'll just throw it out there , if anyone knows of one more m or two more wee meetings per week that happen at ICSI , um that we could record , I think it would be worth it . +Grad G: That was hilarious . +Professor E: Yeah . Well , we should also check with Mari again , because they {disfmarker} because they were really intending , you know , maybe just didn't happen , but they were really intending to be duplicating this in some level . So then that would double {pause} what we had . Uh . And there 's a lot of different meetings at UW uh {disfmarker} I mean really m a lot more {comment} than we have here right cuz we 're not right on campus , +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: so . +PhD A: Is the uh , notion of recording any of Chuck 's meetings dead in the water , or is that still a possibility ? +Professor E: Uh , {vocalsound} they seem to have some problems with it . We can {disfmarker} we can talk about that later . Um , but , again , Jerry is {disfmarker} Jerry 's open {disfmarker} So I mean , we have two speech meetings , one uh network meeting , uh Jerry was open to it but I {disfmarker} I s One of the things that I think is a little {disfmarker} a little bit of a limitation , there is a think when the people are not involved uh in our work , we probably can't do it every week . You know ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that people are gonna feel uh {disfmarker} are gonna feel a little bit constrained . Now , it might get a little better if we don't have them do the digits all the time . And the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} so then they can just really sort of try to {disfmarker} put the mikes on and then just charge in and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: What if we give people {disfmarker} you know , we cater a lunch in exchange for them having their meeting here or something ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I {disfmarker} I do think eating while you 're doing a meeting is going to be increasing the noise . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc B: But I had another question , which is um , you know , in principle , w um , I know that you don't want artificial topics , +PhD C: Alright , alright , alright . +Postdoc B: but um it does seem to me that we might be able to get subjects from campus to come down and do something that wouldn't be too artificial . I mean , we could {disfmarker} political discussions , or {disfmarker} or something or other , +PhD C: No , definitely . +Postdoc B: and i you know , people who are {disfmarker} Because , you know , there 's also this constraint . We d it 's like , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh goldibears {disfmarker} goldi goldilocks , it 's like you don't want meetings that are too large , but you don't want meetings that are too small . And um {disfmarker} a and it just seems like maybe we could exploit the subj human subject p p pool , in the positive sense of the word . +PhD A: Well , even {disfmarker} I mean , coming down from campus is sort of a big thing , but what about +Postdoc B: We could pay subjects . +PhD A: or what about people in the {disfmarker} in the building ? +PhD C: Yeah , I was thinking , there 's all these other peo +PhD A: I mean , there 's the State of California downstairs , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: I just really doubt that uh any of the State of California meetings would be recordable and then releasable to the general public . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So I {disfmarker} I mean I talked with some people at the Haas Business School who are i who are interested in speech recognition +PhD C: Alright , well . +Grad G: and , they sort of hummed and hawed and said "" well maybe we could have meetings down here "" , but then I got email from them that said "" no , we decided we 're not really interested and we don't wanna come down and hold meetings . "" So , I think it 's gonna be a problem to get people regularly . +PhD A: What about Joachim , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but we c But I think , you know , we get some scattered things from this and that . And I {disfmarker} I d I do think that maybe we can get somewhere with the {disfmarker} with the radio . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh i I have better contacts in radio than in television , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: You could get a lot of lively discussions from those radio ones . +PhD C: Well , and they 're already {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} these things are already recorded , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: we don't have to ask them to {disfmarker} even {disfmarker} and I 'm not sure wh how they record it , but they must record from individual {disfmarker} +Professor E: n Well {disfmarker} No , I 'm not talking about ones that are already recorded . I 'm talking about new ones +PhD C: Why {disfmarker} why not ? +Professor E: because {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} because we would be asking them to do something different . +PhD C: Well , we can find out . I know for instance Mark Liberman was interested uh in {disfmarker} in LDC getting {pause} data , uh , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , that 's the found data idea . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: But what I 'm saying is uh if I talk to people that I know who do these th who produce these things we could ask them if they could record an extra channel , let 's say , of a distant mike . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And u I think routinely they would not do this . So , since I 'm interested in the distant mike stuff , I wanna make sure that there is at least that somewhere +PhD C: Right . Great . OK . +Professor E: and uh {disfmarker} But if we ask them to do that they might be intrigued enough by the idea that they uh might be e e willing to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I might be able to talk them into it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um . We 're getting towards the end of our disk space , so we should think about trying to wrap up here . +PhD C: That 's a good way to end a meeting . +Professor E: OK . Well I don't {disfmarker} why don't we {disfmarker} why d u why don't we uh uh turn them {disfmarker} turn +Grad G: OK , leave {disfmarker} leave them on for a moment until I turn this off , cuz that 's when it crashed last time . +Postdoc B: Oh . That 's good to know . +Professor E: Turning off the microphone made it crash . Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: That 's good to know . +Professor E: OK . +","In a research meeting involving multiple members of a collaborative academic project, Professor E and participants discussed the current progress and possible directions for data collection, transcription, and analysis for their ongoing research. The conversation begins with Professor E acknowledging that the research system has not crashed, which is a positive sign. Grad G then hypothesizes about a potential cause for previous crashes, which they will now avoid. + +The team then delves into discussions about mapping participant locations and how to document this without requiring participants' names, suggesting it might have been resolved. A conversation follows about handling transcript numbers, with some coordination confusion among the PhD students and professors present. + +Professor E reflects on the mundane and mundane-research blend discussions occurring in past meetings and suggests emphasizing research-related discussions first. The focus shifts to previously discussed data and the interest in the particulars of event overlap and interruptions during recordings, alongside potential areas of research interest moving forward. This leads to mention of other meetings' data that could be useful to analyze events and implications drawn from speech data. + +At this point, the conversation becomes increasingly technical with discussions about acoustic events, overlapping speech, and other related research. The implications of metaphorical statements and their interpretations in research are touched upon. Postdoc B dives into an example related to inference structures related to speech events, exemplifying the complexity of the transcription and analysis process, and the nuances involved in understanding language. + +The group debates on the practicalities around collecting data, transcription, and the usefulness of mapping out who is speaking at what times for further analysis. There's a comedic interlude regarding the pronoun use confusion, leading to a reflection on how the microphones' arrangement affects the interpretation of conversations and the importance of contextual clues in speech. + +Data management and protection of participant anonymity in publications come under discussion with a focus on how to morally handle sensitive topics and individuals’ identification. This leads to the suggestion of refining meeting protocols, focusing on research before procedural matters, and efficiently tackling transcription challenges. + +Professor E emphasizes the importance of collecting data multi-dimensionally, considering both far-field and close-talking microphone recordings for detailed analysis of overlapping speech events. The effectiveness of manual versus automatic marking of events is debated. + +The recording session wraps up as the team agrees to concentrate on speaker overlaps, expediting the manual marking process. The discussion hints at the future possibilities of using energy detection in close-talking mikes for initial event marking. The potential to explore political aspects, emotional arousal, and other behavioral phenomena in meetings is also pondered. + +Finally, there's a proposal to expand data collection from additional meetings beyond academic research groups, possibly involving radio discussions or other media forms. The concept of collecting vast quantities of audio data remains central for both immediate research opportunities and the impressive volume for future proposals and studies. The meeting ends with the realization that they are nearing the limit of their disk space." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 12th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be the first hybrid meeting of the committee. Some members will be participating via videoconference and some will be participating in person. This follows the order made by the House on May26,2020. Members who have already participated in a virtual meeting of the special committee may actually not notice any change, except for the fact that some members are also participating from the floor of the House. An additional rubric, that of statements by members, was also added to the proceedings of the committee. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up in the chamber on either side of the Speakers chair. Sound amplification for virtual interventions will be available, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor sound or interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. Please also direct your remarks through the Chair. Thank you. For those of you joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by videoconference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their microphone and state that they have a point of order. Those in the chamber can simply rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. Next we'll move on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on to petitions. We'll be presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificates off at the table once the petitions are presented. First on our list for presenting petitions is Ms. May, who is joining us virtually. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, what an honour to be the first voice coming to you from the screens on either side of the Speaker of the House. I speak to you from SaanichGulf Islands on the traditional territory of the WSNEC people. Hych'ka Siem. I'm presenting a petition, number 431-00215, and it has been certified. The petitioners call on this House to take note of the fact that Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does not include the provision of necessary prescription medications. They note that the system across Canada is a patchwork that leaves three million Canadians unprepared and uninsured to be able to purchase necessary medications. They call on the House assembled to put in place a system of universal national pharmacare, bringing down the cost of drugs through bulk purchasing. I think I'll call that a summary, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. +The Chair: The next petition will be presented by Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions before the committee today. The first petition is in support of Bill S-204. This Senate public bill, been put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan in the Senate, would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad to receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It also has a mechanism by which somebody could be deemed inadmissible to Canada for being involved in the horrible practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill has been before various Parliaments for over 10 years, and petitioners are hopeful that this Parliament will be the one that finally takes action to address forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The second petition is put forward by folks who are concerned about Bill C-7, particularly the efforts by the government through Bill C-7 to remove vital safeguards that are currently associated with Canada's euthanasia regime. Petitioners are not happy about the fact that the government is trying to eliminate the 10-day reflection period and remove other safeguards that only four short years ago the government thought were essential for the euthanasia and assisted suicide system that they were putting in place. The petitioners call on the government to address that, and they are not supportive of these particular efforts to remove vital safeguards from that regime. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Is anyone else presenting petitions? Seeing none, we'll move on to statements by members. We will now proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15minutes. Each statement will be for one minute. The first will be from Mr.Samson. Mr.Samson, you have the floor. +Mr. Darrell Samson (SackvillePrestonChezzetcook, Lib.): Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honour to be presenting an S. O. 31. This spring has been a difficult one for Nova Scotia and the communities of SackvillePrestonChezzetcook. While residents have banded together to tackle the challenges presented by COVID-19, we have also had to mourn the passing of three remarkable local women: RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson, well known by many in Cole Harbour and the surrounding areas; our own Sub-Lieutenant Abbigail Cowbrough, who was based out of 12 Wing Shearwater; and Captain Jenn Casey of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. All three women died in the line of duty in separate tragic events while serving our country. These three brave women, who served with honour on land, at sea and in the air, represent the absolute best of us. Heidi, Abbigail and Jenn were inspirational and will not be forgotten. Thank you. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada needs a prime minister who will create jobs and opportunity, but instead we have a prime minister who is piling up crippling national debt. Yesterday the PBO predicted the federal deficit this year will hit over $252 billion. That is almost equivalent to an average year of government spending before the Liberal government. After five years with this debt, Prime Minister, Canada's national debt is set to hit $1 trillion, with almost nothing to show for it. Industries from coast to coast are either closed or are struggling. Canadian workers need and deserve a prime minister who supports our energy sector and gets our natural resources and agriculture products to market, who supports small business and will make our tax system encourage job creation and growth, and who will bring advanced manufacturing jobs to Canada and keep the automotive industry growing. Most importantly, we need a Conservative prime minister who will get the government finances under control after the massive debt left by this prime minister. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I speak today with a very heavy heart. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we've seen a disproportionate number of deaths in long-term care homes. I'm thankful for the Canadian Armed Forces who were deployed to the Altamont care home in my riding and four other facilities across the GTA. The CAF have brought forward horrifying allegations in the operation of these homes. They include residents being given expired or improper doses of medication; not being cleaned or changed for a prolonged period of time; being forcibly fed, causing choking; being bed-bound for weeks; receiving inadequate nutrition, and much more. Mr. Chair, I call upon Premier Ford to place these five homes under a mandatory management order and to appoint a third party manager to address and rectify these violations. I also call upon the Premier to undertake an independent public inquiry into the tragedy we face in long-term care facilities across Ontario. Finally, Mr. Chair, we need to work with the provinces and territories to set national standards of care for the most vulnerable in our society. We can and must do better. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hesitate to interrupt colleagues, but I'm concerned about the petition practice, which, as I understand it, is to summarize a petition but not make a speech. I felt one of our colleagues was trespassing on our usual rules. +The Chair: I will remind honourable members that when a petition is presented, we're expected to give a prcis and make it as concise as possible. Thank you. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I would like to recognize the resilience of Quebeckers concerned for their jobs or their businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. They need us to plan for after the crisis, and we must do so now. To do so, we need the proper information. We need to know the status of the public finances. That is why the Bloc Qubcois is demanding that the government present an economic update, and that it do so before June17. This is not about making a spectacle. Everyone knows that the deficit will be huge. We had to provide the people with support and we all agree on that. But we have to know to what extent. We also have to know where we are starting from so that we can plan where we are going. This is about respecting the public, because they are the ones who will be paying the bill. In closing, I would like to remind the government that one group is not really contributing to the public purse at the moment. I am talking about the tech giants, the GAFAM group, that have never before been used to the extent that they are now, and that are still not paying a cent in tax in Canada. The Liberals promised to correct this injustice. Now is a great time for them to do so. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Sidhu. +Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, this week is National Paramedic Services Week. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Peel region police, paramedic and firefighting services for keeping Bramptonians safe. In my riding, organizations have stepped up to help our community. Organizations such as the Khalsa Aid Society, the Interfaith Council of Peel, the Brampton YMCA, the Prayer Stone Peoples Church, Unity in the Community, Ste. Louise Outreach Centre, Knights Table, the Yogi Divine Society, Vraj Community Service, Regeneration Brampton and many more have made our community stronger during this difficult time. I also have to address the report that came out yesterday from our brave Canadian Armed Forces. Like many Canadians, I was shocked by this report from the long-term care centres, including one in my riding. The examples of abuse described in the report are unacceptable. Our seniors deserve dignity and respect. We must find a solution. We need to fix this. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mrs. Stubbs. +Mrs. Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's oil and gas sector is in crisis, made worse by five years of bad policies, red tape and barriers to pipelines. Just in the last two months, we saw the largest production cut in Canadian history. Active rigs dropped by 92% and tens of thousands of oil and gas workers lost their jobs, adding to the 200,000 since 2015. Energy is Canada's biggest investor, and exporting could lead the recovery if there are actions, not just words. On March 25, the finance minister promised help in hours or days, not weeks, but he's letting Canadians down. Sixty-three days later, small oil and gas companies still can't apply for BDC loans, and last week's large employer loan terms are predatory, with interest rates escalating to 14% by year five. Those are payday loan rates. The required stock options being at record lows could make the government the largest shareholder. That's not emergency assistance; it's pandemic profiteering. Programs can't help workers if businesses can't or won't actually get the support. The Liberals' death-by-delay tactics are doing exactly what foreign activists in other countries want: to shut down Canada's oil. +The Chair: Ms.Bessette, the floor is yours. +Mrs. Lyne Bessette (BromeMissisquoi, Lib.): Mr.Chair, in times of crisis, we stick together. I can state that this is certainly the case in BromeMissisquoi. In the last weeks, I have been calling volunteer action centres in my constituency so that they can tell me their news. I would like to take the time that I have to highlight the work that community organizations are doing tirelessly in my constituency. The crisis has made us realize the extent to which food banks and meals-on-wheels can not only relieve hunger, but also relieve thousands of shut-in seniors of their loneliness. Let me also highlight the devotion of the volunteers giving generously of their time, particularly the initiative of Mabel Hastings in the volunteer aid centre in Mansonville. Like me, she sends out a daily newsletter to keep the public informed about the many resources available for their support. COVID-19 is bringing out the best in our community and I am certain that, together, we will get through it. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Virani. +Mr. Arif Virani (ParkdaleHigh Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, during the COVID-19 pandemic I have been inspired by the courageous work of so many essential workers. I want to thank everyone on the front lines for keeping us safe, keeping us fed and keeping our communities functioning. I want to make special note of one particular essential health care worker, a woman who is a quarantine manager with the Public Health Agency of Canada. I have personally seen her working tirelessly over the past three months to keep all of us safe. That woman is my wife, Suchita Jain. Suchi, I love you, I am very proud of you and I thank you for all of the sacrifices you are making. I want to highlight another woman from my riding of ParkdaleHigh Park, Rachelle LeBlanc. She is a local designer. When the pandemic broke, she saw the need for protective barriers for small shops in Parkdale, so she set about collecting donations. She then put her design talents to work and started designing free-standing protective shields. Rachelle's team has now delivered 25 free COVID protective shields to small shopkeepers in Parkdale, and the team is on track to building 100 more. It's the compassion of Canadians like Rachelle that gives meaning to the phrase we are all in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Godin, you have the floor. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Mr.Chair, the school year has been shattered and our graduating classes must be proud of what they have achieved amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Young men, young women, be proud of your accomplishments! You can believe in the future. Keep learning. It will give you tools that will serve you all your lives. What you have achieved in this extraordinary year will set you apart from the others. I invite you to be inspired by that and turn it to your advantage. The current government has the obligation to promote the values that will lead you to become involved in your communities. Your willingness to learn or to work makes you into better citizens. Knowledge and experience are irreplaceable and invaluable. I implore this government, which is unaware of the damage it is causing, to immediately announce all the positions that have already been approved under the Canada summer jobs program. Urgent action is needed. Let us have confidence in our organizations, our companies, and let us support our youth, a rich resource that we must equip and motivate. I congratulate all the young graduates in the beautiful constituency of PortneufJacques-Cartier. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Fergus. +Mr. Greg Fergus (HullAylmer, Lib.): Mr.Chair, this pandemic lets us see what Canadians are made of. This coming Saturday, May30, more than 2,000Christians of all denominations are coming together virtually for prayer and for action. When the going gets tough, Canadians get going. This could not be more true than with respect to what will be happening on May 30. This Saturday, in more than 2,000 churches and homes, thousands of faith-filled Canadians are gathering to pray and act on those prayers as part of Stand United Canada. They will gather through television, Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Then they are going to deliver much-needed support to at-risk Canadians who live in disadvantaged areas. This is faith in action. I'm sure I speak for all parliamentarians when I wish success to Stand United Canada. I hope it inspires more Canadians to follow in its footsteps. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): The best way to safeguard the truth is to allow people to speak freely, but from the very beginning of this pandemic, the Liberals have silenced dissent. Sadly, their short-sightedness has been to the detriment of Canadians. Early on, they propagated the notion that human-to-human transmission wasn't possible. They said that closing the borders wasn't necessary. They told us that wearing face masks wouldn't help. It is undeniable that the Liberal government has put Canadians in danger by silencing alternative points of view and has spread misinformation. Ironically, however, they have now gone ahead and crowned themselves the arbiters of truth. They are spending millions of dollars to censor what Canadians can and cannot say. They are determining what is true and what is not, what is right and what is wrong, what is in and what is out. When freedom of speech is repressed, it is safe to say that democracy is under siege. I call upon the government to restore the personal liberties that are granted under our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is Canada. We are not an autocracy; we are a democracy. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses have always been the cornerstone of communities across this country. They provide employment and economic stability and are always the first to support community functions and activities, but small businesses have been particularly hard hit due to COVID-19. They have shut their doors temporarily, and now many worry they'll never be able to open their doors again. With the season cancellations at the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music, businesses in the tourism, hospitality, accommodation and retail sectors in PerthWellington are struggling. Every day, I talk to small business owners who can't access the Canada emergency business account, and others who find the convoluted commercial rent assistance program to be out of reach. The program is needlessly complicated, frustratingly slow and excessively restrictive. Mr. Chair, the government needs to go back, fix these programs and ensure that support goes to the small businesses that need it. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians have been shaken by this pandemic. It has exposed the gaps in our health care system and our social safety net. It has shown how vulnerable we all are when disaster hits. It has brought us to a crossroads. We can go backwards to so-called business as usual, with horrific conditions in long-term care homes, widespread inequality and no real action on climate change, or we can build for better. In Victoria, people in the community, organizations and municipal leaders have been calling for a new way forward. The City of Victoria has a plan for reinvention, resilience and recovery. Organizations like Greater Victoria Acting Together; Common Vision, Common Action; and Kairos Victoria are exploring ideas for a sustainable and just recovery. We can build for better. We can invest in the infrastructure. We need to fight climate change, homelessness and inequality. We can build a Canada where we take better care of the planet and each other. +The Chair: We now move to Ms.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, in this time of pandemic, it is with heartfelt emotion that I want to highlight the excellent work of all the guardian angels at the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the entire staff, as well as the retirees who have come back to provide their assistance. I admire the managers, at all levels and in all services, working tirelessly so that their teams can answer the call in this difficult situation. My fellow managers and the management teams of the Support Program for the Autonomy of Seniors, both in home support and in residential care, you have my heartfelt congratulations for the herculean work you have done. My thoughts go particularly to Lyne Ricard and Vronique Proulx, managers working diligently with their teams of professionals to support the seniors living in intermediate resources, as we call them. I also warmly recognize the director of nursing services, Chantal Careau, who is facing the current challenge with passion and humanity. Once again, my congratulations go to the entire organization of the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest for their remarkable work in this difficult and very demanding time. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): During the worst of times, we see the best in people. Heroes are born, characters revealed, resiliency is sowed. I cannot say enough about my constituents in Foothillsfront-line health care workers, grocery store clerks, restaurateurs, farmersfor all they are doing to keep our community safe and healthy. I want to shine a light on some of our hidden heroes, such as Owen Plumb, a grade 9 student in Okotoks who is using his 3D printer to build PPE for front-line health care workers. He partnered with the Rotary Club and Evergreen Solutions in Okotoks to help with the manufacturing and assembly. There is also Sam Schofield, the volunteer president of the Pincher Creek Chamber of Commerce, overnight built a resiliency website for COVID-19 by building training tools for businesses throughout his area. He also helped develop the Foothills Business Recovery Taskforce, which is a resource for businesses throughout southern Alberta in my riding. Finally, to the employees of Cargill Foods in High River, I know this has been a very difficult time and that many of you have lost loved ones. I want to say thank you for tirelessly doing all you can to protect our food supply and keep food on our table. Each and every one of you is a hero. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Simms. +Mr. Scott Simms (Coast of BaysCentralNotre Dame, Lib.): Thank you, Chair. I would like to take this time to salute those who go above and beyond the call of duty to provide care and comfort to others. In my 16 years in the House of Commons I have never experienced anything like this, when we find our lives are at a standstill and there is so much sorrow felt by families who suffer from the effects of COVID-19. However, here are two examples of kindness right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Shanna and Fred Patey of Bishop's Falls, along with a few of their friends, spend hours next to the Trans-Canada Highway with just a barbeque and a cooler. They serve free meals for truckers crossing our province each and every day. So far they have provided over 1,500 meals. There is also Mitch Strickland of Grand Falls-Windsor, who owns Appy's Diner. He has continually provided food for the local hospital and other front-line workers through his donations. To all our front-line workers in grocery stores and delivery trucks, and to doctors, nurses, LPNs, paramedics, first responders and, of course, our brave women and men in the military, we will be forever grateful and blessed because of you. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: That's all the time we have today for Statements by Members. Before going on, I just want to remind all the members that it is a one-minute statement, so if you don't mind, please time it before coming in because we do have limited time. The other thing that has come up is that some of you just naturally speak very quickly. I'm not here to judge anybody's way of speaking, but try to consider the translators and interpreters to make sure that everyone understands what is said, because they are working diligently to try to get both languages out. In sum, there are two things: please slow down and please make sure the statement is confined to one minute. We now move to Questions to Ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow the employees who are providing support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Our first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the early days of the pandemic and the lockdown that followed, Canadians were told by this government that programs would be rolled out very quickly and that gaps and shortcomings would be changed as time went on. While many Canadians are being let down by this government's response and its unnecessarily rigid programs, Conservatives identified solutions weeks ago, yet here we are, two and a half months later, and many of these programs still have not been improved. I have a simple question for the Prime Minister. On April 26 the Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account could qualify for those types of programs. It's now May 27. Is the Prime Minister going to make that change? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr. Chair, we knew from the beginning of this pandemic that we did need to move extremely quickly, and that's what we did. We rolled out the Canada emergency response benefit extremely quickly. Eight million Canadians have had that as a replacement for paycheques lost because of COVID-19. We also moved forward on the wage subsidy and a range of other programs to support workers and small businesses. What we've done in terms of helping small businesses with the Canada emergency business account has had a massive impact on small businesses across the country, but we understand that certain companies and businesses have particularities that mean it's a little more difficult for them to qualify. We are working with them through their regional development agencies, and we encourage them to approach their local RDAs, which will be able to help them get the money they deserve. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these are very simple technical fixes that can be made by this government. There's no excuse for the delay. It's May 27. They've known about these problems for weeks. They're trying to get patted on the back for actions they took back in March, and yet they are letting so many Canadians down by not making these very simple changes. For example, companies that have acquired another company in the last year have employees whose jobs are threatened. The businesses are not allowed to qualify for the wage subsidy because their revenue is now counted together. We have identified this gap. Again, it's a simple question. Will companies that have acquired another company still be allowed to use the wage subsidy to keep workers on the job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I know that there are many different types of businesses across this country that need support. We have moved forward on supporting as many of them as we possibly can, and we continue to work on filling gaps. I know the member opposite has talked to me a number of times about a tractor company in his riding. I can assure you that finance officials are engaged with that company to see if there's a way to make sure we're getting them the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's actually a very simple fix. I can save him and his officials a lot of time. The government used the word amalgamation when it announced the changes to that program. He can make this very clear, and save a lot of work, just by including the word acquisition. Will he do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that finance officials are working closely with Brandt Tractor. They're continuing to work with a range of businesses across the country that, for various reasons, are not able to apply for the help we have now. We will continue to work to make sure people who need the help get it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's literally one word. We can email him the text. We can send him the page in the dictionary where that word is defined, if that would help. Another gap that is letting people down is in the rent relief program. The government has set the parameters to qualify for the rent relief program for companies that have experienced a 70% revenue loss. There are untold thousands of businesses that have experienced a 50%, 55%, 60% or 65% loss that are ineligible but have no capacity to pay the rent. We called on the government weeks ago to have a more flexible sliding scale to allow more companies to access this program to keep more people on the job and more businesses open. Will the government introduce some flexibility to this program to help more businesses survive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, our public servants and policy-makers have been moving creatively and quickly to try to get help to as many people as we possibly can, with our focus being on the people who need it the most. Obviously, this pandemic is affecting everyone and every business across the country in different ways, but our focus has been on ensuring that those who most need it are getting the help they can. We will, of course, continue to work with the parties opposite and all Canadians to ensure that we're getting help to everyone who needs it, but our focus has always been on the most vulnerable, first and foremost. +The Chair: The floor now goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. If the Liberal Party of Canada had not taken advantage of the emergency programs, would it have laid off all its staff? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we recognized that a number of organizations and companies were facing difficulties because of COVID-19. People work for those organizations, as accountants, receptionists, assistants or labourers, and those people need to be supported. We are supporting people all over the country through that program. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party one of those organizations in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Any company or organization that can demonstrate a significant drop in its income, whether that be in donations, receipts, profits +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we created specific criteria to help organizations in difficulty. Any organization experiencing those difficulties can apply. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the Magdalen Islands, fishing companies in difficulty and in need of assistance will not have the money that the Liberals are going to take. Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have invested in assistance for fishers all across the country. We recognize that it is a difficult situation because of COVID-19. We will be here for our fishers and for industries in difficulty. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I am not catching many answers, it seems to me. A company in Drummondville that manufactures isolation membranes is in difficulty because a federal program is inadequate. Compared to that company, is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, there are clear criteria for submitting applications under these programs. Companies and organizations that receive money qualify for those programs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the program criteria establish that the Liberal Party is an organization in difficulty, does that mean that the criteria to determine whether an organization is in difficulty are poorly designed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all through this pandemic, our priority has been to be here for workers in difficulty so that they do not lose their jobs. This applies to all organizations and companies in the country to the extent possible. That is what we are in the process of doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Given the answers from the Prime Minister, let me ask this question: is the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: No, Mr.Chair. We are doing important work for all Canadians, every day. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Restaurant owners on rue Ontario in Montreal feel that they will not make it through the crisis and that they will never open their doors again. They are in difficulty. By comparison, is the Liberal Party of Canada an organization in difficulty that will not open its doors again after the crisis? We can but hope. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established criteria for that program in order to help those working for various organizations. Any organization that receives the subsidy has qualified for it. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is there a consensus in the Liberal Party caucus that the Liberal Party is in difficulty as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are working every day to help Canadians and workers in difficulty. We are going to continue to do that work. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Does answering a question put the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, it is a pleasure to be here in the House and to answer questions from Canadians and from members of the opposition. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: You are going to answer a question from a Quebecker, I hope. Companies are struggling in Saguenay, in the Gasp, in Beloeil. Would those companies not deserve to be saved by the money that the supposedly struggling Liberal Party has taken? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I am always very happy to answer questions from all Canadians currently sitting in the House. We will be here to help workers in difficulty all across the country, including in Quebec. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the Prime Minister is so happy to answer questions, I hope he will be delirious with joy to answer this one. Is the Liberal Party in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established a program to help those working in organizations and who could lose their jobs because of COVID-19. We are here to help workers in organizations and companies all over the country. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The conditions of seniors as outlined by the military were appalling, but seniors need more than just compassionate words. They need action. Will the Prime Minister stop hiding behind excuses and actually show leadership to fix long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the Constitution of Canada is not an excuse. It lays out the divisions of powers and responsibilities, and we respect the provinces' jurisdiction over long-term care facilities. However, from the very beginning, we have indicated our willingness to support the provinces on this very important issue. We need to make sure our seniors right across the country are properly cared for, which is why we sent in the military and why we are there to help the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The former federal health minister, Dr. Philpott, said, We need to stop using jurisdiction as an excuse to not have federal leadership. That is a former federal health minister. Now, we know from the military report that staff were afraid to use vital equipment because of the cost. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past couple of days I've had very good conversations with the premiers of both Quebec and Ontario on this important issue. I look forward to discussing issues around long-term care with all the premiers of the provinces and territories tomorrow evening as well. This is something that Canadians have seen needs concerted action. We will be there to support the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Needles were reused and expired medication was used, according to military reports. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in the care of our seniors? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the contents of that report were deeply disturbing and troubling for all Canadians. That is why we are committed to working with the provinces to fix this situation. Ontarians and indeed people right across the country are deeply preoccupied by what they've seen going on. We need to fix this, and we will do that together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that cockroaches and flies were present and that food was rotten. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards so that long-term care is governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our priority right now is ensuring that we are supporting the provinces in their need to make sure that all seniors are protected right across the country in all those institutions. Going forward, we absolutely will need to have more conversations about how we can ensure that every senior across the country is properly supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that respecting the dignity of patients was not a priority. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards and for long-term care to be governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, all Canadians know we need to do better by our seniors. This is something we all take very seriously, and all orders of government will work together to make sure that right now, and going forward, we improve our systems. The federal government will be there to work with the provinces on making that happen. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has said that he's willing to work with the provinces. I'm saying that we need to see federal leadership. We need a commitment at the federal level that the Prime Minister will push for things that people need, which is to remove profit from long-term care and to establish national standards. Will the Prime Minister go beyond working with provinces and show some leadership? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I will always be here to stand up for Canadians in all different situations. We are going to work with the provinces, fully respecting jurisdictions, to make sure that, all across the country, Canadians in long-term care are supported as required and receive the services and the care they deserve. +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 30 seconds. Ask a brief question, please. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much. The COVID-19 crisis should not be used as an excuse to avoid presenting solutions to the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls committee, in particular by delaying action on the calls for justice. This is the same government that would not recognize it as a genocide, the same government that delayed the United Nations declaration legislation and the same government that is still taking indigenous kids to court. Will this government commit to core funding for indigenous services to help women and girls and ensure that the calls for justice are implemented without delay? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we continue to work very closely with partners on the calls for justice even as we act in many areas, including better funding for shelters and for victims of domestic violence. We will continue to work with those partners, but people will understand that many of those partners are very focused right now on helping front-line workers, not on establishing the report. We will continue to work with them on the report, but the COVID-19 situation has made that more difficult. +The Chair: I want to thank the honourable members who are shouting time, but I do have a timer here, and I am taking care of it. I appreciate the help, but I do want to remind them that I have the proper machinery here. We will now go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Chair. My question is to the Prime Minister. He was just talking about the tragic conditions in long-term care facilities in Ontario, and there was a report out from Quebec today. I want to commend the Canadian Armed Forces for witnessing these appalling conditions, putting it in the context of a report, and providing care to our loved ones in these long-term care facilities. The government is saying they didn't receive the report from the department until May 22, but this report came out on May 14. What happened to that report for eight days? +The Chair: We will go to the honourable minister. We seem to have a technical issue, Mr. Sajjan. We can't hear you. You might want to put down your bar and keep it down while you're speaking. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, I want to thank our Canadian Armed Forces members for the tremendous work they are doing. They did their duty, noted down their observations and reported them. While those observations were being reported directly to the managers, a report was being compiled. This report was given to me on the 21st. I then forwarded it to the Minister of Public Safety on the 22nd, and that report was then given to the provincial authorities very quickly afterwards. +Mr. James Bezan: I trust that you got the report on the 21st, but the report was written on the 14th, so what happened with that report for seven days? Why wasn't it acted upon? Could you just explain that? Our loved ones were at risk during that entire time. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as we stated, this report was done and given up through the chain of command, and the appropriate leadership did their due diligence. Once we received this report, it was forwarded to the appropriate authorities. Again, I want to commend our Canadian Armed Forces members for not only the tremendous work they are doing but also for doing their duty. +Mr. James Bezan: That report from Ontario documented appalling conditions, horrific care that was being given to the clients, and also the way that the staff conducted themselves. We know that there are 39 members of the Canadian Armed Forces currently infected with COVID-19. Minister, do you believe that the infection could have been transmitted from staff to our soldiers serving in long-term care facilities because proper protocols were not being followed? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to any type of activities that we send our Canadian Armed Forces on, we do our due diligence to make sure that we have the right protocols in place and the appropriate training. This is why we have taken the time to make sure our folks not only did the appropriate training but had the appropriate equipment. We have the right protocols in place, and we will make sure that our members who are infected by COVID will get the appropriate treatment as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Does the Minister of National Defence believe that our soldiers serving in Operation Laser, who have put themselves in harm's way in battling the COVID virus as a war, deserve to have hazard pay benefits? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to looking after Canadian Armed Forces personnel, yes, we are actually in the process as we speak of making sure that our members have the appropriate hazard pay. This is currently being drafted, and we will have more to say on this shortly. +Mr. James Bezan: I hope that means it's a yes. I do encourage the government to provide that compensation to our soldiers and troops serving in Operation Laser. I would finally like to come back to the issue of the timeline from May 14 to May 21, when that report was in the department for one week. Under our parliamentary system, ministers are accountable for the conduct of their departments. Will the minister take responsibility for that report sitting on someone's desk for seven days and not being turned over to the proper authorities? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear: When it comes to the observations that were made, those were immediately reported to the appropriate management of the care facilities and to the appropriate links within the province. At the same time, this report was being compiled and pushed up to the chain of command, and they did their due diligence. As I stated, it was given to us, and on the same day it was forwarded to the Minister of Public Safety, who immediately then sent it to the provincial authorities. +Mr. James Bezan: Was one of those authorities that this was sent to the RCMP? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as stated, this will not only be given to the proper authorities but the appropriate steps will be taken now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Yesterday it was revealed that the Minister of Digital Government has been promoting a fundraising campaign to sue Global News for their story criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. Why is the minister using her authority to support the Communist Party of China and threatening our media and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray (Minister of Digital Government): Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media right across the country. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is simply not acceptable. Like many members on all sides of the House.... WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with +The Chair: Now we'll go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister aware of the efforts that the United Front carries out on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to influence how Canadians view the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Thank you for that question. Mr. Chair, I want to just be clear. The participation in the WeChat group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister an active participant in the efforts by the Communists to muzzle a Canadian journalist and deprive Canadians of the facts about China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Muzzling journalists is never acceptable, and our government is very clear on that. I will say that the individual in question posted something outside of the guidelines of my WeChat group and is no longer +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk, I just want to point out that we do have interpreters listening and trying to interpret. They'd appreciate it.... +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: My questions are short. That's probably what it is. +The Chair: Take a deep breath. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, the Liberals can't shrug this off. The minister admitted to theBreaker that her own political staff manages this WeChat. This is someone who is paid by Canadian taxpayers. Why is the minister using tax dollars to help China attack Global News and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray: I think the member knows very well that the people who post on WeChat are free to post what they choose within certain guidelines. Those guidelines were ignored. That person is no longer part of my WeChat group. The post was completely unacceptable, and I do not share the views of the individual. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, Sam Cooper is an investigative Canadian journalist who has uncovered many different criminal rackets that can be linked back to Beijing. Has the minister apologized to Sam Cooper for attempting to shut down his work? +Hon. Joyce Murray: As we all know, community outreach is a very important part of the work of a member of Parliament. WeChat is one of many social media sites regularly used by members +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, when will the minister apologize to Sam Cooper and Global News? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Mr. Chair, I have been very clear that I do not share the views of the person who posted on my WeChat site, who operated outside of my +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in December 2018 the Liberals passed Bill C-76. This included provisions to prevent foreign interference in Canadian society. Does the government believe that Joyce Murray's actions have violated this portion of the act? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that we are always vigilant in any foreign interference in our national security or issues of political interference in our society. It's monitored carefully by the national security establishment, according to the law as it exists in this country, and we will remain vigilant. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in May 2019, the Liberals launched their digital charter. One of the principles was strong democracy, a commitment to defend freedom of expression. Will the Liberals hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated this part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we are absolutely committed to the rule of law and will always uphold it. I think, as the minister has made very clear, she was not involved in this process and has no control over the individual who posted that matter. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, unfortunately I don't believe that was a sufficient answer. This is really a yes or no. Will the government hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated their part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that our government remains committed to the rule of law and we will always work tirelessly to uphold the laws of this country. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is that a yes or a no? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I think it was very clear. We will always uphold the laws of Canada. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Still, was that a yes or a no? I'm not hearing a yes or a no. +Hon. Bill Blair: I am doing my very best, Mr. Chair, to answer the question for the House and to assure the member opposite that our government will always remain committed to the rule of law. That is unequivocal. +The Chair: We will now move on to the honourable member. The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am very happy and proud to be participating in this discussion in the House of Commons today. My question is very simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, we continue to be transparent with our measures. Of course, we want to make sure that our investments, our economy +The Chair: The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Let me ask my question to the honourable Minister of Finance once more, since he is talking about transparency. My question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, our economic situation is very fluid. We have made major investments and we are making sure that our economy is working. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the minister's answer is not fluid at all. But the question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, it is important to be transparent with our investments. We look at the investments and the figures every day. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the Minister of Finance may not know what the deficit is, but one great Canadian does know. And he knows that he knows. Could the Minister of Finance be very clear, very fluid and, above all, very transparent with Canadians? What is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I want to be very clear with Canadians: our economic situation is very difficult. The situation is fluid. We are making investments to ensure that our economy will be strong in the future. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, with all due respect to the Minister of Finance, let me point out that, though he is not very clear, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer was clear yesterday. The deficit is $260billion. That is the real number. Why does the government not have the courage to state it clearly, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer did yesterday? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we always want to be clear and transparent. It is very important for the situation to be stable in order to ensure our future. That is our economic approach. We are making investments now so that the situation becomes more stable. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I know that the Minister of Finance is very good with figures. But he is not able to give us one. Perhaps he could comment on the statement that the Parliamentary Budget Officer made yesterday, that the emergency assistance must have an end date, and if it does not, we are heading to levels of taxation that have not been seen in this country for generations. What is the government going to do to make sure that Canadians will not be overtaxed after this crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to make investments. That way, we will have a resilient economy in the future. That's very important. That way, we know that we'll have a good economy in the future. When we have more information, we will +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, will the minister commit not to raise taxes after the crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I have said several times that we do not have a plan to raise taxes. That's very important. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Finally a clear answer! However, I'm not convinced that he will apply it. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer himself has said that there isn't much ammunition left without shifting into a large structural deficit, which can lead directly to tax increases. If the Minister of Finance can't even say today what the deficit is today, how can he be credible when he says that he won't raise taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I think what's most important is that during this pandemic, Canadians and companies across the country need the Government of Canada's help. That is our approach. That way, we will have an economy that will function in the future. Of course, this is important for future generations. +Mr. Grard Deltell: When will there be an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, all observers are expecting an economic update to know where we're going. When will that happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we want our economic update to be accurate. That's why we are looking at information that allow us to make good forecasts. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam have created an economic prosperity group to diversify some of their key supply chains away from China. Canada has a free trade agreement with six of these seven countries. Why are we not part of this group? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for that question. Indeed, we have been working diligently with all of these countries to make sure that we are keeping global supply chains open during this critical time. I think everyone agrees that keeping supply chains open for medical goods, critical agriculture and essential goods is absolutely essential and +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, this government is refusing to come to terms with what COVID-19 will mean for the future of international trade. Why is Canada not at the table with our largest trading partner protecting the viability of our international supply chains and capitalizing on the opportunities of others doing the same? +The Chair: Before we go to the minister, one of the members has his mike still on, and I would ask that he turn it off. I am hearing background noise. The hon. minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has unprecedented access to a number of markets around the world because of the extraordinary agreements that we have made to provide access to customers in those international markets. During COVID-19, we have been working with our G20 partners. I have had two meetings with G20 trade ministers on the importance of keeping supply chains +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, is this payback for the Prime Minister snubbing these countries at the original TPP signing? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we have a CPTPP arrangement with these countries, and we are looking forward to making sure that we get Canadian businesses growing into those markets. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the U.K. will begin applying tariffs at the beginning of next year on Canadian exports such as seafood, beef and cars. These are the items that have had tariffs removed under CETA. Will the government commit to having a new trade agreement with the U.K. in place by January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we are monitoring the situation very carefully. The U.K., of course, is a very important trading partner for Canada. They are in discussions right now. I want to assure Canadian businesses that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the U.K. during this period while they go through Brexit. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, after CUSMA, this government guaranteed to the trade committee that they would publish the objectives of any new trade agreement. When will we see these objectives published and actually have a chance to view them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we look forward to working to ensure that those objectives are published as we get into future trade discussions. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the resignation of the WTO director-general at this unprecedented time is concerning for the international trade community. Is the government committed to supporting a DG candidate who is dedicated to the massive reforms needed to get the WTO functioning again? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for that good question. The Ottawa group, led by Canada, is working with like-minded countries on the reform of the WTO. We've been doing this work and we continue to do this work. I look forward to making sure that we are leading the way on those discussions with like-minded +The Chair: Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the President of the United States considered blocking cattle imports. Our beef producers don't need this. They need stability. Three-quarters of Canada's beef cattle exports go to the U.S. Has the government sought out and received assurances from the United States that no such action will apply to Canadian cattle? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, we have an excellent assurance of our trade with the United States, which is our new NAFTA trade agreement that we have negotiated, thanks to the unprecedented co-operation across this country. It is very important to the Canadian economy and Canadian producers. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, going forward post-COVID, there are a lot things that will be changing in supply chains. What is this government doing proactively to look at opportunities in these supply chains that Canadian businesses can take advantage of? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we continue to work with countries around the globe to ensure that Canada's supply chains and those global supply chains, particularly for essential goods, for agricultural products, for medical supplies, continue to remain open. We will keep doing this work. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, on the agriculture side, canola farmers would like to know the status of canola going into China. Can she update the House on that status? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I want to assure my colleague that we are continuing to work with our industry representatives, our allies and our trading partners in China. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senior Canadian bureaucrats received very credible reports in early January that China was procuring and hoarding PPE. As a member of cabinet, was the health minister aware? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning of the outbreak in early January we were aware of the challenges our health sector would face, and we immediately began to work with the provinces and territories to understand what the need would be and how we could best prepare. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: In April, the minister stated there were not enough supplies in the national emergency stockpile. Can she explain why she approved a donation of 16 tonnes of PPE for China on January 31, claiming it would not compromise our supply? She can't have it both ways. We don't have enough; we have enough and it won't compromise it. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, we are operating in a highly competitive global environment, and the reality is that we need to make sure we have multiple complementary supply chains operating at the same time, which we have been doing in the past weeks and months, to ensure our front-line health care workers have the supplies they need to keep Canadians safe. That's our priority. That's what we're working on. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Unfortunately, this question was directed to the health minister, referencing things she actually stated in terms of the availability of our supplies. Before the she signed off on the donationand it was the health minister who signed off on the donationdid she consult with the health ministers in the provinces and territories? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, provinces and territories have their own stockpiles, which of course they use to prepare for incidences of outbreak and other illnesses across their jurisdictions. We've worked very closely with the provinces and territories since the beginning of the outbreak to make sure we can provide any particular additional support. In fact, of all the requests made so far, we have been able to complete them. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Health care workers are now having to look at modified full-face snorkels as an alternative to N95 masks. Did it not occur to the minister that our hospitals and care homes could have used that PPE she shipped out, providing a longer opportunity for them to also get procurement done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, the equipment that was donated when China was in its outbreak was an important donation of nearly expired or expired goods that it was in desperate need of in its effort to try to contain the virus. As the member opposite knows, we've been able to work successfully with provinces and territories to ensure they have what they need. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Mr. Chair, I would suggest that during February and March our hospitals would have consumed that almost-expired product very efficiently, but I want to move on to another topic. When defending the sale of 22 seniors' homes to the Chinese government, the Prime Minister stated that we have a strong regulatory regime that imposes rigorous standards. He said that this regime ensures the care our seniors get is top quality. That was in 2017. Now he states he is saddened, shocked, disappointed and angered. Was the Prime Minister completely oblivious to the risks, or was he just too anxious to please the Chinese government when he sold those 22 homes? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the homes the member opposite is referring to are in the province of B.C., and I have to commend the province for the early work it did to protect seniors in those long-term care homes. The member opposite is trying to confuse the issue. As she knows, the review we did was entirely separate from the standards to which the province holds the care homes. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: The Prime Minister does not have authority over seniors' homes, which he has clearly stated, but he does have authority over the act in which he approved the sale. At 18 months, government had an obligation to make sure there was compliance. Was that done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the long-term care homes in each province fall within the jurisdiction of their own particular act, and those provinces and territories are responsible for fulfilling the inspections required under that act. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Under the Investment Canada Act, the government is obligated to review the sale for compliance. Four homes had to close. Since the government approved the sale, it is complicit in the care of our seniors in this country +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear that we understand how difficult this is for seniors. That is why we follow the appropriate steps, outlined under the Investment Canada Act, to make sure that any measures we take keep seniors and their well-being first and foremost. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you now have the floor. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Mr.Chair, during the pandemic, the government has given money to companies that don't pay a cent in tax because they use tax havens. We told the government that it didn't make sense. The government's response was that it is no big deal. During the pandemic, the government gave money to Air Canada, but Air Canada never reimbursed customers who did not get the services they paid for. We told the government that it did not make sense. The government's response was that it was no big deal. During the pandemic, the Liberal Party used the emergency wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. We told them that it did not make sense. The government responded that it was no big deal. Is the moral of the story that the government thinks that dipping into the pockets of taxpayers to spend money carelessly is no big deal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, the fight against tax evasion is a priority for our government. We will continue to target companies that use tax evasion schemes. Let me be clear: in everything we do, we will target companies and not innocent workers. Employees are employees, no matter who they work for. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, when I see that it's the Minister of National Revenue answering me, I don't feel like buying a lottery ticket. The Liberal Party used two airplanes in its last election campaign, which seems to indicate that it isn't short of money. However, the Liberals used the emergency wage subsidy. Why? Is it because they want taxpayers to fund a third airplane? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to protect employees across the country and in every economic sector that's experiencing a significant drop in income. That's the approach we've taken to protect people and to ensure that there will be jobs in the future. We will continue this approach. +Mr. Alain Therrien: It's especially important to protect the employees who work for the Liberals to ensure their re-election, yet the Liberal Party has raised more than $7million since the last election. Is the party in jeopardy? Can it go bankrupt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, as I said, our approach is to protect employees. We think that this principle is very important and that this approach must be maintained in order to have a better job market in the future. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, we still don't know exactly how much money the Liberals took from the cookie jar. We think they may have taken as much as $1million. How many SMEs could have been saved with the $1million that the Liberals took out of the jar and took away from SMEs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we appreciate the question. We are protecting hundreds of thousands of SMEs through the emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency response benefit and all our programs. We will continue this approach to help SMEs and their employees. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I will propose a choice of answers, or I won't get any. When did the government decide to use the emergency wage subsidy? Now here are three possible answers. The first possible answer is that when the Liberals brought in the emergency wage subsidy, they set parameters allowing them to use it. The second is that when the Liberals saw the Conservative Partywhich is as rich as they are, but also sanctimonious and self-righteoustake advantage of the subsidy, they thought they could do it too. The third possible answer is that the Liberals hadn't planned to use the subsidy, but they pounced on the cookie jar when they saw it, because that's what they do. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we continue to think it is very important to protect employees in every sector of the economy and across Canada. That's our approach, and I believe it's the right one to protect and preserve jobs across the country during a pandemic. +The Chair: We are now going to suspend the proceedings for a few seconds to allow the employees who provide support for the meeting to replace each other safely. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now resume the discussion. We'll continue with Ms. Khalid, the honourable member for MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for PickeringUxbridge. Mr. Chair, when the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces stepped in to provide support to five long-term care homes in Ontario at the request of the premier, they released a report that outlined their findings in detail. Military members witnessed residents' cries for help going unanswered. They saw force-feeding. They saw bug infestations, a lack of personal protective equipment and neglect. Canadians are shaken. They are appalled by the horrific conditions outlined in the military report. Almost 1,000 seniors so far have lost their lives in long-term care homes in Ontario alone, over 25 of them in my riding of MississaugaErin Mills. These deaths could have been prevented. Can the Minister of Health please update the House on how our federal government is working with the provinces and territories to prevent further tragic occurrences from happening at long-term care homes and to ensure that our most vulnerable seniors are properly looked after and cared for? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's such an important question. I believe all Canadians were deeply horrified to read the details from the Canadian Armed Forces on the conditions in long-term care homes in Ontario. What's happening to seniors in Ontario is completely unacceptable. The report is very troubling. Seniors deserve to live with dignity, with respect and with safety. While long-term care is provincially regulated, we know that we need to work together. The Government of Canada stands ready to support provinces and territories as they continue to respond to this crisis. I had a very good conversation with my provincial and territorial counterparts last night about the work we can do at a national level to support their important work. We also know that seniors want to stay at home longer. That's why our historic investment of $6 billion in home care was so important. We'll continue to work with the provinces and territories to ensure that they get the care and dignity they deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Ms. O'Connell. +Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (PickeringUxbridge, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will sadly report that my community of Pickering has experienced the largest number of deaths at a single COVID-19 outbreak location anywhere in this country. Seventy residents at Orchard Villa long-term care home died during this pandemic. It was a devastating blow to our community. Yesterday, we received the horrific report from the Canadian Armed Forces detailing what they witnessed at Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor in Brampton. The loved ones of those who have passed away, as well as the homes' workers, have asked for a full public inquiry from the Ontario government. I know that the responsibility for these facilities falls within provincial jurisdiction, but on behalf of our communities, can the Minister of Health update us on the work she is doing to ensure that the Ontario government takes action immediately and initiates a full, independent, non-partisan public inquiry and reverses its decision to create a government-led commission that won't even start until September? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I would say that all Canadians were shocked and horrified to hear about the conditions that existed in these particular care homes. We're so grateful to the members of the armed forces who not only improved conditions but also reported them quickly and appropriately to ensure amelioration of those conditions for those particular individuals. We also know that there are seniors all across the country who are struggling with care and with the appropriate level of care. We have to do better as a country. These are our loved ones. These are our parents and our grandparents. These are the people in our lives who have given so much to us. I stand committed to working with my provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure that we do better as a society. We know that there's a role we can play at the federal level with advice, with guidance, with support and, yes, with investments. We look forward to having those conversations about how best we can improve the care for all seniors amongst us. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Mr. Davies from Vancouver Kingsway. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians were horrified to hear the report yesterday from our armed forces about the appalling conditions experienced by seniors in our long-term care homes. Page after page detailed the filth, neglect, abuse and danger our seniors in care are exposed to on a daily basis. Shockingly they face injury and death through missed medications, expired medications, unsterile devices and violations of basic contagion rules to stop the spread of COVID-19. Given that evidence of possible criminal conduct was contained in the military's report, will the minister refer this matter to the RCMP for investigation immediately? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, thanks very much to the member for those expressions of concern, which we share. We understand in long-term care facilities both seniors and persons living with a disability face unique challenges, and the findings of this report are in fact deeply concerning and completely unacceptable. Considering the severity of this report, we promptly shared it with the Province of Ontario, and the Province of Ontario has initiated an investigation based on the report's findings. Their investigation includes alerting the province's chief coroner who has the authority to alert the police of jurisdiction. We will continue to work with the province to protect those living in long-term care facilities, and we continue to support them through the deployment of our outstanding Canadian Armed Forces and in our partnership with the Red Cross. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, that's a shocking answer considering there's clear evidence of criminal conduct and negligence in this. That this federal government is not taking immediate steps to refer this to the nation's RCMP is unacceptable. The seniors care crisis is a national problem. COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities across Canada's entire network of long-term care facilities. Not a single province or territory currently meets the benchmark of 4.1 hours of hands-on care per day. As a result Canada has the worst record of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care among 14 comparable countries, with over 80% of Canadian fatalities occurring in these facilities. Will this government move swiftly to establish binding national standards for long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite is exactly correct when he says that those who are hardest hit in terms of losing their lives and the negative effects of COVID are those who are living in long-term care homes. He's also correct when he indicates that COVID-19 has shown us what many of us have known for a long time, that we need to do better in long-term care and supports for seniors. As the member knows, we started those steps some four years ago or so when we began to make incredible investments in aging at home. We know that is one part of the solution, but we have to do better for those seniors who need a higher level of care. That's the work I'm doing now. I'm working with my colleagues at the provinces and territories to make sure that we come up with a solution that will truly result in better standards for all. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what we need is binding national standards, just like we set through the Canada Health Act in the health care sector generally. Gross fecal contamination, filthy medical equipment, insect infestations, ignoring patient cries for hourswe would never tolerate these conditions in Canada's hospitals. There's no reason to accept them in Canada's long-term care facilities. Will the minister move to bring long-term care facilities under the Canada Health Act, or similar legislation, with formal funds tied to acceptable standards of care for our seniors, just like we do for hospitals? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member shares the disgust and concern of so many Canadians across the country, not only those who have read the report but many of those who have struggled to provide care to elders in those long-term care homes, regardless of the province in which they live. We know we need to do better. We know that collectively, at all levels of government, we must do better for those people who cared for us and nurtured us all of those years. The member has my commitment that I will work with provinces and territories to find a solution forward to ensure that every person has the right to age with dignity and safety. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Davies, you have 15 seconds for another question, a short one, and leave time for a response. +Mr. Don Davies: Thank you, Mr. Chair. These failures are the product of systemic neglect often motivated by prioritizing profit over the provision of adequate care. Does the minister agree that we should not be putting profits above the health care needs of Canada's seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I believe that, when we commit to taking care of people, we must do so with the utmost care that is required. I know that provinces and territories have a lot of work to do. So do we, at the federal level, and obviously at the local level. We must all work together to protect those people in our lives who are most vulnerable, whether they be seniors, children or others. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move on to Mr. Schmale, HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock. Mr. Schmale, go ahead. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. According to Vaughn Palmer in an editorial in the Vancouver Sun regarding the secret Wet'suwet'en deal, Palmer writes: The hereditary chiefs calculated the two governments would sign despite the objections from the elected chiefs. They likewise got the terms they wanted in the MOU while giving up absolutely nothing. Just as they figured governments would keep the contents secret from the public. Can the minister describe another situation in which the federal government negotiated a secret deal of this magnitude with unelected people? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I thank the member for his ongoing concern and I want to remind him that actually it is in keeping with the Supreme Court decision of 1997 that we were to now begin those conversations with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who took the case to the Supreme Court. As we've said many times, this is not an agreement; this is an MOU that establishes the path forward for the substantive discussions towards a final agreement, which would describe the future governance and the implementation of Wet'suwet'en rights and title. It is about a shared commitment. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, if it is a shared commitment, why on the eve of the signing ceremony did the four elected chiefs denounce the hereditary chiefs for keeping them in the dark? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it's really important that the member understand that there was a process for the hereditary chiefs to go back to their communities and discuss with them. Any agreement after the good work that will happen now would have to go back and seek the approval of all of the communities. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, the Burns Lake Band members are openly wondering if they're still a band or if the few unelected hereditary chiefs will control everything now. Minister, can you assure them that going forward you will honour their concerns and take the time to listen? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I ask honourable members to still direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Actually, the honourable member knows that the next steps include the further and ongoing engagement by the Wet'suwet'en in their house groups and that will include the six elected chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en nation, their community members and many others. This is about going forward and making sure that any +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Cynthia Joseph, a chief councillor with the Hagwilget First Nation says the MOU between Ottawa, the province and the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs was only shared with her community members on May 9, two days after it was published in the media. Is this part of the open and transparent government all Canadians can expect of the Prime Minister? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Walking the path of reconciliation means that we work with our partners and there is a way that they do the work within their communities. It is going to be an agreement to begin the work, but any final agreement is going to have to be approved by all members of the nation in terms of developing a consensus for the agreement +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Does the minister have any concerns regarding claims by several former female hereditary chiefs that they were stripped of their hereditary status because they didn't agree with the men? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it is going to be really important that the work take place within the Wet'suwet'en nation to determine their future governance, to determine their way of working with Canada and to make sure +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. For some reason it seems to be a problem to stand up for these hereditary female chiefs who had their titles taken away. Does the minister plan on recognizing band council resolutions denying the authority of hereditary chiefs to sign any future agreements without consent of the elected chiefs and the 3,000 members within the Wet'suwet'en they represent? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member must understand that, as we begin the work, the nation will do its work and then we will come to the table to determine what the governance would be. Will it be a hybrid model like at Heiltsuk, like Ktunaxa, like some of the communities developing their constitutions, developing their laws and deciding how they will determine their own governance and that partnership with Canada? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The current restrictions on non-essential travel at the border do not prevent people from claiming refugee protection if they have family in Canada. Why is the minister refusing to allow married people to cross the border? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the honourable member for a very important question. We have heard from many constituents and members of Parliament from right across the country who are expressing concern about non-status spouses being denied entry into the country because their travel is deemed to be non-essential. I've recently been in touch with all of the provinces and territories because I think it's very important that we have their support for any changes +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: If I understand correctly, Mr.Minister, you are talking to provincial representatives, but a case like that of ChantalTremblay, for instance, is unacceptable. For two months now, she has been trying to bring her spouse to Canada, but it isn't working. Is there a way to issue a directive to border services officers that married spousesit's often marriages with Americanscan cross the border to join their spouses in Canada? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clearagain, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify thisit is never our intention to separate families, but at the same time, we have imposed appropriate and necessary restrictions on non-essential travel. Our border services officers inquire of everyone coming to that border about the nature of their travel, and for non-citizens who come to that border seeking entry into Canada, if their entry is deemed non-essential, then they exercise their discretion not to allow +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. Information from the Canada Border Services Agency has just come out. Since March21, 425,000people have flown into Canada. Among them were 295,000Canadians, which isn't a problem. However, 100,000foreigners have entered Canada, even though the border is supposedly closed. How does the minister explain the fact that 100,000people arrived in Canada by plane? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify. We have imposed very significant restrictions on non-essential travel, but of course there are circumstances where individuals come to this country and their entry into Canada is deemed essential. For example, someone who is providing medical services and coming into Canada to provide those services would be deemed essential, because there is a great need among Canadians for those services. It's dealt with on a case-by-case basis. As you can see by the numbers, we have had a very significant reduction in the travel of all non-Canadians to Canada over the past two months. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So the minister confirms that the 100,000people who arrived by air were providing a service considered essential to Canada. I'm not talking about the people who crossed the land border, but the people who came to Canada by air. +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can tell you is that at all points of entry, including our air borders, we apply the standard that the travel must be deemed essential, and that determination is utilized to see if a person is eligible to enter into the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: We're now learning that the Correctional Service of Canada's investigation into the murder of MarylneLevesque is suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Canadians aren't fooled; they know full well that it is a political decision. All the technological means are available to allow the investigation to continue. I'm proof of that today. Can the minister direct the Correctional Service of Canada to resume the investigation into the death of MarylneLevesque? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member for the question, because we know the concern of the people of Quebec, and the family of Ms. Levesque needs answers and deserves answers. That's why we asked the Parole Board and the Correctional Service of Canada to convene a board of investigation. Clearly, during COVID transmission, the ability to conduct that investigation and to interview all of the witnesses became extremely difficult and has been temporarily suspended, but at the very earliest opportunity we remain resolute to resume that investigation and get to the bottom of it to provide the answers that the family deserves. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have only 20seconds remaining. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, victims of crime are one of the segments of the population most affected by the crisis. As we know, the government refuses to allow victims of crime to participate in parole hearings. For the first time in its history, and to add insult to injury, the government has cancelled all activities related to Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, which was to take place next week. Why is the Prime Minister turning his back on victims? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, at the earliest days of COVID, until arrangements could be put in place, there were restrictions on victims participating. We have put the systems in place to allow victims to present their evidence virtually, either by video or by phone, to ensure that their voices are heard in these important things. We very much respect and support the role of victims in these determinations, and we're making every effort to ensure that they can participate. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now to Mr. Cumming, Edmonton Centre. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday I asked the Minister of Small Business how many business credit availability guarantees were issued by EDC, and I didn't get a number. Does she have an exact, finite, number of the guarantees today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for that question. Our government has taken swift and immediate action to support Canadian businesses through this time. Money from this program is flowing, and businesses across the country are receiving the important support that they need. +Mr. James Cumming: How many BCAP applications have been received so far? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these are large loans, and they require important due diligence and adjudication by the financial institutions. We will continue to be open and transparent as the accurate information becomes available. +Mr. James Cumming: How long does it take to be approved for a BCAP guarantee? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure the member that we're going to do everything possible to support businesses and workers during this very important time. +Mr. James Cumming: How many businesses have received funding under the BCAP co-lending program since March? +Hon. Mary Ng: The lending programs, particularly the program to help small businesses, have really helped lots of businesses. Over 630,000 loans have been issued, and this is really helping those +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Unfortunately, lots is not an answer for the businesses that I'm trying to talk to. Can you tell me, for the CEBA changes that were recently announced, when will we be able to see people who have income through a dividend able to apply? +Hon. Mary Ng: That's a very important question, Mr. Chair. There's nothing more important to me and to our government than getting these supports out to businesses. Those small businesses that will meet the expanded CEBA criteria are working very diligently with the financial institutions to make sure that they can get access to those loans as quickly as possible. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a day when that will happen? +Hon. Mary Ng: The financial institutions are working very hard to make sure that they can make this available to businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: When will a sole proprietor be able to go for those loans? +Hon. Mary Ng: We will work very hard and very diligently to make sure that these businesses and those sole proprietors are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Could they go on Monday? +Hon. Mary Ng: There is nothing more important than making sure these businesses weather the difficult time of COVID-19, and our measures are +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How about Tuesday? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think we will all agree that getting support to these businesses is absolutely crucial. Our commitment is always going to be to get support to these businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: I can't get a distinct answer on any of those questions. Can you tell me how much headroom is left on the CEBA program? +Hon. Mary Ng: Today, over 630,000 businesses have received the support to do things like pay for salaries, the 25% top-up for the wage subsidy, pay for rent and pay for insurance and utilities. This is what these loans are helping our small +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars are left in the program so businesses can have some certainty that the program will be available for some time? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think you will see that the businesses across the country that I have talked to really appreciate that the government has stepped up to help them during this difficult time. These include women with businesses, indigenous-owned businesses and those small businesses all across our communities, all across the country, that are getting the necessary help. We are going to keep +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars? It can't be that complicated. How many dollars? +Hon. Mary Ng: There are 630,000 businesses that are getting help, and thousands more businesses will be getting help with the expanded criteria. We're going to keep doing the work that we need to help our businesses across this country through this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: I heard from a constituent in my riding that they waited for over four hours on the portal for CECRA. Is there an issue with the portal, and if so, when will it be fixed? +Hon. Mary Ng: Making sure that businesses get the help for commercial rent support is absolutely crucial right now. We are going to endeavour to make sure that this help gets out to those small businesses. Applications have opened in a staggered way and +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one last short question, Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Finally, the Prime Minister yesterday said that a list of all organizations that have been receiving CEWS will be made public. When will that be done? +Hon. Mary Ng: We have committed to making sure that those companies taking the wage subsidy program will be listed publicly. We have committed to doing that and we will do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now go to Mr. d'Entremont from West Nova. Mr. d'Entremont, go ahead. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries, but I thought I would say this first. The Canadian Coast Guard is doing a search at this moment following the loss of a vessel off the coast of Newfoundland. From my community, which is a seafaring, fishing community, I just want to put my thoughts out there to the folks of Newfoundland. We are definitely thinking of them during this difficult time. My first question revolves around the lobster fishery. It's been open in Cape Breton since May 15, I believe. The weather has been good. The harvesters have been going at it every day. The price has dropped to $4.25 already. Unstable markets will probably cause it to drop even more. What is the minister doing to make sure the lobster industry survives? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my colleague for his comments with regard to the tragic accident off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where we saw the loss of life in a fishing accident. Of course, as coastal people, we are all in solidarity with the people of Newfoundland right now. We know that the fish and seafood sector has taken extreme hits because of COVID-19. We're working diligently to make sure we support the industry as best we can. We have made available over half a billion dollars to processors and harvesters to make sure they can weather this storm. We have made sure that the harvesters are able to access the harvester benefit as well as the grant, recognizing the unique nature of their business and how they are not able to access some of our other programs. We are continuing to monitor what is happening in the industry. We will continue to make sure we do everything we can to support the fish and seafood sector. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, to continue along this vein for a moment, we are still looking at unstable markets for a longer period of time. At this point, processors are being selective in what they're buying. They're not buying culls and other kinds of lobsters. The plants are filling up, and harvesters are worried that they might stop buying product before the season is complete. What can the fishermen expect, or what kinds of programs can they expect, if the season goes bust? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that this is a very challenging season for our harvesters. We also know that because of the decline in markets, we've had to make accommodations for the processing sector in order to help them be better able to support the harvesters. We have put in $62.5 million, which is allowing the processors to increase capacity in their refrigeration and freezers so that they will continue to be able to purchase product. As I said earlier, we will continue to monitor the situation and make sure we do everything possible to support our harvesters. This is a very difficult +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, I don't know whether this next question will go to the Minister of DFO or the Minister of Transport. Oakley Ryerson is a resident of West Nova. He is planning a career on the sea and wants to get his master class four. The problem is that he can't pass the eye exam. He needs full-colour vision. For those who are far-sighted or nearsighted, you just have to put on your glasses to correct it. You can actually fly airplanes. I don't know about space shuttles, but who knows? You can now wear colour-corrected lenses, but Transport Canada still does not recognize these for use. Can the Minister of Transport help Ryerson in attaining his chosen profession? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I appreciate the concern of my colleague for one of the residents in his riding. I would ask him to write to me and lay out the situation. We have medical standards with respect to a number of different kinds of transportation-related jobs for pilots, mariners and those kinds of occupations, which have to be respected. However, if he sends me the details, I will look into it personally. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. d'Entremont, you have another 20 to 25 seconds left. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the eligibility criteria for financial support include the need to demonstrate a significant loss of income during the months of March and April, yet several SMEs in the tourism industry can't qualify because their operations start with the tourist season, in late May or early June. What will the government do to help them? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, before accessing the emergency wage subsidy, applicants must meet important criteria. However, as we explained last week, we will be adjusting the wage subsidy until the end of August, and we will be reviewing the criteria. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're going to go to the west coast and the member for SaanichGulf Islands. Ms. May, go ahead. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is with regard to the urgent problem of mental health crises across Canada. My colleague, Jenica Atwin from Fredericton, held a press conference this morning in which she used the term echo pandemic. We will face an echo pandemic. We're already seeing increases in suicides on southern Vancouver Island. My question to the minister is this: Will we see direct funding to community mental health services as urgently requested by the Canadian Mental Health Association? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I read the honourable member's colleague's letter just today, and I want to reassure all members that we have invested in mental health supports for Canadians, obviously before the pandemic hit but certainly since we've been living with the pandemic. I'd like to remind all members to direct their constituents to the wellnesstogether.ca website and portal. There Canadians can find online resources, as well as connections to real and alive counsellors and other professionals who can help them with their various concerns. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This question relates to another current emergency: the climate emergency. This week it was reported that the concentration of greenhouse gases reached 417 parts per million. That's not just unprecedented over thousands of years; that's unprecedented over the last one million years. The temperatures in the Arctic broke 86F, 30C in the Arctic circle. The recognized parties in the House have established standing committees to work, but not the committee on the environment. We've asked for this in negotiations. When will the recognized parties remember the June 2019 emergency resolution that we are in a climate emergency, and start making sure that we hit 2020 commitments under the Paris Agreement to improve our targets? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's questions. I will remind her that we have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. We've also committed to surpassing the targets that we had originally set for 2030. We realize that along with the COVID pandemic, which is the major problem that exists in the world today, there is another problem as well that affects the entire planet, and that is the problem associated with climate change. We remain committed to achieving those targets. +Ms. Elizabeth May: My next question will be for Minister Blair, but as an aside, I will say that last answer completely fails to meet the legal requirements of the Paris Agreement to file a new target this year. To save some time, Minister Blair, let's pretend to go back to the questions from my colleague MP Paul-Hus and to your last answer. This is dealt with on a case-by-case basis by CBSA agents. There are thousands of them. They are exercising personal, subjective judgment. This is not acceptable. I'm begging the minister. Could the minister please put out a directive, advice to every CBSA agent on the ground, that when a non-status entry point sees a non-status direct relativehusband, wife, child of a Canadian citizenthat relative be deemed to be entering Canada for an essential purpose? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for bringing this issue forward again. It's an important one. We have been working very hard to ensure that we do everything possible to keep families together. At the same time, we've been working with the provinces and territories, listening to the concerns of Canadians about ensuring that travel across our international border, particularly with the United States, is limited to essential travel. As I've indicated, I've had a number of important conversations and necessary conversations with our provincial and territorial partners. I believe there is a consensus on the right way forward on this, and we're working very diligently to put it in place. I want to assure the member opposite that we have given very clear direction to our CBSA officers. I believe our border services officers have been doing an extraordinary job for us in the exercise of their discretion. At the same time, they have been doing the important work of ensuring the health and safety of Canadians at our border. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Kwan for Vancouver East. Ms. Kwan, go ahead. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Four out of the five homes listed in the armed forces report were for-profit. It is painfully clear that corporate profits are being put ahead of the well-being of seniors. Will the minister admit that the for-profit model is failing our loved ones and commit to getting profits out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite notes, nobody can read that report or hear those stories without feeling absolute horror and disgust and without demanding better for the elders in our lives. As I have mentioned many times in the House, our government remains committed to working with provinces and territories to ensure that every elder person in our community can age with dignity and in safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Minister, if that's the case, I will ask again. Will the minister make sure that the focus of long-term care homes is taking care of seniors and not taking care of owners' bank accounts? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member will obviously know, long-term care remains in the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, and there is legislation that rules them as such. As the member also knows, we have stood by Ontario and all of the other provinces and territories throughout this outbreak. The Prime Minister has been very clear +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Is the minister refusing to answer the question because she agrees that profit should come before care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I think it's unfortunate that the member is trying to place words in my mouth. What I do agree with, though, is that long-term care needs to be reformed, and I think all provinces and territories know, and all Canadians know, that we have to do a better job. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It's simple for the minister. She can just answer the question. Is she willing to defend for-profit care for our seniors? Is she in favour of for-profit private health care too? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: What I am willing to defend is the right for all Canadians to age with safety and dignity. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: To the minister, what is the difference? Why sell out the care of our seniors? Will she commit that she will take profit out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member opposite knows that the only way to actually reform long-term care is to work with provinces and territories, in fact, all levels of government, to ensure that the people who spent their lives caring for and nurturing us can end their lives with caring and nurturing +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I think the minister knows that what we need is national standards for seniors' care. The Revera long-term care homes are owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. Since the government owns these homes, has the military been sent in there to see what's happening to seniors under their care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we know that it is important to work with all of the provinces and territories under whose jurisdiction it falls to protect the seniors within those care homes. That's what we've been doing since the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus, and that's what we'll continue to do to protect the lives of seniors and strengthen their protection. We will, as I said, Mr. Chair, work with the provinces and territories to have a longer-term plan so that all seniors can age with dignity and safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The government has a clear responsibility here. What is the government doing to ensure the standards of care in these Revera homes that they own? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I have repeatedly said, the jurisdiction for care of long-term care homes falls within the provincial and territorial realm. However, that being said, Mr. Chair, we have been there for provinces and territories since the outbreak of the coronavirus, and as the member opposite has clearly or likely heard the Prime Minister say, we will stand with provinces and territories as all elders have the right to age with dignity +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I didn't hear an answer, Mr. Chair, so the answer is nothing, then. Do you think that the families of the seniors in these homes want to hear those excuses about jurisdictional issues? Does the minister not think that the families want to hear that the federal government is doing all it can to care for their parents? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would remind the members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quite frankly, I don't think that families care which level of government is responsible for caring for their elders. I think what they care about is that their elders are cared for. That's in fact what the Prime Minister believes. That's in fact what our government believes, and that's why we have willingly stepped up to say to provinces and territories that we will be there with you to make sure that all seniors in our lives have the right to age with dignity and care. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now give the floor to Mrs.Gill, from the riding of Manicouagan. Go ahead, Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Mr.Chair, my question is for the Prime Minister who, earlier, clearly told us that the government's assistance is intended for those who are most in need and most vulnerable. I come from a riding where a lot of people make their living from the tourism industry. I don't know if the PrimeMinister read the newspapers yesterday, but in Quebec, losses to the tune of $4billion are expected until March2021 in the tourism accommodation sector alone. The service sector will lose 93,000jobs. How can I justify to my constituents the fact that a political party, which does not need it, has already seen money from the emergency wage subsidy, when people in my riding don't yet have access to it because of the seasonal nature of their work? These people haven't seen the money that is available through these programs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We think it is very important to protect the country's employees in all sectors of the economy. Through this approach, there will be more jobs after the pandemic, and the economic situation will be better. We will continue this approach. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, this is the wrong approach. They are saying that they are protecting the jobs of the Liberal Party of Canada, which does not need the money. I'll ask a question similar to the previous one. Fishers in my riding did not qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Another program was created for them, which isn't quite the same and doesn't really meet their needs. A government whose political wingnot the parliamentary wingdoesn't really need money takes money from the fund, but leaves fishers to make do with less generous programs that don't meet their needs. What do I tell the fishers in my riding? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that many sectors of the economy across the country are facing challenges. That's why we have adopted an approach with consistent criteria for all employees in all sectors. We have also introduced specific measures to help certain sectors, such as the fishing industry. We will continue our approach because we believe it's the best way to protect employees and our economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I'm still not satisfied. The government is saying that the best way to proceed is to give money to the political wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, when there are people who are getting nothing. What am I supposed to tell seasonal workers, who have absolutely no assurances for their future? I can't go back to my riding and say I'm proud of the work the government is doing or our efforts in the House. It's true, the House is closed right now. I forgot. I have a very hard time accepting that the government is helping employees of the Liberal Party in preparation for the next election campaign, when communities in my region are dying because their economies revolve around a single industry. I can't tell them I'm not ashamed of what's going on as we speak. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we felt it was necessary to put emergency programs in place in response to the crisis during the pandemic. That is our approach. The emergency wage subsidy is a program that is clearly meant to ensure employees are protected and maintain their relationship with their employer. As for the Canada emergency response benefit, it means a lot to people who don't have a job. We are going to stick to our approach, which is to use consistent criteria to help all employees and all Canadians around the country struggling in any sector of the economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I think the honourable Minister of Finance lives in an ivory tower. No, he is not protecting all jobs. No, he is not protecting all sectors of the economy. Once again, I will say that a party that doesn't need money has already received subsidies. However, people who need that money, people who are actually losing money or who don't know if they'll even be working this summer are getting zilch. There is absolutely no justifying that. I'd at least like to know whether the government is ashamed of what it's doing. When people have a conscience, eventually, they want to make up for their mistakes. Are the Liberals going to return that money? Is the finance minister going to help all sectors of the economy, including tourism, fisheries and seasonal industries? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for her question. Our approach is based on consistent criteria. The emergency wage subsidy is meant for any sector of the economy where revenues have dropped by 30% or more. The measure is hugely important for organizations that are really struggling, because we can protect their workers. We are also providing the Canada emergency response benefit to other employees, meaning, those who have lost their income because of COVID-19. Consequently, we will keep up our approach to ensure we continue to fare as well as possible and the economy works well after the pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to our last group of interventions, and that will be from Ms. Jansen in CloverdaleLangley City. Ms. Jansen, go ahead. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen (CloverdaleLangley City, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to begin with a shout-out to the brave waiters and waitresses at our local Earls restaurant and Browns Socialhouse, who have been opened again for on-site dining this week. Here in B.C. we're beginning to find our new normal, and it was great to see how small businesses have so quickly adapted their establishments to keep their workers and patrons safe while allowing people to get back to the business of living. You guys rock. Thanks for taking the lead. Mr. Chair, here in my riding I recently had contact with the mayor of Langley City who was wondering if I had any way of accessing personal protective gear, because our local firefighters were running out of stock. Then again yesterday, I spoke with one of our local homeless shelters that is also looking for PPE. Dr. Tam is telling all Canadians to wear masks in public, but I'm wondering if the Minister of Public Service and Procurement could tell us where exactly we're going to get all those masks with the current shortage. +Hon. Anita Anand: I want to be clear that our priority as a federal government has been to respond to provincial and territorial requests for PPE that goes to front-line health care workers. That is our priority, and we've been procuring goods aggressively in domestic and international markets. We are now actively also exploring ways in which we can assist broader organizations across the country with PPE needs, and that is something that I'll continue to update the House on as we go forward. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: A Globe and Mail article revealed that government orders for N95 masks have steadily been dropping. We've gone from over 200 million ordered to 100 million, according to a federal source. Mr. Chair, the number of N95 masks ordered, as reported on the department's website, does continue to fall. Will the minister tell us why we seem to continue to struggle to supply PPE to Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand: It is no secret that we are in a global competition for N95 masks and other supplies, so the Government of Canada's approach is to diversify supply chains internationally and build up and retool domestic industry so that we can have these supplies going forward. In terms of the numbers on our web page, we have short-term and long-term contracts in place +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Jansen. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: Yes, I understand that a number of Chinese mask manufacturers have been nationalized, and products for Canadians have been confiscated by the CCP government. Is the drop in N95 orders due to, in actual fact, contracts being cancelled? +Hon. Anita Anand: On N95 masks, I would like to assure the member and the House that we have multiple contracts in place for the procurement of N95 masks, including with 3M in the United States, whose masks are crossing our border weekly over the next month. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: That didn't quite answer my question. Have any of our orders been cancelled by the nationalization of these manufacturers in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have an aide in place in China. We have our embassy and other firms actively ensuring that our supplies from the manufacturing source make their way to the warehouse. Over 40 flights have come to Canada with those masks and other supplies. Our supply chains are operating despite the global environment being highly competitive. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: We know many millions of N95 masks have arrived in Canada from China and have been substandard. What is the total number of substandard masks that have arrived? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as previously explained to the House, about eight million masks did not meet spec by the Public Health Agency of Canada and have been repurposed to some extent in other areas of the system. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: In a previous committee, the deputy minister advised us that Medicom was shoulder-tapped by the government to consider producing PPE. How many other companies did the government approach for this contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have operated in a very urgent way in order to procure supplies for front-line health care workers. We are now also moving to ensure that we have competitions run for the procurement of personal protective equipment. It's a multi-pronged approach, and our priority is to get supplies out to front-line health care workers in this time of crisis as quickly as possible. Thank you so much. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we adjourn, I think this another mark of accomplishment on behalf of the great team here at the House of Commons. There have been some great efforts, even since yesterday evening, to get this turned around for today. My compliments to all members joining us here in the House and to all members who have joined by virtual conference. The committee is now adjourned until noon tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned. +","The above transcript is of a hybrid meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. It comprises discussions and exchanges between various Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs) and government ministers. + +The committee meeting covered a variety of topics and issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including: + +- Concerns raised about the state of long-term care facilities, based on a horrifying report detailing neglect and abuse witnessed by the Canadian Armed Forces who had been deployed to certain care homes in Ontario. + +- Questions about support for small businesses and the tourism industry, which have been financially affected by the pandemic. Specific attention was given to sectors like fisheries and seasonal workers who have not received adequate assistance. + +- The use of the emergency wage subsidy by the Liberal Party, which was criticized for receiving funds when other more needy sectors are struggling. + +- Discussions on the procurement and quality of personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 masks that have been sourced from international suppliers, some of which were deemed substandard upon arrival in Canada. + +- Questioning the federal government’s actions or inaction regarding various matters, including support for family reunification across borders amidst travel restrictions and the movement on environmental commitments during the pandemic. + +- Various MPs calling for better standards and substantial reforms in long-term care, as well as greater support for mental health services and the pressing issue of climate change as it relates to the current health crisis. + +- An instance of the Minister of Transport being asked to address the concerns of a resident who has been unable to pass the eye exam required for marine certification, due to a vision standard issue that cannot be corrected to the satisfaction of current regulations. + +Overall, the discourse reflects a back-and-forth between opposition members seeking accountability and clarification on the government's pandemic response efforts, with government ministers defending their actions and outlining the steps being taken to address the unfolding events and issues stemming from the COVID-19 crisis." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements. That's confirmed. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Once the petition is presented, the member is asked to bring it here to the Table. Mr.Manly is the first one to be allowed to present a petition. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I rise today to present a petition that has many signatures from constituents in NanaimoLadysmith. They're calling for a ban on cosmetic testing using animals. They want us to follow the European Union model, under which the use of animals in cosmetic testing has been banned. Moving forward, they're calling for a ban on the sale and manufacture of animal-tested cosmetics and their ingredients in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Poilievre is next. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I rise today to table e-petition 2466, initiated by a constituent of mine in Stittsville, a beautiful west Ottawa community. The petition has collected 827 signatures from every province and territory. It was collected by Cara, a mother from my riding who suffered an unthinkable tragedy. Her 11-year-old son Joshua drowned in a boating accident on the St. Lawrence River at Rockport, Ontario. Joshua was not wearing a life jacket. Worse, Cara's family had to wait 48 days to recover Joshua's body. Cara is now working tirelessly to amend the small vessel regulations to make it mandatory for children under the age of 14 to wear a life jacket or PFD while they are passengers in or drivers of small vessels covered under parts 2, 3, and 4 of the regulations. I support Cara's efforts, and I'm honoured to table this petition on her behalf. +The Chair: Seeing no further petitions to be presented, we'll continue, and we will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. Go ahead, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): It was revealed yesterday that this government's policy was to ignore fraud. The Prime Minister's reaction was to act as if everything was normal. In fact, we've learned that over 200,000cases of suspected fraud have been identified in the benefit applications. The Prime Minister is failing our future generations. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay back billions of dollars that he's borrowing to pay tax cheats. Will the Prime Minister protect taxpayers and immediately begin a review of these 200,000cases of suspected fraud? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Our priority was to get money out quickly to all Canadians who needed it, and that's exactly what we've done. Millions of Canadians have received the money they so desperately needed. Having said that, I want to make it very clear, Mr.Chair: Fraud is unacceptable. We have measures in place to detect fraud. All fraudsters will be required to pay back the money they fraudulently received from the government. We're going to make sure that this is done in the coming months. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Conservatives agree that those who need help should get it, and no one is arguing that they shouldn't, but reports indicate that the Liberals have ordered public servants to turn a blind eye to 200,000 cases of suspected fraud. It's a simple question: Yes or no, did the government instruct any government department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the priority in this situation was getting money out to the millions of Canadians who needed it as quickly as possible, but of course fraud is unacceptable. That's why we have put safeguards in place to ensure that anyone who received that money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's a yes-or-no question, Mr. Chair. Did the government give any kind of instruction to public servants in any department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The instruction to government officials was to get money out to those who needed it as quickly as possible. We have put measures in place to detect fraud. People who got this money fraudulently will have to repay. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it is clear that he can't answer a yes-or-no question, so we can all assume what the answer must be. In other situations, the government is saying no to people. It's letting so many Canadians down. Small business owners who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number or a business account are ineligible for the government supports. Individuals, owner-operators, and those who are earning $1 more than $1,000 are being told that they don't qualify for the emergency response benefits. Meanwhile, fraudsters are getting them. Does the Prime Minister think it's fair to tell people who are following all the rules no, while telling government officials to allow fraudulent cases to be processed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, Canadians well know that this is an unprecedented situation, one in which we had to get help to as many Canadians as possible as quickly as possible. That is exactly what we did. We continue to work very hard to fill gaps for people who should get money but haven't been able to, and, as I said, we have strong measures to counter fraud. Anyone who got this money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, when these programs were first designed, the Prime Minister said that he acknowledged that there were problems and that they would be fixed later. Well, here we are in May, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians are being told no for purely technical and bureaucratic reasons. Will the Prime Minister make the simple changes to allow business owners who don't happen to have a business bank account, who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number and individuals who are ineligible for the emergency response benefit because they've been paid by family members through dividends to qualify, or is he going to continue to let hundreds of thousands of Canadians down during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, we moved extremely rapidly to get help and support to millions of Canadians. That was the priority, and that's what we've been doing for the past two months. As we've said, we will continue to tweak and improve the programs to make sure that more people who need help will get it. We are working the best we can, as fast as we can, to help those millions of Canadians who need support. +The Chair: You have time for about a 15-second question, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister indicated that he would support Taiwan's inclusion in the WHO only as a non-state observer. Of course, that designation does not exist. Participants of the WHO are either states or NGOs. Will the Prime Minister support Taiwan's participation as a state observer? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister has 15 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we will continue with our one China policy, but we have always advocated Taiwan's meaningful inclusion in international bodies where it makes sense to do so, and that includes at the WHO. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet now has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. On Friday, students in Quebec and Canada will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit, which is a good thing. This program was necessary, particularly because the number of students who won't be able to get back their jobs from last year is much higher than the number of jobs that might be available to these young people. There are also issues of duration. We don't know how long these jobs will remain unavailable. People talked about a risk to being in the labour market and meeting the needs of the labour market. On April29, the Deputy Prime Minister made a formal commitment to ensure that these programs are accompanied by work incentives for youth and all CESB recipients. So that everyone knows what they're getting into, I'd like to know whether the employment incentives that will accompany the Canada emergency response benefit will be known by Friday. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the hon. member for understanding the importance of supporting students who, for the most part, won't be able to get the summer jobs they were counting on. Young people don't just want to earn money; they also want to gain work experience. That's why we're setting up programs, including Canada summer jobs, but also another program with 76,000new jobs for young people in important sectors, so that young people can also get jobs. We will continue to work with youth and employers to ensure that gaps in the labour market are addressed, while ensuring that youth are well-supported. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That's very interesting, but it doesn't answer my question at all. People in the fishing, tourism and agricultural sectors, as well as municipalities and, from the very beginning, of course, the Government of Quebec, more generally, have expressed fears that job gains will cause people to lose their benefits and discourage them from going to work. The only way to avoid that is to ensure that people keep more money as they work more. That is the principle. In fact, we propose that over the $1,000no-penalty limit, half of the earnings be exempt from penalty. Is this something that could be considered? Since it's been two weeks since the commitment was made and it's urgent, can we act now? The emergency shouldn't last eight months. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, young people need money, but they also need work experience. This is an unprecedented situation, which is why we're working with seasonal industries and the different regions to make sure they have a sufficient workforce in their situation. Students can be part of it, but at the same time we must provide the necessary support for those who can't find a job. That's why we continue to work with the industries involved to ensure that they have a sufficient workforce while we support students. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Unfortunately, the spirit of it doesn't seem to have been understood. I doubt that, even in the best-case scenario, the government will be able to get all the jobs needed in a timely manner for all these young people to decide to go ahead. So, first of all, there will be a shortage of jobs. Second, people aren't crazy. If they earn less by working than they earn by not working, all the good faith in the world won't solve the problem. Can we make sure that people keep more money in their pockets as they work more? I think we can have a clear answer, given the timeframe. People are going to start registering for the program on Friday. The principles are good, but a clear answer would be good too. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Beginning Friday, students will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. When they apply, they'll all be directed to a job bank that we've set up to make sure they know what jobs are available to get not only the money they need, but also the experience they need for their future, while helping our society in this crisis. I know we're going to be able to count on young people. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, one of the most devastating outcomes of this COVID-19 crisis has been the impact on seniors. Eighty per cent or more of the deaths during COVID-19 have been seniors living in long-term care homes. The military had to be called in. Out of 14 countries, Canada has been deemed the worst in its care of seniors. Despite all this, the Prime Minister has said recently that he doesn't feel it's the federal government's responsibility to find a solution. How can he say to families reeling with loss that it's not the federal government's responsibility to play a role in solving this problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, perhaps the fact that the NDP no longer has many seats in Quebec has caused it to forget the importance of respecting the Constitution and the areas of jurisdiction of provincial versus federal governments. We will be there to work with the provinces as they deal with challenges in their long-term care facilities. We are there as a partner, but we, on this side of the House, will always respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and be there to support them in fulfilling those responsibilities. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Everyone across Canada has just heard this Prime Minister double down on the idea that he doesn't feel it's his responsibility, despite the fact that the Canadian military had to go into long-term care homes. There is a role that the federal government can play. Both Liberal and Conservative federal governments have been consistently, for decades, cutting transfers to health care. They can increase those transfers to ensure long-term care is adequately funded. We could also ensure that there's a national care guarantee, working with provinces to ensure that we are meeting the best standards. We could increase workers' pay. We could ensure that there's no more profiting off the backs of seniors when it comes to long-term care. Will the Prime Minister commit to some of these care guarantees? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: It will come as exactly no surprise to the vast majority of Canadians that the Liberal Party will always stand up for the Constitution of Canada. We respect the Constitution. We respect areas of provincial jurisdiction. As I have said from the very beginning of this crisis, we will be there to help the provinces as they manage the challenges they're facing. The federal government does have a role to play, and it is a role to support the provinces in doing the things they need to do during this unprecedented time. We will continue to be there. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I am glad to hear the Prime Minister is no longer trying to hide behind jurisdiction. We know that in long-term care homes, the for-profit long-term care homes have been the site of the worst conditions, where the greatest number of seniors have died. Will the Prime Minister join us in committing to remove profit from the long-term care system? Vulnerable seniors should not be subject to the profits of a company willing to cut services, staffing and quality of care instead of ensuring that seniors get the best care possible. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I think it has become clear for all Canadians that we need to improve the care offered to our seniors right across the country. We cannot look at these numbers we are seeing and these tragedies hitting so many families and not want to see us as a country do better. That is why we of course recognize that we will work with other orders of government, particularly the provinces in whose jurisdiction this area rests primarily, to support answering these questions for the long term on how we improve the way Canada supports our elders. This is something really important that we will be there for. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: At the CHSLD Herron in Dorval, 31seniors died in one month. The residents were left without food, dehydrated and without care, and those with COVID-19 symptoms were not isolated from the others. Families pay between $3,000 and $10,000 a month for their loved ones to be at the centre. How can the Prime Minister think that he doesn't have a role to play in finding a solution to this devastating problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all Quebeckers and even all Canadians were stunned to learn of the tragedy at the Dorval CHSLD. We were very happy, as citizens, when the Government of Quebec reacted firmly and asked many questions in connection with this situation. We will support the Government of Quebec in its efforts to find answers and, most importantly, to ensure that, in the long term, the country will better support seniors in all regions. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr.Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, how many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to start by quickly saying that a total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, which is absolutely essential for +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefits have been sent out to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I see that the pace will allow me to give a little bit of information for each question. As we said at the outset, there will be mechanisms +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard to ensure the integrity of the mechanism while at the same time taking important steps to help Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: A total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, and the agency is ensuring the integrity of the system. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: He's now claiming that it's all 7.7 million? That's crazy. The department is reported to have given out 200,000. Is 200,000 the correct number of cheques that have been sent out to people whose applications have been red-flagged as fraudulent, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to use the opportunity given to me by the hon. member to make the following clarifications. I thank him for it. First, approximately 7.7million Canadians have received at least one payment. Second, almost 11million payments have been made. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many prisoners have received a Canada emergency response benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: This allows me to go even further and thank the hon. member again. Some 7.7million Canadians have received emergency assistance in an emergency situation +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: So now he's claiming that 7 million Canadians are in jail? The question was this: How many prisoners have received a benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, jokes can be made about the plight of Canadians who are suffering tremendously in this crisis, but I'm not here to make +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Even the CBC is saying that prisoners are receiving the cheque. They can't have lost their jobs. They were already in prison. It's a simple question: How many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'd like to remind hon. members that we're talking about an extremely serious situation, a situation that has called into question people's ability to make ends meet, a situation that required emergency measures. We're going to continue to do the job that Canadians expect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The question was, how many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I've already explained to the hon. memberand I'm pleased to remind himthat this benefit is an emergency measure. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The Auditor General says that he's dropping half of his audits because the government refuses to provide him with funding. If the government has enough money to send 200,000 fraudulent applicants emergency cheques, why won't the government give the Auditor General the funding he requested? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member. It gives me the opportunity, in this emergency situation, to talk about the role of institutions, including that of the Auditor General, which we will continue to support because it helps us do things right. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Then what does the Auditor General have to do to get the money to do his audits? Does he have to file a bunch of fraudulent applications for an emergency response benefit? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, because I know the hon. member well enough, I'm sure that he isn't givingand doesn't want to givethe impression that the Auditor General wants to commit fraud to do his job properly. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I agree, and that's why he should get the money he needs to do his job. He did twice as many audits under the previous government as he is doing now, but he doesn't have the money to do the audits he needs to do to keep an eye on this government's extraordinary spending. Yes or no, will the government give the Auditor General the funding he has requested so he can get back to doing the same number of audits he did under the much more robust funding of the previous Harper government? +The Chair: The hon. Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the previous government cut funding to the Auditor General and caused the office to lay off dozens of employees. We increased the funding for the Auditor General. We recognize the important work the Auditor General needs to do, and that's why we increased the funding for the Auditor General. The party of the member opposite cut this funding. +The Chair: I appreciate the help from some of the members in keeping time. I do have my own chronograph here, so I'll take care of it from this end, but I appreciate the help. Thank you. I now give the floor to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I fully agree with the Treasury Board President that we aren't here to make jokes, but to set the record straight for Canadians. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page that 200,000people had fraudulently used emergency assistance. Is that statement accurate, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member from my region. A few minutes ago, I was reminding people in my region that, in the greater Quebec City area, about 200,000people had received this emergency benefit and that it was not for fraudulent reasons, but because they really needed it. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The question is about fraudsters, and I know that there aren't many of them in Quebec City. That said, my question is very simple. I want to know whether or not 200,000people fraudulently used emergency assistance. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I know my colleague already knows this, but we announced at the outset that strong and rigorous mechanisms would be put in place quickly to ensure that this delivery would respect the importance of integrity in government. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The integrity of the government must be upheld, and this must be done by telling the truth. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page about 200,000fraudsters. Is that correct, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To set the record straight, the Minister of National Revenue, Ms.Lebouthillier, made it very clear that there was no tolerance for fraud in this system, that all mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that integrity would be respected. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The Treasury Board President is one of the few Canadians to find that Ms.Lebouthillier was very clear yesterday. With respect to the Minister of National Revenue, I would point out that the member for RichmondArthabaska asked her a very clear question yesterday, which she was unable to answer. What does a person who has received the full CERB, $2,000, and returns to work this week have to do? Do they have to pay back the amount they aren't entitled to? Do they keep the$2,000? Do they have to wait and include it on their next year's tax return? Which of these three options should the person choose? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member for his question, which is very relevant. In fact, that person must contact Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency, depending on the system under which he or she received this benefit, and ensure that, in the circumstances that apply to him or her, the decisions and actions taken are appropriate. +Mr. Grard Deltell: It's too bad, Mr.Chair, because it's the boss who is in front of me, here in committee. It's good that the citizen calls the public servant, but the public servant's boss is the Treasury Board President. Can he give a clear indication to citizens? What should they do now with the emergency assistance they received with this month's benefit? Should they keep it in full or pay it back now? I'd like a clear answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Again, I recognize the importance of insisting on clarity. What's clear here is that each person must make decisions based on his or her own circumstances, and the responsible way to act is to interact with public servants at Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Service Canada employees must have clear instructions from their boss. The boss is here. This is the President of the Treasury Board. Could the President of the Treasury Board, in very clear terms, tell the employees answering questions from Canadians what they have to say to those currently receiving the Canada emergency response benefit, but who are actually at work? These are honest people. They are not fraudsters. They want to comply with the law. Can the President of the Treasury Board give them clear instructions? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: That is extraordinary, because my colleague focused on two key terms: honesty and hard work. In terms of the honesty of Canadians, in all cases, I am convinced that they will contact the appropriate officials. As for the hard work of those officials, they know what they have to do and they have been doing it in an exemplary way since the crisis began. +Mr. Grard Deltell: And yet those good officials, whom I frequently commend on social media for their excellent work, have no clear instructions from their boss. Mr.President, let me go back to the basic question. The National Post said that 200,000Canadians have used the emergency assistance fraudulently, to the tune of $1.6billion. Is that the case, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I am sure that the honourable member is not questioning the ability of Canada Revenue Agency officers to follow the very clear directive of ensuring that the mechanisms reflect the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Government of Canada during the exceptional circumstances we are experiencing. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Gray. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, last week British Columbia unveiled its plan to begin reopening its economy. I've been speaking with many business owners and business associations in my riding, and I'm hearing that they're not getting their orders for cleaning supplies. Some businesses have said their back orders go back to March. They do not know how they can possibly reopen if they are not meeting health cleaning standards or accessing PPE for their employees and customers. They are well aware of the issues arising from this government's reliance on Chinese manufacturing rather than building capacity here. What is the government doing to address these issues and ensure wholesale supply companies get products now so that they can distribute them to the businesses that need them? +Hon. Anita Anand (Oakville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government is rapidly and aggressively buying life-saving equipment that Canada needs from a diverse range of suppliers. We are building up domestic capacity as well as procuring internationally. Our priority is to make sure front-line health care workers have the support they need. In terms of other areas of the economy, we are working with our federal and provincial counterparts to make sure that we can do so in collaboration with them. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, an ongoing concern I've heard from small business owners is that they are ineligible for CEBA because they don't have a business account. When I brought up this point to small business minister Ng at committee, she said it was the first time that she had heard of this issue and that she would follow up. I asked this question on April 23, and it's now been almost three weeks. Small business has been let down. Can the government confirm that they're going to fix this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for her question. It is really important that this program that we've established help small businesses. We have shown in the past that we're very flexible and nimble in accommodating the needs of businesses. I assure the member opposite that we are looking into this matter and will come forward with a resolution in a timely manner. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, I just read another email from a small business owner this morning who has been let down by the government. He chose to pay off debts instead of paying himself a wage; therefore, he's ineligible for CEBA, for that loan. Owner-operators have been eliminated from participating in government programs because they did not put themselves on the payroll. This shows a true lack of understanding of small businesses and especially of owner-operators. Will the government commit to fixing this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you very much. Again, I want to thank the honourable member for her question. We have focused particularly on small businesses to make sure they have the appropriate support they need. With regard to the program that she highlighted, we have shown flexibility in the eligibility criteria by decreasing the payroll threshold for individual companies that want to apply for this loan to $20,000 versus $50,000, and the upper limit has gone to $1.5 million versus $1 million. We will continue to bring forward the changes necessary to have more businesses +Mrs. Tracy Gray: This government has left Canadian craft breweries out to dry, like the hops in their beer. On April 24, the Canadian Craft Brewers Association released a report on the effects of COVID-19 on the Canadian craft brewing industry. The report states that 38% of craft brewers did not qualify for the Canadian emergency wage subsidy in March, and 53% were either not sure or predicted that they would not qualify in April. Many a brew pub, like BNA in my riding, due to higher payrolls are also not eligible for the CEBA loan. They have been left out and let down. Five per cent of these breweries have already closed permanently, and others are on the verge of doing so. A portion have stepped up and are making PPE. Will this government take the initiative to support this industry by amending program requirements? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: When it comes to the Canada emergency wage subsidy, we have demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness. The program requirement changed in terms of revenue threshold. We originally had 30% for the month of March. We changed that to 15%. The eligibility criteria to compare to the first two months of this year now also compare to the previous year as well. We're going to continue to make changes to make sure more businesses can access this program. +The Chair: Ms. Gray, you have 33 seconds. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: In my constituency, Okanagan fruit production is a huge industry, and many apple orchardists have brought concerns to me regarding high costs, apples from last season selling below cost, the CUSMA agreement not helping the industy, and low-priced Washington apples flooding our market. COVID-19 has exacerbated their dire financial situation. The BC Fruit Growers' Association has called the government announcements of measures for agriculture underwhelming. I questioned Minister Bibeau in the House a couple of months ago, and at the time she did not have an answer. What is the plan to help our orchardists? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (ComptonStanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Since this crisis began, we have been helping entrepreneurs in all sectors. We began with measures to assist small, medium and large companies, and we are now going progressively sector by sector. Last week, we announced additional funding for agriculture +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Mr. Chair, in my riding of Foothills, we've established a Foothills business recovery task force. We surveyed hundreds of small business owners about the effectiveness of the emergency programs put forward by the government. The results of that survey were quite alarming. More than half of the respondents have not qualified for any of the programs, and the vast majority of them have said their businesses will not last more than another month. Will the government expand the eligibility for some of these programs to include sole proprietorships, or is the government still looking at refunding the GST paid by some of the businesses over the last year? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that we have issued 590,000 loans through the CEBA account. This demonstrates that this particular program is working and that businesses are taking advantage of it. We recognize that we want to be more generous and more thoughtful about these programs. We've demonstrated flexibility in the past and we will continue to be nimble going forward. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Charlebois said that we are on the precipice of losing 15% of our farms and that 30,000 farm families are at risk of bankruptcy. This will have a devastating effect on our rural economies. Does the minister know the impact that losing 30,000 family farms will have on our food security and the price of groceries on the store shelves? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the agriculture and agri-food sector is extremely important. We have clearly stated that it is an essential service. That is why we have risk management programs that are already well established. I understand that producers would like the programs to be more generous, and we are ready to do more, but they first need to use those programs. They have $1.6billion available +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, business risk management programs don't apply to every single stakeholder and the programs are not working for the producers. There is a bottleneck right now in our processing capacity. When the minister renounced the AgriRecovery program, funds were set aside for cattle and pork producers. When is that money going to be available, and how long will it last? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are talking about two different programs here. We added $77.5million to the program helping the processing sector and $50million on two occasions for our pork and beef producers under the AgriRecovery program. Once again, that is additional money. In recent years, an average of $15million have gone out of this program, whereas this year +The Chair: Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it is not new money; it has been budgeted year after year and it's budgeted again for next year. The cattlemen said that the set-aside funds that the minister is talking about are already gone and did not last even two weeks. If this government isn't assisting Canadian farmers, is the government's food policy to rely on food imported from foreign countries to feed Canadian families ? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the fund to assist our beef producers cannot have already disappeared because the criteria will be unveiled in the coming days. I can assure you that we are working as efficiently as possible so that the program can be rolled out and the money can be channelled to our beef and pork producers. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, producers across this country have said that an exemption from the carbon tax would help them greatly during this pandemic. When I asked the minister about any data that was available for the impact the carbon tax had on agriculture, the answer I got was that this information was secret. Yesterday at committee, the minister said that this was a mistake and that this information has been public. My staff and I looked everywhere last night, as did journalists, and that information could not be found. Is that information actually available? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, that information is available and public. I will happily pass the information on to my colleague. +Mr. John Barlow: If that data is available, then the minister must know the financial impacts that the carbon tax has on Canadian farmers. With the information that the minister apparently has, does she agree with the Prime Minister that Canadian farmers are much better off financially by paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Each organization analyzes different assumptions, methodologies and geographic areas, so the results give a broad range of estimated impacts. According to the organization that has provided information, in 2019, the estimated impacts of a $20-per-tonne price on pollution due to grain drying ranged +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. You have 30 seconds, please. +Mr. John Barlow: Does the minister agree with the Prime Minister that farmers are financially better off paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the price on pollution is an extremely important measure for our economy in general and for our transition to a greener economy. We have already provided various exemptions to the agriculture sector: for gasoline, for the access card and for the greenhouse sector. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): Will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The answer is that we have done that in 2018 and 2019, and the Prime Minister +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I hope the minister would not want to mislead the House. The office is certainly not fully funded, as per the testimony we heard yesterday at the finance committee. This government has expanded the Auditor General's responsibilities without adequate resources. When will the government fully fund the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To continue my answer, and as the Prime Minister said just a moment ago, that has led to the hiring of 38 new staff members. That's great to hear, because they are doing even better than they used to before we came into power. +Mr. Pat Kelly: No previous auditor general in Canadian history has ever had to tell a parliamentary committee that they had insufficient funds to do their job. That is what in fact this Auditor General has done. When will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'm glad again to be given the ability to say how important the work of the Auditor General is. We believe very much in that role. That's why we increased the funding that is necessary for that office to do its important job. We will keep working hard with the Auditor General. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Sadly, Michael Ferguson passed away in 2019, yet the government has refused to name a permanent replacement. Why? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is another wonderful opportunity to remind all members of this House of the importance of these institutions. When we face these tragic deaths, we of course are very sad of the passing of the people, and we work +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that Canada's debt could reach $1 trillion this year. What will it cost to service a $1-trillion debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, we remain committed to doing, as we've said, whatever it takes to support Canadians through this challenging time. We think this is extremely important, and we will continue to focus on the well-being of all Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What is the estimated annual debt servicing cost of the aid measures announced so far? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, there will be an opportunity for us to give a full outline of the costs and benefits of our measures, and we will do that when we have the ability to have +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: is Canada's AAA credit rating. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Speaker, Canada came into this crisis with a very strong fiscal position, and of course we will experience challenges as we move forward, but we believe that we should experience those challenges as we support Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What would the effect of a downgrade be on Canada's debt servicing costs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to focus on how we can support Canadians and Canadian businesses as we get through this challenge. +Mr. Pat Kelly: How many private sector bank loans have been funded for small and medium-sized businesses under the business credit availability program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the information on the business credit availability program becomes available, we are being fully transparent with the finance committee and with this House. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know how many loans have been funded under that program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'm not in the habit of memorizing every single number available to us, but what I can confirm is that we will be transparent with this House on the numbers as they become available. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know the dollar amount or the approximate dollar amount so far lent and guaranteed by Export Development Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, one number that would probably be helpful for people to understand is that we've now had over 550,000 approved loans under the CEBA program, representing over 20 billion dollars' worth of money that's actually +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix the CEBA program to include businesses that pay owner-operators through dividends? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the language fix is incorrect, for more than 500,000 businesses have received this loan. Of course, we are always endeavouring to make sure it works for as many businesses as possible. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover small businesses that hire day labourers or subcontractors? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to this program. We changed the eligibility criteria to make sure that more businesses can apply and be eligible for this program. We will endeavour to make sure that more Canadians have access to this program, particularly small businesses in rural and remote communities. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover business owners who use personal instead of business chequing accounts to operate their business? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that this has been a very positive program and well received by many small businesses. Over 590,000 small business loans have been issued, and that's a testament to the design of the program. We're going to make sure we continue to engage with small businesses. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week, on Friday, Statistics Canada was to release labour force survey data at 8:30 a.m. eastern time, one of the most important and market-moving indicators of the month, but someone in the government leaked that information ahead of time, almost 45 minutes ahead of time, and exclusively to Bloomberg terminal users on Wall Street and on Bay Street, who pay thousands of dollars a month for those terminals. Moving markets, the Canadian dollar moved eight basis points in that short period of time and billions were made or lost on the market. Section 34 of the Statistics Act makes it a criminal offence for someone to leak information that might influence stock, bond or currency markets. Has the government notified the RCMP about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I, too, share the same concerns that he's highlighted with regard to this leak. This is completely unacceptable. That is why we're going to make sure that a proper and thorough examination is done, and going forward we want to make sure that no such breach or leak occurs. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, Statistics Canada said that staffers and ministers' offices, including the Prime Minister's office, the finance minister's office, the employment minister's office and the industry minister's office, would have received this secret information no earlier than 2 p.m. the previous day. Statistics Canada has also indicated that it has begun an internal investigation. Will the minister commit to fully co-operating with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to remind the honourable colleague that our government has supported Statistics Canada. We're the ones who reintroduced the mandatory long-form census. We're the ones who funded more money for Statistics Canada. The member opposite knows that we'll be fully co-operative in any such investigation into any leak. +Hon. Michael Chong: Will the minister commit to making the results of this investigation public? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows full well that there are proper processes and protocols in place when it comes to such sensitive matters, and we will ensure that those processes and protocols +The Chair: Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope there is no double standard for ministers' offices and the public service, because it was only about 13 years ago that a public servant was criminally charged and convicted for using top secret information in the markets. I hope that in this investigation, and in the release of the information concerning this investigation, ministers' staffers aren't held to a different standard than the public service has been held to. This leak speaks to the integrity of the government. Intelligence at the Five Eyes.... Our four allies have been telling us for years that one of the top two or three threats that democracies are facing is declining public confidence in our key institutions. Democracies have been blindsided by misinformation, disinformation and cyber-attacks, and now we are being blindsided by the misuse of information by this very government. That doesn't even.... The government's own national statistics-gathering agency doesn't trust this cabinet or this government, and that's why they announced several days ago that they would suspend the pre-release of information to the cabinet. What is the government going to do to restore public confidence in our institutions? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, our government has remained steadfast in its support for Statistics Canada. I'd like to remind my honourable colleague that we are the government that brought forward legislation to strengthen the independence of Statistics Canada. We're the government that brought forward measures to make sure they have additional monies for conducting the proper mandatory long-form census as well. When it comes to the leak that the member opposite is talking about, we're not going to prejudge the outcome. We have been very clear that the proper processes and protocols that are in place will be followed. +The Chair: You have time for a very brief question, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope the government will call the RCMP and notify them about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act, because it was a previous Liberal minister who himself was subject to a lot of misinformation and was a target of improper allegations about his office's use of information that leaked about the income trust changes that the previous Liberal government had brought in. The RCMP began an investigation and, in the course of the investigation, they charged a public servant who was ultimately convicted of breaching that secret information. I hope the minister holds his office and the offices of his cabinet colleagues to the same standard, calls in the RCMP and makes them aware of what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act. +The Chair: The honourable minister, in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'm sorry. How much time do I have, Mr. Chair? +The Chair: We're over the time, but I'm allowing 30 seconds so we can get a full +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I appreciate that very much. Again, I want to take this opportunity to say that leaks of this nature are completely unacceptable. We've been very clear that we are going to take the appropriate steps. Statistics Canada is taking the appropriate steps. I want to remind the member opposite that we're not going to prejudge any outcome at this stage. Again, it is our government that has been consistently supporting Statistics Canada in its work through the previous years. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll take a short break to allow our console operators to switch in a healthy way. While we're doing that, I'm going to mention something. It happens at the end of a question. When there's less than a minute left and the question goes over half the time left over, I'll just indicate to the person asking the question that we've reached the limit so that the other side can answer with the same amount of time and we have a fair playing field. We're ready to go again. The Honourable Member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We are making progress, but unfortunately, I'd like to hear it in French as well. I will address my question to the Prime Minister. First, let me remind you that, on March12, the government announced a first series of measures of about $1billion to adapt to what was at the time the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, including $500million in transfers to the provinces, with about $100million going to Quebec. Since that time, the commitments from the government have reached very probably around $300billion, making those first $500 million pale by comparison. Of course, the crisis became longer and it is not over yet. In that context, and given what I heard the Prime Minister say a little earlier about respecting the areas of jurisdiction of the provinces, and of Quebec, can we expect a speedy increase in health transfers to Quebec and the provinces, an increase that would be permanent, and, of course, without conditions? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We've increased health transfers to provinces and territories significantly since we first came into government in 2015. We continue to work with provinces and territories on a regular basis to make sure they're supported not just in the outbreak of this pandemic, but in the increased cost overall to health care across the country. Our investments have included investments for mental health, for home care and for the additional expenses that provinces and territories face as a result of an aging population. We'll continue to work with provinces and territories to ensure those health care needs are met. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: With all respect, Mr.Chair, that is a little disappointing. While the leader of the NDP wants the federal government to interfere massively in provincial jurisdiction over health, the Prime Minister replies in English. That is perfectly legitimate in this Parliament, but his reply in English is, no, the government absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction. That made me happy for a brief moment, and I am asking the Prime Minister, without wanting to interrupt his precious reading, to please repeat in French was he said just now in English, that he absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction over health, which is exclusive. So could you please provide that music to my ears? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, just as I respect the member opposite's right to speak in his first language, I hope that he understands that I am trying to learn our second official language in a high-pressure situation, and it often creates anxiety. I will tell him, though, that we fully respect the jurisdiction of provinces and territories to address the needs of their constituents and their members, and we work very closely with Quebec and with all provinces and territories to make sure that the funds we transfer from the federal government can be utilized in a way that best meets the needs of their constituents. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let's not get into that. It says to me that French is the second official language. Well, it's my first official language and it's the first one in Quebec. I would like to have heard that in French. I would like to have heard it from the Prime Minister, because it's a constitutional issue. Basically, you could say that it's our heritage. So that is what I would like to have heard. Let me proceed with a short and simple question: is health in the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces in the current crisis management situation? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, I would like to tell my colleague that we have no first or second official language. We have two official languages. They have the same value and the same importance. They deserve the same respect in the House and in the institutions of the government. We are always happy to collaborate with the provinces and to respect their jurisdictions. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Hearing that we have no first or second official language is better already. Between friends, let's say that they are equal. Let us take it one step further: is health in the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we live in a federation where we work closely together with provinces and territories so that we can reach our mutually important goals, one of which is that all citizens of Canada, all members of Canada, have access to a public health care system that meets their needs. We continue to work within the constitutional framework +The Chair: Excuse me, but I have to interrupt you. Mr.Blanchet, you have 21seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: The answer could be even shorter than the question. Is health in provincial jurisdiction? Will there be an increase in the health transfers and will they come without conditions? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am sure the member would argue that it is important to work together. The federal government transfers money to the provinces, as he is well aware, to deliver health care, which is within each province's and territory's jurisdiction. +The Chair: We now move to Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As the member for Manicouagan, I would like to address the House today on a matter that is very important in my constituency. At 350,000square kilometres, it borders the Gulf of St.Lawrence. Regionally, I am also in eastern Quebec, which includes the Gasp, the Magdalen Islands, and the Lower St.Lawrence. These are regions whose economy rests basically on two very important seasonal industries: tourism and fishing. Make no mistake, it is not the workers who are seasonal, it is the industry itself, as our former leader Gilles Duceppe so rightly used to say. Those industries are very important for that region of Quebec, but I see no measures to support them that accommodate all their uniqueness. These are cyclical industries, meaning that they operate at a very specific period during the year. A few minutes ago, I heard the Prime Minister say that he had intervened to help the companies and the workers in those seasonal industries. I would like to know what the specific assistance is and how it is tailored to the companies and the workers in the seasonal industries he mentions. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. We know that the current situation is causing upheaval in the lives of Canadians from one end of the country to the other and that it is having a major impact on our small and medium businesses. Since this crisis began, we have not hesitated to implement strong and speedy measures to support more Canadians. That is what we will continue to do. We know that the tourism sector is key to a number of communities in the country. We must help them to get through this crisis as best we can. We are continuing to have discussions and to tailor our measures so that as many Canadians as possible can take advantage of them. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, with all respect, I am hearing that nothing has been done. Measures have been proposed, but, as I understand it, they are not specific to the seasonal sectors. Let us take the seasonal fishing industry. The fishers are currently going out, but right in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. One fishing season has been pushed back. The same thing applies to tourism. The season will be pushed back, and it is possible that there may even not be one. The people and the companies in this sector have no second chances. They cannot start again in the fall. It's a bit like agriculture. They can't start a fishing season or a tourist season in the fall. So they need assistance. We have some proposals. For example, would the government be prepared to let the Canada emergency response benefit provide workers with eligibility to employment insurance benefits? They could then get through the coming year and make it to next season. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I want to thank the member for speaking about the situation in all regions of Canada, particularly in Quebec. From the start, we've been implementing significant measures to support the millions of workers who are currently struggling. We've taken significant measures with respect to tourism, agriculture and regional development. We're providing broader investments, such as the wage subsidy and emergency loans for small businesses, of which there are many in my colleague's constituency. We'll continue to work very hard so that the workers and businesses in her constituency can get through this crisis and emerge stronger and more united. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, that's strike two. This is the second time that I've asked a question about targeted assistance for the seasonal industry. My honourable colleague's response doesn't make me feel any better. The workers in the industry also don't feel any better when they see that, at the end of the summer, they'll have no job and no money to put food on the table. Will these workers receive assistance adapted to their needs? It's the same thing for businesses. We're currently talking about the businesses in my constituency, but there are also businesses in the East. Quebec and Canada as a whole, both in terms of fishing and tourism +The Chair: The honourable President of the Treasury Board has the floor. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr.Chair. My colleague probably knows the information that I'll be giving. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit is available to all individuals who haven't been receiving employment insurance benefits since December2019. A number of stakeholders in Canada and Quebec called for this, particularly in the places +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister announced the business bailout, and in that proposal, he said that there would be limits on CEO bonuses and share buybacks. By saying limits, the Prime Minister is suggesting that there would be some amount of bonuses or share buybacks that could be paid for with public dollars. If that's the case, how much? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we believe that it's very important that we support jobs. In that regard, we're trying to make sure that businesses can get through this time. As we provide that support, we've been very clear for large enterprises that share buybacks will not be allowed, period, and that there will, of course, be limitations on total compensation for senior executives in order to give Canadians confidence that we're doing the things we need to do to support them, but that we're not supporting executives. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Germany has actually taken the lead and said that if a company wants public money, then its executives must commit to reducing their pay. Will Canada follow Germany to ensure that public dollars go to workers and not to enrich the executive suite, and commit that no public money will go to bonuses or increasing salaries for executives? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are looking forward to releasing the complete details of the large employer emergency financing facility, and I think the member opposite will be quite pleased to see that we will be leading on behalf of Canada in advance of what Germany is doing. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, we know the PBO has said that $25 billion, at least, is being lost to our revenues because corporations are avoiding paying their fair share. Will the Prime Minister commit today very clearly that if a company is hiding its money by putting it in an offshore tax haven, that company will not receive public help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again with regard to this program, we want to be very clear that the support that goes to large businesses actually supports their Canadian enterprises and their Canadian employees. In that regard, we will not allow any company that has been convicted of tax evasion to have access to these funds, and we will carefully evaluate on an ongoing basis to make sure that companies remain eligible for this support based on their continuing investment in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, how many companies can the Minister of Finance name that have been convicted of tax evasion that would be denied help under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what's most important is that we focus on Canadians. We're trying to support Canadians, whether they're working for small or large businesses, so they can get through this, can support their families during this time, and come out with a job at the end of it. That is exactly where our focus lies in this regard. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, not a single company. We are four years past the Panama papers and there hasn't been a single conviction. Those are simply fancy Liberal words saying that a company that has been convicted of tax evasion.... There are simply no companies that this government can give as an example. Why don't we follow what France has done and commit very clearly, not in Liberal fancy words but straight up, if a company is hiding its money by using offshore tax havens, it will not get public help. Will the minister commit to that right now? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we've been working with France and other countries to make these rules stricter for businesses. The process around the common reporting standard and the base erosion profit shifting has made it more difficult for firms to move money into tax havens, and it has ensured that we have transparency in seeing when they do so. We'll continue to do that hard work to make sure that businesses abide by the rules and pay their appropriate part of taxes in our country. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about hard work. If a company is not convicted of tax evasion, but is putting its money in Barbados or Bermuda, for example, specifically to avoid paying taxesand we have a similar example of Loblaws doing something like thiswill that company, despite not having a conviction, but clearly having avoided paying their fair share by putting their money in an offshore tax haven, receive help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd suggest that the member be very careful in accusing companies of wrongdoing. We have a country that respects international rules. We allow our companies to trade and do business around the world. That continues to be important, and that supports Canadian jobs. At the same time, we're trying to make sure those international rules work and get tighter. That's what we've been working on. We'll continue to do that because we know it's important that we can work internationally. It's important that companies pay their fair share here in Canada. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Liberals hand-picked ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, stated that China's conduct during the pandemic is damaging to its own soft power. However, when asked if there should be an investigation into China's behaviour during the crisis, the health minister stated that's not for her to say because she doesn't have all the evidence about what China did or didn't do. Why is Canada's ambassador to China criticizing China's actions during the pandemic while this Liberal government is defending it? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (UniversityRosedale, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Ambassador Barton is an excellent representative of Canada in China, and he is a member of our government and very much shares and helps to formulate our government's policy when it comes to China. Ambassador Barton, of course, shares our government's view that a post-crisis review is absolutely necessary. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the government's March 27 duty deferral announcement has caused tension within the trade community. Customs brokers are being asked to shoulder tremendous liability as importers are not required to make duty payments until the end of June, when there is a real possibility that some of them may find themselves insolvent. Will the government commit to a liability exemption for customs brokers whose clients are unable to pay the duties at the end of June? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we have worked hard to determine programs that we think can be supportive of individuals and businesses, including allowing for deferral of taxes through this period. That we believe is important with respect to the GST, which we've allowed to be deferred until July 1, and in terms of taxes for businesses, until the end of August. We think this helps businesses to get through this challenging time, and we'll continue to support businesses and individuals so we can have a strong economy when we get through this crisis. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the following three questions are from constituents in my riding, so hopefully, I'll get some good answers for them. The first one I'll talk about is Rick. He owns a small business, a local bowling alley, in Melfort. It's a family-owned operation, so he doesn't meet the payroll threshold for the wage subsidy benefit, nor does he qualify for any other announced loans or grants. There are businesses right across Canada that are in similar situations. Is the minister suggesting that they lie to get the funds, or will they make some changes so they qualify? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I want to highlight some of the initiatives we have put forward to assist small businesses. The Canada emergency wage subsidy covers 75% of the wages of employees, and that way they can maintain their jobs. We've also put forward the enhanced work-sharing program. It's an option for businesses to pay their employees. On top of that, I want to highlight the Canada emergency business account, which has issued 590,000 loans. As the Minister of Finance recently mentioned, we've deferred GST and HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, Robert owns a cleaning products company in Prince Albert. He tells me that Canadian custodians and building service contractors are not purchasing Canadian-made disinfectants because very few are included in the federal approval list for COVID-19, even though Canada produces many products that Health Canada has certified as disinfectants. Why is the Liberal government not prioritizing the approval of Canadian-made products? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, that assertion is not correct. In fact, we have been working very closely with producers of Canadian products as well as with our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development to make sure that Canadian companies have what they need to very quickly move through the approval process. Health Canada has accelerated this process, and most companies can get approved in one to seven days. Of course, there is an iterative process that requires companies to ensure that a product is safe for use in Canada. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the government announced $252 million in assistance for Canadian farmers, which was largely seen as an insult, especially given that a good amount of this money was already budgeted. A constituent of mine, Tracy, from Melfort, wrote to me asking me to advocate for farmers and ranchers so they can get the support they need to continue to produce our food. When will the government start to prioritize farmers and ranchers? Will they continue to reform the business risk management program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Absolutely, Mr.Chair. We're working very hard with our provincial colleagues to improve the risk management programs. We did announce programs last week, and some of these new programs are designed specifically for the meat sector. A total of $77.5million is earmarked for processors and $50million for beef producers. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Mr. Chair, provinces are reopening at different speeds, and that includes opening their provincial parks before the May long weekend. It no longer makes sense for fully staffed national parks across the country to be uniformly closed. Will the Minister of Environment commit to opening national parks in harmony with provincial and territorial parks across Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are working very closely with our provincial partners on the reopening. I am pleased that we were able to publish, on Tuesday, April 28, shared guidelines on the reopening, which were supported by the Prime Minister and all of the premiers of the provinces and territories +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, boating is a safe way to enjoy the outdoors while maintaining physical distancing. Why is Parks Canada postponing the opening of lock operations and similar functions along our heritage waterways? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I was saying in my answer to the first question, the question of coordinating national and provincial parks is a very good one. That is something we are definitely working on. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, since the beginning of this pandemic, the minority Liberal government has been actively trying to push our democracy aside. It severely limited parliamentary sittings, attempted to take executive control of tax rates and used an order in council to ban lawfully acquired and responsibly owned firearms. When will the government stop using this pandemic as an excuse to run roughshod over our cherished democratic values? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't understand this question at all, since we're meeting here to ask questions for twohours and 15minutes. That's the equivalent of three question periods. Yesterday, there was the equivalent of two question periods, and tomorrow there will be the equivalent of two more question periods. We're talking about seven question periods. That's more than normal. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the inconsistency in support for various sectors in our economy is baffling. There is more money made available to forcibly confiscate lawfully owned property than in emergency support for our hard-working farmers or our prosperity-creating oil and gas sector. The only consistent theme appears to be that sectors that do not traditionally vote Liberal are finding themselves left out in the cold. If that is not the case, why is there such an obvious discrepancy? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, those comments are completely unjustified. We're fully committed to our sectors, including the energy sector and the agriculture and agrifood sector. This is particularly important. These sectors are critical. That's why we're working to improve our risk management programs. We want to ensure that the criteria are broader and that more producers can benefit from these programs. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, during the misinformation briefing, the public safety minister used Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom as examples for firearms policy. Does the public safety minister realize that these countries are islands and none share a border with anyone, least of which with the United States of America? Is my bringing this new-found evidence to the minister's attention going to change his focus to smugglers, gangs and criminals, instead of wrongfully blaming lawful gun owners? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would like to assure the member that I have actually seen an atlas. I want to be very clear that those countries have recognized, like Canada has, that these weapons have no place in a civil society. They were designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. They were not designed for hunting and sporting purposes, which are the lawful uses of a firearm in Canada, but rather for individuals to kill other individuals. Tragically, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, that is precisely what they have been used for, and we have prohibited +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the nine o'clock gun is an iconic 12-pound cannon that has been fired daily in Vancouver in Stanley Park since the 1800s. It's now a prohibited firearm as of May 1, 2020. Can the minister advise the public of the safety risks that this cannon, which was manufactured in 1816, poses to the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is referring to the prohibition of grenade launchers. There are about 34 in Canada and we have brought in regulations that now prohibit grenade launchers. It does not apply to some of the other things that have been suggested by the member opposite. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, I was referring to the iconic, heritage 12-pound cannon that is mounted on a pedestal in Stanley Park. It was manufactured in 1816. Any cannon that can be fired can be loaded with a projectile, so it meets the definition of a firearm, which means that every cannon in Canada, every heritage piece that might be in a museum, every heritage piece that might be in a collection, is now a prohibited firearm. Was the minister not aware of this when he announced this policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, just to help the member opposite, let us be very clear. We have prohibited weapons that were unfortunately widely available in Canada and were being used for purposes other than sporting activities, which is the only use of a firearm in Canada, for either hunting or target shooting sporting activities. Rather, they were being used to harm individual Canadians and, in some tragic cases, many individual Canadians. We've done the right thing, Mr. Chair, and we +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Nater next. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, agricultural societies across rural Ontario are making the difficult decision to cancel their fall fairs this year. Some of these fall fairs have been around since before Confederation. Not only is this a terrible loss for these communities of important community events, but it's also putting a significant financial strain on these agricultural societies. What action is the government taking to support agricultural societies in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, what we've done is we've put forward monies to support our regional development agencies. These agencies have the mandate and the ability to support local initiatives, including the events the member has highlighted. This is more than doubling the budget that currently exists, so that we have sufficient resources to support communities and these very important local events. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, the arts and culture industry has a massive impact on local economies. In my riding alone we have the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music. The postponement and cancellation of the seasons of these important cultural institutions is having a massive impact on the hospitality industry, including local restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfasts. Many of these businesses are small businesses and owner-operated businesses that are falling through the cracks in the government's programs that have been introduced. How will the government address the blind spot in their programs for small businesses in communities like this, which rely on the tourism and the arts and culture industries? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, clearly, we understand how important these organizations are to these communities. That is why we allocated $500 million to respond to the specific financial needs of arts, heritage and sports organizations, to help them be more resilient through this difficult time. Last week we rolled out the funding of this announcement, and we look forward to engaging with communities across the country. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, 1.8 million jobs are attributed to the tourism industry in Canada. Among these, 740,000 are related to international travelling. No one wants to see the borders reopen until it's safe to do so, but can the government provide clarity on what criteria will be used to provide some information to these tourism operators of how, when and under what criteria international borders will be reopened? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member opposite for his view that we need to be cautious and prudent and put the health and safety of Canadians first. That is very much the view of our government as well. When it comes to international borders, the health and safety of Canadians is absolutely the first criterion we are going to look at. Of course, we will be looking at the situation with coronavirus +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, many Canadians continue to fall through the cracks of programs announced by this government. One of my constituents only recently returned to the workforce after spending many years out of the workforce raising her children. As such, she doesn't qualify under the $5,000 minimum requirement for income over the past 12 months. How will the government address these people who are falling through the cracks? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, we are mindful of the very difficult circumstances in which many Canadians who have a foot in two places find themselves. We have a number of different measures to help them and we're going to continue to do so. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, it has been reported that as many as 15% of farmers and farm families in Canada could face going out of business and bankruptcy because of the massive impact that COVID-19 is having on agriculture in Canada. Business risk management programs are not working for these farm families, and the processing capacity is simply not there for farmers and for farm families, especially in the beef and pork industries. How will the government immediately address the short-term processing capacity issues found in the beef and pork sectors? When will they finally live up to the commitment of a complete review of the business risk management programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I've been holding discussions with my provincial counterparts to review the risk management programs. With respect to the AgriStability program, we've offered producers some accommodations and pushed back the enrolment date to July3. We've also increased, from 50% to 75%, the advance payment that they can obtain quickly, in provinces where this is possible. We've also posted a calculator online. So before they say that the program isn't working, I encourage them to use this calculator to find out how much they can receive. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, this government continues to show a blind spot for small businesses in Canada. Many don't qualify for the CEBA because they don't have a high enough payroll or because they don't have a business account. So many small businesses are falling through the cracks. Will the government expand the criteria so that small businesses in my community and across Canada can qualify for the important assistance they need at this time? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I would like to remind my honourable colleague that we did expand the eligibility criteria threshold from $50,000 down to $20,000 so that more businesses could be eligible, and on the top end, for salaries, from $1 million to $1.5 million. That is why we have seen 590,000 small business loans issued. That's a testament to the program. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, hog and beef producers have seen drastic price drops. Producers are telling me that they would use the western livestock price insurance program if the premiums were affordable, which they are not. Will the Minister of Agriculture work with the industry to make the premiums affordable so that producers can have price protection against these market fluctuations? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr. Chair, we're working closely with the industry and my provincial counterparts to identify the best programs to help producers in this difficult time. Last week, we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Chez Angela Bakery in Brandon has seen tremendous success since it opened two years ago. Due to this growth and the eligibility criteria for the wage subsidy program, their revenues would have to decline much further than 30% in order for them to receive help. Will the Minister of Finance amend the eligibility for the wage subsidy program so that Chez Angela and similar businesses can apply? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): The honourable Minister of Industry. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I want to highlight the fact that we did make an amendment. When we originally proposed this initiative, the threshold was 30% for the month of March. Now businesses will only need to show a 15% decline in revenue, and businesses will have the option of using January and February as a reference period to show revenue losses, or of using the same time last year. This reflects, again, our ability to understand the needs of businesses, to act quickly and to make sure that they benefit from this very important initiative. +Mr. Larry Maguire: They still don't qualify, Mr. Chair. The Blarney Stone restaurant in Killarney has repeatedly asked the Minister of Finance if they could refinance their loans through the Canada small business financing program. Will the Minister of Finance give small business owners the ability to refinance their existing loans through the program, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again, we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to these financing options. I'd also like to highlight another very important initiative that was mentioned earlier, the deferring of GST/HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. This will help 3.2 million business owners and entrepreneurs across the country. Again, it's another initiative to put more money in the pockets of businesses as they deal with this unprecedented health care crisis. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, the Liberals still haven't fixed the payroll eligibility problems for many small business owners who need to access the zero-interest loans available in CEBA. Can the minister provide any rationale for why countless small businesses are not being allowed to access these loans? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, as of today, 590,000 small business loans have been issued. I think that's contrary to the point the member opposite is making. Clearly we recognize that we need to be agile and that we need to understand the needs of businesses. That's why we made changes to this particular program. We'll continue to listen to businesses. I can assure the member opposite that 590,000 small business loans is no small feat. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Canada has some of the best competitive sport shooters in the world. The Liberals' order in council on firearms will put an end to many Canadians being able to represent our country. Can the Minister of Public Safety list even one of these sport shooting competitions, which will now be illegal due to his order in council? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Public Safety. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it's an important question because sport shooting is a very important tradition for many Canadian sport shooters. I want to assure the member opposite that the weapons we have prohibited by this order in council were not designed for sport shooting and are not used in the Olympics or Paralympic Games. They are not included in this and therefore have no impact on that activity of legitimate sport shooting. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one more short question, Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, statistics show that women are more likely to live paycheque to paycheque, so women continue to be disproportionately impacted by this pandemic in a negative way. Many are worried they won't have a job to go back to. Will the government commit to helping women who are bearing this financial burden return to the workforce? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is a very good question. I would love to have a lot of time to answer it. The answer is yes, of course. We are making sure that many of our measures do not disproportionately impact women, because when women succeed, all Canadians succeed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now continue with Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. It's a privilege to be here in the House today to represent the people of Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, but also to serve as the BlocQubcois tourism critic. Tourism in Quebec is a significant economic engine and wealth creator. This industry is vital to the regions of Quebec, as I'll demonstrate. The tourism industry in Quebec generates over $15billion in economic spinoffs and employs more than 400,000workers. In Quebec, one in tenjobs is connected to the tourism industry. Every dollar spent on tourism generates about 70cents in the Quebec economy. The tourism industry consists of over 30,000businesses, and two-thirds of these businesses are outside the major centres in the Quebec City and Montreal regions. In the tourism industry, 82% of businesses have fewer than 20employees. This shows once again the need to support this industry. I heard my honourable colleague on the other side of the House say that a plan was in place for the tourism industry. I want to hear what he has to say about this plan. To date, what specific measures has the government taken to support the tourism industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I want to thank my colleague for his question. He's right. The situation is very difficult for all regions of our country and for Quebec. That's why we've invested in regional development. These investments will improve the situation in the tourism sector. These investments will provide assistance for festivals, programs and other initiatives. We'll continue to work with my colleague and the other members to find solutions that will improve the situation. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, I'm not sure that I fully understood the plan. However, I can say that the people in the tourism industry don't understand the plan, because they're still waiting for it. One issue in the tourism industry involves fixed costs. Initially, we asked that part of the wage subsidy be set aside to cover fixed costs. The government implemented the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. The assistance covers 75% of commercial rental payments under $50,000, and property owners pay the remaining 25%. To date, how many applications have been submitted under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The wage subsidy is very significant. However, we know that there are other fixed costs. That's why we've taken other measures, such as the measures related to credit and rent. We've combined several measures that will help companies bridge the gap until the end of the crisis. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We expect to hear a figure and not necessarily words. We could see that the program was ineffective, particularly for seasonal businesses, including businesses in the tourism industry. Businesses need to have suspended operations or to show a decline of at least 70% in operations since the start of the public health crisis. How can a tourism business that hasn't yet launched operations show a decline of 70%? It doesn't make sense. A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that only one in ten businesses can benefit from this assistance. Yet these businesses need the assistance. Does the government believe that commercial rent assistance is effective even though only one in ten businesses can benefit from it? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I know that the situation is very difficult. That's why we've introduced another option. Through the community futures development corporations and business development centres, we're providing $71million to businesses and organizations in rural communities by giving them much-needed access to capital. This investment will help many businesses in Quebec, particularly in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, you have one minute left. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, in my humble opinion, one out of ten businesses amounts to 10%. This figure isn't very high and is far from a passing grade. What does the government plan to do? Does it plan to implement an expanded program to support businesses in the tourism and seasonal industries to ensure that fixed costs are more fully covered? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we have a strategy. We've invested in regional development and in small and medium-sized businesses. We've helped the workers and we'll continue to work with the provincial governments to find solutions. We must work together, particularly in the tourism sector, because the situation in the sector is very serious. I'm sure that we can find solutions to help improve the situation for people in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now continue with Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands. Mr. Chair, last week was Mental Health Week. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great deal of stress and uncertainty for all Canadians and that during this uncertain time, it is normal for many people to feel increased anxiety, depression and mental health issues. In fact, a poll by the Canadian Mental Health Association's Ontario branch showed that 61% of respondents were worried about the mental health of a loved one and more than half of the respondents were worried about their own mental health. In the Standing Committee on Health, we've also heard from many witnesses that our front-line heroes, working around the clock to protect us from the virus and to help others recover, are at great risk of physical and mental burnout. This shows how seriously Canadians need supports for their mental health and well-being during this most trying time. Can the Minister of Health tell my constituents what the government is doing to support Canadians during this uncertain time? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I thank the member for NewmarketAurora for that very insightful question. In fact, we've been very worried about Canadians' mental health as resulting from the pandemic, but even prior to that we knew that we needed to create rapidly more tools for Canadians across the country, no matter where they lived. We've worked very closely with our provincial and territorial partners, for example, to amplify the work that they're doing through increased supports, financial supports. We also launched Wellness Together Canada, which is a digital portal, where all Canadians can get access to tools they can use to help with the circumstances they find themselves in and to get the information they need during COVID-19. It also allows Canadians to connect to paid professionals who can provide support in a variety of different ways, whether it's over the telephone, through email or by text, understanding that Canadians have different ways of connecting that work for them. We've also partnered with a number of organizations that provide supports to Canadians, many of the crisis hotlines, for example, that are working double-time or triple-time to try to keep up with the volume of demand. This is a difficult time for all Canadians and we will continue to work to ensure Canadians have the supports they need. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Gerretsen, from Kingston and the Islands. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, students from across the country have been significantly impacted by the effects of COVID-19. As we know, thousands of post-secondary students depend on employment throughout the summer in order to pay for expenses throughout their academic year. Unfortunately the pandemic has resulted in the closure of many businesses and organizations that would normally employ students who work during the summer. Thousands of students are now left without the financial means they were depending on to pay for their post-secondary educational expenses. In response to the concerns raised by students, the government announced the creation of the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide students with the assistance they need to make it through these uncertain financial times. I represent a riding that has multiple post-secondary institutions, and my constituents have been asking when they should expect to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. Can the President of the Treasury Board please give us an update on the status of the Canada emergency student benefit, and in particular, when students will be able to start accessing this benefit, and also confirm if and how it may be retroactive? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, I would first like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his strong advocacy in favour of young Canadians in his riding and across Canada. Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that young Canadians have the support that they need during this very difficult time. That's why we are investing $9 billion to support students and recent graduates affected by COVID-19. The measures include doubling the Canada student grants, raising the cap on student loans, creating new employment opportunities for students and launching the Canada emergency student benefit. I'm pleased to share with the House that the application period for the Canada emergency student benefit will commence on May 15. That is this Friday. This benefit will provide $1,250 a month to eligible students or $2,000 for students who have disabilities or dependants. Mr. Chair, when Canada emerges from this pandemic, we want to make sure that students are in a financial position to continue their studies so that they can pursue fruitful careers and help build a strong Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll wait a few seconds before moving on to the next five-minute period to allow the console operator to switch with someone else. We'll next go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Victims of human trafficking continue to suffer during this crisis. Many are facing worse conditions and additional barriers to escaping human trafficking than before the pandemic. The government has been completely silent on this issue, and now funding to fight human trafficking is being taken away from front-line organizations. Why would the government choose to do this at this vulnerable time? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, human trafficking is, as we all know, one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Our government is working to eliminate all instances of it. To combat human trafficking, we've launched a comprehensive national strategy that brings together federal efforts under one strategic framework. We have backed that new move with $75 million in additional investments, and the new strategy now strengthens Canada's ability to fight this abhorrent attack on human rights and human dignity. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, this simply isn't good enough. The government is letting down our most vulnerable Canadians. We know that human trafficking hasn't stopped during this pandemic, and these front-line organizations have received the message that supporting them in fighting these heinous crimes is not a priority. What is the minister going to do to rectify this situation? +Hon. Bill Blair: As I said, we have developed a national strategy to combat human trafficking. We've made $75 million in additional investments, and this new strategy takes a whole-of-government approach. It empowers victims and survivors to regain their self-confidence and control over their lives, and it will prevent more of these crimes from taking place. It provides better protection and support for those most vulnerable to human trafficking, and it will ensure that police and prosecutors have the resources to prosecute these traffickers for their heinous crimes. Mr. Chair, we'll continue to work collaboratively with victims groups and to provide the supports that are required. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, more vulnerable Canadians continue to be let down. There are effective medications that have been developed for those living with cystic fibrosis, yet this medication is not available here. We know that the pharmaceutical company has not been able to apply to market this drug in Canada because of the changes to the PMPRB, which have been heavily criticized by stakeholders and patients. Will the minister delay the July 1 implementation date and review the regulations so that drugs like Trikafta are made available in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, there are two separate issues in that question, so I will talk about the PMPRB. As a government, we are committed, as you know, to increasing affordability of and accessibility to Canadian medications, to medications across Canada, and the PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians to be able to afford their prescriptions. Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower prices for medicine gain access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada, or even faster. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, for those living with a rare disease, every single day can be a struggle. We know the importance of lowering drug costs, but not at the cost of life-saving drugs not being available here in Canada. Waiting years for the government to reduce regulations is not an option. We also know that the nature of the disease makes those people more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, and they are at a higher risk of its being lethal. Why is this government continuing to let those with CF struggle and suffer needlessly? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I believe the member opposite is talking about the drug Trikafta, and many cystic fibrosis patient groups have been advocating having access to it in Canada. In fact, the manufacturer of Trikafta has not submitted an application to market this product in Canada. However, that said, we do have a special access program for drugs that are not marketed in Canada. As of May 6, Health Canada approved 95 applications for 98 patients to access Trikafta through the special access program. I would encourage all patients with cystic fibrosis to speak to their doctor to ensure that they too can apply through the special access program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question of 45 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: We know the importance of lowering drug costs. As you know, 4,300 people suffer from this rare genetic disease. Most of them are children and young adults. One young woman from Calgary is a CF champion, fighting for her passion to be a famous opera singer. She's very talented. Her reality of living with CF has meant that she has had many visits to the hospital and had many health crises that have made singing impossible for a time. CF patients are waiting for this drug, which was fast-tracked in other countries. Now it seems that the changes to the PMPRB will cause further delays or complications. Will the minister delay the implementation and review the PMPRB? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Honourable Minister, please provide a short response. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I will just repeat that the manufacturer has not applied to sell this drug in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to Mr. Lobb of HuronBruce. +Mr. Ben Lobb (HuronBruce, CPC): Thank you very much. On July 25, 2019, after the federal-provincial-territorial agriculture meeting, the agriculture minister promised big changes in 2020 for programs like AgriStability and AgriRecovery. Besides a pilot program in a couple of provinces and an application deadline, is there anything else you would like to report? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair. Since the July meeting in QuebecCity with the provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture, we've been working to improve the AgriStability program. This issue remains a priority, and it's included in my mandate letter. However, at this time, we're responding to emergencies that go beyond what the various risk management programs can provide to our producers. +Mr. Ben Lobb: You can appreciate, Minister, the issue we're dealing with here. The United States Department of Agriculture has allocated $19 billion to farmers, $16 billion of that in direct support. The program that was offered last week, $252 million, was a mere fraction of what the United States is getting. If the minister is telling farmers to bank on the existing business risk management program, it's not going to work. Countless numbers of pork farmers, just in my riding alone, have one thousand, two thousand, three thousand head of hogs ready to be shipped within the near future. They will lose $70 a head. AgriStability isn't going to cut it. We need an immediate program to help out these hard-working pork farmers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I fully understand my colleague's comments. That's why we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. We've also increased, improved and facilitated access to AgriStability. One pork producer tried the calculator and told me that he could quickly receive $11 per head of hog. Alberta's agriculture minister even publicly stated that some producers could obtain the desired amount of $20 per head using the AgriStability program. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, you can see the problem right there with the math. The minister just said that one of her pork producers is going to get $11. They are losing $70. There's a $59-per-head gap, times likely several thousand head of hogs in their barns. Let's go to another trying issue with agriculture. It's the carbon tax. I know that the government has their position on the carbon tax, and I know that I'm not going to change it, but I want to give the members of Parliament across the way, the government, an idea of what a pork farmer might go through. A pork farmer sent me their bill for February 26 to March 24. Their natural gas bill was about $2,400. In there was close to $500 in federal carbon tax. Farmers manage their woodlots ethically. They have environmental farm plans. They have nutrient management plans. They get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration and ethical environmental management on their farm, yet every month they are asked to pay a carbon tax. It just doesn't seem fair. I want the minister's opinion on that. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: As you know, our pollution pricing policy is designed to build a clean economy. We've introduced exemptions for agriculture. On one hand, emissions from animal and vegetable production are not subject to carbon pricing, and on the other hand, farm fuels and other fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are exempt. We've also provided partial reimbursements for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. We have already done a lot. We encourage producers to take advantage of the business risk management programs, and we are ready to do more. We've already shown that, and we will continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There is time for one short question and response. Go ahead, Mr. Lobb. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, I know the Minister of Agriculture has toured my riding. She knows very well what the lay of the land is here. What about pork farmers? What about chicken farmers? What about hens? What about drying in the fall? All those farmers pay a carbon tax, and there is no program for them. They pay and they pay and they pay, and what makes it worse is that they are given no credit for the environmental work they do on their farms. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: It's true that our producers work incredibly hard to protect the environment and ensure the well-being of their animals. That's important, to be sure, but I'd like to put the impact of pollution pricing into perspective. To put these estimates into context, AAFC used data from agricultural tax data programs to show the impact on a per-farm basis as a percentage of total operating costs. The estimates ranged from $210 to $819 per farm and 0.05% to 0.42% of total farm operating expenses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now move on to Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Being from a rural area, myself, I can assure you that people who live in rural communities are resourceful and resilient. Instead of staying cooped up in their homes, they are doing their best to retool and save the companies they work for. One of the only options they have is to work from home. Unfortunately, though, they don't have access to the tools they need. Cellular and Internet networks are inadequate, even non-existent in some cases. I want to know, not whether the government is going to help these Canadians join the 21st century, but when. Can you give us any assurances and, above all, a timetable for a real plan? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I agree with the member. The situation is very serious. High-speed Internet is not a luxury; it's a necessity. That's why we launched the connect to innovate program. My fellow minister Ms. Monsef will be introducing the next strategy to improve the situation in all regions, especially rural areas. Finding a solution is absolutely imperative. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I don't think the minister understood my question. In the 2019 budget, the government promised to connect all Canadians to the Internet by 2030. This is 2020. That's 10years away. People don't need reliable Internet service 10years down the road. The pandemic has made the need even more acute right now. When, then, will people have Internet access? I'm simply asking you for a date now. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, under the last budget, we launched a $1.7-billion program to support broadband infrastructure. That's a lot of money for high-speed Internet. My fellow minister Ms.Monsef is in charge of the program. We also introduced the connect to innovate program, which has helped 900communities all over the country. We will keep working to make the lives of people who live in rural areas better, and we will find solutions to provide high-speed Internet access. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, you no doubt know that Beauce is the cradle of small and medium-sized businesses. On March27, the Prime Minister introduced the emergency wage subsidy to help businesses cope with the pandemic. Unfortunately, general partnerships were overlooked. Of the many constituents in my riding who have reached out to me on the subject, one, in particular, has contacted me three times since mid-April. I still don't have anything to tell him because the government is dragging its feet. We'd like to get a clear and specific answer. The same goes for sole proprietors, who were also overlooked. When is the government going to include these businesses in the current programs? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we announced in financial support for vulnerable small and medium-sized businesses that are not eligible for the measures already in place and that are struggling with cash flow issues. We've also invested $71million to support businesses and organizations by giving them access to capital in rural communities. As well, we've invested in programs for rural areas, and we will continue to make investments to help small and medium-sized businesses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, please keep it brief. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: All right, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture asked the federal government for an agriculture and agri-food emergency fund of $2.6billion to help maintain food security in Canada in response to COVID-19. Will the minister address the federation's request? Minister, I'd like you to give us a date. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We already have a host of business risk management programs, through which, $1.6billion is available to producers annually. More support is actually available, even through those programs, since they meet the demand. We are prepared to do more, and we will. I urge producers to apply for the AgriStability program and to use the funds in their AgriInvest accounts. Some $2.3billion is available through that program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for LangleyAldergrove, Mr. Van Popta. +Mr. Tako Van Popta (LangleyAldergrove, CPC): Mr. Chair, the government's wage subsidy program is designed to help traditional companies, not high-growth companies. For example, I was talking to Ron, who operates an engineering firm in my riding that specializes in designing and building very expensive machines for their ever-expanding overseas markets. Business is down, but not by the requisite 30%. Of course not, since they're in high-growth mode, but just recently they had to lay off some very talented staff. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program can be expanded or adapted to deal with high-growth companies that will play such a key role in Canada's economic relaunch? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague is absolutely correct. We, the government, take enormous pride in our small businesses, particularly the start-ups and the high-growth firms. They're going to be absolutely essential for our economic recovery, and we know that some of them are ineligible for the wage subsidy. That is why we introduced a $250-million program in the industrial research assistance program through the National Research Council, strictly targeting and focusing on those high-growth firms that were ineligible for the wage subsidy, so that they can provide the wage support to keep those highly skilled individuals in Canada. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, there is another category of businesses that are falling through the cracks and feel they are being left behind by the wage subsidy program. Those are recently merged companies. For example, there is a trucking company in my riding that is significantly bigger this year than it was last year as a result of some key acquisitions and mergers late last year. All of the legacy companies by themselves would qualify individually for the wage subsidy, but the merged company does not. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program is sufficiently flexible to accommodate recently merged companies? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again I want to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He is identifying unique pain points that exist within the overall economy with specific examples of companies that are not able to access some of the programming we have provided. I do want to highlight, when it comes to the wage subsidy, that we have made changes to the revenue thresholds to make more companies eligible. The specific example that the member opposite raises is something that is under consideration. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, the government's commercial rent assistance program discriminates against certain tenants based solely on whether their landlord has a mortgage on the subject building. I was talking to Leslie the other day. She manages a number of commercial office buildings in my riding. Some of these buildings have mortgages and some don't, and it all depends on what they were able to negotiate with their banker. Leslie is having a very hard time explaining to her tenants why some will qualify for the rental subsidy and some won't, depending on which building they are in. Can the government confirm that the nonsensical mortgage requirement in the rent subsidy program is gone? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the approach that was taken on trying to assist small businesses with rent is very much based on the fact that this is a provincial jurisdiction, so we have used the mortgage system as a way to do it. It is, in fact, not nonsensical. That said, we are looking at this particular issue. It's something that is under consideration. We expect that we will find a way to ensure that those landlords who don't have mortgages can work with the CMHC to have the appropriate approach to be eligible for this program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left, Mr. Van Popta. Go ahead with a short question. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Many people in my riding have reached out to me to say they are quite disturbed that their favourite hunting and sport shooting firearms are now on the banned list. Can the minister inform Canadians how many Canadian taxpayer dollars are going to go to the buyback program for legal gun owners and how far that money would go if it were to be diverted to something useful, such as more border controls to stop the illegal importation of firearms? +Hon. Bill Blair: Our first priority is the protection and safety of Canadians. We've seen an unacceptable rise in gun violence right across our community. All weapons are being regulated in our country. Some, such as handguns, represent such a significant risk that we strongly restrict them. Some weapons, quite frankly, are completely unsuitable for any sporting or hunting activity, such as weapons designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. We have now prohibited those weapons. The saving of lives is worth an investment in public safety. I want to assure the member we will bring forward legislation that will facilitate an appropriate buyback program. I look forward to a discussion in this House with the member opposite on how that can be done to ensure public safety and to ensure that we do it in as effective a way as possible. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the government and ministers present for the rapid relief that they've provided to Canadians. I know the constituents in my riding really appreciate that. I'd like to thank them also for being responsive to the MPs who have brought forward gaps in the program. The CERB requirements recognize dividend income for eligibility for the Canada emergency business account, CEBA, but the Canada emergency business account does not recognize dividends or contract payments. I've been contacted by many small business owners who have been legally paying themselves with dividends for years, but these companies cannot apply for the CEBA even though this might save them from bankruptcy during this crisis. Will the government make the necessary changes to allow dividend income to be admissible for CEBA eligibility? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable colleague for his very thoughtful question and his advocacy in looking for different solutions and in working with us to help small businesses, not only in his riding but across the country as well. He's absolutely correct that the Canada emergency business account has been successful, as 590,000 loans have been issued. That's a reflection of some of the changes that we introduced, which made the criteria more generous so that more businesses could obtain assistance. He has raised the issue of dividends. As I said before, we continue to work with Canadians and Canadian businesses and colleagues in this House to see how we can assist more Canadians, not less of them, and we'll continue to endeavour to do that. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, there are still many Canadians stranded overseas who are trying to return to Canada. Some have no assurance that their non-Canadian spouse will be allowed into Canada with them. Many are being forced to make an impossible choice between sheltering in place overseas or separating from their spouse in order to return home. Will the government remove unnecessary barriers and allow these Canadians to return to Canada immediately with their spouses? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, in an effort to flatten the curve and to protect Canadians, we've taken a number of extraordinary measures at the border and we have restricted non-essential travel of people coming into Canada. While Canadian citizens and permanent residents will always be admissiblesubject, of course, to a 14-day quarantine upon entry foreign nationals are subject to travel restrictions. For individuals to be eligible to travel to Canada, their travel must be considered essential travel, consistent with the emergency order put in place. I recognize and very much respect the spirit of the member's question. We recognize these are difficult situations. It is not our desire to keep families apart. I want to assure that each situation will be decided on a case-by-case basis based on the information made available to border service officers. I welcome any inquiries he may have. If he reaches out to my office, we'll help in any way we can. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, the Alberta energy regulator has suspended a wide range of environmental monitoring requirements for oil sands companies during this pandemic. This includes environmental reporting. It includes wetland wildlife and bird monitoring, even though Canada is a signatory to the international migratory bird treaty. Water that escapes from storm ponds doesn't need to be tested. Air quality programs, including for first nations communities, have been reduced. Testing for leaks of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has been suspended. This is after the federal government has provided $750 million in funding for methane emission reductions. The federal government has also just committed $1.7 billion to clean up orphaned oil wells. That message, clearly, is about the negligence of the Alberta government. It is something corporations should be paying for. Will the federal government hold the Alberta government to account and withhold energy sector relief funding until these environmental regulations are reinstated? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question and for his very collaborative approach with our government on a number of issues. I would like to thank him for this particular question and his particular reference to methane, because it gives me an opportunity to highlight some very important progress that the federal government made this week in working with the Province of Alberta. Just yesterday Alberta joined B.C. and Saskatchewan and published its own draft regulations on methane. This will allow us, in working with Alberta, to work on equivalency on methane, which will allow us to work towards standing down the federal system in those jurisdictions. This is tremendously important, because it will allow us to cut methane emissions by 45% by 2025. It's hugely important for fighting climate change together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to the honourable member for Hamilton Mountain, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Mr. Chair, I was pleased to hear about extending the tax deadline to October 1 in yesterday's announcement for seniors. After many discussions with the Minister of Seniors, I was glad to hear that she was listening to the NDP and many others on making this happen. It stops a lot of interruptions for people who couldn't get their taxes done. Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has been showing us in stark terms that Canadian seniors are struggling to make ends meet in Canada. Before enduring the crisis, it was clear that OAS and GIS benefits levels were just not enough for seniors to keep up with the cost of living, so we need to fix this now. Why is the government refusing to increase OAS and GIS benefits to lift seniors out of poverty on a permanent basis? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for giving me this opportunity to rise today and talk about how we are supporting Canadian seniors during this pandemic. Many Canadian seniors are facing significant health, economic and social challenges as a result of the pandemic. They built this country and now they need our help. Our government is taking significant action to provide Canadian seniors with greater financial security and give them the help they need during this crisis. We're building on past measures by introducing a one-time tax-free payment of $300 for those who receive OAS and of $200 for those receiving GIS, totalling $500 to seniors who receive both. We are also supporting community-based projects to improve the quality of life for seniors through the New Horizons for Seniors program, and investing in other charities. Seniors need our help, and we are delivering for them. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, I was glad to hear that the Minister of Seniors is acknowledging the financial burden that our seniors are taking on. She mentioned the prescription dispensing fees, the added costs of their groceries and the delivery charges. I was glad that the Prime Minister acknowledged the heavy toll seniors are facing, and that they helped to shape this country and now they need our help. A surprising statement that I heard yesterday was the Treasury Board and the seniors minister's admission in their press briefing that the level of assistance being provided to Canadian seniors is quite low. Why is the seniors minister acknowledging all the burdens they're trying to help the seniors with, but the response they're giving is just a very low way of handling it? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I really do want to acknowledge my honourable colleague for his advocacy. I just want to assure him that while the government remains committed to implementing policies in our platform, we are focused on this health crisis right now. We have provided financial support to seniors sooner through the GST credit top-up, and now with additional payments to OAS and GIS recipients. This year we are investing over twice as much on financial assistance for seniors as we committed to in our platform, which is $3.8 billion compared to $1.56 billion in the platform. Seniors need our help and we're delivering. These payments have provided greater support for the most vulnerable seniors. Just to give some details, for those on OAS and GIS, they will get, in conjunction with the GST credit top-up, $875 per adult, and over $1,500 per couple. This is not an insignificant amount. This is a significant amount to support our seniors during this pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left for both a question and a response. Go ahead, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The minister was talking about there being a maximum payment, if it's possible. What I've heard from seniors is this is a one-shot deal and it's an insult to them. They want some stability on an ongoing basis. We did make an agreement about two weeks ago that help would be implemented without delay on the seniors issue and for people with disabilities. Why did yesterday's announcement include only the people who are seniors, but not people with disabilities? Why have they been omitted? When can they expect help to come? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to touch on the two points raised. On the one-time payment, we know that seniors need help now, and that's why it's important to get that money into seniors' accounts as soon as possible. That is why we're providing the one payment right away, instead of small amounts spread over months. In the coming weeks we will look at additional supports for other vulnerable Canadians. I just want to let him know we are working on additional measures. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now +Mr. Scott Duvall: I didn't hear anything about the disability +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The five minutes are finished. It is now over to Mrs.Gill, the member for Manicouagan. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques. I have just one question. It's for the government, and this will be the fourth time I've asked today. When I go back home, what am I going to tell the people of Chandler, Amqui, Bic, Saint-Simon, Tadoussac and Harrington Harbour? Am I going to tell them that the government supports the Bloc Qubcois's proposal? We propose giving seasonal workers access to employment insurance benefits until next season, regardless of whether they received the CERB, how many hours they worked or how many they accumulated. Should I instead tell them that the Liberal government has nothing in store for them as they suffer through the crisis? The government hasn't managed to bridge the employment insurance gap, and is even planning to bring it to six, if not eight, months. That means they'll have nothing to put on the dinner table for the next year. I'd like an answer, Mr.Chair. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I have three things to say in response to the member's important question. First, we obviously understand what she's saying. The work is seasonal, not the workers. The work they do is fundamental so they can support their families and their communities in eastern Quebec and other regions. Second, the CERB delivers significant assistance to those often vulnerable workers, the majority of whom would be able or certainly eager to find another job. Third, and finally, before any longer-term investments are made, it's important to keep in mind that those who may have received employment insurance benefits but who lost them in recent weeks or who do seasonal work are eligible for the CERB. That said, we are also looking ahead. We've already announced some very important measuresand we'll continue to do soin support of tourism, culture, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and many other key contributors to regional development in Quebec and elsewhere. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, has the floor. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, the situation my fellow member just described is of little comfort to those in Quebec's regions. To be frank, the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is a flop. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, one in three businesses doesn't qualify for rent relief because it doesn't meet the 70% drop in revenues requirement. Half of businesses have indicated that their landlords won't be applying for the program because it's optional. Commercial landlords can choose to participate in the program or not. How is that going to help businesses, Mr.Chair? We are still trying to figure that out. Businesses, especially seasonal ones, need more support to cover their fixed costs. Will the government commit to reviewing the program, which is too restrictive for businesses and optional for landlords? The program must do more to help businesses, particularly seasonal ones, cover their fixed costs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that businesses are, of course, very concerned about fixed costs. Our rent relief program is very significant. We haven't yet announced all the details, so it's much too soon to say that it's flawed. More information will be available in the next few days. At that point, we hope to be on the right track when it comes to fixed costs and rent. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: I hope you're making adjustments. It's totally unacceptable that only 10% of businesses who need the relief can get it. What's more, the public health crisis has brought its share of change for businesses, particularly with the new health measures. They have to plan, implement preventative measures, have response plans, train staff and acquire the necessary equipment. In order to do those things, protect the public and reopen their doors, businesses have to assume the costs. Will the government commit to providing financial assistance to businesses, especially those in the tourism industry, so they can cover the costs of putting the new health measures in place? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I know the situation is very serious in rural communities. That's why we've invested $71million in community futures development corporations, or CFDCs, and business development centres. Both of those will go a long way towards helping businesses in rural communities, and I have no doubt that we will continue working together to find other solutions. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll move on to the honourable member for Calgary Centre, Mr. McLean. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the terms for accessing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, CECRA, is that you must have a mortgage on the property. One of the key terms of eligibility for this support is that the landlord owes money to a bank. Will the Minister of Finance tell us if this program was designed for the benefit of landlords and tenants or for the benefit of banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think that it's important to know that commercial rent and landlord-tenant relationships are provincial jurisdictions. Therefore, as we embarked on an approach that could enable landlords and tenants to get to an agreement that would help both, we used the CMHC as a vehicle from which we could do that. We think that we've come up with a program that provides advantages for the landlords and advantages for the tenants, and we will be announcing details that will include how mortgages can be put in place for those landlords who don't currently have them. +Mr. Greg McLean: Brookfield Properties, a large Canadian firm, announced that its rent collections on commercial properties for April were 15% of the lease terms. Luckily, Brookfield has another company, Brookfield Business Partners, poised to help by buying up the distressed equity of the firms that owe them money. Did the Minister of Finance design CECRA with this outcome in mind, washing out individual investors and small companies and transferring that value into the hands of vulture financiers who hold all the cards? +Hon. Bill Morneau: In fact, Mr. Chair, we designed this program exactly with the idea in mind of the challenge that we're seeing. We're seeing that in many cases commercial tenants are not actually able to pay their rent, so landlords are not getting the rent that's due. Therefore, there's a mutual interest from tenants and from landlords in coming to an agreement. By providing funding through the mortgage system to those landlords, we recognize that we'll enable both of those two parts of the equation to come to an agreement that we think will be advantageous for the sector over the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: In the past two months, the Bank of Canada has tripled the size of its balance sheet to almost $400 billion, with more to come, Mr. Chair. In the 2008 recession, the world's major economies endured quantitative easing on a previously unknown scale, most of which has not since been unwound. Canada endured a then-record $50-billion deficit, but we did not need to enter the uncertain world of QE, quantitative easing, as a result of the strength of Canada's oil and gas industry. Will the minister acknowledge that this government's oil and gas policy mismanagement has led to economic decline, necessitating hundreds of billions of dollars of quantitative easing? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me challenge one assumption implicit in the honourable member's question, the assumption that our government fails to understand the importance of the oil and gas sector to our economy. Let me quote some leaders from Alberta and their response to the lease program. Tim McMillan, CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said, I think this is essential. Not all companies are going to need to tap into this sort of liquidity...but some that are normally high-quality, stable companies likely will be looking for this program to provide a certain amount of liquidity for them. CAPP understands that we are supporting Canadian companies, including in the oil and gas sector, and I would urge the members opposite to understand that as well. +Mr. Greg McLean: BlackRock is one of the world's largest investment companies, managing trillions of dollars of bonds. It has lobbied regulators around the world to not be named a systemically important financial institution. The Bank of Canada unexpectedly engaged BlackRock as an adviser on its bond-buying plans. Is the Minister of Finance mindful of the conflict of interest that exists between the world's largest bond manager, BlackRock, and the advice it's giving the Bank of Canada on buying bonds? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite might know that the Bank of Canada is independent from the government, and as such we are not privy to those decisions and support the continuing independence of the Bank of Canada from the government. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. McLean, you may have just a short question. +Mr. Greg McLean: The finance sector seems to be getting well served during this economic crisis. Will the minister endeavour to provide a more balanced program of benefits going forward for the sake of the entire Canadian economy, and not just the Brookfields, the BlackRocks and the big banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the notion that one sector is being advantaged versus another actually defies the facts. More than 550,000 loans have gone out to small businesses in the form of $40,000 loans per business over a very short time period. Canada is a leader in this regard, and we'll continue to support businesses all across Canada with loans and support as they need it to get ourselves through this difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to the last five-minute round. We'll begin with the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Thank you, Mr. Chair. What is the dollar value of the total assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, earlier today we were given incorrect information on the Auditor General. I would like to be able to provide more information at my next response. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member for Carleton said that the previous government spent more on the Auditor General than the current government, and that is actually incorrect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in fact, in the last full year of the Harper government, in 2014-15, the total spending on the Auditor General was $85.8 million. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in the most recent year, 2018-19, the total spend was $92.4 million for the Auditor General, showing a 7.7% increase. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would just say it's shocking when people bring forward incorrect information to the House to try to make a point. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to support Canadians through this time, with support not only for businesses but for individuals to get through and get a bridge to a better time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is just the dollar value? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, that's a continuing commitment. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I know we shouldn't ask the minister about numbers. He's just the finance minister, after all, but what is the equity on the Government of Canada's balance sheet? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would advise the member for Carleton to memorize those Auditor General figures for his next foray into the House of Commons. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The minister has claimed that our balance sheet is strong. There are three components to a balance sheet: the assets, the liabilities, and the equity. The minister doesn't know any of the three, so clearly he doesn't actually know anything about our balance sheet. That's reassuring. According to the Auditor General, the negative net worth of our Government of Canada will be as much as $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. Can the minister, if he is familiar with any of these numbers, tell us if it is possible that his government will hit $1 trillion of debt this year? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to assure Canadians that our approach will be to continue to make investments on their behalf. That is available to us because of our strong fiscal position, but we will continue to take that approach, which we think is the appropriate one. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Will it be $1 trillion, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to focus on the importance of supporting Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of our current national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what will happen as we do that is that we will allow ourselves to have a stronger economy at the end because of these investments. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of the national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We have always seen, Mr. Chair, that these investments are not only supporting Canadians; they are supporting businesses so that we do have a strong economy and a strong fiscal position coming out of this. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know the size of our national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I will continue to focus our efforts, as we believe we should, on supporting Canadians through this time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know what $1 trillion is? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are continuing to make investments that we believe are prudent in the face of this economic challenge, supporting Canadians as we know we need to. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of all the public and private debt in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we know that by supporting Canadians, by continuing to make investments, we will enable Canadiens to have less debt themselves because that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total debt, public and private, as a share of GDP in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the important consideration here is that the federal government is taking a position that we should support Canadians so that they don't take on the debt themselves. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Yet they have. They have record household debt, record corporate debt and growing government debt. The finance minister doesn't seem to know any of the basic numbers that would be required to govern the finances of the Government of Canada, so I will give him one last chance. Based on his latest briefings, what is the total size of Canada's national debt? If he doesn't know, can he have the humility and honesty just to say so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for slightly more time in this response to say that we think the best thing to do during this time period is to invest in Canadians. We know that in that way they will not be supporting as much debt themselves. The government is in a fiscal position that enables us to take on debt at this time, which we think is appropriate to get our economy to a better position at the end of this crisis. We think that's appropriate. We will continue to take that approach. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. government House leader is rising on a point of order. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. I think we need to keep the interpreters in mind and the work they are doing, particularly when it comes to the flow and speed of questions. As the interpreters have already mentioned, they've suffered more injuries during this short time than during all of last year. Mr.Chair, I kindly ask that you make sure members take that into account. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I'm not sure whether that constitutes a point of order, but it's certainly an important reminder for members of the House to respect interpreters' working conditions. Please note that this is the end of our questions to ministers for this afternoon. Honourable members, please note too that pursuant to an order made on April 20, the House has been recalled. As such, the committee will now adjourn and the House sitting will begin shortly thereafter. The bells will be rung to call in members, and a parade will begin the sitting. This committee is now adjourned. +","The Chair of the meeting, Hon. Anthony Rota, opened the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, noting the televised proceedings. No ministerial announcements were made, leading the committee to proceed with the presentation of petitions certified by the clerk. Mr. Manly presented a petition for a ban on cosmetic testing using animals, advocating for a model similar to the European Union's. Mr. Poilievre presented an e-petition initiated by a constituent for mandatory use of life jackets for children under 14 on small vessels, following a personal tragedy regarding Cara's son Joshua. + +There were no further petitions, so questioning of ministers commenced. The proceedings included discussions on suspected fraud in benefit applications, with the Prime Minister, Right Hon. Justin Trudeau, emphasizing the need for quick financial distribution to Canadians while assuring that measures are in place to handle fraudulent cases, and indicating that those who fraudulently received money would have to repay it. The conversation extended to concerns regarding the exclusion of specific groups from government support, demands for reviewing suspected fraud cases, and Trudeau’s support for Taiwan's participation in the WHO as a non-state observer. + +Discussion also took place around the Canada emergency student benefit, with questions on incentives for youth work, the impact on the labor market, and the timing of known employment incentives. The Prime Minister and Mr. Blanchet exchanged views, and Trudeau stated that measures are being set up to provide the necessary support for students unable to find jobs due to the pandemic. + +There were debates on the government's handling of fraud, with Hon. Pierre Poilievre interrogating about current suspect cases and the Auditor General's budget. Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos defended the government's mechanisms to maintain the system's integrity. Questions were also raised about measures taken for business owners ineligible for current supports, support for the tourism industry, and support for seniors during the pandemic. + +Lastly, Mr. Singh from the NDP raised concerns about the long-term care homes and the impact on seniors, calling for more significant government involvement and support for vulnerable seniors during the crisis. Trudeau maintained that while respecting provinces' jurisdiction, the federal government is there to support provinces in fulfilling responsibilities, particularly in the realm of elder support. There were also inquiries about the suspension of certain environmental monitoring requirements for oil sands companies and the inclusion of their spouses by Canadians stranded overseas due to the pandemic." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: I think for two years we were two months , uh , away from being done . +PhD A: And what was that , Morgan ? What project ? +Professor B: Uh , the , uh , TORRENT chip . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . We were two {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , uh , we went through it {disfmarker} Jim and I went through old emails at one point and {disfmarker} and for two years there was this thing saying , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're two months away from being done . It was very {disfmarker} very believable schedules , too . I mean , we went through and {disfmarker} with the schedules {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was true for two years . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , yeah . It was very true . +PhD A: So , should we just do the same kind of deal where we {pause} go around and do , uh , status report {pause} kind of things ? OK . And I guess when Sunil gets here he can do his last or something . So . +Professor B: Yeah . So we {pause} probably should wait for him to come before we do his . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . That 's a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Any objection ? Do y OK , M +Professor B: All in favor +PhD A: Do you want to start , Morgan ? Do you have anything , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , I don't do anything . I {disfmarker} No , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm involved in discussions with {disfmarker} with people about what they 're doing , but I think they 're {disfmarker} since they 're here , they can talk about it themselves . +Grad F: OK . So should I go so that , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . Why don't you go ahead , Barry ? +Grad F: you 're gonna talk about Aurora stuff , per se ? +PhD A: OK . +Grad F: OK . Um . Well , this past week I 've just been , uh , getting down and dirty into writing my {disfmarker} my proposal . So , um {disfmarker} Mmm . I just finished a section on , uh {disfmarker} on talking about these intermediate categories that I want to classify , um , as a {disfmarker} as a middle step . And , um , I hope to {disfmarker} hope to get this , um {disfmarker} a full rough draft done by , uh , Monday so I can give it to Morgan . +PhD A: When is your , uh , meeting ? +Grad F: Um , my meeting +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: with , uh {disfmarker} ? Oh , oh , you mean the {disfmarker} the quals . +PhD A: The quals . Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , the quals are happening in July twenty - fifth . +PhD A: Oh . Soon . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad F: D - Day . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So , is the idea you 're going to do this paper and then you pass it out to everybody ahead of time and {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Right , right . So , y you write up a proposal , and give it to people ahead of time , and you have a short presentation . And , um , and then , um {disfmarker} then everybody asks you questions . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: I remember now . +Grad F: Yep . So , um . +PhD A: Have you d ? I was just gonna ask , do you want to say any {disfmarker} a little bit about it , +Grad F: Y s +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm . +Grad F: Oh . Uh , a little bit about {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Wh - what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're gonna {disfmarker} You said {disfmarker} you were talking about the , uh , particular features that you were looking at , +Grad F: Oh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . Well , I was , um , I think one of the perplexing problems is , um , for a while I was thinking that I had to come up with a complete set of intermediate features {disfmarker} in intermediate categories to {disfmarker} to classify right away . But what I 'm thinking now is , I would start with {disfmarker} with a reasonable set . Something {disfmarker} something like , um , um {disfmarker} like , uh , re regular phonetic features , just to {disfmarker} just to start off that way . And do some phone recognition . Um , build a system that , uh , classifies these , um {disfmarker} these feat uh , these intermediate categories using , uh , multi - band techniques . Combine them and do phon phoneme recognition . Look at {disfmarker} then I would look at the errors produced in the phoneme recognition and say , OK , well , I could probably reduce the errors if I included this extra feature or this extra intermediate category . That would {disfmarker} that would reduce certain confusions over other confusions . And then {disfmarker} and then {vocalsound} reiterate . Um , build the intermediate classifiers . Uh , do phoneme recognition . Look at the errors . And then postulate new {disfmarker} or remove , um , intermediate categories . And then do it again . +PhD A: So you 're gonna use TIMIT ? +Grad F: Um , for that {disfmarker} for that part of the {disfmarker} the process , yeah , I would use TIMIT . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , then {disfmarker} after {disfmarker} after , uh , um , doing TIMIT . Right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's , um {disfmarker} that 's just the ph the phone recognition task . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , I wanted to take a look at , um , things that I could model within word . So , I would mov I would then shift the focus to , um , something like Schw - Switchboard , uh , where I 'd {disfmarker} I would be able to , um {disfmarker} to model , um , intermediate categories that span across phonemes , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: not just within the phonemes , themselves , um , and then do the same process there , um , on {disfmarker} on a large vocabulary task like Switchboard . Uh , and for that {disfmarker} for that part I would {disfmarker} I 'd use the SRI recognizer since it 's already set up for {disfmarker} for Switchboard . And I 'd run some {disfmarker} some sort of tandem - style processing with , uh , my intermediate classifiers . +PhD A: Oh . So that 's why you were interested in getting your own features into the SRI files . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's why I {disfmarker} I was asking about that . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Um , and I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . Any {disfmarker} any questions ? +PhD A: Sounds good . So you just have a few more weeks , huh ? +Grad F: Um , yeah . A few more . +PhD A: It 's about a month from now ? +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a month and {disfmarker} and a week . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So , uh , you want to go next , Dave ? And we 'll do {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK , sure . So , um , last week I finally got results from the SRI system about this mean subtraction approach . And , um , we {disfmarker} we got an improvement , uh , in word error rate , training on the TI - digits data set and testing on Meeting Recorder digits of , um , {vocalsound} six percent to four point five percent , um , on the n on the far - mike data using PZM F , but , um , the near - mike performance worsened , um , from one point two percent to two point four percent . And , um , wh why would that be , um , {vocalsound} considering that we actually got an improvement in near - mike performance using HTK ? And so , uh , with some input from , uh , Andreas , I have a theory in two parts . Um , first of all HTK {disfmarker} sorry , SR - the SRI system is doing channel adaptation , and so HTK wasn't . Um , so this , um {disfmarker} This mean subtraction approach will do a kind of channel {pause} normalization and so that might have given the HTK use of it a boost that wouldn't have been applied in the SRI case . And also , um , the {disfmarker} Andreas pointed out the SRI system is using more parameters . It 's got finer - grained acoustic models . So those finer - grained acoustic models could be more sensitive to the artifacts {pause} in the re - synthesized audio . Um . And me and Barry were listening to the re - synthesized audio and sometimes it seems like you get of a bit of an echo of speech in the background . And so that seems like it could be difficult for training , cuz you could have {pause} different phones {pause} lined up with a different foreground phone , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} depending on {pause} the timing of the echo . So , um , I 'm gonna try training on a larger data set , and then , eh , the system will have seen more examples o of these artifacts and hopefully will be more robust to them . So I 'm planning to use the Macrophone set of , um , read speech , and , um {disfmarker} Hmm . +Professor B: I had another thought just now , which is , uh , remember we were talking before about {disfmarker} we were talking in our meeting about , uh , this stuff that {disfmarker} some of the other stuff that Avendano did , where they were , um , getting rid of low - energy {pause} sections ? Um , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you did a high - pass filtering , as Hirsch did in {pause} late eighties to reduce some of the effects of reverberation , uh , uh , Avendano and Hermansky were arguing that , uh , perhaps one of the reasons for that working was ma may not have even been the filtering so much but the fact that when you filter a {disfmarker} an all - positive power spectrum you get some negative values , and you gotta figure out what to do with them if you 're gonna continue treating this as a power spectrum . So , what {disfmarker} what Hirsch did was , uh , set them to zero {disfmarker} set the negative values to zero . So if you imagine a {disfmarker} a waveform that 's all positive , which is the time trajectory of energy , um , and , uh , shifting it downwards , and then getting rid of the negative parts , that 's essentially throwing away the low - energy things . And it 's the low - energy parts of the speech where the reverberation is most audible . You know , you have the reverberation from higher - energy things showing up in {disfmarker} So in this case you have some artificially imposed {pause} reverberation - like thing . I mean , you 're getting rid of some of the other effects of reverberation , but because you have these non - causal windows , you 're getting these funny things coming in , uh , at n And , um , what if you did {disfmarker} ? I mean , there 's nothing to say that the {disfmarker} the processing for this re - synthesis has to be restricted to trying to get it back to the original , according to some equation . I mean , you also could , uh , just try to make it nicer . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And one of the things you could do is , you could do some sort of VAD - like thing +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you actually could take very low - energy sections and set them to some {disfmarker} some , uh , very low or {disfmarker} or near zero {pause} value . I mean , uh , I 'm just saying if in fact it turns out that {disfmarker} that these echoes that you 're hearing are , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: or pre - echoes , whichever they are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are , uh , part of what 's causing the problem , you actually could get rid of them . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Be pretty simple . I mean , you do it in a pretty conservative way +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so that if you made a mistake you were more likely to {pause} keep in an echo than to throw out speech . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: Um , what is the reverberation time {pause} like {pause} there ? +Grad E: In thi in this room ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: On , uh , the {disfmarker} the one what {disfmarker} the s in the speech that you are {disfmarker} you are using like ? +Grad E: Y Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: So , it 's this room . +PhD G: It 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's this room . +PhD G: Oh , this room ? +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: so it 's {disfmarker} these are just microphone {disfmarker} this micro close microphone and a distant microphone , he 's doing these different tests on . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , we should do a measurement in here . I g think we never have . I think it 's {disfmarker} I would guess , uh , point seven , point eight seconds f uh , R T +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor B: something like that ? But it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's this room . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . But the other thing is , he 's putting in {disfmarker} w I was using the word "" reverberation "" in two ways . He 's also putting in , uh , a {disfmarker} he 's taking out some reverberation , but he 's putting in something , because he has {pause} averages over multiple windows stretching out to twelve seconds , which are then being subtracted from the speech . And since , you know , what you subtract , sometimes you 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be subtracting from some larger number and sometimes you won't . And {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can end up with some components in it that are affected by things that are seconds away . Uh , and if it 's a low {pause} energy compo portion , you might actually hear some {pause} funny things . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: O o one thing , um , I noticed is that , um , the mean subtraction seems to make the PZM signals louder after they 've been re - synthesized . So I was wondering , is it possible that one reason it helped with the Aurora baseline system is {pause} just as a kind of gain control ? Cuz some of the PZM signals sound pretty quiet if you don't amplify them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I don't see why {disfmarker} why your signal is louder after processing , because yo +Grad E: Yeah . I don't know why - y , uh , either . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't think just multiplying the signal by two would have any effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I think if you really have louder signals , what you mean is that you have {pause} better signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD C: Well , well {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if what you 're doing is improving the signal - to - noise ratio , then it would be better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But just it being bigger if {disfmarker} with the same signal - to - noise ratio {disfmarker} +Grad E: It w i i it wouldn't affect things . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Well , the system is {disfmarker} use {pause} the absolute energy , so it 's a little bit dependent on {disfmarker} on the {pause} signal level . But , not so much , I guess . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But it 's trained and tested on the same thing . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So if the {disfmarker} if the {disfmarker} if you change {vocalsound} in both training and test , the absolute level by a factor of two , it will n have no effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you add {pause} this data to the training set , for the Aurora ? Or you just tested on this ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Um . Did I w what ? +PhD A: Well , Morgan was just saying that , uh , as long as you do it in both training and testing , it shouldn't have any effect . +Grad E: Sorry ? Yeah . +PhD A: But I {disfmarker} I was {pause} sort of under the impression that you just tested with this data . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I b +PhD A: You didn't {pause} train it also . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Right . I trained on clean TI - digits . I {disfmarker} I did the mean subtraction on clean TI - digits . But I didn't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it made the clean ti TI - digits any louder . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Grad E: I only remember noticing it made the , um , PZM signal louder . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't understand then . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . I don't know . If it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} like , if it 's trying to find a {disfmarker} a reverberation filter , it could be that this reverberation filter is making things quieter . And then if you take it out {disfmarker} that taking it out makes things louder . I mean . +Professor B: Uh , no . I mean , {vocalsound} uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing inherent about removing {disfmarker} if you 're really removing , +Grad E: Nuh - huh . +Professor B: uh , r uh , then I don't {pause} see how that would make it louder . +Grad E: The mean . OK . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: So it might be just some {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . OK . So I should maybe listen to that stuff again . +Professor B: Yeah . It might just be some artifact of the processing that {disfmarker} that , uh , if you 're {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . I don't know . +Grad E: Oh . OK . +PhD A: I wonder if there could be something like , uh {disfmarker} for s for the PZM data , +PhD C: Eh +PhD A: uh , you know , if occasionally , uh , somebody hits the table or something , you could get a spike . Uh . I 'm just wondering if there 's something about the , um {disfmarker} you know , doing the mean normalization where , uh , it {disfmarker} it could cause {pause} you to have better signal - to - noise ratio . Um . +Professor B: Well , you know , there is this . Wait a minute . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i maybe {disfmarker} i If , um {disfmarker} Subtracting the {disfmarker} the mean log spectrum is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is like dividing by the spectrum . So , depending what you divide by , if your {disfmarker} if s your estimate is off and sometimes you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting a small number , you could make it bigger . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} a question of {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it could be that there 's some normalization that 's missing , or something to make it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , y you 'd think it shouldn't be larger , but maybe in practice it is . That 's something to think about . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: I had a question about the system {disfmarker} the SRI system . So , {vocalsound} you trained it on TI - digits ? But except this , it 's exactly the same system as the one that was tested before and that was trained on {pause} Macrophone . Right ? So on TI - digits it gives you one point two percent error rate and on Macrophone it 's still O point eight . Uh , but is it {pause} exactly the same system ? +Grad E: Uh . I think so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad E: If you 're talking about the Macrophone results that Andreas had about , um , a week and a half ago , I think it 's the same system . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So you use VTL - uh , vocal tract length normalization and , um , like MLLR transformations also , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I 'm sorry , was his point eight percent , er , a {disfmarker} a result on testing on Macrophone or {disfmarker} or training ? +PhD C: all that stuff . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: It was {pause} training on Macrophone and testing {disfmarker} yeah , on {disfmarker} on meeting digits . +Professor B: Oh . So that was done already . So we were {disfmarker} Uh , and it 's point eight ? OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I 've just been text {comment} testing the new {pause} Aurora front - end with {disfmarker} well , Aurora system actually {disfmarker} so front - end and HTK , um , acoustic models on the meeting digits and it 's a little bit better than the previous system . We have {disfmarker} I have two point seven percent error rate . And before with the system that was proposed , it 's what ? It was three point nine . So . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a lot better . +PhD C: We are getting better . +Professor B: So , what {disfmarker} w ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: With the {disfmarker} with the HTK back - end ? What we have for Aurora ? +PhD C: Yeah . Two point seven . +PhD G: I know in the meeting , like {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the meeting we have two point seven . +PhD G: Right . Oh . +Grad F: That 's with the new IIR filters ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , yeah . So , yeah , +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: we have {pause} the new LDA filters , and {disfmarker} I think , maybe {disfmarker} I didn't look , but one thing that makes a difference is this DC offset compensation . Uh , eh {disfmarker} Do y did you have a look at {disfmarker} at the meet uh , meeting digits , if they have a DC component , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I didn't . No . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD G: No . The DC component could be negligible . I mean , if you are {pause} recording it through a mike . I mean , any {disfmarker} all of the mikes have the DC removal {disfmarker} some capacitor sitting right in {pause} that bias it . +Professor B: Yeah . But this {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh , no . Because , uh , there 's a sample and hold in the A - toD. And these period these typically do have a DC offset . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and they can be surprisingly large . It depends on the electronics . +PhD G: Oh , so it is the digital {disfmarker} OK . It 's the A - toD that introduces the DC in . +Professor B: Yeah . The microphone isn't gonna pass any DC . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: typi you know , unless {disfmarker} Actually , there are {pause} instrumentation mikes that {disfmarker} that do pass {disfmarker} go down to DC . But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , no , it 's the electronics . And they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: then there 's amplification afterwards . And you can get , I think it was {disfmarker} I think it was in the {pause} Wall Street Journal data that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I can't remember , one of the DARPA things . There was this big DC - DC offset +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't know about for a while , while we were {pause} messing with it . And we were getting these terrible results . And then we were talking to somebody and they said , "" Oh , yeah . Didn't you know ? Everybody knows that . There 's all this DC offset in th "" So , yes . You can have DC offset in the data . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: So was that {disfmarker} was that everything , Dave ? +Grad E: Oh . And I also , um , did some experiments {pause} about normalizing the phase . Um . So I c I came up with a web page that people can take a look at . And , um , the interesting thing that I tried was , um , Adam and Morgan had this idea , um , since my original attempts to , um , take the mean of the phase spectra over time and normalize using that , by subtracting that off , didn't work . Um , so , well , that we thought that might be due to , um , problems with , um , the arithmetic of phases . They {disfmarker} they add in this modulo two pi way and , um , there 's reason to believe that that approach of taking the mean of the phase spectrum wasn't really {pause} mathematically correct . So , {vocalsound} what I did instead is I {vocalsound} took the mean of the FFT spectrum without taking the log or anything , and then I took the phase of that , and I subtracted that phase {pause} off to normalize . But that , um , didn't work either . +Professor B: See , we have a different interpretation of this . He says it doesn't work . I said , I think it works magnificently , but just not for the task we intended . Uh , it gets rid of the speech . +PhD A: What does it leave ? +Grad F: Uh , gets rid of the speech . +Professor B: Uh , it leaves {disfmarker} you know , it leaves the junk . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's tremendous . +Grad F: Oh , wow . +Professor B: You see , all he has to do is go back and reverse what he did before , and he 's really got something . +PhD A: Well , could you take what was left over and then subtract that ? +Professor B: Ex - exactly . Yeah , you got it . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a general rule . +PhD G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Just listen very carefully to what I say and do the opposite . Including what I just said . +Grad E: And , yeah , that 's everything . +PhD A: All set ? Do you want to go , Stephane ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Maybe , concerning these d still , these meeting digits . I 'm more interested in trying to figure out what 's still the difference between the SRI system and the Aurora system . And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . So , I think I will maybe train , like , gender - dependent models , because {pause} this is also one big difference between {pause} the two systems . Um , the other differences were {pause} the fact that maybe the acoustic models of the SRI are more {disfmarker} SRI system are more complex . But , uh , Chuck , you did some experiments with this and +PhD A: It didn't seem to help in the HTK system . +PhD C: it was hard t to {disfmarker} to have some exper some improvement with this . Um . +Professor B: Well , it sounds like they also have {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he 's saying they have all these , uh , uh , different kinds of adaptation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , they have channel adaptation . They have speaker adaptation . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD A: Well , there 's also the normalization . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Like they do , um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how they would do it when they 're working with the digits , +PhD C: The vocal tr +PhD A: but , like , in the Switchboard data , there 's , um {disfmarker} conversation - side normalization for the {pause} non - C - zero components , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This is another difference . Their normalization works like on {disfmarker} on the utterance levels . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But we have to do it {disfmarker} We have a system that does it on - line . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: So , it might be {disfmarker} it might be better with {disfmarker} it might be worse if the {pause} channel is constant , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Nnn . +PhD G: And the acoustic models are like - k triphone models or {disfmarker} or is it the whole word ? +PhD C: SRI {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's tr +Grad F: SRI . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's triphones . +PhD G: It 's triphone . +Professor B: I think it 's probably more than that . +PhD C: Huh . +Professor B: I mean , so they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thin think they use these , uh , uh , genone things . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's these kind of , uh , uh , pooled models and {disfmarker} and they can go out to all sorts of dependencies . +PhD G: Oh . It 's like the tied state . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have tied states and I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't real I 'm talk I 'm just guessing here . But I think {disfmarker} I think they {disfmarker} they don't just have triphones . +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: I think they have a range of {disfmarker} of , uh , dependencies . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . Um . Well , the first thing I {disfmarker} that I want to do is just maybe these gender things . Uh . And maybe see with {pause} Andreas if {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know {pause} how much it helps , what 's the model . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the n stuff on the numbers you got , the two point seven , is that using the same training data that the SRI system used and got one point two ? +PhD C: That 's right . So it 's the clean {pause} TI - digits training set . +PhD A: So exact same training data ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I guess you used the clean training set . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} with the SRI system {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well . +Grad E: You know , the {disfmarker} the Aurora baseline is set up with these , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this version of the clean training set that 's been filtered with this G - seven - one - two filter , and , um , to train the SRI system on digits S - Andreas used the original TI - digits , um , under U doctor - speech data TI - digits , which don't have this filter . But I don't think there 's any other difference . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So is that {disfmarker} ? Uh , are {disfmarker} are these results comparable ? So you {disfmarker} you were getting with the , uh , Aurora baseline something like two point four percent {pause} on clean TI - digits , when , uh , training the SRI system with clean TR digits {disfmarker} {comment} TI - digits . Right ? And {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . And , so , is your two point seven comparable , where you 're , uh , uh , using , uh , the submitted system ? +PhD C: Yeah . I think so . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's {pause} about the same , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe a little worse . +Grad E: W w it was one {disfmarker} one point two +PhD C: Ye +Grad E: with the SRI system , +Professor B: I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: The complete SRI system is one point two . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you were HTK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? OK . That 's right . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} the comparable number then , uh {pause} for what you were talking about then , since it was HTK , would be the {pause} um , two point f +PhD C: It was four point something . Right ? The HTK system with , uh , b +Grad E: D d +Professor B: Oh , right , right , right , right . +PhD C: MFCC features {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean the b ? The baseline Aurora - two system , trained on TI - digits , tested on Meeting Recorder near , I think we saw in it today , and it was about six point six percent . +Professor B: Right . Right , right , right . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: OK . Alright . So {disfmarker} He 's doing some {pause} different things . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . The only difference is the features , right now , between this and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . OK , good . So they are helping . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's good to hear . Yeah . +PhD C: They are helping . Yeah . Um . Yeah . And another thing I {disfmarker} I maybe would like to do is to {pause} just test the SRI system that 's trained on Macrophone {disfmarker} test it on , uh , the noisy TI - digits , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: cuz I 'm still wondering {pause} where this {pause} improvement comes from . When you train on Macrophone , it seems better on meeting digits . But I wonder if it 's just because maybe {pause} Macrophone is acoustically closer to the meeting digits than {disfmarker} than TI - digit is , which is {disfmarker} TI - digits are very {pause} clean recorded digits +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know , it would also be interesting to see , uh {disfmarker} to do the regular Aurora test , +PhD C: Uh , f s +PhD A: um , but use the SRI system instead of HTK . +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what {pause} I wanted , just , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , just using the SRI system , test it on {disfmarker} and test it on {pause} Aurora TI - digits . Right . +PhD A: Why not the full Aurora , uh , test ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . There is this problem of multilinguality yet . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So we don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd have to train the SRI system with {disfmarker} with all the different languages . +PhD C: i i +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: We would have to train on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what I mean . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , like , comple +Professor B: It 'd be a {pause} lot of work . That 's the only thing . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I mean , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: uh , uh , I guess the work would be into getting the {disfmarker} the files in the right formats , or something . Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because when you train up the Aurora system , you 're , uh {disfmarker} you 're also training on all the data . +PhD C: That 's right . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . I see . Oh , so , OK . Right . I see what you mean . +Professor B: That 's true , but I think that also when we 've had these meetings week after week , oftentimes people have not done the full arrange of things +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on whatever it is they 're trying , because it 's a lot of work , even just with the HTK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good idea , but it seems like {pause} it makes sense to do some pruning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first with a {disfmarker} a test or two that makes sense for you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then {pause} take the likely candidates and go further . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , just testing on TI - digits would already give us some information {pause} about what 's going on . And {disfmarker} mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . OK . Uh , the next thing is this {disfmarker} this VAD problem that , um , um {disfmarker} So , I 'm just talking about the {disfmarker} the curves that I {disfmarker} I sent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I sent you {disfmarker} so , whi that shows that {vocalsound} when the SNR decrease , {vocalsound} uh , the current {pause} VAD approach doesn't drop much frames {pause} for some particular noises , uh , which might be then noises that are closer to speech , uh , acoustically . +Professor B: I i Just to clarify something for me . I They were supp Supposedly , in the next evaluation , they 're going to be supplying us with boundaries . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So does any of this matter ? I mean , other than our interest in it . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} Well . First of all , the boundaries might be , uh {disfmarker} like we would have t two hundred milliseconds or {disfmarker} before and after speech . Uh . So removing more than that might still make {pause} a difference {pause} in the results . +Professor B: Do we {disfmarker} ? I mean , is there some reason that we think that 's the case ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No . Because we don't {disfmarker} didn't looked {pause} that much at that . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But , {vocalsound} still , I think it 's an interesting problem . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . +Professor B: But maybe we 'll get some insight on that when {disfmarker} when , uh , the gang gets back from Crete . Because {pause} there 's lots of interesting problems , of course . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then the thing is if {disfmarker} if they really are going to have some means of giving us {pause} fairly tight , uh , boundaries , then that won't be so much the issue . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um But {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD G: Because w we were wondering whether that {pause} VAD is going to be , like , a realistic one or is it going to be some manual segmentation . And then , like , if {disfmarker} if that VAD is going to be a realistic one , then we can actually use their markers to shift the point around , I mean , the way we want +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: to find a {disfmarker} I mean , rather than keeping the twenty frames , we can actually move the marker to a point which we find more {pause} suitable for us . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: But if that is going to be something like a manual , uh , segmenter , then we can't {pause} use that information anymore , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because that 's not going to be the one that is used in the final evaluation . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: So . We don't know what is the type of {pause} {vocalsound} {pause} VAD which they 're going to provide . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . And actually there 's {disfmarker} Yeah . There 's an {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's still for {disfmarker} even for the evaluation , uh , it might still be interesting to {vocalsound} work on this because {pause} the boundaries apparently that they would provide is just , {vocalsound} um , starting of speech and end of speech {pause} uh , at the utterance level . And {disfmarker} Um . +PhD G: With some {disfmarker} some gap . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , with some pauses in the center , provided they meet that {disfmarker} whatever the hang - over time which they are talking . +PhD C: Yeah . But when you have like , uh , five or six frames , both {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . Then the they will just fill {disfmarker} fill it up . +PhD C: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , th {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So if you could get at some of that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: although that 'd be hard . +PhD C: Yeah . It might be useful for , like , noise estimation , and a lot of other {pause} things that we want to work on . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . OK . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . So I did {disfmarker} I just {pause} started to test {pause} putting together two VAD which was {disfmarker} was not much work actually . Um , I im re - implemented a VAD that 's very close to the , {vocalsound} um , energy - based VAD {vocalsound} that , uh , the other Aurora guys use . Um . So , which is just putting a threshold on {pause} the noise energy , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and , detect detecting the first {pause} group of four frames {pause} that have a energy that 's above this threshold , and , uh , from this point , uh , tagging the frames there as speech . So it removes {vocalsound} the first silent portion {disfmarker} portion of each utterance . And it really removes it , um , still o on the noises where {pause} our MLP VAD doesn't {pause} work a lot . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Uh , +Professor B: Cuz I would have thought that having some kind of spectral {pause} information , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} uh , you know , in the old days people would use energy and zero crossings , for instance {disfmarker} uh , would give you some {pause} better performance . Right ? Cuz you might have low - energy fricatives or {disfmarker} or , uh {pause} stop consonants , or something like that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , your point is {disfmarker} will be to u use whatever {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that if you d if you use purely energy and don't look at anything spectral , then you don't have a good way of distinguishing between low - energy speech components and {pause} nonspeech . And , um , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just as a gross generalization , most nonsp many nonspeech noises have a low - pass kind of characteristic , some sort of slope . And {disfmarker} and most , um , low - energy speech components that are unvoiced have a {disfmarker} a high - pass kind of characteristic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an upward slope . So having some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , you know , at the beginning of a {disfmarker} of a {disfmarker} of an S sound for instance , just starting in , it might be pretty low - energy , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it will tend to have this high - frequency component . Whereas , {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a lot of rumble , and background noises , and so forth will be predominantly low - frequency . Uh , you know , by itself it 's not enough to tell you , but it plus energy is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: it plus energy plus timing information is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you look up in Rabiner and Schafer from like twenty - five years ago or something , that 's sort of {pause} what they were using then . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: So , yeah . It {disfmarker} it might be that what I did is {disfmarker} so , removes like {vocalsound} low , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} low - energy , uh , speech frames . Because {pause} the way I do it is I just {disfmarker} I just combine the two decisions {disfmarker} so , the one from the MLP and the one from the energy - based {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the and {pause} operator . So , I only {pause} keep the frames where the two agree {pause} that it 's speech . So if the energy - based dropped {disfmarker} dropped low - energy speech , mmm , they {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are lost . Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But s still , the way it 's done right now it {disfmarker} it helps on {disfmarker} on the noises where {disfmarker} it seems to help on the noises where {vocalsound} our VAD was not very {pause} good . +Professor B: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I mean , one could imagine combining them in different ways . But {disfmarker} but , I guess what you 're saying is that the {disfmarker} the MLP - based one has the spectral information . So . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But the way it 's combined wi is maybe done {disfmarker} Well , yeah . +Professor B: Well , you can imagine {disfmarker} +PhD C: The way I use a an a "" AND "" operator is {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: The frames that are dropped by the energy - based system are {disfmarker} are , uh , dropped , even if the , um , MLP decides to keep them . +Professor B: Right . Right . And that might not be optimal , +PhD C: But , yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No +Professor B: but {disfmarker} I mean , I guess in principle what you 'd want to do is have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a probability estimated by each one and {disfmarker} and put them together . +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . M Yeah . +PhD A: Something that {disfmarker} that I 've used in the past is , um {disfmarker} when just looking at the energy , is to look at the derivative . And you {pause} make your decision when the derivative is increasing for {pause} so many frames . Then you say that 's beginning of speech . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to remember if that requires that you keep some amount of speech in a buffer . I guess it depends on how you do it . But {pause} I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been a useful thing . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . Well , every everywhere has a delay associated with it . I mean , you still have to k always keep a buffer , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: then only make a decision because {pause} you still need to smooth the {pause} decision further . +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD G: So that 's always there . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: Well , actually if I don't {disfmarker} maybe don't want to work too much of {disfmarker} on it right now . I just wanted to {disfmarker} to see if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I observed was the re was caused by this {disfmarker} this VAD problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And it seems to be the case . Um . Uh , the second thing is the {disfmarker} this spectral subtraction . Um . Um , which I 've just started yesterday to launch a bunch of , uh , {nonvocalsound} twenty - five experiments , uh , with different , uh , values for the parameters that are used . So , it 's the Makhoul - type spectral subtraction which use {pause} an over - estimation factor . So , we substr I subtract more , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} noise than the noise spectra that {pause} is estimated {pause} on the noise portion of the s uh , the utterances . So I tried several , uh , over - estimation factors . And after subtraction , I also add {pause} a constant noise , and I also try different , uh , {vocalsound} noise , uh , values and we 'll see what happen . +Professor B: Hmm . OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But st still when we look at the , um {disfmarker} Well , it depends on the parameters that you use , but for moderate over - estimation factors and moderate noise level that you add , you st have a lot of musical noise . Um . On the other hand , when you {pause} subtract more and when you add more noise , you get rid of this musical noise but {pause} maybe you distort a lot of speech . So . Well . Mmm . Well , it {disfmarker} until now , it doesn't seem to help . But We 'll see . So the next thing , maybe I {disfmarker} what I will {pause} try to {disfmarker} to do is just {pause} to try to smooth mmm , {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} to smooth the d the result of the subtraction , to get rid of the musical noise , using some kind of filter , or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Can smooth the SNR estimate , also . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . Mmm . +PhD G: Your filter is a function of SNR . Hmm ? +PhD C: Yeah . So , to get something that 's {disfmarker} would be closer to {pause} what you tried to do with Wiener filtering . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: Actually , it 's , uh {disfmarker} Uh . I don't know , it 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +PhD C: It {disfmarker} +PhD G: And it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Maybe you can {disfmarker} +PhD G: go ahead . +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} That 's it for me . +PhD G: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} u th I 've been playing with this Wiener filter , like . And there are {disfmarker} there were some bugs in the program , so I was p initially trying to clear them up . Because one of the bug was {disfmarker} I was assuming that always the VAD {disfmarker} uh , the initial frames were silence . It always started in the silence state , but it wasn't for some utterances . So the {disfmarker} it wasn't estimating the noise initially , and then it never estimated , because I assumed that it was always silence . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So this is on SpeechDat - Car Italian ? +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: So , in some cases s there are also {disfmarker} +PhD G: SpeechDat - Car Italian . Yeah . There 're a few cases , actually , which I found later , that there are . +PhD C: o Uh - huh . +PhD G: So that was one of the {pause} bugs that was there in estimating the noise . And , uh , so once it was cleared , uh , I ran a few experiments with {pause} different ways of smoothing the estimated clean speech and how t estimated the noise and , eh , smoothing the SNR also . And so the {disfmarker} the trend seems to be like , {vocalsound} uh , smoothing the {pause} current estimate of the clean speech for deriving the SNR , which is like {pause} deriving the Wiener filter , seems to be helping . Then updating it quite fast using a very small time constant . So we 'll have , like , a few results where the {disfmarker} estimating the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} More smoothing is helping . But still it 's like {disfmarker} it 's still comparable to the baseline . I haven't got anything beyond the baseline . But that 's , like , not using any Wiener filter . And , uh , so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying a few more experiments with different time constants for smoothing the noise spectrum , and smoothing the clean speech , and smoothing SNR . So there are three time constants that I have . So , I 'm just playing around . So , one is fixed in the line , like {pause} Smoothing the clean speech is {disfmarker} is helping , so I 'm not going to change it that much . But , the way I 'm estimating the noise and the way I 'm estimating the SNR , I 'm just trying {disfmarker} trying a little bit . So , that h And the other thing is , like , putting a floor on the , uh , SNR , because that {disfmarker} if some {disfmarker} In some cases the clean speech is , like {disfmarker} when it 's estimated , it goes to very low values , so the SNR is , like , very low . And so that actually creates a lot of variance in the low - energy region of the speech . So , I 'm thinking of , like , putting a floor also for the SNR so that it doesn't {pause} vary a lot in the low - energy regions . And , uh . So . The results are , like {disfmarker} So far I 've been testing only with the {pause} baseline , which is {disfmarker} which doesn't have any LDA filtering and on - line normalization . I just want to separate the {disfmarker} the contributions out . So it 's just VAD , plus the Wiener filter , plus the baseline system , which is , uh , just the spectral {disfmarker} I mean , the mel sp mel , uh , frequency coefficients . Um . And the other thing that I tried was {disfmarker} but I just {vocalsound} took of those , uh , {pause} {vocalsound} Carlos filters , which Hynek had , to see whether it really h helps or not . I mean , it was just a {disfmarker} a run to see whether it really degrades or it helps . And it 's {disfmarker} it seems to be like it 's not {vocalsound} hurting a lot by just blindly picking up one filter which is nothing but a {pause} four hertz {disfmarker} a band - pass m m filter on the cubic root of the power spectrum . So , that was the filter that Hy - uh , Carlos had . And so {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to see whether it really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} is it worth trying or not . So , it doesn't seems to be degrading a lot on that . So there must be something that I can {disfmarker} that can be done with that type of noise compensation also , which {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess I would ask Carlos about that . I mean , how {disfmarker} how he derived those filters and {disfmarker} and where d if he has any filters which are derived on OGI stories , added with some type of noise which {disfmarker} what we are using currently , or something like that . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is cubic root of power spectra ? +PhD G: Yeah . Cubic root of power spectrum . +Professor B: So , if you have this band - pass filter , you probably get n you get negative values . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . And I 'm , like , floating it to z zeros right now . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: So it has , like {disfmarker} the spectrogram has , like {disfmarker} Uh , it actually , uh , enhances the onset and offset of {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the begin and the end of the speech . So it 's {disfmarker} there seems to be , like , deep valleys in the begin and the end of , like , high - energy regions , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because the filter has , like , a sort of Mexican - hat type structure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So , those are the regions where there are , like {disfmarker} when I look at the spectrogram , there are those deep valleys on the begin and the end of the speech . But the rest of it seems to be , like , pretty nice . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So . That 's {pause} something I observe using that filter . And {disfmarker} Yeah . There are a few {disfmarker} very {disfmarker} not a lot of {disfmarker} because the filter doesn't have a {disfmarker} really a deep negative portion , so that it 's not really creating a lot of negative values in the cubic root . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll s may continue with that for some w I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} Maybe I 'll ask Carlos a little more about how to play with those filters , and {disfmarker} but while {pause} making this Wiener filter better . So . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's it , Morgan . +Professor B: Uh , last week you were also talking about building up the subspace {pause} stuff ? +PhD G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would actually m m didn't get enough time to work on the subspace last week . It was mostly about {pause} finding those bugs and +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: th you know , things , and I didn't work much on that . +PhD A: How about you , Carmen ? +PhD D: Well , I am still working with , eh , VTS . And , one of the things that last week , eh , say here is that maybe the problem was with the diff because the signal have different level of energy . +Professor B: Hmm ? +PhD D: And , maybe , talking with Stephane and with Sunil , we decide that maybe it was interesting to {disfmarker} to apply on - line normalization before applying VTS . But then {vocalsound} we decided that that 's {disfmarker} it doesn't work absolutely , because we modified also the noise . And {disfmarker} Well , thinking about that , we {disfmarker} we then {disfmarker} we decide that maybe is a good idea . We don't know . I don't hav I don't {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I didn't {pause} do the experiment yet {disfmarker} to apply VTS in cepstral domain . +Professor B: The other thing {pause} is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , in {disfmarker} i i and {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} and C - zero would be a different {disfmarker} So you could do a different normalization for C - zero than for other things anyway . I mean , the other thing I was gonna suggest is that you could have {pause} two kinds of normalization with {disfmarker} with , uh , different time constants . So , uh , you could do some normalization {vocalsound} s uh , before the VTS , and then do some other normalization after . I don't know . But {disfmarker} but C - zero certainly acts differently than the others do , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , we s decide to m to {disfmarker} to obtain the new expression if we work in the cepstral domain . And {disfmarker} Well . I am working in that now , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: but {vocalsound} I 'm not sure if that will be usefu useful . I don't know . It 's k it 's k It 's quite a lot {disfmarker} It 's a lot of work . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's not too much , but this {disfmarker} it 's work . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And I want to know if {disfmarker} if we have some {pause} feeling that {pause} the result {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to know if {disfmarker} I don't have any feeling if this will work better than apply VTS aft in cepstral domain will work better than apply in m mel {disfmarker} in filter bank domain . I r I 'm not sure . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know absolutely nothing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you 're {disfmarker} I think you 're the first one here to work with VTS , so , uh , maybe we could call someone else up who has , ask them their opinion . Uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a good feeling for it . Um . +PhD G: Pratibha . +PhD C: Actually , the VTS that you tested before was in the log domain and so {pause} the codebook is e e kind of dependent on the {pause} level of the speech signal . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} So I expect it {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if you have something that 's independent of this , I expect it to {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to , uh , be a better model of speech . +PhD D: To have better {disfmarker} +PhD C: And . Well . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you wouldn't even need to switch to cepstra . Right ? I mean , you can just sort of normalize the {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . We could normali norm I mean , remove the median . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then you have {pause} one number which is very dependent on the level cuz it is the level , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and the other which isn't . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But here also we would have to be careful about removing the mean {pause} of speech and not of noise . +PhD D: Ye +PhD C: Because it 's like {pause} first doing general normalization +PhD D: Yea +PhD C: and then noise removal , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} I was thinking to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to estimate the noise {pause} with the first frames and then apply the VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: before the on - line normalization . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we see {disfmarker} Well , I am thinking {vocalsound} about that and working about that , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: but I don't have result this week . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , one of the things we 've talked about {disfmarker} maybe it might be star time to start thinking about pretty soon , is as we look at the pros and cons of these different methods , how do they fit in with one another ? Because {pause} we 've talked about potentially doing some combination of a couple of them . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe pretty soon we 'll have some sense of what their {pause} characteristics are , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so we can see what should be combined . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is that it ? OK ? +Professor B: OK . Why don't we read some digits ? +PhD A: Yep . Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD A: Transcript L dash two one five . +Professor B: O K . +","In a research meeting, Professor B began by discussing the TORRENT chip project, from which they were two months away from completion for two years. The team revisited old emails confirming this consistent delay. They coordinated their status report order and decided to wait for Sunil before discussing his segment. Grad F then detailed progress on the proposal, aiming for a rough draft by Monday and discussed the methodology for phoneme recognition using TIMIT and Switchboard with the SRI recognizer. Grad E shared results from testing mean subtraction for noise reduction with the SRI system, revealing a peculiar finding that the processed signals were louder, an issue they couldn't fully explain. Further discussion touched on spectral subtraction and voiced concerns about differences between the SRI and Aurora systems. PhD C mentioned experiments for voice activity detection (VAD) and aimed to refine differences between systems. PhD G worked on Wiener filtering, reviewing issues and tests to improve performance. Lastly, PhD D discussed the challenges of adapting the Vector Taylor Series (VTS) approach for noise compensation and pondered applying it in the cepstral domain as a potential improvement. The meeting concluded with plans to read digits for a test." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: .. . +Project Manager: Okay . So , this is uh first meeting of this design project . Um and I um like to show you the agenda for the meeting , I don't know if it was sent round to all of you . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe not . Anyway , +User Interface: I didn't receive it yet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: this is the the plan for today's meeting is um firstly just to introduce the project briefly , um although I'm sure you've actually got some of the information already . Then the main purpose is to {disfmarker} so that we get to know each other a little bit more . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we want to practice using some of the tools that we'll be using during the the course of the design project and the meetings , um specifically the whiteboard over there . Um then we need to go through the specifics of our project plan um and discuss {disfmarker} come up with some preliminary ideas about it . And then that's it . So we've got twenty five minutes to do that , that's until eleven twenty five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} so sh +Project Manager: S so any any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Is i {gap} not at this point . +User Interface: Not at this point . +Project Manager: So this is our project . What we're aiming to do is to create a new remote control for a television . Um we want it to be something original , something trendy and also something user friendly , so it has to be quite intuitive that people are able to use this product . The method that we're going to use to complete the project , that has three components as such . There's the functional design of the the remote control . We're going {disfmarker} the way we'll do that I think is to to work individually initially and then come together for meetings to to work on that . Um similarly with the conceptual design , we'll start off by working individually with our own expertise on our own laptops and then we'll bring what we've done together . Um and then the detailed design will come after that . We'll pull it all together . +Industrial Designer: I'm a bit confused about uh what's the difference between the functional design and conceptual design ? Uh i is it just uh more detail , uh as I understand it ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} th w we're talking the the functional design is more your um area of things where you'll be {disfmarker} we want to look at what functions we need in the remote control +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and what what specific things it it has to do +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but the conceptual design is um perhaps bigger than that and includes the {disfmarker} how people are going to use it and and that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: How how it will be done . So whe where do we identify the components of our uh product ? Uh I think it's it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the {disfmarker} it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the components of our product ? +Project Manager: Um I think we'll we'll start that initially with the functional design already but then +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so that's just a brief overview of the p the the project itself . Um what I'd like us to do now is simultaneously introduce ourselves and start using some of the tools that we're using for {vocalsound} for the project , specifically the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So each person in turn , I'd like us to go up to the whiteboard , the pen's just underneath it there and draw your favourite animal and then tell everyone what the f your favourite characteristics of that animal are and while you're doing that tell us your name , what your role is and perhaps how your animal relates to the role that you're taking in this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Why are you looking at me ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to go first ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do I have a choice ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Ooh ooh , things falling everywhere . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: p put them in pockets . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . +Project Manager: You don't have to hurry , we've got plenty of time . +Marketing: So , my name's Cat and I'm really not very good at this whole drawing malarkey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's got no eyes . +Marketing: Oh , good point . Ah , the eyes always ruin it . Right . Okay , what do {gap} it's eyes like ? Okay , cool . Um this is a rabbit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I thought it might be a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well origi uh at first I thought it was going to be cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't think it's furry enough , so we'll make it a fluffy rabbit . +User Interface: Yeah now I now I understand now , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I can see by the ears . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , right , it's a fluffy rabbit , blue . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rabbits don't come in blue but you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay and I like it because it's small {vocalsound} and it's fluffy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And one day you'll be able to getical genetically modify them and they will come in pink . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Excellent , and what's your what's your role within the team ? +Marketing: I am the um {disfmarker} I need my notebook , mm ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: top banana . Thank you . Okay , cool , I am the Marketing Expert {vocalsound} um so like I'm gonna be doing the {disfmarker} apparently according to the little guy in the computer that knows everything {disfmarker} the user g requirements specification of the functional design , um trend watching in the conceptual design and product evad-valuation in the detailed design {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um so yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And more about yourself , you're from ? +Marketing: Um I'm from Leicester , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um second year . Um what else do you want to know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like sports {vocalsound} um yeah , aerobics , kickboxing , spinning +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not with rabbits . {vocalsound} +Marketing: not with rabbits , no no . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And vets , I like vets as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And yeah um and I like cocktails , especially pink ones . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , to match the rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . Um so my name is Maarika . Where's the pen ? Okay . +Project Manager: There's a {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} if you have not enough room there's an eraser there and you can rub it off . +User Interface: Yeah , well , or I can make it smaller . {vocalsound} Uh so um um I'm the Interface Designer in this project and my favourite animal , I m I mean I'm not so sure because I'm not so so very um {vocalsound} familiar with all kinds of animals , but I do like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , sorry , maybe I should have {disfmarker} shouldn't have said it beforehand but +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: mm {vocalsound} hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , there are different kinds of dogs , but okay um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not bad at all . +Project Manager: Ah it looks like a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Is a bit more impressive than my rabbit . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I think it needs four legs if it's gonna walk though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it has some colourful patches , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} the other legs are on the other side . +User Interface: Um yeah and I do like dogs because they are good friends to people and they are loyal . Mm , well that's compared to some other animals like cats . Um they're really much more fun because they are not so independent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah maybe maybe the fact that they protect their home as well , yeah . Um what it has to do with with my role in the project is hard to say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I hope to be loyal to the project +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not to n not to um let people doing similar projects know the details of our project or something , {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And where where are you from ? +User Interface: I'm from Estonia +Project Manager: Estonia . +User Interface: uh , yep . Um so is there anything else you'd like to know ? Oh , right , my roles , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: um so um in the different um {vocalsound} stages of the design , so at first I will be responsible for um for {vocalsound} yeah , designing the technical functions of the um {vocalsound} um of the remote control uh then in the in the conceptual design stage I need to um come up with uh interface concept and then in the last um stage I will be responsible for the int infa for the user interface design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Okay {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I'll do some {disfmarker} I'll rub the features +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and let the drawing stay . {vocalsound} 'Kay um my name is Gaurav . Um {vocalsound} my favourite animal {disfmarker} one of my favourite animals is a cow . I've got no idea how to draw a cow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good luck . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this is going to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: They're not just like a big round body and then some really skinny legs +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll do . +Marketing: and then just some horns . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so let let me draw the body first . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Big , round body , really skinny legs {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they've got a long tail +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a long face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's eating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It looks like Eeyore . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there is some grass there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So this is what I like about {vocalsound} cows {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Horns , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that they just keeps sitting there eating grass , +Marketing: draw some horns . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they do not disturb anybody um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they're kind of Buddhist in a way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I like cows . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} my my role in the project is um uh the industrial designer , so I'm supposed to design all the details of of the product um ho how it works and whatever it'll mm take during the functional role , what are the various functions that have to be performed by it uh during the um conceptual design , what are the various components of it and um finally , I'm not too sure what was the last part . Um the detailed design , I I guess it will again be the identification of the components and how they integrate with each other . Um I'm from India . Uh I'm doing my P_H_D_ in Psycholinguistics , I sit at the Department of Psychology . {vocalsound} Yeah . Thank you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Right , now now it's my turn obviously . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't look like a cow , does it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , here's a space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It looks very very cute . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like the cow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm Jen . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I like dogs too , but I can't do that already because I can't draw a dog as well as you can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I like {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: Is that a lizard ? +Industrial Designer: No way . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: It's a gecko . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +User Interface: Ah , a gecko , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is there a difference ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} a ar are they also like lizards or are they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They're {disfmarker} Yeah , they're l it's a kind of lizard . +User Interface: yeah , they are +Project Manager: And I I like geckos +User Interface: {disfmarker} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because they remind me of warm places {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and , and where I was living in Cambodia they used to live in my house +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and they were on the ceiling and they would make little gecko noises in the evening . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope you don't like snakes , do you ? +Project Manager: I don't like snakes . I come from Australia +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we have nasty snakes . That's where I'm from , Australia . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm from Melbourne and I'm your Project Manager for today +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and my role is basically to keep things going and make sure that you all work together in a productive way , so that by the end of the day we come up with a great product . +User Interface: Wonderful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's see what's next in the PowerPoint presentation . So , I've just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you right click on it you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah I've just thought about this that we could even put it much more professionally {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: there we go . Okay , so this is the um overall budget for our project . We've got {disfmarker} um we're planning to sell these remote controls for {disfmarker} let's make that go away , that means we've got five minutes . Um we're planning to sell the remote controls for twenty five Euros each . Um and with that we're aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros . And that's selling them on the international market , not just in the U_K_ . Um so to do that our finance people estimate that we need production costs of maximum twelve and a half Euro so that we can reach that profit target . So that's something to keep in mind while you're designing . Okay . Hmm . This is {disfmarker} let me just skip ahead to see {disfmarker} that's the last thing , okay . We've only got a couple of minutes . Does anyone have any first ideas to bounce around about um what we're thinking of this remote control ? +User Interface: Yep . I'm just wondering whether whether there is like any special feature that we want to have {disfmarker} w want this remote control have as opposed to the already existing ones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think that's probably something that w it's best if we take away with us , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but if we all have a think , when we go away from the meeting , what specific things could be um included in this remote control that that {vocalsound} are out of the ordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh i in the beginning uh one thing was {disfmarker} that was mentioned was that it should be mm trendy , user friendly and original so um I think your point is relevant as far as the originality is concerned , that we should provide some features that are quite unique to this . +Project Manager: Something something new . +Marketing: Yeah , I was looking at the website , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and the other things that they've made and I like put down some like inspirational words like that I got from looking at the pictures . So the motto is um we put the fashion in electronics +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and um so it's something that is sleek and stylish but it's still functional , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm kind of thinking , you know like those phones that they have , the new generation ones , where they don't actually have any buttons on them and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: You know , so something heading towards that , so it's not overly {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what h most of the buttons do on my remote controls , so I figure how many do you need , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So perhaps some sort of menu-based thing , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something that's a little less crowded than this , like I mean you know , theoretically you can do all kinds of things with your T_V_ , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But what do most people do ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They turn it on , they watch certain specified channels , you know , and then they turn it off again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There is a lot of functionality in there that is not used ninety percent of the time , +Marketing: Sometimes they play a movie . +Industrial Designer: but will be used ten percent of the time , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: there's no need to have buttons on it to do that , +Project Manager: So , no . +Marketing: maybe to do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: It could be one button for a menu or something , if you really need to go and do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , if you're the kind of sad case that knows how your remote control works , then you know that's fine +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you can do it on the screen rather than everybody else having to have those buttons , which just confuse them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: 'Cause like if you look at the train , it's just very like , there's no extra bits on it , the train on the website and I dunno if you can put it up on the thing +Project Manager: Oh I haven't had a look yet , yep . +Marketing: um but it is just like a long like thing used for mu moving people , but it looks really pretty too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Great . Any other immediate thoughts before we move along ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Uh we can aim for {disfmarker} I mean we can think about all these little things , but we can aim for something wi that gives a high battery life , although I don't think that um it's a huge problem for remote controls anyway , battery life , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh every now and then you need to replace the batteries . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but uh I mean e even though it has to be re original we shouldn't uh go like too far away from from the usual ones , because otherwise the new users will just have a lot of problems +Industrial Designer: Yeah . A big learning curve , yeah . +User Interface: with l {vocalsound} learning , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , i it should kind of fit in as well , and the stereotype of a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's like those fancy websites that you can't access +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Hm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you have no idea how to get in , but the designers thought they were great . Okay , so we need to wrap it up now , so that we can go away and get on with some of this . Um {vocalsound} we've got another meeting in thirty minutes , so you're {disfmarker} you'll be getting specific instructions once you go back to your workspace , but im basically you're looking at the working design , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: you're looking at the technical functions design , and for you it's the user requirements specification , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like you said at the start . Okay ? Thanks for that . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh I'll see you in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Project Manager: Carry the laptops back again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Do we need to unplug things ? Probably . +","Summary: The design team, led by a Project Manager, conducted their first meeting to develop a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly TV remote control. The meeting's agenda included introductions, understanding roles, practicing with the whiteboard, and discussing the project plan, with a focus on functional, conceptual, and detailed design. The team shared animal drawings to describe themselves and their roles. The project has a financial goal of a €50 million profit, aiming to sell each remote for €25 with production costs not exceeding €12.50. Key considerations for the remote control included unique features, battery life, simplicity, and avoiding a steep learning curve for new users. The next steps involve the team working individually on their tasks before reconvening." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , so now we are on the conceptual design meeting . {vocalsound} Uh y getting close to the last +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: is the penultim meeting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How was lunch ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thanks {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Don't be sarcastic . {vocalsound} Mark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} um I will again do the secretary part uh we will have three presentation first um uh the industrial design , first Rama then Mark and then Sammy . +Marketing: Uh Rama . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ramaro . +Project Manager: Um um we have to take a decision on the control {disfmarker} remote control concepts and we have forty minutes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So what we want to {disfmarker} the decision we want to take on this meeting are on the um first on the component concept , so what kind of energy we use uh what kind of chip on print and one ki kind of case . And also on user interface concept uh what kind of interface we use and if there is some supplements . And at the end um Sammy will give um {vocalsound} a trend watching on what he's {disfmarker} he's been doing . It's {disfmarker} So , let's go . First with Rama . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two . Component . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . So we're to mainly design f mainly need to know which components we'll use for energy , and the material and interface . For energy there are maybe two or three possibilities . First one , we can use simple battery , or we can use {vocalsound} traditional solar cells or {disfmarker} mm and the material we can have plastic , rubber which is good for this R_S_A_ +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh titanium , which can be {disfmarker} which have very good look an and then interface we're to use push buttons or liquid crystal d L_C_D_ display . And we can use some {gap} , moving {gap} kind of thing . So , as we discussed before , we need to {disfmarker} we would like to have some speech recognition s chip in our remote control . So this can be simple kind of programmable chip and {disfmarker} which can use microphone {gap} sensors . And we also want to look at our remote control , so . Still we are looking for possible uh technical uh specifications and how w easy we can do and within our pri range , like we're to {disfmarker} in our twelve Euros or around that . So we are looking for simple devices or simple technology to do the location of remote control in a room or in a house . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Industrial Designer: So uh we discussed an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Excuse me . So we would like to propose battery instead of solar cells and it would be problematic uh to have enough energy with the solar cells +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so we would like to just use simple battery . And also we want to go for titanium design instead of rubber or {disfmarker} and well the problem is with this design we found that we can't use double-curved shapes . +Marketing: What is a double-curved shape ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like you can have two curves . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} I think in manufacturing I guess it's problematic . So , we want to go for simple push buttons because it need a simple chip and it's really lesser {disfmarker} uh re really less expensive compared to L_C_D_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which are uh which needs advanced chip technology and it's more expensive , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we want to put some other features such as speech recognition +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we want to reduce uh cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I want to know why it b uh just uh sorry but for the point before uh why not the rubber , if it is something that it seems to be light . +Marketing: The cost . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} And also like in {disfmarker} if you put a {gap} it's be difficult to do all the moulding of buttons and these things +Project Manager: Okay . You m titanium it's more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: W we can use something like you know {vocalsound} the whole body's titanium but there are some rubber or I dunno some rubber parts like +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm like this ? +Project Manager: Yes so mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: to make it feel better and to you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like in cell phones recently +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: these {disfmarker} you can {gap} with the rubber in four directions and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: yeah . But full assembly {disfmarker} We'll use mainly for titanium {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: rubber is expensive +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also it's bit difficult to do all the shapes uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And this push buttons +Project Manager: Uh yeah so +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we we would like to use push buttons instead of L_C_D_s and so we want to mo I mean we're {gap} we want to put speech recognition so we want to reduce price on this technology and so that we can have enough space or enough money +Project Manager: Okay , s so simple button and uh speech recognition for the more complicated . +Industrial Designer: for {disfmarker} S S +Marketing: Speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y yeah we have simple buttons and speech recognition technology , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and still we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: mm can we still include the L_ L_S_D_ display ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: L_C_D_ yeah L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Uh l +Marketing: Seems not , it's either L_C_D_ or push-button . +Industrial Designer: So uh +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: it's like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not gonna be a t no touchable but still like a source of information or source for menus . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe maybe we can see depending on how we'll come up with our full design then if we have enough money or like for and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's try it , let's t +Industrial Designer: because the speech recognition technology will take at least five Euros or {gap} or something so we want to reduce the cost on display +Marketing: {gap} The L_C_D_ would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or this inter +Marketing: The display would only be display and not uh touch sensitive you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's it's not gonna be a touch pad , uh just a display for giving you information . +Marketing: Just uh for output , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , that can we we can consider , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because like it won't take much money I guess , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: You have any further questions or ? +Marketing: I guess no um . So the batteries uh are going to be very light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we're to go for li and now I think we have many options in the market so we can go for small nickel or alkaline batteries +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: for really light batteries and with uh good price . +Marketing: So this device on n that can be used for speech recognition could also be used for just uh the finding it basically , instead of clapping why not just be {disfmarker} ask . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} then the the one thing we want to know is like because remote control is used for like in the household so it it it will be it {disfmarker} m maybe at least five , six people want to use it so so how to uh uh how to define our re speech recognition +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether we want to do s speaker independent or speaker dependent . If we're going for more speaker independent then it would be like again cumbersome and we need really m more technology +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: for the location . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if if everybody in the house n {gap} to locate then we're to go for some speaker independent technology or something . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's now go to the {disfmarker} you don't have more question ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No , it's okay . +Project Manager: Um mm thank you mm . +User Interface: No more questions . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: Puts less of constraint on what we can do +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's always like that . We have dreams and the {disfmarker} in the end we find out that it's not feasible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . We have uh some limitations {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But still uh L_S_D_'s already quite nice , +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: L_C_ {vocalsound} +Marketing: L_S_D_ is something else , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and it's quite nice as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm an artist , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: So uh , that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: go on uh artist . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope that's not too much . +Project Manager: Now let's talk about uh interface . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh participant number three . +Project Manager: Three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Which one ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm mm uh have a look at this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {gap} Uh so the concept of the interface . Generally I developed quite a broad concept not only for the interface , but for possible instruction or user's manual and uh all the complex things that come together with your T_V_ and remote controls . So let's start with this . We got our perfect remote control with a lot of buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh we got explanation for every button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can use your time and uh it will take i some days to learn all this buttons and um the L_C_D_ is going to be somewhere here and uh go back button , I don't know really where it is , maybe one of this buttons , and um power on and off mm I I don't remember +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so uh it it it should be maybe this button is power on and off ? Or no {gap} ? I can see nothing . So that's our concept . It's called the millennium remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's change millenniums . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you can use {gap} in the end and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} doesn't make sense . This is very {vocalsound} ugly . +User Interface: Really ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought you like it . Ah okay +Marketing: Oh no , +User Interface: just press the button , please uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: too much concept . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we will not use this . We will not use this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But instead of this I will devise {disfmarker} That's our concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , back today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it's got just few buttons , quite low looking , and all this stuff we already we already discussed . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +User Interface: And uh what will people say ? They'll say it's perfect . Or what will say ? Uh they will say it's splendid . And uh e everyone will say I'll buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} Do you think it can come in several colours ? +User Interface: And everyone's gonna be satisfied . +Marketing: Or did the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would make a backlight of the L_C_D_ screen with different colours . +Marketing: Um but not the case . +User Interface: Not the case . +Marketing: Uh the case would only be in that uh aluminium uh titanium stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Because apparently from your survey people like colours , no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , well they like uh something which is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's remember there's a Nokia phone which changeable panels . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay , +User Interface: Do you like it ? +Marketing: so that would be the option . I don't know I don't have a Nokia phone , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I don't use that but again , uh I might {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's why you don't have it . That's why , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: 'cause it's nasty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it would be expensive , no ? If you use colour L_C_D_ . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh instead of that maybe we can change the colour of the assembler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can just {disfmarker} if users want more colours they can pay more money to get this uh the shapes and they can have different assembly . +User Interface: Um , I am here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So users have different {disfmarker} I mean they have their own interests , colour interests and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we can just {disfmarker} if they want they can just pay another two Euro . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay , so +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: you you propose something with option i that increase the price if we {disfmarker} if you want o more colours {vocalsound} on L_C_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yes . If they want like uh {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Kind of upgradable uh {vocalsound} remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Wow , wow . +Industrial Designer: Just they'll get few more things and few more colours . +User Interface: Okay , what uh {disfmarker} there's one more decisi uh one more solution in fact , um {vocalsound} 'cause there are some some paints that can change colour according to where they are , like they can reflect different colours depending on what is around , like what colour is around , and depending on the temperature , +Industrial Designer: Lights , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And thermodynamic also . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like a chameleon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: We can make it in fact . +Project Manager: Yeah but that's maybe mo too much expensive , yeah . +User Interface: If if if the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But uh it can be in uh maybe in an {disfmarker} a gradable version , +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because uh I think there are two kinds of people . Those for which the remote control is uh is to be uh something useful uh I'm going to talk about this later but {disfmarker} and those for which is something that that that uh is uh specific to them so it it's like a signature . My remote control is pink . Nobody else than me has a pink remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that makes me special . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you think that we don't have to make to make them pay more because of {vocalsound} uh o or this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think I think they would be ready p ready to pay more for that . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: Those who wanted to have it pink . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} i it's not uh a s base service +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No mm no . +Project Manager: it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} be an option , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: It might be optional , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But those people will be really few , no ? So like we can {gap} those {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the young people the young people want to be different from their friends . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Although similar but have something just slightly better . Pink {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So m so +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if that it's a selling point maybe it has to be the base . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . But you know if you want to be different you just take your remote control with you all the time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And you'll be different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it makes you different , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: you know ? +Marketing: You always have your remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh in the train uh , hello uh no . {vocalsound} Want to change my neighbour . +User Interface: Anyone has their remote controls here ? +Marketing: Oh , you don't ? {vocalsound} Yeah . You don't have your remo {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh you you know like for instance take the iPod . It's a kind of remote control . {vocalsound} Uh it's white +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's so white that you see it from any anywhere . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It has this distinctive look and feel and look {gap} which people seems to like {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: just because it's {vocalsound} a colour that we don't usually see in a remote control . White . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh , uh-huh . Could we integrate something into our remote control , something like light ? +Marketing: Seems important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: That they can use it in darkness , like . Hand light , +Marketing: Mm {gap} glow in the dark , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe like the infrared like we can put some radium chips or something +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that like {disfmarker} at least um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Iradium ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah sorry . Mm . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . S well , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: let's go on maybe with the presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh-huh , yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And um the remote control's going to be smart +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: but how smart should it be to not to complicate things too much ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's a question to you and to mm to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well so I heard that uh it seems that speech recognition is something that can be done uh so that's the smartness of the thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Currently we don't have guns with speech recognition or uh beer cans with speech recognition +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we may have remote controls with speech recognition . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , that's a nice world . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So just just just just think about it um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Thank you . +Marketing: Don't touch the remote . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Are are you saying here that uh the remote controls should be aware of who is using it ? So for instance the young guy would not be able to use it because his father doesn't want . +User Interface: Uh yeah I just want to say it should be real smart . +Marketing: Like with some {disfmarker} Maybe fingerprint recognition or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Voice recognition is quite tough . I say don't use it , and the control just looks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: 'Cause I ordered jus To l to l lock it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh that {disfmarker} mm that could be feasible I guess , like {disfmarker} So since we have {disfmarker} we want to do some speaker dependent speech recognition uh so we can use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So it could be smart in that way . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: But for instance th I I'm thinking about the other uh uh particularity that the the remote control could have . S since it it knows who is using it , it might also record the kind of uh channels you are u more often using and uh levels of volumes that you're more often uh {disfmarker} things like that +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and provide you ways of using them , I dunno , somehow , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , that might be expensive +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: that might also be a good sales pitch again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote that knows you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: yeah , Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , it's alright . +Project Manager: Participant two ? +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Four , +Marketing: Four , I think . +Project Manager: sorry . +Marketing: Trend , yeah . No uh yes . Okay , so I'm going to talk about trends and um I hope this can help us to to understand l how we should design our remote control . So , next slide please . So first maybe just a small recap on {vocalsound} how how do we watch trends so it's not so uh simple you might think that it's easy but uh it's not so simple . Anyway these days uh the best uh source of information is the web as you know , so have to to go often on the web and look at uh what the others are doing , and ask real people who are using real remote controls every day uh or any other tool that is similar to a remote control which basically is a small device that people {gap} have with them , always , like a phone . We can we can use the phone as a as a good uh uh {vocalsound} example of where to in be inspired . Of course those tha d who are watching the trends are also {disfmarker} have also to be inspired because in fact they're not only watching the trends , they're inventing it , they're creating the trend . I hope I'm going to try to help you on that . This is more risky because you're not following the trend , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you try to invent it , which means either you succeed and you make a lot of money or you don't and you're out of business . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So anyway uh next slide please . {vocalsound} Uh to be to be quick {vocalsound} there's a lot of words here but uh basically there are {disfmarker} uh in in the market of of remote controls there are three aspects that we should very {disfmarker} pay much attention to . The first one , which seems to be the most important one , is that it has to be fancy , it has to have a fancy look and feel . And uh interestingly this is the very most important thing . It has to be fancy . Strangely enough it's more important to be fancy than to be wi and now that's the second thing it has to be , it has to be technologically i innovative , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: it has to be new with some of uh new uh technology inside and uh and this is also uh more important than the last thing which we w may think that would have been the most important , which is that it should be easy to use and it should be easy to use as a remote control . So as you see uh {vocalsound} it first have to be very nice , s something that people are proud of uh uh that i uh they can be id identified with uh and and then uh something that um contains very novel stuff that they can talk about with their friends , huh , mine has this and not yours . And finally of course it has to be useful as a remote control but it seems that it's not so important that it's useful as a remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Next slide please . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Uh and now in a more uh general uh uh broad way of seeing th uh the thing . If we look back and not uh look at only remote controls I think it's important to see that the trends are quite the same in many areas so {disfmarker} currently the the trends that we see in l in l big cities like Paris and Milan , well , it seems that this year things should have uh a fruit and vegetable uh way of {vocalsound} of look or feel +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: or so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think of course uh {vocalsound} i it applies to everything . That's the thing with trends . {vocalsound} It it can travel f from clothe to furniture {vocalsound} same idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit and vegetable . Think fruit and vegetable . {vocalsound} And uh if we co we compare to last year , now it has to be spongy , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: What is spongy ? +Marketing: yeah . Well +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: this {vocalsound} so so I think uh uh i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} kind of um maybe {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: When we were talking about rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think uh the rubber aspect might be important because it's what is probably more feasible in terms of sponginess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: S So maybe titanium it's not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} We need to think about {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: Seems not , seems not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} sorry Mark . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think more of uh something in the colours of uh like fruit and vegetables and spongy , +Industrial Designer: Fruit . Even shape ? +Marketing: as a {disfmarker} even in the shape it has to be more round and uh more uh uh look natural somehow . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} More {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And not those futuristic uh remote control with angles and uh and titanium like . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} You're old-fashioned . +Marketing: So that's what people seem to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah i I know it's quite far from what you thought +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's that's fashion and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay that's all I have to say . +Project Manager: Mm you have questions ? +Industrial Designer: So these abilities are mainly ad addressed by young people ? Or it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: These {disfmarker} I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} you you {gap} so did you {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah we have people uh uh listening to the trends everywhere in the world , of course , +Industrial Designer: Where ? Oh . Oh , okay , mm-hmm . +Marketing: as you know our company is quite big and uh so I'm just asking them what are the current trends according to them when they go in the stores and when they ask uh their uh friends +Industrial Designer: It's not from {disfmarker} mm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: that are also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's more general trend +Marketing: well . +Industrial Designer: it's not particular to the remote control . +Marketing: No , it's not it's not {disfmarker} this this is very general , yeah . But it seems that trends travel across things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but some materials n they're to be uh they're to be something like solid like they can't be really spongy +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: We have to {disfmarker} I think we have to have the look of fruit and vegetables +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah sponge , yeah yeah at least that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we still have to put our chips inside , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: This is your problem . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is not mine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , looking {disfmarker} yeah fruit . These things can be easily incorporated . We can have t colours or this shape +Marketing: Yeah , I think in the colours and in the uh the kind of material . +Industrial Designer: or at least {disfmarker} +Marketing: If if it's something like rubber made or {disfmarker} I think it it's also going to be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No more question ? Okay . +Marketing: Yep . Thanks . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Okay , so we will have uh next meeting in thirty minutes again . Um now you have to go straight on this individual action which i which are for Rama uh wil design , +Industrial Designer: Look and feel de +Project Manager: um Mark the user interface design , and uh Sammy uh the product evaluation . {vocalsound} Uh you will work together uh on a new on on a prototype using modelling clay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . Mm sounds interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm um and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as always your personal coach will send you specific instruction . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , can we highlight the specific features of our {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're right , you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah , so so we want the speech recogniser and we want some kind of buttons and we want some themes like fruits or vegetables , +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you say s +Industrial Designer: we want to follow general trend . +Marketing: Spongy . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we agree on that ? Yeah . We have to . +Industrial Designer: So , do you think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we don't have to , +User Interface: So we have to uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but seems it's the trend . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Again , as I said we can also try to make it , to create the trend . +User Interface: yeah so are we confident enough on creating trends ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} Well , that's {disfmarker} you t can try to convince us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we can make it smell like fruit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} that's a good idea , +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So titanium smell like fruit . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what about location and these things , people are really interesting on those features ? Or they really like {disfmarker} They more want these fancy features +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I think i +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah i it's again in this uh what I said first it has to be fancy so I think if nobody else pro provides currently a remote control with that kind of stuff and if we can provide it I think it's a good sell for us +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Feature {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because we have it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and others don't . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's fancy . Whether it's useful or not doesn't seem to be very important . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I agree with uh this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now we have to decide on what kind of fanciness . Do we take titanium smelling like fruit , or do we make spongy uh fruity-like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh we will try to explore these two options +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you could explore the two option . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Could we make a titanium shape ? I mean {gap} fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah at least like we can make banana or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Don't you say that you cannot do double shape {disfmarker} uh curved shape {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Doub double-curved . +Industrial Designer: yeah it's it's +Marketing: Mm . Seems to be {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's a {disfmarker} we're to look for {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and and s we're to see the {disfmarker} whether rubber is expensive +User Interface: Okay , okay . In fact I just agreed to make uh to make the {disfmarker} like titanium panels on a whole rubber body . +Industrial Designer: and d Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay , so +User Interface: Well , okay w we'll see . +Project Manager: you explore now that you're going to work together these these two . +User Interface: Yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or or spongy an yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe we can have two different {gap} assembly also like one spongy and one kind of titanium . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} we have only the plastic or the {disfmarker} the chippy {disfmarker} yeah fibre chips or {disfmarker} +User Interface: We'll see . We'll see . +Marketing: If you have time . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah I don't think w I think we have to choose . If we choose uh titanium or if we choose spongy +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: but uh it cannot be both . +User Interface: We'll see . I I really don't like this modelling clay 'cause you know it makes some {gap} for for +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For creation . +User Interface: I dunno uh {disfmarker} yeah um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we'll look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah you can pretend that it's uh titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Even design . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can paint it afterward {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: No problem . We have a very large department of {vocalsound} paint . +Project Manager: Yeah , do don't worry , you you {vocalsound} you speak with {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You will do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright , alright . +Project Manager: Okay . So explore a shape . +Industrial Designer: So still we want to keep L_C_D_ ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm I think it's what we say , that we have an uh an L_C_D_ with uh information . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The thing is that uh if we want to have as he says {disfmarker} if we want to have uh a small number of buttons we need to have a kind of output that says currently what their actions are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} user friendly +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's the converse to having zillions of button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: where each button does only one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we just stick with two batteries so it's not any solar or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah j yeah , +Marketing: Classical , we stay classical in that we don't reinvent uh the wheel . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway it's very {disfmarker} in general I think people uh change T_V_ more often than batteries of their remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . {vocalsound} Because the trend goes faster than the life of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's {gap} very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: are we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're done . +Marketing: We're done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So see you in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +","The team is engaged in a conceptual design meeting for a remote control project. The group discusses various aspects of design, including components, energy sources, materials, user interface, costs, and trend-watching. They decide to opt for simple batteries over solar cells, consider titanium for design despite challenges with double-curved shapes, and discuss incorporating speech recognition to keep costs down. The user interface discussion touches on the possibility of including an LCD display to provide information. Marketing insights emphasize the need for a trendy, fancy look, potentially inspired by fruits and vegetables, to make the product stand out. The designers also consider options for making the remote control color customizable. Near the end of the meeting, tasks are assigned for individual action, including design, user interface, and product evaluation, with the next meeting set to happen in thirty minutes." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All hooked up . {vocalsound} Okay , so now we are here at the functional design meeting . Um {vocalsound} hopefully this meeting I'll be doing a little bit less talking than I did last time 'cause this is when you get to show us what you've been doing individually . The agenda for the meeting , I put it in the sh shared documents folder . I don't know if that meant that you could see it or not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did anyone ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . Oh well . Um I'll try and do that for the next meeting as well so if you check in there , there's a shared project documents folder . Um and it should be in there . +User Interface: Mm . Um um wi on on a what ? Oh project project documents , yeah , yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . So I'll put it in there . +User Interface: Oh okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it best if I send you an email maybe , to let you know it's there ? +User Interface: Yes , I think so . +Project Manager: Yep . I'll do that next time . Um {vocalsound} I'll act as secretary for this meeting and just take minutes as we go through , and then I'll send them to you after the meeting . The main the main focus of this meeting is your presentations that you've been preparing during the time , so we'll go through each of you one by one . Um then we need to briefly discuss the new project requirements that were sent to us . I just sent +User Interface: Yeah , the last minute , yeah , +Project Manager: at the last minute , I'm sorry about that , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: but we can see how that affects what you were you were doing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and then we need to , by the end of the meeting come to some kind of decision on who our target group's going to be and what the functions of the remote control {disfmarker} that's the the main goal is to come up with those two things , target group and functions of the remote control . And we've got forty minutes to do that in . So I would say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You said uh targ target groups , +Project Manager: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: what does that mean ? +Project Manager: As uh who it is that we're going to be trying to sell this thing to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , 'kay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we need to {disfmarker} yeah , we need to have a fairly defined group that that we want to focus on +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and then look at the functions um of the dem remote control itself . So with that I think it's best if I hand over to you . Does anyone have a preference for going first ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} I can go first , +Project Manager: You wanna go first ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we need to unplug my laptop and plug in yours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I assume we just pull it out ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . Um {vocalsound} so f from the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just before you start , to make it easier , would you three mind emailing me your presentations ? Once we {disfmarker} you don't have to do it now but when {disfmarker} once you go back , +User Interface: Okay , yeah , afterwards , yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Right sure . +Project Manager: just so that I don't have to scribble everything down . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So n uh with uh with regard to the {vocalsound} uh working design of this uh uh remote control uh I've identified um {vocalsound} a few basic uh components of the remote and uh {vocalsound} se uh from the design , functional design perspective um w I c we can now uh know wha what exactly the components are and how how they work together with each other . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is the method that uh I'll mostly be following in my um {vocalsound} in my uh role . Um the identification of the components , uh and uh since since I'm dealing only with the technical aspects , I would need feedback from the marketing person uh and {vocalsound} uh from the user interface person . Uh we'll then integrate this into the product design at a technical level +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh basically update and come up with a new design , so it's a cyclical process . {vocalsound} Okay , so {vocalsound} these were the basic findings from today . The last three bullets have been integrated from uh the last minute uh email . Uh I just quickly jotted them down . Um {vocalsound} so basically uh the {disfmarker} as I told you the identification of how the remote control works and what are the various parts to it uh and what are the different processes um {vocalsound} and how the parts uh communicate with each other . Um {vocalsound} okay , so e the mee email said that teletext is now outdated , so we need to do away with that functionality of the remote control . Um also uh the remote control should be used only for television , because incorporating other features um makes it more comp complex . And the reason why teletext is outdated because uh of internet and uh the availability of internet over television . How however , our our remote control would only be dealing uh with the {vocalsound} the use for television , {vocalsound} in order to keep things simple . Um {vocalsound} also the management wants that um our design should be unique uh it {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} it should incorporate um colour and the slogan uh that our company um has it as its standard . {vocalsound} Okay , so he he here is a functional overview of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} there's basically an energy source at the heart uh which feeds into the chip and the user interface . The user interf interface communicates with the chip , so {vocalsound} I'll basic go over to the {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} if uh if this is our energy source and this is a cell , uh it communicates {disfmarker} uh it feeds energy into the into the chip , which basically finds out h uh how how to do everything . There is a user interface here . {vocalsound} So whe when the user presses a button , it feeds into the chip and the chip then generates a response and takes the response to an infrared terminal , um which then {disfmarker} so the output of the chip is an infrared bit code , which is then communicated {vocalsound} to the remote site , which h has an infrared receiver . Um the there can be uh a bulb here or something to indicate whether the remote is on or communicating . Um so these are the essent so a all the functionality of the remote control , whatever new functions that we need to do , um make the chip more complicated uh and bigger , basically . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Um so {vocalsound} i in my personal preferences um {vocalsound} I'm hoping that we can ke keep the design as simple and clear as possible . This would uh help us uh to upgrade our technology at a future point of time . And uh also if we can incorporate uh the latest features in our chip design , so that our um {vocalsound} uh remote control does not become outdated soon and it's compatible with mot most uh televisions . {vocalsound} That's about it . {vocalsound} So anything that you would like to know or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Do you have any um i idea about costs at this point ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't have any idea about what each component costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Br +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that's something to consider , I guess , if we're if we're using more advanced technology , it might increase the price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Certainly , yeah . So so tha yeah , {vocalsound} we definitely need to operate within our constraints , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but um {vocalsound} unfortunately I I do not have any data , so uh I just identified the functional components for that . +Project Manager: That's fine . Are there any more questions , or shall we just skip straight to the next one and then we can discuss all of them together at the end ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we need like some general discussion at the end probably . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will do . Okay , so do you want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , I think since since we were discussing some um design issues then I I I would like to continue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , shall shall we pull this up ? +User Interface: okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think that has to come out of there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought those last minute things , they're gonna hit you the worst . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh i {vocalsound} Okay , I hope {disfmarker} wait . Should it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it'll take some time . +Project Manager: It ta takes a little {disfmarker} Oh , and have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's just nothing . +Project Manager: you need to then also press on yours , function F_ eight , +User Interface: Oh right , right , right , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so the blue function key at the bottom and F_ eight . +User Interface: Okay . Nothin +Industrial Designer: Oh , there it is , yeah . +User Interface: okay , something is coming up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now it's coming , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'll come up , it {disfmarker} um uh no signal . +Project Manager: computer no signal . +User Interface: No signal ? Why ? +Project Manager: Maybe again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , it says something now , +User Interface: Oh . My my computer went blank now . +Industrial Designer: adjusting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , adjusting . +User Interface: Adjusting . But {vocalsound} I don't see anything +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go , there we go . +User Interface: I don't see anything on my computer now . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's strange . +Project Manager: Oh , if you press if you press function and that again +User Interface: This is the problem , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: there's there's usually three modes , one where it's only here , one where it's only there , and one where it's both . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one more time . +Project Manager: Okay , so one more time . +User Interface: Uh now it's {disfmarker} okay . No ? No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} yeah just wait for a moment , adjusting . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay , that's fine , that's good . Okay , let's start from the beginning . So I'm going to speak about technical functions design uh just like some {vocalsound} some first issues that came up . Um 'kay , so the method I was um adopting at this point , it's not um for the for the whole um period of the um {vocalsound} all the project but it's just at th at this very moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um uh my method was um to look at um other {vocalsound} um remote controls , uh so mostly just by searching on the web and to see what um functionality they used . And then um after having got this inspiration and having compared what I found on the web um just to think about what the de what the user really needs and what um what the user might desire as additional uh functionalities . {vocalsound} And yeah , and then just to um {vocalsound} put the main function of the remote control in in words . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um so the findings uh were {vocalsound} um that the main function of the remote control is is just sending messages to the television set , so this quite straightforward . And uh w some of the main functions would be switching on , switching off , uh then the user would like to switch the channel um for example just m changing to the next channel to to flip through all all of the possible channels , or then mm {vocalsound} uh the other possibility would be that um she might just want to choose one particular channel , so we would need the numbers . And and also the volume is very important . Um {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I als +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , cou could you go back for a second ? +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh switching on off channel , uh volume , {vocalsound} okay , that's great . +User Interface: 'Kay . Um um among the findings I found that m m most of the curr mm presently available remote controls also include other mm {vocalsound} functionalities um in their design , like operating a V_C_R_ , but they don't seem to be able to deal with D_V_D_ players , but then {vocalsound} there are {disfmarker} surely there are many other functionali functions that could possibly be added to them , but according to the last minute update um actually um we do not want to have all this complicated functions added to our design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my personal preferences would be uh to keep the mm the whole remote control small um just like the physical size . And then it must be easy to use , so it must follow some conventions um like whereabouts you find the on off button and maybe the colour tends to be red or something . Um then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , the must-have buttons would be on off and then {vocalsound} the channel numbers and then um {vocalsound} the one that allows us to go to the next or the previous channel , and then volume has to be there . But then um other functionalities um {vocalsound} could be just {disfmarker} uh there could be a menu button and you could change things on the screen then , um for example brightness and mm similar functions could be just um {vocalsound} done through the menu . And yeah , the last question I had about whether we wanted to incorporate n uh more functionalities , the answer was already no because of the last minute update . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So at the {disfmarker} for the time being that's uh that's all . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have questions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If {disfmarker} I mean that was the the directive that came through from management , but if we had a a decent case for {disfmarker} that we really think it's important to include video and D_V_D_ , I could get back to them and see . It's w it's just whether it's worth arguing about . +User Interface: Yeah , and also it's it's um {disfmarker} other question is uh because there are so many different {disfmarker} And there are so many different things that could possibly be included +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because besides video and D_V_D_ there are the mm um video C_D_s and whatever , so it might be problematic to to choose between all these possible things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Are there any questions for clarification of Maarika before we go on to the next one ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So in the u user interface requirements uh uh uh we we have been able to identify what are the basic buttons that we do want . Um but um {vocalsound} so so at this stage , uh how we go about implementing those button we will not identify or {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} we can completely do away with buttons and uh have some kind of a fancy user interface or something like that . But uh is is there any uh uh any thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um well , I think the buttons are still mm kind of the most um easy for the user to use , +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I mean um what other options would you have ? A little screen or something , but this would be really kind of I think a lot of learning for the user +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and it'll make the costs {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and and I mean the user just wants to get um get a result um quickly , not to spend time in like um giving several orders um I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think I th I would I would think the put the buttons , but if if you have other mm proposals um . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think the co costs will also play a big role when we come to know about them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So well we can probably wait until t we have more knowledge on that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh i if the if the costs allow , we can have like an L_C_D_ display +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh with um {disfmarker} because we do want something fancy and fashionable as well . So yeah ? Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Sure , we can discuss that maybe after the next one . +Marketing: Cool . Do you wanna give me the little cable thing ? +Project Manager: Do you want to {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Uh am I going in the right direction ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wait . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm getting hungry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , here it comes . Okay , here you are . +Marketing: Cool . Ah , that's why it won't meet . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . +Project Manager: You set ? +Marketing: Yep , cool . Okay , functional requirements . +Project Manager: Uh we need to do the function key thing so that it comes up on here . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {gap} try to press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it plugged in prop +Industrial Designer: oh , okay , +Marketing: It's working . +Project Manager: it's working ? +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Cool , okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: So what I have , wh where I've got my information from is a survey where the usability lab um observed remote control use with um a hundred subjects and then they gave them a questionnaire . Um so it was all about , you know , how people feel about the look and feel of the remote control , you know . What's the most annoying things about remote controls and um the possibility of speech recognition and L_C_D_ screens in remote control . Not that they actually gave me any answers on the L_C_D_ screens , so I should have taken that bit out , but anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , so . What they found is that people don't like how current remote controls are , so you know , definitely you should be looking at something quite different . Um seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . {vocalsound} Uh the other twenty five percent have no fashion sense . Uh eighty percent of users would spend more to get um you know , a nice looking remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um current remote controls , they don't match the user behaviour well , as you'll see on the next slide . Um I dunno what zapping is , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um switching between channels , sort of randomly going through . +Marketing: Oh , right . But you have that little thing that comes up at the bottom and tells you what's on . Um okay , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so that's going back to what , you know , we were saying earlier about , you know , do you need all the buttons on the remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: they just make it look ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . Um so this is my little graph thing . +Project Manager: Ooh , that's a bit difficult to see . +Marketing: Mm k +Project Manager: If you explain it to us it'll be fine . +Marketing: Okay , well , I can send it to all of you . What it is is um it's cones , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I thought they'd be more exciting . Um but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I liked the , I liked the litt +Marketing: ooh where's it go ? +Project Manager: ooh come back . +Marketing: Back . Oh . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Oh yes , cool . Okay , I'm gonna stop playing with the little pointy thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um okay , so like what it shows is how much things are used relatively and what you can clearly see from that is the thing that's used most is the channel selection . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: What you can't see is volume selection , it's a little bit higher than all the others . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's the next one along , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so what the graph shows is that , you know , power , channel selection and volume selection are important , and the rest of them , you know , nobody really uses and so that's the the numbers along the top represent their like um their importance , you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so on a scale of one to ten , how important is that +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and , you know , channel selection and volume selection are absolutely essential , and the power , well it's not quite so essential , apparently , although I don't understand how it couldn't be , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} um and everything else , I think , you know , you can forget about having those buttons on the remote control , 'cause they're just not needed , and they're not used . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This is the bit that the email messed up for me and that's what I was fiddling about with at the beginning of the thing . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . So um okay , so this is what people find annoying about remote controls . Uh that they get lost , that the uh you know , they're not intuitive and that they're bad for repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think if you're watching enough T_V_ to get repetitive strain injury from um you know , watching T_V_ , then {vocalsound} that's the least of your problems , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} The remote control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you know , {vocalsound} it's up there . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um that {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so um I mean the the R_S_I_ thing would be that , like when you have the computer keyboards and you keep your wrists up would be something that encourages {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: you want something with an ergonomic t design that encourages good use of the remote control and you know , not straining your wrists watching T_V_ {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Okay , cool . Right , um sorry this is pink because I was copying and pasting the table , and I didn't have time to white it out again . +Project Manager: That's alright . +Marketing: Um okay , but that shows how people {disfmarker} whether they would pay more for voice recognition software . So you can see from that that , you know , younger people to the age of thirty five are quite likely to pay quite a lot more f well quite {disfmarker} are quite likely to pay more for voice recognition software , whereas as people get older , they're a bit more sceptical about it and they're less willing to to try it . Um so clearly voice recognition is something to think about , but um you know I d I do wonder how well that would work given that a T_V_ , you know , tends to be people talking and um , you know , how are you going to stop it from just flipping channels whilst watching T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um okay ? Cool . Um okay , so these are my personal preferences . {vocalsound} So you have sleek , stylish , sophisticated , you know , so something that's , you know , a bit cool . Um you know , functional , so it's useful , but minimalist . Um there's a there's an important thing that , you know , people use when , you know , when you're filling up your home , you know , a lot of people fill up their home with bits of crap , basically , you know , and you've got all this stuff , and you're just like , what the hell is that , who is ever gonna use it ? You know , so things should either be functional or beautiful or preferably both , so I think we need to aim for both . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Um okay , then a long battery life , like you were talking about earlier and um , you know , I was thinking that solar power would be quite cool because , you know , your remote control just sits there , and you could just sit it in the sunshine and save the environment a bit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um and then like a locator , so you know , kind of like you have for a mobile phone or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: not a mobile phone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Some kind of a ring , +Project Manager: Keys and things like that , +Industrial Designer: some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's it , you know . +Project Manager: yeah . Whistle and it {vocalsound} screams at you , yeah . +Marketing: I know , it's weird . My flatmate and I were talking about this on the way into uni this morning and I was like I need to get one for everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So yeah , so maybe something where you clap and then it beeps , something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a kind of sound that you don't often hear on the T_V_ , you know , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause you don't want your remote control beeping every five minutes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause you you'd then deliberately lose it by throwing it out the window or something . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So okay ? Cool . That's me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great , +Project Manager: That's you , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um that's very good , +Industrial Designer: thanks . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: very interesting . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna tick yes . So , we've got about ten , fifteen minutes to discuss +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} I think one of the very interesting things that came up in um {vocalsound} uh Ka Kate Cat Cat's uh presentation was um {vocalsound} uh this this issue of uh uh like voice recognition being more popular with uh younger people . +Marketing: Cat's . Ca {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So if we need to have a target group um then uh {vocalsound} I think as far as the m motto of our company is concerned , if we want to have something sleek and uh you know , good looking uh we are better off targeting a younger audience then um you know , people who are comparatively elderly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean that's the thing is that it didn't say in the survey , you know , whether , you know , these are the people that will pay more for a more stylish remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: but I'm assuming , you know , yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . Bu but but the survey did say that f things like voice recognition are more popular with them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to put in something stylish , then uh th it'll certainly be more popular with this i ye with the younger people as compared to older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Then again I guess the th where it was most popular was the fifteen to twenty five bracket +Industrial Designer: Right , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} I don't know how often they're buying televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . Mm . +Marketing: Well , that's when you go to uni , isn't it ? So , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't have much money , generally . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: I would've thought it's it's more that twenty five to thirty five , when people are really moving out and they've got their first job and they want their nice toys and {disfmarker} +User Interface: you share a television or something that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh still , if if you can go back to that slide and uh , how popular was it ? +Project Manager: O oh it's on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I've unplugged it . +Project Manager: sorry , we unplugged it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's alright , if you can just look it up on your computer , wh uh um people between twenty five to thirty five , uh how popular was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Seventy six point three percent . +Industrial Designer: so it was sti still still quite popular amongst them . +User Interface: It was seventy something , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even they are seventy six percent , is that high amount ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I kn I mean I know what you're saying about the fifteen to twenty five year olds , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but I mean it has been proven that that people of that age group have a higher disposable income because they don't have like {disfmarker} I mean , you know , if you're at university , you're paying your rent , +Project Manager: Yeah , they've got no commitments and +Marketing: but you don't have a mortgage , you don't have a life insurance policy , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: you don't normally have a car , +Project Manager: usually not a car and all of those things . +Marketing: yeah , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You're still learning to drive actually , +Project Manager: Kids . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you're more likely to b +Marketing: so that just costs more than a car , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but yeah . Um so I mean like it is an age group to target , really , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we're if we're talking twenty five Euros as a price , that's not unaffordable , even for young people . +Marketing: No , I mean that's what , that's like fifteen Pounds ? You know , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah this this is not {vocalsound} unaffordable , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: but the problem is whether people need it , whether they do have a T_V_ {vocalsound} to use its full {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I d I don't know many people without a T_V_ . We didn't have a T_V_ last year , +Project Manager: But do they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and everyone thought we were off our heads , you know . +Project Manager: But the T_V_s are often kind of someone's old T_V_ that's blah blah +User Interface: Common , the students {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . The s the stu +Project Manager: and be a bit strange to have a fancy {vocalsound} rome remote . +User Interface: yeah , and the remote control might not {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm +User Interface: it might not even function with the old T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bu but even even in the case of twenty five to thirty five it's quite popular , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I d well we've we've got quite a d decent T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So mm uh are are are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: we're still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or w maybe we can just kind of uh uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think the fact that , you know , ninety one point two percent of fifteen to twenty five year olds are saying yes , I would pay more for a voice recognition remote control , does say quite a lot really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You know , so I mean that and the disposable income and {disfmarker} I don't think it's something to ignore , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but at the same time I think maybe we can we can just decide to to have both of these groups as our target , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because actually I mean they're all still re young people . +Marketing: Is not a massive difference , you know . No , do totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , if we ta if we take fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but that then does imply that we should try and incorporate voice recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that gonna have a {disfmarker} an implication for the technical specs ? +Industrial Designer: I was having a a general outlook on um m most like sophisticated features , but voice recognition itself I'm not very sure about , because one of the p uh things that Cat pointed out was uh uh how do we go about implementing it ? Uh and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You do have it in your mobile phone though , don't you ? Because you have like {disfmarker} I mean every mobile phone now has like call this person and it calls them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But how frequently do we use it anyway +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um uh h ho how good is it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know uh voice recognition softwares are still quite uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . With um {disfmarker} but with a T_V_ remote it's gonna be quite limited if we're t saying the main things people want to do is on off channel five , +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: S so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: louder , +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Project Manager: tha that should be relatively simple . +Industrial Designer: O {vocalsound} +Marketing: y you'd maybe need a code word . Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: So like when you say change , except that's {vocalsound} being said quite a lot on T_V_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: so maybe like , you know , remote . I mean how often do people say remote on T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Although I only watch Charmed , so really {vocalsound} I wouldn't know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like so you'd just say remote five , you know , remote ten , remote one two nine . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so it seems like a feasible thing to implement uh for for a limited +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but maybe if you wanna look into that just to just to check . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so if we go for the the fifteen to thirty five age group and then of course we're going to get th anyone who's older than thirty five who wants to look young and hip and trendy and has the money , +User Interface: Yeah but uh um {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah sure , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: then they'll they'll still go for the same advertising . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's a lot of uh voice recognition remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah , w well now the v the voice recognition if if it works wonderfully w we could possibly do away with all buttons , but I think this is not really the right moment yet , because people are just so used to buttons +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: and um , yeah it's it's kind of safer , so we we need both , +Industrial Designer: Mm . W +Project Manager: I think we need both . +Industrial Designer: What uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so the voice recognition would be just an extra , it wouldn't really reduce the size of the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What wh uh {vocalsound} what I was thinking is that there is this uh separation between what the channels are on T_V_ and how they are numbered on the remote control . If we can do with {disfmarker} away with that , our product can be really popular uh in the sense that uh a person can say , I want to watch uh I_T_V_ one instead of saying that I want to go onto channel number forty five . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if uh if something like that can be incorporated , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that would be another way to do it . +Project Manager: So that if that was in the the voice recognition , that would be great . +Industrial Designer: some kind of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but then the code word would be even more important , because {disfmarker} I mean Sky advertise on every channel , don't they , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so then it would be {disfmarker} you'd be watching Charmed , and then the Sky advert would come on and it would change to Sky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Watch Sky and {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that would be really annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But that's definitely a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but m but on the other hand , remote control isn't {vocalsound} as close to you you probably might just just uh speak into it +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and the T_V_ would be already further away , so it might not pick up the other things coming from there . +Marketing: Yeah . Do you not think that defeats the object of having voice recognition on a remote control though ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that you can yell at it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you know , so you have to have the remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: It's more like if you lost it and it's down the sofa sometime , you can yell at it {vocalsound} and it'll just change it , you can look for it later , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , but then the remote control I think {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} um the idea is kind of {disfmarker} it's it's not that it's sitting there on on top of the television , because then you could already yell at the television and you wouldn't you you wouldn't need the remote control , so the remote control is still something you keep n near yourself . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I suppose nearer to you but a b like if you have surround sound then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah and it might become very difficult from a distance for the television to understand what you're saying because of the noise factor for the remote control +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: being cl I mean it'll it'll {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No , but I I I was just defending the {vocalsound} the fact why why we want to keep the remote control close to us , a and uh not to yell at it from the distance . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . So uh {vocalsound} wh another thing uh that can be used is that uh there can be a beeper button on the T_V_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can go and press that button and um and the remote control , wherever it is , it'll beep , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so we we can probably come to know where it is . +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then if you're buying the remote separately , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: but y {vocalsound} you could have something , but i if it was something that you could like stick onto the T_V_ or something , +User Interface: Oh yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: some {disfmarker} like a two p if you bought it in a two part pack , so one part attaches to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , 'cause it's it's quite important that you don't lose the the bit to locate the remote control . +Project Manager: The l +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , but it solves the problem of having different noises . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I think we're gonna have to wrap this up um . But if we go away with that that kind of general um {vocalsound} specification in mind that we're looking at fifteen to thirty five year olds , we want it to look simple , but still have the buttons so it's easy to use , but only those key buttons , the major buttons and then one sort of menu one , and then voice recognition included as an option +User Interface: The major ones , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um but that obviously needs a little bit more working out as to whether it's really feasible and some of those problems we were mentioning um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What we have to do now is to go back to our little places , complete our questionnaire and some sort of summarisation , which y you'll get immediately by email . Send me your presentations so that I can use them to make the minutes , and then we've got a lunch break +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: and after lunch we go back to our own little stations and have thirty minutes more work . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'll put the minutes in that project documents folder , but I'll send you an email when I do it , so that you know . +Industrial Designer: So where exactly is this i +Project Manager: It should be on your desktop , so on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll put it {disfmarker} I'll put them there as soon as I've written them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah in that one , +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: right yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and email them round . +Marketing: Oh , so y you want our um PowerPoint presentations in there , hey ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that would be great . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh so so we'll just put them i there , +Project Manager: Oh yeah , put them in there . Yeah , +User Interface: we we {disfmarker} yeah , w we won't even {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: then you don't have to email them . +Marketing: But is everyone's called functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No , they're all called something slightly different . Technical requirements and something something , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that's good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's me done . +Project Manager: So , if you put them in there , we'll all be able to see them and refer to them if we need to . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} as to where we're going from here , you're going to look at the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Whatever that means . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I guess I'll find out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll be looking {vocalsound} you'll be looking at the user interface concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh something conceptual , yeah . +Project Manager: on something conceptual and you're watching trends to see how we go and surely voice recognition'll fall off the map or something that {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um we'll keep keep our options op hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Wha what was it again that I was supposed to look into ? Con components , oh . +Project Manager: Components , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Sorry , but um the next meeting um are we going to have it um right after lunch or {vocalsound} shall we prepare our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we have we have {disfmarker} after lunch we have thirty minutes to ourselves to prepare , +User Interface: To prepare , okay , yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: so that's fine , w before lunch we just have to complete the questionnaire and some sort of summary . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right on time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so you can {disfmarker} I guess we'll see you for lunch in a sec ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , see you . +","At a recent functional design meeting, the project manager commenced the session by indicating they had set up the necessary equipment and expressed their hope for a more interactive session that would allow team members to present their individual contributions. Despite their efforts to share the agenda in a shared documents folder prior to the meeting, it was clear that this was not communicated effectively, as some participants were unaware of its existence. + +The primary objective of the meeting, as outlined by the project manager, was to showcase the work that each member had prepared and to discuss new project requirements that had unfortunately only been communicated at the last minute. These new directives needed to be taken into account as they could potentially impact the ongoing work. The discussions were intended to culminate in definitive decisions regarding the target demographic for the product - a remote control - and its specific functions. + +An interesting dynamic was observed amongst the team, with an industrial designer volunteering to present first. As the meeting progressed, it became clear that equipment logistics, such as connecting laptops to projectors, were managed collectively with mild technical hiccups. + +The industrial designer presented key insights into the functional design of the remote control, emphasizing basic components, their operation, and an interdependent technical approach. They integrated feedback from the last-minute updates, dissecting the shift in requirements – namely, omitting outdated features like teletext due to the advent of internet on television, focusing the remote control's functionality strictly on controlling televisions and incorporating the company’s branding elements such as color and slogan into the design for differentiation. + +The user interface representative took the floor next, after resolving more technical difficulties with the projector. They elaborated on their methodical approach to research and design, reflecting on existing remote controls and user needs to outline the fundamental functions a remote should possess. The focus was on the usability aspect, suggesting that essential buttons for power, channel selection, and volume should be complemented by a simple menu system and rejecting the idea of complicated, additional features in light of the new project directive. + +Furthering the discussions, a marketing team member provided survey data from a usability lab study involving a hundred subjects. This data presented a compelling revelation: a significant majority of users regarded current remote designs as unattractive, and many expressed a willingness to pay more for aesthetically pleasing designs. Besides the look and feel, the findings underscored the importance of channel and volume controls as the most used functions. The survey revealed that people commonly use only a fraction of the buttons available, implying an opportunity to streamline the design. + +The marketing presentation also uncovered user annoyances regarding remote controls, such as losing them and intuitiveness, as well as concerns about repetitive strain injuries, all vital considerations for the new design. Another groundbreaking topic was voice recognition technology, which, according to the survey, held more appeal among younger demographics. + +Collectively, the meeting highlighted a preference for a sleek, stylish, minimalist remote control that is user-friendly and features long battery life. The notion of incorporating voice recognition was met with excitement and skepticism in equal measure, prompting further investigation into its viability and implementation. + +As the meeting drew to a close, the project manager synthesized the discussions and outlined next steps. The team members were tasked to complete questionnaires, offer summaries, and exchange presentations for inclusion in the meeting minutes. The next steps in the project would involve further exploring the concepts around components, user interfaces, and market trends with an aim to finalize the design decision after lunch. The session concluded with the participants looking forward to reconvening after the break to refine their ideas and continue their collaborative effort towards designing a remote control that embodies the company’s vision and meets the modern user's demands." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad E: I guess . +Grad A: OK , we 're on . So just make sure that th your wireless mike is on , if you 're wearing a wireless . +Grad E: Check one . Check one . +Grad A: And you should be able to see which one {disfmarker} which one you 're on by , uh , watching the little bars change . +Grad B: So , which is my bar ? Mah ! Number one . +Grad A: Yep . +Grad E: Sibilance . Sibilance . +Grad A: So , actually , if you guys wanna go ahead and read digits now , as long as you 've signed the consent form , that 's alright . +Grad E: Are we supposed to read digits at the same time ? +Grad A: No . No . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Grad A: Each individually . We 're talking about doing all at the same time but I think cognitively that would be really difficult . {vocalsound} To try to read them while everyone else is . +Grad E: Everyone would need extreme focus . +Grad A: So , when you 're reading the digit strings , the first thing to do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Other way . We m We may wind up with ver We {disfmarker} we may need versions of all this garbage . +Grad B: For our stuff . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Um . So the first thing you 'd wanna do is just say which transcript you 're on . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: So . You can see the transcript ? There 's two large number strings on the digits ? So you would just read that one . And then you read each line with a small pause between the lines . And the pause is just so the person transcribing it can tell where one line ends and the other begins . And I 'll give {disfmarker} I 'll read the digit strings first , so can see how that goes . Um . Again , I 'm not sure how much I should talk about {pause} stuff before everyone 's here . +Professor C: Mmm . Well , we have one more coming . +Grad A: OK . Well , why don't I go ahead and read digit strings and then we can go on from there . +Professor C: OK . Well , we can start doing it . +Grad A: Thanks . So , uh , just also a note on wearing the microphones . All of you look like you 're doing it reasonably correctly , but you want it about two thumb widths away from your mouth , and then , at the corner . And that 's so that you minimize breath sounds , so that when you 're breathing , you don't breathe into the mike . Um . Yeah , that 's good . And uh {disfmarker} So , everyone needs to fill out , only once , the speaker form and the consent form . And the short form {disfmarker} I mean , you should read the consent form , but uh , the thing to notice is that we will give you an opportunity to edit a all the transcripts . So , if you say things and you don't want them to be released to the general public , which , these will be available at some point to anyone who wants them , uh , you 'll be given an opportunity by email , uh , to bleep out any portions you don't like . Um . On the speaker form just fill out as much of the information as you can . If you 're not exactly sure about the region , we 're not exactly sure either . So , don't worry too much about it . The {disfmarker} It 's just self rating . Um . And I think that 's about it . I mean , should I {disfmarker} Do you want me to talk at all about why we 're doing this and what this project is ? +Professor C: Um , yeah . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} ? +Professor C: No . There was {disfmarker} there was {disfmarker} Let 's see . Oh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Does Nancy know that we 're meeting in here ? +Grad B: I sent an email . +Professor C: She got an emai she was notified . +Grad E: Oh yeah , she got an e Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Whether she knows {vocalsound} is another question . Um . So are the people going to be identified by name ? +Grad A: Well , what we 're gonna {disfmarker} we 'll anonymize it in the transcript . Um , but not in the audio . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: So the +Professor C: OK . So , then in terms of people worrying about , uh , excising things from the transcript , it 's unlikely . Since it {disfmarker} it does isn't attributed . Oh , I see , but the a but the {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Right , so if I said , "" Oh , hi Jerry , how are you ? "" , we 're not gonna go through and cancel out the "" Jerry ""s . +Professor C: Yeah . Sure . +Grad A: Um , so we will go through and , in the speaker ID tags there 'll be , you know , M - one O seven , M - one O eight . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: Um , but uh , +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: um , it w uh , I don't know a good way of doing it on the audio , and still have people who are doing discourse research be able to use the data . +Professor C: OK . Mm - hmm . No , I {disfmarker} I wasn't complaining , +Grad A: Yep . +Professor C: I just wanted to understand . +Grad A: Right . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: Well , we can make up aliases for each of us . +Grad A: Yeah , I mean , whatever you wanna do is fine , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: but we find that {disfmarker} We want the meeting to be as natural as possible . So , we 're trying to do real meetings . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And so we don't wanna have to do aliases +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: and we don't want people to be editing what they say . +Grad B: Right . +Grad A: So I think that it 's better just as a pro post - process to edit out every time you bash Microsoft . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Um , OK . So why don't you tell us briefly +Grad A: OK . So th +Professor C: your {disfmarker} give {disfmarker} give your e normal schpiel . +Grad A: Um . So this is {disfmarker} The project is called Meeting Recorder and there are lots of different aspects of the project . Um . So my particular interest is in the PDA of the future . This is a mock - up of one . Yes , we do believe the PDA of the future will be made of wood . Um . {comment} The idea is that you 'd be able to put a PDA at the table at an impromptu meeting , and record it , and then be able to do querying and retrieval later on , on the meeting . So that 's my particular interest , is a portable device to do m uh , information retrieval on meetings . Other people are interested in other aspects of meetings . Um . So the first step on that , in any of these , is to collect some data . And so what we wanted is a room that 's instrumented with both the table top microphones , and these are very high quality pressure zone mikes , as well as the close talking mikes . What the close talk ng talking mikes gives us is some ground truth , gives us , um , high quality audio , um , especially for people who aren't interested in the acoustic parts of this corpus . So , for people who are more interested in language , we didn't want to penalize them by having only the far field mikes available . And then also , um , it 's a very , very hard task in terms of speech recognition . Um . And so , uh , on the far field mikes we can expect very low recognition results . So we wanted the near field mikes to at least isolate the difference between the two . So that 's why we 're recording in parallel with the close talking and the far field at the same time . And then , all these channels are recorded simultaneously and framed synchronously so that you can also do things like , um , beam - forming on all the microphones and do research like that . Our intention is to release this data to the public , um , probably through f through a body like the LDC . And , uh , just make it as a generally available corpus . Um . {vocalsound} There 's other work going on in meeting recording . So , we 're {disfmarker} we 're working with SRI , with UW , Um . NIST has started an effort which will include video . We 're not including video , obviously . And uh {disfmarker} and then also , um , a small amount of assistance from IBM . Is also involved . Um . Oh , and the digit strings , this is just a more constrained task . Um . So because the general environment is so challenging , we decided to {disfmarker} to do at least one set of digit strings to give ourselves something easier . And it 's exactly the same digit strings as in TI - digits , which is a common connected digits corpus . So we 'll have some , um , comparison to be able to be made . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor C: No . +Grad A: OK , so when the l last person comes in , just have them wear a wireless . It should be on already . Um . Either one of those . And uh , read the digit strings and {disfmarker} and fill out the forms . So , the most important form is the consent form , so just be s be sure everyone signs that , if they consent . +Grad B: I 'm sure it 's pretty usual for meetings that people come late , +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad B: so you will have to leave what you set . +Grad A: Right . And uh , just give me a call , which , my number 's up there when your meeting is over . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad A: And {disfmarker} I 'm going to leave the mike here but it 's n {nonvocalsound} Uh , but I 'm not gonna be on so don't have them use this one . It 'll just be sitting here . +Grad B: Input ? Yeah . There we go . +Professor C: By the way , Adam , we will be using the , uh , screen as well . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , you know . Wow ! Organization . So you guys who got email about this {pause} oh f uh , Friday or something about what we 're up to . +Grad E: No . +Grad F: No . +Grad B: I got it . +Grad E: What was the nature of the email ? +Professor C: Oh , this was about {pause} um , inferring intentions from features in context , and the words , like "" s go to see "" , or "" visit "" , or some +Grad B: Wel - we I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Professor C: You didn't get it ? +Grad E: I don't think I did . +Professor C: I guess these g have got better filters . Cuz I sent it to everybody . You just blew it off . +Grad E: Ah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: It 's really simple though . So this is the idea . Um . We could pursue , um , if we thought it 's {disfmarker} it 's worth it but , uh , I think we {disfmarker} we will agree on that , um , to come up with a {disfmarker} with a sort of very , very first crude prototype , and do some implementation work , and do some {disfmarker} some research , and some modeling . So the idea is if you want to go somewhere , um , and focus on that object down {disfmarker} Oh , I can actually walk with this . This is nice . down here . That 's the Powder - Tower . Now , um , {vocalsound} we found in our , uh , data and from experiments , that there 's three things you can do . Um , you can walk this way , and come really , really close to it . And touch it . But you cannot enter or do anything else . Unless you 're interested in rock climbing , it won't do you no good standing there . It 's just a dark alley . But you can touch it . If you want to actually go up or into the tower , you have to go this way , and then through some buildings and up some stairs and so forth . If you actually want to see the tower , and that 's what actually most people want to do , is just have a good look of it , take a picture for the family , {comment} you have to go this way , and go up here . And there you have a vre really view {disfmarker} It exploded , the {disfmarker} during the Thirty years - war . Really uh , interesting sight . And um , these uh {disfmarker} these lines are , um , paths , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: or so That 's ab er , i the street network of our geographic information system . And you can tell that we deliberately cut out this part . Because otherwise we couldn't get our GIS system to take {disfmarker} to lead people this way . It would always use the closest point to the object , and then the tourists would be faced , you know , in front of a wall , but it would do them absolutely no good . So , {vocalsound} what we found interesting is , first of all , intentions differ . Maybe you want to enter a building . Maybe you want to see it , take a picture of it . Or maybe you actually want to come as close as possible to the building . For whatever reason that may be . +Grad E: What 's it {disfmarker} what 's it made out of ? +Grad B: Um , r red limestone . +Grad E: So maybe you would wanna touch it . +Grad B: Yeah , maybe you would want to touch it . Um . Okay , I {disfmarker} This , um {disfmarker} These intentions , we {disfmarker} w w we could , if we want to , call it the {disfmarker} the Vista mode , where we just want to {disfmarker} eh {disfmarker} s get the overview or look at it , the Enter mode , and the , well , Tango mode . I always come up with {disfmarker} with silly names . So this "" Tango "" means , literally translated , "" to touch "" . So {disfmarker} But sometimes the {disfmarker} the Tango mode is really relevant in the {disfmarker} in the sense that , um , if you want to , uh {disfmarker} If you don't have the intention of entering your building , but you know that something is really close to it , and you just want to approach it , or get to that building . Consider , for example , the Post Office in Chicago , a building so large that it has its own zip code . So the entrance could be miles away from the closest point . So sometimes it m m m makes sense maybe to d to distinguish there . So , um , I 've looked , uh , through twenty some {disfmarker} Uh , I didn't look through all the data . um , and there {disfmarker} there 's uh , a lot more different ways in people {disfmarker} uh , the ways people phrase how to g get {disfmarker} if they want to get to a certain place . And sometimes here it 's b it 's a little bit more obvious {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} Maybe I should go back a couple of steps and go through the {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , OK come in , sit down . If you grab yourself a microphone . +Grad B: You need to sign some stuff and read some digits . +Professor C: Well , you can sign afterwards . +Grad B: O or later . +Grad E: You have to al also have to read some digits . +Professor C: Afterwards . +Grad D: OK . {comment} OK . Afterwards is fine . +Grad B: They are uncomfortable . Mm - hmm . +Grad D: Really small ? OK . I see . OK . +Grad B: Yep . +Grad D: Thank you . +Grad B: OK , but that was our idea . +Professor C: And it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it it also has to be switched on , Nance . +Grad B: Is {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: No , that one 's already on , I thought he said . +Professor C: It 's on ? OK , good . +Grad D: OK . It 's on . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . That was the idea . Um , people , when they w when they want to go to a building , sometimes they just want to look at it . Sometimes they want to enter it . And sometimes they want to get really close to it . That 's something we found . It 's just a truism . And the places where you will lead them for these intentions are sometimes ex in incredibly different . I {disfmarker} I gave an example where the point where you end up if you want to look at it is completely different from where {disfmarker} if you want to enter it . So , this is sort of how people may , uh {disfmarker} may phrase those requests to a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a mock - up system at least that 's the way they did it . And we get tons of {disfmarker} of these "" how do I get to "" , "" I want to go to "" , but also , "" give me directions to "" , and "" I would like to see "" . And um , what we can sort of do , if we look closer a closer at the {disfmarker} the data {disfmarker} That was the wrong one . um , we can look at some factors that may make a difference . First of all , very important , and um , that {disfmarker} I 've completely forgot that when we talked . This is of course a crucial factor , "" what type of object is it ? "" So , some buildings you just don't want to take pictures of . Or very rarely . But you usually want to enter them . Some objects are more picturesque , and you {disfmarker} more f more highly photographed . Then of course the {disfmarker} the actual phrases may give us some idea of what the person wants . Um . Sometimes I found in the {disfmarker} Uh , looking at the data , in a superficial way , I found some s sort of modifiers that {disfmarker} that m may also give us a hint , um , "" I 'm trying to get to "" Nuh ? "" I need to get to "" . Sort of hints to the fact that you 're not really sightseeing and {disfmarker} and just f there for pleasure and so forth and so on . And this leads us straight to the context which also should be considered . That whatever it is you 're doing at the moment may also inter influence the interpretation of {disfmarker} of a phrase . So , this is , uh , really uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} My suggestion is really simple . We start with , um {disfmarker} Now , Let me , uh , say one more thing . What we do know , is that the parser we use in the SmartKom system will never differentiate between any of these . So , basically all of these things will result in the same XML M - three - L structure . Sort of action "" go "" , and then an object . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Yeah ? and a source . So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's way too crude to d capture those differences in intentions . So , I thought , "" Mmm ! Maybe for a deep understanding task , that 's a nice sort of playground or first little thing . "" Where we can start it and n sort of look {disfmarker} "" OK , we need , we gonna get those M - three - L structures . The crude , undifferentiated parse . Interpreted input . We may need additional part of speech , or maybe just some information on the verb , and modifiers , auxiliaries . We 'll see . And I will try to {disfmarker} to sort of come up with a list of factors that we need to get out of there , and maybe we want to get a g switch for the context . So this is not something which we can actually monitor , {vocalsound} now , but just is something we can set . And then you can all imagine sort of a {disfmarker} a constrained satisfaction program , depending on {disfmarker} on what , um , comes out . We want to have an {disfmarker} a structure resulting if we feed it through a belief - net or {disfmarker} or something along those lines . We 'd get an inferred intention , we {disfmarker} we produce a structure that differentiates between the Vista , the Enter , and the , um , Tango mode . Which I think we maybe want to ignore . But . That 's my idea . It 's up for discussion . We can change all of it , any bit of it . Throw it all away . +Grad F: Now @ @ this email that you sent , actually . +Professor C: What ? +Grad F: Now I remember the email . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Huh . Still , I have no recollection whatsoever of the email . I 'll have to go back and check . +Professor C: Not important . So , what is important is that we understand what the proposed task is . And , the {disfmarker} the i uh , Robert and I talked about this some on Friday . And we think it 's well - formed . So we think it 's a well - formed , uh , starter task for this , uh , deeper understanding in the tourist domain . +Grad F: So , where exactly is the , uh , deeper understanding being done ? Like I mean , s is it before the Bayes - net ? Is it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's always all of it . So , in general it 's always going to be , the answer is , everywhere . Uh , so the notion is that , uh , this isn't real deep . But it 's deep enough that you can distinguish between these th three quite different kinds of , uh , going to see some tourist thing . And , so that 's {disfmarker} that 's the quote "" deep "" that we 're trying to get at . And , Robert 's point is that the current front - end doesn't give you any way to {disfmarker} Not only doesn't it do it , but it also doesn't give you enough information to do it . It isn't like , if you just took what the front - end gives you , and used some clever inference algorithm on it , you would be able to figure out which of these is going on . So , uh , and this is {disfmarker} Bu - I in general it 's gonna be true of any kind of deep understanding , there 's gonna be contextual things , there 're gonna be linguistic things , there 're gonna be discourse things , and they gotta be combined . And , my idea on how to combine them is with a belief - net , although it may turn out that t some totally different thing is gonna work better . Um , the idea would be that {vocalsound} you , uh , take your {disfmarker} You 're editing your slide ? +Grad B: Yeah . As i a sort of , as I get ideas , uh w uh . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad B: So , discourse {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thought about that . Of course that needs to sort of go in there . +Professor C: Oh . I 'm sorry . OK . So . This is minutes {disfmarker} taking minutes as we go , in his {disfmarker} in his own way . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: Um , but the p the {disfmarker} Anyway . So the thing is , {vocalsound} i uh , d naively speaking , you 've {disfmarker} you 've got a {disfmarker} for this little task , a belief - net , which is going to have as output , the conditional pr probability of one of three things , that the person wants to {disfmarker} uh , to View it , to Enter it , or to Tango with it . Um . So that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the output of the belief - net is pretty well formed . And , then the inputs are going to be these kinds of things . And , then the question is {disfmarker} there are two questions {disfmarker} is , uh , one , where do you get this i {comment} information from , and two , what 's the structure of the belief - net ? So what are the conditional probabilities of this , that , and the other , given these things ? And you probably need intermediate nodes . I {disfmarker} we don't know what they are yet . So it may well be that , uh , for example , that , uh , knowing whether {disfmarker} Oh , another thing you want is some information abou I think , about the time of day . Now , they may wanna call that part of context . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But the time of day matters a lot . And , if things are obviously closed , then , you {disfmarker} +Grad B: People won't want to enter it . +Professor C: Pe - people don't wanna enter them . And , if it 's not obvious , you may want to actually uh , point out to people that it 's closed {disfmarker} you know , what they 're g going to is closed and they don't have the option of entering it . +Grad B: s b +Professor C: So another thing that can come up , and will come up as soon as you get serious about this is , that another option of course is to have a {disfmarker} more of a dialogue . So if someone says something you could ask them . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And {disfmarker} Now , one thing you could do is always ask them , but that 's boring . And it also w it also be a pain for the person using it . So one thing you could do is build a little system that , said , "" whenever you got a question like that I 've got one of three answers . Ask them which one you want . "" OK . But that 's , um , not what we 're gonna do . +Grad B: But maybe that 's a false state of the system , that it 's too close to call . +Professor C: Oh yeah . You want the {disfmarker} you want the ability to a You want the ability to ask , but what you don't wanna do is onl build a system that always asks every time , and i That 's not getting at the scientific problem , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and it 's {disfmarker} In general you 're {disfmarker} you know , it 's gonna be much more complex than that . a This is purposely a really simple case . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad B: I have one more point to {disfmarker} to Bhaskara 's question . Um , I think also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deep understanding part of it is {disfmarker} is going to be in there to the extent that we um , want it in terms of our modeling . We can start , you know , basic from human beings , model that , its motions , going , walking , seeing , we can mem model all of that and then compose whatever inferences o we make out of these really conceptual primitives . That will be extremely deep in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in my understanding . +Professor C: Yeah . S so {disfmarker} so the way that might come up , if you wanna {disfmarker} Suppose you wanted to do that , you might say , "" Um , as an intermediate step in your belief - net , is there a Source - Path - Goal schema involved ? "" OK ? And if so , uh , is there a focus on the goal ? Or is there a focus on the path ? or something . And that could be , uh , one of the conditiona you know , th the {disfmarker} In some piece of the belief - net , that could be the {disfmarker} the appropriate thing to enter . +Grad F: So , where would we extract that information from ? From the M - three - L ? +Professor C: No . No . See , the M - three - L is not gonna give th What he was saying is , the M - three - L does not have any of that . All it has is some really crude stuff saying , "" A person wants to go to a place . "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: The M - three - L is the old SmartKom output ? +Professor C: Right . M - three well , M - three - L itself refers to Multimedia Mark - up Language . +Grad E: OK . It 's just a language . Right , yeah . +Professor C: So we have th w we we we have to have a better w way of referring to {disfmarker} +Grad B: The parser output ? +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: "" Analyzed speech "" I think it 's what they call it , +Professor C: Yeah . The {disfmarker} Well , OK . +Grad B: really , oder {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: o th No , actually , intention lattices is what we 're gonna get . +Professor C: Is - i but they c they call it intention lattice , but tha +Grad B: In - in a intention lattice k Hypothesis . +Professor C: Anyway . +Grad B: They call it intention hypotheses . +Professor C: Right . So , th they 're gonna give us some cr uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} We can assume that y you get this crude information . About intention , and that 's all they 're going to provide . And they don't give you the kind of object , they don't give you any discourse history , if you want to keep that you have to keep it somewhere else . +Grad B: Well , they keep it . We have to request it . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: Nuh ? But it 's not in there . +Professor C: Well , they {disfmarker} they kee they keep it by their lights . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: It may {disfmarker} it may or may not be what {disfmarker} what we want . +Grad B: Yeah , or i +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: So , if someone says , "" I wanna touch the side of the Powder - Tower "" , that would {disfmarker} basically , we need to pop up Tango mode and the {disfmarker} and the directions ? +Professor C: If i if {disfmarker} Yeah , if it got as simple as that , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: But it wouldn't . +Grad E: OK . But that doesn't necessarily {disfmarker} But we 'd have to infer a Source - Path - Goal to some degree for touching the side , right ? +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Uh , th the there is a p a point there if I understand you . Correct ? Um , because um , sometimes people just say things {disfmarker} This you find very often . "" Where is the city hall ? "" And this do they don't wanna sh see it on a map , or they don't wanna know it 's five hundred yards away from you , or that it 's to the {disfmarker} your north . They wanna go there . That 's what they say , is , "" Where is it ? "" . Where is that damn thing ? +Grad E: And the parser would output {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , that 's a {disfmarker} a question mark . sh A lot of parsers , um , just , uh {disfmarker} That 's way beyond their scope , is {disfmarker} of interpreting that . You know ? But um , still outcome w the outcome will be some form of structure , with the town hall and maybe saying it 's a WH focus on the town hall . But to interpret it , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know ? somebody else has to do that job later . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just trying to figure out what the SmartKom system would output , depending on these things . +Grad B: Um , it will probably tell you how far away it is , at least that 's {disfmarker} That 's even what Deep Map does . It tells you how far away it is , and {disfmarker} and shows it to you on a map . Because i we can not differentiate , at the moment , between , you know , the intention of wanting to go there or the intention of just know wanting to know where {disfmarker} where it is . +Grad D: People no might not be able to infer that either , right ? Like the fact {disfmarker} Like , I could imagine if someone came up to me and asked , "" Where 's the city hall ? "" , I might say , g ar "" Are you trying to get there ? "" Because how I describe um , t its location {disfmarker} uh , p probably depend on whether I think I should give them , you know , directions now , or say , you know , whatever , "" It 's half a mile away "" or something like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . It 's a granularity factor , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: because where people ask you , "" Where is New York ? "" , you will tell them it 's on the East Coast . +Grad D: Uh - huh . Yeah . Exactly . Right . Right . +Grad B: Y y eh {disfmarker} you won't tell them how to get there , ft you know , take that bus to the airport and blah - blah - blah . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: But if it 's the post office , you will tell them how to get there . +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: So th They have done some interesting experiments on that in Hamburg as well . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: So . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} i Go {disfmarker} go back to the {disfmarker} the uh , th +Grad B: So I w this is {disfmarker} "" onto "" is {disfmarker} is knowledge about buildings , +Professor C: Yeah , that slide . +Grad B: their opening times , and then t coupled with time of day , um , this should {disfmarker} You know . +Grad D: So that context was like , um , their presumed purpose context , i like business or travel , as well as the utterance context , like , "" I 'm now standing at this place at this time "" . +Professor C: Yeah , well I think we ought to d a As we have all along , d We {disfmarker} we 've been distu distinguishing between situational context , which is what you have as context , and discourse context , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which you have as DH , +Grad B: Nuh . +Professor C: I don't know what the H means . +Grad B: History . Discourse history . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . Whatever . So we can work out terminology later . +Grad B: Yep . +Professor C: So , they 're {disfmarker} they 're quite distinct . I mean , you need them both , but they 're quite distinct . And , so what we were talking about doing , a a as a first shot , is not doing any of the linguistics . Except to find out what seems to be {pause} useful . So , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the reason the belief - net is in blue , is the notion would be {disfmarker} Uh , this may be a bad dis bad idea , but the idea is to take as a first goal , see if we could actually build a belief - net that would make this three way distinction uh , in a plausible way , given these {disfmarker} We have all these transcripts and we 're able to , by hand , extract the features to put in the belief - net . Saying , "" Aha ! here 're the things which , if you get them out of {disfmarker} out of the language and discourse , and put them into the belief - net , it would tell you which of these three uh , intentions is most likely . "" And if {disfmarker} to actually do that , build it , um {disfmarker} you know , run it {disfmarker} y y run it on the data where you hand - transcribe the parameters . And see how that goes . If that goes well , then we can start worrying about how we would extract them . So {disfmarker} where would you get this information ? And , expand it to {disfmarker} to other things like this . But if we can't do that , then we 're in trouble . I mean th th i i if you can't do this task , um {disfmarker} +Grad B: We need a different , uh , engine . Machine , I mean . +Professor C: Uh , uh , yeah , or something . Well it {disfmarker} i I if it {disfmarker} if it 's the belief - nets , we we 'll switch to you know , logic or some terrible thing , but I don't think that 's gonna be the case . I think that , uh , if we can get the information , a belief - net is a perfectly good way of doing the inferential combination of it . The real issue is , do what are the factors involved in determining this ? And I don't know . +Grad B: Hmm . But , only w +Professor C: Hold on a s Hold on a second . +Grad B: Muh . +Professor C: So , I know . Uh , uh , is it clear what 's going on here ? +Grad F: Yep . +Grad D: Um , I missed the beginning , but , um I guess {disfmarker} could you back to the slide , the previous one ? So , is it that it 's , um {disfmarker} These are all factors that uh , a These are the ones that you said that we are going to ignore now ? or that we want to {vocalsound} take into account ? You were saying n +Professor C: Take them into account . But {disfmarker} but you don't worry about {disfmarker} h +Grad D: Take the {disfmarker} the linguistic factors too . Oh , how to extract these features . +Professor C: how to extract them . So , f let 's find out which ones we need first , +Grad D: OK . Got it . +Professor C: and {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . And {disfmarker} and it 's clear from the data , um , like , sorta the correct answer in each case . +Professor C: No . +Grad D: But l +Grad B: No . But {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Let 's go back to th Let 's go back to the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the slide of data . +Grad D: That 's {disfmarker} that 's the thing I 'm curious ab +Grad B: Um {disfmarker} +Grad D: Like do we know from the data wh which {disfmarker} OK . So {disfmarker} +Grad B: Not from that data . But , um , since we are designing a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an , compared to this , even bigger data collection effort , {comment} um , we will definitely take care to put it in there , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: in some shape , way , form over the other , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: to see whether we can , then , get sort of empirically validated data . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Um , from this , we can sometimes , you know {disfmarker} an and that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} but that {disfmarker} isn't that what we need for a belief - net anyhow ? is sort of {disfmarker} s sometimes when people want to just see it , they phrase it more like this ? But it doesn't exclude anybody from phrasing it totally differently , even if they still {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: you know ? +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: But then other factors may come into play that change the outcome of their belief - net . So , um , this is exactly what {disfmarker} +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Because y you can never be sure . And I 'm sure even i the most , sort of , deliberate data collection experiment will never give you data that say , "" Well , if it 's phrased like that , the intention is this . "" +Grad D: Sure . +Grad B: You know , because then , uh , you {disfmarker} +Grad D: u u I mean , the only way you could get that is if you were to give th the x subjects a task . Right ? Where you have {disfmarker} where your , uh , current goal is to {disfmarker} +Grad B: We Yeah ! That 's what we 're doing . +Grad D: +Grad B: But {disfmarker} but we will still get the phrasing all over the place . +Grad D: So that 's what you want ? OK . So you will know . +Grad B: I 'm sure that , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} No , that 's fine . I guess , it 's just knowing the intention from the experimental subject . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: From that task , yeah . So , uh , I think you all know this , but we are going to actually use this little room +Grad D: +Professor C: and start recording subjects probably within a month or something . So , this is not any {disfmarker} lo any of you guys ' worry , except that we may want to push that effort to get information we need . So our job {vocalsound} is to figure out how to solve these problems . If it turns out that we need data of a certain sort , then the sort of data collection branch can be , uh , asked to do that . And one of the reasons why we 're recording the meeting for these guys is cuz we want their help when we d we start doing uh , recording of subjects . So , yeah {disfmarker} y you 're absolutely right , though . No , you {disfmarker} you will not have , and there it is , and , uh {disfmarker} But you know , y y the , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: And I think the other concern that has come up before , too , is if it 's {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I don't know if this was collected {disfmarker} what situation this data was collected in . Was it {disfmarker} is it the one that you showed in your talk ? Like people {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , no . No . +Grad D: But OK . So was this , like , someone actually mobile , like {disfmarker} s using a device ? +Grad B: Uh , N no , no not {disfmarker} i it was mobile but not {disfmarker} not with a w a real wizard system . So there were never answers . +Grad D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . But , is it {disfmarker} I guess I don't know {disfmarker} The situation of {disfmarker} of collecting th the data of , like {disfmarker} Here you could imagine them being {disfmarker} walking around the city . as like one situation . And then you have all sorts of other c situational context factors that would influence w how to interpret , like you said , the scope and things like that . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: If they 're doing it in a {disfmarker} you know , "" I 'm sitting here with a map and asking questions "" , I {disfmarker} I would imagine that the data would be really different . Um , so it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} It was never th th the goal of that data collection to {disfmarker} to serve for sat for such a purpose . So that 's why for example the tasks were not differentiated by intentionality , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: there was n there was no label , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: you know , intention A , intention B , intention C . +Grad D: Right . +Grad B: Or task A , B , C . Um I 'm sure we can produce some if we need it , um , that {disfmarker} that will help us along those lines . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: But , you know , you gotta leave something for other people to model . So , to {disfmarker} Finding out what , you know , situational con what the contextual factors of the situation really are , you know is an interesting s interesting thing . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: u u Sort of I 'm , at the moment , curious and I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} s w want to approach it from the end where we can s sort of start with this toy system that we can play around with , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: so that we get a clearer notion of what input we need for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: what suffices and what doesn't . And then we can start worrying about where to get this input , what {disfmarker} what do we need , you know {disfmarker} Ultimately once we are all experts in changing that parser , for example , maybe , there 's just a couple three things we need to do and then we get more whatever , part of speech and more construction - type - like stuff out of it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Hmm . +Grad B: It 's a m pragmatic approach , uh , at the moment . +Grad E: How exactly does the data collection work ? Do they have a map , and then you give them a scenario of some sort ? +Grad B: OK . Imagine you 're the {disfmarker} the subject . You 're gonna be in here , and somebody {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and you see , uh , either th the three - D model , or uh , a QuickTime animation of standing u in a square in Heidelberg . So you actually see that . Um . The uh , um , first thing is you have to read a text about Heidelberg . So , just off a textbook , uh , tourist guide , to familiarize , uh , yourself with that sort of odd - sounding German street names , like Fischergasse and so forth . So that 's part one . Part two is , you 're told that this huge new , wonderful computer system exists , that can y tell you everything you want to know , and it understands you completely . And so you 're gonna pick up that phone , dial a number , and you get a certain amount of tasks that you have to solve . First you have to know {disfmarker} find out how to get to that place , maybe with the intention of buying stamps in there . Maybe {disfmarker} So , the next task is to get to a certain place and take a picture for your grandchild . The third one is to get information on the history of an object . The fourth one {disfmarker} And then the g system breaks down . It crashes , And {disfmarker} +Grad D: a At the third ? Right then ? +Grad B: After the third task . +Grad D: OK . +Grad B: And then {disfmarker} Or after the fourth . Some find {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} Forget that for now . And then , a human operator comes on , and {disfmarker} and exp apologizes that the system has crashed , but , you know , urges you to continue , you know ? now with a human operator . And so , you have basically the same tasks again , just with different objects , and you go through it again , and that was it . Oh , and one {disfmarker} one little bit {disfmarker} w And uh , the computer you are {disfmarker} you are being told the computer system knows exactly where you are , via GPS . When the human operator comes on , um , that person does not know . So the GPS is crashed as well . So the person first has to ask you "" Where are you ? "" . And so you have to do some {disfmarker} s tell the person sort of where you are , depending on what you see there . Um , this is a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a bit that I d I don't think we {disfmarker} Did we discuss that bit ? Uh , I just sort of squeezed that in now . But it 's something , uh , that would provide some very interesting data for some people I know . So . +Grad D: So , in the display you can {disfmarker} Oh , you said that you cou you might have a display that shows , like , the {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah . a Additionally , y you have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a sort of a map type display . +Grad D: a w your perspective ? sort of ? +Grad B: Uh , two - D . +Grad D: And so , as you {disfmarker} +Grad B: n +Grad D: Oh , two - D . OK . +Grad B: Two - D . +Grad D: So as you move through it that 's - they just track it on the {disfmarker} for themselves +Grad B: Yeah . b y You don't {disfmarker} That 's {disfmarker} +Grad D: there . +Grad B: I don't know . I but y I don't think you really move , sort of . +Grad D: OK . So +Grad B: Yeah ? I mean that would be an {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} an enormous technical effort , unless we would {disfmarker} We can show it walks to , you know . We can have movies of walking , you walking through {disfmarker} through Heidelberg , and u ultimately arriving there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Maybe we wanna do that . Yeah . +Grad D: Uh , I was just trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how ambitious the system is . +Grad B: The map was sort of intended to {disfmarker} You want to go to that place . You know , and it 's sort of there . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And you see the label of the name {disfmarker} So we get those names , pronunciation stuff , and so forth , and we can change that . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . So your tasks don't require you to {disfmarker} I mean , uh {disfmarker} yo you 're told {disfmarker} So when your task is , I don't know , "" Go buy stamps "" or something like that ? So , do you have to respond ? or does your {disfmarker} Uh , what are you ste what are you supposed to be telling the system ? Like , w what you 're doing now ? or {disfmarker} +Grad B: Well , we 'll see what people do . +Grad D: There 's no {disfmarker} OK , so it 's just like , "" Let 's figure out what they would say under the circumstances "" . +Grad B: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and we will record both sides . I mean , we will record the Wi - the Wizard {disfmarker} +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: I mean , in both cases it 's gonna be a human , in the computer , and in the operator case . +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Grad B: And we will re there will be some dialogue , you know ? So , you first have to do this , and that , +Grad D: Yep . +Grad B: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: see wh what they say . We can ins instruct the , uh , wizard in how expressive and talkative he should be . But um , maybe the {disfmarker} maybe what you 're suggesting {disfmarker} Is what you 're suggesting that it might be too poor , the data , if we sort of limit it to this ping pong one t uh , task results in a question and then there 's an answer and that 's the end of the task ? You wanna m have it more {disfmarker} more steps , sort of ? +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I don't know how much direction is given to the subject about what their interaction {disfmarker} I mean , th they 're unfamiliar w with interacting with the system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: All they know is it 's this great system that could do s stuff . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Oh yeah , but {disfmarker} to some extent this is a different discussion . +Grad D: Right ? So {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK ? So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we have to have this discussion of th the experiment , and the data collection , and all that sorta stuff +Grad D: Uh - huh . +Professor C: and we do have , um , a student who is a candidate for wizard . Uh , she 's gonna get in touch with me . It 's a student of Eve 's . FEY , Fey ? Spelled FEY . Do you {disfmarker} do you {disfmarker} +Grad D: Oh , Fey Parrill . +Professor C: You know her ? +Grad D: Yeah . Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK . Sh - Is sh +Grad D: She started taking the class last year and then didn't {disfmarker} um , you know , didn't continue . I g She 's a g +Professor C: She 's graduated . +Grad D: Is she an undergradua She is a graduate , OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad D: Yeah , I m I know her very , very briefly . I know she was inter you know , interested in aspect and stuff like that . +Professor C: OK . So , anyway , she 's looking for some more part time work w while she 's waiting actually for graduate school . And she 'll be in touch . So we may have someone , uh , to do this , and she 's got you know , some background in {disfmarker} in all this stuff . And is a linguist st and , so So . {vocalsound} That 's {disfmarker} So , Nancy , we 'll have an At some point we 'll have another discussion on exactly wha t t you know , how that 's gonna go . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And um , Jane , but also , uh , Liz have offered to help us do this , uh , data collection and design and stuff . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: So , when we get to that we 'll have some people doing it that know what they 're doing . +Grad D: OK . I guess the reason I was asking about the sort of the de the details of this kind of thing is that , um , it 's one thing to collect data for , I don't know , speech recognition or various other tasks that have pretty c clear correct answers , but with intention {vocalsound} um , obviously , as you point out , there 's a lot of di other factors and {disfmarker} I 'm not really sure , um , how {disfmarker} how {disfmarker} e the question of how to make it a t appropriate toy version of that {disfmarker} Um , it 's ju it 's just hard . So , I mean , obviously it 's a {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , uh , actually I guess that was my question . Is the intention implicit in the scenario that 's given ? Like , do the {disfmarker} +Grad D: It is , if they have these tasks that they 're supposed to {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I just wasn't sure to what level of detail the task was . +Grad D: to {disfmarker} to give {disfmarker} Yeah , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: n No one is , at the moment . +Grad D: Right . Right . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So , we that 's part of what we 'll have to figure out . +Grad D: Right . +Professor C: But , uh , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: the {disfmarker} The problem that I was tr gonna try to focus on today was , let 's suppose by magic you could collect dialogues in which , one way or the other , you were able to , uh , figure out both the intention , and set the context , and know what language was used . So let 's suppose that we can get that kind of data . Um . The issue is , can we find a way to , basically , featurize it so that we get some discrete number of features so that , uh , when we know the values to all those features , or as many as possible , we can w come up with the best estimate of which of the , in this case three little intentions , are most likely . +Grad D: w What are the t three intentions ? Is it to go there , to see it , and {disfmarker} +Grad B: To come as close as possible to it . +Professor C: Th - the terminology we 're using is to {disfmarker} +Grad D: Yeah , it 's @ @ . +Professor C: Go back . To v +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: to View it . OK ? To Enter it . Now those {disfmarker} It seems to me those are cl you c you have no trouble with those being distinct . "" Take a picture of it "" you {disfmarker} you might well want to be a really rather different place than entering it . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , for an object that 's at all big , uh , sort of getting to the nearest part of it uh , could be quite different than either of those . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Just sort of {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , so now I understand the referent of Tango mode . I didn't get that before . +Grad E: See , I would have thought it was more of a waltz . +Grad B: S To "" Waltz "" it ? +Grad D: Yeah , like , how close are you gonna be ? +Professor C: Well . +Grad D: Like , {vocalsound} Tango 's really close . +Grad E: Yeah , cuz a tango {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Well , anyway . So {disfmarker} +Grad F: All these So , like , the question is how what features can {disfmarker} like , do you wanna try to extract from , say , the parse or whatever ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like , the presence of a word or the presence of a certain uh , stem , or {disfmarker} certain construction or whatever . +Professor C: Right . Is there a construction , or the kind of object , or w uh , anything else that 's in the si It 's either in the {disfmarker} in the s the discourse itself or in the context . So if it turns out that , whatever it is , you want to know whether the person 's uh , a tourist or not , OK ? that becomes a feature . Now , how you determine that is another issue . But fo for the current problem , it would just be , "" OK , if you can be sure that it 's a tourist , versus a businessman , versus a native , "" or something , uh , that would give you a lot of discriminatory power and then just have a little section in your belief - net that said , "" pppt ! "" Though sin f in the short run , you 'd set them , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and see ho how it worked , and then in the longer run , you would figure out how you could derive them . From previous discourse or w any anything else you knew . +Grad F: Right . So , how should {disfmarker} What 's the uh , plan ? Like , how should we go about figuring out these {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . So , first of all is , uh , do e either of you guys , you got a favorite belief - net that you 've , you know , played with ? JavaBayes or something ? +Grad F: Oh . No , not really . +Professor C: OK . Well , anyway . f Get one . OK ? So {disfmarker} y so one of th one of the things we wanna do is actually , uh , pick a package , doesn't matter which one , uh , presumably one that 's got good interactive abilities , cuz a lot of what we 're gonna be d You know , we don't need the one that 'll solve massive , uh , belief - nets quickly . d w These are not gonna get big in {disfmarker} in the foreseeable future . But we do want one in which it 's easy to interact with and , uh , modify . Because i that 's {disfmarker} A lot of what it 's gonna be , is , um , playing with this . And probably one in which it 's easy to have , um , what amounts to transcript files . So that if {disfmarker} if we have all these cases {disfmarker} OK ? So we make up cases that have these features , OK , and then you 'd like to be able to say , "" OK , here 's a bunch of cases "" {disfmarker} There 're even ones tha that you can do learning OK ? So you have all their cases and {disfmarker} and their results and you have a {disfmarker} algorithms to go through and run around trying to set the {disfmarker} the probabilities for you . Um , probably that 's not worth it . I mean , my guess is we aren't gonna have enough data that 's good enough to make the {disfmarker} these data fitting ones worth it , but I don't know . So I would say you guy the first task for you two guys is to um , pick a package . OK , and you wanna it s You know , the standard things you want it stable , you want it {disfmarker} yeah , @ @ . And , as soon as we have one , we can start trying to , uh , make a first cut at what 's going on . +Grad B: An - Nuh . +Professor C: But it {disfmarker} what I like about it is it 's very concrete . OK ? We {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} we know what the outcomes are gonna be , and we have some {disfmarker} some data that 's loose , we can use our own intuition , and see how hard it is , and , importantly , what intermediate nodes we think we need . So it {disfmarker} if it turns out that just , thinking about the problem , you come up with things you really need to {disfmarker} You know , this is the kind of thing that is , you know , an intermediate little piece in your belief - net . That 'd be really interesting . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: And it {disfmarker} and it may serve as a platform for a person , maybe me , or whoever , who is interested in doing some linguistic analysis . I mean , w we have the For - FrameNet group here , and we can see what they have found out about those concepts already , that are contained in the data , um , you know , to come up with a nice little set of features and um , maybe even means of s uh , extracting them . And {disfmarker} and that altogether could also be {disfmarker} uh , become a nice paper that 's going to be published somewhere , if we sit down and write it . And um {disfmarker} When you said JavaBayes belief - net you were talking about ones that run on coffee ? or that are in the program language Java ? +Professor C: No , th It turns out that there is a , uh {disfmarker} The new end of Java libraries . OK , and it turns out one called +Grad B: Mmm . OK . +Professor C: Which is one that fair {disfmarker} people around here use a fair amount . I have no idea whether that 's {disfmarker} The obvious advantage of that is that you can then , relatively easily , get all the other Java packages for GUIs or whatever else you might want to do . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that i that 's I think why a lot of people doing research use that . But it may not be {disfmarker} I have no idea whether that 's the best choice an and there 're plenty of people around , students in the department who , you know , live and breathe Bayes - nets . So , uh , +Grad D: There 's the m tool kit that um , Kevin Murphy has developed , +Professor C: Right . It 's OK . +Grad D: which might be useful too . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: So , yeah , Kevin would be a good person to start with . +Grad D: And it 's available Matlab code . +Professor C: Nancy knows him well . I don't know I don't know whether you guys have met Kevin yet or not , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I know him . +Grad B: But i But since we all probably are pretty sure that , um , the {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: For example , this th th the dialogue history is {disfmarker} is um , producing XML documents . M - three - L of course is XML . And the ontology that um , uh the student is {disfmarker} is constructing for me back in {disfmarker} in EML is in OIL and that 's also in XML . And so that 's where a lot of knowledge about bakeries , about hotels , about castles and stuff is gonna come from . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad B: Um , so , if it has that IO capability and if it 's a Java package , it will definitely be able {disfmarker} We can couple . +Professor C: Yeah . So , yeah , we 're sort of {nonvocalsound} committed to XML as the kind of , uh , interchange . But that 's , you know , not a big deal . +Grad B: Who isn't , nuh ? +Professor C: So , in terms of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} interchanging in and out of any module we build , It 'll be XML . And if you 're going off to queries to the ontology , for example , you 'll have to deal with its interface . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's fine an and um , all of these things have been built with much bigger projects than this in mind . So they {disfmarker} they have worked very hard . It 's kind of blackboards and multi - wave blackboards and ways of interchanging and registering your a And so forth . So , that I don't think is even worth us worrying about just yet . I mean if we can get the core of the thing to work , in a way that we 're comfortable with , then we ca we can get in and out of it with , uh , XML , um , little descriptors . I believe . +Grad B: Hmm . Yeah . Yeah , I like , for example , the {disfmarker} what you said about the getting input from {disfmarker} from just files about where you h where you have the data , have specified the features and so forth . +Professor C: I don't {disfmarker} I don't see {disfmarker} +Grad B: That 's , of course , easy also to do with , you know , XML . +Professor C: Uh , you could have an X {disfmarker} yeah , you could make and XML format for that . Sure . +Grad B: So r +Professor C: That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um , you know , feature value XML format is probably as good a way as any . So it 's als Yeah , I guess it 's also worth , um , while you 're poking around , poke around for XML packages that um , do things you 'd like . +Grad F: Doesn't {disfmarker} does SmartKom system have such packages ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Sure . +Grad B: The {disfmarker} the lib M - three - L library does that . It 's also {disfmarker} +Professor C: And the question is , d you c you {disfmarker} you 'll have to l We 'll have to l That should be {disfmarker} ay We should be able to look at that {disfmarker} +Grad B: No , u u y um the {disfmarker} What I {disfmarker} What sort of came to my mind i is {disfmarker} was the notion of an idea that if {disfmarker} if there are l nets that can actually lear try to set their own , um , probability factors based on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on input {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: which is in file format , if we , um , get really w wild on this , we may actually want to use some {disfmarker} some corpora that other people made and , for example , if {disfmarker} if they are in {disfmarker} in MATE , then we get X M L documents with discourse annotations , t you know , t from the discourse act down to the phonetic level . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Um , Michael has a project where {disfmarker} you know , recognizing discourse acts and he does it all in MATE , and so they 're actually annotating data and data and data . So if we w if we think it 's worth it one of these days , not {disfmarker} not with this first prototype but maybe with a second , and we have the possibility of {disfmarker} of taking input that 's generated elsewhere and learn from that , that 'd be nice . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: It 'd be nice , but {disfmarker} but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't wanna count on it . I mean , you can't {disfmarker} you can't run your project based on the speculation that {disfmarker} that the data will come , +Grad B: No , no , uh , just for {disfmarker} +Professor C: and you don't have to actually design the nets . +Grad B: Nuh . Just a back door that {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think we should devote m +Professor C: Could happen . Yeah . So in terms of {disfmarker} of the , um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what the SmartKom gives us for M - three - L packages , it could be that they 're fine , or it could be eeh . You don't {disfmarker} You know , you don't really like it . So we 're not {disfmarker} we 're not abs we 're not required to use their packages . We are required at the end to give them stuff in their format , but hey . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Um , it 's , uh {disfmarker} It doesn't control what you do in you know , internally . +Grad B: +Grad E: What 's the time frame for this ? +Grad B: Two days ? Two , three days ? +Professor C: Huh ? Yeah bu w I 'd like that this {disfmarker} y yeah , this week , to ha to n to {vocalsound} have y guys , uh , you know , pick {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} y you know , belief - net package +Grad B: No . +Professor C: and tell us what it is , and give us a pointer so we can play with it or something . +Grad F: Sure . +Professor C: And , then as soon as we have it , I think we should start trying to populate it for this problem . Make a first cut at , you know , what 's going on , and probably the ea easiest way to do that is some on - line way . I mean , you can f figure out whether you wanna make it a web site or {disfmarker} You know , how +Grad B: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} um , OK , I {disfmarker} t Yeah . I was actually more joking . With the two or three days . So this was {disfmarker} was a usual jo +Professor C: OK , I wasn't . +Grad B: Um , it will take as long as y y yo you guys need for that . +Professor C: Yeah . Right . +Grad B: But um , maybe it might be interesting if {disfmarker} if the two of you can agree on who 's gonna be the speaker next Monday , to tell us something about the net you picked , and what it does , and how it does that . +Professor C: Well , y Well , or both of them speak . +Grad F: Sure . +Grad B: Yeah , or you can split it up . +Professor C: We don't care . +Grad B: So , y +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad B: So that will be sort of the assignment for next week , is to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} for slides and whatever net you picked and what it can do and {disfmarker} and how far you 've gotten . Pppt ! +Professor C: Well , I 'd like to also , though , uh , ha have a first cut at what the belief - net looks like . Even if it 's really crude . OK ? So , you know , here a here are {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we 're supposed to @ @ about features and whatnot , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And , as I said , what I 'd like to do is , I mean , what would be really great is you bring it in {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we could , uh , in the meeting , say , you know , "" Here 's the package , here 's the current one we have , "" uh , you know , "" What other ideas do you have ? "" and then we can think about this idea of making up the data file . Of , uh , you know , get a {disfmarker} t a p tentative format for it , let 's say XML , that says , l you know , "" These are the various scenarios we 've experienced . "" We can just add to that and there 'll be this {disfmarker} this file of them and when you think you 've got a better belief - net , You just run it against this , um {disfmarker} this data file . +Grad F: So we 'll be like , hand , uh , doing all the probabilities . +Professor C: Oh , yeah , unt until we know more . +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: And what 's the relation to this with {disfmarker} Changing the table so that the system works in English ? +Grad B: OK . So this is {disfmarker} Whi - while you were doing this , I received two lovely emails . The {disfmarker} the full NT and the full Linux version are there . I 've downloaded them both , and I started to unpack the Linux one {disfmarker} Uh , the NT one worked fine . and I started unta pack the Linux one , it told me that I can't really unpack it because it contains a future date . So this is the time difference between Germany . I had to wait until one o ' clock this afternoon before I was able to unpack it . Now , um {disfmarker} Then it will be my job to get this whole thing running both on Swede and on this machine . And so that we have it . And then um {disfmarker} Hopefully that {disfmarker} hoping that my urgent message will now come through to Ralph and Tilman that it will send some more documentation along , we {disfmarker} I control p Maybe that 's what I will do next Monday is show the state and show the system and show that . +Professor C: Yeah . Yeah . So the answer , Johno , is that these are , at the moment , separate . Uh , what one hopes is that when we understand how the analyzer works , we can both worry about converting it to English and worry about how it could ex extract the parameters we need for the belief - net . +Grad E: I guess my question was more about time frame . So we 're gonna do belief - nets this week , and then {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , yeah . I don't know . n None of this is i n Neither of these projects has got a real tight time - line , in the sense that over the next month there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a deliverable . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK . S so uh , it 's opportu in that sense it 's opportunistic . If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} you know , if we don't get any information for these guys f for several weeks then we aren't gonna sit around , you know , wasting time , trying to do the problem or guess what they {disfmarker} You know , just pppt ! go on and do other things . +Grad E: OK . +Grad B: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} but the uh {disfmarker} This point is really {disfmarker} I think very , very valid that ultimately we hope that {disfmarker} that both will merge into a harmonious and , um , wonderful , um , state where we can not only do the bare necessities , IE , changing the table so it does exactly in English what it does in German , but also that we can sort of have the system where we can say , "" OK , this is what it usually does , and now we add this little thing to it "" , you know ? whatever , Johno 's and Bhaskara 's great belief - net , and we plug it in , and then for these certain tasks , and we know that navigational tasks are gonna be a core domain of the new system , it all {disfmarker} all of a sudden it does much better . Nuh ? Because it can produce better answers , tell the person , as I s showed you on this map , n you know , produce either you know , a red line that goes to the Vista point or a red line that goes to the Tango point or red line that goes to the door , which would be great . So not only can you show that you know something sensible but ultimately , if you produce a system like this , it takes the person where it wants to go . Rather than taking him always to the geometric center of a building , +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad B: which is what they do now . And we even had to take out a bit . Nancy , you missed that part . We had to take out a bit of the road work . So that it doesn't take you to the wall {vocalsound} every time . +Grad D: Oh , really ? +Grad B: So . Um {disfmarker} So this was actually an actual problem that we encountered , which nobody have {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} because car navigation systems don't really care . You know , they get you to the beginning of the street , some now do the house number . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad B: But even that is problematic . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: If you go d If you wanna drive to the SAP in Waldorf , I 'm sure the same is true of Microsoft , it takes you to the {disfmarker} the address , whatever , street number blah - blah - blah , you are miles away from the entrance . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad B: Because the s postal address is maybe a mailbox somewhere . Nuh ? +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but the entrance where you actually wanna go is somewhere completely different . So unless you 're a mail person you really don't wanna go there . +Grad D: Right , yeah . +Professor C: Probably not then , cuz y you probably can't drop the mail there anyway . +Grad B: Probably neither {disfmarker} e not even that . +Professor C: Yeah . Clear ? +Grad F: OK . Sounds good . +Grad E: The Powder - Tower is made of red limestone . +Grad D: I was wondering . +Grad B: Do you wanna see a picture ? +Grad D: OK . Sure ! +Grad E: Sure ! +Grad B: Have to reboot for that though . +Grad D: Um . So , you two , who 'll be working on this , li are {disfmarker} are you gl will you be doing {disfmarker} Well , I mean are you supposed to just do it by thinking about the situation ? Can you use the sample data ? +Professor C: Of course they use the sample data . +Grad D: Is it like {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean , ho is there more than {disfmarker} Is there a lot s of sample data that is beyond what you {disfmarker} what you have there ? +Grad B: There {disfmarker} there 's more than I showed , but um , um , I think this is sort of um , in part my job to look at that and {disfmarker} and to see whether there are features in there that can be extracted , +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: and to come up with some features that are not you know , empirically based on {disfmarker} on a real experiment or on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on reality +Grad D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad B: but sort of on your intuition of you know , "" Aha ! This is maybe a sign for that , +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: and this is maybe a sign for this . "" +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , yeah . Later this week we should sort of get together , and sort of start thinking about that , hopefully . +Grad B: Talk features . Yep . +Professor C: OK . We can end the meeting and call Adam , and then we wanna s look at some filthy pictures of Heidelberg . We can do that as well . +Grad B: Well they had {disfmarker} they used the ammunition {disfmarker} They stored the ammunition in that tower . +Professor C: Uh , is that OK ? +Grad B: And that 's why , when it was hit by uh , a cannon ball , it exploded . +Professor C: Alright . Oh . Ni +Grad E: It exploded . That 's why they call it the Powder - Tower . +Grad B: Ahh . +Grad E: OK . I first thought it had something to do with the material that it {disfmarker} w that 's why I asked . +Grad D: That 's right , OK . +Grad B: Mmm . +","Participants are discussing various topics related to an ongoing project which involves recording meetings, analyzing speech, and working on understanding user intentions to develop a system that can process requests in tourist situations. The discussion covers the setup of microphones, reading digit strings for recordings, consent forms for speakers, and anonymizing transcripts. They talk about integrating language processing features and the use of belief networks to infer user intentions (e.g., whether someone wants to view, enter, or touch a tourist attraction). The plan is to select and present a belief-net package next Monday and start populating it with features relevant to the task. There is also mention of adjusting the system for English language processing. The timeline appears to be flexible, focused more on understanding the analysis and the system rather than strict deadlines." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So welcome . The first kick-off meeting . What shall we do ? First the opening , then the rest . What are we going to do . We m have to make a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . So we will get back th on that . First we have to make a functional design . After that we have to make a conceptual design , and then after that a detailed design . So we'll discuss that later . First we have a look at {gap} . So first to {disfmarker} we have to make a small painting . What have {disfmarker} do we have to do . First you can save the documents . We have to do that every time we make something . You can print it . No . And we have to use {vocalsound} the pen and the eraser . So {disfmarker} Now . We all have to use this one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to make your own favourite animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I'll make an example . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: First don't touch that things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can use the pen . And then you can make {vocalsound} um something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um you can change some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um format , line , and change it . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can change the colour . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So and after it you have to save it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we can make a new one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: You have to paint now . {vocalsound} So you're next . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well we will try . Where it going ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hmm . That's uh strange . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: What is going on ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} pop-ups . +Project Manager: What are you {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is this , Pictionary . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh a bird . +Project Manager: Is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bird . +Project Manager: A duck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Now save ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Now uh blank ? +Project Manager: Blank , yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay next one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Let's try this . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Whoo . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh not . Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Yeah . No problem . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shit happens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm not getting anything uh on my screen now . Okay . +Industrial Designer: A parrot . Ish . +Marketing: Wow . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He did it before . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Uh blank . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . So um you can always go back . {gap} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . So that was two . Now next . The budget . The b Uh we will sell the t at twenty five Euros . And we have only twenty of twelve and a half Euro to make it . So {vocalsound} now we have to think about what we will make . First I wanna hear from you . Uh what are your experiences with remote controls . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh I will start . +Project Manager: F first {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Big one , they are uh not easy to use . Um I have one set and uh a remote control , when I dropped it , uh it broke . So that won't be uh our goal , I think . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: And uh g big buttons , {vocalsound} m uh that's easier to use than uh {disfmarker} I think . Not all the small buttons , you don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is this positive or negative , that uh big buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Big buttons , positive . +Project Manager: Positive . +Industrial Designer: All all small buttons like when you have uh like a hundred buttons on your remote control , you won't know what they're working for . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences ? +User Interface: Uh well I think the the the goal of a remote control is that it's it it has an influence on the T_V_ set . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And that it controls the channels and the the volume . And uh I I I think it's positive if there's a a LED uh uh a LED on the corner of the of the remote . So that you know it s it still has batteries on it {disfmarker} in it . And that if you push the button the LED uh gives a light , and uh and you see that it's working . And uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So and do they always have that ? +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} No no no . But I {disfmarker} my my experience is that it it it's convenient to have that . +Project Manager: It's easy to you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh at home we have a T_V_ , a video uh recorder , a D_V_D_ player , and a satellite receiver . We have uh four distinctive remote controls for that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: That's not really ea easy . +Industrial Designer: Help also . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: So it would be nice if we have one for all . And we also had a remote control for our radio set . But um i it it had a lot of buttons on it , and you didn't know which one was what . And it was uh uh v {vocalsound} not easy to use . So we n barely used it . +Project Manager: Okay so they have too much . So next . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: For our own remote control we have to think how do we make it . So what ideas do you have for it , for the new remote control ? What what does it have to have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The weight . Not not too heavy . +Project Manager: Not too heavy . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Not much buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bust-free . That when you drop it , it won't break . Like uh some kind of rubber on it . Or hard uh hard plastic . Uh buttons not too small . Uh something like when you uh lose your uh remote control , sometimes it happen . Uh it between the couch and you can't find it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: When you push a but a button on the T_V_ , then you hear some {gap} {disfmarker} uh some sort of bleep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a phone . +Industrial Designer: And then you uh , hey there there's remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: Next . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah well that's {disfmarker} that are good ideas . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah well the LED on the corner , that that indicates that it's working . If you push a button . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And looking on the budget , not too expensive uh material . So probably plastic or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think it uh {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view , it also has to look nice . Or you won't sell it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: And um yeah uh on our website we can see what products we already have . And it should work with as many uh as possible of them . +Project Manager: Okay . This is {disfmarker} It has to be compatible with other things . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have one more idea . Just popped up . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it it won't take a lot of batteries . So you don't {disfmarker} won't have to change the batteries uh once a week or uh once every two weeks . +Project Manager: No battery use . So more ideas ? +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No okay . It's only the first ideas . So {vocalsound} uh what are we going to do now is {disfmarker} Next meeting is in half an h hour . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . Next meeting , half an hour . Um , what you have to do . Well look on your {gap} . And {disfmarker} Next instructions you'll get in your email . So {disfmarker} This is the first meeting . See you later in half an hour . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +","The transcript delineates the initial stages of a kick-off meeting for a new project where a multifunctional team composed of a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, a Marketing specialist, and a User Interface expert converge to lay the groundwork for the creation of a new remote control. The meeting hinges on identifying the essential elements and features that will shape the development of this product, aligning with the overarching goal of delivering an original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. + +As the Project Manager outlines the agenda, it becomes evident that the journey from conception to completion involves successive stages – from a functional design to a conceptual layout, culminating in a detailed design. The discussion, interspersed with collaborative activities designed to spur creativity and team bonding, focuses initially on setting up a small painting activity to invigorate the team. The dialogue is punctuated by gaps and ambiguous markers indicating there are likely technical activities or discussions that are not fully captured in the transcript. + +Throughout the meeting, there is a noticeable emphasis on the importance of documentation and best practices, particularly the necessity of saving documents after each significant step and the functionality of various tools like pens and erasers. + +The Industrial Designer shares his perspective first, advocating for a design that prioritizes large buttons over an abundance of smaller ones, which often lead to confusion and are difficult to navigate. Durability is also stressed, with the aim of developing a product that can withstand drops without sustaining damage. + +The User Interface expert contributes by underscoring the practicality of an LED indicator, which serves as a visual cue for battery life and functionality. Such a feature would be advantageous for users to know when the device is actively working or if it requires a battery change. + +Marketing brings to light the issue of market saturation with multiple, distinctive remote controls for various devices, suggesting that a universal remote might meet significant customer needs. Moreover, they point out the importance of aesthetically pleasing design and compatibility with existing products to ensure market appeal and ease of use. + +One compelling suggestion involves incorporating a feature that helps locate the remote when it gets misplaced – perhaps through auditory signals triggered by a button on the corresponding device. Additionally, the team discusses the potential material choices for the remote control, citing budget constraints and the materials' propensity to affect the final product's cost and appearance. + +The team concurs on several propositions: creating a design that's not too heavy, minimizing button clutter for ease of use, and selecting materials that balance cost-effectiveness with aesthetic appeal, such as certain types of plastic. + +As the meeting draws to a close, the Project Manager sets the next meeting for half an hour later and instructs team members to review pertinent materials and await further instructions via email. The sense of progression is tangible as this preliminary meeting paves the way for subsequent discussions, ideation, and ultimately, the realization of the remote control project. The summary-cum-transcript provides a window into the project's nascent stage, highlighting the multidisciplinary approach and shared responsibility toward innovation, functionality, and user-centric design." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So , now um , {vocalsound} last time . Can you uh {vocalsound} push the button ? {vocalsound} One time please . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm still the secretary . Now uh , I ask you to presentate the prototype . One of your {disfmarker} you two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't care . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh this , you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes . The prototype . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yes , well uh this is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is it . +Project Manager: Well , thank you . Uh , now {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh it's uh it's yellow . And uh , this is rubber . And and and this too . The +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the sides . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: And the rest is hard plastic . And uh {disfmarker} We uh we had some uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We had a new idea {vocalsound} that that this can uh can be uh uh turned inside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then it covers the {disfmarker} these buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: until here or something . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: And then you can still use the the power button and the mute and the the joystick . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , you can still operate uh all the things . Because you don't always use the menu . And then it can break . +Project Manager: Okay . And the buttons ? +User Interface: Uh , well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Big . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Big buttons . And everything is blue , except the power button . And the mute . Of uh {disfmarker} yeah , and the mute and the the other button . {vocalsound} Yeah . Channel higher channel button . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the joystick is for the volume and the channels . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very obvious . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Up is channel up . Down is channel down . To the right is volume up . To the left is volume down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so if joystick and L_C_D_ . What's the R_R_ {gap} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: R_R_'s the l the the the the company uh logo . +Industrial Designer: The R_R_ ? +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on the rub rubber part . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes . That's about here . +Project Manager: So , what they say on the side is put fashion there . Yes . It's good . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So , that's it . That's prototype . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Now , the finance . {vocalsound} We don't know if it's {disfmarker} th it {disfmarker} if it's okay . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I'm gonna look . +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we change the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: Do we change the the order ? Or are we going to uh ev evaluate it first ? +Project Manager: Finance is um {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} No , first uh {disfmarker} Yes . We have to evaluate the product yet . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: That's uh um {disfmarker} {gap} That can be none . Um , we gonna do the evaluation now , together . But I have uh a introduction how it works . So , it will come up . Uh-oh . Okay . Um , yeah . Well , we uh {disfmarker} uh , I have um thinked a few evaluation uh criterias , uh based on um our marketing strategy , on uh the latest trends , on user preferences . Uh , we have a seven point scale from uh true , as well . To false , seven ? And on base of each c uh criteria , we need to um give a rating . We can uh {disfmarker} Well , it look like this . But we gonna uh do it here , they said . {vocalsound} So , you hope found out how to do it with a Word document . Yeah . Okay , yeah . Yeah . Um , well uh we have the Word document +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Criteria . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} {gap} So we open up that blank here . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Think I can {disfmarker} Uh , what this just an example . So , this not very important . But um , if I can get a number in here . Hmm . +Project Manager: No , it's okay . +Marketing: Well , uh we can't do that . +Industrial Designer: I'll get it . +Project Manager: Oh , it's okay . +Marketing: Um , so uh you have to think of it as uh the remote control is techno technologically innovative . Uh , and then we have to uh agree on the rating together . And in the end , we will c uh count an average of all rating . The first uh on each item . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , well technologically using , it's not uh {disfmarker} it doesn't contain many new features . Only the L_C_D_ . So , it {disfmarker} Um , I think I will give it a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , yeah {gap} , a four . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the scroll-button is something also uh new . What uh {disfmarker} not anoth uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not a lot of uh {disfmarker} a lot of uh remote controls have . I think technologically I'll give it an seven . Si six six . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , six . +Marketing: So now i I think you uh see it {gap} um its statement . +Industrial Designer: Oh , true or false . +Marketing: And you {gap} true or false . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'll I'll give it uh a t a two . +Marketing: And true is one . So , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Project Manager: You ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Me too . So it's a three . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , well {disfmarker} It's a one . {vocalsound} The first item . So , okay the second item . Um , this product is for all sorts of customers . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it's a statement which uh I disagree with , because we uh really aim uh at at young market and I think the way it looked uh c uh totally in yellow , it's not uh really aimed for all customers . It doesn't look like that . +Project Manager: So it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's uh a six . +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Mm , four . +Project Manager: Yes , it's for the younger g group . So it's uh half half of the people . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think it's four . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it still has l large buttons and not m many buttons . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , the colours are for young people , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but +Project Manager: Yes . So , I think it's four . +User Interface: older {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe version uh three point O_ uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has other colours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Four . Uh , okay . Mm . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: That's uh the motto of our company . Yeah , well do we do this with uh this product ? I um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think if we do this , as it's uh uh c uh it's really orientates on the design . Um , so I would give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Me too a two , because only the battery is not uh techin uh technologically high standard . But the rest of it is . So , I think a two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Two . +Project Manager: Uh , I say uh a five . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: It's not fashion , it's new . It must be a fashion . But it isn't . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it will be fashion . +Project Manager: Yes . It w If it's not a fashion we can put it in it . So , it must be a fashion . I think it's a five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Then make it th three . +Marketing: Okay . Yes , I'll think of that too . +Project Manager: No . Oh . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Three is okay . +Marketing: Yeah , agree ? +Project Manager: I use my feet though . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , we'll wait outside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A three . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The next element um is the product looks good . Well personally , I do not prefer a um remote control that's fully in yellow . So , I would give this a five . +Industrial Designer: I give it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . Yes , a one . I like it . +Project Manager: Well , I say three . So , counting then is two and a half . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to do our uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , well we gonna do the next part . Uh , yep . Uh uh , the next statement . It has not too much buttons . Um , yeah , I I have uh said is not because uh a low number is better . And in the end we calculate an average . So , um that's why it's a negative in it . Um , well this one of our aims not have too much buttons . So , um uh did we uh do that ? Well , uh if we go to {vocalsound} uh this fashion , I {disfmarker} We still have caused uh a lot of uh buttons for the numbers . But you can you can go for that . And um that way , you don't have a lot of buttons over . So , I would give this a two . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You ? +User Interface: One . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Me too . One . +Marketing: One . {vocalsound} Um , but {vocalsound} where where is the {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next , six . It does not get lost easily . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah , did we implement uh the sound ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just a small thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we did not . So , but can it get lost if it's such a thing ? +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yellow . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Looks like a pistol . +Project Manager: Yes . Not a not a normal shapes . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} It won't get between uh the pillows uh on the couch . +Project Manager: No . It won't get lost . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It won't . +Project Manager: A one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , o one . +Project Manager: Okay , a one . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: Okay , um well we aimed for the younger market . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Uh yeah , did we achieve that . I think with the way it looks and um it is designed , I will give it a two . +Project Manager: Yeah me {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Project Manager: That was our target . Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . There's a fancy look-and-feel . +Marketing: Uh , yes . That that was uh , yeah , one of the most important things that uh Trendwatch said . I didn't uh say it in my presentation . But um , well does it have that ? I would say yes . So um {disfmarker} Well , let's also give this a two . T +Industrial Designer: I gave this a one because of the rubber . It feels soft . Uh , it looks like a l uh uh b uh , a bit like a joystick . It's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , f very fancy {gap} trendy . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes , a one . +Project Manager: I say a two . It's a a bit personal . If it's fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think s two is better . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Two is okay . +Marketing: Okay . Two . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And um , then the last one I could think of , uh it goes with the latest trends . +Project Manager: No , it's new . Innovation . +Marketing: If we looked at the latest trends for the uh younger people , and they ate uh fruit and vegetables , well it has a um a nice colour , uh well compared to food but we didn't uh {disfmarker} We did not paint any uh fruit and vegetable on it for something like that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So , I would {disfmarker} did not give this uh a one or two . I {disfmarker} We'll go for a three . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I go for two because uh the the shapes are still round . Uh , the latest trends are soft things , you know , like uh I said in my presentation . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But the the colours are um basic , like yellow , red , um blue . Something what also younger people want . It's also a trend , so I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , three . +Project Manager: Me too . Three . +Marketing: A three . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So um , come back to the presentation now . So , we find yourself there , and now we have to calculate an average rating . +Project Manager: Effort is three , ten and twelve . Thirty , forty , fifty , {gap} . +Marketing: So , we will do that . Yes . +Project Manager: Twenty one . So , it's uh two and three nine two and one third . +Marketing: By nine . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , uh okay . {vocalsound} Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Come on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , nah . Okay . +Marketing: So uh , that's a pretty low rating , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's good . +Marketing: So , according to our uh own evaluation uh we did a good job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . Nah . How am I doing ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I closed your slide-show . +Project Manager: Back to my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which one was the last for you ? Uh , dreaming . +Project Manager: Yep . Next please . +Marketing: Next . Finance . +Project Manager: So , now uh we have a product . Very happy . But uh , is it cheap enough ? Um , so if uh {disfmarker} I'll have a look . We have a battery . One battery . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheapest there is . +Project Manager: Okay , one battery . Electronics . Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the most advanced . Chip-on-print . We have that one . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's the most advanced . +Project Manager: We have the simple , regular and advanced . +Industrial Designer: Advanced . +Project Manager: We have the adva advanced . 'Kay , so uncurved or flat . Nope . Single curved or double curved ? We have double curved . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have plastic , wood , rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} we have half rubber , half plastic . +User Interface: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: No titanium . Special colour . Yes , yellow . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Interface , push-button . Scroll-wheel , integrated scroll-wheel push push-button , or L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have the L_C_D_ We have two scroll-wheels ? Or one ? +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: And it's not really a s +Industrial Designer: Joystick uh thing . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's this one . Now , uh button supplement . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour . We already {disfmarker} Uh , that's the {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} for the buttons . The buttons are regular colour . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So , then uh {disfmarker} then then then then then then {disfmarker} Then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're not gonna make it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , no . It's too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Wh +Project Manager: So , we have to change something . +Industrial Designer: What what are the costs ? +Project Manager: Fifteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifteen . +Project Manager: Yeah , well uh when we lose one scroll-wheel , it's okay . 'Cause we can't lose the battery . We can't lose the advanced chip . We can't lose the double curve . We have rubber , special colour . +Marketing: {gap} . We would have uh n +Industrial Designer: A special colour . +Project Manager: Oh , no , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don't think it's a very special colour . +Project Manager: No , it's uh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Yellow ? Uh , is it a special colour ? +Marketing: For a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: I've {disfmarker} For a remote control , I think it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we would have uh uh normal buttons instead of uh the joystick . For up down left right . +Project Manager: Um , then we uh lose two Euros . Then we have thirteen Euros . Half a Euro too much . Exactly the special colours . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And what if we use only one sort of um {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} just only plastic or only rubber ? +Project Manager: That's one Euro . +Industrial Designer: One Euro discount . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I don't think that's good . Mm {disfmarker} I think we have to keep the L_C_D_ . If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we change the joyst uh the joystick thing into a button up , button down , button right , button left . +Project Manager: Yes . Then it's only thirteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then we'll lose fifty cent in what ? +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . Then you have {disfmarker} Or you have to cut this off . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} uh-uh . +Project Manager: Then it's not good anymore . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: So , wait . Okay . I'll have a look . {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And if you say it's just a r uh normal colour {disfmarker} it's a normal colour , wh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yellow rubber . +Industrial Designer: No one will see it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , normal . +Industrial Designer: Normal colour , and the the joystick away , and put the button up , button down , right , left . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And it's twelve Euros , I think . +Project Manager: One minute , please . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is it maximum . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's normal colour . But if you lose the joystick , it's still uh an advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . Uh , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Or it's then a regular ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , wait wait wait . +Marketing: The advanced chip was for the L_C_D_ wasn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So , the advanced is for the L_C_D_ and the regular for the joystick . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And what if we lose the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the L_C_D_ , then we have an uh regular chip and no L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , regular chip . But {disfmarker} Is it a good design ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah . Then you'll have to m uh see the menu on the television . And you don't have the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: If uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , the T_V_s has to uh {disfmarker} have to be up-to-date . +Marketing: If we have the n no buttons {disfmarker} If we have we have uh not a joystick but buttons , we would have {disfmarker} uh , we have thirteen Euros ? +Project Manager: Mm , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then uh we move the the colour . What will that be ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Huh . No knew that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so no joystick . Oh no , but we {disfmarker} then we get push-buttons from half a Euro . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then it's twelve Euro fifty , then it's okay . +Project Manager: Uh , yes , yes , yes , yes . No joystick . Push-buttons . No special colour . Twelve and a half Euros . Then it's okay . So , we have to change that a little bit . And you cannot use the red and green button . Because if you give them a s uh colour , +User Interface: Okay . All the same uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you have to pay point two Euros . +Industrial Designer: So , all the buttons has to {disfmarker} have to be the same colour . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But then the print on it will g um change it . Make it uh for everybody to see what button it is . Uh l How you call it ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . Recognisable . Like what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Recognisable , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Now we have to change that , but that's okay . Rubber . What's the normal colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , well that's clear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where's {gap} ? Yeah . So , now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the joystick away . And its buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . It is . But then it will be just that ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} still , he waited at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Now , uh project eva evaluation . Well {disfmarker} What do you think of it ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: About the +Project Manager: About the project . +Marketing: Project . +Industrial Designer: process . Went good . Uh {disfmarker} I think uh the creativity uh {vocalsound} was good enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have a gun instead of a remote control . Um {disfmarker} Uh leadership . Yeah , you were the project project manager , and uh had the final vote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah that was clear . Team-work okay . Everybody uh has something uh to say about it . And uh {disfmarker} no , uh o only the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the drawing uh was very difficult . But , nah . New ideas found . {vocalsound} Nope . +Project Manager: Okay . And you . +User Interface: Yeah , well the same . I I espe I especially uh liked the the means , the the SMARTboard and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} It brings up new ideas when you work with uh with it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think you have to compare it to if you would have a normal um normal project without laptops uh and without these devices . I think um {disfmarker} Well , the laptops if you have them out front of you , you sometimes looking at that instead of the presentation . Um , well uh the draw-board , well you can draw things . But it not really going very convenient . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , maybe it will be easier if you have a smaller monitor {gap} and uh you would also see there . And with a normal mouse . Um , and uh the project . Yeah , I agree on what was said uh mainly . Uh , yeah but you always have that some people are talking more than others . And maybe is then um the task of the the project manager to also uh ask more to the people uh less talking . To tell their opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , what do I have to say . I think it was good . Not too many discussions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: So , it's good for the speed . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we're ready . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good price . Evaluation ready . Ready . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} . +","In this detailed and descriptive summary, we observe a project meeting involving roles including a Project Manager, User Interface (UI) specialist, Industrial Designer, and Marketing representative. This dialogue captures the dynamics and decision-making processes that occur during product development, specifically as they relate to a prototype's presentation, evaluation, and cost analysis. + +The conversation starts with the Project Manager attempting to navigate through verbal stutters and interjections, requesting that a prototype be demonstrated. There is some confusion and hesitation initially, but the User Interface specialist eventually presents the prototype, describing it as yellow, made primarily of rubber and hard plastic. They highlight a new feature allowing part of the device to turn inside out, covering certain buttons, but leaving critical ones—like power, mute, and a joystick—exposed for use. + +The Industrial Designer nonchalantly confirms details, while the Marketing representative listens in agreement. As they continue, the UI specialist explains the color scheme and functionality, such as large buttons and the joystick being utilized for volume and channel control. + +The Project Manager then signals a shift towards project evaluation. The Marketing representative explains that they've developed a seven-point scale based on various criteria, such as technological innovation and alignment with marketing strategy. They proceed to use a Word document to record and average their scores based on whether the product meets certain statements. + +As they evaluate, there's recognition of the product's appeal to a younger market due to its color and design but also an acknowledgment that it might not be suited for all customer segments. The participants give the prototype mixed scores for different elements like having a technologically innovative feature (LCD), bulky buttons, and adherence to the latest trends. The debate suggests an attempt to balance between maintaining a product’s original design vision and making it viable for the mass market. + +The group’s discourse turns to the practical aspect of production costs. They meticulously go through each component—battery, chip type, curvature, material, color, interface, and additional buttons—quantifying the financial impact of each. The Project Manager highlights the need for a cost-effective design while the Industrial Designer and the Marketing representative propose practical suggestions to reduce costs without compromising on key features. This includes possible simplifications like removing the joystick in favor of traditional buttons. + +Ultimately, the team manages to bring down the prototype's cost to an acceptable level by eliminating some features but keeping the core ones intact. Despite these compromises, the user interface is kept friendly, with recognizable buttons that are large enough for easy interaction and a joystick that simplifies the design. + +The dialogue concludes with a reflective project assessment where team members commend the use of technology in their meeting, particularly the SMARTboard, but also note room for improvement in inclusivity and workflow. The Project Manager feels satisfied with the discussions’ efficiency, setting the stage for the team to proceed with a commercially viable product with considered design and cost elements. The team expresses readiness to wrap up, leaving on a light-hearted note with a mention of beer, suggesting a mix of professional diligence and team camaraderie." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: .. . +Project Manager: Okay . So , this is uh first meeting of this design project . Um and I um like to show you the agenda for the meeting , I don't know if it was sent round to all of you . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe not . Anyway , +User Interface: I didn't receive it yet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: this is the the plan for today's meeting is um firstly just to introduce the project briefly , um although I'm sure you've actually got some of the information already . Then the main purpose is to {disfmarker} so that we get to know each other a little bit more . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we want to practice using some of the tools that we'll be using during the the course of the design project and the meetings , um specifically the whiteboard over there . Um then we need to go through the specifics of our project plan um and discuss {disfmarker} come up with some preliminary ideas about it . And then that's it . So we've got twenty five minutes to do that , that's until eleven twenty five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} so sh +Project Manager: S so any any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Is i {gap} not at this point . +User Interface: Not at this point . +Project Manager: So this is our project . What we're aiming to do is to create a new remote control for a television . Um we want it to be something original , something trendy and also something user friendly , so it has to be quite intuitive that people are able to use this product . The method that we're going to use to complete the project , that has three components as such . There's the functional design of the the remote control . We're going {disfmarker} the way we'll do that I think is to to work individually initially and then come together for meetings to to work on that . Um similarly with the conceptual design , we'll start off by working individually with our own expertise on our own laptops and then we'll bring what we've done together . Um and then the detailed design will come after that . We'll pull it all together . +Industrial Designer: I'm a bit confused about uh what's the difference between the functional design and conceptual design ? Uh i is it just uh more detail , uh as I understand it ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} th w we're talking the the functional design is more your um area of things where you'll be {disfmarker} we want to look at what functions we need in the remote control +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and what what specific things it it has to do +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but the conceptual design is um perhaps bigger than that and includes the {disfmarker} how people are going to use it and and that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: How how it will be done . So whe where do we identify the components of our uh product ? Uh I think it's it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the {disfmarker} it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the components of our product ? +Project Manager: Um I think we'll we'll start that initially with the functional design already but then +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so that's just a brief overview of the p the the project itself . Um what I'd like us to do now is simultaneously introduce ourselves and start using some of the tools that we're using for {vocalsound} for the project , specifically the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So each person in turn , I'd like us to go up to the whiteboard , the pen's just underneath it there and draw your favourite animal and then tell everyone what the f your favourite characteristics of that animal are and while you're doing that tell us your name , what your role is and perhaps how your animal relates to the role that you're taking in this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Why are you looking at me ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to go first ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do I have a choice ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Ooh ooh , things falling everywhere . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: p put them in pockets . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . +Project Manager: You don't have to hurry , we've got plenty of time . +Marketing: So , my name's Cat and I'm really not very good at this whole drawing malarkey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's got no eyes . +Marketing: Oh , good point . Ah , the eyes always ruin it . Right . Okay , what do {gap} it's eyes like ? Okay , cool . Um this is a rabbit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I thought it might be a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well origi uh at first I thought it was going to be cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't think it's furry enough , so we'll make it a fluffy rabbit . +User Interface: Yeah now I now I understand now , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I can see by the ears . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , right , it's a fluffy rabbit , blue . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rabbits don't come in blue but you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay and I like it because it's small {vocalsound} and it's fluffy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And one day you'll be able to getical genetically modify them and they will come in pink . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Excellent , and what's your what's your role within the team ? +Marketing: I am the um {disfmarker} I need my notebook , mm ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: top banana . Thank you . Okay , cool , I am the Marketing Expert {vocalsound} um so like I'm gonna be doing the {disfmarker} apparently according to the little guy in the computer that knows everything {disfmarker} the user g requirements specification of the functional design , um trend watching in the conceptual design and product evad-valuation in the detailed design {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um so yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And more about yourself , you're from ? +Marketing: Um I'm from Leicester , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um second year . Um what else do you want to know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like sports {vocalsound} um yeah , aerobics , kickboxing , spinning +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not with rabbits . {vocalsound} +Marketing: not with rabbits , no no . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And vets , I like vets as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And yeah um and I like cocktails , especially pink ones . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , to match the rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . Um so my name is Maarika . Where's the pen ? Okay . +Project Manager: There's a {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} if you have not enough room there's an eraser there and you can rub it off . +User Interface: Yeah , well , or I can make it smaller . {vocalsound} Uh so um um I'm the Interface Designer in this project and my favourite animal , I m I mean I'm not so sure because I'm not so so very um {vocalsound} familiar with all kinds of animals , but I do like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , sorry , maybe I should have {disfmarker} shouldn't have said it beforehand but +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: mm {vocalsound} hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , there are different kinds of dogs , but okay um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not bad at all . +Project Manager: Ah it looks like a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Is a bit more impressive than my rabbit . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I think it needs four legs if it's gonna walk though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it has some colourful patches , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} the other legs are on the other side . +User Interface: Um yeah and I do like dogs because they are good friends to people and they are loyal . Mm , well that's compared to some other animals like cats . Um they're really much more fun because they are not so independent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah maybe maybe the fact that they protect their home as well , yeah . Um what it has to do with with my role in the project is hard to say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I hope to be loyal to the project +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not to n not to um let people doing similar projects know the details of our project or something , {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And where where are you from ? +User Interface: I'm from Estonia +Project Manager: Estonia . +User Interface: uh , yep . Um so is there anything else you'd like to know ? Oh , right , my roles , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: um so um in the different um {vocalsound} stages of the design , so at first I will be responsible for um for {vocalsound} yeah , designing the technical functions of the um {vocalsound} um of the remote control uh then in the in the conceptual design stage I need to um come up with uh interface concept and then in the last um stage I will be responsible for the int infa for the user interface design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Okay {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I'll do some {disfmarker} I'll rub the features +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and let the drawing stay . {vocalsound} 'Kay um my name is Gaurav . Um {vocalsound} my favourite animal {disfmarker} one of my favourite animals is a cow . I've got no idea how to draw a cow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good luck . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this is going to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: They're not just like a big round body and then some really skinny legs +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll do . +Marketing: and then just some horns . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so let let me draw the body first . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Big , round body , really skinny legs {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they've got a long tail +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a long face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's eating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It looks like Eeyore . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there is some grass there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So this is what I like about {vocalsound} cows {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Horns , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that they just keeps sitting there eating grass , +Marketing: draw some horns . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they do not disturb anybody um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they're kind of Buddhist in a way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I like cows . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} my my role in the project is um uh the industrial designer , so I'm supposed to design all the details of of the product um ho how it works and whatever it'll mm take during the functional role , what are the various functions that have to be performed by it uh during the um conceptual design , what are the various components of it and um finally , I'm not too sure what was the last part . Um the detailed design , I I guess it will again be the identification of the components and how they integrate with each other . Um I'm from India . Uh I'm doing my P_H_D_ in Psycholinguistics , I sit at the Department of Psychology . {vocalsound} Yeah . Thank you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Right , now now it's my turn obviously . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't look like a cow , does it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , here's a space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It looks very very cute . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like the cow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm Jen . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I like dogs too , but I can't do that already because I can't draw a dog as well as you can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I like {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: Is that a lizard ? +Industrial Designer: No way . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: It's a gecko . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +User Interface: Ah , a gecko , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is there a difference ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} a ar are they also like lizards or are they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They're {disfmarker} Yeah , they're l it's a kind of lizard . +User Interface: yeah , they are +Project Manager: And I I like geckos +User Interface: {disfmarker} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because they remind me of warm places {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and , and where I was living in Cambodia they used to live in my house +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and they were on the ceiling and they would make little gecko noises in the evening . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope you don't like snakes , do you ? +Project Manager: I don't like snakes . I come from Australia +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we have nasty snakes . That's where I'm from , Australia . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm from Melbourne and I'm your Project Manager for today +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and my role is basically to keep things going and make sure that you all work together in a productive way , so that by the end of the day we come up with a great product . +User Interface: Wonderful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's see what's next in the PowerPoint presentation . So , I've just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you right click on it you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah I've just thought about this that we could even put it much more professionally {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: there we go . Okay , so this is the um overall budget for our project . We've got {disfmarker} um we're planning to sell these remote controls for {disfmarker} let's make that go away , that means we've got five minutes . Um we're planning to sell the remote controls for twenty five Euros each . Um and with that we're aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros . And that's selling them on the international market , not just in the U_K_ . Um so to do that our finance people estimate that we need production costs of maximum twelve and a half Euro so that we can reach that profit target . So that's something to keep in mind while you're designing . Okay . Hmm . This is {disfmarker} let me just skip ahead to see {disfmarker} that's the last thing , okay . We've only got a couple of minutes . Does anyone have any first ideas to bounce around about um what we're thinking of this remote control ? +User Interface: Yep . I'm just wondering whether whether there is like any special feature that we want to have {disfmarker} w want this remote control have as opposed to the already existing ones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think that's probably something that w it's best if we take away with us , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but if we all have a think , when we go away from the meeting , what specific things could be um included in this remote control that that {vocalsound} are out of the ordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh i in the beginning uh one thing was {disfmarker} that was mentioned was that it should be mm trendy , user friendly and original so um I think your point is relevant as far as the originality is concerned , that we should provide some features that are quite unique to this . +Project Manager: Something something new . +Marketing: Yeah , I was looking at the website , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and the other things that they've made and I like put down some like inspirational words like that I got from looking at the pictures . So the motto is um we put the fashion in electronics +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and um so it's something that is sleek and stylish but it's still functional , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm kind of thinking , you know like those phones that they have , the new generation ones , where they don't actually have any buttons on them and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: You know , so something heading towards that , so it's not overly {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what h most of the buttons do on my remote controls , so I figure how many do you need , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So perhaps some sort of menu-based thing , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something that's a little less crowded than this , like I mean you know , theoretically you can do all kinds of things with your T_V_ , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But what do most people do ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They turn it on , they watch certain specified channels , you know , and then they turn it off again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There is a lot of functionality in there that is not used ninety percent of the time , +Marketing: Sometimes they play a movie . +Industrial Designer: but will be used ten percent of the time , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: there's no need to have buttons on it to do that , +Project Manager: So , no . +Marketing: maybe to do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: It could be one button for a menu or something , if you really need to go and do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , if you're the kind of sad case that knows how your remote control works , then you know that's fine +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you can do it on the screen rather than everybody else having to have those buttons , which just confuse them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: 'Cause like if you look at the train , it's just very like , there's no extra bits on it , the train on the website and I dunno if you can put it up on the thing +Project Manager: Oh I haven't had a look yet , yep . +Marketing: um but it is just like a long like thing used for mu moving people , but it looks really pretty too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Great . Any other immediate thoughts before we move along ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Uh we can aim for {disfmarker} I mean we can think about all these little things , but we can aim for something wi that gives a high battery life , although I don't think that um it's a huge problem for remote controls anyway , battery life , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh every now and then you need to replace the batteries . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but uh I mean e even though it has to be re original we shouldn't uh go like too far away from from the usual ones , because otherwise the new users will just have a lot of problems +Industrial Designer: Yeah . A big learning curve , yeah . +User Interface: with l {vocalsound} learning , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , i it should kind of fit in as well , and the stereotype of a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's like those fancy websites that you can't access +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Hm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you have no idea how to get in , but the designers thought they were great . Okay , so we need to wrap it up now , so that we can go away and get on with some of this . Um {vocalsound} we've got another meeting in thirty minutes , so you're {disfmarker} you'll be getting specific instructions once you go back to your workspace , but im basically you're looking at the working design , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: you're looking at the technical functions design , and for you it's the user requirements specification , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like you said at the start . Okay ? Thanks for that . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh I'll see you in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Project Manager: Carry the laptops back again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Do we need to unplug things ? Probably . +","In a preliminary meeting for a design project, the Project Manager convenes the team to kick off the development of a new television remote control. The agenda, which appears to not have been distributed beforehand, covers an introduction to the project, team familiarity exercises, tool familiarization, an overview of the project plan, and brainstorming of preliminary ideas, all to be accomplished in a concise 25-minute window. + +The meeting's purpose is multifaceted. It serves not only as a venue for introducing the overall project but also as a team-building opportunity. The Project Manager aims for the team to practice using a whiteboard - a tool to be used extensively throughout the design process. The discussion addresses the project's specific tasks: functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The latter will involve individual contributions followed by group meetings. However, uncertainty arises as the Industrial Designer questions the distinction between functional and conceptual designs. The Project Manager clarifies that functional design will focus on the features required for the remote, while conceptual design will encompass broader use considerations. + +In a lighthearted and engaging icebreaker, each team member is invited to draw their favorite animal on the whiteboard and discuss its traits, relating those qualities to their role in the project. This creative exercise allows the team members to introduce themselves, revealing personal interests and their respective expert roles, developing camaraderie. They are Cat, the Marketing Expert; Maarika, the User Interface Designer; and Gaurav, the Industrial Designer. Each team member discusses their favorite animals (a rabbit, a dog, and a cow respectively), highlighting traits such as fluffiness, loyalty, and peacefulness. + +The Project Manager also takes a turn, depicting a gecko, emphasizing appreciation for warm climates and memories of Cambodia. This is also a segue into sharing information about herself – she is from Melbourne, Australia, and will serve as the Project Manager. Her role is pivotal, ensuring cohesive team efforts and timely project completion. + +As the meeting progresses, the team delves into budget considerations, with the Project Manager discussing financial targets, including the aim of attaining significant profits from international sales while keeping production costs within specified limits. The discussion shifts toward idea generation for the remote control's design, where creativity meets practicality. The User Interface Designer ponders the inclusion of unique features that will set the product apart from existing remotes. Marketing considerations suggest a design that aligns with the industry trend towards sleeker, buttonless devices, focusing on primary functions most commonly utilized by consumers. The Industrial Designer underscores the need for balance between innovation and familiarity to avoid excessive learning curves for new users. Suggestions range from improved battery life to menu-based interfaces, encapsulating the project guidelines of creating a trendy, user-friendly, and original remote control. + +Concluding the meeting, the Project Manager schedules another gathering in thirty minutes and outlines individual tasks. Team members will venture back to their workspaces with specific assignments addressing various aspects of the remote's design, ensuring their expertise is directed efficiently from the very start of this creative endeavor. + +The meeting encapsulates the early stages of a product design project where the foundation is laid for how the team will navigate the creative process, communicate effectively, and collaborate to achieve a common goal." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mike . Mike - one ? +PhD B: Ah . +Professor D: We 're on ? Yes , please . I mean , we 're testing noise robustness but let 's not get silly . OK , so , uh , you 've got some , uh , Xerox things to pass out ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: That are {disfmarker} +PhD A: um . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm sorry for the table , but as it grows in size , uh , it . +Professor D: Uh , so for th the last column we use our imagination . OK . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD B: Uh , do you want @ @ . +Professor D: This one 's nice , though . This has nice big font . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Let 's see . Yeah . Chop ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: So +Professor D: When you get older you have these different perspectives . I mean , lowering the word hour rate is fine , but having big font ! +PhD A: Next time we will put colors or something . +Professor D: That 's what 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: Yeah . It 's mostly big font . OK . +PhD A: OK , s so there is kind of summary of what has been done {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Go ahead . +PhD A: It 's this . Summary of experiments since , well , since last week +Professor D: Oh . OK . +PhD A: and also since the {disfmarker} we 've started to run {disfmarker} work on this . Um . {pause} So since last week we 've started to fill the column with um {vocalsound} uh features w with nets trained on PLP with on - line normalization but with delta also , because the column was not completely {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: well , it 's still not completely filled , +Professor D: +PhD A: but {pause} we have more results to compare with network using without PLP and {pause} finally , hhh , {comment} um {pause} ehhh {comment} PL - uh delta seems very important . Uh {pause} I don't know . If you take um , let 's say , anyway Aurora - two - B , so , the next {disfmarker} t the second , uh , part of the table , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {pause} when we use the large training set using French , Spanish , and English , you have one hundred and six without delta and eighty - nine with the delta . +Professor D: a And again all of these numbers are with a hundred percent being , uh , the baseline performance , +PhD A: Yeah , on the baseline , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: but with a mel cepstra system going straight into the HTK ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . So now we see that the gap between the different training set is much {pause} uh uh much smaller +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's out of the way . +PhD A: But , actually , um , for English training on TIMIT is still better than the other languages . And Mmm , {pause} Yeah . And f also for Italian , actually . If you take the second set of experiment for Italian , so , the mismatched condition , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um {pause} when we use the training on TIMIT so , it 's multi - English , we have a ninety - one number , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and training with other languages is a little bit worse . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} Oh , I see . Down near the bottom of this sheet . +PhD A: So , +Professor D: Uh , {comment} {pause} yes . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: And , yeah , and here the gap is still more important between using delta and not using delta . If y if I take the training s the large training set , it 's {disfmarker} we have one hundred and seventy - two , +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: and one hundred and four when we use delta . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . {pause} Even if the contexts used is quite the same , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because without delta we use seventeenths {disfmarker} seventeen frames . Uh . Yeah , um , so the second point is that we have no single cross - language experiments , uh , that we did not have last week . Uh , so this is training the net on French only , or on English only , and testing on Italian . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And training the net on French only and Spanish only and testing on , uh TI - digits . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And , fff {comment} um , yeah . What we see is that these nets are not as good , except for the multi - English , which is always one of the best . Yeah , then we started to work on a large dat database containing , uh , sentences from the French , from the Spanish , from the TIMIT , from SPINE , uh from {comment} uh English digits , and from Italian digits . So this is the {disfmarker} another line {disfmarker} another set of lines in the table . Uh , @ @ with SPINE +Professor D: Ah , yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {pause} uh , actually we did this before knowing the result of all the data , uh , so we have to to redo the uh {disfmarker} the experiment training the net with , uh PLP , but with delta . But +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um this {disfmarker} this net performed quite well . Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's better than the net using French , Spanish , and English only . Uh . So , uh , yeah . We have also started feature combination experiments . Uh many experiments using features and net outputs together . And this is {disfmarker} The results are on the other document . Uh , we can discuss this after , perhaps {disfmarker} well , just , @ @ . Yeah , so basically there are four {disfmarker} four kind of systems . The first one , yeah , is combining , um , two feature streams , uh using {disfmarker} and each feature stream has its own MPL . So it 's the {disfmarker} kind of similar to the tandem that was proposed for the first . The multi - stream tandem for the first proposal . The second is using features and KLT transformed MLP outputs . And the third one is to u use a single KLT trans transform features as well as MLP outputs . Um , yeah . Mmm . You know you can {disfmarker} you can comment these results , +PhD B: Yes , I can s I would like to say that , for example , um , mmm , if we doesn't use the delta - delta , uh we have an improve when we use s some combination . But when +PhD A: Yeah , we ju just to be clear , the numbers here are uh recognition accuracy . +PhD B: w Yeah , this {disfmarker} Yeah , this number recognition acc +PhD A: So it 's not the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Again we switch to another {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes , and the baseline {disfmarker} the baseline have {disfmarker} i is eighty - two . +Professor D: Baseline is eighty - two . +PhD B: Yeah +PhD A: So it 's experiment only on the Italian mismatched for the moment for this . +Professor D: Uh , this is Italian mismatched . +PhD A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah , by the moment . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: And first in the experiment - one I {disfmarker} I do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I use different MLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and is obviously that the multi - English MLP is the better . Um . for the ne {disfmarker} rest of experiment I use multi - English , only multi - English . And I try to combine different type of feature , but the result is that the MSG - three feature doesn't work for the Italian database because never help to increase the accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , eh , actually , if w we look at the table , the huge table , um , we see that for TI - digits MSG perform as well as the PLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but this is not the case for Italian what {disfmarker} where the error rate is c is almost uh twice the error rate of PLP . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , um {vocalsound} uh , well , I don't think this is a bug but this {disfmarker} this is something in {disfmarker} probably in the MSG um process that uh I don't know what exactly . Perhaps the fact that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there 's no low - pass filter , well , or no pre - emp pre - emphasis filter and that there is some DC offset in the Italian , or , well , something simple like that . But {disfmarker} that we need to sort out if want to uh get improvement by combining PLP and MSG +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because for the moment MSG do doesn't bring much information . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And as Carmen said , if we combine the two , we have the result , basically , of PLP . +Professor D: I Um , the uh , baseline system {disfmarker} when you said the baseline system was uh , uh eighty - two percent , that was trained on what and tested on what ? That was , uh Italian mismatched d uh , uh , digits , uh , is the testing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: and the training is Italian digits ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So the "" mismatch "" just refers to the noise and {disfmarker} and , uh microphone and so forth , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? So , um did we have {disfmarker} So would that then correspond to the first line here of where the training is {disfmarker} is the uh Italian digits ? +PhD B: The train the training of the HTK ? +Professor D: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes . Ah yes ! +Professor D: Yes . +PhD B: This h Yes . Th - Yes . +Professor D: Yes . Training of the net , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So what that says is that in a matched condition , {vocalsound} we end up with a fair amount worse putting in the uh PLP . Now w would {disfmarker} do we have a number , I suppose for the matched {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't mean matched , but uh use of Italian {disfmarker} training in Italian digits for PLP only ? +PhD B: Uh {pause} yes ? +PhD A: Uh {pause} yeah , so this is {disfmarker} basically this is in the table . Uh {pause} so the number is fifty - two , +PhD B: Another table . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Fifty - two percent . +PhD A: Fift - So {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No . +Professor D: No , fifty - two percent of eighty - two ? +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of uh {pause} eighteen {disfmarker} +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: of eighteen . +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's error rate , basically . +PhD B: It 's plus six . +PhD A: It 's er error rate ratio . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh this is accuracy ! +PhD A: Uh , so we have nine {disfmarker} nine {disfmarker} let 's say ninety percent . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oy ! {comment} OK . Ninety . +PhD A: Yeah . Um {comment} which is uh {comment} what we have also if use PLP and MSG together , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: eighty - nine point seven . +Professor D: OK , so even just PLP , uh , it is not , in the matched condition {disfmarker} Um I wonder if it 's a difference between PLP and mel cepstra , or whether it 's that the net half , for some reason , is not helping . +PhD A: Uh . P - PLP and Mel cepstra give the same {disfmarker} same results . +Professor D: Same result pretty much ? +PhD A: Well , we have these results . I don't know . It 's not {disfmarker} Do you have this result with PLP alone , {comment} j fee feeding HTK ? +Professor D: So , s +PhD A: That {disfmarker} That 's what you mean ? +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD A: Just PLP at the input of HTK . +PhD B: yeah yeah yeah yeah , at the first {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So , PLP {disfmarker} +Professor D: Eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um , so adding MSG +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: um {disfmarker} Well , but that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's without the neural net , +PhD A: Yeah , that 's without the neural net +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: and that 's the result basically that OGI has also with the MFCC with on - line normalization . +Professor D: But she had said eighty - two . +PhD A: This is the {disfmarker} w well , but this is without on - line normalization . +Professor D: Right ? Oh , this {disfmarker} the eighty - two . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD A: Eighty - two is the {disfmarker} it 's the Aurora baseline , so MFCC . Then we can use {disfmarker} well , OGI , they use MFCC {disfmarker} th the baseline MFCC plus on - line normalization +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sorry , I k I keep getting confused because this is accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , sorry . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . So this is {disfmarker} I was thinking all this was worse . OK so this is all better +PhD B: Yes , better . +Professor D: because eighty - nine is bigger than eighty - two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm all better now . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: So what happ what happens is that when we apply on - line normalization we jump to almost ninety percent . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , when we apply a neural network , is the same . We j jump to ninety percent . +PhD B: Nnn , we don't know exactly . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} whatever the normalization , actually . If we use n neural network , even if the features are not correctly normalized , we jump to ninety percent . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So we go from eighty - si eighty - eight point six to {disfmarker} to ninety , or something . +PhD A: Well , ninety {disfmarker} No , I {disfmarker} I mean ninety It 's around eighty - nine , ninety , eighty - eight . +Professor D: Eighty - nine . +PhD A: Well , there are minor {disfmarker} minor differences . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And then adding the MSG does nothing , basically . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Uh For Italian , yeah . +Professor D: For this case , right ? +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: Alright . So , um {disfmarker} So actually , the answer for experiments with one is that adding MSG , if you {disfmarker} uh does not help in that case . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: But w Yeah . +Professor D: The other ones , we 'd have to look at it , but {disfmarker} And the multi - English , does uh {disfmarker} So if we think of this in error rates , we start off with , uh eighteen percent error rate , roughly . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {pause} and {pause} we uh almost , uh cut that in half by um putting in the on - line normalization and the neural net . +PhD A: Yeah +Professor D: And the MSG doesn't however particularly affect things . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: And we cut off , I guess about twenty - five percent of the error . Uh {pause} no , not quite that , is it . Uh , two point six out of eighteen . About , um {pause} sixteen percent or something of the error , um , if we use multi - English instead of the matching condition . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Not matching condition , but uh , the uh , Italian training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: We select these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these tasks because it 's the more difficult . +Professor D: Yes , good . OK ? So then you 're assuming multi - English is closer to the kind of thing that you could use since you 're not gonna have matching , uh , data for the {disfmarker} uh for the new {disfmarker} for the other languages and so forth . Um , one qu thing is that , uh {disfmarker} I think I asked you this before , but I wanna double check . When you say "" ME "" in these other tests , that 's the multi - English , +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} it 's a part {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: but it is not all of the multi - English , right ? It is some piece of {disfmarker} part of it . +PhD A: Or , one million frames . +Professor D: And the multi - English is how much ? +PhD B: You have here the information . +PhD A: It 's one million and a half . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , so you used almost all You used two thirds of it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: you think . So , it it 's still {disfmarker} it hurts you {disfmarker} seems to hurt you a fair amount to add in this French and Spanish . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I wonder why Yeah . Uh . +Grad C: Well Stephane was saying that they weren't hand - labeled , +PhD A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: the French and the Spanish . +PhD B: The Spanish . Maybe for that . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's still {disfmarker} OK . Alright , go ahead . And then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . Mmm , with the experiment type - two , I {disfmarker} first I tried to to combine , nnn , some feature from the MLP and other feature {disfmarker} another feature . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And we s we can {disfmarker} first the feature are without delta and delta - delta , and we can see that in the situation , uh , the MSG - three , the same help nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then I do the same but with the delta and delta - delta {disfmarker} PLP delta and delta - delta . And they all p but they all put off the MLP is it without delta and delta - delta . And we have a l little bit less result than the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the baseline PLP with delta and delta - delta . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe if {disfmarker} when we have the new {disfmarker} the new {pause} neural network trained with PLP delta and delta - delta , maybe the final result must be better . I don't know . +PhD A: Actually , just to be some more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do This number , this eighty - seven point one number , has to be compared with the +Professor D: Yes , yeah , I mean it can't be compared with the other +PhD A: Which number ? +Professor D: cuz this is , uh {disfmarker} with multi - English , uh , training . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So you have to compare it with the one over that you 've got in a box , which is that , uh the eighty - four point six . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but I mean in this case for the eighty - seven point one we used MLP outputs for the PLP net +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and straight features with delta - delta . And straight features with delta - delta gives you what 's on the first sheet . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Not t not +PhD A: It 's eight eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: tr No . No . No . +PhD B: Yes . +Professor D: Not trained with multi - English . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , but th this is the second configuration . +PhD B: No , but they {disfmarker} they feature @ @ without {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we use feature out uh , net outputs together with features . So yeah , this is not {disfmarker} perhaps not clear here but in this table , the first column is for MLP and the second for the features . +Professor D: Eh . {comment} Oh , I see . Ah . So you 're saying w so asking the question , "" What {disfmarker} what has adding the MLP done to improve over the , +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} Yeah so , actually it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it decreased the {disfmarker} the accuracy . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: Because we have eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: And even the MLP alone {disfmarker} What gives the MLP alone ? Multi - English PLP . Oh no , it gives eighty - three point six . So we have our eighty - three point six and now eighty - eighty point six , +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: that gives eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Eighty - s I thought it was eighty Oh , OK , eighty - three point six and eighty {disfmarker} eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Eighty - three point six . Eighty {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Is th is that right ? Yeah ? +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} but maybe if we have the neural network trained with the PLP {pause} delta and delta - delta , maybe tha this can help . +PhD A: Perhaps , yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing , but see the other thing is that , um , I mean it 's good to take the difficult case , but let 's {disfmarker} let 's consider what that means . What {disfmarker} what we 're saying is that one o one of the things that {disfmarker} I mean my interpretation of your {disfmarker} your s original suggestion is something like this , as motivation . When we train on data that is in one sense or another , similar to the testing data , then we get a win by having discriminant training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: When we train on something that 's quite different , we have a potential to have some problems . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , if we get something that helps us when it 's somewhat similar , and doesn't hurt us too much when it {disfmarker} when it 's quite different , that 's maybe not so bad . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So the question is , if you took the same combination , and you tried it out on , uh {disfmarker} on say digits , +PhD A: On TI - digits ? OK . +Professor D: you know , d Was that experiment done ? +PhD A: No , not yet . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . Uh , then does that , eh {disfmarker} you know maybe with similar noise conditions and so forth , {comment} does it {disfmarker} does it then look much better ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so what is the range over these different kinds of uh {disfmarker} of tests ? So , an anyway . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And , with this type of configuration which I do on experiment using the new neural net with name broad klatt s twenty - seven , uh , d I have found more or less the same result . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , it 's slightly better , +PhD B: Little bit better ? +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: Slightly better . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly bet better . Yes , is better . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and you know again maybe if you use the , uh , delta {pause} there , uh , you would bring it up to where it was , uh you know at least about the same for a difficult case . +PhD B: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , so perhaps let 's {disfmarker} let 's jump at the last experiment . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD A: It 's either less information from the neural network if we use only the silence output . +PhD B: i +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: It 's again better . So it 's eighty - nine point {disfmarker} point one . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and we have only forty {disfmarker} forty feature +PhD A: So . +PhD B: because in this situation we have one hundred and three feature . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . And then w with the first configuration , I f I am found that work , uh , doesn't work {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: uh , well , work , but is better , the second configuration . Because I {disfmarker} for the del Engli - PLP delta and delta - delta , here I have eighty - five point three accuracy , and with the second configuration I have eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Um , by the way , there is a another , uh , suggestion that would apply , uh , to the second configuration , um , which , uh , was made , uh , by , uh , Hari . And that was that , um , if you have {disfmarker} uh feed two streams into HTK , um , and you , uh , change the , uh variances {disfmarker} if you scale the variances associated with , uh these streams um , you can effectively scale {pause} the streams . Right ? So , um , you know , without changing the scripts for HTK , which is the rule here , uh , you can still change the variances +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: which would effectively change the scale of these {disfmarker} these , uh , two streams that come in . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} yeah . +Professor D: And , um , so , um , if you do that , for instance it may be the case that , um , the MLP should not be considered as strongly , for instance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And , um , so this is just setting them to be , excuse me , of equal {disfmarker} equal weight . Maybe it shouldn't be equal weight . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor D: Right ? You know , I I 'm sorry to say that gives more experiments if we wanted to look at that , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um , you know on the other hand it 's just experiments at the level of the HTK recognition . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's not even the HTK , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I guess you have to do the HTK training also . +PhD B: so this is what we decided to do . +Professor D: Uh , do you ? Let me think . Maybe you don't . Uh . Yeah , you have to change the {disfmarker} No , you can just do it in {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} once you 've done the training {disfmarker} +Grad C: And then you can vary it . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , the training is just coming up with the variances so I guess you could {disfmarker} you could just scale them all . +PhD A: Scale +Professor D: Variances . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} i th I mean the HTK models are diagonal covariances , so I d Is it {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's uh , exactly the point , I think , that if you change {disfmarker} um , change what they are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's diagonal covariance matrices , but you say what those variances are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , that {disfmarker} you know , it 's diagonal , but the diagonal means th that then you 're gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna internally multiply it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , {vocalsound} uh , i it im uh implicitly exponentiated to get probabilities , and so it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to affect the range of things if you change the {disfmarker} change the variances {pause} of some of the features . +PhD A: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD B: do ? +Professor D: So , i it 's precisely given that model you can very simply affect , uh , the s the strength that you apply the features . That was {disfmarker} that was , uh , Hari 's suggestion . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So . So it could just be that h treating them equally , tea treating two streams equally is just {disfmarker} just not the right thing to do . Of course it 's potentially opening a can of worms because , you know , maybe it should be a different {vocalsound} number for {disfmarker} for each {vocalsound} kind of {pause} test set , or something , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So I guess the other thing is to take {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} if one were to take , uh , you know , a couple of the most successful of these , +PhD A: Yeah , and test across everything . +Professor D: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , try all these different tests . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . Uh . +PhD A: So , the next point , yeah , we 've had some discussion with Steve and Shawn , um , about their um , uh , articulatory stuff , um . So we 'll perhaps start something next week . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , discussion with Hynek , Sunil and Pratibha for trying to plug in their our {disfmarker} our networks with their {disfmarker} within their block diagram , uh , where to plug in the {disfmarker} the network , uh , after the {disfmarker} the feature , before as um a as a plugin or as a anoth another path , discussion about multi - band and TRAPS , um , actually Hynek would like to see , perhaps if you remember the block diagram there is , uh , temporal LDA followed b by a spectral LDA for each uh critical band . And he would like to replace these by a network which would , uh , make the system look like a TRAP . Well , basically , it would be a TRAP system . Basically , this is a TRAP system {disfmarker} kind of TRAP system , I mean , but where the neural network are replaced by LDA . Hmm . {vocalsound} Um , yeah , and about multi - band , uh , I started multi - band MLP trainings , um mmh {comment} Actually , I w I w hhh {comment} prefer to do exactly what I did when I was in Belgium . So I take exactly the same configurations , seven bands with nine frames of context , and we just train on TIMIT , and on the large database , so , with SPINE and everything . And , mmm , I 'm starting to train also , networks with larger contexts . So , this would {disfmarker} would be something between TRAPS and multi - band because we still have quite large bands , and {disfmarker} but with a lot of context also . So Um Yeah , we still have to work on Finnish , um , basically , to make a decision on which MLP can be the best across the different languages . For the moment it 's the TIMIT network , and perhaps the network trained on everything . So . Now we can test these two networks on {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with delta and large networks . Well , test them also on Finnish +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: and see which one is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the best . Uh , well , the next part of the document is , well , basically , a kind of summary of what {disfmarker} everything that has been done . So . We have seventy - nine M L Ps trained on one , two , three , four , uh , three , four , five , six , seven ten {disfmarker} on ten different databases . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the number of frames is bad also , so we have one million and a half for some , three million for other , and six million for the last one . Uh , yeah ! {comment} As we mentioned , TIMIT is the only that 's hand - labeled , and perhaps this is what makes the difference . Um . Yeah , the other are just Viterbi - aligned . So these seventy - nine MLP differ on different things . First , um with respect to the on - line normalization , there are {disfmarker} that use bad on - line normalization , and other good on - line normalization . Um . With respect to the features , with respect to the use of delta or no , uh with respect to the hidden layer size and to the targets . Uh , but of course we don't have all the combination of these different parameters Um . s What 's this ? We only have two hundred eighty six different tests And no not two thousand . +Professor D: Ugh ! I was impressed boy , two thousand . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Ah , yes . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: I say this morning that @ @ thought it was the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Alright , now I 'm just slightly impressed , OK . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , basically the observation is what we discussed already . The MSG problem , um , the fact that the MLP trained on target task decreased the error rate . but when the M - MLP is trained on the um {disfmarker} is not trained on the target task , it increased the error rate compared to using straight features . Except if the features are bad {disfmarker} uh , actually except if the features are not correctly on - line normalized . In this case the tandem is still better even if it 's trained on {disfmarker} not on the target digits . +Professor D: Yeah . So it sounds like {vocalsound} yeah , the net corrects some of the problems with some poor normalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: But if you can do good normalization it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so the fourth point is , yeah , the TIMIT plus noise seems to be the training set that gives better {disfmarker} the best network . +Professor D: So So - Let me {disfmarker} bef before you go on to the possible issues . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , on the MSG uh problem um , I think that in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} um , in the short {pause} time {pause} solution um , that is , um , trying to figure out what we can proceed forward with to make the greatest progress , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , much as I said with JRASTA , even though I really like JRASTA and I really like MSG , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I think it 's kind of in category that it 's , it {disfmarker} it may be complicated . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And uh it might be {disfmarker} if someone 's interested in it , uh , certainly encourage anybody to look into it in the longer term , once we get out of this particular rush {pause} uh for results . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: But in the short term , unless you have some {disfmarker} some s strong idea of what 's wrong , +PhD A: I don't know at all but I 've {disfmarker} perhaps {disfmarker} I have the feeling that it 's something that 's quite {disfmarker} quite simple or just like nnn , no high - pass filter +Professor D: Yeah , probably . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . {pause} My {disfmarker} But I don't know . +Professor D: There 's supposed to {disfmarker} well MSG is supposed to have a an on - line normalization though , right ? +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} There is , yeah , an AGC - kind of AGC . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , but also there 's an on - line norm besides the AGC , there 's an on - line normalization that 's supposed to be uh , yeah , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: taking out means and variances and so forth . So . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: In fac in fact the on - line normalization that we 're using came from the MSG design , +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . But this was the bad on - line normalization . Actually . Uh . Are your results are still with the bad {disfmarker} the bad {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe , may {disfmarker} No ? With the better {disfmarker} +PhD A: With the O - OLN - two ? +PhD B: No ? +PhD A: Ah yeah , you have {disfmarker} you have OLN - two , +PhD B: Oh ! Yeah , yeah , yeah ! With "" two "" , with "" on - line - two "" . +PhD A: yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Professor D: "" On - line - two "" is good . +PhD A: So it 's , is the good yeah . +PhD B: yeah . Yep , it 's a good . +Professor D: "" Two "" is good ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , "" two "" is bad . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , actually , it 's good with the ch with the good . +Professor D: OK . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . It 's probably something simple uh , i if {disfmarker} if uh someone , you know , uh , wants to play with it for a little bit . I mean , you 're gonna do what you 're gonna do +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but my {disfmarker} my guess would be that it 's something that is a simple thing that could take a while to find . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm . I see , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . {comment} And the other {disfmarker} the results uh , observations two and three , Um , is +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's pretty much what we 've seen . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} what we were concerned about is that if it 's not on the target task {disfmarker} If it 's on the target task then it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it helps to have the MLP transforming it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If it uh {disfmarker} if it 's not on the target task , then , depending on how different it is , uh you can get uh , a reduction in performance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And the question is now how to {disfmarker} how to get one and not the other ? Or how to {disfmarker} how to ameliorate the {disfmarker} the problems . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , because it {disfmarker} it certainly does {disfmarker} is nice to have in there , when it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when there is something like the training data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So , {pause} the {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} Yeah , the reason is that the {disfmarker} perhaps the target {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the task dependency {disfmarker} the language dependency , {vocalsound} and the noise dependency {disfmarker} +Professor D: So that 's what you say th there . I see . +PhD A: Well , the e e But this is still not clear because , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we have enough result to talk about the {disfmarker} the language dependency . Well , the TIMIT network is still the best but there is also an the other difference , the fact that it 's {disfmarker} it 's hand - labeled . +Professor D: Hey ! Um , just {disfmarker} you can just sit here . Uh , I d I don't think we want to mess with the microphones but it 's uh {disfmarker} Just uh , have a seat . Um . s Summary of the first uh , uh forty - five minutes is that some stuff work and {disfmarker} works , and some stuff doesn't OK , +PhD A: We still have uh {pause} this {disfmarker} One of these perhaps ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , I guess we can do a little better than that but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think if you {disfmarker} if you start off with the other one , actually , that sort of has it in words and then th that has it the {pause} associated results . +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: OK . So you 're saying that um , um , although from what we see , yes there 's what you would expect in terms of a language dependency and a noise dependency . That is , uh , when the neural net is trained on one of those and tested on something different , we don't do as well as in the target thing . But you 're saying that uh , it is {disfmarker} Although that general thing is observable so far , there 's something you 're not completely convinced about . And {disfmarker} and what is that ? I mean , you say "" not clear yet "" . What {disfmarker} what do you mean ? +PhD A: Uh , mmm , uh , {comment} I mean , that the {disfmarker} the fact that s Well , for {disfmarker} for TI - digits the TIMIT net is the best , which is the English net . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But the other are slightly worse . But you have two {disfmarker} two effects , the effect of changing language and the effect of training on something that 's {pause} Viterbi - aligned instead of hand {disfmarker} hand - labeled . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . Um . Yeah . +Professor D: Do you think the alignments are bad ? I mean , have you looked at the alignments at all ? What the Viterbi alignment 's doing ? +PhD A: Mmm . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . Did - did you look at the Spanish alignments Carmen ? +PhD B: Mmm , no . +Professor D: Might be interesting to look at it . Because , I mean , that is just looking but um , um {disfmarker} It 's not clear to me you necessarily would do so badly from a Viterbi alignment . It depends how good the recognizer is +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the engine is that 's doing the alignment . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , perhaps it 's not really the {disfmarker} the alignment that 's bad but the {disfmarker} just the ph phoneme string that 's used for the alignment +Professor D: Aha ! +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: The pronunciation models and so forth +PhD A: I mean {pause} for {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} It 's single pronunciation , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha . +PhD A: French {disfmarker} French s uh , phoneme strings were corrected manually +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: so we asked people to listen to the um {disfmarker} the sentence and we gave the phoneme string and they kind of correct them . But still , there {disfmarker} there might be errors just in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the ph string of phonemes . Mmm . Um . Yeah , so this is not really the Viterbi alignment , in fact , yeah . Um , the third {disfmarker} The third uh issue is the noise dependency perhaps but , well , this is not clear yet because all our nets are trained on the same noises and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought some of the nets were trained with SPINE and so forth . So it {disfmarker} And that has other noise . +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Results are only coming for {disfmarker} for this net . Mmm . +Professor D: OK , yeah , just don't {disfmarker} just need more {disfmarker} more results there with that @ @ . +PhD A: Yeah . Um . So . Uh , from these results we have some questions with answers . What should be the network input ? Um , PLP work as well as MFCC , I mean . Um . But it seems impor important to use the delta . Uh , with respect to the network size , there 's one experiment that 's still running and we should have the result today , comparing network with five hundred and {pause} one thousand units . So , nnn , still no answer actually . +Professor D: Hm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the training set , well , some kind of answer . We can , we can tell which training set gives the best result , but {vocalsound} we don't know exactly why . Uh , so . +Professor D: Uh . Right , I mean the multi - English so far is {disfmarker} is the best . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: "" Multi - multi - English "" just means "" TIMIT "" , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So uh That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So . And {disfmarker} and when you add other things in to {disfmarker} to broaden it , it gets worse {pause} uh typically . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Then uh some questions without answers . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training set , um , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: uh , training targets {disfmarker} +Professor D: I like that . The training set is both questions , with answers and without answers . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: It 's sort of , yes {disfmarker} it 's mul it 's multi - uh - purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training s Right . So {disfmarker} Yeah , the training targets actually , the two of the main issues perhaps are still the language dependency {vocalsound} and the noise dependency . And perhaps to try to reduce the language dependency , we should focus on finding some other kind of training targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And labeling s labeling seems important uh , because of TIMIT results . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh . For moment you use {disfmarker} we use phonetic targets but we could also use articulatory targets , soft targets , and perhaps even , um use networks that doesn't do classification but just regression so uh , train to have neural networks that um , um , uh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: does a regression and well , basically com com compute features and noit not , nnn , features without noise . I mean uh , transform the fea noisy features {vocalsound} in other features that are not noisy . But continuous features . Not uh uh , hard targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , that {pause} seems like a good thing to do , probably , not uh again a short - term sort of thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean one of the things about that is that um it 's {disfmarker} e u the ri I guess the major risk you have there of being {disfmarker} is being dependent on {disfmarker} very dependent on the kind of noise and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . f But , yeah . +Professor D: Uh . But it 's another thing to try . +PhD A: So , this is w w i wa wa this is one thing , this {disfmarker} this could be {disfmarker} could help {disfmarker} could help perhaps to reduce language dependency and for the noise part um we could combine this with other approaches , like , well , the Kleinschmidt approach . So the d the idea of putting all the noise that we can find inside a database . I think Kleinschmidt was using more than fifty different noises to train his network , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So this is one {vocalsound} approach and the other is multi - band {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , that I think is more robust to the noisy changes . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So perhaps , I think something like multi - band trained on a lot of noises with uh , features - based targets could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could help . +Professor D: Yeah , if you {disfmarker} i i It 's interesting thought maybe if you just trained up {disfmarker} I mean w yeah , one {disfmarker} one fantasy would be you have something like articulatory targets and you have {pause} um some reasonable database , um but then {disfmarker} which is um {vocalsound} copied over many times with a range of different noises , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} Cuz what you 're trying to {pause} do is come up with a {disfmarker} a core , reasonable feature set which is then gonna be used uh , by the {disfmarker} the uh HMM {pause} system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So , um , yeah . The future work is , {pause} well , try to connect to the {disfmarker} to make {disfmarker} to plug in the system to the OGI system . Um , there are still open questions there , where to put the MLP basically . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: And I guess , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real open question , I mean , e u there 's lots of open questions , but one of the core quote {comment} "" open questions "" for that is um , um , if we take the uh {disfmarker} you know , the best ones here , maybe not just the best one , but the best few or something {disfmarker} You want the most promising group from these other experiments . Um , how well do they do over a range of these different tests , not just the Italian ? +PhD A: Mmm , +Professor D: Um . And y +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: y {pause} Right ? And then um {disfmarker} then see , {pause} again , how {disfmarker} We know that there 's a mis there 's a uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a loss in performance when the neural net is trained on conditions that are different than {disfmarker} than , uh we 're gonna test on , but well , if you look over a range of these different tests um , how well do these different ways of combining the straight features with the MLP features , uh stand up over that range ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real question . And if you know that {disfmarker} So if you just take PLP with uh , the double - deltas . Assume that 's the p the feature . look at these different ways of combining it . And uh , take {disfmarker} let 's say , just take uh multi - English cause that works pretty well for the training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And just look {disfmarker} take that case and then look over all the different things . How does that {disfmarker} How does that compare between the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So all the {disfmarker} all the test sets you mean , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: All the different test sets , +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: and for {disfmarker} and for the couple different ways that you have of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of combining them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . {pause} How well do they stand up , over the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . And perhaps doing this for {disfmarker} cha changing the variance of the streams and so on {pause} getting different scaling {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's another possibility if you have time , yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , so thi this sh would be more working on the MLP as an additional path instead of an insert to the {disfmarker} to their diagram . +Professor D: +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . Perhaps the insert idea is kind of strange because nnn , they {disfmarker} they make LDA and then we will again add a network does discriminate anal nnn , that discriminates , +Professor D: Yeah . {pause} It 's a little strange +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm ? +Professor D: but on the other hand they did it before . +PhD A: Mmm . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Professor D: Um the +PhD A: yeah . And because also perhaps we know that the {disfmarker} when we have very good features the MLP doesn't help . So . I don't know . +Professor D: Um , the other thing , though , is that um {disfmarker} So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we wanna get their path running here , right ? If so , we can add this other stuff . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: as an additional path right ? +PhD A: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the way we want to do {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz they 're doing LDA {pause} RASTA . +PhD A: The d What ? +Professor D: They 're doing LDA RASTA , +PhD A: Yeah , the way we want to do it perhaps is to {disfmarker} just to get the VAD labels and the final features . +Professor D: yeah ? +PhD A: So they will send us the {disfmarker} Well , provide us with the feature files , +Professor D: I see . I see . +PhD A: and with VAD uh , binary labels so that we can uh , get our MLP features and filter them with the VAD and then combine them with their f feature stream . So . +Professor D: I see . So we {disfmarker} So . First thing of course we 'd wanna do there is to make sure that when we get those labels of final features is that we get the same results as them . Without putting in a second path . +PhD A: Uh . You mean {disfmarker} Oh , yeah ! Just re re retraining r retraining the HTK ? +Professor D: Yeah just th w i i Just to make sure that we {pause} have {disfmarker} we understand properly what things are , our very first thing to do is to {disfmarker} is to double check that we get the exact same results as them on HTK . +PhD A: Oh yeah . Yeah , OK . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , I don't know that we need to r +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} Do we need to retrain I mean we can just take the re their training files also . But . {pause} But , uh just for the testing , jus just make sure that we get the same results {pause} so we can duplicate it before we add in another {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +Professor D: Cuz otherwise , you know , we won't know what things mean . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . OK . And um . Yeah , so fff , LogRASTA , I don't know if we want to {disfmarker} We can try {pause} networks with LogRASTA filtered features . +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD A: Mmm . I 'm sorry ? Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! You know , the other thing is when you say comb I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I 'm interrupting . {comment} that u Um , uh , when you 're talking about combining multiple features , um {disfmarker} Suppose we said , "" OK , we 've got these different features and so forth , but PLP seems {pause} pretty good . "" If we take the approach that Mike did and have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , one of the situations we have is we have these different conditions . We have different languages , we have different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different noises , Um {pause} If we have some drastically different conditions and we just train up different M L Ps {pause} with them . +PhD A: +Professor D: And put {disfmarker} put them together . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} What Mike found , for the reverberation case at least , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , who knows if it 'll work for these other ones . That you did have nice interpolative effects . That is , that yes , if you knew {pause} what the reverberation condition was gonna be and you trained for that , then you got the best results . But if you had , say , a heavily - reverberation ca heavy - reverberation case and a no - reverberation case , uh , and then you fed the thing , uh something that was a modest amount of reverberation then you 'd get some result in between the two . So it was sort of {disfmarker} behaved reasonably . Is tha that a fair {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you think it 's perhaps better to have several M L Yeah but {disfmarker} +Professor D: It works better if {pause} what ? +PhD A: Yea +Professor D: I see . Well , see , i oc You were doing some something that was {disfmarker} So maybe the analogy isn't quite right . You were doing something that was in way a little better behaved . You had reverb for a single variable which was re uh , uh , reverberation . Here the problem seems to be is that we don't have a hug a really huge net with a really huge amount of training data . But we have s f {pause} for this kind of task , I would think , {pause} sort of a modest amount . I mean , a million frames actually isn't that much . We have a modest amount of {disfmarker} of uh training data from a couple different conditions , and then uh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} and the real situation is that there 's enormous variability that we anticipate in the test set in terms of language , and noise type uh , and uh , {pause} uh , channel characteristic , sort of all over the map . A bunch of different dimensions . And so , I 'm just concerned that we don't really have {pause} um , the data to train up {disfmarker} I mean one of the things that we were seeing is that when we added in {disfmarker} we still don't have a good explanation for this , but we are seeing that we 're adding in uh , a fe few different databases and uh the performance is getting worse and uh , when we just take one of those databases that 's a pretty good one , it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better . And uh that says to me , yes , that , you know , there might be some problems with the pronunciation models that some of the databases we 're adding in or something like that . But one way or another {pause} we don't have uh , seemingly , the ability {pause} to represent , in the neural net of the size that we have , um , all of the variability {pause} that we 're gonna be covering . So that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping that um , this is another take on the efficiency argument you 're making , which is I 'm hoping that with moderate size neural nets , uh , that uh if we {disfmarker} if they look at more constrained conditions they {disfmarker} they 'll have enough parameters to really represent them . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: So doing both is {disfmarker} is not {disfmarker} is not right , you mean , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I just sort of have a feeling {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i e The um {disfmarker} I think it 's true that the OGI folk found that using LDA {pause} RASTA , which is a kind of LogRASTA , it 's just that they have the {disfmarker} I mean it 's done in the log domain , as I recall , and it 's {disfmarker} it uh {disfmarker} it 's just that they d it 's trained up , right ? That that um benefitted from on - line normalization . So they did {disfmarker} At least in their case , it did seem to be somewhat complimentary . So will it be in our case , where we 're using the neural net ? I mean they {disfmarker} they were not {disfmarker} not using the neural net . Uh I don't know . OK , so the other things you have here are uh , trying to improve results from a single {disfmarker} Yeah . Make stuff better . OK . Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah . And CPU memory issues . Yeah . We 've been sort of ignoring that , haven't we ? +PhD A: Yeah , so I don't know . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: But we have to address the problem of CPU and memory we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , but I li Well , I think {disfmarker} My impression {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you folks have been looking at this more than me . But my impression was that {vocalsound} uh , there was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a strict constraint on the delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: but beyond that it was kind of that uh using less memory was better , and {vocalsound} using less CPU was better . Something like that , +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . So , yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} I don't know . We have to get some reference point to where we {disfmarker} Well , what 's a reasonable number ? Perhaps be because if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's too large or {disfmarker} large or @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , well I don't think we 're {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} completely off the wall . I mean I think that if we {disfmarker} if we have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean the ultimate fall back that we could do {disfmarker} If we find uh {disfmarker} I mean we may find that we {disfmarker} we 're not really gonna worry about the M L You know , if the MLP ultimately , after all is said and done , doesn't really help then we won't have it in . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If the MLP does , we find , help us enough in some conditions , uh , we might even have more than one MLP . We could simply say that is uh , done on the uh , server . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it 's uh {disfmarker} We do the other manipulations that we 're doing before that . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: So I think the key thing was um , this plug into OGI . Um , what {disfmarker} what are they {disfmarker} What are they gonna be working {disfmarker} Do we know what they 're gonna be working on while we take their features , +PhD A: They 're {disfmarker} They 're starting to wor work on some kind of multi - band . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So . Um {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} that was Pratibha . Sunil , what was he doing , do you remember ? +PhD B: Sunil ? +PhD A: Yeah . He was doing something new or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't re I didn't remember . Maybe he 's working with {pause} neural network . +PhD A: I don't think so . Trying to tune wha networks ? +PhD B: Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: I think they were also mainly , well , working a little bit of new things , like networks and multi - band , but mainly trying to tune their {disfmarker} their system as it is now to {disfmarker} just trying to get the best from this {disfmarker} this architecture . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor D: OK . So I guess the way it would work is that you 'd get {disfmarker} There 'd be some point where you say , "" OK , this is their version - one "" or whatever , and we get these VAD labels and features and so forth for all these test sets from them , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then um , uh , that 's what we work with . We have a certain level we try to improve it with this other path and then um , uh , when it gets to be uh , January some point uh , we say , "" OK we {disfmarker} we have shown that we can improve this , in this way . So now uh {pause} um {pause} what 's your newest version ? "" And then maybe they 'll have something that 's better and then we {disfmarker} we 'd combine it . This is always hard . I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used to work {pause} with uh folks who were trying to improve a good uh , HMM system with uh {disfmarker} with a neural net system and uh , it was {pause} a common problem that you 'd {disfmarker} Oh , and this {disfmarker} Actually , this is true not just for neural nets but just for {disfmarker} in general if people were {pause} working with uh , rescoring uh , N - best lists or lattices that come {disfmarker} came from uh , a mainstream recognizer . Uh , You get something from the {disfmarker} the other site at one point and you work really hard on making it better with rescoring . But they 're working really hard , too . So by the time {pause} you have uh , improved their score , they have also improved their score +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: and now there isn't any difference , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: because the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So , um , I guess at some point we 'll have to +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're integrated a little more tightly than happens in a lot of those cases . I think at the moment they {disfmarker} they say that they have a better thing we can {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} e e +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: What takes all the time here is that th we 're trying so many things , presumably uh , in a {disfmarker} in a day we could turn around uh , taking a new set of things from them and {disfmarker} and rescoring it , +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . Yeah , perhaps we could . +Professor D: right ? So . Yeah . Well , OK . No , this is {disfmarker} I think this is good . I think that the most wide open thing is the issues about the uh , you know , different trainings . You know , da training targets and noises and so forth . +PhD A: Mmm . So we {disfmarker} we can for {disfmarker} we c we can forget combining multiple features and MLG perhaps , +Professor D: That 's sort of wide open . +PhD A: or focus more on the targets and on the training data and {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I think for right now um , I th I {disfmarker} I really liked MSG . And I think that , you know , one of the things I liked about it is has such different temporal properties . And um , I think that there is ultimately a really good uh , potential for , you know , bringing in things with different temporal properties . Um , but um , uh , we only have limited time and there 's a lot of other things we have to look at . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it seems like much more core questions are issues about the training set and the training targets , and fitting in uh what we 're doing with what they 're doing , and , you know , with limited time . Yeah . I think {pause} we have to start cutting down . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . And then , you know , once we {disfmarker} Um , having gone through this {pause} process and trying many different things , I would imagine that certain things uh , come up that you are curious about uh , that you 'd not getting to and so when the dust settles from the evaluation uh , I think that would time to go back and take whatever intrigued you most , you know , got you most interested uh and uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and work with it , you know , for the next round . Uh , as you can tell from these numbers uh , nothing that any of us is gonna do is actually gonna completely solve the problem . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So . So , {comment} there 'll still be plenty to do . Barry , you 've been pretty quiet . +Grad C: Just listening . +Professor D: Well I figured that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what were you involved in in this primarily ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} helping out {vocalsound} uh , preparing {disfmarker} Well , they 've been kind of running all the experiments and stuff and I 've been uh , uh w doing some work on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} preparing all {disfmarker} all the data for them to {disfmarker} to um , train and to test on . Um Yeah . Right now , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm focusing mainly on this final project I 'm working on in Jordan 's class . +Professor D: Ah ! +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . Right . What 's {disfmarker} what 's that ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} I 'm trying to um {disfmarker} So there was a paper in ICSLP about um this {disfmarker} this multi - band um , belief - net structure . {comment} This guy did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh basically it was two H M Ms with {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a dependency arrow between the two H M +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: And so I wanna try {disfmarker} try coupling them instead of t having an arrow that {disfmarker} that flows from one sub - band to another sub - band . I wanna try having the arrows go both ways . And um , {vocalsound} I 'm just gonna see if {disfmarker} if that {disfmarker} that better models {pause} um , uh asynchrony in any way or um {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! OK . Well , that sounds interesting . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . Anything to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you wanted to {disfmarker} No . OK . Silent partner in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the meeting . Oh , we got a laugh out of him , that 's good . OK , everyone h must contribute to the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our sound {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound files here . OK , so speaking of which , if we don't have anything else that we need {disfmarker} You happy with where we are ? +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Know {disfmarker} know wher know where we 're going ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think so , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . You {disfmarker} you happy ? +PhD B: +Professor D: You 're happy . OK everyone {pause} should be happy . OK . You don't have to be happy . You 're almost done . Yeah , yeah . OK . +Grad E: Al - actually I should mention {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} {comment} um , about the Linux machine "" Swede . "" +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad E: So it looks like the um , neural net tools are installed there . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: And um Dan Ellis {comment} I believe knows something about using that machine so +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: If people are interested in {disfmarker} in getting jobs running on that maybe I could help with that . +PhD A: Yeah , but I don't know if we really need now a lot of machines . Well . we could start computing another huge table but {disfmarker} yeah , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well . Yeah , I think we want a different table , at least +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +Professor D: Right ? I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's some different things that we 're trying to get at now . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , as far as you can tell , you 're actually OK on C - on CPU uh , for training and so on ? Yeah . +PhD A: Ah yeah . I think so . Well , more is always better , but mmm , I don't think we have to train a lot of networks , now that we know {disfmarker} We just select what works {pause} fine +Professor D: OK . OK . +PhD A: and try to improve this +PhD B: Yeah . to work +Professor D: And we 're OK on {disfmarker} And we 're OK on disk ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's OK , yeah . Well sometimes we have some problems . +PhD B: Some problems with the {disfmarker} +Professor D: But they 're correctable , uh problems . +PhD A: Yeah , restarting the script basically +PhD B: You know . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . Yeah , I 'm familiar with {vocalsound} that one , OK . Alright , so uh , {comment} {vocalsound} since uh , we didn't ha get a channel on for you , {comment} you don't have to read any digits but the rest of us will . Uh , is it on ? Well . We didn't uh {disfmarker} I think I won't touch anything cuz I 'm afraid of making the driver crash which it seems to do , {pause} pretty easily . OK , thanks . OK , so we 'll uh {disfmarker} I 'll start off the uh um connect the {disfmarker} +PhD A: My battery is low . +Professor D: Well , let 's hope it works . Maybe you should go first and see so that you 're {disfmarker} OK . +PhD B: batteries ? +Grad C: Yeah , your battery 's going down too . +Professor D: Transcript uh two {disfmarker} +Grad C: Carmen 's battery is d going down too . +Professor D: Oh , OK . Yeah . Why don't you go next then . OK . Guess we 're done . OK , uh so . Just finished digits . Yeah , so . Uh Well , it 's good . I think {disfmarker} I guess we can turn off our microphones now . +Grad C: Just pull the batteries out . +","Professor D and multiple PhD students and a graduate student discuss various aspects and questions about their ongoing research and experiments. They focus on neural network models, feature extraction, language and noise dependency, and training set targets. It was apparent that more results are needed to draw definite conclusions on the dependency of language and noise. They also highlight that phonetically labeled data like TIMIT yields better results than Viterbi-aligned data. The meeting includes discussions on future work, such as integrating with OGI systems, improving results with different training targets, and addressing CPU and memory issues. The session concludes with a task to read digits, possibly for data collection or system testing." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh fourth meeting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We have to do what ? +Project Manager: Some extra deciding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W what ? Alri alright . We'll see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} I'll show you the notes again . Very interesting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well you'll you two will uh present us your prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then um {disfmarker} I guess that's your bit ? I I didn't s see anything about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} I already uh thought you uh you were {gap} to do that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the you're uh {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll show you how we're going to do with financing this uh design . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's important too . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then we'll evaluate , after after we have redesigned it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bit late . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because uh well we'll see about the costs . Um we'll uh evaluate our p our uh production and then uh we can close . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well the finance uh we'll do later , so um firstly uh {vocalsound} I'll show you the notes . {vocalsound} I don't think it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is . +Project Manager: Oh nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} Alright . This is copy paste . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: From me of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . You had some very strange layout . +Industrial Designer: Well from us all , yeah , from all of us . Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a nice chorus , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We ge we went through the agenda , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and well we had some uh some presentations from you three . And uh I summarised what you said to us . So uh I don't think it's very interesting and go through it again . +Industrial Designer: Repeat it yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} This is what we decided . It's also copy paste from what we made together . So we still know that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And then uh we can we can uh use the time better . Well uh next you two will uh present uh the pot prototype for us . +Industrial Designer: Alright , we both uh will ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or one of us will ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you go and I'll uh supplement you . +Industrial Designer: Alright . If I make mistakes uh you'll uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Correct . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh well this is our design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's pretty uh much uh like uh Mike draw uh drew uh the in the during the last meeting . With uh the different uh perspectives of it . Uh we'll begin uh with the front . We have of course uh the the round shape uh the round uh basic shape . Um with uh the upper part being the front . Th So there's this part um {vocalsound} which is made of hard plastic , the front . And uh we're we're using different colours . Of course for the launch we use the basic ugly colours , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and later we'll put out uh more interesting covers with different patterns and pictures and everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But basically , different colours , bright colours not black , too dark . Fancy colours . {vocalsound} Um then we have uh the lower part {vocalsound} of the of the device . Uh which is of course um part of the back actually , because it's also titanium . You can see it also on the on the on the side view , that only this part is the front , and the rest of it , the under uh the under side uh of it , yeah , the back side and the lower part of the front is of course titanium made of titanium , and has the titanium colour of course , the look . Um then we have uh on back on the front uh the logo in the upper corner , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: uh which is uh made uh which is also part of the back , part of the titanium uh titanium part . +User Interface: Yeah , it's a double R_ , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: It's a double R_ . +Industrial Designer: It's a double R_ . Yeah the logo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {vocalsound} it's very difficult to to draw that in {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh it's difficult to draw so small , but it's our double R_ uh logo is in there . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um so that's the logo in the upper lef uh right corner . Then we have the buttons . Uh it's difficult to draw again the little oval or round {disfmarker} I think oval will be better for the for the d for the different uh channel buttons . +User Interface: Oval yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} uh oval , n those are here . And then we have the m The m +User Interface: Channel up and volume ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the con the the the , yeah , the t volume and the channel controls uh in the middle here . Um um with kind of arrow shapes , which makes it also a bit more exciting than basic round or um uh {vocalsound} uh square buttons . And also here are the two uh buttons we agreed on . We have the Okay button . Oh nei we uh the Okay button's here in the middle of the of the operators , of the channel and uh volume um changers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then we've here the Menu button and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Menu for the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And the video button . The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And of course this low part , this is the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is what we made of it . You can make uh suggestions uh if you want . +Project Manager: Well if I look at it , the side the side view {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , at the back {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we maybe we should finish first uh our talk +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then you can add suggestions . +Project Manager: Oh yeah alright . Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I I don't want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't want to suppress you but n I'll uh finish this uh quick . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um okay I've had everything I guess on the front ? +User Interface: No the back . With the logo and our uh l uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the back . Yeah . {vocalsound} We thought about {disfmarker} Yeah , uh the back is of course totally titanium . {vocalsound} And we thought about the logo big in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Just so again the double R_ . We have then the logo on front and on the back . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's too much +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but you have to say uh say that if you think that way . +User Interface: No I don't think {disfmarker} And the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the company slogan , we thought in a kind of arc shape uh above the logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's basically what we were thinking about , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W +User Interface: And about the side view um {disfmarker} This the front won't be as thick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but again th the the drawing technique makes it very difficult to to really uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I see , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh and uh before I forget . Yeah the the voice , of course , +Project Manager: Well . Yeah I see it . +Industrial Designer: the voice recorder is uh at the bottom . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And you can record it uh using , yeah , the the the back of the f w device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When I look at uh when I look at this side view , I think w when I have that in my hand , it's terrible . +User Interface: Well , it won't be visible . Mm ? +Project Manager: If if you look if if this this is thick , and this is thin , th th then it that it lies over your hands . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? {vocalsound} Well it fits uh it it it it fits the hand , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mean uh the the the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well what what what I what I agree is that when uh when um you have such of uh an arc in the middle , so that the the a the ends and the fronts is a bit thicker , so th then it falls over your hands . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: {gap} If y {vocalsound} If you handle a remote , you you usually don't have your hand straight like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the middle in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have it a bit uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It depends on the size . If it's kinda small , this is is great . But if it's it's larger , then you want to grab it . +Project Manager: And how large is it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the question . +Industrial Designer: That's the question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} Yeah . H What do you suggest I mean we do ? {gap} This was Mike's prototype , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and y you seemed to agreed on it . +Project Manager: Well the sides I haven't seen yet , uh {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: But now you have a totally different {gap} . +User Interface: Well , they lay there all the time . +Industrial Designer: The size ? Yeah well the size doesn't really matter w I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They the the the the the side view , +Industrial Designer: Side ? Uh oh the side ? +Project Manager: we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we we he drew the s the side , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you d you weren't paying attention as usual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well any case , we'll discuss it now . Uh I think uh this is a pretty good uh good idea {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree with the L_C_D_ screen . You have it in your palm like this , and you can watch uh watch the screen . And if you have it li in the middle , your hand might be over it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you you hold it like this . +User Interface: Yeah you you don't you don't grab it , +Industrial Designer: You're not holding it like this or something . +User Interface: you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You , yeah , y How do you call it ? Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well y y y you don't have it like this . +Project Manager: No no no . +Industrial Designer: You have it more like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You you you're using buttons this way , or if you're right-handed , this way . +Marketing: Like you're holding your telephone . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because if you have a screen on it , you wanna look at your screen . +User Interface: Hmm . That way , it it falls into your hand . I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And maybe you can you can grab it a bit higher , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree on this . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I don't think so . That's not uh the point {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the the {disfmarker} Well that's a reason to to to put the L_C_D_ screen uh of course on the upper side , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well f for as far as I can see , three of us agree +Project Manager: Yeah well +User Interface: and only Nils {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh I think uh if you t if you three uh agree then then that's it . +User Interface: But you're the Project Manager , you can make the hard decisions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So uh I c I c +Industrial Designer: If necessary . +Project Manager: Well , we'll we we'll do it like this . +Industrial Designer: But uh are d Can you live with it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , if you think that that's the way it should {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah , y y y y you said it was totally uh unusable . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} No , +Industrial Designer: But do you +Project Manager: when I I my personal taste is that I want it to fall over my hands with a thick {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} In the market uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But d you don't think this is completely unusable I guess . I think . +Project Manager: No not totally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not totally , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} For me , I I wouldn't buy it . Let's say it like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but of course y you are also human . We have to take uh {vocalsound} every everyone into account . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you might be uh {disfmarker} You might be target customer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh who who else thinks like you ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know , +Industrial Designer: Maybe a thousand people , +Project Manager: but that's uh that's that's that's more market research . +Industrial Designer: or a million people . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let it be like this at uh at this moment . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let it be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . So that's that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh any other suggestions ? +Project Manager: No , I think it's great . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But what about the redesigning ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Comes to that later . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um you . Uh c You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Walter . {vocalsound} You can do the evaluation uh criteria on this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're very personal again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's more useful than just {vocalsound} speaking . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , this is just a short intro . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I'm going to do uh the ev evaluation . That's gonna be done at the end of seven point skill criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I made a {disfmarker} I made a few questions on the hand of uh uh the impor most important requirements and trends . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And we have to look if our uh if our device uh is working correctly . Well , I put some questions in a Word file . See if I can find them . Uh uh uh uh mm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I uh think you have all seen uh this kind of evaluation , so uh I don't have to explain it . Uh the first question is , uh is the device good-looking ? Because normal p uh most people thought that um earlier devices were ugly ugly . Seventy five percent of them . So what do we think ? +Industrial Designer: Well d we designed it , so of course we are very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're we're not quite uh objective about this . +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we designed it to be good-looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I know , but {vocalsound} I have to uh evaluate it . So I have to take this questionnaire . +Project Manager: To the customers ? +Industrial Designer: So and we ha we have answer now ? +Project Manager: To potential customers who have to take this questionnaire ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , but I can't can s +Project Manager: Nei . Oh no . I know , I know , I know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} we can go , uh because of the time , uh pretty quick through this . Uh do we find it good-looking ? Well we think so . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We designed it to be good-looking , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh , you know {disfmarker} We dis we di {vocalsound} we designed it to be perfect . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} But we have to be critic critical about it . And I have to uh take all these points and get a average at the end . So we {vocalsound} we know where we stand . +Project Manager: Well , one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: 'Cause th there are some things we might have uh bi might have forgotten . +Project Manager: Well so it's point four . Easy to find t +Industrial Designer: Well l well let's start with the beginning , just one by one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , so {disfmarker} Right . Uh is it good-looking ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I guess uh I think uh {vocalsound} it's uh it's it's um pointed towards the youth of course , uh if you look at the design and and the colours and everything . {gap} +Project Manager: Two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was our target audience of course . But it's also not completely um {vocalsound} uh u unacceptable for older people I guess . Uh it's it's not f a device that {disfmarker} +Marketing: The titanium might be uh f for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's uh for older people , it's it's more that classical look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It you put uh put a black front on it or something . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh no . {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah they like black of course , but I think they'll uh they they think uh the the titanium look of it is also {disfmarker} Uh I think it's also good for them , so I think we both uh have uh consider considered uh the youth and also a bit older people . So I think it's very good-looking +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and not only for youth uh young people . +User Interface: I think we shouldn't discuss any points points that long , because I don't know how how many points there are but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . I totally agree . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the fourteen yeah . +Project Manager: We we have to get get on , go through this . +Marketing: Right , a number please . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to t change channels ? Yeah well I think so . +Marketing: So the last one is seven . +User Interface: Um , no it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Easy to change channels ? +Project Manager: No , not false . It's one . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Well uh two ? Y Well we have to go through it {gap} . +Marketing: Change channels ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's uh as easy as uh can be made . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . You {disfmarker} How can you make it any easier ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} With two huge buttons . +Marketing: The power , channel and volume buttons are easy accessible ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , huge is a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Alright . The uh device is easy to find if you lose it ? +Project Manager: Well , no . We didn't implement anything about that . {gap} +Industrial Designer: D we d we don't we don't have uh that s +User Interface: Well it's easier to find than a a normal black one or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well six then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: because of the colour . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Six ? Right . +Industrial Designer: Well we don't have the device that beeps uh when you lost it or so , +Project Manager: Are the functions easy to learn ? +Industrial Designer: but um um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well w I we do want we have a l f f less of an {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} We have so few functions , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And the device R_S_I_ sensitive ? +User Interface: Well , I should {disfmarker} I think two , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {vocalsound} the voice recorder is n not self learning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Alright . Two ? +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but just do some {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} We we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I th I th I think this is too time consuming . +Industrial Designer: Are we take too much time ? +Project Manager: Uh not not towards you , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: but towards this all . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Th this is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We you have to put it to the customers . +Marketing: Right , R_ R_S_I_ sensitive ? {vocalsound} R_S_I_ sensitive ? +Project Manager: Uh well well a bit , so four . +Marketing: Four . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , very much . One . +Project Manager: One . And features included also one . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh those uh nine uh is the fancy-looking . Uh we still think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Device fancy feeling . +Industrial Designer: And I think fancy-feeling too , +Project Manager: Yeah , cool man . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the titanium back . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Are there enough technology ? Yeah well also we have two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Is the device easy to use ? +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes we have {vocalsound} not many buttons . +Industrial Designer: So well maybe two +Project Manager: Two , three . +User Interface: Two {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: because of the voice recorder . +Marketing: Well , with the uh {disfmarker} Three . +Project Manager: Are the trends about fruit and vegetables implemented ? +User Interface: T +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: Well in our covers , in our fronts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yes , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . One or two . Yeah . +User Interface: One or two , another two . +Marketing: Nah f four I think . +Industrial Designer: Four ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you look at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it doesn't really resemble any fruit , uh that's true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But but we have the the the the the sparkly fruity colours of course . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay {gap} . +User Interface: Well three . +Marketing: Three , alright . +Industrial Designer: And you can also have {gap} front with uh with fruit on it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Is the material attractive ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium is strong , and uh the rest f uh the buttons feel soft . So I would say at least two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: This is the last meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we we have to design much more , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The average will uh come later . +Project Manager: because there was some irritating account manager coming to me . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I knew things uh were going uh too smoothly . +Project Manager: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There had to be some kind of trouble along the way . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Well , look at the costs at this point . +Industrial Designer: My god . +Project Manager: I had to fit it in . +Marketing: It has to go to twelve , right ? +Project Manager: I twelve and a half . +Marketing: Twelve and a half . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Well what costs a lot ? The sample spea costs four . +Industrial Designer: The what ? +Project Manager: The sample speaker , +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Out . +Project Manager: the s sensor . +Marketing: That's easy . Kick it out . +Project Manager: Kick it out . +User Interface: The what ? +Project Manager: We have to go to twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah . The speaker . +Project Manager: The speaker costs far , by far the most . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w tha that's uh that's a bit an optional option . +Marketing: That's some wrong info , man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It it isn't worth it . +Industrial Designer: No . No , d th No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We could make two different versions , one with and one without . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But for this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's just extra . Kick it out . +Project Manager: So , zero . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we go to fourteen point six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium I don't want to lose actually . +Marketing: What more ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Batteries are uh quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_ three ? Yeah hand dynamo ? Y t come on , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh no , no no no . +Project Manager: w a remote control has a battery . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N Uh well we have a bit of a problem I think . +User Interface: Well well why why why should we use a advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well be for the L_C_D_ uh you had said . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Can't we do that with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh that uh y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what what's the difference between simple and regular ? +Industrial Designer: because my information says it . +Project Manager: What's the difference between a simple and a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . Regular is normal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And simple ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well yeah I I read something about it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Elementary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: Your part . +Industrial Designer: I I read something about it , but it wasn't very clear . I d I didn't in include it in my report . +Project Manager: What happens if we do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single {disfmarker} Well you have to use a chip . So {disfmarker} Well you have to use the advanced chip , if you have the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: How much do we win ? One . +User Interface: We we we {disfmarker} Why ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: We have very little options furthermore , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you have a regular chip , you can't have the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Uh well we have to put that in . +Marketing: Yeah , we need to have the {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: That that's a fact . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we could say , well this special colour , that isn't that that isn't there , +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because the the fronts they will buy it . The special colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's only one half . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it d it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's n It's not relevant . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you must change the chip uh back . +Project Manager: then you s then you only have one half left . +User Interface: You must change the chip back , Nils . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we d Then we have to lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: No , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the whole concept is uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know but that's what my information says . I di I didn't uh put uh the advanced chip in there for fun . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} we oh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} You can make you can make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: You have to use it . +Marketing: But if you don't sell +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You you we have an advanced chip-on-print , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we have an L_C_ display . I think that's a bit double . +Project Manager: Yeah ? No , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Y we don't need both . +Project Manager: the advanced chip is needed to have an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Says {gap} . +Project Manager: Says , his {disfmarker} Uh that was in the second meeting , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well uh and what do they mean with curves uh again ? Because we you have uncurved {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I did single curve to {disfmarker} Well you said s double curved , +User Interface: I ? +Project Manager: uh he , +User Interface: {gap} ? +Project Manager: because uh I thought it's a b a bit cheaper already . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can also make it flat . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} No +Industrial Designer: But what what did what do n +Marketing: no no no . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What do they mean with the curves ? +Project Manager: Curved ? +Industrial Designer: Is th Is this a curve ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's curved . +Industrial Designer: One curve ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this is actually two curves , yeah . +Project Manager: No , it's one curve . +Industrial Designer: It's how you {disfmarker} It's how you look at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} One curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One curve , simple . +Industrial Designer: Well then we have a huge problem I think . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: W t we can never get uh below the twelve and a half . +Project Manager: We have a big financial problem . +User Interface: Well we make it more expensive to buy . +Project Manager: Well , then we have two dollars less profit . Come on , if we if we if we make this fifty million , they won't hesitate to uh congratulate us , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If if you make people brand-aware , they are willing to pay more . But {disfmarker} Because we we use a brand at the front and uh I dun at the back . If you have uh lots of uh marketing people might buy . +Industrial Designer: But uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah or we could replace it {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you make it cool to have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By the way , we also have this one . +Marketing: Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: Oh , costs nothing . That's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey but uh I think you'll agree that uh that we that now we have this uh screen , it's it's very uh not practical to ha to consider this after we have designed the entire thing . +Project Manager: Plastic is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes , but I just got it . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's pretty uh l +User Interface: Why why don't we replace the titanium with uh plastic coloured titanium , +Marketing: That is pretty stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: N not very practical . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh titanium-coloured plastic ? +Project Manager: Who ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want to dump the titanium ? +User Interface: Yeah well if we uh we we have to get cheaper . +Project Manager: And make all plastic , then we ha then we're there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But I'm n I don't agree . +User Interface: But then we we've got to uh run through the eval evaluation process again . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th then you have a ugly , stupid , l ugly looking , dumb remote that that no-one would buy . +User Interface: Ah no no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not ugly looking . The looks remain the same . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , I do think so . +Industrial Designer: I think the titanium just uh provided the the tough look and the and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Yes . And the feel , +User Interface: {gap} feel . +Project Manager: and th that it is strong , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the the older people will like it because of that . And because i +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Alright it's not our target audience , but it's it's useful if it's uh important for old people . +Project Manager: We still {vocalsound} we had to focus to get more people from the younger group , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but not lose the one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think the titanium is very important . +User Interface: Yeah alright but then we we won't get there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have a problem , yeah . W But you can better , yeah , dump the L_C_D_ screen then . +User Interface: We can dump the special colour . We l we use plastic . And plastic is already in colour I think . +Marketing: I don't think you should dump the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well what else ? +User Interface: No , nothing . +Industrial Designer: W I mean uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you shou {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Amen . +Marketing: Or change the titanium or dump the L_C_D_ screen . But I think you could better change uh titanium to hard a hard kind of plastic looking like titanium than lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Because you have lots of functions {vocalsound} in it too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I agree with that . So we u we use uh {disfmarker} Unfortunately . Um . Titanium-coloured plastic . +Project Manager: I'll put in the report we that we think that fourteen point one is the l m lowest price you can make a remote for that's trendy d these days . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: So titanium-coloured plastic for the back . +Project Manager: I I'll talk to the managers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no no . W Titanium stays there . +Project Manager: Titanium , I thi I think this this is this is e really good re remote . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is good , +Marketing: Osl {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it it's not good enough . {vocalsound} So we have to use the ditch the titanium , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Ah those {gap} those account managers , what do th d what do they know ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . Riot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do we {disfmarker} Well what do we know ? All we want is a is a fancy design but we don't really consider the costs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +User Interface: No because we did not know anything about it . +Project Manager: One and a half Euros . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah al alright , yeah . +Marketing: If you don't have the money , you can't make it . +Industrial Designer: But we have to deal with it now . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So s If you don't have the money , you can't make it . So this is too expensive . +Project Manager: So ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: Titanium gone and add plastic . +User Interface: Yeah , but then we've got money left . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: And on plastic times two and then we uh are there ? +Project Manager: Well , no it's just uh all plastic . +Industrial Designer: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well alright . Huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh six . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's just free , man . +Industrial Designer: A lot of plastic , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Four . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No two for the to make it clear . +Project Manager: But then we can add the special colour ? As we have money over uh left . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And we still have money left . +User Interface: Yeah . W +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do we want , guys ? +Industrial Designer: I want gold plating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . I want chrome . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I think uh the case is double curved then . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Because you y have that curve +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have we have to uh fill {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you have that curve . +Project Manager: Y Oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , th that that is the problem . +User Interface: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we ha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No no no , but th that's not f um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Safe . +User Interface: Well y we have curves in all directions . +Industrial Designer: Well you can you can double curve , if you don't have titanium . And that we dropped , +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so it it can be done . {vocalsound} But it's pretty funny . We we do want to reach twelve point five . But it isn't bad to to to stay at eleven . +Project Manager: Finance ? +User Interface: I mean , this this ain't titanium , but it looks like it . +Project Manager: Well , guys ? +Industrial Designer: We get more salary , if we make if cheaper than twelve uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to dump our titanium , +Marketing: Shoot . +Project Manager: and we'll hate the managers for that , but now we're going to evaluate our project , of uh project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Objection . +User Interface: Pro project . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} project . {vocalsound} Well , {vocalsound} satisfaction on for example , are we satisfactory about our creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Well I can't get no satisfaction , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh {disfmarker} Well in in if we consider the costs then this is the best , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's terrible that we got uh those costs at the last moment . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: That's really bad . But that that that's that , yeah that's a reason , +Industrial Designer: Its it's uh ridiculous actually , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: And uh unrealistic . +Project Manager: but also for our creativity . We had um nice design , and then you get the cost , and you had to dump all your creativity . +User Interface: Well we we we used our creativity , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: but we just had to adapt it to the costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Which isn't very practical , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} that's the way . +Project Manager: Well , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh leadership next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Terrible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leadership . +User Interface: Leadership ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It was very democratic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah well {vocalsound} I think so also . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I al I I've uh filled that in in a the questionnaires uh each time , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well the managers were terrible . So , with their all their useless requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But o alright , the teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh they they didn't think of the requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the requirements of the user , uh I guess . +Project Manager: No they said , oh we won't d uh we won't uh use teletext , uh we won't use the D_V_D_ . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah but they base that on on the user specifications . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , teamwork ? Well great I think . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , think so too . +Project Manager: Uh well what do you , what did you think about the SMARTboard ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It was a complete disaster . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't like it . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} Uh it it it uh it is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that's a SMARTboard , and that's a digital pen . +Project Manager: It's also a It's both the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No it's other way around . That's the SMARTboard . +Project Manager: I liked this SMARTboard , +Industrial Designer: That's the digital panel . +Project Manager: but I hated that one . +Marketing: This this this isn't a SMARTboard , right ? +Project Manager: Well it's both a SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: That's that's the smart +Marketing: Yeah right . B but you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh they're both SMARTboards . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is just a large t large television . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A televi Yeah . +Marketing: You u you use the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's both a SMARTboard , but this one is used for a desktop , and that one is used to to draw . +Marketing: Yeah , but you ca This is just a beamer function . And here , on this one , you can uh draw the pictures and things like that . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , wi w which one did you like ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Left or right ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That one isn't accurate . {vocalsound} It just doesn't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I I think this is meant by the digital pen . +Marketing: You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Th that is so . +Industrial Designer: Well I didn't use uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I think there's a big distinction between the {vocalsound} these th +Project Manager: We're now talking about the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't need a SMARTboard . +User Interface: {gap} Well we we used that one , +Industrial Designer: Nei It it's much m {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we needed it . I think . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} give me a beamer . That's uh that's much uh much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or install a laptop to a beamer , or have this one standing here in an {disfmarker} I I like it . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Yeah I like that one , but that one is terrible . +Industrial Designer: But uh you can uh {disfmarker} I I sent it about three times now . Uh {vocalsound} a green uh board with uh chalk is much more useful than that thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The simple uh sch school board . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: And uh the digi the digital pen ? Did uh did you like that one ? +Industrial Designer: I I didn't use it . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I wrote things down but I didn't import it into my laptop . +Project Manager: I used it uh just to check it out , but uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You you can't send that to anyone , because you you've scrabbled something on a page for yourself , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} It isn't practical . Right . +Project Manager: and then you're going to send it , yeah . Well , no . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} But also y you write things down . And i you can also bring your your your note block . +Marketing: Your notepad . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So what's the what's the th what's the point of importing it into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's , no , it it's useless . +User Interface: Well I I drew this . {gap} Mm . And I made a mistake . But it it would have been uh useful , if I I could show this on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah alright . For drawings , +Project Manager: For drawings , yes . +User Interface: Yeah for drawings . +Industrial Designer: but not for personal notes . I think that's not very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} N notes mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I mean {vocalsound} you can bring your paperwork along and p Well of course if you have a lot of paper {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it might be useful for drawings . I I agree on that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you've {disfmarker} If you've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But for notes , it i you you have to put that in a strict {disfmarker} Uh you have to put a name , standard date , and all those things . And notes uh for a meeting are very strict . So if you uh were to write them down for yourself , and then put that in your computer , you still have to type it over to Word . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it doesn't d doesn't have any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: That Stefan use . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh d this option is only useful if you've got a lot of paperwork . {vocalsound} You can't {disfmarker} It's not very uh ni Yeah well a lot of documents are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . It's it's only useful if you have to draw something . +User Interface: Yeah . But then uh it's really useful , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Alright . Um etcetera ? Well uh the laptops ? +Industrial Designer: Mu Yeah right . +Project Manager: Of course great . +Marketing: Yeah , great . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can we keep them ? Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: B by my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wireless uh wireless things . +User Interface: Thanks Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Other uh things we used here ? I hated the cameras , I hated the microphones . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well these chairs , man . {vocalsound} Really great . +Industrial Designer: Well did you really uh {disfmarker} Did you really take uh take those in account ? {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} half of time I didn't notice they were there . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No . I haven't looked w one time directly at the camera . {vocalsound} I don't care about it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we shouldn't talk about that . +User Interface: Well I did . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} this is a realistic environment . +Project Manager: Well w why not ? Uh etcetera {gap} {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} N new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What kind of ideas for n a future schedule {vocalsound} {disfmarker} What ? {vocalsound} For future um meetings {vocalsound} you have got ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I missed uh the option to uh to email , +Marketing: Communicate in between . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Chatting and emailing . +User Interface: Email or chat or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But yeah . W well th that's just the the environment they set us up f with . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but that's one n new idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Well , new ideas found by this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Not . Nothing . +Marketing: Well , more more information in the beginning . +Project Manager: We don't want this . We hate this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Digital pen is useless . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , for drawings . +Industrial Designer: Well , for drawing for drawings . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . So it isn't useless . +Project Manager: But uh two t But uh th then you have to have a lot of drawings , because if I had a company and I'm going to uh buy those expensive huge expensive uh things , I and I have to w pay those uh papers uh that are expensive , I'm not going to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Marketing: For people who uh sketch th the whole day , I can imagine that it's useful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th then still they they they should have a a nice graphics programme on the laptop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's still an expensive uh expensive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because this is huge +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh this v very very uh expensive paper . +User Interface: Well you you can't you can't draw on a laptop like you like you paint of or draw with your hand . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: With the mouse it is {disfmarker} No . {gap} +Industrial Designer: But if w Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well and if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mouse is ju just isn't working if you're sketching . +User Interface: Uh indeed . +Industrial Designer: And but what if uh maybe this this board uh SMARTboard is malfunctioning or someone . But suppose it was working correctly , what uh would it be useful then , if it wasn't off all the time ? {vocalsound} A +Project Manager: Well no . I hated to draw like that . You you can't draw anything uh neat . +Industrial Designer: Really ? +Marketing: Yeah , but he's saying if it is correct , and you can draw very , {vocalsound} yeah , very precise {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Anything you want . Any b b Yeah . L li li +Project Manager: I if it if it would be perfect following . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th th then still it's it's it's very expensive uh towards a a just a green {gap} uh {gap} school board . +Industrial Designer: Well it isn't , but maybe that thing is uh is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , mu +Industrial Designer: Yeah , board , a school board , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but but then you can uh save it in instantly , and and and re-use it , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I it has {disfmarker} It is useful . Yeah . +Marketing: It saves time . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This uh if it works correct , maybe this thing this thing is just malfunctioning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh if we get in uh if we get another one and you make sure it does work , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think then it's pretty useful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh yeah you can draw t things quickly and uh clearly for anyone uh in the discussion room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can save it immediately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , they are now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: It is . So , congratulations crew . +Industrial Designer: Did you type that ? +User Interface: Hmm . Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can go to the bar and uh with our {vocalsound} newly earned money . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Finally my beer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's it I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I don't know how long we still have . {vocalsound} I dunno how long uh we had for this last meeting . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe till four o'clock or something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well dunno . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah , it is a bit uh {disfmarker} Well we still have to make the end report and uh all those things . {gap} I have to do that . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Di did you um save this one in the folder ? +Marketing: You better get started . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Can you do that ? +User Interface: No . No no no no . +Industrial Designer: No we must save this thing , yeah . In the shared map map . +User Interface: But Nils you've got some work left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what you have to do . +Industrial Designer: Map , is it a good word ? The folder , yeah . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I have to go to a physiotherapy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it worked . Two times quick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it is useful , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} It is handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is nice . +Industrial Designer: No but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh great , man . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna buy one buy one for my bedroom . +Industrial Designer: Radical . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: D design . +Industrial Designer: Do you believe it yourself ? +Project Manager: S Oh . He saved them all ten . Well alright . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they they wanted everything we produced , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They also want to see my cat and his rabbit , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My big bird . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your big beautiful bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where is this {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe the pen is just uh uh broken and the board isn't . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of or the other way around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you are broken . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so too . +User Interface: I think you have we have to make clear to her that we are ready . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know . I think she's listening . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I also think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who is she you're talking about ? +Project Manager: She already knows . She ? Big brother . +Industrial Designer: Oh you mean our uh coach , our f personal coach . +Project Manager: Our manager . +Industrial Designer: Is she also our accountant ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is she responsible for sending that information so late ? Oh . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +User Interface: Close your laptop . +Industrial Designer: Because then we have to confront her with our {disfmarker} +User Interface: So she can see we're ready . +Marketing: I feel watched . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: Yeah . Let's take this remote into uh production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we couldn't because of the costs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That that's the title of our uh end document . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: That that's our new slogan . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We couldn't put the fashion into the electronics . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Blame our accountants . +Marketing: Do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a nice title . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we couldn't , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Very catching . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well I th Yeah . +Marketing: I'm sure management would like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: She's on the move . +Project Manager: I'm going to resign after this project anyway , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","This conversation involves a project team discussing final decisions and evaluations of a prototype design. The Project Manager asks the User Interface (UI) and Industrial Designer to present their prototype, which has a contemporary design aimed at younger audiences with the potential to appeal to older consumers due to its classical titanium look. + +The team discusses various features, materials, and colors for the product, working through details like the logo placement and button shapes. There's a focus on design elements like hard plastic, titanium, bright colors, an LCD screen, and logo designs. They try to ensure the device is good-looking and easy to use with accessible buttons and a user-friendly interface. + +They encounter issues with costs. The Project Manager brings up concerns about financing the design, compelling the team to consider alternatives to expensive materials and features to meet a specific price target. This leads to debates about reducing costs by changing materials and possibly sacrificing some design elements, like the titanium back for titanium-colored plastic, to stay within budget. + +Throughout the conversation, the team references the use of a digital SMARTboard, expressing mixed feelings about its functionality for note-taking and drawing. Near the end, they roughly evaluate the project, addressing their satisfaction with creativity, leadership, teamwork, technology, and the client's requirements. + +They conclude with a discussion on how the product could have been better if not for the budget constraints and briefly touch upon the future of the project, with a hint of resignation and cynicism towards management. + +In summary, the team discusses the prototype's design, debates cost-cutting measures to meet budget constraints, evaluates project dynamics and tools used, and ends on a skeptical note about management's handling of the project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies, and I'm very pleased to welcome Angela Burns, who is substituting for Suzy this morning. We've also received apologies from Dawn Bowden. Can I also welcome Siân Gwenllian to the meeting? Siân is joining us from her constituency office via video-conference. Can I ask Members if they've got any declarations of interest, please? Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Apologies. I'm currently registered as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, although I haven't done any work for them for some time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. We'll move on, then, to item 2 this morning, which is our evidence session on the higher education new academic year allocations. I'm very pleased to welcome David Blaney, who is chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and Bethan Owen, who is deputy chief executive of HEFCW. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions are from Angela Burns. +Angela Burns AM: Good morning. Thank you very much, indeed. I just wanted to talk about, really, the financial sustainability of the higher education sector because, as we know, there's been all sorts of things going on in the press. So, can I just start with, actually, quite a technical question and ask you what the financial indicators look like for the universities here in Wales, and are there particular indicators that are really flashing warning signals to you? +Dr David Blaney: Well, shall I just start with a couple of contextualising comments and Bethan can come in then with some detail? It's undeniably the case there are financial challenges facing our universities. They result from three main causes: one is the impact of the demographic dip of 18-year-olds, which is deeper and longer in Wales than it is elsewhere in the UK. There are increased pension costs and, actually, increased costs generally. And, of course, we also have current uncertainty as a result of the Augar review in England, and whether that might play into Wales, and also Brexit. These challenges are not unique to Wales; the majority of the UK universities are actually taking out cost one way or another. So, this is not a Welsh issue. Before the Diamond review of fees and funding in Wales, there was a pre-existing funding gap in resource between England and Wales, and even now, that's still the case. So, Welsh higher education institutions are approximately £40 million worse off than they would be in the English system. That's a challenge, and that is a result from a political decision to invest in students, and that's fine. The money's gone into the system but it hasn't gone into universities, necessarily. So, these are serious challenges for institutions to manage, but I think it is a managed situation. We're not seeing a crisis; we are seeing some real challenges, and there is a distinction, I think, between—. We have to understand, though, that taking out cost to balance the books has a detrimental effect on the capacity. Obviously it impacts on the people who lose their jobs immediately, but there's a medium to longer term impact on the capacity of the system to deliver for Wales. They are taking out capacity; they're not cutting at fat now, they're cutting out core capacity. And so, the range of the curriculum, the range of research and innovation, the range of the contribution that universities can make will be diminished by that. And against that backdrop, the introduction of the Diamond reforms is hugely important—delivery of that is going to be really important—and we are really pleased to see the Minister able to meet her commitments in respect of that. The Diamond money is coming in. This forthcoming year will be the first year we see an increase in the resource, through us, to higher education. And the projections in future years are better still, and that will be extremely important. The performance of the sector is very good; we had the national student survey results out yesterday. Wales is still the best in the UK, which is excellent. We have the best impact from research in Wales across the UK. So, all of that is very positive, but that is also being done at some cost. There are some very tired staff in universities, and we've seen some stuff in the press recently about some of the impact of stress there as well. +Angela Burns AM: Can I bring you back to the financial element of that? Can I just ask a question: what are the university reserves looking like at present? +Dr David Blaney: Here, I refer to my learned friend. +Bethan Owen: The reserves are a measure. There's a difference between the distributable reserves—I don't have those numbers before me, but looking at reserves, what is more important are those reserves that are available as cash or liquid cash. So, universities have reserves, but a large amount of that is tied up in their estates, so they're not immediately realisable. So, one of the key measures that we're looking at, which is even more important than surpluses and deficit, is the operating cash that our universities are generating at the moment. When we look at operating cash in 2017-18, they were generating, as a percentage of income, about 7.6 per cent, which contrasts with nearly 10 per cent for the same year for English institutions. And that represents their capacity to generate surplus cash to meet their costs, which now, increasingly, include the costs of servicing their borrowings. So, again, because capital funding has not been as available to universities as it was, they've invested in their estates and that's largely been funded by borrowings. The costs of those borrowings have to be met on an annual basis, so that's becoming an increasing proportion of the operating cash that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: I just asked that question because I know that about four years ago, the universities were sitting on substantial reserves and were less than keen to deploy them back into actually using them for the students—it was more about building up the war chest, if you like, of the universities. And I just really wanted to have an understanding of how that picture might have changed over the last four years and are they actually skinnier cats now, rather than before. +Bethan Owen: We can get you that analysis, but even four years ago, I think the definition of exactly what's meant by reserves, it's really important to look at what are distributable reserves as opposed to the assets that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: Yes, I do understand the difference. +Bethan Owen: And, there are also differences in the way that universities have secured funding for investing in their estates. So, for example, Cardiff University have had a bond rather than borrowing, which you draw down as you're spending. So, in the short term, the reserves of Cardiff will appear as though they have significant cash balances, but all of those are restricted for investment in the estate and, over the next two or three years, will be utilised for that. +Angela Burns AM: So, overall, you're painting a picture of a sector that's under a significant degree of financial stress, and this is obviously using your key financial indicators. Do you monitor each and every university, or do you wait for them to come back and tell you what their situation is? +Bethan Owen: We monitor, we receive forecasts, five-year forecasts, and we meet frequently with all our universities now. It varies, depending on the risks of the universities, as to how frequently we meet, but we're actually meeting with every university because even the forecast that we received last July, the changes, even in the 12-month period, are significant enough for us to need a better understanding of what the latest position is. The forecasts, if I just run through—. We had a sector that, in 2017-18, had a deficit. Although it had a turnover and income of £1.5 billion, which had increased, nonetheless it had a small deficit of 0.4 per cent of income in 2017-18, which was an improvement on the deficit the year before of 1.7 per cent, but notably, again, the sector in England were looking at surpluses of 3 per cent to 4 per cent in the same period. The forecasts that we had this time last year were indicating that, for 2018-19, we should have a sector that's roughly in a break-even position, but that has to be caveated with waiting for new forecasts in July, where there will have to be a reflection of the pension costs, and there have been significant changes in pension costs, both for the teachers' pension scheme and the universities' superannuation scheme as well, and those will be significant costs that universities have to build into their forecasts at a time when their income, certainly their fee income, is not increasing, and that is the challenge. +Angela Burns AM: Are we going to lose any universities in the next couple of years? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so. As I said earlier on, we're not seeing a crisis, we're seeing really challenging circumstances for institutions to manage. At the moment, our sense is they are managing them, so one of the things we try to do is to make sure that, insofar as we can see it, we are making sure that the institutions are alert to the challenges they're facing, and are actually engaging those challenges properly, and we are seeing that at the moment. So I think what we will see if the pressure continues unabated is more costs being taken out, so more jobs being lost, more capacity being lost, but that's not the same as falling over. I don't see people falling over. There is always the possibility of structural change within the sector, and that might be one of the solutions that institutions think about, but it's not a policy position, and it's not always a good short-term response to crisis anyway, actually. But I think, as I say, we're in a managed situation, but the challenges are quite acute. But I don't see an institution falling over in the foreseeable future. +Angela Burns AM: When you talk about structural change, are you referring to the fact that certain offshoots or divisions might close? I bring this up because I'm the Assembly Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and I have had multiple representations from students, and their parents, who are about to go to Lampeter and who've been told that courses are being restructured, there's a massive staff loss, and they have concerns about whether the three-year commitment they're about to make to a course is going to be able to be sustained. So I am trying to drill down a little bit, because I think it's only fair for the students to know what they're up against, and also it's a bit like in the great depression—you can start a run on something, can't you? Because if enough people believe it, then suddenly enough people will stop going to what is an excellent little university, really top-quality in medieval literature, in archaeology. And I'm just talking about one, but I know there are problems in other universities around Wales, so I just wondered if you could comment on that and also what processes you as HEFCW might have in place to protect any student who does find themselves in a situation where their course appears to be disappearing before their eyes. +Dr David Blaney: So, there's quite a lot in that question, actually. Let me try not to forget any of the elements. First of all, your comment about causing a run is a serious consideration. So, if we look at the debate that happened in the Senedd last week, from my reading of the transcript, it was actually quite a balanced debate where pretty much every contributor made reference to the contribution that higher education is making. There was reference to the national student survey scores, and in many ways Wales is the best place in the UK to come and be a student, because you are looked after properly in Wales. But there was also a perfectly legitimate exploration of whether or not there's a crisis, and if you look at the way in which that was represented in the media, the crisis bit stuck and the rest of it didn't. At the point where the sector is trying very hard to recruit students, it's really quite unhelpful that you get that sort of representation. So we do need to make sure, I think, all of us, that we try to avoid a situation where there can be media amplification of a problem that's not actually as acute as the media are portraying it, and that is very harsh. I'm not being critical of the political process here, but it has ripples and we do need to be careful that we don't start a run on this. In terms of the specifics at Lampeter, we understand that there are no plans to close any of the departments, and there certainly will not be plans to pull the rug out from under continuing students. That is just not what institutions do. So there's an absolute obligation on them to meet their commitments, and that's a contractual obligation anyway, so it's a legal obligation. But we also have a quality machinery that we operate where we would expect institutions to be able to demonstrate that they've put in place appropriate arrangements to ensure that students can finish their programmes of study. So they're not going to be recruiting students to programmes that they're not planning to continue—they just are not going to do that. And if you think about it in a market context, it would be suicidal for a university to treat their students like that. +Angela Burns AM: But I have to ask these questions because the auditor was very clear that there was a material uncertainty in Trinity Saint David's financial plans. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I understand that, so let’s come back to the material uncertainty. [Interruption.] No, I understand, and that's fine. What I'm hoping to try and express is that we have absolute confidence that the institutions will not do the dirty on their students. They will look after their students and if they're recruiting to programmes, they are recruiting to programmes that they are planning to run, and run through to completion. And the expectations that we place on them in terms of our quality assurance machinery is precisely that—when they are engaged in portfolio change, they have to look after the interest of the students that they currently have. In terms of our oversight and monitoring, our primary consideration, again, is the interest of the students. They are the people who have, in many ways, least influence over what happens in terms of the way an institution is managed. Although, they do have a voice and, actually, the arrangements for the student voice in Wales are, again, better than elsewhere in the UK. But, nonetheless, we do not wish to see students becoming innocent victims of difficulties of management and financing. And so that is our primary consideration when we're looking at these institutions. Our institutional risk review process is fundamentally designed to make sure that institutions are grappling with their problems before they become a crisis. So, we have machinery, which has 70/80 different factors and hundreds of questions that we ask twice a year, to interrogate the performance of the institutions and to make sure that we are seeing them managing the issues that they're facing. So, it's not the challenges you face, it's the way you face your challenges—it's a cliché—and, at the moment, they are managing them, but if we were in any way concerned that they weren't, the people who are most at risk in that context are the students and we will be intervening to make sure that they were cited, and we do intervene when we have to. +Angela Burns AM: Well, following on from what you said, I've just got two really specific technical questions, then, to ask, because you said that you look across the whole scope to make sure that they are meeting all of their correct liquidity ratios and so on. So, considering how much is invested in their estates, are you happy that each university's estates strategy and its financing is prudent and has appropriate governing-body oversight in place? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, so the estates strategies that institutions operate are overseen by either the full governing body or relevant sub-committees in respect of every institution, so there is proper governance oversight. And in all of those instances, there is staff and student engagement as well in the strategic approach on estates. So, the machinery is in place— +Angela Burns AM: Because it's the big thing that drives most of university borrowing, isn't it? +Dr David Blaney: Indeed, it is. +Angela Burns AM: So, if our universities are on a sticky wicket, we just need to know that the borrowing that they're undertaking is absolutely prudently assessed and is appropriate. So, as long as you're content, if I can hear you say that—[Laughter.] +Dr David Blaney: Okay. We're content on two fronts: one is that the governance machinery within the institutions is structured appropriately to look at that, but also that if the institutions are wanting to engage in anything other than relatively trivial borrowing, they have to get our consent as well. And what we don't do is second-guess everything, but what we do do is make sure that the governing body, or its relevant committees, have been asking the right questions. So, there are two bits to this. +Angela Burns AM: And then—sorry. +Bethan Owen: Can I just add to that, then? +Angela Burns AM: Yes, of course. +Bethan Owen: In asking for the forecasts, we have reinforced this year the importance of universities looking at different scenarios. So, to be looking at the demographic and maybe in the past, where there's potentially been growth in the system and universities have built that into their forecast, we have explicitly asked this year that we are provided—not just the governing body—with the scenario where there is no growth in the income. That's not the core forecast, but a scenario, so that it's quite clear how reliant the forecasts are on that growth, and if that growth doesn't come through, what the contingency plans are for ensuring that all the cost commitments can be met. And we should probably just differentiate between—we have a role before borrowings are entered into, but all the best forecasts in the world can never quite predict, certainly what's happened in the last two years, probably, in universities. So, there are significant borrowings that are now committed to and the key measures we are looking at are universities' capacity to meet their covenants and their repayments under those borrowings, because that's essential for maintaining their liquidity. +Angela Burns AM: Which actually, neatly, thank you, brings me to my last question, which is: have any universities broken those loan covenants or been close to breaking them, unable to pay their borrowings as and when they fall due? +Bethan Owen: There was a significant change in accounting standards in 2015, financial reporting standard 102, so most universities had to renegotiate their covenants, but it was because the accounts were looking very different. The accounting standards brought about changes in how income was recognised and how some service concession arrangements, largely student accommodation arrangements, and pension costs, significantly, were recognised in the accounts. So, most universities have had to renegotiate covenants, but we're not aware of any who've had to renegotiate due to covenant breaches, other than one which the University of Wales Trinity Saint David disclosed in their financial statements—that they did need to renegotiate their financing arrangements, which they have done earlier this year, and they have now negotiated new covenants. It's a core part of financial management in universities now that you manage your relationship with your lender as well as with us. Breaching covenants in themselves is different to doing that with your lender being unaware and the factors being within your control. So, again, from that perspective, we have the covenants built into our forecasts, we require the forecasts to show how the university are planning to be within their covenants. The nature of those covenants vary, but most of them require a measure of cash flow, a ratio between the cash generated and the cost of debt, so there is close monitoring that is required because of the borrowing in the system, as well as our ongoing monitoring as well. +Angela Burns AM: Thank you, Bethan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just before we move on to Hefin David, can I just ask you what your view, then, is on the statement included by auditors in the accounts of Trinity Saint David that there is material uncertainty? +Bethan Owen: Yes, I'll pick up on that. The material uncertainty largely relates—there is a note in the accounts that explains the factors that are being taken into account, but it largely relates to some significant cash receipts that have been subject to timing delays and the fact that the timing of these is essentially outside the control of the institution. The main delay relates to the receipt of funding for the Egin project, which was due to be received from the Swansea city deal. That funding has been delayed, but the sums due to the university are still due to the university—it's the issue of the timing of those receipts that is causing a cash pressure. Receipt of that funding would certainly reduce the cash flow pressure at the university at the moment. Just in terms of cash flows, all universities have to ensure that they are maintaining enough cash in their system to meet their payments as they fall due. Most of their costs are incurred on a monthly basis, staff costs in particular, but the income flows into universities are now less regular. In days gone by, that funding would largely flow from us and that would also come on a monthly basis. The funding from the Student Loans Company now, for example, comes in chunks. A quarter of that money comes in in October, a quarter in February, and the majority of it, half of it, doesn't come into the university in cash until May. So, that's quite a different cash management scenario for universities to manage; it requires holding cash balances to do it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before I bring Hefin in, we're going to need to have a bit of agility, as Dai Lloyd would call it, in our questioning and our answers if we're going to cover the ground that we need to cover. So, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How can we be assured that governance arrangements across the eight institutions are sufficiently rigorous but also consistent? +Dr David Blaney: So, the first point to make, of course, is that universities are autonomous, as you know— +Hefin David AM: I've just written 'independent and autonomous'. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, all of that. And they are charities and so on, so they have expectations in respect of that in any case. The university governing body obviously is an important part of the machinery, particularly in terms of generating constructive challenge for the executive within universities. The governing bodies all are expected to behave in a way that is consistent with the guidance produced by the Committee of University Chairs, the CUC guide, which identifies good practice. So, it’s a higher education code of governance and all Welsh universities work to that code. That code is itself up for review at the moment. So, that is an opportunity for that to be strengthened. Just in terms of governing bodies, it's also important that governing bodies engage in a process of continual refreshing, because that gives you a greater variety of perspectives, which is important. But it’s also important they have people who understand the higher education business as well as from other contexts. Getting that mix right is important. As it happens at the moment, there are also issues about ethnicity and gender balance. Half the chairs of Welsh university governing bodies are female. Half the vice-chancellors are female. That’s a positive position for Wales to be in. But I think our view would be that when you get an increase in the contextual pressures that we’ve been discussing already this morning, the role of the governing body actually becomes even more significant. So, we have encouraged the sector, both the chairmen of the university councils, but also the vice-chancellors, to engage in a process of an independent review of governance in Wales. We’ll be alongside that. We’ll be supporting that. But, actually, it’s important that they own it. And it hasn’t been hard for us to encourage that—they have been keen to take this opportunity to take stock. The Welsh higher education system is part of a UK system—they don’t want to be a million miles away from the rest of the UK in terms of expectations, but there is scope in Wales, given the scale of the sector, to actually construct something that is more challenging, I think, in terms of expectations, than might be the common denominator across the UK, and maybe some more exemplification. Importantly, in this exercise, we are not just interested in governance process. It’s going to be quite hard to do this, but I’m very keen that we engage—and the sector are up for this—in governance culture, because, actually, you can do process checks and you’ll have the right structure of committees and have the right sort of papers going, but, in the end, it’s the dynamic within that room and who’s asking which questions and how well informed they are, and whether it's an open culture or is it a defensive culture—these are really what influences the quality of decision making. +Hefin David AM: And how different are those cultures across institutions? +Dr David Blaney: I think it’s very hard to say. We don’t sit in the governing bodies of those institutions. Very occasionally we get to observe one. Typically, that’s at a point where there are sufficient difficulties going on that we feel that we need to— +Hefin David AM: Do you have the option to observe at any point? +Dr David Blaney: We can't insist, I don't think. +Bethan Owen: We can ask to. +Dr David Blaney: We can ask. But in the main, actually, our presence would change the dynamic of that anyway, so I'm not sure that's necessarily helpful. But we are keen to see what we can achieve with the sector in addressing these issues of what constitutes constructive challenge. +Hefin David AM: I take from that that there might be different approaches in different institutions. Is your aim to see consistency in the same approaches, then? +Dr David Blaney: I think we’d like to see a consistent minimum set of expectations. I think there are differences, because there are people involved. In the end, it’s about personalities, it’s about people’s background and it’s about their knowledge. And we have a role to play in this as well, so we have a toolkit that we produce for governors, which, essentially, is a set of information that locates their university in the context of the UK, across a number of factors. So, if they had been told something that is not perhaps as true as it might be by the executive, they can see that in the data. Whether that toolkit needs a refresh—I’m sure it probably does, it’s been there for a while now—. So, part of that is what information we can provide to help governing bodies be properly informed as well. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and this is the independence and autonomy thing. This is quite distant from Government—unlike other institutions, where you can prescribe some of these approaches. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and in the end I don't think there's any pushback from the sector in terms of wanting to operate in accordance with best practice. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and I totally defend independence and autonomy. +Dr David Blaney: Absolutely. The challenge is all of us being clear what constitutes best practice. +Hefin David AM: So, what about risk appetite? Do you feel that any governing bodies are exhibiting what might be considered to be an imprudent risk appetite? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so, and this manifests itself in two ways. So, we would see this coming through in forecasts, and we would see it coming through in requests for borrowings, predominantly. Actually, we'd see it in other ways as well. Our links into institutions are many and various, and we have our formal stuff, but we all have links into institutions that are informal and we—. One of the beauties of the scale of the sector in Wales is we can see the institutions in a way that they can't hope to in England. It's just completely different. And so we would see it in other ways. But we have, in some instances, I think it's fair to say, helped institutions to think again about some of their aspirations. So, where we've seen things and we think, 'That just looks ridiculously optimistic,' we've just asked the questions. We don't say, 'No, you can't do that,' because they are autonomous, they make the decisions, but we try to make sure that they're asking the right questions. +Hefin David AM: So, would you see that governing bodies are falling short in doing that themselves, in that, where they become strategic decisions that require due diligence, are the governing bodies themselves presenting that challenge? Or the fact you've just said that, does that suggest to us that, actually, they are falling short? +Dr David Blaney: I think there's a mixture of things going on. We have a slightly different perspective and we have a perspective that is very intimately informed in terms of how the institution is performing. So, you have a governing body with a range of perspectives, and you will also have people who are very committed and very enthusiastic about the institution, and just occasionally it's helpful to get a slightly external perspective on these things. So, I don't think it's a shortfall as such, but I just think— +Hefin David AM: The kind of honest broker role, kind of. +Dr David Blaney: The machinery depends on having a body like HEFCW doing some of that role, and the people who lend money to institutions are absolutely clear about that. So, we have relationships with the banks; they come and see us every now and again—typically not to talk about individual clients but just to talk about what we do and how we do it. Interestingly, for example, when Michael Barber got up before Christmas and said there will be no bail-outs of universities, we had banks on the phone to us within a couple of days, wanting just to talk about how it is in Wales and is it still how it used to be. So, they are very keenly aware of what we do. So, it's not really a governance failure; it's just that the machinery includes us. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's important. And one of the things, from a distance—I mean, I've been involved in different ways in an institution, and looking at the institutions from a distance. There are people, as you say, involved, and people always make the difference in different cultures. Do you find that the relationships between executive teams and governors is effective, and are they sufficiently robust and challenging as well? Those executive permanent staff and the governors—is there challenge there? +Dr David Blaney: I would say, in the main, yes. Occasionally, we help the governors to ask the right questions, so occasionally that external perspective we've just discussed is helpful in that regard. Actually, there are times when there are tensions between the executive and governing bodies, inevitably—that's not something that's remarkable—and we can feel that as well. We have conversations with both governing bodies and executives. +Hefin David AM: And that can become apparent from a public point of view as well—you know, media reports and—. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, sometimes these things can spill, and the governing bodies also include student representation, staff representation, who are typically union reps, and so, you know, there are all sorts of—. I'm not in any way saying that people are indiscreet, but there are all sorts of interests that are sitting around that table that have to be managed within a governance context. So, sometimes it can spill. And these tensions are not all-out war, but there are sometimes differences of view and they have to be worked through, and that's governance working properly, I think. +Hefin David AM: Okay, which is—some of the work you've suggested will help towards that. +Dr David Blaney: Yes. +Hefin David AM: And a last question: you've identified one university as high risk, five as medium, and two as low in the short to medium term. You're obviously not going to tell us which, but what I'm interested in is the direction of travel, and whether those that are 'medium'—are they at any point at risk of becoming 'high' in the near future? +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that the direction of travel is that we're seeing an increased risk profile in the sector in Wales, and it's about the financial pressures that we've already discussed this morning. And that is why the efforts that the Minister has gone to to secure the Diamond settlement, and, indeed, other bits of money now and again, are so important. So, she's doing what she can, and that's really good, but we always knew that, between the point of the Diamond recommendations being made and the full implementation, there was going to be a valley to cross. The new machinery costs more as you phase out the old as well. So, the amount of funding was always going to be under pressure; there's a demographic dip, and there are the other contextual factors we've discussed. We always knew there was going to be a valley. And the institutions have been working very hard to try not to take cost out now that they really don't have to take out, because they don't want to reduce capacity, which they'll struggle to recover again when the financial position improves. So, they are seeing deficits, which are managed deficits, where they're spending more than their income in order just to keep the capacity in. So, they're being as responsible as we could expect them to be in this. +Hefin David AM: And, if you're back in a year or two's time, the next few years, are we confident that there won't be more in the high-risk category? You said you don't see collapse, but are we confident there won't be more in the high-risk category? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think what I would always say about this process is that it doesn't guarantee 100 per cent accuracy. We can only go on what we can see. So, I wouldn't—. HEFCW is innately cautious as an organisation, so I'm not going to say we're confident, but that doesn't mean to say we're worried either. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay. So, to answer my question: are we likely to see more in the high-risk category or not? +Dr David Blaney: We might. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Bethan Owen: And, just to add, I think the key bit of that is maintaining the attractiveness of Welsh universities to students, because a large proportion are coming not from just Wales, but from England and internationally—so, that's a key part—and also that our research portfolio is invested in, and that also brings economic benefits. So, I think those are the two that we are [correction: need to be] able to maintain: the institutions as attractive options for students, and that our research capacity is invested in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got a supplementary from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in the interest of transparency, are you able to tell us which universities are in which categories of risk? +Dr David Blaney: We don't publish that; we publish numbers. So, that's, I'm afraid, where we're going to stick. +Hefin David AM: They didn't even try to—[Inaudible.] [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions then are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Can you explain your overall approach to the 2019-20 allocations and what your priority for allocations has been? +Bethan Owen: We publish our funding allocations, and we published the 2019-20 allocations on 4 June. For 2019-20, we're allocating £149 million, and, as David said, this is the first year that we've been able to start putting funding, additional funding, in from the Diamond recommendations for investment in the sector. So, that means we've been able to increase our recurrent teaching funding by £7 million—not a significant amount, but it's a start. And we have maintained QR, which is our funding for research, quality research, and postgraduate research, at least at the same levels of £76 million, as it's been that in previous years. We've increased part-time funding by £1 million to £26 million, and we've started to increase support for expensive subjects—that's medicine, dentistry and conservatoire provision—and higher cost subjects—those are the sciences and the STEM. So, we made a start on that and increased that support by about £6 million to £20 million in total. And, in addition to that, we have strategic funding that we're maintaining for Reaching Wider projects and the Sêr Cymru project. And then, in addition to our recurrent funding, we have had strategic funding in our remit letters for the last two years. So, we're developing programmes for civic mission, community engagement, collaborations between higher education and further education, and, more recently, we had funding at the end of March to start to implement the recommendations of Graeme Reid's report for research investment, and also for developing mental health and well-being. That strategic funding is very welcome, but to be able to build those activities into our core funding, which we hope Diamond will bring, would be more sustainable for institutions. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Now, the Minister talks of one skills system. How do your allocations to the 2019-20 academic year support and incentivise collaboration between HE and FE? +Dr David Blaney: So, there are probably two dimensions to this. First of all, we have provided £3.5 million of separate funding specifically targeted to improve and increase collaboration between HE and FE. So, we put out a circular inviting proposals for that, and it was competitive, so we funded what was the best of the proposals, and we constrained it to be available only to pump-prime new activity or to add value to existing activity, but not just to keep things ticking over. We had seven bids submitted from across the three Welsh regions on a whole range of activities, which we probably haven't got time to go into now. I've got a long list here, but, for example, in south-east Wales, the University of South Wales is leading on a bid partnering with Cardiff University, Cardiff Met, with the Open University and all the FE players in the region. So, we were really pleased, actually. We tried to get it within regions, because that's how you get the biggest impact for learners in the area and also for smaller enterprises in terms of innovation work. So, that is a specific bit of funding designed to incentivise HE-FE collaboration. And then we direct fund a couple of FE institutions for delivery of higher education for historical reasons, and we also have our funding going through to support franchise activity between HE and FE. There are about 5,000 students who are studying HE programmes under franchise in FE colleges in Wales, and our funding method has, historically for some time now, protected that money. So, we try to prevent universities from taking the money out of franchise and onto campus, because we think it's important to try to encourage local provision within particular localities. And, certainly in areas where public transport infrastructure is perhaps not what it might be, for people to move to universities can be quite a disincentive, so—. But we encourage it that way as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Then, finally from me, the council's remit letter for the 2019-20 academic year from the Minister does ask you to consider how you'd increase openness and transparency around the use of fee income. So, what are the issues here, and how will you take this forward? +Bethan Owen: The reporting of the income and expenditure is largely provided, probably more so in narrative form in the accounts and the financial statements and annual reports of institutions. A number of institutions also provide graphs and more easily accessible information to understand the income and expenditure of universities. But we would accept that this information isn't easy to access at the moment. There are examples of good practice across the sector in presenting as simply as possible what the income sources are for universities and how they spend their money. And we're going to be working with the Welsh universities and sector bodies to improve the accessibility of that information for Welsh institutions. More transparent reporting of income and expenditure, and not just fee income, is actually very important for understanding how income cross-flows work in universities. Some reasonably simplistic analyses can assume that all the student fee just covers the direct costs of academic provision, but there's much more to the student experience than that, so there are costs: there are the infrastructure costs, the student support costs, even the community engagement and all the research activities bring benefits to the teaching and fee provision. So, more transparency of all the universities' income sources and expenditure and a better understanding of the income cross-flows and why you can't look at universities in isolation of student provision and research, you have to look at the whole—so, we'll be working with them to improve that information. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go to Hefin David now for some questions on part-time student funding. +Hefin David AM: Part-time student numbers are bucking the trend in Wales, as I understand it, and we are seeing a bigger increase in Wales of part-time numbers than elsewhere in the UK. How is that going to be sustainable within current arrangements? +Bethan Owen: We've allocated £26.5 million in 2019-20 to support part-time provision, and we have been able in 2019-20 to fund some growth. So, there is growth in that funding to allow those institutions and incentivise those institutions who have recruited more students than last year to continue to do so. That came at an overall additional cost of £1.9 million, and, based on what we're hearing from student support, we're expecting to see that requirement increase. So, it's one of the areas where we'll need to look at how we prioritise Diamond funding. And at the moment, our intention—but subject to knowing the quantum of it—is to continue to support and fund growth in part-time provision. +Hefin David AM: So, is it possible—? With the Welsh Government's policy of developing lifelong learning, is it possible that will be ever spread more thinly? +Dr David Blaney: That is the challenge, and there's a piece of work that we have in our sights to look again at part-time and what it is and what the various drivers are. There's a temptation, I think, at times, to see it solely in terms of skills for an economy, and it is important for reskilling and upskilling, but actually, it's important for other things as well. If we see higher education solely in terms of skilling an economy, we've missed an important part of the contribution that higher education makes. But part-time is really quite difficult, because there's part-time that is about upskilling, part time that's about reskilling, there's part-time for social purposes, there's employer-supported part-time, there's student—. So, there's a complexity there. +Hefin David AM: But they are more reactive to rises in fees. +Dr David Blaney: Well, there is a sense that they are more price sensitive, yes, and so the support regime that the Government is putting in place is important, and that probably has made a difference to the numbers of part-timers entering the system this last year. But I think we need to stake stock of what is important about part-time, what the market will deliver, what the market won't deliver, what we should fund and so on. And there's a complexity around all that, as I've indicated, which we need to do a bit of work on with the sector, with the student body as well, just to take some stock of this over the next year or so. +Hefin David AM: Could we end up seeing significant fee increases for part-time students? +Dr David Blaney: My sense is we won't. The Government wishes us to monitor, so we monitor, and that in itself is not straightforward, actually. But your comment about price sensitivity, I think, is really the nub of it. There's a limit to how much a fee increase would be acceptable to the part-time market. So, I think it's kind of self-regulating in that respect. I don't think we'll see massive fee increases; we might see a bit, but we won't see masses, I don't think. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now on funding for research and innovation, and also we'd like to talk a bit about a replacement for European Union funds. Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. If I could turn specifically to research, we know, of course, that both the Diamond and Reid reviews called for QR funding to be maintained in real terms, but the allocation is exactly the same for 2019-20 as it has been for the past nine years. Have you carried out any kind of assessment of the impact of this level of research funding on universities and, indeed, on the Welsh economy? +Dr David Blaney: I'm sorry; I missed the beginning of that because I couldn't hear this headset. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, could you repeat the question? Sorry. We had a bit of a problem with translation at the beginning. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, no problem. I was talking about the Diamond and Reid reviews at the beginning of my question and the fact that they had recommended that QR funding should be maintained in real terms. But, of course, the sum hasn't actually increased over a period of nine years. +Dr David Blaney: Okay. The reason the sum hasn't increased is because we haven't had enough money to be able to increase it and still meet the obligations we have to other bits of the HE system. We would dearly love to increase it. Both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid were very clear about the importance of being able to invest in our QR research funding, for a number of reasons. The capacity of the sector to be able to respond to funding opportunities elsewhere in the UK and across the rest of the world is itself determined by the size and the strength of the research base, which is sustained by QR funding. If they go for UK-based competitive research funding, that is typically constructed on the absolute assumption that QR will be part of that mix. So, they tend to fund to 80 per cent of the actual cost of the research, with the expectation that QR will plug the gap. And we know that, although the Welsh research base is extraordinarily productive, and really is punching above its weight in many ways—and I mentioned earlier the impact of the research base in the last research excellence framework—we know that, actually, it could do so much more, if it just had more scale. So, we fully endorse the reports from both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid that QR is important, and it's important also to be able to allow institutions to invest in research areas that emerge over time. It's almost impossible for a body like us, far less the Government, to know where these emerging strengths are going to come from, and QR provides the flexibility for institutions, which is absolutely fundamental to keeping the research base dynamic. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, you do have concerns that this isn't increasing—you have that concern of a lack of increase in the level of investment. But has any particular assessment been made of the impact of not increasing that funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, there is—. Graeme Reid's report produced an assessment of the correlation between QR funding and capacity to generate funding from other sources, and there's a very close correlation— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has HEFCW done any assessment to look at the effect of underfunding research, to all intents and purposes? +Dr David Blaney: Not directly. We've relied on the expert assessment of people like Graeme Reid. It's sometimes more effective to have external experts making these points than us or the sector. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Your remit requires you to encourage universities to continue to develop one particular element of research, which is educational research. How does your allocation for 2019-20 contribute to that in terms of pedagogy and educational research specifically? +Dr David Blaney: Bethan, did you want to say something on this? +Bethan Owen: I was just going to add that, when we look at the funding that comes into our sector in Wales, compared with the rest of the UK, it's easy to see from the figures that our percentage of income that comes from research is smaller than in England, so the figures show that we receive less of the money that's available, which is a factor that results from us having less QR as a percentage, so we're in a situation where we get less of that UK funding that's available as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, there's a knock-on to that; that's what you're trying to say. But from the point of view of my question on educational research—? +Dr David Blaney: So, we have provided funding in 2017-18 and 2018-19 to WISERD Education, which is a research collaboration between a number of the Welsh universities, specifically looking at educational issues, and we're providing additional funding to that to add value to the Welsh Government's existing evaluation of the progress of pioneer schools in developing the three-to-15 curriculum in Wales. I won't go into the full detail of it now, but it's a five-partner project feeding into this with researchers from Cardiff, Cardiff Met, Trinity Saint David, Aber, Bangor and the University of South Wales. So, it's a collaborative effort, and we have, in the past, also funded WISERD Education, so it's an important research facility and increasingly being used, I'm delighted to say, by Welsh Government in underpinning its own policy thinking. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And likewise, in 2019-20, there will be allocations specifically for this. +Dr David Blaney: It's a bit early to say yet. We haven't allocated anything specifically in the main allocations that we've put out. There might be others to come, but we're not yet in a position to say. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, could you provide the remit letter from—[Inaudible.]—do that? You have to do everything in the remit letters. +Dr David Blaney: We do what we can to pay due regard to the remit letters, as the wording goes. So, we have it in our sights, but we're not yet ready to make announcements. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then turning to the impact of the loss of funds were we to leave the European Union. Of course, this is going to have a far-reaching impact on future research, and the Reid review has made recommendations to mitigate this impact. So, what assessment have you made of how allocations will be able to help universities to transition away from EU funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, again, the Reid review has done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of an impact assessment for us. And we endorse, just as the Government has endorsed, the recommendations from Reid. The Government has committed in principle to delivering Reid. The challenge is finding the money, and we fully understand that. There has been an additional £6.6 million allocated for research very recently by the Government, which we have put out specifically in line with some of the recommendations from Reid. So, that's a start, but that's not sustainable funding, and it's not enough, really, but it is a good and welcome start. Reid was also not just talking about the money, but also talking about the way in which the Welsh research base both represents itself and also engages with UK-wide developments. And in response to that, we have recently issued our own vision for research and innovation, which was developed over a number of months, following the Reid report closely, working with stakeholders, including the Welsh Government, in order to try and set a vision for how we respond to the challenges facing research in the future, including the reduction, potentially, of access to EU funds. And a lot of that is—. These Reid recommendations all come together; they're coherent. A lot of that requires investment in the Welsh research base in order to be able to go for competitive funding at a UK level. Since it seems possible at least, and possibly even likely, that any money retrieved from not having to invest in the EU will sit in London rather than necessarily being devolved to the devolved administrations—we understand fully the Welsh Government's position on that, and we don't disagree with it. But either way, we need a research base that's able to compete, and that's why the investment recommendations of Reid are so important. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I think Reid was saying that there may be pots of money out there that aren't being accessed at the moment by Welsh universities. Are you able to help then within that process? +Bethan Owen: One aspect that we do intend to fund—and this is from Diamond, as well as Reid—is to place funding back into the system for innovation. We're consulting currently, with the intention, if the funding is available to us, clearly, in the year 2020-21, to provide £15 million back into the sector in innovation funding. That's funding that we had to take out when the new fee system came in. That is part of promoting the innovation, and part of the research portfolio as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is that part of the UKRI funding? There is some £7 billion in the hands of that organisation, as I understand it, and there may be some possibilities there too. +Bethan Owen: That £15 million will be money that comes from us, but the intention is that the money will go in in order to improve universities' ability to access that funding from UKRI. So, Innovate UK would be the part of UKRI—and that we improve our ability to get funding from outside Wales. And, then, Graeme Reid says the same thing in terms of research—that we need more funding to do the same thing there. +Dr David Blaney: And, then, there's also the recommendation from Reid that Wales needs to be better embedded in the conversations that are going on on a UK-wide basis, so the Welsh Government has established a presence in London in respect of research, and we have a colleague in HEFCW who is fractionally embedded in the United Kingdom Research and Innovation specifically to respond to that recommendation. And that is actually paying dividends; we are strengthening our relationship with the UK machinery, which is essential if we're to understand where they're heading and what their funding bids are all about, and even to be able to influence those. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, as far as research is concerned, it's not all doom and gloom. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I mean, you know, things are looking up. There is money coming in and if the Government, as it is able to, can find money and can invest in this area, then that will help. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just a couple of questions from me, then, before you close: what is your recent work on the 'basket of goods' show regarding student accommodation costs? And have any institutions used their 2019-20 fee and access plans to make commitments to more affordable accommodation for under-represented groups? +Dr David Blaney: First of all, on the basket of goods, the work we're doing now—we're currently in train in terms of analysing the data in respect of the basket of goods, so this is slightly premature, but our early look at the data indicates that there are no increases in costs, accommodation or other, that would cause us concern. So, it doesn't look like institutions are succumbing to the temptation to up their income streams from other costs. So, that's good. In terms of the fee and access plans, the sector has committed over £28 million of investment in student support-related activities from the fee and access plans, and that includes, in many instances, bursaries that are designed to help students cope with the costs of accommodation and the cost of living more generally. The support is provided for a range of purposes, but a couple of examples, just very quickly: Trinity Saint David, since we've talked about them a lot today, they offer £1,000 bursary to care leavers, which is in addition to local authority support for care leavers. Bangor also offer targeted support for care leavers, and these are often also extended, so they apply not just in term time, but throughout the holiday time as well, because people still need to live during the holidays. So, there is investment going in from the fee plans in that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And just one final question from me then, going back to Trinity Saint David: are you concerned that the governing body of Trinity Saint David has taken decisions that have led to that material uncertainty, and is that unprecedented in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: My view is that the decisions that the governing body made were, in our view, perfectly rational decisions to have made, given the information they had at the time. So, what's happened is that a number of unforeseen events have arisen, which, actually, I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to have foreseen, and it's just a combination of these that has caused the cash pressure. So, I don't see this as a governance failure, and they are engaging with those challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you both for attending and for answering all our questions this morning? You did say that you would give the committee a note on reserves for the last four years, so we'd be grateful if we could receive that. And, as usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you, again, for your time this morning. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. +Bethan Owen: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Deputy Minister requesting further information for our scrutiny of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from me to the Children's Commissioner for Wales also asking for further information to pursue our scrutiny of the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education asking for an update on the framework for young people educated other than at school. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to propose that we resolve to meet in private for the remainder of this meeting and for the whole meeting on 10 July. Are Members content? Thank you. +","On a morning session, Lynne Neagle AM welcomed everyone to the Children, Young People and Education Committee, noting apologies from Suzy Davies, and acknowledged Angela Burns's substitution. Additionally, apologies were received from Dawn Bowden, and Siân Gwenllian's participation via video-conference from her constituency office was recognized. Members were asked for any declarations of interest, with Hefin David AM declaring his registered associate lecturer status at Cardiff Metropolitan University, despite not having worked for them recently. + +The Committee proceeded to the primary agenda item concerning the higher education new academic year allocations, welcoming David Blaney, Chief Executive, and Bethan Owen, Deputy Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW). The discussion focused on financial sustainability within the higher education sector in Wales, with Angela Burns AM probing into financial indicators, reserves, the potential for financial distress, and the specifics around university borrowing and reserve management. + +Dr. Blaney contextualized the sector's financial challenges amidst demographic dips, increased costs such as pensions, the uncertain results of England's Augar review, and Brexit. Despite difficulties, he posited that Welsh institutions are well-managed but acknowledged that ongoing financial pressures could lead to job losses and diminished capacity. The Diamond review's outcomes were mentioned as critical, with the forthcoming year anticipated to usher in increased resources for higher education through HEFCW. Bethan Owen elaborated on the financial standings, highlighting the essential role of operating cash over surplus figures and addressing universities' borrowing behavior whilst acknowledging that some universities had to renegotiate covenants due to accounting standard changes but were not at immediate risk of breaching loan commitments. + +Discussions further delved into the issues around structural changes within universities. Angela Burns sought clarity on Lampeter's situation, reinforcing concerns from students and parents about course restructuring and staff reductions. Dr. Blaney assured that institutions honor their commitments to current programs and students, emphasizing that the institutions adhere to their legal obligations and quality assurance measures to ensure academic continuity. + +Lynne Neagle AM inquired about Trinity Saint David's accounts showing ""material uncertainty,"" seeking HEFCW's perspective. Bethan Owen clarified that the primary concern was related to delayed cash receipts, principally from Swansea city deal funding for the Egin project. The importance of cash management and liquidity in the context of delayed student payments and monthly institutional costs was highlighted. + +Hefin David AM raised inquiries on the rigor and consistency of governing body arrangements, their risk appetites, the effectiveness of governance relationships, and the growing risk profile within Welsh universities. Dr. Blaney explained that all institutions adhere to the Committee of University Chairs' governance code, and HEFCW plays a role in assuring correct governance processes, reminding that governing bodies should encourage ongoing self-reflection and constructive challenge within the executive teams. + +The session also covered the alignment of HEFCW's allocations with the Welsh Government's vision of a unified skills system and HE and FE collaboration, methods of ensuring fee income transparency, and developments relating to part-time student funding. Bethan Owen mentioned the additional funding earmarked for part-time student growth and outlined how financial prioritization might evolve. + +Sian Gwenllian AM shifted attention to research funding, voicing concerns about the stalling of QR funding levels, potentially impacting universities and the Welsh economy. HEFCW had not conducted its assessment in this area, relying on analyses by experts like Graeme Reid; the government had recently allocated an additional £6.6 million for research, signifying a start but not a fully sustainable solution. She also addressed the anticipated impact of Brexit on EU funding for research, with both panel members underscoring HEFCW's efforts to support institutions in transitioning away from reliance on EU funds. + +The session concluded with Neagle querying HEFCW's recent work on student accommodation costs and the steps universities might take to secure more affordable housing options for under-represented groups. Dr. Blaney responded, noting the stability in such costs according to their data and the extensive financial support for student accommodation outlined in fee and access plans. + +Pending papers were noted, and there was a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to conduct private meetings for the remainder of the current session and the entirety of the upcoming session on 10 July, to which the Members agreed." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: +Grad D: How many batteries do you go through ? +Grad B: Thank you . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: Sure . +Professor C: Good . Yeah . OK so , let 's get started . Nancy said she 's coming and that means she will be . Um . My suggestion is that Robert and Johno sort of give us a report on last week 's adventures uh to start . So everybody knows there were these guys f uh from Heidelber - uh , uh , actually from uh DFKI uh , part of the German SmartKom project , who were here for the week and , I think got a lot done . +Grad E: Yeah , I think so too . Um . The {disfmarker} we got to the point where we can now speak into the SmartKom system , and it 'll go all the way through and then say something like "" Roman numeral one , am Smarticus . "" It actually says , "" Roemisch einz , am Smarticus , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: which means it 's just using a German sythesis module for English sentences . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So uh , +Professor C: It doesn't know "" I "" . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: Um , the uh +Grad B: Oh , Am Spartacus . "" +Grad D: "" I am Sm - I am Smarticus "" is what it 's saying . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Verstehe . OK . +Grad D: I gue +Grad E: The uh sythesis is just a question of um , hopefully it 's just a question of exchanging a couple of files , once we have them . And , um , it 's not going to be a problem because we decided to stick to the so - called concept to speech approach . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going backwards now , so "" synthesis "" is where you sort of make this {disfmarker} uh , make these sounds , and "" concept to speech "" is feeding into this synthesis module giving it what needs to be said , and the whole syntactic structure so it can pronounce things better , presumably . Then , just with text to speech . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh , Johno learned how to write XML tags . Uh , and did write the tree adjoining grammar for some {disfmarker} some sentences . No , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for a couple {disfmarker} +Grad D: So . Bu - Uh , i The way the uh , the dialogue manager works is it dumps out what it wants to know , or what it wants to tell the person , to a {disfmarker} er in XML and there 's a conversion system for different uh , to go from XML to something else . And th so , the knowledge base for the system , that generates the syntasti syntactic structures for the ge generation is uh , in a LISP - like {disfmarker} the knowledge base is in a LISP - like form . And then the thing that actually builds these syntactic structures is something based on Prolog . So , you have a {disfmarker} basically , a goal and it , you know , says "" OK , well I 'm gonna try to do the Greet - the - person goal , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it just starts {disfmarker} uh , it binds some variables and it just decides to , you know , do some subscold . Basically , it just means "" build the tree . "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And then it passes the tree onto , uh , the ge the generation module . +Grad E: But I think that the point is that out of the twelve possible utterances that the German system can do , we 've already written the {disfmarker} the syntax trees for three or four . +Grad D: We yeah . So , the syntax trees are very simple . It 's like most of the sentences in one tree , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and instead of , you know , breaking down to , like , small units and building back up , they basically took the sentences , and basically cut them in half , or you know , into thirds or something like that , and made trees out of those . And so uh , uh Tilman wrote a little tool that you could take LISP notation and generate an XML , uh , tree . Uh , S what do ca structure from the {disfmarker} from the LISP . And so basically you just say , you know , "" noun goes to "" , you know , Er , nah , I don't re I 've never been good at those . So there 's like the VP goes to N and those things in LISP , and it will generate for you . +Grad B: OK . N , N , V yeah , OK . Alright . +Grad E: And because we 're sticking to that structure , the synthesis module doesn't need to be changed . So all that f fancy stuff , and the Texas speech version of it , which is actually the simpler version , is gonna be done in October which is much too late for us . So . This way we {disfmarker} we worked around that . The , uh {disfmarker} the system , um {disfmarker} I can show you the system . I actually want , at least , maybe , you should be able to start it on your own . If you wanna play around with it , in th in the future . Right now it 's brittle and you need to ch start it up and then make ts twenty changes on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on seventeen modules before they actually can stomach it , anything . And send in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple of side queries on some dummy center set - up program so that it actually works because it 's designed for this seevit thing , where you have the gestural recognition running with this s Siemens virtual touch screen , which we don't have here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so we 're doing it via mouse , but the whole system was designed to work with this thing and it was {disfmarker} It was a lot of engineering stuff . No science in there whatsoever , but it 's working now , and um , that 's the good news . So everything else actually did prove to be language independent except for the parsing and the generation . +Grad D: Why {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I did need to chan generate different trees than the German ones , mainly because you know like uh , the gerund in {disfmarker} in German is automatically taken care of with just a regular verb , +Grad E: You have to switch it on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I 'd uh have to add "" am walking , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: or I 'd have to add a little stem for the "" am "" , when I build the {disfmarker} built the tree . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I noticed that um , that some of the examples they had , had you know , non - English word orders and so on , you know . And then all that good stuff . So . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Like . +Professor C: So it might be worth , Keith , you looking at this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: um +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I still don't {disfmarker} I still don't really understand e like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well Tilman s +Grad B: I mean we sort of say , um {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I still don't exactly understand sort of the information flow uh in {disfmarker} in this thing , or what the modules are and so on . So , you know , like just that such - and - such module uh um decides that it wants to achieve the goal of greeting the user , and then magically it sort of s +Professor C: Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , how does it know which syntactic structure to pull out , and all that ? +Professor C: I thi Yeah . So . I think it 's not worth going over in the group , +Grad B: R uh Sure . +Professor C: but sort of when you get free and you have the time uh either Robert or Johno or I can walk you through it . +Grad B: Yeah , soon . OK . +Professor C: And you can ask all the questions about how this all fits together . +Grad B: That 's fine . +Professor C: It 's eee {comment} messy but once you understand it you understand it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} There 's nothing really complicated about it . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: No . +Grad B: And I remember one thing that {disfmarker} that came up in the talk last Wednesday . Um , was this , I {disfmarker} I think he talked about the idea of like , um {disfmarker} He was talking about these lexicalized uh , uh , tree adjoining grammars where you sort of {disfmarker} for each word you , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , you know how to do it ? +Grad B: For each lexical item , the lexical entry says what all the uh trees are that it can appear in . And of course , that 's not v That 's the opposite of constructional . That 's , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's HPSG or whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Now , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not committed for our research to {pause} do any of those things . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So uh we are committed for our funding . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: OK ? to {pause} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Make our stuff fit to that . +Professor C: Yeah , to {disfmarker} n no , to just get the dem get the demos they need . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK ? So between us all we have t to get th the demos they need . If it turns out we can also give them lots more than that by , you know , tapping into other things we do , that 's great . +Grad D: You should probably move the microphone closer to your face . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But i it turns out not to be in an any of the contracts +Grad D: There 's like a little {disfmarker} The twisty thing , you can move it with . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and , s deliberately . So , the reason I 'd like you to understand uh what 's going on in this demo system is not because it 's important to the research . It 's just for closure . So that if we come up with a question of "" could we fit this deeper stuff in there ? "" or something . You know what the hell we we 're talking about fitting in . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So it 's just , uh in the sam same actually with the rest of us we just need to really understand what 's there . Is there anything we can make use of ? Uh , is there anything we can give back , beyond th the sort of minimum requirements ? But none of that has a short time fuse . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So th the demo the demo requirements for this Fall are sort of taken care of as of later this week or something . And then {disfmarker} So , it 's probably fifteen months or something until there 's another serious demo requirement . +Grad B: Oh OK . +Professor C: That doesn't mean we don't think about it for fifteen months , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: but it means we can not think about it for six months . +Grad B: Right , yeah . +Professor C: So . The plan for this summer uh , really is to step back from the applied project , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: keep the d keep the context open , but actually go after the basic issues . +Grad B: Hmm . Oh OK . +Professor C: And , so The idea is there 's this uh , other subgroup that 's worrying about formalizing the nota getting a notation . But sort of in parallel with that , uh , the hope is tha in particularly you will work on constructions in English Ge - and German for this domain , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but y not worry about parsing them or fitting them into SmartKom or any of the other {disfmarker} anything lik any other constraints for the time being . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . Got it . +Professor C: It 's hard enough to get it semantically and syntactically right and then {disfmarker} and get the constructions in their form and stuff . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: And , I don I don't want you f feeling that you have to somehow meet all these other constraints . +Grad B: Right , OK . +Professor C: Um . And similarly with the parsing , uh we 're gonna worry about parsing uh , the general case you know , construction parser for general constructions . And , if we need a cut - down version for something , or whatever , we 'll worry about that later . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So I 'd like to , for the summer turn into science mode . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And I assume that 's also , uh , your plan as well . +Grad B: So I mean , the {disfmarker} the point is that like the meetings um so far that I 've been at have been {disfmarker} sort of been geared towards this demo , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and then that 's going to go away pretty soon . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but we we 're swit +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: And then we 'll sort of shift gears a Fairly substantially , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: huh ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's got . What I {disfmarker} what I think is {disfmarker} is a good idea that I can {disfmarker} can show to anyone who 's interested , we can even make a {disfmarker} sort of an internal demo , and I {disfmarker} I show you what I do , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I speak into it and you hear it talk , +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: and I can sort of walk f through the information . So , this is like in half hour or forty - five minutes . Just fun . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And so you {disfmarker} when somebody on the streets com comes up to you and asks you what is SmartKom so you can , sort of , give a sensible answer . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So , c sh we could set that up as actually an institute wide thing ? Just give a talk in the big room , and {disfmarker} and so peo people know what 's going on ? when you 're ready ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's the kind of thing {disfmarker} That 's the level at which you know we can just li invite everybody and say "" this is a project that we 've been working on and here 's a demo version of it "" and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . Well d we {disfmarker} we do wanna have all the bugs out b where you have to sort of pipe in extra XML messages from left and right before you 're {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Indeed . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . Makes sense . +Professor C: But any so that {disfmarker} e e It 's clear , then , I think . Actually , roughly starting uh let 's say , nex next meeting , cuz this meeting we have one other thing to tie up besides the trip report . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: But uh starting next meeting I think we want to flip into this mode where {disfmarker} Uh . I mean there are a lot of issues , what 's the ontology look like , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know what do the constructions look like , what 's the execution engine look like , mmm lots of things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , more focused on uh an idealized version than just getting the demo out . Now before we do that , let 's get back in {disfmarker} Oh ! But , it 's still , I think , useful for you to understand the demo version enough , so that you can {disfmarker} can see what {disfmarker} what it is that {disfmarker} that uh it might eventually get retro - fitted into or something . +Grad B: Yeah . OK , right . +Professor C: And Johno 's already done that , uh , looked at the dem uh the {disfmarker} looked at the SmartKom stuff . +Grad D: Wa uh {disfmarker} To some de uh what {disfmarker} what part of th the SmartKom stuff ? +Professor C: Well , the parser , and that stuff . +Grad D: Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: OK . Anyway . So , the trip {disfmarker} the report on these {disfmarker} the last we we sort of interrupted you guys telling us about what happened last week . +Grad B: Yeah . It 's alright . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} Well it was just amazing to {disfmarker} to see uh how {disfmarker} how instable the whole thing is , +Professor C: Maybe you 're done , then . +Grad E: and if you just take the {disfmarker} And I g I got the feeling that we are {pause} the only ones right now who have a running system . I don't know what the guys in Kaiserslautern have running because e the version {disfmarker} that is , the full version that 's on the server d does not work . And you need to do a lot of stuff to make it work . And so it 's {disfmarker} And even Tilman and Ralf sort of said "" yeah there never was a really working version that uh did it without th all the shortcuts that they built in for the uh October @ @ version "" . So we 're actually maybe ahead of the System Gruppe by now , the system {disfmarker} the integration group . And it was , uh {disfmarker} It was fun to some extent , but the uh the outcome that is sort of of scientific interest is that I think both Ralf and Tilman {disfmarker} um , I know that they enjoyed it here , and they r they {disfmarker} they liked , uh , a lot of the stuff they saw here , what {disfmarker} what we have been thinking about , and they 're more than willing to {disfmarker} to um , cooperate , by all means . And um , part of my responsibility is uh to use our internal "" group - ware "" server at EML , make that open to all of us and them , so that whatever we discuss in terms of parsing and {disfmarker} and generating and constructions w we {disfmarker} we sort of uh put it in there and they put what they do in there and maybe we can even um , get some overlap , get some synergy out of that . And um , the , uh {disfmarker} If I find someone at {disfmarker} in EML that is interested in that , um I {disfmarker} I may even think that we could look {disfmarker} take constructions and {disfmarker} and generate from them because the tree adjoining grammars that {disfmarker} that Tilman is using is as you said nothing but a mathematical formalism . And you can just do anything with it , whether it 's syntactic trees , H P S G - like stuff , or whether it 's construction . So if you ever get to the generation side of constructing things and there might be something of interest there , but in the moment we 're of course definitely focused on the understanding , um , pipeline . +Professor C: Anyth - any other {vocalsound} {comment} uh repo visit reports sort of stories ? uh we {disfmarker} so we now know I think , what the landscape is like . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so we just push on and {disfmarker} and uh , do what we need to do . And one of the things we need to do is the um , and this I think is relatively tight {disfmarker} tightly constrained , is to finish up this belief - net stuff . So . Uh . And I was going to switch to start talking about that unless there 're m other more general questions . OK so here 's where we are on the belief - net stuff as far as I understand it . Um . Going back I guess two weeks ago uh Robert had laid out this belief - net , missing only the connections . Right ? That is {disfmarker} {comment} So , he 'd put all th all the dots down , and we went through this , and , I think , more or less convinced ourselves that at least the vast majority of the nodes that we needed for the demo level we were thinking of , were in there . Yeah {comment} we may run across one or two more . But of course the connections weren't . So , uh Bhaskara and I went off and looked at some technical questions about were certain operations sort of legitimate belief - net computations and was there some known problem with them or had someone already uh , solved you know how to do this and stuff . And so Bhaskara tracked that down . The answer seems to be uh , "" no , no one has done it , but yes it 's a perfectly reasonable thing to do if that 's what you set out to do "" . And , so the current state of things is that , again , starting now , um we 'd like to actually get a running belief - net for this particular subdomain done in the next few weeks . So Bhaskara is switching projects as of the first of June , and uh , he 's gonna leave us an inheritance , which is a uh {disfmarker} hopefully a belief - net that does these things . And there 're two aspects to it , one of which is , you know , technical , getting the coding right , and making it run , and uh stuff like that . And the other is the actual semantics . OK ? What all {disfmarker} you know , what are the considerations and how and what are the ways in which they relate . So he doe h he doesn't need help from this group on the technical aspects or if he does uh we 'll do that separately . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But in terms of what are the decisions and stuff like that , that 's something that we all have to work out . Is {disfmarker} is that right ? I mean that 's {disfmarker} that 's both you guys ' understanding of where we are ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: So , I guess , um {disfmarker} Is there like a latest version of the belief - net {disfmarker} of the proposed belief - net ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We had um decided {disfmarker} +Grad G: like {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Well , no , we didn't decide . We wanted to look into maybe getting it , the visualization , a bit clearer , but I think if we do it , um , sort of a paper version of all the nodes and then the connections between them , that should suffice . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that should be fine . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's a separate problem . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor C: We do in the long run wanna do better visualization and all that stuff . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's separable , yeah . +Grad D: I did look into that , uh in terms of , you know , exploding the nodes out and down ag +Professor C: Yep . Right . +Grad D: JavaBayes does not support that . I can imagine a way of hacking at the code to do that . It 'd probably take two weeks or so to actually go through and do it , +Professor C: Not {disfmarker} not at this point . +Grad D: and I went through all the other packages on Murph - Kevin Murphy 's page , +Professor C: Right . +Grad D: and I couldn't find the necessary mix of free and uh with the GUI and , with this thing that we want . +Professor C: Well , we can p If it 's {disfmarker} If we can pay {disfmarker} Yeah . If you know it 's paying a thousand dollars or something we can do that . OK ? So {disfmarker} so don't view free as {disfmarker} as a absolute constraint . +Grad D: OK . OK , so then I 'll go back and look at the ones on the list that {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . And you can ask Kevin . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , the one that uh people seem to use is uh Hugin or whatever ? +Professor C: Hugin , yeah that 's free . +Grad G: How exp I don't think it 's {disfmarker} Is it free ? Because I 've seen it advertised in places so I {disfmarker} it seems to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , it may be free to academics . Like I {disfmarker} I don't know . I have a co {comment} I have a copy {comment} that I l I downloaded . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: So , at one point it was free . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh but yo I noticed people do use Hugin so um , +Grad D: How do you spell that ? +Professor C: HUGIN . +Grad F: Why +Professor C: And Bhaskara can give you a pointer . So then , in any case , um {disfmarker} But paying a lit You know , if i if it 's uh {disfmarker} Probably for university , it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be real cheap anyway . But um , you know , if it 's fifty thousand dollars we aren't gonna do it . I 'm mean , we have no need for that . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I also s would suggest not to d spend two weeks in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in changing the {disfmarker} the JavaBayes code . +Professor C: No , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: he 's not gonna do that . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I will send you a pointer to a Java applet that does that , it 's sort of a fish - eye . You {disfmarker} you have a node , and you click on it , and it shows you all the connections , +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: and then if you click on something else that moves away , that goes into the middle . And maybe there is an easy way of interfacing those two . If that doesn't work , it 's not a problem we {disfmarker} we need to solve right now . What I 'm {disfmarker} what my job is , I will , um , give you the input in terms of {disfmarker} of the internal structure . Maybe node by node , or something like this ? Or should I collect it all +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Doesn't matter . +Grad G: Um , just any like {disfmarker} like sort of rough representation of the entire belief - net is probably best . +Grad E: OK . And um you 're gonna be around ? t again , always Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoon - ish ? As usual ? Or will that change ? +Grad G: Yeah {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I can {disfmarker} like I c Um . This week I guess um , kind of {disfmarker} I have a lot of projects and stuff but after that I will generally be more free . So yes , I might {disfmarker} I can be around . And g I mean , generally if you email me also I can be around on other days . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: Yeah and this is not a crisis that {disfmarker} I mean , you do , e everybody who 's a student should , you know do their work , get their c courses all in good shape and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then we 'll dig {disfmarker} d dig down on this . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . No , that 's good . That means I have I h I can spend this week doing it . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: How do you go about this process of deciding what these connections are ? I know that there 's an issue of how to weight the different things too , and stuff . Right ? I mean do you just sort of guess and see if it sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there There 're two different things you do . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: One is you design and the other is you learn . OK ? So uh what we 're gonna do initially is {disfmarker} is do design , and , i if you will , guess . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . Uh that is you know use your best knowledge of {disfmarker} of the domain to uh , hypothesize what the dependencies are and stuff . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: If it 's done right , and if you have data then , there are techniques for learning the numbers given the structure +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and there are even techniques for learning the structure , although that takes a lot more data , and it 's not as @ @ and so forth and so on . So uh but for the limited amount of stuff we have for this particular exercise I think we 'll just design it . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad E: Yeah . Fo - Hopefully as time passes we 'll get more and more data from Heidelberg and from people actually using it and stuff . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So but this is the {pause} {vocalsound} {comment} {pause} long run . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: But to solve our problems ag uh a mediocre design will do I think in the beginning . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah , oh , and by the way , speaking of data , um , are there I could swore {disfmarker} uh , I could swear I saw it sitting on someone 's desk at some point , but is there a {disfmarker} um a transcript of any of the , sort of , initial interactions of people with the {disfmarker} with the system ? Cuz you know , I 'm still sort of itching to {disfmarker} to look at what {disfmarker} look at the stuff , and see what people are saying . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah make yourself a note . So and {disfmarker} and , of course Keith would like the German as well as the English , so whatever you guys can get . +Grad E: The German . Oh yeah , of course , German . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , the y your native language , right ? You remember that one . +Grad E: OK . That 's important , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: So he 'll get you some data . +Grad B: u OK . Yeah , I mean I {disfmarker} I sort of um found the uh , uh the audio of some of those , and um , it kind of sounded like I didn't want to trudge through that , you know . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: It was just {disfmarker} Strange , but . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad E: We probably will not get those to describe because they were trial runs . +Grad B: Oh yeah , OK . +Grad E: Um , but uh that 's th but we have data in English and German already . +Grad B: OK , yeah , I mean . +Grad E: So . {disfmarker} Transcribed . I will send you that . OK . +Professor C: OK , so while we 're still at this sort of top level , anything else that we oughta talk about today ? +Grad E: Ho - how was your thingy . +Grad B: Oh , um , I just wanted to , uh , s like mention as an issue , um , you know last meeting I wasn't here because I went to a linguistics colloquium on the fictive motion stuff , +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: and that was pretty interesting and you know , I mean , seems to me that that will fairly obviously be of relevance to uh {disfmarker} to what we 're doing here because you know people are likely to give descriptions like you know , "" What 's that thing uh right where you start to go up the hill , "" or something like that , you know , meaning a few feet up the hill or whatever from some reference point and all that stuff so I mean , I 'm sure in terms of you know , people trying to state locations or , you know , all that kind of stuff , this is gonna be very relevant . So , um , now that was {disfmarker} the talk was about English versus Japanese , um , which obviously the Japanese doesn't affect us directly , except that , um , some of the construction {disfmarker} he 'd {disfmarker} what he talked about was that you know in English we say things like th you know , "" your bike is parked across the street "" and we use these prepositional phrases , you know , "" well , if you were to move across the street you would be at the bike "" , but um in {disfmarker} in Japanese the {disfmarker} the more conventionalized tendency is to use a {disfmarker} sort of a description of "" where one has crossed to the river , there is a tree "" . Um , and you know , you can actually say things like , um , "" there 's a tree where one has crossed the river , but no one has ever crossed the river "" , or something like that . So the idea is that this really is you know that 's supposed show that 's it 's really fictive and so on . But um {disfmarker} But the point is that that kind of construction is also used in English , you know , like "" right where you start to go up the hill "" , or "" just when you get off the train "" , or something like that to {disfmarker} uh , to indicate where something is . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad B: So we 'll have to think about {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} how much is that used in German ? +Grad E: Um . The uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} I wa I was on a uh {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on a different sidetrack . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +Grad E: I mean , the {disfmarker} the Deep Map project which um is undergoing some renovation at {disfmarker} at the moment , but this is a {disfmarker} a three language project : German , English , Japanese . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , we have a uh , uh {disfmarker} I have taken care that we have the {disfmarker} the Japanese generation and stuff . And so I looked into uh spatial description . So we can generate spatial descriptions , how to get from A to B . And {disfmarker} and information on objects , in German , English , and Japanese . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And there is a huge uh project on spatial descriptions uh {disfmarker} differences in spatial descriptions . Well , if yo if you 're interested in that , so how {disfmarker} how , I mean it does sort of go d all the way down to the conceptual level to some extent . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So . Um . +Professor C: So , where is this huge project ? +Grad E: It 's KLEIST . It 's the uh Bielefeld generation of uh spatial descriptions and whatever . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: +Professor C: Well , that may be another thing that Keith wants to look at . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: But um , I {disfmarker} I think we should leave Japanese constructions maybe outside of the scope for {disfmarker} for now , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: but um definitely it 's interesting to look at {disfmarker} at cross the bordered there . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Are {disfmarker} are you going to p pay any attention to the relative position {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the direction relative {disfmarker} relative to the speaker ? For example , there are some differences between Hebrew and English . We can say um "" park in front of the car "" as you come beh you drive behind the car . In Hebrew it means "" park behind the car "" , because to follow the car is defined as it faces you . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Intrinsic , yeah . +PhD A: While in English , front of the car is the absolute front of the car . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad B: Right , so the canonical direction of motion determines where the front is . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So , i i i is German uh closer to {disfmarker} to E uh , uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} to E I mean uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's related to syntax , though , so it may be entirely different . +Grad E: Um , as a matter of fact {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , it 's not . +Grad B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Did you ever get to look at the {disfmarker} the rou paper that I sent you on the {disfmarker} on that problem in English and German ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: Carroll , ninety - three . Um . I {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a study on the differences between English and German on exactly that problem . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: So it 's {disfmarker} they actually say "" the monkey in front of the car , where 's the monkey ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , um , they found statistically very significant differences in English and German , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It might be , since there are only a finite number of ways of doing it , that {disfmarker} that German might be more like Hebrew in that respect . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: The solution they proposed was that it was due to syntactic factors . +PhD A: That {disfmarker} but it wasn't {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} +Grad E: That syntactic facto factors do {disfmarker} do play a role there , wh whether you 're more likely , you know , to develop uh , choices that lead you towards using uh intrinsic versus extrinsic reference frames . +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: I mean , it seems to me that you can get both in {disfmarker} in English depending o +Professor C: Hmm . +Grad B: You know , like , "" in front of the car "" could you know {disfmarker} Like , here 's the car sideways to me in between me and the car or something 's in front of the car , or whatever . I could see that , +Professor C: Absolutely . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} But anyway , so you know , I mean , this was {disfmarker} this was a {disfmarker} a very good talk on those kinds of issues and so on . So uh . +Grad E: I can also give you uh , a pointer to a paper of mine which is the {disfmarker} the ultimate taxonomy of reference frames . +Grad B: Alright ! Cool ! +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I 'm the only person in the world who actually knows how it works . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: Not really . +Professor C: Great . No , I 've not seen that . +PhD A: What do you mean . Um . "" reference frames "" ? +Grad E: It 's called a {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh uh +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's spatial reference frames . You actually have only {disfmarker} Um . If you wanna have a {disfmarker} This is usually um {disfmarker} I should {disfmarker} there should be an "" L "" , though . Well actually you have {disfmarker} only have two choices . You can either do a two - point or a three - point which is you You 're familiar with th with the "" origo "" ? where that 's the center {disfmarker} "" Origo "" is the center of the f frame of reference . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: And then you have the reference object and the object to be localized . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK ? In some cases the origo is the same as the reference object . +Professor C: So that would be "" origin "" in English , +Grad F: This was like {disfmarker} +Grad B: The origin . +PhD A: Right +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +Grad E: "" Origo "" is a Terminus technikus . in that sense , that 's even used in the English literature . "" Origo . "" +Grad B: Oh , OK . I never heard it . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , so , this video tape is in front of me . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I 'm the origo and I 'm also the reference object . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Those are two - point . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And three - point relations is if something has an intrinsic front side like this chair then your f shoe is behind the chair . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , reference object and {disfmarker} Um . No , from {disfmarker} from my point of view your shoe is left of the chair . +Grad B: Right . You {disfmarker} you can actually say things like , um , "" it 's behind the tree from me "" or something like that , I think , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in certain circumstances in English , right ? As sort of "" from where I 'm standing it would appear that "" {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . So , +Grad F: Looks a little bit like Reichenbach for time . +Professor C: Yeah , it sounds like it , doesn't it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Grad F: It 's a lot like it . +Grad E: And then {disfmarker} and then here you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: On this scale , you have it either be ego or allocentric . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And that 's {comment} {disfmarker} that 's basically it . So . Egocentric two - point , egocentric three - point , or you can have allocentric . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So , "" as seen from the church , the town hall is right of that um , fire station "" . aa - huh {comment} It 's hardly ever used but it 's w +PhD A: I 'd love to see it if you {disfmarker} if you have a copy kind of . Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . I see this is {disfmarker} this is getting into Ami 's thing . +PhD A: Here +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: He 's {disfmarker} he 's very interested in that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So . +Grad B: Me too . +Professor C: Uh . Yeah . Well , why don't you just put it on the web page ? There 's this EDU {disfmarker} Right ? +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or a link to it . +Grad E: It 's also all on my {disfmarker} my home page at EML . It 's called "" An Anatomy of a Spatial Description "" . +Professor C: Just +Grad E: But I 'll send that link . +PhD A: OK , great . +Professor C: Maybe just put a link on . Yeah . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: By the way , there {disfmarker} something that I didn't know until about a week ago or so , is apparently , there are separate brain areas for things within reach , and things that are out of reach . +Grad E: Yep . +Grad B: Huh . +Professor C: So there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh all this linguistic stuff about you know , near and far , or yon and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is all {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} There 's this linguistic facts . But apparently , the {disfmarker} Uh . Here 's the way the findings go . That , you know they do MRI , and {disfmarker} and if you 're uh {disfmarker} got something within reach then there 's one of your areas lights up , and if something 's out of reach uh a different one . But here 's the {disfmarker} the amazing result , um , they say . You get someone with a {disfmarker} with a deficit so that they have a perfectly normal ability at distance things . So the s typical task is subdivision . So there 's a {disfmarker} a line on the wall over there , and you give them a laser pointer , and you say , "" Where 's the midpoint ? "" And they do fine . If you give them the line , and they have to touch it , they can't . There 's just that part of the brain isn't functioning , so they can't do that . Here 's the real experiment . The same thing on the wall , you give them a laser , "" where is it ? "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: they do it . Give them a stick , long stick , and say "" do it "" , they can't do it . So there 's a remapping of distant space into nearby space . +PhD A: Right . So they doubled {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end of this {disfmarker} +Grad F: Because it 's within reach now ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's not within reach and you use the Within - Reach uh , mechanism . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad F: Oh . Wow . +Grad B: Circuits . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: So I 'll d I 'll dig you up this reference . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And so this doe This is , uh {disfmarker} First of all , it explains something that I 've always wondered about and I 'll do this {disfmarker} this test on you guys as well . So . Uh . How - I have had an experience , not often , but a certain number of times , when , for example , I 'm working with a tool , a screwdriver or something , for a long time , I start feeling the tip directly . Not indirectly , but you actually can feel the tip . +Grad B: Yeah yeah . +Professor C: And people who are uh accomplished violinists and stuff like that , claim they also have this kind of thing where you get a direct sensation of , physical sensation , of the end affector . +Grad B: Yeah . What 's going on at the end of the tool , +PhD A: The ext the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} The extension , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: What 's going on at the end of the tool , or whatever . +Professor C: Yeah , within {disfmarker} +PhD A: right . +Professor C: Huh ? +PhD A: The extension of {disfmarker} of your hand , right . +Professor C: Yeah , right . Have you hav y h had this ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . I mean i i it 's not exactly the th same thing , but {disfmarker} but s it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's getting close to that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: W what does it feel like ? +Professor C: Oh i it feels like your {disfmarker} as if your uh neurons had extended themselves out to this tool , and you 're feeling forces on it and so forth and {disfmarker} and you deal directly with it . +PhD A: I once {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was playing you know with those um uh devices that allow you to manipulate objects when it 's dangerous to get close ? So you can insert your hand something +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Right , yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and there 's a correspondence between {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So I played with it . After a while , you don't feel the difference anymore . I {disfmarker} I mean it 's kind of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD A: Very {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} you stop back and suddenly it goes away and you have to kind of work again to recapture it , but yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right , Yeah , so anyway , so {disfmarker} So this was the first actual experimental evidence I 'd seen that was consistent with this anecdotal stuff . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And of course it makes a lovely def uh story about why languages uh , make this distinction . Of course there are behavioral differences too . Things you can reach are really quite different than things you can't . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: But there seems to be an actu really deep embodied neural difference . And i this is , um {disfmarker} So . In addition to the e +Grad E: This is more proximal - distal . +Professor C: Yeah uh exactly . So in addition to e ego and allocentric uh which appear all over the place , you also apparently have this proximal - distal thing which is very deeply uh embedded . S +Grad E: Well , Dan Montello sort of , he {disfmarker} he does the uh uh {disfmarker} th the cognitive map world , down in Santa Barbara . And he {disfmarker} he always talks about these {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he already {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} i probably most likely without knowing this {disfmarker} this evidence uh is talking about these small scale spaces that you can manipulate versus large scale environmental spaces . +Professor C: Yeah . Well there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh been a lot of behavioral things o on this , but that was the first neur neuro - physiological thing I saw . Anyway yeah , so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at this . And . So , all of these issues now {disfmarker} are now starting to come up . So , now {disfmarker} we 're now done with demos . We 're starting to do science , right ? And so these issues about uh , reference , and {disfmarker} spatial {comment} reference , discourse reference , uh - uh - uh - uh {comment} all this sort of stuff , uh , deixis which is part of what you were talking about , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um {disfmarker} So , all of this stuff is coming up essentially starting now . So we gotta do all this . So there 's that . And then there 's also a set of system things that come up . So "" OK , we 're not using their system . That means we need our system . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It {disfmarker} it follows . And so , uh , in addition to the business about just getting the linguistics right , and the formalism and stuff , we 're actually gonna build something and uh , Johno is point person on the parser , analyzer , whatever that is , and we 're gonna start on that in parallel with the um , the grammar stuff . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: But to do that we 're gonna need to make some decisions like ontology , so , um {disfmarker} And so this is another thing where we 're gonna , you know , have to get involved and make s relatively early I think , make some decisions on uh , "" is there an ontology API that {disfmarker} that "" {disfmarker} There 's a sort of standard way of getting things from ontologies and we build the parser and stuff around that , or is there a particular ontology that we 're gonna standardize on , and if so {disfmarker} For example , is there something that we can use there . i Does uh either the uh SmartKom project or one of the projects at EML have something that we can just p pull out , for that . Uh , so there are gonna be some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , which are not science but system . But we aren't gonna ignore those cuz we 're {disfmarker} we 're not only going {disfmarker} The plan is not only to lay out this thing , but to actually uh build some of it . And how much we build , and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . Part of it , if it works right , is wh It looks like we 're now in a position that the construction analyzer that we want for this applied project can be the same as the construction analyzer that Nancy needs for the child language modeling . So . It 's always been out of phase but it now seems that um , there 's a good shot at that . So we 've talked about it , and the hope is that we can make these things the same thing , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and of course it 's only w In both cases it 's only one piece of a bigger system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it would be nice if that piece were exactly the same piece . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: It was just this uh construction analyzer . And so we think {disfmarker} we think we have a shot at {disfmarker} at that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So . The for So . To {disfmarker} to come full circle on that , this formalization task , OK ? is trying to get the formalism into {disfmarker} into a shape where it can actually uh +Grad B: Yeah . Be of use to someone who 's trying to do this , right ? +Professor C: d Well , yeah , where it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} covers the whole range of things . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that got Mark into the worst trouble is he had a very ambitious thing he was trying to do , and he insisted on trying to do it with a limited set of mechanisms . It turned out , inherently not to cover the space . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And it just {disfmarker} it was just terribly frustrating for him , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and he seemed fully committed to both sides of this i i irreconcilable thing . +Grad B: I see . Right . +Professor C: And . Uh . Johno is much more pragmatic . +Grad B: OK . Good to know . +Professor C: Uh . Huh ? Is {disfmarker} This is true , is it not ? +Grad D: Yes . +Professor C: OK . So there 's you know sort of , yeah , deep , really deep , emotional commitment to a certain theory being uh , complete . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: You don't have a hidden purist streak ? +Grad D: Oh no . +Professor C: We - well it hasn't it {disfmarker} it certainly hasn't been observed , in any case . +Grad F: OK . Just checking . +Grad D: No sir . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: Um . Now , you do , but that 's OK . Uh . So . For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz I don't have to implement anything . +Professor C: Exactly right . Exactly . +Grad F: I have a problem , then . It 's {disfmarker} So . Whether I do depends on whether I 'm talking to him or him probably . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , right . +Professor C: Right . Why {disfmarker} a actually , uh , the thing is , you {disfmarker} you do but , th the thing you have to im implement is so small that {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad F: Which meeting I 'm in . It 's OK to be purist within that context . +Professor C: Within that , yeah , +Grad F: Yes , +Professor C: and uh , it 's {disfmarker} a and still , I think , you know , get something done . +Grad F: good . +Grad B: Cool ! +Professor C: But to try to do something upscale and purist Particularly if {disfmarker} if um what you 're purist about doesn't actually work , {vocalsound} is real hard . +Grad F: Yay . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And then the other thing is while we 're doing this uh Robert 's gonna pick a piece of this space , +PhD A: It 's possible yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK , uh , for his absentee thesis . I think you all know that {disfmarker} that you can just , in Germany {disfmarker} almost just send in your thesis . +Grad B: Just a drive up . Ca - chuk ! +PhD A: Um +Professor C: Yeah right . +Grad B: There you go . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: The - th There {disfmarker} there 's a drive - in thesis uh sh {vocalsound} joint over in Saarbruecken . +Grad B: Exactly . Drive through , yeah . +Professor C: It costs a lot . The {disfmarker} the amount {disfmarker} You put in your credit card and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as well . But , uh , {disfmarker} But anyway , so , uh , that 's um , also gotta be worked out , hopefully over the next few weeks , so that {disfmarker} that it becomes clear uh , what piece uh , Robert wants to jump into . And , while we 're at this level , uh , there 's at least one new doctoral student in computer science who will be joining the project , either next week or the first of August , depending on the blandishments of Microsoft . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So , de Uh . And her name is Eva . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It really is . Nobody believed th th that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I thought it had to be a joke , of your part , you know +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: like {disfmarker} {comment} "" Johno made it up , I 'm sure . "" +Grad G: Is this person someone who 's in first - year this year , +Professor C: No , first year coming . +Grad G: or +Professor C: So , she 's {disfmarker} she 's now out here she 's moved , and she 'll be a student as of then . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: And probably she 'll pick up from you on the belief - net stuff , so sh she 'll be chasing you down and stuff like that . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad E: Document . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: Uh , against all traditions . And actually I talked today to a uh undergraduate who wants to do an honors thesis on this . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Someone from the class ? +Professor C: No , interestingly enough . +Grad F: We always get these people who are not in the class , who {disfmarker} +Professor C: Some of th some of them , yeah . +Grad F: It 's interesting . +Professor C: So anyway , uh , but uh she 's another one of these ones with a three point nine average and so forth and so on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I 've give I 've given her some things to read . So we 'll see how this goes . Oh there 's yet another one of the incoming first {disfmarker} {comment} incoming first - year graduate students who 's expressed interest , so we 'll see how that goes . Um , anyway , so , I think as far as this group goes , um , it 's certainly worth continuing for the next few weeks to get closure on the uh belief - net and the ideas that are involved in that , and what are th what are the concepts . We 'll see whether it 's gonna make sense to have this be separate from the other bigger effort with the formalization stuff or not , I 'm not sure . It partly depends on w what your thesis turns out to be and how that goes . S so , we 'll see . And then , Ami , you can decide , you know , how much time you wanna put into it and uh , it it 's beginning to take shap shape , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: so uh and , +PhD A: Right +Professor C: I think you will find that if you want to look technically at some of the {disfmarker} your traditional questions in this light , uh Keith , who 's buil building constructions , will be quite happy to uh see what , you know , you envision as the issues and the problems and um , how they might uh get reflected in constructions . +Grad B: Sure . +Professor C: I suspect that 's right . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I may have to go to Switzerland for {disfmarker} in June or beginning of July for between two weeks and four weeks , but uh , after that or before that . +Professor C: OK , fine . And , um , if it 's useful we can probably arrange for you to drop by and visit either at Heidelberg or at the German AI center , while you 're in {disfmarker} in the neighborhood . +PhD A: Right . Yeah be uh actu actually I 'm invited to do some consulting with a bank in Geneva which has an affiliation with a research institute in Geneva , which I forgot the name of . +Professor C: Yeah . Yep . E o do y +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , we we 're connected to uh {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a very significant connection between {disfmarker} We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go through this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: ICSI and EPFL , which is the , uh {disfmarker} It 's the {disfmarker} Fr Ge - Germany 's got two big technical institutes . There 's one in {disfmarker} in Zurich , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: E T and then there 's one , the French speaking one , in Lausanne , +Grad B: Oh , so in Switzerland . +Professor C: OK ? which is uh E P +PhD A: Great . +Professor C: F L . So find out who they are associated with in Geneva . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Probably we 're connected to them . +PhD A: Great . I 'll let you know . S I 'll send you email . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , and so anyway we c uh {disfmarker} We can m undoubtedly get Ami uh to give a talk at uh EML or something like that . While he 's in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the one you {disfmarker} you gave here a couple of weeks ago would be of interest there , too . +PhD A: Sure , yeah . +Professor C: A lot of interest . Actually , either place , DFKI or uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so , and {disfmarker} and if there is a book , that you 'll be building up some audience for it . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And you 'll get feedback from these guys . +PhD A: Great , yeah . +Professor C: Cuz they 've actually {disfmarker} these DFKI guys have done as much as anyone over the last decade in trying to build them . So we 'll set that up . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: OK . So , uh , unless we wanna start digging into the {disfmarker} uh the belief - net and the decisions now , which would be fine , it 's probably {disfmarker} +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I tho It 's probably better if I come next week with the um version O point nine of the structure . +Professor C: OK . So , how about if you two guys between now and next week come up with something that is partially proposal , and partially questions , saying "" here 's what we think we understand , here are the things we think we don't understand "" . And that we as a group will try to {disfmarker} to finish it . What I 'd like to do is shoot f for finishing all this next Monday . +Grad G: Sure . +Professor C: OK ? Uh , "" these are the decisions "" {disfmarker} I don't think we 're gonna get lots more information . It 's a design problem . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You know . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . And let 's come up with a first cut at what this should look like . And then finish it up . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Does that so make sense ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , the {disfmarker} the sem semester will be over next week but then you have projects for one more week to come ? +Grad G: No , I {disfmarker} I think I 'll be done {disfmarker} everything by this uh {disfmarker} by the end of this week . +Grad E: Same with you ? No . +Grad D: Nnn . This {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I have projects , but then the {disfmarker} my prof professor of one of my classes also wa has a final that he 's giving us . And he 's giving us five days to do it which means it going to be hard . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Oh . is it a take - home final ? Who 's doing this ? +Grad D: Yeah . Aikin , Alex , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , figured . That would have been i my guess . +Grad G: Hmm . +Professor C: Right . Um , But anyway , yeah . +Grad B: Pretty soon . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK , so I guess that 's +Grad D: So , the seventeenth will definitely be the last day , like it or not for me . +Professor C: Right . right . So let 's do this , and then we we well there 's gonna be some separate co these guys are talking , uh we have a group on the formalization , uh Nancy and Johno and I are gonna talk about parsers . So there 're various kinds of uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Of course , nothing gets done even in a meeting of seven people , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: right ? So , um , two or three people is the size in which actual work gets done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So we 'll do that . Great . Oh , the other thing we wanna do is catch up with uh , Ellen and see what she 's doing because the um image schemas are going to be um , an important pa +Grad B: Yeah . Quite relevant , yeah . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} we want those , +Grad B: Yeah , oh yeah . +Professor C: right ? And we want them formalized and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So let me {disfmarker} let me make a note to do that . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I 'm actually probably going to be in contact with her uh pretty soon anyway because of various of us students were going to have a reading group about precisely that sort of thing over the summer , +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Oh right ! Right right right ! +Grad B: so . +Professor C: That 's great ! Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Shweta mentioned that , although she said it 's a secret . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Hi +Grad B: Right , no faculty ! +Professor C: Th - the faculty aren't {disfmarker} faculty aren't supposed to know . +Grad D: Wednesday 's much better for me , yeah . +Professor C: But um , I 'm sufficiently clueless that I count as a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , right . It 's as if we didn't tell anyone at all , +Grad D: Bhaskara . +Grad B: right . +","In a group discussion, Professor C initiates a review of the previous week's activities, specifically mentioning a visit by members of the German SmartKom project and their collaborative work. Grad E reports progress on integrating the SmartKom system with English language synthesis, although it currently outputs a mix of German and English. Various technical discussions ensue regarding system integration, language processing, and XML tree structures. The group discusses future plans for the summer, directing focus towards foundational research rather than applied projects. Ph.D. A, Grad B, and others express interest in different linguistic and spatial description issues, which may play a role in their research. Professor C mentions the arrival of a new doctoral student, Eva, and the potential involvement of other students. The group agrees on the need for a belief net structure for their project, which Grad E and Grad G will propose at the next meeting. Professor C also emphasizes the need to understand the demo system fully, even though it may not be central to the research. The session ends with plans to continue discussions about the belief net, formalizations, parsers, and integrating image schemas into their work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Oh I totally {disfmarker} Yeah 'cause I moved it . {vocalsound} 'S put it over here . Then we don't have to worry about it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ready for this ? +Project Manager: All set ? Cool . Alright , it is PowerPoint time . I've done more PowerPoints in this particular experiment than I've ever done in my life before this experiment {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: which is kind of fun . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh here we have our detailed design meeting where we will um look at the prototype and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} right so um , I finally figured out what this whole second bullet point is about in my {disfmarker} that my coach was sending to me . It means I'm supposed to read the minutes from the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? +Project Manager: I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: I don't know . Otherwise it's just saying I'm the secretary +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {disfmarker} therefore I'm taking the minutes , s so just to go um {vocalsound} just real briefly to go over minutes from last meeting , uh , I will open them slowly , no ? Wait for it , wait for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's not you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . That's how the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is , this is very high-powered stuff here , double-clicking , there we go . So um basically the moral of the story from our last minute uh {disfmarker} last meeting was that {vocalsound} um we that we had meetings from {disfmarker} uh we had presentations done by the Industrial Designer , uh or from Nathan , and Ron and from Sarah about what we can do here um and what sort of limitations we're operating with um {disfmarker} uh excuse me what limitations we're operating under , what kind of risk we'd be looking at with some of the various approaches we were discussing and we essentially came to the conclusion that we should develop a remote with uh voice recognition , I_E_ that had a vaguely non-remote like shape um because you didn't really need to use it as a remote since you could just use your voice . That would include some {disfmarker} mostly just the simple design features for a television operation but with a slide or a fold-out bay for more advanced functions for users . Um , and uh the uh uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ were asked to go ahead and start developing a prototype for us to look at . {vocalsound} So . That's sorted , back to the main {vocalsound} meet here , um , go ahead and take it away guys . +Industrial Designer: Well . Uh , we have assembled our prototype , um . What's to be said about it ? Um , we took into account a lot of the things that we went over in the last meeting , um . Some of the most important things to consider are that we decided not to go for the touch screen which you can see +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and opted for some very large buttons for the primary functions , um . This is going to be the on off button +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we have these buttons to go through the channels um and then two volume buttons down here , d uh we decided those were the most important uh buttons . And then , for the more advanced uh functions there is a slide out panel here um and you can see that there are lots of other things going on . But this actually can slide back in and provides a very nice aesthetic when it's all put away , um . As far as the uh whole visible light thing , we decided to go with the multiple colours coming out , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: why not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , if that's annoying for some people that function can be turned off . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +User Interface: No it's important to {vocalsound} we talked a quite a bit about uh you know the the interchangeable uh faces and what we've done here is come up with a bit of a natural look here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um f we call it fruity +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: if you will . Um . Right , um , +Marketing: Appropriate , okay . +User Interface: of course that's uh interchangeable +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh I think it would be desirable for the uh for the regular product in the in the in the in the first packaging to be something a little bit more subdued +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: but this is kind of something that can be done +Marketing: It is an option . +User Interface: um and as you can see on the television there uh we have the uh voice detector device um on the top there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: That's this here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . I see . +User Interface: Um . So that that will work quite well with with regard to finding this uh contraption . Um , what other things do we see here , well , um if you give it a touch it does have actually a bit of a spongy feel , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , so I think that will work well with regards to our market . Um and uh let's see , well clearly there's gonna be some more colours and what not available . {vocalsound} Um uh do you have anything else to add to that ? +Industrial Designer: Um I worried about the materials , it is uh {disfmarker} the entire thing is covered in a rubber coating so it's very durable uh , it's not gonna break like some types of plastic that's dropped . Um , and of course as you can see and if you touch it it does have that nice squishy feel . +User Interface: It's actually important to note that the television , uh you know if there's an earthquake or anything like that , that i it actually is edible inside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fact , I dunno if you noticed , but I wrote the uh the company's name on the telephone screen , +Project Manager: Oh well done yeah , yeah oh ok +Industrial Designer: I thought that was kinda nice . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: This was actually an apple on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do we need to worry about um rot factors ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} it's encased in a new uh type of uh +Marketing: Oh okay , there's preservatives involved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: polymer yeah . +Marketing: we don't need to worry , +Industrial Designer: We got a bit ahead of ourselves , +User Interface: It's fine . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not talking about making televisions at this point or anything like that , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Edible televisions , it's a wave of the future . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's pos a possible new product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a couple years off at least . Okay . +User Interface: Um , but I think that's {disfmarker} I think that sums up the main features of our {disfmarker} of the remote , +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: um I dunno if you guys have any questions or f whether that uh {disfmarker} whether we need to worry about any uh other marketing areas or anything of that nature . Um , did we come in under budget ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we did , yeah . This cost {disfmarker} well to put this into um production , we're looking at about {disfmarker} what was our goal ? It was twelve fifty Euro um and this actually came in at about eleven ninety nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was quite pleased with that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One thing that we didn't do um {disfmarker} obviously we had a choice with the buttons whether to use scroll buttons or standard rubber buttons , but we just went for a classic rubber button and um since we did that +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we didn't have to use as many microchips which was quite nice and that's what helped keep the cost down . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: So even though it has a lot of modern technology , um for example the voice recognition , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in a lot of ways it's just a simple remote and um I think if we shopped around for other manufacturers um we might be able to get even cheaper . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Did we talk about the voice recognition uh option ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Oh no , we haven't talked about that yet have we ? +User Interface: So uh so uh yeah on the back here you all noticed this area here which is actually the voice recognition uh uh console +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and uh I think it's nicely designed into the into the overall look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , but basically the voice recognition uh incorporates um the latest designs that our research team has been able to cufw uh come up with . Basically uh quite similar to the coffee maker um design that we were talking about earlier +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: and um , I think that uh has given a proven um {vocalsound} ease of use and what not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And uh allows features like the remote actually talking back to the user um , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Any questions ? +Project Manager: No , no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have um other , for lack of a better word , skins ? Covers ? +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: In play now or are those ones gonna be developed later once we see how the couple we have g go or ? +Industrial Designer: Um , do you wanna answer this one +Marketing: Do we know where we stand on that yet ? +Industrial Designer: or do you want me to answer it ? +User Interface: Well we didn't quite have enough material uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh I wasn't expecting a prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh I see , +Marketing: I just didn't know {disfmarker} if you guys had any in mind yet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: right , um . +Industrial Designer: Um , well {vocalsound} as you can see this is just a most superficial layer and um it'd be very easy to put another layer of something else like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Just veneer really , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Actually this bottom red ring here just unclips +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then you put a a new a new uh a new plate on top of that . +Marketing: And the whole thing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay +User Interface: So I mean there are {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right +User Interface: we definitely priced out a spongy {disfmarker} even spongier non-natural look um materials +Marketing: Yeah . There's {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: which I think worked out fine . We also continued on with the ideas that f following uh Apple's colour schemes with the kind of the uh light orange and the green . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Okay , very cool . +Industrial Designer: It's not it's not quite a a face plate , it's more like a pseudo-face plate because it's simple enough +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that in the factory it could {disfmarker} we could very easily put a different one on it , it locks into place such that , you know , it's pretty permanent but at the same time , if we wanna go the other way it's just a matter of a couple of adjustments and we could go the face plate way +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you know what I mean . +Marketing: Yep . It's still an option if we need it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Very cool , nice job . +Project Manager: Right , yeah thanks guys that's very , very good work . I like it , brilliant . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} what we need to discuss now is the finance of it , um I got me {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you provided a number that actually sounds quite nice . Um the trouble is I was just given this by finance . Um , it's a spreadsheet of the parts {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: and I've just tentatively put in what it's going to look like um . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna clear this out real quickly , but it looks like {disfmarker} So we'll just {disfmarker} if we can just itemize what's in here , we've got this {disfmarker} it's a solar cell thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Right +Project Manager: With a back-up battery ? +Industrial Designer: uh we didn't really touch on that but it it's in there , +Project Manager: With the ba okay . Um +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The voice recognition area actually doubles as uh as the solar cell area . Yeah . +Project Manager: Clever , clever , well done . Um so I guess that would mean we've got a bit of a um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a s a speaker and a sensor at the same time isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's just making use of the same space and the same materials , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and the case , it's more of a single-curved case , I guess would be that {disfmarker} be the general {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one big curve I guess you could say . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and we've got a rubber skin material basically throughout . Um . Push button interface um with this other drop-down so maybe we've got two push button interfaces don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . And um a special {disfmarker} I guess it's uh {disfmarker} we've got a sort of a wood materi a rubbery type material that {disfmarker} throughout , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And s I guess you have to mark special colour and special form as well , don't you ? 'Cause it i it is very unconventional , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's it's quite unique . +Industrial Designer: I like to think of it as unconventional . +Project Manager: I like it , yeah it's {disfmarker} So it looks like +Marketing: M come in at sixteen ? +Project Manager: a bit over budget , um . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Huh , doesn't match up does it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what we could do perhaps , a simple fix would maybe to switch away from the solar cells {vocalsound} um or take out the back-up battery . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How do you feel about that ? +User Interface: I mean I think that uh if we're talking about it being one of our main selling features , being environmental and without the batteries and what not , although it does still have a battery so I'm not sure that {disfmarker} you know what the sell is on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean we could take we could take the battery out of it you see and it'd probably work ninety nine per cent of the time but you're gonna have to set up a call centre for that one per cent of the time when people are calling and saying oh look my remote isn't working +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what am I gonna do ? +Marketing: Mm k . +Industrial Designer: People'd be real upset . I think in the long-run it's better to keep the battery , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: it's hard to scrap the whole cell battery idea 'cause that's so integral to the theme that we have . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} What's difficult , we have all these things integral to the um to the design of it that we just can't back out of now , +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: it would have to be {disfmarker} seems like we'd have to go back to square one in a way . Um if we were gonna try to undo one bit we'd probably have to undo most of it , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although we don't wanna get rid of the whole environmental {disfmarker} I mean obviously the solar cell is a big piece of the way we're marketing this as like a natural , new thing , but honestly if we cut that one piece out we're actually coming in under budget if I've done my math correctly . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean you might be able to sway me on the idea that {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} our main selling point could be already this voice recognition thing +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean that's what sets us apart +Marketing: Which , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: yeah that's what setting us into this young market , I mean that's where we started from , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know , and I mean you know perhaps when the cell technology comes down in price we can bring that back into the game but it looks like at this point that may be out of our league . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And the reality is you know , for me from an ideological stand point , I'd like to stick with the uh the solar cell , but I h kind of have to throw myself in the in the business structure model here +Marketing: Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: and uh you know I think I think that I think that we need to come to a compromise here +Project Manager: It's either or . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe move ahead with the project , without the solar cell . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I guess we might have to do that . +Marketing: I think unfortunately that's our best option . +Industrial Designer: It's the only way we're gonna get below our uh goal isn't it ? Of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause we can't remove the push buttons 'cause they're {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um and we can't get rid of the uh {disfmarker} I mean removing the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Savings . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: changing the case wouldn't be so much of a {vocalsound} mm-mm , um , nor would changing the case materials . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Um . So yeah that looks like to be the only thing . So that would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's a major change but {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright , so +Industrial Designer: Gotta do what you gotta do . +Project Manager: we're in agreement on that . +Marketing: Unfortunately I think we are . +User Interface: No , I think that was a good compromise you brought forward Sarah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Moving along swiftly . Um , so I guess now we just go to the project evaluation which I will allow Sarah to take over . +Marketing: That would be me . Um cord ? +Project Manager: Ah of course , sorry . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Whoosh . +Marketing: Can you reach , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: that would be great , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That'd be great {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I didn't even do that one on purpose either , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: damn . Okay , um , basically I was just evaluating um {vocalsound} from what we know of how our product's working right now with the criteria that we set at the beginning of {disfmarker} these are the things we needed to do , these are the things that look like we feel they're important . Um so I was looking at basic design things , does it fulfil its functions as a remote ? Is the design what we wanted it to do ? I are technologies up to where we hoped they would be and does it fulfil the aesthetic qualities that our original market research was looking for ? Um . Basic questions like , you know , does it turn on ? Does it respond to voice recognition ? And overall , in general , it looks like it's coming up to par . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , the only thing is with with the pull-out panel , that is , can it take some adjusting because it's a new sort of interface , um that looked like it was coming up rough , but then , once you get used to it , it does make a lot of sense . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really good . +Marketing: So I think overall we're headed in the right direction . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: They like that spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It looks like it's going over well , so +User Interface: And the paging function works well , +Industrial Designer: Six ? +User Interface: that's good to hear , +Marketing: we're we're good yeah . +User Interface: we worked hard on that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: We did . +Marketing: Yeah . It's {disfmarker} I think eventually if we do um branch out with this product maybe we do have a higher budget options and if it goes over with this model we can look into um wider range voice recognition like from other rooms of the house and stuff , but for now , what we've got is working in the range we need it for , so it's all good . +Industrial Designer: I am bit disappointed about losing the solar panel +Marketing: That's everything from me . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it is a set-back , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , do you need the cord back ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , +User Interface: W we might have uh we might have lost that granola market again +Project Manager: I was just {disfmarker} go on . +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: that we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they don't own tellys anyway do they ? +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: I guess that's true . +Project Manager: Right . So , um , {vocalsound} this one's a bit unclear to me to be perfectly fair , um . I got this slide from the coach and I'm not sure what it's connected to . Um so I guess we are going to discuss um {vocalsound} our project process um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that is gonna go into my report . So I guess this is the point where we go um {vocalsound} uh out of role it looks like and talk about our satisfaction for room for creativity and so forth and how that all worked , I guess , um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: As in within the team or ? +Project Manager: I think so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right so it's just kind of a open mic kind of thing or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I mm-hmm , I think so . I think {vocalsound} hope I'm not screwing up an experiment {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: It is now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're in charge there you go {vocalsound} . so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I trust that she would jump in if I was so okay fair enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Um right , um so any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Are we considering these points here ? +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think they're starting blocks yeah . +Project Manager: What do you guys feel about the process ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um , you know I think in general , for a day's worth of work we actually were {vocalsound} relatively productive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: considering the little amount of input we had going in . Um , and the technology has definitely been a help , it's really been interesting to try out all this new stuff . +User Interface: We didn't use the whiteboard at all . +Project Manager: No , no whiteboard . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we didn't . We could now if that'd make up for it +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: but really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I feel like if you guys had been designing in here perhaps that would have changed but because of room constraints , doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Um , also had I not been intrigued about the pen , I don't think I woulda used it at all , I didn't write barely anything . +Marketing: Yeah I think I was taking {vocalsound} notes more often than usual +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: just 'cause I liked the pen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Was pretty cool tack though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Mm . I am disappointed I didn't get a note back from my personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As you write your personal coach . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I didn't get a response {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you get a response two or three months from now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll see {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be weird . +Marketing: Okay that would be kinda creepy . +Project Manager: Attempts to contact coach ineffective {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: what kind of coaching is that really ? What if I really needed something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} so n I think there was a lot of room for creativity , I don't we could do whatever {disfmarker} basically what we wanted until the budget came down on us , um . +Marketing: I think so . And even then we did get a decent product turned out although it's not everything we wanted it to be . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: With the natural look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very natural look . +Industrial Designer: That's very natural . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Organic , really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the brilliance of {disfmarker} they had a p they had a peeler in here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And highly resourceful team mates might I add +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: which is always a plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think , yeah re I thought it was like really creative actually , I mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think the teamwork was good as well . +Marketing: Mm yeah , I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: And to prove that we weren't wasteful we didn't waste a single bit of Play-Doh , we used every bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . All four of those little containers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Including the s the multi-coloured wave pattern . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My one my one criticism is that we didn't have enough colours to work with , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we only had four , wasn't enough . +Marketing: You could have developed multiple skins really had you had more colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know it could have been amazing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: What did you guys think about the the the roles ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: They were good {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's f kind of fun , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it was pretty clever 'cause we were never able to get too far off track because the information came in at the right time and kind of filled in the gaps enough . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: At the same time you had enough room to kind of just make things up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do your own . +Industrial Designer: which was kind of fun . +Marketing: Though I did feel like th the level of information dropped off severely over the course of the day . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's just me but I didn't actually get any information for the last presentation at all . +Project Manager: That's true , I I got this spreadsheet {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Nothing , I didn't even get an email , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that was it . So , yeah , I feel like that was slightly lacking but then you know , fill in the blanks on your own , level of creativity upped . +User Interface: Well I think that was I think that was an issue I kept finding with regard to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . +Project Manager: Of what to do . +User Interface: well no but also {disfmarker} yeah when I was reporting about what each of us was doing I was often confused as to what you were doing {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh , that wasn't very much . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +User Interface: um and then I also felt like you know a lot of our discussion would centre around n specifically what my task was +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that was kind of the interface portion +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which was what the whole project was about +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +User Interface: uh +Marketing: Hmm , very much so . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} and then in the end I think our jobs kind of melded together a little bit more , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That was fun . I think the most helpful thing out of everything was getting the the PowerPoint slides already put together for you +User Interface: which was fine . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if we didn't have that there's no way we could have got all that done in time . +Marketing: Yeah , already having the formatted stuff helped a lot . Very much so . +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: And I think your leadership was quite good . +Industrial Designer: It was really good yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: She said I I I she actually made a comment off {gap} boy you're getting into this and I really I think it's true I did get {disfmarker} I I felt like I got way too into it . +Marketing: Yeah . That's kind of a good thing though , +Project Manager: I felt like I slipped into it a lot . +Industrial Designer: It's kinda fun . +Marketing: you know , give the rest of us some structure to work with so hey . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: An so is that the first time you've taken on that kind of role ? +Project Manager: The first time I've ever done anything like yeah project project management . I usually organise crap , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's one thing to do , you know {disfmarker} set up a party with your friends , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Little different . +Project Manager: But you guys felt that you could keep the , yeah , suspension of disbelief kind of like like the role and the {disfmarker} okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I except for a couple moments where it just got out of hand +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I knew we were all lying through our teeth , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I had to admit , as soon as w we started {disfmarker} I mean as soon as we got the Play-Doh , {vocalsound} th {vocalsound} you know the whole concept of really trying to stick with reality went out the window {vocalsound} . +Marketing: other than that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could only imagine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe in in Legos you know ? Be fun with Legos too , +User Interface: Possibly . +Project Manager: like make a remote control or spaceship , we used to have spaceship Legos {disfmarker} did you guys ever used to build spaceships with Legos {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . Totally . +Project Manager: everybody knows {disfmarker} best spaceships ever . +User Interface: still have 'em . +Project Manager: Um you guys felt like there was enough teamwork in all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: I think so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No I , no I dunno , I d I I dunno , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't . +Project Manager: I don't {disfmarker} I I was just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though we didn't actually {disfmarker} I mean other than minor discussion at meetings there wasn't {disfmarker} except for the actual building , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's true huh ? +Marketing: but I feel like if this was a team project there actually would have been much more of the collaborative like brainstorming , use the board {disfmarker} well and this would have been six months' worth of work , not like three hours' worth of meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think had the issue been more serious we probably woulda brainstormed more during our meetings as a team . I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . Course I'm I'm conscious of the idea of the Project Manager asking if you guys feel like there's a team {vocalsound} you know it's like , kind of like , like hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It d +Marketing: Yeah that is kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah . Interesting . It's kind of fascinating wasn't it ? I mean the whole process of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wonder why {disfmarker} is there anything about the way that we got so much inform what was it that kept us from going to the the board ? +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} I I don't know if there was a ri I th +Marketing: Mine was the mics . I didn't feel like getting up and down and dealing with all these wires , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it +Marketing: I was afraid I was gonna break something actually . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the mics are loose and each time you get up it's s a possibility of tripping over something or getting tangled or . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I dunno what I woulda shown on that board . +Marketing: Yeah . True , but it didn't even occur to me as an option , +Project Manager: Nor I . +Marketing: I mean I don't know that I would have but I know that I consciously didn't . +User Interface: I mean it's just like the paper I don't know what I really needed the paper for . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: Um , because I've got this laptop . Standard , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I just used it 'cause it's literally right in front of me . +Project Manager: I wanna see the output files from these um , from the digital paper . +Marketing: Yeah . Well it looks really professional . +Project Manager: I wanna see wh wh what my my handwriting looks like digitized +Marketing: I know . +Project Manager: because my handwriting is crap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I mean , just to see what it looks like in P_D_F_ format or something . +Industrial Designer: that's it . Usually I would do a lot more doodling too but I didn't because {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I felt like I needed to be professional so I didn't like draw all over my paper and stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well not entirely , but still , I doodled less than I usually do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T I I'm curious about what the de-briefing is gonna be like . You know , like what is the uh what exactly we're looking for here . +User Interface: So is this all we need to get through ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm not sure what the new ideas found i is about . +Marketing: I guess . +Industrial Designer: New ideas . +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} did it just say in an email that we need to discuss that ? +Project Manager: Well , that's the thing I got {disfmarker} i in the email I got this PowerPoint file but this slide was just there , +Marketing: That slide was like that ? +Project Manager: mm-hmm . I didn't change this one at all . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Um ch +Industrial Designer: I guess we're on the right track . +Project Manager: Yeah well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any new ideas with regard to remote control concepts ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: W {gap} {vocalsound} I kinda like th +Industrial Designer: No , none . +Marketing: Uh I think they still do their job . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine actually . +Marketing: I am thinking outside the little square box though , with literally in like form +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe a s a circle would be alright , different . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Does kinda make you wonder , I mean , how much can you do with a remote control ? It's like inventing a new car . Yeah yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's still gotta be technically car shaped or it won't fit on the road , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know ? {vocalsound} Don't know . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . 'Kay . +User Interface: What is that ? Our limited ability to think outside the box ? +Project Manager: So this was other costs . +Marketing: Kind of . +Industrial Designer: Are we back into project mood ? +Project Manager: I dunno . I think this is +Marketing: Oh , how long was our meeting supposed to be ? +Project Manager: forty ish +Marketing: How much time do we have left ? +Project Manager: I I I mm we should go on a bit {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} about the project eval , um . I dunno about you guys but I felt like a bit under-stimulated on the whole thing . Like , what like you know what am I really doing , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: you know what is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at the beginning it started out and I felt actually like under pressure like the first couple were taking a lot of work +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I was like {disfmarker} had like all this brainstorming I was doing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then suddenly I was like well it's just another two minute presentation that you guys don't really care about anyway +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: Hey . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so type away . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Huh I think it was the real {gap} . +Marketing: You know , you know what I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like we all sort of knew where we were headed with it so it didn't feel like it mattered anymore . +Industrial Designer: Definitely when {vocalsound} when I first filled out the questionnaire I was marking it probably higher in terms of how much I had to {disfmarker} how much I stressed over it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then by the time I got to the last one I was like , you know , not very much . +Marketing: Whatever . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Think it was also realisation of you basically just copy and paste what's given to you into your presentation +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very much , yeah . +User Interface: which uh wasn't so clear to me at the beginning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I actually didn't do that at all though , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: every single one I {disfmarker} a all the presentations I either added slides or edited 'em . I di +User Interface: Oh I added like five slides too , +Marketing: {vocalsound} See +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you really ? +User Interface: but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: I only got blank ones . +Industrial Designer: I just got blank ones +Project Manager: What ? Really ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: My slides were all blank , they'd have a title maybe +User Interface: Yeah , mine too . +Marketing: and they were just empty . +Project Manager: Did they not have {disfmarker} they didn't like {disfmarker} uh mine {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Project Manager: yeah they didn't come like this ? Like with {disfmarker} this was what it looks like . This is what that looked like , +Marketing: Like with those words already on it ? +Project Manager: literally , just like that . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Marketing: I wondered why yours always looked so more complicated . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: I deleted slides {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think I added a slide one time . +User Interface: I added many slides every time {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: with the whole new background being innovative , yeah that was class . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: That was pretty cool , it was a high moment of the whole experiment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Interesting . Any other thoughts come to mind ? +Marketing: I wanna know how our product would fare . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it would fail , I think +Marketing: I can't just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be a huge disaster , especially if it looks like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it would take extensive marketing , okay , an apple with a red button on top , even I am sceptical . {vocalsound} But you know the whole {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Even you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} we kind of designed it to look little bit like a face . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know it is {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: It's a happy face . +User Interface: Actually that looked a lot more like a tongue from previous to uh fr some other design uh modifications {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Builds . Mm . +User Interface: I hope you appreciate the uh incorporation of some tin foil from a uh random Kit-Kat bar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I noticed that . {vocalsound} By accident . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that happened to be consumed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well huh . An interesting day all in all I would say . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah , I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So again I reiterate my question of how different we are comp compared to the other groups , especially between culture groups and what not . +Project Manager: Mm , I know . +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It seemed like everything flowed pretty logically . You know from the the the basics to the conce +Industrial Designer: I wanna see a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I Yeah . +Project Manager: although the whole concepts thing , the whole concepts phase , I don't think I really understood like the concept . Well the id okay the notion of {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause it's such a functional item . +Project Manager: yeah I mean i it's not like I have a concept of a mug's material , it's just it is what it is . You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe i rather than concepts i it should be th thought of {disfmarker} we sh I I thought of I thought of {disfmarker} rather than in terms of concepts I thought of it in terms of proposed idea . And then the final would be like th the actual specified prototype or whatever , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I dunno . But . All in all it's kinda interesting . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So we have more slides or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No just this closing one . No we've established that the costs weren't really within budget , but we could s you know do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: We got it to be . +Project Manager: We did the project evaluation based on um {vocalsound} Sarah's evaluation of on off switches +Marketing: Like cutting corners . Kind of , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: though it was really technically an evaluation of the product , not the project in general . +Project Manager: Mm . True . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Which I'm not sure is the same thing , at the time that just i made more sense , but I could see if they were really asking about us . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Cause we di we had a thu think about it . Um . Yeah . And it's all recorded , woo-hoo . Yeah what I'm gonna {disfmarker} I'm gonna put um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: I'm supposed to do this final report thing at the end so I'll put all that into the final report as well , or as much as seems like {disfmarker} maybe not like the articles and stuff , like because and if and so forth , but I'll put most of it in the reports . +Industrial Designer: I {vocalsound} It'd be so cool if we get a copy of the recording . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it sound eloquent . Oh , I have to done {disfmarker} I've {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: I've done transcription before and it's really ridiculous how many words people say like just in the middle of their sentences like that +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: that mean nothing . +Project Manager: There's a whole branch of psychology that looks into that , psycholinguistics . +Industrial Designer: Really . +User Interface: What the uhs and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a guy studying it here , yeah , he's studying ums and ahs or something . +Industrial Designer: Filler words or ? +Project Manager: Yep , they're called um disfluencies . +Industrial Designer: Disfluencies . +Marketing: That's a good word for it . +Project Manager: Yeah we like our fancy phrases and terminologies for things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just add some prefixes , sounds classier . +Project Manager: Exactly uh I will save this into the project documents . +Industrial Designer: I find myself hitting the send and receive button on the email a lot , just out of boredom , +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I , yeah , +Industrial Designer: like c come on gimme something . +Marketing: pretty compulsively during meetings , like , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on give me some information . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well to be fair we're we're hooked {disfmarker} we're all hooked on the internet , so I mean I do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we are addicts . +User Interface: That's scary +Industrial Designer: It is scary . +User Interface: yeah ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well just around that eight or or nine people that are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , imagine we went the first ten y fifteen years of our lives without the internet . It's only in the last ten that we're like where's the internet ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , you know , it just in the past five we've gone from twenty eight eight modems to broadband all the time . +Marketing: I yeah . +User Interface: Dude , I think we've had internet for like eighteen years . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: No we have but I {disfmarker} not in the sense that it's so un you know uh ubiquitous +Marketing: I yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's not regular I mean my grandparents had it in the eighties and I got it in ninety four , but still . +Industrial Designer: It's crazy . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: In the eighties ? +Marketing: My um grammy does computer science back in the States and so they had um an E_D_U_ and gov network . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: There's basically the fundamental structures , but it wasn't uh household to household yet +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because it hadn't been +User Interface: Yeah , it was to the like seven universities or something . +Marketing: partitioned off and stuff , yeah that was him . +User Interface: You guys ready to celebrate ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's our last step . Celebration . +Marketing: Apparently , does that include like champagne or something exciting ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Should . +Project Manager: 'Kay I guess we can probably call that meeting to an end for the most part . +Marketing: I think so . I think that's a closer . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Has it been forty minutes or whatever ? {gap} this has been long enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Celebrate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where do you find that ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that the only song you have ? +User Interface: There is another one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this one of those media player ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: W oh . +Industrial Designer: That's awesome . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The default track . I thought it was David Burns , look into the eyeball . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I have a different one . +Project Manager: That's one that seems to be shipping with it uh shipped with for a while , maybe this is the new version . +Marketing: So is that a close ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess we'll call that a a doner . +Marketing: Okay , that's the end of the meeting . +Project Manager: Fab . +Marketing: Thank you gentlemen . I feel like I'm signing off . +","In the meeting, team members from various departments discussed the progress of their remote control prototype design. The Project Manager facilitated the session, explaining that the prototype should incorporate voice recognition and have a non-traditional shape since users wouldn't need to handle it much due to voice activation. It was to have simple design features for TV operation, with a slide-out bay for advanced functions. The prototype created by the Industrial Designer featured large buttons for primary functions and a slide-out panel for more complex commands. Marketing and the User Interface discussed the product's aesthetic, noting interchangeable faces and a natural, fruity look for the remote, while the User Interface pointed out the voice detector device on the TV. + +The team argued about whether to include a solar cell feature, ultimately deciding to exclude it to stay under budget. The Project Manager also received a spreadsheet that included financials, and after discussing, the team agreed on removing the solar cell in order to reduce costs but keeping the backup battery. The Project Manager suggested recording all the decisions made in a final report. + +The Marketing specialist then led a project evaluation discussing how well the prototype met initial design criteria regarding functionality, technology, and aesthetics. The Industrial Designer raised concerns about the loss of the solar panel feature. + +Lastly, the group reflected on the project process, the effectiveness of their teamwork and roles, and the technology used during their work, such as the digital pen and paper. They commented on the flow of information, their engagement level throughout the project, and their curiosity about how their product would perform in the market. The meeting concluded informally with music, signaling time for celebration after the wrap-up." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are you sure I got it all {disfmarker} head's kinda small . +User Interface: How're we placed in terms of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +User Interface: alright . +Marketing: We're okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Guess I should probably try to sit up straight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like that ? Okay , cool . +Marketing: We're good ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think mine's fallen off . +User Interface: It fell {disfmarker} That's why . +Marketing: I guess it's gonna be hard to drink coffee . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay ? {vocalsound} Right , so I'm just gonna start this PowerPoint real quick . Yeah , PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very official . +Project Manager: Yeah , well , you know , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I kinda like this I'm kinda getting into it . Right . Um . So just to kick off the meeting basically um so we're working now for a real reaction , this is uh so it {vocalsound} right . Just got an agenda to set out what we're gonna try to accomplish in this particular first meeting . Um {vocalsound} We're gonna just do a quick opening and we can hopefully all get acquainted with one another um then we're gonna start {disfmarker} talk a little bit about tool training . Essentially that means getting used to the only thing that we haven't tried out yet , the whiteboard . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we've got a general plan for the project how we're gonna go about accomplishing this and then just a bit of discussion close up . Um I {gap} guess you know game or something um {vocalsound} in real life um so yeah basically I want to {disfmarker} I'm just gonna {disfmarker} you got {disfmarker} of course you can discuss that , I'm thinking about um {vocalsound} uh proposing that since we've got this weird blend of ourselves and our roles that we just don't ask , don't tell . {vocalsound} Um so um if you say something about marketing , right , sorted , um {vocalsound} y is +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're just gonna believe me , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll go from there . +Project Manager: Exactly . Um I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: obvi if if you guys {disfmarker} if if at the same time if you {disfmarker} like logically if something doesn't {disfmarker} like if I'm like we're gonna sell a remote control that's the size of this paper book you know um you say like well that doesn't seem like such a good idea because of X_ obviously go with it . I mean we'll discuss it but I'm not gonna ask do you know that or uh yeah it seems like +Marketing: Prove it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah yeah exactly +Marketing: yeah , okay . +Project Manager: so , 'cause we're {disfmarker} what we're sort of role playing is y g yeah you're gonna tap into your own knowledge as well {vocalsound} um . And that's the same for your when we do introductions I mean um and you talk about your background you know have fun , you know maybe you went to um {vocalsound} uh you know maybe i you're like in Maine you went to U_C_S_B_ but you wanna say you went to Harvard or something like that , why not , you know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you can {disfmarker} this is you know I guess we can have a little bit of fun with it . So are you guys okay with that does that seem logical ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's fine . +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Works for me . +Project Manager: Sweet . Cool . So I guess that that {vocalsound} we're totally {disfmarker} we're making a remote control which is thrilling +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um uh but the idea is that we can make something based on the whole corporate model I dunno if you guys had time to check the {disfmarker} in real life I dunno if you guys uh {vocalsound} checked the um {vocalsound} uh the corporate website . Um we've got to make something as fashionable as possible , that's kind of the corporate strategy is we're gonna try to take ordinary stuff that nobody really thinks about and try to make it nice you know like John Lewis nice or you know if you go to Debenham's or something . So um basically we are reinventing the wheel but we wanna try to do it in a user friendly um slick sleek kind of way . {vocalsound} Um way we're gonna go about doing that is basically at first we're gonna start on the basics . And that's where I'm gonna need you guys the User Interface Designers and the um {vocalsound} um the other designer that I can't remember , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ right um {vocalsound} the Industrial Designer +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hey right on alright , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: getting into it um +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: to guide me and guide us on this project 'cause you're gonna be {disfmarker} you're g you guys are the bottom you know you're like no you can't do that you can't have you know X_ and Y_ um at the same time . And then um we'll work up from what is necessary to more like what would be good , you know like um {vocalsound} I I think you guys probably got the same emails I did but the idea of um , yes a coffee pot needs to be able to hold coffee but it's also better if it's not like really cheap glass so that it if you touch it you hurt your hand , or something like that . Um and so we'll work up from there and um then we'll meet on and talk about it and then finally we'll incorporate as kind of the last stage you know where you guys build or tell me {vocalsound} tell us what's possible and then you tell us what we can um hope for and what way to go take the the the take the basics and make it nicer and then ov obviously uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ you know you you can keep on the you know sort of at the cutting edge of how to get about maximising what is possible um to try t of sync it all up . So that's the detailed design . So it's a three stage kind of thing . Um right so for now just for th the white board um basically uh just to get used to it , I haven't tried it yet either um I'm just gonna start and um mm carry like five remotes around um and just write down {disfmarker} I'm just gonna write down one of the names of my um desert discs you know if you {disfmarker} if you were trapped on a desert island and you could only bring five C_D_s along with you name one of them that you could , not all five , if you wanna write all five go for it but name one of them that you could um . Oh , we skipped introductions . Nice . I'm a excellent Project Manager . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm Marty , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um I went to uni at uh U_C_ Santa Barbara and I'm here working on a P_H_D_ in psychology . Um yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm Sarah , I went to Michigan , and I'm here doing cultural studies and I'm the Marketing Manager or something . Marketing , +Project Manager: Expert {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah Expert . Expert . +Project Manager: Don't play yourself down . Expert {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fine . That's me . +User Interface: I'm Ron . I uh once upon a time studied in Victoria and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nathan , I'm from California , and I'm here doing a Masters degree in social anthropology . +Project Manager: Where did you go to uni Nathan ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} U_C_L_A_ . +Project Manager: Oh brilliant . Cool . My little brother goes there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Right so desert island discs . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So do we have to wait for you to write it down or are you gonna tell us ? +Project Manager: Well I'll t i +Marketing: I'm waiting to know . +Project Manager: no no yeah I'm just gonna write a couple of 'em down . See I'm a big music fan I don't know if you guys are , I'm assuming everybody likes music to some lesser or greater extent +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but there's some other options , if you're a T_V_ slut +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: like I am like Smallville terrible television show +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I happen to love it , +Marketing: Oh , Smallville . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's rubbish but I love it . +Marketing: I went to high school with Tom Willing actually . +Project Manager: T the the main c the main character ? +Marketing: The guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Wow . Is he a wanker ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Very much so . Hell of a soccer player but a total bastard nonetheless . +Project Manager: He looks really tall , like he's gotta be like six six . +Marketing: Yeah . He is a big guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um okay so {vocalsound} I really like Jeff Buckley . You guys heard of Jeff Buckley ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um that's cool 'cause like not very many people have . Um {vocalsound} and um oh well I might as well throw a British person in there um you can't go wrong with Radiohead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a r +Marketing: Good call . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so it really works just like a pen only makes noises I think . It's kinda weird . Anyway +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , you're like press and it's {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kinda cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll see . Alright so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whoever wants to get up next , you can write down some telly that you watch or whatever you want . +Marketing: I guess I'll go next then . +Project Manager: Right on . +User Interface: Go for it . +Marketing: Okay . Don't wanna lose all my mikes , plugged in here . Okay . This is basically just pen practice huh ? +Project Manager: W +Marketing: Okay . Oh you're much taller than me so I'm gonna write down here . Um . Right now I'm listening to a lot of somebody nobody's ever heard of , Chris Bathgate , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: local Michigan folk singer , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: really lame +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh uh what else did I bring with me ? Probably classical , to totally geek it out , +Project Manager: Okay yeah yeah . +Marketing: yeah I think . And my family guy D_V_D_s +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Marketing: but we don't need to write that one down . +Project Manager: Oh , family guy . Isn't h has h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you watch the new season ? +Marketing: No . Are you getting it online , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I'm gonna start downloading it +Marketing: or is it on sky ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that'd be nice . +User Interface: Alright . Think I'm just gonna put down one uh one C_D_ . Anybody ? +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No ? {gap} no ? +Marketing: 'Fraid not . +User Interface: Afro beat orchestra , very cool . +Project Manager: Afro beat orchestra ? Very cool . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sounds nice . +User Interface: Fift S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: they like fifteen members from Brooklyn . Um and I'm hoping to go to the concert in Belgium , in Brussels in April first . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . It's supposed to be in Brussels anyways . +Marketing: That'd be {gap} . +User Interface: Um thing I love about Edinburgh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . I didn't even read those . Oops . I shouldn't admit that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what a PowerPoint presentation is for . It's they're designed specifically to ignore . I {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} th brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Oh , wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the five by five , I can't read that much . +Project Manager: Ah yes yes yes okay I see that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: Vomit . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh it's so horrible . +Project Manager: Street pizza . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Love um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's so brilliant . {vocalsound} I've seen more urine in this city than ever before , +Marketing: Oh my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I just came from Glasgow +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seriously ? +User Interface: and I'm um happy to say that there's the {disfmarker} there's the same quantity approximately . +Industrial Designer: There's more vomit there . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: It's so minging . +User Interface: I w +Marketing: It really is {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Does uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Yep . +User Interface: Ready ? Minging ? Nice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm going local . Going local . +Marketing: Slide it in there . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to be here for three years so I might as well get the terminology right . +Marketing: Yeah fair enough . I've already got more than I can keep track of . And I'm gonna go home next week and everyone's gonna be like oh my God you're turning into one of those people , +Project Manager: Oh , have you been home yet ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They'll be like , say something British , +Marketing: no . +Project Manager: and you're like oh shut up family . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . I know . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it should be interesting . +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Wait until I tell them I'm not coming back . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're gonna love that one . +Project Manager: you s you're gonna stay here ? +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Or at least get a work visa for a while and then decide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Bad religion ? +Marketing: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the music I grew up listening to . +Marketing: nice . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so there {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , now I can think of so many other ones . +Project Manager: Well yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's how it works . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Something I miss about my hometown . +Project Manager: I miss coffee . +Industrial Designer: Burritos +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Burritos . +User Interface: Nice . +Industrial Designer: that cost less than eight Pounds . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah two two bucks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Any thing that are like free . +Project Manager: Where are you from in California by the way ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I grew up in San Diego , +Project Manager: Did you really ? What part ? +Industrial Designer: but yeah um La Jolla , P_B_ {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah I'm from San Diego as well . Yeah oh man . +Marketing: Nice . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But really uh I last lived in San Francisco , I haven't lived in Cali well I haven't lived in southern California since I was eighteen . +Project Manager: Going to s like North Carol I'm sorry you you just can't get a better burrito than what's available in the s in San Diego . +Industrial Designer: It's different . 'Cause in San Diego th the tortillas are cooked on the grill and in northern California they steam them . +Marketing: It must make all the difference . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it really does . +Project Manager: Well it's it's {vocalsound} i there's other things too there's {disfmarker} you just can't place it +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: like I {disfmarker} when I went to school in the U_ {disfmarker} in Santa Barbara which is central California the Mexican food is okay , it's just not good like and yeah it's like two bucks , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: like literally two bucks for this massive {disfmarker} I miss +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: yeah good call on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Where you from in San Diego ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um just literally just metropolitan San Diego , I live like five minutes from the zoo . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: North Park actually if you want to get real specific . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandparents lived on um thirty second . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Close t uh do you know where Clare de Lune coffee shop is , +Project Manager: Yes . On university , +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Cafe Forte {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's actually like literally half a mile from my house . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , pretty cool . Small world as we were discussing before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially when we're all from the same general region . Right so okay , success on the whiteboard . You can harness the awesome power +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: a little bit introductions we talked about some of our C_D_s +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and things we like about the city you know , I think we'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right so {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: moving on to not fun stuff {vocalsound} uh project finance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um basically what we're trying to do is sell this remote for twenty five Euros . Um . {vocalsound} This is what the finance department has told me , the C_F_O_ but I don't know , I'm not sold on this , it's pretty dear , I mean twenty f that's like you know forty bucks for a remote . It would have to pretty much like do my laundry for me . Um so +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: what we can maybe work on that a later but we're gonna make a lot on it , the profit aims to make fifty million Euros on it . Eur internationally . So {vocalsound} um one of the things I I was gonna mention to you um you guys the designers is that um it m we probably need a rever it needs to be a universal remote control probably . Um so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: something that could do N_T_S_C_ as well as PAL as well as various other formats like if it's gonna control D_V_D_s +Marketing: Makes sense . +Project Manager: but um you know +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I'll leave that to you guys but that's something that i i it is gonna be an international sold thing . {vocalsound} Um but we wanna try to make it for twelve fifty . So we wanna try to make a hundred percent profit on it if we can . {vocalsound} Um s right so um just to close up , I'm not sure how much time I've used mm next time right Project Manager , sorted . Um . {vocalsound} Is uh we'll meet in another half an hour or so um {vocalsound} and I'd like the um Industrial Designer to get ge think about what needs to be done , like what the basic function of it . Um {vocalsound} U_I_D_ well yeah you right g your assignments are up there and you'll also get s assignments from {disfmarker} in your email as well more spec specifics on what do do . Um mm basic and um so I need you to tell us what um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} what the user's gonna want . +Marketing: What they're looking for . +Project Manager: So actually in a way you guys c maybe in our next meeting chat a bit about what the user's gonna want and what the user can have , you know like uh so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And negotiate that . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah well it is {vocalsound} and we'll discuss the trade-offs in between um so yeah specific instructions will be sent in your email . But I think that that is more or less a good place to start for now um and as more things come up we'll have meetings and you'll get emails and so forth . Um any questions , before we get started ? +User Interface: I assume that we're building a stand alone uh remote control , we can't kind of build it into other uh products . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You mean to like {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance like a mobile phone or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's any rules about it yet . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe our personal coach will have something to say about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or you know can we produ can we sell a remote control phone for twenty five pounds or less ? +Project Manager: Well , have a think about it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: I'm I'm certainly op it seems like yeah it it seems like it's certainly do-able +Marketing: W yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean um or if we can't have a full mobile phone maybe a remote that has some other kind of {vocalsound} useful function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The clapper . No I mean {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , good idea , good idea . We'll see what {disfmarker} see what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a remote with changeable faces , like the faces that you can buy for phones . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . Hot . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the little cover thingies . +Project Manager: Uh-huh y I like that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true , I guess we we probably have some time , maybe we should brainstorm a bit like what we wanna do , go back to um {disfmarker} I don't really have any . Let me bring up something about our basic goals here , what we want to accomplish . Uh project announcement . Ts ts ts {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so much . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: All right we'll find them , we're on our own . +User Interface: Now are we also discussing kind of our initial ideas at all here ? +Project Manager: Yeah yeah let's do it , let's do . +User Interface: S does anybody have any initial ideas ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna go ahead and take notes on this too 'cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good idea . Start your minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I mean oh yeah right . {vocalsound} So initial ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's pretty much given it's gonna be universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: right , we decided that already and it may be functioning for other things , as soon as you said that I was thinking like all the other things you could get a remote to do , like your microwave or your front door +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: or like to have everything on one thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but then , I've never been a fan of those huge remotes that have like a million buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: S smaller's better . +Marketing: you can't tell what they do . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} I'm thinking {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of P_D_A_ uh design +Marketing: Yeah . Specific . +User Interface: so touch screen design rather than button +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . That'd be different . +User Interface: so that you can kind of flip around all sorts of different things . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's slick +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean like {vocalsound} stylist {vocalsound} yeah like a just a +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: yeah . Right so we got five minutes more to chat about this , perfect . Um so we've got this kind of an idea of a trade-off between um {vocalsound} uh size and functionality . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Um and we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . We want it to be munt multifunctional but at the same time if you get it to do too much you're not gonna be able to tell them apart , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Too confusing . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be too complicated , too crowded with buttons and things . +Project Manager: I'm also gonna note for future reference this idea +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: of um {vocalsound} so you {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} maybe like an L_ {disfmarker} like a touch screen type of remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Possibly . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't think one exists . +Marketing: An interesting option . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Needs {disfmarker} it needs one outstanding feature to set it apart from all the other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah all the other universal remotes . Um {vocalsound} I don't know if there's such a thing out there , I guess we could do some uh do some research on or one of us could do some research on it about whether or not there are um multi-format like um you know PAL , N_T_S_C_ , region one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm pretty sure there is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean I I have a friend who has a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: that he just points at his telev any television he wants +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it'll figure out the {vocalsound} the specifications of it +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and will control it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . Okay . +User Interface: um so +Marketing: Awesome . +User Interface: I th I assume that that can be done with uh kind of around the world . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um all right . So . I li I'm liking that idea , this idea of a touch screen remote with multi-format features . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Let's see . +Industrial Designer: I think , making it out of a nice material would be very important , because so many of those remotes that you see , these universal remotes look so cheap and low quality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Keeping it nice and slick , would be important . And {disfmarker} I don't know , like , there's such a problem with losing them , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that adding this whole like P_D_A_ pen business is only one more thing to lose , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so we're gonna have to be careful with what like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Just something like keep in mind when we start actually dealing with this stuff but that would be really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's see . Um . +User Interface: I like the idea of the uh multi plate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In in +Marketing: Fi b like what are they called , those face plate things ? +Project Manager: Think they're just called face plates ? +Marketing: Isn't there a name for them ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} something , +Marketing: Are they ? I dunno . +Industrial Designer: uh we'll have to come up with a name , +User Interface: I like . +Industrial Designer: patent it . +User Interface: We should c we should come up with a fuzzy one as well . +Marketing: Yeah . Something really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leopard print or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} For those cold winter days . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Leopard print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think , it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a like a locator device , maybe a simple button that you have on your television to help you find your remote . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Mm . But if we're bundling it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} unless we're selling their telly with the remote . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Well if we bundle it as a phone then you can always call it . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: If you're not doing that then we can have something that just kind of rings from either {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: well there used to be those whistling devices but that's a little bit annoying . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cou could we not do something where like just a little lit like literally just a very small kind of thing that comes with the remote that you could place something else that you press and it makes the remote page . Kinda like how on a lot of um {vocalsound} uh cordless regular phones , you have a page button and it goes {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Th +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: could we do something like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think so . +User Interface: That's cool . +Marketing: Probably . +User Interface: I think we could design into that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good . +Project Manager: Um yeah {vocalsound} I think this material quality as well like I guess what we can think about what kind of um uh you know Apple 's been really successful with this surgical white kind of business or this sleek kind of +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And that titanium the new silver sleek ones that's last couple of years , very much so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Curves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We do have the minimum am amount I mean we were talking finances I dunno , selling a a forty Pound remote would h or a forty Dollar remote , twenty five Euro remote would be pretty {disfmarker} you know it's pretty expensive +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so maybe we might wanna trade off some of the features for a lower price . Without without getting into that whole like you know go down to bargain store remote you know bargain store universal remote +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: that's black and you know m massive , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: some kind of I dunno a balance there in somewhere . +Marketing: Mm . Definitely . +Project Manager: But um have a think about what we can do , have a think about what we want to do , how we're gonna sell it +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or if you our users in mind , like these {disfmarker} grandmas are not gonna be into this whole new let's design , no it's {disfmarker} they're used to the buttons so we'll have to be careful of exactly who we're marketing this to , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and who we're gonna be able to get it out of . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S true . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're talking twenty five Pounds or twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: Euros . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Slight difference I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're all weaker than {disfmarker} they're all stronger than the Dollar . Although , computer parts , all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: if you're gonna upgrade your computer , buy it in the States . Like um do you guys know Fry's ? Huge computer uh electronics store ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: They serve um {disfmarker} right they sa tha s they will sell things overseas so you can buy stuff in America +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and have it shipped over for like twenty thirty Pounds about . Right so um let's go ahead and wrap that up here for now , I'm gonna put these initial ideas that we've got in the um {vocalsound} project documents , so if you guys wa need a reminder about what we've talked about um the different you know kind of trade-offs that we've got and the other ideas , you can consult them at your leisure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh right so thanks for that . Let's just uh head back to work on what we were talking about bef uh goi h h getting into . +Marketing: With half an hour ? +Project Manager: Um . Yes . +Marketing: 'Kay . Perfect . +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Thank you . +","In a meeting between team members of different departments, including Industrial Design, Marketing, User Interface, and a Project Manager, they discuss the creation of a new remote control product. They aim for a universal, user-friendly design that stands out in the market. Ideas such as a touchscreen interface, stylish material, and a locator feature are considered. The remote should also potentially sync with various international formats and possibly integrate with a phone. Finance targets are to sell the remote for twenty-five Euros, aiming for a 100% profit with production costs at twelve fifty. The team plans to continue brainstorming and researching, with further details to be communicated via email." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon. Can I welcome Members to the virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee this afternoon? In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I've determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Thursday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video-conference. A record of proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation related to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind everyone that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David AM, and there is no substitution. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Can I just note for the record that if for any reason I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Moving on, then, to item 2 this afternoon, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government in relation to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and social services as they relate to children and young people in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Vaughan Gething AM, the Minister for Health and Social Services; Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Albert Heaney, deputy director general of the health and social services group; Nicola Edwards, deputy director, childcare, play and early years; Jean White, chief nursing officer; and Tracey Breheny, who is deputy director of mental health, substance misuse and vulnerable groups. Thank you all very much for your attendance today—we appreciate your time. We've got lots of questions that we'd like to cover, which we'll go straight into, with questions from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good afternoon. How much do we understand about how this virus impacts children and young people, and their role in transmitting the virus? And how important is it that this is considered in the Welsh Government's exit strategy, especially in the context of reopening schools? +Vaughan Gething AM: Okay. I think it's fair to say that our understanding is developing across all age ranges about the virus and its impact. It's still the case that children and young people are less likely to be affected significantly by COVID-19 than people with a range of healthcare conditions, and in particular the age grade that we've seen, and that's underpinned the advice we've given to the whole population about self-isolation by people in age categories, as well as the extremely vulnerable group we advise to shield. We still don't understand everything about the role that children have to play in the transmitting of the virus, and this is one of the difficulties we face. Because in cold and flu, children transmit the virus and they're also susceptible, in particular to the flu, as well; that's why we have a childhood immunisation programme for the flu as well. We do know that there's some developing evidence about what's called a Kawasaki-like syndrome, but that's affecting very small numbers of children. We have one possible case in Wales—a child who's in critical care—but that isn't confirmed. That's still a developing knowledge base. So, the rest of the world is still trying to understand that too. But the generals still apply—that children are less likely to be affected than older people, but can nevertheless still become unwell, and that's, if you like, one of the few positives in this condition. But as I say, we're still learning, so I won't try and present a fully accurate or finalised picture of knowledge in this area. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And in terms—[Inaudible.] +Vaughan Gething AM: Chair. Sorry. Excuse me, Chair. Sorry—with apologies to the Member, my translation stopped after a while, so I heard the first part translated, and then it just fell off. I'm really sorry, but I didn't want to try to answer a different question to the one that may be being asked, and don't think that's fair to the Member or other members of the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can we check that translation is back on, please, and maybe Siân could repeat her question? +Vaughan Gething AM: I can hear it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân, would you mind repeating that, please? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Not at all. I was discussing NHS services, including critical care services, and I was asking whether there is sufficient capacity in place to manage any increase. We, of course, hope that there won't be any increase, but should there be an increase, particularly in paediatric cases of coronavirus—let's say such a thing were to happen and this rare syndrome that you mentioned did emerge here in Wales—do we have the capacity in place to deal with these, and with the impact of coronavirus more generally on children? +Vaughan Gething AM: At this point in time, the answer is 'yes', and there is always a significant caveat, though, and the 'but' that comes in there is that despite the fact that we've got a plan for surge capacity in paediatric care—. So, when we increased critical care right across the national health service, we of course looked at paediatric care as part of that as well. So, we can flex up our capacity. But the challenge in all of that this is—it's part of my caution and the Government's caution about moves out of lockdown. So, it's much easier to go into lockdown than to come out of it, and I know you heard evidence from the Minister for Education last week about the approach that she wants to take and the principles behind doing that. So, actually, we'll need to think carefully about if we are reopening schools, even on a limited basis, what that then does to the circulation of coronavirus within that group of children as well as within the wider community, and then to try to understand whether the current capacity we have planned for in surge capacity is still going to be enough, because, actually, one of the real success stories of the first stage of the fight with coronavirus is that we haven't had our critical care capacity filled up. It's been extended, and the extension has meant that we haven't been overtopped. If we hadn't done that, we definitely would have been. And we'll need to carry on testing ourselves and seeing what's happening and looking at the evidence and making sure that the plan we already have got that we published for paediatric critical care is still fit for purpose, and again to reconsider if we need to do things differently. But that's part of the difficulty of being a Minister at the moment—you don't know everything that's coming, and on this disease in particular, we do know that we're still learning with each passing day. +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Hello. Yes, those are the questions I had on that section. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Lovely. Thank you very much. Right, we'll move on now then to some question on access to health services from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Minister, just some concern that you will have heard about in terms of parents and carers maybe not taking their children into the healthcare system for other conditions while the coronavirus pandemic is with us. How are you monitoring that situation at the moment and have you had to look at your own commutation strategy in relation to that? +Vaughan Gething AM: We've had to look at some specifics around communication, so challenges about not just different languages, but about how we get messages to people in a very different environment, and it's really challenging. So, for example, our health visitor service has absolutely not stopped. We've had to think about the way it works, and I had this conversation earlier this week with the chief nurse. But the bigger challenge are parents refusing to engage with the service. I understand people's fear and anxiety, but that then means that their family, and in particular their child, isn't getting the sort of proactive care that we would want them to have. So, there's a real concern both at the professional leadership end and for the chief nurse and for Ministers as well about how we can get through. That's actually about rebuilding people's confidence in the service, and that isn't straightforward because there's a broader concern about coronavirus still circulating. But I think for us it's really important to reiterate that we have thought again about how to provide the service. We've thought about how to protect staff and families and the very clear message to parents is to please make sure that when health and care professionals are calling to help and support your family, please discuss your concerns with them. We're doing even more remotely, via telephone and online as well. There are times you need to be physically in the same place, for example on routine vaccinations, because we certainly haven't stopped that programme either, and I really wouldn't want to see that one of the unintended consequences of what we've done is that if parents don't engage with that service, we could potentially see a rise in other diseases. We're all, I think—not just you in your constituency, but others who are on this call and others as well—seeing an occasional reappearance of measles, and that's because people didn't engage with the vaccination programme. I don't want, either myself or a different health Minister in the future, to be sat here talking about how in years to come the failure to engage in a vaccination programme has led to clearly avoidable but significant harm to children and young people and the communities they live in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Jean, you wanted to come in. +Vaughan Gething AM: You need to unmute yourself. Oh, no— +Professor Jean White: Thank you. I just want to add to what the Minister said. So, I approached the immunisation lead in Public Health Wales to see exactly what has been happening recently and they said at the very beginning of the outbreak parents were very reluctant about coming forward for their routine immunisations, but recently, through lots of energy from the immunisation clinics and the leads within it reaching out to families, that trend seems to have turned and there's now a much better attendance. One of the most important things we can do to protect our children is to make sure they have their vaccinations. So, yes, there was a bit of a downturn, but it does seem to be improving at the moment. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. And that answered my second question, Chair, so I'm happy to leave it there. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We're going to go on now to some questions about mental health from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It's a cause of great concern to us all, of course, in terms of the impact of this crisis on mental health and well-being among our children and young people. So, what assessment has the Government undertaken of the impact on these aspects in young people and what work is being done to understand the impact of the pandemic? What longer term measures will be put in place and what support services will be put in place? +Vaughan Gething AM: Again, I think it's helpful that you've already heard from the education Minister last week, because I think the first of her key principles for returning to school is the impact on the emotional health and well-being of children. So, children's mental health was a central concern and remains so for both myself and the education Minister. Part of the honest challenge, again, is that we don't fully understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children but we do expect there will have been an impact. So, we're working together with both health boards and our own knowledge and analytical services across the Government to both try to further understand what that is and the difference. Until we have more contact with families, we may not fully understand that, and that's a real point of concern for me. In all of the unknowns within this, the impact on mental health and well-being is absolutely one of them, because we're looking at how we then develop not just a recovery plan for the economy but a recovery plan around mental health, how we support people, and that will have to be informed by the understanding of what's happening when we get more engagement with families about the level of need, and then how we need to think about that. Obviously, it's a key factor for their return to school, but, actually, for the life children and young people lead outside the school environment, and that will be difficult because we're going to phase out of lockdown—it's not going to be a one-hit measure. That absolutely isn't going to happen. We're going to be looking at, at each point, what difference has been made, what more we can do. And, again, there are the efforts we're making to make sure that our online support services and our telephone support services—that we keep on reminding people that they're there and are available, and we want people to make use of them, because I know, as this committee said, we'd much rather be able to support people and intervene earlier rather than wait until there's a much bigger problem in a period of months in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, in reality, there's been no assessment undertaken because it's difficult to do that. So, the full picture in terms of the outcomes of the crisis—you don't know what they are at the moment as things stand. +Vaughan Gething AM: We can't know, because we don't have that level of contact. There is a development—. I wouldn't say that no work's being done, but I couldn't tell you honestly that that work is finalised and we have a definitive understanding of the picture. If I tried to say that, then I'm sure you'd ask me, 'How on earth can you say that? If you're not having regular contact with people, you can't possibly understand the picture.' And it's much better to say, 'We don't understand the full picture. We know there'll have been an impact. We're working alongside health boards and others, but we'll know more as we carry on having more contact with families.' I'll look at a variety of different areas, again, both to reform the recovery plan, but also then to understand what we need to do at various points in the future, and the picture that we're seeing isn't straightforward and we need to make sure that we don't try to pretend to ourselves or to the public that there is a one-off measure that will allow us to be successful in all the areas that we'd want to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But can you give the committee an assurance today that this area of mental health and well-being is going to be a priority for you as health Minister? +Vaughan Gething AM: Of course. Not just on the work we've done in the past; not just because it's one of the key principles for the education Minister about the reopening of schools, but it is a real worry list for me about how we understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and to move forwards, that we don't end up with an entire generation of children and young people who grow up with a range of damage because we haven't thought about what that will look like. So, the mental health recovery plan will of course be of very real importance to me. In amongst all the other priorities I have, I'm certainly not going to allow the mental health and well-being of children and young people to be forgotten. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And how does the current capacity in terms of child and adolescent mental health services compare to service capacity prior to the coronavirus outbreak in Wales? Have you had to shift some resources over from CAMHS, for example, in order to deal with more general aspects of coronavirus? +Vaughan Gething AM: No, we've actually got—. Maybe perhaps it might be helpful, Chair, if Tracey Breheny could say something about the way that we're monitoring the impact we have, in terms of we've got a reporting tool, but also weekly contact with leads in CAMHS services. +Lynne Neagle AM: Tracey. +Tracey Breheny: Of course. Thanks, Minister. Yes, on that question, we moved pretty quickly at the beginning of the pandemic phase to put in place, as the Minister said, a weekly monitoring tool of all local health boards, so through that tool, we look at that every week in terms of collecting information. Whilst national reporting's been stood down, we are picking up assurance through that tool on things like staff sickness in CAMHS services, referral numbers and so on, so we do have that tool in place, and at the moment, that's telling us that the system can meet the capacity; has the capacity to meet need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Have CAMHS staff been shifted over to do other work during this virus outbreak? +Tracey Breheny: There has been some movement, as I'm saying, around health boards, particularly where in the first phase of the epidemic the concentration was on in-patient provision, providing critical care, but my understanding is from the latest tool that we looked at last week, those staff are gradually not just returning to work from self-isolation or whatever, or from different parts of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then, what about the capacity for CAMHS primary mental health services? Has there been a reduction in that capacity since the beginning of the pandemic in terms of in-patients? Because that's what I'm hearing, that there has been such a reduction, but how are those patients then treated and served? +Tracey Breheny: In terms of in-patient capacity, that is in the system in both the north Wales and in the south Wales unit at the moment. There were some discharges of young people, but we've had the assurance that that was only undertaken where it was clinically safe to do so and where the community support was in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally in this section from me, given that schools are of course closed and that schools are so very important in terms of signposting young people towards services, how can young people access appropriate services—online services, for example? How are they signposted towards those services at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Well, we've not closed off general practice and, as you know, we've expanded the ability for people to access services in an online manner. We've expanded a range of telephone advice services, so the telephone advice service we already provide, we've made sure that's maintained, and both myself and the deputy Minister have referred to that on a number of occasions. I think the real struggle and the real difficulty is actually how you punch through different messages when the broader news agenda is so overwhelmingly focused on headline messages in other areas. That is, again, a worry for me, but the communications we have within the health and care system, people should know where to refer people to and how to provide access to both telephone and online support that continues to be available, and actually, as I say, we've expanded that right across our healthcare system. That's what I’m keen to see continue into the future. Whatever the post-COVID-19 world is, I don't want to miss out on the progress we have made in the online provision of services. Of course, most children and young people expect to be able to access services in an online manner already. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, of course, there will be some who are missed; they may fall between two stools because they won’t know where to turn. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, and that, again, comes back to our challenge of how we help children and young people in their context, with their families, to know where support and advice and guidance is. Many people are defaulting to their general practitioner if they can't find advice somewhere else, so that's why there's the information we're providing through general practice to signpost people, so those pathways haven’t been closed off. It's about making sure that people have alternative means that they’re prepared to use at this point in time. If we go back to where we started this evidence session, we were talking about the difficulty of families who don't want to engage in a traditional person-to-person contact or being in the same room as someone else or allowing people into their home. So, there's a real challenge about how we make the service available, but then encourage people to take it up, so that we don’t see much greater harm that we have to try and resolve at a later point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got a supplementary from Suzy Davies, and can I remind Ministers about concise answers, please? Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you. Just as we're speaking about children and young people's mental health, I wonder if you can confirm whether you've seen the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child's reports about what they call the grave physical and psychological effect on children and young people, and whether the operational guidance you've given out is responding to that in any way, or maybe there was something in that that you hadn’t thought of and you can respond to as we go along. +Vaughan Gething AM: I, personally, haven't read that advice, but the Government's already concerned about the direct physical and mental health impact of lockdown restrictions. You don't need to be a parent to recognise that that’s a potential issue for children and young people. But, I'm sure—. I haven't read it, but that's been signposted, so I can check with officials if they have and if that would change the advice and the position that we're already adopting, because we do regularly look at a range of advice from a range of sources, including the UN, the World Health Organization and others. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and we are going to come onto children's rights. But, as you know, Minister, the prevention of young suicide is a cause that is very close to my heart. Can I ask what assessment the Welsh Government has made of an increase in suicide amongst children and young people during this pandemic and because of this pandemic? +Vaughan Gething AM: Apart from the general concern that I've expressed on mental health generally, we are already investigating, we're having a—. We've commissioned, through the Government, the delivery unit to work with the national advisory group, including Dr Ann John and other people, to review the current, unexpected deaths during the start of the pandemic here in Wales, because we want to try to understand the wider concerns about the potential effects of the restrictions on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and if that is leading to a spike in suicide or not. So, that's why we've commissioned that review to be carried out with the current numbers of unexpected deaths that we have, so we're able then to provide a report to understand where we are. My understanding is that we should have a report on that review before the end of this month and, obviously, I know the committee’s got an interest, so if it's helpful we can write to you once we've had a chance to receive the report and to look at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. Thank you. In terms of provision of crisis care, then, how has that been impacted by the pandemic? Are those crisis services available for children and young people who need them at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, they continue to be available. We still have seven-day-a-week crisis care. We've made clear that mental health services, including those for children and young people, are essential services to be provided. They're not services to be scaled down. They were not part of the series of measures that I stopped within the health service on 13 March. We have built up those crisis care services over a period of time, and the last thing we want to see is to see them disappear during this period of time when there are well-understood concerns about emotional and mental health. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Moving on to perinatal mental health, this morning I hosted a round-table with the NSPCC where we heard about lots of good practice that's going on in terms of supporting new mothers and their families in this period, but I wonder if you can tell the committee what you are doing as a Government to make sure that there is consistent perinatal support for all women across Wales in what is a difficult time for any new mother, let alone in a pandemic. +Vaughan Gething AM: We continue, again, to provide our perinatal mental health service. That's not been stopped either. We've also been looking at how that's provided on a phone or online basis where possible, because again the same concerns exist about physical contact with people. So, we're looking to make sure that the progress isn't lost that we've made. We know there is more to go. So, the service may have changed, but it still absolutely exists. And again, part of the challenge in all of this is about the pause or the interruption in work to create the in-patient capacity that I've previously committed to. So, I want to understand what that really means, but again the problem is, at this point in the pandemic, I can't give you an answer about what that means for that in-patient provision. We're still committed to it, but I'm concerned about the time frame—that is partly about the length and the extent. But again, I'm really impressed by the continuing commitment of our staff to deliver this service for women in what is a particularly uncertain time. It's difficult enough in terms of the challenge in terms of perinatal mental health in normal times, about people being prepared to come forward and then receiving the sort of response they'd want, and even more so now. +Lynne Neagle AM: Is the Welsh Government aware that there's apparently been a decrease in the numbers of women being willing to look at mother and baby unit provision, and will you be taking that into account in your planning? Because, obviously, we wouldn't want people to think that was because of a lack of need; it's down to fear and the lockdown. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, we're aware there's been a reduction in people wanting to make use of the service—or being prepared to make use of the service is probably a better phrase—because we know that's the same with a range of other areas. There aren't fewer people having strokes than there were at this period of time last year; the reason why the figures are different is the way that people are behaving because of their concerns about coronavirus. So, I certainly wouldn't be using this period of time to plan for the need that exists for a facility that we want to create. So, I'm happy to give that assurance, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. It's a straightforward one, really. Obviously, we have the detail of the third sector resilience fund and the—there are two funds, aren't there, for third sector organisations? But can you give us some indication of how much of that support is being targeted to children and young people, and perhaps you can specifically mention how much of the £6.3 million for hospices is for children's hospices? I don't mind who answers that one. +Lynne Neagle AM: The Deputy Minister would like to come in, I think. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Certainly, I'm sure the committee is aware, as Suzy has said, of the funds that are available for third sector services. The Deputy Minister and the Chief Whip, of course, announced on 6 April the £24 million Welsh Government third sector COVID-19 response fund, and that of course is more than we would have had as a result of consequentials from the UK Government. They can also benefit from the £400 million economic resilience fund, but I am aware that some groups don't benefit from that and they may not qualify for that. So, we've also got third sector support being delivered by WCVA, such as the voluntary services emergency fund, which supports volunteering, and the third sector resilience fund, supporting organisations to stay afloat. We are working very closely with the third sector on issues such as support for fostering services, care leavers and repurposing funding so that they can support the crises. Voices from Care Cymru has developed a specific offer for care leavers, and the Fostering Network provides extended helplines. We've got lots of examples of third sector partners working with children and young people. Childline bases in Wales remain open and operational, and are still providing information and support. And, actually, about 50 per cent of contact with Childline at the moment is to do with COVID-19. NSPCC has put together a support page for young people about COVID-19. The NSPCC UK helpline have also reported a decrease in calls resulting in a referral to children's social services at the start of the lockdown period, but, since then, the numbers have actually risen. So, there are lots of examples of help for children. Meic, Action for Children, and, of course, Voices From Care Cymru have come up with their own specific package. In terms of the actual percentage that is being spent on children, I can't give you an actual figure for that, but, certainly, there are a whole range of projects that are there helping children. I think the Minister for Health and Social Services will be able to respond to the hospice question. +Vaughan Gething AM: It's about £1.5 million from the £6.3 million that's gone to Tŷ Gobaith and Tŷ Hafan, Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much for that. So, it's about 25 per cent. Perhaps if you could ask the Deputy Minister, when she's in a position to do so, to let us have a note. Before we finish on this point, could I ask the Deputy Minister, again, about whether any of the things you've been talking about now is additional money, because, obviously, you mentioned yourself one of these funds is £24 million. Some of the work you mentioned is continuity of existing work. So, again, if you don't have the answer to hand, perhaps you could send us a note in due course about how much extra is going in. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think most of those things I mentioned are things that are already there, and the £24 million is for support and extra help. So, any more information, I can send to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next questions, then, are from Dawn Bowden on safeguarding and child protection. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Deputy Minister, because one of the questions I was going to ask was around some of the work that you've been doing with the third sector on safeguarding and child protection, and I think you've covered that. But what I'm particularly keen to find out is how you're monitoring the impact of coronavirus on child protection and safeguarding in the round. I know the health Minister raised this as a concern in Plenary only recently, and it's really how we are monitoring it, what concerns have been identified, and how we're going to start to tackle some of those. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you very much, Dawn, for that question. Obviously, it is difficult to monitor if there's not easy access to the children that we're referring to, and that's why we have been trying to encourage the vulnerable children to go into school or childcare settings. And there's been a lot of encouragement for that happen. The Minister, the director of education and the director of social services sent out a joint letter recently to all the local authorities, asking them to try to encourage the vulnerable children and the families to get the children to go to school. In fact, we've now got 890 vulnerable children attending school settings, and that's the highest number that we've had at all since the opening of the scheme. But it's still only a tiny drop in the ocean. But it's very good, and it is progress that the numbers attending are now going up. But, of course, there are a lot of children who are not attending school and the social services are not necessarily seeing. There has been a drop in safeguarding referrals to social services. Those numbers are now beginning to go up, but there certainly was a significant drop, which is a great deal of concern. One local authority, in fact, reported a drop of 27 per cent in terms of safeguarding referrals compared to this time last year. So, I issued a written statement on 1 May, setting out the work taken forward under our cross-departmental vulnerable children, young people and safeguarding work stream, and encouraging people to report any safeguarding concerns there are. Because, obviously, we are dependent on the public authorities—you know, schools and health services—to report any concerns, and at the moment, obviously, they're not there to report them. So, we have made this public appeal for everyone to look out for each other, and I was very interested in what Siân Gwenllian told me about what was being done in Anglesey in terms of sending out a message via social media to get people to look and listen, and to raise their concerns, because, obviously, safeguarding is the concern of everybody in the community. But I think that we are reassured in terms of our contact with the local authorities that they are, in fact, keeping close touch, as far as they possibly can, with all the children that are vulnerable. For those where it is very critical, face-to-face contact is still taking place, and there are imaginative ways of trying to keep in touch with all the other children and families. So, it is a difficult situation and we are concerned about it, but I think as much as possible is being done. +Lynne Neagle AM: Jean, you wanted to come in on that. +Professor Jean White: Just to add to what the Deputy Minister was saying, the health visiting service has not been stopped or stepped back. It has consolidated some of the ways that it does the Healthy Child Wales Programme, but, for those families that are identified as having particular need or have children that are particularly vulnerable, all the normal contacts have been maintained, so they're not unseen to the normal health visiting service. That covers both Flying Start and general health visiting areas. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Jean, for that, and, Deputy Minister, would there be any value at this point in actually revisiting the current Welsh Government definition and guidance around vulnerable children, in terms of who we identify as vulnerable? Because this opens up a whole new group of children that are not necessarily known to services but can still be vulnerable. So,it's just looking at the current guidance that we have. Do you think that needs revisiting at all? +Julie Morgan AM: The definition of vulnerable children and young people includes those with a social worker and with statements of special educational needs, and the most vulnerable of these should be prioritised. But we have now looked at this again, and we've set out an expanded definition, and we intend to publish that this week. This does include discretion for local authorities to have some flexibility and to be able to offer a place for those who may be on the edge of receiving care and support if they are known to be vulnerable by the school or by family support services. Because, obviously, the children that we know about, we know about, but there are those other children who may be on the edge of care—the children that we've been trying very hard, as part of our policies in the Welsh Government, to keep with their families, with a lot of support. Those are the ones that we also want to support. So, we are giving discretion to the local authorities in order to have a degree of flexibility, and that will be published this week. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now, then, to talk about looked-after children and children on the edge of care, with questions from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Can you set out the impact the coronavirus emergency has had on the care system, including edge-of-care services, and where have there been areas of concern? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, local authorities have obviously had to change their working practices in response to the COVID emergency, so a red-amber-green rating risk assessment was adopted by all local authorities at the start of the pandemic to ensure that vulnerable children and families receive the right way of receiving services and the frequency of contact from the services. This is being dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so every case that is known is being RAG rated and services are being linked to that. Also, there is very close contact between Welsh Government officials and the local authorities. There are weekly meetings between officials and the heads of the children's services. I can't speak too highly, really, about the amount of support and mutual work that has been going on. We've been assured that there have been no significant increases in the numbers of looked-after children, and the number of placement breaks are minimal. The other interesting good point is the children services workforce remains at 90 per cent plus, and, obviously, that is a great testimony to the dedication of the workforce. So, there's very close contact. The children are all being monitored individually, and I think in the circumstances we're all doing what we possibly can. I know that Albert Heaney is able, probably, to respond in more detail to the contacts, if you'd like to have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think we'll move on to the next section. Can I remind everyone again: sharp focused questions and concise answers? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. How is Welsh Government ensuring that vulnerable children have access to the necessary technology to maintain contact with their social workers and other support workers and networks? +Julie Morgan AM: It is normal practice to ensure that children and families do have appropriate access to technology to keep in touch with social workers, so that is part of our normal practice. We're very keen as a Welsh Government that no children are left behind in their education during this period. So, last month, as you will know, the Minister for Education announced £3 million of funding to help digitally excluded learners so that they've got access to the internet, so that they can fully participate in online learning. So, we do normally ensure that they've got digital contact for social workers. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Can you set out the picture regarding children's residential care? What are the challenges these care settings are facing, and have any children's homes closed? +Julie Morgan AM: Residential children's homes are not really reporting any particularly difficult issues, and certainly they have been able to resolve any issues that have happened. So, I'm very pleased to report that. We obviously expect all children in residential care to be supported, and to keep contact with their families and with their siblings, and that is going on, although it may be by technology rather than face to face. We know that some young people have found the social distancing a challenge, and I think it’s easy for us to understand that they have found that quite difficult. So, there have been a few issues related to that, but, where that has happened, local authorities have been able to resolve that on a case-by-case basis, and really there are not any major issues. In terms of residential care, Hillside is functioning well—no reporting issues. The staffing levels are normal. There are fewer children and young people there, so, in fact, there's been an opportunity to give a great deal of attention to the children, and I think we've had very good reports about how that has happened. So, I am absolutely reassured by our officials here that everything is as well as it could be. I also meet with the children's commissioner once a week, who is an independent source, and she said when I met her last week, 'Well, as far as we know, it's all good news'. So, I don't think we have any concerns at the moment about the residential care. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Moving on to foster care, how is Welsh Government working with local authorities to meet the challenges set out by the Association of Fostering and Adoption Cymru and its fostering guidelines? +Julie Morgan AM: We have worked with the fostering organisations. We have had close communications with them, and we've supported AFA Cymru to develop guidance for foster carers, and that guidance has been very strongly welcomed across the sector. We're working with the third sector. I think I mentioned before specific issues such as support for fostering services and, of course, care leavers. The Fostering Network has extended its helpline hours, and, of course, Voices from Care—I mentioned them before—have developed this particular offer of support for care leavers. I've been reassured, as well, from Voices from Care that the young people appear to be more stable now—that they have contact with. But that's online help for them. So, we have had quite a lot of contact with the fostering services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, the final point on that, then: the Fostering Network and others, as you know, have called for foster parents who can temporarily no longer foster due to the current virus emergency to be paid a retainer, with all foster carers receiving extra financial support for additional expenses. What is your position on this, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we haven't had any specific representations from local authorities asking for support for foster carers, but some local authorities have paid retainers and some people, I believe, have increased the amount of money that they are paying. They've also given support for various activities and things—have helped sometimes, I think, with broadband access and that sort of issue. And, obviously, foster carers who do require additional support should be approaching their local authorities or the independent fostering agency. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Albert, I just wanted to check there wasn't anything you wanted to add, please. +Albert Heaney: Thank you very much, Chair. I think the only thing to add was relating to monitoring. The Minister has indicated that we are speaking weekly with heads of children's services, and we do now have a data collection that's been implemented to capture the critical data in relation to the children's services. So, that will assist us in our monitoring arrangements going forward. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. And the next questions, then, are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to have a quick answer from probably the Minister, I think, about the primary legislation and the regulations that followed, about which children's rights impact assessments have been done. Have any been done, and can they be shared with the committee if they have? Sorry, Deputy Minister—my mistake. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's been a very difficult time, as you appreciate, in terms of having to make legislation very quickly, and it hasn't been possible to do the impact assessments that we would normally do. However, I am very pleased to say that we're actually launching a survey of children. We're going to be launching it next week. And this is to try to get from children their views of what's happened, what we've been doing, and their views on the whole COVID-19 situation. So, we're doing this in conjunction with the children's commissioner and with Young Wales and with the Youth Parliament. So, this is an online survey that we hope will be going out to thousands of children, and we will get their response in terms of what are the important issues that have arisen for them, what they feel about what's happened during this period, what they feel about the way that we've dealt with the schools, the way that they've had to cope in not going school and being at home for so long. And so we're trying to get feedback from young people. So, I'm very pleased that we're doing that, but, in terms of an impact assessment, it has been very difficult, as I'm sure you can imagine, to be able to do those at these times. I think that Albert wants to come in on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because I'll pursue that in a sec. +Lynne Neagle AM: Albert. +Albert Heaney: Thank you. Thank you, Chair, and I think Nicola indicated before me, so apologies, Nicola. Just to say for the committee, really importantly, that we haven't introduced any easements in relation to children's services legislation. I think that's really quite crucial. So, from a Welsh context, the standards that are in place do remain, so therefore there wouldn't have been a necessity for us to do a children's rights impact assessment in relation to the primary legislation. I think that's particularly a strong point to us in Wales, both in terms of safeguarding arrangements, but also ensuring that children's rights are protected at a crucial time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Nicola. +Nicola Edwards: Thanks. In terms of childcare and education, we're obviously looking at the provisions under the coronavirus Act to allow us to maybe ease some of the statutory requirements, and we are going to be undertaking a full suite of impact assessments on those. Obviously, the coronavirus Act itself was UK Government legislation and they ran their own impact assessments, but, in terms of how we implement it in the childcare and education space—and I think Albert was just saying the same thing—we definitely will be looking at those impacts in terms of going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just to come back on that then, are you saying to me that, as a result of the various coronavirus regulations that we've had, no assessments for children's needs have been postponed, cancelled or done very quickly online rather than in person? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think, as Albert said, that there was no relaxation of regulation for children's social care. You know, that's—there haven't been any in Wales. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but that's what—. There's no relaxation, but what's happening in practice? We're down on staff across all our councils and in our third sectors—who's doing the children's needs assessments, particularly for young carers? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I—. Albert, can you answer that? +Albert Heaney: I think the first thing to say to the committee is that, going back, we took a very strong line at the beginning that we weren't going to introduce easements in requirements to children's social services. Of course, through the way that practitioners and social work practitioners have to operate, they are having to operate through a different time. So, assessments are still taking place for child protection and safeguarding concerns; assessments are still taking place, and especially in relation to—as you mentioned—young carers, to support their needs. So, arrangements—[Inaudible.] But they're having to be slightly differently done—so, some of the technology, and keeping in contact and keeping those visits. So, we've used, for example, the St David's Day fund to make sure that care leavers are well supported in terms of having contact and are accessible and able to engage as well. So, we're having to be a little bit more—and social services departments are having to be a little bit more—innovative in the use of technology in the way that they've engaged as well. But personal visits are taking place, and visits especially, as the Minister mentioned earlier on—they actually individually assess each case to determine the frequency of visits, to make sure that those contacts are maintained with children at a critical time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. I don't want to take this much further, but personal visits and social distancing could be slightly problematic. I just want to finish with this one question, if I may. We've had recommendations from the Carers Trust, or Carers Trust Wales. Have they been accepted by Government, and is it those that are driving the agenda of the task and finish group that you announced the other day, Deputy Minister? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, those will certainly be considered by the task and finish group. I've had a letter from the Carers Trust about those issues, and we are setting up this group, as you know, and we will be looking at those issues in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Any steal on when that might report? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't have that at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe we could have a note on that, Deputy Minister. Can I just say, we are running short of time? We did start late, so, if the Ministers are happy, we'll carry on until 2.10 p.m.—3.10 p.m.—if that's okay. And the next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: [Inaudible.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hold on a sec, Siân, we've lost translation again. Can we just see what can be done to get the translation back? Sorry, Siân. Is there anyone who can help with the translation? There you go, Siân. Thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You will know, Deputy Minister—because we have discussed this in private session—my major concerns with regard to the childcare sector, and what kind of childcare sector we will have at the end of this crisis, as families start to return to the workplace. There are still some childcare providers who are falling between the cracks and aren't receiving financial support. Do you agree—are there people who are still not being supported, and why isn't the Welsh Government able to provide that support for everyone in the childcare sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Siân, for that question. And I know that we have had a discussion about this before. Basically, we are aware that there are some sectors in the childcare sector that do fall through some of the loops. We have guaranteed that we will pay the money for the childcare offer for three months. So, that is guaranteed to them, and they are able to take advantage of the Government's job retainer scheme, but that does mean that there is a problem, as I think we've discussed before, of the double funding issue, and that is something that we have been trying to resolve and there have been discussions with the Treasury in Whitehall about ways forward on this. I'm going to ask Nicola to come in in a minute, because she's much more up to date with the discussions about that, but, so far, I don't think very much progress has been made on that. But we are looking to see if there are any other ways that we can get help to the childcare sector, and I'm actually following this meeting with a meeting with the Deputy Minister for equality and chief whip, who is responsible for the voluntary sector, because obviously many of the groups that we're talking about would come under the voluntary sector, because they have voluntary committees, but they fall between many stools, because they rent premises rather than own premises and they don't have high turnovers that would qualify them for some of these grants. So, perhaps I could ask Nicola to come in to expand on that. +Nicola Edwards: Absolutely. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, if possible. +Nicola Edwards: I'll try and be brief, because I'm conscious of time. So, some childcare settings can access funding under the small business rate relief scheme, but certainly not all of them; some of them can access funding under the economic resilience fund, and, as the Deputy Minister said, we're following up for some of them to be able to access funding under the third sector resilience funding. All of the childcare settings can apply for the UK Government's coronavirus job retention scheme, but there are some complications around that in that it's a salary-based scheme and you can't claim two types of public funding for the same individual member of staff. So, if you were using funding under the childcare offer to pay for a particular member of staff's salary, you can't access CJRS and furlough that individual with Government money as well, and that has led to some confusion and complication about how that balances, which we're trying to work through with the sector and with local authorities around the rules and regulations that the Treasury and HMRC have put in place around that. Alongside that, there's a whole range of different loans and services that are available. Some of those are less attractive to some childcare settings, but they are still available and Business Wales is offering support and advice for settings on how they can help weather this storm and support their workers as best they can. We're also having some conversations now with our economy colleagues and with Business Wales about what happens next, the recovery and the return of the sector, and we've just come out of a meeting with the childcare sector around the support they think they would need to have in place to be able to return from this as well. So, it's a topic that's very much live at the moment. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm sure you can share my concerns and the concerns of Cwlwm, which represents the childcare sector and the nursery school sector, that there are a number of providers that aren't receiving support at all and are likely to collapse as a result of this. What I can't understand is why you, in collaboration with the Minister for the economy, Ken Skates, can't devise a specific grant package for the providers that aren't currently receiving support, or we'll be facing a situation that is very difficult when people are seeking childcare for their children and those settings won't be available to them. Why isn't it possible to have a bespoke scheme for those that are falling between the cracks in this sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is what we're looking to see—if we can get a bespoke scheme. I absolutely agree with you: it is absolutely vital that we keep this sector going, because it is a fragile sector in any case, and I think about 50 per cent of the childcare settings have temporarily closed down and the reason they've given for closing down is because they haven't had enough children to make it viable to keep their settings going. So, it is a very worrying situation. They are heavily reliant on the fees that parents pay and, of course, with the social distancing and the lockdown, this has meant that we've had to discourage children from attending. So, that means the number of children they've had has been much reduced and it hasn't been viable for them to keep going, although obviously it's great that about half have stayed open so we have somewhere for the children of the critical workers and the vulnerable children to go. But, I absolutely agree with what you're saying, Siân, and we are looking for a solution, because we know it's vital not only for the children and their parents, but for the economy as well, that we do have that sector there, surviving after this is all over. So, I can assure you, we're working very hard, and I think Nicola's working day and night to try to achieve this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And just finally from me, I'm very pleased that you are working on this, and I very much hope that we will see a support package that will reach everyone in the sector, because it's been weeks now since all of this started, and if there's still no light at the end of the tunnel for some of them, then that needs to be dealt with. But just to conclude, how effective has the provision been in general over this period in terms of providing support for key workers? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it's been crucial, because how would the majority of the key workers have been able to get to work and do all the wonderful things that they've been doing if it hadn't been for childcare for those who need it? And we were very pleased to introduce the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, which means that critical workers and families with vulnerable children are able to have free access to childcare aged 0 to 5, and I believe that we are the only country in the UK that is providing that free service to the vulnerable children, and so—. I mean, that scheme has only really taken off now since Easter, so we don't have any particular statistics. +Nicola Edwards: I do have some early numbers, if you'd like me to announce them? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that would be very good. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. In terms of the provision in schools, we're looking at around 4,000 children a day in schools at the moment. In terms of the children accessing the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, it has only been two weeks up and running really, so the numbers are quite low, but there were nearly 1,500 children accessing that childcare last week, and of those, just over 100 would fall within the definition of vulnerable children. So, it is picking up there; it was 900 children the week before that, so we are seeing some traction now that parents are aware that that support is there. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, can I just ask, in terms of the other vulnerable children, what assurance can you give that all the vulnerable children who need to keep in contact with social workers and other key workers are being provided with the necessary technology to do that? Is that happening in a uniform way? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is the intention—that everybody should have the opportunity to have the necessary technology, and certainly, that is what is intended. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, very, very briefly, one question on the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, please. +Suzy Davies AM: Just generally, have you had any feedback on the effects on the family courts and the execution of the—well, the child arrangement orders, the various versions of that? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. In terms of the family courts, as you probably know, a lot of the hearings are going on virtually, but the hearings that are more complex are being postponed to be heard at a later date. So, that's one of the issues, really—that we may expect a lot of demand on the court service after this period has finished. And obviously, the president of the family division has issued guidance on compliance with family court child arrangement orders, which were his guidance, and obviously, this is directed at separated families subject to the family court, and that offers general advice to parents, recognising that the circumstances for each parent and each family will be different. And the Welsh Government has also provided guidance about staying at home and away from others. But of course, where parents have joint parental responsibility, as you know, the Government has said that children under 18 can be moved between the two households. With the other children, it's on a case-by-case basis, really, what actually happens. I have met with CAFCASS to see how their operations are going, and all the CAFCASS officials are not attending any courts at all; they're sending in any of their views virtually, but it appeared to be that there weren't any major issues arising. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, and we have definitely now come to the end of our time. So, can I thank the Ministers and officials for attending? We do recognise what an immensely pressurised time this is for Welsh Government, and we are very appreciative of having your time this afternoon, so thank you both to Ministers and officials. As usual, you will receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Vaughan Gething AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you very much. This is, of course, our last formal business of the National Assembly for Wales before we become the Senedd tomorrow, and it seems fitting that the National Assembly's last formal proceedings are focused on children and young people, and I'm sure that we would all agree that it is vital that they continue to be at the centre of the work of our Parliament going forward. We are now going to proceed in private. +","The Children, Young People, and Education Committee convened virtually under the chairmanship of Lynne Neagle AM with Members and relevant ministers and officials joining via video-conference. The purpose of the meeting was to examine the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on sectors related to children and young people, particularly health and social services, in Wales. As per Standing Orders mandating public exclusion to protect public health, the meeting's decision was announced in the agenda, which was published the prior Thursday. Despite this, the meeting was live-streamed on Senedd.tv. + +The committee welcomed Vaughan Gething AM, the Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services; Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Albert Heaney, Deputy Director General of Health and Social Services group; Nicola Edwards, Deputy Director of Childcare, Play and Early Years; Jean White, Chief Nursing Officer; and Tracey Breheny, Deputy Director of Mental Health, Substance Misuse, and Vulnerable Groups. The conversation was bilingual, offering simultaneous translation from Welsh to English, and microphones were centrally controlled, removing the necessity for individual muting and unmuting. + +The committee extended apologies for Hefin David AM's absence and confirmed that no substitutions would occur. Members were asked to declare interests, resulting in no declarations. Lynne Neagle AM clarified that Dawn Bowden AM would serve as temporary chair should she disconnect. + +A key discussion point was the unknowns related to children and the virus, particularly regarding transmission roles. Vaughan Gething AM admitted the learning curve is steep and ongoing worldwide, especially with rare Kawasaki-like syndromes affecting some children. Additionally, the ministers iterated the importance of maintaining health services for children, including critical care capacities, mental health services, and normal childhood vaccination schedules despite disruptions. + +Sian Gwenllian AM inquired about understanding the virus's impact on children and young people and emphasized its consideration in Wales's exit strategy from lockdown, especially in relation to school reopenings. Vaughan Gething AM spoke of the need for caution when relaxing lockdown measures and acknowledged that as they begin to understand the virus's effect on children, schools and community circulation, this would influence decisions around education and healthcare service capacities. + +The assembly addressed concerns about parents and carers delaying child health service engagement due to fear. Additional discussions focused on the responsiveness of the current capacity and support systems, along with the necessary adjustments in communication strategies to ensure families receive the required medical advice and interventions. + +The mental health effects of COVID-19 lockdown on children and young people were significantly highlighted. Vaughan Gething AM reassured the committee that children's mental health is central to government priorities, while acknowledging the existing challenge in fully grasping these impacts without regular family contact. He further stated the government's intent to develop a mental health recovery plan reflecting the crisis's implications. + +Lastly, the meeting discussed perinatal mental health services, the support for foster care and adoption, the impact on residential care and safeguarding children during the pandemic, and the considerations for potential legislation effects on children's rights, with Ministers supporting the importance of these services and the need for consistent provision across Wales. + +The Deputy Minister confirmed a forthcoming expansion in the definition of 'vulnerable children,' including discretionary authority for local agencies, and shared progress on support and funding measures for third sector organizations, including childcare providers during these unprecedented times. + +As the final formal meeting of the National Assembly for Wales before its transition into the Senedd, the session concluded in private with the committee resolute in ensuring the continued prioritization of children and youth matters in the Parliament's future work." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , so now we are on the conceptual design meeting . {vocalsound} Uh y getting close to the last +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: is the penultim meeting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How was lunch ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thanks {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Don't be sarcastic . {vocalsound} Mark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} um I will again do the secretary part uh we will have three presentation first um uh the industrial design , first Rama then Mark and then Sammy . +Marketing: Uh Rama . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ramaro . +Project Manager: Um um we have to take a decision on the control {disfmarker} remote control concepts and we have forty minutes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So what we want to {disfmarker} the decision we want to take on this meeting are on the um first on the component concept , so what kind of energy we use uh what kind of chip on print and one ki kind of case . And also on user interface concept uh what kind of interface we use and if there is some supplements . And at the end um Sammy will give um {vocalsound} a trend watching on what he's {disfmarker} he's been doing . It's {disfmarker} So , let's go . First with Rama . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two . Component . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . So we're to mainly design f mainly need to know which components we'll use for energy , and the material and interface . For energy there are maybe two or three possibilities . First one , we can use simple battery , or we can use {vocalsound} traditional solar cells or {disfmarker} mm and the material we can have plastic , rubber which is good for this R_S_A_ +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh titanium , which can be {disfmarker} which have very good look an and then interface we're to use push buttons or liquid crystal d L_C_D_ display . And we can use some {gap} , moving {gap} kind of thing . So , as we discussed before , we need to {disfmarker} we would like to have some speech recognition s chip in our remote control . So this can be simple kind of programmable chip and {disfmarker} which can use microphone {gap} sensors . And we also want to look at our remote control , so . Still we are looking for possible uh technical uh specifications and how w easy we can do and within our pri range , like we're to {disfmarker} in our twelve Euros or around that . So we are looking for simple devices or simple technology to do the location of remote control in a room or in a house . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Industrial Designer: So uh we discussed an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Excuse me . So we would like to propose battery instead of solar cells and it would be problematic uh to have enough energy with the solar cells +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so we would like to just use simple battery . And also we want to go for titanium design instead of rubber or {disfmarker} and well the problem is with this design we found that we can't use double-curved shapes . +Marketing: What is a double-curved shape ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like you can have two curves . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} I think in manufacturing I guess it's problematic . So , we want to go for simple push buttons because it need a simple chip and it's really lesser {disfmarker} uh re really less expensive compared to L_C_D_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which are uh which needs advanced chip technology and it's more expensive , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we want to put some other features such as speech recognition +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we want to reduce uh cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I want to know why it b uh just uh sorry but for the point before uh why not the rubber , if it is something that it seems to be light . +Marketing: The cost . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} And also like in {disfmarker} if you put a {gap} it's be difficult to do all the moulding of buttons and these things +Project Manager: Okay . You m titanium it's more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: W we can use something like you know {vocalsound} the whole body's titanium but there are some rubber or I dunno some rubber parts like +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm like this ? +Project Manager: Yes so mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: to make it feel better and to you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like in cell phones recently +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: these {disfmarker} you can {gap} with the rubber in four directions and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: yeah . But full assembly {disfmarker} We'll use mainly for titanium {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: rubber is expensive +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also it's bit difficult to do all the shapes uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And this push buttons +Project Manager: Uh yeah so +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we we would like to use push buttons instead of L_C_D_s and so we want to mo I mean we're {gap} we want to put speech recognition so we want to reduce price on this technology and so that we can have enough space or enough money +Project Manager: Okay , s so simple button and uh speech recognition for the more complicated . +Industrial Designer: for {disfmarker} S S +Marketing: Speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y yeah we have simple buttons and speech recognition technology , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and still we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: mm can we still include the L_ L_S_D_ display ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: L_C_D_ yeah L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Uh l +Marketing: Seems not , it's either L_C_D_ or push-button . +Industrial Designer: So uh +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: it's like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not gonna be a t no touchable but still like a source of information or source for menus . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe maybe we can see depending on how we'll come up with our full design then if we have enough money or like for and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's try it , let's t +Industrial Designer: because the speech recognition technology will take at least five Euros or {gap} or something so we want to reduce the cost on display +Marketing: {gap} The L_C_D_ would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or this inter +Marketing: The display would only be display and not uh touch sensitive you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's it's not gonna be a touch pad , uh just a display for giving you information . +Marketing: Just uh for output , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , that can we we can consider , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because like it won't take much money I guess , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: You have any further questions or ? +Marketing: I guess no um . So the batteries uh are going to be very light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we're to go for li and now I think we have many options in the market so we can go for small nickel or alkaline batteries +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: for really light batteries and with uh good price . +Marketing: So this device on n that can be used for speech recognition could also be used for just uh the finding it basically , instead of clapping why not just be {disfmarker} ask . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} then the the one thing we want to know is like because remote control is used for like in the household so it it it will be it {disfmarker} m maybe at least five , six people want to use it so so how to uh uh how to define our re speech recognition +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether we want to do s speaker independent or speaker dependent . If we're going for more speaker independent then it would be like again cumbersome and we need really m more technology +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: for the location . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if if everybody in the house n {gap} to locate then we're to go for some speaker independent technology or something . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's now go to the {disfmarker} you don't have more question ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No , it's okay . +Project Manager: Um mm thank you mm . +User Interface: No more questions . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: Puts less of constraint on what we can do +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's always like that . We have dreams and the {disfmarker} in the end we find out that it's not feasible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . We have uh some limitations {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But still uh L_S_D_'s already quite nice , +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: L_C_ {vocalsound} +Marketing: L_S_D_ is something else , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and it's quite nice as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm an artist , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: So uh , that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: go on uh artist . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope that's not too much . +Project Manager: Now let's talk about uh interface . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh participant number three . +Project Manager: Three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Which one ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm mm uh have a look at this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {gap} Uh so the concept of the interface . Generally I developed quite a broad concept not only for the interface , but for possible instruction or user's manual and uh all the complex things that come together with your T_V_ and remote controls . So let's start with this . We got our perfect remote control with a lot of buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh we got explanation for every button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can use your time and uh it will take i some days to learn all this buttons and um the L_C_D_ is going to be somewhere here and uh go back button , I don't know really where it is , maybe one of this buttons , and um power on and off mm I I don't remember +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so uh it it it should be maybe this button is power on and off ? Or no {gap} ? I can see nothing . So that's our concept . It's called the millennium remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's change millenniums . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you can use {gap} in the end and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} doesn't make sense . This is very {vocalsound} ugly . +User Interface: Really ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought you like it . Ah okay +Marketing: Oh no , +User Interface: just press the button , please uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: too much concept . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we will not use this . We will not use this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But instead of this I will devise {disfmarker} That's our concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , back today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it's got just few buttons , quite low looking , and all this stuff we already we already discussed . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +User Interface: And uh what will people say ? They'll say it's perfect . Or what will say ? Uh they will say it's splendid . And uh e everyone will say I'll buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} Do you think it can come in several colours ? +User Interface: And everyone's gonna be satisfied . +Marketing: Or did the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would make a backlight of the L_C_D_ screen with different colours . +Marketing: Um but not the case . +User Interface: Not the case . +Marketing: Uh the case would only be in that uh aluminium uh titanium stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Because apparently from your survey people like colours , no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , well they like uh something which is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's remember there's a Nokia phone which changeable panels . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay , +User Interface: Do you like it ? +Marketing: so that would be the option . I don't know I don't have a Nokia phone , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I don't use that but again , uh I might {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's why you don't have it . That's why , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: 'cause it's nasty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it would be expensive , no ? If you use colour L_C_D_ . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh instead of that maybe we can change the colour of the assembler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can just {disfmarker} if users want more colours they can pay more money to get this uh the shapes and they can have different assembly . +User Interface: Um , I am here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So users have different {disfmarker} I mean they have their own interests , colour interests and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we can just {disfmarker} if they want they can just pay another two Euro . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay , so +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: you you propose something with option i that increase the price if we {disfmarker} if you want o more colours {vocalsound} on L_C_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yes . If they want like uh {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Kind of upgradable uh {vocalsound} remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Wow , wow . +Industrial Designer: Just they'll get few more things and few more colours . +User Interface: Okay , what uh {disfmarker} there's one more decisi uh one more solution in fact , um {vocalsound} 'cause there are some some paints that can change colour according to where they are , like they can reflect different colours depending on what is around , like what colour is around , and depending on the temperature , +Industrial Designer: Lights , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And thermodynamic also . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like a chameleon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: We can make it in fact . +Project Manager: Yeah but that's maybe mo too much expensive , yeah . +User Interface: If if if the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But uh it can be in uh maybe in an {disfmarker} a gradable version , +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because uh I think there are two kinds of people . Those for which the remote control is uh is to be uh something useful uh I'm going to talk about this later but {disfmarker} and those for which is something that that that uh is uh specific to them so it it's like a signature . My remote control is pink . Nobody else than me has a pink remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that makes me special . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you think that we don't have to make to make them pay more because of {vocalsound} uh o or this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think I think they would be ready p ready to pay more for that . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: Those who wanted to have it pink . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} i it's not uh a s base service +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No mm no . +Project Manager: it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} be an option , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: It might be optional , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But those people will be really few , no ? So like we can {gap} those {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the young people the young people want to be different from their friends . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Although similar but have something just slightly better . Pink {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So m so +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if that it's a selling point maybe it has to be the base . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . But you know if you want to be different you just take your remote control with you all the time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And you'll be different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it makes you different , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: you know ? +Marketing: You always have your remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh in the train uh , hello uh no . {vocalsound} Want to change my neighbour . +User Interface: Anyone has their remote controls here ? +Marketing: Oh , you don't ? {vocalsound} Yeah . You don't have your remo {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh you you know like for instance take the iPod . It's a kind of remote control . {vocalsound} Uh it's white +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's so white that you see it from any anywhere . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It has this distinctive look and feel and look {gap} which people seems to like {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: just because it's {vocalsound} a colour that we don't usually see in a remote control . White . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh , uh-huh . Could we integrate something into our remote control , something like light ? +Marketing: Seems important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: That they can use it in darkness , like . Hand light , +Marketing: Mm {gap} glow in the dark , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe like the infrared like we can put some radium chips or something +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that like {disfmarker} at least um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Iradium ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah sorry . Mm . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . S well , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: let's go on maybe with the presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh-huh , yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And um the remote control's going to be smart +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: but how smart should it be to not to complicate things too much ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's a question to you and to mm to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well so I heard that uh it seems that speech recognition is something that can be done uh so that's the smartness of the thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Currently we don't have guns with speech recognition or uh beer cans with speech recognition +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we may have remote controls with speech recognition . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , that's a nice world . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So just just just just think about it um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Thank you . +Marketing: Don't touch the remote . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Are are you saying here that uh the remote controls should be aware of who is using it ? So for instance the young guy would not be able to use it because his father doesn't want . +User Interface: Uh yeah I just want to say it should be real smart . +Marketing: Like with some {disfmarker} Maybe fingerprint recognition or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Voice recognition is quite tough . I say don't use it , and the control just looks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: 'Cause I ordered jus To l to l lock it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh that {disfmarker} mm that could be feasible I guess , like {disfmarker} So since we have {disfmarker} we want to do some speaker dependent speech recognition uh so we can use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So it could be smart in that way . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: But for instance th I I'm thinking about the other uh uh particularity that the the remote control could have . S since it it knows who is using it , it might also record the kind of uh channels you are u more often using and uh levels of volumes that you're more often uh {disfmarker} things like that +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and provide you ways of using them , I dunno , somehow , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , that might be expensive +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: that might also be a good sales pitch again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote that knows you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: yeah , Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , it's alright . +Project Manager: Participant two ? +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Four , +Marketing: Four , I think . +Project Manager: sorry . +Marketing: Trend , yeah . No uh yes . Okay , so I'm going to talk about trends and um I hope this can help us to to understand l how we should design our remote control . So , next slide please . So first maybe just a small recap on {vocalsound} how how do we watch trends so it's not so uh simple you might think that it's easy but uh it's not so simple . Anyway these days uh the best uh source of information is the web as you know , so have to to go often on the web and look at uh what the others are doing , and ask real people who are using real remote controls every day uh or any other tool that is similar to a remote control which basically is a small device that people {gap} have with them , always , like a phone . We can we can use the phone as a as a good uh uh {vocalsound} example of where to in be inspired . Of course those tha d who are watching the trends are also {disfmarker} have also to be inspired because in fact they're not only watching the trends , they're inventing it , they're creating the trend . I hope I'm going to try to help you on that . This is more risky because you're not following the trend , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you try to invent it , which means either you succeed and you make a lot of money or you don't and you're out of business . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So anyway uh next slide please . {vocalsound} Uh to be to be quick {vocalsound} there's a lot of words here but uh basically there are {disfmarker} uh in in the market of of remote controls there are three aspects that we should very {disfmarker} pay much attention to . The first one , which seems to be the most important one , is that it has to be fancy , it has to have a fancy look and feel . And uh interestingly this is the very most important thing . It has to be fancy . Strangely enough it's more important to be fancy than to be wi and now that's the second thing it has to be , it has to be technologically i innovative , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: it has to be new with some of uh new uh technology inside and uh and this is also uh more important than the last thing which we w may think that would have been the most important , which is that it should be easy to use and it should be easy to use as a remote control . So as you see uh {vocalsound} it first have to be very nice , s something that people are proud of uh uh that i uh they can be id identified with uh and and then uh something that um contains very novel stuff that they can talk about with their friends , huh , mine has this and not yours . And finally of course it has to be useful as a remote control but it seems that it's not so important that it's useful as a remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Next slide please . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Uh and now in a more uh general uh uh broad way of seeing th uh the thing . If we look back and not uh look at only remote controls I think it's important to see that the trends are quite the same in many areas so {disfmarker} currently the the trends that we see in l in l big cities like Paris and Milan , well , it seems that this year things should have uh a fruit and vegetable uh way of {vocalsound} of look or feel +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: or so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think of course uh {vocalsound} i it applies to everything . That's the thing with trends . {vocalsound} It it can travel f from clothe to furniture {vocalsound} same idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit and vegetable . Think fruit and vegetable . {vocalsound} And uh if we co we compare to last year , now it has to be spongy , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: What is spongy ? +Marketing: yeah . Well +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: this {vocalsound} so so I think uh uh i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} kind of um maybe {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: When we were talking about rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think uh the rubber aspect might be important because it's what is probably more feasible in terms of sponginess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: S So maybe titanium it's not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} We need to think about {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: Seems not , seems not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} sorry Mark . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think more of uh something in the colours of uh like fruit and vegetables and spongy , +Industrial Designer: Fruit . Even shape ? +Marketing: as a {disfmarker} even in the shape it has to be more round and uh more uh uh look natural somehow . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} More {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And not those futuristic uh remote control with angles and uh and titanium like . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} You're old-fashioned . +Marketing: So that's what people seem to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah i I know it's quite far from what you thought +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's that's fashion and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay that's all I have to say . +Project Manager: Mm you have questions ? +Industrial Designer: So these abilities are mainly ad addressed by young people ? Or it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: These {disfmarker} I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} you you {gap} so did you {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah we have people uh uh listening to the trends everywhere in the world , of course , +Industrial Designer: Where ? Oh . Oh , okay , mm-hmm . +Marketing: as you know our company is quite big and uh so I'm just asking them what are the current trends according to them when they go in the stores and when they ask uh their uh friends +Industrial Designer: It's not from {disfmarker} mm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: that are also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's more general trend +Marketing: well . +Industrial Designer: it's not particular to the remote control . +Marketing: No , it's not it's not {disfmarker} this this is very general , yeah . But it seems that trends travel across things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but some materials n they're to be uh they're to be something like solid like they can't be really spongy +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: We have to {disfmarker} I think we have to have the look of fruit and vegetables +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah sponge , yeah yeah at least that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we still have to put our chips inside , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: This is your problem . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is not mine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , looking {disfmarker} yeah fruit . These things can be easily incorporated . We can have t colours or this shape +Marketing: Yeah , I think in the colours and in the uh the kind of material . +Industrial Designer: or at least {disfmarker} +Marketing: If if it's something like rubber made or {disfmarker} I think it it's also going to be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No more question ? Okay . +Marketing: Yep . Thanks . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Okay , so we will have uh next meeting in thirty minutes again . Um now you have to go straight on this individual action which i which are for Rama uh wil design , +Industrial Designer: Look and feel de +Project Manager: um Mark the user interface design , and uh Sammy uh the product evaluation . {vocalsound} Uh you will work together uh on a new on on a prototype using modelling clay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . Mm sounds interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm um and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as always your personal coach will send you specific instruction . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , can we highlight the specific features of our {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're right , you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah , so so we want the speech recogniser and we want some kind of buttons and we want some themes like fruits or vegetables , +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you say s +Industrial Designer: we want to follow general trend . +Marketing: Spongy . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we agree on that ? Yeah . We have to . +Industrial Designer: So , do you think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we don't have to , +User Interface: So we have to uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but seems it's the trend . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Again , as I said we can also try to make it , to create the trend . +User Interface: yeah so are we confident enough on creating trends ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} Well , that's {disfmarker} you t can try to convince us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we can make it smell like fruit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} that's a good idea , +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So titanium smell like fruit . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what about location and these things , people are really interesting on those features ? Or they really like {disfmarker} They more want these fancy features +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I think i +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah i it's again in this uh what I said first it has to be fancy so I think if nobody else pro provides currently a remote control with that kind of stuff and if we can provide it I think it's a good sell for us +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Feature {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because we have it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and others don't . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's fancy . Whether it's useful or not doesn't seem to be very important . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I agree with uh this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now we have to decide on what kind of fanciness . Do we take titanium smelling like fruit , or do we make spongy uh fruity-like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh we will try to explore these two options +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you could explore the two option . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Could we make a titanium shape ? I mean {gap} fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah at least like we can make banana or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Don't you say that you cannot do double shape {disfmarker} uh curved shape {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Doub double-curved . +Industrial Designer: yeah it's it's +Marketing: Mm . Seems to be {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's a {disfmarker} we're to look for {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and and s we're to see the {disfmarker} whether rubber is expensive +User Interface: Okay , okay . In fact I just agreed to make uh to make the {disfmarker} like titanium panels on a whole rubber body . +Industrial Designer: and d Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay , so +User Interface: Well , okay w we'll see . +Project Manager: you explore now that you're going to work together these these two . +User Interface: Yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or or spongy an yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe we can have two different {gap} assembly also like one spongy and one kind of titanium . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} we have only the plastic or the {disfmarker} the chippy {disfmarker} yeah fibre chips or {disfmarker} +User Interface: We'll see . We'll see . +Marketing: If you have time . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah I don't think w I think we have to choose . If we choose uh titanium or if we choose spongy +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: but uh it cannot be both . +User Interface: We'll see . I I really don't like this modelling clay 'cause you know it makes some {gap} for for +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For creation . +User Interface: I dunno uh {disfmarker} yeah um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we'll look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah you can pretend that it's uh titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Even design . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can paint it afterward {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: No problem . We have a very large department of {vocalsound} paint . +Project Manager: Yeah , do don't worry , you you {vocalsound} you speak with {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You will do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright , alright . +Project Manager: Okay . So explore a shape . +Industrial Designer: So still we want to keep L_C_D_ ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm I think it's what we say , that we have an uh an L_C_D_ with uh information . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The thing is that uh if we want to have as he says {disfmarker} if we want to have uh a small number of buttons we need to have a kind of output that says currently what their actions are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} user friendly +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's the converse to having zillions of button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: where each button does only one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we just stick with two batteries so it's not any solar or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah j yeah , +Marketing: Classical , we stay classical in that we don't reinvent uh the wheel . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway it's very {disfmarker} in general I think people uh change T_V_ more often than batteries of their remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . {vocalsound} Because the trend goes faster than the life of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's {gap} very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: are we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're done . +Marketing: We're done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So see you in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +","Summary: + +The team, consisting of a project manager, marketing expert, user interface designer, and industrial designer, gathered for a conceptual design meeting, which is the penultimate one before finalizing their remote control project. + +They discussed various aspects of the remote control's design, including the selection of components (like the type of energy source and materials) and the user interface. The industrial designer suggested using simple batteries over solar cells and a titanium design, although there were issues with double-curved shapes in manufacturing. Push buttons were preferred over LCD displays for cost reduction and to leave a budget for speech recognition technology. + +The marketing expert questioned the absence of rubber material due to its lightweight and good looks. The idea of using rubber parts along with titanium for better feel and handling was later floated. There was also a suggestion to make the remote more stylish by opting for a colorful LCD backlight or interchangeable panels to appeal to younger users. + +The user interface designer seemed to favor a minimalist design with fewer buttons, reliant on the proposed speech recognition technology, aiming for the remote control to be smart yet not overcomplicated. They also suggested incorporating a light feature for visibility in the dark and possibly making the remote's exterior reflective or varied in color based on temperature. + +The marketing expert presented trend information, emphasizing the importance of a remote control being fancy and technologically innovative, sometimes more than ease of use. They also highlighted current trends that might influence design, such as fruit and vegetable themes, spongy textures, and a preference for personalization. + +In conclusion, they agreed on some features, such as using batteries and incorporating an LCD for display. However, decisions on final materials, whether to follow or set trends, and the extent of the device's fancy features were still in discussion. The meeting ended with action items assigned to each team member to explore these options further before the next meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I hope you're ready for this uh functional design meeting . +Marketing: Of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I will take the minutes you mm you three are going to do presentation . Um uh we want to know {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} at the end to know the new project's requirement so we need uh to know the the user uh needs that we want to fulfil to fulfil the {disfmarker} from the technical part we want to know how it going to work and um third part {vocalsound} uh I don't remember {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is not very good . Ah of course , how to to design this uh this {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice stuff {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . So um let's go for the three presentations , so first um Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who starts ? {vocalsound} Oh . Ha . okay . +Project Manager: So wait a minute . Mm . +Marketing: So I dunno if I can do that like this ? Yeah ? So it's being modified . Do you want {disfmarker} yeah , open . Read only . I hope I saved it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , um +User Interface: Sammy Benjo . I know this name uh . +Marketing: yeah , this is my name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sounds uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We met before . +Marketing: So as you know , you {disfmarker} I think you already know me , Sammy Benjo . I am the expert in marketing and I want to tell you about what people uh s want and uh like and dislike in remote controls , and I hope this is going to help you to to design it correctly . So next please . Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is put F_ five {gap} . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: The full page presentation , yep . +Marketing: Yeah maybe in the full page +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: F_ F_ five . +Marketing: because i I spent lots of time doing this presentation , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh hmm okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So basically uh what I suggest is that uh instead of deciding ourself what what could be and what should be a good uh remote control , let's ask people who are users of remote controls how they feel about w the current remote controls , what they like , what they don't like and um and what they do with them by the way {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because they are supposed to be useful . {vocalsound} Don't forget about that . So we've we've conducted a a survey on on the use of uh remote controls and I'd like to show you some of the results we found on this survey . And next please . Yeah , so basically what we found was that uh there are several things that the user don't like in remote controls . First of all , they find it very ugly . {vocalsound} Current remote controls as you know they're the same as this one uh they're not nice colour , not nice shape , I mean they're all the same , and they're not l good looking . Um what is interesting is that in fact it seems that they were {disfmarker} people are ready to pay for nice and look {disfmarker} and fancy looking uh remote control , so I think we should probably spend lots of time in {disfmarker} and effort in that um . And the other thing is that uh the the current remote controls are not so easy to use and it it {disfmarker} the the current uh facilities that they offer do not match what people really want to use their remote controls . For instance uh we see that uh they zap very often so I think this is a very uh important uh functionality that it should be easy for them to to zap uh in one way or another . And most of the buttons uh on uh current remote controls are not used , so I think we should design something where some of the buttons which are those that are used should be easier to see and use than others that only a couple of people are using . Um next please . {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} people are very frustrated w with their {vocalsound} remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and they for instance uh they don't even find it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {vocalsound} it's often lost somewhere in the in the {disfmarker} in your home and nobody knows where it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Agree . +Marketing: Maybe if we have something where we could {vocalsound} ask the remote control please , where are you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like uh something to to {disfmarker} like t I think phones . Some of the phones have some of this kind of s functionality . Uh of course phone you can always phone your phone +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {vocalsound} you can't phone your {vocalsound} your remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} you are {gap} . +Project Manager: Why not ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But why not ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And because of the fact that there are so many buttons in these remote controls that nobody use , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: in fact they don't even know how to use them , so most of the the people say they they don't know how to {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} to use properly their r remote controls . And uh they are bad for R_S_I_ but uh I don't remember what is R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay uh tha that's look great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So I think they are bad . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} R_S_I_ mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm nobody has any idea about that ? Well I'll check uh with my +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's electromagnetic waves or something kind of maybe uh effect . +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: No , I don't think so . +Marketing: I think it's a technical thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: which our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because infrared uses some electromagnetic technology , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and those waves have high {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems that {vocalsound} it's a lot of people for a concept that we don't know {vocalsound} +User Interface: But twenty six percent , do you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or something we don't know . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Twenty five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: but we have to take this into account . +User Interface: Every fourth , you know . {vocalsound} Every four {disfmarker} some of us knows . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} People really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So anyway +User Interface: One of us {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's for what the biggest frustration uh of the user and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: what else do I have ? Next slide ? Ah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we've listed a couple of uh +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: s uh functions that may be uh used by u the user in the current uh available uh remote controls and uh well the tables look very nice to read but what is important is to understand that the power button is not used often because in general you {vocalsound} use it only once per session , but it is very relevant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: People want to have a power button . Channel selection is uh o often used {disfmarker} very often used and indeed uh very relevant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} now I remember what is R_S_I_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's repetitivity stress injury . {vocalsound} We have to be careful with that word but {vocalsound} uh anyway +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: I continue my presentation so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: channel selection is um very important , very often used . Volume is not often used but people uh want to have control on volume and that makes sense of course . And n then you have things which are very much less often used like the settings . Audio settings , screen settings , even teletext and channel settings . All of them . they're not often used and they are s more or less relevant . It seems that people find teletext teletext uh relevant , even if I personally never use it but seems that it's average relevant at least , so . +Project Manager: I have been told that we uh don't consider teletext , that it's out of date now because of internet . +Marketing: I can tell you that uh in a l in a scale between one and ten relevant uh not relevant to relevant people scored a six on this , which is not as uh these these two one were {disfmarker} had I think ten I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But but if you compare with these ones , uh I think they scored a one or two . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Not very relevant , so if if there are good reason not to put teletext it's okay but just know that people find it somehow relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's for the main functions I think and uh then we can ask uh ourself uh what people don't have that may be useful . For instance I think {disfmarker} net next slide . {vocalsound} One of the thing {disfmarker} the trend uh that uh you are probably aware of is the possibility {disfmarker} the eventual possibility of having speech recognition in your remote control , so you wouldn't have to tap tap in your buttons but just tell your remote control or whatever you need you have what you want . So we've conducted a survey about uh whether people would like or not to have uh this kind of uh functionality in their remote control and as we can see it really depends on the age . Young people , probably because it's a buzz word , find it very relevant . And uh as the age goes up {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the relevance goes down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So now it really depends on the kind of uh targeting uh wha who are we targeting with this remote control ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think if we are targeting young people then uh it's probably something we have to consider . If we are targeting you very old people this is something they really don't know why they {disfmarker} this should be so now +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay . +Marketing: this is of course , depends on that . And um I don't have any conclusion , I didn't have time the meeting was very tight , so that's basically my findings . And uh , if you have any question ? +Project Manager: Mm I think it's good , okay . You done a good review . +User Interface: I got one question , +Marketing: I can go back . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah one question , +User Interface: uh you are a Market Expert +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: so +Marketing: I am . {vocalsound} +User Interface: should we aim at the young people or not ? +Marketing: I think we should aim at the young people . But uh I think they are {disfmarker} they are those uh who might be more interested in a in a new device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: In general the the early adopters of a new device are young people , less than {disfmarker} more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then teletext is used less . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Then teletext is useless for them I think , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . Because they they have other means of finding their information . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm mm . Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's good point . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Nope . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yep . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: So um now I think it's the turn of the the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not sure um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of the technical function , so {vocalsound} uh +Marketing: So I think it's you , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's +Marketing: No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's me . +Project Manager: what effect {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: techni function of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , user requiremen +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Wait a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: I have to do working design so uh +Project Manager: So you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but this but number three , yes . Mm-hmm . So , my name is Mark Dwight , and um I am responsible for User Interface Design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: However , uh mm Project Manager asked me to give you some presentation about technical functions design . Uh , as I'm a more an artist +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's gonna be less technical functions but more User Interface and current intentions and everything which is linked with this . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's go . +User Interface: So next slide please . And uh a general method which is {disfmarker} seems to be very useful for our task +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: is not to forget about uh Occam razor . We should never complicate things too much . We should only make a remote control , nothing more . Nothing more than this , just a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause current remote controls they are never easy enough to use . +Marketing: Makes sense . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , make a click , please . So here is this remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's quite a standard one , but it's not from a T_V_ , it's from a much easier device like air conditioning or something . But you know , we can use it for a T_V_ easily . Only buttons we need is on off , volume , channels and maybe some options or something else , and please make a click , compared to this one +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: which one would you prefer ? I guess this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I would say the simplest one as long as there are the uh {disfmarker} I find the buttons that I need every time I need a button . +User Interface: Sure , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it can be yeah middle of {disfmarker} like , between those two +User Interface: Yeah , and our method is going to be , provide simple +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: simple desires into simple actions . +Marketing: Nice . Nice sentence . +User Interface: Findings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +User Interface: Our question of the style , we should remember that our company +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: puts fashion into electronics and we should never forget about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S you should {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Be simple . Be simple and you'll lean on this market . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Market is a {disfmarker} of remote controls {disfmarker} you know it better , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: it's very well , it's it's not an easy field to to play , you know ? So be simple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: For personal preferences I think that to make a baby-proof remote control it got to be a titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a really good style , it going to be {disfmarker} look like like this . It is unbreakable and it is very universal . W we'll have a screen with a back light which can change colours , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and we can put all the options into this screen . We'll need only few buttons . All the other things can be controlled through the screen . And all these buttons should be easy to find and to click , 'cause when you watch a movie and you want to change something , you always try to find a good button and click it , but you should do it by touching it and finding it easily just by touch . So {disfmarker} Press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I would propose this concept for design , just few buttons , a screen with a back light which can change colours , titanium +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think , and uh what else ? I got just very few and good ideas . We need power and volume . And let us include two nice features into this device , first , power on and off can be made fully automatic . When you go to the sofa , take your control and point it to the T_V_ , +Project Manager: It's off . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's on . +User Interface: the T_V_ turns on . +Marketing: And when does it turn off ? +User Interface: When you don't touch the control but you go out of the {disfmarker} For for enough time +Marketing: Oh so you have a +User Interface: like uh you {disfmarker} +Marketing: sensing {disfmarker} sensor machine that uh knows {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a question to our technical design , our {vocalsound} two engineers . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tech {vocalsound} +User Interface: And another nice feature that I would like to implement is uh volume control . Suppose you set u you set up some volume and then you move out or you move to the other corner of the room and take your control with you . Like , you want to to change the chair or you want to move to the armchair from the sofa or something , and then the volume changes . +Project Manager: Or you want to go to the kitchen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's easy to do , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you just control the {disfmarker} +Marketing: According to your distance to {disfmarker} and the angle maybe , if you have a stereo system . +Industrial Designer: Distance . +User Interface: According to the distance . {gap} Yeah yeah yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'm not sure about the screen , wha what is the use usefulness of the screen ? Uh is it a touch screen by the way ? +User Interface: I think it can be just a menu which can be controlled with a left , right , up , down and enter . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it gives instructions but uh it has to be with an back light somehow . {gap} +User Interface: So , its main purpose in fact is a back light , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which change colours , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: which makes it easier to find , and each can {disfmarker} it can respond for your voice , like it can turn on the light for you just to f find it easily , yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So basically that's it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I see that you target uh several s application not only T_V_ but i like we talk about um universal uh remote control . +User Interface: Can be easily done , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause you got simple designs , y we should put it to simple actions . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Let it be universal , so you want to use it for your hi-fi system . You want to change tracks and you want to adjust volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just few actions , a few actions for everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . S +User Interface: All the rest , we sh we'll put it into this menu on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm . Since we were targeting a really soon uh uh date for the the the um i issuing of this uh remote control I think we will only concentrate on T_V_ for the moment and then maybe m make it more generalised {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah and it {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: Okay , but it's quite universal you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We can just extend it to any device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So for instance if I want to go to {disfmarker} directly to channel twenty five , how would I do {disfmarker} can I do that with this ? +User Interface: Uh twenty five . +Marketing: Yeah mm let's say I am uh on channel eight now . You know these days we have hundreds of channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's not so easy to go just next next next when you have hundreds of channels . +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact I would propose another solution . +Marketing: Or is it ? +User Interface: Basically you use just four or five channels , right ? +Marketing: Most people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: So uh set up your T_V_ set like channels that you use they're one , two , three and five , and you will never have to go to a twenty fives channel . +Marketing: In fact in in one uh remote control that I've seen , instead of doing that d you could just say these are the cha ch channel three , twenty eight , forty eight and uh sixty four are those that I want to by cycled with my next button . +Project Manager: Yeah it's it's the same solution , I think . Hmm . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: B yeah . +Industrial Designer: But even we can have some uh L_C_D_ display , like you can uh de you can just button the number +Marketing: Go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: and then it go +Marketing: One thing is that as I said in my presentation people really do like to z zap . +Industrial Designer: t because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So even if they are only watching four or five channels , I think they want to zap out of the one hundred channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But still {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: just because this is one kind of thing they do , zapping . +Project Manager: Yeah uh on zap it's only next next next next next , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it's only next . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Mm . We got these buttons here . Next next . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} but you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah. . +User Interface: Or say this can be back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But otherwise like we can put some display on numbers and then they can just press {disfmarker} suppose two five they just press two and five +Marketing: So it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we can make uh different modes for each button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can change mode {disfmarker} zapping mode or +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Project Manager: uh current chan +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah but since we are focusing only on T_V_ remote controls +Marketing: {vocalsound} Listening more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we can have more functions for T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you want to go for a universal then we ought to limit for functions for each of our devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Could we carry out some research if we w really need this , like how many people really need to go to channel number twenty five and then to sixty four ? +Marketing: Well I could could uh have a look at that {vocalsound} maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll check in my department if there's someone specialist in that . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Although I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright ? Thanks for your attention . +Project Manager: Uh you're finish ? Okay . So now {vocalsound} the technical aspects of this new device . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Two . Yeah , if {disfmarker} {gap} Sorry . +Project Manager: You prefer it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh as you know , I am mister Ramaro . I am an expert in uh industrial design of all electronic devices and I previously devised many uh {disfmarker} like digital calculators and electronic calculators . {vocalsound} So now I'll briefly describe the working design of our remote control . Well , as you know the basic function of remote control is sending some message to the the device , like T_V_ or V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player etcetera . So we will have a p portable device which will send message to the the main device like T_V_ . So we need to have some energy source to do what {disfmarker} to do the functions , what we want on this portable device . {vocalsound} And usually this {disfmarker} so to do these functions we need an interface , which basically some kind of pressing buttons or keys or like moving jack or something like that . And then these messages {disfmarker} these key buttons can be transferred into some kind of message and then it will process by the chip and then it will generate some information to the main device . It's generally in the form of infrared or some kind of s sensor information . Then we will have the main control in the main device to do the particular action what we want . So , basically we need uh since we are focusing on our interface device {gap} remote control mainly the energy source like the battery and then we have user interface like uh the keypad and you know buttons we want , and then we have some chip , it's mainly digital signal processing chip because since we are {disfmarker} I am one doing mostly digital uh devices we ought to have some kind of processor which take care of all these functions and put it in some digital format . And then we'll have the infrared L_E_D_ source which sends the information to the main device . Then we'll have switch in our main uh um device to do particular operations , and we ought to do different codes for different T_V_s , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so some T_V_s will have different encryption codes for doing s s uh channel changing and these things . +Project Manager: Okay . To make it quite uh an universal uh device uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , because the people don't use one particular brand so +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or at least we have more more than five brands , which are really good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we need to check their specifications and do their uh encryption that's passing information to the T_V_ device . So we need to have particular encryption codes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then , components , so we have the main uh energy source and then we will have some buttons and then we will have infrared uh source and then we have some inside some chip in in the device . Uh since I don't have much time so I'll input the connections to all this components . And since I also want to know feedback from our Marketing Expert and User Interface , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to add some more components we can incorporate them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And from from the discussion we had do you {disfmarker} can you make it on the whiteboard , or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'm sure , because since our User Interface {gap} speech recognition and also Marketing Expert for the speech recognition is really handy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: we can have another , like uh s simple speech recogniser on our D_S_B_ chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Since we have some kind of uh energy this is our this normal battery , so this battery , once you s switch on it will take power and we can have some speech recognition and in our g generally small digital signal processing chip so that and we will put uh the small uh simple speech recogniser +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we can also train the speech recogniser for particular user so you just {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh train it , okay . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so that we just use simple recog +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Too complex . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: no but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But uh very very good to sell . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No , even in {disfmarker} you can find even simple mobile device like any mobile brand you can have these voice dialers or these things , yeah . +Marketing: Think of a all these young people who would love to say that this remote control only works for them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and ha ha you cannot use my remote control , +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it's targeted to me . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what about the price of this component ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh maybe we can make uh it in five Euros and even less than that , +Project Manager: It mm {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Hmm . Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we want to have uh millions and in bulk , +Marketing: Millions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so we can make really simp +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we want to make really simple device +Marketing: Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we have only very few words like like power , switch on or some like +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: then we'll have something like this um we'll have volume and then we will have s particular channel , so users can listen . +Marketing: The user uh will just be able to say uh please can you uh pump up the vo pump up the volume +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: or or it will be something like volume , up , down . +Industrial Designer: Ye No , yeah , a user can use any kind of sender but they should have this prompt {gap} volume and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: With a keywords and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah volume and decrease or increase , so we try to only recognise those words +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm . +Industrial Designer: and and because we can't really say user to say same wording +Marketing: Couple of words . +Industrial Designer: then it become more mechanical and {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: And then we can have channel they can say , okay I want eight , because we don't know like users have different programmes , I mean they don't really follow same channels strict uh so we just want channel number , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we don't want like B_B_C_ or C_N_N_ or something else +Marketing: Of course uh it has to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because it will be complicated so we'll have only these three uh main basic uh anyway volume is not really speech recognition problem , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's it it will be take care of our main {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No you know it's a conceptual question , 'cause now I see th this {disfmarker} the picture in front of my eyes like a user taking his remote control and shouting into it , volume up , volume up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But then I think you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and he's coming {disfmarker} you know , he's really annoyed with this , down , up , down . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: First of all I I think this is not uh functionality that it is going to be instead of using the buttons . +Project Manager: No , in no not only speech , yeah . +Marketing: It's on top of using the button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I it's an option . +User Interface: Okay , for this budget like twelve Euros . +Marketing: Well , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually we we can have one switch to like uh switch on , on and off , this {gap} processor and {disfmarker} This really {gap} , suppose like here we have our main chip which controls power , volume and this part and this D_S_P_s . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Again , this to have some interaction like suppose people use D_S_P_ then it particularly sends some information to the chip like in some form , like volume and {gap} like this key . +User Interface: Okay. . +Industrial Designer: So it may not be like very expensive , because since we are only focusing on T_V_ remote control +Marketing: T_V_ . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} and we have only few things here {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sho to to train , okay . +User Interface: Did you consider the r gest uh gesture recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like , if I want to put volume up I like do {disfmarker} mm I take my remote control do like {disfmarker} something like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: roll 'em up +Industrial Designer: Um uh uh this point we didn't consider +User Interface: or roll 'em down . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very expensive , +Industrial Designer: because it's it's very expensive +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: because v our target is only like twelve point five Euros +Project Manager: And well , what about the idea of automatic on off on the button , yeah . +User Interface: Mm why ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: And volume control . +Industrial Designer: even automatic on off is also a bit problematic , because it {disfmarker} different criteria for different people like so suppose people are really uh they just uh they don't touch the remote and mm y you don't know how much time you need to switch on or switch off +Marketing: So but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sh should we target a a user personalised uh uh remote control ? So in in a given room there might be more than one remote control . We would uh have each one and uh with our own personal uh settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yay yeah . Yeah that can be possible , especially for power settings , so user can say okay , suppose they're watching a tennis match or something then they can say okay uh after one hour I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Wouldn't that make uh {vocalsound} arguments ? +Industrial Designer: They can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: I want uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah we can have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's no problem , we will sell more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we can increase this {vocalsound} the strength +User Interface: {vocalsound} We got a really good Market Expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} y you can buy one with {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's send more , let's sell more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . You have mm something else to say ? Uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , not very much , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Yep . Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +Industrial Designer: Can you just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: mm +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: mm I think , okay , we're just on time . Um mm mm . So , we're now going to l have the lunch break . +Marketing: Mm great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Then we will work again for thirty minutes individual work , and um {vocalsound} we will uh meet again for the next meeting , and uh in this one want to to be more focused on the individual actions the um {disfmarker} on the components so {vocalsound} uh you will focus on the component concept um +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: uh of course the U_I_D_ Mark will be uh focused on the user interface concept +Industrial Designer: Mark will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh our m Market Expert Sammy Benjo uh on the trend watching . So {vocalsound} um of course like before specific instruction will be sent to you by your personal personal coach . Well I think that's all . And we have um maybe we have to {disfmarker} we say , only for T_V_ , not teletext ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think automatic on off control uh it's not possible . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's in current price , yeah . +Marketing: Difficult . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe in the next uh step if we make it work um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But speech recogniser can be possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , implemented . O okay , we can think about that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um do you see something else ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh , should it be equipped with the uh , with uh speakers ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speakers in the remote cont +User Interface: Like , you want to find it , you shout +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah +User Interface: control , +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it answers is I'm here ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It just beeps . +User Interface: Just beeps ? +Marketing: That would be enough . +Project Manager: Or maybe you want to phone him . +Marketing: Something very cheap . +Project Manager: Since now all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: But that's ex that's expensive . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah ? Think +Industrial Designer: Yeah , especially the power , it really consumes +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: because it should be all the time on and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I heard of devices where you just uh whistle them and and they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's answered . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because of the the frequency they they just answer to that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I can't whistle . No , no , I can't . +Marketing: You can't whistle . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a clap . You can clap . Can you ? +Project Manager: Clap clap clap it's a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Clap is good . +Project Manager: I I think it's universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Tak +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What about people without hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just a {vocalsound} suggestion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I think it's good . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} With only one hand ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} These are not our target people . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm uh okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's a good feature I guess yeah we need to think about more how to incorporate it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: Just don't interfere with other devices like 'cause like all these people do that their lights are turning on with clapping . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh that's e that already exists +User Interface: Yeah , I got it at my home , like {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you do have . +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . You're trendy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , so {vocalsound} let's to think s so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think about it . +Project Manager: yeah . I think that could be in the component uh concept uh . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: we're done ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's go to lunch . +Industrial Designer: Thank you , thank you very much . +Marketing: Right , thanks . +Project Manager: {gap} +","In the functional design meeting, the project manager announces that they will be discussing the new project's requirements, specifically focusing on user needs, technical functionality, and design. The marketing expert, Sammy Benjo, suggests basing the design of the remote control on user feedback, highlighting the importance of aesthetics, ease of use, and the need for simplified functionality. There is a consensus that people find current remote controls ugly and difficult to use, with many unnecessary buttons. + +The user interface designer, Mark Dwight, emphasizes simplicity and usability, drawing on the principle of Occam's razor. He proposes a remote control with minimal buttons and a user-friendly interface. A recommendation is made for a simple design with essential functions and a backlit, color-changing screen as a fashionable component. + +The industrial designer, identified as Mr. Ramaro, outlines the technical aspects, including power sources, user interfaces, digital signal processing chips, and infrared technology. He also suggests that affordable voice recognition could be a selling point, especially for younger users, despite initial technical challenges. + +There is debate over specific features like automatic on/off control and comprehensive channel navigation. The discussion includes considering the target audience's preferences, the potential for a personalized remote control experience, and including a feature where the remote can be located by sound. + +The conversation closes with plans for individual work focusing on component concepts, user interface concepts, and trend watching. The possible inclusion of a clap-activated finder for the remote is discussed, and the team decides to proceed to lunch, with further consideration on the discussed suggestions." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Oh I totally {disfmarker} Yeah 'cause I moved it . {vocalsound} 'S put it over here . Then we don't have to worry about it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ready for this ? +Project Manager: All set ? Cool . Alright , it is PowerPoint time . I've done more PowerPoints in this particular experiment than I've ever done in my life before this experiment {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: which is kind of fun . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh here we have our detailed design meeting where we will um look at the prototype and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} right so um , I finally figured out what this whole second bullet point is about in my {disfmarker} that my coach was sending to me . It means I'm supposed to read the minutes from the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? +Project Manager: I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: I don't know . Otherwise it's just saying I'm the secretary +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {disfmarker} therefore I'm taking the minutes , s so just to go um {vocalsound} just real briefly to go over minutes from last meeting , uh , I will open them slowly , no ? Wait for it , wait for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's not you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . That's how the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is , this is very high-powered stuff here , double-clicking , there we go . So um basically the moral of the story from our last minute uh {disfmarker} last meeting was that {vocalsound} um we that we had meetings from {disfmarker} uh we had presentations done by the Industrial Designer , uh or from Nathan , and Ron and from Sarah about what we can do here um and what sort of limitations we're operating with um {disfmarker} uh excuse me what limitations we're operating under , what kind of risk we'd be looking at with some of the various approaches we were discussing and we essentially came to the conclusion that we should develop a remote with uh voice recognition , I_E_ that had a vaguely non-remote like shape um because you didn't really need to use it as a remote since you could just use your voice . That would include some {disfmarker} mostly just the simple design features for a television operation but with a slide or a fold-out bay for more advanced functions for users . Um , and uh the uh uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ were asked to go ahead and start developing a prototype for us to look at . {vocalsound} So . That's sorted , back to the main {vocalsound} meet here , um , go ahead and take it away guys . +Industrial Designer: Well . Uh , we have assembled our prototype , um . What's to be said about it ? Um , we took into account a lot of the things that we went over in the last meeting , um . Some of the most important things to consider are that we decided not to go for the touch screen which you can see +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and opted for some very large buttons for the primary functions , um . This is going to be the on off button +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we have these buttons to go through the channels um and then two volume buttons down here , d uh we decided those were the most important uh buttons . And then , for the more advanced uh functions there is a slide out panel here um and you can see that there are lots of other things going on . But this actually can slide back in and provides a very nice aesthetic when it's all put away , um . As far as the uh whole visible light thing , we decided to go with the multiple colours coming out , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: why not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , if that's annoying for some people that function can be turned off . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +User Interface: No it's important to {vocalsound} we talked a quite a bit about uh you know the the interchangeable uh faces and what we've done here is come up with a bit of a natural look here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um f we call it fruity +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: if you will . Um . Right , um , +Marketing: Appropriate , okay . +User Interface: of course that's uh interchangeable +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh I think it would be desirable for the uh for the regular product in the in the in the in the first packaging to be something a little bit more subdued +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: but this is kind of something that can be done +Marketing: It is an option . +User Interface: um and as you can see on the television there uh we have the uh voice detector device um on the top there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: That's this here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . I see . +User Interface: Um . So that that will work quite well with with regard to finding this uh contraption . Um , what other things do we see here , well , um if you give it a touch it does have actually a bit of a spongy feel , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , so I think that will work well with regards to our market . Um and uh let's see , well clearly there's gonna be some more colours and what not available . {vocalsound} Um uh do you have anything else to add to that ? +Industrial Designer: Um I worried about the materials , it is uh {disfmarker} the entire thing is covered in a rubber coating so it's very durable uh , it's not gonna break like some types of plastic that's dropped . Um , and of course as you can see and if you touch it it does have that nice squishy feel . +User Interface: It's actually important to note that the television , uh you know if there's an earthquake or anything like that , that i it actually is edible inside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fact , I dunno if you noticed , but I wrote the uh the company's name on the telephone screen , +Project Manager: Oh well done yeah , yeah oh ok +Industrial Designer: I thought that was kinda nice . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: This was actually an apple on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do we need to worry about um rot factors ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} it's encased in a new uh type of uh +Marketing: Oh okay , there's preservatives involved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: polymer yeah . +Marketing: we don't need to worry , +Industrial Designer: We got a bit ahead of ourselves , +User Interface: It's fine . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not talking about making televisions at this point or anything like that , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Edible televisions , it's a wave of the future . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's pos a possible new product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a couple years off at least . Okay . +User Interface: Um , but I think that's {disfmarker} I think that sums up the main features of our {disfmarker} of the remote , +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: um I dunno if you guys have any questions or f whether that uh {disfmarker} whether we need to worry about any uh other marketing areas or anything of that nature . Um , did we come in under budget ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we did , yeah . This cost {disfmarker} well to put this into um production , we're looking at about {disfmarker} what was our goal ? It was twelve fifty Euro um and this actually came in at about eleven ninety nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was quite pleased with that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One thing that we didn't do um {disfmarker} obviously we had a choice with the buttons whether to use scroll buttons or standard rubber buttons , but we just went for a classic rubber button and um since we did that +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we didn't have to use as many microchips which was quite nice and that's what helped keep the cost down . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: So even though it has a lot of modern technology , um for example the voice recognition , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in a lot of ways it's just a simple remote and um I think if we shopped around for other manufacturers um we might be able to get even cheaper . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Did we talk about the voice recognition uh option ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Oh no , we haven't talked about that yet have we ? +User Interface: So uh so uh yeah on the back here you all noticed this area here which is actually the voice recognition uh uh console +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and uh I think it's nicely designed into the into the overall look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , but basically the voice recognition uh incorporates um the latest designs that our research team has been able to cufw uh come up with . Basically uh quite similar to the coffee maker um design that we were talking about earlier +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: and um , I think that uh has given a proven um {vocalsound} ease of use and what not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And uh allows features like the remote actually talking back to the user um , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Any questions ? +Project Manager: No , no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have um other , for lack of a better word , skins ? Covers ? +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: In play now or are those ones gonna be developed later once we see how the couple we have g go or ? +Industrial Designer: Um , do you wanna answer this one +Marketing: Do we know where we stand on that yet ? +Industrial Designer: or do you want me to answer it ? +User Interface: Well we didn't quite have enough material uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh I wasn't expecting a prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh I see , +Marketing: I just didn't know {disfmarker} if you guys had any in mind yet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: right , um . +Industrial Designer: Um , well {vocalsound} as you can see this is just a most superficial layer and um it'd be very easy to put another layer of something else like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Just veneer really , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Actually this bottom red ring here just unclips +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then you put a a new a new uh a new plate on top of that . +Marketing: And the whole thing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay +User Interface: So I mean there are {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right +User Interface: we definitely priced out a spongy {disfmarker} even spongier non-natural look um materials +Marketing: Yeah . There's {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: which I think worked out fine . We also continued on with the ideas that f following uh Apple's colour schemes with the kind of the uh light orange and the green . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Okay , very cool . +Industrial Designer: It's not it's not quite a a face plate , it's more like a pseudo-face plate because it's simple enough +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that in the factory it could {disfmarker} we could very easily put a different one on it , it locks into place such that , you know , it's pretty permanent but at the same time , if we wanna go the other way it's just a matter of a couple of adjustments and we could go the face plate way +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you know what I mean . +Marketing: Yep . It's still an option if we need it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Very cool , nice job . +Project Manager: Right , yeah thanks guys that's very , very good work . I like it , brilliant . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} what we need to discuss now is the finance of it , um I got me {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you provided a number that actually sounds quite nice . Um the trouble is I was just given this by finance . Um , it's a spreadsheet of the parts {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: and I've just tentatively put in what it's going to look like um . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna clear this out real quickly , but it looks like {disfmarker} So we'll just {disfmarker} if we can just itemize what's in here , we've got this {disfmarker} it's a solar cell thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Right +Project Manager: With a back-up battery ? +Industrial Designer: uh we didn't really touch on that but it it's in there , +Project Manager: With the ba okay . Um +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The voice recognition area actually doubles as uh as the solar cell area . Yeah . +Project Manager: Clever , clever , well done . Um so I guess that would mean we've got a bit of a um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a s a speaker and a sensor at the same time isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's just making use of the same space and the same materials , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and the case , it's more of a single-curved case , I guess would be that {disfmarker} be the general {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one big curve I guess you could say . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and we've got a rubber skin material basically throughout . Um . Push button interface um with this other drop-down so maybe we've got two push button interfaces don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . And um a special {disfmarker} I guess it's uh {disfmarker} we've got a sort of a wood materi a rubbery type material that {disfmarker} throughout , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And s I guess you have to mark special colour and special form as well , don't you ? 'Cause it i it is very unconventional , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's it's quite unique . +Industrial Designer: I like to think of it as unconventional . +Project Manager: I like it , yeah it's {disfmarker} So it looks like +Marketing: M come in at sixteen ? +Project Manager: a bit over budget , um . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Huh , doesn't match up does it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what we could do perhaps , a simple fix would maybe to switch away from the solar cells {vocalsound} um or take out the back-up battery . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How do you feel about that ? +User Interface: I mean I think that uh if we're talking about it being one of our main selling features , being environmental and without the batteries and what not , although it does still have a battery so I'm not sure that {disfmarker} you know what the sell is on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean we could take we could take the battery out of it you see and it'd probably work ninety nine per cent of the time but you're gonna have to set up a call centre for that one per cent of the time when people are calling and saying oh look my remote isn't working +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what am I gonna do ? +Marketing: Mm k . +Industrial Designer: People'd be real upset . I think in the long-run it's better to keep the battery , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: it's hard to scrap the whole cell battery idea 'cause that's so integral to the theme that we have . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} What's difficult , we have all these things integral to the um to the design of it that we just can't back out of now , +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: it would have to be {disfmarker} seems like we'd have to go back to square one in a way . Um if we were gonna try to undo one bit we'd probably have to undo most of it , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although we don't wanna get rid of the whole environmental {disfmarker} I mean obviously the solar cell is a big piece of the way we're marketing this as like a natural , new thing , but honestly if we cut that one piece out we're actually coming in under budget if I've done my math correctly . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean you might be able to sway me on the idea that {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} our main selling point could be already this voice recognition thing +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean that's what sets us apart +Marketing: Which , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: yeah that's what setting us into this young market , I mean that's where we started from , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know , and I mean you know perhaps when the cell technology comes down in price we can bring that back into the game but it looks like at this point that may be out of our league . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And the reality is you know , for me from an ideological stand point , I'd like to stick with the uh the solar cell , but I h kind of have to throw myself in the in the business structure model here +Marketing: Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: and uh you know I think I think that I think that we need to come to a compromise here +Project Manager: It's either or . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe move ahead with the project , without the solar cell . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I guess we might have to do that . +Marketing: I think unfortunately that's our best option . +Industrial Designer: It's the only way we're gonna get below our uh goal isn't it ? Of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause we can't remove the push buttons 'cause they're {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um and we can't get rid of the uh {disfmarker} I mean removing the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Savings . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: changing the case wouldn't be so much of a {vocalsound} mm-mm , um , nor would changing the case materials . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Um . So yeah that looks like to be the only thing . So that would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's a major change but {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright , so +Industrial Designer: Gotta do what you gotta do . +Project Manager: we're in agreement on that . +Marketing: Unfortunately I think we are . +User Interface: No , I think that was a good compromise you brought forward Sarah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Moving along swiftly . Um , so I guess now we just go to the project evaluation which I will allow Sarah to take over . +Marketing: That would be me . Um cord ? +Project Manager: Ah of course , sorry . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Whoosh . +Marketing: Can you reach , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: that would be great , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That'd be great {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I didn't even do that one on purpose either , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: damn . Okay , um , basically I was just evaluating um {vocalsound} from what we know of how our product's working right now with the criteria that we set at the beginning of {disfmarker} these are the things we needed to do , these are the things that look like we feel they're important . Um so I was looking at basic design things , does it fulfil its functions as a remote ? Is the design what we wanted it to do ? I are technologies up to where we hoped they would be and does it fulfil the aesthetic qualities that our original market research was looking for ? Um . Basic questions like , you know , does it turn on ? Does it respond to voice recognition ? And overall , in general , it looks like it's coming up to par . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , the only thing is with with the pull-out panel , that is , can it take some adjusting because it's a new sort of interface , um that looked like it was coming up rough , but then , once you get used to it , it does make a lot of sense . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really good . +Marketing: So I think overall we're headed in the right direction . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: They like that spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It looks like it's going over well , so +User Interface: And the paging function works well , +Industrial Designer: Six ? +User Interface: that's good to hear , +Marketing: we're we're good yeah . +User Interface: we worked hard on that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: We did . +Marketing: Yeah . It's {disfmarker} I think eventually if we do um branch out with this product maybe we do have a higher budget options and if it goes over with this model we can look into um wider range voice recognition like from other rooms of the house and stuff , but for now , what we've got is working in the range we need it for , so it's all good . +Industrial Designer: I am bit disappointed about losing the solar panel +Marketing: That's everything from me . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it is a set-back , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , do you need the cord back ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , +User Interface: W we might have uh we might have lost that granola market again +Project Manager: I was just {disfmarker} go on . +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: that we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they don't own tellys anyway do they ? +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: I guess that's true . +Project Manager: Right . So , um , {vocalsound} this one's a bit unclear to me to be perfectly fair , um . I got this slide from the coach and I'm not sure what it's connected to . Um so I guess we are going to discuss um {vocalsound} our project process um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that is gonna go into my report . So I guess this is the point where we go um {vocalsound} uh out of role it looks like and talk about our satisfaction for room for creativity and so forth and how that all worked , I guess , um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: As in within the team or ? +Project Manager: I think so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right so it's just kind of a open mic kind of thing or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I mm-hmm , I think so . I think {vocalsound} hope I'm not screwing up an experiment {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: It is now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're in charge there you go {vocalsound} . so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I trust that she would jump in if I was so okay fair enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Um right , um so any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Are we considering these points here ? +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think they're starting blocks yeah . +Project Manager: What do you guys feel about the process ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um , you know I think in general , for a day's worth of work we actually were {vocalsound} relatively productive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: considering the little amount of input we had going in . Um , and the technology has definitely been a help , it's really been interesting to try out all this new stuff . +User Interface: We didn't use the whiteboard at all . +Project Manager: No , no whiteboard . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we didn't . We could now if that'd make up for it +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: but really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I feel like if you guys had been designing in here perhaps that would have changed but because of room constraints , doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Um , also had I not been intrigued about the pen , I don't think I woulda used it at all , I didn't write barely anything . +Marketing: Yeah I think I was taking {vocalsound} notes more often than usual +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: just 'cause I liked the pen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Was pretty cool tack though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Mm . I am disappointed I didn't get a note back from my personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As you write your personal coach . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I didn't get a response {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you get a response two or three months from now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll see {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be weird . +Marketing: Okay that would be kinda creepy . +Project Manager: Attempts to contact coach ineffective {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: what kind of coaching is that really ? What if I really needed something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} so n I think there was a lot of room for creativity , I don't we could do whatever {disfmarker} basically what we wanted until the budget came down on us , um . +Marketing: I think so . And even then we did get a decent product turned out although it's not everything we wanted it to be . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: With the natural look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very natural look . +Industrial Designer: That's very natural . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Organic , really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the brilliance of {disfmarker} they had a p they had a peeler in here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And highly resourceful team mates might I add +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: which is always a plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think , yeah re I thought it was like really creative actually , I mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think the teamwork was good as well . +Marketing: Mm yeah , I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: And to prove that we weren't wasteful we didn't waste a single bit of Play-Doh , we used every bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . All four of those little containers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Including the s the multi-coloured wave pattern . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My one my one criticism is that we didn't have enough colours to work with , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we only had four , wasn't enough . +Marketing: You could have developed multiple skins really had you had more colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know it could have been amazing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: What did you guys think about the the the roles ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: They were good {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's f kind of fun , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it was pretty clever 'cause we were never able to get too far off track because the information came in at the right time and kind of filled in the gaps enough . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: At the same time you had enough room to kind of just make things up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do your own . +Industrial Designer: which was kind of fun . +Marketing: Though I did feel like th the level of information dropped off severely over the course of the day . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's just me but I didn't actually get any information for the last presentation at all . +Project Manager: That's true , I I got this spreadsheet {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Nothing , I didn't even get an email , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that was it . So , yeah , I feel like that was slightly lacking but then you know , fill in the blanks on your own , level of creativity upped . +User Interface: Well I think that was I think that was an issue I kept finding with regard to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . +Project Manager: Of what to do . +User Interface: well no but also {disfmarker} yeah when I was reporting about what each of us was doing I was often confused as to what you were doing {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh , that wasn't very much . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +User Interface: um and then I also felt like you know a lot of our discussion would centre around n specifically what my task was +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that was kind of the interface portion +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which was what the whole project was about +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +User Interface: uh +Marketing: Hmm , very much so . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} and then in the end I think our jobs kind of melded together a little bit more , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That was fun . I think the most helpful thing out of everything was getting the the PowerPoint slides already put together for you +User Interface: which was fine . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if we didn't have that there's no way we could have got all that done in time . +Marketing: Yeah , already having the formatted stuff helped a lot . Very much so . +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: And I think your leadership was quite good . +Industrial Designer: It was really good yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: She said I I I she actually made a comment off {gap} boy you're getting into this and I really I think it's true I did get {disfmarker} I I felt like I got way too into it . +Marketing: Yeah . That's kind of a good thing though , +Project Manager: I felt like I slipped into it a lot . +Industrial Designer: It's kinda fun . +Marketing: you know , give the rest of us some structure to work with so hey . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: An so is that the first time you've taken on that kind of role ? +Project Manager: The first time I've ever done anything like yeah project project management . I usually organise crap , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's one thing to do , you know {disfmarker} set up a party with your friends , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Little different . +Project Manager: But you guys felt that you could keep the , yeah , suspension of disbelief kind of like like the role and the {disfmarker} okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I except for a couple moments where it just got out of hand +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I knew we were all lying through our teeth , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I had to admit , as soon as w we started {disfmarker} I mean as soon as we got the Play-Doh , {vocalsound} th {vocalsound} you know the whole concept of really trying to stick with reality went out the window {vocalsound} . +Marketing: other than that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could only imagine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe in in Legos you know ? Be fun with Legos too , +User Interface: Possibly . +Project Manager: like make a remote control or spaceship , we used to have spaceship Legos {disfmarker} did you guys ever used to build spaceships with Legos {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . Totally . +Project Manager: everybody knows {disfmarker} best spaceships ever . +User Interface: still have 'em . +Project Manager: Um you guys felt like there was enough teamwork in all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: I think so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No I , no I dunno , I d I I dunno , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't . +Project Manager: I don't {disfmarker} I I was just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though we didn't actually {disfmarker} I mean other than minor discussion at meetings there wasn't {disfmarker} except for the actual building , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's true huh ? +Marketing: but I feel like if this was a team project there actually would have been much more of the collaborative like brainstorming , use the board {disfmarker} well and this would have been six months' worth of work , not like three hours' worth of meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think had the issue been more serious we probably woulda brainstormed more during our meetings as a team . I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . Course I'm I'm conscious of the idea of the Project Manager asking if you guys feel like there's a team {vocalsound} you know it's like , kind of like , like hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It d +Marketing: Yeah that is kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah . Interesting . It's kind of fascinating wasn't it ? I mean the whole process of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wonder why {disfmarker} is there anything about the way that we got so much inform what was it that kept us from going to the the board ? +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} I I don't know if there was a ri I th +Marketing: Mine was the mics . I didn't feel like getting up and down and dealing with all these wires , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it +Marketing: I was afraid I was gonna break something actually . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the mics are loose and each time you get up it's s a possibility of tripping over something or getting tangled or . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I dunno what I woulda shown on that board . +Marketing: Yeah . True , but it didn't even occur to me as an option , +Project Manager: Nor I . +Marketing: I mean I don't know that I would have but I know that I consciously didn't . +User Interface: I mean it's just like the paper I don't know what I really needed the paper for . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: Um , because I've got this laptop . Standard , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I just used it 'cause it's literally right in front of me . +Project Manager: I wanna see the output files from these um , from the digital paper . +Marketing: Yeah . Well it looks really professional . +Project Manager: I wanna see wh wh what my my handwriting looks like digitized +Marketing: I know . +Project Manager: because my handwriting is crap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I mean , just to see what it looks like in P_D_F_ format or something . +Industrial Designer: that's it . Usually I would do a lot more doodling too but I didn't because {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I felt like I needed to be professional so I didn't like draw all over my paper and stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well not entirely , but still , I doodled less than I usually do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T I I'm curious about what the de-briefing is gonna be like . You know , like what is the uh what exactly we're looking for here . +User Interface: So is this all we need to get through ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm not sure what the new ideas found i is about . +Marketing: I guess . +Industrial Designer: New ideas . +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} did it just say in an email that we need to discuss that ? +Project Manager: Well , that's the thing I got {disfmarker} i in the email I got this PowerPoint file but this slide was just there , +Marketing: That slide was like that ? +Project Manager: mm-hmm . I didn't change this one at all . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Um ch +Industrial Designer: I guess we're on the right track . +Project Manager: Yeah well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any new ideas with regard to remote control concepts ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: W {gap} {vocalsound} I kinda like th +Industrial Designer: No , none . +Marketing: Uh I think they still do their job . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine actually . +Marketing: I am thinking outside the little square box though , with literally in like form +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe a s a circle would be alright , different . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Does kinda make you wonder , I mean , how much can you do with a remote control ? It's like inventing a new car . Yeah yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's still gotta be technically car shaped or it won't fit on the road , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know ? {vocalsound} Don't know . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . 'Kay . +User Interface: What is that ? Our limited ability to think outside the box ? +Project Manager: So this was other costs . +Marketing: Kind of . +Industrial Designer: Are we back into project mood ? +Project Manager: I dunno . I think this is +Marketing: Oh , how long was our meeting supposed to be ? +Project Manager: forty ish +Marketing: How much time do we have left ? +Project Manager: I I I mm we should go on a bit {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} about the project eval , um . I dunno about you guys but I felt like a bit under-stimulated on the whole thing . Like , what like you know what am I really doing , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: you know what is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at the beginning it started out and I felt actually like under pressure like the first couple were taking a lot of work +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I was like {disfmarker} had like all this brainstorming I was doing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then suddenly I was like well it's just another two minute presentation that you guys don't really care about anyway +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: Hey . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so type away . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Huh I think it was the real {gap} . +Marketing: You know , you know what I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like we all sort of knew where we were headed with it so it didn't feel like it mattered anymore . +Industrial Designer: Definitely when {vocalsound} when I first filled out the questionnaire I was marking it probably higher in terms of how much I had to {disfmarker} how much I stressed over it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then by the time I got to the last one I was like , you know , not very much . +Marketing: Whatever . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Think it was also realisation of you basically just copy and paste what's given to you into your presentation +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very much , yeah . +User Interface: which uh wasn't so clear to me at the beginning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I actually didn't do that at all though , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: every single one I {disfmarker} a all the presentations I either added slides or edited 'em . I di +User Interface: Oh I added like five slides too , +Marketing: {vocalsound} See +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you really ? +User Interface: but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: I only got blank ones . +Industrial Designer: I just got blank ones +Project Manager: What ? Really ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: My slides were all blank , they'd have a title maybe +User Interface: Yeah , mine too . +Marketing: and they were just empty . +Project Manager: Did they not have {disfmarker} they didn't like {disfmarker} uh mine {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Project Manager: yeah they didn't come like this ? Like with {disfmarker} this was what it looks like . This is what that looked like , +Marketing: Like with those words already on it ? +Project Manager: literally , just like that . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Marketing: I wondered why yours always looked so more complicated . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: I deleted slides {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think I added a slide one time . +User Interface: I added many slides every time {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: with the whole new background being innovative , yeah that was class . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: That was pretty cool , it was a high moment of the whole experiment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Interesting . Any other thoughts come to mind ? +Marketing: I wanna know how our product would fare . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it would fail , I think +Marketing: I can't just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be a huge disaster , especially if it looks like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it would take extensive marketing , okay , an apple with a red button on top , even I am sceptical . {vocalsound} But you know the whole {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Even you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} we kind of designed it to look little bit like a face . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know it is {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: It's a happy face . +User Interface: Actually that looked a lot more like a tongue from previous to uh fr some other design uh modifications {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Builds . Mm . +User Interface: I hope you appreciate the uh incorporation of some tin foil from a uh random Kit-Kat bar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I noticed that . {vocalsound} By accident . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that happened to be consumed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well huh . An interesting day all in all I would say . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah , I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So again I reiterate my question of how different we are comp compared to the other groups , especially between culture groups and what not . +Project Manager: Mm , I know . +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It seemed like everything flowed pretty logically . You know from the the the basics to the conce +Industrial Designer: I wanna see a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I Yeah . +Project Manager: although the whole concepts thing , the whole concepts phase , I don't think I really understood like the concept . Well the id okay the notion of {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause it's such a functional item . +Project Manager: yeah I mean i it's not like I have a concept of a mug's material , it's just it is what it is . You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe i rather than concepts i it should be th thought of {disfmarker} we sh I I thought of I thought of {disfmarker} rather than in terms of concepts I thought of it in terms of proposed idea . And then the final would be like th the actual specified prototype or whatever , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I dunno . But . All in all it's kinda interesting . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So we have more slides or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No just this closing one . No we've established that the costs weren't really within budget , but we could s you know do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: We got it to be . +Project Manager: We did the project evaluation based on um {vocalsound} Sarah's evaluation of on off switches +Marketing: Like cutting corners . Kind of , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: though it was really technically an evaluation of the product , not the project in general . +Project Manager: Mm . True . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Which I'm not sure is the same thing , at the time that just i made more sense , but I could see if they were really asking about us . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Cause we di we had a thu think about it . Um . Yeah . And it's all recorded , woo-hoo . Yeah what I'm gonna {disfmarker} I'm gonna put um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: I'm supposed to do this final report thing at the end so I'll put all that into the final report as well , or as much as seems like {disfmarker} maybe not like the articles and stuff , like because and if and so forth , but I'll put most of it in the reports . +Industrial Designer: I {vocalsound} It'd be so cool if we get a copy of the recording . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it sound eloquent . Oh , I have to done {disfmarker} I've {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: I've done transcription before and it's really ridiculous how many words people say like just in the middle of their sentences like that +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: that mean nothing . +Project Manager: There's a whole branch of psychology that looks into that , psycholinguistics . +Industrial Designer: Really . +User Interface: What the uhs and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a guy studying it here , yeah , he's studying ums and ahs or something . +Industrial Designer: Filler words or ? +Project Manager: Yep , they're called um disfluencies . +Industrial Designer: Disfluencies . +Marketing: That's a good word for it . +Project Manager: Yeah we like our fancy phrases and terminologies for things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just add some prefixes , sounds classier . +Project Manager: Exactly uh I will save this into the project documents . +Industrial Designer: I find myself hitting the send and receive button on the email a lot , just out of boredom , +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I , yeah , +Industrial Designer: like c come on gimme something . +Marketing: pretty compulsively during meetings , like , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on give me some information . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well to be fair we're we're hooked {disfmarker} we're all hooked on the internet , so I mean I do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we are addicts . +User Interface: That's scary +Industrial Designer: It is scary . +User Interface: yeah ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well just around that eight or or nine people that are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , imagine we went the first ten y fifteen years of our lives without the internet . It's only in the last ten that we're like where's the internet ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , you know , it just in the past five we've gone from twenty eight eight modems to broadband all the time . +Marketing: I yeah . +User Interface: Dude , I think we've had internet for like eighteen years . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: No we have but I {disfmarker} not in the sense that it's so un you know uh ubiquitous +Marketing: I yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's not regular I mean my grandparents had it in the eighties and I got it in ninety four , but still . +Industrial Designer: It's crazy . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: In the eighties ? +Marketing: My um grammy does computer science back in the States and so they had um an E_D_U_ and gov network . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: There's basically the fundamental structures , but it wasn't uh household to household yet +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because it hadn't been +User Interface: Yeah , it was to the like seven universities or something . +Marketing: partitioned off and stuff , yeah that was him . +User Interface: You guys ready to celebrate ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's our last step . Celebration . +Marketing: Apparently , does that include like champagne or something exciting ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Should . +Project Manager: 'Kay I guess we can probably call that meeting to an end for the most part . +Marketing: I think so . I think that's a closer . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Has it been forty minutes or whatever ? {gap} this has been long enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Celebrate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where do you find that ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that the only song you have ? +User Interface: There is another one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this one of those media player ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: W oh . +Industrial Designer: That's awesome . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The default track . I thought it was David Burns , look into the eyeball . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I have a different one . +Project Manager: That's one that seems to be shipping with it uh shipped with for a while , maybe this is the new version . +Marketing: So is that a close ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess we'll call that a a doner . +Marketing: Okay , that's the end of the meeting . +Project Manager: Fab . +Marketing: Thank you gentlemen . I feel like I'm signing off . +","The transcript portrays a meeting involving a multi-disciplinary team engaging in a collaborative effort to develop a prototype for a unique remote control device with voice recognition technology. The team comprises individuals from marketing, user interface design, industrial design, and project management. The meeting unfolds with casual exchanges and the use of vague markers, like “{vocalsound}” and “{disfmarker},” indicating nonverbal sounds or filler words that punctuate the dialogue, highlighting a more informal and conversational tone. The participants grapple with project specifics such as budget considerations, aesthetic decisions, and product functionalities. + +Initially, the Project Manager reflects on the extensive use of PowerPoint for presentations, and the Marketing representative quickly shifts the attention towards logistical matters by relocating a bothersome object. During this time, minor technical tasks are addressed, and the team prepares for a PowerPoint presentation. The Project Manager reveals a confusion regarding roles, thinking that a reminder about reading minutes from a previous meeting was an indication of being assigned the role of a secretary. A brief overview of the previous meeting's minutes is then given, highlighting the decision to develop a voice recognition remote and discussing the limitations and risks. + +As the Industrial Designer begins to explain the prototype, specific design choices are elaborated, including opting for large buttons over a touchscreen and incorporating a sliding panel for advanced functions. Attention is paid to both user experience elements, like the tactile feel of the remote, and aesthetics, such as the decision to use multiple colors for the device’s light emissions. The team discusses different covers or ""skins"" for the product, emphasizing the ability to customize the look to suit consumer preferences. The User Interface specialist further delves into voice recognition features, drawing comparisons to a coffee maker design and expressing how the remote provides conversational feedback to the user. At this point, however, some project complexities emerge, notably the material considerations for the remote and its novelty aspect of being edible, an unexpected twist that injects humor and curiosity into the discussion. + +A significant part of the meeting is dedicated to budget concerns, where the team debates whether to retain or scrap the solar cell feature in the remote—a key aspect of its marketed environmental friendliness—due to budget overruns. They ultimately lean towards sacrifice for cost-effectiveness, recognizing the necessity of a balanced approach between idealism and practical business constraints. + +Furthermore, during the meeting, the team partakes in project evaluation, led by Marketing, inspecting the prototype against initial objectives such as functionality, technological advancement, and aesthetic appeal, ultimately expressing satisfaction despite the omission of the solar panel feature due to budget constraints. + +As the meeting draws to a close, the team engages in a less structured and reflective discussion, touching on their experiences with the project and technology, the various roles, information management, and their collaborative dynamic. The transcript concludes with the team discussing how to end the meeting on a celebratory note and pondering about the potential success of their product in the market. + +Throughout, the discussion showcases the team's creative effort to integrate innovative features and design considerations with practicality and marketability, all while navigating the constraints of budget and feasibility. The transcript underlines the collaborative nature of the cross-functional team as well as the challenges encountered in bringing a novel concept to fruition within the framework of a structured, yet dynamic, corporate environment." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon. Can I welcome Members to the virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee this afternoon? In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I've determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Thursday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video-conference. A record of proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation related to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind everyone that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David AM, and there is no substitution. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Can I just note for the record that if for any reason I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Moving on, then, to item 2 this afternoon, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government in relation to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and social services as they relate to children and young people in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Vaughan Gething AM, the Minister for Health and Social Services; Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Albert Heaney, deputy director general of the health and social services group; Nicola Edwards, deputy director, childcare, play and early years; Jean White, chief nursing officer; and Tracey Breheny, who is deputy director of mental health, substance misuse and vulnerable groups. Thank you all very much for your attendance today—we appreciate your time. We've got lots of questions that we'd like to cover, which we'll go straight into, with questions from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good afternoon. How much do we understand about how this virus impacts children and young people, and their role in transmitting the virus? And how important is it that this is considered in the Welsh Government's exit strategy, especially in the context of reopening schools? +Vaughan Gething AM: Okay. I think it's fair to say that our understanding is developing across all age ranges about the virus and its impact. It's still the case that children and young people are less likely to be affected significantly by COVID-19 than people with a range of healthcare conditions, and in particular the age grade that we've seen, and that's underpinned the advice we've given to the whole population about self-isolation by people in age categories, as well as the extremely vulnerable group we advise to shield. We still don't understand everything about the role that children have to play in the transmitting of the virus, and this is one of the difficulties we face. Because in cold and flu, children transmit the virus and they're also susceptible, in particular to the flu, as well; that's why we have a childhood immunisation programme for the flu as well. We do know that there's some developing evidence about what's called a Kawasaki-like syndrome, but that's affecting very small numbers of children. We have one possible case in Wales—a child who's in critical care—but that isn't confirmed. That's still a developing knowledge base. So, the rest of the world is still trying to understand that too. But the generals still apply—that children are less likely to be affected than older people, but can nevertheless still become unwell, and that's, if you like, one of the few positives in this condition. But as I say, we're still learning, so I won't try and present a fully accurate or finalised picture of knowledge in this area. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And in terms—[Inaudible.] +Vaughan Gething AM: Chair. Sorry. Excuse me, Chair. Sorry—with apologies to the Member, my translation stopped after a while, so I heard the first part translated, and then it just fell off. I'm really sorry, but I didn't want to try to answer a different question to the one that may be being asked, and don't think that's fair to the Member or other members of the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can we check that translation is back on, please, and maybe Siân could repeat her question? +Vaughan Gething AM: I can hear it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân, would you mind repeating that, please? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Not at all. I was discussing NHS services, including critical care services, and I was asking whether there is sufficient capacity in place to manage any increase. We, of course, hope that there won't be any increase, but should there be an increase, particularly in paediatric cases of coronavirus—let's say such a thing were to happen and this rare syndrome that you mentioned did emerge here in Wales—do we have the capacity in place to deal with these, and with the impact of coronavirus more generally on children? +Vaughan Gething AM: At this point in time, the answer is 'yes', and there is always a significant caveat, though, and the 'but' that comes in there is that despite the fact that we've got a plan for surge capacity in paediatric care—. So, when we increased critical care right across the national health service, we of course looked at paediatric care as part of that as well. So, we can flex up our capacity. But the challenge in all of that this is—it's part of my caution and the Government's caution about moves out of lockdown. So, it's much easier to go into lockdown than to come out of it, and I know you heard evidence from the Minister for Education last week about the approach that she wants to take and the principles behind doing that. So, actually, we'll need to think carefully about if we are reopening schools, even on a limited basis, what that then does to the circulation of coronavirus within that group of children as well as within the wider community, and then to try to understand whether the current capacity we have planned for in surge capacity is still going to be enough, because, actually, one of the real success stories of the first stage of the fight with coronavirus is that we haven't had our critical care capacity filled up. It's been extended, and the extension has meant that we haven't been overtopped. If we hadn't done that, we definitely would have been. And we'll need to carry on testing ourselves and seeing what's happening and looking at the evidence and making sure that the plan we already have got that we published for paediatric critical care is still fit for purpose, and again to reconsider if we need to do things differently. But that's part of the difficulty of being a Minister at the moment—you don't know everything that's coming, and on this disease in particular, we do know that we're still learning with each passing day. +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Hello. Yes, those are the questions I had on that section. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Lovely. Thank you very much. Right, we'll move on now then to some question on access to health services from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Minister, just some concern that you will have heard about in terms of parents and carers maybe not taking their children into the healthcare system for other conditions while the coronavirus pandemic is with us. How are you monitoring that situation at the moment and have you had to look at your own commutation strategy in relation to that? +Vaughan Gething AM: We've had to look at some specifics around communication, so challenges about not just different languages, but about how we get messages to people in a very different environment, and it's really challenging. So, for example, our health visitor service has absolutely not stopped. We've had to think about the way it works, and I had this conversation earlier this week with the chief nurse. But the bigger challenge are parents refusing to engage with the service. I understand people's fear and anxiety, but that then means that their family, and in particular their child, isn't getting the sort of proactive care that we would want them to have. So, there's a real concern both at the professional leadership end and for the chief nurse and for Ministers as well about how we can get through. That's actually about rebuilding people's confidence in the service, and that isn't straightforward because there's a broader concern about coronavirus still circulating. But I think for us it's really important to reiterate that we have thought again about how to provide the service. We've thought about how to protect staff and families and the very clear message to parents is to please make sure that when health and care professionals are calling to help and support your family, please discuss your concerns with them. We're doing even more remotely, via telephone and online as well. There are times you need to be physically in the same place, for example on routine vaccinations, because we certainly haven't stopped that programme either, and I really wouldn't want to see that one of the unintended consequences of what we've done is that if parents don't engage with that service, we could potentially see a rise in other diseases. We're all, I think—not just you in your constituency, but others who are on this call and others as well—seeing an occasional reappearance of measles, and that's because people didn't engage with the vaccination programme. I don't want, either myself or a different health Minister in the future, to be sat here talking about how in years to come the failure to engage in a vaccination programme has led to clearly avoidable but significant harm to children and young people and the communities they live in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Jean, you wanted to come in. +Vaughan Gething AM: You need to unmute yourself. Oh, no— +Professor Jean White: Thank you. I just want to add to what the Minister said. So, I approached the immunisation lead in Public Health Wales to see exactly what has been happening recently and they said at the very beginning of the outbreak parents were very reluctant about coming forward for their routine immunisations, but recently, through lots of energy from the immunisation clinics and the leads within it reaching out to families, that trend seems to have turned and there's now a much better attendance. One of the most important things we can do to protect our children is to make sure they have their vaccinations. So, yes, there was a bit of a downturn, but it does seem to be improving at the moment. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. And that answered my second question, Chair, so I'm happy to leave it there. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We're going to go on now to some questions about mental health from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It's a cause of great concern to us all, of course, in terms of the impact of this crisis on mental health and well-being among our children and young people. So, what assessment has the Government undertaken of the impact on these aspects in young people and what work is being done to understand the impact of the pandemic? What longer term measures will be put in place and what support services will be put in place? +Vaughan Gething AM: Again, I think it's helpful that you've already heard from the education Minister last week, because I think the first of her key principles for returning to school is the impact on the emotional health and well-being of children. So, children's mental health was a central concern and remains so for both myself and the education Minister. Part of the honest challenge, again, is that we don't fully understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children but we do expect there will have been an impact. So, we're working together with both health boards and our own knowledge and analytical services across the Government to both try to further understand what that is and the difference. Until we have more contact with families, we may not fully understand that, and that's a real point of concern for me. In all of the unknowns within this, the impact on mental health and well-being is absolutely one of them, because we're looking at how we then develop not just a recovery plan for the economy but a recovery plan around mental health, how we support people, and that will have to be informed by the understanding of what's happening when we get more engagement with families about the level of need, and then how we need to think about that. Obviously, it's a key factor for their return to school, but, actually, for the life children and young people lead outside the school environment, and that will be difficult because we're going to phase out of lockdown—it's not going to be a one-hit measure. That absolutely isn't going to happen. We're going to be looking at, at each point, what difference has been made, what more we can do. And, again, there are the efforts we're making to make sure that our online support services and our telephone support services—that we keep on reminding people that they're there and are available, and we want people to make use of them, because I know, as this committee said, we'd much rather be able to support people and intervene earlier rather than wait until there's a much bigger problem in a period of months in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, in reality, there's been no assessment undertaken because it's difficult to do that. So, the full picture in terms of the outcomes of the crisis—you don't know what they are at the moment as things stand. +Vaughan Gething AM: We can't know, because we don't have that level of contact. There is a development—. I wouldn't say that no work's being done, but I couldn't tell you honestly that that work is finalised and we have a definitive understanding of the picture. If I tried to say that, then I'm sure you'd ask me, 'How on earth can you say that? If you're not having regular contact with people, you can't possibly understand the picture.' And it's much better to say, 'We don't understand the full picture. We know there'll have been an impact. We're working alongside health boards and others, but we'll know more as we carry on having more contact with families.' I'll look at a variety of different areas, again, both to reform the recovery plan, but also then to understand what we need to do at various points in the future, and the picture that we're seeing isn't straightforward and we need to make sure that we don't try to pretend to ourselves or to the public that there is a one-off measure that will allow us to be successful in all the areas that we'd want to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But can you give the committee an assurance today that this area of mental health and well-being is going to be a priority for you as health Minister? +Vaughan Gething AM: Of course. Not just on the work we've done in the past; not just because it's one of the key principles for the education Minister about the reopening of schools, but it is a real worry list for me about how we understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and to move forwards, that we don't end up with an entire generation of children and young people who grow up with a range of damage because we haven't thought about what that will look like. So, the mental health recovery plan will of course be of very real importance to me. In amongst all the other priorities I have, I'm certainly not going to allow the mental health and well-being of children and young people to be forgotten. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And how does the current capacity in terms of child and adolescent mental health services compare to service capacity prior to the coronavirus outbreak in Wales? Have you had to shift some resources over from CAMHS, for example, in order to deal with more general aspects of coronavirus? +Vaughan Gething AM: No, we've actually got—. Maybe perhaps it might be helpful, Chair, if Tracey Breheny could say something about the way that we're monitoring the impact we have, in terms of we've got a reporting tool, but also weekly contact with leads in CAMHS services. +Lynne Neagle AM: Tracey. +Tracey Breheny: Of course. Thanks, Minister. Yes, on that question, we moved pretty quickly at the beginning of the pandemic phase to put in place, as the Minister said, a weekly monitoring tool of all local health boards, so through that tool, we look at that every week in terms of collecting information. Whilst national reporting's been stood down, we are picking up assurance through that tool on things like staff sickness in CAMHS services, referral numbers and so on, so we do have that tool in place, and at the moment, that's telling us that the system can meet the capacity; has the capacity to meet need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Have CAMHS staff been shifted over to do other work during this virus outbreak? +Tracey Breheny: There has been some movement, as I'm saying, around health boards, particularly where in the first phase of the epidemic the concentration was on in-patient provision, providing critical care, but my understanding is from the latest tool that we looked at last week, those staff are gradually not just returning to work from self-isolation or whatever, or from different parts of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then, what about the capacity for CAMHS primary mental health services? Has there been a reduction in that capacity since the beginning of the pandemic in terms of in-patients? Because that's what I'm hearing, that there has been such a reduction, but how are those patients then treated and served? +Tracey Breheny: In terms of in-patient capacity, that is in the system in both the north Wales and in the south Wales unit at the moment. There were some discharges of young people, but we've had the assurance that that was only undertaken where it was clinically safe to do so and where the community support was in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally in this section from me, given that schools are of course closed and that schools are so very important in terms of signposting young people towards services, how can young people access appropriate services—online services, for example? How are they signposted towards those services at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Well, we've not closed off general practice and, as you know, we've expanded the ability for people to access services in an online manner. We've expanded a range of telephone advice services, so the telephone advice service we already provide, we've made sure that's maintained, and both myself and the deputy Minister have referred to that on a number of occasions. I think the real struggle and the real difficulty is actually how you punch through different messages when the broader news agenda is so overwhelmingly focused on headline messages in other areas. That is, again, a worry for me, but the communications we have within the health and care system, people should know where to refer people to and how to provide access to both telephone and online support that continues to be available, and actually, as I say, we've expanded that right across our healthcare system. That's what I’m keen to see continue into the future. Whatever the post-COVID-19 world is, I don't want to miss out on the progress we have made in the online provision of services. Of course, most children and young people expect to be able to access services in an online manner already. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, of course, there will be some who are missed; they may fall between two stools because they won’t know where to turn. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, and that, again, comes back to our challenge of how we help children and young people in their context, with their families, to know where support and advice and guidance is. Many people are defaulting to their general practitioner if they can't find advice somewhere else, so that's why there's the information we're providing through general practice to signpost people, so those pathways haven’t been closed off. It's about making sure that people have alternative means that they’re prepared to use at this point in time. If we go back to where we started this evidence session, we were talking about the difficulty of families who don't want to engage in a traditional person-to-person contact or being in the same room as someone else or allowing people into their home. So, there's a real challenge about how we make the service available, but then encourage people to take it up, so that we don’t see much greater harm that we have to try and resolve at a later point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got a supplementary from Suzy Davies, and can I remind Ministers about concise answers, please? Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you. Just as we're speaking about children and young people's mental health, I wonder if you can confirm whether you've seen the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child's reports about what they call the grave physical and psychological effect on children and young people, and whether the operational guidance you've given out is responding to that in any way, or maybe there was something in that that you hadn’t thought of and you can respond to as we go along. +Vaughan Gething AM: I, personally, haven't read that advice, but the Government's already concerned about the direct physical and mental health impact of lockdown restrictions. You don't need to be a parent to recognise that that’s a potential issue for children and young people. But, I'm sure—. I haven't read it, but that's been signposted, so I can check with officials if they have and if that would change the advice and the position that we're already adopting, because we do regularly look at a range of advice from a range of sources, including the UN, the World Health Organization and others. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and we are going to come onto children's rights. But, as you know, Minister, the prevention of young suicide is a cause that is very close to my heart. Can I ask what assessment the Welsh Government has made of an increase in suicide amongst children and young people during this pandemic and because of this pandemic? +Vaughan Gething AM: Apart from the general concern that I've expressed on mental health generally, we are already investigating, we're having a—. We've commissioned, through the Government, the delivery unit to work with the national advisory group, including Dr Ann John and other people, to review the current, unexpected deaths during the start of the pandemic here in Wales, because we want to try to understand the wider concerns about the potential effects of the restrictions on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and if that is leading to a spike in suicide or not. So, that's why we've commissioned that review to be carried out with the current numbers of unexpected deaths that we have, so we're able then to provide a report to understand where we are. My understanding is that we should have a report on that review before the end of this month and, obviously, I know the committee’s got an interest, so if it's helpful we can write to you once we've had a chance to receive the report and to look at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. Thank you. In terms of provision of crisis care, then, how has that been impacted by the pandemic? Are those crisis services available for children and young people who need them at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, they continue to be available. We still have seven-day-a-week crisis care. We've made clear that mental health services, including those for children and young people, are essential services to be provided. They're not services to be scaled down. They were not part of the series of measures that I stopped within the health service on 13 March. We have built up those crisis care services over a period of time, and the last thing we want to see is to see them disappear during this period of time when there are well-understood concerns about emotional and mental health. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Moving on to perinatal mental health, this morning I hosted a round-table with the NSPCC where we heard about lots of good practice that's going on in terms of supporting new mothers and their families in this period, but I wonder if you can tell the committee what you are doing as a Government to make sure that there is consistent perinatal support for all women across Wales in what is a difficult time for any new mother, let alone in a pandemic. +Vaughan Gething AM: We continue, again, to provide our perinatal mental health service. That's not been stopped either. We've also been looking at how that's provided on a phone or online basis where possible, because again the same concerns exist about physical contact with people. So, we're looking to make sure that the progress isn't lost that we've made. We know there is more to go. So, the service may have changed, but it still absolutely exists. And again, part of the challenge in all of this is about the pause or the interruption in work to create the in-patient capacity that I've previously committed to. So, I want to understand what that really means, but again the problem is, at this point in the pandemic, I can't give you an answer about what that means for that in-patient provision. We're still committed to it, but I'm concerned about the time frame—that is partly about the length and the extent. But again, I'm really impressed by the continuing commitment of our staff to deliver this service for women in what is a particularly uncertain time. It's difficult enough in terms of the challenge in terms of perinatal mental health in normal times, about people being prepared to come forward and then receiving the sort of response they'd want, and even more so now. +Lynne Neagle AM: Is the Welsh Government aware that there's apparently been a decrease in the numbers of women being willing to look at mother and baby unit provision, and will you be taking that into account in your planning? Because, obviously, we wouldn't want people to think that was because of a lack of need; it's down to fear and the lockdown. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, we're aware there's been a reduction in people wanting to make use of the service—or being prepared to make use of the service is probably a better phrase—because we know that's the same with a range of other areas. There aren't fewer people having strokes than there were at this period of time last year; the reason why the figures are different is the way that people are behaving because of their concerns about coronavirus. So, I certainly wouldn't be using this period of time to plan for the need that exists for a facility that we want to create. So, I'm happy to give that assurance, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. It's a straightforward one, really. Obviously, we have the detail of the third sector resilience fund and the—there are two funds, aren't there, for third sector organisations? But can you give us some indication of how much of that support is being targeted to children and young people, and perhaps you can specifically mention how much of the £6.3 million for hospices is for children's hospices? I don't mind who answers that one. +Lynne Neagle AM: The Deputy Minister would like to come in, I think. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Certainly, I'm sure the committee is aware, as Suzy has said, of the funds that are available for third sector services. The Deputy Minister and the Chief Whip, of course, announced on 6 April the £24 million Welsh Government third sector COVID-19 response fund, and that of course is more than we would have had as a result of consequentials from the UK Government. They can also benefit from the £400 million economic resilience fund, but I am aware that some groups don't benefit from that and they may not qualify for that. So, we've also got third sector support being delivered by WCVA, such as the voluntary services emergency fund, which supports volunteering, and the third sector resilience fund, supporting organisations to stay afloat. We are working very closely with the third sector on issues such as support for fostering services, care leavers and repurposing funding so that they can support the crises. Voices from Care Cymru has developed a specific offer for care leavers, and the Fostering Network provides extended helplines. We've got lots of examples of third sector partners working with children and young people. Childline bases in Wales remain open and operational, and are still providing information and support. And, actually, about 50 per cent of contact with Childline at the moment is to do with COVID-19. NSPCC has put together a support page for young people about COVID-19. The NSPCC UK helpline have also reported a decrease in calls resulting in a referral to children's social services at the start of the lockdown period, but, since then, the numbers have actually risen. So, there are lots of examples of help for children. Meic, Action for Children, and, of course, Voices From Care Cymru have come up with their own specific package. In terms of the actual percentage that is being spent on children, I can't give you an actual figure for that, but, certainly, there are a whole range of projects that are there helping children. I think the Minister for Health and Social Services will be able to respond to the hospice question. +Vaughan Gething AM: It's about £1.5 million from the £6.3 million that's gone to Tŷ Gobaith and Tŷ Hafan, Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much for that. So, it's about 25 per cent. Perhaps if you could ask the Deputy Minister, when she's in a position to do so, to let us have a note. Before we finish on this point, could I ask the Deputy Minister, again, about whether any of the things you've been talking about now is additional money, because, obviously, you mentioned yourself one of these funds is £24 million. Some of the work you mentioned is continuity of existing work. So, again, if you don't have the answer to hand, perhaps you could send us a note in due course about how much extra is going in. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think most of those things I mentioned are things that are already there, and the £24 million is for support and extra help. So, any more information, I can send to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next questions, then, are from Dawn Bowden on safeguarding and child protection. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Deputy Minister, because one of the questions I was going to ask was around some of the work that you've been doing with the third sector on safeguarding and child protection, and I think you've covered that. But what I'm particularly keen to find out is how you're monitoring the impact of coronavirus on child protection and safeguarding in the round. I know the health Minister raised this as a concern in Plenary only recently, and it's really how we are monitoring it, what concerns have been identified, and how we're going to start to tackle some of those. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you very much, Dawn, for that question. Obviously, it is difficult to monitor if there's not easy access to the children that we're referring to, and that's why we have been trying to encourage the vulnerable children to go into school or childcare settings. And there's been a lot of encouragement for that happen. The Minister, the director of education and the director of social services sent out a joint letter recently to all the local authorities, asking them to try to encourage the vulnerable children and the families to get the children to go to school. In fact, we've now got 890 vulnerable children attending school settings, and that's the highest number that we've had at all since the opening of the scheme. But it's still only a tiny drop in the ocean. But it's very good, and it is progress that the numbers attending are now going up. But, of course, there are a lot of children who are not attending school and the social services are not necessarily seeing. There has been a drop in safeguarding referrals to social services. Those numbers are now beginning to go up, but there certainly was a significant drop, which is a great deal of concern. One local authority, in fact, reported a drop of 27 per cent in terms of safeguarding referrals compared to this time last year. So, I issued a written statement on 1 May, setting out the work taken forward under our cross-departmental vulnerable children, young people and safeguarding work stream, and encouraging people to report any safeguarding concerns there are. Because, obviously, we are dependent on the public authorities—you know, schools and health services—to report any concerns, and at the moment, obviously, they're not there to report them. So, we have made this public appeal for everyone to look out for each other, and I was very interested in what Siân Gwenllian told me about what was being done in Anglesey in terms of sending out a message via social media to get people to look and listen, and to raise their concerns, because, obviously, safeguarding is the concern of everybody in the community. But I think that we are reassured in terms of our contact with the local authorities that they are, in fact, keeping close touch, as far as they possibly can, with all the children that are vulnerable. For those where it is very critical, face-to-face contact is still taking place, and there are imaginative ways of trying to keep in touch with all the other children and families. So, it is a difficult situation and we are concerned about it, but I think as much as possible is being done. +Lynne Neagle AM: Jean, you wanted to come in on that. +Professor Jean White: Just to add to what the Deputy Minister was saying, the health visiting service has not been stopped or stepped back. It has consolidated some of the ways that it does the Healthy Child Wales Programme, but, for those families that are identified as having particular need or have children that are particularly vulnerable, all the normal contacts have been maintained, so they're not unseen to the normal health visiting service. That covers both Flying Start and general health visiting areas. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Jean, for that, and, Deputy Minister, would there be any value at this point in actually revisiting the current Welsh Government definition and guidance around vulnerable children, in terms of who we identify as vulnerable? Because this opens up a whole new group of children that are not necessarily known to services but can still be vulnerable. So,it's just looking at the current guidance that we have. Do you think that needs revisiting at all? +Julie Morgan AM: The definition of vulnerable children and young people includes those with a social worker and with statements of special educational needs, and the most vulnerable of these should be prioritised. But we have now looked at this again, and we've set out an expanded definition, and we intend to publish that this week. This does include discretion for local authorities to have some flexibility and to be able to offer a place for those who may be on the edge of receiving care and support if they are known to be vulnerable by the school or by family support services. Because, obviously, the children that we know about, we know about, but there are those other children who may be on the edge of care—the children that we've been trying very hard, as part of our policies in the Welsh Government, to keep with their families, with a lot of support. Those are the ones that we also want to support. So, we are giving discretion to the local authorities in order to have a degree of flexibility, and that will be published this week. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now, then, to talk about looked-after children and children on the edge of care, with questions from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Can you set out the impact the coronavirus emergency has had on the care system, including edge-of-care services, and where have there been areas of concern? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, local authorities have obviously had to change their working practices in response to the COVID emergency, so a red-amber-green rating risk assessment was adopted by all local authorities at the start of the pandemic to ensure that vulnerable children and families receive the right way of receiving services and the frequency of contact from the services. This is being dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so every case that is known is being RAG rated and services are being linked to that. Also, there is very close contact between Welsh Government officials and the local authorities. There are weekly meetings between officials and the heads of the children's services. I can't speak too highly, really, about the amount of support and mutual work that has been going on. We've been assured that there have been no significant increases in the numbers of looked-after children, and the number of placement breaks are minimal. The other interesting good point is the children services workforce remains at 90 per cent plus, and, obviously, that is a great testimony to the dedication of the workforce. So, there's very close contact. The children are all being monitored individually, and I think in the circumstances we're all doing what we possibly can. I know that Albert Heaney is able, probably, to respond in more detail to the contacts, if you'd like to have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think we'll move on to the next section. Can I remind everyone again: sharp focused questions and concise answers? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. How is Welsh Government ensuring that vulnerable children have access to the necessary technology to maintain contact with their social workers and other support workers and networks? +Julie Morgan AM: It is normal practice to ensure that children and families do have appropriate access to technology to keep in touch with social workers, so that is part of our normal practice. We're very keen as a Welsh Government that no children are left behind in their education during this period. So, last month, as you will know, the Minister for Education announced £3 million of funding to help digitally excluded learners so that they've got access to the internet, so that they can fully participate in online learning. So, we do normally ensure that they've got digital contact for social workers. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Can you set out the picture regarding children's residential care? What are the challenges these care settings are facing, and have any children's homes closed? +Julie Morgan AM: Residential children's homes are not really reporting any particularly difficult issues, and certainly they have been able to resolve any issues that have happened. So, I'm very pleased to report that. We obviously expect all children in residential care to be supported, and to keep contact with their families and with their siblings, and that is going on, although it may be by technology rather than face to face. We know that some young people have found the social distancing a challenge, and I think it’s easy for us to understand that they have found that quite difficult. So, there have been a few issues related to that, but, where that has happened, local authorities have been able to resolve that on a case-by-case basis, and really there are not any major issues. In terms of residential care, Hillside is functioning well—no reporting issues. The staffing levels are normal. There are fewer children and young people there, so, in fact, there's been an opportunity to give a great deal of attention to the children, and I think we've had very good reports about how that has happened. So, I am absolutely reassured by our officials here that everything is as well as it could be. I also meet with the children's commissioner once a week, who is an independent source, and she said when I met her last week, 'Well, as far as we know, it's all good news'. So, I don't think we have any concerns at the moment about the residential care. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Moving on to foster care, how is Welsh Government working with local authorities to meet the challenges set out by the Association of Fostering and Adoption Cymru and its fostering guidelines? +Julie Morgan AM: We have worked with the fostering organisations. We have had close communications with them, and we've supported AFA Cymru to develop guidance for foster carers, and that guidance has been very strongly welcomed across the sector. We're working with the third sector. I think I mentioned before specific issues such as support for fostering services and, of course, care leavers. The Fostering Network has extended its helpline hours, and, of course, Voices from Care—I mentioned them before—have developed this particular offer of support for care leavers. I've been reassured, as well, from Voices from Care that the young people appear to be more stable now—that they have contact with. But that's online help for them. So, we have had quite a lot of contact with the fostering services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, the final point on that, then: the Fostering Network and others, as you know, have called for foster parents who can temporarily no longer foster due to the current virus emergency to be paid a retainer, with all foster carers receiving extra financial support for additional expenses. What is your position on this, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we haven't had any specific representations from local authorities asking for support for foster carers, but some local authorities have paid retainers and some people, I believe, have increased the amount of money that they are paying. They've also given support for various activities and things—have helped sometimes, I think, with broadband access and that sort of issue. And, obviously, foster carers who do require additional support should be approaching their local authorities or the independent fostering agency. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Albert, I just wanted to check there wasn't anything you wanted to add, please. +Albert Heaney: Thank you very much, Chair. I think the only thing to add was relating to monitoring. The Minister has indicated that we are speaking weekly with heads of children's services, and we do now have a data collection that's been implemented to capture the critical data in relation to the children's services. So, that will assist us in our monitoring arrangements going forward. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. And the next questions, then, are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to have a quick answer from probably the Minister, I think, about the primary legislation and the regulations that followed, about which children's rights impact assessments have been done. Have any been done, and can they be shared with the committee if they have? Sorry, Deputy Minister—my mistake. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's been a very difficult time, as you appreciate, in terms of having to make legislation very quickly, and it hasn't been possible to do the impact assessments that we would normally do. However, I am very pleased to say that we're actually launching a survey of children. We're going to be launching it next week. And this is to try to get from children their views of what's happened, what we've been doing, and their views on the whole COVID-19 situation. So, we're doing this in conjunction with the children's commissioner and with Young Wales and with the Youth Parliament. So, this is an online survey that we hope will be going out to thousands of children, and we will get their response in terms of what are the important issues that have arisen for them, what they feel about what's happened during this period, what they feel about the way that we've dealt with the schools, the way that they've had to cope in not going school and being at home for so long. And so we're trying to get feedback from young people. So, I'm very pleased that we're doing that, but, in terms of an impact assessment, it has been very difficult, as I'm sure you can imagine, to be able to do those at these times. I think that Albert wants to come in on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because I'll pursue that in a sec. +Lynne Neagle AM: Albert. +Albert Heaney: Thank you. Thank you, Chair, and I think Nicola indicated before me, so apologies, Nicola. Just to say for the committee, really importantly, that we haven't introduced any easements in relation to children's services legislation. I think that's really quite crucial. So, from a Welsh context, the standards that are in place do remain, so therefore there wouldn't have been a necessity for us to do a children's rights impact assessment in relation to the primary legislation. I think that's particularly a strong point to us in Wales, both in terms of safeguarding arrangements, but also ensuring that children's rights are protected at a crucial time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Nicola. +Nicola Edwards: Thanks. In terms of childcare and education, we're obviously looking at the provisions under the coronavirus Act to allow us to maybe ease some of the statutory requirements, and we are going to be undertaking a full suite of impact assessments on those. Obviously, the coronavirus Act itself was UK Government legislation and they ran their own impact assessments, but, in terms of how we implement it in the childcare and education space—and I think Albert was just saying the same thing—we definitely will be looking at those impacts in terms of going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just to come back on that then, are you saying to me that, as a result of the various coronavirus regulations that we've had, no assessments for children's needs have been postponed, cancelled or done very quickly online rather than in person? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think, as Albert said, that there was no relaxation of regulation for children's social care. You know, that's—there haven't been any in Wales. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but that's what—. There's no relaxation, but what's happening in practice? We're down on staff across all our councils and in our third sectors—who's doing the children's needs assessments, particularly for young carers? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I—. Albert, can you answer that? +Albert Heaney: I think the first thing to say to the committee is that, going back, we took a very strong line at the beginning that we weren't going to introduce easements in requirements to children's social services. Of course, through the way that practitioners and social work practitioners have to operate, they are having to operate through a different time. So, assessments are still taking place for child protection and safeguarding concerns; assessments are still taking place, and especially in relation to—as you mentioned—young carers, to support their needs. So, arrangements—[Inaudible.] But they're having to be slightly differently done—so, some of the technology, and keeping in contact and keeping those visits. So, we've used, for example, the St David's Day fund to make sure that care leavers are well supported in terms of having contact and are accessible and able to engage as well. So, we're having to be a little bit more—and social services departments are having to be a little bit more—innovative in the use of technology in the way that they've engaged as well. But personal visits are taking place, and visits especially, as the Minister mentioned earlier on—they actually individually assess each case to determine the frequency of visits, to make sure that those contacts are maintained with children at a critical time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. I don't want to take this much further, but personal visits and social distancing could be slightly problematic. I just want to finish with this one question, if I may. We've had recommendations from the Carers Trust, or Carers Trust Wales. Have they been accepted by Government, and is it those that are driving the agenda of the task and finish group that you announced the other day, Deputy Minister? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, those will certainly be considered by the task and finish group. I've had a letter from the Carers Trust about those issues, and we are setting up this group, as you know, and we will be looking at those issues in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Any steal on when that might report? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't have that at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe we could have a note on that, Deputy Minister. Can I just say, we are running short of time? We did start late, so, if the Ministers are happy, we'll carry on until 2.10 p.m.—3.10 p.m.—if that's okay. And the next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: [Inaudible.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hold on a sec, Siân, we've lost translation again. Can we just see what can be done to get the translation back? Sorry, Siân. Is there anyone who can help with the translation? There you go, Siân. Thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You will know, Deputy Minister—because we have discussed this in private session—my major concerns with regard to the childcare sector, and what kind of childcare sector we will have at the end of this crisis, as families start to return to the workplace. There are still some childcare providers who are falling between the cracks and aren't receiving financial support. Do you agree—are there people who are still not being supported, and why isn't the Welsh Government able to provide that support for everyone in the childcare sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Siân, for that question. And I know that we have had a discussion about this before. Basically, we are aware that there are some sectors in the childcare sector that do fall through some of the loops. We have guaranteed that we will pay the money for the childcare offer for three months. So, that is guaranteed to them, and they are able to take advantage of the Government's job retainer scheme, but that does mean that there is a problem, as I think we've discussed before, of the double funding issue, and that is something that we have been trying to resolve and there have been discussions with the Treasury in Whitehall about ways forward on this. I'm going to ask Nicola to come in in a minute, because she's much more up to date with the discussions about that, but, so far, I don't think very much progress has been made on that. But we are looking to see if there are any other ways that we can get help to the childcare sector, and I'm actually following this meeting with a meeting with the Deputy Minister for equality and chief whip, who is responsible for the voluntary sector, because obviously many of the groups that we're talking about would come under the voluntary sector, because they have voluntary committees, but they fall between many stools, because they rent premises rather than own premises and they don't have high turnovers that would qualify them for some of these grants. So, perhaps I could ask Nicola to come in to expand on that. +Nicola Edwards: Absolutely. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, if possible. +Nicola Edwards: I'll try and be brief, because I'm conscious of time. So, some childcare settings can access funding under the small business rate relief scheme, but certainly not all of them; some of them can access funding under the economic resilience fund, and, as the Deputy Minister said, we're following up for some of them to be able to access funding under the third sector resilience funding. All of the childcare settings can apply for the UK Government's coronavirus job retention scheme, but there are some complications around that in that it's a salary-based scheme and you can't claim two types of public funding for the same individual member of staff. So, if you were using funding under the childcare offer to pay for a particular member of staff's salary, you can't access CJRS and furlough that individual with Government money as well, and that has led to some confusion and complication about how that balances, which we're trying to work through with the sector and with local authorities around the rules and regulations that the Treasury and HMRC have put in place around that. Alongside that, there's a whole range of different loans and services that are available. Some of those are less attractive to some childcare settings, but they are still available and Business Wales is offering support and advice for settings on how they can help weather this storm and support their workers as best they can. We're also having some conversations now with our economy colleagues and with Business Wales about what happens next, the recovery and the return of the sector, and we've just come out of a meeting with the childcare sector around the support they think they would need to have in place to be able to return from this as well. So, it's a topic that's very much live at the moment. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm sure you can share my concerns and the concerns of Cwlwm, which represents the childcare sector and the nursery school sector, that there are a number of providers that aren't receiving support at all and are likely to collapse as a result of this. What I can't understand is why you, in collaboration with the Minister for the economy, Ken Skates, can't devise a specific grant package for the providers that aren't currently receiving support, or we'll be facing a situation that is very difficult when people are seeking childcare for their children and those settings won't be available to them. Why isn't it possible to have a bespoke scheme for those that are falling between the cracks in this sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is what we're looking to see—if we can get a bespoke scheme. I absolutely agree with you: it is absolutely vital that we keep this sector going, because it is a fragile sector in any case, and I think about 50 per cent of the childcare settings have temporarily closed down and the reason they've given for closing down is because they haven't had enough children to make it viable to keep their settings going. So, it is a very worrying situation. They are heavily reliant on the fees that parents pay and, of course, with the social distancing and the lockdown, this has meant that we've had to discourage children from attending. So, that means the number of children they've had has been much reduced and it hasn't been viable for them to keep going, although obviously it's great that about half have stayed open so we have somewhere for the children of the critical workers and the vulnerable children to go. But, I absolutely agree with what you're saying, Siân, and we are looking for a solution, because we know it's vital not only for the children and their parents, but for the economy as well, that we do have that sector there, surviving after this is all over. So, I can assure you, we're working very hard, and I think Nicola's working day and night to try to achieve this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And just finally from me, I'm very pleased that you are working on this, and I very much hope that we will see a support package that will reach everyone in the sector, because it's been weeks now since all of this started, and if there's still no light at the end of the tunnel for some of them, then that needs to be dealt with. But just to conclude, how effective has the provision been in general over this period in terms of providing support for key workers? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it's been crucial, because how would the majority of the key workers have been able to get to work and do all the wonderful things that they've been doing if it hadn't been for childcare for those who need it? And we were very pleased to introduce the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, which means that critical workers and families with vulnerable children are able to have free access to childcare aged 0 to 5, and I believe that we are the only country in the UK that is providing that free service to the vulnerable children, and so—. I mean, that scheme has only really taken off now since Easter, so we don't have any particular statistics. +Nicola Edwards: I do have some early numbers, if you'd like me to announce them? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that would be very good. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. In terms of the provision in schools, we're looking at around 4,000 children a day in schools at the moment. In terms of the children accessing the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, it has only been two weeks up and running really, so the numbers are quite low, but there were nearly 1,500 children accessing that childcare last week, and of those, just over 100 would fall within the definition of vulnerable children. So, it is picking up there; it was 900 children the week before that, so we are seeing some traction now that parents are aware that that support is there. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, can I just ask, in terms of the other vulnerable children, what assurance can you give that all the vulnerable children who need to keep in contact with social workers and other key workers are being provided with the necessary technology to do that? Is that happening in a uniform way? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is the intention—that everybody should have the opportunity to have the necessary technology, and certainly, that is what is intended. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, very, very briefly, one question on the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, please. +Suzy Davies AM: Just generally, have you had any feedback on the effects on the family courts and the execution of the—well, the child arrangement orders, the various versions of that? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. In terms of the family courts, as you probably know, a lot of the hearings are going on virtually, but the hearings that are more complex are being postponed to be heard at a later date. So, that's one of the issues, really—that we may expect a lot of demand on the court service after this period has finished. And obviously, the president of the family division has issued guidance on compliance with family court child arrangement orders, which were his guidance, and obviously, this is directed at separated families subject to the family court, and that offers general advice to parents, recognising that the circumstances for each parent and each family will be different. And the Welsh Government has also provided guidance about staying at home and away from others. But of course, where parents have joint parental responsibility, as you know, the Government has said that children under 18 can be moved between the two households. With the other children, it's on a case-by-case basis, really, what actually happens. I have met with CAFCASS to see how their operations are going, and all the CAFCASS officials are not attending any courts at all; they're sending in any of their views virtually, but it appeared to be that there weren't any major issues arising. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, and we have definitely now come to the end of our time. So, can I thank the Ministers and officials for attending? We do recognise what an immensely pressurised time this is for Welsh Government, and we are very appreciative of having your time this afternoon, so thank you both to Ministers and officials. As usual, you will receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Vaughan Gething AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you very much. This is, of course, our last formal business of the National Assembly for Wales before we become the Senedd tomorrow, and it seems fitting that the National Assembly's last formal proceedings are focused on children and young people, and I'm sure that we would all agree that it is vital that they continue to be at the centre of the work of our Parliament going forward. We are now going to proceed in private. +","Lynne Neagle, chairing a virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, welcomed members and noted the exclusion of the public to protect health. The meeting broadcast live, with participants via video-conference, and Standing Order requirements remained except for remote proceedings adjustments. An evidence session was held with the Welsh Government on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and social services related to children and young people in Wales. Government and health officials discussed various issues, including virus transmission among children, school reopening strategy, mental health impact assessments, and safeguarding children during the pandemic. Concerns were raised about the childcare sector's viability and support for key workers. Some foster parents sought retainers, and child protection referrals decreased with later increases. Foster care, residential childcare, and family court operations were addressed. Deputy Minister Julie Morgan highlighted ongoing efforts to support the sector and provide technology for vulnerable children. Officials reaffirmed the commitment to children's rights without legislative easements, and a survey to gather children's perspectives was mentioned. The meeting then moved into a private session." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Julie Morgan, and I'm very pleased to welcome David Rees, who is substituting for her today. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you very much. Item 2 this morning, then, is a session with the Minister for Children and Social Care on the Welsh Government's childcare offer. So, I'm very pleased to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Children and Social Care, also Jo-Anne Daniels, director for communities and tackling poverty, and Owain Lloyd, deputy director for childcare, play and early years. So, thank you, all, for your attendance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions come from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Minister. How has it gone in the early implementer local authority areas, and is it something of a mixed bag? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's gone well, but I'm glad we've done it through this process of early implementer, actually piloting it, because we're learning lessons as we go along. It has gone well. It's been encouraging, to the extent that we're at the point where we're expanding—we've made announcements on expanding some of the early implementer areas so we can learn more lessons. But, in terms of what we're learning, one is the bureaucracy around the current approach that we're taking, because it's being done on the seven early implementers. So, we're asking parents to come in, provide their wage slips, provide the birth certificates, and so on. You're dealing sometimes with parents and families with complex issues and complex backgrounds, so it's difficult. And the burden of administration on that is falling to each pilot area. In one case, it's a whole authority, but it's only one—that's in Blaenau Gwent. In others, it's smaller areas. So, we're also hitting those—. The other big challenge we're hitting is communication. So, we're having parents, generally, who are outside the areas entirely saying, 'Why haven't we got this yet? Can we please get into it?', which is encouraging. But the other thing we're having is people who are within pilot authorities, where it doesn't extend to the whole authority, saying, 'Well, hold on now, we think we qualify for something under universal care, we think we qualify for something on tax credits. Why don't we qualify for this?' 'Well, you're not in the pilot area.' So, we're learning about these things, but the biggest one, I have to say, is the administrative burden, and I think that's interesting in how we take this forward for a wider roll-out. +Hefin David AM: What is the administrative burden? What specifically is that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It is that sheer burden on each local authority, and each pilot area, to administer a scheme where we are asking parents to prove eligibility, to bring in documents to prove their eligibility, to make adjustments as it goes forward based on what their changing work patterns are, what their salary slips say. It's incredibly bureaucratic. So, yesterday, when we made the statement following the announcement of the introduction of the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, we made clear that our preferred option, as put within that framework Bill, is actually to build on, and to learn from the lessons as well, the model of the HM Revenue and Customs type of model, where you actually have—and this, by the way, is supported by local authority providers out there—one system that is a centralised system, where there is clarity, that is handled, that has elements of information sharing between Government departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, and so on, so that the work is done for the parents, and the work is done for the local authorities; much cleaner, much simpler. +Hefin David AM: How confident are you that you can achieve that by 2020? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We are very confident. But, as I say, I'm more confident in the fact that we're actually piloting it, and phasing this in, because I think we've learned from some of the experiences elsewhere, including just over the border in England, where they have a different version of a childcare offer, but they've gone for it in a big-bang approach. And it has led to technical issues, it's led to volume issues, where their anticipation of how many people would buy into it was overwhelmed by the numbers who actually then came forward for it, and the complexity, I have to say, of individual family situations, whereas what we are doing, Hefin, is taking this forward very, very carefully. Each roll-out, each expansion that we're doing of the pilot is not—and I know this has caused some people to come back and say, 'Why can't we all have it now?' It's because we're only rolling out to areas where we now need to learn a lesson about whether it's rurality or, as it will be within densely urban areas, where the cost might be slightly higher, and that's allowing us to have the confidence that we'll have it. We've expanded the whole offer across Gwynedd—the whole of Gwynedd, Anglesey and Caerphilly. Flintshire now have a cross-authority offer. Rhondda Cynon Taf is anticipating doing this by September. Swansea is planning to do it, they tell us, in due course—in short order—as well. So, we have the confidence now that, with that learning going on from different pilot areas, we'll have the full roll-out by 2020. +Hefin David AM: Is it true to say that, in the early adopter areas, the intensity of demand for the services is not spread evenly across? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. +Hefin David AM: And why is that? Is that going to cause a problem across Wales? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, it won't cause a problem. If we were doing this tomorrow, it would cause a problem, but what we're learning is that there are some economic issues and then there are some cultural issues. So ,there are issues to do with—. It's not capacity, by the way. We're not finding a problem here with capacity, whether it's in English language provision or whether it's in Welsh language provision, whether it's in children with complex needs, we're not finding that as an issue. But what we are finding is, for example, one of the well-known ones—and I've spoken about this before—is that, in some of the south Wales Valleys constituencies, there is a family tradition of doing childcare within the families. I've done it myself. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on provide free, unregistered, unlicensed childcare of a sort. Now that isn't what the scheme is about, by the way, I have to say. So, some of the aspects are cultural, but what we're also doing alongside this, whilst looking at the capacity and looking at how we learnt from the pilot roll-out, is that communication with parents and providers and local authorities as well. So, we have a whole programme running alongside it. It's about communicating what the offer is, how simple it is to get invovled in this and where they go to, and, critically, I think, how we do that national roll-out would be important as well. +Hefin David AM: So, given the point you've made about grandparents and family, wouldn't it be sensible, then, to offer a subsidy to grandparents to provide this kind of care? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Unregistered grandparents? +Hefin David AM: Well, through some kind of analysis of that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, we don't think so and there are good reasons behind this. +Hefin David AM: Is it because you say that they wouldn't be registered as carers for their own family member? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but there's a deeper reason behind that registration as well. The childcare offer isn't only to just provide childcare; it's the wider aspects that come with this. This childcare offer ties into the foundation years offer. There's an element of education linked to the childcare offer—there's that 10 hours of the early education foundation years as well. The two tie together. So, there's an issue here with quality, about socialisation and how children learn in an environment, as opposed to purely—as great as all our grandparents and aunts and uncles are—simply child-minding. That's one important distinction. So, the focus of this scheme is very much on registered licensed providers, which could be, by the way—because we do have them, and we're discussing this at the moment internally and with the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and others—grandparents who are actually registered and inspected by the care inspectorate? We're having those discussions. +Hefin David AM: How many of them are there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We don't think there is a huge number, but we're trying to bottom this out at the moment. We haven't got the exact number, but we don't think they are huge numbers, but there are, in our constituencies, registered, licensed, inspected grandparents who look after other people's children in a little group of four or five or six or seven, but also their own grandchildren. +Hefin David AM: So, they're a kind of grandparents club. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. Now that, I would say to you—and I know that Darren raised this on the floor yesterday as well—is markedly different in the nature of it, because it's registered and licensed, than simply informal grandparents or aunts or uncles. I say that as well because we also get people who will say to us, 'I don't want to be paid for looking after my grandchildren; I look after my grandchildren because I look after them'. +Hefin David AM: And what about the view, given that you said that capacity wasn't an issue, of the National Day Nurseries Association, which says that Wales has the most fragile childcare sector in Great Britain? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I don't agree we have the most fragile, but the childcare offer gives us an opportunity to make it more resilient and more robust. We know from the early piloting, and as we roll it out, that there is the immense diversity within the childcare sector, and we're talking about everything from those very small terraced homes that have been licensed and registered to take six or seven children, to large, complex environments that perhaps are on maintained premises within school premises, provided by a voluntary or third sector organisation. So, there's immense complexity and we know that that differs across Wales, and we also know there's immense regional variation in the scale and the type of childcare offer. What the roll-out allows us to do, backed by £60 million of capital money behind it, in terms of capital development of childcare facilities, backed by a 10-year workforce development plan for childcare—and bear in mind this is bolted in as part of our foundational economy approach as well—that means, by 2020, we get to the point where we're putting the money into the capital development but also to the workforce development, because in some areas we're finding it's not to do with lack of provision and facilities, it's to do with lack of staff. In other areas, we're finding there are plenty of staff but not the adequate facilities. We've got to get it right. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but is it realistic to think that there's going to be capacity growth in the next two to three years to deliver the product? Is that realistic to think that that foundational sector can provide that level of staffing? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, I think it is, absolutely, because, again, what we're finding is we've got several things going on at once in terms of how we monitor and assess the development of this roll-out. One is the work that we're doing on the ground with the phased roll-out, so we're literally learning live time, and I have pretty much weekly or fortnightly updates on how things are going, but also there is a termly update as well. We've also commissioned additional work from Arad to look at this first phase of the roll-out that we've done to see what that tells us as well. But the feedback that we're getting from the childcare providers themselves, on the basis that we're now identifying where either the gaps in the workforce or the physical facilities are, is that, 'Yes, we can do this', because we're putting the money in, we have the strategy for the workforce development, and it's not going to be the same in all parts of Wales. It's not as if what we're saying is, 'Here's what we're going to do all of a sudden—flick a switch and we have a universality of the same type of provision everywhere.' So, let me give you one key example. Alongside this, alongside the £60 million capital fund, alongside the workforce development, we've also identified a separate strain of money into cylch meithrin. We know that there is a shortage in parts of Wales for Welsh language childcare development. We're specifically putting money into developing that, and, in fact, the first one of those will be, from that new tranche of money, opening up, I think, in September. They anticipate, as part of our big strategy with Welsh language development, we'll have an additional 40 of those by— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Thirty. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's an additional 30 by 2020, and an additional doubling of that in the 10 years after that. We can't take this for granted, Hefin. This is difficult. This is hard work, but we have everything in place to make it happen. +Hefin David AM: The last thing from me: the £4.50 single national rate—is there a danger that we might be creating a kind of EasyJet-style nursery provision where you get the basics but the wealthier parents are going to be able to pay for better care within those settings because of the add-ons? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We really mulled over this a lot and discussed it, I have to say, not only internally but with childcare providers out there and with parents as well and with local authorities. The first thing to say is the £4.50 rate that we've set has been welcomed, and it's been welcomed because it's unlike the much more complex offer that's in England, where there's a variable rate and there are lots of determining factors on it and it's added complexity and confusion. +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask there, it's been welcomed perhaps in Blaenau Gwent, but has it been equally welcomed in Cardiff? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, because we haven't rolled it out in Cardiff yet, and that is a salient point. +Hefin David AM: Okay, fair enough. But will it be, then? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, it will be. Some of the more expensive areas like Cardiff and Newport are knocking on our door saying, 'Please can we have this offer?', and we are keen to give it to them. But, as I say— +Hefin David AM: But do you anticipate a capacity problem with the £4.50 in those areas, compared to, say, the Cynon valley? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We can't anticipate it yet, Hefin, but that's exactly the reason for going into that area and then assessing how it works. We're reasonably confident that the £4.50—. We're reasonably assured by the feedback that we're having that the £4.50 might work as a universal amount. But if we learn, when we roll it out in Cardiff and Newport, that there needs to be some variation, we can look at that, because we're not doing a big-bang approach. So, that is part of why we will move to roll it out within Cardiff and Newport and other more expensive areas and learn from it, but at the moment, I have to say, the £4.50 amount has been welcomed—it's appropriate. You touched on the other aspect, though, of the wider aspects of beyond the £4.50, because the £4.50 doesn't cover everything. The £4.50 is a contribution towards the wraparound childcare element but it doesn't cover—and we agonised over this—the issues of things like transport out on trips or food or snacks and things like this. Now, we did agonise a number of things that brought us to the conclusion where we are. I have to say, this hasn't been ivory-tower stuff; it's been in discussion with the providers but also parents. One: parents are quite used to—with childcare settings and play care settings and so on—the idea that providers are quite different. Some providers charge a fee that does everything in one; others provide simply the childcare element but they tell the parents—and I'm used to this as a parent myself, although mine are older now—'Mr Irranca-Davies, when you sign on, just to be aware, if we do take your kids down to St Fagans, there's going to be a little bit of a charge for that' and so on. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but it would be the lowest-income working families who would be most unduly affected by that, because the higher income families would be able to afford those add-ons, the lower income ones won't. Isn't that a concern? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: If money was absolutely no object, then I think you'd be looking at quite a different offer, but it has to be affordable within what we've got as well. The fact that parents, including those who are on lower incomes, are used to currently discriminating between providers, not only with childcare settings but also within school settings as well, where very often schools now will say, 'We're doing something extra'— +Hefin David AM: That may be the case, but it's not fair, is it? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: In a pure argument about equity, and if funding was no object and if the burdens of austerity were released and we were told we had money—'You can do what you want'—I think you'd be looking at a very different approach. But within what we have, I think this works very, very well indeed, because it's very transparent for parents who are used to making these decisions. It says, 'Here you have 10 hours of the foundation education offer. You have the additional hours here provided with the childcare offer. But within those additional hours, you may be with a local provider in the middle of Powys that actually says, ""Within that we provide everything""; you may be with a provider that says, ""Well, actually, we do a whistles and bells thing and we take them out on trips, but it's up to you if you want to come, and here's the additional cost—"".' Parents are used to making that decision and realistically, in terms of what we can do with this offer, this is actually—the arguments around this have been well rehearsed both with providers and with parents and we're not getting any concerns that this is going to unnecessarily disadvantage. In a total fairness argument, would you make it universal and with no additional charges? Well, possibly you would. But we work within the realistic— +Hefin David AM: Or have a lower top-end income limit. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Depending on how the Bill progresses in the main Chamber and when it goes through committee, there's that flexibility built into the Bill that those things can be looked at over time and adjusted. For the moment, I think there is an attraction, in terms of the upper limit, of saying: one—'Let's try not to add additional complexity, let's go with a scheme that's already working its way through the system, which is, if you like, what they're doing in England, and not add additional complexity. But, secondly, there is an appeal to universality, curiously, in saying to all parents—and I say this regardless of political hues across the committee here—there's an attraction when you say, 'Let's make an offer focused on working parents as it is', as universal to those working parents as possible, and avoid the administrative costs of saying, 'Well, let's take the upper limit down to £80 or £60 or £55.' There's always the question of how much additional cost is incurred in actually doing that tweak of complexity. We have looked at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: Just to ask, I mean, the labour market costs are changing, aren't they? You've got the national living wage increasing—[Inaudible.]—that's going to have a bearing, isn't it, on the affordability of this project in terms of the childcare offer and the suitability of the £4.50 per hour regime? By the time it's fully rolled out, of course, that £4.50 rate is going to be a number of years old, for example. Do you have plans to review that? Where is it headed? Because it's certainly not going to be enough in the future. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It depends how far in the future you're looking. I have to say, the feedback that we're having at the moment from organisations like the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and from the National Day Nurseries Association Wales and others is that this is the right rate and it's suitable not only today but for the foreseeable future of rolling this out. +Darren Millar AM: But they've raised concerns about the national living wage implications, haven't they, as well? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Of course, and I think it's incumbent on us as well to not— +Darren Millar AM: So, it's not fair to say that they haven't raised concerns about the rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but what they're not arguing for at the moment is for this rate to be raised. +Darren Millar AM: But they have suggested that in meetings— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: That in future— +Darren Millar AM: Absolutely. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, of course, in future, any Minister, any committee, will want to come back and look at—is the hourly rate, as one element of the scheme, appropriate to the current financial challenges for the sector, and not least, by the way, as we try not only to develop the workforce, but to develop the career pathways through this as well? And I think that's the right discussion to be had, live time, as this is taken forward. But at this moment in time, we're not getting people saying within this part of the roll-out that we need to adjust this amount. +Darren Millar AM: So, have you forecasted for any adjustment in the rate going forward in terms of affordability of the project? Because you've still got this £100 million price tag on it, haven't you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Similar to the point that was raised with Hefin about Cardiff and Newport, if we identify that the rate is not appropriate, if it's—. I don't think anybody's going to come back to us and say that it's too little. But do bear in mind that it's above where the average England rate is, even though there's this complex variability within the English rate that has caused some confusion there, which is why the universal rate with us has been welcomed. If we find, as we pilot it, or if we find because there are more expensive areas for it to be delivered in, there needs to be adjustment, then we'll be back in front of the committee arguing why that needs to be the case. +Darren Millar AM: But that won't put the project at risk in terms of its finances? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, no. We are still very confident, looking forward, on the best projections we have, fed by the live input that's coming in from the pilot, which will be fed again in the autumn—the Arad report coming forward—that we have not only the capacity to actually deliver this—challenging as this is, we have the capacity to deliver it—but also that the funding that's available, on our best estimate—the estimate we've stood by, that broad ball park of that £100 million figure—it's deliverable within that. But if it changes, we will come back. And if it changes, I'll have to be sitting down with my boss, Vaughan Gething, and with Mark Drakeford, to argue the case on it. But at this moment, we have confidence and we've run the rule across this repeatedly. But that rate, combined with the other elements of this childcare offer—there is sufficient there allocated to actually deliver the whole roll-out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark on this. +Mark Reckless AM: Minister, as a parent who's been researching childcare options, it's obvious to me that in Cardiff, and to a degree in Newport and Monmouthshire, costs are substantially higher than this, and I haven't been able to find anywhere that has a six-hour day for £27, which is implied by your rate. Isn't it the case that rents and wages are higher and therefore you're going to need a higher rate to make it work? Isn't that already obvious? Why are you postponing coming back and looking at this until some point in the future? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Chair, my biggest fear is a parent who's actually involved in this area already, but, having been one myself—. Mark, you may be right, that's exactly why we're piloting it and that's why when we pilot in Cardiff and Newport, we know we have lessons to learn over the affordability and the £4.50 per hour rate. +Mark Reckless AM: But you're not piloting it in any of the high-cost areas that I've referred to. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No. We will be. We are going to be. +Mark Reckless AM: When are you starting? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Cardiff and Newport—September. +Owain Lloyd: This September. +Mark Reckless AM: This September? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. So, we're not missing any of these learning experiences and we know that—. The reason we've gone for the other areas first, by the way—please take this back to any authorities affected—is simply because we've done deep dives into areas that vary from very rural areas in mid Wales, areas in north Wales, areas around Welsh language provision, areas in deep valleys, understanding the cultural and the economic impacts. So, we've held back a little bit from going into what we know is an obvious challenge within the more expensive areas of provision. But it's coming, it's imminent, and we'll learn the lessons from it. And do you know, you may be right? And if you are right, that it's more expensive, and we need a higher rate within those areas, then we're going to have to come back and discuss it with the committee. But let's go in and learn it first of all, rather than assume it necessarily. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before I bring David in on the issue that Hefin raised about the chargeable items, your paper says that providers can charge up to £7.50 a day for food, snacks, transport and consumables such as nappies. Now, that's £37.50 a week, which is a lot of money for parents, and I just wondered if you wanted to comment on that figure? But also, do you think there's a risk that providers who maybe aren't charging at the moment may start charging because of any new pressures that arise because of this scheme? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think they're the right areas to flag up, and if I thought that was going to happen I'd be concerned as we take this forward and design this scheme. I think part of the evaluation from Arad will also show us that—whether or not, within the pilot areas that we are already in, which are quite diverse, that is happening. We're only one term into learning the lessons, by the way, but I would want to make sure that we design a scheme where we are not heaping on disadvantage or where there was exploitation of disadvantaged families. So, the early evaluation, I think, will give us good feedback on that. I think also, by the way, that providers know that this is a collaborative effort to do this here. It's not in their interests, I have to say, as the umbrella bodies or individual providers, to see this as some way that they can unduly rake in additional income from this on the backs of poorer families. This is about providing opportunities for all working families. But especially, I have to say, the early evaluation that we've seen already suggests that the greatest proportion of those who are taking advantage of this scheme in the early parts—in the early evaluation—are those who are below the average working wage within in Wales. That's by far the greatest number of people who are doing it, and we don't want them then being priced out because of add-ons. So, there has to be some pragmatism, I have to say, and some open partnership working here with the sector, and we do have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: John on this. +John Griffiths AM: I want to come back to the £4.50 rate, but in terms of working with the sector, briefly, if I might, Chair, I just wonder, Huw, in terms of that £4.50 figure and understanding the sector in Wales, to what extent are we talking about a market rate and to what extent are we talking about the increase in demand that will come from the scheme and how that relates to economies of scale and capacity? Is it purely a market rate or is there a conversation with the sector in terms of the benefits that will come from this scheme and how they should be recognised in terms of setting the rate? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: This has been a very open dialogue with the sector around affordability, around the hourly rate and around what might happen in future as well. This is not a pure hard data-driven analysis that says, 'Here we've calculated everything and this is the rate that will satisfy it', because we recognise that there's great diversity in provision out there, and we also recognise that things will change over time. It's not only the geographical diversity—it's the diversity of the sector itself. I think we need to, as we take this scheme forward and look at the full roll-out, continue in that very open dialogue with the sector not about what is purely a market-driven amount but actually what is also affordable for the Welsh Government within the constraints that we have. Just to flag up one issue, it's right that we're focusing on those elements that aren't included within it, to some extent as well, and the effect of that on more disadvantaged families, but that has to be balanced with the pocket of affordability for this scheme as well. Let me give you a clear illustration: some of our calculations have suggested that if we included free food within this offer as well, it would add something like in the region of 50p to that £4.50 rate. That would have, at this moment, impacts on the affordability of this and the roll-out of it. I would need to be going back to my seniors and arguing the case now, okay? But, it's that open dialogue with the sector that says, 'There's one thing about what you're saying you demand as a market; there's another thing about what we're saying that we have affordability from taxpayers' money to actually put into this'. They also understand, John, that as well as an enabling policy—and we're seeing the evidence, by the way; I can cite it—of individuals who are being helped into more flexible options to get back into work, increase their hours and so on, this is also about building capacity in a fundamental foundation sector that is in every single part of Wales. The stuff that's being debated ad nauseam here within the Assembly about foundational sectors—. The sector itself understands that if we boost the childcare offer in all its diversity, including, by the way, not just the independent sector but social enterprises and third-sector organisations, such as exist in Neath and elsewhere that I was involved in 20 or 30-odd years ago setting up—that has an economic impact that goes beyond that immediate family who are receiving the provision to the wider communities as well. They know that. They know there is job creation within this and there's economic impact for that. So, it's an open dialogue on what the rate should be rather than purely, 'Our wonks have crunched the numbers and we've come up with £4.50.' +Lynne Neagle AM: David, you had a question on the pilots. +David Rees AM: Yes, just to finish that section off, if I may, Chair. Before I go to my question, I want to come back to Mark Reckless's question and the answer you gave. I got the impression that if there is a need to look at different rates because of the higher-end areas, you may therefore have different sets of rates and not a universal rate. Is that also on the cards? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: David, it's possible. I think our preference would be, I have to say, to stick with the universal rate, because we know it's—. There's real simplicity and it's been welcomed in the sector. But the sector, also, are quite pragmatic about this. One of the defining hallmarks of the way that we've taken this scheme forward is learning in live time as we pilot and expand the pilots into different areas and different types of provision. If we learn lessons from that that suggest we need to come back and look at a differential in more-expensive-to-provide areas, then we'll have to look at that, but there might be other ways of splicing it. But first of all, I think we have to go in and see how does this work. We might find, Mark, we might find, David, that we go in and when everything is tallied up, the £4.50 per hour works in supporting provision there. +David Rees AM: Okay. In your answer to John, you talked about affordability, which I totally understand. If I can now remind you: I don't remember the word 'affordability' coming in the manifesto pledge of the Government. It was 'we will offer childcare facilities'. So, I just want to put a reminder to you there. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ministers always look at affordability. +David Rees AM: Well, voters don't. In the situation regarding Welsh-medium, you answered that a little bit earlier, but I have concerns about capacity. Workforce capacity you've mentioned. To actually be registered you need staff who are qualified. There's clearly a need to get more staff, because in your own paper you say that the report in 2016 said you do not have the childcare capacity in Wales at the moment. Do you believe that you can actually deliver the workforce to meet that capacity, first of all through the English medium, but secondly through the Welsh medium as well? Because there's a clear need to look at it. You talk about 30 by 2020. By the way, 30 is nothing big when you consider the whole of Wales. Do you actually think you've got that workforce capacity set up before this is fully rolled out? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I hope, Chair, you'll appreciate that in our submission to you we've been very open. This is challenging. This is. To get to where we want to go is a huge challenge. Can we do it? Yes we can. And I don't say that glibly. Let me suggest some of the ways why. We have confidence that we can do this if everybody is working together across the sector, across the local authorities. Let me talk broadly about capacity, first of all, including English and Welsh-medium provision for children with complex needs, provision for children with disabilities—all of this. First of all, this is being—. The work that we're doing to increase both capacity in terms of trained staff and qualified staff: we have the 10-year plan that I mentioned, which has already been announced. We're working through it. We're working through it with the sector. So, we're identifying not only broadly at a national level where we need to develop those qualifications, but also at a regional, geographic level as well, and that's being taken forward. We've engaged with the 22 authorities—not just the pilot areas as well on this. So, beyond the pilot areas, we also have intense engagement. As you can see from what I've said before, it's rolling out progressively, but with all 22 authorities we're working with them on their childcare sufficiency assessments to identify where their shortages are. +David Rees AM: What have the pilot programmes actually shown you about this, and how are you going to move this forward? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, it's precisely that. So, within the pilot areas, we have a greater depth of analysis now of where both the workforce and the physical provisions are. Whether those are maintained or non-maintained or third sector or school facilities or whatever, we've got a much deeper granulation of identifying where that is, and we're working, then, with those authorities, with the capital moneys that we've allocated to this and the workforce development, and with local colleges, to develop the workforce and the physical constraints. But we're also doing that with the other 22, with all the 22 authorities as well, in anticipation of the wider roll-out. They're not being left out of this. And by the way, it's not only the Cardiffs and the Newports; it's all the other ones where there isn't full roll-out. We're engaged with them deeply at the moment with that analysis on their childcare sufficiency assessments, both in terms of workforce, but also physical provision. So, we're doing that already. We are looking as well, as this is rolled out, around the issue of co-location. Now, co-location is a fruitful way to look at future development. It doesn't mean, by the way, that we exclude the third sector or social enterprise approach, or the independent sector, but co-location could be key to the roll-out of this in the right areas where it can be done, because then we avoid any fracture between the education hours and the childcare hours: the physical transportation of children from one location to another. So, we're engaged with the 22 authorities on that: where could that be developed, who would be the providers that would do it and do they have the workforce to scale up to do it? If not, how do they talk to local colleges to do that? So, we're doing that at the moment. I mentioned we've put the £1 million additional funding into the meithrin over the next two years, targeting 40 new Welsh-medium groups by 2021, which pretty much coincides with the full roll-out of this. It's part of the aim of an additional 150 over the next decade of meithrin. So, all of those things, David, give us a confidence that we're going to be in the right place. +David Rees AM: But in particular, take the Welsh language—I understand Gwynedd, and I won't ask another question on that for obvious reasons at this point in time—but in some of the other areas where you've piloted, you've gone partial in some areas. When there's Welsh language education, and the three to five-year-olds go to schools, they go from all areas of the council, basically. They don't actually go necessarily from the local area, and therefore you're getting a different picture. Have you been able to assess the actual impact, properly, upon the Welsh-medium side of things? Because, for example, my grandchildren will go from my area, which may not be in one of the considerations, to a school that may be in that consideration, and that happens regularly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. We know that historically we've got, across the country, a shortage of Welsh-language childcare provision—meithrin and so on—but we have not only a strategy in place, but the fact that we've got local authorities now doing their own assessments within their area, across the piste of childcare, but also in terms of Welsh language, that means then that we can start filling those gaps with the money we've put to it, and that includes in all parts of Wales, including those areas within south Wales and others that are less deep in their tradition of speaking Welsh over recent history, anyway, but where the demand for it is massive. So, local authorities are tasked with doing their own assessments of childcare sufficiency for this childcare offer. They're identifying the gaps, David, and we will work with them and with providers to fill those gaps, and that includes with the umbrella organisations for Welsh language childcare provision. +David Rees AM: And that's the same for those children with physical disabilities or learning disabilities. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely the same. Absolutely the same. And this does mean, Chair, that it will be different, as it currently is in different areas: the type of provision, where the provision is located. But the provision should be there. This offer won't happen unless the provision is there for those children with complex needs, children with disabilities, Welsh language provision, as well as more generic provision as well, but it will be diverse in its provision around areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: I do want to move on now, John, so if I can come back to your question. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I would like to pick up on the last point, if I may. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. The investment in meithrin, of course, is one that we all welcome. A question from me though, the wider question, is: how do we mainstream Welsh medium into childcare? Because, clearly, leaving it to meithrin is one way of doing it, but there's a lot of existing infrastructure out there that we need to upskill in terms of the provision of Welsh medium. So, it's not a question as such, but I'm sure you recognise that—that there is a challenge there. Because if we are to get to where we want to get to, it isn't about growing meithrin, or Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin; it's about mainstreaming Welsh-medium provision within the wider sector. So, it wasn't a question after all. So, looking at the manifesto commitment that was made in 2016, clearly the main or the principal aim of this policy is around removing some of the barriers to secure employment for parents, albeit with very positive outcomes for the children themselves, and we don't ignore or neglect that at any cost. But I'm just wondering: how would you then reconcile that with the findings of the Public Policy Institute for Wales report, which I mentioned to you yesterday, which was commissioned by the Government to look at policy options in this context, which concluded that there will be no 'substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children' and that 'the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers in families with a child of target age is extremely small'? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, the first thing I would say is that what we're learning from the pilots is that it is having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and we're having this fed back from real-life situations on the ground, where parents are making different choices in the areas where it's being piloted. So, the types of different choices they're making could be to expand the number of hours that they're in work, because they now have a choice, they're not constrained to certain hours or whatever, they have a wider choice, with a wider number of providers, and they're making that decision and they're able to expand their hours. Some, by the way, Llyr, I have to say—and, again, these are real-life situations—are saying, 'What we're doing is not expanding our hours, but, because of the increased provision of childcare and the increased offer, we are now able to actually spend more time with our children, because we're adjusting our hours of work, based on the childcare provision offer.' That in itself, I have to say, is a worthy aim. But I would say what we found out, in real-life examples—I'm not saying that in direct contrast to what that paper was saying— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's what I was going to ask; it sounds as if you're saying they were wrong. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But what we have is the advantage of this phased roll-out, where we are learning, live time, and I think the Arad report in October—we're hoping to see the final report in October—will help put some flesh on this as well. It is already having an effect: the majority of parents who are taking advantage of this are actually in those groups that are below the average wage, they are making positive choices to get into this offer and to either expand, take more hours, adjust their own lifestyles around it or more. So, it's having a positive effect. I can cite to you examples, because I've asked my own officials on this, of families who tell us they're saving up to £250 a week on the basis of this offer within the pilot areas, who've increased their hours of employment, who've changed their working patterns to suit their work life, but also to suit their families. Now, that's real stuff, as opposed to—yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, in effect, you are saying that the PPIW report got it wrong, basically. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, I'm not saying that they got it wrong and it's wholly wrong, but it is interesting, within that report, that it did identify that there were a range of factors here that play upon this. It's not only the childcare; it is the transport, it's the training and education, it's the employment support and all of those. And we agree with that, but we do think, and what we're seeing, live time, at the moment—maybe at some point, somebody else will produce a report beyond the Arad report in October that will say, 'Well, actually, the way this is designed, that they've done it in Wales, is having a material effect on those families, particularly the most disadvantaged families.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you're asking us to support a Bill here, albeit a framework Bill, to achieve a policy aim where you're giving us anecdotal evidence that it's having an impact, contrary to research that's previously been done, albeit with promises that, maybe, an evaluation sometime in the autumn might tell us a different story. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We know, and we are constantly told—I'm sure this is commonplace in constituency surgeries, as well—by parents who say that the biggest mitigating factor for them, actually, either going into work at an earlier opportunity or expanding their hours is purely the cost of childcare in front of them. We are picking up, even from the early term of the analysis—. I think our further reports, both Arad and as we go forward with the pilots, will substantiate this more. It'll go beyond the anecdotal, it will show that parents are having an enhanced opportunity to balance their work life, to make better choices, either in terms of expanding the number of hours they're working and increasing their disposable income within their families, or actually making it simply better for them in their family situation, where they don't currently have that offer. So, I get the fact that we have one report out there, but it's one report. It's a report, and we're not dismissing it entirely, but what we are saying is: we are now working with real-life piloting of an offer, and we are seeing the benefits coming through. As we roll this out, we'll be back in front of this committee saying, 'Well, this is now what we're finding. We can go beyond the real-life stories that I'm relating to you now, and we can say, ""Well, here's some hard data that goes with this, as well.""' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. You reference in your paper, as well, another report, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, 'Starting Strong 2017', and it highlights countries that have, maybe, the most similar childcare offer to what's being proposed here in Wales. I'm just wondering what assessment you've made of those similarities, because, clearly, there'll be different economic contexts in different countries and different levels of public expenditure, et cetera. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't done really detailed analysis of comparisons with other countries far from Wales, but we will be doing work that will be doing some benchmarking against, where we can find similar models, where appropriate—do some appropriate benchmarking. What we have been doing is looking at what's been happening across the border in England and trying to learn from the lessons there, and also the offer in Scotland as well, which are both close to hand. They're in quite similar contexts. But we will do some work, Llyr, around benchmarking against good comparative international examples, where appropriate. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, there we are, because one of my concerns was that the focus in a number of the countries in the OECD report are for nought to three-year-olds, whereas, of course, the policy focus here is for a slightly older age group. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, and I fully get that, but again, and I know it can be said, 'Well, this is an example' but it's real-life examples. We are having people who are telling us that they're now making the choice to go to work earlier because this is extended to three-year-olds, but they would have delayed. There is a direct outcome there if this childcare offer enables somebody to say, 'Well, I'm going to go a year earlier back into work and bring income into the family.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, moving on, then, to the impact on the child and this whole question around school readiness, of course, which is an important one to address. Clearly, one of the main outcomes of this policy will be the academic performance of children, hopefully, later on in life. I want to come back to this point that the Children's Commissioner for Wales and others have raised: the concern that, actually, the most disadvantaged—those from workless households—are being excluded from this policy. Isn't there therefore a risk that they'll be left even further behind? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I've had long, detailed and positive discussions with the children's commissioner on this, and I know the children's commissioner would want a more universal offer, but I make two points on that: one is, that was not what the commitment in the manifesto was, and it's not the offer that's being taken forward now. It is a different thing, a universal offer, and there are issues around that with complexity, and also affordability. But it isn't the offer that we took forward into Government; this is what we're taking forward. But it is interesting in terms of that aspect of families then who lose out. I'd say two significant things on it: one is, this doesn't stand alone purely as 30 hours of childcare. Within this, there are 10 hours of the foundation years, educational input, which is there for everybody. But before that, particularly for those disadvantaged families, before we even get to that stage, you have schemes such as Flying Start, and I know this committee has looked in detail at Flying Start and has said that it would like to see it rolled out everywhere. If I had all the money under the sun, I would really do that, Chair; I would really do it. But I don't have all the money under the sun. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you do have the ability to target the money. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but the fact that Flying Start, we know, is leading to those outcomes where those children, in quite challenged circumstances very often, are more ready to step up to the foundation year, are more ready, then, to step through into mainstream education in later years—those things tie together. So, there are the 10 hours of education provision that sits here for every family, by the way, within this offer, let alone the childcare. That doesn't mean that everybody's excluded, but it does mean, yes, that this offer is focused on working parents. And we don't think that that's a bad thing. In fact, it does overlap with other offers that other political parties were taking forward into the last election, which was focusing on how we support the biggest thing that we often have in our constituency mailbags, which is, 'I can't afford to go back to work because I can't afford the childcare. Don't tell me to go back to work, I can't afford it.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The majority of disadvantaged children don't live in Flying Start areas, do they? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, there's a missing cohort there that can't access one or the other, and the school readiness gap is growing, and, really, are we focusing our resources in the right place here? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, yes, in terms of this scheme, but it doesn't sit alone as this scheme—it's the wider plethora of, I have to say, progressive and advanced initiatives that we have in Wales that take different forms. It's not only Flying Start that provides that other support for parents, and readiness not only for the parents and for their children, but also the support into work. So, if, for example, you look at the Parents, Childcare and Employment programme, which is separate from this, there is support there for every parent in terms of helping them get supported into work from disadvantaged families. If you look at the support for the children, we've got the 10 hours that sits within the sphere of the education, but we've also got all the other family intervention programmes that help with socialisation, education and so on and so forth. If you look at this solely on its own and say, 'Well, there is nothing else there; the rest of Wales is a desert and there's no support for parents, for getting parents back into work or for those parents who are not seeking to go back into work but also need the support and for their children in education', I'd be worried. But, actually, this fits as part of the jigsaw that we have in Wales, where I think we are well ahead of the other nations. Yes, we could do more, and I always say, Llyr; I always say, Chair, that if I had—I don't have a chequebook at all, because it's not in my gift—if I had a blank cheque I'd do a lot more, but we don't. But what we can do is get the right schemes in place, and if this helps drive more choices for working parents, including, by the way—. There are niceties within this as well; it doesn't have to be that both parents are working. You could have a parent who is on incapacity benefit. You could have a parent who is a registered carer. They would qualify for the scheme. Those will be some of those most disadvantaged families that we both have those concerns about. So, there is some flexibility within this scheme as well to deal with some of those disadvantaged families. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: I am surprised by the answer there, particularly given that one of the ambitions of the Government is to close this attainment gap later in life when schoolchildren get to their examinations, when they're 16 years old. Yet this appears to be driving a bigger wedge in terms of development, which could, of course, lead to a perverse outcome later on in life, but I don't want to ask you about that. If I can just very quickly ask you: has consideration been given to making free childcare available to parents where they're in 16 hours or more of education each week? So, they may not be entering the labour market, but, of course, one of those barriers to them getting back into the labour market could well be their education, so what arrangements are in place there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Darren, we have considered it, and we haven't included it within the scheme because this is designed to enable parents to go into work, not into training to enable them to get into work. There are other forms of support available for parents in terms of college and so on and so forth, but it's not this scheme. +Darren Millar AM: But it's not prescribed support, is it? You know, it's not universally available to people who might be wanting to get back into the labour market over that barrier. You must have done some costings, then, if you've considered it, and you must have tried to identify numbers. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my left and my right. +Owain Lloyd: Not at this point. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't— +Darren Millar AM: So, you haven't considered it that much, have you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We have actually considered—. We consider it from the point of, 'What is this scheme set up to do?' It's very clear. When we ran, in the manifesto on this point— +Darren Millar AM: I understand that. I don't want you to repeat yourself because I know we are against the clock. But, very specifically, when you say you've considered it, what you mean is you thought about it but you've not costed it, you've not identified the numbers that might be involved— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely, absolutely. +Darren Millar AM: And therefore you've not considered whether it might be affordable in addition to the policy objective that this is trying to meet. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, Darren, you're right: we haven't considered affordability because we've considered it on first principles to do with what this offer is trying to do. It doesn't fit within the offer so, as such, why would we do the costings? +Darren Millar AM: Perhaps I can frame my question in another way. Are you prepared to consider it if you're able to identify the numbers and potential cost? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ah, right, okay. We'd be interested in your thoughts as a committee, but it doesn't actually fit within the first principles of what the scheme is designed to do. Darren, can I just pick up on your point, in case you misinterpreted what I was saying to Llyr? I drew attention in my answer to Llyr to schemes such as the PaCE scheme. In Gwynedd, one of our pilot areas, they are combining the Team Around the Family with this childcare offer. So, what they are doing is wrapping the support around. It is not the case, as you've suggested then, that there is somehow more disadvantage being heaped on other families. What this does is tie in in those pilot areas with the existing provision, and that's the way we want to see it work. So, I wouldn't want you to be under any misapprehension that this makes conditions worse for families. Those families who have a registered carer in them where one parent works, and those families who have somebody on incapacity benefit will qualify for the scheme. All families will qualify for the 10 hours of education. In Gwynedd, they're wrapping the Team Around the Family with this offer— +Darren Millar AM: But on the other hand, Minister, you've also suggested that this will accelerate child development for those kids who are able to access it, and yet not all kids will be able to access it, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But all children can access the 10 hours, and they can access Flying Start— +Darren Millar AM: But 10 hours is very different to 30 hours, is it not? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but they can access Flying Start or they can access the Team Around the Family— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in a Flying Start area. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: —or they can be in a children's zone area or they can— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, I've got John and then David, and the questions and answers are going to have to be brief, please. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, certainly, Chair. In terms of child development and how this fits with wider Welsh Government strategy, Huw, I'd be interested in what you'd have to say about the quality of childcare. We're talking a lot about quantity, but obviously we want to up quality, and that's recognised by Welsh Government. They've talked about increasing the qualifications within the workforce, and the quality. I just wonder how that sits within the £4.50, because there could be pressures in the opposite direction there, and some tension between wanting to up the qualifications and quality of workforce whilst keeping affordability in place. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: John, you're absolutely right, and two things on that: I visited one of the facilities in the Valleys the other day that was taking this forward—a very good independent sector-run childcare provision, with Welsh language and English language running alongside each other, and I asked the point about the integration, curiously, but what they were doing was—. Their standard of staff was an exemplar of what we'd want to see: not only very well-qualified childcare staff who were qualified within not simply the child-minding but the wider child development aspects—. So, it was hard to differentiate, in some ways, what was happening there from what would be happening in a child development educational surrounding, and including the nutritional stuff and all of that. Now, that is the model we need to see, and the £4.50 seems to work, at the moment, for that. It'll be interesting, as we discussed previously, as it goes forward—. We need to look at whether that works, going forward. But the quality, I think, is key, and that's why we're focused very much on registered inspected providers, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harriet. +John Griffiths AM: If we want to increase salary levels, though, which I think is a necessary part of this picture of improving quality, then obviously that might impact on the £4.50 rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed, and we are cognisant—. It's interesting that we focus on whether the £4.50 is affordable, but the £4.50—you know, we're having an interesting discussion internally about how that £4.50 offer per hour sits alongside others, such as the foundation phase offer, and it's more generous. So, I think it's: how do we align, as time goes by, the child development aspects of the whole early years stuff? Now, we're doing some fascinating work that I think I've referred to on this committee before about aligning the early years development entirely. Now, this is an evolving piece of work, but I think the childcare offer should ultimately fit within that. How do you make sure that every offer that is Government-funded works on child development? It's not simply childcare. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Right. The next questions are from Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: In terms of child development and not accentuating disadvantage, another area where this may apply is the kids who are born in the summer term, compared to those who are born in Michaelmas. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that they start with a disadvantage at school and often don't make that up, even as they go through school. What is the rationale for providing the older children with five terms of this, compared to three terms for the younger children who already have the relative disadvantage? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my colleagues here and— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, the criteria for eligibility for the offer are the term after the child's third birthday, which is equivalent to the eligibility criteria for the foundation phase early education offer. Clearly, then, the number of terms that a child is able to, or parents are able to, access the childcare offer will be influenced by when the child is born, but I think you may be referring to a sort of parallel question, which is about whether—. There have been questions raised about whether children who are summer-born should, in fact, start school in the term after they turn four, or whether actually they should be allowed the flexibility to start school at a later age, which I know is something that has been tested in England, and there is some mixed evidence about school starting age and the birth month of children. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, they do have flexibility. You don't have to start your kids until the term following when they're five. That's the compulsory school— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, that's the legal position, but, obviously, in practice, most children will start school in the term after they're four. +Mark Reckless AM: So, given the disadvantage we know that the younger children born in the summer have, relative to the older ones, why accentuate that by giving the older kids five terms of this project, which you tell us will have such positive effects on their child development, but the summer kids only get three? Doesn't that make the situation worse? +Jo-Anne Daniels: I'm not 100 per cent sure I understand the question. So, children will stop being in receipt of the childcare offer once they become eligible for a full-time school place, and most children will become eligible for a full-time school place in the term after their fourth birthday. +Mark Reckless AM: But the older kids become eligible for this five terms before they start school, where the younger kids, who're already disadvantaged, become eligible for it only three terms before, accentuating the problem, surely. Could more thought be given to this issue? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We'll take that away. It's confused us a little bit, but we'll take that away. We might need to come back to you and—. Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could write to us about that, that would be helpful. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. Minister, you got, or Welsh Government, really, got the Public Policy Institute for Wales to study this proposed policy and they concluded that it would have no substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children, and that the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers and families with a child of target age is extremely small. What do you say to that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, Mark, I can only refer to what I said earlier. Our real-life evidence that is accumulating now is showing us examples of where people are making savings and increasing disposable income—as I mentioned earlier, up to £250 per week within some poorer households; so, real-life examples—but also where it's enabling them to make much better choices about when they work because there's more childcare offer available, or, alternatively, to work their childcare provision and their working hours around being able to spend more time with their children, which they currently can't do. +Lynne Neagle AM: And I don't want to go back over Llyr's questions. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand. That's not my focus. I just wondered about the quality of this PPIW piece of work. They said if you had a work requirement, as you do, it would cost £61 million a year on their numbers, substantially less than you're saying, and then they said it would cost £144 million without a work requirement. Now, that implies to me that 57 per cent of the parents wouldn't be working and would continue not working even if there is this available with a work requirement. I mean, are those numbers really credible from PPIW? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's not quite comparing like with like. Just to draw your attention, Mark, and the committee's attention to that the PPIW analysis was looking at a provision of 38 weeks. Ours is a 48-week option. And the fact that we are having parents already saying to us that their ability to actually extend that into the 48 weeks—beyond the term time and so on—carries advantages that are not picked up in that report. +Mark Reckless AM: And what is your early assessment of the income levels of families who are finding this offer most attractive? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think, from recollection, we're one term in, so we're one term into the assessment, and I mentioned earlier that the majority of parents are below the average income of £26,000 in Wales— it's around about 60 per cent of families are those. We're finding very few families are those who are on higher incomes. It's disproportionately towards those below the average income, and many of them amongst the most disadvantaged families are opting in to this offer where it is being offered. So, clearly, they're seeing the benefits of it. +Mark Reckless AM: And what consideration have you given to integrating this Welsh Government offer with the UK Government offer of tax-free childcare that's applicable across the UK? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, that offer, as you rightly say, is available across the UK and still is. The fact that it's more integrated within their scheme within England—the tax offer is more integrated—has caused them some problems in complexity and in the administration of this and the digital platforms that they've had. That offer is still available in Wales and it might well be that parents who opt in to that say, 'Well, we do want to buy additional hours beyond the 30 hours', but this 30 hours is there for every— +Mark Reckless AM: I wonder, Minister, whether what you're doing, in a very good way, to promote your project—people will see that as the childcare offer and, at least in my experience, very few parents are aware of the tax-free childcare on a UK basis. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: You're right—sorry. That's absolutely one of the lessons we've learnt from even this early stage of the early implementers, because there are elements of a childcare offer within the tax offer, within universal credit, within working tax credit. There are little bits of different ones and it does cause confusion. So, one of the lessons that we've learnt from the Talk Childcare communication strategy alongside this is the importance of communicating to parents and providers who the parents go to what is best for them to access, how they access it easily, and we'll learn more as these pilots roll by. +Mark Reckless AM: So, as you go into the Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs criteria—you have a £100,000 cap, as well as the £6,000 minimum wage cap, and you're getting HMRC to say whether people are eligible, which requires them to set up that account with HMRC—will you assure this committee that you will make sure that parents who are doing that are aware of the UK tax-free childcare offer, and that their providers also are? Because we've been looking, say, at the £7.50 extra per day, but, if someone's eligible for this offer, they should also be eligible for the UK tax-free childcare offer and have set up the account to do that. So, will you make sure that those parents know to pay their provider out of tax-free funds, rather than paying them the fully taxed amounts, which might otherwise happen? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, absolutely. And I think, if it's okay, Owain would like to add something as well. +Owain Lloyd: Yes, just to say, as I understand how things currently work with the English offer and TFC, when a parent applies, that automatically happens in terms of, on the one hand, they're given a 'yes' or 'no' in terms of their eligibility for the 30-hours offer in England, but they will also be told in terms of the parental account that's set up under TFC. So, that is integrated in the offer, and we'll be looking to do the same in terms of the Welsh offer. But, obviously, what we're not looking at doing in terms of the 30-hours offer is the setting up of the parental account to make the payment; the payment currently is very much between local government and the provider directly, rather than the TFC model, where the parent pays the provider. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Well, we have come to—well, we've run over, actually. So, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending? You are, of course, back with us on 16 May for Stage 1 of the Bill, so we will look forward to seeing you then. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, as is usual practice. But thank you again, all of you. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you—diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 then is papers to note. As Members can see, there are 11 papers to note. So, if Members are content, I'd suggest that we note all of them in a block, if that's okay. Yes, okay. Thank you. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. Thank you. +","During a session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Lynne Neagle AM greeted everyone and announced the absence of Julie Morgan with David Rees substituting for her. The committee then moved straight into a discussion with the Minister for Children and Social Care, Huw Irranca-Davies AM, regarding the childcare offer from the Welsh Government. The Minister was joined by Jo-Anne Daniels, director for communities and tackling poverty, and Owain Lloyd, deputy director for childcare, play and early years. + +Hefin David AM initiated the questions, inquiring about the progress in the early implementer local authority areas. The Minister acknowledged the mixed outcomes but emphasized that the piloting process was beneficial for learning and adapting. There was an expansion of some early implementer areas to further understand different circumstances. One of the main challenges identified was bureaucracy, with administrative burdens on pilot areas becoming apparent. Parents had to provide wage slips and birth certificates, creating difficulties especially for those with complex backgrounds. Communication was also an issue, with parents inside and outside pilot areas confused about eligibility. + +The discussion also touched upon the administrative complexities, with Huw Irranca-Davies expressing confidence in their ability to achieve full implementation by 2020, thanks to the phased and cautious rollout strategy. They were considering a central system, similar to HM Revenue and Customs, to ease the process for both parents and local authorities. + +The conversation revealed that demand intensity varied across different areas, influenced by economic and cultural factors, but capacity was not seen as a problem. In response to a question about subsidizing grandparents who provide childcare, the Minister pointed out the importance of maintaining quality and educational elements within the childcare offer, preferring registered and licensed providers. + +The dialogue further explored potential disparities arising from the £4.50 national rate and its implications for different regions with variable costs of living. There was discussion about whether this could lead to a two-tier system with basic childcare for some and enhanced options for wealthier families. + +Later, discussions covered workforce capacity and concerns about whether the foundational sector could cater to the increased demand, particularly in Welsh-medium childcare. The Minister elaborated on efforts, including a 10-year workforce development plan and a £60 million capital fund, to strengthen the childcare sector in various regions of Wales. + +Darren Millar AM and other members raised questions about the potential impacts of the national living wage on the affordability of the project and whether adjustments to the rate might be needed in the future. The Minister ensured that there was ongoing monitoring and engagement with the sector to address such financial considerations. + +Overall, the debate showcased the Welsh Government's efforts to pilot, evaluate, and refine the childcare offer, taking into account the varying needs and constraints within Wales. The discussions highlighted the aim to balance improvements in accessibility and quality for working parents while navigating the policy's practical and financial challenges." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So welcome . The first kick-off meeting . What shall we do ? First the opening , then the rest . What are we going to do . We m have to make a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . So we will get back th on that . First we have to make a functional design . After that we have to make a conceptual design , and then after that a detailed design . So we'll discuss that later . First we have a look at {gap} . So first to {disfmarker} we have to make a small painting . What have {disfmarker} do we have to do . First you can save the documents . We have to do that every time we make something . You can print it . No . And we have to use {vocalsound} the pen and the eraser . So {disfmarker} Now . We all have to use this one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to make your own favourite animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I'll make an example . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: First don't touch that things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can use the pen . And then you can make {vocalsound} um something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um you can change some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um format , line , and change it . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can change the colour . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So and after it you have to save it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we can make a new one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: You have to paint now . {vocalsound} So you're next . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well we will try . Where it going ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hmm . That's uh strange . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: What is going on ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} pop-ups . +Project Manager: What are you {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is this , Pictionary . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh a bird . +Project Manager: Is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bird . +Project Manager: A duck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Now save ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Now uh blank ? +Project Manager: Blank , yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay next one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Let's try this . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Whoo . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh not . Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Yeah . No problem . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shit happens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm not getting anything uh on my screen now . Okay . +Industrial Designer: A parrot . Ish . +Marketing: Wow . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He did it before . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Uh blank . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . So um you can always go back . {gap} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . So that was two . Now next . The budget . The b Uh we will sell the t at twenty five Euros . And we have only twenty of twelve and a half Euro to make it . So {vocalsound} now we have to think about what we will make . First I wanna hear from you . Uh what are your experiences with remote controls . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh I will start . +Project Manager: F first {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Big one , they are uh not easy to use . Um I have one set and uh a remote control , when I dropped it , uh it broke . So that won't be uh our goal , I think . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: And uh g big buttons , {vocalsound} m uh that's easier to use than uh {disfmarker} I think . Not all the small buttons , you don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is this positive or negative , that uh big buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Big buttons , positive . +Project Manager: Positive . +Industrial Designer: All all small buttons like when you have uh like a hundred buttons on your remote control , you won't know what they're working for . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences ? +User Interface: Uh well I think the the the goal of a remote control is that it's it it has an influence on the T_V_ set . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And that it controls the channels and the the volume . And uh I I I think it's positive if there's a a LED uh uh a LED on the corner of the of the remote . So that you know it s it still has batteries on it {disfmarker} in it . And that if you push the button the LED uh gives a light , and uh and you see that it's working . And uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So and do they always have that ? +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} No no no . But I {disfmarker} my my experience is that it it it's convenient to have that . +Project Manager: It's easy to you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh at home we have a T_V_ , a video uh recorder , a D_V_D_ player , and a satellite receiver . We have uh four distinctive remote controls for that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: That's not really ea easy . +Industrial Designer: Help also . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: So it would be nice if we have one for all . And we also had a remote control for our radio set . But um i it it had a lot of buttons on it , and you didn't know which one was what . And it was uh uh v {vocalsound} not easy to use . So we n barely used it . +Project Manager: Okay so they have too much . So next . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: For our own remote control we have to think how do we make it . So what ideas do you have for it , for the new remote control ? What what does it have to have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The weight . Not not too heavy . +Project Manager: Not too heavy . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Not much buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bust-free . That when you drop it , it won't break . Like uh some kind of rubber on it . Or hard uh hard plastic . Uh buttons not too small . Uh something like when you uh lose your uh remote control , sometimes it happen . Uh it between the couch and you can't find it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: When you push a but a button on the T_V_ , then you hear some {gap} {disfmarker} uh some sort of bleep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a phone . +Industrial Designer: And then you uh , hey there there's remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: Next . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah well that's {disfmarker} that are good ideas . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah well the LED on the corner , that that indicates that it's working . If you push a button . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And looking on the budget , not too expensive uh material . So probably plastic or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think it uh {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view , it also has to look nice . Or you won't sell it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: And um yeah uh on our website we can see what products we already have . And it should work with as many uh as possible of them . +Project Manager: Okay . This is {disfmarker} It has to be compatible with other things . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have one more idea . Just popped up . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it it won't take a lot of batteries . So you don't {disfmarker} won't have to change the batteries uh once a week or uh once every two weeks . +Project Manager: No battery use . So more ideas ? +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No okay . It's only the first ideas . So {vocalsound} uh what are we going to do now is {disfmarker} Next meeting is in half an h hour . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . Next meeting , half an hour . Um , what you have to do . Well look on your {gap} . And {disfmarker} Next instructions you'll get in your email . So {disfmarker} This is the first meeting . See you later in half an hour . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +","Summary: + +In the kick-off meeting, the Project Manager discusses the creation of a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The process will include functional, conceptual, and detailed design stages. The team briefly discusses saving documentation and using design tools like pens and erasers, and there's an activity involving drawing favorite animals. The team also provides feedback on their experiences with existing remote controls, mentioning the desire for durability, fewer and larger buttons, an LED to indicate operation, a universal remote option, and a remote finder feature. They emphasize the importance of aesthetics, compatibility with other products, and low battery consumption. The project budget is set at 25 Euros per unit, with a cost limit of 12.5 Euros to produce each remote. Ideas for the new remote control are shared, and the next meeting is scheduled for half an hour later. Further instructions will be sent via email." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'm proud of it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . This is our final meeting , the detailed design meeting . And again I'll take minutes . The {disfmarker} what we have to get through in this meeting is firstly the prototype presentation from you two , so you can show us what you've been working on so diligently . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It does look very cool . +Project Manager: Um then +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then Cat's going to present the evaluation criteria that we're going to be evaluating this against . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then I need to say some st a few things about finance , 'cause we have to check that it's within the finance criteria . Um and then we'll be making sure that our product fits both the evaluation criteria from Cat and the financial limits . Um and then we uh will have a brief evaluation of the whole process of production and design that we've been through . So we've got forty minutes . S +Marketing: And then do we get to make a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause we missed out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's now {disfmarker} I guess that we're supposed to start at fifteen thirty five , so we've got until four fifteen . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . How how much do we have , forty minutes ? +Project Manager: Is that right ? +User Interface: Yeah , about four fifteen , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: until about four fifteen . So yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so . +Project Manager: Go for it . Do you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , you said um {disfmarker} are are we starting with the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Presentation . +User Interface: so will you maybe start with like the mm the shape and things and and then I will explain the the user interface th uh things , like the buttons and the scrolling things and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . So um basically going with our trend of vegetables and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we selected the colour and approximate shape of banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You think bananas are a safe thing to use ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit um phallic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , but it's it's just an a approximation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dual use , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Dual use , perfect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} {gap} your remote control ? Oh that's just bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Does it vibrate when you press the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so basically it's the it's the flip open thing again . +Project Manager: Sorry , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So now we we have the {disfmarker} okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so Ma Maarika will explain you the user interface there . And it flips open on the side , so it opens like that . And we have the user interface o in here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Wow . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the the L_C_D_ and and the scroll are inside . Um well , everything else is probably user interface , so . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} the whole thing's made of rubber , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Yeah , it has , yeah . +User Interface: Rubber . +Marketing: Is it to scale , or do you think you can make it a bit smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} . Um it could be made a bit smaller , and and of course it would be {gap} and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , but um one thing we actually kind of um forgot while designing , that one side was supposed to be rounder , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: so we said the back side round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , but i since it's made of rubber anyway . I I think it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It l does look like the {gap} curvy +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the whole shape's curvy , so I would say that this curvy does look quite like a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's spongy as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wasn't very keen on that , but yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} so uh the user interface as as we discussed last time uh mm on on the {vocalsound} on the cover we just have the very basic things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we have that n uh channels here starting from um uh one two three {disfmarker} there would be numbers in in the {disfmarker} on the actual one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's four , up to four , up to seven , up to nine and zero , z zero here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six seven eight nine . I like that . +User Interface: Yeah . And then , well this is on off button . It's it's quite standard mm place for it and and also the colour is quite often red , so it's it's kind of user friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then these ones would be for flipping the channels back and {disfmarker} like the previous one and the next one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: And and we would also have a l little um thing saying here , previous and ne prevon prevon next . +Marketing: So where's the volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The volume is is scrolling . +Industrial Designer: It's on the side . +User Interface: On the side , +Marketing: Ah , you did get that in then , +User Interface: this one . Yeah you just do it like this . +Marketing: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And and and it's it's on the back is mm cover or back lid , because if you flip it open , you can still do the scrolling here . +Marketing: Oh okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: See ? So the volume is {vocalsound} you just scroll , but then once you flip it open , {vocalsound} okay , there there you have the screen +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and you have the mm {vocalsound} spinning wheel with options to choose . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You can move back and forth and then if you need to m choose something on the screen , you just push the cen mm the middle button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . Oh , the thing we forgot was like a mute button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh no , we we'd not put {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so on on the cover we have the the bare essentials . +User Interface: Well , {gap} we'll have this on the screen , on the display . +Project Manager: Y or you could have it {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} on the wheel if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: On the wheel , like if you hold the wheel down then it will mute . +Industrial Designer: Uh on the L_C_D_ we r you know , the main menu will have various options . +User Interface: Well , but the but the mute {disfmarker} yeah , the scrolling is kind of you have to scroll all the way to make it mute , right ? +Project Manager: But if you hold it in , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but it's a scroll and click , isn't it ? +Project Manager: if it's a scroll and click so you hold it in ? +Marketing: Okay , cool . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , okay . +Marketing: So that {gap} that solves the whole mute issue . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} And okay , so i so the the voice recognition is also just part of it . +Project Manager: {gap} no . +User Interface: You can't really see it in the interface . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's hidden in there somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah . And we do have the logo on it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , very good . +User Interface: So I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the the black and yellow you're even in the right colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , I think um we could do l the logo in grey , as it is on the website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We ran out of resources here , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: In the actual one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a look . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you have questions . +Project Manager: Very good , let's have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Test it out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's a sort of intermediate colour , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , oh , we hold the remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but it it does feel all cold and slimy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hate Play-Do , it's just minging . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But yeah , uh that's cool , cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe if we go on to evaluation cri criteria +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we'll there {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see the budget . +Project Manager: I suspect we're gonna have a couple of minor finance issues , but um we'll se I'm sure we can get around them somehow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll just send all of our manufacturing to some nice poor country +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and cut some of the prices that way . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wales . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wales , for example . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Cool , okay . Right , okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Fabulous , +Project Manager: Marketing Expert . +Marketing: yeah . Okay , cool . So what we're gonna do is prefer {disfmarker} prepare the evaluation of the new design . {vocalsound} Um so we're gonna be using a seven point scale , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so one is , you know , yes , it totally meets with that requirement and seven is , no , it really doesn't , we need to go back and start again . Um , you know . Basically , what I did was I went through all the like user requirements and things that we've done and we've worked on and like made a list of them . Um you know , so that we can evaluate each one and like {disfmarker} so it was about going back to the start and saying oh yeah , we did manage to do that , or oh no , we really forgot about that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , so these are what they are . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So for each of these we need to give it a one to seven . Is that right ? +Marketing: Yes , I did have A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ down here , but it seems to have turned into like just bullet points . +Project Manager: Mm dots , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . But if you can imagine that they say A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ , then that would be really good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I guess we'll give it maximum points in everything . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the yeah , it's definitely attractive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: Oh , the locatable thing we actually forgot . +Marketing: Well , I thought we'd um kinda said that you'd have a little thing to stick on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just prepare one now . +User Interface: Yeah . Shall I just prepare it now ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It will be red , too . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . So , be attractive to look at . That's this one . What do you all say ? +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: I reckon it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S seven was th the maximum , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I I go for seven . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Oh {vocalsound} we're all so proud of the {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven , yeah , it's terribly sexy . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that'll be a seven for A_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} oh no , you can't whilst that's up there . Okay um uh what I've done on the next page is I've set it up so we just put the marks in . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . Except we can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we can we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's alright . +Project Manager: uh we can if we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can I can take note uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you take a note of them , and then I'll put them in in a minute . +Project Manager: then yeah , I'll take a note , it's fine . +Marketing: Okay , so {vocalsound} we're all agreeing on seven for A_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool , okay . Does it match the operating behaviour of the user ? +Industrial Designer: Um the the only thing that we were considering was that uh this thing is kind of more for right-handed people than for left-handed people , +Project Manager: I think it does . +User Interface: I would think yes , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so if you're left-handed you're kind of left uh scrolling with your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: so y so we we might do we might want to do like a uh another m {vocalsound} model another another version , which is like exactly the mirror image of this one . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that's gonna be a problem , +Industrial Designer: But then {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you don't always have all left-handers or all right-handers in a family . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bu it's it's not a huge problem , +Marketing: I th I think it's not {vocalsound} it's not like it's a pen . +Industrial Designer: because i i it is operatable . +User Interface: But then then I think left-handed people are already used to discrimination anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so they just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean because it's not like it's a pen , you know , left-handed people can't normally write right-handed , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but they can normally do most things right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: so I would say it's not such a big issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , because I mean anyway , right-handed people would be able to scroll with it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean you can you can use your finger to to scroll rather than your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so i if the majority are right-handed , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: So I mean that does kind of negate the whole R_S_I_ issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So maybe we need to put {disfmarker} that needs a little bit of investigation , maybe give it a five , I would say ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you what do you all think ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Six . +User Interface: Or maybe six , because it's just one one i one among the issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think I think for um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean most people are right-handed , so in {vocalsound} in terms of our greatest target group , I think it's pretty good , but we might want to flag it for management , they want {disfmarker} might want to um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing is that i +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It might be a little clumsy when when it opens up , right , +Project Manager: They {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it opens on the side . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , yeah , but mm but we have it {vocalsound} nicely {vocalsound} with the hinges here {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it won't be a problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you guys can decide wh whether {disfmarker} +User Interface: it will be {disfmarker} and it will be {disfmarker} it won't be heavy . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: I th I think the alternative is flipping from the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we {disfmarker} which makes it kind of really big , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well yeah , +Project Manager: The length is gonna be difficu +User Interface: but it's it's a bit long . It's a little bit long . +Marketing: Yeah um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I mean it can be opened like this of course and yeah . +Marketing: But you were thinking about making it smaller , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this this kind of uh makes it more {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: S uh slightly smaller . +Industrial Designer: and two , it might interfere with the I_R_ channel . +Marketing: So you have to keep that side flat . +User Interface: Yeah , but if we flip it open only as much as that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So it works like a mobile phone flipping , but y you know , as long as that side's flat , than that will work . +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , so C_ . Are are we admitting defeat on C_ or are we saying we're gonna stick a locator on the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: No , we have a locator . +Project Manager: No , we're gonna put it like {disfmarker} we've got th there's the locator dot . +Marketing: There's a locator . Cool , so that means you need a {disfmarker} that does mean you need a little speaker on it though , +User Interface: Mm that you stick on T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: doesn't it ? To make it beep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a buzzer . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well w but l but the speak sample speaker is included , so it it has some capacity to mm to do some {disfmarker} to make some sounds , so {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's two , so that's seven , yeah . It's locatable ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Fabulous . D_ . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive , completely intuitive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If {vocalsound} uh uh if this means intuitive , if it means the way people kind of are used to finding things +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's {disfmarker} I th I think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd say six , 'cause the {disfmarker} I mean the the standard layout for numbers is three three three and one , rather than the way you've got it . I really like the way you have it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's not the immediate thing that you're used to . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive . +Marketing: Yeah , and I mean d +Industrial Designer: And uh even the scroll , it's a it's a new technology +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so m m might be a little more difficult for people to get used to in the beginni +Project Manager: Might be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it is kind of not very intuitive but uh it's a good technology , I mean once they get used to it . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and it's something that they will be experiencing in a lot of different places soon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , should we maybe say f a five +Industrial Designer: So l +Marketing: and say it is intuitive , +Project Manager: Five ? +Marketing: but it's different , so , do you know , I mean it's obvious how to use it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but you might have to think about it first . So we give that one a five , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . I'm gonna give a seven in everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I'm happy with five ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm glad you're accepting this . It has taken a little while , hasn't it ? Um intuitive but {disfmarker} Sorry , it's really hard to write on those . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just went a bit mad , didn't I ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , cool , E_ , okay . Um I would guess this comes back from this whole B_ thing links in here , so possibly for left-handed . Investigate . +Project Manager: Yep . But otherwise it's superb . +Marketing: So , should we give it a six ? +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: Um uh the ergonom ergonomic design {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: well mm I mean I d uh I dunno , I mean the the repetitive stress things , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: but then who would be really pushing the buttons so much on the on the remote control anyway , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , unless you are a all the time sitting . +User Interface: yeah ? See . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think it is ergonomic . +Marketing: I used to send fifty texts a day , you know , +Project Manager: Well we've banned them from {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I never got repetitive strain injury from that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: so I find it quite hard to believe to be honest . +Industrial Designer: And moreover it it has um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you know uh we minimise the pressing of the buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's varied . +Marketing: Okay , so we give that a six , +Project Manager: Yeah . Six ? +Marketing: yeah . Okay , F_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} it does have {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . +Project Manager: Voice control have seven . +Marketing: Hang on , how come it's showing up with the things there but it only had bullet points there ? That's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , that's the second one . So you must have changed it on this one where it's got score , but not on the previous slide . +Marketing: Oh okay , cool . Um {vocalsound} right , so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So it has voice control . +Marketing: Yes , so that's a seven then . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Um , cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: G_ technologically innovative . +Industrial Designer: Anyway it ha yeah , +User Interface: Technologi {gap} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's the most sophisticated remote that I ever seen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But in terms of the actual technology , none of it is actually new . +User Interface: Yeah . Well mm we have we have the sample speaker as well , which is {disfmarker} yeah , it's kind of new . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: All of the components have been used in other things before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but they've been brought together in a remote . +User Interface: But at the same time they are all they are all relatively new . +Marketing: They're never been used i they've never been using remote remote control before I don't think . +Project Manager: But do {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: What do you reckon , five , six ? +Marketing: Yeah , what do you all think ? +User Interface: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: I mean how how far can you go with a remote control , really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's it , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: It still has to do what i what it has to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean everything has been used in space before it gets to anyone else really , hasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , I don't think many peop +Project Manager: Space remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it , they can take it with them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Put fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , isn't it fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The carrot banana remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the maximum fashion . +Marketing: So , we give it seven , and we write {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fruit fruit and vegetables are fashionable these days , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a {gap} . +User Interface: So I think we've done very well , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's the assessment ? +Marketing: So , we need the average here , so we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: The average is about six and something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +User Interface: A little bit over six . +Marketing: Seven {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are how many sixes ? +Project Manager: Or a seven {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: One , two , three . +Marketing: So we've got four sevens , +User Interface: No , wait , a little bit under six . +Marketing: so that's twenty eight , +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: No , wait . +Marketing: three sixes , +Industrial Designer: And one five . +Marketing: eighteen . +User Interface: Oh , three sixes , okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fifty one , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight . +Industrial Designer: Okay , twenty eight , thirty eight , fo forty six . Forty six and five , fifty one . +Project Manager: Six point point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fifty one divided by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Six point something , yeah . +Marketing: Two three four {disfmarker} Seven eight . +Project Manager: about six point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Six point five , yeah . +Project Manager: Close enough . +Marketing: Okay , that's pretty good , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now wait until we {vocalsound} get to finance and then we'll see if we can afford it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all you've got at the moment , or did you have anything more ? +Marketing: Um no , that's it , +Project Manager: That's it ? +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . So , finance . And we'll see if we can unscrew this first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool , there we go . +Project Manager: Sorry , this is {disfmarker} I'm just um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . There we go and there are the marks . +Project Manager: Beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not anymore . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Computer no signal ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I guess it'll have to wait for a bit . +Project Manager: Adjusting . There we go . Okay , so we've looked at the prototype presentation and the evaluation criteria . And now we have to calculate the production costs . So I've got an Excel spreadsheet to help us do that . Can you read that ? Almost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: More or less . Um I started filling it in , but of course these are provisional , so we have to go down . No hand dynamo , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One simple battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: No kinetic energy , no solar . The chip , we're going for an advanced chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Advanced , yeah . +Project Manager: We also said the sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um single-curved surface , so that we can fold it . +User Interface: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: Case material we said rubber . +User Interface: Rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I don't know what special colour means . +Industrial Designer: Mm anything uh I think which is not more {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think something coloured , yeah , probably . So I think this is probably special co no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It could be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but rubber comes coloured , doesn't it ? You know . +Project Manager: Rub rubber comes coloured , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe it's like if you want titanium coloured or wood coloured , it's different . +User Interface: Or maybe maybe if you want some kind of pattern thing on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , let's leave it as zero , 'cause it's easy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} yeah yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you might end up having to take off the sample sensor . +Project Manager: We we're definitely going to have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have pushbuttons , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we've got pushbutton , and then we've +User Interface: scro we have scroll wheel as well . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel with pushbutton we had , no ? +Industrial Designer: No uh we we have uh yeah . +User Interface: S yeah , yeah , we had , for muting , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we have L_C_ display +Project Manager: And button supplements . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . No . +Industrial Designer: We don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No ? +Industrial Designer: we're not using any of that . +User Interface: Yeah , but what do we ha we have L_C_ display , but but the wh but the s spinning wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the the spinning wheel's not there . I have {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} maybe it's integrated with the L_C_ display ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We've got more than one pushbutton though , +User Interface: Okay , let's {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: haven't we ? +Project Manager: I think the pushbutton {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: 'Cause then you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know if that's one {disfmarker} +Marketing: That means you can only have twenty five push buttons in total doesn't it ? Not counting anything , we'd still be in budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That seems unlikely . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Push what uh +Industrial Designer: Wh wh what is the limit ? Uh . +Marketing: Twelve point five . +Project Manager: whether whether pushbutton means that p count by button or do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to count all of them , or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: I don't think that makes sense . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No it says what what is the kind of interface , +Marketing: Well it doesn't , but it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: if it is pushbutton then you got a zero point five , it's a scroll wheel {disfmarker} so we we've put it's pushbutton and scroll wheel and L_C_D_ display , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And L_C_ display . +Industrial Designer: so that's that's the three kind of interfaces that we have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So , as we can see , that's way too expensive down here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh wh what's our criteria ? +Marketing: This sample sensor {gap} . +Project Manager: Our budget's twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the sample sensor will have to go , 'cause that's the most expensive thing on there . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that has implications though for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh it does not have for voice recognition , but it does have for the feedback speaker . {gap} when you say {disfmarker} when you press one it says one or it says hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the locator . +Marketing: But that's a bit of a gimmick anyway really , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} and the locator also goes away . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can afford to get rid of it . +User Interface: But it was very no innovative +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that means no locator , does it ? +User Interface: {gap} innovativeness {gap} . Well um {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: I mean does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What else does it need ? +User Interface: Well the speaker uh the sample speaker is is expensive , but we could just have some some very very easy device that just beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the sample speaker was , I think , more complicated then just a beeping thing . +User Interface: This would be {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: there you record your samples your speech samples and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , so we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A also i in the case I'm not sure that you will evaluate this as a curved surface , because it's just rubber , so it's probably a flat surface rubber . Uh I mean uh um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we need one fifty off . +Marketing: See , I was gonna say the scroll wheel pushbutton thing , 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Take it down to just a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} We could do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So tha that {vocalsound} mean that we cannot press {disfmarker} how do we how do we make a selection in uh in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , then then we would be in the b budget . +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} in the L_C_D_ we can scroll , right ? But how do we make a selection if we d cannot push the button . +User Interface: Yeah b no no , you can push this one , but we don't have a pushbutton uh we ca we don't have this muting mechanism for this scrolling thing . +Marketing: But that's {disfmarker} well you would just have to to spin it down {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can have to scroll it straight r roll it straight down for for mute . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No w w w but ha +Marketing: So that's point three . +Industrial Designer: it's it's the scroll wheel and I thought we were referring to this as a scroll spinning wheel and pushbutton thing . +User Interface: But I mean {vocalsound} we can put an additional mute button on the top as well . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean that wouldn't actually cost any more . That's the spin wheel though , isn't it ? Didn't that come with the L_C_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's with the L_C_ +Industrial Designer: That comes with the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We decided , 'cause it's not on our list . +Industrial Designer: Oh so so the the this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: The scroll wheel is on the side . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . So {vocalsound} we're adding costs for {gap} right , okay uh I mean I think this is good . +Marketing: S so we're point three over . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're point three over at the moment . +Marketing: Unless we just take off the scroll wheel altogether +Project Manager: It's nothing n +Marketing: and just have pushbuttons for the volume . Could b still put them on the side . But yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I mean the scroll wheel's pretty cool , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Instead of scrolling here we have two buttons here , up {disfmarker} for up and down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: On the side . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh it sounds good actually , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Rather than having three different things that people have to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go . Oh look , we're way under budget and we'll make huge profits and we'll all get bonuses . +Marketing: Yeah , well we could admit to the single curve {gap} , couldn't we ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or or that we have to have some sort of special colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's alright . We we'll leave it at that {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then I'll take {disfmarker} I can send it back to management and say we weren't quite sure about the colour , if that costs extra then we've still got some space for it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . Alright . So did we lose um on our evaluation criteria , as a result of doing that ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Not really , no . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Because we keep all the features , we keep voice recognition , we keep L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} instead of having scrolling we we just push the buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We just got rid of a gimmick that was never {gap} anyway , +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the scroll wheel is I mean essentially the two buttons that was {disfmarker} it's not a great difference I don't think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we lose the locator . +Project Manager: Alright then . +Marketing: Really ? +Project Manager: We're gonna have a beep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {gap} we're going to have a beeping thing . +Industrial Designer: So instead of speaker , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah , it's it's not like sample speaker , but it will just beep , so we still have the locate . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool . That's not a very exciting colour . I think you should make it more vegetable-like . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tha +User Interface: Which colour , the the colour of the phone or the colour of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh the the beeper thing . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it can be yellow as well . It can come in the same colour as the the case . +Project Manager: 'Cause we we won't have run out of our pot of Play-Doh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think Jen wants it to vibrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I know I know , my pen vibrates . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know , your pen vibrates ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But only for a very short time . Um okay . So looks like we've designed a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well done , team . {vocalsound} Um we need {disfmarker} we've just got about ten minutes or so left of the meeting , so it would be good if we could just have a little talk about the project itself and how it went , um so that we can feed back to the management for next time they're designing a product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Feedback ? Ideas ? +User Interface: Yeah mm , as far as creativity is concerned , yeah I think there was there was room for creativity . The only the only problem being that at the end we had to cut some things down because of the the budget we had . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh n one thing that was lacking uh was that we did not know what the various things cost to begin with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um we kap kept a adding things randomly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , had we known {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If we'd had that sheet at the beginning {gap} should've been like , okay , so we can have that lot , let's just throw it together and do what we can . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that or not , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {vocalsound} d all the random decisions at the end could have been prevented . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But in terms of the process of um going and working individually and then coming back to a meeting , that that worked in terms of . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Marketing: I think 'cause the meetings were so regular , you know . It wasn't like we were alone for very long , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you didn't {vocalsound} st go off and think , wouldn't it be great to have a vibrating {vocalsound} remote control {vocalsound} shaped like a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then , you know , come back three days later and Jen's going look , look , it vibrates and it looks like a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um yeah , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , the m the means were very very good , the means we used . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , the whiteboard digital pens . +User Interface: And the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I like the pens . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We like the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I want one . That would just be so cool , to d do all your notes and s +Project Manager: Yeah , you could take it to lectures and just write stuff down +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: and have it printed out when you got back to the office . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They great ? +Industrial Designer: I wonder what one of these costs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think they'd notice if one went ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think you should say that was the recording . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Okay , cover up the microphone . Alright , let's take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Shh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But that worked well having having a whiteboard that we could draw on as well as having the PowerPoint , 'cause the {disfmarker} I find that the problem with PowerPoint often is that it's so static and you can't change it once you're in there , +Marketing: It is a bit limiting , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yep . +User Interface: Yeah , and and and this time also the time limits but actually preparing the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . The thing flew in , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you didn't have the whole whooshing thing , 'cause there wasn't time for that , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's alright , that always irritates me anyway , yeah . +Marketing: Not that you can do that on the board , either . We could make some little {disfmarker} +User Interface: But yeah , but I mean already just just preparing the slides before before the meeting , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , totally , I mean that was fairly tight anyway , I mean especially with that last-minute alteration . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} back it , {vocalsound} this is {disfmarker} just had to be changed +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: . And {disfmarker} yeah , so {disfmarker} cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we supposed to say nice things about Jen now ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And presumably you don't {disfmarker} you can say nasty things as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have no stake in it . +User Interface: I was I was satisfied with with the leadership , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You weren't like a a dictating leader , so that was always good . +Project Manager: You have to say that , 'cause I'm taking the notes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll leave the room and you can have another go . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know you've got the pen , you might attack me with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Better than that than the banana . +User Interface: And then the teamwork I think I think it worked quite quite nicely , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it worked quite well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Did anyone feel that they were getting sort of covered up and not being able to say their bit ? +User Interface: To express them mm mm +Industrial Designer: Mm . I guess it was a fairly small group , +User Interface: no . +Industrial Designer: so all of us got to express our opinions , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . New ideas found . Not quite sure what about . +User Interface: Well it's it's it's pretty new , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: pretty novel solution for a for a remote control really , all this flipping open thing and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know , I don't go shopping for remote controls that often , maybe somebody's already though of it . +User Interface: Yeah , neither neither do I , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I've never seen anything and and none of my examples were was was like this , actually , so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'll be looking out next time I need to write an essay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That looks boring , I'll see if anyone's made a {gap} remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah maybe w maybe we could have a patent on this one . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Patent patent patent . Mm . +Marketing: I think we'd like to think the ideas were new , +Project Manager: Banana remote . +Marketing: but we've got no way of finding out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or you can always go to Google and type in banana remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That vibrates {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Flip . Vibrate +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but that would just come up with like other things really wouldn't it . +Project Manager: . And uh {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Nothing that you really want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: True . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . So , costs are within budget , +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well within budget , including a little {disfmarker} what have we got ? One Euro left over for bits that we didn't foresee . Um we've evaluated the project . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And it's fabulous . +Project Manager: You've got the scores . Can you put that in the project documents file ? +Marketing: It's in the project documents {gap} . +Project Manager: It's in there already . And the process wheel didn't really have any major problems with . Were there any {disfmarker} was there anything that you found difficult , or anything that didn't go as smoothly as you'd hope ? +User Interface: And my main difficulty was the the time pressure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise it's it's all fine . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , sometimes it's like a little bit rushed . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought that was good though , because if you're given too much time then you got nothing to do with your time and um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Although we could have made the R_s better had we had five more minute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay then . Um I think we're still well within our time . +Marketing: Yeah , we've got like five minutes left . +Project Manager: We've got about five minutes left , but if we've finished , then we've finished . We're just too too efficient +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We certainly are , +Project Manager: and you should never drag a meeting on just because you have extra time . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I would say that's the end of that meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you , team . +User Interface: Yeah , it was a pleasure working with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , same here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It was very productive day and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We could draw animals on the board again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can make some animals . +Marketing: I don't like Play-Doh , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , you don't like anim +Marketing: It's just minging . It smells so bad . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't ? +Marketing: It does . +User Interface: Smells quite nice . Smells very sweet . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , so we have to complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary when they send it . +Industrial Designer: Was there a questionnaire already sent ? +Project Manager: I don't know if it's already sent or not . +Marketing: No , it hasn't been . +Project Manager: Um presumably I have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we have to go back into the other room or can we stay in here now ? +Project Manager: I don't see why you can't stay here , really . +Marketing: Okay , so the other way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did I save this one ? Production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I made your animal for you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It was supposed to be pink . {vocalsound} But it was blue on the board . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the one {disfmarker} +","In a final meeting, the project team, including an Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, Project Manager, and Marketing representative, discussed the prototype presentation of a new remote control design. The design was evaluated against criteria presented by a team member named Cat, it was checked for financial viability, and compared to a predefined budget. The remote's unique features such as its banana-inspired shape, color, rubber material, and flipping open mechanism were showcased. Challenges around ergonomics for left-handed users and the necessity of cost-cutting measures to fit the budget, like removing a sample sensor and locator features, were addressed. The team ended up making adjustments to ensure the product met financial limits while retaining innovative elements. The meeting concluded within the time limit, assessment scores were averaged, and the team planned the next steps including completing a final questionnaire and summary." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: what things to talk about . +Grad F: I 'm {disfmarker} What ? Really ? Oh , that 's horrible ! Disincentive ! +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad B: Check check {pause} check check . +Grad D: Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Hello ? Which am I ? +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: Alright . Good . +Grad F: Channel fi OK . OK . Are you doing something ? OK , then I guess I 'm doing something . So , um , So basically the result of m much thinking since the last time we met , um , but not as much writing , um , is a sheet that I have a lot of , like , thoughts and justification of comments on but I 'll just pass out as is right now . So , um , here . If you could pass this around ? And there 's two things . And so one on one side is {disfmarker} on one side is a sort of the revised sort of updated semantic specification . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} wait . +Grad F: And the other side is , um , sort of a revised construction formalism . +Grad E: This is just one sheet , right ? +Grad D: Ah ! Just one sheet . +Grad F: It 's just one sheet . +Grad D: OK . +Grad F: It 's just a {disfmarker} Nothing else . +Grad D: Front , back . +Grad F: Um , Enough to go around ? OK . And in some ways it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's very similar to {disfmarker} There are very few changes in some ways from what we 've , um , uh , b done before but I don't think everyone here has seen all of this . So , uh , I 'm not sure where to begin . Um , as usual the disclaimers are there are {disfmarker} all these things are {disfmarker} it 's only slightly more stable than it was before . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , after a little bit more discussion and especially like Keith and I {disfmarker} I have more linguistic things to settle in the next few days , um , it 'll probably change again some more . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , maybe I will {disfmarker} let 's start b let 's start on number two actually on the notation , um , because that 's , I 'm thinking , possibly a little more familiar to , um {disfmarker} to people . OK , so the top block is just sort of a {disfmarker} sort of abstract nota it 's sort of like , um , listings of the kinds of things that we can have . And certain things that have , um , changed , have changed back to this . There {disfmarker} there 's been a little bit of , um , going back and forth . But basically obviously all constructions have some kind of name . I forgot to include that you could have a type included in this line . +Professor C: What I was gonna {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: So something like , um {disfmarker} Well , there 's an example {disfmarker} the textual example at the end has clausal construction . So , um , just to show it doesn't have to be beautiful It could be , you know , simple old text as well . Um , there are a couple of {disfmarker} Uh , these three have various ways of doing certain things . So I 'll just try to go through them . So they could all have a type at the beginning . Um , and then they say the key word construction +Professor C: Oh , I see . +Grad F: and they have some name . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so the current syntax is if it s if there 's a type it 's before construct +Grad F: Yeah , right . +Professor C: OK , that 's fine . +Grad F: OK , and then it has a block that is constituents . And as usual I guess all the constructions her all the examples here have only , um , tsk {comment} one type of constituent , that is a constructional constituent . I think that 's actually gonna turn out to m be certainly the most common kind . But in general instead of the word "" construct "" , th here you might have "" meaning "" or "" form "" as well . OK ? So if there 's some element that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't yet constructional in the sense that it maps form and meaning . OK , um , the main change with the constructs which {disfmarker} each of which has , um , the key word "" construct "" and then some name , and then some type specification , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's pro it 's often {disfmarker} sometimes the case in the first case here that you know what kind of construction it is . So for example whatever I have here is gonna be a form of the word "" throw "" , or it 's gonna be a form of the word , you know , I don't know , "" happy "" , or something like that . Or , you know , some it 'll be a specific word or maybe you 'll have the type . You 'll say "" I need a p uh spatial relation phrase here "" or "" I need a directional specifier here "" . So - uh you could have a j a actual type here . Um , or you could just say in the second case that you only know the meaning type . So a very common example of this is that , you know , in directed motion , the first person to do something should be an agent of some kind , often a human . Right ? So if I {disfmarker} you know , the um , uh , run down the street then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I run down the street , it 's typed , uh , "" I "" , meaning category is what 's there . The {disfmarker} the new kind is this one that is sort of a pair and , um , sort of skipping fonts and whatever . The idea is that sometimes there are , um , general constructions that you know , that you 're going to need . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the equivalent of a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase , or something like that there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And usually it has formal um , considerations that will go along with it . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then uh , you might know something much more specific depending on what construction you 're talking about , about what meaning {disfmarker} what specific meaning you want . So the example again at the bottom , which is directed motion , you might need a nominal expression to take the place of , you know , um , "" the big th "" , you you know , "" the big {disfmarker} the tall dark man "" , you know , "" walked into the room "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But because of the nature of this particular construction you know not just that it 's nominal of some kind but in particular , that it 's some kind of animate nominal , and which will apply just as well to like , you know , a per you know , a simple proper noun or to some complicated expression . Um , so I don't know if the syntax will hold but something that gives you a way to do both constructional and meaning types . So . OK , then I don't think the , {comment} um {disfmarker} at least {disfmarker} Yeah . {comment} None of these examples have anything different for formal constraints ? But you can refer to any of the , um , sort of available elements and scope , right ? which here are the constructs , {comment} to say something about the relation . And I think i if you not if you compare like the top block and the textual block , um , we dropped like the little F subscript . The F subscripts refer to the "" form "" piece of the construct . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And I think that , um , in general it 'll be unambiguous . Like if you were giving a formal constraint then you 're referring to the formal pole of that . So {disfmarker} so by saying {disfmarker} if I just said "" Name one "" then that means name one formal and we 're talking about formal struc {comment} Which {disfmarker} which makes sense . Uh , there are certain times when we 'll have an exception to that , in which case you could just indicate "" here I mean the meaningful for some reason "" . Right ? Or {disfmarker} Actually it 's more often that , only to handle this one special case of , you know , "" George and Jerry walk into the room in that order "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So we have a few funny things where something in the meaning might refer to something in the form . But {disfmarker} but s we 're not gonna really worry about that for right now and there are way We can be more specific if we have to later on . OK , and so in terms of the {disfmarker} the relations , you know , as usual they 're before and ends . I should have put an example in of something that isn't an interval relation but in form you might also have a value binding . You know , you could say that , um , you know , "" name - one dot "" , t you know , "" number equals "" , you know , a plural or something like that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are certain things that are attribute - value , similar to the bindings below but I mean they 're just {disfmarker} us usually they 're going to be value {disfmarker} value fillers , right ? OK , and then again semantic constraints here are just {disfmarker} are just bindings . There was talk of changing the name of that . And Johno and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you and I can like fight about that if you like ? but about changing it to "" semantic {pause} n effects "" , which I thought was a little bit too order - biased +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Th +Grad F: and "" semantic bindings "" , which I thought might be too restrictive in case we don't have only bindings . And so it was an issue whether constraints {disfmarker} um , there were some linguists who reacted against "" constraints "" , saying , "" oh , if it 's not used for matching , then it shouldn't be called a constraint "" . But I think we want to be uncommitted about whether it 's used for matching or not . Right ? Cuz there are {disfmarker} I think we thought of some situations where it would be useful to use whatever the c bindings are , for actual , you know , sort of like modified constraining purposes . +Professor C: Well , you definitely want to de - couple the formalism from the parsing strategy . So that whether or not it 's used for matching or only for verification , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . It 's used shouldn't matter , right ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: s For sure . I mean , I don't know what , uh , term we want to use +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we don't want to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , uh , there was one time when {disfmarker} when Hans explained why "" constraints "" was a misleading word for him . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad F: And I think the reason that he gave was similar to the reason why Johno thought it was a misleading term , which was just an interesting coincidence . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} And so I was like , "" OK , well both of you don't like it ? +Professor C: It 's g it 's gone . +Grad F: Fine , we can change it "" . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm starting to like it again . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +Grad F: So that that 's why {disfmarker} {comment} That 's why I 'll stick with it . +Grad A: Well , you know what ? +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you have an "" if - then "" phrase , do you know what the "" then "" phrase is called ? +Professor C: Th +Grad F: What ? Con - uh , a consequent ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , but it 's not an "" if - then "" . +Grad A: No , but {disfmarker} +Professor C: I know . Anyway , so the other {disfmarker} the other strategy you guys could consider is when you don't know what word to put , you could put no word , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: just meaning . OK ? And the then let {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So that 's why you put semantic constraints up top and meaning bindings down {disfmarker} down here ? +Grad F: Oh , oops ! No . That was just a mistake of cut and paste from when I was going with it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: So , I 'm sorry . I didn't mean {disfmarker} that one 's an in unintentional . +Grad B: So this should be semantic and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sometimes I 'm intentionally inconsistent +Grad B: +Grad F: cuz I 'm not sure yet . Here , I actually {disfmarker} it was just a mistake . +Grad B: Th - so this definitely should be "" semantic constraints "" down at the bottom ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Grad F: Well , unless I go with "" meaning "" but i I mean , I kind of like "" meaning "" better than "" semantic "" +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , whatever . +Grad F: but I think there 's {pause} vestiges of other people 's biases . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} wh That - b +Grad F: Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Minor {disfmarker} min problem {disfmarker} +Grad F: Minor point . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Extremely . +Grad F: OK , um , so I think the middle block doesn't really give you any more information , ex than the top block . And the bottom block similarly only just illus you know , all it does is illustrate that you can drop the subscripts and {disfmarker} and that you can drop the , um {disfmarker} uh , that you can give dual types . Oh , one thing I should mention is about "" designates "" . I think I 'm actually inconsistent across these as well . So , um , strike out the M subscript on the middle block . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So basically now , um , this is actually {disfmarker} this little change actually goes along with a big linguistic change , which is that "" designates "" isn't only something for the semantics to worry about now . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So we want s "" designates "" to actually know one of the constituents which acts like a head in some respects but is sort of , um , really important for say composition later on . So for instance , if some other construction says , you know , "" are you of type {disfmarker} is this part of type whatever "" , um , the "" designates "" tells you which sort of part is the meaning part . OK , so if you have like "" the big red ball "" , you know , you wanna know if there 's an object or a noun . Well , ball is going to be the designated sort of element of that kind of phrase . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Um , there is a slight complication here which is that when we talk about form it 's useful sometimes to talk about , um {disfmarker} to talk about there also being a designated object and we think that that 'll be the same one , right ? So the ball is the head of the phrase , "" the r the {disfmarker} "" , um , "" big red ball "" , and the entity denoted by the word "" ball "" is sort of the semantic head in some ways of {disfmarker} of this sort of , um , in interesting larger element . +Professor C: A a and the {disfmarker} Yeah . And there 's {disfmarker} uh there 's ca some cases where the grammar depends on some form property of the head . And {disfmarker} and this enables you to get that , if I understand you right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad E: That 's the idea . +Professor C: Yeah yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , uh , you might be able to say things like if the head has to go last in a head - final language , you can refer to the head as a p the , you know {disfmarker} the formal head as opposed to the rest of the form having to be at the end of that decision . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So that 's a useful thing so that you can get some internal structural constraints in . +Professor C: OK , so that all looks good . Let me {disfmarker} Oh , w Oh . I don't know . Were you finished ? +Grad F: Um , there was a list of things that isn't included but you {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can ask a question . That might @ @ it . +Professor C: OK . So , i if I understand this the {disfmarker} aside from , uh , construed and all that sort of stuff , the {disfmarker} the differences are mainly that , {vocalsound} we 've gone to the possibility of having form - meaning pairs for a type +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or actually gone back to , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: if we go back far enough {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , except for their construction meaning , so it 's not clear that , uh {disfmarker} Well , right now it 's a c uh contr construction type and meaning type . So I don't know what a form type is . +Professor C: Oh , I see . Yeah , yeah , yeah . I 'm sorry , you 're right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: A construction type . Uh , that 's fine . But it , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . A well , and a previous , um , you know , version of the notation certainly allowed you to single out the meaning bit by it . So you could say "" construct of type whatever designates something "" . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: But that was mostly for reference purposes , just to refer to the meaning pole . I don't think that it was often used to give an extra meaning const type constraint on the meaning , which is really what we want most of the time I think . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll ever have a case where we actually h if there is a form category constraint , you could imagine having a triple there that says , you know {disfmarker} that 's kind of weird . +Professor C: No , no , no , I don't think so . I think that you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll do fine . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: In fact , these are , um , as long as {disfmarker} as Mark isn't around , these are form constraints . So a nominal expression is {disfmarker} uh , the fact that it 's animate , is semantic . The fact that it 's n uh , a nominal expression I would say on most people 's notion of {disfmarker} of f you know , higher form types , this i this is one . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: And I think that 's just fine . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Which is fine , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} that now , um , I 'm mentioned this , I {disfmarker} I don't know if I ever explained this but the point of , um , I mentioned in the last meeting , {comment} the point of having something called "" nominal expression "" is , um , because it seems like having the verb subcategorize for , you know , like say taking as its object just some expression which , um , designates an object or designates a thing , or whatever , um , that leads to some syntactic problems basically ? So you wanna , you know {disfmarker} you sort of have this problem like "" OK , well , I 'll put the word "" , uh , let 's say , the word "" dog "" , you know . And that has to come right after the verb +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: cuz we know verb meets its object . And then we have a construction that says , oh , you can have "" the "" preceding a noun . And so you 'd have this sort of problem that the verb has to meet the designatum . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And you could get , you know , "" the kicked dog "" or something like that , meaning "" kicked the dog "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , so you kind of have to let this phrase idea in there +Professor C: That I {disfmarker} I have no problem with it at all . +Grad E: but {disfmarker} It - it +Professor C: I think it 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Right , n s you may be {disfmarker} you may not be like everyone else in {disfmarker} in Berkeley , +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: but that 's OK . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of thought we were getting away with , uh {disfmarker} with , a p +Grad F: Uh , we don't mind either , so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , this is not reverting to the X - bar theory of {disfmarker} of phrase structure . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , uh , +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: I just know that this is {disfmarker} Like , we didn't originally have in mind that , uh {disfmarker} that verbs would subcategorize for a particular sort of form . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But they do . +Grad E: Um , but they does . +Grad F: Well , there 's an alternative to this +Grad E: At least in English . +Grad F: which is , um {disfmarker} The question was did we want directed motion , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: which is an argument structure construction {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: did we want it to worry about , um , anything more than the fact that it , you know , has semantic {disfmarker} You know , it 's sort of frame - based construction . So one option that , you know , Keith had mentioned also was like , well if you have more abstract constructions such as subject , predicate , basically things like grammatical relations , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: those could intersect with these in such a way that subject , predicate , or subject , predicate , subject , verb , ob you know , verb object would require that those things that f fill a subject and object are NOM expressions . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And that would be a little bit cleaner in some way . But you know , for now , I mean , +Professor C: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} y y it 's {disfmarker} yeah , just moving it {disfmarker} moving the c the cons the constraints around . +Grad F: uh , you know . M moving it to another place , right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , so that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there does {disfmarker} basically , the point is there has to be that constraint somewhere , right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , yeah . +Professor C: And so that was the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Robert 's not happy now ? +Grad A: No ! +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor C: OK , and sort of going with that is that the designatum also now is a pair . +Grad F: Yes . +Professor C: Instead of just the meaning . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that aside from some terminology , that 's basically it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: I just want to b I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm asking . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , um , the un sort of the un - addressed questions in this , um , definitely would for instance be semantic constraints we talked about . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Here are just bindings but , right ? we might want to introduce mental spaces {disfmarker} You know , there 's all these things that we don't {disfmarker} +Professor C: The whole {disfmarker} the mental space thing is clearly not here . +Grad F: Right ? So there 's going to be some extra {disfmarker} you know , definitely other notation we 'll need for that which we skip for now . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: By the way , I do want to get on that as soon as Robert gets back . +Grad F: Uh Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh , the {disfmarker} the mental space thing . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Um , obviously , {vocalsound} construal is a b is a b is a big component of that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so this probably not worth trying to do anything till he gets back . But sort of as soon as he gets back I think um , we ought to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the time frame ? I forgot again when you 're going away for how long ? +Grad A: Just , uh , as a {disfmarker} sort of a mental bridge , I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm skipping fourth of July . So , uh , {vocalsound} right afterwards I 'm back . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad F: What ? You 're missing like the premier American holiday ? What 's the point of spending a year here ? +Grad A: Uh , I 've had it often enough . +Grad F: So , anyway . +Grad B: Well he w he went to college here . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , I forgot . Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: And furthermore it 's well worth missing . +Grad F: Not in California . +Grad E: Yes . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . I like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I like spending fourth of July in other countries , {vocalsound} whenever I can . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , so that 's great . +Grad F: Construal , OK , so {disfmarker} Oh , so there was one question that came out . I hate this thing . Sorry . Um , which is , so something like "" past "" which i you know , we think is a very simple {disfmarker} uh , we 've often just stuck it in as a feature , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: you know , "" oh , {pause} this event takes place before speech time "" , {comment} OK , is what this means . Um , it 's often thought of as {disfmarker} it is also considered a mental space , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: you know , by , you know , lots of people around here . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So there 's this issue of well sometimes there are really exotic explicit space builders that say "" in France , blah - blah - blah "" , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and you have to build up {disfmarker} you ha you would imagine that would require you , you know , to be very specific about the machinery , whereas past is a very conventionalized one and we sort of know what it means but it {disfmarker} we doesn't {disfmarker} don't necessarily want to , you know , unload all the notation every time we see that it 's past tense . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , you know , we could think of our {disfmarker} uh , just like X - schema "" walk "" refers to this complicated structure , past refers to , you know , a certain configuration of this thing with respect to it . +Professor C: I think that 's exactly right . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so we 're kind of like having our cake and eating it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , having it both ways , right ? +Professor C: Yeah . {pause} No , I think {disfmarker} I think that i we 'll have to see how it works out when we do the details +Grad F: So , i i Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but my intuition would be that that 's right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: Do you want to do the same for space ? +Grad F: Wha - sorry ? +Grad A: Space ? +Grad F: Space ? +Grad A: Here ? Now ? +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , oh , instead of just time ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Same thing . So there are very conventionalized like deictic ones , right ? And then I think for other spaces that you introduce , you could just attach y whatever {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: You could build up an appropriately {disfmarker} uh , appropriate structure according to the l the sentence . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm , well this {disfmarker} this basically would involve everything you can imagine to fit under your C dot something {disfmarker} +Grad E: N +Grad A: you know , where {disfmarker} where it 's contextually dependent , +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: "" what is now , what was past , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: what is in the future , where is this , what is here , what is there , what is {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So time and space . Um , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get that on the other side a little , like very minimally . There 's a sort of there 's a slot for setting time and setting place . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And you know , you could imagine for both of those are absolute things you could say about the time and place , and then there are many in more interestingly , linguistically anyway , {comment} there are relative things that , you know , you relate the event in time and space to where you are now . If there 's something a lot more complicated like , or so {disfmarker} hypothetical or whatever , then you have to do your job , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like or somebody 's job anyway . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'm gonna point to {disfmarker} at random . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm s curious about how much of the mental {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not sure that the formalism , sort of the grammatical side of things , {comment} is gonna have that much going on in terms of the mental space stuff . You know , um , basically all of these so - called space builders that are in the sentence are going to sort of {disfmarker} I think of it as , sort of giving you the coordinates of , you know {disfmarker} assuming that at any point in discourse there 's the possibility that we could be sort of talking about a bunch of different world scenarios , whatever , and the speaker 's supposed to be keeping track of those . The , um {disfmarker} the construction that you actually get is just gonna sort of give you a cue as to which one of those that you 've already got going , um , you 're supposed to add structure to . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So "" in France , uh , Watergate wouldn't have hurt Nixon "" or something like that . Um , well , you say , "" alright , I 'm supposed to add some structure to my model of this hypothetical past France universe "" or something like that . The information in the sentence tells you that much but it doesn't tell you like exactly what it {disfmarker} what the point of doing so is . So for example , depending on the linguistic con uh , context it could be {disfmarker} like the question is for example , what does "" Watergate "" refer to there ? Does it , you know {disfmarker} does it refer to , um {disfmarker} if you just hear that sentence cold , the assumption is that when you say "" Watergate "" you 're referring to "" a Watergate - like scandal as we might imagine it happening in France "" . But in a different context , "" oh , you know , if Nixon had apologized right away it wouldn't {disfmarker} you know , Watergate wouldn't have hurt him so badly in the US and in France it wouldn't have hurt him at all "" . Now we 're s now that "" Watergate "" {disfmarker} we 're now talking about the real one , +Grad F: They 're real , right . +Grad E: and the "" would "" sort of {disfmarker} it 's a sort of different dimension of hypothe - theticality , right ? We 're not saying {disfmarker} What 's hypothetical about this world . +Grad F: I see {disfmarker} right . +Grad E: In the first case , hypothetically we 're imagining that Watergate happened in France . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: In the second case we 're imagining hypothetically that Nixon had apologized right away +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or something . Right ? +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: So a lot of this isn't happening at the grammatical level . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: Uh , um , and so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I don't know where that sits then , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: sort of the idea of sorting out what the person meant . +Grad F: It seems like , um , the grammatical things such as the auxiliaries that you know introduce these conditionals , whatever , give you sort of the {disfmarker} the most basi +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: th those we {disfmarker} I think we can figure out what the possibilities are , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are sort of a relatively limited number . And then how they interact with some extra thing like "" in France "" or "" if such - and - such "" , that 's like there are certain ways that they c they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , one is a more specific version of the general pattern that the grammat grammar gives you . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think . But , you know , whatever , +Professor C: Yeah , in the short run all we need is a enough mechanism on the form side to get things going . +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Grad E: But the whole point of {disfmarker} the whole point of what Fauconnier and Turner have to say about , uh , mental spaces , and blending , and all that stuff is that you don't really get that much out of the sentence . You know , there 's not that much information contained in the sentence . It just says , "" Here . Add this structure to this space . "" and exactly what that means for the overall ongoing interpretation is quite open . An individual sentence could mean a hundred different things depending on , quote , "" what the space configuration is at the time of utterance "" . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so somebody 's gonna have to be doing a whole lot of work but not me , I think . +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} I think that 's right . Oh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I , uh , uh {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Not k I th I don't think it 's completely right . I mean , in fact a sentence examples you gave in f did constrain the meaning b the form did constrain the meaning , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: and so , um , it isn't , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Sure , but like what {disfmarker} what was the point of saying that sentence about Nixon and France ? That is not {disfmarker} there is nothing about that in the {disfmarker} in the sentence really . +Grad F: That 's OK . We usually don't know the point of the sentence at all . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But we know what it 's trying to say . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Y yeah . +Grad F: We {disfmarker} we know that it 's {disfmarker} what predication it 's setting up . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} bottom line , I agree with you , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: That 's all . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we 're not expecting much out of the , uh f +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Purely linguistic cues , right ? +Professor C: uh , the purely form cues , yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: And , um {disfmarker} I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're the linguist +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: but , uh , it seems to me that th these {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , we 've talked about maybe a half a dozen linguistics theses in the last few minutes or something . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Professor C: uh , I {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's my feeling that {disfmarker} that these are really hard uh , problems that decide exactly what {disfmarker} what 's going on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: OK , so , um , one other thing I just want to point out is there 's a lot of confusion about the terms like "" profile , designate , focus "" , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor C: Uh , right , right , right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , for now I 'm gonna say like "" profile "" 's often used {disfmarker} like two uses that come to mind immediately . One is in the traditional like semantic highlight of one element with respect to everything else . So "" hypotenuse "" , you profiled this guy against the background of the {pause} right t right triangle . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK . And the second use , um , is in FrameNet. It 's slightly different . Oh , I was asking Hans about this . They use it to really mean , um , this {disfmarker} in a frame th this is {disfmarker} the profiles on the {disfmarker} these are the ones that are required . So they have to be there or expressed in some way . Which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I 'm not saying one and two are mutually exclusive but they 're {disfmarker} they 're different meanings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the closest thing {disfmarker} so I was thinking about how it relates to this notation . For us , um {disfmarker} OK , so how is it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Does that {disfmarker} Is that really what they mean in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad F: so "" designate "" {disfmarker} FrameNet ? +Professor C: I didn't know that . +Grad F: FrameNet ? Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was a little bit surprised about it too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: I knew that {disfmarker} I thought that that would be something like {disfmarker} there 's another term that I 've heard for that thing +Professor C: Right , OK . +Grad F: but they {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} uh , well , at least Hans says they use it that way . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'll check . +Grad F: and may maybe he 's wrong . Anyway , so I think the {disfmarker} the "" designate "" that we have in terms of meaning is really the "" highlight this thing with respect to everything else "" . OK ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So this is what {disfmarker} what it means . But the second one seems to be useful but we might not need a notation for it ? We don't have a notation for it but we might want one . So for example we 've talked about if you 're talking about the lexical item "" walk "" , you know it 's an action . Well , it also has this idea {disfmarker} it carries along with it the idea of an actor or somebody 's gonna do the walking . Or if you talk about an adjective "" red "" , it carries along the idea of the thing that has the property of having color red . So we used to use the notation "" with "" for this +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that 's closest to their second one . So I d don't yet know , I have no commitment , as to whether we need it . It might be {disfmarker} it 's the kind of thing that w a parser might want to think about whether we require {disfmarker} you know , these things are like it 's semantically part of it {disfmarker} +Professor C: N no , no . Well , uh , th critically they 're not required syntactically . Often they 're pres presu presupposed and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: Right . Right , right . Yeah , um , definitely . So , um , "" in "" was a good example . If you walk "" in "" , like well , in what ? +Professor C: Right , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , like you have to have the {disfmarker} {comment} So {disfmarker} so it 's only semantically is it {disfmarker} it is still required , say , by simulation time though +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: to have something . So it 's that {disfmarker} I meant the idea of like that {disfmarker} the semantic value is filled in by sim simulation . I don't know if that 's something we need to spa to {disfmarker} to like say ever as part of the requirement ? {disfmarker} or the construction ? or not . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll again defer . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} I mean , or {disfmarker} or , uh so the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have it construed , +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: is that the idea ? Just point at Robert . Whenever I 'm confused just point to him . +Professor C: Right . It 's {disfmarker} it 's his thesis , right ? +Grad F: You tell me . +Professor C: Anyway , +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: right , yeah , w this is gonna be a b you 're right , this is a bit of in a mess and we still have emphasis as well , or stress , or whatever . +Grad F: OK , well we 'll get , uh uh , I {disfmarker} we have thoughts about those as well . +Professor C: Yeah . Great . +Grad F: Um , the I w I would just s some of this is just like my {disfmarker} you know , by fiat . I 'm going to say , this is how we use these terms . I don't - you know , there 's lots of different ways in the world that people use it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} that 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that , um , the other terms that are related are like focus and stress . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , s I think that the way I {disfmarker} we would like to think , uh , I think is focus is something that comes up in , I mean , lots of {disfmarker} basically this is the information structure . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK , it 's like {disfmarker} uh , it 's not {disfmarker} it might be that there 's a syntactic , uh , device that you use to indicate focus or that there are things like , you know , I think Keith was telling me , {comment} things toward the end of the sentence , post - verbal , tend to be the focused {disfmarker} focused element , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: the new information . You know , if I {disfmarker} "" I walked into the room "" , you {disfmarker} tend to think that , whatever , "" into the room "" is sort of like the more focused kind of thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: And when you , uh , uh , you have stress on something that might be , you know , a cue that the stressed element , or for instance , the negated element is kind of related to information structure . So that 's like the new {disfmarker} the sort of like import or whatever of {disfmarker} of this thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} so I think that 's kind of nice to keep "" focus "" being an information structure term . "" Stress "" {disfmarker} I th and then there are different kinds of focus that you can bring to it . So , um , like "" stress "" , th stress is kind of a pun on {disfmarker} you might have like {disfmarker} whatever , like , um , accent kind of stress . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And that 's just a {disfmarker} uh , w we 'll want to distinguish stress as a form device . You know , like , oh , high volume or whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , t uh , and distinguish that from it 's effect which is , "" Oh , the kind of focus we have is we 're emphasizing this value often as opposed to other values "" , right ? So focus carries along a scope . Like if you 're gonna focus on this thing and you wanna know {disfmarker} it sort of evokes all the other possibilities that it wasn't . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , so my classic {disfmarker} my now - classic example of saying , "" Oh , he did go to the meeting ? "" , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that was my way of saying {disfmarker} as opposed to , you know , "" Oh , he didn't g "" or "" There was a meeting ? "" +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that was the example that was caught on by the linguists immediately . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And so , um , the {disfmarker} like if you said he {disfmarker} you know , there 's all these different things that if you put stress on a different part of it then you 're , c focusing , whatever , on , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" he walked to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he ran "" , or "" he did walk to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he didn't walk "" . You know , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: so we need to have a notation for that which , um , I think that 's still in progress . So , sort of I 'm still working it out . But it did {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one implication it does f have for the other side , which we 'll get to in a minute is that I couldn't think of a good way to say "" here are the possible things that you could focus on "" , cuz it seems like any entity in any sentence , you know , or any meaning component of anyth you know {disfmarker} all the possible meanings you could have , any of them could be the subject of focus . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: But I think one {disfmarker} the one thing you can schematize is the kind of focus , right ? So for instance , you could say it 's the {disfmarker} the tense on this as opposed to , um , the {disfmarker} the action . OK . Or it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's an identity thing or a contrast with other things , or stress this value as opposed to other things . So , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is kind of like a profile {disfmarker} profile - background thing but I {disfmarker} I can't think of like the limited set of possible meanings that you would {disfmarker} that you would focu +Grad E: Light up with focus , yeah . +Grad F: light {disfmarker} highlight as opposed to other ones . So it has some certain complications for the , uh , uh {disfmarker} later on . Li - I mean , uh , the best thing I can come up with is that information has a list of focused elements . For instance , you {disfmarker} Oh , one other type that I forgot to mention is like query elements and that 's probably relevant for the like "" where is "" , you know , "" the castle "" kind of thing ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Because you might want to say that , um , location or cert certain WH words bring {disfmarker} you know , sort of automatically focus in a , you know , "" I don't know the identity of this thing "" kind of way on certain elements . So . OK . Anyway . So that 's onl there are {disfmarker} there are many more things that are uncl that are sort of like a little bit unstable about the notation but it 's most {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} this is , you know , the current {disfmarker} current form . Other things we didn't {vocalsound} totally deal with , um , +Grad E: Oh , there 's a bunch . +Grad F: well , we 've had a lot of other stuff that Keith and I have them working on in terms of like how you deal with like an adjective . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , a {disfmarker} a nominal expression . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , um , I mean , we should have put an example of this and we could do that later . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But I think the not inherently like the general principles still work though , that , um , we can have constructions that have sort of constituent structure in that there is like , you know , for instance , one {disfmarker} Uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they have constituents , right ? So you can like nest things when you need to , but they can also overlap in a sort of flatter way . So if you don't have like a lot of grammar experience , then like this {disfmarker} this might , you know , be a little o opaque . But , you know , we have the {pause} properties of dependency grammars and some properties of constituents {disfmarker} constituent - based grammar . So that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's sort of the main thing we wanted to aim for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and so far it 's worked out OK . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So . OK . +Grad A: I can say two things about the f +Grad F: Yes . +Grad A: Maybe you want to forget stress . This {disfmarker} my f +Grad F: As a word ? +Grad A: No , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} Just don't {disfmarker} don't think about it . +Grad F: As a {disfmarker} What 's that ? +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sorry . +Grad A: canonically speaking you can {disfmarker} if you look at a {disfmarker} a curve over sentence , you can find out where a certain stress is and say , "" hey , that 's my focus exponent . "" +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It doesn't tell you anything what the focus is . If it 's just that thing , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Or the constituent that it falls in . +Grad A: a little bit more or the whole phrase . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: You mean t forget about stress , the form cue ? +Grad A: The form bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: because , uh , as a form cue , um , not even trained experts can always {disfmarker} well , they can tell you where the focus exponent is sometimes . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: And that 's also mostly true for read speech . In {disfmarker} in real speech , um , people may put stress . It 's so d context dependent on what was there before , phrase ba breaks , um , restarts . +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's just , um {disfmarker} it 's absurd . It 's complicated . +Grad F: OK , +Grad A: And all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm sort of inclined to say let 's worry about specifying the information structure focus of the sentence +Grad F: I believe you , yeah . +Grad E: and then , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Ways that you can get it come from th +Grad E: hhh , {comment} the phonology component can handle actually assigning an intonation contour to that . +Grad F: right . +Grad E: You know , I mean , later on we 'll worry about exactly how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or map from the contour to {disfmarker} to what the focus exponent is . +Grad E: y Yeah . Exactly . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: But figure out how the {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , uh , if you don't know what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're focus is then you 're {disfmarker} you 're hopeless - uh - ly lost anyways , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . That 's fine , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the only way of figuring out what that is , {vocalsound} is , um , by sort of generating all the possible alternatives to each focused element , decide which one in that context makes sense and which one doesn't . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then you 're left with a couple three . So , you know , again , that 's something that h humans can do , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , but far outside the scope of {disfmarker} of any {disfmarker} anything . So . You know . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . Well , uh , yeah , I wouldn't have assumed that it 's an easy problem in {disfmarker} in absence of all the oth +Grad A: u u +Grad F: you need all the other information I guess . +Grad A: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} uh , it 's pretty easy to put it in the formalism , though . I mean , because +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: you can just say whatever stuff , "" i is the container being focused or the {disfmarker} the entire whatever , both , and so forth . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Exactly . So the sort of effect of it is something we want to be able to capture . +Professor C: Yeah , so b b but I think the poi I 'm not sure I understand but here 's what I th think is going on . That if we do the constructions right when a particular construction matches , it {disfmarker} the fact that it matches , does in fact specify the focus . +Grad F: W uh , I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Or it might limit {disfmarker} it cert certainly constrains the possibilities of focus . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} k uh , at at the very least it constrai +Grad F: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's , th that 's certainly true . And depending on the construction it may or may not f specify the focus , right ? +Professor C: Oh , uh , for sure , yes . There are constrai yeah , it 's not every {disfmarker} but there are constructions , uh , where you t explicitly take into account those considerations +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that you need to take into account in order to decide which {disfmarker} what is being focused . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So we talked about that a little bit this morning . "" John is on the bus , not Nancy . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} focuses on John . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus and not on the train . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus "" versus "" John is on the train . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: And "" John is on the bus "" versus "" was "" , and e +Grad F: Is on . "" John is on the bus "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: "" it 's the bu "" so e +Professor C: Right . Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of those . +Grad A: All of these +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: and will we have {disfmarker} u is it all the same constructions ? Just with a different foc focus constituent ? +Grad F: Yeah , I would say that argument structure in terms of like the main like sort of , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I don't know {disfmarker} the fact that you can get it without any stress and you have some {disfmarker} whatever is predicated anyway should be the same set of constructions . So that 's why I was talking about overlapping constructions . So , then you have a separate thing that picks out , you know , stress on something relative to everything else . +Professor C: Yeah . So , the question is actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry , +Grad F: And it would {disfmarker} +Professor C: go ahead , +Grad F: yeah , +Professor C: finish . +Grad F: and it w and that would have to {disfmarker} uh it might be ambiguous as , uh , whether it picks up that element , or the phrase , or something like that . But it 's still is limited possibility . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: So that should , you know , interact with {disfmarker} it should overlap with whatever other construction is there . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: S s the question is , do we have a way on the other page , uh , when we get to the s semantic side , of saying what the stressed element was , or stressed phrase , or something . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Well , so that 's why I was saying how {disfmarker} since I couldn't think of an easy like limited way of doing it , um , all I can say is that information structure has a focused slot +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that should be able to refer to {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that 's down at the bottom here when we get over there . OK . +Grad F: Yeah , and , infer {disfmarker} and I don't have {disfmarker} I don't have a great way or great examples +Professor C: I 'll - I 'll wait . OK . +Grad F: but I think that {disfmarker} something like that is probably gonna be , uh , more {disfmarker} more what we have to do . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: But , um , +Grad A: So +Grad F: OK , that was one comment . And you had another one ? +Grad A: Yeah , well the {disfmarker} once you know what the focus is the {disfmarker} everything else is background . How about "" topic - comment "" that 's the other side of information . +Grad F: How about what ? +Grad A: Topic - comment . +Grad F: Yeah , so that was the other thing . And so I didn't realize it before . It 's like , "" oh ! "" It was an epiphany that it {disfmarker} you know , topic and focus are a contrast set . So topic is {disfmarker} Topic - focused seems to me like , um , background profile , OK , or a landmark trajector , or some something like that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's definitely , um , that kind of thing going on . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad F: Now I don't know whether {disfmarker} I n I don't have as many great examples of like topic - indicating constructions on like focus , right ? Um , topic {disfmarker} it seems kind of {disfmarker} you know , I think that might be an ongoing kind of thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Japanese has this though . You know . +Grad F: Topic marker ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's what "" wa "" is , uh , just to mark which thing is the topic . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It doesn't always have to be the subject . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Right . So again , information structure has a topic slot . And , you know , I stuck it in thinking that we might use it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I think I stuck it in . +Professor C: Yep , it 's there . +Grad F: Um , and one thing that I didn't do consistently , um , is {disfmarker} when we get there , is like indicate what kind of thing fits into every role . I think I have an idea of what it should be but th you know , so far we 've been getting away with like either a type constraint or , um , you know , whatever . I forg it 'll be a frame . You know , it 'll be {disfmarker} it 'll be another predication or it 'll be , um , I don't know , some value from {disfmarker} from some something , some variable and scope or something like that , or a slot chain based on a variable and scope . OK , so well that 's {disfmarker} should we flip over to the other side officially then ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm , hmm . +Grad E: OK , side one . +Grad F: I keep , uh , like , pointing forward to it . Yeah . Now we 'll go back to s OK , so this doesn't include something which mi mi may have some effect on {disfmarker} on it , which is , um , the discourse situation context record , right ? So I didn't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant just like draw a line and like , you know , you also have , uh , some tracking of what was going on . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And sort of {disfmarker} this is a big scale comment before I , you know , look into the details of this . But for instance you could imagine instead of having {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I changed the name of {disfmarker} um it used to be "" entities "" . So you see it 's "" scenario "" , "" referent "" and "" discourse segment "" . And "" scenario "" is essentially what kind of {disfmarker} what 's the basic predication , what event happened . And actually it 's just a list of various slots from which you would draw {disfmarker} draw in order to paint your picture , a bunch of frames , bi and bindings , right ? Um , and obviously there are other ones that are not included here , general cultural frames and general like , uh , other action f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: you know , specific X - schema frames . OK , whatever . The middle thing used to be "" entities "" because you could imagine it should be like really a list where here was various information . And this is intended to be grammatically specifiable information about a referent {disfmarker} uh , you know , about some entity that you were going to talk about . So "" Harry walked into the room "" , "" Harry "" and "" room "" , you know , the room {disfmarker} th but they would be represented in this list somehow . And it could also have for instance , it has this category slot . Um , it should be either category or in or instance . Basically , it could be a pointer to ontology . So that everything you know about this could be {disfmarker} could be drawn in . But the important things for grammatical purposes are for {disfmarker} things like number , gender , um {disfmarker} ki the ones I included here are slightly arbitrary but you could imagine that , um , you need to figure out wheth if it 's a group whether , um , some event is happening , linear time , linear spaces , like , you know , are {disfmarker} are they doing something serially or is it like , um , uh I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . Because this partly came from , uh , Talmy 's schema and I 'm not sure we 'll need all of these actually . But {disfmarker} Um , and then the "" status "" I used was like , again , in some languages , you know , like for instance in child language you might distinguish between different status . So , th the {disfmarker} the big com and {disfmarker} and finally "" discourse segment "" is about {vocalsound} sort of speech - act - y information structure - y , like utterance - specific kinds of things . So the comment I was going to make about , um , changing entity {disfmarker} the entity 's block to reference is that {vocalsound} you can imagine your discourse like situation context , you have a set of entities that you 're sort of referring to . And you might {disfmarker} that might be sort of a general , I don't know , database of all the things in this discourse that you could refer to . And I changed to "" reference "" cuz I would say , for a particular utterance you have particular referring expressions in it . And those are the ones that you get information about that you stick in here . For instance , I know it 's going to be plural . I know it 's gonna be feminine or something like that . And {disfmarker} and these could actually just point to , you know , the {disfmarker} the ID in my other list of enti active entities , right ? So , um , uh , th there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff about discourse status . We 've talked about . I almost listed "" discourse status "" as a slot where you could say it 's active . You know , there 's this , um , hierarchy {disfmarker} uh there 's a schematization of , you know , things can be active or they can be , um , accessible , inaccessible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It was the one that , you know , Keith , um , emailed to us once , to some of us , not all of us . And the thing is that that {disfmarker} I noticed that that , um , list was sort of discourse dependent . It was like in this particular set , s you know , instance , it has been referred to recently or it hasn't been , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: or this is something that 's like in my world knowledge but not active . +Professor C: This {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} yeah , well there {disfmarker} there seems to be context properties . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , they 're contex and for instance , I used to have a location thing there but actually that 's a property of the situation . And it 's again , time , you know {disfmarker} at cert certain points things are located , you know , near or far from you +Professor C: Well , uh , uh , this is recursive +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz until we do the uh , mental space story , we 're not quite sure {disfmarker} {comment} Th - th +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: which is fine . We 'll just {disfmarker} we 'll j +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . So some of these are , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: we just don't know yet . +Grad F: Right . So I {disfmarker} so for now I thought , well maybe I 'll just have in this list the things that are relevant to this particular utterance , right ? Everything else here is utterance - specific . Um , and I left the slot , "" predications "" , open because you can have , um , things like "" the guy I know from school "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Or , you know , like your referring expression might be constrained by certain like unbounded na amounts of prep you know , predications that you might make . And it 's unclear whether {disfmarker} I mean , you could just have in your scenario , "" here are some extra few things that are true "" , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then you could just sort of not have this slot here . Right ? You 're {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's used for identification purposes . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different from just saying "" all these things are true from my utterance "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: Right , "" this guy I know from school came for dinner "" does not mean , um , "" there 's a guy , I know him from school , and he came over for dinner "" . That 's not the same effect . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a little bit {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different . Right ? So {disfmarker} Or maybe that 's like a restrictive , non - restrictive {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , it 's like it gets into that kind of thing for {disfmarker} um , but maybe I 'm mixing , you know {disfmarker} this is kind of like the final result after parsing the sentence . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you might imagine that the information you pass to , you know {disfmarker} in identifying a particular referent would be , "" oh , some {disfmarker} "" you know , "" it 's a guy and it 's someone I know from school "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So maybe that would , you know , be some intermediate structure that you would pass into the disc to the , whatever , construal engine or whatever , discourse context , to find {disfmarker} you know , either create this reference , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: in which case it 'd be created here , and {disfmarker} you know , so {disfmarker} so you could imagine that this might not {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm uncommitted to a couple of these things . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} to make it m precise at least in my mind , uh , it 's not precise . +Grad F: Um . +Grad A: So "" house "" is gender neuter ? In reality +Grad F: Um , it could be in {disfmarker} +Grad A: or in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Semantically . +Grad A: semantically . +Grad F: semantically , yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: So it uh , uh , a table . You know , a thing that c doesn't have a gender . So . Uh , it could be that {disfmarker} I mean , maybe you 'd {disfmarker} maybe not all these {disfmarker} I mean , I wou I would say that I tried to keep slots here that were potentially relevant to most {disfmarker} most things . +Grad A: No , just to make sure that we {disfmarker} everybody that 's {disfmarker} completely agreed that it {disfmarker} it has nothing to do with , uh , form . +Grad F: Yeah . OK , that is semantic as opposed to {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . That 's right . Um . +Grad A: Then "" predications "" makes sense to {disfmarker} to have it open for something like , uh , accessibility or not . +Grad F: S so again {disfmarker} Open to various things . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . OK , so . Let 's see . So maybe having made that big sca sort of like large scale comment , should I just go through each of these slots {disfmarker} uh , each of these blocks , um , a little bit ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Um , mostly the top one is sort of image schematic . And just a note , which was that , um {disfmarker} s so when we actually ha so for instance , um , some of them seem more inherently static , OK , like a container or sort of support - ish . And others are a little bit seemingly inherently dynamic like "" source , path , goal "" is often thought of that way or "" force "" , or something like that . But in actual fact , I think that they 're intended to be sort of neutral with respect to that . And different X - schemas use them in a way that 's either static or dynamic . So "" path "" , you could just be talking about the path between this and this . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: And you know , "" container "" that you can go in and out . All of these things . And so , um , I think this came up when , uh , Ben and I were working with the Spaniards , um , the other day {disfmarker} the "" Spaniettes "" , as we {vocalsound} called them {disfmarker} um , to decide like how you want to split up , like , s image schematic contributions versus , like , X - schematic contributions . How do you link them up . And I think again , um , it 's gonna be something in the X - schema that tells you "" is this static or is this dynamic "" . So we definitely need {disfmarker} that sort of aspectual type gives you some of that . Um , that , you know , is it , uh , a state or is it a change of state , or is it a , um , action of some kind ? +Grad A: Uh , i i i is there any meaning to when you have sort of parameters behind it and when you don't ? +Grad F: Uh . Yeah . +Grad A: Just means {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , oh ! You mean , in the slot ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , no , it 's like X - sc it 's {disfmarker} it 's like I was thinking of type constraints but X - schema , well it obviously has to be an X - schema . "" Agent "" , I mean , the {disfmarker} the performer of the X - schema , that s depends on the X - schema . You know , and I {disfmarker} in general it would probably be , you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: So the difference is basically whether you thought it was obvious what the possible fillers were . +Grad F: Yeah , basically . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Um , "" aspectual type "" probably isn't obvious but I should have {disfmarker} So , I just neglected to stick something in . "" Perspective "" , "" actor "" , "" undergoer "" , "" observer "" , um , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad F: I think we 've often used "" agent "" , "" patient "" , obser +Grad E: "" Whee ! "" That 's that one , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , and so one nice thing that , uh , we had talked about is this example {comment} of like , if you have a passive construction then one thing it does is ch you know {disfmarker} definitely , it is one way to {disfmarker} for you to , you know , specifically take the perspective of the undergoing kind of object . And so then we talked about , you know , whether well , does that specify topic as well ? Well , maybe there are other things . You know , now that it 's {disfmarker} subject is more like a topic . And now that , you know {disfmarker} Anyway . So . Sorry . I 'm gonna trail off on that one cuz it 's not that f important right now . +Professor C: N now , for the moment we just need the ability to l l write it down if {disfmarker} if somebody figured out what the rules were . +Grad F: Um , To know how {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , some of these other ones , let 's see . So , uh , one thing I 'm uncertain about is how polarity interacts . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So polarity , uh , is using for like action did not take place for instance . So by default it 'll be like "" true "" , I guess , you know , if you 're specifying events that did happen . You could imagine that you skip out this {disfmarker} you know , leave off this polarity , you know , not {disfmarker} don't have it here . And then have it part of the speech - act in some way . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's some negation . But the reason why I left it in is cuz you might have a change of state , let 's say , where some state holds and then some state doesn't hold , and you 're just talking , you know {disfmarker} if you 're trying to have the nuts and bolts of simulation you need to know that , you know , whatever , the holder doesn't and {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I th I think at this lev which is {disfmarker} it should be where you have it . +Grad F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine where it is . +Professor C: I mean , how you get it may {disfmarker} may in will often involve the discourse +Grad F: So , OK . May come from a few places . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} by the time you 're simulating you sh y you should know that . +Grad F: Right . Right . +Grad E: So , {vocalsound} I 'm still just really not clear on what I 'm looking at . The "" scenario "" box , like , what does that look like for an example ? Like , not all of these things are gonna be here . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: This is just basically says +Grad F: Mm - hmm . It 's a grab bag of {disfmarker} +Grad E: "" part of what I 'm going to hand you is a whole bunch of s uh , schemas , image , and X - schemas . Here are some examples of the sorts of things you might have in there "" . +Grad F: So that 's exactly what it is . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: And for a particular instance which I will , you know , make an example of something , is that you might have an instance of container and path , let 's say , as part of your , you know , "" into "" you know , definition . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you would eventually have instances filled in with various {disfmarker} various values for all the different slots . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And they 're bound up in , you know , their bindings and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and values . +Professor C: W it c +Grad E: OK . Do you have to say about the binding in your {disfmarker} is there a slot in here for {disfmarker} that tells you how the bindings are done ? +Professor C: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} let 's see , I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} I don't think we have it quite right yet . So , uh , what this is , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: let 's suppose for the moment it 's complete . OK , uh , then this says that when an analysis is finished , the whole analysis is finished , {comment} you 'll have as a result , uh , some s resulting s semspec for that utterance in context , +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is made up entirely of these things and , uh , bindings among them . And bindings to ontology items . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that the who that this is the tool kit under whi out of which you can make a semantic specification . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that 's A . But B , which is more relevant to your life , is this is also the tool kit that is used in the semantic side of constructions . +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is an that anything you have , in the party line , {comment} anything you have as the semantic side of constructions comes , from pieces of this {disfmarker} ignoring li +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: I mean , in general , you ignore lots of it . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: But it 's got to be pieces of this along with constraints among them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , so that the , you know , goal of the , uh uh , "" source , path , goal "" has to be the landmark of the conta you know , the interior of this container . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or whate whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So those constraints appear in constructions +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but pretty much this is the full range of semantic structures available to you . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Except for "" cause "" , that I forgot . But anyway , there 's som some kind of causal structure for composite events . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , good . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's mark that . So we need a c +Grad F: Uh , I mean , so it gets a little funny . These are all {disfmarker} so far these structures , especially from "" path "" and on down , these are sort of relatively familiar , um , image schematic kind of slots . Now with "" cause "" , uh , the fillers will actually be themselves frames . Right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you 'll say , "" event one causes event B {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this again may ge our , um {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , of course , worlds . +Grad F: uh , event two "" , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . So that 's , uh these are all implicitly one {disfmarker} within , uh within one world . Um , even though saying that place takes place , whatever . Uh , if y if I said "" time "" is , you know , "" past "" , that would say "" set that this world "" , you know , "" somewhere , before the world that corresponds to our current speech time "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: So . But that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's sort of OK . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} within the event it 's st it 's still one world . Um . Yeah , so "" cause "" and {disfmarker} Other frames that could come in {disfmarker} I mean , unfortunately you could bring in say for instance , um , uh , "" desire "" or something like that , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like "" want "" . And actually there is right now under "" discourse segments "" , um , "" attitude "" ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" Volition "" ? could fill that . So there are a couple things where I like , "" oh , I 'm not sure if I wanted to have it there +Grad E: Well that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: or {disfmarker} "" Basically there was a whole list of {disfmarker} of possible speaker attitudes that like say Talmy listed . And , like , well , I don't {disfmarker} you know , it was like "" hope , wish . desire "" , +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: blah - blah - blah . And it 's like , well , I feel like if I wanted to have an extra meaning {disfmarker} I don't know if those are grammatically marked in the first place . So {disfmarker} They 're more lexically marked , right ? +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: At least in English . So if I wanted to I would stick in an extra frame in my meaning , saying , e so th it 'd be a hierarchical frame them , right ? You know , like "" Naomi wants {disfmarker} wants su a certain situation and that situation itself is a state of affairs "" . +Professor C: S right . So {disfmarker} so , "" want "" itself can be {disfmarker} {pause} i i i i i +Grad F: u Can be just another frame that 's part of your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , and it i basically it 's an action . In {disfmarker} in our s in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Situation . {comment} Right , right . +Professor C: in {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} in our s terminology , "" want "" can be an action and "" what you want "" is a world . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So that 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's certainly one way to do it . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there are other things . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Causal stuff we absolutely need . Mental space we need . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The context we need . Um , so anyway , Keith {disfmarker} So is this comfortable to you that , uh , once we have this defined , it is your tool kit for building the semantic part of constructions . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then when we combine constructions semantically , the goal is going to be to fill out more and more of the bindings needed in order to come up with the final one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that 's the wh and {disfmarker} and I mean , that {disfmarker} according to the party line , that 's the whole story . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Um . y Right . That makes sense . So I mean , there 's this stuff in the {disfmarker} off in the scenario , which just tells you how various {disfmarker} what schemas you 're using and they 're {disfmarker} how they 're bound together . And I guess that some of the discourse segment stuff {disfmarker} is that where you would sa +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} OK , that 's where the information structure is which sort of is a kind of profiling on different parts of , um , of this . +Grad F: Right . Exactly . +Grad E: I mean , what 's interesting is that the information structure stuff {disfmarker} Hmm . There 's almost {disfmarker} I mean , we keep coming back to how focus is like this {disfmarker} this , uh , trajector - landmark thing . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: So if I say , um , You know , "" In France it 's like this "" . You know , great , we 've learned something about France but the fact is that utterances of that sort are generally used to help you draw a conclusion also about some implicit contrast , like "" In France it 's like this "" . And therefore you 're supposed to say , "" Boy , life sure {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: You know , "" in France kids are allowed to drink at age three "" . And w you 're {disfmarker} that 's not just a fact about France . You also conclude something about how boring it is here in the U S . Right ? +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} +Grad F: S so I would prefer not to worry about that for right now +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: and to think that there are , um , +Grad E: That comes in and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: discourse level constructions in a sense , topic {disfmarker} topic - focus constructions that would say , "" oh , when you focus something "" then {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: just done the same way {disfmarker} just actually in the same way as the lower level . If you stressed , you know , "" John went to the {disfmarker} "" , you know , "" the bar "" whatever , you 're focusing that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and a in a possible inference is "" in contrast to other things "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So similarly for a whole sentence , you know , "" in France such - and - such happens "" . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: So the whole thing is sort of like again implicitly as opposed to other things that are possible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , just {disfmarker} just , uh , look {disfmarker} read uh even sem semi formal Mats Rooth . +Grad F: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: If you haven't read it . It 's nice . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad A: And just pick any paper on alternative semantics . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: So that 's his {disfmarker} that 's the best way of talking about focus , is I think his way . +Grad E: OK , what was the name ? +Grad A: Mats . MATS . Rooth . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I think two O 's , yes , TH . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I never know how to pronounce his name because he 's sort of , +Professor C: S Swede ? +Grad A: uh , he is Dutch +Professor C: Dutch ? +Grad A: and , um {disfmarker} but very confused background I think . +Professor C: Oh , Dutch . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: So {pause} and , um , +Grad E: Mats Gould . +Grad A: And sadly enough he also just left the IMS in Stuttgart . So he 's not there anymore . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} I don't know where he is right now but alternative semantics is {disfmarker} if you type that into an , uh , uh , browser or search engine you 'll get tons of stuff . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK , thanks . +Grad A: And what I 'm kind of confused about is {disfmarker} is what the speaker and the hearer is {disfmarker} is sort of doing there . +Grad F: So for a particular segment it 's really just a reference to some other entity again in the situation , right ? So for a particular segment the speaker might be you or might be me . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , hearer is a little bit harder . It could be like multiple people . I guess that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's not very clear from here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} Don't we ultimately want to handle that analogously to the way we handle time and place , +Grad F: I mean , that 's not allowed here . +Grad A: because "" you "" , "" me "" , "" he "" , "" they "" , you know , "" these guys "" , all these expressions , nuh , are in {disfmarker} in much the same way contextually dependent as "" here , "" and "" now , "" and "" there "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Now , this is {disfmarker} this is assuming you 've already solved that . +Grad F: Ye - yeah . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's Fred and Mary , +Grad F: So th +Professor C: so the speaker would be Fred and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ah ! +Grad F: Right , so the constructions might {disfmarker} of course will refer , using pronouns or whatever . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: In which case they have to check to see , uh , who the , uh , speaker in here wa in order to resolve those . But when you actually say that "" he walked into {disfmarker} "" , whatever , um , the "" he "" will refer to a particular {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you will already have figured who "" he "" or "" you "" , mmm , or "" I "" , maybe is a bett better example , who "" I "" refers to . Um , and then you 'd just be able to refer to Harry , you know , in wherever that person {disfmarker} whatever role that person was playing in the event . +Grad A: Mmm . That 's up at the reference part . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: And down there in the speaker - hearer part ? +Grad F: S so , that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's just {disfmarker} n for instance , Speaker is known from the situation , right ? You 're {disfmarker} when you hear something you 're told who the speaker is {disfmarker} I mean , you know who the speaker is . In fact , that 's kind of constraining how {disfmarker} in some ways you know this before you get to the {disfmarker} you fill in all the rest of it . I think . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: I mean , how else would you um {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know , uh , uh , it 's {disfmarker} the speaker may {disfmarker} in English is allowed to say "" I . "" +Professor C: Yeah . Well , here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , among the twenty - five percent most used words . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: But wouldn't the "" I "" then set up the {disfmarker} the s s referent {disfmarker} that happens to be the speaker this time +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and not "" they , "" whoever they are . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad A: Or "" you "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: much like the "" you "" could n +Grad F: S so {disfmarker} OK , so I would say ref under referent should be something that corresponds to "" I "" . And maybe each referent should probably have a list of way whatever , the way it was referred to . So that 's "" I "" but , uh , uh , should we say it {disfmarker} it refers to , what ? Uh , if it were "" Harry "" it would refer to like some ontology thing . If it were {disfmarker} if it 's "" I "" it would refer to the current speaker , OK , which is given to be like , you know , whoever it is . +Grad A: Well , not {disfmarker} not always . I mean , so there 's "" and then he said , I w "" Uh - huh . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: "" I "" within the current world . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's right . So {disfmarker} so again , this {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is gonna to get us into the mental space stuff +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and t because you know , "" Fred said that Mary said {disfmarker} "" , and whatever . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so we 're , uh gonna have to , um , chain those as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Twhhh - whhh . But {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . So this entire thing is inside a world , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: not just like the top part . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Except s it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier than that because um , the reference for example {disfmarker} So he where it gets really tricky is there 's some things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: and this is where blends and all terribl So , some things which really are meant to be identified and some things which aren't . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And again , all we need for the moment is some way to say that . +Grad F: Right . So I thought of having like {disfmarker} for each referent , having the list of {disfmarker} of the things t with which it is identified . You know , which {disfmarker} which , uh you know , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Professor C: You could do that . +Grad F: for instance , um {disfmarker} So , I guess , it sort of depends on if it is a referring exp if it 's identifiable already or it 's a new thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: If it 's a new thing you 'd have to like create a structure or whatever . If it 's an old thing it could be referring to , um , usually w something in a situation , right ? Or something in ontology . +Professor C: uh - huh . +Grad F: So , there 's a you know , whatever , it c it could point at one of these . +Professor C: I just had a {disfmarker} I just had an {disfmarker} an idea that would be very nice if it works . +Grad F: For what ? +Professor C: Uh , uh , uh , I haven't told you what it is yet . +Grad F: If it works . +Professor C: This was my build - up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: An i an idea that would be nice i +Grad F: Yeah . OK , we 're crossing our fingers . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So we 're building a mental space , good . +Professor C: If it worked . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Right , it was a space builder . Um , we might be able to handle context in the same way that we handle mental spaces because , uh , you have somewhat the same things going on of , uh , things being accessible or not . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so , i +Grad F: Yep . +Professor C: it c it {disfmarker} it , uh I think if we did it right we might be able to get at least a lot of the same structure . +Grad F: Use the same {disfmarker} {comment} Yep . +Professor C: So that pulling something out of a discourse context is I think similar to other kinds of , uh , mental space phenomena . +Grad B: I see . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've never seen anybody write that up but maybe they did . I don't know . That may be all over the literature . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: There 's things like ther you know , there 's all kinds of stuff like , um , in {disfmarker} I think I mentioned last time in Czech if you have a {disfmarker} a verb of saying then +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so by default {disfmarker} +Grad E: um , you know , you say something like {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or I was thinking you can say something like , "" oh , I thought , uh , you are a republican "" or something like that . Where as in English you would say , "" I thought you were "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , you know , sort of the past tense being copied onto the lower verb doesn't happen there , so you have to say something about , you know , tense is determined relative to current blah - blah - blah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Same things happens with pronouns . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: There 's languages where , um , if you have a verb of saying then , ehhh , where {disfmarker} OK , so a situation like "" Bob said he was going to the movies "" , where that lower subject is the same as the person who was saying or thinking , you 're actually required to have "" I "" there . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , and it 's sort of in an extended function {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we would have it be in quotes in English . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: But it 's not perceived as a quotative construction . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean , it 's been analyzed by the formalists as being a logophoric pronoun , um which means a pronoun which refers back to the person who is speaking or that sort of thing , right ? +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Oh , right . Yeah , that makes sense . +Grad E: Um , but {disfmarker} uh , that happens to sound like the word for "" I "" but is actually semantically unrelated to it . +Grad F: Oh , no ! +Professor C: Oh , good , I love the formali +Grad E: Um , +Grad F: Really ? +Grad E: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: You 're kidding . +Grad E: There 's a whole book which basically operates on this assumption . Uh , Mary Dalrymple , uh , this book , a ninety - three book on , uh on pronoun stuff . +Grad F: No , that 's horrible . OK . That 's horrible . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Well , yeah . And then the same thing for ASL where , you know , you 're signing and someone says something . And then , you know , so "" he say "" , and then you sort of do a role shift . And then you sign "" I , this , that , and the other "" . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And you know , "" I did this "" . That 's also been analyzed as logophoric and having nothing to do with "" I "" . And the role shift thing is completely left out and so on . So , I mean , the point is that pronoun references , uh , you know , sort of ties in with all this mental space stuff and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so , yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that d that does sound like it 's co consistent with what we 're saying , yeah . +Grad E: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: OK , so it 's kind of like the unspecified mental spaces just are occurring in context . And then when you embed them sometimes you have to pop up to the h you know , depending on the construction or the whatever , um , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're scope is {disfmarker} m might extend out to the {disfmarker} the base one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It would be nice to actually use the same , um , mechanism since there are so many cases where you actually need it 'll be one or the other . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's like , oh , actually , it 's the same {disfmarker} same operation . +Professor C: Oh , OK , so this {disfmarker} this is worth some thought . +Grad F: So . +Grad E: It 's like {disfmarker} it 's like what 's happening {disfmarker} that , yeah , what what 's happening , uh , there is that you 're moving the base space or something like that , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's how Fauconnier would talk about it . And it happens diff under different circumstances in different languages . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , things like pronoun reference and tense which we 're thinking of as being these discourse - y things actually are relative to a Bayes space which can change . +Grad F: Mm - hmm , +Grad E: And we need all the same machinery . +Grad F: right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Robert . +Professor C: Well , but , uh , this is very good actually +Grad E: Schade . +Professor C: cuz it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to the extent that it works , it y +Grad F: Ties it all into it . +Professor C: it {disfmarker} it ties together several of {disfmarker} of these things . +Grad F: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I 'm sure gonna read the transcript of this one . So . But the , uh , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it 's too bad that we don't have a camera . You know , all the pointing is gonna be lost . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Grad B: Well every time Nancy giggles it means {disfmarker} it means that it 's your job . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's why I said "" point to Robert "" , {vocalsound} when I did it . +Grad A: Uh . Yeah . Mmm , isn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of dubious why {disfmarker} why he even introduces this sort of reality , you know , as your basic mental space and then builds up {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: d doesn't start with some {disfmarker} because it 's so obvi it should be so obvious , at least it is to me , {comment} that whenever I say something I could preface that with "" I think . "" Nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So there should be no categorical difference between your base and all the others that ensue . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: No , but there 's {disfmarker} there 's a Gricean thing going on there , that when you say "" I think "" you 're actually hedging . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . It 's like I don't totally think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . Y +Grad F: I mostly think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Absolutely . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an evidential . It 's sort of semi - grammaticalized . People have talked about it this way . And you know , you can do sort of special things . You can , th put just the phrase "" I think "" as a parenthetical in the middle of a sentence and so on , and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: Actually one of the child language researchers who works with T Tomasello studied a bunch of these constructions and it was like it 's not using any kind of interesting embedded ways just to mark , you know , uncertainty or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad A: Yeah , but about linguistic hedges , I mean , those {disfmarker} those tend to be , um , funky anyways because they blur {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we don't have that in here either do we ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Hedges ? +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Hhh , {comment} I {disfmarker} there used to be a slot for speaker , um , it was something like factivity . I couldn't really remember what it meant +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: so I took it out . +Grad E: Um . +Grad F: But it 's something {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we were just talking about this sort of evidentiality and stuff like that , right ? +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we were talking about sarcasm too , right ? Oh , oh . +Grad E: I mean , +Grad F: Oh , yeah , yeah , right . +Grad E: that 's what I think is , um , sort of telling you what percent reality you should give this +Professor C: So we probably should . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or the , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Confidence or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah , and the fact that I 'm , you know {disfmarker} the fact maybe if I think it versus he thinks that might , you know , depending on how much you trust the two of us or whatever , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh great word in the English language is called "" about "" . +Grad E: you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you study how people use that it 's also {disfmarker} +Grad F: What 's the word ? +Grad A: "" about . "" It 's about {disfmarker} +Professor C: About . +Grad A: clever . +Professor C: Oh , that {disfmarker} in that use of "" about "" , yeah . +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , as a hedge . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And I think {disfmarker} And I think {pause} y if you want us to spend a pleasant six or seven hours you could get George started on that . +Grad E: He wrote a paper about thirty - five years ago on that one . +Grad B: I r I read that paper , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: the hedges paper ? I read some of that paper actually . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Would you believe that that paper lead directly to the development of anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: What ? +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Ask me about it later I 'll tell you how . When we 're not on tape . +Grad F: I 'd love to know . +Grad B: Oh , man . +Grad F: So , and {disfmarker} and I think , uh , someone had raised like sarcasm as a complication at some point . +Professor C: There 's all that stuff . Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad F: And we just won't deal with sarcastic people . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: I don't really know what like {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we don't have to care too much about the speaker attitude , right ? Like there 's not so many different {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} I don't know , m +Grad F: Certainly not as some {disfmarker} Well , they 're intonational markers I think for the most part . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I don't know too much about the like grammatical {disfmarker} +Grad E: I just mean {disfmarker} There 's lots of different attitudes that {disfmarker} that the speaker could have and that we can clearly identify , and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: But like what are the distinctions among those that we actually care about for our current purposes ? +Professor C: Right . Right , so , uh , this {disfmarker} this raises the question of what are our current purposes . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , do we have any ? +Grad E: Here it is three - fifteen already . +Grad A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I {disfmarker} I don't know the answer but {disfmarker} but , um , it does seem that , you know , this is {disfmarker} this is coming along . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's converging . It 's {disfmarker} as far as I can tell there 's this one major thing we have to do which is the mental {disfmarker} the whole s mental space thing . And then there 's some other minor things . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , and we 're going to have to s sort of bound the complexity . I mean , if we get everything that anybody ever thought about you know , w we 'll go nuts . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we had started with the idea that the actual , uh , constraint was related to this tourist domain and the kinds of interactions that might occur in the tourist domain , assuming that people were being helpful and weren't trying to d you know , there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} God knows , irony , and stuff like {disfmarker} which you {disfmarker} isn't probably of much use in dealing with a tourist guide . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad F: M mockery . +Professor C: Right . Whatever . So y uh , no end of things th that {disfmarker} that , you know , we don't deal with . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: i isn't that part easy though +Professor C: Go ahead . +Grad A: because in terms of the s simspec , it would just mean you put one more set of brack brackets around it , and then just tell it to sort of negate whatever the content of that is in terms of irony +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: N no . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Maybe . +Professor C: No . +Grad F: Yeah , in model theory cuz the semantics is always like "" speaker believes not - P "" , you know ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like "" the speaker says P and believes not - P "" . +Grad E: We have a theoretical model of sarcasm now . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , right , I mean . +Professor C: No , no . +Grad F: Right , right , but , +Professor C: Anyway , so {disfmarker} so , um , I guess uh , let me make a proposal on how to proceed on that , which is that , um , it was Keith 's , uh , sort of job over the summer to come up with this set of constructions . Uh , and my suggestion to Keith is that you , over the next couple weeks , n +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: don't try to do them in detail or formally but just try to describe which ones you think we ought to have . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , and then when Robert gets back we 'll look at the set of them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just sort of , you know , define your space . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +Professor C: And , um , so th these are {disfmarker} this is a set of things that I think we ought to deal with . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back over it and w people will {disfmarker} will give feedback on it . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: And then {disfmarker} then we 'll have a {disfmarker} at least initial spec of {disfmarker} of what we 're actually trying to do . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And that 'll also be useful for anybody who 's trying to write a parser . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Knowing uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: In case there 's any around . +Grad F: If we knew anybody like that . +Professor C: Right , "" who might want "" et cetera . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So a and we get this {disfmarker} this , uh , portals fixed and then we have an idea of the sort of initial range . And then of course Nancy you 're gonna have to , uh , do your set of {disfmarker} but you have to do that anyway . +Grad F: For the same , yeah , data . Yeah , mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so we 're gonna get the w we 're basically dealing with two domains , the tourist domain and the {disfmarker} and the child language learning . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: And we 'll see what we need for those two . And then my proposal would be to , um , not totally cut off more general discussion but to focus really detailed work on the subset of things that we 've {disfmarker} we really want to get done . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then as a kind of separate thread , think about the more general things and {disfmarker} and all that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I also think the detailed discussion will hit {disfmarker} you know , bring us to problems that are of a general nature and maybe even {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , without doubt . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: even suggest some solutions . +Professor C: But what I want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is to {disfmarker} to constrain the things that we really feel responsible for . +Grad A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that we say these are the things we 're really gonna try do by the end of the summer +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and other things we 'll put on a list of {disfmarker} of research problems or something , because you can easily get to the point where nothing gets done because every time you start to do something you say , "" oh , yeah , but what about this case ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} this is called being a linguist . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And , uh , +Grad E: Basically . +Grad F: Or me . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad F: Or me . Anyways {disfmarker} +Grad B: There 's that quote in Jurafsky and Martin where {disfmarker} where it goes {disfmarker} where some guy goes , "" every time I fire a linguist the performance of the recognizer goes up . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: Exactly . +Professor C: Right . But anyway . So , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make sense as a , uh {disfmarker} a general way to proceed ? +Grad F: Sure , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah , we 'll start with that , just figuring out what needs to be done then actually the next step is to start trying to do it . +Professor C: Exactly right . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Got it . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: We have a little bit of news , uh , just minor stuff . The one big {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ooo , can I ask a {disfmarker} +Grad E: You ran out of power . +Grad A: Huh ? +Grad B: Can I ask a quick question about this side ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Grad B: Is this , uh {disfmarker} was it intentional to leave off things like "" inherits "" and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oops . Um , +Grad E: No . +Grad F: not really {disfmarker} just on the constructions , right ? +Grad B: Yeah , like constructions can inherit from other things , +Grad F: Um , +Grad B: am I right ? +Grad F: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: I didn't want to think too much about that for {disfmarker} for now . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So , uh , maybe it was subconsciously intentional . +Professor C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad E: Um , yeah , there should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to s find out someday if there was gonna be some way of dealing with , uh , if this is the right term , multiple inheritance , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: where one construction is inheriting from , uh from both parents , +Grad F: Uh - huh . Yep . +Grad E: uh , or different ones , or three or four different ones . +Professor C: Yeah . So let me {disfmarker} +Grad E: Cuz the problem is that then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: which of {disfmarker} you know , which are {disfmarker} how they 're getting bound together . +Grad F: Refer to {pause} them . +Professor C: Yeah , right , right , right . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and there are certainly cases like that . Even with just semantic schemas we have some examples . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , and we 've been talking a little bit about that anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . So what I would like to do is separate that problem out . +Grad F: Inherits . +Professor C: So um , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: my argument is there 's nothing you can do with that that you can't do by just having more constructions . +Grad E: Yeah , yes . +Professor C: It 's uglier and it d doesn't have the deep linguistic insights and stuff . +Grad E: That 's right . +Professor C: Uh , +Grad E: But whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , no , no , no no . +Grad F: Uh , those are over rated . +Grad E: No , by all means , +Professor C: And so I {disfmarker} what I 'd like to do is {disfmarker} is in the short run focus on getting it right . +Grad E: right . Uh , sure . +Professor C: And when we think we have it right then saying , "" aha ! , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: can we make it more elegant ? "" +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Can {disfmarker} can we , uh {disfmarker} What are the generalizations , and stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . Connect the dots . Yeah . +Professor C: But rather than try to guess a inheritance structure and all that sort of stuff before we know what we 're doing . +Grad E: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: So I would say in the short run we 're not gonna b +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: First of all , we 're not doing them yet at all . And {disfmarker} and it could be that half way through we say , "" aha ! , we {disfmarker} we now see how we want to clean it up . "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , and inheritance is only one {disfmarker} I mean , that 's one way to organize it but there are others . And it may or may not be the best way . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: I 'm sorry , you had news . +Grad A: Oh , just small stuff . Um , thanks to Eva on our web site we can now , if you want to run JavaBayes , uh , you could see {disfmarker} get {disfmarker} download these classes . And then it will enable you {disfmarker} she modified the GUI so it has now a m a m a button menu item for saving it into the embedded JavaBayes format . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad A: So that 's wonderful . +Professor C: Great . +Grad A: And , um and she , a You tested it out . Do you want to say something about that , that it works , right ? With the {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just checking like , when we wanna , um , get the posterior probability of , like , variables . You know how you asked whether we can , like , just observe all the variables like in the same list ? You can't . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: You have to make separate queries every time . +Grad A: OK , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a bit unfortunate +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: but for the time being it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine to do it {disfmarker} +Grad D: You just have to have a long list of , you know , all the variables . +Grad A: Yeah . But uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Basically . +Grad F: Uh , all the things you want to query , you just have to like ask for separately . +Grad D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well that 's {disfmarker} probably maybe in the long term that 's good news because it forces us to think a little bit more carefully how {disfmarker} how we want to get an out output . Um , but that 's a different discussion for a different time . And , um , I don't know . We 're really running late , so I had , uh , an idea yesterday but , uh , I don't know whether we should even start discussing . +Professor C: W what {disfmarker} Yeah , sure , tell us what it is . +Grad A: Um , the construal bit that , um , has been pointed to but hasn't been , um , made precise by any means , um , may w may work as follows . I thought that we would , uh {disfmarker} that the following thing would be in incredibly nice and I have no clue whether it will work at all or nothing . So that 's just a tangent , a couple of mental disclaimers here . Um , imagine you {disfmarker} you write a Bayes - net , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Bayes ? +Grad A: Bayes - net , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: um , completely from scratch every time you do construal . So you have nothing . Just a white piece of paper . +Professor C: Mmm , right . +Grad A: You consult {disfmarker} consult your ontology which will tell you a bunch of stuff , and parts , and properties , uh - uh - uh +Grad F: Grout out the things that {disfmarker} that you need . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: then y you 'd simply write , uh , these into {disfmarker} onto your {disfmarker} your white piece of paper . And you will get a lot of notes and stuff out of there . You won't get {disfmarker} you won't really get any C P T 's , therefore we need everything that {disfmarker} that configures to what the situation is , IE , the context dependent stuff . So you get whatever comes from discourse but also filtered . Uh , so only the ontology relevant stuff from the discourse plus the situation and the user model . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And that fills in your CPT 's with which you can then query , um , the {disfmarker} the net that you just wrote and find out how thing X is construed as an utterance U . And the embedded JavaBayes works exactly like that , that once you {disfmarker} we have , you know , precise format in which to write it , so we write it down . You query it . You get the result , and you throw it away . And the {disfmarker} the nice thing about this idea is that you don't ever have to sit down and think about it or write about it . You may have some general rules as to how things can be {disfmarker} can be construed as what , so that will allow you to craft the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the initial notes . But it 's {disfmarker} in that respect it 's completely scalable . Because it doesn't have any prior , um , configuration . It 's just you need an ontology of the domain and you need the context dependent modules . And if this can be made to work at all , {vocalsound} that 'd be kind of funky . +Professor C: Um , it sounds to me like you want P R +Grad A: P R Ms - uh , PRM I mean , since you can unfold a PRM into a straightforward Bayes - net {disfmarker} +Professor C: Beca - because it {disfmarker} b because {disfmarker} No , no , you can't . See the {disfmarker} the critical thing about the PRM is it gives these relations in general form . So once you have instantiated the PRM with the instances and ther then you can {disfmarker} then you can unfold it . +Grad A: Then you can . Mm - hmm , yeah . No , I was m using it generic . So , uh , probabilistic , whatever , relational models . Whatever you write it . In {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , no , but it matters a lot because you {disfmarker} what you want are these generalized rules about the way things relate , th that you then instantiate in each case . +Grad A: And then {disfmarker} then instantiate them . That 's ma maybe the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} the only way it works . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: +Professor C: Yeah , that 's the only way it could work . I {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} our local expert on P R uh , but my guess is that they 're not currently good enough to do that . But we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have to see . +Grad A: But , uh , +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . This is {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that would be a good thing to try . It 's related to the Hobbs abduction story in that you th you throw everything into a pot and you try to come up with the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except there 's no {disfmarker} no theorem prover involved . +Grad F: Best explanation . +Professor C: No , there isn't a theorem prover but there {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but the , um , The cove the {disfmarker} the P R Ms are like rules of inference and you 're {disfmarker} you 're coupling a bunch of them together . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Professor C: And then ins instead of proving you 're trying to , you know , compute the most likely . Uh {disfmarker} Tricky . But you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a good {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to put in your thesis proposal . +Grad A: What 's it ? +Professor C: So are you gonna write something for us before you go ? +Grad A: Yes . Um . +Professor C: Oh , you have something . +Grad A: In the process thereof , or whatever . +Professor C: OK . So , what 's {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} when are we gonna meet again ? +Grad F: When are you leaving ? +Grad A: Fri - uh , +Grad F: Thursday , Friday ? +Grad A: Thursday 's my last day here . +Grad D: Fri +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} I would suggest as soon as possible . Do you mean by we , the whole ben gang ? +Professor C: N no , I didn't mean y just the two of us . We {disfmarker} obviously we can {disfmarker} we can do this . But the question is do you want to , for example , send the little group , uh , a draft of your thesis proposal and get , uh , another session on feedback on that ? Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can do it Th - Thursday again . Yeah . +Grad E: Fine with me . Should we do the one PM time for Thursday since we were on that before or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Thursday at one ? I can also maybe then sort of run through the , uh {disfmarker} the talk I have to give at EML which highlights all of our work . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And we can make some last minute changes on that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: You can just give him the abstract that we wrote for the paper . +Professor C: That - that 'll tell him exactly what 's going on . Yeah , that {disfmarker} Alright . +Grad F: Can we do {disfmarker} can we do one - thirty ? +Grad A: No . +Grad F: Oh , you already told me no . +Grad A: But we can do four . +Grad F: One , OK , it 's fine . I can do one . It 's fine . It 's fine . +Grad A: One or four . I don't care . +Grad E: To me this is equal . I don't care . +Grad A: If it 's equal for all ? What should we do ? +Grad F: Yeah , it 's fine . +Grad A: Four ? +Grad F: Fine . Yeah {disfmarker} no , no , no , uh , I don't care . It 's fine . +Grad A: It 's equal to all of us , so you can decide one or four . +Grad B: The pressure 's on you Nancy . +Grad A: Liz actually said she likes four because it forces the Meeting Recorder people to cut , you know {disfmarker} the discussions short . +Grad F: OK . OK , four . +Grad E: Well , if you insist , then . +Grad F: OK ? OK . I am . +","On Thursday, a group of graduates and their professor gathered to discuss various topics related to their ongoing work, including the semantics specifications, constructions, formalism, and the idea of construal in relation to Bayes-nets. The meeting opened with setting up the recording, and then the participants delved into a discussion about constructing semantics and formalism for language constructs. + +Graduate F presented a detailed sheet with thoughts and justifications for their work since their last meeting, which mainly consisted of a revised semantic specification and construction formalism. Despite the slight changes compared to previous versions, there was an acknowledgment that not everyone present had seen all the material, therefore a reiteration and explanation were necessary. + +There was an in-depth conversation regarding various terms like 'constructs,' 'designates,' 'focus,' 'stress,' and their syntax and application in linguistic constructions. Professor C and the grads discussed how these terms pertain to the constructions and the adjustments needed to accommodate linguistic changes. The idea of constructing types and how they privately understand what kind of construction it is was also discussed. + +A point of uncertainty was regarding how polarity integrates into the constructions. The polarity is used for stating whether an action took place or not. It usually defaults to 'true' but requires certain conditions to be checked during discourse for its value to be determined. + +The concept of mental spaces and context was addressed, highlighting its crucial role in the overall structure and semantics of language. They pondered over the inclusion of various context properties like the speaker, hearer, mental spaces in the semantic framework, and how these elements might be dealt with in a scalable and domain-relevant ontology. + +Another significant point of discussion was the approach towards constructing the semantics – whether to build from scratch for each case of construal or to have a pre-defined structure. There was a mention of Prof. Hobbs' abduction story, which suggests an approach where everything is thrown into a pot to come up with most likely scenarios. + +Towards the end, they planned to meet again on Thursday at four o'clock, where Grad A would potentially present a draft of his thesis proposal and possibly run through his upcoming talk for EML, which would highlight the group’s collaborative work. + +The summary highlights the group's dedication to refining and understanding the intricate nature of semantics, the structure of discourse, language constructs, and the impact of mental spaces and context on language processing. It also underscores the participatory and iterative nature of academic discussion, where proposals and ideas are collectively examined and developed." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . Oh I totally {disfmarker} Yeah 'cause I moved it . {vocalsound} 'S put it over here . Then we don't have to worry about it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Ready for this ? +Project Manager: All set ? Cool . Alright , it is PowerPoint time . I've done more PowerPoints in this particular experiment than I've ever done in my life before this experiment {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: which is kind of fun . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So uh here we have our detailed design meeting where we will um look at the prototype and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} right so um , I finally figured out what this whole second bullet point is about in my {disfmarker} that my coach was sending to me . It means I'm supposed to read the minutes from the previous meeting . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? +Project Manager: I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: I don't know . Otherwise it's just saying I'm the secretary +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'm {disfmarker} therefore I'm taking the minutes , s so just to go um {vocalsound} just real briefly to go over minutes from last meeting , uh , I will open them slowly , no ? Wait for it , wait for it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah that's not you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . That's how the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wait . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is , this is very high-powered stuff here , double-clicking , there we go . So um basically the moral of the story from our last minute uh {disfmarker} last meeting was that {vocalsound} um we that we had meetings from {disfmarker} uh we had presentations done by the Industrial Designer , uh or from Nathan , and Ron and from Sarah about what we can do here um and what sort of limitations we're operating with um {disfmarker} uh excuse me what limitations we're operating under , what kind of risk we'd be looking at with some of the various approaches we were discussing and we essentially came to the conclusion that we should develop a remote with uh voice recognition , I_E_ that had a vaguely non-remote like shape um because you didn't really need to use it as a remote since you could just use your voice . That would include some {disfmarker} mostly just the simple design features for a television operation but with a slide or a fold-out bay for more advanced functions for users . Um , and uh the uh uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ were asked to go ahead and start developing a prototype for us to look at . {vocalsound} So . That's sorted , back to the main {vocalsound} meet here , um , go ahead and take it away guys . +Industrial Designer: Well . Uh , we have assembled our prototype , um . What's to be said about it ? Um , we took into account a lot of the things that we went over in the last meeting , um . Some of the most important things to consider are that we decided not to go for the touch screen which you can see +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and opted for some very large buttons for the primary functions , um . This is going to be the on off button +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and we have these buttons to go through the channels um and then two volume buttons down here , d uh we decided those were the most important uh buttons . And then , for the more advanced uh functions there is a slide out panel here um and you can see that there are lots of other things going on . But this actually can slide back in and provides a very nice aesthetic when it's all put away , um . As far as the uh whole visible light thing , we decided to go with the multiple colours coming out , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: why not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fair enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , if that's annoying for some people that function can be turned off . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Perfect . +Industrial Designer: Go ahead . +User Interface: No it's important to {vocalsound} we talked a quite a bit about uh you know the the interchangeable uh faces and what we've done here is come up with a bit of a natural look here +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: um f we call it fruity +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: if you will . Um . Right , um , +Marketing: Appropriate , okay . +User Interface: of course that's uh interchangeable +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh I think it would be desirable for the uh for the regular product in the in the in the in the first packaging to be something a little bit more subdued +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: but this is kind of something that can be done +Marketing: It is an option . +User Interface: um and as you can see on the television there uh we have the uh voice detector device um on the top there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh , right . +Industrial Designer: That's this here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah . I see . +User Interface: Um . So that that will work quite well with with regard to finding this uh contraption . Um , what other things do we see here , well , um if you give it a touch it does have actually a bit of a spongy feel , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um , so I think that will work well with regards to our market . Um and uh let's see , well clearly there's gonna be some more colours and what not available . {vocalsound} Um uh do you have anything else to add to that ? +Industrial Designer: Um I worried about the materials , it is uh {disfmarker} the entire thing is covered in a rubber coating so it's very durable uh , it's not gonna break like some types of plastic that's dropped . Um , and of course as you can see and if you touch it it does have that nice squishy feel . +User Interface: It's actually important to note that the television , uh you know if there's an earthquake or anything like that , that i it actually is edible inside . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fact , I dunno if you noticed , but I wrote the uh the company's name on the telephone screen , +Project Manager: Oh well done yeah , yeah oh ok +Industrial Designer: I thought that was kinda nice . +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: This was actually an apple on the inside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do we need to worry about um rot factors ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} it's encased in a new uh type of uh +Marketing: Oh okay , there's preservatives involved , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: polymer yeah . +Marketing: we don't need to worry , +Industrial Designer: We got a bit ahead of ourselves , +User Interface: It's fine . +Marketing: okay . +Industrial Designer: I know we're not talking about making televisions at this point or anything like that , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Edible televisions , it's a wave of the future . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No but {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's pos a possible new product . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a couple years off at least . Okay . +User Interface: Um , but I think that's {disfmarker} I think that sums up the main features of our {disfmarker} of the remote , +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: um I dunno if you guys have any questions or f whether that uh {disfmarker} whether we need to worry about any uh other marketing areas or anything of that nature . Um , did we come in under budget ? +Industrial Designer: Uh we did , yeah . This cost {disfmarker} well to put this into um production , we're looking at about {disfmarker} what was our goal ? It was twelve fifty Euro um and this actually came in at about eleven ninety nine . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , so I was quite pleased with that . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: One thing that we didn't do um {disfmarker} obviously we had a choice with the buttons whether to use scroll buttons or standard rubber buttons , but we just went for a classic rubber button and um since we did that +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we didn't have to use as many microchips which was quite nice and that's what helped keep the cost down . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: So even though it has a lot of modern technology , um for example the voice recognition , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: in a lot of ways it's just a simple remote and um I think if we shopped around for other manufacturers um we might be able to get even cheaper . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm . {vocalsound} Did we talk about the voice recognition uh option ? +Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Oh no , we haven't talked about that yet have we ? +User Interface: So uh so uh yeah on the back here you all noticed this area here which is actually the voice recognition uh uh console +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: and uh I think it's nicely designed into the into the overall look . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um , but basically the voice recognition uh incorporates um the latest designs that our research team has been able to cufw uh come up with . Basically uh quite similar to the coffee maker um design that we were talking about earlier +Marketing: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: and um , I think that uh has given a proven um {vocalsound} ease of use and what not . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: And uh allows features like the remote actually talking back to the user um , so . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Any questions ? +Project Manager: No , no +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have um other , for lack of a better word , skins ? Covers ? +Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: In play now or are those ones gonna be developed later once we see how the couple we have g go or ? +Industrial Designer: Um , do you wanna answer this one +Marketing: Do we know where we stand on that yet ? +Industrial Designer: or do you want me to answer it ? +User Interface: Well we didn't quite have enough material uh {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Oh I wasn't expecting a prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Oh I see , +Marketing: I just didn't know {disfmarker} if you guys had any in mind yet . {vocalsound} +User Interface: right , um . +Industrial Designer: Um , well {vocalsound} as you can see this is just a most superficial layer and um it'd be very easy to put another layer of something else like {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . Just veneer really , +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: yeah . Okay . +User Interface: Actually this bottom red ring here just unclips +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and then you put a a new a new uh a new plate on top of that . +Marketing: And the whole thing {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay +User Interface: So I mean there are {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right +User Interface: we definitely priced out a spongy {disfmarker} even spongier non-natural look um materials +Marketing: Yeah . There's {disfmarker} Okay . +User Interface: which I think worked out fine . We also continued on with the ideas that f following uh Apple's colour schemes with the kind of the uh light orange and the green . +Marketing: Mm 'kay . Okay , very cool . +Industrial Designer: It's not it's not quite a a face plate , it's more like a pseudo-face plate because it's simple enough +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: that in the factory it could {disfmarker} we could very easily put a different one on it , it locks into place such that , you know , it's pretty permanent but at the same time , if we wanna go the other way it's just a matter of a couple of adjustments and we could go the face plate way +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: if you know what I mean . +Marketing: Yep . It's still an option if we need it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Very cool , nice job . +Project Manager: Right , yeah thanks guys that's very , very good work . I like it , brilliant . {vocalsound} Um , {vocalsound} what we need to discuss now is the finance of it , um I got me {disfmarker} you've got {disfmarker} you provided a number that actually sounds quite nice . Um the trouble is I was just given this by finance . Um , it's a spreadsheet of the parts {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Project Manager: and I've just tentatively put in what it's going to look like um . +Industrial Designer: Ooh . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna clear this out real quickly , but it looks like {disfmarker} So we'll just {disfmarker} if we can just itemize what's in here , we've got this {disfmarker} it's a solar cell thing right ? +Industrial Designer: Right +Project Manager: With a back-up battery ? +Industrial Designer: uh we didn't really touch on that but it it's in there , +Project Manager: With the ba okay . Um +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: The voice recognition area actually doubles as uh as the solar cell area . Yeah . +Project Manager: Clever , clever , well done . Um so I guess that would mean we've got a bit of a um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's a s a speaker and a sensor at the same time isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's just making use of the same space and the same materials , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . Um and the case , it's more of a single-curved case , I guess would be that {disfmarker} be the general {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one big curve I guess you could say . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and we've got a rubber skin material basically throughout . Um . Push button interface um with this other drop-down so maybe we've got two push button interfaces don't we ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um . And um a special {disfmarker} I guess it's uh {disfmarker} we've got a sort of a wood materi a rubbery type material that {disfmarker} throughout , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , special . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: And s I guess you have to mark special colour and special form as well , don't you ? 'Cause it i it is very unconventional , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's it's quite unique . +Industrial Designer: I like to think of it as unconventional . +Project Manager: I like it , yeah it's {disfmarker} So it looks like +Marketing: M come in at sixteen ? +Project Manager: a bit over budget , um . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Huh , doesn't match up does it ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what we could do perhaps , a simple fix would maybe to switch away from the solar cells {vocalsound} um or take out the back-up battery . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: How do you feel about that ? +User Interface: I mean I think that uh if we're talking about it being one of our main selling features , being environmental and without the batteries and what not , although it does still have a battery so I'm not sure that {disfmarker} you know what the sell is on that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I mean we could take we could take the battery out of it you see and it'd probably work ninety nine per cent of the time but you're gonna have to set up a call centre for that one per cent of the time when people are calling and saying oh look my remote isn't working +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: what am I gonna do ? +Marketing: Mm k . +Industrial Designer: People'd be real upset . I think in the long-run it's better to keep the battery , +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: it's hard to scrap the whole cell battery idea 'cause that's so integral to the theme that we have . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} What's difficult , we have all these things integral to the um to the design of it that we just can't back out of now , +Marketing: Nah . +Project Manager: it would have to be {disfmarker} seems like we'd have to go back to square one in a way . Um if we were gonna try to undo one bit we'd probably have to undo most of it , um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Although we don't wanna get rid of the whole environmental {disfmarker} I mean obviously the solar cell is a big piece of the way we're marketing this as like a natural , new thing , but honestly if we cut that one piece out we're actually coming in under budget if I've done my math correctly . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: I mean you might be able to sway me on the idea that {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} our main selling point could be already this voice recognition thing +Marketing: I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean that's what sets us apart +Marketing: Which , it's {disfmarker} +User Interface: right ? +Marketing: yeah that's what setting us into this young market , I mean that's where we started from , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know , and I mean you know perhaps when the cell technology comes down in price we can bring that back into the game but it looks like at this point that may be out of our league . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: And the reality is you know , for me from an ideological stand point , I'd like to stick with the uh the solar cell , but I h kind of have to throw myself in the in the business structure model here +Marketing: Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: and uh you know I think I think that I think that we need to come to a compromise here +Project Manager: It's either or . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and maybe move ahead with the project , without the solar cell . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I guess we might have to do that . +Marketing: I think unfortunately that's our best option . +Industrial Designer: It's the only way we're gonna get below our uh goal isn't it ? Of twelve fifty . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: 'Cause we can't remove the push buttons 'cause they're {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: um and we can't get rid of the uh {disfmarker} I mean removing the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Savings . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: changing the case wouldn't be so much of a {vocalsound} mm-mm , um , nor would changing the case materials . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: Um . So yeah that looks like to be the only thing . So that would be the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's a major change but {disfmarker} Yeah . Alright , so +Industrial Designer: Gotta do what you gotta do . +Project Manager: we're in agreement on that . +Marketing: Unfortunately I think we are . +User Interface: No , I think that was a good compromise you brought forward Sarah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . Moving along swiftly . Um , so I guess now we just go to the project evaluation which I will allow Sarah to take over . +Marketing: That would be me . Um cord ? +Project Manager: Ah of course , sorry . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Whoosh . +Marketing: Can you reach , +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: that would be great , thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That'd be great {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I didn't even do that one on purpose either , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: damn . Okay , um , basically I was just evaluating um {vocalsound} from what we know of how our product's working right now with the criteria that we set at the beginning of {disfmarker} these are the things we needed to do , these are the things that look like we feel they're important . Um so I was looking at basic design things , does it fulfil its functions as a remote ? Is the design what we wanted it to do ? I are technologies up to where we hoped they would be and does it fulfil the aesthetic qualities that our original market research was looking for ? Um . Basic questions like , you know , does it turn on ? Does it respond to voice recognition ? And overall , in general , it looks like it's coming up to par . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um , the only thing is with with the pull-out panel , that is , can it take some adjusting because it's a new sort of interface , um that looked like it was coming up rough , but then , once you get used to it , it does make a lot of sense . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Really good . +Marketing: So I think overall we're headed in the right direction . {vocalsound} So . +User Interface: They like that spongy feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . It looks like it's going over well , so +User Interface: And the paging function works well , +Industrial Designer: Six ? +User Interface: that's good to hear , +Marketing: we're we're good yeah . +User Interface: we worked hard on that one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Brilliant . +Industrial Designer: We did . +Marketing: Yeah . It's {disfmarker} I think eventually if we do um branch out with this product maybe we do have a higher budget options and if it goes over with this model we can look into um wider range voice recognition like from other rooms of the house and stuff , but for now , what we've got is working in the range we need it for , so it's all good . +Industrial Designer: I am bit disappointed about losing the solar panel +Marketing: That's everything from me . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: but it's okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , it is a set-back , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , do you need the cord back ? +Project Manager: Um yeah , +User Interface: W we might have uh we might have lost that granola market again +Project Manager: I was just {disfmarker} go on . +Industrial Designer: I know . +User Interface: that we're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well they don't own tellys anyway do they ? +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: I guess that's true . +Project Manager: Right . So , um , {vocalsound} this one's a bit unclear to me to be perfectly fair , um . I got this slide from the coach and I'm not sure what it's connected to . Um so I guess we are going to discuss um {vocalsound} our project process um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that is gonna go into my report . So I guess this is the point where we go um {vocalsound} uh out of role it looks like and talk about our satisfaction for room for creativity and so forth and how that all worked , I guess , um . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: As in within the team or ? +Project Manager: I think so yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right so it's just kind of a open mic kind of thing or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} I mm-hmm , I think so . I think {vocalsound} hope I'm not screwing up an experiment {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: It is now , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: you're in charge there you go {vocalsound} . so {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I trust that she would jump in if I was so okay fair enough . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Whatever {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: Um right , um so any thoughts ? +Industrial Designer: Are we considering these points here ? +Marketing: Um . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: I think they're starting blocks yeah . +Project Manager: What do you guys feel about the process ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Um , you know I think in general , for a day's worth of work we actually were {vocalsound} relatively productive , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: considering the little amount of input we had going in . Um , and the technology has definitely been a help , it's really been interesting to try out all this new stuff . +User Interface: We didn't use the whiteboard at all . +Project Manager: No , no whiteboard . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we didn't . We could now if that'd make up for it +User Interface: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: but really {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I feel like if you guys had been designing in here perhaps that would have changed but because of room constraints , doesn't really matter . +User Interface: Um , also had I not been intrigued about the pen , I don't think I woulda used it at all , I didn't write barely anything . +Marketing: Yeah I think I was taking {vocalsound} notes more often than usual +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's true . +Marketing: just 'cause I liked the pen , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Uh . +Project Manager: Was pretty cool tack though . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Definitely . +Marketing: Mm . I am disappointed I didn't get a note back from my personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: As you write your personal coach . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I didn't get a response {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What if you get a response two or three months from now ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll see {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That'd be weird . +Marketing: Okay that would be kinda creepy . +Project Manager: Attempts to contact coach ineffective {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: what kind of coaching is that really ? What if I really needed something . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} so n I think there was a lot of room for creativity , I don't we could do whatever {disfmarker} basically what we wanted until the budget came down on us , um . +Marketing: I think so . And even then we did get a decent product turned out although it's not everything we wanted it to be . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: With the natural look . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Very natural look . +Industrial Designer: That's very natural . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Organic , really . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's the brilliance of {disfmarker} they had a p they had a peeler in here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And highly resourceful team mates might I add +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: which is always a plus . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think , yeah re I thought it was like really creative actually , I mean . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think the teamwork was good as well . +Marketing: Mm yeah , I'm impressed . +Industrial Designer: And to prove that we weren't wasteful we didn't waste a single bit of Play-Doh , we used every bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . All four of those little containers . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Including the s the multi-coloured wave pattern . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I guess {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: My one my one criticism is that we didn't have enough colours to work with , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: we only had four , wasn't enough . +Marketing: You could have developed multiple skins really had you had more colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know it could have been amazing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh well . +Project Manager: What did you guys think about the the the roles ? +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: They were good {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's f kind of fun , it was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think it was pretty clever 'cause we were never able to get too far off track because the information came in at the right time and kind of filled in the gaps enough . +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: At the same time you had enough room to kind of just make things up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do your own . +Industrial Designer: which was kind of fun . +Marketing: Though I did feel like th the level of information dropped off severely over the course of the day . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean maybe it's just me but I didn't actually get any information for the last presentation at all . +Project Manager: That's true , I I got this spreadsheet {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Nothing , I didn't even get an email , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: like +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that was it . So , yeah , I feel like that was slightly lacking but then you know , fill in the blanks on your own , level of creativity upped . +User Interface: Well I think that was I think that was an issue I kept finding with regard to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whatever . +Project Manager: Of what to do . +User Interface: well no but also {disfmarker} yeah when I was reporting about what each of us was doing I was often confused as to what you were doing {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Uh-huh , that wasn't very much . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You know {disfmarker} +User Interface: um and then I also felt like you know a lot of our discussion would centre around n specifically what my task was +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: because that was kind of the interface portion +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: which was what the whole project was about +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Mm , mm . +User Interface: uh +Marketing: Hmm , very much so . +User Interface: but {disfmarker} and then in the end I think our jobs kind of melded together a little bit more , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . That was fun . I think the most helpful thing out of everything was getting the the PowerPoint slides already put together for you +User Interface: which was fine . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: 'cause if we didn't have that there's no way we could have got all that done in time . +Marketing: Yeah , already having the formatted stuff helped a lot . Very much so . +Project Manager: Cool . +User Interface: And I think your leadership was quite good . +Industrial Designer: It was really good yeah . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: She said I I I she actually made a comment off {gap} boy you're getting into this and I really I think it's true I did get {disfmarker} I I felt like I got way too into it . +Marketing: Yeah . That's kind of a good thing though , +Project Manager: I felt like I slipped into it a lot . +Industrial Designer: It's kinda fun . +Marketing: you know , give the rest of us some structure to work with so hey . +Project Manager: I dunno . +User Interface: An so is that the first time you've taken on that kind of role ? +Project Manager: The first time I've ever done anything like yeah project project management . I usually organise crap , +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: it's one thing to do , you know {disfmarker} set up a party with your friends , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Little different . +Project Manager: But you guys felt that you could keep the , yeah , suspension of disbelief kind of like like the role and the {disfmarker} okay ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I except for a couple moments where it just got out of hand +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and I knew we were all lying through our teeth , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I had to admit , as soon as w we started {disfmarker} I mean as soon as we got the Play-Doh , {vocalsound} th {vocalsound} you know the whole concept of really trying to stick with reality went out the window {vocalsound} . +Marketing: other than that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I could only imagine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe in in Legos you know ? Be fun with Legos too , +User Interface: Possibly . +Project Manager: like make a remote control or spaceship , we used to have spaceship Legos {disfmarker} did you guys ever used to build spaceships with Legos {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh yeah , +Marketing: Yeah . Totally . +Project Manager: everybody knows {disfmarker} best spaceships ever . +User Interface: still have 'em . +Project Manager: Um you guys felt like there was enough teamwork in all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Marketing: I think so . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No I , no I dunno , I d I I dunno , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't . +Project Manager: I don't {disfmarker} I I was just {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though we didn't actually {disfmarker} I mean other than minor discussion at meetings there wasn't {disfmarker} except for the actual building , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's true huh ? +Marketing: but I feel like if this was a team project there actually would have been much more of the collaborative like brainstorming , use the board {disfmarker} well and this would have been six months' worth of work , not like three hours' worth of meetings . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I think had the issue been more serious we probably woulda brainstormed more during our meetings as a team . I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's true . +Project Manager: Yeah . Course I'm I'm conscious of the idea of the Project Manager asking if you guys feel like there's a team {vocalsound} you know it's like , kind of like , like hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It d +Marketing: Yeah that is kind of {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But yeah . Interesting . It's kind of fascinating wasn't it ? I mean the whole process of {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Wonder why {disfmarker} is there anything about the way that we got so much inform what was it that kept us from going to the the board ? +Project Manager: I don't know . {vocalsound} I I don't know if there was a ri I th +Marketing: Mine was the mics . I didn't feel like getting up and down and dealing with all these wires , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's it +Marketing: I was afraid I was gonna break something actually . +Industrial Designer: 'cause the mics are loose and each time you get up it's s a possibility of tripping over something or getting tangled or . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I dunno what I woulda shown on that board . +Marketing: Yeah . True , but it didn't even occur to me as an option , +Project Manager: Nor I . +Marketing: I mean I don't know that I would have but I know that I consciously didn't . +User Interface: I mean it's just like the paper I don't know what I really needed the paper for . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: Um , because I've got this laptop . Standard , +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: I just used it 'cause it's literally right in front of me . +Project Manager: I wanna see the output files from these um , from the digital paper . +Marketing: Yeah . Well it looks really professional . +Project Manager: I wanna see wh wh what my my handwriting looks like digitized +Marketing: I know . +Project Manager: because my handwriting is crap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: I mean , just to see what it looks like in P_D_F_ format or something . +Industrial Designer: that's it . Usually I would do a lot more doodling too but I didn't because {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know , I felt like I needed to be professional so I didn't like draw all over my paper and stuff . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , well not entirely , but still , I doodled less than I usually do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: T I I'm curious about what the de-briefing is gonna be like . You know , like what is the uh what exactly we're looking for here . +User Interface: So is this all we need to get through ? +Project Manager: I dunno , I'm not sure what the new ideas found i is about . +Marketing: I guess . +Industrial Designer: New ideas . +Marketing: Um . +User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} did it just say in an email that we need to discuss that ? +Project Manager: Well , that's the thing I got {disfmarker} i in the email I got this PowerPoint file but this slide was just there , +Marketing: That slide was like that ? +Project Manager: mm-hmm . I didn't change this one at all . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Well . +Project Manager: Um ch +Industrial Designer: I guess we're on the right track . +Project Manager: Yeah well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Any new ideas with regard to remote control concepts ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: W {gap} {vocalsound} I kinda like th +Industrial Designer: No , none . +Marketing: Uh I think they still do their job . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah you can't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think they're fine actually . +Marketing: I am thinking outside the little square box though , with literally in like form +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe a s a circle would be alright , different . +Marketing: I don't {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Does kinda make you wonder , I mean , how much can you do with a remote control ? It's like inventing a new car . Yeah yeah , you can {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's still gotta be technically car shaped or it won't fit on the road , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: you know ? {vocalsound} Don't know . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . 'Kay . +User Interface: What is that ? Our limited ability to think outside the box ? +Project Manager: So this was other costs . +Marketing: Kind of . +Industrial Designer: Are we back into project mood ? +Project Manager: I dunno . I think this is +Marketing: Oh , how long was our meeting supposed to be ? +Project Manager: forty ish +Marketing: How much time do we have left ? +Project Manager: I I I mm we should go on a bit {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} about the project eval , um . I dunno about you guys but I felt like a bit under-stimulated on the whole thing . Like , what like you know what am I really doing , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: you know what is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at the beginning it started out and I felt actually like under pressure like the first couple were taking a lot of work +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: and I was like {disfmarker} had like all this brainstorming I was doing +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and then suddenly I was like well it's just another two minute presentation that you guys don't really care about anyway +User Interface: {vocalsound} Why ? +Project Manager: Hey . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so type away . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Huh I think it was the real {gap} . +Marketing: You know , you know what I mean +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: like we all sort of knew where we were headed with it so it didn't feel like it mattered anymore . +Industrial Designer: Definitely when {vocalsound} when I first filled out the questionnaire I was marking it probably higher in terms of how much I had to {disfmarker} how much I stressed over it +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and then by the time I got to the last one I was like , you know , not very much . +Marketing: Whatever . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Think it was also realisation of you basically just copy and paste what's given to you into your presentation +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very much , yeah . +User Interface: which uh wasn't so clear to me at the beginning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I actually didn't do that at all though , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: every single one I {disfmarker} a all the presentations I either added slides or edited 'em . I di +User Interface: Oh I added like five slides too , +Marketing: {vocalsound} See +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Did you really ? +User Interface: but I {disfmarker} +Marketing: I only got blank ones . +Industrial Designer: I just got blank ones +Project Manager: What ? Really ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: My slides were all blank , they'd have a title maybe +User Interface: Yeah , mine too . +Marketing: and they were just empty . +Project Manager: Did they not have {disfmarker} they didn't like {disfmarker} uh mine {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Me too . +Project Manager: yeah they didn't come like this ? Like with {disfmarker} this was what it looks like . This is what that looked like , +Marketing: Like with those words already on it ? +Project Manager: literally , just like that . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Interesting . +Marketing: I wondered why yours always looked so more complicated . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh huh huh . +Industrial Designer: I deleted slides {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think I added a slide one time . +User Interface: I added many slides every time {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: with the whole new background being innovative , yeah that was class . +User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: That was pretty cool , it was a high moment of the whole experiment . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Interesting . Any other thoughts come to mind ? +Marketing: I wanna know how our product would fare . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it would fail , I think +Marketing: I can't just leave it there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it'd be a huge disaster , especially if it looks like that . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it would take extensive marketing , okay , an apple with a red button on top , even I am sceptical . {vocalsound} But you know the whole {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Even you {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: I don't {disfmarker} we kind of designed it to look little bit like a face . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know it is {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: It's a happy face . +User Interface: Actually that looked a lot more like a tongue from previous to uh fr some other design uh modifications {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Builds . Mm . +User Interface: I hope you appreciate the uh incorporation of some tin foil from a uh random Kit-Kat bar +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I I noticed that . {vocalsound} By accident . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that happened to be consumed . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well huh . An interesting day all in all I would say . +Project Manager: Uh , yeah , I'd say so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So again I reiterate my question of how different we are comp compared to the other groups , especially between culture groups and what not . +Project Manager: Mm , I know . +Marketing: I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: It seemed like everything flowed pretty logically . You know from the the the basics to the conce +Industrial Designer: I wanna see a {disfmarker} +Marketing: I Yeah . +Project Manager: although the whole concepts thing , the whole concepts phase , I don't think I really understood like the concept . Well the id okay the notion of {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Cause it's such a functional item . +Project Manager: yeah I mean i it's not like I have a concept of a mug's material , it's just it is what it is . You know , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: maybe i rather than concepts i it should be th thought of {disfmarker} we sh I I thought of I thought of {disfmarker} rather than in terms of concepts I thought of it in terms of proposed idea . And then the final would be like th the actual specified prototype or whatever , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I dunno . But . All in all it's kinda interesting . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So we have more slides or ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No just this closing one . No we've established that the costs weren't really within budget , but we could s you know do it {disfmarker} +Marketing: We got it to be . +Project Manager: We did the project evaluation based on um {vocalsound} Sarah's evaluation of on off switches +Marketing: Like cutting corners . Kind of , +Project Manager: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: though it was really technically an evaluation of the product , not the project in general . +Project Manager: Mm . True . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Which I'm not sure is the same thing , at the time that just i made more sense , but I could see if they were really asking about us . +Project Manager: Yeah . 'Cause we di we had a thu think about it . Um . Yeah . And it's all recorded , woo-hoo . Yeah what I'm gonna {disfmarker} I'm gonna put um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yay . +Project Manager: I'm supposed to do this final report thing at the end so I'll put all that into the final report as well , or as much as seems like {disfmarker} maybe not like the articles and stuff , like because and if and so forth , but I'll put most of it in the reports . +Industrial Designer: I {vocalsound} It'd be so cool if we get a copy of the recording . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it sound eloquent . Oh , I have to done {disfmarker} I've {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: I've done transcription before and it's really ridiculous how many words people say like just in the middle of their sentences like that +Project Manager: Oh yeah . +Marketing: that mean nothing . +Project Manager: There's a whole branch of psychology that looks into that , psycholinguistics . +Industrial Designer: Really . +User Interface: What the uhs and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: There's a guy studying it here , yeah , he's studying ums and ahs or something . +Industrial Designer: Filler words or ? +Project Manager: Yep , they're called um disfluencies . +Industrial Designer: Disfluencies . +Marketing: That's a good word for it . +Project Manager: Yeah we like our fancy phrases and terminologies for things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Just add some prefixes , sounds classier . +Project Manager: Exactly uh I will save this into the project documents . +Industrial Designer: I find myself hitting the send and receive button on the email a lot , just out of boredom , +Project Manager: Yeah . Oh yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah I know . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I , yeah , +Industrial Designer: like c come on gimme something . +Marketing: pretty compulsively during meetings , like , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on give me some information . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well to be fair we're we're hooked {disfmarker} we're all hooked on the internet , so I mean I do the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , we are addicts . +User Interface: That's scary +Industrial Designer: It is scary . +User Interface: yeah ? +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Well just around that eight or or nine people that are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I know , imagine we went the first ten y fifteen years of our lives without the internet . It's only in the last ten that we're like where's the internet ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , you know , it just in the past five we've gone from twenty eight eight modems to broadband all the time . +Marketing: I yeah . +User Interface: Dude , I think we've had internet for like eighteen years . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: No we have but I {disfmarker} not in the sense that it's so un you know uh ubiquitous +Marketing: I yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But it's not regular I mean my grandparents had it in the eighties and I got it in ninety four , but still . +Industrial Designer: It's crazy . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +User Interface: In the eighties ? +Marketing: My um grammy does computer science back in the States and so they had um an E_D_U_ and gov network . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: There's basically the fundamental structures , but it wasn't uh household to household yet +User Interface: Right . +Marketing: because it hadn't been +User Interface: Yeah , it was to the like seven universities or something . +Marketing: partitioned off and stuff , yeah that was him . +User Interface: You guys ready to celebrate ? +Project Manager: Yeah that's our last step . Celebration . +Marketing: Apparently , does that include like champagne or something exciting ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Should . +Project Manager: 'Kay I guess we can probably call that meeting to an end for the most part . +Marketing: I think so . I think that's a closer . +Project Manager: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Has it been forty minutes or whatever ? {gap} this has been long enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Celebrate . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where do you find that ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I have no idea . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is that the only song you have ? +User Interface: There is another one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is this one of those media player ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Huh ? +Project Manager: W oh . +Industrial Designer: That's awesome . +User Interface: Yep . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The default track . I thought it was David Burns , look into the eyeball . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I have a different one . +Project Manager: That's one that seems to be shipping with it uh shipped with for a while , maybe this is the new version . +Marketing: So is that a close ? +Project Manager: Yeah , I guess we'll call that a a doner . +Marketing: Okay , that's the end of the meeting . +Project Manager: Fab . +Marketing: Thank you gentlemen . I feel like I'm signing off . +","This text depicts a team meeting involving a project manager, industrial designer, user interface designer, and marketing personnel discussing the development of a prototype for a voice recognition remote control. The team evaluates the design, which includes large buttons for primary functions and a slide-out panel for advanced features, as well as the inclusion of environment-friendly technology like solar cells. During the process, they face the challenge of keeping costs under budget, which prompts a discussion on possibly removing the solar cell feature to reduce expenses. Team members also reflect on the meeting process, their roles, and the technological tools provided. The summary of their progress notes that the prototype design is unconventional and may require significant marketing to be successful. Throughout the meeting, there is mention of the paperwork, email communications, and PowerPoint presentations that guided their discussions. The text ends with the team wrapping up their meeting and contemplating the celebration of their work." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I hope you're ready for this uh functional design meeting . +Marketing: Of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I will take the minutes you mm you three are going to do presentation . Um uh we want to know {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} at the end to know the new project's requirement so we need uh to know the the user uh needs that we want to fulfil to fulfil the {disfmarker} from the technical part we want to know how it going to work and um third part {vocalsound} uh I don't remember {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is not very good . Ah of course , how to to design this uh this {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice stuff {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . So um let's go for the three presentations , so first um Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who starts ? {vocalsound} Oh . Ha . okay . +Project Manager: So wait a minute . Mm . +Marketing: So I dunno if I can do that like this ? Yeah ? So it's being modified . Do you want {disfmarker} yeah , open . Read only . I hope I saved it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , um +User Interface: Sammy Benjo . I know this name uh . +Marketing: yeah , this is my name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sounds uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We met before . +Marketing: So as you know , you {disfmarker} I think you already know me , Sammy Benjo . I am the expert in marketing and I want to tell you about what people uh s want and uh like and dislike in remote controls , and I hope this is going to help you to to design it correctly . So next please . Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is put F_ five {gap} . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: The full page presentation , yep . +Marketing: Yeah maybe in the full page +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: F_ F_ five . +Marketing: because i I spent lots of time doing this presentation , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh hmm okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So basically uh what I suggest is that uh instead of deciding ourself what what could be and what should be a good uh remote control , let's ask people who are users of remote controls how they feel about w the current remote controls , what they like , what they don't like and um and what they do with them by the way {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because they are supposed to be useful . {vocalsound} Don't forget about that . So we've we've conducted a a survey on on the use of uh remote controls and I'd like to show you some of the results we found on this survey . And next please . Yeah , so basically what we found was that uh there are several things that the user don't like in remote controls . First of all , they find it very ugly . {vocalsound} Current remote controls as you know they're the same as this one uh they're not nice colour , not nice shape , I mean they're all the same , and they're not l good looking . Um what is interesting is that in fact it seems that they were {disfmarker} people are ready to pay for nice and look {disfmarker} and fancy looking uh remote control , so I think we should probably spend lots of time in {disfmarker} and effort in that um . And the other thing is that uh the the current remote controls are not so easy to use and it it {disfmarker} the the current uh facilities that they offer do not match what people really want to use their remote controls . For instance uh we see that uh they zap very often so I think this is a very uh important uh functionality that it should be easy for them to to zap uh in one way or another . And most of the buttons uh on uh current remote controls are not used , so I think we should design something where some of the buttons which are those that are used should be easier to see and use than others that only a couple of people are using . Um next please . {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} people are very frustrated w with their {vocalsound} remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and they for instance uh they don't even find it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {vocalsound} it's often lost somewhere in the in the {disfmarker} in your home and nobody knows where it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Agree . +Marketing: Maybe if we have something where we could {vocalsound} ask the remote control please , where are you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like uh something to to {disfmarker} like t I think phones . Some of the phones have some of this kind of s functionality . Uh of course phone you can always phone your phone +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {vocalsound} you can't phone your {vocalsound} your remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} you are {gap} . +Project Manager: Why not ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But why not ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And because of the fact that there are so many buttons in these remote controls that nobody use , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: in fact they don't even know how to use them , so most of the the people say they they don't know how to {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} to use properly their r remote controls . And uh they are bad for R_S_I_ but uh I don't remember what is R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay uh tha that's look great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So I think they are bad . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} R_S_I_ mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm nobody has any idea about that ? Well I'll check uh with my +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's electromagnetic waves or something kind of maybe uh effect . +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: No , I don't think so . +Marketing: I think it's a technical thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: which our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because infrared uses some electromagnetic technology , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and those waves have high {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems that {vocalsound} it's a lot of people for a concept that we don't know {vocalsound} +User Interface: But twenty six percent , do you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or something we don't know . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Twenty five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: but we have to take this into account . +User Interface: Every fourth , you know . {vocalsound} Every four {disfmarker} some of us knows . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} People really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So anyway +User Interface: One of us {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's for what the biggest frustration uh of the user and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: what else do I have ? Next slide ? Ah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we've listed a couple of uh +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: s uh functions that may be uh used by u the user in the current uh available uh remote controls and uh well the tables look very nice to read but what is important is to understand that the power button is not used often because in general you {vocalsound} use it only once per session , but it is very relevant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: People want to have a power button . Channel selection is uh o often used {disfmarker} very often used and indeed uh very relevant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} now I remember what is R_S_I_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's repetitivity stress injury . {vocalsound} We have to be careful with that word but {vocalsound} uh anyway +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: I continue my presentation so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: channel selection is um very important , very often used . Volume is not often used but people uh want to have control on volume and that makes sense of course . And n then you have things which are very much less often used like the settings . Audio settings , screen settings , even teletext and channel settings . All of them . they're not often used and they are s more or less relevant . It seems that people find teletext teletext uh relevant , even if I personally never use it but seems that it's average relevant at least , so . +Project Manager: I have been told that we uh don't consider teletext , that it's out of date now because of internet . +Marketing: I can tell you that uh in a l in a scale between one and ten relevant uh not relevant to relevant people scored a six on this , which is not as uh these these two one were {disfmarker} had I think ten I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But but if you compare with these ones , uh I think they scored a one or two . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Not very relevant , so if if there are good reason not to put teletext it's okay but just know that people find it somehow relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's for the main functions I think and uh then we can ask uh ourself uh what people don't have that may be useful . For instance I think {disfmarker} net next slide . {vocalsound} One of the thing {disfmarker} the trend uh that uh you are probably aware of is the possibility {disfmarker} the eventual possibility of having speech recognition in your remote control , so you wouldn't have to tap tap in your buttons but just tell your remote control or whatever you need you have what you want . So we've conducted a survey about uh whether people would like or not to have uh this kind of uh functionality in their remote control and as we can see it really depends on the age . Young people , probably because it's a buzz word , find it very relevant . And uh as the age goes up {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the relevance goes down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So now it really depends on the kind of uh targeting uh wha who are we targeting with this remote control ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think if we are targeting young people then uh it's probably something we have to consider . If we are targeting you very old people this is something they really don't know why they {disfmarker} this should be so now +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay . +Marketing: this is of course , depends on that . And um I don't have any conclusion , I didn't have time the meeting was very tight , so that's basically my findings . And uh , if you have any question ? +Project Manager: Mm I think it's good , okay . You done a good review . +User Interface: I got one question , +Marketing: I can go back . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah one question , +User Interface: uh you are a Market Expert +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: so +Marketing: I am . {vocalsound} +User Interface: should we aim at the young people or not ? +Marketing: I think we should aim at the young people . But uh I think they are {disfmarker} they are those uh who might be more interested in a in a new device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: In general the the early adopters of a new device are young people , less than {disfmarker} more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then teletext is used less . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Then teletext is useless for them I think , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . Because they they have other means of finding their information . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm mm . Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's good point . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Nope . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yep . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: So um now I think it's the turn of the the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not sure um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of the technical function , so {vocalsound} uh +Marketing: So I think it's you , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's +Marketing: No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's me . +Project Manager: what effect {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: techni function of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , user requiremen +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Wait a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: I have to do working design so uh +Project Manager: So you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but this but number three , yes . Mm-hmm . So , my name is Mark Dwight , and um I am responsible for User Interface Design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: However , uh mm Project Manager asked me to give you some presentation about technical functions design . Uh , as I'm a more an artist +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's gonna be less technical functions but more User Interface and current intentions and everything which is linked with this . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's go . +User Interface: So next slide please . And uh a general method which is {disfmarker} seems to be very useful for our task +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: is not to forget about uh Occam razor . We should never complicate things too much . We should only make a remote control , nothing more . Nothing more than this , just a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause current remote controls they are never easy enough to use . +Marketing: Makes sense . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , make a click , please . So here is this remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's quite a standard one , but it's not from a T_V_ , it's from a much easier device like air conditioning or something . But you know , we can use it for a T_V_ easily . Only buttons we need is on off , volume , channels and maybe some options or something else , and please make a click , compared to this one +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: which one would you prefer ? I guess this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I would say the simplest one as long as there are the uh {disfmarker} I find the buttons that I need every time I need a button . +User Interface: Sure , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it can be yeah middle of {disfmarker} like , between those two +User Interface: Yeah , and our method is going to be , provide simple +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: simple desires into simple actions . +Marketing: Nice . Nice sentence . +User Interface: Findings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +User Interface: Our question of the style , we should remember that our company +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: puts fashion into electronics and we should never forget about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S you should {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Be simple . Be simple and you'll lean on this market . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Market is a {disfmarker} of remote controls {disfmarker} you know it better , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: it's very well , it's it's not an easy field to to play , you know ? So be simple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: For personal preferences I think that to make a baby-proof remote control it got to be a titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a really good style , it going to be {disfmarker} look like like this . It is unbreakable and it is very universal . W we'll have a screen with a back light which can change colours , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and we can put all the options into this screen . We'll need only few buttons . All the other things can be controlled through the screen . And all these buttons should be easy to find and to click , 'cause when you watch a movie and you want to change something , you always try to find a good button and click it , but you should do it by touching it and finding it easily just by touch . So {disfmarker} Press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I would propose this concept for design , just few buttons , a screen with a back light which can change colours , titanium +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think , and uh what else ? I got just very few and good ideas . We need power and volume . And let us include two nice features into this device , first , power on and off can be made fully automatic . When you go to the sofa , take your control and point it to the T_V_ , +Project Manager: It's off . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's on . +User Interface: the T_V_ turns on . +Marketing: And when does it turn off ? +User Interface: When you don't touch the control but you go out of the {disfmarker} For for enough time +Marketing: Oh so you have a +User Interface: like uh you {disfmarker} +Marketing: sensing {disfmarker} sensor machine that uh knows {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a question to our technical design , our {vocalsound} two engineers . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tech {vocalsound} +User Interface: And another nice feature that I would like to implement is uh volume control . Suppose you set u you set up some volume and then you move out or you move to the other corner of the room and take your control with you . Like , you want to to change the chair or you want to move to the armchair from the sofa or something , and then the volume changes . +Project Manager: Or you want to go to the kitchen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's easy to do , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you just control the {disfmarker} +Marketing: According to your distance to {disfmarker} and the angle maybe , if you have a stereo system . +Industrial Designer: Distance . +User Interface: According to the distance . {gap} Yeah yeah yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'm not sure about the screen , wha what is the use usefulness of the screen ? Uh is it a touch screen by the way ? +User Interface: I think it can be just a menu which can be controlled with a left , right , up , down and enter . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it gives instructions but uh it has to be with an back light somehow . {gap} +User Interface: So , its main purpose in fact is a back light , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which change colours , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: which makes it easier to find , and each can {disfmarker} it can respond for your voice , like it can turn on the light for you just to f find it easily , yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So basically that's it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I see that you target uh several s application not only T_V_ but i like we talk about um universal uh remote control . +User Interface: Can be easily done , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause you got simple designs , y we should put it to simple actions . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Let it be universal , so you want to use it for your hi-fi system . You want to change tracks and you want to adjust volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just few actions , a few actions for everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . S +User Interface: All the rest , we sh we'll put it into this menu on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm . Since we were targeting a really soon uh uh date for the the the um i issuing of this uh remote control I think we will only concentrate on T_V_ for the moment and then maybe m make it more generalised {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah and it {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: Okay , but it's quite universal you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We can just extend it to any device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So for instance if I want to go to {disfmarker} directly to channel twenty five , how would I do {disfmarker} can I do that with this ? +User Interface: Uh twenty five . +Marketing: Yeah mm let's say I am uh on channel eight now . You know these days we have hundreds of channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's not so easy to go just next next next when you have hundreds of channels . +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact I would propose another solution . +Marketing: Or is it ? +User Interface: Basically you use just four or five channels , right ? +Marketing: Most people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: So uh set up your T_V_ set like channels that you use they're one , two , three and five , and you will never have to go to a twenty fives channel . +Marketing: In fact in in one uh remote control that I've seen , instead of doing that d you could just say these are the cha ch channel three , twenty eight , forty eight and uh sixty four are those that I want to by cycled with my next button . +Project Manager: Yeah it's it's the same solution , I think . Hmm . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: B yeah . +Industrial Designer: But even we can have some uh L_C_D_ display , like you can uh de you can just button the number +Marketing: Go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: and then it go +Marketing: One thing is that as I said in my presentation people really do like to z zap . +Industrial Designer: t because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So even if they are only watching four or five channels , I think they want to zap out of the one hundred channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But still {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: just because this is one kind of thing they do , zapping . +Project Manager: Yeah uh on zap it's only next next next next next , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it's only next . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Mm . We got these buttons here . Next next . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} but you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah. . +User Interface: Or say this can be back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But otherwise like we can put some display on numbers and then they can just press {disfmarker} suppose two five they just press two and five +Marketing: So it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we can make uh different modes for each button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can change mode {disfmarker} zapping mode or +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Project Manager: uh current chan +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah but since we are focusing only on T_V_ remote controls +Marketing: {vocalsound} Listening more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we can have more functions for T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you want to go for a universal then we ought to limit for functions for each of our devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Could we carry out some research if we w really need this , like how many people really need to go to channel number twenty five and then to sixty four ? +Marketing: Well I could could uh have a look at that {vocalsound} maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll check in my department if there's someone specialist in that . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Although I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright ? Thanks for your attention . +Project Manager: Uh you're finish ? Okay . So now {vocalsound} the technical aspects of this new device . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Two . Yeah , if {disfmarker} {gap} Sorry . +Project Manager: You prefer it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh as you know , I am mister Ramaro . I am an expert in uh industrial design of all electronic devices and I previously devised many uh {disfmarker} like digital calculators and electronic calculators . {vocalsound} So now I'll briefly describe the working design of our remote control . Well , as you know the basic function of remote control is sending some message to the the device , like T_V_ or V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player etcetera . So we will have a p portable device which will send message to the the main device like T_V_ . So we need to have some energy source to do what {disfmarker} to do the functions , what we want on this portable device . {vocalsound} And usually this {disfmarker} so to do these functions we need an interface , which basically some kind of pressing buttons or keys or like moving jack or something like that . And then these messages {disfmarker} these key buttons can be transferred into some kind of message and then it will process by the chip and then it will generate some information to the main device . It's generally in the form of infrared or some kind of s sensor information . Then we will have the main control in the main device to do the particular action what we want . So , basically we need uh since we are focusing on our interface device {gap} remote control mainly the energy source like the battery and then we have user interface like uh the keypad and you know buttons we want , and then we have some chip , it's mainly digital signal processing chip because since we are {disfmarker} I am one doing mostly digital uh devices we ought to have some kind of processor which take care of all these functions and put it in some digital format . And then we'll have the infrared L_E_D_ source which sends the information to the main device . Then we'll have switch in our main uh um device to do particular operations , and we ought to do different codes for different T_V_s , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so some T_V_s will have different encryption codes for doing s s uh channel changing and these things . +Project Manager: Okay . To make it quite uh an universal uh device uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , because the people don't use one particular brand so +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or at least we have more more than five brands , which are really good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we need to check their specifications and do their uh encryption that's passing information to the T_V_ device . So we need to have particular encryption codes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then , components , so we have the main uh energy source and then we will have some buttons and then we will have infrared uh source and then we have some inside some chip in in the device . Uh since I don't have much time so I'll input the connections to all this components . And since I also want to know feedback from our Marketing Expert and User Interface , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to add some more components we can incorporate them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And from from the discussion we had do you {disfmarker} can you make it on the whiteboard , or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'm sure , because since our User Interface {gap} speech recognition and also Marketing Expert for the speech recognition is really handy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: we can have another , like uh s simple speech recogniser on our D_S_B_ chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Since we have some kind of uh energy this is our this normal battery , so this battery , once you s switch on it will take power and we can have some speech recognition and in our g generally small digital signal processing chip so that and we will put uh the small uh simple speech recogniser +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we can also train the speech recogniser for particular user so you just {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh train it , okay . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so that we just use simple recog +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Too complex . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: no but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But uh very very good to sell . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No , even in {disfmarker} you can find even simple mobile device like any mobile brand you can have these voice dialers or these things , yeah . +Marketing: Think of a all these young people who would love to say that this remote control only works for them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and ha ha you cannot use my remote control , +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it's targeted to me . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what about the price of this component ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh maybe we can make uh it in five Euros and even less than that , +Project Manager: It mm {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Hmm . Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we want to have uh millions and in bulk , +Marketing: Millions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so we can make really simp +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we want to make really simple device +Marketing: Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we have only very few words like like power , switch on or some like +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: then we'll have something like this um we'll have volume and then we will have s particular channel , so users can listen . +Marketing: The user uh will just be able to say uh please can you uh pump up the vo pump up the volume +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: or or it will be something like volume , up , down . +Industrial Designer: Ye No , yeah , a user can use any kind of sender but they should have this prompt {gap} volume and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: With a keywords and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah volume and decrease or increase , so we try to only recognise those words +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm . +Industrial Designer: and and because we can't really say user to say same wording +Marketing: Couple of words . +Industrial Designer: then it become more mechanical and {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: And then we can have channel they can say , okay I want eight , because we don't know like users have different programmes , I mean they don't really follow same channels strict uh so we just want channel number , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we don't want like B_B_C_ or C_N_N_ or something else +Marketing: Of course uh it has to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because it will be complicated so we'll have only these three uh main basic uh anyway volume is not really speech recognition problem , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's it it will be take care of our main {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No you know it's a conceptual question , 'cause now I see th this {disfmarker} the picture in front of my eyes like a user taking his remote control and shouting into it , volume up , volume up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But then I think you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and he's coming {disfmarker} you know , he's really annoyed with this , down , up , down . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: First of all I I think this is not uh functionality that it is going to be instead of using the buttons . +Project Manager: No , in no not only speech , yeah . +Marketing: It's on top of using the button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I it's an option . +User Interface: Okay , for this budget like twelve Euros . +Marketing: Well , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually we we can have one switch to like uh switch on , on and off , this {gap} processor and {disfmarker} This really {gap} , suppose like here we have our main chip which controls power , volume and this part and this D_S_P_s . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Again , this to have some interaction like suppose people use D_S_P_ then it particularly sends some information to the chip like in some form , like volume and {gap} like this key . +User Interface: Okay. . +Industrial Designer: So it may not be like very expensive , because since we are only focusing on T_V_ remote control +Marketing: T_V_ . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} and we have only few things here {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sho to to train , okay . +User Interface: Did you consider the r gest uh gesture recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like , if I want to put volume up I like do {disfmarker} mm I take my remote control do like {disfmarker} something like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: roll 'em up +Industrial Designer: Um uh uh this point we didn't consider +User Interface: or roll 'em down . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very expensive , +Industrial Designer: because it's it's very expensive +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: because v our target is only like twelve point five Euros +Project Manager: And well , what about the idea of automatic on off on the button , yeah . +User Interface: Mm why ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: And volume control . +Industrial Designer: even automatic on off is also a bit problematic , because it {disfmarker} different criteria for different people like so suppose people are really uh they just uh they don't touch the remote and mm y you don't know how much time you need to switch on or switch off +Marketing: So but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sh should we target a a user personalised uh uh remote control ? So in in a given room there might be more than one remote control . We would uh have each one and uh with our own personal uh settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yay yeah . Yeah that can be possible , especially for power settings , so user can say okay , suppose they're watching a tennis match or something then they can say okay uh after one hour I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Wouldn't that make uh {vocalsound} arguments ? +Industrial Designer: They can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: I want uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah we can have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's no problem , we will sell more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we can increase this {vocalsound} the strength +User Interface: {vocalsound} We got a really good Market Expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} y you can buy one with {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's send more , let's sell more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . You have mm something else to say ? Uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , not very much , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Yep . Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +Industrial Designer: Can you just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: mm +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: mm I think , okay , we're just on time . Um mm mm . So , we're now going to l have the lunch break . +Marketing: Mm great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Then we will work again for thirty minutes individual work , and um {vocalsound} we will uh meet again for the next meeting , and uh in this one want to to be more focused on the individual actions the um {disfmarker} on the components so {vocalsound} uh you will focus on the component concept um +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: uh of course the U_I_D_ Mark will be uh focused on the user interface concept +Industrial Designer: Mark will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh our m Market Expert Sammy Benjo uh on the trend watching . So {vocalsound} um of course like before specific instruction will be sent to you by your personal personal coach . Well I think that's all . And we have um maybe we have to {disfmarker} we say , only for T_V_ , not teletext ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think automatic on off control uh it's not possible . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's in current price , yeah . +Marketing: Difficult . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe in the next uh step if we make it work um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But speech recogniser can be possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , implemented . O okay , we can think about that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um do you see something else ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh , should it be equipped with the uh , with uh speakers ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speakers in the remote cont +User Interface: Like , you want to find it , you shout +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah +User Interface: control , +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it answers is I'm here ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It just beeps . +User Interface: Just beeps ? +Marketing: That would be enough . +Project Manager: Or maybe you want to phone him . +Marketing: Something very cheap . +Project Manager: Since now all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: But that's ex that's expensive . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah ? Think +Industrial Designer: Yeah , especially the power , it really consumes +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: because it should be all the time on and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I heard of devices where you just uh whistle them and and they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's answered . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because of the the frequency they they just answer to that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I can't whistle . No , no , I can't . +Marketing: You can't whistle . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a clap . You can clap . Can you ? +Project Manager: Clap clap clap it's a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Clap is good . +Project Manager: I I think it's universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Tak +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What about people without hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just a {vocalsound} suggestion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I think it's good . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} With only one hand ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} These are not our target people . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm uh okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's a good feature I guess yeah we need to think about more how to incorporate it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: Just don't interfere with other devices like 'cause like all these people do that their lights are turning on with clapping . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh that's e that already exists +User Interface: Yeah , I got it at my home , like {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you do have . +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . You're trendy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , so {vocalsound} let's to think s so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think about it . +Project Manager: yeah . I think that could be in the component uh concept uh . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: we're done ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's go to lunch . +Industrial Designer: Thank you , thank you very much . +Marketing: Right , thanks . +Project Manager: {gap} +","At the beginning of the meeting, the project manager establishes the agenda, indicating that the minutes will be taken and presentations will be given by the team members to discuss the new project's requirements. The main objective is to understand the user's needs that the product should fulfill and to explore potential technical functionalities and design elements. The project manager's inability to remember all the agenda points underscores the informal and somewhat disorganized nature of the meeting's initiation. + +The marketing expert, Sammy Benjo, leads the first presentation. Despite facing technical challenges with the presentation document, the marketing team proceeds to share the results from a user survey on remote controls. The findings reveal that users find most remote controls unattractive and difficult to use, and they are willing to pay for more aesthetically pleasing and functional designs. An important part of user dissatisfaction stems from remote controls having too many unused buttons and being frequently misplaced within the home. The suggestion is to create a remote control that users can easily locate via voice commands, similar to how one might use a phone finder function. + +The discussion shifts towards the concept of incorporating speech and gesture recognition functionalities targeted at a younger audience, who are more inclined to adopt new technologies. The team debates the relevance of including features such as teletext, which is considered to be becoming obsolete due to the internet's prevalence. Furthermore, the data suggests designing a remote control with only frequently used buttons being more accessible, while possibly having a speech recognition system in place for less common functions. + +The meeting segues into the user interface designer's perspective, which stresses the importance of simplicity. The designer brings forth the principle of Occam’s razor, advocating for a user-friendly remote control with only essential functions. A comparison is made between current complex remote controls and a hypothetical simplified design, prompting the team to contemplate a design approach that prioritizes simple desires and intuitive actions. The proposal includes a limited number of buttons, a backlit color-changing screen, and innovative features like automatic on/off and adaptable volume control based on the user's distance from the TV. + +As the industrial designer takes the floor, the complexities of the remote control's functional design are addressed. The technical aspects involve components like the energy source, interface (keypad or buttons), processing chips, and an infrared LED source for communication with the TV. The discussion expands to include encryption codes for compatibility with various TV brands, and the feasibility of integrating a basic speech recognition feature into the digital signal processing chip, allowing the remote to understand simple voice commands like ""power on."" + +The group shares their thoughts on how these functionalities might align with user behavior and preferences. They cover the costs of adding features like speech recognition and gesture control, with considerations about the overall budget and the final price point of the device. + +Toward the end of the meeting, the project manager refocuses the conversation on individual tasks. Each team member is to concentrate on a particular aspect of the product, such as component concept, user-interface concept, and market trends. They are advised that specific instructions will follow from their personal coaches. + +The meeting concludes with the group reaffirming that the initial product focus will be a TV remote control without teletext functionality. They also decide against the automatic on/off feature due to its complexity and potential user variability. The idea of a clap or whistle to locate the remote is discussed, with the project manager pointing out the potential conflict with other devices activated by sound. The team accepts this feedback with bemusement, joking about the limited applicability of the feature to their target market. + +In summary, the meeting is quite dynamic, with lots of discussions and some humorous moments. The team's brainstorming covers various ideas, capturing the complexities and challenges involved in designing a new, user-focused, and technically feasible remote control. They agree to take a break for lunch and then proceed with individual work before meeting again to further refine the product concept." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: Test . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Let 's see , I should be Two . +PhD D: Up high {disfmarker} +Grad E: As close to your mouth as you can get it . +Professor B: La +PhD D: high as you can get . +Professor B: Is this channel one ? +Postdoc G: Yeah , on your upper lip . +PhD H: Channel one one one . +Professor B: Gee , OK . Yes . OK . +Grad E: OK , so for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} For people wearing the wireless mikes , like {disfmarker} like this one , I find the easiest way to wear it is sorta this {disfmarker} this sorta like that . +PhD H: This is {disfmarker} chan channel channel one one two three +Grad F: Channel five , channel five . +Professor B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . What do you do , +Grad E: It 's actually a lot more comfortable then if you try to put it over your temples , +Grad F: Test , test test . +Professor B: you do it higher ? +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Adam 's just trying to generate good uh data for the recognizer there . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I think we 're supposed to {disfmarker} that 's right . +Grad E: And then also , for {disfmarker} for all of them , if your boom is adjustable , the boom should be towards the corner of your mouth , +Grad F: Test test . +PhD A: By the way , there was a bug . Yeah , i it wasn't using the proper +PhD D: Oh it was . +Grad E: and about a uh a thumb to a thumb and a half distance away from your mouth , +PhD A: basically it wasn't adapting anything . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: so about like I 'm wearing it now . +PhD D: Oh that 's interesting . So why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Grad E: so so Jane , you could actually do even a little closer to your mouth , +PhD H: It 's not always possible . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD D: Why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Postdoc G: I could {disfmarker} can this be adjuste like this ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , because when it estimates the transformer pro produces like a single matrix or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: Is that @ @ ? OK , thank you . +Grad F: Adam , I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD D: O Oh oh I see . +Grad F: uh , looks kinda low on channel five {disfmarker} +PhD D: I see , I see . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: no ? +Grad E: Channel five , s speak again . +Grad F: Maybe not . +Postdoc G: Hello . +PhD A: Basically there were no counts +Grad E: Yeah , that 's alright . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad E: I mean , we could {disfmarker} we could up the gain slightly if you wanted to . +Grad F: It 's OK ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: Is this OK ? +PhD H: OK . +PhD D: I see what you mean . +PhD C: Who 's channel B ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} Uh , channel B is probably Liz . +PhD C: Uh oh . +PhD H: Uh channel B {disfmarker} I am channel B . +Professor B: You wanna close this , +Postdoc G: Channel eight , eight . +Professor B: or +PhD C: No I +Grad E: Thank you . +PhD H: No , channel B . +PhD A: Hello , hello . +PhD C: yeah , yeah , you 're channel B . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So can you talk a bit ? I thought it might be too +PhD H: OK , yeah , channel B , one two three four five . +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's alright . So , the gain isn't real good . +Professor B: We 're recording , +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: right ? +Grad E: OK , so we are recording . +PhD H: Ah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: Um everyone should have at least two forms possibly three in front of you depending on who you are . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: Um we {disfmarker} we 're doing a new speaker form and you only have to spea fill out the speaker form once but everyone does need to do it . And so that 's the name , sex , email , et cetera . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we had a lot of discussion about the variety of English and so on so if you don't know what to put just leave it blank . Um I {disfmarker} I designed the form and I don't know what to put for my own region , +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: so +PhD D: California . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: California . +PhD H: California . +PhD A: Um may I make one suggestion ? Instead of age put date of {disfmarker} uh year of birth +Grad E: Sure . +PhD A: because age will change , but The year of birth changes , you know , stays the same , usually . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: A actually , wait a minute , +Grad E: Birth year ? +Postdoc G: Although on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: shouldn't it be the other way around ? +PhD D: Not for me . +Postdoc G: course on the other {disfmarker} on the other hand you could {disfmarker} you view it as the age at the time of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the other side , +PhD A: Well the thing is , if ten years from now you look at this form knowing that {disfmarker} +PhD C: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yes , but what we care about is the age at {disfmarker} at the recording date rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD C: O yeah . +PhD D: But there 's no other date on the form . +PhD C: W we don't care how they {disfmarker} old they really are . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well I don't know . +Postdoc G: Yes . {vocalsound} Unless we wanna send them a card . +Grad E: Well I guess it depends on how long the corpus is gonna be collected for . +PhD A: Anyway . +Postdoc G: Yeah , that 's true . +PhD C: I still don't see the problem . +Grad E: Either way yeah I think {disfmarker} I think age is alright +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: and then um there will be attached to this a point or two these forms uh so that you 'll be able to extract the date off that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: so , anyway . And so then you also have a digits form which needs to be filled out every time , the speaker form only once , the digit form every time even if you don't read the digits you have to fill out the digits form so that we know that you were at the meeting . OK ? And then also if you haven't filled one out already you do have to fill out a consent form . And that should just be one person whose name I don't know . OK ? +Grad F: Do you want this {pause} Adam ? +Grad E: Uh sure . Thank you . +Professor B: So uh +Grad E: OK so should we do agenda items ? +Professor B: Uh oh that 's a good idea . I shouldn't run the meeting . +Grad E: Uh well I have {disfmarker} I wanna talk about new microphones and wireless stuff . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: And I 'm sure Liz and Andreas wanna talk about recognition results . Anything else ? +PhD C: I guess {disfmarker} what time do we have to leave ? Three thirty ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Grad E: Why don't you go first then . +PhD C: so . +Professor B: Yeah , good idea . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Um Well , I {disfmarker} I sent out an email s couple hours ago so um with Andreas ' help um Andreas put together a sort of no frills recognizer which is uh gender - dependent but like no adaptation , no cross - word models , no trigrams {disfmarker} a bigram recognizer and that 's trained on Switchboard which is telephone conversations . Um and thanks to Don 's help wh who {disfmarker} Don took the first meeting that Jane had transcribed and um {vocalsound} you know separated {disfmarker} used the individual channels we segmented it in into the segments that Jane had used and uh Don sampled that so {disfmarker} so eight K um and then we ran up to I guess the first twenty minutes , up to synch time of one two zero zero so is that {disfmarker} that 's twenty minutes or so ? Um yeah because I guess there 's some , +Grad E: Or so . +PhD C: and Don can talk to Jane about this , there 's some bug in the actual synch time file that ah uh I 'm {disfmarker} we 're not sure where it came from but stuff after that was a little messier . Anyway so it 's twenty minutes and I actually +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: I {disfmarker} was that {disfmarker} did that {disfmarker} did that recording have the glitch in the middle ? +Postdoc G: I 'm puzzled by that . I {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} oh , I see . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh there was a glitch somewhere . +PhD C: yeah , so that actually um +Grad F: Was it twenty minutes in , +PhD C: if it was twenty minutes in then I don't know +Postdoc G: I forgot about that . +Grad F: I thought {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it was interesting , +Postdoc G: Well , I mean , they {disfmarker} +PhD A: suddenly {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the overall error rate when we first ran it was like eighty percent +Grad E: I don't remember when it is . +Postdoc G: but I was able to can transcribe +PhD A: but i looking at {disfmarker} the first sentences looked much better than that and then suddenly it turned very bad and then we noticed that the reference was always one off with the {disfmarker} it was actually recognized +PhD C: Wel +Grad E: Oh no . +Grad F: Yeah , that might be {disfmarker} that might be {disfmarker} that might be my fault . +Postdoc G: Wow . +PhD A: so +Grad E: Oh so that was just a parsing mismatch . +Grad F: I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: No actually it was {disfmarker} yeah i it was a complicated bug because they were sometimes one off and then sometimes totally random so um +Grad F: yeah , I was pretty certain that it worked up until that time , +Postdoc G: Oh . That 's not good . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: so that 's what we have +Grad E: Alright . +Grad F: so +PhD C: but that {disfmarker} that will be completely gone if this synch time problem +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} the glitch +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so we have everything recognized but we scored only the first uh whatever , up to that time to +Postdoc G: And the only glitch {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: yeah . +PhD C: So you guys know . +Professor B: S sorry I haven't seen the email , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Th - the +Postdoc G: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} wait +Professor B: what was the score ? +PhD C: So here 's the actual copy of the email +Postdoc G: we should say something about the glitch . He {disfmarker} he can say something about the glitch . +PhD C: um oh OK +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} it 's very small {disfmarker} +PhD C: so does this glitch occur at other {disfmarker} +Grad E: There {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's an acoustic glitch that occurs where um the channels get slightly asynchronized +Postdoc G: very small . Yep . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Grad E: so the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that problem has gone away in the original driver believe it or not when the SSH key gen ran the driver paused for a fraction of a second +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: and so the channels get a little asynchronous and so if you listen to it in the middle there 's a little part where it starts doing {disfmarker} doing click sounds . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: And is it only once that that happens ? +Grad E: But yeah +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} right once in the middle . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} the previous page has some more information about sort of what was wrong +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so un unsurprisingly Adam is the golden voice , +PhD C: but +Grad E: Um But that shouldn't affect anything +PhD C: OK so that 's actually +Postdoc G: S and it {disfmarker} +Professor B: you see this here ? +PhD C: It {disfmarker} y it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah yeah "" bah "" +PhD C: OK no {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: What happens is it actually affects the script that Don {disfmarker} +PhD D: Huh . +PhD C: I mean if we know about it then I guess it could always be checked for it +Grad E: Well the acoustic one shouldn't do anything . +PhD C: but they +Grad F: Yeah , I don't know exactly what affected it +Postdoc G: I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} +Grad F: but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you about it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: But I {disfmarker} I do remember {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'll show you the point . +Postdoc G: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it had no effect on my transcription , +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: you know , I mean I {disfmarker} I had no trouble hearing it and {disfmarker} and having time bins +Grad E: I do remember seeing once the transcriber produce an incorrect XML file where one of the synch numbers was incorrect . +Postdoc G: but there was a {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD C: Well , the {disfmarker} the synch time {disfmarker} the synch numbers have more significant digits than they should , +Grad F: That 's what happened . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: Where {disfmarker} where they weren't monotonic . +Grad F: There was {disfmarker} yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: right ? There 's things that are l in smaller increments than a frame . +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh , interesting . +PhD C: And so then , I mean you look at that and it 's got you know more than three significant digits in a synch time then that can't be right +Grad E: Oh OK so that 's +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: so anyway it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah sounds like a bug . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's why we only have twenty minutes but there 's a significant amount of {disfmarker} +Grad F: Non - zero ? Um there are like more {disfmarker} cuz there 's a lot of zeros I tacked on just because of the way the script ran , +Grad E: The other one I saw was that it yeah . +Grad F: I mean but there were there was a point . +PhD C: Yeah that was fine . That {disfmarker} that was OK . +Grad E: The other one I saw was non non - monotonic synch times +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: and that definitely indicra indicates a bug . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD C: Well that would really be a problem , yeah . So anyway these are just the ones that are the prebug for one meeting . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: um and what 's {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Grad E: So that 's very encouraging . +PhD C: this is really encouraging cuz this is free recognition , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Cool . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: there 's no I mean the language model for Switchboard is totally different so you can see some like this Trent Lott which +PhD D: Trent Lott . +PhD C: um I mean these are sort of funny ones , +PhD D: It 'll get those though . +PhD C: there 's a lot of perfect ones and good ones and all the references , I mean you can read them and when we get more results you can look through and see +Grad E: I and as I said I would like to look at the lattices +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but um it 's pretty good . +Grad E: because it sounded like even the ones it got wrong it sort of got it right ? +PhD C: Well so I guess we can generate +Grad E: Sounds likes ? +PhD A: There are a fair number of errors that are , you know where {disfmarker} got the plural S wrong or the inflection on the verb wrong . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Yeah , and who cares ? And {disfmarker} and there were lots of {disfmarker} of course the "" uh uh "" - s , "" in on "" - s "" of uh "" - s . +PhD A: Mmm , so if {disfmarker} +PhD C: there 's {disfmarker} No those are actually +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: a lot of the errors I think are out of vocabulary , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so is it like PZM is three words , it 's PZM , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I mean there 's nothing There 's no language model for PZM or +Grad E: Right . Ri - ri right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Did you say there 's no language for PZM ? +PhD C: No language model , I mean those {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean {disfmarker} so every time someone says PZM it 's an error ? Maybe we shouldn't say PZM in these meetings . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} well there 's all kinds of other stuff like Jimlet and I mean um anyway there {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right , Jimlet . +Professor B: Well , we don't even know what that means , +PhD C: so {vocalsound} but this is really encouraging because +Professor B: so I +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD C: so , I mean the bottom line is even though it 's not a huge amount of data um it should be uh reasonable to actually run recognition and be like within the scope of {disfmarker} of r reasonable s you know Switchboard this is like h about how well we do on Switchboard - two data with the Switchboard - one trained {disfmarker} mostly trained recognizer +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and Switchboard - two is {disfmarker} got sort of a different population of speakers and a different topic +Grad E: Excellent . +PhD C: and they 're talking about things in the news that happened after Switchboard - one so there was @ @ so that 's great . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so we 're in better shape than we were say when we did {disfmarker} had the ninety - three workshop +PhD C: Um +Professor B: and we were all getting like seventy percent error on Switchboard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh yeah +Professor B: you know +PhD C: I mean this is really , +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: and thanks to Andreas who , I mean this is a +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: Well especially for the very first run , I mean you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh it 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh um +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: yeah +Grad E: the first run I ran of Switchboard I got a hundred twenty percent word error but +PhD C: So and what al also this means is that +Postdoc G: Right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Not Switchboard , +PhD A: Well it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean there 's a bunch of things in this note to various people +Grad E: uh Broadcast News . +PhD C: especially I guess um with Jane that {disfmarker} that would help for {disfmarker} since we have this new data now uh in order to go from the transcripts more easily to um just the words that the recognizer would use for scoring . I had to deal with some of it by hand but I think a lot of it can be automated s by {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh one thing I guess I didn't get so you know the language model was straight from {disfmarker} from bigram from Switchboard the acoustic models were also from Switchboard or {disfmarker} or +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So they didn't have anything from this acoustic data in yet ? +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's great . +PhD C: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: And actually {disfmarker} we actually um used Switchboard telephone bandwidth models +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +PhD A: Well that 's {disfmarker} those are the only we ones there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which I guess +PhD D: I was just gonna say , +PhD C: so that 's the on that 's the only acoustic training data that we have a lot of +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: I mean +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: and I guess Ramana , so a guy at SRI said that um there 's not a huge amount of difference going from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like we probably lose a huge amount but we won't know because we don't have any full band models for s conversational speech . +PhD D: It 's probably not as bad as going f using full band models on telephone band speech +PhD C: So . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , +PhD C: Right , so it 's {disfmarker} so +Professor B: but for Broadcast News when we {disfmarker} we played around between the two there wasn't a huge loss . +Grad E: Right , it was not a big deal . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: I should {disfmarker} I should say that {disfmarker} the language model is not just Switchboard +PhD C: so I wou so that 's good . +Grad E: Although combining em worked well . +PhD A: it 's also {disfmarker} I mean there 's uh actually more data is from Broadcast News but with a little less weight +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: uh because +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Like Trent Lott must have been from +PhD A: mm - hmm , right . +PhD C: I guess {vocalsound} Switchboard was before +PhD A: Um By the way just {disfmarker} for fun we also ran , +PhD C: uh . +Professor B: Good point . +PhD A: I mean our complete system starts by doing ge a gender detection +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: so just for the heck of it I ran that +Grad E: And it said a hundred percent male ? +PhD A: um and it might be reassuring for everybody to know that it got all the genders right . +PhD C: The j +PhD A: Yeah so +Grad E: Oh it did ? +Postdoc G: Oh that 's {disfmarker} I 'm glad . +Grad E: It got all two genders ? +PhD C: Yeah but you know Jane and Adam have you kn about equal performance +PhD A: Yeah . Yes . +PhD C: and uh and that 's interesting cuz I think the {disfmarker} their language models are quite different so and I {disfmarker} I 'm pretty sure from listening to Eric that , you know given the words he was saying and given his pronunciation that the reason that he 's so much worse is the lapel . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc G: That makes a lot of sense , +PhD C: So it 's nice now if we can just sort of eliminate the lapel one when {disfmarker} when we get new microphones +Postdoc G: yeah . Very possible . +Professor B: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would bet on that too +PhD C: that would be worth it +Professor B: cuz he certainly in that {disfmarker} when as a {disfmarker} as a burp user he was {disfmarker} he was a pretty uh strong one . +PhD C: um Yeah +Grad E: Sheep . +PhD C: he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he sounded to me just from {disfmarker} he sounded like a , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: what 's it a sheep or a goat ? +Professor B: Sheep . +Grad E: A sheep . +PhD C: Sheep , +Grad E: Baah . +Professor B: Yeah . Sheep is good . +PhD C: right . Sounded good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right so um so I guess the good news is that +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and again this is without a lot of the sort of bells and whistles that we c can do with the SRI system and we 'll have more data and we can also start to maybe adapt the language models once we have enough meetings . So this is only twenty minutes of one meeting with no {disfmarker} no tailoring at all . +PhD A: I mean clearly there are um with just a small amount of uh actual meeting transcriptions uh thrown into the language model you can probably do quite a bit better because the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . The voca the vocabulary especially +Grad E: Or just dictionary . +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: Not that much the vocabulary actually +PhD C: Yeah , so . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} um well we have to see but {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . It 's pretty good um so then +Professor B: Have to add PZM and so on +Grad E: And I have to try it on the far field mike +Professor B: but +PhD C: PZM +Grad E: yeah . +PhD C: and then there 's things like for the transcription I got when someone has a digit in the transcript I don't know if they said , you know one one or eleven and I don't know if they said Tcl or TCL . there 's things like that where , you know the um we 'll probably have to ask the transcribers to indicate some of those kinds of things but in general it was really good and I 'm hoping {disfmarker} and this is {disfmarker} this is good news because that means the force alignments should be good and if the force alignments , I mean it 's good news anyway but if the force alignments are good we can get all kinds of information . For example about , you know prosodic information and speaker overlaps and so forth directly from the aligned times . Um so that 'll be something that actually in order to assess the forced alignment um we need s some linguists or some people to look at it and say are these boundaries in about the right place . Because it 's just gonna give us time marks +PhD D: But you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we 've done that for one meeting . +PhD C: so . For forced alignment . +Grad E: Uh oh oh f not for words +PhD C: Ye - right . +Grad E: I 'm sorry just for overlaps is we did it for not {disfmarker} not for words . +PhD C: Right . So this would be like if you take the words um you know and force align them on all the individual close talk uh close talking mikes then how good are these sort of in reality +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and then I was thinking it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we might want to take twenty minutes and do a closer word level transcription . Maybe actually mark the word boundaries . +PhD C: Oh or {disfmarker} i have someone look at the alignments uh maybe a linguist who can say um you know roughly if these are OK and how far away they are . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um but I think it 's gotta be pretty good because otherwise the word recognition would be really b crummy . +Grad E: Right , right . +PhD C: It wouldn't necessarily be the other way around , if the wor word recognition was crummy the alignment might be OK but if the word recognition is this good the alignment should be pretty good . So that 's about it . +Professor B: I r +PhD D: I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing though , I mean if we 're pr +Grad E: That we 're starting so well ? +PhD D: yeah if we 're producing a database that everybody 's gonna do well on +Professor B: Oh +Grad E: Don't worry about it w d that 's that 's the close talking mikes . Try it on the P Z Ms and {disfmarker} and +Professor B: Yeah , which {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} well n n n n +PhD D: So the real value of the database is these ? +PhD H: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , abso well no but +Professor B: I mean there 's still just the w the percentages and , I mean they 're not {disfmarker} a as we 've talked about before there 's probably overlaps +PhD C: This i yeah . This is not that good . +Professor B: there 's probably overlaps in {disfmarker} in uh in fair number in Switchboard as well so but {disfmarker} but there 's other phenomena , it 's a meeting , it 's a different thing and there 's lots of stuff to learn with the close talking mikes but uh yeah certainly I 'd like to see as soon as we could , I mean maybe get some of the glitches out of the way but soon as we could how well it does with say with the P Z Ms or maybe even one of the +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and uh see if it 's , you know is it a hundred twenty percent or maybe it 's not maybe if with some adaptation you get this down to fifty percent or forty - five percent or something and {disfmarker} and then if for the PZM it 's seventy or something like that that 's actually something we could sort of work with a little bit +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD C: No I think it 's really , I mean this way we least have a baseline we know that for instance the transcripts are very good so once you can get to the words that the recognizer which is a total subset of the things you need to understand the {disfmarker} the text um yeah they 're pretty good so and {disfmarker} and it 's converting automatically from the XML to the chopping up the wave forms and so forth it 's not the case that the end of one utterance is in the next segment and things like that which we had more problems with in Switchboard so that 's good . And um let 's see there was one more thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to mention {disfmarker} I can't remember um Sorry can't remember . anyway it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Congratulations is really great . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: well it was , I mean I really didn't do this myself +Grad E: Yeah , it 's really good . +PhD C: so Andreas set up this recognizer and {disfmarker} by the way the recognizer all the files I 'm moving to SRI and running everything there so I brought back just these result files and people can look at them um so +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we talked about setting up the SRI recognizer here . That 's {disfmarker} you know if {disfmarker} if there are more machines um uh here plus people can {disfmarker} could run their own uh you know variants of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the recognition {pause} runs um certainly doable . Um . +Professor B: Yeah and {disfmarker} well certainly if the recognition as opposed to training , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Seems reasonable . +Postdoc G: I need t Hmm . I need to ask one question . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Which is um so this issue {vocalsound} of the uh legalistic aspects of the pre - sent you know pre - adapted {disfmarker} Yeah , well , so what I mean is um the {disfmarker} uh the data that you take into SRI , first {disfmarker} first question , you 're maintaining it in {disfmarker} in a place that wouldn't be publicly readable that {disfmarker} that kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: U um +PhD C: From the outside world or +Postdoc G: By uh people uh who are not associated with this project . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad E: It 's human subjects issues , I told you about that . +PhD C: Um oh . +Postdoc G: Exactly . +PhD C: Well OK we have n no names . Although I sh um +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's not the issue , +PhD C: de audio data itself ? +Grad E: it 's just the audio data itself , until people have a chance to edit it . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , exactly . +PhD C: Uh so well I can {disfmarker} I can protect my directories through there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Right now they 're not {disfmarker} they 're in the speech group directories which {disfmarker} so I will {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: I didn't know that actually . +Professor B: Yeah so we just have to go through this process of having people approve the transcriptions , +PhD C: Yeah OK . +Professor B: say it 's OK . +PhD C: Right OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we had to get them to approve em and then i cuz {disfmarker} cuz the other question I was gonna ask is if we 're having um you know it 's but this {disfmarker} this meeting that you have , no problem cuz I {disfmarker} I well I mean I {disfmarker} I speak for myself +Grad E: It 's us . +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} but I think that we didn't do anything that but well anyway so {vocalsound} uh I wouldn't be too concerned about it with respect to that although we should clear it with Eric and Dan of course but these results are based on data which haven't had the uh haven't had the chance to be reviewed by the subjects +PhD C: That 's true . +Postdoc G: and I don't know how that stands , I mean if you {disfmarker} if you get fantastic results and it 's involving {comment} data which {disfmarker} which later end up being lessened by , you know certain elisions , then I don't know but I wanted to raise that issue , +Professor B: Well we , +Postdoc G: that 's all . +Professor B: I mean once we get all this streamlined it may be sh it {disfmarker} hopefully it will be fairly quick but we get the transcriptions , people approve them and so on it 's just that we 're +Grad E: Alright we need to work at a system for doing that approval so that we can send people the transcripts +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: and get back any bleeps that they want +PhD C: Yeah actually the bleeps are also an issue I thought . +Professor B: It 's gonna be a rare thing that there 's a bleep for the most part . +PhD A: U uh actually I had a question about the downsampling , um I don't know who , I mean how this was done but is {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any um {vocalsound} issues with downsampling +PhD C: Don did this . +PhD A: because I know that the recognizer um that we use h can do it sort of on the fly um so we wouldn't have to have it eh you know do it uh explicitly beforehand . And is there any um i are there other d sev uh is there more than one way to do the downsampling where one might be better than another ? +Grad F: There are lots of w {vocalsound} there are lots of ways to do the downsampling um different filters to put on , +PhD A: OK . Right . OK . +Grad F: like anti - aliasing stuff . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th +Grad E: I don't think we even know which one I assume you 're using syncat to do it ? +Grad F: No , I 'm using uh SN SND uh are resample . +Grad E: Or sound resample ? +PhD C: Re - re ref +Grad E: Resample . +PhD C: yeah . +Grad E: Yeah and Dan 's archaic acronyms . +Grad F: RSMP . Yeah , I don't really . +PhD C: Missing all the vowels . +Grad F: I just {disfmarker} yeah I found it . +PhD C: Some of the vowels , +Grad E: Not all of them . +PhD C: almost all the vowels , that 's the hard part . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the other thing we should try is to just take the original wave forms , +Grad E: And a few of the consonants . +PhD A: I mean segment them but not downsample them . +PhD C: Yeah we could {disfmarker} we could try that and {disfmarker} and compare +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and feed them to {disfmarker} feed them to the SRI recognizer and see if {disfmarker} if the SRI front - end does something . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I suspect that 's sort of premature optimization , but Sure . +PhD C: We can try it . I {disfmarker} I only downsampled them first cuz I was +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean that 's just one line {disfmarker} that 's one line of code to comment at +PhD C: yeah +PhD A: Right and {disfmarker} and it doesn't {disfmarker} is no more work {vocalsound} for um you know for us . +Grad F: so +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: Well they 're just bigger to transfer , that 's why I s downsampled them before but +PhD A: Well but they 're only twice as big so +PhD C: Well I mean that was {disfmarker} if it 's the same then we can downsample here +PhD A: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a +PhD C: but if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although those eighty meg files take a while to copy into my directories +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: so , but no , I mean it 's not {disfmarker} i it wouldn't be a problem if you 're interested in it {disfmarker} +PhD C: We could try that . +PhD A: Yeah I mean it would be uh you know it would probably take uh about um you know +Grad F: it would {disfmarker} +PhD A: minus the transfer time it would {disfmarker} it would take uh you know ten minutes to try and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's about a fifty minute drive , right ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and if for some reason we see that it works better then we might investigate why +PhD C: Well it takes more disk space too so I was just {disfmarker} +PhD A: and , you know , what {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Mmm . In the front - end we could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So you just train {disfmarker} just different filters +Grad F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor B: and so you 're just wondering whether the filter is +Grad F: Yeah , I can imagine it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD C: So we could try that with this particular twenty minutes of speech and sort of see if there 's any differences . +Grad F: I mean I guess there 's some {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know a at some point someone might have optimized whatever filtering is done for the actual recognition um performance . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD A: So in other words right , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: so +Grad E: It just seems to me that , you know small changes to the language model and the vocabulary will so swamp that that it may be premature to worry about that . I mean so one is a half a percent better than the other I don't think that gives you any information . +PhD C: Well it 's just as easy to {disfmarker} to give you the sixteen K individual , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: it was just more disk space you know for storing them +Professor B: Are you {disfmarker} are you using uh uh mel cepstrum or PLP over there ? +PhD C: so +PhD A: Mel cepstrum . +Professor B: So probably doesn't matter . +PhD C: Well we could try . +Grad F: There 's {disfmarker} there 's your answer . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but it wouldn't hurt to try , +PhD C: Could easily try +PhD A: That 's what I would assume but you never know , +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: so +PhD A: you know . +Professor B: Sure . No the reason I say this +Postdoc G: Just {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: PLP uses uh auto - regressive filtering and uh modeling and so it can be sensitive to the kind of filtering that you 're doing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh uh mel cepstrum uh might not {disfmarker} b you wouldn't expect to be so much but +PhD C: Well we can try it if you generate like the same set of files just up to that point where we stopped anyway and just sti stick them somewhere +Grad F: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not a problem . +PhD A: Actually , no . +PhD C: and I 'll rerun it with +PhD A: Don't stop . Don't stop at that part because we 're actually using the entire conversation to estimate the speaker parameters , +Grad F: Keep going . Yeah . +PhD A: so shouldn't use {disfmarker} you should s you know , get +Grad F: Yeah , I mean I 'll {disfmarker} I have to do is eh e the reference file would stay the same , +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad F: it 's just the individual segments would be approximately twice as long +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad F: and I could just replace them with the bigger ones in the directory , +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: I mean I corrected all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that 's not a problem . +PhD C: I mean I hand - edited the whole {disfmarker} the whole meeting so that can be run it 's just {disfmarker} Once we get the {disfmarker} the bug out . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: One {disfmarker} one question which is I {disfmarker} I had the impression {comment} from this {disfmarker} from this meeting that w that I transcribed that um that there was already automatic downsampling occurring , +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: is that I thought that in order to +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: so it was {disfmarker} so it 's like there 's already down +Grad E: There 's one level that 's already happening right here . +Professor B: This is being recorded at forty - eight kilohertz . Which is more that anybody needs +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: And it gets downsampled to sixteen . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: so +PhD C: And that 's actually said in your meeting , +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh OK . +PhD C: that 's how I know that . +Postdoc G: That 's exactly , and that 's how I know it . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} It 's like are we downsampling to sixteen ? +Professor B: It 's a digital audio orientation for the board +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: it 's in the monitor so it 's +PhD C: Thank God it 's not {vocalsound} more than that . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And I have no idea what filter it 's using , +Grad F: Is eight kilohertz {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is eighty kilohertz generally accepted as like standard for voice ? +Grad E: so +Professor B: For telephone stuff . +Grad E: Telephone . +PhD D: Telephone . +Grad F: Yeah that 's what I was gonna say , I mean like {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that they were operating from Switchboard which was a completely telephone database +Grad F: so Oh , I see , so . +Professor B: and so that was a standard for that sixteen s +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: So sixteen seems to be pretty typical for with this sort of thing . +Professor B: Sixteen is more common for {disfmarker} for uh broadband stuff that isn't {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: That isn't music . +Professor B: that isn't music and isn't telephone , +PhD C: And I guess if you 're comparing like {disfmarker} uh if you wanna run recognition on the PZM stuff you would want you don't want to downsample the wh that +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: Why is that ? +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: right ? Well I don I mean if it 's any better +Professor B: No actually I would think that you would {disfmarker} you would get better {disfmarker} you 'd get better high frequencies in the local mike . +Grad E: All the way around I 'd think . +Professor B: Uh but who knows ? I mean we do {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna find all this stuff out , +PhD C: Yeah well we could try it . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: we don't know . +Grad E: We 're gonna have plenty of low frequency on the P Z Ms with the fans . +PhD C: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Oh yeah there was just one more thing I wanted to say which is totally unrelated to the recognition except that um well {disfmarker} well it 's sort of related but um good news also uh I got {disfmarker} well Chuck Fillmore agreed to record meetings but he had too many people in his meetings and that 's too bad cuz they 're very animated and but uh Jerry also agreed so uh we 're starting on {disfmarker} on +PhD A: They 're less animated . +PhD C: Well but he has fewer {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't have more than eight and it 's a meeting on even deeper understanding , EDU , so that sounds interesting . As a compliment to our front - end meeting +Grad E: Dot EDU ? +PhD C: and um so that 's gonna start Monday and one of the things that I was realizing is um it would be really great if anyone has any ideas on some kind of time synchronous way that people in the meeting can make a comment to the person whose gonna transcribe it or {disfmarker} or put a {vocalsound} push a button or something when they wanna make a note about "" oh boy you should probably erase those last few "" or uh "" wait I want this not to be recorded now "" or uh something like that s +Professor B: Weren't we gonna do something with a pad at one point ? +Postdoc G: The cross pads ? +Grad E: Yeah , we could do it with the cross pads . +PhD C: Cuz I was thinking you know if {disfmarker} if the person who sets up the meeting isn't there and it 's a group that we don't know um and this came up talking to {disfmarker} to Jerry also that you know is there any way for them to indicate {disfmarker} to make sure that the qu request that they have that they make explicitly get addressed somehow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: so I don't know if anyone has ideas or {disfmarker} you could even write down "" oh it 's about three twenty five and "" {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well what I was just suggesting is {disfmarker} is we have these {disfmarker} this cross pad just for this purpose +Grad E: Yeah , and use that . +Professor B: and just use that +Grad E: Not a bad idea . +Professor B: and if we sink it in {disfmarker} +PhD C: That would be great . +Professor B: The other thing is eh +PhD C: That be great . +Professor B: I don't know if you know this or if it 's a question for the mail to Dan but is this thing of two eight channel boards a maximum for this setup or could we go to a third board ? +Grad E: I don't know . I don't know . I 'll send mail to Dan and ask . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's the maximum we can do without a lot of effort because it 's one board with two digital channels . +Professor B: Oh it is one board . +Grad E: E eight each . So it {disfmarker} it takes two fibers in to the one board . And so w I think if we wanna do that {disfmarker} more than that we 'd have to have two boards , and then you have the synchronization issue . +Professor B: But that 's a question because that would {disfmarker} if it was possible cuz it is i you know already we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a group of people in this room that cannot all be miked +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's not just cuz we haven't been to the store , right it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is the limit on each of those f fiber channels , is it the +Grad E: Eight . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} it 's eight channels come in , does it have do with the sampling rate ? +Grad E: It 's eight . I have no idea . But each {disfmarker} each fiber channel has eight {disfmarker} eight channels and there are two ch two fibers that go in to the card . +Professor B: It might be a hard limitation , +Grad E: So +Professor B: I mean one thing is it {disfmarker} the whole thing as I said is {disfmarker} is all structured in terms of forty - eight kilohertz sampling so that pushes requirements up a bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: but +PhD D: I was just wondering if {disfmarker} if that could change . +Grad E: I mean then we 'd also have to get another ADD and another mixer and all that sort of stuff . +PhD D: If we could drop that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I 'll send a mail to Dan and ask him . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK on the uh are we done with that ? So the oth topic is uh getting more mikes and different mikes , so I got a quote um We can fit {disfmarker} we have room for one more wireless and the wireless , this unit here is three fifty {disfmarker} three hundred fifty dollars , it {disfmarker} I didn't realize but we also have to get a tuner {disfmarker} the receiver {disfmarker} the other end , that 's uh four thirty um and then also +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for each ? +PhD D: Wow . +PhD C: I mean the tuner is four thirty for each . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: Wow . +Grad E: And we just need one more so {disfmarker} so +Professor B: Yeah at least w we got the good ones . +Grad E: Yeah . So that 's you know something like seven hundred eighty bucks for one more of these . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Um and then also um It turns out that the connector that this thing uses is proprietary of Sony +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: believe it or not and Sony only sells this headset . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: So if we wanna use a different set {disfmarker} headset the solution that the guy suggested and they {disfmarker} apparently lots of people have done is Sony will sell you the jack with just wires coming out the end and then you can buy a headset that has pigtail and solder it yourself . And that 's the other solution and so the jacks are forty bucks apiece and the {disfmarker} he recommended um a crown CM three eleven AE headset for two hundred bucks apiece . +Professor B: There isn't this some sort of thing that plugs in , you actually have to go and do the soldering yourself ? +Grad E: Becau - the reason is the only {disfmarker} only thing you can get that will plug into this is this mike or just the connector . +Professor B: No I understand . The reason I ask is these sort of handmade uh wiring jobs fall apart in use so the other thing is to see if we can uh get them to do a custom job and put it together for this . +Grad E: Oh I 'm sure they would , they would just charge us , +PhD D: Well , and they 'd probably want quantity too , +Grad E: so . +Professor B: Well +PhD D: they 'd +Professor B: no they 'll just charge us more , so it 's {disfmarker} this +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so my question is should we go ahead and get na nine identical head - mounted crown mikes ? +Professor B: Not before having one come here and have some people try it out . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Because there 's no point in doing that if it 's not gonna be any better . +Grad E: So why don't we get one of these with the crown with a different headset ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And {disfmarker} and see if that works . +Professor B: And see if it 's preferable and if it is then we 'll get more . +PhD C: Comfort . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Cuz I mean I think the microphones are OK it 's just the {disfmarker} the +Grad E: Right , it 's just they 're not comfortable to wear . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Could make our own handbands and +Grad E: Um , and he said they don't have any of these in stock but they have them in LA and so it will take about a week to get here . +Professor B: Yeah well it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um so OK to just go order ? +Professor B: We 're in this for the long term , yeah . Just order it . +Grad E: OK +PhD C: It 's a lot of money for a handband . +Grad E: and who is the contact if I wanna do an invoice +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: cuz I think that 's how we did it before . +Professor B: Uh we 'll do this off - line , yeah . +Grad F: It 's a long time to get from LA . +Grad E: OK . And then nine channels is the maximum we can do , so . +Professor B: Uh y right cuz {disfmarker} so one is for the daisy chain so that 's fifteen instead of sixteen +Grad E: Without getting more stuff . +Professor B: and there 's six on the table so that 's nine . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Can I ask a really dumb question ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is there any way we can have you know like a {disfmarker} a wireless microphone that you pass around to the people who you know the extra people for the times they wanna talk that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: That 's not a dumb question , it 's a good idea , +PhD C: Well I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like uh like you know Jerry Springer thing , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just not sure how we would handle that in the +Grad F: That 's like the Conch . +PhD C: Well but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Like at conferences +PhD A: you know r +PhD C: well but there might be a way to say that there are gonna be these different people +Grad F: See , look . +PhD C: um and I don't know identifying somehow ? +PhD D: so nail the chairs down . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , somehow . +PhD C: You know I was just thinking of Jerry Springer . +Grad E: It 's not a bad idea . +Professor B: No that {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no +PhD A: +Professor B: that 's a very {disfmarker} if we can't get another board and even if we can I have a feeling they 'll be some work . +PhD D: The Springer mike . +PhD C: I mean for the few times that you might wanna have that . +Professor B: Let 's figure that we have eight which are set up and then there 's a ninth which is passed around to {disfmarker} +Grad E: A hand - held , yeah . +Professor B: that 's a good idea +PhD D: Infinite expansion . +Professor B: Right . Kind of rules out overlap but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but uh +PhD C: Well or also for you know if people are not +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Well we could just hand around the lapel . +Professor B: Uh no {disfmarker} no that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Rather than get a {disfmarker} +PhD C: No not the lapel . +Grad E: do you want a handset ? +Professor B: No . +Grad E: Well I mean is the {disfmarker} is the hand - held really any better ? +PhD D: Liz hates the lapel . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: I don't know +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: but I d I know the lapel is really suboptimal . +Professor B: No it {disfmarker} no it depends on the hand - held +Grad E: Is awful ? +Professor B: but hand {disfmarker} many hand - helds are built wi with sort of uh anti - shock sort of things so that it {disfmarker} it is less uh susceptible to hand noises . If you hold the lapel mike i you just get all k sorts of junk . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right . I mean the ones they really pass around must be sort of OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so +Grad E: So I wonder if they have one that will hook up . +Professor B: Yeah . They have {disfmarker} What ? +Grad E: I wonder if they have one that will hook up to this or whether again we 'll have to wire it ourselves . +PhD D: Well , you wouldn't want it to hook there you 'd just want it to hook into the receiver in the other room , right ? +Professor B: No that 's uh {disfmarker} you need a transmitter . +Grad E: What ? +PhD D: Is th isn't that built into the mike ? +Professor B: Oh I see . Get a {disfmarker} get a different radio , yeah . +PhD C: Yeah just these ones that they pass around with no you know wireless +Professor B: Yeah . But you need a ra but it has to correspond to the receiver . +PhD D: Have a little antenna coming out the bottom . +Grad E: It 's gonna be much easier to get one of these and just plug in a mike , isn't it ? +PhD D: But then the mike has to h +PhD A: Do you have to hand it around and if you have two pieces of +Professor B: No no {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor B: so right , so this is a good point , so yeah you have these {disfmarker} these mikes with a little antenna on the end right ? +Grad E: OK . And do you think you would be able to use the same receiver ? +Professor B: I don't know . You 'll have to check with them , +Grad E: OK I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll ask . +Professor B: yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea +PhD D: It 's just a frequency . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and then just sort of have that as the {disfmarker} and then you can have groups of twenty people or whatever and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD C: Yeah because there 's only I mean as Andreas pointed out actually I think in the large {disfmarker} the larger the group the less interaction {disfmarker} the less people are talking um over each other {disfmarker} +PhD A: Pretty soon . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: it just {disfmarker} there might be a lot of people that speak once or twice and +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Um Gotta go . +Professor B: Off you go , yeah . +Grad E: OK so I guess people who have to leave can leave and do we have anything else to discuss or should we just do digits ? +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I thought of some extra {disfmarker} a couple of extra things I 'd like to mention . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc G: One of them is to give you a status in terms of the transcriptions so far . So um as of last night um I 'd assigned twelve hours and they 'd finished nine +Grad E: uh Yep , +Postdoc G: and my goal was to have eleven done by the end of the month , I think that by tomorrow we 'll have ten . +PhD C: Uh it 's great {disfmarker} +Professor B: Pretty close , +Postdoc G: So they 're still working . +Professor B: that 's good . +PhD C: I j and this {disfmarker} I got this email from Jane at like two in the morning or something +PhD D: Wow . +Grad E: that 's good . +PhD C: so it 's really great +Postdoc G: It 's working out , thanks . +PhD C: It 's really great . +Postdoc G: Thanks . And then um also an idea for another meeting , which would be to have the transcribers talk about the data It 's sort of a {disfmarker} a little bit {disfmarker} a little bit +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Professor B: Super idea . +Grad E: Yep , that 'd be very interesting . +PhD C: That 's a great idea cuz I 'd like to g have it recorded so that we can remember all the little things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'd love to hear what they have to say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's a great idea . +PhD D: So if we got them to talk about this meeting , it would be a meta {disfmarker} meta meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah , exa {vocalsound} exactly I guess {disfmarker} nested several layers , +Professor B: Now you have eight transcribers and there 's ten of us +Postdoc G: but +Professor B: so how do we do this , is the only thing . +PhD C: Or just have them talk amongst themselves . +PhD D: Have them have their own meeting . +PhD C: And have +Postdoc G: Well that 's what I 'm thinking , +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc G: yeah . Have them talk about the data and they {disfmarker} and they 've made observations to me +PhD C: that would be great . +Postdoc G: like they say uh you know this meeting that we think has so much overlap , in fact it does but there are other groups of similar size that have very little , you know it 's part of it 's {disfmarker} it 's the norm of the group and all that and they have various observations that would be fun , I think . +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Grad E: Yeah , I 'd like to hear what they s say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Be great . +Professor B: So maybe we could {disfmarker} they could have a meeting more or less without us that {disfmarker} to do this and we should record it +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and then maybe one or two of them could come to one of these meetings and {disfmarker} and could you know could tell us about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Give us a status . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh good . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} they will get to transcribe their own meeting but they also get paid for having a break +Grad E: That would be weird . +Postdoc G: What {disfmarker} what yeah that 's right . +PhD C: and I think that 's a good idea , +Postdoc G: Yeah exactly , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: get them involved . +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: Um that 's a great idea . +Postdoc G: Great . +Professor B: Super . +PhD C: I 'm really sorry I have to g no I have to go as well . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And then I wanted to also um say something about the Fiscus uh uh John {disfmarker} John Fiscus visit tomorrow . And Which is to say that w it 'll be from nine to one that I 'm going to uh uh offer the organization {disfmarker} allow him to uh adjust it if he wishes but to be basically in three parts , the acoustic part coming first which would be basically the room engineering aspects um other things and he 'll be also presenting what NIST is doing and {disfmarker} and uh then uh number two would be sort of a the {disfmarker} the transcription process so this would be a focus on like presegmentation and the modifications to the {disfmarker} the multitrans interface which allows more refined encoding of the beginnings and ends of the overlapping segments which uh Dave Gelbart 's been doing and then um uh and of course the presegmentation Thilo 's been doing and then um the third part would {disfmarker} and again he has some stuff that 's i relevant with respect to NIST and then the third one would be focus on transcription standards so at NIST he 's interested in this establishment of a global encoding standard I guess I would say and I want it , you know k yeah see what they 're doing and also present what {disfmarker} what we 've chosen as ours and {disfmarker} and discuss that kind of thing . And so but he 's only here until until one and actually we 're thinking of noon being uh lunch time so basically hoping that we can get as much of this done as possible before noon . S +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And everybody who wants to attend is welcome . So +Grad E: Oh , where you 're gonna meet ? +Postdoc G: yeah . Here mostly but I 've also reserved the BARCO room um eh to figure out how that works in terms of like maybe having a live demonstration . +Professor B: OK but the nine o ' cl nine o ' clock will be i be in here . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I assume we 're not gonna try to record it ? +Postdoc G: Oh I think that would be hard , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I think just adds {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um good . +Postdoc G: Thank you though , uh - huh . +Professor B: So maybe do digits and recess ? +Grad E: Unless there 's anything else ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Do digital ones ? +Professor B: Uh OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh should y we make him wear Andreas ' mike or would that just be too confusing ? +Professor B: Yeah . No I don't think it 's confusing . Well , it doesn't confuse me . +Postdoc G: When we do this in the key {disfmarker} in the key {disfmarker} in the key it has to indicate that channel change , +PhD D: Does it mess up the forms ? +Postdoc G: right ? +Grad E: Uh yeah I just don't know how we would do that , so . I mean other than free {disfmarker} free form . +Postdoc G: Well i have a time mark . +PhD D: The on switch is here on the {disfmarker} on the top there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: And just clip it to your collar . +Professor B: That 's fine . +Grad J: OK , my name is uh Espen Eriksen . I 'm a Norwegian . Um uh this is my second semester at Berkeley . Currently I 'm taking uh my first graduate level courses in DSP and um when I come back to Norway I 'm gonna continue with the {disfmarker} more of a research project work {disfmarker} kind of work . So this semester I 'm starting up with a {disfmarker} with a small project through uh Dave Gelbart which I 'm taking a course with I got in touch with him and he told me about this project . So with the help of uh Dan Ellis I 'm gonna do small project associated to this . What I 'm gonna try to do is uh use {disfmarker} use ech echo cancellation to uh to handle the periods where you have overlapping talk . To try to do something about that . So currently I 'm um I 'm just reading up on echo cancellation , s looking into the theory behind that and then uh hopefully I get some results . So it {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a project goes over the course of one semester . +Grad E: Great . +Grad J: So I 'm just here today to introduce myself . Tell about I 'll be {disfmarker} I 'll be working on this . +Grad E: And are you staying at Berkeley or is {disfmarker} are you just here a semester ? +Grad J: This is my second semester and last . +Grad E: Ah second and last , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +Grad J: So I leave +Professor B: He 's in the {disfmarker} he 's in the cour two two five D course . +Grad J: Yeah , I 'm in Morgan 's course , +Professor B: So , yeah . +Grad J: yeah . +Grad E: Good . +PhD D: Welcome . +Postdoc G: Then you {disfmarker} then you go back to Norway , that 's OK . +Grad J: Yeah . +Grad F: We were just talking about something like this yesterday or yeah yesterday with Liz . About doing some of the {vocalsound} echo cancellation stuff or possibly the spectroanalysis over the overlaps , so . Cool . +Grad J: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . OK . +Grad E: And stop . +","The conversation appears to involve several members of an academic group, including graduate students, a postdoctoral researcher, PhD candidates, and a professor discussing various technical issues related to microphones, transcriptions, and recognition technology. + +Initial discussions involve technicalities of using microphones, such as placement for optimal sound capture. They talk about wireless microphones and mention issues with a bug related to adapting technology. There's focus on the quality and positioning of the microphones, where different individuals contribute to the topic based on their experiences and technical know-how, including problems with specific channels and microphone types. + +They also discuss the process of filling out forms, like speaker forms and consent forms, for their work, with a conversation about the best way to record age information. This leads to a broader discussion on the corpus collection and related logistics. + +Furthermore, there are updates about transcribing audio recordings, where one individual reports on the number of hours transcribed and hours assigned. They also ponder upon having a meeting with transcribers to discuss data and transcription standards and mention a visit from an individual named John Fiscus, focusing on acoustic aspects, presegmentation in transcription, and transcription standards that NIST is working on. + +The group contemplates how to handle meetings where there are more people than available microphones, with the solution being passing around a wireless microphone for those who want to speak. They discuss technical aspects of implementing such a solution, including the frequency compatibility with the receiver. + +Additionally, a new member to the group, a Norwegian student named Espen Eriksen, introduces himself. He talks about starting a project with the group, focusing on echo cancellation for overlapping talk, which he will work on during the semester before returning to Norway. + +Lastly, they plan to do a digit-forming exercise and conclude the meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Well , let's start . What are we doing ? Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , pinball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Not doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Ah . Hey . {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Now I have my screen back too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we have presentations . So first , it's your turn . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Mine . Oh , great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Isn't it amazing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Very interesting . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . Interface concept . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , well uh let's uh talk about the interface uh concept . Uh , first I'll uh I'll uh discuss the buttons we just chose , uh show you some samples , uh uh discuss some colours and design maybe , already . And uh my personal preferences . {vocalsound} Well we chose the power button to switch the television on and off . The bu uh the mute button to switch the volume on and o on and off . The channels buttons , one to nine , and uh off uh uh zero to nine , and the uh button to choose uh higher channels than nine . Uh the volume and channel quadrants , uh left and right , up and down arrows , to uh do the volume and channel . And the menu menu button to man manipulate the L_C_D_ uh display . Um , I found some uh interesting uh uh samples . Examples . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well uh what's pretty standard is uh that it's {disfmarker} that they're all pretty uh uh high uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Large . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Large and and and pretty thin and uh and long . +Marketing: A lot {disfmarker} a lot of buttons buttons . +User Interface: Um , power buttons are mostly at the top uh left or right . Um , well we see the the the same uh arrows . Like there . And uh {disfmarker} Yeah , well arrow b buttons can be blue . And what's interesting is the the the icons on the buttons . Some buttons have icons like the play and stop , but we don't use that . But uh , these we we have to choose the right icons , or or letters . Uh this is the V_ for volume , but they're both uh a V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it's it's not really very uh clear what's the function of that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back one page ? For the uh menu , what do we use for that ? We don't have buttons for the menu . +User Interface: Uh , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or we may have to use channel of the volume and channel {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I thought that was our uh idea . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , uh how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have to put it on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or this . And that the menu button is okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but , has to be clear that you can use the arrows . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Uh , so the {disfmarker} The icons on the arrows , as well , you mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yes . The second one . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , well that's something to uh think about . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , maybe I'll have something in my uh presentation . And you will see it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well I don't I don't know if we have to discuss this already , or in the next uh meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh , as we have to uh to to design the the case and the whole uh remote control in our uh our our corporate uh company uh uh colours and the logo , I would uh recommend a yellow case . Uh , round edges . The logo at the bottom . And uh , well maybe each each uh set of buttons uh has uh has his own colour . So , it's good . Uh , recognisable . K so , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not too much colours . +User Interface: Uh , no . Not too much . +Project Manager: No , it's not flower power . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} No , no , no . But this has to be has to be trendy and uh {disfmarker} and {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S okay . +User Interface: Uh , yeah so good uh good icons on the buttons , and uh and big buttons is my uh personal uh opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That was that . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , you're next . +Industrial Designer: I'm next , okay . {vocalsound} Yes . No . Here we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , at first we will uh I will f uh say something about what younger people want , +Marketing: {gap} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: our uh group w uh w uh we want to uh sell our remote controls to . And then , I'll discuss what my opinion is about the costs , about uh what battery is in it , what kind of buttons also . First uh , the younger people , they want like soft mat uh materials and primary colours . Like , totally yellow , totally red . Uh , so it's visible . Uh , the shapes are curved and round , like uh you also said . Maybe it's nice to uh get a remote control not like all the other ones , straight and uh flat and long . But to give him the shape of your hand , so you {disfmarker} it's easier to use or something like that . But that's just an idea . And then , I'll have to discuss about the costs uh of all the things for the remote control . The battery , there are few options . Uh , I think the best option is to use uh the basic battery . So , everybody can buy it uh at the at the supermarket . Or use uh a k uh kinetic battery like uh within a watch . When you uh shake it a few times , it it's loaded . Uh , the the form of the remote control , I think it's also nice {gap} have it curved . And maybe like it's hand-shaped . Uh , so uh you take it here in your hand and here are the buttons . Uh material , you use plastic . Hard plastic uh because uh {gap} it won't have to burst uh like in the {disfmarker} in one time . And also rubber because the younger people like that , what we see in the research . Uh the push-buttons . We have one new thing uh discovered . It's a scroll push uh thing like a mouse . Maybe it's uh easy to use uh for the channels . When you want to go m move up , you just scroll up and click on the button , if you wanna see the next , uh if you wanna see that channel . And also for the mouse , uh for the volume , it's also uh easy to use . Just scroll a bit up , scroll a bit down . And that's also easy just w when you have a thing like this , and you get it here . You can do it with your thumb . And with your l left hand you can uh push the buttons +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you {gap} push uh channel one , you can see channel one . The electrics um with a scroll push uh button , we must use regular uh chips . There are also uh simple chips . They are uh cheaper . Um , but then we have just a basic uh uh remote control , and I think there are a lot of those uh things , and people won't buy it any more . They have seen enough of it . And you have also advanced um chips . But that's with the L_C_D_ uh screen . And the costs will increase a lot more . And I think our budget is too low to use and an L_C_D_ , and the chip who is more expensive . And maybe it's also then uh thoughtful if we u uh use uh as um different kind of uh shapes for the {disfmarker} for remote control , that we then use the primary colours . Like , you get a yellow uh remote control , red one , blue one , et cetera . You have any more questions about this ? I think the main thing is we look at the costs . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And not too basic , not a basic remote control , who everybody already has . +Marketing: Yeah . But , thi i uh {disfmarker} This is with an L_C_D_ ? No , +Industrial Designer: Not with an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: not . +Project Manager: No , isn't . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But the L_C_D_ is easy when you use the scroll uh buttons . Then you can scroll , you see what number , and then you push . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But then , what I say , the costs will uh get a lot higher . +Project Manager: But then it's not easy to use scroll uh wheel . If you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then you'll see it on the television . +Project Manager: Hmm , yes . But then . Yeah , then you go one down one up . When you scroll . +Industrial Designer: but l when you see a menu uh on the television , it's like you see uh one to twenty , you go uh uh s scroll up , and push number tw twenty . Yeah +Project Manager: but like we said before , it has to be used on every television . Yeah So you may not be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . The television must do that . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I think the younger people will have newer televisions , which can provide our uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah but young people have to have all their uh room . And mostly they are smaller . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that won't be a problem . I think . +Project Manager: Most the times that are not advanced televisions . +Industrial Designer: No , but then we'll get to the regular uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I think , what I said , everybody has them uh has them already . And they go to a uh supermarket and buy them uh for two Euros . Uh , and ge and get the most cheapest uh thing . And I think we must look further to uh to devel d develop something news . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , can you give an indication in b uh in the cost difference between uh the chip with L_C_D_ or without ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I got it on my screen and it was uh higher . But I don't know uh how much higher . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Cause it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's important . +Marketing: I think if we have an L_C_D_ , it will also sell a lot better . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: And that might uh bring back the costs uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we'll {disfmarker} I think we must discuss who {disfmarker} uh what will be better . If we have a better shape of the um remote control , or better options on it . With a scroll menu , a w scroll thing , and a L_C_D_ . And then a flat um remote control . Or , a more hand-shaped remote control , with scroll , without L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe you can look how how much it is for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: I can uh look on my uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very important . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} Note that the push-button requires a simple chip chip . A scroll wheel requires minimally a regular chip , which is a higher price range . The display requires a advanced chip , which is which in turn is more expensive than the regular chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , more expensive . But how much ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't say . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's from my manufacturing division . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yes ? +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: Next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah . So , my uh presentation is about trend-watching . Uh , I did some trend-watching . It's very important to uh keep up with latest trends . {vocalsound} 'Cause if you don't , you won't sell . So , well how we did do that ? Uh , well we made an investigation of the market , by Trendwatchers . They uh watch in uh cities like uh Paris and Milan . Of course , well known for their uh trend {disfmarker} uh trends . And well , uh what did you find ? Uh , we have two groups , young and trendy , and the old and rich . Well th and the young and trendy , they uh they starting to like uh fruit and vegetables uh as a theme for n uh clothes , shoes , and also uh products . And um , material ? That should feel {disfmarker} have uh a spongy feeling . And to get a feeling for what it is , uh here is an image of it . Then the old and rich . They like uh dark colours , and simple , recognisable shapes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um , they also like uh familiar material , uh especially wood . Now , another picture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To get a feeling for this . Well , uh then already come to my personal preferences . We uh aim at the younger market . So , we should also be uh look at their uh trends . However , with trends it's always if there's {disfmarker} it's now . It it it might last one year , and next year it be {disfmarker} uh can be totally different . And I think we want to sell our product for longer than one year . So , we m must not just only look at what the trend is now , as it might be totally different next year . So , that's uh one thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: No . It's clear . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So now , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ah , let's see . Now , w we have to decide {vocalsound} Well , we have to decide on the concept . So , we have to look at {disfmarker} 'S next . Components and user interface concept . So {disfmarker} Now , we have to make some concept . Maybe one of you can paint it on the board . First , uh user interface . +Industrial Designer: Uh , uh-uh . How w how we how we make it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , a concept on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we first discuss about like what w we all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but maybe we can paint it . Uh , what do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but if I paint with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll paint . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Something like this ? Or {disfmarker} Shapes or {disfmarker} What do we need ? +User Interface: Mm , yes . What ? +Marketing: Can make several uh concepts . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: We have this , and we had the idea of an um a more uh uh uh like sh in the shape of your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: More like something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I I I uh {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: M like {disfmarker} Yeah I can't dr I can't draw it . +Project Manager: And you have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'm not a designer . It's more {gap} three D_ . Like , um when you have a part here . This is the remote control . And then you have something like th this under it . So , it's easier to get it like this . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's like a gun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A g {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it has to be soft ? +Marketing: Mm . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And it has to be soft , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And uh , the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: So , you can squeeze in it and {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Project Manager: Buttons . +Industrial Designer: Buttons on top of it . And here . The scrolling . You can do it with your thumb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it won't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But but i that's the only scroll uh button on it then ? +Industrial Designer: But now we use one scroll button and the other one is here . One till uh uh zero till nine . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But , well there one for the sound and one for the channels . +User Interface: But but how {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the b +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . How {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Or two buttons . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh , two scroll uh wheels . +Marketing: And i if we go to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If uh {disfmarker} 'Kay c If we do {disfmarker} If we use one , then we'll have just a switch on it , and you'll just switch it , and now it's the sound to switch back +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's th that's more difficult . +Marketing: But if we have uh a me Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we have a menu , uh how do we uh choose other options ? +Industrial Designer: with the menu uh button . And then you also can scroll uh scroll in it . Just not like all the other ones , with uh this thing , and uh here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh , from h hundred uh {gap} remote controls , ninety nine have it . +Project Manager: But if we don't have a L_C_D_ we don't have a menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then we have it on the T_V_ , the menu . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} again maybe th How do we know the T_V_ can handle it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't know . So , there's no menu . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . It's like some sort of uh teletext option , but we don't have teletext . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . So you can't use it . +Industrial Designer: And if we put an L_C_D_ thing on it , then the costs will uh be much higher . +Project Manager: Okay , we make two concepts . One with L_C_D_ . One without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . But you all like this kind of thing . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good concept . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll button . +Project Manager: That's one . +Industrial Designer: And and this one has to be soft . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: And this has to be harder , because when it falls , it mu mu must not burst . Or some kind of rubber around it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's one . Two . Number two . +User Interface: And you can and you can uh make the the power button as a trigger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah that's nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Here . Trigger . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} But when you handle it , you put it on and off . +User Interface: Just to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's not good to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {vocalsound} I'll zap . +User Interface: Oh , like a {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fuck . Out . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's not good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now , second concept . One with L_C_D_ , one without L_C_D_ . Then uh {disfmarker} Paint it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Paint it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll thing on , like this ? +Project Manager: One with two scroll buttons and one with without . Yeah . Uh , one with a with a menu , and one without a menu . +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: And the one with with a menu has an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do I have to do everything . Blank . You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But if you put {disfmarker} push the the menu button {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , that's the menu . There for the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , wh what {disfmarker} Yes , but you don't know which of the scroll buttons you have to choose . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} For the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . One that way . And one that way . So {disfmarker} Then it depends on the cost . S On and off . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But is it easy to use ? When you have it on your left side , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When it's not too big . Just like a a phone . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: M uh yeah , maybe it's better if the uh scroll-wheels are um +Industrial Designer: Separate , more separate , h yeah . +Marketing: more separate , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: Like , you have the menu button in between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On the left a scroll button , and on the right a scroll button . But would it be easy to use then ? If it's like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have a big uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . Is it better ? When you uh {gap} the menu , you have to go there there there there . +Industrial Designer: I also think this concept is not what the young people were looking for . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They were like round curves , uh different uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . That's that's the outside . But now the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , okay . +Project Manager: First the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Think we have we have now two buttons missing . The uh um {disfmarker} The mute button . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: We have two buttons missing . The mute button . And um , the {disfmarker} to to uh {disfmarker} have to uh {disfmarker} numbers +Project Manager: Mute . And the other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Personally , I think two scroll buttons uh aren't easy to handle . +Project Manager: But how do you wanna solve it ? +Industrial Designer: With the switch button . +Project Manager: Yeah but on the menu that's not uh easy . +Industrial Designer: No +Project Manager: Then you go down , you switch , you go into the right , you switch , you go down . +Industrial Designer: like uh {disfmarker} Oh , you mean like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you can also have like uh th um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A joystick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and joystick , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it uh {disfmarker} Does that break , a joystick ? Or a small one just like in a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like in a laptop , s uh s some sort of thing . A little bit bigger , with easier thi +Project Manager: Mean , it's better . But how expensive it is ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . Why do I pay you for ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Better ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or no scroll uh things . Just a shape . And {disfmarker} {gap} No , no . It won't work . +Project Manager: For the young peoples I think scroll button's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Think we have to keep them . +Industrial Designer: Or a remote control more like joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , but is it {disfmarker} That's not expensive than uh {disfmarker} Joystick is better . A small one . +Industrial Designer: A small one like this , like a Nintendo uh k +Project Manager: No just like in a +Industrial Designer: Playstation thing . +Project Manager: a laptop . Small , round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then it's not so big . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no . I mean the the shape of the remote control . +Project Manager: Oh the sh Yeah , but then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just like a Playstation thing . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Maybe , if it's possible , {vocalsound} it's not too expensive , I think a joystick is better . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A small one . So , please look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's okay , I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: And on the L_C_D_ , how much it costs ? Uh , it costs extra ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they're not uh in details . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive or less expensive , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we {disfmarker} I think you get it . So , after this meeting you have half an hour to uh fix it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Then I have to come with it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: I got my personal costs . I I don't I don't know the costs . +Project Manager: Your problem . Not mine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I'll uh make something up . +Project Manager: Okay . So , do we have other concepts ? Then for the components , we use a normal battery . Then it's {disfmarker} Ch cheapest way , I think . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the or the kinetic uh with normal battery . +Project Manager: No , no kinetic . Kinetic is uh ch makes it more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's uh , yeah , more expensive . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we use a normal battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Chip . Depends on the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Depends on the scroll . +Project Manager: Scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we use a scroll , then we have the uh regular chip . If we don't use a scroll , then we can use the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , we {disfmarker} If you use the L_C_D_ , we have to +Industrial Designer: Uh the most expensive . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , depends on the L_C_D_ and the scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} No okay scroll-wheel . So , I have this . So , it will be uh the advanced chip , or the uh regu uh or the regular chip . +Project Manager: Okay . So , uh the shapes of the design depends on the L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} But , it has to be small . I think . +Industrial Designer: Or shall we just put it on the pistol thing ? And then just put also on L_C_D_ on it ? +Project Manager: If you have pistol , it {disfmarker} L_C_D_'s not easy . Y y {vocalsound} Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just use your thumb . +Project Manager: If you use a phone . +Industrial Designer: If you {disfmarker} Yeah . I use my thumb . +Project Manager: {gap} k Yeah , but but then you have it . Like , th if you have pistol , you have it so . And the screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , then you have to keep it this way to look at the screen . +Industrial Designer: If you have a joystick on {disfmarker} No , if you have like uh an uh uh a ni a uh Playstation uh game controller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you move up , f forward , down , left . Then you have uh just , yeah , a little bit curved . It's not just uh {vocalsound} straight . +Project Manager: No . No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's how we use it . That's why they make joysticks like that , I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you look forward . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And then you can y +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: N well , if you have to look at it . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Here's our designer . +Marketing: If we have uh then something standing here , with the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not . +Project Manager: If th n well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's for the younger people . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . +Industrial Designer: It's something new . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good good . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the {disfmarker} um , it may not break . +Industrial Designer: Now we put uh rubber around it . +Project Manager: Okay . If that's possible . +Marketing: Um , Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hard plastic , uh the shape , and around it hard uh around it rubber . And the uh the hand shape is also rubber . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or you can uh turn it inside . +Marketing: {gap} I can't see the {gap} . But , uh the easy of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh , th the ease of use wasn't uh the most important uh aspect of it . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: No , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , for us it's about to sell it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of course . +Industrial Designer: This is something new . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Then this is the design . And the buttons are on the next page . So , depends on the cost . So , +Industrial Designer: Costs are okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um we have one minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One . +Project Manager: I think . No . +Marketing: No . You have more . +Project Manager: More . Seven . +Marketing: You have still ten . +Project Manager: Next meeting . Thirty minutes . So hurry up . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's us together . +Project Manager: You two stay here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Paint it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now you have to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's clear . Check your mail . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: It has to be ready in the next meeting . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cookie . +Marketing: What ? Okay . +Project Manager: Next meeting is called the detailed design . So {disfmarker} Everyth everything has to be ready . Thanks for your attention . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: See you at the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bye bye . +","Summary: + +The meeting includes a project manager, a user interface designer, an industrial designer, and a marketing representative. Their discussion revolves around the design and functionality of a new remote control. They go over several aspects of the design, such as the choice of buttons, the color and design presets, and the overall shape, which should have curved and round shapes appealing to younger audiences. + +Key points discussed: + +- The UI designer presents interface concepts, emphasizing the importance of a clear and user-friendly layout, including a power button, mute button, channel buttons, volume and channel controls, and an LCD display for the menu. +- Industrial Designer suggests using durable materials like hard plastic with rubber for grip, and the possibility of including a scroll wheel for channel and volume control, similar to a computer mouse. +- They consider the cost implications of different features like battery type and chip requirements for including an LCD screen. A kinetic battery is mentioned but is likely more expensive. +- Marketing brings up two key demographics: ""young and trendy"" and ""old and rich,"" suggesting different colors and materials for each. It’s essential that the design be trendy but not so specific to current fashions that it becomes quickly outdated. +- There's a debate about the remote's shape. Suggestions include making it pistol-like that fits the hand shape, which would be innovative for the industry. However, concerns are raised about it potentially being cumbersome or turning the TV on and off inadvertently. +- The possibility of including an LCD screen is considered but is contingent on its impact on production costs. Marketing believes an LCD would increase sales, but it might increase costs too much. +- A compromise is discussed, possibly designing two versions, one with and one without an LCD screen. The chips required would also vary based on the inclusion of scrolling functionality and an LCD display. +- Design elements are sketched to visualize concepts, discussing ergonomic aspects, buttons' placement, and materials. + +Decisions need to be made regarding costs associated with features like the LCD screen. The team is tasked with finalizing the design in time for the next meeting. The project manager emphasizes the urgency of concluding cost assessments and design decisions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All hooked up . {vocalsound} Okay , so now we are here at the functional design meeting . Um {vocalsound} hopefully this meeting I'll be doing a little bit less talking than I did last time 'cause this is when you get to show us what you've been doing individually . The agenda for the meeting , I put it in the sh shared documents folder . I don't know if that meant that you could see it or not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did anyone ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . Oh well . Um I'll try and do that for the next meeting as well so if you check in there , there's a shared project documents folder . Um and it should be in there . +User Interface: Mm . Um um wi on on a what ? Oh project project documents , yeah , yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . So I'll put it in there . +User Interface: Oh okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it best if I send you an email maybe , to let you know it's there ? +User Interface: Yes , I think so . +Project Manager: Yep . I'll do that next time . Um {vocalsound} I'll act as secretary for this meeting and just take minutes as we go through , and then I'll send them to you after the meeting . The main the main focus of this meeting is your presentations that you've been preparing during the time , so we'll go through each of you one by one . Um then we need to briefly discuss the new project requirements that were sent to us . I just sent +User Interface: Yeah , the last minute , yeah , +Project Manager: at the last minute , I'm sorry about that , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: but we can see how that affects what you were you were doing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and then we need to , by the end of the meeting come to some kind of decision on who our target group's going to be and what the functions of the remote control {disfmarker} that's the the main goal is to come up with those two things , target group and functions of the remote control . And we've got forty minutes to do that in . So I would say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You said uh targ target groups , +Project Manager: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: what does that mean ? +Project Manager: As uh who it is that we're going to be trying to sell this thing to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , 'kay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we need to {disfmarker} yeah , we need to have a fairly defined group that that we want to focus on +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and then look at the functions um of the dem remote control itself . So with that I think it's best if I hand over to you . Does anyone have a preference for going first ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} I can go first , +Project Manager: You wanna go first ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we need to unplug my laptop and plug in yours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I assume we just pull it out ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . Um {vocalsound} so f from the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just before you start , to make it easier , would you three mind emailing me your presentations ? Once we {disfmarker} you don't have to do it now but when {disfmarker} once you go back , +User Interface: Okay , yeah , afterwards , yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Right sure . +Project Manager: just so that I don't have to scribble everything down . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So n uh with uh with regard to the {vocalsound} uh working design of this uh uh remote control uh I've identified um {vocalsound} a few basic uh components of the remote and uh {vocalsound} se uh from the design , functional design perspective um w I c we can now uh know wha what exactly the components are and how how they work together with each other . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is the method that uh I'll mostly be following in my um {vocalsound} in my uh role . Um the identification of the components , uh and uh since since I'm dealing only with the technical aspects , I would need feedback from the marketing person uh and {vocalsound} uh from the user interface person . Uh we'll then integrate this into the product design at a technical level +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh basically update and come up with a new design , so it's a cyclical process . {vocalsound} Okay , so {vocalsound} these were the basic findings from today . The last three bullets have been integrated from uh the last minute uh email . Uh I just quickly jotted them down . Um {vocalsound} so basically uh the {disfmarker} as I told you the identification of how the remote control works and what are the various parts to it uh and what are the different processes um {vocalsound} and how the parts uh communicate with each other . Um {vocalsound} okay , so e the mee email said that teletext is now outdated , so we need to do away with that functionality of the remote control . Um also uh the remote control should be used only for television , because incorporating other features um makes it more comp complex . And the reason why teletext is outdated because uh of internet and uh the availability of internet over television . How however , our our remote control would only be dealing uh with the {vocalsound} the use for television , {vocalsound} in order to keep things simple . Um {vocalsound} also the management wants that um our design should be unique uh it {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} it should incorporate um colour and the slogan uh that our company um has it as its standard . {vocalsound} Okay , so he he here is a functional overview of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} there's basically an energy source at the heart uh which feeds into the chip and the user interface . The user interf interface communicates with the chip , so {vocalsound} I'll basic go over to the {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} if uh if this is our energy source and this is a cell , uh it communicates {disfmarker} uh it feeds energy into the into the chip , which basically finds out h uh how how to do everything . There is a user interface here . {vocalsound} So whe when the user presses a button , it feeds into the chip and the chip then generates a response and takes the response to an infrared terminal , um which then {disfmarker} so the output of the chip is an infrared bit code , which is then communicated {vocalsound} to the remote site , which h has an infrared receiver . Um the there can be uh a bulb here or something to indicate whether the remote is on or communicating . Um so these are the essent so a all the functionality of the remote control , whatever new functions that we need to do , um make the chip more complicated uh and bigger , basically . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Um so {vocalsound} i in my personal preferences um {vocalsound} I'm hoping that we can ke keep the design as simple and clear as possible . This would uh help us uh to upgrade our technology at a future point of time . And uh also if we can incorporate uh the latest features in our chip design , so that our um {vocalsound} uh remote control does not become outdated soon and it's compatible with mot most uh televisions . {vocalsound} That's about it . {vocalsound} So anything that you would like to know or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Do you have any um i idea about costs at this point ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't have any idea about what each component costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Br +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that's something to consider , I guess , if we're if we're using more advanced technology , it might increase the price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Certainly , yeah . So so tha yeah , {vocalsound} we definitely need to operate within our constraints , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but um {vocalsound} unfortunately I I do not have any data , so uh I just identified the functional components for that . +Project Manager: That's fine . Are there any more questions , or shall we just skip straight to the next one and then we can discuss all of them together at the end ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we need like some general discussion at the end probably . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will do . Okay , so do you want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , I think since since we were discussing some um design issues then I I I would like to continue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , shall shall we pull this up ? +User Interface: okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think that has to come out of there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought those last minute things , they're gonna hit you the worst . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh i {vocalsound} Okay , I hope {disfmarker} wait . Should it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it'll take some time . +Project Manager: It ta takes a little {disfmarker} Oh , and have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's just nothing . +Project Manager: you need to then also press on yours , function F_ eight , +User Interface: Oh right , right , right , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so the blue function key at the bottom and F_ eight . +User Interface: Okay . Nothin +Industrial Designer: Oh , there it is , yeah . +User Interface: okay , something is coming up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now it's coming , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'll come up , it {disfmarker} um uh no signal . +Project Manager: computer no signal . +User Interface: No signal ? Why ? +Project Manager: Maybe again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , it says something now , +User Interface: Oh . My my computer went blank now . +Industrial Designer: adjusting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , adjusting . +User Interface: Adjusting . But {vocalsound} I don't see anything +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go , there we go . +User Interface: I don't see anything on my computer now . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's strange . +Project Manager: Oh , if you press if you press function and that again +User Interface: This is the problem , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: there's there's usually three modes , one where it's only here , one where it's only there , and one where it's both . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one more time . +Project Manager: Okay , so one more time . +User Interface: Uh now it's {disfmarker} okay . No ? No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} yeah just wait for a moment , adjusting . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay , that's fine , that's good . Okay , let's start from the beginning . So I'm going to speak about technical functions design uh just like some {vocalsound} some first issues that came up . Um 'kay , so the method I was um adopting at this point , it's not um for the for the whole um period of the um {vocalsound} all the project but it's just at th at this very moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um uh my method was um to look at um other {vocalsound} um remote controls , uh so mostly just by searching on the web and to see what um functionality they used . And then um after having got this inspiration and having compared what I found on the web um just to think about what the de what the user really needs and what um what the user might desire as additional uh functionalities . {vocalsound} And yeah , and then just to um {vocalsound} put the main function of the remote control in in words . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um so the findings uh were {vocalsound} um that the main function of the remote control is is just sending messages to the television set , so this quite straightforward . And uh w some of the main functions would be switching on , switching off , uh then the user would like to switch the channel um for example just m changing to the next channel to to flip through all all of the possible channels , or then mm {vocalsound} uh the other possibility would be that um she might just want to choose one particular channel , so we would need the numbers . And and also the volume is very important . Um {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I als +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , cou could you go back for a second ? +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh switching on off channel , uh volume , {vocalsound} okay , that's great . +User Interface: 'Kay . Um um among the findings I found that m m most of the curr mm presently available remote controls also include other mm {vocalsound} functionalities um in their design , like operating a V_C_R_ , but they don't seem to be able to deal with D_V_D_ players , but then {vocalsound} there are {disfmarker} surely there are many other functionali functions that could possibly be added to them , but according to the last minute update um actually um we do not want to have all this complicated functions added to our design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my personal preferences would be uh to keep the mm the whole remote control small um just like the physical size . And then it must be easy to use , so it must follow some conventions um like whereabouts you find the on off button and maybe the colour tends to be red or something . Um then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , the must-have buttons would be on off and then {vocalsound} the channel numbers and then um {vocalsound} the one that allows us to go to the next or the previous channel , and then volume has to be there . But then um other functionalities um {vocalsound} could be just {disfmarker} uh there could be a menu button and you could change things on the screen then , um for example brightness and mm similar functions could be just um {vocalsound} done through the menu . And yeah , the last question I had about whether we wanted to incorporate n uh more functionalities , the answer was already no because of the last minute update . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So at the {disfmarker} for the time being that's uh that's all . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have questions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If {disfmarker} I mean that was the the directive that came through from management , but if we had a a decent case for {disfmarker} that we really think it's important to include video and D_V_D_ , I could get back to them and see . It's w it's just whether it's worth arguing about . +User Interface: Yeah , and also it's it's um {disfmarker} other question is uh because there are so many different {disfmarker} And there are so many different things that could possibly be included +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because besides video and D_V_D_ there are the mm um video C_D_s and whatever , so it might be problematic to to choose between all these possible things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Are there any questions for clarification of Maarika before we go on to the next one ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So in the u user interface requirements uh uh uh we we have been able to identify what are the basic buttons that we do want . Um but um {vocalsound} so so at this stage , uh how we go about implementing those button we will not identify or {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} we can completely do away with buttons and uh have some kind of a fancy user interface or something like that . But uh is is there any uh uh any thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um well , I think the buttons are still mm kind of the most um easy for the user to use , +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I mean um what other options would you have ? A little screen or something , but this would be really kind of I think a lot of learning for the user +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and it'll make the costs {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and and I mean the user just wants to get um get a result um quickly , not to spend time in like um giving several orders um I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think I th I would I would think the put the buttons , but if if you have other mm proposals um . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think the co costs will also play a big role when we come to know about them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So well we can probably wait until t we have more knowledge on that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh i if the if the costs allow , we can have like an L_C_D_ display +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh with um {disfmarker} because we do want something fancy and fashionable as well . So yeah ? Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Sure , we can discuss that maybe after the next one . +Marketing: Cool . Do you wanna give me the little cable thing ? +Project Manager: Do you want to {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Uh am I going in the right direction ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wait . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm getting hungry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , here it comes . Okay , here you are . +Marketing: Cool . Ah , that's why it won't meet . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . +Project Manager: You set ? +Marketing: Yep , cool . Okay , functional requirements . +Project Manager: Uh we need to do the function key thing so that it comes up on here . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {gap} try to press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it plugged in prop +Industrial Designer: oh , okay , +Marketing: It's working . +Project Manager: it's working ? +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Cool , okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: So what I have , wh where I've got my information from is a survey where the usability lab um observed remote control use with um a hundred subjects and then they gave them a questionnaire . Um so it was all about , you know , how people feel about the look and feel of the remote control , you know . What's the most annoying things about remote controls and um the possibility of speech recognition and L_C_D_ screens in remote control . Not that they actually gave me any answers on the L_C_D_ screens , so I should have taken that bit out , but anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , so . What they found is that people don't like how current remote controls are , so you know , definitely you should be looking at something quite different . Um seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . {vocalsound} Uh the other twenty five percent have no fashion sense . Uh eighty percent of users would spend more to get um you know , a nice looking remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um current remote controls , they don't match the user behaviour well , as you'll see on the next slide . Um I dunno what zapping is , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um switching between channels , sort of randomly going through . +Marketing: Oh , right . But you have that little thing that comes up at the bottom and tells you what's on . Um okay , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so that's going back to what , you know , we were saying earlier about , you know , do you need all the buttons on the remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: they just make it look ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . Um so this is my little graph thing . +Project Manager: Ooh , that's a bit difficult to see . +Marketing: Mm k +Project Manager: If you explain it to us it'll be fine . +Marketing: Okay , well , I can send it to all of you . What it is is um it's cones , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I thought they'd be more exciting . Um but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I liked the , I liked the litt +Marketing: ooh where's it go ? +Project Manager: ooh come back . +Marketing: Back . Oh . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Oh yes , cool . Okay , I'm gonna stop playing with the little pointy thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um okay , so like what it shows is how much things are used relatively and what you can clearly see from that is the thing that's used most is the channel selection . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: What you can't see is volume selection , it's a little bit higher than all the others . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's the next one along , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so what the graph shows is that , you know , power , channel selection and volume selection are important , and the rest of them , you know , nobody really uses and so that's the the numbers along the top represent their like um their importance , you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so on a scale of one to ten , how important is that +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and , you know , channel selection and volume selection are absolutely essential , and the power , well it's not quite so essential , apparently , although I don't understand how it couldn't be , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} um and everything else , I think , you know , you can forget about having those buttons on the remote control , 'cause they're just not needed , and they're not used . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This is the bit that the email messed up for me and that's what I was fiddling about with at the beginning of the thing . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . So um okay , so this is what people find annoying about remote controls . Uh that they get lost , that the uh you know , they're not intuitive and that they're bad for repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think if you're watching enough T_V_ to get repetitive strain injury from um you know , watching T_V_ , then {vocalsound} that's the least of your problems , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} The remote control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you know , {vocalsound} it's up there . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um that {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so um I mean the the R_S_I_ thing would be that , like when you have the computer keyboards and you keep your wrists up would be something that encourages {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: you want something with an ergonomic t design that encourages good use of the remote control and you know , not straining your wrists watching T_V_ {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Okay , cool . Right , um sorry this is pink because I was copying and pasting the table , and I didn't have time to white it out again . +Project Manager: That's alright . +Marketing: Um okay , but that shows how people {disfmarker} whether they would pay more for voice recognition software . So you can see from that that , you know , younger people to the age of thirty five are quite likely to pay quite a lot more f well quite {disfmarker} are quite likely to pay more for voice recognition software , whereas as people get older , they're a bit more sceptical about it and they're less willing to to try it . Um so clearly voice recognition is something to think about , but um you know I d I do wonder how well that would work given that a T_V_ , you know , tends to be people talking and um , you know , how are you going to stop it from just flipping channels whilst watching T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um okay ? Cool . Um okay , so these are my personal preferences . {vocalsound} So you have sleek , stylish , sophisticated , you know , so something that's , you know , a bit cool . Um you know , functional , so it's useful , but minimalist . Um there's a there's an important thing that , you know , people use when , you know , when you're filling up your home , you know , a lot of people fill up their home with bits of crap , basically , you know , and you've got all this stuff , and you're just like , what the hell is that , who is ever gonna use it ? You know , so things should either be functional or beautiful or preferably both , so I think we need to aim for both . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Um okay , then a long battery life , like you were talking about earlier and um , you know , I was thinking that solar power would be quite cool because , you know , your remote control just sits there , and you could just sit it in the sunshine and save the environment a bit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um and then like a locator , so you know , kind of like you have for a mobile phone or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: not a mobile phone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Some kind of a ring , +Project Manager: Keys and things like that , +Industrial Designer: some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's it , you know . +Project Manager: yeah . Whistle and it {vocalsound} screams at you , yeah . +Marketing: I know , it's weird . My flatmate and I were talking about this on the way into uni this morning and I was like I need to get one for everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So yeah , so maybe something where you clap and then it beeps , something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a kind of sound that you don't often hear on the T_V_ , you know , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause you don't want your remote control beeping every five minutes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause you you'd then deliberately lose it by throwing it out the window or something . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So okay ? Cool . That's me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great , +Project Manager: That's you , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um that's very good , +Industrial Designer: thanks . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: very interesting . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna tick yes . So , we've got about ten , fifteen minutes to discuss +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} I think one of the very interesting things that came up in um {vocalsound} uh Ka Kate Cat Cat's uh presentation was um {vocalsound} uh this this issue of uh uh like voice recognition being more popular with uh younger people . +Marketing: Cat's . Ca {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So if we need to have a target group um then uh {vocalsound} I think as far as the m motto of our company is concerned , if we want to have something sleek and uh you know , good looking uh we are better off targeting a younger audience then um you know , people who are comparatively elderly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean that's the thing is that it didn't say in the survey , you know , whether , you know , these are the people that will pay more for a more stylish remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: but I'm assuming , you know , yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . Bu but but the survey did say that f things like voice recognition are more popular with them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to put in something stylish , then uh th it'll certainly be more popular with this i ye with the younger people as compared to older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Then again I guess the th where it was most popular was the fifteen to twenty five bracket +Industrial Designer: Right , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} I don't know how often they're buying televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . Mm . +Marketing: Well , that's when you go to uni , isn't it ? So , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't have much money , generally . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: I would've thought it's it's more that twenty five to thirty five , when people are really moving out and they've got their first job and they want their nice toys and {disfmarker} +User Interface: you share a television or something that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh still , if if you can go back to that slide and uh , how popular was it ? +Project Manager: O oh it's on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I've unplugged it . +Project Manager: sorry , we unplugged it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's alright , if you can just look it up on your computer , wh uh um people between twenty five to thirty five , uh how popular was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Seventy six point three percent . +Industrial Designer: so it was sti still still quite popular amongst them . +User Interface: It was seventy something , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even they are seventy six percent , is that high amount ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I kn I mean I know what you're saying about the fifteen to twenty five year olds , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but I mean it has been proven that that people of that age group have a higher disposable income because they don't have like {disfmarker} I mean , you know , if you're at university , you're paying your rent , +Project Manager: Yeah , they've got no commitments and +Marketing: but you don't have a mortgage , you don't have a life insurance policy , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: you don't normally have a car , +Project Manager: usually not a car and all of those things . +Marketing: yeah , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You're still learning to drive actually , +Project Manager: Kids . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you're more likely to b +Marketing: so that just costs more than a car , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but yeah . Um so I mean like it is an age group to target , really , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we're if we're talking twenty five Euros as a price , that's not unaffordable , even for young people . +Marketing: No , I mean that's what , that's like fifteen Pounds ? You know , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah this this is not {vocalsound} unaffordable , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: but the problem is whether people need it , whether they do have a T_V_ {vocalsound} to use its full {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I d I don't know many people without a T_V_ . We didn't have a T_V_ last year , +Project Manager: But do they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and everyone thought we were off our heads , you know . +Project Manager: But the T_V_s are often kind of someone's old T_V_ that's blah blah +User Interface: Common , the students {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . The s the stu +Project Manager: and be a bit strange to have a fancy {vocalsound} rome remote . +User Interface: yeah , and the remote control might not {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm +User Interface: it might not even function with the old T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bu but even even in the case of twenty five to thirty five it's quite popular , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I d well we've we've got quite a d decent T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So mm uh are are are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: we're still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or w maybe we can just kind of uh uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think the fact that , you know , ninety one point two percent of fifteen to twenty five year olds are saying yes , I would pay more for a voice recognition remote control , does say quite a lot really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You know , so I mean that and the disposable income and {disfmarker} I don't think it's something to ignore , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but at the same time I think maybe we can we can just decide to to have both of these groups as our target , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because actually I mean they're all still re young people . +Marketing: Is not a massive difference , you know . No , do totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , if we ta if we take fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but that then does imply that we should try and incorporate voice recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that gonna have a {disfmarker} an implication for the technical specs ? +Industrial Designer: I was having a a general outlook on um m most like sophisticated features , but voice recognition itself I'm not very sure about , because one of the p uh things that Cat pointed out was uh uh how do we go about implementing it ? Uh and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You do have it in your mobile phone though , don't you ? Because you have like {disfmarker} I mean every mobile phone now has like call this person and it calls them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But how frequently do we use it anyway +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um uh h ho how good is it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know uh voice recognition softwares are still quite uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . With um {disfmarker} but with a T_V_ remote it's gonna be quite limited if we're t saying the main things people want to do is on off channel five , +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: S so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: louder , +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Project Manager: tha that should be relatively simple . +Industrial Designer: O {vocalsound} +Marketing: y you'd maybe need a code word . Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: So like when you say change , except that's {vocalsound} being said quite a lot on T_V_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: so maybe like , you know , remote . I mean how often do people say remote on T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Although I only watch Charmed , so really {vocalsound} I wouldn't know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like so you'd just say remote five , you know , remote ten , remote one two nine . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so it seems like a feasible thing to implement uh for for a limited +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but maybe if you wanna look into that just to just to check . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so if we go for the the fifteen to thirty five age group and then of course we're going to get th anyone who's older than thirty five who wants to look young and hip and trendy and has the money , +User Interface: Yeah but uh um {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah sure , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: then they'll they'll still go for the same advertising . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's a lot of uh voice recognition remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah , w well now the v the voice recognition if if it works wonderfully w we could possibly do away with all buttons , but I think this is not really the right moment yet , because people are just so used to buttons +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: and um , yeah it's it's kind of safer , so we we need both , +Industrial Designer: Mm . W +Project Manager: I think we need both . +Industrial Designer: What uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so the voice recognition would be just an extra , it wouldn't really reduce the size of the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What wh uh {vocalsound} what I was thinking is that there is this uh separation between what the channels are on T_V_ and how they are numbered on the remote control . If we can do with {disfmarker} away with that , our product can be really popular uh in the sense that uh a person can say , I want to watch uh I_T_V_ one instead of saying that I want to go onto channel number forty five . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if uh if something like that can be incorporated , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that would be another way to do it . +Project Manager: So that if that was in the the voice recognition , that would be great . +Industrial Designer: some kind of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but then the code word would be even more important , because {disfmarker} I mean Sky advertise on every channel , don't they , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so then it would be {disfmarker} you'd be watching Charmed , and then the Sky advert would come on and it would change to Sky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Watch Sky and {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that would be really annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But that's definitely a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but m but on the other hand , remote control isn't {vocalsound} as close to you you probably might just just uh speak into it +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and the T_V_ would be already further away , so it might not pick up the other things coming from there . +Marketing: Yeah . Do you not think that defeats the object of having voice recognition on a remote control though ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that you can yell at it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you know , so you have to have the remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: It's more like if you lost it and it's down the sofa sometime , you can yell at it {vocalsound} and it'll just change it , you can look for it later , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , but then the remote control I think {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} um the idea is kind of {disfmarker} it's it's not that it's sitting there on on top of the television , because then you could already yell at the television and you wouldn't you you wouldn't need the remote control , so the remote control is still something you keep n near yourself . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I suppose nearer to you but a b like if you have surround sound then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah and it might become very difficult from a distance for the television to understand what you're saying because of the noise factor for the remote control +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: being cl I mean it'll it'll {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No , but I I I was just defending the {vocalsound} the fact why why we want to keep the remote control close to us , a and uh not to yell at it from the distance . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . So uh {vocalsound} wh another thing uh that can be used is that uh there can be a beeper button on the T_V_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can go and press that button and um and the remote control , wherever it is , it'll beep , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so we we can probably come to know where it is . +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then if you're buying the remote separately , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: but y {vocalsound} you could have something , but i if it was something that you could like stick onto the T_V_ or something , +User Interface: Oh yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: some {disfmarker} like a two p if you bought it in a two part pack , so one part attaches to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , 'cause it's it's quite important that you don't lose the the bit to locate the remote control . +Project Manager: The l +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , but it solves the problem of having different noises . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I think we're gonna have to wrap this up um . But if we go away with that that kind of general um {vocalsound} specification in mind that we're looking at fifteen to thirty five year olds , we want it to look simple , but still have the buttons so it's easy to use , but only those key buttons , the major buttons and then one sort of menu one , and then voice recognition included as an option +User Interface: The major ones , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um but that obviously needs a little bit more working out as to whether it's really feasible and some of those problems we were mentioning um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What we have to do now is to go back to our little places , complete our questionnaire and some sort of summarisation , which y you'll get immediately by email . Send me your presentations so that I can use them to make the minutes , and then we've got a lunch break +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: and after lunch we go back to our own little stations and have thirty minutes more work . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'll put the minutes in that project documents folder , but I'll send you an email when I do it , so that you know . +Industrial Designer: So where exactly is this i +Project Manager: It should be on your desktop , so on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll put it {disfmarker} I'll put them there as soon as I've written them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah in that one , +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: right yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and email them round . +Marketing: Oh , so y you want our um PowerPoint presentations in there , hey ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that would be great . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh so so we'll just put them i there , +Project Manager: Oh yeah , put them in there . Yeah , +User Interface: we we {disfmarker} yeah , w we won't even {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: then you don't have to email them . +Marketing: But is everyone's called functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No , they're all called something slightly different . Technical requirements and something something , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that's good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's me done . +Project Manager: So , if you put them in there , we'll all be able to see them and refer to them if we need to . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} as to where we're going from here , you're going to look at the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Whatever that means . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I guess I'll find out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll be looking {vocalsound} you'll be looking at the user interface concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh something conceptual , yeah . +Project Manager: on something conceptual and you're watching trends to see how we go and surely voice recognition'll fall off the map or something that {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um we'll keep keep our options op hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Wha what was it again that I was supposed to look into ? Con components , oh . +Project Manager: Components , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Sorry , but um the next meeting um are we going to have it um right after lunch or {vocalsound} shall we prepare our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we have we have {disfmarker} after lunch we have thirty minutes to ourselves to prepare , +User Interface: To prepare , okay , yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: so that's fine , w before lunch we just have to complete the questionnaire and some sort of summary . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right on time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so you can {disfmarker} I guess we'll see you for lunch in a sec ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , see you . +","The Project Manager opens a functional design meeting, hoping to do less talking and allow team members to present their individual work. The agenda was supposed to be in a shared documents folder, but not all team members could access it. The Project Manager plans to send an email next time for notification. The meeting's main focus is presentations by each member, discussing new project requirements and deciding on the target group and functions for a remote control. + +The Industrial Designer volunteers to go first and presents technical aspects of the remote control design, identifying essential components and how they work together. He notes updates from an email, including removing outdated teletext functions, simplifying the remote to control only televisions, and adapting the design to reflect the company's standard color and slogan. + +The User Interface designer reviews the main functions of remote controls based on web research and user needs, emphasizing the importance of easy-to-use, conventional design with essential buttons for power, channel selection, volume, and a menu for additional settings. + +The Project Manager asks about cost considerations, which the Industrial Designer cannot provide at the moment. + +Marketing discusses survey findings that suggest people find most remotes unappealing and often only use a small percentage of the buttons. The most important functions were channel and volume selection. Annoyances include losing the remote, unintuitive design, and possible repetitive strain injuries. The preference is for a sleek, minimalist design, possibly with an ergonomic aspect, long battery life, and possibly a locator feature. + +The team discusses targeting a younger audience based on survey data showing they are more receptive to new technology like voice recognition and would pay more for a stylish remote control. They agree to include voice recognition as an option alongside traditional buttons. + +The Project Manager summarizes the meeting, reminding team members to complete a questionnaire and send their presentations. Post-lunch activities include individual follow-up work before the next session. The manager emphasizes the focus on simplicity and functionality with key buttons and voice recognition for the target group of 15- to 35-year-olds. They also consider including a button on the TV to help locate a misplaced remote. + +In conclusion, the team aims to review the components concept, user interface concept, and market trends, with the next meeting scheduled to take place after a lunch break and individual preparation time." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: So . OK . Doesn't look like it crashed . That 's great . +Grad G: So I think maybe what 's causing it to crash is I keep starting it and then stopping it to see if it 's working . And so I think starting it and then stopping it and starting it again causes it to crash . So , I won't do that anymore . +Postdoc B: And it looks like you 've found a way of uh mapping the location to the {disfmarker} without having people have to give their names each time ? +PhD A: Sounds like an initialization thing . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's like you have the {disfmarker} So you know that {disfmarker} +Grad G: No . +Postdoc B: I mean , are you going to write down {pause} that I sat here ? +Grad G: I 'm gonna collect the digit forms and write it down . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} So they should be right with what 's on the digit forms . OK , so I 'll go ahead and start with digits . u And I should say that uh , you just pau you just read each line an and then pause briefly . +Professor E: And start by giving the transcript number . +PhD A: Tran +PhD D: Transcript {disfmarker} Uh . OK , OK . +PhD A: Oh sorry , go ahead . +Professor E: So uh , you see , Don , the unbridled excitement of the work that we have on this project . +Grad H: OK . +Professor E: It 's just uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: Umh . +Professor E: Uh , you know , it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have {comment} that information . +Grad G: And I 'm surprised I sort of {disfmarker} I 'm surprised I forgot that , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's some +Grad G: but uh I think that would be a good thing to add . After I just printed out a zillion of them . +Professor E: Yeah , well , that 's {disfmarker} Um , so I {disfmarker} I do have a {disfmarker} a an agenda suggestion . Uh , we {disfmarker} I think the things that we talk about in this meeting uh tend to be a mixture of uh procedural uh mundane things and uh research points and um I was thinking I think it was a meeting a couple of weeks ago that we {disfmarker} we spent much of the time talking about the mundane stuff cuz that 's easier to get out of the way and then we sort of drifted into the research and maybe five minutes into that Andreas had to leave . So {vocalsound} uh I 'm suggesting we turn it around and {disfmarker} and uh sort of we have {disfmarker} anybody has some mundane points that we could send an email later , uh hold them for a bit , and let 's talk about the {disfmarker} the research - y kind of things . Um , so um the one th one thing I know that we have on that is uh we had talked a {disfmarker} a couple weeks before um uh about the uh {disfmarker} the stuff you were doing with {disfmarker} with uh um uh l l attempting to locate events , we had a little go around trying to figure out what you meant by "" events "" but I think , you know , what we had meant by "" events "" I guess was uh points of overlap between speakers . But I th I gather from our discussion a little earlier today that you also mean uh interruptions with something else +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: like some other noise . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor E: Yes ? You mean that as an event also . +PhD D: To +Professor E: So at any rate you were {disfmarker} you 've {disfmarker} you 've done some work on that +PhD D: right . +Professor E: and um then the other thing would be it might be nice to have a preliminary discussion of some of the other uh research uh areas that uh we 're thinking about doing . Um , I think especially since you {disfmarker} you haven't been in {disfmarker} in these meetings for a little bit , maybe you have some discussion of some of the p the plausible things to look at now that we 're starting to get data , uh and one of the things I know that also came up uh is some discussions that {disfmarker} that uh {disfmarker} that uh Jane had with Lokendra uh about some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some um uh work about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I {disfmarker} I don't want to try to say cuz I {disfmarker} I 'll say it wrong , but anyway some {disfmarker} some potential collaboration there about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} working with these data . +PhD C: Oh . Sure . +Professor E: So . So , uh . +Grad G: You wanna just go around ? +Professor E: Uh . {pause} Well , I don't know if we {disfmarker} if this is sort of like everybody has something to contribute sort of thing , I think there 's just just a couple {disfmarker} a couple people primarily um but um Uh , wh why don't {disfmarker} Actually I think that {disfmarker} that last one I just said we could do fairly quickly so why don't you {disfmarker} you start with that . +Postdoc B: OK . Shall I {disfmarker} shall I just start ? OK . +Professor E: Yeah , just explain what it was . +Postdoc B: Um , so , uh , he was interested in the question of {disfmarker} you know , relating to his {disfmarker} to the research he presented recently , um of inference structures , and uh , the need to build in , um , this {disfmarker} this sort of uh mechanism for understanding of language . And he gave the example in his talk about how {pause} um , e a I 'm remembering it just off the top of my head right now , but it 's something about how um , i "" Joe slipped "" you know , "" John had washed the floor "" or something like that . And I don't have it quite right , but that kind of thing , where you have to draw the inference that , OK , there 's this time sequence , but also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the causal aspects of the uh floor and {disfmarker} and how it might have been the cause of the fall and that um it was the other person who fell than the one who cleaned it and it {disfmarker} {comment} These sorts of things . So , I looked through the transcript that we have so far , {comment} and um , fou identified a couple different types of things of that type and um , one of them was something like uh , during the course of the transcript , um um , w we had gone through the part where everyone said which channel they were on and which device they were on , and um , the question was raised "" Well , should we restart the recording at this point ? "" And {disfmarker} and Dan Ellis said , "" Well , we 're just so far ahead of the game right now {pause} we really don't need to "" . Now , how would you interpret that without a lot of inference ? So , the inferences that are involved are things like , OK , so , how do you interpret "" ahead of the game "" ? You know . So it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {pause} i What you {disfmarker} what you int what you draw {disfmarker} you know , the conclusions that you need to draw are that space is involved in recording , +Grad G: Hmm , metaphorically . +Postdoc B: that um , i that {pause} i we have enough space , and he continues , like "" we 're so ahead of the game cuz now we have built - in downsampling "" . So you have to sort of get the idea that um , "" ahead of the game "" is sp speaking with respect to space limitations , that um that in fact downsampling is gaining us enough space , and that therefore we can keep the recording we 've done so far . But there are a lot of different things like that . +Grad G: So , do you think his interest is in using this as {pause} a data source , or {pause} training material , or what ? +Professor E: Well , I {disfmarker} I should maybe interject to say this started off with a discussion that I had with him , so um we were trying to think of ways that his interests could interact with ours +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and um uh I thought that if we were going to project into the future when we had a lot of data , uh and um such things might be useful for that in or before we invested too much uh effort into that he should uh , with Jane 's help , look into some of the data that we 're {disfmarker} already have and see , is there anything to this at all ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Is there any point which you think that , you know , you could gain some advantage and some potential use for it . Cuz it could be that you 'd look through it and you say "" well , this is just the wrong {pause} task for {disfmarker} for him to pursue his {disfmarker} "" +Grad G: Wrong , yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and uh I got the impression from your mail that in fact there was enough things like this just in the little sample that {disfmarker} that you looked at that {disfmarker} that it 's plausible at least . +Postdoc B: It 's possible . Uh , he was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} We met and he was gonna go and uh you know , y look through them more systematically +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and then uh meet again . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So it 's , you know , not a matter of a {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: But , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think it was optimistic . +Professor E: So anyway , that 's {disfmarker} that 's e a quite different thing from anything we 've talked about that , you know , might {disfmarker} might {disfmarker} might come out from some of this . +PhD C: But he can use text , basically . I mean , he 's talking about just using text +Postdoc B: That 's his major {disfmarker} I mentioned several that w had to do with implications drawn from intonational contours +PhD C: pretty much , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: and {pause} that wasn't as directly relevant to what he 's doing . He 's interested in these {disfmarker} these knowledge structures , +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah , interesting . +Postdoc B: inferences that you draw {pause} i from {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , he certainly could use text , but we were in fact looking to see if there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} is there something in common between our interest in meetings and his interest in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in this stuff . So . +Grad G: And I imagine that transcripts of speech {disfmarker} I mean text that is speech {disfmarker} probably has more of those than sort of prepared writing . I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it would or not , but it seems like it would . +Professor E: I don't know , probably de probably depends on what the prepared writing was . But . +Postdoc B: Yeah , I don't think I would make that leap , because i in narratives , you know {disfmarker} I mean , if you spell out everything in a narrative , it can be really tedious , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: so . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm just thinking , you know , when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're face to face , you have a lot of backchannel and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . That aspect . +Grad G: Yeah . And so I think it 's just easier to do that sort of broad inference jumping if it 's face to face . I mean , so , if I just read that Dan was saying "" we 're ahead of the game "" {comment} in that {disfmarker} in that context , +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad G: I might not realize that he was talking about disk space as opposed to anything else . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I had several that had to do with backchannels and this wasn't one of them . +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: This {disfmarker} this one really does um m make you leap from {disfmarker} So he said , you know , "" we 're ahead of the game , w we have built - in downsampling "" . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And the inference , i if you had it written down , would be {disfmarker} +Grad G: I guess it would be the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . But there are others that have backchannelling , it 's just he was less interested in those . +PhD F: Can I {disfmarker} Sorry to interrupt . Um , I f f f I 've {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} d A minute {disfmarker} uh , several minutes ago , I , like , briefly was {disfmarker} was not listening and {disfmarker} So who is "" he "" in this context ? +PhD C: Yeah , there 's a lot of pronoun {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . So I was just realizing we 've {disfmarker} You guys have been talking about "" he "" um for at least uh , I don't know , three {disfmarker} three four minutes without ever mentioning the person 's name again . +PhD C: I believe it . Yeah . Actually to make it worse , {comment} uh , Morgan uses "" you "" and "" you "" +PhD F: So this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} gonna be a big , big problem if you want to later do uh , you know , indexing , or speech understanding of any sort . +Grad G: It 's in my notes . +PhD C: with gaze and no identification , or {disfmarker} I just wrote this down . Yeah , actually . Cuz Morgan will say well , "" you had some ideas "" +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: You just wrote this ? +PhD C: and he never said Li - He looked {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , I think he 's doing that intentionally , +PhD C: Right , so it 's great . +Grad G: aren't you ? +PhD C: So this is really great +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: because the thing is , because he 's looking at the per even for addressees in the conversation , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I bet you could pick that up in the acoustics . Just because your gaze is also correlated with the directionality of your voice . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Could be . +Postdoc B: Can we +Professor E: Yeah . That would be tou +Grad G: Oh , that would be interesting . +PhD C: Yeah , so that , I mean , to even know um when {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , if you have the P Z Ms you should be able to pick up what a person is looking at from their voice . +Grad G: Well , especially with Morgan , with the way we have the microphones arranged . I 'm sort of right on axis and it would be very hard to tell . +PhD C: Right . +Grad G: Uh . +Postdoc B: Oh , but you 'd have the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Put Morgan always like this +Postdoc B: You 'd have fainter {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Wouldn't you get fainter reception out here ? +Professor E: Well , these {disfmarker} +Grad G: Sure , but I think if I 'm talking like this ? Right now I 'm looking at Jane and talking , now I 'm looking at Chuck and talking , I don't think the microphones would pick up that difference . +PhD C: But you don't have this {disfmarker} this problem . +Postdoc B: I see . +PhD C: Morgan is the one who does this most . +Grad G: So if I 'm talking at you , or I 'm talking at you . +Professor E: I probably been affect No , I th I think I 've been affected by too many conversations where we were talking about lawyers and talking about {disfmarker} and concerns about "" oh gee is somebody going to say something bad ? "" and so on . +Grad G: Lawyers . +Professor E: And so I {disfmarker} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm tending to stay away from people 's names even though uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I am too . +PhD C: Even though you could pick up later on , just from the acoustics who you were t who you were looking at . +Postdoc B: I am too . +Grad G: And we did mention who "" he "" was . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , but I missed it . +Grad G: Early in the conversation . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} it was uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Do {disfmarker} Sh - Can I say +Professor E: Yeah . No no , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} or is that just too sensitive ? +Professor E: No no , it isn't sensitive at all . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +Professor E: I was just {disfmarker} I was just {disfmarker} I was overreacting just because we 've been talking about it . +Postdoc B: And in fact , it is {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} it is sensitive . +PhD C: No , but that {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Professor E: It 's OK to {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} I came up with something from the Human Subjects people that I wanted to mention . I mean , it fits into the m area of the mundane , but they did say {disfmarker} You know , I asked her very specifically about this clause of how , um , you know , it says "" no individuals will be identified uh , "" in any publication using the data . "" OK , well , individuals being identified , let 's say you have a {disfmarker} a snippet that says , "" Joe s uh thinks such - and - such about {disfmarker} about this field , but I think he 's wrongheaded . "" Now I mean , we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be careful not to have the "" wrongheaded "" part in there , but {disfmarker} but you know , let 's say we say , you know , "" Joe used to think so - and - so about this area , in his publication he says that but I think he 's changed his mind . "" or whatever . Then the issue of {disfmarker} of being able to trace Joe , because we know he 's well - known in this field , and all this and {disfmarker} and tie it to the speaker , whose name was just mentioned a moment ago , can be sensitive . +Professor E: b But I {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So I think it 's really {disfmarker} really kind of adaptive and wise to not mention names any more than we have to because if there 's a slanderous aspect to it , then how much to we wanna be able to have to remove ? +Professor E: Yeah , well , there 's that . But I {disfmarker} I mean I think also to some extent it 's just educating the Human Subjects people , in a way , because there 's {disfmarker} If uh {disfmarker} You know , there 's court transcripts , there 's {disfmarker} there 's transcripts of radio shows {disfmarker} I mean people say people 's names all the time . So I think it {disfmarker} it can't be bad to say people 's names . It 's just that {disfmarker} i I mean you 're right that there 's more poten If we never say anybody 's name , then there 's no chance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of slandering anybody , +PhD C: But , then it won't {disfmarker} I mean , if we {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: It 's not a meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean we should do whatever 's natural in a meeting if {disfmarker} if we weren't being recorded . +Professor E: Yeah . Right , so I {disfmarker} So my behavior is probably not natural . +PhD C: "" If Person X {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: So . +Postdoc B: Well , my feeling on it was that it wasn't really important who said it , you know . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , if you ha since you have to um go over the transcripts later anyway , you could make it one of the jobs of the {pause} people who do that to mark +Grad G: Well , we t we t we talked about this during the anon anonymization . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: If we wanna go through and extract from the audio and the written every time someone says a name . And I thought that our conclusion was that we didn't want to do that . +Professor E: Yeah , we really can't . But a actually , I 'm sorry . I really would like to push {disfmarker} finish this off . +Postdoc B: I understand . No I just {disfmarker} I just was suggesting that it 's not a bad policy p potentially . +Professor E: So it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So , we need to talk about this later . +Professor E: Yeah , I di I didn't intend it an a policy though . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Professor E: It was {disfmarker} it was just it was just unconscious {disfmarker} well , semi - conscious behavior . I sorta knew I was doing it but it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I still don't know who "" he "" is . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I do I don't remember who "" he "" is . +PhD C: No , you have to say , you still don't know who "" he "" is , with that prosody . +Professor E: Ah . Uh , we were talking about Dan at one point {comment} and we were talking about Lokendra at another point . +Postdoc B: Yeah , depends on which one you mean . +Professor E: And I don't {disfmarker} I don't remember which {disfmarker} which part . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: It 's ambiguous , so it 's OK . +Professor E: Uh , I think {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , the inference structures was Lokendra . +PhD F: But no . The inference stuff was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was Lokendra . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: OK . That makes sense , yeah . +PhD C: And the downsampling must have been Dan . +Professor E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Good {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: It 's an inference . +Professor E: Yeah , you could do all these inferences , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I would like to move it into {disfmarker} into uh what Jose uh has been doing +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor E: because he 's actually been doing something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor E: So . {vocalsound} Right . +PhD F: As opposed to the rest of us . +PhD D: Well - {comment} {vocalsound} OK . I {disfmarker} I remind that me {disfmarker} my first objective eh , in the project is to {disfmarker} to study difference parameters to {disfmarker} to find a {disfmarker} a good solution to detect eh , the overlapping zone in eh speech recorded . But eh , {vocalsound} tsk , {comment} {vocalsound} ehhh {comment} In that way {comment} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I begin to {disfmarker} to study and to analyze the ehn {disfmarker} the recorded speech eh the different session to {disfmarker} to find and to locate and to mark eh the {disfmarker} the different overlapping zone . And eh so eh I was eh {disfmarker} I am transcribing the {disfmarker} the first session and I {disfmarker} I have found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events , eh besides the overlapping zones , eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the eh breaths eh aspiration eh , eh , talk eh , eh , clap , eh {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know what is the different names eh you use to {disfmarker} to name the {disfmarker} the {pause} n speech +PhD A: Nonspeech sounds ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Oh , I don't think we 've been doing it at that level of detail . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to m to label the {disfmarker} the different acoustic , but I prefer because eh I would like to {disfmarker} to study if eh , I {disfmarker} I will find eh , eh , a good eh parameters eh to detect overlapping I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test these parameters eh with the {disfmarker} another eh , eh acoustic events , to nnn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} to find what is the ehm {disfmarker} the false {disfmarker} eh , the false eh hypothesis eh , nnn , which eh are produced when we use the {disfmarker} the ehm {disfmarker} this eh parameter {disfmarker} eh I mean pitch eh , eh , difference eh , feature {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know {disfmarker} I think some of these um that are the nonspeech overlapping events may be difficult even for humans to tell that there 's two there . +Grad G: So it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , if it 's a tapping sound , you wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} or , you know , something like that , it 'd be {disfmarker} it might be hard to know that it was two separate events . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} You weren't talking about just overlaps +PhD D: Ye +Grad G: were you ? You were just talking about acoustic events . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I t I t I talk eh about eh acoustic events in general , +Grad G: Someone starts , someone stops {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: but eh my {disfmarker} my objective eh will be eh to study eh overlapping zone . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Eh ? {comment} n Eh in twelve minutes I found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events . +Professor E: How many overlaps were there uh in it ? No no , how many of them were the overlaps of speech , though ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh almost eh three hundred eh in one session +Grad G: Oh , God ! +PhD D: in five {disfmarker} eh in forty - five minutes . +PhD A: Three hundred overlapping speech {disfmarker} +PhD D: Alm - Three hundred overlapping zone . +Grad G: Ugh . +PhD C: Overlapping speech . +PhD D: With the overlapping zone , overlapping speech {disfmarker} speech what eh different duration . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Sure . +Postdoc B: Does this {disfmarker} ? So if you had an overlap involving three people , how many times was that counted ? +PhD D: Yeah , three people , two people . Eh , um I would like to consider eh one people with difference noise eh in the background , be +Professor E: No no , but I think what she 's asking is {pause} if at some particular for some particular stretch you had three people talking , instead of two , did you call that one event ? +PhD D: Oh . Oh . Yeah . I consider one event eh for th for that eh for all the zone . This {disfmarker} th I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider eh an acoustic event , the overlapping zone , the period where three speaker or eh {disfmarker} are talking together . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} So let 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: For +Grad G: So let 's say me and Jane are talking at the same time , and then Liz starts talking also over all of us . How many events would that be ? +PhD D: So - I don't understand . +Grad G: So , two people are talking , {comment} and then a third person starts talking . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Grad G: Is there an event right here ? +PhD D: Eh no . No no . For me is the overlapping zone , because {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you have s you have more one {disfmarker} eh , more one voice eh , eh produced in a {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a moment . +Professor E: I see . +Grad G: So i if two or more people are talking . +Professor E: OK . Yeah . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . We just wanted to understand how you 're defining it . +PhD D: Yeah . If +Professor E: So then , in the region between {disfmarker} since there {disfmarker} there is some continuous region , in between regions where there is only one person speaking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: And one contiguous region like that you 're calling an event . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: Is it {disfmarker} Are you calling the beginning or the end of it the event , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: or are you calling the entire length of it the event ? +PhD D: I consider the {disfmarker} the , nnn {disfmarker} the nnn , nnn {disfmarker} eh , the entirety eh , eh , all {disfmarker} all the time there were {disfmarker} the voice has overlapped . +Professor E: OK . +PhD D: This is the idea . But eh I {disfmarker} I don't distinguish between the {disfmarker} the numbers of eh speaker . Uh , I 'm not considering {vocalsound} eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} ehm {vocalsound} eh , the fact of eh , eh , for example , what did you say ? Eh at first eh , eh two talkers are uh , eh speaking , and eh , eh a third person eh join to {disfmarker} to that . For me , it 's eh {disfmarker} it 's eh , all overlap zone , with eh several numbers of speakers is eh , eh the same acoustic event . Wi - but {disfmarker} uh , without any mark between the zone {disfmarker} of the overlapping zone with two speakers eh speaking together , and the zone with the three speakers . +Postdoc B: That would j just be one . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} One . One . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Eh , with eh , a beginning mark and the ending mark . Because eh {vocalsound} for me , is the {disfmarker} is the zone with eh some kind of eh distortion the spectral . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD D: I don't mind {disfmarker} By the moment , by the moment . +Grad G: Well , but {disfmarker} But you could imagine that three people talking has a different spectral characteristic than two . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Yeah , but eh {disfmarker} but eh I have to study . {comment} What will happen in a general way , +Professor E: Could . +Grad G: So . You had to start somewhere . +Professor E: Yeah . We just w +PhD C: So there 's a lot of overlap . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know what eh will {disfmarker} will happen with the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: So . +Grad G: That 's a lot of overlap , +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor E: So again , that 's {disfmarker} that 's three {disfmarker} three hundred in forty - five minutes that are {disfmarker} that are speakers , just speakers . +Grad G: yeah , for forty - five minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Uh - huh . OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: But a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a th +Professor E: So that 's about eight per minute . +Postdoc B: But a thousand events in twelve minutes , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , {pause} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But that can include taps . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , but a thousand taps in eight minutes is a l in twelve minutes is a lot . +PhD D: General . +PhD C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider acoustic events eh , the silent too . +Postdoc B: Silent . +Grad G: Silence starting or silence ending {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , silent , ground to {disfmarker} bec to detect {disfmarker} eh because I consider acoustic event all the things are not eh speech . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: In ge in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a general point of view . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor E: OK , so how many of those thousand were silence ? +PhD C: Alright . +PhD D: in the per +PhD F: Not speech {disfmarker} not speech or too much speech . +PhD D: Too much speech . +Professor E: Right . So how many of those thousand were silence , silent sections ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh silent , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the {disfmarker} eh I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to do a stylistic study +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: and give you eh with the report eh from eh the {disfmarker} the study from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the session {disfmarker} one session . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that eh another thing . When eh {vocalsound} eh I w I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I was eh look at eh nnn , the difference speech file , um , for example , eh if eh we use the ehm {disfmarker} the mixed file , to {disfmarker} to transcribe , the {disfmarker} the events and the words , I {disfmarker} I saw that eh the eh speech signal , collected by the eh this kind of mike {disfmarker} eh of this kind of mike , eh are different from the eh mixed signal eh , we eh {disfmarker} collected by headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} It 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: But the problem is {vocalsound} the following . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I knew that eh the signal eh , eh would be different , but eh the {disfmarker} the problem is eh , eh we eh detected eh difference events in the speech file eh collected by {disfmarker} by that mike uh qui compared with the mixed file . And so if {disfmarker} when you transcribe eh only eh using the nnn {disfmarker} the mixed file , it 's possible {disfmarker} eh if you use the transcription to evaluate a different system , it 's possible you eh {disfmarker} in the eh i and you use the eh speech file collected by the eh fet mike , to eh {disfmarker} to nnn {disfmarker} to do the experiments {pause} with the {disfmarker} the system , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: its possible to evaluate eh , eh {disfmarker} or to consider eh acoustic events that {disfmarker} which you marked eh in the mixed file , but eh they don't appear in the eh speech signal eh collected by the {disfmarker} by the mike . +Grad G: Right . The {disfmarker} the reason that I generated the mixed file was for IBM to do word level transcription , not speech event transcription . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Oh , it 's a good idea . It 's a good idea I think . +Grad G: So I agree that if someone wants to do speech event transcription , that the mixed signals here {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , if I 'm tapping on the table , you it 's not gonna show up on any of the mikes , but it 's gonna show up rather loudly in the PZM . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I say eh that eh , eh , or this eh only because eh I c I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in my opinion , it 's necessary to eh {disfmarker} to eh {disfmarker} to put the transcription on the speech file , collected by the objective signal . +Grad G: So . +PhD D: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal collected by the {disfmarker} eh , the real mike in the future , in the prototype to {disfmarker} to eh correct the initial eh segmentation eh with the eh real speech +Professor E: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field , yeah . +PhD D: you have to {disfmarker} to analyze {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to process . Because I {disfmarker} I found a difference . +Professor E: Yeah , well , just {disfmarker} I mean , just in that {disfmarker} that one s ten second , or whatever it was , example that Adam had that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we passed on to others a few months ago , there was that business where I g I guess it was Adam and Jane were talking at the same time and {disfmarker} and uh , in the close - talking mikes you couldn't hear the overlap , and in the distant mike you could . So yeah , it 's clear that if you wanna study {disfmarker} if you wanna find all the places where there were overlap , it 's probably better to use a distant mike . +PhD F: That 's good . +Professor E: On the other hand , there 's other phenomena that are going on at the same time for which it might be useful to look at the close - talking mikes , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: But why can't you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , time aligned ? +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: If you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , you would hear Jane interrupting me , but you wouldn't hear the paper rustling . And so if you 're interested in {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I mean if you 're interested in speakers overlapping other speakers and not the other kinds of nonspeech , that 's not a problem , +Professor E: Some {comment} of it 's masking {disfmarker} masked . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Were you interrupting him or was he interrupting you ? +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: right ? +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Although the other issue is that the {pause} mixed close - talking mikes {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm doing weird normalizations and things like that . +PhD C: But it 's known . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the normalization you do is over the whole conversation +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: isn't it , over the whole meeting . +Grad G: Right . Yep . +PhD C: So if you wanted to study people overlapping people , that 's not a problem . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh I saw the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} eh but eh I eh {disfmarker} I have eh any results . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I saw the {disfmarker} the speech file collected by eh the fet mike , and eh eh signal eh to eh {disfmarker} to noise eh relation is eh low . It 's low . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: It 's very low . You would comp if we compare it with eh the headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that nnn {disfmarker} that eh , {vocalsound} ehm , pr probably , +Grad G: Did {disfmarker} Did you +PhD D: I 'm not sure eh by the moment , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably that eh a lot of eh , {vocalsound} eh for example , in the overlapping zone , on eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in several eh parts of the files where you {disfmarker} you can find eh , eh {vocalsound} eh , smooth eh eh speech eh from eh one eh eh talker in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: it 's probably in {disfmarker} in that eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in those files you {disfmarker} you can not find {disfmarker} you can not process because eh it 's confused with {disfmarker} with noise . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And there are {vocalsound} a lot of I think . But I have to study with more detail . But eh my idea is to {disfmarker} to process only {pause} nnn , this eh {disfmarker} nnn , this kind of s of eh speech . Because I think it 's more realistic . I 'm not sure it 's a good idea , but eh {disfmarker} +Professor E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad G: Well , it 's more realistic but it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be a lot harder . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 'd be hard , but on the other hand as you point out , if your {disfmarker} if i if {disfmarker} if your concern is to get uh the overlapping people {disfmarker} people 's speech , you will {disfmarker} you will get that somewhat better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Um , Are you making any use {disfmarker} uh you were {disfmarker} you were working with th the data that had already been transcribed . +PhD D: With {disfmarker} By Jane . +Professor E: Does it uh {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Now um did you make any use of that ? See I was wondering cuz we st we have these ten hours of other stuff that is not yet transcribed . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the transcription by Jane , t eh i eh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use to {disfmarker} to nnn , {vocalsound} eh to put {disfmarker} i i it 's a reference for me . But eh the transcription {disfmarker} eh for example , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not interested in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the words , transcription words , eh transcribed eh eh in {disfmarker} eh follow in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but eh eh Jane eh for example eh put a mark eh at the beginning eh of each eh talker , in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , um eh she {disfmarker} she nnn includes information about the zone where eh there are eh {disfmarker} there is an overlapping zone . But eh there isn't any {disfmarker} any mark , time {disfmarker} temporal mark , to {disfmarker} to c eh {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} e - heh , to label {comment} the beginning and the end of the {disfmarker} of the +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . Right , so she is {disfmarker} +PhD D: ta I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh we need this information to +Professor E: Right . So the twelve {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} it took you twelve hours {disfmarker} of course this included maybe some {disfmarker} some time where you were learning about what {disfmarker} what you wanted to do , but {disfmarker} but uh , it took you something like twelve hours to mark the forty - five minutes , your +Grad G: Twelve minutes . +PhD D: Twelve minutes . +Professor E: s Twelve minutes ! +PhD D: Twelve minutes . Twelve . +Professor E: I thought you did forty - five minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , forty - five minutes is the {disfmarker} is the session , all the session . +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor E: Oh , you haven't done the whole session . +PhD D: Yeah , all is the {vocalsound} the session . +Professor E: This is just twelve minutes . +PhD D: Tw - twelve hours of work to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to segment eh and label eh twelve minutes from a session of part {disfmarker} of f +Professor E: Oh . So {comment} let me back up again . So the {disfmarker} when you said there were three hundred speaker overlaps , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: that 's in twelve minutes ? +PhD D: No no no . I {disfmarker} I consider all the {disfmarker} all the session because eh I {disfmarker} I count the nnn {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} the overlappings marked by {disfmarker} by Jane , +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD D: in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {pause} fin in {disfmarker} in the {pause} forty - five minutes . +Professor E: OK . So it 's three hundred in forty - five minutes , but you have {disfmarker} you have time uh , uh marked {disfmarker} twelve minute {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the um overlaps in twelve minutes of it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD F: So , can I ask {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can I ask whether you found {disfmarker} uh , you know , how accurate uh Jane 's uh uh labels were as far as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , not just the overlaps , everything . +PhD F: you know , did she miss some overlaps ? or did she n ? +PhD D: But , by {disfmarker} by the moment , I {disfmarker} I don't compare , my {disfmarker} my temporal mark with eh Jane , but eh I {disfmarker} I want to do it . Because eh eh i per perhaps I have eh errors in the {disfmarker} in the marks , I {disfmarker} and if I {disfmarker} I compare with eh Jane , it 's probably I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can correct and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} to get eh eh a more accurately eh eh transcription in the file . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , also Jane {disfmarker} Jane was doing word level . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: So we weren't concerned with {comment} exactly when an overlap started and stopped . +PhD F: Right . Right . +PhD C: Well , not only a word level , but actually +PhD D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm expect I 'm not expecting {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , you didn't need to show the exact point of interruption , you just were showing at the level of the phrase or the level of the speech spurt , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , yeah , b yeah , I would say time bin . So my {disfmarker} my goal is to get words with reference to a time bin , {pause} beginning and end point . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} and sometimes , you know , it was like you could have an overlap where someone said something in the middle , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , yeah , w it just wasn't important for our purposes to have it that {disfmarker} i disrupt that unit in order to have , you know , a the words in the order in which they were spoken , it would have {disfmarker} it would have been hard with the interface that we have . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Now , my {disfmarker} a Adam 's working on a of course , on a revised overlapping interface , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's a good eh work , +Postdoc B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: but eh I think we need eh eh more information . +PhD F: No , of course . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD F: I expect you to find more overlaps than {disfmarker} than Jane +Grad G: Always need more for {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: No , no . I {disfmarker} I have to go to {disfmarker} +PhD F: because you 're looking at it at a much more detailed level . +PhD D: I want eh {disfmarker} I wanted to eh compare the {disfmarker} the transcription . +Professor E: I have {disfmarker} +Grad G: But if it takes sixty to one {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , I but I have a suggestion about that . Um , obviously this is very , very time - consuming , and you 're finding lots of things which I 'm sure are gonna be very interesting , but in the interests of making progress , uh might I s how {disfmarker} how would it affect your time if you only marked speaker overlaps ? +PhD D: Only . +Professor E: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Do not mark any other events , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: but only mark speaker {disfmarker} Do you think that would speed it up quite a bit ? +PhD D: OK . OK . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor E: Do y do you think that would speed it up ? Uh , speed up your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your marking ? +PhD D: nnn , I don't understand very . +Professor E: It took you a long time {pause} to mark twelve minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Oh , yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Now , my suggestion was for the other thirty - three {disfmarker} +PhD D: On - only to mark {disfmarker} only to mark overlapping zone , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , and my question is , if you did that , if you followed my suggestion , would it take much less time ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Sure . +Professor E: Yeah OK . +PhD D: Yeah sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea . +PhD D: Sure sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea , because it +PhD D: Sure , because I {disfmarker} I need a lot of time to {disfmarker} to put the label or to do that . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , I mean , we we know that there 's noise . +Grad G: And +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there 's uh continual noise uh from fans and so forth , and there is uh more impulsive noise from uh taps and so forth +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and something in between with paper rustling . We know that all that 's there and it 's a g worthwhile thing to study , but obviously it takes a lot of time to mark all of these things . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Whereas th i I would think that uh you {disfmarker} we can study more or less as a distinct phenomenon the overlapping of people talking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . +Professor E: So . Then you can get the {disfmarker} Cuz you need {disfmarker} If it 's three hundred uh {disfmarker} i i it sounds like you probably only have fifty or sixty or seventy events right now that are really {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and you need to have a lot more than that to have any kind of uh even visual sense of {disfmarker} of what 's going on , much less any kind of reasonable statistics . +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: Now , why do you need to mark speaker overlap by hand if you can infer it from the relative energy in the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , that 's {disfmarker} That 's what I was gonna bring up . +PhD C: I mean , you shouldn't need to do this p completely by hand , +Professor E: Um , OK , yeah . So let 's back up because you weren't here for an earlier conversation . +PhD C: right ? I 'm sorry . +Professor E: So the idea was that what he was going to be doing was experimenting with different measures such as the increase in energy , such as the energy in the LPC residuals , such as {disfmarker} I mean there 's a bunch of things {disfmarker} I mean , increased energy is - is sort of an obvious one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . In the far - field mike . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Um , and uh , it 's not obvious , I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do the dumbest thing and get {disfmarker} get it ninety percent of the time . But when you start going past that and trying to do better , it 's not obvious what combination of features is gonna give you the {disfmarker} you know , the right detector . So the idea is to have some ground truth first . And so the i the idea of the manual marking was to say "" OK this , i you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really here "" . +PhD A: But I think Liz is saying why not get it out of the transcripts ? +PhD C: What I mean is {pause} get it from the close - talking mikes . +Professor E: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: A or ge get a first pass from those , +Professor E: We t we t w we t we talked about that . +PhD C: and then go through sort of {disfmarker} It 'd be a lot faster probably to {disfmarker} +PhD F: And you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , that 's his , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we talked about that . s But so it 's a bootstrapping thing and the thing is , +PhD C: Yeah , I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: the idea was , i we i i we thought it would be useful for him to look at the data anyway , and {disfmarker} and then whatever he could mark would be helpful , +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: and we could {disfmarker} Uh it 's a question of what you bootstrap from . You know , do you bootstrap from a simple measurement which is right most of the time and then you g do better , or do you bootstrap from some human being looking at it and then {disfmarker} then do your simple measurements , uh from the close - talking mike . I mean , even with the close - talking mike you 're not gonna get it right all the time . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I wonder , because um {disfmarker} or how bad it is , +Professor E: Well +PhD C: be um , because that would be interesting +Grad G: I 'm working on a program to do that , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: especially because the bottleneck is the transcription . Right ? I mean , we 've got a lot more data than we have transcriptions for . We have the audio data , we have the close - talking mike , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: so I mean it seems like one kind of project that 's not perfect , but {disfmarker} um , that you can get the training data for pretty quickly is , you know , if you infer form the close - talking mikes where the on - off points are of speech , +Professor E: Right , we discussed that . +PhD C: you know , how can we detect that from a far - field ? +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad G: I 've {disfmarker} I 've written a program to do that , +PhD C: OK , I 'm sorry I missed the {disfmarker} +Grad G: and it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's OK . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing something very , very simple . It just takes a threshold , based on {disfmarker} on the volume , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Or you can set the threshold low and then weed out the false alarms by hand . +PhD C: Right , by hand . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: um , and then it does a median filter , and then it looks for runs . And , it seems to work , I 've {disfmarker} I 'm sort of fiddling with the parameters , to get it to actually generate something , and I haven't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} what I 'm working on {disfmarker} was working on {disfmarker} was getting it to a form where we can import it into the user interface that we have , {pause} into Transcriber . And so {disfmarker} I told {disfmarker} I said it would take about a day . I 've worked on it for about half a day , +Grad H: I have to go . +Grad G: so give me another half day and I we 'll have something we can play with . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: See , this is where we really need the Meeting Recorder query stuff to be working , because we 've had these meetings and we 've had this discussion about this , and I 'm sort of remembering a little bit about what we decided , +PhD C: Right . I 'm sorry . I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: but I couldn't remember all of it . +PhD C: It +Professor E: So , I think it was partly that , you know , give somebody a chance to actually look at the data and see what these are like , partly that we have e some ground truth to compare against , you know , when {disfmarker} when he {disfmarker} he gets his thing going , +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it 's definitely good to have somebody look at it . I was just thinking as a way to speed up you know , the amount of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That was {disfmarker} that was exactly the notion that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we discussed . +PhD C: OK . +Grad G: Thanks . +Postdoc B: Another thing we discussed was um that {disfmarker} +PhD C: It looks good . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: I 'll be in touch . Thanks . +Professor E: S See ya . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Was that um there m {pause} there was this already a script I believe uh that Dan had written , {comment} that uh handle bleedthrough , I mean cuz you have this {disfmarker} this close {disfmarker} you have contamination from other people who speak loudly . +Grad G: Yeah , and I haven't tried using that . It would probably help the program that I 'm doing to first feed it through that . It 's a cross - correlation filter . So I {disfmarker} I haven't tried that , but that {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it might be something {disfmarker} it might be a good way of cleaning it up a little . +Postdoc B: So , some thought of maybe having {disfmarker} Yeah , having that be a preprocessor and then run it through yours . +Grad G: Exactly . Yep . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but that 's a refinement +Postdoc B: That 's what we were discussing . +Professor E: and I think we wanna see {disfmarker} try the simple thing first , cuz you add this complex thing up uh afterwards that does something good y y yo you sort of wanna see what the simple thing does first . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: But uh , having {disfmarker} having somebody have some experience , again , with {disfmarker} with uh {disfmarker} with marking it from a human standpoint , we 're {disfmarker} I mean , I don't expect Jose to {disfmarker} to do it for uh f fifty hours of {disfmarker} {comment} of speech , but I mean we {disfmarker} {comment} if uh {disfmarker} if he could speed up what he was doing by just getting the speaker overlaps so that we had it , say , for forty - five minutes , then at least we 'd have three hundred examples of it . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Professor E: And when {disfmarker} when uh Adam was doing his automatic thing he could then compare to that and see what it was different . +PhD C: Oh yeah , definitely . +PhD A: You know , I did {disfmarker} I did uh something almost identical to this at one of my previous jobs , and it works pretty well . I mean , i almost exactly what you described , an energy detector with a median filter , you look for runs . And uh , you know , you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seemed like the right thing to do . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , you {disfmarker} you can get y I mean , you get them pretty close . +Grad G: That was with zero literature search . +PhD A: And so I think doing that to generate these possibilities and then going through and saying yes or no on them would be a quick way to {disfmarker} to do it . +Grad G: That 's good validation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Is this proprietary ? +PhD A: Uh . {comment} No . No . +Grad G: Yeah , do you have a patent on it ? +PhD A: It was when I was working for the government . +Professor E: Oh , then everybody owns it . It 's the people . +Postdoc B: Well , I mean , is this something that we could just co - opt , or is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Nah . +Postdoc B: No . OK . +Professor E: Well , i i i he 's pretty close , anyway . I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't take a long time . +Postdoc B: Right . I just thought if it was tried and true , then {disfmarker} {comment} and he 's gone through additional levels of {disfmarker} of development . +Grad G: Just output . Although if you {disfmarker} if you have some parameters like what 's a good window size for the median filter {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! {comment} I have to remember . I 'll think about it , and try to remember . +PhD F: And it might be different for government people . +Grad G: That 's alright . +Professor E: Yeah , good enough for government work , as they say . +PhD C: They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Di - dif different {disfmarker} different bandwidth . +PhD F: They +Grad G: I was doing pretty short , you know , tenth of a second , {comment} sorts of numbers . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know , it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to uh {disfmarker} So , uh , maybe we should move on to other {disfmarker} other things in limited time . +Postdoc B: Can I ask one question about his statistics ? So {disfmarker} so in the tw twelve minutes , um , if we took three hundred and divided it by four , which is about the length of twelve minutes , i Um , I 'd expect like there should be seventy - five overlaps . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Did you find uh more than seventy - five overlaps in that period , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: More than ? +Postdoc B: More than {disfmarker} How many overlaps in your twelve minutes ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh , not @ @ I Onl - only I {disfmarker} I transcribe eh only twelve minutes from the +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: but eh I {disfmarker} I don't co eh {disfmarker} I don't count eh the {disfmarker} the overlap . +Postdoc B: The overlaps . OK . +PhD D: I consider I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the three hundred is eh considered only you {disfmarker} your transcription . I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to finish transcribing . So . +Grad G: I b I bet they 're more , because the beginning of the meeting had a lot more overlaps than {disfmarker} than sort of the middle . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Middle or end . +Postdoc B: I 'm not sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Because i we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with the {disfmarker} Uh , in the early meetings , we 're recording while we 're saying who 's talking on what microphone , {comment} and things like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that seems to be a lot of overlap . +Postdoc B: I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think we could find that out . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that the beginning had more . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so I was gonna ask , I guess about any {disfmarker} any other things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that either of you wanted to talk about , especially since Andreas is leaving in five minutes , that {disfmarker} that you wanna go with . +PhD C: Can I just ask about the data , like very straightforward question is where we are on the amount of data and the amount of transcribed data , just cuz I 'm {disfmarker} I wanted to get a feel for that to sort of be able to know what {disfmarker} what can be done first and like how many meetings are we recording +Professor E: Right so there 's this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} There 's this forty - five minute piece that Jane transcribed . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: That piece was then uh sent to IBM so they could transcribe so we have some comparison point . Then there 's s a larger piece that 's been recorded and uh put on CD - ROM and sent uh to IBM . Right ? And then we don't know . +PhD C: How many meetings is that ? Like {disfmarker} how many {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? +Professor E: That was about ten hours , and there was about {disfmarker} +PhD C: t ten {disfmarker} It 's like ten meetings or something ? Uh - huh . +Grad G: Yeah , something like that . And then {disfmarker} then we +PhD A: Ten meetings that have been sent to IBM ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , I haven't sent them yet because I was having this problem with the {pause} missing files . +Professor E: Oh . Oh , that 's right , that had {disfmarker} those have not been sent . +PhD A: H how many total have we recorded now , altogether ? +Professor E: We 're saying about {pause} twelve hours . +Grad G: About twelve {pause} by now . Twelve or thirteen . +PhD C: Uh - huh . And we 're recording only this meeting , like continuously we 're only recording this one now ? or {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . No , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the biggest one {disfmarker} uh , chunk so far , +Grad G: Nope . +PhD A: It was the morning one . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: but there 's at least one meeting recorded of uh the uh uh natural language guys . +Grad G: Jerry . +PhD C: Do they meet every week , +Professor E: And then there {disfmarker} +PhD C: or every {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , they do . w w And we talked to them about recording some more and we 're going to , uh , we 've started having a morning meeting , today uh i starting a w a week or two ago , on the uh front - end issues , and we 're recording those , uh there 's a network services and applications group here who 's agreed to have their meetings recorded , +PhD C: Great . +Professor E: and we 're gonna start recording them . They 're {disfmarker} They meet on Tuesdays . We 're gonna start recording them next week . So actually , we 're gonna h start having a {disfmarker} a pretty significant chunk and so , you know , {vocalsound} Adam 's sort of struggling with trying to get things to be less buggy , and come up quicker when they do crash and stuff {disfmarker} things like that , now that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the things are starting to happen . So right now , yeah , I th I 'd say the data is predominantly meeting meetings , but there are scattered other meetings in it and that {disfmarker} that amount is gonna grow uh so that the meeting meetings will probably ultimately {disfmarker} i if we 're {disfmarker} if we collect fifty or sixty hours , the meeting meetings it will probably be , you know , twenty or thirty percent of it , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not eighty or ninety . But . +PhD C: So there 's probably {disfmarker} there 's three to four a week , +Grad G: That 's what we 're aiming for . +PhD C: that we 're aiming for . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: And they 're each about an hour or something . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad G: Although {disfmarker} Yeah . We 'll find out tomorrow whether we can really do this or not . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} OK . +Professor E: Yeah and th the {disfmarker} the other thing is I 'm not pos I 'm sort of thinking as we 've been through this a few times , that I really don't know {disfmarker} maybe you wanna do it once for the novelty , but I don't know if in general we wanna have meetings that we record from outside this group do the digits . +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Because it 's just an added bunch of weird stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: And , you know , we {disfmarker} we h we 're highly motivated . Uh in fact , the morning group is really motivated cuz they 're working on connected digits , so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: Actually that 's something I wanted to ask , is I have a bunch of scripts to help with the transcription of the digits . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: We don't have to hand - transcribe the digits because we 're reading them and I have those . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: And so I have some scripts that let you very quickly extract the sections of each utterance . But I haven't been ru I haven't been doing that . Um , if I did that , is someone gonna be working on it ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I think definitely s so Absolutely . +Grad G: I mean , is it something of interest ? +Professor E: Yeah , whoever we have working on the acoustics for the Meeting Recorder are gonna start with that . +Grad G: OK . I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in it , I just don't have time to do it now . +PhD F: I was {disfmarker} these meetings {disfmarker} I 'm sure someone thought of this , but these {disfmarker} this uh reading of the numbers would be extremely helpful to do um adaptation . +Grad G: So +PhD F: Um . +Grad G: Yep . Yep . +PhD C: Actually I have o +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I would really like someone to do adaptation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So if we got someone interested in that , I think it would be great for Meeting Recorder . +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things I wanted to do , uh , that I I talked to {disfmarker} to Don about , is one of the possible things he could do or m also , we could have someone else do it , is to do block echo cancellation , +Grad G: Since it 's the same people over and over . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to try to get rid of some of the effects of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field effects . Um , I mean we have {disfmarker} the party line has been that echo cancellation is not the right way to handle the situation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because people move around , and uh , if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not a simple echo , like a cross - talk kind of echo , but it 's actually room acoustics , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you can't really do inversion , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and even echo cancellation is going to uh be something {disfmarker} It may {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Someone may be moving enough that you are not able to adapt quickly and so the tack that we 've taken is more "" lets come up with feature approaches and multi - stream approaches and so forth , that will be robust to it for the recognizer and not try to create a clean signal "" . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , that 's the party line . But it occurred to me a few months ago that uh party lines are always , you know , sort of dangerous . It 's good {disfmarker} {vocalsound} good to sort of test them , actually . And so we haven't had anybody try to do a good serious job on echo cancellation and we should know how well that can do . So that 's something I 'd like somebody to do at some point , just take these digits , take the far - field mike signal , and the close uh mike signal , and apply really good echo cancellation . Um , there was a {disfmarker} have been some nice talks recently by {disfmarker} by Lucent on {disfmarker} on their b +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: the block echo cancellation particularly appealed to me , uh you know , trying and change it sample by sample , but you have some reasonable sized blocks . {comment} And um , you know , th +PhD A: W what is the um {disfmarker} the artifact you try to {disfmarker} you 're trying to get rid of when you do that ? +PhD F: Ciao . +Professor E: Uh so it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you have a {disfmarker} a direct uh {disfmarker} Uh , what 's the difference in {disfmarker} If you were trying to construct a linear filter , that would um {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm signing off . +Professor E: Yeah . that would subtract off {comment} the um uh parts of the signal that were the aspects of the signal that were different between the close - talk and the distant . You know , so {disfmarker} so uh um I guess in most echo cancellation {disfmarker} Yeah , so you {disfmarker} Given that um {disfmarker} Yeah , so you 're trying to {disfmarker} So you 'd {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} a distance between the close and the distant mikes so there 's a time delay there , and after the time delay , there 's these various reflections . And if you figure out well what 's the {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a least squares algorithm that adjusts itself {disfmarker} adjusts the weight so that you try to subtract {disfmarker} essentially to subtract off uh different uh {disfmarker} different reflections . Right ? So let 's take the simple case where you just had {disfmarker} you had some uh some delay in a satellite connection or something and then there 's a {disfmarker} there 's an echo . It comes back . And you want to adjust this filter so that it will maximally reduce the effect of this echo . +PhD A: So that would mean like if you were listening to the data that was recorded on one of those . Uh , just the raw data , you would {disfmarker} you might hear kind of an echo ? And {disfmarker} and then this {disfmarker} noise cancellation would get +Professor E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm saying {disfmarker} That 's a simplified version of what 's really happening . {comment} What 's really happening is {disfmarker} Well , when I 'm talking to you right now , you 're getting the direct sound from my speech , but you 're also getting , uh , the indirect sound that 's bounced around the room a number of times . OK ? So now , if you um try to r you {disfmarker} To completely remove the effect of that is sort of impractical for a number of technical reasons , but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} not to try to completely remove it , that is , invert the {disfmarker} the room response , but just to try to uh uh eliminate some of the {disfmarker} the effect of some of the echos . Um , a number of people have done this so that , say , if you 're talking to a speakerphone , uh it makes it more like it would be , if you were talking right up to it . So this is sort of the st the straight - forward approach . You say I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use this uh {disfmarker} this item but I want to subtract off various kinds of echos . So you construct a filter , and you have this {disfmarker} this filtered version uh of the speech um gets uh uh {disfmarker} gets subtracted off from the original speech . Then you try to {disfmarker} you try to minimize the energy in some sense . And so um {disfmarker} uh with some constraints . +PhD A: Kind of a clean up thing , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's a clean up thing . Right . +PhD A: OK . +Professor E: So , echo cancelling is {disfmarker} is , you know , commonly done in telephony , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's sort of the obvious thing to do in this situation if you {disfmarker} if , you know , you 're gonna be talking some distance from a mike . +PhD A: When uh , I would have meetings with the folks in Cambridge when I was at BBN over the phone , they had a um {disfmarker} some kind of a special speaker phone and when they would first connect me , it would come on and we 'd hear all this noise . And then it was uh {disfmarker} And then it would come on and it was very clear , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: you know . +Professor E: Right . So it 's taking samples , it 's doing adaptation , it 's adjusting weights , and then it 's getting the sum . So um , uh anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of a reasonable thing that I 'd like to have somebody try {disfmarker} somebody look {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and the digits would be a reasonable thing to do that with . I think that 'd be enough data {disfmarker} plenty of data to do that with , and i for that sort of task you wouldn't care whether it was uh large vocabulary speech or anything . Uh . {vocalsound} Um +Postdoc B: Is Brian Kingsbury 's work related to that , or is it a different type of reverberation ? +Professor E: Brian 's {comment} Kingsbury 's work is an example of what we did f f from the opposite dogma . Right ? Which is what I was calling the "" party line "" , which is that uh doing that sort of thing is not really what we want . We want something more flexible , uh i i where people might change their position , and there might be , you know {disfmarker} There 's also um oh yeah , noise . So the echo cancellation does not really allow for noise . It 's if you have a clean situation but you just have some delays , Then we 'll figure out the right {disfmarker} the right set of weights for your taps for your filter in order to produce the effect of those {disfmarker} those echos . But um if there 's noise , then the very signal that it 's looking at is corrupted so that it 's decision about what the right {disfmarker} you know , right {disfmarker} right uh {disfmarker} delays are {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} right delayed signal is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh is incorrect . And so , in a noisy situation , um , also in a {disfmarker} in a situation that 's very reverberant {disfmarker} {comment} with long reverberation times {comment} and really long delays , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of typically impractical . So for those kind of reasons , and also a {disfmarker} a c a complete inversion , if you actually {disfmarker} I mentioned that it 's kind of hard to really do the inversion of the room acoustics . Um , that 's difficult because um often times the {disfmarker} the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the system transfer function is such that when it 's inverted you get something that 's unstable , and so , if you {disfmarker} you do your estimate of what the system is , and then you try to invert it , you get a filter that actually uh , you know , rings , and {disfmarker} and uh goes to infinity . So it 's {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's that sort of technical reason , and the fact that things move , and there 's air currents {disfmarker} I mean there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} all sorts of reasons why it 's not really practical . So for all those kinds of reasons , uh we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of um , concluded we didn't want to in do inversion , and we 're even pretty skeptical of echo cancellation , which isn't really inversion , and um we decided to do this approach of taking {disfmarker} uh , just picking uh features , which were {disfmarker} uh will give you more {disfmarker} something that was more stable , in the presence of , or absence of , room reverberation , and that 's what Brian was trying to do . So , um , let me just say a couple things that I was {disfmarker} I was gonna bring up . Uh . Let 's see . I guess you {disfmarker} you actually already said this thing about the uh {disfmarker} about the consent forms , which was that we now don't have to {disfmarker} So this was the human subjects folks who said this , {comment} or that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: The a apparently {disfmarker} I mean , we 're gonna do a revised form , of course . Um but once a person has signed it once , then that 's valid for a certain number of meetings . She wanted me to actually estimate how many meetings and put that on the consent form . I told her that would be a little bit difficult to say . So I think from a s practical standpoint , maybe we could have them do it once every ten meetings , or something . It won't be that many people who do it {pause} that often , but um just , you know , so long as they don't forget that they 've done it , I guess . +Professor E: OK . Um , back on the data thing , so there 's this sort of one hour , ten hour , a hundred hour sort of thing that {disfmarker} that we have . We have {disfmarker} we have an hour uh that {disfmarker} that is transcribed , we have {disfmarker} we have twelve hours that 's recorded but not transcribed , and at the rate we 're going , uh by the end of the semester we 'll have , I don't know , forty or fifty or something , if we {disfmarker} if this really uh {disfmarker} Well , do we have that much ? +PhD C: Not really . It 's three to four per week . +Professor E: Let 's see , we have {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's what {disfmarker} You know , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh eight weeks , uh is {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's not a lot of hours . +Professor E: Eight weeks times three hours is twenty - four , so that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , so like thirty {disfmarker} thirty hours ? +PhD A: Three {disfmarker} Three hours . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean , is there {disfmarker} I know this sounds {pause} tough but we 've got the room set up . Um I was starting to think of some projects where you would use well , similar to what we talked about with uh energy detection on the close - talking mikes . There are a number of interesting questions that you can ask about how interactions happen in a meeting , that don't require any transcription . So what are the patterns , the energy patterns over the meeting ? And I 'm really interested in this {vocalsound} but we don't have a whole lot of data . So I was thinking , you know , we 've got the room set up and you can always think of , also for political reasons , if ICSI collected you know , two hundred hours , that looks different than forty hours , even if we don't transcribe it ourselves , +Professor E: But I don't think we 're gonna stop at the end of this semester . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right ? So , I th I think that if we are able to keep that up for a few months , we are gonna have more like a hundred hours . +PhD C: I mean , is there {disfmarker} Are there any other meetings here that we can record , especially meetings that have some kind of conflict in them {comment} or some kind of deci I mean , that are less well {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} uh , that have some more emotional aspects to them , or strong {disfmarker} +Grad G: We had some good ones earlier . +PhD C: There 's laughter , um I 'm talking more about strong differences of opinion meetings , maybe with manager types , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: I think it 's hard to record those . +PhD C: To be allowed to record them ? +Postdoc B: It 's also likely that people will cancel out afterwards . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah , people will get {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But I {disfmarker} but I wanted to raise the KPFA idea . +PhD C: OK . Well , if there is , anyway . +Professor E: Yeah , I was gonna mention that . +Grad G: Oh , that 's a good idea . That 's {disfmarker} That would be a good match . +Professor E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I 'd mentioned to Adam , and {disfmarker} that was another thing I was gonna talk {disfmarker} uh , mention to them before {disfmarker} {comment} that uh there 's uh {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it oc it occurred to me that we might be able to get some additional data by talking to uh acquaintances in local broadcast media . Because , you know , we had talked before about the problem about using found data , {comment} that {disfmarker} that uh it 's just set up however they have it set up and we don't have any say about it and it 's typically one microphone , in a , uh , uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so it doesn't really give us the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh characteristics we want . Um and so I do think we 're gonna continue recording here and record what we can . But um , it did occur to me that we could go to friends in broadcast media and say "" hey you have this panel show , {pause} or this {disfmarker} you know , this discussion show , and um can you record multi - channel ? "" And uh they may be willing to record it uh with {disfmarker} +PhD C: With lapel mikes or something ? +Professor E: Well , they probably already use lapel , but they might be able to have it {disfmarker} it wouldn't be that weird for them to have another mike that was somewhat distant . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: It wouldn't be exactly this setup , but it would be that sort of thing , and what we were gonna get from UW , you know , assuming they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they start recording , isn't {disfmarker} als also is not going to be this exact setup . +PhD C: Right . No , I think that 'd be great , if we can get more data . +Professor E: So , {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking of looking into that . the other thing that occurred to me after we had that discussion , in fact , is that it 's even possible , since of course , many radio shows are not live , {comment} uh that we could invite them to have like some of their {disfmarker} {comment} record some of their shows here . +Postdoc B: Wow ! +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} The thing is , they 're not as averse to wearing one of these head - mount I mean , they 're on the radio , +Grad G: Right , as we are . +PhD C: right ? So . {comment} Um , I think that 'd be fantastic +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: cuz those kinds of panels and {disfmarker} Those have interesting +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Th - that 's an {disfmarker} a side of style {disfmarker} a style that we 're not collecting here , so it 'd be great . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean , the other side to it was the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} which is where we were coming from {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you more about it later {comment} is that {disfmarker} is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh the radio stations and television stations already have stuff worked out presumably , uh related to , you know , legal issues and {disfmarker} and permissions and all that . I mean , they already do what they do {disfmarker} do whatever they do . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} so it 's another source . So I think it 's something we should look into , you know , we 'll collect what we collect here hopefully they will collect more at UW also and um {disfmarker} and maybe we have this other source . But yeah I think that it 's not unreasonable to aim at getting , you know , significantly in excess of a hundred hours . I mean , that was sort of our goal . The thing was , I was hoping that we could {disfmarker} @ @ in the {disfmarker} under this controlled situation we could at least collect , you know , thirty to fifty hours . And at the rate we 're going we 'll get pretty close to that I think this semester . And if we continue to collect some next semester , I think we should , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Yeah I was mostly trying to think , "" OK , if you start a project , within say a month , you know , how much data do you have to work with . And you {disfmarker} you wanna s you wanna sort of fr freeze your {disfmarker} your data for awhile so um right now {disfmarker} and we don't have the transcripts back yet from IBM right ? Do {disfmarker} Oh , do we now ? +Professor E: Well , we don't even have it for this f you know , forty - five minutes , that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: So um , not complaining , I was just trying to think , you know , what kinds of projects can you do now versus uh six months from now +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: and they 're pretty different , because +Professor E: Yeah . So I was thinking right now it 's sort of this exploratory stuff where you {disfmarker} you look at the data , you use some primitive measures and get a feeling for what the scatter plots look like , +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} Right . Right , right . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and meanwhile we collect , and it 's more like yeah , three months from now , or six months from now you can {disfmarker} you can do a lot of other things . +PhD C: Cuz I 'm not actually sure , just logistically that I can spend {disfmarker} you know , I don't wanna charge the time that I have on the project too early , before there 's enough data to make good use of the time . And that 's {disfmarker} and especially with the student +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: uh for instance this guy who seems {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh anyway , I shouldn't say too much , but um if someone came that was great and wanted to do some real work and they have to end by the end of this school year in the spring , how much data will I have to work with , with that person . And so it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: i Yeah , so I would think , exploratory things now . Uh , three months from now {disfmarker} Um , I mean the transcriptions I think are a bit of an unknown cuz we haven't gotten those back yet as far as the timing , but I think as far as the collection , it doesn't seem to me l like , uh , unreasonable to say that uh in January , you know , ro roughly uh {disfmarker} which is roughly three months from now , we should have at least something like , you know , twenty - five , thirty hours . +PhD C: And we just don't know about the transcription part of that , +Professor E: So that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah , we need to {disfmarker} I think that there 's a possibility that the transcript will need to be adjusted afterwards , +PhD C: so . I mean , it {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: and uh es especially since these people won't be uh used to dealing with multi - channel uh transcriptions . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So I think that we 'll need to adjust some {disfmarker} And also if we wanna add things like um , well , more refined coding of overlaps , then definitely I think we should count on having an extra pass through . I wanted to ask another a a aspect of the data collection . There 'd be no reason why a person couldn't get together several uh , you know , friends , and come and argue about a topic if they wanted to , right ? +Professor E: If they really have something they wanna talk about as opposed to something @ @ {disfmarker} I mean , what we 're trying to stay away from was artificial constructions , but I think if it 's a real {disfmarker} Why not ? Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , I 'm thinking , politically {disfmarker} +Grad G: Stage some political debates . +Postdoc B: You could do this , +PhD C: Well yeah , +Postdoc B: you know . You could . +PhD C: or just if you 're {disfmarker} if you ha If there are meetings here that happen that we can record even if we don't {pause} um have them do the digits , {comment} or maybe have them do a shorter {pause} digit thing {comment} like if it was , you know , uh , one string of digits , or something , they 'd probably be willing to do . +Grad G: We don't have to do the digits at all if we don't want to . +PhD C: Then , having the data is very valuable , cuz I think it 's um politically better for us to say we have this many hours of audio data , especially with the ITR , if we put in a proposal on it . It 'll just look like ICSI 's collected a lot more audio data . Um , whether it 's transcribed or not um , is another issue , but there 's {disfmarker} there are research questions you can answer without the transcriptions , or at least that you can start to answer . +Postdoc B: It seems like you could hold some meetings . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: You know , you and maybe Adam ? +PhD C: So . +Postdoc B: You {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could maybe hold some additional meetings , if you wanted . +PhD A: Would it help at all {disfmarker} I mean , we 're already talking about sort of two levels of detail in meetings . One is uh um without doing the digits {disfmarker} Or , I guess the full - blown one is where you do the digits , and everything , and then talk about doing it without digits , what if we had another level , just to collect data , which is without the headsets and we just did the table - mounted stuff . +PhD C: Need the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: You do , OK . +PhD C: I mean , absolutely , +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: yeah . I 'm really scared {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seems like it 's a big part of this corpus is to have the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: I see , OK . +PhD C: Um or at least , like , me personally ? I would {disfmarker} {comment} I {disfmarker} couldn't use that data . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . And Mari also , +PhD C: Um . +Postdoc B: we had {disfmarker} This came up when she she was here . That 's important . +PhD C: So it 's a great idea , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} b By the {disfmarker} by the way , I don't think the transcriptions are actually , in the long run , such a big bottleneck . +PhD C: and if it were true than I would just do that , but it 's not that bad {disfmarker} like the room is not the bottleneck , and we have enough time in the room , it 's getting the people to come in and put on the {disfmarker} and get the setup going . +Professor E: I think the issue is just that we 're {disfmarker} we 're blazing that path . Right ? And {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} d Do you have any idea when {disfmarker} when uh the {disfmarker} you 'll be able to send uh the ten hours to them ? +Grad G: Well , I 've been burning two C Ds a day , which is about all I can do with the time I have . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: So it 'll be early next week . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . So early next week we send it to them , and then {disfmarker} then we check with them to see if they 've got it and we {disfmarker} we start , you know asking about the timing for it . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: So I think once they get it sorted out about how they 're gonna do it , which I think they 're pretty well along on , cuz they were able to read the files and so on . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Right ? +Grad G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , who knows where they are . +PhD A: Have they ever responded to you ? +Grad G: Nope . +Professor E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} You know , so they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} you know , they 're volunteering their time and they have a lot of other things to do , +PhD C: What if {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , you {disfmarker} we can't complain . +Professor E: right ? But they {disfmarker} But at any rate , they 'll {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think once they get that sorted out , they 're {disfmarker} they 're making cassettes there , then they 're handing it to someone who they {disfmarker} who 's {disfmarker} who is doing it , and uh I think it 's not going to be {disfmarker} I don't think it 's going to be that much more of a deal for them to do thirty hours then to do one hour , I think . It 's not going to be thirty +Grad G: Yep . I think that 's probably true . +PhD C: Really ? So it 's the amount of {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just getting it going . +Grad G: It 's pipeline , pipeline issues . +PhD C: Right . What about these lunch meetings {disfmarker} +Grad G: Once the pipeline fills . +PhD C: I mean , I don't know , if there 's any way without too much more overhead , even if we don't ship it right away to IBM even if we just collect it here for awhile , {comment} to record you know , two or three more meeting a week , just to have the data , even if they 're um not doing the digits , but they do wear the headphones ? +Professor E: But the lunch meetings are pretty much one person getting up and {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I meant , um , sorry , the meetings where people eat their lunch downstairs , maybe they don't wanna be recorded , but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , and we 're just chatting ? +PhD C: Just the ch the chatting . +Grad G: Yeah , we have a lot of those . +PhD C: I actually {disfmarker} I actually think that 's {pause} useful {pause} data , um {pause} the chatting , +Grad G: Yeah , the problem with that is I would {disfmarker} I think I would feel a little constrained to {disfmarker} You know ? Uh , some of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD C: but {disfmarker} OK . You don't wanna do it , cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Grad G: You know , our "" soccer ball "" meeting ? +PhD C: Alright . +Grad G: I guess none of you were there for our soccer ball meeting . +PhD C: Alright , {comment} so I 'll just throw it out there , if anyone knows of one more m or two more wee meetings per week that happen at ICSI , um that we could record , I think it would be worth it . +Grad G: That was hilarious . +Professor E: Yeah . Well , we should also check with Mari again , because they {disfmarker} because they were really intending , you know , maybe just didn't happen , but they were really intending to be duplicating this in some level . So then that would double {pause} what we had . Uh . And there 's a lot of different meetings at UW uh {disfmarker} I mean really m a lot more {comment} than we have here right cuz we 're not right on campus , +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: so . +PhD A: Is the uh , notion of recording any of Chuck 's meetings dead in the water , or is that still a possibility ? +Professor E: Uh , {vocalsound} they seem to have some problems with it . We can {disfmarker} we can talk about that later . Um , but , again , Jerry is {disfmarker} Jerry 's open {disfmarker} So I mean , we have two speech meetings , one uh network meeting , uh Jerry was open to it but I {disfmarker} I s One of the things that I think is a little {disfmarker} a little bit of a limitation , there is a think when the people are not involved uh in our work , we probably can't do it every week . You know ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that people are gonna feel uh {disfmarker} are gonna feel a little bit constrained . Now , it might get a little better if we don't have them do the digits all the time . And the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} so then they can just really sort of try to {disfmarker} put the mikes on and then just charge in and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: What if we give people {disfmarker} you know , we cater a lunch in exchange for them having their meeting here or something ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I {disfmarker} I do think eating while you 're doing a meeting is going to be increasing the noise . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc B: But I had another question , which is um , you know , in principle , w um , I know that you don't want artificial topics , +PhD C: Alright , alright , alright . +Postdoc B: but um it does seem to me that we might be able to get subjects from campus to come down and do something that wouldn't be too artificial . I mean , we could {disfmarker} political discussions , or {disfmarker} or something or other , +PhD C: No , definitely . +Postdoc B: and i you know , people who are {disfmarker} Because , you know , there 's also this constraint . We d it 's like , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh goldibears {disfmarker} goldi goldilocks , it 's like you don't want meetings that are too large , but you don't want meetings that are too small . And um {disfmarker} a and it just seems like maybe we could exploit the subj human subject p p pool , in the positive sense of the word . +PhD A: Well , even {disfmarker} I mean , coming down from campus is sort of a big thing , but what about +Postdoc B: We could pay subjects . +PhD A: or what about people in the {disfmarker} in the building ? +PhD C: Yeah , I was thinking , there 's all these other peo +PhD A: I mean , there 's the State of California downstairs , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: I just really doubt that uh any of the State of California meetings would be recordable and then releasable to the general public . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So I {disfmarker} I mean I talked with some people at the Haas Business School who are i who are interested in speech recognition +PhD C: Alright , well . +Grad G: and , they sort of hummed and hawed and said "" well maybe we could have meetings down here "" , but then I got email from them that said "" no , we decided we 're not really interested and we don't wanna come down and hold meetings . "" So , I think it 's gonna be a problem to get people regularly . +PhD A: What about Joachim , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but we c But I think , you know , we get some scattered things from this and that . And I {disfmarker} I d I do think that maybe we can get somewhere with the {disfmarker} with the radio . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh i I have better contacts in radio than in television , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: You could get a lot of lively discussions from those radio ones . +PhD C: Well , and they 're already {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} these things are already recorded , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: we don't have to ask them to {disfmarker} even {disfmarker} and I 'm not sure wh how they record it , but they must record from individual {disfmarker} +Professor E: n Well {disfmarker} No , I 'm not talking about ones that are already recorded . I 'm talking about new ones +PhD C: Why {disfmarker} why not ? +Professor E: because {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} because we would be asking them to do something different . +PhD C: Well , we can find out . I know for instance Mark Liberman was interested uh in {disfmarker} in LDC getting {pause} data , uh , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , that 's the found data idea . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: But what I 'm saying is uh if I talk to people that I know who do these th who produce these things we could ask them if they could record an extra channel , let 's say , of a distant mike . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And u I think routinely they would not do this . So , since I 'm interested in the distant mike stuff , I wanna make sure that there is at least that somewhere +PhD C: Right . Great . OK . +Professor E: and uh {disfmarker} But if we ask them to do that they might be intrigued enough by the idea that they uh might be e e willing to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I might be able to talk them into it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um . We 're getting towards the end of our disk space , so we should think about trying to wrap up here . +PhD C: That 's a good way to end a meeting . +Professor E: OK . Well I don't {disfmarker} why don't we {disfmarker} why d u why don't we uh uh turn them {disfmarker} turn +Grad G: OK , leave {disfmarker} leave them on for a moment until I turn this off , cuz that 's when it crashed last time . +Postdoc B: Oh . That 's good to know . +Professor E: Turning off the microphone made it crash . Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: That 's good to know . +Professor E: OK . +","Participants discussed various topics regarding data collection and analysis for their project. They addressed a technical issue with starting and stopping the program causing a crash, which they plan to avoid in the future. There was a discussion about successfully mapping locations without needing names every time, and it was clarified that digital forms would be used to record this info. Professor E highlighted the excitement of their work and suggested prioritizing research discussions over mundane procedural matters in meetings. + +There was some uncertainty about the definition and counting of 'events,' which apparently include not just overlaps in speech but other noises as well. PhD D has been working on transcribing and marking different acoustic events, including overlaps and nonspeech sounds, and finding a system to detect overlapping speech. There's a considerable number of overlaps recorded, around 300 in forty-five minutes of one session, and these sessions are quite laborious to label manually. + +The possibility of using their data in future research, such as understanding inference structures or building mechanisms for language comprehension, was discussed. Another topic was the concern over human subjects and the sensitive nature of identifying individuals in discussions. They also talked about the idea of using collected data for adaptation in speech recognition. + +The ongoing data collection process was evaluated, considering what is already collected and what is planned. A large focus was on transcriptions and the amount of data that would be available for various projects in the future, with particular interest in finding politically charged or emotionally evocative meetings to record. The challenges of recruiting participants from outside their group for regular recordings were discussed, and the possibility of inviting broadcast media to record shows at their setup was suggested to augment data. Grad G had written scripts to help with transcription of digit readings, asking if there was interest in using them for adaptation or other research purposes. + +Professor E proposed collecting more data by coordinating with the local broadcast media, possibly recording radio panel shows with supplementary distant mikes aligned with their project specifications. There was a consensus on the importance of having data with the characteristics they want and not settling for pre-existing or artificial setups. The importance of collecting a large corpus of data and the perception of ICSI's effort in the larger academic community was emphasized. + +The meeting concluded with the mention of disk space running low and the plan to wrap up the discussion. The group decided to leave the microphones on to prevent a potential system crash noted in previous occurrences when microphones were turned off." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I think this is gonna be a pretty short meeting because I have four agenda items , three of them were requested by Jane who is not gonna be at the meeting today . So . {vocalsound} The uh first was transcription status . Does anyone besides Jane know what the transcription status is ? +PhD F: Um , sort of , I do , peripherally . +PhD C: Is that English ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Well first of all with IBM I got a note from Brian yesterday saying that they finally made the tape for the thing that we sent them a {pause} week or week and a half ago +PhD D: That 's our system . +Grad A: Ugh ! +PhD F: and that it 's gone out to the transcribers and hopefully next week we 'll have the transcription back from that . +Grad A: C can I have a pen ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Jane seems to be um moving right along on the transcriptions from the ICSI side . She 's assigned , I think probably five or six m more meetings . +PhD C: Yeah , I think we 're up to MR thirteen or something . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah , so um , I guess she 's hired some new transcribers +PhD D: Speaking {disfmarker} +Grad E: Which meetings is she transcribing ? +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um well we 've {disfmarker} we 've run out of E D Us because a certain number of them are um , sort of awaiting to go to IBM . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: For IBM , yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: and the rest are in process being transcribed uh here . +PhD D: So does she have transcribers right now who are basically sitting idle because there 's no data back from IBM +Grad E: So we 're doing some in parallel . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: No . +Grad A: No , no . +PhD F: Oh no no . +Grad A: We haven't done that process . +PhD D: no ? +PhD F: No . We 're not waiting on them . +Grad A: So . They ' r they 're doing the full transcription process . +PhD D: Oh . Oh , OK . +Grad E: So they 're just doing their own thing until {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Because I {disfmarker} I need to ask Jane whether it 's {disfmarker} it would be OK for her {disfmarker} um , s some of her people to transcribe uh some of the initial data we got from the SmartKom data collection , which is these short like five or seven minute sessions . +PhD F: We 're doing it in parallel , yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Um and we want it {disfmarker} You know , we need {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} Again , we {disfmarker} we have a similar uh logistic set - up where we are supposed to send the data to Munich +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: and get it transcribed and get it back . But to get going we would like some of the data transcribed right away so we can get started . +Grad A: Yep , sounds familiar . +PhD D: And so um I wanted to ask Jane if {disfmarker} if uh , you know , maybe one of their transcribers could {disfmarker} could do {disfmarker} I mean since these are very short , that should really be uh , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: There 's only two channels . So it 's only {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: As the synthesis doesn't have to be transcribed I think . +PhD D: It 's only two {disfmarker} Right , s +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} So it 's basically one channel to transcribe . And it 's {disfmarker} One session is only uh like seven {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that should have ma many fewer {disfmarker} And it 's also not uh a bunch of interruptions with people and all that , +PhD D: Right . And some of it is read speech , so we could give them the {disfmarker} the thing that they 're reading +Professor B: right ? So . Yeah . +PhD D: and they just may {disfmarker} +Grad A: Make sure it 's right . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: And so um , um , I guess since she 's {disfmarker} I was gonna ask her but since she 's not around I {disfmarker} maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , well it certainly seems {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh if {disfmarker} if that 's OK with you to {disfmarker} to , you know , get that stuff uh {disfmarker} to ask her for that , then I 'll do that . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , if we 're held up on this other stuff a little bit in order to encompass that , that 's OK because I I um , I mean I still have high hopes that the that the IBM pipeline 'll work out for us , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Alrighty . +PhD F: Oh , yeah , and also related to the transcription stuff , so I 've been trying to keep a web page uh up to date f showing what the current status is of the trans of all the things we 've collected and what stage each meeting is in , in terms of whether it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can you mail that out to the list ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm , yeah I will . I {disfmarker} That 's the thing that I sent out just to foo people saying can you update these pages +Grad A: Oh , OK , OK . +PhD F: and so that 's where I 'm putting it but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send it out to the list telling people to look at it . +Grad A: Yeah , I haven't done that . So . I have lots of stuff to add that 's just in my own directory . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I 'll try to get to that . OK . So Jane also wanted to talk about participant approval , but I don't really think there 's much to talk about . I 'm just gonna do it . And uh , if anyone objects too much then they can do it instead . +Professor B: You are going to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm gonna send out to the participants , uh , with links to web pages which contain the transcripts and allow them to {pause} suggest edits . And then bleep them out . +Professor B: OK . +Grad A: For the ones that we have . Um {disfmarker} +PhD C: So but it 's just transcripts , not the {disfmarker} not the audio ? +Grad A: Nope , they 'll have access to the audio also . +PhD C: OK , yeah , yep . Ah . +Grad A: I mean that 's my intention . Because the transcripts might not be right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: So you want people to be able to listen to them . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , um the audio that they 're gonna have access to , will that be the uncompressed version ? Or will you have scripts that like uncompress the various pieces and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , that 's a good point . That 's a good point . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably going to have to be the uncompressed versions because , uh , uh , it takes too long to do random access decompression . +PhD F: Hmm . Yeah , I was just wondering because we 're uh running out of the un - backed - up disk space on +Grad A: Well , that was the other point . +PhD F: Oh , was that another one ? +Grad A: Yep , that 's another agenda item . +PhD F: OK . I 'll wait . +Grad A: So , uh {disfmarker} But that is a good point so we 'll get to that , too . Um , DARPA demo status , not much to say . The back - end stuff is working out fine . It 's more or less ready to go . I 've added some stuff that uh indes indexes by the meeting type MR , EDU , et cetera and also by the user ID . So that the front - end can then do filtering based on that as well . Uh {disfmarker} The back - end is uh , going more slowly as I s I think I said before just cuz I 'm not much of a Tcl - TK programmer . And uh Dave Gelbart says he 's a little too busy . So I think Don and I are gonna work on that and {disfmarker} and you and I can just talk about it off - line more . +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: But uh {pause} the back - end was pretty smooth . +Professor B: Oh +Grad A: So I think , we 'll have something . It may not be as {disfmarker} As pretty as we might like , but we 'll have something . +Professor B: I wondered whe when we would reach Dave 's saturation point . He 's sort of been {disfmarker} been volunteering for everything +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: and {pause} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: O K . Finally said he was too busy . I guess we reached it . +Grad A: Yeah , he {disfmarker} he actually {disfmarker} he volunteered but then he s then he retracted it . So . Oh well . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: And , also um , I was just showing Andreas , I got um an X Waves kind of display , and I don't know how much more we can do with it {disfmarker} with like the prosodic stuff where we have like stylized pitches and signals and the transcripts on the bottom +Grad A: Oh , cool . +Grad E: so , right now it 's just an X Waves and then you have three windows but I don't know , it looked pretty nice and I 'm sure it {disfmarker} think it has potential for a little something , +Grad A: For a demo ? +Grad E: yeah , for a demo . +Grad A: Yeah , sounds good . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , so again , the issue is {disfmarker} For July , the issue 's gonna be what can we fit into a Windows machine , uh , and so on , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So it might just be slides . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 'll see , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: I 've been putting together uh Transcriber things for Windows so i And I installed it on Dave Gelbart 's PC and it worked just fine . So hopefully that will work . +PhD D: Really ? So is that {disfmarker} Because there 's some people um {disfmarker} It would be cool if we could uh get that to work uh at {disfmarker} at SRI +PhD C: Yeah . Yep . +PhD D: because the um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well Transcriber is Tcl - TK , very generic with Snack , +PhD D: we have m m We have more Windows machines to run the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so basically anything you can get Snack to run on , it will work . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} But the problem is the version Transcriber works with , the Snack version , is one point six whatever and that 's not anymore supported . It 's not on {disfmarker} on the web page anymore . But I just wrote an email to {disfmarker} to the author of {disfmarker} to the Snack author and he sent me to one point six whatever library +Grad A: Well I thought it was packaged with Transcriber ? +PhD C: and so it works . Yeah , but then you can't add our patches and then the {disfmarker} the new version is {disfmarker} is totally different +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: a and in {disfmarker} yeah , in terms of {disfmarker} of the source code . +Grad A: Ah . +PhD C: You {disfmarker} you can't find the Tcl files anymore . It 's some whatever wrapped thing +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: and you can't {disfmarker} you can't access that so you have to install {disfmarker} First install Tcl then install Snack and then install the Transcriber thing and then do the patches . +Grad A: Patch . Ugh ! +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I wonder if {disfmarker} if we should contribute our changes back to the authors so that they maintain those changes along {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: We have {disfmarker} Yeah b it 's just hasn't made it into the release yet . +PhD D: We have ? Oh . Oh , OK . +PhD F: So did you um put the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the NT version out on the uh Meeting Recorder page ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I haven't done that yet . I 'm {disfmarker} oh Nope . But I definitely will do that . +Professor B: So , can some of the stuff that Don 's talking about somehow fit into this Uh , mean you just have a set of numbers that are associated with the {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's basically ASCII files or binary files , whatever representation . Just three different {disfmarker} It 's a waveform and just a stylized pitch vector basically so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean we could do it in Matl - {comment} I mean you could do it in a number of different places I 'm sure . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But it would be cool if the Transcriber interface had like another window for the {disfmarker} you know , maybe above the waveform where it would show some arbitrary valued function that is {disfmarker} that is you know time synchron ti ti time synchronous with the wavform . +PhD C: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah , that 'd be very cool . +Grad A: It 'd be easy enough to add that . Again it 's {disfmarker} it 's {pause} It 's more Tcl - T +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So someone who 's familiar with Tcl - TK has to do it , +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: but uh , it wouldn't be hard to do . +PhD D: Right . But it would almost be like having another waveform displayed . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: S +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , maybe we could l look into that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} it seems to me that I c +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: It doesn't seem like having that real time is that necessary . So yo It seems to me you could do images . +Grad E: Um {pause} What do you mean by real time ? Do you mean like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like being able to scroll through it and stuff for the demo . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , jus Yeah . +PhD F: Is that what you mean ? +Grad A: It just seems to me jus +Grad E: It would be cool to see it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: It would be cool like to see {disfmarker} to hear it and see it , +PhD C: And to hear it . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: and see the pitch contours also . +Grad A: Sure , but I don't think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} You can do all that just statically in +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I think it would lose {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean y +Grad A: Just record the audio clip and show an image and I think that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , right . I just thought if you meant slides I thought you meant like just {pause} like {pause} um view graphs or something . +Professor B: You know , wh Yeah . So . Uh , no , we 're talking about on the computer and {disfmarker} and um , I think when we were talking about this before we had littl this little demo meeting , +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: we sort of set up a range of different degrees of liveness that you could have and , {vocalsound} the more live , the better , but uh , given the crunch of time , we may have to retreat from it to some extent . So I think {disfmarker} {pause} For a lot of reasons , I think it would be very nice to have this Transcriber interface be able to show some other interesting signal along with it +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so it 'd be a good thing to get in there . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , jus just looking for ways that we could actually show what you 're doing , uh , in {disfmarker} {pause} to people . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz a lot of this stuff , particularly for Communicator , uh certainly a significant chunk of the things that we waved our arms about th originally had t had to do with prosodics It 'd be nice to show that we can actually get them and see them . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And the last i item on the agenda is disk issues yet again . So , we 're doing OK on backed up . We 're {disfmarker} We 're only about thirty percent on the second disk . So , uh , we have a little bit of time before that becomes critical , but we are like ninety five percent , ninety eight percent on the scratch disks for the expanded meetings . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: And , my original intention was like we would just delete them as we needed more space , but unfortunately we 're in the position where we have to deal with all the meeting data {pause} all at once , in a lot of different ways . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh there 's a lot of transcribers , too . +Grad A: Yeah , there 're a lot of transcribers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so all of those need to be expanded , and then people are doing chunking and I want to do uh , uh , uh , the permission forms , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: An +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: so I want those to be live , so there 's a lot of data that has to be around . Um {disfmarker} And Jane was gonna talk to , uh , Dave Johnson about it . One of the things I was thinking is we {disfmarker} we just got these hundred {disfmarker} alright , excuse me {disfmarker} ten , uh SPARC - Blade SUN - Blades . +Professor B: Did they come in ? +PhD F: SUN - Blades . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . They came in the other day . +Grad A: They came in but they 're not set up yet . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad A: And so it seems to me we could hang scratch disk on those {pause} because they 'll be in the machine room , they 'll be on the fast connection to the rest of the machines . And if we just need un - backed - up space , we could just hang disks off them . +PhD F: Well , is there {disfmarker} Why not just hang them off of Abbott , is there a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because there 's no more room in the disk racks on Abbott . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Weren't we gonna get {disfmarker} +PhD F: Ah , I see . +Professor B: Well , maybe it should get another rack . +PhD D: But you still need to store the disks somehow . +Grad A: Well , but the SUN - Blades have spare drive bays . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just put them in . +PhD F: You can put two {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh you mean you put them inside the pizza boxes for the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD C: Internal . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . Cuz the SUN {disfmarker} uh , these SUN - Blades take commodity hard drives . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: So you can just go out and buy a PC hard drive and stick it in . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But if Abbott is going to be our disk server it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} file server {comment} it seems like we would want to get it , uh , a second disk rack or something . +PhD D: Plus we 're talking about buying a second dis uh , file server . +Grad A: Well , I mean there are lots of long term solutions . What I 'm looking for is where do we s expand the next meeting ? +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: I see {vocalsound} {pause} Oh , I see . +Professor B: Well , for the next meeting you might be out of luck with those ten , mightn't you ? Uh , you know Dave Johnson is gone for , like , ten days , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know he had left already . +Professor B: Uh , well , tonight . +Grad A: Oh , oh well . +PhD D: You mean he won't set up the {disfmarker} mmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: How much space do you need for these ? +Professor B: I don't know what his schedule is . +Grad A: You {disfmarker} we need about a gig per meeting . +Professor B: I 'm just saying he 's gone . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I thi +Grad E: I have um {disfmarker} I have an eighteen gig drive hanging off of my computer . +Grad A: Alright ! What 's your computer 's name ? +Grad E: So {disfmarker} Uh , Samosa . +Professor B: You had an eighteen gigabyte drive . +Grad E: Yeah , I had . Well it 's about {disfmarker} I think there 's about twelve gig left . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} And you have an X drives installed ? OK . +Grad E: Yeah . So , I didn't realize it was so critical . +Grad A: And you 're o you 're offering ? +Grad E: I mean I 'm not doing anything on it right now until I get new meetings to transcri or that are {disfmarker} new transcriptions coming in I really can't do anything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Um not that I can't do anything , I jus +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I jus I just gave Thilo some {disfmarker} about ten gigs , the last ten gigs of space that there was on {disfmarker} on uh Abbott . Uh {disfmarker} And uh {disfmarker} So but that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which one was that , X {pause} G ? X {pause} G ? +PhD C: XG . +PhD F: XG . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: XG ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's also where we store the {disfmarker} The uh Hub - five training set waveforms , +PhD C: Oops . +Grad A: But that won't be getting any bigger , +PhD D: right ? +PhD F: No . +Grad A: will it ? +PhD F: I don't think that 's on XG . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: On XG is only Carmen and Du - and Stephane 's disk . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: But I 've also been storing {disfmarker} I 've been storing the feature files there and I guess I can s start deleting some because we now know what the best features are +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: and we won't be using the old ones anymore . +Grad E: I have a lot of space , though . +PhD F: Yeah , I do I don't think it was on XG . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} Oh thats XA {disfmarker} Oh that 's X {disfmarker} +PhD C: Isn't that XH ? +PhD F: I th +Grad A: Not {disfmarker} not for long . +Grad E: I have a lot of space and it 's not {disfmarker} it 's n There 's very little uh {disfmarker} Yeah not for long . +PhD D: Maybe I 'm confu +Grad E: But I mean it 's not going f +PhD D: Oh no I 'm sorry . +Grad E: It 's not being used often at all . +PhD C: But I 'm using XH {disfmarker} H , too . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's probably {disfmarker} Probably only about four gig is on X {disfmarker} on your X drive , +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Oh OK . +Grad A: but we 'll definitely take it up if you {disfmarker} +Grad E: I th +PhD D: I think you 're right . It 's XH and D {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think it 's about four or five gig cuz I have four meetings on there , +PhD D: The b I 'm also using DG I got that confused . +Grad E: three or four meetings . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: Great . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: OK , so that will get us through the next couple days . +Professor B: We need {disfmarker} We need another gigaquad . +Grad A: Yep . At least . +Professor B: There should {disfmarker} I d There should just be a b I should have a button . +Grad A: The "" more disk space "" button ? +Professor B: Just press {disfmarker} Press each meeting saying "" we need more disk space "" {vocalsound} "" this week "" . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Skip the rest of the conversation . +PhD F: Well we 've collected so far something like uh sixty - five meetings . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} And how much does each meeting take ? +PhD F: And it 's about a gig uncompressed . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} It 's a little bit more as I usually don't {disfmarker} do not uncompress the {disfmarker} all of the PZM and the PDA things . +PhD F: Is a little more ? +PhD C: So . +PhD F: Right , yeah so if you uncompressed everything it 's even more . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . One point five or something . +PhD F: U Uh compressed how much are they ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Half a gig . For all of them . +PhD F: About half ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: So we 're definitely are storing you know , all of those . So there 's what thirty some gig of just meetings so far ? +Professor B: So - so So maybe there 's a hundred {pause} gig or something . Or {disfmarker} I mean . Cuz we {disfmarker} we have the uncompressed around also . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . Well we {disfmarker} We haven't uncompressed all the meetings , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I would like to . +Professor B: Yeah . Well I mean it 's {disfmarker} the they really are cheap . I mean it 's just a question of figuring out where they should be and hanging them , +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: but But uh , we could {disfmarker} You know , if you want to get four disks , get four disks . I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's small {disfmarker} I mean these things ar are just a few hundred dollars . +PhD F: Yeah . Well I sent that message out to , I guess , you and Dave asking for {disfmarker} if we could get some disk . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I s I sent this out a {disfmarker} a day ago +Grad A: And put it where ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} and Dave didn't respond so I don I don't know how the whole process works . I mean does he just go out and get them and {disfmarker} if it 's OK , and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: So I was assuming he was gonna take over {pause} that . But he 's probably too busy given that he 's leaving . +Professor B: Yeah , I think you need a direct conversation with him . And just {vocalsound} say an - e just ask him that , you know , wha what should you do . And in my answer back was "" are you sure you just want one ? "" So I mean I think {pause} that what you want to do is plan ahead a little bit and figure "" well , here 's what we pi figure on doing for the next few months "" . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: Wa - a I know what they want . The sysadmins would prefer to have one external drive per machine . So they don't want to stack up external drives . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {pause} And then they want everything else in the machine room . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So the question is where are you gonna hang them ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . I don't know what the space situation is in the machine room . +Grad A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Right . So this is a question that 's pretty hard to solve without talking to Dave , +PhD D: Th - The {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think part of the reason why Dave can't get the {disfmarker} the new machines up is because he doesn't have room in the machine room right now . +Professor B: cuz it {disfmarker} +PhD D: One {disfmarker} Mmm . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: One {disfmarker} One On - One thing to in to um t to do when you need to conserve space is +PhD F: So he has to re - arrange a bunch of stuff . +PhD D: I bet there are still some old , uh , like , nine gig disks , uh , around and you can probably consolidate them onto larger disks and {disfmarker} and you know recover the space . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . No . I think Dave {disfmarker} Dave knows all these things , of course . An - and so , he always has a a lot of plans of things that he 's gonna do to make things better in many ways an and runs out of time . +PhD D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But I {disfmarker} I know that {pause} generally their first priority has been for backed up disk . And so I think what he 's been concentrating on is uh the back {disfmarker} the {pause} back up system , rather than on new disk . +PhD D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad A: So . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . So . But this {disfmarker} this is a very specific question for me . Basically , we can easily get {pause} one to four disks , I mean you just go out and get four and we 've got the money for it , it 's no big deal . Uh , but the question is where they go , and I don't think we can solve that here , you just have to ask him . +PhD D: Maybe we can put some disks in the {disfmarker} in that back room there . +Grad A: Yeah really . +Professor B: Attach to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Popcorn . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD D: To the machine that collects the data . So then you could , at least temporarily , store stuff there . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's just {disfmarker} It 's not on the net , so it 's a little {pause} awkward +PhD D: The only {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: What do you mean it 's not on the net ? +Grad A: It 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's not bad . +Grad A: It 's behind lots of fire walls that don't allow any services through except S S +PhD D: Oh because it 's {disfmarker} because it 's an ACIRI machine ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh , oh oh . +Grad A: And also on the list is to get it into the normal ICSI net , but Who knows when that will happen ? +PhD D: But that can't be that hard . +PhD F: That might be a good short term solution , though . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the problem with that apparently is that they don't currently have a wire running to that back room {pause} that goes anywhere near one of the ICSI routers . +PhD D: Oh , +Grad A: So , they actually have to run a wire somewhere . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , e again , you know , any one of these things is certainly not a big deal . If there was a person dedicated to doing it they would happen pretty easily but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} jus every ever everybody {disfmarker} everybody has a {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} +Grad A: But Dave has to do all of them . +Professor B: Well all of us have long lists of different things we 're doing . But at any rate I think that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a longer term thing and there 's immediate need and I think we need a {disfmarker} a conversation with {disfmarker} Uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe after {disfmarker} after tea or something you and I can go down and {disfmarker} and talk to him about it Just say "" wha you know , what should we do right now ? "" +PhD F: How long is David gonna be gone ? +Professor B: Uh , eleven days or something ? +Grad A: Oh my ! +Professor B: Yeah basically tomorrow and all of {pause} the week after . +Grad A: And that 's all I have . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see . The only oth thing {disfmarker} other thing I was gonna add was that um {disfmarker} uh , I talked briefly to Mari and uh we had {vocalsound} both been busy with other things so we haven't really connected that much since the {pause} last meeting we had here but we agreed that we would have a telephone meeting the Friday after next . And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to make it , um after the next one of these meetings , so something that we wanna do next meeting is {disfmarker} is uh to put together um , a kind of reasonable list for ourselves of what is it , um , that we 've done . I mean just sort of bulletize I mean o e do do I can {disfmarker} I can dream up text but {pause} this is basically gonna lead to the annual report . So {pause} Um {disfmarker} If w +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: This is the fifteenth ? So just a week from tomorrow ? +Professor B: Um , that would +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , uh , we can {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So that 's an {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is this gotta be in the morning ? +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} Because you know I {disfmarker} Fridays I have to leave uh like around uh two . So if it could be before that would be be +Professor B: No , no but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't need other folks for the meeting . I can do it . A A All I 'm saying is that on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , OK , alright . Oh I 'm sorry , I misunderstood . +Professor B: Yeah so what I meant was on the me this meeting {pause} if I wa something I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm making a major thing in the agenda is I wanna help in getting together a list of what it is that we 've done so I can tell her . +PhD D: I thought you are {disfmarker} OK . Alright . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think I have a pretty good idea +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but um {disfmarker} Uh , and then the next day uh , late in the day I 'll be having that {disfmarker} that discussion with her . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . So . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} One thing {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in past meetings we had um also a you know various {disfmarker} variously talked about the um work that w uh was happening sort of on the {disfmarker} on the recognition side +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um but isn't necessarily related to meetings uh specifically . So . Um . And I wondered whether we should maybe have um a separate meeting and between you know , whoever 's interested in that because I feel that uh there 's plenty of stuff to talk about but it would be sort of um maybe the wrong place to do it in this meeting if uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Think so ? +PhD D: Well , it 's that {disfmarker} It 's just gonna be ver very boring for people who are not you know , sort of really interested in the details of the recognition system . +Grad A: I 'm interested . +Professor B: Well , OK , so how many {disfmarker} how many people here would not be interested in uh {disfmarker} in a meeting about recognition ? +PhD C: Me too . +PhD F: Jane may not be . +Grad A: Jane , I think . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Well I know {disfmarker} Well , Jane an Well you mean in a separate meeting or ha ha talking about it in this {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . If we talked about it in this meeting . +PhD F: He 's wondering how much overlap there will be . +Professor B: Yeah , so you 're su +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: So , uh , uh , Liz and Jane probably . +Professor B: OK , so we 're gonna have a guy 's meeting . +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , if you wanna put it that way . +PhD F: Good thing Liz isn't here . +Professor B: Real {disfmarker} +Grad E: Watch a ball game ? +Professor B: Yeah , real {disfmarker} real {disfmarker} real men {vocalsound} "" Real men do decoding "" or something like that . +PhD F: Don't listen to this , Liz . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: I mean it it 's sort of {disfmarker} I mean when {disfmarker} when the talk is about data collection stuff , sometimes I 've {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm bored . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} Nod off ? +PhD D: So it 's I c I can sympathize with them not wanting to {disfmarker} i to {disfmarker} to be uh {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} I cou you know {disfmarker} this could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's cuz {pause} y you have a {disfmarker} So you need a better developed feminine side . +PhD D: I 'm +Professor B: There 's probably gonna be a lot of "" bleeps "" in this meeting . +PhD D: not sure I wanna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I would as {comment} I would guess . +Professor B: Uh . Um . +PhD D: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think it must be {pause} uh nearing the end of the week . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . I {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I 've heard some comments about like this . That m could be . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} U +PhD D: And we don't have to do it every week . +PhD F: Could we {disfmarker} +PhD D: We could do it every other week or so . You know , whatev or whenever we feel like we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , I was {disfmarker} Why don't we alternate this meeting every other week ? +Grad A: Or just alternate the focus . +PhD F: Tha - That 's what I mean . +Grad A: Yeah , so on even weeks have {pause} basic {pause} on data . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: We could do that , yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Personally I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not in favor of more meetings . Um . {vocalsound} Because , uh . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I am . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Oh sor +PhD F: But I do I don't {disfmarker} I mean a lot of times lately it seems like we don't really have enough for a full meeting on Meeting Recorder . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Well , except that we keep going for our full time . +PhD F: So if we did that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: Well , cuz we get into these other topics . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: We feel {disfmarker} We feel obligated to collect more data . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Ugh . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I don't . +PhD F: So if we could alternate the focus of the meeting {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's read digits and go . +Professor B: Why don't we just start with that . +PhD D: ummh . {comment} ummh . {comment} OK . +Professor B: And then if we find , you know we 're just not getting enough done , there 's all these topics not coming up , then we can expand into another meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I think that 's a great idea . Uh . So uh . Um . Let 's chat about it with Liz and Jane {pause} when we get a chance , see what they think and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah that would be good . I mean Andreas and I have various talks in the halls +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and there 's lots of things , you know , details and stuff that would I think people 'd be interested in and I 'd {disfmarker} you know , where do we go from here kind of things and {disfmarker} So , it would be good . +Professor B: Yeah , and you 're {disfmarker} you 're attending {pause} the uh {disfmarker} the front - end meeting as well as the others so you have {disfmarker} you have probably one of the best {disfmarker} you and I , I guess are the main ones who sort of see the bridge between the two . +Grad A: Bridge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We are doing recognition in both of them . So . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: OK ? +PhD D: So um . So {disfmarker} so we could talk a little bit about that now if {disfmarker} if there 's some time . +Grad A: No , no that would be for next week . +PhD D: Um I jus So the latest result was that um um yot I tested the uh {disfmarker} the sort of final version of the PLP configuration um on development test data for {disfmarker} for this year 's Hub - five test set . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And the recognition performance was exactly , and I mean exactly up to the {disfmarker} you know , the first decimal , same as with the uh Mel Cepstra front - end . +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: For both females and males ? +PhD D: Yes . Uh , well i there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD D: i overall . They {disfmarker} They were {disfmarker} The males I think were slightly better and the females were slightly worse but nothing really . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean definitely not significant . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then the really nice thing was that if {disfmarker} if we combine the two systems we get a one and a half percent improvement . +Grad A: Wow . Just with ROVER ? +PhD D: So . t With N - best ROVER , which is like our {vocalsound} new and improved version of ROVER . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Which u actually uses the whole N - best list from both systems {pause} to {pause} mmm , uh {pause} c combine that . +Professor B: So except {disfmarker} I mean the only key difference between the two really is the kind of smoothing at the end which is the auto - regressive versus the cepstral truncation . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: And , the {disfmarker} +PhD F: But a percent and a half ? +Grad A: Yeah , it 's pretty {pause} impressive . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And {disfmarker} And so uh after I told the {disfmarker} my uh colleagues at SRI about that , you know , now they definitely want to , you know , uh , have a {disfmarker} Next time we have an evaluation they want to do uh , you know , basically a at least the system combination . Um , and , you know , why not ? +Professor B: Sure , why not ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad A: We clearly gotta add a few more features , though . +PhD D: Uh w what do you mean ? More features in the sense of front - end features or in the sense of just bells and whistles ? +Grad A: No , uh front - end features . You know we did PLP and Mel Cepstra . Let 's , you know , try RASTA and MSG , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . Well Right . So , we cou Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} There 's one thing uh {disfmarker} I mean you don't want to overdo it because y every front - end {disfmarker} You know , if you {disfmarker} you know you basically multiply your effort by N , where N is a number of different systems +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Um . So . So one {disfmarker} one compromise would be to {disfmarker} only to have the {disfmarker} everything up to the point where you generate lattices be basically one system and then after that you rescore your lattices with the multiple systems and combine the results and that 's a fairly painless um thing . +Professor B: Mmm . An +PhD D: So . +PhD F: Do you think we 'd still get the one and a half uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . Maybe a little less because at that point the error rates are lower and so if {disfmarker} You know , maybe it 's only one percent or something but that would still be worthwhile doing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Um {pause} Jus - You know , just wanted to let you know that that 's working out very nicely . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD D: And then we had some results on {pause} digits , uh , with um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So this was uh really {comment} {disfmarker} really sort of just to get Dave going with his um experiments . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And so , uh . But as a result , um , you know , we were sort of wondering why is the Hub - five system doing so well on the digits . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And the reason is basically there 's a whole bunch of read speech data in the Hub - five training set . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Including digits I gather , yeah . +PhD D: And you c And {disfmarker} Not all of {disfmarker} No it 's actually , digits is only a maybe a fifth of it . +Professor B: A fifth of it is how much ? +PhD D: The rest is {disfmarker} is read {disfmarker} is read TIMIT data and uh ATIS data and Wall Street Journal and stuff like that . +Professor B: Right . But a fi a fifth is how much ? +PhD D: A fifth would be maybe uh two hours something . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean that 's actually not that different from the {pause} amount of training that there was . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: But it definitely helps to have the other read data in there +Professor B: Oh yeah +PhD D: because we 're doing {disfmarker} +Professor B: w +PhD D: You know the error rate is half of what you do if you train only on ti uh TIMIT {disfmarker} {comment} uh not TIMIT uh TI - digits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is only what two hours something ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I don't know . +PhD D: So . Uh , more read speech data definitely helps . And you can leave out all the conversational data with no performance penalty . +Professor B: Yeah that was the interesting thing . +PhD D: That 's e +Professor B: Because {disfmarker} because uh , it was apparent if you put in a bunch more data it would be better , +PhD D: That was e Right , right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but uh . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Well is there even more read speech data around ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we only {disfmarker} for the Hub - five training , we 're only using uh a fairly small subset of the Macrophone {pause} database . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , you could beef that up and probably do even better . +Grad A: I could also put in {pause} uh focus condition zero from Hub - four from Broadcast News , which is mostly prepared speech . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's not exactly read speech but it 's pretty darn close . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Right . Well , I mean that 's plenty of read speech data . I mean , Wall Street Journal , {pause} uh , take one example . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD D: But um . So , you know that might be useful for the people who train the {disfmarker} the digit recognizers to {disfmarker} to use uh something other than TI - digits . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Well they been using TIMIT . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} Uh . {pause} They {disfmarker} they uh {disfmarker} they experimented for a while with a bunch of different databases with French and Spanish and so forth cuz they 're multilingual tests +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh , um , {disfmarker} and actually the best results they got wa were uh using TIMIT . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} So that 's what they 're {disfmarker} they 're using now . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but yeah certainly if we , um {disfmarker} If we knew what the structure of what we 're doing there was . I mean there 's still a bunch of messing around with different kinds of uh noise robustness algorithms . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So we don't know exactly which combination we 're gonna be going with . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Once we know , then {disfmarker} the trainable parts of it {disfmarker} it 'd be great to run lots of {disfmarker} lots of stuff through . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . Well , that was that . And then I th guess Chuck and I had some discussions about how to proceed with the tandem uh system and {disfmarker} You wanna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You wanna see where that stands ? +PhD F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD D: +PhD F: Yeah , so Andreas uh brought over the uh alignments that the SRI system uses . And so I 'm in the process of um converting those alignments into uh label files that we can use to train uh a new net with . And uh so then I 'll train the net . And . +PhD D: An - And one side effect of that would be that it 's {disfmarker} um that the phone set would change . So the MLP would be trained on I think only forty - six or forty - eight {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Eight . +PhD D: forty - eight phones ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh which is smaller than the um than the phone set that {disfmarker} that we 've been using so far . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that will probably help , actually , +PhD F: So it 's a little different ? +PhD D: because um the fewer dimensions uh e the less trouble probably with the {disfmarker} as far as just the um , um {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} You know we want to try things like deltas on the tandem features . And so you h have to multiply everything by two or three . And so , you know , fewer dimensions in the {pause} phone set would be actually helpful just from a logistics point of view . +Professor B: Sure . Although we {disfmarker} I mean , it 's not that many fewer and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we take a KLT anyway so we could {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so that was the other thing . And then we wanted to s just limit it to maybe uh something on the same order of dimensions as we use in a standard um front - end . So that would mean just doing the top I don't know ten or twelve or something of the KLT dimensions . +Professor B: Yeah , and I think {disfmarker} and we sh again check {disfmarker} we should check with Stephane . My impression was that when we did that before that had very little {disfmarker} uh he didn't lose very much . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: By just taking the top whatever ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah yeah . +PhD D: But then {disfmarker} And then something {disfmarker} Once we have the new M L P trained up , uh one thing I wanted to try just for the fun of it was to actually run uh like a standard hybrid system that is based on you know , those features uh and uh retrain MLP and also the you know , the dictionary that we use for the Hub - five system . +Professor B: And the b And the base u starting off with the base of the alignments that you got from i from a pretty decent system . +PhD D: Exactly . +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . So that would basically give us a , um , more {disfmarker} hopefully a {disfmarker} a better system +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: um because {disfmarker} you know , compared to what Eric did a while ago , where he trained up , I think , a system based on Broadcast News and then uh tra retraining it on Switchboard or s uh and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} I think he d he didn't {disfmarker} he probably didn't use all the training data that was available . And his dictionary probably wasn't as tuned to um conversational speech as {disfmarker} as the {disfmarker} as ours is . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's certainly one thing , yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uh . Yeah . +PhD D: And the dictionary made a huge difference . Uh . We {disfmarker} we made some improvements to the dictionary 's uh {disfmarker} to the dictionary about two years ago which resulted in a {disfmarker} uh something like a four percent absolute error rate reduction on Switchboard , which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the other thing is , dipping {pause} deep into history and into uh our resource management days , when we were collaborating with SRI before , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: uh it was {disfmarker} I think , it is was a really key uh starting point for us that we actually got our alignment . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: When we were working together we got our initial alignments from Decipher , uh {pause} at the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} And . Later we got away from it because {disfmarker} because once we had decent systems going then it was {disfmarker} it was typically better to use our own systems +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz they were self consistent but {disfmarker} but certainly to start off when we were trying to recover from our initial hundred and forty percent error uh rate . Uh . {vocalsound} But that was a {disfmarker} that was a good {disfmarker} good {disfmarker} good way to start . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And we 're not quite that bad with our {disfmarker} our Switchboard systems but it was {disfmarker} they certainly aren't as good as SRI 's , +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: W What is the performance on s the best Switchboard system that we 've done ? Roughly ? +Professor B: Well , the hybrid system we never got better than about fifty percent {pause} error . And uh it was {disfmarker} I think there 's just a whole lot of things that uh no one ever had time for . We never did really fix up the dictionary . Uh we always had a list of a half dozen things that we were gonna do and {disfmarker} and a lot of them were pretty simple and we never did . +PhD D: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , we never did an never did any adaptation +PhD D: But that w Even that {disfmarker} that number {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , we never did any {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . And {disfmarker} And that number I think was on Switchboard - one data , right ? Where the error rate now is in the twenties . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , um . +Professor B: So we were {disfmarker} Yeah . We were probably at least a factor or two off . +PhD D: That 's yet s Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} So it would be good t to sort of r re uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: just at least to give us an idea of how well the hybrid system would do . +Professor B: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} again it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's the conver it 's the s conversational speech bit . Because our {disfmarker} our Broadcast News system is actually pretty good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: He knows . +PhD D: Right . And the other thing that that would help us to evaluate is to see how well the M L P is trained up . Right ? Because it 's a pretty good um indicator of that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it 's sort of a sanity check of the M L P outputs {pause} before we go ahead and train up the {disfmarker} uh you know , use them as a basis for the tandem system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll still probably be worse . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be context independent and so on . +PhD D: No . Sure . Not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Should we {disfmarker} Should we bother with um using the net before doing uh embedded training ? +Professor B: But . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean should {disfmarker} should we even use that ? +PhD D: Oh {pause} oh that 's a good question . +PhD F: Or should I just go straight to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we weren't sure whether it 's worth to just use the alignments um from the S R I recognizer or whether to actually go through one or more iterations of embedded training where you realign . +Grad A: Try it . You run it ? Keep {disfmarker} keep both versions ? See which one 's better ? +Professor B: Uh , yeah . I mean . I think I agree with Ad I mean basically you would then {disfmarker} You proceed with the embedded training . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's gonna take you a while to train at this net anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: And while it 's training you may as well test the one you have and see how it did . +PhD D: OK . Alright . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: I could make arguments either way . You know , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But so I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sort of given up guessing . +PhD D: Well but i But in your experience I mean uh have you seen big improvements in s on some tasks with embedded training ? Or was it sort of small - ish uh improvements that you got +Professor B: Uh well . It depended on the task . I mean I think in this one I would sort of expect it to be important +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: because we 're coming from uh , alignments that were achieved with an extremely different system . +PhD D: That are from another {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Although , I mean we 've done it with {disfmarker} When we were combining with the Cambridge recurrent neural net , embedded training made it worse . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: Which I 've never figured out . +Professor B: Right . But I mean i +Grad A: I think it 's a bug . +PhD D: So you {disfmarker} you started training with outputs from a {disfmarker} with alignments that were generated by the Cambridge uh system ? +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . Well , that might probably just {disfmarker} Hmm . That was probably because your initial system {disfmarker} I mean your system was ba worse than Cambridge 's . And you {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Was it ? I don't think it was . +Grad A: No they were {disfmarker} they were comparable . +PhD D: It wasn't ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: They were very close . +PhD D: Really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's weird . +Professor B: Excuse me ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's weird . +Grad A: That 's what I said . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: No I mean it 's weird that it did {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . It 's w It 's weird that it got worse . +PhD F: That 's ambiguous . +Professor B: Um . No . Uh . Tha - u we we 've see I mean {disfmarker} and wi with the numbers {disfmarker} OGI numbers task we 've seen a number of times people doing embedded trainings and things not getting better . +PhD D: Oh actually it 's not that weird because we have seen {disfmarker} We have seen cases where acoustic {disfmarker} retraining the acoustic models after some other change made matters worse rather than better . +Professor B: Yeah . It just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I But I would {disfmarker} I would suspect that something that {disfmarker} that had um a very different Um feature set , for instance {disfmarker} I mean they were using pretty diff similar feature sets to us . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I would expect that something that had a different feature set would {disfmarker} would uh benefit from {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What about uh hidden unit size {pause} on this . +Professor B: Oh , wait a minute , and the other thing uh , +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: sorry , it was {disfmarker} the other thing is that what was in common {comment} to the Cambridge system and our system is they both were training posteriors . +Grad A: Right . Ah yeah . +Professor B: So I mean , uh , that 's another pretty big difference +Grad A: That 's another big difference . +Professor B: and uh , one bac at least {disfmarker} Back at {disfmarker} +PhD D: You mean with soft targets ? Or {disfmarker} ? Sorry , I 'm sor I missed {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} What 's the key issue here ? +Professor B: Oh , that uh both the Cambridge system and our system were {disfmarker} were training {pause} posteriors . And if we 're {disfmarker} we 're coming from alignments coming from the SRI system , it 's a likelihood - based system . So {disfmarker} so that 's another difference . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . You know , there 's diffe different front - end different {disfmarker} different uh , um , training criterion {disfmarker} Uh , I would think that in a that an embedded {pause} uh {pause} embedded uh training would have at least a good shot of improving it some more . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But we don't know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: You gonna say something ? +PhD F: Yeah . I was wondering uh you know what size net I should {disfmarker} Anybody have any intuitions or suggestions ? +Professor B: Uh , how much training data ? +PhD F: Well , I was gonna start off with the small train set . +Professor B: And how {disfmarker} How many hours is that ? +PhD F: That 's why I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much that is . +PhD D: Uh , I think that has about {disfmarker} Well i you 'd {disfmarker} would be gender - dependent training , right ? So {disfmarker} So I think it 's {disfmarker} uh that 's about mmm , something like thirty hours . +PhD F: Gender - dependent , yeah . +PhD D: Thirty hours per gender . +PhD F: Thirty hours . +Grad A: I 'm not sure what this 'll mean . +PhD F: In the small training set ? +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD D: It 's definitely less than a hundred {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alright . +PhD D: You know , it 's more like {disfmarker} like thirty forty hours something like that . +Grad A: Wrong number . +PhD F: They called to tell us that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um . So . Uh . after run +PhD F: I mean , I didn't want to do too big , +Professor B: Right . So +PhD F: just {disfmarker} +Professor B: At least a couple thousand hidden units . I mean . It 's {disfmarker} it 's th the thing I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think about it a little more +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} it 'd be toss up between two thousand and four thousand . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: You definitely wouldn't want the eight thousand . It 's m It 's more than {disfmarker} +PhD F: And a thousand is too small ? +Professor B: Oh let me think about it , but I think that {disfmarker} that uh th at some point there 's diminishing returns . I mean it doesn't actually get worse , typically , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there is diminishing returns and you 're doubling {pause} the amount of time . +PhD D: Remember you 'll have a smaller output layer so there 's gonna be fewer parameters there . +Grad A: But not by a lot . +Professor B: Not by much . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty s Fifty four to forty eight ? +Grad A: Vast majority is from the input unit . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll have a very tiny effect . +Grad A: Right , because you used the context windows and so the input to hidden is much , much larger . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh I see , I see , yeah , of course . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's negligible , OK . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be way , way less than ten percent of the difference . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh . There 's uh {disfmarker} How bi how big Let 's see . What am I trying to think of ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} The net that {disfmarker} that we did use already {pause} uh was eight thousand hidden units and that 's the one that Eric trained up . +Professor B: Right . And that was trained up on uh like a hundred and forty hours of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD D: Was that gender - dependent or independent ? +PhD F: Gender - dependent . +Professor B: Oh . So that would be like trained on s sixty or seventy hours . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , yeah definitely not the one thousand uh {disfmarker} two thousand fr I mean the four thousand will be better and the two thousand will be almost {disfmarker} will be faster and almost as good . +Grad A: It 'll be faster . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Maybe I 'll start off with two thousand just to see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , thirty hours is like a hundred and ten thousand uh seconds . Uh , so that 's like eleven {disfmarker} eleven million frames . And a two thousand hidden unit net is uh I guess about seven , eight hundred thousand parameters . So that 's probably {disfmarker} That 's probably fine . I mean a four thousand is well within the range that you could benefit from but the two thousand 'd be faster so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . I actually have to go . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uncle Bernie 's rule is ten to one . Bernie Woodrow 's Rule of {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} Uncle Bernie {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: We 're just waiting for you to leave . +Professor B: Yes sir . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor B: Nah . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Since we have nothing to talk about we only talked for an hour . +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +Grad A: yeah that 's right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , well , we started late . +PhD F: Transcript +Professor B: de - ba - de . de - ba - de That 's all folks ! +","In a collaborative meeting involving graduate students and professors, various research-related topics were discussed, with a particular focus on the progress of various tasks related to transcription, demo preparation, and future planning for both hardware resources and software development. + +Grad A noted that the meeting would be concise as most agenda items were requested by a team member named Jane, who was absent. The discussion kicked off with transcription status, whereby PhD F and PhD C confirmed their peripheral knowledge, with PhD F providing an update from IBM regarding the tape they had sent and the anticipated completion of transcriptions the following week. While discussing the transcription process, it was noted that Jane's team was actively assigning new meetings for transcription. + +The conversation then shifted toward the management of transcription work, particularly whether Jane's team had idle transcribers and the parallel processing of transcriptions at IBM and ICSI. The challenges of transcriber resource allocation and the status of transcription for various meetings were hashed out among the participants. + +Grad A had a request for a pen, which was a brief interlude before the group turned their attention to the ongoing issue of disk space, a crucial resource for managing the expanded meeting data. They explored options for utilizing the new SPARC-Blade SUN-Blades as scratch disk storage, especially since the current system was nearing capacity. There was a consideration of the logistics and management of uncompressed audio, which was slower but necessary for participant approval of transcripts. + +Regarding the DARPA demo status, Grad A reported that the backend work was proceeding satisfactorily, including indexing by meeting type and user ID, which would allow for frontend filtering. There was some concern over the completion of the frontend due to the team's TCL-TK programming limitations and the busy schedule of their colleague Dave Gelbart. + +The participants then addressed the display of prosodic features for a demo, possibly integrating them into the Transcriber interface. They acknowledged the advantages of visualizing pitch contours and other features alongside transcripts and audio signals. + +Disk space was the last major item on the agenda, with urgent discussion about approaching the limits on scratch disks. Various solutions were considered, including Grad E's offer of using space on an external drive, and the potential need to acquire more disks or even another file server. + +Finally, Professor B raised the issue of the upcoming telephone meeting with Mari for the annual report, which prompted the need to compile a list of accomplishments within the project. PhD D suggested possibly having a separate meeting to discuss recognition-related topics to avoid overwhelming those with a less technical focus. The group entertained the idea of alternating the meeting focus between two different weeks for the two main topics. + +The meeting concluded after addressing the suitability of embedded training for improving the hybrid system, the potential size for the neural network they planned to train, and ensuring efficient usage of the available training data. + +Overall, the meeting encapsulated the multifaceted and collaborative nature of research work, touching on technical aspects of acoustic model training, software challenges, and logistical considerations for managing and leveraging computational resources effectively." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements. That's confirmed. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Once the petition is presented, the member is asked to bring it here to the Table. Mr.Manly is the first one to be allowed to present a petition. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I rise today to present a petition that has many signatures from constituents in NanaimoLadysmith. They're calling for a ban on cosmetic testing using animals. They want us to follow the European Union model, under which the use of animals in cosmetic testing has been banned. Moving forward, they're calling for a ban on the sale and manufacture of animal-tested cosmetics and their ingredients in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Poilievre is next. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I rise today to table e-petition 2466, initiated by a constituent of mine in Stittsville, a beautiful west Ottawa community. The petition has collected 827 signatures from every province and territory. It was collected by Cara, a mother from my riding who suffered an unthinkable tragedy. Her 11-year-old son Joshua drowned in a boating accident on the St. Lawrence River at Rockport, Ontario. Joshua was not wearing a life jacket. Worse, Cara's family had to wait 48 days to recover Joshua's body. Cara is now working tirelessly to amend the small vessel regulations to make it mandatory for children under the age of 14 to wear a life jacket or PFD while they are passengers in or drivers of small vessels covered under parts 2, 3, and 4 of the regulations. I support Cara's efforts, and I'm honoured to table this petition on her behalf. +The Chair: Seeing no further petitions to be presented, we'll continue, and we will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. Go ahead, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): It was revealed yesterday that this government's policy was to ignore fraud. The Prime Minister's reaction was to act as if everything was normal. In fact, we've learned that over 200,000cases of suspected fraud have been identified in the benefit applications. The Prime Minister is failing our future generations. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay back billions of dollars that he's borrowing to pay tax cheats. Will the Prime Minister protect taxpayers and immediately begin a review of these 200,000cases of suspected fraud? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Our priority was to get money out quickly to all Canadians who needed it, and that's exactly what we've done. Millions of Canadians have received the money they so desperately needed. Having said that, I want to make it very clear, Mr.Chair: Fraud is unacceptable. We have measures in place to detect fraud. All fraudsters will be required to pay back the money they fraudulently received from the government. We're going to make sure that this is done in the coming months. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Conservatives agree that those who need help should get it, and no one is arguing that they shouldn't, but reports indicate that the Liberals have ordered public servants to turn a blind eye to 200,000 cases of suspected fraud. It's a simple question: Yes or no, did the government instruct any government department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the priority in this situation was getting money out to the millions of Canadians who needed it as quickly as possible, but of course fraud is unacceptable. That's why we have put safeguards in place to ensure that anyone who received that money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's a yes-or-no question, Mr. Chair. Did the government give any kind of instruction to public servants in any department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The instruction to government officials was to get money out to those who needed it as quickly as possible. We have put measures in place to detect fraud. People who got this money fraudulently will have to repay. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it is clear that he can't answer a yes-or-no question, so we can all assume what the answer must be. In other situations, the government is saying no to people. It's letting so many Canadians down. Small business owners who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number or a business account are ineligible for the government supports. Individuals, owner-operators, and those who are earning $1 more than $1,000 are being told that they don't qualify for the emergency response benefits. Meanwhile, fraudsters are getting them. Does the Prime Minister think it's fair to tell people who are following all the rules no, while telling government officials to allow fraudulent cases to be processed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, Canadians well know that this is an unprecedented situation, one in which we had to get help to as many Canadians as possible as quickly as possible. That is exactly what we did. We continue to work very hard to fill gaps for people who should get money but haven't been able to, and, as I said, we have strong measures to counter fraud. Anyone who got this money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, when these programs were first designed, the Prime Minister said that he acknowledged that there were problems and that they would be fixed later. Well, here we are in May, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians are being told no for purely technical and bureaucratic reasons. Will the Prime Minister make the simple changes to allow business owners who don't happen to have a business bank account, who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number and individuals who are ineligible for the emergency response benefit because they've been paid by family members through dividends to qualify, or is he going to continue to let hundreds of thousands of Canadians down during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, we moved extremely rapidly to get help and support to millions of Canadians. That was the priority, and that's what we've been doing for the past two months. As we've said, we will continue to tweak and improve the programs to make sure that more people who need help will get it. We are working the best we can, as fast as we can, to help those millions of Canadians who need support. +The Chair: You have time for about a 15-second question, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister indicated that he would support Taiwan's inclusion in the WHO only as a non-state observer. Of course, that designation does not exist. Participants of the WHO are either states or NGOs. Will the Prime Minister support Taiwan's participation as a state observer? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister has 15 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we will continue with our one China policy, but we have always advocated Taiwan's meaningful inclusion in international bodies where it makes sense to do so, and that includes at the WHO. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet now has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. On Friday, students in Quebec and Canada will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit, which is a good thing. This program was necessary, particularly because the number of students who won't be able to get back their jobs from last year is much higher than the number of jobs that might be available to these young people. There are also issues of duration. We don't know how long these jobs will remain unavailable. People talked about a risk to being in the labour market and meeting the needs of the labour market. On April29, the Deputy Prime Minister made a formal commitment to ensure that these programs are accompanied by work incentives for youth and all CESB recipients. So that everyone knows what they're getting into, I'd like to know whether the employment incentives that will accompany the Canada emergency response benefit will be known by Friday. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the hon. member for understanding the importance of supporting students who, for the most part, won't be able to get the summer jobs they were counting on. Young people don't just want to earn money; they also want to gain work experience. That's why we're setting up programs, including Canada summer jobs, but also another program with 76,000new jobs for young people in important sectors, so that young people can also get jobs. We will continue to work with youth and employers to ensure that gaps in the labour market are addressed, while ensuring that youth are well-supported. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That's very interesting, but it doesn't answer my question at all. People in the fishing, tourism and agricultural sectors, as well as municipalities and, from the very beginning, of course, the Government of Quebec, more generally, have expressed fears that job gains will cause people to lose their benefits and discourage them from going to work. The only way to avoid that is to ensure that people keep more money as they work more. That is the principle. In fact, we propose that over the $1,000no-penalty limit, half of the earnings be exempt from penalty. Is this something that could be considered? Since it's been two weeks since the commitment was made and it's urgent, can we act now? The emergency shouldn't last eight months. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, young people need money, but they also need work experience. This is an unprecedented situation, which is why we're working with seasonal industries and the different regions to make sure they have a sufficient workforce in their situation. Students can be part of it, but at the same time we must provide the necessary support for those who can't find a job. That's why we continue to work with the industries involved to ensure that they have a sufficient workforce while we support students. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Unfortunately, the spirit of it doesn't seem to have been understood. I doubt that, even in the best-case scenario, the government will be able to get all the jobs needed in a timely manner for all these young people to decide to go ahead. So, first of all, there will be a shortage of jobs. Second, people aren't crazy. If they earn less by working than they earn by not working, all the good faith in the world won't solve the problem. Can we make sure that people keep more money in their pockets as they work more? I think we can have a clear answer, given the timeframe. People are going to start registering for the program on Friday. The principles are good, but a clear answer would be good too. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Beginning Friday, students will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. When they apply, they'll all be directed to a job bank that we've set up to make sure they know what jobs are available to get not only the money they need, but also the experience they need for their future, while helping our society in this crisis. I know we're going to be able to count on young people. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, one of the most devastating outcomes of this COVID-19 crisis has been the impact on seniors. Eighty per cent or more of the deaths during COVID-19 have been seniors living in long-term care homes. The military had to be called in. Out of 14 countries, Canada has been deemed the worst in its care of seniors. Despite all this, the Prime Minister has said recently that he doesn't feel it's the federal government's responsibility to find a solution. How can he say to families reeling with loss that it's not the federal government's responsibility to play a role in solving this problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, perhaps the fact that the NDP no longer has many seats in Quebec has caused it to forget the importance of respecting the Constitution and the areas of jurisdiction of provincial versus federal governments. We will be there to work with the provinces as they deal with challenges in their long-term care facilities. We are there as a partner, but we, on this side of the House, will always respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and be there to support them in fulfilling those responsibilities. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Everyone across Canada has just heard this Prime Minister double down on the idea that he doesn't feel it's his responsibility, despite the fact that the Canadian military had to go into long-term care homes. There is a role that the federal government can play. Both Liberal and Conservative federal governments have been consistently, for decades, cutting transfers to health care. They can increase those transfers to ensure long-term care is adequately funded. We could also ensure that there's a national care guarantee, working with provinces to ensure that we are meeting the best standards. We could increase workers' pay. We could ensure that there's no more profiting off the backs of seniors when it comes to long-term care. Will the Prime Minister commit to some of these care guarantees? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: It will come as exactly no surprise to the vast majority of Canadians that the Liberal Party will always stand up for the Constitution of Canada. We respect the Constitution. We respect areas of provincial jurisdiction. As I have said from the very beginning of this crisis, we will be there to help the provinces as they manage the challenges they're facing. The federal government does have a role to play, and it is a role to support the provinces in doing the things they need to do during this unprecedented time. We will continue to be there. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I am glad to hear the Prime Minister is no longer trying to hide behind jurisdiction. We know that in long-term care homes, the for-profit long-term care homes have been the site of the worst conditions, where the greatest number of seniors have died. Will the Prime Minister join us in committing to remove profit from the long-term care system? Vulnerable seniors should not be subject to the profits of a company willing to cut services, staffing and quality of care instead of ensuring that seniors get the best care possible. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I think it has become clear for all Canadians that we need to improve the care offered to our seniors right across the country. We cannot look at these numbers we are seeing and these tragedies hitting so many families and not want to see us as a country do better. That is why we of course recognize that we will work with other orders of government, particularly the provinces in whose jurisdiction this area rests primarily, to support answering these questions for the long term on how we improve the way Canada supports our elders. This is something really important that we will be there for. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: At the CHSLD Herron in Dorval, 31seniors died in one month. The residents were left without food, dehydrated and without care, and those with COVID-19 symptoms were not isolated from the others. Families pay between $3,000 and $10,000 a month for their loved ones to be at the centre. How can the Prime Minister think that he doesn't have a role to play in finding a solution to this devastating problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all Quebeckers and even all Canadians were stunned to learn of the tragedy at the Dorval CHSLD. We were very happy, as citizens, when the Government of Quebec reacted firmly and asked many questions in connection with this situation. We will support the Government of Quebec in its efforts to find answers and, most importantly, to ensure that, in the long term, the country will better support seniors in all regions. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr.Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, how many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to start by quickly saying that a total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, which is absolutely essential for +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefits have been sent out to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I see that the pace will allow me to give a little bit of information for each question. As we said at the outset, there will be mechanisms +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard to ensure the integrity of the mechanism while at the same time taking important steps to help Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: A total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, and the agency is ensuring the integrity of the system. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: He's now claiming that it's all 7.7 million? That's crazy. The department is reported to have given out 200,000. Is 200,000 the correct number of cheques that have been sent out to people whose applications have been red-flagged as fraudulent, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to use the opportunity given to me by the hon. member to make the following clarifications. I thank him for it. First, approximately 7.7million Canadians have received at least one payment. Second, almost 11million payments have been made. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many prisoners have received a Canada emergency response benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: This allows me to go even further and thank the hon. member again. Some 7.7million Canadians have received emergency assistance in an emergency situation +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: So now he's claiming that 7 million Canadians are in jail? The question was this: How many prisoners have received a benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, jokes can be made about the plight of Canadians who are suffering tremendously in this crisis, but I'm not here to make +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Even the CBC is saying that prisoners are receiving the cheque. They can't have lost their jobs. They were already in prison. It's a simple question: How many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'd like to remind hon. members that we're talking about an extremely serious situation, a situation that has called into question people's ability to make ends meet, a situation that required emergency measures. We're going to continue to do the job that Canadians expect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The question was, how many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I've already explained to the hon. memberand I'm pleased to remind himthat this benefit is an emergency measure. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The Auditor General says that he's dropping half of his audits because the government refuses to provide him with funding. If the government has enough money to send 200,000 fraudulent applicants emergency cheques, why won't the government give the Auditor General the funding he requested? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member. It gives me the opportunity, in this emergency situation, to talk about the role of institutions, including that of the Auditor General, which we will continue to support because it helps us do things right. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Then what does the Auditor General have to do to get the money to do his audits? Does he have to file a bunch of fraudulent applications for an emergency response benefit? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, because I know the hon. member well enough, I'm sure that he isn't givingand doesn't want to givethe impression that the Auditor General wants to commit fraud to do his job properly. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I agree, and that's why he should get the money he needs to do his job. He did twice as many audits under the previous government as he is doing now, but he doesn't have the money to do the audits he needs to do to keep an eye on this government's extraordinary spending. Yes or no, will the government give the Auditor General the funding he has requested so he can get back to doing the same number of audits he did under the much more robust funding of the previous Harper government? +The Chair: The hon. Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the previous government cut funding to the Auditor General and caused the office to lay off dozens of employees. We increased the funding for the Auditor General. We recognize the important work the Auditor General needs to do, and that's why we increased the funding for the Auditor General. The party of the member opposite cut this funding. +The Chair: I appreciate the help from some of the members in keeping time. I do have my own chronograph here, so I'll take care of it from this end, but I appreciate the help. Thank you. I now give the floor to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I fully agree with the Treasury Board President that we aren't here to make jokes, but to set the record straight for Canadians. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page that 200,000people had fraudulently used emergency assistance. Is that statement accurate, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member from my region. A few minutes ago, I was reminding people in my region that, in the greater Quebec City area, about 200,000people had received this emergency benefit and that it was not for fraudulent reasons, but because they really needed it. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The question is about fraudsters, and I know that there aren't many of them in Quebec City. That said, my question is very simple. I want to know whether or not 200,000people fraudulently used emergency assistance. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I know my colleague already knows this, but we announced at the outset that strong and rigorous mechanisms would be put in place quickly to ensure that this delivery would respect the importance of integrity in government. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The integrity of the government must be upheld, and this must be done by telling the truth. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page about 200,000fraudsters. Is that correct, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To set the record straight, the Minister of National Revenue, Ms.Lebouthillier, made it very clear that there was no tolerance for fraud in this system, that all mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that integrity would be respected. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The Treasury Board President is one of the few Canadians to find that Ms.Lebouthillier was very clear yesterday. With respect to the Minister of National Revenue, I would point out that the member for RichmondArthabaska asked her a very clear question yesterday, which she was unable to answer. What does a person who has received the full CERB, $2,000, and returns to work this week have to do? Do they have to pay back the amount they aren't entitled to? Do they keep the$2,000? Do they have to wait and include it on their next year's tax return? Which of these three options should the person choose? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member for his question, which is very relevant. In fact, that person must contact Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency, depending on the system under which he or she received this benefit, and ensure that, in the circumstances that apply to him or her, the decisions and actions taken are appropriate. +Mr. Grard Deltell: It's too bad, Mr.Chair, because it's the boss who is in front of me, here in committee. It's good that the citizen calls the public servant, but the public servant's boss is the Treasury Board President. Can he give a clear indication to citizens? What should they do now with the emergency assistance they received with this month's benefit? Should they keep it in full or pay it back now? I'd like a clear answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Again, I recognize the importance of insisting on clarity. What's clear here is that each person must make decisions based on his or her own circumstances, and the responsible way to act is to interact with public servants at Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Service Canada employees must have clear instructions from their boss. The boss is here. This is the President of the Treasury Board. Could the President of the Treasury Board, in very clear terms, tell the employees answering questions from Canadians what they have to say to those currently receiving the Canada emergency response benefit, but who are actually at work? These are honest people. They are not fraudsters. They want to comply with the law. Can the President of the Treasury Board give them clear instructions? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: That is extraordinary, because my colleague focused on two key terms: honesty and hard work. In terms of the honesty of Canadians, in all cases, I am convinced that they will contact the appropriate officials. As for the hard work of those officials, they know what they have to do and they have been doing it in an exemplary way since the crisis began. +Mr. Grard Deltell: And yet those good officials, whom I frequently commend on social media for their excellent work, have no clear instructions from their boss. Mr.President, let me go back to the basic question. The National Post said that 200,000Canadians have used the emergency assistance fraudulently, to the tune of $1.6billion. Is that the case, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I am sure that the honourable member is not questioning the ability of Canada Revenue Agency officers to follow the very clear directive of ensuring that the mechanisms reflect the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Government of Canada during the exceptional circumstances we are experiencing. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Gray. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, last week British Columbia unveiled its plan to begin reopening its economy. I've been speaking with many business owners and business associations in my riding, and I'm hearing that they're not getting their orders for cleaning supplies. Some businesses have said their back orders go back to March. They do not know how they can possibly reopen if they are not meeting health cleaning standards or accessing PPE for their employees and customers. They are well aware of the issues arising from this government's reliance on Chinese manufacturing rather than building capacity here. What is the government doing to address these issues and ensure wholesale supply companies get products now so that they can distribute them to the businesses that need them? +Hon. Anita Anand (Oakville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government is rapidly and aggressively buying life-saving equipment that Canada needs from a diverse range of suppliers. We are building up domestic capacity as well as procuring internationally. Our priority is to make sure front-line health care workers have the support they need. In terms of other areas of the economy, we are working with our federal and provincial counterparts to make sure that we can do so in collaboration with them. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, an ongoing concern I've heard from small business owners is that they are ineligible for CEBA because they don't have a business account. When I brought up this point to small business minister Ng at committee, she said it was the first time that she had heard of this issue and that she would follow up. I asked this question on April 23, and it's now been almost three weeks. Small business has been let down. Can the government confirm that they're going to fix this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for her question. It is really important that this program that we've established help small businesses. We have shown in the past that we're very flexible and nimble in accommodating the needs of businesses. I assure the member opposite that we are looking into this matter and will come forward with a resolution in a timely manner. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, I just read another email from a small business owner this morning who has been let down by the government. He chose to pay off debts instead of paying himself a wage; therefore, he's ineligible for CEBA, for that loan. Owner-operators have been eliminated from participating in government programs because they did not put themselves on the payroll. This shows a true lack of understanding of small businesses and especially of owner-operators. Will the government commit to fixing this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you very much. Again, I want to thank the honourable member for her question. We have focused particularly on small businesses to make sure they have the appropriate support they need. With regard to the program that she highlighted, we have shown flexibility in the eligibility criteria by decreasing the payroll threshold for individual companies that want to apply for this loan to $20,000 versus $50,000, and the upper limit has gone to $1.5 million versus $1 million. We will continue to bring forward the changes necessary to have more businesses +Mrs. Tracy Gray: This government has left Canadian craft breweries out to dry, like the hops in their beer. On April 24, the Canadian Craft Brewers Association released a report on the effects of COVID-19 on the Canadian craft brewing industry. The report states that 38% of craft brewers did not qualify for the Canadian emergency wage subsidy in March, and 53% were either not sure or predicted that they would not qualify in April. Many a brew pub, like BNA in my riding, due to higher payrolls are also not eligible for the CEBA loan. They have been left out and let down. Five per cent of these breweries have already closed permanently, and others are on the verge of doing so. A portion have stepped up and are making PPE. Will this government take the initiative to support this industry by amending program requirements? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: When it comes to the Canada emergency wage subsidy, we have demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness. The program requirement changed in terms of revenue threshold. We originally had 30% for the month of March. We changed that to 15%. The eligibility criteria to compare to the first two months of this year now also compare to the previous year as well. We're going to continue to make changes to make sure more businesses can access this program. +The Chair: Ms. Gray, you have 33 seconds. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: In my constituency, Okanagan fruit production is a huge industry, and many apple orchardists have brought concerns to me regarding high costs, apples from last season selling below cost, the CUSMA agreement not helping the industy, and low-priced Washington apples flooding our market. COVID-19 has exacerbated their dire financial situation. The BC Fruit Growers' Association has called the government announcements of measures for agriculture underwhelming. I questioned Minister Bibeau in the House a couple of months ago, and at the time she did not have an answer. What is the plan to help our orchardists? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (ComptonStanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Since this crisis began, we have been helping entrepreneurs in all sectors. We began with measures to assist small, medium and large companies, and we are now going progressively sector by sector. Last week, we announced additional funding for agriculture +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Mr. Chair, in my riding of Foothills, we've established a Foothills business recovery task force. We surveyed hundreds of small business owners about the effectiveness of the emergency programs put forward by the government. The results of that survey were quite alarming. More than half of the respondents have not qualified for any of the programs, and the vast majority of them have said their businesses will not last more than another month. Will the government expand the eligibility for some of these programs to include sole proprietorships, or is the government still looking at refunding the GST paid by some of the businesses over the last year? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that we have issued 590,000 loans through the CEBA account. This demonstrates that this particular program is working and that businesses are taking advantage of it. We recognize that we want to be more generous and more thoughtful about these programs. We've demonstrated flexibility in the past and we will continue to be nimble going forward. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Charlebois said that we are on the precipice of losing 15% of our farms and that 30,000 farm families are at risk of bankruptcy. This will have a devastating effect on our rural economies. Does the minister know the impact that losing 30,000 family farms will have on our food security and the price of groceries on the store shelves? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the agriculture and agri-food sector is extremely important. We have clearly stated that it is an essential service. That is why we have risk management programs that are already well established. I understand that producers would like the programs to be more generous, and we are ready to do more, but they first need to use those programs. They have $1.6billion available +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, business risk management programs don't apply to every single stakeholder and the programs are not working for the producers. There is a bottleneck right now in our processing capacity. When the minister renounced the AgriRecovery program, funds were set aside for cattle and pork producers. When is that money going to be available, and how long will it last? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are talking about two different programs here. We added $77.5million to the program helping the processing sector and $50million on two occasions for our pork and beef producers under the AgriRecovery program. Once again, that is additional money. In recent years, an average of $15million have gone out of this program, whereas this year +The Chair: Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it is not new money; it has been budgeted year after year and it's budgeted again for next year. The cattlemen said that the set-aside funds that the minister is talking about are already gone and did not last even two weeks. If this government isn't assisting Canadian farmers, is the government's food policy to rely on food imported from foreign countries to feed Canadian families ? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the fund to assist our beef producers cannot have already disappeared because the criteria will be unveiled in the coming days. I can assure you that we are working as efficiently as possible so that the program can be rolled out and the money can be channelled to our beef and pork producers. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, producers across this country have said that an exemption from the carbon tax would help them greatly during this pandemic. When I asked the minister about any data that was available for the impact the carbon tax had on agriculture, the answer I got was that this information was secret. Yesterday at committee, the minister said that this was a mistake and that this information has been public. My staff and I looked everywhere last night, as did journalists, and that information could not be found. Is that information actually available? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, that information is available and public. I will happily pass the information on to my colleague. +Mr. John Barlow: If that data is available, then the minister must know the financial impacts that the carbon tax has on Canadian farmers. With the information that the minister apparently has, does she agree with the Prime Minister that Canadian farmers are much better off financially by paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Each organization analyzes different assumptions, methodologies and geographic areas, so the results give a broad range of estimated impacts. According to the organization that has provided information, in 2019, the estimated impacts of a $20-per-tonne price on pollution due to grain drying ranged +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. You have 30 seconds, please. +Mr. John Barlow: Does the minister agree with the Prime Minister that farmers are financially better off paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the price on pollution is an extremely important measure for our economy in general and for our transition to a greener economy. We have already provided various exemptions to the agriculture sector: for gasoline, for the access card and for the greenhouse sector. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): Will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The answer is that we have done that in 2018 and 2019, and the Prime Minister +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I hope the minister would not want to mislead the House. The office is certainly not fully funded, as per the testimony we heard yesterday at the finance committee. This government has expanded the Auditor General's responsibilities without adequate resources. When will the government fully fund the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To continue my answer, and as the Prime Minister said just a moment ago, that has led to the hiring of 38 new staff members. That's great to hear, because they are doing even better than they used to before we came into power. +Mr. Pat Kelly: No previous auditor general in Canadian history has ever had to tell a parliamentary committee that they had insufficient funds to do their job. That is what in fact this Auditor General has done. When will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'm glad again to be given the ability to say how important the work of the Auditor General is. We believe very much in that role. That's why we increased the funding that is necessary for that office to do its important job. We will keep working hard with the Auditor General. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Sadly, Michael Ferguson passed away in 2019, yet the government has refused to name a permanent replacement. Why? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is another wonderful opportunity to remind all members of this House of the importance of these institutions. When we face these tragic deaths, we of course are very sad of the passing of the people, and we work +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that Canada's debt could reach $1 trillion this year. What will it cost to service a $1-trillion debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, we remain committed to doing, as we've said, whatever it takes to support Canadians through this challenging time. We think this is extremely important, and we will continue to focus on the well-being of all Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What is the estimated annual debt servicing cost of the aid measures announced so far? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, there will be an opportunity for us to give a full outline of the costs and benefits of our measures, and we will do that when we have the ability to have +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: is Canada's AAA credit rating. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Speaker, Canada came into this crisis with a very strong fiscal position, and of course we will experience challenges as we move forward, but we believe that we should experience those challenges as we support Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What would the effect of a downgrade be on Canada's debt servicing costs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to focus on how we can support Canadians and Canadian businesses as we get through this challenge. +Mr. Pat Kelly: How many private sector bank loans have been funded for small and medium-sized businesses under the business credit availability program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the information on the business credit availability program becomes available, we are being fully transparent with the finance committee and with this House. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know how many loans have been funded under that program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'm not in the habit of memorizing every single number available to us, but what I can confirm is that we will be transparent with this House on the numbers as they become available. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know the dollar amount or the approximate dollar amount so far lent and guaranteed by Export Development Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, one number that would probably be helpful for people to understand is that we've now had over 550,000 approved loans under the CEBA program, representing over 20 billion dollars' worth of money that's actually +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix the CEBA program to include businesses that pay owner-operators through dividends? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the language fix is incorrect, for more than 500,000 businesses have received this loan. Of course, we are always endeavouring to make sure it works for as many businesses as possible. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover small businesses that hire day labourers or subcontractors? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to this program. We changed the eligibility criteria to make sure that more businesses can apply and be eligible for this program. We will endeavour to make sure that more Canadians have access to this program, particularly small businesses in rural and remote communities. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover business owners who use personal instead of business chequing accounts to operate their business? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that this has been a very positive program and well received by many small businesses. Over 590,000 small business loans have been issued, and that's a testament to the design of the program. We're going to make sure we continue to engage with small businesses. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week, on Friday, Statistics Canada was to release labour force survey data at 8:30 a.m. eastern time, one of the most important and market-moving indicators of the month, but someone in the government leaked that information ahead of time, almost 45 minutes ahead of time, and exclusively to Bloomberg terminal users on Wall Street and on Bay Street, who pay thousands of dollars a month for those terminals. Moving markets, the Canadian dollar moved eight basis points in that short period of time and billions were made or lost on the market. Section 34 of the Statistics Act makes it a criminal offence for someone to leak information that might influence stock, bond or currency markets. Has the government notified the RCMP about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I, too, share the same concerns that he's highlighted with regard to this leak. This is completely unacceptable. That is why we're going to make sure that a proper and thorough examination is done, and going forward we want to make sure that no such breach or leak occurs. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, Statistics Canada said that staffers and ministers' offices, including the Prime Minister's office, the finance minister's office, the employment minister's office and the industry minister's office, would have received this secret information no earlier than 2 p.m. the previous day. Statistics Canada has also indicated that it has begun an internal investigation. Will the minister commit to fully co-operating with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to remind the honourable colleague that our government has supported Statistics Canada. We're the ones who reintroduced the mandatory long-form census. We're the ones who funded more money for Statistics Canada. The member opposite knows that we'll be fully co-operative in any such investigation into any leak. +Hon. Michael Chong: Will the minister commit to making the results of this investigation public? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows full well that there are proper processes and protocols in place when it comes to such sensitive matters, and we will ensure that those processes and protocols +The Chair: Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope there is no double standard for ministers' offices and the public service, because it was only about 13 years ago that a public servant was criminally charged and convicted for using top secret information in the markets. I hope that in this investigation, and in the release of the information concerning this investigation, ministers' staffers aren't held to a different standard than the public service has been held to. This leak speaks to the integrity of the government. Intelligence at the Five Eyes.... Our four allies have been telling us for years that one of the top two or three threats that democracies are facing is declining public confidence in our key institutions. Democracies have been blindsided by misinformation, disinformation and cyber-attacks, and now we are being blindsided by the misuse of information by this very government. That doesn't even.... The government's own national statistics-gathering agency doesn't trust this cabinet or this government, and that's why they announced several days ago that they would suspend the pre-release of information to the cabinet. What is the government going to do to restore public confidence in our institutions? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, our government has remained steadfast in its support for Statistics Canada. I'd like to remind my honourable colleague that we are the government that brought forward legislation to strengthen the independence of Statistics Canada. We're the government that brought forward measures to make sure they have additional monies for conducting the proper mandatory long-form census as well. When it comes to the leak that the member opposite is talking about, we're not going to prejudge the outcome. We have been very clear that the proper processes and protocols that are in place will be followed. +The Chair: You have time for a very brief question, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope the government will call the RCMP and notify them about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act, because it was a previous Liberal minister who himself was subject to a lot of misinformation and was a target of improper allegations about his office's use of information that leaked about the income trust changes that the previous Liberal government had brought in. The RCMP began an investigation and, in the course of the investigation, they charged a public servant who was ultimately convicted of breaching that secret information. I hope the minister holds his office and the offices of his cabinet colleagues to the same standard, calls in the RCMP and makes them aware of what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act. +The Chair: The honourable minister, in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'm sorry. How much time do I have, Mr. Chair? +The Chair: We're over the time, but I'm allowing 30 seconds so we can get a full +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I appreciate that very much. Again, I want to take this opportunity to say that leaks of this nature are completely unacceptable. We've been very clear that we are going to take the appropriate steps. Statistics Canada is taking the appropriate steps. I want to remind the member opposite that we're not going to prejudge any outcome at this stage. Again, it is our government that has been consistently supporting Statistics Canada in its work through the previous years. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll take a short break to allow our console operators to switch in a healthy way. While we're doing that, I'm going to mention something. It happens at the end of a question. When there's less than a minute left and the question goes over half the time left over, I'll just indicate to the person asking the question that we've reached the limit so that the other side can answer with the same amount of time and we have a fair playing field. We're ready to go again. The Honourable Member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We are making progress, but unfortunately, I'd like to hear it in French as well. I will address my question to the Prime Minister. First, let me remind you that, on March12, the government announced a first series of measures of about $1billion to adapt to what was at the time the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, including $500million in transfers to the provinces, with about $100million going to Quebec. Since that time, the commitments from the government have reached very probably around $300billion, making those first $500 million pale by comparison. Of course, the crisis became longer and it is not over yet. In that context, and given what I heard the Prime Minister say a little earlier about respecting the areas of jurisdiction of the provinces, and of Quebec, can we expect a speedy increase in health transfers to Quebec and the provinces, an increase that would be permanent, and, of course, without conditions? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We've increased health transfers to provinces and territories significantly since we first came into government in 2015. We continue to work with provinces and territories on a regular basis to make sure they're supported not just in the outbreak of this pandemic, but in the increased cost overall to health care across the country. Our investments have included investments for mental health, for home care and for the additional expenses that provinces and territories face as a result of an aging population. We'll continue to work with provinces and territories to ensure those health care needs are met. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: With all respect, Mr.Chair, that is a little disappointing. While the leader of the NDP wants the federal government to interfere massively in provincial jurisdiction over health, the Prime Minister replies in English. That is perfectly legitimate in this Parliament, but his reply in English is, no, the government absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction. That made me happy for a brief moment, and I am asking the Prime Minister, without wanting to interrupt his precious reading, to please repeat in French was he said just now in English, that he absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction over health, which is exclusive. So could you please provide that music to my ears? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, just as I respect the member opposite's right to speak in his first language, I hope that he understands that I am trying to learn our second official language in a high-pressure situation, and it often creates anxiety. I will tell him, though, that we fully respect the jurisdiction of provinces and territories to address the needs of their constituents and their members, and we work very closely with Quebec and with all provinces and territories to make sure that the funds we transfer from the federal government can be utilized in a way that best meets the needs of their constituents. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let's not get into that. It says to me that French is the second official language. Well, it's my first official language and it's the first one in Quebec. I would like to have heard that in French. I would like to have heard it from the Prime Minister, because it's a constitutional issue. Basically, you could say that it's our heritage. So that is what I would like to have heard. Let me proceed with a short and simple question: is health in the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces in the current crisis management situation? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, I would like to tell my colleague that we have no first or second official language. We have two official languages. They have the same value and the same importance. They deserve the same respect in the House and in the institutions of the government. We are always happy to collaborate with the provinces and to respect their jurisdictions. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Hearing that we have no first or second official language is better already. Between friends, let's say that they are equal. Let us take it one step further: is health in the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we live in a federation where we work closely together with provinces and territories so that we can reach our mutually important goals, one of which is that all citizens of Canada, all members of Canada, have access to a public health care system that meets their needs. We continue to work within the constitutional framework +The Chair: Excuse me, but I have to interrupt you. Mr.Blanchet, you have 21seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: The answer could be even shorter than the question. Is health in provincial jurisdiction? Will there be an increase in the health transfers and will they come without conditions? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am sure the member would argue that it is important to work together. The federal government transfers money to the provinces, as he is well aware, to deliver health care, which is within each province's and territory's jurisdiction. +The Chair: We now move to Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As the member for Manicouagan, I would like to address the House today on a matter that is very important in my constituency. At 350,000square kilometres, it borders the Gulf of St.Lawrence. Regionally, I am also in eastern Quebec, which includes the Gasp, the Magdalen Islands, and the Lower St.Lawrence. These are regions whose economy rests basically on two very important seasonal industries: tourism and fishing. Make no mistake, it is not the workers who are seasonal, it is the industry itself, as our former leader Gilles Duceppe so rightly used to say. Those industries are very important for that region of Quebec, but I see no measures to support them that accommodate all their uniqueness. These are cyclical industries, meaning that they operate at a very specific period during the year. A few minutes ago, I heard the Prime Minister say that he had intervened to help the companies and the workers in those seasonal industries. I would like to know what the specific assistance is and how it is tailored to the companies and the workers in the seasonal industries he mentions. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. We know that the current situation is causing upheaval in the lives of Canadians from one end of the country to the other and that it is having a major impact on our small and medium businesses. Since this crisis began, we have not hesitated to implement strong and speedy measures to support more Canadians. That is what we will continue to do. We know that the tourism sector is key to a number of communities in the country. We must help them to get through this crisis as best we can. We are continuing to have discussions and to tailor our measures so that as many Canadians as possible can take advantage of them. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, with all respect, I am hearing that nothing has been done. Measures have been proposed, but, as I understand it, they are not specific to the seasonal sectors. Let us take the seasonal fishing industry. The fishers are currently going out, but right in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. One fishing season has been pushed back. The same thing applies to tourism. The season will be pushed back, and it is possible that there may even not be one. The people and the companies in this sector have no second chances. They cannot start again in the fall. It's a bit like agriculture. They can't start a fishing season or a tourist season in the fall. So they need assistance. We have some proposals. For example, would the government be prepared to let the Canada emergency response benefit provide workers with eligibility to employment insurance benefits? They could then get through the coming year and make it to next season. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I want to thank the member for speaking about the situation in all regions of Canada, particularly in Quebec. From the start, we've been implementing significant measures to support the millions of workers who are currently struggling. We've taken significant measures with respect to tourism, agriculture and regional development. We're providing broader investments, such as the wage subsidy and emergency loans for small businesses, of which there are many in my colleague's constituency. We'll continue to work very hard so that the workers and businesses in her constituency can get through this crisis and emerge stronger and more united. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, that's strike two. This is the second time that I've asked a question about targeted assistance for the seasonal industry. My honourable colleague's response doesn't make me feel any better. The workers in the industry also don't feel any better when they see that, at the end of the summer, they'll have no job and no money to put food on the table. Will these workers receive assistance adapted to their needs? It's the same thing for businesses. We're currently talking about the businesses in my constituency, but there are also businesses in the East. Quebec and Canada as a whole, both in terms of fishing and tourism +The Chair: The honourable President of the Treasury Board has the floor. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr.Chair. My colleague probably knows the information that I'll be giving. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit is available to all individuals who haven't been receiving employment insurance benefits since December2019. A number of stakeholders in Canada and Quebec called for this, particularly in the places +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister announced the business bailout, and in that proposal, he said that there would be limits on CEO bonuses and share buybacks. By saying limits, the Prime Minister is suggesting that there would be some amount of bonuses or share buybacks that could be paid for with public dollars. If that's the case, how much? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we believe that it's very important that we support jobs. In that regard, we're trying to make sure that businesses can get through this time. As we provide that support, we've been very clear for large enterprises that share buybacks will not be allowed, period, and that there will, of course, be limitations on total compensation for senior executives in order to give Canadians confidence that we're doing the things we need to do to support them, but that we're not supporting executives. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Germany has actually taken the lead and said that if a company wants public money, then its executives must commit to reducing their pay. Will Canada follow Germany to ensure that public dollars go to workers and not to enrich the executive suite, and commit that no public money will go to bonuses or increasing salaries for executives? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are looking forward to releasing the complete details of the large employer emergency financing facility, and I think the member opposite will be quite pleased to see that we will be leading on behalf of Canada in advance of what Germany is doing. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, we know the PBO has said that $25 billion, at least, is being lost to our revenues because corporations are avoiding paying their fair share. Will the Prime Minister commit today very clearly that if a company is hiding its money by putting it in an offshore tax haven, that company will not receive public help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again with regard to this program, we want to be very clear that the support that goes to large businesses actually supports their Canadian enterprises and their Canadian employees. In that regard, we will not allow any company that has been convicted of tax evasion to have access to these funds, and we will carefully evaluate on an ongoing basis to make sure that companies remain eligible for this support based on their continuing investment in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, how many companies can the Minister of Finance name that have been convicted of tax evasion that would be denied help under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what's most important is that we focus on Canadians. We're trying to support Canadians, whether they're working for small or large businesses, so they can get through this, can support their families during this time, and come out with a job at the end of it. That is exactly where our focus lies in this regard. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, not a single company. We are four years past the Panama papers and there hasn't been a single conviction. Those are simply fancy Liberal words saying that a company that has been convicted of tax evasion.... There are simply no companies that this government can give as an example. Why don't we follow what France has done and commit very clearly, not in Liberal fancy words but straight up, if a company is hiding its money by using offshore tax havens, it will not get public help. Will the minister commit to that right now? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we've been working with France and other countries to make these rules stricter for businesses. The process around the common reporting standard and the base erosion profit shifting has made it more difficult for firms to move money into tax havens, and it has ensured that we have transparency in seeing when they do so. We'll continue to do that hard work to make sure that businesses abide by the rules and pay their appropriate part of taxes in our country. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about hard work. If a company is not convicted of tax evasion, but is putting its money in Barbados or Bermuda, for example, specifically to avoid paying taxesand we have a similar example of Loblaws doing something like thiswill that company, despite not having a conviction, but clearly having avoided paying their fair share by putting their money in an offshore tax haven, receive help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd suggest that the member be very careful in accusing companies of wrongdoing. We have a country that respects international rules. We allow our companies to trade and do business around the world. That continues to be important, and that supports Canadian jobs. At the same time, we're trying to make sure those international rules work and get tighter. That's what we've been working on. We'll continue to do that because we know it's important that we can work internationally. It's important that companies pay their fair share here in Canada. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Liberals hand-picked ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, stated that China's conduct during the pandemic is damaging to its own soft power. However, when asked if there should be an investigation into China's behaviour during the crisis, the health minister stated that's not for her to say because she doesn't have all the evidence about what China did or didn't do. Why is Canada's ambassador to China criticizing China's actions during the pandemic while this Liberal government is defending it? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (UniversityRosedale, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Ambassador Barton is an excellent representative of Canada in China, and he is a member of our government and very much shares and helps to formulate our government's policy when it comes to China. Ambassador Barton, of course, shares our government's view that a post-crisis review is absolutely necessary. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the government's March 27 duty deferral announcement has caused tension within the trade community. Customs brokers are being asked to shoulder tremendous liability as importers are not required to make duty payments until the end of June, when there is a real possibility that some of them may find themselves insolvent. Will the government commit to a liability exemption for customs brokers whose clients are unable to pay the duties at the end of June? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we have worked hard to determine programs that we think can be supportive of individuals and businesses, including allowing for deferral of taxes through this period. That we believe is important with respect to the GST, which we've allowed to be deferred until July 1, and in terms of taxes for businesses, until the end of August. We think this helps businesses to get through this challenging time, and we'll continue to support businesses and individuals so we can have a strong economy when we get through this crisis. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the following three questions are from constituents in my riding, so hopefully, I'll get some good answers for them. The first one I'll talk about is Rick. He owns a small business, a local bowling alley, in Melfort. It's a family-owned operation, so he doesn't meet the payroll threshold for the wage subsidy benefit, nor does he qualify for any other announced loans or grants. There are businesses right across Canada that are in similar situations. Is the minister suggesting that they lie to get the funds, or will they make some changes so they qualify? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I want to highlight some of the initiatives we have put forward to assist small businesses. The Canada emergency wage subsidy covers 75% of the wages of employees, and that way they can maintain their jobs. We've also put forward the enhanced work-sharing program. It's an option for businesses to pay their employees. On top of that, I want to highlight the Canada emergency business account, which has issued 590,000 loans. As the Minister of Finance recently mentioned, we've deferred GST and HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, Robert owns a cleaning products company in Prince Albert. He tells me that Canadian custodians and building service contractors are not purchasing Canadian-made disinfectants because very few are included in the federal approval list for COVID-19, even though Canada produces many products that Health Canada has certified as disinfectants. Why is the Liberal government not prioritizing the approval of Canadian-made products? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, that assertion is not correct. In fact, we have been working very closely with producers of Canadian products as well as with our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development to make sure that Canadian companies have what they need to very quickly move through the approval process. Health Canada has accelerated this process, and most companies can get approved in one to seven days. Of course, there is an iterative process that requires companies to ensure that a product is safe for use in Canada. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the government announced $252 million in assistance for Canadian farmers, which was largely seen as an insult, especially given that a good amount of this money was already budgeted. A constituent of mine, Tracy, from Melfort, wrote to me asking me to advocate for farmers and ranchers so they can get the support they need to continue to produce our food. When will the government start to prioritize farmers and ranchers? Will they continue to reform the business risk management program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Absolutely, Mr.Chair. We're working very hard with our provincial colleagues to improve the risk management programs. We did announce programs last week, and some of these new programs are designed specifically for the meat sector. A total of $77.5million is earmarked for processors and $50million for beef producers. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Mr. Chair, provinces are reopening at different speeds, and that includes opening their provincial parks before the May long weekend. It no longer makes sense for fully staffed national parks across the country to be uniformly closed. Will the Minister of Environment commit to opening national parks in harmony with provincial and territorial parks across Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are working very closely with our provincial partners on the reopening. I am pleased that we were able to publish, on Tuesday, April 28, shared guidelines on the reopening, which were supported by the Prime Minister and all of the premiers of the provinces and territories +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, boating is a safe way to enjoy the outdoors while maintaining physical distancing. Why is Parks Canada postponing the opening of lock operations and similar functions along our heritage waterways? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I was saying in my answer to the first question, the question of coordinating national and provincial parks is a very good one. That is something we are definitely working on. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, since the beginning of this pandemic, the minority Liberal government has been actively trying to push our democracy aside. It severely limited parliamentary sittings, attempted to take executive control of tax rates and used an order in council to ban lawfully acquired and responsibly owned firearms. When will the government stop using this pandemic as an excuse to run roughshod over our cherished democratic values? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't understand this question at all, since we're meeting here to ask questions for twohours and 15minutes. That's the equivalent of three question periods. Yesterday, there was the equivalent of two question periods, and tomorrow there will be the equivalent of two more question periods. We're talking about seven question periods. That's more than normal. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the inconsistency in support for various sectors in our economy is baffling. There is more money made available to forcibly confiscate lawfully owned property than in emergency support for our hard-working farmers or our prosperity-creating oil and gas sector. The only consistent theme appears to be that sectors that do not traditionally vote Liberal are finding themselves left out in the cold. If that is not the case, why is there such an obvious discrepancy? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, those comments are completely unjustified. We're fully committed to our sectors, including the energy sector and the agriculture and agrifood sector. This is particularly important. These sectors are critical. That's why we're working to improve our risk management programs. We want to ensure that the criteria are broader and that more producers can benefit from these programs. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, during the misinformation briefing, the public safety minister used Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom as examples for firearms policy. Does the public safety minister realize that these countries are islands and none share a border with anyone, least of which with the United States of America? Is my bringing this new-found evidence to the minister's attention going to change his focus to smugglers, gangs and criminals, instead of wrongfully blaming lawful gun owners? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would like to assure the member that I have actually seen an atlas. I want to be very clear that those countries have recognized, like Canada has, that these weapons have no place in a civil society. They were designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. They were not designed for hunting and sporting purposes, which are the lawful uses of a firearm in Canada, but rather for individuals to kill other individuals. Tragically, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, that is precisely what they have been used for, and we have prohibited +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the nine o'clock gun is an iconic 12-pound cannon that has been fired daily in Vancouver in Stanley Park since the 1800s. It's now a prohibited firearm as of May 1, 2020. Can the minister advise the public of the safety risks that this cannon, which was manufactured in 1816, poses to the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is referring to the prohibition of grenade launchers. There are about 34 in Canada and we have brought in regulations that now prohibit grenade launchers. It does not apply to some of the other things that have been suggested by the member opposite. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, I was referring to the iconic, heritage 12-pound cannon that is mounted on a pedestal in Stanley Park. It was manufactured in 1816. Any cannon that can be fired can be loaded with a projectile, so it meets the definition of a firearm, which means that every cannon in Canada, every heritage piece that might be in a museum, every heritage piece that might be in a collection, is now a prohibited firearm. Was the minister not aware of this when he announced this policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, just to help the member opposite, let us be very clear. We have prohibited weapons that were unfortunately widely available in Canada and were being used for purposes other than sporting activities, which is the only use of a firearm in Canada, for either hunting or target shooting sporting activities. Rather, they were being used to harm individual Canadians and, in some tragic cases, many individual Canadians. We've done the right thing, Mr. Chair, and we +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Nater next. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, agricultural societies across rural Ontario are making the difficult decision to cancel their fall fairs this year. Some of these fall fairs have been around since before Confederation. Not only is this a terrible loss for these communities of important community events, but it's also putting a significant financial strain on these agricultural societies. What action is the government taking to support agricultural societies in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, what we've done is we've put forward monies to support our regional development agencies. These agencies have the mandate and the ability to support local initiatives, including the events the member has highlighted. This is more than doubling the budget that currently exists, so that we have sufficient resources to support communities and these very important local events. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, the arts and culture industry has a massive impact on local economies. In my riding alone we have the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music. The postponement and cancellation of the seasons of these important cultural institutions is having a massive impact on the hospitality industry, including local restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfasts. Many of these businesses are small businesses and owner-operated businesses that are falling through the cracks in the government's programs that have been introduced. How will the government address the blind spot in their programs for small businesses in communities like this, which rely on the tourism and the arts and culture industries? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, clearly, we understand how important these organizations are to these communities. That is why we allocated $500 million to respond to the specific financial needs of arts, heritage and sports organizations, to help them be more resilient through this difficult time. Last week we rolled out the funding of this announcement, and we look forward to engaging with communities across the country. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, 1.8 million jobs are attributed to the tourism industry in Canada. Among these, 740,000 are related to international travelling. No one wants to see the borders reopen until it's safe to do so, but can the government provide clarity on what criteria will be used to provide some information to these tourism operators of how, when and under what criteria international borders will be reopened? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member opposite for his view that we need to be cautious and prudent and put the health and safety of Canadians first. That is very much the view of our government as well. When it comes to international borders, the health and safety of Canadians is absolutely the first criterion we are going to look at. Of course, we will be looking at the situation with coronavirus +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, many Canadians continue to fall through the cracks of programs announced by this government. One of my constituents only recently returned to the workforce after spending many years out of the workforce raising her children. As such, she doesn't qualify under the $5,000 minimum requirement for income over the past 12 months. How will the government address these people who are falling through the cracks? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, we are mindful of the very difficult circumstances in which many Canadians who have a foot in two places find themselves. We have a number of different measures to help them and we're going to continue to do so. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, it has been reported that as many as 15% of farmers and farm families in Canada could face going out of business and bankruptcy because of the massive impact that COVID-19 is having on agriculture in Canada. Business risk management programs are not working for these farm families, and the processing capacity is simply not there for farmers and for farm families, especially in the beef and pork industries. How will the government immediately address the short-term processing capacity issues found in the beef and pork sectors? When will they finally live up to the commitment of a complete review of the business risk management programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I've been holding discussions with my provincial counterparts to review the risk management programs. With respect to the AgriStability program, we've offered producers some accommodations and pushed back the enrolment date to July3. We've also increased, from 50% to 75%, the advance payment that they can obtain quickly, in provinces where this is possible. We've also posted a calculator online. So before they say that the program isn't working, I encourage them to use this calculator to find out how much they can receive. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, this government continues to show a blind spot for small businesses in Canada. Many don't qualify for the CEBA because they don't have a high enough payroll or because they don't have a business account. So many small businesses are falling through the cracks. Will the government expand the criteria so that small businesses in my community and across Canada can qualify for the important assistance they need at this time? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I would like to remind my honourable colleague that we did expand the eligibility criteria threshold from $50,000 down to $20,000 so that more businesses could be eligible, and on the top end, for salaries, from $1 million to $1.5 million. That is why we have seen 590,000 small business loans issued. That's a testament to the program. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, hog and beef producers have seen drastic price drops. Producers are telling me that they would use the western livestock price insurance program if the premiums were affordable, which they are not. Will the Minister of Agriculture work with the industry to make the premiums affordable so that producers can have price protection against these market fluctuations? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr. Chair, we're working closely with the industry and my provincial counterparts to identify the best programs to help producers in this difficult time. Last week, we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Chez Angela Bakery in Brandon has seen tremendous success since it opened two years ago. Due to this growth and the eligibility criteria for the wage subsidy program, their revenues would have to decline much further than 30% in order for them to receive help. Will the Minister of Finance amend the eligibility for the wage subsidy program so that Chez Angela and similar businesses can apply? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): The honourable Minister of Industry. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I want to highlight the fact that we did make an amendment. When we originally proposed this initiative, the threshold was 30% for the month of March. Now businesses will only need to show a 15% decline in revenue, and businesses will have the option of using January and February as a reference period to show revenue losses, or of using the same time last year. This reflects, again, our ability to understand the needs of businesses, to act quickly and to make sure that they benefit from this very important initiative. +Mr. Larry Maguire: They still don't qualify, Mr. Chair. The Blarney Stone restaurant in Killarney has repeatedly asked the Minister of Finance if they could refinance their loans through the Canada small business financing program. Will the Minister of Finance give small business owners the ability to refinance their existing loans through the program, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again, we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to these financing options. I'd also like to highlight another very important initiative that was mentioned earlier, the deferring of GST/HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. This will help 3.2 million business owners and entrepreneurs across the country. Again, it's another initiative to put more money in the pockets of businesses as they deal with this unprecedented health care crisis. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, the Liberals still haven't fixed the payroll eligibility problems for many small business owners who need to access the zero-interest loans available in CEBA. Can the minister provide any rationale for why countless small businesses are not being allowed to access these loans? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, as of today, 590,000 small business loans have been issued. I think that's contrary to the point the member opposite is making. Clearly we recognize that we need to be agile and that we need to understand the needs of businesses. That's why we made changes to this particular program. We'll continue to listen to businesses. I can assure the member opposite that 590,000 small business loans is no small feat. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Canada has some of the best competitive sport shooters in the world. The Liberals' order in council on firearms will put an end to many Canadians being able to represent our country. Can the Minister of Public Safety list even one of these sport shooting competitions, which will now be illegal due to his order in council? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Public Safety. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it's an important question because sport shooting is a very important tradition for many Canadian sport shooters. I want to assure the member opposite that the weapons we have prohibited by this order in council were not designed for sport shooting and are not used in the Olympics or Paralympic Games. They are not included in this and therefore have no impact on that activity of legitimate sport shooting. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one more short question, Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, statistics show that women are more likely to live paycheque to paycheque, so women continue to be disproportionately impacted by this pandemic in a negative way. Many are worried they won't have a job to go back to. Will the government commit to helping women who are bearing this financial burden return to the workforce? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is a very good question. I would love to have a lot of time to answer it. The answer is yes, of course. We are making sure that many of our measures do not disproportionately impact women, because when women succeed, all Canadians succeed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now continue with Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. It's a privilege to be here in the House today to represent the people of Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, but also to serve as the BlocQubcois tourism critic. Tourism in Quebec is a significant economic engine and wealth creator. This industry is vital to the regions of Quebec, as I'll demonstrate. The tourism industry in Quebec generates over $15billion in economic spinoffs and employs more than 400,000workers. In Quebec, one in tenjobs is connected to the tourism industry. Every dollar spent on tourism generates about 70cents in the Quebec economy. The tourism industry consists of over 30,000businesses, and two-thirds of these businesses are outside the major centres in the Quebec City and Montreal regions. In the tourism industry, 82% of businesses have fewer than 20employees. This shows once again the need to support this industry. I heard my honourable colleague on the other side of the House say that a plan was in place for the tourism industry. I want to hear what he has to say about this plan. To date, what specific measures has the government taken to support the tourism industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I want to thank my colleague for his question. He's right. The situation is very difficult for all regions of our country and for Quebec. That's why we've invested in regional development. These investments will improve the situation in the tourism sector. These investments will provide assistance for festivals, programs and other initiatives. We'll continue to work with my colleague and the other members to find solutions that will improve the situation. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, I'm not sure that I fully understood the plan. However, I can say that the people in the tourism industry don't understand the plan, because they're still waiting for it. One issue in the tourism industry involves fixed costs. Initially, we asked that part of the wage subsidy be set aside to cover fixed costs. The government implemented the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. The assistance covers 75% of commercial rental payments under $50,000, and property owners pay the remaining 25%. To date, how many applications have been submitted under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The wage subsidy is very significant. However, we know that there are other fixed costs. That's why we've taken other measures, such as the measures related to credit and rent. We've combined several measures that will help companies bridge the gap until the end of the crisis. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We expect to hear a figure and not necessarily words. We could see that the program was ineffective, particularly for seasonal businesses, including businesses in the tourism industry. Businesses need to have suspended operations or to show a decline of at least 70% in operations since the start of the public health crisis. How can a tourism business that hasn't yet launched operations show a decline of 70%? It doesn't make sense. A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that only one in ten businesses can benefit from this assistance. Yet these businesses need the assistance. Does the government believe that commercial rent assistance is effective even though only one in ten businesses can benefit from it? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I know that the situation is very difficult. That's why we've introduced another option. Through the community futures development corporations and business development centres, we're providing $71million to businesses and organizations in rural communities by giving them much-needed access to capital. This investment will help many businesses in Quebec, particularly in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, you have one minute left. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, in my humble opinion, one out of ten businesses amounts to 10%. This figure isn't very high and is far from a passing grade. What does the government plan to do? Does it plan to implement an expanded program to support businesses in the tourism and seasonal industries to ensure that fixed costs are more fully covered? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we have a strategy. We've invested in regional development and in small and medium-sized businesses. We've helped the workers and we'll continue to work with the provincial governments to find solutions. We must work together, particularly in the tourism sector, because the situation in the sector is very serious. I'm sure that we can find solutions to help improve the situation for people in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now continue with Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands. Mr. Chair, last week was Mental Health Week. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great deal of stress and uncertainty for all Canadians and that during this uncertain time, it is normal for many people to feel increased anxiety, depression and mental health issues. In fact, a poll by the Canadian Mental Health Association's Ontario branch showed that 61% of respondents were worried about the mental health of a loved one and more than half of the respondents were worried about their own mental health. In the Standing Committee on Health, we've also heard from many witnesses that our front-line heroes, working around the clock to protect us from the virus and to help others recover, are at great risk of physical and mental burnout. This shows how seriously Canadians need supports for their mental health and well-being during this most trying time. Can the Minister of Health tell my constituents what the government is doing to support Canadians during this uncertain time? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I thank the member for NewmarketAurora for that very insightful question. In fact, we've been very worried about Canadians' mental health as resulting from the pandemic, but even prior to that we knew that we needed to create rapidly more tools for Canadians across the country, no matter where they lived. We've worked very closely with our provincial and territorial partners, for example, to amplify the work that they're doing through increased supports, financial supports. We also launched Wellness Together Canada, which is a digital portal, where all Canadians can get access to tools they can use to help with the circumstances they find themselves in and to get the information they need during COVID-19. It also allows Canadians to connect to paid professionals who can provide support in a variety of different ways, whether it's over the telephone, through email or by text, understanding that Canadians have different ways of connecting that work for them. We've also partnered with a number of organizations that provide supports to Canadians, many of the crisis hotlines, for example, that are working double-time or triple-time to try to keep up with the volume of demand. This is a difficult time for all Canadians and we will continue to work to ensure Canadians have the supports they need. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Gerretsen, from Kingston and the Islands. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, students from across the country have been significantly impacted by the effects of COVID-19. As we know, thousands of post-secondary students depend on employment throughout the summer in order to pay for expenses throughout their academic year. Unfortunately the pandemic has resulted in the closure of many businesses and organizations that would normally employ students who work during the summer. Thousands of students are now left without the financial means they were depending on to pay for their post-secondary educational expenses. In response to the concerns raised by students, the government announced the creation of the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide students with the assistance they need to make it through these uncertain financial times. I represent a riding that has multiple post-secondary institutions, and my constituents have been asking when they should expect to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. Can the President of the Treasury Board please give us an update on the status of the Canada emergency student benefit, and in particular, when students will be able to start accessing this benefit, and also confirm if and how it may be retroactive? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, I would first like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his strong advocacy in favour of young Canadians in his riding and across Canada. Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that young Canadians have the support that they need during this very difficult time. That's why we are investing $9 billion to support students and recent graduates affected by COVID-19. The measures include doubling the Canada student grants, raising the cap on student loans, creating new employment opportunities for students and launching the Canada emergency student benefit. I'm pleased to share with the House that the application period for the Canada emergency student benefit will commence on May 15. That is this Friday. This benefit will provide $1,250 a month to eligible students or $2,000 for students who have disabilities or dependants. Mr. Chair, when Canada emerges from this pandemic, we want to make sure that students are in a financial position to continue their studies so that they can pursue fruitful careers and help build a strong Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll wait a few seconds before moving on to the next five-minute period to allow the console operator to switch with someone else. We'll next go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Victims of human trafficking continue to suffer during this crisis. Many are facing worse conditions and additional barriers to escaping human trafficking than before the pandemic. The government has been completely silent on this issue, and now funding to fight human trafficking is being taken away from front-line organizations. Why would the government choose to do this at this vulnerable time? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, human trafficking is, as we all know, one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Our government is working to eliminate all instances of it. To combat human trafficking, we've launched a comprehensive national strategy that brings together federal efforts under one strategic framework. We have backed that new move with $75 million in additional investments, and the new strategy now strengthens Canada's ability to fight this abhorrent attack on human rights and human dignity. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, this simply isn't good enough. The government is letting down our most vulnerable Canadians. We know that human trafficking hasn't stopped during this pandemic, and these front-line organizations have received the message that supporting them in fighting these heinous crimes is not a priority. What is the minister going to do to rectify this situation? +Hon. Bill Blair: As I said, we have developed a national strategy to combat human trafficking. We've made $75 million in additional investments, and this new strategy takes a whole-of-government approach. It empowers victims and survivors to regain their self-confidence and control over their lives, and it will prevent more of these crimes from taking place. It provides better protection and support for those most vulnerable to human trafficking, and it will ensure that police and prosecutors have the resources to prosecute these traffickers for their heinous crimes. Mr. Chair, we'll continue to work collaboratively with victims groups and to provide the supports that are required. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, more vulnerable Canadians continue to be let down. There are effective medications that have been developed for those living with cystic fibrosis, yet this medication is not available here. We know that the pharmaceutical company has not been able to apply to market this drug in Canada because of the changes to the PMPRB, which have been heavily criticized by stakeholders and patients. Will the minister delay the July 1 implementation date and review the regulations so that drugs like Trikafta are made available in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, there are two separate issues in that question, so I will talk about the PMPRB. As a government, we are committed, as you know, to increasing affordability of and accessibility to Canadian medications, to medications across Canada, and the PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians to be able to afford their prescriptions. Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower prices for medicine gain access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada, or even faster. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, for those living with a rare disease, every single day can be a struggle. We know the importance of lowering drug costs, but not at the cost of life-saving drugs not being available here in Canada. Waiting years for the government to reduce regulations is not an option. We also know that the nature of the disease makes those people more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, and they are at a higher risk of its being lethal. Why is this government continuing to let those with CF struggle and suffer needlessly? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I believe the member opposite is talking about the drug Trikafta, and many cystic fibrosis patient groups have been advocating having access to it in Canada. In fact, the manufacturer of Trikafta has not submitted an application to market this product in Canada. However, that said, we do have a special access program for drugs that are not marketed in Canada. As of May 6, Health Canada approved 95 applications for 98 patients to access Trikafta through the special access program. I would encourage all patients with cystic fibrosis to speak to their doctor to ensure that they too can apply through the special access program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question of 45 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: We know the importance of lowering drug costs. As you know, 4,300 people suffer from this rare genetic disease. Most of them are children and young adults. One young woman from Calgary is a CF champion, fighting for her passion to be a famous opera singer. She's very talented. Her reality of living with CF has meant that she has had many visits to the hospital and had many health crises that have made singing impossible for a time. CF patients are waiting for this drug, which was fast-tracked in other countries. Now it seems that the changes to the PMPRB will cause further delays or complications. Will the minister delay the implementation and review the PMPRB? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Honourable Minister, please provide a short response. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I will just repeat that the manufacturer has not applied to sell this drug in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to Mr. Lobb of HuronBruce. +Mr. Ben Lobb (HuronBruce, CPC): Thank you very much. On July 25, 2019, after the federal-provincial-territorial agriculture meeting, the agriculture minister promised big changes in 2020 for programs like AgriStability and AgriRecovery. Besides a pilot program in a couple of provinces and an application deadline, is there anything else you would like to report? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair. Since the July meeting in QuebecCity with the provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture, we've been working to improve the AgriStability program. This issue remains a priority, and it's included in my mandate letter. However, at this time, we're responding to emergencies that go beyond what the various risk management programs can provide to our producers. +Mr. Ben Lobb: You can appreciate, Minister, the issue we're dealing with here. The United States Department of Agriculture has allocated $19 billion to farmers, $16 billion of that in direct support. The program that was offered last week, $252 million, was a mere fraction of what the United States is getting. If the minister is telling farmers to bank on the existing business risk management program, it's not going to work. Countless numbers of pork farmers, just in my riding alone, have one thousand, two thousand, three thousand head of hogs ready to be shipped within the near future. They will lose $70 a head. AgriStability isn't going to cut it. We need an immediate program to help out these hard-working pork farmers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I fully understand my colleague's comments. That's why we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. We've also increased, improved and facilitated access to AgriStability. One pork producer tried the calculator and told me that he could quickly receive $11 per head of hog. Alberta's agriculture minister even publicly stated that some producers could obtain the desired amount of $20 per head using the AgriStability program. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, you can see the problem right there with the math. The minister just said that one of her pork producers is going to get $11. They are losing $70. There's a $59-per-head gap, times likely several thousand head of hogs in their barns. Let's go to another trying issue with agriculture. It's the carbon tax. I know that the government has their position on the carbon tax, and I know that I'm not going to change it, but I want to give the members of Parliament across the way, the government, an idea of what a pork farmer might go through. A pork farmer sent me their bill for February 26 to March 24. Their natural gas bill was about $2,400. In there was close to $500 in federal carbon tax. Farmers manage their woodlots ethically. They have environmental farm plans. They have nutrient management plans. They get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration and ethical environmental management on their farm, yet every month they are asked to pay a carbon tax. It just doesn't seem fair. I want the minister's opinion on that. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: As you know, our pollution pricing policy is designed to build a clean economy. We've introduced exemptions for agriculture. On one hand, emissions from animal and vegetable production are not subject to carbon pricing, and on the other hand, farm fuels and other fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are exempt. We've also provided partial reimbursements for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. We have already done a lot. We encourage producers to take advantage of the business risk management programs, and we are ready to do more. We've already shown that, and we will continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There is time for one short question and response. Go ahead, Mr. Lobb. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, I know the Minister of Agriculture has toured my riding. She knows very well what the lay of the land is here. What about pork farmers? What about chicken farmers? What about hens? What about drying in the fall? All those farmers pay a carbon tax, and there is no program for them. They pay and they pay and they pay, and what makes it worse is that they are given no credit for the environmental work they do on their farms. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: It's true that our producers work incredibly hard to protect the environment and ensure the well-being of their animals. That's important, to be sure, but I'd like to put the impact of pollution pricing into perspective. To put these estimates into context, AAFC used data from agricultural tax data programs to show the impact on a per-farm basis as a percentage of total operating costs. The estimates ranged from $210 to $819 per farm and 0.05% to 0.42% of total farm operating expenses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now move on to Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Being from a rural area, myself, I can assure you that people who live in rural communities are resourceful and resilient. Instead of staying cooped up in their homes, they are doing their best to retool and save the companies they work for. One of the only options they have is to work from home. Unfortunately, though, they don't have access to the tools they need. Cellular and Internet networks are inadequate, even non-existent in some cases. I want to know, not whether the government is going to help these Canadians join the 21st century, but when. Can you give us any assurances and, above all, a timetable for a real plan? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I agree with the member. The situation is very serious. High-speed Internet is not a luxury; it's a necessity. That's why we launched the connect to innovate program. My fellow minister Ms. Monsef will be introducing the next strategy to improve the situation in all regions, especially rural areas. Finding a solution is absolutely imperative. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I don't think the minister understood my question. In the 2019 budget, the government promised to connect all Canadians to the Internet by 2030. This is 2020. That's 10years away. People don't need reliable Internet service 10years down the road. The pandemic has made the need even more acute right now. When, then, will people have Internet access? I'm simply asking you for a date now. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, under the last budget, we launched a $1.7-billion program to support broadband infrastructure. That's a lot of money for high-speed Internet. My fellow minister Ms.Monsef is in charge of the program. We also introduced the connect to innovate program, which has helped 900communities all over the country. We will keep working to make the lives of people who live in rural areas better, and we will find solutions to provide high-speed Internet access. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, you no doubt know that Beauce is the cradle of small and medium-sized businesses. On March27, the Prime Minister introduced the emergency wage subsidy to help businesses cope with the pandemic. Unfortunately, general partnerships were overlooked. Of the many constituents in my riding who have reached out to me on the subject, one, in particular, has contacted me three times since mid-April. I still don't have anything to tell him because the government is dragging its feet. We'd like to get a clear and specific answer. The same goes for sole proprietors, who were also overlooked. When is the government going to include these businesses in the current programs? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we announced in financial support for vulnerable small and medium-sized businesses that are not eligible for the measures already in place and that are struggling with cash flow issues. We've also invested $71million to support businesses and organizations by giving them access to capital in rural communities. As well, we've invested in programs for rural areas, and we will continue to make investments to help small and medium-sized businesses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, please keep it brief. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: All right, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture asked the federal government for an agriculture and agri-food emergency fund of $2.6billion to help maintain food security in Canada in response to COVID-19. Will the minister address the federation's request? Minister, I'd like you to give us a date. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We already have a host of business risk management programs, through which, $1.6billion is available to producers annually. More support is actually available, even through those programs, since they meet the demand. We are prepared to do more, and we will. I urge producers to apply for the AgriStability program and to use the funds in their AgriInvest accounts. Some $2.3billion is available through that program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for LangleyAldergrove, Mr. Van Popta. +Mr. Tako Van Popta (LangleyAldergrove, CPC): Mr. Chair, the government's wage subsidy program is designed to help traditional companies, not high-growth companies. For example, I was talking to Ron, who operates an engineering firm in my riding that specializes in designing and building very expensive machines for their ever-expanding overseas markets. Business is down, but not by the requisite 30%. Of course not, since they're in high-growth mode, but just recently they had to lay off some very talented staff. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program can be expanded or adapted to deal with high-growth companies that will play such a key role in Canada's economic relaunch? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague is absolutely correct. We, the government, take enormous pride in our small businesses, particularly the start-ups and the high-growth firms. They're going to be absolutely essential for our economic recovery, and we know that some of them are ineligible for the wage subsidy. That is why we introduced a $250-million program in the industrial research assistance program through the National Research Council, strictly targeting and focusing on those high-growth firms that were ineligible for the wage subsidy, so that they can provide the wage support to keep those highly skilled individuals in Canada. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, there is another category of businesses that are falling through the cracks and feel they are being left behind by the wage subsidy program. Those are recently merged companies. For example, there is a trucking company in my riding that is significantly bigger this year than it was last year as a result of some key acquisitions and mergers late last year. All of the legacy companies by themselves would qualify individually for the wage subsidy, but the merged company does not. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program is sufficiently flexible to accommodate recently merged companies? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again I want to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He is identifying unique pain points that exist within the overall economy with specific examples of companies that are not able to access some of the programming we have provided. I do want to highlight, when it comes to the wage subsidy, that we have made changes to the revenue thresholds to make more companies eligible. The specific example that the member opposite raises is something that is under consideration. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, the government's commercial rent assistance program discriminates against certain tenants based solely on whether their landlord has a mortgage on the subject building. I was talking to Leslie the other day. She manages a number of commercial office buildings in my riding. Some of these buildings have mortgages and some don't, and it all depends on what they were able to negotiate with their banker. Leslie is having a very hard time explaining to her tenants why some will qualify for the rental subsidy and some won't, depending on which building they are in. Can the government confirm that the nonsensical mortgage requirement in the rent subsidy program is gone? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the approach that was taken on trying to assist small businesses with rent is very much based on the fact that this is a provincial jurisdiction, so we have used the mortgage system as a way to do it. It is, in fact, not nonsensical. That said, we are looking at this particular issue. It's something that is under consideration. We expect that we will find a way to ensure that those landlords who don't have mortgages can work with the CMHC to have the appropriate approach to be eligible for this program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left, Mr. Van Popta. Go ahead with a short question. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Many people in my riding have reached out to me to say they are quite disturbed that their favourite hunting and sport shooting firearms are now on the banned list. Can the minister inform Canadians how many Canadian taxpayer dollars are going to go to the buyback program for legal gun owners and how far that money would go if it were to be diverted to something useful, such as more border controls to stop the illegal importation of firearms? +Hon. Bill Blair: Our first priority is the protection and safety of Canadians. We've seen an unacceptable rise in gun violence right across our community. All weapons are being regulated in our country. Some, such as handguns, represent such a significant risk that we strongly restrict them. Some weapons, quite frankly, are completely unsuitable for any sporting or hunting activity, such as weapons designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. We have now prohibited those weapons. The saving of lives is worth an investment in public safety. I want to assure the member we will bring forward legislation that will facilitate an appropriate buyback program. I look forward to a discussion in this House with the member opposite on how that can be done to ensure public safety and to ensure that we do it in as effective a way as possible. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the government and ministers present for the rapid relief that they've provided to Canadians. I know the constituents in my riding really appreciate that. I'd like to thank them also for being responsive to the MPs who have brought forward gaps in the program. The CERB requirements recognize dividend income for eligibility for the Canada emergency business account, CEBA, but the Canada emergency business account does not recognize dividends or contract payments. I've been contacted by many small business owners who have been legally paying themselves with dividends for years, but these companies cannot apply for the CEBA even though this might save them from bankruptcy during this crisis. Will the government make the necessary changes to allow dividend income to be admissible for CEBA eligibility? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable colleague for his very thoughtful question and his advocacy in looking for different solutions and in working with us to help small businesses, not only in his riding but across the country as well. He's absolutely correct that the Canada emergency business account has been successful, as 590,000 loans have been issued. That's a reflection of some of the changes that we introduced, which made the criteria more generous so that more businesses could obtain assistance. He has raised the issue of dividends. As I said before, we continue to work with Canadians and Canadian businesses and colleagues in this House to see how we can assist more Canadians, not less of them, and we'll continue to endeavour to do that. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, there are still many Canadians stranded overseas who are trying to return to Canada. Some have no assurance that their non-Canadian spouse will be allowed into Canada with them. Many are being forced to make an impossible choice between sheltering in place overseas or separating from their spouse in order to return home. Will the government remove unnecessary barriers and allow these Canadians to return to Canada immediately with their spouses? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, in an effort to flatten the curve and to protect Canadians, we've taken a number of extraordinary measures at the border and we have restricted non-essential travel of people coming into Canada. While Canadian citizens and permanent residents will always be admissiblesubject, of course, to a 14-day quarantine upon entry foreign nationals are subject to travel restrictions. For individuals to be eligible to travel to Canada, their travel must be considered essential travel, consistent with the emergency order put in place. I recognize and very much respect the spirit of the member's question. We recognize these are difficult situations. It is not our desire to keep families apart. I want to assure that each situation will be decided on a case-by-case basis based on the information made available to border service officers. I welcome any inquiries he may have. If he reaches out to my office, we'll help in any way we can. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, the Alberta energy regulator has suspended a wide range of environmental monitoring requirements for oil sands companies during this pandemic. This includes environmental reporting. It includes wetland wildlife and bird monitoring, even though Canada is a signatory to the international migratory bird treaty. Water that escapes from storm ponds doesn't need to be tested. Air quality programs, including for first nations communities, have been reduced. Testing for leaks of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has been suspended. This is after the federal government has provided $750 million in funding for methane emission reductions. The federal government has also just committed $1.7 billion to clean up orphaned oil wells. That message, clearly, is about the negligence of the Alberta government. It is something corporations should be paying for. Will the federal government hold the Alberta government to account and withhold energy sector relief funding until these environmental regulations are reinstated? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question and for his very collaborative approach with our government on a number of issues. I would like to thank him for this particular question and his particular reference to methane, because it gives me an opportunity to highlight some very important progress that the federal government made this week in working with the Province of Alberta. Just yesterday Alberta joined B.C. and Saskatchewan and published its own draft regulations on methane. This will allow us, in working with Alberta, to work on equivalency on methane, which will allow us to work towards standing down the federal system in those jurisdictions. This is tremendously important, because it will allow us to cut methane emissions by 45% by 2025. It's hugely important for fighting climate change together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to the honourable member for Hamilton Mountain, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Mr. Chair, I was pleased to hear about extending the tax deadline to October 1 in yesterday's announcement for seniors. After many discussions with the Minister of Seniors, I was glad to hear that she was listening to the NDP and many others on making this happen. It stops a lot of interruptions for people who couldn't get their taxes done. Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has been showing us in stark terms that Canadian seniors are struggling to make ends meet in Canada. Before enduring the crisis, it was clear that OAS and GIS benefits levels were just not enough for seniors to keep up with the cost of living, so we need to fix this now. Why is the government refusing to increase OAS and GIS benefits to lift seniors out of poverty on a permanent basis? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for giving me this opportunity to rise today and talk about how we are supporting Canadian seniors during this pandemic. Many Canadian seniors are facing significant health, economic and social challenges as a result of the pandemic. They built this country and now they need our help. Our government is taking significant action to provide Canadian seniors with greater financial security and give them the help they need during this crisis. We're building on past measures by introducing a one-time tax-free payment of $300 for those who receive OAS and of $200 for those receiving GIS, totalling $500 to seniors who receive both. We are also supporting community-based projects to improve the quality of life for seniors through the New Horizons for Seniors program, and investing in other charities. Seniors need our help, and we are delivering for them. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, I was glad to hear that the Minister of Seniors is acknowledging the financial burden that our seniors are taking on. She mentioned the prescription dispensing fees, the added costs of their groceries and the delivery charges. I was glad that the Prime Minister acknowledged the heavy toll seniors are facing, and that they helped to shape this country and now they need our help. A surprising statement that I heard yesterday was the Treasury Board and the seniors minister's admission in their press briefing that the level of assistance being provided to Canadian seniors is quite low. Why is the seniors minister acknowledging all the burdens they're trying to help the seniors with, but the response they're giving is just a very low way of handling it? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I really do want to acknowledge my honourable colleague for his advocacy. I just want to assure him that while the government remains committed to implementing policies in our platform, we are focused on this health crisis right now. We have provided financial support to seniors sooner through the GST credit top-up, and now with additional payments to OAS and GIS recipients. This year we are investing over twice as much on financial assistance for seniors as we committed to in our platform, which is $3.8 billion compared to $1.56 billion in the platform. Seniors need our help and we're delivering. These payments have provided greater support for the most vulnerable seniors. Just to give some details, for those on OAS and GIS, they will get, in conjunction with the GST credit top-up, $875 per adult, and over $1,500 per couple. This is not an insignificant amount. This is a significant amount to support our seniors during this pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left for both a question and a response. Go ahead, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The minister was talking about there being a maximum payment, if it's possible. What I've heard from seniors is this is a one-shot deal and it's an insult to them. They want some stability on an ongoing basis. We did make an agreement about two weeks ago that help would be implemented without delay on the seniors issue and for people with disabilities. Why did yesterday's announcement include only the people who are seniors, but not people with disabilities? Why have they been omitted? When can they expect help to come? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to touch on the two points raised. On the one-time payment, we know that seniors need help now, and that's why it's important to get that money into seniors' accounts as soon as possible. That is why we're providing the one payment right away, instead of small amounts spread over months. In the coming weeks we will look at additional supports for other vulnerable Canadians. I just want to let him know we are working on additional measures. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now +Mr. Scott Duvall: I didn't hear anything about the disability +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The five minutes are finished. It is now over to Mrs.Gill, the member for Manicouagan. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques. I have just one question. It's for the government, and this will be the fourth time I've asked today. When I go back home, what am I going to tell the people of Chandler, Amqui, Bic, Saint-Simon, Tadoussac and Harrington Harbour? Am I going to tell them that the government supports the Bloc Qubcois's proposal? We propose giving seasonal workers access to employment insurance benefits until next season, regardless of whether they received the CERB, how many hours they worked or how many they accumulated. Should I instead tell them that the Liberal government has nothing in store for them as they suffer through the crisis? The government hasn't managed to bridge the employment insurance gap, and is even planning to bring it to six, if not eight, months. That means they'll have nothing to put on the dinner table for the next year. I'd like an answer, Mr.Chair. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I have three things to say in response to the member's important question. First, we obviously understand what she's saying. The work is seasonal, not the workers. The work they do is fundamental so they can support their families and their communities in eastern Quebec and other regions. Second, the CERB delivers significant assistance to those often vulnerable workers, the majority of whom would be able or certainly eager to find another job. Third, and finally, before any longer-term investments are made, it's important to keep in mind that those who may have received employment insurance benefits but who lost them in recent weeks or who do seasonal work are eligible for the CERB. That said, we are also looking ahead. We've already announced some very important measuresand we'll continue to do soin support of tourism, culture, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and many other key contributors to regional development in Quebec and elsewhere. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, has the floor. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, the situation my fellow member just described is of little comfort to those in Quebec's regions. To be frank, the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is a flop. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, one in three businesses doesn't qualify for rent relief because it doesn't meet the 70% drop in revenues requirement. Half of businesses have indicated that their landlords won't be applying for the program because it's optional. Commercial landlords can choose to participate in the program or not. How is that going to help businesses, Mr.Chair? We are still trying to figure that out. Businesses, especially seasonal ones, need more support to cover their fixed costs. Will the government commit to reviewing the program, which is too restrictive for businesses and optional for landlords? The program must do more to help businesses, particularly seasonal ones, cover their fixed costs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that businesses are, of course, very concerned about fixed costs. Our rent relief program is very significant. We haven't yet announced all the details, so it's much too soon to say that it's flawed. More information will be available in the next few days. At that point, we hope to be on the right track when it comes to fixed costs and rent. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: I hope you're making adjustments. It's totally unacceptable that only 10% of businesses who need the relief can get it. What's more, the public health crisis has brought its share of change for businesses, particularly with the new health measures. They have to plan, implement preventative measures, have response plans, train staff and acquire the necessary equipment. In order to do those things, protect the public and reopen their doors, businesses have to assume the costs. Will the government commit to providing financial assistance to businesses, especially those in the tourism industry, so they can cover the costs of putting the new health measures in place? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I know the situation is very serious in rural communities. That's why we've invested $71million in community futures development corporations, or CFDCs, and business development centres. Both of those will go a long way towards helping businesses in rural communities, and I have no doubt that we will continue working together to find other solutions. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll move on to the honourable member for Calgary Centre, Mr. McLean. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the terms for accessing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, CECRA, is that you must have a mortgage on the property. One of the key terms of eligibility for this support is that the landlord owes money to a bank. Will the Minister of Finance tell us if this program was designed for the benefit of landlords and tenants or for the benefit of banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think that it's important to know that commercial rent and landlord-tenant relationships are provincial jurisdictions. Therefore, as we embarked on an approach that could enable landlords and tenants to get to an agreement that would help both, we used the CMHC as a vehicle from which we could do that. We think that we've come up with a program that provides advantages for the landlords and advantages for the tenants, and we will be announcing details that will include how mortgages can be put in place for those landlords who don't currently have them. +Mr. Greg McLean: Brookfield Properties, a large Canadian firm, announced that its rent collections on commercial properties for April were 15% of the lease terms. Luckily, Brookfield has another company, Brookfield Business Partners, poised to help by buying up the distressed equity of the firms that owe them money. Did the Minister of Finance design CECRA with this outcome in mind, washing out individual investors and small companies and transferring that value into the hands of vulture financiers who hold all the cards? +Hon. Bill Morneau: In fact, Mr. Chair, we designed this program exactly with the idea in mind of the challenge that we're seeing. We're seeing that in many cases commercial tenants are not actually able to pay their rent, so landlords are not getting the rent that's due. Therefore, there's a mutual interest from tenants and from landlords in coming to an agreement. By providing funding through the mortgage system to those landlords, we recognize that we'll enable both of those two parts of the equation to come to an agreement that we think will be advantageous for the sector over the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: In the past two months, the Bank of Canada has tripled the size of its balance sheet to almost $400 billion, with more to come, Mr. Chair. In the 2008 recession, the world's major economies endured quantitative easing on a previously unknown scale, most of which has not since been unwound. Canada endured a then-record $50-billion deficit, but we did not need to enter the uncertain world of QE, quantitative easing, as a result of the strength of Canada's oil and gas industry. Will the minister acknowledge that this government's oil and gas policy mismanagement has led to economic decline, necessitating hundreds of billions of dollars of quantitative easing? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me challenge one assumption implicit in the honourable member's question, the assumption that our government fails to understand the importance of the oil and gas sector to our economy. Let me quote some leaders from Alberta and their response to the lease program. Tim McMillan, CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said, I think this is essential. Not all companies are going to need to tap into this sort of liquidity...but some that are normally high-quality, stable companies likely will be looking for this program to provide a certain amount of liquidity for them. CAPP understands that we are supporting Canadian companies, including in the oil and gas sector, and I would urge the members opposite to understand that as well. +Mr. Greg McLean: BlackRock is one of the world's largest investment companies, managing trillions of dollars of bonds. It has lobbied regulators around the world to not be named a systemically important financial institution. The Bank of Canada unexpectedly engaged BlackRock as an adviser on its bond-buying plans. Is the Minister of Finance mindful of the conflict of interest that exists between the world's largest bond manager, BlackRock, and the advice it's giving the Bank of Canada on buying bonds? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite might know that the Bank of Canada is independent from the government, and as such we are not privy to those decisions and support the continuing independence of the Bank of Canada from the government. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. McLean, you may have just a short question. +Mr. Greg McLean: The finance sector seems to be getting well served during this economic crisis. Will the minister endeavour to provide a more balanced program of benefits going forward for the sake of the entire Canadian economy, and not just the Brookfields, the BlackRocks and the big banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the notion that one sector is being advantaged versus another actually defies the facts. More than 550,000 loans have gone out to small businesses in the form of $40,000 loans per business over a very short time period. Canada is a leader in this regard, and we'll continue to support businesses all across Canada with loans and support as they need it to get ourselves through this difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to the last five-minute round. We'll begin with the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Thank you, Mr. Chair. What is the dollar value of the total assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, earlier today we were given incorrect information on the Auditor General. I would like to be able to provide more information at my next response. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member for Carleton said that the previous government spent more on the Auditor General than the current government, and that is actually incorrect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in fact, in the last full year of the Harper government, in 2014-15, the total spending on the Auditor General was $85.8 million. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in the most recent year, 2018-19, the total spend was $92.4 million for the Auditor General, showing a 7.7% increase. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would just say it's shocking when people bring forward incorrect information to the House to try to make a point. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to support Canadians through this time, with support not only for businesses but for individuals to get through and get a bridge to a better time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is just the dollar value? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, that's a continuing commitment. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I know we shouldn't ask the minister about numbers. He's just the finance minister, after all, but what is the equity on the Government of Canada's balance sheet? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would advise the member for Carleton to memorize those Auditor General figures for his next foray into the House of Commons. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The minister has claimed that our balance sheet is strong. There are three components to a balance sheet: the assets, the liabilities, and the equity. The minister doesn't know any of the three, so clearly he doesn't actually know anything about our balance sheet. That's reassuring. According to the Auditor General, the negative net worth of our Government of Canada will be as much as $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. Can the minister, if he is familiar with any of these numbers, tell us if it is possible that his government will hit $1 trillion of debt this year? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to assure Canadians that our approach will be to continue to make investments on their behalf. That is available to us because of our strong fiscal position, but we will continue to take that approach, which we think is the appropriate one. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Will it be $1 trillion, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to focus on the importance of supporting Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of our current national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what will happen as we do that is that we will allow ourselves to have a stronger economy at the end because of these investments. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of the national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We have always seen, Mr. Chair, that these investments are not only supporting Canadians; they are supporting businesses so that we do have a strong economy and a strong fiscal position coming out of this. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know the size of our national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I will continue to focus our efforts, as we believe we should, on supporting Canadians through this time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know what $1 trillion is? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are continuing to make investments that we believe are prudent in the face of this economic challenge, supporting Canadians as we know we need to. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of all the public and private debt in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we know that by supporting Canadians, by continuing to make investments, we will enable Canadiens to have less debt themselves because that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total debt, public and private, as a share of GDP in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the important consideration here is that the federal government is taking a position that we should support Canadians so that they don't take on the debt themselves. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Yet they have. They have record household debt, record corporate debt and growing government debt. The finance minister doesn't seem to know any of the basic numbers that would be required to govern the finances of the Government of Canada, so I will give him one last chance. Based on his latest briefings, what is the total size of Canada's national debt? If he doesn't know, can he have the humility and honesty just to say so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for slightly more time in this response to say that we think the best thing to do during this time period is to invest in Canadians. We know that in that way they will not be supporting as much debt themselves. The government is in a fiscal position that enables us to take on debt at this time, which we think is appropriate to get our economy to a better position at the end of this crisis. We think that's appropriate. We will continue to take that approach. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. government House leader is rising on a point of order. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. I think we need to keep the interpreters in mind and the work they are doing, particularly when it comes to the flow and speed of questions. As the interpreters have already mentioned, they've suffered more injuries during this short time than during all of last year. Mr.Chair, I kindly ask that you make sure members take that into account. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I'm not sure whether that constitutes a point of order, but it's certainly an important reminder for members of the House to respect interpreters' working conditions. Please note that this is the end of our questions to ministers for this afternoon. Honourable members, please note too that pursuant to an order made on April 20, the House has been recalled. As such, the committee will now adjourn and the House sitting will begin shortly thereafter. The bells will be rung to call in members, and a parade will begin the sitting. This committee is now adjourned. +","The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota) called the meeting to order and mentioned it was the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. No ministerial announcements were made, and the committee proceeded to present petitions. Mr. Paul Manly presented a petition to ban cosmetic testing on animals. Hon. Pierre Poilievre presented an e-petition on behalf of a mother, Cara, to make life jackets mandatory for children under 14 in small vessels due to a personal tragedy with her son. The questioning of ministers began with concerns about suspected fraud in benefit applications and the government's response to fraud during the pandemic. This led to discussions between Hon. Andrew Scheer and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the necessity of quickly providing assistance to Canadians and measures against fraud. Scheer also raised issues with small business supports and the exclusion of certain business owners from government relief programs. + +Other topics included the exclusion of Taiwan from the World Health Organization (WHO), student benefits, mental health for seniors, distress in the agriculture sector, and the carbon tax's impact on farmers. Members questioned the commitment to addressing the inadequacies in the government's responses to various sectors and vulnerable groups, including prisoners receiving emergency benefits, the functionality of the business risk management programs, assistance for the agriculture industry, and the challenges businesses face with the commercial rent support program. + +There were also discussions about the support for seniors, with Hon. Deb Schulte acknowledging their financial instability and announcing a one-time tax-free payment for those on OAS and GIS. Questions were raised about Canadians stranded overseas with non-Canadian spouses, and the environmental regulation suspensions in Alberta's oil sands. There was also an acknowledgment of the importance of the oil and gas sector to the Canadian economy. + +The session concluded with the committee adjourning and the House recalled for a sitting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Great man . Who starts ? +Project Manager: Well I'll uh start just with another presentation , so then we can uh look at th at the agenda uh for this meeting . +Marketing: Alright , great . Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I've put some uh new things in the in the map . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh oh . {vocalsound} This is it . I don't know the shortcut , so {disfmarker} Ah F_ five . Well our functional design meeting , that's the stage we're in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And you also ha all three of you have uh prepared something about it . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Well um in we'll uh just have a look at the at the notes from the previous meeting , what we uh thought we had dec decided . But uh {disfmarker} Uh then we'll uh look at uh the three uh presentations uh from you . I think you have prepared uh all three uh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we'll look at th the new project requirements we uh {disfmarker} I dunno . Y you also have uh received that mail , the new project requirements from our bosses ? +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I've received a mail with uh some additional requirements , +Marketing: No . You're the only one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'll have a look if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well I think we should show them before your presentations , because it's not really uh smart uh to uh to include some things uh we can't , because of the new requirements . Well um then we can make some decisions about our remote control functions . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We have to deb we have to decide it in this meeting what our function will be . And then uh we can discuss uh some more closely . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have forty minutes for this uh discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well uh {gap} the closing uh we'll not uh look at it yet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now I'll look at {gap} show {gap} this board . Um {disfmarker} Well uh notes , first meeting . Now . I gave a disc a a presentation . Uh we familiarised ourself with the boards and then we discussed some first ideas . So we said that uh we have to merge the strong points from our uh competitors , and uh look at their uh remote controls . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We should make it uh compatible with our new D_V_D_ and other releases we have , our technical releases . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Uh not too many one buttons . One recognisable button in the middle , where you do the most important functions with . And um well they can have two functions , because uh you have a D_V_D_ and a television . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the design has to fit the hand , be original , but also be familiar . {vocalsound} It's uh one of our ideas . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well that wa It's just thirty minutes ago , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's not quite uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But well I have to do it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , now it's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The materials uh well should be hard plastic with rubber from {gap} , and uh well the labelling of the buttons should be indestructible . It should be uh recognisable at all times . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be easily wiped out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well fronts were to be {gap} just like mobile telephones . And uh the technical aspects um {disfmarker} And also labelling of the buttons , the functions should be universal standards . Well that's just uh some ideas from the first meeting . It's quite logical al all of it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now the new project requirements , I'll just show them . I got this mail from uh our bosses . Well , teletext goes out . We will not use teletext . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe a new sort of thing , but n but not teletext . +Industrial Designer: I I disagree , but uh it's not uh t it's not my place to disagree I guess . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} the second is a bit sh pity because we just said we wanted to d include the D_V_D_ +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: and they don't want it , because of our time we have for this project . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +User Interface: Oh , that's a shame . +Project Manager: So that's a shame , because uh especially for the third requirement we want to reach people under the thirty years . Because uh we don't have those customers a lot at th at this point . Um well it's a bit pity because it's just those people want to have uh one remote control for all those technical devices they can uh reach it . +Marketing: Yeah . But let's forget about it . It's just time-consuming , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so we uh have to go on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well and uh our corporate image should stay rec recognisable in our products . So uh we have to uh use uh maybe a slogan , maybe a colour , and um {disfmarker} Yeah well uh on our remote controls the design has to be uh , well as we already said a actually , uh familiar . Uh not only just uh the shape but also our company . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we are a {vocalsound} real fashionable company . I read uh I read it on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I didn't know what company we were , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but we we design uh especially trendy uh trendy trendy stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it has to be uh a modern design . That's important to know , uh when you design a thing of course . +Project Manager: Yes . I I uh noted uh our uh slogan that we have , our company . It's uh we mm put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe that's a slogan we can put uh somewhere on our remote control or something . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright then um we're going to uh have three presentations . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You want to start ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I think I have to start . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh you have to start ? I didn't see anything about uh who had to start . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The order ? No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh no , no problem . +Project Manager: Well s then start . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I I just have to uh to think which file's mine , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I was uh bit in a hurry . +Project Manager: Okay . Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's this one . But I'm not sure . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} You already uh opened uh PowerPoint . +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah . S Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . This is it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , I'm going to tell you something about functional requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um to start with these points . Uh next sheet ? Um at first I tell you something about what people dislike about the current uh controls , because it's uh a smart thing to exclude those things . Uh , furthermore it's very important what they do like and what they do use . {vocalsound} Um then I tell something about um the most important issues . So we have to focus on those three thing three things . And in the end I'll um show you our target {vocalsound} audience or our target product users , customers . Well , {vocalsound} um the first findings are that people um think most controls are very kind of ug ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's seventy five per cent of the current users . They don't like it , so we might think about fronts in that section . Um {disfmarker} They also say , that's about uh I thought it was fifty per cent , uh that more money will be spent on uh better looking controls . So it's very important that you design a a nice looking control . {vocalsound} Um the current user uses his machine just about well all of the time for a few functions . Uh , almost every user uses it d the the control for just ten per cent of its capacity . So it's really important to make the the buttons for the common uh tasks kind of big or kind of uh flashy . Furthermore , it's uh {vocalsound} seventy five per cent of the users uh zaps a lot . Thus it might be uh might be smart to make a a big uh zapping button or something in the middle , so you can reach it with your thumb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can zap away . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . A lot of losers um users lose their controls in their {vocalsound} in their living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it might be sensible to make some kind of a button on your television , that's your um your control beeps or something , that you can find this very easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , maybe that's an idea . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: 'Cause it's uh a big {disfmarker} I think fifty per cent of the users loses his its control , within the same room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh ? +Project Manager: It should actually uh {disfmarker} It should actually be loose from the television , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: because it can also be used for other televisions . So if you deliver a small uh click-on device that you can put on your television , that bleeps to your remote control , everyone can use it . +Marketing: Yeah but what if you lose your click-on device ? +Project Manager: No you can click it on your television . +Marketing: Yeah but if someone d somebody else uses it in ano other room or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah in another room , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well yes . +Marketing: Nee but it it specifically says it's uh the the control is lost in the same room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Well a beeping device would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look at it , yeah . +Marketing: Uh furthermore the learning time is a problem . Uh thirty four thirty four per cent um thinks it's it's too uh too difficult to learn . So the the learning curve should be very short uh for the dumbest people should be able to use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh user uh expert should also consider manual a manual for the remote , of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but people don't read manuals . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read it ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} users to uh add one ? Do you think ? +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you should put more time in the in the design of uh pick up and use , than a manual . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes you should {disfmarker} You should could take a look at it and and and know how it how it's supposed to work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . Because they don't use it ? Alright . +Project Manager: Well there sh should always be a menu , +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: but it c can be very short . +Marketing: And it should be consistent with consistent with older remotes . +User Interface: Yeah but nobody reads a manual about a remote control , I think . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe for the {disfmarker} If you don't recognise a button who d who d who do I call uh wh when I don't know it ? +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah right . It sh it should be there , the manual . But but not to explain how the remote works . Only {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: And we don't have much time . So it's better to uh put our attention to the the design . So you can pick up and use it , than {disfmarker} I think . +Project Manager: Well we are a design team , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: we can say to some uh writer uh make a manual point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Isn't it part of the of the u +Marketing: Yeah right , right . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . No . Never mind . +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look . Um yes ? +Marketing: Next point . Um R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well that's about twenty per cent I thought . But uh the designer should uh take it uh {vocalsound} should uh {disfmarker} Wie zeg ik dat ? Yeah , consider the consequences of using your remote . +Industrial Designer: Consider the m Yeah . +Marketing: It should be a good in your hand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Right , this is the most important part . Um , we're {disfmarker} Like the requirements said , we're gonna specify of we're gonna target a younger audience . Um , {vocalsound} that's about sixty per cent of the market , so it's uh quite important . Um research shows that they like to have a little L_C_D_ screen on their on their uh zapping uh device . Uh {disfmarker} I thought it was the age between sixteen and twenty , ninety nine per cent of uh the people like that . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's very important we should definitely have that in our uh designs . +Project Manager: Well with twelve Euro fifty as production cost , we can't uh afford an L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's going to be expensive . Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Yeah but {vocalsound} they think it's really important . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we want to s If we have a big {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If we make lots of uh of the stuff , maybe we can uh buy it very cheap , I dunno . We have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we'll uh consider it uh . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh it's your your task to uh look into the costs uh of those uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll think abo we'll think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't have any information on that . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nigh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , we'll look we'll look into that later . Alright ? +Marketing: Right . And uh another thing is uh speech uh recognition . They also like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but research is very uh costly . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that's uh difficult to realise also . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it {vocalsound} it might be important for the sale . +Industrial Designer: We have very demanding clients . +Project Manager: It's not yet a standard uh development uh those so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No and we have customers in multiple uh countries I think . +Project Manager: We sh +Marketing: Well I do think L_C_D_ is more reachable than the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah absolutely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So we might consider L_C_D_ screens . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , alright . Well we'll consider both and and see what uh what what we can find , I think . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: We don't rule them out uh yet . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . Um , I think that's it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I think it is sensible to u uh to take this take these points into the notes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So you can {disfmarker} Right . +Project Manager: Well you {disfmarker} I c I can uh still see your presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: It's in the {disfmarker} Well uh next um I dunno who is next . +User Interface: Oh you go . +Industrial Designer: Shall I give a technical talk ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well go ahead . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh it is my task to uh explain uh or to point out a working design . +Project Manager: Yip . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have that here . Okay , how do you enlarge it , so that you can have the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: F_ F_ five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , the working design , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Next button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well alright uh , you know who I am and what I do . So uh we have this . It's a bit uh unclear because I wanted to copy paste something . It was originally in black and white +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: but it became black and purple . +Marketing: Purple {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But I think you can read it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . A bit . +Industrial Designer: Um well um I think it's important uh for you to realise the basic function of a remote control . Uh well you can see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you can select it . So it uh inverts . +Industrial Designer: {gap} And I then can select I can select on the dings {gap} It goes to the next page . +Marketing: {gap} the p the whole picture . +Project Manager: Click . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , uh never mind . +Industrial Designer: Well , you can read it , +User Interface: Yeah , go ahead . +Industrial Designer: it's not too difficult . Meanwhile , this is a schematic uh um view of uh how a basic remote control works . You have uh basically uh the energy , the power of the of the remote control , uh and the sender , w which is the LED , the the the the the the the the the bulb that sends the the infrared beam to the , no , to the set . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh the source is of course the user . Uh the user interface is um {vocalsound} uh the {vocalsound} the {gap} the buttons of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And the {vocalsound} the user interface sends uh the the different signals of the different buttons to the chip , and the chip uh sends it to the LED , and the LED sends it to the receiver . That's the that's the basic idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um well I have uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} put it in a in in in a {vocalsound} a couple of basic steps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the remote uh is basically just waiting for a user to press a key . It does nothing until uh of course uh the key is pressed . The key {gap} a signal to a chip , uh the chip senses the connection . {vocalsound} uh and recognise the key . So {vocalsound} well you understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The chip uh produces Morse code , um a specific code to indicate that specific button that is pressed , of course . And it uses transistors in the in the remote control to amplify and to send uh that signal again to the to the LED , which is the bulb , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now the LED produces an infrared beam and signals the , well it's uh very simple , and signals the uh signals to the sensor on the T_V_ set , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ set uh also recognises the the {vocalsound} the signal , and performs the assigned task . +Project Manager: So it is also why we have to have a button that says uh I'm now busy with a D_V_D_ uh if we had done that . And a button for T_V_ . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah bu Yeah , but we don't . Uh we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Exactly . Uh well this is uh the basic uh function of a remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've some couple of pictures here . It's a very basic one . And uh {gap} if we if we're going to add an uh an uh L_C_D_ screen to it , it uh won't look anything like this , but {disfmarker} This is very basic uh basically the the shape of um of a remote control . It has uh very little buttons and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it uh it's it's quite um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can easily recognise the buttons . They're uh far enough apart and an anything . It's not very um uh not very high-tech uh +User Interface: High tech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: indeed , and it's not very user-friendly . Uh if you look at the shape , it's uh just a simple long box uh shape . So we have to uh change a little bit uh to that , uh so that uh it becomes more user-friendly , and that uh problems like uh R_S_I_ and uh those kinds of thing don't don't oc don't occur . +Marketing: Right . Can I say something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um I have a table here about uh the l the relevance of the buttons . Uh the power button is used very much , channel selection , volume and teletext . Well teletext is not an option , so that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I think it's very important to make um the power , channel and volume buttons uh near to the thumb , so you can't have R_S_I_ uh consequences . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because they are the the most important buttons and you can immediately {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Make them big , make them easy to uh to press . +Project Manager: Well but but {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can also like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look and and search for them . +Project Manager: if you have um the most used buttons all in one place , and you keep making the same um well moves . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , I was thinking you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Right . +Project Manager: But if y if you would put it at a different place , then you have to move your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that's on of the things about R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Are some of the the the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . That's right . That's right . +Industrial Designer: Well you you can't have any uh every button {vocalsound} under the thumb , of course . +Marketing: We +Project Manager: No but the most important buttons m maybe you can just put them a bit apart so you would reject R_ R_S_I_ R_S_I_ . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . That's very important . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can make , for for channel changing , two little buttons on the side of the remote , so you can just do like this . Like some uh little uh Gameboy things or some +Project Manager: Yes I've saw that on m on mi mobile telephones they also have uh those buttons . +Marketing: But is that is that useable ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Do people , uh when they pick up a remote , know that they have to do that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's a f it's a new feature , +Project Manager: Well it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you can make make a double feature l like a button on the top and under it . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well also i if someone puts {vocalsound} picks up his uh remote {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but if you s say them up and down , they they'll understand it {gap} , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . If someone puts up i uh picks up his remote , and he picks up it he he touches the side then he's a already on the next channel . +User Interface: Eighty per cent would . +Industrial Designer: Well , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , he feels it immediately . +Project Manager: That's very irritating , I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , continue . +Industrial Designer: But in e in any case the the basic function should be uh indeed , and as you say at the thumb . +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a good idea , and uh and that the less important uh buttons , like the the the different channels , uh the numbers one two three four five as well , should be uh yeah well not in reach , because uh they don't use it uh all the time . Well it's uh pretty pretty {vocalsound} basically uh as you said . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And I have some pictures of the inside workings , but uh I don't want to get too technical , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because uh that's not uh very uh useful for you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's your part of the job . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: So yeah {gap} exactly {gap} this is uh how it uh looks from the inside . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And uh well that's about it I think . Oh yeah , I still have this . Oh I had to delete this , but I had to make a schematic uh of the of the new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I had too too little time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh don't uh don't look at it please . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think it's it's clear uh how it works . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: We understand . +Marketing: Yeah , it's clear . +Project Manager: Oh right , no . +Industrial Designer: Alright . That's the most important thing . +Project Manager: Nice . Then uh Mike can uh give the third presentation . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How late is did we start his presentation uh ? {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . I think uh w About twenty minutes ago ? +Project Manager: Wha Yeah . +Marketing: Losing time losing time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well then we have still the time , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we do have to come to a decision , right later on . +Marketing: Yeah right . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Well I thought um everybody on the website {vocalsound} uh would see the same thing , but obviously {vocalsound} that's not the case . +Marketing: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh there are different uh {disfmarker} We have all have different home pages , with different links . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Uh ? +User Interface: For instance you couldn't see this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah well . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Well I'm Mike {gap} , User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The the method ? Well {disfmarker} I used my own experience with remotes , took a good l look uh at the remotes on the corporate website , which are these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: These are already in use ? +User Interface: Yes , these are from from another uh manufacturer . +Marketing: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} This one is engineering-centred , so this one has the most functions and um things . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I like user-centred . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: I like user-centr centred uh {vocalsound} uh also the best . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . We also do that . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well , I thought uh that we uh reduce the the option to control the D_V_D_ also , and teletext and that kind of stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so I thought we we we would use more or need more buttons than this one . +Marketing: But we have to reject that , because of the requirements ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Th that's why this mm is not relevant any more I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I think this is about the maximum number of buttons uh we'll need . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I um I kinda like the shape . {vocalsound} I think this is what we talked about . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You can't really see uh the differ from different sides . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No I've {disfmarker} Well I showed it somewhere . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh you can draw it if you {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . I think we should go further with the idea of a removable front . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we can can uh yeah customise the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well absolutely , but i th they all have to have something about um the recognition from our company . So we cannot just uh make someone w +User Interface: Mm ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a front . It's not the the whole remote that changes , of course . +Project Manager: No but that's th the side they look uh look at is the front . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if y if you make a a front with just a a tiger on it , then uh our recognition is totally gone . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right +User Interface: Or you can you can can put the same symbol on on every remote . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a must . +User Interface: So l like Ericsson does {gap} every uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we must . +Industrial Designer: We can put it on the on the back side . +Marketing: We must have that . +Project Manager: Yeah well and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: S something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: It's recognisable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can make a symbol of the company right here . And {vocalsound} if you put a front on it , there's a hole on the front . So the symbol's always on +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so that you don't replace the symbol , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Something like that , +Project Manager: Or the th the the lowest part of the remote isn't changed by the front . +User Interface: in the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Those kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But let's not focus on the front {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well so uh uh like I said I thought we'd we'd use more function . If we we had to include more functions . But we don't . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . I think this is about the maximum number of buttons we need . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Maybe some less . Like eject we don't need , and some other buttons we don't need . I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mike , uh can you put uh that picture from me on the in the Word documents file ? In Map ? +User Interface: Yeah , I will . I think uh for the remote um uh less is more . {vocalsound} The less buttons the better the design . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We should go with that concept I think . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: I know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I've I've got another point . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Um there are two target audi audiences , and we've uh chose for the younger one . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Um , research has shown that um it's a high interested uh in features . They are high high interested in feature . But they are more critical . Fo Yeah , critical . +Industrial Designer: The younger uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} The younger audience . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we must um must design uh a control that really speaks to the people . +Project Manager: Well what if we um {disfmarker} I at I at home have a remote that has um the most familiar uh buttons on the top , and the bottom side of the front has a little clip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: a f a little uh {disfmarker} You can click away and then you have f much more functions that most people don't use but s some do do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think uh the most functions uh underneath that uh {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Clip aren't used much . +Project Manager: Well but because you say they their features are important , they want m um a lot , +Industrial Designer: No um mm usually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what kind of features ? Like L_C_D_ screens and voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {vocalsound} m most {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Most uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , look at these numbers . The newest features are , like I said , are uh L_C_D_ and uh speech uh control . Our audience , these people , are very like these uh features . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: You see ? So we must build in something , or they will to uh go to the concurrent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Competitors . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Our competitor . Yeah . +Marketing: The concurrent ? {vocalsound} Competitors , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , I do think we have to uh have some features . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well maybe w we could uh s +Marketing: Even though they cost a little more . +Project Manager: On um some uh calculators you have lo those little little L_C_D_ th that you can click on or something , +Marketing: Right . Right . +Project Manager: or that you can click uh out uh of the remote . And if if that's gives you a little bit of sta status information . +Marketing: Like a ticker-tape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which programme you are l watching or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Those kind of things , uh because you also have those uh those program recognition for your V_ V_C_R_s . And uh well if y if your remote picks that up also , you they can display which programme you're currently watching . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . So it it just signals the the different uh sig uh the different symbols on the screen you have , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh because if you change to s channel two you have two on the screen and two on your on your um on your L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For example . It it could be such a little uh th that you can click in and out and you and you have it . +User Interface: Yeah , we should keep that simple too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But should it uh really be uh clickable , uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well maybe . +Marketing: No not clickable . +User Interface: No , it should be uh integrated . +Industrial Designer: or {vocalsound} or just integrate inside to try to make it d more trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , no no no . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , just at at the top . So when you s {vocalsound} you sit like this you can can watch . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: I think it should be at the top . +User Interface: something like on um some radios in car . You {disfmarker} Where it's , yeah , walking to {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . It's a ticker-tape idea . +Project Manager: R_D_S_s or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's of course uh a bit more uh expensive than uh the basic uh calculator design , with the scrolling text and {vocalsound} that kind of thing . +User Interface: Wa Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's you got {disfmarker} It just means it's a script that's uh keeps it uh rolling , +Marketing: Well it's just one script . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's not uh {disfmarker} That's five minutes off uh implementing time I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , five minutes of ja ja for programming . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't think that's the issue . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright , we go with the L_C_D_ screen ? +Project Manager: Uh well I think so , yes . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we we we still need to know how much that will cost . +Marketing: 'Kay . Right , I don't know if I can find that , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're g No but we're we'll have to look into that . +User Interface: Or maybe you will get that information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um we can use this board again , I think . +Marketing: Next time . Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh we can put some um decisions about um the controls we want , th the issue . {vocalsound} Where is my presentation ? {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand what you're saying . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We should have a general idea of how it's gonna look . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} I mean we're all here now , I think . These I've already given you . So we have to decide on the different remote control functions . So we want to have a small L_C_D_ screen that's special . +Marketing: Right . At the top . +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we start with the most important parts ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: At the top or at the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ screen alright {gap} but we should start with the power button ? +Marketing: I think the top is more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you s How do you zap ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You just sit in your chair ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah but with with the L_C_D_ screen on the top it gets a bit unnatural . +Marketing: With the remote ? +Project Manager: That thing is terrible . +User Interface: 'Cause most remotes have some space left at the bottom . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that's where your hand ball might be . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , no Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: And then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll draw two , and then we'll see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should uh centralise the discussion here . {vocalsound} I dunno what uh you were talking about but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} we are busy with something {gap} . +Marketing: Um he thinks {disfmarker} Yeah , right . He thinks it's better to put the L_C_D_ at the bottom , and I think it's better at the top . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Why do you think it's better at the bottom ? +User Interface: Uh well because most uh remotes have um some space left at the bottom , and that way you can keep the shape recognisable for everybody . +Marketing: But your {disfmarker} +User Interface: I c +Industrial Designer: But you just can put uh the the the the the whole interface a bit down , so that there's room for the for the interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I d I think that's that's ugly but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the ticker {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ is like like small . {vocalsound} It's it's wide . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not not high . But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I th I think Mike Mike has a point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} I th +Industrial Designer: And and we can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because um when when uh when I use a remote I l I hate the buttons but buttons at the at the bottom . +User Interface: Yeah . Power button always {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: So and and I I like to use the ones on the top . +User Interface: Yeah , y you gotta zap like this or {vocalsound} you want to {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So when I u when I have to have an L_C_D_ s scr window {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . But {disfmarker} We're making a remote with {vocalsound} with a few functions you know . +Industrial Designer: Well {vocalsound} that's {vocalsound} a bit exaggerated . Well , I agree with you {gap} . It's it's also more recognisable . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: It looks more like a calculator to people , if you have the l the the the thing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes but we we we we don't want that . +User Interface: Yeah you don't want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't want them to look like a calculator . +User Interface: You want uh {disfmarker} Yeah it it it must be a remote . +Project Manager: We want to look it like our original but familiar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah w well , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh you don't have to throw uh um important aspe {vocalsound} important aspect like familiarity uh completely away , +Marketing: High-tech {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yea +Industrial Designer: uh because {vocalsound} I think it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a bic uh better uh white uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We White ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's still important to have it at the top , +Marketing: Width . +Project Manager: Width . Uh format yeah format ? Line width ? Width ? +Industrial Designer: because it's uh it's more familiar that way . +Marketing: {gap} Th that's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} When I draw here it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Oh . Huh ? +Project Manager: It's a bit off . +Marketing: Yeah , it's off . +Project Manager: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A little a little bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {vocalsound} it needs to be calibrated again . Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh let's uh talk about that later uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe you should another pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's uh better . {gap} You e you only have one pen for that screen . Yeah . +Marketing: Where ? +Project Manager: It's special pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , we have to make a decision now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because we don't have much time . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think we have uh a few functions , and we can put uh the L_C_D_ above it , and still have lots of room at the bottom , where you can put your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I agree . +Project Manager: I think it should be at the button , bottom . Bottom . The L_C_D_ . +User Interface: At the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well I'm the {vocalsound} I I'm the designer , so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In a few minutes {disfmarker} +Marketing: At the bot +User Interface: Oh yeah , oh yeah , I totally agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} We are two uh V_S_ two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but uh what what if we we first decide the different functions , +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's the boss . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then look at the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Great . +Industrial Designer: Uh we uh we were busy with that . +Project Manager: Because we have to decide this . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah we should uh summon the the different uh aspects of the thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , we have the power button . +Marketing: And moreover I think that you two should be uh come to consensus about the L_C_D_ s . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: It's uh your it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we have a power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course . Uh it's uh . Yeah . W wh +User Interface: No it's our job . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: For all of us I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: While you have to agree , I can say {gap} it's like this and {vocalsound} you must agree . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Marketing: Alright , let's keep it central . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have a power button , setting buttons , L_C_D_ window , the number buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The ten numbers ? Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Volume control . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh the mute button . +Industrial Designer: Well let's look at your uh design . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I h love that one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I think we we should use something like this um to um {disfmarker} The the channel up and channel down button ? {vocalsound} Yeah , in circle , you know ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . Well that's that's also design . +User Interface: And and a volume control also in it . +Project Manager: Yes . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well h ho +Industrial Designer: But th th on this remote th these controls are for something else , a D_V_D_ player or something . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . They are for some uh video uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , as I already said , we could drop some of these buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You should put that uh power button , channel and volume should have the most uh importance . +User Interface: Yeah . I think these should be in one big circle in the middle . +Marketing: Yeah , but what he said about R_S_I_ was {vocalsound} t kinda true . When {gap} {vocalsound} when you uh put them all in the same place , the most used buttons , you're doing the same thing all the time , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that's just what R_S_I_'s all about . So it might be smarter to put them a little more away from each other . +Project Manager: Apart . So people have to move their hand . And they get less uh complaints of R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's also not good to completely stay in one position constantly with one hand . +Project Manager: {gap} That's what I always do , +Industrial Designer: Y {gap} +Project Manager: because all my i important buttons are the same place . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's good to move uh from time to time . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: Yeah but people don't like it when their buttons are all over the place . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they need to be centred . +Industrial Designer: No but now y W would we have to choose a way in middle ? +Marketing: Frequency of uh button use . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um channels are uh most uh is most used within the hour . You can see . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Volume hardly . +Marketing: So the the {vocalsound} channel uh channel buttons should be far far apart , I think , up and down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No I don't think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Up and down far apart from each other ? +Industrial Designer: Far apart ? +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} You thinking uh about R_S_I_ ? +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y look at uh look at the frequency . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei not too much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other the other two uh frustrations are far more important . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can have the two buttons of up and down close together , but you don't have uh have to have volume control and and zapping button close together . +Project Manager: Well for example the power button , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they are used four times an hour , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If someone is constantly z zapping , it's not going to miss , that it that the power button is not right beside it . Because I have someone {disfmarker} But the buttons is way . +Marketing: Nei nei nei n I I totally agree . +Project Manager: So that one can be put away . +Marketing: But just {disfmarker} Yeah . Right . Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: The power button can uh be uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Power bu button should be left at the top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: And should and should be red . +Project Manager: Oh man , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: five minutes . {vocalsound} Yeah , well five minutes left . +Marketing: Right , just make some decisions . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The most important things we have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um how are we going to do it with those numbers ? +Industrial Designer: C c can you make you make {disfmarker} We can use uh the drawing board now , I think . Uh it it doesn't work well but {disfmarker} But it it would be pretty pretty uh nice if we could just draw a simple thing . +Project Manager: Well I have it here . Yeah well that's going to take too too much time . +Marketing: I do think you have to keep you have to keep it central now . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh you decide that , you decide that , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and {vocalsound} ready . +Project Manager: Well the L_C_D_ . Um you are Industrial , you are User Interface . So I think it's going to go to Mike . But you will have to make consensus with {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well consensus , um {disfmarker} We we can put it in the middle , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's a bit hard , because we are going to be uh individually . +Marketing: Nei . We're {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We're deciding now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Top or bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh yeah I I still think it's it's quite important though to uh to have it at the top , so +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . You say familiarity isn't important but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what if we're going to now decide about the functions , and the design comes into the next round ? Plus the d th the design round is still to come huh ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright these functions . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: As we we we we agreed , we do have a L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: The number f Well yes , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's enough . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: W the number function . Are we going to uh do it like uh on Mike's screen with uh one button that says I'm going to do a t two number digital ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: How do you want it to do then ? +User Interface: Well just when you push a one one and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's one two three four five six six seven eight nine zero . +Project Manager: It it has to r recognise one as {vocalsound} there could still come more . +User Interface: No , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} On most T_V_s if you uh press two numbers shortly after each other , {vocalsound} d it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , like that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: They'd recognise it . +Project Manager: Alright so no button for that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Th that's the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That that's very easy . Yeah . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay uh anyone any uh oth other functionalities of our uh remote ? +Industrial Designer: I think these are the the most important functions . +Marketing: Do you still have the pictures over there ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's about it . You do need the uh multi Or did uh {disfmarker} No , like this one . You do need them ? +Project Manager: No , we'd uh just said we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , alright uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Now okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um well because we can't integrate it with any other uh remotes , all those buttons on those pictures are uh irrelevant . So just for a television is that all we need ? +Marketing: Right . Yeah , it's most useable this way . +Industrial Designer: {gap} basic function . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teletext is gone . So all those buttons that {vocalsound} ar are to do with teletext {disfmarker} Oh screen placing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll have uh those uh buttons about uh {disfmarker} And uh the two important ones we're l f forgetting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's um {vocalsound} screen . You can make it wider and less wide . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the button that you can go to A_V_ for your video . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: I do think we have to put that underneath a clip . +Project Manager: Those two ? But it's just two , and we make a clip ? +Industrial Designer: Uh just two just two under uh under uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's a bit uh waste . +User Interface: We we can make {vocalsound} make uh a little row of like four buttons down here . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , right . +Project Manager: Or at the top . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your L_C_D_ screen is going to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you you can put uh two or three buttons under uh another section . +User Interface: Yeah alright then . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's too complicated . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You can just put it somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} They they aren't used much , not as much as those other , so you can put it somewhere {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , they can be small or round like buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah s bit smaller and s Well uh and and I think more at the bottom . Yeah . Yeah or at the top , yeah . What do you think uh those those buttons ? +Project Manager: Well I think they should in an in an isolated part of the remote . +Industrial Designer: Above or down ? And w where ? Well we design it later . We have it , and we design later where everything goes . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? Yes . Yes . Well any other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well if you {vocalsound} you take those th If you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Why go to video ? +Project Manager: Go to video , that's always on your remote control . To A_V_ uh to A_V_ A_V_ A_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can z you can zap t you can you can zap to the video channel from zero to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the video channel uh ? +User Interface: That's just zero . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well l n no not at not at my remote . +Industrial Designer: No no not always . Ze yeah zero is a different channel than uh the the video channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but you can can zap down {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but when you zap down zero you get to A_V_ . +Project Manager: Yes . I don't . +User Interface: Yes , I think th +Project Manager: I go to ninety-nine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , then you press ninety nine . +Marketing: Ah uh well whatever , {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I think go to video is an irrelevant button , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th that's the button uh {disfmarker} No . +Industrial Designer: But it's easy to go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you are at uh at channel uh fifty five and you want to uh go immediately to the video channel , you do you have to push a to to get below zero . +Project Manager: No you can ch push zero . Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's more easy to get to uh where the specific uh video channel button . +Project Manager: I I think that one button is uh {disfmarker} I use it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but if we're choosing to uh incorporate these buttons , you have to have uh channel setting , if you wa if you have a new T_V_ . You have to set the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right all th these uh different buttons you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: These buttons , I don't have buttons for channel setting uh especially on my remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well uh d different screen settings a Yeah , sk {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , I do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's incorporated with p m plus and down , uh those {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well y you must have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y you you you you have screen width . +User Interface: Yeah you yeah you have one one button from {vocalsound} s set frequency o or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then with plus and min minus you can uh adjust the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . That's the only one we put uh in there . +Project Manager: So we still {gap} have one uh four ? +Marketing: For a screen uh fu uh channel setting . +Project Manager: Ch ch +Industrial Designer: Yeah to uh oh yeah of course to configure the programme the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Programme , right . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh the Okay button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh you always have in the centre an Okay button , for your menu . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Menu button . +Industrial Designer: You should {disfmarker} Yeah . I think that's important . +Project Manager: Channel , setting , menu . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} And and the settings to change the brightness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We have to go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the settings to change the brightness and the contrast . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: So um Save . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Chief ? Chief ? +Project Manager: Yes see . +Industrial Designer: Th the menu menu button is also important . +Project Manager: Yes I have put it in . +Industrial Designer: Then you can uh {disfmarker} Where ? {vocalsound} I don't see it . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Oh Menu , alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think things like uh contrast and brightness should be um in the menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: In the menu . And you can uh then adjust it with the zapping buttons or something . +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Because uh the zapping buttons aren't used then if you are in the menu . +User Interface: Or the volume or something like that . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or the volume , yeah . +Project Manager: We're going to uh go to our uh rooms , and uh we'll have to decide s things on our own I think . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Your pen . +Marketing: Ah . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yes chief . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well see you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thought we'd uh lunch uh right now , or not ? +Project Manager: W w we have lunchtime , by the way , now uh so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is this is your thing . +User Interface: Yeah , lunch break . +Marketing: Ah . Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I am hungry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Get into my belly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . We didn't exactly do everything but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See you later mate . {vocalsound} +","The meeting captured in the transcript appears to be among a product development team tasked with the design of a new remote control. The team includes members from marketing, project management, industrial design, and user interface design. The conversation reflects the early stages of functional design, where the team is reconciling new requirements with the ideas and concepts previously discussed. + +The team begins by reviewing the agenda for the meeting. The Project Manager had received an email from their superiors with new project requirements, which included additional functions and specifications that needed consideration before moving forward with the individual presentations prepared by the team members. + +The team discusses different aspects of the remote control’s design, including the importance of competing with the strong points of competitors’ controls, ensuring compatibility with the company's DVD and technical releases, and the design being comfortable to hold. It is stressed that the remote control should be user-friendly, with special attention given to the ergonomics to prevent issues like repetitive strain injury (RSI). + +During the course of the meeting, it becomes evident that certain features such as teletext have been ruled out by the higher-ups. However, there are also discussions about appealing to a younger demographic, introducing features like an LCD screen — despite potential cost concerns — and considering voice recognition technology, although its development might be expensive and time-consuming. + +Marketing brings to the table research findings about what people dislike about current remotes, emphasizing the importance of aesthetics and the need for large, easily identifiable buttons for common tasks. They also introduce the idea of a ""find your remote"" function, where the remote emits a sound to be easily located within the room if misplaced. + +The remote's compatibility with other devices is a point of contention due to time constraints on the project and orders from above to not include DVD functionality. The team also discusses the corporate image and how their design should align with the company's branding and slogan without sacrificing familiarity and user-friendliness. + +Throughout the conversation, the Project Manager directs attention to executing specific tasks and organizing the flow of the meeting efficiently. The Industrial Designer provides technical insights into the workings of standard remote controls and contemplates integrating new features into the design, such as the LCD screen and speech recognition. + +The User Interface designer emphasizes the need for a design that is both minimalistic and intuitive, reflecting on current remote designs available in the market. There is a continuous back-and-forth between the team members about the placement of the proposed LCD screen, with opinions divided between having it at the top or bottom of the remote. + +As the meeting nears its end, there is a sense of urgency to make concrete decisions on the functions and design of the remote control. Given the time constraints, the team struggles to reach a consensus on all points but discusses including essential functions such as power, volume control, channel navigation, and a menu button within an intuitive layout to cater to frequent use without causing strain to the user. + +Finally, the meeting concludes with the team agreeing to take their discussions and decisions to their respective environments for further contemplation, followed by a lunch break. It's evident the team still has much to deliberate on, signaling that much of the design work lies ahead as they aim to solidify the details of their remote control project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay , so now we are on the conceptual design meeting . {vocalsound} Uh y getting close to the last +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: is the penultim meeting . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: How was lunch ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm great . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Thanks {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Don't be sarcastic . {vocalsound} Mark . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} um I will again do the secretary part uh we will have three presentation first um uh the industrial design , first Rama then Mark and then Sammy . +Marketing: Uh Rama . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ramaro . +Project Manager: Um um we have to take a decision on the control {disfmarker} remote control concepts and we have forty minutes . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: So what we want to {disfmarker} the decision we want to take on this meeting are on the um first on the component concept , so what kind of energy we use uh what kind of chip on print and one ki kind of case . And also on user interface concept uh what kind of interface we use and if there is some supplements . And at the end um Sammy will give um {vocalsound} a trend watching on what he's {disfmarker} he's been doing . It's {disfmarker} So , let's go . First with Rama . Participant two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , participant two . Component . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yep . So we're to mainly design f mainly need to know which components we'll use for energy , and the material and interface . For energy there are maybe two or three possibilities . First one , we can use simple battery , or we can use {vocalsound} traditional solar cells or {disfmarker} mm and the material we can have plastic , rubber which is good for this R_S_A_ +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: and then uh titanium , which can be {disfmarker} which have very good look an and then interface we're to use push buttons or liquid crystal d L_C_D_ display . And we can use some {gap} , moving {gap} kind of thing . So , as we discussed before , we need to {disfmarker} we would like to have some speech recognition s chip in our remote control . So this can be simple kind of programmable chip and {disfmarker} which can use microphone {gap} sensors . And we also want to look at our remote control , so . Still we are looking for possible uh technical uh specifications and how w easy we can do and within our pri range , like we're to {disfmarker} in our twelve Euros or around that . So we are looking for simple devices or simple technology to do the location of remote control in a room or in a house . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , okay . +Industrial Designer: So uh we discussed an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Excuse me . So we would like to propose battery instead of solar cells and it would be problematic uh to have enough energy with the solar cells +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and so we would like to just use simple battery . And also we want to go for titanium design instead of rubber or {disfmarker} and well the problem is with this design we found that we can't use double-curved shapes . +Marketing: What is a double-curved shape ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Like you can have two curves . +Marketing: Uh-huh . +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} I think in manufacturing I guess it's problematic . So , we want to go for simple push buttons because it need a simple chip and it's really lesser {disfmarker} uh re really less expensive compared to L_C_D_ +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: which are uh which needs advanced chip technology and it's more expensive , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: since we want to put some other features such as speech recognition +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we want to reduce uh cost . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I want to know why it b uh just uh sorry but for the point before uh why not the rubber , if it is something that it seems to be light . +Marketing: The cost . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} And also like in {disfmarker} if you put a {gap} it's be difficult to do all the moulding of buttons and these things +Project Manager: Okay . You m titanium it's more uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: W we can use something like you know {vocalsound} the whole body's titanium but there are some rubber or I dunno some rubber parts like +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm like this ? +Project Manager: Yes so mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: to make it feel better and to you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Like in cell phones recently +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: these {disfmarker} you can {gap} with the rubber in four directions and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: yeah . But full assembly {disfmarker} We'll use mainly for titanium {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: rubber is expensive +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and also it's bit difficult to do all the shapes uh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And this push buttons +Project Manager: Uh yeah so +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we we would like to use push buttons instead of L_C_D_s and so we want to mo I mean we're {gap} we want to put speech recognition so we want to reduce price on this technology and so that we can have enough space or enough money +Project Manager: Okay , s so simple button and uh speech recognition for the more complicated . +Industrial Designer: for {disfmarker} S S +Marketing: Speech {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Y yeah we have simple buttons and speech recognition technology , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , and still we have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +User Interface: mm can we still include the L_ L_S_D_ display ? +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +User Interface: L_C_D_ yeah L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Uh l +Marketing: Seems not , it's either L_C_D_ or push-button . +Industrial Designer: So uh +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: it's like a {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's not gonna be a t no touchable but still like a source of information or source for menus . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah maybe maybe we can see depending on how we'll come up with our full design then if we have enough money or like for and {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's try it , let's t +Industrial Designer: because the speech recognition technology will take at least five Euros or {gap} or something so we want to reduce the cost on display +Marketing: {gap} The L_C_D_ would {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or this inter +Marketing: The display would only be display and not uh touch sensitive you mean . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , it's it's not gonna be a touch pad , uh just a display for giving you information . +Marketing: Just uh for output , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , that can we we can consider , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because like it won't take much money I guess , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay , yep . +Project Manager: {gap} Mm . +Industrial Designer: You have any further questions or ? +Marketing: I guess no um . So the batteries uh are going to be very light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we're to go for li and now I think we have many options in the market so we can go for small nickel or alkaline batteries +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: for really light batteries and with uh good price . +Marketing: So this device on n that can be used for speech recognition could also be used for just uh the finding it basically , instead of clapping why not just be {disfmarker} ask . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} then the the one thing we want to know is like because remote control is used for like in the household so it it it will be it {disfmarker} m maybe at least five , six people want to use it so so how to uh uh how to define our re speech recognition +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: whether we want to do s speaker independent or speaker dependent . If we're going for more speaker independent then it would be like again cumbersome and we need really m more technology +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: for the location . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , if if everybody in the house n {gap} to locate then we're to go for some speaker independent technology or something . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So let's now go to the {disfmarker} you don't have more question ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: No , it's okay . +Project Manager: Um mm thank you mm . +User Interface: No more questions . +Industrial Designer: Yep . Thank you . +Marketing: Puts less of constraint on what we can do +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm yeah , yeah . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: it's always like that . We have dreams and the {disfmarker} in the end we find out that it's not feasible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , but {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . We have uh some limitations {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But still uh L_S_D_'s already quite nice , +Marketing: L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: L_C_ {vocalsound} +Marketing: L_S_D_ is something else , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and it's quite nice as well . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I'm an artist , sorry . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} yeah . +User Interface: So uh , that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: go on uh artist . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope that's not too much . +Project Manager: Now let's talk about uh interface . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh participant number three . +Project Manager: Three . +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh +Project Manager: Which one ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm mm uh have a look at this {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: no it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {gap} Uh so the concept of the interface . Generally I developed quite a broad concept not only for the interface , but for possible instruction or user's manual and uh all the complex things that come together with your T_V_ and remote controls . So let's start with this . We got our perfect remote control with a lot of buttons +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and uh we got explanation for every button +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and you can use your time and uh it will take i some days to learn all this buttons and um the L_C_D_ is going to be somewhere here and uh go back button , I don't know really where it is , maybe one of this buttons , and um power on and off mm I I don't remember +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so uh it it it should be maybe this button is power on and off ? Or no {gap} ? I can see nothing . So that's our concept . It's called the millennium remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Let's change millenniums . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: maybe you can use {gap} in the end and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} doesn't make sense . This is very {vocalsound} ugly . +User Interface: Really ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I thought you like it . Ah okay +Marketing: Oh no , +User Interface: just press the button , please uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: too much concept . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Ah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we will not use this . We will not use this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But instead of this I will devise {disfmarker} That's our concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , back today . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And it's got just few buttons , quite low looking , and all this stuff we already we already discussed . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . 'Kay . +User Interface: And uh what will people say ? They'll say it's perfect . Or what will say ? Uh they will say it's splendid . And uh e everyone will say I'll buy it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {gap} Do you think it can come in several colours ? +User Interface: And everyone's gonna be satisfied . +Marketing: Or did the {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I would make a backlight of the L_C_D_ screen with different colours . +Marketing: Um but not the case . +User Interface: Not the case . +Marketing: Uh the case would only be in that uh aluminium uh titanium stuff , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Because apparently from your survey people like colours , no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , well they like uh something which is uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , so let's remember there's a Nokia phone which changeable panels . +Marketing: Mm yeah , okay , +User Interface: Do you like it ? +Marketing: so that would be the option . I don't know I don't have a Nokia phone , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: but I don't use that but again , uh I might {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's why you don't have it . That's why , +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: 'cause it's nasty . {vocalsound} +Marketing: bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it would be expensive , no ? If you use colour L_C_D_ . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Uh instead of that maybe we can change the colour of the assembler . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can just {disfmarker} if users want more colours they can pay more money to get this uh the shapes and they can have different assembly . +User Interface: Um , I am here . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So users have different {disfmarker} I mean they have their own interests , colour interests and so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we can just {disfmarker} if they want they can just pay another two Euro . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , okay , so +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: you you propose something with option i that increase the price if we {disfmarker} if you want o more colours {vocalsound} on L_C_D_ , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah yeah yes . If they want like uh {disfmarker} so that we can {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Kind of upgradable uh {vocalsound} remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Wow , wow . +Industrial Designer: Just they'll get few more things and few more colours . +User Interface: Okay , what uh {disfmarker} there's one more decisi uh one more solution in fact , um {vocalsound} 'cause there are some some paints that can change colour according to where they are , like they can reflect different colours depending on what is around , like what colour is around , and depending on the temperature , +Industrial Designer: Lights , yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: And thermodynamic also . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Like a chameleon . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: We can make it in fact . +Project Manager: Yeah but that's maybe mo too much expensive , yeah . +User Interface: If if if the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: okay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But uh it can be in uh maybe in an {disfmarker} a gradable version , +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm , +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because uh I think there are two kinds of people . Those for which the remote control is uh is to be uh something useful uh I'm going to talk about this later but {disfmarker} and those for which is something that that that uh is uh specific to them so it it's like a signature . My remote control is pink . Nobody else than me has a pink remote control . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And that makes me special . +Project Manager: Okay +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and you think that we don't have to make to make them pay more because of {vocalsound} uh o or this is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think I think they would be ready p ready to pay more for that . +Project Manager: Okay , so +Marketing: Those who wanted to have it pink . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} i it's not uh a s base service +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No mm no . +Project Manager: it's a {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: {gap} be an option , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: yeah . +Marketing: It might be optional , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: But those people will be really few , no ? So like we can {gap} those {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the young people the young people want to be different from their friends . +Industrial Designer: Ah . +Marketing: Although similar but have something just slightly better . Pink {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So m so +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: maybe that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if that it's a selling point maybe it has to be the base . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: yeah . But you know if you want to be different you just take your remote control with you all the time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And you'll be different . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it makes you different , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: you know ? +Marketing: You always have your remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh in the train uh , hello uh no . {vocalsound} Want to change my neighbour . +User Interface: Anyone has their remote controls here ? +Marketing: Oh , you don't ? {vocalsound} Yeah . You don't have your remo {vocalsound} +User Interface: No ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wh you you know like for instance take the iPod . It's a kind of remote control . {vocalsound} Uh it's white +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it's so white that you see it from any anywhere . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: It has this distinctive look and feel and look {gap} which people seems to like {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: just because it's {vocalsound} a colour that we don't usually see in a remote control . White . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh , uh-huh . Could we integrate something into our remote control , something like light ? +Marketing: Seems important . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: That they can use it in darkness , like . Hand light , +Marketing: Mm {gap} glow in the dark , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: maybe like the infrared like we can put some radium chips or something +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so that like {disfmarker} at least um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Iradium ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah sorry . Mm . +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So mm {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . S well , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: let's go on maybe with the presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh-huh , yeah sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: And um the remote control's going to be smart +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: but how smart should it be to not to complicate things too much ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I dunno +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's a question to you and to mm to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well so I heard that uh it seems that speech recognition is something that can be done uh so that's the smartness of the thing . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Currently we don't have guns with speech recognition or uh beer cans with speech recognition +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but we may have remote controls with speech recognition . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm , that's a nice world . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So just just just just think about it um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} Thank you . +Marketing: Don't touch the remote . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Are are you saying here that uh the remote controls should be aware of who is using it ? So for instance the young guy would not be able to use it because his father doesn't want . +User Interface: Uh yeah I just want to say it should be real smart . +Marketing: Like with some {disfmarker} Maybe fingerprint recognition or {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Voice recognition is quite tough . I say don't use it , and the control just looks . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: 'Cause I ordered jus To l to l lock it . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh that {disfmarker} mm that could be feasible I guess , like {disfmarker} So since we have {disfmarker} we want to do some speaker dependent speech recognition uh so we can use {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . So it could be smart in that way . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . Okay . +Marketing: But for instance th I I'm thinking about the other uh uh particularity that the the remote control could have . S since it it knows who is using it , it might also record the kind of uh channels you are u more often using and uh levels of volumes that you're more often uh {disfmarker} things like that +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and provide you ways of using them , I dunno , somehow , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , that might be expensive +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but +Industrial Designer: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: that might also be a good sales pitch again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote that knows you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Okay , thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: yeah , Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {gap} Okay , it's alright . +Project Manager: Participant two ? +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Four , +Marketing: Four , I think . +Project Manager: sorry . +Marketing: Trend , yeah . No uh yes . Okay , so I'm going to talk about trends and um I hope this can help us to to understand l how we should design our remote control . So , next slide please . So first maybe just a small recap on {vocalsound} how how do we watch trends so it's not so uh simple you might think that it's easy but uh it's not so simple . Anyway these days uh the best uh source of information is the web as you know , so have to to go often on the web and look at uh what the others are doing , and ask real people who are using real remote controls every day uh or any other tool that is similar to a remote control which basically is a small device that people {gap} have with them , always , like a phone . We can we can use the phone as a as a good uh uh {vocalsound} example of where to in be inspired . Of course those tha d who are watching the trends are also {disfmarker} have also to be inspired because in fact they're not only watching the trends , they're inventing it , they're creating the trend . I hope I'm going to try to help you on that . This is more risky because you're not following the trend , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: you try to invent it , which means either you succeed and you make a lot of money or you don't and you're out of business . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So anyway uh next slide please . {vocalsound} Uh to be to be quick {vocalsound} there's a lot of words here but uh basically there are {disfmarker} uh in in the market of of remote controls there are three aspects that we should very {disfmarker} pay much attention to . The first one , which seems to be the most important one , is that it has to be fancy , it has to have a fancy look and feel . And uh interestingly this is the very most important thing . It has to be fancy . Strangely enough it's more important to be fancy than to be wi and now that's the second thing it has to be , it has to be technologically i innovative , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: it has to be new with some of uh new uh technology inside and uh and this is also uh more important than the last thing which we w may think that would have been the most important , which is that it should be easy to use and it should be easy to use as a remote control . So as you see uh {vocalsound} it first have to be very nice , s something that people are proud of uh uh that i uh they can be id identified with uh and and then uh something that um contains very novel stuff that they can talk about with their friends , huh , mine has this and not yours . And finally of course it has to be useful as a remote control but it seems that it's not so important that it's useful as a remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Next slide please . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Uh and now in a more uh general uh uh broad way of seeing th uh the thing . If we look back and not uh look at only remote controls I think it's important to see that the trends are quite the same in many areas so {disfmarker} currently the the trends that we see in l in l big cities like Paris and Milan , well , it seems that this year things should have uh a fruit and vegetable uh way of {vocalsound} of look or feel +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: or so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And I think of course uh {vocalsound} i it applies to everything . That's the thing with trends . {vocalsound} It it can travel f from clothe to furniture {vocalsound} same idea . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fruit and vegetable . Think fruit and vegetable . {vocalsound} And uh if we co we compare to last year , now it has to be spongy , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: What is spongy ? +Marketing: yeah . Well +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Marketing: this {vocalsound} so so I think uh uh i +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} kind of um maybe {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: When we were talking about rubber , +Industrial Designer: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think uh the rubber aspect might be important because it's what is probably more feasible in terms of sponginess . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: S So maybe titanium it's not a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} We need to think about {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: Seems not , seems not . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} sorry Mark . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think more of uh something in the colours of uh like fruit and vegetables and spongy , +Industrial Designer: Fruit . Even shape ? +Marketing: as a {disfmarker} even in the shape it has to be more round and uh more uh uh look natural somehow . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} More {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And not those futuristic uh remote control with angles and uh and titanium like . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} You're old-fashioned . +Marketing: So that's what people seem to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah i I know it's quite far from what you thought +Project Manager: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but that's that's fashion and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay that's all I have to say . +Project Manager: Mm you have questions ? +Industrial Designer: So these abilities are mainly ad addressed by young people ? Or it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: These {disfmarker} I'm sorry . +Industrial Designer: This {disfmarker} you you {gap} so did you {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah we have people uh uh listening to the trends everywhere in the world , of course , +Industrial Designer: Where ? Oh . Oh , okay , mm-hmm . +Marketing: as you know our company is quite big and uh so I'm just asking them what are the current trends according to them when they go in the stores and when they ask uh their uh friends +Industrial Designer: It's not from {disfmarker} mm . Mm-hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: that are also {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's more general trend +Marketing: well . +Industrial Designer: it's not particular to the remote control . +Marketing: No , it's not it's not {disfmarker} this this is very general , yeah . But it seems that trends travel across things . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: The {disfmarker} what we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but some materials n they're to be uh they're to be something like solid like they can't be really spongy +Marketing: Sure . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +Marketing: We have to {disfmarker} I think we have to have the look of fruit and vegetables +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah sponge , yeah yeah at least that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: but we still have to put our chips inside , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of course . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah +Marketing: This is your problem . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is not mine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , looking {disfmarker} yeah fruit . These things can be easily incorporated . We can have t colours or this shape +Marketing: Yeah , I think in the colours and in the uh the kind of material . +Industrial Designer: or at least {disfmarker} +Marketing: If if it's something like rubber made or {disfmarker} I think it it's also going to be good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No more question ? Okay . +Marketing: Yep . Thanks . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Okay , so we will have uh next meeting in thirty minutes again . Um now you have to go straight on this individual action which i which are for Rama uh wil design , +Industrial Designer: Look and feel de +Project Manager: um Mark the user interface design , and uh Sammy uh the product evaluation . {vocalsound} Uh you will work together uh on a new on on a prototype using modelling clay . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Hmm . Mm sounds interesting . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm um and I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as always your personal coach will send you specific instruction . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Thanks . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , can we highlight the specific features of our {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah you're right , you have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah , so so we want the speech recogniser and we want some kind of buttons and we want some themes like fruits or vegetables , +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you say s +Industrial Designer: we want to follow general trend . +Marketing: Spongy . +Project Manager: S +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: do we agree on that ? Yeah . We have to . +Industrial Designer: So , do you think {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , we don't have to , +User Interface: So we have to uh for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but seems it's the trend . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Yeah . +Marketing: Again , as I said we can also try to make it , to create the trend . +User Interface: yeah so are we confident enough on creating trends ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So there's no {disfmarker} Well , that's {disfmarker} you t can try to convince us . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , we can make it smell like fruit . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} {gap} that's a good idea , +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So titanium smell like fruit . +Marketing: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So what about location and these things , people are really interesting on those features ? Or they really like {disfmarker} They more want these fancy features +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I think i +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah i it's again in this uh what I said first it has to be fancy so I think if nobody else pro provides currently a remote control with that kind of stuff and if we can provide it I think it's a good sell for us +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Feature {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: because we have it +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and others don't . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: It's fancy . Whether it's useful or not doesn't seem to be very important . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I agree with uh this uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Now we have to decide on what kind of fanciness . Do we take titanium smelling like fruit , or do we make spongy uh fruity-like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh we will try to explore these two options +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you could explore the two option . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Could we make a titanium shape ? I mean {gap} fruit-shaped . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah at least like we can make banana or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Don't you say that you cannot do double shape {disfmarker} uh curved shape {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Doub double-curved . +Industrial Designer: yeah it's it's +Marketing: Mm . Seems to be {gap} . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's a {disfmarker} we're to look for {gap} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: and and s we're to see the {disfmarker} whether rubber is expensive +User Interface: Okay , okay . In fact I just agreed to make uh to make the {disfmarker} like titanium panels on a whole rubber body . +Industrial Designer: and d Hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay , so +User Interface: Well , okay w we'll see . +Project Manager: you explore now that you're going to work together these these two . +User Interface: Yeah +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Or or spongy an yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe we can have two different {gap} assembly also like one spongy and one kind of titanium . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} we have only the plastic or the {disfmarker} the chippy {disfmarker} yeah fibre chips or {disfmarker} +User Interface: We'll see . We'll see . +Marketing: If you have time . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah I don't think w I think we have to choose . If we choose uh titanium or if we choose spongy +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: but uh it cannot be both . +User Interface: We'll see . I I really don't like this modelling clay 'cause you know it makes some {gap} for for +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} For creation . +User Interface: I dunno uh {disfmarker} yeah um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we'll look . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah you can pretend that it's uh titanium . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Even design . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You can paint it afterward {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Marketing: No problem . We have a very large department of {vocalsound} paint . +Project Manager: Yeah , do don't worry , you you {vocalsound} you speak with {disfmarker} mm mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You will do it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright , alright . +Project Manager: Okay . So explore a shape . +Industrial Designer: So still we want to keep L_C_D_ ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm I think it's what we say , that we have an uh an L_C_D_ with uh information . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: The thing is that uh if we want to have as he says {disfmarker} if we want to have uh a small number of buttons we need to have a kind of output that says currently what their actions are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then we can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah , that {disfmarker} user friendly +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: That's the converse to having zillions of button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: where each button does only one thing . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we just stick with two batteries so it's not any solar or {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah yeah j yeah , +Marketing: Classical , we stay classical in that we don't reinvent uh the wheel . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Anyway it's very {disfmarker} in general I think people uh change T_V_ more often than batteries of their remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So . {vocalsound} Because the trend goes faster than the life of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's {gap} very {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . So +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: are we {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're done . +Marketing: We're done . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So see you in thirty minutes . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +","In a meeting concerning the conceptual design of a new remote control device, the project manager initiated the discussions, indicating that this was the penultimate meeting before final decisions are made. The team, including members from marketing, user interface design, and industrial design, discussed various aspects of the remote's design and functionality. + +The conversation began with lighthearted exchanges about lunch before delving into the agenda. The project manager outlined the intention to solidify concepts surrounding the remote control's components, including energy sources, chip technology, casing materials, and user interface specifics. It was clarified that the meeting aimed to finalize decisions on component concepts, particularly the type of energy, chip, and case to use, as well as user interface concepts, which included the type of interface and possible additional features. + +The industrial designer, Rama, presented first. The team considered utilizing simple batteries instead of solar cells due to energy supply concerns and contemplated a titanium design for sturdiness and aesthetic appeal. However, the incorporation of double-curved shapes proved problematic from a manufacturing standpoint. To cut costs and allow for the inclusion of desired features such as speech recognition, it was proposed to opt for simple push buttons over an LCD display. The discussion then turned to the integration of the various materials, such as combining titanium and rubber for a better feel and appearance. + +Questions arose about the choice of materials, with the project manager questioning the dismissal of rubber, which appeared to be a lightweight option. The industrial designer explained the complexities of molding rubber, particularly in the context of designing the buttons, ultimately favoring titanium for its robustness and visual appeal. + +The user interface team then sought clarity on whether an LCD could still be included, albeit without touch capabilities, serving only as a source of information. This question stemmed from budget constraints and the heavy financial burden of introducing speech recognition technology. The team contemplated cost-effective alternatives and ways to possibly include customizable LCD backlighting colors. + +Amidst technical and design conversations, the project manager emphasized the importance of trend-watching, noting that Sammy would later present findings on current market trends, vital for guiding the product's design and appeal. + +The team further discussed the feasibility of including a speech recognition feature that could work with multiple users in a household. This led to a conversation about whether the speech recognition should be speaker-independent, which would be more challenging and expensive to implement. + +The marketers highlighted the importance of the remote being lightweight, which called for options like small, inexpensive batteries, and pondered the role of the device's findability and the practical appeal of speech commands. The team deliberated over whether to offer customization options, like different color panels, as an upgradable choice. + +The marketing experts also outlined essential trends, stressing the need for the remote to be fancy, technologically innovative, and easy to use, in that order of priority. They suggested that trends indicate a favor for spongy materials and nature-inspired designs, like fruits and vegetables. + +Switching gears, the participants discussed the interface design, aiming for simplicity yet smartness without overcomplicating functionality. The conversation touched on balancing technological innovation with familiarity and usability. + +Concluding the meeting, the project manager scheduled follow-up tasks for each team member and instructed them to start creating a prototype using modeling clay, taking into account the discussions, especially the desire for speech recognition, push-button simplicity, and alignment with general trendiness. + +As the meeting wrapped up, there were calls to explore both titanium and spongy options for the remote's design, and possibly combine them. The possibility of making the titanium look fruit-like or fragrant was floated as a creative but expensive option. The team resolved to continue work on developing a prototype that would reflect the discussed features and trends." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'm proud of it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . This is our final meeting , the detailed design meeting . And again I'll take minutes . The {disfmarker} what we have to get through in this meeting is firstly the prototype presentation from you two , so you can show us what you've been working on so diligently . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It does look very cool . +Project Manager: Um then +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then Cat's going to present the evaluation criteria that we're going to be evaluating this against . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then I need to say some st a few things about finance , 'cause we have to check that it's within the finance criteria . Um and then we'll be making sure that our product fits both the evaluation criteria from Cat and the financial limits . Um and then we uh will have a brief evaluation of the whole process of production and design that we've been through . So we've got forty minutes . S +Marketing: And then do we get to make a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause we missed out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's now {disfmarker} I guess that we're supposed to start at fifteen thirty five , so we've got until four fifteen . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . How how much do we have , forty minutes ? +Project Manager: Is that right ? +User Interface: Yeah , about four fifteen , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: until about four fifteen . So yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so . +Project Manager: Go for it . Do you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , you said um {disfmarker} are are we starting with the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Presentation . +User Interface: so will you maybe start with like the mm the shape and things and and then I will explain the the user interface th uh things , like the buttons and the scrolling things and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . So um basically going with our trend of vegetables and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we selected the colour and approximate shape of banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You think bananas are a safe thing to use ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit um phallic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , but it's it's just an a approximation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dual use , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Dual use , perfect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} {gap} your remote control ? Oh that's just bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Does it vibrate when you press the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so basically it's the it's the flip open thing again . +Project Manager: Sorry , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So now we we have the {disfmarker} okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so Ma Maarika will explain you the user interface there . And it flips open on the side , so it opens like that . And we have the user interface o in here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Wow . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the the L_C_D_ and and the scroll are inside . Um well , everything else is probably user interface , so . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} the whole thing's made of rubber , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Yeah , it has , yeah . +User Interface: Rubber . +Marketing: Is it to scale , or do you think you can make it a bit smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} . Um it could be made a bit smaller , and and of course it would be {gap} and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , but um one thing we actually kind of um forgot while designing , that one side was supposed to be rounder , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: so we said the back side round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , but i since it's made of rubber anyway . I I think it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It l does look like the {gap} curvy +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the whole shape's curvy , so I would say that this curvy does look quite like a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's spongy as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wasn't very keen on that , but yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} so uh the user interface as as we discussed last time uh mm on on the {vocalsound} on the cover we just have the very basic things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we have that n uh channels here starting from um uh one two three {disfmarker} there would be numbers in in the {disfmarker} on the actual one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's four , up to four , up to seven , up to nine and zero , z zero here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six seven eight nine . I like that . +User Interface: Yeah . And then , well this is on off button . It's it's quite standard mm place for it and and also the colour is quite often red , so it's it's kind of user friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then these ones would be for flipping the channels back and {disfmarker} like the previous one and the next one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: And and we would also have a l little um thing saying here , previous and ne prevon prevon next . +Marketing: So where's the volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The volume is is scrolling . +Industrial Designer: It's on the side . +User Interface: On the side , +Marketing: Ah , you did get that in then , +User Interface: this one . Yeah you just do it like this . +Marketing: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And and and it's it's on the back is mm cover or back lid , because if you flip it open , you can still do the scrolling here . +Marketing: Oh okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: See ? So the volume is {vocalsound} you just scroll , but then once you flip it open , {vocalsound} okay , there there you have the screen +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and you have the mm {vocalsound} spinning wheel with options to choose . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You can move back and forth and then if you need to m choose something on the screen , you just push the cen mm the middle button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . Oh , the thing we forgot was like a mute button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh no , we we'd not put {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so on on the cover we have the the bare essentials . +User Interface: Well , {gap} we'll have this on the screen , on the display . +Project Manager: Y or you could have it {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} on the wheel if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: On the wheel , like if you hold the wheel down then it will mute . +Industrial Designer: Uh on the L_C_D_ we r you know , the main menu will have various options . +User Interface: Well , but the but the mute {disfmarker} yeah , the scrolling is kind of you have to scroll all the way to make it mute , right ? +Project Manager: But if you hold it in , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but it's a scroll and click , isn't it ? +Project Manager: if it's a scroll and click so you hold it in ? +Marketing: Okay , cool . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , okay . +Marketing: So that {gap} that solves the whole mute issue . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} And okay , so i so the the voice recognition is also just part of it . +Project Manager: {gap} no . +User Interface: You can't really see it in the interface . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's hidden in there somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah . And we do have the logo on it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , very good . +User Interface: So I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the the black and yellow you're even in the right colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , I think um we could do l the logo in grey , as it is on the website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We ran out of resources here , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: In the actual one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a look . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you have questions . +Project Manager: Very good , let's have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Test it out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's a sort of intermediate colour , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , oh , we hold the remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but it it does feel all cold and slimy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hate Play-Do , it's just minging . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But yeah , uh that's cool , cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe if we go on to evaluation cri criteria +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we'll there {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see the budget . +Project Manager: I suspect we're gonna have a couple of minor finance issues , but um we'll se I'm sure we can get around them somehow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll just send all of our manufacturing to some nice poor country +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and cut some of the prices that way . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wales . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wales , for example . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Cool , okay . Right , okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Fabulous , +Project Manager: Marketing Expert . +Marketing: yeah . Okay , cool . So what we're gonna do is prefer {disfmarker} prepare the evaluation of the new design . {vocalsound} Um so we're gonna be using a seven point scale , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so one is , you know , yes , it totally meets with that requirement and seven is , no , it really doesn't , we need to go back and start again . Um , you know . Basically , what I did was I went through all the like user requirements and things that we've done and we've worked on and like made a list of them . Um you know , so that we can evaluate each one and like {disfmarker} so it was about going back to the start and saying oh yeah , we did manage to do that , or oh no , we really forgot about that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , so these are what they are . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So for each of these we need to give it a one to seven . Is that right ? +Marketing: Yes , I did have A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ down here , but it seems to have turned into like just bullet points . +Project Manager: Mm dots , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . But if you can imagine that they say A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ , then that would be really good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I guess we'll give it maximum points in everything . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the yeah , it's definitely attractive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: Oh , the locatable thing we actually forgot . +Marketing: Well , I thought we'd um kinda said that you'd have a little thing to stick on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just prepare one now . +User Interface: Yeah . Shall I just prepare it now ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It will be red , too . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . So , be attractive to look at . That's this one . What do you all say ? +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: I reckon it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S seven was th the maximum , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I I go for seven . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Oh {vocalsound} we're all so proud of the {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven , yeah , it's terribly sexy . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that'll be a seven for A_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} oh no , you can't whilst that's up there . Okay um uh what I've done on the next page is I've set it up so we just put the marks in . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . Except we can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we can we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's alright . +Project Manager: uh we can if we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can I can take note uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you take a note of them , and then I'll put them in in a minute . +Project Manager: then yeah , I'll take a note , it's fine . +Marketing: Okay , so {vocalsound} we're all agreeing on seven for A_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool , okay . Does it match the operating behaviour of the user ? +Industrial Designer: Um the the only thing that we were considering was that uh this thing is kind of more for right-handed people than for left-handed people , +Project Manager: I think it does . +User Interface: I would think yes , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so if you're left-handed you're kind of left uh scrolling with your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: so y so we we might do we might want to do like a uh another m {vocalsound} model another another version , which is like exactly the mirror image of this one . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that's gonna be a problem , +Industrial Designer: But then {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you don't always have all left-handers or all right-handers in a family . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bu it's it's not a huge problem , +Marketing: I th I think it's not {vocalsound} it's not like it's a pen . +Industrial Designer: because i i it is operatable . +User Interface: But then then I think left-handed people are already used to discrimination anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so they just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean because it's not like it's a pen , you know , left-handed people can't normally write right-handed , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but they can normally do most things right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: so I would say it's not such a big issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , because I mean anyway , right-handed people would be able to scroll with it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean you can you can use your finger to to scroll rather than your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so i if the majority are right-handed , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: So I mean that does kind of negate the whole R_S_I_ issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So maybe we need to put {disfmarker} that needs a little bit of investigation , maybe give it a five , I would say ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you what do you all think ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Six . +User Interface: Or maybe six , because it's just one one i one among the issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think I think for um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean most people are right-handed , so in {vocalsound} in terms of our greatest target group , I think it's pretty good , but we might want to flag it for management , they want {disfmarker} might want to um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing is that i +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It might be a little clumsy when when it opens up , right , +Project Manager: They {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it opens on the side . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , yeah , but mm but we have it {vocalsound} nicely {vocalsound} with the hinges here {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it won't be a problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you guys can decide wh whether {disfmarker} +User Interface: it will be {disfmarker} and it will be {disfmarker} it won't be heavy . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: I th I think the alternative is flipping from the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we {disfmarker} which makes it kind of really big , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well yeah , +Project Manager: The length is gonna be difficu +User Interface: but it's it's a bit long . It's a little bit long . +Marketing: Yeah um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I mean it can be opened like this of course and yeah . +Marketing: But you were thinking about making it smaller , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this this kind of uh makes it more {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: S uh slightly smaller . +Industrial Designer: and two , it might interfere with the I_R_ channel . +Marketing: So you have to keep that side flat . +User Interface: Yeah , but if we flip it open only as much as that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So it works like a mobile phone flipping , but y you know , as long as that side's flat , than that will work . +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , so C_ . Are are we admitting defeat on C_ or are we saying we're gonna stick a locator on the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: No , we have a locator . +Project Manager: No , we're gonna put it like {disfmarker} we've got th there's the locator dot . +Marketing: There's a locator . Cool , so that means you need a {disfmarker} that does mean you need a little speaker on it though , +User Interface: Mm that you stick on T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: doesn't it ? To make it beep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a buzzer . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well w but l but the speak sample speaker is included , so it it has some capacity to mm to do some {disfmarker} to make some sounds , so {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's two , so that's seven , yeah . It's locatable ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Fabulous . D_ . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive , completely intuitive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If {vocalsound} uh uh if this means intuitive , if it means the way people kind of are used to finding things +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's {disfmarker} I th I think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd say six , 'cause the {disfmarker} I mean the the standard layout for numbers is three three three and one , rather than the way you've got it . I really like the way you have it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's not the immediate thing that you're used to . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive . +Marketing: Yeah , and I mean d +Industrial Designer: And uh even the scroll , it's a it's a new technology +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so m m might be a little more difficult for people to get used to in the beginni +Project Manager: Might be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it is kind of not very intuitive but uh it's a good technology , I mean once they get used to it . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and it's something that they will be experiencing in a lot of different places soon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , should we maybe say f a five +Industrial Designer: So l +Marketing: and say it is intuitive , +Project Manager: Five ? +Marketing: but it's different , so , do you know , I mean it's obvious how to use it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but you might have to think about it first . So we give that one a five , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . I'm gonna give a seven in everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I'm happy with five ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm glad you're accepting this . It has taken a little while , hasn't it ? Um intuitive but {disfmarker} Sorry , it's really hard to write on those . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just went a bit mad , didn't I ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , cool , E_ , okay . Um I would guess this comes back from this whole B_ thing links in here , so possibly for left-handed . Investigate . +Project Manager: Yep . But otherwise it's superb . +Marketing: So , should we give it a six ? +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: Um uh the ergonom ergonomic design {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: well mm I mean I d uh I dunno , I mean the the repetitive stress things , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: but then who would be really pushing the buttons so much on the on the remote control anyway , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , unless you are a all the time sitting . +User Interface: yeah ? See . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think it is ergonomic . +Marketing: I used to send fifty texts a day , you know , +Project Manager: Well we've banned them from {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I never got repetitive strain injury from that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: so I find it quite hard to believe to be honest . +Industrial Designer: And moreover it it has um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you know uh we minimise the pressing of the buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's varied . +Marketing: Okay , so we give that a six , +Project Manager: Yeah . Six ? +Marketing: yeah . Okay , F_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} it does have {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . +Project Manager: Voice control have seven . +Marketing: Hang on , how come it's showing up with the things there but it only had bullet points there ? That's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , that's the second one . So you must have changed it on this one where it's got score , but not on the previous slide . +Marketing: Oh okay , cool . Um {vocalsound} right , so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So it has voice control . +Marketing: Yes , so that's a seven then . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Um , cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: G_ technologically innovative . +Industrial Designer: Anyway it ha yeah , +User Interface: Technologi {gap} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's the most sophisticated remote that I ever seen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But in terms of the actual technology , none of it is actually new . +User Interface: Yeah . Well mm we have we have the sample speaker as well , which is {disfmarker} yeah , it's kind of new . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: All of the components have been used in other things before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but they've been brought together in a remote . +User Interface: But at the same time they are all they are all relatively new . +Marketing: They're never been used i they've never been using remote remote control before I don't think . +Project Manager: But do {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: What do you reckon , five , six ? +Marketing: Yeah , what do you all think ? +User Interface: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: I mean how how far can you go with a remote control , really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's it , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: It still has to do what i what it has to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean everything has been used in space before it gets to anyone else really , hasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , I don't think many peop +Project Manager: Space remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it , they can take it with them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Put fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , isn't it fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The carrot banana remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the maximum fashion . +Marketing: So , we give it seven , and we write {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fruit fruit and vegetables are fashionable these days , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a {gap} . +User Interface: So I think we've done very well , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's the assessment ? +Marketing: So , we need the average here , so we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: The average is about six and something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +User Interface: A little bit over six . +Marketing: Seven {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are how many sixes ? +Project Manager: Or a seven {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: One , two , three . +Marketing: So we've got four sevens , +User Interface: No , wait , a little bit under six . +Marketing: so that's twenty eight , +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: No , wait . +Marketing: three sixes , +Industrial Designer: And one five . +Marketing: eighteen . +User Interface: Oh , three sixes , okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fifty one , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight . +Industrial Designer: Okay , twenty eight , thirty eight , fo forty six . Forty six and five , fifty one . +Project Manager: Six point point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fifty one divided by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Six point something , yeah . +Marketing: Two three four {disfmarker} Seven eight . +Project Manager: about six point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Six point five , yeah . +Project Manager: Close enough . +Marketing: Okay , that's pretty good , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now wait until we {vocalsound} get to finance and then we'll see if we can afford it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all you've got at the moment , or did you have anything more ? +Marketing: Um no , that's it , +Project Manager: That's it ? +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . So , finance . And we'll see if we can unscrew this first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool , there we go . +Project Manager: Sorry , this is {disfmarker} I'm just um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . There we go and there are the marks . +Project Manager: Beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not anymore . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Computer no signal ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I guess it'll have to wait for a bit . +Project Manager: Adjusting . There we go . Okay , so we've looked at the prototype presentation and the evaluation criteria . And now we have to calculate the production costs . So I've got an Excel spreadsheet to help us do that . Can you read that ? Almost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: More or less . Um I started filling it in , but of course these are provisional , so we have to go down . No hand dynamo , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One simple battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: No kinetic energy , no solar . The chip , we're going for an advanced chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Advanced , yeah . +Project Manager: We also said the sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um single-curved surface , so that we can fold it . +User Interface: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: Case material we said rubber . +User Interface: Rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I don't know what special colour means . +Industrial Designer: Mm anything uh I think which is not more {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think something coloured , yeah , probably . So I think this is probably special co no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It could be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but rubber comes coloured , doesn't it ? You know . +Project Manager: Rub rubber comes coloured , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe it's like if you want titanium coloured or wood coloured , it's different . +User Interface: Or maybe maybe if you want some kind of pattern thing on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , let's leave it as zero , 'cause it's easy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} yeah yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you might end up having to take off the sample sensor . +Project Manager: We we're definitely going to have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have pushbuttons , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we've got pushbutton , and then we've +User Interface: scro we have scroll wheel as well . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel with pushbutton we had , no ? +Industrial Designer: No uh we we have uh yeah . +User Interface: S yeah , yeah , we had , for muting , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we have L_C_ display +Project Manager: And button supplements . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . No . +Industrial Designer: We don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No ? +Industrial Designer: we're not using any of that . +User Interface: Yeah , but what do we ha we have L_C_ display , but but the wh but the s spinning wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the the spinning wheel's not there . I have {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} maybe it's integrated with the L_C_ display ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We've got more than one pushbutton though , +User Interface: Okay , let's {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: haven't we ? +Project Manager: I think the pushbutton {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: 'Cause then you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know if that's one {disfmarker} +Marketing: That means you can only have twenty five push buttons in total doesn't it ? Not counting anything , we'd still be in budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That seems unlikely . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Push what uh +Industrial Designer: Wh wh what is the limit ? Uh . +Marketing: Twelve point five . +Project Manager: whether whether pushbutton means that p count by button or do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to count all of them , or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: I don't think that makes sense . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No it says what what is the kind of interface , +Marketing: Well it doesn't , but it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: if it is pushbutton then you got a zero point five , it's a scroll wheel {disfmarker} so we we've put it's pushbutton and scroll wheel and L_C_D_ display , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And L_C_ display . +Industrial Designer: so that's that's the three kind of interfaces that we have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So , as we can see , that's way too expensive down here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh wh what's our criteria ? +Marketing: This sample sensor {gap} . +Project Manager: Our budget's twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the sample sensor will have to go , 'cause that's the most expensive thing on there . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that has implications though for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh it does not have for voice recognition , but it does have for the feedback speaker . {gap} when you say {disfmarker} when you press one it says one or it says hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the locator . +Marketing: But that's a bit of a gimmick anyway really , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} and the locator also goes away . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can afford to get rid of it . +User Interface: But it was very no innovative +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that means no locator , does it ? +User Interface: {gap} innovativeness {gap} . Well um {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: I mean does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What else does it need ? +User Interface: Well the speaker uh the sample speaker is is expensive , but we could just have some some very very easy device that just beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the sample speaker was , I think , more complicated then just a beeping thing . +User Interface: This would be {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: there you record your samples your speech samples and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , so we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A also i in the case I'm not sure that you will evaluate this as a curved surface , because it's just rubber , so it's probably a flat surface rubber . Uh I mean uh um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we need one fifty off . +Marketing: See , I was gonna say the scroll wheel pushbutton thing , 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Take it down to just a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} We could do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So tha that {vocalsound} mean that we cannot press {disfmarker} how do we how do we make a selection in uh in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , then then we would be in the b budget . +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} in the L_C_D_ we can scroll , right ? But how do we make a selection if we d cannot push the button . +User Interface: Yeah b no no , you can push this one , but we don't have a pushbutton uh we ca we don't have this muting mechanism for this scrolling thing . +Marketing: But that's {disfmarker} well you would just have to to spin it down {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can have to scroll it straight r roll it straight down for for mute . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No w w w but ha +Marketing: So that's point three . +Industrial Designer: it's it's the scroll wheel and I thought we were referring to this as a scroll spinning wheel and pushbutton thing . +User Interface: But I mean {vocalsound} we can put an additional mute button on the top as well . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean that wouldn't actually cost any more . That's the spin wheel though , isn't it ? Didn't that come with the L_C_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's with the L_C_ +Industrial Designer: That comes with the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We decided , 'cause it's not on our list . +Industrial Designer: Oh so so the the this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: The scroll wheel is on the side . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . So {vocalsound} we're adding costs for {gap} right , okay uh I mean I think this is good . +Marketing: S so we're point three over . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're point three over at the moment . +Marketing: Unless we just take off the scroll wheel altogether +Project Manager: It's nothing n +Marketing: and just have pushbuttons for the volume . Could b still put them on the side . But yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I mean the scroll wheel's pretty cool , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Instead of scrolling here we have two buttons here , up {disfmarker} for up and down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: On the side . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh it sounds good actually , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Rather than having three different things that people have to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go . Oh look , we're way under budget and we'll make huge profits and we'll all get bonuses . +Marketing: Yeah , well we could admit to the single curve {gap} , couldn't we ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or or that we have to have some sort of special colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's alright . We we'll leave it at that {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then I'll take {disfmarker} I can send it back to management and say we weren't quite sure about the colour , if that costs extra then we've still got some space for it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . Alright . So did we lose um on our evaluation criteria , as a result of doing that ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Not really , no . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Because we keep all the features , we keep voice recognition , we keep L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} instead of having scrolling we we just push the buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We just got rid of a gimmick that was never {gap} anyway , +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the scroll wheel is I mean essentially the two buttons that was {disfmarker} it's not a great difference I don't think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we lose the locator . +Project Manager: Alright then . +Marketing: Really ? +Project Manager: We're gonna have a beep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {gap} we're going to have a beeping thing . +Industrial Designer: So instead of speaker , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah , it's it's not like sample speaker , but it will just beep , so we still have the locate . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool . That's not a very exciting colour . I think you should make it more vegetable-like . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tha +User Interface: Which colour , the the colour of the phone or the colour of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh the the beeper thing . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it can be yellow as well . It can come in the same colour as the the case . +Project Manager: 'Cause we we won't have run out of our pot of Play-Doh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think Jen wants it to vibrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I know I know , my pen vibrates . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know , your pen vibrates ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But only for a very short time . Um okay . So looks like we've designed a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well done , team . {vocalsound} Um we need {disfmarker} we've just got about ten minutes or so left of the meeting , so it would be good if we could just have a little talk about the project itself and how it went , um so that we can feed back to the management for next time they're designing a product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Feedback ? Ideas ? +User Interface: Yeah mm , as far as creativity is concerned , yeah I think there was there was room for creativity . The only the only problem being that at the end we had to cut some things down because of the the budget we had . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh n one thing that was lacking uh was that we did not know what the various things cost to begin with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um we kap kept a adding things randomly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , had we known {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If we'd had that sheet at the beginning {gap} should've been like , okay , so we can have that lot , let's just throw it together and do what we can . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that or not , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {vocalsound} d all the random decisions at the end could have been prevented . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But in terms of the process of um going and working individually and then coming back to a meeting , that that worked in terms of . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Marketing: I think 'cause the meetings were so regular , you know . It wasn't like we were alone for very long , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you didn't {vocalsound} st go off and think , wouldn't it be great to have a vibrating {vocalsound} remote control {vocalsound} shaped like a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then , you know , come back three days later and Jen's going look , look , it vibrates and it looks like a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um yeah , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , the m the means were very very good , the means we used . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , the whiteboard digital pens . +User Interface: And the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I like the pens . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We like the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I want one . That would just be so cool , to d do all your notes and s +Project Manager: Yeah , you could take it to lectures and just write stuff down +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: and have it printed out when you got back to the office . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They great ? +Industrial Designer: I wonder what one of these costs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think they'd notice if one went ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think you should say that was the recording . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Okay , cover up the microphone . Alright , let's take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Shh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But that worked well having having a whiteboard that we could draw on as well as having the PowerPoint , 'cause the {disfmarker} I find that the problem with PowerPoint often is that it's so static and you can't change it once you're in there , +Marketing: It is a bit limiting , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yep . +User Interface: Yeah , and and and this time also the time limits but actually preparing the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . The thing flew in , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you didn't have the whole whooshing thing , 'cause there wasn't time for that , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's alright , that always irritates me anyway , yeah . +Marketing: Not that you can do that on the board , either . We could make some little {disfmarker} +User Interface: But yeah , but I mean already just just preparing the slides before before the meeting , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , totally , I mean that was fairly tight anyway , I mean especially with that last-minute alteration . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} back it , {vocalsound} this is {disfmarker} just had to be changed +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: . And {disfmarker} yeah , so {disfmarker} cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we supposed to say nice things about Jen now ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And presumably you don't {disfmarker} you can say nasty things as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have no stake in it . +User Interface: I was I was satisfied with with the leadership , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You weren't like a a dictating leader , so that was always good . +Project Manager: You have to say that , 'cause I'm taking the notes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll leave the room and you can have another go . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know you've got the pen , you might attack me with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Better than that than the banana . +User Interface: And then the teamwork I think I think it worked quite quite nicely , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it worked quite well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Did anyone feel that they were getting sort of covered up and not being able to say their bit ? +User Interface: To express them mm mm +Industrial Designer: Mm . I guess it was a fairly small group , +User Interface: no . +Industrial Designer: so all of us got to express our opinions , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . New ideas found . Not quite sure what about . +User Interface: Well it's it's it's pretty new , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: pretty novel solution for a for a remote control really , all this flipping open thing and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know , I don't go shopping for remote controls that often , maybe somebody's already though of it . +User Interface: Yeah , neither neither do I , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I've never seen anything and and none of my examples were was was like this , actually , so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'll be looking out next time I need to write an essay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That looks boring , I'll see if anyone's made a {gap} remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah maybe w maybe we could have a patent on this one . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Patent patent patent . Mm . +Marketing: I think we'd like to think the ideas were new , +Project Manager: Banana remote . +Marketing: but we've got no way of finding out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or you can always go to Google and type in banana remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That vibrates {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Flip . Vibrate +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but that would just come up with like other things really wouldn't it . +Project Manager: . And uh {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Nothing that you really want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: True . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . So , costs are within budget , +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well within budget , including a little {disfmarker} what have we got ? One Euro left over for bits that we didn't foresee . Um we've evaluated the project . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And it's fabulous . +Project Manager: You've got the scores . Can you put that in the project documents file ? +Marketing: It's in the project documents {gap} . +Project Manager: It's in there already . And the process wheel didn't really have any major problems with . Were there any {disfmarker} was there anything that you found difficult , or anything that didn't go as smoothly as you'd hope ? +User Interface: And my main difficulty was the the time pressure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise it's it's all fine . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , sometimes it's like a little bit rushed . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought that was good though , because if you're given too much time then you got nothing to do with your time and um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Although we could have made the R_s better had we had five more minute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay then . Um I think we're still well within our time . +Marketing: Yeah , we've got like five minutes left . +Project Manager: We've got about five minutes left , but if we've finished , then we've finished . We're just too too efficient +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We certainly are , +Project Manager: and you should never drag a meeting on just because you have extra time . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I would say that's the end of that meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you , team . +User Interface: Yeah , it was a pleasure working with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , same here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It was very productive day and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We could draw animals on the board again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can make some animals . +Marketing: I don't like Play-Doh , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , you don't like anim +Marketing: It's just minging . It smells so bad . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't ? +Marketing: It does . +User Interface: Smells quite nice . Smells very sweet . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , so we have to complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary when they send it . +Industrial Designer: Was there a questionnaire already sent ? +Project Manager: I don't know if it's already sent or not . +Marketing: No , it hasn't been . +Project Manager: Um presumably I have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we have to go back into the other room or can we stay in here now ? +Project Manager: I don't see why you can't stay here , really . +Marketing: Okay , so the other way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did I save this one ? Production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I made your animal for you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It was supposed to be pink . {vocalsound} But it was blue on the board . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the one {disfmarker} +","In the final detailed design meeting led by the Project Manager, the team evaluated the prototype of a new product. The Industrial Designer and User Interface were set to present the prototype, which had a banana-inspired color and shape according to the trend of using vegetables as inspiration. Despite an initial concern from Marketing about the phallic connotation, the conversation moved to the prototype's user interface, showcasing a flip-open design, an LCD, and scroll functions made of rubber. + +The discussion covered the prototype's various features, including buttons and scrolling for volume control, a mute option, and potential voice recognition technology. Despite encountering challenges with size adjustment and left-handed user accessibility, the team managed to resolve these issues. + +Financial feasibility was a key focus, as the project needed to be within budget. The Project Manager reviewed an Excel spreadsheet to calculate costs, leading to potential features like a sample sensor and locator to be cut to stay within the budget constraints. After tweaking the design to remain financially viable, the team prepared to submit their findings, confident that their creative and innovative product stayed within budget. + +Throughout the meeting, the effectiveness of their collaboration and decision-making processes was generally celebrated, despite some criticism and admitting moments of time pressure. The meeting ended with the team ready to complete and submit their final questionnaire and summary." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So welcome . The first kick-off meeting . What shall we do ? First the opening , then the rest . What are we going to do . We m have to make a new remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It has to be original , trendy and user-friendly . So we will get back th on that . First we have to make a functional design . After that we have to make a conceptual design , and then after that a detailed design . So we'll discuss that later . First we have a look at {gap} . So first to {disfmarker} we have to make a small painting . What have {disfmarker} do we have to do . First you can save the documents . We have to do that every time we make something . You can print it . No . And we have to use {vocalsound} the pen and the eraser . So {disfmarker} Now . We all have to use this one . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You have to make your own favourite animal . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So I'll make an example . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: First don't touch that things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can use the pen . And then you can make {vocalsound} um something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Nice . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um you can change some things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um format , line , and change it . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can change the colour . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: An elephant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So and after it you have to save it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now we can make a new one . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: You have to paint now . {vocalsound} So you're next . +Marketing: Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well we will try . Where it going ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: Hmm . That's uh strange . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: What is going on ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} pop-ups . +Project Manager: What are you {disfmarker} What ? +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What is this , Pictionary . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh a bird . +Project Manager: Is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} It is a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Bird . +Project Manager: A duck . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Now save ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Now uh blank ? +Project Manager: Blank , yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay next one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Let's try this . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Whoo . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um . Mm-hmm . Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh not . Oh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . Yeah . No problem . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Shit happens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm not getting anything uh on my screen now . Okay . +Industrial Designer: A parrot . Ish . +Marketing: Wow . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: He did it before . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , no . Yeah . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +User Interface: Uh blank . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . So um you can always go back . {gap} So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . So that was two . Now next . The budget . The b Uh we will sell the t at twenty five Euros . And we have only twenty of twelve and a half Euro to make it . So {vocalsound} now we have to think about what we will make . First I wanna hear from you . Uh what are your experiences with remote controls . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh I will start . +Project Manager: F first {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Big one , they are uh not easy to use . Um I have one set and uh a remote control , when I dropped it , uh it broke . So that won't be uh our goal , I think . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: And uh g big buttons , {vocalsound} m uh that's easier to use than uh {disfmarker} I think . Not all the small buttons , you don't know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is this positive or negative , that uh big buttons ? +Industrial Designer: Big buttons , positive . +Project Manager: Positive . +Industrial Designer: All all small buttons like when you have uh like a hundred buttons on your remote control , you won't know what they're working for . +Project Manager: Okay . What are your experiences ? +User Interface: Uh well I think the the the goal of a remote control is that it's it it has an influence on the T_V_ set . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: And that it controls the channels and the the volume . And uh I I I think it's positive if there's a a LED uh uh a LED on the corner of the of the remote . So that you know it s it still has batteries on it {disfmarker} in it . And that if you push the button the LED uh gives a light , and uh and you see that it's working . And uh yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So and do they always have that ? +User Interface: Yeah , but {disfmarker} No no no . But I {disfmarker} my my experience is that it it it's convenient to have that . +Project Manager: It's easy to you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh at home we have a T_V_ , a video uh recorder , a D_V_D_ player , and a satellite receiver . We have uh four distinctive remote controls for that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: That's not really ea easy . +Industrial Designer: Help also . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Marketing: So it would be nice if we have one for all . And we also had a remote control for our radio set . But um i it it had a lot of buttons on it , and you didn't know which one was what . And it was uh uh v {vocalsound} not easy to use . So we n barely used it . +Project Manager: Okay so they have too much . So next . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: For our own remote control we have to think how do we make it . So what ideas do you have for it , for the new remote control ? What what does it have to have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The weight . Not not too heavy . +Project Manager: Not too heavy . Yes . +Industrial Designer: Not much buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bust-free . That when you drop it , it won't break . Like uh some kind of rubber on it . Or hard uh hard plastic . Uh buttons not too small . Uh something like when you uh lose your uh remote control , sometimes it happen . Uh it between the couch and you can't find it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: When you push a but a button on the T_V_ , then you hear some {gap} {disfmarker} uh some sort of bleep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like a phone . +Industrial Designer: And then you uh , hey there there's remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , +Industrial Designer: Next . +Project Manager: that's {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah well that's {disfmarker} that are good ideas . Uh {disfmarker} Yeah well the LED on the corner , that that indicates that it's working . If you push a button . Um {disfmarker} Yeah . And looking on the budget , not too expensive uh material . So probably plastic or something . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah I think it uh {disfmarker} from a marketing point of view , it also has to look nice . Or you won't sell it . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: And um yeah uh on our website we can see what products we already have . And it should work with as many uh as possible of them . +Project Manager: Okay . This is {disfmarker} It has to be compatible with other things . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: I have one more idea . Just popped up . +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it it won't take a lot of batteries . So you don't {disfmarker} won't have to change the batteries uh once a week or uh once every two weeks . +Project Manager: No battery use . So more ideas ? +User Interface: Mm no . +Project Manager: No okay . It's only the first ideas . So {vocalsound} uh what are we going to do now is {disfmarker} Next meeting is in half an h hour . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . Next meeting , half an hour . Um , what you have to do . Well look on your {gap} . And {disfmarker} Next instructions you'll get in your email . So {disfmarker} This is the first meeting . See you later in half an hour . +User Interface: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Thank you . +Marketing: Okay . +","In the kick-off meeting led by the Project Manager, the team is tasked with creating a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The processes laid out include making a functional design, followed by a conceptual and then a detailed design. An activity involving drawing ensued, with members being asked to make paintings of their favorite animals, seemingly as a team-building exercise. + +The team then moves on to discuss their experiences with remote controls. The Industrial Designer mentions that big buttons are positive, but fragile designs are not. The User Interface team member prefers an LED light indicating battery life, and the Marketing representative highlights the inconvenience of multiple remote controls and the desire for a universal one. + +When brainstorming ideas for the new remote control, the team considers factors such as weight, button size, durability, loss-prevention features like sound alerts, and aesthetic appeal. They emphasize compatibility with other products, low battery consumption, and cost-effective materials in the context of their manufacturing budget of 12.5 Euro per unit with a selling price of 25 Euros. + +Finally, the Project Manager concludes the meeting by informing the group that the next meeting will be in half an hour and further instructions will come via email. The interaction appears fragmented with placeholders like {vocalsound}, {disfmarker}, and {gap} indicating missing verbal or nonverbal communication elements." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: Great man . Who starts ? +Project Manager: Well I'll uh start just with another presentation , so then we can uh look at th at the agenda uh for this meeting . +Marketing: Alright , great . Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . I've put some uh new things in the in the map . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh oh . {vocalsound} This is it . I don't know the shortcut , so {disfmarker} Ah F_ five . Well our functional design meeting , that's the stage we're in . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: And you also ha all three of you have uh prepared something about it . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Well um in we'll uh just have a look at the at the notes from the previous meeting , what we uh thought we had dec decided . But uh {disfmarker} Uh then we'll uh look at uh the three uh presentations uh from you . I think you have prepared uh all three uh ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Well , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um we'll look at th the new project requirements we uh {disfmarker} I dunno . Y you also have uh received that mail , the new project requirements from our bosses ? +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh I've received a mail with uh some additional requirements , +Marketing: No . You're the only one . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and I'll have a look if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well I think we should show them before your presentations , because it's not really uh smart uh to uh to include some things uh we can't , because of the new requirements . Well um then we can make some decisions about our remote control functions . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: We have to deb we have to decide it in this meeting what our function will be . And then uh we can discuss uh some more closely . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We have forty minutes for this uh discussion ? +Project Manager: Uh yeah , I think so . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well uh {gap} the closing uh we'll not uh look at it yet . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now I'll look at {gap} show {gap} this board . Um {disfmarker} Well uh notes , first meeting . Now . I gave a disc a a presentation . Uh we familiarised ourself with the boards and then we discussed some first ideas . So we said that uh we have to merge the strong points from our uh competitors , and uh look at their uh remote controls . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: We should make it uh compatible with our new D_V_D_ and other releases we have , our technical releases . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Uh not too many one buttons . One recognisable button in the middle , where you do the most important functions with . And um well they can have two functions , because uh you have a D_V_D_ and a television . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um the design has to fit the hand , be original , but also be familiar . {vocalsound} It's uh one of our ideas . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well that wa It's just thirty minutes ago , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: so it's not quite uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But well I have to do it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm , now it's right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: The materials uh well should be hard plastic with rubber from {gap} , and uh well the labelling of the buttons should be indestructible . It should be uh recognisable at all times . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's meant to be easily wiped out , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Well fronts were to be {gap} just like mobile telephones . And uh the technical aspects um {disfmarker} And also labelling of the buttons , the functions should be universal standards . Well that's just uh some ideas from the first meeting . It's quite logical al all of it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um now the new project requirements , I'll just show them . I got this mail from uh our bosses . Well , teletext goes out . We will not use teletext . +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe a new sort of thing , but n but not teletext . +Industrial Designer: I I disagree , but uh it's not uh t it's not my place to disagree I guess . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} the second is a bit sh pity because we just said we wanted to d include the D_V_D_ +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: and they don't want it , because of our time we have for this project . +Marketing: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +User Interface: Oh , that's a shame . +Project Manager: So that's a shame , because uh especially for the third requirement we want to reach people under the thirty years . Because uh we don't have those customers a lot at th at this point . Um well it's a bit pity because it's just those people want to have uh one remote control for all those technical devices they can uh reach it . +Marketing: Yeah . But let's forget about it . It's just time-consuming , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so we uh have to go on . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well and uh our corporate image should stay rec recognisable in our products . So uh we have to uh use uh maybe a slogan , maybe a colour , and um {disfmarker} Yeah well uh on our remote controls the design has to be uh , well as we already said a actually , uh familiar . Uh not only just uh the shape but also our company . +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we are a {vocalsound} real fashionable company . I read uh I read it on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I didn't know what company we were , +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but we we design uh especially trendy uh trendy trendy stuff . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it has to be uh a modern design . That's important to know , uh when you design a thing of course . +Project Manager: Yes . I I uh noted uh our uh slogan that we have , our company . It's uh we mm put the fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So maybe that's a slogan we can put uh somewhere on our remote control or something . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright then um we're going to uh have three presentations . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You want to start ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} I think I have to start . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh you have to start ? I didn't see anything about uh who had to start . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The order ? No . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh no , no problem . +Project Manager: Well s then start . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: I I just have to uh to think which file's mine , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I was uh bit in a hurry . +Project Manager: Okay . Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's this one . But I'm not sure . {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} You already uh opened uh PowerPoint . +Marketing: Hmm ? Yeah . S Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . This is it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , I'm going to tell you something about functional requirements . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um to start with these points . Uh next sheet ? Um at first I tell you something about what people dislike about the current uh controls , because it's uh a smart thing to exclude those things . Uh , furthermore it's very important what they do like and what they do use . {vocalsound} Um then I tell something about um the most important issues . So we have to focus on those three thing three things . And in the end I'll um show you our target {vocalsound} audience or our target product users , customers . Well , {vocalsound} um the first findings are that people um think most controls are very kind of ug ugly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's seventy five per cent of the current users . They don't like it , so we might think about fronts in that section . Um {disfmarker} They also say , that's about uh I thought it was fifty per cent , uh that more money will be spent on uh better looking controls . So it's very important that you design a a nice looking control . {vocalsound} Um the current user uses his machine just about well all of the time for a few functions . Uh , almost every user uses it d the the control for just ten per cent of its capacity . So it's really important to make the the buttons for the common uh tasks kind of big or kind of uh flashy . Furthermore , it's uh {vocalsound} seventy five per cent of the users uh zaps a lot . Thus it might be uh might be smart to make a a big uh zapping button or something in the middle , so you can reach it with your thumb . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can zap away . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . A lot of losers um users lose their controls in their {vocalsound} in their living room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it might be sensible to make some kind of a button on your television , that's your um your control beeps or something , that you can find this very easily . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I dunno , maybe that's an idea . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: 'Cause it's uh a big {disfmarker} I think fifty per cent of the users loses his its control , within the same room . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh ? +Project Manager: It should actually uh {disfmarker} It should actually be loose from the television , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: because it can also be used for other televisions . So if you deliver a small uh click-on device that you can put on your television , that bleeps to your remote control , everyone can use it . +Marketing: Yeah but what if you lose your click-on device ? +Project Manager: No you can click it on your television . +Marketing: Yeah but if someone d somebody else uses it in ano other room or something ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah in another room , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well yes . +Marketing: Nee but it it specifically says it's uh the the control is lost in the same room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Well a beeping device would be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look at it , yeah . +Marketing: Uh furthermore the learning time is a problem . Uh thirty four thirty four per cent um thinks it's it's too uh too difficult to learn . So the the learning curve should be very short uh for the dumbest people should be able to use it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think our uh user uh expert should also consider manual a manual for the remote , of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but people don't read manuals . +Industrial Designer: I didn't read it ? +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh , alright . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: {gap} users to uh add one ? Do you think ? +User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think you should put more time in the in the design of uh pick up and use , than a manual . +User Interface: Yeah . Yes you should {disfmarker} You should could take a look at it and and and know how it how it's supposed to work . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright . Because they don't use it ? Alright . +Project Manager: Well there sh should always be a menu , +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: but it c can be very short . +Marketing: And it should be consistent with consistent with older remotes . +User Interface: Yeah but nobody reads a manual about a remote control , I think . +Project Manager: Yes okay . +Industrial Designer: Well maybe for the {disfmarker} If you don't recognise a button who d who d who do I call uh wh when I don't know it ? +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah right . It sh it should be there , the manual . But but not to explain how the remote works . Only {disfmarker} {gap} +Marketing: And we don't have much time . So it's better to uh put our attention to the the design . So you can pick up and use it , than {disfmarker} I think . +Project Manager: Well we are a design team , +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: we can say to some uh writer uh make a manual point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Isn't it part of the of the u +Marketing: Yeah right , right . +Project Manager: So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . No . Never mind . +Project Manager: Well we'll have a look . Um yes ? +Marketing: Next point . Um R_S_I_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well that's about twenty per cent I thought . But uh the designer should uh take it uh {vocalsound} should uh {disfmarker} Wie zeg ik dat ? Yeah , consider the consequences of using your remote . +Industrial Designer: Consider the m Yeah . +Marketing: It should be a good in your hand . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Right , this is the most important part . Um , we're {disfmarker} Like the requirements said , we're gonna specify of we're gonna target a younger audience . Um , {vocalsound} that's about sixty per cent of the market , so it's uh quite important . Um research shows that they like to have a little L_C_D_ screen on their on their uh zapping uh device . Uh {disfmarker} I thought it was the age between sixteen and twenty , ninety nine per cent of uh the people like that . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: So it's very important we should definitely have that in our uh designs . +Project Manager: Well with twelve Euro fifty as production cost , we can't uh afford an L_C_D_ uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's going to be expensive . Yeah . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Yeah but {vocalsound} they think it's really important . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So if we want to s If we have a big {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If we make lots of uh of the stuff , maybe we can uh buy it very cheap , I dunno . We have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well we'll uh consider it uh . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh it's your your task to uh look into the costs uh of those uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: We'll think abo we'll think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't know . I don't have any information on that . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nigh +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I know . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No , we'll look we'll look into that later . Alright ? +Marketing: Right . And uh another thing is uh speech uh recognition . They also like that , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but research is very uh costly . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I think that's uh difficult to realise also . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} it {vocalsound} it might be important for the sale . +Industrial Designer: We have very demanding clients . +Project Manager: It's not yet a standard uh development uh those so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} No and we have customers in multiple uh countries I think . +Project Manager: We sh +Marketing: Well I do think L_C_D_ is more reachable than the speech recognition . +Project Manager: Yeah absolutely . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So we might consider L_C_D_ screens . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , alright . Well we'll consider both and and see what uh what what we can find , I think . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: We don't rule them out uh yet . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} 'Kay . +Marketing: Alright . Um , I think that's it . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I think it is sensible to u uh to take this take these points into the notes . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So you can {disfmarker} Right . +Project Manager: Well you {disfmarker} I c I can uh still see your presentation . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: It's in the {disfmarker} Well uh next um I dunno who is next . +User Interface: Oh you go . +Industrial Designer: Shall I give a technical talk ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well go ahead . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well uh it is my task to uh explain uh or to point out a working design . +Project Manager: Yip . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have that here . Okay , how do you enlarge it , so that you can have the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: F_ F_ five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , the working design , +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Next button . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well alright uh , you know who I am and what I do . So uh we have this . It's a bit uh unclear because I wanted to copy paste something . It was originally in black and white +Marketing: Oh right . +Industrial Designer: but it became black and purple . +Marketing: Purple {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But I think you can read it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . A bit . +Industrial Designer: Um well um I think it's important uh for you to realise the basic function of a remote control . Uh well you can see uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you can select it . So it uh inverts . +Industrial Designer: {gap} And I then can select I can select on the dings {gap} It goes to the next page . +Marketing: {gap} the p the whole picture . +Project Manager: Click . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , uh never mind . +Industrial Designer: Well , you can read it , +User Interface: Yeah , go ahead . +Industrial Designer: it's not too difficult . Meanwhile , this is a schematic uh um view of uh how a basic remote control works . You have uh basically uh the energy , the power of the of the remote control , uh and the sender , w which is the LED , the the the the the the the the the bulb that sends the the infrared beam to the , no , to the set . +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh the source is of course the user . Uh the user interface is um {vocalsound} uh the {vocalsound} the {gap} the buttons of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And the {vocalsound} the user interface sends uh the the different signals of the different buttons to the chip , and the chip uh sends it to the LED , and the LED sends it to the receiver . That's the that's the basic idea . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Very basic . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um well I have uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} put it in a in in in a {vocalsound} a couple of basic steps . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the remote uh is basically just waiting for a user to press a key . It does nothing until uh of course uh the key is pressed . The key {gap} a signal to a chip , uh the chip senses the connection . {vocalsound} uh and recognise the key . So {vocalsound} well you understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The chip uh produces Morse code , um a specific code to indicate that specific button that is pressed , of course . And it uses transistors in the in the remote control to amplify and to send uh that signal again to the to the LED , which is the bulb , of course . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now the LED produces an infrared beam and signals the , well it's uh very simple , and signals the uh signals to the sensor on the T_V_ set , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and the T_V_ set uh also recognises the the {vocalsound} the signal , and performs the assigned task . +Project Manager: So it is also why we have to have a button that says uh I'm now busy with a D_V_D_ uh if we had done that . And a button for T_V_ . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah bu Yeah , but we don't . Uh we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no , but {disfmarker} Yeah . Exactly . Uh well this is uh the basic uh function of a remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I've some couple of pictures here . It's a very basic one . And uh {gap} if we if we're going to add an uh an uh L_C_D_ screen to it , it uh won't look anything like this , but {disfmarker} This is very basic uh basically the the shape of um of a remote control . It has uh very little buttons and {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it uh it's it's quite um {disfmarker} Yeah , you can easily recognise the buttons . They're uh far enough apart and an anything . It's not very um uh not very high-tech uh +User Interface: High tech . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: indeed , and it's not very user-friendly . Uh if you look at the shape , it's uh just a simple long box uh shape . So we have to uh change a little bit uh to that , uh so that uh it becomes more user-friendly , and that uh problems like uh R_S_I_ and uh those kinds of thing don't don't oc don't occur . +Marketing: Right . Can I say something ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Um I have a table here about uh the l the relevance of the buttons . Uh the power button is used very much , channel selection , volume and teletext . Well teletext is not an option , so that uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But I think it's very important to make um the power , channel and volume buttons uh near to the thumb , so you can't have R_S_I_ uh consequences . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because they are the the most important buttons and you can immediately {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . Make them big , make them easy to uh to press . +Project Manager: Well but but {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can also like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You don't have to look and and search for them . +Project Manager: if you have um the most used buttons all in one place , and you keep making the same um well moves . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , I was thinking you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Right . +Project Manager: But if y if you would put it at a different place , then you have to move your hands , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and that's on of the things about R_S_I_ . +User Interface: Are some of the the the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . That's right . That's right . +Industrial Designer: Well you you can't have any uh every button {vocalsound} under the thumb , of course . +Marketing: We +Project Manager: No but the most important buttons m maybe you can just put them a bit apart so you would reject R_ R_S_I_ R_S_I_ . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah . That's very important . And {disfmarker} +User Interface: Maybe you can make , for for channel changing , two little buttons on the side of the remote , so you can just do like this . Like some uh little uh Gameboy things or some +Project Manager: Yes I've saw that on m on mi mobile telephones they also have uh those buttons . +Marketing: But is that is that useable ? +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: Do people , uh when they pick up a remote , know that they have to do that ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's a f it's a new feature , +Project Manager: Well it it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: you can make make a double feature l like a button on the top and under it . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well also i if someone puts {vocalsound} picks up his uh remote {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but if you s say them up and down , they they'll understand it {gap} , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . If someone puts up i uh picks up his remote , and he picks up it he he touches the side then he's a already on the next channel . +User Interface: Eighty per cent would . +Industrial Designer: Well , {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , he feels it immediately . +Project Manager: That's very irritating , I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's true . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , continue . +Industrial Designer: But in e in any case the the basic function should be uh indeed , and as you say at the thumb . +Marketing: Sorry . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think that's a good idea , and uh and that the less important uh buttons , like the the the different channels , uh the numbers one two three four five as well , should be uh yeah well not in reach , because uh they don't use it uh all the time . Well it's uh pretty pretty {vocalsound} basically uh as you said . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And I have some pictures of the inside workings , but uh I don't want to get too technical , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: because uh that's not uh very uh useful for you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's your part of the job . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: So yeah {gap} exactly {gap} this is uh how it uh looks from the inside . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: And uh well that's about it I think . Oh yeah , I still have this . Oh I had to delete this , but I had to make a schematic uh of the of the new {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: But I had too too little time , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but uh don't uh don't look at it please . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we understand . +Industrial Designer: I I think it's it's clear uh how it works . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: We understand . +Marketing: Yeah , it's clear . +Project Manager: Oh right , no . +Industrial Designer: Alright . That's the most important thing . +Project Manager: Nice . Then uh Mike can uh give the third presentation . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How late is did we start his presentation uh ? {gap} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . I think uh w About twenty minutes ago ? +Project Manager: Wha Yeah . +Marketing: Losing time losing time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well then we have still the time , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But we do have to come to a decision , right later on . +Marketing: Yeah right . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: Well I thought um everybody on the website {vocalsound} uh would see the same thing , but obviously {vocalsound} that's not the case . +Marketing: I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , uh there are different uh {disfmarker} We have all have different home pages , with different links . +Project Manager: Oh yeah ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Uh ? +User Interface: For instance you couldn't see this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay , yeah well . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . Well I'm Mike {gap} , User Interface Designer . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: The the method ? Well {disfmarker} I used my own experience with remotes , took a good l look uh at the remotes on the corporate website , which are these two . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: These are already in use ? +User Interface: Yes , these are from from another uh manufacturer . +Marketing: Alright , okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} This one is engineering-centred , so this one has the most functions and um things . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I like user-centred . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +User Interface: I like user-centr centred uh {vocalsound} uh also the best . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . We also do that . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well , I thought uh that we uh reduce the the option to control the D_V_D_ also , and teletext and that kind of stuff . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Uh so I thought we we we would use more or need more buttons than this one . +Marketing: But we have to reject that , because of the requirements ? +User Interface: But {disfmarker} Yes . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Th that's why this mm is not relevant any more I feel . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} I think this is about the maximum number of buttons uh we'll need . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I um I kinda like the shape . {vocalsound} I think this is what we talked about . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You can't really see uh the differ from different sides . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No I've {disfmarker} Well I showed it somewhere . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh you can draw it if you {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . I think we should go further with the idea of a removable front . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we can can uh yeah customise the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well absolutely , but i th they all have to have something about um the recognition from our company . So we cannot just uh make someone w +User Interface: Mm ? {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a front . It's not the the whole remote that changes , of course . +Project Manager: No but that's th the side they look uh look at is the front . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So if y if you make a a front with just a a tiger on it , then uh our recognition is totally gone . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , that's right +User Interface: Or you can you can can put the same symbol on on every remote . +Marketing: Yeah , that's a must . +User Interface: So l like Ericsson does {gap} every uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , we must . +Industrial Designer: We can put it on the on the back side . +Marketing: We must have that . +Project Manager: Yeah well and and {disfmarker} +User Interface: S something like this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: It's recognisable . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: We can make a symbol of the company right here . And {vocalsound} if you put a front on it , there's a hole on the front . So the symbol's always on +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so that you don't replace the symbol , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah yeah . Something like that , +Project Manager: Or the th the the lowest part of the remote isn't changed by the front . +User Interface: in the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Those kind of things . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But let's not focus on the front {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Okay . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Well so uh uh like I said I thought we'd we'd use more function . If we we had to include more functions . But we don't . So um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . I think this is about the maximum number of buttons we need . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Maybe some less . Like eject we don't need , and some other buttons we don't need . I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mike , uh can you put uh that picture from me on the in the Word documents file ? In Map ? +User Interface: Yeah , I will . I think uh for the remote um uh less is more . {vocalsound} The less buttons the better the design . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: We should go with that concept I think . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: I know . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: I've I've got another point . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Um there are two target audi audiences , and we've uh chose for the younger one . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Um , research has shown that um it's a high interested uh in features . They are high high interested in feature . But they are more critical . Fo Yeah , critical . +Industrial Designer: The younger uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} The younger audience . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we must um must design uh a control that really speaks to the people . +Project Manager: Well what if we um {disfmarker} I at I at home have a remote that has um the most familiar uh buttons on the top , and the bottom side of the front has a little clip , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: a f a little uh {disfmarker} You can click away and then you have f much more functions that most people don't use but s some do do . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . I think uh the most functions uh underneath that uh {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Clip aren't used much . +Project Manager: Well but because you say they their features are important , they want m um a lot , +Industrial Designer: No um mm usually {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but not {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , but what kind of features ? Like L_C_D_ screens and voice recognition . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think {vocalsound} m most {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: But I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Most uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Here , look at these numbers . The newest features are , like I said , are uh L_C_D_ and uh speech uh control . Our audience , these people , are very like these uh features . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Uh . +Marketing: You see ? So we must build in something , or they will to uh go to the concurrent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Competitors . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Our competitor . Yeah . +Marketing: The concurrent ? {vocalsound} Competitors , right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So , I do think we have to uh have some features . +Project Manager: Yeah . Well maybe w we could uh s +Marketing: Even though they cost a little more . +Project Manager: On um some uh calculators you have lo those little little L_C_D_ th that you can click on or something , +Marketing: Right . Right . +Project Manager: or that you can click uh out uh of the remote . And if if that's gives you a little bit of sta status information . +Marketing: Like a ticker-tape . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Which programme you are l watching or something . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Those kind of things , uh because you also have those uh those program recognition for your V_ V_C_R_s . And uh well if y if your remote picks that up also , you they can display which programme you're currently watching . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . So it it just signals the the different uh sig uh the different symbols on the screen you have , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: uh because if you change to s channel two you have two on the screen and two on your on your um on your L_C_D_ screen . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: For example . It it could be such a little uh th that you can click in and out and you and you have it . +User Interface: Yeah , we should keep that simple too . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: It will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But should it uh really be uh clickable , uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well maybe . +Marketing: No not clickable . +User Interface: No , it should be uh integrated . +Industrial Designer: or {vocalsound} or just integrate inside to try to make it d more trendy . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nah , no no no . +User Interface: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , just at at the top . So when you s {vocalsound} you sit like this you can can watch . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , +Marketing: I think it should be at the top . +User Interface: something like on um some radios in car . You {disfmarker} Where it's , yeah , walking to {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . It's a ticker-tape idea . +Project Manager: R_D_S_s or something . +Industrial Designer: But that's of course uh a bit more uh expensive than uh the basic uh calculator design , with the scrolling text and {vocalsound} that kind of thing . +User Interface: Wa Yeah . +Project Manager: Well I think it's you got {disfmarker} It just means it's a script that's uh keeps it uh rolling , +Marketing: Well it's just one script . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and it's not uh {disfmarker} That's five minutes off uh implementing time I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , five minutes of ja ja for programming . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I don't think that's the issue . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright , we go with the L_C_D_ screen ? +Project Manager: Uh well I think so , yes . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we we we still need to know how much that will cost . +Marketing: 'Kay . Right , I don't know if I can find that , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're g No but we're we'll have to look into that . +User Interface: Or maybe you will get that information uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um we can use this board again , I think . +Marketing: Next time . Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh we can put some um decisions about um the controls we want , th the issue . {vocalsound} Where is my presentation ? {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I understand what you're saying . +Project Manager: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We should have a general idea of how it's gonna look . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} I mean we're all here now , I think . These I've already given you . So we have to decide on the different remote control functions . So we want to have a small L_C_D_ screen that's special . +Marketing: Right . At the top . +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we start with the most important parts ? +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: At the top or at the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ screen alright {gap} but we should start with the power button ? +Marketing: I think the top is more uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: When you s How do you zap ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You just sit in your chair ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah but with with the L_C_D_ screen on the top it gets a bit unnatural . +Marketing: With the remote ? +Project Manager: That thing is terrible . +User Interface: 'Cause most remotes have some space left at the bottom . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah but that's where your hand ball might be . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , no Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , I dunno . +Industrial Designer: And then uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We'll draw two , and then we'll see uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we should uh centralise the discussion here . {vocalsound} I dunno what uh you were talking about but {disfmarker} +Marketing: No {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} we are busy with something {gap} . +Marketing: Um he thinks {disfmarker} Yeah , right . He thinks it's better to put the L_C_D_ at the bottom , and I think it's better at the top . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Why do you think it's better at the bottom ? +User Interface: Uh well because most uh remotes have um some space left at the bottom , and that way you can keep the shape recognisable for everybody . +Marketing: But your {disfmarker} +User Interface: I c +Industrial Designer: But you just can put uh the the the the the whole interface a bit down , so that there's room for the for the interface . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Well I d I think that's that's ugly but {disfmarker} +Marketing: The the ticker {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ is like like small . {vocalsound} It's it's wide . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: It's not not high . But {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I th I think Mike Mike has a point , +User Interface: {vocalsound} I th +Industrial Designer: And and we can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because um when when uh when I use a remote I l I hate the buttons but buttons at the at the bottom . +User Interface: Yeah . Power button always {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Bottom . +Project Manager: So and and I I like to use the ones on the top . +User Interface: Yeah , y you gotta zap like this or {vocalsound} you want to {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: So when I u when I have to have an L_C_D_ s scr window {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . But {disfmarker} We're making a remote with {vocalsound} with a few functions you know . +Industrial Designer: Well {vocalsound} that's {vocalsound} a bit exaggerated . Well , I agree with you {gap} . It's it's also more recognisable . +Marketing: We +Industrial Designer: It looks more like a calculator to people , if you have the l the the the thing on top . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes but we we we we don't want that . +User Interface: Yeah you don't want {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We don't want them to look like a calculator . +User Interface: You want uh {disfmarker} Yeah it it it must be a remote . +Project Manager: We want to look it like our original but familiar {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah w well , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh you don't have to throw uh um important aspe {vocalsound} important aspect like familiarity uh completely away , +Marketing: High-tech {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yea +Industrial Designer: uh because {vocalsound} I think it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Maybe a bic uh better uh white uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We White ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's still important to have it at the top , +Marketing: Width . +Project Manager: Width . Uh format yeah format ? Line width ? Width ? +Industrial Designer: because it's uh it's more familiar that way . +Marketing: {gap} Th that's not a problem . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} When I draw here it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {disfmarker} Oh . Huh ? +Project Manager: It's a bit off . +Marketing: Yeah , it's off . +Project Manager: Well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A little a little bit . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It {vocalsound} it needs to be calibrated again . Well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh let's uh talk about that later uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe you should another pen . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's uh better . {gap} You e you only have one pen for that screen . Yeah . +Marketing: Where ? +Project Manager: It's special pen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , we have to make a decision now , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: because we don't have much time . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: I think we have uh a few functions , and we can put uh the L_C_D_ above it , and still have lots of room at the bottom , where you can put your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I I agree . +Project Manager: I think it should be at the button , bottom . Bottom . The L_C_D_ . +User Interface: At the bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well I'm the {vocalsound} I I'm the designer , so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In a few minutes {disfmarker} +Marketing: At the bot +User Interface: Oh yeah , oh yeah , I totally agree . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} We are two uh V_S_ two . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well but uh what what if we we first decide the different functions , +User Interface: {vocalsound} He's the boss . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and then look at the design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . Great . +Industrial Designer: Uh we uh we were busy with that . +Project Manager: Because we have to decide this . +Industrial Designer: Uh yeah we should uh summon the the different uh aspects of the thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , we have the power button . +Marketing: And moreover I think that you two should be uh come to consensus about the L_C_D_ s . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: It's uh your it's your job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we have a power button . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course . Uh it's uh . Yeah . W wh +User Interface: No it's our job . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: For all of us I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: While you have to agree , I can say {gap} it's like this and {vocalsound} you must agree . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Marketing: Alright , let's keep it central . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have a power button , setting buttons , L_C_D_ window , the number buttons {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The ten numbers ? Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Volume ? +Industrial Designer: Volume control . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh the mute button . +Industrial Designer: Well let's look at your uh design . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I h love that one . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I think we we should use something like this um to um {disfmarker} The the channel up and channel down button ? {vocalsound} Yeah , in circle , you know ? +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah . Yeah yeah yeah . Well that's that's also design . +User Interface: And and a volume control also in it . +Project Manager: Yes . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah . +Project Manager: Well h ho +Industrial Designer: But th th on this remote th these controls are for something else , a D_V_D_ player or something . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Yes . They are for some uh video uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , as I already said , we could drop some of these buttons . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You should put that uh power button , channel and volume should have the most uh importance . +User Interface: Yeah . I think these should be in one big circle in the middle . +Marketing: Yeah , but what he said about R_S_I_ was {vocalsound} t kinda true . When {gap} {vocalsound} when you uh put them all in the same place , the most used buttons , you're doing the same thing all the time , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and that's just what R_S_I_'s all about . So it might be smarter to put them a little more away from each other . +Project Manager: Apart . So people have to move their hand . And they get less uh complaints of R_S_I_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's it's also not good to completely stay in one position constantly with one hand . +Project Manager: {gap} That's what I always do , +Industrial Designer: Y {gap} +Project Manager: because all my i important buttons are the same place . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . It's good to move uh from time to time . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: Yeah but people don't like it when their buttons are all over the place . +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not {disfmarker} +User Interface: They they need to be centred . +Industrial Designer: No but now y W would we have to choose a way in middle ? +Marketing: Frequency of uh button use . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um channels are uh most uh is most used within the hour . You can see . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Volume hardly . +Marketing: So the the {vocalsound} channel uh channel buttons should be far far apart , I think , up and down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No I don't think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . +Project Manager: Up and down far apart from each other ? +Industrial Designer: Far apart ? +Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} You thinking uh about R_S_I_ ? +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well not too much . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y look at uh look at the frequency . +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei not too much , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other the other two uh frustrations are far more important . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think you can have the two buttons of up and down close together , but you don't have uh have to have volume control and and zapping button close together . +Project Manager: Well for example the power button , you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they are used four times an hour , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If someone is constantly z zapping , it's not going to miss , that it that the power button is not right beside it . Because I have someone {disfmarker} But the buttons is way . +Marketing: Nei nei nei n I I totally agree . +Project Manager: So that one can be put away . +Marketing: But just {disfmarker} Yeah . Right . Yeah . I agree . +Project Manager: The power button can uh be uh uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Power bu button should be left at the top . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: And should and should be red . +Project Manager: Oh man , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: five minutes . {vocalsound} Yeah , well five minutes left . +Marketing: Right , just make some decisions . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: The most important things we have to uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Um how are we going to do it with those numbers ? +Industrial Designer: C c can you make you make {disfmarker} We can use uh the drawing board now , I think . Uh it it doesn't work well but {disfmarker} But it it would be pretty pretty uh nice if we could just draw a simple thing . +Project Manager: Well I have it here . Yeah well that's going to take too too much time . +Marketing: I do think you have to keep you have to keep it central now . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Marketing: Just uh you decide that , you decide that , +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and {vocalsound} ready . +Project Manager: Well the L_C_D_ . Um you are Industrial , you are User Interface . So I think it's going to go to Mike . But you will have to make consensus with {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well consensus , um {disfmarker} We we can put it in the middle , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's a bit hard , because we are going to be uh individually . +Marketing: Nei . We're {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: We're deciding now , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Top or bottom ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh yeah I I still think it's it's quite important though to uh to have it at the top , so +Project Manager: Yes it is . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah . You say familiarity isn't important but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what if we're going to now decide about the functions , and the design comes into the next round ? Plus the d th the design round is still to come huh ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah d Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , right . Okay . +Project Manager: Alright these functions . +User Interface: Alright . +Industrial Designer: As we we we we agreed , we do have a L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: The number f Well yes , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: So that's that's enough . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: W the number function . Are we going to uh do it like uh on Mike's screen with uh one button that says I'm going to do a t two number digital ? +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: How do you want it to do then ? +User Interface: Well just when you push a one one and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There's one two three four five six six seven eight nine zero . +Project Manager: It it has to r recognise one as {vocalsound} there could still come more . +User Interface: No , {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker} On most T_V_s if you uh press two numbers shortly after each other , {vocalsound} d it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , like that . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: They'd recognise it . +Project Manager: Alright so no button for that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Th that's the most {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That that's very easy . Yeah . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Okay uh anyone any uh oth other functionalities of our uh remote ? +Industrial Designer: I think these are the the most important functions . +Marketing: Do you still have the pictures over there ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's about it . You do need the uh multi Or did uh {disfmarker} No , like this one . You do need them ? +Project Manager: No , we'd uh just said we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , alright uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Now okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um well because we can't integrate it with any other uh remotes , all those buttons on those pictures are uh irrelevant . So just for a television is that all we need ? +Marketing: Right . Yeah , it's most useable this way . +Industrial Designer: {gap} basic function . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Teletext is gone . So all those buttons that {vocalsound} ar are to do with teletext {disfmarker} Oh screen placing . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll have uh those uh buttons about uh {disfmarker} And uh the two important ones we're l f forgetting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh there's um {vocalsound} screen . You can make it wider and less wide . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the button that you can go to A_V_ for your video . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: I do think we have to put that underneath a clip . +Project Manager: Those two ? But it's just two , and we make a clip ? +Industrial Designer: Uh just two just two under uh under uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Th that's a bit uh waste . +User Interface: We we can make {vocalsound} make uh a little row of like four buttons down here . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay , right . +Project Manager: Or at the top . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Your L_C_D_ screen is going to go . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Or at {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But you you can put uh two or three buttons under uh another section . +User Interface: Yeah alright then . +Industrial Designer: Uh that's that's too complicated . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: You can just put it somewhere +Project Manager: Yeah +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} They they aren't used much , not as much as those other , so you can put it somewhere {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh , they can be small or round like buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah s bit smaller and s Well uh and and I think more at the bottom . Yeah . Yeah or at the top , yeah . What do you think uh those those buttons ? +Project Manager: Well I think they should in an in an isolated part of the remote . +Industrial Designer: Above or down ? And w where ? Well we design it later . We have it , and we design later where everything goes . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes ? Yes . Yes . Well any other uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well if you {vocalsound} you take those th If you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Why go to video ? +Project Manager: Go to video , that's always on your remote control . To A_V_ uh to A_V_ A_V_ A_V_ . +Marketing: Yeah , but you can z you can zap t you can you can zap to the video channel from zero to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The the video channel uh ? +User Interface: That's just zero . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well l n no not at not at my remote . +Industrial Designer: No no not always . Ze yeah zero is a different channel than uh the the video channel . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but you can can zap down {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but when you zap down zero you get to A_V_ . +Project Manager: Yes . I don't . +User Interface: Yes , I think th +Project Manager: I go to ninety-nine . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , then you press ninety nine . +Marketing: Ah uh well whatever , {vocalsound} . +User Interface: I think go to video is an irrelevant button , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th that's the button uh {disfmarker} No . +Industrial Designer: But it's easy to go {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If you are at uh at channel uh fifty five and you want to uh go immediately to the video channel , you do you have to push a to to get below zero . +Project Manager: No you can ch push zero . Yeah . Yeah , +Industrial Designer: It's more easy to get to uh where the specific uh video channel button . +Project Manager: I I think that one button is uh {disfmarker} I use it uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but if we're choosing to uh incorporate these buttons , you have to have uh channel setting , if you wa if you have a new T_V_ . You have to set the channels . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Marketing: Right all th these uh different buttons you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: These buttons , I don't have buttons for channel setting uh especially on my remote . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well uh d different screen settings a Yeah , sk {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , I do . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's it's incorporated with p m plus and down , uh those {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah well y you must have . +Industrial Designer: Yeah y you you you you have screen width . +User Interface: Yeah you yeah you have one one button from {vocalsound} s set frequency o or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then with plus and min minus you can uh adjust the uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . That's the only one we put uh in there . +Project Manager: So we still {gap} have one uh four ? +Marketing: For a screen uh fu uh channel setting . +Project Manager: Ch ch +Industrial Designer: Yeah to uh oh yeah of course to configure the programme the {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Programme , right . +Project Manager: Okay . Oh the Okay button ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh you always have in the centre an Okay button , for your menu . +User Interface: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Menu button . +Industrial Designer: You should {disfmarker} Yeah . I think that's important . +Project Manager: Channel , setting , menu . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {gap} And and the settings to change the brightness {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} We have to go . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: the settings to change the brightness and the contrast . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Channel , yeah . +Project Manager: So um Save . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Chief ? Chief ? +Project Manager: Yes see . +Industrial Designer: Th the menu menu button is also important . +Project Manager: Yes I have put it in . +Industrial Designer: Then you can uh {disfmarker} Where ? {vocalsound} I don't see it . +Project Manager: Here . +Industrial Designer: Oh Menu , alright . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think things like uh contrast and brightness should be um in the menu , yeah . +Industrial Designer: In the menu . And you can uh then adjust it with the zapping buttons or something . +User Interface: Yeah , the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: Because uh the zapping buttons aren't used then if you are in the menu . +User Interface: Or the volume or something like that . +Project Manager: Guys ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Or the volume , yeah . +Project Manager: We're going to uh go to our uh rooms , and uh we'll have to decide s things on our own I think . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Your pen . +Marketing: Ah . Great . +Industrial Designer: Yes chief . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Well see you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: I thought we'd uh lunch uh right now , or not ? +Project Manager: W w we have lunchtime , by the way , now uh so uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is this is your thing . +User Interface: Yeah , lunch break . +Marketing: Ah . Okay . {gap} +Industrial Designer: I am hungry . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Lunch . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Get into my belly . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . We didn't exactly do everything but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See you later mate . {vocalsound} +","Summary: + +The meeting involved the Marketing, Project Manager, Industrial Designer, and User Interface team members discussing the design of a remote control for their project. The Project Manager began with an overview of the previous meeting's ideas, emphasizing compatibility with new DVD releases, a recognizable button in the middle for main functions, a design that fits the user's hand, and robust labeling that is long-lasting. + +The new project requirements were brought up by the Project Manager, who noted that teletext would be removed, DVD integration was not desired due to project time constraints, and there was a need to appeal to under-30 customers, along with maintaining a recognizable corporate image in their products. + +Marketing presented findings related to what consumers dislike and like in current controls, showing a preference for good-looking, simple controls with essential functions being easily accessible. The idea of a 'beeping' control was floated as a way to locate misplaced remotes. It was also important for the learning curve to be short and intuitive. + +The Industrial Designer explained the basic workings of a remote control and, through images presented ideas for a very basic working design, looking at the importance of a comfortable, user-friendly design to prevent issues like RSI. + +The User Interface Designer presented ideas from their experience and corporate website, suggesting the possibility of a removable front for customization while ensuring the company's brand remains recognizable. The design needed to be user-centered with potentially fewer buttons. + +Discussions followed on where to place the LCD screen (with debates on whether it should be at the top or the bottom of the remote), the necessity of certain buttons (with decisions being made on including power, channel and volume control, and other essential functions like an LCD and an Okay button for menus), and the design emphasizing simplicity. + +It was agreed that they would meet the new customer target group's needs by including modern features like LCD screens and possibly voice recognition while keeping the corporate image recognizable. The session ended without finalizing all decisions, as they needed to evaluate costs and other details individually before reconvening, deciding to continue the discussion after a lunch break." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: Test . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Let 's see , I should be Two . +PhD D: Up high {disfmarker} +Grad E: As close to your mouth as you can get it . +Professor B: La +PhD D: high as you can get . +Professor B: Is this channel one ? +Postdoc G: Yeah , on your upper lip . +PhD H: Channel one one one . +Professor B: Gee , OK . Yes . OK . +Grad E: OK , so for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} For people wearing the wireless mikes , like {disfmarker} like this one , I find the easiest way to wear it is sorta this {disfmarker} this sorta like that . +PhD H: This is {disfmarker} chan channel channel one one two three +Grad F: Channel five , channel five . +Professor B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . What do you do , +Grad E: It 's actually a lot more comfortable then if you try to put it over your temples , +Grad F: Test , test test . +Professor B: you do it higher ? +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Adam 's just trying to generate good uh data for the recognizer there . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I think we 're supposed to {disfmarker} that 's right . +Grad E: And then also , for {disfmarker} for all of them , if your boom is adjustable , the boom should be towards the corner of your mouth , +Grad F: Test test . +PhD A: By the way , there was a bug . Yeah , i it wasn't using the proper +PhD D: Oh it was . +Grad E: and about a uh a thumb to a thumb and a half distance away from your mouth , +PhD A: basically it wasn't adapting anything . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: so about like I 'm wearing it now . +PhD D: Oh that 's interesting . So why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Grad E: so so Jane , you could actually do even a little closer to your mouth , +PhD H: It 's not always possible . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD D: Why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Postdoc G: I could {disfmarker} can this be adjuste like this ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , because when it estimates the transformer pro produces like a single matrix or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: Is that @ @ ? OK , thank you . +Grad F: Adam , I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD D: O Oh oh I see . +Grad F: uh , looks kinda low on channel five {disfmarker} +PhD D: I see , I see . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: no ? +Grad E: Channel five , s speak again . +Grad F: Maybe not . +Postdoc G: Hello . +PhD A: Basically there were no counts +Grad E: Yeah , that 's alright . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad E: I mean , we could {disfmarker} we could up the gain slightly if you wanted to . +Grad F: It 's OK ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: Is this OK ? +PhD H: OK . +PhD D: I see what you mean . +PhD C: Who 's channel B ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} Uh , channel B is probably Liz . +PhD C: Uh oh . +PhD H: Uh channel B {disfmarker} I am channel B . +Professor B: You wanna close this , +Postdoc G: Channel eight , eight . +Professor B: or +PhD C: No I +Grad E: Thank you . +PhD H: No , channel B . +PhD A: Hello , hello . +PhD C: yeah , yeah , you 're channel B . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So can you talk a bit ? I thought it might be too +PhD H: OK , yeah , channel B , one two three four five . +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's alright . So , the gain isn't real good . +Professor B: We 're recording , +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: right ? +Grad E: OK , so we are recording . +PhD H: Ah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: Um everyone should have at least two forms possibly three in front of you depending on who you are . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: Um we {disfmarker} we 're doing a new speaker form and you only have to spea fill out the speaker form once but everyone does need to do it . And so that 's the name , sex , email , et cetera . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we had a lot of discussion about the variety of English and so on so if you don't know what to put just leave it blank . Um I {disfmarker} I designed the form and I don't know what to put for my own region , +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: so +PhD D: California . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: California . +PhD H: California . +PhD A: Um may I make one suggestion ? Instead of age put date of {disfmarker} uh year of birth +Grad E: Sure . +PhD A: because age will change , but The year of birth changes , you know , stays the same , usually . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: A actually , wait a minute , +Grad E: Birth year ? +Postdoc G: Although on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: shouldn't it be the other way around ? +PhD D: Not for me . +Postdoc G: course on the other {disfmarker} on the other hand you could {disfmarker} you view it as the age at the time of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the other side , +PhD A: Well the thing is , if ten years from now you look at this form knowing that {disfmarker} +PhD C: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yes , but what we care about is the age at {disfmarker} at the recording date rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD C: O yeah . +PhD D: But there 's no other date on the form . +PhD C: W we don't care how they {disfmarker} old they really are . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well I don't know . +Postdoc G: Yes . {vocalsound} Unless we wanna send them a card . +Grad E: Well I guess it depends on how long the corpus is gonna be collected for . +PhD A: Anyway . +Postdoc G: Yeah , that 's true . +PhD C: I still don't see the problem . +Grad E: Either way yeah I think {disfmarker} I think age is alright +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: and then um there will be attached to this a point or two these forms uh so that you 'll be able to extract the date off that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: so , anyway . And so then you also have a digits form which needs to be filled out every time , the speaker form only once , the digit form every time even if you don't read the digits you have to fill out the digits form so that we know that you were at the meeting . OK ? And then also if you haven't filled one out already you do have to fill out a consent form . And that should just be one person whose name I don't know . OK ? +Grad F: Do you want this {pause} Adam ? +Grad E: Uh sure . Thank you . +Professor B: So uh +Grad E: OK so should we do agenda items ? +Professor B: Uh oh that 's a good idea . I shouldn't run the meeting . +Grad E: Uh well I have {disfmarker} I wanna talk about new microphones and wireless stuff . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: And I 'm sure Liz and Andreas wanna talk about recognition results . Anything else ? +PhD C: I guess {disfmarker} what time do we have to leave ? Three thirty ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Grad E: Why don't you go first then . +PhD C: so . +Professor B: Yeah , good idea . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Um Well , I {disfmarker} I sent out an email s couple hours ago so um with Andreas ' help um Andreas put together a sort of no frills recognizer which is uh gender - dependent but like no adaptation , no cross - word models , no trigrams {disfmarker} a bigram recognizer and that 's trained on Switchboard which is telephone conversations . Um and thanks to Don 's help wh who {disfmarker} Don took the first meeting that Jane had transcribed and um {vocalsound} you know separated {disfmarker} used the individual channels we segmented it in into the segments that Jane had used and uh Don sampled that so {disfmarker} so eight K um and then we ran up to I guess the first twenty minutes , up to synch time of one two zero zero so is that {disfmarker} that 's twenty minutes or so ? Um yeah because I guess there 's some , +Grad E: Or so . +PhD C: and Don can talk to Jane about this , there 's some bug in the actual synch time file that ah uh I 'm {disfmarker} we 're not sure where it came from but stuff after that was a little messier . Anyway so it 's twenty minutes and I actually +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: I {disfmarker} was that {disfmarker} did that {disfmarker} did that recording have the glitch in the middle ? +Postdoc G: I 'm puzzled by that . I {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} oh , I see . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh there was a glitch somewhere . +PhD C: yeah , so that actually um +Grad F: Was it twenty minutes in , +PhD C: if it was twenty minutes in then I don't know +Postdoc G: I forgot about that . +Grad F: I thought {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it was interesting , +Postdoc G: Well , I mean , they {disfmarker} +PhD A: suddenly {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the overall error rate when we first ran it was like eighty percent +Grad E: I don't remember when it is . +Postdoc G: but I was able to can transcribe +PhD A: but i looking at {disfmarker} the first sentences looked much better than that and then suddenly it turned very bad and then we noticed that the reference was always one off with the {disfmarker} it was actually recognized +PhD C: Wel +Grad E: Oh no . +Grad F: Yeah , that might be {disfmarker} that might be {disfmarker} that might be my fault . +Postdoc G: Wow . +PhD A: so +Grad E: Oh so that was just a parsing mismatch . +Grad F: I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: No actually it was {disfmarker} yeah i it was a complicated bug because they were sometimes one off and then sometimes totally random so um +Grad F: yeah , I was pretty certain that it worked up until that time , +Postdoc G: Oh . That 's not good . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: so that 's what we have +Grad E: Alright . +Grad F: so +PhD C: but that {disfmarker} that will be completely gone if this synch time problem +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} the glitch +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so we have everything recognized but we scored only the first uh whatever , up to that time to +Postdoc G: And the only glitch {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: yeah . +PhD C: So you guys know . +Professor B: S sorry I haven't seen the email , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Th - the +Postdoc G: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} wait +Professor B: what was the score ? +PhD C: So here 's the actual copy of the email +Postdoc G: we should say something about the glitch . He {disfmarker} he can say something about the glitch . +PhD C: um oh OK +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} it 's very small {disfmarker} +PhD C: so does this glitch occur at other {disfmarker} +Grad E: There {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's an acoustic glitch that occurs where um the channels get slightly asynchronized +Postdoc G: very small . Yep . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Grad E: so the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that problem has gone away in the original driver believe it or not when the SSH key gen ran the driver paused for a fraction of a second +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: and so the channels get a little asynchronous and so if you listen to it in the middle there 's a little part where it starts doing {disfmarker} doing click sounds . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: And is it only once that that happens ? +Grad E: But yeah +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} right once in the middle . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} the previous page has some more information about sort of what was wrong +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so un unsurprisingly Adam is the golden voice , +PhD C: but +Grad E: Um But that shouldn't affect anything +PhD C: OK so that 's actually +Postdoc G: S and it {disfmarker} +Professor B: you see this here ? +PhD C: It {disfmarker} y it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah yeah "" bah "" +PhD C: OK no {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: What happens is it actually affects the script that Don {disfmarker} +PhD D: Huh . +PhD C: I mean if we know about it then I guess it could always be checked for it +Grad E: Well the acoustic one shouldn't do anything . +PhD C: but they +Grad F: Yeah , I don't know exactly what affected it +Postdoc G: I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} +Grad F: but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you about it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: But I {disfmarker} I do remember {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'll show you the point . +Postdoc G: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it had no effect on my transcription , +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: you know , I mean I {disfmarker} I had no trouble hearing it and {disfmarker} and having time bins +Grad E: I do remember seeing once the transcriber produce an incorrect XML file where one of the synch numbers was incorrect . +Postdoc G: but there was a {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD C: Well , the {disfmarker} the synch time {disfmarker} the synch numbers have more significant digits than they should , +Grad F: That 's what happened . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: Where {disfmarker} where they weren't monotonic . +Grad F: There was {disfmarker} yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: right ? There 's things that are l in smaller increments than a frame . +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh , interesting . +PhD C: And so then , I mean you look at that and it 's got you know more than three significant digits in a synch time then that can't be right +Grad E: Oh OK so that 's +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: so anyway it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah sounds like a bug . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's why we only have twenty minutes but there 's a significant amount of {disfmarker} +Grad F: Non - zero ? Um there are like more {disfmarker} cuz there 's a lot of zeros I tacked on just because of the way the script ran , +Grad E: The other one I saw was that it yeah . +Grad F: I mean but there were there was a point . +PhD C: Yeah that was fine . That {disfmarker} that was OK . +Grad E: The other one I saw was non non - monotonic synch times +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: and that definitely indicra indicates a bug . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD C: Well that would really be a problem , yeah . So anyway these are just the ones that are the prebug for one meeting . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: um and what 's {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Grad E: So that 's very encouraging . +PhD C: this is really encouraging cuz this is free recognition , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Cool . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: there 's no I mean the language model for Switchboard is totally different so you can see some like this Trent Lott which +PhD D: Trent Lott . +PhD C: um I mean these are sort of funny ones , +PhD D: It 'll get those though . +PhD C: there 's a lot of perfect ones and good ones and all the references , I mean you can read them and when we get more results you can look through and see +Grad E: I and as I said I would like to look at the lattices +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but um it 's pretty good . +Grad E: because it sounded like even the ones it got wrong it sort of got it right ? +PhD C: Well so I guess we can generate +Grad E: Sounds likes ? +PhD A: There are a fair number of errors that are , you know where {disfmarker} got the plural S wrong or the inflection on the verb wrong . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Yeah , and who cares ? And {disfmarker} and there were lots of {disfmarker} of course the "" uh uh "" - s , "" in on "" - s "" of uh "" - s . +PhD A: Mmm , so if {disfmarker} +PhD C: there 's {disfmarker} No those are actually +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: a lot of the errors I think are out of vocabulary , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so is it like PZM is three words , it 's PZM , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I mean there 's nothing There 's no language model for PZM or +Grad E: Right . Ri - ri right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Did you say there 's no language for PZM ? +PhD C: No language model , I mean those {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean {disfmarker} so every time someone says PZM it 's an error ? Maybe we shouldn't say PZM in these meetings . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} well there 's all kinds of other stuff like Jimlet and I mean um anyway there {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right , Jimlet . +Professor B: Well , we don't even know what that means , +PhD C: so {vocalsound} but this is really encouraging because +Professor B: so I +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD C: so , I mean the bottom line is even though it 's not a huge amount of data um it should be uh reasonable to actually run recognition and be like within the scope of {disfmarker} of r reasonable s you know Switchboard this is like h about how well we do on Switchboard - two data with the Switchboard - one trained {disfmarker} mostly trained recognizer +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and Switchboard - two is {disfmarker} got sort of a different population of speakers and a different topic +Grad E: Excellent . +PhD C: and they 're talking about things in the news that happened after Switchboard - one so there was @ @ so that 's great . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so we 're in better shape than we were say when we did {disfmarker} had the ninety - three workshop +PhD C: Um +Professor B: and we were all getting like seventy percent error on Switchboard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh yeah +Professor B: you know +PhD C: I mean this is really , +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: and thanks to Andreas who , I mean this is a +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: Well especially for the very first run , I mean you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh it 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh um +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: yeah +Grad E: the first run I ran of Switchboard I got a hundred twenty percent word error but +PhD C: So and what al also this means is that +Postdoc G: Right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Not Switchboard , +PhD A: Well it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean there 's a bunch of things in this note to various people +Grad E: uh Broadcast News . +PhD C: especially I guess um with Jane that {disfmarker} that would help for {disfmarker} since we have this new data now uh in order to go from the transcripts more easily to um just the words that the recognizer would use for scoring . I had to deal with some of it by hand but I think a lot of it can be automated s by {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh one thing I guess I didn't get so you know the language model was straight from {disfmarker} from bigram from Switchboard the acoustic models were also from Switchboard or {disfmarker} or +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So they didn't have anything from this acoustic data in yet ? +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's great . +PhD C: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: And actually {disfmarker} we actually um used Switchboard telephone bandwidth models +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +PhD A: Well that 's {disfmarker} those are the only we ones there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which I guess +PhD D: I was just gonna say , +PhD C: so that 's the on that 's the only acoustic training data that we have a lot of +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: I mean +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: and I guess Ramana , so a guy at SRI said that um there 's not a huge amount of difference going from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like we probably lose a huge amount but we won't know because we don't have any full band models for s conversational speech . +PhD D: It 's probably not as bad as going f using full band models on telephone band speech +PhD C: So . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , +PhD C: Right , so it 's {disfmarker} so +Professor B: but for Broadcast News when we {disfmarker} we played around between the two there wasn't a huge loss . +Grad E: Right , it was not a big deal . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: I should {disfmarker} I should say that {disfmarker} the language model is not just Switchboard +PhD C: so I wou so that 's good . +Grad E: Although combining em worked well . +PhD A: it 's also {disfmarker} I mean there 's uh actually more data is from Broadcast News but with a little less weight +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: uh because +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Like Trent Lott must have been from +PhD A: mm - hmm , right . +PhD C: I guess {vocalsound} Switchboard was before +PhD A: Um By the way just {disfmarker} for fun we also ran , +PhD C: uh . +Professor B: Good point . +PhD A: I mean our complete system starts by doing ge a gender detection +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: so just for the heck of it I ran that +Grad E: And it said a hundred percent male ? +PhD A: um and it might be reassuring for everybody to know that it got all the genders right . +PhD C: The j +PhD A: Yeah so +Grad E: Oh it did ? +Postdoc G: Oh that 's {disfmarker} I 'm glad . +Grad E: It got all two genders ? +PhD C: Yeah but you know Jane and Adam have you kn about equal performance +PhD A: Yeah . Yes . +PhD C: and uh and that 's interesting cuz I think the {disfmarker} their language models are quite different so and I {disfmarker} I 'm pretty sure from listening to Eric that , you know given the words he was saying and given his pronunciation that the reason that he 's so much worse is the lapel . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc G: That makes a lot of sense , +PhD C: So it 's nice now if we can just sort of eliminate the lapel one when {disfmarker} when we get new microphones +Postdoc G: yeah . Very possible . +Professor B: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would bet on that too +PhD C: that would be worth it +Professor B: cuz he certainly in that {disfmarker} when as a {disfmarker} as a burp user he was {disfmarker} he was a pretty uh strong one . +PhD C: um Yeah +Grad E: Sheep . +PhD C: he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he sounded to me just from {disfmarker} he sounded like a , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: what 's it a sheep or a goat ? +Professor B: Sheep . +Grad E: A sheep . +PhD C: Sheep , +Grad E: Baah . +Professor B: Yeah . Sheep is good . +PhD C: right . Sounded good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right so um so I guess the good news is that +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and again this is without a lot of the sort of bells and whistles that we c can do with the SRI system and we 'll have more data and we can also start to maybe adapt the language models once we have enough meetings . So this is only twenty minutes of one meeting with no {disfmarker} no tailoring at all . +PhD A: I mean clearly there are um with just a small amount of uh actual meeting transcriptions uh thrown into the language model you can probably do quite a bit better because the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . The voca the vocabulary especially +Grad E: Or just dictionary . +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: Not that much the vocabulary actually +PhD C: Yeah , so . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} um well we have to see but {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . It 's pretty good um so then +Professor B: Have to add PZM and so on +Grad E: And I have to try it on the far field mike +Professor B: but +PhD C: PZM +Grad E: yeah . +PhD C: and then there 's things like for the transcription I got when someone has a digit in the transcript I don't know if they said , you know one one or eleven and I don't know if they said Tcl or TCL . there 's things like that where , you know the um we 'll probably have to ask the transcribers to indicate some of those kinds of things but in general it was really good and I 'm hoping {disfmarker} and this is {disfmarker} this is good news because that means the force alignments should be good and if the force alignments , I mean it 's good news anyway but if the force alignments are good we can get all kinds of information . For example about , you know prosodic information and speaker overlaps and so forth directly from the aligned times . Um so that 'll be something that actually in order to assess the forced alignment um we need s some linguists or some people to look at it and say are these boundaries in about the right place . Because it 's just gonna give us time marks +PhD D: But you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we 've done that for one meeting . +PhD C: so . For forced alignment . +Grad E: Uh oh oh f not for words +PhD C: Ye - right . +Grad E: I 'm sorry just for overlaps is we did it for not {disfmarker} not for words . +PhD C: Right . So this would be like if you take the words um you know and force align them on all the individual close talk uh close talking mikes then how good are these sort of in reality +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and then I was thinking it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we might want to take twenty minutes and do a closer word level transcription . Maybe actually mark the word boundaries . +PhD C: Oh or {disfmarker} i have someone look at the alignments uh maybe a linguist who can say um you know roughly if these are OK and how far away they are . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um but I think it 's gotta be pretty good because otherwise the word recognition would be really b crummy . +Grad E: Right , right . +PhD C: It wouldn't necessarily be the other way around , if the wor word recognition was crummy the alignment might be OK but if the word recognition is this good the alignment should be pretty good . So that 's about it . +Professor B: I r +PhD D: I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing though , I mean if we 're pr +Grad E: That we 're starting so well ? +PhD D: yeah if we 're producing a database that everybody 's gonna do well on +Professor B: Oh +Grad E: Don't worry about it w d that 's that 's the close talking mikes . Try it on the P Z Ms and {disfmarker} and +Professor B: Yeah , which {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} well n n n n +PhD D: So the real value of the database is these ? +PhD H: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , abso well no but +Professor B: I mean there 's still just the w the percentages and , I mean they 're not {disfmarker} a as we 've talked about before there 's probably overlaps +PhD C: This i yeah . This is not that good . +Professor B: there 's probably overlaps in {disfmarker} in uh in fair number in Switchboard as well so but {disfmarker} but there 's other phenomena , it 's a meeting , it 's a different thing and there 's lots of stuff to learn with the close talking mikes but uh yeah certainly I 'd like to see as soon as we could , I mean maybe get some of the glitches out of the way but soon as we could how well it does with say with the P Z Ms or maybe even one of the +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and uh see if it 's , you know is it a hundred twenty percent or maybe it 's not maybe if with some adaptation you get this down to fifty percent or forty - five percent or something and {disfmarker} and then if for the PZM it 's seventy or something like that that 's actually something we could sort of work with a little bit +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD C: No I think it 's really , I mean this way we least have a baseline we know that for instance the transcripts are very good so once you can get to the words that the recognizer which is a total subset of the things you need to understand the {disfmarker} the text um yeah they 're pretty good so and {disfmarker} and it 's converting automatically from the XML to the chopping up the wave forms and so forth it 's not the case that the end of one utterance is in the next segment and things like that which we had more problems with in Switchboard so that 's good . And um let 's see there was one more thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to mention {disfmarker} I can't remember um Sorry can't remember . anyway it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Congratulations is really great . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: well it was , I mean I really didn't do this myself +Grad E: Yeah , it 's really good . +PhD C: so Andreas set up this recognizer and {disfmarker} by the way the recognizer all the files I 'm moving to SRI and running everything there so I brought back just these result files and people can look at them um so +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we talked about setting up the SRI recognizer here . That 's {disfmarker} you know if {disfmarker} if there are more machines um uh here plus people can {disfmarker} could run their own uh you know variants of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the recognition {pause} runs um certainly doable . Um . +Professor B: Yeah and {disfmarker} well certainly if the recognition as opposed to training , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Seems reasonable . +Postdoc G: I need t Hmm . I need to ask one question . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Which is um so this issue {vocalsound} of the uh legalistic aspects of the pre - sent you know pre - adapted {disfmarker} Yeah , well , so what I mean is um the {disfmarker} uh the data that you take into SRI , first {disfmarker} first question , you 're maintaining it in {disfmarker} in a place that wouldn't be publicly readable that {disfmarker} that kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: U um +PhD C: From the outside world or +Postdoc G: By uh people uh who are not associated with this project . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad E: It 's human subjects issues , I told you about that . +PhD C: Um oh . +Postdoc G: Exactly . +PhD C: Well OK we have n no names . Although I sh um +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's not the issue , +PhD C: de audio data itself ? +Grad E: it 's just the audio data itself , until people have a chance to edit it . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , exactly . +PhD C: Uh so well I can {disfmarker} I can protect my directories through there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Right now they 're not {disfmarker} they 're in the speech group directories which {disfmarker} so I will {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: I didn't know that actually . +Professor B: Yeah so we just have to go through this process of having people approve the transcriptions , +PhD C: Yeah OK . +Professor B: say it 's OK . +PhD C: Right OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we had to get them to approve em and then i cuz {disfmarker} cuz the other question I was gonna ask is if we 're having um you know it 's but this {disfmarker} this meeting that you have , no problem cuz I {disfmarker} I well I mean I {disfmarker} I speak for myself +Grad E: It 's us . +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} but I think that we didn't do anything that but well anyway so {vocalsound} uh I wouldn't be too concerned about it with respect to that although we should clear it with Eric and Dan of course but these results are based on data which haven't had the uh haven't had the chance to be reviewed by the subjects +PhD C: That 's true . +Postdoc G: and I don't know how that stands , I mean if you {disfmarker} if you get fantastic results and it 's involving {comment} data which {disfmarker} which later end up being lessened by , you know certain elisions , then I don't know but I wanted to raise that issue , +Professor B: Well we , +Postdoc G: that 's all . +Professor B: I mean once we get all this streamlined it may be sh it {disfmarker} hopefully it will be fairly quick but we get the transcriptions , people approve them and so on it 's just that we 're +Grad E: Alright we need to work at a system for doing that approval so that we can send people the transcripts +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: and get back any bleeps that they want +PhD C: Yeah actually the bleeps are also an issue I thought . +Professor B: It 's gonna be a rare thing that there 's a bleep for the most part . +PhD A: U uh actually I had a question about the downsampling , um I don't know who , I mean how this was done but is {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any um {vocalsound} issues with downsampling +PhD C: Don did this . +PhD A: because I know that the recognizer um that we use h can do it sort of on the fly um so we wouldn't have to have it eh you know do it uh explicitly beforehand . And is there any um i are there other d sev uh is there more than one way to do the downsampling where one might be better than another ? +Grad F: There are lots of w {vocalsound} there are lots of ways to do the downsampling um different filters to put on , +PhD A: OK . Right . OK . +Grad F: like anti - aliasing stuff . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th +Grad E: I don't think we even know which one I assume you 're using syncat to do it ? +Grad F: No , I 'm using uh SN SND uh are resample . +Grad E: Or sound resample ? +PhD C: Re - re ref +Grad E: Resample . +PhD C: yeah . +Grad E: Yeah and Dan 's archaic acronyms . +Grad F: RSMP . Yeah , I don't really . +PhD C: Missing all the vowels . +Grad F: I just {disfmarker} yeah I found it . +PhD C: Some of the vowels , +Grad E: Not all of them . +PhD C: almost all the vowels , that 's the hard part . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the other thing we should try is to just take the original wave forms , +Grad E: And a few of the consonants . +PhD A: I mean segment them but not downsample them . +PhD C: Yeah we could {disfmarker} we could try that and {disfmarker} and compare +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and feed them to {disfmarker} feed them to the SRI recognizer and see if {disfmarker} if the SRI front - end does something . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I suspect that 's sort of premature optimization , but Sure . +PhD C: We can try it . I {disfmarker} I only downsampled them first cuz I was +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean that 's just one line {disfmarker} that 's one line of code to comment at +PhD C: yeah +PhD A: Right and {disfmarker} and it doesn't {disfmarker} is no more work {vocalsound} for um you know for us . +Grad F: so +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: Well they 're just bigger to transfer , that 's why I s downsampled them before but +PhD A: Well but they 're only twice as big so +PhD C: Well I mean that was {disfmarker} if it 's the same then we can downsample here +PhD A: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a +PhD C: but if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although those eighty meg files take a while to copy into my directories +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: so , but no , I mean it 's not {disfmarker} i it wouldn't be a problem if you 're interested in it {disfmarker} +PhD C: We could try that . +PhD A: Yeah I mean it would be uh you know it would probably take uh about um you know +Grad F: it would {disfmarker} +PhD A: minus the transfer time it would {disfmarker} it would take uh you know ten minutes to try and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's about a fifty minute drive , right ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and if for some reason we see that it works better then we might investigate why +PhD C: Well it takes more disk space too so I was just {disfmarker} +PhD A: and , you know , what {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Mmm . In the front - end we could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So you just train {disfmarker} just different filters +Grad F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor B: and so you 're just wondering whether the filter is +Grad F: Yeah , I can imagine it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD C: So we could try that with this particular twenty minutes of speech and sort of see if there 's any differences . +Grad F: I mean I guess there 's some {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know a at some point someone might have optimized whatever filtering is done for the actual recognition um performance . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD A: So in other words right , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: so +Grad E: It just seems to me that , you know small changes to the language model and the vocabulary will so swamp that that it may be premature to worry about that . I mean so one is a half a percent better than the other I don't think that gives you any information . +PhD C: Well it 's just as easy to {disfmarker} to give you the sixteen K individual , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: it was just more disk space you know for storing them +Professor B: Are you {disfmarker} are you using uh uh mel cepstrum or PLP over there ? +PhD C: so +PhD A: Mel cepstrum . +Professor B: So probably doesn't matter . +PhD C: Well we could try . +Grad F: There 's {disfmarker} there 's your answer . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but it wouldn't hurt to try , +PhD C: Could easily try +PhD A: That 's what I would assume but you never know , +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: so +PhD A: you know . +Professor B: Sure . No the reason I say this +Postdoc G: Just {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: PLP uses uh auto - regressive filtering and uh modeling and so it can be sensitive to the kind of filtering that you 're doing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh uh mel cepstrum uh might not {disfmarker} b you wouldn't expect to be so much but +PhD C: Well we can try it if you generate like the same set of files just up to that point where we stopped anyway and just sti stick them somewhere +Grad F: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not a problem . +PhD A: Actually , no . +PhD C: and I 'll rerun it with +PhD A: Don't stop . Don't stop at that part because we 're actually using the entire conversation to estimate the speaker parameters , +Grad F: Keep going . Yeah . +PhD A: so shouldn't use {disfmarker} you should s you know , get +Grad F: Yeah , I mean I 'll {disfmarker} I have to do is eh e the reference file would stay the same , +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad F: it 's just the individual segments would be approximately twice as long +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad F: and I could just replace them with the bigger ones in the directory , +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: I mean I corrected all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that 's not a problem . +PhD C: I mean I hand - edited the whole {disfmarker} the whole meeting so that can be run it 's just {disfmarker} Once we get the {disfmarker} the bug out . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: One {disfmarker} one question which is I {disfmarker} I had the impression {comment} from this {disfmarker} from this meeting that w that I transcribed that um that there was already automatic downsampling occurring , +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: is that I thought that in order to +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: so it was {disfmarker} so it 's like there 's already down +Grad E: There 's one level that 's already happening right here . +Professor B: This is being recorded at forty - eight kilohertz . Which is more that anybody needs +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: And it gets downsampled to sixteen . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: so +PhD C: And that 's actually said in your meeting , +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh OK . +PhD C: that 's how I know that . +Postdoc G: That 's exactly , and that 's how I know it . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} It 's like are we downsampling to sixteen ? +Professor B: It 's a digital audio orientation for the board +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: it 's in the monitor so it 's +PhD C: Thank God it 's not {vocalsound} more than that . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And I have no idea what filter it 's using , +Grad F: Is eight kilohertz {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is eighty kilohertz generally accepted as like standard for voice ? +Grad E: so +Professor B: For telephone stuff . +Grad E: Telephone . +PhD D: Telephone . +Grad F: Yeah that 's what I was gonna say , I mean like {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that they were operating from Switchboard which was a completely telephone database +Grad F: so Oh , I see , so . +Professor B: and so that was a standard for that sixteen s +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: So sixteen seems to be pretty typical for with this sort of thing . +Professor B: Sixteen is more common for {disfmarker} for uh broadband stuff that isn't {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: That isn't music . +Professor B: that isn't music and isn't telephone , +PhD C: And I guess if you 're comparing like {disfmarker} uh if you wanna run recognition on the PZM stuff you would want you don't want to downsample the wh that +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: Why is that ? +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: right ? Well I don I mean if it 's any better +Professor B: No actually I would think that you would {disfmarker} you would get better {disfmarker} you 'd get better high frequencies in the local mike . +Grad E: All the way around I 'd think . +Professor B: Uh but who knows ? I mean we do {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna find all this stuff out , +PhD C: Yeah well we could try it . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: we don't know . +Grad E: We 're gonna have plenty of low frequency on the P Z Ms with the fans . +PhD C: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Oh yeah there was just one more thing I wanted to say which is totally unrelated to the recognition except that um well {disfmarker} well it 's sort of related but um good news also uh I got {disfmarker} well Chuck Fillmore agreed to record meetings but he had too many people in his meetings and that 's too bad cuz they 're very animated and but uh Jerry also agreed so uh we 're starting on {disfmarker} on +PhD A: They 're less animated . +PhD C: Well but he has fewer {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't have more than eight and it 's a meeting on even deeper understanding , EDU , so that sounds interesting . As a compliment to our front - end meeting +Grad E: Dot EDU ? +PhD C: and um so that 's gonna start Monday and one of the things that I was realizing is um it would be really great if anyone has any ideas on some kind of time synchronous way that people in the meeting can make a comment to the person whose gonna transcribe it or {disfmarker} or put a {vocalsound} push a button or something when they wanna make a note about "" oh boy you should probably erase those last few "" or uh "" wait I want this not to be recorded now "" or uh something like that s +Professor B: Weren't we gonna do something with a pad at one point ? +Postdoc G: The cross pads ? +Grad E: Yeah , we could do it with the cross pads . +PhD C: Cuz I was thinking you know if {disfmarker} if the person who sets up the meeting isn't there and it 's a group that we don't know um and this came up talking to {disfmarker} to Jerry also that you know is there any way for them to indicate {disfmarker} to make sure that the qu request that they have that they make explicitly get addressed somehow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: so I don't know if anyone has ideas or {disfmarker} you could even write down "" oh it 's about three twenty five and "" {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well what I was just suggesting is {disfmarker} is we have these {disfmarker} this cross pad just for this purpose +Grad E: Yeah , and use that . +Professor B: and just use that +Grad E: Not a bad idea . +Professor B: and if we sink it in {disfmarker} +PhD C: That would be great . +Professor B: The other thing is eh +PhD C: That be great . +Professor B: I don't know if you know this or if it 's a question for the mail to Dan but is this thing of two eight channel boards a maximum for this setup or could we go to a third board ? +Grad E: I don't know . I don't know . I 'll send mail to Dan and ask . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's the maximum we can do without a lot of effort because it 's one board with two digital channels . +Professor B: Oh it is one board . +Grad E: E eight each . So it {disfmarker} it takes two fibers in to the one board . And so w I think if we wanna do that {disfmarker} more than that we 'd have to have two boards , and then you have the synchronization issue . +Professor B: But that 's a question because that would {disfmarker} if it was possible cuz it is i you know already we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a group of people in this room that cannot all be miked +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's not just cuz we haven't been to the store , right it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is the limit on each of those f fiber channels , is it the +Grad E: Eight . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} it 's eight channels come in , does it have do with the sampling rate ? +Grad E: It 's eight . I have no idea . But each {disfmarker} each fiber channel has eight {disfmarker} eight channels and there are two ch two fibers that go in to the card . +Professor B: It might be a hard limitation , +Grad E: So +Professor B: I mean one thing is it {disfmarker} the whole thing as I said is {disfmarker} is all structured in terms of forty - eight kilohertz sampling so that pushes requirements up a bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: but +PhD D: I was just wondering if {disfmarker} if that could change . +Grad E: I mean then we 'd also have to get another ADD and another mixer and all that sort of stuff . +PhD D: If we could drop that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I 'll send a mail to Dan and ask him . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK on the uh are we done with that ? So the oth topic is uh getting more mikes and different mikes , so I got a quote um We can fit {disfmarker} we have room for one more wireless and the wireless , this unit here is three fifty {disfmarker} three hundred fifty dollars , it {disfmarker} I didn't realize but we also have to get a tuner {disfmarker} the receiver {disfmarker} the other end , that 's uh four thirty um and then also +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for each ? +PhD D: Wow . +PhD C: I mean the tuner is four thirty for each . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: Wow . +Grad E: And we just need one more so {disfmarker} so +Professor B: Yeah at least w we got the good ones . +Grad E: Yeah . So that 's you know something like seven hundred eighty bucks for one more of these . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Um and then also um It turns out that the connector that this thing uses is proprietary of Sony +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: believe it or not and Sony only sells this headset . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: So if we wanna use a different set {disfmarker} headset the solution that the guy suggested and they {disfmarker} apparently lots of people have done is Sony will sell you the jack with just wires coming out the end and then you can buy a headset that has pigtail and solder it yourself . And that 's the other solution and so the jacks are forty bucks apiece and the {disfmarker} he recommended um a crown CM three eleven AE headset for two hundred bucks apiece . +Professor B: There isn't this some sort of thing that plugs in , you actually have to go and do the soldering yourself ? +Grad E: Becau - the reason is the only {disfmarker} only thing you can get that will plug into this is this mike or just the connector . +Professor B: No I understand . The reason I ask is these sort of handmade uh wiring jobs fall apart in use so the other thing is to see if we can uh get them to do a custom job and put it together for this . +Grad E: Oh I 'm sure they would , they would just charge us , +PhD D: Well , and they 'd probably want quantity too , +Grad E: so . +Professor B: Well +PhD D: they 'd +Professor B: no they 'll just charge us more , so it 's {disfmarker} this +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so my question is should we go ahead and get na nine identical head - mounted crown mikes ? +Professor B: Not before having one come here and have some people try it out . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Because there 's no point in doing that if it 's not gonna be any better . +Grad E: So why don't we get one of these with the crown with a different headset ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And {disfmarker} and see if that works . +Professor B: And see if it 's preferable and if it is then we 'll get more . +PhD C: Comfort . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Cuz I mean I think the microphones are OK it 's just the {disfmarker} the +Grad E: Right , it 's just they 're not comfortable to wear . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Could make our own handbands and +Grad E: Um , and he said they don't have any of these in stock but they have them in LA and so it will take about a week to get here . +Professor B: Yeah well it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um so OK to just go order ? +Professor B: We 're in this for the long term , yeah . Just order it . +Grad E: OK +PhD C: It 's a lot of money for a handband . +Grad E: and who is the contact if I wanna do an invoice +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: cuz I think that 's how we did it before . +Professor B: Uh we 'll do this off - line , yeah . +Grad F: It 's a long time to get from LA . +Grad E: OK . And then nine channels is the maximum we can do , so . +Professor B: Uh y right cuz {disfmarker} so one is for the daisy chain so that 's fifteen instead of sixteen +Grad E: Without getting more stuff . +Professor B: and there 's six on the table so that 's nine . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Can I ask a really dumb question ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is there any way we can have you know like a {disfmarker} a wireless microphone that you pass around to the people who you know the extra people for the times they wanna talk that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: That 's not a dumb question , it 's a good idea , +PhD C: Well I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like uh like you know Jerry Springer thing , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just not sure how we would handle that in the +Grad F: That 's like the Conch . +PhD C: Well but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Like at conferences +PhD A: you know r +PhD C: well but there might be a way to say that there are gonna be these different people +Grad F: See , look . +PhD C: um and I don't know identifying somehow ? +PhD D: so nail the chairs down . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , somehow . +PhD C: You know I was just thinking of Jerry Springer . +Grad E: It 's not a bad idea . +Professor B: No that {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no +PhD A: +Professor B: that 's a very {disfmarker} if we can't get another board and even if we can I have a feeling they 'll be some work . +PhD D: The Springer mike . +PhD C: I mean for the few times that you might wanna have that . +Professor B: Let 's figure that we have eight which are set up and then there 's a ninth which is passed around to {disfmarker} +Grad E: A hand - held , yeah . +Professor B: that 's a good idea +PhD D: Infinite expansion . +Professor B: Right . Kind of rules out overlap but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but uh +PhD C: Well or also for you know if people are not +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Well we could just hand around the lapel . +Professor B: Uh no {disfmarker} no that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Rather than get a {disfmarker} +PhD C: No not the lapel . +Grad E: do you want a handset ? +Professor B: No . +Grad E: Well I mean is the {disfmarker} is the hand - held really any better ? +PhD D: Liz hates the lapel . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: I don't know +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: but I d I know the lapel is really suboptimal . +Professor B: No it {disfmarker} no it depends on the hand - held +Grad E: Is awful ? +Professor B: but hand {disfmarker} many hand - helds are built wi with sort of uh anti - shock sort of things so that it {disfmarker} it is less uh susceptible to hand noises . If you hold the lapel mike i you just get all k sorts of junk . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right . I mean the ones they really pass around must be sort of OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so +Grad E: So I wonder if they have one that will hook up . +Professor B: Yeah . They have {disfmarker} What ? +Grad E: I wonder if they have one that will hook up to this or whether again we 'll have to wire it ourselves . +PhD D: Well , you wouldn't want it to hook there you 'd just want it to hook into the receiver in the other room , right ? +Professor B: No that 's uh {disfmarker} you need a transmitter . +Grad E: What ? +PhD D: Is th isn't that built into the mike ? +Professor B: Oh I see . Get a {disfmarker} get a different radio , yeah . +PhD C: Yeah just these ones that they pass around with no you know wireless +Professor B: Yeah . But you need a ra but it has to correspond to the receiver . +PhD D: Have a little antenna coming out the bottom . +Grad E: It 's gonna be much easier to get one of these and just plug in a mike , isn't it ? +PhD D: But then the mike has to h +PhD A: Do you have to hand it around and if you have two pieces of +Professor B: No no {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor B: so right , so this is a good point , so yeah you have these {disfmarker} these mikes with a little antenna on the end right ? +Grad E: OK . And do you think you would be able to use the same receiver ? +Professor B: I don't know . You 'll have to check with them , +Grad E: OK I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll ask . +Professor B: yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea +PhD D: It 's just a frequency . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and then just sort of have that as the {disfmarker} and then you can have groups of twenty people or whatever and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD C: Yeah because there 's only I mean as Andreas pointed out actually I think in the large {disfmarker} the larger the group the less interaction {disfmarker} the less people are talking um over each other {disfmarker} +PhD A: Pretty soon . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: it just {disfmarker} there might be a lot of people that speak once or twice and +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Um Gotta go . +Professor B: Off you go , yeah . +Grad E: OK so I guess people who have to leave can leave and do we have anything else to discuss or should we just do digits ? +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I thought of some extra {disfmarker} a couple of extra things I 'd like to mention . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc G: One of them is to give you a status in terms of the transcriptions so far . So um as of last night um I 'd assigned twelve hours and they 'd finished nine +Grad E: uh Yep , +Postdoc G: and my goal was to have eleven done by the end of the month , I think that by tomorrow we 'll have ten . +PhD C: Uh it 's great {disfmarker} +Professor B: Pretty close , +Postdoc G: So they 're still working . +Professor B: that 's good . +PhD C: I j and this {disfmarker} I got this email from Jane at like two in the morning or something +PhD D: Wow . +Grad E: that 's good . +PhD C: so it 's really great +Postdoc G: It 's working out , thanks . +PhD C: It 's really great . +Postdoc G: Thanks . And then um also an idea for another meeting , which would be to have the transcribers talk about the data It 's sort of a {disfmarker} a little bit {disfmarker} a little bit +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Professor B: Super idea . +Grad E: Yep , that 'd be very interesting . +PhD C: That 's a great idea cuz I 'd like to g have it recorded so that we can remember all the little things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'd love to hear what they have to say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's a great idea . +PhD D: So if we got them to talk about this meeting , it would be a meta {disfmarker} meta meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah , exa {vocalsound} exactly I guess {disfmarker} nested several layers , +Professor B: Now you have eight transcribers and there 's ten of us +Postdoc G: but +Professor B: so how do we do this , is the only thing . +PhD C: Or just have them talk amongst themselves . +PhD D: Have them have their own meeting . +PhD C: And have +Postdoc G: Well that 's what I 'm thinking , +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc G: yeah . Have them talk about the data and they {disfmarker} and they 've made observations to me +PhD C: that would be great . +Postdoc G: like they say uh you know this meeting that we think has so much overlap , in fact it does but there are other groups of similar size that have very little , you know it 's part of it 's {disfmarker} it 's the norm of the group and all that and they have various observations that would be fun , I think . +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Grad E: Yeah , I 'd like to hear what they s say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Be great . +Professor B: So maybe we could {disfmarker} they could have a meeting more or less without us that {disfmarker} to do this and we should record it +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and then maybe one or two of them could come to one of these meetings and {disfmarker} and could you know could tell us about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Give us a status . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh good . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} they will get to transcribe their own meeting but they also get paid for having a break +Grad E: That would be weird . +Postdoc G: What {disfmarker} what yeah that 's right . +PhD C: and I think that 's a good idea , +Postdoc G: Yeah exactly , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: get them involved . +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: Um that 's a great idea . +Postdoc G: Great . +Professor B: Super . +PhD C: I 'm really sorry I have to g no I have to go as well . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And then I wanted to also um say something about the Fiscus uh uh John {disfmarker} John Fiscus visit tomorrow . And Which is to say that w it 'll be from nine to one that I 'm going to uh uh offer the organization {disfmarker} allow him to uh adjust it if he wishes but to be basically in three parts , the acoustic part coming first which would be basically the room engineering aspects um other things and he 'll be also presenting what NIST is doing and {disfmarker} and uh then uh number two would be sort of a the {disfmarker} the transcription process so this would be a focus on like presegmentation and the modifications to the {disfmarker} the multitrans interface which allows more refined encoding of the beginnings and ends of the overlapping segments which uh Dave Gelbart 's been doing and then um uh and of course the presegmentation Thilo 's been doing and then um the third part would {disfmarker} and again he has some stuff that 's i relevant with respect to NIST and then the third one would be focus on transcription standards so at NIST he 's interested in this establishment of a global encoding standard I guess I would say and I want it , you know k yeah see what they 're doing and also present what {disfmarker} what we 've chosen as ours and {disfmarker} and discuss that kind of thing . And so but he 's only here until until one and actually we 're thinking of noon being uh lunch time so basically hoping that we can get as much of this done as possible before noon . S +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And everybody who wants to attend is welcome . So +Grad E: Oh , where you 're gonna meet ? +Postdoc G: yeah . Here mostly but I 've also reserved the BARCO room um eh to figure out how that works in terms of like maybe having a live demonstration . +Professor B: OK but the nine o ' cl nine o ' clock will be i be in here . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I assume we 're not gonna try to record it ? +Postdoc G: Oh I think that would be hard , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I think just adds {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um good . +Postdoc G: Thank you though , uh - huh . +Professor B: So maybe do digits and recess ? +Grad E: Unless there 's anything else ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Do digital ones ? +Professor B: Uh OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh should y we make him wear Andreas ' mike or would that just be too confusing ? +Professor B: Yeah . No I don't think it 's confusing . Well , it doesn't confuse me . +Postdoc G: When we do this in the key {disfmarker} in the key {disfmarker} in the key it has to indicate that channel change , +PhD D: Does it mess up the forms ? +Postdoc G: right ? +Grad E: Uh yeah I just don't know how we would do that , so . I mean other than free {disfmarker} free form . +Postdoc G: Well i have a time mark . +PhD D: The on switch is here on the {disfmarker} on the top there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: And just clip it to your collar . +Professor B: That 's fine . +Grad J: OK , my name is uh Espen Eriksen . I 'm a Norwegian . Um uh this is my second semester at Berkeley . Currently I 'm taking uh my first graduate level courses in DSP and um when I come back to Norway I 'm gonna continue with the {disfmarker} more of a research project work {disfmarker} kind of work . So this semester I 'm starting up with a {disfmarker} with a small project through uh Dave Gelbart which I 'm taking a course with I got in touch with him and he told me about this project . So with the help of uh Dan Ellis I 'm gonna do small project associated to this . What I 'm gonna try to do is uh use {disfmarker} use ech echo cancellation to uh to handle the periods where you have overlapping talk . To try to do something about that . So currently I 'm um I 'm just reading up on echo cancellation , s looking into the theory behind that and then uh hopefully I get some results . So it {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a project goes over the course of one semester . +Grad E: Great . +Grad J: So I 'm just here today to introduce myself . Tell about I 'll be {disfmarker} I 'll be working on this . +Grad E: And are you staying at Berkeley or is {disfmarker} are you just here a semester ? +Grad J: This is my second semester and last . +Grad E: Ah second and last , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +Grad J: So I leave +Professor B: He 's in the {disfmarker} he 's in the cour two two five D course . +Grad J: Yeah , I 'm in Morgan 's course , +Professor B: So , yeah . +Grad J: yeah . +Grad E: Good . +PhD D: Welcome . +Postdoc G: Then you {disfmarker} then you go back to Norway , that 's OK . +Grad J: Yeah . +Grad F: We were just talking about something like this yesterday or yeah yesterday with Liz . About doing some of the {vocalsound} echo cancellation stuff or possibly the spectroanalysis over the overlaps , so . Cool . +Grad J: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . OK . +Grad E: And stop . +","In a collaborative meeting setting, various members within an academic research team—comprising graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and a professor—are discussing technical aspects related to a project that involves voice recording, recognition, and transcription. The participants are identified by their academic status, such as ""Grad F,"" ""Postdoc G,"" ""Professor B,"" and ""PhD [letter]."" + +The conversation reflects on a number of issues concerning the setup and optimization of microphones, testing the configuration of wireless microphones, and ensuring the quality of audio data for subsequent recognition. Some participants discuss placing microphones correctly, with emphasis on maximizing audio quality by adjusting the microphone close to the mouth, considering comfort, and addressing technical glitches. + +Particular attention is paid to recording channels, as participants call out channel numbers, ensuring each is recorded properly and at optimal clarity. There is also mention of a software bug related to adapting data and a suggestion for recording the year of birth instead of the age to maintain data accuracy over time. + +The team handles various tasks associated with the logistics of recording meetings, such as filling out consent forms for participants, generating good data for the recognizer, and considering the use of cross pads for time-synchronous comments or inputs. + +During the discussion, the team also addresses the transcription process, including assigning and completing transcription hours, improving the transcription standards, and managing the legal and privacy concerns associated with the collected data, such as ensuring they are not publicly accessible before subject review. + +One notable idea discussed is having the transcribers themselves have a meeting to provide insight into the transcription process and the data they work with, thereby contributing to the larger understanding of the project and potentially guiding future decision-making. + +The meeting features technical interjections that demonstrate the collaborative nature of academic research, as well as the hands-on challenges faced in such projects, like building custom solutions for proprietary microphone connectors and considering the purchase and testing of new microphone models. + +There is also mention of a visit from John Fiscus of NIST, which is organized to cover several key topics, including acoustic engineering, transcription processes, and transcription standards, with the aim of aligning the research group with global standards and learning from NIST's undertakings. + +Furthermore, Grad J—a visiting graduate student from Norway—is introduced, and he outlines his short-term project on echo cancellation to handle overlapping speech during meetings. His project signifies the group's efforts to continually improve and address challenges in speech recognition and processing. + +In conclusion, the meeting illustrates a typical, multitasked environment where academics at different levels work on the nuances of a significant project related to speech recognition and transcription. The diverse input and expertise of each member contribute to resolving technical challenges and advancing the project's goals while fostering a creative and collaborative research atmosphere." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: I think for two years we were two months , uh , away from being done . +PhD A: And what was that , Morgan ? What project ? +Professor B: Uh , the , uh , TORRENT chip . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . We were two {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , uh , we went through it {disfmarker} Jim and I went through old emails at one point and {disfmarker} and for two years there was this thing saying , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're two months away from being done . It was very {disfmarker} very believable schedules , too . I mean , we went through and {disfmarker} with the schedules {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was true for two years . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , yeah . It was very true . +PhD A: So , should we just do the same kind of deal where we {pause} go around and do , uh , status report {pause} kind of things ? OK . And I guess when Sunil gets here he can do his last or something . So . +Professor B: Yeah . So we {pause} probably should wait for him to come before we do his . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . That 's a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Any objection ? Do y OK , M +Professor B: All in favor +PhD A: Do you want to start , Morgan ? Do you have anything , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , I don't do anything . I {disfmarker} No , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm involved in discussions with {disfmarker} with people about what they 're doing , but I think they 're {disfmarker} since they 're here , they can talk about it themselves . +Grad F: OK . So should I go so that , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . Why don't you go ahead , Barry ? +Grad F: you 're gonna talk about Aurora stuff , per se ? +PhD A: OK . +Grad F: OK . Um . Well , this past week I 've just been , uh , getting down and dirty into writing my {disfmarker} my proposal . So , um {disfmarker} Mmm . I just finished a section on , uh {disfmarker} on talking about these intermediate categories that I want to classify , um , as a {disfmarker} as a middle step . And , um , I hope to {disfmarker} hope to get this , um {disfmarker} a full rough draft done by , uh , Monday so I can give it to Morgan . +PhD A: When is your , uh , meeting ? +Grad F: Um , my meeting +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: with , uh {disfmarker} ? Oh , oh , you mean the {disfmarker} the quals . +PhD A: The quals . Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , the quals are happening in July twenty - fifth . +PhD A: Oh . Soon . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad F: D - Day . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So , is the idea you 're going to do this paper and then you pass it out to everybody ahead of time and {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Right , right . So , y you write up a proposal , and give it to people ahead of time , and you have a short presentation . And , um , and then , um {disfmarker} then everybody asks you questions . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: I remember now . +Grad F: Yep . So , um . +PhD A: Have you d ? I was just gonna ask , do you want to say any {disfmarker} a little bit about it , +Grad F: Y s +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm . +Grad F: Oh . Uh , a little bit about {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Wh - what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're gonna {disfmarker} You said {disfmarker} you were talking about the , uh , particular features that you were looking at , +Grad F: Oh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . Well , I was , um , I think one of the perplexing problems is , um , for a while I was thinking that I had to come up with a complete set of intermediate features {disfmarker} in intermediate categories to {disfmarker} to classify right away . But what I 'm thinking now is , I would start with {disfmarker} with a reasonable set . Something {disfmarker} something like , um , um {disfmarker} like , uh , re regular phonetic features , just to {disfmarker} just to start off that way . And do some phone recognition . Um , build a system that , uh , classifies these , um {disfmarker} these feat uh , these intermediate categories using , uh , multi - band techniques . Combine them and do phon phoneme recognition . Look at {disfmarker} then I would look at the errors produced in the phoneme recognition and say , OK , well , I could probably reduce the errors if I included this extra feature or this extra intermediate category . That would {disfmarker} that would reduce certain confusions over other confusions . And then {disfmarker} and then {vocalsound} reiterate . Um , build the intermediate classifiers . Uh , do phoneme recognition . Look at the errors . And then postulate new {disfmarker} or remove , um , intermediate categories . And then do it again . +PhD A: So you 're gonna use TIMIT ? +Grad F: Um , for that {disfmarker} for that part of the {disfmarker} the process , yeah , I would use TIMIT . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , then {disfmarker} after {disfmarker} after , uh , um , doing TIMIT . Right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's , um {disfmarker} that 's just the ph the phone recognition task . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , I wanted to take a look at , um , things that I could model within word . So , I would mov I would then shift the focus to , um , something like Schw - Switchboard , uh , where I 'd {disfmarker} I would be able to , um {disfmarker} to model , um , intermediate categories that span across phonemes , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: not just within the phonemes , themselves , um , and then do the same process there , um , on {disfmarker} on a large vocabulary task like Switchboard . Uh , and for that {disfmarker} for that part I would {disfmarker} I 'd use the SRI recognizer since it 's already set up for {disfmarker} for Switchboard . And I 'd run some {disfmarker} some sort of tandem - style processing with , uh , my intermediate classifiers . +PhD A: Oh . So that 's why you were interested in getting your own features into the SRI files . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's why I {disfmarker} I was asking about that . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Um , and I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . Any {disfmarker} any questions ? +PhD A: Sounds good . So you just have a few more weeks , huh ? +Grad F: Um , yeah . A few more . +PhD A: It 's about a month from now ? +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a month and {disfmarker} and a week . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So , uh , you want to go next , Dave ? And we 'll do {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK , sure . So , um , last week I finally got results from the SRI system about this mean subtraction approach . And , um , we {disfmarker} we got an improvement , uh , in word error rate , training on the TI - digits data set and testing on Meeting Recorder digits of , um , {vocalsound} six percent to four point five percent , um , on the n on the far - mike data using PZM F , but , um , the near - mike performance worsened , um , from one point two percent to two point four percent . And , um , wh why would that be , um , {vocalsound} considering that we actually got an improvement in near - mike performance using HTK ? And so , uh , with some input from , uh , Andreas , I have a theory in two parts . Um , first of all HTK {disfmarker} sorry , SR - the SRI system is doing channel adaptation , and so HTK wasn't . Um , so this , um {disfmarker} This mean subtraction approach will do a kind of channel {pause} normalization and so that might have given the HTK use of it a boost that wouldn't have been applied in the SRI case . And also , um , the {disfmarker} Andreas pointed out the SRI system is using more parameters . It 's got finer - grained acoustic models . So those finer - grained acoustic models could be more sensitive to the artifacts {pause} in the re - synthesized audio . Um . And me and Barry were listening to the re - synthesized audio and sometimes it seems like you get of a bit of an echo of speech in the background . And so that seems like it could be difficult for training , cuz you could have {pause} different phones {pause} lined up with a different foreground phone , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} depending on {pause} the timing of the echo . So , um , I 'm gonna try training on a larger data set , and then , eh , the system will have seen more examples o of these artifacts and hopefully will be more robust to them . So I 'm planning to use the Macrophone set of , um , read speech , and , um {disfmarker} Hmm . +Professor B: I had another thought just now , which is , uh , remember we were talking before about {disfmarker} we were talking in our meeting about , uh , this stuff that {disfmarker} some of the other stuff that Avendano did , where they were , um , getting rid of low - energy {pause} sections ? Um , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you did a high - pass filtering , as Hirsch did in {pause} late eighties to reduce some of the effects of reverberation , uh , uh , Avendano and Hermansky were arguing that , uh , perhaps one of the reasons for that working was ma may not have even been the filtering so much but the fact that when you filter a {disfmarker} an all - positive power spectrum you get some negative values , and you gotta figure out what to do with them if you 're gonna continue treating this as a power spectrum . So , what {disfmarker} what Hirsch did was , uh , set them to zero {disfmarker} set the negative values to zero . So if you imagine a {disfmarker} a waveform that 's all positive , which is the time trajectory of energy , um , and , uh , shifting it downwards , and then getting rid of the negative parts , that 's essentially throwing away the low - energy things . And it 's the low - energy parts of the speech where the reverberation is most audible . You know , you have the reverberation from higher - energy things showing up in {disfmarker} So in this case you have some artificially imposed {pause} reverberation - like thing . I mean , you 're getting rid of some of the other effects of reverberation , but because you have these non - causal windows , you 're getting these funny things coming in , uh , at n And , um , what if you did {disfmarker} ? I mean , there 's nothing to say that the {disfmarker} the processing for this re - synthesis has to be restricted to trying to get it back to the original , according to some equation . I mean , you also could , uh , just try to make it nicer . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And one of the things you could do is , you could do some sort of VAD - like thing +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you actually could take very low - energy sections and set them to some {disfmarker} some , uh , very low or {disfmarker} or near zero {pause} value . I mean , uh , I 'm just saying if in fact it turns out that {disfmarker} that these echoes that you 're hearing are , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: or pre - echoes , whichever they are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are , uh , part of what 's causing the problem , you actually could get rid of them . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Be pretty simple . I mean , you do it in a pretty conservative way +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so that if you made a mistake you were more likely to {pause} keep in an echo than to throw out speech . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: Um , what is the reverberation time {pause} like {pause} there ? +Grad E: In thi in this room ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: On , uh , the {disfmarker} the one what {disfmarker} the s in the speech that you are {disfmarker} you are using like ? +Grad E: Y Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: So , it 's this room . +PhD G: It 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's this room . +PhD G: Oh , this room ? +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: so it 's {disfmarker} these are just microphone {disfmarker} this micro close microphone and a distant microphone , he 's doing these different tests on . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , we should do a measurement in here . I g think we never have . I think it 's {disfmarker} I would guess , uh , point seven , point eight seconds f uh , R T +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor B: something like that ? But it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's this room . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . But the other thing is , he 's putting in {disfmarker} w I was using the word "" reverberation "" in two ways . He 's also putting in , uh , a {disfmarker} he 's taking out some reverberation , but he 's putting in something , because he has {pause} averages over multiple windows stretching out to twelve seconds , which are then being subtracted from the speech . And since , you know , what you subtract , sometimes you 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be subtracting from some larger number and sometimes you won't . And {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can end up with some components in it that are affected by things that are seconds away . Uh , and if it 's a low {pause} energy compo portion , you might actually hear some {pause} funny things . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: O o one thing , um , I noticed is that , um , the mean subtraction seems to make the PZM signals louder after they 've been re - synthesized . So I was wondering , is it possible that one reason it helped with the Aurora baseline system is {pause} just as a kind of gain control ? Cuz some of the PZM signals sound pretty quiet if you don't amplify them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I don't see why {disfmarker} why your signal is louder after processing , because yo +Grad E: Yeah . I don't know why - y , uh , either . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't think just multiplying the signal by two would have any effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I think if you really have louder signals , what you mean is that you have {pause} better signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD C: Well , well {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if what you 're doing is improving the signal - to - noise ratio , then it would be better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But just it being bigger if {disfmarker} with the same signal - to - noise ratio {disfmarker} +Grad E: It w i i it wouldn't affect things . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Well , the system is {disfmarker} use {pause} the absolute energy , so it 's a little bit dependent on {disfmarker} on the {pause} signal level . But , not so much , I guess . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But it 's trained and tested on the same thing . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So if the {disfmarker} if the {disfmarker} if you change {vocalsound} in both training and test , the absolute level by a factor of two , it will n have no effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you add {pause} this data to the training set , for the Aurora ? Or you just tested on this ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Um . Did I w what ? +PhD A: Well , Morgan was just saying that , uh , as long as you do it in both training and testing , it shouldn't have any effect . +Grad E: Sorry ? Yeah . +PhD A: But I {disfmarker} I was {pause} sort of under the impression that you just tested with this data . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I b +PhD A: You didn't {pause} train it also . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Right . I trained on clean TI - digits . I {disfmarker} I did the mean subtraction on clean TI - digits . But I didn't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it made the clean ti TI - digits any louder . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Grad E: I only remember noticing it made the , um , PZM signal louder . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't understand then . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . I don't know . If it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} like , if it 's trying to find a {disfmarker} a reverberation filter , it could be that this reverberation filter is making things quieter . And then if you take it out {disfmarker} that taking it out makes things louder . I mean . +Professor B: Uh , no . I mean , {vocalsound} uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing inherent about removing {disfmarker} if you 're really removing , +Grad E: Nuh - huh . +Professor B: uh , r uh , then I don't {pause} see how that would make it louder . +Grad E: The mean . OK . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: So it might be just some {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . OK . So I should maybe listen to that stuff again . +Professor B: Yeah . It might just be some artifact of the processing that {disfmarker} that , uh , if you 're {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . I don't know . +Grad E: Oh . OK . +PhD A: I wonder if there could be something like , uh {disfmarker} for s for the PZM data , +PhD C: Eh +PhD A: uh , you know , if occasionally , uh , somebody hits the table or something , you could get a spike . Uh . I 'm just wondering if there 's something about the , um {disfmarker} you know , doing the mean normalization where , uh , it {disfmarker} it could cause {pause} you to have better signal - to - noise ratio . Um . +Professor B: Well , you know , there is this . Wait a minute . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i maybe {disfmarker} i If , um {disfmarker} Subtracting the {disfmarker} the mean log spectrum is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is like dividing by the spectrum . So , depending what you divide by , if your {disfmarker} if s your estimate is off and sometimes you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting a small number , you could make it bigger . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} a question of {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it could be that there 's some normalization that 's missing , or something to make it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , y you 'd think it shouldn't be larger , but maybe in practice it is . That 's something to think about . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: I had a question about the system {disfmarker} the SRI system . So , {vocalsound} you trained it on TI - digits ? But except this , it 's exactly the same system as the one that was tested before and that was trained on {pause} Macrophone . Right ? So on TI - digits it gives you one point two percent error rate and on Macrophone it 's still O point eight . Uh , but is it {pause} exactly the same system ? +Grad E: Uh . I think so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad E: If you 're talking about the Macrophone results that Andreas had about , um , a week and a half ago , I think it 's the same system . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So you use VTL - uh , vocal tract length normalization and , um , like MLLR transformations also , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I 'm sorry , was his point eight percent , er , a {disfmarker} a result on testing on Macrophone or {disfmarker} or training ? +PhD C: all that stuff . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: It was {pause} training on Macrophone and testing {disfmarker} yeah , on {disfmarker} on meeting digits . +Professor B: Oh . So that was done already . So we were {disfmarker} Uh , and it 's point eight ? OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I 've just been text {comment} testing the new {pause} Aurora front - end with {disfmarker} well , Aurora system actually {disfmarker} so front - end and HTK , um , acoustic models on the meeting digits and it 's a little bit better than the previous system . We have {disfmarker} I have two point seven percent error rate . And before with the system that was proposed , it 's what ? It was three point nine . So . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a lot better . +PhD C: We are getting better . +Professor B: So , what {disfmarker} w ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: With the {disfmarker} with the HTK back - end ? What we have for Aurora ? +PhD C: Yeah . Two point seven . +PhD G: I know in the meeting , like {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the meeting we have two point seven . +PhD G: Right . Oh . +Grad F: That 's with the new IIR filters ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , yeah . So , yeah , +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: we have {pause} the new LDA filters , and {disfmarker} I think , maybe {disfmarker} I didn't look , but one thing that makes a difference is this DC offset compensation . Uh , eh {disfmarker} Do y did you have a look at {disfmarker} at the meet uh , meeting digits , if they have a DC component , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I didn't . No . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD G: No . The DC component could be negligible . I mean , if you are {pause} recording it through a mike . I mean , any {disfmarker} all of the mikes have the DC removal {disfmarker} some capacitor sitting right in {pause} that bias it . +Professor B: Yeah . But this {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh , no . Because , uh , there 's a sample and hold in the A - toD. And these period these typically do have a DC offset . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and they can be surprisingly large . It depends on the electronics . +PhD G: Oh , so it is the digital {disfmarker} OK . It 's the A - toD that introduces the DC in . +Professor B: Yeah . The microphone isn't gonna pass any DC . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: typi you know , unless {disfmarker} Actually , there are {pause} instrumentation mikes that {disfmarker} that do pass {disfmarker} go down to DC . But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , no , it 's the electronics . And they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: then there 's amplification afterwards . And you can get , I think it was {disfmarker} I think it was in the {pause} Wall Street Journal data that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I can't remember , one of the DARPA things . There was this big DC - DC offset +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't know about for a while , while we were {pause} messing with it . And we were getting these terrible results . And then we were talking to somebody and they said , "" Oh , yeah . Didn't you know ? Everybody knows that . There 's all this DC offset in th "" So , yes . You can have DC offset in the data . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: So was that {disfmarker} was that everything , Dave ? +Grad E: Oh . And I also , um , did some experiments {pause} about normalizing the phase . Um . So I c I came up with a web page that people can take a look at . And , um , the interesting thing that I tried was , um , Adam and Morgan had this idea , um , since my original attempts to , um , take the mean of the phase spectra over time and normalize using that , by subtracting that off , didn't work . Um , so , well , that we thought that might be due to , um , problems with , um , the arithmetic of phases . They {disfmarker} they add in this modulo two pi way and , um , there 's reason to believe that that approach of taking the mean of the phase spectrum wasn't really {pause} mathematically correct . So , {vocalsound} what I did instead is I {vocalsound} took the mean of the FFT spectrum without taking the log or anything , and then I took the phase of that , and I subtracted that phase {pause} off to normalize . But that , um , didn't work either . +Professor B: See , we have a different interpretation of this . He says it doesn't work . I said , I think it works magnificently , but just not for the task we intended . Uh , it gets rid of the speech . +PhD A: What does it leave ? +Grad F: Uh , gets rid of the speech . +Professor B: Uh , it leaves {disfmarker} you know , it leaves the junk . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's tremendous . +Grad F: Oh , wow . +Professor B: You see , all he has to do is go back and reverse what he did before , and he 's really got something . +PhD A: Well , could you take what was left over and then subtract that ? +Professor B: Ex - exactly . Yeah , you got it . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a general rule . +PhD G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Just listen very carefully to what I say and do the opposite . Including what I just said . +Grad E: And , yeah , that 's everything . +PhD A: All set ? Do you want to go , Stephane ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Maybe , concerning these d still , these meeting digits . I 'm more interested in trying to figure out what 's still the difference between the SRI system and the Aurora system . And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . So , I think I will maybe train , like , gender - dependent models , because {pause} this is also one big difference between {pause} the two systems . Um , the other differences were {pause} the fact that maybe the acoustic models of the SRI are more {disfmarker} SRI system are more complex . But , uh , Chuck , you did some experiments with this and +PhD A: It didn't seem to help in the HTK system . +PhD C: it was hard t to {disfmarker} to have some exper some improvement with this . Um . +Professor B: Well , it sounds like they also have {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he 's saying they have all these , uh , uh , different kinds of adaptation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , they have channel adaptation . They have speaker adaptation . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD A: Well , there 's also the normalization . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Like they do , um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how they would do it when they 're working with the digits , +PhD C: The vocal tr +PhD A: but , like , in the Switchboard data , there 's , um {disfmarker} conversation - side normalization for the {pause} non - C - zero components , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This is another difference . Their normalization works like on {disfmarker} on the utterance levels . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But we have to do it {disfmarker} We have a system that does it on - line . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: So , it might be {disfmarker} it might be better with {disfmarker} it might be worse if the {pause} channel is constant , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Nnn . +PhD G: And the acoustic models are like - k triphone models or {disfmarker} or is it the whole word ? +PhD C: SRI {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's tr +Grad F: SRI . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's triphones . +PhD G: It 's triphone . +Professor B: I think it 's probably more than that . +PhD C: Huh . +Professor B: I mean , so they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thin think they use these , uh , uh , genone things . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's these kind of , uh , uh , pooled models and {disfmarker} and they can go out to all sorts of dependencies . +PhD G: Oh . It 's like the tied state . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have tied states and I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't real I 'm talk I 'm just guessing here . But I think {disfmarker} I think they {disfmarker} they don't just have triphones . +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: I think they have a range of {disfmarker} of , uh , dependencies . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . Um . Well , the first thing I {disfmarker} that I want to do is just maybe these gender things . Uh . And maybe see with {pause} Andreas if {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know {pause} how much it helps , what 's the model . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the n stuff on the numbers you got , the two point seven , is that using the same training data that the SRI system used and got one point two ? +PhD C: That 's right . So it 's the clean {pause} TI - digits training set . +PhD A: So exact same training data ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I guess you used the clean training set . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} with the SRI system {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well . +Grad E: You know , the {disfmarker} the Aurora baseline is set up with these , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this version of the clean training set that 's been filtered with this G - seven - one - two filter , and , um , to train the SRI system on digits S - Andreas used the original TI - digits , um , under U doctor - speech data TI - digits , which don't have this filter . But I don't think there 's any other difference . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So is that {disfmarker} ? Uh , are {disfmarker} are these results comparable ? So you {disfmarker} you were getting with the , uh , Aurora baseline something like two point four percent {pause} on clean TI - digits , when , uh , training the SRI system with clean TR digits {disfmarker} {comment} TI - digits . Right ? And {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . And , so , is your two point seven comparable , where you 're , uh , uh , using , uh , the submitted system ? +PhD C: Yeah . I think so . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's {pause} about the same , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe a little worse . +Grad E: W w it was one {disfmarker} one point two +PhD C: Ye +Grad E: with the SRI system , +Professor B: I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: The complete SRI system is one point two . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you were HTK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? OK . That 's right . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} the comparable number then , uh {pause} for what you were talking about then , since it was HTK , would be the {pause} um , two point f +PhD C: It was four point something . Right ? The HTK system with , uh , b +Grad E: D d +Professor B: Oh , right , right , right , right . +PhD C: MFCC features {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean the b ? The baseline Aurora - two system , trained on TI - digits , tested on Meeting Recorder near , I think we saw in it today , and it was about six point six percent . +Professor B: Right . Right , right , right . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: OK . Alright . So {disfmarker} He 's doing some {pause} different things . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . The only difference is the features , right now , between this and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . OK , good . So they are helping . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's good to hear . Yeah . +PhD C: They are helping . Yeah . Um . Yeah . And another thing I {disfmarker} I maybe would like to do is to {pause} just test the SRI system that 's trained on Macrophone {disfmarker} test it on , uh , the noisy TI - digits , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: cuz I 'm still wondering {pause} where this {pause} improvement comes from . When you train on Macrophone , it seems better on meeting digits . But I wonder if it 's just because maybe {pause} Macrophone is acoustically closer to the meeting digits than {disfmarker} than TI - digit is , which is {disfmarker} TI - digits are very {pause} clean recorded digits +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know , it would also be interesting to see , uh {disfmarker} to do the regular Aurora test , +PhD C: Uh , f s +PhD A: um , but use the SRI system instead of HTK . +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what {pause} I wanted , just , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , just using the SRI system , test it on {disfmarker} and test it on {pause} Aurora TI - digits . Right . +PhD A: Why not the full Aurora , uh , test ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . There is this problem of multilinguality yet . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So we don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd have to train the SRI system with {disfmarker} with all the different languages . +PhD C: i i +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: We would have to train on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what I mean . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , like , comple +Professor B: It 'd be a {pause} lot of work . That 's the only thing . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I mean , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: uh , uh , I guess the work would be into getting the {disfmarker} the files in the right formats , or something . Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because when you train up the Aurora system , you 're , uh {disfmarker} you 're also training on all the data . +PhD C: That 's right . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . I see . Oh , so , OK . Right . I see what you mean . +Professor B: That 's true , but I think that also when we 've had these meetings week after week , oftentimes people have not done the full arrange of things +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on whatever it is they 're trying , because it 's a lot of work , even just with the HTK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good idea , but it seems like {pause} it makes sense to do some pruning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first with a {disfmarker} a test or two that makes sense for you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then {pause} take the likely candidates and go further . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , just testing on TI - digits would already give us some information {pause} about what 's going on . And {disfmarker} mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . OK . Uh , the next thing is this {disfmarker} this VAD problem that , um , um {disfmarker} So , I 'm just talking about the {disfmarker} the curves that I {disfmarker} I sent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I sent you {disfmarker} so , whi that shows that {vocalsound} when the SNR decrease , {vocalsound} uh , the current {pause} VAD approach doesn't drop much frames {pause} for some particular noises , uh , which might be then noises that are closer to speech , uh , acoustically . +Professor B: I i Just to clarify something for me . I They were supp Supposedly , in the next evaluation , they 're going to be supplying us with boundaries . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So does any of this matter ? I mean , other than our interest in it . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} Well . First of all , the boundaries might be , uh {disfmarker} like we would have t two hundred milliseconds or {disfmarker} before and after speech . Uh . So removing more than that might still make {pause} a difference {pause} in the results . +Professor B: Do we {disfmarker} ? I mean , is there some reason that we think that 's the case ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No . Because we don't {disfmarker} didn't looked {pause} that much at that . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But , {vocalsound} still , I think it 's an interesting problem . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . +Professor B: But maybe we 'll get some insight on that when {disfmarker} when , uh , the gang gets back from Crete . Because {pause} there 's lots of interesting problems , of course . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then the thing is if {disfmarker} if they really are going to have some means of giving us {pause} fairly tight , uh , boundaries , then that won't be so much the issue . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um But {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD G: Because w we were wondering whether that {pause} VAD is going to be , like , a realistic one or is it going to be some manual segmentation . And then , like , if {disfmarker} if that VAD is going to be a realistic one , then we can actually use their markers to shift the point around , I mean , the way we want +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: to find a {disfmarker} I mean , rather than keeping the twenty frames , we can actually move the marker to a point which we find more {pause} suitable for us . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: But if that is going to be something like a manual , uh , segmenter , then we can't {pause} use that information anymore , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because that 's not going to be the one that is used in the final evaluation . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: So . We don't know what is the type of {pause} {vocalsound} {pause} VAD which they 're going to provide . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . And actually there 's {disfmarker} Yeah . There 's an {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's still for {disfmarker} even for the evaluation , uh , it might still be interesting to {vocalsound} work on this because {pause} the boundaries apparently that they would provide is just , {vocalsound} um , starting of speech and end of speech {pause} uh , at the utterance level . And {disfmarker} Um . +PhD G: With some {disfmarker} some gap . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , with some pauses in the center , provided they meet that {disfmarker} whatever the hang - over time which they are talking . +PhD C: Yeah . But when you have like , uh , five or six frames , both {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . Then the they will just fill {disfmarker} fill it up . +PhD C: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , th {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So if you could get at some of that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: although that 'd be hard . +PhD C: Yeah . It might be useful for , like , noise estimation , and a lot of other {pause} things that we want to work on . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . OK . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . So I did {disfmarker} I just {pause} started to test {pause} putting together two VAD which was {disfmarker} was not much work actually . Um , I im re - implemented a VAD that 's very close to the , {vocalsound} um , energy - based VAD {vocalsound} that , uh , the other Aurora guys use . Um . So , which is just putting a threshold on {pause} the noise energy , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and , detect detecting the first {pause} group of four frames {pause} that have a energy that 's above this threshold , and , uh , from this point , uh , tagging the frames there as speech . So it removes {vocalsound} the first silent portion {disfmarker} portion of each utterance . And it really removes it , um , still o on the noises where {pause} our MLP VAD doesn't {pause} work a lot . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Uh , +Professor B: Cuz I would have thought that having some kind of spectral {pause} information , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} uh , you know , in the old days people would use energy and zero crossings , for instance {disfmarker} uh , would give you some {pause} better performance . Right ? Cuz you might have low - energy fricatives or {disfmarker} or , uh {pause} stop consonants , or something like that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , your point is {disfmarker} will be to u use whatever {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that if you d if you use purely energy and don't look at anything spectral , then you don't have a good way of distinguishing between low - energy speech components and {pause} nonspeech . And , um , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just as a gross generalization , most nonsp many nonspeech noises have a low - pass kind of characteristic , some sort of slope . And {disfmarker} and most , um , low - energy speech components that are unvoiced have a {disfmarker} a high - pass kind of characteristic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an upward slope . So having some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , you know , at the beginning of a {disfmarker} of a {disfmarker} of an S sound for instance , just starting in , it might be pretty low - energy , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it will tend to have this high - frequency component . Whereas , {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a lot of rumble , and background noises , and so forth will be predominantly low - frequency . Uh , you know , by itself it 's not enough to tell you , but it plus energy is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: it plus energy plus timing information is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you look up in Rabiner and Schafer from like twenty - five years ago or something , that 's sort of {pause} what they were using then . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: So , yeah . It {disfmarker} it might be that what I did is {disfmarker} so , removes like {vocalsound} low , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} low - energy , uh , speech frames . Because {pause} the way I do it is I just {disfmarker} I just combine the two decisions {disfmarker} so , the one from the MLP and the one from the energy - based {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the and {pause} operator . So , I only {pause} keep the frames where the two agree {pause} that it 's speech . So if the energy - based dropped {disfmarker} dropped low - energy speech , mmm , they {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are lost . Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But s still , the way it 's done right now it {disfmarker} it helps on {disfmarker} on the noises where {disfmarker} it seems to help on the noises where {vocalsound} our VAD was not very {pause} good . +Professor B: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I mean , one could imagine combining them in different ways . But {disfmarker} but , I guess what you 're saying is that the {disfmarker} the MLP - based one has the spectral information . So . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But the way it 's combined wi is maybe done {disfmarker} Well , yeah . +Professor B: Well , you can imagine {disfmarker} +PhD C: The way I use a an a "" AND "" operator is {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: The frames that are dropped by the energy - based system are {disfmarker} are , uh , dropped , even if the , um , MLP decides to keep them . +Professor B: Right . Right . And that might not be optimal , +PhD C: But , yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No +Professor B: but {disfmarker} I mean , I guess in principle what you 'd want to do is have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a probability estimated by each one and {disfmarker} and put them together . +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . M Yeah . +PhD A: Something that {disfmarker} that I 've used in the past is , um {disfmarker} when just looking at the energy , is to look at the derivative . And you {pause} make your decision when the derivative is increasing for {pause} so many frames . Then you say that 's beginning of speech . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to remember if that requires that you keep some amount of speech in a buffer . I guess it depends on how you do it . But {pause} I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been a useful thing . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . Well , every everywhere has a delay associated with it . I mean , you still have to k always keep a buffer , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: then only make a decision because {pause} you still need to smooth the {pause} decision further . +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD G: So that 's always there . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: Well , actually if I don't {disfmarker} maybe don't want to work too much of {disfmarker} on it right now . I just wanted to {disfmarker} to see if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I observed was the re was caused by this {disfmarker} this VAD problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And it seems to be the case . Um . Uh , the second thing is the {disfmarker} this spectral subtraction . Um . Um , which I 've just started yesterday to launch a bunch of , uh , {nonvocalsound} twenty - five experiments , uh , with different , uh , values for the parameters that are used . So , it 's the Makhoul - type spectral subtraction which use {pause} an over - estimation factor . So , we substr I subtract more , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} noise than the noise spectra that {pause} is estimated {pause} on the noise portion of the s uh , the utterances . So I tried several , uh , over - estimation factors . And after subtraction , I also add {pause} a constant noise , and I also try different , uh , {vocalsound} noise , uh , values and we 'll see what happen . +Professor B: Hmm . OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But st still when we look at the , um {disfmarker} Well , it depends on the parameters that you use , but for moderate over - estimation factors and moderate noise level that you add , you st have a lot of musical noise . Um . On the other hand , when you {pause} subtract more and when you add more noise , you get rid of this musical noise but {pause} maybe you distort a lot of speech . So . Well . Mmm . Well , it {disfmarker} until now , it doesn't seem to help . But We 'll see . So the next thing , maybe I {disfmarker} what I will {pause} try to {disfmarker} to do is just {pause} to try to smooth mmm , {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} to smooth the d the result of the subtraction , to get rid of the musical noise , using some kind of filter , or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Can smooth the SNR estimate , also . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . Mmm . +PhD G: Your filter is a function of SNR . Hmm ? +PhD C: Yeah . So , to get something that 's {disfmarker} would be closer to {pause} what you tried to do with Wiener filtering . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: Actually , it 's , uh {disfmarker} Uh . I don't know , it 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +PhD C: It {disfmarker} +PhD G: And it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Maybe you can {disfmarker} +PhD G: go ahead . +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} That 's it for me . +PhD G: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} u th I 've been playing with this Wiener filter , like . And there are {disfmarker} there were some bugs in the program , so I was p initially trying to clear them up . Because one of the bug was {disfmarker} I was assuming that always the VAD {disfmarker} uh , the initial frames were silence . It always started in the silence state , but it wasn't for some utterances . So the {disfmarker} it wasn't estimating the noise initially , and then it never estimated , because I assumed that it was always silence . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So this is on SpeechDat - Car Italian ? +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: So , in some cases s there are also {disfmarker} +PhD G: SpeechDat - Car Italian . Yeah . There 're a few cases , actually , which I found later , that there are . +PhD C: o Uh - huh . +PhD G: So that was one of the {pause} bugs that was there in estimating the noise . And , uh , so once it was cleared , uh , I ran a few experiments with {pause} different ways of smoothing the estimated clean speech and how t estimated the noise and , eh , smoothing the SNR also . And so the {disfmarker} the trend seems to be like , {vocalsound} uh , smoothing the {pause} current estimate of the clean speech for deriving the SNR , which is like {pause} deriving the Wiener filter , seems to be helping . Then updating it quite fast using a very small time constant . So we 'll have , like , a few results where the {disfmarker} estimating the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} More smoothing is helping . But still it 's like {disfmarker} it 's still comparable to the baseline . I haven't got anything beyond the baseline . But that 's , like , not using any Wiener filter . And , uh , so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying a few more experiments with different time constants for smoothing the noise spectrum , and smoothing the clean speech , and smoothing SNR . So there are three time constants that I have . So , I 'm just playing around . So , one is fixed in the line , like {pause} Smoothing the clean speech is {disfmarker} is helping , so I 'm not going to change it that much . But , the way I 'm estimating the noise and the way I 'm estimating the SNR , I 'm just trying {disfmarker} trying a little bit . So , that h And the other thing is , like , putting a floor on the , uh , SNR , because that {disfmarker} if some {disfmarker} In some cases the clean speech is , like {disfmarker} when it 's estimated , it goes to very low values , so the SNR is , like , very low . And so that actually creates a lot of variance in the low - energy region of the speech . So , I 'm thinking of , like , putting a floor also for the SNR so that it doesn't {pause} vary a lot in the low - energy regions . And , uh . So . The results are , like {disfmarker} So far I 've been testing only with the {pause} baseline , which is {disfmarker} which doesn't have any LDA filtering and on - line normalization . I just want to separate the {disfmarker} the contributions out . So it 's just VAD , plus the Wiener filter , plus the baseline system , which is , uh , just the spectral {disfmarker} I mean , the mel sp mel , uh , frequency coefficients . Um . And the other thing that I tried was {disfmarker} but I just {vocalsound} took of those , uh , {pause} {vocalsound} Carlos filters , which Hynek had , to see whether it really h helps or not . I mean , it was just a {disfmarker} a run to see whether it really degrades or it helps . And it 's {disfmarker} it seems to be like it 's not {vocalsound} hurting a lot by just blindly picking up one filter which is nothing but a {pause} four hertz {disfmarker} a band - pass m m filter on the cubic root of the power spectrum . So , that was the filter that Hy - uh , Carlos had . And so {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to see whether it really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} is it worth trying or not . So , it doesn't seems to be degrading a lot on that . So there must be something that I can {disfmarker} that can be done with that type of noise compensation also , which {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess I would ask Carlos about that . I mean , how {disfmarker} how he derived those filters and {disfmarker} and where d if he has any filters which are derived on OGI stories , added with some type of noise which {disfmarker} what we are using currently , or something like that . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is cubic root of power spectra ? +PhD G: Yeah . Cubic root of power spectrum . +Professor B: So , if you have this band - pass filter , you probably get n you get negative values . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . And I 'm , like , floating it to z zeros right now . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: So it has , like {disfmarker} the spectrogram has , like {disfmarker} Uh , it actually , uh , enhances the onset and offset of {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the begin and the end of the speech . So it 's {disfmarker} there seems to be , like , deep valleys in the begin and the end of , like , high - energy regions , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because the filter has , like , a sort of Mexican - hat type structure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So , those are the regions where there are , like {disfmarker} when I look at the spectrogram , there are those deep valleys on the begin and the end of the speech . But the rest of it seems to be , like , pretty nice . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So . That 's {pause} something I observe using that filter . And {disfmarker} Yeah . There are a few {disfmarker} very {disfmarker} not a lot of {disfmarker} because the filter doesn't have a {disfmarker} really a deep negative portion , so that it 's not really creating a lot of negative values in the cubic root . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll s may continue with that for some w I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} Maybe I 'll ask Carlos a little more about how to play with those filters , and {disfmarker} but while {pause} making this Wiener filter better . So . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's it , Morgan . +Professor B: Uh , last week you were also talking about building up the subspace {pause} stuff ? +PhD G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would actually m m didn't get enough time to work on the subspace last week . It was mostly about {pause} finding those bugs and +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: th you know , things , and I didn't work much on that . +PhD A: How about you , Carmen ? +PhD D: Well , I am still working with , eh , VTS . And , one of the things that last week , eh , say here is that maybe the problem was with the diff because the signal have different level of energy . +Professor B: Hmm ? +PhD D: And , maybe , talking with Stephane and with Sunil , we decide that maybe it was interesting to {disfmarker} to apply on - line normalization before applying VTS . But then {vocalsound} we decided that that 's {disfmarker} it doesn't work absolutely , because we modified also the noise . And {disfmarker} Well , thinking about that , we {disfmarker} we then {disfmarker} we decide that maybe is a good idea . We don't know . I don't hav I don't {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I didn't {pause} do the experiment yet {disfmarker} to apply VTS in cepstral domain . +Professor B: The other thing {pause} is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , in {disfmarker} i i and {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} and C - zero would be a different {disfmarker} So you could do a different normalization for C - zero than for other things anyway . I mean , the other thing I was gonna suggest is that you could have {pause} two kinds of normalization with {disfmarker} with , uh , different time constants . So , uh , you could do some normalization {vocalsound} s uh , before the VTS , and then do some other normalization after . I don't know . But {disfmarker} but C - zero certainly acts differently than the others do , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , we s decide to m to {disfmarker} to obtain the new expression if we work in the cepstral domain . And {disfmarker} Well . I am working in that now , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: but {vocalsound} I 'm not sure if that will be usefu useful . I don't know . It 's k it 's k It 's quite a lot {disfmarker} It 's a lot of work . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's not too much , but this {disfmarker} it 's work . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And I want to know if {disfmarker} if we have some {pause} feeling that {pause} the result {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to know if {disfmarker} I don't have any feeling if this will work better than apply VTS aft in cepstral domain will work better than apply in m mel {disfmarker} in filter bank domain . I r I 'm not sure . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know absolutely nothing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you 're {disfmarker} I think you 're the first one here to work with VTS , so , uh , maybe we could call someone else up who has , ask them their opinion . Uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a good feeling for it . Um . +PhD G: Pratibha . +PhD C: Actually , the VTS that you tested before was in the log domain and so {pause} the codebook is e e kind of dependent on the {pause} level of the speech signal . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} So I expect it {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if you have something that 's independent of this , I expect it to {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to , uh , be a better model of speech . +PhD D: To have better {disfmarker} +PhD C: And . Well . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you wouldn't even need to switch to cepstra . Right ? I mean , you can just sort of normalize the {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . We could normali norm I mean , remove the median . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then you have {pause} one number which is very dependent on the level cuz it is the level , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and the other which isn't . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But here also we would have to be careful about removing the mean {pause} of speech and not of noise . +PhD D: Ye +PhD C: Because it 's like {pause} first doing general normalization +PhD D: Yea +PhD C: and then noise removal , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} I was thinking to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to estimate the noise {pause} with the first frames and then apply the VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: before the on - line normalization . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we see {disfmarker} Well , I am thinking {vocalsound} about that and working about that , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: but I don't have result this week . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , one of the things we 've talked about {disfmarker} maybe it might be star time to start thinking about pretty soon , is as we look at the pros and cons of these different methods , how do they fit in with one another ? Because {pause} we 've talked about potentially doing some combination of a couple of them . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe pretty soon we 'll have some sense of what their {pause} characteristics are , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so we can see what should be combined . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is that it ? OK ? +Professor B: OK . Why don't we read some digits ? +PhD A: Yep . Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD A: Transcript L dash two one five . +Professor B: O K . +","In this meeting, various academics, including professors and PhD candidates, discuss ongoing research projects related to speech processing. The conversation opens with Professor B reflecting on the TORRENT chip project, highlighting how for two years the project seemed perpetually two months away from completion, despite having seemingly credible schedules. This reminiscence segues into a discussion about the format of their status report meetings and whether to wait for Sunil before discussing his component. + +Graduate student F, referred to as Barry, is deep in the process of writing his proposal, working on intermediate categories for classification. He aims to have a rough draft completed by the following Monday, with his qualifying exams scheduled for July 25th. Barry details his plan for phone recognition using multi-band techniques and iterative refinement of intermediate classifiers. His work primarily utilizes the TIMIT dataset and later plans to focus on larger vocabulary tasks using data from Switchboard and the SRI recognizer. + +Graduate student E, referred to as Dave, shares his recent findings from experiments using mean subtraction to improve word error rates in speech recognition. The subtraction method provided mixed results, improving far-mic data but worsening near-mic performance. Dave and Professor B delve into a technical discussion about potential reasons for this discrepancy and consider alternate techniques, such as high-pass filtering and voice activity detection (VAD), to mitigate reverberation issues. + +The conversation then shifts to PhD candidate C, referred to as Stephane, who reports on improvements to the Aurora baseline system using new LDA filters and a DC offset compensation technique, yielding a reduction in error rates. Stephane also explores strategies for improving voice activity detection (VAD) and considering training gender-dependent models to further explore differences between the SRI system and the Aurora system. + +PhD candidate G discusses his work on Wiener filtering and contemplates using filters to compensate for background noise. There's an in-depth technical discussion on various parameters and signal processing techniques, and considerations for future work are outlined. + +PhD candidate D, referred to as Carmen, provides an update on her work with the vector Taylor series (VTS) approach. There's discussion about applying VTS in the cepstral domain and normalizing signals before VTS application, with concerns about how these techniques might interact with noise levels within the signal. + +Through these updates, ideas are exchanged, suggestions given, and rationales pondered as the team navigates the complexities of speech processing research. As the meeting concludes, they agree to read some digits, referencing a specific transcript to continue their work. + +Overall, the meeting is technical, dense with speech processing language, and iterative in nature, reflecting the ongoing research and troubleshooting that is central to the field. The participants demonstrate clear engagement with one another's work, offering both insights and support as they collectively aim to advance their field." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies, although Dawn Bowden is running late. I'll take this opportunity to welcome Dawn formally to the committee but also to place on record our thanks to John Griffiths for his service to the committee. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a scrutiny session with a focus on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Eluned Morgan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, and Huw Morris, who is the group director of skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Thank you all for your attendance this morning. If you're okay with it, we'll go straight into questions. The first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If we can just start with teacher training and teacher training for secondary school teachers in particular, obviously there's been what looks like a trend in recent years in filling the places for secondary school training. Obviously, this is at Welsh teacher training centres. Do you think there's still a problem recruiting teachers into the 300 priority places, or is there a trend where things are getting better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. I think, for this year's intake, although we're in touch with our providers, we're not in a position to be able to give figures for this year's intake for a couple of months. But what we have seen over recent years is that we are only recruiting to about 65 per cent of those targets. So, there is still a job of work to do to understand and to respond to those needs. So, what we're doing is first of all making sure that our ITE provision is world class, so that, actually, Welsh centres are the place to go to train to be a teacher. You'll be aware that we've recently been through an accreditation process for new ITE provision that will start in the next academic year. We have looked at financial incentives. It's not the whole answer, I think, to these issues, but it's part of a mixture of things that we need to do. You'll be aware that, for priority subjects, with graduates with the very highest levels of qualifications, those financial incentives are now £20,000 a year. We're also embarking on our first ever national ITE recruitment marketing exercise. We have initially done some work in the last year specifically targeting Welsh students in studying for priority subject degrees, e-mailing them, sending them materials to ask them to consider (1) becoming a teacher, and (2) crucially coming to do that training here in Wales. We are now part of a full national programme of ITE recruitment, giving people that idea that you can serve your nation and your community by training to be a teacher. So, there's a whole package of things we need to do. In January of this year I set up an advisory board on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, and we are awaiting some reports from that advisory group on what they feel that we should do next. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. I can see there's a lot of activity, but what exactly is it responding to? Presumably, some research has been done about why people don't want to become teachers so that the answers you come up with are appropriate answers. I can't believe it's just about ITE, although this is very valuable, what you're talking about. Is there something that's running through our younger learners at the moment that makes them think that teaching isn't a profession they want to go into? Is that something that's happening just in Wales or is it happening elsewhere as well? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. I think what you will find is that this isn't a uniquely Welsh issue. I think they are suffering quite acute problems across the border, which proves to me that money isn't necessarily the entire answer, because, despite higher financial incentives to join ITE courses, they're not able to do that in England either. So, that proves to me—what the research does show—that it's not money alone that will get people onto these courses. Interestingly, I don't even think it's a UK problem. Recently, as you'll be aware via my written statement, I attended the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory, which is a system-to-system conference. If you talk to education systems in different parts of the world, the one common factor that we are all grappling with is teacher recruitment and retention. In the USA, they have seen a 40 per cent drop in the number of students training to be teachers. So, in the Californian system, significant teacher shortages, and in Oregon, Washington. I met with New York state—significant teacher recruitment and retention problems in New York state, and in Finland, Australia. So, this is a common issue across the globe, really. That's why we set up the advisory group under the chairmanship of Professor John Gardner—it's to understand what the issues are exactly that are preventing people or putting people off. One of the things that we have got strong performance in, and I think this is perhaps something that we're trying to follow up on, are employment-based routes into qualified teacher status—so, those are people who are training on the job. Those remain strong. There's high demand for those places, so much so that we've increased those places to 90 last year and 90 again this year, which says to me that—there's definitely a place for the traditional, 'Take a year off, do a postgraduate certificate in education in a university for a year'—actually, that type of course suits some students but it might be preventing other people from pursuing a qualification in teaching, which is why, of course, from next year, we will have our unique part-time PGCE route into qualification. So, that allows people to perhaps combine some of their employment opportunities, so they can earn while they learn, or maybe they've got caring responsibilities that prevent them from going to do a full-time course. I think that will give us an alternative route that people can take to gain qualified teacher status and work in our schools. So, there's no one thing, I think, that we can do that will solve this issue. But it is an international issue, I agree with that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's what I was after finding out, and, actually, what you've just said about the part-time PGCE is pretty interesting as well, because if you can bring your outside world experience into teaching, that's got to help, hasn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Can I just agree with you? I think that is really, really important—that we have a diversity in our teaching workforce. I think the different dynamic that brings to a school and the experience that brings to children is really, really valuable. I was up in the Deeside Sixth just last week, talking to the A-level chemistry teacher. She had been a teacher for a while, she'd gone into industry, worked in industry, and now had come back into teaching. She said that she felt that that made her a better educator and she could talk with knowledge and experience about the opportunities outside of teaching that the students in front of her could pursue. I'm very keen to increase the diversity in our teaching workforce and I'm very keen in looking at career changers, who perhaps have different life experience and work experience, coming into our teaching profession. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. Part of that diversity, of course—it would be great if you had more people interested in qualifying to teach through the medium of Welsh. Great aspirations; the trend's going the other way. No-one can solve this in 280 characters, I get that, but can you give us some indication about why you think this is proving still such an unattractive option when it's clear that there's a policy for this country to improve the number of Welsh speakers? You'd have thought there'd be a pretty good carrot for this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. Again, data for recruitment for the 2018-19 cohort is not yet available and we are, as I said, keeping in touch with our ITE centres to keep a close eye on them. I think an important thing to recognise is that there is a difference between the number of people who are on courses where there is a specific designation that enables them to teach through the medium of Welsh and those people who have linguistic ability and Welsh ability but don't necessarily do a course that allows them. So, there is a difference. We do think that, for the 2016-17 cohort, there were an additional 130 qualifiers that, actually, were fluent in Welsh and who could have gone on to teach in Welsh-medium schools, didn't necessarily do a course that gave them that designation. But, clearly, we've got three academic years now to get to the targets that we've set ourselves. The evaluation of Welsh-medium provision in ITE reported at the end of last month, and the Minister and officials are busy working now to implement the recommendations of the report that was published, I think, on 28 September, to be able to move this agenda forward. Again, we've got new incentives, this year, both for people starting their course and then for teachers who complete their QTS after a year. So, we've added in new financial incentives this year to try and address some of those issues. But, clearly, these are ambitious targets and we will need to have a step change over the next three years if we're to meet them. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. Thank you for that answer. We're now talking about cohorts of students coming into PGCE and teaching degrees. If they're from Wales, they will have had Welsh as part of their education from day one, and we'll accept there are varying qualities in different parts of Wales, different attitudes towards it as well. But there isn't a single a person now who's been through Welsh education who can say they have no Welsh at all, unless they've moved into the system from, say, England very, very recently. What is being done within the teaching qualifications, including the degrees, to ensure that, at least in Welsh universities, those nascent Welsh language skills are at least kept alive, even though we're not talking necessarily about being at a level where people can teach through the medium? It's the age-old question: once the school gate closes, is that the end of their Welsh use? So, is there something—it won't be Donaldson, but in the teacher training qualifications—that is keeping this going and, hopefully, increasing the usability of the Welsh skills they have? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, in terms of how we can encourage children who have got Welsh skills as a result of their education up to 16, how they can continue to use those skills and, potentially, use them in the workplace, I'm sure Eluned will want to talk about some of the work, for instance, in other, non-teaching sectors. But, with regard to ITE, you'll be aware that, in the evaluation report, as I said, that was published, the report comes forward with two options in how we could develop an intervention programme to support Welsh language skills amongst all primary and secondary ITE entrants. So, what we'll be doing now as a result of that report is that we'll be working very closely with our ITE centres to develop and agree upon minimum provision that constitutes those skill levels within ITE provision for all teachers. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You have your targets for 2021, in terms of numbers of teachers coming through the system, which is positive, although, clearly, the report or the review itself said that, actually, we need to double the numbers, really. But it's not just the trends that are going down; it's a cataclysmic drop, really. We've lost 24 per cent in the number of people over the last four or five years who are going into teacher training to study subjects that they could teach through the medium of Welsh. So, it's a huge turnaround that we're looking for, and I'm not getting the feeling that the level of ambition and the answers that you're giving here this morning reflect the level of action that's needed, really. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, as I tried to illustrate to Suzy, the figures on their own tell one story, but there are additional people in the system with an ability to speak Welsh and to be able to use— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I think it's 40 per cent of those who are currently in the system who don't— +Kirsty Williams AM: —the language and skills. And if we look at qualifiers of ITE courses in Wales by degree type, actually, we see a different trend—we see numbers going up. So, there are statistics and there are statistics. Depending on which ones you look at, it's quite a complex picture. And that's why we had the evaluation report. We understand and we know and acknowledge that there is more work to be done. That's why we have got the evaluation of provision in ITE and that's why we'll be taking that ambition forward. We know what we need to do. As I said, we're not sitting back and hoping that something miraculous will change things. We are pulling levers and putting in place plans to improve that situation. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you for that. Clearly, there are statistics and there are statistics, so could you just explain to us which statistics you've used for your targets for growth over the next three years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that comes as a result of the work done for the 2050— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Upon which baseline are you basing the increases that you're projecting? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using the baseline of 2012-13. There has been a decline since then. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's the one I was using when I said '24 per cent reduction'. +Kirsty Williams AM: There has been a decline in those numbers. That's why, as I said, we're doing the work that we need to do to reverse that decline. In using those numbers, we also know that there are additional people in the system who are not captured in those figures and who do have the linguistic ability to use their language positively in school settings. So, what I'm saying is that that doesn't tell us the whole story, but I will be the first to admit that there is a significant job of work with our ITE providers to ensure that we will have the skilled professionals that we need to deliver on our ambitions, and I'm not hiding from that. +Eluned Morgan AM: Also, I just think it's worth saying that a lot of this is about building the confidence of those people who actually can speak Welsh, who are not teaching through the medium of Welsh, and to give them that support. First of all, we need to identify who these people are, so there is a job of work being undertaken now in terms of registration in particular—when people register, let's just make sure that we collect that kind of data. +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't even do that consistently at the moment. One of the recommendations of the report is that there is no consistent approach to understanding this baseline data and there's no consistent competency test that people start at the beginning of their course, so we need a national approach rather than leaving it to individual institutions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Have we missed any tricks, potentially, in terms of the reforms to accrediting ITE, for example, in terms of, maybe, strengthening aspects around the Welsh language and provision in that respect? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't believe so. The accreditation process, which is independent of the Government—the accreditation process demands of our ITE providers that their provision will be able to meet the goals of our curriculum. Our curriculum is very clear about the equality of the language and the ability of our children, through all stages of their education journey, to be able to be bilingual children. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that requirement, as far you're concerned, is there. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. Diolch—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before I turn to Hefin, can I just clarify—? In answer to Suzy Davies, you said that 65 per cent of the places in Welsh training centres had been filled. Is that 65 per cent of the priority places? +Kirsty Williams AM: Priority places. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sixty-five per cent of the priority courses are being met. +Lynne Neagle AM: Lovely, thank you for clarifying that. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: The decision by the Education Workforce Council not to accredit the University of South Wales with the ability to deliver teacher training—what are your views and concerns about that? +Kirsty Williams AM: The process is independent of Government, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that, especially as I understand that there is an appeals process that may be being undertaken. What I would say is that from the very outset of our ITE reforms we have made it very clear that I expect very high standards in our ITE system, but the process is independent of this Government. I have confidence in the people who have been appointed by the EWC to undertake that process, but it is independent of me, and it's not appropriate for me to comment on that further. +Hefin David AM: I fully understand that and the need for distance for the EWC, but there'll be an impact on students and staff. Students, first of all: are you concerned that the reduction in providers might have an impact on students, and those students going through the second year at USW? Would you have concerns about that issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: In terms of the overall numbers, we will be looking to commission from those institutions that have been accredited the number of training places that our planning tool says that we need. So, in terms of an overall number of places, we will commission from those accredited units. Clearly, there will be a responsibility upon the University of South Wales to ensure that those students already in the system are able to complete their studies and their course, with the appropriate level of support and tuition to enable them to achieve their career aspirations and to graduate from that programme. +Hefin David AM: And what about the uncertainty for staff, or would you say that's an issue for the university itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: These are autonomous bodies. They have to act accordingly, in compliance with any employment law or any statutory responsibilities that they would have as an employer. That's not a matter for me; that is a matter for the institution that is an autonomous body. +Hefin David AM: But I would be surprised if you weren't keeping an eye on this, given that it has been a key provider. Are you aware of when the appeal decision will be known? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding is that the appeals process is ongoing, and next month, perhaps. But as I said, this is a process that is independent of Government— +Hefin David AM: But it will have an impact for what you do. +Kirsty Williams AM: It will potentially change the nature of the people from whom we commission places, but as I said, I do not have any concerns that we will not be in a position to commission the appropriate number of training places that we will need as a result of our planning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy on this—mindful of what the Minister said about it being an independent decision. +Suzy Davies AM: It's not directly about USW; it's about the geographic spread of provision. I wonder if you could just give us a snapshot of what that looks like, and whether you think—certainly for PGCE or postgrad courses, anyway—that if they're not accessible geographically and we've got students who already have three years' worth of debt, they're not going to be looking to, necessarily, live away from home for a fourth year, and may want to study nearer home. Has there been any research done on the access to these postgrad courses, about where people are coming from and whether that's had an impact on the fact that some of these places haven't been filled? +Kirsty Williams AM: Currently, with our current providers, there is a significant geographical spread. There are centres here in the south-east, there are centres in the south-west, in mid Wales, and in north Wales. Obviously, accessibility is an issue for us. We do think that, for some students, accessibility is an issue, and of course that's why we are responding with our part-time PGCE route, which actually will be location neutral, because you will be able to study that as a distance learner, and so you will be able to remain in your community and undertake that course. So, that's part of the attractiveness, I believe, of offering that to people. So, if geographical disadvantage is stopping somebody from pursuing a career aspiration to qualify as a teacher, our new part-time PGCE, as I said, will allow them to do that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thanks, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about reform and reconfiguration of the post-16 education sector. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. There are some encouraging provisional signs regarding the demand for part-time undergraduate study for the first year of Diamond, but the £12.5 million reduction Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is having to make this academic year has potentially placed the funding for part-time provision under pressure. Is there a danger that, without maintaining and growing this funding, Welsh Government will undermine the Diamond reforms and increase the cost of part-time courses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Let's be absolutely clear what this Government has done for part-time students. We are unique, Janet: unique in the UK and, I believe, unique in Europe, in the parity of the support that is available for full-time and part-time students. So, Welsh part-timers have something that they do not get if they are in England or if they're in Scotland. It's too early to have definitive figures for the impact of Diamond on the number of people who are undertaking part-time study. I don't want to get into trouble by not having that verified data, and I know Members get testy with me for anecdotal evidence, but I can tell you this: there is one provider that is reporting at this moment a 40 per cent increase in the number of students that are registered to start part-time study with them this year, as compared to last year, and that reflects really, really well, compared to the onward downward trend that we see across the border for part-time. What this means, for us as a nation, is that people are able to take this opportunity to upskill themselves and to be able to develop their qualifications and to be able to move themselves up career ladders, and I think that's such an important economic factor for us. So, rather than feeling doom and gloom about the prospects for the part-time sector, the early indications, at least, show that the Diamond reforms are leading to an increase in demand and, more importantly, an increase in uptake—students taking advantage of that system to go away and study. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is the Welsh Government able to reassure the committee that its ambitions for the post-compulsory education and training reforms are still in line with the original Hazelkorn recommendations, and go beyond the Labour manifesto commitment of simply replacing HEFCW with a new funding body for HE and FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, you will be aware, Janet, that the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the Government and the Government's programme state very clearly about our desire to pursue the recommendations of the Hazelkorn report. I hope, by the end of this week, we will have published the responses to the technical consultation, and we will continue to move forward. And I would argue, certainly, that the reforms that we are intending to implement do go beyond just simply a body that replaces HEFCW and joins in FE. It's a much wider remit to the potential new commission. And, as I said, I believe we've had in the region of about 450 responses to the technical consultation and I'm pleased to say that there remains a consensus—we will always have some arguments about the details—but there remains a consensus on the direction of travel that we are pursuing. A summary of the consultation responses will be available to Members and will be published by the end of the week. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Is the Welsh Government still committed to introducing the PCET Bill before the end of the fifth Assembly, and are you confident this will happen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'm absolutely determined that we will get the PCET legislation on the floor. It's a substantial piece of work, as you've just alluded to. This goes just beyond abolishing a single body. So, it is a substantial piece of work, but I believe that we are on track to be able to do that by the end of this term. But it's a big piece of work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on that? I mean, it is going to be a big job, and, clearly, there's a strong focus on creating the commission and putting the structures in place, but, of course, one of the drivers is that we want to effect a cultural change in the way that people perceive post-16 education. This thing about parity of esteem and all that kind of agenda. And a key part of this process, therefore, is the vision that people are waiting for. When are we going to see this coming forward? Because I think we're putting structures in place, so there's a big discussion about the technical stuff, but I feel there's a bit of a vacuum in terms of the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you, Llyr, because— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Right, okay. Well, maybe you should have come to the cross-party group on further education last night. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you because, of course, the technical consultation has followed what we had last year, which was a consultation on the vision, on what we needed to do to bring the sector together beyond just HE and FE, to the inclusion of sixth forms; work-based learning providers; apprenticeships; and bringing all of that together under one body. I believe that that gives us an opportunity to have better strategic planning; to help us prevent duplication; to help us bridge gaps that are not available for learners at the moment. It will, hopefully—. My vision is that it will promote collaboration between institutions rather than simply having the market-based process that we see in other places where there's competition rather than collaboration. I want to see it strengthen links between schools, FE and HE, strengthen links between schools and employers and business, to make sure that we've got better information and advice services so that young people know what their pathways are and can make really informed choices about what's best for them, to help them make them. So, I think: we've done the vision, we're now doing the technical consultation, that will be published by the end of the week, and we'll move forward with our overarching vision that Hazelkorn elaborated and that we are now taking forward. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you would be very concerned if FE institutions were saying that we really need to see the vision, that that's the next step, that we really need to understand the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: But, I've met—. As I said, I was with one of our excellent FE leaders just at the end of last week; it wasn't raised with me then. I do understand that there are concerns from the FE sector about will the vision be realised. I think there's a shared understanding of the vision, but I understand and I do see some nervousness about, actually, in the end, will this just be HEFCW by another name, and, the opportunity for FE, will this be realised in this new body? We need to keep ensuring that, as we go forward and develop the policy, and as we develop, eventually, the legislation, that that parity of esteem and that true equality across all parts of the sector is realised. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Our next questions are from Michelle Brown. +Michelle Brown AM: Good morning, Cabinet Secretary; good morning, Minister. Your paper to the committee says that there's a need for more analysis and research into the outcomes for learners from different backgrounds. At the same time, Welsh universities have declared £104 million towards equality and opportunity activity for 2018. If you don't have the analysis, how can you be sure that the investment that's being made by the Welsh universities is actually going to have a positive outcome in the right places and lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, of course, that would be one of the duties of the new commission set up as a result of our post-compulsory education and training reforms that I would anticipate. The universities are required, under the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015, to produce fee and access statements, and the £104 million that they have to take off their fees to be able to promote this work—those fee and access plans have to be signed off by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales as being robust and truly promoting equality of opportunity. They're also there to promote access and the opportunities for people to aspire to higher education. We are looking at—. It's quite early days, still, for that new regulatory regime to come through, so we ask HEFCW, when I meet with HEFCW, about the adequacy of those plans. Equity is an important part of my approach to higher education. That's why we're introducing the Diamond reforms—so that those from the poorest backgrounds can be adequately financially supported and are not put off from going to a university. And we're also looking—. I would envisage under PCET a better mechanism of tracking destinations for learners. So, for instance, in the FE sector, we're introducing new joint monitoring for outcomes for sixth-form learners and FE learners, because we've never tracked them in the same way. So, we're introducing that now so that we can see the destinations for those two sectors, but the PCET reforms give us an opportunity to do that right across the board. Huw, is there anything else I need to add? +Huw Morris: Well, I'd just reinforce the point the Cabinet Secretary made about the fee and access plans being the vehicle through which we get universities to specify what they're going to do, and the funding council tracks that. To make sure that we're doing that in a full and appropriate manner, periodically, we ask for that system to be reviewed. I think it was in 2017 that the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods—the research arm of Cardiff University—reviewed the system and looked at how widening access was being promoted by different institutions and whether that was working in all parts of Wales. The report from that group was considered by one of the sub-committees in HEFCW and they are revising the process as a consequence. So, I think we can be confident that there are ambitious targets that are monitored, and, periodically, the system as a whole is reviewed. +Michelle Brown AM: Can you tell us what sort of research and data the universities are basing those access plans on? I assume they'll all have slightly different methods—I appreciate that—but can you give us any idea of how they actually formulate these access plans? +Huw Morris: So, there are data collected across the UK by a body called the Higher Education Statistics Agency. They produce detailed breakdowns, along with UCAS, of where applicants come from, which institutions did they study at, what courses, what their particular characteristics are, including their socioeconomic status, and that data is then analysed at a UK level and in Wales, through HEFCW and its agents, to track what's happening at different institutions at different stages, not just in terms of who's applying and who gets access, but who progresses and what happens to people once they've graduated. +Michelle Brown AM: So, there is already data there. I'm just wondering how that data that's already there differs from the research and analysis that you were talking about in your paper. They must be different, then. What specific analysis and research were you referring to in your paper? +Kirsty Williams AM: We use the HESA—. It is HESA, isn't it? +Huw Morris: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's shorthand—the HESA data, and institutions use that. We also then use WISERD and other organisations to supplement that piece of work. I think there is a challenge to some of this going forward. So, the Office for Students in England now is having some discussions about access to HESA data. This is a source of real concern to me, that Welsh institutions may not be able to have the ready access to that data because of changes the OfS may be making. So, we supplement where we think that there's value to be added in additional breakdowns, or in additional slicing of data and understanding of what is motivating people to come forward. +Huw Morris: And to give you a specific example of that as it applies in north Wales—. So, take a university like Wrexham Glyndŵr University; they have quite a large intake of mature students. The data that's collected and analysed at a UK level tends to look at people who are going into university at a young age, not a mature profile. So, some of the analysis that we do in Wales—indeed, the deliberations of the sub-committee that I spoke about earlier—is about how do we make sure that those differences in Wales are reflected in the data and reflected in the targets that are set. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Cabinet Secretary, are you in favour of more university mergers? +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't use the word 'agnostic', but what I'm in favour of is a healthy, strong and sustainable HE sector. If individual institutions wish to collaborate or, indeed, go further to a formal merger then, obviously, that is a matter for them. We're not pursuing or urging a policy of mergers, but, if individual institutions feel that is of benefit to them and their students, obviously, we would have an interest in that and making sure that they were robust plans, but that's a matter for individual institutions. +Hefin David AM: But HEFCW are pushing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, what HEFCW are interested in is a sustainable HE sector that is strong but, as I said, I do not have a burning desire or a set policy to try and pursue mergers. +Hefin David AM: Okay. That's a little bit of a contrast with your predecessors, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that's a matter for them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The reason I say it is because I was kind of on the inside when Cardiff Metropolitan University was under pressure from the then Minister to merge with the University of Glamorgan and Newport. It was a very difficult time for staff and, indeed, for students. You had the University and College Union and the Minister pushing it; the vice-chancellor of Cardiff Met at the time very much against it. So, do you think that it's really—? You're agnostic, but do you think perhaps it's not worth the disruption that can occur to staff and students? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Hefin, I have no formal policy for reconfiguration or mergers. That's not to say I don't believe in collaboration between institutions. Going back to the issue of ITE, a very interesting programme came forward from Cardiff Met and Cardiff University for their ITE provision. So, I'm all for universities and institutions working together, but there's no formal policy. These are autonomous institutions. If they see that there is an advantage—I would hope for the student first, and, if we put the student at the front of this process, then we would obviously have an interest in that and making sure that that was the right thing to do. But, certainly, there is no pressure from us as a Government to pursue an agenda of mergers. +Hefin David AM: Just to be clear, then, that's likely to be a policy for the foreseeable future as well; you're not going to change that view. +Kirsty Williams AM: I have no intentions at this stage, but 'Events, dear boy'. [Laughter.] You know, sometimes there may be a situation that I cannot foresee at this moment that would necessitate, for the benefit of students, the benefit of Wales, a merger. So, never say never, but, at this point in time, I do not foresee us changing that policy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie on this. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, just looking back at that time, which I remember very vividly— +Hefin David AM: So do I. +Julie Morgan AM: I had many meetings with Cardiff Met. Do you feel there has been any disadvantage to Cardiff Met because that merger didn't go ahead? +Kirsty Williams AM: I, personally, am not aware of any disadvantage to Cardiff Met, but I would recognise—I would absolutely recognise—for staff and students caught up in those deliberations and those issues, then that would have had a personal impact on them. In terms of the institution going forward, I'm not aware that they are currently struggling with any disadvantage from that discussion. And, as I said, I'm really heartened by some of the really interesting collaborative work that Cardiff Met are interested in doing, and new partnerships and new collaborations between institutions, whether that be Cardiff Uni or local colleges, and I think that's to be welcomed. +Julie Morgan AM: So, following on from what Hefin said, was it worth all the fuss? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, look, as it's turned out, we have a strong institution in Cardiff Met, and I think, rather than looking at the past, we need to look at the future. But, of course, there was some reconfiguration and we need to understand any lessons that arose out of reconfiguration, and HEFCW are currently doing some work, actually, to look at reconfiguration, the experience of reconfiguration that did happen, and were benefits realised and what are the lessons that can be learned from that process. So, they are doing a piece of work to reflect, and that will, perhaps, help inform us as we go forward. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd just say—Julie Morgan was one of our heroes at the time, I've got to say. +Eluned Morgan AM: She always is. +Hefin David AM: And still is. If I turn that on its head and have a look at University of South Wales, one of the concerns I'm getting from former colleagues and staff is that the Newport aspect—because it was a merger between Newport and the University of Glamorgan—has been somewhat denuded by the merger, and the amount of activity in the new Newport campus and elsewhere in Newport has been reduced by the merger. Are you aware of those concerns that staff may have? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, it's not for me to second-guess the judgment of previous Ministers who pursued— +Hefin David AM: But it's happening now, I mean. +Kirsty Williams AM: —a particular policy agenda. With regard to Newport, we are aware of concerns. Obviously, one campus closed completely, and there are concerns about the level of activity at the new campus. And we continue to discuss with the University of South Wales and the local FE college what offer is available to the local population, but also the wider contribution that that institution can make to the rest of Wales, and we continue to have conversations with both the college and the university about utilisation of the facilities in Newport and opportunities that could be made available in Newport. +Hefin David AM: That's interesting, because that's the first time I've heard it confirmed from the Government that those concerns that have been raised by former staff and colleagues in Newport are actually echoed by yourself, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, we're aware of them. We take our time to listen to people. When people raise issues with us, we take them seriously. Clearly, going back to the point that I believe Suzy made about geographical coverage, we want to make sure that FE and HE opportunities are available for people throughout Wales, and we continue to work with providers in that area to explore what can be done to enhance the opportunities. +Hefin David AM: And, from a financial point of view, they had £25 million for the merger. Are you satisfied that's value for money, and, at this point in the 10-year plan, that things are going as they should, with incomes being squeezed across the sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's difficult, isn't it, to second-guess what would have happened, what might have happened, if the merger hadn't gone ahead, around the financial stability and sustainability of an institution. How do you prove that, if that hadn't happened, something worse or something better might have happened? It's difficult to do that and to second-guess those judgments, but, as I've said, what I am interested in—. And I can't change that decision that was made by a previous Minister—it wasn't my decision—but what I can do is to ensure that any lessons learnt, any evaluation of that particular set of circumstances, can be looked at and can help inform future policy, which is why HEFCW is doing the piece of work. When that's published, you and I will be in a better position to understand whether the aspirations of that particular merger were realised, not realised, and if we were in that situation again, could we do it better next time? +Hefin David AM: Okay, so you'll reflect on that later. At this point in time, you don't have any concerns about the long-term sustainability of the University of South Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The Welsh Government's draft outline budget for 2019 states that it will continue to provide £20 million to further and higher education in 2019-20. Can you outline how this will be allocated between HE and FE and if conditions will be attached to the funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Janet, you will have to wait until the end of the month, when the detailed, main expenditure group by main expenditure group lines of the budget are published, otherwise I will be stealing the finance Minister's thunder. There is a process by which the Welsh Government's budget is dealt with, and those details will emerge later on this month. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But can I just say on conditions—? You will be aware that there are conditions attached to Government spend, both in the FE sector and in the HE sector. Those budgets will be subject to those existing arrangements; so, for instance, in the HE sector, the remit letter to HEFCW. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on funding, generally? Sorry. Because, we did talk about HEFCW and part-time funding earlier, and I'm not sure that we addressed the issue of this £12.5 million cut in a specific budget line from HEFCW, because what they've done, if I understand correctly, is that they've put four priorities into one budget line, which includes part-time teaching, and cut that budget line by £12.5 million. Are you not concerned that that'll have an impact on part-time teaching, given that it's such a success story that you're proud of? +Kirsty Williams AM: HEFCW have to take cognisance of the remit letter, but then, ultimately, they are free to allocate resources as they see fit. What will drive part-time provision is the students taking it up, and universities responding to that desire and that need within their institutions. So, at this moment, I don't have any concerns. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to look at the parity of esteem between academic and vocational post-16 education. The first question is from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. Welsh Government wants to achieve parity of esteem between academic and vocational education, and I think that's a very laudable aim. Higher apprenticeships are a key part of this, but Estyn's recent inspection found that only four providers from 17 were achieving good outcomes for learners. What action do you propose to take about this, to make sure that those learners have much better outcomes across the board? +Eluned Morgan AM: First of all, just to make it clear that that is very much our intention. I think we have got work to do to make sure that we do reach that parity of esteem, but let's be clear that, in relation to these higher level apprenticeships, we were concerned that, actually, we weren't doing as well, perhaps, as we should be, which is why we commissioned Estyn to look at this specifically, and what it was that we were doing well, and what we needed to improve on. One of the things that we found is that we are doing very well in relation to foundation courses in terms of attainment—we've got 83 per cent attainment levels—but if you look at that at higher level apprenticeships, then we've got 77 per cent, so what is going wrong there? But, also, it's worth underlining the fact that, actually, we're still miles ahead of England, who are only reaching levels of about 61 per cent. So, we're already doing much better than England, but we're ambitious, and we want to make sure that if we are serious about this parity of esteem, how do we get there if we're not offering the kind of quality that we'd like to see in those higher level apprenticeships? So, some of the recommendations in that report, we'll be taking up. We want to increase the number of new employers and mentors within the system. I think we're also very keen to make sure that people don't repeat learning that they've already done. That's a danger and it takes up too much time. So, there are lots of these recommendations that now we'll set in motion, and I think the important thing for us then is to understand that, in relation to who's doing well and who's not doing well in the FE sector, the bulk of where that finance goes is actually doing quite well. It's pushing some of the private sector providers where we need to actually make sure that the quality is where we want it to be, and is, very importantly, matching the needs of employers. So, we've constantly got to be looking at the courses: are they responding to the needs of the market and what employers are looking for? And that means revising the offer sometimes in terms of the courses. +Michelle Brown AM: Where are the difficulties arising—? You refer to difficulties arising with the private providers. What are those difficulties? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, some of it is about, perhaps, not giving the kind of guidance that we'd like them to give in-house. So, they're perhaps not doing the kind of on-the-job work that we'd like them to do. So, I think it's making sure that, when they're in the workplace, they are still being pushed to attain those levels. But I think it's clear that what we need to do is to also listen to what the advisory board that we've set up in relation to apprenticeships is also asking us, and we've got the Confederation of British Industry advising us on that as well. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you have a service level agreement with the private providers? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. I mean, the whole thing is under a tender procedure, obviously, and we will be revising that soon. There'll be a new apprenticeship procurement process that we'll be undergoing and starting to look at that process next year. So, there's an opportunity there for us to drive change in the system. +Michelle Brown AM: Would you be willing to share the targets under the SLA with the committee? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think the—. I can't see that there'd be a problem with that, so I'm sure we could do that, but I think the way to make people move, quite often, is through making sure that you put the finances where they need to be, and then they're likely to shift. And, so, I think, in responding to this Estyn report, we can then build that into the next framework. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you. Right, I wanted to ask about the investment. If we're going to get parity of esteem, we've got to, probably, get more investment in. Could you say why there isn't more investment in degree, and there doesn't seem to be any investment in Master's-level apprenticeships at universities? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think we've got to be careful that what happens is that the state doesn't pick up what, currently, people are prepared to pay for themselves, and, so, we've got to just make sure that that balance is right. So, what's happened in England, for example, is lots of people who were previously sitting Master of business administration courses, for example, are now switching into apprenticeship programmes. So, the system—it means that, previously, they were prepared to pay and now the state is paying or the employer's playing it in a slightly different way. So, I think we've got to just be aware about how—making sure that we don't get employers passing that responsibility that, actually, they have to upskill and to uptrain their workers and pass it back on to the state, whereas, actually, they need to step up as well as employers. +Julie Morgan AM: So, how are you going to judge that? How are you going to tell when, maybe, you should start putting some money in? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, what we are doing is we're putting money into areas where we know there are skills shortages. So, we're focusing where we want those apprenticeships—and particularly at the higher level—to be. So, for example, we're looking at ICT; we're looking at construction. There are areas where we definitely need to be focusing our attention. So, that's where we'll be prioritising our funding, and that's what we're doing already. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that's for degree-level apprenticeships, not Master's. Just degree-level apprenticeships. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. And then, in terms of getting data, could you clarify the progress on developing outcome and destination data for higher apprenticeships? Your plan seems to suggest that data won't be available until 2020-21, at the end of the programme. +Eluned Morgan AM: And that's because we're only just starting on this, and it takes a long time for people to complete an apprenticeship. So, we won't have anybody going from the higher level apprenticeship into a destination until around 2021, so there's no point in measuring that until that point. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And then, can you tell us when you'll publish Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's new operational plan to develop post-16 Welsh-medium provision, which was presented during July, and clarify if the plan requires additional funding? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, there is a report that was published in July, and we are waiting for the operational actions from that report to be published, probably within the next month. In terms of the implementation of that programme, some of that journey has already begun, so they're not waiting for the report to—. We're not waiting for the actions to be very clearly set out; actually, some of that work has been done. For example, already, there's been a review of the governance. We're also looking at the kind of research that needs to be done in that area. I think what's clear, and something that's very much driving me as the Welsh language Minister, is this understanding that you reach 16 and you get this fall off a cliff in terms of the number of people who actually speak and use Welsh. So, that's the thing that we need to address, and that's why moving now into that area of further education is crucial. And the report, written by Delyth Evans, did suggest that we do need to move into this area but, actually, there wasn't necessarily a need for further funding in that area. But it may be something that we will consider, but it's something that we'll try and absorb, perhaps, from within the department. +Kirsty Williams AM: A relatively modest amount of money was being made available this year to be able to kick-start some of this work, but we are mindful of the recommendations from the Evans report. So, future allocations will have to reflect the priorities within the implementation plan, and that's not just money that goes directly to y coleg, but also trying to get better alignment between other budget lines that support the Welsh language, and making sure that all budget lines that could help on this agenda are aligned to the recommendations and the implementation report. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Just on coleg cenedlaethol's extended remit, have you had—? I haven't read the Evans report, but is there anything in there about the role of increased use of Welsh in adult community learning, for example? That's a further education pot, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes, it is, and we are very much in touch with adult community learning, and they are aware of the responsibilities they have in relation to the Welsh language. The issue, of course, with adult education, is that they have undergone some quite dramatic cuts. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, I don't mean the higher education sector that's taken over responsibility for this; I'm talking about community learning, low level, just having Welsh there. And, you know, as you mentioned yourself, post 16, people stop using it, so getting it in wherever you can as part of a strategy. +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. They're aware of that responsibility and we— +Suzy Davies AM: They're free to choose partners, then, are they, to help them deliver that? +Eluned Morgan AM: And also to work with the new organisation that we've set up to promote the learning of Welsh, in particular, that is based in Carmarthen. So, that's something also that's being driven, and they're working closely, I think, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, great, thanks. +Kirsty Williams AM: There's lots of innovative practice. So, for instance, up in Wrexham, if a student has gone into the college to do A-levels, then they may decide to do those A-levels through the medium of English. But if they were previously in a Welsh-medium school, they are actively encouraged—indeed, persuaded—to do their Welsh baccalaureate through the medium of Welsh. So, they may be doing their A-levels in English, but if they've come from a Welsh-medium school, the college proactively seeks them out and makes sure that there is provision for them to do their Welsh bac qualification through the medium of Welsh, or, for instance, they are working very hard to form tutor groups. So, the tutor group—you might be doing your qualifications in English, but your tutor group will be a Welsh-medium tutor group, so that you are placed with other students who have come from Welsh-medium schools, and your tutor does all that tutor work through the medium of Welsh. So, there are other ways in which we can continue to help support children's linguistic ability, even if they have made a decision not to formally study their A-levels, for instance, or a course, through the medium of Welsh, and we're constantly looking at new ways. I think one particular aspect of the market—if we call it that word—that we're interested in are those students who've been to Welsh-medium schools, but at 16, perhaps, as I say, decide to go to a college. So, for instance, here in Cardiff, looking at childcare, and the opportunity—you know, there's a sector where we know we need a Welsh-medium workforce. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, definitely. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, again, it's trying to target those children, and track them from a previous Welsh-medium education into a college, capturing their language skills, and finding ways in which they can use them. Merthyr college—there's a Welsh-medium champion in Merthyr college actively looking for children who have come from a Welsh-medium background, and they are allocated roles as Welsh-medium champions within the college, to promote. So, there are lots of innovative ways, especially in the FE sector, that they're looking to keep children's linguistic skills relevant, and they're using them, even if they make that decision to switch the language of their tuition. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's encouraging to hear. My question was about community learning, where it's essentially older people who perhaps are coming back to education in a way that wasn't as formal as it was before, if I can put it like that—so we don't lose sight of them as well. I've still got an abiding worry that there's a cohort in the middle here of people who we might lose, and maybe pass on bad attitudes towards the Welsh language to their children, despite the fact that those children now have huge opportunities to absorb Welsh language skills and make the most of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I'd like to ask about the regional skills partnership—partnerships, I should say—because they are having a direct influence now on courses and provision in FE, and with degree apprenticeships in universities as well. You, I believe, received the Graystone review back in March, so could you tell us a bit about what was in it, and what the recommendations are? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, some of the recommendations—. So, we wanted to review it because it's still relatively new. They've only been up and running about two or three years. He brought out some positives—things that we, I think, are doing well. I think they found that the voluntary partnership approach was quite effective. He did suggest that, actually, what they need to be producing is much shorter, sharper, focused reports. There was a suggestion of a lack of transparency, in terms of reporting from those regional skills partnerships, and that's obviously something now that we've undertaken to review. And there, I think, is an understanding that what we need to do now is to put in place those changes. But, on the whole, what we've done is to reinforce our commitment to the regional skills partnerships, and in particular now, through allocating £10 million to further education colleges to respond directly to the wishes and the desires of the regional skills partnerships, you can see actually the status of the regional skills partnerships has just grown significantly. Because now there is an outcome as a result of their recommendations. So, you've seen quite a dramatic shift, I think, in the respect for regional skills partnerships over the past year. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are there any recommendations in terms of governance as well— +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: —because, clearly, there may have been concerns about the way that people ended up being members of the partnerships? You touched on transparency—clearly, that's an issue as well. So, just particularly on governance—. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, on governance, I think there was an understanding that that needs to be looked at again, and that we need to get the right people around the table. And what is interesting is, I think, because it was a voluntary approach, because now people can see an outcome, we're getting different people now really showing an interest in being a part of the regional skills partnerships. So, governance is something again we're going to be addressing and following up the recommendations on in that Graystone review. Is there anything to add to that? +Huw Morris: Well, I was just going to say, I don't see why we couldn't share the review with you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That was going to be my next question. +Huw Morris: That might be helpful. And we are actioning the recommendations from that review. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The normal course of action would be, of course, to have published it and then to publish a Government response. Any reason why that wasn't done? I find it quite strange that you're saying that you're actually actioning the report and you still haven't published it. As a committee, we've not been party to any of that, really. +Eluned Morgan AM: I don't see why that can't be done. There's nothing to hide here, so why wouldn't we? We're the people who commissioned the report— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'm the one asking the questions. [Laughter.] No, but you're right. I just find it strange. I just find it odd that that hasn't been published. +Eluned Morgan AM: Okay. Well, we'll certainly get a copy of that to you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. +Huw Morris: May I just say: we ask a number of people periodically to comment on what we do, and agencies we work with do the same. The status of those reports varies. I don't suppose we'd anticipated there would be the interest in this issue that there is and so, as the Minister said, there's no problem that I can see with that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do you have a timeline in terms of by when you want to introduce some of the reforms that you're looking at now, because of this report? +Eluned Morgan AM: Some of them have already been introduced, so we're not waiting. The transparency issue that I think there was a bit of concern about—that's already been introduced. So, it's just about making sure that people understand what is going on in these regional skills partnerships. I think that's really important— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, quite, given the influence that they have now. Yes, sure. Just another short one on the regional skills partnerships, really: how effective are they in supporting the planning and delivery of Welsh-medium provision in post-16? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think there's more we can do in relation to that. But I think there are aspects where we're already changing in respect of specific sectors. So, if you think about the care sector, for example, what we do need is more people who have those skills to speak through the medium of Welsh in the care sector. And, coming back to the point that was made earlier, what we're doing now is looking at the curriculum: to what extent can we include—? You don't have to do your whole course through the medium of Welsh, but there are aspects that would be very useful. So, those kind of things are being taken on board now in terms of the courses. One of the things that the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol are looking at is building the resources that will be needed in order to mainstream those into, in particular, those front-line service areas where we have a skills shortage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, you know that this committee has taken a very keen interest in the emotional and mental health of our young people. In the summer, the English universities Minister made an announcement about the development of a new mental health charter. That followed some concerns about young people dying by suicide across the UK. Is Welsh Government expecting Welsh universities to sign up to that charter or are you planning to work on your own? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you for raising this. I think it's really important that whilst for many, many, many young people moving away from home and starting their degree course is an incredibly exciting time and something they look forward to hugely, it can bring significant stresses with it, especially for first-year students, who, as I said, are moving away, perhaps are suddenly responsible for finances in a way they've never been responsible for, for all the day-to-day living that perhaps they've relied on other people to assist them with. So, it can be quite a stressful time. So, it is right that we look at how we can support health and well-being for students, especially mental health and mental resilience. So, I very much welcome the work on the mental health charter, and HEFCW are engaged and keeping a very close eye on what's going on to see the opportunities for Welsh universities to participate in that. But this was on a recent agenda item that I had with HEFCW, and indeed with the vice-chancellors, when I met them last week, or the week before last. So, they are developing their own strategic approach to well-being and health for students, which will be underpinned by a co-created action plan with the universities themselves on supporting students with mental health problems in particular. So, the strategic approach and the action plan are being developed by HEFCW at the moment and HEFCW are also meeting with colleagues from England and Scotland to see the opportunities for a universal approach across the UK to supporting students. The universities, when I met with them recently, all shared a commitment to do better in this particular area. One, because it's the right thing to do, but, actually, stopping people from dropping out and not completing their courses obviously is of a financial benefit to the institution. So, it's actually the right thing to do for their students, they want to do it for that reason, but, actually, there is a strong financial underpinning to ensure that students complete their studies. So, it's looking at, again, each university looking at individual approaches of how better they can do that. But it's not just responding to students who become unwell, it's actually, 'What can we do to in the campus to maintain good mental health?' So, rather than just trying to fix a problem once it's occurred, it's 'What can we do?' And you'll be aware of individual institutions taking different approaches. It's not something that we dictate, but individual institutions—when they do exams, how work is assessed and marked and graded—are taking different steps to promote well-being, as well as then responding to situations where students become unwell. We do know that financial pressures can be a source of huge stress for students, so we are constantly working with the Student Loans Company to make sure that the services that they offer to people are as good as they can be, and that there are no unnecessary delays that, perhaps, put a student under pressure or give students worries about their financial situation. And I would argue our Diamond reforms, which allow students access to a living wage—for some students, completely by a grant, for some students, a combination of grant and loan, with no expectation at all that your parents will contribute, which is not the case in other places where there is an expectation of parental contribution—that actually, hopefully, addresses some of those financial worries that some students may have. But I am aware that if people are waiting for their grant or people are waiting for their payments, that can be a source of stress. So, ensuring that we have good performance by the Student Loans Company is crucial. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And I'm sure the committee's very interested to hear the update on that. Are you able to give us any indication of timescale by which you'd expect HEFCW and the individual universities to actually have this work in place? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not sure, but I will write to the committee and let you know. In fact, we can probably provide, from Universities Wales and from the work that's going on centrally, a list of proposals that are being undertaken. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next question is from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to ask you about the pay dispute, and I know that you're not the employer, because I know that's going to be the first answer— +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, that is the first answer. [Laughter.] Well anticipated. +Dawn Bowden AM: But we are in a stalemate here and you clearly have an interest in making sure that this dispute is resolved quickly in the interest of the students and the reputation of the colleges et cetera, et cetera. I can see how this dispute has arisen. When we've seen the teachers' pay settlement, we've seen FE settlements in England and Scotland higher than what's on the table here. And I am concerned, and I do think this is where the Welsh Government does have a role, because I am concerned that the employers seem to be using the funding issue as the reason not to have a reasonable settlement with staff. So, they've walked away from the table, they've said, 'One per cent, take it or leave it. Unless Welsh Government gives us any more money, that's the end of that.' And I'm really concerned about that, because this is potentially going to have a major impact on whether we can recruit and retain staff in FE colleges. And I look at the college in my constituency, Merthyr college—it's a tertiary college, they're providing A-level education across Merthyr and they're astounding results they've been getting as well. I'm coming round to the question in a moment. It's really: what more do you think you can do as a Government to try to get these parties back round the table and not allow the dispute to become a political football? +Eluned Morgan AM: Thanks very much for that. I think, first of all, you're absolutely right—this is about ColegauCymru's negotiation, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation. I think it's probably worth emphasising that the reason this has come about, or part of the reason, is because you've seen that pay settlement in relation to teachers' pay and we've had the consequential. So, sixth-form teachers are happy. The people actually providing the same teaching course in a different institution, you can understand why they may say, 'Something needs to change here.' The problem here is that it's about that, actually, that falls to the Welsh Government. We don't have that. Or at least it falls to FE colleges to fund that, and it's up to them to come up with that proposal. We are keeping a close eye on things. I think it's fair to say that we'll wait until they get further along down the line, but we are extremely aware of the sensitivities of the situation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you for that, Minister. When you say you're keeping a close eye on it, have you actually had conversations with ColegauCymru? Because I note what you just said there: 'We'll keep an eye on it and wait and see what's happening.' Well, all the unions are currently consulting. One has already balloted for industrial action. We could have the other unions also balloting for industrial action. I mean, this isn't something we want in the FE sector, clearly, so is there anything more proactive that Government could actually be doing to try to bring a resolution to this dispute? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we are listening and speaking to ColegauCymru, and also we're aware of what the unions are saying as well. So, I think that's probably as far as we can go at this point. When they come to a conclusion, and when they come to us and say, 'Look, this is the consequence and this will finish'—at this point, we have no idea where that settlement is likely to fall. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. Yes, we wouldn't expect you to make an announcement on this, because it's happening outside of Government, but there is a principle here, isn't there, in terms of pay equality between schoolteachers and FE? So, would you not wish to see a situation where we do have greater equality in that respect? +Eluned Morgan AM: In relation to teaching, I think it's fair to say that we would wish to see pay equality in relation to teaching, yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thank you. You emphasise 'in relation to teaching'—my next question is that, of course, within FE establishments you have teaching staff and non-teaching staff, and if there was to be some sort of increase, then would you not expect all staff to have that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, let's see—that's up to ColegauCymru to negotiate and to discuss, so let's see what the outcomes are. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because some of the non-teaching staff are the lowest paid, as well, aren't they? So, you know—. +Eluned Morgan AM: Let's wait for the outcome of the negotiations. I think we are very aware of the situation. ColegauCymru are in that negotiation. We're aware of what the requests are from the trade union members, and we'll wait to see what they come up with before responding formally. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Could I just briefly as well ask about pensions, because that's coming down the line, potentially, isn't it, and the impact that's going to have on FE? One college was saying it will cost them £1 million if it happens next year. Are you thinking about any steps that you could take to support them, potentially, because obviously this is coming down the line, really, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think, already, we've got the situation in relation to teachers, and again what we've seen is the consequential and the UK Government honouring that. Again, what we don't have, necessarily, is that money coming down from the UK Government for us to be able to support it in the way that we might like to. It's early days on this, but it's something, again, we're keeping an eye on. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The fundamental question, really, is: if the money doesn't come down the line from Westminster, are you in a position to underwrite that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we'll wait until we see that situation arising, but we're aware that that is an issue that we're going to have to deal with in future. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: In relation to the pay dispute, it's the committee's understanding that ColegauCymru's position is that, in order to meet a pay award that is commensurate with schoolteachers, an additional 3.5 per cent or £10.1 million is needed. Are you aware of that being their position? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are aware of their position, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question is from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: You will have had, Cabinet Secretary, a letter from Professor Colin Riordan on 26 September regarding essay mills, in which he refers to the other letter that was sent by him and 39 vice-chancellors regarding essay mills and the fact that it's legalised cheating. In the letter—it was actually to me—that was copied to you, he says: 'We have requested the UK Government commission the QAA to publish a draft Bill by or before the beginning of the next parliamentary session. We've also requested the Department for Education give support to the establishment of a UK centre for academic integrity, which would research, analyse and combat academic misconduct. Any support that the Welsh Government can provide in this regard will also be appreciated, so I'm copying this letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Education.' Can you just give me your opinions on that, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think 'legalised cheating' is a polite way of describing what goes on. My officials have been in touch with their counterparts in the UK Government to see if we can co-ordinate a UK approach, which I think is necessary. I don't think there's any merit in us trying to do this on our own; it would be pointless. I hope that we can agree a formal approach as quickly as possible, and I will take every opportunity—. We're trying to establish a meeting with the UK Minister for HE before Christmas, and I will take every opportunity that I can to ensure that we can take some very, very strong action in this regard. But it does have to be done at a UK level. I want people who attend our universities and who work hard to achieve the grades that they get not to be disadvantaged by people who look to find an easy way out and are not willing to put—. I think it undermines the individual effort of individual students who are doing the right things, as well as the integrity of our system. I'm proud of the quality of the system that we have in the Welsh HE sector, and I want that maintained. I hope that we can agree a UK approach to ending this practice. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And in addition to the specifics regarding the quality assurance agency and the proposed centre for academic integrity, let's be clear: what we're talking about it outlawing those websites that offer to write essays for cash. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And quite often, very bad ones as well. [Laughter.] My understanding is— +Hefin David AM: Well, they get through the system and they guarantee—. The websites, and I've experienced this, and I mentioned it in First Minister's questions— +Kirsty Williams AM: You did. +Hefin David AM: The websites say to you, 'Unless you tell anyone, you won't get caught', and students are believing that. The new student grant system—some of that money will go to these websites. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, and, unlike you, I have no experience of this myself— +Hefin David AM: Well, I have experience of it. I've not done it, but I've experienced it. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm so old, Hefin, that such internet sites didn't exist when I was a student. [Laughter.] But, you know, I'm sure you listened to it too: a recent article, on a radio station, where, actually, it was an experiment just like you did—a student deliberately went through this process to expose, but, actually, what they got in return wasn't even very good. It was a particularly poor essay on the portrayal of women in Victorian literature, so they weren't even getting very good value for their money. [Laughter.] But, clearly, this is a terrible and abhorrent practice in our system, and, as I said, I will do everything that I can to work with colleagues across the United Kingdom to find a solution to this. If I thought it would help if we did it on our own, we could do that, but it won't help if we act unilaterally. It has to be a UK approach. +Hefin David AM: And just—final question—with regard to the representations you've made, do you feel that the UK Government is open to this course of action? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, officials are the ones who have had those direct, face-to-face conversations, rather than me. I hope to do that when I meet the Minister, hopefully before Christmas. Huw, would you like to comment? +Huw Morris: We haven't had anything formally, but I understand from what I've heard in England that there is an interest to do something. Whether that will take the form of a Bill in the timescale you've outlined, I'm not sure, but as the Minister said, we'll be exploring that with officials through the ministerial meetings. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering all our questions? As usual, you'll have a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education regarding eligibility criteria for free school meals. I'd like to return briefly to that when we go into private. Paper to note 2: a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3: also from that Minister, which is his response to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on the Bill. And paper to note 4: also a letter from that Minister to the Finance Committee on the Bill. And the final paper to note is from Mind Cymru regarding the task and finish group on a whole-school approach to mental health, and I will update Members on that when we go into private. Happy to note those? Item 4, then: can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +",The committee agreed to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: So , hello everyone . {vocalsound} We're here to have a kick-off meeting for the design of a {disfmarker} f for the beginning of new project um {vocalsound} uh remote control for the design for a new remote control {vocalsound} . I'm the Project Manager Christa Pavlov and {vocalsound} okay let's begin . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm first going to do an opening then we get used to one anothers and we speak about this tool we're going to design and try to make a project plan , some discussion and then we talk of uh the next meeting . So um we want to to do a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy and user friendly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I think the important points we have to t talk about are uh it's functional design , it's conceptual design , and desail detailed design . {gap} and for that we're going um all to work individually and then have meeting during the whole day . Um , so {vocalsound} let's try the whiteboard {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so any of you who want to go . +User Interface: Yeah , for favourite animals . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's gonna be not my favourite one but the one I can draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's gonna be {disfmarker} you'll try to guess . +Marketing: Wow . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Complex . +Project Manager: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? A cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . Darn . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: A rabbit . +User Interface: Yes , that's a rabbit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A rabbit . +User Interface: That's my favourite one . +Marketing: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Rabbit . +Marketing: A r a rabbit , oh oh yeah , where is the carrot ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to go ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I am not very good at uh {vocalsound} this kind of stuff . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My favourite animal is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wa +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A human +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A human , yay . It's a very complex animal {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: and um {disfmarker} yeah . Characteristics of this this animal is {vocalsound} dangerous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I think you're supposed to , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is the white {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . That's cobra . +Marketing: Ah , a kind of uh snake ? Cobra ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh not really . +Marketing: Exactly {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Small cobra . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it just {disfmarker} small cobra , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is that a worm ? Or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's co c quite recognisable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about you uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah Christa Pavlov {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Christa ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christa {vocalsound} Christa . +Industrial Designer: Chris . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A fish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Smiling fish {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Smile fish . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: A smiling fish . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , w whiteboard is working ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} Next . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Let's talk about money . +User Interface: Just tr try to guess who is a User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} According to the drawings . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . +Marketing: So . Twenty five Euro for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm that's the price we want to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's the aim for the price for the remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We aim to do {vocalsound} this profit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the international market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'tis big number . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're to sell two million then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} for a production cost of mm twelve fifty Euros maximum . {vocalsound} 'Kay {vocalsound} . So any of you have experience in remote controls ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Uh yes , we have plenty at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In fact , my daughter likes l {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . To eat ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To eat ? Yeah , mainly , and to break . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So that could be a great um {vocalsound} application . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remote controls children proof . Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: Children proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye ye yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: So she likes uh buttons {vocalsound} which make click , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pret +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} it has to click . +Project Manager: So they have to be waterproof maybe ? +Marketing: It has to be uh wha {vocalsound} baby proof {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause they eat {disfmarker} she ate it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} but mainly it has to be very robust +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because even if she's not very tall she's uh {vocalsound} high enough so that uh when she throw it away it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: So it has to be very robust . +User Interface: Okay , unbreakable . +Marketing: Unbreakable , yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have some child lock or something , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it has to be nice looking , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: colourful , maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful , yeah mm . +User Interface: Colourful ? That's not practical . +Marketing: colourful , because uh nobody has colourful remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's always black or {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: , they're always black , yeah , +Project Manager: Mm mm-mm . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: but this one could be I dunno , purple or b +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But how gonna {disfmarker} okay , just uh but it's uh monochrome it's n it's not like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you think , why not . +User Interface: Otherwise you will never find it . +Marketing: One colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah even we can change colours , no ? Like the uh +Marketing: Oh like the phones , +Industrial Designer: like the phones and these things we c yeah . +Marketing: yeah , it could change colours , yeah . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: At least for children like one colour and {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ch +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good idea . +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: And it should be really {gap} small and {gap} . +Project Manager: Small also ? Don't you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh not so big like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: No uh , not too much buttons or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , not too much buttons and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be , y you know these uh remote controls where um they are what they call a universal ret remote control +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so y you can decide that now it's the remote control for the television , then it's the remote control for the the sound system , or for your refrigerator +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} whatever {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or if we should have a targeted re remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So colour , robustness , easy to use , size , +Project Manager: So , I think there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , size matters , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Colour , {vocalsound} size , sh +Project Manager: So you you think it's better if small than bigger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe at least n not bigger than this I guess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , but without any extremes like n not of this size , not too large . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , not too small , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , at least it should hold in your hand n properly , like {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , like a palm sized . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just to hold it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But uh what would be different from this , from the others ? I dunno if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can change the colours that {disfmarker} at least the frame . Mm . S so then it depends {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at least the colour would be different . +Industrial Designer: you are to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm I mean you c you can easily remove the frame {gap} . +Marketing: I think one thing important for instance in this remote control if you remember when people use it they're {disfmarker} they never find a good button in the right place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: For some reason they they they click the off button when they want to use the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So there's a problem in the design of that kind of remote control somehow , +Project Manager: Mm . So , some kind of idea uh with um um {vocalsound} cellular phone with a a screen that will tell you what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno {gap} . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: no . +User Interface: no screens , it's too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Too expensive , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive for twelve Euro ? +User Interface: And n maybe not too expensive , +Project Manager: And too expensive . +User Interface: well it's not my problem , but well okay . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: But no screens on remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . I thought it could be only a screen {vocalsound} which would change depending on uh uh the use or even the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ma I prefer to have the off button at the top right , +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah . +Marketing: so I would have my own design of the remote control because it's in fact just a a full touch screen remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: if you {disfmarker} if you like . +Industrial Designer: I mean it it's like +Marketing: I don't know if it makes sense , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} it's like two types no ? {vocalsound} people are right handed or left handed so y because I am left handed I use like this , say if you're right handed you use like this +Marketing: Yeah , for instance , mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} so tha your switch on and off should be on +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So adaptable {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Adaptable . Alright , good , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , if if it's possible , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} +User Interface: so how many actions do we need to implement in it ? +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: On off ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe I think even we can keep two switches and then we can uh only make one working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can adapt only one switch , suppose here like we can make two switches and if I'm left-hander I use this switch to follow the main operations . +User Interface: I mean if it's less than three uh then we can make it uh like a +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Three buttons you mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} like three mental states , +Project Manager: Three option . +User Interface: yeah you know what I mean , +Marketing: Ah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we can just make it uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: controlled by a brain , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe if it's more , if there is a software inside +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that ask you three {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it {disfmarker} if we want a r universal remote control that we sa like we say before it may may need more than three mm three button , three mm possibilities , ye yeah . +User Interface: Sh sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah , more than three actions that you may want to do at a given time . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But for standard actions you usually what do you do , you change channels , you adjust volume , and nothing else . +Marketing: Yeah but for instance when you change channels you can have {disfmarker} you can just go to the next one or go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's already more complex to go to channel twenty five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You do this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh no . +User Interface: I usually just change channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Because I'm only using three or four channels but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . But they keep generally their t slash slash uh this thing and then the dash dash and then you can put {disfmarker} yeah , you can only have one bit . +Project Manager: Yeah . I change channel like this , m uh I want to go to twenty five , and then to ten , uh-huh mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Dash . +Marketing: And then back to the one I was before , +Project Manager: Also we can be here {disfmarker} +Marketing: so there's {disfmarker} whichever it was . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you can +Project Manager: yeah , that would be cool . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Go back button is good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh uh we had that in in other countries . +User Interface: I once had it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , the previous button is {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah e even the history so you could like uh undo {vocalsound} previous of the previous . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: History . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then you can watch what your {disfmarker} ah you could also record your {disfmarker} record your {vocalsound} sequence of actions , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} that becomes more complex , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could look at what uh the other people have used there or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , what the {disfmarker} which channels the viewer {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: maybe it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think we have full of idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um we're going to meet again in thirty minutes and uh I want you to mm {vocalsound} work on these ideas and try to make a uh {vocalsound} the ones , {vocalsound} make um {disfmarker} to decide what what are the ones important and what are the one that we don't want . {vocalsound} And um m maybe more in the technical parts what uh do we want to do . Um . {vocalsound} So um your personal coach will send you some instruction for for this thirty minutes . +Marketing: So what does M_E_ means ? M_E_ the user requirements ? Or that's uh that's for us ? +User Interface: Market Expert . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Marketing {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Uh that's me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , of course {vocalsound} yeah , the user requirement specifications , uh-huh , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll think of that . +Project Manager: Mm okay . So . +Marketing: So ? +Project Manager: I think that's all . +Marketing: Meeting's over ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Thank you everybody . +","The transcript provided appears to be a snippet from an informal kick-off meeting among members of a new project team led by Project Manager Christa Pavlov. The team is tasked with designing a new remote control that is original, trendy, and user-friendly. The roles present in this meeting include a Project Manager, a Marketing Specialist, a User Interface Designer, and an Industrial Designer. + +During the meeting, Christa outlines that the session will start with an introduction to get team members familiar with each other. Using a whiteboard, an ice-breaking activity begins wherein team members are encouraged to draw their favorite animals. This lighthearted drawing exercise reveals a rabbit, with the user interface designer's admission that it's a favorite animal, and humorously, a human, referred to by the Marketing Specialist as a ""very complex animal."" + +The team then discusses the project specifics. Christa emphasizes the necessity of functional, conceptual, and detailed designs. She states that the team will work individually and reconvene in meetings throughout the day to develop these aspects. Marketing responds enthusiastically, acknowledging the complexity of the task. + +Subsequently, the team delves into the core aspects of the new remote control's design. The Project Manager points out features like originality, functional design, trendiness, and user-friendliness. The requirement for the remote to be functional, have conceptual and detailed designs, and the process of iterative individual work and group meetings is outlined. The team interacts with the whiteboard, seemingly enjoying the drawing exercise, which indirectly reviews ideas about the product’s design. + +A brainstorming session ensues around the remote control's features. The team members share their thoughts on what characteristics the remote should embody. They discuss making the device ""childproof"" in response to an anecdote from Marketing concerning their daughter who eats and breaks remotes. Suggestions include making the remote robust, waterproof, colorful (to stand out from typical black remotes), and possibly color-changeable like some phones. There's also a discussion about the ideal size, with consensus leaning towards a palm-sized, not too small device that could be easily held. + +The conversation shifts to the functionality of the remote control, raising the question of whether it should be universal or have a specific target. They talk about the importance of the design being intuitive to prevent users from pressing the wrong buttons and contemplate a customizable touchscreen to accommodate personal preferences, though there seems to be some resistance to the idea due to cost and complexity concerns. + +Further suggestions include having a limited number of buttons or actions to simplify use, designing adaptable remotes for left and right-handed users, and the idea of a remote programmed through user mental states. They ponder how users typically interact with remotes, such as channel changing and volume adjustment, and whether an ""undo"" function for previously selected channels would be beneficial. + +After exploring multiple ideas, Christa instructs the team to refine these concepts into the most viable options within thirty minutes. The expectation is to work towards a technical proposal, with a follow-up meeting planned. The session underscores key factors such as cost-efficiency (production cost aimed at 12.50 euros for a selling price of 25 euros), market needs, and technical feasibility. + +In the end, with instructions to think about user requirement specifications, denoted by ""M_E_"" (interpreted as Market Expert by the Marketing Specialist), the meeting is adjourned. The members express their thanks and plan to reconvene in thirty minutes to further hone their ideas. + +Overall, the meeting displays ideation and the early stages of team cohesion around the development of an innovative remote control. It highlights the importance of creativity, collaboration, consideration of user needs, and practical design constraints in the product design process." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So welcome back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do {gap} {disfmarker} do we have to do ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: So first . I want to say I'm the secretary , so I make the minutes . You find them in your {disfmarker} in the map in the From the group . There's the minutes from the first meeting . You'll find the next minutes also there . Then {vocalsound} I wanna hear from you , what you've done . And after that I have some new product requirements . So {disfmarker} And after that we have to make decisions , what we will do . And then we're ready . We have forty minutes for this meeting . After that we'll have lunch . So first I wanna ask the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer to tell what he did . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's my task . Okay . Uh I've {disfmarker} Where have I put it ? My Documents or not ? Hmm . I've save it on my computer , my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah on your computer , or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But where ? +Project Manager: What's the name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's the name of it ? +Industrial Designer: It was about the working of the remote control . +Project Manager: It's the technical function or the functional requirements . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not a {gap} of {disfmarker} Wait . The working design . But I've saved it . +Project Manager: Working design . +Industrial Designer: But now I don't know where it is . Hmm . +Project Manager: Working design . What is this ? Product documents . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And I import this until {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the desktop . Up . {gap} up . Up . Up . +Industrial Designer: One more . +Project Manager: Up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . My Documents . Nope . +Industrial Designer: What the fuck is this ? +Project Manager: Gone . {vocalsound} Well you {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Nah . Nah , nah , nah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: PowerPoint . Working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's the empty one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had one . +Project Manager: Presentation of working design . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Open it . Okay here it is . +Project Manager: Save as {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Desktop . +Project Manager: Project {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Project . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Well . +Project Manager: Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: A little later but here it is . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So okay . It's a little difficult what I'm gonna tell you . It's about the working of the remote control . I just had an half an hour j to study it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} I don't get it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it . +Project Manager: Now have ten minutes to tell it . +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes to tell it . Okay . I think it will be a few minutes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: First uh I will tell you something about the findings , what I discovered about the remote control . The working bout it {disfmarker} uh of it . Uh then I'll have uh some kind of map , and it's the top of the remote control . With a little bit of science , uh you {disfmarker} I will show that uh in in a few minutes . And then uh what I'll think about it . First , the findings . The remote control is a very difficult uh thing to uh to explain to just all of you wh who haven't seen a remote control uh inside . Uh there's a lot of uh plastic on it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um because its uh not so expensive . And there are uh a lot of uh wires , uh which um connect the components in it , the battery , and there are um switches and things like that . There's a lot of small uh electronics . So it won't be um uh too expensive to build it . Only twelve Euro fifty I think uh we will make it . Now {gap} {disfmarker} And here I have the top of the remote control . Uh here's some kind of chip . Uh on top of this , there are uh the numbers . Uh you have all on your remote control . And uh the teletext uh button . And uh here's the battery . And when you push the button , it will uh will be sent to the chip . And the chip will um send it to all kind of sub-components . That's what I said , it's very difficult . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And after that it will be sent to the infrared . And that will send it to your television . That's a short h uh how it works . Uh I think I can uh make it uh difficult , but we all {vocalsound} we all don't get it . My preferences ? It's uh {disfmarker} it won't be uh {disfmarker} We shouldn't make it too big . Uh also for the cost , uh we should only put one battery on it . A long-lasting battery . Uh also for the cost , uh use only plastic . Not other materials . Also because of the cost , uh not too much buttons on it . We can also make uh a button uh with a {gap} {disfmarker} menu uh button . And then um that that you will see it on the T_V_ . And on the T_V_ you can uh switch into the menu . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} I think it's easier . And the bleep signal , y uh you told us . Uh but we can also use it uh a bleep like something , when the battery's empty , then there is a bleep . Then you'll have to change it in a in a week or something . And also the bleep , when {disfmarker} what I told you about uh when you lost it , and you push a button , and then you hear bleep bleep , and we will find it . This is uh just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh oh . Two questions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: The battery . You say one battery is cheaper . Why ? +Industrial Designer: If we w if we use only just one uh small pen-light , then it will be cheaper than when we use two . +Project Manager: Yeah but when you use two , you can use it two times longer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to make the um remote control uh long lasting . +Project Manager: Okay so it's the size of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and the buttons . When you use it on the television , you've {disfmarker} you need the television , wh which can use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But uh I think this {disfmarker} our remote control is for the televisions we uh we sell in our company ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or is it also for other company {disfmarker} uh for other televisions ? +Project Manager: I think we have to use it also on other televisions though . +Industrial Designer: Then this is an option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe just a menu button to use it on our televisions . And then we make it easier uh for our televisions . And on the other tele televisions , you can also use it , but then we won't use the +Project Manager: Yeah but I don't {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They are two different things though . We have to choose one . It has to work on o uh all televisions . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . Then I think uh the menu button uh will only work on the newer televisions . And we will uh look forward and don't make a remote control which for the older televisions . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And I just uh have one more idea . Uh maybe it's one of your tasks . But {disfmarker} Uh , to have a trendy remote control , we can also um make something like the Nokia um mobile phones . To change covers . So if you have uh a trendy half with all red , uh yellow and something . And then you can put a red cover on it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And also different things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Will this will this add to the cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh then it won't be {disfmarker} uh will have just one cover on the uh original one . And then you can buy the covers . +Marketing: Yes but you have to m uh be able to change it . D does it make it more difficult to design ? +Industrial Designer: I think it will be a little more difficult , but not too much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not much . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Just like with the Nokia uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are much more Nokia telephones than um these ones . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to to just um put five covers on it , and see if it works . If it won't works then we'll get something else . Then we uh won't g uh go further with it . +Project Manager: Yeah but are their profits bigger than their cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh a p a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a cover made in uh in China , it it won't be I guess so expensive I think . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are also design cost . I don't think {disfmarker} When you have a remote control , do you change the cover ? Would you change the cover ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe . I wi I won't . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: But maybe I think trendy people or like children where you can paint on it , and uh the the children think , oh this is my remote control , uh I made a picture on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N yeah but {disfmarker} I think that too less people would change it for good profit . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . And the other people ? What do you think about it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a good idea . But {disfmarker} If if it {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure if it will make profit enough to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: But it's uh yeah it's uh original idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes it is but I don't think we have to do it . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You're the Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . That's it . +Project Manager: That's clear . {vocalsound} Okay thank you . So now the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Oh . That's me . Uh {disfmarker} Come on . {gap} . Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes well uh uh I shall give a short talk about the the technical function design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I thought the the the technical function design was uh to uh {disfmarker} for a remote control to to to have some influence on the T_V_ set . Uh both audio and vide video uh in a cordless way . No cords attached . And uh well , it all by pushing a button on the remote . That was from my own experience and uh and uh the previous meeting . Uh I find some uh some interesting quotes on the web . Uh well the same idea here . Uh message to the television . And uh and and and well basic uh operations like on and off , and uh switching channels , and uh {disfmarker} and maybe uh teletext or something like that . Uh well these are two uh remotes , and that's our uh our dilemma I think . Uh {disfmarker} We just heard from the Industrial Designer how uh difficult it is . But uh shall we make a basic remote control , uh just uh swapping channels and volume and uh power button and well nothing much more . Or uh uh more functions on the remote . Uh maybe more devices you can influence . Uh a radio or a v a video recorder , uh V_C_R_ . {vocalsound} Yeah well that's our dilemma . Um any ideas about that ? Basic or multifunctional ? +Project Manager: We'll got back on that later . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Yeah well the {disfmarker} that was just on my mind . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: So uh I didn't know what uh what way we would go . Mm yeah well that was my uh functional uh talk {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you . Then it's your turn , the marketing expert . +Marketing: Okay . Uh um m Yeah . {vocalsound} Um yeah okay . This bit too far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So I'm uh gonna have a presentation about um the market , about um yeah what people think . Uh we did a usability lab-test with a hundred persons . And we looked at uh several um things . Uh among them design , uh d d how d did they like the use of it , uh what frustrations they had while using remote controls . Uh well what what will be our market . And uh we asked them if we had some new featu features . If um that would be a good idea or not . Well our findings . Uh our users , they disliked the look and feel of current remote controls . Um uh they especially found found them very ugly . And um th they also found them hard to to learn how to use it . Uh well they also zap a lot . So uh zapping uh should be very easy . And uh fifty percent of the users only use ten percent of the buttons . So a lot of unused buttons . There is more findings . Uh on the buttons . Which uh buttons find users uh very important and which which not ? And how much would they use them ? Well uh the most used button is the channel selection . And uh we asked them how uh relevant they think uh the buttons are . The power , volume and channel selections are very relevant . Uh teletext is uh less relevant but also important . Uh not important they found the audio , uh that's not the volume but uh specific the the pitch , or the left or right . Uh the screen and the brightness . And uh channel settings . Uh th and they also are not used very often . Then we have a few um graphs about the market . Uh here we can see what the market share is of uh several groups . Um as you can see , most users are uh between thirty six and forty five . Um the the the younger group between sixteen and twenty five is not very big . And to come back on the the swapping uh things , uh I don't think uh , I {vocalsound} I think the younger will be most interest in it . But uh they are not a very big group . Um in the {gap} we asked them , uh how would you like a s a new feature . If you have an L_C_D_ on the remote control , what would you think of it . Now you can clearly see young users say {gap} . I will {disfmarker} that would very nice . And older user think uh they will be scared of change {vocalsound} I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And they won't like it . And another thing , how would you like to have a speech recognition on it . Well here we see the same . Young users uh think that's an interesting idea . And old users not . Uh well we uh found out that there are two {disfmarker} several markets at which we can aim . Uh the first are the younger , the age between sixteen and forty five . Uh they are highly interested in the features , as you can see uh here . And um they are more critical on their money spending . Uh the second group is the older group . Aged between forty six and sixty five . They are less interested in uh new features . But uh they spend their money more easily . Now if we look back at this graph , we can see that among the first group is about um sixty percent . And the second group about forty percent . So the the first group is bigger . Well then I come to my uh personal preferences . Uh yeah the first question is uh {disfmarker} also we have to ask is at the which market do we aim at . Uh of course n uh saying we aim at the young group doesn't say that old people won't buy it . But less of them will buy it . Um well I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . What I thought , um even young people say it's hard to use , remote control . So if you make a remote control that is uh very easy to use , that's especially aimed at this group , even uh the young group will also be more interested . And um we can make special features . But uh I think it looks nice in the first time . But when use it , uh I don't know what's uh good thing of speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um well th uh that's my second point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh less important functions should be discarded from the remote control . It's about discussion we had earlier . Um {disfmarker} You can find most functions on a T_V_ set . So uh you don't have to have a lot of audio options , or screen options to change the brightness . And such things . Um well the design is very important . One thing I did not say I think , is that a lot of users also said then I would uh buy a good looking uh remote control if there will be one . But they found most remote controls very ugly . So the design of our remote control is very important . And uh yeah it should be very zap friendly , as most users use it for that . That were my findings . +Project Manager: Okay thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I have uh one question . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: If we aim for the younger people , um and there will be uh a lot of features like L_C_D_ or the the the speech uh f recognising , uh the cost will be a lot of h uh a lot higher . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think we don't have that in our budget . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Do you think ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: And I don't uh I don't think twenty five Euros for a remote is really cheap or something . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} No . No . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} Yeah , it's hard to uh get the younger group . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: I think uh the L_C_D_ is cheaper than speech recognition . So I think that can be an d good option . L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Just the L_C_D_ ? +Project Manager: Yes . Only the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} But we'll come back on that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , go on . What d d d um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Uh we go {gap} {disfmarker} back on the decisions later . Now we have a few new product requirements . First , teletext . We have internet now so we don't need the teletext anymore . So not necessary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Only for the television . So we don't look at the other things like the radio or something . Only the television . We look at the age group of forty plus . Uh no , younger than forty . Is a g big group , and like you showed , n not very much people buy our stuff . Fourth point . {vocalsound} Our corporate colour and slogan must be used . Very important for the design . So you can see it on our site . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Um no . We have to make our decisions , what we want to do . So {vocalsound} like you said , we need the {disfmarker} {gap} . Maybe it's good to put it in a document . Now we have to decide what controls do we need . So maybe you can tell us . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we can first have a discussion uh on the the product requirements you just uh said . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The the requirements you just said , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: maybe we should first have a discussion about that . +Project Manager: Yes , it's okay . +Marketing: I uh personally think uh teletext is a good option . Uh not everyone um who is looking T_V_ can go to internet when they want to see the latest news . +Project Manager: Yeah but we don't use it . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} new requirement . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's not my requirement . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we'll just have to do that . +Project Manager: We have to do this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . No discussion about it . +Marketing: Okay . Okay sorry . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Unfortunately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what controls do we need ? Who first ? +User Interface: Well a power button ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh power . +User Interface: Uh the well um I think separate channels . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mm channel . +User Interface: But then both the the separate channels . So so uh zero to nine or something . +Project Manager: Channel {disfmarker} Zero to nine . +User Interface: Uh volume . +Project Manager: Volume . Maybe it's easy to pick . What was w your one ? Techno +Marketing: Mine ? It's the functional requirements . +Project Manager: Okay . We had w uh no no no no . Where was that example of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh mine . +Project Manager: Johan . That was the {disfmarker} the the the the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Technical . +Project Manager: technical {disfmarker} Hallo . Okay . What do we need ? On-off . Zero to nine . +Industrial Designer: To change to the next channel , just one button . To move up , move down . +Project Manager: Yeah that's the channel . +Marketing: D Yeah . Do we make a menu ? +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh yes the n newer televisions ha do have menus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} M Menu . I think um the only one or two numbers . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Hello ? That's ch {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I think it will be um q quite easy to use , to have uh uh four arrows . Up-down for channel selection , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and left-right uh for volume . And uh a menu uh button . And if you press the menu button you get into the menu , and you can use the same buttons . But the {disfmarker} then to scroll through the menu and to change the options . +Project Manager: On the L_C_D_ screen , you mean ? +Marketing: Uh well yeah that depends on if you have uh the menu on the T_V_ . Or you get the menu on the L_C_D_ screen on the remote control . +Project Manager: Think it's better to have it on the remote control , 'cause it it has to work on all televisions . So +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: we need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we come to the costs . +Project Manager: N Yes . But if we have this {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . But well if you aim at the younger market , um a as they as uh s uh as we seen in the usability uh lab , uh they will buy a nice looking um remote control . And also to find the easy to use uh part very important . So if we have a L_C_D_ sh uh screen , and uh not too many buttons , I think that will incre uh uh even when it's a bit more cost , it will still sell . +Project Manager: So now we don't have a lot of buttons . Is this enough ? +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: Mute . Maybe in the menu ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but then it's always uh more than one uh thing to do . +Project Manager: Mute . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe more ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . Well . Then that's all . This will be the buttons . And {disfmarker} I think that's enough for the next phase . So we can go on to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now we have only the buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't yet have to decide what the remote control would look like ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's for the next phase . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {gap} {disfmarker} Phase two is the conceptual design . So then we'll have the concepts . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: That's for the {disfmarker} So uh next point . Now we have lunch-break . After that we have t thirty minutes for work . And you can find the minutes in the Project Documents folder inclusive the uh buttons . No . Your individual action , you can find them in the email . So now it's time for lunch . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good idea . +Project Manager: Thanks for coming . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In a project meeting, the Project Manager outlines the agenda, which includes discussing individual progress reports, new product requirements, and making decisions. The Industrial Designer has lost their presentation but eventually finds it, discussing the design and cost considerations for a remote control, proposing it be inexpensive with minimal buttons, possibly with interchangeable covers. The User Interface Designer queries the group whether to pursue a basic or multifunctional remote control. Marketing presents user research findings, suggesting the product targets younger users, has an appealing design, and discards less important functions. Based on further discussion and product requirements, which include dropping teletext, focusing on televisions only, targeting users younger than forty, and including corporate branding, the group decides on essential buttons for the remote. The meeting concludes with plans for lunch and individual follow-up work distributed via email." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies, although Dawn Bowden is running late. I'll take this opportunity to welcome Dawn formally to the committee but also to place on record our thanks to John Griffiths for his service to the committee. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a scrutiny session with a focus on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Eluned Morgan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, and Huw Morris, who is the group director of skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Thank you all for your attendance this morning. If you're okay with it, we'll go straight into questions. The first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If we can just start with teacher training and teacher training for secondary school teachers in particular, obviously there's been what looks like a trend in recent years in filling the places for secondary school training. Obviously, this is at Welsh teacher training centres. Do you think there's still a problem recruiting teachers into the 300 priority places, or is there a trend where things are getting better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. I think, for this year's intake, although we're in touch with our providers, we're not in a position to be able to give figures for this year's intake for a couple of months. But what we have seen over recent years is that we are only recruiting to about 65 per cent of those targets. So, there is still a job of work to do to understand and to respond to those needs. So, what we're doing is first of all making sure that our ITE provision is world class, so that, actually, Welsh centres are the place to go to train to be a teacher. You'll be aware that we've recently been through an accreditation process for new ITE provision that will start in the next academic year. We have looked at financial incentives. It's not the whole answer, I think, to these issues, but it's part of a mixture of things that we need to do. You'll be aware that, for priority subjects, with graduates with the very highest levels of qualifications, those financial incentives are now £20,000 a year. We're also embarking on our first ever national ITE recruitment marketing exercise. We have initially done some work in the last year specifically targeting Welsh students in studying for priority subject degrees, e-mailing them, sending them materials to ask them to consider (1) becoming a teacher, and (2) crucially coming to do that training here in Wales. We are now part of a full national programme of ITE recruitment, giving people that idea that you can serve your nation and your community by training to be a teacher. So, there's a whole package of things we need to do. In January of this year I set up an advisory board on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, and we are awaiting some reports from that advisory group on what they feel that we should do next. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. I can see there's a lot of activity, but what exactly is it responding to? Presumably, some research has been done about why people don't want to become teachers so that the answers you come up with are appropriate answers. I can't believe it's just about ITE, although this is very valuable, what you're talking about. Is there something that's running through our younger learners at the moment that makes them think that teaching isn't a profession they want to go into? Is that something that's happening just in Wales or is it happening elsewhere as well? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. I think what you will find is that this isn't a uniquely Welsh issue. I think they are suffering quite acute problems across the border, which proves to me that money isn't necessarily the entire answer, because, despite higher financial incentives to join ITE courses, they're not able to do that in England either. So, that proves to me—what the research does show—that it's not money alone that will get people onto these courses. Interestingly, I don't even think it's a UK problem. Recently, as you'll be aware via my written statement, I attended the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory, which is a system-to-system conference. If you talk to education systems in different parts of the world, the one common factor that we are all grappling with is teacher recruitment and retention. In the USA, they have seen a 40 per cent drop in the number of students training to be teachers. So, in the Californian system, significant teacher shortages, and in Oregon, Washington. I met with New York state—significant teacher recruitment and retention problems in New York state, and in Finland, Australia. So, this is a common issue across the globe, really. That's why we set up the advisory group under the chairmanship of Professor John Gardner—it's to understand what the issues are exactly that are preventing people or putting people off. One of the things that we have got strong performance in, and I think this is perhaps something that we're trying to follow up on, are employment-based routes into qualified teacher status—so, those are people who are training on the job. Those remain strong. There's high demand for those places, so much so that we've increased those places to 90 last year and 90 again this year, which says to me that—there's definitely a place for the traditional, 'Take a year off, do a postgraduate certificate in education in a university for a year'—actually, that type of course suits some students but it might be preventing other people from pursuing a qualification in teaching, which is why, of course, from next year, we will have our unique part-time PGCE route into qualification. So, that allows people to perhaps combine some of their employment opportunities, so they can earn while they learn, or maybe they've got caring responsibilities that prevent them from going to do a full-time course. I think that will give us an alternative route that people can take to gain qualified teacher status and work in our schools. So, there's no one thing, I think, that we can do that will solve this issue. But it is an international issue, I agree with that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's what I was after finding out, and, actually, what you've just said about the part-time PGCE is pretty interesting as well, because if you can bring your outside world experience into teaching, that's got to help, hasn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Can I just agree with you? I think that is really, really important—that we have a diversity in our teaching workforce. I think the different dynamic that brings to a school and the experience that brings to children is really, really valuable. I was up in the Deeside Sixth just last week, talking to the A-level chemistry teacher. She had been a teacher for a while, she'd gone into industry, worked in industry, and now had come back into teaching. She said that she felt that that made her a better educator and she could talk with knowledge and experience about the opportunities outside of teaching that the students in front of her could pursue. I'm very keen to increase the diversity in our teaching workforce and I'm very keen in looking at career changers, who perhaps have different life experience and work experience, coming into our teaching profession. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. Part of that diversity, of course—it would be great if you had more people interested in qualifying to teach through the medium of Welsh. Great aspirations; the trend's going the other way. No-one can solve this in 280 characters, I get that, but can you give us some indication about why you think this is proving still such an unattractive option when it's clear that there's a policy for this country to improve the number of Welsh speakers? You'd have thought there'd be a pretty good carrot for this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. Again, data for recruitment for the 2018-19 cohort is not yet available and we are, as I said, keeping in touch with our ITE centres to keep a close eye on them. I think an important thing to recognise is that there is a difference between the number of people who are on courses where there is a specific designation that enables them to teach through the medium of Welsh and those people who have linguistic ability and Welsh ability but don't necessarily do a course that allows them. So, there is a difference. We do think that, for the 2016-17 cohort, there were an additional 130 qualifiers that, actually, were fluent in Welsh and who could have gone on to teach in Welsh-medium schools, didn't necessarily do a course that gave them that designation. But, clearly, we've got three academic years now to get to the targets that we've set ourselves. The evaluation of Welsh-medium provision in ITE reported at the end of last month, and the Minister and officials are busy working now to implement the recommendations of the report that was published, I think, on 28 September, to be able to move this agenda forward. Again, we've got new incentives, this year, both for people starting their course and then for teachers who complete their QTS after a year. So, we've added in new financial incentives this year to try and address some of those issues. But, clearly, these are ambitious targets and we will need to have a step change over the next three years if we're to meet them. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. Thank you for that answer. We're now talking about cohorts of students coming into PGCE and teaching degrees. If they're from Wales, they will have had Welsh as part of their education from day one, and we'll accept there are varying qualities in different parts of Wales, different attitudes towards it as well. But there isn't a single a person now who's been through Welsh education who can say they have no Welsh at all, unless they've moved into the system from, say, England very, very recently. What is being done within the teaching qualifications, including the degrees, to ensure that, at least in Welsh universities, those nascent Welsh language skills are at least kept alive, even though we're not talking necessarily about being at a level where people can teach through the medium? It's the age-old question: once the school gate closes, is that the end of their Welsh use? So, is there something—it won't be Donaldson, but in the teacher training qualifications—that is keeping this going and, hopefully, increasing the usability of the Welsh skills they have? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, in terms of how we can encourage children who have got Welsh skills as a result of their education up to 16, how they can continue to use those skills and, potentially, use them in the workplace, I'm sure Eluned will want to talk about some of the work, for instance, in other, non-teaching sectors. But, with regard to ITE, you'll be aware that, in the evaluation report, as I said, that was published, the report comes forward with two options in how we could develop an intervention programme to support Welsh language skills amongst all primary and secondary ITE entrants. So, what we'll be doing now as a result of that report is that we'll be working very closely with our ITE centres to develop and agree upon minimum provision that constitutes those skill levels within ITE provision for all teachers. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You have your targets for 2021, in terms of numbers of teachers coming through the system, which is positive, although, clearly, the report or the review itself said that, actually, we need to double the numbers, really. But it's not just the trends that are going down; it's a cataclysmic drop, really. We've lost 24 per cent in the number of people over the last four or five years who are going into teacher training to study subjects that they could teach through the medium of Welsh. So, it's a huge turnaround that we're looking for, and I'm not getting the feeling that the level of ambition and the answers that you're giving here this morning reflect the level of action that's needed, really. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, as I tried to illustrate to Suzy, the figures on their own tell one story, but there are additional people in the system with an ability to speak Welsh and to be able to use— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I think it's 40 per cent of those who are currently in the system who don't— +Kirsty Williams AM: —the language and skills. And if we look at qualifiers of ITE courses in Wales by degree type, actually, we see a different trend—we see numbers going up. So, there are statistics and there are statistics. Depending on which ones you look at, it's quite a complex picture. And that's why we had the evaluation report. We understand and we know and acknowledge that there is more work to be done. That's why we have got the evaluation of provision in ITE and that's why we'll be taking that ambition forward. We know what we need to do. As I said, we're not sitting back and hoping that something miraculous will change things. We are pulling levers and putting in place plans to improve that situation. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you for that. Clearly, there are statistics and there are statistics, so could you just explain to us which statistics you've used for your targets for growth over the next three years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that comes as a result of the work done for the 2050— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Upon which baseline are you basing the increases that you're projecting? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using the baseline of 2012-13. There has been a decline since then. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's the one I was using when I said '24 per cent reduction'. +Kirsty Williams AM: There has been a decline in those numbers. That's why, as I said, we're doing the work that we need to do to reverse that decline. In using those numbers, we also know that there are additional people in the system who are not captured in those figures and who do have the linguistic ability to use their language positively in school settings. So, what I'm saying is that that doesn't tell us the whole story, but I will be the first to admit that there is a significant job of work with our ITE providers to ensure that we will have the skilled professionals that we need to deliver on our ambitions, and I'm not hiding from that. +Eluned Morgan AM: Also, I just think it's worth saying that a lot of this is about building the confidence of those people who actually can speak Welsh, who are not teaching through the medium of Welsh, and to give them that support. First of all, we need to identify who these people are, so there is a job of work being undertaken now in terms of registration in particular—when people register, let's just make sure that we collect that kind of data. +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't even do that consistently at the moment. One of the recommendations of the report is that there is no consistent approach to understanding this baseline data and there's no consistent competency test that people start at the beginning of their course, so we need a national approach rather than leaving it to individual institutions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Have we missed any tricks, potentially, in terms of the reforms to accrediting ITE, for example, in terms of, maybe, strengthening aspects around the Welsh language and provision in that respect? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't believe so. The accreditation process, which is independent of the Government—the accreditation process demands of our ITE providers that their provision will be able to meet the goals of our curriculum. Our curriculum is very clear about the equality of the language and the ability of our children, through all stages of their education journey, to be able to be bilingual children. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that requirement, as far you're concerned, is there. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. Diolch—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before I turn to Hefin, can I just clarify—? In answer to Suzy Davies, you said that 65 per cent of the places in Welsh training centres had been filled. Is that 65 per cent of the priority places? +Kirsty Williams AM: Priority places. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sixty-five per cent of the priority courses are being met. +Lynne Neagle AM: Lovely, thank you for clarifying that. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: The decision by the Education Workforce Council not to accredit the University of South Wales with the ability to deliver teacher training—what are your views and concerns about that? +Kirsty Williams AM: The process is independent of Government, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that, especially as I understand that there is an appeals process that may be being undertaken. What I would say is that from the very outset of our ITE reforms we have made it very clear that I expect very high standards in our ITE system, but the process is independent of this Government. I have confidence in the people who have been appointed by the EWC to undertake that process, but it is independent of me, and it's not appropriate for me to comment on that further. +Hefin David AM: I fully understand that and the need for distance for the EWC, but there'll be an impact on students and staff. Students, first of all: are you concerned that the reduction in providers might have an impact on students, and those students going through the second year at USW? Would you have concerns about that issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: In terms of the overall numbers, we will be looking to commission from those institutions that have been accredited the number of training places that our planning tool says that we need. So, in terms of an overall number of places, we will commission from those accredited units. Clearly, there will be a responsibility upon the University of South Wales to ensure that those students already in the system are able to complete their studies and their course, with the appropriate level of support and tuition to enable them to achieve their career aspirations and to graduate from that programme. +Hefin David AM: And what about the uncertainty for staff, or would you say that's an issue for the university itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: These are autonomous bodies. They have to act accordingly, in compliance with any employment law or any statutory responsibilities that they would have as an employer. That's not a matter for me; that is a matter for the institution that is an autonomous body. +Hefin David AM: But I would be surprised if you weren't keeping an eye on this, given that it has been a key provider. Are you aware of when the appeal decision will be known? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding is that the appeals process is ongoing, and next month, perhaps. But as I said, this is a process that is independent of Government— +Hefin David AM: But it will have an impact for what you do. +Kirsty Williams AM: It will potentially change the nature of the people from whom we commission places, but as I said, I do not have any concerns that we will not be in a position to commission the appropriate number of training places that we will need as a result of our planning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy on this—mindful of what the Minister said about it being an independent decision. +Suzy Davies AM: It's not directly about USW; it's about the geographic spread of provision. I wonder if you could just give us a snapshot of what that looks like, and whether you think—certainly for PGCE or postgrad courses, anyway—that if they're not accessible geographically and we've got students who already have three years' worth of debt, they're not going to be looking to, necessarily, live away from home for a fourth year, and may want to study nearer home. Has there been any research done on the access to these postgrad courses, about where people are coming from and whether that's had an impact on the fact that some of these places haven't been filled? +Kirsty Williams AM: Currently, with our current providers, there is a significant geographical spread. There are centres here in the south-east, there are centres in the south-west, in mid Wales, and in north Wales. Obviously, accessibility is an issue for us. We do think that, for some students, accessibility is an issue, and of course that's why we are responding with our part-time PGCE route, which actually will be location neutral, because you will be able to study that as a distance learner, and so you will be able to remain in your community and undertake that course. So, that's part of the attractiveness, I believe, of offering that to people. So, if geographical disadvantage is stopping somebody from pursuing a career aspiration to qualify as a teacher, our new part-time PGCE, as I said, will allow them to do that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thanks, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about reform and reconfiguration of the post-16 education sector. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. There are some encouraging provisional signs regarding the demand for part-time undergraduate study for the first year of Diamond, but the £12.5 million reduction Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is having to make this academic year has potentially placed the funding for part-time provision under pressure. Is there a danger that, without maintaining and growing this funding, Welsh Government will undermine the Diamond reforms and increase the cost of part-time courses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Let's be absolutely clear what this Government has done for part-time students. We are unique, Janet: unique in the UK and, I believe, unique in Europe, in the parity of the support that is available for full-time and part-time students. So, Welsh part-timers have something that they do not get if they are in England or if they're in Scotland. It's too early to have definitive figures for the impact of Diamond on the number of people who are undertaking part-time study. I don't want to get into trouble by not having that verified data, and I know Members get testy with me for anecdotal evidence, but I can tell you this: there is one provider that is reporting at this moment a 40 per cent increase in the number of students that are registered to start part-time study with them this year, as compared to last year, and that reflects really, really well, compared to the onward downward trend that we see across the border for part-time. What this means, for us as a nation, is that people are able to take this opportunity to upskill themselves and to be able to develop their qualifications and to be able to move themselves up career ladders, and I think that's such an important economic factor for us. So, rather than feeling doom and gloom about the prospects for the part-time sector, the early indications, at least, show that the Diamond reforms are leading to an increase in demand and, more importantly, an increase in uptake—students taking advantage of that system to go away and study. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is the Welsh Government able to reassure the committee that its ambitions for the post-compulsory education and training reforms are still in line with the original Hazelkorn recommendations, and go beyond the Labour manifesto commitment of simply replacing HEFCW with a new funding body for HE and FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, you will be aware, Janet, that the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the Government and the Government's programme state very clearly about our desire to pursue the recommendations of the Hazelkorn report. I hope, by the end of this week, we will have published the responses to the technical consultation, and we will continue to move forward. And I would argue, certainly, that the reforms that we are intending to implement do go beyond just simply a body that replaces HEFCW and joins in FE. It's a much wider remit to the potential new commission. And, as I said, I believe we've had in the region of about 450 responses to the technical consultation and I'm pleased to say that there remains a consensus—we will always have some arguments about the details—but there remains a consensus on the direction of travel that we are pursuing. A summary of the consultation responses will be available to Members and will be published by the end of the week. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Is the Welsh Government still committed to introducing the PCET Bill before the end of the fifth Assembly, and are you confident this will happen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'm absolutely determined that we will get the PCET legislation on the floor. It's a substantial piece of work, as you've just alluded to. This goes just beyond abolishing a single body. So, it is a substantial piece of work, but I believe that we are on track to be able to do that by the end of this term. But it's a big piece of work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on that? I mean, it is going to be a big job, and, clearly, there's a strong focus on creating the commission and putting the structures in place, but, of course, one of the drivers is that we want to effect a cultural change in the way that people perceive post-16 education. This thing about parity of esteem and all that kind of agenda. And a key part of this process, therefore, is the vision that people are waiting for. When are we going to see this coming forward? Because I think we're putting structures in place, so there's a big discussion about the technical stuff, but I feel there's a bit of a vacuum in terms of the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you, Llyr, because— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Right, okay. Well, maybe you should have come to the cross-party group on further education last night. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you because, of course, the technical consultation has followed what we had last year, which was a consultation on the vision, on what we needed to do to bring the sector together beyond just HE and FE, to the inclusion of sixth forms; work-based learning providers; apprenticeships; and bringing all of that together under one body. I believe that that gives us an opportunity to have better strategic planning; to help us prevent duplication; to help us bridge gaps that are not available for learners at the moment. It will, hopefully—. My vision is that it will promote collaboration between institutions rather than simply having the market-based process that we see in other places where there's competition rather than collaboration. I want to see it strengthen links between schools, FE and HE, strengthen links between schools and employers and business, to make sure that we've got better information and advice services so that young people know what their pathways are and can make really informed choices about what's best for them, to help them make them. So, I think: we've done the vision, we're now doing the technical consultation, that will be published by the end of the week, and we'll move forward with our overarching vision that Hazelkorn elaborated and that we are now taking forward. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you would be very concerned if FE institutions were saying that we really need to see the vision, that that's the next step, that we really need to understand the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: But, I've met—. As I said, I was with one of our excellent FE leaders just at the end of last week; it wasn't raised with me then. I do understand that there are concerns from the FE sector about will the vision be realised. I think there's a shared understanding of the vision, but I understand and I do see some nervousness about, actually, in the end, will this just be HEFCW by another name, and, the opportunity for FE, will this be realised in this new body? We need to keep ensuring that, as we go forward and develop the policy, and as we develop, eventually, the legislation, that that parity of esteem and that true equality across all parts of the sector is realised. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Our next questions are from Michelle Brown. +Michelle Brown AM: Good morning, Cabinet Secretary; good morning, Minister. Your paper to the committee says that there's a need for more analysis and research into the outcomes for learners from different backgrounds. At the same time, Welsh universities have declared £104 million towards equality and opportunity activity for 2018. If you don't have the analysis, how can you be sure that the investment that's being made by the Welsh universities is actually going to have a positive outcome in the right places and lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, of course, that would be one of the duties of the new commission set up as a result of our post-compulsory education and training reforms that I would anticipate. The universities are required, under the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015, to produce fee and access statements, and the £104 million that they have to take off their fees to be able to promote this work—those fee and access plans have to be signed off by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales as being robust and truly promoting equality of opportunity. They're also there to promote access and the opportunities for people to aspire to higher education. We are looking at—. It's quite early days, still, for that new regulatory regime to come through, so we ask HEFCW, when I meet with HEFCW, about the adequacy of those plans. Equity is an important part of my approach to higher education. That's why we're introducing the Diamond reforms—so that those from the poorest backgrounds can be adequately financially supported and are not put off from going to a university. And we're also looking—. I would envisage under PCET a better mechanism of tracking destinations for learners. So, for instance, in the FE sector, we're introducing new joint monitoring for outcomes for sixth-form learners and FE learners, because we've never tracked them in the same way. So, we're introducing that now so that we can see the destinations for those two sectors, but the PCET reforms give us an opportunity to do that right across the board. Huw, is there anything else I need to add? +Huw Morris: Well, I'd just reinforce the point the Cabinet Secretary made about the fee and access plans being the vehicle through which we get universities to specify what they're going to do, and the funding council tracks that. To make sure that we're doing that in a full and appropriate manner, periodically, we ask for that system to be reviewed. I think it was in 2017 that the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods—the research arm of Cardiff University—reviewed the system and looked at how widening access was being promoted by different institutions and whether that was working in all parts of Wales. The report from that group was considered by one of the sub-committees in HEFCW and they are revising the process as a consequence. So, I think we can be confident that there are ambitious targets that are monitored, and, periodically, the system as a whole is reviewed. +Michelle Brown AM: Can you tell us what sort of research and data the universities are basing those access plans on? I assume they'll all have slightly different methods—I appreciate that—but can you give us any idea of how they actually formulate these access plans? +Huw Morris: So, there are data collected across the UK by a body called the Higher Education Statistics Agency. They produce detailed breakdowns, along with UCAS, of where applicants come from, which institutions did they study at, what courses, what their particular characteristics are, including their socioeconomic status, and that data is then analysed at a UK level and in Wales, through HEFCW and its agents, to track what's happening at different institutions at different stages, not just in terms of who's applying and who gets access, but who progresses and what happens to people once they've graduated. +Michelle Brown AM: So, there is already data there. I'm just wondering how that data that's already there differs from the research and analysis that you were talking about in your paper. They must be different, then. What specific analysis and research were you referring to in your paper? +Kirsty Williams AM: We use the HESA—. It is HESA, isn't it? +Huw Morris: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's shorthand—the HESA data, and institutions use that. We also then use WISERD and other organisations to supplement that piece of work. I think there is a challenge to some of this going forward. So, the Office for Students in England now is having some discussions about access to HESA data. This is a source of real concern to me, that Welsh institutions may not be able to have the ready access to that data because of changes the OfS may be making. So, we supplement where we think that there's value to be added in additional breakdowns, or in additional slicing of data and understanding of what is motivating people to come forward. +Huw Morris: And to give you a specific example of that as it applies in north Wales—. So, take a university like Wrexham Glyndŵr University; they have quite a large intake of mature students. The data that's collected and analysed at a UK level tends to look at people who are going into university at a young age, not a mature profile. So, some of the analysis that we do in Wales—indeed, the deliberations of the sub-committee that I spoke about earlier—is about how do we make sure that those differences in Wales are reflected in the data and reflected in the targets that are set. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Cabinet Secretary, are you in favour of more university mergers? +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't use the word 'agnostic', but what I'm in favour of is a healthy, strong and sustainable HE sector. If individual institutions wish to collaborate or, indeed, go further to a formal merger then, obviously, that is a matter for them. We're not pursuing or urging a policy of mergers, but, if individual institutions feel that is of benefit to them and their students, obviously, we would have an interest in that and making sure that they were robust plans, but that's a matter for individual institutions. +Hefin David AM: But HEFCW are pushing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, what HEFCW are interested in is a sustainable HE sector that is strong but, as I said, I do not have a burning desire or a set policy to try and pursue mergers. +Hefin David AM: Okay. That's a little bit of a contrast with your predecessors, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that's a matter for them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The reason I say it is because I was kind of on the inside when Cardiff Metropolitan University was under pressure from the then Minister to merge with the University of Glamorgan and Newport. It was a very difficult time for staff and, indeed, for students. You had the University and College Union and the Minister pushing it; the vice-chancellor of Cardiff Met at the time very much against it. So, do you think that it's really—? You're agnostic, but do you think perhaps it's not worth the disruption that can occur to staff and students? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Hefin, I have no formal policy for reconfiguration or mergers. That's not to say I don't believe in collaboration between institutions. Going back to the issue of ITE, a very interesting programme came forward from Cardiff Met and Cardiff University for their ITE provision. So, I'm all for universities and institutions working together, but there's no formal policy. These are autonomous institutions. If they see that there is an advantage—I would hope for the student first, and, if we put the student at the front of this process, then we would obviously have an interest in that and making sure that that was the right thing to do. But, certainly, there is no pressure from us as a Government to pursue an agenda of mergers. +Hefin David AM: Just to be clear, then, that's likely to be a policy for the foreseeable future as well; you're not going to change that view. +Kirsty Williams AM: I have no intentions at this stage, but 'Events, dear boy'. [Laughter.] You know, sometimes there may be a situation that I cannot foresee at this moment that would necessitate, for the benefit of students, the benefit of Wales, a merger. So, never say never, but, at this point in time, I do not foresee us changing that policy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie on this. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, just looking back at that time, which I remember very vividly— +Hefin David AM: So do I. +Julie Morgan AM: I had many meetings with Cardiff Met. Do you feel there has been any disadvantage to Cardiff Met because that merger didn't go ahead? +Kirsty Williams AM: I, personally, am not aware of any disadvantage to Cardiff Met, but I would recognise—I would absolutely recognise—for staff and students caught up in those deliberations and those issues, then that would have had a personal impact on them. In terms of the institution going forward, I'm not aware that they are currently struggling with any disadvantage from that discussion. And, as I said, I'm really heartened by some of the really interesting collaborative work that Cardiff Met are interested in doing, and new partnerships and new collaborations between institutions, whether that be Cardiff Uni or local colleges, and I think that's to be welcomed. +Julie Morgan AM: So, following on from what Hefin said, was it worth all the fuss? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, look, as it's turned out, we have a strong institution in Cardiff Met, and I think, rather than looking at the past, we need to look at the future. But, of course, there was some reconfiguration and we need to understand any lessons that arose out of reconfiguration, and HEFCW are currently doing some work, actually, to look at reconfiguration, the experience of reconfiguration that did happen, and were benefits realised and what are the lessons that can be learned from that process. So, they are doing a piece of work to reflect, and that will, perhaps, help inform us as we go forward. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd just say—Julie Morgan was one of our heroes at the time, I've got to say. +Eluned Morgan AM: She always is. +Hefin David AM: And still is. If I turn that on its head and have a look at University of South Wales, one of the concerns I'm getting from former colleagues and staff is that the Newport aspect—because it was a merger between Newport and the University of Glamorgan—has been somewhat denuded by the merger, and the amount of activity in the new Newport campus and elsewhere in Newport has been reduced by the merger. Are you aware of those concerns that staff may have? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, it's not for me to second-guess the judgment of previous Ministers who pursued— +Hefin David AM: But it's happening now, I mean. +Kirsty Williams AM: —a particular policy agenda. With regard to Newport, we are aware of concerns. Obviously, one campus closed completely, and there are concerns about the level of activity at the new campus. And we continue to discuss with the University of South Wales and the local FE college what offer is available to the local population, but also the wider contribution that that institution can make to the rest of Wales, and we continue to have conversations with both the college and the university about utilisation of the facilities in Newport and opportunities that could be made available in Newport. +Hefin David AM: That's interesting, because that's the first time I've heard it confirmed from the Government that those concerns that have been raised by former staff and colleagues in Newport are actually echoed by yourself, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, we're aware of them. We take our time to listen to people. When people raise issues with us, we take them seriously. Clearly, going back to the point that I believe Suzy made about geographical coverage, we want to make sure that FE and HE opportunities are available for people throughout Wales, and we continue to work with providers in that area to explore what can be done to enhance the opportunities. +Hefin David AM: And, from a financial point of view, they had £25 million for the merger. Are you satisfied that's value for money, and, at this point in the 10-year plan, that things are going as they should, with incomes being squeezed across the sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's difficult, isn't it, to second-guess what would have happened, what might have happened, if the merger hadn't gone ahead, around the financial stability and sustainability of an institution. How do you prove that, if that hadn't happened, something worse or something better might have happened? It's difficult to do that and to second-guess those judgments, but, as I've said, what I am interested in—. And I can't change that decision that was made by a previous Minister—it wasn't my decision—but what I can do is to ensure that any lessons learnt, any evaluation of that particular set of circumstances, can be looked at and can help inform future policy, which is why HEFCW is doing the piece of work. When that's published, you and I will be in a better position to understand whether the aspirations of that particular merger were realised, not realised, and if we were in that situation again, could we do it better next time? +Hefin David AM: Okay, so you'll reflect on that later. At this point in time, you don't have any concerns about the long-term sustainability of the University of South Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The Welsh Government's draft outline budget for 2019 states that it will continue to provide £20 million to further and higher education in 2019-20. Can you outline how this will be allocated between HE and FE and if conditions will be attached to the funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Janet, you will have to wait until the end of the month, when the detailed, main expenditure group by main expenditure group lines of the budget are published, otherwise I will be stealing the finance Minister's thunder. There is a process by which the Welsh Government's budget is dealt with, and those details will emerge later on this month. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But can I just say on conditions—? You will be aware that there are conditions attached to Government spend, both in the FE sector and in the HE sector. Those budgets will be subject to those existing arrangements; so, for instance, in the HE sector, the remit letter to HEFCW. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on funding, generally? Sorry. Because, we did talk about HEFCW and part-time funding earlier, and I'm not sure that we addressed the issue of this £12.5 million cut in a specific budget line from HEFCW, because what they've done, if I understand correctly, is that they've put four priorities into one budget line, which includes part-time teaching, and cut that budget line by £12.5 million. Are you not concerned that that'll have an impact on part-time teaching, given that it's such a success story that you're proud of? +Kirsty Williams AM: HEFCW have to take cognisance of the remit letter, but then, ultimately, they are free to allocate resources as they see fit. What will drive part-time provision is the students taking it up, and universities responding to that desire and that need within their institutions. So, at this moment, I don't have any concerns. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to look at the parity of esteem between academic and vocational post-16 education. The first question is from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. Welsh Government wants to achieve parity of esteem between academic and vocational education, and I think that's a very laudable aim. Higher apprenticeships are a key part of this, but Estyn's recent inspection found that only four providers from 17 were achieving good outcomes for learners. What action do you propose to take about this, to make sure that those learners have much better outcomes across the board? +Eluned Morgan AM: First of all, just to make it clear that that is very much our intention. I think we have got work to do to make sure that we do reach that parity of esteem, but let's be clear that, in relation to these higher level apprenticeships, we were concerned that, actually, we weren't doing as well, perhaps, as we should be, which is why we commissioned Estyn to look at this specifically, and what it was that we were doing well, and what we needed to improve on. One of the things that we found is that we are doing very well in relation to foundation courses in terms of attainment—we've got 83 per cent attainment levels—but if you look at that at higher level apprenticeships, then we've got 77 per cent, so what is going wrong there? But, also, it's worth underlining the fact that, actually, we're still miles ahead of England, who are only reaching levels of about 61 per cent. So, we're already doing much better than England, but we're ambitious, and we want to make sure that if we are serious about this parity of esteem, how do we get there if we're not offering the kind of quality that we'd like to see in those higher level apprenticeships? So, some of the recommendations in that report, we'll be taking up. We want to increase the number of new employers and mentors within the system. I think we're also very keen to make sure that people don't repeat learning that they've already done. That's a danger and it takes up too much time. So, there are lots of these recommendations that now we'll set in motion, and I think the important thing for us then is to understand that, in relation to who's doing well and who's not doing well in the FE sector, the bulk of where that finance goes is actually doing quite well. It's pushing some of the private sector providers where we need to actually make sure that the quality is where we want it to be, and is, very importantly, matching the needs of employers. So, we've constantly got to be looking at the courses: are they responding to the needs of the market and what employers are looking for? And that means revising the offer sometimes in terms of the courses. +Michelle Brown AM: Where are the difficulties arising—? You refer to difficulties arising with the private providers. What are those difficulties? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, some of it is about, perhaps, not giving the kind of guidance that we'd like them to give in-house. So, they're perhaps not doing the kind of on-the-job work that we'd like them to do. So, I think it's making sure that, when they're in the workplace, they are still being pushed to attain those levels. But I think it's clear that what we need to do is to also listen to what the advisory board that we've set up in relation to apprenticeships is also asking us, and we've got the Confederation of British Industry advising us on that as well. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you have a service level agreement with the private providers? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. I mean, the whole thing is under a tender procedure, obviously, and we will be revising that soon. There'll be a new apprenticeship procurement process that we'll be undergoing and starting to look at that process next year. So, there's an opportunity there for us to drive change in the system. +Michelle Brown AM: Would you be willing to share the targets under the SLA with the committee? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think the—. I can't see that there'd be a problem with that, so I'm sure we could do that, but I think the way to make people move, quite often, is through making sure that you put the finances where they need to be, and then they're likely to shift. And, so, I think, in responding to this Estyn report, we can then build that into the next framework. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you. Right, I wanted to ask about the investment. If we're going to get parity of esteem, we've got to, probably, get more investment in. Could you say why there isn't more investment in degree, and there doesn't seem to be any investment in Master's-level apprenticeships at universities? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think we've got to be careful that what happens is that the state doesn't pick up what, currently, people are prepared to pay for themselves, and, so, we've got to just make sure that that balance is right. So, what's happened in England, for example, is lots of people who were previously sitting Master of business administration courses, for example, are now switching into apprenticeship programmes. So, the system—it means that, previously, they were prepared to pay and now the state is paying or the employer's playing it in a slightly different way. So, I think we've got to just be aware about how—making sure that we don't get employers passing that responsibility that, actually, they have to upskill and to uptrain their workers and pass it back on to the state, whereas, actually, they need to step up as well as employers. +Julie Morgan AM: So, how are you going to judge that? How are you going to tell when, maybe, you should start putting some money in? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, what we are doing is we're putting money into areas where we know there are skills shortages. So, we're focusing where we want those apprenticeships—and particularly at the higher level—to be. So, for example, we're looking at ICT; we're looking at construction. There are areas where we definitely need to be focusing our attention. So, that's where we'll be prioritising our funding, and that's what we're doing already. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that's for degree-level apprenticeships, not Master's. Just degree-level apprenticeships. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. And then, in terms of getting data, could you clarify the progress on developing outcome and destination data for higher apprenticeships? Your plan seems to suggest that data won't be available until 2020-21, at the end of the programme. +Eluned Morgan AM: And that's because we're only just starting on this, and it takes a long time for people to complete an apprenticeship. So, we won't have anybody going from the higher level apprenticeship into a destination until around 2021, so there's no point in measuring that until that point. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And then, can you tell us when you'll publish Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's new operational plan to develop post-16 Welsh-medium provision, which was presented during July, and clarify if the plan requires additional funding? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, there is a report that was published in July, and we are waiting for the operational actions from that report to be published, probably within the next month. In terms of the implementation of that programme, some of that journey has already begun, so they're not waiting for the report to—. We're not waiting for the actions to be very clearly set out; actually, some of that work has been done. For example, already, there's been a review of the governance. We're also looking at the kind of research that needs to be done in that area. I think what's clear, and something that's very much driving me as the Welsh language Minister, is this understanding that you reach 16 and you get this fall off a cliff in terms of the number of people who actually speak and use Welsh. So, that's the thing that we need to address, and that's why moving now into that area of further education is crucial. And the report, written by Delyth Evans, did suggest that we do need to move into this area but, actually, there wasn't necessarily a need for further funding in that area. But it may be something that we will consider, but it's something that we'll try and absorb, perhaps, from within the department. +Kirsty Williams AM: A relatively modest amount of money was being made available this year to be able to kick-start some of this work, but we are mindful of the recommendations from the Evans report. So, future allocations will have to reflect the priorities within the implementation plan, and that's not just money that goes directly to y coleg, but also trying to get better alignment between other budget lines that support the Welsh language, and making sure that all budget lines that could help on this agenda are aligned to the recommendations and the implementation report. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Just on coleg cenedlaethol's extended remit, have you had—? I haven't read the Evans report, but is there anything in there about the role of increased use of Welsh in adult community learning, for example? That's a further education pot, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes, it is, and we are very much in touch with adult community learning, and they are aware of the responsibilities they have in relation to the Welsh language. The issue, of course, with adult education, is that they have undergone some quite dramatic cuts. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, I don't mean the higher education sector that's taken over responsibility for this; I'm talking about community learning, low level, just having Welsh there. And, you know, as you mentioned yourself, post 16, people stop using it, so getting it in wherever you can as part of a strategy. +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. They're aware of that responsibility and we— +Suzy Davies AM: They're free to choose partners, then, are they, to help them deliver that? +Eluned Morgan AM: And also to work with the new organisation that we've set up to promote the learning of Welsh, in particular, that is based in Carmarthen. So, that's something also that's being driven, and they're working closely, I think, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, great, thanks. +Kirsty Williams AM: There's lots of innovative practice. So, for instance, up in Wrexham, if a student has gone into the college to do A-levels, then they may decide to do those A-levels through the medium of English. But if they were previously in a Welsh-medium school, they are actively encouraged—indeed, persuaded—to do their Welsh baccalaureate through the medium of Welsh. So, they may be doing their A-levels in English, but if they've come from a Welsh-medium school, the college proactively seeks them out and makes sure that there is provision for them to do their Welsh bac qualification through the medium of Welsh, or, for instance, they are working very hard to form tutor groups. So, the tutor group—you might be doing your qualifications in English, but your tutor group will be a Welsh-medium tutor group, so that you are placed with other students who have come from Welsh-medium schools, and your tutor does all that tutor work through the medium of Welsh. So, there are other ways in which we can continue to help support children's linguistic ability, even if they have made a decision not to formally study their A-levels, for instance, or a course, through the medium of Welsh, and we're constantly looking at new ways. I think one particular aspect of the market—if we call it that word—that we're interested in are those students who've been to Welsh-medium schools, but at 16, perhaps, as I say, decide to go to a college. So, for instance, here in Cardiff, looking at childcare, and the opportunity—you know, there's a sector where we know we need a Welsh-medium workforce. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, definitely. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, again, it's trying to target those children, and track them from a previous Welsh-medium education into a college, capturing their language skills, and finding ways in which they can use them. Merthyr college—there's a Welsh-medium champion in Merthyr college actively looking for children who have come from a Welsh-medium background, and they are allocated roles as Welsh-medium champions within the college, to promote. So, there are lots of innovative ways, especially in the FE sector, that they're looking to keep children's linguistic skills relevant, and they're using them, even if they make that decision to switch the language of their tuition. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's encouraging to hear. My question was about community learning, where it's essentially older people who perhaps are coming back to education in a way that wasn't as formal as it was before, if I can put it like that—so we don't lose sight of them as well. I've still got an abiding worry that there's a cohort in the middle here of people who we might lose, and maybe pass on bad attitudes towards the Welsh language to their children, despite the fact that those children now have huge opportunities to absorb Welsh language skills and make the most of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I'd like to ask about the regional skills partnership—partnerships, I should say—because they are having a direct influence now on courses and provision in FE, and with degree apprenticeships in universities as well. You, I believe, received the Graystone review back in March, so could you tell us a bit about what was in it, and what the recommendations are? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, some of the recommendations—. So, we wanted to review it because it's still relatively new. They've only been up and running about two or three years. He brought out some positives—things that we, I think, are doing well. I think they found that the voluntary partnership approach was quite effective. He did suggest that, actually, what they need to be producing is much shorter, sharper, focused reports. There was a suggestion of a lack of transparency, in terms of reporting from those regional skills partnerships, and that's obviously something now that we've undertaken to review. And there, I think, is an understanding that what we need to do now is to put in place those changes. But, on the whole, what we've done is to reinforce our commitment to the regional skills partnerships, and in particular now, through allocating £10 million to further education colleges to respond directly to the wishes and the desires of the regional skills partnerships, you can see actually the status of the regional skills partnerships has just grown significantly. Because now there is an outcome as a result of their recommendations. So, you've seen quite a dramatic shift, I think, in the respect for regional skills partnerships over the past year. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are there any recommendations in terms of governance as well— +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: —because, clearly, there may have been concerns about the way that people ended up being members of the partnerships? You touched on transparency—clearly, that's an issue as well. So, just particularly on governance—. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, on governance, I think there was an understanding that that needs to be looked at again, and that we need to get the right people around the table. And what is interesting is, I think, because it was a voluntary approach, because now people can see an outcome, we're getting different people now really showing an interest in being a part of the regional skills partnerships. So, governance is something again we're going to be addressing and following up the recommendations on in that Graystone review. Is there anything to add to that? +Huw Morris: Well, I was just going to say, I don't see why we couldn't share the review with you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That was going to be my next question. +Huw Morris: That might be helpful. And we are actioning the recommendations from that review. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The normal course of action would be, of course, to have published it and then to publish a Government response. Any reason why that wasn't done? I find it quite strange that you're saying that you're actually actioning the report and you still haven't published it. As a committee, we've not been party to any of that, really. +Eluned Morgan AM: I don't see why that can't be done. There's nothing to hide here, so why wouldn't we? We're the people who commissioned the report— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'm the one asking the questions. [Laughter.] No, but you're right. I just find it strange. I just find it odd that that hasn't been published. +Eluned Morgan AM: Okay. Well, we'll certainly get a copy of that to you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. +Huw Morris: May I just say: we ask a number of people periodically to comment on what we do, and agencies we work with do the same. The status of those reports varies. I don't suppose we'd anticipated there would be the interest in this issue that there is and so, as the Minister said, there's no problem that I can see with that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do you have a timeline in terms of by when you want to introduce some of the reforms that you're looking at now, because of this report? +Eluned Morgan AM: Some of them have already been introduced, so we're not waiting. The transparency issue that I think there was a bit of concern about—that's already been introduced. So, it's just about making sure that people understand what is going on in these regional skills partnerships. I think that's really important— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, quite, given the influence that they have now. Yes, sure. Just another short one on the regional skills partnerships, really: how effective are they in supporting the planning and delivery of Welsh-medium provision in post-16? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think there's more we can do in relation to that. But I think there are aspects where we're already changing in respect of specific sectors. So, if you think about the care sector, for example, what we do need is more people who have those skills to speak through the medium of Welsh in the care sector. And, coming back to the point that was made earlier, what we're doing now is looking at the curriculum: to what extent can we include—? You don't have to do your whole course through the medium of Welsh, but there are aspects that would be very useful. So, those kind of things are being taken on board now in terms of the courses. One of the things that the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol are looking at is building the resources that will be needed in order to mainstream those into, in particular, those front-line service areas where we have a skills shortage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, you know that this committee has taken a very keen interest in the emotional and mental health of our young people. In the summer, the English universities Minister made an announcement about the development of a new mental health charter. That followed some concerns about young people dying by suicide across the UK. Is Welsh Government expecting Welsh universities to sign up to that charter or are you planning to work on your own? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you for raising this. I think it's really important that whilst for many, many, many young people moving away from home and starting their degree course is an incredibly exciting time and something they look forward to hugely, it can bring significant stresses with it, especially for first-year students, who, as I said, are moving away, perhaps are suddenly responsible for finances in a way they've never been responsible for, for all the day-to-day living that perhaps they've relied on other people to assist them with. So, it can be quite a stressful time. So, it is right that we look at how we can support health and well-being for students, especially mental health and mental resilience. So, I very much welcome the work on the mental health charter, and HEFCW are engaged and keeping a very close eye on what's going on to see the opportunities for Welsh universities to participate in that. But this was on a recent agenda item that I had with HEFCW, and indeed with the vice-chancellors, when I met them last week, or the week before last. So, they are developing their own strategic approach to well-being and health for students, which will be underpinned by a co-created action plan with the universities themselves on supporting students with mental health problems in particular. So, the strategic approach and the action plan are being developed by HEFCW at the moment and HEFCW are also meeting with colleagues from England and Scotland to see the opportunities for a universal approach across the UK to supporting students. The universities, when I met with them recently, all shared a commitment to do better in this particular area. One, because it's the right thing to do, but, actually, stopping people from dropping out and not completing their courses obviously is of a financial benefit to the institution. So, it's actually the right thing to do for their students, they want to do it for that reason, but, actually, there is a strong financial underpinning to ensure that students complete their studies. So, it's looking at, again, each university looking at individual approaches of how better they can do that. But it's not just responding to students who become unwell, it's actually, 'What can we do to in the campus to maintain good mental health?' So, rather than just trying to fix a problem once it's occurred, it's 'What can we do?' And you'll be aware of individual institutions taking different approaches. It's not something that we dictate, but individual institutions—when they do exams, how work is assessed and marked and graded—are taking different steps to promote well-being, as well as then responding to situations where students become unwell. We do know that financial pressures can be a source of huge stress for students, so we are constantly working with the Student Loans Company to make sure that the services that they offer to people are as good as they can be, and that there are no unnecessary delays that, perhaps, put a student under pressure or give students worries about their financial situation. And I would argue our Diamond reforms, which allow students access to a living wage—for some students, completely by a grant, for some students, a combination of grant and loan, with no expectation at all that your parents will contribute, which is not the case in other places where there is an expectation of parental contribution—that actually, hopefully, addresses some of those financial worries that some students may have. But I am aware that if people are waiting for their grant or people are waiting for their payments, that can be a source of stress. So, ensuring that we have good performance by the Student Loans Company is crucial. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And I'm sure the committee's very interested to hear the update on that. Are you able to give us any indication of timescale by which you'd expect HEFCW and the individual universities to actually have this work in place? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not sure, but I will write to the committee and let you know. In fact, we can probably provide, from Universities Wales and from the work that's going on centrally, a list of proposals that are being undertaken. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next question is from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to ask you about the pay dispute, and I know that you're not the employer, because I know that's going to be the first answer— +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, that is the first answer. [Laughter.] Well anticipated. +Dawn Bowden AM: But we are in a stalemate here and you clearly have an interest in making sure that this dispute is resolved quickly in the interest of the students and the reputation of the colleges et cetera, et cetera. I can see how this dispute has arisen. When we've seen the teachers' pay settlement, we've seen FE settlements in England and Scotland higher than what's on the table here. And I am concerned, and I do think this is where the Welsh Government does have a role, because I am concerned that the employers seem to be using the funding issue as the reason not to have a reasonable settlement with staff. So, they've walked away from the table, they've said, 'One per cent, take it or leave it. Unless Welsh Government gives us any more money, that's the end of that.' And I'm really concerned about that, because this is potentially going to have a major impact on whether we can recruit and retain staff in FE colleges. And I look at the college in my constituency, Merthyr college—it's a tertiary college, they're providing A-level education across Merthyr and they're astounding results they've been getting as well. I'm coming round to the question in a moment. It's really: what more do you think you can do as a Government to try to get these parties back round the table and not allow the dispute to become a political football? +Eluned Morgan AM: Thanks very much for that. I think, first of all, you're absolutely right—this is about ColegauCymru's negotiation, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation. I think it's probably worth emphasising that the reason this has come about, or part of the reason, is because you've seen that pay settlement in relation to teachers' pay and we've had the consequential. So, sixth-form teachers are happy. The people actually providing the same teaching course in a different institution, you can understand why they may say, 'Something needs to change here.' The problem here is that it's about that, actually, that falls to the Welsh Government. We don't have that. Or at least it falls to FE colleges to fund that, and it's up to them to come up with that proposal. We are keeping a close eye on things. I think it's fair to say that we'll wait until they get further along down the line, but we are extremely aware of the sensitivities of the situation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you for that, Minister. When you say you're keeping a close eye on it, have you actually had conversations with ColegauCymru? Because I note what you just said there: 'We'll keep an eye on it and wait and see what's happening.' Well, all the unions are currently consulting. One has already balloted for industrial action. We could have the other unions also balloting for industrial action. I mean, this isn't something we want in the FE sector, clearly, so is there anything more proactive that Government could actually be doing to try to bring a resolution to this dispute? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we are listening and speaking to ColegauCymru, and also we're aware of what the unions are saying as well. So, I think that's probably as far as we can go at this point. When they come to a conclusion, and when they come to us and say, 'Look, this is the consequence and this will finish'—at this point, we have no idea where that settlement is likely to fall. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. Yes, we wouldn't expect you to make an announcement on this, because it's happening outside of Government, but there is a principle here, isn't there, in terms of pay equality between schoolteachers and FE? So, would you not wish to see a situation where we do have greater equality in that respect? +Eluned Morgan AM: In relation to teaching, I think it's fair to say that we would wish to see pay equality in relation to teaching, yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thank you. You emphasise 'in relation to teaching'—my next question is that, of course, within FE establishments you have teaching staff and non-teaching staff, and if there was to be some sort of increase, then would you not expect all staff to have that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, let's see—that's up to ColegauCymru to negotiate and to discuss, so let's see what the outcomes are. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because some of the non-teaching staff are the lowest paid, as well, aren't they? So, you know—. +Eluned Morgan AM: Let's wait for the outcome of the negotiations. I think we are very aware of the situation. ColegauCymru are in that negotiation. We're aware of what the requests are from the trade union members, and we'll wait to see what they come up with before responding formally. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Could I just briefly as well ask about pensions, because that's coming down the line, potentially, isn't it, and the impact that's going to have on FE? One college was saying it will cost them £1 million if it happens next year. Are you thinking about any steps that you could take to support them, potentially, because obviously this is coming down the line, really, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think, already, we've got the situation in relation to teachers, and again what we've seen is the consequential and the UK Government honouring that. Again, what we don't have, necessarily, is that money coming down from the UK Government for us to be able to support it in the way that we might like to. It's early days on this, but it's something, again, we're keeping an eye on. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The fundamental question, really, is: if the money doesn't come down the line from Westminster, are you in a position to underwrite that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we'll wait until we see that situation arising, but we're aware that that is an issue that we're going to have to deal with in future. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: In relation to the pay dispute, it's the committee's understanding that ColegauCymru's position is that, in order to meet a pay award that is commensurate with schoolteachers, an additional 3.5 per cent or £10.1 million is needed. Are you aware of that being their position? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are aware of their position, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question is from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: You will have had, Cabinet Secretary, a letter from Professor Colin Riordan on 26 September regarding essay mills, in which he refers to the other letter that was sent by him and 39 vice-chancellors regarding essay mills and the fact that it's legalised cheating. In the letter—it was actually to me—that was copied to you, he says: 'We have requested the UK Government commission the QAA to publish a draft Bill by or before the beginning of the next parliamentary session. We've also requested the Department for Education give support to the establishment of a UK centre for academic integrity, which would research, analyse and combat academic misconduct. Any support that the Welsh Government can provide in this regard will also be appreciated, so I'm copying this letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Education.' Can you just give me your opinions on that, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think 'legalised cheating' is a polite way of describing what goes on. My officials have been in touch with their counterparts in the UK Government to see if we can co-ordinate a UK approach, which I think is necessary. I don't think there's any merit in us trying to do this on our own; it would be pointless. I hope that we can agree a formal approach as quickly as possible, and I will take every opportunity—. We're trying to establish a meeting with the UK Minister for HE before Christmas, and I will take every opportunity that I can to ensure that we can take some very, very strong action in this regard. But it does have to be done at a UK level. I want people who attend our universities and who work hard to achieve the grades that they get not to be disadvantaged by people who look to find an easy way out and are not willing to put—. I think it undermines the individual effort of individual students who are doing the right things, as well as the integrity of our system. I'm proud of the quality of the system that we have in the Welsh HE sector, and I want that maintained. I hope that we can agree a UK approach to ending this practice. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And in addition to the specifics regarding the quality assurance agency and the proposed centre for academic integrity, let's be clear: what we're talking about it outlawing those websites that offer to write essays for cash. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And quite often, very bad ones as well. [Laughter.] My understanding is— +Hefin David AM: Well, they get through the system and they guarantee—. The websites, and I've experienced this, and I mentioned it in First Minister's questions— +Kirsty Williams AM: You did. +Hefin David AM: The websites say to you, 'Unless you tell anyone, you won't get caught', and students are believing that. The new student grant system—some of that money will go to these websites. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, and, unlike you, I have no experience of this myself— +Hefin David AM: Well, I have experience of it. I've not done it, but I've experienced it. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm so old, Hefin, that such internet sites didn't exist when I was a student. [Laughter.] But, you know, I'm sure you listened to it too: a recent article, on a radio station, where, actually, it was an experiment just like you did—a student deliberately went through this process to expose, but, actually, what they got in return wasn't even very good. It was a particularly poor essay on the portrayal of women in Victorian literature, so they weren't even getting very good value for their money. [Laughter.] But, clearly, this is a terrible and abhorrent practice in our system, and, as I said, I will do everything that I can to work with colleagues across the United Kingdom to find a solution to this. If I thought it would help if we did it on our own, we could do that, but it won't help if we act unilaterally. It has to be a UK approach. +Hefin David AM: And just—final question—with regard to the representations you've made, do you feel that the UK Government is open to this course of action? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, officials are the ones who have had those direct, face-to-face conversations, rather than me. I hope to do that when I meet the Minister, hopefully before Christmas. Huw, would you like to comment? +Huw Morris: We haven't had anything formally, but I understand from what I've heard in England that there is an interest to do something. Whether that will take the form of a Bill in the timescale you've outlined, I'm not sure, but as the Minister said, we'll be exploring that with officials through the ministerial meetings. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering all our questions? As usual, you'll have a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education regarding eligibility criteria for free school meals. I'd like to return briefly to that when we go into private. Paper to note 2: a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3: also from that Minister, which is his response to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on the Bill. And paper to note 4: also a letter from that Minister to the Finance Committee on the Bill. And the final paper to note is from Mind Cymru regarding the task and finish group on a whole-school approach to mental health, and I will update Members on that when we go into private. Happy to note those? Item 4, then: can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +","The summary of the conversation is as follows: + +The committee meeting began with Lynne Neagle AM welcoming attendees and acknowledging the absence of Dawn Bowden, as well as formally welcoming her to the committee. Thanks were given to John Griffiths for his service. A session focused on higher and further education continued with Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Eluned Morgan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning; and Huw Morris, Group Director of Skills, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning. The first questions from Suzy Davies AM were about secondary school teacher training, recruitment challenges, and incentives to train teachers. They discussed the complexities of teacher recruitment on a global scale and strategies to address it, including financial incentives, targeted recruitment, and alternative qualification routes. + +Suzy Davies sought to understand the root causes discouraging potential teachers and inquired about efforts to increase the number of teachers trained to instruct through the medium of Welsh. Kirsty Williams recognized ongoing recruitment issues despite financial incentives, introducing different routes into teaching, and established an advisory board. Eluned Morgan discussed maintaining Welsh language skills amongst learners. + +Llyr Gruffydd AM raised concerns about significant declines in Welsh-medium teacher training and sought clarity on targets for increasing teacher numbers. Kirsty Williams and Eluned Morgan elaborated on the responses and the steps taken to improve recruitment and retention, such as new incentives for Welsh-medium training, though acknowledging the necessity of a step change to meet ambitious targets. + +Discussions continued with questions from other committee members on higher and further education funding, the viability of university mergers, the regional skills partnerships, and monitoring the emotional and mental health of students in HE institutions. Additionally, there was concern about the FE pay dispute potentially impacting recruitment and retention, with Minister Eluned Morgan noting that negotiations were ongoing, and the Welsh Government was carefully monitoring the situation. + +Finally, Hefin David AM queried the Cabinet Secretary's stance on illegal essay mills and requested her opinion on UK-wide legislative action to outlaw them, to which the Cabinet Secretary expressed strong support and the intent to work collaboratively across the UK on a solution. + +The meeting concluded with the committee noting papers on various topics such as eligibility criteria for free school meals, Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill responses, and Mind Cymru's contribution to the task and finish group on a whole-school approach to mental health. The committee then resolved to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Excellent . So um I sent you the agenda , it was on the {disfmarker} in the project documents . I don't know if you got a chance to just have a look at it . Anyway , it's {disfmarker} the meeting's gonna follow more or less the same structure as last time , so we'll go round each of you in turn and you can give your presentations on what you've been up to . Um and at the end of that we need to discuss what you've come up with , so that we can make a decision on the key remote control concepts , so that's {disfmarker} we need to know about the components' properties , materials , the user interface and any trends that the Marketing Expert has been watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , do you wanna start again ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've got forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: so I haven't made a PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You haven't made a PowerPoint , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I I thought I'll use the whiteboard instead . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um mm , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's hope the pen holds out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so basically I'll start off by {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} I thought I'll use the whiteboard because we have so many different options and what we can do is that we can start um uh rubbing off the options that we do not require and putting in the options that uh are m or highlighting or underlining them or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh I'll start again with a brief introduction to {disfmarker} connect that anyway {disfmarker} brief introduction to the insides of a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh then we can probably uh discuss the various components . Yeah . Okay , so w what you see here is {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} this is the outside of the remote , right ? If you open it , you have a circuit board here , right , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is the chip that I was talking about last time . This basically sends information to a tr uh transistor here , which then uh sends the information to an L_E_D_ device here . If you flip the printed circuit board , and this is th the most important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh {vocalsound} everything else is kind of {disfmarker} Okay , so if you flip the circuit board , this is what it looks like . So you see for example a particular button attaches to a particular place on the P_C_B_ and uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: on pressing this button I {disfmarker} a circuit completes , the information goes to the chip , which is somewhere here and the chip that tra then translates the code into an infra infrared radiation , which goes goes out through there . {vocalsound} So uh the important point that I read over the website was uh that the configurations of these printed circuit circuit boards uh are quite cheap to make , you can ge get them printed as you want to , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so w we can have a configuration um irrespective of the cost , the way we want to have . Right ? So that's the important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so these are the different options that we have . Okay . So the batteries , I'll start with the battery , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So they can be simple which is like uh the normal batteries in uh our {disfmarker} uh the cells , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thes these are the kind {disfmarker} different kind of batteries that the company makes , right ? So . And dynamos . Um {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does that mean like a wind-up one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A wind-up remote . +Industrial Designer: So uh I don't know if {disfmarker} even if you want to consider this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but these are the different things that the company makes , so th they'll they'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: since uh they'll come internally from the company , they'll be eas uh cheaper , uh all these options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} the third one is uh the kinetic energy ones . +Marketing: You could make the hand dynamo into an exercise bike , and then people could exercise whilst watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And charging their remote , +Marketing: Yeah , and stop worrying about the whole R_S_I_ from the remote thing , 'cause that's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a good option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what was what was this k ka +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic energy one is uh that e uh uh they are usually modern watches , since our hand keeps moving , it keeps the watch ticking . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I dunno i if it is a good idea for a remote control , because it'll just lie there for a long while sometimes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . For a remote , 'cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But as soon as you pick it up it moves and then again it uh re recharges or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the fourth option is the solar cells , which are also {vocalsound} made by the company . +Marketing: Yay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Environment friendly . Okay {vocalsound} um so I'll list things and then we can come back and discuss what what we think from uh everybody's perspective . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: There are different cases that can be provided . They can be {disfmarker} basically the shape of the cases , they can be flat , they can be curved with uh one-sided curved and one side flat , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they can be curved with {disfmarker} on both the sides . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These are the three options , right ? Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um you mean this would be like the the overall shape of the remote control , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , would it be flat on both the sides , would be curved from one side , or whatever {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm-hmm . Yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh there were different kind of supplements available , um like it can be in plastic , rubber , wood , or titanium , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Wo wo wood . +Marketing: Did you say wool ? +Project Manager: Wood , wood . +Marketing: Wood . Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Not wool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A fluffy remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you'll understand why when we get to my presenta {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: so uh we can use even um {vocalsound} a certain titanium is also used uh in the company to make uh {vocalsound} uh some space design equipment , so it's kind of um uh it'll be probably nicer to use , because it relates to the overall image of the company , but uh it cannot be used on a double curved surface . If we choose this , we cannot use titanium . For for these two we can use titanium , wood , rubber , or plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , the interface options now . So {vocalsound} we can have push-buttons , like most remotes do and our company is an expert in making push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Uh we can have scroll wheels like the ones on um uh mouse pointers uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sony . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Sony Ericsson mobile phones has it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , and they have {disfmarker} they can even have an an integrated uh push-button inside the scrolling thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The scroll plus push . So this is something that has been recently developed by the company , um {vocalsound} in the last decade , so not too recent . And L_C_D_s , we can have L_C_D_s . So these two are recent and and this is q quite old . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The various electronic options are um uh {vocalsound} so th this concerns firs first of all the the chips I I showed you at uh {disfmarker} so there's there's a chip behind this one , right ? The P_C_B_ is uh inexpensive , so we can put put in uh whatever we want , but the various integrated circuit options are , we have either a simple one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or a regular or advanced . And uh the price goes up as we go down , obviously . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , so the good thing about uh wh wh why why we would want to use advanced u why we might want to use advanced is that L_C_D_s can only come with the advanced chip . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} we need regular or advanced for uh scroll wheels . Right ? Um {vocalsound} and the chip basically includes the infra infrared sender . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh besides this in electr under electronics uh also the company has started making a sample sender , which is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} did not explained what i what it was , but I'm guessing that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so they have a sample sender and a sample speaker . So I'm guessing that uh the sample speaker is probably something like um uh you know , as soon as you press a button , it it mm uh give gives you feedback , one five or whatever . Yeah , on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} and uh I dunno whether sample sender sender has to do something with voice recognition or not , but anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , these are the different options that we have . Okay , so {vocalsound} th that's that's basically {disfmarker} now now uh I think that uh we can integrate um {vocalsound} uh you know , uh the user interface uh and uh the marketing things in that , keep uh taking out things from this and uh underlining things that are important , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Excellent . Do you wanna stay somewhere near the board , so that if we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: you can sit down , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we might need you to leap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: What are you , PowerPoint , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I have some PowerPoint , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think these pens can give you cancer of the hand ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Some sort of radiation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's got its little camera in there , {vocalsound} plug it in {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should should do it . Yeah . +Marketing: 'S a +Project Manager: Right , interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . Um to be honest actually , I mentioned some some of the things which which could fit on the on the {disfmarker} this talk um this time , I m I mentioned them already in the previous talk . +Project Manager: That's fine . +User Interface: So um yeah , this time um I might not have them on the slides but I {vocalsound} I can just mention them aw again . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . So um I thought um I would also include the definition of user interface um so it's the aspects of a of of a computer system or programme which can be seen uh by the user um and and which {disfmarker} uh the mechanisms that the user uses to control its operation and input data . So this would p includes things like shape and size and buttons and um voice recognition as well , and colour , and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um um the method I {vocalsound} employed this time was {vocalsound} a again having a look to related products and mainly on the internet and then {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} analyse them uh from the point of view of user fen friendliness and {vocalsound} also um {vocalsound} whether their appearance was was pleasant . Um {vocalsound} and then um {vocalsound} this uh this um {vocalsound} this can help us to decide which features we want to incorporate in our product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So some findings um {vocalsound} um . So in in the case of many user interfaces , they're just so full of buttons that it's actually uh hard to find the ones you you really um want to use and um and it's just confusing , it takes y know time to learn . Um {vocalsound} okay , and I thought I would just quickly show some of them that I found . Okay , some of them are here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well the picture is not very clear , but as you can see , there are actu oi , oh oh oh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: sorry for that . 'S go back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's nice one . +User Interface: Ah , no , please . Okay , so yeah , they're quite big and have many many buttons . Actually {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of all these I personally p prefer this one , because it's it's the smallest and and with with least {disfmarker} uh with the smallest number of buttons as well . And I would say even the appearance of some of them is kind of not so nice . +Marketing: Ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay . So let's carry on with this . Um {disfmarker} So uh um o other findings {disfmarker} um some new things um used , uh some of them were mentioned already by our Technical um Designer uh . {vocalsound} Our own company has developed a new in user interface {disfmarker} uh wait , no this is not the one . Okay , there is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can uh include voice recognition and um it allows {disfmarker} i it's possible to record eighty different voice samples on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so uh this uh this one was already mentioned uh the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um s another new development is a scroll button , which was also th also already mentioned . And uh our own manufacturing division ha has uh designed {vocalsound} a new um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh programmable speech uh {vocalsound} mm sorry uh speaker unit I guess it's {disfmarker} it should be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um and this means that um once uh uh it it it comes together with a voice recognition , but it's {disfmarker} once once the mm {vocalsound} um gadget uh recognises uh the voice of the speaker , there can be a um pre-programmed answer , for example , you can pick up the remote control and say something to it like hello and it says some hello and your name or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , hi {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} I mean this is also one of the n dev new developments which we might consider if we wanted to include . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry , uh can you go back for a second ? Um {vocalsound} uh are you sure wha what this means , a spinning wheel with the L_C_ display ? Uh {vocalsound} oh yeah are th +Project Manager: It's like the {disfmarker} like you said , no ? The scroll scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah , you can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , the scroll button is a different thing . I I have a picture if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} just a moment , I'll {vocalsound} I'll show you . I wasn't completely sure myself , but I think it's just like um {vocalsound} it's it's a wheel , it's like not separate buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh okay , the iPod thing , yeah . +User Interface: Look , this one here . +Marketing: Oh , it's like the iPod . +User Interface: But I'm I'm not really sure whether whether you can really turn it round , +Marketing: G yeah , no , you can . +User Interface: it's like you press this or this or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's the iPod uh kind of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's like it's like where you {disfmarker} you know how you have your your mouse , and y you go round and i it's kind of like that and you spin round +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Alright , right . Okay , okay . +Marketing: and it {disfmarker} yeah . It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So instead of going down you just spin {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: You just go round +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it is a bit weird at first , but it's actually very like fast . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I like the the wheels that click on the side you you get 'em much slower , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so it's quite good if you like searching quite a lot of stuff . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Do you know , if you're lookin if you're th scrolling through the A_ to Z_ of your music and you're looking for something at T_ , then it's a lot faster than the wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but you've got a lot less control over it . +Industrial Designer: Right . So maybe I should include that here as well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_s um plus spinning . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and the personal preferences are pretty much the same as as as last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} it has to be small , simple . Okay , we decided to include voice recognition , so to have the standard uh major buttons like on , off , um ch the channels and and then um volume and then the rest would be a menu on the screen . Um and I I also thought uh {vocalsound} if we want to keep it small and nice um and actually I I quite like the idea of a scroll a scrolling button , I thought it could be for for voice like , I dunno , it mm like on a um i like it used to be on Walkmans or something . There is {vocalsound} uh I think there is no reason why we couldn't use something like this for for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So yeah , that's uh that's it . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay , straight to trends , and then we can discuss it all at once . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Okay , I've put the copy of the presentation in um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The project documents . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . If you two could both do that as well , in case we need to refer to it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Here it comes . Okay . +Marketing: Fabulous . Okay , cool . Um so what I did was to search the internet to come up with market trends and you know what users are gonna be wanting in the the near future . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Right . Now , the first aspect is apparently twice as important as the second aspect , which is twice as important as the third a aspect . So , I mean the the easy to use thing is fairly low down on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I think given the target group is what you would expect , really . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , people want something new , something technologically innovative and different , so the whole idea with the L_C_D_s and the spinning and the colours and the voice recognition is quite like , quite the thing to go for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um , yeah it wants to look fancy , fancy look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} uh maybe uh as you're discussing things , is it okay if we just uh keep highlighting things here ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , sure . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So mm uh so it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's over on the interface , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: if if you could put {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so probably voice recognition is is kind of important , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and an +Project Manager: And maybe the L_C_D_ and spinning {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Okay , I I have a point about L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: so that means we need an advanced thing . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if it is the right point to take it up . W uh L_C_D_s are basically for feedback , right , to the user who's pressing buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and the feedback can come through television itself , so do we need an L_C_D_ on the remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Depends how fast your television runs , really , don't don't you think ? I mean we've got one of those um Telewest boxes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you put the number in the remote and then you wait and then it goes to the T_V_ and then you wait , and then it comes , so i it actually takes quite a long time . And if you get the number in wrong , then it's a bit of a pain , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {gap} +Marketing: so I think , you know , a screen on the remote would probably cut down your time on that . But like remotes do tend to get f thrown about a bit . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It it is also quite nice though to to have something here so you don't interrupt the picture on the screen , +Marketing: You know ? Yeah . +Project Manager: so if you're watching something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true , yeah , that's also {disfmarker} +Marketing: And i it would be like {disfmarker} I mean if you could make it integrate with the T_V_ then it could come up with new information about what's on , and you could just see that on the remote rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Rather than having to interrupt your viewing pleasure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: But um I think maybe a way to do it would be a similar way to how you have your mobile phone , you know , like you have the slidey ones and you have the flippy ones and then the screen's protected so it doesn't actually get scratched . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So you can have like what looks like a normal remote control , you know or like a minimalist remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you got your buttons one to nine , your on and off and your volume on that +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: and then if you want to mess about with it , you flip it open and , +Project Manager: And then you can flip it open . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So now we seem to have a consensus that L_C_D_s are definitely the way to go because of style and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , so that kind of decides your whole chip thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you agree ? Maarika , yeah ? +User Interface: Yep , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So L_C_D_s , yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Go on . +Marketing: Cool . Okay , apparently , fruit and vegetables will be providing inspiration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , I discovered clip art . {vocalsound} Um so these will be an important feature for clothes , shoes and furniture . So I mean , I'm taking this to mean , you know , curviness . Do you know ? 'Cause you don't tend to get flat vegetables . You know ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and possibly even uneven , +Marketing: Yeah , bit of asymmetry and stuff . +Project Manager: like not not symmet yeah . +Marketing: But that would be a good way to to get in the whole um R_S_I_ issue in there , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I mean if you think most people use the remote control with their right hand ha right hands +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you wanna {disfmarker} you curve it so that it's suitable for use with the right hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: , I'm not quite sure about the relevance of material will be spongy . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something a bit squishy and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we have +Marketing: but I mean y you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it could be like a rubbery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we have rubber , +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: but there is a problem that I forgot to discuss with the {disfmarker} um with using {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I suppose you wouldn't get a remote uh {disfmarker} an electric shock off your remote control if it was made of rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it'd help if you drop it , it protects it as well . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: To some degree . +Industrial Designer: So if if we use uh latex cases , they won't allow us to use solar cells , as an energy source that is the constraint , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so um we could use {vocalsound} titanium , wood or plastic uh or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or if we want to use the the latex , then we have to go with one of the other um power things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w energy source . +Marketing: If it's made of rubber you could get the kinetic energy fairly easily there , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} From {vocalsound} from bouncing it . +Marketing: you could just {vocalsound} bounce it up and down {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , tap it on the desk , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can have it as like a little ball to bounce , that flips open . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um so yeah , um okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . So probably double curved surface is the way to go , yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or or curved at one end and flat on the top , because I I'm not sure if it is flat on both both the sides , then ho how much easy would it be to reach for buttons , etcetera . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have a certain element of flatness , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It it depends on the whole ergonomics of it , you know , it's like how you put your hands so y it's the least movement basically . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , singe single side curved or double side curved does not say too much , does it ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: It uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I d I don't think it makes a lot of difference . I I have one of those s slidey phones and I mean the back is essentially straight , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's curvy , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides , you have four sides to a thing , so I mean does curved one side mean one side is straight +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: and , you know curved two sides means the whole thing is just a big curvy p thing ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Di now did it say anywhere in your research material about this sliding stuff uh +Project Manager: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} according to the information that I have , I think uh the onl only options that we have with the case is {disfmarker} are these three . Uh eith either we have uh a flat surfaced uh case or a curved surfaced case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does not say anything about uh whether technically , you know , this this stuff is available at all . +Project Manager: Nothing to {vocalsound} open them . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh it's it's more about the protecting the L_C_D_ , which I think is where it came from . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: But no , my research didn't tell me anything , which is why we have all the pictures , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I had nothing better to do with my time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Anything else ? What've we got ? +Marketing: Uh combine style with a level of functionality , um beauty and practicality and a thing of beauty and p function . +Industrial Designer: Cool , thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , so . +Marketing: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks +Project Manager: Looking at what we've got , we we want an L_C_D_ display with a spinning wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Let's let's try to r rub off things and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , rub off some of those . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so um {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hand dynamos are definitely out , right ? {vocalsound} You you got a wind {gap} dynamo , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah uh-hum yeah . +Project Manager: it's not {disfmarker} that's not streamlined and sexy , {vocalsound} having a having a wind up . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {vocalsound} kinetic energy does seem to have some kind of uh uh appeal , +Project Manager: I think tha +Industrial Designer: but uh {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's about the practicality of it really , isn't it ? You know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As against a watch , which constantly keeps moving , +Marketing: I mean if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: this this thing will have to be tapped every time , which which might be very frustrating for the user . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depends how much how much movement it really needs . +Industrial Designer: Kinetic energy it needs {disfmarker} I don't have too much technical information on that , +Project Manager: Pr presumably if they're suggesting it , then we could use it . +Industrial Designer: yeah , right . Okay , let's keep it option uh keep an option , +Project Manager: I'd I'd keep it on . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Um {vocalsound} the flat co completely flat case is definitely out , right ? It has to be at least curved from one side , yeah . +Project Manager: We don't want that +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: it's no {disfmarker} it's not not vegetable . +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , we still have all all the options . Wood , do you think wood will be a good idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: N wood is {disfmarker} I can't n {vocalsound} how do you uh I mean you can't keep it really small uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you can't make it like thin and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: I can't imagine a m wooden remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: The wood thing . Because you need to you n you need to put all the technology in , so I mean if the case {disfmarker} you add the case and it it becomes a bit bulky +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} if if it is really thin if it is really thin it it's likely to break , +User Interface: wi mm-mm yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's it's much more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and given that we're we're looking at more spongy material preferences , I ha would think maybe rubber or plastic is more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: U yeah wood is not really {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Well it's not very cleanable either , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Marketing: do you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's not {vocalsound} a practical {disfmarker} I mean it's it's alright for a table , but for a remote control , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And splinters and stuff and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay {vocalsound} wood is out . +Marketing: It just m doesn't make any sense , I think is the thing with wood . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , in the case of remote control not really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , now for the really interesting stuff , the interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh the the push-buttons is is our expertise uh in the industry , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it seems to be {vocalsound} out of trend , you know , nobody seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have some push-buttons , don't you ? +User Interface: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} um I think for for the channel numb uh channel numbers you still need them , wouldn't you ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: G yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so for channel numbers but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , if if we have L_C_D_ displays , that opens up a whole world , you know , if you have an L_C_D_ display , then mm you can select almost everything on the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: But I th yeah but {vocalsound} I think the L_C_D_ display is kind of {disfmarker} yeah , it's faster +Project Manager: Just for fast {disfmarker} +User Interface: with a m yeah and w if we dis and when we s um {vocalsound} discussed that we might like this flipping open thing , then I mean y you can use it as a normal remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you do want to use L_C_D_ , then you flip it open , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it's it it's more time-consuming . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think this is going back to the the graph at the beginning that I made , where , you know , the buttons that people use all the time , you want buttons for them and everything else menu-driven . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Project Manager: And it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} L_ {disfmarker} L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: So uh in in the buttons we have for the channels also we have options . Do you do we enumerate everything from zero to nine ? Or do we have just uh channel plus , channel minus , just to just to scroll ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , no , I mean mm we we definitely need the the numbers , +Industrial Designer: The numbers . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} uh otherwise people don't want to flip through all the channels . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need them on as buttons or do we need them as L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Or {vocalsound} on the L_C_D_ we can , you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: G yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , I would say buttons , +Marketing: I would think buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's it's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think the thing is , so if someone just wants to turn on their T_V_ and put on a channel , then it should be easier to use than any other remote , +User Interface: I +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then if someone wants to , you know , change the contrast on their T_V_ and {disfmarker} they should be able to do that and it should be accessible , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: but , you know , I mean most of the time {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean there's a limit to how much the biggest techno geek can spend fiddling with the T_V_ , I think is the the the issue there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so buttons definitely in but {disfmarker} oh shall we uh try to draw a prec um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's what {vocalsound} you guys are gonna do next , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +Project Manager: so if we put down the key um {vocalsound} things that we want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , so the components . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh what about the the scrolling uh ? +User Interface: Yeah but n I I'm not completely um completely clear uh I {vocalsound} yeah , about the spinning wheel . So I think it {vocalsound} it doesn't make sense to have both like a scrolling and spinning thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} E either or {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} you can al include everything in the spinning if you +Marketing: G yeah . +Project Manager: Just spinning and not scrolling , I would say . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say the s the s the spinning goes at a high speed to th to the scrolling wheel , +User Interface: in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you have to decide whether {disfmarker} you you know , you want to be going so fast or not . But I mean the the thing with this whole {disfmarker} if y you're planning on making it out of rubber , on the basis that it's spongy , then I'm not sure how well a scrolling wheel would work . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But if you've got a {disfmarker} if if you've got a flipped thing , effectively it's something that's curved on one side and flat on the other side , but you folded it in half . +User Interface: Ah , but I mean you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but y your spinning wheel tends to go to one side . +Project Manager: Th {vocalsound} that would be on one side , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to construct the whole thing out of rubber . {vocalsound} Uh i it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think it's just the casing rubber on the outside . +User Interface: Yeah , I um I think so too , I mean the case would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You want an outside of rubber +User Interface: yeah the case would be rubber and the the buttons , +Marketing: and then open it up and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or or at the corners , edges , just the edges covered by rubber or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: rubber buttons , but then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Everything else in plastic or even titanium if we want to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or maybe like interchangeable cases . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause I know like we're going back to iPods again n the whole spinning wheel , but I have like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , obviously my iPod's not made of rubber , but then I have a little rubber case that goes over the top of it +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Marketing: and I can change the colour , theoretically , to match my outfit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so so that gives us a more trendy look as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think the spinning wheel is definitely very now . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah , and uh we're going more for the trends than for the usability anyway , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's what they're after . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub that out . {vocalsound} And uh colours can be provided with the case rather than {disfmarker} Um but we still need to te think about the colour of our remote as such , you know , just keep it black , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah I think we {disfmarker} um it was a a requirement that we use our um th the colours of our company , so would it be like yellow , grey and black or something , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: That doesn't fit in with the whole vegetable theme though . +Project Manager: I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bananas . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Banana's yellow , {vocalsound} yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean do you think we could incorporate the colours of the company into the buttons and then make the colour of the main remote {vocalsound} the colour like vegetable colours , do you know ? So you could have like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean I suppose vegetable colours would be orange and green and some reds and um maybe purple +Project Manager: Green . Yeah . +Marketing: and that and then you'd pick the buttons in company colours to to match with it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , if you g go over to uh the integrated circuits . Uh since we're having L_C_D_s there there's no way that we're will be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We need the advanced {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: um what we do need to consider , however , is that the price is going up for the ever every such thing that we are considering , but since L_C_D_s seems to be uh a definite yes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} it seems to be one area where we would want to spend . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub off the other two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So are we discounting solar energy because rubber's gonna be used in there somewhere or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That was the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh is {disfmarker} oh the constraint was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can't have solar panels with rubber , so . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: solar panels with the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , so we lose that I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we go for {disfmarker} if we're going for rubber , we think uh on {disfmarker} as our case , and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And the buttons as well , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five more minutes . +Industrial Designer: we'll have uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} uh using the simple battery will be a safer option as compared to the kinetic energy one , I mean , a although it does seem uh interesting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But it does not hold any advantages as such for a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's just a gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh okay , so r we understand this better now that uh the the speaker is for the feedback , right ? It it says uh the things that you type in or something like that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . I think if we can if we can include them at not too much extra cost , then I'd put them in , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yeah , {vocalsound} we we don't have too much information about it , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but if it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but it it {disfmarker} I think it should be quite cheap because it's from our own company , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's from the company , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay , so so th this is in as well then , the sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . And the case is curved on one side , but then flat flat , so it's flipped into each other . +Industrial Designer: Flat on the top . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Can I pull the {vocalsound} thing out the back of your computer ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure j +Project Manager: Just so we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nothing , it's right , I'm just {disfmarker} There we go . +Marketing: What does um I_C_S_ mean ? +Industrial Designer: I_C_s ? Uh integrated circuits . +Marketing: Okay , cool . So it's advanced integrated circuits ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh oh now I've gone too far . +Industrial Designer: Uh um we we're definitely going in for voice recognition as well as L_C_D_s , mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . We're on our way . Okay . {vocalsound} So we've basically worked out that we're going with a simple battery , the advanced chip +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and a curved on one side case which is folded in on itself , um made out of rubber +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and the buttons are also rubber . We're having push-buttons on the outside and then on the inside an L_C_D_ with spinning wheel , and we're incorporating voice recognition . That's our overall concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's gonna look sort of vegetable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and be in bright vegetable colours . +User Interface: Uh-huh . So {vocalsound} w w would with have the spinning wheel inside with the L_C_D_ , or would it be on the outer {disfmarker} +Marketing: Imagine it would be inside . +Project Manager: I think it's on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So um actually that could like really cut down your thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so you've got your outside , which is like minimalist , and then you open it up and you've got a screen and a spinning wheel , which you can incorporate buttons into . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Um so you've still not got like a lot of stuff in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You've maybe got , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like if you're modelling on iPod you've got five buttons and a wheel , +Project Manager: On the {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and four of the buttons are in the wheel , and the other one's the little bit inside the wheel , +Project Manager: In the centre , +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , sure . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so now we've got thirty minutes before our next meeting . In the meantime , the Industrial Designer over here is gonna work on the look and feel design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which I'll presume he'll work out what that means . Um the User Interface Designer will work on the user interface design and the Marketing Expert is going to work on product evaluation . And as well as that , the two designers are going to work together on our prototype following those instructions that we've just come up with using modelling clay and you will get extra instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Is that all okay ? And anyone who hasn't put their their presentation in the project documents folder , it would be good just so {disfmarker} in case we have to refer to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , I'm gonna go and sit on my own . +Project Manager: Y ah nobody wants to talk to you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , I'm hated . +Project Manager: Unplug yourself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've got a bit tangled up in all this {vocalsound} +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} shall I move away first or shall I stay here with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno , maybe I would car +User Interface: we need to {disfmarker} +","The meeting depicted here involves a Project Manager and their team, including an Industrial Designer, a User Interface Designer, and a Marketing Expert, as they discuss the development of a new remote control. The Project Manager kicks off the session by referencing an agenda sent earlier and expresses that the structure of the current meeting would resemble the previous one, with each team member presenting updates on their respective areas. The agenda for the meeting includes a review of the components, properties, materials, user interface options, and marketing trends relevant to the remote control's key concepts. + +The Industrial Designer opts to use a whiteboard instead of a PowerPoint presentation, intending to brainstorm various design options, including the possibility to highlight or eliminate ideas in real-time. The designer's input includes a detailed account of how the internal components of a remote control function, with particular attention to the printed circuit board (PCB) designs and electronic components. Discussion spearheads into options for power sources, including batteries, hand dynamos, kinetic energy, and solar cells, with team members providing feedback on each method's viability. + +The conversation then moves to the remote's exterior aesthetics, with the Industrial Designer laying out a range of case designs – flat, curved, and double-curved – and materials such as plastic, rubber, wood, and titanium. The notion of incorporating company colors into the product design also arises, and the Marketing Expert later links it with a wider trend of ""vegetable colors"" representing style and functionality. + +When examining user interface options, the team considers the inclusion of push-buttons, scroll wheels, and LCDs. They acknowledge the need for advanced integrated circuits to support LCDs. The Marketing Expert's presentation highlights market research indicating that consumers prioritize new technology, style, and ease of use. In particular, the trend-driven approach suggests that the remote should feature an LCD screen and cater to aesthetic trends informed by ""fruit and vegetables,"" suggesting curviness and vibrant colors. + +The team extensively discusses how to combine these elements into a cohesive design, with particular challenges involving reconciling the need for a spongy material, like rubber, which could have implications for other design choices such as solar cell feasibility. A consensus is formed on several key concepts, like incorporating voice recognition and minimizing button clutter by using an LCD display with a ""spinning wheel"" interface inside the flip-open remote control, drawing inspiration from the iPod's interface. + +Once the assembly identifies the design elements, they proceed to refine the remote's appearance while considering practical constraints such as ergonomics, materials selection, and cost implications. They add rubber casings for robustness and discuss the potential for customizable cases that could help meet the market's demand for style and individuality. + +As the meeting draws near the end, the Project Manager assigns tasks for the next thirty minutes: The Industrial Designer will develop the look and feel design, the User Interface Designer will work on the specifics of the user interface, and the Marketing Expert will focus on product evaluation. Additionally, both designers are to collaborate on constructing a prototype using modeling clay, with extra instructions from their personal coach. Finally, the Project Manager requests that all team members upload their presentations to the project documents folder for future reference. The meeting closes with a light-hearted exchange amongst team members, who prepare to execute their assigned tasks before reconvening." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh door is closed . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , let's begin . Because if we have as much time as the last uh meeting , we'll have to hurry up . +Marketing: I'm listening . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um well I'll start with the presentation again , the agenda . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Yo . So . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This one I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . Well alright . Um well , I'll show you the notes . It's not as uh interesting as it should be because we just uh had the meeting , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'll show them . We'll get your presentations again on the conceptual design . Um {disfmarker} Then we'll have to dec decide about the control , the remote control concepts . I've put a f uh a file in the project management folder , which says exactly uh what kind of decisions we should take . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} this time we exactly know what to decide about . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , great . +Project Manager: And then we'll close again . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Well these are some examples , but we'll talk about them later . We'll {vocalsound} first look at your uh presentations . Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Walter will uh start again this time ? +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: Yo . +Marketing: Alright , Trendwatch . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . I will speak about uh latest trends trends , latest fashion updates , and uh things we must not do . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh the trends . {vocalsound} It's very important that uh the control is fancy looking and good uh feeling . Uh this because of our last model was very functional , but {vocalsound} it uh people didn't like that , so our new mo model must be very good-looking . That's uh something you uh have to take a look at . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Marketing: And uh the feeling has to be very great . Also the menus and things like that they have to they have to feel great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there's a minus uh two times here , because this is the most important point . This is uh two times as less important , +Project Manager: Less . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh same for this one . {vocalsound} Um , technological technological innovations , that's uh regarded very highly too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh such as an uh L_C_D_ screen , uh speech uh acknowledgement , as we uh talked about earlier . +Project Manager: Well , yeah . +Marketing: So we have to have uh something like that , like we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_D_ and our uh our fronts . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Uh the last point is easy to use . Well I think that uh speaks for s for itself . I don't know who's uh who's going to look at that . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Well , easy to use uh s is a bit uh contradictionary with the first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I think that's your ta +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Functional is not an issue , and then easy to use . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +Project Manager: Well we have to choose one of them . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we have to go for the first one . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's the most important one . So {gap} we have to uh take that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it it {vocalsound} it isn't very important that {vocalsound} that it works easy . +User Interface: Well something fancy looking can be can be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it has to look great . +Project Manager: Yeah . We'll we'll look at uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: We'll see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you can make a very complicated uh uh remote anyway , so ease of use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's not a very comp complicated device . +Marketing: Yeah , right . But the most important thing is that it looks great and people say {gap} wow , that's real great uh great concept . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . Uh these are the new colours of this year . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it must be very bright , very colourful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: People like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we we have to think uh in this direction . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i set your mind to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Findings ? Fashion update ? Fruit and vegetables are cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh you think ? +Marketing: I am told . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The group we are targeting is uh very pleased with fruit and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we we we might cons consider in front of uh in in that sort of uh way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bananas . +Marketing: Uh furthermore uh material , that's your part , should be very strong . I was thinking of something like uh {vocalsound} well uh iron plate over it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: maybe in a colour or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that looks so f really flashy but it it is also strong . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: B +Marketing: And that's uh also for the younger public . +Project Manager: Well the the handy thing about our fronts is that we can follow these trends e ev every year . Th this year it's fruits but next year it's it's something totally different . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think we can all make the the fronts of titanium or something uh really thin . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So it looks very heavy but you can still uh use it very easily . +Project Manager: Yep , alright . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Well , the don'ts . Older people like dark colours and simple shapes . Well we don't want uh older people , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we want young people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So uh we're gonna turn that around . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: We're gonna have real uh cool shapes and lots of colours . Right ? +Project Manager: Wood is popular . Aha . +Marketing: Okay . We don't want wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , among the old people , yeah . +Marketing: Old people . So , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Alright . Nice , uh well {gap} show us . +Industrial Designer: Right , I am going to tell you something about the components design . Uh again I have uh put up the specification properties . This uh so um uh the different uh components of the of of the device . And the materials ? Um I have heard several things , so I uh I'll have to change that on the way . But uh the case ? Uh I suggested uh in the previous meeting hard plastic . But uh as you indicated uh it should be strong . +Marketing: Yeah , we should change that . +Industrial Designer: It should feel strong . So maybe plastic is not uh sufficient . +Project Manager: Well maybe it it it is , +Industrial Designer: We should move to uh something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it doesn't look strong . So maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Y Hard plastic i is of course uh pretty pretty tough , but it doesn't have a really really tough look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +Project Manager: But we still have to look at our price of course . Because uh if we want an L_C_D_ uh window etcetera uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Also {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . But we'll return to that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh the buttons of course rubber , I think everyone agrees . And electrical cables , copper is all pretty basic stuff . The chips made of silicon , I guess . I think that's the best uh way to do it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And infra infrared l LED is uh just a simple bulb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I've uh {vocalsound} had a few findings , made a few findings . Uh the target audience product style . Um it's uh um generally the case that uh senior and wealthy people above uh forty five years old uh like , as you said , uh particularly the traditional materials as such as wood and materials such as that . They also like straightforward shapes and luxurious style . But of course that's not our uh things this . So this is things we must not do . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And then we have uh young uh and dynamic uh people , which is of course our uh group , the people we aim at . Um under forty five years old . Uh they like soft materials uh with primary colours . Soft materials is of course uh agai again a bit a contradiction with uh our uh material choice of what you said , that uh it should be hard an and and and and strong looking . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they like soft materials , uh so we might uh we have to consider that . And also they like curved round shapes . So not uh too formal like like uh the older people want . And if uh also a finding but not very ap applicable here , that sports and gaming devices such as uh discmans for jogging and that those kind of devices , gaming devices , should define the characteristics of the device . But uh since we don't have a really a sports or gaming device , so we don't really have to consider that . +Project Manager: Sports uh , they're uh that uh are accessible on on your L_C_D_ uh window uh +User Interface: Soccer fronts . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: All the {gap} results ? +Industrial Designer: Well I also have um several examples of uh styles , +Marketing: We keep coming back to the fronts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you can get a clear picture of uh what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} these are the basic uh older older peoples' stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It was not very uh interesting uh , very classical looking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Nai . Uh no . +Industrial Designer: but that's n that's not what we want . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We have these kind of things . I don't know what exactly they are . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} Fruity . +Industrial Designer: It looks like {disfmarker} Well you know uh you recognise the shapes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's very primary colours , uh bright colours and uh round shapes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You also uh {vocalsound} see uh this device , it's not very round and {disfmarker} Fruity of course . Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's t terrible . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh well round shapes , primary colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can see it all here . And of course uh this famous device . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I think as you know something uh some devices like this . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So to give you an idea of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's got a strong look , this . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This has a strong look . Although it's plastic , it's it's grey to to to give it iron look . +Marketing: Yeah , it still has a strong look . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it's round . +Industrial Designer: That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then you are losing your fruity colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we have to make a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can make th th th that middle ring can you you can make another colour . So uh those kind of things you can you can combine . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Well we can't really make a round uh a round remote control . I don't think that's very practical , +Project Manager: No , it isn't . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} But uh it's important to to uh to think about the colour . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because if we make it grey or or silvery looking , it it does make it a lot more uh does make it looking a lot more stronger . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you look at this , it it doesn't look very very strong , +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: becau But this is plastic , and and this too , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it doesn't have to look strong . The the results are , the feel of the material is expected to be strongy . +Industrial Designer: The feel ? Uh alright . +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: So , if you ti +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it it doesn't have to be strong , also . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah yeah the feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You you {disfmarker} Maybe you should have uh some some coloured titanium or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only the feel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it it looks pretty but it feels strong . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: And I {disfmarker} Then I have some more findings . Um {vocalsound} uh about the energy energy source of the of the device , +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: uh I uh suggest uh the basic battery . I uh got some other um uh uh energy sources of course . But solar energy is not very practical inside a house , because you don't have a have a lot of uh sun . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh kinetic and and and dynamos are are not very practical , I think , for uh for a simple remote , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's a bit , oh , that's a bit uh {disfmarker} That's a bit uh much . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} No titanium . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I also suggest uh as a shape uh a double curved case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the disadvantage of that that you can use no titanium . That that's the information I received . If you use the curved case , uh a curved case , double curved then you can't use titanium . +Project Manager: What do you exactly mean with double curved ? +Industrial Designer: Now uh this uh to give it a more modern look . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And uh {vocalsound} now the the shape , yeah , {gap} a curved case . Um yeah I think uh sort of triangle-shaped bottom or something . Uh {gap} a more modern look not plain , long box style , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Project Manager: Double curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll draw it , +Project Manager: It it mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but maybe later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And it makes uh it gives it a more u user friendly shape , than if you have uh {gap} . Um anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um f as uh for the buttons , simple push buttons . No uh otherwi uh no um difficult scroll things or some uh things like that , because it makes more complex and expensive . And , uh as we agreed , we don't use a speaker or a sensor or um {vocalsound} uh speak uh speech uh controlled {vocalsound} device . +Marketing: Yeah right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because it makes it also more complex and expensive . But we do use an L_C_D_ screen , so we uh we do have to consider uh of we have to use a more advanced chip , which is more complex and expensive . But {disfmarker} It's worth the trouble I think , +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons can be made of an uh a soft material . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because people like that . +Project Manager: This soft material thing from uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh rubber is a soft material , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh soft enough . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: So that's uh basically what I want to talk about . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . We will take that . And then uh Mike ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well um nah the method um we will um include the buttons as we discussed uh earlier . Um an L_C_D_ s screen will be implemented . Um we must decide where , this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um there are new developments in speech recognition um systems , {vocalsound} um and they are already being uh used on uh coffee machines . And um well they're cheap , so we could use them now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} That's interesting . +User Interface: Um it's not really speech recognition , it's more um like you can um talk to the chip , uh record the message and record an answer , and then once you uh talk to the remote , then um he will a answer with the the prerecorded message that you left . So if I say hi Mike , and you have recorded uh hi Mike back , then you will get that . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah , I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . But you can also say that , when you say something , it does some function . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: No it doesn't does not do anything . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh . That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But i it's just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that that makes it cheap . +Project Manager: Yes . I understand . +User Interface: Yeah it's it's cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} it's just a an extra function , +Project Manager: But {vocalsound} it has no functionality for our remote at all . +Marketing: and it's cheap . +User Interface: No +Marketing: No but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but that's the gadget they want , or the gimmicks . +Marketing: Yeah , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it's n nice for young people . +Marketing: Young people love them . +User Interface: Yes , we we should really uh include that one , I think . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They like gadgets . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , ple Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: If it's cheap . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as I said uh earlier I think the uh L_C_D_ screen should be uh positioned at the lower end of the remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um the buttons for screen width and general settings and {gap} uh and that kind of stuff {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um we can also do let that kind of functions um be shown in the L_C_D_ screen , uh instead of uh extra buttons . +Project Manager: So you put a menu in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: I think young people and yeah w well every user would like that . Um the buttons um should be positioned uh positioned the same way as they are on a , well , conventional remote , I think . For the learnability and uh well to keep it recognisable . A voice recognition can be uh implemented . And uh I drew an example , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it did not work quite the well uh the way I wanted it to do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How {disfmarker} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Hmm ? Well I have the {disfmarker} I can draw it again , +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now ? +User Interface: and I know what I did wrong . I didn't tick the note bo box in the {gap} . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Marketing: How do you uh uh give input to the menu on the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um with the uh the up and down and and well buttons and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . So you have a menu button , and then you can go up and down . +Project Manager: But then we should also have an uh an Okay button . +User Interface: Well I will draw what I had drawn on the screen . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I shall draw this . If it uh works . +Industrial Designer: {gap} button , yeah . +Project Manager: Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} There is already a blank . Yes ? So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm so have I . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} You have to push hard . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suggest a banana shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because of the fruity uh fashion . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No m Next year that's out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright , yeah . Just a hunch . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these little buttons are a bit difficult to uh draw uh correct . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Those are the the cha the channel buttons of course ? +User Interface: Yeah just uh the numbers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then below is the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: These these will be bigger in the the real design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +User Interface: This must be the Okay button used to uh interact with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And with this you can uh , yes , go to through the menus +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that can Um the video button should be uh an apart button , +Marketing: You've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because you want it to uh t , yeah , to use it fast within one uh click . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And what's the menu button ? +User Interface: Um it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you you need a you need a speaker . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: For the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: This button can also be the Menu button , we use in the menus {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But how did {disfmarker} How do you get out of the menu then ? Yeah . +User Interface: Well we we can add another button here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe I you could j just do an an exit with Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh by pe pressing the menu button again . By pressing the menu button again , you go uh out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's usual the the the d kind of the way it works . +Project Manager: Yes , well but bec because when you {vocalsound} push Menu you get in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah ? +Project Manager: and then you have to push Okay when you get to a choice . +User Interface: Ah right . Well you you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But you can men you can press menu again to get out . +Project Manager: Well that's also the Okay button . That's you you should have uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , we we we should uh add uh a extra Menu button +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Or you can put in the L_C_D_'s uh window an option Get Out . +User Interface: and this the Okay button . +Marketing: Exit . +Project Manager: Exit {gap} . +User Interface: Ah once you have an extra Menu button , you don't need that that extra option . +Project Manager: Well , it's just a choice . +User Interface: You have uh redundancy . +Marketing: But we need a we need a a recording recording button for the speech uh part . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Or don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: if we decide to uh to implement that , maybe we should . +Industrial Designer: Why would you put it uh then , and where is the recording uh the microphone ? +User Interface: Well they that could be anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Where would you put it ? +User Interface: That's very small . It could be uh down here . {vocalsound} Um . Well , not here . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} yeah I suggest here . But that's just a little {vocalsound} gap . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Microphone , yeah . +Marketing: Right , and spea speaker at the back , or something . +User Interface: Well the speaker and the microphone , I think , are the same uh little hole thingy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh but uh we could uh d do , but it's perhaps more expensive , uh the speaker on the back or something . +User Interface: Well i Um there are a all already being implemented in in coffee machines , so they won't be uh very expensive . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay . +User Interface: This is my suggested design . +Project Manager: Well , okay , alright . Um then let's have a look at the decisions we are going to have to make . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yes . And oh I think as you can see so , the L_C_D_ screen does look better uh at the lower end , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} I agree . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , fine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: Move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh , um I had some uh examples . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I can live with it . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} I did not like it very much , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these are quite obvious , very ugly remote . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too big . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They do they don't look fruity enough . +User Interface: No , well th +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nei They're n they're not trendy . +Project Manager: They're all black . +User Interface: Yeah . Well not all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , that one I like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh this is for children but {vocalsound} th +Industrial Designer: Tho Yeah those {disfmarker} +Marketing: It doesn't look strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: But it doesn't uh the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: W but with the colours i it's a bit the way we're going to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ok Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Well this is a terrible {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Terrible . +Marketing: This is just crazy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it it must not look too childish of course huh ? +Project Manager: It's it's all too much buttons . +User Interface: Um this looks {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too many buttons . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . This uh these are the L_C_D_ screens . I think we should , if it's um possible , uh one with colours , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah th It's too expensive . +User Interface: I don't know uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , that's too expensive I think . +User Interface: Too expensive ? Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Nah . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Ha , even more . N +Project Manager: Mm no . {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: But are we going for a strange uh form ? +Project Manager: No , not very strange . +Marketing: 'Cause people like that . +Industrial Designer: Not not too strange . No . +Marketing: Not too strange . +Project Manager: It still has t +Marketing: You can make the the underside , you can make it more round , where the L_C_D_ is . +Project Manager: Yes . Th a a kind of bridge . So it f falls over the hand . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you know the No Nokia telephone , with uh the round uh thing at at the bottoms , s something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: You know ? {gap} +Project Manager: Well I have at home {vocalsound} a remote with a bridge . It's just a half round half half circle at {disfmarker} And then it falls exactly over the hand , and that's very nice . That's {disfmarker} It feels comfortable . +Marketing: Yeah , but people like something uh new you know . +Industrial Designer: Exotic yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , different . +Industrial Designer: We have t Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I will design it , we design it later . +Marketing: Y yis +Industrial Designer: So we'll get to that later I guess . +Marketing: Alright . Great . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . Um where did I put it ? Um conceptual phase , I think this is it . +Industrial Designer: The specific shape . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got this from our friends . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh yeah the conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Our sources . +Project Manager: These are a few examples which we have to decide about . All the the materials from the case , uh the electric cable that's all your uh your side of the story . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Your bag . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um now from the user interface , your uh package ? {vocalsound} Um where {disfmarker} No well , that's more like the buttons where they have to come . And um {disfmarker} B a bit of , yeah well , a bit of uh design . +User Interface: Yeah , this is what we've just done . Right ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we have to decide about these now . +Industrial Designer: But uh we should decide now . +User Interface: Ah right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh the trend-watching . +Marketing: Materials are the most , most impor +Project Manager: So as you said , fruity is in , well {gap} sells good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh these things . +Industrial Designer: So we have to uh put it in one uh document . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yes . Um so if we uh go through them {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Copy paste uh this story into a into a Word document , and then uh put the answers after the subjects . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not everything . +Industrial Designer: Well we have to decide all these things ? +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} all these examples are uh of a coffee machine . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} Why should I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we can uh override them ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well a case ? Uh that's me . Uh I suggest {disfmarker} Well what do I suggest actually ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what kind of properties should it have ? Well we just listened . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh s solid , +User Interface: I think we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Why don't we um use uh titanium or or a hard , yeah , some kind of metal for the uh the the whole remote except the front . +Marketing: Do you know the new uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That {disfmarker} Just like um most cell phones are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I understand . +Marketing: No {vocalsound} no {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So we have titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The front is the most important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the non-removable elements of the of the remote , so not the front , could be titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to give that uh strong look . +Project Manager: You know what ? +Industrial Designer: And then the front is made of plastic . And you can put that on and off , and switch it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But the feel of plastic isn't strong . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but you have titanium of course . +User Interface: No but you you have this {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh you have the best of both worlds . +Marketing: Yeah alright , alright . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah , you have the re remote in your hand like this . So you feel titanium . {gap} +Industrial Designer: And of course , yeah , you have the the the plastic front end . But you also have the titanium . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Fronts are are cheaper than when they're from plas +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , but yeah {vocalsound} you have to make a decision . +User Interface: And I don't know if you can make steel just any way you want it to . +Marketing: Yeah , but it it's expensive . +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh titanium I sh I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bendable . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Well , well the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bendable . +User Interface: Well any colour {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: According to my sources , uh it's it's totally possible to make an entire uh uh uh {disfmarker} Titanium is available , and uh we can uh make uh an entire remote out of it , if we want . +User Interface: Yeah , then you you paint it in the colour you want it . The plastic is is the colour you want it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Paint spray . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah alright . +User Interface: So {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: So , we're going for a titanium back and a plastic front ? +Project Manager: I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Titanium back , plastic front . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a nice trade-off . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well I am going to put it in here , uh because we can uh look . +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Um solid feel and trendy look . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: So material , um hard plastic for the front ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for the front and then titanium for the back . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the non-removable uh part . +Marketing: But then you have the problem , when you have a titanium back , you can't switch it . When you want an other colour on the front , it doesn't match . +User Interface: Well titanium is neutral . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know ? +Industrial Designer: The titan titanium isn't isn't v very {disfmarker} Yeah , i it doesn't uh {vocalsound} curves . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No uh I nei . {vocalsound} Titanium is very {disfmarker} No no no , but you know b Titanium is very basic colour , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it doesn't really matter if we have a purple front on it or a orange front . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if if you disagree , +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but I think it's doesn't matter very much . +User Interface: Our customers will use those uh funky uh trendy colours , +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: and they don't use uh wood . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Funky customers . +Industrial Designer: And even if it does uh doesn't match , it will uh {disfmarker} People like mm colours that don't match . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And well +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the electrical cable is just normal uh {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cop copper uh material . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The electrical cable uh does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's uh from uh our coffee uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah copper i just a ba basic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No we don't use an electrical cable . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah inside , but this is for the coffee uh machine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well inside the remote control we use a couple of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's not what's meant here , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So external . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh external ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well {gap} {vocalsound} A coffee grind doesn't have {disfmarker} Na ja . Never mind the coffee grind . +Project Manager: Well uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: all the all the inside work of our remote is uh standard work . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The chip is normal silicon . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh the buttons are normal , etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? So that's just easy . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we decide about that just by looking at our competitors and our {vocalsound} earlier uh remotes . The conceptual specification of the user interface ? Um well we have our beautiful drawing . +User Interface: Well I got a better one here +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: and I will um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can put that in uh into the shared folder , +User Interface: The shared folder . +Project Manager: and then I'll put it in our end report . +User Interface: I will work this out uh for the uh next meeting . +Project Manager: Yes , you can {disfmarker} Mm yeah . You can uh put some uh which button is what . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: the trend-watching {disfmarker} {gap} included these days . And what do we ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We thing that fruit and bright colours are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the front w +Marketing: I think we can launch a couple of packages . You can buy a different kind of of of machine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's the same thing , but with another front . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can also uh implement um we can also implement fronts from um movies that are very hot . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah that's the whole idea of the front . +Marketing: And you can you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh those kind of things . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: But that's for later on . The fronts y you can do anything with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but if you if you launch uh five different packages like iPod mini {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , right {disfmarker} For the uh initiative uh launch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the for the launch , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: It's good marketing . +Project Manager: Launch different lines at once . +Industrial Designer: So e th then a c couple of basic colours . Not not very uh {vocalsound} sim Not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , n not too heavy . You can always take another pick . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We should not give them the m the most lovely front when they buy it for the first time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They have to buy it later on . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} More basic . +Project Manager: We still have to make those fifty million , yeah ? {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Very boring , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well you can you can give them uh s s three or so , +Industrial Designer: The most boring fronts possible . +Project Manager: The most ugly . +User Interface: so that they can uh experiment with it and that they want more . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you you can have some basic colours , and then we come with the special patterns on them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Red red , blue and green you give them or something , +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you can give them {gap} uh other ones . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright . Um well the buttons etcetera , we get from Mike . Uh this fruit and bright colours , yeah well I think we'll have to in the next uh half an hour , we'll have to uh s s specify the different uh types we want to launch , when we uh {vocalsound} well introduce our remote . +Industrial Designer: Uh we still have to make {disfmarker} We have still have to make the es the the real basic design . {vocalsound} Because yeah we have the sketch but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . But we we must remember that {vocalsound} fancy look-and-feel is the most important thing . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Else it w won't sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I'll have to , before I get another warning for five minutes , I'm going to get {disfmarker} Where is my mouse ? Uh where is my mouse ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lost my mouse . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um this is it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , um this we have . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh basic stuff . Interface we have . Supplements , L_C_D_ . Maybe a a cheap voice recording . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we should do that . +Industrial Designer: The price ? +Project Manager: Yes . Alright . Individual actions . +Industrial Designer: We all agree on that . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Industry designer , {gap} . User Interface , Mike . You're going to work together on a prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +User Interface: Yeah , we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Together or uh {disfmarker} Yeah together . +Marketing: Yeah togeth {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what I got uh to hear . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} Yeah yeah , but how do I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But bu we stay we stay here or something ? +Project Manager: Yes well we'll get it to hear that I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think so . Th they're saying SMARTboard and that's it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can take the SMARTboard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the SMARTboard , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah right . {vocalsound} And take it to our rooms and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so you can uh you you are going to make a prototype , and y Well that's includes uh specifying the buttons etcetera . +User Interface: Ah , specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . So you'll get it on your em on your laptop . Um well you will go and do something else uh on the project {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Some {disfmarker} Some non functional tasks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Have fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah project evaluation . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , what are you going to do ? Uh I don't know what product evaluation exactly means , but uh you'll get uh the specifications . +Marketing: We don't have produ product yet , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so kind of difficult . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's why I uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How long do we still have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , can we talk about something else ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh no I don't know anything , but maybe uh anyone else uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} Ajax . Nah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Will we use uh round buttons or square ones for the for the numbers ? +Industrial Designer: Round I think . +Marketing: Um round . +User Interface: Yeah I I I also uh thought {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Round . +Industrial Designer: To make it as uh as round as possible . +User Interface: And these uh these s these buttons {vocalsound} uh are more uh triangle-ish shaped +Project Manager: Why does {disfmarker} +Marketing: Curvy . Yeah . +User Interface: with a square one in the middle . +Marketing: So you can see you have to up or down . +Project Manager: Ah f fuck you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But now I see the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this must be uh volume I think , +Project Manager: Heh ? +Marketing: and this programme . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We can't get {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well most of the time uh up and down is programme and left and right are volume , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well th th th th th that depends uh . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it depends , but {disfmarker} If you turn up the volume , you always see this thingy go up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well we uh {disfmarker} We we j we'll just give them an uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: We'll design it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they can give comments on it . +Project Manager: Ts +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: It doesn't work any more . We can't save them . So we'll just have them uh standing there . +Marketing: Yeah , I noticed . You can't uh click the corners . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit uh bit a pity . +Marketing: It's a real real great thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we still have uh more than five minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} I as Project Manager ha don't have a clue . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's start the design . +Project Manager: Oh we can uh decide how we implement {vocalsound} the feeling from our company into the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Um I think um {vocalsound} a logo , our company logo , and the slogan should be or could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Also the slogan ? On the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not ? {vocalsound} If there's enough space , {vocalsound} you can put uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I I'd say only the logo . +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: O Yeah . Me too . +User Interface: Too much text and it gets too too busy . +Industrial Designer: Well , our slogan is not very long . It's just a simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} it's quite a long phrase . +Industrial Designer: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: But we kree we keep adjusting to the fashion with our fronts . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You c {vocalsound} But you can put it on the back , on the titanium part . The logo and the and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah the logo should be on the top I think . +Marketing: Yeah , right . The logo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the top . Yeah . Well in in in the right top corner ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do . Well yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Right corner , yes . +Project Manager: And well you c On the back , you can put uh h {vocalsound} At the bottom , you can put the logo with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right corner , or maybe here in the middle ? +User Interface: {gap} uh the text ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just small . +User Interface: Uh yeah , at the back ? +Marketing: But the logo the logo shouldn't be exchangeable , when you get off the front . +User Interface: Well you c Well uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it should be hard on the on the on the board , +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you can remove the front . +User Interface: The logo can be on on every uh front . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but then you must uh really uh yeah {vocalsound} push it in or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Carved into the material . {vocalsound} No , you you can carve it into the titanium at the back . +Industrial Designer: I l I like the idea of the of the slogan on the on the on the thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} am I the only one , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on the backside . +Project Manager: Well , management would like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n n not not on the front side , I think . +Project Manager: The front side , no no l no slogan . +Industrial Designer: No not on the front , +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the back {disfmarker} Yes , you you can , yeah , push that in , +Industrial Designer: but on the backside . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} so that it is always be there . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a nice idea , {vocalsound} to make it more recognisable , that the next to the logo you have the slogan . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: To make more uh of an impression . +Marketing: But not too big . +Industrial Designer: Not too big . No , +Marketing: Just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: very small . Not {vocalsound} on the entire back , but uh just very small . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You have to make this titanium too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But readable enough of course . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yes , slogan from company on the back with logo +Industrial Designer: But we'll uh we'll take that uh with us into the design . +User Interface: Yeah I think over here the logo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Lo Uh yeah . Or maybe here in the middle , but we'll decide later . +Project Manager: and logo also on the front but not exchange uh {disfmarker} Uh ? Hmm ? {vocalsound} {gap} Uh when changing fronts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , that's decided . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you see a bit of the of the um of the uh titanium ? O on the front ? +Project Manager: Five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe if we make this this this lower part titanium , +User Interface: Yes we could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the front is the the upper part , and the the bit with the with the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So a bit of titanium between ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No no betwe +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a bit {disfmarker} Oh that that's that's pretty cool . +Industrial Designer: of between we can do but {disfmarker} But then you have two parts of front , two fronts that {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , they have two fronts , +Marketing: No no no no . +User Interface: that . You you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This enti entire bottom ? +Marketing: Else you you get problems with the L_C_D_ . Like dust in it and so things like that . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: When you exchange all the fronts and it's open . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I already have uh all kinds of uh filth between the mobile . +User Interface: No , you can you can just {disfmarker} And then not a straight line but uh some sort of wave or something . +Marketing: you can make it go round this corner too where the logo is . Because it has to be uh there all the time you know . +Industrial Designer: And then the lower part is titanium ? +User Interface: This is titanium . And this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's nice , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some kind of wei weight in it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Round forms . +User Interface: F front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like that bit of uh titanium also on the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . With the with the curved edge . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: A bit like uh a bit like your mobile phone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can show it . It also has the those {vocalsound} two distinct uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tada . +Industrial Designer: Mm bit like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: That uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So round where ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe a nice touch , yeah . +Marketing: So uh a little corner of titanium . We can't uh take a blank one . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice finishing touch you need . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Or can we ? +Project Manager: Yes , {gap} that also sounds uh pretty uh neat . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So this this is the exchangeable part . +Industrial Designer: I think I'm going to buy it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We want it . +User Interface: Yeah , this is the front . +Project Manager: And it's only f twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit too much , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's nothing . +Industrial Designer: No , no no no , but {vocalsound} I think uh this looks uh pretty nice actually . +Project Manager: The Phillips remote uh costs more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , because it's my design but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: My design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No our d our design , alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking all the credit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh you two are going to work together . You'll get your uh specifications on your uh laptop , and then uh {vocalsound} you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We'll stay here I guess ? +Marketing: But there's a problem . +Project Manager: Well I think we can , I just {gap} {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not relaxing . +User Interface: Well we can uh erase an animal I guess . Uh the fourth one . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah that's alright , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: But don't erase my cat . +Project Manager: Yeah , o +User Interface: Uh the fourth one is empty , isn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I want to preserve it . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} This one is empty . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to empty one huh ? +Project Manager: Oh , we have a {gap} one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What are you doing chief ? +Project Manager: So , you can uh draw a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah I think we have to wait ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Well I'll get a {disfmarker} I'll get the message . +Industrial Designer: until the until the beep goes . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't uh {disfmarker} Do we have to stay here , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or I think we have to return first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well you'll {disfmarker} Maybe you can uh keep your uh laptop here . {gap} +User Interface: Maybe . +Project Manager: Or get your mouse . Because it's little bit uh hard to work with these uh plates . +Industrial Designer: The high powers from above {vocalsound} will have to tell us , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I always have a mouse next to my laptop . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dream on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hate these {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I don't have a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , touch-pads , yeah . +Project Manager: Ugh . +Industrial Designer: We can uh do a touch-pad on our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No just kidding . Well we have uh b you have to have a bit of humour in the in the discussions too , +Marketing: You just have to push harder . +Industrial Designer: because it becomes too too too too stressy . +Project Manager: And in your remote control . So we put a touch pad on it , and say ha ha . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aha . This has no function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Half +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We know you'll you'll you'll hate it but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But uh th youth doesn't care about functio functionality , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But they do want some gadgets . So that's wha what we're doing . +Marketing: It's all about cool things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it will sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Bless you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we won't . Our bosses will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We've done too much in the previous meetings . +Industrial Designer: Too much ? +User Interface: Yes , we've got nothing to do now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's not bad , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Well they uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that's good . We all had uh our talk and we agree I guess on uh several thing , on most uh on things . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Its the best remote ever . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pinball . +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . Oh he's totally off again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No man . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you have to push harder . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But when I start here , it's here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but you you get really close to the screen with your hand , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Recalibrate it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Where's the good old chalk board with the the green board with the , how do you call it , chalk , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can better uh draw a design on this . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but we can't . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if i if that thing is recalibrated , we can draw a thing quick , and then before it uh {vocalsound} goes off again . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's go . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish the meeting now . Alright now we know what to do , so +User Interface: We'll stay here ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Message ? +User Interface: Or we'll get the email . +Industrial Designer: Maybe w maybe we maybe w m Can we get email here ? +Project Manager: No , get away . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Guess so . +Project Manager: Um I I'm not sure . Maybe you {disfmarker} Yeah . Well you'll have to work on this one . +User Interface: Well we'll wait a few seconds +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: and then we'll get an email . +Marketing: Alright . Have fun lads . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A happy hol happy holidays . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but you can scratch it off or something . It's better if you have it uh {disfmarker} +","In a recent project meeting attended by the Project Manager, Industrial Designer, Marketing, and User Interface professionals, the dynamics of the team were evident through a mix of structured agenda and creative banter. The session began with the Project Manager emphasizing the need for efficiency, given the limited time available – a potential reference to a previous session that had possibly overrun. + +The Project Manager took charge by presenting the agenda, keeping a focus on reviewing notes from their previous meeting and discussing decisions that required attention. Specifically, they discussed the concept and aesthetics of a remote control design project the team was collaborating on. + +The Marketing representative played a key role in providing insights about the latest trends and the importance of the remote control being visually appealing and providing a good tactile experience, considering the functional but unattractive design of the last model which was not well-received. Emphasis was put on creating a more ""fancy looking and good feeling"" control, aligning with consumer preferences for stylish and comfortable interfaces, while also incorporating technological innovations such as LCD screens and potentially speech recognition features. + +The Industrial Designer contributed their expertise by focusing on the material and design components of the remote, questioning whether plastic provided the strong feel desired for the product, and suggesting alternatives like titanium for greater strength and a premium look, all while keeping an eye on costs. + +Throughout the conversation, there were discussions about the balance between aesthetics and usability, with the team acknowledging that while fanciness was important, the product also needed to be easy to use. A compromise was sought, where the product would primarily target the younger, style-conscious market, without completely foregoing functionality. They contemplated various themes like fruits and vegetables, which were trending, and deliberated on material choices like hard plastic versus titanium. The Industrial Designer highlighted the conflicts between the preferences of different age groups, expressing the necessity to focus on their target market, which preferred bright colors and playful shapes. + +User Interface brought into discussion new developments in speech recognition, which were now more affordable and could be an interesting feature to include, even if it had limited functionality, to cater to the young demographic’s affinity for novel features. + +The team also discussed the practicalities of creating changeable fronts to adapt to annual trends without changing the fundamental design of the remote every year. The idea of changing fronts for customizing the appearance – for instance, through fruity or bright colors – was discussed keenly, as was the notion of not catering to older demographics who favored darker colors and simple shapes. + +Throughout the meeting, there were moments of confusion and interruptions, represented by vocal sounds and markers like {gap} and {disfmarker}, marking moments of indecision or the need for clarification. Nonetheless, the key takeaways from the meeting included the decision to go for a titanium body for the remote for strength and aesthetic appeal, coupled with customizable plastic fronts for versatility and trend adherence. + +The meeting concluded with some concrete decisions taken and an action plan set in place for the Industrial Designer and User Interface to collaborate on a prototype drawing, as well as for Marketing to contemplate the product evaluation and launch strategies. Despite the technical challenges with the meeting room equipment, the team maintained a positive attitude, evident in their jest and camaraderie interspersed within the serious discussions of design and functionality. Overall, the spirit was one of constructive collaboration with a clear focus on meeting the consumer expectations of their youthful target audience." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So welcome back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do {gap} {disfmarker} do we have to do ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: So first . I want to say I'm the secretary , so I make the minutes . You find them in your {disfmarker} in the map in the From the group . There's the minutes from the first meeting . You'll find the next minutes also there . Then {vocalsound} I wanna hear from you , what you've done . And after that I have some new product requirements . So {disfmarker} And after that we have to make decisions , what we will do . And then we're ready . We have forty minutes for this meeting . After that we'll have lunch . So first I wanna ask the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer to tell what he did . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's my task . Okay . Uh I've {disfmarker} Where have I put it ? My Documents or not ? Hmm . I've save it on my computer , my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah on your computer , or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But where ? +Project Manager: What's the name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's the name of it ? +Industrial Designer: It was about the working of the remote control . +Project Manager: It's the technical function or the functional requirements . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not a {gap} of {disfmarker} Wait . The working design . But I've saved it . +Project Manager: Working design . +Industrial Designer: But now I don't know where it is . Hmm . +Project Manager: Working design . What is this ? Product documents . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And I import this until {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the desktop . Up . {gap} up . Up . Up . +Industrial Designer: One more . +Project Manager: Up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . My Documents . Nope . +Industrial Designer: What the fuck is this ? +Project Manager: Gone . {vocalsound} Well you {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Nah . Nah , nah , nah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: PowerPoint . Working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's the empty one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had one . +Project Manager: Presentation of working design . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Open it . Okay here it is . +Project Manager: Save as {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Desktop . +Project Manager: Project {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Project . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Well . +Project Manager: Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: A little later but here it is . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So okay . It's a little difficult what I'm gonna tell you . It's about the working of the remote control . I just had an half an hour j to study it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} I don't get it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it . +Project Manager: Now have ten minutes to tell it . +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes to tell it . Okay . I think it will be a few minutes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: First uh I will tell you something about the findings , what I discovered about the remote control . The working bout it {disfmarker} uh of it . Uh then I'll have uh some kind of map , and it's the top of the remote control . With a little bit of science , uh you {disfmarker} I will show that uh in in a few minutes . And then uh what I'll think about it . First , the findings . The remote control is a very difficult uh thing to uh to explain to just all of you wh who haven't seen a remote control uh inside . Uh there's a lot of uh plastic on it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um because its uh not so expensive . And there are uh a lot of uh wires , uh which um connect the components in it , the battery , and there are um switches and things like that . There's a lot of small uh electronics . So it won't be um uh too expensive to build it . Only twelve Euro fifty I think uh we will make it . Now {gap} {disfmarker} And here I have the top of the remote control . Uh here's some kind of chip . Uh on top of this , there are uh the numbers . Uh you have all on your remote control . And uh the teletext uh button . And uh here's the battery . And when you push the button , it will uh will be sent to the chip . And the chip will um send it to all kind of sub-components . That's what I said , it's very difficult . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And after that it will be sent to the infrared . And that will send it to your television . That's a short h uh how it works . Uh I think I can uh make it uh difficult , but we all {vocalsound} we all don't get it . My preferences ? It's uh {disfmarker} it won't be uh {disfmarker} We shouldn't make it too big . Uh also for the cost , uh we should only put one battery on it . A long-lasting battery . Uh also for the cost , uh use only plastic . Not other materials . Also because of the cost , uh not too much buttons on it . We can also make uh a button uh with a {gap} {disfmarker} menu uh button . And then um that that you will see it on the T_V_ . And on the T_V_ you can uh switch into the menu . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} I think it's easier . And the bleep signal , y uh you told us . Uh but we can also use it uh a bleep like something , when the battery's empty , then there is a bleep . Then you'll have to change it in a in a week or something . And also the bleep , when {disfmarker} what I told you about uh when you lost it , and you push a button , and then you hear bleep bleep , and we will find it . This is uh just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh oh . Two questions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: The battery . You say one battery is cheaper . Why ? +Industrial Designer: If we w if we use only just one uh small pen-light , then it will be cheaper than when we use two . +Project Manager: Yeah but when you use two , you can use it two times longer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to make the um remote control uh long lasting . +Project Manager: Okay so it's the size of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and the buttons . When you use it on the television , you've {disfmarker} you need the television , wh which can use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But uh I think this {disfmarker} our remote control is for the televisions we uh we sell in our company ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or is it also for other company {disfmarker} uh for other televisions ? +Project Manager: I think we have to use it also on other televisions though . +Industrial Designer: Then this is an option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe just a menu button to use it on our televisions . And then we make it easier uh for our televisions . And on the other tele televisions , you can also use it , but then we won't use the +Project Manager: Yeah but I don't {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They are two different things though . We have to choose one . It has to work on o uh all televisions . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . Then I think uh the menu button uh will only work on the newer televisions . And we will uh look forward and don't make a remote control which for the older televisions . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And I just uh have one more idea . Uh maybe it's one of your tasks . But {disfmarker} Uh , to have a trendy remote control , we can also um make something like the Nokia um mobile phones . To change covers . So if you have uh a trendy half with all red , uh yellow and something . And then you can put a red cover on it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And also different things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Will this will this add to the cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh then it won't be {disfmarker} uh will have just one cover on the uh original one . And then you can buy the covers . +Marketing: Yes but you have to m uh be able to change it . D does it make it more difficult to design ? +Industrial Designer: I think it will be a little more difficult , but not too much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not much . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Just like with the Nokia uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are much more Nokia telephones than um these ones . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to to just um put five covers on it , and see if it works . If it won't works then we'll get something else . Then we uh won't g uh go further with it . +Project Manager: Yeah but are their profits bigger than their cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh a p a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a cover made in uh in China , it it won't be I guess so expensive I think . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are also design cost . I don't think {disfmarker} When you have a remote control , do you change the cover ? Would you change the cover ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe . I wi I won't . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: But maybe I think trendy people or like children where you can paint on it , and uh the the children think , oh this is my remote control , uh I made a picture on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N yeah but {disfmarker} I think that too less people would change it for good profit . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . And the other people ? What do you think about it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a good idea . But {disfmarker} If if it {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure if it will make profit enough to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: But it's uh yeah it's uh original idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes it is but I don't think we have to do it . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You're the Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . That's it . +Project Manager: That's clear . {vocalsound} Okay thank you . So now the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Oh . That's me . Uh {disfmarker} Come on . {gap} . Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes well uh uh I shall give a short talk about the the technical function design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I thought the the the technical function design was uh to uh {disfmarker} for a remote control to to to have some influence on the T_V_ set . Uh both audio and vide video uh in a cordless way . No cords attached . And uh well , it all by pushing a button on the remote . That was from my own experience and uh and uh the previous meeting . Uh I find some uh some interesting quotes on the web . Uh well the same idea here . Uh message to the television . And uh and and and well basic uh operations like on and off , and uh switching channels , and uh {disfmarker} and maybe uh teletext or something like that . Uh well these are two uh remotes , and that's our uh our dilemma I think . Uh {disfmarker} We just heard from the Industrial Designer how uh difficult it is . But uh shall we make a basic remote control , uh just uh swapping channels and volume and uh power button and well nothing much more . Or uh uh more functions on the remote . Uh maybe more devices you can influence . Uh a radio or a v a video recorder , uh V_C_R_ . {vocalsound} Yeah well that's our dilemma . Um any ideas about that ? Basic or multifunctional ? +Project Manager: We'll got back on that later . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Yeah well the {disfmarker} that was just on my mind . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: So uh I didn't know what uh what way we would go . Mm yeah well that was my uh functional uh talk {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you . Then it's your turn , the marketing expert . +Marketing: Okay . Uh um m Yeah . {vocalsound} Um yeah okay . This bit too far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So I'm uh gonna have a presentation about um the market , about um yeah what people think . Uh we did a usability lab-test with a hundred persons . And we looked at uh several um things . Uh among them design , uh d d how d did they like the use of it , uh what frustrations they had while using remote controls . Uh well what what will be our market . And uh we asked them if we had some new featu features . If um that would be a good idea or not . Well our findings . Uh our users , they disliked the look and feel of current remote controls . Um uh they especially found found them very ugly . And um th they also found them hard to to learn how to use it . Uh well they also zap a lot . So uh zapping uh should be very easy . And uh fifty percent of the users only use ten percent of the buttons . So a lot of unused buttons . There is more findings . Uh on the buttons . Which uh buttons find users uh very important and which which not ? And how much would they use them ? Well uh the most used button is the channel selection . And uh we asked them how uh relevant they think uh the buttons are . The power , volume and channel selections are very relevant . Uh teletext is uh less relevant but also important . Uh not important they found the audio , uh that's not the volume but uh specific the the pitch , or the left or right . Uh the screen and the brightness . And uh channel settings . Uh th and they also are not used very often . Then we have a few um graphs about the market . Uh here we can see what the market share is of uh several groups . Um as you can see , most users are uh between thirty six and forty five . Um the the the younger group between sixteen and twenty five is not very big . And to come back on the the swapping uh things , uh I don't think uh , I {vocalsound} I think the younger will be most interest in it . But uh they are not a very big group . Um in the {gap} we asked them , uh how would you like a s a new feature . If you have an L_C_D_ on the remote control , what would you think of it . Now you can clearly see young users say {gap} . I will {disfmarker} that would very nice . And older user think uh they will be scared of change {vocalsound} I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And they won't like it . And another thing , how would you like to have a speech recognition on it . Well here we see the same . Young users uh think that's an interesting idea . And old users not . Uh well we uh found out that there are two {disfmarker} several markets at which we can aim . Uh the first are the younger , the age between sixteen and forty five . Uh they are highly interested in the features , as you can see uh here . And um they are more critical on their money spending . Uh the second group is the older group . Aged between forty six and sixty five . They are less interested in uh new features . But uh they spend their money more easily . Now if we look back at this graph , we can see that among the first group is about um sixty percent . And the second group about forty percent . So the the first group is bigger . Well then I come to my uh personal preferences . Uh yeah the first question is uh {disfmarker} also we have to ask is at the which market do we aim at . Uh of course n uh saying we aim at the young group doesn't say that old people won't buy it . But less of them will buy it . Um well I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . What I thought , um even young people say it's hard to use , remote control . So if you make a remote control that is uh very easy to use , that's especially aimed at this group , even uh the young group will also be more interested . And um we can make special features . But uh I think it looks nice in the first time . But when use it , uh I don't know what's uh good thing of speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um well th uh that's my second point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh less important functions should be discarded from the remote control . It's about discussion we had earlier . Um {disfmarker} You can find most functions on a T_V_ set . So uh you don't have to have a lot of audio options , or screen options to change the brightness . And such things . Um well the design is very important . One thing I did not say I think , is that a lot of users also said then I would uh buy a good looking uh remote control if there will be one . But they found most remote controls very ugly . So the design of our remote control is very important . And uh yeah it should be very zap friendly , as most users use it for that . That were my findings . +Project Manager: Okay thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I have uh one question . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: If we aim for the younger people , um and there will be uh a lot of features like L_C_D_ or the the the speech uh f recognising , uh the cost will be a lot of h uh a lot higher . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think we don't have that in our budget . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Do you think ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: And I don't uh I don't think twenty five Euros for a remote is really cheap or something . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} No . No . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} Yeah , it's hard to uh get the younger group . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: I think uh the L_C_D_ is cheaper than speech recognition . So I think that can be an d good option . L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Just the L_C_D_ ? +Project Manager: Yes . Only the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} But we'll come back on that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , go on . What d d d um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Uh we go {gap} {disfmarker} back on the decisions later . Now we have a few new product requirements . First , teletext . We have internet now so we don't need the teletext anymore . So not necessary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Only for the television . So we don't look at the other things like the radio or something . Only the television . We look at the age group of forty plus . Uh no , younger than forty . Is a g big group , and like you showed , n not very much people buy our stuff . Fourth point . {vocalsound} Our corporate colour and slogan must be used . Very important for the design . So you can see it on our site . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Um no . We have to make our decisions , what we want to do . So {vocalsound} like you said , we need the {disfmarker} {gap} . Maybe it's good to put it in a document . Now we have to decide what controls do we need . So maybe you can tell us . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we can first have a discussion uh on the the product requirements you just uh said . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The the requirements you just said , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: maybe we should first have a discussion about that . +Project Manager: Yes , it's okay . +Marketing: I uh personally think uh teletext is a good option . Uh not everyone um who is looking T_V_ can go to internet when they want to see the latest news . +Project Manager: Yeah but we don't use it . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} new requirement . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's not my requirement . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we'll just have to do that . +Project Manager: We have to do this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . No discussion about it . +Marketing: Okay . Okay sorry . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Unfortunately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what controls do we need ? Who first ? +User Interface: Well a power button ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh power . +User Interface: Uh the well um I think separate channels . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mm channel . +User Interface: But then both the the separate channels . So so uh zero to nine or something . +Project Manager: Channel {disfmarker} Zero to nine . +User Interface: Uh volume . +Project Manager: Volume . Maybe it's easy to pick . What was w your one ? Techno +Marketing: Mine ? It's the functional requirements . +Project Manager: Okay . We had w uh no no no no . Where was that example of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh mine . +Project Manager: Johan . That was the {disfmarker} the the the the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Technical . +Project Manager: technical {disfmarker} Hallo . Okay . What do we need ? On-off . Zero to nine . +Industrial Designer: To change to the next channel , just one button . To move up , move down . +Project Manager: Yeah that's the channel . +Marketing: D Yeah . Do we make a menu ? +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh yes the n newer televisions ha do have menus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} M Menu . I think um the only one or two numbers . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Hello ? That's ch {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I think it will be um q quite easy to use , to have uh uh four arrows . Up-down for channel selection , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and left-right uh for volume . And uh a menu uh button . And if you press the menu button you get into the menu , and you can use the same buttons . But the {disfmarker} then to scroll through the menu and to change the options . +Project Manager: On the L_C_D_ screen , you mean ? +Marketing: Uh well yeah that depends on if you have uh the menu on the T_V_ . Or you get the menu on the L_C_D_ screen on the remote control . +Project Manager: Think it's better to have it on the remote control , 'cause it it has to work on all televisions . So +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: we need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we come to the costs . +Project Manager: N Yes . But if we have this {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . But well if you aim at the younger market , um a as they as uh s uh as we seen in the usability uh lab , uh they will buy a nice looking um remote control . And also to find the easy to use uh part very important . So if we have a L_C_D_ sh uh screen , and uh not too many buttons , I think that will incre uh uh even when it's a bit more cost , it will still sell . +Project Manager: So now we don't have a lot of buttons . Is this enough ? +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: Mute . Maybe in the menu ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but then it's always uh more than one uh thing to do . +Project Manager: Mute . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe more ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . Well . Then that's all . This will be the buttons . And {disfmarker} I think that's enough for the next phase . So we can go on to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now we have only the buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't yet have to decide what the remote control would look like ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's for the next phase . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {gap} {disfmarker} Phase two is the conceptual design . So then we'll have the concepts . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: That's for the {disfmarker} So uh next point . Now we have lunch-break . After that we have t thirty minutes for work . And you can find the minutes in the Project Documents folder inclusive the uh buttons . No . Your individual action , you can find them in the email . So now it's time for lunch . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good idea . +Project Manager: Thanks for coming . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","**Summary: Project Team Meeting to Discuss Remote Control Design** + +**Participants:** +- Project Manager (PM) +- Marketing Representative +- Industrial Designer +- User Interface Designer + +**Overview:** +The meeting was convened by the Project Manager to review the progress on the remote control design and to discuss new product requirements and features. The Project Manager also assigned the role of secretary to record minutes to themselves, informing the team where to find these documents. + +**Progress Update:** +The Industrial Designer led off with a presentation about the workings of the remote control. There was a brief moment of confusion as the designer searched for their presentation, which was eventually found. + +The presentation covered: + +- The internal components of the remote control, emphasizing the use of plastic to reduce costs and mentioning the electronic components and battery. +- A cost estimate to build the remote control, which was placed at €12.50. +- The topography of the remote control, including the placement of chips, buttons (such as teletext), and the battery. +- Infrared transmission of signals from the remote control to the television. + +The designer also suggested that the remote should be compact, use durable batteries, restrict the number of buttons to essential ones only, and possibly introduce a “menu” button. + +Additionally, the idea of interchangeable covers like Nokia cellphones was touched on but questioned regarding profitability. + +**Market Research & Preferences:** +The Marketing Representative presented findings from a usability lab-test with 100 participants that looked into design preferences, ease of use, and feature frustrations. + +Key insights included: + +- Users disliked the current look and feel of remote controls, finding them ugly and complicated. +- People tend to use only a few of the buttons regularly, with channel selection being the most used function. +- Target markets were identified, with younger users (16-45) being interested in new features but critical about spending, and older users (46-65) being less interested in new features but more willing to spend. +- It was suggested that a remote control should be easy to use, discard less important functions, possess an attractive design, and be zap friendly. + +**New Product Requirements:** +The PM stated several new requirements for the remote control: + +- Dropping teletext since internet access has replaced the need. +- The remote control purely for use with televisions. +- Appeals to users under 40 as it's a significant market. +- The corporate color and slogan must be incorporated into the design. + +**Control Needs and Decisions:** +A discussion commenced about what basic controls are necessary, including: + +- A power button. +- Zero to nine channel selection. +- Volume control, possibly with up/down arrows. +- Mute button. + +An LCD screen on the remote was considered to help reduce button count and make the remote user-friendly, especially for the younger target market. + +**Next Steps and Closure:** +- It was agreed that the concepts of the remote control would be handled in the next phase of the design process. +- The team wrapped up the meeting with a reminder that the minutes and decisions would be available in the Project Documents folder and via email. +- The meeting adjourned for a lunch break. + +Overall, the meeting revolved around integrating consumer preferences into the design of a cost-effective and marketable remote control, considering both user-friendliness and aesthetic appeal. Discussions about specific features and design aspects were planned to continue in subsequent phases of the project." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Throwing away my toothpick . +User Interface: Hi there . +Project Manager: Yo . Ow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice user interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . What the {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah well , ja well let's just start . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I've uh made a presentation uh but uh I'll open it on the Smartboard , so we can all see it . +Marketing: Right let's see it . +Project Manager: So it's in the project documents because that's what we can find here . Well {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very nice . Well this is called the the the kick-off meeting . So uh {vocalsound} I'm the Project Manager , so I had to fill it in , +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and uh hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh sorry . {vocalsound} And {gap} an uh a nice agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we'll do the opening and then uh we'll meet each other , what uh we already do , so , that's not uh very much trouble . I'll I'll show you the the tools we have here , so that we can all use them . Then uh we'll look at the project plan from uh Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll discuss about our first ideas about the project , and then uh we'll close the meeting , and then we can uh individually uh do our things and then uh we'll get back here . So {vocalsound} this the opening we'll uh {disfmarker} We have to uh design a new television remote control . You have heard that uh already I think , so . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we want it to be original , so a nice uh a nice new design . Uh trendy , it's {vocalsound} also for young people , and we have to just uh make it uh modern . And uh friendly , so size does matter . And uh {disfmarker} Well it has to be a have the the right uh the right buttons on the right place , that kin those kind of things . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Other uh {disfmarker} There happen to be uh three stages . {gap} functional , conceptual , and d detailed design . Um so every time we we'll do some individual work , get meeting , talk about it , uh and then go into the next phase . That's just it . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} We have uh these two Smartboards . Um well as I just showed , there's a project management folder , a project document folder on the desktop . It just works exactly the same as a computer . You just uh click on the on the folder and you open the everything you you put in it with your laptop . So you can uh make uh {vocalsound} Words Excel , everything . Um and the w the r uh the rest uh also works the same so uh when you open a notepad you uh you just get your uh things , you can uh draw . This is a uh well a drawing board . {gap} you have a {disfmarker} these different uh functions on the board . You can see them there . So you have a a nice pen , and it's works just like a bal ball pen . {vocalsound} This is just a {gap} . I want to uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Of course w {vocalsound} doesn't work any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe you should try to write on the on the big white uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I will {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it ? Yeah . It works . +Project Manager: eraser {gap} so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wonderful . +Project Manager: It's fantas fantastic . We can uh uh well you can save a file . So if uh we draw we have to save everything . Don't throw anything away . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh just we can start a new one , and we just go on , and don't throw anything away . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just uh let them all uh stand here . We can delete , but we don't do that . Um you can here select a pen , you can draw anything you want . It's a bit uh childish you have to write . It's not as fast as you w you know it , but it does work sometimes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's just like a normal uh paint . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's gone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright , yep . +Project Manager: Well we are designers , so we have to have a a more uh a Smartboard . So that's fantastic . Um well this uh speaks for itself . We going to try it . So um we all uh are going to uh draw a nice animal on this board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: not my idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , your favourite animal ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our your favourite . So um I'm to going to have to draw a kangaroo , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'm going d I'm not going to . I'm just uh going to uh well draw a nice uh beast +Marketing: {vocalsound} Grizzly bear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: w I dunno what I'm going to design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh um {vocalsound} doesn't {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'kay . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your personal uh enjoyment . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I just said it's not my idea +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I am the Project Manager , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and officially this is my idea . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I I {vocalsound} I understand . Alright . +Marketing: We're kinda losing time , though . +Project Manager: what ? +Marketing: We're losing time , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah {vocalsound} the first the first meeting is just a bit uh loose , loosen up , a bit uh meeting each other +Industrial Designer: {gap} so start {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} well uh uh nice yeah . {vocalsound} Sh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep yes . +Project Manager: I hope our Industrial Designer does this better because uh this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Don't uh count on it . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} {vocalsound} so a a few legs . +Marketing: Do we have to guess ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Marketing: {vocalsound} A hippo ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: guess . {vocalsound} Well I should make it an hippo now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's a mouse or a rat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh I know it . +Project Manager: Well what is it , huh ? +Industrial Designer: It's a hedgehog . +Marketing: I don't know how to call it . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: A hedgehog ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} difficult English word . I didn't knew it myself {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well I'm amazed uh about your uh drawing skills . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Our characteristics sum it up . Well it's uh very {vocalsound} uh painful +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} those kind of thing . So we can uh just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going back and now uh our Industrial Designer can uh draw its uh most favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I am the Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Chief , I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Oh uh but this uh marketing designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} It's pr it resembles {vocalsound} the animal drawn by {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what kind of animal is that then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} can I say it ? +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Project Manager: Uh it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a rabbit . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Looks very nice , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It looks amazing . +Project Manager: No no no . What are you going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: We want to erase it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no save it and start a new uh {disfmarker} save it and start a new black uh doc {gap} a blank document . +Industrial Designer: These are very impor {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: These are very important documents , of course , uh these drawings , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we have to save everything +Marketing: Yes uh right . +Project Manager: so now um the next one uh {disfmarker} {gap} and then save it and start an blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: You go man . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . There's also different colours and different uh well pen widths uh the line the the thickness thickness . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: So um well you should uh try it but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I should have made mine a white rabbit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well y y y you could have but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And he deliberately draws a animal we don't know the English word for . +Project Manager: It speaks for itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like an uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh just a duck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like that beast from Sesame Street . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Big bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it a duck ? +Marketing: You're standing in front of it , +Industrial Designer: It's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it a plane ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't see it . Alright , thank you . Yeah it's a bird , but what kind of bird ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't draw uh circles uh that easy uh . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to push harder . +Project Manager: Yeah just a bit a bit childish , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: a bit {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But we have uh {vocalsound} do we have to name the specific species of the bird ? +Marketing: Release your anger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no I don't . +Industrial Designer: No ? +User Interface: It's just a bird . +Project Manager: Well uh save the document +Industrial Designer: Well wonderful . +Project Manager: and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then a a new blank document for {gap} . {gap} uh will uh choose a new colour and a new pen width so w we can all see it . +User Interface: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Why do I have to do the difficult tasks ? +Project Manager: No well first +Industrial Designer: Uh pen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: And then you go to format I think {vocalsound} , and current colour {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh current colour . +Project Manager: you choose a new colour . {vocalsound} And a new pen width uh {gap} also format . +Industrial Designer: I like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: oh they don't have pink . {vocalsound} Oh b oh {vocalsound} think this is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not like in paint . Line width . +Industrial Designer: Uh ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can choose a nice one . +Industrial Designer: Line width . +Project Manager: Width width . +User Interface: Width . +Project Manager: With each other . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} fifteen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I can draw ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So . Just a wa that's the way we do {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's quite easy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a pussy cat . +Marketing: It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh Pussy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh the line width is too thick , but oh well . +Project Manager: Well then you change it . And erase things . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It smiles nicely . +Project Manager: Super pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now {vocalsound} I have to change the line width . {vocalsound} Uh one {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: These are {gap} whiskers , you know . +Project Manager: we know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Uh well I think it's obvious right now . +Project Manager: Yes alright . It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it looks great . +Industrial Designer: Miaow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well if this isn't obvious {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just save it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah save it {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} start a new blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll save it {vocalsound} alright uh save . Uh yeah uh blank . +Project Manager: Yep . So that's uh what we're going to use when we uh need it . +Industrial Designer: Well I feel comfortable now . +Marketing: Oh great . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} it's terrific , eh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thanks for this exercise . I feel totally at ease . +Marketing: It's good for group spirit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It certainly is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're one big happy family now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that . +Project Manager: Well then uh the serious uh stuff . We're we want to sell it at twenty five Euros internationally um so um but we dunno what exactly th i it is in dollars , but uh twenty five Euros . Our profit aim is , worldwide , fifty million Euros . So I didn't uh exactly uh calculate how much we have to sell . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we want to keep it our costs at twelve and a half Euros so , keep uh that in mind when we uh talk about our uh materials an f and stuff , and uh marketing uh research . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Now then we all uh we can uh sit down and discuss uh what do we think about our current remote controls , first {gap} about design uh about uh aim in the market etcetera ? +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well uh we c we can sit down uh because uh presentation can wait . We can uh take notes {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} Well who has uh some uh remarks about the current uh remote controls ? Please ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I I didn't have to prepare anything about uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: No uh I did . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's it's not my task to uh talk about uh experience with current remote controls , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh just w we're uh four uh if we if we would just have one then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's im it's important to uh look at uh the remote controls of our competitors . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Get the good points uh try to merge them into one universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: On our corporate site I saw uh a new D_V_D_ player uh we're gonna produce . +Project Manager: Yep . That's alright . +Marketing: Maybe it's important to make it compatible with the D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: That would be a nice idea , yes . +Marketing: so you can uh use your television and your D_V_D_ player with the same uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yep yep yep . +Marketing: Furthermore it's important to make it uh acceptable for the whole world , for different cultures , maybe , because we want to we want to {gap} well fifty million ? +Project Manager: Yes fifty million is our aim to a profit , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so a lot of people have to be able to use it . +Industrial Designer: No but uh the b the buttons have to uh have to have uh international recognisable buttons and uh +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Easy to learn . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and numbers and uh that every culture in uh , yeah , people in every country can recognise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll make uh notes and then uh maybe uh {disfmarker} well I'll put it in the project uh folder when I'm done uh just now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I also think we should not add too many buttons . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: No that's right . +User Interface: Modern day uh remotes have {vocalsound} too much buttons I think . +Project Manager: Y y you don't use uh the half of them that's that's {gap} +User Interface: Precisely . +Project Manager: culture uh international . +Marketing: Maybe we could make one button to switch between D_V_D_ player and T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and make the other buttons uh multi-functional or something . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it doesn't uh become too complicated with too much buttons and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Yep , and maybe we do uh {vocalsound} we even have uh more than just a D_V_D_ player . Don't we have uh other uh ou +User Interface: Yeah we should make it compatible perhaps with everything we use , we uh we make ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: And stereo uh s uh audio installations . +Project Manager: We also uh just uh released a T_F_T_ uh thing I saw . +Marketing: Yeah so but th that's kind kind of standard T_ television so it also works on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: And I think the people who who will buy our uh remote already have some experience with remotes . So we can keep that in mind . +Industrial Designer: Most people do , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't {gap} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be , but we can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it doesn't have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: W well it's a n it's a new remote and you don't buy a remote if you don't have anything to uh to control with it . +Project Manager: Well except if we deliver it together with our D_V_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need to to keep it consistent with other d uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah because we look at competitors +Industrial Designer: Well . +Project Manager: and w if we pick up the good things about that and give it a nice design {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah but it's {disfmarker} it has to be useable . +Industrial Designer: It has to be different and familiar at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we could use another form or shape or colour , that kind of things . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah the shape will will have to be recognised . I thought about uh like most uh remote controls uh are uh a long box shaped thing {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you can make it uh triangle shaped , +User Interface: Well we we could make more more oval or something , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's not uh very recognisable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Oo +Industrial Designer: Oval ? +Project Manager: N we can use uh it as a as a game pad . +User Interface: Yeah or so +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} one hand has the beer , so the other hand uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah it's new . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Not with two hands . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , right . +User Interface: {gap} but young people want something different +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i we already uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but it's quite important that it fits . +Project Manager: one of our aims is that it has to be original and trendy so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh but it ha it has to be m +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . But you still have to know it's a remote and not another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there has been done a lot of researches about remotes uh we have to {disfmarker} we can imagine uh +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Project Manager: because it's a long time uh on the market . So the the form will have {vocalsound} been uh tested out so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah so the long box uh shaped thing must be uh , yeah , useful +Project Manager: Yes . Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or else uh they would have been ano another shape . +Project Manager: for me personally I have a {vocalsound} a lot of remotes uh at home but {vocalsound} those ones that have a a round ending and uh well uh just an uh square uh middle {vocalsound} I don't like to use them . I have uh have to {disfmarker} it has to fit my hands . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When it falls over it and I just have {disfmarker} and then the button that I use most has to be here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: It shouldn't be boxy . +Industrial Designer: a lo {gap} the long box shape yeah . You have to {vocalsound} use one hand . +Project Manager: It f it fits your hands and then you just push the button that you use most with {gap} thumb . +Marketing: Nah {disfmarker} I don't agree with the long box uh shape {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Marketing: it it has to be custom made for the hand . +User Interface: Yeah it doesn't fit {gap} . +Project Manager: Tho tho those new D_V_D_ players on the market do have those . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it does fit in the hand if you hold it like this , and you can make it another shape , +Marketing: Yeah but if you shape it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but then you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: No if y if you look at new Phillips uh D_V_D_ {gap} with their uh remotes {vocalsound} pl players {vocalsound} they they are the new remotes aren't box shaped . +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D_V_D_ players . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W no w what else ? +Marketing: No that's ol old fashioned . +Industrial Designer: I di +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well but uh what what what do you suggest then ? +User Interface: Yes uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can imagine that us +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} most of {gap} of them are are somewhat thicker at the end , and get um yeah thinner towards the uh the other end . +Marketing: Yeah right . It fits in your palms . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but it's still then uh the the long box , uh but then with some uh round uh {vocalsound} round forms in it to fit your hand , +User Interface: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: A it h it has it it has a that's tha th th shape that it fits your hand . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: but it's it's still {disfmarker} Yeah yeah al alright +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but it's still it's still {gap} sort of box , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yea +Industrial Designer: It it has round forms +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it in the end it's still the box , so that's what I mean . +Marketing: Yeah but it has it has to fit your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I understand , but {disfmarker} no no I don't mean an entire box like completely square +Marketing: It shouldn't be too boxy , you know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but a also with round edges of course , +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but in in in at the end it's still this long {vocalsound} box shape with convenient uh round uh shapes uh {vocalsound} to fit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right maybe something like this +Industrial Designer: Yeah yes {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} and then a button here to switch between {vocalsound} different systems like D_V_D_ player +Industrial Designer: I thought about something like that . Yeah . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A big recognisable button on top or something . +Marketing: Yeah right , and I do think we have to keep this kind of idea with the with the numbers and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: The buttons should uh also be not too small , not too big , of course , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes +Industrial Designer: and uh n uh uh not too close uh together . +Project Manager: uh that's {vocalsound} yep . +Marketing: But it should be possible to to um make it ap apparent that there are two functions for every button . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So there has to be some space between the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course uh to uh to uh to have icons to explain the different functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right right , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: and maybe we should use colours . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} maybe we can um just like on cell phones those um well {gap} {vocalsound} you can you can put on on them , +Industrial Designer: Colours , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ha . +User Interface: and so you can customise your uh your own remote with different colours or or special paint jobs {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's kinda trendy . Yeah right . +Project Manager: Sound nice . Yes . +User Interface: I dunno but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to talk also about uh the the materials for um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's just uh about our first ideas now +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: so I think individually we'll have to uh come up with ideas for the next meeting about these materials and markets etcetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Already thought about something tha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's uh it's important to uh notate all the the decisions that we make , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: so we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well thirty minutes we have . So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: This is about uh what we are going to uh do uh . You'll get specific instructions when you're back in your room so uh it's uh logical uh . I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . +Project Manager: Oh and uh that's uh that's all . So we'll just get a notice that the the meeting is uh over . +Industrial Designer: Yeah now we can still talk about the material , +Project Manager: Yeah yes say . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we have some some minutes left uh {gap} I w wrote down uh that the case should be plastic of course , hard plastic , the buttons should be uh rubbery I think uh . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it shouldn't be too heavy . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well I have had remotes that um they had uh the function of the buttons was about uh uh a layer over the buttons +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No n n +Project Manager: and when I've had use it much it was gone . So it has to be made in the buttons I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's bad , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: It has to uh not be loose . +User Interface: Yeah that's important {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . And of course there are several electrical cables in it to uh {vocalsound} to connect things uh to each other . +Project Manager: Yeah . Is there an a universal uh universal way of um transmitting from the remote to the television so it's all about uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah it's univ yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a a common stan standard way {gap} +Project Manager: It's not that in China it's different ? +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: infrared beams an infrared beam I think {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . But y you can have uh of course different between D_V_D_s and televisions and between {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you can use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It it's a we we make an a universal remote so it ha has to work with uh all kinds of brands and things . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But our T_V_s are mostly made in China and that sort of country , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: China rules . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And have {disfmarker} well yeah I've wrote something down about how it works . {vocalsound} The user presses a button and with an infrared beam it signals the television set accordingly , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's pretty obvious , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are we going w uh with the front uh fronts uh idea ? +Project Manager: Well I think uh w we can look into that in the in the next uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: I think {vocalsound} we should make it universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can always use a front front on it , you know ? You can use it {vocalsound} just plain +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: but you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} To make it more trendy . +Project Manager: Well j just y you get a n a normal front with it , but you can change them uh when you buy the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we should uh dispatch those kind of fronts fronts a a around the world so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well you can make profit with them , and it's {vocalsound} a way to make them trendy . +Project Manager: Well th those fifty million don't uh don't se sells itself {vocalsound} so we have to uh make uh some extra effort like fronts uh . +Industrial Designer: Well but th but the standard front will be uh just grey or something +User Interface: Yeah alright {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah normal . +Industrial Designer: uh b a simple colour not not very flashy . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah well it has to it h it has to fit the the te television and D_V_D_ set we are going to sell , +User Interface: No a colour everyone accepts . +Project Manager: so if they are uh black and black black and silver we'll make them black and silver so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Pink television sets {vocalsound} pink remote , {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} standard . +Marketing: But people of often don't like bright colours or something . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: We have to make it grey or s or black . +User Interface: Well young people s li +Marketing: Yeah but then you can use {vocalsound} a a front . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I must not forget my pen the next time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if if you {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you have a a a television room for little children and you make a if if you buy a a pink front they'll they'll love it . I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: But that's uh marketing uh research you can uh you can ask uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah or a t Teletubby front . {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . I will investigate . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Well our user interface you can uh maybe uh {gap} I don't know what your specific instructions will be , but uh probably about uh the precision of the buttons and and those kind of things and what buttons will have to be on the uh remote . And you will look into the technical design and um form , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah also the the look and feel uh of the the remote's also my task , yeah . +Project Manager: Or something like that . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: What's the uh url or the website 'cause I didn't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I uh w was wondering that too . +Project Manager: Euro ? +Industrial Designer: Y you went to the company website {gap} . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} Yeah yeah yeah just if you start up your Internet Explorer {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it it it's {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's the the the start uh starting page uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh oh right oh well I didn't uh use it {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Oh alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh we're going to back uh back into our rooms so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well that's great . +User Interface: Next meeting is in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In thirty minutes , but uh I think it will be {disfmarker} you will be warned uh through your laptop uh to get over here . +User Interface: Thirty minutes . +Marketing: Thirty minutes . +User Interface: Yeah alright it's it's handy to know {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll have to restore my uh my desktop uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very handy to know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's totally broken . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh {vocalsound} it's it's the half of the normal size . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right see you in half an hour then . +Project Manager: Oh right , oh . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Goodbye . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ma {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} that was a nice meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right uh see you in thirty minutes then . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , see you . {vocalsound} +","The provided transcript portrays a scene of an initial project kick-off meeting involving a team comprising members from marketing, project management, user interface, and industrial design departments. The purpose of the meeting is to brainstorm and commence the project's journey towards designing a new and innovative television remote control aimed at appealing to a modern, young audience. + +The dialogue begins with some casual and fragmented interactions between the team members. The project manager is coordinating the meeting, and there seems to be some light banter and a relaxed atmosphere as members greet one another. The early part of the conversation includes a few interruptions and disjointed statements, capturing the informal settling in before the meeting gets into full swing. The casual references to such activities as throwing away a toothpick or dealing with unexpected vocal sounds establish a sense of realism and the friendly dynamic within the group. + +As the project manager navigates through these initial moments, they refer to the Smartboard, a tech tool available for their presentation and brainstorming activities—highlighting the interactive and collaborative tools at their disposal. The manager states the objective clearly: to design a television remote control that is original, trendy, modern, and user-friendly, considering ergonomics such as size and button placement. + +The meeting proceeds with a mild hiccup as the projector or Smartboard seems to malfunction briefly, but the team adapts quickly and continues. The project manager uses an unconventional ice-breaker by suggesting that everyone draw their favorite animal on the Smartboard. While this creates some light-hearted engagement among the team, there's a sense of focus drifting away from the meeting's primary agenda. + +Eventually, the project manager steers the conversation towards the substance of the meeting. They outline the sales target of fifty million Euros, the retail price point of twenty-five Euros per unit, and the cost restrictions to maintain a feasible profit margin. This provides clear parameters for the product's development and introduces financial considerations that the team must keep in mind. + +The team then discusses the features and design aspects of existing remote controls and how they could innovate in this space. They compare competitor products, contemplate user-friendly designs, and the notion of creating a universal remote control compatible with other devices such as DVD players. Design elements like button layout, the recognition of international symbols, and ergonomic shapes are all on the table for discussion. + +The dialogue reflects different perspectives, from marketing trends to user experience, indicating a collaborative effort to cover all facets of the product design. Pretty soon, the project manager emphasizes the limitation on time and encourages the team to move from ideation to concrete plans. He suggests that the members should individually work on their components of the project before reconvening. + +Materials and costs are also touched upon briefly, with considerations about the types of plastics and rubbers to be used. There's an apparent need for durability and quality, indicating that these factors will play a significant role in the remote control's design process. + +In summary, the transcript encapsulates the initial stages of a project's lifecycle, where team members from diverse backgrounds come together to symbiotically mold an idea into a tangible product strategy. Though the meeting has informal elements and some hitches, it establishes the grounds for a multifaceted approach to the project, with creativity, innovation, and practicality at its core. The group is positioned to tackle the complexities of product development, each from their professional angle, to ultimately create a remote control that aligns with their organization's ambitious financial goals and the ever-evolving consumer market's demands." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So welcome back . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do {gap} {disfmarker} do we have to do ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: So first . I want to say I'm the secretary , so I make the minutes . You find them in your {disfmarker} in the map in the From the group . There's the minutes from the first meeting . You'll find the next minutes also there . Then {vocalsound} I wanna hear from you , what you've done . And after that I have some new product requirements . So {disfmarker} And after that we have to make decisions , what we will do . And then we're ready . We have forty minutes for this meeting . After that we'll have lunch . So first I wanna ask the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Industrial Designer to tell what he did . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's my task . Okay . Uh I've {disfmarker} Where have I put it ? My Documents or not ? Hmm . I've save it on my computer , my presentation . +Project Manager: Yeah on your computer , or the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But where ? +Project Manager: What's the name ? +Industrial Designer: Uh uh uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What's the name of it ? +Industrial Designer: It was about the working of the remote control . +Project Manager: It's the technical function or the functional requirements . +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Not a {gap} of {disfmarker} Wait . The working design . But I've saved it . +Project Manager: Working design . +Industrial Designer: But now I don't know where it is . Hmm . +Project Manager: Working design . What is this ? Product documents . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And I import this until {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the desktop . Up . {gap} up . Up . Up . +Industrial Designer: One more . +Project Manager: Up . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . My Documents . Nope . +Industrial Designer: What the fuck is this ? +Project Manager: Gone . {vocalsound} Well you {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Nah . Nah , nah , nah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: PowerPoint . Working design . +Industrial Designer: Yeah that's the empty one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I had one . +Project Manager: Presentation of working design . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . Open it . Okay here it is . +Project Manager: Save as {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Desktop . +Project Manager: Project {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Project . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Well . +Project Manager: Save . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: A little later but here it is . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So okay . It's a little difficult what I'm gonna tell you . It's about the working of the remote control . I just had an half an hour j to study it +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} I don't get it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Make it . +Project Manager: Now have ten minutes to tell it . +Industrial Designer: Ten minutes to tell it . Okay . I think it will be a few minutes and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: First uh I will tell you something about the findings , what I discovered about the remote control . The working bout it {disfmarker} uh of it . Uh then I'll have uh some kind of map , and it's the top of the remote control . With a little bit of science , uh you {disfmarker} I will show that uh in in a few minutes . And then uh what I'll think about it . First , the findings . The remote control is a very difficult uh thing to uh to explain to just all of you wh who haven't seen a remote control uh inside . Uh there's a lot of uh plastic on it , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: um because its uh not so expensive . And there are uh a lot of uh wires , uh which um connect the components in it , the battery , and there are um switches and things like that . There's a lot of small uh electronics . So it won't be um uh too expensive to build it . Only twelve Euro fifty I think uh we will make it . Now {gap} {disfmarker} And here I have the top of the remote control . Uh here's some kind of chip . Uh on top of this , there are uh the numbers . Uh you have all on your remote control . And uh the teletext uh button . And uh here's the battery . And when you push the button , it will uh will be sent to the chip . And the chip will um send it to all kind of sub-components . That's what I said , it's very difficult . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And after that it will be sent to the infrared . And that will send it to your television . That's a short h uh how it works . Uh I think I can uh make it uh difficult , but we all {vocalsound} we all don't get it . My preferences ? It's uh {disfmarker} it won't be uh {disfmarker} We shouldn't make it too big . Uh also for the cost , uh we should only put one battery on it . A long-lasting battery . Uh also for the cost , uh use only plastic . Not other materials . Also because of the cost , uh not too much buttons on it . We can also make uh a button uh with a {gap} {disfmarker} menu uh button . And then um that that you will see it on the T_V_ . And on the T_V_ you can uh switch into the menu . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} I think it's easier . And the bleep signal , y uh you told us . Uh but we can also use it uh a bleep like something , when the battery's empty , then there is a bleep . Then you'll have to change it in a in a week or something . And also the bleep , when {disfmarker} what I told you about uh when you lost it , and you push a button , and then you hear bleep bleep , and we will find it . This is uh just uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh oh . Two questions . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: The battery . You say one battery is cheaper . Why ? +Industrial Designer: If we w if we use only just one uh small pen-light , then it will be cheaper than when we use two . +Project Manager: Yeah but when you use two , you can use it two times longer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to make the um remote control uh long lasting . +Project Manager: Okay so it's the size of the remote control . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay and the buttons . When you use it on the television , you've {disfmarker} you need the television , wh which can use it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But uh I think this {disfmarker} our remote control is for the televisions we uh we sell in our company ? +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or is it also for other company {disfmarker} uh for other televisions ? +Project Manager: I think we have to use it also on other televisions though . +Industrial Designer: Then this is an option . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe just a menu button to use it on our televisions . And then we make it easier uh for our televisions . And on the other tele televisions , you can also use it , but then we won't use the +Project Manager: Yeah but I don't {disfmarker} I think it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} They are two different things though . We have to choose one . It has to work on o uh all televisions . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay . Then I think uh the menu button uh will only work on the newer televisions . And we will uh look forward and don't make a remote control which for the older televisions . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And I just uh have one more idea . Uh maybe it's one of your tasks . But {disfmarker} Uh , to have a trendy remote control , we can also um make something like the Nokia um mobile phones . To change covers . So if you have uh a trendy half with all red , uh yellow and something . And then you can put a red cover on it . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And also different things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Marketing: Will this will this add to the cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh then it won't be {disfmarker} uh will have just one cover on the uh original one . And then you can buy the covers . +Marketing: Yes but you have to m uh be able to change it . D does it make it more difficult to design ? +Industrial Designer: I think it will be a little more difficult , but not too much . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Not much . 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Just like with the Nokia uh mobile phones . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are much more Nokia telephones than um these ones . +Industrial Designer: Just one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah but then we'll have to to just um put five covers on it , and see if it works . If it won't works then we'll get something else . Then we uh won't g uh go further with it . +Project Manager: Yeah but are their profits bigger than their cost ? +Industrial Designer: Uh a p a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a cover made in uh in China , it it won't be I guess so expensive I think . +Project Manager: Yeah but there are also design cost . I don't think {disfmarker} When you have a remote control , do you change the cover ? Would you change the cover ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe . I wi I won't . +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: But maybe I think trendy people or like children where you can paint on it , and uh the the children think , oh this is my remote control , uh I made a picture on it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: N yeah but {disfmarker} I think that too less people would change it for good profit . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . And the other people ? What do you think about it ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah it's a good idea . But {disfmarker} If if it {disfmarker} Yeah , I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure if it will make profit enough to uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: But it's uh yeah it's uh original idea . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes it is but I don't think we have to do it . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: You're the Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yes . That's it . +Project Manager: That's clear . {vocalsound} Okay thank you . So now the User Interface Designer . +User Interface: Oh . That's me . Uh {disfmarker} Come on . {gap} . Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yes well uh uh I shall give a short talk about the the technical function design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I thought the the the technical function design was uh to uh {disfmarker} for a remote control to to to have some influence on the T_V_ set . Uh both audio and vide video uh in a cordless way . No cords attached . And uh well , it all by pushing a button on the remote . That was from my own experience and uh and uh the previous meeting . Uh I find some uh some interesting quotes on the web . Uh well the same idea here . Uh message to the television . And uh and and and well basic uh operations like on and off , and uh switching channels , and uh {disfmarker} and maybe uh teletext or something like that . Uh well these are two uh remotes , and that's our uh our dilemma I think . Uh {disfmarker} We just heard from the Industrial Designer how uh difficult it is . But uh shall we make a basic remote control , uh just uh swapping channels and volume and uh power button and well nothing much more . Or uh uh more functions on the remote . Uh maybe more devices you can influence . Uh a radio or a v a video recorder , uh V_C_R_ . {vocalsound} Yeah well that's our dilemma . Um any ideas about that ? Basic or multifunctional ? +Project Manager: We'll got back on that later . +User Interface: Okay yeah . Yeah well the {disfmarker} that was just on my mind . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: So uh I didn't know what uh what way we would go . Mm yeah well that was my uh functional uh talk {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: 'Kay , thank you . Then it's your turn , the marketing expert . +Marketing: Okay . Uh um m Yeah . {vocalsound} Um yeah okay . This bit too far . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} So I'm uh gonna have a presentation about um the market , about um yeah what people think . Uh we did a usability lab-test with a hundred persons . And we looked at uh several um things . Uh among them design , uh d d how d did they like the use of it , uh what frustrations they had while using remote controls . Uh well what what will be our market . And uh we asked them if we had some new featu features . If um that would be a good idea or not . Well our findings . Uh our users , they disliked the look and feel of current remote controls . Um uh they especially found found them very ugly . And um th they also found them hard to to learn how to use it . Uh well they also zap a lot . So uh zapping uh should be very easy . And uh fifty percent of the users only use ten percent of the buttons . So a lot of unused buttons . There is more findings . Uh on the buttons . Which uh buttons find users uh very important and which which not ? And how much would they use them ? Well uh the most used button is the channel selection . And uh we asked them how uh relevant they think uh the buttons are . The power , volume and channel selections are very relevant . Uh teletext is uh less relevant but also important . Uh not important they found the audio , uh that's not the volume but uh specific the the pitch , or the left or right . Uh the screen and the brightness . And uh channel settings . Uh th and they also are not used very often . Then we have a few um graphs about the market . Uh here we can see what the market share is of uh several groups . Um as you can see , most users are uh between thirty six and forty five . Um the the the younger group between sixteen and twenty five is not very big . And to come back on the the swapping uh things , uh I don't think uh , I {vocalsound} I think the younger will be most interest in it . But uh they are not a very big group . Um in the {gap} we asked them , uh how would you like a s a new feature . If you have an L_C_D_ on the remote control , what would you think of it . Now you can clearly see young users say {gap} . I will {disfmarker} that would very nice . And older user think uh they will be scared of change {vocalsound} I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And they won't like it . And another thing , how would you like to have a speech recognition on it . Well here we see the same . Young users uh think that's an interesting idea . And old users not . Uh well we uh found out that there are two {disfmarker} several markets at which we can aim . Uh the first are the younger , the age between sixteen and forty five . Uh they are highly interested in the features , as you can see uh here . And um they are more critical on their money spending . Uh the second group is the older group . Aged between forty six and sixty five . They are less interested in uh new features . But uh they spend their money more easily . Now if we look back at this graph , we can see that among the first group is about um sixty percent . And the second group about forty percent . So the the first group is bigger . Well then I come to my uh personal preferences . Uh yeah the first question is uh {disfmarker} also we have to ask is at the which market do we aim at . Uh of course n uh saying we aim at the young group doesn't say that old people won't buy it . But less of them will buy it . Um well I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . What I thought , um even young people say it's hard to use , remote control . So if you make a remote control that is uh very easy to use , that's especially aimed at this group , even uh the young group will also be more interested . And um we can make special features . But uh I think it looks nice in the first time . But when use it , uh I don't know what's uh good thing of speech recognition . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um well th uh that's my second point . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh less important functions should be discarded from the remote control . It's about discussion we had earlier . Um {disfmarker} You can find most functions on a T_V_ set . So uh you don't have to have a lot of audio options , or screen options to change the brightness . And such things . Um well the design is very important . One thing I did not say I think , is that a lot of users also said then I would uh buy a good looking uh remote control if there will be one . But they found most remote controls very ugly . So the design of our remote control is very important . And uh yeah it should be very zap friendly , as most users use it for that . That were my findings . +Project Manager: Okay thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I have uh one question . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: If we aim for the younger people , um and there will be uh a lot of features like L_C_D_ or the the the speech uh f recognising , uh the cost will be a lot of h uh a lot higher . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think we don't have that in our budget . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Do you think ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: And I don't uh I don't think twenty five Euros for a remote is really cheap or something . +Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} No . No . +User Interface: So it's {disfmarker} Yeah , it's hard to uh get the younger group . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: I think uh the L_C_D_ is cheaper than speech recognition . So I think that can be an d good option . L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Just the L_C_D_ ? +Project Manager: Yes . Only the L_C_D_ . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} But we'll come back on that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Now {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh , go on . What d d d um {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Uh we go {gap} {disfmarker} back on the decisions later . Now we have a few new product requirements . First , teletext . We have internet now so we don't need the teletext anymore . So not necessary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Only for the television . So we don't look at the other things like the radio or something . Only the television . We look at the age group of forty plus . Uh no , younger than forty . Is a g big group , and like you showed , n not very much people buy our stuff . Fourth point . {vocalsound} Our corporate colour and slogan must be used . Very important for the design . So you can see it on our site . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Um no . We have to make our decisions , what we want to do . So {vocalsound} like you said , we need the {disfmarker} {gap} . Maybe it's good to put it in a document . Now we have to decide what controls do we need . So maybe you can tell us . +Marketing: Yeah maybe we can first have a discussion uh on the the product requirements you just uh said . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: The the requirements you just said , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: maybe we should first have a discussion about that . +Project Manager: Yes , it's okay . +Marketing: I uh personally think uh teletext is a good option . Uh not everyone um who is looking T_V_ can go to internet when they want to see the latest news . +Project Manager: Yeah but we don't use it . It's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} new requirement . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's not my requirement . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay , we'll just have to do that . +Project Manager: We have to do this . +Industrial Designer: Okay . No discussion about it . +Marketing: Okay . Okay sorry . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay . {vocalsound} Unfortunately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So what controls do we need ? Who first ? +User Interface: Well a power button ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Uh power . +User Interface: Uh the well um I think separate channels . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh mm channel . +User Interface: But then both the the separate channels . So so uh zero to nine or something . +Project Manager: Channel {disfmarker} Zero to nine . +User Interface: Uh volume . +Project Manager: Volume . Maybe it's easy to pick . What was w your one ? Techno +Marketing: Mine ? It's the functional requirements . +Project Manager: Okay . We had w uh no no no no . Where was that example of the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh mine . +Project Manager: Johan . That was the {disfmarker} the the the the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: Technical . +Project Manager: technical {disfmarker} Hallo . Okay . What do we need ? On-off . Zero to nine . +Industrial Designer: To change to the next channel , just one button . To move up , move down . +Project Manager: Yeah that's the channel . +Marketing: D Yeah . Do we make a menu ? +Project Manager: Menu ? Uh yes the n newer televisions ha do have menus . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} M Menu . I think um the only one or two numbers . +User Interface: Mm yes . +Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Hello ? That's ch {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} I think it will be um q quite easy to use , to have uh uh four arrows . Up-down for channel selection , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: and left-right uh for volume . And uh a menu uh button . And if you press the menu button you get into the menu , and you can use the same buttons . But the {disfmarker} then to scroll through the menu and to change the options . +Project Manager: On the L_C_D_ screen , you mean ? +Marketing: Uh well yeah that depends on if you have uh the menu on the T_V_ . Or you get the menu on the L_C_D_ screen on the remote control . +Project Manager: Think it's better to have it on the remote control , 'cause it it has to work on all televisions . So +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: we need {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we come to the costs . +Project Manager: N Yes . But if we have this {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . But well if you aim at the younger market , um a as they as uh s uh as we seen in the usability uh lab , uh they will buy a nice looking um remote control . And also to find the easy to use uh part very important . So if we have a L_C_D_ sh uh screen , and uh not too many buttons , I think that will incre uh uh even when it's a bit more cost , it will still sell . +Project Manager: So now we don't have a lot of buttons . Is this enough ? +User Interface: Mute . +Project Manager: Mute . Maybe in the menu ? +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but then it's always uh more than one uh thing to do . +Project Manager: Mute . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe more ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No . Well . Then that's all . This will be the buttons . And {disfmarker} I think that's enough for the next phase . So we can go on to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But now we have only the buttons . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And uh we don't yet have to decide what the remote control would look like ? Or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's for the next phase . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um {gap} {disfmarker} Phase two is the conceptual design . So then we'll have the concepts . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: That's for the {disfmarker} So uh next point . Now we have lunch-break . After that we have t thirty minutes for work . And you can find the minutes in the Project Documents folder inclusive the uh buttons . No . Your individual action , you can find them in the email . So now it's time for lunch . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good idea . +Project Manager: Thanks for coming . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +","In the meeting, the project manager kicks off the discussion by outlining the agenda, which includes reviewing work completed, discussing new product requirements, decision-making, and allocating a total of forty minutes before lunch. The Industrial Designer is first to report but initially cannot find the presentation on their computer. After locating the presentation, the Industrial Designer provides an overview of the remote control design, including the workings, preferences for construction, and cost considerations (estimated at €12.50). Suggestions include a minimalist design, using plastic for cost-effectiveness, and incorporating a long-lasting single battery. They also propose a ""find me"" bleep feature and swappable covers reminiscent of Nokia phones, although concerns are raised about whether this would be cost-efficient or desirable for consumers. + +The User Interface Designer then shares thoughts on whether to make a basic or multifunctional remote control, considering technical functionality and user operation, and prompts for further discussion later. + +The Marketing expert presents findings from a usability lab test involving 100 participants. They highlight that users dislike the current aesthetic and complexity of remote controls, tend to use only 10% of the buttons (emphasizing the importance of zapping), and indicated preferences for different buttons. The marketing analysis suggests focusing on creating a user-friendly design, with possibly fewer, more essential buttons. Two market segments are identified—users aged 16-45 interested in more features but critical about spending, and an older segment that is less feature-oriented but spends money more easily. There is also a proposition for making the remote visually appealing and highlighting the importance of design and user-friendliness. + +The Project Manager introduces new product requirements, including the elimination of teletext, focus on television-only functionality, targeting of younger audiences, and inclusion of the company's corporate color and slogan in the design. A discussion on necessary buttons for the remote ensues, with the team reaching a consensus on essential buttons and considering features like an LCD screen and a simplified menu system. + +In closing, the Project Manager notes that the current phase's focus is on selecting buttons, with the design aspect to be tackled in the conceptual design phase. Lunch break is announced, with work to follow and minutes to be circulated in the Project Documents folder and individual action items via email." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'm proud of it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . This is our final meeting , the detailed design meeting . And again I'll take minutes . The {disfmarker} what we have to get through in this meeting is firstly the prototype presentation from you two , so you can show us what you've been working on so diligently . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It does look very cool . +Project Manager: Um then +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} then Cat's going to present the evaluation criteria that we're going to be evaluating this against . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then I need to say some st a few things about finance , 'cause we have to check that it's within the finance criteria . Um and then we'll be making sure that our product fits both the evaluation criteria from Cat and the financial limits . Um and then we uh will have a brief evaluation of the whole process of production and design that we've been through . So we've got forty minutes . S +Marketing: And then do we get to make a remote control ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause we missed out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's now {disfmarker} I guess that we're supposed to start at fifteen thirty five , so we've got until four fifteen . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . How how much do we have , forty minutes ? +Project Manager: Is that right ? +User Interface: Yeah , about four fifteen , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: until about four fifteen . So yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so . +Project Manager: Go for it . Do you want {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , you said um {disfmarker} are are we starting with the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Presentation . +User Interface: so will you maybe start with like the mm the shape and things and and then I will explain the the user interface th uh things , like the buttons and the scrolling things and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Okay . So um basically going with our trend of vegetables and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we selected the colour and approximate shape of banana . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You think bananas are a safe thing to use ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a bit um phallic . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well , but it's it's just an a approximation . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Dual use , perfect . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Dual use , perfect . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , {vocalsound} {gap} your remote control ? Oh that's just bad . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Does it vibrate when you press the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um so basically it's the it's the flip open thing again . +Project Manager: Sorry , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So now we we have the {disfmarker} okay , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so Ma Maarika will explain you the user interface there . And it flips open on the side , so it opens like that . And we have the user interface o in here +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Wow . +Industrial Designer: and uh {vocalsound} the the L_C_D_ and and the scroll are inside . Um well , everything else is probably user interface , so . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} the whole thing's made of rubber , is that {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh yeah . Yeah , it has , yeah . +User Interface: Rubber . +Marketing: Is it to scale , or do you think you can make it a bit smaller ? +User Interface: Yeah , {gap} . Um it could be made a bit smaller , and and of course it would be {gap} and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , but um one thing we actually kind of um forgot while designing , that one side was supposed to be rounder , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: so we said the back side round , yeah . +Industrial Designer: well , but i since it's made of rubber anyway . I I think it's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It l does look like the {gap} curvy +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then the whole shape's curvy , so I would say that this curvy does look quite like a vegetable . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . And it's spongy as well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I wasn't very keen on that , but yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So {vocalsound} so uh the user interface as as we discussed last time uh mm on on the {vocalsound} on the cover we just have the very basic things . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Huh . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So we have that n uh channels here starting from um uh one two three {disfmarker} there would be numbers in in the {disfmarker} on the actual one . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it's four , up to four , up to seven , up to nine and zero , z zero here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Six seven eight nine . I like that . +User Interface: Yeah . And then , well this is on off button . It's it's quite standard mm place for it and and also the colour is quite often red , so it's it's kind of user friendly . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And then these ones would be for flipping the channels back and {disfmarker} like the previous one and the next one . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +User Interface: And and we would also have a l little um thing saying here , previous and ne prevon prevon next . +Marketing: So where's the volume ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: The volume is is scrolling . +Industrial Designer: It's on the side . +User Interface: On the side , +Marketing: Ah , you did get that in then , +User Interface: this one . Yeah you just do it like this . +Marketing: mm-hmm . +User Interface: And and and it's it's on the back is mm cover or back lid , because if you flip it open , you can still do the scrolling here . +Marketing: Oh okay , {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: See ? So the volume is {vocalsound} you just scroll , but then once you flip it open , {vocalsound} okay , there there you have the screen +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and you have the mm {vocalsound} spinning wheel with options to choose . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: You can move back and forth and then if you need to m choose something on the screen , you just push the cen mm the middle button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . Oh , the thing we forgot was like a mute button . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh no , we we'd not put {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: A mute button . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so on on the cover we have the the bare essentials . +User Interface: Well , {gap} we'll have this on the screen , on the display . +Project Manager: Y or you could have it {disfmarker} so you {disfmarker} on the wheel if you {disfmarker} +Marketing: On the wheel , like if you hold the wheel down then it will mute . +Industrial Designer: Uh on the L_C_D_ we r you know , the main menu will have various options . +User Interface: Well , but the but the mute {disfmarker} yeah , the scrolling is kind of you have to scroll all the way to make it mute , right ? +Project Manager: But if you hold it in , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah , but it's a scroll and click , isn't it ? +Project Manager: if it's a scroll and click so you hold it in ? +Marketing: Okay , cool . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , okay . +Marketing: So that {gap} that solves the whole mute issue . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} And okay , so i so the the voice recognition is also just part of it . +Project Manager: {gap} no . +User Interface: You can't really see it in the interface . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , it's hidden in there somewhere . +User Interface: Yeah . And we do have the logo on it as well . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , very good . +User Interface: So I think it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with the the black and yellow you're even in the right colours . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +User Interface: Yeah , I think um we could do l the logo in grey , as it is on the website . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We ran out of resources here , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: In the actual one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can have a look . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So if you have questions . +Project Manager: Very good , let's have a look . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Test it out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh it's a sort of intermediate colour , I guess . +Marketing: Yeah , oh , we hold the remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , but it it does feel all cold and slimy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I hate Play-Do , it's just minging . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But yeah , uh that's cool , cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so maybe if we go on to evaluation cri criteria +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: and then we'll there {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , see the budget . +Project Manager: I suspect we're gonna have a couple of minor finance issues , but um we'll se I'm sure we can get around them somehow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll just send all of our manufacturing to some nice poor country +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and cut some of the prices that way . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wales . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wales , for example . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Cool , okay . Right , okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Fabulous , +Project Manager: Marketing Expert . +Marketing: yeah . Okay , cool . So what we're gonna do is prefer {disfmarker} prepare the evaluation of the new design . {vocalsound} Um so we're gonna be using a seven point scale , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so one is , you know , yes , it totally meets with that requirement and seven is , no , it really doesn't , we need to go back and start again . Um , you know . Basically , what I did was I went through all the like user requirements and things that we've done and we've worked on and like made a list of them . Um you know , so that we can evaluate each one and like {disfmarker} so it was about going back to the start and saying oh yeah , we did manage to do that , or oh no , we really forgot about that . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , so these are what they are . Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So for each of these we need to give it a one to seven . Is that right ? +Marketing: Yes , I did have A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ down here , but it seems to have turned into like just bullet points . +Project Manager: Mm dots , never mind . +Marketing: Okay . But if you can imagine that they say A_ , B_ , C_ , and D_ , then that would be really good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I guess we'll give it maximum points in everything . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , the yeah , it's definitely attractive . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: Oh , the locatable thing we actually forgot . +Marketing: Well , I thought we'd um kinda said that you'd have a little thing to stick on the T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah , just prepare one now . +User Interface: Yeah . Shall I just prepare it now ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: It will be red , too . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . So , be attractive to look at . That's this one . What do you all say ? +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: I reckon it {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} S seven was th the maximum , yeah ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: I I go for seven . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: Oh {vocalsound} we're all so proud of the {gap} . +Project Manager: Seven , yeah , it's terribly sexy . Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that'll be a seven for A_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Could {disfmarker} oh no , you can't whilst that's up there . Okay um uh what I've done on the next page is I've set it up so we just put the marks in . +Project Manager: Ah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . Except we can't {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we can we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that's alright . +Project Manager: uh we can if we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I can I can take note uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you take a note of them , and then I'll put them in in a minute . +Project Manager: then yeah , I'll take a note , it's fine . +Marketing: Okay , so {vocalsound} we're all agreeing on seven for A_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool , okay . Does it match the operating behaviour of the user ? +Industrial Designer: Um the the only thing that we were considering was that uh this thing is kind of more for right-handed people than for left-handed people , +Project Manager: I think it does . +User Interface: I would think yes , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so if you're left-handed you're kind of left uh scrolling with your finger . +User Interface: Yeah , +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: so y so we we might do we might want to do like a uh another m {vocalsound} model another another version , which is like exactly the mirror image of this one . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: But that's gonna be a problem , +Industrial Designer: But then {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: 'cause you don't always have all left-handers or all right-handers in a family . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So bu it's it's not a huge problem , +Marketing: I th I think it's not {vocalsound} it's not like it's a pen . +Industrial Designer: because i i it is operatable . +User Interface: But then then I think left-handed people are already used to discrimination anyway , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so they just {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean because it's not like it's a pen , you know , left-handed people can't normally write right-handed , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but they can normally do most things right-handed , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: so I would say it's not such a big issue . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , because I mean anyway , right-handed people would be able to scroll with it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: I mean you can you can use your finger to to scroll rather than your thumb . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: so i if the majority are right-handed , it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: So I mean that does kind of negate the whole R_S_I_ issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So maybe we need to put {disfmarker} that needs a little bit of investigation , maybe give it a five , I would say ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: What do you what do you all think ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Six . +User Interface: Or maybe six , because it's just one one i one among the issues , +Project Manager: Yeah , I think I think for um {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean . Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean most people are right-handed , so in {vocalsound} in terms of our greatest target group , I think it's pretty good , but we might want to flag it for management , they want {disfmarker} might want to um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: One more thing is that i +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: It might be a little clumsy when when it opens up , right , +Project Manager: They {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it opens on the side . So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: No , yeah , but mm but we have it {vocalsound} nicely {vocalsound} with the hinges here {gap} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah , I mean {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: So it won't be a problem , +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you guys can decide wh whether {disfmarker} +User Interface: it will be {disfmarker} and it will be {disfmarker} it won't be heavy . +Industrial Designer: Oops . +Marketing: I th I think the alternative is flipping from the top . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but we {disfmarker} which makes it kind of really big , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well yeah , +Project Manager: The length is gonna be difficu +User Interface: but it's it's a bit long . It's a little bit long . +Marketing: Yeah um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , I mean it can be opened like this of course and yeah . +Marketing: But you were thinking about making it smaller , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this this kind of uh makes it more {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Because {disfmarker} +User Interface: S uh slightly smaller . +Industrial Designer: and two , it might interfere with the I_R_ channel . +Marketing: So you have to keep that side flat . +User Interface: Yeah , but if we flip it open only as much as that . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: So it works like a mobile phone flipping , but y you know , as long as that side's flat , than that will work . +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , so C_ . Are are we admitting defeat on C_ or are we saying we're gonna stick a locator on the T_V_ ? +Industrial Designer: No , we have a locator . +Project Manager: No , we're gonna put it like {disfmarker} we've got th there's the locator dot . +Marketing: There's a locator . Cool , so that means you need a {disfmarker} that does mean you need a little speaker on it though , +User Interface: Mm that you stick on T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: doesn't it ? To make it beep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Or a buzzer . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah well w but l but the speak sample speaker is included , so it it has some capacity to mm to do some {disfmarker} to make some sounds , so {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So that's two , so that's seven , yeah . It's locatable ? +User Interface: Yep . +Marketing: Fabulous . D_ . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive , completely intuitive . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If {vocalsound} uh uh if this means intuitive , if it means the way people kind of are used to finding things +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and it's {disfmarker} I th I think it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'd say six , 'cause the {disfmarker} I mean the the standard layout for numbers is three three three and one , rather than the way you've got it . I really like the way you have it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but it's not the immediate thing that you're used to . +Industrial Designer: Intuitive . +Marketing: Yeah , and I mean d +Industrial Designer: And uh even the scroll , it's a it's a new technology +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so m m might be a little more difficult for people to get used to in the beginni +Project Manager: Might be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so it is kind of not very intuitive but uh it's a good technology , I mean once they get used to it . +Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and it's something that they will be experiencing in a lot of different places soon . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: So , should we maybe say f a five +Industrial Designer: So l +Marketing: and say it is intuitive , +Project Manager: Five ? +Marketing: but it's different , so , do you know , I mean it's obvious how to use it , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but you might have to think about it first . So we give that one a five , you think ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . I'm gonna give a seven in everything , so . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I'm happy with five ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm glad you're accepting this . It has taken a little while , hasn't it ? Um intuitive but {disfmarker} Sorry , it's really hard to write on those . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I just went a bit mad , didn't I ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , cool , E_ , okay . Um I would guess this comes back from this whole B_ thing links in here , so possibly for left-handed . Investigate . +Project Manager: Yep . But otherwise it's superb . +Marketing: So , should we give it a six ? +Project Manager: Six . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: Um uh the ergonom ergonomic design {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: well mm I mean I d uh I dunno , I mean the the repetitive stress things , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: but then who would be really pushing the buttons so much on the on the remote control anyway , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , unless you are a all the time sitting . +User Interface: yeah ? See . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so it's kinda {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I I think it is ergonomic . +Marketing: I used to send fifty texts a day , you know , +Project Manager: Well we've banned them from {disfmarker} +Marketing: and I never got repetitive strain injury from that , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: so I find it quite hard to believe to be honest . +Industrial Designer: And moreover it it has um {vocalsound} L_C_D_ and everything , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so that uh you know uh we minimise the pressing of the buttons anyway . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's varied . +Marketing: Okay , so we give that a six , +Project Manager: Yeah . Six ? +Marketing: yeah . Okay , F_ . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} it does have {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . +Project Manager: Voice control have seven . +Marketing: Hang on , how come it's showing up with the things there but it only had bullet points there ? That's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah , that's the second one . So you must have changed it on this one where it's got score , but not on the previous slide . +Marketing: Oh okay , cool . Um {vocalsound} right , so {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So it has voice control . +Marketing: Yes , so that's a seven then . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Marketing: Um , cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: G_ technologically innovative . +Industrial Designer: Anyway it ha yeah , +User Interface: Technologi {gap} well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: it's the most sophisticated remote that I ever seen . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} But in terms of the actual technology , none of it is actually new . +User Interface: Yeah . Well mm we have we have the sample speaker as well , which is {disfmarker} yeah , it's kind of new . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean you don't {disfmarker} +Project Manager: All of the components have been used in other things before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but they've been brought together in a remote . +User Interface: But at the same time they are all they are all relatively new . +Marketing: They're never been used i they've never been using remote remote control before I don't think . +Project Manager: But do {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: What do you reckon , five , six ? +Marketing: Yeah , what do you all think ? +User Interface: Six . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Six ? +User Interface: I mean how how far can you go with a remote control , really ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , that's it , I mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: It still has to do what i what it has to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean everything has been used in space before it gets to anyone else really , hasn't it ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , I don't think many peop +Project Manager: Space remote . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's it , they can take it with them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Put fashion in electronics . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Absolutely . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , isn't it fashionable ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: The carrot banana remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's the maximum fashion . +Marketing: So , we give it seven , and we write {disfmarker} +User Interface: Fruit fruit and vegetables are fashionable these days , so . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: There we go . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a {gap} . +User Interface: So I think we've done very well , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Very good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} What's the assessment ? +Marketing: So , we need the average here , so we got {disfmarker} +User Interface: The average is about six and something . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , one . +User Interface: A little bit over six . +Marketing: Seven {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There are how many sixes ? +Project Manager: Or a seven {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: One , two , three . +Marketing: So we've got four sevens , +User Interface: No , wait , a little bit under six . +Marketing: so that's twenty eight , +Industrial Designer: Three . +User Interface: No , wait . +Marketing: three sixes , +Industrial Designer: And one five . +Marketing: eighteen . +User Interface: Oh , three sixes , okay , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fifty one , one , two , three , four , five , six , seven , eight . +Industrial Designer: Okay , twenty eight , thirty eight , fo forty six . Forty six and five , fifty one . +Project Manager: Six point point {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Fifty one divided by {disfmarker} +User Interface: Six point something , yeah . +Marketing: Two three four {disfmarker} Seven eight . +Project Manager: about six point five . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Six point five , yeah . +Project Manager: Close enough . +Marketing: Okay , that's pretty good , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Now wait until we {vocalsound} get to finance and then we'll see if we can afford it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's all you've got at the moment , or did you have anything more ? +Marketing: Um no , that's it , +Project Manager: That's it ? +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . So , finance . And we'll see if we can unscrew this first . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool , there we go . +Project Manager: Sorry , this is {disfmarker} I'm just um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . There we go and there are the marks . +Project Manager: Beautiful . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Not anymore . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Computer no signal ? +Industrial Designer: Mm I guess it'll have to wait for a bit . +Project Manager: Adjusting . There we go . Okay , so we've looked at the prototype presentation and the evaluation criteria . And now we have to calculate the production costs . So I've got an Excel spreadsheet to help us do that . Can you read that ? Almost . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: More or less . Um I started filling it in , but of course these are provisional , so we have to go down . No hand dynamo , right ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: One simple battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: No kinetic energy , no solar . The chip , we're going for an advanced chip on print . +Industrial Designer: Advanced , yeah . +Project Manager: We also said the sample sensor and sample speaker . +User Interface: Yep . +Project Manager: Um single-curved surface , so that we can fold it . +User Interface: Yeah , yes . +Project Manager: Case material we said rubber . +User Interface: Rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: I don't know what special colour means . +Industrial Designer: Mm anything uh I think which is not more {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think something coloured , yeah , probably . So I think this is probably special co no ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It could be {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but rubber comes coloured , doesn't it ? You know . +Project Manager: Rub rubber comes coloured , +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe it's like if you want titanium coloured or wood coloured , it's different . +User Interface: Or maybe maybe if you want some kind of pattern thing on it , +Project Manager: Yeah , let's leave it as zero , 'cause it's easy . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} yeah yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: you might end up having to take off the sample sensor . +Project Manager: We we're definitely going to have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have pushbuttons , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: so we've got pushbutton , and then we've +User Interface: scro we have scroll wheel as well . +Project Manager: Scroll wheel with pushbutton we had , no ? +Industrial Designer: No uh we we have uh yeah . +User Interface: S yeah , yeah , we had , for muting , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: And we have L_C_ display +Project Manager: And button supplements . +User Interface: and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm no . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} . No . +Industrial Designer: We don't have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No ? +Industrial Designer: we're not using any of that . +User Interface: Yeah , but what do we ha we have L_C_ display , but but the wh but the s spinning wheel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the the spinning wheel's not there . I have {disfmarker} think {disfmarker} maybe it's integrated with the L_C_ display ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: We've got more than one pushbutton though , +User Interface: Okay , let's {gap} yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: haven't we ? +Project Manager: I think the pushbutton {disfmarker} oh . +Marketing: 'Cause then you have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I don't know if that's one {disfmarker} +Marketing: That means you can only have twenty five push buttons in total doesn't it ? Not counting anything , we'd still be in budget . +Project Manager: Yeah . That seems unlikely . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Project Manager: Push what uh +Industrial Designer: Wh wh what is the limit ? Uh . +Marketing: Twelve point five . +Project Manager: whether whether pushbutton means that p count by button or do we {disfmarker} +User Interface: We have to count all of them , or {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm I don't think so , no . +Project Manager: I don't think that makes sense . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: No it says what what is the kind of interface , +Marketing: Well it doesn't , but it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: if it is pushbutton then you got a zero point five , it's a scroll wheel {disfmarker} so we we've put it's pushbutton and scroll wheel and L_C_D_ display , +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: And L_C_ display . +Industrial Designer: so that's that's the three kind of interfaces that we have . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . So , as we can see , that's way too expensive down here . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wh wh what's our criteria ? +Marketing: This sample sensor {gap} . +Project Manager: Our budget's twelve point five . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . +Marketing: Yeah , the sample sensor will have to go , 'cause that's the most expensive thing on there . +Project Manager: Yeah , so that has implications though for the {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Uh it does not have for voice recognition , but it does have for the feedback speaker . {gap} when you say {disfmarker} when you press one it says one or it says hello . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: For the locator . +Marketing: But that's a bit of a gimmick anyway really , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} and the locator also goes away . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We can afford to get rid of it . +User Interface: But it was very no innovative +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So that means no locator , does it ? +User Interface: {gap} innovativeness {gap} . Well um {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: I mean does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What else does it need ? +User Interface: Well the speaker uh the sample speaker is is expensive , but we could just have some some very very easy device that just beeps . +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the sample speaker was , I think , more complicated then just a beeping thing . +User Interface: This would be {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah yeah {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: there you record your samples your speech samples and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , okay , so we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A also i in the case I'm not sure that you will evaluate this as a curved surface , because it's just rubber , so it's probably a flat surface rubber . Uh I mean uh um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: Okay , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Right , so we need one fifty off . +Marketing: See , I was gonna say the scroll wheel pushbutton thing , 'cause {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Take it down to just a scroll wheel . {vocalsound} We could do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So tha that {vocalsound} mean that we cannot press {disfmarker} how do we how do we make a selection in uh in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: Yeah , then then we would be in the b budget . +Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} in the L_C_D_ we can scroll , right ? But how do we make a selection if we d cannot push the button . +User Interface: Yeah b no no , you can push this one , but we don't have a pushbutton uh we ca we don't have this muting mechanism for this scrolling thing . +Marketing: But that's {disfmarker} well you would just have to to spin it down {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can have to scroll it straight r roll it straight down for for mute . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: No w w w but ha +Marketing: So that's point three . +Industrial Designer: it's it's the scroll wheel and I thought we were referring to this as a scroll spinning wheel and pushbutton thing . +User Interface: But I mean {vocalsound} we can put an additional mute button on the top as well . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: If you {disfmarker} +Marketing: I mean that wouldn't actually cost any more . That's the spin wheel though , isn't it ? Didn't that come with the L_C_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's with the L_C_ +Industrial Designer: That comes with the L_C_D_ ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: We decided , 'cause it's not on our list . +Industrial Designer: Oh so so the the this is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: The scroll wheel is on the side . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . So {vocalsound} we're adding costs for {gap} right , okay uh I mean I think this is good . +Marketing: S so we're point three over . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We're point three over at the moment . +Marketing: Unless we just take off the scroll wheel altogether +Project Manager: It's nothing n +Marketing: and just have pushbuttons for the volume . Could b still put them on the side . But yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Marketing: I mean the scroll wheel's pretty cool , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I have {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Instead of scrolling here we have two buttons here , up {disfmarker} for up and down . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: On the side . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm uh it sounds good actually , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Rather than having three different things that people have to do . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go . Oh look , we're way under budget and we'll make huge profits and we'll all get bonuses . +Marketing: Yeah , well we could admit to the single curve {gap} , couldn't we ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or or that we have to have some sort of special colour . +Marketing: Yeah , but {gap} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So that's alright . We we'll leave it at that {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and then I'll take {disfmarker} I can send it back to management and say we weren't quite sure about the colour , if that costs extra then we've still got some space for it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . Alright . So did we lose um on our evaluation criteria , as a result of doing that ? +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: Not really , no . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . +Industrial Designer: Because we keep all the features , we keep voice recognition , we keep L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} instead of having scrolling we we just push the buttons . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: We just got rid of a gimmick that was never {gap} anyway , +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and the scroll wheel is I mean essentially the two buttons that was {disfmarker} it's not a great difference I don't think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we lose the locator . +Project Manager: Alright then . +Marketing: Really ? +Project Manager: We're gonna have a beep . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {gap} we're going to have a beeping thing . +Industrial Designer: So instead of speaker , {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: But yeah , it's it's not like sample speaker , but it will just beep , so we still have the locate . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Cool . That's not a very exciting colour . I think you should make it more vegetable-like . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tha +User Interface: Which colour , the the colour of the phone or the colour of the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh the the beeper thing . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: It {disfmarker} +User Interface: But it can be yellow as well . It can come in the same colour as the the case . +Project Manager: 'Cause we we won't have run out of our pot of Play-Doh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I think Jen wants it to vibrate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , I know I know , my pen vibrates . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know , your pen vibrates ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But only for a very short time . Um okay . So looks like we've designed a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well done , team . {vocalsound} Um we need {disfmarker} we've just got about ten minutes or so left of the meeting , so it would be good if we could just have a little talk about the project itself and how it went , um so that we can feed back to the management for next time they're designing a product . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Feedback ? Ideas ? +User Interface: Yeah mm , as far as creativity is concerned , yeah I think there was there was room for creativity . The only the only problem being that at the end we had to cut some things down because of the the budget we had . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh n one thing that was lacking uh was that we did not know what the various things cost to begin with . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um we kap kept a adding things randomly . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , had we known {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: If we'd had that sheet at the beginning {gap} should've been like , okay , so we can have that lot , let's just throw it together and do what we can . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , that or not , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {vocalsound} d all the random decisions at the end could have been prevented . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But in terms of the process of um going and working individually and then coming back to a meeting , that that worked in terms of . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , mm . +Marketing: I think 'cause the meetings were so regular , you know . It wasn't like we were alone for very long , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you didn't {vocalsound} st go off and think , wouldn't it be great to have a vibrating {vocalsound} remote control {vocalsound} shaped like a banana , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Banana . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and then , you know , come back three days later and Jen's going look , look , it vibrates and it looks like a banana . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um yeah , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , the m the means were very very good , the means we used . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , the whiteboard digital pens . +User Interface: And the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh I like the pens . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We like the pens . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I want one . That would just be so cool , to d do all your notes and s +Project Manager: Yeah , you could take it to lectures and just write stuff down +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah , +Project Manager: and have it printed out when you got back to the office . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: that's it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They great ? +Industrial Designer: I wonder what one of these costs . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think they'd notice if one went ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think you should say that was the recording . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh okay . +Marketing: Okay , cover up the microphone . Alright , let's take it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . Shh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: But that worked well having having a whiteboard that we could draw on as well as having the PowerPoint , 'cause the {disfmarker} I find that the problem with PowerPoint often is that it's so static and you can't change it once you're in there , +Marketing: It is a bit limiting , isn't it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: yep . +User Interface: Yeah , and and and this time also the time limits but actually preparing the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . The thing flew in , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: you didn't have the whole whooshing thing , 'cause there wasn't time for that , so yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's alright , that always irritates me anyway , yeah . +Marketing: Not that you can do that on the board , either . We could make some little {disfmarker} +User Interface: But yeah , but I mean already just just preparing the slides before before the meeting , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , totally , I mean that was fairly tight anyway , I mean especially with that last-minute alteration . +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} back it , {vocalsound} this is {disfmarker} just had to be changed +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: . And {disfmarker} yeah , so {disfmarker} cool . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Are we supposed to say nice things about Jen now ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And presumably you don't {disfmarker} you can say nasty things as well . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I have no stake in it . +User Interface: I was I was satisfied with with the leadership , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You weren't like a a dictating leader , so that was always good . +Project Manager: You have to say that , 'cause I'm taking the notes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll leave the room and you can have another go . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I know you've got the pen , you might attack me with it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Better than that than the banana . +User Interface: And then the teamwork I think I think it worked quite quite nicely , yeah . +Project Manager: I think it worked quite well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Did anyone feel that they were getting sort of covered up and not being able to say their bit ? +User Interface: To express them mm mm +Industrial Designer: Mm . I guess it was a fairly small group , +User Interface: no . +Industrial Designer: so all of us got to express our opinions , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} . New ideas found . Not quite sure what about . +User Interface: Well it's it's it's pretty new , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: pretty novel solution for a for a remote control really , all this flipping open thing and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't know , I don't go shopping for remote controls that often , maybe somebody's already though of it . +User Interface: Yeah , neither neither do I , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but I've never seen anything and and none of my examples were was was like this , actually , so . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah . I'll be looking out next time I need to write an essay . +Project Manager: Yeah , that's right . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That looks boring , I'll see if anyone's made a {gap} remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah maybe w maybe we could have a patent on this one . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Patent patent patent . Mm . +Marketing: I think we'd like to think the ideas were new , +Project Manager: Banana remote . +Marketing: but we've got no way of finding out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Or you can always go to Google and type in banana remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That vibrates {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Flip . Vibrate +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but that would just come up with like other things really wouldn't it . +Project Manager: . And uh {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} Nothing that you really want . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: True . Yeah . {vocalsound} Okay . So , costs are within budget , +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: well within budget , including a little {disfmarker} what have we got ? One Euro left over for bits that we didn't foresee . Um we've evaluated the project . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: And it's fabulous . +Project Manager: You've got the scores . Can you put that in the project documents file ? +Marketing: It's in the project documents {gap} . +Project Manager: It's in there already . And the process wheel didn't really have any major problems with . Were there any {disfmarker} was there anything that you found difficult , or anything that didn't go as smoothly as you'd hope ? +User Interface: And my main difficulty was the the time pressure . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Otherwise it's it's all fine . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , sometimes it's like a little bit rushed . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I thought that was good though , because if you're given too much time then you got nothing to do with your time and um {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Although we could have made the R_s better had we had five more minute . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay then . Um I think we're still well within our time . +Marketing: Yeah , we've got like five minutes left . +Project Manager: We've got about five minutes left , but if we've finished , then we've finished . We're just too too efficient +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We certainly are , +Project Manager: and you should never drag a meeting on just because you have extra time . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: So I would say that's the end of that meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Thank you , team . +User Interface: Yeah , it was a pleasure working with you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , same here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It was very productive day and {disfmarker} +Marketing: We could draw animals on the board again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm uh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can make some animals . +Marketing: I don't like Play-Doh , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , you don't like anim +Marketing: It's just minging . It smells so bad . +User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't ? +Marketing: It does . +User Interface: Smells quite nice . Smells very sweet . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right , so we have to complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary when they send it . +Industrial Designer: Was there a questionnaire already sent ? +Project Manager: I don't know if it's already sent or not . +Marketing: No , it hasn't been . +Project Manager: Um presumably I have to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we have to go back into the other room or can we stay in here now ? +Project Manager: I don't see why you can't stay here , really . +Marketing: Okay , so the other way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Did I save this one ? Production costs . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I made your animal for you . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It was supposed to be pink . {vocalsound} But it was blue on the board . +User Interface: Yeah , that's the one {disfmarker} +","This transcript captures a detailed design meeting involving key members of a product development team, including an Industrial Designer, User Interface Designer, Project Manager, and Marketing Expert. The primary agenda for the meeting is to review and finalize the prototype of a product they have been developing. + +The meeting begins with the Project Manager outlining the schedule, emphasizing the prototype presentation by the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer, an evaluation of the design against predetermined criteria, considerations about finance to ensure the product aligns with financial limitations, and concluding with a process and production evaluation. The time allotted for the meeting is 40 minutes, with the goal of finishing by 4:15 pm. + +As the meeting progresses, it's noted that the product’s design, particularly its color and shape, is inspired by a banana. However, this choice raises concerns from the Marketing Expert about the design potentially appearing phallic, which sparks a brief discussion about dual-use implications and the appropriateness of the design. + +The User Interface Designer discusses elements like the shape, buttons, and scrolling functionalities. Details are shared about a flip-open feature, the LCD and scrolling mechanism being housed inside, and the material, which is rubber. The possibility of making the prototype smaller is considered, and the team reflects on an oversight where one side of the design was supposed to be rounder. + +The team also exchanges ideas about the layout of the buttons, including the on/off button's color and placement for user-friendliness, and the inclusion of the volume control as a scroll on the side. They address the need for a mute button and discuss various solutions, ultimately considering a simple press-and-hold function on the existing scroll wheel for muting. Incorporating voice recognition features and locating the company logo on the device are also discussed. + +The Marketing Expert begins the evaluation of the design against predetermined criteria using a seven-point scale. They debate the intuitiveness of the design, ergonomic considerations, and the possible necessity for an alternate version for left-handed users. + +As they transition to finance, they realize certain features may exceed budget limitations. Compromises are considered, such as simplifying the scroll wheel and finding cost-effective alternatives for the sample sensor and locator. The team collaborates effectively to reduce costs while preserving essential functions to ensure the product is financially viable. + +The Project Manager presents an Excel spreadsheet to help calculate production costs. They have to make decisions about which features to include or eliminate to stay within budget, eventually managing to make choices that align with their financial constraints. As they finalize these decisions, they reevaluate the design against the criteria to ensure their changes haven't compromised the product's quality or appeal. + +In the final portion of the meeting, the team reflects on their project management process and provides feedback. They note the effectiveness of frequent meetings, the usefulness of a whiteboard and digital pen technology for collaboration, and the efficiency of their teamwork. Some team members mention the pressure of time constraints. They also consider whether their final product has truly novel features that could be patent-worthy. + +The team expresses overall satisfaction with the leadership and the development process despite some challenges. The meeting concludes with a sense of accomplishment, having designed a product that meets both design and financial criteria, and a playful note about the aesthetics of the presentation materials. + +In summary, the meeting captures the collaborative efforts of an interdisciplinary team working together to overcome design, user experience, financial, and production challenges in the development of a new product. It showcases the intricacies involved in bringing an innovative idea from concept to a feasible product ready for manufacturing and the market." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Julie Morgan, and I'm very pleased to welcome David Rees, who is substituting for her today. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you very much. Item 2 this morning, then, is a session with the Minister for Children and Social Care on the Welsh Government's childcare offer. So, I'm very pleased to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Children and Social Care, also Jo-Anne Daniels, director for communities and tackling poverty, and Owain Lloyd, deputy director for childcare, play and early years. So, thank you, all, for your attendance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions come from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Minister. How has it gone in the early implementer local authority areas, and is it something of a mixed bag? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's gone well, but I'm glad we've done it through this process of early implementer, actually piloting it, because we're learning lessons as we go along. It has gone well. It's been encouraging, to the extent that we're at the point where we're expanding—we've made announcements on expanding some of the early implementer areas so we can learn more lessons. But, in terms of what we're learning, one is the bureaucracy around the current approach that we're taking, because it's being done on the seven early implementers. So, we're asking parents to come in, provide their wage slips, provide the birth certificates, and so on. You're dealing sometimes with parents and families with complex issues and complex backgrounds, so it's difficult. And the burden of administration on that is falling to each pilot area. In one case, it's a whole authority, but it's only one—that's in Blaenau Gwent. In others, it's smaller areas. So, we're also hitting those—. The other big challenge we're hitting is communication. So, we're having parents, generally, who are outside the areas entirely saying, 'Why haven't we got this yet? Can we please get into it?', which is encouraging. But the other thing we're having is people who are within pilot authorities, where it doesn't extend to the whole authority, saying, 'Well, hold on now, we think we qualify for something under universal care, we think we qualify for something on tax credits. Why don't we qualify for this?' 'Well, you're not in the pilot area.' So, we're learning about these things, but the biggest one, I have to say, is the administrative burden, and I think that's interesting in how we take this forward for a wider roll-out. +Hefin David AM: What is the administrative burden? What specifically is that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It is that sheer burden on each local authority, and each pilot area, to administer a scheme where we are asking parents to prove eligibility, to bring in documents to prove their eligibility, to make adjustments as it goes forward based on what their changing work patterns are, what their salary slips say. It's incredibly bureaucratic. So, yesterday, when we made the statement following the announcement of the introduction of the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, we made clear that our preferred option, as put within that framework Bill, is actually to build on, and to learn from the lessons as well, the model of the HM Revenue and Customs type of model, where you actually have—and this, by the way, is supported by local authority providers out there—one system that is a centralised system, where there is clarity, that is handled, that has elements of information sharing between Government departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, and so on, so that the work is done for the parents, and the work is done for the local authorities; much cleaner, much simpler. +Hefin David AM: How confident are you that you can achieve that by 2020? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We are very confident. But, as I say, I'm more confident in the fact that we're actually piloting it, and phasing this in, because I think we've learned from some of the experiences elsewhere, including just over the border in England, where they have a different version of a childcare offer, but they've gone for it in a big-bang approach. And it has led to technical issues, it's led to volume issues, where their anticipation of how many people would buy into it was overwhelmed by the numbers who actually then came forward for it, and the complexity, I have to say, of individual family situations, whereas what we are doing, Hefin, is taking this forward very, very carefully. Each roll-out, each expansion that we're doing of the pilot is not—and I know this has caused some people to come back and say, 'Why can't we all have it now?' It's because we're only rolling out to areas where we now need to learn a lesson about whether it's rurality or, as it will be within densely urban areas, where the cost might be slightly higher, and that's allowing us to have the confidence that we'll have it. We've expanded the whole offer across Gwynedd—the whole of Gwynedd, Anglesey and Caerphilly. Flintshire now have a cross-authority offer. Rhondda Cynon Taf is anticipating doing this by September. Swansea is planning to do it, they tell us, in due course—in short order—as well. So, we have the confidence now that, with that learning going on from different pilot areas, we'll have the full roll-out by 2020. +Hefin David AM: Is it true to say that, in the early adopter areas, the intensity of demand for the services is not spread evenly across? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. +Hefin David AM: And why is that? Is that going to cause a problem across Wales? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, it won't cause a problem. If we were doing this tomorrow, it would cause a problem, but what we're learning is that there are some economic issues and then there are some cultural issues. So ,there are issues to do with—. It's not capacity, by the way. We're not finding a problem here with capacity, whether it's in English language provision or whether it's in Welsh language provision, whether it's in children with complex needs, we're not finding that as an issue. But what we are finding is, for example, one of the well-known ones—and I've spoken about this before—is that, in some of the south Wales Valleys constituencies, there is a family tradition of doing childcare within the families. I've done it myself. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on provide free, unregistered, unlicensed childcare of a sort. Now that isn't what the scheme is about, by the way, I have to say. So, some of the aspects are cultural, but what we're also doing alongside this, whilst looking at the capacity and looking at how we learnt from the pilot roll-out, is that communication with parents and providers and local authorities as well. So, we have a whole programme running alongside it. It's about communicating what the offer is, how simple it is to get invovled in this and where they go to, and, critically, I think, how we do that national roll-out would be important as well. +Hefin David AM: So, given the point you've made about grandparents and family, wouldn't it be sensible, then, to offer a subsidy to grandparents to provide this kind of care? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Unregistered grandparents? +Hefin David AM: Well, through some kind of analysis of that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, we don't think so and there are good reasons behind this. +Hefin David AM: Is it because you say that they wouldn't be registered as carers for their own family member? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but there's a deeper reason behind that registration as well. The childcare offer isn't only to just provide childcare; it's the wider aspects that come with this. This childcare offer ties into the foundation years offer. There's an element of education linked to the childcare offer—there's that 10 hours of the early education foundation years as well. The two tie together. So, there's an issue here with quality, about socialisation and how children learn in an environment, as opposed to purely—as great as all our grandparents and aunts and uncles are—simply child-minding. That's one important distinction. So, the focus of this scheme is very much on registered licensed providers, which could be, by the way—because we do have them, and we're discussing this at the moment internally and with the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and others—grandparents who are actually registered and inspected by the care inspectorate? We're having those discussions. +Hefin David AM: How many of them are there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We don't think there is a huge number, but we're trying to bottom this out at the moment. We haven't got the exact number, but we don't think they are huge numbers, but there are, in our constituencies, registered, licensed, inspected grandparents who look after other people's children in a little group of four or five or six or seven, but also their own grandchildren. +Hefin David AM: So, they're a kind of grandparents club. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. Now that, I would say to you—and I know that Darren raised this on the floor yesterday as well—is markedly different in the nature of it, because it's registered and licensed, than simply informal grandparents or aunts or uncles. I say that as well because we also get people who will say to us, 'I don't want to be paid for looking after my grandchildren; I look after my grandchildren because I look after them'. +Hefin David AM: And what about the view, given that you said that capacity wasn't an issue, of the National Day Nurseries Association, which says that Wales has the most fragile childcare sector in Great Britain? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I don't agree we have the most fragile, but the childcare offer gives us an opportunity to make it more resilient and more robust. We know from the early piloting, and as we roll it out, that there is the immense diversity within the childcare sector, and we're talking about everything from those very small terraced homes that have been licensed and registered to take six or seven children, to large, complex environments that perhaps are on maintained premises within school premises, provided by a voluntary or third sector organisation. So, there's immense complexity and we know that that differs across Wales, and we also know there's immense regional variation in the scale and the type of childcare offer. What the roll-out allows us to do, backed by £60 million of capital money behind it, in terms of capital development of childcare facilities, backed by a 10-year workforce development plan for childcare—and bear in mind this is bolted in as part of our foundational economy approach as well—that means, by 2020, we get to the point where we're putting the money into the capital development but also to the workforce development, because in some areas we're finding it's not to do with lack of provision and facilities, it's to do with lack of staff. In other areas, we're finding there are plenty of staff but not the adequate facilities. We've got to get it right. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but is it realistic to think that there's going to be capacity growth in the next two to three years to deliver the product? Is that realistic to think that that foundational sector can provide that level of staffing? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, I think it is, absolutely, because, again, what we're finding is we've got several things going on at once in terms of how we monitor and assess the development of this roll-out. One is the work that we're doing on the ground with the phased roll-out, so we're literally learning live time, and I have pretty much weekly or fortnightly updates on how things are going, but also there is a termly update as well. We've also commissioned additional work from Arad to look at this first phase of the roll-out that we've done to see what that tells us as well. But the feedback that we're getting from the childcare providers themselves, on the basis that we're now identifying where either the gaps in the workforce or the physical facilities are, is that, 'Yes, we can do this', because we're putting the money in, we have the strategy for the workforce development, and it's not going to be the same in all parts of Wales. It's not as if what we're saying is, 'Here's what we're going to do all of a sudden—flick a switch and we have a universality of the same type of provision everywhere.' So, let me give you one key example. Alongside this, alongside the £60 million capital fund, alongside the workforce development, we've also identified a separate strain of money into cylch meithrin. We know that there is a shortage in parts of Wales for Welsh language childcare development. We're specifically putting money into developing that, and, in fact, the first one of those will be, from that new tranche of money, opening up, I think, in September. They anticipate, as part of our big strategy with Welsh language development, we'll have an additional 40 of those by— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Thirty. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's an additional 30 by 2020, and an additional doubling of that in the 10 years after that. We can't take this for granted, Hefin. This is difficult. This is hard work, but we have everything in place to make it happen. +Hefin David AM: The last thing from me: the £4.50 single national rate—is there a danger that we might be creating a kind of EasyJet-style nursery provision where you get the basics but the wealthier parents are going to be able to pay for better care within those settings because of the add-ons? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We really mulled over this a lot and discussed it, I have to say, not only internally but with childcare providers out there and with parents as well and with local authorities. The first thing to say is the £4.50 rate that we've set has been welcomed, and it's been welcomed because it's unlike the much more complex offer that's in England, where there's a variable rate and there are lots of determining factors on it and it's added complexity and confusion. +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask there, it's been welcomed perhaps in Blaenau Gwent, but has it been equally welcomed in Cardiff? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, because we haven't rolled it out in Cardiff yet, and that is a salient point. +Hefin David AM: Okay, fair enough. But will it be, then? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, it will be. Some of the more expensive areas like Cardiff and Newport are knocking on our door saying, 'Please can we have this offer?', and we are keen to give it to them. But, as I say— +Hefin David AM: But do you anticipate a capacity problem with the £4.50 in those areas, compared to, say, the Cynon valley? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We can't anticipate it yet, Hefin, but that's exactly the reason for going into that area and then assessing how it works. We're reasonably confident that the £4.50—. We're reasonably assured by the feedback that we're having that the £4.50 might work as a universal amount. But if we learn, when we roll it out in Cardiff and Newport, that there needs to be some variation, we can look at that, because we're not doing a big-bang approach. So, that is part of why we will move to roll it out within Cardiff and Newport and other more expensive areas and learn from it, but at the moment, I have to say, the £4.50 amount has been welcomed—it's appropriate. You touched on the other aspect, though, of the wider aspects of beyond the £4.50, because the £4.50 doesn't cover everything. The £4.50 is a contribution towards the wraparound childcare element but it doesn't cover—and we agonised over this—the issues of things like transport out on trips or food or snacks and things like this. Now, we did agonise a number of things that brought us to the conclusion where we are. I have to say, this hasn't been ivory-tower stuff; it's been in discussion with the providers but also parents. One: parents are quite used to—with childcare settings and play care settings and so on—the idea that providers are quite different. Some providers charge a fee that does everything in one; others provide simply the childcare element but they tell the parents—and I'm used to this as a parent myself, although mine are older now—'Mr Irranca-Davies, when you sign on, just to be aware, if we do take your kids down to St Fagans, there's going to be a little bit of a charge for that' and so on. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but it would be the lowest-income working families who would be most unduly affected by that, because the higher income families would be able to afford those add-ons, the lower income ones won't. Isn't that a concern? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: If money was absolutely no object, then I think you'd be looking at quite a different offer, but it has to be affordable within what we've got as well. The fact that parents, including those who are on lower incomes, are used to currently discriminating between providers, not only with childcare settings but also within school settings as well, where very often schools now will say, 'We're doing something extra'— +Hefin David AM: That may be the case, but it's not fair, is it? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: In a pure argument about equity, and if funding was no object and if the burdens of austerity were released and we were told we had money—'You can do what you want'—I think you'd be looking at a very different approach. But within what we have, I think this works very, very well indeed, because it's very transparent for parents who are used to making these decisions. It says, 'Here you have 10 hours of the foundation education offer. You have the additional hours here provided with the childcare offer. But within those additional hours, you may be with a local provider in the middle of Powys that actually says, ""Within that we provide everything""; you may be with a provider that says, ""Well, actually, we do a whistles and bells thing and we take them out on trips, but it's up to you if you want to come, and here's the additional cost—"".' Parents are used to making that decision and realistically, in terms of what we can do with this offer, this is actually—the arguments around this have been well rehearsed both with providers and with parents and we're not getting any concerns that this is going to unnecessarily disadvantage. In a total fairness argument, would you make it universal and with no additional charges? Well, possibly you would. But we work within the realistic— +Hefin David AM: Or have a lower top-end income limit. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Depending on how the Bill progresses in the main Chamber and when it goes through committee, there's that flexibility built into the Bill that those things can be looked at over time and adjusted. For the moment, I think there is an attraction, in terms of the upper limit, of saying: one—'Let's try not to add additional complexity, let's go with a scheme that's already working its way through the system, which is, if you like, what they're doing in England, and not add additional complexity. But, secondly, there is an appeal to universality, curiously, in saying to all parents—and I say this regardless of political hues across the committee here—there's an attraction when you say, 'Let's make an offer focused on working parents as it is', as universal to those working parents as possible, and avoid the administrative costs of saying, 'Well, let's take the upper limit down to £80 or £60 or £55.' There's always the question of how much additional cost is incurred in actually doing that tweak of complexity. We have looked at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: Just to ask, I mean, the labour market costs are changing, aren't they? You've got the national living wage increasing—[Inaudible.]—that's going to have a bearing, isn't it, on the affordability of this project in terms of the childcare offer and the suitability of the £4.50 per hour regime? By the time it's fully rolled out, of course, that £4.50 rate is going to be a number of years old, for example. Do you have plans to review that? Where is it headed? Because it's certainly not going to be enough in the future. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It depends how far in the future you're looking. I have to say, the feedback that we're having at the moment from organisations like the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and from the National Day Nurseries Association Wales and others is that this is the right rate and it's suitable not only today but for the foreseeable future of rolling this out. +Darren Millar AM: But they've raised concerns about the national living wage implications, haven't they, as well? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Of course, and I think it's incumbent on us as well to not— +Darren Millar AM: So, it's not fair to say that they haven't raised concerns about the rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but what they're not arguing for at the moment is for this rate to be raised. +Darren Millar AM: But they have suggested that in meetings— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: That in future— +Darren Millar AM: Absolutely. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, of course, in future, any Minister, any committee, will want to come back and look at—is the hourly rate, as one element of the scheme, appropriate to the current financial challenges for the sector, and not least, by the way, as we try not only to develop the workforce, but to develop the career pathways through this as well? And I think that's the right discussion to be had, live time, as this is taken forward. But at this moment in time, we're not getting people saying within this part of the roll-out that we need to adjust this amount. +Darren Millar AM: So, have you forecasted for any adjustment in the rate going forward in terms of affordability of the project? Because you've still got this £100 million price tag on it, haven't you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Similar to the point that was raised with Hefin about Cardiff and Newport, if we identify that the rate is not appropriate, if it's—. I don't think anybody's going to come back to us and say that it's too little. But do bear in mind that it's above where the average England rate is, even though there's this complex variability within the English rate that has caused some confusion there, which is why the universal rate with us has been welcomed. If we find, as we pilot it, or if we find because there are more expensive areas for it to be delivered in, there needs to be adjustment, then we'll be back in front of the committee arguing why that needs to be the case. +Darren Millar AM: But that won't put the project at risk in terms of its finances? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, no. We are still very confident, looking forward, on the best projections we have, fed by the live input that's coming in from the pilot, which will be fed again in the autumn—the Arad report coming forward—that we have not only the capacity to actually deliver this—challenging as this is, we have the capacity to deliver it—but also that the funding that's available, on our best estimate—the estimate we've stood by, that broad ball park of that £100 million figure—it's deliverable within that. But if it changes, we will come back. And if it changes, I'll have to be sitting down with my boss, Vaughan Gething, and with Mark Drakeford, to argue the case on it. But at this moment, we have confidence and we've run the rule across this repeatedly. But that rate, combined with the other elements of this childcare offer—there is sufficient there allocated to actually deliver the whole roll-out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark on this. +Mark Reckless AM: Minister, as a parent who's been researching childcare options, it's obvious to me that in Cardiff, and to a degree in Newport and Monmouthshire, costs are substantially higher than this, and I haven't been able to find anywhere that has a six-hour day for £27, which is implied by your rate. Isn't it the case that rents and wages are higher and therefore you're going to need a higher rate to make it work? Isn't that already obvious? Why are you postponing coming back and looking at this until some point in the future? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Chair, my biggest fear is a parent who's actually involved in this area already, but, having been one myself—. Mark, you may be right, that's exactly why we're piloting it and that's why when we pilot in Cardiff and Newport, we know we have lessons to learn over the affordability and the £4.50 per hour rate. +Mark Reckless AM: But you're not piloting it in any of the high-cost areas that I've referred to. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No. We will be. We are going to be. +Mark Reckless AM: When are you starting? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Cardiff and Newport—September. +Owain Lloyd: This September. +Mark Reckless AM: This September? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. So, we're not missing any of these learning experiences and we know that—. The reason we've gone for the other areas first, by the way—please take this back to any authorities affected—is simply because we've done deep dives into areas that vary from very rural areas in mid Wales, areas in north Wales, areas around Welsh language provision, areas in deep valleys, understanding the cultural and the economic impacts. So, we've held back a little bit from going into what we know is an obvious challenge within the more expensive areas of provision. But it's coming, it's imminent, and we'll learn the lessons from it. And do you know, you may be right? And if you are right, that it's more expensive, and we need a higher rate within those areas, then we're going to have to come back and discuss it with the committee. But let's go in and learn it first of all, rather than assume it necessarily. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before I bring David in on the issue that Hefin raised about the chargeable items, your paper says that providers can charge up to £7.50 a day for food, snacks, transport and consumables such as nappies. Now, that's £37.50 a week, which is a lot of money for parents, and I just wondered if you wanted to comment on that figure? But also, do you think there's a risk that providers who maybe aren't charging at the moment may start charging because of any new pressures that arise because of this scheme? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think they're the right areas to flag up, and if I thought that was going to happen I'd be concerned as we take this forward and design this scheme. I think part of the evaluation from Arad will also show us that—whether or not, within the pilot areas that we are already in, which are quite diverse, that is happening. We're only one term into learning the lessons, by the way, but I would want to make sure that we design a scheme where we are not heaping on disadvantage or where there was exploitation of disadvantaged families. So, the early evaluation, I think, will give us good feedback on that. I think also, by the way, that providers know that this is a collaborative effort to do this here. It's not in their interests, I have to say, as the umbrella bodies or individual providers, to see this as some way that they can unduly rake in additional income from this on the backs of poorer families. This is about providing opportunities for all working families. But especially, I have to say, the early evaluation that we've seen already suggests that the greatest proportion of those who are taking advantage of this scheme in the early parts—in the early evaluation—are those who are below the average working wage within in Wales. That's by far the greatest number of people who are doing it, and we don't want them then being priced out because of add-ons. So, there has to be some pragmatism, I have to say, and some open partnership working here with the sector, and we do have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: John on this. +John Griffiths AM: I want to come back to the £4.50 rate, but in terms of working with the sector, briefly, if I might, Chair, I just wonder, Huw, in terms of that £4.50 figure and understanding the sector in Wales, to what extent are we talking about a market rate and to what extent are we talking about the increase in demand that will come from the scheme and how that relates to economies of scale and capacity? Is it purely a market rate or is there a conversation with the sector in terms of the benefits that will come from this scheme and how they should be recognised in terms of setting the rate? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: This has been a very open dialogue with the sector around affordability, around the hourly rate and around what might happen in future as well. This is not a pure hard data-driven analysis that says, 'Here we've calculated everything and this is the rate that will satisfy it', because we recognise that there's great diversity in provision out there, and we also recognise that things will change over time. It's not only the geographical diversity—it's the diversity of the sector itself. I think we need to, as we take this scheme forward and look at the full roll-out, continue in that very open dialogue with the sector not about what is purely a market-driven amount but actually what is also affordable for the Welsh Government within the constraints that we have. Just to flag up one issue, it's right that we're focusing on those elements that aren't included within it, to some extent as well, and the effect of that on more disadvantaged families, but that has to be balanced with the pocket of affordability for this scheme as well. Let me give you a clear illustration: some of our calculations have suggested that if we included free food within this offer as well, it would add something like in the region of 50p to that £4.50 rate. That would have, at this moment, impacts on the affordability of this and the roll-out of it. I would need to be going back to my seniors and arguing the case now, okay? But, it's that open dialogue with the sector that says, 'There's one thing about what you're saying you demand as a market; there's another thing about what we're saying that we have affordability from taxpayers' money to actually put into this'. They also understand, John, that as well as an enabling policy—and we're seeing the evidence, by the way; I can cite it—of individuals who are being helped into more flexible options to get back into work, increase their hours and so on, this is also about building capacity in a fundamental foundation sector that is in every single part of Wales. The stuff that's being debated ad nauseam here within the Assembly about foundational sectors—. The sector itself understands that if we boost the childcare offer in all its diversity, including, by the way, not just the independent sector but social enterprises and third-sector organisations, such as exist in Neath and elsewhere that I was involved in 20 or 30-odd years ago setting up—that has an economic impact that goes beyond that immediate family who are receiving the provision to the wider communities as well. They know that. They know there is job creation within this and there's economic impact for that. So, it's an open dialogue on what the rate should be rather than purely, 'Our wonks have crunched the numbers and we've come up with £4.50.' +Lynne Neagle AM: David, you had a question on the pilots. +David Rees AM: Yes, just to finish that section off, if I may, Chair. Before I go to my question, I want to come back to Mark Reckless's question and the answer you gave. I got the impression that if there is a need to look at different rates because of the higher-end areas, you may therefore have different sets of rates and not a universal rate. Is that also on the cards? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: David, it's possible. I think our preference would be, I have to say, to stick with the universal rate, because we know it's—. There's real simplicity and it's been welcomed in the sector. But the sector, also, are quite pragmatic about this. One of the defining hallmarks of the way that we've taken this scheme forward is learning in live time as we pilot and expand the pilots into different areas and different types of provision. If we learn lessons from that that suggest we need to come back and look at a differential in more-expensive-to-provide areas, then we'll have to look at that, but there might be other ways of splicing it. But first of all, I think we have to go in and see how does this work. We might find, Mark, we might find, David, that we go in and when everything is tallied up, the £4.50 per hour works in supporting provision there. +David Rees AM: Okay. In your answer to John, you talked about affordability, which I totally understand. If I can now remind you: I don't remember the word 'affordability' coming in the manifesto pledge of the Government. It was 'we will offer childcare facilities'. So, I just want to put a reminder to you there. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ministers always look at affordability. +David Rees AM: Well, voters don't. In the situation regarding Welsh-medium, you answered that a little bit earlier, but I have concerns about capacity. Workforce capacity you've mentioned. To actually be registered you need staff who are qualified. There's clearly a need to get more staff, because in your own paper you say that the report in 2016 said you do not have the childcare capacity in Wales at the moment. Do you believe that you can actually deliver the workforce to meet that capacity, first of all through the English medium, but secondly through the Welsh medium as well? Because there's a clear need to look at it. You talk about 30 by 2020. By the way, 30 is nothing big when you consider the whole of Wales. Do you actually think you've got that workforce capacity set up before this is fully rolled out? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I hope, Chair, you'll appreciate that in our submission to you we've been very open. This is challenging. This is. To get to where we want to go is a huge challenge. Can we do it? Yes we can. And I don't say that glibly. Let me suggest some of the ways why. We have confidence that we can do this if everybody is working together across the sector, across the local authorities. Let me talk broadly about capacity, first of all, including English and Welsh-medium provision for children with complex needs, provision for children with disabilities—all of this. First of all, this is being—. The work that we're doing to increase both capacity in terms of trained staff and qualified staff: we have the 10-year plan that I mentioned, which has already been announced. We're working through it. We're working through it with the sector. So, we're identifying not only broadly at a national level where we need to develop those qualifications, but also at a regional, geographic level as well, and that's being taken forward. We've engaged with the 22 authorities—not just the pilot areas as well on this. So, beyond the pilot areas, we also have intense engagement. As you can see from what I've said before, it's rolling out progressively, but with all 22 authorities we're working with them on their childcare sufficiency assessments to identify where their shortages are. +David Rees AM: What have the pilot programmes actually shown you about this, and how are you going to move this forward? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, it's precisely that. So, within the pilot areas, we have a greater depth of analysis now of where both the workforce and the physical provisions are. Whether those are maintained or non-maintained or third sector or school facilities or whatever, we've got a much deeper granulation of identifying where that is, and we're working, then, with those authorities, with the capital moneys that we've allocated to this and the workforce development, and with local colleges, to develop the workforce and the physical constraints. But we're also doing that with the other 22, with all the 22 authorities as well, in anticipation of the wider roll-out. They're not being left out of this. And by the way, it's not only the Cardiffs and the Newports; it's all the other ones where there isn't full roll-out. We're engaged with them deeply at the moment with that analysis on their childcare sufficiency assessments, both in terms of workforce, but also physical provision. So, we're doing that already. We are looking as well, as this is rolled out, around the issue of co-location. Now, co-location is a fruitful way to look at future development. It doesn't mean, by the way, that we exclude the third sector or social enterprise approach, or the independent sector, but co-location could be key to the roll-out of this in the right areas where it can be done, because then we avoid any fracture between the education hours and the childcare hours: the physical transportation of children from one location to another. So, we're engaged with the 22 authorities on that: where could that be developed, who would be the providers that would do it and do they have the workforce to scale up to do it? If not, how do they talk to local colleges to do that? So, we're doing that at the moment. I mentioned we've put the £1 million additional funding into the meithrin over the next two years, targeting 40 new Welsh-medium groups by 2021, which pretty much coincides with the full roll-out of this. It's part of the aim of an additional 150 over the next decade of meithrin. So, all of those things, David, give us a confidence that we're going to be in the right place. +David Rees AM: But in particular, take the Welsh language—I understand Gwynedd, and I won't ask another question on that for obvious reasons at this point in time—but in some of the other areas where you've piloted, you've gone partial in some areas. When there's Welsh language education, and the three to five-year-olds go to schools, they go from all areas of the council, basically. They don't actually go necessarily from the local area, and therefore you're getting a different picture. Have you been able to assess the actual impact, properly, upon the Welsh-medium side of things? Because, for example, my grandchildren will go from my area, which may not be in one of the considerations, to a school that may be in that consideration, and that happens regularly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. We know that historically we've got, across the country, a shortage of Welsh-language childcare provision—meithrin and so on—but we have not only a strategy in place, but the fact that we've got local authorities now doing their own assessments within their area, across the piste of childcare, but also in terms of Welsh language, that means then that we can start filling those gaps with the money we've put to it, and that includes in all parts of Wales, including those areas within south Wales and others that are less deep in their tradition of speaking Welsh over recent history, anyway, but where the demand for it is massive. So, local authorities are tasked with doing their own assessments of childcare sufficiency for this childcare offer. They're identifying the gaps, David, and we will work with them and with providers to fill those gaps, and that includes with the umbrella organisations for Welsh language childcare provision. +David Rees AM: And that's the same for those children with physical disabilities or learning disabilities. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely the same. Absolutely the same. And this does mean, Chair, that it will be different, as it currently is in different areas: the type of provision, where the provision is located. But the provision should be there. This offer won't happen unless the provision is there for those children with complex needs, children with disabilities, Welsh language provision, as well as more generic provision as well, but it will be diverse in its provision around areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: I do want to move on now, John, so if I can come back to your question. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I would like to pick up on the last point, if I may. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. The investment in meithrin, of course, is one that we all welcome. A question from me though, the wider question, is: how do we mainstream Welsh medium into childcare? Because, clearly, leaving it to meithrin is one way of doing it, but there's a lot of existing infrastructure out there that we need to upskill in terms of the provision of Welsh medium. So, it's not a question as such, but I'm sure you recognise that—that there is a challenge there. Because if we are to get to where we want to get to, it isn't about growing meithrin, or Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin; it's about mainstreaming Welsh-medium provision within the wider sector. So, it wasn't a question after all. So, looking at the manifesto commitment that was made in 2016, clearly the main or the principal aim of this policy is around removing some of the barriers to secure employment for parents, albeit with very positive outcomes for the children themselves, and we don't ignore or neglect that at any cost. But I'm just wondering: how would you then reconcile that with the findings of the Public Policy Institute for Wales report, which I mentioned to you yesterday, which was commissioned by the Government to look at policy options in this context, which concluded that there will be no 'substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children' and that 'the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers in families with a child of target age is extremely small'? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, the first thing I would say is that what we're learning from the pilots is that it is having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and we're having this fed back from real-life situations on the ground, where parents are making different choices in the areas where it's being piloted. So, the types of different choices they're making could be to expand the number of hours that they're in work, because they now have a choice, they're not constrained to certain hours or whatever, they have a wider choice, with a wider number of providers, and they're making that decision and they're able to expand their hours. Some, by the way, Llyr, I have to say—and, again, these are real-life situations—are saying, 'What we're doing is not expanding our hours, but, because of the increased provision of childcare and the increased offer, we are now able to actually spend more time with our children, because we're adjusting our hours of work, based on the childcare provision offer.' That in itself, I have to say, is a worthy aim. But I would say what we found out, in real-life examples—I'm not saying that in direct contrast to what that paper was saying— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's what I was going to ask; it sounds as if you're saying they were wrong. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But what we have is the advantage of this phased roll-out, where we are learning, live time, and I think the Arad report in October—we're hoping to see the final report in October—will help put some flesh on this as well. It is already having an effect: the majority of parents who are taking advantage of this are actually in those groups that are below the average wage, they are making positive choices to get into this offer and to either expand, take more hours, adjust their own lifestyles around it or more. So, it's having a positive effect. I can cite to you examples, because I've asked my own officials on this, of families who tell us they're saving up to £250 a week on the basis of this offer within the pilot areas, who've increased their hours of employment, who've changed their working patterns to suit their work life, but also to suit their families. Now, that's real stuff, as opposed to—yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, in effect, you are saying that the PPIW report got it wrong, basically. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, I'm not saying that they got it wrong and it's wholly wrong, but it is interesting, within that report, that it did identify that there were a range of factors here that play upon this. It's not only the childcare; it is the transport, it's the training and education, it's the employment support and all of those. And we agree with that, but we do think, and what we're seeing, live time, at the moment—maybe at some point, somebody else will produce a report beyond the Arad report in October that will say, 'Well, actually, the way this is designed, that they've done it in Wales, is having a material effect on those families, particularly the most disadvantaged families.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you're asking us to support a Bill here, albeit a framework Bill, to achieve a policy aim where you're giving us anecdotal evidence that it's having an impact, contrary to research that's previously been done, albeit with promises that, maybe, an evaluation sometime in the autumn might tell us a different story. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We know, and we are constantly told—I'm sure this is commonplace in constituency surgeries, as well—by parents who say that the biggest mitigating factor for them, actually, either going into work at an earlier opportunity or expanding their hours is purely the cost of childcare in front of them. We are picking up, even from the early term of the analysis—. I think our further reports, both Arad and as we go forward with the pilots, will substantiate this more. It'll go beyond the anecdotal, it will show that parents are having an enhanced opportunity to balance their work life, to make better choices, either in terms of expanding the number of hours they're working and increasing their disposable income within their families, or actually making it simply better for them in their family situation, where they don't currently have that offer. So, I get the fact that we have one report out there, but it's one report. It's a report, and we're not dismissing it entirely, but what we are saying is: we are now working with real-life piloting of an offer, and we are seeing the benefits coming through. As we roll this out, we'll be back in front of this committee saying, 'Well, this is now what we're finding. We can go beyond the real-life stories that I'm relating to you now, and we can say, ""Well, here's some hard data that goes with this, as well.""' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. You reference in your paper, as well, another report, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, 'Starting Strong 2017', and it highlights countries that have, maybe, the most similar childcare offer to what's being proposed here in Wales. I'm just wondering what assessment you've made of those similarities, because, clearly, there'll be different economic contexts in different countries and different levels of public expenditure, et cetera. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't done really detailed analysis of comparisons with other countries far from Wales, but we will be doing work that will be doing some benchmarking against, where we can find similar models, where appropriate—do some appropriate benchmarking. What we have been doing is looking at what's been happening across the border in England and trying to learn from the lessons there, and also the offer in Scotland as well, which are both close to hand. They're in quite similar contexts. But we will do some work, Llyr, around benchmarking against good comparative international examples, where appropriate. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, there we are, because one of my concerns was that the focus in a number of the countries in the OECD report are for nought to three-year-olds, whereas, of course, the policy focus here is for a slightly older age group. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, and I fully get that, but again, and I know it can be said, 'Well, this is an example' but it's real-life examples. We are having people who are telling us that they're now making the choice to go to work earlier because this is extended to three-year-olds, but they would have delayed. There is a direct outcome there if this childcare offer enables somebody to say, 'Well, I'm going to go a year earlier back into work and bring income into the family.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, moving on, then, to the impact on the child and this whole question around school readiness, of course, which is an important one to address. Clearly, one of the main outcomes of this policy will be the academic performance of children, hopefully, later on in life. I want to come back to this point that the Children's Commissioner for Wales and others have raised: the concern that, actually, the most disadvantaged—those from workless households—are being excluded from this policy. Isn't there therefore a risk that they'll be left even further behind? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I've had long, detailed and positive discussions with the children's commissioner on this, and I know the children's commissioner would want a more universal offer, but I make two points on that: one is, that was not what the commitment in the manifesto was, and it's not the offer that's being taken forward now. It is a different thing, a universal offer, and there are issues around that with complexity, and also affordability. But it isn't the offer that we took forward into Government; this is what we're taking forward. But it is interesting in terms of that aspect of families then who lose out. I'd say two significant things on it: one is, this doesn't stand alone purely as 30 hours of childcare. Within this, there are 10 hours of the foundation years, educational input, which is there for everybody. But before that, particularly for those disadvantaged families, before we even get to that stage, you have schemes such as Flying Start, and I know this committee has looked in detail at Flying Start and has said that it would like to see it rolled out everywhere. If I had all the money under the sun, I would really do that, Chair; I would really do it. But I don't have all the money under the sun. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you do have the ability to target the money. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but the fact that Flying Start, we know, is leading to those outcomes where those children, in quite challenged circumstances very often, are more ready to step up to the foundation year, are more ready, then, to step through into mainstream education in later years—those things tie together. So, there are the 10 hours of education provision that sits here for every family, by the way, within this offer, let alone the childcare. That doesn't mean that everybody's excluded, but it does mean, yes, that this offer is focused on working parents. And we don't think that that's a bad thing. In fact, it does overlap with other offers that other political parties were taking forward into the last election, which was focusing on how we support the biggest thing that we often have in our constituency mailbags, which is, 'I can't afford to go back to work because I can't afford the childcare. Don't tell me to go back to work, I can't afford it.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The majority of disadvantaged children don't live in Flying Start areas, do they? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, there's a missing cohort there that can't access one or the other, and the school readiness gap is growing, and, really, are we focusing our resources in the right place here? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, yes, in terms of this scheme, but it doesn't sit alone as this scheme—it's the wider plethora of, I have to say, progressive and advanced initiatives that we have in Wales that take different forms. It's not only Flying Start that provides that other support for parents, and readiness not only for the parents and for their children, but also the support into work. So, if, for example, you look at the Parents, Childcare and Employment programme, which is separate from this, there is support there for every parent in terms of helping them get supported into work from disadvantaged families. If you look at the support for the children, we've got the 10 hours that sits within the sphere of the education, but we've also got all the other family intervention programmes that help with socialisation, education and so on and so forth. If you look at this solely on its own and say, 'Well, there is nothing else there; the rest of Wales is a desert and there's no support for parents, for getting parents back into work or for those parents who are not seeking to go back into work but also need the support and for their children in education', I'd be worried. But, actually, this fits as part of the jigsaw that we have in Wales, where I think we are well ahead of the other nations. Yes, we could do more, and I always say, Llyr; I always say, Chair, that if I had—I don't have a chequebook at all, because it's not in my gift—if I had a blank cheque I'd do a lot more, but we don't. But what we can do is get the right schemes in place, and if this helps drive more choices for working parents, including, by the way—. There are niceties within this as well; it doesn't have to be that both parents are working. You could have a parent who is on incapacity benefit. You could have a parent who is a registered carer. They would qualify for the scheme. Those will be some of those most disadvantaged families that we both have those concerns about. So, there is some flexibility within this scheme as well to deal with some of those disadvantaged families. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: I am surprised by the answer there, particularly given that one of the ambitions of the Government is to close this attainment gap later in life when schoolchildren get to their examinations, when they're 16 years old. Yet this appears to be driving a bigger wedge in terms of development, which could, of course, lead to a perverse outcome later on in life, but I don't want to ask you about that. If I can just very quickly ask you: has consideration been given to making free childcare available to parents where they're in 16 hours or more of education each week? So, they may not be entering the labour market, but, of course, one of those barriers to them getting back into the labour market could well be their education, so what arrangements are in place there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Darren, we have considered it, and we haven't included it within the scheme because this is designed to enable parents to go into work, not into training to enable them to get into work. There are other forms of support available for parents in terms of college and so on and so forth, but it's not this scheme. +Darren Millar AM: But it's not prescribed support, is it? You know, it's not universally available to people who might be wanting to get back into the labour market over that barrier. You must have done some costings, then, if you've considered it, and you must have tried to identify numbers. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my left and my right. +Owain Lloyd: Not at this point. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't— +Darren Millar AM: So, you haven't considered it that much, have you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We have actually considered—. We consider it from the point of, 'What is this scheme set up to do?' It's very clear. When we ran, in the manifesto on this point— +Darren Millar AM: I understand that. I don't want you to repeat yourself because I know we are against the clock. But, very specifically, when you say you've considered it, what you mean is you thought about it but you've not costed it, you've not identified the numbers that might be involved— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely, absolutely. +Darren Millar AM: And therefore you've not considered whether it might be affordable in addition to the policy objective that this is trying to meet. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, Darren, you're right: we haven't considered affordability because we've considered it on first principles to do with what this offer is trying to do. It doesn't fit within the offer so, as such, why would we do the costings? +Darren Millar AM: Perhaps I can frame my question in another way. Are you prepared to consider it if you're able to identify the numbers and potential cost? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ah, right, okay. We'd be interested in your thoughts as a committee, but it doesn't actually fit within the first principles of what the scheme is designed to do. Darren, can I just pick up on your point, in case you misinterpreted what I was saying to Llyr? I drew attention in my answer to Llyr to schemes such as the PaCE scheme. In Gwynedd, one of our pilot areas, they are combining the Team Around the Family with this childcare offer. So, what they are doing is wrapping the support around. It is not the case, as you've suggested then, that there is somehow more disadvantage being heaped on other families. What this does is tie in in those pilot areas with the existing provision, and that's the way we want to see it work. So, I wouldn't want you to be under any misapprehension that this makes conditions worse for families. Those families who have a registered carer in them where one parent works, and those families who have somebody on incapacity benefit will qualify for the scheme. All families will qualify for the 10 hours of education. In Gwynedd, they're wrapping the Team Around the Family with this offer— +Darren Millar AM: But on the other hand, Minister, you've also suggested that this will accelerate child development for those kids who are able to access it, and yet not all kids will be able to access it, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But all children can access the 10 hours, and they can access Flying Start— +Darren Millar AM: But 10 hours is very different to 30 hours, is it not? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but they can access Flying Start or they can access the Team Around the Family— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in a Flying Start area. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: —or they can be in a children's zone area or they can— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, I've got John and then David, and the questions and answers are going to have to be brief, please. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, certainly, Chair. In terms of child development and how this fits with wider Welsh Government strategy, Huw, I'd be interested in what you'd have to say about the quality of childcare. We're talking a lot about quantity, but obviously we want to up quality, and that's recognised by Welsh Government. They've talked about increasing the qualifications within the workforce, and the quality. I just wonder how that sits within the £4.50, because there could be pressures in the opposite direction there, and some tension between wanting to up the qualifications and quality of workforce whilst keeping affordability in place. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: John, you're absolutely right, and two things on that: I visited one of the facilities in the Valleys the other day that was taking this forward—a very good independent sector-run childcare provision, with Welsh language and English language running alongside each other, and I asked the point about the integration, curiously, but what they were doing was—. Their standard of staff was an exemplar of what we'd want to see: not only very well-qualified childcare staff who were qualified within not simply the child-minding but the wider child development aspects—. So, it was hard to differentiate, in some ways, what was happening there from what would be happening in a child development educational surrounding, and including the nutritional stuff and all of that. Now, that is the model we need to see, and the £4.50 seems to work, at the moment, for that. It'll be interesting, as we discussed previously, as it goes forward—. We need to look at whether that works, going forward. But the quality, I think, is key, and that's why we're focused very much on registered inspected providers, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harriet. +John Griffiths AM: If we want to increase salary levels, though, which I think is a necessary part of this picture of improving quality, then obviously that might impact on the £4.50 rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed, and we are cognisant—. It's interesting that we focus on whether the £4.50 is affordable, but the £4.50—you know, we're having an interesting discussion internally about how that £4.50 offer per hour sits alongside others, such as the foundation phase offer, and it's more generous. So, I think it's: how do we align, as time goes by, the child development aspects of the whole early years stuff? Now, we're doing some fascinating work that I think I've referred to on this committee before about aligning the early years development entirely. Now, this is an evolving piece of work, but I think the childcare offer should ultimately fit within that. How do you make sure that every offer that is Government-funded works on child development? It's not simply childcare. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Right. The next questions are from Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: In terms of child development and not accentuating disadvantage, another area where this may apply is the kids who are born in the summer term, compared to those who are born in Michaelmas. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that they start with a disadvantage at school and often don't make that up, even as they go through school. What is the rationale for providing the older children with five terms of this, compared to three terms for the younger children who already have the relative disadvantage? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my colleagues here and— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, the criteria for eligibility for the offer are the term after the child's third birthday, which is equivalent to the eligibility criteria for the foundation phase early education offer. Clearly, then, the number of terms that a child is able to, or parents are able to, access the childcare offer will be influenced by when the child is born, but I think you may be referring to a sort of parallel question, which is about whether—. There have been questions raised about whether children who are summer-born should, in fact, start school in the term after they turn four, or whether actually they should be allowed the flexibility to start school at a later age, which I know is something that has been tested in England, and there is some mixed evidence about school starting age and the birth month of children. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, they do have flexibility. You don't have to start your kids until the term following when they're five. That's the compulsory school— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, that's the legal position, but, obviously, in practice, most children will start school in the term after they're four. +Mark Reckless AM: So, given the disadvantage we know that the younger children born in the summer have, relative to the older ones, why accentuate that by giving the older kids five terms of this project, which you tell us will have such positive effects on their child development, but the summer kids only get three? Doesn't that make the situation worse? +Jo-Anne Daniels: I'm not 100 per cent sure I understand the question. So, children will stop being in receipt of the childcare offer once they become eligible for a full-time school place, and most children will become eligible for a full-time school place in the term after their fourth birthday. +Mark Reckless AM: But the older kids become eligible for this five terms before they start school, where the younger kids, who're already disadvantaged, become eligible for it only three terms before, accentuating the problem, surely. Could more thought be given to this issue? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We'll take that away. It's confused us a little bit, but we'll take that away. We might need to come back to you and—. Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could write to us about that, that would be helpful. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. Minister, you got, or Welsh Government, really, got the Public Policy Institute for Wales to study this proposed policy and they concluded that it would have no substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children, and that the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers and families with a child of target age is extremely small. What do you say to that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, Mark, I can only refer to what I said earlier. Our real-life evidence that is accumulating now is showing us examples of where people are making savings and increasing disposable income—as I mentioned earlier, up to £250 per week within some poorer households; so, real-life examples—but also where it's enabling them to make much better choices about when they work because there's more childcare offer available, or, alternatively, to work their childcare provision and their working hours around being able to spend more time with their children, which they currently can't do. +Lynne Neagle AM: And I don't want to go back over Llyr's questions. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand. That's not my focus. I just wondered about the quality of this PPIW piece of work. They said if you had a work requirement, as you do, it would cost £61 million a year on their numbers, substantially less than you're saying, and then they said it would cost £144 million without a work requirement. Now, that implies to me that 57 per cent of the parents wouldn't be working and would continue not working even if there is this available with a work requirement. I mean, are those numbers really credible from PPIW? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's not quite comparing like with like. Just to draw your attention, Mark, and the committee's attention to that the PPIW analysis was looking at a provision of 38 weeks. Ours is a 48-week option. And the fact that we are having parents already saying to us that their ability to actually extend that into the 48 weeks—beyond the term time and so on—carries advantages that are not picked up in that report. +Mark Reckless AM: And what is your early assessment of the income levels of families who are finding this offer most attractive? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think, from recollection, we're one term in, so we're one term into the assessment, and I mentioned earlier that the majority of parents are below the average income of £26,000 in Wales— it's around about 60 per cent of families are those. We're finding very few families are those who are on higher incomes. It's disproportionately towards those below the average income, and many of them amongst the most disadvantaged families are opting in to this offer where it is being offered. So, clearly, they're seeing the benefits of it. +Mark Reckless AM: And what consideration have you given to integrating this Welsh Government offer with the UK Government offer of tax-free childcare that's applicable across the UK? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, that offer, as you rightly say, is available across the UK and still is. The fact that it's more integrated within their scheme within England—the tax offer is more integrated—has caused them some problems in complexity and in the administration of this and the digital platforms that they've had. That offer is still available in Wales and it might well be that parents who opt in to that say, 'Well, we do want to buy additional hours beyond the 30 hours', but this 30 hours is there for every— +Mark Reckless AM: I wonder, Minister, whether what you're doing, in a very good way, to promote your project—people will see that as the childcare offer and, at least in my experience, very few parents are aware of the tax-free childcare on a UK basis. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: You're right—sorry. That's absolutely one of the lessons we've learnt from even this early stage of the early implementers, because there are elements of a childcare offer within the tax offer, within universal credit, within working tax credit. There are little bits of different ones and it does cause confusion. So, one of the lessons that we've learnt from the Talk Childcare communication strategy alongside this is the importance of communicating to parents and providers who the parents go to what is best for them to access, how they access it easily, and we'll learn more as these pilots roll by. +Mark Reckless AM: So, as you go into the Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs criteria—you have a £100,000 cap, as well as the £6,000 minimum wage cap, and you're getting HMRC to say whether people are eligible, which requires them to set up that account with HMRC—will you assure this committee that you will make sure that parents who are doing that are aware of the UK tax-free childcare offer, and that their providers also are? Because we've been looking, say, at the £7.50 extra per day, but, if someone's eligible for this offer, they should also be eligible for the UK tax-free childcare offer and have set up the account to do that. So, will you make sure that those parents know to pay their provider out of tax-free funds, rather than paying them the fully taxed amounts, which might otherwise happen? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, absolutely. And I think, if it's okay, Owain would like to add something as well. +Owain Lloyd: Yes, just to say, as I understand how things currently work with the English offer and TFC, when a parent applies, that automatically happens in terms of, on the one hand, they're given a 'yes' or 'no' in terms of their eligibility for the 30-hours offer in England, but they will also be told in terms of the parental account that's set up under TFC. So, that is integrated in the offer, and we'll be looking to do the same in terms of the Welsh offer. But, obviously, what we're not looking at doing in terms of the 30-hours offer is the setting up of the parental account to make the payment; the payment currently is very much between local government and the provider directly, rather than the TFC model, where the parent pays the provider. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Well, we have come to—well, we've run over, actually. So, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending? You are, of course, back with us on 16 May for Stage 1 of the Bill, so we will look forward to seeing you then. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, as is usual practice. But thank you again, all of you. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you—diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 then is papers to note. As Members can see, there are 11 papers to note. So, if Members are content, I'd suggest that we note all of them in a block, if that's okay. Yes, okay. Thank you. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. Thank you. +","The Committee met to discuss the Welsh Government's childcare offer. Apologies were received from Julie Morgan and David Rees substituted for her. Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Children and Social Care, attended with his officials. Questions were asked about the implementation in certain areas and the challenges faced, particularly bureaucratic ones. Concerns were raised about the administrative burden on local authorities. There was discussion on the possibility of offering subsidies to informal caregivers like grandparents but the focus of the scheme remains on registered and licensed providers. Hefin David raised concerns about the £4.50 hourly rate and whether it might create inequality in access to quality care. Huw Irranca-Davies expressed confidence in the program's progress and its ability to meet requirements by 2020, and that the rate was generally well-received.(OpCodes: 0.8974)" +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: +Grad D: How many batteries do you go through ? +Grad B: Thank you . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: Sure . +Professor C: Good . Yeah . OK so , let 's get started . Nancy said she 's coming and that means she will be . Um . My suggestion is that Robert and Johno sort of give us a report on last week 's adventures uh to start . So everybody knows there were these guys f uh from Heidelber - uh , uh , actually from uh DFKI uh , part of the German SmartKom project , who were here for the week and , I think got a lot done . +Grad E: Yeah , I think so too . Um . The {disfmarker} we got to the point where we can now speak into the SmartKom system , and it 'll go all the way through and then say something like "" Roman numeral one , am Smarticus . "" It actually says , "" Roemisch einz , am Smarticus , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: which means it 's just using a German sythesis module for English sentences . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So uh , +Professor C: It doesn't know "" I "" . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: Um , the uh +Grad B: Oh , Am Spartacus . "" +Grad D: "" I am Sm - I am Smarticus "" is what it 's saying . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Verstehe . OK . +Grad D: I gue +Grad E: The uh sythesis is just a question of um , hopefully it 's just a question of exchanging a couple of files , once we have them . And , um , it 's not going to be a problem because we decided to stick to the so - called concept to speech approach . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going backwards now , so "" synthesis "" is where you sort of make this {disfmarker} uh , make these sounds , and "" concept to speech "" is feeding into this synthesis module giving it what needs to be said , and the whole syntactic structure so it can pronounce things better , presumably . Then , just with text to speech . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh , Johno learned how to write XML tags . Uh , and did write the tree adjoining grammar for some {disfmarker} some sentences . No , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for a couple {disfmarker} +Grad D: So . Bu - Uh , i The way the uh , the dialogue manager works is it dumps out what it wants to know , or what it wants to tell the person , to a {disfmarker} er in XML and there 's a conversion system for different uh , to go from XML to something else . And th so , the knowledge base for the system , that generates the syntasti syntactic structures for the ge generation is uh , in a LISP - like {disfmarker} the knowledge base is in a LISP - like form . And then the thing that actually builds these syntactic structures is something based on Prolog . So , you have a {disfmarker} basically , a goal and it , you know , says "" OK , well I 'm gonna try to do the Greet - the - person goal , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it just starts {disfmarker} uh , it binds some variables and it just decides to , you know , do some subscold . Basically , it just means "" build the tree . "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And then it passes the tree onto , uh , the ge the generation module . +Grad E: But I think that the point is that out of the twelve possible utterances that the German system can do , we 've already written the {disfmarker} the syntax trees for three or four . +Grad D: We yeah . So , the syntax trees are very simple . It 's like most of the sentences in one tree , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and instead of , you know , breaking down to , like , small units and building back up , they basically took the sentences , and basically cut them in half , or you know , into thirds or something like that , and made trees out of those . And so uh , uh Tilman wrote a little tool that you could take LISP notation and generate an XML , uh , tree . Uh , S what do ca structure from the {disfmarker} from the LISP . And so basically you just say , you know , "" noun goes to "" , you know , Er , nah , I don't re I 've never been good at those . So there 's like the VP goes to N and those things in LISP , and it will generate for you . +Grad B: OK . N , N , V yeah , OK . Alright . +Grad E: And because we 're sticking to that structure , the synthesis module doesn't need to be changed . So all that f fancy stuff , and the Texas speech version of it , which is actually the simpler version , is gonna be done in October which is much too late for us . So . This way we {disfmarker} we worked around that . The , uh {disfmarker} the system , um {disfmarker} I can show you the system . I actually want , at least , maybe , you should be able to start it on your own . If you wanna play around with it , in th in the future . Right now it 's brittle and you need to ch start it up and then make ts twenty changes on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on seventeen modules before they actually can stomach it , anything . And send in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple of side queries on some dummy center set - up program so that it actually works because it 's designed for this seevit thing , where you have the gestural recognition running with this s Siemens virtual touch screen , which we don't have here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so we 're doing it via mouse , but the whole system was designed to work with this thing and it was {disfmarker} It was a lot of engineering stuff . No science in there whatsoever , but it 's working now , and um , that 's the good news . So everything else actually did prove to be language independent except for the parsing and the generation . +Grad D: Why {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I did need to chan generate different trees than the German ones , mainly because you know like uh , the gerund in {disfmarker} in German is automatically taken care of with just a regular verb , +Grad E: You have to switch it on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I 'd uh have to add "" am walking , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: or I 'd have to add a little stem for the "" am "" , when I build the {disfmarker} built the tree . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I noticed that um , that some of the examples they had , had you know , non - English word orders and so on , you know . And then all that good stuff . So . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Like . +Professor C: So it might be worth , Keith , you looking at this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: um +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I still don't {disfmarker} I still don't really understand e like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well Tilman s +Grad B: I mean we sort of say , um {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I still don't exactly understand sort of the information flow uh in {disfmarker} in this thing , or what the modules are and so on . So , you know , like just that such - and - such module uh um decides that it wants to achieve the goal of greeting the user , and then magically it sort of s +Professor C: Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , how does it know which syntactic structure to pull out , and all that ? +Professor C: I thi Yeah . So . I think it 's not worth going over in the group , +Grad B: R uh Sure . +Professor C: but sort of when you get free and you have the time uh either Robert or Johno or I can walk you through it . +Grad B: Yeah , soon . OK . +Professor C: And you can ask all the questions about how this all fits together . +Grad B: That 's fine . +Professor C: It 's eee {comment} messy but once you understand it you understand it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} There 's nothing really complicated about it . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: No . +Grad B: And I remember one thing that {disfmarker} that came up in the talk last Wednesday . Um , was this , I {disfmarker} I think he talked about the idea of like , um {disfmarker} He was talking about these lexicalized uh , uh , tree adjoining grammars where you sort of {disfmarker} for each word you , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , you know how to do it ? +Grad B: For each lexical item , the lexical entry says what all the uh trees are that it can appear in . And of course , that 's not v That 's the opposite of constructional . That 's , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's HPSG or whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Now , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not committed for our research to {pause} do any of those things . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So uh we are committed for our funding . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: OK ? to {pause} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Make our stuff fit to that . +Professor C: Yeah , to {disfmarker} n no , to just get the dem get the demos they need . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK ? So between us all we have t to get th the demos they need . If it turns out we can also give them lots more than that by , you know , tapping into other things we do , that 's great . +Grad D: You should probably move the microphone closer to your face . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But i it turns out not to be in an any of the contracts +Grad D: There 's like a little {disfmarker} The twisty thing , you can move it with . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and , s deliberately . So , the reason I 'd like you to understand uh what 's going on in this demo system is not because it 's important to the research . It 's just for closure . So that if we come up with a question of "" could we fit this deeper stuff in there ? "" or something . You know what the hell we we 're talking about fitting in . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So it 's just , uh in the sam same actually with the rest of us we just need to really understand what 's there . Is there anything we can make use of ? Uh , is there anything we can give back , beyond th the sort of minimum requirements ? But none of that has a short time fuse . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So th the demo the demo requirements for this Fall are sort of taken care of as of later this week or something . And then {disfmarker} So , it 's probably fifteen months or something until there 's another serious demo requirement . +Grad B: Oh OK . +Professor C: That doesn't mean we don't think about it for fifteen months , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: but it means we can not think about it for six months . +Grad B: Right , yeah . +Professor C: So . The plan for this summer uh , really is to step back from the applied project , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: keep the d keep the context open , but actually go after the basic issues . +Grad B: Hmm . Oh OK . +Professor C: And , so The idea is there 's this uh , other subgroup that 's worrying about formalizing the nota getting a notation . But sort of in parallel with that , uh , the hope is tha in particularly you will work on constructions in English Ge - and German for this domain , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but y not worry about parsing them or fitting them into SmartKom or any of the other {disfmarker} anything lik any other constraints for the time being . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . Got it . +Professor C: It 's hard enough to get it semantically and syntactically right and then {disfmarker} and get the constructions in their form and stuff . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: And , I don I don't want you f feeling that you have to somehow meet all these other constraints . +Grad B: Right , OK . +Professor C: Um . And similarly with the parsing , uh we 're gonna worry about parsing uh , the general case you know , construction parser for general constructions . And , if we need a cut - down version for something , or whatever , we 'll worry about that later . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So I 'd like to , for the summer turn into science mode . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And I assume that 's also , uh , your plan as well . +Grad B: So I mean , the {disfmarker} the point is that like the meetings um so far that I 've been at have been {disfmarker} sort of been geared towards this demo , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and then that 's going to go away pretty soon . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but we we 're swit +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: And then we 'll sort of shift gears a Fairly substantially , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: huh ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's got . What I {disfmarker} what I think is {disfmarker} is a good idea that I can {disfmarker} can show to anyone who 's interested , we can even make a {disfmarker} sort of an internal demo , and I {disfmarker} I show you what I do , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I speak into it and you hear it talk , +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: and I can sort of walk f through the information . So , this is like in half hour or forty - five minutes . Just fun . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And so you {disfmarker} when somebody on the streets com comes up to you and asks you what is SmartKom so you can , sort of , give a sensible answer . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So , c sh we could set that up as actually an institute wide thing ? Just give a talk in the big room , and {disfmarker} and so peo people know what 's going on ? when you 're ready ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's the kind of thing {disfmarker} That 's the level at which you know we can just li invite everybody and say "" this is a project that we 've been working on and here 's a demo version of it "" and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . Well d we {disfmarker} we do wanna have all the bugs out b where you have to sort of pipe in extra XML messages from left and right before you 're {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Indeed . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . Makes sense . +Professor C: But any so that {disfmarker} e e It 's clear , then , I think . Actually , roughly starting uh let 's say , nex next meeting , cuz this meeting we have one other thing to tie up besides the trip report . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: But uh starting next meeting I think we want to flip into this mode where {disfmarker} Uh . I mean there are a lot of issues , what 's the ontology look like , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know what do the constructions look like , what 's the execution engine look like , mmm lots of things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , more focused on uh an idealized version than just getting the demo out . Now before we do that , let 's get back in {disfmarker} Oh ! But , it 's still , I think , useful for you to understand the demo version enough , so that you can {disfmarker} can see what {disfmarker} what it is that {disfmarker} that uh it might eventually get retro - fitted into or something . +Grad B: Yeah . OK , right . +Professor C: And Johno 's already done that , uh , looked at the dem uh the {disfmarker} looked at the SmartKom stuff . +Grad D: Wa uh {disfmarker} To some de uh what {disfmarker} what part of th the SmartKom stuff ? +Professor C: Well , the parser , and that stuff . +Grad D: Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: OK . Anyway . So , the trip {disfmarker} the report on these {disfmarker} the last we we sort of interrupted you guys telling us about what happened last week . +Grad B: Yeah . It 's alright . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} Well it was just amazing to {disfmarker} to see uh how {disfmarker} how instable the whole thing is , +Professor C: Maybe you 're done , then . +Grad E: and if you just take the {disfmarker} And I g I got the feeling that we are {pause} the only ones right now who have a running system . I don't know what the guys in Kaiserslautern have running because e the version {disfmarker} that is , the full version that 's on the server d does not work . And you need to do a lot of stuff to make it work . And so it 's {disfmarker} And even Tilman and Ralf sort of said "" yeah there never was a really working version that uh did it without th all the shortcuts that they built in for the uh October @ @ version "" . So we 're actually maybe ahead of the System Gruppe by now , the system {disfmarker} the integration group . And it was , uh {disfmarker} It was fun to some extent , but the uh the outcome that is sort of of scientific interest is that I think both Ralf and Tilman {disfmarker} um , I know that they enjoyed it here , and they r they {disfmarker} they liked , uh , a lot of the stuff they saw here , what {disfmarker} what we have been thinking about , and they 're more than willing to {disfmarker} to um , cooperate , by all means . And um , part of my responsibility is uh to use our internal "" group - ware "" server at EML , make that open to all of us and them , so that whatever we discuss in terms of parsing and {disfmarker} and generating and constructions w we {disfmarker} we sort of uh put it in there and they put what they do in there and maybe we can even um , get some overlap , get some synergy out of that . And um , the , uh {disfmarker} If I find someone at {disfmarker} in EML that is interested in that , um I {disfmarker} I may even think that we could look {disfmarker} take constructions and {disfmarker} and generate from them because the tree adjoining grammars that {disfmarker} that Tilman is using is as you said nothing but a mathematical formalism . And you can just do anything with it , whether it 's syntactic trees , H P S G - like stuff , or whether it 's construction . So if you ever get to the generation side of constructing things and there might be something of interest there , but in the moment we 're of course definitely focused on the understanding , um , pipeline . +Professor C: Anyth - any other {vocalsound} {comment} uh repo visit reports sort of stories ? uh we {disfmarker} so we now know I think , what the landscape is like . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so we just push on and {disfmarker} and uh , do what we need to do . And one of the things we need to do is the um , and this I think is relatively tight {disfmarker} tightly constrained , is to finish up this belief - net stuff . So . Uh . And I was going to switch to start talking about that unless there 're m other more general questions . OK so here 's where we are on the belief - net stuff as far as I understand it . Um . Going back I guess two weeks ago uh Robert had laid out this belief - net , missing only the connections . Right ? That is {disfmarker} {comment} So , he 'd put all th all the dots down , and we went through this , and , I think , more or less convinced ourselves that at least the vast majority of the nodes that we needed for the demo level we were thinking of , were in there . Yeah {comment} we may run across one or two more . But of course the connections weren't . So , uh Bhaskara and I went off and looked at some technical questions about were certain operations sort of legitimate belief - net computations and was there some known problem with them or had someone already uh , solved you know how to do this and stuff . And so Bhaskara tracked that down . The answer seems to be uh , "" no , no one has done it , but yes it 's a perfectly reasonable thing to do if that 's what you set out to do "" . And , so the current state of things is that , again , starting now , um we 'd like to actually get a running belief - net for this particular subdomain done in the next few weeks . So Bhaskara is switching projects as of the first of June , and uh , he 's gonna leave us an inheritance , which is a uh {disfmarker} hopefully a belief - net that does these things . And there 're two aspects to it , one of which is , you know , technical , getting the coding right , and making it run , and uh stuff like that . And the other is the actual semantics . OK ? What all {disfmarker} you know , what are the considerations and how and what are the ways in which they relate . So he doe h he doesn't need help from this group on the technical aspects or if he does uh we 'll do that separately . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But in terms of what are the decisions and stuff like that , that 's something that we all have to work out . Is {disfmarker} is that right ? I mean that 's {disfmarker} that 's both you guys ' understanding of where we are ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: So , I guess , um {disfmarker} Is there like a latest version of the belief - net {disfmarker} of the proposed belief - net ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We had um decided {disfmarker} +Grad G: like {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Well , no , we didn't decide . We wanted to look into maybe getting it , the visualization , a bit clearer , but I think if we do it , um , sort of a paper version of all the nodes and then the connections between them , that should suffice . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that should be fine . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's a separate problem . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor C: We do in the long run wanna do better visualization and all that stuff . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's separable , yeah . +Grad D: I did look into that , uh in terms of , you know , exploding the nodes out and down ag +Professor C: Yep . Right . +Grad D: JavaBayes does not support that . I can imagine a way of hacking at the code to do that . It 'd probably take two weeks or so to actually go through and do it , +Professor C: Not {disfmarker} not at this point . +Grad D: and I went through all the other packages on Murph - Kevin Murphy 's page , +Professor C: Right . +Grad D: and I couldn't find the necessary mix of free and uh with the GUI and , with this thing that we want . +Professor C: Well , we can p If it 's {disfmarker} If we can pay {disfmarker} Yeah . If you know it 's paying a thousand dollars or something we can do that . OK ? So {disfmarker} so don't view free as {disfmarker} as a absolute constraint . +Grad D: OK . OK , so then I 'll go back and look at the ones on the list that {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . And you can ask Kevin . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , the one that uh people seem to use is uh Hugin or whatever ? +Professor C: Hugin , yeah that 's free . +Grad G: How exp I don't think it 's {disfmarker} Is it free ? Because I 've seen it advertised in places so I {disfmarker} it seems to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , it may be free to academics . Like I {disfmarker} I don't know . I have a co {comment} I have a copy {comment} that I l I downloaded . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: So , at one point it was free . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh but yo I noticed people do use Hugin so um , +Grad D: How do you spell that ? +Professor C: HUGIN . +Grad F: Why +Professor C: And Bhaskara can give you a pointer . So then , in any case , um {disfmarker} But paying a lit You know , if i if it 's uh {disfmarker} Probably for university , it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be real cheap anyway . But um , you know , if it 's fifty thousand dollars we aren't gonna do it . I 'm mean , we have no need for that . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I also s would suggest not to d spend two weeks in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in changing the {disfmarker} the JavaBayes code . +Professor C: No , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: he 's not gonna do that . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I will send you a pointer to a Java applet that does that , it 's sort of a fish - eye . You {disfmarker} you have a node , and you click on it , and it shows you all the connections , +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: and then if you click on something else that moves away , that goes into the middle . And maybe there is an easy way of interfacing those two . If that doesn't work , it 's not a problem we {disfmarker} we need to solve right now . What I 'm {disfmarker} what my job is , I will , um , give you the input in terms of {disfmarker} of the internal structure . Maybe node by node , or something like this ? Or should I collect it all +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Doesn't matter . +Grad G: Um , just any like {disfmarker} like sort of rough representation of the entire belief - net is probably best . +Grad E: OK . And um you 're gonna be around ? t again , always Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoon - ish ? As usual ? Or will that change ? +Grad G: Yeah {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I can {disfmarker} like I c Um . This week I guess um , kind of {disfmarker} I have a lot of projects and stuff but after that I will generally be more free . So yes , I might {disfmarker} I can be around . And g I mean , generally if you email me also I can be around on other days . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: Yeah and this is not a crisis that {disfmarker} I mean , you do , e everybody who 's a student should , you know do their work , get their c courses all in good shape and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then we 'll dig {disfmarker} d dig down on this . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . No , that 's good . That means I have I h I can spend this week doing it . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: How do you go about this process of deciding what these connections are ? I know that there 's an issue of how to weight the different things too , and stuff . Right ? I mean do you just sort of guess and see if it sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there There 're two different things you do . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: One is you design and the other is you learn . OK ? So uh what we 're gonna do initially is {disfmarker} is do design , and , i if you will , guess . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . Uh that is you know use your best knowledge of {disfmarker} of the domain to uh , hypothesize what the dependencies are and stuff . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: If it 's done right , and if you have data then , there are techniques for learning the numbers given the structure +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and there are even techniques for learning the structure , although that takes a lot more data , and it 's not as @ @ and so forth and so on . So uh but for the limited amount of stuff we have for this particular exercise I think we 'll just design it . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad E: Yeah . Fo - Hopefully as time passes we 'll get more and more data from Heidelberg and from people actually using it and stuff . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So but this is the {pause} {vocalsound} {comment} {pause} long run . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: But to solve our problems ag uh a mediocre design will do I think in the beginning . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah , oh , and by the way , speaking of data , um , are there I could swore {disfmarker} uh , I could swear I saw it sitting on someone 's desk at some point , but is there a {disfmarker} um a transcript of any of the , sort of , initial interactions of people with the {disfmarker} with the system ? Cuz you know , I 'm still sort of itching to {disfmarker} to look at what {disfmarker} look at the stuff , and see what people are saying . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah make yourself a note . So and {disfmarker} and , of course Keith would like the German as well as the English , so whatever you guys can get . +Grad E: The German . Oh yeah , of course , German . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , the y your native language , right ? You remember that one . +Grad E: OK . That 's important , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: So he 'll get you some data . +Grad B: u OK . Yeah , I mean I {disfmarker} I sort of um found the uh , uh the audio of some of those , and um , it kind of sounded like I didn't want to trudge through that , you know . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: It was just {disfmarker} Strange , but . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad E: We probably will not get those to describe because they were trial runs . +Grad B: Oh yeah , OK . +Grad E: Um , but uh that 's th but we have data in English and German already . +Grad B: OK , yeah , I mean . +Grad E: So . {disfmarker} Transcribed . I will send you that . OK . +Professor C: OK , so while we 're still at this sort of top level , anything else that we oughta talk about today ? +Grad E: Ho - how was your thingy . +Grad B: Oh , um , I just wanted to , uh , s like mention as an issue , um , you know last meeting I wasn't here because I went to a linguistics colloquium on the fictive motion stuff , +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: and that was pretty interesting and you know , I mean , seems to me that that will fairly obviously be of relevance to uh {disfmarker} to what we 're doing here because you know people are likely to give descriptions like you know , "" What 's that thing uh right where you start to go up the hill , "" or something like that , you know , meaning a few feet up the hill or whatever from some reference point and all that stuff so I mean , I 'm sure in terms of you know , people trying to state locations or , you know , all that kind of stuff , this is gonna be very relevant . So , um , now that was {disfmarker} the talk was about English versus Japanese , um , which obviously the Japanese doesn't affect us directly , except that , um , some of the construction {disfmarker} he 'd {disfmarker} what he talked about was that you know in English we say things like th you know , "" your bike is parked across the street "" and we use these prepositional phrases , you know , "" well , if you were to move across the street you would be at the bike "" , but um in {disfmarker} in Japanese the {disfmarker} the more conventionalized tendency is to use a {disfmarker} sort of a description of "" where one has crossed to the river , there is a tree "" . Um , and you know , you can actually say things like , um , "" there 's a tree where one has crossed the river , but no one has ever crossed the river "" , or something like that . So the idea is that this really is you know that 's supposed show that 's it 's really fictive and so on . But um {disfmarker} But the point is that that kind of construction is also used in English , you know , like "" right where you start to go up the hill "" , or "" just when you get off the train "" , or something like that to {disfmarker} uh , to indicate where something is . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad B: So we 'll have to think about {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} how much is that used in German ? +Grad E: Um . The uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} I wa I was on a uh {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on a different sidetrack . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +Grad E: I mean , the {disfmarker} the Deep Map project which um is undergoing some renovation at {disfmarker} at the moment , but this is a {disfmarker} a three language project : German , English , Japanese . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , we have a uh , uh {disfmarker} I have taken care that we have the {disfmarker} the Japanese generation and stuff . And so I looked into uh spatial description . So we can generate spatial descriptions , how to get from A to B . And {disfmarker} and information on objects , in German , English , and Japanese . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And there is a huge uh project on spatial descriptions uh {disfmarker} differences in spatial descriptions . Well , if yo if you 're interested in that , so how {disfmarker} how , I mean it does sort of go d all the way down to the conceptual level to some extent . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So . Um . +Professor C: So , where is this huge project ? +Grad E: It 's KLEIST . It 's the uh Bielefeld generation of uh spatial descriptions and whatever . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: +Professor C: Well , that may be another thing that Keith wants to look at . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: But um , I {disfmarker} I think we should leave Japanese constructions maybe outside of the scope for {disfmarker} for now , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: but um definitely it 's interesting to look at {disfmarker} at cross the bordered there . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Are {disfmarker} are you going to p pay any attention to the relative position {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the direction relative {disfmarker} relative to the speaker ? For example , there are some differences between Hebrew and English . We can say um "" park in front of the car "" as you come beh you drive behind the car . In Hebrew it means "" park behind the car "" , because to follow the car is defined as it faces you . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Intrinsic , yeah . +PhD A: While in English , front of the car is the absolute front of the car . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad B: Right , so the canonical direction of motion determines where the front is . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So , i i i is German uh closer to {disfmarker} to E uh , uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} to E I mean uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's related to syntax , though , so it may be entirely different . +Grad E: Um , as a matter of fact {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , it 's not . +Grad B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Did you ever get to look at the {disfmarker} the rou paper that I sent you on the {disfmarker} on that problem in English and German ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: Carroll , ninety - three . Um . I {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a study on the differences between English and German on exactly that problem . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: So it 's {disfmarker} they actually say "" the monkey in front of the car , where 's the monkey ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , um , they found statistically very significant differences in English and German , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It might be , since there are only a finite number of ways of doing it , that {disfmarker} that German might be more like Hebrew in that respect . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: The solution they proposed was that it was due to syntactic factors . +PhD A: That {disfmarker} but it wasn't {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} +Grad E: That syntactic facto factors do {disfmarker} do play a role there , wh whether you 're more likely , you know , to develop uh , choices that lead you towards using uh intrinsic versus extrinsic reference frames . +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: I mean , it seems to me that you can get both in {disfmarker} in English depending o +Professor C: Hmm . +Grad B: You know , like , "" in front of the car "" could you know {disfmarker} Like , here 's the car sideways to me in between me and the car or something 's in front of the car , or whatever . I could see that , +Professor C: Absolutely . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} But anyway , so you know , I mean , this was {disfmarker} this was a {disfmarker} a very good talk on those kinds of issues and so on . So uh . +Grad E: I can also give you uh , a pointer to a paper of mine which is the {disfmarker} the ultimate taxonomy of reference frames . +Grad B: Alright ! Cool ! +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I 'm the only person in the world who actually knows how it works . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: Not really . +Professor C: Great . No , I 've not seen that . +PhD A: What do you mean . Um . "" reference frames "" ? +Grad E: It 's called a {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh uh +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's spatial reference frames . You actually have only {disfmarker} Um . If you wanna have a {disfmarker} This is usually um {disfmarker} I should {disfmarker} there should be an "" L "" , though . Well actually you have {disfmarker} only have two choices . You can either do a two - point or a three - point which is you You 're familiar with th with the "" origo "" ? where that 's the center {disfmarker} "" Origo "" is the center of the f frame of reference . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: And then you have the reference object and the object to be localized . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK ? In some cases the origo is the same as the reference object . +Professor C: So that would be "" origin "" in English , +Grad F: This was like {disfmarker} +Grad B: The origin . +PhD A: Right +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +Grad E: "" Origo "" is a Terminus technikus . in that sense , that 's even used in the English literature . "" Origo . "" +Grad B: Oh , OK . I never heard it . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , so , this video tape is in front of me . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I 'm the origo and I 'm also the reference object . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Those are two - point . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And three - point relations is if something has an intrinsic front side like this chair then your f shoe is behind the chair . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , reference object and {disfmarker} Um . No , from {disfmarker} from my point of view your shoe is left of the chair . +Grad B: Right . You {disfmarker} you can actually say things like , um , "" it 's behind the tree from me "" or something like that , I think , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in certain circumstances in English , right ? As sort of "" from where I 'm standing it would appear that "" {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . So , +Grad F: Looks a little bit like Reichenbach for time . +Professor C: Yeah , it sounds like it , doesn't it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Grad F: It 's a lot like it . +Grad E: And then {disfmarker} and then here you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: On this scale , you have it either be ego or allocentric . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And that 's {comment} {disfmarker} that 's basically it . So . Egocentric two - point , egocentric three - point , or you can have allocentric . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So , "" as seen from the church , the town hall is right of that um , fire station "" . aa - huh {comment} It 's hardly ever used but it 's w +PhD A: I 'd love to see it if you {disfmarker} if you have a copy kind of . Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . I see this is {disfmarker} this is getting into Ami 's thing . +PhD A: Here +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: He 's {disfmarker} he 's very interested in that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So . +Grad B: Me too . +Professor C: Uh . Yeah . Well , why don't you just put it on the web page ? There 's this EDU {disfmarker} Right ? +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or a link to it . +Grad E: It 's also all on my {disfmarker} my home page at EML . It 's called "" An Anatomy of a Spatial Description "" . +Professor C: Just +Grad E: But I 'll send that link . +PhD A: OK , great . +Professor C: Maybe just put a link on . Yeah . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: By the way , there {disfmarker} something that I didn't know until about a week ago or so , is apparently , there are separate brain areas for things within reach , and things that are out of reach . +Grad E: Yep . +Grad B: Huh . +Professor C: So there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh all this linguistic stuff about you know , near and far , or yon and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is all {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} There 's this linguistic facts . But apparently , the {disfmarker} Uh . Here 's the way the findings go . That , you know they do MRI , and {disfmarker} and if you 're uh {disfmarker} got something within reach then there 's one of your areas lights up , and if something 's out of reach uh a different one . But here 's the {disfmarker} the amazing result , um , they say . You get someone with a {disfmarker} with a deficit so that they have a perfectly normal ability at distance things . So the s typical task is subdivision . So there 's a {disfmarker} a line on the wall over there , and you give them a laser pointer , and you say , "" Where 's the midpoint ? "" And they do fine . If you give them the line , and they have to touch it , they can't . There 's just that part of the brain isn't functioning , so they can't do that . Here 's the real experiment . The same thing on the wall , you give them a laser , "" where is it ? "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: they do it . Give them a stick , long stick , and say "" do it "" , they can't do it . So there 's a remapping of distant space into nearby space . +PhD A: Right . So they doubled {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end of this {disfmarker} +Grad F: Because it 's within reach now ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's not within reach and you use the Within - Reach uh , mechanism . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad F: Oh . Wow . +Grad B: Circuits . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: So I 'll d I 'll dig you up this reference . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And so this doe This is , uh {disfmarker} First of all , it explains something that I 've always wondered about and I 'll do this {disfmarker} this test on you guys as well . So . Uh . How - I have had an experience , not often , but a certain number of times , when , for example , I 'm working with a tool , a screwdriver or something , for a long time , I start feeling the tip directly . Not indirectly , but you actually can feel the tip . +Grad B: Yeah yeah . +Professor C: And people who are uh accomplished violinists and stuff like that , claim they also have this kind of thing where you get a direct sensation of , physical sensation , of the end affector . +Grad B: Yeah . What 's going on at the end of the tool , +PhD A: The ext the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} The extension , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: What 's going on at the end of the tool , or whatever . +Professor C: Yeah , within {disfmarker} +PhD A: right . +Professor C: Huh ? +PhD A: The extension of {disfmarker} of your hand , right . +Professor C: Yeah , right . Have you hav y h had this ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . I mean i i it 's not exactly the th same thing , but {disfmarker} but s it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's getting close to that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: W what does it feel like ? +Professor C: Oh i it feels like your {disfmarker} as if your uh neurons had extended themselves out to this tool , and you 're feeling forces on it and so forth and {disfmarker} and you deal directly with it . +PhD A: I once {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was playing you know with those um uh devices that allow you to manipulate objects when it 's dangerous to get close ? So you can insert your hand something +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Right , yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and there 's a correspondence between {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So I played with it . After a while , you don't feel the difference anymore . I {disfmarker} I mean it 's kind of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD A: Very {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} you stop back and suddenly it goes away and you have to kind of work again to recapture it , but yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right , Yeah , so anyway , so {disfmarker} So this was the first actual experimental evidence I 'd seen that was consistent with this anecdotal stuff . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And of course it makes a lovely def uh story about why languages uh , make this distinction . Of course there are behavioral differences too . Things you can reach are really quite different than things you can't . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: But there seems to be an actu really deep embodied neural difference . And i this is , um {disfmarker} So . In addition to the e +Grad E: This is more proximal - distal . +Professor C: Yeah uh exactly . So in addition to e ego and allocentric uh which appear all over the place , you also apparently have this proximal - distal thing which is very deeply uh embedded . S +Grad E: Well , Dan Montello sort of , he {disfmarker} he does the uh uh {disfmarker} th the cognitive map world , down in Santa Barbara . And he {disfmarker} he always talks about these {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he already {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} i probably most likely without knowing this {disfmarker} this evidence uh is talking about these small scale spaces that you can manipulate versus large scale environmental spaces . +Professor C: Yeah . Well there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh been a lot of behavioral things o on this , but that was the first neur neuro - physiological thing I saw . Anyway yeah , so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at this . And . So , all of these issues now {disfmarker} are now starting to come up . So , now {disfmarker} we 're now done with demos . We 're starting to do science , right ? And so these issues about uh , reference , and {disfmarker} spatial {comment} reference , discourse reference , uh - uh - uh - uh {comment} all this sort of stuff , uh , deixis which is part of what you were talking about , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um {disfmarker} So , all of this stuff is coming up essentially starting now . So we gotta do all this . So there 's that . And then there 's also a set of system things that come up . So "" OK , we 're not using their system . That means we need our system . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It {disfmarker} it follows . And so , uh , in addition to the business about just getting the linguistics right , and the formalism and stuff , we 're actually gonna build something and uh , Johno is point person on the parser , analyzer , whatever that is , and we 're gonna start on that in parallel with the um , the grammar stuff . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: But to do that we 're gonna need to make some decisions like ontology , so , um {disfmarker} And so this is another thing where we 're gonna , you know , have to get involved and make s relatively early I think , make some decisions on uh , "" is there an ontology API that {disfmarker} that "" {disfmarker} There 's a sort of standard way of getting things from ontologies and we build the parser and stuff around that , or is there a particular ontology that we 're gonna standardize on , and if so {disfmarker} For example , is there something that we can use there . i Does uh either the uh SmartKom project or one of the projects at EML have something that we can just p pull out , for that . Uh , so there are gonna be some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , which are not science but system . But we aren't gonna ignore those cuz we 're {disfmarker} we 're not only going {disfmarker} The plan is not only to lay out this thing , but to actually uh build some of it . And how much we build , and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . Part of it , if it works right , is wh It looks like we 're now in a position that the construction analyzer that we want for this applied project can be the same as the construction analyzer that Nancy needs for the child language modeling . So . It 's always been out of phase but it now seems that um , there 's a good shot at that . So we 've talked about it , and the hope is that we can make these things the same thing , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and of course it 's only w In both cases it 's only one piece of a bigger system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it would be nice if that piece were exactly the same piece . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: It was just this uh construction analyzer . And so we think {disfmarker} we think we have a shot at {disfmarker} at that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So . The for So . To {disfmarker} to come full circle on that , this formalization task , OK ? is trying to get the formalism into {disfmarker} into a shape where it can actually uh +Grad B: Yeah . Be of use to someone who 's trying to do this , right ? +Professor C: d Well , yeah , where it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} covers the whole range of things . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that got Mark into the worst trouble is he had a very ambitious thing he was trying to do , and he insisted on trying to do it with a limited set of mechanisms . It turned out , inherently not to cover the space . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And it just {disfmarker} it was just terribly frustrating for him , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and he seemed fully committed to both sides of this i i irreconcilable thing . +Grad B: I see . Right . +Professor C: And . Uh . Johno is much more pragmatic . +Grad B: OK . Good to know . +Professor C: Uh . Huh ? Is {disfmarker} This is true , is it not ? +Grad D: Yes . +Professor C: OK . So there 's you know sort of , yeah , deep , really deep , emotional commitment to a certain theory being uh , complete . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: You don't have a hidden purist streak ? +Grad D: Oh no . +Professor C: We - well it hasn't it {disfmarker} it certainly hasn't been observed , in any case . +Grad F: OK . Just checking . +Grad D: No sir . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: Um . Now , you do , but that 's OK . Uh . So . For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz I don't have to implement anything . +Professor C: Exactly right . Exactly . +Grad F: I have a problem , then . It 's {disfmarker} So . Whether I do depends on whether I 'm talking to him or him probably . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , right . +Professor C: Right . Why {disfmarker} a actually , uh , the thing is , you {disfmarker} you do but , th the thing you have to im implement is so small that {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad F: Which meeting I 'm in . It 's OK to be purist within that context . +Professor C: Within that , yeah , +Grad F: Yes , +Professor C: and uh , it 's {disfmarker} a and still , I think , you know , get something done . +Grad F: good . +Grad B: Cool ! +Professor C: But to try to do something upscale and purist Particularly if {disfmarker} if um what you 're purist about doesn't actually work , {vocalsound} is real hard . +Grad F: Yay . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And then the other thing is while we 're doing this uh Robert 's gonna pick a piece of this space , +PhD A: It 's possible yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK , uh , for his absentee thesis . I think you all know that {disfmarker} that you can just , in Germany {disfmarker} almost just send in your thesis . +Grad B: Just a drive up . Ca - chuk ! +PhD A: Um +Professor C: Yeah right . +Grad B: There you go . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: The - th There {disfmarker} there 's a drive - in thesis uh sh {vocalsound} joint over in Saarbruecken . +Grad B: Exactly . Drive through , yeah . +Professor C: It costs a lot . The {disfmarker} the amount {disfmarker} You put in your credit card and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as well . But , uh , {disfmarker} But anyway , so , uh , that 's um , also gotta be worked out , hopefully over the next few weeks , so that {disfmarker} that it becomes clear uh , what piece uh , Robert wants to jump into . And , while we 're at this level , uh , there 's at least one new doctoral student in computer science who will be joining the project , either next week or the first of August , depending on the blandishments of Microsoft . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So , de Uh . And her name is Eva . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It really is . Nobody believed th th that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I thought it had to be a joke , of your part , you know +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: like {disfmarker} {comment} "" Johno made it up , I 'm sure . "" +Grad G: Is this person someone who 's in first - year this year , +Professor C: No , first year coming . +Grad G: or +Professor C: So , she 's {disfmarker} she 's now out here she 's moved , and she 'll be a student as of then . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: And probably she 'll pick up from you on the belief - net stuff , so sh she 'll be chasing you down and stuff like that . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad E: Document . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: Uh , against all traditions . And actually I talked today to a uh undergraduate who wants to do an honors thesis on this . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Someone from the class ? +Professor C: No , interestingly enough . +Grad F: We always get these people who are not in the class , who {disfmarker} +Professor C: Some of th some of them , yeah . +Grad F: It 's interesting . +Professor C: So anyway , uh , but uh she 's another one of these ones with a three point nine average and so forth and so on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I 've give I 've given her some things to read . So we 'll see how this goes . Oh there 's yet another one of the incoming first {disfmarker} {comment} incoming first - year graduate students who 's expressed interest , so we 'll see how that goes . Um , anyway , so , I think as far as this group goes , um , it 's certainly worth continuing for the next few weeks to get closure on the uh belief - net and the ideas that are involved in that , and what are th what are the concepts . We 'll see whether it 's gonna make sense to have this be separate from the other bigger effort with the formalization stuff or not , I 'm not sure . It partly depends on w what your thesis turns out to be and how that goes . S so , we 'll see . And then , Ami , you can decide , you know , how much time you wanna put into it and uh , it it 's beginning to take shap shape , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: so uh and , +PhD A: Right +Professor C: I think you will find that if you want to look technically at some of the {disfmarker} your traditional questions in this light , uh Keith , who 's buil building constructions , will be quite happy to uh see what , you know , you envision as the issues and the problems and um , how they might uh get reflected in constructions . +Grad B: Sure . +Professor C: I suspect that 's right . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I may have to go to Switzerland for {disfmarker} in June or beginning of July for between two weeks and four weeks , but uh , after that or before that . +Professor C: OK , fine . And , um , if it 's useful we can probably arrange for you to drop by and visit either at Heidelberg or at the German AI center , while you 're in {disfmarker} in the neighborhood . +PhD A: Right . Yeah be uh actu actually I 'm invited to do some consulting with a bank in Geneva which has an affiliation with a research institute in Geneva , which I forgot the name of . +Professor C: Yeah . Yep . E o do y +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , we we 're connected to uh {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a very significant connection between {disfmarker} We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go through this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: ICSI and EPFL , which is the , uh {disfmarker} It 's the {disfmarker} Fr Ge - Germany 's got two big technical institutes . There 's one in {disfmarker} in Zurich , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: E T and then there 's one , the French speaking one , in Lausanne , +Grad B: Oh , so in Switzerland . +Professor C: OK ? which is uh E P +PhD A: Great . +Professor C: F L . So find out who they are associated with in Geneva . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Probably we 're connected to them . +PhD A: Great . I 'll let you know . S I 'll send you email . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , and so anyway we c uh {disfmarker} We can m undoubtedly get Ami uh to give a talk at uh EML or something like that . While he 's in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the one you {disfmarker} you gave here a couple of weeks ago would be of interest there , too . +PhD A: Sure , yeah . +Professor C: A lot of interest . Actually , either place , DFKI or uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so , and {disfmarker} and if there is a book , that you 'll be building up some audience for it . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And you 'll get feedback from these guys . +PhD A: Great , yeah . +Professor C: Cuz they 've actually {disfmarker} these DFKI guys have done as much as anyone over the last decade in trying to build them . So we 'll set that up . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: OK . So , uh , unless we wanna start digging into the {disfmarker} uh the belief - net and the decisions now , which would be fine , it 's probably {disfmarker} +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I tho It 's probably better if I come next week with the um version O point nine of the structure . +Professor C: OK . So , how about if you two guys between now and next week come up with something that is partially proposal , and partially questions , saying "" here 's what we think we understand , here are the things we think we don't understand "" . And that we as a group will try to {disfmarker} to finish it . What I 'd like to do is shoot f for finishing all this next Monday . +Grad G: Sure . +Professor C: OK ? Uh , "" these are the decisions "" {disfmarker} I don't think we 're gonna get lots more information . It 's a design problem . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You know . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . And let 's come up with a first cut at what this should look like . And then finish it up . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Does that so make sense ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , the {disfmarker} the sem semester will be over next week but then you have projects for one more week to come ? +Grad G: No , I {disfmarker} I think I 'll be done {disfmarker} everything by this uh {disfmarker} by the end of this week . +Grad E: Same with you ? No . +Grad D: Nnn . This {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I have projects , but then the {disfmarker} my prof professor of one of my classes also wa has a final that he 's giving us . And he 's giving us five days to do it which means it going to be hard . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Oh . is it a take - home final ? Who 's doing this ? +Grad D: Yeah . Aikin , Alex , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , figured . That would have been i my guess . +Grad G: Hmm . +Professor C: Right . Um , But anyway , yeah . +Grad B: Pretty soon . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK , so I guess that 's +Grad D: So , the seventeenth will definitely be the last day , like it or not for me . +Professor C: Right . right . So let 's do this , and then we we well there 's gonna be some separate co these guys are talking , uh we have a group on the formalization , uh Nancy and Johno and I are gonna talk about parsers . So there 're various kinds of uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Of course , nothing gets done even in a meeting of seven people , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: right ? So , um , two or three people is the size in which actual work gets done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So we 'll do that . Great . Oh , the other thing we wanna do is catch up with uh , Ellen and see what she 's doing because the um image schemas are going to be um , an important pa +Grad B: Yeah . Quite relevant , yeah . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} we want those , +Grad B: Yeah , oh yeah . +Professor C: right ? And we want them formalized and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So let me {disfmarker} let me make a note to do that . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I 'm actually probably going to be in contact with her uh pretty soon anyway because of various of us students were going to have a reading group about precisely that sort of thing over the summer , +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Oh right ! Right right right ! +Grad B: so . +Professor C: That 's great ! Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Shweta mentioned that , although she said it 's a secret . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Hi +Grad B: Right , no faculty ! +Professor C: Th - the faculty aren't {disfmarker} faculty aren't supposed to know . +Grad D: Wednesday 's much better for me , yeah . +Professor C: But um , I 'm sufficiently clueless that I count as a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , right . It 's as if we didn't tell anyone at all , +Grad D: Bhaskara . +Grad B: right . +","In a recent gathering involving graduate students, a professor, and a Ph.D. candidate, there was a vibrant discussion and progress update on various projects, particularly focusing on advancements in a smart system known as SmartKom. Professor C began the meeting by referring to a visit from members of the German SmartKom project, explaining the productive interaction that ensued and suggesting that Robert and Johno present a recap of the ""last week's adventures"" for the group's benefit. + +Graduate students E and D discussed technical progress, particularly with the speech interface and the synthesis module of the SmartKom system. They noted the challenges in adapting the system's language synthesis from German to English, emphasizing the so-called concept-to-speech approach that they decided to stick with. This approach allows for better syntactic structure feeding, resulting in improved pronunciation when compared to a simpler text-to-speech system. Discussions on XML tags, tree adjoining grammars for generating syntactic structures, and the dialogue manager's function in the system were also touched upon. + +Moreover, PhD A and Grad B added their insights on the language synthesis matters, with Grad B expressing a need for a deeper understanding of the information flow within the system. Professor C mentioned postponing an in-depth discussion on this topic and instead offering one-on-one walkthroughs later. + +The conversation shifted to the structure and language independence of the system, with Grad E noting that despite the engineering challenges, the system was operational. They also addressed the need for variations in syntax trees to cater to differences between English and German, particularly regarding the gerund structure in both languages. + +Professor C steered the discussion by suggesting Keith should look at the system, and the conversation broadened to include considerations around the project's funding requirements and potential overlaps with other research sectors. They discussed future work, emphasizing the shift towards a scientific exploration over the summer instead of focusing solely on applied projects. Professor C proposed focusing on core linguistic and computational issues, leaving apart the constraints posed by the SmartKom project. + +On the belief-net discussion, Professor C and students E and G planned to collaborate on the belief-net structure, intending to finalize it in the upcoming meeting. The group acknowledged that while technical help is available, deciding on the network's semantics and connections would require collective effort. + +As the academic semester was nearing its end, Professor C highlighted the various individuals who would potentially contribute to ongoing projects, including an incoming doctoral student, an undergraduate interested in an honors thesis, and others. + +The group agreed to further develop their proposal on the belief-net framework and decisions, aiming to consolidate their work in the next meeting. Additionally, Professor C noted the intent to build systematic components alongside theoretical advancements and mentioned the possibility of joining efforts with other projects, such as child language modeling. + +In conclusion, the meeting was an opportunity to exchange knowledge, reflect on progress, and plan future steps for the various research endeavors relating to SmartKom. The group's near-term focus was clearly defined as closing gaps in the understanding of the belief-net and setting the stage for a summer of scientific inquiry." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: Am I on ? I guess so . Radio two . Hmm . Radio two . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: Wow . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Hi ? +PhD B: Blow into it , it works really well . +Grad F: Channel B . +Professor A: People say the strangest things when their microphones are on . +PhD D: Channel four . Test . +PhD C: Uh - oh . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: Radio four . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: So everybody everybody 's on ? +PhD D: Today 's +Professor A: Yeah . So y you guys had a {disfmarker} a meeting with uh {disfmarker} with Hynek which I unfortunately had to miss . Um and uh somebody +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: eh e and uh I guess Chuck you weren't there either , so the uh +PhD B: I was there . +Professor A: Oh you were there ? +PhD B: With Hynek ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So everybody knows what happened except me . OK . {vocalsound} Maybe somebody should tell me . +PhD C: Oh yeah . Alright . Well . Uh first we discussed about some of the points that I was addressing in the mail I sent last week . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So . Yeah . About the um , well {disfmarker} the downsampling problem . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh and about the f the length of the filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: What was the {disfmarker} w what was the downsampling problem again ? +PhD C: So we had {disfmarker} +Professor A: I forget . +PhD C: So the fact that there {disfmarker} there is no uh low - pass filtering before the downsampling . Well . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: There is because there is LDA filtering but that 's perhaps not uh the best w m +Professor A: Depends what it 's frequency characteristic is , yeah . +PhD C: Well . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you could do a {disfmarker} you could do a stricter one . +PhD D: System on +Professor A: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . So we discussed about this , about the um {disfmarker} +Professor A: Was there any conclusion about that ? +PhD C: Uh "" try it "" . Yeah . +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: I guess . +Professor A: Yeah . So again this is th this is the downsampling {vocalsound} uh of the uh {disfmarker} the feature vector stream +PhD C: Uh . +Professor A: and um Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} the uh LDA filters they were doing do have um {vocalsound} uh let 's see , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the feature vectors are calculated every ten milliseconds so uh the question is how far down they are at fifty {disfmarker} fifty hertz . Uh . {vocalsound} Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Sorry at twenty - five hertz since they 're downsampling by two . So . Does anybody know what the frequency characteristic is ? +PhD C: We don't have yet +Professor A: Oh OK . +PhD C: um {vocalsound} So , yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: We should have a look first at , perhaps , {vocalsound} the modulation spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . So there is this , there is the um length of the filters . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the i this idea of trying to find filters with shorter delays . Um . We started to work with this . +Professor A: Hmm - hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . And the third point um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} was the um , yeah , {vocalsound} the on - line normalization where , well , the recursion f recursion for the mean estimation {vocalsound} is a filter with some kind of delay +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and that 's not taken into account right now . Um . Yeah . And there again , yeah . For this , the conclusion of Hynek was , well , "" we can try it but {disfmarker} "" +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Try {disfmarker} try what ? +PhD C: So try to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um take into account the delay of the recursion for the mean estimation . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . And this {disfmarker} we 've not uh worked on this yet . Um , yeah . And so while discussing about these {disfmarker} these LDA filters , some i issues appeared , like well , the fact that if we look at the frequency response of these filters it 's uh , well , we don't know really what 's the important part in the frequency response and there is the fact that {vocalsound} in the very low frequency , these filters don't {disfmarker} don't really remove a lot . {vocalsound} compared to the {disfmarker} to the uh standard RASTA filter . Uh and that 's probably a reason why , yeah , on - line normalization helps because it {disfmarker} it , +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: yeah , it removed this mean . Um . Yeah , but perhaps everything could {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} could be in the filter , I mean , uh the {disfmarker} the mean normalization and {disfmarker} Yeah . So . Yeah . So basically that was {disfmarker} that 's {vocalsound} all we discussed about . We discussed about {vocalsound} good things to do also uh well , generally good stuff {vocalsound} to do for the research . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And this was this LDA uh tuning perhaps and {vocalsound} Hynek proposed again to his uh TRAPS , so . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor A: I mean I g I guess the key thing for me is {disfmarker} is figuring out how to better coordinate between the two sides +PhD C: um . +Professor A: cuz {disfmarker} because um +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I was talking with Hynek about it later and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of had the sense sort of that {disfmarker} that neither group of people wanted to {disfmarker} to bother the other group too much . And {disfmarker} and I don't think anybody is , you know , closed in in their thinking or are unwilling to talk about things but I think that {vocalsound} you were sort of waiting for them to {vocalsound} tell you that they had something for you and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} and expected that they would do certain things and they were sor they didn't wanna bother you +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {vocalsound} they were sort of waiting for you and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh we ended up with this thing where they {disfmarker} they were filling up all of the possible latency themselves , and they just had hadn't thought of that . So . Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I mean it 's true that maybe {disfmarker} maybe no one really thought about that {disfmarker} that this latency thing would be such a {disfmarker} a strict issue +PhD C: Yeah . Well , but . Yeah . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah I don't know what happened really , but +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's also so uh the time constraints . Because , {vocalsound} well , we discussed about that {disfmarker} about this problem and they told us "" well , we will do all that 's possible to have enough space for a network "" but then , yeah , perhaps they were too short with the time and +Professor A: Then they couldn't . I see . +PhD C: uh yeah . But there was also problem {disfmarker} perhaps a problem of communication . So , yeah . Now we will try to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Just talk more . +PhD C: Yeah , slikes and send mails . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: u s o o Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . OK . +Professor A: So there 's um {disfmarker} Alright . Well maybe we should just uh I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're bus other than that you folks are busy doing all the {disfmarker} all the things that you 're trying that we talked about before right ? And this {disfmarker} machines are busy and {vocalsound} you 're busy +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: and +PhD C: Basically . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . Oh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's , I mean , I think that as {disfmarker} as we said before that one of the things that we 're imagining is that uh there {disfmarker} there will be {vocalsound} uh in the system we end up with there 'll be something to explicitly uh uh do something about noise +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: in addition to the uh other things that we 're talking about and that 's probably the best thing to do . And there was that one email that said that {vocalsound} it sounded like uh uh things looked very promising up there in terms of uh I think they were using Ericsson 's {vocalsound} approach or something and {vocalsound} in addition to {disfmarker} They 're doing some noise removal thing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . So yeah we 're {disfmarker} will start to do this also . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh so Carmen is just looking at the Ericsson {disfmarker} Ericsson code . +PhD D: Yeah . We modif +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And +PhD D: Yeah , I modified it {disfmarker} well , modifying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I studied Barry 's sim code , more or less . to take @ @ the first step the spectral subtraction . and we have some {disfmarker} the feature for Italian database and we will try with this feature with the filter to find the result . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But we haven't result until this moment . +Professor A: Yeah , sure . +PhD D: But well , we are working in this also +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: and maybe try another type of spectral subtraction , I don't {disfmarker} +Professor A: When you say you don't have a result yet you mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that it 's in process or that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it finished and it didn't get a good result ? +PhD D: No . No , no n we have n we have do the experiment only have the feature {disfmarker} the feature but the experiment have +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: we have not make the experiment +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD D: and maybe will be good result or bad result , we don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . So um I suggest actually now we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sorta move on and {disfmarker} and hear what 's {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening in {disfmarker} in other areas like {vocalsound} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening with your {vocalsound} investigations {vocalsound} about echos and so on . +Grad F: Oh um Well um I haven't started writing the test yet , I 'm meeting with Adam today +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um and he 's going t show me the scripts he has for um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} running recognition on mee Meeting Recorder digits . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh {vocalsound} I also um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} haven't got the code yet , I haven't asked Hynek for {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for his code yet . Cuz I looked at uh Avendano 's thesis and {vocalsound} I don't really understand what he 's doing yet but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it sounded like um {vocalsound} the channel normalization part {vocalsound} um of his thesis um {vocalsound} was done in a {disfmarker} a bit of I don't know what the word is , a {disfmarker} a bit of a rough way um {vocalsound} it sounded like he um he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wasn't really fleshed out and maybe he did something that was {vocalsound} interesting for the test situation but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it 's {vocalsound} what I 'd wanna use so I have to {disfmarker} I have to read it more , I don't really understand what he 's doing yet . +Professor A: OK . Yeah I haven't read it in a while so I 'm not gonna be too much help unless I read it again , +PhD D: It 's my +PhD C: Oh yeah ? +PhD D: I know this is mine here . +Professor A: so . OK . Um . {vocalsound} The um {disfmarker} so you , and then {vocalsound} you 're also gonna be doing this echo cancelling between the {disfmarker} the close mounted and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're calling a cheating experiment uh of sorts between the distant {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh I I 'm ho Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or I 'm hoping {disfmarker} I 'm hoping Espen will do it . +Professor A: Ah ! OK . +Grad F: Um +Professor A: F um +Grad F: u +Professor A: Delegate . That 's good . It 's good to delegate . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I think he 's at least planning to do it for the cl close - mike cross - talk and so maybe I can just take whatever setup he has and use it . +Professor A: Great . Great . Yeah actually um he should uh I wonder who else is I think maybe it 's Dan Ellis is going to be doing uh a different cancellation . Um . {vocalsound} One of the things that people working in the meeting task wanna get at is they would like to have cleaner {vocalsound} close - miked recordings . So uh this is especially true for the lapel but even for the close {disfmarker} close - miked uh cases um we 'd like to be able to have {vocalsound} um other sounds from other people and so forth removed from {disfmarker} So when someone isn't speaking you 'd like the part where they 're not speaking to actually be {disfmarker} So {vocalsound} what they 're talking about doing is using ec uh echo cancellation - like techniques . It 's not really echo but {vocalsound} uh just um uh taking the input from other mikes and using uh {vocalsound} uh a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an adaptive filtering approach to remove the effect of that uh other speech . So . Um what was it , there was {disfmarker} there was some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some point where {vocalsound} eh uh Eric or somebody was {disfmarker} was speaking and he had lots of {vocalsound} silence in his channel and I was saying something to somebody else uh {vocalsound} which was in the background and it was not {disfmarker} it was recognizing my words , which were the background speech {vocalsound} on the close {disfmarker} {vocalsound} close mike . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD B: Oh the {disfmarker} What we talked about yesterday ? +Professor A: Yes . +PhD B: Yeah that was actually my {disfmarker} I was wearing the {disfmarker} I was wearing the lapel and you were sitting next to me , +Professor A: Oh you {disfmarker} it was you I was Yeah . +PhD B: and I only said one thing but you were talking and it was picking up all your words . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So they would like clean channels . Uh and for that {disfmarker} mmm uh {disfmarker} that purpose uh they 'd like to pull it out . So I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think Dan Ellis or somebody who was working with him was going to uh work on that . So . OK . Right ? Um . {vocalsound} And uh I don't know if we 've talked lately about the {disfmarker} the plans you 're developing that we talked about this morning uh I don't remember if we talked about that last week or not , but {vocalsound} maybe just a quick reprise of {disfmarker} of what we were saying this morning . +Grad E: OK . +Professor A: Uh . +Grad E: Um . {comment} So continuing to um extend +PhD B: What about the stuff that um Mirjam has been doing ? And {disfmarker} and S Shawn , yeah . Oh . So they 're training up nets to try to recognize these acoustic features ? I see . +Professor A: But that 's uh uh all {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} a certainly relevant {comment} {vocalsound} uh study and , you know , what are the features that they 're finding . We have this problem with the overloading of the term "" feature "" so +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: uh {vocalsound} what are the variables , what we 're calling this one , what are the variables that they 're found {disfmarker} finding useful +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: um for {disfmarker} +PhD B: And their {disfmarker} their targets are based on canonical mappings of phones to acoustic f features . +Professor A: Right . And that 's certainly one thing to do and we 're gonna try and do something more f more fine than that but uh um so um So I guess you know what , I was trying to remember some of the things we were saying , do you ha still have that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad E: Oh yeah . +Professor A: There 's those {vocalsound} {pause} that uh yeah , some of {disfmarker} some of the issues we were talking about was in j just getting a good handle on {disfmarker} on uh {vocalsound} what "" good features "" are and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What does {disfmarker} what did um Larry Saul use for {disfmarker} it was the sonorant uh detector , right ? How did he {disfmarker} H how did he do that ? Wh - what was his detector ? Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . Mm - hmm . So how did he combine all these features ? What {disfmarker} what r mmm classifier did he Hmm . Oh right . You were talking about that , yeah . I see . +Professor A: And the other thing you were talking about is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is where we get the targets from . So I mean , there 's these issues of what are the {disfmarker} what are the variables that you use and do you combine them using the soft "" AND - OR "" or you do something , you know , more complicated um and then the other thing was so where do you get the targets from ? The initial thing is just the obvious that we 're discussing is starting up with phone labels {vocalsound} from somewhere and then uh doing the transformation . But then the other thing is to do something better and eh w why don't you tell us again about this {disfmarker} this database ? This is the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm ! +Professor A: And then tell them to talk naturally ? Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Pierced tongues and Yeah . You could just mount it to that and they wouldn't even notice . Weld it . Zzz . +Professor A: Maybe you could go to these parlors and {disfmarker} and you could , you know {disfmarker} you know have {disfmarker} have , you know , reduced rates if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you can do the measurements . +PhD B: Yeah . I That 's right . You could {disfmarker} what you could do is you could sell little rings and stuff with embedded you know , transmitters in them and things +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , be cool and help science . +PhD B: and Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD B: Hmm ! There 's a bunch of data that l around , that {disfmarker} people have done studies like that w way way back right ? I mean {vocalsound} I can't remember where {disfmarker} uh Wisconsin or someplace that used to have a big database of {disfmarker} Yeah . I remember there was this guy at A T - andT , Randolph ? or r What was his name ? Do you remember that guy ? Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} researcher at A T - andT a while back that was studying , trying to do speech recognition from these kinds of features . I can't remember what his name was . Dang . Now I 'll think of it . That 's interesting . +Professor A: Do you mean eh {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Mar +PhD C: Well he was the guy {disfmarker} the guy that was using {disfmarker} +Professor A: you mean when was {disfmarker} was Mark Randolph there , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Mark Randolph . +Professor A: Yeah he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's at Motorola now . +PhD B: Oh is he ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is it the guy that was using the pattern of pressure on the tongue or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I can't remember exactly what he was using , now . But I know {disfmarker} I just remember it had to do with you know {vocalsound} uh positional parameters +PhD C: What {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: and trying to m you know do speech recognition based on them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So the only {disfmarker} the only uh hesitation I had about it since , I mean I haven't see the data is it sounds like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} continuous variables and a bunch of them . And so +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: I don't know how complicated it is to go from there {disfmarker} What you really want are these binary {pause} labels , and just a few of them . And maybe there 's a trivial mapping if you wanna do it and it 's e but it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I worry a little bit that this is a research project in itself , whereas um {vocalsound} if you did something instead that {disfmarker} like um having some manual annotation by {vocalsound} uh you know , linguistics students , this would {disfmarker} there 'd be a limited s set of things that you could do a as per our discussions with {disfmarker} with John before +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but the things that you could do , like nasality and voicing and a couple other things you probably could do reasonably well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then there would {disfmarker} it would really be uh this uh uh binary variable . Course then , that 's the other question is do you want binary variables . So . I mean the other thing you could do is {vocalsound} boot trying to {disfmarker} to uh get those binary variables and take the continuous variables from {vocalsound} uh the uh {vocalsound} uh the data itself there , but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD B: Could you cluster the {disfmarker} just do some kind of clustering ? +Professor A: Guess you could , yeah . +PhD B: Bin them up into different categories and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . So anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's another whole direction that cou could be looked at . Um . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} I mean in general it 's gonna be {disfmarker} for new data that you look at , it 's gonna be hidden variable because we 're not gonna get everybody sitting in these meetings to {vocalsound} wear the pellets and {disfmarker} Um . So . +Grad E: Right . Right . +PhD B: So you 're talking about using that data to get uh instead of using canonical mappings of phones . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: So you 'd use that data to give you sort of what the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the true mappings are for each phone ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I see . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So wh yeah , where this fits into the rest in {disfmarker} in my mind , I guess , is that um {vocalsound} we 're looking at different ways that we can combine {vocalsound} uh different kinds of {disfmarker} of rep front - end representations {vocalsound} um in order to get robustness under difficult or even , you know , typical conditions . And part of it , this robustness , seems to come from {vocalsound} uh multi - stream or multi - band sorts of things and Saul seems to have {vocalsound} a reasonable way of looking at it , at least for one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} one um articulatory feature . The question is is can we learn from that {vocalsound} to change some of the other methods we have , since {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things that 's nice about what he had I thought was that {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} the decision about how strongly to train the different pieces is based on uh a {disfmarker} a reasonable criterion with hidden variables rather than {vocalsound} um just assuming {vocalsound} that you should train e e every detector uh with equal strength {vocalsound} towards uh it being this phone or that phone . Right ? So it {disfmarker} so um {vocalsound} he 's got these um uh uh +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: he "" AND 's "" between these different {vocalsound} features . It 's a soft "" AND "" , I guess but in {disfmarker} in principle {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you wanna get a strong concurrence of all the different things that indicate something and then he "" OR 's "" across the different {disfmarker} soft "" OR 's "" across the different uh {vocalsound} multi - band channels . And um {vocalsound} the weight yeah , the target for the training of the "" AND "" {disfmarker} "" AND ' ed "" things {vocalsound} is something that 's kept {vocalsound} uh as a hidden variable , and is learned with EM . Whereas what we were doing is {disfmarker} is uh {vocalsound} taking {vocalsound} the phone target and then just back propagating from that +PhD B: So he doesn't have {disfmarker} +Professor A: which means that it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's uh i It could be for instance {vocalsound} that for a particular point in the data {vocalsound} you don't want to um uh train a particular band {disfmarker} train the detectors for a particular band . You {disfmarker} you wanna ignore {vocalsound} that band , cuz that 's a {disfmarker} Ban - band is a noisy {disfmarker} noisy measure . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we don't {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're still gonna try to train it up . In our scheme we 're gonna try to train it up to do as well {disfmarker} well as it can at predicting . Uh . Maybe that 's not the right thing to do . +PhD B: So he doesn't have to have truth marks or {disfmarker} Ho +Grad E: F right , and uh he doesn't have to have hard labels . +Professor A: Well at the {disfmarker} at the tail end , yeah , he has to know what 's {disfmarker} where it 's sonorant . But he 's {disfmarker} but what he 's - but what he 's not training up {disfmarker} uh what he doesn't depend on as truth is +Grad E: Right . For the full band . +Professor A: um I guess one way of describing would be if {disfmarker} if a sound is sonorant is it sonorant in this band ? Is it sonorant in that band ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor A: Is it sonorant in that band ? i It 's hard to even answer that what you really mean is that the whole sound is sonorant . So +PhD B: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor A: then it comes down to , you know , to what extent should you make use of information from particular band {vocalsound} towards making your decision . And um {vocalsound} uh we 're making in a sense sort of this hard decision that you should {disfmarker} you should use everything {vocalsound} uh with {disfmarker} with uh equal strength . +PhD B: I see . +Professor A: And uh because in the ideal case we would be going for posterior probabilities , if we had {vocalsound} uh enough data to really get posterior probabilities and if the {disfmarker} if we also had enough data so that it was representative of the test data then we would in fact be doing the right thing to train everything as hard as we can . But um this is something that 's more built up along an idea of robustness from {disfmarker} from the beginning and so you don't necessarily want to train everything up towards the {disfmarker} +PhD B: So where did he get his {disfmarker} uh his tar his uh high - level targets about what 's sonorant and what 's not ? +Grad E: From uh canonical mappings {comment} um at first +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: and then it 's unclear um eh +PhD B: Using TIMIT ? or using {disfmarker} +Grad E: using TIMIT +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: right , right . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: And then uh he does some fine tuning um for um special cases . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean we ha we have a kind of {vocalsound} iterative training because we do this embedded Viterbi , uh so there is some something that 's suggested , based on the data but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} I think it s doesn't seem like it 's quite the same , cuz of this {disfmarker} cuz then whatever {vocalsound} that alignment is , it 's that for all {disfmarker} all bands . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well no , that 's not quite right , we did actually do them separate {disfmarker} tried to do them separately so that would be a little more like what he did . Um . But it 's still {vocalsound} not quite the same because then it 's {disfmarker} it 's um setting targets based on where you would say {vocalsound} the sound begins in a particular band . Where he 's s this is not a labeling per se . Might be closer I guess if we did a {vocalsound} soft {disfmarker} soft target uh {vocalsound} uh embedded {vocalsound} neural net training like we 've done a few times uh {vocalsound} f the forward um {disfmarker} do the forward calculations to get the gammas and train on those . Mmm . Uh what 's next ? +PhD B: I could say a little bit about w stuff I 've been playing with . +Professor A: Oh . You 're playing ? +PhD B: I um Huh ? +Professor A: You 're playing ? +PhD B: Yes , I 'm playing . Um {vocalsound} so I wanted to do this experiment to see um {vocalsound} uh what happens if we try to uh improve the performance of the back - end recognizer for the Aurora task and see how that affects things . And so I had this um {disfmarker} I think I sent around last week a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this plan I had for an experiment , this matrix where {vocalsound} I would take the um {disfmarker} the original um the original system . So there 's the original system trained on the mel cepstral features and then com and then uh optimize the b HTK system and run that again . So look at the difference there and then uh do the same thing for {vocalsound} the ICSI - OGI front - end . +Professor A: What {disfmarker} which test set was this ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} that I looked at ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh I 'm looking at the Italian right now . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So as far as I 've gotten is I 've uh {vocalsound} been able to go through from beginning to end the um full HTK {vocalsound} system for the Italian data and got the same results that um {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} Stephane had . So um I started looking {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of lookin at the point where I wanna know what should I change in the HTK back - end in order to try to {disfmarker} uh to improve it . So . One of the first things I thought of was the fact that they use {vocalsound} the same number of states for all of the models +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I went on - line and I uh found a pronunciation dictionary for Italian digits +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and just looked at , you know , the number of phones in each one of the digits . Um you know , sort of the canonical way of setting up a {disfmarker} an HMM system is that you use {vocalsound} um three states per phone and um {vocalsound} so then the {disfmarker} the total number of states for a word would just be , you know , the number of phones times three . And so when I did that for the Italian digits , I got a number of states , ranging on the low end from nine to the high end , eighteen . Um . {vocalsound} Now you have to really add two to that because in HTK there 's an initial null and a final null so when they use {vocalsound} uh models that have eighteen states , there 're really sixteen states . They 've got those initial and final null states . And so um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} their guess of eighteen states seems to be pretty well matched to the two longest words of the Italian digits , the four and five {vocalsound} which um , according to my , you know , sort of off the cuff calculation , should have eighteen states each . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so they had sixteen . So that 's pretty close . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} but for the {disfmarker} most of the words are sh much shorter . So the majority of them wanna have nine states . And so theirs are s sort of twice as long . So {vocalsound} my guess {disfmarker} uh And then if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I printed out a confusion matrix um {vocalsound} uh for the well - matched case , and it turns out that the longest words are actually the ones that do the best . So my guess about what 's happening is that {vocalsound} you know , if you assume a fixed {disfmarker} the same amount of training data for each of these digits and a fixed length model for all of them but the actual words for some of them are half as long you really um have , you know , half as much training data for those models . Because if you have a long word and you 're training it to eighteen states , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh you 've got {disfmarker} you know , you 've got the same number of Gaussians , you 've gotta train in each case , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but for the shorter words , you know , the total number of frames is actually half as many . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {vocalsound} it could be that , you know , for the short words there 's {disfmarker} because you have so many states , you just don't have enough data to train all those Gaussians . So um I 'm going to try to um create more word - specific {vocalsound} um uh prototype H M Ms to start training from . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , it 's not at all uncommon you do worse on long word on short words than long words anyway just because you 're accumulating more evidence for the {disfmarker} for the longer word , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but . +PhD B: Yeah so I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , the next experiment I 'm gonna try is to just um you know create {vocalsound} uh models that seem to be more w matched to my guess about how long they should be . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And as part of that um I wanted to see sort of how the um {disfmarker} how these models were coming out , you know , what w {vocalsound} when we train up uh th you know , the model for "" one "" , which wants to have nine states , you know , what is the {disfmarker} uh what do the transition probabilities look like {disfmarker} in the self - loops , {comment} look like in {disfmarker} in those models ? And so I talked to Andreas and he explained to me how you can {vocalsound} calculate the expected duration of an HMM just by looking at the transition matrix +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I wrote a little Matlab script that calculates that and so I 'm gonna sort of print those out for each of the words to see what 's happening , you know , how these models are training up , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , the long ones versus the short ones . I d I did {disfmarker} quickly , I did the silence model and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and um that 's coming out with about one point two seconds as its average duration and the silence model 's the one that 's used at the beginning and the end of each of the {vocalsound} string of digits . +Professor A: Wow . Lots of silence . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . And so the S P model , which is what they put in between digits , I {disfmarker} I haven't calculated that for that one yet , but um . So they basically {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their model for a whole digit string is silence {vocalsound} digit , SP , digit , SP blah - blah - blah and then silence at the end . And so . +Professor A: Are the SP 's optional ? I mean skip them ? +PhD B: I have to look at that , but I 'm not sure that they are . Now the one thing about the S P model is really it only has a single s emitting state to it . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So if it 's not optional , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna hurt a whole lot +Professor A: I see . +PhD B: and it 's tied to the center state of the silence model so it 's not its own {disfmarker} um It doesn't require its own training data , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: it just shares that state . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it , I mean , it 's pretty good the way that they have it set up , but um i So I wanna play with that a little bit more . I 'm curious about looking at , you know {vocalsound} how these models have trained and looking at the expected durations of the models and I wanna compare that in the {disfmarker} the well - matched case f to the unmatched case , and see if you can get an idea of {disfmarker} just from looking at the {vocalsound} durations of these models , you know , what what 's happening . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , I think that uh , as much as you can , it 's good to d sort of not do anything really tricky . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Not do anything that 's really finely tuned , but just sort of eh you know you t you i z +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: The premise is kind of you have a {disfmarker} a good person look at this for a few weeks and what do you come up with ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh +PhD B: And Hynek , when I wa told him about this , he had an interesting point , and that was th um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the final models that they end up training up have I think probably something on the order of six Gaussians per state . So they 're fairly , you know , hefty models . And Hynek was saying that well , probably in a real application , {vocalsound} you wouldn't have enough compute to handle models that are very big or complicated . So in fact what we may want are simpler models . +Professor A: Could be . +PhD B: And compare how they perform to that . But {vocalsound} you know , it depends on what the actual application is and it 's really hard to know what your limits are in terms of how many Gaussians you can have . +Professor A: Right . And that , I mean , at the moment that 's not the limitation , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I thought you were gonna say i but which I was thinking was um where did six come from ? Probably came from the same place eighteen came from . You know , so . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Uh {vocalsound} that 's another parameter , right ? that {disfmarker} that maybe , you know , uh {disfmarker} you really want three or nine or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . Well one thing {disfmarker} I mean , if I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I start um reducing the number of states for some of these shorter models {vocalsound} that 's gonna reduce the total number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So in a sense it 'll be a simpler system . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . But I think right now again the idea is doing just very simple things +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: how much better can you make it ? And um since they 're only simple things there 's nothing that you 're gonna do that is going to blow up the amount of computation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um so +PhD B: Right . Right . +Professor A: if you found that nine was better than six that would be O K , I think , actually . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Doesn't have to go down . +PhD B: Yeah . I really wasn't even gonna play with that part of the system yet , +Professor A: Mm - hmm , OK . +PhD B: I was just gonna change the {disfmarker} the t +Professor A: Yeah , just work with the models , yeah . +PhD B: yeah , just look at the length of the models and just see what happens . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor A: Cool . OK . So uh {vocalsound} what 's uh I guess your plan for {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you guys ' plan for the next {disfmarker} next week is {vocalsound} just continue on these {disfmarker} these same things we 've been talking about for Aurora and +PhD C: Yeah , I guess we can try to {vocalsound} have some kind of new baseline for next week perhaps . with all these minor things {vocalsound} {vocalsound} modified . And then do other things , play with the spectral subtraction , and {vocalsound} retry the MSG and things like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah we {disfmarker} we have a big list . +PhD C: Big list ? +Professor A: You have a big list of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of things to do . So . Well that 's good . I think {vocalsound} that after all of this uh um confusion settles down in another {disfmarker} some point a little later next year there will be some sort of standard and it 'll get out there and {vocalsound} hopefully it 'll have some effect from something {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that has uh been done by our group of people but uh e even if it doesn't there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's go there 'll be standards after that . So . +PhD B: Does anybody know how to um {vocalsound} run Matlab sort of in batch mode like you c send it {vocalsound} s a bunch of commands to run and it gives you the output . Is it possible to do that ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I think uh Mike tried it +PhD B: Yeah ? +Grad E: and he says it 's impossible so he went to Octave . +PhD B: Octave . +Grad E: Octave is the um UNIX clone of {disfmarker} of Matlab which you can batch . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Great . Thanks . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: I was going crazy trying to do that . +Professor A: Huh . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: What is Octave so ? It 's a free software ? +Grad E: What 's that ? Uh , Octave ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's free . I think we have it here {comment} r running somewhere . +PhD B: Great ! +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: And it does the same syntax and everything eh like Matlab , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um {vocalsound} {comment} i it 's a little behind , it 's the same syntax but it 's a little behind in that {comment} Matlab went to these like um you can have cells and you can {disfmarker} you can {comment} uh implement object - oriented type things with Matlab . Uh Octave doesn't do that yet , so I think you , Octave is kinda like Matlab um four point something or . +PhD B: If it 'll do like a lot of the basic matrix and vector stuff +Grad E: The basic stuff , right . +PhD B: that 's perfect . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Great ! +Professor A: OK , guess we 're done . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Well , although by the way . +","In this conversation, a group of professors and graduate students (referred to as Professor A, PhD B, PhD C, PhD D, Grad E, Grad F) discuss a variety of topics mostly related to research and the recent developments in their respective projects. + +The conversation begins with some initial technical microphone check issues. It advances to a discussion of what was missed by Professor A in a meeting with someone named Hynek as well as clarifications about the attendance of others. They talk about topics concerning downsampling problems, the length of filters, and radio frequency characteristics which were brought up in a previous email by PhD C. They discuss trying different approaches to solve these mentioned issues, particularly addressing the downsampling of the feature vector stream and checking the frequency response of LDA filters for the on-line normalization problem. + +PhD C and PhD D talk about their ongoing work on signal processing, including downsampling, filter lengths, and on-line normalization. There's a mention of considering latency issues in their work and attempting to integrate new approaches to improve their systems. + +Further, there are references to a database potentially useful for understanding mappings between acoustic features and phones, and they suggest a future investigation into this area. There were also notes made about coordinating between two sides of a project more effectively and trying to optimize back-end recognizers for tasks such as the Aurora project, mentioning confusions about model structure and Gaussian components. + +Towards the end of the conversation, Grad F brings up planning for testing and the challenges with another researcher's code related to channel normalization. There's mention of strategies for advancing the research, using simpler models versus more complex ones, and potentially utilizing a UNIX clone of Matlab called Octave for batch processing. + +Overall, the conversation covers various aspects of their research work, with a particular focus on signal processing, data analysis, system optimization, and collaboration difficulties. There is a shared sentiment about progressing with the tasks at hand and considering new methods and approaches to enhance their research outcomes." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} That went well , thank you . +Project Manager: That's great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Perfect . +Project Manager: Alright , let me just PowerPoint this up . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right so um this meeting will be about the conceptual design , don't ask me s precisely what conceptual design is , it's just something important that we need to do . Um , think of it {disfmarker} 's kind of uh turning the abstract into slightly more concrete . In this meeting ideally we'll come to some final decisions on what we're gonna do for the prototype . Um . Right so um , apologies for the last meeting , it was brought to my attention that I did not make the roles clear enough , um , so I will attempt to do so more accurately in this particular meeting . Um , fair enough , thanks for the input , 's always good . Um . So , basically all we're gonna do is have some presentations again much like last time , um , and gonna go through you , uh whoever wants to go first is f fine by me um and we'll collate what we know about um what we discussed in the last meeting , possible directions . {vocalsound} And then we'll make some more decisions on um basic uh firm up our idea on how we want this remote control to look and work . So , perfect . So , without th further ado , whoever wants to go first is free to . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . +Project Manager: Alright Nathan , +Marketing: Go ahead . +Project Manager: take it away . It is Nathan right ? I'm not calling you the wrong name over and over again ? +Industrial Designer: No Nathan's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: It's either Nathan or participant two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mister participant two that is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: basically what I'm gonna have to talk to you about today is um component design and it's been brought to my attention that we may be somewhat limited as to what we can do because of what our manufacturer offers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Basically what I'm gonna be doing is talking to you about that . Um , components of a remote control , okay . We've already kind of gone over this but we're gonna have to get into more detail and probably have to reach some conclusions some time soon . Energy source , um , our manufacturer offers a variety of energy sources , your standard battery , solar cells . Our manufacturer didn't say anything about lithium so we might have to look {disfmarker} if we do go that route , we might have to look elsewhere . Um , and also there's a kinetic energy possibility . Basically , it's like a um {disfmarker} the idea of moving the remote would create enough energy to keep it running . So that's one possibility but I don't know whether that would be powerful enough to illuminate a touch screen . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to look into that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case , we have a few options , plastic , rubber or wood . Um and then as far as the way it's shaped , we can do standard boring flat , which we probably don't wanna do , curved or very sexy double curved . +Project Manager: What kind of th thickness are we looking at ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I imagine that we could specify . Um , I don't see any reason to go outside of the convention of three or four millimetres . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Um , the buttons , there are multiple scroll buttons available from our manufacturer , but to use those we'd have to use more chips , um and that would cost us more . And if we do go with the rubber doubled curved case um we'll have to use rubber push buttons because the other buttons aren't compatible with that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and just a little note there , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: touch screen equals many chips which equals many Euro . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Nice . +Industrial Designer: Um , one thing that I noticed was that most remotes operate on a infrare on the infrared part of the spectrum . So you notice when you push a button on a remote you can't see anything coming out of it but in fact there is light coming out of the remote and you know the television can detect that . And if you were to record {disfmarker} if you were to make a video recording you could actually see the light . Uh one thing that I thought might be interesting was to use part {disfmarker} use visible light coming out of the remote , just kind of as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So you could actually see something coming out of the remote when you pushed it . +Marketing: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Course it'd have to be a part of the spectrum that wouldn't damage the human eye or anything like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} M Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Good call . +Project Manager: is there an option that we can have that off or on so a person can select like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Choose it . +Industrial Designer: I am sure that we could do that . Um , of course {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I like the idea , it's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to set us apart a little bit . Um , and then on to the circuit board that we're gonna use , also known as the chip . Uh , we really don't have any way around the T_A_ one one eight three five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um findings , okay , we're very limited by what our current manufacturers can offer , um and my question to all of you is , should we look to other manufacturies or should we just make do with what we have available ? +User Interface: Interesting question . +Industrial Designer: 'S a bit of a challenge question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well I'd say shop around but with our time constraints , is that really a feasible option ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , that's my concern too . Um , if we do go the lithium battery route then we'll have to go outside our current manufacturer . My personal preference is {disfmarker} I'll just throw my cards on the table , uh I think we should probably go the solar battery route , just to kinda keep with the environmentally friendly theme that we have going on . Uh , I like the idea of the visible light signalling , that's something to set us apart and uh I was thinking about {disfmarker} I was thinking of ways that we could produce the remote in a variety of different case materials to suit different tastes . So we're not so confined by one style and say some {disfmarker} you know , say our {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: if we just go with one and it doesn't go over well then we're in a bad situation . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Can we do marketing piloting too ? Try to see what kind {disfmarker} before we launch {disfmarker} can we see how they're received ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} It's an option , uh but actually there's {disfmarker} I've got some research already on like what we're looking at and trends in casing right now +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: which actually might even come into play beforehand , +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Marketing: it may help us decide for now . Temporarily anyway . +Project Manager: Great , thank you very much Nathan . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , you're welcome . +Project Manager: That's perfect , so I guess that makes sense for you to take it from here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I guess so , 'cause I found some interesting things . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You waiting for me ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fascinating , compelling even . +Marketing: I know , what a teaser ain't it . Um . {vocalsound} Right . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: current market trends . Screen . Um , basically I was looking at what's going on in the remote control market right now and what's going on in other design fields , to see sort of what's what's trendy , what's new , what's happening . Um , remote control right now {disfmarker} basically everybody says they want newer , fancier , more exciting {disfmarker} they're sick of this boring , normal , functional , um {disfmarker} that we need innovative design options and there needs to be an easy user interface . Um the challenge is that current trends right now , across the board in fashion , in furniture , in technology , is a very organic fruit and vegetable kind of thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm not saying we should have , you know , tomato shaped remote controls or anything , but I think it is possible maybe to use um natural colours , like if wood is an option , that whole organic , sleek , clean , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: v line thing may be something we can look into . Different skin options , or if we can't afford this touch plate thing , or touch face screen interface um , maybe having the b images be specific , like you could choose your menu bullets to be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tomatoes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: a different shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} okay , not the example I would choose , but you know what I mean to t sort of {disfmarker} and th apparently the feel of the next couple of years is spongy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I like it , I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh not something I I've come up with a {gap} though if we can get around to getting piloting , I thought maybe a casing option like uh not like a skin , but like a holder almost if you could do like um , leather options or wood options or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I should have mentioned this um . As far as the rubber that we can use {disfmarker} we can use a rubber as part of the case , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it has a consistency of those stress balls . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Slick , slick . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Marketing: Might be an interesting way to go . Um , yeah so something to sit on for now . So overall I think we should stick with what we're finding , everyone's looking for easy to use , technologically innovative and this fancy new {disfmarker} I think perhaps the double curve thing and maybe this rubber option is our best way to go for right now . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Interface , oh the interface graphics for the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um . Well I d but then if the touch screen thing isn't gonna work out for us that's really a non-issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I like the idea of of rubber too because it's {disfmarker} tends to be associated with being durable , something that you can drop and it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause so many {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: you go to so many houses these days and you see broken remote controls . +Marketing: Very true . Very true . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's like , yep {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Taped with duck tape and what have you , +Marketing: Very much so {vocalsound} . Um +Industrial Designer: you wouldn't have that problem if you used rubber . +Project Manager: it's ubiquitous isn't it ? +User Interface: We can have a duck tape casing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that goes against the whole fancy something , a new line , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It could go with the granola crowd . +Marketing: but worth a shot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , it could be , it could be , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great , +Marketing: um . Yeah that's what I know . +Project Manager: thanks for that Sarah . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Ron ? +User Interface: Phew . Computer's adjusting . One moment please . So interme interface concept by your faithful user interface designer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yur user interface , guys , is basically aspects of a computer system that we can see or hear , or otherwise uh perceive . Uh , commands and mechanisms , that basically user uses to control the operator operating system . Here's a d series of different remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that are out on the market today . I think we're definitely trying to get away from this kind of a look . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Um , so the following are a bunch of different uh interface uh concepts . Uh voice recognition , we we um actually have some new uh information from our research design team but uh I'll get to that in a moment . Um , so current voice recognition starts up to about eighty speech samples , um and basically you record your own verbal labels c and connect them to the remote control . Now our design team , research team , has been able to uh set up a system in which uh you can teach the remote control voice c recognition system to respond to um {disfmarker} with standard responses . Like you could say good morning uh remote control and it'll say in a sexy female voice , Good morning Joe . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact we already have this for a coffee maker line +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lot of single people on the um on the re on the remote control research team +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the remote control +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: at the {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: right . +Marketing: Yeah . Very true , very true . +User Interface: Um , another concept is what uh Apple has come up with , the spinning wheel with uh L_C_ display like on the uh iPod +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: which I am sure most of you know about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um and then we have the scroll button with integrated push-button , kind of like a modern {gap} a bit bulky , a bit crazy , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't think that's we're necessarily going for . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: And uh some special components , uh ideas like uh blocking , having the ability to block channels from your {disfmarker} for your children um and uh dedicated buttons for for commonly used uh channels and even uh ideas like secured or hidden programming but uh I {disfmarker} again if we go with touch screen I don't think that's a big issue . Um and uh this is kind of the uh the big daddy of remote controls here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the jumbo universal remote control is almost impossible to misplace or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I can see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , again probably not what we're going for +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I {disfmarker} I mean my ideas here and kind of where I think we're heading is something slightly larger than a regular iPod uh with a hard cla c uh plastic casing +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: although I think some of the suggestions we've come up with are definitely uh very good ideas . Uh changeable casings uh {disfmarker} our design team was possibly talking about including one extra face plate with the package to kind of set the idea that you can change it and you can try changing it +Marketing: Mm , right . +User Interface: and kind of get used to thinking about maybe buying another one which can add value to our uh bottom line . Uh touch screen interface , um possibly having go-to buttons being uh stuck into the system so those don't move away from the screen , uh , the important ones like power , volume and jump between channels . Um , and of course our voice command system which I've talked a little bit about already +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and uh the use of recognisable colours and shapes to aid recognition of the features um that are around so red for power , um arrows for different volume ups and downs and channels ups and downs and what not . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh perhaps even adding in some stupid little jokes with the voice recognition idea like perh mm for instance my toastie maker that I got from my bank +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: has jokes when it's ready . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And uh that is about it . +Project Manager: Great , wonderful Ron , cool . Lot of good ideas , good facts to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's what they need , it's like a little dongle it just sticks up this further so you don't have to stand up every time , just connect it , my kingdom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right so , good to know all that stuff , thanks guys , um . {vocalsound} Now we kind of have to come to some decisions , um , I figure we can just go down the line and all three of us can have a chat about it . Um . Based on what Nathan presented as far as the um {vocalsound} various costs and benefits um I think , I dunno , what do you guys think about the touch screen at this point ? +Marketing: I think it's our most marketable feature just because it's so new and it's something that is showing up in other places . +Project Manager: 'Kay . 'Kay . +Marketing: But can we really afford it 'cause it looks like they would be , that would be a really main cost source then +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: My estimate is that in order to incorporate touch screen technology it's gonna cost us upwards of seventeen fifty Euro per remote , +Project Manager: To produce each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Per ? +Industrial Designer: yeah that's just an estimate though . +Marketing: Piece . +User Interface: Oh you guys are always the dampers on these projects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You industrial designers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's fun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And our goal was to be under twelve fifty or we have to be under twelve fifty ? +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Do we remember ? +Industrial Designer: I thought there was some flexibility with that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: There is , it's just , it is a question of {disfmarker} and how much ca o does that mean we're gonna have to increase the price to make money . +Marketing: Can we justify it ? +Project Manager: Um , from twelve fifty if we d wanna get our fift uh hundred per cent profit margin {vocalsound} um that would mean selling it from twenty five . If you multiply seventeen fifty by two that's thirty five . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where do you guys come up with these numbers ? +Industrial Designer: That's just off the top of my head , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} From the board , +Industrial Designer: it is pending further emails . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: um , well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though I think that's what people would pay for , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean if you're gonna pay for an expensive high class remote , you're gonna expect it to do something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's true , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is the new {disfmarker} it would be in a class of its own . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And that's {disfmarker} to be fair the um the per cent of the market {disfmarker} we're not going for mass any you know , mass sales anyway , we're gonna make {disfmarker} I mean we we're not talking about selling eight zillion of these things , we just couldn't , not for twenty-five Euros , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so we could probably maybe shrink the profit margins rather than selling for twenty five , sell 'em for thirty , but that's something that we can have finance deal with . Um , I say that we provisionally go with the touch screen +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or wh y wh what was your thought on the matter Ron ? +User Interface: I'm thinking that's uh definitely a good idea and I also think that we could probably come up with some sort of a cheaper uh means to to go about this kind of production , my my team in the uh {disfmarker} on the third floor suggested that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: See if we can cut some corners . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Well and we can look into this other manufacturing option , and maybe we can get 'em somewhere else cheaper . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could initially go with what we have and if we can find them cheaper later on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . It's a starting point anyway , so . +Project Manager: No we could have a s very simple touch screen , you know , there's always the opportunity , if it's gonna be about the size of the iPod or whatever , you know , w we {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we can play around with it a bit . Alright , let's let's say that okay so the touch screen will be our {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} our main selling point here . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean I think that we really have two main selling points , I think that our casing and the voice recognition {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause with voice recognition {disfmarker} I mean really this is pretty bells and whistles kinda remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The voice rec thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , {vocalsound} if if we're looking at bottom line , now we're looking at upping the cost to seventeen to get the touch screen on , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we might have to drop the voice rec . +Marketing: I think we'd have to decide between 'em definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: To be honest , we have the capa we have the design in-house , +Marketing: Price-wise . +User Interface: I mean we've we've come up with this , with this new voice {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: we're using it for our coffee machines already . +Marketing: We've already got it . +User Interface: I can pass you on that email from my uh guy in uh {disfmarker} guy down the hall . Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . What do you think on it Nathan ? About the voice rec ? +Industrial Designer: I think if we {disfmarker} we do both the {disfmarker} obviously production costs are going to go way up um but it does put it into {disfmarker} it'd become the Rolls Royce of remote controls basically . It would be very nice . +Marketing: Pretty much . +User Interface: I mean we we have to r reflect back on what our market research did say . +Marketing: Right and they said they wanted voice recognition . Course , maybe they hadn't thought of this whole touch screen option , but definitely we know the market is there for voice recognition so to say we have the technology and we're not gonna use it even though we know it'll sell is a call I don't think I can give the highs ups . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Like really I can't go in and say no we're gonna just ignore everything we know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Does having both really up our costs ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I can't see how it wouldn't , I mean , there's you know the old aphorism , you can have it fast , you can have it cheap or you can have it quality , pick two of three . You know , you can't you can't have all three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause you {disfmarker} you just upping the number of chips that you need to deal with each different function . +Project Manager: It's just impossible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if we're gonna pick betwe e alright so we have to pick between one of the two . Um . Otherwise , yeah , we just {disfmarker} it just becomes cost prohibitive . What {disfmarker} which , which do we suspect we should hold o we should hold on to ? +Marketing: Well , we already have research backing voice recognition as you know fiscally solvent . But uh I I I personally would tend to another direction but if that's what's gonna sell I think that's what we need to go with and maybe we can table this touch screen for our next model . +Industrial Designer: I would have to side with that , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think the voice recognition is simpler , we already have the {disfmarker} all the technology in-house , it's ready to go , it's packaged , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What does the cost look like Ron ? Is it cheaper to do the V_R_ or to do the uh touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well my p {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nathan ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , this is just off the top of my head keep in mind , but I think the voice recognition would {disfmarker} they're both mm they're both gonna push the costs up , but um , since we already have the technology in-house for the voice recognition +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we're not gonna have to do as much design work +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: and sometimes the design work is what push the costs up , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I definitely have to agree with that last comment . +Marketing: And we're still not {disfmarker} then we don't have to deal with this battery issue nearly as much either , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: we can stick with what we've already got . In a lot other ways too . +Project Manager: Okay . So I'm getting {disfmarker} alright so more or less you guys think that o o of the two of 'em , the voice recognition will be better . Okay . +Marketing: I think it's our lower risk option +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which for right now {disfmarker} we can have it on the market sooner which is all in all our best option . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will omit the touch screen in favour of voice recognition . +User Interface: It's you and me outside a little here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So and when are we gonna have basic prototypes coming up next that's {disfmarker} you guys's next step right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well we'll we'll sic we'll sort out what it {disfmarker} what {vocalsound} f what else we're gonna talk about for the prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: but yeah that's our next step , it'll be a developing of prototype . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to talk now about um the materials that we're gonna use for the case and all those things ? +Project Manager: Yes . We'll just run through it yeah , yeah , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: You discussed either a lithium or a solar power . Would the solar power be enough to fuel a voice recognition ? Or this kinesthetic one , would that be enough to fuel a voice recognition remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Um , the solar power definitely would be but I think just to keep people from getting annoyed , 'cause sometimes solar power fails and there's no way round that , we should install a small backup battery . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to cover those moments when for whatever reason , the remote hasn't been exposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well what of people with like the T_V_ in their basement , +Project Manager: Mm . Yep . +Marketing: like what if {disfmarker} wha we can't guarantee sunlight everywhere so having a secondary source is probably {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's true . Yeah , it works about the same as a solar powered calculator , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and you know how those those don't really require that much light , +User Interface: Calculator . +Marketing: Yeah . True . True . +Industrial Designer: um , but obviously a little more light than a calculator , but we're not talking about a lot of light . Doesn't have to be out taking a sunbath for a few hours a day or anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What do you think Ron ? +User Interface: I'm willing to agree with everything that's been said . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh I have to say though that um another idea's come up in my head . If we're really not uh handling the remote control to a great extent we could possibly get away from the idea of having a hand-held remote control and maybe kind of have a round remote control that kind of looks like a paperweight or something like that , kind of a sleek little uh neat thing that sits on your table or something . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Why , why moving away from hand-held , why ? +User Interface: Just a thought . +Industrial Designer: What's the uh idea ? +User Interface: Well if you don't need to pick it up it could kind of be a selling point . +Marketing: I if it's got voice recognition it can be technically anywhere in your room and still do its job . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Do you think people that are {disfmarker} people that buy a remote , are they always gonna wanna use the voice recognition or is it just something that they do sometimes . +Marketing: True , and i probabl I think we're banking on selling it to more than just voice recognition people , like we want it to work fundamentally as a basic manual too , +Project Manager: Well we have to have buttons on it too as well . +Marketing: right . +Project Manager: But that's done , that's no bother I mean if you look at the catalogue from places like with sharper image or whatever you know they might have {disfmarker} or like um {vocalsound} who is it , Apple makes these really pretentious speakers with the th sub-woofers you know like clear and glass and you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then they got these little pyramidal type of um speakers . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I mean , why not have a little rounded kind of thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could still have the basic buttons on it . Um , 'cause we're going for basic functionality primarily as well . +Marketing: With the bu yeah . +Project Manager: And maybe a menu button and so forth , you know um use a channel button to scroll through the menu d if they want to record programmes or whatever you know I mean we can sort that out . +Industrial Designer: I think , I think you're on to something +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because we need to escape the traditional shape of a remote . Maybe something that looks nice on a table is {disfmarker} would be good , even though {disfmarker} and hand-held the same time . +Marketing: True . Way to go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's all about following Apple's lead on a lot of these things . +Marketing: Yeah I'm thinking of the airport portal , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you know like that little pod looking thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those are nice . +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean a nice {disfmarker} although we do um wh uh is {disfmarker} I'm recalling that she mentioned that we n need to get away from the surgical white kind of brushed aluminium thing +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and get back to it +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you could have a very tasteful um wood coloured or earth tone kind of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be kinda neat . Terracotta bowl or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Still , I mean , yeah , along those lines . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah I like that , I like that idea a lot . Um , let's see what we can do as far as that goes . And the uh the material like the plastics and so forth , we were discussing that being uh {disfmarker} using like a rubber kind of softer feel , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um you know +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: li lik if you feel the the tip on this pen it's a bit {disfmarker} gives just a bit . You know +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: something where it's uh a a more advanced f form of plastic that has some kind of a tactile response to it . +Industrial Designer: Right . Just kind of the squishy feel . +Marketing: Yeah , which is the next big thing , so that's not gonna hurt us either . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah let's see if we can do a squishy non-remote control-looking remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But to be fair , yeah , I mean , you just c you could just put it {disfmarker} literally put it on the the ni the coffee table next to the telly and say volume up . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I like it , I like the idea , that's good . +Marketing: Handy . +Project Manager: Um and we've sorted of discussed costs , {vocalsound} um . I guess we'll a that's gonna be uh a thing , if we run a bit over-budget , that might be okay , um . +Industrial Designer: Sorry about the uh lack of information on cost , I just haven't been provided that information by our manufacturers +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have more of an idea when the prototype {disfmarker} have more of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I'm just having to guess . +Project Manager: we'll have more of an idea later on . Um . And we just yeah go from there . {vocalsound} Um , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've revisited the touch screen and more or less ruled that out , um , I think so we're more or less con we {disfmarker} wh wh we're more or less in agreement that we want to have a um {vocalsound} a simple kind of function , you know , not too complex . +Marketing: Mm . Right . Well when the majority of people are only using the most primary functions on a daily basis , although I'm not saying we should completely rule out major functions , they should be secondary , at least if not functionally then visually , like those shouldn't be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Like maybe have menu things . +Marketing: Take precedence , +Industrial Designer: If , if we're not going the touch-screen route then we can um just incorporate maybe something that folds out +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: like what you often see on these kinds of remotes is the most basic functions up here +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and something that slides down to reveal the you know more complicated things . +Marketing: And they slide . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Well and do we wanna consider like an iPod screen which isn't a touch screen but you're still scrolling through menu options , in p +User Interface: {vocalsound} Think then we're hitting our cost issue again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: True , +Project Manager: we've also got the the me the thing of , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we're still not making it easier then . +Project Manager: if we're gonna have a non-remote-looking remote , how do we {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: B But no I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: we could do a slide or a compartment , you know , like if it {disfmarker} say it's a lit little vaguely ovoidal type of thing , it'd be easy to have a compartment in there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or you know , a b a b a a series of you know three or four buttons with a menu button and then a side an s up and down type of thing , like on um {disfmarker} like on a D_V_D_ player . You know you see the modern D_V_D_ players'll just have um a menu button on the side and then four buttons around them +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah it's just a scroll . +Project Manager: and you can just kind of manoeuvre through the menu like that . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna {disfmarker} are we talking {disfmarker} we need to figure out what kind of buttons we're going to use , are we going to use scroll buttons ? Rubber buttons ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it seems like {vocalsound} I dunno it seems to me that we could just do the um {disfmarker} stick with the rubber 'cause since we're probably gonna be using some kind of um {vocalsound} rubber for the outside case +Marketing: Yeah . Probably . +Project Manager: we might as well stick with that um . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think to a certain extent we have to stick with uh kind of uh a little bit traditional in terms of the buttons and then and then make our unique feature our casing and what not and our voice command . +Marketing: Right . Mm . Well no it's basic just like four directions that are {disfmarker} that can use as menu or channel and volume or however you wanna do it , are really versatile and everybody's already got them to some extent on the remotes they already own so it's not like we're dealing with everybody relearning things 'cause that's not something anybody's gonna wanna buy a new for . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , um . {vocalsound} We've already kind of covered this as well . That seems to be selling {vocalsound} um and we we've more or less agreed that we want to kar target this youth market , um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Especially now with eighteen to thirty five year olds being such a large quantity of the population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right , particularly in technological fields , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that's exactly where we're headed . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah alright , well , more or less covered what we need to cover I think fi an an any final thoughts before we think about doing the protot moving on to the prototype . +User Interface: Well what are we actually doing ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: What were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was just gonna step on to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Oh it wasn't in the way but {disfmarker} yeah , whatever . +Project Manager: I wasn't ? Oh , my bad {vocalsound} um sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't worry about it . +Project Manager: The um , yeah okay I was just gonna assign tasks in the next b anyth any oth +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: any other final thoughts before we go ahead and +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cool ? +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: have we decided that we are gonna go with different style cases for different people ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Or are we just going to go with one ? ..It's very , it's very hard thing to predict because you have different cases +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that might open up your market a little bit obviously , but if you have just one case and it doesn't go very well {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a tough situation , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but obviously having more cases also costs more so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well then again colours wouldn't be so hard to do , you could have uh a , you know , a um uh kind of a natural wood colour , like a stained wood and um , I don't know , olive green or something . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: That wouldn't be so much of a problem to incorporate into the colour of the {gap} thing . +User Interface: And again copying iMac's kind of {disfmarker} for iPod Mac Apple's uh colour scheme . +Marketing: Yeah , get in there . Yeah , totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's probably a good id okay so let's work on {vocalsound} uh multiple case colours . But yeah , stick with the same kind of kinda {disfmarker} yeah , the same basic non-remote kind of remote design . Cool . Alright , so we'll have the next meeting about half an hour , um . I want the uh {disfmarker} I'd like {disfmarker} Nathan , I'd like you to work on just the basic look and feel , what can we accomplish , um , given these parameters that we're just gonna sort of have this kind of uh non-remote remote . Um , what are our broad constraints before we deve design a prototype . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And um Ron if you can figure out how probably best to lay out this idea of this simple design with the voice recognition built in and also this kind of drop down or s on the side kind of menu options simple . Somehow work out how we can get this all s in the same place . Um , and if you can check product evaluation with m some pilots and stuff . Um I need you guys to work together on making a prototype , {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} using um {vocalsound} prototype building materials um {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And also um specific instructions will be sent to you by your coaches as well . +Industrial Designer: Oh excellent yeah . +Project Manager: So that's what to start with for now , is that alright , you guys feel clear about this ? +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That sounds good . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Project Manager: Alright . I guess we'll just hit the bricks . Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +","In the conversation, the team comprised of Marketing, a Project Manager, Industrial Designer, User Interface, and other unidentified team members discuss the conceptual design for a prototype remote control. The Project Manager starts by apologizing for lacking clarity in roles during the last meeting. The goal of the current meeting is to firm up ideas for the design and functionality of the remote control, including case materials and energy sources. + +The Industrial Designer, Nathan, presents options for the remote's component design. He mentions limitations from their manufacturer and proposes various energy sources like standard batteries, solar cells, kinetic energy, and possible issues sourcing lithium batteries. He suggests plastic, rubber, or wood for the case and different shapes such as standard flat, curved, or double curved. The designer also brings up options for buttons and notes that touchscreen technology would require many chips, thus increasing the cost. + +Marketing, Sarah, suggests tapping into current market trends for design, such as natural colors and textures, and considering user preference for innovative design with an easy interface. The team discusses a need for an eco-friendly approach and the idea of implementing visible light signaling as a feature. + +The User Interface designer presents interface concepts like voice recognition with pre-set response options, different button styles, and control features like channel blocking and favorites. There's mention of a large, impossible-to-lose jumbo remote but it's agreed it might not be their direction. + +The team debates focusing on either touchscreen technology or voice recognition, given cost constraints and market demand. They decide to omit the touchscreen in favor of voice recognition. They explore the idea of a non-traditional, possibly spherical-shaped remote that doesn’t necessarily have to be held, incorporating elements from fruit and vegetable trends, squishy materials, and multiple case colors. + +Costs, prototype development, and target markets are revisited, concluding with the assignment of tasks towards a prototype that embodies the discussed features and design preferences. The project manager requests the industrial designer to figure out the basic feel and design constraints for a non-traditional remote and collaborates with the user interface designer to work out the details and eventually build a prototype. + +Overall, the team agrees to pursue a unique, eco-friendly remote with voice recognition, and will conduct further research and development to refine costs and design before creating a prototype." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Well , let's start . What are we doing ? Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , pinball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Not doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Ah . Hey . {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Now I have my screen back too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we have presentations . So first , it's your turn . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Mine . Oh , great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Isn't it amazing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Very interesting . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . Interface concept . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , well uh let's uh talk about the interface uh concept . Uh , first I'll uh I'll uh discuss the buttons we just chose , uh show you some samples , uh uh discuss some colours and design maybe , already . And uh my personal preferences . {vocalsound} Well we chose the power button to switch the television on and off . The bu uh the mute button to switch the volume on and o on and off . The channels buttons , one to nine , and uh off uh uh zero to nine , and the uh button to choose uh higher channels than nine . Uh the volume and channel quadrants , uh left and right , up and down arrows , to uh do the volume and channel . And the menu menu button to man manipulate the L_C_D_ uh display . Um , I found some uh interesting uh uh samples . Examples . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well uh what's pretty standard is uh that it's {disfmarker} that they're all pretty uh uh high uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Large . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Large and and and pretty thin and uh and long . +Marketing: A lot {disfmarker} a lot of buttons buttons . +User Interface: Um , power buttons are mostly at the top uh left or right . Um , well we see the the the same uh arrows . Like there . And uh {disfmarker} Yeah , well arrow b buttons can be blue . And what's interesting is the the the icons on the buttons . Some buttons have icons like the play and stop , but we don't use that . But uh , these we we have to choose the right icons , or or letters . Uh this is the V_ for volume , but they're both uh a V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it's it's not really very uh clear what's the function of that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back one page ? For the uh menu , what do we use for that ? We don't have buttons for the menu . +User Interface: Uh , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or we may have to use channel of the volume and channel {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I thought that was our uh idea . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , uh how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have to put it on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or this . And that the menu button is okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but , has to be clear that you can use the arrows . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Uh , so the {disfmarker} The icons on the arrows , as well , you mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yes . The second one . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , well that's something to uh think about . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , maybe I'll have something in my uh presentation . And you will see it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well I don't I don't know if we have to discuss this already , or in the next uh meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh , as we have to uh to to design the the case and the whole uh remote control in our uh our our corporate uh company uh uh colours and the logo , I would uh recommend a yellow case . Uh , round edges . The logo at the bottom . And uh , well maybe each each uh set of buttons uh has uh has his own colour . So , it's good . Uh , recognisable . K so , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not too much colours . +User Interface: Uh , no . Not too much . +Project Manager: No , it's not flower power . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} No , no , no . But this has to be has to be trendy and uh {disfmarker} and {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S okay . +User Interface: Uh , yeah so good uh good icons on the buttons , and uh and big buttons is my uh personal uh opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That was that . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , you're next . +Industrial Designer: I'm next , okay . {vocalsound} Yes . No . Here we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , at first we will uh I will f uh say something about what younger people want , +Marketing: {gap} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: our uh group w uh w uh we want to uh sell our remote controls to . And then , I'll discuss what my opinion is about the costs , about uh what battery is in it , what kind of buttons also . First uh , the younger people , they want like soft mat uh materials and primary colours . Like , totally yellow , totally red . Uh , so it's visible . Uh , the shapes are curved and round , like uh you also said . Maybe it's nice to uh get a remote control not like all the other ones , straight and uh flat and long . But to give him the shape of your hand , so you {disfmarker} it's easier to use or something like that . But that's just an idea . And then , I'll have to discuss about the costs uh of all the things for the remote control . The battery , there are few options . Uh , I think the best option is to use uh the basic battery . So , everybody can buy it uh at the at the supermarket . Or use uh a k uh kinetic battery like uh within a watch . When you uh shake it a few times , it it's loaded . Uh , the the form of the remote control , I think it's also nice {gap} have it curved . And maybe like it's hand-shaped . Uh , so uh you take it here in your hand and here are the buttons . Uh material , you use plastic . Hard plastic uh because uh {gap} it won't have to burst uh like in the {disfmarker} in one time . And also rubber because the younger people like that , what we see in the research . Uh the push-buttons . We have one new thing uh discovered . It's a scroll push uh thing like a mouse . Maybe it's uh easy to use uh for the channels . When you want to go m move up , you just scroll up and click on the button , if you wanna see the next , uh if you wanna see that channel . And also for the mouse , uh for the volume , it's also uh easy to use . Just scroll a bit up , scroll a bit down . And that's also easy just w when you have a thing like this , and you get it here . You can do it with your thumb . And with your l left hand you can uh push the buttons +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you {gap} push uh channel one , you can see channel one . The electrics um with a scroll push uh button , we must use regular uh chips . There are also uh simple chips . They are uh cheaper . Um , but then we have just a basic uh uh remote control , and I think there are a lot of those uh things , and people won't buy it any more . They have seen enough of it . And you have also advanced um chips . But that's with the L_C_D_ uh screen . And the costs will increase a lot more . And I think our budget is too low to use and an L_C_D_ , and the chip who is more expensive . And maybe it's also then uh thoughtful if we u uh use uh as um different kind of uh shapes for the {disfmarker} for remote control , that we then use the primary colours . Like , you get a yellow uh remote control , red one , blue one , et cetera . You have any more questions about this ? I think the main thing is we look at the costs . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And not too basic , not a basic remote control , who everybody already has . +Marketing: Yeah . But , thi i uh {disfmarker} This is with an L_C_D_ ? No , +Industrial Designer: Not with an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: not . +Project Manager: No , isn't . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But the L_C_D_ is easy when you use the scroll uh buttons . Then you can scroll , you see what number , and then you push . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But then , what I say , the costs will uh get a lot higher . +Project Manager: But then it's not easy to use scroll uh wheel . If you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then you'll see it on the television . +Project Manager: Hmm , yes . But then . Yeah , then you go one down one up . When you scroll . +Industrial Designer: but l when you see a menu uh on the television , it's like you see uh one to twenty , you go uh uh s scroll up , and push number tw twenty . Yeah +Project Manager: but like we said before , it has to be used on every television . Yeah So you may not be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . The television must do that . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I think the younger people will have newer televisions , which can provide our uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah but young people have to have all their uh room . And mostly they are smaller . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that won't be a problem . I think . +Project Manager: Most the times that are not advanced televisions . +Industrial Designer: No , but then we'll get to the regular uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I think , what I said , everybody has them uh has them already . And they go to a uh supermarket and buy them uh for two Euros . Uh , and ge and get the most cheapest uh thing . And I think we must look further to uh to devel d develop something news . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , can you give an indication in b uh in the cost difference between uh the chip with L_C_D_ or without ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I got it on my screen and it was uh higher . But I don't know uh how much higher . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Cause it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's important . +Marketing: I think if we have an L_C_D_ , it will also sell a lot better . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: And that might uh bring back the costs uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we'll {disfmarker} I think we must discuss who {disfmarker} uh what will be better . If we have a better shape of the um remote control , or better options on it . With a scroll menu , a w scroll thing , and a L_C_D_ . And then a flat um remote control . Or , a more hand-shaped remote control , with scroll , without L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe you can look how how much it is for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: I can uh look on my uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very important . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} Note that the push-button requires a simple chip chip . A scroll wheel requires minimally a regular chip , which is a higher price range . The display requires a advanced chip , which is which in turn is more expensive than the regular chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , more expensive . But how much ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't say . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's from my manufacturing division . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yes ? +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: Next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah . So , my uh presentation is about trend-watching . Uh , I did some trend-watching . It's very important to uh keep up with latest trends . {vocalsound} 'Cause if you don't , you won't sell . So , well how we did do that ? Uh , well we made an investigation of the market , by Trendwatchers . They uh watch in uh cities like uh Paris and Milan . Of course , well known for their uh trend {disfmarker} uh trends . And well , uh what did you find ? Uh , we have two groups , young and trendy , and the old and rich . Well th and the young and trendy , they uh they starting to like uh fruit and vegetables uh as a theme for n uh clothes , shoes , and also uh products . And um , material ? That should feel {disfmarker} have uh a spongy feeling . And to get a feeling for what it is , uh here is an image of it . Then the old and rich . They like uh dark colours , and simple , recognisable shapes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um , they also like uh familiar material , uh especially wood . Now , another picture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To get a feeling for this . Well , uh then already come to my personal preferences . We uh aim at the younger market . So , we should also be uh look at their uh trends . However , with trends it's always if there's {disfmarker} it's now . It it it might last one year , and next year it be {disfmarker} uh can be totally different . And I think we want to sell our product for longer than one year . So , we m must not just only look at what the trend is now , as it might be totally different next year . So , that's uh one thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: No . It's clear . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So now , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ah , let's see . Now , w we have to decide {vocalsound} Well , we have to decide on the concept . So , we have to look at {disfmarker} 'S next . Components and user interface concept . So {disfmarker} Now , we have to make some concept . Maybe one of you can paint it on the board . First , uh user interface . +Industrial Designer: Uh , uh-uh . How w how we how we make it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , a concept on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we first discuss about like what w we all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but maybe we can paint it . Uh , what do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but if I paint with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll paint . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Something like this ? Or {disfmarker} Shapes or {disfmarker} What do we need ? +User Interface: Mm , yes . What ? +Marketing: Can make several uh concepts . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: We have this , and we had the idea of an um a more uh uh uh like sh in the shape of your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: More like something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I I I uh {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: M like {disfmarker} Yeah I can't dr I can't draw it . +Project Manager: And you have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'm not a designer . It's more {gap} three D_ . Like , um when you have a part here . This is the remote control . And then you have something like th this under it . So , it's easier to get it like this . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's like a gun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A g {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it has to be soft ? +Marketing: Mm . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And it has to be soft , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And uh , the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: So , you can squeeze in it and {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Project Manager: Buttons . +Industrial Designer: Buttons on top of it . And here . The scrolling . You can do it with your thumb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it won't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But but i that's the only scroll uh button on it then ? +Industrial Designer: But now we use one scroll button and the other one is here . One till uh uh zero till nine . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But , well there one for the sound and one for the channels . +User Interface: But but how {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the b +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . How {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Or two buttons . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh , two scroll uh wheels . +Marketing: And i if we go to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If uh {disfmarker} 'Kay c If we do {disfmarker} If we use one , then we'll have just a switch on it , and you'll just switch it , and now it's the sound to switch back +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's th that's more difficult . +Marketing: But if we have uh a me Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we have a menu , uh how do we uh choose other options ? +Industrial Designer: with the menu uh button . And then you also can scroll uh scroll in it . Just not like all the other ones , with uh this thing , and uh here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh , from h hundred uh {gap} remote controls , ninety nine have it . +Project Manager: But if we don't have a L_C_D_ we don't have a menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then we have it on the T_V_ , the menu . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} again maybe th How do we know the T_V_ can handle it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't know . So , there's no menu . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . It's like some sort of uh teletext option , but we don't have teletext . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . So you can't use it . +Industrial Designer: And if we put an L_C_D_ thing on it , then the costs will uh be much higher . +Project Manager: Okay , we make two concepts . One with L_C_D_ . One without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . But you all like this kind of thing . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good concept . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll button . +Project Manager: That's one . +Industrial Designer: And and this one has to be soft . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: And this has to be harder , because when it falls , it mu mu must not burst . Or some kind of rubber around it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's one . Two . Number two . +User Interface: And you can and you can uh make the the power button as a trigger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah that's nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Here . Trigger . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} But when you handle it , you put it on and off . +User Interface: Just to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's not good to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {vocalsound} I'll zap . +User Interface: Oh , like a {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fuck . Out . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's not good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now , second concept . One with L_C_D_ , one without L_C_D_ . Then uh {disfmarker} Paint it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Paint it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll thing on , like this ? +Project Manager: One with two scroll buttons and one with without . Yeah . Uh , one with a with a menu , and one without a menu . +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: And the one with with a menu has an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do I have to do everything . Blank . You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But if you put {disfmarker} push the the menu button {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , that's the menu . There for the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , wh what {disfmarker} Yes , but you don't know which of the scroll buttons you have to choose . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} For the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . One that way . And one that way . So {disfmarker} Then it depends on the cost . S On and off . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But is it easy to use ? When you have it on your left side , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When it's not too big . Just like a a phone . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: M uh yeah , maybe it's better if the uh scroll-wheels are um +Industrial Designer: Separate , more separate , h yeah . +Marketing: more separate , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: Like , you have the menu button in between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On the left a scroll button , and on the right a scroll button . But would it be easy to use then ? If it's like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have a big uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . Is it better ? When you uh {gap} the menu , you have to go there there there there . +Industrial Designer: I also think this concept is not what the young people were looking for . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They were like round curves , uh different uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . That's that's the outside . But now the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , okay . +Project Manager: First the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Think we have we have now two buttons missing . The uh um {disfmarker} The mute button . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: We have two buttons missing . The mute button . And um , the {disfmarker} to to uh {disfmarker} have to uh {disfmarker} numbers +Project Manager: Mute . And the other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Personally , I think two scroll buttons uh aren't easy to handle . +Project Manager: But how do you wanna solve it ? +Industrial Designer: With the switch button . +Project Manager: Yeah but on the menu that's not uh easy . +Industrial Designer: No +Project Manager: Then you go down , you switch , you go into the right , you switch , you go down . +Industrial Designer: like uh {disfmarker} Oh , you mean like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you can also have like uh th um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A joystick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and joystick , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it uh {disfmarker} Does that break , a joystick ? Or a small one just like in a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like in a laptop , s uh s some sort of thing . A little bit bigger , with easier thi +Project Manager: Mean , it's better . But how expensive it is ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . Why do I pay you for ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Better ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or no scroll uh things . Just a shape . And {disfmarker} {gap} No , no . It won't work . +Project Manager: For the young peoples I think scroll button's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Think we have to keep them . +Industrial Designer: Or a remote control more like joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , but is it {disfmarker} That's not expensive than uh {disfmarker} Joystick is better . A small one . +Industrial Designer: A small one like this , like a Nintendo uh k +Project Manager: No just like in a +Industrial Designer: Playstation thing . +Project Manager: a laptop . Small , round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then it's not so big . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no . I mean the the shape of the remote control . +Project Manager: Oh the sh Yeah , but then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just like a Playstation thing . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Maybe , if it's possible , {vocalsound} it's not too expensive , I think a joystick is better . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A small one . So , please look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's okay , I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: And on the L_C_D_ , how much it costs ? Uh , it costs extra ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they're not uh in details . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive or less expensive , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we {disfmarker} I think you get it . So , after this meeting you have half an hour to uh fix it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Then I have to come with it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: I got my personal costs . I I don't I don't know the costs . +Project Manager: Your problem . Not mine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I'll uh make something up . +Project Manager: Okay . So , do we have other concepts ? Then for the components , we use a normal battery . Then it's {disfmarker} Ch cheapest way , I think . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the or the kinetic uh with normal battery . +Project Manager: No , no kinetic . Kinetic is uh ch makes it more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's uh , yeah , more expensive . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we use a normal battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Chip . Depends on the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Depends on the scroll . +Project Manager: Scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we use a scroll , then we have the uh regular chip . If we don't use a scroll , then we can use the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , we {disfmarker} If you use the L_C_D_ , we have to +Industrial Designer: Uh the most expensive . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , depends on the L_C_D_ and the scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} No okay scroll-wheel . So , I have this . So , it will be uh the advanced chip , or the uh regu uh or the regular chip . +Project Manager: Okay . So , uh the shapes of the design depends on the L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} But , it has to be small . I think . +Industrial Designer: Or shall we just put it on the pistol thing ? And then just put also on L_C_D_ on it ? +Project Manager: If you have pistol , it {disfmarker} L_C_D_'s not easy . Y y {vocalsound} Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just use your thumb . +Project Manager: If you use a phone . +Industrial Designer: If you {disfmarker} Yeah . I use my thumb . +Project Manager: {gap} k Yeah , but but then you have it . Like , th if you have pistol , you have it so . And the screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , then you have to keep it this way to look at the screen . +Industrial Designer: If you have a joystick on {disfmarker} No , if you have like uh an uh uh a ni a uh Playstation uh game controller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you move up , f forward , down , left . Then you have uh just , yeah , a little bit curved . It's not just uh {vocalsound} straight . +Project Manager: No . No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's how we use it . That's why they make joysticks like that , I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you look forward . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And then you can y +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: N well , if you have to look at it . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Here's our designer . +Marketing: If we have uh then something standing here , with the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not . +Project Manager: If th n well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's for the younger people . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . +Industrial Designer: It's something new . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good good . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the {disfmarker} um , it may not break . +Industrial Designer: Now we put uh rubber around it . +Project Manager: Okay . If that's possible . +Marketing: Um , Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hard plastic , uh the shape , and around it hard uh around it rubber . And the uh the hand shape is also rubber . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or you can uh turn it inside . +Marketing: {gap} I can't see the {gap} . But , uh the easy of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh , th the ease of use wasn't uh the most important uh aspect of it . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: No , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , for us it's about to sell it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of course . +Industrial Designer: This is something new . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Then this is the design . And the buttons are on the next page . So , depends on the cost . So , +Industrial Designer: Costs are okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um we have one minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One . +Project Manager: I think . No . +Marketing: No . You have more . +Project Manager: More . Seven . +Marketing: You have still ten . +Project Manager: Next meeting . Thirty minutes . So hurry up . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's us together . +Project Manager: You two stay here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Paint it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now you have to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's clear . Check your mail . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: It has to be ready in the next meeting . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cookie . +Marketing: What ? Okay . +Project Manager: Next meeting is called the detailed design . So {disfmarker} Everyth everything has to be ready . Thanks for your attention . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: See you at the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bye bye . +","The team, including a Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing Specialist, is discussing the development of a new remote control targeting younger users. They explore different design concepts, focusing on button functions, materials, cost considerations, and market trends. They consider using regular batteries, a simple chip for basic function, and possibly incorporating an LCD screen, depending on the cost. The design elements being discussed include round shapes, soft and spongy materials, the use of bright primary colors, and potentially a hand-shaped design. Both scroll buttons and joystick-like controls are proposed for navigation. The meeting concludes with action items for the team to finalize the design concept based on cost implications and to prepare for a detailed design presentation in the next meeting." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Excellent . So um I sent you the agenda , it was on the {disfmarker} in the project documents . I don't know if you got a chance to just have a look at it . Anyway , it's {disfmarker} the meeting's gonna follow more or less the same structure as last time , so we'll go round each of you in turn and you can give your presentations on what you've been up to . Um and at the end of that we need to discuss what you've come up with , so that we can make a decision on the key remote control concepts , so that's {disfmarker} we need to know about the components' properties , materials , the user interface and any trends that the Marketing Expert has been watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , do you wanna start again ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've got forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: so I haven't made a PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You haven't made a PowerPoint , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I I thought I'll use the whiteboard instead . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um mm , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's hope the pen holds out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so basically I'll start off by {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} I thought I'll use the whiteboard because we have so many different options and what we can do is that we can start um uh rubbing off the options that we do not require and putting in the options that uh are m or highlighting or underlining them or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh I'll start again with a brief introduction to {disfmarker} connect that anyway {disfmarker} brief introduction to the insides of a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh then we can probably uh discuss the various components . Yeah . Okay , so w what you see here is {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} this is the outside of the remote , right ? If you open it , you have a circuit board here , right , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is the chip that I was talking about last time . This basically sends information to a tr uh transistor here , which then uh sends the information to an L_E_D_ device here . If you flip the printed circuit board , and this is th the most important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh {vocalsound} everything else is kind of {disfmarker} Okay , so if you flip the circuit board , this is what it looks like . So you see for example a particular button attaches to a particular place on the P_C_B_ and uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: on pressing this button I {disfmarker} a circuit completes , the information goes to the chip , which is somewhere here and the chip that tra then translates the code into an infra infrared radiation , which goes goes out through there . {vocalsound} So uh the important point that I read over the website was uh that the configurations of these printed circuit circuit boards uh are quite cheap to make , you can ge get them printed as you want to , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so w we can have a configuration um irrespective of the cost , the way we want to have . Right ? So that's the important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so these are the different options that we have . Okay . So the batteries , I'll start with the battery , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So they can be simple which is like uh the normal batteries in uh our {disfmarker} uh the cells , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thes these are the kind {disfmarker} different kind of batteries that the company makes , right ? So . And dynamos . Um {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does that mean like a wind-up one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A wind-up remote . +Industrial Designer: So uh I don't know if {disfmarker} even if you want to consider this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but these are the different things that the company makes , so th they'll they'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: since uh they'll come internally from the company , they'll be eas uh cheaper , uh all these options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} the third one is uh the kinetic energy ones . +Marketing: You could make the hand dynamo into an exercise bike , and then people could exercise whilst watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And charging their remote , +Marketing: Yeah , and stop worrying about the whole R_S_I_ from the remote thing , 'cause that's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a good option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what was what was this k ka +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic energy one is uh that e uh uh they are usually modern watches , since our hand keeps moving , it keeps the watch ticking . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I dunno i if it is a good idea for a remote control , because it'll just lie there for a long while sometimes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . For a remote , 'cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But as soon as you pick it up it moves and then again it uh re recharges or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the fourth option is the solar cells , which are also {vocalsound} made by the company . +Marketing: Yay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Environment friendly . Okay {vocalsound} um so I'll list things and then we can come back and discuss what what we think from uh everybody's perspective . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: There are different cases that can be provided . They can be {disfmarker} basically the shape of the cases , they can be flat , they can be curved with uh one-sided curved and one side flat , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they can be curved with {disfmarker} on both the sides . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These are the three options , right ? Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um you mean this would be like the the overall shape of the remote control , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , would it be flat on both the sides , would be curved from one side , or whatever {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm-hmm . Yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh there were different kind of supplements available , um like it can be in plastic , rubber , wood , or titanium , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Wo wo wood . +Marketing: Did you say wool ? +Project Manager: Wood , wood . +Marketing: Wood . Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Not wool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A fluffy remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you'll understand why when we get to my presenta {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: so uh we can use even um {vocalsound} a certain titanium is also used uh in the company to make uh {vocalsound} uh some space design equipment , so it's kind of um uh it'll be probably nicer to use , because it relates to the overall image of the company , but uh it cannot be used on a double curved surface . If we choose this , we cannot use titanium . For for these two we can use titanium , wood , rubber , or plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , the interface options now . So {vocalsound} we can have push-buttons , like most remotes do and our company is an expert in making push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Uh we can have scroll wheels like the ones on um uh mouse pointers uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sony . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Sony Ericsson mobile phones has it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , and they have {disfmarker} they can even have an an integrated uh push-button inside the scrolling thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The scroll plus push . So this is something that has been recently developed by the company , um {vocalsound} in the last decade , so not too recent . And L_C_D_s , we can have L_C_D_s . So these two are recent and and this is q quite old . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The various electronic options are um uh {vocalsound} so th this concerns firs first of all the the chips I I showed you at uh {disfmarker} so there's there's a chip behind this one , right ? The P_C_B_ is uh inexpensive , so we can put put in uh whatever we want , but the various integrated circuit options are , we have either a simple one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or a regular or advanced . And uh the price goes up as we go down , obviously . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , so the good thing about uh wh wh why why we would want to use advanced u why we might want to use advanced is that L_C_D_s can only come with the advanced chip . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} we need regular or advanced for uh scroll wheels . Right ? Um {vocalsound} and the chip basically includes the infra infrared sender . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh besides this in electr under electronics uh also the company has started making a sample sender , which is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} did not explained what i what it was , but I'm guessing that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so they have a sample sender and a sample speaker . So I'm guessing that uh the sample speaker is probably something like um uh you know , as soon as you press a button , it it mm uh give gives you feedback , one five or whatever . Yeah , on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} and uh I dunno whether sample sender sender has to do something with voice recognition or not , but anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , these are the different options that we have . Okay , so {vocalsound} th that's that's basically {disfmarker} now now uh I think that uh we can integrate um {vocalsound} uh you know , uh the user interface uh and uh the marketing things in that , keep uh taking out things from this and uh underlining things that are important , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Excellent . Do you wanna stay somewhere near the board , so that if we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: you can sit down , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we might need you to leap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: What are you , PowerPoint , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I have some PowerPoint , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think these pens can give you cancer of the hand ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Some sort of radiation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's got its little camera in there , {vocalsound} plug it in {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should should do it . Yeah . +Marketing: 'S a +Project Manager: Right , interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . Um to be honest actually , I mentioned some some of the things which which could fit on the on the {disfmarker} this talk um this time , I m I mentioned them already in the previous talk . +Project Manager: That's fine . +User Interface: So um yeah , this time um I might not have them on the slides but I {vocalsound} I can just mention them aw again . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . So um I thought um I would also include the definition of user interface um so it's the aspects of a of of a computer system or programme which can be seen uh by the user um and and which {disfmarker} uh the mechanisms that the user uses to control its operation and input data . So this would p includes things like shape and size and buttons and um voice recognition as well , and colour , and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um um the method I {vocalsound} employed this time was {vocalsound} a again having a look to related products and mainly on the internet and then {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} analyse them uh from the point of view of user fen friendliness and {vocalsound} also um {vocalsound} whether their appearance was was pleasant . Um {vocalsound} and then um {vocalsound} this uh this um {vocalsound} this can help us to decide which features we want to incorporate in our product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So some findings um {vocalsound} um . So in in the case of many user interfaces , they're just so full of buttons that it's actually uh hard to find the ones you you really um want to use and um and it's just confusing , it takes y know time to learn . Um {vocalsound} okay , and I thought I would just quickly show some of them that I found . Okay , some of them are here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well the picture is not very clear , but as you can see , there are actu oi , oh oh oh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: sorry for that . 'S go back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's nice one . +User Interface: Ah , no , please . Okay , so yeah , they're quite big and have many many buttons . Actually {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of all these I personally p prefer this one , because it's it's the smallest and and with with least {disfmarker} uh with the smallest number of buttons as well . And I would say even the appearance of some of them is kind of not so nice . +Marketing: Ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay . So let's carry on with this . Um {disfmarker} So uh um o other findings {disfmarker} um some new things um used , uh some of them were mentioned already by our Technical um Designer uh . {vocalsound} Our own company has developed a new in user interface {disfmarker} uh wait , no this is not the one . Okay , there is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can uh include voice recognition and um it allows {disfmarker} i it's possible to record eighty different voice samples on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so uh this uh this one was already mentioned uh the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um s another new development is a scroll button , which was also th also already mentioned . And uh our own manufacturing division ha has uh designed {vocalsound} a new um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh programmable speech uh {vocalsound} mm sorry uh speaker unit I guess it's {disfmarker} it should be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um and this means that um once uh uh it it it comes together with a voice recognition , but it's {disfmarker} once once the mm {vocalsound} um gadget uh recognises uh the voice of the speaker , there can be a um pre-programmed answer , for example , you can pick up the remote control and say something to it like hello and it says some hello and your name or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , hi {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} I mean this is also one of the n dev new developments which we might consider if we wanted to include . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry , uh can you go back for a second ? Um {vocalsound} uh are you sure wha what this means , a spinning wheel with the L_C_ display ? Uh {vocalsound} oh yeah are th +Project Manager: It's like the {disfmarker} like you said , no ? The scroll scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah , you can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , the scroll button is a different thing . I I have a picture if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} just a moment , I'll {vocalsound} I'll show you . I wasn't completely sure myself , but I think it's just like um {vocalsound} it's it's a wheel , it's like not separate buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh okay , the iPod thing , yeah . +User Interface: Look , this one here . +Marketing: Oh , it's like the iPod . +User Interface: But I'm I'm not really sure whether whether you can really turn it round , +Marketing: G yeah , no , you can . +User Interface: it's like you press this or this or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's the iPod uh kind of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's like it's like where you {disfmarker} you know how you have your your mouse , and y you go round and i it's kind of like that and you spin round +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Alright , right . Okay , okay . +Marketing: and it {disfmarker} yeah . It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So instead of going down you just spin {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: You just go round +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it is a bit weird at first , but it's actually very like fast . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I like the the wheels that click on the side you you get 'em much slower , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so it's quite good if you like searching quite a lot of stuff . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Do you know , if you're lookin if you're th scrolling through the A_ to Z_ of your music and you're looking for something at T_ , then it's a lot faster than the wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but you've got a lot less control over it . +Industrial Designer: Right . So maybe I should include that here as well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_s um plus spinning . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and the personal preferences are pretty much the same as as as last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} it has to be small , simple . Okay , we decided to include voice recognition , so to have the standard uh major buttons like on , off , um ch the channels and and then um volume and then the rest would be a menu on the screen . Um and I I also thought uh {vocalsound} if we want to keep it small and nice um and actually I I quite like the idea of a scroll a scrolling button , I thought it could be for for voice like , I dunno , it mm like on a um i like it used to be on Walkmans or something . There is {vocalsound} uh I think there is no reason why we couldn't use something like this for for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So yeah , that's uh that's it . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay , straight to trends , and then we can discuss it all at once . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Okay , I've put the copy of the presentation in um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The project documents . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . If you two could both do that as well , in case we need to refer to it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Here it comes . Okay . +Marketing: Fabulous . Okay , cool . Um so what I did was to search the internet to come up with market trends and you know what users are gonna be wanting in the the near future . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Right . Now , the first aspect is apparently twice as important as the second aspect , which is twice as important as the third a aspect . So , I mean the the easy to use thing is fairly low down on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I think given the target group is what you would expect , really . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , people want something new , something technologically innovative and different , so the whole idea with the L_C_D_s and the spinning and the colours and the voice recognition is quite like , quite the thing to go for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um , yeah it wants to look fancy , fancy look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} uh maybe uh as you're discussing things , is it okay if we just uh keep highlighting things here ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , sure . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So mm uh so it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's over on the interface , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: if if you could put {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so probably voice recognition is is kind of important , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and an +Project Manager: And maybe the L_C_D_ and spinning {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Okay , I I have a point about L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: so that means we need an advanced thing . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if it is the right point to take it up . W uh L_C_D_s are basically for feedback , right , to the user who's pressing buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and the feedback can come through television itself , so do we need an L_C_D_ on the remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Depends how fast your television runs , really , don't don't you think ? I mean we've got one of those um Telewest boxes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you put the number in the remote and then you wait and then it goes to the T_V_ and then you wait , and then it comes , so i it actually takes quite a long time . And if you get the number in wrong , then it's a bit of a pain , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {gap} +Marketing: so I think , you know , a screen on the remote would probably cut down your time on that . But like remotes do tend to get f thrown about a bit . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It it is also quite nice though to to have something here so you don't interrupt the picture on the screen , +Marketing: You know ? Yeah . +Project Manager: so if you're watching something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true , yeah , that's also {disfmarker} +Marketing: And i it would be like {disfmarker} I mean if you could make it integrate with the T_V_ then it could come up with new information about what's on , and you could just see that on the remote rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Rather than having to interrupt your viewing pleasure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: But um I think maybe a way to do it would be a similar way to how you have your mobile phone , you know , like you have the slidey ones and you have the flippy ones and then the screen's protected so it doesn't actually get scratched . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So you can have like what looks like a normal remote control , you know or like a minimalist remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you got your buttons one to nine , your on and off and your volume on that +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: and then if you want to mess about with it , you flip it open and , +Project Manager: And then you can flip it open . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So now we seem to have a consensus that L_C_D_s are definitely the way to go because of style and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , so that kind of decides your whole chip thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you agree ? Maarika , yeah ? +User Interface: Yep , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So L_C_D_s , yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Go on . +Marketing: Cool . Okay , apparently , fruit and vegetables will be providing inspiration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , I discovered clip art . {vocalsound} Um so these will be an important feature for clothes , shoes and furniture . So I mean , I'm taking this to mean , you know , curviness . Do you know ? 'Cause you don't tend to get flat vegetables . You know ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and possibly even uneven , +Marketing: Yeah , bit of asymmetry and stuff . +Project Manager: like not not symmet yeah . +Marketing: But that would be a good way to to get in the whole um R_S_I_ issue in there , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I mean if you think most people use the remote control with their right hand ha right hands +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you wanna {disfmarker} you curve it so that it's suitable for use with the right hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: , I'm not quite sure about the relevance of material will be spongy . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something a bit squishy and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we have +Marketing: but I mean y you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it could be like a rubbery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we have rubber , +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: but there is a problem that I forgot to discuss with the {disfmarker} um with using {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I suppose you wouldn't get a remote uh {disfmarker} an electric shock off your remote control if it was made of rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it'd help if you drop it , it protects it as well . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: To some degree . +Industrial Designer: So if if we use uh latex cases , they won't allow us to use solar cells , as an energy source that is the constraint , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so um we could use {vocalsound} titanium , wood or plastic uh or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or if we want to use the the latex , then we have to go with one of the other um power things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w energy source . +Marketing: If it's made of rubber you could get the kinetic energy fairly easily there , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} From {vocalsound} from bouncing it . +Marketing: you could just {vocalsound} bounce it up and down {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , tap it on the desk , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can have it as like a little ball to bounce , that flips open . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um so yeah , um okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . So probably double curved surface is the way to go , yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or or curved at one end and flat on the top , because I I'm not sure if it is flat on both both the sides , then ho how much easy would it be to reach for buttons , etcetera . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have a certain element of flatness , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It it depends on the whole ergonomics of it , you know , it's like how you put your hands so y it's the least movement basically . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , singe single side curved or double side curved does not say too much , does it ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: It uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I d I don't think it makes a lot of difference . I I have one of those s slidey phones and I mean the back is essentially straight , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's curvy , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides , you have four sides to a thing , so I mean does curved one side mean one side is straight +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: and , you know curved two sides means the whole thing is just a big curvy p thing ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Di now did it say anywhere in your research material about this sliding stuff uh +Project Manager: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} according to the information that I have , I think uh the onl only options that we have with the case is {disfmarker} are these three . Uh eith either we have uh a flat surfaced uh case or a curved surfaced case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does not say anything about uh whether technically , you know , this this stuff is available at all . +Project Manager: Nothing to {vocalsound} open them . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh it's it's more about the protecting the L_C_D_ , which I think is where it came from . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: But no , my research didn't tell me anything , which is why we have all the pictures , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I had nothing better to do with my time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Anything else ? What've we got ? +Marketing: Uh combine style with a level of functionality , um beauty and practicality and a thing of beauty and p function . +Industrial Designer: Cool , thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , so . +Marketing: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks +Project Manager: Looking at what we've got , we we want an L_C_D_ display with a spinning wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Let's let's try to r rub off things and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , rub off some of those . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so um {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hand dynamos are definitely out , right ? {vocalsound} You you got a wind {gap} dynamo , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah uh-hum yeah . +Project Manager: it's not {disfmarker} that's not streamlined and sexy , {vocalsound} having a having a wind up . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {vocalsound} kinetic energy does seem to have some kind of uh uh appeal , +Project Manager: I think tha +Industrial Designer: but uh {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's about the practicality of it really , isn't it ? You know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As against a watch , which constantly keeps moving , +Marketing: I mean if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: this this thing will have to be tapped every time , which which might be very frustrating for the user . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depends how much how much movement it really needs . +Industrial Designer: Kinetic energy it needs {disfmarker} I don't have too much technical information on that , +Project Manager: Pr presumably if they're suggesting it , then we could use it . +Industrial Designer: yeah , right . Okay , let's keep it option uh keep an option , +Project Manager: I'd I'd keep it on . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Um {vocalsound} the flat co completely flat case is definitely out , right ? It has to be at least curved from one side , yeah . +Project Manager: We don't want that +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: it's no {disfmarker} it's not not vegetable . +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , we still have all all the options . Wood , do you think wood will be a good idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: N wood is {disfmarker} I can't n {vocalsound} how do you uh I mean you can't keep it really small uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you can't make it like thin and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: I can't imagine a m wooden remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: The wood thing . Because you need to you n you need to put all the technology in , so I mean if the case {disfmarker} you add the case and it it becomes a bit bulky +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} if if it is really thin if it is really thin it it's likely to break , +User Interface: wi mm-mm yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's it's much more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and given that we're we're looking at more spongy material preferences , I ha would think maybe rubber or plastic is more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: U yeah wood is not really {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Well it's not very cleanable either , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Marketing: do you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's not {vocalsound} a practical {disfmarker} I mean it's it's alright for a table , but for a remote control , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And splinters and stuff and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay {vocalsound} wood is out . +Marketing: It just m doesn't make any sense , I think is the thing with wood . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , in the case of remote control not really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , now for the really interesting stuff , the interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh the the push-buttons is is our expertise uh in the industry , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it seems to be {vocalsound} out of trend , you know , nobody seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have some push-buttons , don't you ? +User Interface: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} um I think for for the channel numb uh channel numbers you still need them , wouldn't you ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: G yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so for channel numbers but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , if if we have L_C_D_ displays , that opens up a whole world , you know , if you have an L_C_D_ display , then mm you can select almost everything on the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: But I th yeah but {vocalsound} I think the L_C_D_ display is kind of {disfmarker} yeah , it's faster +Project Manager: Just for fast {disfmarker} +User Interface: with a m yeah and w if we dis and when we s um {vocalsound} discussed that we might like this flipping open thing , then I mean y you can use it as a normal remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you do want to use L_C_D_ , then you flip it open , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it's it it's more time-consuming . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think this is going back to the the graph at the beginning that I made , where , you know , the buttons that people use all the time , you want buttons for them and everything else menu-driven . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Project Manager: And it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} L_ {disfmarker} L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: So uh in in the buttons we have for the channels also we have options . Do you do we enumerate everything from zero to nine ? Or do we have just uh channel plus , channel minus , just to just to scroll ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , no , I mean mm we we definitely need the the numbers , +Industrial Designer: The numbers . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} uh otherwise people don't want to flip through all the channels . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need them on as buttons or do we need them as L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Or {vocalsound} on the L_C_D_ we can , you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: G yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , I would say buttons , +Marketing: I would think buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's it's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think the thing is , so if someone just wants to turn on their T_V_ and put on a channel , then it should be easier to use than any other remote , +User Interface: I +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then if someone wants to , you know , change the contrast on their T_V_ and {disfmarker} they should be able to do that and it should be accessible , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: but , you know , I mean most of the time {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean there's a limit to how much the biggest techno geek can spend fiddling with the T_V_ , I think is the the the issue there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so buttons definitely in but {disfmarker} oh shall we uh try to draw a prec um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's what {vocalsound} you guys are gonna do next , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +Project Manager: so if we put down the key um {vocalsound} things that we want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , so the components . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh what about the the scrolling uh ? +User Interface: Yeah but n I I'm not completely um completely clear uh I {vocalsound} yeah , about the spinning wheel . So I think it {vocalsound} it doesn't make sense to have both like a scrolling and spinning thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} E either or {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} you can al include everything in the spinning if you +Marketing: G yeah . +Project Manager: Just spinning and not scrolling , I would say . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say the s the s the spinning goes at a high speed to th to the scrolling wheel , +User Interface: in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you have to decide whether {disfmarker} you you know , you want to be going so fast or not . But I mean the the thing with this whole {disfmarker} if y you're planning on making it out of rubber , on the basis that it's spongy , then I'm not sure how well a scrolling wheel would work . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But if you've got a {disfmarker} if if you've got a flipped thing , effectively it's something that's curved on one side and flat on the other side , but you folded it in half . +User Interface: Ah , but I mean you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but y your spinning wheel tends to go to one side . +Project Manager: Th {vocalsound} that would be on one side , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to construct the whole thing out of rubber . {vocalsound} Uh i it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think it's just the casing rubber on the outside . +User Interface: Yeah , I um I think so too , I mean the case would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You want an outside of rubber +User Interface: yeah the case would be rubber and the the buttons , +Marketing: and then open it up and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or or at the corners , edges , just the edges covered by rubber or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: rubber buttons , but then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Everything else in plastic or even titanium if we want to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or maybe like interchangeable cases . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause I know like we're going back to iPods again n the whole spinning wheel , but I have like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , obviously my iPod's not made of rubber , but then I have a little rubber case that goes over the top of it +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Marketing: and I can change the colour , theoretically , to match my outfit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so so that gives us a more trendy look as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think the spinning wheel is definitely very now . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah , and uh we're going more for the trends than for the usability anyway , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's what they're after . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub that out . {vocalsound} And uh colours can be provided with the case rather than {disfmarker} Um but we still need to te think about the colour of our remote as such , you know , just keep it black , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah I think we {disfmarker} um it was a a requirement that we use our um th the colours of our company , so would it be like yellow , grey and black or something , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: That doesn't fit in with the whole vegetable theme though . +Project Manager: I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bananas . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Banana's yellow , {vocalsound} yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean do you think we could incorporate the colours of the company into the buttons and then make the colour of the main remote {vocalsound} the colour like vegetable colours , do you know ? So you could have like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean I suppose vegetable colours would be orange and green and some reds and um maybe purple +Project Manager: Green . Yeah . +Marketing: and that and then you'd pick the buttons in company colours to to match with it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , if you g go over to uh the integrated circuits . Uh since we're having L_C_D_s there there's no way that we're will be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We need the advanced {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: um what we do need to consider , however , is that the price is going up for the ever every such thing that we are considering , but since L_C_D_s seems to be uh a definite yes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} it seems to be one area where we would want to spend . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub off the other two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So are we discounting solar energy because rubber's gonna be used in there somewhere or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That was the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh is {disfmarker} oh the constraint was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can't have solar panels with rubber , so . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: solar panels with the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , so we lose that I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we go for {disfmarker} if we're going for rubber , we think uh on {disfmarker} as our case , and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And the buttons as well , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five more minutes . +Industrial Designer: we'll have uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} uh using the simple battery will be a safer option as compared to the kinetic energy one , I mean , a although it does seem uh interesting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But it does not hold any advantages as such for a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's just a gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh okay , so r we understand this better now that uh the the speaker is for the feedback , right ? It it says uh the things that you type in or something like that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . I think if we can if we can include them at not too much extra cost , then I'd put them in , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yeah , {vocalsound} we we don't have too much information about it , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but if it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but it it {disfmarker} I think it should be quite cheap because it's from our own company , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's from the company , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay , so so th this is in as well then , the sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . And the case is curved on one side , but then flat flat , so it's flipped into each other . +Industrial Designer: Flat on the top . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Can I pull the {vocalsound} thing out the back of your computer ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure j +Project Manager: Just so we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nothing , it's right , I'm just {disfmarker} There we go . +Marketing: What does um I_C_S_ mean ? +Industrial Designer: I_C_s ? Uh integrated circuits . +Marketing: Okay , cool . So it's advanced integrated circuits ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh oh now I've gone too far . +Industrial Designer: Uh um we we're definitely going in for voice recognition as well as L_C_D_s , mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . We're on our way . Okay . {vocalsound} So we've basically worked out that we're going with a simple battery , the advanced chip +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and a curved on one side case which is folded in on itself , um made out of rubber +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and the buttons are also rubber . We're having push-buttons on the outside and then on the inside an L_C_D_ with spinning wheel , and we're incorporating voice recognition . That's our overall concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's gonna look sort of vegetable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and be in bright vegetable colours . +User Interface: Uh-huh . So {vocalsound} w w would with have the spinning wheel inside with the L_C_D_ , or would it be on the outer {disfmarker} +Marketing: Imagine it would be inside . +Project Manager: I think it's on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So um actually that could like really cut down your thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so you've got your outside , which is like minimalist , and then you open it up and you've got a screen and a spinning wheel , which you can incorporate buttons into . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Um so you've still not got like a lot of stuff in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You've maybe got , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like if you're modelling on iPod you've got five buttons and a wheel , +Project Manager: On the {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and four of the buttons are in the wheel , and the other one's the little bit inside the wheel , +Project Manager: In the centre , +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , sure . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so now we've got thirty minutes before our next meeting . In the meantime , the Industrial Designer over here is gonna work on the look and feel design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which I'll presume he'll work out what that means . Um the User Interface Designer will work on the user interface design and the Marketing Expert is going to work on product evaluation . And as well as that , the two designers are going to work together on our prototype following those instructions that we've just come up with using modelling clay and you will get extra instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Is that all okay ? And anyone who hasn't put their their presentation in the project documents folder , it would be good just so {disfmarker} in case we have to refer to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , I'm gonna go and sit on my own . +Project Manager: Y ah nobody wants to talk to you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , I'm hated . +Project Manager: Unplug yourself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've got a bit tangled up in all this {vocalsound} +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} shall I move away first or shall I stay here with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno , maybe I would car +User Interface: we need to {disfmarker} +","Summary: +The project team met to discuss the design of a new remote control. The industrial designer considered using a whiteboard to eliminate less favorable options dynamically during the discussion. He introduced component ideas, including circuitry and button configurations, and noted the flexibility of printed circuit board (PCB) configurations. The discussion also covered power source options (batteries, dynamos, kinetic energy, solar cells) and various case shapes and materials (flat, curved, rubber, titanium). + +The user interface designer brought up the idea of a scroll wheel with an integrated push button and LCD screens for user input, referencing current company technology. Marketing insights focused on stylish, innovative designs with flashy features like LCDs and voice recognition, while considering ergonomics and practicality. The team also discussed vegetable-inspired designs, case material options, and colors, with a consensus on using company colors for buttons and combining them with vegetable-like colors for the remote. + +The group settled on a remote design with a simple battery, an advanced chip, push-buttons, and an LCD with a spinning wheel inside. The case would be rubber, curved on one side and flat on the other, allowing it to fold open. The product will be vegetable-themed with bright colors, and the designers will use modeling clay to make a physical prototype. + +The project manager instructed the team to upload their presentations to the project documents folder for future reference and assigned individual tasks. The industrial designer will create the look and feel design, the user interface designer will work on the user interface design, and the marketing expert will perform a product evaluation. The team has 30 minutes to prepare before their next meeting." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Professor B: I think for two years we were two months , uh , away from being done . +PhD A: And what was that , Morgan ? What project ? +Professor B: Uh , the , uh , TORRENT chip . +PhD A: Oh . +Professor B: Yeah . We were two {disfmarker} we were {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Uh , uh , we went through it {disfmarker} Jim and I went through old emails at one point and {disfmarker} and for two years there was this thing saying , yeah , we 're {disfmarker} we 're two months away from being done . It was very {disfmarker} very believable schedules , too . I mean , we went through and {disfmarker} with the schedules {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} +PhD A: It was true for two years . +Professor B: Yeah . Oh , yeah . It was very true . +PhD A: So , should we just do the same kind of deal where we {pause} go around and do , uh , status report {pause} kind of things ? OK . And I guess when Sunil gets here he can do his last or something . So . +Professor B: Yeah . So we {pause} probably should wait for him to come before we do his . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: OK . That 's a good idea . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: Any objection ? Do y OK , M +Professor B: All in favor +PhD A: Do you want to start , Morgan ? Do you have anything , or {disfmarker} ? +Professor B: Uh , I don't do anything . I {disfmarker} No , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm involved in discussions with {disfmarker} with people about what they 're doing , but I think they 're {disfmarker} since they 're here , they can talk about it themselves . +Grad F: OK . So should I go so that , uh , +PhD A: Yeah . Why don't you go ahead , Barry ? +Grad F: you 're gonna talk about Aurora stuff , per se ? +PhD A: OK . +Grad F: OK . Um . Well , this past week I 've just been , uh , getting down and dirty into writing my {disfmarker} my proposal . So , um {disfmarker} Mmm . I just finished a section on , uh {disfmarker} on talking about these intermediate categories that I want to classify , um , as a {disfmarker} as a middle step . And , um , I hope to {disfmarker} hope to get this , um {disfmarker} a full rough draft done by , uh , Monday so I can give it to Morgan . +PhD A: When is your , uh , meeting ? +Grad F: Um , my meeting +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: with , uh {disfmarker} ? Oh , oh , you mean the {disfmarker} the quals . +PhD A: The quals . Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , the quals are happening in July twenty - fifth . +PhD A: Oh . Soon . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh - huh . +Grad F: D - Day . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +PhD A: So , is the idea you 're going to do this paper and then you pass it out to everybody ahead of time and {disfmarker} ? +Grad F: Right , right . So , y you write up a proposal , and give it to people ahead of time , and you have a short presentation . And , um , and then , um {disfmarker} then everybody asks you questions . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: I remember now . +Grad F: Yep . So , um . +PhD A: Have you d ? I was just gonna ask , do you want to say any {disfmarker} a little bit about it , +Grad F: Y s +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm . +Grad F: Oh . Uh , a little bit about {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Wh - what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're gonna {disfmarker} You said {disfmarker} you were talking about the , uh , particular features that you were looking at , +Grad F: Oh , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} +PhD A: or {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . Well , I was , um , I think one of the perplexing problems is , um , for a while I was thinking that I had to come up with a complete set of intermediate features {disfmarker} in intermediate categories to {disfmarker} to classify right away . But what I 'm thinking now is , I would start with {disfmarker} with a reasonable set . Something {disfmarker} something like , um , um {disfmarker} like , uh , re regular phonetic features , just to {disfmarker} just to start off that way . And do some phone recognition . Um , build a system that , uh , classifies these , um {disfmarker} these feat uh , these intermediate categories using , uh , multi - band techniques . Combine them and do phon phoneme recognition . Look at {disfmarker} then I would look at the errors produced in the phoneme recognition and say , OK , well , I could probably reduce the errors if I included this extra feature or this extra intermediate category . That would {disfmarker} that would reduce certain confusions over other confusions . And then {disfmarker} and then {vocalsound} reiterate . Um , build the intermediate classifiers . Uh , do phoneme recognition . Look at the errors . And then postulate new {disfmarker} or remove , um , intermediate categories . And then do it again . +PhD A: So you 're gonna use TIMIT ? +Grad F: Um , for that {disfmarker} for that part of the {disfmarker} the process , yeah , I would use TIMIT . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , then {disfmarker} after {disfmarker} after , uh , um , doing TIMIT . Right ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , that 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that 's , um {disfmarker} that 's just the ph the phone recognition task . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Uh , I wanted to take a look at , um , things that I could model within word . So , I would mov I would then shift the focus to , um , something like Schw - Switchboard , uh , where I 'd {disfmarker} I would be able to , um {disfmarker} to model , um , intermediate categories that span across phonemes , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: not just within the phonemes , themselves , um , and then do the same process there , um , on {disfmarker} on a large vocabulary task like Switchboard . Uh , and for that {disfmarker} for that part I would {disfmarker} I 'd use the SRI recognizer since it 's already set up for {disfmarker} for Switchboard . And I 'd run some {disfmarker} some sort of tandem - style processing with , uh , my intermediate classifiers . +PhD A: Oh . So that 's why you were interested in getting your own features into the SRI files . +Grad F: Yeah . That 's why I {disfmarker} I was asking about that . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Um , and I guess that 's {disfmarker} that 's it . Any {disfmarker} any questions ? +PhD A: Sounds good . So you just have a few more weeks , huh ? +Grad F: Um , yeah . A few more . +PhD A: It 's about a month from now ? +Grad F: It 's a {disfmarker} it 's a month and {disfmarker} and a week . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: So , uh , you want to go next , Dave ? And we 'll do {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK , sure . So , um , last week I finally got results from the SRI system about this mean subtraction approach . And , um , we {disfmarker} we got an improvement , uh , in word error rate , training on the TI - digits data set and testing on Meeting Recorder digits of , um , {vocalsound} six percent to four point five percent , um , on the n on the far - mike data using PZM F , but , um , the near - mike performance worsened , um , from one point two percent to two point four percent . And , um , wh why would that be , um , {vocalsound} considering that we actually got an improvement in near - mike performance using HTK ? And so , uh , with some input from , uh , Andreas , I have a theory in two parts . Um , first of all HTK {disfmarker} sorry , SR - the SRI system is doing channel adaptation , and so HTK wasn't . Um , so this , um {disfmarker} This mean subtraction approach will do a kind of channel {pause} normalization and so that might have given the HTK use of it a boost that wouldn't have been applied in the SRI case . And also , um , the {disfmarker} Andreas pointed out the SRI system is using more parameters . It 's got finer - grained acoustic models . So those finer - grained acoustic models could be more sensitive to the artifacts {pause} in the re - synthesized audio . Um . And me and Barry were listening to the re - synthesized audio and sometimes it seems like you get of a bit of an echo of speech in the background . And so that seems like it could be difficult for training , cuz you could have {pause} different phones {pause} lined up with a different foreground phone , {vocalsound} um , {vocalsound} depending on {pause} the timing of the echo . So , um , I 'm gonna try training on a larger data set , and then , eh , the system will have seen more examples o of these artifacts and hopefully will be more robust to them . So I 'm planning to use the Macrophone set of , um , read speech , and , um {disfmarker} Hmm . +Professor B: I had another thought just now , which is , uh , remember we were talking before about {disfmarker} we were talking in our meeting about , uh , this stuff that {disfmarker} some of the other stuff that Avendano did , where they were , um , getting rid of low - energy {pause} sections ? Um , uh , if you {disfmarker} if you did a high - pass filtering , as Hirsch did in {pause} late eighties to reduce some of the effects of reverberation , uh , uh , Avendano and Hermansky were arguing that , uh , perhaps one of the reasons for that working was ma may not have even been the filtering so much but the fact that when you filter a {disfmarker} an all - positive power spectrum you get some negative values , and you gotta figure out what to do with them if you 're gonna continue treating this as a power spectrum . So , what {disfmarker} what Hirsch did was , uh , set them to zero {disfmarker} set the negative values to zero . So if you imagine a {disfmarker} a waveform that 's all positive , which is the time trajectory of energy , um , and , uh , shifting it downwards , and then getting rid of the negative parts , that 's essentially throwing away the low - energy things . And it 's the low - energy parts of the speech where the reverberation is most audible . You know , you have the reverberation from higher - energy things showing up in {disfmarker} So in this case you have some artificially imposed {pause} reverberation - like thing . I mean , you 're getting rid of some of the other effects of reverberation , but because you have these non - causal windows , you 're getting these funny things coming in , uh , at n And , um , what if you did {disfmarker} ? I mean , there 's nothing to say that the {disfmarker} the processing for this re - synthesis has to be restricted to trying to get it back to the original , according to some equation . I mean , you also could , uh , just try to make it nicer . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: And one of the things you could do is , you could do some sort of VAD - like thing +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and you actually could take very low - energy sections and set them to some {disfmarker} some , uh , very low or {disfmarker} or near zero {pause} value . I mean , uh , I 'm just saying if in fact it turns out that {disfmarker} that these echoes that you 're hearing are , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: or pre - echoes , whichever they are {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} are , uh , part of what 's causing the problem , you actually could get rid of them . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Be pretty simple . I mean , you do it in a pretty conservative way +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so that if you made a mistake you were more likely to {pause} keep in an echo than to throw out speech . +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD G: Um , what is the reverberation time {pause} like {pause} there ? +Grad E: In thi in this room ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD G: On , uh , the {disfmarker} the one what {disfmarker} the s in the speech that you are {disfmarker} you are using like ? +Grad E: Y Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't know . +Professor B: So , it 's this room . +PhD G: It 's , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's {disfmarker} it 's this room . +PhD G: Oh , this room ? +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: so it 's {disfmarker} these are just microphone {disfmarker} this micro close microphone and a distant microphone , he 's doing these different tests on . +Grad F: Oh . +Professor B: Uh , we should do a measurement in here . I g think we never have . I think it 's {disfmarker} I would guess , uh , point seven , point eight seconds f uh , R T +Grad F: Hmm ! +Professor B: something like that ? But it 's {disfmarker} you know , it 's this room . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So . +PhD G: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . But the other thing is , he 's putting in {disfmarker} w I was using the word "" reverberation "" in two ways . He 's also putting in , uh , a {disfmarker} he 's taking out some reverberation , but he 's putting in something , because he has {pause} averages over multiple windows stretching out to twelve seconds , which are then being subtracted from the speech . And since , you know , what you subtract , sometimes you 'll be {disfmarker} you 'll be subtracting from some larger number and sometimes you won't . And {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So you can end up with some components in it that are affected by things that are seconds away . Uh , and if it 's a low {pause} energy compo portion , you might actually hear some {pause} funny things . +PhD G: Yeah . +Grad E: O o one thing , um , I noticed is that , um , the mean subtraction seems to make the PZM signals louder after they 've been re - synthesized . So I was wondering , is it possible that one reason it helped with the Aurora baseline system is {pause} just as a kind of gain control ? Cuz some of the PZM signals sound pretty quiet if you don't amplify them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I don't see why {disfmarker} why your signal is louder after processing , because yo +Grad E: Yeah . I don't know why - y , uh , either . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: I don't think just multiplying the signal by two would have any effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . I mean , I think if you really have louder signals , what you mean is that you have {pause} better signal - to - noise ratio . +PhD C: Well , well {disfmarker} +Professor B: So if what you 're doing is improving the signal - to - noise ratio , then it would be better . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But just it being bigger if {disfmarker} with the same signal - to - noise ratio {disfmarker} +Grad E: It w i i it wouldn't affect things . +Professor B: No . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Well , the system is {disfmarker} use {pause} the absolute energy , so it 's a little bit dependent on {disfmarker} on the {pause} signal level . But , not so much , I guess . +Professor B: Well , yeah . But it 's trained and tested on the same thing . +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor B: So if the {disfmarker} if the {disfmarker} if you change {vocalsound} in both training and test , the absolute level by a factor of two , it will n have no effect . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: Did you add {pause} this data to the training set , for the Aurora ? Or you just tested on this ? +Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Um . Did I w what ? +PhD A: Well , Morgan was just saying that , uh , as long as you do it in both training and testing , it shouldn't have any effect . +Grad E: Sorry ? Yeah . +PhD A: But I {disfmarker} I was {pause} sort of under the impression that you just tested with this data . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I b +PhD A: You didn't {pause} train it also . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} Right . I trained on clean TI - digits . I {disfmarker} I did the mean subtraction on clean TI - digits . But I didn't {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it made the clean ti TI - digits any louder . +Professor B: Oh , I see . +Grad E: I only remember noticing it made the , um , PZM signal louder . +Professor B: OK . Well , I don't understand then . Yeah . +Grad E: Huh . I don't know . If it 's {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} like , if it 's trying to find a {disfmarker} a reverberation filter , it could be that this reverberation filter is making things quieter . And then if you take it out {disfmarker} that taking it out makes things louder . I mean . +Professor B: Uh , no . I mean , {vocalsound} uh , there 's {disfmarker} there 's nothing inherent about removing {disfmarker} if you 're really removing , +Grad E: Nuh - huh . +Professor B: uh , r uh , then I don't {pause} see how that would make it louder . +Grad E: The mean . OK . Yeah , I see . +Professor B: So it might be just some {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . OK . So I should maybe listen to that stuff again . +Professor B: Yeah . It might just be some artifact of the processing that {disfmarker} that , uh , if you 're {disfmarker} Uh , yeah . I don't know . +Grad E: Oh . OK . +PhD A: I wonder if there could be something like , uh {disfmarker} for s for the PZM data , +PhD C: Eh +PhD A: uh , you know , if occasionally , uh , somebody hits the table or something , you could get a spike . Uh . I 'm just wondering if there 's something about the , um {disfmarker} you know , doing the mean normalization where , uh , it {disfmarker} it could cause {pause} you to have better signal - to - noise ratio . Um . +Professor B: Well , you know , there is this . Wait a minute . It {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} i maybe {disfmarker} i If , um {disfmarker} Subtracting the {disfmarker} the mean log spectrum is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is like dividing by the spectrum . So , depending what you divide by , if your {disfmarker} if s your estimate is off and sometimes you 're {disfmarker} you 're {disfmarker} you 're getting a small number , you could make it bigger . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a {disfmarker} a question of {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it could be that there 's some normalization that 's missing , or something to make it {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh , y you 'd think it shouldn't be larger , but maybe in practice it is . That 's something to think about . +Grad E: Hmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: I had a question about the system {disfmarker} the SRI system . So , {vocalsound} you trained it on TI - digits ? But except this , it 's exactly the same system as the one that was tested before and that was trained on {pause} Macrophone . Right ? So on TI - digits it gives you one point two percent error rate and on Macrophone it 's still O point eight . Uh , but is it {pause} exactly the same system ? +Grad E: Uh . I think so . +PhD C: Hmm . +Grad E: If you 're talking about the Macrophone results that Andreas had about , um , a week and a half ago , I think it 's the same system . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So you use VTL - uh , vocal tract length normalization and , um , like MLLR transformations also , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I 'm sorry , was his point eight percent , er , a {disfmarker} a result on testing on Macrophone or {disfmarker} or training ? +PhD C: all that stuff . +Grad E: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: It was {pause} training on Macrophone and testing {disfmarker} yeah , on {disfmarker} on meeting digits . +Professor B: Oh . So that was done already . So we were {disfmarker} Uh , and it 's point eight ? OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I 've just been text {comment} testing the new {pause} Aurora front - end with {disfmarker} well , Aurora system actually {disfmarker} so front - end and HTK , um , acoustic models on the meeting digits and it 's a little bit better than the previous system . We have {disfmarker} I have two point seven percent error rate . And before with the system that was proposed , it 's what ? It was three point nine . So . +Professor B: Oh , that 's a lot better . +PhD C: We are getting better . +Professor B: So , what {disfmarker} w ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +PhD G: With the {disfmarker} with the HTK back - end ? What we have for Aurora ? +PhD C: Yeah . Two point seven . +PhD G: I know in the meeting , like {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the meeting we have two point seven . +PhD G: Right . Oh . +Grad F: That 's with the new IIR filters ? +PhD C: Uh . Yeah , yeah . So , yeah , +Grad F: OK . +PhD C: we have {pause} the new LDA filters , and {disfmarker} I think , maybe {disfmarker} I didn't look , but one thing that makes a difference is this DC offset compensation . Uh , eh {disfmarker} Do y did you have a look at {disfmarker} at the meet uh , meeting digits , if they have a DC component , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I didn't . No . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD G: No . The DC component could be negligible . I mean , if you are {pause} recording it through a mike . I mean , any {disfmarker} all of the mikes have the DC removal {disfmarker} some capacitor sitting right in {pause} that bias it . +Professor B: Yeah . But this {disfmarker} uh , uh , uh , no . Because , uh , there 's a sample and hold in the A - toD. And these period these typically do have a DC offset . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} and they can be surprisingly large . It depends on the electronics . +PhD G: Oh , so it is the digital {disfmarker} OK . It 's the A - toD that introduces the DC in . +Professor B: Yeah . The microphone isn't gonna pass any DC . +PhD G: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: typi you know , unless {disfmarker} Actually , there are {pause} instrumentation mikes that {disfmarker} that do pass {disfmarker} go down to DC . But {disfmarker} but , +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: uh , no , it 's the electronics . And they {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: then there 's amplification afterwards . And you can get , I think it was {disfmarker} I think it was in the {pause} Wall Street Journal data that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} I can't remember , one of the DARPA things . There was this big DC - DC offset +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: we didn't {disfmarker} we didn't know about for a while , while we were {pause} messing with it . And we were getting these terrible results . And then we were talking to somebody and they said , "" Oh , yeah . Didn't you know ? Everybody knows that . There 's all this DC offset in th "" So , yes . You can have DC offset in the data . +PhD G: Oh , OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD G: OK . +PhD A: So was that {disfmarker} was that everything , Dave ? +Grad E: Oh . And I also , um , did some experiments {pause} about normalizing the phase . Um . So I c I came up with a web page that people can take a look at . And , um , the interesting thing that I tried was , um , Adam and Morgan had this idea , um , since my original attempts to , um , take the mean of the phase spectra over time and normalize using that , by subtracting that off , didn't work . Um , so , well , that we thought that might be due to , um , problems with , um , the arithmetic of phases . They {disfmarker} they add in this modulo two pi way and , um , there 's reason to believe that that approach of taking the mean of the phase spectrum wasn't really {pause} mathematically correct . So , {vocalsound} what I did instead is I {vocalsound} took the mean of the FFT spectrum without taking the log or anything , and then I took the phase of that , and I subtracted that phase {pause} off to normalize . But that , um , didn't work either . +Professor B: See , we have a different interpretation of this . He says it doesn't work . I said , I think it works magnificently , but just not for the task we intended . Uh , it gets rid of the speech . +PhD A: What does it leave ? +Grad F: Uh , gets rid of the speech . +Professor B: Uh , it leaves {disfmarker} you know , it leaves the junk . I mean , I {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's tremendous . +Grad F: Oh , wow . +Professor B: You see , all he has to do is go back and reverse what he did before , and he 's really got something . +PhD A: Well , could you take what was left over and then subtract that ? +Professor B: Ex - exactly . Yeah , you got it . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a general rule . +PhD G: Oh , it 's {disfmarker} +Professor B: Just listen very carefully to what I say and do the opposite . Including what I just said . +Grad E: And , yeah , that 's everything . +PhD A: All set ? Do you want to go , Stephane ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . Maybe , concerning these d still , these meeting digits . I 'm more interested in trying to figure out what 's still the difference between the SRI system and the Aurora system . And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . So , I think I will maybe train , like , gender - dependent models , because {pause} this is also one big difference between {pause} the two systems . Um , the other differences were {pause} the fact that maybe the acoustic models of the SRI are more {disfmarker} SRI system are more complex . But , uh , Chuck , you did some experiments with this and +PhD A: It didn't seem to help in the HTK system . +PhD C: it was hard t to {disfmarker} to have some exper some improvement with this . Um . +Professor B: Well , it sounds like they also have {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he 's saying they have all these , uh , uh , different kinds of adaptation . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: You know , they have channel adaptation . They have speaker adaptation . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . +PhD A: Well , there 's also the normalization . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: Like they do , um {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how they would do it when they 're working with the digits , +PhD C: The vocal tr +PhD A: but , like , in the Switchboard data , there 's , um {disfmarker} conversation - side normalization for the {pause} non - C - zero components , +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . This is another difference . Their normalization works like on {disfmarker} on the utterance levels . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But we have to do it {disfmarker} We have a system that does it on - line . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: So , it might be {disfmarker} it might be better with {disfmarker} it might be worse if the {pause} channel is constant , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: or {disfmarker} Nnn . +PhD G: And the acoustic models are like - k triphone models or {disfmarker} or is it the whole word ? +PhD C: SRI {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's tr +Grad F: SRI . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . I guess it 's triphones . +PhD G: It 's triphone . +Professor B: I think it 's probably more than that . +PhD C: Huh . +Professor B: I mean , so they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I thin think they use these , uh , uh , genone things . So there 's {disfmarker} there 's these kind of , uh , uh , pooled models and {disfmarker} and they can go out to all sorts of dependencies . +PhD G: Oh . It 's like the tied state . +Professor B: So . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: They have tied states and I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't real I 'm talk I 'm just guessing here . But I think {disfmarker} I think they {disfmarker} they don't just have triphones . +PhD G: OK . +Professor B: I think they have a range of {disfmarker} of , uh , dependencies . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Yeah . Well . Um . Well , the first thing I {disfmarker} that I want to do is just maybe these gender things . Uh . And maybe see with {pause} Andreas if {disfmarker} Well , I {disfmarker} I don't know {pause} how much it helps , what 's the model . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the n stuff on the numbers you got , the two point seven , is that using the same training data that the SRI system used and got one point two ? +PhD C: That 's right . So it 's the clean {pause} TI - digits training set . +PhD A: So exact same training data ? +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . I guess you used the clean training set . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: For {disfmarker} with the SRI system {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well . +Grad E: You know , the {disfmarker} the Aurora baseline is set up with these , um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this version of the clean training set that 's been filtered with this G - seven - one - two filter , and , um , to train the SRI system on digits S - Andreas used the original TI - digits , um , under U doctor - speech data TI - digits , which don't have this filter . But I don't think there 's any other difference . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: So is that {disfmarker} ? Uh , are {disfmarker} are these results comparable ? So you {disfmarker} you were getting with the , uh , Aurora baseline something like two point four percent {pause} on clean TI - digits , when , uh , training the SRI system with clean TR digits {disfmarker} {comment} TI - digits . Right ? And {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Uh - huh . +Professor B: Yeah . And , so , is your two point seven comparable , where you 're , uh , uh , using , uh , the submitted system ? +PhD C: Yeah . I think so . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So it 's {pause} about the same , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: maybe a little worse . +Grad E: W w it was one {disfmarker} one point two +PhD C: Ye +Grad E: with the SRI system , +Professor B: I 'm sorry . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +PhD C: The complete SRI system is one point two . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you were HTK . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: Right ? OK . That 's right . So {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: OK , so {pause} the comparable number then , uh {pause} for what you were talking about then , since it was HTK , would be the {pause} um , two point f +PhD C: It was four point something . Right ? The HTK system with , uh , b +Grad E: D d +Professor B: Oh , right , right , right , right . +PhD C: MFCC features {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean the b ? The baseline Aurora - two system , trained on TI - digits , tested on Meeting Recorder near , I think we saw in it today , and it was about six point six percent . +Professor B: Right . Right , right , right . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor B: OK . Alright . So {disfmarker} He 's doing some {pause} different things . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} Yeah . The only difference is the features , right now , between this and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yes . OK , good . So they are helping . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: That 's good to hear . Yeah . +PhD C: They are helping . Yeah . Um . Yeah . And another thing I {disfmarker} I maybe would like to do is to {pause} just test the SRI system that 's trained on Macrophone {disfmarker} test it on , uh , the noisy TI - digits , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: cuz I 'm still wondering {pause} where this {pause} improvement comes from . When you train on Macrophone , it seems better on meeting digits . But I wonder if it 's just because maybe {pause} Macrophone is acoustically closer to the meeting digits than {disfmarker} than TI - digit is , which is {disfmarker} TI - digits are very {pause} clean recorded digits +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know , it would also be interesting to see , uh {disfmarker} to do the regular Aurora test , +PhD C: Uh , f s +PhD A: um , but use the SRI system instead of HTK . +PhD C: That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . That 's what {pause} I wanted , just , uh {disfmarker} Yeah . So , just using the SRI system , test it on {disfmarker} and test it on {pause} Aurora TI - digits . Right . +PhD A: Why not the full Aurora , uh , test ? +PhD C: Um . Yeah . There is this problem of multilinguality yet . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: So we don't {disfmarker} +Professor B: You 'd have to train the SRI system with {disfmarker} with all the different languages . +PhD C: i i +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: We would have to train on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . That 's what I mean . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: So , like , comple +Professor B: It 'd be a {pause} lot of work . That 's the only thing . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well , I mean , +PhD C: Mmm . +PhD A: uh , uh , I guess the work would be into getting the {disfmarker} the files in the right formats , or something . Right ? I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Because when you train up the Aurora system , you 're , uh {disfmarker} you 're also training on all the data . +PhD C: That 's right . +PhD A: I mean , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . I see . Oh , so , OK . Right . I see what you mean . +Professor B: That 's true , but I think that also when we 've had these meetings week after week , oftentimes people have not done the full arrange of things +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: because {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on whatever it is they 're trying , because it 's a lot of work , even just with the HTK . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , it 's {disfmarker} it 's a good idea , but it seems like {pause} it makes sense to do some pruning +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: first with a {disfmarker} a test or two that makes sense for you , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: and then {pause} take the likely candidates and go further . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But , just testing on TI - digits would already give us some information {pause} about what 's going on . And {disfmarker} mm - hmm . Uh , yeah . OK . Uh , the next thing is this {disfmarker} this VAD problem that , um , um {disfmarker} So , I 'm just talking about the {disfmarker} the curves that I {disfmarker} I sent {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I sent you {disfmarker} so , whi that shows that {vocalsound} when the SNR decrease , {vocalsound} uh , the current {pause} VAD approach doesn't drop much frames {pause} for some particular noises , uh , which might be then noises that are closer to speech , uh , acoustically . +Professor B: I i Just to clarify something for me . I They were supp Supposedly , in the next evaluation , they 're going to be supplying us with boundaries . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So does any of this matter ? I mean , other than our interest in it . Uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Uh {disfmarker} Well . First of all , the boundaries might be , uh {disfmarker} like we would have t two hundred milliseconds or {disfmarker} before and after speech . Uh . So removing more than that might still make {pause} a difference {pause} in the results . +Professor B: Do we {disfmarker} ? I mean , is there some reason that we think that 's the case ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} No . Because we don't {disfmarker} didn't looked {pause} that much at that . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: But , {vocalsound} still , I think it 's an interesting problem . +Professor B: Oh , yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Um . Yeah . +Professor B: But maybe we 'll get some insight on that when {disfmarker} when , uh , the gang gets back from Crete . Because {pause} there 's lots of interesting problems , of course . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: And then the thing is if {disfmarker} if they really are going to have some means of giving us {pause} fairly tight , uh , boundaries , then that won't be so much the issue . +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Um But {vocalsound} I don't know . +PhD G: Because w we were wondering whether that {pause} VAD is going to be , like , a realistic one or is it going to be some manual segmentation . And then , like , if {disfmarker} if that VAD is going to be a realistic one , then we can actually use their markers to shift the point around , I mean , the way we want +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: to find a {disfmarker} I mean , rather than keeping the twenty frames , we can actually move the marker to a point which we find more {pause} suitable for us . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: But if that is going to be something like a manual , uh , segmenter , then we can't {pause} use that information anymore , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because that 's not going to be the one that is used in the final evaluation . +Professor B: Right . +PhD G: So . We don't know what is the type of {pause} {vocalsound} {pause} VAD which they 're going to provide . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . And actually there 's {disfmarker} Yeah . There 's an {disfmarker} uh , I think it 's still for {disfmarker} even for the evaluation , uh , it might still be interesting to {vocalsound} work on this because {pause} the boundaries apparently that they would provide is just , {vocalsound} um , starting of speech and end of speech {pause} uh , at the utterance level . And {disfmarker} Um . +PhD G: With some {disfmarker} some gap . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , with some pauses in the center , provided they meet that {disfmarker} whatever the hang - over time which they are talking . +PhD C: Yeah . But when you have like , uh , five or six frames , both {disfmarker} +PhD G: Yeah . Then the they will just fill {disfmarker} fill it up . +PhD C: it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} +PhD G: I mean , th {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So if you could get at some of that , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: although that 'd be hard . +PhD C: Yeah . It might be useful for , like , noise estimation , and a lot of other {pause} things that we want to work on . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD G: Yeah . +Professor B: Right . OK . +PhD C: But {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . So I did {disfmarker} I just {pause} started to test {pause} putting together two VAD which was {disfmarker} was not much work actually . Um , I im re - implemented a VAD that 's very close to the , {vocalsound} um , energy - based VAD {vocalsound} that , uh , the other Aurora guys use . Um . So , which is just putting a threshold on {pause} the noise energy , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and , detect detecting the first {pause} group of four frames {pause} that have a energy that 's above this threshold , and , uh , from this point , uh , tagging the frames there as speech . So it removes {vocalsound} the first silent portion {disfmarker} portion of each utterance . And it really removes it , um , still o on the noises where {pause} our MLP VAD doesn't {pause} work a lot . +Professor B: Mmm . +PhD C: Uh , +Professor B: Cuz I would have thought that having some kind of spectral {pause} information , +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh {disfmarker} uh , you know , in the old days people would use energy and zero crossings , for instance {disfmarker} uh , would give you some {pause} better performance . Right ? Cuz you might have low - energy fricatives or {disfmarker} or , uh {pause} stop consonants , or something like that . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD C: Yeah . So , your point is {disfmarker} will be to u use whatever {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh , that if you d if you use purely energy and don't look at anything spectral , then you don't have a good way of distinguishing between low - energy speech components and {pause} nonspeech . And , um , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: just as a gross generalization , most nonsp many nonspeech noises have a low - pass kind of characteristic , some sort of slope . And {disfmarker} and most , um , low - energy speech components that are unvoiced have a {disfmarker} a high - pass kind of characteristic {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: an upward slope . So having some kind of a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: uh , you know , at the beginning of a {disfmarker} of a {disfmarker} of an S sound for instance , just starting in , it might be pretty low - energy , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it will tend to have this high - frequency component . Whereas , {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} a lot of rumble , and background noises , and so forth will be predominantly low - frequency . Uh , you know , by itself it 's not enough to tell you , but it plus energy is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: it plus energy plus timing information is sort of {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean , if you look up in Rabiner and Schafer from like twenty - five years ago or something , that 's sort of {pause} what they were using then . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's not a {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD C: So , yeah . It {disfmarker} it might be that what I did is {disfmarker} so , removes like {vocalsound} low , um , {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} low - energy , uh , speech frames . Because {pause} the way I do it is I just {disfmarker} I just combine the two decisions {disfmarker} so , the one from the MLP and the one from the energy - based {disfmarker} with the {disfmarker} with the and {pause} operator . So , I only {pause} keep the frames where the two agree {pause} that it 's speech . So if the energy - based dropped {disfmarker} dropped low - energy speech , mmm , they {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are lost . Mmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: But s still , the way it 's done right now it {disfmarker} it helps on {disfmarker} on the noises where {disfmarker} it seems to help on the noises where {vocalsound} our VAD was not very {pause} good . +Professor B: Well , I guess {disfmarker} I mean , one could imagine combining them in different ways . But {disfmarker} but , I guess what you 're saying is that the {disfmarker} the MLP - based one has the spectral information . So . +PhD C: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But the way it 's combined wi is maybe done {disfmarker} Well , yeah . +Professor B: Well , you can imagine {disfmarker} +PhD C: The way I use a an a "" AND "" operator is {disfmarker} So , it {disfmarker} I , uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Is {disfmarker} ? +PhD C: The frames that are dropped by the energy - based system are {disfmarker} are , uh , dropped , even if the , um , MLP decides to keep them . +Professor B: Right . Right . And that might not be optimal , +PhD C: But , yeah . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: No +Professor B: but {disfmarker} I mean , I guess in principle what you 'd want to do is have a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh , a probability estimated by each one and {disfmarker} and put them together . +PhD C: Yeah . Mmm . M Yeah . +PhD A: Something that {disfmarker} that I 've used in the past is , um {disfmarker} when just looking at the energy , is to look at the derivative . And you {pause} make your decision when the derivative is increasing for {pause} so many frames . Then you say that 's beginning of speech . +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD A: But , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying to remember if that requires that you keep some amount of speech in a buffer . I guess it depends on how you do it . But {pause} I mean , that 's {disfmarker} that 's been a useful thing . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: Yeah . Well , every everywhere has a delay associated with it . I mean , you still have to k always keep a buffer , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: then only make a decision because {pause} you still need to smooth the {pause} decision further . +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD G: So that 's always there . +PhD A: Yeah . OK . +PhD C: Well , actually if I don't {disfmarker} maybe don't want to work too much of {disfmarker} on it right now . I just wanted to {disfmarker} to see if it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} what I observed was the re was caused by this {disfmarker} this VAD problem . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And it seems to be the case . Um . Uh , the second thing is the {disfmarker} this spectral subtraction . Um . Um , which I 've just started yesterday to launch a bunch of , uh , {nonvocalsound} twenty - five experiments , uh , with different , uh , values for the parameters that are used . So , it 's the Makhoul - type spectral subtraction which use {pause} an over - estimation factor . So , we substr I subtract more , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um , {nonvocalsound} {vocalsound} noise than the noise spectra that {pause} is estimated {pause} on the noise portion of the s uh , the utterances . So I tried several , uh , over - estimation factors . And after subtraction , I also add {pause} a constant noise , and I also try different , uh , {vocalsound} noise , uh , values and we 'll see what happen . +Professor B: Hmm . OK . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . But st still when we look at the , um {disfmarker} Well , it depends on the parameters that you use , but for moderate over - estimation factors and moderate noise level that you add , you st have a lot of musical noise . Um . On the other hand , when you {pause} subtract more and when you add more noise , you get rid of this musical noise but {pause} maybe you distort a lot of speech . So . Well . Mmm . Well , it {disfmarker} until now , it doesn't seem to help . But We 'll see . So the next thing , maybe I {disfmarker} what I will {pause} try to {disfmarker} to do is just {pause} to try to smooth mmm , {vocalsound} the , um {disfmarker} to smooth the d the result of the subtraction , to get rid of the musical noise , using some kind of filter , or {disfmarker} +PhD G: Can smooth the SNR estimate , also . +PhD C: Yeah . Right . Mmm . +PhD G: Your filter is a function of SNR . Hmm ? +PhD C: Yeah . So , to get something that 's {disfmarker} would be closer to {pause} what you tried to do with Wiener filtering . +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: And {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD G: Actually , it 's , uh {disfmarker} Uh . I don't know , it 's {disfmarker} go ahead . +PhD C: It {disfmarker} +PhD G: And it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Maybe you can {disfmarker} +PhD G: go ahead . +PhD C: I think it 's {disfmarker} That 's it for me . +PhD G: OK . So , uh {disfmarker} u th I 've been playing with this Wiener filter , like . And there are {disfmarker} there were some bugs in the program , so I was p initially trying to clear them up . Because one of the bug was {disfmarker} I was assuming that always the VAD {disfmarker} uh , the initial frames were silence . It always started in the silence state , but it wasn't for some utterances . So the {disfmarker} it wasn't estimating the noise initially , and then it never estimated , because I assumed that it was always silence . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . So this is on SpeechDat - Car Italian ? +PhD G: Yeah . +PhD C: So , in some cases s there are also {disfmarker} +PhD G: SpeechDat - Car Italian . Yeah . There 're a few cases , actually , which I found later , that there are . +PhD C: o Uh - huh . +PhD G: So that was one of the {pause} bugs that was there in estimating the noise . And , uh , so once it was cleared , uh , I ran a few experiments with {pause} different ways of smoothing the estimated clean speech and how t estimated the noise and , eh , smoothing the SNR also . And so the {disfmarker} the trend seems to be like , {vocalsound} uh , smoothing the {pause} current estimate of the clean speech for deriving the SNR , which is like {pause} deriving the Wiener filter , seems to be helping . Then updating it quite fast using a very small time constant . So we 'll have , like , a few results where the {disfmarker} estimating the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} More smoothing is helping . But still it 's like {disfmarker} it 's still comparable to the baseline . I haven't got anything beyond the baseline . But that 's , like , not using any Wiener filter . And , uh , so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm trying a few more experiments with different time constants for smoothing the noise spectrum , and smoothing the clean speech , and smoothing SNR . So there are three time constants that I have . So , I 'm just playing around . So , one is fixed in the line , like {pause} Smoothing the clean speech is {disfmarker} is helping , so I 'm not going to change it that much . But , the way I 'm estimating the noise and the way I 'm estimating the SNR , I 'm just trying {disfmarker} trying a little bit . So , that h And the other thing is , like , putting a floor on the , uh , SNR , because that {disfmarker} if some {disfmarker} In some cases the clean speech is , like {disfmarker} when it 's estimated , it goes to very low values , so the SNR is , like , very low . And so that actually creates a lot of variance in the low - energy region of the speech . So , I 'm thinking of , like , putting a floor also for the SNR so that it doesn't {pause} vary a lot in the low - energy regions . And , uh . So . The results are , like {disfmarker} So far I 've been testing only with the {pause} baseline , which is {disfmarker} which doesn't have any LDA filtering and on - line normalization . I just want to separate the {disfmarker} the contributions out . So it 's just VAD , plus the Wiener filter , plus the baseline system , which is , uh , just the spectral {disfmarker} I mean , the mel sp mel , uh , frequency coefficients . Um . And the other thing that I tried was {disfmarker} but I just {vocalsound} took of those , uh , {pause} {vocalsound} Carlos filters , which Hynek had , to see whether it really h helps or not . I mean , it was just a {disfmarker} a run to see whether it really degrades or it helps . And it 's {disfmarker} it seems to be like it 's not {vocalsound} hurting a lot by just blindly picking up one filter which is nothing but a {pause} four hertz {disfmarker} a band - pass m m filter on the cubic root of the power spectrum . So , that was the filter that Hy - uh , Carlos had . And so {disfmarker} Yeah . Just {disfmarker} just to see whether it really {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} is it worth trying or not . So , it doesn't seems to be degrading a lot on that . So there must be something that I can {disfmarker} that can be done with that type of noise compensation also , which {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I guess I would ask Carlos about that . I mean , how {disfmarker} how he derived those filters and {disfmarker} and where d if he has any filters which are derived on OGI stories , added with some type of noise which {disfmarker} what we are using currently , or something like that . So maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: This is cubic root of power spectra ? +PhD G: Yeah . Cubic root of power spectrum . +Professor B: So , if you have this band - pass filter , you probably get n you get negative values . Right ? +PhD G: Yeah . And I 'm , like , floating it to z zeros right now . +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: So it has , like {disfmarker} the spectrogram has , like {disfmarker} Uh , it actually , uh , enhances the onset and offset of {disfmarker} I mean , the {disfmarker} the begin and the end of the speech . So it 's {disfmarker} there seems to be , like , deep valleys in the begin and the end of , like , high - energy regions , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: because the filter has , like , a sort of Mexican - hat type structure . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So , those are the regions where there are , like {disfmarker} when I look at the spectrogram , there are those deep valleys on the begin and the end of the speech . But the rest of it seems to be , like , pretty nice . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD G: So . That 's {pause} something I observe using that filter . And {disfmarker} Yeah . There are a few {disfmarker} very {disfmarker} not a lot of {disfmarker} because the filter doesn't have a {disfmarker} really a deep negative portion , so that it 's not really creating a lot of negative values in the cubic root . So , I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll s may continue with that for some w I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} Maybe I 'll ask Carlos a little more about how to play with those filters , and {disfmarker} but while {pause} making this Wiener filter better . So . Yeah . That {disfmarker} that 's it , Morgan . +Professor B: Uh , last week you were also talking about building up the subspace {pause} stuff ? +PhD G: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would actually m m didn't get enough time to work on the subspace last week . It was mostly about {pause} finding those bugs and +Professor B: OK . +PhD G: th you know , things , and I didn't work much on that . +PhD A: How about you , Carmen ? +PhD D: Well , I am still working with , eh , VTS . And , one of the things that last week , eh , say here is that maybe the problem was with the diff because the signal have different level of energy . +Professor B: Hmm ? +PhD D: And , maybe , talking with Stephane and with Sunil , we decide that maybe it was interesting to {disfmarker} to apply on - line normalization before applying VTS . But then {vocalsound} we decided that that 's {disfmarker} it doesn't work absolutely , because we modified also the noise . And {disfmarker} Well , thinking about that , we {disfmarker} we then {disfmarker} we decide that maybe is a good idea . We don't know . I don't hav I don't {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} I didn't {pause} do the experiment yet {disfmarker} to apply VTS in cepstral domain . +Professor B: The other thing {pause} is {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} so , in {disfmarker} i i and {disfmarker} Not {disfmarker} and C - zero would be a different {disfmarker} So you could do a different normalization for C - zero than for other things anyway . I mean , the other thing I was gonna suggest is that you could have {pause} two kinds of normalization with {disfmarker} with , uh , different time constants . So , uh , you could do some normalization {vocalsound} s uh , before the VTS , and then do some other normalization after . I don't know . But {disfmarker} but C - zero certainly acts differently than the others do , +PhD D: Uh . +Professor B: so that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Well , we s decide to m to {disfmarker} to obtain the new expression if we work in the cepstral domain . And {disfmarker} Well . I am working in that now , +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: but {vocalsound} I 'm not sure if that will be usefu useful . I don't know . It 's k it 's k It 's quite a lot {disfmarker} It 's a lot of work . +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD D: Well , it 's not too much , but this {disfmarker} it 's work . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And I want to know if {disfmarker} if we have some {pause} feeling that {pause} the result {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would like to know if {disfmarker} I don't have any feeling if this will work better than apply VTS aft in cepstral domain will work better than apply in m mel {disfmarker} in filter bank domain . I r I 'm not sure . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know absolutely nothing . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . Well , you 're {disfmarker} I think you 're the first one here to work with VTS , so , uh , maybe we could call someone else up who has , ask them their opinion . Uh , +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a good feeling for it . Um . +PhD G: Pratibha . +PhD C: Actually , the VTS that you tested before was in the log domain and so {pause} the codebook is e e kind of dependent on the {pause} level of the speech signal . +PhD D: Yeah ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} So I expect it {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} if you have something that 's independent of this , I expect it to {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to , uh , be a better model of speech . +PhD D: To have better {disfmarker} +PhD C: And . Well . +Professor B: You {disfmarker} you wouldn't even need to switch to cepstra . Right ? I mean , you can just sort of normalize the {disfmarker} +PhD C: No . We could normali norm I mean , remove the median . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . And then you have {pause} one number which is very dependent on the level cuz it is the level , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and the other which isn't . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . But here also we would have to be careful about removing the mean {pause} of speech and not of noise . +PhD D: Ye +PhD C: Because it 's like {pause} first doing general normalization +PhD D: Yea +PhD C: and then noise removal , which is {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . We {disfmarker} I was thinking to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to estimate the noise {pause} with the first frames and then apply the VAD , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: before the on - line normalization . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: We {disfmarker} we see {disfmarker} Well , I am thinking {vocalsound} about that and working about that , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: but I don't have result this week . +Professor B: Sure . I mean , one of the things we 've talked about {disfmarker} maybe it might be star time to start thinking about pretty soon , is as we look at the pros and cons of these different methods , how do they fit in with one another ? Because {pause} we 've talked about potentially doing some combination of a couple of them . Maybe {disfmarker} maybe pretty soon we 'll have some sense of what their {pause} characteristics are , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so we can see what should be combined . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Is that it ? OK ? +Professor B: OK . Why don't we read some digits ? +PhD A: Yep . Want to go ahead , Morgan ? +Professor B: Sure . +PhD A: Transcript L dash two one five . +Professor B: O K . +","In the meeting, Professors B, PhD candidates A, C, D, G, Grad F, and E discussed various ongoing research projects: + +1. Professor B reflected on past experiences with the TORRENT chip project, noting that they believed they were two months away from completion for two years. +2. PhD A proposed doing status reports and agreed to wait for Sunil's arrival before discussing his section. +3. Grad F discussed working on a proposal, aiming to classify intermediate categories and hoping to draft it by Monday. Grad F also detailed their upcoming qualification exam, planning to give a proposal and presentation before answering questions. +4. Grad E shared results on mean subtraction using the SRI system and the differences in performance due to near and far microphones. The discussion involved channel adaptation, acoustic models, and the effects of reverberation. +5. Professor B suggested new ways to process re-synthesized audio to potentially improve quality, such as voice activity detection techniques that focus on low-energy sections. +6. PhD G inquired about the reverberation time in a particular room being a factor in their tests. +7. Grad E planned to normalize phase spectra and was advised by Professor B that this process might inadvertently remove speech but could be reversed for positive effects. +8. PhD C shared results from testing the new Aurora front-end and discussed differences between the SRI system and the Aurora system, gender-dependent models, and the potential of training on different data sets to understand improvements. +9. PhD G talked about work on Wiener filter improvements and exploring the benefits of using specific Carlos filters. +10. PhD D described continued work with VTS (vector Taylor series) and considering whether to apply VTS in the cepstral domain and normalization concerns. +11. Finally, Professor B read some digits as part of a transcript verification. + +Overall, the group focused on various technical issues, experiment results, and contemplated strategies for improving signal processing and speech recognition tasks." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good afternoon. Can I welcome Members to the virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee this afternoon? In accordance with Standing Order 34.19, I've determined that the public are excluded from the committee's meeting, in order to protect public health. In accordance with Standing Order 34.21, notice of this decision was included in the agenda for this meeting, which was published last Thursday. This meeting is, however, being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, with all participants joining via video-conference. A record of proceedings will be published as usual. Aside from the procedural adaptation related to conducting proceedings remotely, all other Standing Order requirements for committees remain in place. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation from Welsh to English is available. Can I remind everyone that the microphones will be controlled centrally, so there's no need to turn them on and off individually? We've received apologies for absence from Hefin David AM, and there is no substitution. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay, thank you. Can I just note for the record that if for any reason I drop out of the meeting, the committee has agreed that Dawn Bowden AM will temporarily chair while I try to rejoin? Moving on, then, to item 2 this afternoon, which is an evidence session with the Welsh Government in relation to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and social services as they relate to children and young people in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Vaughan Gething AM, the Minister for Health and Social Services; Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Albert Heaney, deputy director general of the health and social services group; Nicola Edwards, deputy director, childcare, play and early years; Jean White, chief nursing officer; and Tracey Breheny, who is deputy director of mental health, substance misuse and vulnerable groups. Thank you all very much for your attendance today—we appreciate your time. We've got lots of questions that we'd like to cover, which we'll go straight into, with questions from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Good afternoon. How much do we understand about how this virus impacts children and young people, and their role in transmitting the virus? And how important is it that this is considered in the Welsh Government's exit strategy, especially in the context of reopening schools? +Vaughan Gething AM: Okay. I think it's fair to say that our understanding is developing across all age ranges about the virus and its impact. It's still the case that children and young people are less likely to be affected significantly by COVID-19 than people with a range of healthcare conditions, and in particular the age grade that we've seen, and that's underpinned the advice we've given to the whole population about self-isolation by people in age categories, as well as the extremely vulnerable group we advise to shield. We still don't understand everything about the role that children have to play in the transmitting of the virus, and this is one of the difficulties we face. Because in cold and flu, children transmit the virus and they're also susceptible, in particular to the flu, as well; that's why we have a childhood immunisation programme for the flu as well. We do know that there's some developing evidence about what's called a Kawasaki-like syndrome, but that's affecting very small numbers of children. We have one possible case in Wales—a child who's in critical care—but that isn't confirmed. That's still a developing knowledge base. So, the rest of the world is still trying to understand that too. But the generals still apply—that children are less likely to be affected than older people, but can nevertheless still become unwell, and that's, if you like, one of the few positives in this condition. But as I say, we're still learning, so I won't try and present a fully accurate or finalised picture of knowledge in this area. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And in terms—[Inaudible.] +Vaughan Gething AM: Chair. Sorry. Excuse me, Chair. Sorry—with apologies to the Member, my translation stopped after a while, so I heard the first part translated, and then it just fell off. I'm really sorry, but I didn't want to try to answer a different question to the one that may be being asked, and don't think that's fair to the Member or other members of the committee. +Lynne Neagle AM: Can we check that translation is back on, please, and maybe Siân could repeat her question? +Vaughan Gething AM: I can hear it, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân, would you mind repeating that, please? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Not at all. I was discussing NHS services, including critical care services, and I was asking whether there is sufficient capacity in place to manage any increase. We, of course, hope that there won't be any increase, but should there be an increase, particularly in paediatric cases of coronavirus—let's say such a thing were to happen and this rare syndrome that you mentioned did emerge here in Wales—do we have the capacity in place to deal with these, and with the impact of coronavirus more generally on children? +Vaughan Gething AM: At this point in time, the answer is 'yes', and there is always a significant caveat, though, and the 'but' that comes in there is that despite the fact that we've got a plan for surge capacity in paediatric care—. So, when we increased critical care right across the national health service, we of course looked at paediatric care as part of that as well. So, we can flex up our capacity. But the challenge in all of that this is—it's part of my caution and the Government's caution about moves out of lockdown. So, it's much easier to go into lockdown than to come out of it, and I know you heard evidence from the Minister for Education last week about the approach that she wants to take and the principles behind doing that. So, actually, we'll need to think carefully about if we are reopening schools, even on a limited basis, what that then does to the circulation of coronavirus within that group of children as well as within the wider community, and then to try to understand whether the current capacity we have planned for in surge capacity is still going to be enough, because, actually, one of the real success stories of the first stage of the fight with coronavirus is that we haven't had our critical care capacity filled up. It's been extended, and the extension has meant that we haven't been overtopped. If we hadn't done that, we definitely would have been. And we'll need to carry on testing ourselves and seeing what's happening and looking at the evidence and making sure that the plan we already have got that we published for paediatric critical care is still fit for purpose, and again to reconsider if we need to do things differently. But that's part of the difficulty of being a Minister at the moment—you don't know everything that's coming, and on this disease in particular, we do know that we're still learning with each passing day. +Lynne Neagle AM: [Inaudible.]—Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: Hello. Yes, those are the questions I had on that section. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Lovely. Thank you very much. Right, we'll move on now then to some question on access to health services from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Minister, just some concern that you will have heard about in terms of parents and carers maybe not taking their children into the healthcare system for other conditions while the coronavirus pandemic is with us. How are you monitoring that situation at the moment and have you had to look at your own commutation strategy in relation to that? +Vaughan Gething AM: We've had to look at some specifics around communication, so challenges about not just different languages, but about how we get messages to people in a very different environment, and it's really challenging. So, for example, our health visitor service has absolutely not stopped. We've had to think about the way it works, and I had this conversation earlier this week with the chief nurse. But the bigger challenge are parents refusing to engage with the service. I understand people's fear and anxiety, but that then means that their family, and in particular their child, isn't getting the sort of proactive care that we would want them to have. So, there's a real concern both at the professional leadership end and for the chief nurse and for Ministers as well about how we can get through. That's actually about rebuilding people's confidence in the service, and that isn't straightforward because there's a broader concern about coronavirus still circulating. But I think for us it's really important to reiterate that we have thought again about how to provide the service. We've thought about how to protect staff and families and the very clear message to parents is to please make sure that when health and care professionals are calling to help and support your family, please discuss your concerns with them. We're doing even more remotely, via telephone and online as well. There are times you need to be physically in the same place, for example on routine vaccinations, because we certainly haven't stopped that programme either, and I really wouldn't want to see that one of the unintended consequences of what we've done is that if parents don't engage with that service, we could potentially see a rise in other diseases. We're all, I think—not just you in your constituency, but others who are on this call and others as well—seeing an occasional reappearance of measles, and that's because people didn't engage with the vaccination programme. I don't want, either myself or a different health Minister in the future, to be sat here talking about how in years to come the failure to engage in a vaccination programme has led to clearly avoidable but significant harm to children and young people and the communities they live in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Jean, you wanted to come in. +Vaughan Gething AM: You need to unmute yourself. Oh, no— +Professor Jean White: Thank you. I just want to add to what the Minister said. So, I approached the immunisation lead in Public Health Wales to see exactly what has been happening recently and they said at the very beginning of the outbreak parents were very reluctant about coming forward for their routine immunisations, but recently, through lots of energy from the immunisation clinics and the leads within it reaching out to families, that trend seems to have turned and there's now a much better attendance. One of the most important things we can do to protect our children is to make sure they have their vaccinations. So, yes, there was a bit of a downturn, but it does seem to be improving at the moment. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Okay, thank you. And that answered my second question, Chair, so I'm happy to leave it there. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We're going to go on now to some questions about mental health from Siân Gwenllian. Siân. +Sian Gwenllian AM: It's a cause of great concern to us all, of course, in terms of the impact of this crisis on mental health and well-being among our children and young people. So, what assessment has the Government undertaken of the impact on these aspects in young people and what work is being done to understand the impact of the pandemic? What longer term measures will be put in place and what support services will be put in place? +Vaughan Gething AM: Again, I think it's helpful that you've already heard from the education Minister last week, because I think the first of her key principles for returning to school is the impact on the emotional health and well-being of children. So, children's mental health was a central concern and remains so for both myself and the education Minister. Part of the honest challenge, again, is that we don't fully understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children but we do expect there will have been an impact. So, we're working together with both health boards and our own knowledge and analytical services across the Government to both try to further understand what that is and the difference. Until we have more contact with families, we may not fully understand that, and that's a real point of concern for me. In all of the unknowns within this, the impact on mental health and well-being is absolutely one of them, because we're looking at how we then develop not just a recovery plan for the economy but a recovery plan around mental health, how we support people, and that will have to be informed by the understanding of what's happening when we get more engagement with families about the level of need, and then how we need to think about that. Obviously, it's a key factor for their return to school, but, actually, for the life children and young people lead outside the school environment, and that will be difficult because we're going to phase out of lockdown—it's not going to be a one-hit measure. That absolutely isn't going to happen. We're going to be looking at, at each point, what difference has been made, what more we can do. And, again, there are the efforts we're making to make sure that our online support services and our telephone support services—that we keep on reminding people that they're there and are available, and we want people to make use of them, because I know, as this committee said, we'd much rather be able to support people and intervene earlier rather than wait until there's a much bigger problem in a period of months in the future. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, in reality, there's been no assessment undertaken because it's difficult to do that. So, the full picture in terms of the outcomes of the crisis—you don't know what they are at the moment as things stand. +Vaughan Gething AM: We can't know, because we don't have that level of contact. There is a development—. I wouldn't say that no work's being done, but I couldn't tell you honestly that that work is finalised and we have a definitive understanding of the picture. If I tried to say that, then I'm sure you'd ask me, 'How on earth can you say that? If you're not having regular contact with people, you can't possibly understand the picture.' And it's much better to say, 'We don't understand the full picture. We know there'll have been an impact. We're working alongside health boards and others, but we'll know more as we carry on having more contact with families.' I'll look at a variety of different areas, again, both to reform the recovery plan, but also then to understand what we need to do at various points in the future, and the picture that we're seeing isn't straightforward and we need to make sure that we don't try to pretend to ourselves or to the public that there is a one-off measure that will allow us to be successful in all the areas that we'd want to be. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But can you give the committee an assurance today that this area of mental health and well-being is going to be a priority for you as health Minister? +Vaughan Gething AM: Of course. Not just on the work we've done in the past; not just because it's one of the key principles for the education Minister about the reopening of schools, but it is a real worry list for me about how we understand the impact on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and to move forwards, that we don't end up with an entire generation of children and young people who grow up with a range of damage because we haven't thought about what that will look like. So, the mental health recovery plan will of course be of very real importance to me. In amongst all the other priorities I have, I'm certainly not going to allow the mental health and well-being of children and young people to be forgotten. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And how does the current capacity in terms of child and adolescent mental health services compare to service capacity prior to the coronavirus outbreak in Wales? Have you had to shift some resources over from CAMHS, for example, in order to deal with more general aspects of coronavirus? +Vaughan Gething AM: No, we've actually got—. Maybe perhaps it might be helpful, Chair, if Tracey Breheny could say something about the way that we're monitoring the impact we have, in terms of we've got a reporting tool, but also weekly contact with leads in CAMHS services. +Lynne Neagle AM: Tracey. +Tracey Breheny: Of course. Thanks, Minister. Yes, on that question, we moved pretty quickly at the beginning of the pandemic phase to put in place, as the Minister said, a weekly monitoring tool of all local health boards, so through that tool, we look at that every week in terms of collecting information. Whilst national reporting's been stood down, we are picking up assurance through that tool on things like staff sickness in CAMHS services, referral numbers and so on, so we do have that tool in place, and at the moment, that's telling us that the system can meet the capacity; has the capacity to meet need. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Have CAMHS staff been shifted over to do other work during this virus outbreak? +Tracey Breheny: There has been some movement, as I'm saying, around health boards, particularly where in the first phase of the epidemic the concentration was on in-patient provision, providing critical care, but my understanding is from the latest tool that we looked at last week, those staff are gradually not just returning to work from self-isolation or whatever, or from different parts of the system. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then, what about the capacity for CAMHS primary mental health services? Has there been a reduction in that capacity since the beginning of the pandemic in terms of in-patients? Because that's what I'm hearing, that there has been such a reduction, but how are those patients then treated and served? +Tracey Breheny: In terms of in-patient capacity, that is in the system in both the north Wales and in the south Wales unit at the moment. There were some discharges of young people, but we've had the assurance that that was only undertaken where it was clinically safe to do so and where the community support was in place. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally in this section from me, given that schools are of course closed and that schools are so very important in terms of signposting young people towards services, how can young people access appropriate services—online services, for example? How are they signposted towards those services at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Well, we've not closed off general practice and, as you know, we've expanded the ability for people to access services in an online manner. We've expanded a range of telephone advice services, so the telephone advice service we already provide, we've made sure that's maintained, and both myself and the deputy Minister have referred to that on a number of occasions. I think the real struggle and the real difficulty is actually how you punch through different messages when the broader news agenda is so overwhelmingly focused on headline messages in other areas. That is, again, a worry for me, but the communications we have within the health and care system, people should know where to refer people to and how to provide access to both telephone and online support that continues to be available, and actually, as I say, we've expanded that right across our healthcare system. That's what I’m keen to see continue into the future. Whatever the post-COVID-19 world is, I don't want to miss out on the progress we have made in the online provision of services. Of course, most children and young people expect to be able to access services in an online manner already. +Sian Gwenllian AM: But, of course, there will be some who are missed; they may fall between two stools because they won’t know where to turn. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, and that, again, comes back to our challenge of how we help children and young people in their context, with their families, to know where support and advice and guidance is. Many people are defaulting to their general practitioner if they can't find advice somewhere else, so that's why there's the information we're providing through general practice to signpost people, so those pathways haven’t been closed off. It's about making sure that people have alternative means that they’re prepared to use at this point in time. If we go back to where we started this evidence session, we were talking about the difficulty of families who don't want to engage in a traditional person-to-person contact or being in the same room as someone else or allowing people into their home. So, there's a real challenge about how we make the service available, but then encourage people to take it up, so that we don’t see much greater harm that we have to try and resolve at a later point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. I've got a supplementary from Suzy Davies, and can I remind Ministers about concise answers, please? Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, thank you. Just as we're speaking about children and young people's mental health, I wonder if you can confirm whether you've seen the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child's reports about what they call the grave physical and psychological effect on children and young people, and whether the operational guidance you've given out is responding to that in any way, or maybe there was something in that that you hadn’t thought of and you can respond to as we go along. +Vaughan Gething AM: I, personally, haven't read that advice, but the Government's already concerned about the direct physical and mental health impact of lockdown restrictions. You don't need to be a parent to recognise that that’s a potential issue for children and young people. But, I'm sure—. I haven't read it, but that's been signposted, so I can check with officials if they have and if that would change the advice and the position that we're already adopting, because we do regularly look at a range of advice from a range of sources, including the UN, the World Health Organization and others. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and we are going to come onto children's rights. But, as you know, Minister, the prevention of young suicide is a cause that is very close to my heart. Can I ask what assessment the Welsh Government has made of an increase in suicide amongst children and young people during this pandemic and because of this pandemic? +Vaughan Gething AM: Apart from the general concern that I've expressed on mental health generally, we are already investigating, we're having a—. We've commissioned, through the Government, the delivery unit to work with the national advisory group, including Dr Ann John and other people, to review the current, unexpected deaths during the start of the pandemic here in Wales, because we want to try to understand the wider concerns about the potential effects of the restrictions on the mental health and well-being of children and young people, and if that is leading to a spike in suicide or not. So, that's why we've commissioned that review to be carried out with the current numbers of unexpected deaths that we have, so we're able then to provide a report to understand where we are. My understanding is that we should have a report on that review before the end of this month and, obviously, I know the committee’s got an interest, so if it's helpful we can write to you once we've had a chance to receive the report and to look at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, please. Thank you. In terms of provision of crisis care, then, how has that been impacted by the pandemic? Are those crisis services available for children and young people who need them at the moment? +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, they continue to be available. We still have seven-day-a-week crisis care. We've made clear that mental health services, including those for children and young people, are essential services to be provided. They're not services to be scaled down. They were not part of the series of measures that I stopped within the health service on 13 March. We have built up those crisis care services over a period of time, and the last thing we want to see is to see them disappear during this period of time when there are well-understood concerns about emotional and mental health. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Moving on to perinatal mental health, this morning I hosted a round-table with the NSPCC where we heard about lots of good practice that's going on in terms of supporting new mothers and their families in this period, but I wonder if you can tell the committee what you are doing as a Government to make sure that there is consistent perinatal support for all women across Wales in what is a difficult time for any new mother, let alone in a pandemic. +Vaughan Gething AM: We continue, again, to provide our perinatal mental health service. That's not been stopped either. We've also been looking at how that's provided on a phone or online basis where possible, because again the same concerns exist about physical contact with people. So, we're looking to make sure that the progress isn't lost that we've made. We know there is more to go. So, the service may have changed, but it still absolutely exists. And again, part of the challenge in all of this is about the pause or the interruption in work to create the in-patient capacity that I've previously committed to. So, I want to understand what that really means, but again the problem is, at this point in the pandemic, I can't give you an answer about what that means for that in-patient provision. We're still committed to it, but I'm concerned about the time frame—that is partly about the length and the extent. But again, I'm really impressed by the continuing commitment of our staff to deliver this service for women in what is a particularly uncertain time. It's difficult enough in terms of the challenge in terms of perinatal mental health in normal times, about people being prepared to come forward and then receiving the sort of response they'd want, and even more so now. +Lynne Neagle AM: Is the Welsh Government aware that there's apparently been a decrease in the numbers of women being willing to look at mother and baby unit provision, and will you be taking that into account in your planning? Because, obviously, we wouldn't want people to think that was because of a lack of need; it's down to fear and the lockdown. +Vaughan Gething AM: Yes, we're aware there's been a reduction in people wanting to make use of the service—or being prepared to make use of the service is probably a better phrase—because we know that's the same with a range of other areas. There aren't fewer people having strokes than there were at this period of time last year; the reason why the figures are different is the way that people are behaving because of their concerns about coronavirus. So, I certainly wouldn't be using this period of time to plan for the need that exists for a facility that we want to create. So, I'm happy to give that assurance, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. It's a straightforward one, really. Obviously, we have the detail of the third sector resilience fund and the—there are two funds, aren't there, for third sector organisations? But can you give us some indication of how much of that support is being targeted to children and young people, and perhaps you can specifically mention how much of the £6.3 million for hospices is for children's hospices? I don't mind who answers that one. +Lynne Neagle AM: The Deputy Minister would like to come in, I think. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Certainly, I'm sure the committee is aware, as Suzy has said, of the funds that are available for third sector services. The Deputy Minister and the Chief Whip, of course, announced on 6 April the £24 million Welsh Government third sector COVID-19 response fund, and that of course is more than we would have had as a result of consequentials from the UK Government. They can also benefit from the £400 million economic resilience fund, but I am aware that some groups don't benefit from that and they may not qualify for that. So, we've also got third sector support being delivered by WCVA, such as the voluntary services emergency fund, which supports volunteering, and the third sector resilience fund, supporting organisations to stay afloat. We are working very closely with the third sector on issues such as support for fostering services, care leavers and repurposing funding so that they can support the crises. Voices from Care Cymru has developed a specific offer for care leavers, and the Fostering Network provides extended helplines. We've got lots of examples of third sector partners working with children and young people. Childline bases in Wales remain open and operational, and are still providing information and support. And, actually, about 50 per cent of contact with Childline at the moment is to do with COVID-19. NSPCC has put together a support page for young people about COVID-19. The NSPCC UK helpline have also reported a decrease in calls resulting in a referral to children's social services at the start of the lockdown period, but, since then, the numbers have actually risen. So, there are lots of examples of help for children. Meic, Action for Children, and, of course, Voices From Care Cymru have come up with their own specific package. In terms of the actual percentage that is being spent on children, I can't give you an actual figure for that, but, certainly, there are a whole range of projects that are there helping children. I think the Minister for Health and Social Services will be able to respond to the hospice question. +Vaughan Gething AM: It's about £1.5 million from the £6.3 million that's gone to Tŷ Gobaith and Tŷ Hafan, Suzy. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much for that. So, it's about 25 per cent. Perhaps if you could ask the Deputy Minister, when she's in a position to do so, to let us have a note. Before we finish on this point, could I ask the Deputy Minister, again, about whether any of the things you've been talking about now is additional money, because, obviously, you mentioned yourself one of these funds is £24 million. Some of the work you mentioned is continuity of existing work. So, again, if you don't have the answer to hand, perhaps you could send us a note in due course about how much extra is going in. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think most of those things I mentioned are things that are already there, and the £24 million is for support and extra help. So, any more information, I can send to you. +Suzy Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next questions, then, are from Dawn Bowden on safeguarding and child protection. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Deputy Minister, because one of the questions I was going to ask was around some of the work that you've been doing with the third sector on safeguarding and child protection, and I think you've covered that. But what I'm particularly keen to find out is how you're monitoring the impact of coronavirus on child protection and safeguarding in the round. I know the health Minister raised this as a concern in Plenary only recently, and it's really how we are monitoring it, what concerns have been identified, and how we're going to start to tackle some of those. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you very much, Dawn, for that question. Obviously, it is difficult to monitor if there's not easy access to the children that we're referring to, and that's why we have been trying to encourage the vulnerable children to go into school or childcare settings. And there's been a lot of encouragement for that happen. The Minister, the director of education and the director of social services sent out a joint letter recently to all the local authorities, asking them to try to encourage the vulnerable children and the families to get the children to go to school. In fact, we've now got 890 vulnerable children attending school settings, and that's the highest number that we've had at all since the opening of the scheme. But it's still only a tiny drop in the ocean. But it's very good, and it is progress that the numbers attending are now going up. But, of course, there are a lot of children who are not attending school and the social services are not necessarily seeing. There has been a drop in safeguarding referrals to social services. Those numbers are now beginning to go up, but there certainly was a significant drop, which is a great deal of concern. One local authority, in fact, reported a drop of 27 per cent in terms of safeguarding referrals compared to this time last year. So, I issued a written statement on 1 May, setting out the work taken forward under our cross-departmental vulnerable children, young people and safeguarding work stream, and encouraging people to report any safeguarding concerns there are. Because, obviously, we are dependent on the public authorities—you know, schools and health services—to report any concerns, and at the moment, obviously, they're not there to report them. So, we have made this public appeal for everyone to look out for each other, and I was very interested in what Siân Gwenllian told me about what was being done in Anglesey in terms of sending out a message via social media to get people to look and listen, and to raise their concerns, because, obviously, safeguarding is the concern of everybody in the community. But I think that we are reassured in terms of our contact with the local authorities that they are, in fact, keeping close touch, as far as they possibly can, with all the children that are vulnerable. For those where it is very critical, face-to-face contact is still taking place, and there are imaginative ways of trying to keep in touch with all the other children and families. So, it is a difficult situation and we are concerned about it, but I think as much as possible is being done. +Lynne Neagle AM: Jean, you wanted to come in on that. +Professor Jean White: Just to add to what the Deputy Minister was saying, the health visiting service has not been stopped or stepped back. It has consolidated some of the ways that it does the Healthy Child Wales Programme, but, for those families that are identified as having particular need or have children that are particularly vulnerable, all the normal contacts have been maintained, so they're not unseen to the normal health visiting service. That covers both Flying Start and general health visiting areas. Thank you. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Jean, for that, and, Deputy Minister, would there be any value at this point in actually revisiting the current Welsh Government definition and guidance around vulnerable children, in terms of who we identify as vulnerable? Because this opens up a whole new group of children that are not necessarily known to services but can still be vulnerable. So,it's just looking at the current guidance that we have. Do you think that needs revisiting at all? +Julie Morgan AM: The definition of vulnerable children and young people includes those with a social worker and with statements of special educational needs, and the most vulnerable of these should be prioritised. But we have now looked at this again, and we've set out an expanded definition, and we intend to publish that this week. This does include discretion for local authorities to have some flexibility and to be able to offer a place for those who may be on the edge of receiving care and support if they are known to be vulnerable by the school or by family support services. Because, obviously, the children that we know about, we know about, but there are those other children who may be on the edge of care—the children that we've been trying very hard, as part of our policies in the Welsh Government, to keep with their families, with a lot of support. Those are the ones that we also want to support. So, we are giving discretion to the local authorities in order to have a degree of flexibility, and that will be published this week. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on now, then, to talk about looked-after children and children on the edge of care, with questions from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Can you set out the impact the coronavirus emergency has had on the care system, including edge-of-care services, and where have there been areas of concern? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, local authorities have obviously had to change their working practices in response to the COVID emergency, so a red-amber-green rating risk assessment was adopted by all local authorities at the start of the pandemic to ensure that vulnerable children and families receive the right way of receiving services and the frequency of contact from the services. This is being dealt with on a case-by-case basis, so every case that is known is being RAG rated and services are being linked to that. Also, there is very close contact between Welsh Government officials and the local authorities. There are weekly meetings between officials and the heads of the children's services. I can't speak too highly, really, about the amount of support and mutual work that has been going on. We've been assured that there have been no significant increases in the numbers of looked-after children, and the number of placement breaks are minimal. The other interesting good point is the children services workforce remains at 90 per cent plus, and, obviously, that is a great testimony to the dedication of the workforce. So, there's very close contact. The children are all being monitored individually, and I think in the circumstances we're all doing what we possibly can. I know that Albert Heaney is able, probably, to respond in more detail to the contacts, if you'd like to have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: I think we'll move on to the next section. Can I remind everyone again: sharp focused questions and concise answers? Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. How is Welsh Government ensuring that vulnerable children have access to the necessary technology to maintain contact with their social workers and other support workers and networks? +Julie Morgan AM: It is normal practice to ensure that children and families do have appropriate access to technology to keep in touch with social workers, so that is part of our normal practice. We're very keen as a Welsh Government that no children are left behind in their education during this period. So, last month, as you will know, the Minister for Education announced £3 million of funding to help digitally excluded learners so that they've got access to the internet, so that they can fully participate in online learning. So, we do normally ensure that they've got digital contact for social workers. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Can you set out the picture regarding children's residential care? What are the challenges these care settings are facing, and have any children's homes closed? +Julie Morgan AM: Residential children's homes are not really reporting any particularly difficult issues, and certainly they have been able to resolve any issues that have happened. So, I'm very pleased to report that. We obviously expect all children in residential care to be supported, and to keep contact with their families and with their siblings, and that is going on, although it may be by technology rather than face to face. We know that some young people have found the social distancing a challenge, and I think it’s easy for us to understand that they have found that quite difficult. So, there have been a few issues related to that, but, where that has happened, local authorities have been able to resolve that on a case-by-case basis, and really there are not any major issues. In terms of residential care, Hillside is functioning well—no reporting issues. The staffing levels are normal. There are fewer children and young people there, so, in fact, there's been an opportunity to give a great deal of attention to the children, and I think we've had very good reports about how that has happened. So, I am absolutely reassured by our officials here that everything is as well as it could be. I also meet with the children's commissioner once a week, who is an independent source, and she said when I met her last week, 'Well, as far as we know, it's all good news'. So, I don't think we have any concerns at the moment about the residential care. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Moving on to foster care, how is Welsh Government working with local authorities to meet the challenges set out by the Association of Fostering and Adoption Cymru and its fostering guidelines? +Julie Morgan AM: We have worked with the fostering organisations. We have had close communications with them, and we've supported AFA Cymru to develop guidance for foster carers, and that guidance has been very strongly welcomed across the sector. We're working with the third sector. I think I mentioned before specific issues such as support for fostering services and, of course, care leavers. The Fostering Network has extended its helpline hours, and, of course, Voices from Care—I mentioned them before—have developed this particular offer of support for care leavers. I've been reassured, as well, from Voices from Care that the young people appear to be more stable now—that they have contact with. But that's online help for them. So, we have had quite a lot of contact with the fostering services. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, the final point on that, then: the Fostering Network and others, as you know, have called for foster parents who can temporarily no longer foster due to the current virus emergency to be paid a retainer, with all foster carers receiving extra financial support for additional expenses. What is your position on this, please? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, we haven't had any specific representations from local authorities asking for support for foster carers, but some local authorities have paid retainers and some people, I believe, have increased the amount of money that they are paying. They've also given support for various activities and things—have helped sometimes, I think, with broadband access and that sort of issue. And, obviously, foster carers who do require additional support should be approaching their local authorities or the independent fostering agency. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Albert, I just wanted to check there wasn't anything you wanted to add, please. +Albert Heaney: Thank you very much, Chair. I think the only thing to add was relating to monitoring. The Minister has indicated that we are speaking weekly with heads of children's services, and we do now have a data collection that's been implemented to capture the critical data in relation to the children's services. So, that will assist us in our monitoring arrangements going forward. Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. And the next questions, then, are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to have a quick answer from probably the Minister, I think, about the primary legislation and the regulations that followed, about which children's rights impact assessments have been done. Have any been done, and can they be shared with the committee if they have? Sorry, Deputy Minister—my mistake. +Julie Morgan AM: Well, it's been a very difficult time, as you appreciate, in terms of having to make legislation very quickly, and it hasn't been possible to do the impact assessments that we would normally do. However, I am very pleased to say that we're actually launching a survey of children. We're going to be launching it next week. And this is to try to get from children their views of what's happened, what we've been doing, and their views on the whole COVID-19 situation. So, we're doing this in conjunction with the children's commissioner and with Young Wales and with the Youth Parliament. So, this is an online survey that we hope will be going out to thousands of children, and we will get their response in terms of what are the important issues that have arisen for them, what they feel about what's happened during this period, what they feel about the way that we've dealt with the schools, the way that they've had to cope in not going school and being at home for so long. And so we're trying to get feedback from young people. So, I'm very pleased that we're doing that, but, in terms of an impact assessment, it has been very difficult, as I'm sure you can imagine, to be able to do those at these times. I think that Albert wants to come in on that. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because I'll pursue that in a sec. +Lynne Neagle AM: Albert. +Albert Heaney: Thank you. Thank you, Chair, and I think Nicola indicated before me, so apologies, Nicola. Just to say for the committee, really importantly, that we haven't introduced any easements in relation to children's services legislation. I think that's really quite crucial. So, from a Welsh context, the standards that are in place do remain, so therefore there wouldn't have been a necessity for us to do a children's rights impact assessment in relation to the primary legislation. I think that's particularly a strong point to us in Wales, both in terms of safeguarding arrangements, but also ensuring that children's rights are protected at a crucial time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Nicola. +Nicola Edwards: Thanks. In terms of childcare and education, we're obviously looking at the provisions under the coronavirus Act to allow us to maybe ease some of the statutory requirements, and we are going to be undertaking a full suite of impact assessments on those. Obviously, the coronavirus Act itself was UK Government legislation and they ran their own impact assessments, but, in terms of how we implement it in the childcare and education space—and I think Albert was just saying the same thing—we definitely will be looking at those impacts in terms of going forward. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, just to come back on that then, are you saying to me that, as a result of the various coronavirus regulations that we've had, no assessments for children's needs have been postponed, cancelled or done very quickly online rather than in person? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think, as Albert said, that there was no relaxation of regulation for children's social care. You know, that's—there haven't been any in Wales. +Suzy Davies AM: No, but that's what—. There's no relaxation, but what's happening in practice? We're down on staff across all our councils and in our third sectors—who's doing the children's needs assessments, particularly for young carers? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, I—. Albert, can you answer that? +Albert Heaney: I think the first thing to say to the committee is that, going back, we took a very strong line at the beginning that we weren't going to introduce easements in requirements to children's social services. Of course, through the way that practitioners and social work practitioners have to operate, they are having to operate through a different time. So, assessments are still taking place for child protection and safeguarding concerns; assessments are still taking place, and especially in relation to—as you mentioned—young carers, to support their needs. So, arrangements—[Inaudible.] But they're having to be slightly differently done—so, some of the technology, and keeping in contact and keeping those visits. So, we've used, for example, the St David's Day fund to make sure that care leavers are well supported in terms of having contact and are accessible and able to engage as well. So, we're having to be a little bit more—and social services departments are having to be a little bit more—innovative in the use of technology in the way that they've engaged as well. But personal visits are taking place, and visits especially, as the Minister mentioned earlier on—they actually individually assess each case to determine the frequency of visits, to make sure that those contacts are maintained with children at a critical time. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. I don't want to take this much further, but personal visits and social distancing could be slightly problematic. I just want to finish with this one question, if I may. We've had recommendations from the Carers Trust, or Carers Trust Wales. Have they been accepted by Government, and is it those that are driving the agenda of the task and finish group that you announced the other day, Deputy Minister? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, those will certainly be considered by the task and finish group. I've had a letter from the Carers Trust about those issues, and we are setting up this group, as you know, and we will be looking at those issues in the group. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. Any steal on when that might report? +Julie Morgan AM: I don't have that at the moment. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe we could have a note on that, Deputy Minister. Can I just say, we are running short of time? We did start late, so, if the Ministers are happy, we'll carry on until 2.10 p.m.—3.10 p.m.—if that's okay. And the next questions are from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: [Inaudible.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Hold on a sec, Siân, we've lost translation again. Can we just see what can be done to get the translation back? Sorry, Siân. Is there anyone who can help with the translation? There you go, Siân. Thank you. +Sian Gwenllian AM: You will know, Deputy Minister—because we have discussed this in private session—my major concerns with regard to the childcare sector, and what kind of childcare sector we will have at the end of this crisis, as families start to return to the workplace. There are still some childcare providers who are falling between the cracks and aren't receiving financial support. Do you agree—are there people who are still not being supported, and why isn't the Welsh Government able to provide that support for everyone in the childcare sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you, Siân, for that question. And I know that we have had a discussion about this before. Basically, we are aware that there are some sectors in the childcare sector that do fall through some of the loops. We have guaranteed that we will pay the money for the childcare offer for three months. So, that is guaranteed to them, and they are able to take advantage of the Government's job retainer scheme, but that does mean that there is a problem, as I think we've discussed before, of the double funding issue, and that is something that we have been trying to resolve and there have been discussions with the Treasury in Whitehall about ways forward on this. I'm going to ask Nicola to come in in a minute, because she's much more up to date with the discussions about that, but, so far, I don't think very much progress has been made on that. But we are looking to see if there are any other ways that we can get help to the childcare sector, and I'm actually following this meeting with a meeting with the Deputy Minister for equality and chief whip, who is responsible for the voluntary sector, because obviously many of the groups that we're talking about would come under the voluntary sector, because they have voluntary committees, but they fall between many stools, because they rent premises rather than own premises and they don't have high turnovers that would qualify them for some of these grants. So, perhaps I could ask Nicola to come in to expand on that. +Nicola Edwards: Absolutely. +Lynne Neagle AM: Briefly, if possible. +Nicola Edwards: I'll try and be brief, because I'm conscious of time. So, some childcare settings can access funding under the small business rate relief scheme, but certainly not all of them; some of them can access funding under the economic resilience fund, and, as the Deputy Minister said, we're following up for some of them to be able to access funding under the third sector resilience funding. All of the childcare settings can apply for the UK Government's coronavirus job retention scheme, but there are some complications around that in that it's a salary-based scheme and you can't claim two types of public funding for the same individual member of staff. So, if you were using funding under the childcare offer to pay for a particular member of staff's salary, you can't access CJRS and furlough that individual with Government money as well, and that has led to some confusion and complication about how that balances, which we're trying to work through with the sector and with local authorities around the rules and regulations that the Treasury and HMRC have put in place around that. Alongside that, there's a whole range of different loans and services that are available. Some of those are less attractive to some childcare settings, but they are still available and Business Wales is offering support and advice for settings on how they can help weather this storm and support their workers as best they can. We're also having some conversations now with our economy colleagues and with Business Wales about what happens next, the recovery and the return of the sector, and we've just come out of a meeting with the childcare sector around the support they think they would need to have in place to be able to return from this as well. So, it's a topic that's very much live at the moment. +Sian Gwenllian AM: I'm sure you can share my concerns and the concerns of Cwlwm, which represents the childcare sector and the nursery school sector, that there are a number of providers that aren't receiving support at all and are likely to collapse as a result of this. What I can't understand is why you, in collaboration with the Minister for the economy, Ken Skates, can't devise a specific grant package for the providers that aren't currently receiving support, or we'll be facing a situation that is very difficult when people are seeking childcare for their children and those settings won't be available to them. Why isn't it possible to have a bespoke scheme for those that are falling between the cracks in this sector? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is what we're looking to see—if we can get a bespoke scheme. I absolutely agree with you: it is absolutely vital that we keep this sector going, because it is a fragile sector in any case, and I think about 50 per cent of the childcare settings have temporarily closed down and the reason they've given for closing down is because they haven't had enough children to make it viable to keep their settings going. So, it is a very worrying situation. They are heavily reliant on the fees that parents pay and, of course, with the social distancing and the lockdown, this has meant that we've had to discourage children from attending. So, that means the number of children they've had has been much reduced and it hasn't been viable for them to keep going, although obviously it's great that about half have stayed open so we have somewhere for the children of the critical workers and the vulnerable children to go. But, I absolutely agree with what you're saying, Siân, and we are looking for a solution, because we know it's vital not only for the children and their parents, but for the economy as well, that we do have that sector there, surviving after this is all over. So, I can assure you, we're working very hard, and I think Nicola's working day and night to try to achieve this. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And just finally from me, I'm very pleased that you are working on this, and I very much hope that we will see a support package that will reach everyone in the sector, because it's been weeks now since all of this started, and if there's still no light at the end of the tunnel for some of them, then that needs to be dealt with. But just to conclude, how effective has the provision been in general over this period in terms of providing support for key workers? +Julie Morgan AM: I think it's been crucial, because how would the majority of the key workers have been able to get to work and do all the wonderful things that they've been doing if it hadn't been for childcare for those who need it? And we were very pleased to introduce the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, which means that critical workers and families with vulnerable children are able to have free access to childcare aged 0 to 5, and I believe that we are the only country in the UK that is providing that free service to the vulnerable children, and so—. I mean, that scheme has only really taken off now since Easter, so we don't have any particular statistics. +Nicola Edwards: I do have some early numbers, if you'd like me to announce them? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that would be very good. +Lynne Neagle AM: Very briefly. +Nicola Edwards: Yes. In terms of the provision in schools, we're looking at around 4,000 children a day in schools at the moment. In terms of the children accessing the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, it has only been two weeks up and running really, so the numbers are quite low, but there were nearly 1,500 children accessing that childcare last week, and of those, just over 100 would fall within the definition of vulnerable children. So, it is picking up there; it was 900 children the week before that, so we are seeing some traction now that parents are aware that that support is there. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. And, can I just ask, in terms of the other vulnerable children, what assurance can you give that all the vulnerable children who need to keep in contact with social workers and other key workers are being provided with the necessary technology to do that? Is that happening in a uniform way? +Julie Morgan AM: Well, that is the intention—that everybody should have the opportunity to have the necessary technology, and certainly, that is what is intended. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, very, very briefly, one question on the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, please. +Suzy Davies AM: Just generally, have you had any feedback on the effects on the family courts and the execution of the—well, the child arrangement orders, the various versions of that? +Julie Morgan AM: Yes. In terms of the family courts, as you probably know, a lot of the hearings are going on virtually, but the hearings that are more complex are being postponed to be heard at a later date. So, that's one of the issues, really—that we may expect a lot of demand on the court service after this period has finished. And obviously, the president of the family division has issued guidance on compliance with family court child arrangement orders, which were his guidance, and obviously, this is directed at separated families subject to the family court, and that offers general advice to parents, recognising that the circumstances for each parent and each family will be different. And the Welsh Government has also provided guidance about staying at home and away from others. But of course, where parents have joint parental responsibility, as you know, the Government has said that children under 18 can be moved between the two households. With the other children, it's on a case-by-case basis, really, what actually happens. I have met with CAFCASS to see how their operations are going, and all the CAFCASS officials are not attending any courts at all; they're sending in any of their views virtually, but it appeared to be that there weren't any major issues arising. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you, and we have definitely now come to the end of our time. So, can I thank the Ministers and officials for attending? We do recognise what an immensely pressurised time this is for Welsh Government, and we are very appreciative of having your time this afternoon, so thank you both to Ministers and officials. As usual, you will receive a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Diolch yn fawr. +Vaughan Gething AM: Diolch yn fawr, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you very much. This is, of course, our last formal business of the National Assembly for Wales before we become the Senedd tomorrow, and it seems fitting that the National Assembly's last formal proceedings are focused on children and young people, and I'm sure that we would all agree that it is vital that they continue to be at the centre of the work of our Parliament going forward. We are now going to proceed in private. +","Summary: + +Lynne Neagle AM chaired a virtual meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, which was focused on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on children and young people in Wales, particularly on health and social services. The public was excluded from the meeting to protect public health, and Vaughan Gething AM (Minister for Health and Social Services), Julie Morgan AM (Deputy Minister), and several other key officials attended to provide evidence. + +Discussions covered the understanding of COVID-19's impact on children and their role in transmitting the virus, their mental health and well-being, access to health services, and capacity in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Concerns about safeguarding were addressed, with a particular emphasis on the challenges faced with monitoring during this period. The importance of continued support services for vulnerable children was also highlighted, including those in foster care, residential care, and the perinatal period. + +The need for a viable childcare sector post-pandemic was a critical concern, with some providers falling through financial support cracks. Efforts are being made to ensure that vulnerable children can access necessary technology and maintain contact with social workers and other key workers. + +Questions were also asked regarding the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) and how family courts are coping with the challenges during the pandemic. + +The meeting marked the last formal business of the National Assembly for Wales before transitioning to the Senedd the following day." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor E: So . OK . Doesn't look like it crashed . That 's great . +Grad G: So I think maybe what 's causing it to crash is I keep starting it and then stopping it to see if it 's working . And so I think starting it and then stopping it and starting it again causes it to crash . So , I won't do that anymore . +Postdoc B: And it looks like you 've found a way of uh mapping the location to the {disfmarker} without having people have to give their names each time ? +PhD A: Sounds like an initialization thing . +Postdoc B: I mean it 's like you have the {disfmarker} So you know that {disfmarker} +Grad G: No . +Postdoc B: I mean , are you going to write down {pause} that I sat here ? +Grad G: I 'm gonna collect the digit forms and write it down . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Grad G: So {disfmarker} So they should be right with what 's on the digit forms . OK , so I 'll go ahead and start with digits . u And I should say that uh , you just pau you just read each line an and then pause briefly . +Professor E: And start by giving the transcript number . +PhD A: Tran +PhD D: Transcript {disfmarker} Uh . OK , OK . +PhD A: Oh sorry , go ahead . +Professor E: So uh , you see , Don , the unbridled excitement of the work that we have on this project . +Grad H: OK . +Professor E: It 's just uh {disfmarker} +Grad H: Umh . +Professor E: Uh , you know , it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have {comment} that information . +Grad G: And I 'm surprised I sort of {disfmarker} I 'm surprised I forgot that , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I 'd {disfmarker} I think it 's some +Grad G: but uh I think that would be a good thing to add . After I just printed out a zillion of them . +Professor E: Yeah , well , that 's {disfmarker} Um , so I {disfmarker} I do have a {disfmarker} a an agenda suggestion . Uh , we {disfmarker} I think the things that we talk about in this meeting uh tend to be a mixture of uh procedural uh mundane things and uh research points and um I was thinking I think it was a meeting a couple of weeks ago that we {disfmarker} we spent much of the time talking about the mundane stuff cuz that 's easier to get out of the way and then we sort of drifted into the research and maybe five minutes into that Andreas had to leave . So {vocalsound} uh I 'm suggesting we turn it around and {disfmarker} and uh sort of we have {disfmarker} anybody has some mundane points that we could send an email later , uh hold them for a bit , and let 's talk about the {disfmarker} the research - y kind of things . Um , so um the one th one thing I know that we have on that is uh we had talked a {disfmarker} a couple weeks before um uh about the uh {disfmarker} the stuff you were doing with {disfmarker} with uh um uh l l attempting to locate events , we had a little go around trying to figure out what you meant by "" events "" but I think , you know , what we had meant by "" events "" I guess was uh points of overlap between speakers . But I th I gather from our discussion a little earlier today that you also mean uh interruptions with something else +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: like some other noise . +PhD D: Uh - huh . Yeah . +Professor E: Yes ? You mean that as an event also . +PhD D: To +Professor E: So at any rate you were {disfmarker} you 've {disfmarker} you 've done some work on that +PhD D: right . +Professor E: and um then the other thing would be it might be nice to have a preliminary discussion of some of the other uh research uh areas that uh we 're thinking about doing . Um , I think especially since you {disfmarker} you haven't been in {disfmarker} in these meetings for a little bit , maybe you have some discussion of some of the p the plausible things to look at now that we 're starting to get data , uh and one of the things I know that also came up uh is some discussions that {disfmarker} that uh {disfmarker} that uh Jane had with Lokendra uh about some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some um uh work about I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I d I {disfmarker} I don't want to try to say cuz I {disfmarker} I 'll say it wrong , but anyway some {disfmarker} some potential collaboration there about {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} about the {disfmarker} working with these data . +PhD C: Oh . Sure . +Professor E: So . So , uh . +Grad G: You wanna just go around ? +Professor E: Uh . {pause} Well , I don't know if we {disfmarker} if this is sort of like everybody has something to contribute sort of thing , I think there 's just just a couple {disfmarker} a couple people primarily um but um Uh , wh why don't {disfmarker} Actually I think that {disfmarker} that last one I just said we could do fairly quickly so why don't you {disfmarker} you start with that . +Postdoc B: OK . Shall I {disfmarker} shall I just start ? OK . +Professor E: Yeah , just explain what it was . +Postdoc B: Um , so , uh , he was interested in the question of {disfmarker} you know , relating to his {disfmarker} to the research he presented recently , um of inference structures , and uh , the need to build in , um , this {disfmarker} this sort of uh mechanism for understanding of language . And he gave the example in his talk about how {pause} um , e a I 'm remembering it just off the top of my head right now , but it 's something about how um , i "" Joe slipped "" you know , "" John had washed the floor "" or something like that . And I don't have it quite right , but that kind of thing , where you have to draw the inference that , OK , there 's this time sequence , but also the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the causal aspects of the uh floor and {disfmarker} and how it might have been the cause of the fall and that um it was the other person who fell than the one who cleaned it and it {disfmarker} {comment} These sorts of things . So , I looked through the transcript that we have so far , {comment} and um , fou identified a couple different types of things of that type and um , one of them was something like uh , during the course of the transcript , um um , w we had gone through the part where everyone said which channel they were on and which device they were on , and um , the question was raised "" Well , should we restart the recording at this point ? "" And {disfmarker} and Dan Ellis said , "" Well , we 're just so far ahead of the game right now {pause} we really don't need to "" . Now , how would you interpret that without a lot of inference ? So , the inferences that are involved are things like , OK , so , how do you interpret "" ahead of the game "" ? You know . So it 's the {disfmarker} it 's {pause} i What you {disfmarker} what you int what you draw {disfmarker} you know , the conclusions that you need to draw are that space is involved in recording , +Grad G: Hmm , metaphorically . +Postdoc B: that um , i that {pause} i we have enough space , and he continues , like "" we 're so ahead of the game cuz now we have built - in downsampling "" . So you have to sort of get the idea that um , "" ahead of the game "" is sp speaking with respect to space limitations , that um that in fact downsampling is gaining us enough space , and that therefore we can keep the recording we 've done so far . But there are a lot of different things like that . +Grad G: So , do you think his interest is in using this as {pause} a data source , or {pause} training material , or what ? +Professor E: Well , I {disfmarker} I should maybe interject to say this started off with a discussion that I had with him , so um we were trying to think of ways that his interests could interact with ours +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and um uh I thought that if we were going to project into the future when we had a lot of data , uh and um such things might be useful for that in or before we invested too much uh effort into that he should uh , with Jane 's help , look into some of the data that we 're {disfmarker} already have and see , is there anything to this at all ? +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Is there any point which you think that , you know , you could gain some advantage and some potential use for it . Cuz it could be that you 'd look through it and you say "" well , this is just the wrong {pause} task for {disfmarker} for him to pursue his {disfmarker} "" +Grad G: Wrong , yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and uh I got the impression from your mail that in fact there was enough things like this just in the little sample that {disfmarker} that you looked at that {disfmarker} that it 's plausible at least . +Postdoc B: It 's possible . Uh , he was {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} We met and he was gonna go and uh you know , y look through them more systematically +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: and then uh meet again . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So it 's , you know , not a matter of a {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: But , yeah , I think {disfmarker} I think it was optimistic . +Professor E: So anyway , that 's {disfmarker} that 's e a quite different thing from anything we 've talked about that , you know , might {disfmarker} might {disfmarker} might come out from some of this . +PhD C: But he can use text , basically . I mean , he 's talking about just using text +Postdoc B: That 's his major {disfmarker} I mentioned several that w had to do with implications drawn from intonational contours +PhD C: pretty much , or {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: and {pause} that wasn't as directly relevant to what he 's doing . He 's interested in these {disfmarker} these knowledge structures , +PhD C: OK . +PhD D: Yeah , interesting . +Postdoc B: inferences that you draw {pause} i from {disfmarker} +Professor E: I mean , he certainly could use text , but we were in fact looking to see if there {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} is there something in common between our interest in meetings and his interest in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in this stuff . So . +Grad G: And I imagine that transcripts of speech {disfmarker} I mean text that is speech {disfmarker} probably has more of those than sort of prepared writing . I {disfmarker} I don't know whether it would or not , but it seems like it would . +Professor E: I don't know , probably de probably depends on what the prepared writing was . But . +Postdoc B: Yeah , I don't think I would make that leap , because i in narratives , you know {disfmarker} I mean , if you spell out everything in a narrative , it can be really tedious , +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: so . +Grad G: Yeah , I 'm just thinking , you know , when you 're {disfmarker} when you 're face to face , you have a lot of backchannel and {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . That aspect . +Grad G: Yeah . And so I think it 's just easier to do that sort of broad inference jumping if it 's face to face . I mean , so , if I just read that Dan was saying "" we 're ahead of the game "" {comment} in that {disfmarker} in that context , +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad G: I might not realize that he was talking about disk space as opposed to anything else . +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I had several that had to do with backchannels and this wasn't one of them . +Grad G: Uh - huh . +Postdoc B: This {disfmarker} this one really does um m make you leap from {disfmarker} So he said , you know , "" we 're ahead of the game , w we have built - in downsampling "" . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Postdoc B: And the inference , i if you had it written down , would be {disfmarker} +Grad G: I guess it would be the same . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . But there are others that have backchannelling , it 's just he was less interested in those . +PhD F: Can I {disfmarker} Sorry to interrupt . Um , I f f f I 've {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} d A minute {disfmarker} uh , several minutes ago , I , like , briefly was {disfmarker} was not listening and {disfmarker} So who is "" he "" in this context ? +PhD C: Yeah , there 's a lot of pronoun {disfmarker} +PhD F: OK . So I was just realizing we 've {disfmarker} You guys have been talking about "" he "" um for at least uh , I don't know , three {disfmarker} three four minutes without ever mentioning the person 's name again . +PhD C: I believe it . Yeah . Actually to make it worse , {comment} uh , Morgan uses "" you "" and "" you "" +PhD F: So this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} gonna be a big , big problem if you want to later do uh , you know , indexing , or speech understanding of any sort . +Grad G: It 's in my notes . +PhD C: with gaze and no identification , or {disfmarker} I just wrote this down . Yeah , actually . Cuz Morgan will say well , "" you had some ideas "" +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: You just wrote this ? +PhD C: and he never said Li - He looked {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , I think he 's doing that intentionally , +PhD C: Right , so it 's great . +Grad G: aren't you ? +PhD C: So this is really great +PhD F: Right . +PhD C: because the thing is , because he 's looking at the per even for addressees in the conversation , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I bet you could pick that up in the acoustics . Just because your gaze is also correlated with the directionality of your voice . +Professor E: Uh - huh . Could be . +Postdoc B: Can we +Professor E: Yeah . That would be tou +Grad G: Oh , that would be interesting . +PhD C: Yeah , so that , I mean , to even know um when {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , if you have the P Z Ms you should be able to pick up what a person is looking at from their voice . +Grad G: Well , especially with Morgan , with the way we have the microphones arranged . I 'm sort of right on axis and it would be very hard to tell . +PhD C: Right . +Grad G: Uh . +Postdoc B: Oh , but you 'd have the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Put Morgan always like this +Postdoc B: You 'd have fainter {disfmarker} +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Wouldn't you get fainter reception out here ? +Professor E: Well , these {disfmarker} +Grad G: Sure , but I think if I 'm talking like this ? Right now I 'm looking at Jane and talking , now I 'm looking at Chuck and talking , I don't think the microphones would pick up that difference . +PhD C: But you don't have this {disfmarker} this problem . +Postdoc B: I see . +PhD C: Morgan is the one who does this most . +Grad G: So if I 'm talking at you , or I 'm talking at you . +Professor E: I probably been affect No , I th I think I 've been affected by too many conversations where we were talking about lawyers and talking about {disfmarker} and concerns about "" oh gee is somebody going to say something bad ? "" and so on . +Grad G: Lawyers . +Professor E: And so I {disfmarker} so I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm tending to stay away from people 's names even though uh {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I am too . +PhD C: Even though you could pick up later on , just from the acoustics who you were t who you were looking at . +Postdoc B: I am too . +Grad G: And we did mention who "" he "" was . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Right , but I missed it . +Grad G: Early in the conversation . +PhD F: But {disfmarker} it was uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Do {disfmarker} Sh - Can I say +Professor E: Yeah . No no , there 's {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: or {disfmarker} or is that just too sensitive ? +Professor E: No no , it isn't sensitive at all . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +Professor E: I was just {disfmarker} I was just {disfmarker} I was overreacting just because we 've been talking about it . +Postdoc B: And in fact , it is {disfmarker} it is {disfmarker} it is sensitive . +PhD C: No , but that {disfmarker} it 's interesting . +Professor E: It 's OK to {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: I {disfmarker} I came up with something from the Human Subjects people that I wanted to mention . I mean , it fits into the m area of the mundane , but they did say {disfmarker} You know , I asked her very specifically about this clause of how , um , you know , it says "" no individuals will be identified uh , "" in any publication using the data . "" OK , well , individuals being identified , let 's say you have a {disfmarker} a snippet that says , "" Joe s uh thinks such - and - such about {disfmarker} about this field , but I think he 's wrongheaded . "" Now I mean , we 're {disfmarker} we 're gonna be careful not to have the "" wrongheaded "" part in there , but {disfmarker} but you know , let 's say we say , you know , "" Joe used to think so - and - so about this area , in his publication he says that but I think he 's changed his mind . "" or whatever . Then the issue of {disfmarker} of being able to trace Joe , because we know he 's well - known in this field , and all this and {disfmarker} and tie it to the speaker , whose name was just mentioned a moment ago , can be sensitive . +Professor E: b But I {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So I think it 's really {disfmarker} really kind of adaptive and wise to not mention names any more than we have to because if there 's a slanderous aspect to it , then how much to we wanna be able to have to remove ? +Professor E: Yeah , well , there 's that . But I {disfmarker} I mean I think also to some extent it 's just educating the Human Subjects people , in a way , because there 's {disfmarker} If uh {disfmarker} You know , there 's court transcripts , there 's {disfmarker} there 's transcripts of radio shows {disfmarker} I mean people say people 's names all the time . So I think it {disfmarker} it can't be bad to say people 's names . It 's just that {disfmarker} i I mean you 're right that there 's more poten If we never say anybody 's name , then there 's no chance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of slandering anybody , +PhD C: But , then it won't {disfmarker} I mean , if we {disfmarker} if we {disfmarker} +Professor E: but {disfmarker} +Grad G: It 's not a meeting . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean we should do whatever 's natural in a meeting if {disfmarker} if we weren't being recorded . +Professor E: Yeah . Right , so I {disfmarker} So my behavior is probably not natural . +PhD C: "" If Person X {disfmarker} "" +Professor E: So . +Postdoc B: Well , my feeling on it was that it wasn't really important who said it , you know . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD F: Well , if you ha since you have to um go over the transcripts later anyway , you could make it one of the jobs of the {pause} people who do that to mark +Grad G: Well , we t we t we talked about this during the anon anonymization . +PhD F: Right . +Grad G: If we wanna go through and extract from the audio and the written every time someone says a name . And I thought that our conclusion was that we didn't want to do that . +Professor E: Yeah , we really can't . But a actually , I 'm sorry . I really would like to push {disfmarker} finish this off . +Postdoc B: I understand . No I just {disfmarker} I just was suggesting that it 's not a bad policy p potentially . +Professor E: So it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: So , we need to talk about this later . +Professor E: Yeah , I di I didn't intend it an a policy though . +Postdoc B: Uh - huh . +Professor E: It was {disfmarker} it was just it was just unconscious {disfmarker} well , semi - conscious behavior . I sorta knew I was doing it but it was {disfmarker} +PhD F: Well , I still don't know who "" he "" is . +Professor E: I {disfmarker} I do I don't remember who "" he "" is . +PhD C: No , you have to say , you still don't know who "" he "" is , with that prosody . +Professor E: Ah . Uh , we were talking about Dan at one point {comment} and we were talking about Lokendra at another point . +Postdoc B: Yeah , depends on which one you mean . +Professor E: And I don't {disfmarker} I don't remember which {disfmarker} which part . +PhD F: Oh . +PhD C: It 's ambiguous , so it 's OK . +Professor E: Uh , I think {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , the inference structures was Lokendra . +PhD F: But no . The inference stuff was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was Lokendra . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +PhD F: OK . That makes sense , yeah . +PhD C: And the downsampling must have been Dan . +Professor E: Um {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Good {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: It 's an inference . +Professor E: Yeah , you could do all these inferences , yeah . +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . Um , I {disfmarker} I would like to move it into {disfmarker} into uh what Jose uh has been doing +Postdoc B: Yeah . +Professor E: because he 's actually been doing something . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . +Professor E: So . {vocalsound} Right . +PhD F: As opposed to the rest of us . +PhD D: Well - {comment} {vocalsound} OK . I {disfmarker} I remind that me {disfmarker} my first objective eh , in the project is to {disfmarker} to study difference parameters to {disfmarker} to find a {disfmarker} a good solution to detect eh , the overlapping zone in eh speech recorded . But eh , {vocalsound} tsk , {comment} {vocalsound} ehhh {comment} In that way {comment} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I begin to {disfmarker} to study and to analyze the ehn {disfmarker} the recorded speech eh the different session to {disfmarker} to find and to locate and to mark eh the {disfmarker} the different overlapping zone . And eh so eh I was eh {disfmarker} I am transcribing the {disfmarker} the first session and I {disfmarker} I have found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events , eh besides the overlapping zones , eh I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean the eh breaths eh aspiration eh , eh , talk eh , eh , clap , eh {disfmarker} {comment} I don't know what is the different names eh you use to {disfmarker} to name the {disfmarker} the {pause} n speech +PhD A: Nonspeech sounds ? +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Oh , I don't think we 've been doing it at that level of detail . So . +PhD D: Yeah . Eh , {vocalsound} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I do I don't need to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to m to label the {disfmarker} the different acoustic , but I prefer because eh I would like to {disfmarker} to study if eh , I {disfmarker} I will find eh , eh , a good eh parameters eh to detect overlapping I would like to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to test these parameters eh with the {disfmarker} another eh , eh acoustic events , to nnn {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to eh {disfmarker} to find what is the ehm {disfmarker} the false {disfmarker} eh , the false eh hypothesis eh , nnn , which eh are produced when we use the {disfmarker} the ehm {disfmarker} this eh parameter {disfmarker} eh I mean pitch eh , eh , difference eh , feature {disfmarker} +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: You know {disfmarker} I think some of these um that are the nonspeech overlapping events may be difficult even for humans to tell that there 's two there . +Grad G: So it was {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: I mean , if it 's a tapping sound , you wouldn't necessarily {disfmarker} or , you know , something like that , it 'd be {disfmarker} it might be hard to know that it was two separate events . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} You weren't talking about just overlaps +PhD D: Ye +Grad G: were you ? You were just talking about acoustic events . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I t I t I talk eh about eh acoustic events in general , +Grad G: Someone starts , someone stops {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: but eh my {disfmarker} my objective eh will be eh to study eh overlapping zone . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Eh ? {comment} n Eh in twelve minutes I found eh , eh one thousand acoustic events . +Professor E: How many overlaps were there uh in it ? No no , how many of them were the overlaps of speech , though ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh almost eh three hundred eh in one session +Grad G: Oh , God ! +PhD D: in five {disfmarker} eh in forty - five minutes . +PhD A: Three hundred overlapping speech {disfmarker} +PhD D: Alm - Three hundred overlapping zone . +Grad G: Ugh . +PhD C: Overlapping speech . +PhD D: With the overlapping zone , overlapping speech {disfmarker} speech what eh different duration . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Sure . +Postdoc B: Does this {disfmarker} ? So if you had an overlap involving three people , how many times was that counted ? +PhD D: Yeah , three people , two people . Eh , um I would like to consider eh one people with difference noise eh in the background , be +Professor E: No no , but I think what she 's asking is {pause} if at some particular for some particular stretch you had three people talking , instead of two , did you call that one event ? +PhD D: Oh . Oh . Yeah . I consider one event eh for th for that eh for all the zone . This {disfmarker} th I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider eh an acoustic event , the overlapping zone , the period where three speaker or eh {disfmarker} are talking together . +Grad G: Well {disfmarker} So let 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: For +Grad G: So let 's say me and Jane are talking at the same time , and then Liz starts talking also over all of us . How many events would that be ? +PhD D: So - I don't understand . +Grad G: So , two people are talking , {comment} and then a third person starts talking . +PhD D: Yeah ? +Grad G: Is there an event right here ? +PhD D: Eh no . No no . For me is the overlapping zone , because {disfmarker} because you {disfmarker} you have s you have more one {disfmarker} eh , more one voice eh , eh produced in a {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a moment . +Professor E: I see . +Grad G: So i if two or more people are talking . +Professor E: OK . Yeah . So I think {disfmarker} Yeah . We just wanted to understand how you 're defining it . +PhD D: Yeah . If +Professor E: So then , in the region between {disfmarker} since there {disfmarker} there is some continuous region , in between regions where there is only one person speaking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: And one contiguous region like that you 're calling an event . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: Is it {disfmarker} Are you calling the beginning or the end of it the event , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: or are you calling the entire length of it the event ? +PhD D: I consider the {disfmarker} the , nnn {disfmarker} the nnn , nnn {disfmarker} eh , the entirety eh , eh , all {disfmarker} all the time there were {disfmarker} the voice has overlapped . +Professor E: OK . +PhD D: This is the idea . But eh I {disfmarker} I don't distinguish between the {disfmarker} the numbers of eh speaker . Uh , I 'm not considering {vocalsound} eh the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} ehm {vocalsound} eh , the fact of eh , eh , for example , what did you say ? Eh at first eh , eh two talkers are uh , eh speaking , and eh , eh a third person eh join to {disfmarker} to that . For me , it 's eh {disfmarker} it 's eh , all overlap zone , with eh several numbers of speakers is eh , eh the same acoustic event . Wi - but {disfmarker} uh , without any mark between the zone {disfmarker} of the overlapping zone with two speakers eh speaking together , and the zone with the three speakers . +Postdoc B: That would j just be one . +PhD D: It {disfmarker} One . One . +Postdoc B: OK . +PhD D: Eh , with eh , a beginning mark and the ending mark . Because eh {vocalsound} for me , is the {disfmarker} is the zone with eh some kind of eh distortion the spectral . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD D: I don't mind {disfmarker} By the moment , by the moment . +Grad G: Well , but {disfmarker} But you could imagine that three people talking has a different spectral characteristic than two . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} Yeah , but eh {disfmarker} but eh I have to study . {comment} What will happen in a general way , +Professor E: Could . +Grad G: So . You had to start somewhere . +Professor E: Yeah . We just w +PhD C: So there 's a lot of overlap . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't know what eh will {disfmarker} will happen with the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: So . +Grad G: That 's a lot of overlap , +PhD D: Yeah ? +Professor E: So again , that 's {disfmarker} that 's three {disfmarker} three hundred in forty - five minutes that are {disfmarker} that are speakers , just speakers . +Grad G: yeah , for forty - five minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Uh - huh . OK . Yeah . +Postdoc B: But a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a th +Professor E: So that 's about eight per minute . +Postdoc B: But a thousand events in twelve minutes , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , {pause} but {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD C: But that can include taps . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , but a thousand taps in eight minutes is a l in twelve minutes is a lot . +PhD D: General . +PhD C: Actually {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I con I consider {disfmarker} I consider acoustic events eh , the silent too . +Postdoc B: Silent . +Grad G: Silence starting or silence ending {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , silent , ground to {disfmarker} bec to detect {disfmarker} eh because I consider acoustic event all the things are not eh speech . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD D: In ge in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in a general point of view . +PhD C: Oh . +Professor E: OK , so how many of those thousand were silence ? +PhD C: Alright . +PhD D: in the per +PhD F: Not speech {disfmarker} not speech or too much speech . +PhD D: Too much speech . +Professor E: Right . So how many of those thousand were silence , silent sections ? +PhD D: Yeah . Uh silent , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I haven't the {disfmarker} eh I {disfmarker} I would like to {disfmarker} to do a stylistic study +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: and give you eh with the report eh from eh the {disfmarker} the study from the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the session {disfmarker} one session . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that eh another thing . When eh {vocalsound} eh I w I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I was eh look at eh nnn , the difference speech file , um , for example , eh if eh we use the ehm {disfmarker} the mixed file , to {disfmarker} to transcribe , the {disfmarker} the events and the words , I {disfmarker} I saw that eh the eh speech signal , collected by the eh this kind of mike {disfmarker} eh of this kind of mike , eh are different from the eh mixed signal eh , we eh {disfmarker} collected by headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And {disfmarker} It 's right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: But the problem is {vocalsound} the following . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I knew that eh the signal eh , eh would be different , but eh the {disfmarker} the problem is eh , eh we eh detected eh difference events in the speech file eh collected by {disfmarker} by that mike uh qui compared with the mixed file . And so if {disfmarker} when you transcribe eh only eh using the nnn {disfmarker} the mixed file , it 's possible {disfmarker} eh if you use the transcription to evaluate a different system , it 's possible you eh {disfmarker} in the eh i and you use the eh speech file collected by the eh fet mike , to eh {disfmarker} to nnn {disfmarker} to do the experiments {pause} with the {disfmarker} the system , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: its possible to evaluate eh , eh {disfmarker} or to consider eh acoustic events that {disfmarker} which you marked eh in the mixed file , but eh they don't appear in the eh speech signal eh collected by the {disfmarker} by the mike . +Grad G: Right . The {disfmarker} the reason that I generated the mixed file was for IBM to do word level transcription , not speech event transcription . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Oh , it 's a good idea . It 's a good idea I think . +Grad G: So I agree that if someone wants to do speech event transcription , that the mixed signals here {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: I mean , if I 'm tapping on the table , you it 's not gonna show up on any of the mikes , but it 's gonna show up rather loudly in the PZM . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . So and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I say eh that eh , eh , or this eh only because eh I c I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in my opinion , it 's necessary to eh {disfmarker} to eh {disfmarker} to put the transcription on the speech file , collected by the objective signal . +Grad G: So . +PhD D: I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal collected by the {disfmarker} eh , the real mike in the future , in the prototype to {disfmarker} to eh correct the initial eh segmentation eh with the eh real speech +Professor E: Mm - hmm . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field , yeah . +PhD D: you have to {disfmarker} to analyze {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} to process . Because I {disfmarker} I found a difference . +Professor E: Yeah , well , just {disfmarker} I mean , just in that {disfmarker} that one s ten second , or whatever it was , example that Adam had that {disfmarker} that we {disfmarker} we passed on to others a few months ago , there was that business where I g I guess it was Adam and Jane were talking at the same time and {disfmarker} and uh , in the close - talking mikes you couldn't hear the overlap , and in the distant mike you could . So yeah , it 's clear that if you wanna study {disfmarker} if you wanna find all the places where there were overlap , it 's probably better to use a distant mike . +PhD F: That 's good . +Professor E: On the other hand , there 's other phenomena that are going on at the same time for which it might be useful to look at the close - talking mikes , +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: But why can't you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , time aligned ? +Professor E: so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: If you use the combination of the close - talking mikes , you would hear Jane interrupting me , but you wouldn't hear the paper rustling . And so if you 're interested in {disfmarker} +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I mean if you 're interested in speakers overlapping other speakers and not the other kinds of nonspeech , that 's not a problem , +Professor E: Some {comment} of it 's masking {disfmarker} masked . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD A: Were you interrupting him or was he interrupting you ? +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: right ? +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Although the other issue is that the {pause} mixed close - talking mikes {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm doing weird normalizations and things like that . +PhD C: But it 's known . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , the normalization you do is over the whole conversation +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: isn't it , over the whole meeting . +Grad G: Right . Yep . +PhD C: So if you wanted to study people overlapping people , that 's not a problem . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh I saw the nnn {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} eh but eh I eh {disfmarker} I have eh any results . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I saw the {disfmarker} the speech file collected by eh the fet mike , and eh eh signal eh to eh {disfmarker} to noise eh relation is eh low . It 's low . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: It 's very low . You would comp if we compare it with eh the headphone . +Grad G: Yep . +PhD D: And I {disfmarker} I found that nnn {disfmarker} that eh , {vocalsound} ehm , pr probably , +Grad G: Did {disfmarker} Did you +PhD D: I 'm not sure eh by the moment , but it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably that eh a lot of eh , {vocalsound} eh for example , in the overlapping zone , on eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in several eh parts of the files where you {disfmarker} you can find eh , eh {vocalsound} eh , smooth eh eh speech eh from eh one eh eh talker in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , +Professor E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: it 's probably in {disfmarker} in that eh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in those files you {disfmarker} you can not find {disfmarker} you can not process because eh it 's confused with {disfmarker} with noise . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And there are {vocalsound} a lot of I think . But I have to study with more detail . But eh my idea is to {disfmarker} to process only {pause} nnn , this eh {disfmarker} nnn , this kind of s of eh speech . Because I think it 's more realistic . I 'm not sure it 's a good idea , but eh {disfmarker} +Professor E: No {disfmarker} i +Grad G: Well , it 's more realistic but it 'll {disfmarker} it 'll be a lot harder . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Well , it 'd be hard , but on the other hand as you point out , if your {disfmarker} if i if {disfmarker} if your concern is to get uh the overlapping people {disfmarker} people 's speech , you will {disfmarker} you will get that somewhat better . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor E: Um , Are you making any use {disfmarker} uh you were {disfmarker} you were working with th the data that had already been transcribed . +PhD D: With {disfmarker} By Jane . +Professor E: Does it uh {disfmarker} Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Now um did you make any use of that ? See I was wondering cuz we st we have these ten hours of other stuff that is not yet transcribed . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor E: Do you {disfmarker} +PhD D: The {disfmarker} the transcription by Jane , t eh i eh , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use to {disfmarker} to nnn , {vocalsound} eh to put {disfmarker} i i it 's a reference for me . But eh the transcription {disfmarker} eh for example , I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not interested in the {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in the words , transcription words , eh transcribed eh eh in {disfmarker} eh follow in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the {disfmarker} in the speech file , but eh eh Jane eh for example eh put a mark eh at the beginning eh of each eh talker , in the {disfmarker} in the meeting , um eh she {disfmarker} she nnn includes information about the zone where eh there are eh {disfmarker} there is an overlapping zone . But eh there isn't any {disfmarker} any mark , time {disfmarker} temporal mark , to {disfmarker} to c eh {disfmarker} to mmm {vocalsound} {disfmarker} e - heh , to label {comment} the beginning and the end of the {disfmarker} of the +Professor E: Mm - hmm . OK . Right , so she is {disfmarker} +PhD D: ta I 'm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think eh we need this information to +Professor E: Right . So the twelve {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} it took you twelve hours {disfmarker} of course this included maybe some {disfmarker} some time where you were learning about what {disfmarker} what you wanted to do , but {disfmarker} but uh , it took you something like twelve hours to mark the forty - five minutes , your +Grad G: Twelve minutes . +PhD D: Twelve minutes . +Professor E: s Twelve minutes ! +PhD D: Twelve minutes . Twelve . +Professor E: I thought you did forty - five minutes of {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , forty - five minutes is the {disfmarker} is the session , all the session . +Postdoc B: Oh . +Professor E: Oh , you haven't done the whole session . +PhD D: Yeah , all is the {vocalsound} the session . +Professor E: This is just twelve minutes . +PhD D: Tw - twelve hours of work to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to segment eh and label eh twelve minutes from a session of part {disfmarker} of f +Professor E: Oh . So {comment} let me back up again . So the {disfmarker} when you said there were three hundred speaker overlaps , +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: that 's in twelve minutes ? +PhD D: No no no . I {disfmarker} I consider all the {disfmarker} all the session because eh I {disfmarker} I count the nnn {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} the overlappings marked by {disfmarker} by Jane , +Professor E: Oh , OK . +Postdoc B: Oh , I see . +PhD D: in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the {pause} fin in {disfmarker} in the {pause} forty - five minutes . +Professor E: OK . So it 's three hundred in forty - five minutes , but you have {disfmarker} you have time uh , uh marked {disfmarker} twelve minute {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the um overlaps in twelve minutes of it . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Got it . +PhD F: So , can I ask {disfmarker} {vocalsound} can I ask whether you found {disfmarker} uh , you know , how accurate uh Jane 's uh uh labels were as far as {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , not just the overlaps , everything . +PhD F: you know , did she miss some overlaps ? or did she n ? +PhD D: But , by {disfmarker} by the moment , I {disfmarker} I don't compare , my {disfmarker} my temporal mark with eh Jane , but eh I {disfmarker} I want to do it . Because eh eh i per perhaps I have eh errors in the {disfmarker} in the marks , I {disfmarker} and if I {disfmarker} I compare with eh Jane , it 's probably I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can correct and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} to get eh eh a more accurately eh eh transcription in the file . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , also Jane {disfmarker} Jane was doing word level . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: So we weren't concerned with {comment} exactly when an overlap started and stopped . +PhD F: Right . Right . +PhD C: Well , not only a word level , but actually +PhD D: Well {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm expect I 'm not expecting {disfmarker} +PhD D: No , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean , you didn't need to show the exact point of interruption , you just were showing at the level of the phrase or the level of the speech spurt , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Well , yeah , b yeah , I would say time bin . So my {disfmarker} my goal is to get words with reference to a time bin , {pause} beginning and end point . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: And {disfmarker} and sometimes , you know , it was like you could have an overlap where someone said something in the middle , +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: but , yeah , w it just wasn't important for our purposes to have it that {disfmarker} i disrupt that unit in order to have , you know , a the words in the order in which they were spoken , it would have {disfmarker} it would have been hard with the interface that we have . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Now , my {disfmarker} a Adam 's working on a of course , on a revised overlapping interface , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Grad G: Right . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} it 's a good eh work , +Postdoc B: but {disfmarker} +PhD D: but eh I think we need eh eh more information . +PhD F: No , of course . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD F: I expect you to find more overlaps than {disfmarker} than Jane +Grad G: Always need more for {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD D: No , no . I {disfmarker} I have to go to {disfmarker} +PhD F: because you 're looking at it at a much more detailed level . +PhD D: I want eh {disfmarker} I wanted to eh compare the {disfmarker} the transcription . +Professor E: I have {disfmarker} +Grad G: But if it takes sixty to one {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well , I but I have a suggestion about that . Um , obviously this is very , very time - consuming , and you 're finding lots of things which I 'm sure are gonna be very interesting , but in the interests of making progress , uh might I s how {disfmarker} how would it affect your time if you only marked speaker overlaps ? +PhD D: Only . +Professor E: Yes . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Do not mark any other events , +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: but only mark speaker {disfmarker} Do you think that would speed it up quite a bit ? +PhD D: OK . OK . I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I w I {disfmarker} I wanted to {disfmarker} +Professor E: Do y do you think that would speed it up ? Uh , speed up your {disfmarker} your {disfmarker} your marking ? +PhD D: nnn , I don't understand very . +Professor E: It took you a long time {pause} to mark twelve minutes . +PhD D: Yeah . Oh , yeah , yeah . +Professor E: Now , my suggestion was for the other thirty - three {disfmarker} +PhD D: On - only to mark {disfmarker} only to mark overlapping zone , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah , and my question is , if you did that , if you followed my suggestion , would it take much less time ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . Sure . +Professor E: Yeah OK . +PhD D: Yeah sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea . +PhD D: Sure sure . +Professor E: Then I think it 's a good idea , because it +PhD D: Sure , because I {disfmarker} I need a lot of time to {disfmarker} to put the label or to do that . Yeah . +Professor E: Yeah , I mean , we we know that there 's noise . +Grad G: And +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor E: There 's {disfmarker} there 's uh continual noise uh from fans and so forth , and there is uh more impulsive noise from uh taps and so forth +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and something in between with paper rustling . We know that all that 's there and it 's a g worthwhile thing to study , but obviously it takes a lot of time to mark all of these things . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: Whereas th i I would think that uh you {disfmarker} we can study more or less as a distinct phenomenon the overlapping of people talking . +PhD D: Uh - huh . OK . OK . +Professor E: So . Then you can get the {disfmarker} Cuz you need {disfmarker} If it 's three hundred uh {disfmarker} i i it sounds like you probably only have fifty or sixty or seventy events right now that are really {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and you need to have a lot more than that to have any kind of uh even visual sense of {disfmarker} of what 's going on , much less any kind of reasonable statistics . +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: Now , why do you need to mark speaker overlap by hand if you can infer it from the relative energy in the {disfmarker} +Grad G: Well , that 's {disfmarker} That 's what I was gonna bring up . +PhD C: I mean , you shouldn't need to do this p completely by hand , +Professor E: Um , OK , yeah . So let 's back up because you weren't here for an earlier conversation . +PhD C: right ? I 'm sorry . +Professor E: So the idea was that what he was going to be doing was experimenting with different measures such as the increase in energy , such as the energy in the LPC residuals , such as {disfmarker} I mean there 's a bunch of things {disfmarker} I mean , increased energy is - is sort of an obvious one . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . In the far - field mike . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Oh , OK . +Professor E: Um , and uh , it 's not obvious , I mean , you could {disfmarker} you could do the dumbest thing and get {disfmarker} get it ninety percent of the time . But when you start going past that and trying to do better , it 's not obvious what combination of features is gonna give you the {disfmarker} you know , the right detector . So the idea is to have some ground truth first . And so the i the idea of the manual marking was to say "" OK this , i you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really here "" . +PhD A: But I think Liz is saying why not get it out of the transcripts ? +PhD C: What I mean is {pause} get it from the close - talking mikes . +Professor E: Uh , yeah . +PhD C: A or ge get a first pass from those , +Professor E: We t we t w we t we talked about that . +PhD C: and then go through sort of {disfmarker} It 'd be a lot faster probably to {disfmarker} +PhD F: And you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , that 's his , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we talked about that . s But so it 's a bootstrapping thing and the thing is , +PhD C: Yeah , I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: the idea was , i we i i we thought it would be useful for him to look at the data anyway , and {disfmarker} and then whatever he could mark would be helpful , +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: and we could {disfmarker} Uh it 's a question of what you bootstrap from . You know , do you bootstrap from a simple measurement which is right most of the time and then you g do better , or do you bootstrap from some human being looking at it and then {disfmarker} then do your simple measurements , uh from the close - talking mike . I mean , even with the close - talking mike you 're not gonna get it right all the time . +PhD C: Well , that 's what I wonder , because um {disfmarker} or how bad it is , +Professor E: Well +PhD C: be um , because that would be interesting +Grad G: I 'm working on a program to do that , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: especially because the bottleneck is the transcription . Right ? I mean , we 've got a lot more data than we have transcriptions for . We have the audio data , we have the close - talking mike , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: so I mean it seems like one kind of project that 's not perfect , but {disfmarker} um , that you can get the training data for pretty quickly is , you know , if you infer form the close - talking mikes where the on - off points are of speech , +Professor E: Right , we discussed that . +PhD C: you know , how can we detect that from a far - field ? +Grad G: And {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Oh . +Grad G: I 've {disfmarker} I 've written a program to do that , +PhD C: OK , I 'm sorry I missed the {disfmarker} +Grad G: and it , uh {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's OK . +Grad G: and {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} but it 's {disfmarker} it 's doing something very , very simple . It just takes a threshold , based on {disfmarker} on the volume , +PhD C: Uh - huh . +PhD F: Or you can set the threshold low and then weed out the false alarms by hand . +PhD C: Right , by hand . Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad G: um , and then it does a median filter , and then it looks for runs . And , it seems to work , I 've {disfmarker} I 'm sort of fiddling with the parameters , to get it to actually generate something , and I haven't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} what I 'm working on {disfmarker} was working on {disfmarker} was getting it to a form where we can import it into the user interface that we have , {pause} into Transcriber . And so {disfmarker} I told {disfmarker} I said it would take about a day . I 've worked on it for about half a day , +Grad H: I have to go . +Grad G: so give me another half day and I we 'll have something we can play with . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: See , this is where we really need the Meeting Recorder query stuff to be working , because we 've had these meetings and we 've had this discussion about this , and I 'm sort of remembering a little bit about what we decided , +PhD C: Right . I 'm sorry . I just {disfmarker} +Professor E: but I couldn't remember all of it . +PhD C: It +Professor E: So , I think it was partly that , you know , give somebody a chance to actually look at the data and see what these are like , partly that we have e some ground truth to compare against , you know , when {disfmarker} when he {disfmarker} he gets his thing going , +Grad G: But {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Well , it 's definitely good to have somebody look at it . I was just thinking as a way to speed up you know , the amount of {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: That was {disfmarker} that was exactly the notion that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we discussed . +PhD C: OK . +Grad G: Thanks . +Postdoc B: Another thing we discussed was um that {disfmarker} +PhD C: It looks good . +Professor E: So . +PhD C: I 'll be in touch . Thanks . +Professor E: S See ya . Yeah . +Postdoc B: Was that um there m {pause} there was this already a script I believe uh that Dan had written , {comment} that uh handle bleedthrough , I mean cuz you have this {disfmarker} this close {disfmarker} you have contamination from other people who speak loudly . +Grad G: Yeah , and I haven't tried using that . It would probably help the program that I 'm doing to first feed it through that . It 's a cross - correlation filter . So I {disfmarker} I haven't tried that , but that {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it might be something {disfmarker} it might be a good way of cleaning it up a little . +Postdoc B: So , some thought of maybe having {disfmarker} Yeah , having that be a preprocessor and then run it through yours . +Grad G: Exactly . Yep . +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but that 's a refinement +Postdoc B: That 's what we were discussing . +Professor E: and I think we wanna see {disfmarker} try the simple thing first , cuz you add this complex thing up uh afterwards that does something good y y yo you sort of wanna see what the simple thing does first . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: But uh , having {disfmarker} having somebody have some experience , again , with {disfmarker} with uh {disfmarker} with marking it from a human standpoint , we 're {disfmarker} I mean , I don't expect Jose to {disfmarker} to do it for uh f fifty hours of {disfmarker} {comment} of speech , but I mean we {disfmarker} {comment} if uh {disfmarker} if he could speed up what he was doing by just getting the speaker overlaps so that we had it , say , for forty - five minutes , then at least we 'd have three hundred examples of it . +PhD D: Yeah . Sure . Sure . +Professor E: And when {disfmarker} when uh Adam was doing his automatic thing he could then compare to that and see what it was different . +PhD C: Oh yeah , definitely . +PhD A: You know , I did {disfmarker} I did uh something almost identical to this at one of my previous jobs , and it works pretty well . I mean , i almost exactly what you described , an energy detector with a median filter , you look for runs . And uh , you know , you can {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seemed like the right thing to do . +PhD A: Yeah . I mean , you {disfmarker} you can get y I mean , you get them pretty close . +Grad G: That was with zero literature search . +PhD A: And so I think doing that to generate these possibilities and then going through and saying yes or no on them would be a quick way to {disfmarker} to do it . +Grad G: That 's good validation . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Is this proprietary ? +PhD A: Uh . {comment} No . No . +Grad G: Yeah , do you have a patent on it ? +PhD A: It was when I was working for the government . +Professor E: Oh , then everybody owns it . It 's the people . +Postdoc B: Well , I mean , is this something that we could just co - opt , or is it {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: Nah . +Postdoc B: No . OK . +Professor E: Well , i i i he 's pretty close , anyway . I think {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , he 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it doesn't take a long time . +Postdoc B: Right . I just thought if it was tried and true , then {disfmarker} {comment} and he 's gone through additional levels of {disfmarker} of development . +Grad G: Just output . Although if you {disfmarker} if you have some parameters like what 's a good window size for the median filter {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh ! {comment} I have to remember . I 'll think about it , and try to remember . +PhD F: And it might be different for government people . +Grad G: That 's alright . +Professor E: Yeah , good enough for government work , as they say . +PhD C: They {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} +PhD A: Di - dif different {disfmarker} different bandwidth . +PhD F: They +Grad G: I was doing pretty short , you know , tenth of a second , {comment} sorts of numbers . +PhD F: OK . +Professor E: Uh , I don't know , it {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to uh {disfmarker} So , uh , maybe we should move on to other {disfmarker} other things in limited time . +Postdoc B: Can I ask one question about his statistics ? So {disfmarker} so in the tw twelve minutes , um , if we took three hundred and divided it by four , which is about the length of twelve minutes , i Um , I 'd expect like there should be seventy - five overlaps . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: Did you find uh more than seventy - five overlaps in that period , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD D: More than ? +Postdoc B: More than {disfmarker} How many overlaps in your twelve minutes ? +PhD D: How many ? Eh , not @ @ I Onl - only I {disfmarker} I transcribe eh only twelve minutes from the +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD D: but eh I {disfmarker} I don't co eh {disfmarker} I don't count eh the {disfmarker} the overlap . +Postdoc B: The overlaps . OK . +PhD D: I consider I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the nnn {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the three hundred is eh considered only you {disfmarker} your transcription . I have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} to finish transcribing . So . +Grad G: I b I bet they 're more , because the beginning of the meeting had a lot more overlaps than {disfmarker} than sort of the middle . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Middle or end . +Postdoc B: I 'm not sure . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Because i we 're {disfmarker} we 're dealing with the {disfmarker} Uh , in the early meetings , we 're recording while we 're saying who 's talking on what microphone , {comment} and things like that , +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: and that seems to be a lot of overlap . +Postdoc B: I think it 's an empirical question . +PhD D: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I think we could find that out . +PhD D: Yeah . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure that the beginning had more . +Professor E: So {disfmarker} so I was gonna ask , I guess about any {disfmarker} any other things that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that either of you wanted to talk about , especially since Andreas is leaving in five minutes , that {disfmarker} that you wanna go with . +PhD C: Can I just ask about the data , like very straightforward question is where we are on the amount of data and the amount of transcribed data , just cuz I 'm {disfmarker} I wanted to get a feel for that to sort of be able to know what {disfmarker} what can be done first and like how many meetings are we recording +Professor E: Right so there 's this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} There 's this forty - five minute piece that Jane transcribed . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} +Professor E: That piece was then uh sent to IBM so they could transcribe so we have some comparison point . Then there 's s a larger piece that 's been recorded and uh put on CD - ROM and sent uh to IBM . Right ? And then we don't know . +PhD C: How many meetings is that ? Like {disfmarker} how many {disfmarker} +Grad G: What 's that ? +Professor E: That was about ten hours , and there was about {disfmarker} +PhD C: t ten {disfmarker} It 's like ten meetings or something ? Uh - huh . +Grad G: Yeah , something like that . And then {disfmarker} then we +PhD A: Ten meetings that have been sent to IBM ? +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: Well , I haven't sent them yet because I was having this problem with the {pause} missing files . +Professor E: Oh . Oh , that 's right , that had {disfmarker} those have not been sent . +PhD A: H how many total have we recorded now , altogether ? +Professor E: We 're saying about {pause} twelve hours . +Grad G: About twelve {pause} by now . Twelve or thirteen . +PhD C: Uh - huh . And we 're recording only this meeting , like continuously we 're only recording this one now ? or {disfmarker} ? +Professor E: No . No , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that 's the {disfmarker} that 's the biggest one {disfmarker} uh , chunk so far , +Grad G: Nope . +PhD A: It was the morning one . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: but there 's at least one meeting recorded of uh the uh uh natural language guys . +Grad G: Jerry . +PhD C: Do they meet every week , +Professor E: And then there {disfmarker} +PhD C: or every {disfmarker} +Professor E: Uh , they do . w w And we talked to them about recording some more and we 're going to , uh , we 've started having a morning meeting , today uh i starting a w a week or two ago , on the uh front - end issues , and we 're recording those , uh there 's a network services and applications group here who 's agreed to have their meetings recorded , +PhD C: Great . +Professor E: and we 're gonna start recording them . They 're {disfmarker} They meet on Tuesdays . We 're gonna start recording them next week . So actually , we 're gonna h start having a {disfmarker} a pretty significant chunk and so , you know , {vocalsound} Adam 's sort of struggling with trying to get things to be less buggy , and come up quicker when they do crash and stuff {disfmarker} things like that , now that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the things are starting to happen . So right now , yeah , I th I 'd say the data is predominantly meeting meetings , but there are scattered other meetings in it and that {disfmarker} that amount is gonna grow uh so that the meeting meetings will probably ultimately {disfmarker} i if we 're {disfmarker} if we collect fifty or sixty hours , the meeting meetings it will probably be , you know , twenty or thirty percent of it , not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not eighty or ninety . But . +PhD C: So there 's probably {disfmarker} there 's three to four a week , +Grad G: That 's what we 're aiming for . +PhD C: that we 're aiming for . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: And they 're each about an hour or something . +Professor E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad G: Although {disfmarker} Yeah . We 'll find out tomorrow whether we can really do this or not . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} OK . +Professor E: Yeah and th the {disfmarker} the other thing is I 'm not pos I 'm sort of thinking as we 've been through this a few times , that I really don't know {disfmarker} maybe you wanna do it once for the novelty , but I don't know if in general we wanna have meetings that we record from outside this group do the digits . +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: Because it 's just an added bunch of weird stuff . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: And , you know , we {disfmarker} we h we 're highly motivated . Uh in fact , the morning group is really motivated cuz they 're working on connected digits , so it 's {disfmarker} +Grad G: Actually that 's something I wanted to ask , is I have a bunch of scripts to help with the transcription of the digits . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: We don't have to hand - transcribe the digits because we 're reading them and I have those . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Grad G: And so I have some scripts that let you very quickly extract the sections of each utterance . But I haven't been ru I haven't been doing that . Um , if I did that , is someone gonna be working on it ? +Professor E: Uh , yeah , I {disfmarker} I think definitely s so Absolutely . +Grad G: I mean , is it something of interest ? +Professor E: Yeah , whoever we have working on the acoustics for the Meeting Recorder are gonna start with that . +Grad G: OK . I mean , I I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm interested in it , I just don't have time to do it now . +PhD F: I was {disfmarker} these meetings {disfmarker} I 'm sure someone thought of this , but these {disfmarker} this uh reading of the numbers would be extremely helpful to do um adaptation . +Grad G: So +PhD F: Um . +Grad G: Yep . Yep . +PhD C: Actually I have o +Grad G: I {disfmarker} I would really like someone to do adaptation . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So if we got someone interested in that , I think it would be great for Meeting Recorder . +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things I wanted to do , uh , that I I talked to {disfmarker} to Don about , is one of the possible things he could do or m also , we could have someone else do it , is to do block echo cancellation , +Grad G: Since it 's the same people over and over . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: to try to get rid of some of the effects of the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the far - field effects . Um , I mean we have {disfmarker} the party line has been that echo cancellation is not the right way to handle the situation +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: because people move around , and uh , if {disfmarker} if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's uh not a simple echo , like a cross - talk kind of echo , but it 's actually room acoustics , it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} you can't really do inversion , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: and even echo cancellation is going to uh be something {disfmarker} It may {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} Someone may be moving enough that you are not able to adapt quickly and so the tack that we 've taken is more "" lets come up with feature approaches and multi - stream approaches and so forth , that will be robust to it for the recognizer and not try to create a clean signal "" . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh , that 's the party line . But it occurred to me a few months ago that uh party lines are always , you know , sort of dangerous . It 's good {disfmarker} {vocalsound} good to sort of test them , actually . And so we haven't had anybody try to do a good serious job on echo cancellation and we should know how well that can do . So that 's something I 'd like somebody to do at some point , just take these digits , take the far - field mike signal , and the close uh mike signal , and apply really good echo cancellation . Um , there was a {disfmarker} have been some nice talks recently by {disfmarker} by Lucent on {disfmarker} on their b +PhD F: Hmm . +Professor E: the block echo cancellation particularly appealed to me , uh you know , trying and change it sample by sample , but you have some reasonable sized blocks . {comment} And um , you know , th +PhD A: W what is the um {disfmarker} the artifact you try to {disfmarker} you 're trying to get rid of when you do that ? +PhD F: Ciao . +Professor E: Uh so it 's {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you have a {disfmarker} a direct uh {disfmarker} Uh , what 's the difference in {disfmarker} If you were trying to construct a linear filter , that would um {disfmarker} +PhD F: I 'm signing off . +Professor E: Yeah . that would subtract off {comment} the um uh parts of the signal that were the aspects of the signal that were different between the close - talk and the distant . You know , so {disfmarker} so uh um I guess in most echo cancellation {disfmarker} Yeah , so you {disfmarker} Given that um {disfmarker} Yeah , so you 're trying to {disfmarker} So you 'd {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} a distance between the close and the distant mikes so there 's a time delay there , and after the time delay , there 's these various reflections . And if you figure out well what 's the {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a least squares algorithm that adjusts itself {disfmarker} adjusts the weight so that you try to subtract {disfmarker} essentially to subtract off uh different uh {disfmarker} different reflections . Right ? So let 's take the simple case where you just had {disfmarker} you had some uh some delay in a satellite connection or something and then there 's a {disfmarker} there 's an echo . It comes back . And you want to adjust this filter so that it will maximally reduce the effect of this echo . +PhD A: So that would mean like if you were listening to the data that was recorded on one of those . Uh , just the raw data , you would {disfmarker} you might hear kind of an echo ? And {disfmarker} and then this {disfmarker} noise cancellation would get +Professor E: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm saying {disfmarker} That 's a simplified version of what 's really happening . {comment} What 's really happening is {disfmarker} Well , when I 'm talking to you right now , you 're getting the direct sound from my speech , but you 're also getting , uh , the indirect sound that 's bounced around the room a number of times . OK ? So now , if you um try to r you {disfmarker} To completely remove the effect of that is sort of impractical for a number of technical reasons , but I {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} not to try to completely remove it , that is , invert the {disfmarker} the room response , but just to try to uh uh eliminate some of the {disfmarker} the effect of some of the echos . Um , a number of people have done this so that , say , if you 're talking to a speakerphone , uh it makes it more like it would be , if you were talking right up to it . So this is sort of the st the straight - forward approach . You say I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I want to use this uh {disfmarker} this item but I want to subtract off various kinds of echos . So you construct a filter , and you have this {disfmarker} this filtered version uh of the speech um gets uh uh {disfmarker} gets subtracted off from the original speech . Then you try to {disfmarker} you try to minimize the energy in some sense . And so um {disfmarker} uh with some constraints . +PhD A: Kind of a clean up thing , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's a clean up thing . Right . +PhD A: OK . +Professor E: So , echo cancelling is {disfmarker} is , you know , commonly done in telephony , and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and it 's sort of the obvious thing to do in this situation if you {disfmarker} if , you know , you 're gonna be talking some distance from a mike . +PhD A: When uh , I would have meetings with the folks in Cambridge when I was at BBN over the phone , they had a um {disfmarker} some kind of a special speaker phone and when they would first connect me , it would come on and we 'd hear all this noise . And then it was uh {disfmarker} And then it would come on and it was very clear , +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD A: you know . +Professor E: Right . So it 's taking samples , it 's doing adaptation , it 's adjusting weights , and then it 's getting the sum . So um , uh anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's kind of a reasonable thing that I 'd like to have somebody try {disfmarker} somebody look {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and the digits would be a reasonable thing to do that with . I think that 'd be enough data {disfmarker} plenty of data to do that with , and i for that sort of task you wouldn't care whether it was uh large vocabulary speech or anything . Uh . {vocalsound} Um +Postdoc B: Is Brian Kingsbury 's work related to that , or is it a different type of reverberation ? +Professor E: Brian 's {comment} Kingsbury 's work is an example of what we did f f from the opposite dogma . Right ? Which is what I was calling the "" party line "" , which is that uh doing that sort of thing is not really what we want . We want something more flexible , uh i i where people might change their position , and there might be , you know {disfmarker} There 's also um oh yeah , noise . So the echo cancellation does not really allow for noise . It 's if you have a clean situation but you just have some delays , Then we 'll figure out the right {disfmarker} the right set of weights for your taps for your filter in order to produce the effect of those {disfmarker} those echos . But um if there 's noise , then the very signal that it 's looking at is corrupted so that it 's decision about what the right {disfmarker} you know , right {disfmarker} right uh {disfmarker} delays are {disfmarker} is , uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} right delayed signal is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} uh is incorrect . And so , in a noisy situation , um , also in a {disfmarker} in a situation that 's very reverberant {disfmarker} {comment} with long reverberation times {comment} and really long delays , it 's {disfmarker} it 's sort of typically impractical . So for those kind of reasons , and also a {disfmarker} a c a complete inversion , if you actually {disfmarker} I mentioned that it 's kind of hard to really do the inversion of the room acoustics . Um , that 's difficult because um often times the {disfmarker} the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the system transfer function is such that when it 's inverted you get something that 's unstable , and so , if you {disfmarker} you do your estimate of what the system is , and then you try to invert it , you get a filter that actually uh , you know , rings , and {disfmarker} and uh goes to infinity . So it 's {disfmarker} so there 's {disfmarker} there 's {disfmarker} there 's that sort of technical reason , and the fact that things move , and there 's air currents {disfmarker} I mean there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} all sorts of reasons why it 's not really practical . So for all those kinds of reasons , uh we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of um , concluded we didn't want to in do inversion , and we 're even pretty skeptical of echo cancellation , which isn't really inversion , and um we decided to do this approach of taking {disfmarker} uh , just picking uh features , which were {disfmarker} uh will give you more {disfmarker} something that was more stable , in the presence of , or absence of , room reverberation , and that 's what Brian was trying to do . So , um , let me just say a couple things that I was {disfmarker} I was gonna bring up . Uh . Let 's see . I guess you {disfmarker} you actually already said this thing about the uh {disfmarker} about the consent forms , which was that we now don't have to {disfmarker} So this was the human subjects folks who said this , {comment} or that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} ? +Postdoc B: The a apparently {disfmarker} I mean , we 're gonna do a revised form , of course . Um but once a person has signed it once , then that 's valid for a certain number of meetings . She wanted me to actually estimate how many meetings and put that on the consent form . I told her that would be a little bit difficult to say . So I think from a s practical standpoint , maybe we could have them do it once every ten meetings , or something . It won't be that many people who do it {pause} that often , but um just , you know , so long as they don't forget that they 've done it , I guess . +Professor E: OK . Um , back on the data thing , so there 's this sort of one hour , ten hour , a hundred hour sort of thing that {disfmarker} that we have . We have {disfmarker} we have an hour uh that {disfmarker} that is transcribed , we have {disfmarker} we have twelve hours that 's recorded but not transcribed , and at the rate we 're going , uh by the end of the semester we 'll have , I don't know , forty or fifty or something , if we {disfmarker} if this really uh {disfmarker} Well , do we have that much ? +PhD C: Not really . It 's three to four per week . +Professor E: Let 's see , we have {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's what {disfmarker} You know , that {disfmarker} +Professor E: uh eight weeks , uh is {disfmarker} +PhD C: So that 's not a lot of hours . +Professor E: Eight weeks times three hours is twenty - four , so that 's {disfmarker} Yeah , so like thirty {disfmarker} thirty hours ? +PhD A: Three {disfmarker} Three hours . +PhD C: Yeah . I mean , is there {disfmarker} I know this sounds {pause} tough but we 've got the room set up . Um I was starting to think of some projects where you would use well , similar to what we talked about with uh energy detection on the close - talking mikes . There are a number of interesting questions that you can ask about how interactions happen in a meeting , that don't require any transcription . So what are the patterns , the energy patterns over the meeting ? And I 'm really interested in this {vocalsound} but we don't have a whole lot of data . So I was thinking , you know , we 've got the room set up and you can always think of , also for political reasons , if ICSI collected you know , two hundred hours , that looks different than forty hours , even if we don't transcribe it ourselves , +Professor E: But I don't think we 're gonna stop at the end of this semester . +PhD C: so {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right ? So , I th I think that if we are able to keep that up for a few months , we are gonna have more like a hundred hours . +PhD C: I mean , is there {disfmarker} Are there any other meetings here that we can record , especially meetings that have some kind of conflict in them {comment} or some kind of deci I mean , that are less well {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} uh , that have some more emotional aspects to them , or strong {disfmarker} +Grad G: We had some good ones earlier . +PhD C: There 's laughter , um I 'm talking more about strong differences of opinion meetings , maybe with manager types , or {disfmarker} +Grad G: I think it 's hard to record those . +PhD C: To be allowed to record them ? +Postdoc B: It 's also likely that people will cancel out afterwards . +PhD C: OK . +Professor E: Yeah , people will get {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: But I {disfmarker} but I wanted to raise the KPFA idea . +PhD C: OK . Well , if there is , anyway . +Professor E: Yeah , I was gonna mention that . +Grad G: Oh , that 's a good idea . That 's {disfmarker} That would be a good match . +Professor E: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh , I {disfmarker} I 'd mentioned to Adam , and {disfmarker} that was another thing I was gonna talk {disfmarker} uh , mention to them before {disfmarker} {comment} that uh there 's uh {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} it oc it occurred to me that we might be able to get some additional data by talking to uh acquaintances in local broadcast media . Because , you know , we had talked before about the problem about using found data , {comment} that {disfmarker} that uh it 's just set up however they have it set up and we don't have any say about it and it 's typically one microphone , in a , uh , uh {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so it doesn't really give us the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh characteristics we want . Um and so I do think we 're gonna continue recording here and record what we can . But um , it did occur to me that we could go to friends in broadcast media and say "" hey you have this panel show , {pause} or this {disfmarker} you know , this discussion show , and um can you record multi - channel ? "" And uh they may be willing to record it uh with {disfmarker} +PhD C: With lapel mikes or something ? +Professor E: Well , they probably already use lapel , but they might be able to have it {disfmarker} it wouldn't be that weird for them to have another mike that was somewhat distant . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: It wouldn't be exactly this setup , but it would be that sort of thing , and what we were gonna get from UW , you know , assuming they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they start recording , isn't {disfmarker} als also is not going to be this exact setup . +PhD C: Right . No , I think that 'd be great , if we can get more data . +Professor E: So , {comment} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was thinking of looking into that . the other thing that occurred to me after we had that discussion , in fact , is that it 's even possible , since of course , many radio shows are not live , {comment} uh that we could invite them to have like some of their {disfmarker} {comment} record some of their shows here . +Postdoc B: Wow ! +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker} The thing is , they 're not as averse to wearing one of these head - mount I mean , they 're on the radio , +Grad G: Right , as we are . +PhD C: right ? So . {comment} Um , I think that 'd be fantastic +Professor E: Right . +PhD C: cuz those kinds of panels and {disfmarker} Those have interesting +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Th - that 's an {disfmarker} a side of style {disfmarker} a style that we 're not collecting here , so it 'd be great . +Professor E: And {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} I mean , the other side to it was the {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} which is where we were coming from {disfmarker} I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you more about it later {comment} is that {disfmarker} is that there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh the radio stations and television stations already have stuff worked out presumably , uh related to , you know , legal issues and {disfmarker} and permissions and all that . I mean , they already do what they do {disfmarker} do whatever they do . So it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's {disfmarker} So it 's {disfmarker} so it 's another source . So I think it 's something we should look into , you know , we 'll collect what we collect here hopefully they will collect more at UW also and um {disfmarker} and maybe we have this other source . But yeah I think that it 's not unreasonable to aim at getting , you know , significantly in excess of a hundred hours . I mean , that was sort of our goal . The thing was , I was hoping that we could {disfmarker} @ @ in the {disfmarker} under this controlled situation we could at least collect , you know , thirty to fifty hours . And at the rate we 're going we 'll get pretty close to that I think this semester . And if we continue to collect some next semester , I think we should , uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . Yeah I was mostly trying to think , "" OK , if you start a project , within say a month , you know , how much data do you have to work with . And you {disfmarker} you wanna s you wanna sort of fr freeze your {disfmarker} your data for awhile so um right now {disfmarker} and we don't have the transcripts back yet from IBM right ? Do {disfmarker} Oh , do we now ? +Professor E: Well , we don't even have it for this f you know , forty - five minutes , that was {disfmarker} +PhD C: So um , not complaining , I was just trying to think , you know , what kinds of projects can you do now versus uh six months from now +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: and they 're pretty different , because +Professor E: Yeah . So I was thinking right now it 's sort of this exploratory stuff where you {disfmarker} you look at the data , you use some primitive measures and get a feeling for what the scatter plots look like , +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: um {disfmarker} Right . Right , right . +Professor E: and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and meanwhile we collect , and it 's more like yeah , three months from now , or six months from now you can {disfmarker} you can do a lot of other things . +PhD C: Cuz I 'm not actually sure , just logistically that I can spend {disfmarker} you know , I don't wanna charge the time that I have on the project too early , before there 's enough data to make good use of the time . And that 's {disfmarker} and especially with the student +Grad G: Right . +PhD C: uh for instance this guy who seems {disfmarker} +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh anyway , I shouldn't say too much , but um if someone came that was great and wanted to do some real work and they have to end by the end of this school year in the spring , how much data will I have to work with , with that person . And so it 's {disfmarker} +Professor E: i Yeah , so I would think , exploratory things now . Uh , three months from now {disfmarker} Um , I mean the transcriptions I think are a bit of an unknown cuz we haven't gotten those back yet as far as the timing , but I think as far as the collection , it doesn't seem to me l like , uh , unreasonable to say that uh in January , you know , ro roughly uh {disfmarker} which is roughly three months from now , we should have at least something like , you know , twenty - five , thirty hours . +PhD C: And we just don't know about the transcription part of that , +Professor E: So that 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: Yeah , we need to {disfmarker} I think that there 's a possibility that the transcript will need to be adjusted afterwards , +PhD C: so . I mean , it {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: and uh es especially since these people won't be uh used to dealing with multi - channel uh transcriptions . +PhD C: Right . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: So I think that we 'll need to adjust some {disfmarker} And also if we wanna add things like um , well , more refined coding of overlaps , then definitely I think we should count on having an extra pass through . I wanted to ask another a a aspect of the data collection . There 'd be no reason why a person couldn't get together several uh , you know , friends , and come and argue about a topic if they wanted to , right ? +Professor E: If they really have something they wanna talk about as opposed to something @ @ {disfmarker} I mean , what we 're trying to stay away from was artificial constructions , but I think if it 's a real {disfmarker} Why not ? Yeah . +PhD C: I mean , I 'm thinking , politically {disfmarker} +Grad G: Stage some political debates . +Postdoc B: You could do this , +PhD C: Well yeah , +Postdoc B: you know . You could . +PhD C: or just if you 're {disfmarker} if you ha If there are meetings here that happen that we can record even if we don't {pause} um have them do the digits , {comment} or maybe have them do a shorter {pause} digit thing {comment} like if it was , you know , uh , one string of digits , or something , they 'd probably be willing to do . +Grad G: We don't have to do the digits at all if we don't want to . +PhD C: Then , having the data is very valuable , cuz I think it 's um politically better for us to say we have this many hours of audio data , especially with the ITR , if we put in a proposal on it . It 'll just look like ICSI 's collected a lot more audio data . Um , whether it 's transcribed or not um , is another issue , but there 's {disfmarker} there are research questions you can answer without the transcriptions , or at least that you can start to answer . +Postdoc B: It seems like you could hold some meetings . +Grad G: Yep . +Postdoc B: You know , you and maybe Adam ? +PhD C: So . +Postdoc B: You {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} you could maybe hold some additional meetings , if you wanted . +PhD A: Would it help at all {disfmarker} I mean , we 're already talking about sort of two levels of detail in meetings . One is uh um without doing the digits {disfmarker} Or , I guess the full - blown one is where you do the digits , and everything , and then talk about doing it without digits , what if we had another level , just to collect data , which is without the headsets and we just did the table - mounted stuff . +PhD C: Need the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: You do , OK . +PhD C: I mean , absolutely , +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: yeah . I 'm really scared {disfmarker} +Grad G: It seems like it 's a big part of this corpus is to have the close - talking mikes . +PhD A: I see , OK . +PhD C: Um or at least , like , me personally ? I would {disfmarker} {comment} I {disfmarker} couldn't use that data . +Professor E: Yeah . +Postdoc B: I agree . And Mari also , +PhD C: Um . +Postdoc B: we had {disfmarker} This came up when she she was here . That 's important . +PhD C: So it 's a great idea , +Professor E: Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} b By the {disfmarker} by the way , I don't think the transcriptions are actually , in the long run , such a big bottleneck . +PhD C: and if it were true than I would just do that , but it 's not that bad {disfmarker} like the room is not the bottleneck , and we have enough time in the room , it 's getting the people to come in and put on the {disfmarker} and get the setup going . +Professor E: I think the issue is just that we 're {disfmarker} we 're blazing that path . Right ? And {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} d Do you have any idea when {disfmarker} when uh the {disfmarker} you 'll be able to send uh the ten hours to them ? +Grad G: Well , I 've been burning two C Ds a day , which is about all I can do with the time I have . +Professor E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad G: So it 'll be early next week . +Professor E: Yeah , OK . So early next week we send it to them , and then {disfmarker} then we check with them to see if they 've got it and we {disfmarker} we start , you know asking about the timing for it . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: So I think once they get it sorted out about how they 're gonna do it , which I think they 're pretty well along on , cuz they were able to read the files and so on . +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Right ? +Grad G: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor E: Well {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , who knows where they are . +PhD A: Have they ever responded to you ? +Grad G: Nope . +Professor E: Yeah , but {disfmarker} You know , so they {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they have {disfmarker} you know , they 're volunteering their time and they have a lot of other things to do , +PhD C: What if {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , you {disfmarker} we can't complain . +Professor E: right ? But they {disfmarker} But at any rate , they 'll {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think once they get that sorted out , they 're {disfmarker} they 're making cassettes there , then they 're handing it to someone who they {disfmarker} who 's {disfmarker} who is doing it , and uh I think it 's not going to be {disfmarker} I don't think it 's going to be that much more of a deal for them to do thirty hours then to do one hour , I think . It 's not going to be thirty +Grad G: Yep . I think that 's probably true . +PhD C: Really ? So it 's the amount of {disfmarker} +Professor E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's just getting it going . +Grad G: It 's pipeline , pipeline issues . +PhD C: Right . What about these lunch meetings {disfmarker} +Grad G: Once the pipeline fills . +PhD C: I mean , I don't know , if there 's any way without too much more overhead , even if we don't ship it right away to IBM even if we just collect it here for awhile , {comment} to record you know , two or three more meeting a week , just to have the data , even if they 're um not doing the digits , but they do wear the headphones ? +Professor E: But the lunch meetings are pretty much one person getting up and {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I meant , um , sorry , the meetings where people eat their lunch downstairs , maybe they don't wanna be recorded , but {disfmarker} +Grad G: Oh , and we 're just chatting ? +PhD C: Just the ch the chatting . +Grad G: Yeah , we have a lot of those . +PhD C: I actually {disfmarker} I actually think that 's {pause} useful {pause} data , um {pause} the chatting , +Grad G: Yeah , the problem with that is I would {disfmarker} I think I would feel a little constrained to {disfmarker} You know ? Uh , some of the meetings {disfmarker} +PhD C: but {disfmarker} OK . You don't wanna do it , cuz {disfmarker} OK . +Grad G: You know , our "" soccer ball "" meeting ? +PhD C: Alright . +Grad G: I guess none of you were there for our soccer ball meeting . +PhD C: Alright , {comment} so I 'll just throw it out there , if anyone knows of one more m or two more wee meetings per week that happen at ICSI , um that we could record , I think it would be worth it . +Grad G: That was hilarious . +Professor E: Yeah . Well , we should also check with Mari again , because they {disfmarker} because they were really intending , you know , maybe just didn't happen , but they were really intending to be duplicating this in some level . So then that would double {pause} what we had . Uh . And there 's a lot of different meetings at UW uh {disfmarker} I mean really m a lot more {comment} than we have here right cuz we 're not right on campus , +Grad G: Right . +Professor E: so . +PhD A: Is the uh , notion of recording any of Chuck 's meetings dead in the water , or is that still a possibility ? +Professor E: Uh , {vocalsound} they seem to have some problems with it . We can {disfmarker} we can talk about that later . Um , but , again , Jerry is {disfmarker} Jerry 's open {disfmarker} So I mean , we have two speech meetings , one uh network meeting , uh Jerry was open to it but I {disfmarker} I s One of the things that I think is a little {disfmarker} a little bit of a limitation , there is a think when the people are not involved uh in our work , we probably can't do it every week . You know ? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think that {disfmarker} that people are gonna feel uh {disfmarker} are gonna feel a little bit constrained . Now , it might get a little better if we don't have them do the digits all the time . And the {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} so then they can just really sort of try to {disfmarker} put the mikes on and then just charge in and {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yep . +PhD C: What if we give people {disfmarker} you know , we cater a lunch in exchange for them having their meeting here or something ? +Postdoc B: Well , you know , I {disfmarker} I do think eating while you 're doing a meeting is going to be increasing the noise . +PhD C: OK . +Postdoc B: But I had another question , which is um , you know , in principle , w um , I know that you don't want artificial topics , +PhD C: Alright , alright , alright . +Postdoc B: but um it does seem to me that we might be able to get subjects from campus to come down and do something that wouldn't be too artificial . I mean , we could {disfmarker} political discussions , or {disfmarker} or something or other , +PhD C: No , definitely . +Postdoc B: and i you know , people who are {disfmarker} Because , you know , there 's also this constraint . We d it 's like , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh goldibears {disfmarker} goldi goldilocks , it 's like you don't want meetings that are too large , but you don't want meetings that are too small . And um {disfmarker} a and it just seems like maybe we could exploit the subj human subject p p pool , in the positive sense of the word . +PhD A: Well , even {disfmarker} I mean , coming down from campus is sort of a big thing , but what about +Postdoc B: We could pay subjects . +PhD A: or what about people in the {disfmarker} in the building ? +PhD C: Yeah , I was thinking , there 's all these other peo +PhD A: I mean , there 's the State of California downstairs , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} +Grad G: I just really doubt that uh any of the State of California meetings would be recordable and then releasable to the general public . +Postdoc B: Yeah . +PhD A: Oh . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: So I {disfmarker} I mean I talked with some people at the Haas Business School who are i who are interested in speech recognition +PhD C: Alright , well . +Grad G: and , they sort of hummed and hawed and said "" well maybe we could have meetings down here "" , but then I got email from them that said "" no , we decided we 're not really interested and we don't wanna come down and hold meetings . "" So , I think it 's gonna be a problem to get people regularly . +PhD A: What about Joachim , maybe he can {disfmarker} +Professor E: But {disfmarker} but we c But I think , you know , we get some scattered things from this and that . And I {disfmarker} I d I do think that maybe we can get somewhere with the {disfmarker} with the radio . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: Uh i I have better contacts in radio than in television , but {disfmarker} +PhD A: You could get a lot of lively discussions from those radio ones . +PhD C: Well , and they 're already {disfmarker} they 're {disfmarker} these things are already recorded , +Grad G: Yep . +Professor E: Yeah . +PhD C: we don't have to ask them to {disfmarker} even {disfmarker} and I 'm not sure wh how they record it , but they must record from individual {disfmarker} +Professor E: n Well {disfmarker} No , I 'm not talking about ones that are already recorded . I 'm talking about new ones +PhD C: Why {disfmarker} why not ? +Professor E: because {disfmarker} because {disfmarker} because we would be asking them to do something different . +PhD C: Well , we can find out . I know for instance Mark Liberman was interested uh in {disfmarker} in LDC getting {pause} data , uh , and {disfmarker} +Professor E: Right , that 's the found data idea . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor E: But what I 'm saying is uh if I talk to people that I know who do these th who produce these things we could ask them if they could record an extra channel , let 's say , of a distant mike . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor E: And u I think routinely they would not do this . So , since I 'm interested in the distant mike stuff , I wanna make sure that there is at least that somewhere +PhD C: Right . Great . OK . +Professor E: and uh {disfmarker} But if we ask them to do that they might be intrigued enough by the idea that they uh might be e e willing to {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} I might be able to talk them into it . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Grad G: Um . We 're getting towards the end of our disk space , so we should think about trying to wrap up here . +PhD C: That 's a good way to end a meeting . +Professor E: OK . Well I don't {disfmarker} why don't we {disfmarker} why d u why don't we uh uh turn them {disfmarker} turn +Grad G: OK , leave {disfmarker} leave them on for a moment until I turn this off , cuz that 's when it crashed last time . +Postdoc B: Oh . That 's good to know . +Professor E: Turning off the microphone made it crash . Well {disfmarker} +Postdoc B: That 's good to know . +Professor E: OK . +","In the meeting, Professor E and his colleagues discuss several topics related to their project work. Grad G stops a potential cause of system crashes by avoiding starting and stopping the system repeatedly. They touch on a mapping feature that operates without requiring names for each use. A potential transcription process for capturing spoken information is outlined, and the need for clear labeling of data and adherence to human subjects' guidelines is emphasized. + +They consider prioritizing research discussion over mundane topics in meetings. Some ideas involve locating events in audio data, and possible overlaps or interruptions are discussed. Ph.D. D has worked on detecting overlapping speech and identified many overlaps and acoustic events in a recorded sample. The possibility of using transcripts from speech as data source or training material is also discussed. + +There's concern about using pronouns like ""he"" without clear reference, which could lead to indexing issues for future speech understanding work. The group contemplates whether recording over multiple meetings would compound data without consent forms for each session. They discuss strategies to streamline the process. + +The members also consider expanding their data collection efforts by inviting outside groups to participate or coordinating with local broadcast media. They discuss the importance of having close-talking microphone data and the potential use of the data for projects such as adaptation work, and they consider the logistics of transcription and turnaround time from their IBM partnership. Finally, they consider inviting subjects from campus for discussions and recording other meetings as part of their data collection strategy." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Julie Morgan, and I'm very pleased to welcome David Rees, who is substituting for her today. Can I ask Members whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you very much. Item 2 this morning, then, is a session with the Minister for Children and Social Care on the Welsh Government's childcare offer. So, I'm very pleased to welcome Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Children and Social Care, also Jo-Anne Daniels, director for communities and tackling poverty, and Owain Lloyd, deputy director for childcare, play and early years. So, thank you, all, for your attendance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions come from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Good morning, Minister. How has it gone in the early implementer local authority areas, and is it something of a mixed bag? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's gone well, but I'm glad we've done it through this process of early implementer, actually piloting it, because we're learning lessons as we go along. It has gone well. It's been encouraging, to the extent that we're at the point where we're expanding—we've made announcements on expanding some of the early implementer areas so we can learn more lessons. But, in terms of what we're learning, one is the bureaucracy around the current approach that we're taking, because it's being done on the seven early implementers. So, we're asking parents to come in, provide their wage slips, provide the birth certificates, and so on. You're dealing sometimes with parents and families with complex issues and complex backgrounds, so it's difficult. And the burden of administration on that is falling to each pilot area. In one case, it's a whole authority, but it's only one—that's in Blaenau Gwent. In others, it's smaller areas. So, we're also hitting those—. The other big challenge we're hitting is communication. So, we're having parents, generally, who are outside the areas entirely saying, 'Why haven't we got this yet? Can we please get into it?', which is encouraging. But the other thing we're having is people who are within pilot authorities, where it doesn't extend to the whole authority, saying, 'Well, hold on now, we think we qualify for something under universal care, we think we qualify for something on tax credits. Why don't we qualify for this?' 'Well, you're not in the pilot area.' So, we're learning about these things, but the biggest one, I have to say, is the administrative burden, and I think that's interesting in how we take this forward for a wider roll-out. +Hefin David AM: What is the administrative burden? What specifically is that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It is that sheer burden on each local authority, and each pilot area, to administer a scheme where we are asking parents to prove eligibility, to bring in documents to prove their eligibility, to make adjustments as it goes forward based on what their changing work patterns are, what their salary slips say. It's incredibly bureaucratic. So, yesterday, when we made the statement following the announcement of the introduction of the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, we made clear that our preferred option, as put within that framework Bill, is actually to build on, and to learn from the lessons as well, the model of the HM Revenue and Customs type of model, where you actually have—and this, by the way, is supported by local authority providers out there—one system that is a centralised system, where there is clarity, that is handled, that has elements of information sharing between Government departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, and so on, so that the work is done for the parents, and the work is done for the local authorities; much cleaner, much simpler. +Hefin David AM: How confident are you that you can achieve that by 2020? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We are very confident. But, as I say, I'm more confident in the fact that we're actually piloting it, and phasing this in, because I think we've learned from some of the experiences elsewhere, including just over the border in England, where they have a different version of a childcare offer, but they've gone for it in a big-bang approach. And it has led to technical issues, it's led to volume issues, where their anticipation of how many people would buy into it was overwhelmed by the numbers who actually then came forward for it, and the complexity, I have to say, of individual family situations, whereas what we are doing, Hefin, is taking this forward very, very carefully. Each roll-out, each expansion that we're doing of the pilot is not—and I know this has caused some people to come back and say, 'Why can't we all have it now?' It's because we're only rolling out to areas where we now need to learn a lesson about whether it's rurality or, as it will be within densely urban areas, where the cost might be slightly higher, and that's allowing us to have the confidence that we'll have it. We've expanded the whole offer across Gwynedd—the whole of Gwynedd, Anglesey and Caerphilly. Flintshire now have a cross-authority offer. Rhondda Cynon Taf is anticipating doing this by September. Swansea is planning to do it, they tell us, in due course—in short order—as well. So, we have the confidence now that, with that learning going on from different pilot areas, we'll have the full roll-out by 2020. +Hefin David AM: Is it true to say that, in the early adopter areas, the intensity of demand for the services is not spread evenly across? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. +Hefin David AM: And why is that? Is that going to cause a problem across Wales? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, it won't cause a problem. If we were doing this tomorrow, it would cause a problem, but what we're learning is that there are some economic issues and then there are some cultural issues. So ,there are issues to do with—. It's not capacity, by the way. We're not finding a problem here with capacity, whether it's in English language provision or whether it's in Welsh language provision, whether it's in children with complex needs, we're not finding that as an issue. But what we are finding is, for example, one of the well-known ones—and I've spoken about this before—is that, in some of the south Wales Valleys constituencies, there is a family tradition of doing childcare within the families. I've done it myself. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on provide free, unregistered, unlicensed childcare of a sort. Now that isn't what the scheme is about, by the way, I have to say. So, some of the aspects are cultural, but what we're also doing alongside this, whilst looking at the capacity and looking at how we learnt from the pilot roll-out, is that communication with parents and providers and local authorities as well. So, we have a whole programme running alongside it. It's about communicating what the offer is, how simple it is to get invovled in this and where they go to, and, critically, I think, how we do that national roll-out would be important as well. +Hefin David AM: So, given the point you've made about grandparents and family, wouldn't it be sensible, then, to offer a subsidy to grandparents to provide this kind of care? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Unregistered grandparents? +Hefin David AM: Well, through some kind of analysis of that. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, we don't think so and there are good reasons behind this. +Hefin David AM: Is it because you say that they wouldn't be registered as carers for their own family member? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but there's a deeper reason behind that registration as well. The childcare offer isn't only to just provide childcare; it's the wider aspects that come with this. This childcare offer ties into the foundation years offer. There's an element of education linked to the childcare offer—there's that 10 hours of the early education foundation years as well. The two tie together. So, there's an issue here with quality, about socialisation and how children learn in an environment, as opposed to purely—as great as all our grandparents and aunts and uncles are—simply child-minding. That's one important distinction. So, the focus of this scheme is very much on registered licensed providers, which could be, by the way—because we do have them, and we're discussing this at the moment internally and with the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and others—grandparents who are actually registered and inspected by the care inspectorate? We're having those discussions. +Hefin David AM: How many of them are there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We don't think there is a huge number, but we're trying to bottom this out at the moment. We haven't got the exact number, but we don't think they are huge numbers, but there are, in our constituencies, registered, licensed, inspected grandparents who look after other people's children in a little group of four or five or six or seven, but also their own grandchildren. +Hefin David AM: So, they're a kind of grandparents club. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. Now that, I would say to you—and I know that Darren raised this on the floor yesterday as well—is markedly different in the nature of it, because it's registered and licensed, than simply informal grandparents or aunts or uncles. I say that as well because we also get people who will say to us, 'I don't want to be paid for looking after my grandchildren; I look after my grandchildren because I look after them'. +Hefin David AM: And what about the view, given that you said that capacity wasn't an issue, of the National Day Nurseries Association, which says that Wales has the most fragile childcare sector in Great Britain? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I don't agree we have the most fragile, but the childcare offer gives us an opportunity to make it more resilient and more robust. We know from the early piloting, and as we roll it out, that there is the immense diversity within the childcare sector, and we're talking about everything from those very small terraced homes that have been licensed and registered to take six or seven children, to large, complex environments that perhaps are on maintained premises within school premises, provided by a voluntary or third sector organisation. So, there's immense complexity and we know that that differs across Wales, and we also know there's immense regional variation in the scale and the type of childcare offer. What the roll-out allows us to do, backed by £60 million of capital money behind it, in terms of capital development of childcare facilities, backed by a 10-year workforce development plan for childcare—and bear in mind this is bolted in as part of our foundational economy approach as well—that means, by 2020, we get to the point where we're putting the money into the capital development but also to the workforce development, because in some areas we're finding it's not to do with lack of provision and facilities, it's to do with lack of staff. In other areas, we're finding there are plenty of staff but not the adequate facilities. We've got to get it right. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but is it realistic to think that there's going to be capacity growth in the next two to three years to deliver the product? Is that realistic to think that that foundational sector can provide that level of staffing? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, I think it is, absolutely, because, again, what we're finding is we've got several things going on at once in terms of how we monitor and assess the development of this roll-out. One is the work that we're doing on the ground with the phased roll-out, so we're literally learning live time, and I have pretty much weekly or fortnightly updates on how things are going, but also there is a termly update as well. We've also commissioned additional work from Arad to look at this first phase of the roll-out that we've done to see what that tells us as well. But the feedback that we're getting from the childcare providers themselves, on the basis that we're now identifying where either the gaps in the workforce or the physical facilities are, is that, 'Yes, we can do this', because we're putting the money in, we have the strategy for the workforce development, and it's not going to be the same in all parts of Wales. It's not as if what we're saying is, 'Here's what we're going to do all of a sudden—flick a switch and we have a universality of the same type of provision everywhere.' So, let me give you one key example. Alongside this, alongside the £60 million capital fund, alongside the workforce development, we've also identified a separate strain of money into cylch meithrin. We know that there is a shortage in parts of Wales for Welsh language childcare development. We're specifically putting money into developing that, and, in fact, the first one of those will be, from that new tranche of money, opening up, I think, in September. They anticipate, as part of our big strategy with Welsh language development, we'll have an additional 40 of those by— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Thirty. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's an additional 30 by 2020, and an additional doubling of that in the 10 years after that. We can't take this for granted, Hefin. This is difficult. This is hard work, but we have everything in place to make it happen. +Hefin David AM: The last thing from me: the £4.50 single national rate—is there a danger that we might be creating a kind of EasyJet-style nursery provision where you get the basics but the wealthier parents are going to be able to pay for better care within those settings because of the add-ons? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We really mulled over this a lot and discussed it, I have to say, not only internally but with childcare providers out there and with parents as well and with local authorities. The first thing to say is the £4.50 rate that we've set has been welcomed, and it's been welcomed because it's unlike the much more complex offer that's in England, where there's a variable rate and there are lots of determining factors on it and it's added complexity and confusion. +Hefin David AM: Can I just ask there, it's been welcomed perhaps in Blaenau Gwent, but has it been equally welcomed in Cardiff? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, because we haven't rolled it out in Cardiff yet, and that is a salient point. +Hefin David AM: Okay, fair enough. But will it be, then? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, it will be. Some of the more expensive areas like Cardiff and Newport are knocking on our door saying, 'Please can we have this offer?', and we are keen to give it to them. But, as I say— +Hefin David AM: But do you anticipate a capacity problem with the £4.50 in those areas, compared to, say, the Cynon valley? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We can't anticipate it yet, Hefin, but that's exactly the reason for going into that area and then assessing how it works. We're reasonably confident that the £4.50—. We're reasonably assured by the feedback that we're having that the £4.50 might work as a universal amount. But if we learn, when we roll it out in Cardiff and Newport, that there needs to be some variation, we can look at that, because we're not doing a big-bang approach. So, that is part of why we will move to roll it out within Cardiff and Newport and other more expensive areas and learn from it, but at the moment, I have to say, the £4.50 amount has been welcomed—it's appropriate. You touched on the other aspect, though, of the wider aspects of beyond the £4.50, because the £4.50 doesn't cover everything. The £4.50 is a contribution towards the wraparound childcare element but it doesn't cover—and we agonised over this—the issues of things like transport out on trips or food or snacks and things like this. Now, we did agonise a number of things that brought us to the conclusion where we are. I have to say, this hasn't been ivory-tower stuff; it's been in discussion with the providers but also parents. One: parents are quite used to—with childcare settings and play care settings and so on—the idea that providers are quite different. Some providers charge a fee that does everything in one; others provide simply the childcare element but they tell the parents—and I'm used to this as a parent myself, although mine are older now—'Mr Irranca-Davies, when you sign on, just to be aware, if we do take your kids down to St Fagans, there's going to be a little bit of a charge for that' and so on. +Hefin David AM: That's fair enough, but it would be the lowest-income working families who would be most unduly affected by that, because the higher income families would be able to afford those add-ons, the lower income ones won't. Isn't that a concern? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: If money was absolutely no object, then I think you'd be looking at quite a different offer, but it has to be affordable within what we've got as well. The fact that parents, including those who are on lower incomes, are used to currently discriminating between providers, not only with childcare settings but also within school settings as well, where very often schools now will say, 'We're doing something extra'— +Hefin David AM: That may be the case, but it's not fair, is it? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: In a pure argument about equity, and if funding was no object and if the burdens of austerity were released and we were told we had money—'You can do what you want'—I think you'd be looking at a very different approach. But within what we have, I think this works very, very well indeed, because it's very transparent for parents who are used to making these decisions. It says, 'Here you have 10 hours of the foundation education offer. You have the additional hours here provided with the childcare offer. But within those additional hours, you may be with a local provider in the middle of Powys that actually says, ""Within that we provide everything""; you may be with a provider that says, ""Well, actually, we do a whistles and bells thing and we take them out on trips, but it's up to you if you want to come, and here's the additional cost—"".' Parents are used to making that decision and realistically, in terms of what we can do with this offer, this is actually—the arguments around this have been well rehearsed both with providers and with parents and we're not getting any concerns that this is going to unnecessarily disadvantage. In a total fairness argument, would you make it universal and with no additional charges? Well, possibly you would. But we work within the realistic— +Hefin David AM: Or have a lower top-end income limit. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Depending on how the Bill progresses in the main Chamber and when it goes through committee, there's that flexibility built into the Bill that those things can be looked at over time and adjusted. For the moment, I think there is an attraction, in terms of the upper limit, of saying: one—'Let's try not to add additional complexity, let's go with a scheme that's already working its way through the system, which is, if you like, what they're doing in England, and not add additional complexity. But, secondly, there is an appeal to universality, curiously, in saying to all parents—and I say this regardless of political hues across the committee here—there's an attraction when you say, 'Let's make an offer focused on working parents as it is', as universal to those working parents as possible, and avoid the administrative costs of saying, 'Well, let's take the upper limit down to £80 or £60 or £55.' There's always the question of how much additional cost is incurred in actually doing that tweak of complexity. We have looked at it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: Just to ask, I mean, the labour market costs are changing, aren't they? You've got the national living wage increasing—[Inaudible.]—that's going to have a bearing, isn't it, on the affordability of this project in terms of the childcare offer and the suitability of the £4.50 per hour regime? By the time it's fully rolled out, of course, that £4.50 rate is going to be a number of years old, for example. Do you have plans to review that? Where is it headed? Because it's certainly not going to be enough in the future. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It depends how far in the future you're looking. I have to say, the feedback that we're having at the moment from organisations like the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years and from the National Day Nurseries Association Wales and others is that this is the right rate and it's suitable not only today but for the foreseeable future of rolling this out. +Darren Millar AM: But they've raised concerns about the national living wage implications, haven't they, as well? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Of course, and I think it's incumbent on us as well to not— +Darren Millar AM: So, it's not fair to say that they haven't raised concerns about the rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but what they're not arguing for at the moment is for this rate to be raised. +Darren Millar AM: But they have suggested that in meetings— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: That in future— +Darren Millar AM: Absolutely. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, of course, in future, any Minister, any committee, will want to come back and look at—is the hourly rate, as one element of the scheme, appropriate to the current financial challenges for the sector, and not least, by the way, as we try not only to develop the workforce, but to develop the career pathways through this as well? And I think that's the right discussion to be had, live time, as this is taken forward. But at this moment in time, we're not getting people saying within this part of the roll-out that we need to adjust this amount. +Darren Millar AM: So, have you forecasted for any adjustment in the rate going forward in terms of affordability of the project? Because you've still got this £100 million price tag on it, haven't you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Similar to the point that was raised with Hefin about Cardiff and Newport, if we identify that the rate is not appropriate, if it's—. I don't think anybody's going to come back to us and say that it's too little. But do bear in mind that it's above where the average England rate is, even though there's this complex variability within the English rate that has caused some confusion there, which is why the universal rate with us has been welcomed. If we find, as we pilot it, or if we find because there are more expensive areas for it to be delivered in, there needs to be adjustment, then we'll be back in front of the committee arguing why that needs to be the case. +Darren Millar AM: But that won't put the project at risk in terms of its finances? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, no. We are still very confident, looking forward, on the best projections we have, fed by the live input that's coming in from the pilot, which will be fed again in the autumn—the Arad report coming forward—that we have not only the capacity to actually deliver this—challenging as this is, we have the capacity to deliver it—but also that the funding that's available, on our best estimate—the estimate we've stood by, that broad ball park of that £100 million figure—it's deliverable within that. But if it changes, we will come back. And if it changes, I'll have to be sitting down with my boss, Vaughan Gething, and with Mark Drakeford, to argue the case on it. But at this moment, we have confidence and we've run the rule across this repeatedly. But that rate, combined with the other elements of this childcare offer—there is sufficient there allocated to actually deliver the whole roll-out. +Lynne Neagle AM: Mark on this. +Mark Reckless AM: Minister, as a parent who's been researching childcare options, it's obvious to me that in Cardiff, and to a degree in Newport and Monmouthshire, costs are substantially higher than this, and I haven't been able to find anywhere that has a six-hour day for £27, which is implied by your rate. Isn't it the case that rents and wages are higher and therefore you're going to need a higher rate to make it work? Isn't that already obvious? Why are you postponing coming back and looking at this until some point in the future? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Chair, my biggest fear is a parent who's actually involved in this area already, but, having been one myself—. Mark, you may be right, that's exactly why we're piloting it and that's why when we pilot in Cardiff and Newport, we know we have lessons to learn over the affordability and the £4.50 per hour rate. +Mark Reckless AM: But you're not piloting it in any of the high-cost areas that I've referred to. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No. We will be. We are going to be. +Mark Reckless AM: When are you starting? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Cardiff and Newport—September. +Owain Lloyd: This September. +Mark Reckless AM: This September? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. So, we're not missing any of these learning experiences and we know that—. The reason we've gone for the other areas first, by the way—please take this back to any authorities affected—is simply because we've done deep dives into areas that vary from very rural areas in mid Wales, areas in north Wales, areas around Welsh language provision, areas in deep valleys, understanding the cultural and the economic impacts. So, we've held back a little bit from going into what we know is an obvious challenge within the more expensive areas of provision. But it's coming, it's imminent, and we'll learn the lessons from it. And do you know, you may be right? And if you are right, that it's more expensive, and we need a higher rate within those areas, then we're going to have to come back and discuss it with the committee. But let's go in and learn it first of all, rather than assume it necessarily. +Lynne Neagle AM: Just before I bring David in on the issue that Hefin raised about the chargeable items, your paper says that providers can charge up to £7.50 a day for food, snacks, transport and consumables such as nappies. Now, that's £37.50 a week, which is a lot of money for parents, and I just wondered if you wanted to comment on that figure? But also, do you think there's a risk that providers who maybe aren't charging at the moment may start charging because of any new pressures that arise because of this scheme? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think they're the right areas to flag up, and if I thought that was going to happen I'd be concerned as we take this forward and design this scheme. I think part of the evaluation from Arad will also show us that—whether or not, within the pilot areas that we are already in, which are quite diverse, that is happening. We're only one term into learning the lessons, by the way, but I would want to make sure that we design a scheme where we are not heaping on disadvantage or where there was exploitation of disadvantaged families. So, the early evaluation, I think, will give us good feedback on that. I think also, by the way, that providers know that this is a collaborative effort to do this here. It's not in their interests, I have to say, as the umbrella bodies or individual providers, to see this as some way that they can unduly rake in additional income from this on the backs of poorer families. This is about providing opportunities for all working families. But especially, I have to say, the early evaluation that we've seen already suggests that the greatest proportion of those who are taking advantage of this scheme in the early parts—in the early evaluation—are those who are below the average working wage within in Wales. That's by far the greatest number of people who are doing it, and we don't want them then being priced out because of add-ons. So, there has to be some pragmatism, I have to say, and some open partnership working here with the sector, and we do have that. +Lynne Neagle AM: John on this. +John Griffiths AM: I want to come back to the £4.50 rate, but in terms of working with the sector, briefly, if I might, Chair, I just wonder, Huw, in terms of that £4.50 figure and understanding the sector in Wales, to what extent are we talking about a market rate and to what extent are we talking about the increase in demand that will come from the scheme and how that relates to economies of scale and capacity? Is it purely a market rate or is there a conversation with the sector in terms of the benefits that will come from this scheme and how they should be recognised in terms of setting the rate? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: This has been a very open dialogue with the sector around affordability, around the hourly rate and around what might happen in future as well. This is not a pure hard data-driven analysis that says, 'Here we've calculated everything and this is the rate that will satisfy it', because we recognise that there's great diversity in provision out there, and we also recognise that things will change over time. It's not only the geographical diversity—it's the diversity of the sector itself. I think we need to, as we take this scheme forward and look at the full roll-out, continue in that very open dialogue with the sector not about what is purely a market-driven amount but actually what is also affordable for the Welsh Government within the constraints that we have. Just to flag up one issue, it's right that we're focusing on those elements that aren't included within it, to some extent as well, and the effect of that on more disadvantaged families, but that has to be balanced with the pocket of affordability for this scheme as well. Let me give you a clear illustration: some of our calculations have suggested that if we included free food within this offer as well, it would add something like in the region of 50p to that £4.50 rate. That would have, at this moment, impacts on the affordability of this and the roll-out of it. I would need to be going back to my seniors and arguing the case now, okay? But, it's that open dialogue with the sector that says, 'There's one thing about what you're saying you demand as a market; there's another thing about what we're saying that we have affordability from taxpayers' money to actually put into this'. They also understand, John, that as well as an enabling policy—and we're seeing the evidence, by the way; I can cite it—of individuals who are being helped into more flexible options to get back into work, increase their hours and so on, this is also about building capacity in a fundamental foundation sector that is in every single part of Wales. The stuff that's being debated ad nauseam here within the Assembly about foundational sectors—. The sector itself understands that if we boost the childcare offer in all its diversity, including, by the way, not just the independent sector but social enterprises and third-sector organisations, such as exist in Neath and elsewhere that I was involved in 20 or 30-odd years ago setting up—that has an economic impact that goes beyond that immediate family who are receiving the provision to the wider communities as well. They know that. They know there is job creation within this and there's economic impact for that. So, it's an open dialogue on what the rate should be rather than purely, 'Our wonks have crunched the numbers and we've come up with £4.50.' +Lynne Neagle AM: David, you had a question on the pilots. +David Rees AM: Yes, just to finish that section off, if I may, Chair. Before I go to my question, I want to come back to Mark Reckless's question and the answer you gave. I got the impression that if there is a need to look at different rates because of the higher-end areas, you may therefore have different sets of rates and not a universal rate. Is that also on the cards? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: David, it's possible. I think our preference would be, I have to say, to stick with the universal rate, because we know it's—. There's real simplicity and it's been welcomed in the sector. But the sector, also, are quite pragmatic about this. One of the defining hallmarks of the way that we've taken this scheme forward is learning in live time as we pilot and expand the pilots into different areas and different types of provision. If we learn lessons from that that suggest we need to come back and look at a differential in more-expensive-to-provide areas, then we'll have to look at that, but there might be other ways of splicing it. But first of all, I think we have to go in and see how does this work. We might find, Mark, we might find, David, that we go in and when everything is tallied up, the £4.50 per hour works in supporting provision there. +David Rees AM: Okay. In your answer to John, you talked about affordability, which I totally understand. If I can now remind you: I don't remember the word 'affordability' coming in the manifesto pledge of the Government. It was 'we will offer childcare facilities'. So, I just want to put a reminder to you there. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ministers always look at affordability. +David Rees AM: Well, voters don't. In the situation regarding Welsh-medium, you answered that a little bit earlier, but I have concerns about capacity. Workforce capacity you've mentioned. To actually be registered you need staff who are qualified. There's clearly a need to get more staff, because in your own paper you say that the report in 2016 said you do not have the childcare capacity in Wales at the moment. Do you believe that you can actually deliver the workforce to meet that capacity, first of all through the English medium, but secondly through the Welsh medium as well? Because there's a clear need to look at it. You talk about 30 by 2020. By the way, 30 is nothing big when you consider the whole of Wales. Do you actually think you've got that workforce capacity set up before this is fully rolled out? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I hope, Chair, you'll appreciate that in our submission to you we've been very open. This is challenging. This is. To get to where we want to go is a huge challenge. Can we do it? Yes we can. And I don't say that glibly. Let me suggest some of the ways why. We have confidence that we can do this if everybody is working together across the sector, across the local authorities. Let me talk broadly about capacity, first of all, including English and Welsh-medium provision for children with complex needs, provision for children with disabilities—all of this. First of all, this is being—. The work that we're doing to increase both capacity in terms of trained staff and qualified staff: we have the 10-year plan that I mentioned, which has already been announced. We're working through it. We're working through it with the sector. So, we're identifying not only broadly at a national level where we need to develop those qualifications, but also at a regional, geographic level as well, and that's being taken forward. We've engaged with the 22 authorities—not just the pilot areas as well on this. So, beyond the pilot areas, we also have intense engagement. As you can see from what I've said before, it's rolling out progressively, but with all 22 authorities we're working with them on their childcare sufficiency assessments to identify where their shortages are. +David Rees AM: What have the pilot programmes actually shown you about this, and how are you going to move this forward? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, it's precisely that. So, within the pilot areas, we have a greater depth of analysis now of where both the workforce and the physical provisions are. Whether those are maintained or non-maintained or third sector or school facilities or whatever, we've got a much deeper granulation of identifying where that is, and we're working, then, with those authorities, with the capital moneys that we've allocated to this and the workforce development, and with local colleges, to develop the workforce and the physical constraints. But we're also doing that with the other 22, with all the 22 authorities as well, in anticipation of the wider roll-out. They're not being left out of this. And by the way, it's not only the Cardiffs and the Newports; it's all the other ones where there isn't full roll-out. We're engaged with them deeply at the moment with that analysis on their childcare sufficiency assessments, both in terms of workforce, but also physical provision. So, we're doing that already. We are looking as well, as this is rolled out, around the issue of co-location. Now, co-location is a fruitful way to look at future development. It doesn't mean, by the way, that we exclude the third sector or social enterprise approach, or the independent sector, but co-location could be key to the roll-out of this in the right areas where it can be done, because then we avoid any fracture between the education hours and the childcare hours: the physical transportation of children from one location to another. So, we're engaged with the 22 authorities on that: where could that be developed, who would be the providers that would do it and do they have the workforce to scale up to do it? If not, how do they talk to local colleges to do that? So, we're doing that at the moment. I mentioned we've put the £1 million additional funding into the meithrin over the next two years, targeting 40 new Welsh-medium groups by 2021, which pretty much coincides with the full roll-out of this. It's part of the aim of an additional 150 over the next decade of meithrin. So, all of those things, David, give us a confidence that we're going to be in the right place. +David Rees AM: But in particular, take the Welsh language—I understand Gwynedd, and I won't ask another question on that for obvious reasons at this point in time—but in some of the other areas where you've piloted, you've gone partial in some areas. When there's Welsh language education, and the three to five-year-olds go to schools, they go from all areas of the council, basically. They don't actually go necessarily from the local area, and therefore you're getting a different picture. Have you been able to assess the actual impact, properly, upon the Welsh-medium side of things? Because, for example, my grandchildren will go from my area, which may not be in one of the considerations, to a school that may be in that consideration, and that happens regularly. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely. We know that historically we've got, across the country, a shortage of Welsh-language childcare provision—meithrin and so on—but we have not only a strategy in place, but the fact that we've got local authorities now doing their own assessments within their area, across the piste of childcare, but also in terms of Welsh language, that means then that we can start filling those gaps with the money we've put to it, and that includes in all parts of Wales, including those areas within south Wales and others that are less deep in their tradition of speaking Welsh over recent history, anyway, but where the demand for it is massive. So, local authorities are tasked with doing their own assessments of childcare sufficiency for this childcare offer. They're identifying the gaps, David, and we will work with them and with providers to fill those gaps, and that includes with the umbrella organisations for Welsh language childcare provision. +David Rees AM: And that's the same for those children with physical disabilities or learning disabilities. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely the same. Absolutely the same. And this does mean, Chair, that it will be different, as it currently is in different areas: the type of provision, where the provision is located. But the provision should be there. This offer won't happen unless the provision is there for those children with complex needs, children with disabilities, Welsh language provision, as well as more generic provision as well, but it will be diverse in its provision around areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: I do want to move on now, John, so if I can come back to your question. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I would like to pick up on the last point, if I may. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. The investment in meithrin, of course, is one that we all welcome. A question from me though, the wider question, is: how do we mainstream Welsh medium into childcare? Because, clearly, leaving it to meithrin is one way of doing it, but there's a lot of existing infrastructure out there that we need to upskill in terms of the provision of Welsh medium. So, it's not a question as such, but I'm sure you recognise that—that there is a challenge there. Because if we are to get to where we want to get to, it isn't about growing meithrin, or Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin; it's about mainstreaming Welsh-medium provision within the wider sector. So, it wasn't a question after all. So, looking at the manifesto commitment that was made in 2016, clearly the main or the principal aim of this policy is around removing some of the barriers to secure employment for parents, albeit with very positive outcomes for the children themselves, and we don't ignore or neglect that at any cost. But I'm just wondering: how would you then reconcile that with the findings of the Public Policy Institute for Wales report, which I mentioned to you yesterday, which was commissioned by the Government to look at policy options in this context, which concluded that there will be no 'substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children' and that 'the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers in families with a child of target age is extremely small'? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, the first thing I would say is that what we're learning from the pilots is that it is having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and we're having this fed back from real-life situations on the ground, where parents are making different choices in the areas where it's being piloted. So, the types of different choices they're making could be to expand the number of hours that they're in work, because they now have a choice, they're not constrained to certain hours or whatever, they have a wider choice, with a wider number of providers, and they're making that decision and they're able to expand their hours. Some, by the way, Llyr, I have to say—and, again, these are real-life situations—are saying, 'What we're doing is not expanding our hours, but, because of the increased provision of childcare and the increased offer, we are now able to actually spend more time with our children, because we're adjusting our hours of work, based on the childcare provision offer.' That in itself, I have to say, is a worthy aim. But I would say what we found out, in real-life examples—I'm not saying that in direct contrast to what that paper was saying— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's what I was going to ask; it sounds as if you're saying they were wrong. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But what we have is the advantage of this phased roll-out, where we are learning, live time, and I think the Arad report in October—we're hoping to see the final report in October—will help put some flesh on this as well. It is already having an effect: the majority of parents who are taking advantage of this are actually in those groups that are below the average wage, they are making positive choices to get into this offer and to either expand, take more hours, adjust their own lifestyles around it or more. So, it's having a positive effect. I can cite to you examples, because I've asked my own officials on this, of families who tell us they're saving up to £250 a week on the basis of this offer within the pilot areas, who've increased their hours of employment, who've changed their working patterns to suit their work life, but also to suit their families. Now, that's real stuff, as opposed to—yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, in effect, you are saying that the PPIW report got it wrong, basically. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, I'm not saying that they got it wrong and it's wholly wrong, but it is interesting, within that report, that it did identify that there were a range of factors here that play upon this. It's not only the childcare; it is the transport, it's the training and education, it's the employment support and all of those. And we agree with that, but we do think, and what we're seeing, live time, at the moment—maybe at some point, somebody else will produce a report beyond the Arad report in October that will say, 'Well, actually, the way this is designed, that they've done it in Wales, is having a material effect on those families, particularly the most disadvantaged families.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you're asking us to support a Bill here, albeit a framework Bill, to achieve a policy aim where you're giving us anecdotal evidence that it's having an impact, contrary to research that's previously been done, albeit with promises that, maybe, an evaluation sometime in the autumn might tell us a different story. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We know, and we are constantly told—I'm sure this is commonplace in constituency surgeries, as well—by parents who say that the biggest mitigating factor for them, actually, either going into work at an earlier opportunity or expanding their hours is purely the cost of childcare in front of them. We are picking up, even from the early term of the analysis—. I think our further reports, both Arad and as we go forward with the pilots, will substantiate this more. It'll go beyond the anecdotal, it will show that parents are having an enhanced opportunity to balance their work life, to make better choices, either in terms of expanding the number of hours they're working and increasing their disposable income within their families, or actually making it simply better for them in their family situation, where they don't currently have that offer. So, I get the fact that we have one report out there, but it's one report. It's a report, and we're not dismissing it entirely, but what we are saying is: we are now working with real-life piloting of an offer, and we are seeing the benefits coming through. As we roll this out, we'll be back in front of this committee saying, 'Well, this is now what we're finding. We can go beyond the real-life stories that I'm relating to you now, and we can say, ""Well, here's some hard data that goes with this, as well.""' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. You reference in your paper, as well, another report, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, 'Starting Strong 2017', and it highlights countries that have, maybe, the most similar childcare offer to what's being proposed here in Wales. I'm just wondering what assessment you've made of those similarities, because, clearly, there'll be different economic contexts in different countries and different levels of public expenditure, et cetera. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't done really detailed analysis of comparisons with other countries far from Wales, but we will be doing work that will be doing some benchmarking against, where we can find similar models, where appropriate—do some appropriate benchmarking. What we have been doing is looking at what's been happening across the border in England and trying to learn from the lessons there, and also the offer in Scotland as well, which are both close to hand. They're in quite similar contexts. But we will do some work, Llyr, around benchmarking against good comparative international examples, where appropriate. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, there we are, because one of my concerns was that the focus in a number of the countries in the OECD report are for nought to three-year-olds, whereas, of course, the policy focus here is for a slightly older age group. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, and I fully get that, but again, and I know it can be said, 'Well, this is an example' but it's real-life examples. We are having people who are telling us that they're now making the choice to go to work earlier because this is extended to three-year-olds, but they would have delayed. There is a direct outcome there if this childcare offer enables somebody to say, 'Well, I'm going to go a year earlier back into work and bring income into the family.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, moving on, then, to the impact on the child and this whole question around school readiness, of course, which is an important one to address. Clearly, one of the main outcomes of this policy will be the academic performance of children, hopefully, later on in life. I want to come back to this point that the Children's Commissioner for Wales and others have raised: the concern that, actually, the most disadvantaged—those from workless households—are being excluded from this policy. Isn't there therefore a risk that they'll be left even further behind? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I've had long, detailed and positive discussions with the children's commissioner on this, and I know the children's commissioner would want a more universal offer, but I make two points on that: one is, that was not what the commitment in the manifesto was, and it's not the offer that's being taken forward now. It is a different thing, a universal offer, and there are issues around that with complexity, and also affordability. But it isn't the offer that we took forward into Government; this is what we're taking forward. But it is interesting in terms of that aspect of families then who lose out. I'd say two significant things on it: one is, this doesn't stand alone purely as 30 hours of childcare. Within this, there are 10 hours of the foundation years, educational input, which is there for everybody. But before that, particularly for those disadvantaged families, before we even get to that stage, you have schemes such as Flying Start, and I know this committee has looked in detail at Flying Start and has said that it would like to see it rolled out everywhere. If I had all the money under the sun, I would really do that, Chair; I would really do it. But I don't have all the money under the sun. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: But you do have the ability to target the money. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but the fact that Flying Start, we know, is leading to those outcomes where those children, in quite challenged circumstances very often, are more ready to step up to the foundation year, are more ready, then, to step through into mainstream education in later years—those things tie together. So, there are the 10 hours of education provision that sits here for every family, by the way, within this offer, let alone the childcare. That doesn't mean that everybody's excluded, but it does mean, yes, that this offer is focused on working parents. And we don't think that that's a bad thing. In fact, it does overlap with other offers that other political parties were taking forward into the last election, which was focusing on how we support the biggest thing that we often have in our constituency mailbags, which is, 'I can't afford to go back to work because I can't afford the childcare. Don't tell me to go back to work, I can't afford it.' +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The majority of disadvantaged children don't live in Flying Start areas, do they? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, there's a missing cohort there that can't access one or the other, and the school readiness gap is growing, and, really, are we focusing our resources in the right place here? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, yes, in terms of this scheme, but it doesn't sit alone as this scheme—it's the wider plethora of, I have to say, progressive and advanced initiatives that we have in Wales that take different forms. It's not only Flying Start that provides that other support for parents, and readiness not only for the parents and for their children, but also the support into work. So, if, for example, you look at the Parents, Childcare and Employment programme, which is separate from this, there is support there for every parent in terms of helping them get supported into work from disadvantaged families. If you look at the support for the children, we've got the 10 hours that sits within the sphere of the education, but we've also got all the other family intervention programmes that help with socialisation, education and so on and so forth. If you look at this solely on its own and say, 'Well, there is nothing else there; the rest of Wales is a desert and there's no support for parents, for getting parents back into work or for those parents who are not seeking to go back into work but also need the support and for their children in education', I'd be worried. But, actually, this fits as part of the jigsaw that we have in Wales, where I think we are well ahead of the other nations. Yes, we could do more, and I always say, Llyr; I always say, Chair, that if I had—I don't have a chequebook at all, because it's not in my gift—if I had a blank cheque I'd do a lot more, but we don't. But what we can do is get the right schemes in place, and if this helps drive more choices for working parents, including, by the way—. There are niceties within this as well; it doesn't have to be that both parents are working. You could have a parent who is on incapacity benefit. You could have a parent who is a registered carer. They would qualify for the scheme. Those will be some of those most disadvantaged families that we both have those concerns about. So, there is some flexibility within this scheme as well to deal with some of those disadvantaged families. +Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this. +Darren Millar AM: I am surprised by the answer there, particularly given that one of the ambitions of the Government is to close this attainment gap later in life when schoolchildren get to their examinations, when they're 16 years old. Yet this appears to be driving a bigger wedge in terms of development, which could, of course, lead to a perverse outcome later on in life, but I don't want to ask you about that. If I can just very quickly ask you: has consideration been given to making free childcare available to parents where they're in 16 hours or more of education each week? So, they may not be entering the labour market, but, of course, one of those barriers to them getting back into the labour market could well be their education, so what arrangements are in place there? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Darren, we have considered it, and we haven't included it within the scheme because this is designed to enable parents to go into work, not into training to enable them to get into work. There are other forms of support available for parents in terms of college and so on and so forth, but it's not this scheme. +Darren Millar AM: But it's not prescribed support, is it? You know, it's not universally available to people who might be wanting to get back into the labour market over that barrier. You must have done some costings, then, if you've considered it, and you must have tried to identify numbers. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my left and my right. +Owain Lloyd: Not at this point. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We haven't— +Darren Millar AM: So, you haven't considered it that much, have you? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We have actually considered—. We consider it from the point of, 'What is this scheme set up to do?' It's very clear. When we ran, in the manifesto on this point— +Darren Millar AM: I understand that. I don't want you to repeat yourself because I know we are against the clock. But, very specifically, when you say you've considered it, what you mean is you thought about it but you've not costed it, you've not identified the numbers that might be involved— +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Absolutely, absolutely. +Darren Millar AM: And therefore you've not considered whether it might be affordable in addition to the policy objective that this is trying to meet. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: No, Darren, you're right: we haven't considered affordability because we've considered it on first principles to do with what this offer is trying to do. It doesn't fit within the offer so, as such, why would we do the costings? +Darren Millar AM: Perhaps I can frame my question in another way. Are you prepared to consider it if you're able to identify the numbers and potential cost? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Ah, right, okay. We'd be interested in your thoughts as a committee, but it doesn't actually fit within the first principles of what the scheme is designed to do. Darren, can I just pick up on your point, in case you misinterpreted what I was saying to Llyr? I drew attention in my answer to Llyr to schemes such as the PaCE scheme. In Gwynedd, one of our pilot areas, they are combining the Team Around the Family with this childcare offer. So, what they are doing is wrapping the support around. It is not the case, as you've suggested then, that there is somehow more disadvantage being heaped on other families. What this does is tie in in those pilot areas with the existing provision, and that's the way we want to see it work. So, I wouldn't want you to be under any misapprehension that this makes conditions worse for families. Those families who have a registered carer in them where one parent works, and those families who have somebody on incapacity benefit will qualify for the scheme. All families will qualify for the 10 hours of education. In Gwynedd, they're wrapping the Team Around the Family with this offer— +Darren Millar AM: But on the other hand, Minister, you've also suggested that this will accelerate child development for those kids who are able to access it, and yet not all kids will be able to access it, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: But all children can access the 10 hours, and they can access Flying Start— +Darren Millar AM: But 10 hours is very different to 30 hours, is it not? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, but they can access Flying Start or they can access the Team Around the Family— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in a Flying Start area. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: —or they can be in a children's zone area or they can— +Darren Millar AM: If they're in those areas. +Lynne Neagle AM: Right, I've got John and then David, and the questions and answers are going to have to be brief, please. +John Griffiths AM: Yes, certainly, Chair. In terms of child development and how this fits with wider Welsh Government strategy, Huw, I'd be interested in what you'd have to say about the quality of childcare. We're talking a lot about quantity, but obviously we want to up quality, and that's recognised by Welsh Government. They've talked about increasing the qualifications within the workforce, and the quality. I just wonder how that sits within the £4.50, because there could be pressures in the opposite direction there, and some tension between wanting to up the qualifications and quality of workforce whilst keeping affordability in place. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: John, you're absolutely right, and two things on that: I visited one of the facilities in the Valleys the other day that was taking this forward—a very good independent sector-run childcare provision, with Welsh language and English language running alongside each other, and I asked the point about the integration, curiously, but what they were doing was—. Their standard of staff was an exemplar of what we'd want to see: not only very well-qualified childcare staff who were qualified within not simply the child-minding but the wider child development aspects—. So, it was hard to differentiate, in some ways, what was happening there from what would be happening in a child development educational surrounding, and including the nutritional stuff and all of that. Now, that is the model we need to see, and the £4.50 seems to work, at the moment, for that. It'll be interesting, as we discussed previously, as it goes forward—. We need to look at whether that works, going forward. But the quality, I think, is key, and that's why we're focused very much on registered inspected providers, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harriet. +John Griffiths AM: If we want to increase salary levels, though, which I think is a necessary part of this picture of improving quality, then obviously that might impact on the £4.50 rate. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, indeed, and we are cognisant—. It's interesting that we focus on whether the £4.50 is affordable, but the £4.50—you know, we're having an interesting discussion internally about how that £4.50 offer per hour sits alongside others, such as the foundation phase offer, and it's more generous. So, I think it's: how do we align, as time goes by, the child development aspects of the whole early years stuff? Now, we're doing some fascinating work that I think I've referred to on this committee before about aligning the early years development entirely. Now, this is an evolving piece of work, but I think the childcare offer should ultimately fit within that. How do you make sure that every offer that is Government-funded works on child development? It's not simply childcare. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Right. The next questions are from Mark. +Mark Reckless AM: In terms of child development and not accentuating disadvantage, another area where this may apply is the kids who are born in the summer term, compared to those who are born in Michaelmas. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that they start with a disadvantage at school and often don't make that up, even as they go through school. What is the rationale for providing the older children with five terms of this, compared to three terms for the younger children who already have the relative disadvantage? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I'm looking to my colleagues here and— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, the criteria for eligibility for the offer are the term after the child's third birthday, which is equivalent to the eligibility criteria for the foundation phase early education offer. Clearly, then, the number of terms that a child is able to, or parents are able to, access the childcare offer will be influenced by when the child is born, but I think you may be referring to a sort of parallel question, which is about whether—. There have been questions raised about whether children who are summer-born should, in fact, start school in the term after they turn four, or whether actually they should be allowed the flexibility to start school at a later age, which I know is something that has been tested in England, and there is some mixed evidence about school starting age and the birth month of children. +Mark Reckless AM: Well, they do have flexibility. You don't have to start your kids until the term following when they're five. That's the compulsory school— +Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, that's the legal position, but, obviously, in practice, most children will start school in the term after they're four. +Mark Reckless AM: So, given the disadvantage we know that the younger children born in the summer have, relative to the older ones, why accentuate that by giving the older kids five terms of this project, which you tell us will have such positive effects on their child development, but the summer kids only get three? Doesn't that make the situation worse? +Jo-Anne Daniels: I'm not 100 per cent sure I understand the question. So, children will stop being in receipt of the childcare offer once they become eligible for a full-time school place, and most children will become eligible for a full-time school place in the term after their fourth birthday. +Mark Reckless AM: But the older kids become eligible for this five terms before they start school, where the younger kids, who're already disadvantaged, become eligible for it only three terms before, accentuating the problem, surely. Could more thought be given to this issue? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: We'll take that away. It's confused us a little bit, but we'll take that away. We might need to come back to you and—. Yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: If you could write to us about that, that would be helpful. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. Minister, you got, or Welsh Government, really, got the Public Policy Institute for Wales to study this proposed policy and they concluded that it would have no substantial impacts on net income, poverty or work behaviour for families with children, and that the impact on work participation and work hours for mothers and families with a child of target age is extremely small. What do you say to that? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, Mark, I can only refer to what I said earlier. Our real-life evidence that is accumulating now is showing us examples of where people are making savings and increasing disposable income—as I mentioned earlier, up to £250 per week within some poorer households; so, real-life examples—but also where it's enabling them to make much better choices about when they work because there's more childcare offer available, or, alternatively, to work their childcare provision and their working hours around being able to spend more time with their children, which they currently can't do. +Lynne Neagle AM: And I don't want to go back over Llyr's questions. +Mark Reckless AM: I understand. That's not my focus. I just wondered about the quality of this PPIW piece of work. They said if you had a work requirement, as you do, it would cost £61 million a year on their numbers, substantially less than you're saying, and then they said it would cost £144 million without a work requirement. Now, that implies to me that 57 per cent of the parents wouldn't be working and would continue not working even if there is this available with a work requirement. I mean, are those numbers really credible from PPIW? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: It's not quite comparing like with like. Just to draw your attention, Mark, and the committee's attention to that the PPIW analysis was looking at a provision of 38 weeks. Ours is a 48-week option. And the fact that we are having parents already saying to us that their ability to actually extend that into the 48 weeks—beyond the term time and so on—carries advantages that are not picked up in that report. +Mark Reckless AM: And what is your early assessment of the income levels of families who are finding this offer most attractive? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: I think, from recollection, we're one term in, so we're one term into the assessment, and I mentioned earlier that the majority of parents are below the average income of £26,000 in Wales— it's around about 60 per cent of families are those. We're finding very few families are those who are on higher incomes. It's disproportionately towards those below the average income, and many of them amongst the most disadvantaged families are opting in to this offer where it is being offered. So, clearly, they're seeing the benefits of it. +Mark Reckless AM: And what consideration have you given to integrating this Welsh Government offer with the UK Government offer of tax-free childcare that's applicable across the UK? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Well, that offer, as you rightly say, is available across the UK and still is. The fact that it's more integrated within their scheme within England—the tax offer is more integrated—has caused them some problems in complexity and in the administration of this and the digital platforms that they've had. That offer is still available in Wales and it might well be that parents who opt in to that say, 'Well, we do want to buy additional hours beyond the 30 hours', but this 30 hours is there for every— +Mark Reckless AM: I wonder, Minister, whether what you're doing, in a very good way, to promote your project—people will see that as the childcare offer and, at least in my experience, very few parents are aware of the tax-free childcare on a UK basis. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: You're right—sorry. That's absolutely one of the lessons we've learnt from even this early stage of the early implementers, because there are elements of a childcare offer within the tax offer, within universal credit, within working tax credit. There are little bits of different ones and it does cause confusion. So, one of the lessons that we've learnt from the Talk Childcare communication strategy alongside this is the importance of communicating to parents and providers who the parents go to what is best for them to access, how they access it easily, and we'll learn more as these pilots roll by. +Mark Reckless AM: So, as you go into the Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs criteria—you have a £100,000 cap, as well as the £6,000 minimum wage cap, and you're getting HMRC to say whether people are eligible, which requires them to set up that account with HMRC—will you assure this committee that you will make sure that parents who are doing that are aware of the UK tax-free childcare offer, and that their providers also are? Because we've been looking, say, at the £7.50 extra per day, but, if someone's eligible for this offer, they should also be eligible for the UK tax-free childcare offer and have set up the account to do that. So, will you make sure that those parents know to pay their provider out of tax-free funds, rather than paying them the fully taxed amounts, which might otherwise happen? +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Yes, absolutely. And I think, if it's okay, Owain would like to add something as well. +Owain Lloyd: Yes, just to say, as I understand how things currently work with the English offer and TFC, when a parent applies, that automatically happens in terms of, on the one hand, they're given a 'yes' or 'no' in terms of their eligibility for the 30-hours offer in England, but they will also be told in terms of the parental account that's set up under TFC. So, that is integrated in the offer, and we'll be looking to do the same in terms of the Welsh offer. But, obviously, what we're not looking at doing in terms of the 30-hours offer is the setting up of the parental account to make the payment; the payment currently is very much between local government and the provider directly, rather than the TFC model, where the parent pays the provider. +Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Well, we have come to—well, we've run over, actually. So, we've come to the end of our time. Can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending? You are, of course, back with us on 16 May for Stage 1 of the Bill, so we will look forward to seeing you then. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy, as is usual practice. But thank you again, all of you. +Huw Irranca-Davies AM: Lovely. Thank you—diolch yn fawr. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, item 3 then is papers to note. As Members can see, there are 11 papers to note. So, if Members are content, I'd suggest that we note all of them in a block, if that's okay. Yes, okay. Thank you. Item 4, then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Okay. Thank you. +","The conversation took place during a Children, Young People and Education Committee session. Lynne Neagle AM chaired the meeting, and Huw Irranca-Davies AM, the Minister for Children and Social Care, was present along with Jo-Anne Daniels and Owain Lloyd, both of whom hold relevant directorial positions. They discussed the Welsh Government's childcare offer currently being piloted in certain local authority areas. + +Hefin David AM initiated the questions, asking about the performance of the childcare offer in its early implementer areas. The Minister explained that while the rollout has been encouraging, they face challenges such as administrative burden and communication issues. The complexity of verifying parents' eligibility was raised, with discussions on a centralized system to streamline the process in the future. + +Questions were raised about the potential for differing demands for services across areas and how this might impact a wider Welsh rollout. Huw Irranca-Davies noted that the demand was not even, attributing it to economic and cultural factors. He mentioned that capacity per se was not an issue discovered in the pilot. + +The prospects of offering subsidies for child care provided by grandparents and the broader implications on the childcare sector's fragility were explored. The Committee was reassured that the workforce development plan and capital investment would address existing capacity and quality issues in childcare services. + +Concerns were raised about the implications of a national rate for childcare services and whether it might create disparities in care quality, with more affluent parents able to afford additional ""better"" services. Huw Irranca-Davies discussed the practicality and affordability of the rate and the flexibility built into the proposal to adjust the program based on pilot findings. + +The dialogue also included discussions about the childcare sector's workforce readiness, the integration of Welsh-medium provision, and the considered but not included proposal to extend free childcare to parents enrolled in education. The childcare offer's impact on child development and mitigating disadvantage was debated, noting the tension between the scheme's focus on working parents and the broader aims to support disadvantaged families and children. Alternative support mechanisms like Flying Start and the Parents, Childcare and Employment (PaCE) program were highlighted as other means to support families not eligible for the childcare offer. + +Lastly, the session touched on how the Welsh offer aligns with UK tax-free childcare schemes and the efforts to ensure parents are aware of available UK-wide childcare support. The potential disadvantage to summer-born children, due to varying terms of eligibility based on birth month, was also briefly addressed. + +Throughout the conversation, there was an emphasis on learning from the pilot programs and adapting the childcare offer for a more extensive rollout, considering the diverse needs across Welsh regions and communities." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All set ? Okay . Cool . Right . So um basically I'm just gonna go over real quickly um some news I've just got from the board on how we're supposed to do with this um {vocalsound} remote control . And then I'm gonna turn over to you guys to make brief presentations um on what you've found and then we'll have a bit of discussion . So basically uh what I've just found out from the board I dunno if you guys got this email as well but it needs to be television only . So no {disfmarker} we're not doing D_V_D_ , we're not doing anything else , +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: it's just gonna be a television remote . {vocalsound} Um it also needs to have the company colours included in it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so that's red and black . And it has to have the slogan , case you guys forget the slogan it's , we put fashion in electronics . Um and no teletext . I'm not sure what teletext is but I'm assuming you guys do , so we don't wanna include that um in this particular design . {vocalsound} For reasons that I don't really know . There's {disfmarker} but it's the board so there you go . So basically um given those guidelines which will have some effect on how we design we'll discuss it later I mean 'cause it's television only we'll be able to change our uh {vocalsound} um well we can s sacrifice more function for a better television remote . {vocalsound} Anyway . So I'm gonna turn over to the Industrial Designer uh to go ahead and make a presentation on {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . So do I unplug this bit here ? +Project Manager: Oh , right yeah . +Marketing: Gotta plug you in . +Project Manager: Yep . Might have to hit function F_ eight but it looks like it's gonna come up . Yep . Cool . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Right . That's page one of my presentation . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Very nice . For your first PowerPoint it's lovely . +Industrial Designer: So the uh method . We're gonna have to understand how remote controls work and res uh successfully complete this project . Um remote control works as follows . This is all pretty basic stuff you guys . Um sends message to another system , so there's an energy source involved in that like a battery or solar power , something along those lines , there's an integrated circuit , which is the microchip , um and that actually compose the messages and usually the way a a remote control works is it sends infrared bits to another system . A user interface controls the chip , basically that's the casing and the buttons and um accordingly the messages as well . So my findings , um I just did a preliminary study here and uh I found that too much metal in remote design could potentially cause interference with the ability of the remote to send commands . And too much metal can cause remotes to behave unexpectedly by receiving false signals . Um too much metal is used sometimes and people pick up radio signals and the like , and there's also the possibility of the remote catching on fire and injuring the customer , just think of those lawsuits , that'd be really bad . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Therefore I suggest primarily plastic construction . Um , components . Just some ideas that I had , um , energy source , it's kinda hip to be eco friendly so I thought maybe we could do something with solar power with an alkaline battery backup . Um the user interface , I was {disfmarker} since we can't use metal I was thinking maybe a high grade recycled plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: The chip , um , silicon based chip I don't really see any way around that , we can't really be different in that respect . Um , the sender well I'm thinking infrared 'cause it is the industry standard , multi channel , that's a word I made up , I don't really know what it means . +Project Manager: 'Kay . Fair enough . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh PAL and N_T_S_C_ compatible and uh probably a two hundred foot range . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh and the receiver of course is any number of electronic devices . Um but in this case it'll only be T_V_s . Um personal preferences , I really think that we should use plastic as opposed to metal , um , the company simply can't afford this kinds of lawsuits +Marketing: Fine . +Industrial Designer: which adm admittedly is gonna come at the cost of a certain aesthetic value , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is is there a way that we can use um modern types of polymers , or mo modern types of plastics +Industrial Designer: 'cause we were thinking {disfmarker} +Project Manager: that maybe do have some kind of aesthetic value um like if a white {disfmarker} like if we talk about like well like on the lapt on these laptops and other ones they use a a pretty nice , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: It needs , yeah . +Project Manager: you can do i is there some kind of nice colo der quality plastic that we can work with ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah that shouldn't be a problem . Um for example the plastic they have on your laptop there is something that's perfectly possible for us to do . +Project Manager: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the end of my presentation . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Great . Thank you very much Nathan . {vocalsound} Um if next we can have the um User Interface Developer go ahead and make a brief presentation that'd be great as well . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S plug yourself in here . Mm . {vocalsound} Um hit function F_ eight real quickly , hold down {disfmarker} Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Looks like you're in okay . +Industrial Designer: Is it plugged in well ? There it goes . Computer adjusting . +User Interface: Th +Project Manager: There you go . Sweet . +Marketing: There you go . +User Interface: Well so . Here we have a uh my technical functions design presentation . Um so a few of the requirements we need here . Uh we n basically need to operate an electronic device , it needs to be universal um and possibly uh operate several different types of devices although we now uh find that uh that that's no problem . +Project Manager: Yeah sorry I couldn't get that g to use before . +User Interface: Um so some of my findings . Um basically wanna send messages uh to a television set . Um that would be any number of different things uh such as switch on the television , uh switch to the next channel , that sort of thing , I think we're all quite uh quite uh intelligent and know know what a normal remote control does . Um {vocalsound} now some of the other things I found is a a complicated remote control sorry that we can't quite see my red there very well +Project Manager: Oh yeah look at that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: but uh this remote control has many functions um so it can do a lot of things but it uh it is quite complicated +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and most users will find it uh find that they won't use most of the functions because they don't know how to use them and don't wanna take the time to learn how to do it . As you also notice it's quite a boring design . Um . Another remote control , slightly different , it's a simpler remote control uh many less buttons but uh has many fewer functions , um m much easier for the user to manipulate and use . Um it also has a bit of a cheap look and it's also quite boring . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: my personal preferences . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Revolutionise the idea of uh a remote control . Um so attain the functionality of a complicated device but use a simple formatted display uh for the user to to work with . And I was gonna add another uh slide here but I didn't quite have time there . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Um . Just incorporating some of the ideas that we had previously like uh having multiple face but it's uh {gap} . +Project Manager: Great . Thanks for that Ron . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Kay +Marketing: Does that mean I'm up ? +Project Manager: yep that's you . +Marketing: I think so . Okay . +User Interface: I can plug you in . +Marketing: Oh that would be perfect . Thank you . Slide show up and running . +Project Manager: Give it a little bit . +Marketing: Or not . Uh . Oh there we go . Perfect . Okay . So this is me . Um basically I was looking through some marketing reports that we've got and we had a usability test where we were actually sort {disfmarker} like watching a hundred people {vocalsound} use T_V_ remotes and see what it is that they're using and then they filled out a questionnaire about what they like and what they don't about their general T_V_ remote control practices . Um pretty much through testing we were finding out that most of the time , everybody's used to using changing the channel , turning it on , using the volume , m the majority of the time that's all that's going on , the other functions happen , for some people they're important , but the primary uses are really really basic . Um and so big complicated remotes like one we saw in the last presentation are really not the general public's use , they're not using a lot of it , they don't need it , they even find it frustrating when there are all those buttons that they don't know what to do with . {vocalsound} And um we also found out that uh fifty percent of our people , their {disfmarker} the worst thing about a remote is how often they lose it . And then they can't find it in the room . So I think what we were talking about with a pager or something , will really come into play with a lot of these people . {vocalsound} Um there's also a survey about what they liked about remotes , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and pretty much they all think they're hideous and not very useful , and the younger demographics are all really interested in voice recognition options . I don't know if that's something we're ready to look into technically , that's up to the design people , but it is s something worth thinking about , especially since the younger demographic's obviously the one that's gonna keep growing , so if that's the direction we're headed in it's something to think about . Um but basically it really is the primary functions and getting it to look nice , which are the standards . {vocalsound} So it's a good start for us . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's great . Thank you Sarah . Right . So um +Marketing: Need to unplug this ? +Project Manager: yep I'll just uh switch that back here . +Marketing: Need it back . +Project Manager: I'll finish up with just a bit of discussion plan on for the next phase . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right so I think we've covered most of these important questions through this um {vocalsound} through you guys's presentations um {vocalsound} we've got uh y the Industrial Designer suggests uh or pretty much emphatically suggested that we need to go with plastic . {vocalsound} Um Sarah , she's recommended that we go for simpler functions , so fewer functions um but we need to decide who are we selling this to , you s your stats suggested that seventy five percent of people under thirty five wanted , thought about voice control , +Marketing: Oh right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um so do we wanna go for that , or do we want to go for an older demographic , and my thought is {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} we've got w if we're gonna go for a sleek look I mean we are putting the fashion in electronics {vocalsound} um . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} We're not catering to the pensioners of the world I don't think so . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So maybe this {disfmarker} we should look into this younger demographic . Um . So +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} uh we need to wonder ah h about how we make it better and smaller and faster um think we're constrained to plastics very well , we've got this idea , Ron was saying we need to think about uh revolutionising the way it's looking um , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: which might be easier given that we're going for simpler function and that we're only going for a telly . +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: Um so um . How {disfmarker} th this voice operation thing is {disfmarker} I think is a good idea um assuming that it's doable , um at least for the basic controls , maybe we can balance it that way , you know we can see . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay you can't say record alias tonight at seven P_M_ +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we might be able to say um {vocalsound} volume up . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . I think it would be possible to uh combine the locator device and the voice recognition technology . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh . That could work . I like that . +Industrial Designer: With a simple command like locate . And then it could start to beep +Marketing: Yeah . Something very basic . +Industrial Designer: and +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: therefore be found . +User Interface: Sounds good . +Marketing: Is that only gonna be within our two hundred foot range then ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah I think that's very doable . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: The difficulty wh would be in um I think like i you couldn't speak into the remote that you're trying to find . 'Kay you have something that picks up a voice from far away {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a good point . +Project Manager: If it's hidden under the couch {disfmarker} but then again you have this wee {disfmarker} this wee thing you know that's just a little chip or whatever that has the page button , maybe that could be voice activated too . +User Interface: A little sticky pad to stick on top of your uh television . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And you just say something to {disfmarker} into that +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and it +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: finds your {disfmarker} +Marketing: K {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Or an isolated magnet or something like , or you know something that wouldn't interfere I don't know that'd be the technical thing +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but {disfmarker} yeah I like that , I like that , the voice recognition for the paging system . +User Interface: {vocalsound} The other thing is we might be able to handle the simplicity of a remote control and kind of put the more complicated things into a voice control . So it could be sold to both the younger market and the older market . +Marketing: True . +User Interface: And the younger market could use kind of the voi voice control method and the older market might might k +Marketing: Making it just an option ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: exactly and might consider the older market could use the simpler design with the traditional buttons and what not . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I was thinking uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Are we still thinking about this screen {disfmarker} sorry . +Industrial Designer: Oh go ahead . +Marketing: Go ahead . The uh if we're gonna do this touch pad screen thing , it would be still , do we know if that's an option technically right now to that ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: 'S definitely an option technically . I've looked into uh costs of uh touch screen methods and what not , +Marketing: Okay . Okay . +User Interface: they seem to be uh you know almost as cheap as a button method at this point . +Marketing: We're doing okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Cause it seems like an interesting option especially because then you could have like your primary screen just be these you know four or five basic functions , you can have +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: menu options or something to have all these other complicated voice recognition , settings , things that you're not gonna use every day and that a lot of people aren't gonna use but it is an option there for this hi-tech market that sort of re is the sleek thing we're going for . +Industrial Designer: Gotta wonder though , if we're adding so much technology to this one remote , are we still gonna be able to meet out twelve pou our twelve fifty Euro you know goal for selling these things . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: True . Worth looking into . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It seems like , we're not gonna be able to handle all these functions with just one microchip . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The microchip is probably the most expensive part of the the whole mechanism . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: True . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So it's just something to consider . +Project Manager: Absolutely . Mm 'kay um well yeah I guess we'll cross that bridge um in a la slightly later stages of development um but yeah I know , that's perfectly viable question . Mm 'kay um so I'm seeing that we're gonna just basically focus on this young demographic group , aim it at them , but then in a sense that its bells and whistles are available for anybody who wants them but basically we'll make a sleek simple functioned um uh remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I think this voice recognition thing is a we've got a market for it uh I don't think there's too many , +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: we'd more or less be cornering the market on it as well , we don't have many um . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I appear to have lost my microphone . Mm . {vocalsound} Right um we don't have many people {vocalsound} or there's not very many competitors out there that do that so cool . Um right . I guess we've c we've touched on most of this . The idea of a paging function , a touch screen , and face plates . Um . The thing with {disfmarker} I see {vocalsound} would there not be a {vocalsound} we'd have to maybe sacrifice the face plates for a touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I'm not sure that's sincerely correct , +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I think if you kind of take the example of a mobile phone that uh trying to pass a portion of the device is not interchangeable whereas the surrounding portions are interchangeable . +Marketing: Mm . Just the casing . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: We could have the casing , the the face plates . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Back to the uh the cost {disfmarker} the material . {vocalsound} We have to ask whether we're going to include a certain number of face plates with the package ? That's something I w for {disfmarker} say we're including three or four face plates , it's gonna drive the cost up . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: And the other question is , if we do include them are we really in a position to evaluate that market ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We haven't done any tests on face plates and whether {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: See if there {disfmarker} if there's even interest out there . +Project Manager: Okay . Right . +Industrial Designer: Off the top of my head it sounds kind of like a gimmick that wouldn't really go anywhere . +Project Manager: Yeah 'cause then ha you would have to {disfmarker} who all +Marketing: Mm . Right . +Project Manager: it's not like with cell phones like where you have a {disfmarker} you know Nokia model X_ and then ten people make face plates for it , we'd be just our model of pho of t remote control . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Well in the publicity of a face plate on a phone is you have it out and around , it is sort of emblematic whereas you're just sit at home , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so unless somebody comes over to watch T_V_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well hopefully some people have people coming t over to w to hang out at your house +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . True . True . +User Interface: and most people have their televisions in the living room . Uh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright well we can {disfmarker} we can discuss that one further when we think about um whether th when we do costs and so forth , um . +Marketing: Yeah . Oh yeah . +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} True , if plastic is dead cheap and if we're making the whole thing out of plastic anyway um {vocalsound} yeah we'll cross that bridge later um but yeah we will have to evaluate what's most important . Um I think we've had a bit of discussion already on this thing , n s there any other questions comments that came up in these presentations ? +User Interface: Well have we confirmed that we're gonna go ahead with a uh touch screen um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Interface ? +Project Manager: Yeah I think that would be best . Let's based on what sh on what you guys have all said to me let's go for a plastic built or uh b plastic cased 'cause tha tha that's easy on the cost , try to look for some kind of high quality recycled plastic as you recommended and I think that's a great idea . With a touch screen for the basic functions . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} And we'll yeah tha let's provisionally {disfmarker} let's go for a touch screen one with several submenus um for possible extra stuff that one basically put the channel and the on and off switch on the touch screen . Um do we have {disfmarker} Mm wait a minute it occurs to me that if we have a touch screen people are going to have to recharge their remote controls . {vocalsound} Yet at the same time that might help for this whole complaint of it being lost . +Marketing: True . 'Cause it would have a docking base ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But then again that costs as well . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So these new lithium batteries they last twenty years {vocalsound} even with the touch screen ? +Project Manager: Do they ? Okay . +User Interface: Those new ones . +Industrial Designer: Can we afford to include one of those ? +Marketing: Can we afford that ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And will somebody buy it if we don't ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well I I don't think yeah I can't see anybody buying a lap a remote control that they have to plug in so we'd have to see some kind of new battery technology . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay so let's go with a um touch screen {vocalsound} with um some kind of {disfmarker} you know with with some kind of cutting edge battery technology {disfmarker} +Marketing: For twelve Euros ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah well hey you know well it's it's worth looking into , if not we can always default to just doing a a well presented plastic simple +Marketing: It is . Fair enough . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you know so {disfmarker} you know . Well yeah I mean +Marketing: The basics . +Project Manager: you can put the {disfmarker} we could I I dunno I mean I suppose we could put the the basics on the centre easiest you know , you know people know the channel and volume function make them large and easy to get at and then the the other the other bits and bobs you know go through menu um w we'll do the aesthetics . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay so we'll {gap} touch screen and the battery , focus on um {vocalsound} uh presentation . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} it's th uh with this voice recognition option as well um just as for the simple functions the um the on off , channels , volume , um +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and um a small paging function . Even if you can't do voice recognition for the paging you know just some kind of simple button that's just a I guess another infrared signal to the remote control and while {disfmarker} to emit some kind of paging . Just a beep . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Um right so any comments ? Thoughts before we break into {disfmarker} go into the next round of individual work on this . +Industrial Designer: Since we're doing uh touch screen , do we wanna look into the possibility of people being able to input different types of skins for the you know the actual interface part of it and things like that ? Or is it just gonna be one touch screen for everybody . +User Interface: Be interesting . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What what would be on that touch screen ? 'Cause you said earlier that we have to think about company colours and um +Marketing: {vocalsound} And {gap} oh . +Industrial Designer: logo or something or motto , I can't remember exactly what you said . +Marketing: Yeah the {vocalsound} the fashion +User Interface: We put fashion into electronics . +Marketing: do . Yeah . +Project Manager: W it's my understanding that if you were going to do a skin you'd need to have some way for people to download or import skins into the remote control . +Marketing: Right , and then you're dealing with ports and cords and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I think perhaps {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'S too much . +Project Manager: good idea but yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I think that that one m might just be um and they just {disfmarker} yeah I think that one might just be out of the range for this particular {disfmarker} +Marketing: For now . +Project Manager: a P_D_A_ would {disfmarker} they would {disfmarker} makes a lot of sense for a P_D_A_ 'cause you're gonna be using it to connect up to things anyway but {disfmarker} I dunno , what do you guys think ? +Industrial Designer: Think we just need to come up with a nice black and red interface on the touch screen . +Marketing: Yeah . Nice . +Industrial Designer: That'd be okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh I I'm I'm in agreement with that , I'm wondering how we're gonna get uh we put fashion into electronics onto this device . +Marketing: Um . Well but if we're gonna use a touch screen where it's gonna come on like on your cell phone it'll have your your carrier provider name come up first like while it's loading +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: and then it goes away , perhaps it could be like a temporary {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Comes on every time you turn it on and then that's it 'cause it is a bit much to have it like engraved on the back or something I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm . True . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I'm hoping for a subliminal maybe half a millisecond as it turns on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah I know I d it seems like it would suffice to have just the R_R_ on there . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Jus +Marketing: Yeah you would think . +Project Manager: But apparently not . +Marketing: But . +Project Manager: So . +Industrial Designer: People aren't gonna want their remote to boot up and to see flashing things come on . +Marketing: If it comes from above . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: They just want it to be on and ready to go . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well fair enough . Um and yeah that would help the battery life too and if it {disfmarker} the remote they do have to press a button for the remote to turn on . But then again who wants to turn on a remote control . Kind of if i +User Interface: Well all you have to do is touch the screen and it automatically goes on . +Project Manager: Oh +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: to wake up okay or go into like a dormant mode . +User Interface: Yep . Goes into a sleep mode . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Oh yeah I like that I like the idea of um putting the logo in the boot up screen , nice . Um . Um cool so any last things before we break ? Alright . Fair enough . Sounds good . +Marketing: We're good ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna save th a copy of this in case you guys need any reminders . I'm gonna save a copy of this and the minutes that I'll do it in a second and put them in the shared folder for later reference . +User Interface: I've put my files in the shared folder as well . +Project Manager: Brilliant . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's fab guys . Cool . +","Project Manager briefed the team on new directives from the board: design a television-only remote control incorporating the company colors, red and black, without teletext and featuring the slogan ""we put fashion in electronics."" The Industrial Designer recommended a primarily plastic construction to avoid interference and proposed eco-friendly energy sources. User Interface suggested a combination of simplicity for common functions with more advanced features such as a touch screen. Marketing emphasized that users prefer simple designs and lose remotes often, hinting at an interest in a locator function and voice recognition, particularly among younger users. The team discussed implementing touch screen technology, voice commands, and a paging function while considering product aesthetics, target demographics, and cost constraints." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: .. . +Project Manager: Okay . So , this is uh first meeting of this design project . Um and I um like to show you the agenda for the meeting , I don't know if it was sent round to all of you . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Maybe not . Anyway , +User Interface: I didn't receive it yet {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: this is the the plan for today's meeting is um firstly just to introduce the project briefly , um although I'm sure you've actually got some of the information already . Then the main purpose is to {disfmarker} so that we get to know each other a little bit more . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um then we want to practice using some of the tools that we'll be using during the the course of the design project and the meetings , um specifically the whiteboard over there . Um then we need to go through the specifics of our project plan um and discuss {disfmarker} come up with some preliminary ideas about it . And then that's it . So we've got twenty five minutes to do that , that's until eleven twenty five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} so sh +Project Manager: S so any any questions ? +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: Is i {gap} not at this point . +User Interface: Not at this point . +Project Manager: So this is our project . What we're aiming to do is to create a new remote control for a television . Um we want it to be something original , something trendy and also something user friendly , so it has to be quite intuitive that people are able to use this product . The method that we're going to use to complete the project , that has three components as such . There's the functional design of the the remote control . We're going {disfmarker} the way we'll do that I think is to to work individually initially and then come together for meetings to to work on that . Um similarly with the conceptual design , we'll start off by working individually with our own expertise on our own laptops and then we'll bring what we've done together . Um and then the detailed design will come after that . We'll pull it all together . +Industrial Designer: I'm a bit confused about uh what's the difference between the functional design and conceptual design ? Uh i is it just uh more detail , uh as I understand it ? +Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} th w we're talking the the functional design is more your um area of things where you'll be {disfmarker} we want to look at what functions we need in the remote control +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and what what specific things it it has to do +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: but the conceptual design is um perhaps bigger than that and includes the {disfmarker} how people are going to use it and and that kind of thing . +Industrial Designer: How how it will be done . So whe where do we identify the components of our uh product ? Uh I think it's it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the {disfmarker} it's in the conceptual design phase that we identify the components of our product ? +Project Manager: Um I think we'll we'll start that initially with the functional design already but then +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so that's just a brief overview of the p the the project itself . Um what I'd like us to do now is simultaneously introduce ourselves and start using some of the tools that we're using for {vocalsound} for the project , specifically the whiteboard . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: So each person in turn , I'd like us to go up to the whiteboard , the pen's just underneath it there and draw your favourite animal and then tell everyone what the f your favourite characteristics of that animal are and while you're doing that tell us your name , what your role is and perhaps how your animal relates to the role that you're taking in this project . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Why are you looking at me ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Would you like to go first ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Do I have a choice ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . Ooh ooh , things falling everywhere . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , +Marketing: Right , okay . +Project Manager: p put them in pockets . +Marketing: Cool . Okay . +Project Manager: You don't have to hurry , we've got plenty of time . +Marketing: So , my name's Cat and I'm really not very good at this whole drawing malarkey +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's got no eyes . +Marketing: Oh , good point . Ah , the eyes always ruin it . Right . Okay , what do {gap} it's eyes like ? Okay , cool . Um this is a rabbit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I thought it might be a cat . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well origi uh at first I thought it was going to be cat . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I don't think it's furry enough , so we'll make it a fluffy rabbit . +User Interface: Yeah now I now I understand now , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I can see by the ears . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , right , it's a fluffy rabbit , blue . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Rabbits don't come in blue but you know . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay and I like it because it's small {vocalsound} and it's fluffy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And one day you'll be able to getical genetically modify them and they will come in pink . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Excellent , and what's your what's your role within the team ? +Marketing: I am the um {disfmarker} I need my notebook , mm ooh {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: top banana . Thank you . Okay , cool , I am the Marketing Expert {vocalsound} um so like I'm gonna be doing the {disfmarker} apparently according to the little guy in the computer that knows everything {disfmarker} the user g requirements specification of the functional design , um trend watching in the conceptual design and product evad-valuation in the detailed design {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um so yeah . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Project Manager: And more about yourself , you're from ? +Marketing: Um I'm from Leicester , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: um second year . Um what else do you want to know ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like sports {vocalsound} um yeah , aerobics , kickboxing , spinning +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: um {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But not with rabbits . {vocalsound} +Marketing: not with rabbits , no no . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And vets , I like vets as well . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} And yeah um and I like cocktails , especially pink ones . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cool . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Excellent , to match the rabbit . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay . Um so my name is Maarika . Where's the pen ? Okay . +Project Manager: There's a {disfmarker} an {disfmarker} if you have not enough room there's an eraser there and you can rub it off . +User Interface: Yeah , well , or I can make it smaller . {vocalsound} Uh so um um I'm the Interface Designer in this project and my favourite animal , I m I mean I'm not so sure because I'm not so so very um {vocalsound} familiar with all kinds of animals , but I do like dogs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , sorry , maybe I should have {disfmarker} shouldn't have said it beforehand but +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: mm {vocalsound} hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um well , there are different kinds of dogs , but okay um . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's not bad at all . +Project Manager: Ah it looks like a dog . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep . +Marketing: Is a bit more impressive than my rabbit . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: I think it needs four legs if it's gonna walk though . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , maybe it has some colourful patches , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} the other legs are on the other side . +User Interface: Um yeah and I do like dogs because they are good friends to people and they are loyal . Mm , well that's compared to some other animals like cats . Um they're really much more fun because they are not so independent . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um yeah maybe maybe the fact that they protect their home as well , yeah . Um what it has to do with with my role in the project is hard to say . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh I hope to be loyal to the project +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and not to n not to um let people doing similar projects know the details of our project or something , {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And where where are you from ? +User Interface: I'm from Estonia +Project Manager: Estonia . +User Interface: uh , yep . Um so is there anything else you'd like to know ? Oh , right , my roles , +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: um so um in the different um {vocalsound} stages of the design , so at first I will be responsible for um for {vocalsound} yeah , designing the technical functions of the um {vocalsound} um of the remote control uh then in the in the conceptual design stage I need to um come up with uh interface concept and then in the last um stage I will be responsible for the int infa for the user interface design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay , that's it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Okay {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I'll do some {disfmarker} I'll rub the features +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and let the drawing stay . {vocalsound} 'Kay um my name is Gaurav . Um {vocalsound} my favourite animal {disfmarker} one of my favourite animals is a cow . I've got no idea how to draw a cow . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good luck . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh this is going to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: They're not just like a big round body and then some really skinny legs +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that'll do . +Marketing: and then just some horns . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so let let me draw the body first . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Big , round body , really skinny legs {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and they've got a long tail +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and a long face . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's eating . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It looks like Eeyore . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And there is some grass there . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So this is what I like about {vocalsound} cows {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Horns , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that they just keeps sitting there eating grass , +Marketing: draw some horns . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they do not disturb anybody um +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: they're kind of Buddhist in a way . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So yeah , I like cows . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} my my role in the project is um uh the industrial designer , so I'm supposed to design all the details of of the product um ho how it works and whatever it'll mm take during the functional role , what are the various functions that have to be performed by it uh during the um conceptual design , what are the various components of it and um finally , I'm not too sure what was the last part . Um the detailed design , I I guess it will again be the identification of the components and how they integrate with each other . Um I'm from India . Uh I'm doing my P_H_D_ in Psycholinguistics , I sit at the Department of Psychology . {vocalsound} Yeah . Thank you . +Project Manager: Excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Right , now now it's my turn obviously . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That doesn't look like a cow , does it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , here's a space . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It looks very very cute . +Project Manager: Yeah , I like the cow . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: I'm Jen . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I like dogs too , but I can't do that already because I can't draw a dog as well as you can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I like {disfmarker} Mm . +Marketing: Is that a lizard ? +Industrial Designer: No way . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Wow . +Project Manager: It's a gecko . +Industrial Designer: Ah okay . +User Interface: Ah , a gecko , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Is there a difference ? +User Interface: Is {disfmarker} a ar are they also like lizards or are they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They're {disfmarker} Yeah , they're l it's a kind of lizard . +User Interface: yeah , they are +Project Manager: And I I like geckos +User Interface: {disfmarker} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: because they remind me of warm places {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Project Manager: and , and where I was living in Cambodia they used to live in my house +User Interface: Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and they were on the ceiling and they would make little gecko noises in the evening . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I hope you don't like snakes , do you ? +Project Manager: I don't like snakes . I come from Australia +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and we have nasty snakes . That's where I'm from , Australia . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: I'm from Melbourne and I'm your Project Manager for today +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: and my role is basically to keep things going and make sure that you all work together in a productive way , so that by the end of the day we come up with a great product . +User Interface: Wonderful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , let's see what's next in the PowerPoint presentation . So , I've just thought {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you right click on it you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah I've just thought about this that we could even put it much more professionally {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: there we go . Okay , so this is the um overall budget for our project . We've got {disfmarker} um we're planning to sell these remote controls for {disfmarker} let's make that go away , that means we've got five minutes . Um we're planning to sell the remote controls for twenty five Euros each . Um and with that we're aiming for a profit of fifty million Euros . And that's selling them on the international market , not just in the U_K_ . Um so to do that our finance people estimate that we need production costs of maximum twelve and a half Euro so that we can reach that profit target . So that's something to keep in mind while you're designing . Okay . Hmm . This is {disfmarker} let me just skip ahead to see {disfmarker} that's the last thing , okay . We've only got a couple of minutes . Does anyone have any first ideas to bounce around about um what we're thinking of this remote control ? +User Interface: Yep . I'm just wondering whether whether there is like any special feature that we want to have {disfmarker} w want this remote control have as opposed to the already existing ones . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . I think that's probably something that w it's best if we take away with us , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: but if we all have a think , when we go away from the meeting , what specific things could be um included in this remote control that that {vocalsound} are out of the ordinary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think uh i in the beginning uh one thing was {disfmarker} that was mentioned was that it should be mm trendy , user friendly and original so um I think your point is relevant as far as the originality is concerned , that we should provide some features that are quite unique to this . +Project Manager: Something something new . +Marketing: Yeah , I was looking at the website , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and the other things that they've made and I like put down some like inspirational words like that I got from looking at the pictures . So the motto is um we put the fashion in electronics +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and um so it's something that is sleek and stylish but it's still functional , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So I'm kind of thinking , you know like those phones that they have , the new generation ones , where they don't actually have any buttons on them and stuff like that . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Marketing: You know , so something heading towards that , so it's not overly {disfmarker} I mean I don't know what h most of the buttons do on my remote controls , so I figure how many do you need , you know ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: So perhaps some sort of menu-based thing , or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Something that's a little less crowded than this , like I mean you know , theoretically you can do all kinds of things with your T_V_ , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But what do most people do ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: They turn it on , they watch certain specified channels , you know , and then they turn it off again . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} There is a lot of functionality in there that is not used ninety percent of the time , +Marketing: Sometimes they play a movie . +Industrial Designer: but will be used ten percent of the time , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , so +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: there's no need to have buttons on it to do that , +Project Manager: So , no . +Marketing: maybe to do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: It could be one button for a menu or something , if you really need to go and do that . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then use the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , if you're the kind of sad case that knows how your remote control works , then you know that's fine +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you can do it on the screen rather than everybody else having to have those buttons , which just confuse them . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: 'Cause like if you look at the train , it's just very like , there's no extra bits on it , the train on the website and I dunno if you can put it up on the thing +Project Manager: Oh I haven't had a look yet , yep . +Marketing: um but it is just like a long like thing used for mu moving people , but it looks really pretty too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Great . Any other immediate thoughts before we move along ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Uh we can aim for {disfmarker} I mean we can think about all these little things , but we can aim for something wi that gives a high battery life , although I don't think that um it's a huge problem for remote controls anyway , battery life , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh every now and then you need to replace the batteries . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah but uh I mean e even though it has to be re original we shouldn't uh go like too far away from from the usual ones , because otherwise the new users will just have a lot of problems +Industrial Designer: Yeah . A big learning curve , yeah . +User Interface: with l {vocalsound} learning , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So , i it should kind of fit in as well , and the stereotype of a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's like those fancy websites that you can't access +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Hm-hmm . +Project Manager: because you have no idea how to get in , but the designers thought they were great . Okay , so we need to wrap it up now , so that we can go away and get on with some of this . Um {vocalsound} we've got another meeting in thirty minutes , so you're {disfmarker} you'll be getting specific instructions once you go back to your workspace , but im basically you're looking at the working design , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright . +Project Manager: you're looking at the technical functions design , and for you it's the user requirements specification , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: like you said at the start . Okay ? Thanks for that . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} Thank you . +Project Manager: Uh I'll see you in half an hour . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} See you . +Project Manager: Carry the laptops back again . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Do we need to unplug things ? Probably . +","In the meeting of a design project team, the Project Manager outlines the agenda, which includes introducing the project, getting to know each other, practicing with the whiteboard as a tool, discussing the project plan, and generating preliminary ideas. The project involves creating a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly television remote control. The team will work on functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design, both individually and collaboratively. + +Each team member introduces themselves using an icebreaker activity involving drawing their favorite animal on the whiteboard and explaining its characteristics, their role in the project, and some personal background. + +The Marketing Expert, Cat, relates to a rabbit and will focus on user requirements, trend watching, and product evaluation. Maarika, the User Interface Designer, draws a dog, enjoys its loyalty and friendliness, and will handle the interface concept and design. Gaurav, the Industrial Designer, chooses a cow for its peaceful nature and will work on the detailed aspects of the product's design. Finally, the Project Manager, Jen, draws a gecko and talks about her experience in Cambodia. + +The team discusses the importance of the remote control being user-friendly and possibly having a distinctive feature. They consider reducing the number of buttons and incorporating a menu-based system. There's mention of the project's budget constraints and profit goals, and the Project Manager emphasizes that designs should keep production costs low. + +The team agrees to think about the remote's unique aspects and ensure it isn't too different from existing models to prevent a steep learning curve for users. They conclude the meeting with assigned tasks and plan to reconvene in thirty minutes." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. We will proceed to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements. That's confirmed. We will now proceed to presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. Once the petition is presented, the member is asked to bring it here to the Table. Mr.Manly is the first one to be allowed to present a petition. +Mr. Paul Manly (NanaimoLadysmith, GP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I rise today to present a petition that has many signatures from constituents in NanaimoLadysmith. They're calling for a ban on cosmetic testing using animals. They want us to follow the European Union model, under which the use of animals in cosmetic testing has been banned. Moving forward, they're calling for a ban on the sale and manufacture of animal-tested cosmetics and their ingredients in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Poilievre is next. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I rise today to table e-petition 2466, initiated by a constituent of mine in Stittsville, a beautiful west Ottawa community. The petition has collected 827 signatures from every province and territory. It was collected by Cara, a mother from my riding who suffered an unthinkable tragedy. Her 11-year-old son Joshua drowned in a boating accident on the St. Lawrence River at Rockport, Ontario. Joshua was not wearing a life jacket. Worse, Cara's family had to wait 48 days to recover Joshua's body. Cara is now working tirelessly to amend the small vessel regulations to make it mandatory for children under the age of 14 to wear a life jacket or PFD while they are passengers in or drivers of small vessels covered under parts 2, 3, and 4 of the regulations. I support Cara's efforts, and I'm honoured to table this petition on her behalf. +The Chair: Seeing no further petitions to be presented, we'll continue, and we will now proceed to the questioning of ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes to allow employees who provide support for the sitting to replace each other safely. Go ahead, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): It was revealed yesterday that this government's policy was to ignore fraud. The Prime Minister's reaction was to act as if everything was normal. In fact, we've learned that over 200,000cases of suspected fraud have been identified in the benefit applications. The Prime Minister is failing our future generations. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay back billions of dollars that he's borrowing to pay tax cheats. Will the Prime Minister protect taxpayers and immediately begin a review of these 200,000cases of suspected fraud? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Our priority was to get money out quickly to all Canadians who needed it, and that's exactly what we've done. Millions of Canadians have received the money they so desperately needed. Having said that, I want to make it very clear, Mr.Chair: Fraud is unacceptable. We have measures in place to detect fraud. All fraudsters will be required to pay back the money they fraudulently received from the government. We're going to make sure that this is done in the coming months. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, Conservatives agree that those who need help should get it, and no one is arguing that they shouldn't, but reports indicate that the Liberals have ordered public servants to turn a blind eye to 200,000 cases of suspected fraud. It's a simple question: Yes or no, did the government instruct any government department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the priority in this situation was getting money out to the millions of Canadians who needed it as quickly as possible, but of course fraud is unacceptable. That's why we have put safeguards in place to ensure that anyone who received that money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's a yes-or-no question, Mr. Chair. Did the government give any kind of instruction to public servants in any department to ignore red flags or warnings of fraudulent cases, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: The instruction to government officials was to get money out to those who needed it as quickly as possible. We have put measures in place to detect fraud. People who got this money fraudulently will have to repay. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it is clear that he can't answer a yes-or-no question, so we can all assume what the answer must be. In other situations, the government is saying no to people. It's letting so many Canadians down. Small business owners who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number or a business account are ineligible for the government supports. Individuals, owner-operators, and those who are earning $1 more than $1,000 are being told that they don't qualify for the emergency response benefits. Meanwhile, fraudsters are getting them. Does the Prime Minister think it's fair to tell people who are following all the rules no, while telling government officials to allow fraudulent cases to be processed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, Canadians well know that this is an unprecedented situation, one in which we had to get help to as many Canadians as possible as quickly as possible. That is exactly what we did. We continue to work very hard to fill gaps for people who should get money but haven't been able to, and, as I said, we have strong measures to counter fraud. Anyone who got this money fraudulently will have to repay it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, when these programs were first designed, the Prime Minister said that he acknowledged that there were problems and that they would be fixed later. Well, here we are in May, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians are being told no for purely technical and bureaucratic reasons. Will the Prime Minister make the simple changes to allow business owners who don't happen to have a business bank account, who don't happen to have a CRA payroll number and individuals who are ineligible for the emergency response benefit because they've been paid by family members through dividends to qualify, or is he going to continue to let hundreds of thousands of Canadians down during this pandemic? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, we moved extremely rapidly to get help and support to millions of Canadians. That was the priority, and that's what we've been doing for the past two months. As we've said, we will continue to tweak and improve the programs to make sure that more people who need help will get it. We are working the best we can, as fast as we can, to help those millions of Canadians who need support. +The Chair: You have time for about a 15-second question, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister indicated that he would support Taiwan's inclusion in the WHO only as a non-state observer. Of course, that designation does not exist. Participants of the WHO are either states or NGOs. Will the Prime Minister support Taiwan's participation as a state observer? +The Chair: The Right Honourable Prime Minister has 15 seconds or less, please. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we will continue with our one China policy, but we have always advocated Taiwan's meaningful inclusion in international bodies where it makes sense to do so, and that includes at the WHO. +The Chair: Mr.Blanchet now has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair. On Friday, students in Quebec and Canada will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit, which is a good thing. This program was necessary, particularly because the number of students who won't be able to get back their jobs from last year is much higher than the number of jobs that might be available to these young people. There are also issues of duration. We don't know how long these jobs will remain unavailable. People talked about a risk to being in the labour market and meeting the needs of the labour market. On April29, the Deputy Prime Minister made a formal commitment to ensure that these programs are accompanied by work incentives for youth and all CESB recipients. So that everyone knows what they're getting into, I'd like to know whether the employment incentives that will accompany the Canada emergency response benefit will be known by Friday. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I thank the hon. member for understanding the importance of supporting students who, for the most part, won't be able to get the summer jobs they were counting on. Young people don't just want to earn money; they also want to gain work experience. That's why we're setting up programs, including Canada summer jobs, but also another program with 76,000new jobs for young people in important sectors, so that young people can also get jobs. We will continue to work with youth and employers to ensure that gaps in the labour market are addressed, while ensuring that youth are well-supported. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: That's very interesting, but it doesn't answer my question at all. People in the fishing, tourism and agricultural sectors, as well as municipalities and, from the very beginning, of course, the Government of Quebec, more generally, have expressed fears that job gains will cause people to lose their benefits and discourage them from going to work. The only way to avoid that is to ensure that people keep more money as they work more. That is the principle. In fact, we propose that over the $1,000no-penalty limit, half of the earnings be exempt from penalty. Is this something that could be considered? Since it's been two weeks since the commitment was made and it's urgent, can we act now? The emergency shouldn't last eight months. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, young people need money, but they also need work experience. This is an unprecedented situation, which is why we're working with seasonal industries and the different regions to make sure they have a sufficient workforce in their situation. Students can be part of it, but at the same time we must provide the necessary support for those who can't find a job. That's why we continue to work with the industries involved to ensure that they have a sufficient workforce while we support students. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Unfortunately, the spirit of it doesn't seem to have been understood. I doubt that, even in the best-case scenario, the government will be able to get all the jobs needed in a timely manner for all these young people to decide to go ahead. So, first of all, there will be a shortage of jobs. Second, people aren't crazy. If they earn less by working than they earn by not working, all the good faith in the world won't solve the problem. Can we make sure that people keep more money in their pockets as they work more? I think we can have a clear answer, given the timeframe. People are going to start registering for the program on Friday. The principles are good, but a clear answer would be good too. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Beginning Friday, students will be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. When they apply, they'll all be directed to a job bank that we've set up to make sure they know what jobs are available to get not only the money they need, but also the experience they need for their future, while helping our society in this crisis. I know we're going to be able to count on young people. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, one of the most devastating outcomes of this COVID-19 crisis has been the impact on seniors. Eighty per cent or more of the deaths during COVID-19 have been seniors living in long-term care homes. The military had to be called in. Out of 14 countries, Canada has been deemed the worst in its care of seniors. Despite all this, the Prime Minister has said recently that he doesn't feel it's the federal government's responsibility to find a solution. How can he say to families reeling with loss that it's not the federal government's responsibility to play a role in solving this problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, perhaps the fact that the NDP no longer has many seats in Quebec has caused it to forget the importance of respecting the Constitution and the areas of jurisdiction of provincial versus federal governments. We will be there to work with the provinces as they deal with challenges in their long-term care facilities. We are there as a partner, but we, on this side of the House, will always respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and be there to support them in fulfilling those responsibilities. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Everyone across Canada has just heard this Prime Minister double down on the idea that he doesn't feel it's his responsibility, despite the fact that the Canadian military had to go into long-term care homes. There is a role that the federal government can play. Both Liberal and Conservative federal governments have been consistently, for decades, cutting transfers to health care. They can increase those transfers to ensure long-term care is adequately funded. We could also ensure that there's a national care guarantee, working with provinces to ensure that we are meeting the best standards. We could increase workers' pay. We could ensure that there's no more profiting off the backs of seniors when it comes to long-term care. Will the Prime Minister commit to some of these care guarantees? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: It will come as exactly no surprise to the vast majority of Canadians that the Liberal Party will always stand up for the Constitution of Canada. We respect the Constitution. We respect areas of provincial jurisdiction. As I have said from the very beginning of this crisis, we will be there to help the provinces as they manage the challenges they're facing. The federal government does have a role to play, and it is a role to support the provinces in doing the things they need to do during this unprecedented time. We will continue to be there. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: I am glad to hear the Prime Minister is no longer trying to hide behind jurisdiction. We know that in long-term care homes, the for-profit long-term care homes have been the site of the worst conditions, where the greatest number of seniors have died. Will the Prime Minister join us in committing to remove profit from the long-term care system? Vulnerable seniors should not be subject to the profits of a company willing to cut services, staffing and quality of care instead of ensuring that seniors get the best care possible. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I think it has become clear for all Canadians that we need to improve the care offered to our seniors right across the country. We cannot look at these numbers we are seeing and these tragedies hitting so many families and not want to see us as a country do better. That is why we of course recognize that we will work with other orders of government, particularly the provinces in whose jurisdiction this area rests primarily, to support answering these questions for the long term on how we improve the way Canada supports our elders. This is something really important that we will be there for. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: At the CHSLD Herron in Dorval, 31seniors died in one month. The residents were left without food, dehydrated and without care, and those with COVID-19 symptoms were not isolated from the others. Families pay between $3,000 and $10,000 a month for their loved ones to be at the centre. How can the Prime Minister think that he doesn't have a role to play in finding a solution to this devastating problem? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all Quebeckers and even all Canadians were stunned to learn of the tragedy at the Dorval CHSLD. We were very happy, as citizens, when the Government of Quebec reacted firmly and asked many questions in connection with this situation. We will support the Government of Quebec in its efforts to find answers and, most importantly, to ensure that, in the long term, the country will better support seniors in all regions. +The Chair: We'll continue with Mr.Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Chair, how many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos (President of the Treasury Board): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'd like to start by quickly saying that a total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, which is absolutely essential for +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefits have been sent out to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I see that the pace will allow me to give a little bit of information for each question. As we said at the outset, there will be mechanisms +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: We're working very hard to ensure the integrity of the mechanism while at the same time taking important steps to help Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many emergency response benefit cheques have been sent to people whose applications have been flagged as fraudulent? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: A total of 7.7million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, and the agency is ensuring the integrity of the system. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: He's now claiming that it's all 7.7 million? That's crazy. The department is reported to have given out 200,000. Is 200,000 the correct number of cheques that have been sent out to people whose applications have been red-flagged as fraudulent, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I'm pleased to use the opportunity given to me by the hon. member to make the following clarifications. I thank him for it. First, approximately 7.7million Canadians have received at least one payment. Second, almost 11million payments have been made. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: How many prisoners have received a Canada emergency response benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: This allows me to go even further and thank the hon. member again. Some 7.7million Canadians have received emergency assistance in an emergency situation +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: So now he's claiming that 7 million Canadians are in jail? The question was this: How many prisoners have received a benefit cheque? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, jokes can be made about the plight of Canadians who are suffering tremendously in this crisis, but I'm not here to make +The Chair: Mr.Poilievre has the floor. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Even the CBC is saying that prisoners are receiving the cheque. They can't have lost their jobs. They were already in prison. It's a simple question: How many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'd like to remind hon. members that we're talking about an extremely serious situation, a situation that has called into question people's ability to make ends meet, a situation that required emergency measures. We're going to continue to do the job that Canadians expect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The question was, how many prisoners have received the cheques? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I've already explained to the hon. memberand I'm pleased to remind himthat this benefit is an emergency measure. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The Auditor General says that he's dropping half of his audits because the government refuses to provide him with funding. If the government has enough money to send 200,000 fraudulent applicants emergency cheques, why won't the government give the Auditor General the funding he requested? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member. It gives me the opportunity, in this emergency situation, to talk about the role of institutions, including that of the Auditor General, which we will continue to support because it helps us do things right. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Then what does the Auditor General have to do to get the money to do his audits? Does he have to file a bunch of fraudulent applications for an emergency response benefit? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, because I know the hon. member well enough, I'm sure that he isn't givingand doesn't want to givethe impression that the Auditor General wants to commit fraud to do his job properly. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I agree, and that's why he should get the money he needs to do his job. He did twice as many audits under the previous government as he is doing now, but he doesn't have the money to do the audits he needs to do to keep an eye on this government's extraordinary spending. Yes or no, will the government give the Auditor General the funding he has requested so he can get back to doing the same number of audits he did under the much more robust funding of the previous Harper government? +The Chair: The hon. Prime Minister. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the previous government cut funding to the Auditor General and caused the office to lay off dozens of employees. We increased the funding for the Auditor General. We recognize the important work the Auditor General needs to do, and that's why we increased the funding for the Auditor General. The party of the member opposite cut this funding. +The Chair: I appreciate the help from some of the members in keeping time. I do have my own chronograph here, so I'll take care of it from this end, but I appreciate the help. Thank you. I now give the floor to Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Mr.Chair, I fully agree with the Treasury Board President that we aren't here to make jokes, but to set the record straight for Canadians. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page that 200,000people had fraudulently used emergency assistance. Is that statement accurate, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I thank the hon. member from my region. A few minutes ago, I was reminding people in my region that, in the greater Quebec City area, about 200,000people had received this emergency benefit and that it was not for fraudulent reasons, but because they really needed it. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The question is about fraudsters, and I know that there aren't many of them in Quebec City. That said, my question is very simple. I want to know whether or not 200,000people fraudulently used emergency assistance. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I know my colleague already knows this, but we announced at the outset that strong and rigorous mechanisms would be put in place quickly to ensure that this delivery would respect the importance of integrity in government. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The integrity of the government must be upheld, and this must be done by telling the truth. Yesterday, the National Post reported on the front page about 200,000fraudsters. Is that correct, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To set the record straight, the Minister of National Revenue, Ms.Lebouthillier, made it very clear that there was no tolerance for fraud in this system, that all mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that integrity would be respected. +Mr. Grard Deltell: The Treasury Board President is one of the few Canadians to find that Ms.Lebouthillier was very clear yesterday. With respect to the Minister of National Revenue, I would point out that the member for RichmondArthabaska asked her a very clear question yesterday, which she was unable to answer. What does a person who has received the full CERB, $2,000, and returns to work this week have to do? Do they have to pay back the amount they aren't entitled to? Do they keep the$2,000? Do they have to wait and include it on their next year's tax return? Which of these three options should the person choose? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I thank the hon. member for his question, which is very relevant. In fact, that person must contact Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency, depending on the system under which he or she received this benefit, and ensure that, in the circumstances that apply to him or her, the decisions and actions taken are appropriate. +Mr. Grard Deltell: It's too bad, Mr.Chair, because it's the boss who is in front of me, here in committee. It's good that the citizen calls the public servant, but the public servant's boss is the Treasury Board President. Can he give a clear indication to citizens? What should they do now with the emergency assistance they received with this month's benefit? Should they keep it in full or pay it back now? I'd like a clear answer, please. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Again, I recognize the importance of insisting on clarity. What's clear here is that each person must make decisions based on his or her own circumstances, and the responsible way to act is to interact with public servants at Service Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Service Canada employees must have clear instructions from their boss. The boss is here. This is the President of the Treasury Board. Could the President of the Treasury Board, in very clear terms, tell the employees answering questions from Canadians what they have to say to those currently receiving the Canada emergency response benefit, but who are actually at work? These are honest people. They are not fraudsters. They want to comply with the law. Can the President of the Treasury Board give them clear instructions? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: That is extraordinary, because my colleague focused on two key terms: honesty and hard work. In terms of the honesty of Canadians, in all cases, I am convinced that they will contact the appropriate officials. As for the hard work of those officials, they know what they have to do and they have been doing it in an exemplary way since the crisis began. +Mr. Grard Deltell: And yet those good officials, whom I frequently commend on social media for their excellent work, have no clear instructions from their boss. Mr.President, let me go back to the basic question. The National Post said that 200,000Canadians have used the emergency assistance fraudulently, to the tune of $1.6billion. Is that the case, yes or no? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I am sure that the honourable member is not questioning the ability of Canada Revenue Agency officers to follow the very clear directive of ensuring that the mechanisms reflect the importance of maintaining the integrity of the Government of Canada during the exceptional circumstances we are experiencing. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Ms. Gray. +Mrs. Tracy Gray (KelownaLake Country, CPC): Mr. Chair, last week British Columbia unveiled its plan to begin reopening its economy. I've been speaking with many business owners and business associations in my riding, and I'm hearing that they're not getting their orders for cleaning supplies. Some businesses have said their back orders go back to March. They do not know how they can possibly reopen if they are not meeting health cleaning standards or accessing PPE for their employees and customers. They are well aware of the issues arising from this government's reliance on Chinese manufacturing rather than building capacity here. What is the government doing to address these issues and ensure wholesale supply companies get products now so that they can distribute them to the businesses that need them? +Hon. Anita Anand (Oakville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, our government is rapidly and aggressively buying life-saving equipment that Canada needs from a diverse range of suppliers. We are building up domestic capacity as well as procuring internationally. Our priority is to make sure front-line health care workers have the support they need. In terms of other areas of the economy, we are working with our federal and provincial counterparts to make sure that we can do so in collaboration with them. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, an ongoing concern I've heard from small business owners is that they are ineligible for CEBA because they don't have a business account. When I brought up this point to small business minister Ng at committee, she said it was the first time that she had heard of this issue and that she would follow up. I asked this question on April 23, and it's now been almost three weeks. Small business has been let down. Can the government confirm that they're going to fix this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains (MississaugaMalton, Lib.): Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for her question. It is really important that this program that we've established help small businesses. We have shown in the past that we're very flexible and nimble in accommodating the needs of businesses. I assure the member opposite that we are looking into this matter and will come forward with a resolution in a timely manner. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: Mr. Chair, I just read another email from a small business owner this morning who has been let down by the government. He chose to pay off debts instead of paying himself a wage; therefore, he's ineligible for CEBA, for that loan. Owner-operators have been eliminated from participating in government programs because they did not put themselves on the payroll. This shows a true lack of understanding of small businesses and especially of owner-operators. Will the government commit to fixing this issue? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Thank you very much. Again, I want to thank the honourable member for her question. We have focused particularly on small businesses to make sure they have the appropriate support they need. With regard to the program that she highlighted, we have shown flexibility in the eligibility criteria by decreasing the payroll threshold for individual companies that want to apply for this loan to $20,000 versus $50,000, and the upper limit has gone to $1.5 million versus $1 million. We will continue to bring forward the changes necessary to have more businesses +Mrs. Tracy Gray: This government has left Canadian craft breweries out to dry, like the hops in their beer. On April 24, the Canadian Craft Brewers Association released a report on the effects of COVID-19 on the Canadian craft brewing industry. The report states that 38% of craft brewers did not qualify for the Canadian emergency wage subsidy in March, and 53% were either not sure or predicted that they would not qualify in April. Many a brew pub, like BNA in my riding, due to higher payrolls are also not eligible for the CEBA loan. They have been left out and let down. Five per cent of these breweries have already closed permanently, and others are on the verge of doing so. A portion have stepped up and are making PPE. Will this government take the initiative to support this industry by amending program requirements? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: When it comes to the Canada emergency wage subsidy, we have demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness. The program requirement changed in terms of revenue threshold. We originally had 30% for the month of March. We changed that to 15%. The eligibility criteria to compare to the first two months of this year now also compare to the previous year as well. We're going to continue to make changes to make sure more businesses can access this program. +The Chair: Ms. Gray, you have 33 seconds. +Mrs. Tracy Gray: In my constituency, Okanagan fruit production is a huge industry, and many apple orchardists have brought concerns to me regarding high costs, apples from last season selling below cost, the CUSMA agreement not helping the industy, and low-priced Washington apples flooding our market. COVID-19 has exacerbated their dire financial situation. The BC Fruit Growers' Association has called the government announcements of measures for agriculture underwhelming. I questioned Minister Bibeau in the House a couple of months ago, and at the time she did not have an answer. What is the plan to help our orchardists? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (ComptonStanstead, Lib.): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Since this crisis began, we have been helping entrepreneurs in all sectors. We began with measures to assist small, medium and large companies, and we are now going progressively sector by sector. Last week, we announced additional funding for agriculture +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): Mr. Chair, in my riding of Foothills, we've established a Foothills business recovery task force. We surveyed hundreds of small business owners about the effectiveness of the emergency programs put forward by the government. The results of that survey were quite alarming. More than half of the respondents have not qualified for any of the programs, and the vast majority of them have said their businesses will not last more than another month. Will the government expand the eligibility for some of these programs to include sole proprietorships, or is the government still looking at refunding the GST paid by some of the businesses over the last year? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that we have issued 590,000 loans through the CEBA account. This demonstrates that this particular program is working and that businesses are taking advantage of it. We recognize that we want to be more generous and more thoughtful about these programs. We've demonstrated flexibility in the past and we will continue to be nimble going forward. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Charlebois said that we are on the precipice of losing 15% of our farms and that 30,000 farm families are at risk of bankruptcy. This will have a devastating effect on our rural economies. Does the minister know the impact that losing 30,000 family farms will have on our food security and the price of groceries on the store shelves? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the agriculture and agri-food sector is extremely important. We have clearly stated that it is an essential service. That is why we have risk management programs that are already well established. I understand that producers would like the programs to be more generous, and we are ready to do more, but they first need to use those programs. They have $1.6billion available +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, business risk management programs don't apply to every single stakeholder and the programs are not working for the producers. There is a bottleneck right now in our processing capacity. When the minister renounced the AgriRecovery program, funds were set aside for cattle and pork producers. When is that money going to be available, and how long will it last? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We are talking about two different programs here. We added $77.5million to the program helping the processing sector and $50million on two occasions for our pork and beef producers under the AgriRecovery program. Once again, that is additional money. In recent years, an average of $15million have gone out of this program, whereas this year +The Chair: Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, it is not new money; it has been budgeted year after year and it's budgeted again for next year. The cattlemen said that the set-aside funds that the minister is talking about are already gone and did not last even two weeks. If this government isn't assisting Canadian farmers, is the government's food policy to rely on food imported from foreign countries to feed Canadian families ? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the fund to assist our beef producers cannot have already disappeared because the criteria will be unveiled in the coming days. I can assure you that we are working as efficiently as possible so that the program can be rolled out and the money can be channelled to our beef and pork producers. +Mr. John Barlow: Mr. Chair, producers across this country have said that an exemption from the carbon tax would help them greatly during this pandemic. When I asked the minister about any data that was available for the impact the carbon tax had on agriculture, the answer I got was that this information was secret. Yesterday at committee, the minister said that this was a mistake and that this information has been public. My staff and I looked everywhere last night, as did journalists, and that information could not be found. Is that information actually available? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair, that information is available and public. I will happily pass the information on to my colleague. +Mr. John Barlow: If that data is available, then the minister must know the financial impacts that the carbon tax has on Canadian farmers. With the information that the minister apparently has, does she agree with the Prime Minister that Canadian farmers are much better off financially by paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Each organization analyzes different assumptions, methodologies and geographic areas, so the results give a broad range of estimated impacts. According to the organization that has provided information, in 2019, the estimated impacts of a $20-per-tonne price on pollution due to grain drying ranged +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Barlow. You have 30 seconds, please. +Mr. John Barlow: Does the minister agree with the Prime Minister that farmers are financially better off paying the carbon tax? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, the price on pollution is an extremely important measure for our economy in general and for our transition to a greener economy. We have already provided various exemptions to the agriculture sector: for gasoline, for the access card and for the greenhouse sector. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC): Will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The answer is that we have done that in 2018 and 2019, and the Prime Minister +Mr. Pat Kelly: Mr. Chair, I hope the minister would not want to mislead the House. The office is certainly not fully funded, as per the testimony we heard yesterday at the finance committee. This government has expanded the Auditor General's responsibilities without adequate resources. When will the government fully fund the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: To continue my answer, and as the Prime Minister said just a moment ago, that has led to the hiring of 38 new staff members. That's great to hear, because they are doing even better than they used to before we came into power. +Mr. Pat Kelly: No previous auditor general in Canadian history has ever had to tell a parliamentary committee that they had insufficient funds to do their job. That is what in fact this Auditor General has done. When will the government fully fund the Office of the Auditor General? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: I'm glad again to be given the ability to say how important the work of the Auditor General is. We believe very much in that role. That's why we increased the funding that is necessary for that office to do its important job. We will keep working hard with the Auditor General. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Sadly, Michael Ferguson passed away in 2019, yet the government has refused to name a permanent replacement. Why? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is another wonderful opportunity to remind all members of this House of the importance of these institutions. When we face these tragic deaths, we of course are very sad of the passing of the people, and we work +The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that Canada's debt could reach $1 trillion this year. What will it cost to service a $1-trillion debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, we remain committed to doing, as we've said, whatever it takes to support Canadians through this challenging time. We think this is extremely important, and we will continue to focus on the well-being of all Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What is the estimated annual debt servicing cost of the aid measures announced so far? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, there will be an opportunity for us to give a full outline of the costs and benefits of our measures, and we will do that when we have the ability to have +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: is Canada's AAA credit rating. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Speaker, Canada came into this crisis with a very strong fiscal position, and of course we will experience challenges as we move forward, but we believe that we should experience those challenges as we support Canadians. +Mr. Pat Kelly: What would the effect of a downgrade be on Canada's debt servicing costs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to focus on how we can support Canadians and Canadian businesses as we get through this challenge. +Mr. Pat Kelly: How many private sector bank loans have been funded for small and medium-sized businesses under the business credit availability program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as the information on the business credit availability program becomes available, we are being fully transparent with the finance committee and with this House. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know how many loans have been funded under that program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'm not in the habit of memorizing every single number available to us, but what I can confirm is that we will be transparent with this House on the numbers as they become available. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Does the minister know the dollar amount or the approximate dollar amount so far lent and guaranteed by Export Development Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, one number that would probably be helpful for people to understand is that we've now had over 550,000 approved loans under the CEBA program, representing over 20 billion dollars' worth of money that's actually +The Chair: Mr. Kelly. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix the CEBA program to include businesses that pay owner-operators through dividends? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the language fix is incorrect, for more than 500,000 businesses have received this loan. Of course, we are always endeavouring to make sure it works for as many businesses as possible. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover small businesses that hire day labourers or subcontractors? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to this program. We changed the eligibility criteria to make sure that more businesses can apply and be eligible for this program. We will endeavour to make sure that more Canadians have access to this program, particularly small businesses in rural and remote communities. +Mr. Pat Kelly: Will the government fix CEBA to cover business owners who use personal instead of business chequing accounts to operate their business? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to highlight the fact that this has been a very positive program and well received by many small businesses. Over 590,000 small business loans have been issued, and that's a testament to the design of the program. We're going to make sure we continue to engage with small businesses. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong (WellingtonHalton Hills, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week, on Friday, Statistics Canada was to release labour force survey data at 8:30 a.m. eastern time, one of the most important and market-moving indicators of the month, but someone in the government leaked that information ahead of time, almost 45 minutes ahead of time, and exclusively to Bloomberg terminal users on Wall Street and on Bay Street, who pay thousands of dollars a month for those terminals. Moving markets, the Canadian dollar moved eight basis points in that short period of time and billions were made or lost on the market. Section 34 of the Statistics Act makes it a criminal offence for someone to leak information that might influence stock, bond or currency markets. Has the government notified the RCMP about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I, too, share the same concerns that he's highlighted with regard to this leak. This is completely unacceptable. That is why we're going to make sure that a proper and thorough examination is done, and going forward we want to make sure that no such breach or leak occurs. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, Statistics Canada said that staffers and ministers' offices, including the Prime Minister's office, the finance minister's office, the employment minister's office and the industry minister's office, would have received this secret information no earlier than 2 p.m. the previous day. Statistics Canada has also indicated that it has begun an internal investigation. Will the minister commit to fully co-operating with this investigation? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to remind the honourable colleague that our government has supported Statistics Canada. We're the ones who reintroduced the mandatory long-form census. We're the ones who funded more money for Statistics Canada. The member opposite knows that we'll be fully co-operative in any such investigation into any leak. +Hon. Michael Chong: Will the minister commit to making the results of this investigation public? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, the member opposite knows full well that there are proper processes and protocols in place when it comes to such sensitive matters, and we will ensure that those processes and protocols +The Chair: Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope there is no double standard for ministers' offices and the public service, because it was only about 13 years ago that a public servant was criminally charged and convicted for using top secret information in the markets. I hope that in this investigation, and in the release of the information concerning this investigation, ministers' staffers aren't held to a different standard than the public service has been held to. This leak speaks to the integrity of the government. Intelligence at the Five Eyes.... Our four allies have been telling us for years that one of the top two or three threats that democracies are facing is declining public confidence in our key institutions. Democracies have been blindsided by misinformation, disinformation and cyber-attacks, and now we are being blindsided by the misuse of information by this very government. That doesn't even.... The government's own national statistics-gathering agency doesn't trust this cabinet or this government, and that's why they announced several days ago that they would suspend the pre-release of information to the cabinet. What is the government going to do to restore public confidence in our institutions? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, our government has remained steadfast in its support for Statistics Canada. I'd like to remind my honourable colleague that we are the government that brought forward legislation to strengthen the independence of Statistics Canada. We're the government that brought forward measures to make sure they have additional monies for conducting the proper mandatory long-form census as well. When it comes to the leak that the member opposite is talking about, we're not going to prejudge the outcome. We have been very clear that the proper processes and protocols that are in place will be followed. +The Chair: You have time for a very brief question, Mr. Chong. +Hon. Michael Chong: Mr. Chair, I hope the government will call the RCMP and notify them about what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act, because it was a previous Liberal minister who himself was subject to a lot of misinformation and was a target of improper allegations about his office's use of information that leaked about the income trust changes that the previous Liberal government had brought in. The RCMP began an investigation and, in the course of the investigation, they charged a public servant who was ultimately convicted of breaching that secret information. I hope the minister holds his office and the offices of his cabinet colleagues to the same standard, calls in the RCMP and makes them aware of what appears to be a criminal breach of the Statistics Act. +The Chair: The honourable minister, in 30 seconds or less, please. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'm sorry. How much time do I have, Mr. Chair? +The Chair: We're over the time, but I'm allowing 30 seconds so we can get a full +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I appreciate that very much. Again, I want to take this opportunity to say that leaks of this nature are completely unacceptable. We've been very clear that we are going to take the appropriate steps. Statistics Canada is taking the appropriate steps. I want to remind the member opposite that we're not going to prejudge any outcome at this stage. Again, it is our government that has been consistently supporting Statistics Canada in its work through the previous years. +The Chair: Thank you. We'll take a short break to allow our console operators to switch in a healthy way. While we're doing that, I'm going to mention something. It happens at the end of a question. When there's less than a minute left and the question goes over half the time left over, I'll just indicate to the person asking the question that we've reached the limit so that the other side can answer with the same amount of time and we have a fair playing field. We're ready to go again. The Honourable Member for BeloeilChambly has the floor. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Thank you, Mr.Chair. We are making progress, but unfortunately, I'd like to hear it in French as well. I will address my question to the Prime Minister. First, let me remind you that, on March12, the government announced a first series of measures of about $1billion to adapt to what was at the time the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, including $500million in transfers to the provinces, with about $100million going to Quebec. Since that time, the commitments from the government have reached very probably around $300billion, making those first $500 million pale by comparison. Of course, the crisis became longer and it is not over yet. In that context, and given what I heard the Prime Minister say a little earlier about respecting the areas of jurisdiction of the provinces, and of Quebec, can we expect a speedy increase in health transfers to Quebec and the provinces, an increase that would be permanent, and, of course, without conditions? +The Chair: The honourable minister has the floor. +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr.Chair. We've increased health transfers to provinces and territories significantly since we first came into government in 2015. We continue to work with provinces and territories on a regular basis to make sure they're supported not just in the outbreak of this pandemic, but in the increased cost overall to health care across the country. Our investments have included investments for mental health, for home care and for the additional expenses that provinces and territories face as a result of an aging population. We'll continue to work with provinces and territories to ensure those health care needs are met. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: With all respect, Mr.Chair, that is a little disappointing. While the leader of the NDP wants the federal government to interfere massively in provincial jurisdiction over health, the Prime Minister replies in English. That is perfectly legitimate in this Parliament, but his reply in English is, no, the government absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction. That made me happy for a brief moment, and I am asking the Prime Minister, without wanting to interrupt his precious reading, to please repeat in French was he said just now in English, that he absolutely respects provincial jurisdiction over health, which is exclusive. So could you please provide that music to my ears? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, just as I respect the member opposite's right to speak in his first language, I hope that he understands that I am trying to learn our second official language in a high-pressure situation, and it often creates anxiety. I will tell him, though, that we fully respect the jurisdiction of provinces and territories to address the needs of their constituents and their members, and we work very closely with Quebec and with all provinces and territories to make sure that the funds we transfer from the federal government can be utilized in a way that best meets the needs of their constituents. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Let's not get into that. It says to me that French is the second official language. Well, it's my first official language and it's the first one in Quebec. I would like to have heard that in French. I would like to have heard it from the Prime Minister, because it's a constitutional issue. Basically, you could say that it's our heritage. So that is what I would like to have heard. Let me proceed with a short and simple question: is health in the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces in the current crisis management situation? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): Mr.Chair, I would like to tell my colleague that we have no first or second official language. We have two official languages. They have the same value and the same importance. They deserve the same respect in the House and in the institutions of the government. We are always happy to collaborate with the provinces and to respect their jurisdictions. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Hearing that we have no first or second official language is better already. Between friends, let's say that they are equal. Let us take it one step further: is health in the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we live in a federation where we work closely together with provinces and territories so that we can reach our mutually important goals, one of which is that all citizens of Canada, all members of Canada, have access to a public health care system that meets their needs. We continue to work within the constitutional framework +The Chair: Excuse me, but I have to interrupt you. Mr.Blanchet, you have 21seconds left. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: The answer could be even shorter than the question. Is health in provincial jurisdiction? Will there be an increase in the health transfers and will they come without conditions? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I am sure the member would argue that it is important to work together. The federal government transfers money to the provinces, as he is well aware, to deliver health care, which is within each province's and territory's jurisdiction. +The Chair: We now move to Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. As the member for Manicouagan, I would like to address the House today on a matter that is very important in my constituency. At 350,000square kilometres, it borders the Gulf of St.Lawrence. Regionally, I am also in eastern Quebec, which includes the Gasp, the Magdalen Islands, and the Lower St.Lawrence. These are regions whose economy rests basically on two very important seasonal industries: tourism and fishing. Make no mistake, it is not the workers who are seasonal, it is the industry itself, as our former leader Gilles Duceppe so rightly used to say. Those industries are very important for that region of Quebec, but I see no measures to support them that accommodate all their uniqueness. These are cyclical industries, meaning that they operate at a very specific period during the year. A few minutes ago, I heard the Prime Minister say that he had intervened to help the companies and the workers in those seasonal industries. I would like to know what the specific assistance is and how it is tailored to the companies and the workers in the seasonal industries he mentions. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. We know that the current situation is causing upheaval in the lives of Canadians from one end of the country to the other and that it is having a major impact on our small and medium businesses. Since this crisis began, we have not hesitated to implement strong and speedy measures to support more Canadians. That is what we will continue to do. We know that the tourism sector is key to a number of communities in the country. We must help them to get through this crisis as best we can. We are continuing to have discussions and to tailor our measures so that as many Canadians as possible can take advantage of them. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, with all respect, I am hearing that nothing has been done. Measures have been proposed, but, as I understand it, they are not specific to the seasonal sectors. Let us take the seasonal fishing industry. The fishers are currently going out, but right in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. One fishing season has been pushed back. The same thing applies to tourism. The season will be pushed back, and it is possible that there may even not be one. The people and the companies in this sector have no second chances. They cannot start again in the fall. It's a bit like agriculture. They can't start a fishing season or a tourist season in the fall. So they need assistance. We have some proposals. For example, would the government be prepared to let the Canada emergency response benefit provide workers with eligibility to employment insurance benefits? They could then get through the coming year and make it to next season. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I want to thank the member for speaking about the situation in all regions of Canada, particularly in Quebec. From the start, we've been implementing significant measures to support the millions of workers who are currently struggling. We've taken significant measures with respect to tourism, agriculture and regional development. We're providing broader investments, such as the wage subsidy and emergency loans for small businesses, of which there are many in my colleague's constituency. We'll continue to work very hard so that the workers and businesses in her constituency can get through this crisis and emerge stronger and more united. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, that's strike two. This is the second time that I've asked a question about targeted assistance for the seasonal industry. My honourable colleague's response doesn't make me feel any better. The workers in the industry also don't feel any better when they see that, at the end of the summer, they'll have no job and no money to put food on the table. Will these workers receive assistance adapted to their needs? It's the same thing for businesses. We're currently talking about the businesses in my constituency, but there are also businesses in the East. Quebec and Canada as a whole, both in terms of fishing and tourism +The Chair: The honourable President of the Treasury Board has the floor. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Thank you, Mr.Chair. My colleague probably knows the information that I'll be giving. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit is available to all individuals who haven't been receiving employment insurance benefits since December2019. A number of stakeholders in Canada and Quebec called for this, particularly in the places +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Prime Minister announced the business bailout, and in that proposal, he said that there would be limits on CEO bonuses and share buybacks. By saying limits, the Prime Minister is suggesting that there would be some amount of bonuses or share buybacks that could be paid for with public dollars. If that's the case, how much? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we believe that it's very important that we support jobs. In that regard, we're trying to make sure that businesses can get through this time. As we provide that support, we've been very clear for large enterprises that share buybacks will not be allowed, period, and that there will, of course, be limitations on total compensation for senior executives in order to give Canadians confidence that we're doing the things we need to do to support them, but that we're not supporting executives. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, Germany has actually taken the lead and said that if a company wants public money, then its executives must commit to reducing their pay. Will Canada follow Germany to ensure that public dollars go to workers and not to enrich the executive suite, and commit that no public money will go to bonuses or increasing salaries for executives? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are looking forward to releasing the complete details of the large employer emergency financing facility, and I think the member opposite will be quite pleased to see that we will be leading on behalf of Canada in advance of what Germany is doing. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, we know the PBO has said that $25 billion, at least, is being lost to our revenues because corporations are avoiding paying their fair share. Will the Prime Minister commit today very clearly that if a company is hiding its money by putting it in an offshore tax haven, that company will not receive public help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, again with regard to this program, we want to be very clear that the support that goes to large businesses actually supports their Canadian enterprises and their Canadian employees. In that regard, we will not allow any company that has been convicted of tax evasion to have access to these funds, and we will carefully evaluate on an ongoing basis to make sure that companies remain eligible for this support based on their continuing investment in Canada. +The Chair: Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, how many companies can the Minister of Finance name that have been convicted of tax evasion that would be denied help under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what's most important is that we focus on Canadians. We're trying to support Canadians, whether they're working for small or large businesses, so they can get through this, can support their families during this time, and come out with a job at the end of it. That is exactly where our focus lies in this regard. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, not a single company. We are four years past the Panama papers and there hasn't been a single conviction. Those are simply fancy Liberal words saying that a company that has been convicted of tax evasion.... There are simply no companies that this government can give as an example. Why don't we follow what France has done and commit very clearly, not in Liberal fancy words but straight up, if a company is hiding its money by using offshore tax havens, it will not get public help. Will the minister commit to that right now? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we've been working with France and other countries to make these rules stricter for businesses. The process around the common reporting standard and the base erosion profit shifting has made it more difficult for firms to move money into tax havens, and it has ensured that we have transparency in seeing when they do so. We'll continue to do that hard work to make sure that businesses abide by the rules and pay their appropriate part of taxes in our country. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, let's talk about hard work. If a company is not convicted of tax evasion, but is putting its money in Barbados or Bermuda, for example, specifically to avoid paying taxesand we have a similar example of Loblaws doing something like thiswill that company, despite not having a conviction, but clearly having avoided paying their fair share by putting their money in an offshore tax haven, receive help, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I'd suggest that the member be very careful in accusing companies of wrongdoing. We have a country that respects international rules. We allow our companies to trade and do business around the world. That continues to be important, and that supports Canadian jobs. At the same time, we're trying to make sure those international rules work and get tighter. That's what we've been working on. We'll continue to do that because we know it's important that we can work internationally. It's important that companies pay their fair share here in Canada. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Liberals hand-picked ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, stated that China's conduct during the pandemic is damaging to its own soft power. However, when asked if there should be an investigation into China's behaviour during the crisis, the health minister stated that's not for her to say because she doesn't have all the evidence about what China did or didn't do. Why is Canada's ambassador to China criticizing China's actions during the pandemic while this Liberal government is defending it? +The Chair: The honourable Deputy Prime Minister. +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (UniversityRosedale, Lib.): Mr. Chair, Ambassador Barton is an excellent representative of Canada in China, and he is a member of our government and very much shares and helps to formulate our government's policy when it comes to China. Ambassador Barton, of course, shares our government's view that a post-crisis review is absolutely necessary. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the government's March 27 duty deferral announcement has caused tension within the trade community. Customs brokers are being asked to shoulder tremendous liability as importers are not required to make duty payments until the end of June, when there is a real possibility that some of them may find themselves insolvent. Will the government commit to a liability exemption for customs brokers whose clients are unable to pay the duties at the end of June? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we have worked hard to determine programs that we think can be supportive of individuals and businesses, including allowing for deferral of taxes through this period. That we believe is important with respect to the GST, which we've allowed to be deferred until July 1, and in terms of taxes for businesses, until the end of August. We think this helps businesses to get through this challenging time, and we'll continue to support businesses and individuals so we can have a strong economy when we get through this crisis. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the following three questions are from constituents in my riding, so hopefully, I'll get some good answers for them. The first one I'll talk about is Rick. He owns a small business, a local bowling alley, in Melfort. It's a family-owned operation, so he doesn't meet the payroll threshold for the wage subsidy benefit, nor does he qualify for any other announced loans or grants. There are businesses right across Canada that are in similar situations. Is the minister suggesting that they lie to get the funds, or will they make some changes so they qualify? +The Chair: The honourable minister. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I want to highlight some of the initiatives we have put forward to assist small businesses. The Canada emergency wage subsidy covers 75% of the wages of employees, and that way they can maintain their jobs. We've also put forward the enhanced work-sharing program. It's an option for businesses to pay their employees. On top of that, I want to highlight the Canada emergency business account, which has issued 590,000 loans. As the Minister of Finance recently mentioned, we've deferred GST and HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, Robert owns a cleaning products company in Prince Albert. He tells me that Canadian custodians and building service contractors are not purchasing Canadian-made disinfectants because very few are included in the federal approval list for COVID-19, even though Canada produces many products that Health Canada has certified as disinfectants. Why is the Liberal government not prioritizing the approval of Canadian-made products? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, that assertion is not correct. In fact, we have been working very closely with producers of Canadian products as well as with our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development to make sure that Canadian companies have what they need to very quickly move through the approval process. Health Canada has accelerated this process, and most companies can get approved in one to seven days. Of course, there is an iterative process that requires companies to ensure that a product is safe for use in Canada. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the government announced $252 million in assistance for Canadian farmers, which was largely seen as an insult, especially given that a good amount of this money was already budgeted. A constituent of mine, Tracy, from Melfort, wrote to me asking me to advocate for farmers and ranchers so they can get the support they need to continue to produce our food. When will the government start to prioritize farmers and ranchers? Will they continue to reform the business risk management program? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Absolutely, Mr.Chair. We're working very hard with our provincial colleagues to improve the risk management programs. We did announce programs last week, and some of these new programs are designed specifically for the meat sector. A total of $77.5million is earmarked for processors and $50million for beef producers. +The Chair: The next question goes to Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red DeerLacombe, CPC): Mr. Chair, provinces are reopening at different speeds, and that includes opening their provincial parks before the May long weekend. It no longer makes sense for fully staffed national parks across the country to be uniformly closed. Will the Minister of Environment commit to opening national parks in harmony with provincial and territorial parks across Canada? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, we are working very closely with our provincial partners on the reopening. I am pleased that we were able to publish, on Tuesday, April 28, shared guidelines on the reopening, which were supported by the Prime Minister and all of the premiers of the provinces and territories +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, boating is a safe way to enjoy the outdoors while maintaining physical distancing. Why is Parks Canada postponing the opening of lock operations and similar functions along our heritage waterways? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, as I was saying in my answer to the first question, the question of coordinating national and provincial parks is a very good one. That is something we are definitely working on. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, since the beginning of this pandemic, the minority Liberal government has been actively trying to push our democracy aside. It severely limited parliamentary sittings, attempted to take executive control of tax rates and used an order in council to ban lawfully acquired and responsibly owned firearms. When will the government stop using this pandemic as an excuse to run roughshod over our cherished democratic values? +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I don't understand this question at all, since we're meeting here to ask questions for twohours and 15minutes. That's the equivalent of three question periods. Yesterday, there was the equivalent of two question periods, and tomorrow there will be the equivalent of two more question periods. We're talking about seven question periods. That's more than normal. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the inconsistency in support for various sectors in our economy is baffling. There is more money made available to forcibly confiscate lawfully owned property than in emergency support for our hard-working farmers or our prosperity-creating oil and gas sector. The only consistent theme appears to be that sectors that do not traditionally vote Liberal are finding themselves left out in the cold. If that is not the case, why is there such an obvious discrepancy? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, those comments are completely unjustified. We're fully committed to our sectors, including the energy sector and the agriculture and agrifood sector. This is particularly important. These sectors are critical. That's why we're working to improve our risk management programs. We want to ensure that the criteria are broader and that more producers can benefit from these programs. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, during the misinformation briefing, the public safety minister used Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom as examples for firearms policy. Does the public safety minister realize that these countries are islands and none share a border with anyone, least of which with the United States of America? Is my bringing this new-found evidence to the minister's attention going to change his focus to smugglers, gangs and criminals, instead of wrongfully blaming lawful gun owners? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I would like to assure the member that I have actually seen an atlas. I want to be very clear that those countries have recognized, like Canada has, that these weapons have no place in a civil society. They were designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. They were not designed for hunting and sporting purposes, which are the lawful uses of a firearm in Canada, but rather for individuals to kill other individuals. Tragically, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, that is precisely what they have been used for, and we have prohibited +The Chair: Mr. Calkins. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, the nine o'clock gun is an iconic 12-pound cannon that has been fired daily in Vancouver in Stanley Park since the 1800s. It's now a prohibited firearm as of May 1, 2020. Can the minister advise the public of the safety risks that this cannon, which was manufactured in 1816, poses to the public? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, I assume the member opposite is referring to the prohibition of grenade launchers. There are about 34 in Canada and we have brought in regulations that now prohibit grenade launchers. It does not apply to some of the other things that have been suggested by the member opposite. +Mr. Blaine Calkins: Mr. Chair, I was referring to the iconic, heritage 12-pound cannon that is mounted on a pedestal in Stanley Park. It was manufactured in 1816. Any cannon that can be fired can be loaded with a projectile, so it meets the definition of a firearm, which means that every cannon in Canada, every heritage piece that might be in a museum, every heritage piece that might be in a collection, is now a prohibited firearm. Was the minister not aware of this when he announced this policy? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, just to help the member opposite, let us be very clear. We have prohibited weapons that were unfortunately widely available in Canada and were being used for purposes other than sporting activities, which is the only use of a firearm in Canada, for either hunting or target shooting sporting activities. Rather, they were being used to harm individual Canadians and, in some tragic cases, many individual Canadians. We've done the right thing, Mr. Chair, and we +The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Nater next. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, agricultural societies across rural Ontario are making the difficult decision to cancel their fall fairs this year. Some of these fall fairs have been around since before Confederation. Not only is this a terrible loss for these communities of important community events, but it's also putting a significant financial strain on these agricultural societies. What action is the government taking to support agricultural societies in Canada? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, what we've done is we've put forward monies to support our regional development agencies. These agencies have the mandate and the ability to support local initiatives, including the events the member has highlighted. This is more than doubling the budget that currently exists, so that we have sufficient resources to support communities and these very important local events. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, the arts and culture industry has a massive impact on local economies. In my riding alone we have the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music. The postponement and cancellation of the seasons of these important cultural institutions is having a massive impact on the hospitality industry, including local restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfasts. Many of these businesses are small businesses and owner-operated businesses that are falling through the cracks in the government's programs that have been introduced. How will the government address the blind spot in their programs for small businesses in communities like this, which rely on the tourism and the arts and culture industries? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, clearly, we understand how important these organizations are to these communities. That is why we allocated $500 million to respond to the specific financial needs of arts, heritage and sports organizations, to help them be more resilient through this difficult time. Last week we rolled out the funding of this announcement, and we look forward to engaging with communities across the country. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, 1.8 million jobs are attributed to the tourism industry in Canada. Among these, 740,000 are related to international travelling. No one wants to see the borders reopen until it's safe to do so, but can the government provide clarity on what criteria will be used to provide some information to these tourism operators of how, when and under what criteria international borders will be reopened? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member opposite for his view that we need to be cautious and prudent and put the health and safety of Canadians first. That is very much the view of our government as well. When it comes to international borders, the health and safety of Canadians is absolutely the first criterion we are going to look at. Of course, we will be looking at the situation with coronavirus +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, many Canadians continue to fall through the cracks of programs announced by this government. One of my constituents only recently returned to the workforce after spending many years out of the workforce raising her children. As such, she doesn't qualify under the $5,000 minimum requirement for income over the past 12 months. How will the government address these people who are falling through the cracks? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, we are mindful of the very difficult circumstances in which many Canadians who have a foot in two places find themselves. We have a number of different measures to help them and we're going to continue to do so. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, it has been reported that as many as 15% of farmers and farm families in Canada could face going out of business and bankruptcy because of the massive impact that COVID-19 is having on agriculture in Canada. Business risk management programs are not working for these farm families, and the processing capacity is simply not there for farmers and for farm families, especially in the beef and pork industries. How will the government immediately address the short-term processing capacity issues found in the beef and pork sectors? When will they finally live up to the commitment of a complete review of the business risk management programs? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr.Chair, I've been holding discussions with my provincial counterparts to review the risk management programs. With respect to the AgriStability program, we've offered producers some accommodations and pushed back the enrolment date to July3. We've also increased, from 50% to 75%, the advance payment that they can obtain quickly, in provinces where this is possible. We've also posted a calculator online. So before they say that the program isn't working, I encourage them to use this calculator to find out how much they can receive. +Mr. John Nater: Mr. Chair, this government continues to show a blind spot for small businesses in Canada. Many don't qualify for the CEBA because they don't have a high enough payroll or because they don't have a business account. So many small businesses are falling through the cracks. Will the government expand the criteria so that small businesses in my community and across Canada can qualify for the important assistance they need at this time? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I would like to remind my honourable colleague that we did expand the eligibility criteria threshold from $50,000 down to $20,000 so that more businesses could be eligible, and on the top end, for salaries, from $1 million to $1.5 million. That is why we have seen 590,000 small business loans issued. That's a testament to the program. +The Chair: The next question will go to Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire (BrandonSouris, CPC): Mr. Chair, hog and beef producers have seen drastic price drops. Producers are telling me that they would use the western livestock price insurance program if the premiums were affordable, which they are not. Will the Minister of Agriculture work with the industry to make the premiums affordable so that producers can have price protection against these market fluctuations? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Mr. Chair, we're working closely with the industry and my provincial counterparts to identify the best programs to help producers in this difficult time. Last week, we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Chez Angela Bakery in Brandon has seen tremendous success since it opened two years ago. Due to this growth and the eligibility criteria for the wage subsidy program, their revenues would have to decline much further than 30% in order for them to receive help. Will the Minister of Finance amend the eligibility for the wage subsidy program so that Chez Angela and similar businesses can apply? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): The honourable Minister of Industry. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question. I want to highlight the fact that we did make an amendment. When we originally proposed this initiative, the threshold was 30% for the month of March. Now businesses will only need to show a 15% decline in revenue, and businesses will have the option of using January and February as a reference period to show revenue losses, or of using the same time last year. This reflects, again, our ability to understand the needs of businesses, to act quickly and to make sure that they benefit from this very important initiative. +Mr. Larry Maguire: They still don't qualify, Mr. Chair. The Blarney Stone restaurant in Killarney has repeatedly asked the Minister of Finance if they could refinance their loans through the Canada small business financing program. Will the Minister of Finance give small business owners the ability to refinance their existing loans through the program, yes or no? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again, we've demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness when it comes to these financing options. I'd also like to highlight another very important initiative that was mentioned earlier, the deferring of GST/HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months. This will help 3.2 million business owners and entrepreneurs across the country. Again, it's another initiative to put more money in the pockets of businesses as they deal with this unprecedented health care crisis. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, the Liberals still haven't fixed the payroll eligibility problems for many small business owners who need to access the zero-interest loans available in CEBA. Can the minister provide any rationale for why countless small businesses are not being allowed to access these loans? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, as of today, 590,000 small business loans have been issued. I think that's contrary to the point the member opposite is making. Clearly we recognize that we need to be agile and that we need to understand the needs of businesses. That's why we made changes to this particular program. We'll continue to listen to businesses. I can assure the member opposite that 590,000 small business loans is no small feat. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, Canada has some of the best competitive sport shooters in the world. The Liberals' order in council on firearms will put an end to many Canadians being able to represent our country. Can the Minister of Public Safety list even one of these sport shooting competitions, which will now be illegal due to his order in council? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The honourable Minister of Public Safety. +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, it's an important question because sport shooting is a very important tradition for many Canadian sport shooters. I want to assure the member opposite that the weapons we have prohibited by this order in council were not designed for sport shooting and are not used in the Olympics or Paralympic Games. They are not included in this and therefore have no impact on that activity of legitimate sport shooting. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one more short question, Mr. Maguire. +Mr. Larry Maguire: Mr. Chair, statistics show that women are more likely to live paycheque to paycheque, so women continue to be disproportionately impacted by this pandemic in a negative way. Many are worried they won't have a job to go back to. Will the government commit to helping women who are bearing this financial burden return to the workforce? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, this is a very good question. I would love to have a lot of time to answer it. The answer is yes, of course. We are making sure that many of our measures do not disproportionately impact women, because when women succeed, all Canadians succeed. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now continue with Mr.Blanchette-Joncas. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLes Basques, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. It's a privilege to be here in the House today to represent the people of Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, but also to serve as the BlocQubcois tourism critic. Tourism in Quebec is a significant economic engine and wealth creator. This industry is vital to the regions of Quebec, as I'll demonstrate. The tourism industry in Quebec generates over $15billion in economic spinoffs and employs more than 400,000workers. In Quebec, one in tenjobs is connected to the tourism industry. Every dollar spent on tourism generates about 70cents in the Quebec economy. The tourism industry consists of over 30,000businesses, and two-thirds of these businesses are outside the major centres in the Quebec City and Montreal regions. In the tourism industry, 82% of businesses have fewer than 20employees. This shows once again the need to support this industry. I heard my honourable colleague on the other side of the House say that a plan was in place for the tourism industry. I want to hear what he has to say about this plan. To date, what specific measures has the government taken to support the tourism industry? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I want to thank my colleague for his question. He's right. The situation is very difficult for all regions of our country and for Quebec. That's why we've invested in regional development. These investments will improve the situation in the tourism sector. These investments will provide assistance for festivals, programs and other initiatives. We'll continue to work with my colleague and the other members to find solutions that will improve the situation. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, I'm not sure that I fully understood the plan. However, I can say that the people in the tourism industry don't understand the plan, because they're still waiting for it. One issue in the tourism industry involves fixed costs. Initially, we asked that part of the wage subsidy be set aside to cover fixed costs. The government implemented the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance. The assistance covers 75% of commercial rental payments under $50,000, and property owners pay the remaining 25%. To date, how many applications have been submitted under this program? +Hon. Bill Morneau: The wage subsidy is very significant. However, we know that there are other fixed costs. That's why we've taken other measures, such as the measures related to credit and rent. We've combined several measures that will help companies bridge the gap until the end of the crisis. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: We expect to hear a figure and not necessarily words. We could see that the program was ineffective, particularly for seasonal businesses, including businesses in the tourism industry. Businesses need to have suspended operations or to show a decline of at least 70% in operations since the start of the public health crisis. How can a tourism business that hasn't yet launched operations show a decline of 70%? It doesn't make sense. A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that only one in ten businesses can benefit from this assistance. Yet these businesses need the assistance. Does the government believe that commercial rent assistance is effective even though only one in ten businesses can benefit from it? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, I know that the situation is very difficult. That's why we've introduced another option. Through the community futures development corporations and business development centres, we're providing $71million to businesses and organizations in rural communities by giving them much-needed access to capital. This investment will help many businesses in Quebec, particularly in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, you have one minute left. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, in my humble opinion, one out of ten businesses amounts to 10%. This figure isn't very high and is far from a passing grade. What does the government plan to do? Does it plan to implement an expanded program to support businesses in the tourism and seasonal industries to ensure that fixed costs are more fully covered? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we have a strategy. We've invested in regional development and in small and medium-sized businesses. We've helped the workers and we'll continue to work with the provincial governments to find solutions. We must work together, particularly in the tourism sector, because the situation in the sector is very serious. I'm sure that we can find solutions to help improve the situation for people in the tourism sector. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now continue with Mr. Van Bynen. +Mr. Tony Van Bynen (NewmarketAurora, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands. Mr. Chair, last week was Mental Health Week. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a great deal of stress and uncertainty for all Canadians and that during this uncertain time, it is normal for many people to feel increased anxiety, depression and mental health issues. In fact, a poll by the Canadian Mental Health Association's Ontario branch showed that 61% of respondents were worried about the mental health of a loved one and more than half of the respondents were worried about their own mental health. In the Standing Committee on Health, we've also heard from many witnesses that our front-line heroes, working around the clock to protect us from the virus and to help others recover, are at great risk of physical and mental burnout. This shows how seriously Canadians need supports for their mental health and well-being during this most trying time. Can the Minister of Health tell my constituents what the government is doing to support Canadians during this uncertain time? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I thank the member for NewmarketAurora for that very insightful question. In fact, we've been very worried about Canadians' mental health as resulting from the pandemic, but even prior to that we knew that we needed to create rapidly more tools for Canadians across the country, no matter where they lived. We've worked very closely with our provincial and territorial partners, for example, to amplify the work that they're doing through increased supports, financial supports. We also launched Wellness Together Canada, which is a digital portal, where all Canadians can get access to tools they can use to help with the circumstances they find themselves in and to get the information they need during COVID-19. It also allows Canadians to connect to paid professionals who can provide support in a variety of different ways, whether it's over the telephone, through email or by text, understanding that Canadians have different ways of connecting that work for them. We've also partnered with a number of organizations that provide supports to Canadians, many of the crisis hotlines, for example, that are working double-time or triple-time to try to keep up with the volume of demand. This is a difficult time for all Canadians and we will continue to work to ensure Canadians have the supports they need. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to Mr. Gerretsen, from Kingston and the Islands. +Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Chair, students from across the country have been significantly impacted by the effects of COVID-19. As we know, thousands of post-secondary students depend on employment throughout the summer in order to pay for expenses throughout their academic year. Unfortunately the pandemic has resulted in the closure of many businesses and organizations that would normally employ students who work during the summer. Thousands of students are now left without the financial means they were depending on to pay for their post-secondary educational expenses. In response to the concerns raised by students, the government announced the creation of the Canada emergency student benefit, which will provide students with the assistance they need to make it through these uncertain financial times. I represent a riding that has multiple post-secondary institutions, and my constituents have been asking when they should expect to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. Can the President of the Treasury Board please give us an update on the status of the Canada emergency student benefit, and in particular, when students will be able to start accessing this benefit, and also confirm if and how it may be retroactive? +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr. Chair, I would first like to thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his strong advocacy in favour of young Canadians in his riding and across Canada. Mr. Chair, our government is committed to ensuring that young Canadians have the support that they need during this very difficult time. That's why we are investing $9 billion to support students and recent graduates affected by COVID-19. The measures include doubling the Canada student grants, raising the cap on student loans, creating new employment opportunities for students and launching the Canada emergency student benefit. I'm pleased to share with the House that the application period for the Canada emergency student benefit will commence on May 15. That is this Friday. This benefit will provide $1,250 a month to eligible students or $2,000 for students who have disabilities or dependants. Mr. Chair, when Canada emerges from this pandemic, we want to make sure that students are in a financial position to continue their studies so that they can pursue fruitful careers and help build a strong Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll wait a few seconds before moving on to the next five-minute period to allow the console operator to switch with someone else. We'll next go to the honourable member for Calgary Skyview, Ms. Sahota. +Ms. Jag Sahota (Calgary Skyview, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Victims of human trafficking continue to suffer during this crisis. Many are facing worse conditions and additional barriers to escaping human trafficking than before the pandemic. The government has been completely silent on this issue, and now funding to fight human trafficking is being taken away from front-line organizations. Why would the government choose to do this at this vulnerable time? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, human trafficking is, as we all know, one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Our government is working to eliminate all instances of it. To combat human trafficking, we've launched a comprehensive national strategy that brings together federal efforts under one strategic framework. We have backed that new move with $75 million in additional investments, and the new strategy now strengthens Canada's ability to fight this abhorrent attack on human rights and human dignity. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, this simply isn't good enough. The government is letting down our most vulnerable Canadians. We know that human trafficking hasn't stopped during this pandemic, and these front-line organizations have received the message that supporting them in fighting these heinous crimes is not a priority. What is the minister going to do to rectify this situation? +Hon. Bill Blair: As I said, we have developed a national strategy to combat human trafficking. We've made $75 million in additional investments, and this new strategy takes a whole-of-government approach. It empowers victims and survivors to regain their self-confidence and control over their lives, and it will prevent more of these crimes from taking place. It provides better protection and support for those most vulnerable to human trafficking, and it will ensure that police and prosecutors have the resources to prosecute these traffickers for their heinous crimes. Mr. Chair, we'll continue to work collaboratively with victims groups and to provide the supports that are required. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, more vulnerable Canadians continue to be let down. There are effective medications that have been developed for those living with cystic fibrosis, yet this medication is not available here. We know that the pharmaceutical company has not been able to apply to market this drug in Canada because of the changes to the PMPRB, which have been heavily criticized by stakeholders and patients. Will the minister delay the July 1 implementation date and review the regulations so that drugs like Trikafta are made available in Canada? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, there are two separate issues in that question, so I will talk about the PMPRB. As a government, we are committed, as you know, to increasing affordability of and accessibility to Canadian medications, to medications across Canada, and the PMPRB regulatory amendments will help Canadians to be able to afford their prescriptions. Canada will continue to be an important market for new medicines. In fact, many countries with much lower prices for medicine gain access to new medicines in the same time frame as Canada, or even faster. +Ms. Jag Sahota: Mr. Chair, for those living with a rare disease, every single day can be a struggle. We know the importance of lowering drug costs, but not at the cost of life-saving drugs not being available here in Canada. Waiting years for the government to reduce regulations is not an option. We also know that the nature of the disease makes those people more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, and they are at a higher risk of its being lethal. Why is this government continuing to let those with CF struggle and suffer needlessly? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I believe the member opposite is talking about the drug Trikafta, and many cystic fibrosis patient groups have been advocating having access to it in Canada. In fact, the manufacturer of Trikafta has not submitted an application to market this product in Canada. However, that said, we do have a special access program for drugs that are not marketed in Canada. As of May 6, Health Canada approved 95 applications for 98 patients to access Trikafta through the special access program. I would encourage all patients with cystic fibrosis to speak to their doctor to ensure that they too can apply through the special access program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one short question of 45 seconds. +Ms. Jag Sahota: We know the importance of lowering drug costs. As you know, 4,300 people suffer from this rare genetic disease. Most of them are children and young adults. One young woman from Calgary is a CF champion, fighting for her passion to be a famous opera singer. She's very talented. Her reality of living with CF has meant that she has had many visits to the hospital and had many health crises that have made singing impossible for a time. CF patients are waiting for this drug, which was fast-tracked in other countries. Now it seems that the changes to the PMPRB will cause further delays or complications. Will the minister delay the implementation and review the PMPRB? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Honourable Minister, please provide a short response. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I will just repeat that the manufacturer has not applied to sell this drug in Canada. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we will go to Mr. Lobb of HuronBruce. +Mr. Ben Lobb (HuronBruce, CPC): Thank you very much. On July 25, 2019, after the federal-provincial-territorial agriculture meeting, the agriculture minister promised big changes in 2020 for programs like AgriStability and AgriRecovery. Besides a pilot program in a couple of provinces and an application deadline, is there anything else you would like to report? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: Yes, Mr.Chair. Since the July meeting in QuebecCity with the provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture, we've been working to improve the AgriStability program. This issue remains a priority, and it's included in my mandate letter. However, at this time, we're responding to emergencies that go beyond what the various risk management programs can provide to our producers. +Mr. Ben Lobb: You can appreciate, Minister, the issue we're dealing with here. The United States Department of Agriculture has allocated $19 billion to farmers, $16 billion of that in direct support. The program that was offered last week, $252 million, was a mere fraction of what the United States is getting. If the minister is telling farmers to bank on the existing business risk management program, it's not going to work. Countless numbers of pork farmers, just in my riding alone, have one thousand, two thousand, three thousand head of hogs ready to be shipped within the near future. They will lose $70 a head. AgriStability isn't going to cut it. We need an immediate program to help out these hard-working pork farmers. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: I fully understand my colleague's comments. That's why we announced specific programs for the meat sector: $77.5million for processors, $50million for beef producers and $50million for pork producers. We've also increased, improved and facilitated access to AgriStability. One pork producer tried the calculator and told me that he could quickly receive $11 per head of hog. Alberta's agriculture minister even publicly stated that some producers could obtain the desired amount of $20 per head using the AgriStability program. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, you can see the problem right there with the math. The minister just said that one of her pork producers is going to get $11. They are losing $70. There's a $59-per-head gap, times likely several thousand head of hogs in their barns. Let's go to another trying issue with agriculture. It's the carbon tax. I know that the government has their position on the carbon tax, and I know that I'm not going to change it, but I want to give the members of Parliament across the way, the government, an idea of what a pork farmer might go through. A pork farmer sent me their bill for February 26 to March 24. Their natural gas bill was about $2,400. In there was close to $500 in federal carbon tax. Farmers manage their woodlots ethically. They have environmental farm plans. They have nutrient management plans. They get no credit for any of the carbon sequestration and ethical environmental management on their farm, yet every month they are asked to pay a carbon tax. It just doesn't seem fair. I want the minister's opinion on that. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: As you know, our pollution pricing policy is designed to build a clean economy. We've introduced exemptions for agriculture. On one hand, emissions from animal and vegetable production are not subject to carbon pricing, and on the other hand, farm fuels and other fuels delivered to off-farm points-of-sale are exempt. We've also provided partial reimbursements for propane and natural gas used in commercial greenhouses. We have already done a lot. We encourage producers to take advantage of the business risk management programs, and we are ready to do more. We've already shown that, and we will continue to do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): There is time for one short question and response. Go ahead, Mr. Lobb. +Mr. Ben Lobb: Mr. Chair, I know the Minister of Agriculture has toured my riding. She knows very well what the lay of the land is here. What about pork farmers? What about chicken farmers? What about hens? What about drying in the fall? All those farmers pay a carbon tax, and there is no program for them. They pay and they pay and they pay, and what makes it worse is that they are given no credit for the environmental work they do on their farms. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: It's true that our producers work incredibly hard to protect the environment and ensure the well-being of their animals. That's important, to be sure, but I'd like to put the impact of pollution pricing into perspective. To put these estimates into context, AAFC used data from agricultural tax data programs to show the impact on a per-farm basis as a percentage of total operating costs. The estimates ranged from $210 to $819 per farm and 0.05% to 0.42% of total farm operating expenses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now move on to Mr.Lehoux. +Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. Being from a rural area, myself, I can assure you that people who live in rural communities are resourceful and resilient. Instead of staying cooped up in their homes, they are doing their best to retool and save the companies they work for. One of the only options they have is to work from home. Unfortunately, though, they don't have access to the tools they need. Cellular and Internet networks are inadequate, even non-existent in some cases. I want to know, not whether the government is going to help these Canadians join the 21st century, but when. Can you give us any assurances and, above all, a timetable for a real plan? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I agree with the member. The situation is very serious. High-speed Internet is not a luxury; it's a necessity. That's why we launched the connect to innovate program. My fellow minister Ms. Monsef will be introducing the next strategy to improve the situation in all regions, especially rural areas. Finding a solution is absolutely imperative. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: I don't think the minister understood my question. In the 2019 budget, the government promised to connect all Canadians to the Internet by 2030. This is 2020. That's 10years away. People don't need reliable Internet service 10years down the road. The pandemic has made the need even more acute right now. When, then, will people have Internet access? I'm simply asking you for a date now. +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, under the last budget, we launched a $1.7-billion program to support broadband infrastructure. That's a lot of money for high-speed Internet. My fellow minister Ms.Monsef is in charge of the program. We also introduced the connect to innovate program, which has helped 900communities all over the country. We will keep working to make the lives of people who live in rural areas better, and we will find solutions to provide high-speed Internet access. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: Mr.Chair, you no doubt know that Beauce is the cradle of small and medium-sized businesses. On March27, the Prime Minister introduced the emergency wage subsidy to help businesses cope with the pandemic. Unfortunately, general partnerships were overlooked. Of the many constituents in my riding who have reached out to me on the subject, one, in particular, has contacted me three times since mid-April. I still don't have anything to tell him because the government is dragging its feet. We'd like to get a clear and specific answer. The same goes for sole proprietors, who were also overlooked. When is the government going to include these businesses in the current programs? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr.Chair, we announced in financial support for vulnerable small and medium-sized businesses that are not eligible for the measures already in place and that are struggling with cash flow issues. We've also invested $71million to support businesses and organizations by giving them access to capital in rural communities. As well, we've invested in programs for rural areas, and we will continue to make investments to help small and medium-sized businesses. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Lehoux, please keep it brief. +Mr. Richard Lehoux: All right, Mr.Chair. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture asked the federal government for an agriculture and agri-food emergency fund of $2.6billion to help maintain food security in Canada in response to COVID-19. Will the minister address the federation's request? Minister, I'd like you to give us a date. +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau: We already have a host of business risk management programs, through which, $1.6billion is available to producers annually. More support is actually available, even through those programs, since they meet the demand. We are prepared to do more, and we will. I urge producers to apply for the AgriStability program and to use the funds in their AgriInvest accounts. Some $2.3billion is available through that program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to the honourable member for LangleyAldergrove, Mr. Van Popta. +Mr. Tako Van Popta (LangleyAldergrove, CPC): Mr. Chair, the government's wage subsidy program is designed to help traditional companies, not high-growth companies. For example, I was talking to Ron, who operates an engineering firm in my riding that specializes in designing and building very expensive machines for their ever-expanding overseas markets. Business is down, but not by the requisite 30%. Of course not, since they're in high-growth mode, but just recently they had to lay off some very talented staff. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program can be expanded or adapted to deal with high-growth companies that will play such a key role in Canada's economic relaunch? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, my honourable colleague is absolutely correct. We, the government, take enormous pride in our small businesses, particularly the start-ups and the high-growth firms. They're going to be absolutely essential for our economic recovery, and we know that some of them are ineligible for the wage subsidy. That is why we introduced a $250-million program in the industrial research assistance program through the National Research Council, strictly targeting and focusing on those high-growth firms that were ineligible for the wage subsidy, so that they can provide the wage support to keep those highly skilled individuals in Canada. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, there is another category of businesses that are falling through the cracks and feel they are being left behind by the wage subsidy program. Those are recently merged companies. For example, there is a trucking company in my riding that is significantly bigger this year than it was last year as a result of some key acquisitions and mergers late last year. All of the legacy companies by themselves would qualify individually for the wage subsidy, but the merged company does not. Can the minister confirm that the wage subsidy program is sufficiently flexible to accommodate recently merged companies? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: Mr. Chair, again I want to thank my honourable colleague for his question. He is identifying unique pain points that exist within the overall economy with specific examples of companies that are not able to access some of the programming we have provided. I do want to highlight, when it comes to the wage subsidy, that we have made changes to the revenue thresholds to make more companies eligible. The specific example that the member opposite raises is something that is under consideration. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Mr. Chair, the government's commercial rent assistance program discriminates against certain tenants based solely on whether their landlord has a mortgage on the subject building. I was talking to Leslie the other day. She manages a number of commercial office buildings in my riding. Some of these buildings have mortgages and some don't, and it all depends on what they were able to negotiate with their banker. Leslie is having a very hard time explaining to her tenants why some will qualify for the rental subsidy and some won't, depending on which building they are in. Can the government confirm that the nonsensical mortgage requirement in the rent subsidy program is gone? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the approach that was taken on trying to assist small businesses with rent is very much based on the fact that this is a provincial jurisdiction, so we have used the mortgage system as a way to do it. It is, in fact, not nonsensical. That said, we are looking at this particular issue. It's something that is under consideration. We expect that we will find a way to ensure that those landlords who don't have mortgages can work with the CMHC to have the appropriate approach to be eligible for this program. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left, Mr. Van Popta. Go ahead with a short question. +Mr. Tako Van Popta: Many people in my riding have reached out to me to say they are quite disturbed that their favourite hunting and sport shooting firearms are now on the banned list. Can the minister inform Canadians how many Canadian taxpayer dollars are going to go to the buyback program for legal gun owners and how far that money would go if it were to be diverted to something useful, such as more border controls to stop the illegal importation of firearms? +Hon. Bill Blair: Our first priority is the protection and safety of Canadians. We've seen an unacceptable rise in gun violence right across our community. All weapons are being regulated in our country. Some, such as handguns, represent such a significant risk that we strongly restrict them. Some weapons, quite frankly, are completely unsuitable for any sporting or hunting activity, such as weapons designed for soldiers to engage in combat with other soldiers. We have now prohibited those weapons. The saving of lives is worth an investment in public safety. I want to assure the member we will bring forward legislation that will facilitate an appropriate buyback program. I look forward to a discussion in this House with the member opposite on how that can be done to ensure public safety and to ensure that we do it in as effective a way as possible. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now go to Mr. Manly. +Mr. Paul Manly: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the government and ministers present for the rapid relief that they've provided to Canadians. I know the constituents in my riding really appreciate that. I'd like to thank them also for being responsive to the MPs who have brought forward gaps in the program. The CERB requirements recognize dividend income for eligibility for the Canada emergency business account, CEBA, but the Canada emergency business account does not recognize dividends or contract payments. I've been contacted by many small business owners who have been legally paying themselves with dividends for years, but these companies cannot apply for the CEBA even though this might save them from bankruptcy during this crisis. Will the government make the necessary changes to allow dividend income to be admissible for CEBA eligibility? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I'd like to thank the honourable colleague for his very thoughtful question and his advocacy in looking for different solutions and in working with us to help small businesses, not only in his riding but across the country as well. He's absolutely correct that the Canada emergency business account has been successful, as 590,000 loans have been issued. That's a reflection of some of the changes that we introduced, which made the criteria more generous so that more businesses could obtain assistance. He has raised the issue of dividends. As I said before, we continue to work with Canadians and Canadian businesses and colleagues in this House to see how we can assist more Canadians, not less of them, and we'll continue to endeavour to do that. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, there are still many Canadians stranded overseas who are trying to return to Canada. Some have no assurance that their non-Canadian spouse will be allowed into Canada with them. Many are being forced to make an impossible choice between sheltering in place overseas or separating from their spouse in order to return home. Will the government remove unnecessary barriers and allow these Canadians to return to Canada immediately with their spouses? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, in an effort to flatten the curve and to protect Canadians, we've taken a number of extraordinary measures at the border and we have restricted non-essential travel of people coming into Canada. While Canadian citizens and permanent residents will always be admissiblesubject, of course, to a 14-day quarantine upon entry foreign nationals are subject to travel restrictions. For individuals to be eligible to travel to Canada, their travel must be considered essential travel, consistent with the emergency order put in place. I recognize and very much respect the spirit of the member's question. We recognize these are difficult situations. It is not our desire to keep families apart. I want to assure that each situation will be decided on a case-by-case basis based on the information made available to border service officers. I welcome any inquiries he may have. If he reaches out to my office, we'll help in any way we can. +Mr. Paul Manly: Mr. Chair, the Alberta energy regulator has suspended a wide range of environmental monitoring requirements for oil sands companies during this pandemic. This includes environmental reporting. It includes wetland wildlife and bird monitoring, even though Canada is a signatory to the international migratory bird treaty. Water that escapes from storm ponds doesn't need to be tested. Air quality programs, including for first nations communities, have been reduced. Testing for leaks of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has been suspended. This is after the federal government has provided $750 million in funding for methane emission reductions. The federal government has also just committed $1.7 billion to clean up orphaned oil wells. That message, clearly, is about the negligence of the Alberta government. It is something corporations should be paying for. Will the federal government hold the Alberta government to account and withhold energy sector relief funding until these environmental regulations are reinstated? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank the member for his question and for his very collaborative approach with our government on a number of issues. I would like to thank him for this particular question and his particular reference to methane, because it gives me an opportunity to highlight some very important progress that the federal government made this week in working with the Province of Alberta. Just yesterday Alberta joined B.C. and Saskatchewan and published its own draft regulations on methane. This will allow us, in working with Alberta, to work on equivalency on methane, which will allow us to work towards standing down the federal system in those jurisdictions. This is tremendously important, because it will allow us to cut methane emissions by 45% by 2025. It's hugely important for fighting climate change together. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to the honourable member for Hamilton Mountain, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall (Hamilton Mountain, NDP): Mr. Chair, I was pleased to hear about extending the tax deadline to October 1 in yesterday's announcement for seniors. After many discussions with the Minister of Seniors, I was glad to hear that she was listening to the NDP and many others on making this happen. It stops a lot of interruptions for people who couldn't get their taxes done. Mr. Chair, COVID-19 has been showing us in stark terms that Canadian seniors are struggling to make ends meet in Canada. Before enduring the crisis, it was clear that OAS and GIS benefits levels were just not enough for seniors to keep up with the cost of living, so we need to fix this now. Why is the government refusing to increase OAS and GIS benefits to lift seniors out of poverty on a permanent basis? +Hon. Deb Schulte (Minister of Seniors): Mr. Chair, I want to thank my honourable colleague for giving me this opportunity to rise today and talk about how we are supporting Canadian seniors during this pandemic. Many Canadian seniors are facing significant health, economic and social challenges as a result of the pandemic. They built this country and now they need our help. Our government is taking significant action to provide Canadian seniors with greater financial security and give them the help they need during this crisis. We're building on past measures by introducing a one-time tax-free payment of $300 for those who receive OAS and of $200 for those receiving GIS, totalling $500 to seniors who receive both. We are also supporting community-based projects to improve the quality of life for seniors through the New Horizons for Seniors program, and investing in other charities. Seniors need our help, and we are delivering for them. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Mr. Chair, I was glad to hear that the Minister of Seniors is acknowledging the financial burden that our seniors are taking on. She mentioned the prescription dispensing fees, the added costs of their groceries and the delivery charges. I was glad that the Prime Minister acknowledged the heavy toll seniors are facing, and that they helped to shape this country and now they need our help. A surprising statement that I heard yesterday was the Treasury Board and the seniors minister's admission in their press briefing that the level of assistance being provided to Canadian seniors is quite low. Why is the seniors minister acknowledging all the burdens they're trying to help the seniors with, but the response they're giving is just a very low way of handling it? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I really do want to acknowledge my honourable colleague for his advocacy. I just want to assure him that while the government remains committed to implementing policies in our platform, we are focused on this health crisis right now. We have provided financial support to seniors sooner through the GST credit top-up, and now with additional payments to OAS and GIS recipients. This year we are investing over twice as much on financial assistance for seniors as we committed to in our platform, which is $3.8 billion compared to $1.56 billion in the platform. Seniors need our help and we're delivering. These payments have provided greater support for the most vulnerable seniors. Just to give some details, for those on OAS and GIS, they will get, in conjunction with the GST credit top-up, $875 per adult, and over $1,500 per couple. This is not an insignificant amount. This is a significant amount to support our seniors during this pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have about one minute left for both a question and a response. Go ahead, Mr. Duvall. +Mr. Scott Duvall: Thank you, Mr. Chair. The minister was talking about there being a maximum payment, if it's possible. What I've heard from seniors is this is a one-shot deal and it's an insult to them. They want some stability on an ongoing basis. We did make an agreement about two weeks ago that help would be implemented without delay on the seniors issue and for people with disabilities. Why did yesterday's announcement include only the people who are seniors, but not people with disabilities? Why have they been omitted? When can they expect help to come? +Hon. Deb Schulte: I just want to touch on the two points raised. On the one-time payment, we know that seniors need help now, and that's why it's important to get that money into seniors' accounts as soon as possible. That is why we're providing the one payment right away, instead of small amounts spread over months. In the coming weeks we will look at additional supports for other vulnerable Canadians. I just want to let him know we are working on additional measures. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now +Mr. Scott Duvall: I didn't hear anything about the disability +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The five minutes are finished. It is now over to Mrs.Gill, the member for Manicouagan. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Thank you, Mr.Chair. I'll be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques. I have just one question. It's for the government, and this will be the fourth time I've asked today. When I go back home, what am I going to tell the people of Chandler, Amqui, Bic, Saint-Simon, Tadoussac and Harrington Harbour? Am I going to tell them that the government supports the Bloc Qubcois's proposal? We propose giving seasonal workers access to employment insurance benefits until next season, regardless of whether they received the CERB, how many hours they worked or how many they accumulated. Should I instead tell them that the Liberal government has nothing in store for them as they suffer through the crisis? The government hasn't managed to bridge the employment insurance gap, and is even planning to bring it to six, if not eight, months. That means they'll have nothing to put on the dinner table for the next year. I'd like an answer, Mr.Chair. +Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos: Mr.Chair, I have three things to say in response to the member's important question. First, we obviously understand what she's saying. The work is seasonal, not the workers. The work they do is fundamental so they can support their families and their communities in eastern Quebec and other regions. Second, the CERB delivers significant assistance to those often vulnerable workers, the majority of whom would be able or certainly eager to find another job. Third, and finally, before any longer-term investments are made, it's important to keep in mind that those who may have received employment insurance benefits but who lost them in recent weeks or who do seasonal work are eligible for the CERB. That said, we are also looking ahead. We've already announced some very important measuresand we'll continue to do soin support of tourism, culture, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and many other key contributors to regional development in Quebec and elsewhere. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The member for Rimouski-NeigetteTmiscouataLesBasques, Mr.Blanchette-Joncas, has the floor. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: Mr.Chair, the situation my fellow member just described is of little comfort to those in Quebec's regions. To be frank, the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program is a flop. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, one in three businesses doesn't qualify for rent relief because it doesn't meet the 70% drop in revenues requirement. Half of businesses have indicated that their landlords won't be applying for the program because it's optional. Commercial landlords can choose to participate in the program or not. How is that going to help businesses, Mr.Chair? We are still trying to figure that out. Businesses, especially seasonal ones, need more support to cover their fixed costs. Will the government commit to reviewing the program, which is too restrictive for businesses and optional for landlords? The program must do more to help businesses, particularly seasonal ones, cover their fixed costs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that businesses are, of course, very concerned about fixed costs. Our rent relief program is very significant. We haven't yet announced all the details, so it's much too soon to say that it's flawed. More information will be available in the next few days. At that point, we hope to be on the right track when it comes to fixed costs and rent. +Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas: I hope you're making adjustments. It's totally unacceptable that only 10% of businesses who need the relief can get it. What's more, the public health crisis has brought its share of change for businesses, particularly with the new health measures. They have to plan, implement preventative measures, have response plans, train staff and acquire the necessary equipment. In order to do those things, protect the public and reopen their doors, businesses have to assume the costs. Will the government commit to providing financial assistance to businesses, especially those in the tourism industry, so they can cover the costs of putting the new health measures in place? +Hon. Navdeep Bains: I know the situation is very serious in rural communities. That's why we've invested $71million in community futures development corporations, or CFDCs, and business development centres. Both of those will go a long way towards helping businesses in rural communities, and I have no doubt that we will continue working together to find other solutions. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll move on to the honourable member for Calgary Centre, Mr. McLean. +Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the terms for accessing the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance, CECRA, is that you must have a mortgage on the property. One of the key terms of eligibility for this support is that the landlord owes money to a bank. Will the Minister of Finance tell us if this program was designed for the benefit of landlords and tenants or for the benefit of banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think that it's important to know that commercial rent and landlord-tenant relationships are provincial jurisdictions. Therefore, as we embarked on an approach that could enable landlords and tenants to get to an agreement that would help both, we used the CMHC as a vehicle from which we could do that. We think that we've come up with a program that provides advantages for the landlords and advantages for the tenants, and we will be announcing details that will include how mortgages can be put in place for those landlords who don't currently have them. +Mr. Greg McLean: Brookfield Properties, a large Canadian firm, announced that its rent collections on commercial properties for April were 15% of the lease terms. Luckily, Brookfield has another company, Brookfield Business Partners, poised to help by buying up the distressed equity of the firms that owe them money. Did the Minister of Finance design CECRA with this outcome in mind, washing out individual investors and small companies and transferring that value into the hands of vulture financiers who hold all the cards? +Hon. Bill Morneau: In fact, Mr. Chair, we designed this program exactly with the idea in mind of the challenge that we're seeing. We're seeing that in many cases commercial tenants are not actually able to pay their rent, so landlords are not getting the rent that's due. Therefore, there's a mutual interest from tenants and from landlords in coming to an agreement. By providing funding through the mortgage system to those landlords, we recognize that we'll enable both of those two parts of the equation to come to an agreement that we think will be advantageous for the sector over the long term. +Mr. Greg McLean: In the past two months, the Bank of Canada has tripled the size of its balance sheet to almost $400 billion, with more to come, Mr. Chair. In the 2008 recession, the world's major economies endured quantitative easing on a previously unknown scale, most of which has not since been unwound. Canada endured a then-record $50-billion deficit, but we did not need to enter the uncertain world of QE, quantitative easing, as a result of the strength of Canada's oil and gas industry. Will the minister acknowledge that this government's oil and gas policy mismanagement has led to economic decline, necessitating hundreds of billions of dollars of quantitative easing? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland: Mr. Chair, let me challenge one assumption implicit in the honourable member's question, the assumption that our government fails to understand the importance of the oil and gas sector to our economy. Let me quote some leaders from Alberta and their response to the lease program. Tim McMillan, CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said, I think this is essential. Not all companies are going to need to tap into this sort of liquidity...but some that are normally high-quality, stable companies likely will be looking for this program to provide a certain amount of liquidity for them. CAPP understands that we are supporting Canadian companies, including in the oil and gas sector, and I would urge the members opposite to understand that as well. +Mr. Greg McLean: BlackRock is one of the world's largest investment companies, managing trillions of dollars of bonds. It has lobbied regulators around the world to not be named a systemically important financial institution. The Bank of Canada unexpectedly engaged BlackRock as an adviser on its bond-buying plans. Is the Minister of Finance mindful of the conflict of interest that exists between the world's largest bond manager, BlackRock, and the advice it's giving the Bank of Canada on buying bonds? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member opposite might know that the Bank of Canada is independent from the government, and as such we are not privy to those decisions and support the continuing independence of the Bank of Canada from the government. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. McLean, you may have just a short question. +Mr. Greg McLean: The finance sector seems to be getting well served during this economic crisis. Will the minister endeavour to provide a more balanced program of benefits going forward for the sake of the entire Canadian economy, and not just the Brookfields, the BlackRocks and the big banks? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think the notion that one sector is being advantaged versus another actually defies the facts. More than 550,000 loans have gone out to small businesses in the form of $40,000 loans per business over a very short time period. Canada is a leader in this regard, and we'll continue to support businesses all across Canada with loans and support as they need it to get ourselves through this difficult time. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go to the last five-minute round. We'll begin with the honourable member for Carleton, Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Thank you, Mr. Chair. What is the dollar value of the total assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, earlier today we were given incorrect information on the Auditor General. I would like to be able to provide more information at my next response. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the member for Carleton said that the previous government spent more on the Auditor General than the current government, and that is actually incorrect. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in fact, in the last full year of the Harper government, in 2014-15, the total spending on the Auditor General was $85.8 million. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the dollar value of the assets of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, in the most recent year, 2018-19, the total spend was $92.4 million for the Auditor General, showing a 7.7% increase. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would just say it's shocking when people bring forward incorrect information to the House to try to make a point. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What are the total liabilities of the Government of Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we will continue to support Canadians through this time, with support not only for businesses but for individuals to get through and get a bridge to a better time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is just the dollar value? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, that's a continuing commitment. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: I know we shouldn't ask the minister about numbers. He's just the finance minister, after all, but what is the equity on the Government of Canada's balance sheet? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I would advise the member for Carleton to memorize those Auditor General figures for his next foray into the House of Commons. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The minister has claimed that our balance sheet is strong. There are three components to a balance sheet: the assets, the liabilities, and the equity. The minister doesn't know any of the three, so clearly he doesn't actually know anything about our balance sheet. That's reassuring. According to the Auditor General, the negative net worth of our Government of Canada will be as much as $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. Can the minister, if he is familiar with any of these numbers, tell us if it is possible that his government will hit $1 trillion of debt this year? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to assure Canadians that our approach will be to continue to make investments on their behalf. That is available to us because of our strong fiscal position, but we will continue to take that approach, which we think is the appropriate one. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Will it be $1 trillion, yes or no? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, as I said, we will continue to focus on the importance of supporting Canadians. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of our current national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I think what will happen as we do that is that we will allow ourselves to have a stronger economy at the end because of these investments. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the size of the national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: We have always seen, Mr. Chair, that these investments are not only supporting Canadians; they are supporting businesses so that we do have a strong economy and a strong fiscal position coming out of this. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know the size of our national debt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I will continue to focus our efforts, as we believe we should, on supporting Canadians through this time. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Does the finance minister know what $1 trillion is? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we are continuing to make investments that we believe are prudent in the face of this economic challenge, supporting Canadians as we know we need to. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total dollar value of all the public and private debt in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, we know that by supporting Canadians, by continuing to make investments, we will enable Canadiens to have less debt themselves because that +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Poilievre. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: What is the total debt, public and private, as a share of GDP in Canada? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, the important consideration here is that the federal government is taking a position that we should support Canadians so that they don't take on the debt themselves. +Hon. Pierre Poilievre: Yet they have. They have record household debt, record corporate debt and growing government debt. The finance minister doesn't seem to know any of the basic numbers that would be required to govern the finances of the Government of Canada, so I will give him one last chance. Based on his latest briefings, what is the total size of Canada's national debt? If he doesn't know, can he have the humility and honesty just to say so? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for slightly more time in this response to say that we think the best thing to do during this time period is to invest in Canadians. We know that in that way they will not be supporting as much debt themselves. The government is in a fiscal position that enables us to take on debt at this time, which we think is appropriate to get our economy to a better position at the end of this crisis. We think that's appropriate. We will continue to take that approach. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): The hon. government House leader is rising on a point of order. +Hon. Pablo Rodriguez: I have a point of order, Mr.Chair. I think we need to keep the interpreters in mind and the work they are doing, particularly when it comes to the flow and speed of questions. As the interpreters have already mentioned, they've suffered more injuries during this short time than during all of last year. Mr.Chair, I kindly ask that you make sure members take that into account. Thank you. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I'm not sure whether that constitutes a point of order, but it's certainly an important reminder for members of the House to respect interpreters' working conditions. Please note that this is the end of our questions to ministers for this afternoon. Honourable members, please note too that pursuant to an order made on April 20, the House has been recalled. As such, the committee will now adjourn and the House sitting will begin shortly thereafter. The bells will be rung to call in members, and a parade will begin the sitting. This committee is now adjourned. +","The Chair, Hon. Anthony Rota, called the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic to order and noted that there were no ministerial announcements. The committee proceeded to presenting petitions certified by the clerk, starting with Mr. Manly presenting a petition for a ban on cosmetic testing on animals in Canada. Mr. Poilievre presented a petition on behalf of a constituent who suffered the loss of a child in a boating accident, advocating for mandatory life jacket use for children under 14. The committee then moved to questioning of ministers. + +Hon. Andrew Scheer raised concerns about suspected fraud in benefit applications, asking the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, for a review of these cases. Trudeau emphasized the priority of getting money to Canadians quickly and noted that measures are in place to detect fraud, with fraudsters required to repay fraudulent amounts. + +Mr. Yves-François Blanchet inquired about the timing of employment incentives for youth and CESB recipients, to which Trudeau responded with commitments to youth job creation programs. + +Mr. Jagmeet Singh focused on the impact of COVID-19 on seniors in long-term care, questioning Trudeau's responsibility in solving this issue. Trudeau emphasized respecting provincial jurisdiction and the federal government's supportive role. Singh then discussed the absence of fair access to crucial medications for conditions like cystic fibrosis, with Health Minister Patty Hajdu citing special access programs for unmarketed drugs in Canada. + +Hon. Pierre Poilievre questioned the government on the number of emergency response benefit cheques sent to suspects of fraud and prisoners, receiving no specific figures from Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos. + +Mrs. Tracy Gray brought up small business concerns regarding access to cleaning supplies and eligibility for financial support programs, with Ministers Anita Anand and Navdeep Bains addressing procurement efforts and program eligibility criteria. + +Mr. John Barlow discussed the dire situation for Canadian farmers and the AgriRecovery program funding, seeking immediate assistance for cattle and pork producers. Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau mentioned additional support for the agriculture sector, including special programs and business risk management programs. + +Discussion continued with various MPs raising questions about financial and operational concerns affecting different sectors and communities in Canada amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Government officials reiterated measures taken and support provided while acknowledging ongoing challenges and the need for further improvements to assistance programs." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad F: Test . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: Let 's see , I should be Two . +PhD D: Up high {disfmarker} +Grad E: As close to your mouth as you can get it . +Professor B: La +PhD D: high as you can get . +Professor B: Is this channel one ? +Postdoc G: Yeah , on your upper lip . +PhD H: Channel one one one . +Professor B: Gee , OK . Yes . OK . +Grad E: OK , so for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} For people wearing the wireless mikes , like {disfmarker} like this one , I find the easiest way to wear it is sorta this {disfmarker} this sorta like that . +PhD H: This is {disfmarker} chan channel channel one one two three +Grad F: Channel five , channel five . +Professor B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . What do you do , +Grad E: It 's actually a lot more comfortable then if you try to put it over your temples , +Grad F: Test , test test . +Professor B: you do it higher ? +Grad E: so {disfmarker} +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Adam 's just trying to generate good uh data for the recognizer there . +Postdoc G: Yeah , I think we 're supposed to {disfmarker} that 's right . +Grad E: And then also , for {disfmarker} for all of them , if your boom is adjustable , the boom should be towards the corner of your mouth , +Grad F: Test test . +PhD A: By the way , there was a bug . Yeah , i it wasn't using the proper +PhD D: Oh it was . +Grad E: and about a uh a thumb to a thumb and a half distance away from your mouth , +PhD A: basically it wasn't adapting anything . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: so about like I 'm wearing it now . +PhD D: Oh that 's interesting . So why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Grad E: so so Jane , you could actually do even a little closer to your mouth , +PhD H: It 's not always possible . +PhD A: Hmm ? +PhD D: Why didn't you get the same results and the unadapted ? +Postdoc G: I could {disfmarker} can this be adjuste like this ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , because when it estimates the transformer pro produces like a single matrix or something . +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: Is that @ @ ? OK , thank you . +Grad F: Adam , I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD D: O Oh oh I see . +Grad F: uh , looks kinda low on channel five {disfmarker} +PhD D: I see , I see . +Professor B: OK . +Grad F: no ? +Grad E: Channel five , s speak again . +Grad F: Maybe not . +Postdoc G: Hello . +PhD A: Basically there were no counts +Grad E: Yeah , that 's alright . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad E: I mean , we could {disfmarker} we could up the gain slightly if you wanted to . +Grad F: It 's OK ? +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad F: Is this OK ? +PhD H: OK . +PhD D: I see what you mean . +PhD C: Who 's channel B ? +Grad E: but {disfmarker} Uh , channel B is probably Liz . +PhD C: Uh oh . +PhD H: Uh channel B {disfmarker} I am channel B . +Professor B: You wanna close this , +Postdoc G: Channel eight , eight . +Professor B: or +PhD C: No I +Grad E: Thank you . +PhD H: No , channel B . +PhD A: Hello , hello . +PhD C: yeah , yeah , you 're channel B . +PhD H: Yeah , yeah . +PhD C: So can you talk a bit ? I thought it might be too +PhD H: OK , yeah , channel B , one two three four five . +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's alright . So , the gain isn't real good . +Professor B: We 're recording , +PhD C: OK . +Professor B: right ? +Grad E: OK , so we are recording . +PhD H: Ah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: Um everyone should have at least two forms possibly three in front of you depending on who you are . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: Um we {disfmarker} we 're doing a new speaker form and you only have to spea fill out the speaker form once but everyone does need to do it . And so that 's the name , sex , email , et cetera . +PhD H: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: We {disfmarker} we had a lot of discussion about the variety of English and so on so if you don't know what to put just leave it blank . Um I {disfmarker} I designed the form and I don't know what to put for my own region , +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: so +PhD D: California . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: California . +PhD H: California . +PhD A: Um may I make one suggestion ? Instead of age put date of {disfmarker} uh year of birth +Grad E: Sure . +PhD A: because age will change , but The year of birth changes , you know , stays the same , usually . +Grad E: Oh . +PhD C: A actually , wait a minute , +Grad E: Birth year ? +Postdoc G: Although on {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: shouldn't it be the other way around ? +PhD D: Not for me . +Postdoc G: course on the other {disfmarker} on the other hand you could {disfmarker} you view it as the age at the time of the {disfmarker} +PhD C: On the other side , +PhD A: Well the thing is , if ten years from now you look at this form knowing that {disfmarker} +PhD C: yeah . +Postdoc G: Yes , but what we care about is the age at {disfmarker} at the recording date rather than the {disfmarker} +PhD C: O yeah . +PhD D: But there 's no other date on the form . +PhD C: W we don't care how they {disfmarker} old they really are . +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} well I don't know . +Postdoc G: Yes . {vocalsound} Unless we wanna send them a card . +Grad E: Well I guess it depends on how long the corpus is gonna be collected for . +PhD A: Anyway . +Postdoc G: Yeah , that 's true . +PhD C: I still don't see the problem . +Grad E: Either way yeah I think {disfmarker} I think age is alright +PhD A: OK . +Grad E: and then um there will be attached to this a point or two these forms uh so that you 'll be able to extract the date off that +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: so , anyway . And so then you also have a digits form which needs to be filled out every time , the speaker form only once , the digit form every time even if you don't read the digits you have to fill out the digits form so that we know that you were at the meeting . OK ? And then also if you haven't filled one out already you do have to fill out a consent form . And that should just be one person whose name I don't know . OK ? +Grad F: Do you want this {pause} Adam ? +Grad E: Uh sure . Thank you . +Professor B: So uh +Grad E: OK so should we do agenda items ? +Professor B: Uh oh that 's a good idea . I shouldn't run the meeting . +Grad E: Uh well I have {disfmarker} I wanna talk about new microphones and wireless stuff . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: And I 'm sure Liz and Andreas wanna talk about recognition results . Anything else ? +PhD C: I guess {disfmarker} what time do we have to leave ? Three thirty ? +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah , +Grad E: Why don't you go first then . +PhD C: so . +Professor B: Yeah , good idea . +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: Um Well , I {disfmarker} I sent out an email s couple hours ago so um with Andreas ' help um Andreas put together a sort of no frills recognizer which is uh gender - dependent but like no adaptation , no cross - word models , no trigrams {disfmarker} a bigram recognizer and that 's trained on Switchboard which is telephone conversations . Um and thanks to Don 's help wh who {disfmarker} Don took the first meeting that Jane had transcribed and um {vocalsound} you know separated {disfmarker} used the individual channels we segmented it in into the segments that Jane had used and uh Don sampled that so {disfmarker} so eight K um and then we ran up to I guess the first twenty minutes , up to synch time of one two zero zero so is that {disfmarker} that 's twenty minutes or so ? Um yeah because I guess there 's some , +Grad E: Or so . +PhD C: and Don can talk to Jane about this , there 's some bug in the actual synch time file that ah uh I 'm {disfmarker} we 're not sure where it came from but stuff after that was a little messier . Anyway so it 's twenty minutes and I actually +Grad E: Hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: I {disfmarker} was that {disfmarker} did that {disfmarker} did that recording have the glitch in the middle ? +Postdoc G: I 'm puzzled by that . I {disfmarker} oh {disfmarker} oh , I see . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Oh there was a glitch somewhere . +PhD C: yeah , so that actually um +Grad F: Was it twenty minutes in , +PhD C: if it was twenty minutes in then I don't know +Postdoc G: I forgot about that . +Grad F: I thought {disfmarker} +PhD A: Well it was interesting , +Postdoc G: Well , I mean , they {disfmarker} +PhD A: suddenly {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the overall error rate when we first ran it was like eighty percent +Grad E: I don't remember when it is . +Postdoc G: but I was able to can transcribe +PhD A: but i looking at {disfmarker} the first sentences looked much better than that and then suddenly it turned very bad and then we noticed that the reference was always one off with the {disfmarker} it was actually recognized +PhD C: Wel +Grad E: Oh no . +Grad F: Yeah , that might be {disfmarker} that might be {disfmarker} that might be my fault . +Postdoc G: Wow . +PhD A: so +Grad E: Oh so that was just a parsing mismatch . +Grad F: I 'm not {disfmarker} +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: No actually it was {disfmarker} yeah i it was a complicated bug because they were sometimes one off and then sometimes totally random so um +Grad F: yeah , I was pretty certain that it worked up until that time , +Postdoc G: Oh . That 's not good . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: OK . +PhD C: so that 's what we have +Grad E: Alright . +Grad F: so +PhD C: but that {disfmarker} that will be completely gone if this synch time problem +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: The {disfmarker} the glitch +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so we have everything recognized but we scored only the first uh whatever , up to that time to +Postdoc G: And the only glitch {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: yeah . +PhD C: So you guys know . +Professor B: S sorry I haven't seen the email , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Th - the +Postdoc G: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} wait +Professor B: what was the score ? +PhD C: So here 's the actual copy of the email +Postdoc G: we should say something about the glitch . He {disfmarker} he can say something about the glitch . +PhD C: um oh OK +Grad E: yeah . +Postdoc G: Cuz it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} h it 's {disfmarker} it 's very small {disfmarker} +PhD C: so does this glitch occur at other {disfmarker} +Grad E: There {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there 's an acoustic glitch that occurs where um the channels get slightly asynchronized +Postdoc G: very small . Yep . +PhD C: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . +Grad E: so the {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that problem has gone away in the original driver believe it or not when the SSH key gen ran the driver paused for a fraction of a second +Professor B: Hmm . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: and so the channels get a little asynchronous and so if you listen to it in the middle there 's a little part where it starts doing {disfmarker} doing click sounds . +Professor B: So {disfmarker} +PhD C: And is it only once that that happens ? +Grad E: But yeah +PhD C: OK . +Grad E: it {disfmarker} right once in the middle . +PhD C: There 's {disfmarker} the previous page has some more information about sort of what was wrong +Professor B: so {disfmarker} so un unsurprisingly Adam is the golden voice , +PhD C: but +Grad E: Um But that shouldn't affect anything +PhD C: OK so that 's actually +Postdoc G: S and it {disfmarker} +Professor B: you see this here ? +PhD C: It {disfmarker} y it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah yeah "" bah "" +PhD C: OK no {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh , and {disfmarker} +PhD C: What happens is it actually affects the script that Don {disfmarker} +PhD D: Huh . +PhD C: I mean if we know about it then I guess it could always be checked for it +Grad E: Well the acoustic one shouldn't do anything . +PhD C: but they +Grad F: Yeah , I don't know exactly what affected it +Postdoc G: I agree . I agree . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I have {disfmarker} +Grad F: but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll talk to you about it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: But I {disfmarker} I do remember {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'll show you the point . +Postdoc G: Yeah . It {disfmarker} it had no effect on my transcription , +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: you know , I mean I {disfmarker} I had no trouble hearing it and {disfmarker} and having time bins +Grad E: I do remember seeing once the transcriber produce an incorrect XML file where one of the synch numbers was incorrect . +Postdoc G: but there was a {disfmarker} Oh . +PhD C: Well , the {disfmarker} the synch time {disfmarker} the synch numbers have more significant digits than they should , +Grad F: That 's what happened . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD H: Yeah . +Grad E: Where {disfmarker} where they weren't monotonic . +Grad F: There was {disfmarker} yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +PhD C: right ? There 's things that are l in smaller increments than a frame . +PhD H: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh , interesting . +PhD C: And so then , I mean you look at that and it 's got you know more than three significant digits in a synch time then that can't be right +Grad E: Oh OK so that 's +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: so anyway it 's {disfmarker} it 's just {disfmarker} +Grad E: yeah sounds like a bug . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's why we only have twenty minutes but there 's a significant amount of {disfmarker} +Grad F: Non - zero ? Um there are like more {disfmarker} cuz there 's a lot of zeros I tacked on just because of the way the script ran , +Grad E: The other one I saw was that it yeah . +Grad F: I mean but there were there was a point . +PhD C: Yeah that was fine . That {disfmarker} that was OK . +Grad E: The other one I saw was non non - monotonic synch times +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: and that definitely indicra indicates a bug . +Grad F: Uh . +PhD C: Well that would really be a problem , yeah . So anyway these are just the ones that are the prebug for one meeting . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: um and what 's {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} +Grad E: So that 's very encouraging . +PhD C: this is really encouraging cuz this is free recognition , +Professor B: Hmm . +PhD H: Yeah . +Professor B: Cool . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: there 's no I mean the language model for Switchboard is totally different so you can see some like this Trent Lott which +PhD D: Trent Lott . +PhD C: um I mean these are sort of funny ones , +PhD D: It 'll get those though . +PhD C: there 's a lot of perfect ones and good ones and all the references , I mean you can read them and when we get more results you can look through and see +Grad E: I and as I said I would like to look at the lattices +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: but um it 's pretty good . +Grad E: because it sounded like even the ones it got wrong it sort of got it right ? +PhD C: Well so I guess we can generate +Grad E: Sounds likes ? +PhD A: There are a fair number of errors that are , you know where {disfmarker} got the plural S wrong or the inflection on the verb wrong . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Yeah , and who cares ? And {disfmarker} and there were lots of {disfmarker} of course the "" uh uh "" - s , "" in on "" - s "" of uh "" - s . +PhD A: Mmm , so if {disfmarker} +PhD C: there 's {disfmarker} No those are actually +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: a lot of the errors I think are out of vocabulary , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: so is it like PZM is three words , it 's PZM , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: I mean there 's nothing There 's no language model for PZM or +Grad E: Right . Ri - ri right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Did you say there 's no language for PZM ? +PhD C: No language model , I mean those {disfmarker} +Grad E: Do you mean {disfmarker} so every time someone says PZM it 's an error ? Maybe we shouldn't say PZM in these meetings . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} well there 's all kinds of other stuff like Jimlet and I mean um anyway there {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right , Jimlet . +Professor B: Well , we don't even know what that means , +PhD C: so {vocalsound} but this is really encouraging because +Professor B: so I +Grad E: Yeah , that 's right . +PhD C: so , I mean the bottom line is even though it 's not a huge amount of data um it should be uh reasonable to actually run recognition and be like within the scope of {disfmarker} of r reasonable s you know Switchboard this is like h about how well we do on Switchboard - two data with the Switchboard - one trained {disfmarker} mostly trained recognizer +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and Switchboard - two is {disfmarker} got sort of a different population of speakers and a different topic +Grad E: Excellent . +PhD C: and they 're talking about things in the news that happened after Switchboard - one so there was @ @ so that 's great . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah so we 're in better shape than we were say when we did {disfmarker} had the ninety - three workshop +PhD C: Um +Professor B: and we were all getting like seventy percent error on Switchboard . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Oh yeah +Professor B: you know +PhD C: I mean this is really , +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: and thanks to Andreas who , I mean this is a +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: Well especially for the very first run , I mean you {disfmarker} +PhD A: Oh it 's the {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: eh um +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: yeah +Grad E: the first run I ran of Switchboard I got a hundred twenty percent word error but +PhD C: So and what al also this means is that +Postdoc G: Right . +PhD C: um +Grad E: Not Switchboard , +PhD A: Well it 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: I mean there 's a bunch of things in this note to various people +Grad E: uh Broadcast News . +PhD C: especially I guess um with Jane that {disfmarker} that would help for {disfmarker} since we have this new data now uh in order to go from the transcripts more easily to um just the words that the recognizer would use for scoring . I had to deal with some of it by hand but I think a lot of it can be automated s by {disfmarker} +Professor B: Oh one thing I guess I didn't get so you know the language model was straight from {disfmarker} from bigram from Switchboard the acoustic models were also from Switchboard or {disfmarker} or +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: So they didn't have anything from this acoustic data in yet ? +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +Grad E: Yeah , so that 's great . +PhD C: No . +Professor B: OK . +PhD C: And actually {disfmarker} we actually um used Switchboard telephone bandwidth models +Postdoc G: That 's amazing . +PhD A: Well that 's {disfmarker} those are the only we ones there are , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: which I guess +PhD D: I was just gonna say , +PhD C: so that 's the on that 's the only acoustic training data that we have a lot of +PhD D: yeah . +PhD A: I mean +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: and I guess Ramana , so a guy at SRI said that um there 's not a huge amount of difference going from {disfmarker} +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: it 's {disfmarker} it 's not like we probably lose a huge amount but we won't know because we don't have any full band models for s conversational speech . +PhD D: It 's probably not as bad as going f using full band models on telephone band speech +PhD C: So . +PhD A: Oh yeah . +PhD C: Right . +PhD D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , +PhD C: Right , so it 's {disfmarker} so +Professor B: but for Broadcast News when we {disfmarker} we played around between the two there wasn't a huge loss . +Grad E: Right , it was not a big deal . +PhD C: Yeah +PhD A: I should {disfmarker} I should say that {disfmarker} the language model is not just Switchboard +PhD C: so I wou so that 's good . +Grad E: Although combining em worked well . +PhD A: it 's also {disfmarker} I mean there 's uh actually more data is from Broadcast News but with a little less weight +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD A: uh because +Professor B: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Like Trent Lott must have been from +PhD A: mm - hmm , right . +PhD C: I guess {vocalsound} Switchboard was before +PhD A: Um By the way just {disfmarker} for fun we also ran , +PhD C: uh . +Professor B: Good point . +PhD A: I mean our complete system starts by doing ge a gender detection +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: so just for the heck of it I ran that +Grad E: And it said a hundred percent male ? +PhD A: um and it might be reassuring for everybody to know that it got all the genders right . +PhD C: The j +PhD A: Yeah so +Grad E: Oh it did ? +Postdoc G: Oh that 's {disfmarker} I 'm glad . +Grad E: It got all two genders ? +PhD C: Yeah but you know Jane and Adam have you kn about equal performance +PhD A: Yeah . Yes . +PhD C: and uh and that 's interesting cuz I think the {disfmarker} their language models are quite different so and I {disfmarker} I 'm pretty sure from listening to Eric that , you know given the words he was saying and given his pronunciation that the reason that he 's so much worse is the lapel . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Right . +Postdoc G: That makes a lot of sense , +PhD C: So it 's nice now if we can just sort of eliminate the lapel one when {disfmarker} when we get new microphones +Postdoc G: yeah . Very possible . +Professor B: Yeah I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would bet on that too +PhD C: that would be worth it +Professor B: cuz he certainly in that {disfmarker} when as a {disfmarker} as a burp user he was {disfmarker} he was a pretty uh strong one . +PhD C: um Yeah +Grad E: Sheep . +PhD C: he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he sounded to me just from {disfmarker} he sounded like a , +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: what 's it a sheep or a goat ? +Professor B: Sheep . +Grad E: A sheep . +PhD C: Sheep , +Grad E: Baah . +Professor B: Yeah . Sheep is good . +PhD C: right . Sounded good . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Right so um so I guess the good news is that +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: and {disfmarker} and again this is without a lot of the sort of bells and whistles that we c can do with the SRI system and we 'll have more data and we can also start to maybe adapt the language models once we have enough meetings . So this is only twenty minutes of one meeting with no {disfmarker} no tailoring at all . +PhD A: I mean clearly there are um with just a small amount of uh actual meeting transcriptions uh thrown into the language model you can probably do quite a bit better because the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . The voca the vocabulary especially +Grad E: Or just dictionary . +PhD C: yeah . +PhD A: Not that much the vocabulary actually +PhD C: Yeah , so . +PhD A: I think {disfmarker} um well we have to see but {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . It 's pretty good um so then +Professor B: Have to add PZM and so on +Grad E: And I have to try it on the far field mike +Professor B: but +PhD C: PZM +Grad E: yeah . +PhD C: and then there 's things like for the transcription I got when someone has a digit in the transcript I don't know if they said , you know one one or eleven and I don't know if they said Tcl or TCL . there 's things like that where , you know the um we 'll probably have to ask the transcribers to indicate some of those kinds of things but in general it was really good and I 'm hoping {disfmarker} and this is {disfmarker} this is good news because that means the force alignments should be good and if the force alignments , I mean it 's good news anyway but if the force alignments are good we can get all kinds of information . For example about , you know prosodic information and speaker overlaps and so forth directly from the aligned times . Um so that 'll be something that actually in order to assess the forced alignment um we need s some linguists or some people to look at it and say are these boundaries in about the right place . Because it 's just gonna give us time marks +PhD D: But you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we 've done that for one meeting . +PhD C: so . For forced alignment . +Grad E: Uh oh oh f not for words +PhD C: Ye - right . +Grad E: I 'm sorry just for overlaps is we did it for not {disfmarker} not for words . +PhD C: Right . So this would be like if you take the words um you know and force align them on all the individual close talk uh close talking mikes then how good are these sort of in reality +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: and then I was thinking it {disfmarker} +Grad E: So we might want to take twenty minutes and do a closer word level transcription . Maybe actually mark the word boundaries . +PhD C: Oh or {disfmarker} i have someone look at the alignments uh maybe a linguist who can say um you know roughly if these are OK and how far away they are . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Um but I think it 's gotta be pretty good because otherwise the word recognition would be really b crummy . +Grad E: Right , right . +PhD C: It wouldn't necessarily be the other way around , if the wor word recognition was crummy the alignment might be OK but if the word recognition is this good the alignment should be pretty good . So that 's about it . +Professor B: I r +PhD D: I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing though , I mean if we 're pr +Grad E: That we 're starting so well ? +PhD D: yeah if we 're producing a database that everybody 's gonna do well on +Professor B: Oh +Grad E: Don't worry about it w d that 's that 's the close talking mikes . Try it on the P Z Ms and {disfmarker} and +Professor B: Yeah , which {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} well n n n n +PhD D: So the real value of the database is these ? +PhD H: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , abso well no but +Professor B: I mean there 's still just the w the percentages and , I mean they 're not {disfmarker} a as we 've talked about before there 's probably overlaps +PhD C: This i yeah . This is not that good . +Professor B: there 's probably overlaps in {disfmarker} in uh in fair number in Switchboard as well so but {disfmarker} but there 's other phenomena , it 's a meeting , it 's a different thing and there 's lots of stuff to learn with the close talking mikes but uh yeah certainly I 'd like to see as soon as we could , I mean maybe get some of the glitches out of the way but soon as we could how well it does with say with the P Z Ms or maybe even one of the +PhD C: Right . +Professor B: and uh see if it 's , you know is it a hundred twenty percent or maybe it 's not maybe if with some adaptation you get this down to fifty percent or forty - five percent or something and {disfmarker} and then if for the PZM it 's seventy or something like that that 's actually something we could sort of work with a little bit +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor B: so +PhD C: No I think it 's really , I mean this way we least have a baseline we know that for instance the transcripts are very good so once you can get to the words that the recognizer which is a total subset of the things you need to understand the {disfmarker} the text um yeah they 're pretty good so and {disfmarker} and it 's converting automatically from the XML to the chopping up the wave forms and so forth it 's not the case that the end of one utterance is in the next segment and things like that which we had more problems with in Switchboard so that 's good . And um let 's see there was one more thing I wanted to {disfmarker} to mention {disfmarker} I can't remember um Sorry can't remember . anyway it 's {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Congratulations is really great . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: well it was , I mean I really didn't do this myself +Grad E: Yeah , it 's really good . +PhD C: so Andreas set up this recognizer and {disfmarker} by the way the recognizer all the files I 'm moving to SRI and running everything there so I brought back just these result files and people can look at them um so +PhD A: We {disfmarker} we talked about setting up the SRI recognizer here . That 's {disfmarker} you know if {disfmarker} if there are more machines um uh here plus people can {disfmarker} could run their own uh you know variants of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the recognition {pause} runs um certainly doable . Um . +Professor B: Yeah and {disfmarker} well certainly if the recognition as opposed to training , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: Seems reasonable . +Postdoc G: I need t Hmm . I need to ask one question . +PhD A: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Which is um so this issue {vocalsound} of the uh legalistic aspects of the pre - sent you know pre - adapted {disfmarker} Yeah , well , so what I mean is um the {disfmarker} uh the data that you take into SRI , first {disfmarker} first question , you 're maintaining it in {disfmarker} in a place that wouldn't be publicly readable that {disfmarker} that kind of stuff , right ? +PhD A: U um +PhD C: From the outside world or +Postdoc G: By uh people uh who are not associated with this project . +PhD A: Oh . +Grad E: It 's human subjects issues , I told you about that . +PhD C: Um oh . +Postdoc G: Exactly . +PhD C: Well OK we have n no names . Although I sh um +Grad E: That {disfmarker} that 's not the issue , +PhD C: de audio data itself ? +Grad E: it 's just the audio data itself , until people have a chance to edit it . +Postdoc G: Mm - hmm , exactly . +PhD C: Uh so well I can {disfmarker} I can protect my directories through there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Right now they 're not {disfmarker} they 're in the speech group directories which {disfmarker} so I will {disfmarker} +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: I didn't know that actually . +Professor B: Yeah so we just have to go through this process of having people approve the transcriptions , +PhD C: Yeah OK . +Professor B: say it 's OK . +PhD C: Right OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah , we had to get them to approve em and then i cuz {disfmarker} cuz the other question I was gonna ask is if we 're having um you know it 's but this {disfmarker} this meeting that you have , no problem cuz I {disfmarker} I well I mean I {disfmarker} I speak for myself +Grad E: It 's us . +Postdoc G: but {disfmarker} but I think that we didn't do anything that but well anyway so {vocalsound} uh I wouldn't be too concerned about it with respect to that although we should clear it with Eric and Dan of course but these results are based on data which haven't had the uh haven't had the chance to be reviewed by the subjects +PhD C: That 's true . +Postdoc G: and I don't know how that stands , I mean if you {disfmarker} if you get fantastic results and it 's involving {comment} data which {disfmarker} which later end up being lessened by , you know certain elisions , then I don't know but I wanted to raise that issue , +Professor B: Well we , +Postdoc G: that 's all . +Professor B: I mean once we get all this streamlined it may be sh it {disfmarker} hopefully it will be fairly quick but we get the transcriptions , people approve them and so on it 's just that we 're +Grad E: Alright we need to work at a system for doing that approval so that we can send people the transcripts +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: and get back any bleeps that they want +PhD C: Yeah actually the bleeps are also an issue I thought . +Professor B: It 's gonna be a rare thing that there 's a bleep for the most part . +PhD A: U uh actually I had a question about the downsampling , um I don't know who , I mean how this was done but is {disfmarker} is there {disfmarker} are there any um {vocalsound} issues with downsampling +PhD C: Don did this . +PhD A: because I know that the recognizer um that we use h can do it sort of on the fly um so we wouldn't have to have it eh you know do it uh explicitly beforehand . And is there any um i are there other d sev uh is there more than one way to do the downsampling where one might be better than another ? +Grad F: There are lots of w {vocalsound} there are lots of ways to do the downsampling um different filters to put on , +PhD A: OK . Right . OK . +Grad F: like anti - aliasing stuff . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the {disfmarker} th +Grad E: I don't think we even know which one I assume you 're using syncat to do it ? +Grad F: No , I 'm using uh SN SND uh are resample . +Grad E: Or sound resample ? +PhD C: Re - re ref +Grad E: Resample . +PhD C: yeah . +Grad E: Yeah and Dan 's archaic acronyms . +Grad F: RSMP . Yeah , I don't really . +PhD C: Missing all the vowels . +Grad F: I just {disfmarker} yeah I found it . +PhD C: Some of the vowels , +Grad E: Not all of them . +PhD C: almost all the vowels , that 's the hard part . +PhD A: So {disfmarker} so the other thing we should try is to just take the original wave forms , +Grad E: And a few of the consonants . +PhD A: I mean segment them but not downsample them . +PhD C: Yeah we could {disfmarker} we could try that and {disfmarker} and compare +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and feed them to {disfmarker} feed them to the SRI recognizer and see if {disfmarker} if the SRI front - end does something . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I suspect that 's sort of premature optimization , but Sure . +PhD C: We can try it . I {disfmarker} I only downsampled them first cuz I was +PhD A: Well {disfmarker} +Grad F: I mean that 's just one line {disfmarker} that 's one line of code to comment at +PhD C: yeah +PhD A: Right and {disfmarker} and it doesn't {disfmarker} is no more work {vocalsound} for um you know for us . +Grad F: so +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD C: Well they 're just bigger to transfer , that 's why I s downsampled them before but +PhD A: Well but they 're only twice as big so +PhD C: Well I mean that was {disfmarker} if it 's the same then we can downsample here +PhD A: I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just a +PhD C: but if it 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: Although those eighty meg files take a while to copy into my directories +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad F: so , but no , I mean it 's not {disfmarker} i it wouldn't be a problem if you 're interested in it {disfmarker} +PhD C: We could try that . +PhD A: Yeah I mean it would be uh you know it would probably take uh about um you know +Grad F: it would {disfmarker} +PhD A: minus the transfer time it would {disfmarker} it would take uh you know ten minutes to try and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's about a fifty minute drive , right ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} and if for some reason we see that it works better then we might investigate why +PhD C: Well it takes more disk space too so I was just {disfmarker} +PhD A: and , you know , what {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad F: Mmm . In the front - end we could do that . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor B: So you just train {disfmarker} just different filters +Grad F: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor B: and so you 're just wondering whether the filter is +Grad F: Yeah , I can imagine it would be {disfmarker} +PhD A: Right . Right . +PhD C: So we could try that with this particular twenty minutes of speech and sort of see if there 's any differences . +Grad F: I mean I guess there 's some {disfmarker} +PhD A: You know a at some point someone might have optimized whatever filtering is done for the actual recognition um performance . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD A: So in other words right , +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: so +Grad E: It just seems to me that , you know small changes to the language model and the vocabulary will so swamp that that it may be premature to worry about that . I mean so one is a half a percent better than the other I don't think that gives you any information . +PhD C: Well it 's just as easy to {disfmarker} to give you the sixteen K individual , +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: it was just more disk space you know for storing them +Professor B: Are you {disfmarker} are you using uh uh mel cepstrum or PLP over there ? +PhD C: so +PhD A: Mel cepstrum . +Professor B: So probably doesn't matter . +PhD C: Well we could try . +Grad F: There 's {disfmarker} there 's your answer . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but it wouldn't hurt to try , +PhD C: Could easily try +PhD A: That 's what I would assume but you never know , +Professor B: yeah . +PhD C: so +PhD A: you know . +Professor B: Sure . No the reason I say this +Postdoc G: Just {disfmarker} Mm - hmm . +Professor B: PLP uses uh auto - regressive filtering and uh modeling and so it can be sensitive to the kind of filtering that you 're doing +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but uh uh mel cepstrum uh might not {disfmarker} b you wouldn't expect to be so much but +PhD C: Well we can try it if you generate like the same set of files just up to that point where we stopped anyway and just sti stick them somewhere +Grad F: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's really not a problem . +PhD A: Actually , no . +PhD C: and I 'll rerun it with +PhD A: Don't stop . Don't stop at that part because we 're actually using the entire conversation to estimate the speaker parameters , +Grad F: Keep going . Yeah . +PhD A: so shouldn't use {disfmarker} you should s you know , get +Grad F: Yeah , I mean I 'll {disfmarker} I have to do is eh e the reference file would stay the same , +PhD C: OK . +PhD A: Right . +Grad F: it 's just the individual segments would be approximately twice as long +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD C: Right . Right . +Grad F: and I could just replace them with the bigger ones in the directory , +PhD A: Right . +PhD C: I mean I corrected all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that 's not a problem . +PhD C: I mean I hand - edited the whole {disfmarker} the whole meeting so that can be run it 's just {disfmarker} Once we get the {disfmarker} the bug out . +PhD A: Mmm . +Postdoc G: One {disfmarker} one question which is I {disfmarker} I had the impression {comment} from this {disfmarker} from this meeting that w that I transcribed that um that there was already automatic downsampling occurring , +PhD A: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Postdoc G: is that I thought that in order to +Grad E: Yep . +Postdoc G: so it was {disfmarker} so it 's like there 's already down +Grad E: There 's one level that 's already happening right here . +Professor B: This is being recorded at forty - eight kilohertz . Which is more that anybody needs +Postdoc G: OK . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Oh . +Grad E: And it gets downsampled to sixteen . +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: so +PhD C: And that 's actually said in your meeting , +Grad F: Hmm . +Postdoc G: Oh OK . +PhD C: that 's how I know that . +Postdoc G: That 's exactly , and that 's how I know it . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: I {disfmarker} I {vocalsound} It 's like are we downsampling to sixteen ? +Professor B: It 's a digital audio orientation for the board +PhD C: Right . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor B: it 's in the monitor so it 's +PhD C: Thank God it 's not {vocalsound} more than that . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And I have no idea what filter it 's using , +Grad F: Is eight kilohertz {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is eighty kilohertz generally accepted as like standard for voice ? +Grad E: so +Professor B: For telephone stuff . +Grad E: Telephone . +PhD D: Telephone . +Grad F: Yeah that 's what I was gonna say , I mean like {disfmarker} +Professor B: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that they were operating from Switchboard which was a completely telephone database +Grad F: so Oh , I see , so . +Professor B: and so that was a standard for that sixteen s +Grad F: OK . +Grad E: So sixteen seems to be pretty typical for with this sort of thing . +Professor B: Sixteen is more common for {disfmarker} for uh broadband stuff that isn't {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: That isn't music . +Professor B: that isn't music and isn't telephone , +PhD C: And I guess if you 're comparing like {disfmarker} uh if you wanna run recognition on the PZM stuff you would want you don't want to downsample the wh that +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: Why is that ? +Professor B: I don't know . +PhD C: right ? Well I don I mean if it 's any better +Professor B: No actually I would think that you would {disfmarker} you would get better {disfmarker} you 'd get better high frequencies in the local mike . +Grad E: All the way around I 'd think . +Professor B: Uh but who knows ? I mean we do {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna find all this stuff out , +PhD C: Yeah well we could try it . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: we don't know . +Grad E: We 're gonna have plenty of low frequency on the P Z Ms with the fans . +PhD C: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Oh yeah there was just one more thing I wanted to say which is totally unrelated to the recognition except that um well {disfmarker} well it 's sort of related but um good news also uh I got {disfmarker} well Chuck Fillmore agreed to record meetings but he had too many people in his meetings and that 's too bad cuz they 're very animated and but uh Jerry also agreed so uh we 're starting on {disfmarker} on +PhD A: They 're less animated . +PhD C: Well but he has fewer {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he won't have more than eight and it 's a meeting on even deeper understanding , EDU , so that sounds interesting . As a compliment to our front - end meeting +Grad E: Dot EDU ? +PhD C: and um so that 's gonna start Monday and one of the things that I was realizing is um it would be really great if anyone has any ideas on some kind of time synchronous way that people in the meeting can make a comment to the person whose gonna transcribe it or {disfmarker} or put a {vocalsound} push a button or something when they wanna make a note about "" oh boy you should probably erase those last few "" or uh "" wait I want this not to be recorded now "" or uh something like that s +Professor B: Weren't we gonna do something with a pad at one point ? +Postdoc G: The cross pads ? +Grad E: Yeah , we could do it with the cross pads . +PhD C: Cuz I was thinking you know if {disfmarker} if the person who sets up the meeting isn't there and it 's a group that we don't know um and this came up talking to {disfmarker} to Jerry also that you know is there any way for them to indicate {disfmarker} to make sure that the qu request that they have that they make explicitly get addressed somehow +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: so I don't know if anyone has ideas or {disfmarker} you could even write down "" oh it 's about three twenty five and "" {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well what I was just suggesting is {disfmarker} is we have these {disfmarker} this cross pad just for this purpose +Grad E: Yeah , and use that . +Professor B: and just use that +Grad E: Not a bad idea . +Professor B: and if we sink it in {disfmarker} +PhD C: That would be great . +Professor B: The other thing is eh +PhD C: That be great . +Professor B: I don't know if you know this or if it 's a question for the mail to Dan but is this thing of two eight channel boards a maximum for this setup or could we go to a third board ? +Grad E: I don't know . I don't know . I 'll send mail to Dan and ask . I {disfmarker} I think that it 's the maximum we can do without a lot of effort because it 's one board with two digital channels . +Professor B: Oh it is one board . +Grad E: E eight each . So it {disfmarker} it takes two fibers in to the one board . And so w I think if we wanna do that {disfmarker} more than that we 'd have to have two boards , and then you have the synchronization issue . +Professor B: But that 's a question because that would {disfmarker} if it was possible cuz it is i you know already we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a group of people in this room that cannot all be miked +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: and it 's not just cuz we haven't been to the store , right it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: What is the limit on each of those f fiber channels , is it the +Grad E: Eight . +PhD D: It just {disfmarker} it 's eight channels come in , does it have do with the sampling rate ? +Grad E: It 's eight . I have no idea . But each {disfmarker} each fiber channel has eight {disfmarker} eight channels and there are two ch two fibers that go in to the card . +Professor B: It might be a hard limitation , +Grad E: So +Professor B: I mean one thing is it {disfmarker} the whole thing as I said is {disfmarker} is all structured in terms of forty - eight kilohertz sampling so that pushes requirements up a bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: but +PhD D: I was just wondering if {disfmarker} if that could change . +Grad E: I mean then we 'd also have to get another ADD and another mixer and all that sort of stuff . +PhD D: If we could drop that . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: So I {disfmarker} I 'll send a mail to Dan and ask him . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK on the uh are we done with that ? So the oth topic is uh getting more mikes and different mikes , so I got a quote um We can fit {disfmarker} we have room for one more wireless and the wireless , this unit here is three fifty {disfmarker} three hundred fifty dollars , it {disfmarker} I didn't realize but we also have to get a tuner {disfmarker} the receiver {disfmarker} the other end , that 's uh four thirty um and then also +PhD C: For {disfmarker} for each ? +PhD D: Wow . +PhD C: I mean the tuner is four thirty for each . +Grad E: Yep . +PhD C: Wow . +Grad E: And we just need one more so {disfmarker} so +Professor B: Yeah at least w we got the good ones . +Grad E: Yeah . So that 's you know something like seven hundred eighty bucks for one more of these . +Professor B: Yeah . OK . +Grad E: Um and then also um It turns out that the connector that this thing uses is proprietary of Sony +PhD D: Oh . +Grad E: believe it or not and Sony only sells this headset . +Postdoc G: Mmm . +Grad E: So if we wanna use a different set {disfmarker} headset the solution that the guy suggested and they {disfmarker} apparently lots of people have done is Sony will sell you the jack with just wires coming out the end and then you can buy a headset that has pigtail and solder it yourself . And that 's the other solution and so the jacks are forty bucks apiece and the {disfmarker} he recommended um a crown CM three eleven AE headset for two hundred bucks apiece . +Professor B: There isn't this some sort of thing that plugs in , you actually have to go and do the soldering yourself ? +Grad E: Becau - the reason is the only {disfmarker} only thing you can get that will plug into this is this mike or just the connector . +Professor B: No I understand . The reason I ask is these sort of handmade uh wiring jobs fall apart in use so the other thing is to see if we can uh get them to do a custom job and put it together for this . +Grad E: Oh I 'm sure they would , they would just charge us , +PhD D: Well , and they 'd probably want quantity too , +Grad E: so . +Professor B: Well +PhD D: they 'd +Professor B: no they 'll just charge us more , so it 's {disfmarker} this +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} so my question is should we go ahead and get na nine identical head - mounted crown mikes ? +Professor B: Not before having one come here and have some people try it out . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: Because there 's no point in doing that if it 's not gonna be any better . +Grad E: So why don't we get one of these with the crown with a different headset ? +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: And {disfmarker} and see if that works . +Professor B: And see if it 's preferable and if it is then we 'll get more . +PhD C: Comfort . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Cuz I mean I think the microphones are OK it 's just the {disfmarker} the +Grad E: Right , it 's just they 're not comfortable to wear . +Professor B: Right . +PhD C: Could make our own handbands and +Grad E: Um , and he said they don't have any of these in stock but they have them in LA and so it will take about a week to get here . +Professor B: Yeah well it 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um so OK to just go order ? +Professor B: We 're in this for the long term , yeah . Just order it . +Grad E: OK +PhD C: It 's a lot of money for a handband . +Grad E: and who is the contact if I wanna do an invoice +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: cuz I think that 's how we did it before . +Professor B: Uh we 'll do this off - line , yeah . +Grad F: It 's a long time to get from LA . +Grad E: OK . And then nine channels is the maximum we can do , so . +Professor B: Uh y right cuz {disfmarker} so one is for the daisy chain so that 's fifteen instead of sixteen +Grad E: Without getting more stuff . +Professor B: and there 's six on the table so that 's nine . +Grad E: Right . +PhD C: Can I ask a really dumb question ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} is there any way we can have you know like a {disfmarker} a wireless microphone that you pass around to the people who you know the extra people for the times they wanna talk that {disfmarker} +Grad E: Probably . +Professor B: That 's a good idea . +PhD C: I mean {disfmarker} +Professor B: That 's not a dumb question , it 's a good idea , +PhD C: Well I mean {disfmarker} +PhD A: Like uh like you know Jerry Springer thing , +Professor B: yeah . +Grad E: I 'm just not sure how we would handle that in the +Grad F: That 's like the Conch . +PhD C: Well but {disfmarker} +PhD D: Like at conferences +PhD A: you know r +PhD C: well but there might be a way to say that there are gonna be these different people +Grad F: See , look . +PhD C: um and I don't know identifying somehow ? +PhD D: so nail the chairs down . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , somehow . +PhD C: You know I was just thinking of Jerry Springer . +Grad E: It 's not a bad idea . +Professor B: No that {disfmarker} no {disfmarker} no +PhD A: +Professor B: that 's a very {disfmarker} if we can't get another board and even if we can I have a feeling they 'll be some work . +PhD D: The Springer mike . +PhD C: I mean for the few times that you might wanna have that . +Professor B: Let 's figure that we have eight which are set up and then there 's a ninth which is passed around to {disfmarker} +Grad E: A hand - held , yeah . +Professor B: that 's a good idea +PhD D: Infinite expansion . +Professor B: Right . Kind of rules out overlap but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but uh +PhD C: Well or also for you know if people are not +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: Well we could just hand around the lapel . +Professor B: Uh no {disfmarker} no that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Rather than get a {disfmarker} +PhD C: No not the lapel . +Grad E: do you want a handset ? +Professor B: No . +Grad E: Well I mean is the {disfmarker} is the hand - held really any better ? +PhD D: Liz hates the lapel . +Professor B: Yes . +PhD C: I don't know +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: but I d I know the lapel is really suboptimal . +Professor B: No it {disfmarker} no it depends on the hand - held +Grad E: Is awful ? +Professor B: but hand {disfmarker} many hand - helds are built wi with sort of uh anti - shock sort of things so that it {disfmarker} it is less uh susceptible to hand noises . If you hold the lapel mike i you just get all k sorts of junk . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: Right . I mean the ones they really pass around must be sort of OK . +Grad E: OK . +Professor B: so +Grad E: So I wonder if they have one that will hook up . +Professor B: Yeah . They have {disfmarker} What ? +Grad E: I wonder if they have one that will hook up to this or whether again we 'll have to wire it ourselves . +PhD D: Well , you wouldn't want it to hook there you 'd just want it to hook into the receiver in the other room , right ? +Professor B: No that 's uh {disfmarker} you need a transmitter . +Grad E: What ? +PhD D: Is th isn't that built into the mike ? +Professor B: Oh I see . Get a {disfmarker} get a different radio , yeah . +PhD C: Yeah just these ones that they pass around with no you know wireless +Professor B: Yeah . But you need a ra but it has to correspond to the receiver . +PhD D: Have a little antenna coming out the bottom . +Grad E: It 's gonna be much easier to get one of these and just plug in a mike , isn't it ? +PhD D: But then the mike has to h +PhD A: Do you have to hand it around and if you have two pieces of +Professor B: No no {disfmarker} +PhD C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor B: so right , so this is a good point , so yeah you have these {disfmarker} these mikes with a little antenna on the end right ? +Grad E: OK . And do you think you would be able to use the same receiver ? +Professor B: I don't know . You 'll have to check with them , +Grad E: OK I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll ask . +Professor B: yeah . But that 's {disfmarker} that 's a great idea +PhD D: It 's just a frequency . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: and then just sort of have that as the {disfmarker} and then you can have groups of twenty people or whatever and {disfmarker} and uh +PhD C: Yeah because there 's only I mean as Andreas pointed out actually I think in the large {disfmarker} the larger the group the less interaction {disfmarker} the less people are talking um over each other {disfmarker} +PhD A: Pretty soon . +PhD D: Mmm , yeah . +PhD C: it just {disfmarker} there might be a lot of people that speak once or twice and +Professor B: Right . +PhD A: Um Gotta go . +Professor B: Off you go , yeah . +Grad E: OK so I guess people who have to leave can leave and do we have anything else to discuss or should we just do digits ? +Postdoc G: I {disfmarker} I thought of some extra {disfmarker} a couple of extra things I 'd like to mention . +Grad E: OK . +Postdoc G: One of them is to give you a status in terms of the transcriptions so far . So um as of last night um I 'd assigned twelve hours and they 'd finished nine +Grad E: uh Yep , +Postdoc G: and my goal was to have eleven done by the end of the month , I think that by tomorrow we 'll have ten . +PhD C: Uh it 's great {disfmarker} +Professor B: Pretty close , +Postdoc G: So they 're still working . +Professor B: that 's good . +PhD C: I j and this {disfmarker} I got this email from Jane at like two in the morning or something +PhD D: Wow . +Grad E: that 's good . +PhD C: so it 's really great +Postdoc G: It 's working out , thanks . +PhD C: It 's really great . +Postdoc G: Thanks . And then um also an idea for another meeting , which would be to have the transcribers talk about the data It 's sort of a {disfmarker} a little bit {disfmarker} a little bit +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Professor B: Super idea . +Grad E: Yep , that 'd be very interesting . +PhD C: That 's a great idea cuz I 'd like to g have it recorded so that we can remember all the little things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: I 'd love to hear what they have to say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: that 's a great idea . +PhD D: So if we got them to talk about this meeting , it would be a meta {disfmarker} meta meeting . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah , exa {vocalsound} exactly I guess {disfmarker} nested several layers , +Professor B: Now you have eight transcribers and there 's ten of us +Postdoc G: but +Professor B: so how do we do this , is the only thing . +PhD C: Or just have them talk amongst themselves . +PhD D: Have them have their own meeting . +PhD C: And have +Postdoc G: Well that 's what I 'm thinking , +Professor B: Oh . +Postdoc G: yeah . Have them talk about the data and they {disfmarker} and they 've made observations to me +PhD C: that would be great . +Postdoc G: like they say uh you know this meeting that we think has so much overlap , in fact it does but there are other groups of similar size that have very little , you know it 's part of it 's {disfmarker} it 's the norm of the group and all that and they have various observations that would be fun , I think . +PhD C: That 's a great idea . +Grad E: Yeah , I 'd like to hear what they s say . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +PhD C: Be great . +Professor B: So maybe we could {disfmarker} they could have a meeting more or less without us that {disfmarker} to do this and we should record it +Postdoc G: OK . +Professor B: and then maybe one or two of them could come to one of these meetings and {disfmarker} and could you know could tell us about it . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Give us a status . +PhD C: Yeah . +Postdoc G: Oh good . OK . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} they will get to transcribe their own meeting but they also get paid for having a break +Grad E: That would be weird . +Postdoc G: What {disfmarker} what yeah that 's right . +PhD C: and I think that 's a good idea , +Postdoc G: Yeah exactly , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD C: get them involved . +Postdoc G: Great . +PhD C: Um that 's a great idea . +Postdoc G: Great . +Professor B: Super . +PhD C: I 'm really sorry I have to g no I have to go as well . +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And then I wanted to also um say something about the Fiscus uh uh John {disfmarker} John Fiscus visit tomorrow . And Which is to say that w it 'll be from nine to one that I 'm going to uh uh offer the organization {disfmarker} allow him to uh adjust it if he wishes but to be basically in three parts , the acoustic part coming first which would be basically the room engineering aspects um other things and he 'll be also presenting what NIST is doing and {disfmarker} and uh then uh number two would be sort of a the {disfmarker} the transcription process so this would be a focus on like presegmentation and the modifications to the {disfmarker} the multitrans interface which allows more refined encoding of the beginnings and ends of the overlapping segments which uh Dave Gelbart 's been doing and then um uh and of course the presegmentation Thilo 's been doing and then um the third part would {disfmarker} and again he has some stuff that 's i relevant with respect to NIST and then the third one would be focus on transcription standards so at NIST he 's interested in this establishment of a global encoding standard I guess I would say and I want it , you know k yeah see what they 're doing and also present what {disfmarker} what we 've chosen as ours and {disfmarker} and discuss that kind of thing . And so but he 's only here until until one and actually we 're thinking of noon being uh lunch time so basically hoping that we can get as much of this done as possible before noon . S +Professor B: OK . +Postdoc G: And everybody who wants to attend is welcome . So +Grad E: Oh , where you 're gonna meet ? +Postdoc G: yeah . Here mostly but I 've also reserved the BARCO room um eh to figure out how that works in terms of like maybe having a live demonstration . +Professor B: OK but the nine o ' cl nine o ' clock will be i be in here . Yeah , OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I assume we 're not gonna try to record it ? +Postdoc G: Oh I think that would be hard , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah , I think just adds {disfmarker} +Grad E: Alright . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: Um good . +Postdoc G: Thank you though , uh - huh . +Professor B: So maybe do digits and recess ? +Grad E: Unless there 's anything else ? +Postdoc G: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: Do digital ones ? +Professor B: Uh OK . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Grad E: Uh should y we make him wear Andreas ' mike or would that just be too confusing ? +Professor B: Yeah . No I don't think it 's confusing . Well , it doesn't confuse me . +Postdoc G: When we do this in the key {disfmarker} in the key {disfmarker} in the key it has to indicate that channel change , +PhD D: Does it mess up the forms ? +Postdoc G: right ? +Grad E: Uh yeah I just don't know how we would do that , so . I mean other than free {disfmarker} free form . +Postdoc G: Well i have a time mark . +PhD D: The on switch is here on the {disfmarker} on the top there . +Postdoc G: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +Grad E: And just clip it to your collar . +Professor B: That 's fine . +Grad J: OK , my name is uh Espen Eriksen . I 'm a Norwegian . Um uh this is my second semester at Berkeley . Currently I 'm taking uh my first graduate level courses in DSP and um when I come back to Norway I 'm gonna continue with the {disfmarker} more of a research project work {disfmarker} kind of work . So this semester I 'm starting up with a {disfmarker} with a small project through uh Dave Gelbart which I 'm taking a course with I got in touch with him and he told me about this project . So with the help of uh Dan Ellis I 'm gonna do small project associated to this . What I 'm gonna try to do is uh use {disfmarker} use ech echo cancellation to uh to handle the periods where you have overlapping talk . To try to do something about that . So currently I 'm um I 'm just reading up on echo cancellation , s looking into the theory behind that and then uh hopefully I get some results . So it {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a project goes over the course of one semester . +Grad E: Great . +Grad J: So I 'm just here today to introduce myself . Tell about I 'll be {disfmarker} I 'll be working on this . +Grad E: And are you staying at Berkeley or is {disfmarker} are you just here a semester ? +Grad J: This is my second semester and last . +Grad E: Ah second and last , +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . +Grad J: So I leave +Professor B: He 's in the {disfmarker} he 's in the cour two two five D course . +Grad J: Yeah , I 'm in Morgan 's course , +Professor B: So , yeah . +Grad J: yeah . +Grad E: Good . +PhD D: Welcome . +Postdoc G: Then you {disfmarker} then you go back to Norway , that 's OK . +Grad J: Yeah . +Grad F: We were just talking about something like this yesterday or yeah yesterday with Liz . About doing some of the {vocalsound} echo cancellation stuff or possibly the spectroanalysis over the overlaps , so . Cool . +Grad J: Yeah . +Professor B: OK , +Grad E: Digits ? +Professor B: let 's do digits . OK . +Grad E: And stop . +","Graduate student F is conducting a microphone test. Postdoc G confirms the microphone setup is okay, and Professor B discusses mic positioning with assistance from Grad E and PhD D. The group proceeds to discuss proper microphone use, especially for those wearing wireless mics. They encounter some technical bugs but aim to resolve them. + +Grad E explains the importance of filling out forms for speakers, consent, and digits properly for recording purposes, relevant to a new speaker form designed by Grad E. There's a discussion about preferring date of birth over age on forms. + +PhD C presents preliminary speech recognition results, emphasizing adapted recognizer improvements. They discuss potential bugs, data downsampling, and error rates. They also highlight the importance of aligning transcriptions correctly and the effect of microphone types on recognition performance. + +The group considers increasing the number of microphones and potentially buying more comfortable headsets. They brainstorm solutions for recording larger groups, like passing around a hand-held microphone, and review plans for a visit from John Fiscus of NIST. + +Finally, Grad J introduces himself, his background as a Norwegian DSP student at Berkeley, and outlines his project on echo cancellation for handling overlapping speech during transcriptions. The session concludes with Professor B suggesting they move on to reading digits." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: +Grad D: How many batteries do you go through ? +Grad B: Thank you . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: Sure . +Professor C: Good . Yeah . OK so , let 's get started . Nancy said she 's coming and that means she will be . Um . My suggestion is that Robert and Johno sort of give us a report on last week 's adventures uh to start . So everybody knows there were these guys f uh from Heidelber - uh , uh , actually from uh DFKI uh , part of the German SmartKom project , who were here for the week and , I think got a lot done . +Grad E: Yeah , I think so too . Um . The {disfmarker} we got to the point where we can now speak into the SmartKom system , and it 'll go all the way through and then say something like "" Roman numeral one , am Smarticus . "" It actually says , "" Roemisch einz , am Smarticus , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: which means it 's just using a German sythesis module for English sentences . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So uh , +Professor C: It doesn't know "" I "" . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: Um , the uh +Grad B: Oh , Am Spartacus . "" +Grad D: "" I am Sm - I am Smarticus "" is what it 's saying . +PhD A: Right . +Grad B: Verstehe . OK . +Grad D: I gue +Grad E: The uh sythesis is just a question of um , hopefully it 's just a question of exchanging a couple of files , once we have them . And , um , it 's not going to be a problem because we decided to stick to the so - called concept to speech approach . So I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm going backwards now , so "" synthesis "" is where you sort of make this {disfmarker} uh , make these sounds , and "" concept to speech "" is feeding into this synthesis module giving it what needs to be said , and the whole syntactic structure so it can pronounce things better , presumably . Then , just with text to speech . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , uh , Johno learned how to write XML tags . Uh , and did write the tree adjoining grammar for some {disfmarker} some sentences . No , right ? +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , for a couple {disfmarker} +Grad D: So . Bu - Uh , i The way the uh , the dialogue manager works is it dumps out what it wants to know , or what it wants to tell the person , to a {disfmarker} er in XML and there 's a conversion system for different uh , to go from XML to something else . And th so , the knowledge base for the system , that generates the syntasti syntactic structures for the ge generation is uh , in a LISP - like {disfmarker} the knowledge base is in a LISP - like form . And then the thing that actually builds these syntactic structures is something based on Prolog . So , you have a {disfmarker} basically , a goal and it , you know , says "" OK , well I 'm gonna try to do the Greet - the - person goal , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so it just starts {disfmarker} uh , it binds some variables and it just decides to , you know , do some subscold . Basically , it just means "" build the tree . "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: And then it passes the tree onto , uh , the ge the generation module . +Grad E: But I think that the point is that out of the twelve possible utterances that the German system can do , we 've already written the {disfmarker} the syntax trees for three or four . +Grad D: We yeah . So , the syntax trees are very simple . It 's like most of the sentences in one tree , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: and instead of , you know , breaking down to , like , small units and building back up , they basically took the sentences , and basically cut them in half , or you know , into thirds or something like that , and made trees out of those . And so uh , uh Tilman wrote a little tool that you could take LISP notation and generate an XML , uh , tree . Uh , S what do ca structure from the {disfmarker} from the LISP . And so basically you just say , you know , "" noun goes to "" , you know , Er , nah , I don't re I 've never been good at those . So there 's like the VP goes to N and those things in LISP , and it will generate for you . +Grad B: OK . N , N , V yeah , OK . Alright . +Grad E: And because we 're sticking to that structure , the synthesis module doesn't need to be changed . So all that f fancy stuff , and the Texas speech version of it , which is actually the simpler version , is gonna be done in October which is much too late for us . So . This way we {disfmarker} we worked around that . The , uh {disfmarker} the system , um {disfmarker} I can show you the system . I actually want , at least , maybe , you should be able to start it on your own . If you wanna play around with it , in th in the future . Right now it 's brittle and you need to ch start it up and then make ts twenty changes on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on seventeen modules before they actually can stomach it , anything . And send in a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a couple of side queries on some dummy center set - up program so that it actually works because it 's designed for this seevit thing , where you have the gestural recognition running with this s Siemens virtual touch screen , which we don't have here . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so we 're doing it via mouse , but the whole system was designed to work with this thing and it was {disfmarker} It was a lot of engineering stuff . No science in there whatsoever , but it 's working now , and um , that 's the good news . So everything else actually did prove to be language independent except for the parsing and the generation . +Grad D: Why {disfmarker} I had {disfmarker} I did need to chan generate different trees than the German ones , mainly because you know like uh , the gerund in {disfmarker} in German is automatically taken care of with just a regular verb , +Grad E: You have to switch it on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad D: so I 'd uh have to add "" am walking , "" +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: or I 'd have to add a little stem for the "" am "" , when I build the {disfmarker} built the tree . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I noticed that um , that some of the examples they had , had you know , non - English word orders and so on , you know . And then all that good stuff . So . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Yeah . +Grad B: Like . +Professor C: So it might be worth , Keith , you looking at this , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: um +Grad B: I {disfmarker} I still don't {disfmarker} I still don't really understand e like {disfmarker} +Grad D: Well Tilman s +Grad B: I mean we sort of say , um {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I still don't exactly understand sort of the information flow uh in {disfmarker} in this thing , or what the modules are and so on . So , you know , like just that such - and - such module uh um decides that it wants to achieve the goal of greeting the user , and then magically it sort of s +Professor C: Yeah {disfmarker} +Grad B: I mean , how does it know which syntactic structure to pull out , and all that ? +Professor C: I thi Yeah . So . I think it 's not worth going over in the group , +Grad B: R uh Sure . +Professor C: but sort of when you get free and you have the time uh either Robert or Johno or I can walk you through it . +Grad B: Yeah , soon . OK . +Professor C: And you can ask all the questions about how this all fits together . +Grad B: That 's fine . +Professor C: It 's eee {comment} messy but once you understand it you understand it . It 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} There 's nothing really complicated about it . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: No . +Grad B: And I remember one thing that {disfmarker} that came up in the talk last Wednesday . Um , was this , I {disfmarker} I think he talked about the idea of like , um {disfmarker} He was talking about these lexicalized uh , uh , tree adjoining grammars where you sort of {disfmarker} for each word you , um {disfmarker} +Grad D: OK , you know how to do it ? +Grad B: For each lexical item , the lexical entry says what all the uh trees are that it can appear in . And of course , that 's not v That 's the opposite of constructional . That 's , you know , that 's {disfmarker} that 's HPSG or whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: You know ? +Professor C: Right . Now , we 're {disfmarker} we 're not committed for our research to {pause} do any of those things . +Grad B: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So uh we are committed for our funding . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: OK ? to {pause} uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: Make our stuff fit to that . +Professor C: Yeah , to {disfmarker} n no , to just get the dem get the demos they need . +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: OK ? So between us all we have t to get th the demos they need . If it turns out we can also give them lots more than that by , you know , tapping into other things we do , that 's great . +Grad D: You should probably move the microphone closer to your face . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But i it turns out not to be in an any of the contracts +Grad D: There 's like a little {disfmarker} The twisty thing , you can move it with . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and , s deliberately . So , the reason I 'd like you to understand uh what 's going on in this demo system is not because it 's important to the research . It 's just for closure . So that if we come up with a question of "" could we fit this deeper stuff in there ? "" or something . You know what the hell we we 're talking about fitting in . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So it 's just , uh in the sam same actually with the rest of us we just need to really understand what 's there . Is there anything we can make use of ? Uh , is there anything we can give back , beyond th the sort of minimum requirements ? But none of that has a short time fuse . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So th the demo the demo requirements for this Fall are sort of taken care of as of later this week or something . And then {disfmarker} So , it 's probably fifteen months or something until there 's another serious demo requirement . +Grad B: Oh OK . +Professor C: That doesn't mean we don't think about it for fifteen months , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: but it means we can not think about it for six months . +Grad B: Right , yeah . +Professor C: So . The plan for this summer uh , really is to step back from the applied project , +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: keep the d keep the context open , but actually go after the basic issues . +Grad B: Hmm . Oh OK . +Professor C: And , so The idea is there 's this uh , other subgroup that 's worrying about formalizing the nota getting a notation . But sort of in parallel with that , uh , the hope is tha in particularly you will work on constructions in English Ge - and German for this domain , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but y not worry about parsing them or fitting them into SmartKom or any of the other {disfmarker} anything lik any other constraints for the time being . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . Got it . +Professor C: It 's hard enough to get it semantically and syntactically right and then {disfmarker} and get the constructions in their form and stuff . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: And , I don I don't want you f feeling that you have to somehow meet all these other constraints . +Grad B: Right , OK . +Professor C: Um . And similarly with the parsing , uh we 're gonna worry about parsing uh , the general case you know , construction parser for general constructions . And , if we need a cut - down version for something , or whatever , we 'll worry about that later . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So I 'd like to , for the summer turn into science mode . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And I assume that 's also , uh , your plan as well . +Grad B: So I mean , the {disfmarker} the point is that like the meetings um so far that I 've been at have been {disfmarker} sort of been geared towards this demo , +Professor C: Right . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad B: and then that 's going to go away pretty soon . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but we we 're swit +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: And then we 'll sort of shift gears a Fairly substantially , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: huh ? +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's got . What I {disfmarker} what I think is {disfmarker} is a good idea that I can {disfmarker} can show to anyone who 's interested , we can even make a {disfmarker} sort of an internal demo , and I {disfmarker} I show you what I do , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I speak into it and you hear it talk , +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: and I can sort of walk f through the information . So , this is like in half hour or forty - five minutes . Just fun . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And so you {disfmarker} when somebody on the streets com comes up to you and asks you what is SmartKom so you can , sort of , give a sensible answer . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: So , c sh we could set that up as actually an institute wide thing ? Just give a talk in the big room , and {disfmarker} and so peo people know what 's going on ? when you 're ready ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's the kind of thing {disfmarker} That 's the level at which you know we can just li invite everybody and say "" this is a project that we 've been working on and here 's a demo version of it "" and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: OK . Well d we {disfmarker} we do wanna have all the bugs out b where you have to sort of pipe in extra XML messages from left and right before you 're {disfmarker} +Grad B: Uh - huh . +Professor C: Indeed . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . Makes sense . +Professor C: But any so that {disfmarker} e e It 's clear , then , I think . Actually , roughly starting uh let 's say , nex next meeting , cuz this meeting we have one other thing to tie up besides the trip report . +Grad B: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: But uh starting next meeting I think we want to flip into this mode where {disfmarker} Uh . I mean there are a lot of issues , what 's the ontology look like , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: you know what do the constructions look like , what 's the execution engine look like , mmm lots of things . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But , more focused on uh an idealized version than just getting the demo out . Now before we do that , let 's get back in {disfmarker} Oh ! But , it 's still , I think , useful for you to understand the demo version enough , so that you can {disfmarker} can see what {disfmarker} what it is that {disfmarker} that uh it might eventually get retro - fitted into or something . +Grad B: Yeah . OK , right . +Professor C: And Johno 's already done that , uh , looked at the dem uh the {disfmarker} looked at the SmartKom stuff . +Grad D: Wa uh {disfmarker} To some de uh what {disfmarker} what part of th the SmartKom stuff ? +Professor C: Well , the parser , and that stuff . +Grad D: Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah . +Professor C: OK . Anyway . So , the trip {disfmarker} the report on these {disfmarker} the last we we sort of interrupted you guys telling us about what happened last week . +Grad B: Yeah . It 's alright . +Grad E: Um . {vocalsound} Well it was just amazing to {disfmarker} to see uh how {disfmarker} how instable the whole thing is , +Professor C: Maybe you 're done , then . +Grad E: and if you just take the {disfmarker} And I g I got the feeling that we are {pause} the only ones right now who have a running system . I don't know what the guys in Kaiserslautern have running because e the version {disfmarker} that is , the full version that 's on the server d does not work . And you need to do a lot of stuff to make it work . And so it 's {disfmarker} And even Tilman and Ralf sort of said "" yeah there never was a really working version that uh did it without th all the shortcuts that they built in for the uh October @ @ version "" . So we 're actually maybe ahead of the System Gruppe by now , the system {disfmarker} the integration group . And it was , uh {disfmarker} It was fun to some extent , but the uh the outcome that is sort of of scientific interest is that I think both Ralf and Tilman {disfmarker} um , I know that they enjoyed it here , and they r they {disfmarker} they liked , uh , a lot of the stuff they saw here , what {disfmarker} what we have been thinking about , and they 're more than willing to {disfmarker} to um , cooperate , by all means . And um , part of my responsibility is uh to use our internal "" group - ware "" server at EML , make that open to all of us and them , so that whatever we discuss in terms of parsing and {disfmarker} and generating and constructions w we {disfmarker} we sort of uh put it in there and they put what they do in there and maybe we can even um , get some overlap , get some synergy out of that . And um , the , uh {disfmarker} If I find someone at {disfmarker} in EML that is interested in that , um I {disfmarker} I may even think that we could look {disfmarker} take constructions and {disfmarker} and generate from them because the tree adjoining grammars that {disfmarker} that Tilman is using is as you said nothing but a mathematical formalism . And you can just do anything with it , whether it 's syntactic trees , H P S G - like stuff , or whether it 's construction . So if you ever get to the generation side of constructing things and there might be something of interest there , but in the moment we 're of course definitely focused on the understanding , um , pipeline . +Professor C: Anyth - any other {vocalsound} {comment} uh repo visit reports sort of stories ? uh we {disfmarker} so we now know I think , what the landscape is like . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so we just push on and {disfmarker} and uh , do what we need to do . And one of the things we need to do is the um , and this I think is relatively tight {disfmarker} tightly constrained , is to finish up this belief - net stuff . So . Uh . And I was going to switch to start talking about that unless there 're m other more general questions . OK so here 's where we are on the belief - net stuff as far as I understand it . Um . Going back I guess two weeks ago uh Robert had laid out this belief - net , missing only the connections . Right ? That is {disfmarker} {comment} So , he 'd put all th all the dots down , and we went through this , and , I think , more or less convinced ourselves that at least the vast majority of the nodes that we needed for the demo level we were thinking of , were in there . Yeah {comment} we may run across one or two more . But of course the connections weren't . So , uh Bhaskara and I went off and looked at some technical questions about were certain operations sort of legitimate belief - net computations and was there some known problem with them or had someone already uh , solved you know how to do this and stuff . And so Bhaskara tracked that down . The answer seems to be uh , "" no , no one has done it , but yes it 's a perfectly reasonable thing to do if that 's what you set out to do "" . And , so the current state of things is that , again , starting now , um we 'd like to actually get a running belief - net for this particular subdomain done in the next few weeks . So Bhaskara is switching projects as of the first of June , and uh , he 's gonna leave us an inheritance , which is a uh {disfmarker} hopefully a belief - net that does these things . And there 're two aspects to it , one of which is , you know , technical , getting the coding right , and making it run , and uh stuff like that . And the other is the actual semantics . OK ? What all {disfmarker} you know , what are the considerations and how and what are the ways in which they relate . So he doe h he doesn't need help from this group on the technical aspects or if he does uh we 'll do that separately . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But in terms of what are the decisions and stuff like that , that 's something that we all have to work out . Is {disfmarker} is that right ? I mean that 's {disfmarker} that 's both you guys ' understanding of where we are ? +Grad E: Absolutely . +Professor C: OK . +Grad G: So , I guess , um {disfmarker} Is there like a latest version of the belief - net {disfmarker} of the proposed belief - net ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad E: We had um decided {disfmarker} +Grad G: like {disfmarker} +Grad E: Um . Well , no , we didn't decide . We wanted to look into maybe getting it , the visualization , a bit clearer , but I think if we do it , um , sort of a paper version of all the nodes and then the connections between them , that should suffice . +Grad G: Mm - hmm . Yeah , that should be fine . +Professor C: Yeah I mean , that 's a separate problem . +Grad D: Yeah , I {disfmarker} +Professor C: We do in the long run wanna do better visualization and all that stuff . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: That 's separable , yeah . +Grad D: I did look into that , uh in terms of , you know , exploding the nodes out and down ag +Professor C: Yep . Right . +Grad D: JavaBayes does not support that . I can imagine a way of hacking at the code to do that . It 'd probably take two weeks or so to actually go through and do it , +Professor C: Not {disfmarker} not at this point . +Grad D: and I went through all the other packages on Murph - Kevin Murphy 's page , +Professor C: Right . +Grad D: and I couldn't find the necessary mix of free and uh with the GUI and , with this thing that we want . +Professor C: Well , we can p If it 's {disfmarker} If we can pay {disfmarker} Yeah . If you know it 's paying a thousand dollars or something we can do that . OK ? So {disfmarker} so don't view free as {disfmarker} as a absolute constraint . +Grad D: OK . OK , so then I 'll go back and look at the ones on the list that {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK . And you can ask Kevin . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: But {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah , the one that uh people seem to use is uh Hugin or whatever ? +Professor C: Hugin , yeah that 's free . +Grad G: How exp I don't think it 's {disfmarker} Is it free ? Because I 've seen it advertised in places so I {disfmarker} it seems to {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , it may be free to academics . Like I {disfmarker} I don't know . I have a co {comment} I have a copy {comment} that I l I downloaded . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: So , at one point it was free . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh but yo I noticed people do use Hugin so um , +Grad D: How do you spell that ? +Professor C: HUGIN . +Grad F: Why +Professor C: And Bhaskara can give you a pointer . So then , in any case , um {disfmarker} But paying a lit You know , if i if it 's uh {disfmarker} Probably for university , it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna be real cheap anyway . But um , you know , if it 's fifty thousand dollars we aren't gonna do it . I 'm mean , we have no need for that . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I also s would suggest not to d spend two weeks in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in changing the {disfmarker} the JavaBayes code . +Professor C: No , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: he 's not gonna do that . +Grad D: OK . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I will send you a pointer to a Java applet that does that , it 's sort of a fish - eye . You {disfmarker} you have a node , and you click on it , and it shows you all the connections , +Grad D: Mmm . +Grad E: and then if you click on something else that moves away , that goes into the middle . And maybe there is an easy way of interfacing those two . If that doesn't work , it 's not a problem we {disfmarker} we need to solve right now . What I 'm {disfmarker} what my job is , I will , um , give you the input in terms of {disfmarker} of the internal structure . Maybe node by node , or something like this ? Or should I collect it all +Grad G: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: Doesn't matter . +Grad G: Um , just any like {disfmarker} like sort of rough representation of the entire belief - net is probably best . +Grad E: OK . And um you 're gonna be around ? t again , always Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoon - ish ? As usual ? Or will that change ? +Grad G: Yeah {disfmarker} I mean , yeah , I can {disfmarker} like I c Um . This week I guess um , kind of {disfmarker} I have a lot of projects and stuff but after that I will generally be more free . So yes , I might {disfmarker} I can be around . And g I mean , generally if you email me also I can be around on other days . +Grad E: Yeah . OK . +Professor C: Yeah and this is not a crisis that {disfmarker} I mean , you do , e everybody who 's a student should , you know do their work , get their c courses all in good shape and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and then we 'll dig {disfmarker} d dig down on this . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} Yeah . OK . No , that 's good . That means I have I h I can spend this week doing it . So . +Grad G: OK . +Grad B: How do you go about this process of deciding what these connections are ? I know that there 's an issue of how to weight the different things too , and stuff . Right ? I mean do you just sort of guess and see if it sort of {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Well there {disfmarker} there {disfmarker} there There 're two different things you do . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: One is you design and the other is you learn . OK ? So uh what we 're gonna do initially is {disfmarker} is do design , and , i if you will , guess . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . Uh that is you know use your best knowledge of {disfmarker} of the domain to uh , hypothesize what the dependencies are and stuff . +Grad B: Right . OK . +Professor C: If it 's done right , and if you have data then , there are techniques for learning the numbers given the structure +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and there are even techniques for learning the structure , although that takes a lot more data , and it 's not as @ @ and so forth and so on . So uh but for the limited amount of stuff we have for this particular exercise I think we 'll just design it . +Grad B: Alright . +Grad E: Yeah . Fo - Hopefully as time passes we 'll get more and more data from Heidelberg and from people actually using it and stuff . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So but this is the {pause} {vocalsound} {comment} {pause} long run . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: But to solve our problems ag uh a mediocre design will do I think in the beginning . +Grad B: Yeah , that 's right . Yeah , oh , and by the way , speaking of data , um , are there I could swore {disfmarker} uh , I could swear I saw it sitting on someone 's desk at some point , but is there a {disfmarker} um a transcript of any of the , sort of , initial interactions of people with the {disfmarker} with the system ? Cuz you know , I 'm still sort of itching to {disfmarker} to look at what {disfmarker} look at the stuff , and see what people are saying . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah make yourself a note . So and {disfmarker} and , of course Keith would like the German as well as the English , so whatever you guys can get . +Grad E: The German . Oh yeah , of course , German . Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , the y your native language , right ? You remember that one . +Grad E: OK . That 's important , yeah . +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: So he 'll get you some data . +Grad B: u OK . Yeah , I mean I {disfmarker} I sort of um found the uh , uh the audio of some of those , and um , it kind of sounded like I didn't want to trudge through that , you know . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad B: It was just {disfmarker} Strange , but . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad E: We probably will not get those to describe because they were trial runs . +Grad B: Oh yeah , OK . +Grad E: Um , but uh that 's th but we have data in English and German already . +Grad B: OK , yeah , I mean . +Grad E: So . {disfmarker} Transcribed . I will send you that . OK . +Professor C: OK , so while we 're still at this sort of top level , anything else that we oughta talk about today ? +Grad E: Ho - how was your thingy . +Grad B: Oh , um , I just wanted to , uh , s like mention as an issue , um , you know last meeting I wasn't here because I went to a linguistics colloquium on the fictive motion stuff , +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: and that was pretty interesting and you know , I mean , seems to me that that will fairly obviously be of relevance to uh {disfmarker} to what we 're doing here because you know people are likely to give descriptions like you know , "" What 's that thing uh right where you start to go up the hill , "" or something like that , you know , meaning a few feet up the hill or whatever from some reference point and all that stuff so I mean , I 'm sure in terms of you know , people trying to state locations or , you know , all that kind of stuff , this is gonna be very relevant . So , um , now that was {disfmarker} the talk was about English versus Japanese , um , which obviously the Japanese doesn't affect us directly , except that , um , some of the construction {disfmarker} he 'd {disfmarker} what he talked about was that you know in English we say things like th you know , "" your bike is parked across the street "" and we use these prepositional phrases , you know , "" well , if you were to move across the street you would be at the bike "" , but um in {disfmarker} in Japanese the {disfmarker} the more conventionalized tendency is to use a {disfmarker} sort of a description of "" where one has crossed to the river , there is a tree "" . Um , and you know , you can actually say things like , um , "" there 's a tree where one has crossed the river , but no one has ever crossed the river "" , or something like that . So the idea is that this really is you know that 's supposed show that 's it 's really fictive and so on . But um {disfmarker} But the point is that that kind of construction is also used in English , you know , like "" right where you start to go up the hill "" , or "" just when you get off the train "" , or something like that to {disfmarker} uh , to indicate where something is . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad B: So we 'll have to think about {disfmarker} +Professor C: So {disfmarker} how much is that used in German ? +Grad E: Um . The uh {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} I wa I was on a uh {disfmarker} on a {disfmarker} on a different sidetrack . +Professor C: Oh , OK . +Grad E: I mean , the {disfmarker} the Deep Map project which um is undergoing some renovation at {disfmarker} at the moment , but this is a {disfmarker} a three language project : German , English , Japanese . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , we have a uh , uh {disfmarker} I have taken care that we have the {disfmarker} the Japanese generation and stuff . And so I looked into uh spatial description . So we can generate spatial descriptions , how to get from A to B . And {disfmarker} and information on objects , in German , English , and Japanese . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And there is a huge uh project on spatial descriptions uh {disfmarker} differences in spatial descriptions . Well , if yo if you 're interested in that , so how {disfmarker} how , I mean it does sort of go d all the way down to the conceptual level to some extent . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: So . Um . +Professor C: So , where is this huge project ? +Grad E: It 's KLEIST . It 's the uh Bielefeld generation of uh spatial descriptions and whatever . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: +Professor C: Well , that may be another thing that Keith wants to look at . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: But um , I {disfmarker} I think we should leave Japanese constructions maybe outside of the scope for {disfmarker} for now , +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad E: but um definitely it 's interesting to look at {disfmarker} at cross the bordered there . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Are {disfmarker} are you going to p pay any attention to the relative position {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the direction relative {disfmarker} relative to the speaker ? For example , there are some differences between Hebrew and English . We can say um "" park in front of the car "" as you come beh you drive behind the car . In Hebrew it means "" park behind the car "" , because to follow the car is defined as it faces you . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Intrinsic , yeah . +PhD A: While in English , front of the car is the absolute front of the car . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So . +Grad B: Right , so the canonical direction of motion determines where the front is . +PhD A: Right . Right . +Grad B: OK . +PhD A: So , i i i is German uh closer to {disfmarker} to E uh , uh , uh , uh {disfmarker} to E I mean uh +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: I don't think it {disfmarker} it 's related to syntax , though , so it may be entirely different . +Grad E: Um , as a matter of fact {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , it 's not . +Grad B: Right . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad E: Um . Did you ever get to look at the {disfmarker} the rou paper that I sent you on the {disfmarker} on that problem in English and German ? +Grad B: I think {disfmarker} +Grad E: Carroll , ninety - three . Um . I {disfmarker} There is a {disfmarker} a study on the differences between English and German on exactly that problem . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad E: So it 's {disfmarker} they actually say "" the monkey in front of the car , where 's the monkey ? "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , um , they found statistically very significant differences in English and German , so I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} It might be , since there are only a finite number of ways of doing it , that {disfmarker} that German might be more like Hebrew in that respect . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: The solution they proposed was that it was due to syntactic factors . +PhD A: That {disfmarker} but it wasn't {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} +Grad E: That syntactic facto factors do {disfmarker} do play a role there , wh whether you 're more likely , you know , to develop uh , choices that lead you towards using uh intrinsic versus extrinsic reference frames . +PhD A: Right . Mm - hmm . Right . +Grad B: I mean , it seems to me that you can get both in {disfmarker} in English depending o +Professor C: Hmm . +Grad B: You know , like , "" in front of the car "" could you know {disfmarker} Like , here 's the car sideways to me in between me and the car or something 's in front of the car , or whatever . I could see that , +Professor C: Absolutely . +Grad B: but {disfmarker} But anyway , so you know , I mean , this was {disfmarker} this was a {disfmarker} a very good talk on those kinds of issues and so on . So uh . +Grad E: I can also give you uh , a pointer to a paper of mine which is the {disfmarker} the ultimate taxonomy of reference frames . +Grad B: Alright ! Cool ! +Grad E: So . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: I 'm the only person in the world who actually knows how it works . +Professor C: Oh . +Grad E: Not really . +Professor C: Great . No , I 've not seen that . +PhD A: What do you mean . Um . "" reference frames "" ? +Grad E: It 's called a {disfmarker} +PhD A: uh uh +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} it 's spatial reference frames . You actually have only {disfmarker} Um . If you wanna have a {disfmarker} This is usually um {disfmarker} I should {disfmarker} there should be an "" L "" , though . Well actually you have {disfmarker} only have two choices . You can either do a two - point or a three - point which is you You 're familiar with th with the "" origo "" ? where that 's the center {disfmarker} "" Origo "" is the center of the f frame of reference . +Grad B: Hmm . +Grad E: And then you have the reference object and the object to be localized . +Grad B: Hmm . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK ? In some cases the origo is the same as the reference object . +Professor C: So that would be "" origin "" in English , +Grad F: This was like {disfmarker} +Grad B: The origin . +PhD A: Right +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: right ? +Grad E: "" Origo "" is a Terminus technikus . in that sense , that 's even used in the English literature . "" Origo . "" +Grad B: Oh , OK . I never heard it . +Professor C: Alright . +PhD A: OK . +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , so , this video tape is in front of me . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I 'm the origo and I 'm also the reference object . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Right . +Grad E: Those are two - point . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And three - point relations is if something has an intrinsic front side like this chair then your f shoe is behind the chair . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And , reference object and {disfmarker} Um . No , from {disfmarker} from my point of view your shoe is left of the chair . +Grad B: Right . You {disfmarker} you can actually say things like , um , "" it 's behind the tree from me "" or something like that , I think , in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in certain circumstances in English , right ? As sort of "" from where I 'm standing it would appear that "" {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . So , +Grad F: Looks a little bit like Reichenbach for time . +Professor C: Yeah , it sounds like it , doesn't it , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: yeah . +Grad F: It 's a lot like it . +Grad E: And then {disfmarker} and then here you {disfmarker} +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: On this scale , you have it either be ego or allocentric . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And that 's {comment} {disfmarker} that 's basically it . So . Egocentric two - point , egocentric three - point , or you can have allocentric . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad E: So , "" as seen from the church , the town hall is right of that um , fire station "" . aa - huh {comment} It 's hardly ever used but it 's w +PhD A: I 'd love to see it if you {disfmarker} if you have a copy kind of . Uh . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . I see this is {disfmarker} this is getting into Ami 's thing . +PhD A: Here +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: He 's {disfmarker} he 's very interested in that . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So . +Grad B: Me too . +Professor C: Uh . Yeah . Well , why don't you just put it on the web page ? There 's this EDU {disfmarker} Right ? +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or just {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor C: Or a link to it . +Grad E: It 's also all on my {disfmarker} my home page at EML . It 's called "" An Anatomy of a Spatial Description "" . +Professor C: Just +Grad E: But I 'll send that link . +PhD A: OK , great . +Professor C: Maybe just put a link on . Yeah . +Grad E: Yep . +Professor C: By the way , there {disfmarker} something that I didn't know until about a week ago or so , is apparently , there are separate brain areas for things within reach , and things that are out of reach . +Grad E: Yep . +Grad B: Huh . +Professor C: So there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh all this linguistic stuff about you know , near and far , or yon and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is all {disfmarker} This is {disfmarker} There 's this linguistic facts . But apparently , the {disfmarker} Uh . Here 's the way the findings go . That , you know they do MRI , and {disfmarker} and if you 're uh {disfmarker} got something within reach then there 's one of your areas lights up , and if something 's out of reach uh a different one . But here 's the {disfmarker} the amazing result , um , they say . You get someone with a {disfmarker} with a deficit so that they have a perfectly normal ability at distance things . So the s typical task is subdivision . So there 's a {disfmarker} a line on the wall over there , and you give them a laser pointer , and you say , "" Where 's the midpoint ? "" And they do fine . If you give them the line , and they have to touch it , they can't . There 's just that part of the brain isn't functioning , so they can't do that . Here 's the real experiment . The same thing on the wall , you give them a laser , "" where is it ? "" , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: they do it . Give them a stick , long stick , and say "" do it "" , they can't do it . So there 's a remapping of distant space into nearby space . +PhD A: Right . So they doubled {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the end {disfmarker} the end of this {disfmarker} +Grad F: Because it 's within reach now ? +Grad B: Yeah , +Professor C: It 's not within reach and you use the Within - Reach uh , mechanism . +Grad B: yeah . +Grad F: Oh . Wow . +Grad B: Circuits . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: So I 'll d I 'll dig you up this reference . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And so this doe This is , uh {disfmarker} First of all , it explains something that I 've always wondered about and I 'll do this {disfmarker} this test on you guys as well . So . Uh . How - I have had an experience , not often , but a certain number of times , when , for example , I 'm working with a tool , a screwdriver or something , for a long time , I start feeling the tip directly . Not indirectly , but you actually can feel the tip . +Grad B: Yeah yeah . +Professor C: And people who are uh accomplished violinists and stuff like that , claim they also have this kind of thing where you get a direct sensation of , physical sensation , of the end affector . +Grad B: Yeah . What 's going on at the end of the tool , +PhD A: The ext the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} The extension , +Grad B: yeah . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad B: What 's going on at the end of the tool , or whatever . +Professor C: Yeah , within {disfmarker} +PhD A: right . +Professor C: Huh ? +PhD A: The extension of {disfmarker} of your hand , right . +Professor C: Yeah , right . Have you hav y h had this ? +PhD A: The {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think so . I mean i i it 's not exactly the th same thing , but {disfmarker} but s it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it 's getting close to that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: W what does it feel like ? +Professor C: Oh i it feels like your {disfmarker} as if your uh neurons had extended themselves out to this tool , and you 're feeling forces on it and so forth and {disfmarker} and you deal directly with it . +PhD A: I once {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I was playing you know with those um uh devices that allow you to manipulate objects when it 's dangerous to get close ? So you can insert your hand something +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Professor C: Right , yeah {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: and there 's a correspondence between {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +PhD A: So I played with it . After a while , you don't feel the difference anymore . I {disfmarker} I mean it 's kind of {disfmarker} +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Yeah , right . +PhD A: Very {disfmarker} kind of {disfmarker} you stop back and suddenly it goes away and you have to kind of work again to recapture it , but yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Right , Yeah , so anyway , so {disfmarker} So this was the first actual experimental evidence I 'd seen that was consistent with this anecdotal stuff . +Grad B: That 's cool . +Professor C: And of course it makes a lovely def uh story about why languages uh , make this distinction . Of course there are behavioral differences too . Things you can reach are really quite different than things you can't . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: But there seems to be an actu really deep embodied neural difference . And i this is , um {disfmarker} So . In addition to the e +Grad E: This is more proximal - distal . +Professor C: Yeah uh exactly . So in addition to e ego and allocentric uh which appear all over the place , you also apparently have this proximal - distal thing which is very deeply uh embedded . S +Grad E: Well , Dan Montello sort of , he {disfmarker} he does the uh uh {disfmarker} th the cognitive map world , down in Santa Barbara . And he {disfmarker} he always talks about these {disfmarker} He {disfmarker} he already {disfmarker} well {disfmarker} i probably most likely without knowing this {disfmarker} this evidence uh is talking about these small scale spaces that you can manipulate versus large scale environmental spaces . +Professor C: Yeah . Well there 's {disfmarker} there 's uh been a lot of behavioral things o on this , but that was the first neur neuro - physiological thing I saw . Anyway yeah , so we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll look at this . And . So , all of these issues now {disfmarker} are now starting to come up . So , now {disfmarker} we 're now done with demos . We 're starting to do science , right ? And so these issues about uh , reference , and {disfmarker} spatial {comment} reference , discourse reference , uh - uh - uh - uh {comment} all this sort of stuff , uh , deixis which is part of what you were talking about , +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: um {disfmarker} So , all of this stuff is coming up essentially starting now . So we gotta do all this . So there 's that . And then there 's also a set of system things that come up . So "" OK , we 're not using their system . That means we need our system . "" +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: It {disfmarker} it follows . And so , uh , in addition to the business about just getting the linguistics right , and the formalism and stuff , we 're actually gonna build something and uh , Johno is point person on the parser , analyzer , whatever that is , and we 're gonna start on that in parallel with the um , the grammar stuff . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: But to do that we 're gonna need to make some decisions like ontology , so , um {disfmarker} And so this is another thing where we 're gonna , you know , have to get involved and make s relatively early I think , make some decisions on uh , "" is there an ontology API that {disfmarker} that "" {disfmarker} There 's a sort of standard way of getting things from ontologies and we build the parser and stuff around that , or is there a particular ontology that we 're gonna standardize on , and if so {disfmarker} For example , is there something that we can use there . i Does uh either the uh SmartKom project or one of the projects at EML have something that we can just p pull out , for that . Uh , so there are gonna be some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some things like that , which are not science but system . But we aren't gonna ignore those cuz we 're {disfmarker} we 're not only going {disfmarker} The plan is not only to lay out this thing , but to actually uh build some of it . And how much we build , and {disfmarker} and so forth . +Grad B: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh . Part of it , if it works right , is wh It looks like we 're now in a position that the construction analyzer that we want for this applied project can be the same as the construction analyzer that Nancy needs for the child language modeling . So . It 's always been out of phase but it now seems that um , there 's a good shot at that . So we 've talked about it , and the hope is that we can make these things the same thing , +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: and of course it 's only w In both cases it 's only one piece of a bigger system . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But it would be nice if that piece were exactly the same piece . +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: It was just this uh construction analyzer . And so we think {disfmarker} we think we have a shot at {disfmarker} at that . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So . The for So . To {disfmarker} to come full circle on that , this formalization task , OK ? is trying to get the formalism into {disfmarker} into a shape where it can actually uh +Grad B: Yeah . Be of use to someone who 's trying to do this , right ? +Professor C: d Well , yeah , where it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} covers the whole range of things . And the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the thing that got Mark into the worst trouble is he had a very ambitious thing he was trying to do , and he insisted on trying to do it with a limited set of mechanisms . It turned out , inherently not to cover the space . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: And it just {disfmarker} it was just terribly frustrating for him , +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: and he seemed fully committed to both sides of this i i irreconcilable thing . +Grad B: I see . Right . +Professor C: And . Uh . Johno is much more pragmatic . +Grad B: OK . Good to know . +Professor C: Uh . Huh ? Is {disfmarker} This is true , is it not ? +Grad D: Yes . +Professor C: OK . So there 's you know sort of , yeah , deep , really deep , emotional commitment to a certain theory being uh , complete . +Grad B: Oh , OK . +Grad F: You don't have a hidden purist streak ? +Grad D: Oh no . +Professor C: We - well it hasn't it {disfmarker} it certainly hasn't been observed , in any case . +Grad F: OK . Just checking . +Grad D: No sir . +Grad B: Alright . +Professor C: Um . Now , you do , but that 's OK . Uh . So . For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} +Grad B: Cuz I don't have to implement anything . +Professor C: Exactly right . Exactly . +Grad F: I have a problem , then . It 's {disfmarker} So . Whether I do depends on whether I 'm talking to him or him probably . +PhD A: Hmm . +Grad B: Yeah , right . +Professor C: Right . Why {disfmarker} a actually , uh , the thing is , you {disfmarker} you do but , th the thing you have to im implement is so small that {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad F: Which meeting I 'm in . It 's OK to be purist within that context . +Professor C: Within that , yeah , +Grad F: Yes , +Professor C: and uh , it 's {disfmarker} a and still , I think , you know , get something done . +Grad F: good . +Grad B: Cool ! +Professor C: But to try to do something upscale and purist Particularly if {disfmarker} if um what you 're purist about doesn't actually work , {vocalsound} is real hard . +Grad F: Yay . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . And then the other thing is while we 're doing this uh Robert 's gonna pick a piece of this space , +PhD A: It 's possible yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK , uh , for his absentee thesis . I think you all know that {disfmarker} that you can just , in Germany {disfmarker} almost just send in your thesis . +Grad B: Just a drive up . Ca - chuk ! +PhD A: Um +Professor C: Yeah right . +Grad B: There you go . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: The - th There {disfmarker} there 's a drive - in thesis uh sh {vocalsound} joint over in Saarbruecken . +Grad B: Exactly . Drive through , yeah . +Professor C: It costs a lot . The {disfmarker} the amount {disfmarker} You put in your credit card and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as well . But , uh , {disfmarker} But anyway , so , uh , that 's um , also gotta be worked out , hopefully over the next few weeks , so that {disfmarker} that it becomes clear uh , what piece uh , Robert wants to jump into . And , while we 're at this level , uh , there 's at least one new doctoral student in computer science who will be joining the project , either next week or the first of August , depending on the blandishments of Microsoft . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: So , de Uh . And her name is Eva . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: It really is . Nobody believed th th that {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , I thought it had to be a joke , of your part , you know +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: like {disfmarker} {comment} "" Johno made it up , I 'm sure . "" +Grad G: Is this person someone who 's in first - year this year , +Professor C: No , first year coming . +Grad G: or +Professor C: So , she 's {disfmarker} she 's now out here she 's moved , and she 'll be a student as of then . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: And probably she 'll pick up from you on the belief - net stuff , so sh she 'll be chasing you down and stuff like that . +Grad G: OK . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad E: Document . +Grad G: Right . +Professor C: Uh , against all traditions . And actually I talked today to a uh undergraduate who wants to do an honors thesis on this . Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: Someone from the class ? +Professor C: No , interestingly enough . +Grad F: We always get these people who are not in the class , who {disfmarker} +Professor C: Some of th some of them , yeah . +Grad F: It 's interesting . +Professor C: So anyway , uh , but uh she 's another one of these ones with a three point nine average and so forth and so on . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I 've give I 've given her some things to read . So we 'll see how this goes . Oh there 's yet another one of the incoming first {disfmarker} {comment} incoming first - year graduate students who 's expressed interest , so we 'll see how that goes . Um , anyway , so , I think as far as this group goes , um , it 's certainly worth continuing for the next few weeks to get closure on the uh belief - net and the ideas that are involved in that , and what are th what are the concepts . We 'll see whether it 's gonna make sense to have this be separate from the other bigger effort with the formalization stuff or not , I 'm not sure . It partly depends on w what your thesis turns out to be and how that goes . S so , we 'll see . And then , Ami , you can decide , you know , how much time you wanna put into it and uh , it it 's beginning to take shap shape , +PhD A: OK . +Professor C: so uh and , +PhD A: Right +Professor C: I think you will find that if you want to look technically at some of the {disfmarker} your traditional questions in this light , uh Keith , who 's buil building constructions , will be quite happy to uh see what , you know , you envision as the issues and the problems and um , how they might uh get reflected in constructions . +Grad B: Sure . +Professor C: I suspect that 's right . +Grad B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: I {disfmarker} I may have to go to Switzerland for {disfmarker} in June or beginning of July for between two weeks and four weeks , but uh , after that or before that . +Professor C: OK , fine . And , um , if it 's useful we can probably arrange for you to drop by and visit either at Heidelberg or at the German AI center , while you 're in {disfmarker} in the neighborhood . +PhD A: Right . Yeah be uh actu actually I 'm invited to do some consulting with a bank in Geneva which has an affiliation with a research institute in Geneva , which I forgot the name of . +Professor C: Yeah . Yep . E o do y +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: Well , we we 're connected to uh {disfmarker} There 's a {disfmarker} there 's a {disfmarker} a very significant connection between {disfmarker} We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go through this , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor C: ICSI and EPFL , which is the , uh {disfmarker} It 's the {disfmarker} Fr Ge - Germany 's got two big technical institutes . There 's one in {disfmarker} in Zurich , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: E T and then there 's one , the French speaking one , in Lausanne , +Grad B: Oh , so in Switzerland . +Professor C: OK ? which is uh E P +PhD A: Great . +Professor C: F L . So find out who they are associated with in Geneva . +PhD A: Right . +Professor C: Probably we 're connected to them . +PhD A: Great . I 'll let you know . S I 'll send you email . +Professor C: OK . Yeah , and so anyway we c uh {disfmarker} We can m undoubtedly get Ami uh to give a talk at uh EML or something like that . While he 's in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Hmm . Uh . I {disfmarker} I think the one you {disfmarker} you gave here a couple of weeks ago would be of interest there , too . +PhD A: Sure , yeah . +Professor C: A lot of interest . Actually , either place , DFKI or uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so , and {disfmarker} and if there is a book , that you 'll be building up some audience for it . +PhD A: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And you 'll get feedback from these guys . +PhD A: Great , yeah . +Professor C: Cuz they 've actually {disfmarker} these DFKI guys have done as much as anyone over the last decade in trying to build them . So we 'll set that up . +PhD A: Cool . +Professor C: OK . So , uh , unless we wanna start digging into the {disfmarker} uh the belief - net and the decisions now , which would be fine , it 's probably {disfmarker} +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I tho It 's probably better if I come next week with the um version O point nine of the structure . +Professor C: OK . So , how about if you two guys between now and next week come up with something that is partially proposal , and partially questions , saying "" here 's what we think we understand , here are the things we think we don't understand "" . And that we as a group will try to {disfmarker} to finish it . What I 'd like to do is shoot f for finishing all this next Monday . +Grad G: Sure . +Professor C: OK ? Uh , "" these are the decisions "" {disfmarker} I don't think we 're gonna get lots more information . It 's a design problem . +Grad B: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: You know . We {disfmarker} +Grad G: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . And let 's come up with a first cut at what this should look like . And then finish it up . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Does that so make sense ? +Grad B: OK . +Grad E: And um , the {disfmarker} the sem semester will be over next week but then you have projects for one more week to come ? +Grad G: No , I {disfmarker} I think I 'll be done {disfmarker} everything by this uh {disfmarker} by the end of this week . +Grad E: Same with you ? No . +Grad D: Nnn . This {disfmarker} Well , I 've {disfmarker} I have projects , but then the {disfmarker} my prof professor of one of my classes also wa has a final that he 's giving us . And he 's giving us five days to do it which means it going to be hard . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . Oh . is it a take - home final ? Who 's doing this ? +Grad D: Yeah . Aikin , Alex , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , figured . That would have been i my guess . +Grad G: Hmm . +Professor C: Right . Um , But anyway , yeah . +Grad B: Pretty soon . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: OK , so I guess that 's +Grad D: So , the seventeenth will definitely be the last day , like it or not for me . +Professor C: Right . right . So let 's do this , and then we we well there 's gonna be some separate co these guys are talking , uh we have a group on the formalization , uh Nancy and Johno and I are gonna talk about parsers . So there 're various kinds of uh {disfmarker} +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Of course , nothing gets done even in a meeting of seven people , +Grad B: Right . +Professor C: right ? So , um , two or three people is the size in which actual work gets done . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So we 'll do that . Great . Oh , the other thing we wanna do is catch up with uh , Ellen and see what she 's doing because the um image schemas are going to be um , an important pa +Grad B: Yeah . Quite relevant , yeah . +Professor C: We {disfmarker} we want those , +Grad B: Yeah , oh yeah . +Professor C: right ? And we want them formalized and stuff like that . +Grad B: Yeah . +Professor C: So let me {disfmarker} let me make a note to do that . +Grad B: OK . Yeah , I 'm actually probably going to be in contact with her uh pretty soon anyway because of various of us students were going to have a reading group about precisely that sort of thing over the summer , +Grad D: OK . +Professor C: Oh right ! Right right right ! +Grad B: so . +Professor C: That 's great ! Yeah , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Shweta mentioned that , although she said it 's a secret . +Grad B: OK . +Grad D: Hi +Grad B: Right , no faculty ! +Professor C: Th - the faculty aren't {disfmarker} faculty aren't supposed to know . +Grad D: Wednesday 's much better for me , yeah . +Professor C: But um , I 'm sufficiently clueless that I count as a {disfmarker} +Grad B: Yeah , right . It 's as if we didn't tell anyone at all , +Grad D: Bhaskara . +Grad B: right . +","The conversation involves several participants, including Grad B, Grad D, Professor C, PhD A, Grad E, Grad G, and others, discussing various topics related to a project they are all involved in. The main points of discussion are: + +1. SmartKom System: The team reports that they made progress with the German SmartKom project, and now they can input commands and receive responses from the system. However, the system uses a German synthesis module for English sentences, causing it to mispronounce certain English words as German. They discuss technical details about the system, such as synthesis, the ""concept to speech"" approach, XML tags, dialogue management, and the knowledge base structure. + +2. Development Progress: Grad E shares that they already have syntax trees for some sentences, and there's a tool developed by Tilman for converting structures from LISP notation to XML. The group agreed to stick with the original synthesis module without needing significant changes. + +3. Belief Nets: The group discusses plans for constructing a belief net for their subdomain and the need to decide on the various connections within the net. Grad G and Grad E plan to prepare a proposal and questions for the next meeting to finalize the belief net's structure. + +4. Linguistic Considerations: Grad B brings up how fictive motion and spatial references will be relevant to their project, considering how these linguistic elements are used in English and might be used similarly in German. They mention a talk by a linguist about English versus Japanese spatial descriptions that might inform their work. + +5. Data and Ontologies: Professor C mentions that the group should consider having an ontology API, possibly leveraging work from SmartKom or EML. Grad B is interested in looking at transcripts of initial interactions with the system to better understand user behavior. + +6. Upcoming Plans: Professor C outlines the plan to focus on fundamental science issues over the summer, which includes understanding constructions in English and German and potentially developing a construction parser. + +7. New Members and Support: The team anticipates the arrival of a new doctoral student, Eva, who might take over the belief net work, and possibly an undergraduate who's interested in an honors thesis related to their project. + +8. Personal Updates: PhD A may travel to Switzerland for consulting, Grad G and Grad D discuss their end-of-semester schedules, and Grad B plans to start a reading group on image schemas over the summer. + +The conversation reflects the complex, technical, and collaborative nature of the project the participants are engaged in, with various sub-projects and tasks being distributed among the group members." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: So , uh now {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hi Christa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Hi Sammy . {vocalsound} It's the detail design meeting , so we're going {disfmarker} last meeting . So um , first uh Mark and Rama are going to present uh the prototype . Uh then uh Sammy will propose some uh crite cr criteria to evaluate this prototype . Then , w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then we going to do some finance to see if uh it is uh feasible +User Interface: And chocolate ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh at the end we will we will um evaluate ourself as a team . {vocalsound} And that's all . Okay . So first , {vocalsound} let's uh see the prototype . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , here we have our prototype model . +Project Manager: Okay . And you have some slides then ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we have also some slides . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Yes , and place some slides . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so in which uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , participant three . {vocalsound} Prototype . +Industrial Designer: In {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh , so this is our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Him . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a r working prototype . You can use it now by switching all these buttons . So first , I present as we came to this perfect model , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then we'll give some technical specifications . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's {vocalsound} well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , so that's that . Please , next slide . We analysed all the fruits +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and contacted NASA , and uh made some {vocalsound} real good {disfmarker} +Project Manager: MASA ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If you can see this , and the stars are showing that {gap} . And um , {vocalsound} s society will accept that . For sure . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And making some analysis of different fruits , we choose the ultimate form , ultimate colours , and uh ultimate smell of it . S please , next slide . But we still didn't want to go far from our titanium idea , 'cause it's the most of the moder the m the {gap} modern material we can p select . And it's practical . And it's still say it's for our needs , so please press something . And as I said , {vocalsound} it's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Please press it . +Industrial Designer: Experience . Explanat +User Interface: Everyone is {gap} f really uh really glad to obtain an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s such a r such a device . +Marketing: Such a nice thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See this {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can touch it with your hands . +Marketing: Can I ? +User Interface: Sure . Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ho-ho . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} imitating flatulence] {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you say ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: N +Marketing: It says {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You must say it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One day . +Marketing: I'll buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I if I need so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hopefully my daughter will like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Y and we got the answer . Uh , it is , yes , of course . +Marketing: Yes , of course . Of c course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} , please next slide . Um , this is a prototype . You can have a look at it , and {disfmarker} That's all I wanted to say . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Now it's technical specification by our colleague . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , there is {vocalsound} a button missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This this is really flexible . You can add your buttons . +Marketing: It's in option . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So function , mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , as we discussed , we have to switch on switch off whenever we want . And so , we have buttons and using L_C_D_ , or like you can use this {vocalsound} jog wheel and select which ever option on the L_C_D_ , and then do on and off . {vocalsound} Then you ha you'll have volume control . So , you you can press these buttons to increase or decrease the volume . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have some L_C_D_ controls . Like , m switching the L_C_D_ display if you want to use L_C_D_ , or you don't want you can just use normal button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And we have speech recognition . Here you have microphone , and then it date records your voice , and then it try to recognise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it can also do the action . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And location finder . And we want to do the location basically using speech recogniser . You can just say , where is my remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh , you can just give some nickname to your remote control , like Bobby {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bobby . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey , babe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then , {vocalsound} it will say hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bob . {vocalsound} Hey Bob . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , hi , and then you can use it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's good . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} um our team is now fruits . Mainly strawberry . So , you can {vocalsound} have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , these are strawberries . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can see the look L_C_D_ and all the switches . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are colourful . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Material , we want to stick to titanium . {vocalsound} We will send , we want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruit smelling spongy titanium . {vocalsound} I didn't know it exist , but that's great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or s {vocalsound} So , we want to have {vocalsound} simple and perfect shapes , like I shown in these phones . You can have your own designs and and you can feel simple designs . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can choose colours on your day for each day , or even many colours . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Ho-ho . That's for the L_C_D_ or for the titanium ? +Marketing: You mean we can change the colour uh of th +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah okay , for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: With titanium it's {disfmarker} it is silver . +Marketing: Tit titanium is {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are still working on titanium . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , r we'll start with L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can ask Bob . It's Tuesday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you know you're theme today . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , Bob , please . {vocalsound} {gap} Tuesday colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Even you can configure your colours for its {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} depending on your mood , or s +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Black for Sunday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you can have many colours on weekends . Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And w wait , wh what are the strawberries for ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wh wh +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Marketing: On the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Ah , these are like sensors . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . +User Interface: That's location sensors . +Marketing: {vocalsound} What do you think ? {vocalsound} Strawberry sensors . {vocalsound} Very useful . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Strawberries . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: after this meeting we'll propose a party for our success for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Lounge meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , if you are vegetarian or you have any options , please let us know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and we can just {gap} some strawberry first . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So , huh . Interesting . In interesting . Mm mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , any specific questions for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we'll see in the financial part if uh {vocalsound} all {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} gets into {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's make a party first maybe . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} W Who is the five uh {disfmarker} fifty millions we {vocalsound} first make a party in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Then we can discuss {disfmarker} We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , then we can have how much for how money is left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh , this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: What a design . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh , so {disfmarker} Let's uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my turn . +Project Manager: yeah , let's see if uh th it's meet the evaluation criterium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Let's see if this {disfmarker} Yeah , if you meet {vocalsound} the evaluation criterion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fudge . +Marketing: Yeah . So , evaluation please . So . You made a very nice prototype , and um , I think , we now need altogether to try to evaluate it to see if it makes sense to do it , if it fulfils our {disfmarker} what we want to do , and things like that . So mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , next slide , please . {vocalsound} As you know , before going and uh creating and producing these strawberry {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} remote control , it's very important to first verify if it makes sense , if we have a chance to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , so we need to evaluate it um , try to do it in a constative way , and as much as we can . To {disfmarker} so what I propose is that we are going to to have this scale from one to seven . One meaning that , ye yes uh it fulfils uh the the criterion , whatever it is . And seven meaning , no it doesn't fulfil at all . And we're all l going to list all the criterion . I'm going to go to that next slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and together try to evaluate this according to this criterion and from one to seven . And then we are just going to have an average , which will give us the value of our uh remote control . So , maybe we can have a look at the criteria ? +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +Marketing: So these are the criterion uh I'm {disfmarker} I thought were important . Of course , this can be discussed , but let's let's see , so let's vote . So we have fancy here and we have the scale from one to seven with four in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: So , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what's is really {disfmarker} +Marketing: what do you think , is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think that fancy , we can say it is fancy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is very very fancy . Or have you ever seen something like that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . I am not the d the only one choosing , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Uh what do you think ? +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: Feel the weight . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} The weight is later . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh . +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: We're on the fanciness now . I think it's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can give at least five or six , seven . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} No it's it's one . +Project Manager: It's in the other {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Oh , {gap} Oh . So {disfmarker} Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Oh , okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , o one means it's , yes , a very fancy and seven mean no at all . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's one or two . +Project Manager: Two . Let's say two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: M maybe two . +Marketing: What do you think ? Two ? +User Interface: Two . Two . +Marketing: Okay . So here , two . Up . +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Marketing: Then we have uh technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , what about technology ? We have uh we have speech recognition , we have location based {gap} , +Industrial Designer: And we have L_C_D_ . +Marketing: we have L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Change colour of t +Industrial Designer: So you change colours . +Marketing: Change colour , I mean that's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Useful . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Quite +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: d I think it's a one for that , at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's silly . +Marketing: At least a one , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Robustness , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , still we need to cha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} let's suppose my daughter take it and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and through it away . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think it makes sense that it's going to live again ? Uh , maybe not the prototype . +Project Manager: The strawberries {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's try . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh my god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe strawberry . +Marketing: Okay , we just lost one strawberry . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . How can I say this . +Marketing: Not at all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can easily plug it . +User Interface: It's still it's still working , and your daughter got a bonus . +Marketing: It is {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A strawberry . +Marketing: So it's not so bad . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I um uh I would say three . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's um robust , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that does make sense , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Useful ? +Marketing: Useful . {vocalsound} Well , so the question is does it have uh the minimum requirement of re remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I don't know . These buttons are uh {disfmarker} It not clear . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , lets me try . +Marketing: But you have at least uh next produce . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What is uh next , please ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , channel . I this is volume control and channel changes . These are the main {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh do di two sites ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and you can do on L_C_D_ using these going to scrolling all the option . +Project Manager: Okay , also . +Industrial Designer: So if you don't want {disfmarker} +Marketing: So but , for instance , because the L_C_D_ is not uh touch control , touch screen , you cannot go to channel twenty five directly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: You can , by using the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Directly . +User Interface: You go {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c push here the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , the basic mode {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . So that's simple . The basic mode is uh you got just two buttons and a jog dial . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: With two buttons , you do this like uh volume up , volume down . +Marketing: Oh , it's a jog dial , okay . +User Interface: Or if you go to the site , it's channel up channel down . +Industrial Designer: And channel . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Okay . +User Interface: And if you want to make to s twenty-five , you push on this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You select twenty , you select five . +Industrial Designer: You can select . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: It's much longer than that that being two two five , no ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Don't you think so ? May {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} okay , we can go . That's uh {disfmarker} You're right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Y you need to like press two and five and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less uh {disfmarker} Yeah . But it's it's nice , because people anyway don't go there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So what do you think for it , usefulness ? +Industrial Designer: So , d Yeah , we need to address {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seems to be useful . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we only address two main functions here and the other functions will be on L_C_D_ . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let me understand well , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I'm not sure {disfmarker} that's for {disfmarker} that this one are b d uh two dir directional button . +Marketing: Both . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Up . +Marketing: Up down or left right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And which {disfmarker} what is that ? +User Interface: It's a jog dial for controlling the cursor on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This is jog wheel . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . It's a kind {disfmarker} Oh , okay okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like , selecting the menus . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} see in L_C_D_ , like you will have blocks and you select which one . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Oh oh okay , great . +Marketing: I would say then uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: Now it's looks us useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Industrial Designer: Two , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , two . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So size and weight . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Is it the the the effective size and weight that the {disfmarker} Is it uh real size , real weight ? Or {disfmarker} Because it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} size al almost {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Size is going to be that , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The weight will be bit lighter . We will s We use titanium . +User Interface: Sure , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: without titanium alloy , it's going to be light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: It's going to be lighter , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Of course . +Marketing: because this seems to be very heavy f I mean , +Industrial Designer: Heavy . Yeah . +Marketing: for my daughter , for instance . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not sure if uh {vocalsound} she can use it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But sides {disfmarker} uh , the sides should be okay . {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , should be okay . +Industrial Designer: mm . +Marketing: Up to three for that , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: because I'm {disfmarker} haven't seen the weight so I must not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Colour and shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , so colour , it seems that we have the several colours for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But um , it's not very clear what is the colour of the sh the sh {vocalsound} the case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The case is silver titanium , no ? +Marketing: It's a {disfmarker} it's going to be titanium . Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Let's imagine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's good . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And what about the strawberries on the top ? {vocalsound} I'm not convince . {vocalsound} But maybe I'm not trendy . But , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yahoo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well y you know , it's this uh fruit and vegetable year . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} uh they're not useful . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I mean it {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So maybe , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I think usefulness is m as as I rem um just have to remind you that usefulness is much less important than fanciness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whether it's fancy or not now , it {disfmarker} we have to decide . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: But this +Project Manager: I would have m uh i found more fancy that the fruits are useful . +Marketing: If it's {disfmarker} Uh-huh . So , that they will {disfmarker} that maybe the fruit may be here instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well then it's bit difficult to use . Not like this d We're just giving the fruit for more fanciness and more attraction , too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But the n {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , maybe think we can have rubber or some sponges , stuff for strawberries and different colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems we are not so clear on the shape uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I'm not sure uh why {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: These buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh if it was like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} But it looks really {vocalsound} not really good . +Project Manager: I It's {gap} n {vocalsound} no , it's not fancy any more . +Industrial Designer: I mean , the f Yeah . So these are kind of rubber things . Even if you lose one you can just put whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even we can provide many different colours or different fruits , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . And different routes . Okay , I see what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Moreover , moreover it covers it covers all the end goals . Even if it is , you know , it's very rounded , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but still you got some rubber fruit here , and it's completely uh completely secure to leave it uh with children and that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so you you you feel like it's something uh a protection for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , we've {disfmarker} yeah we have sensors here and so here and here , +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: so we just {disfmarker} Yeah , so even if you don't put , it works . But this is really fancy . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I suggested three . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because uh , everybody s doesn't seem to be convince , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: although it's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have good arguments . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the last one is adaptive . This is not r maybe not as important as the other one , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but uh can we adapt it to each each personal use ? +User Interface: Sure , sure , just look at it . {vocalsound} It's full adaptable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow , that's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fully adaptable . +User Interface: Yeah , you can fit it into your palm , you know . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can fit into your palm , okay . +Project Manager: Yea +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else can we need ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Do you think you are gonna be able to do that with ti titanium as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's fudge titanium . {vocalsound} You know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's fudge , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah . {vocalsound} And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , fruit titanium , yeah . Well , I if if this is {disfmarker} if you are ready to do that , then I think it deserves a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Let's go for one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we have to do the average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three , three , six , eight , eleven . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who is good in math ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's two point one seven . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Two point one seven . That's nice . Two point one seven out of seven . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we have a good good thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , that's all I had to say about the evaluation . +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} It seems to be good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: We have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two one one seven , we have . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So now , it has to fulfil the {vocalsound} financial criterium ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Financi +Marketing: Ah-ha . +Project Manager: So , I have an {disfmarker} Here . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Energy . +Marketing: So so how many batteries do we need ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , we use bat One battery . +Marketing: One battery ? +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so two . +Marketing: Good . Why two ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , we just need one , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Say no . No , ne never install . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two batteries or one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , number is one . We need only one battery . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , +Marketing: Only one . +Project Manager: but the price is two . Oh , number . +Marketing: No , no . But no , no . No , no way . +Project Manager: Sorry sorry sorry . I'm sorry . +User Interface: No , uh you just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Number , number . +User Interface: Number . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . You never use uh Excel ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , never . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what's the limit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} H {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's twelve bucks . +User Interface: Uh , it's it's okay that I don't know , 'cause uh it's not my field . Twelve bucks . Okay , +Marketing: Twelve bucks . +User Interface: now {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Twelve and a half , I think . +User Interface: Check that number also . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , electronics . +Industrial Designer: We have sample chip . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , like simple chip , yeah . +Marketing: It's a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: So , yeah . +Marketing: Simple chip , okay . One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four buttons at least . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then we have the t sample speaker sensor for speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for the {disfmarker} One also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one to one . +Marketing: One or two ? One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: Okay . So the case , which one uh is it in the end ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think we will go for a single curve , no ? +Marketing: Let's do a single curve . +Industrial Designer: Oh , is {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's flat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +Marketing: It's flat , and curved . +Project Manager: I thought you can curve +User Interface: It's flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} somebody . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it is flat , +Marketing: It's curvable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: you {disfmarker} Look . It's curvable , but it's not curved . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe there is a supplement for that {gap} , no ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's only {gap} curve ? +Project Manager: Oh see , I I think {vocalsound} that the the price is this one . +Marketing: Okay , let's go . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: you d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't chip on me . +Marketing: We tried , we tried . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Titanium . +Marketing: So , what is it ? T titanium ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , that's expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} But she wanted u the {vocalsound} fudge titanium . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's stick to s titan . +Project Manager: I think it's five , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't say {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour ? +User Interface: Well , n Why three ? +Industrial Designer: No , only one , no ? +Marketing: No because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Why three ? +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . Again , I'm {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} See it . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour , +Industrial Designer: Interface . +Project Manager: or it's only on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yes , in L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} there is no {vocalsound} colour here . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , an Yeah . +Project Manager: So I put it here . +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Marketing: So the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many push-button ? +Industrial Designer: Scro +Project Manager: Three or two ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Is there {disfmarker} The scroll-wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One scroll wheel {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's going to be expensive . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One L_C_D_ displayed . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} That's that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's all ? +Project Manager: We choose this one , and not this one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Oh , I think , no it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper . +Marketing: Uh , is it a scroll wheel and pe push button , th this centre one ? +Project Manager: Or only a scroll-wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Only scroll wheel . +Marketing: Or only only scroll wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You try to s {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You are trying to make make up {disfmarker} {vocalsound} make us up . +Project Manager: No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: It's already {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because {vocalsound} how do you do to {vocalsound} y select ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: No , but you select with the two d the other two buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean you you go on the location with your scroll wheel +Industrial Designer: Y ye +Marketing: no ? That's true . +Project Manager: and then you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then it automatically {disfmarker} we can just do like you feel , it goes . And it will activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Stay longer . Okay . +Marketing: It should stay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , plus , yeah , it's {disfmarker} price is really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special colours , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For buttons . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , buttons and strawberries . +User Interface: buttons just normal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Special form . +Project Manager: You you have all of these , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's very hard on this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm maybe n not this one but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Special colour ? Yeah . No . Special material ? +User Interface: That's for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have titan +User Interface: But buttons are standard . +Marketing: Yeah , buttons are the standard buttons . Yeah . It's only buttons , these . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we are at seventeen dot eight . +Project Manager: Not special colours an interest in ? +Marketing: No , the colour is in the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And buttons are not colourised ? They are m +Industrial Designer: Mm , hmm , +Marketing: I no . +Industrial Designer: I think uh because you can just go for a good colours . +Marketing: We can just use this red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boo-hoo . {vocalsound} It's already too expensive . {vocalsound} Apparently . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So what is {disfmarker} Are we supposed to cut things out now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Uh , until we get twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So think of what we can cut uh here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , if I look at what is the most expensive things , uh it's the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: Sample speaker . +Marketing: and the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Apparently , we have to choose one or the other . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as you may know there's some research done in the field of producing energy from mechanical eng , I mean , producing electricity from mechanical energy . So , the point is that when you take device and push the button , you produce enough energy +Project Manager: But you don't need a battery ? +User Interface: to make electricity . Yeah , that you don't need a battery . So , it's something like hand dynamo robot . A real high-tech version of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's like the hand dynamo , no ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe the jog wheel can be like kind of hand +Marketing: So , but if we select the hand dynamo it's okay , we only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} is {disfmarker} +Marketing: We we win one . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's already that . +Project Manager: Uh it's a it's a beginning . +Marketing: Okay , let's do that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Let's do that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} One here and here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just remo +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And I propose to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: So uh , about chips . Advanced chip on print , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , put minus one there , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if this is legal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +User Interface: And ? +Marketing: And ? +Project Manager: M maybe minus uh three , no ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , was there result ? +Industrial Designer: No , no . It's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , let's see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Let's have a look . +Industrial Designer: It's not changing , no ? +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} you don't +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah , if {disfmarker} Click somewhere , you'll see features . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Yes , it does . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe put minus two , so it looks uh {vocalsound} more reasonable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Why not . +Marketing: Yeah , anyway {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: Minus . +Marketing: No , minus two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nobody will know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not recorded , is it ? +User Interface: Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , we're on time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: So now on , we can increase our {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Still you have two more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , we can put uh a hand dynamo and a battery if you want . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can use it for our party . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: And a battery and a battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Both its it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: No , now we are exp exceeding I think . +User Interface: Now it's fancy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: let's add one instead of two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we're exceeding now . +Industrial Designer: No , but point five point three . +Marketing: We have to remove the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , it's better . I think they are counting uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . It's maximum +Industrial Designer: Is really strict ? +Marketing: We would prefer , +Project Manager: and don't have to {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: yeah . Maximum is maximum . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: So , remove one of them . Yeah . Okay . Okay , we're uh on target . +Project Manager: Uh , mm-mm . Yeah . Mm . Okay . Mm . So {vocalsound} target reached . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm just curious to see this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ho {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} address chip on print . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's um English uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trick {vocalsound} . Uh , I would say it's the Russian trick , but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh {gap} is uh English . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , +Industrial Designer: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I don't know . +Marketing: they may have some their origins , strange origins {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I am not sure who was programming this calculator , you know . 'Cause uh {disfmarker} I wonder if we put A_ or B_ somewhere instead of a number . +Project Manager: Mm , let's try . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we can discuss all these things in our party . +Marketing: Let's finish this meeting instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} I save it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else ? +Project Manager: Okay , so next mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that's yours . +Marketing: This is right . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so finance , that's done . Are the cost under twelve ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , very much . +Marketing: Yes . Project evaluation , good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So now {disfmarker} +User Interface: Next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project process . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to make um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Safe uh asse uh safe assessment . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . See mm how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Are we a good team ? Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think we've listened to everybody . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Everybody could say what they thought . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is there enough room for creativity ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . And you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . When we see the results , there is no doubt there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Well , project evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe a lack of leadership ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: M maybe not , huh ? +Marketing: Team-work , very strong , I would say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , our team-work is really strong . +Marketing: Team-work , no problem . Means . Whiteboard , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we still {gap} , I guess . +User Interface: What was the {disfmarker} Oh yeah , what was good ? Everything . What was bad ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think white-board is useful . Digital pens , useful . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: New ideas found ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , you say , is there sheep ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luck . {vocalsound} Okay . So luck , but good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Which imply good uh team performance . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . A good leader , you know , a good leader is somewhere in the shade and {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but uh then I I mus That's true . And there's uh one very important point . +Industrial Designer: Don't really . +Marketing: We're on time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Meetings finish when they have to or even before . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . We made {disfmarker} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} for meeting it's uh one of the most important thing . +User Interface: Of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not to waste time , that's important . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , we have other {vocalsound} uh remote controls to create . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need time f +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , we got new idea , speech recognition , location finding . New materials , new s uh this fancy strawberry design . +Project Manager: A lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New materials . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh new ways of doing financial {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , yeah . Hey , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And new tricks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: just wondering if my uh {disfmarker} what about the the pink {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the pinkness of that uh +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . They're working on um pink titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . They are working on a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , very {gap} . +Marketing: Okay , good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Budget . +Marketing: I think we are great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: There's no no other words for that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We are probably the best . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Real Reaction is uh +Project Manager: we're really nice . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Finished ? +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah , celebration . Are the costs within the budget ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course they are . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is the project evaluated ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yes , it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We got two {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , we see , we can even forecast . {gap} they propose us like celebration , everything , +Industrial Designer: Good score . +User Interface: we could forecast it , right ? +Marketing: To whom ? To the whole our company ? +Project Manager: I'm the one , {vocalsound} proposing the celebration . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course , +User Interface: You ? It was you . +Project Manager: you know I'm the program manager . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So , let's celebrate . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So where we will go now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah um , +Industrial Designer: Uh , ye +Project Manager: I think it's finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think the meeting {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will go to Italian restaurant , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The meeting is over at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Marketing: So , we have to go out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can decide . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we go to the party . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you to you . Mm . +","In the conversation, a project team, including a project manager, marketing representative, user interface designer, and industrial designer, discuss the details and evaluation of a prototype during a design meeting. They greet each other as the meeting begins. Mark and Rama are set to present the prototype, then Sammy will offer criteria for evaluation. The project manager shares the agenda, which includes financial feasibility and team evaluation. + +The UI designer introduces a remote control prototype, discussing technical specifications. Marketing comments and asks questions as the presentation progresses. The remote control's features, such as a working prototype with buttons, analysis of fruits, contact with NASA, choice of colors and materials (titanium), and additional functions like speech recognition and location finding, are discussed. + +Various aspects like the prototype's fanciness, technology level, robustness, usefulness, size, weight, color, shape, and adaptability are rated on a scale of one to seven. The team debates the prototype's attributes, costs, and materials, making adjustments to meet financial constraints. They utilize a spreadsheet to manage costs and humorously brainstorm ways to reduce expenses, including the integration of a hand dynamo to eliminate batteries. + +The team concludes the meeting by assessing the project as a whole, considering creativity, leadership, and teamwork. They take pride in completing the meeting on time and within budget and propose celebrating their success. + +Overall, the team works collaboratively to evaluate and adjust their remote control prototype design, ensuring financial feasibility and team satisfaction with the project process." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Excellent . So um I sent you the agenda , it was on the {disfmarker} in the project documents . I don't know if you got a chance to just have a look at it . Anyway , it's {disfmarker} the meeting's gonna follow more or less the same structure as last time , so we'll go round each of you in turn and you can give your presentations on what you've been up to . Um and at the end of that we need to discuss what you've come up with , so that we can make a decision on the key remote control concepts , so that's {disfmarker} we need to know about the components' properties , materials , the user interface and any trends that the Marketing Expert has been watching . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: Okay . Um , do you wanna start again ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: Let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right s {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've got forty minutes . +Industrial Designer: so I haven't made a PowerPoint presentation , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You haven't made a PowerPoint , okay . +Industrial Designer: yeah , I I thought I'll use the whiteboard instead . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um mm , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Let's hope the pen holds out . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so basically I'll start off by {disfmarker} uh {vocalsound} I thought I'll use the whiteboard because we have so many different options and what we can do is that we can start um uh rubbing off the options that we do not require and putting in the options that uh are m or highlighting or underlining them or something like that . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so uh I'll start again with a brief introduction to {disfmarker} connect that anyway {disfmarker} brief introduction to the insides of a remote control +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh then we can probably uh discuss the various components . Yeah . Okay , so w what you see here is {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} this is the outside of the remote , right ? If you open it , you have a circuit board here , right , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and this is the chip that I was talking about last time . This basically sends information to a tr uh transistor here , which then uh sends the information to an L_E_D_ device here . If you flip the printed circuit board , and this is th the most important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh {vocalsound} everything else is kind of {disfmarker} Okay , so if you flip the circuit board , this is what it looks like . So you see for example a particular button attaches to a particular place on the P_C_B_ and uh +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: on pressing this button I {disfmarker} a circuit completes , the information goes to the chip , which is somewhere here and the chip that tra then translates the code into an infra infrared radiation , which goes goes out through there . {vocalsound} So uh the important point that I read over the website was uh that the configurations of these printed circuit circuit boards uh are quite cheap to make , you can ge get them printed as you want to , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so w we can have a configuration um irrespective of the cost , the way we want to have . Right ? So that's the important point here , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so these are the different options that we have . Okay . So the batteries , I'll start with the battery , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So they can be simple which is like uh the normal batteries in uh our {disfmarker} uh the cells , yeah ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh thes these are the kind {disfmarker} different kind of batteries that the company makes , right ? So . And dynamos . Um {vocalsound} +Marketing: Does that mean like a wind-up one ? +Industrial Designer: yeah , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A wind-up remote . +Industrial Designer: So uh I don't know if {disfmarker} even if you want to consider this , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but these are the different things that the company makes , so th they'll they'll {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: since uh they'll come internally from the company , they'll be eas uh cheaper , uh all these options . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {vocalsound} the third one is uh the kinetic energy ones . +Marketing: You could make the hand dynamo into an exercise bike , and then people could exercise whilst watching T_V_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And charging their remote , +Marketing: Yeah , and stop worrying about the whole R_S_I_ from the remote thing , 'cause that's just {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , it's a good option . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} So what was what was this k ka +Industrial Designer: The the kinetic energy one is uh that e uh uh they are usually modern watches , since our hand keeps moving , it keeps the watch ticking . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But I dunno i if it is a good idea for a remote control , because it'll just lie there for a long while sometimes . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . For a remote , 'cause you {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But as soon as you pick it up it moves and then again it uh re recharges or something . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And the fourth option is the solar cells , which are also {vocalsound} made by the company . +Marketing: Yay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Environment friendly . Okay {vocalsound} um so I'll list things and then we can come back and discuss what what we think from uh everybody's perspective . +Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: There are different cases that can be provided . They can be {disfmarker} basically the shape of the cases , they can be flat , they can be curved with uh one-sided curved and one side flat , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: and they can be curved with {disfmarker} on both the sides . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These are the three options , right ? Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um you mean this would be like the the overall shape of the remote control , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , would it be flat on both the sides , would be curved from one side , or whatever {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: mm-hmm . Yeah , mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh there were different kind of supplements available , um like it can be in plastic , rubber , wood , or titanium , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Wo wo wood . +Marketing: Did you say wool ? +Project Manager: Wood , wood . +Marketing: Wood . Oh right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Not wool . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A fluffy remote . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you'll understand why when we get to my presenta {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Oh really ? {vocalsound} Okay . Um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: so uh we can use even um {vocalsound} a certain titanium is also used uh in the company to make uh {vocalsound} uh some space design equipment , so it's kind of um uh it'll be probably nicer to use , because it relates to the overall image of the company , but uh it cannot be used on a double curved surface . If we choose this , we cannot use titanium . For for these two we can use titanium , wood , rubber , or plastic . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , the interface options now . So {vocalsound} we can have push-buttons , like most remotes do and our company is an expert in making push-buttons . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Ooh . Uh we can have scroll wheels like the ones on um uh mouse pointers uh uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sony . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Sony Ericsson mobile phones has it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , something like that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , and they have {disfmarker} they can even have an an integrated uh push-button inside the scrolling thing . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: The scroll plus push . So this is something that has been recently developed by the company , um {vocalsound} in the last decade , so not too recent . And L_C_D_s , we can have L_C_D_s . So these two are recent and and this is q quite old . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The various electronic options are um uh {vocalsound} so th this concerns firs first of all the the chips I I showed you at uh {disfmarker} so there's there's a chip behind this one , right ? The P_C_B_ is uh inexpensive , so we can put put in uh whatever we want , but the various integrated circuit options are , we have either a simple one +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: or a regular or advanced . And uh the price goes up as we go down , obviously . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , so the good thing about uh wh wh why why we would want to use advanced u why we might want to use advanced is that L_C_D_s can only come with the advanced chip . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} we need regular or advanced for uh scroll wheels . Right ? Um {vocalsound} and the chip basically includes the infra infrared sender . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh besides this in electr under electronics uh also the company has started making a sample sender , which is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} did not explained what i what it was , but I'm guessing that uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} so they have a sample sender and a sample speaker . So I'm guessing that uh the sample speaker is probably something like um uh you know , as soon as you press a button , it it mm uh give gives you feedback , one five or whatever . Yeah , on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} and uh I dunno whether sample sender sender has to do something with voice recognition or not , but anyway . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So , these are the different options that we have . Okay , so {vocalsound} th that's that's basically {disfmarker} now now uh I think that uh we can integrate um {vocalsound} uh you know , uh the user interface uh and uh the marketing things in that , keep uh taking out things from this and uh underlining things that are important , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Excellent . Do you wanna stay somewhere near the board , so that if we need to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , sure . Sure . Yeah . +Project Manager: you can sit down , but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we might need you to leap up . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: What are you , PowerPoint , or {disfmarker} +User Interface: Um I have some PowerPoint , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do you think these pens can give you cancer of the hand ? +User Interface: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Some sort of radiation ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it's got its little camera in there , {vocalsound} plug it in {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it should should do it . Yeah . +Marketing: 'S a +Project Manager: Right , interface concept . +User Interface: Okay . Um to be honest actually , I mentioned some some of the things which which could fit on the on the {disfmarker} this talk um this time , I m I mentioned them already in the previous talk . +Project Manager: That's fine . +User Interface: So um yeah , this time um I might not have them on the slides but I {vocalsound} I can just mention them aw again . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Okay . So um I thought um I would also include the definition of user interface um so it's the aspects of a of of a computer system or programme which can be seen uh by the user um and and which {disfmarker} uh the mechanisms that the user uses to control its operation and input data . So this would p includes things like shape and size and buttons and um voice recognition as well , and colour , and so on . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um um the method I {vocalsound} employed this time was {vocalsound} a again having a look to related products and mainly on the internet and then {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} analyse them uh from the point of view of user fen friendliness and {vocalsound} also um {vocalsound} whether their appearance was was pleasant . Um {vocalsound} and then um {vocalsound} this uh this um {vocalsound} this can help us to decide which features we want to incorporate in our product . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So some findings um {vocalsound} um . So in in the case of many user interfaces , they're just so full of buttons that it's actually uh hard to find the ones you you really um want to use and um and it's just confusing , it takes y know time to learn . Um {vocalsound} okay , and I thought I would just quickly show some of them that I found . Okay , some of them are here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um {vocalsound} well the picture is not very clear , but as you can see , there are actu oi , oh oh oh , {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: sorry for that . 'S go back . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's nice one . +User Interface: Ah , no , please . Okay , so yeah , they're quite big and have many many buttons . Actually {vocalsound} of the {disfmarker} of all these I personally p prefer this one , because it's it's the smallest and and with with least {disfmarker} uh with the smallest number of buttons as well . And I would say even the appearance of some of them is kind of not so nice . +Marketing: Ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um okay . So let's carry on with this . Um {disfmarker} So uh um o other findings {disfmarker} um some new things um used , uh some of them were mentioned already by our Technical um Designer uh . {vocalsound} Our own company has developed a new in user interface {disfmarker} uh wait , no this is not the one . Okay , there is a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we can uh include voice recognition and um it allows {disfmarker} i it's possible to record eighty different voice samples on it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh so uh this uh this one was already mentioned uh the L_C_ display . +Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Um s another new development is a scroll button , which was also th also already mentioned . And uh our own manufacturing division ha has uh designed {vocalsound} a new um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh programmable speech uh {vocalsound} mm sorry uh speaker unit I guess it's {disfmarker} it should be . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Um and this means that um once uh uh it it it comes together with a voice recognition , but it's {disfmarker} once once the mm {vocalsound} um gadget uh recognises uh the voice of the speaker , there can be a um pre-programmed answer , for example , you can pick up the remote control and say something to it like hello and it says some hello and your name or whatever . +Project Manager: Uh-huh , hi {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: So {vocalsound} I mean this is also one of the n dev new developments which we might consider if we wanted to include . +Industrial Designer: Uh sorry , uh can you go back for a second ? Um {vocalsound} uh are you sure wha what this means , a spinning wheel with the L_C_ display ? Uh {vocalsound} oh yeah are th +Project Manager: It's like the {disfmarker} like you said , no ? The scroll scroll wheel . +Marketing: Yeah , you can't {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , the scroll button is a different thing . I I have a picture if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} just a moment , I'll {vocalsound} I'll show you . I wasn't completely sure myself , but I think it's just like um {vocalsound} it's it's a wheel , it's like not separate buttons . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh okay , the iPod thing , yeah . +User Interface: Look , this one here . +Marketing: Oh , it's like the iPod . +User Interface: But I'm I'm not really sure whether whether you can really turn it round , +Marketing: G yeah , no , you can . +User Interface: it's like you press this or this or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's the iPod uh kind of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's like it's like where you {disfmarker} you know how you have your your mouse , and y you go round and i it's kind of like that and you spin round +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Alright , right . Okay , okay . +Marketing: and it {disfmarker} yeah . It is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So instead of going down you just spin {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Marketing: You just go round +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and it is a bit weird at first , but it's actually very like fast . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: I like the the wheels that click on the side you you get 'em much slower , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so it's quite good if you like searching quite a lot of stuff . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Do you know , if you're lookin if you're th scrolling through the A_ to Z_ of your music and you're looking for something at T_ , then it's a lot faster than the wheel , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: but you've got a lot less control over it . +Industrial Designer: Right . So maybe I should include that here as well , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: L_C_D_s um plus spinning . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay , and the personal preferences are pretty much the same as as as last time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: It {vocalsound} it has to be small , simple . Okay , we decided to include voice recognition , so to have the standard uh major buttons like on , off , um ch the channels and and then um volume and then the rest would be a menu on the screen . Um and I I also thought uh {vocalsound} if we want to keep it small and nice um and actually I I quite like the idea of a scroll a scrolling button , I thought it could be for for voice like , I dunno , it mm like on a um i like it used to be on Walkmans or something . There is {vocalsound} uh I think there is no reason why we couldn't use something like this for for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So yeah , that's uh that's it . +Project Manager: Excellent . Okay , straight to trends , and then we can discuss it all at once . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Okay , I've put the copy of the presentation in um the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: The project documents . +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: Excellent . If you two could both do that as well , in case we need to refer to it . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Here it comes . Okay . +Marketing: Fabulous . Okay , cool . Um so what I did was to search the internet to come up with market trends and you know what users are gonna be wanting in the the near future . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . Right . Now , the first aspect is apparently twice as important as the second aspect , which is twice as important as the third a aspect . So , I mean the the easy to use thing is fairly low down on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: which I think given the target group is what you would expect , really . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um , you know , people want something new , something technologically innovative and different , so the whole idea with the L_C_D_s and the spinning and the colours and the voice recognition is quite like , quite the thing to go for . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: And um , yeah it wants to look fancy , fancy look and feel . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} uh maybe uh as you're discussing things , is it okay if we just uh keep highlighting things here ? +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah , sure . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . So mm uh so it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's over on the interface , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah , +Project Manager: if if you could put {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: so probably voice recognition is is kind of important , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um and an +Project Manager: And maybe the L_C_D_ and spinning {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Okay , I I have a point about L_C_D_ , +Project Manager: so that means we need an advanced thing . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if it is the right point to take it up . W uh L_C_D_s are basically for feedback , right , to the user who's pressing buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: and the feedback can come through television itself , so do we need an L_C_D_ on the remote ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Depends how fast your television runs , really , don't don't you think ? I mean we've got one of those um Telewest boxes +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: and you put the number in the remote and then you wait and then it goes to the T_V_ and then you wait , and then it comes , so i it actually takes quite a long time . And if you get the number in wrong , then it's a bit of a pain , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . {gap} +Marketing: so I think , you know , a screen on the remote would probably cut down your time on that . But like remotes do tend to get f thrown about a bit . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: It it is also quite nice though to to have something here so you don't interrupt the picture on the screen , +Marketing: You know ? Yeah . +Project Manager: so if you're watching something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's true , yeah , that's also {disfmarker} +Marketing: And i it would be like {disfmarker} I mean if you could make it integrate with the T_V_ then it could come up with new information about what's on , and you could just see that on the remote rather than {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Rather than having to interrupt your viewing pleasure . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: But um I think maybe a way to do it would be a similar way to how you have your mobile phone , you know , like you have the slidey ones and you have the flippy ones and then the screen's protected so it doesn't actually get scratched . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So you can have like what looks like a normal remote control , you know or like a minimalist remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So you got your buttons one to nine , your on and off and your volume on that +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: and then if you want to mess about with it , you flip it open and , +Project Manager: And then you can flip it open . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So now we seem to have a consensus that L_C_D_s are definitely the way to go because of style and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , I think so . +Marketing: Yeah , so that kind of decides your whole chip thing . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: You you agree ? Maarika , yeah ? +User Interface: Yep , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . +Industrial Designer: So L_C_D_s , yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Go on . +Marketing: Cool . Okay , apparently , fruit and vegetables will be providing inspiration . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Sorry , I discovered clip art . {vocalsound} Um so these will be an important feature for clothes , shoes and furniture . So I mean , I'm taking this to mean , you know , curviness . Do you know ? 'Cause you don't tend to get flat vegetables . You know ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and possibly even uneven , +Marketing: Yeah , bit of asymmetry and stuff . +Project Manager: like not not symmet yeah . +Marketing: But that would be a good way to to get in the whole um R_S_I_ issue in there , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: because {disfmarker} I mean if you think most people use the remote control with their right hand ha right hands +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so you wanna {disfmarker} you curve it so that it's suitable for use with the right hand . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um yeah +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: , I'm not quite sure about the relevance of material will be spongy . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Something a bit squishy and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we we have +Marketing: but I mean y you have to {disfmarker} +User Interface: So it could be like a rubbery {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: we have rubber , +User Interface: {vocalsound} yeah , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: but there is a problem that I forgot to discuss with the {disfmarker} um with using {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I suppose you wouldn't get a remote uh {disfmarker} an electric shock off your remote control if it was made of rubber . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , and it'd help if you drop it , it protects it as well . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: To some degree . +Industrial Designer: So if if we use uh latex cases , they won't allow us to use solar cells , as an energy source that is the constraint , +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: so um we could use {vocalsound} titanium , wood or plastic uh or uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or if we want to use the the latex , then we have to go with one of the other um power things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , w energy source . +Marketing: If it's made of rubber you could get the kinetic energy fairly easily there , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} From {vocalsound} from bouncing it . +Marketing: you could just {vocalsound} bounce it up and down {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , tap it on the desk , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You can have it as like a little ball to bounce , that flips open . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Um so yeah , um okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . So probably double curved surface is the way to go , yeah , {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or or curved at one end and flat on the top , because I I'm not sure if it is flat on both both the sides , then ho how much easy would it be to reach for buttons , etcetera . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have a certain element of flatness , I think . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: It it depends on the whole ergonomics of it , you know , it's like how you put your hands so y it's the least movement basically . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , singe single side curved or double side curved does not say too much , does it ? +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: It uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , I d I don't think it makes a lot of difference . I I have one of those s slidey phones and I mean the back is essentially straight , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: but it's curvy , so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I think uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'cause the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Besides , you have four sides to a thing , so I mean does curved one side mean one side is straight +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: and , you know curved two sides means the whole thing is just a big curvy p thing ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Di now did it say anywhere in your research material about this sliding stuff uh +Project Manager: Dunno . +Industrial Designer: because um {vocalsound} according to the information that I have , I think uh the onl only options that we have with the case is {disfmarker} are these three . Uh eith either we have uh a flat surfaced uh case or a curved surfaced case . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It does not say anything about uh whether technically , you know , this this stuff is available at all . +Project Manager: Nothing to {vocalsound} open them . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh it's it's more about the protecting the L_C_D_ , which I think is where it came from . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: But no , my research didn't tell me anything , which is why we have all the pictures , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause I had nothing better to do with my time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Anything else ? What've we got ? +Marketing: Uh combine style with a level of functionality , um beauty and practicality and a thing of beauty and p function . +Industrial Designer: Cool , thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , so . +Marketing: Okay ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks +Project Manager: Looking at what we've got , we we want an L_C_D_ display with a spinning wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Let's let's try to r rub off things and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , rub off some of those . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so um {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: hand dynamos are definitely out , right ? {vocalsound} You you got a wind {gap} dynamo , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah uh-hum yeah . +Project Manager: it's not {disfmarker} that's not streamlined and sexy , {vocalsound} having a having a wind up . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um {vocalsound} kinetic energy does seem to have some kind of uh uh appeal , +Project Manager: I think tha +Industrial Designer: but uh {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's about the practicality of it really , isn't it ? You know ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . As against a watch , which constantly keeps moving , +Marketing: I mean if {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: this this thing will have to be tapped every time , which which might be very frustrating for the user . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Depends how much how much movement it really needs . +Industrial Designer: Kinetic energy it needs {disfmarker} I don't have too much technical information on that , +Project Manager: Pr presumably if they're suggesting it , then we could use it . +Industrial Designer: yeah , right . Okay , let's keep it option uh keep an option , +Project Manager: I'd I'd keep it on . +Industrial Designer: yeah . Um {vocalsound} the flat co completely flat case is definitely out , right ? It has to be at least curved from one side , yeah . +Project Manager: We don't want that +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: it's no {disfmarker} it's not not vegetable . +User Interface: it's {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} okay , we still have all all the options . Wood , do you think wood will be a good idea ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: N wood is {disfmarker} I can't n {vocalsound} how do you uh I mean you can't keep it really small uh +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: you can't make it like thin and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: I can't imagine a m wooden remote control . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: The wood thing . Because you need to you n you need to put all the technology in , so I mean if the case {disfmarker} you add the case and it it becomes a bit bulky +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} if if it is really thin if it is really thin it it's likely to break , +User Interface: wi mm-mm yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: it's it's much more uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and given that we're we're looking at more spongy material preferences , I ha would think maybe rubber or plastic is more {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: U yeah wood is not really {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Well it's not very cleanable either , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's true . +Marketing: do you know . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: It's it's not {vocalsound} a practical {disfmarker} I mean it's it's alright for a table , but for a remote control , you know . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And splinters and stuff and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: okay {vocalsound} wood is out . +Marketing: It just m doesn't make any sense , I think is the thing with wood . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , in the case of remote control not really . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , now for the really interesting stuff , the interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh the the push-buttons is is our expertise uh in the industry , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but uh it seems to be {vocalsound} out of trend , you know , nobody seems to be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to have some push-buttons , don't you ? +User Interface: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} um I think for for the channel numb uh channel numbers you still need them , wouldn't you ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Marketing: G yeah , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , so for channel numbers but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh , if if we have L_C_D_ displays , that opens up a whole world , you know , if you have an L_C_D_ display , then mm you can select almost everything on the L_C_D_ display . +User Interface: But I th yeah but {vocalsound} I think the L_C_D_ display is kind of {disfmarker} yeah , it's faster +Project Manager: Just for fast {disfmarker} +User Interface: with a m yeah and w if we dis and when we s um {vocalsound} discussed that we might like this flipping open thing , then I mean y you can use it as a normal remote control , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: but if you do want to use L_C_D_ , then you flip it open , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it's it it's more time-consuming . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: I think this is going back to the the graph at the beginning that I made , where , you know , the buttons that people use all the time , you want buttons for them and everything else menu-driven . +Industrial Designer: Mm right . +Project Manager: And it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: yeah {vocalsound} L_ {disfmarker} L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: So uh in in the buttons we have for the channels also we have options . Do you do we enumerate everything from zero to nine ? Or do we have just uh channel plus , channel minus , just to just to scroll ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} No , no , I mean mm we we definitely need the the numbers , +Industrial Designer: The numbers . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} uh otherwise people don't want to flip through all the channels . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Do we need them on as buttons or do we need them as L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Or {vocalsound} on the L_C_D_ we can , you know {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: G yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , I would say buttons , +Marketing: I would think buttons , yeah . +Project Manager: Buttons . +User Interface: because it's {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: It's it's the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: So mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think the thing is , so if someone just wants to turn on their T_V_ and put on a channel , then it should be easier to use than any other remote , +User Interface: I +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and then if someone wants to , you know , change the contrast on their T_V_ and {disfmarker} they should be able to do that and it should be accessible , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: but , you know , I mean most of the time {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean there's a limit to how much the biggest techno geek can spend fiddling with the T_V_ , I think is the the the issue there . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay , so buttons definitely in but {disfmarker} oh shall we uh try to draw a prec um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I think that's what {vocalsound} you guys are gonna do next , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh okay . +Project Manager: so if we put down the key um {vocalsound} things that we want . +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , so the components . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , so uh what about the the scrolling uh ? +User Interface: Yeah but n I I'm not completely um completely clear uh I {vocalsound} yeah , about the spinning wheel . So I think it {vocalsound} it doesn't make sense to have both like a scrolling and spinning thing , +Marketing: {vocalsound} E either or {disfmarker} +User Interface: it's uh {disfmarker} you can al include everything in the spinning if you +Marketing: G yeah . +Project Manager: Just spinning and not scrolling , I would say . +User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , +Marketing: {vocalsound} I would say the s the s the spinning goes at a high speed to th to the scrolling wheel , +User Interface: in that case . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so you have to decide whether {disfmarker} you you know , you want to be going so fast or not . But I mean the the thing with this whole {disfmarker} if y you're planning on making it out of rubber , on the basis that it's spongy , then I'm not sure how well a scrolling wheel would work . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Mm um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But if you've got a {disfmarker} if if you've got a flipped thing , effectively it's something that's curved on one side and flat on the other side , but you folded it in half . +User Interface: Ah , but I mean you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , but y your spinning wheel tends to go to one side . +Project Manager: Th {vocalsound} that would be on one side , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to construct the whole thing out of rubber . {vocalsound} Uh i it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I think it's just the casing rubber on the outside . +User Interface: Yeah , I um I think so too , I mean the case would be {disfmarker} +Marketing: You want an outside of rubber +User Interface: yeah the case would be rubber and the the buttons , +Marketing: and then open it up and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Or or at the corners , edges , just the edges covered by rubber or something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: rubber buttons , but then {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Everything else in plastic or even titanium if we want to use it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Or maybe like interchangeable cases . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'Cause I know like we're going back to iPods again n the whole spinning wheel , but I have like a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know , obviously my iPod's not made of rubber , but then I have a little rubber case that goes over the top of it +Industrial Designer: Right , right . +Marketing: and I can change the colour , theoretically , to match my outfit . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: okay , so so that gives us a more trendy look as well . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , I think the spinning wheel is definitely very now . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah , and uh we're going more for the trends than for the usability anyway , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: that's what they're after . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub that out . {vocalsound} And uh colours can be provided with the case rather than {disfmarker} Um but we still need to te think about the colour of our remote as such , you know , just keep it black , or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah I think we {disfmarker} um it was a a requirement that we use our um th the colours of our company , so would it be like yellow , grey and black or something , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: That doesn't fit in with the whole vegetable theme though . +Project Manager: I guess . +User Interface: Yeah , does {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Bananas . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Banana's yellow , {vocalsound} yeah , definitely . +Marketing: Yeah , but I mean do you think we could incorporate the colours of the company into the buttons and then make the colour of the main remote {vocalsound} the colour like vegetable colours , do you know ? So you could have like {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I mean I suppose vegetable colours would be orange and green and some reds and um maybe purple +Project Manager: Green . Yeah . +Marketing: and that and then you'd pick the buttons in company colours to to match with it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . Um {vocalsound} okay , if you g go over to uh the integrated circuits . Uh since we're having L_C_D_s there there's no way that we're will be able to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We need the advanced {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: um what we do need to consider , however , is that the price is going up for the ever every such thing that we are considering , but since L_C_D_s seems to be uh a definite yes , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} it seems to be one area where we would want to spend . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So I'll rub off the other two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So are we discounting solar energy because rubber's gonna be used in there somewhere or {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That was the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh is {disfmarker} oh the constraint was uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We can't have solar panels with rubber , so . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Marketing: solar panels with the rubber . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , okay , so we lose that I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shall we go for {disfmarker} if we're going for rubber , we think uh on {disfmarker} as our case , and then {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} And the buttons as well , I think . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I think uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We've got five more minutes . +Industrial Designer: we'll have uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} uh using the simple battery will be a safer option as compared to the kinetic energy one , I mean , a although it does seem uh interesting . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But it does not hold any advantages as such for a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: It's just a gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Uh okay , so r we understand this better now that uh the the speaker is for the feedback , right ? It it says uh the things that you type in or something like that , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . I think if we can if we can include them at not too much extra cost , then I'd put them in , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yeah , {vocalsound} we we don't have too much information about it , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but if it's {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but it it {disfmarker} I think it should be quite cheap because it's from our own company , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's from the company , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay , so so th this is in as well then , the sample speaker . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . And the case is curved on one side , but then flat flat , so it's flipped into each other . +Industrial Designer: Flat on the top . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: Can I pull the {vocalsound} thing out the back of your computer ? +Marketing: Yeah , sure j +Project Manager: Just so we can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sorry , do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nothing , it's right , I'm just {disfmarker} There we go . +Marketing: What does um I_C_S_ mean ? +Industrial Designer: I_C_s ? Uh integrated circuits . +Marketing: Okay , cool . So it's advanced integrated circuits ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh oh now I've gone too far . +Industrial Designer: Uh um we we're definitely going in for voice recognition as well as L_C_D_s , mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . We're on our way . Okay . {vocalsound} So we've basically worked out that we're going with a simple battery , the advanced chip +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: and a curved on one side case which is folded in on itself , um made out of rubber +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: and the buttons are also rubber . We're having push-buttons on the outside and then on the inside an L_C_D_ with spinning wheel , and we're incorporating voice recognition . That's our overall concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and it's gonna look sort of vegetable , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and be in bright vegetable colours . +User Interface: Uh-huh . So {vocalsound} w w would with have the spinning wheel inside with the L_C_D_ , or would it be on the outer {disfmarker} +Marketing: Imagine it would be inside . +Project Manager: I think it's on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So um actually that could like really cut down your thing , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so you've got your outside , which is like minimalist , and then you open it up and you've got a screen and a spinning wheel , which you can incorporate buttons into . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Um so you've still not got like a lot of stuff in the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You've maybe got , you know {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like if you're modelling on iPod you've got five buttons and a wheel , +Project Manager: On the {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and four of the buttons are in the wheel , and the other one's the little bit inside the wheel , +Project Manager: In the centre , +Marketing: yeah . +Project Manager: yeah , sure . +User Interface: Mm yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so now we've got thirty minutes before our next meeting . In the meantime , the Industrial Designer over here is gonna work on the look and feel design , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: which I'll presume he'll work out what that means . Um the User Interface Designer will work on the user interface design and the Marketing Expert is going to work on product evaluation . And as well as that , the two designers are going to work together on our prototype following those instructions that we've just come up with using modelling clay and you will get extra instructions from your personal coach . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Is that all okay ? And anyone who hasn't put their their presentation in the project documents folder , it would be good just so {disfmarker} in case we have to refer to it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Cool , I'm gonna go and sit on my own . +Project Manager: Y ah nobody wants to talk to you . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know , I'm hated . +Project Manager: Unplug yourself . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I've got a bit tangled up in all this {vocalsound} +User Interface: So but {disfmarker} shall I move away first or shall I stay here with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I dunno , maybe I would car +User Interface: we need to {disfmarker} +","The project team met to discuss the design and features for a new key remote control concept. The Project Manager outlined the structure of the meeting, which was similar to the last one, with team members presenting their updates and then discussing them together. Although the Industrial Designer did not prepare a PowerPoint presentation, they decided to use the whiteboard to present their ideas. + +The Industrial Designer discussed several options for the remote's components, power sources, and design materials, emphasizing the low cost and adaptability of printed circuit boards. They highlighted different power source options – simple batteries, dynamos, kinetic energy ones, and solar cells – and raised concerns about selecting an energy source that aligns with other design choices. + +The User Interface Designer considered the aspects of the remote that users interact with, like shape, size, and buttons. They analyzed related products for user friendliness and appearance, preferring remote designs that are less cluttered with buttons and visually appealing. + +The Marketing Expert examined market trends, which suggest that users value new technology, stylized aesthetics, and innovative features. They emphasized that these trends should guide the remote's design. + +The team assembled a consensus on including an LCD display with a spinning wheel for functionality and trending appeal and decided on a curved design with spongy materials for ergonomics and trendy aesthetics. They also agreed that the case should be rubber, possibly with interchangeable colors, and that essential buttons should be push-buttons for ease of use. Advanced integrated circuits are necessary to support the LCD screen and voice recognition. + +In summary, the remote control will have essential push-buttons with a flip-open minimalistic design revealing an advanced interface with LCD and spinning wheel inside, voice recognition, rubber case, and powered by simple batteries. It will be designed in a modern, stylish, and ergonomic fashion with a preference for vegetable-inspired shapes and colors. The Industrial Designer will combine style with functionality for the design, while the User Interface Designer will ensure user friendliness, and the Marketing Expert will evaluate the product against market trends." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh fourth meeting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We have to do what ? +Project Manager: Some extra deciding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W what ? Alri alright . We'll see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} I'll show you the notes again . Very interesting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well you'll you two will uh present us your prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then um {disfmarker} I guess that's your bit ? I I didn't s see anything about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} I already uh thought you uh you were {gap} to do that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the you're uh {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll show you how we're going to do with financing this uh design . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's important too . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then we'll evaluate , after after we have redesigned it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bit late . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because uh well we'll see about the costs . Um we'll uh evaluate our p our uh production and then uh we can close . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well the finance uh we'll do later , so um firstly uh {vocalsound} I'll show you the notes . {vocalsound} I don't think it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is . +Project Manager: Oh nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} Alright . This is copy paste . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: From me of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . You had some very strange layout . +Industrial Designer: Well from us all , yeah , from all of us . Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a nice chorus , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We ge we went through the agenda , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and well we had some uh some presentations from you three . And uh I summarised what you said to us . So uh I don't think it's very interesting and go through it again . +Industrial Designer: Repeat it yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} This is what we decided . It's also copy paste from what we made together . So we still know that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And then uh we can we can uh use the time better . Well uh next you two will uh present uh the pot prototype for us . +Industrial Designer: Alright , we both uh will ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or one of us will ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you go and I'll uh supplement you . +Industrial Designer: Alright . If I make mistakes uh you'll uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Correct . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh well this is our design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's pretty uh much uh like uh Mike draw uh drew uh the in the during the last meeting . With uh the different uh perspectives of it . Uh we'll begin uh with the front . We have of course uh the the round shape uh the round uh basic shape . Um with uh the upper part being the front . Th So there's this part um {vocalsound} which is made of hard plastic , the front . And uh we're we're using different colours . Of course for the launch we use the basic ugly colours , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and later we'll put out uh more interesting covers with different patterns and pictures and everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But basically , different colours , bright colours not black , too dark . Fancy colours . {vocalsound} Um then we have uh the lower part {vocalsound} of the of the device . Uh which is of course um part of the back actually , because it's also titanium . You can see it also on the on the on the side view , that only this part is the front , and the rest of it , the under uh the under side uh of it , yeah , the back side and the lower part of the front is of course titanium made of titanium , and has the titanium colour of course , the look . Um then we have uh on back on the front uh the logo in the upper corner , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: uh which is uh made uh which is also part of the back , part of the titanium uh titanium part . +User Interface: Yeah , it's a double R_ , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: It's a double R_ . +Industrial Designer: It's a double R_ . Yeah the logo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {vocalsound} it's very difficult to to draw that in {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh it's difficult to draw so small , but it's our double R_ uh logo is in there . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um so that's the logo in the upper lef uh right corner . Then we have the buttons . Uh it's difficult to draw again the little oval or round {disfmarker} I think oval will be better for the for the d for the different uh channel buttons . +User Interface: Oval yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} uh oval , n those are here . And then we have the m The m +User Interface: Channel up and volume ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the con the the the , yeah , the t volume and the channel controls uh in the middle here . Um um with kind of arrow shapes , which makes it also a bit more exciting than basic round or um uh {vocalsound} uh square buttons . And also here are the two uh buttons we agreed on . We have the Okay button . Oh nei we uh the Okay button's here in the middle of the of the operators , of the channel and uh volume um changers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then we've here the Menu button and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Menu for the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And the video button . The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And of course this low part , this is the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is what we made of it . You can make uh suggestions uh if you want . +Project Manager: Well if I look at it , the side the side view {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , at the back {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we maybe we should finish first uh our talk +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then you can add suggestions . +Project Manager: Oh yeah alright . Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I I don't want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't want to suppress you but n I'll uh finish this uh quick . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um okay I've had everything I guess on the front ? +User Interface: No the back . With the logo and our uh l uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the back . Yeah . {vocalsound} We thought about {disfmarker} Yeah , uh the back is of course totally titanium . {vocalsound} And we thought about the logo big in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Just so again the double R_ . We have then the logo on front and on the back . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's too much +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but you have to say uh say that if you think that way . +User Interface: No I don't think {disfmarker} And the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the company slogan , we thought in a kind of arc shape uh above the logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's basically what we were thinking about , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W +User Interface: And about the side view um {disfmarker} This the front won't be as thick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but again th the the drawing technique makes it very difficult to to really uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I see , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh and uh before I forget . Yeah the the voice , of course , +Project Manager: Well . Yeah I see it . +Industrial Designer: the voice recorder is uh at the bottom . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And you can record it uh using , yeah , the the the back of the f w device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When I look at uh when I look at this side view , I think w when I have that in my hand , it's terrible . +User Interface: Well , it won't be visible . Mm ? +Project Manager: If if you look if if this this is thick , and this is thin , th th then it that it lies over your hands . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? {vocalsound} Well it fits uh it it it it fits the hand , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mean uh the the the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well what what what I what I agree is that when uh when um you have such of uh an arc in the middle , so that the the a the ends and the fronts is a bit thicker , so th then it falls over your hands . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: {gap} If y {vocalsound} If you handle a remote , you you usually don't have your hand straight like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the middle in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have it a bit uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It depends on the size . If it's kinda small , this is is great . But if it's it's larger , then you want to grab it . +Project Manager: And how large is it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the question . +Industrial Designer: That's the question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} Yeah . H What do you suggest I mean we do ? {gap} This was Mike's prototype , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and y you seemed to agreed on it . +Project Manager: Well the sides I haven't seen yet , uh {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: But now you have a totally different {gap} . +User Interface: Well , they lay there all the time . +Industrial Designer: The size ? Yeah well the size doesn't really matter w I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They the the the the the side view , +Industrial Designer: Side ? Uh oh the side ? +Project Manager: we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we we he drew the s the side , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you d you weren't paying attention as usual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well any case , we'll discuss it now . Uh I think uh this is a pretty good uh good idea {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree with the L_C_D_ screen . You have it in your palm like this , and you can watch uh watch the screen . And if you have it li in the middle , your hand might be over it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you you hold it like this . +User Interface: Yeah you you don't you don't grab it , +Industrial Designer: You're not holding it like this or something . +User Interface: you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You , yeah , y How do you call it ? Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well y y y you don't have it like this . +Project Manager: No no no . +Industrial Designer: You have it more like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You you you're using buttons this way , or if you're right-handed , this way . +Marketing: Like you're holding your telephone . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because if you have a screen on it , you wanna look at your screen . +User Interface: Hmm . That way , it it falls into your hand . I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And maybe you can you can grab it a bit higher , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree on this . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I don't think so . That's not uh the point {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the the {disfmarker} Well that's a reason to to to put the L_C_D_ screen uh of course on the upper side , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well f for as far as I can see , three of us agree +Project Manager: Yeah well +User Interface: and only Nils {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh I think uh if you t if you three uh agree then then that's it . +User Interface: But you're the Project Manager , you can make the hard decisions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So uh I c I c +Industrial Designer: If necessary . +Project Manager: Well , we'll we we'll do it like this . +Industrial Designer: But uh are d Can you live with it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , if you think that that's the way it should {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah , y y y y you said it was totally uh unusable . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} No , +Industrial Designer: But do you +Project Manager: when I I my personal taste is that I want it to fall over my hands with a thick {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} In the market uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But d you don't think this is completely unusable I guess . I think . +Project Manager: No not totally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not totally , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} For me , I I wouldn't buy it . Let's say it like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but of course y you are also human . We have to take uh {vocalsound} every everyone into account . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you might be uh {disfmarker} You might be target customer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh who who else thinks like you ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know , +Industrial Designer: Maybe a thousand people , +Project Manager: but that's uh that's that's that's more market research . +Industrial Designer: or a million people . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let it be like this at uh at this moment . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let it be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . So that's that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh any other suggestions ? +Project Manager: No , I think it's great . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But what about the redesigning ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Comes to that later . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um you . Uh c You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Walter . {vocalsound} You can do the evaluation uh criteria on this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're very personal again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's more useful than just {vocalsound} speaking . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , this is just a short intro . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I'm going to do uh the ev evaluation . That's gonna be done at the end of seven point skill criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I made a {disfmarker} I made a few questions on the hand of uh uh the impor most important requirements and trends . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And we have to look if our uh if our device uh is working correctly . Well , I put some questions in a Word file . See if I can find them . Uh uh uh uh mm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I uh think you have all seen uh this kind of evaluation , so uh I don't have to explain it . Uh the first question is , uh is the device good-looking ? Because normal p uh most people thought that um earlier devices were ugly ugly . Seventy five percent of them . So what do we think ? +Industrial Designer: Well d we designed it , so of course we are very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're we're not quite uh objective about this . +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we designed it to be good-looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I know , but {vocalsound} I have to uh evaluate it . So I have to take this questionnaire . +Project Manager: To the customers ? +Industrial Designer: So and we ha we have answer now ? +Project Manager: To potential customers who have to take this questionnaire ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , but I can't can s +Project Manager: Nei . Oh no . I know , I know , I know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} we can go , uh because of the time , uh pretty quick through this . Uh do we find it good-looking ? Well we think so . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We designed it to be good-looking , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh , you know {disfmarker} We dis we di {vocalsound} we designed it to be perfect . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} But we have to be critic critical about it . And I have to uh take all these points and get a average at the end . So we {vocalsound} we know where we stand . +Project Manager: Well , one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: 'Cause th there are some things we might have uh bi might have forgotten . +Project Manager: Well so it's point four . Easy to find t +Industrial Designer: Well l well let's start with the beginning , just one by one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , so {disfmarker} Right . Uh is it good-looking ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I guess uh I think uh {vocalsound} it's uh it's it's um pointed towards the youth of course , uh if you look at the design and and the colours and everything . {gap} +Project Manager: Two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was our target audience of course . But it's also not completely um {vocalsound} uh u unacceptable for older people I guess . Uh it's it's not f a device that {disfmarker} +Marketing: The titanium might be uh f for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's uh for older people , it's it's more that classical look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It you put uh put a black front on it or something . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh no . {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah they like black of course , but I think they'll uh they they think uh the the titanium look of it is also {disfmarker} Uh I think it's also good for them , so I think we both uh have uh consider considered uh the youth and also a bit older people . So I think it's very good-looking +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and not only for youth uh young people . +User Interface: I think we shouldn't discuss any points points that long , because I don't know how how many points there are but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . I totally agree . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the fourteen yeah . +Project Manager: We we have to get get on , go through this . +Marketing: Right , a number please . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to t change channels ? Yeah well I think so . +Marketing: So the last one is seven . +User Interface: Um , no it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Easy to change channels ? +Project Manager: No , not false . It's one . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Well uh two ? Y Well we have to go through it {gap} . +Marketing: Change channels ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's uh as easy as uh can be made . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . You {disfmarker} How can you make it any easier ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} With two huge buttons . +Marketing: The power , channel and volume buttons are easy accessible ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , huge is a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Alright . The uh device is easy to find if you lose it ? +Project Manager: Well , no . We didn't implement anything about that . {gap} +Industrial Designer: D we d we don't we don't have uh that s +User Interface: Well it's easier to find than a a normal black one or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well six then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: because of the colour . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Six ? Right . +Industrial Designer: Well we don't have the device that beeps uh when you lost it or so , +Project Manager: Are the functions easy to learn ? +Industrial Designer: but um um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well w I we do want we have a l f f less of an {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} We have so few functions , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And the device R_S_I_ sensitive ? +User Interface: Well , I should {disfmarker} I think two , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {vocalsound} the voice recorder is n not self learning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Alright . Two ? +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but just do some {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} We we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I th I th I think this is too time consuming . +Industrial Designer: Are we take too much time ? +Project Manager: Uh not not towards you , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: but towards this all . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Th this is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We you have to put it to the customers . +Marketing: Right , R_ R_S_I_ sensitive ? {vocalsound} R_S_I_ sensitive ? +Project Manager: Uh well well a bit , so four . +Marketing: Four . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , very much . One . +Project Manager: One . And features included also one . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh those uh nine uh is the fancy-looking . Uh we still think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Device fancy feeling . +Industrial Designer: And I think fancy-feeling too , +Project Manager: Yeah , cool man . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the titanium back . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Are there enough technology ? Yeah well also we have two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Is the device easy to use ? +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes we have {vocalsound} not many buttons . +Industrial Designer: So well maybe two +Project Manager: Two , three . +User Interface: Two {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: because of the voice recorder . +Marketing: Well , with the uh {disfmarker} Three . +Project Manager: Are the trends about fruit and vegetables implemented ? +User Interface: T +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: Well in our covers , in our fronts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yes , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . One or two . Yeah . +User Interface: One or two , another two . +Marketing: Nah f four I think . +Industrial Designer: Four ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you look at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it doesn't really resemble any fruit , uh that's true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But but we have the the the the the sparkly fruity colours of course . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay {gap} . +User Interface: Well three . +Marketing: Three , alright . +Industrial Designer: And you can also have {gap} front with uh with fruit on it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Is the material attractive ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium is strong , and uh the rest f uh the buttons feel soft . So I would say at least two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: This is the last meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we we have to design much more , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The average will uh come later . +Project Manager: because there was some irritating account manager coming to me . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I knew things uh were going uh too smoothly . +Project Manager: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There had to be some kind of trouble along the way . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Well , look at the costs at this point . +Industrial Designer: My god . +Project Manager: I had to fit it in . +Marketing: It has to go to twelve , right ? +Project Manager: I twelve and a half . +Marketing: Twelve and a half . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Well what costs a lot ? The sample spea costs four . +Industrial Designer: The what ? +Project Manager: The sample speaker , +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Out . +Project Manager: the s sensor . +Marketing: That's easy . Kick it out . +Project Manager: Kick it out . +User Interface: The what ? +Project Manager: We have to go to twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah . The speaker . +Project Manager: The speaker costs far , by far the most . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w tha that's uh that's a bit an optional option . +Marketing: That's some wrong info , man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It it isn't worth it . +Industrial Designer: No . No , d th No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We could make two different versions , one with and one without . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But for this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's just extra . Kick it out . +Project Manager: So , zero . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we go to fourteen point six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium I don't want to lose actually . +Marketing: What more ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Batteries are uh quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_ three ? Yeah hand dynamo ? Y t come on , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh no , no no no . +Project Manager: w a remote control has a battery . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N Uh well we have a bit of a problem I think . +User Interface: Well well why why why should we use a advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well be for the L_C_D_ uh you had said . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Can't we do that with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh that uh y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what what's the difference between simple and regular ? +Industrial Designer: because my information says it . +Project Manager: What's the difference between a simple and a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . Regular is normal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And simple ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well yeah I I read something about it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Elementary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: Your part . +Industrial Designer: I I read something about it , but it wasn't very clear . I d I didn't in include it in my report . +Project Manager: What happens if we do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single {disfmarker} Well you have to use a chip . So {disfmarker} Well you have to use the advanced chip , if you have the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: How much do we win ? One . +User Interface: We we we {disfmarker} Why ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: We have very little options furthermore , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you have a regular chip , you can't have the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Uh well we have to put that in . +Marketing: Yeah , we need to have the {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: That that's a fact . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we could say , well this special colour , that isn't that that isn't there , +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because the the fronts they will buy it . The special colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's only one half . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it d it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's n It's not relevant . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you must change the chip uh back . +Project Manager: then you s then you only have one half left . +User Interface: You must change the chip back , Nils . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we d Then we have to lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: No , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the whole concept is uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know but that's what my information says . I di I didn't uh put uh the advanced chip in there for fun . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} we oh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} You can make you can make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: You have to use it . +Marketing: But if you don't sell +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You you we have an advanced chip-on-print , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we have an L_C_ display . I think that's a bit double . +Project Manager: Yeah ? No , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Y we don't need both . +Project Manager: the advanced chip is needed to have an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Says {gap} . +Project Manager: Says , his {disfmarker} Uh that was in the second meeting , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well uh and what do they mean with curves uh again ? Because we you have uncurved {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I did single curve to {disfmarker} Well you said s double curved , +User Interface: I ? +Project Manager: uh he , +User Interface: {gap} ? +Project Manager: because uh I thought it's a b a bit cheaper already . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can also make it flat . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} No +Industrial Designer: But what what did what do n +Marketing: no no no . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What do they mean with the curves ? +Project Manager: Curved ? +Industrial Designer: Is th Is this a curve ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's curved . +Industrial Designer: One curve ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this is actually two curves , yeah . +Project Manager: No , it's one curve . +Industrial Designer: It's how you {disfmarker} It's how you look at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} One curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One curve , simple . +Industrial Designer: Well then we have a huge problem I think . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: W t we can never get uh below the twelve and a half . +Project Manager: We have a big financial problem . +User Interface: Well we make it more expensive to buy . +Project Manager: Well , then we have two dollars less profit . Come on , if we if we if we make this fifty million , they won't hesitate to uh congratulate us , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If if you make people brand-aware , they are willing to pay more . But {disfmarker} Because we we use a brand at the front and uh I dun at the back . If you have uh lots of uh marketing people might buy . +Industrial Designer: But uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah or we could replace it {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you make it cool to have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By the way , we also have this one . +Marketing: Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: Oh , costs nothing . That's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey but uh I think you'll agree that uh that we that now we have this uh screen , it's it's very uh not practical to ha to consider this after we have designed the entire thing . +Project Manager: Plastic is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes , but I just got it . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's pretty uh l +User Interface: Why why don't we replace the titanium with uh plastic coloured titanium , +Marketing: That is pretty stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: N not very practical . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh titanium-coloured plastic ? +Project Manager: Who ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want to dump the titanium ? +User Interface: Yeah well if we uh we we have to get cheaper . +Project Manager: And make all plastic , then we ha then we're there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But I'm n I don't agree . +User Interface: But then we we've got to uh run through the eval evaluation process again . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th then you have a ugly , stupid , l ugly looking , dumb remote that that no-one would buy . +User Interface: Ah no no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not ugly looking . The looks remain the same . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , I do think so . +Industrial Designer: I think the titanium just uh provided the the tough look and the and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Yes . And the feel , +User Interface: {gap} feel . +Project Manager: and th that it is strong , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the the older people will like it because of that . And because i +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Alright it's not our target audience , but it's it's useful if it's uh important for old people . +Project Manager: We still {vocalsound} we had to focus to get more people from the younger group , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but not lose the one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think the titanium is very important . +User Interface: Yeah alright but then we we won't get there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have a problem , yeah . W But you can better , yeah , dump the L_C_D_ screen then . +User Interface: We can dump the special colour . We l we use plastic . And plastic is already in colour I think . +Marketing: I don't think you should dump the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well what else ? +User Interface: No , nothing . +Industrial Designer: W I mean uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you shou {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Amen . +Marketing: Or change the titanium or dump the L_C_D_ screen . But I think you could better change uh titanium to hard a hard kind of plastic looking like titanium than lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Because you have lots of functions {vocalsound} in it too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I agree with that . So we u we use uh {disfmarker} Unfortunately . Um . Titanium-coloured plastic . +Project Manager: I'll put in the report we that we think that fourteen point one is the l m lowest price you can make a remote for that's trendy d these days . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: So titanium-coloured plastic for the back . +Project Manager: I I'll talk to the managers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no no . W Titanium stays there . +Project Manager: Titanium , I thi I think this this is this is e really good re remote . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is good , +Marketing: Osl {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it it's not good enough . {vocalsound} So we have to use the ditch the titanium , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Ah those {gap} those account managers , what do th d what do they know ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . Riot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do we {disfmarker} Well what do we know ? All we want is a is a fancy design but we don't really consider the costs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +User Interface: No because we did not know anything about it . +Project Manager: One and a half Euros . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah al alright , yeah . +Marketing: If you don't have the money , you can't make it . +Industrial Designer: But we have to deal with it now . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So s If you don't have the money , you can't make it . So this is too expensive . +Project Manager: So ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: Titanium gone and add plastic . +User Interface: Yeah , but then we've got money left . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: And on plastic times two and then we uh are there ? +Project Manager: Well , no it's just uh all plastic . +Industrial Designer: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well alright . Huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh six . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's just free , man . +Industrial Designer: A lot of plastic , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Four . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No two for the to make it clear . +Project Manager: But then we can add the special colour ? As we have money over uh left . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And we still have money left . +User Interface: Yeah . W +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do we want , guys ? +Industrial Designer: I want gold plating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . I want chrome . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I think uh the case is double curved then . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Because you y have that curve +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have we have to uh fill {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you have that curve . +Project Manager: Y Oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , th that that is the problem . +User Interface: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we ha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No no no , but th that's not f um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Safe . +User Interface: Well y we have curves in all directions . +Industrial Designer: Well you can you can double curve , if you don't have titanium . And that we dropped , +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so it it can be done . {vocalsound} But it's pretty funny . We we do want to reach twelve point five . But it isn't bad to to to stay at eleven . +Project Manager: Finance ? +User Interface: I mean , this this ain't titanium , but it looks like it . +Project Manager: Well , guys ? +Industrial Designer: We get more salary , if we make if cheaper than twelve uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to dump our titanium , +Marketing: Shoot . +Project Manager: and we'll hate the managers for that , but now we're going to evaluate our project , of uh project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Objection . +User Interface: Pro project . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} project . {vocalsound} Well , {vocalsound} satisfaction on for example , are we satisfactory about our creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Well I can't get no satisfaction , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh {disfmarker} Well in in if we consider the costs then this is the best , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's terrible that we got uh those costs at the last moment . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: That's really bad . But that that that's that , yeah that's a reason , +Industrial Designer: Its it's uh ridiculous actually , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: And uh unrealistic . +Project Manager: but also for our creativity . We had um nice design , and then you get the cost , and you had to dump all your creativity . +User Interface: Well we we we used our creativity , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: but we just had to adapt it to the costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Which isn't very practical , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} that's the way . +Project Manager: Well , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh leadership next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Terrible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leadership . +User Interface: Leadership ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It was very democratic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah well {vocalsound} I think so also . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I al I I've uh filled that in in a the questionnaires uh each time , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well the managers were terrible . So , with their all their useless requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But o alright , the teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh they they didn't think of the requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the requirements of the user , uh I guess . +Project Manager: No they said , oh we won't d uh we won't uh use teletext , uh we won't use the D_V_D_ . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah but they base that on on the user specifications . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , teamwork ? Well great I think . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , think so too . +Project Manager: Uh well what do you , what did you think about the SMARTboard ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It was a complete disaster . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't like it . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} Uh it it it uh it is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that's a SMARTboard , and that's a digital pen . +Project Manager: It's also a It's both the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No it's other way around . That's the SMARTboard . +Project Manager: I liked this SMARTboard , +Industrial Designer: That's the digital panel . +Project Manager: but I hated that one . +Marketing: This this this isn't a SMARTboard , right ? +Project Manager: Well it's both a SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: That's that's the smart +Marketing: Yeah right . B but you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh they're both SMARTboards . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is just a large t large television . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A televi Yeah . +Marketing: You u you use the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's both a SMARTboard , but this one is used for a desktop , and that one is used to to draw . +Marketing: Yeah , but you ca This is just a beamer function . And here , on this one , you can uh draw the pictures and things like that . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , wi w which one did you like ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Left or right ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That one isn't accurate . {vocalsound} It just doesn't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I I think this is meant by the digital pen . +Marketing: You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Th that is so . +Industrial Designer: Well I didn't use uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I think there's a big distinction between the {vocalsound} these th +Project Manager: We're now talking about the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't need a SMARTboard . +User Interface: {gap} Well we we used that one , +Industrial Designer: Nei It it's much m {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we needed it . I think . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} give me a beamer . That's uh that's much uh much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or install a laptop to a beamer , or have this one standing here in an {disfmarker} I I like it . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Yeah I like that one , but that one is terrible . +Industrial Designer: But uh you can uh {disfmarker} I I sent it about three times now . Uh {vocalsound} a green uh board with uh chalk is much more useful than that thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The simple uh sch school board . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: And uh the digi the digital pen ? Did uh did you like that one ? +Industrial Designer: I I didn't use it . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I wrote things down but I didn't import it into my laptop . +Project Manager: I used it uh just to check it out , but uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You you can't send that to anyone , because you you've scrabbled something on a page for yourself , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} It isn't practical . Right . +Project Manager: and then you're going to send it , yeah . Well , no . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} But also y you write things down . And i you can also bring your your your note block . +Marketing: Your notepad . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So what's the what's the th what's the point of importing it into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's , no , it it's useless . +User Interface: Well I I drew this . {gap} Mm . And I made a mistake . But it it would have been uh useful , if I I could show this on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah alright . For drawings , +Project Manager: For drawings , yes . +User Interface: Yeah for drawings . +Industrial Designer: but not for personal notes . I think that's not very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} N notes mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I mean {vocalsound} you can bring your paperwork along and p Well of course if you have a lot of paper {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it might be useful for drawings . I I agree on that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you've {disfmarker} If you've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But for notes , it i you you have to put that in a strict {disfmarker} Uh you have to put a name , standard date , and all those things . And notes uh for a meeting are very strict . So if you uh were to write them down for yourself , and then put that in your computer , you still have to type it over to Word . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it doesn't d doesn't have any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: That Stefan use . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh d this option is only useful if you've got a lot of paperwork . {vocalsound} You can't {disfmarker} It's not very uh ni Yeah well a lot of documents are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . It's it's only useful if you have to draw something . +User Interface: Yeah . But then uh it's really useful , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Alright . Um etcetera ? Well uh the laptops ? +Industrial Designer: Mu Yeah right . +Project Manager: Of course great . +Marketing: Yeah , great . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can we keep them ? Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: B by my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wireless uh wireless things . +User Interface: Thanks Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Other uh things we used here ? I hated the cameras , I hated the microphones . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well these chairs , man . {vocalsound} Really great . +Industrial Designer: Well did you really uh {disfmarker} Did you really take uh take those in account ? {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} half of time I didn't notice they were there . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No . I haven't looked w one time directly at the camera . {vocalsound} I don't care about it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we shouldn't talk about that . +User Interface: Well I did . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} this is a realistic environment . +Project Manager: Well w why not ? Uh etcetera {gap} {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} N new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What kind of ideas for n a future schedule {vocalsound} {disfmarker} What ? {vocalsound} For future um meetings {vocalsound} you have got ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I missed uh the option to uh to email , +Marketing: Communicate in between . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Chatting and emailing . +User Interface: Email or chat or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But yeah . W well th that's just the the environment they set us up f with . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but that's one n new idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Well , new ideas found by this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Not . Nothing . +Marketing: Well , more more information in the beginning . +Project Manager: We don't want this . We hate this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Digital pen is useless . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , for drawings . +Industrial Designer: Well , for drawing for drawings . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . So it isn't useless . +Project Manager: But uh two t But uh th then you have to have a lot of drawings , because if I had a company and I'm going to uh buy those expensive huge expensive uh things , I and I have to w pay those uh papers uh that are expensive , I'm not going to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Marketing: For people who uh sketch th the whole day , I can imagine that it's useful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th then still they they they should have a a nice graphics programme on the laptop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's still an expensive uh expensive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because this is huge +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh this v very very uh expensive paper . +User Interface: Well you you can't you can't draw on a laptop like you like you paint of or draw with your hand . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: With the mouse it is {disfmarker} No . {gap} +Industrial Designer: But if w Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well and if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mouse is ju just isn't working if you're sketching . +User Interface: Uh indeed . +Industrial Designer: And but what if uh maybe this this board uh SMARTboard is malfunctioning or someone . But suppose it was working correctly , what uh would it be useful then , if it wasn't off all the time ? {vocalsound} A +Project Manager: Well no . I hated to draw like that . You you can't draw anything uh neat . +Industrial Designer: Really ? +Marketing: Yeah , but he's saying if it is correct , and you can draw very , {vocalsound} yeah , very precise {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Anything you want . Any b b Yeah . L li li +Project Manager: I if it if it would be perfect following . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th th then still it's it's it's very expensive uh towards a a just a green {gap} uh {gap} school board . +Industrial Designer: Well it isn't , but maybe that thing is uh is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , mu +Industrial Designer: Yeah , board , a school board , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but but then you can uh save it in instantly , and and and re-use it , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I it has {disfmarker} It is useful . Yeah . +Marketing: It saves time . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This uh if it works correct , maybe this thing this thing is just malfunctioning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh if we get in uh if we get another one and you make sure it does work , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think then it's pretty useful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh yeah you can draw t things quickly and uh clearly for anyone uh in the discussion room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can save it immediately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , they are now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: It is . So , congratulations crew . +Industrial Designer: Did you type that ? +User Interface: Hmm . Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can go to the bar and uh with our {vocalsound} newly earned money . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Finally my beer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's it I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I don't know how long we still have . {vocalsound} I dunno how long uh we had for this last meeting . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe till four o'clock or something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well dunno . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah , it is a bit uh {disfmarker} Well we still have to make the end report and uh all those things . {gap} I have to do that . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Di did you um save this one in the folder ? +Marketing: You better get started . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Can you do that ? +User Interface: No . No no no no . +Industrial Designer: No we must save this thing , yeah . In the shared map map . +User Interface: But Nils you've got some work left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what you have to do . +Industrial Designer: Map , is it a good word ? The folder , yeah . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I have to go to a physiotherapy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it worked . Two times quick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it is useful , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} It is handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is nice . +Industrial Designer: No but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh great , man . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna buy one buy one for my bedroom . +Industrial Designer: Radical . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: D design . +Industrial Designer: Do you believe it yourself ? +Project Manager: S Oh . He saved them all ten . Well alright . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they they wanted everything we produced , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They also want to see my cat and his rabbit , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My big bird . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your big beautiful bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where is this {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe the pen is just uh uh broken and the board isn't . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of or the other way around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you are broken . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so too . +User Interface: I think you have we have to make clear to her that we are ready . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know . I think she's listening . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I also think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who is she you're talking about ? +Project Manager: She already knows . She ? Big brother . +Industrial Designer: Oh you mean our uh coach , our f personal coach . +Project Manager: Our manager . +Industrial Designer: Is she also our accountant ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is she responsible for sending that information so late ? Oh . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +User Interface: Close your laptop . +Industrial Designer: Because then we have to confront her with our {disfmarker} +User Interface: So she can see we're ready . +Marketing: I feel watched . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: Yeah . Let's take this remote into uh production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we couldn't because of the costs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That that's the title of our uh end document . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: That that's our new slogan . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We couldn't put the fashion into the electronics . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Blame our accountants . +Marketing: Do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a nice title . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we couldn't , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Very catching . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well I th Yeah . +Marketing: I'm sure management would like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: She's on the move . +Project Manager: I'm going to resign after this project anyway , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","In a project meeting, the team discusses various topics related to the design and production of their device. They run into issues with the design's aesthetics, targeting both younger and older demographics but must make cost-based compromises, such as replacing titanium with colored plastic. They also evaluate the device's features against market research, adjust the prototype, and decide on the inclusion of an LCD screen and advanced chip to support it. The project manager struggles with budget constraints imposed by account managers and the team grudgingly accepts changes to meet cost targets. They review their use of a SMARTboard and digital pen, finding them useful but with some limitations. The project culminates with the team planning to present their reduced-cost design and expressing dissatisfaction with the imposed financial limitations, affecting the product's design quality. They signal project completion and prepare for a celebration despite their frustrations." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies, and I'm very pleased to welcome Angela Burns, who is substituting for Suzy this morning. We've also received apologies from Dawn Bowden. Can I also welcome Siân Gwenllian to the meeting? Siân is joining us from her constituency office via video-conference. Can I ask Members if they've got any declarations of interest, please? Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Apologies. I'm currently registered as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, although I haven't done any work for them for some time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. We'll move on, then, to item 2 this morning, which is our evidence session on the higher education new academic year allocations. I'm very pleased to welcome David Blaney, who is chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and Bethan Owen, who is deputy chief executive of HEFCW. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions are from Angela Burns. +Angela Burns AM: Good morning. Thank you very much, indeed. I just wanted to talk about, really, the financial sustainability of the higher education sector because, as we know, there's been all sorts of things going on in the press. So, can I just start with, actually, quite a technical question and ask you what the financial indicators look like for the universities here in Wales, and are there particular indicators that are really flashing warning signals to you? +Dr David Blaney: Well, shall I just start with a couple of contextualising comments and Bethan can come in then with some detail? It's undeniably the case there are financial challenges facing our universities. They result from three main causes: one is the impact of the demographic dip of 18-year-olds, which is deeper and longer in Wales than it is elsewhere in the UK. There are increased pension costs and, actually, increased costs generally. And, of course, we also have current uncertainty as a result of the Augar review in England, and whether that might play into Wales, and also Brexit. These challenges are not unique to Wales; the majority of the UK universities are actually taking out cost one way or another. So, this is not a Welsh issue. Before the Diamond review of fees and funding in Wales, there was a pre-existing funding gap in resource between England and Wales, and even now, that's still the case. So, Welsh higher education institutions are approximately £40 million worse off than they would be in the English system. That's a challenge, and that is a result from a political decision to invest in students, and that's fine. The money's gone into the system but it hasn't gone into universities, necessarily. So, these are serious challenges for institutions to manage, but I think it is a managed situation. We're not seeing a crisis; we are seeing some real challenges, and there is a distinction, I think, between—. We have to understand, though, that taking out cost to balance the books has a detrimental effect on the capacity. Obviously it impacts on the people who lose their jobs immediately, but there's a medium to longer term impact on the capacity of the system to deliver for Wales. They are taking out capacity; they're not cutting at fat now, they're cutting out core capacity. And so, the range of the curriculum, the range of research and innovation, the range of the contribution that universities can make will be diminished by that. And against that backdrop, the introduction of the Diamond reforms is hugely important—delivery of that is going to be really important—and we are really pleased to see the Minister able to meet her commitments in respect of that. The Diamond money is coming in. This forthcoming year will be the first year we see an increase in the resource, through us, to higher education. And the projections in future years are better still, and that will be extremely important. The performance of the sector is very good; we had the national student survey results out yesterday. Wales is still the best in the UK, which is excellent. We have the best impact from research in Wales across the UK. So, all of that is very positive, but that is also being done at some cost. There are some very tired staff in universities, and we've seen some stuff in the press recently about some of the impact of stress there as well. +Angela Burns AM: Can I bring you back to the financial element of that? Can I just ask a question: what are the university reserves looking like at present? +Dr David Blaney: Here, I refer to my learned friend. +Bethan Owen: The reserves are a measure. There's a difference between the distributable reserves—I don't have those numbers before me, but looking at reserves, what is more important are those reserves that are available as cash or liquid cash. So, universities have reserves, but a large amount of that is tied up in their estates, so they're not immediately realisable. So, one of the key measures that we're looking at, which is even more important than surpluses and deficit, is the operating cash that our universities are generating at the moment. When we look at operating cash in 2017-18, they were generating, as a percentage of income, about 7.6 per cent, which contrasts with nearly 10 per cent for the same year for English institutions. And that represents their capacity to generate surplus cash to meet their costs, which now, increasingly, include the costs of servicing their borrowings. So, again, because capital funding has not been as available to universities as it was, they've invested in their estates and that's largely been funded by borrowings. The costs of those borrowings have to be met on an annual basis, so that's becoming an increasing proportion of the operating cash that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: I just asked that question because I know that about four years ago, the universities were sitting on substantial reserves and were less than keen to deploy them back into actually using them for the students—it was more about building up the war chest, if you like, of the universities. And I just really wanted to have an understanding of how that picture might have changed over the last four years and are they actually skinnier cats now, rather than before. +Bethan Owen: We can get you that analysis, but even four years ago, I think the definition of exactly what's meant by reserves, it's really important to look at what are distributable reserves as opposed to the assets that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: Yes, I do understand the difference. +Bethan Owen: And, there are also differences in the way that universities have secured funding for investing in their estates. So, for example, Cardiff University have had a bond rather than borrowing, which you draw down as you're spending. So, in the short term, the reserves of Cardiff will appear as though they have significant cash balances, but all of those are restricted for investment in the estate and, over the next two or three years, will be utilised for that. +Angela Burns AM: So, overall, you're painting a picture of a sector that's under a significant degree of financial stress, and this is obviously using your key financial indicators. Do you monitor each and every university, or do you wait for them to come back and tell you what their situation is? +Bethan Owen: We monitor, we receive forecasts, five-year forecasts, and we meet frequently with all our universities now. It varies, depending on the risks of the universities, as to how frequently we meet, but we're actually meeting with every university because even the forecast that we received last July, the changes, even in the 12-month period, are significant enough for us to need a better understanding of what the latest position is. The forecasts, if I just run through—. We had a sector that, in 2017-18, had a deficit. Although it had a turnover and income of £1.5 billion, which had increased, nonetheless it had a small deficit of 0.4 per cent of income in 2017-18, which was an improvement on the deficit the year before of 1.7 per cent, but notably, again, the sector in England were looking at surpluses of 3 per cent to 4 per cent in the same period. The forecasts that we had this time last year were indicating that, for 2018-19, we should have a sector that's roughly in a break-even position, but that has to be caveated with waiting for new forecasts in July, where there will have to be a reflection of the pension costs, and there have been significant changes in pension costs, both for the teachers' pension scheme and the universities' superannuation scheme as well, and those will be significant costs that universities have to build into their forecasts at a time when their income, certainly their fee income, is not increasing, and that is the challenge. +Angela Burns AM: Are we going to lose any universities in the next couple of years? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so. As I said earlier on, we're not seeing a crisis, we're seeing really challenging circumstances for institutions to manage. At the moment, our sense is they are managing them, so one of the things we try to do is to make sure that, insofar as we can see it, we are making sure that the institutions are alert to the challenges they're facing, and are actually engaging those challenges properly, and we are seeing that at the moment. So I think what we will see if the pressure continues unabated is more costs being taken out, so more jobs being lost, more capacity being lost, but that's not the same as falling over. I don't see people falling over. There is always the possibility of structural change within the sector, and that might be one of the solutions that institutions think about, but it's not a policy position, and it's not always a good short-term response to crisis anyway, actually. But I think, as I say, we're in a managed situation, but the challenges are quite acute. But I don't see an institution falling over in the foreseeable future. +Angela Burns AM: When you talk about structural change, are you referring to the fact that certain offshoots or divisions might close? I bring this up because I'm the Assembly Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and I have had multiple representations from students, and their parents, who are about to go to Lampeter and who've been told that courses are being restructured, there's a massive staff loss, and they have concerns about whether the three-year commitment they're about to make to a course is going to be able to be sustained. So I am trying to drill down a little bit, because I think it's only fair for the students to know what they're up against, and also it's a bit like in the great depression—you can start a run on something, can't you? Because if enough people believe it, then suddenly enough people will stop going to what is an excellent little university, really top-quality in medieval literature, in archaeology. And I'm just talking about one, but I know there are problems in other universities around Wales, so I just wondered if you could comment on that and also what processes you as HEFCW might have in place to protect any student who does find themselves in a situation where their course appears to be disappearing before their eyes. +Dr David Blaney: So, there's quite a lot in that question, actually. Let me try not to forget any of the elements. First of all, your comment about causing a run is a serious consideration. So, if we look at the debate that happened in the Senedd last week, from my reading of the transcript, it was actually quite a balanced debate where pretty much every contributor made reference to the contribution that higher education is making. There was reference to the national student survey scores, and in many ways Wales is the best place in the UK to come and be a student, because you are looked after properly in Wales. But there was also a perfectly legitimate exploration of whether or not there's a crisis, and if you look at the way in which that was represented in the media, the crisis bit stuck and the rest of it didn't. At the point where the sector is trying very hard to recruit students, it's really quite unhelpful that you get that sort of representation. So we do need to make sure, I think, all of us, that we try to avoid a situation where there can be media amplification of a problem that's not actually as acute as the media are portraying it, and that is very harsh. I'm not being critical of the political process here, but it has ripples and we do need to be careful that we don't start a run on this. In terms of the specifics at Lampeter, we understand that there are no plans to close any of the departments, and there certainly will not be plans to pull the rug out from under continuing students. That is just not what institutions do. So there's an absolute obligation on them to meet their commitments, and that's a contractual obligation anyway, so it's a legal obligation. But we also have a quality machinery that we operate where we would expect institutions to be able to demonstrate that they've put in place appropriate arrangements to ensure that students can finish their programmes of study. So they're not going to be recruiting students to programmes that they're not planning to continue—they just are not going to do that. And if you think about it in a market context, it would be suicidal for a university to treat their students like that. +Angela Burns AM: But I have to ask these questions because the auditor was very clear that there was a material uncertainty in Trinity Saint David's financial plans. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I understand that, so let’s come back to the material uncertainty. [Interruption.] No, I understand, and that's fine. What I'm hoping to try and express is that we have absolute confidence that the institutions will not do the dirty on their students. They will look after their students and if they're recruiting to programmes, they are recruiting to programmes that they are planning to run, and run through to completion. And the expectations that we place on them in terms of our quality assurance machinery is precisely that—when they are engaged in portfolio change, they have to look after the interest of the students that they currently have. In terms of our oversight and monitoring, our primary consideration, again, is the interest of the students. They are the people who have, in many ways, least influence over what happens in terms of the way an institution is managed. Although, they do have a voice and, actually, the arrangements for the student voice in Wales are, again, better than elsewhere in the UK. But, nonetheless, we do not wish to see students becoming innocent victims of difficulties of management and financing. And so that is our primary consideration when we're looking at these institutions. Our institutional risk review process is fundamentally designed to make sure that institutions are grappling with their problems before they become a crisis. So, we have machinery, which has 70/80 different factors and hundreds of questions that we ask twice a year, to interrogate the performance of the institutions and to make sure that we are seeing them managing the issues that they're facing. So, it's not the challenges you face, it's the way you face your challenges—it's a cliché—and, at the moment, they are managing them, but if we were in any way concerned that they weren't, the people who are most at risk in that context are the students and we will be intervening to make sure that they were cited, and we do intervene when we have to. +Angela Burns AM: Well, following on from what you said, I've just got two really specific technical questions, then, to ask, because you said that you look across the whole scope to make sure that they are meeting all of their correct liquidity ratios and so on. So, considering how much is invested in their estates, are you happy that each university's estates strategy and its financing is prudent and has appropriate governing-body oversight in place? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, so the estates strategies that institutions operate are overseen by either the full governing body or relevant sub-committees in respect of every institution, so there is proper governance oversight. And in all of those instances, there is staff and student engagement as well in the strategic approach on estates. So, the machinery is in place— +Angela Burns AM: Because it's the big thing that drives most of university borrowing, isn't it? +Dr David Blaney: Indeed, it is. +Angela Burns AM: So, if our universities are on a sticky wicket, we just need to know that the borrowing that they're undertaking is absolutely prudently assessed and is appropriate. So, as long as you're content, if I can hear you say that—[Laughter.] +Dr David Blaney: Okay. We're content on two fronts: one is that the governance machinery within the institutions is structured appropriately to look at that, but also that if the institutions are wanting to engage in anything other than relatively trivial borrowing, they have to get our consent as well. And what we don't do is second-guess everything, but what we do do is make sure that the governing body, or its relevant committees, have been asking the right questions. So, there are two bits to this. +Angela Burns AM: And then—sorry. +Bethan Owen: Can I just add to that, then? +Angela Burns AM: Yes, of course. +Bethan Owen: In asking for the forecasts, we have reinforced this year the importance of universities looking at different scenarios. So, to be looking at the demographic and maybe in the past, where there's potentially been growth in the system and universities have built that into their forecast, we have explicitly asked this year that we are provided—not just the governing body—with the scenario where there is no growth in the income. That's not the core forecast, but a scenario, so that it's quite clear how reliant the forecasts are on that growth, and if that growth doesn't come through, what the contingency plans are for ensuring that all the cost commitments can be met. And we should probably just differentiate between—we have a role before borrowings are entered into, but all the best forecasts in the world can never quite predict, certainly what's happened in the last two years, probably, in universities. So, there are significant borrowings that are now committed to and the key measures we are looking at are universities' capacity to meet their covenants and their repayments under those borrowings, because that's essential for maintaining their liquidity. +Angela Burns AM: Which actually, neatly, thank you, brings me to my last question, which is: have any universities broken those loan covenants or been close to breaking them, unable to pay their borrowings as and when they fall due? +Bethan Owen: There was a significant change in accounting standards in 2015, financial reporting standard 102, so most universities had to renegotiate their covenants, but it was because the accounts were looking very different. The accounting standards brought about changes in how income was recognised and how some service concession arrangements, largely student accommodation arrangements, and pension costs, significantly, were recognised in the accounts. So, most universities have had to renegotiate covenants, but we're not aware of any who've had to renegotiate due to covenant breaches, other than one which the University of Wales Trinity Saint David disclosed in their financial statements—that they did need to renegotiate their financing arrangements, which they have done earlier this year, and they have now negotiated new covenants. It's a core part of financial management in universities now that you manage your relationship with your lender as well as with us. Breaching covenants in themselves is different to doing that with your lender being unaware and the factors being within your control. So, again, from that perspective, we have the covenants built into our forecasts, we require the forecasts to show how the university are planning to be within their covenants. The nature of those covenants vary, but most of them require a measure of cash flow, a ratio between the cash generated and the cost of debt, so there is close monitoring that is required because of the borrowing in the system, as well as our ongoing monitoring as well. +Angela Burns AM: Thank you, Bethan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just before we move on to Hefin David, can I just ask you what your view, then, is on the statement included by auditors in the accounts of Trinity Saint David that there is material uncertainty? +Bethan Owen: Yes, I'll pick up on that. The material uncertainty largely relates—there is a note in the accounts that explains the factors that are being taken into account, but it largely relates to some significant cash receipts that have been subject to timing delays and the fact that the timing of these is essentially outside the control of the institution. The main delay relates to the receipt of funding for the Egin project, which was due to be received from the Swansea city deal. That funding has been delayed, but the sums due to the university are still due to the university—it's the issue of the timing of those receipts that is causing a cash pressure. Receipt of that funding would certainly reduce the cash flow pressure at the university at the moment. Just in terms of cash flows, all universities have to ensure that they are maintaining enough cash in their system to meet their payments as they fall due. Most of their costs are incurred on a monthly basis, staff costs in particular, but the income flows into universities are now less regular. In days gone by, that funding would largely flow from us and that would also come on a monthly basis. The funding from the Student Loans Company now, for example, comes in chunks. A quarter of that money comes in in October, a quarter in February, and the majority of it, half of it, doesn't come into the university in cash until May. So, that's quite a different cash management scenario for universities to manage; it requires holding cash balances to do it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before I bring Hefin in, we're going to need to have a bit of agility, as Dai Lloyd would call it, in our questioning and our answers if we're going to cover the ground that we need to cover. So, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How can we be assured that governance arrangements across the eight institutions are sufficiently rigorous but also consistent? +Dr David Blaney: So, the first point to make, of course, is that universities are autonomous, as you know— +Hefin David AM: I've just written 'independent and autonomous'. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, all of that. And they are charities and so on, so they have expectations in respect of that in any case. The university governing body obviously is an important part of the machinery, particularly in terms of generating constructive challenge for the executive within universities. The governing bodies all are expected to behave in a way that is consistent with the guidance produced by the Committee of University Chairs, the CUC guide, which identifies good practice. So, it’s a higher education code of governance and all Welsh universities work to that code. That code is itself up for review at the moment. So, that is an opportunity for that to be strengthened. Just in terms of governing bodies, it's also important that governing bodies engage in a process of continual refreshing, because that gives you a greater variety of perspectives, which is important. But it’s also important they have people who understand the higher education business as well as from other contexts. Getting that mix right is important. As it happens at the moment, there are also issues about ethnicity and gender balance. Half the chairs of Welsh university governing bodies are female. Half the vice-chancellors are female. That’s a positive position for Wales to be in. But I think our view would be that when you get an increase in the contextual pressures that we’ve been discussing already this morning, the role of the governing body actually becomes even more significant. So, we have encouraged the sector, both the chairmen of the university councils, but also the vice-chancellors, to engage in a process of an independent review of governance in Wales. We’ll be alongside that. We’ll be supporting that. But, actually, it’s important that they own it. And it hasn’t been hard for us to encourage that—they have been keen to take this opportunity to take stock. The Welsh higher education system is part of a UK system—they don’t want to be a million miles away from the rest of the UK in terms of expectations, but there is scope in Wales, given the scale of the sector, to actually construct something that is more challenging, I think, in terms of expectations, than might be the common denominator across the UK, and maybe some more exemplification. Importantly, in this exercise, we are not just interested in governance process. It’s going to be quite hard to do this, but I’m very keen that we engage—and the sector are up for this—in governance culture, because, actually, you can do process checks and you’ll have the right structure of committees and have the right sort of papers going, but, in the end, it’s the dynamic within that room and who’s asking which questions and how well informed they are, and whether it's an open culture or is it a defensive culture—these are really what influences the quality of decision making. +Hefin David AM: And how different are those cultures across institutions? +Dr David Blaney: I think it’s very hard to say. We don’t sit in the governing bodies of those institutions. Very occasionally we get to observe one. Typically, that’s at a point where there are sufficient difficulties going on that we feel that we need to— +Hefin David AM: Do you have the option to observe at any point? +Dr David Blaney: We can't insist, I don't think. +Bethan Owen: We can ask to. +Dr David Blaney: We can ask. But in the main, actually, our presence would change the dynamic of that anyway, so I'm not sure that's necessarily helpful. But we are keen to see what we can achieve with the sector in addressing these issues of what constitutes constructive challenge. +Hefin David AM: I take from that that there might be different approaches in different institutions. Is your aim to see consistency in the same approaches, then? +Dr David Blaney: I think we’d like to see a consistent minimum set of expectations. I think there are differences, because there are people involved. In the end, it’s about personalities, it’s about people’s background and it’s about their knowledge. And we have a role to play in this as well, so we have a toolkit that we produce for governors, which, essentially, is a set of information that locates their university in the context of the UK, across a number of factors. So, if they had been told something that is not perhaps as true as it might be by the executive, they can see that in the data. Whether that toolkit needs a refresh—I’m sure it probably does, it’s been there for a while now—. So, part of that is what information we can provide to help governing bodies be properly informed as well. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and this is the independence and autonomy thing. This is quite distant from Government—unlike other institutions, where you can prescribe some of these approaches. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and in the end I don't think there's any pushback from the sector in terms of wanting to operate in accordance with best practice. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and I totally defend independence and autonomy. +Dr David Blaney: Absolutely. The challenge is all of us being clear what constitutes best practice. +Hefin David AM: So, what about risk appetite? Do you feel that any governing bodies are exhibiting what might be considered to be an imprudent risk appetite? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so, and this manifests itself in two ways. So, we would see this coming through in forecasts, and we would see it coming through in requests for borrowings, predominantly. Actually, we'd see it in other ways as well. Our links into institutions are many and various, and we have our formal stuff, but we all have links into institutions that are informal and we—. One of the beauties of the scale of the sector in Wales is we can see the institutions in a way that they can't hope to in England. It's just completely different. And so we would see it in other ways. But we have, in some instances, I think it's fair to say, helped institutions to think again about some of their aspirations. So, where we've seen things and we think, 'That just looks ridiculously optimistic,' we've just asked the questions. We don't say, 'No, you can't do that,' because they are autonomous, they make the decisions, but we try to make sure that they're asking the right questions. +Hefin David AM: So, would you see that governing bodies are falling short in doing that themselves, in that, where they become strategic decisions that require due diligence, are the governing bodies themselves presenting that challenge? Or the fact you've just said that, does that suggest to us that, actually, they are falling short? +Dr David Blaney: I think there's a mixture of things going on. We have a slightly different perspective and we have a perspective that is very intimately informed in terms of how the institution is performing. So, you have a governing body with a range of perspectives, and you will also have people who are very committed and very enthusiastic about the institution, and just occasionally it's helpful to get a slightly external perspective on these things. So, I don't think it's a shortfall as such, but I just think— +Hefin David AM: The kind of honest broker role, kind of. +Dr David Blaney: The machinery depends on having a body like HEFCW doing some of that role, and the people who lend money to institutions are absolutely clear about that. So, we have relationships with the banks; they come and see us every now and again—typically not to talk about individual clients but just to talk about what we do and how we do it. Interestingly, for example, when Michael Barber got up before Christmas and said there will be no bail-outs of universities, we had banks on the phone to us within a couple of days, wanting just to talk about how it is in Wales and is it still how it used to be. So, they are very keenly aware of what we do. So, it's not really a governance failure; it's just that the machinery includes us. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's important. And one of the things, from a distance—I mean, I've been involved in different ways in an institution, and looking at the institutions from a distance. There are people, as you say, involved, and people always make the difference in different cultures. Do you find that the relationships between executive teams and governors is effective, and are they sufficiently robust and challenging as well? Those executive permanent staff and the governors—is there challenge there? +Dr David Blaney: I would say, in the main, yes. Occasionally, we help the governors to ask the right questions, so occasionally that external perspective we've just discussed is helpful in that regard. Actually, there are times when there are tensions between the executive and governing bodies, inevitably—that's not something that's remarkable—and we can feel that as well. We have conversations with both governing bodies and executives. +Hefin David AM: And that can become apparent from a public point of view as well—you know, media reports and—. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, sometimes these things can spill, and the governing bodies also include student representation, staff representation, who are typically union reps, and so, you know, there are all sorts of—. I'm not in any way saying that people are indiscreet, but there are all sorts of interests that are sitting around that table that have to be managed within a governance context. So, sometimes it can spill. And these tensions are not all-out war, but there are sometimes differences of view and they have to be worked through, and that's governance working properly, I think. +Hefin David AM: Okay, which is—some of the work you've suggested will help towards that. +Dr David Blaney: Yes. +Hefin David AM: And a last question: you've identified one university as high risk, five as medium, and two as low in the short to medium term. You're obviously not going to tell us which, but what I'm interested in is the direction of travel, and whether those that are 'medium'—are they at any point at risk of becoming 'high' in the near future? +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that the direction of travel is that we're seeing an increased risk profile in the sector in Wales, and it's about the financial pressures that we've already discussed this morning. And that is why the efforts that the Minister has gone to to secure the Diamond settlement, and, indeed, other bits of money now and again, are so important. So, she's doing what she can, and that's really good, but we always knew that, between the point of the Diamond recommendations being made and the full implementation, there was going to be a valley to cross. The new machinery costs more as you phase out the old as well. So, the amount of funding was always going to be under pressure; there's a demographic dip, and there are the other contextual factors we've discussed. We always knew there was going to be a valley. And the institutions have been working very hard to try not to take cost out now that they really don't have to take out, because they don't want to reduce capacity, which they'll struggle to recover again when the financial position improves. So, they are seeing deficits, which are managed deficits, where they're spending more than their income in order just to keep the capacity in. So, they're being as responsible as we could expect them to be in this. +Hefin David AM: And, if you're back in a year or two's time, the next few years, are we confident that there won't be more in the high-risk category? You said you don't see collapse, but are we confident there won't be more in the high-risk category? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think what I would always say about this process is that it doesn't guarantee 100 per cent accuracy. We can only go on what we can see. So, I wouldn't—. HEFCW is innately cautious as an organisation, so I'm not going to say we're confident, but that doesn't mean to say we're worried either. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay. So, to answer my question: are we likely to see more in the high-risk category or not? +Dr David Blaney: We might. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Bethan Owen: And, just to add, I think the key bit of that is maintaining the attractiveness of Welsh universities to students, because a large proportion are coming not from just Wales, but from England and internationally—so, that's a key part—and also that our research portfolio is invested in, and that also brings economic benefits. So, I think those are the two that we are [correction: need to be] able to maintain: the institutions as attractive options for students, and that our research capacity is invested in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got a supplementary from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in the interest of transparency, are you able to tell us which universities are in which categories of risk? +Dr David Blaney: We don't publish that; we publish numbers. So, that's, I'm afraid, where we're going to stick. +Hefin David AM: They didn't even try to—[Inaudible.] [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions then are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Can you explain your overall approach to the 2019-20 allocations and what your priority for allocations has been? +Bethan Owen: We publish our funding allocations, and we published the 2019-20 allocations on 4 June. For 2019-20, we're allocating £149 million, and, as David said, this is the first year that we've been able to start putting funding, additional funding, in from the Diamond recommendations for investment in the sector. So, that means we've been able to increase our recurrent teaching funding by £7 million—not a significant amount, but it's a start. And we have maintained QR, which is our funding for research, quality research, and postgraduate research, at least at the same levels of £76 million, as it's been that in previous years. We've increased part-time funding by £1 million to £26 million, and we've started to increase support for expensive subjects—that's medicine, dentistry and conservatoire provision—and higher cost subjects—those are the sciences and the STEM. So, we made a start on that and increased that support by about £6 million to £20 million in total. And, in addition to that, we have strategic funding that we're maintaining for Reaching Wider projects and the Sêr Cymru project. And then, in addition to our recurrent funding, we have had strategic funding in our remit letters for the last two years. So, we're developing programmes for civic mission, community engagement, collaborations between higher education and further education, and, more recently, we had funding at the end of March to start to implement the recommendations of Graeme Reid's report for research investment, and also for developing mental health and well-being. That strategic funding is very welcome, but to be able to build those activities into our core funding, which we hope Diamond will bring, would be more sustainable for institutions. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Now, the Minister talks of one skills system. How do your allocations to the 2019-20 academic year support and incentivise collaboration between HE and FE? +Dr David Blaney: So, there are probably two dimensions to this. First of all, we have provided £3.5 million of separate funding specifically targeted to improve and increase collaboration between HE and FE. So, we put out a circular inviting proposals for that, and it was competitive, so we funded what was the best of the proposals, and we constrained it to be available only to pump-prime new activity or to add value to existing activity, but not just to keep things ticking over. We had seven bids submitted from across the three Welsh regions on a whole range of activities, which we probably haven't got time to go into now. I've got a long list here, but, for example, in south-east Wales, the University of South Wales is leading on a bid partnering with Cardiff University, Cardiff Met, with the Open University and all the FE players in the region. So, we were really pleased, actually. We tried to get it within regions, because that's how you get the biggest impact for learners in the area and also for smaller enterprises in terms of innovation work. So, that is a specific bit of funding designed to incentivise HE-FE collaboration. And then we direct fund a couple of FE institutions for delivery of higher education for historical reasons, and we also have our funding going through to support franchise activity between HE and FE. There are about 5,000 students who are studying HE programmes under franchise in FE colleges in Wales, and our funding method has, historically for some time now, protected that money. So, we try to prevent universities from taking the money out of franchise and onto campus, because we think it's important to try to encourage local provision within particular localities. And, certainly in areas where public transport infrastructure is perhaps not what it might be, for people to move to universities can be quite a disincentive, so—. But we encourage it that way as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Then, finally from me, the council's remit letter for the 2019-20 academic year from the Minister does ask you to consider how you'd increase openness and transparency around the use of fee income. So, what are the issues here, and how will you take this forward? +Bethan Owen: The reporting of the income and expenditure is largely provided, probably more so in narrative form in the accounts and the financial statements and annual reports of institutions. A number of institutions also provide graphs and more easily accessible information to understand the income and expenditure of universities. But we would accept that this information isn't easy to access at the moment. There are examples of good practice across the sector in presenting as simply as possible what the income sources are for universities and how they spend their money. And we're going to be working with the Welsh universities and sector bodies to improve the accessibility of that information for Welsh institutions. More transparent reporting of income and expenditure, and not just fee income, is actually very important for understanding how income cross-flows work in universities. Some reasonably simplistic analyses can assume that all the student fee just covers the direct costs of academic provision, but there's much more to the student experience than that, so there are costs: there are the infrastructure costs, the student support costs, even the community engagement and all the research activities bring benefits to the teaching and fee provision. So, more transparency of all the universities' income sources and expenditure and a better understanding of the income cross-flows and why you can't look at universities in isolation of student provision and research, you have to look at the whole—so, we'll be working with them to improve that information. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go to Hefin David now for some questions on part-time student funding. +Hefin David AM: Part-time student numbers are bucking the trend in Wales, as I understand it, and we are seeing a bigger increase in Wales of part-time numbers than elsewhere in the UK. How is that going to be sustainable within current arrangements? +Bethan Owen: We've allocated £26.5 million in 2019-20 to support part-time provision, and we have been able in 2019-20 to fund some growth. So, there is growth in that funding to allow those institutions and incentivise those institutions who have recruited more students than last year to continue to do so. That came at an overall additional cost of £1.9 million, and, based on what we're hearing from student support, we're expecting to see that requirement increase. So, it's one of the areas where we'll need to look at how we prioritise Diamond funding. And at the moment, our intention—but subject to knowing the quantum of it—is to continue to support and fund growth in part-time provision. +Hefin David AM: So, is it possible—? With the Welsh Government's policy of developing lifelong learning, is it possible that will be ever spread more thinly? +Dr David Blaney: That is the challenge, and there's a piece of work that we have in our sights to look again at part-time and what it is and what the various drivers are. There's a temptation, I think, at times, to see it solely in terms of skills for an economy, and it is important for reskilling and upskilling, but actually, it's important for other things as well. If we see higher education solely in terms of skilling an economy, we've missed an important part of the contribution that higher education makes. But part-time is really quite difficult, because there's part-time that is about upskilling, part time that's about reskilling, there's part-time for social purposes, there's employer-supported part-time, there's student—. So, there's a complexity there. +Hefin David AM: But they are more reactive to rises in fees. +Dr David Blaney: Well, there is a sense that they are more price sensitive, yes, and so the support regime that the Government is putting in place is important, and that probably has made a difference to the numbers of part-timers entering the system this last year. But I think we need to stake stock of what is important about part-time, what the market will deliver, what the market won't deliver, what we should fund and so on. And there's a complexity around all that, as I've indicated, which we need to do a bit of work on with the sector, with the student body as well, just to take some stock of this over the next year or so. +Hefin David AM: Could we end up seeing significant fee increases for part-time students? +Dr David Blaney: My sense is we won't. The Government wishes us to monitor, so we monitor, and that in itself is not straightforward, actually. But your comment about price sensitivity, I think, is really the nub of it. There's a limit to how much a fee increase would be acceptable to the part-time market. So, I think it's kind of self-regulating in that respect. I don't think we'll see massive fee increases; we might see a bit, but we won't see masses, I don't think. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now on funding for research and innovation, and also we'd like to talk a bit about a replacement for European Union funds. Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. If I could turn specifically to research, we know, of course, that both the Diamond and Reid reviews called for QR funding to be maintained in real terms, but the allocation is exactly the same for 2019-20 as it has been for the past nine years. Have you carried out any kind of assessment of the impact of this level of research funding on universities and, indeed, on the Welsh economy? +Dr David Blaney: I'm sorry; I missed the beginning of that because I couldn't hear this headset. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, could you repeat the question? Sorry. We had a bit of a problem with translation at the beginning. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, no problem. I was talking about the Diamond and Reid reviews at the beginning of my question and the fact that they had recommended that QR funding should be maintained in real terms. But, of course, the sum hasn't actually increased over a period of nine years. +Dr David Blaney: Okay. The reason the sum hasn't increased is because we haven't had enough money to be able to increase it and still meet the obligations we have to other bits of the HE system. We would dearly love to increase it. Both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid were very clear about the importance of being able to invest in our QR research funding, for a number of reasons. The capacity of the sector to be able to respond to funding opportunities elsewhere in the UK and across the rest of the world is itself determined by the size and the strength of the research base, which is sustained by QR funding. If they go for UK-based competitive research funding, that is typically constructed on the absolute assumption that QR will be part of that mix. So, they tend to fund to 80 per cent of the actual cost of the research, with the expectation that QR will plug the gap. And we know that, although the Welsh research base is extraordinarily productive, and really is punching above its weight in many ways—and I mentioned earlier the impact of the research base in the last research excellence framework—we know that, actually, it could do so much more, if it just had more scale. So, we fully endorse the reports from both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid that QR is important, and it's important also to be able to allow institutions to invest in research areas that emerge over time. It's almost impossible for a body like us, far less the Government, to know where these emerging strengths are going to come from, and QR provides the flexibility for institutions, which is absolutely fundamental to keeping the research base dynamic. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, you do have concerns that this isn't increasing—you have that concern of a lack of increase in the level of investment. But has any particular assessment been made of the impact of not increasing that funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, there is—. Graeme Reid's report produced an assessment of the correlation between QR funding and capacity to generate funding from other sources, and there's a very close correlation— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has HEFCW done any assessment to look at the effect of underfunding research, to all intents and purposes? +Dr David Blaney: Not directly. We've relied on the expert assessment of people like Graeme Reid. It's sometimes more effective to have external experts making these points than us or the sector. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Your remit requires you to encourage universities to continue to develop one particular element of research, which is educational research. How does your allocation for 2019-20 contribute to that in terms of pedagogy and educational research specifically? +Dr David Blaney: Bethan, did you want to say something on this? +Bethan Owen: I was just going to add that, when we look at the funding that comes into our sector in Wales, compared with the rest of the UK, it's easy to see from the figures that our percentage of income that comes from research is smaller than in England, so the figures show that we receive less of the money that's available, which is a factor that results from us having less QR as a percentage, so we're in a situation where we get less of that UK funding that's available as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, there's a knock-on to that; that's what you're trying to say. But from the point of view of my question on educational research—? +Dr David Blaney: So, we have provided funding in 2017-18 and 2018-19 to WISERD Education, which is a research collaboration between a number of the Welsh universities, specifically looking at educational issues, and we're providing additional funding to that to add value to the Welsh Government's existing evaluation of the progress of pioneer schools in developing the three-to-15 curriculum in Wales. I won't go into the full detail of it now, but it's a five-partner project feeding into this with researchers from Cardiff, Cardiff Met, Trinity Saint David, Aber, Bangor and the University of South Wales. So, it's a collaborative effort, and we have, in the past, also funded WISERD Education, so it's an important research facility and increasingly being used, I'm delighted to say, by Welsh Government in underpinning its own policy thinking. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And likewise, in 2019-20, there will be allocations specifically for this. +Dr David Blaney: It's a bit early to say yet. We haven't allocated anything specifically in the main allocations that we've put out. There might be others to come, but we're not yet in a position to say. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, could you provide the remit letter from—[Inaudible.]—do that? You have to do everything in the remit letters. +Dr David Blaney: We do what we can to pay due regard to the remit letters, as the wording goes. So, we have it in our sights, but we're not yet ready to make announcements. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then turning to the impact of the loss of funds were we to leave the European Union. Of course, this is going to have a far-reaching impact on future research, and the Reid review has made recommendations to mitigate this impact. So, what assessment have you made of how allocations will be able to help universities to transition away from EU funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, again, the Reid review has done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of an impact assessment for us. And we endorse, just as the Government has endorsed, the recommendations from Reid. The Government has committed in principle to delivering Reid. The challenge is finding the money, and we fully understand that. There has been an additional £6.6 million allocated for research very recently by the Government, which we have put out specifically in line with some of the recommendations from Reid. So, that's a start, but that's not sustainable funding, and it's not enough, really, but it is a good and welcome start. Reid was also not just talking about the money, but also talking about the way in which the Welsh research base both represents itself and also engages with UK-wide developments. And in response to that, we have recently issued our own vision for research and innovation, which was developed over a number of months, following the Reid report closely, working with stakeholders, including the Welsh Government, in order to try and set a vision for how we respond to the challenges facing research in the future, including the reduction, potentially, of access to EU funds. And a lot of that is—. These Reid recommendations all come together; they're coherent. A lot of that requires investment in the Welsh research base in order to be able to go for competitive funding at a UK level. Since it seems possible at least, and possibly even likely, that any money retrieved from not having to invest in the EU will sit in London rather than necessarily being devolved to the devolved administrations—we understand fully the Welsh Government's position on that, and we don't disagree with it. But either way, we need a research base that's able to compete, and that's why the investment recommendations of Reid are so important. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I think Reid was saying that there may be pots of money out there that aren't being accessed at the moment by Welsh universities. Are you able to help then within that process? +Bethan Owen: One aspect that we do intend to fund—and this is from Diamond, as well as Reid—is to place funding back into the system for innovation. We're consulting currently, with the intention, if the funding is available to us, clearly, in the year 2020-21, to provide £15 million back into the sector in innovation funding. That's funding that we had to take out when the new fee system came in. That is part of promoting the innovation, and part of the research portfolio as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is that part of the UKRI funding? There is some £7 billion in the hands of that organisation, as I understand it, and there may be some possibilities there too. +Bethan Owen: That £15 million will be money that comes from us, but the intention is that the money will go in in order to improve universities' ability to access that funding from UKRI. So, Innovate UK would be the part of UKRI—and that we improve our ability to get funding from outside Wales. And, then, Graeme Reid says the same thing in terms of research—that we need more funding to do the same thing there. +Dr David Blaney: And, then, there's also the recommendation from Reid that Wales needs to be better embedded in the conversations that are going on on a UK-wide basis, so the Welsh Government has established a presence in London in respect of research, and we have a colleague in HEFCW who is fractionally embedded in the United Kingdom Research and Innovation specifically to respond to that recommendation. And that is actually paying dividends; we are strengthening our relationship with the UK machinery, which is essential if we're to understand where they're heading and what their funding bids are all about, and even to be able to influence those. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, as far as research is concerned, it's not all doom and gloom. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I mean, you know, things are looking up. There is money coming in and if the Government, as it is able to, can find money and can invest in this area, then that will help. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just a couple of questions from me, then, before you close: what is your recent work on the 'basket of goods' show regarding student accommodation costs? And have any institutions used their 2019-20 fee and access plans to make commitments to more affordable accommodation for under-represented groups? +Dr David Blaney: First of all, on the basket of goods, the work we're doing now—we're currently in train in terms of analysing the data in respect of the basket of goods, so this is slightly premature, but our early look at the data indicates that there are no increases in costs, accommodation or other, that would cause us concern. So, it doesn't look like institutions are succumbing to the temptation to up their income streams from other costs. So, that's good. In terms of the fee and access plans, the sector has committed over £28 million of investment in student support-related activities from the fee and access plans, and that includes, in many instances, bursaries that are designed to help students cope with the costs of accommodation and the cost of living more generally. The support is provided for a range of purposes, but a couple of examples, just very quickly: Trinity Saint David, since we've talked about them a lot today, they offer £1,000 bursary to care leavers, which is in addition to local authority support for care leavers. Bangor also offer targeted support for care leavers, and these are often also extended, so they apply not just in term time, but throughout the holiday time as well, because people still need to live during the holidays. So, there is investment going in from the fee plans in that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And just one final question from me then, going back to Trinity Saint David: are you concerned that the governing body of Trinity Saint David has taken decisions that have led to that material uncertainty, and is that unprecedented in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: My view is that the decisions that the governing body made were, in our view, perfectly rational decisions to have made, given the information they had at the time. So, what's happened is that a number of unforeseen events have arisen, which, actually, I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to have foreseen, and it's just a combination of these that has caused the cash pressure. So, I don't see this as a governance failure, and they are engaging with those challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you both for attending and for answering all our questions this morning? You did say that you would give the committee a note on reserves for the last four years, so we'd be grateful if we could receive that. And, as usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you, again, for your time this morning. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. +Bethan Owen: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Deputy Minister requesting further information for our scrutiny of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from me to the Children's Commissioner for Wales also asking for further information to pursue our scrutiny of the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education asking for an update on the framework for young people educated other than at school. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to propose that we resolve to meet in private for the remainder of this meeting and for the whole meeting on 10 July. Are Members content? Thank you. +","The summary of the conversation involves a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee where Lynne Neagle AM welcomed the members, noting apologies from Suzy Davies and Dawn Bowden. Angela Burns was present as a substitute for Davies, and Siân Gwenllian joined via video conference. Declarations of interest were requested, and Hefin David AM declared his association with Cardiff Metropolitan University but noted he had not worked for them recently. + +The focus of the session was on higher education new academic year allocations, with the presence of David Blaney, CEO of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and Bethan Owen, HEFCW's deputy CEO. Angela Burns AM raised concerns about the financial sustainability of the higher education sector in Wales, referencing challenges such as demographic changes, pension costs, uncertainty due to the Augar review in England, and Brexit. Blaney acknowledged serious challenges but did not perceive a crisis, though he did raise concern about the impact of cost-cutting on the system's capacity. + +Bethan Owen addressed specifics of university reserves and operating cash, highlighting the difference between reserves that are liquid cash versus those tied up in estates. They emphasized the importance of universities generating sufficient operating cash to cover costs, particularly borrowing costs, as capital funding from traditional sources had decreased. + +Angela Burns AM questioned whether any universities were at risk of failure, and Blaney reiterated that, despite challenges, the situation was managed and not indicative of a crisis, suggesting structural changes within the sector could be a solution. Burns also mentioned specific concerns regarding certain university courses, with Blaney assuring that institutions would not recruit students to programs they planned to discontinue. + +The conversation then moved to governance and risk management within the universities, with David Blaney explaining the role of university governing bodies and the expectations set by the Committee of University Chairs, which provides governance guidance. He also mentioned a potential independent review of governance to ensure universities engage with the challenges appropriately and a discussion on risk appetite, with Blaney feeling there was no imprudence amongst governing bodies. + +Regarding part-time student funding, Blaney stated that the fee regime was supportive of growth in part-time study, and acknowledged the importance of considering part-time study in terms of skills for the economy and social purposes. They also discussed research funding, with emphasis on maintaining Quality-Related (QR) funding and the impact of Brexit on EU funding, where Blaney mentioned the Reid review and the need to be competitive for UK-wide funding opportunities. + +Finally, they discussed student accommodation costs and what measures universities are taking to ensure affordable options for under-represented groups, with Blaney noting that fee and access plans included investment in student support and bursaries. + +Lynne Neagle AM concluded the session by requesting a note on university reserves from the last four years and thanking the attendees for their contributions. The committee then resolved to meet privately for the remainder of the meeting and for the upcoming session on July 10, per Standing Order 17.42." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: So +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I hope you're ready for this uh functional design meeting . +Marketing: Of course . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so I will take the minutes you mm you three are going to do presentation . Um uh we want to know {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} at the end to know the new project's requirement so we need uh to know the the user uh needs that we want to fulfil to fulfil the {disfmarker} from the technical part we want to know how it going to work and um third part {vocalsound} uh I don't remember {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: which is not very good . Ah of course , how to to design this uh this {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice stuff {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah . So um let's go for the three presentations , so first um Marketing Expert . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who starts ? {vocalsound} Oh . Ha . okay . +Project Manager: So wait a minute . Mm . +Marketing: So I dunno if I can do that like this ? Yeah ? So it's being modified . Do you want {disfmarker} yeah , open . Read only . I hope I saved it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , um +User Interface: Sammy Benjo . I know this name uh . +Marketing: yeah , this is my name . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Sounds uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} We met before . +Marketing: So as you know , you {disfmarker} I think you already know me , Sammy Benjo . I am the expert in marketing and I want to tell you about what people uh s want and uh like and dislike in remote controls , and I hope this is going to help you to to design it correctly . So next please . Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it is put F_ five {gap} . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: The full page presentation , yep . +Marketing: Yeah maybe in the full page +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: F_ F_ five . +Marketing: because i I spent lots of time doing this presentation , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yep . +Project Manager: F_ five . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Uh-huh hmm okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . +Marketing: So basically uh what I suggest is that uh instead of deciding ourself what what could be and what should be a good uh remote control , let's ask people who are users of remote controls how they feel about w the current remote controls , what they like , what they don't like and um and what they do with them by the way {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: because they are supposed to be useful . {vocalsound} Don't forget about that . So we've we've conducted a a survey on on the use of uh remote controls and I'd like to show you some of the results we found on this survey . And next please . Yeah , so basically what we found was that uh there are several things that the user don't like in remote controls . First of all , they find it very ugly . {vocalsound} Current remote controls as you know they're the same as this one uh they're not nice colour , not nice shape , I mean they're all the same , and they're not l good looking . Um what is interesting is that in fact it seems that they were {disfmarker} people are ready to pay for nice and look {disfmarker} and fancy looking uh remote control , so I think we should probably spend lots of time in {disfmarker} and effort in that um . And the other thing is that uh the the current remote controls are not so easy to use and it it {disfmarker} the the current uh facilities that they offer do not match what people really want to use their remote controls . For instance uh we see that uh they zap very often so I think this is a very uh important uh functionality that it should be easy for them to to zap uh in one way or another . And most of the buttons uh on uh current remote controls are not used , so I think we should design something where some of the buttons which are those that are used should be easier to see and use than others that only a couple of people are using . Um next please . {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} people are very frustrated w with their {vocalsound} remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: and they for instance uh they don't even find it {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's {vocalsound} it's often lost somewhere in the in the {disfmarker} in your home and nobody knows where it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Agree . +Marketing: Maybe if we have something where we could {vocalsound} ask the remote control please , where are you ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Like uh something to to {disfmarker} like t I think phones . Some of the phones have some of this kind of s functionality . Uh of course phone you can always phone your phone +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but {vocalsound} you can't phone your {vocalsound} your remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can {disfmarker} you are {gap} . +Project Manager: Why not ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: But why not ? Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And because of the fact that there are so many buttons in these remote controls that nobody use , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: in fact they don't even know how to use them , so most of the the people say they they don't know how to {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} to use properly their r remote controls . And uh they are bad for R_S_I_ but uh I don't remember what is R_S_I_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay uh tha that's look great . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So I think they are bad . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} R_S_I_ mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Mm nobody has any idea about that ? Well I'll check uh with my +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's electromagnetic waves or something kind of maybe uh effect . +Marketing: Oh , okay , +User Interface: No , I don't think so . +Marketing: I think it's a technical thing +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: which our {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because infrared uses some electromagnetic technology , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and those waves have high {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems that {vocalsound} it's a lot of people for a concept that we don't know {vocalsound} +User Interface: But twenty six percent , do you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or something we don't know . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +User Interface: Twenty five . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: but we have to take this into account . +User Interface: Every fourth , you know . {vocalsound} Every four {disfmarker} some of us knows . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it's {disfmarker} People really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: So anyway +User Interface: One of us {disfmarker} +Marketing: that's for what the biggest frustration uh of the user and um +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: what else do I have ? Next slide ? Ah yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So we've listed a couple of uh +User Interface: Functions . +Marketing: s uh functions that may be uh used by u the user in the current uh available uh remote controls and uh well the tables look very nice to read but what is important is to understand that the power button is not used often because in general you {vocalsound} use it only once per session , but it is very relevant . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: People want to have a power button . Channel selection is uh o often used {disfmarker} very often used and indeed uh very relevant . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ah {vocalsound} now I remember what is R_S_I_ {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: it's repetitivity stress injury . {vocalsound} We have to be careful with that word but {vocalsound} uh anyway +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Marketing: I continue my presentation so {disfmarker} yeah , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: channel selection is um very important , very often used . Volume is not often used but people uh want to have control on volume and that makes sense of course . And n then you have things which are very much less often used like the settings . Audio settings , screen settings , even teletext and channel settings . All of them . they're not often used and they are s more or less relevant . It seems that people find teletext teletext uh relevant , even if I personally never use it but seems that it's average relevant at least , so . +Project Manager: I have been told that we uh don't consider teletext , that it's out of date now because of internet . +Marketing: I can tell you that uh in a l in a scale between one and ten relevant uh not relevant to relevant people scored a six on this , which is not as uh these these two one were {disfmarker} had I think ten I think . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: But but if you compare with these ones , uh I think they scored a one or two . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Not very relevant , so if if there are good reason not to put teletext it's okay but just know that people find it somehow relevant . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's for the main functions I think and uh then we can ask uh ourself uh what people don't have that may be useful . For instance I think {disfmarker} net next slide . {vocalsound} One of the thing {disfmarker} the trend uh that uh you are probably aware of is the possibility {disfmarker} the eventual possibility of having speech recognition in your remote control , so you wouldn't have to tap tap in your buttons but just tell your remote control or whatever you need you have what you want . So we've conducted a survey about uh whether people would like or not to have uh this kind of uh functionality in their remote control and as we can see it really depends on the age . Young people , probably because it's a buzz word , find it very relevant . And uh as the age goes up {vocalsound} the {vocalsound} the relevance goes down . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So now it really depends on the kind of uh targeting uh wha who are we targeting with this remote control ? +Industrial Designer: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think if we are targeting young people then uh it's probably something we have to consider . If we are targeting you very old people this is something they really don't know why they {disfmarker} this should be so now +Project Manager: Mm-mm . Okay . +Marketing: this is of course , depends on that . And um I don't have any conclusion , I didn't have time the meeting was very tight , so that's basically my findings . And uh , if you have any question ? +Project Manager: Mm I think it's good , okay . You done a good review . +User Interface: I got one question , +Marketing: I can go back . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Yeah one question , +User Interface: uh you are a Market Expert +Marketing: yeah ? +User Interface: so +Marketing: I am . {vocalsound} +User Interface: should we aim at the young people or not ? +Marketing: I think we should aim at the young people . But uh I think they are {disfmarker} they are those uh who might be more interested in a in a new device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: In general the the early adopters of a new device are young people , less than {disfmarker} more than {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay , then teletext is used less . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Then teletext is useless for them I think , +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: yeah . Because they they have other means of finding their information . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm mm . Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: That's good point . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah . Nope . +Industrial Designer: Mm , yep . +User Interface: Mm . Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: 'Kay ? +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: So um now I think it's the turn of the the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm not sure um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Of the technical function , so {vocalsound} uh +Marketing: So I think it's you , huh ? +Industrial Designer: Uh it's +Marketing: No ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's me . +Project Manager: what effect {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: techni function of {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , user requiremen +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . Wait a second . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Argh . +Industrial Designer: I have to do working design so uh +Project Manager: So you're {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's {disfmarker} but this but number three , yes . Mm-hmm . So , my name is Mark Dwight , and um I am responsible for User Interface Design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: However , uh mm Project Manager asked me to give you some presentation about technical functions design . Uh , as I'm a more an artist +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that's gonna be less technical functions but more User Interface and current intentions and everything which is linked with this . +Project Manager: Okay . Let's go . +User Interface: So next slide please . And uh a general method which is {disfmarker} seems to be very useful for our task +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: is not to forget about uh Occam razor . We should never complicate things too much . We should only make a remote control , nothing more . Nothing more than this , just a remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: 'Cause current remote controls they are never easy enough to use . +Marketing: Makes sense . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , make a click , please . So here is this remote control . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's quite a standard one , but it's not from a T_V_ , it's from a much easier device like air conditioning or something . But you know , we can use it for a T_V_ easily . Only buttons we need is on off , volume , channels and maybe some options or something else , and please make a click , compared to this one +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: which one would you prefer ? I guess this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I would say the simplest one as long as there are the uh {disfmarker} I find the buttons that I need every time I need a button . +User Interface: Sure , sure . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe it can be yeah middle of {disfmarker} like , between those two +User Interface: Yeah , and our method is going to be , provide simple +Industrial Designer: li +Project Manager: Oh sorry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: simple desires into simple actions . +Marketing: Nice . Nice sentence . +User Interface: Findings . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh sorry . +User Interface: Our question of the style , we should remember that our company +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: puts fashion into electronics and we should never forget about it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Concept . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S you should {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Be simple . Be simple and you'll lean on this market . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Market is a {disfmarker} of remote controls {disfmarker} you know it better , +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: it's very well , it's it's not an easy field to to play , you know ? So be simple . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: For personal preferences I think that to make a baby-proof remote control it got to be a titanium . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a really good style , it going to be {disfmarker} look like like this . It is unbreakable and it is very universal . W we'll have a screen with a back light which can change colours , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: and we can put all the options into this screen . We'll need only few buttons . All the other things can be controlled through the screen . And all these buttons should be easy to find and to click , 'cause when you watch a movie and you want to change something , you always try to find a good button and click it , but you should do it by touching it and finding it easily just by touch . So {disfmarker} Press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: I would propose this concept for design , just few buttons , a screen with a back light which can change colours , titanium +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I think , and uh what else ? I got just very few and good ideas . We need power and volume . And let us include two nice features into this device , first , power on and off can be made fully automatic . When you go to the sofa , take your control and point it to the T_V_ , +Project Manager: It's off . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: It's on . +User Interface: the T_V_ turns on . +Marketing: And when does it turn off ? +User Interface: When you don't touch the control but you go out of the {disfmarker} For for enough time +Marketing: Oh so you have a +User Interface: like uh you {disfmarker} +Marketing: sensing {disfmarker} sensor machine that uh knows {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's a question to our technical design , our {vocalsound} two engineers . +Industrial Designer: {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Tech {vocalsound} +User Interface: And another nice feature that I would like to implement is uh volume control . Suppose you set u you set up some volume and then you move out or you move to the other corner of the room and take your control with you . Like , you want to to change the chair or you want to move to the armchair from the sofa or something , and then the volume changes . +Project Manager: Or you want to go to the kitchen . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's easy to do , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: you just control the {disfmarker} +Marketing: According to your distance to {disfmarker} and the angle maybe , if you have a stereo system . +Industrial Designer: Distance . +User Interface: According to the distance . {gap} Yeah yeah yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh I'm not sure about the screen , wha what is the use usefulness of the screen ? Uh is it a touch screen by the way ? +User Interface: I think it can be just a menu which can be controlled with a left , right , up , down and enter . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So it gives instructions but uh it has to be with an back light somehow . {gap} +User Interface: So , its main purpose in fact is a back light , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: which change colours , +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: which makes it easier to find , and each can {disfmarker} it can respond for your voice , like it can turn on the light for you just to f find it easily , yeah ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: So basically that's it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I see that you target uh several s application not only T_V_ but i like we talk about um universal uh remote control . +User Interface: Can be easily done , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: 'cause you got simple designs , y we should put it to simple actions . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Let it be universal , so you want to use it for your hi-fi system . You want to change tracks and you want to adjust volume . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just few actions , a few actions for everything . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Hmm . S +User Interface: All the rest , we sh we'll put it into this menu on the screen . +Project Manager: Mm . Since we were targeting a really soon uh uh date for the the the um i issuing of this uh remote control I think we will only concentrate on T_V_ for the moment and then maybe m make it more generalised {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Okay , okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah and it {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: Okay , but it's quite universal you know . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We can just extend it to any device . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: So for instance if I want to go to {disfmarker} directly to channel twenty five , how would I do {disfmarker} can I do that with this ? +User Interface: Uh twenty five . +Marketing: Yeah mm let's say I am uh on channel eight now . You know these days we have hundreds of channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: that's not so easy to go just next next next when you have hundreds of channels . +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact I would propose another solution . +Marketing: Or is it ? +User Interface: Basically you use just four or five channels , right ? +Marketing: Most people {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: yeah . +User Interface: So uh set up your T_V_ set like channels that you use they're one , two , three and five , and you will never have to go to a twenty fives channel . +Marketing: In fact in in one uh remote control that I've seen , instead of doing that d you could just say these are the cha ch channel three , twenty eight , forty eight and uh sixty four are those that I want to by cycled with my next button . +Project Manager: Yeah it's it's the same solution , I think . Hmm . +Marketing: I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: B yeah . +Industrial Designer: But even we can have some uh L_C_D_ display , like you can uh de you can just button the number +Marketing: Go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: and then it go +Marketing: One thing is that as I said in my presentation people really do like to z zap . +Industrial Designer: t because {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: So even if they are only watching four or five channels , I think they want to zap out of the one hundred channels , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But still {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: just because this is one kind of thing they do , zapping . +Project Manager: Yeah uh on zap it's only next next next next next , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it's only next . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah +User Interface: Mm . We got these buttons here . Next next . +Marketing: so {disfmarker} but you have to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah. . +User Interface: Or say this can be back . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But otherwise like we can put some display on numbers and then they can just press {disfmarker} suppose two five they just press two and five +Marketing: So it would be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and then {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Maybe we can make uh different modes for each button +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: and you can change mode {disfmarker} zapping mode or +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Project Manager: uh current chan +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah but since we are focusing only on T_V_ remote controls +Marketing: {vocalsound} Listening more . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so we can have more functions for T_V_ +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you want to go for a universal then we ought to limit for functions for each of our devices . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Could we carry out some research if we w really need this , like how many people really need to go to channel number twenty five and then to sixty four ? +Marketing: Well I could could uh have a look at that {vocalsound} maybe . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll check in my department if there's someone specialist in that . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Although I don't know . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Alright ? Thanks for your attention . +Project Manager: Uh you're finish ? Okay . So now {vocalsound} the technical aspects of this new device . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Two . Yeah , if {disfmarker} {gap} Sorry . +Project Manager: You prefer it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh as you know , I am mister Ramaro . I am an expert in uh industrial design of all electronic devices and I previously devised many uh {disfmarker} like digital calculators and electronic calculators . {vocalsound} So now I'll briefly describe the working design of our remote control . Well , as you know the basic function of remote control is sending some message to the the device , like T_V_ or V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player etcetera . So we will have a p portable device which will send message to the the main device like T_V_ . So we need to have some energy source to do what {disfmarker} to do the functions , what we want on this portable device . {vocalsound} And usually this {disfmarker} so to do these functions we need an interface , which basically some kind of pressing buttons or keys or like moving jack or something like that . And then these messages {disfmarker} these key buttons can be transferred into some kind of message and then it will process by the chip and then it will generate some information to the main device . It's generally in the form of infrared or some kind of s sensor information . Then we will have the main control in the main device to do the particular action what we want . So , basically we need uh since we are focusing on our interface device {gap} remote control mainly the energy source like the battery and then we have user interface like uh the keypad and you know buttons we want , and then we have some chip , it's mainly digital signal processing chip because since we are {disfmarker} I am one doing mostly digital uh devices we ought to have some kind of processor which take care of all these functions and put it in some digital format . And then we'll have the infrared L_E_D_ source which sends the information to the main device . Then we'll have switch in our main uh um device to do particular operations , and we ought to do different codes for different T_V_s , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so some T_V_s will have different encryption codes for doing s s uh channel changing and these things . +Project Manager: Okay . To make it quite uh an universal uh device uh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , because the people don't use one particular brand so +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: or at least we have more more than five brands , which are really good . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: So we need to check their specifications and do their uh encryption that's passing information to the T_V_ device . So we need to have particular encryption codes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Then , components , so we have the main uh energy source and then we will have some buttons and then we will have infrared uh source and then we have some inside some chip in in the device . Uh since I don't have much time so I'll input the connections to all this components . And since I also want to know feedback from our Marketing Expert and User Interface , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to add some more components we can incorporate them . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . And from from the discussion we had do you {disfmarker} can you make it on the whiteboard , or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , I'm sure , because since our User Interface {gap} speech recognition and also Marketing Expert for the speech recognition is really handy , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: we can have another , like uh s simple speech recogniser on our D_S_B_ chip . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Since we have some kind of uh energy this is our this normal battery , so this battery , once you s switch on it will take power and we can have some speech recognition and in our g generally small digital signal processing chip so that and we will put uh the small uh simple speech recogniser +Project Manager: On {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and we can also train the speech recogniser for particular user so you just {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh train it , okay . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: yeah , so that we just use simple recog +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Too complex . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: no but but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But uh very very good to sell . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No , even in {disfmarker} you can find even simple mobile device like any mobile brand you can have these voice dialers or these things , yeah . +Marketing: Think of a all these young people who would love to say that this remote control only works for them , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: and ha ha you cannot use my remote control , +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: because it's targeted to me . Whatever . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: And what about the price of this component ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} Uh maybe we can make uh it in five Euros and even less than that , +Project Manager: It mm {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: Hmm . Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we want to have uh millions and in bulk , +Marketing: Millions . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so we can make really simp +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: and we want to make really simple device +Marketing: Cheap . +Industrial Designer: because we have only very few words like like power , switch on or some like +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: then we'll have something like this um we'll have volume and then we will have s particular channel , so users can listen . +Marketing: The user uh will just be able to say uh please can you uh pump up the vo pump up the volume +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: or or it will be something like volume , up , down . +Industrial Designer: Ye No , yeah , a user can use any kind of sender but they should have this prompt {gap} volume and then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: With a keywords and {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah volume and decrease or increase , so we try to only recognise those words +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm mm . +Industrial Designer: and and because we can't really say user to say same wording +Marketing: Couple of words . +Industrial Designer: then it become more mechanical and {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Um . +Industrial Designer: And then we can have channel they can say , okay I want eight , because we don't know like users have different programmes , I mean they don't really follow same channels strict uh so we just want channel number , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we don't want like B_B_C_ or C_N_N_ or something else +Marketing: Of course uh it has to be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: because it will be complicated so we'll have only these three uh main basic uh anyway volume is not really speech recognition problem , +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: it's it it will be take care of our main {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No you know it's a conceptual question , 'cause now I see th this {disfmarker} the picture in front of my eyes like a user taking his remote control and shouting into it , volume up , volume up , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But then I think you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and and he's coming {disfmarker} you know , he's really annoyed with this , down , up , down . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: First of all I I think this is not uh functionality that it is going to be instead of using the buttons . +Project Manager: No , in no not only speech , yeah . +Marketing: It's on top of using the button . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I it's an option . +User Interface: Okay , for this budget like twelve Euros . +Marketing: Well , I dunno . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah actually we we can have one switch to like uh switch on , on and off , this {gap} processor and {disfmarker} This really {gap} , suppose like here we have our main chip which controls power , volume and this part and this D_S_P_s . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Again , this to have some interaction like suppose people use D_S_P_ then it particularly sends some information to the chip like in some form , like volume and {gap} like this key . +User Interface: Okay. . +Industrial Designer: So it may not be like very expensive , because since we are only focusing on T_V_ remote control +Marketing: T_V_ . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} and we have only few things here {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sho to to train , okay . +User Interface: Did you consider the r gest uh gesture recognition ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Like , if I want to put volume up I like do {disfmarker} mm I take my remote control do like {disfmarker} something like +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: roll 'em up +Industrial Designer: Um uh uh this point we didn't consider +User Interface: or roll 'em down . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Very expensive , +Industrial Designer: because it's it's very expensive +Marketing: no ? +Industrial Designer: because v our target is only like twelve point five Euros +Project Manager: And well , what about the idea of automatic on off on the button , yeah . +User Interface: Mm why ? +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +User Interface: That's just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Marketing: And volume control . +Industrial Designer: even automatic on off is also a bit problematic , because it {disfmarker} different criteria for different people like so suppose people are really uh they just uh they don't touch the remote and mm y you don't know how much time you need to switch on or switch off +Marketing: So but uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Marketing: Sh should we target a a user personalised uh uh remote control ? So in in a given room there might be more than one remote control . We would uh have each one and uh with our own personal uh settings . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yay yeah . Yeah that can be possible , especially for power settings , so user can say okay , suppose they're watching a tennis match or something then they can say okay uh after one hour I {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: Wouldn't that make uh {vocalsound} arguments ? +Industrial Designer: They can make {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: I want uh {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah we can have {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} That's no problem , we will sell more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we can increase this {vocalsound} the strength +User Interface: {vocalsound} We got a really good Market Expert . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah exactly . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} y you can buy one with {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's send more , let's sell more . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . You have mm something else to say ? Uh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , not very much , +Project Manager: No . +Industrial Designer: like {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: Okay , thanks . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . Yep . Thank you . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So +Industrial Designer: Can you just {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: mm +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: mm I think , okay , we're just on time . Um mm mm . So , we're now going to l have the lunch break . +Marketing: Mm great . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Then we will work again for thirty minutes individual work , and um {vocalsound} we will uh meet again for the next meeting , and uh in this one want to to be more focused on the individual actions the um {disfmarker} on the components so {vocalsound} uh you will focus on the component concept um +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: uh of course the U_I_D_ Mark will be uh focused on the user interface concept +Industrial Designer: Mark will {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and uh our m Market Expert Sammy Benjo uh on the trend watching . So {vocalsound} um of course like before specific instruction will be sent to you by your personal personal coach . Well I think that's all . And we have um maybe we have to {disfmarker} we say , only for T_V_ , not teletext ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh I think automatic on off control uh it's not possible . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's in current price , yeah . +Marketing: Difficult . +Project Manager: Yeah , maybe in the next uh step if we make it work um . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But speech recogniser can be possible . +Project Manager: Yeah , implemented . O okay , we can think about that . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: And um do you see something else ? +Marketing: No . +User Interface: Uh , should it be equipped with the uh , with uh speakers ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Speakers in the remote cont +User Interface: Like , you want to find it , you shout +Marketing: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah +User Interface: control , +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it answers is I'm here ? Or {disfmarker} +Marketing: It just beeps . +User Interface: Just beeps ? +Marketing: That would be enough . +Project Manager: Or maybe you want to phone him . +Marketing: Something very cheap . +Project Manager: Since now all {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: But that's ex that's expensive . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah ? Think +Industrial Designer: Yeah , especially the power , it really consumes +Project Manager: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: because it should be all the time on and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well I I heard of devices where you just uh whistle them and and they {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And it's answered . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: because of the the frequency they they just answer to that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: I can't whistle . No , no , I can't . +Marketing: You can't whistle . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or a clap . You can clap . Can you ? +Project Manager: Clap clap clap it's a good {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Clap is good . +Project Manager: I I think it's universal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Tak +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What about people without hand ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Just a {vocalsound} suggestion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I think it's good . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} With only one hand ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} These are not our target people . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm uh okay . +Industrial Designer: But it's a good feature I guess yeah we need to think about more how to incorporate it . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Okay . +User Interface: Just don't interfere with other devices like 'cause like all these people do that their lights are turning on with clapping . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Oh that's e that already exists +User Interface: Yeah , I got it at my home , like {gap} {vocalsound} . +Marketing: okay okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Oh yeah , you do have . +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: Ah it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wow . You're trendy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , so {vocalsound} let's to think s so that {disfmarker} +Marketing: Think about it . +Project Manager: yeah . I think that could be in the component uh concept uh . +Marketing: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: Okay . Good +Project Manager: So , +Marketing: we're done ? +Project Manager: yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: let's go to lunch . +Industrial Designer: Thank you , thank you very much . +Marketing: Right , thanks . +Project Manager: {gap} +","During a functional design meeting, a Project Manager coordinated a discussion with Marketing, Industrial Designer, and User Interface team members about creating a new remote control. The Marketing Expert, Sammy Benjo, discussed user preferences, highlighting the desire for simplicity, aesthetically pleasing design, and frustration with current remote controls' complexity. The User Interface Designer, Mark Dwight, emphasized a simplistic design with essential functions and potential features like automatic on/off and volume control based on proximity. The Industrial Designer presented the technical aspects necessary for producing such a device, suggesting incorporating speech recognition for certain functions. The team concluded with action items focusing on individual areas such as components, user interface, and market trends before breaking for lunch and planning the next meeting steps." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: Am I on ? I guess so . Radio two . Hmm . Radio two . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: Wow . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Hi ? +PhD B: Blow into it , it works really well . +Grad F: Channel B . +Professor A: People say the strangest things when their microphones are on . +PhD D: Channel four . Test . +PhD C: Uh - oh . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: Radio four . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: So everybody everybody 's on ? +PhD D: Today 's +Professor A: Yeah . So y you guys had a {disfmarker} a meeting with uh {disfmarker} with Hynek which I unfortunately had to miss . Um and uh somebody +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: eh e and uh I guess Chuck you weren't there either , so the uh +PhD B: I was there . +Professor A: Oh you were there ? +PhD B: With Hynek ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So everybody knows what happened except me . OK . {vocalsound} Maybe somebody should tell me . +PhD C: Oh yeah . Alright . Well . Uh first we discussed about some of the points that I was addressing in the mail I sent last week . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So . Yeah . About the um , well {disfmarker} the downsampling problem . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh and about the f the length of the filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: What was the {disfmarker} w what was the downsampling problem again ? +PhD C: So we had {disfmarker} +Professor A: I forget . +PhD C: So the fact that there {disfmarker} there is no uh low - pass filtering before the downsampling . Well . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: There is because there is LDA filtering but that 's perhaps not uh the best w m +Professor A: Depends what it 's frequency characteristic is , yeah . +PhD C: Well . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you could do a {disfmarker} you could do a stricter one . +PhD D: System on +Professor A: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . So we discussed about this , about the um {disfmarker} +Professor A: Was there any conclusion about that ? +PhD C: Uh "" try it "" . Yeah . +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: I guess . +Professor A: Yeah . So again this is th this is the downsampling {vocalsound} uh of the uh {disfmarker} the feature vector stream +PhD C: Uh . +Professor A: and um Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} the uh LDA filters they were doing do have um {vocalsound} uh let 's see , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the feature vectors are calculated every ten milliseconds so uh the question is how far down they are at fifty {disfmarker} fifty hertz . Uh . {vocalsound} Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Sorry at twenty - five hertz since they 're downsampling by two . So . Does anybody know what the frequency characteristic is ? +PhD C: We don't have yet +Professor A: Oh OK . +PhD C: um {vocalsound} So , yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: We should have a look first at , perhaps , {vocalsound} the modulation spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . So there is this , there is the um length of the filters . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the i this idea of trying to find filters with shorter delays . Um . We started to work with this . +Professor A: Hmm - hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . And the third point um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} was the um , yeah , {vocalsound} the on - line normalization where , well , the recursion f recursion for the mean estimation {vocalsound} is a filter with some kind of delay +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and that 's not taken into account right now . Um . Yeah . And there again , yeah . For this , the conclusion of Hynek was , well , "" we can try it but {disfmarker} "" +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Try {disfmarker} try what ? +PhD C: So try to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um take into account the delay of the recursion for the mean estimation . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . And this {disfmarker} we 've not uh worked on this yet . Um , yeah . And so while discussing about these {disfmarker} these LDA filters , some i issues appeared , like well , the fact that if we look at the frequency response of these filters it 's uh , well , we don't know really what 's the important part in the frequency response and there is the fact that {vocalsound} in the very low frequency , these filters don't {disfmarker} don't really remove a lot . {vocalsound} compared to the {disfmarker} to the uh standard RASTA filter . Uh and that 's probably a reason why , yeah , on - line normalization helps because it {disfmarker} it , +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: yeah , it removed this mean . Um . Yeah , but perhaps everything could {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} could be in the filter , I mean , uh the {disfmarker} the mean normalization and {disfmarker} Yeah . So . Yeah . So basically that was {disfmarker} that 's {vocalsound} all we discussed about . We discussed about {vocalsound} good things to do also uh well , generally good stuff {vocalsound} to do for the research . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And this was this LDA uh tuning perhaps and {vocalsound} Hynek proposed again to his uh TRAPS , so . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor A: I mean I g I guess the key thing for me is {disfmarker} is figuring out how to better coordinate between the two sides +PhD C: um . +Professor A: cuz {disfmarker} because um +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I was talking with Hynek about it later and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of had the sense sort of that {disfmarker} that neither group of people wanted to {disfmarker} to bother the other group too much . And {disfmarker} and I don't think anybody is , you know , closed in in their thinking or are unwilling to talk about things but I think that {vocalsound} you were sort of waiting for them to {vocalsound} tell you that they had something for you and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} and expected that they would do certain things and they were sor they didn't wanna bother you +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {vocalsound} they were sort of waiting for you and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh we ended up with this thing where they {disfmarker} they were filling up all of the possible latency themselves , and they just had hadn't thought of that . So . Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I mean it 's true that maybe {disfmarker} maybe no one really thought about that {disfmarker} that this latency thing would be such a {disfmarker} a strict issue +PhD C: Yeah . Well , but . Yeah . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah I don't know what happened really , but +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's also so uh the time constraints . Because , {vocalsound} well , we discussed about that {disfmarker} about this problem and they told us "" well , we will do all that 's possible to have enough space for a network "" but then , yeah , perhaps they were too short with the time and +Professor A: Then they couldn't . I see . +PhD C: uh yeah . But there was also problem {disfmarker} perhaps a problem of communication . So , yeah . Now we will try to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Just talk more . +PhD C: Yeah , slikes and send mails . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: u s o o Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . OK . +Professor A: So there 's um {disfmarker} Alright . Well maybe we should just uh I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're bus other than that you folks are busy doing all the {disfmarker} all the things that you 're trying that we talked about before right ? And this {disfmarker} machines are busy and {vocalsound} you 're busy +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: and +PhD C: Basically . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . Oh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's , I mean , I think that as {disfmarker} as we said before that one of the things that we 're imagining is that uh there {disfmarker} there will be {vocalsound} uh in the system we end up with there 'll be something to explicitly uh uh do something about noise +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: in addition to the uh other things that we 're talking about and that 's probably the best thing to do . And there was that one email that said that {vocalsound} it sounded like uh uh things looked very promising up there in terms of uh I think they were using Ericsson 's {vocalsound} approach or something and {vocalsound} in addition to {disfmarker} They 're doing some noise removal thing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . So yeah we 're {disfmarker} will start to do this also . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh so Carmen is just looking at the Ericsson {disfmarker} Ericsson code . +PhD D: Yeah . We modif +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And +PhD D: Yeah , I modified it {disfmarker} well , modifying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I studied Barry 's sim code , more or less . to take @ @ the first step the spectral subtraction . and we have some {disfmarker} the feature for Italian database and we will try with this feature with the filter to find the result . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But we haven't result until this moment . +Professor A: Yeah , sure . +PhD D: But well , we are working in this also +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: and maybe try another type of spectral subtraction , I don't {disfmarker} +Professor A: When you say you don't have a result yet you mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that it 's in process or that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it finished and it didn't get a good result ? +PhD D: No . No , no n we have n we have do the experiment only have the feature {disfmarker} the feature but the experiment have +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: we have not make the experiment +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD D: and maybe will be good result or bad result , we don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . So um I suggest actually now we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sorta move on and {disfmarker} and hear what 's {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening in {disfmarker} in other areas like {vocalsound} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening with your {vocalsound} investigations {vocalsound} about echos and so on . +Grad F: Oh um Well um I haven't started writing the test yet , I 'm meeting with Adam today +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um and he 's going t show me the scripts he has for um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} running recognition on mee Meeting Recorder digits . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh {vocalsound} I also um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} haven't got the code yet , I haven't asked Hynek for {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for his code yet . Cuz I looked at uh Avendano 's thesis and {vocalsound} I don't really understand what he 's doing yet but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it sounded like um {vocalsound} the channel normalization part {vocalsound} um of his thesis um {vocalsound} was done in a {disfmarker} a bit of I don't know what the word is , a {disfmarker} a bit of a rough way um {vocalsound} it sounded like he um he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wasn't really fleshed out and maybe he did something that was {vocalsound} interesting for the test situation but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it 's {vocalsound} what I 'd wanna use so I have to {disfmarker} I have to read it more , I don't really understand what he 's doing yet . +Professor A: OK . Yeah I haven't read it in a while so I 'm not gonna be too much help unless I read it again , +PhD D: It 's my +PhD C: Oh yeah ? +PhD D: I know this is mine here . +Professor A: so . OK . Um . {vocalsound} The um {disfmarker} so you , and then {vocalsound} you 're also gonna be doing this echo cancelling between the {disfmarker} the close mounted and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're calling a cheating experiment uh of sorts between the distant {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh I I 'm ho Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or I 'm hoping {disfmarker} I 'm hoping Espen will do it . +Professor A: Ah ! OK . +Grad F: Um +Professor A: F um +Grad F: u +Professor A: Delegate . That 's good . It 's good to delegate . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I think he 's at least planning to do it for the cl close - mike cross - talk and so maybe I can just take whatever setup he has and use it . +Professor A: Great . Great . Yeah actually um he should uh I wonder who else is I think maybe it 's Dan Ellis is going to be doing uh a different cancellation . Um . {vocalsound} One of the things that people working in the meeting task wanna get at is they would like to have cleaner {vocalsound} close - miked recordings . So uh this is especially true for the lapel but even for the close {disfmarker} close - miked uh cases um we 'd like to be able to have {vocalsound} um other sounds from other people and so forth removed from {disfmarker} So when someone isn't speaking you 'd like the part where they 're not speaking to actually be {disfmarker} So {vocalsound} what they 're talking about doing is using ec uh echo cancellation - like techniques . It 's not really echo but {vocalsound} uh just um uh taking the input from other mikes and using uh {vocalsound} uh a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an adaptive filtering approach to remove the effect of that uh other speech . So . Um what was it , there was {disfmarker} there was some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some point where {vocalsound} eh uh Eric or somebody was {disfmarker} was speaking and he had lots of {vocalsound} silence in his channel and I was saying something to somebody else uh {vocalsound} which was in the background and it was not {disfmarker} it was recognizing my words , which were the background speech {vocalsound} on the close {disfmarker} {vocalsound} close mike . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD B: Oh the {disfmarker} What we talked about yesterday ? +Professor A: Yes . +PhD B: Yeah that was actually my {disfmarker} I was wearing the {disfmarker} I was wearing the lapel and you were sitting next to me , +Professor A: Oh you {disfmarker} it was you I was Yeah . +PhD B: and I only said one thing but you were talking and it was picking up all your words . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So they would like clean channels . Uh and for that {disfmarker} mmm uh {disfmarker} that purpose uh they 'd like to pull it out . So I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think Dan Ellis or somebody who was working with him was going to uh work on that . So . OK . Right ? Um . {vocalsound} And uh I don't know if we 've talked lately about the {disfmarker} the plans you 're developing that we talked about this morning uh I don't remember if we talked about that last week or not , but {vocalsound} maybe just a quick reprise of {disfmarker} of what we were saying this morning . +Grad E: OK . +Professor A: Uh . +Grad E: Um . {comment} So continuing to um extend +PhD B: What about the stuff that um Mirjam has been doing ? And {disfmarker} and S Shawn , yeah . Oh . So they 're training up nets to try to recognize these acoustic features ? I see . +Professor A: But that 's uh uh all {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} a certainly relevant {comment} {vocalsound} uh study and , you know , what are the features that they 're finding . We have this problem with the overloading of the term "" feature "" so +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: uh {vocalsound} what are the variables , what we 're calling this one , what are the variables that they 're found {disfmarker} finding useful +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: um for {disfmarker} +PhD B: And their {disfmarker} their targets are based on canonical mappings of phones to acoustic f features . +Professor A: Right . And that 's certainly one thing to do and we 're gonna try and do something more f more fine than that but uh um so um So I guess you know what , I was trying to remember some of the things we were saying , do you ha still have that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad E: Oh yeah . +Professor A: There 's those {vocalsound} {pause} that uh yeah , some of {disfmarker} some of the issues we were talking about was in j just getting a good handle on {disfmarker} on uh {vocalsound} what "" good features "" are and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What does {disfmarker} what did um Larry Saul use for {disfmarker} it was the sonorant uh detector , right ? How did he {disfmarker} H how did he do that ? Wh - what was his detector ? Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . Mm - hmm . So how did he combine all these features ? What {disfmarker} what r mmm classifier did he Hmm . Oh right . You were talking about that , yeah . I see . +Professor A: And the other thing you were talking about is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is where we get the targets from . So I mean , there 's these issues of what are the {disfmarker} what are the variables that you use and do you combine them using the soft "" AND - OR "" or you do something , you know , more complicated um and then the other thing was so where do you get the targets from ? The initial thing is just the obvious that we 're discussing is starting up with phone labels {vocalsound} from somewhere and then uh doing the transformation . But then the other thing is to do something better and eh w why don't you tell us again about this {disfmarker} this database ? This is the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm ! +Professor A: And then tell them to talk naturally ? Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Pierced tongues and Yeah . You could just mount it to that and they wouldn't even notice . Weld it . Zzz . +Professor A: Maybe you could go to these parlors and {disfmarker} and you could , you know {disfmarker} you know have {disfmarker} have , you know , reduced rates if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you can do the measurements . +PhD B: Yeah . I That 's right . You could {disfmarker} what you could do is you could sell little rings and stuff with embedded you know , transmitters in them and things +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , be cool and help science . +PhD B: and Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD B: Hmm ! There 's a bunch of data that l around , that {disfmarker} people have done studies like that w way way back right ? I mean {vocalsound} I can't remember where {disfmarker} uh Wisconsin or someplace that used to have a big database of {disfmarker} Yeah . I remember there was this guy at A T - andT , Randolph ? or r What was his name ? Do you remember that guy ? Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} researcher at A T - andT a while back that was studying , trying to do speech recognition from these kinds of features . I can't remember what his name was . Dang . Now I 'll think of it . That 's interesting . +Professor A: Do you mean eh {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Mar +PhD C: Well he was the guy {disfmarker} the guy that was using {disfmarker} +Professor A: you mean when was {disfmarker} was Mark Randolph there , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Mark Randolph . +Professor A: Yeah he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's at Motorola now . +PhD B: Oh is he ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is it the guy that was using the pattern of pressure on the tongue or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I can't remember exactly what he was using , now . But I know {disfmarker} I just remember it had to do with you know {vocalsound} uh positional parameters +PhD C: What {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: and trying to m you know do speech recognition based on them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So the only {disfmarker} the only uh hesitation I had about it since , I mean I haven't see the data is it sounds like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} continuous variables and a bunch of them . And so +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: I don't know how complicated it is to go from there {disfmarker} What you really want are these binary {pause} labels , and just a few of them . And maybe there 's a trivial mapping if you wanna do it and it 's e but it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I worry a little bit that this is a research project in itself , whereas um {vocalsound} if you did something instead that {disfmarker} like um having some manual annotation by {vocalsound} uh you know , linguistics students , this would {disfmarker} there 'd be a limited s set of things that you could do a as per our discussions with {disfmarker} with John before +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but the things that you could do , like nasality and voicing and a couple other things you probably could do reasonably well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then there would {disfmarker} it would really be uh this uh uh binary variable . Course then , that 's the other question is do you want binary variables . So . I mean the other thing you could do is {vocalsound} boot trying to {disfmarker} to uh get those binary variables and take the continuous variables from {vocalsound} uh the uh {vocalsound} uh the data itself there , but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD B: Could you cluster the {disfmarker} just do some kind of clustering ? +Professor A: Guess you could , yeah . +PhD B: Bin them up into different categories and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . So anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's another whole direction that cou could be looked at . Um . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} I mean in general it 's gonna be {disfmarker} for new data that you look at , it 's gonna be hidden variable because we 're not gonna get everybody sitting in these meetings to {vocalsound} wear the pellets and {disfmarker} Um . So . +Grad E: Right . Right . +PhD B: So you 're talking about using that data to get uh instead of using canonical mappings of phones . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: So you 'd use that data to give you sort of what the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the true mappings are for each phone ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I see . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So wh yeah , where this fits into the rest in {disfmarker} in my mind , I guess , is that um {vocalsound} we 're looking at different ways that we can combine {vocalsound} uh different kinds of {disfmarker} of rep front - end representations {vocalsound} um in order to get robustness under difficult or even , you know , typical conditions . And part of it , this robustness , seems to come from {vocalsound} uh multi - stream or multi - band sorts of things and Saul seems to have {vocalsound} a reasonable way of looking at it , at least for one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} one um articulatory feature . The question is is can we learn from that {vocalsound} to change some of the other methods we have , since {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things that 's nice about what he had I thought was that {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} the decision about how strongly to train the different pieces is based on uh a {disfmarker} a reasonable criterion with hidden variables rather than {vocalsound} um just assuming {vocalsound} that you should train e e every detector uh with equal strength {vocalsound} towards uh it being this phone or that phone . Right ? So it {disfmarker} so um {vocalsound} he 's got these um uh uh +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: he "" AND 's "" between these different {vocalsound} features . It 's a soft "" AND "" , I guess but in {disfmarker} in principle {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you wanna get a strong concurrence of all the different things that indicate something and then he "" OR 's "" across the different {disfmarker} soft "" OR 's "" across the different uh {vocalsound} multi - band channels . And um {vocalsound} the weight yeah , the target for the training of the "" AND "" {disfmarker} "" AND ' ed "" things {vocalsound} is something that 's kept {vocalsound} uh as a hidden variable , and is learned with EM . Whereas what we were doing is {disfmarker} is uh {vocalsound} taking {vocalsound} the phone target and then just back propagating from that +PhD B: So he doesn't have {disfmarker} +Professor A: which means that it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's uh i It could be for instance {vocalsound} that for a particular point in the data {vocalsound} you don't want to um uh train a particular band {disfmarker} train the detectors for a particular band . You {disfmarker} you wanna ignore {vocalsound} that band , cuz that 's a {disfmarker} Ban - band is a noisy {disfmarker} noisy measure . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we don't {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're still gonna try to train it up . In our scheme we 're gonna try to train it up to do as well {disfmarker} well as it can at predicting . Uh . Maybe that 's not the right thing to do . +PhD B: So he doesn't have to have truth marks or {disfmarker} Ho +Grad E: F right , and uh he doesn't have to have hard labels . +Professor A: Well at the {disfmarker} at the tail end , yeah , he has to know what 's {disfmarker} where it 's sonorant . But he 's {disfmarker} but what he 's - but what he 's not training up {disfmarker} uh what he doesn't depend on as truth is +Grad E: Right . For the full band . +Professor A: um I guess one way of describing would be if {disfmarker} if a sound is sonorant is it sonorant in this band ? Is it sonorant in that band ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor A: Is it sonorant in that band ? i It 's hard to even answer that what you really mean is that the whole sound is sonorant . So +PhD B: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor A: then it comes down to , you know , to what extent should you make use of information from particular band {vocalsound} towards making your decision . And um {vocalsound} uh we 're making in a sense sort of this hard decision that you should {disfmarker} you should use everything {vocalsound} uh with {disfmarker} with uh equal strength . +PhD B: I see . +Professor A: And uh because in the ideal case we would be going for posterior probabilities , if we had {vocalsound} uh enough data to really get posterior probabilities and if the {disfmarker} if we also had enough data so that it was representative of the test data then we would in fact be doing the right thing to train everything as hard as we can . But um this is something that 's more built up along an idea of robustness from {disfmarker} from the beginning and so you don't necessarily want to train everything up towards the {disfmarker} +PhD B: So where did he get his {disfmarker} uh his tar his uh high - level targets about what 's sonorant and what 's not ? +Grad E: From uh canonical mappings {comment} um at first +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: and then it 's unclear um eh +PhD B: Using TIMIT ? or using {disfmarker} +Grad E: using TIMIT +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: right , right . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: And then uh he does some fine tuning um for um special cases . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean we ha we have a kind of {vocalsound} iterative training because we do this embedded Viterbi , uh so there is some something that 's suggested , based on the data but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} I think it s doesn't seem like it 's quite the same , cuz of this {disfmarker} cuz then whatever {vocalsound} that alignment is , it 's that for all {disfmarker} all bands . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well no , that 's not quite right , we did actually do them separate {disfmarker} tried to do them separately so that would be a little more like what he did . Um . But it 's still {vocalsound} not quite the same because then it 's {disfmarker} it 's um setting targets based on where you would say {vocalsound} the sound begins in a particular band . Where he 's s this is not a labeling per se . Might be closer I guess if we did a {vocalsound} soft {disfmarker} soft target uh {vocalsound} uh embedded {vocalsound} neural net training like we 've done a few times uh {vocalsound} f the forward um {disfmarker} do the forward calculations to get the gammas and train on those . Mmm . Uh what 's next ? +PhD B: I could say a little bit about w stuff I 've been playing with . +Professor A: Oh . You 're playing ? +PhD B: I um Huh ? +Professor A: You 're playing ? +PhD B: Yes , I 'm playing . Um {vocalsound} so I wanted to do this experiment to see um {vocalsound} uh what happens if we try to uh improve the performance of the back - end recognizer for the Aurora task and see how that affects things . And so I had this um {disfmarker} I think I sent around last week a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this plan I had for an experiment , this matrix where {vocalsound} I would take the um {disfmarker} the original um the original system . So there 's the original system trained on the mel cepstral features and then com and then uh optimize the b HTK system and run that again . So look at the difference there and then uh do the same thing for {vocalsound} the ICSI - OGI front - end . +Professor A: What {disfmarker} which test set was this ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} that I looked at ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh I 'm looking at the Italian right now . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So as far as I 've gotten is I 've uh {vocalsound} been able to go through from beginning to end the um full HTK {vocalsound} system for the Italian data and got the same results that um {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} Stephane had . So um I started looking {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of lookin at the point where I wanna know what should I change in the HTK back - end in order to try to {disfmarker} uh to improve it . So . One of the first things I thought of was the fact that they use {vocalsound} the same number of states for all of the models +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I went on - line and I uh found a pronunciation dictionary for Italian digits +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and just looked at , you know , the number of phones in each one of the digits . Um you know , sort of the canonical way of setting up a {disfmarker} an HMM system is that you use {vocalsound} um three states per phone and um {vocalsound} so then the {disfmarker} the total number of states for a word would just be , you know , the number of phones times three . And so when I did that for the Italian digits , I got a number of states , ranging on the low end from nine to the high end , eighteen . Um . {vocalsound} Now you have to really add two to that because in HTK there 's an initial null and a final null so when they use {vocalsound} uh models that have eighteen states , there 're really sixteen states . They 've got those initial and final null states . And so um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} their guess of eighteen states seems to be pretty well matched to the two longest words of the Italian digits , the four and five {vocalsound} which um , according to my , you know , sort of off the cuff calculation , should have eighteen states each . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so they had sixteen . So that 's pretty close . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} but for the {disfmarker} most of the words are sh much shorter . So the majority of them wanna have nine states . And so theirs are s sort of twice as long . So {vocalsound} my guess {disfmarker} uh And then if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I printed out a confusion matrix um {vocalsound} uh for the well - matched case , and it turns out that the longest words are actually the ones that do the best . So my guess about what 's happening is that {vocalsound} you know , if you assume a fixed {disfmarker} the same amount of training data for each of these digits and a fixed length model for all of them but the actual words for some of them are half as long you really um have , you know , half as much training data for those models . Because if you have a long word and you 're training it to eighteen states , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh you 've got {disfmarker} you know , you 've got the same number of Gaussians , you 've gotta train in each case , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but for the shorter words , you know , the total number of frames is actually half as many . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {vocalsound} it could be that , you know , for the short words there 's {disfmarker} because you have so many states , you just don't have enough data to train all those Gaussians . So um I 'm going to try to um create more word - specific {vocalsound} um uh prototype H M Ms to start training from . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , it 's not at all uncommon you do worse on long word on short words than long words anyway just because you 're accumulating more evidence for the {disfmarker} for the longer word , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but . +PhD B: Yeah so I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , the next experiment I 'm gonna try is to just um you know create {vocalsound} uh models that seem to be more w matched to my guess about how long they should be . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And as part of that um I wanted to see sort of how the um {disfmarker} how these models were coming out , you know , what w {vocalsound} when we train up uh th you know , the model for "" one "" , which wants to have nine states , you know , what is the {disfmarker} uh what do the transition probabilities look like {disfmarker} in the self - loops , {comment} look like in {disfmarker} in those models ? And so I talked to Andreas and he explained to me how you can {vocalsound} calculate the expected duration of an HMM just by looking at the transition matrix +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I wrote a little Matlab script that calculates that and so I 'm gonna sort of print those out for each of the words to see what 's happening , you know , how these models are training up , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , the long ones versus the short ones . I d I did {disfmarker} quickly , I did the silence model and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and um that 's coming out with about one point two seconds as its average duration and the silence model 's the one that 's used at the beginning and the end of each of the {vocalsound} string of digits . +Professor A: Wow . Lots of silence . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . And so the S P model , which is what they put in between digits , I {disfmarker} I haven't calculated that for that one yet , but um . So they basically {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their model for a whole digit string is silence {vocalsound} digit , SP , digit , SP blah - blah - blah and then silence at the end . And so . +Professor A: Are the SP 's optional ? I mean skip them ? +PhD B: I have to look at that , but I 'm not sure that they are . Now the one thing about the S P model is really it only has a single s emitting state to it . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So if it 's not optional , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna hurt a whole lot +Professor A: I see . +PhD B: and it 's tied to the center state of the silence model so it 's not its own {disfmarker} um It doesn't require its own training data , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: it just shares that state . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it , I mean , it 's pretty good the way that they have it set up , but um i So I wanna play with that a little bit more . I 'm curious about looking at , you know {vocalsound} how these models have trained and looking at the expected durations of the models and I wanna compare that in the {disfmarker} the well - matched case f to the unmatched case , and see if you can get an idea of {disfmarker} just from looking at the {vocalsound} durations of these models , you know , what what 's happening . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , I think that uh , as much as you can , it 's good to d sort of not do anything really tricky . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Not do anything that 's really finely tuned , but just sort of eh you know you t you i z +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: The premise is kind of you have a {disfmarker} a good person look at this for a few weeks and what do you come up with ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh +PhD B: And Hynek , when I wa told him about this , he had an interesting point , and that was th um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the final models that they end up training up have I think probably something on the order of six Gaussians per state . So they 're fairly , you know , hefty models . And Hynek was saying that well , probably in a real application , {vocalsound} you wouldn't have enough compute to handle models that are very big or complicated . So in fact what we may want are simpler models . +Professor A: Could be . +PhD B: And compare how they perform to that . But {vocalsound} you know , it depends on what the actual application is and it 's really hard to know what your limits are in terms of how many Gaussians you can have . +Professor A: Right . And that , I mean , at the moment that 's not the limitation , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I thought you were gonna say i but which I was thinking was um where did six come from ? Probably came from the same place eighteen came from . You know , so . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Uh {vocalsound} that 's another parameter , right ? that {disfmarker} that maybe , you know , uh {disfmarker} you really want three or nine or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . Well one thing {disfmarker} I mean , if I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I start um reducing the number of states for some of these shorter models {vocalsound} that 's gonna reduce the total number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So in a sense it 'll be a simpler system . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . But I think right now again the idea is doing just very simple things +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: how much better can you make it ? And um since they 're only simple things there 's nothing that you 're gonna do that is going to blow up the amount of computation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um so +PhD B: Right . Right . +Professor A: if you found that nine was better than six that would be O K , I think , actually . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Doesn't have to go down . +PhD B: Yeah . I really wasn't even gonna play with that part of the system yet , +Professor A: Mm - hmm , OK . +PhD B: I was just gonna change the {disfmarker} the t +Professor A: Yeah , just work with the models , yeah . +PhD B: yeah , just look at the length of the models and just see what happens . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor A: Cool . OK . So uh {vocalsound} what 's uh I guess your plan for {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you guys ' plan for the next {disfmarker} next week is {vocalsound} just continue on these {disfmarker} these same things we 've been talking about for Aurora and +PhD C: Yeah , I guess we can try to {vocalsound} have some kind of new baseline for next week perhaps . with all these minor things {vocalsound} {vocalsound} modified . And then do other things , play with the spectral subtraction , and {vocalsound} retry the MSG and things like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah we {disfmarker} we have a big list . +PhD C: Big list ? +Professor A: You have a big list of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of things to do . So . Well that 's good . I think {vocalsound} that after all of this uh um confusion settles down in another {disfmarker} some point a little later next year there will be some sort of standard and it 'll get out there and {vocalsound} hopefully it 'll have some effect from something {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that has uh been done by our group of people but uh e even if it doesn't there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's go there 'll be standards after that . So . +PhD B: Does anybody know how to um {vocalsound} run Matlab sort of in batch mode like you c send it {vocalsound} s a bunch of commands to run and it gives you the output . Is it possible to do that ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I think uh Mike tried it +PhD B: Yeah ? +Grad E: and he says it 's impossible so he went to Octave . +PhD B: Octave . +Grad E: Octave is the um UNIX clone of {disfmarker} of Matlab which you can batch . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Great . Thanks . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: I was going crazy trying to do that . +Professor A: Huh . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: What is Octave so ? It 's a free software ? +Grad E: What 's that ? Uh , Octave ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's free . I think we have it here {comment} r running somewhere . +PhD B: Great ! +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: And it does the same syntax and everything eh like Matlab , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um {vocalsound} {comment} i it 's a little behind , it 's the same syntax but it 's a little behind in that {comment} Matlab went to these like um you can have cells and you can {disfmarker} you can {comment} uh implement object - oriented type things with Matlab . Uh Octave doesn't do that yet , so I think you , Octave is kinda like Matlab um four point something or . +PhD B: If it 'll do like a lot of the basic matrix and vector stuff +Grad E: The basic stuff , right . +PhD B: that 's perfect . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Great ! +Professor A: OK , guess we 're done . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Well , although by the way . +","The recording presents a fragmented conversation among academic professionals involved in some form of signal processing or computational audio analysis, most likely within the context of a research meeting or discussion group. The participants include Professor A, Grad E, PhD B, PhD C, PhD D, and Grad F. They seem to be mixing discussions about their experiment setup and troubleshooting with deeper technical communications about ongoing research. + +The conversation opens with individuals managing their microphones and channels, a typical scenario when setting up a teleconference or group session in which multiple participants are speaking from different locations. Once the technical issues are sorted out, the group delves into the meat of their discussion — the meeting recap, discussion points, and action items moving forward. + +Professor A admits to having missed a prior meeting with someone named Hynek and is seeing updates. PhD B and PhD C indicate they were privy to the previous discussion topics, including a problem with downsampling and the length of filters that were evaluated during said meeting. They touched on issues of a lack of low-pass filtering before downsampling and whether Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) filtering is sufficiently effective. It appears that there were suggestions for a more stringent low-pass filter, and a trial-and-error approach was recommended. + +A substantial part of the conversation centers on downsampling of the feature vector stream and the frequency characteristics of the LDA filters in use. There's some uncertainty displayed by Professor A regarding the specifics of the problem, as well as an evident gap in knowledge due to his absence from the previous meeting. They discuss potentially implementing either a modified filter system or incorporating normalization techniques to account for delay in mean estimation. + +Several participants, including PhD C and PhD D, interject with updates on their respective work, such as work on modulation spectrums and filters with shorter delays. Professor A brings up coordination issues between two groups indicated by job descriptions as ""the two sides.” These interactions suggest efforts to foster better communication and expectations between these unspecified groups, hinting at a challenge in managing collaborative research efforts. + +As the conversation progresses to echo cancellation strategies and the use of different recognition techniques, Grad F shares progress on setting up tests and understanding previous research. Professor A seems to keep the conversation regulated toward more technical and actionable paths, while Grad E brings up other points of research and the possibility of utilizing a different, more granular database for improved modeling. + +PhD B shares insights into the features and classifiers used in their experiments, and there's some exchange about the value of various approaches to speech recognition and feature extraction. We also touch upon the training of networks for recognizing acoustic features and potential alterations that could be made to existing machine learning models. + +Later, the talk turns more technical, discussing state models and Gaussian distributions in the context of an Italian database. Ph.D. B is contemplating adjustments to the Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) used for recognizing Italian digits, arguing the current models may not be ideal for shorter words due to over-parameterization and insufficient training data for the shorter words' models. + +Toward the end of the conversation, the talk turns practical, discussing plans for the following week. They acknowledge a big list of tasks to work through, including setting up a new baseline and revisiting the spectral subtraction and MSG (Mel scale cepstral coefficients) approaches. + +There are brief mentions of software tools like Matlab and its open-source alternative Octave, signifying an interdisciplinary blend of software engineering and auditory signal analysis. The session ends with the participants agreeing to wrap up, but Grad F chimes in with an additional point, suggesting there was more to discuss. + +This summary, stitched together from disjointed discussion snippets, illustrates a dynamic and ongoing collaboration where technical expertise meets practical problem-solving. The participants are engrossed in in-depth analysis and troubleshooting for optimizing speech recognition systems - most likely as a part of a research project or academic study." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: what things to talk about . +Grad F: I 'm {disfmarker} What ? Really ? Oh , that 's horrible ! Disincentive ! +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad B: Check check {pause} check check . +Grad D: Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Hello ? Which am I ? +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: Alright . Good . +Grad F: Channel fi OK . OK . Are you doing something ? OK , then I guess I 'm doing something . So , um , So basically the result of m much thinking since the last time we met , um , but not as much writing , um , is a sheet that I have a lot of , like , thoughts and justification of comments on but I 'll just pass out as is right now . So , um , here . If you could pass this around ? And there 's two things . And so one on one side is {disfmarker} on one side is a sort of the revised sort of updated semantic specification . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} wait . +Grad F: And the other side is , um , sort of a revised construction formalism . +Grad E: This is just one sheet , right ? +Grad D: Ah ! Just one sheet . +Grad F: It 's just one sheet . +Grad D: OK . +Grad F: It 's just a {disfmarker} Nothing else . +Grad D: Front , back . +Grad F: Um , Enough to go around ? OK . And in some ways it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's very similar to {disfmarker} There are very few changes in some ways from what we 've , um , uh , b done before but I don't think everyone here has seen all of this . So , uh , I 'm not sure where to begin . Um , as usual the disclaimers are there are {disfmarker} all these things are {disfmarker} it 's only slightly more stable than it was before . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , after a little bit more discussion and especially like Keith and I {disfmarker} I have more linguistic things to settle in the next few days , um , it 'll probably change again some more . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , maybe I will {disfmarker} let 's start b let 's start on number two actually on the notation , um , because that 's , I 'm thinking , possibly a little more familiar to , um {disfmarker} to people . OK , so the top block is just sort of a {disfmarker} sort of abstract nota it 's sort of like , um , listings of the kinds of things that we can have . And certain things that have , um , changed , have changed back to this . There {disfmarker} there 's been a little bit of , um , going back and forth . But basically obviously all constructions have some kind of name . I forgot to include that you could have a type included in this line . +Professor C: What I was gonna {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: So something like , um {disfmarker} Well , there 's an example {disfmarker} the textual example at the end has clausal construction . So , um , just to show it doesn't have to be beautiful It could be , you know , simple old text as well . Um , there are a couple of {disfmarker} Uh , these three have various ways of doing certain things . So I 'll just try to go through them . So they could all have a type at the beginning . Um , and then they say the key word construction +Professor C: Oh , I see . +Grad F: and they have some name . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so the current syntax is if it s if there 's a type it 's before construct +Grad F: Yeah , right . +Professor C: OK , that 's fine . +Grad F: OK , and then it has a block that is constituents . And as usual I guess all the constructions her all the examples here have only , um , tsk {comment} one type of constituent , that is a constructional constituent . I think that 's actually gonna turn out to m be certainly the most common kind . But in general instead of the word "" construct "" , th here you might have "" meaning "" or "" form "" as well . OK ? So if there 's some element that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't yet constructional in the sense that it maps form and meaning . OK , um , the main change with the constructs which {disfmarker} each of which has , um , the key word "" construct "" and then some name , and then some type specification , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's pro it 's often {disfmarker} sometimes the case in the first case here that you know what kind of construction it is . So for example whatever I have here is gonna be a form of the word "" throw "" , or it 's gonna be a form of the word , you know , I don't know , "" happy "" , or something like that . Or , you know , some it 'll be a specific word or maybe you 'll have the type . You 'll say "" I need a p uh spatial relation phrase here "" or "" I need a directional specifier here "" . So - uh you could have a j a actual type here . Um , or you could just say in the second case that you only know the meaning type . So a very common example of this is that , you know , in directed motion , the first person to do something should be an agent of some kind , often a human . Right ? So if I {disfmarker} you know , the um , uh , run down the street then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I run down the street , it 's typed , uh , "" I "" , meaning category is what 's there . The {disfmarker} the new kind is this one that is sort of a pair and , um , sort of skipping fonts and whatever . The idea is that sometimes there are , um , general constructions that you know , that you 're going to need . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the equivalent of a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase , or something like that there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And usually it has formal um , considerations that will go along with it . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then uh , you might know something much more specific depending on what construction you 're talking about , about what meaning {disfmarker} what specific meaning you want . So the example again at the bottom , which is directed motion , you might need a nominal expression to take the place of , you know , um , "" the big th "" , you you know , "" the big {disfmarker} the tall dark man "" , you know , "" walked into the room "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But because of the nature of this particular construction you know not just that it 's nominal of some kind but in particular , that it 's some kind of animate nominal , and which will apply just as well to like , you know , a per you know , a simple proper noun or to some complicated expression . Um , so I don't know if the syntax will hold but something that gives you a way to do both constructional and meaning types . So . OK , then I don't think the , {comment} um {disfmarker} at least {disfmarker} Yeah . {comment} None of these examples have anything different for formal constraints ? But you can refer to any of the , um , sort of available elements and scope , right ? which here are the constructs , {comment} to say something about the relation . And I think i if you not if you compare like the top block and the textual block , um , we dropped like the little F subscript . The F subscripts refer to the "" form "" piece of the construct . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And I think that , um , in general it 'll be unambiguous . Like if you were giving a formal constraint then you 're referring to the formal pole of that . So {disfmarker} so by saying {disfmarker} if I just said "" Name one "" then that means name one formal and we 're talking about formal struc {comment} Which {disfmarker} which makes sense . Uh , there are certain times when we 'll have an exception to that , in which case you could just indicate "" here I mean the meaningful for some reason "" . Right ? Or {disfmarker} Actually it 's more often that , only to handle this one special case of , you know , "" George and Jerry walk into the room in that order "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So we have a few funny things where something in the meaning might refer to something in the form . But {disfmarker} but s we 're not gonna really worry about that for right now and there are way We can be more specific if we have to later on . OK , and so in terms of the {disfmarker} the relations , you know , as usual they 're before and ends . I should have put an example in of something that isn't an interval relation but in form you might also have a value binding . You know , you could say that , um , you know , "" name - one dot "" , t you know , "" number equals "" , you know , a plural or something like that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are certain things that are attribute - value , similar to the bindings below but I mean they 're just {disfmarker} us usually they 're going to be value {disfmarker} value fillers , right ? OK , and then again semantic constraints here are just {disfmarker} are just bindings . There was talk of changing the name of that . And Johno and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you and I can like fight about that if you like ? but about changing it to "" semantic {pause} n effects "" , which I thought was a little bit too order - biased +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Th +Grad F: and "" semantic bindings "" , which I thought might be too restrictive in case we don't have only bindings . And so it was an issue whether constraints {disfmarker} um , there were some linguists who reacted against "" constraints "" , saying , "" oh , if it 's not used for matching , then it shouldn't be called a constraint "" . But I think we want to be uncommitted about whether it 's used for matching or not . Right ? Cuz there are {disfmarker} I think we thought of some situations where it would be useful to use whatever the c bindings are , for actual , you know , sort of like modified constraining purposes . +Professor C: Well , you definitely want to de - couple the formalism from the parsing strategy . So that whether or not it 's used for matching or only for verification , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . It 's used shouldn't matter , right ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: s For sure . I mean , I don't know what , uh , term we want to use +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we don't want to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , uh , there was one time when {disfmarker} when Hans explained why "" constraints "" was a misleading word for him . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad F: And I think the reason that he gave was similar to the reason why Johno thought it was a misleading term , which was just an interesting coincidence . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} And so I was like , "" OK , well both of you don't like it ? +Professor C: It 's g it 's gone . +Grad F: Fine , we can change it "" . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm starting to like it again . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +Grad F: So that that 's why {disfmarker} {comment} That 's why I 'll stick with it . +Grad A: Well , you know what ? +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you have an "" if - then "" phrase , do you know what the "" then "" phrase is called ? +Professor C: Th +Grad F: What ? Con - uh , a consequent ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , but it 's not an "" if - then "" . +Grad A: No , but {disfmarker} +Professor C: I know . Anyway , so the other {disfmarker} the other strategy you guys could consider is when you don't know what word to put , you could put no word , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: just meaning . OK ? And the then let {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So that 's why you put semantic constraints up top and meaning bindings down {disfmarker} down here ? +Grad F: Oh , oops ! No . That was just a mistake of cut and paste from when I was going with it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: So , I 'm sorry . I didn't mean {disfmarker} that one 's an in unintentional . +Grad B: So this should be semantic and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sometimes I 'm intentionally inconsistent +Grad B: +Grad F: cuz I 'm not sure yet . Here , I actually {disfmarker} it was just a mistake . +Grad B: Th - so this definitely should be "" semantic constraints "" down at the bottom ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Grad F: Well , unless I go with "" meaning "" but i I mean , I kind of like "" meaning "" better than "" semantic "" +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , whatever . +Grad F: but I think there 's {pause} vestiges of other people 's biases . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} wh That - b +Grad F: Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Minor {disfmarker} min problem {disfmarker} +Grad F: Minor point . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Extremely . +Grad F: OK , um , so I think the middle block doesn't really give you any more information , ex than the top block . And the bottom block similarly only just illus you know , all it does is illustrate that you can drop the subscripts and {disfmarker} and that you can drop the , um {disfmarker} uh , that you can give dual types . Oh , one thing I should mention is about "" designates "" . I think I 'm actually inconsistent across these as well . So , um , strike out the M subscript on the middle block . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So basically now , um , this is actually {disfmarker} this little change actually goes along with a big linguistic change , which is that "" designates "" isn't only something for the semantics to worry about now . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So we want s "" designates "" to actually know one of the constituents which acts like a head in some respects but is sort of , um , really important for say composition later on . So for instance , if some other construction says , you know , "" are you of type {disfmarker} is this part of type whatever "" , um , the "" designates "" tells you which sort of part is the meaning part . OK , so if you have like "" the big red ball "" , you know , you wanna know if there 's an object or a noun . Well , ball is going to be the designated sort of element of that kind of phrase . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Um , there is a slight complication here which is that when we talk about form it 's useful sometimes to talk about , um {disfmarker} to talk about there also being a designated object and we think that that 'll be the same one , right ? So the ball is the head of the phrase , "" the r the {disfmarker} "" , um , "" big red ball "" , and the entity denoted by the word "" ball "" is sort of the semantic head in some ways of {disfmarker} of this sort of , um , in interesting larger element . +Professor C: A a and the {disfmarker} Yeah . And there 's {disfmarker} uh there 's ca some cases where the grammar depends on some form property of the head . And {disfmarker} and this enables you to get that , if I understand you right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad E: That 's the idea . +Professor C: Yeah yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , uh , you might be able to say things like if the head has to go last in a head - final language , you can refer to the head as a p the , you know {disfmarker} the formal head as opposed to the rest of the form having to be at the end of that decision . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So that 's a useful thing so that you can get some internal structural constraints in . +Professor C: OK , so that all looks good . Let me {disfmarker} Oh , w Oh . I don't know . Were you finished ? +Grad F: Um , there was a list of things that isn't included but you {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can ask a question . That might @ @ it . +Professor C: OK . So , i if I understand this the {disfmarker} aside from , uh , construed and all that sort of stuff , the {disfmarker} the differences are mainly that , {vocalsound} we 've gone to the possibility of having form - meaning pairs for a type +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or actually gone back to , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: if we go back far enough {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , except for their construction meaning , so it 's not clear that , uh {disfmarker} Well , right now it 's a c uh contr construction type and meaning type . So I don't know what a form type is . +Professor C: Oh , I see . Yeah , yeah , yeah . I 'm sorry , you 're right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: A construction type . Uh , that 's fine . But it , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . A well , and a previous , um , you know , version of the notation certainly allowed you to single out the meaning bit by it . So you could say "" construct of type whatever designates something "" . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: But that was mostly for reference purposes , just to refer to the meaning pole . I don't think that it was often used to give an extra meaning const type constraint on the meaning , which is really what we want most of the time I think . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll ever have a case where we actually h if there is a form category constraint , you could imagine having a triple there that says , you know {disfmarker} that 's kind of weird . +Professor C: No , no , no , I don't think so . I think that you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll do fine . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: In fact , these are , um , as long as {disfmarker} as Mark isn't around , these are form constraints . So a nominal expression is {disfmarker} uh , the fact that it 's animate , is semantic . The fact that it 's n uh , a nominal expression I would say on most people 's notion of {disfmarker} of f you know , higher form types , this i this is one . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: And I think that 's just fine . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Which is fine , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} that now , um , I 'm mentioned this , I {disfmarker} I don't know if I ever explained this but the point of , um , I mentioned in the last meeting , {comment} the point of having something called "" nominal expression "" is , um , because it seems like having the verb subcategorize for , you know , like say taking as its object just some expression which , um , designates an object or designates a thing , or whatever , um , that leads to some syntactic problems basically ? So you wanna , you know {disfmarker} you sort of have this problem like "" OK , well , I 'll put the word "" , uh , let 's say , the word "" dog "" , you know . And that has to come right after the verb +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: cuz we know verb meets its object . And then we have a construction that says , oh , you can have "" the "" preceding a noun . And so you 'd have this sort of problem that the verb has to meet the designatum . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And you could get , you know , "" the kicked dog "" or something like that , meaning "" kicked the dog "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , so you kind of have to let this phrase idea in there +Professor C: That I {disfmarker} I have no problem with it at all . +Grad E: but {disfmarker} It - it +Professor C: I think it 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Right , n s you may be {disfmarker} you may not be like everyone else in {disfmarker} in Berkeley , +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: but that 's OK . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of thought we were getting away with , uh {disfmarker} with , a p +Grad F: Uh , we don't mind either , so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , this is not reverting to the X - bar theory of {disfmarker} of phrase structure . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , uh , +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: I just know that this is {disfmarker} Like , we didn't originally have in mind that , uh {disfmarker} that verbs would subcategorize for a particular sort of form . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But they do . +Grad E: Um , but they does . +Grad F: Well , there 's an alternative to this +Grad E: At least in English . +Grad F: which is , um {disfmarker} The question was did we want directed motion , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: which is an argument structure construction {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: did we want it to worry about , um , anything more than the fact that it , you know , has semantic {disfmarker} You know , it 's sort of frame - based construction . So one option that , you know , Keith had mentioned also was like , well if you have more abstract constructions such as subject , predicate , basically things like grammatical relations , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: those could intersect with these in such a way that subject , predicate , or subject , predicate , subject , verb , ob you know , verb object would require that those things that f fill a subject and object are NOM expressions . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And that would be a little bit cleaner in some way . But you know , for now , I mean , +Professor C: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} y y it 's {disfmarker} yeah , just moving it {disfmarker} moving the c the cons the constraints around . +Grad F: uh , you know . M moving it to another place , right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , so that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there does {disfmarker} basically , the point is there has to be that constraint somewhere , right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , yeah . +Professor C: And so that was the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Robert 's not happy now ? +Grad A: No ! +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor C: OK , and sort of going with that is that the designatum also now is a pair . +Grad F: Yes . +Professor C: Instead of just the meaning . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that aside from some terminology , that 's basically it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: I just want to b I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm asking . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , um , the un sort of the un - addressed questions in this , um , definitely would for instance be semantic constraints we talked about . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Here are just bindings but , right ? we might want to introduce mental spaces {disfmarker} You know , there 's all these things that we don't {disfmarker} +Professor C: The whole {disfmarker} the mental space thing is clearly not here . +Grad F: Right ? So there 's going to be some extra {disfmarker} you know , definitely other notation we 'll need for that which we skip for now . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: By the way , I do want to get on that as soon as Robert gets back . +Grad F: Uh Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh , the {disfmarker} the mental space thing . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Um , obviously , {vocalsound} construal is a b is a b is a big component of that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so this probably not worth trying to do anything till he gets back . But sort of as soon as he gets back I think um , we ought to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the time frame ? I forgot again when you 're going away for how long ? +Grad A: Just , uh , as a {disfmarker} sort of a mental bridge , I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm skipping fourth of July . So , uh , {vocalsound} right afterwards I 'm back . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad F: What ? You 're missing like the premier American holiday ? What 's the point of spending a year here ? +Grad A: Uh , I 've had it often enough . +Grad F: So , anyway . +Grad B: Well he w he went to college here . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , I forgot . Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: And furthermore it 's well worth missing . +Grad F: Not in California . +Grad E: Yes . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . I like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I like spending fourth of July in other countries , {vocalsound} whenever I can . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , so that 's great . +Grad F: Construal , OK , so {disfmarker} Oh , so there was one question that came out . I hate this thing . Sorry . Um , which is , so something like "" past "" which i you know , we think is a very simple {disfmarker} uh , we 've often just stuck it in as a feature , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: you know , "" oh , {pause} this event takes place before speech time "" , {comment} OK , is what this means . Um , it 's often thought of as {disfmarker} it is also considered a mental space , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: you know , by , you know , lots of people around here . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So there 's this issue of well sometimes there are really exotic explicit space builders that say "" in France , blah - blah - blah "" , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and you have to build up {disfmarker} you ha you would imagine that would require you , you know , to be very specific about the machinery , whereas past is a very conventionalized one and we sort of know what it means but it {disfmarker} we doesn't {disfmarker} don't necessarily want to , you know , unload all the notation every time we see that it 's past tense . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , you know , we could think of our {disfmarker} uh , just like X - schema "" walk "" refers to this complicated structure , past refers to , you know , a certain configuration of this thing with respect to it . +Professor C: I think that 's exactly right . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so we 're kind of like having our cake and eating it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , having it both ways , right ? +Professor C: Yeah . {pause} No , I think {disfmarker} I think that i we 'll have to see how it works out when we do the details +Grad F: So , i i Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but my intuition would be that that 's right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: Do you want to do the same for space ? +Grad F: Wha - sorry ? +Grad A: Space ? +Grad F: Space ? +Grad A: Here ? Now ? +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , oh , instead of just time ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Same thing . So there are very conventionalized like deictic ones , right ? And then I think for other spaces that you introduce , you could just attach y whatever {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: You could build up an appropriately {disfmarker} uh , appropriate structure according to the l the sentence . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm , well this {disfmarker} this basically would involve everything you can imagine to fit under your C dot something {disfmarker} +Grad E: N +Grad A: you know , where {disfmarker} where it 's contextually dependent , +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: "" what is now , what was past , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: what is in the future , where is this , what is here , what is there , what is {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So time and space . Um , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get that on the other side a little , like very minimally . There 's a sort of there 's a slot for setting time and setting place . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And you know , you could imagine for both of those are absolute things you could say about the time and place , and then there are many in more interestingly , linguistically anyway , {comment} there are relative things that , you know , you relate the event in time and space to where you are now . If there 's something a lot more complicated like , or so {disfmarker} hypothetical or whatever , then you have to do your job , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like or somebody 's job anyway . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'm gonna point to {disfmarker} at random . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm s curious about how much of the mental {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not sure that the formalism , sort of the grammatical side of things , {comment} is gonna have that much going on in terms of the mental space stuff . You know , um , basically all of these so - called space builders that are in the sentence are going to sort of {disfmarker} I think of it as , sort of giving you the coordinates of , you know {disfmarker} assuming that at any point in discourse there 's the possibility that we could be sort of talking about a bunch of different world scenarios , whatever , and the speaker 's supposed to be keeping track of those . The , um {disfmarker} the construction that you actually get is just gonna sort of give you a cue as to which one of those that you 've already got going , um , you 're supposed to add structure to . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So "" in France , uh , Watergate wouldn't have hurt Nixon "" or something like that . Um , well , you say , "" alright , I 'm supposed to add some structure to my model of this hypothetical past France universe "" or something like that . The information in the sentence tells you that much but it doesn't tell you like exactly what it {disfmarker} what the point of doing so is . So for example , depending on the linguistic con uh , context it could be {disfmarker} like the question is for example , what does "" Watergate "" refer to there ? Does it , you know {disfmarker} does it refer to , um {disfmarker} if you just hear that sentence cold , the assumption is that when you say "" Watergate "" you 're referring to "" a Watergate - like scandal as we might imagine it happening in France "" . But in a different context , "" oh , you know , if Nixon had apologized right away it wouldn't {disfmarker} you know , Watergate wouldn't have hurt him so badly in the US and in France it wouldn't have hurt him at all "" . Now we 're s now that "" Watergate "" {disfmarker} we 're now talking about the real one , +Grad F: They 're real , right . +Grad E: and the "" would "" sort of {disfmarker} it 's a sort of different dimension of hypothe - theticality , right ? We 're not saying {disfmarker} What 's hypothetical about this world . +Grad F: I see {disfmarker} right . +Grad E: In the first case , hypothetically we 're imagining that Watergate happened in France . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: In the second case we 're imagining hypothetically that Nixon had apologized right away +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or something . Right ? +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: So a lot of this isn't happening at the grammatical level . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: Uh , um , and so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I don't know where that sits then , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: sort of the idea of sorting out what the person meant . +Grad F: It seems like , um , the grammatical things such as the auxiliaries that you know introduce these conditionals , whatever , give you sort of the {disfmarker} the most basi +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: th those we {disfmarker} I think we can figure out what the possibilities are , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are sort of a relatively limited number . And then how they interact with some extra thing like "" in France "" or "" if such - and - such "" , that 's like there are certain ways that they c they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , one is a more specific version of the general pattern that the grammat grammar gives you . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think . But , you know , whatever , +Professor C: Yeah , in the short run all we need is a enough mechanism on the form side to get things going . +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Grad E: But the whole point of {disfmarker} the whole point of what Fauconnier and Turner have to say about , uh , mental spaces , and blending , and all that stuff is that you don't really get that much out of the sentence . You know , there 's not that much information contained in the sentence . It just says , "" Here . Add this structure to this space . "" and exactly what that means for the overall ongoing interpretation is quite open . An individual sentence could mean a hundred different things depending on , quote , "" what the space configuration is at the time of utterance "" . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so somebody 's gonna have to be doing a whole lot of work but not me , I think . +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} I think that 's right . Oh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I , uh , uh {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Not k I th I don't think it 's completely right . I mean , in fact a sentence examples you gave in f did constrain the meaning b the form did constrain the meaning , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: and so , um , it isn't , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Sure , but like what {disfmarker} what was the point of saying that sentence about Nixon and France ? That is not {disfmarker} there is nothing about that in the {disfmarker} in the sentence really . +Grad F: That 's OK . We usually don't know the point of the sentence at all . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But we know what it 's trying to say . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Y yeah . +Grad F: We {disfmarker} we know that it 's {disfmarker} what predication it 's setting up . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} bottom line , I agree with you , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: That 's all . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we 're not expecting much out of the , uh f +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Purely linguistic cues , right ? +Professor C: uh , the purely form cues , yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: And , um {disfmarker} I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're the linguist +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: but , uh , it seems to me that th these {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , we 've talked about maybe a half a dozen linguistics theses in the last few minutes or something . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Professor C: uh , I {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's my feeling that {disfmarker} that these are really hard uh , problems that decide exactly what {disfmarker} what 's going on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: OK , so , um , one other thing I just want to point out is there 's a lot of confusion about the terms like "" profile , designate , focus "" , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor C: Uh , right , right , right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , for now I 'm gonna say like "" profile "" 's often used {disfmarker} like two uses that come to mind immediately . One is in the traditional like semantic highlight of one element with respect to everything else . So "" hypotenuse "" , you profiled this guy against the background of the {pause} right t right triangle . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK . And the second use , um , is in FrameNet. It 's slightly different . Oh , I was asking Hans about this . They use it to really mean , um , this {disfmarker} in a frame th this is {disfmarker} the profiles on the {disfmarker} these are the ones that are required . So they have to be there or expressed in some way . Which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I 'm not saying one and two are mutually exclusive but they 're {disfmarker} they 're different meanings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the closest thing {disfmarker} so I was thinking about how it relates to this notation . For us , um {disfmarker} OK , so how is it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Does that {disfmarker} Is that really what they mean in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad F: so "" designate "" {disfmarker} FrameNet ? +Professor C: I didn't know that . +Grad F: FrameNet ? Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was a little bit surprised about it too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: I knew that {disfmarker} I thought that that would be something like {disfmarker} there 's another term that I 've heard for that thing +Professor C: Right , OK . +Grad F: but they {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} uh , well , at least Hans says they use it that way . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'll check . +Grad F: and may maybe he 's wrong . Anyway , so I think the {disfmarker} the "" designate "" that we have in terms of meaning is really the "" highlight this thing with respect to everything else "" . OK ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So this is what {disfmarker} what it means . But the second one seems to be useful but we might not need a notation for it ? We don't have a notation for it but we might want one . So for example we 've talked about if you 're talking about the lexical item "" walk "" , you know it 's an action . Well , it also has this idea {disfmarker} it carries along with it the idea of an actor or somebody 's gonna do the walking . Or if you talk about an adjective "" red "" , it carries along the idea of the thing that has the property of having color red . So we used to use the notation "" with "" for this +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that 's closest to their second one . So I d don't yet know , I have no commitment , as to whether we need it . It might be {disfmarker} it 's the kind of thing that w a parser might want to think about whether we require {disfmarker} you know , these things are like it 's semantically part of it {disfmarker} +Professor C: N no , no . Well , uh , th critically they 're not required syntactically . Often they 're pres presu presupposed and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: Right . Right , right . Yeah , um , definitely . So , um , "" in "" was a good example . If you walk "" in "" , like well , in what ? +Professor C: Right , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , like you have to have the {disfmarker} {comment} So {disfmarker} so it 's only semantically is it {disfmarker} it is still required , say , by simulation time though +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: to have something . So it 's that {disfmarker} I meant the idea of like that {disfmarker} the semantic value is filled in by sim simulation . I don't know if that 's something we need to spa to {disfmarker} to like say ever as part of the requirement ? {disfmarker} or the construction ? or not . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll again defer . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} I mean , or {disfmarker} or , uh so the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have it construed , +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: is that the idea ? Just point at Robert . Whenever I 'm confused just point to him . +Professor C: Right . It 's {disfmarker} it 's his thesis , right ? +Grad F: You tell me . +Professor C: Anyway , +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: right , yeah , w this is gonna be a b you 're right , this is a bit of in a mess and we still have emphasis as well , or stress , or whatever . +Grad F: OK , well we 'll get , uh uh , I {disfmarker} we have thoughts about those as well . +Professor C: Yeah . Great . +Grad F: Um , the I w I would just s some of this is just like my {disfmarker} you know , by fiat . I 'm going to say , this is how we use these terms . I don't - you know , there 's lots of different ways in the world that people use it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} that 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that , um , the other terms that are related are like focus and stress . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , s I think that the way I {disfmarker} we would like to think , uh , I think is focus is something that comes up in , I mean , lots of {disfmarker} basically this is the information structure . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK , it 's like {disfmarker} uh , it 's not {disfmarker} it might be that there 's a syntactic , uh , device that you use to indicate focus or that there are things like , you know , I think Keith was telling me , {comment} things toward the end of the sentence , post - verbal , tend to be the focused {disfmarker} focused element , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: the new information . You know , if I {disfmarker} "" I walked into the room "" , you {disfmarker} tend to think that , whatever , "" into the room "" is sort of like the more focused kind of thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: And when you , uh , uh , you have stress on something that might be , you know , a cue that the stressed element , or for instance , the negated element is kind of related to information structure . So that 's like the new {disfmarker} the sort of like import or whatever of {disfmarker} of this thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} so I think that 's kind of nice to keep "" focus "" being an information structure term . "" Stress "" {disfmarker} I th and then there are different kinds of focus that you can bring to it . So , um , like "" stress "" , th stress is kind of a pun on {disfmarker} you might have like {disfmarker} whatever , like , um , accent kind of stress . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And that 's just a {disfmarker} uh , w we 'll want to distinguish stress as a form device . You know , like , oh , high volume or whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , t uh , and distinguish that from it 's effect which is , "" Oh , the kind of focus we have is we 're emphasizing this value often as opposed to other values "" , right ? So focus carries along a scope . Like if you 're gonna focus on this thing and you wanna know {disfmarker} it sort of evokes all the other possibilities that it wasn't . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , so my classic {disfmarker} my now - classic example of saying , "" Oh , he did go to the meeting ? "" , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that was my way of saying {disfmarker} as opposed to , you know , "" Oh , he didn't g "" or "" There was a meeting ? "" +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that was the example that was caught on by the linguists immediately . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And so , um , the {disfmarker} like if you said he {disfmarker} you know , there 's all these different things that if you put stress on a different part of it then you 're , c focusing , whatever , on , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" he walked to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he ran "" , or "" he did walk to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he didn't walk "" . You know , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: so we need to have a notation for that which , um , I think that 's still in progress . So , sort of I 'm still working it out . But it did {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one implication it does f have for the other side , which we 'll get to in a minute is that I couldn't think of a good way to say "" here are the possible things that you could focus on "" , cuz it seems like any entity in any sentence , you know , or any meaning component of anyth you know {disfmarker} all the possible meanings you could have , any of them could be the subject of focus . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: But I think one {disfmarker} the one thing you can schematize is the kind of focus , right ? So for instance , you could say it 's the {disfmarker} the tense on this as opposed to , um , the {disfmarker} the action . OK . Or it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's an identity thing or a contrast with other things , or stress this value as opposed to other things . So , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is kind of like a profile {disfmarker} profile - background thing but I {disfmarker} I can't think of like the limited set of possible meanings that you would {disfmarker} that you would focu +Grad E: Light up with focus , yeah . +Grad F: light {disfmarker} highlight as opposed to other ones . So it has some certain complications for the , uh , uh {disfmarker} later on . Li - I mean , uh , the best thing I can come up with is that information has a list of focused elements . For instance , you {disfmarker} Oh , one other type that I forgot to mention is like query elements and that 's probably relevant for the like "" where is "" , you know , "" the castle "" kind of thing ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Because you might want to say that , um , location or cert certain WH words bring {disfmarker} you know , sort of automatically focus in a , you know , "" I don't know the identity of this thing "" kind of way on certain elements . So . OK . Anyway . So that 's onl there are {disfmarker} there are many more things that are uncl that are sort of like a little bit unstable about the notation but it 's most {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} this is , you know , the current {disfmarker} current form . Other things we didn't {vocalsound} totally deal with , um , +Grad E: Oh , there 's a bunch . +Grad F: well , we 've had a lot of other stuff that Keith and I have them working on in terms of like how you deal with like an adjective . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , a {disfmarker} a nominal expression . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , um , I mean , we should have put an example of this and we could do that later . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But I think the not inherently like the general principles still work though , that , um , we can have constructions that have sort of constituent structure in that there is like , you know , for instance , one {disfmarker} Uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they have constituents , right ? So you can like nest things when you need to , but they can also overlap in a sort of flatter way . So if you don't have like a lot of grammar experience , then like this {disfmarker} this might , you know , be a little o opaque . But , you know , we have the {pause} properties of dependency grammars and some properties of constituents {disfmarker} constituent - based grammar . So that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's sort of the main thing we wanted to aim for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and so far it 's worked out OK . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So . OK . +Grad A: I can say two things about the f +Grad F: Yes . +Grad A: Maybe you want to forget stress . This {disfmarker} my f +Grad F: As a word ? +Grad A: No , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} Just don't {disfmarker} don't think about it . +Grad F: As a {disfmarker} What 's that ? +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sorry . +Grad A: canonically speaking you can {disfmarker} if you look at a {disfmarker} a curve over sentence , you can find out where a certain stress is and say , "" hey , that 's my focus exponent . "" +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It doesn't tell you anything what the focus is . If it 's just that thing , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Or the constituent that it falls in . +Grad A: a little bit more or the whole phrase . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: You mean t forget about stress , the form cue ? +Grad A: The form bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: because , uh , as a form cue , um , not even trained experts can always {disfmarker} well , they can tell you where the focus exponent is sometimes . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: And that 's also mostly true for read speech . In {disfmarker} in real speech , um , people may put stress . It 's so d context dependent on what was there before , phrase ba breaks , um , restarts . +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's just , um {disfmarker} it 's absurd . It 's complicated . +Grad F: OK , +Grad A: And all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm sort of inclined to say let 's worry about specifying the information structure focus of the sentence +Grad F: I believe you , yeah . +Grad E: and then , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Ways that you can get it come from th +Grad E: hhh , {comment} the phonology component can handle actually assigning an intonation contour to that . +Grad F: right . +Grad E: You know , I mean , later on we 'll worry about exactly how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or map from the contour to {disfmarker} to what the focus exponent is . +Grad E: y Yeah . Exactly . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: But figure out how the {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , uh , if you don't know what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're focus is then you 're {disfmarker} you 're hopeless - uh - ly lost anyways , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . That 's fine , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the only way of figuring out what that is , {vocalsound} is , um , by sort of generating all the possible alternatives to each focused element , decide which one in that context makes sense and which one doesn't . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then you 're left with a couple three . So , you know , again , that 's something that h humans can do , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , but far outside the scope of {disfmarker} of any {disfmarker} anything . So . You know . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . Well , uh , yeah , I wouldn't have assumed that it 's an easy problem in {disfmarker} in absence of all the oth +Grad A: u u +Grad F: you need all the other information I guess . +Grad A: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} uh , it 's pretty easy to put it in the formalism , though . I mean , because +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: you can just say whatever stuff , "" i is the container being focused or the {disfmarker} the entire whatever , both , and so forth . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Exactly . So the sort of effect of it is something we want to be able to capture . +Professor C: Yeah , so b b but I think the poi I 'm not sure I understand but here 's what I th think is going on . That if we do the constructions right when a particular construction matches , it {disfmarker} the fact that it matches , does in fact specify the focus . +Grad F: W uh , I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Or it might limit {disfmarker} it cert certainly constrains the possibilities of focus . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} k uh , at at the very least it constrai +Grad F: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's , th that 's certainly true . And depending on the construction it may or may not f specify the focus , right ? +Professor C: Oh , uh , for sure , yes . There are constrai yeah , it 's not every {disfmarker} but there are constructions , uh , where you t explicitly take into account those considerations +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that you need to take into account in order to decide which {disfmarker} what is being focused . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So we talked about that a little bit this morning . "" John is on the bus , not Nancy . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} focuses on John . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus and not on the train . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus "" versus "" John is on the train . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: And "" John is on the bus "" versus "" was "" , and e +Grad F: Is on . "" John is on the bus "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: "" it 's the bu "" so e +Professor C: Right . Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of those . +Grad A: All of these +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: and will we have {disfmarker} u is it all the same constructions ? Just with a different foc focus constituent ? +Grad F: Yeah , I would say that argument structure in terms of like the main like sort of , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I don't know {disfmarker} the fact that you can get it without any stress and you have some {disfmarker} whatever is predicated anyway should be the same set of constructions . So that 's why I was talking about overlapping constructions . So , then you have a separate thing that picks out , you know , stress on something relative to everything else . +Professor C: Yeah . So , the question is actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry , +Grad F: And it would {disfmarker} +Professor C: go ahead , +Grad F: yeah , +Professor C: finish . +Grad F: and it w and that would have to {disfmarker} uh it might be ambiguous as , uh , whether it picks up that element , or the phrase , or something like that . But it 's still is limited possibility . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: So that should , you know , interact with {disfmarker} it should overlap with whatever other construction is there . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: S s the question is , do we have a way on the other page , uh , when we get to the s semantic side , of saying what the stressed element was , or stressed phrase , or something . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Well , so that 's why I was saying how {disfmarker} since I couldn't think of an easy like limited way of doing it , um , all I can say is that information structure has a focused slot +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that should be able to refer to {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that 's down at the bottom here when we get over there . OK . +Grad F: Yeah , and , infer {disfmarker} and I don't have {disfmarker} I don't have a great way or great examples +Professor C: I 'll - I 'll wait . OK . +Grad F: but I think that {disfmarker} something like that is probably gonna be , uh , more {disfmarker} more what we have to do . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: But , um , +Grad A: So +Grad F: OK , that was one comment . And you had another one ? +Grad A: Yeah , well the {disfmarker} once you know what the focus is the {disfmarker} everything else is background . How about "" topic - comment "" that 's the other side of information . +Grad F: How about what ? +Grad A: Topic - comment . +Grad F: Yeah , so that was the other thing . And so I didn't realize it before . It 's like , "" oh ! "" It was an epiphany that it {disfmarker} you know , topic and focus are a contrast set . So topic is {disfmarker} Topic - focused seems to me like , um , background profile , OK , or a landmark trajector , or some something like that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's definitely , um , that kind of thing going on . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad F: Now I don't know whether {disfmarker} I n I don't have as many great examples of like topic - indicating constructions on like focus , right ? Um , topic {disfmarker} it seems kind of {disfmarker} you know , I think that might be an ongoing kind of thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Japanese has this though . You know . +Grad F: Topic marker ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's what "" wa "" is , uh , just to mark which thing is the topic . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It doesn't always have to be the subject . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Right . So again , information structure has a topic slot . And , you know , I stuck it in thinking that we might use it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I think I stuck it in . +Professor C: Yep , it 's there . +Grad F: Um , and one thing that I didn't do consistently , um , is {disfmarker} when we get there , is like indicate what kind of thing fits into every role . I think I have an idea of what it should be but th you know , so far we 've been getting away with like either a type constraint or , um , you know , whatever . I forg it 'll be a frame . You know , it 'll be {disfmarker} it 'll be another predication or it 'll be , um , I don't know , some value from {disfmarker} from some something , some variable and scope or something like that , or a slot chain based on a variable and scope . OK , so well that 's {disfmarker} should we flip over to the other side officially then ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm , hmm . +Grad E: OK , side one . +Grad F: I keep , uh , like , pointing forward to it . Yeah . Now we 'll go back to s OK , so this doesn't include something which mi mi may have some effect on {disfmarker} on it , which is , um , the discourse situation context record , right ? So I didn't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant just like draw a line and like , you know , you also have , uh , some tracking of what was going on . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And sort of {disfmarker} this is a big scale comment before I , you know , look into the details of this . But for instance you could imagine instead of having {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I changed the name of {disfmarker} um it used to be "" entities "" . So you see it 's "" scenario "" , "" referent "" and "" discourse segment "" . And "" scenario "" is essentially what kind of {disfmarker} what 's the basic predication , what event happened . And actually it 's just a list of various slots from which you would draw {disfmarker} draw in order to paint your picture , a bunch of frames , bi and bindings , right ? Um , and obviously there are other ones that are not included here , general cultural frames and general like , uh , other action f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: you know , specific X - schema frames . OK , whatever . The middle thing used to be "" entities "" because you could imagine it should be like really a list where here was various information . And this is intended to be grammatically specifiable information about a referent {disfmarker} uh , you know , about some entity that you were going to talk about . So "" Harry walked into the room "" , "" Harry "" and "" room "" , you know , the room {disfmarker} th but they would be represented in this list somehow . And it could also have for instance , it has this category slot . Um , it should be either category or in or instance . Basically , it could be a pointer to ontology . So that everything you know about this could be {disfmarker} could be drawn in . But the important things for grammatical purposes are for {disfmarker} things like number , gender , um {disfmarker} ki the ones I included here are slightly arbitrary but you could imagine that , um , you need to figure out wheth if it 's a group whether , um , some event is happening , linear time , linear spaces , like , you know , are {disfmarker} are they doing something serially or is it like , um , uh I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . Because this partly came from , uh , Talmy 's schema and I 'm not sure we 'll need all of these actually . But {disfmarker} Um , and then the "" status "" I used was like , again , in some languages , you know , like for instance in child language you might distinguish between different status . So , th the {disfmarker} the big com and {disfmarker} and finally "" discourse segment "" is about {vocalsound} sort of speech - act - y information structure - y , like utterance - specific kinds of things . So the comment I was going to make about , um , changing entity {disfmarker} the entity 's block to reference is that {vocalsound} you can imagine your discourse like situation context , you have a set of entities that you 're sort of referring to . And you might {disfmarker} that might be sort of a general , I don't know , database of all the things in this discourse that you could refer to . And I changed to "" reference "" cuz I would say , for a particular utterance you have particular referring expressions in it . And those are the ones that you get information about that you stick in here . For instance , I know it 's going to be plural . I know it 's gonna be feminine or something like that . And {disfmarker} and these could actually just point to , you know , the {disfmarker} the ID in my other list of enti active entities , right ? So , um , uh , th there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff about discourse status . We 've talked about . I almost listed "" discourse status "" as a slot where you could say it 's active . You know , there 's this , um , hierarchy {disfmarker} uh there 's a schematization of , you know , things can be active or they can be , um , accessible , inaccessible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It was the one that , you know , Keith , um , emailed to us once , to some of us , not all of us . And the thing is that that {disfmarker} I noticed that that , um , list was sort of discourse dependent . It was like in this particular set , s you know , instance , it has been referred to recently or it hasn't been , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: or this is something that 's like in my world knowledge but not active . +Professor C: This {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} yeah , well there {disfmarker} there seems to be context properties . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , they 're contex and for instance , I used to have a location thing there but actually that 's a property of the situation . And it 's again , time , you know {disfmarker} at cert certain points things are located , you know , near or far from you +Professor C: Well , uh , uh , this is recursive +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz until we do the uh , mental space story , we 're not quite sure {disfmarker} {comment} Th - th +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: which is fine . We 'll just {disfmarker} we 'll j +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . So some of these are , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: we just don't know yet . +Grad F: Right . So I {disfmarker} so for now I thought , well maybe I 'll just have in this list the things that are relevant to this particular utterance , right ? Everything else here is utterance - specific . Um , and I left the slot , "" predications "" , open because you can have , um , things like "" the guy I know from school "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Or , you know , like your referring expression might be constrained by certain like unbounded na amounts of prep you know , predications that you might make . And it 's unclear whether {disfmarker} I mean , you could just have in your scenario , "" here are some extra few things that are true "" , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then you could just sort of not have this slot here . Right ? You 're {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's used for identification purposes . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different from just saying "" all these things are true from my utterance "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: Right , "" this guy I know from school came for dinner "" does not mean , um , "" there 's a guy , I know him from school , and he came over for dinner "" . That 's not the same effect . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a little bit {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different . Right ? So {disfmarker} Or maybe that 's like a restrictive , non - restrictive {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , it 's like it gets into that kind of thing for {disfmarker} um , but maybe I 'm mixing , you know {disfmarker} this is kind of like the final result after parsing the sentence . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you might imagine that the information you pass to , you know {disfmarker} in identifying a particular referent would be , "" oh , some {disfmarker} "" you know , "" it 's a guy and it 's someone I know from school "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So maybe that would , you know , be some intermediate structure that you would pass into the disc to the , whatever , construal engine or whatever , discourse context , to find {disfmarker} you know , either create this reference , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: in which case it 'd be created here , and {disfmarker} you know , so {disfmarker} so you could imagine that this might not {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm uncommitted to a couple of these things . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} to make it m precise at least in my mind , uh , it 's not precise . +Grad F: Um . +Grad A: So "" house "" is gender neuter ? In reality +Grad F: Um , it could be in {disfmarker} +Grad A: or in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Semantically . +Grad A: semantically . +Grad F: semantically , yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: So it uh , uh , a table . You know , a thing that c doesn't have a gender . So . Uh , it could be that {disfmarker} I mean , maybe you 'd {disfmarker} maybe not all these {disfmarker} I mean , I wou I would say that I tried to keep slots here that were potentially relevant to most {disfmarker} most things . +Grad A: No , just to make sure that we {disfmarker} everybody that 's {disfmarker} completely agreed that it {disfmarker} it has nothing to do with , uh , form . +Grad F: Yeah . OK , that is semantic as opposed to {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . That 's right . Um . +Grad A: Then "" predications "" makes sense to {disfmarker} to have it open for something like , uh , accessibility or not . +Grad F: S so again {disfmarker} Open to various things . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . OK , so . Let 's see . So maybe having made that big sca sort of like large scale comment , should I just go through each of these slots {disfmarker} uh , each of these blocks , um , a little bit ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Um , mostly the top one is sort of image schematic . And just a note , which was that , um {disfmarker} s so when we actually ha so for instance , um , some of them seem more inherently static , OK , like a container or sort of support - ish . And others are a little bit seemingly inherently dynamic like "" source , path , goal "" is often thought of that way or "" force "" , or something like that . But in actual fact , I think that they 're intended to be sort of neutral with respect to that . And different X - schemas use them in a way that 's either static or dynamic . So "" path "" , you could just be talking about the path between this and this . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: And you know , "" container "" that you can go in and out . All of these things . And so , um , I think this came up when , uh , Ben and I were working with the Spaniards , um , the other day {disfmarker} the "" Spaniettes "" , as we {vocalsound} called them {disfmarker} um , to decide like how you want to split up , like , s image schematic contributions versus , like , X - schematic contributions . How do you link them up . And I think again , um , it 's gonna be something in the X - schema that tells you "" is this static or is this dynamic "" . So we definitely need {disfmarker} that sort of aspectual type gives you some of that . Um , that , you know , is it , uh , a state or is it a change of state , or is it a , um , action of some kind ? +Grad A: Uh , i i i is there any meaning to when you have sort of parameters behind it and when you don't ? +Grad F: Uh . Yeah . +Grad A: Just means {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , oh ! You mean , in the slot ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , no , it 's like X - sc it 's {disfmarker} it 's like I was thinking of type constraints but X - schema , well it obviously has to be an X - schema . "" Agent "" , I mean , the {disfmarker} the performer of the X - schema , that s depends on the X - schema . You know , and I {disfmarker} in general it would probably be , you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: So the difference is basically whether you thought it was obvious what the possible fillers were . +Grad F: Yeah , basically . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Um , "" aspectual type "" probably isn't obvious but I should have {disfmarker} So , I just neglected to stick something in . "" Perspective "" , "" actor "" , "" undergoer "" , "" observer "" , um , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad F: I think we 've often used "" agent "" , "" patient "" , obser +Grad E: "" Whee ! "" That 's that one , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , and so one nice thing that , uh , we had talked about is this example {comment} of like , if you have a passive construction then one thing it does is ch you know {disfmarker} definitely , it is one way to {disfmarker} for you to , you know , specifically take the perspective of the undergoing kind of object . And so then we talked about , you know , whether well , does that specify topic as well ? Well , maybe there are other things . You know , now that it 's {disfmarker} subject is more like a topic . And now that , you know {disfmarker} Anyway . So . Sorry . I 'm gonna trail off on that one cuz it 's not that f important right now . +Professor C: N now , for the moment we just need the ability to l l write it down if {disfmarker} if somebody figured out what the rules were . +Grad F: Um , To know how {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , some of these other ones , let 's see . So , uh , one thing I 'm uncertain about is how polarity interacts . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So polarity , uh , is using for like action did not take place for instance . So by default it 'll be like "" true "" , I guess , you know , if you 're specifying events that did happen . You could imagine that you skip out this {disfmarker} you know , leave off this polarity , you know , not {disfmarker} don't have it here . And then have it part of the speech - act in some way . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's some negation . But the reason why I left it in is cuz you might have a change of state , let 's say , where some state holds and then some state doesn't hold , and you 're just talking , you know {disfmarker} if you 're trying to have the nuts and bolts of simulation you need to know that , you know , whatever , the holder doesn't and {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I th I think at this lev which is {disfmarker} it should be where you have it . +Grad F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine where it is . +Professor C: I mean , how you get it may {disfmarker} may in will often involve the discourse +Grad F: So , OK . May come from a few places . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} by the time you 're simulating you sh y you should know that . +Grad F: Right . Right . +Grad E: So , {vocalsound} I 'm still just really not clear on what I 'm looking at . The "" scenario "" box , like , what does that look like for an example ? Like , not all of these things are gonna be here . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: This is just basically says +Grad F: Mm - hmm . It 's a grab bag of {disfmarker} +Grad E: "" part of what I 'm going to hand you is a whole bunch of s uh , schemas , image , and X - schemas . Here are some examples of the sorts of things you might have in there "" . +Grad F: So that 's exactly what it is . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: And for a particular instance which I will , you know , make an example of something , is that you might have an instance of container and path , let 's say , as part of your , you know , "" into "" you know , definition . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you would eventually have instances filled in with various {disfmarker} various values for all the different slots . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And they 're bound up in , you know , their bindings and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and values . +Professor C: W it c +Grad E: OK . Do you have to say about the binding in your {disfmarker} is there a slot in here for {disfmarker} that tells you how the bindings are done ? +Professor C: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} let 's see , I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} I don't think we have it quite right yet . So , uh , what this is , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: let 's suppose for the moment it 's complete . OK , uh , then this says that when an analysis is finished , the whole analysis is finished , {comment} you 'll have as a result , uh , some s resulting s semspec for that utterance in context , +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is made up entirely of these things and , uh , bindings among them . And bindings to ontology items . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that the who that this is the tool kit under whi out of which you can make a semantic specification . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that 's A . But B , which is more relevant to your life , is this is also the tool kit that is used in the semantic side of constructions . +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is an that anything you have , in the party line , {comment} anything you have as the semantic side of constructions comes , from pieces of this {disfmarker} ignoring li +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: I mean , in general , you ignore lots of it . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: But it 's got to be pieces of this along with constraints among them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , so that the , you know , goal of the , uh uh , "" source , path , goal "" has to be the landmark of the conta you know , the interior of this container . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or whate whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So those constraints appear in constructions +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but pretty much this is the full range of semantic structures available to you . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Except for "" cause "" , that I forgot . But anyway , there 's som some kind of causal structure for composite events . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , good . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's mark that . So we need a c +Grad F: Uh , I mean , so it gets a little funny . These are all {disfmarker} so far these structures , especially from "" path "" and on down , these are sort of relatively familiar , um , image schematic kind of slots . Now with "" cause "" , uh , the fillers will actually be themselves frames . Right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you 'll say , "" event one causes event B {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this again may ge our , um {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , of course , worlds . +Grad F: uh , event two "" , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . So that 's , uh these are all implicitly one {disfmarker} within , uh within one world . Um , even though saying that place takes place , whatever . Uh , if y if I said "" time "" is , you know , "" past "" , that would say "" set that this world "" , you know , "" somewhere , before the world that corresponds to our current speech time "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: So . But that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's sort of OK . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} within the event it 's st it 's still one world . Um . Yeah , so "" cause "" and {disfmarker} Other frames that could come in {disfmarker} I mean , unfortunately you could bring in say for instance , um , uh , "" desire "" or something like that , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like "" want "" . And actually there is right now under "" discourse segments "" , um , "" attitude "" ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" Volition "" ? could fill that . So there are a couple things where I like , "" oh , I 'm not sure if I wanted to have it there +Grad E: Well that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: or {disfmarker} "" Basically there was a whole list of {disfmarker} of possible speaker attitudes that like say Talmy listed . And , like , well , I don't {disfmarker} you know , it was like "" hope , wish . desire "" , +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: blah - blah - blah . And it 's like , well , I feel like if I wanted to have an extra meaning {disfmarker} I don't know if those are grammatically marked in the first place . So {disfmarker} They 're more lexically marked , right ? +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: At least in English . So if I wanted to I would stick in an extra frame in my meaning , saying , e so th it 'd be a hierarchical frame them , right ? You know , like "" Naomi wants {disfmarker} wants su a certain situation and that situation itself is a state of affairs "" . +Professor C: S right . So {disfmarker} so , "" want "" itself can be {disfmarker} {pause} i i i i i +Grad F: u Can be just another frame that 's part of your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , and it i basically it 's an action . In {disfmarker} in our s in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Situation . {comment} Right , right . +Professor C: in {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} in our s terminology , "" want "" can be an action and "" what you want "" is a world . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So that 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's certainly one way to do it . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there are other things . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Causal stuff we absolutely need . Mental space we need . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The context we need . Um , so anyway , Keith {disfmarker} So is this comfortable to you that , uh , once we have this defined , it is your tool kit for building the semantic part of constructions . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then when we combine constructions semantically , the goal is going to be to fill out more and more of the bindings needed in order to come up with the final one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that 's the wh and {disfmarker} and I mean , that {disfmarker} according to the party line , that 's the whole story . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Um . y Right . That makes sense . So I mean , there 's this stuff in the {disfmarker} off in the scenario , which just tells you how various {disfmarker} what schemas you 're using and they 're {disfmarker} how they 're bound together . And I guess that some of the discourse segment stuff {disfmarker} is that where you would sa +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} OK , that 's where the information structure is which sort of is a kind of profiling on different parts of , um , of this . +Grad F: Right . Exactly . +Grad E: I mean , what 's interesting is that the information structure stuff {disfmarker} Hmm . There 's almost {disfmarker} I mean , we keep coming back to how focus is like this {disfmarker} this , uh , trajector - landmark thing . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: So if I say , um , You know , "" In France it 's like this "" . You know , great , we 've learned something about France but the fact is that utterances of that sort are generally used to help you draw a conclusion also about some implicit contrast , like "" In France it 's like this "" . And therefore you 're supposed to say , "" Boy , life sure {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: You know , "" in France kids are allowed to drink at age three "" . And w you 're {disfmarker} that 's not just a fact about France . You also conclude something about how boring it is here in the U S . Right ? +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} +Grad F: S so I would prefer not to worry about that for right now +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: and to think that there are , um , +Grad E: That comes in and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: discourse level constructions in a sense , topic {disfmarker} topic - focus constructions that would say , "" oh , when you focus something "" then {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: just done the same way {disfmarker} just actually in the same way as the lower level . If you stressed , you know , "" John went to the {disfmarker} "" , you know , "" the bar "" whatever , you 're focusing that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and a in a possible inference is "" in contrast to other things "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So similarly for a whole sentence , you know , "" in France such - and - such happens "" . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: So the whole thing is sort of like again implicitly as opposed to other things that are possible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , just {disfmarker} just , uh , look {disfmarker} read uh even sem semi formal Mats Rooth . +Grad F: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: If you haven't read it . It 's nice . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad A: And just pick any paper on alternative semantics . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: So that 's his {disfmarker} that 's the best way of talking about focus , is I think his way . +Grad E: OK , what was the name ? +Grad A: Mats . MATS . Rooth . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I think two O 's , yes , TH . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I never know how to pronounce his name because he 's sort of , +Professor C: S Swede ? +Grad A: uh , he is Dutch +Professor C: Dutch ? +Grad A: and , um {disfmarker} but very confused background I think . +Professor C: Oh , Dutch . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: So {pause} and , um , +Grad E: Mats Gould . +Grad A: And sadly enough he also just left the IMS in Stuttgart . So he 's not there anymore . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} I don't know where he is right now but alternative semantics is {disfmarker} if you type that into an , uh , uh , browser or search engine you 'll get tons of stuff . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK , thanks . +Grad A: And what I 'm kind of confused about is {disfmarker} is what the speaker and the hearer is {disfmarker} is sort of doing there . +Grad F: So for a particular segment it 's really just a reference to some other entity again in the situation , right ? So for a particular segment the speaker might be you or might be me . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , hearer is a little bit harder . It could be like multiple people . I guess that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's not very clear from here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} Don't we ultimately want to handle that analogously to the way we handle time and place , +Grad F: I mean , that 's not allowed here . +Grad A: because "" you "" , "" me "" , "" he "" , "" they "" , you know , "" these guys "" , all these expressions , nuh , are in {disfmarker} in much the same way contextually dependent as "" here , "" and "" now , "" and "" there "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Now , this is {disfmarker} this is assuming you 've already solved that . +Grad F: Ye - yeah . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's Fred and Mary , +Grad F: So th +Professor C: so the speaker would be Fred and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ah ! +Grad F: Right , so the constructions might {disfmarker} of course will refer , using pronouns or whatever . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: In which case they have to check to see , uh , who the , uh , speaker in here wa in order to resolve those . But when you actually say that "" he walked into {disfmarker} "" , whatever , um , the "" he "" will refer to a particular {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you will already have figured who "" he "" or "" you "" , mmm , or "" I "" , maybe is a bett better example , who "" I "" refers to . Um , and then you 'd just be able to refer to Harry , you know , in wherever that person {disfmarker} whatever role that person was playing in the event . +Grad A: Mmm . That 's up at the reference part . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: And down there in the speaker - hearer part ? +Grad F: S so , that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's just {disfmarker} n for instance , Speaker is known from the situation , right ? You 're {disfmarker} when you hear something you 're told who the speaker is {disfmarker} I mean , you know who the speaker is . In fact , that 's kind of constraining how {disfmarker} in some ways you know this before you get to the {disfmarker} you fill in all the rest of it . I think . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: I mean , how else would you um {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know , uh , uh , it 's {disfmarker} the speaker may {disfmarker} in English is allowed to say "" I . "" +Professor C: Yeah . Well , here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , among the twenty - five percent most used words . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: But wouldn't the "" I "" then set up the {disfmarker} the s s referent {disfmarker} that happens to be the speaker this time +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and not "" they , "" whoever they are . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad A: Or "" you "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: much like the "" you "" could n +Grad F: S so {disfmarker} OK , so I would say ref under referent should be something that corresponds to "" I "" . And maybe each referent should probably have a list of way whatever , the way it was referred to . So that 's "" I "" but , uh , uh , should we say it {disfmarker} it refers to , what ? Uh , if it were "" Harry "" it would refer to like some ontology thing . If it were {disfmarker} if it 's "" I "" it would refer to the current speaker , OK , which is given to be like , you know , whoever it is . +Grad A: Well , not {disfmarker} not always . I mean , so there 's "" and then he said , I w "" Uh - huh . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: "" I "" within the current world . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's right . So {disfmarker} so again , this {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is gonna to get us into the mental space stuff +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and t because you know , "" Fred said that Mary said {disfmarker} "" , and whatever . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so we 're , uh gonna have to , um , chain those as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Twhhh - whhh . But {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . So this entire thing is inside a world , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: not just like the top part . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Except s it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier than that because um , the reference for example {disfmarker} So he where it gets really tricky is there 's some things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: and this is where blends and all terribl So , some things which really are meant to be identified and some things which aren't . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And again , all we need for the moment is some way to say that . +Grad F: Right . So I thought of having like {disfmarker} for each referent , having the list of {disfmarker} of the things t with which it is identified . You know , which {disfmarker} which , uh you know , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Professor C: You could do that . +Grad F: for instance , um {disfmarker} So , I guess , it sort of depends on if it is a referring exp if it 's identifiable already or it 's a new thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: If it 's a new thing you 'd have to like create a structure or whatever . If it 's an old thing it could be referring to , um , usually w something in a situation , right ? Or something in ontology . +Professor C: uh - huh . +Grad F: So , there 's a you know , whatever , it c it could point at one of these . +Professor C: I just had a {disfmarker} I just had an {disfmarker} an idea that would be very nice if it works . +Grad F: For what ? +Professor C: Uh , uh , uh , I haven't told you what it is yet . +Grad F: If it works . +Professor C: This was my build - up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: An i an idea that would be nice i +Grad F: Yeah . OK , we 're crossing our fingers . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So we 're building a mental space , good . +Professor C: If it worked . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Right , it was a space builder . Um , we might be able to handle context in the same way that we handle mental spaces because , uh , you have somewhat the same things going on of , uh , things being accessible or not . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so , i +Grad F: Yep . +Professor C: it c it {disfmarker} it , uh I think if we did it right we might be able to get at least a lot of the same structure . +Grad F: Use the same {disfmarker} {comment} Yep . +Professor C: So that pulling something out of a discourse context is I think similar to other kinds of , uh , mental space phenomena . +Grad B: I see . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've never seen anybody write that up but maybe they did . I don't know . That may be all over the literature . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: There 's things like ther you know , there 's all kinds of stuff like , um , in {disfmarker} I think I mentioned last time in Czech if you have a {disfmarker} a verb of saying then +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so by default {disfmarker} +Grad E: um , you know , you say something like {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or I was thinking you can say something like , "" oh , I thought , uh , you are a republican "" or something like that . Where as in English you would say , "" I thought you were "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , you know , sort of the past tense being copied onto the lower verb doesn't happen there , so you have to say something about , you know , tense is determined relative to current blah - blah - blah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Same things happens with pronouns . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: There 's languages where , um , if you have a verb of saying then , ehhh , where {disfmarker} OK , so a situation like "" Bob said he was going to the movies "" , where that lower subject is the same as the person who was saying or thinking , you 're actually required to have "" I "" there . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , and it 's sort of in an extended function {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we would have it be in quotes in English . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: But it 's not perceived as a quotative construction . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean , it 's been analyzed by the formalists as being a logophoric pronoun , um which means a pronoun which refers back to the person who is speaking or that sort of thing , right ? +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Oh , right . Yeah , that makes sense . +Grad E: Um , but {disfmarker} uh , that happens to sound like the word for "" I "" but is actually semantically unrelated to it . +Grad F: Oh , no ! +Professor C: Oh , good , I love the formali +Grad E: Um , +Grad F: Really ? +Grad E: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: You 're kidding . +Grad E: There 's a whole book which basically operates on this assumption . Uh , Mary Dalrymple , uh , this book , a ninety - three book on , uh on pronoun stuff . +Grad F: No , that 's horrible . OK . That 's horrible . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Well , yeah . And then the same thing for ASL where , you know , you 're signing and someone says something . And then , you know , so "" he say "" , and then you sort of do a role shift . And then you sign "" I , this , that , and the other "" . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And you know , "" I did this "" . That 's also been analyzed as logophoric and having nothing to do with "" I "" . And the role shift thing is completely left out and so on . So , I mean , the point is that pronoun references , uh , you know , sort of ties in with all this mental space stuff and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so , yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that d that does sound like it 's co consistent with what we 're saying , yeah . +Grad E: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: OK , so it 's kind of like the unspecified mental spaces just are occurring in context . And then when you embed them sometimes you have to pop up to the h you know , depending on the construction or the whatever , um , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're scope is {disfmarker} m might extend out to the {disfmarker} the base one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It would be nice to actually use the same , um , mechanism since there are so many cases where you actually need it 'll be one or the other . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's like , oh , actually , it 's the same {disfmarker} same operation . +Professor C: Oh , OK , so this {disfmarker} this is worth some thought . +Grad F: So . +Grad E: It 's like {disfmarker} it 's like what 's happening {disfmarker} that , yeah , what what 's happening , uh , there is that you 're moving the base space or something like that , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's how Fauconnier would talk about it . And it happens diff under different circumstances in different languages . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , things like pronoun reference and tense which we 're thinking of as being these discourse - y things actually are relative to a Bayes space which can change . +Grad F: Mm - hmm , +Grad E: And we need all the same machinery . +Grad F: right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Robert . +Professor C: Well , but , uh , this is very good actually +Grad E: Schade . +Professor C: cuz it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to the extent that it works , it y +Grad F: Ties it all into it . +Professor C: it {disfmarker} it ties together several of {disfmarker} of these things . +Grad F: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I 'm sure gonna read the transcript of this one . So . But the , uh , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it 's too bad that we don't have a camera . You know , all the pointing is gonna be lost . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Grad B: Well every time Nancy giggles it means {disfmarker} it means that it 's your job . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's why I said "" point to Robert "" , {vocalsound} when I did it . +Grad A: Uh . Yeah . Mmm , isn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of dubious why {disfmarker} why he even introduces this sort of reality , you know , as your basic mental space and then builds up {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: d doesn't start with some {disfmarker} because it 's so obvi it should be so obvious , at least it is to me , {comment} that whenever I say something I could preface that with "" I think . "" Nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So there should be no categorical difference between your base and all the others that ensue . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: No , but there 's {disfmarker} there 's a Gricean thing going on there , that when you say "" I think "" you 're actually hedging . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . It 's like I don't totally think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . Y +Grad F: I mostly think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Absolutely . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an evidential . It 's sort of semi - grammaticalized . People have talked about it this way . And you know , you can do sort of special things . You can , th put just the phrase "" I think "" as a parenthetical in the middle of a sentence and so on , and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: Actually one of the child language researchers who works with T Tomasello studied a bunch of these constructions and it was like it 's not using any kind of interesting embedded ways just to mark , you know , uncertainty or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad A: Yeah , but about linguistic hedges , I mean , those {disfmarker} those tend to be , um , funky anyways because they blur {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we don't have that in here either do we ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Hedges ? +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Hhh , {comment} I {disfmarker} there used to be a slot for speaker , um , it was something like factivity . I couldn't really remember what it meant +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: so I took it out . +Grad E: Um . +Grad F: But it 's something {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we were just talking about this sort of evidentiality and stuff like that , right ? +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we were talking about sarcasm too , right ? Oh , oh . +Grad E: I mean , +Grad F: Oh , yeah , yeah , right . +Grad E: that 's what I think is , um , sort of telling you what percent reality you should give this +Professor C: So we probably should . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or the , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Confidence or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah , and the fact that I 'm , you know {disfmarker} the fact maybe if I think it versus he thinks that might , you know , depending on how much you trust the two of us or whatever , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh great word in the English language is called "" about "" . +Grad E: you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you study how people use that it 's also {disfmarker} +Grad F: What 's the word ? +Grad A: "" about . "" It 's about {disfmarker} +Professor C: About . +Grad A: clever . +Professor C: Oh , that {disfmarker} in that use of "" about "" , yeah . +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , as a hedge . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And I think {disfmarker} And I think {pause} y if you want us to spend a pleasant six or seven hours you could get George started on that . +Grad E: He wrote a paper about thirty - five years ago on that one . +Grad B: I r I read that paper , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: the hedges paper ? I read some of that paper actually . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Would you believe that that paper lead directly to the development of anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: What ? +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Ask me about it later I 'll tell you how . When we 're not on tape . +Grad F: I 'd love to know . +Grad B: Oh , man . +Grad F: So , and {disfmarker} and I think , uh , someone had raised like sarcasm as a complication at some point . +Professor C: There 's all that stuff . Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad F: And we just won't deal with sarcastic people . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: I don't really know what like {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we don't have to care too much about the speaker attitude , right ? Like there 's not so many different {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} I don't know , m +Grad F: Certainly not as some {disfmarker} Well , they 're intonational markers I think for the most part . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I don't know too much about the like grammatical {disfmarker} +Grad E: I just mean {disfmarker} There 's lots of different attitudes that {disfmarker} that the speaker could have and that we can clearly identify , and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: But like what are the distinctions among those that we actually care about for our current purposes ? +Professor C: Right . Right , so , uh , this {disfmarker} this raises the question of what are our current purposes . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , do we have any ? +Grad E: Here it is three - fifteen already . +Grad A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I {disfmarker} I don't know the answer but {disfmarker} but , um , it does seem that , you know , this is {disfmarker} this is coming along . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's converging . It 's {disfmarker} as far as I can tell there 's this one major thing we have to do which is the mental {disfmarker} the whole s mental space thing . And then there 's some other minor things . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , and we 're going to have to s sort of bound the complexity . I mean , if we get everything that anybody ever thought about you know , w we 'll go nuts . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we had started with the idea that the actual , uh , constraint was related to this tourist domain and the kinds of interactions that might occur in the tourist domain , assuming that people were being helpful and weren't trying to d you know , there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} God knows , irony , and stuff like {disfmarker} which you {disfmarker} isn't probably of much use in dealing with a tourist guide . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad F: M mockery . +Professor C: Right . Whatever . So y uh , no end of things th that {disfmarker} that , you know , we don't deal with . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: i isn't that part easy though +Professor C: Go ahead . +Grad A: because in terms of the s simspec , it would just mean you put one more set of brack brackets around it , and then just tell it to sort of negate whatever the content of that is in terms of irony +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: N no . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Maybe . +Professor C: No . +Grad F: Yeah , in model theory cuz the semantics is always like "" speaker believes not - P "" , you know ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like "" the speaker says P and believes not - P "" . +Grad E: We have a theoretical model of sarcasm now . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , right , I mean . +Professor C: No , no . +Grad F: Right , right , but , +Professor C: Anyway , so {disfmarker} so , um , I guess uh , let me make a proposal on how to proceed on that , which is that , um , it was Keith 's , uh , sort of job over the summer to come up with this set of constructions . Uh , and my suggestion to Keith is that you , over the next couple weeks , n +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: don't try to do them in detail or formally but just try to describe which ones you think we ought to have . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , and then when Robert gets back we 'll look at the set of them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just sort of , you know , define your space . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +Professor C: And , um , so th these are {disfmarker} this is a set of things that I think we ought to deal with . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back over it and w people will {disfmarker} will give feedback on it . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: And then {disfmarker} then we 'll have a {disfmarker} at least initial spec of {disfmarker} of what we 're actually trying to do . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And that 'll also be useful for anybody who 's trying to write a parser . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Knowing uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: In case there 's any around . +Grad F: If we knew anybody like that . +Professor C: Right , "" who might want "" et cetera . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So a and we get this {disfmarker} this , uh , portals fixed and then we have an idea of the sort of initial range . And then of course Nancy you 're gonna have to , uh , do your set of {disfmarker} but you have to do that anyway . +Grad F: For the same , yeah , data . Yeah , mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so we 're gonna get the w we 're basically dealing with two domains , the tourist domain and the {disfmarker} and the child language learning . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: And we 'll see what we need for those two . And then my proposal would be to , um , not totally cut off more general discussion but to focus really detailed work on the subset of things that we 've {disfmarker} we really want to get done . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then as a kind of separate thread , think about the more general things and {disfmarker} and all that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I also think the detailed discussion will hit {disfmarker} you know , bring us to problems that are of a general nature and maybe even {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , without doubt . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: even suggest some solutions . +Professor C: But what I want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is to {disfmarker} to constrain the things that we really feel responsible for . +Grad A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that we say these are the things we 're really gonna try do by the end of the summer +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and other things we 'll put on a list of {disfmarker} of research problems or something , because you can easily get to the point where nothing gets done because every time you start to do something you say , "" oh , yeah , but what about this case ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} this is called being a linguist . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And , uh , +Grad E: Basically . +Grad F: Or me . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad F: Or me . Anyways {disfmarker} +Grad B: There 's that quote in Jurafsky and Martin where {disfmarker} where it goes {disfmarker} where some guy goes , "" every time I fire a linguist the performance of the recognizer goes up . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: Exactly . +Professor C: Right . But anyway . So , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make sense as a , uh {disfmarker} a general way to proceed ? +Grad F: Sure , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah , we 'll start with that , just figuring out what needs to be done then actually the next step is to start trying to do it . +Professor C: Exactly right . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Got it . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: We have a little bit of news , uh , just minor stuff . The one big {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ooo , can I ask a {disfmarker} +Grad E: You ran out of power . +Grad A: Huh ? +Grad B: Can I ask a quick question about this side ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Grad B: Is this , uh {disfmarker} was it intentional to leave off things like "" inherits "" and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oops . Um , +Grad E: No . +Grad F: not really {disfmarker} just on the constructions , right ? +Grad B: Yeah , like constructions can inherit from other things , +Grad F: Um , +Grad B: am I right ? +Grad F: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: I didn't want to think too much about that for {disfmarker} for now . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So , uh , maybe it was subconsciously intentional . +Professor C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad E: Um , yeah , there should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to s find out someday if there was gonna be some way of dealing with , uh , if this is the right term , multiple inheritance , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: where one construction is inheriting from , uh from both parents , +Grad F: Uh - huh . Yep . +Grad E: uh , or different ones , or three or four different ones . +Professor C: Yeah . So let me {disfmarker} +Grad E: Cuz the problem is that then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: which of {disfmarker} you know , which are {disfmarker} how they 're getting bound together . +Grad F: Refer to {pause} them . +Professor C: Yeah , right , right , right . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and there are certainly cases like that . Even with just semantic schemas we have some examples . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , and we 've been talking a little bit about that anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . So what I would like to do is separate that problem out . +Grad F: Inherits . +Professor C: So um , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: my argument is there 's nothing you can do with that that you can't do by just having more constructions . +Grad E: Yeah , yes . +Professor C: It 's uglier and it d doesn't have the deep linguistic insights and stuff . +Grad E: That 's right . +Professor C: Uh , +Grad E: But whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , no , no , no no . +Grad F: Uh , those are over rated . +Grad E: No , by all means , +Professor C: And so I {disfmarker} what I 'd like to do is {disfmarker} is in the short run focus on getting it right . +Grad E: right . Uh , sure . +Professor C: And when we think we have it right then saying , "" aha ! , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: can we make it more elegant ? "" +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Can {disfmarker} can we , uh {disfmarker} What are the generalizations , and stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . Connect the dots . Yeah . +Professor C: But rather than try to guess a inheritance structure and all that sort of stuff before we know what we 're doing . +Grad E: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: So I would say in the short run we 're not gonna b +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: First of all , we 're not doing them yet at all . And {disfmarker} and it could be that half way through we say , "" aha ! , we {disfmarker} we now see how we want to clean it up . "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , and inheritance is only one {disfmarker} I mean , that 's one way to organize it but there are others . And it may or may not be the best way . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: I 'm sorry , you had news . +Grad A: Oh , just small stuff . Um , thanks to Eva on our web site we can now , if you want to run JavaBayes , uh , you could see {disfmarker} get {disfmarker} download these classes . And then it will enable you {disfmarker} she modified the GUI so it has now a m a m a button menu item for saving it into the embedded JavaBayes format . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad A: So that 's wonderful . +Professor C: Great . +Grad A: And , um and she , a You tested it out . Do you want to say something about that , that it works , right ? With the {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just checking like , when we wanna , um , get the posterior probability of , like , variables . You know how you asked whether we can , like , just observe all the variables like in the same list ? You can't . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: You have to make separate queries every time . +Grad A: OK , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a bit unfortunate +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: but for the time being it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine to do it {disfmarker} +Grad D: You just have to have a long list of , you know , all the variables . +Grad A: Yeah . But uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Basically . +Grad F: Uh , all the things you want to query , you just have to like ask for separately . +Grad D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well that 's {disfmarker} probably maybe in the long term that 's good news because it forces us to think a little bit more carefully how {disfmarker} how we want to get an out output . Um , but that 's a different discussion for a different time . And , um , I don't know . We 're really running late , so I had , uh , an idea yesterday but , uh , I don't know whether we should even start discussing . +Professor C: W what {disfmarker} Yeah , sure , tell us what it is . +Grad A: Um , the construal bit that , um , has been pointed to but hasn't been , um , made precise by any means , um , may w may work as follows . I thought that we would , uh {disfmarker} that the following thing would be in incredibly nice and I have no clue whether it will work at all or nothing . So that 's just a tangent , a couple of mental disclaimers here . Um , imagine you {disfmarker} you write a Bayes - net , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Bayes ? +Grad A: Bayes - net , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: um , completely from scratch every time you do construal . So you have nothing . Just a white piece of paper . +Professor C: Mmm , right . +Grad A: You consult {disfmarker} consult your ontology which will tell you a bunch of stuff , and parts , and properties , uh - uh - uh +Grad F: Grout out the things that {disfmarker} that you need . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: then y you 'd simply write , uh , these into {disfmarker} onto your {disfmarker} your white piece of paper . And you will get a lot of notes and stuff out of there . You won't get {disfmarker} you won't really get any C P T 's , therefore we need everything that {disfmarker} that configures to what the situation is , IE , the context dependent stuff . So you get whatever comes from discourse but also filtered . Uh , so only the ontology relevant stuff from the discourse plus the situation and the user model . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And that fills in your CPT 's with which you can then query , um , the {disfmarker} the net that you just wrote and find out how thing X is construed as an utterance U . And the embedded JavaBayes works exactly like that , that once you {disfmarker} we have , you know , precise format in which to write it , so we write it down . You query it . You get the result , and you throw it away . And the {disfmarker} the nice thing about this idea is that you don't ever have to sit down and think about it or write about it . You may have some general rules as to how things can be {disfmarker} can be construed as what , so that will allow you to craft the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the initial notes . But it 's {disfmarker} in that respect it 's completely scalable . Because it doesn't have any prior , um , configuration . It 's just you need an ontology of the domain and you need the context dependent modules . And if this can be made to work at all , {vocalsound} that 'd be kind of funky . +Professor C: Um , it sounds to me like you want P R +Grad A: P R Ms - uh , PRM I mean , since you can unfold a PRM into a straightforward Bayes - net {disfmarker} +Professor C: Beca - because it {disfmarker} b because {disfmarker} No , no , you can't . See the {disfmarker} the critical thing about the PRM is it gives these relations in general form . So once you have instantiated the PRM with the instances and ther then you can {disfmarker} then you can unfold it . +Grad A: Then you can . Mm - hmm , yeah . No , I was m using it generic . So , uh , probabilistic , whatever , relational models . Whatever you write it . In {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , no , but it matters a lot because you {disfmarker} what you want are these generalized rules about the way things relate , th that you then instantiate in each case . +Grad A: And then {disfmarker} then instantiate them . That 's ma maybe the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} the only way it works . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: +Professor C: Yeah , that 's the only way it could work . I {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} our local expert on P R uh , but my guess is that they 're not currently good enough to do that . But we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have to see . +Grad A: But , uh , +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . This is {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that would be a good thing to try . It 's related to the Hobbs abduction story in that you th you throw everything into a pot and you try to come up with the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except there 's no {disfmarker} no theorem prover involved . +Grad F: Best explanation . +Professor C: No , there isn't a theorem prover but there {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but the , um , The cove the {disfmarker} the P R Ms are like rules of inference and you 're {disfmarker} you 're coupling a bunch of them together . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Professor C: And then ins instead of proving you 're trying to , you know , compute the most likely . Uh {disfmarker} Tricky . But you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a good {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to put in your thesis proposal . +Grad A: What 's it ? +Professor C: So are you gonna write something for us before you go ? +Grad A: Yes . Um . +Professor C: Oh , you have something . +Grad A: In the process thereof , or whatever . +Professor C: OK . So , what 's {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} when are we gonna meet again ? +Grad F: When are you leaving ? +Grad A: Fri - uh , +Grad F: Thursday , Friday ? +Grad A: Thursday 's my last day here . +Grad D: Fri +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} I would suggest as soon as possible . Do you mean by we , the whole ben gang ? +Professor C: N no , I didn't mean y just the two of us . We {disfmarker} obviously we can {disfmarker} we can do this . But the question is do you want to , for example , send the little group , uh , a draft of your thesis proposal and get , uh , another session on feedback on that ? Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can do it Th - Thursday again . Yeah . +Grad E: Fine with me . Should we do the one PM time for Thursday since we were on that before or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Thursday at one ? I can also maybe then sort of run through the , uh {disfmarker} the talk I have to give at EML which highlights all of our work . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And we can make some last minute changes on that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: You can just give him the abstract that we wrote for the paper . +Professor C: That - that 'll tell him exactly what 's going on . Yeah , that {disfmarker} Alright . +Grad F: Can we do {disfmarker} can we do one - thirty ? +Grad A: No . +Grad F: Oh , you already told me no . +Grad A: But we can do four . +Grad F: One , OK , it 's fine . I can do one . It 's fine . It 's fine . +Grad A: One or four . I don't care . +Grad E: To me this is equal . I don't care . +Grad A: If it 's equal for all ? What should we do ? +Grad F: Yeah , it 's fine . +Grad A: Four ? +Grad F: Fine . Yeah {disfmarker} no , no , no , uh , I don't care . It 's fine . +Grad A: It 's equal to all of us , so you can decide one or four . +Grad B: The pressure 's on you Nancy . +Grad A: Liz actually said she likes four because it forces the Meeting Recorder people to cut , you know {disfmarker} the discussions short . +Grad F: OK . OK , four . +Grad E: Well , if you insist , then . +Grad F: OK ? OK . I am . +","Summary: A meeting was held discussing various aspects of linguistics and computational modeling, including the concept of construal and Bayesian networks. The group made plans for future meetings and tasks, including a proposal to be written by Robert and a potential presentation by Robert about their work. They agreed to reconvene on Thursday at 4 PM." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . Uh door is closed . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , let's begin . Because if we have as much time as the last uh meeting , we'll have to hurry up . +Marketing: I'm listening . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um well I'll start with the presentation again , the agenda . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Great . +Project Manager: Yo . So . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This one I think . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah . Well alright . Um well , I'll show you the notes . It's not as uh interesting as it should be because we just uh had the meeting , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'll show them . We'll get your presentations again on the conceptual design . Um {disfmarker} Then we'll have to dec decide about the control , the remote control concepts . I've put a f uh a file in the project management folder , which says exactly uh what kind of decisions we should take . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} this time we exactly know what to decide about . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright , great . +Project Manager: And then we'll close again . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Well these are some examples , but we'll talk about them later . We'll {vocalsound} first look at your uh presentations . Alright ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Walter will uh start again this time ? +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: Yo . +Marketing: Alright , Trendwatch . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . I will speak about uh latest trends trends , latest fashion updates , and uh things we must not do . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Uh the trends . {vocalsound} It's very important that uh the control is fancy looking and good uh feeling . Uh this because of our last model was very functional , but {vocalsound} it uh people didn't like that , so our new mo model must be very good-looking . That's uh something you uh have to take a look at . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Alright . +Marketing: And uh the feeling has to be very great . Also the menus and things like that they have to they have to feel great . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Um there's a minus uh two times here , because this is the most important point . This is uh two times as less important , +Project Manager: Less . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh same for this one . {vocalsound} Um , technological technological innovations , that's uh regarded very highly too . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh such as an uh L_C_D_ screen , uh speech uh acknowledgement , as we uh talked about earlier . +Project Manager: Well , yeah . +Marketing: So we have to have uh something like that , like we uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_D_ and our uh our fronts . +Marketing: Right . {vocalsound} Uh the last point is easy to use . Well I think that uh speaks for s for itself . I don't know who's uh who's going to look at that . +Industrial Designer: Easy to use ? +Project Manager: Well , easy to use uh s is a bit uh contradictionary with the first uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: I think that's your ta +User Interface: {gap} +Project Manager: Functional is not an issue , and then easy to use . +Marketing: Yeah , I know . +Project Manager: Well we have to choose one of them . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we have to go for the first one . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: It's the most important one . So {gap} we have to uh take that one . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: So it it {vocalsound} it isn't very important that {vocalsound} that it works easy . +User Interface: Well something fancy looking can be can be easy to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} But {vocalsound} it has to look great . +Project Manager: Yeah . We'll we'll look at uh {gap} . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: We'll see . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: you can make a very complicated uh uh remote anyway , so ease of use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's not a very comp complicated device . +Marketing: Yeah , right . But the most important thing is that it looks great and people say {gap} wow , that's real great uh great concept . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . Uh these are the new colours of this year . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it must be very bright , very colourful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: People like this . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So we we have to think uh in this direction . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So i set your mind to it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Findings ? Fashion update ? Fruit and vegetables are cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh you think ? +Marketing: I am told . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The group we are targeting is uh very pleased with fruit and vegetables . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} we we we might cons consider in front of uh in in that sort of uh way . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Bananas . +Marketing: Uh furthermore uh material , that's your part , should be very strong . I was thinking of something like uh {vocalsound} well uh iron plate over it , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: maybe in a colour or something , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: that looks so f really flashy but it it is also strong . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: B +Marketing: And that's uh also for the younger public . +Project Manager: Well the the handy thing about our fronts is that we can follow these trends e ev every year . Th this year it's fruits but next year it's it's something totally different . +Marketing: Yeah , that's great . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But I think we can all make the the fronts of titanium or something uh really thin . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: So it looks very heavy but you can still uh use it very easily . +Project Manager: Yep , alright . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Well , the don'ts . Older people like dark colours and simple shapes . Well we don't want uh older people , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we want young people . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: So uh we're gonna turn that around . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: We're gonna have real uh cool shapes and lots of colours . Right ? +Project Manager: Wood is popular . Aha . +Marketing: Okay . We don't want wood . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , among the old people , yeah . +Marketing: Old people . So , that's it for me . +Project Manager: Alright . Nice , uh well {gap} show us . +Industrial Designer: Right , I am going to tell you something about the components design . Uh again I have uh put up the specification properties . This uh so um uh the different uh components of the of of the device . And the materials ? Um I have heard several things , so I uh I'll have to change that on the way . But uh the case ? Uh I suggested uh in the previous meeting hard plastic . But uh as you indicated uh it should be strong . +Marketing: Yeah , we should change that . +Industrial Designer: It should feel strong . So maybe plastic is not uh sufficient . +Project Manager: Well maybe it it it is , +Industrial Designer: We should move to uh something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but it doesn't look strong . So maybe {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Y Hard plastic i is of course uh pretty pretty tough , but it doesn't have a really really tough look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: No no no . +Project Manager: But we still have to look at our price of course . Because uh if we want an L_C_D_ uh window etcetera uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Also {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm-hmm . But we'll return to that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Uh the buttons of course rubber , I think everyone agrees . And electrical cables , copper is all pretty basic stuff . The chips made of silicon , I guess . I think that's the best uh way to do it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And infra infrared l LED is uh just a simple bulb . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I've uh {vocalsound} had a few findings , made a few findings . Uh the target audience product style . Um it's uh um generally the case that uh senior and wealthy people above uh forty five years old uh like , as you said , uh particularly the traditional materials as such as wood and materials such as that . They also like straightforward shapes and luxurious style . But of course that's not our uh things this . So this is things we must not do . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And then we have uh young uh and dynamic uh people , which is of course our uh group , the people we aim at . Um under forty five years old . Uh they like soft materials uh with primary colours . Soft materials is of course uh agai again a bit a contradiction with uh our uh material choice of what you said , that uh it should be hard an and and and and strong looking . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But they like soft materials , uh so we might uh we have to consider that . And also they like curved round shapes . So not uh too formal like like uh the older people want . And if uh also a finding but not very ap applicable here , that sports and gaming devices such as uh discmans for jogging and that those kind of devices , gaming devices , should define the characteristics of the device . But uh since we don't have a really a sports or gaming device , so we don't really have to consider that . +Project Manager: Sports uh , they're uh that uh are accessible on on your L_C_D_ uh window uh +User Interface: Soccer fronts . {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} Huh ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: That's nice . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: All the {gap} results ? +Industrial Designer: Well I also have um several examples of uh styles , +Marketing: We keep coming back to the fronts . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so you can get a clear picture of uh what I mean . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} these are the basic uh older older peoples' stuff . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It was not very uh interesting uh , very classical looking , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} Nai . Uh no . +Industrial Designer: but that's n that's not what we want . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: We have these kind of things . I don't know what exactly they are . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruity . {vocalsound} Fruity . +Industrial Designer: It looks like {disfmarker} Well you know uh you recognise the shapes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's very primary colours , uh bright colours and uh round shapes . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You also uh {vocalsound} see uh this device , it's not very round and {disfmarker} Fruity of course . Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's t terrible . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: And uh well round shapes , primary colours . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can see it all here . And of course uh this famous device . +Project Manager: Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I think as you know something uh some devices like this . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: So to give you an idea of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's got a strong look , this . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This has a strong look . Although it's plastic , it's it's grey to to to give it iron look . +Marketing: Yeah , it still has a strong look . +Project Manager: Yeah . And it's round . +Industrial Designer: That's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: But then you are losing your fruity colours . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Well we have to make a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can make th th th that middle ring can you you can make another colour . So uh those kind of things you can you can combine . +Marketing: That's true . +Industrial Designer: Well we can't really make a round uh a round remote control . I don't think that's very practical , +Project Manager: No , it isn't . +Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} But uh it's important to to uh to think about the colour . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Because if we make it grey or or silvery looking , it it does make it a lot more uh does make it looking a lot more stronger . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause if you look at this , it it doesn't look very very strong , +Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: becau But this is plastic , and and this too , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: But it doesn't have to look strong . The the results are , the feel of the material is expected to be strongy . +Industrial Designer: The feel ? Uh alright . +Marketing: The feel . +Project Manager: So , if you ti +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: And it it doesn't have to be strong , also . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah yeah the feel {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You you {disfmarker} Maybe you should have uh some some coloured titanium or something . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Only the feel . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it it looks pretty but it feels strong . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: And I {disfmarker} Then I have some more findings . Um {vocalsound} uh about the energy energy source of the of the device , +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: uh I uh suggest uh the basic battery . I uh got some other um uh uh energy sources of course . But solar energy is not very practical inside a house , because you don't have a have a lot of uh sun . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And uh kinetic and and and dynamos are are not very practical , I think , for uh for a simple remote , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: that's a bit , oh , that's a bit uh {disfmarker} That's a bit uh much . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} No titanium . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I also suggest uh as a shape uh a double curved case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh the disadvantage of that that you can use no titanium . That that's the information I received . If you use the curved case , uh a curved case , double curved then you can't use titanium . +Project Manager: What do you exactly mean with double curved ? +Industrial Designer: Now uh this uh to give it a more modern look . +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: And uh {vocalsound} now the the shape , yeah , {gap} a curved case . Um yeah I think uh sort of triangle-shaped bottom or something . Uh {gap} a more modern look not plain , long box style , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno . +Project Manager: Double curved ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll draw it , +Project Manager: It it mean {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , well okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but maybe later . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And it makes uh it gives it a more u user friendly shape , than if you have uh {gap} . Um anyway {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um f as uh for the buttons , simple push buttons . No uh otherwi uh no um difficult scroll things or some uh things like that , because it makes more complex and expensive . And , uh as we agreed , we don't use a speaker or a sensor or um {vocalsound} uh speak uh speech uh controlled {vocalsound} device . +Marketing: Yeah right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Because it makes it also more complex and expensive . But we do use an L_C_D_ screen , so we uh we do have to consider uh of we have to use a more advanced chip , which is more complex and expensive . But {disfmarker} It's worth the trouble I think , +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: The buttons can be made of an uh a soft material . +Industrial Designer: because {disfmarker} +User Interface: Because people like that . +Project Manager: This soft material thing from uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh rubber is a soft material , I guess . +User Interface: Yeah . Right . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh soft enough . +Marketing: Yeah . Right . +Industrial Designer: So that's uh basically what I want to talk about . +Project Manager: Alright . Okay . We will take that . And then uh Mike ? Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . Well um nah the method um we will um include the buttons as we discussed uh earlier . Um an L_C_D_ s screen will be implemented . Um we must decide where , this meeting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um there are new developments in speech recognition um systems , {vocalsound} um and they are already being uh used on uh coffee machines . And um well they're cheap , so we could use them now . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} That's interesting . +User Interface: Um it's not really speech recognition , it's more um like you can um talk to the chip , uh record the message and record an answer , and then once you uh talk to the remote , then um he will a answer with the the prerecorded message that you left . So if I say hi Mike , and you have recorded uh hi Mike back , then you will get that . +Industrial Designer: Oh , yeah , I understand . Yeah . +Marketing: Oh okay . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . But you can also say that , when you say something , it does some function . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: No it doesn't does not do anything . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh . That's a bit uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: But i it's just a {disfmarker} +Marketing: But that that makes it cheap . +Project Manager: Yes . I understand . +User Interface: Yeah it's it's cheap . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's {vocalsound} it's just a an extra function , +Project Manager: But {vocalsound} it has no functionality for our remote at all . +Marketing: and it's cheap . +User Interface: No +Marketing: No but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: but that's the gadget they want , or the gimmicks . +Marketing: Yeah , right . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But it it's n nice for young people . +Marketing: Young people love them . +User Interface: Yes , we we should really uh include that one , I think . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: They like gadgets . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , ple Right . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: If it's cheap . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as I said uh earlier I think the uh L_C_D_ screen should be uh positioned at the lower end of the remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um the buttons for screen width and general settings and {gap} uh and that kind of stuff {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: um we can also do let that kind of functions um be shown in the L_C_D_ screen , uh instead of uh extra buttons . +Project Manager: So you put a menu in the L_C_D_ ? +User Interface: I think young people and yeah w well every user would like that . Um the buttons um should be positioned uh positioned the same way as they are on a , well , conventional remote , I think . For the learnability and uh well to keep it recognisable . A voice recognition can be uh implemented . And uh I drew an example , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but it did not work quite the well uh the way I wanted it to do . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now of uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: How {disfmarker} How {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah . +User Interface: Hmm ? Well I have the {disfmarker} I can draw it again , +Industrial Designer: Can you draw it now ? +User Interface: and I know what I did wrong . I didn't tick the note bo box in the {gap} . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . +Marketing: How do you uh uh give input to the menu on the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um with the uh the up and down and and well buttons and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . So you have a menu button , and then you can go up and down . +Project Manager: But then we should also have an uh an Okay button . +User Interface: Well I will draw what I had drawn on the screen . Yes . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um I shall draw this . If it uh works . +Industrial Designer: {gap} button , yeah . +Project Manager: Just uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} There is already a blank . Yes ? So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm so have I . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Nah . +Marketing: {gap} . {gap} You have to push hard . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I suggest a banana shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because of the fruity uh fashion . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: No m Next year that's out . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yellow and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah alright , yeah . Just a hunch . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these little buttons are a bit difficult to uh draw uh correct . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Those are the the cha the channel buttons of course ? +User Interface: Yeah just uh the numbers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then below is the L_C_D_ screen ? +User Interface: These these will be bigger in the the real design . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +User Interface: This must be the Okay button used to uh interact with the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: And with this you can uh , yes , go to through the menus +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and that can Um the video button should be uh an apart button , +Marketing: You've {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: because you want it to uh t , yeah , to use it fast within one uh click . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And what's the menu button ? +User Interface: Um it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And you you need a you need a speaker . +User Interface: Hmm ? +Marketing: For the {disfmarker} {gap} +User Interface: This button can also be the Menu button , we use in the menus {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But how did {disfmarker} How do you get out of the menu then ? Yeah . +User Interface: Well we we can add another button here , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Maybe I you could j just do an an exit with Okay . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh by pe pressing the menu button again . By pressing the menu button again , you go uh out . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's usual the the the d kind of the way it works . +Project Manager: Yes , well but bec because when you {vocalsound} push Menu you get in , +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah ? +Project Manager: and then you have to push Okay when you get to a choice . +User Interface: Ah right . Well you you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But you can men you can press menu again to get out . +Project Manager: Well that's also the Okay button . That's you you should have uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No no , we we we should uh add uh a extra Menu button +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: Or you can put in the L_C_D_'s uh window an option Get Out . +User Interface: and this the Okay button . +Marketing: Exit . +Project Manager: Exit {gap} . +User Interface: Ah once you have an extra Menu button , you don't need that that extra option . +Project Manager: Well , it's just a choice . +User Interface: You have uh redundancy . +Marketing: But we need a we need a a recording recording button for the speech uh part . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: Or don't {disfmarker} +User Interface: if we decide to uh to implement that , maybe we should . +Industrial Designer: Why would you put it uh then , and where is the recording uh the microphone ? +User Interface: Well they that could be anywhere . +Industrial Designer: Where would you put it ? +User Interface: That's very small . It could be uh down here . {vocalsound} Um . Well , not here . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +User Interface: I {vocalsound} yeah I suggest here . But that's just a little {vocalsound} gap . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Microphone , yeah . +Marketing: Right , and spea speaker at the back , or something . +User Interface: Well the speaker and the microphone , I think , are the same uh little hole thingy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh but uh we could uh d do , but it's perhaps more expensive , uh the speaker on the back or something . +User Interface: Well i Um there are a all already being implemented in in coffee machines , so they won't be uh very expensive . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Huh ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Okay . +User Interface: This is my suggested design . +Project Manager: Well , okay , alright . Um then let's have a look at the decisions we are going to have to make . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yes . And oh I think as you can see so , the L_C_D_ screen does look better uh at the lower end , or at the bottom . +Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker} I agree . +User Interface: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , fine . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fine . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well yeah yeah yeah . +Marketing: Move on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Oh , um I had some uh examples . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I can live with it . +Project Manager: Yes ? +User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But {disfmarker} I did not like it very much , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well these are quite obvious , very ugly remote . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too big . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They do they don't look fruity enough . +User Interface: No , well th +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nei They're n they're not trendy . +Project Manager: They're all black . +User Interface: Yeah . Well not all . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , that one I like . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh this is for children but {vocalsound} th +Industrial Designer: Tho Yeah those {disfmarker} +Marketing: It doesn't look strong . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . +Industrial Designer: But it doesn't uh the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The remote . {vocalsound} +User Interface: W but with the colours i it's a bit the way we're going to . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , ok Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Well this is a terrible {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Terrible . +Marketing: This is just crazy . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But it it must not look too childish of course huh ? +Project Manager: It's it's all too much buttons . +User Interface: Um this looks {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Too many buttons . That's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . This uh these are the L_C_D_ screens . I think we should , if it's um possible , uh one with colours , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nah th It's too expensive . +User Interface: I don't know uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , that's too expensive I think . +User Interface: Too expensive ? Alright . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . Yeah . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Nah . +Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Yeah . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . Huh . +User Interface: Ha , even more . N +Project Manager: Mm no . {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: But are we going for a strange uh form ? +Project Manager: No , not very strange . +Marketing: 'Cause people like that . +Industrial Designer: Not not too strange . No . +Marketing: Not too strange . +Project Manager: It still has t +Marketing: You can make the the underside , you can make it more round , where the L_C_D_ is . +Project Manager: Yes . Th a a kind of bridge . So it f falls over the hand . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if you know the No Nokia telephone , with uh the round uh thing at at the bottoms , s something like that . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: You know ? {gap} +Project Manager: Well I have at home {vocalsound} a remote with a bridge . It's just a half round half half circle at {disfmarker} And then it falls exactly over the hand , and that's very nice . That's {disfmarker} It feels comfortable . +Marketing: Yeah , but people like something uh new you know . +Industrial Designer: Exotic yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , different . +Industrial Designer: We have t Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I will design it , we design it later . +Marketing: Y yis +Industrial Designer: So we'll get to that later I guess . +Marketing: Alright . Great . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . Um where did I put it ? Um conceptual phase , I think this is it . +Industrial Designer: The specific shape . The {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I got this from our friends . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh yeah the conceptual design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Our sources . +Project Manager: These are a few examples which we have to decide about . All the the materials from the case , uh the electric cable that's all your uh your side of the story . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Your bag . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um now from the user interface , your uh package ? {vocalsound} Um where {disfmarker} No well , that's more like the buttons where they have to come . And um {disfmarker} B a bit of , yeah well , a bit of uh design . +User Interface: Yeah , this is what we've just done . Right ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we have to decide about these now . +Industrial Designer: But uh we should decide now . +User Interface: Ah right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And uh the trend-watching . +Marketing: Materials are the most , most impor +Project Manager: So as you said , fruity is in , well {gap} sells good . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh these things . +Industrial Designer: So we have to uh put it in one uh document . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yes . Um so if we uh go through them {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Copy paste uh this story into a into a Word document , and then uh put the answers after the subjects . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not everything . +Industrial Designer: Well we have to decide all these things ? +User Interface: Yeah but {vocalsound} all these examples are uh of a coffee machine . +Project Manager: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} Why should I uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we can uh override them ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well a case ? Uh that's me . Uh I suggest {disfmarker} Well what do I suggest actually ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What what kind of properties should it have ? Well we just listened . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh s solid , +User Interface: I think we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Why don't we um use uh titanium or or a hard , yeah , some kind of metal for the uh the the whole remote except the front . +Marketing: Do you know the new uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: That {disfmarker} Just like um most cell phones are . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I understand . +Marketing: No {vocalsound} no {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So we have titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The front is the most important . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the non-removable elements of the of the remote , so not the front , could be titanium , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: to give that uh strong look . +Project Manager: You know what ? +Industrial Designer: And then the front is made of plastic . And you can put that on and off , and switch it . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: But the feel of plastic isn't strong . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but you have titanium of course . +User Interface: No but you you have this {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh you have the best of both worlds . +Marketing: Yeah alright , alright . 'Kay . +User Interface: Yeah , you have the re remote in your hand like this . So you feel titanium . {gap} +Industrial Designer: And of course , yeah , you have the the the plastic front end . But you also have the titanium . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Fronts are are cheaper than when they're from plas +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course , but yeah {vocalsound} you have to make a decision . +User Interface: And I don't know if you can make steel just any way you want it to . +Marketing: Yeah , but it it's expensive . +Industrial Designer: I guess so . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh titanium I sh I think uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Bendable . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Well , well the {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bendable . +User Interface: Well any colour {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: According to my sources , uh it's it's totally possible to make an entire uh uh uh {disfmarker} Titanium is available , and uh we can uh make uh an entire remote out of it , if we want . +User Interface: Yeah , then you you paint it in the colour you want it . The plastic is is the colour you want it . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Paint spray . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah alright . +User Interface: So {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Marketing: So , we're going for a titanium back and a plastic front ? +Project Manager: I've uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , +Project Manager: Titanium back , plastic front . +Industrial Designer: I think that's a nice trade-off . +Project Manager: Okay . Um well I am going to put it in here , uh because we can uh look . +Marketing: Yeah , great . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Um solid feel and trendy look . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: So material , um hard plastic for the front ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , for the front and then titanium for the back . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the non-removable uh part . +Marketing: But then you have the problem , when you have a titanium back , you can't switch it . When you want an other colour on the front , it doesn't match . +User Interface: Well titanium is neutral . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know ? +Industrial Designer: The titan titanium isn't isn't v very {disfmarker} Yeah , i it doesn't uh {vocalsound} curves . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I understand . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No uh I nei . {vocalsound} Titanium is very {disfmarker} No no no , but you know b Titanium is very basic colour , +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and it doesn't really matter if we have a purple front on it or a orange front . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I dunno if if you disagree , +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but I think it's doesn't matter very much . +User Interface: Our customers will use those uh funky uh trendy colours , +Marketing: Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: and they don't use uh wood . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Funky customers . +Industrial Designer: And even if it does uh doesn't match , it will uh {disfmarker} People like mm colours that don't match . +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . And well +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the electrical cable is just normal uh {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Cop copper uh material . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Excuse me ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: The electrical cable uh does {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's uh from uh our coffee uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah copper i just a ba basic uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No we don't use an electrical cable . +Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah inside , but this is for the coffee uh machine . +Industrial Designer: Yeah in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well inside the remote control we use a couple of uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Of course . +User Interface: Yeah , but that's not what's meant here , I think . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nei . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So external . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh external ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well {gap} {vocalsound} A coffee grind doesn't have {disfmarker} Na ja . Never mind the coffee grind . +Project Manager: Well uh +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: all the all the inside work of our remote is uh standard work . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: The chip is normal silicon . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh the buttons are normal , etcetera . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? So that's just easy . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh we decide about that just by looking at our competitors and our {vocalsound} earlier uh remotes . The conceptual specification of the user interface ? Um well we have our beautiful drawing . +User Interface: Well I got a better one here +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . +User Interface: and I will um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well you can put that in uh into the shared folder , +User Interface: The shared folder . +Project Manager: and then I'll put it in our end report . +User Interface: I will work this out uh for the uh next meeting . +Project Manager: Yes , you can {disfmarker} Mm yeah . You can uh put some uh which button is what . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Um +User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: the trend-watching {disfmarker} {gap} included these days . And what do we ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We thing that fruit and bright colours are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the front w +Marketing: I think we can launch a couple of packages . You can buy a different kind of of of machine , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: but it's the same thing , but with another front . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: We can also uh implement um we can also implement fronts from um movies that are very hot . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah that's the whole idea of the front . +Marketing: And you can you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yes . +Project Manager: Uh those kind of things . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: But that's for later on . The fronts y you can do anything with them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah but if you if you launch uh five different packages like iPod mini {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , right {disfmarker} For the uh initiative uh launch . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: For the for the launch , yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: It's good marketing . +Project Manager: Launch different lines at once . +Industrial Designer: So e th then a c couple of basic colours . Not not very uh {vocalsound} sim Not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , n not too heavy . You can always take another pick . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We should not give them the m the most lovely front when they buy it for the first time . +Marketing: {vocalsound} They have to buy it later on . +User Interface: Oh yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Come on . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} More basic . +Project Manager: We still have to make those fifty million , yeah ? {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Very boring , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well you can you can give them uh s s three or so , +Industrial Designer: The most boring fronts possible . +Project Manager: The most ugly . +User Interface: so that they can uh experiment with it and that they want more . +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but you you can have some basic colours , and then we come with the special patterns on them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Red red , blue and green you give them or something , +Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and then you can give them {gap} uh other ones . +Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Alright . Um well the buttons etcetera , we get from Mike . Uh this fruit and bright colours , yeah well I think we'll have to in the next uh half an hour , we'll have to uh s s specify the different uh types we want to launch , when we uh {vocalsound} well introduce our remote . +Industrial Designer: Uh we still have to make {disfmarker} We have still have to make the es the the real basic design . {vocalsound} Because yeah we have the sketch but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . But we we must remember that {vocalsound} fancy look-and-feel is the most important thing . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Else it w won't sell . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well I'll have to , before I get another warning for five minutes , I'm going to get {disfmarker} Where is my mouse ? Uh where is my mouse ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Lost my mouse . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um this is it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , um this we have . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh basic stuff . Interface we have . Supplements , L_C_D_ . Maybe a a cheap voice recording . Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah we should do that . +Industrial Designer: The price ? +Project Manager: Yes . Alright . Individual actions . +Industrial Designer: We all agree on that . Yeah . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Industry designer , {gap} . User Interface , Mike . You're going to work together on a prototype drawing on the SMARTboard . +User Interface: Yeah , we can do that . +Industrial Designer: Together or uh {disfmarker} Yeah together . +Marketing: Yeah togeth {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what I got uh to hear . +Industrial Designer: How {disfmarker} Yeah yeah , but how do I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But bu we stay we stay here or something ? +Project Manager: Yes well we'll get it to hear that I think . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But I think so . Th they're saying SMARTboard and that's it {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You can take the SMARTboard . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: This is the SMARTboard , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah right . {vocalsound} And take it to our rooms and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um so you can uh you you are going to make a prototype , and y Well that's includes uh specifying the buttons etcetera . +User Interface: Ah , specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . So you'll get it on your em on your laptop . Um well you will go and do something else uh on the project {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Some {disfmarker} Some non functional tasks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Have fun {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: yeah project evaluation . So um {disfmarker} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {gap} , what are you going to do ? Uh I don't know what product evaluation exactly means , but uh you'll get uh the specifications . +Marketing: We don't have produ product yet , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so kind of difficult . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's why I uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're fired . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: How long do we still have ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , can we talk about something else ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh no I don't know anything , but maybe uh anyone else uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} Ajax . Nah . +User Interface: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Will we use uh round buttons or square ones for the for the numbers ? +Industrial Designer: Round I think . +Marketing: Um round . +User Interface: Yeah I I I also uh thought {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Round . +Industrial Designer: To make it as uh as round as possible . +User Interface: And these uh these s these buttons {vocalsound} uh are more uh triangle-ish shaped +Project Manager: Why does {disfmarker} +Marketing: Curvy . Yeah . +User Interface: with a square one in the middle . +Marketing: So you can see you have to up or down . +Project Manager: Ah f fuck you . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But now I see the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And this must be uh volume I think , +Project Manager: Heh ? +Marketing: and this programme . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We can't get {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well most of the time uh up and down is programme and left and right are volume , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well th th th th th that depends uh . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , it depends , but {disfmarker} If you turn up the volume , you always see this thingy go up . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well we uh {disfmarker} We we j we'll just give them an uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's right . +Industrial Designer: We'll design it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then they can give comments on it . +Project Manager: Ts +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: It doesn't work any more . We can't save them . So we'll just have them uh standing there . +Marketing: Yeah , I noticed . You can't uh click the corners . +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a bit uh bit a pity . +Marketing: It's a real real great thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well we still have uh more than five minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} what are we going to do ? {vocalsound} I as Project Manager ha don't have a clue . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's start the design . +Project Manager: Oh we can uh decide how we implement {vocalsound} the feeling from our company into the remote . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Well yeah . Um I think um {vocalsound} a logo , our company logo , and the slogan should be or could be {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Also the slogan ? On the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not ? {vocalsound} If there's enough space , {vocalsound} you can put uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh I I'd say only the logo . +Industrial Designer: We'll we'll {disfmarker} +Marketing: O Yeah . Me too . +User Interface: Too much text and it gets too too busy . +Industrial Designer: Well , our slogan is not very long . It's just a simple {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} it's quite a long phrase . +Industrial Designer: What is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: But we kree we keep adjusting to the fashion with our fronts . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You c {vocalsound} But you can put it on the back , on the titanium part . The logo and the and the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Ah the logo should be on the top I think . +Marketing: Yeah , right . The logo {disfmarker} +Project Manager: On the top . Yeah . Well in in in the right top corner ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah they do . Well yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Right corner , yes . +Project Manager: And well you c On the back , you can put uh h {vocalsound} At the bottom , you can put the logo with the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right corner , or maybe here in the middle ? +User Interface: {gap} uh the text ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Just just small . +User Interface: Uh yeah , at the back ? +Marketing: But the logo the logo shouldn't be exchangeable , when you get off the front . +User Interface: Well you c Well uh {disfmarker} Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah it it should be hard on the on the on the board , +Project Manager: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: You can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and you can remove the front . +User Interface: The logo can be on on every uh front . +Marketing: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , but then you must uh really uh yeah {vocalsound} push it in or something . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Carved into the material . {vocalsound} No , you you can carve it into the titanium at the back . +Industrial Designer: I l I like the idea of the of the slogan on the on the on the thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} am I the only one , or uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah , on the backside . +Project Manager: Well , management would like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well n n not not on the front side , I think . +Project Manager: The front side , no no l no slogan . +Industrial Designer: No not on the front , +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the back {disfmarker} Yes , you you can , yeah , push that in , +Industrial Designer: but on the backside . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} so that it is always be there . +Industrial Designer: I think it's a nice idea , {vocalsound} to make it more recognisable , that the next to the logo you have the slogan . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I agree . +Industrial Designer: To make more uh of an impression . +Marketing: But not too big . +Industrial Designer: Not too big . No , +Marketing: Just uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: very small . Not {vocalsound} on the entire back , but uh just very small . +Marketing: {vocalsound} You have to make this titanium too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But readable enough of course . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Yes , slogan from company on the back with logo +Industrial Designer: But we'll uh we'll take that uh with us into the design . +User Interface: Yeah I think over here the logo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Lo Uh yeah . Or maybe here in the middle , but we'll decide later . +Project Manager: and logo also on the front but not exchange uh {disfmarker} Uh ? Hmm ? {vocalsound} {gap} Uh when changing fronts . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , that's decided . +Industrial Designer: Do you do you see a bit of the of the um of the uh titanium ? O on the front ? +Project Manager: Five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe if we make this this this lower part titanium , +User Interface: Yes we could {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} the front is the the upper part , and the the bit with the with the L_C_D_ screen . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So a bit of titanium between ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . No no betwe +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: That's a bit {disfmarker} Oh that that's that's pretty cool . +Industrial Designer: of between we can do but {disfmarker} But then you have two parts of front , two fronts that {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , they have two fronts , +Marketing: No no no no . +User Interface: that . You you can {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No ? +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: This enti entire bottom ? +Marketing: Else you you get problems with the L_C_D_ . Like dust in it and so things like that . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: When you exchange all the fronts and it's open . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I already have uh all kinds of uh filth between the mobile . +User Interface: No , you can you can just {disfmarker} And then not a straight line but uh some sort of wave or something . +Marketing: you can make it go round this corner too where the logo is . Because it has to be uh there all the time you know . +Industrial Designer: And then the lower part is titanium ? +User Interface: This is titanium . And this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think that's nice , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Some some kind of wei weight in it . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Round forms . +User Interface: F front . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . I like that bit of uh titanium also on the uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . With the with the curved edge . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: A bit like uh a bit like your mobile phone . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe you can show it . It also has the those {vocalsound} two distinct uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Tada . +Industrial Designer: Mm bit like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: What ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ah . +Industrial Designer: That uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So round where ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Maybe a nice touch , yeah . +Marketing: So uh a little corner of titanium . We can't uh take a blank one . +User Interface: Yeah , that's nice finishing touch you need . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah . +Marketing: Or can we ? +Project Manager: Yes , {gap} that also sounds uh pretty uh neat . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: So this this is the exchangeable part . +Industrial Designer: I think I'm going to buy it . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We want it . +User Interface: Yeah , this is the front . +Project Manager: And it's only f twenty five Euros . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Come on . +Industrial Designer: That's a bit too much , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No that's nothing . +Industrial Designer: No , no no no , but {vocalsound} I think uh this looks uh pretty nice actually . +Project Manager: The Phillips remote uh costs more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of course , because it's my design but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: My design . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No our d our design , alright . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking all the credit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh you two are going to work together . You'll get your uh specifications on your uh laptop , and then uh {vocalsound} you uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We'll stay here I guess ? +Marketing: But there's a problem . +Project Manager: Well I think we can , I just {gap} {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} +Marketing: It's not relaxing . +User Interface: Well we can uh erase an animal I guess . Uh the fourth one . +Marketing: Yeah . Nah that's alright , that's alright . +Industrial Designer: But don't erase my cat . +Project Manager: Yeah , o +User Interface: Uh the fourth one is empty , isn't it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I want to preserve it . +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: {gap} This one is empty . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: You have to empty one huh ? +Project Manager: Oh , we have a {gap} one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What are you doing chief ? +Project Manager: So , you can uh draw a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Alright . +User Interface: Yeah I think we have to wait ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah +Project Manager: Well I'll get a {disfmarker} I'll get the message . +Industrial Designer: until the until the beep goes . +Marketing: No {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But I don't uh {disfmarker} Do we have to stay here , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , I think uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: or I think we have to return first . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well you'll {disfmarker} Maybe you can uh keep your uh laptop here . {gap} +User Interface: Maybe . +Project Manager: Or get your mouse . Because it's little bit uh hard to work with these uh plates . +Industrial Designer: The high powers from above {vocalsound} will have to tell us , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I always have a mouse next to my laptop . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Dream on . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I hate these {disfmarker} +Marketing: I I don't have a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , touch-pads , yeah . +Project Manager: Ugh . +Industrial Designer: We can uh do a touch-pad on our remote . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No just kidding . Well we have uh b you have to have a bit of humour in the in the discussions too , +Marketing: You just have to push harder . +Industrial Designer: because it becomes too too too too stressy . +Project Manager: And in your remote control . So we put a touch pad on it , and say ha ha . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Aha . This has no function . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Half +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We know you'll you'll you'll hate it but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But uh th youth doesn't care about functio functionality , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: But they do want some gadgets . So that's wha what we're doing . +Marketing: It's all about cool things . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And it will sell . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Bless you . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well we won't . Our bosses will be rich . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: We've done too much in the previous meetings . +Industrial Designer: Too much ? +User Interface: Yes , we've got nothing to do now . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's not bad , is it ? +Industrial Designer: Well they uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I think that's good . We all had uh our talk and we agree I guess on uh several thing , on most uh on things . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Its the best remote ever . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Pinball . +Project Manager: Oh {gap} . Oh he's totally off again . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: No man . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you have to push harder . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But when I start here , it's here . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So is it {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes , but you you get really close to the screen with your hand , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and I don't think that's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Nope . +Marketing: Recalibrate it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Where's the good old chalk board with the the green board with the , how do you call it , chalk , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: We can better uh draw a design on this . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe . +User Interface: Yeah , but we can't . +Industrial Designer: Maybe if i if that thing is recalibrated , we can draw a thing quick , and then before it uh {vocalsound} goes off again . +Project Manager: Yeah . Let's go . +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Finish meeting now . +Project Manager: Finish the meeting now . Alright now we know what to do , so +User Interface: We'll stay here ? +Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . Oh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Message ? +User Interface: Or we'll get the email . +Industrial Designer: Maybe w maybe we maybe w m Can we get email here ? +Project Manager: No , get away . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Guess so . +Project Manager: Um I I'm not sure . Maybe you {disfmarker} Yeah . Well you'll have to work on this one . +User Interface: Well we'll wait a few seconds +Project Manager: Yeah . That's a good idea . +User Interface: and then we'll get an email . +Marketing: Alright . Have fun lads . +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A happy hol happy holidays . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good luck . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but you can scratch it off or something . It's better if you have it uh {disfmarker} +","In the meeting, the project team discusses several aspects of their new remote control design. The Project Manager emphasizes the need to address the design decisions outlined in a file in the project management folder. Marketing urges the Industrial Designer to ensure the new model looks good and feels great to users, as this aspect was missing in the last model. The team then discusses various design features, such as materials, colors, and trends. They consider using titanium for strength and a range of colors to appeal to younger users, avoiding older demographics' preferences for dark colors and simple shapes. + +The Industrial Designer then talks about component design, suggesting a change from hard plastic to a stronger-feeling material. There is further discussion about the target audience's preferences, materials, shapes, and energy sources for the product. The User Interface designer proposes integrating an LCD screen and possibly a budget-friendly voice recording feature. The team also goes through design specifics, like button shapes and placement, and contemplates design details like having a titanium part visible. + +Throughout the conversation, there are numerous technical terms and references to other products as examples. The team agrees on certain design aspects and makes plans to meet various goals related to the remote control's design and function. Toward the end of the meeting, the team members prepare for their individual tasks, anticipating further instructions via email and concluding with an intention to continue working collaboratively on the project." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad B: what things to talk about . +Grad F: I 'm {disfmarker} What ? Really ? Oh , that 's horrible ! Disincentive ! +Grad A: OK , we 're recording . +Grad F: Hello ? +Grad B: Check check {pause} check check . +Grad D: Uh , yeah . +Grad F: Hello ? Which am I ? +Professor C: Oh right . +Grad B: Alright . Good . +Grad F: Channel fi OK . OK . Are you doing something ? OK , then I guess I 'm doing something . So , um , So basically the result of m much thinking since the last time we met , um , but not as much writing , um , is a sheet that I have a lot of , like , thoughts and justification of comments on but I 'll just pass out as is right now . So , um , here . If you could pass this around ? And there 's two things . And so one on one side is {disfmarker} on one side is a sort of the revised sort of updated semantic specification . +Grad D: Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} wait . +Grad F: And the other side is , um , sort of a revised construction formalism . +Grad E: This is just one sheet , right ? +Grad D: Ah ! Just one sheet . +Grad F: It 's just one sheet . +Grad D: OK . +Grad F: It 's just a {disfmarker} Nothing else . +Grad D: Front , back . +Grad F: Um , Enough to go around ? OK . And in some ways it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's very similar to {disfmarker} There are very few changes in some ways from what we 've , um , uh , b done before but I don't think everyone here has seen all of this . So , uh , I 'm not sure where to begin . Um , as usual the disclaimers are there are {disfmarker} all these things are {disfmarker} it 's only slightly more stable than it was before . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And , um , after a little bit more discussion and especially like Keith and I {disfmarker} I have more linguistic things to settle in the next few days , um , it 'll probably change again some more . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , maybe I will {disfmarker} let 's start b let 's start on number two actually on the notation , um , because that 's , I 'm thinking , possibly a little more familiar to , um {disfmarker} to people . OK , so the top block is just sort of a {disfmarker} sort of abstract nota it 's sort of like , um , listings of the kinds of things that we can have . And certain things that have , um , changed , have changed back to this . There {disfmarker} there 's been a little bit of , um , going back and forth . But basically obviously all constructions have some kind of name . I forgot to include that you could have a type included in this line . +Professor C: What I was gonna {disfmarker} Right . +Grad F: So something like , um {disfmarker} Well , there 's an example {disfmarker} the textual example at the end has clausal construction . So , um , just to show it doesn't have to be beautiful It could be , you know , simple old text as well . Um , there are a couple of {disfmarker} Uh , these three have various ways of doing certain things . So I 'll just try to go through them . So they could all have a type at the beginning . Um , and then they say the key word construction +Professor C: Oh , I see . +Grad F: and they have some name . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so the current syntax is if it s if there 's a type it 's before construct +Grad F: Yeah , right . +Professor C: OK , that 's fine . +Grad F: OK , and then it has a block that is constituents . And as usual I guess all the constructions her all the examples here have only , um , tsk {comment} one type of constituent , that is a constructional constituent . I think that 's actually gonna turn out to m be certainly the most common kind . But in general instead of the word "" construct "" , th here you might have "" meaning "" or "" form "" as well . OK ? So if there 's some element that doesn't {disfmarker} that isn't yet constructional in the sense that it maps form and meaning . OK , um , the main change with the constructs which {disfmarker} each of which has , um , the key word "" construct "" and then some name , and then some type specification , is that it 's {disfmarker} it 's pro it 's often {disfmarker} sometimes the case in the first case here that you know what kind of construction it is . So for example whatever I have here is gonna be a form of the word "" throw "" , or it 's gonna be a form of the word , you know , I don't know , "" happy "" , or something like that . Or , you know , some it 'll be a specific word or maybe you 'll have the type . You 'll say "" I need a p uh spatial relation phrase here "" or "" I need a directional specifier here "" . So - uh you could have a j a actual type here . Um , or you could just say in the second case that you only know the meaning type . So a very common example of this is that , you know , in directed motion , the first person to do something should be an agent of some kind , often a human . Right ? So if I {disfmarker} you know , the um , uh , run down the street then I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I run down the street , it 's typed , uh , "" I "" , meaning category is what 's there . The {disfmarker} the new kind is this one that is sort of a pair and , um , sort of skipping fonts and whatever . The idea is that sometimes there are , um , general constructions that you know , that you 're going to need . It 's {disfmarker} it 's the equivalent of a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase , or something like that there . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And usually it has formal um , considerations that will go along with it . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then uh , you might know something much more specific depending on what construction you 're talking about , about what meaning {disfmarker} what specific meaning you want . So the example again at the bottom , which is directed motion , you might need a nominal expression to take the place of , you know , um , "" the big th "" , you you know , "" the big {disfmarker} the tall dark man "" , you know , "" walked into the room "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: But because of the nature of this particular construction you know not just that it 's nominal of some kind but in particular , that it 's some kind of animate nominal , and which will apply just as well to like , you know , a per you know , a simple proper noun or to some complicated expression . Um , so I don't know if the syntax will hold but something that gives you a way to do both constructional and meaning types . So . OK , then I don't think the , {comment} um {disfmarker} at least {disfmarker} Yeah . {comment} None of these examples have anything different for formal constraints ? But you can refer to any of the , um , sort of available elements and scope , right ? which here are the constructs , {comment} to say something about the relation . And I think i if you not if you compare like the top block and the textual block , um , we dropped like the little F subscript . The F subscripts refer to the "" form "" piece of the construct . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And I think that , um , in general it 'll be unambiguous . Like if you were giving a formal constraint then you 're referring to the formal pole of that . So {disfmarker} so by saying {disfmarker} if I just said "" Name one "" then that means name one formal and we 're talking about formal struc {comment} Which {disfmarker} which makes sense . Uh , there are certain times when we 'll have an exception to that , in which case you could just indicate "" here I mean the meaningful for some reason "" . Right ? Or {disfmarker} Actually it 's more often that , only to handle this one special case of , you know , "" George and Jerry walk into the room in that order "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So we have a few funny things where something in the meaning might refer to something in the form . But {disfmarker} but s we 're not gonna really worry about that for right now and there are way We can be more specific if we have to later on . OK , and so in terms of the {disfmarker} the relations , you know , as usual they 're before and ends . I should have put an example in of something that isn't an interval relation but in form you might also have a value binding . You know , you could say that , um , you know , "" name - one dot "" , t you know , "" number equals "" , you know , a plural or something like that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are certain things that are attribute - value , similar to the bindings below but I mean they 're just {disfmarker} us usually they 're going to be value {disfmarker} value fillers , right ? OK , and then again semantic constraints here are just {disfmarker} are just bindings . There was talk of changing the name of that . And Johno and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you and I can like fight about that if you like ? but about changing it to "" semantic {pause} n effects "" , which I thought was a little bit too order - biased +Grad B: Well {disfmarker} Th +Grad F: and "" semantic bindings "" , which I thought might be too restrictive in case we don't have only bindings . And so it was an issue whether constraints {disfmarker} um , there were some linguists who reacted against "" constraints "" , saying , "" oh , if it 's not used for matching , then it shouldn't be called a constraint "" . But I think we want to be uncommitted about whether it 's used for matching or not . Right ? Cuz there are {disfmarker} I think we thought of some situations where it would be useful to use whatever the c bindings are , for actual , you know , sort of like modified constraining purposes . +Professor C: Well , you definitely want to de - couple the formalism from the parsing strategy . So that whether or not it 's used for matching or only for verification , I {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . It 's used shouldn't matter , right ? Mm - hmm . +Professor C: s For sure . I mean , I don't know what , uh , term we want to use +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but we don't want to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah , uh , there was one time when {disfmarker} when Hans explained why "" constraints "" was a misleading word for him . +Professor C: Yep . +Grad F: And I think the reason that he gave was similar to the reason why Johno thought it was a misleading term , which was just an interesting coincidence . Um , but , uh {disfmarker} And so I was like , "" OK , well both of you don't like it ? +Professor C: It 's g it 's gone . +Grad F: Fine , we can change it "" . But I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm starting to like it again . +Grad B: But {disfmarker} +Grad F: So that that 's why {disfmarker} {comment} That 's why I 'll stick with it . +Grad A: Well , you know what ? +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you have an "" if - then "" phrase , do you know what the "" then "" phrase is called ? +Professor C: Th +Grad F: What ? Con - uh , a consequent ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , but it 's not an "" if - then "" . +Grad A: No , but {disfmarker} +Professor C: I know . Anyway , so the other {disfmarker} the other strategy you guys could consider is when you don't know what word to put , you could put no word , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: just meaning . OK ? And the then let {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . +Grad B: So that 's why you put semantic constraints up top and meaning bindings down {disfmarker} down here ? +Grad F: Oh , oops ! No . That was just a mistake of cut and paste from when I was going with it . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: So , I 'm sorry . I didn't mean {disfmarker} that one 's an in unintentional . +Grad B: So this should be semantic and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sometimes I 'm intentionally inconsistent +Grad B: +Grad F: cuz I 'm not sure yet . Here , I actually {disfmarker} it was just a mistake . +Grad B: Th - so this definitely should be "" semantic constraints "" down at the bottom ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad B: OK . +Grad F: Well , unless I go with "" meaning "" but i I mean , I kind of like "" meaning "" better than "" semantic "" +Grad B: Or {disfmarker} +Professor C: Oh , whatever . +Grad F: but I think there 's {pause} vestiges of other people 's biases . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} wh That - b +Grad F: Like {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . Minor {disfmarker} min problem {disfmarker} +Grad F: Minor point . +Professor C: OK . +Grad E: Extremely . +Grad F: OK , um , so I think the middle block doesn't really give you any more information , ex than the top block . And the bottom block similarly only just illus you know , all it does is illustrate that you can drop the subscripts and {disfmarker} and that you can drop the , um {disfmarker} uh , that you can give dual types . Oh , one thing I should mention is about "" designates "" . I think I 'm actually inconsistent across these as well . So , um , strike out the M subscript on the middle block . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So basically now , um , this is actually {disfmarker} this little change actually goes along with a big linguistic change , which is that "" designates "" isn't only something for the semantics to worry about now . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So we want s "" designates "" to actually know one of the constituents which acts like a head in some respects but is sort of , um , really important for say composition later on . So for instance , if some other construction says , you know , "" are you of type {disfmarker} is this part of type whatever "" , um , the "" designates "" tells you which sort of part is the meaning part . OK , so if you have like "" the big red ball "" , you know , you wanna know if there 's an object or a noun . Well , ball is going to be the designated sort of element of that kind of phrase . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Um , there is a slight complication here which is that when we talk about form it 's useful sometimes to talk about , um {disfmarker} to talk about there also being a designated object and we think that that 'll be the same one , right ? So the ball is the head of the phrase , "" the r the {disfmarker} "" , um , "" big red ball "" , and the entity denoted by the word "" ball "" is sort of the semantic head in some ways of {disfmarker} of this sort of , um , in interesting larger element . +Professor C: A a and the {disfmarker} Yeah . And there 's {disfmarker} uh there 's ca some cases where the grammar depends on some form property of the head . And {disfmarker} and this enables you to get that , if I understand you right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad E: That 's the idea . +Professor C: Yeah yeah . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , uh , you might be able to say things like if the head has to go last in a head - final language , you can refer to the head as a p the , you know {disfmarker} the formal head as opposed to the rest of the form having to be at the end of that decision . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So that 's a useful thing so that you can get some internal structural constraints in . +Professor C: OK , so that all looks good . Let me {disfmarker} Oh , w Oh . I don't know . Were you finished ? +Grad F: Um , there was a list of things that isn't included but you {disfmarker} you can {disfmarker} you can ask a question . That might @ @ it . +Professor C: OK . So , i if I understand this the {disfmarker} aside from , uh , construed and all that sort of stuff , the {disfmarker} the differences are mainly that , {vocalsound} we 've gone to the possibility of having form - meaning pairs for a type +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: or actually gone back to , +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: if we go back far enough {disfmarker} +Grad F: Well , except for their construction meaning , so it 's not clear that , uh {disfmarker} Well , right now it 's a c uh contr construction type and meaning type . So I don't know what a form type is . +Professor C: Oh , I see . Yeah , yeah , yeah . I 'm sorry , you 're right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: A construction type . Uh , that 's fine . But it , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Right . A well , and a previous , um , you know , version of the notation certainly allowed you to single out the meaning bit by it . So you could say "" construct of type whatever designates something "" . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: But that was mostly for reference purposes , just to refer to the meaning pole . I don't think that it was often used to give an extra meaning const type constraint on the meaning , which is really what we want most of the time I think . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I {disfmarker} I don't know if we 'll ever have a case where we actually h if there is a form category constraint , you could imagine having a triple there that says , you know {disfmarker} that 's kind of weird . +Professor C: No , no , no , I don't think so . I think that you 'll {disfmarker} you 'll do fine . +Grad E: I {disfmarker} +Professor C: In fact , these are , um , as long as {disfmarker} as Mark isn't around , these are form constraints . So a nominal expression is {disfmarker} uh , the fact that it 's animate , is semantic . The fact that it 's n uh , a nominal expression I would say on most people 's notion of {disfmarker} of f you know , higher form types , this i this is one . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: And I think that 's just fine . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Which is fine , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: It 's {disfmarker} that now , um , I 'm mentioned this , I {disfmarker} I don't know if I ever explained this but the point of , um , I mentioned in the last meeting , {comment} the point of having something called "" nominal expression "" is , um , because it seems like having the verb subcategorize for , you know , like say taking as its object just some expression which , um , designates an object or designates a thing , or whatever , um , that leads to some syntactic problems basically ? So you wanna , you know {disfmarker} you sort of have this problem like "" OK , well , I 'll put the word "" , uh , let 's say , the word "" dog "" , you know . And that has to come right after the verb +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: cuz we know verb meets its object . And then we have a construction that says , oh , you can have "" the "" preceding a noun . And so you 'd have this sort of problem that the verb has to meet the designatum . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And you could get , you know , "" the kicked dog "" or something like that , meaning "" kicked the dog "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , so you kind of have to let this phrase idea in there +Professor C: That I {disfmarker} I have no problem with it at all . +Grad E: but {disfmarker} It - it +Professor C: I think it 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . Right , n s you may be {disfmarker} you may not be like everyone else in {disfmarker} in Berkeley , +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad F: but that 's OK . +Grad E: I mean , we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sort of thought we were getting away with , uh {disfmarker} with , a p +Grad F: Uh , we don't mind either , so {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean , this is not reverting to the X - bar theory of {disfmarker} of phrase structure . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: But , uh , +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: I just know that this is {disfmarker} Like , we didn't originally have in mind that , uh {disfmarker} that verbs would subcategorize for a particular sort of form . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: But they do . +Grad E: Um , but they does . +Grad F: Well , there 's an alternative to this +Grad E: At least in English . +Grad F: which is , um {disfmarker} The question was did we want directed motion , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: which is an argument structure construction {disfmarker} +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: did we want it to worry about , um , anything more than the fact that it , you know , has semantic {disfmarker} You know , it 's sort of frame - based construction . So one option that , you know , Keith had mentioned also was like , well if you have more abstract constructions such as subject , predicate , basically things like grammatical relations , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: those could intersect with these in such a way that subject , predicate , or subject , predicate , subject , verb , ob you know , verb object would require that those things that f fill a subject and object are NOM expressions . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And that would be a little bit cleaner in some way . But you know , for now , I mean , +Professor C: Yeah . But it {disfmarker} y y it 's {disfmarker} yeah , just moving it {disfmarker} moving the c the cons the constraints around . +Grad F: uh , you know . M moving it to another place , right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , so that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: But there does {disfmarker} basically , the point is there has to be that constraint somewhere , right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , yeah . +Professor C: And so that was the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Robert 's not happy now ? +Grad A: No ! +Grad F: Oh , OK . +Professor C: OK , and sort of going with that is that the designatum also now is a pair . +Grad F: Yes . +Professor C: Instead of just the meaning . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that aside from some terminology , that 's basically it . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: I just want to b I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm asking . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , um , the un sort of the un - addressed questions in this , um , definitely would for instance be semantic constraints we talked about . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Here are just bindings but , right ? we might want to introduce mental spaces {disfmarker} You know , there 's all these things that we don't {disfmarker} +Professor C: The whole {disfmarker} the mental space thing is clearly not here . +Grad F: Right ? So there 's going to be some extra {disfmarker} you know , definitely other notation we 'll need for that which we skip for now . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: By the way , I do want to get on that as soon as Robert gets back . +Grad F: Uh Yeah . +Professor C: So , uh , the {disfmarker} the mental space thing . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Um , obviously , {vocalsound} construal is a b is a b is a big component of that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: so this probably not worth trying to do anything till he gets back . But sort of as soon as he gets back I think um , we ought to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So what 's the {disfmarker} what 's the time frame ? I forgot again when you 're going away for how long ? +Grad A: Just , uh , as a {disfmarker} sort of a mental bridge , I 'm not {disfmarker} I 'm skipping fourth of July . So , uh , {vocalsound} right afterwards I 'm back . +Grad E: OK . OK . +Grad F: What ? You 're missing like the premier American holiday ? What 's the point of spending a year here ? +Grad A: Uh , I 've had it often enough . +Grad F: So , anyway . +Grad B: Well he w he went to college here . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , I forgot . Oops . {comment} Sorry . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: And furthermore it 's well worth missing . +Grad F: Not in California . +Grad E: Yes . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's true . I like {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I like spending fourth of July in other countries , {vocalsound} whenever I can . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Um {disfmarker} +Professor C: OK , so that 's great . +Grad F: Construal , OK , so {disfmarker} Oh , so there was one question that came out . I hate this thing . Sorry . Um , which is , so something like "" past "" which i you know , we think is a very simple {disfmarker} uh , we 've often just stuck it in as a feature , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: you know , "" oh , {pause} this event takes place before speech time "" , {comment} OK , is what this means . Um , it 's often thought of as {disfmarker} it is also considered a mental space , +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: you know , by , you know , lots of people around here . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So there 's this issue of well sometimes there are really exotic explicit space builders that say "" in France , blah - blah - blah "" , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and you have to build up {disfmarker} you ha you would imagine that would require you , you know , to be very specific about the machinery , whereas past is a very conventionalized one and we sort of know what it means but it {disfmarker} we doesn't {disfmarker} don't necessarily want to , you know , unload all the notation every time we see that it 's past tense . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , you know , we could think of our {disfmarker} uh , just like X - schema "" walk "" refers to this complicated structure , past refers to , you know , a certain configuration of this thing with respect to it . +Professor C: I think that 's exactly right . +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so we 're kind of like having our cake and eating it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , having it both ways , right ? +Professor C: Yeah . {pause} No , I think {disfmarker} I think that i we 'll have to see how it works out when we do the details +Grad F: So , i i Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but my intuition would be that that 's right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah , OK . +Grad A: Do you want to do the same for space ? +Grad F: Wha - sorry ? +Grad A: Space ? +Grad F: Space ? +Grad A: Here ? Now ? +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , oh , instead of just time ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Same thing . So there are very conventionalized like deictic ones , right ? And then I think for other spaces that you introduce , you could just attach y whatever {disfmarker} +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: You could build up an appropriately {disfmarker} uh , appropriate structure according to the l the sentence . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad A: Hmm , well this {disfmarker} this basically would involve everything you can imagine to fit under your C dot something {disfmarker} +Grad E: N +Grad A: you know , where {disfmarker} where it 's contextually dependent , +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: "" what is now , what was past , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: what is in the future , where is this , what is here , what is there , what is {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Yeah . So time and space . Um , we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll get that on the other side a little , like very minimally . There 's a sort of there 's a slot for setting time and setting place . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: And you know , you could imagine for both of those are absolute things you could say about the time and place , and then there are many in more interestingly , linguistically anyway , {comment} there are relative things that , you know , you relate the event in time and space to where you are now . If there 's something a lot more complicated like , or so {disfmarker} hypothetical or whatever , then you have to do your job , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like or somebody 's job anyway . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I 'm gonna point to {disfmarker} at random . +Grad E: Yeah . I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm s curious about how much of the mental {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm not sure that the formalism , sort of the grammatical side of things , {comment} is gonna have that much going on in terms of the mental space stuff . You know , um , basically all of these so - called space builders that are in the sentence are going to sort of {disfmarker} I think of it as , sort of giving you the coordinates of , you know {disfmarker} assuming that at any point in discourse there 's the possibility that we could be sort of talking about a bunch of different world scenarios , whatever , and the speaker 's supposed to be keeping track of those . The , um {disfmarker} the construction that you actually get is just gonna sort of give you a cue as to which one of those that you 've already got going , um , you 're supposed to add structure to . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: So "" in France , uh , Watergate wouldn't have hurt Nixon "" or something like that . Um , well , you say , "" alright , I 'm supposed to add some structure to my model of this hypothetical past France universe "" or something like that . The information in the sentence tells you that much but it doesn't tell you like exactly what it {disfmarker} what the point of doing so is . So for example , depending on the linguistic con uh , context it could be {disfmarker} like the question is for example , what does "" Watergate "" refer to there ? Does it , you know {disfmarker} does it refer to , um {disfmarker} if you just hear that sentence cold , the assumption is that when you say "" Watergate "" you 're referring to "" a Watergate - like scandal as we might imagine it happening in France "" . But in a different context , "" oh , you know , if Nixon had apologized right away it wouldn't {disfmarker} you know , Watergate wouldn't have hurt him so badly in the US and in France it wouldn't have hurt him at all "" . Now we 're s now that "" Watergate "" {disfmarker} we 're now talking about the real one , +Grad F: They 're real , right . +Grad E: and the "" would "" sort of {disfmarker} it 's a sort of different dimension of hypothe - theticality , right ? We 're not saying {disfmarker} What 's hypothetical about this world . +Grad F: I see {disfmarker} right . +Grad E: In the first case , hypothetically we 're imagining that Watergate happened in France . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad E: In the second case we 're imagining hypothetically that Nixon had apologized right away +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or something . Right ? +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: So a lot of this isn't happening at the grammatical level . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: Uh , um , and so {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I don't know where that sits then , +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad E: sort of the idea of sorting out what the person meant . +Grad F: It seems like , um , the grammatical things such as the auxiliaries that you know introduce these conditionals , whatever , give you sort of the {disfmarker} the most basi +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: th those we {disfmarker} I think we can figure out what the possibilities are , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There are sort of a relatively limited number . And then how they interact with some extra thing like "" in France "" or "" if such - and - such "" , that 's like there are certain ways that they c they can {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , one is a more specific version of the general pattern that the grammat grammar gives you . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think . But , you know , whatever , +Professor C: Yeah , in the short run all we need is a enough mechanism on the form side to get things going . +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we 're {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , I {disfmarker} uh , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Grad E: But the whole point of {disfmarker} the whole point of what Fauconnier and Turner have to say about , uh , mental spaces , and blending , and all that stuff is that you don't really get that much out of the sentence . You know , there 's not that much information contained in the sentence . It just says , "" Here . Add this structure to this space . "" and exactly what that means for the overall ongoing interpretation is quite open . An individual sentence could mean a hundred different things depending on , quote , "" what the space configuration is at the time of utterance "" . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so somebody 's gonna have to be doing a whole lot of work but not me , I think . +Professor C: Well {disfmarker} I think that 's right . Oh , I {disfmarker} yeah , I , uh , uh {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} Not k I th I don't think it 's completely right . I mean , in fact a sentence examples you gave in f did constrain the meaning b the form did constrain the meaning , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: and so , um , it isn't , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Sure , but like what {disfmarker} what was the point of saying that sentence about Nixon and France ? That is not {disfmarker} there is nothing about that in the {disfmarker} in the sentence really . +Grad F: That 's OK . We usually don't know the point of the sentence at all . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But we know what it 's trying to say . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Y yeah . +Grad F: We {disfmarker} we know that it 's {disfmarker} what predication it 's setting up . +Professor C: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} bottom line , I agree with you , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: That 's all . +Professor C: that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that we 're not expecting much out of the , uh f +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Purely linguistic cues , right ? +Professor C: uh , the purely form cues , yeah . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: And , um {disfmarker} I mean , you 're {disfmarker} you 're the linguist +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: but , uh , it seems to me that th these {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know , we 've talked about maybe a half a dozen linguistics theses in the last few minutes or something . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . Oh , yeah . +Professor C: uh , I {disfmarker} I mean , that {disfmarker} that 's my feeling that {disfmarker} that these are really hard uh , problems that decide exactly what {disfmarker} what 's going on . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . Yeah . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: OK , so , um , one other thing I just want to point out is there 's a lot of confusion about the terms like "" profile , designate , focus "" , et cetera , et cetera . +Professor C: Uh , right , right , right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , for now I 'm gonna say like "" profile "" 's often used {disfmarker} like two uses that come to mind immediately . One is in the traditional like semantic highlight of one element with respect to everything else . So "" hypotenuse "" , you profiled this guy against the background of the {pause} right t right triangle . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK . And the second use , um , is in FrameNet. It 's slightly different . Oh , I was asking Hans about this . They use it to really mean , um , this {disfmarker} in a frame th this is {disfmarker} the profiles on the {disfmarker} these are the ones that are required . So they have to be there or expressed in some way . Which {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} I 'm not saying one and two are mutually exclusive but they 're {disfmarker} they 're different meanings . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So the closest thing {disfmarker} so I was thinking about how it relates to this notation . For us , um {disfmarker} OK , so how is it {disfmarker} +Professor C: Does that {disfmarker} Is that really what they mean in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} +Grad F: so "" designate "" {disfmarker} FrameNet ? +Professor C: I didn't know that . +Grad F: FrameNet ? Yeah , yeah . I {disfmarker} I mean , I {disfmarker} I was a little bit surprised about it too . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: I knew that {disfmarker} I thought that that would be something like {disfmarker} there 's another term that I 've heard for that thing +Professor C: Right , OK . +Grad F: but they {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} uh , well , at least Hans says they use it that way . And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , I 'll check . +Grad F: and may maybe he 's wrong . Anyway , so I think the {disfmarker} the "" designate "" that we have in terms of meaning is really the "" highlight this thing with respect to everything else "" . OK ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So this is what {disfmarker} what it means . But the second one seems to be useful but we might not need a notation for it ? We don't have a notation for it but we might want one . So for example we 've talked about if you 're talking about the lexical item "" walk "" , you know it 's an action . Well , it also has this idea {disfmarker} it carries along with it the idea of an actor or somebody 's gonna do the walking . Or if you talk about an adjective "" red "" , it carries along the idea of the thing that has the property of having color red . So we used to use the notation "" with "" for this +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that 's closest to their second one . So I d don't yet know , I have no commitment , as to whether we need it . It might be {disfmarker} it 's the kind of thing that w a parser might want to think about whether we require {disfmarker} you know , these things are like it 's semantically part of it {disfmarker} +Professor C: N no , no . Well , uh , th critically they 're not required syntactically . Often they 're pres presu presupposed and all that sort of stuff . +Grad F: Right . Right , right . Yeah , um , definitely . So , um , "" in "" was a good example . If you walk "" in "" , like well , in what ? +Professor C: Right , there 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: You know , like you have to have the {disfmarker} {comment} So {disfmarker} so it 's only semantically is it {disfmarker} it is still required , say , by simulation time though +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: to have something . So it 's that {disfmarker} I meant the idea of like that {disfmarker} the semantic value is filled in by sim simulation . I don't know if that 's something we need to spa to {disfmarker} to like say ever as part of the requirement ? {disfmarker} or the construction ? or not . We 'll {disfmarker} we 'll again defer . +Professor C: Or {disfmarker} I mean , or {disfmarker} or , uh so the {disfmarker} +Grad F: Have it construed , +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: is that the idea ? Just point at Robert . Whenever I 'm confused just point to him . +Professor C: Right . It 's {disfmarker} it 's his thesis , right ? +Grad F: You tell me . +Professor C: Anyway , +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: right , yeah , w this is gonna be a b you 're right , this is a bit of in a mess and we still have emphasis as well , or stress , or whatever . +Grad F: OK , well we 'll get , uh uh , I {disfmarker} we have thoughts about those as well . +Professor C: Yeah . Great . +Grad F: Um , the I w I would just s some of this is just like my {disfmarker} you know , by fiat . I 'm going to say , this is how we use these terms . I don't - you know , there 's lots of different ways in the world that people use it . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} that 's fine . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that , um , the other terms that are related are like focus and stress . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So , s I think that the way I {disfmarker} we would like to think , uh , I think is focus is something that comes up in , I mean , lots of {disfmarker} basically this is the information structure . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: OK , it 's like {disfmarker} uh , it 's not {disfmarker} it might be that there 's a syntactic , uh , device that you use to indicate focus or that there are things like , you know , I think Keith was telling me , {comment} things toward the end of the sentence , post - verbal , tend to be the focused {disfmarker} focused element , +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: the new information . You know , if I {disfmarker} "" I walked into the room "" , you {disfmarker} tend to think that , whatever , "" into the room "" is sort of like the more focused kind of thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: And when you , uh , uh , you have stress on something that might be , you know , a cue that the stressed element , or for instance , the negated element is kind of related to information structure . So that 's like the new {disfmarker} the sort of like import or whatever of {disfmarker} of this thing . Uh , so {disfmarker} so I think that 's kind of nice to keep "" focus "" being an information structure term . "" Stress "" {disfmarker} I th and then there are different kinds of focus that you can bring to it . So , um , like "" stress "" , th stress is kind of a pun on {disfmarker} you might have like {disfmarker} whatever , like , um , accent kind of stress . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And that 's just a {disfmarker} uh , w we 'll want to distinguish stress as a form device . You know , like , oh , high volume or whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , t uh , and distinguish that from it 's effect which is , "" Oh , the kind of focus we have is we 're emphasizing this value often as opposed to other values "" , right ? So focus carries along a scope . Like if you 're gonna focus on this thing and you wanna know {disfmarker} it sort of evokes all the other possibilities that it wasn't . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , so my classic {disfmarker} my now - classic example of saying , "" Oh , he did go to the meeting ? "" , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: that was my way of saying {disfmarker} as opposed to , you know , "" Oh , he didn't g "" or "" There was a meeting ? "" +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I think that was the example that was caught on by the linguists immediately . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And so , um , the {disfmarker} like if you said he {disfmarker} you know , there 's all these different things that if you put stress on a different part of it then you 're , c focusing , whatever , on , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" he walked to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he ran "" , or "" he did walk to the meeting "" as opposed to "" he didn't walk "" . You know , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: so we need to have a notation for that which , um , I think that 's still in progress . So , sort of I 'm still working it out . But it did {disfmarker} one {disfmarker} one implication it does f have for the other side , which we 'll get to in a minute is that I couldn't think of a good way to say "" here are the possible things that you could focus on "" , cuz it seems like any entity in any sentence , you know , or any meaning component of anyth you know {disfmarker} all the possible meanings you could have , any of them could be the subject of focus . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: But I think one {disfmarker} the one thing you can schematize is the kind of focus , right ? So for instance , you could say it 's the {disfmarker} the tense on this as opposed to , um , the {disfmarker} the action . OK . Or it 's {disfmarker} uh , it 's an identity thing or a contrast with other things , or stress this value as opposed to other things . So , um , it 's {disfmarker} it is kind of like a profile {disfmarker} profile - background thing but I {disfmarker} I can't think of like the limited set of possible meanings that you would {disfmarker} that you would focu +Grad E: Light up with focus , yeah . +Grad F: light {disfmarker} highlight as opposed to other ones . So it has some certain complications for the , uh , uh {disfmarker} later on . Li - I mean , uh , the best thing I can come up with is that information has a list of focused elements . For instance , you {disfmarker} Oh , one other type that I forgot to mention is like query elements and that 's probably relevant for the like "" where is "" , you know , "" the castle "" kind of thing ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Because you might want to say that , um , location or cert certain WH words bring {disfmarker} you know , sort of automatically focus in a , you know , "" I don't know the identity of this thing "" kind of way on certain elements . So . OK . Anyway . So that 's onl there are {disfmarker} there are many more things that are uncl that are sort of like a little bit unstable about the notation but it 's most {disfmarker} I think it 's {disfmarker} this is , you know , the current {disfmarker} current form . Other things we didn't {vocalsound} totally deal with , um , +Grad E: Oh , there 's a bunch . +Grad F: well , we 've had a lot of other stuff that Keith and I have them working on in terms of like how you deal with like an adjective . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: You know , a {disfmarker} a nominal expression . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: And , um , I mean , we should have put an example of this and we could do that later . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: But I think the not inherently like the general principles still work though , that , um , we can have constructions that have sort of constituent structure in that there is like , you know , for instance , one {disfmarker} Uh , you know , they {disfmarker} they have constituents , right ? So you can like nest things when you need to , but they can also overlap in a sort of flatter way . So if you don't have like a lot of grammar experience , then like this {disfmarker} this might , you know , be a little o opaque . But , you know , we have the {pause} properties of dependency grammars and some properties of constituents {disfmarker} constituent - based grammar . So that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's sort of the main thing we wanted to aim for +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and so far it 's worked out OK . +Professor C: Good . +Grad F: So . OK . +Grad A: I can say two things about the f +Grad F: Yes . +Grad A: Maybe you want to forget stress . This {disfmarker} my f +Grad F: As a word ? +Grad A: No , as {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} Just don't {disfmarker} don't think about it . +Grad F: As a {disfmarker} What 's that ? +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Grad F: Sorry . +Grad A: canonically speaking you can {disfmarker} if you look at a {disfmarker} a curve over sentence , you can find out where a certain stress is and say , "" hey , that 's my focus exponent . "" +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It doesn't tell you anything what the focus is . If it 's just that thing , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Or the constituent that it falls in . +Grad A: a little bit more or the whole phrase . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} +Grad F: You mean t forget about stress , the form cue ? +Grad A: The form bit +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: because , uh , as a form cue , um , not even trained experts can always {disfmarker} well , they can tell you where the focus exponent is sometimes . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: And that 's also mostly true for read speech . In {disfmarker} in real speech , um , people may put stress . It 's so d context dependent on what was there before , phrase ba breaks , um , restarts . +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's just , um {disfmarker} it 's absurd . It 's complicated . +Grad F: OK , +Grad A: And all {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , I mean , I {disfmarker} I 'm sort of inclined to say let 's worry about specifying the information structure focus of the sentence +Grad F: I believe you , yeah . +Grad E: and then , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Ways that you can get it come from th +Grad E: hhh , {comment} the phonology component can handle actually assigning an intonation contour to that . +Grad F: right . +Grad E: You know , I mean , later on we 'll worry about exactly how {disfmarker} +Grad A: Or {disfmarker} or map from the contour to {disfmarker} to what the focus exponent is . +Grad E: y Yeah . Exactly . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: But figure out how the {disfmarker} +Grad A: But , uh , if you don't know what you 're {disfmarker} what you 're focus is then you 're {disfmarker} you 're hopeless - uh - ly lost anyways , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . That 's fine , yeah . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and the only way of figuring out what that is , {vocalsound} is , um , by sort of generating all the possible alternatives to each focused element , decide which one in that context makes sense and which one doesn't . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And then you 're left with a couple three . So , you know , again , that 's something that h humans can do , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: um , but far outside the scope of {disfmarker} of any {disfmarker} anything . So . You know . It 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: OK . Well , uh , yeah , I wouldn't have assumed that it 's an easy problem in {disfmarker} in absence of all the oth +Grad A: u u +Grad F: you need all the other information I guess . +Grad A: But it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} what it {disfmarker} uh , it 's pretty easy to put it in the formalism , though . I mean , because +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: you can just say whatever stuff , "" i is the container being focused or the {disfmarker} the entire whatever , both , and so forth . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm , mm - hmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . Exactly . So the sort of effect of it is something we want to be able to capture . +Professor C: Yeah , so b b but I think the poi I 'm not sure I understand but here 's what I th think is going on . That if we do the constructions right when a particular construction matches , it {disfmarker} the fact that it matches , does in fact specify the focus . +Grad F: W uh , I 'm not sure about that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Or it might limit {disfmarker} it cert certainly constrains the possibilities of focus . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} k uh , at at the very least it constrai +Grad F: I think that 's {disfmarker} that 's , th that 's certainly true . And depending on the construction it may or may not f specify the focus , right ? +Professor C: Oh , uh , for sure , yes . There are constrai yeah , it 's not every {disfmarker} but there are constructions , uh , where you t explicitly take into account those considerations +Grad F: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: that you need to take into account in order to decide which {disfmarker} what is being focused . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . So we talked about that a little bit this morning . "" John is on the bus , not Nancy . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: So that 's {disfmarker} focuses on John . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus and not on the train . "" +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: "" John is on the bus "" versus "" John is on the train . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: And "" John is on the bus "" versus "" was "" , and e +Grad F: Is on . "" John is on the bus "" . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: "" it 's the bu "" so e +Professor C: Right . Yeah , all {disfmarker} all of those . +Grad A: All of these +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . +Grad A: and will we have {disfmarker} u is it all the same constructions ? Just with a different foc focus constituent ? +Grad F: Yeah , I would say that argument structure in terms of like the main like sort of , +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: I don't know {disfmarker} the fact that you can get it without any stress and you have some {disfmarker} whatever is predicated anyway should be the same set of constructions . So that 's why I was talking about overlapping constructions . So , then you have a separate thing that picks out , you know , stress on something relative to everything else . +Professor C: Yeah . So , the question is actually {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: oh , I 'm sorry , +Grad F: And it would {disfmarker} +Professor C: go ahead , +Grad F: yeah , +Professor C: finish . +Grad F: and it w and that would have to {disfmarker} uh it might be ambiguous as , uh , whether it picks up that element , or the phrase , or something like that . But it 's still is limited possibility . +Grad A: Hmm . +Grad F: So that should , you know , interact with {disfmarker} it should overlap with whatever other construction is there . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: S s the question is , do we have a way on the other page , uh , when we get to the s semantic side , of saying what the stressed element was , or stressed phrase , or something . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Well , so that 's why I was saying how {disfmarker} since I couldn't think of an easy like limited way of doing it , um , all I can say is that information structure has a focused slot +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: and I think that should be able to refer to {disfmarker} +Professor C: So that 's down at the bottom here when we get over there . OK . +Grad F: Yeah , and , infer {disfmarker} and I don't have {disfmarker} I don't have a great way or great examples +Professor C: I 'll - I 'll wait . OK . +Grad F: but I think that {disfmarker} something like that is probably gonna be , uh , more {disfmarker} more what we have to do . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: But , um , +Grad A: So +Grad F: OK , that was one comment . And you had another one ? +Grad A: Yeah , well the {disfmarker} once you know what the focus is the {disfmarker} everything else is background . How about "" topic - comment "" that 's the other side of information . +Grad F: How about what ? +Grad A: Topic - comment . +Grad F: Yeah , so that was the other thing . And so I didn't realize it before . It 's like , "" oh ! "" It was an epiphany that it {disfmarker} you know , topic and focus are a contrast set . So topic is {disfmarker} Topic - focused seems to me like , um , background profile , OK , or a landmark trajector , or some something like that . There 's {disfmarker} there 's definitely , um , that kind of thing going on . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad F: Now I don't know whether {disfmarker} I n I don't have as many great examples of like topic - indicating constructions on like focus , right ? Um , topic {disfmarker} it seems kind of {disfmarker} you know , I think that might be an ongoing kind of thing . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Japanese has this though . You know . +Grad F: Topic marker ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , that 's what "" wa "" is , uh , just to mark which thing is the topic . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: It doesn't always have to be the subject . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Right . So again , information structure has a topic slot . And , you know , I stuck it in thinking that we might use it . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , I think I stuck it in . +Professor C: Yep , it 's there . +Grad F: Um , and one thing that I didn't do consistently , um , is {disfmarker} when we get there , is like indicate what kind of thing fits into every role . I think I have an idea of what it should be but th you know , so far we 've been getting away with like either a type constraint or , um , you know , whatever . I forg it 'll be a frame . You know , it 'll be {disfmarker} it 'll be another predication or it 'll be , um , I don't know , some value from {disfmarker} from some something , some variable and scope or something like that , or a slot chain based on a variable and scope . OK , so well that 's {disfmarker} should we flip over to the other side officially then ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm , hmm . +Grad E: OK , side one . +Grad F: I keep , uh , like , pointing forward to it . Yeah . Now we 'll go back to s OK , so this doesn't include something which mi mi may have some effect on {disfmarker} on it , which is , um , the discourse situation context record , right ? So I didn't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I meant just like draw a line and like , you know , you also have , uh , some tracking of what was going on . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: And sort of {disfmarker} this is a big scale comment before I , you know , look into the details of this . But for instance you could imagine instead of having {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I changed the name of {disfmarker} um it used to be "" entities "" . So you see it 's "" scenario "" , "" referent "" and "" discourse segment "" . And "" scenario "" is essentially what kind of {disfmarker} what 's the basic predication , what event happened . And actually it 's just a list of various slots from which you would draw {disfmarker} draw in order to paint your picture , a bunch of frames , bi and bindings , right ? Um , and obviously there are other ones that are not included here , general cultural frames and general like , uh , other action f +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: you know , specific X - schema frames . OK , whatever . The middle thing used to be "" entities "" because you could imagine it should be like really a list where here was various information . And this is intended to be grammatically specifiable information about a referent {disfmarker} uh , you know , about some entity that you were going to talk about . So "" Harry walked into the room "" , "" Harry "" and "" room "" , you know , the room {disfmarker} th but they would be represented in this list somehow . And it could also have for instance , it has this category slot . Um , it should be either category or in or instance . Basically , it could be a pointer to ontology . So that everything you know about this could be {disfmarker} could be drawn in . But the important things for grammatical purposes are for {disfmarker} things like number , gender , um {disfmarker} ki the ones I included here are slightly arbitrary but you could imagine that , um , you need to figure out wheth if it 's a group whether , um , some event is happening , linear time , linear spaces , like , you know , are {disfmarker} are they doing something serially or is it like , um , uh I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm not sure . Because this partly came from , uh , Talmy 's schema and I 'm not sure we 'll need all of these actually . But {disfmarker} Um , and then the "" status "" I used was like , again , in some languages , you know , like for instance in child language you might distinguish between different status . So , th the {disfmarker} the big com and {disfmarker} and finally "" discourse segment "" is about {vocalsound} sort of speech - act - y information structure - y , like utterance - specific kinds of things . So the comment I was going to make about , um , changing entity {disfmarker} the entity 's block to reference is that {vocalsound} you can imagine your discourse like situation context , you have a set of entities that you 're sort of referring to . And you might {disfmarker} that might be sort of a general , I don't know , database of all the things in this discourse that you could refer to . And I changed to "" reference "" cuz I would say , for a particular utterance you have particular referring expressions in it . And those are the ones that you get information about that you stick in here . For instance , I know it 's going to be plural . I know it 's gonna be feminine or something like that . And {disfmarker} and these could actually just point to , you know , the {disfmarker} the ID in my other list of enti active entities , right ? So , um , uh , th there 's {disfmarker} there 's all this stuff about discourse status . We 've talked about . I almost listed "" discourse status "" as a slot where you could say it 's active . You know , there 's this , um , hierarchy {disfmarker} uh there 's a schematization of , you know , things can be active or they can be , um , accessible , inaccessible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It was the one that , you know , Keith , um , emailed to us once , to some of us , not all of us . And the thing is that that {disfmarker} I noticed that that , um , list was sort of discourse dependent . It was like in this particular set , s you know , instance , it has been referred to recently or it hasn't been , +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: or this is something that 's like in my world knowledge but not active . +Professor C: This {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} yeah , well there {disfmarker} there seems to be context properties . +Grad F: So . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , they 're contex and for instance , I used to have a location thing there but actually that 's a property of the situation . And it 's again , time , you know {disfmarker} at cert certain points things are located , you know , near or far from you +Professor C: Well , uh , uh , this is recursive +Grad F: and {disfmarker} +Professor C: cuz until we do the uh , mental space story , we 're not quite sure {disfmarker} {comment} Th - th +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: which is fine . We 'll just {disfmarker} we 'll j +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . So some of these are , uh {disfmarker} +Professor C: we just don't know yet . +Grad F: Right . So I {disfmarker} so for now I thought , well maybe I 'll just have in this list the things that are relevant to this particular utterance , right ? Everything else here is utterance - specific . Um , and I left the slot , "" predications "" , open because you can have , um , things like "" the guy I know from school "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Or , you know , like your referring expression might be constrained by certain like unbounded na amounts of prep you know , predications that you might make . And it 's unclear whether {disfmarker} I mean , you could just have in your scenario , "" here are some extra few things that are true "" , right ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And then you could just sort of not have this slot here . Right ? You 're {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it 's used for identification purposes . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different from just saying "" all these things are true from my utterance "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Um . +Grad E: Right , "" this guy I know from school came for dinner "" does not mean , um , "" there 's a guy , I know him from school , and he came over for dinner "" . That 's not the same effect . +Grad F: Yeah , it 's a little bit {disfmarker} it 's a little bit different . Right ? So {disfmarker} Or maybe that 's like a restrictive , non - restrictive {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: you know , it 's like it gets into that kind of thing for {disfmarker} um , but maybe I 'm mixing , you know {disfmarker} this is kind of like the final result after parsing the sentence . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you might imagine that the information you pass to , you know {disfmarker} in identifying a particular referent would be , "" oh , some {disfmarker} "" you know , "" it 's a guy and it 's someone I know from school "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So maybe that would , you know , be some intermediate structure that you would pass into the disc to the , whatever , construal engine or whatever , discourse context , to find {disfmarker} you know , either create this reference , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: in which case it 'd be created here , and {disfmarker} you know , so {disfmarker} so you could imagine that this might not {disfmarker} So , uh , I 'm uncommitted to a couple of these things . +Grad A: But {disfmarker} to make it m precise at least in my mind , uh , it 's not precise . +Grad F: Um . +Grad A: So "" house "" is gender neuter ? In reality +Grad F: Um , it could be in {disfmarker} +Grad A: or in {disfmarker} +Professor C: Semantically . +Grad A: semantically . +Grad F: semantically , yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: So it uh , uh , a table . You know , a thing that c doesn't have a gender . So . Uh , it could be that {disfmarker} I mean , maybe you 'd {disfmarker} maybe not all these {disfmarker} I mean , I wou I would say that I tried to keep slots here that were potentially relevant to most {disfmarker} most things . +Grad A: No , just to make sure that we {disfmarker} everybody that 's {disfmarker} completely agreed that it {disfmarker} it has nothing to do with , uh , form . +Grad F: Yeah . OK , that is semantic as opposed to {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . That 's right . Um . +Grad A: Then "" predications "" makes sense to {disfmarker} to have it open for something like , uh , accessibility or not . +Grad F: S so again {disfmarker} Open to various things . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Right . OK , so . Let 's see . So maybe having made that big sca sort of like large scale comment , should I just go through each of these slots {disfmarker} uh , each of these blocks , um , a little bit ? +Grad E: Sure . +Grad F: Um , mostly the top one is sort of image schematic . And just a note , which was that , um {disfmarker} s so when we actually ha so for instance , um , some of them seem more inherently static , OK , like a container or sort of support - ish . And others are a little bit seemingly inherently dynamic like "" source , path , goal "" is often thought of that way or "" force "" , or something like that . But in actual fact , I think that they 're intended to be sort of neutral with respect to that . And different X - schemas use them in a way that 's either static or dynamic . So "" path "" , you could just be talking about the path between this and this . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: And you know , "" container "" that you can go in and out . All of these things . And so , um , I think this came up when , uh , Ben and I were working with the Spaniards , um , the other day {disfmarker} the "" Spaniettes "" , as we {vocalsound} called them {disfmarker} um , to decide like how you want to split up , like , s image schematic contributions versus , like , X - schematic contributions . How do you link them up . And I think again , um , it 's gonna be something in the X - schema that tells you "" is this static or is this dynamic "" . So we definitely need {disfmarker} that sort of aspectual type gives you some of that . Um , that , you know , is it , uh , a state or is it a change of state , or is it a , um , action of some kind ? +Grad A: Uh , i i i is there any meaning to when you have sort of parameters behind it and when you don't ? +Grad F: Uh . Yeah . +Grad A: Just means {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oh , oh ! You mean , in the slot ? +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Um , no , it 's like X - sc it 's {disfmarker} it 's like I was thinking of type constraints but X - schema , well it obviously has to be an X - schema . "" Agent "" , I mean , the {disfmarker} the performer of the X - schema , that s depends on the X - schema . You know , and I {disfmarker} in general it would probably be , you know {disfmarker} +Grad E: So the difference is basically whether you thought it was obvious what the possible fillers were . +Grad F: Yeah , basically . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Um , "" aspectual type "" probably isn't obvious but I should have {disfmarker} So , I just neglected to stick something in . "" Perspective "" , "" actor "" , "" undergoer "" , "" observer "" , um , +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad F: I think we 've often used "" agent "" , "" patient "" , obser +Grad E: "" Whee ! "" That 's that one , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , exactly . {vocalsound} Exactly . Um , and so one nice thing that , uh , we had talked about is this example {comment} of like , if you have a passive construction then one thing it does is ch you know {disfmarker} definitely , it is one way to {disfmarker} for you to , you know , specifically take the perspective of the undergoing kind of object . And so then we talked about , you know , whether well , does that specify topic as well ? Well , maybe there are other things . You know , now that it 's {disfmarker} subject is more like a topic . And now that , you know {disfmarker} Anyway . So . Sorry . I 'm gonna trail off on that one cuz it 's not that f important right now . +Professor C: N now , for the moment we just need the ability to l l write it down if {disfmarker} if somebody figured out what the rules were . +Grad F: Um , To know how {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . Exactly . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , some of these other ones , let 's see . So , uh , one thing I 'm uncertain about is how polarity interacts . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So polarity , uh , is using for like action did not take place for instance . So by default it 'll be like "" true "" , I guess , you know , if you 're specifying events that did happen . You could imagine that you skip out this {disfmarker} you know , leave off this polarity , you know , not {disfmarker} don't have it here . And then have it part of the speech - act in some way . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: There 's some negation . But the reason why I left it in is cuz you might have a change of state , let 's say , where some state holds and then some state doesn't hold , and you 're just talking , you know {disfmarker} if you 're trying to have the nuts and bolts of simulation you need to know that , you know , whatever , the holder doesn't and {disfmarker} +Professor C: No , I th I think at this lev which is {disfmarker} it should be where you have it . +Grad F: OK , it 's {disfmarker} so it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine where it is . +Professor C: I mean , how you get it may {disfmarker} may in will often involve the discourse +Grad F: So , OK . May come from a few places . +Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} by the time you 're simulating you sh y you should know that . +Grad F: Right . Right . +Grad E: So , {vocalsound} I 'm still just really not clear on what I 'm looking at . The "" scenario "" box , like , what does that look like for an example ? Like , not all of these things are gonna be here . +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: Correct . +Grad E: This is just basically says +Grad F: Mm - hmm . It 's a grab bag of {disfmarker} +Grad E: "" part of what I 'm going to hand you is a whole bunch of s uh , schemas , image , and X - schemas . Here are some examples of the sorts of things you might have in there "" . +Grad F: So that 's exactly what it is . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: And for a particular instance which I will , you know , make an example of something , is that you might have an instance of container and path , let 's say , as part of your , you know , "" into "" you know , definition . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you would eventually have instances filled in with various {disfmarker} various values for all the different slots . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: And they 're bound up in , you know , their bindings and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and values . +Professor C: W it c +Grad E: OK . Do you have to say about the binding in your {disfmarker} is there a slot in here for {disfmarker} that tells you how the bindings are done ? +Professor C: No , no , no . I {disfmarker} let 's see , I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're not {disfmarker} I don't think we have it quite right yet . So , uh , what this is , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: let 's suppose for the moment it 's complete . OK , uh , then this says that when an analysis is finished , the whole analysis is finished , {comment} you 'll have as a result , uh , some s resulting s semspec for that utterance in context , +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: which is made up entirely of these things and , uh , bindings among them . And bindings to ontology items . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that the who that this is the tool kit under whi out of which you can make a semantic specification . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So that 's A . But B , which is more relevant to your life , is this is also the tool kit that is used in the semantic side of constructions . +Grad E: OK . Mm - hmm . +Professor C: So this is an that anything you have , in the party line , {comment} anything you have as the semantic side of constructions comes , from pieces of this {disfmarker} ignoring li +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: I mean , in general , you ignore lots of it . +Grad E: Right . +Professor C: But it 's got to be pieces of this along with constraints among them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , so that the , you know , goal of the , uh uh , "" source , path , goal "" has to be the landmark of the conta you know , the interior of this container . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Or whate whatever . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So those constraints appear in constructions +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: but pretty much this is the full range of semantic structures available to you . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Except for "" cause "" , that I forgot . But anyway , there 's som some kind of causal structure for composite events . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: OK , good . Let 's {disfmarker} let 's mark that . So we need a c +Grad F: Uh , I mean , so it gets a little funny . These are all {disfmarker} so far these structures , especially from "" path "" and on down , these are sort of relatively familiar , um , image schematic kind of slots . Now with "" cause "" , uh , the fillers will actually be themselves frames . Right ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: So you 'll say , "" event one causes event B {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this again may ge our , um {disfmarker} and we {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and , of course , worlds . +Grad F: uh , event two "" , and {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Yeah . So that 's , uh these are all implicitly one {disfmarker} within , uh within one world . Um , even though saying that place takes place , whatever . Uh , if y if I said "" time "" is , you know , "" past "" , that would say "" set that this world "" , you know , "" somewhere , before the world that corresponds to our current speech time "" . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: So . But that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's sort of OK . The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} within the event it 's st it 's still one world . Um . Yeah , so "" cause "" and {disfmarker} Other frames that could come in {disfmarker} I mean , unfortunately you could bring in say for instance , um , uh , "" desire "" or something like that , +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: like "" want "" . And actually there is right now under "" discourse segments "" , um , "" attitude "" ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: "" Volition "" ? could fill that . So there are a couple things where I like , "" oh , I 'm not sure if I wanted to have it there +Grad E: Well that 's {disfmarker} +Grad F: or {disfmarker} "" Basically there was a whole list of {disfmarker} of possible speaker attitudes that like say Talmy listed . And , like , well , I don't {disfmarker} you know , it was like "" hope , wish . desire "" , +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Uh - huh . +Grad F: blah - blah - blah . And it 's like , well , I feel like if I wanted to have an extra meaning {disfmarker} I don't know if those are grammatically marked in the first place . So {disfmarker} They 're more lexically marked , right ? +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: At least in English . So if I wanted to I would stick in an extra frame in my meaning , saying , e so th it 'd be a hierarchical frame them , right ? You know , like "" Naomi wants {disfmarker} wants su a certain situation and that situation itself is a state of affairs "" . +Professor C: S right . So {disfmarker} so , "" want "" itself can be {disfmarker} {pause} i i i i i +Grad F: u Can be just another frame that 's part of your {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , and it i basically it 's an action . In {disfmarker} in our s in our {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . Situation . {comment} Right , right . +Professor C: in {disfmarker} in our {disfmarker} in our s terminology , "" want "" can be an action and "" what you want "" is a world . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Hmm . +Professor C: So that 's {disfmarker} I mean , it 's certainly one way to do it . +Grad F: Mmm . +Professor C: Yeah , there {disfmarker} there are other things . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Causal stuff we absolutely need . Mental space we need . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: The context we need . Um , so anyway , Keith {disfmarker} So is this comfortable to you that , uh , once we have this defined , it is your tool kit for building the semantic part of constructions . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then when we combine constructions semantically , the goal is going to be to fill out more and more of the bindings needed in order to come up with the final one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And that 's the wh and {disfmarker} and I mean , that {disfmarker} according to the party line , that 's the whole story . +Grad E: Yeah . Mm - hmm . Yeah . Um . y Right . That makes sense . So I mean , there 's this stuff in the {disfmarker} off in the scenario , which just tells you how various {disfmarker} what schemas you 're using and they 're {disfmarker} how they 're bound together . And I guess that some of the discourse segment stuff {disfmarker} is that where you would sa +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: I mean , that 's {disfmarker} OK , that 's where the information structure is which sort of is a kind of profiling on different parts of , um , of this . +Grad F: Right . Exactly . +Grad E: I mean , what 's interesting is that the information structure stuff {disfmarker} Hmm . There 's almost {disfmarker} I mean , we keep coming back to how focus is like this {disfmarker} this , uh , trajector - landmark thing . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: So if I say , um , You know , "" In France it 's like this "" . You know , great , we 've learned something about France but the fact is that utterances of that sort are generally used to help you draw a conclusion also about some implicit contrast , like "" In France it 's like this "" . And therefore you 're supposed to say , "" Boy , life sure {disfmarker} "" +Grad F: Right . +Grad E: You know , "" in France kids are allowed to drink at age three "" . And w you 're {disfmarker} that 's not just a fact about France . You also conclude something about how boring it is here in the U S . Right ? +Grad F: Right , right . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: And so {disfmarker} +Grad F: S so I would prefer not to worry about that for right now +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: and to think that there are , um , +Grad E: That comes in and , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: discourse level constructions in a sense , topic {disfmarker} topic - focus constructions that would say , "" oh , when you focus something "" then {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Grad F: just done the same way {disfmarker} just actually in the same way as the lower level . If you stressed , you know , "" John went to the {disfmarker} "" , you know , "" the bar "" whatever , you 're focusing that +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: and a in a possible inference is "" in contrast to other things "" . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So similarly for a whole sentence , you know , "" in France such - and - such happens "" . +Grad E: Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: So the whole thing is sort of like again implicitly as opposed to other things that are possible . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , just {disfmarker} just , uh , look {disfmarker} read uh even sem semi formal Mats Rooth . +Grad F: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: If you haven't read it . It 's nice . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad A: And just pick any paper on alternative semantics . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: So that 's his {disfmarker} that 's the best way of talking about focus , is I think his way . +Grad E: OK , what was the name ? +Grad A: Mats . MATS . Rooth . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I think two O 's , yes , TH . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: I never know how to pronounce his name because he 's sort of , +Professor C: S Swede ? +Grad A: uh , he is Dutch +Professor C: Dutch ? +Grad A: and , um {disfmarker} but very confused background I think . +Professor C: Oh , Dutch . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh - huh . +Grad A: So {pause} and , um , +Grad E: Mats Gould . +Grad A: And sadly enough he also just left the IMS in Stuttgart . So he 's not there anymore . +Grad E: Hmm . +Grad A: But , um {disfmarker} I don't know where he is right now but alternative semantics is {disfmarker} if you type that into an , uh , uh , browser or search engine you 'll get tons of stuff . +Grad E: OK . OK . OK , thanks . +Grad A: And what I 'm kind of confused about is {disfmarker} is what the speaker and the hearer is {disfmarker} is sort of doing there . +Grad F: So for a particular segment it 's really just a reference to some other entity again in the situation , right ? So for a particular segment the speaker might be you or might be me . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Um , hearer is a little bit harder . It could be like multiple people . I guess that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that 's not very clear from here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , but you {disfmarker} Don't we ultimately want to handle that analogously to the way we handle time and place , +Grad F: I mean , that 's not allowed here . +Grad A: because "" you "" , "" me "" , "" he "" , "" they "" , you know , "" these guys "" , all these expressions , nuh , are in {disfmarker} in much the same way contextually dependent as "" here , "" and "" now , "" and "" there "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Now , this is {disfmarker} this is assuming you 've already solved that . +Grad F: Ye - yeah . +Professor C: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's Fred and Mary , +Grad F: So th +Professor C: so the speaker would be Fred and the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Ah ! +Grad F: Right , so the constructions might {disfmarker} of course will refer , using pronouns or whatever . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: In which case they have to check to see , uh , who the , uh , speaker in here wa in order to resolve those . But when you actually say that "" he walked into {disfmarker} "" , whatever , um , the "" he "" will refer to a particular {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you will already have figured who "" he "" or "" you "" , mmm , or "" I "" , maybe is a bett better example , who "" I "" refers to . Um , and then you 'd just be able to refer to Harry , you know , in wherever that person {disfmarker} whatever role that person was playing in the event . +Grad A: Mmm . That 's up at the reference part . +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: And down there in the speaker - hearer part ? +Grad F: S so , that 's {disfmarker} I think that 's just {disfmarker} n for instance , Speaker is known from the situation , right ? You 're {disfmarker} when you hear something you 're told who the speaker is {disfmarker} I mean , you know who the speaker is . In fact , that 's kind of constraining how {disfmarker} in some ways you know this before you get to the {disfmarker} you fill in all the rest of it . I think . +Professor C: Mmm . +Grad F: I mean , how else would you um {disfmarker} +Grad A: You know , uh , uh , it 's {disfmarker} the speaker may {disfmarker} in English is allowed to say "" I . "" +Professor C: Yeah . Well , here {disfmarker} +Grad A: Uh , among the twenty - five percent most used words . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Grad A: But wouldn't the "" I "" then set up the {disfmarker} the s s referent {disfmarker} that happens to be the speaker this time +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: and not "" they , "" whoever they are . +Grad F: Right , right . +Grad A: Or "" you "" {disfmarker} +Grad F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: much like the "" you "" could n +Grad F: S so {disfmarker} OK , so I would say ref under referent should be something that corresponds to "" I "" . And maybe each referent should probably have a list of way whatever , the way it was referred to . So that 's "" I "" but , uh , uh , should we say it {disfmarker} it refers to , what ? Uh , if it were "" Harry "" it would refer to like some ontology thing . If it were {disfmarker} if it 's "" I "" it would refer to the current speaker , OK , which is given to be like , you know , whoever it is . +Grad A: Well , not {disfmarker} not always . I mean , so there 's "" and then he said , I w "" Uh - huh . +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: "" I "" within the current world . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . That 's right . So {disfmarker} so again , this {disfmarker} uh , this {disfmarker} this is gonna to get us into the mental space stuff +Grad F: Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Professor C: and t because you know , "" Fred said that Mary said {disfmarker} "" , and whatever . +Grad E: Mmm . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And {disfmarker} and so we 're , uh gonna have to , um , chain those as well . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Twhhh - whhh . But {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mm - hmm . So this entire thing is inside a world , +Professor C: Right . Right . +Grad F: not just like the top part . +Professor C: I {disfmarker} I think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad F: That 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Except s it 's {disfmarker} it 's trickier than that because um , the reference for example {disfmarker} So he where it gets really tricky is there 's some things , +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: and this is where blends and all terribl So , some things which really are meant to be identified and some things which aren't . +Grad F: Yeah . Right . +Professor C: And again , all we need for the moment is some way to say that . +Grad F: Right . So I thought of having like {disfmarker} for each referent , having the list of {disfmarker} of the things t with which it is identified . You know , which {disfmarker} which , uh you know , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Professor C: You could do that . +Grad F: for instance , um {disfmarker} So , I guess , it sort of depends on if it is a referring exp if it 's identifiable already or it 's a new thing . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: If it 's a new thing you 'd have to like create a structure or whatever . If it 's an old thing it could be referring to , um , usually w something in a situation , right ? Or something in ontology . +Professor C: uh - huh . +Grad F: So , there 's a you know , whatever , it c it could point at one of these . +Professor C: I just had a {disfmarker} I just had an {disfmarker} an idea that would be very nice if it works . +Grad F: For what ? +Professor C: Uh , uh , uh , I haven't told you what it is yet . +Grad F: If it works . +Professor C: This was my build - up . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor C: An i an idea that would be nice i +Grad F: Yeah . OK , we 're crossing our fingers . +Professor C: Right . +Grad B: So we 're building a mental space , good . +Professor C: If it worked . Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Professor C: Right , it was a space builder . Um , we might be able to handle context in the same way that we handle mental spaces because , uh , you have somewhat the same things going on of , uh , things being accessible or not . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And so , i +Grad F: Yep . +Professor C: it c it {disfmarker} it , uh I think if we did it right we might be able to get at least a lot of the same structure . +Grad F: Use the same {disfmarker} {comment} Yep . +Professor C: So that pulling something out of a discourse context is I think similar to other kinds of , uh , mental space phenomena . +Grad B: I see . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . And {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , I 've {disfmarker} I 've {disfmarker} I 've never seen anybody write that up but maybe they did . I don't know . That may be all over the literature . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: There 's things like ther you know , there 's all kinds of stuff like , um , in {disfmarker} I think I mentioned last time in Czech if you have a {disfmarker} a verb of saying then +Grad F: So {disfmarker} so by default {disfmarker} +Grad E: um , you know , you say something like {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or I was thinking you can say something like , "" oh , I thought , uh , you are a republican "" or something like that . Where as in English you would say , "" I thought you were "" . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Um , you know , sort of the past tense being copied onto the lower verb doesn't happen there , so you have to say something about , you know , tense is determined relative to current blah - blah - blah . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Same things happens with pronouns . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: There 's languages where , um , if you have a verb of saying then , ehhh , where {disfmarker} OK , so a situation like "" Bob said he was going to the movies "" , where that lower subject is the same as the person who was saying or thinking , you 're actually required to have "" I "" there . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Um , and it 's sort of in an extended function {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we would have it be in quotes in English . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad B: Right . +Grad E: But it 's not perceived as a quotative construction . +Grad F: Right . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: I mean , it 's been analyzed by the formalists as being a logophoric pronoun , um which means a pronoun which refers back to the person who is speaking or that sort of thing , right ? +Professor C: OK . +Grad F: Oh , right . Yeah , that makes sense . +Grad E: Um , but {disfmarker} uh , that happens to sound like the word for "" I "" but is actually semantically unrelated to it . +Grad F: Oh , no ! +Professor C: Oh , good , I love the formali +Grad E: Um , +Grad F: Really ? +Grad E: Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Grad F: You 're kidding . +Grad E: There 's a whole book which basically operates on this assumption . Uh , Mary Dalrymple , uh , this book , a ninety - three book on , uh on pronoun stuff . +Grad F: No , that 's horrible . OK . That 's horrible . {comment} OK . +Grad E: Well , yeah . And then the same thing for ASL where , you know , you 're signing and someone says something . And then , you know , so "" he say "" , and then you sort of do a role shift . And then you sign "" I , this , that , and the other "" . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And you know , "" I did this "" . That 's also been analyzed as logophoric and having nothing to do with "" I "" . And the role shift thing is completely left out and so on . So , I mean , the point is that pronoun references , uh , you know , sort of ties in with all this mental space stuff and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Uh - huh . +Grad E: And so , yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that d that does sound like it 's co consistent with what we 're saying , yeah . +Grad E: Right . Yeah . +Grad F: OK , so it 's kind of like the unspecified mental spaces just are occurring in context . And then when you embed them sometimes you have to pop up to the h you know , depending on the construction or the whatever , um , you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you 're scope is {disfmarker} m might extend out to the {disfmarker} the base one . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It would be nice to actually use the same , um , mechanism since there are so many cases where you actually need it 'll be one or the other . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: It 's like , oh , actually , it 's the same {disfmarker} same operation . +Professor C: Oh , OK , so this {disfmarker} this is worth some thought . +Grad F: So . +Grad E: It 's like {disfmarker} it 's like what 's happening {disfmarker} that , yeah , what what 's happening , uh , there is that you 're moving the base space or something like that , right ? +Grad F: Yeah , yeah . +Grad E: So that 's {disfmarker} that 's how Fauconnier would talk about it . And it happens diff under different circumstances in different languages . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: And so , +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: um , things like pronoun reference and tense which we 're thinking of as being these discourse - y things actually are relative to a Bayes space which can change . +Grad F: Mm - hmm , +Grad E: And we need all the same machinery . +Grad F: right . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Robert . +Professor C: Well , but , uh , this is very good actually +Grad E: Schade . +Professor C: cuz it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} to the extent that it works , it y +Grad F: Ties it all into it . +Professor C: it {disfmarker} it ties together several of {disfmarker} of these things . +Grad F: Yeah . Yep . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . And I 'm sure gonna read the transcript of this one . So . But the , uh , {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it 's too bad that we don't have a camera . You know , all the pointing is gonna be lost . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Oh , yeah . +Grad B: Well every time Nancy giggles it means {disfmarker} it means that it 's your job . +Grad F: Yeah , that 's why I said "" point to Robert "" , {vocalsound} when I did it . +Grad A: Uh . Yeah . Mmm , isn't {disfmarker} I mean , I 'm {disfmarker} I was sort of dubious why {disfmarker} why he even introduces this sort of reality , you know , as your basic mental space and then builds up {disfmarker} +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: d doesn't start with some {disfmarker} because it 's so obvi it should be so obvious , at least it is to me , {comment} that whenever I say something I could preface that with "" I think . "" Nuh ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So there should be no categorical difference between your base and all the others that ensue . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: No , but there 's {disfmarker} there 's a Gricean thing going on there , that when you say "" I think "" you 're actually hedging . +Grad E: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad F: Mmm . It 's like I don't totally think {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah . Y +Grad F: I mostly think , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} Absolutely . +Grad E: Yeah , it 's an {disfmarker} it 's an evidential . It 's sort of semi - grammaticalized . People have talked about it this way . And you know , you can do sort of special things . You can , th put just the phrase "" I think "" as a parenthetical in the middle of a sentence and so on , and so forth . +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Grad F: Actually one of the child language researchers who works with T Tomasello studied a bunch of these constructions and it was like it 's not using any kind of interesting embedded ways just to mark , you know , uncertainty or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: So . +Grad A: Yeah , but about linguistic hedges , I mean , those {disfmarker} those tend to be , um , funky anyways because they blur {disfmarker} +Professor C: So we don't have that in here either do we ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: Hedges ? +Professor C: Yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Hhh , {comment} I {disfmarker} there used to be a slot for speaker , um , it was something like factivity . I couldn't really remember what it meant +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: so I took it out . +Grad E: Um . +Grad F: But it 's something {disfmarker} +Grad E: Well we were just talking about this sort of evidentiality and stuff like that , right ? +Grad F: we {disfmarker} we were talking about sarcasm too , right ? Oh , oh . +Grad E: I mean , +Grad F: Oh , yeah , yeah , right . +Grad E: that 's what I think is , um , sort of telling you what percent reality you should give this +Professor C: So we probably should . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: or the , you know {disfmarker} +Professor C: Confidence or something like that . +Grad E: Yeah , and the fact that I 'm , you know {disfmarker} the fact maybe if I think it versus he thinks that might , you know , depending on how much you trust the two of us or whatever , +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh great word in the English language is called "" about "" . +Grad E: you know {disfmarker} +Grad A: If you study how people use that it 's also {disfmarker} +Grad F: What 's the word ? +Grad A: "" about . "" It 's about {disfmarker} +Professor C: About . +Grad A: clever . +Professor C: Oh , that {disfmarker} in that use of "" about "" , yeah . +Grad F: Oh , oh , oh , as a hedge . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And I think {disfmarker} And I think {pause} y if you want us to spend a pleasant six or seven hours you could get George started on that . +Grad E: He wrote a paper about thirty - five years ago on that one . +Grad B: I r I read that paper , +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad B: the hedges paper ? I read some of that paper actually . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad E: Would you believe that that paper lead directly to the development of anti - lock brakes ? +Grad F: What ? +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Ask me about it later I 'll tell you how . When we 're not on tape . +Grad F: I 'd love to know . +Grad B: Oh , man . +Grad F: So , and {disfmarker} and I think , uh , someone had raised like sarcasm as a complication at some point . +Professor C: There 's all that stuff . Yeah , let 's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} +Grad F: And we just won't deal with sarcastic people . +Professor C: Yeah , I mean {disfmarker} +Grad E: I don't really know what like {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} we don't have to care too much about the speaker attitude , right ? Like there 's not so many different {disfmarker} hhh , {comment} I don't know , m +Grad F: Certainly not as some {disfmarker} Well , they 're intonational markers I think for the most part . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad F: I don't know too much about the like grammatical {disfmarker} +Grad E: I just mean {disfmarker} There 's lots of different attitudes that {disfmarker} that the speaker could have and that we can clearly identify , and so on , and so forth . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: But like what are the distinctions among those that we actually care about for our current purposes ? +Professor C: Right . Right , so , uh , this {disfmarker} this raises the question of what are our current purposes . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Right ? +Grad E: Oh , shoot . +Grad F: Oh , yeah , do we have any ? +Grad E: Here it is three - fifteen already . +Grad A: Mmm . Yeah . +Professor C: Uh , so , um , I {disfmarker} I don't know the answer but {disfmarker} but , um , it does seem that , you know , this is {disfmarker} this is coming along . I think it 's {disfmarker} it 's converging . It 's {disfmarker} as far as I can tell there 's this one major thing we have to do which is the mental {disfmarker} the whole s mental space thing . And then there 's some other minor things . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Um , and we 're going to have to s sort of bound the complexity . I mean , if we get everything that anybody ever thought about you know , w we 'll go nuts . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: So we had started with the idea that the actual , uh , constraint was related to this tourist domain and the kinds of interactions that might occur in the tourist domain , assuming that people were being helpful and weren't trying to d you know , there 's all sorts of {disfmarker} God knows , irony , and stuff like {disfmarker} which you {disfmarker} isn't probably of much use in dealing with a tourist guide . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Yeah ? +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: Uh . +Grad F: M mockery . +Professor C: Right . Whatever . So y uh , no end of things th that {disfmarker} that , you know , we don't deal with . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} +Professor C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: i isn't that part easy though +Professor C: Go ahead . +Grad A: because in terms of the s simspec , it would just mean you put one more set of brack brackets around it , and then just tell it to sort of negate whatever the content of that is in terms of irony +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: N no . +Grad F: Mmm . +Grad A: or {disfmarker} +Professor C: No . +Grad E: Right . +Grad F: Maybe . +Professor C: No . +Grad F: Yeah , in model theory cuz the semantics is always like "" speaker believes not - P "" , you know ? +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Like "" the speaker says P and believes not - P "" . +Grad E: We have a theoretical model of sarcasm now . +Grad F: But {disfmarker} +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , right , I mean . +Professor C: No , no . +Grad F: Right , right , but , +Professor C: Anyway , so {disfmarker} so , um , I guess uh , let me make a proposal on how to proceed on that , which is that , um , it was Keith 's , uh , sort of job over the summer to come up with this set of constructions . Uh , and my suggestion to Keith is that you , over the next couple weeks , n +Grad E: Mmm . +Professor C: don't try to do them in detail or formally but just try to describe which ones you think we ought to have . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Uh , and then when Robert gets back we 'll look at the set of them . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Just {disfmarker} just sort of , you know , define your space . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +Professor C: And , um , so th these are {disfmarker} this is a set of things that I think we ought to deal with . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And then we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll go back over it and w people will {disfmarker} will give feedback on it . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: And then {disfmarker} then we 'll have a {disfmarker} at least initial spec of {disfmarker} of what we 're actually trying to do . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And that 'll also be useful for anybody who 's trying to write a parser . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Knowing uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: In case there 's any around . +Grad F: If we knew anybody like that . +Professor C: Right , "" who might want "" et cetera . So , uh {disfmarker} +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: So a and we get this {disfmarker} this , uh , portals fixed and then we have an idea of the sort of initial range . And then of course Nancy you 're gonna have to , uh , do your set of {disfmarker} but you have to do that anyway . +Grad F: For the same , yeah , data . Yeah , mm - hmm . +Professor C: So {disfmarker} so we 're gonna get the w we 're basically dealing with two domains , the tourist domain and the {disfmarker} and the child language learning . +Grad B: Mmm . +Professor C: And we 'll see what we need for those two . And then my proposal would be to , um , not totally cut off more general discussion but to focus really detailed work on the subset of things that we 've {disfmarker} we really want to get done . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: And then as a kind of separate thread , think about the more general things and {disfmarker} and all that . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Well , I also think the detailed discussion will hit {disfmarker} you know , bring us to problems that are of a general nature and maybe even {disfmarker} +Professor C: Uh , without doubt . Yeah . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad A: even suggest some solutions . +Professor C: But what I want to do is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is to {disfmarker} to constrain the things that we really feel responsible for . +Grad A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor C: So that {disfmarker} that we say these are the things we 're really gonna try do by the end of the summer +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: and other things we 'll put on a list of {disfmarker} of research problems or something , because you can easily get to the point where nothing gets done because every time you start to do something you say , "" oh , yeah , but what about this case ? "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: This is {disfmarker} this is called being a linguist . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: And , uh , +Grad E: Basically . +Grad F: Or me . +Professor C: Huh ? +Grad F: Or me . Anyways {disfmarker} +Grad B: There 's that quote in Jurafsky and Martin where {disfmarker} where it goes {disfmarker} where some guy goes , "" every time I fire a linguist the performance of the recognizer goes up . "" +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: Exactly . +Professor C: Right . But anyway . So , is {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker} does that make sense as a , uh {disfmarker} a general way to proceed ? +Grad F: Sure , yeah . +Grad E: Yeah , yeah , we 'll start with that , just figuring out what needs to be done then actually the next step is to start trying to do it . +Professor C: Exactly right . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: Got it . +Grad A: Mmm . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: We have a little bit of news , uh , just minor stuff . The one big {disfmarker} +Grad B: Ooo , can I ask a {disfmarker} +Grad E: You ran out of power . +Grad A: Huh ? +Grad B: Can I ask a quick question about this side ? +Grad A: Yeah . +Grad F: Yes . +Grad B: Is this , uh {disfmarker} was it intentional to leave off things like "" inherits "" and {disfmarker} +Grad F: Oops . Um , +Grad E: No . +Grad F: not really {disfmarker} just on the constructions , right ? +Grad B: Yeah , like constructions can inherit from other things , +Grad F: Um , +Grad B: am I right ? +Grad F: yeah . +Grad B: Yeah . +Grad F: I didn't want to think too much about that for {disfmarker} for now . +Grad B: OK . +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: So , uh , maybe it was subconsciously intentional . +Professor C: Yeah , uh {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad E: Um , yeah , there should be {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to s find out someday if there was gonna be some way of dealing with , uh , if this is the right term , multiple inheritance , +Professor C: Mm - hmm . +Grad E: where one construction is inheriting from , uh from both parents , +Grad F: Uh - huh . Yep . +Grad E: uh , or different ones , or three or four different ones . +Professor C: Yeah . So let me {disfmarker} +Grad E: Cuz the problem is that then you have to {disfmarker} +Grad F: Yeah . +Grad E: which of {disfmarker} you know , which are {disfmarker} how they 're getting bound together . +Grad F: Refer to {pause} them . +Professor C: Yeah , right , right , right . Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Grad F: Yeah , and {disfmarker} and there are certainly cases like that . Even with just semantic schemas we have some examples . +Professor C: Right . +Grad F: So , and we 've been talking a little bit about that anyway . +Professor C: Yeah . So what I would like to do is separate that problem out . +Grad F: Inherits . +Professor C: So um , +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: my argument is there 's nothing you can do with that that you can't do by just having more constructions . +Grad E: Yeah , yes . +Professor C: It 's uglier and it d doesn't have the deep linguistic insights and stuff . +Grad E: That 's right . +Professor C: Uh , +Grad E: But whatever . +Professor C: Right . +Grad E: Yeah , no , no , no no . +Grad F: Uh , those are over rated . +Grad E: No , by all means , +Professor C: And so I {disfmarker} what I 'd like to do is {disfmarker} is in the short run focus on getting it right . +Grad E: right . Uh , sure . +Professor C: And when we think we have it right then saying , "" aha ! , +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: can we make it more elegant ? "" +Grad E: Yeah , that 's {disfmarker} +Professor C: Can {disfmarker} can we , uh {disfmarker} What are the generalizations , and stuff ? +Grad E: Yeah . Connect the dots . Yeah . +Professor C: But rather than try to guess a inheritance structure and all that sort of stuff before we know what we 're doing . +Grad E: Yep . Yeah . +Professor C: So I would say in the short run we 're not gonna b +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor C: First of all , we 're not doing them yet at all . And {disfmarker} and it could be that half way through we say , "" aha ! , we {disfmarker} we now see how we want to clean it up . "" +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor C: Uh , and inheritance is only one {disfmarker} I mean , that 's one way to organize it but there are others . And it may or may not be the best way . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Mmm . +Professor C: I 'm sorry , you had news . +Grad A: Oh , just small stuff . Um , thanks to Eva on our web site we can now , if you want to run JavaBayes , uh , you could see {disfmarker} get {disfmarker} download these classes . And then it will enable you {disfmarker} she modified the GUI so it has now a m a m a button menu item for saving it into the embedded JavaBayes format . +Grad D: Mm - hmm . +Grad B: Mmm . +Grad A: So that 's wonderful . +Professor C: Great . +Grad A: And , um and she , a You tested it out . Do you want to say something about that , that it works , right ? With the {disfmarker} +Grad D: I was just checking like , when we wanna , um , get the posterior probability of , like , variables . You know how you asked whether we can , like , just observe all the variables like in the same list ? You can't . +Grad A: Uh - huh . +Grad D: You have to make separate queries every time . +Grad A: OK , that 's {disfmarker} that 's a bit unfortunate +Grad D: So {disfmarker} Yeah . +Grad A: but for the time being it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's fine to do it {disfmarker} +Grad D: You just have to have a long list of , you know , all the variables . +Grad A: Yeah . But uh {disfmarker} +Grad D: Basically . +Grad F: Uh , all the things you want to query , you just have to like ask for separately . +Grad D: Yeah , yeah . +Grad A: Well that 's {disfmarker} probably maybe in the long term that 's good news because it forces us to think a little bit more carefully how {disfmarker} how we want to get an out output . Um , but that 's a different discussion for a different time . And , um , I don't know . We 're really running late , so I had , uh , an idea yesterday but , uh , I don't know whether we should even start discussing . +Professor C: W what {disfmarker} Yeah , sure , tell us what it is . +Grad A: Um , the construal bit that , um , has been pointed to but hasn't been , um , made precise by any means , um , may w may work as follows . I thought that we would , uh {disfmarker} that the following thing would be in incredibly nice and I have no clue whether it will work at all or nothing . So that 's just a tangent , a couple of mental disclaimers here . Um , imagine you {disfmarker} you write a Bayes - net , um {disfmarker} +Grad F: Bayes ? +Grad A: Bayes - net , +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: um , completely from scratch every time you do construal . So you have nothing . Just a white piece of paper . +Professor C: Mmm , right . +Grad A: You consult {disfmarker} consult your ontology which will tell you a bunch of stuff , and parts , and properties , uh - uh - uh +Grad F: Grout out the things that {disfmarker} that you need . +Professor C: Right . +Grad A: then y you 'd simply write , uh , these into {disfmarker} onto your {disfmarker} your white piece of paper . And you will get a lot of notes and stuff out of there . You won't get {disfmarker} you won't really get any C P T 's , therefore we need everything that {disfmarker} that configures to what the situation is , IE , the context dependent stuff . So you get whatever comes from discourse but also filtered . Uh , so only the ontology relevant stuff from the discourse plus the situation and the user model . +Grad F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And that fills in your CPT 's with which you can then query , um , the {disfmarker} the net that you just wrote and find out how thing X is construed as an utterance U . And the embedded JavaBayes works exactly like that , that once you {disfmarker} we have , you know , precise format in which to write it , so we write it down . You query it . You get the result , and you throw it away . And the {disfmarker} the nice thing about this idea is that you don't ever have to sit down and think about it or write about it . You may have some general rules as to how things can be {disfmarker} can be construed as what , so that will allow you to craft the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the initial notes . But it 's {disfmarker} in that respect it 's completely scalable . Because it doesn't have any prior , um , configuration . It 's just you need an ontology of the domain and you need the context dependent modules . And if this can be made to work at all , {vocalsound} that 'd be kind of funky . +Professor C: Um , it sounds to me like you want P R +Grad A: P R Ms - uh , PRM I mean , since you can unfold a PRM into a straightforward Bayes - net {disfmarker} +Professor C: Beca - because it {disfmarker} b because {disfmarker} No , no , you can't . See the {disfmarker} the critical thing about the PRM is it gives these relations in general form . So once you have instantiated the PRM with the instances and ther then you can {disfmarker} then you can unfold it . +Grad A: Then you can . Mm - hmm , yeah . No , I was m using it generic . So , uh , probabilistic , whatever , relational models . Whatever you write it . In {disfmarker} +Professor C: Well , no , but it matters a lot because you {disfmarker} what you want are these generalized rules about the way things relate , th that you then instantiate in each case . +Grad A: And then {disfmarker} then instantiate them . That 's ma maybe the {disfmarker} the way {disfmarker} the only way it works . +Professor C: Yeah , and that 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: +Professor C: Yeah , that 's the only way it could work . I {disfmarker} we have a {disfmarker} our local expert on P R uh , but my guess is that they 're not currently good enough to do that . But we 'll {disfmarker} we 'll have to see . +Grad A: But , uh , +Professor C: Uh {disfmarker} Yes . This is {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} that would be a good thing to try . It 's related to the Hobbs abduction story in that you th you throw everything into a pot and you try to come up with the , uh {disfmarker} +Grad A: Except there 's no {disfmarker} no theorem prover involved . +Grad F: Best explanation . +Professor C: No , there isn't a theorem prover but there {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but the , um , The cove the {disfmarker} the P R Ms are like rules of inference and you 're {disfmarker} you 're coupling a bunch of them together . +Grad A: Mm - hmm , yeah . +Professor C: And then ins instead of proving you 're trying to , you know , compute the most likely . Uh {disfmarker} Tricky . But you {disfmarker} yeah , it 's a good {disfmarker} it 's a {disfmarker} it 's a good thing to put in your thesis proposal . +Grad A: What 's it ? +Professor C: So are you gonna write something for us before you go ? +Grad A: Yes . Um . +Professor C: Oh , you have something . +Grad A: In the process thereof , or whatever . +Professor C: OK . So , what 's {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} when are we gonna meet again ? +Grad F: When are you leaving ? +Grad A: Fri - uh , +Grad F: Thursday , Friday ? +Grad A: Thursday 's my last day here . +Grad D: Fri +Professor C: Yeah . +Grad F: OK . +Grad A: So {disfmarker} I would suggest as soon as possible . Do you mean by we , the whole ben gang ? +Professor C: N no , I didn't mean y just the two of us . We {disfmarker} obviously we can {disfmarker} we can do this . But the question is do you want to , for example , send the little group , uh , a draft of your thesis proposal and get , uh , another session on feedback on that ? Or {disfmarker} +Grad A: We can do it Th - Thursday again . Yeah . +Grad E: Fine with me . Should we do the one PM time for Thursday since we were on that before or {disfmarker} ? +Grad A: Sure . +Grad E: OK . +Professor C: Alright . +Grad D: Hmm . +Grad A: Thursday at one ? I can also maybe then sort of run through the , uh {disfmarker} the talk I have to give at EML which highlights all of our work . +Professor C: OK . +Grad A: And we can make some last minute changes on that . +Professor C: OK . +Grad B: You can just give him the abstract that we wrote for the paper . +Professor C: That - that 'll tell him exactly what 's going on . Yeah , that {disfmarker} Alright . +Grad F: Can we do {disfmarker} can we do one - thirty ? +Grad A: No . +Grad F: Oh , you already told me no . +Grad A: But we can do four . +Grad F: One , OK , it 's fine . I can do one . It 's fine . It 's fine . +Grad A: One or four . I don't care . +Grad E: To me this is equal . I don't care . +Grad A: If it 's equal for all ? What should we do ? +Grad F: Yeah , it 's fine . +Grad A: Four ? +Grad F: Fine . Yeah {disfmarker} no , no , no , uh , I don't care . It 's fine . +Grad A: It 's equal to all of us , so you can decide one or four . +Grad B: The pressure 's on you Nancy . +Grad A: Liz actually said she likes four because it forces the Meeting Recorder people to cut , you know {disfmarker} the discussions short . +Grad F: OK . OK , four . +Grad E: Well , if you insist , then . +Grad F: OK ? OK . I am . +","In the conversation, Grad F discusses their progress on a project involving semantic specifications and formalisms. They pass around a sheet detailing revised semantic specifications and constructions. Professor C and others provide input and clarification on the semantics and the notation being used. The conversation delves into various technical aspects such as the potential need for specifying aspectual types, mental spaces, context properties, and focus elements within utterances. There's also discussion about building Bayesian networks (Bayes-net) from scratch for every instance of construal. They touch on the possibility of using rules of inference in Probabilistic Relational Models (PRMs) as a mechanism for construal. + +Grad A proposes a meeting to discuss their thesis proposal and a talk they have to give, highlighting everyone's work. The group decides to meet again on Thursday at four o'clock to allow for Grad A to do this, and possibly to provide feedback on Grad A's draft thesis proposal. The conversation also includes a humorous suggestion that firing a linguist might improve the performance of a recognizer, referencing a notion about the complexity linguists might add to projects. + +Overall, the summary captures the main points of discussion, focusing on semantic specifications, mental spaces, pragmatics such as irony and sarcasm, and the proposal by Grad A on the use of Bayesian networks for construal in their project." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +The Chair (Hon. Anthony Rota (NipissingTimiskaming, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the 12th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. This will be the first hybrid meeting of the committee. Some members will be participating via videoconference and some will be participating in person. This follows the order made by the House on May26,2020. Members who have already participated in a virtual meeting of the special committee may actually not notice any change, except for the fact that some members are also participating from the floor of the House. An additional rubric, that of statements by members, was also added to the proceedings of the committee. In order to ensure that those joining the meeting via video conference can be seen and heard by those in the chamber, two screens have been set up in the chamber on either side of the Speakers chair. Sound amplification for virtual interventions will be available, and members in the chamber can listen to the floor sound or interpretation using the earpieces on their desks. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. Please also direct your remarks through the Chair. Thank you. For those of you joining via video conference, I would like to remind you to leave your mike on mute when you are not speaking. Also, please note that if you want to speak in English, you should be on the English channel. If you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel. Should you wish to alternate between the two languages, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking each time you switch languages. Should members participating by videoconference need to request the floor outside their designated speaking times, they should activate their microphone and state that they have a point of order. Those in the chamber can simply rise in the usual way. Please note that today's proceedings will be televised in the same way as a typical sitting of the House. Next we'll move on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we'll move on to petitions. We'll be presenting petitions for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. For members participating in person, we ask that they please come and drop the signed certificates off at the table once the petitions are presented. First on our list for presenting petitions is Ms. May, who is joining us virtually. +Ms. Elizabeth May (SaanichGulf Islands, GP): Mr. Chair, what an honour to be the first voice coming to you from the screens on either side of the Speaker of the House. I speak to you from SaanichGulf Islands on the traditional territory of the WSNEC people. Hych'ka Siem. I'm presenting a petition, number 431-00215, and it has been certified. The petitioners call on this House to take note of the fact that Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does not include the provision of necessary prescription medications. They note that the system across Canada is a patchwork that leaves three million Canadians unprepared and uninsured to be able to purchase necessary medications. They call on the House assembled to put in place a system of universal national pharmacare, bringing down the cost of drugs through bulk purchasing. I think I'll call that a summary, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. +The Chair: The next petition will be presented by Mr. Genuis. +Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be presenting two petitions before the committee today. The first petition is in support of Bill S-204. This Senate public bill, been put forward by Senator Salma Ataullahjan in the Senate, would make it a criminal offence for someone to go abroad to receive an organ for which there has not been consent. It also has a mechanism by which somebody could be deemed inadmissible to Canada for being involved in the horrible practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill has been before various Parliaments for over 10 years, and petitioners are hopeful that this Parliament will be the one that finally takes action to address forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The second petition is put forward by folks who are concerned about Bill C-7, particularly the efforts by the government through Bill C-7 to remove vital safeguards that are currently associated with Canada's euthanasia regime. Petitioners are not happy about the fact that the government is trying to eliminate the 10-day reflection period and remove other safeguards that only four short years ago the government thought were essential for the euthanasia and assisted suicide system that they were putting in place. The petitioners call on the government to address that, and they are not supportive of these particular efforts to remove vital safeguards from that regime. Thank you very much. +The Chair: Is anyone else presenting petitions? Seeing none, we'll move on to statements by members. We will now proceed to Statements by Members for a period not exceeding 15minutes. Each statement will be for one minute. The first will be from Mr.Samson. Mr.Samson, you have the floor. +Mr. Darrell Samson (SackvillePrestonChezzetcook, Lib.): Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honour to be presenting an S. O. 31. This spring has been a difficult one for Nova Scotia and the communities of SackvillePrestonChezzetcook. While residents have banded together to tackle the challenges presented by COVID-19, we have also had to mourn the passing of three remarkable local women: RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson, well known by many in Cole Harbour and the surrounding areas; our own Sub-Lieutenant Abbigail Cowbrough, who was based out of 12 Wing Shearwater; and Captain Jenn Casey of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. All three women died in the line of duty in separate tragic events while serving our country. These three brave women, who served with honour on land, at sea and in the air, represent the absolute best of us. Heidi, Abbigail and Jenn were inspirational and will not be forgotten. Thank you. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan (SelkirkInterlakeEastman, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canada needs a prime minister who will create jobs and opportunity, but instead we have a prime minister who is piling up crippling national debt. Yesterday the PBO predicted the federal deficit this year will hit over $252 billion. That is almost equivalent to an average year of government spending before the Liberal government. After five years with this debt, Prime Minister, Canada's national debt is set to hit $1 trillion, with almost nothing to show for it. Industries from coast to coast are either closed or are struggling. Canadian workers need and deserve a prime minister who supports our energy sector and gets our natural resources and agriculture products to market, who supports small business and will make our tax system encourage job creation and growth, and who will bring advanced manufacturing jobs to Canada and keep the automotive industry growing. Most importantly, we need a Conservative prime minister who will get the government finances under control after the massive debt left by this prime minister. +The Chair: Next we'll go to Mr. Anandasangaree. +Mr. Gary Anandasangaree (ScarboroughRouge Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I speak today with a very heavy heart. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we've seen a disproportionate number of deaths in long-term care homes. I'm thankful for the Canadian Armed Forces who were deployed to the Altamont care home in my riding and four other facilities across the GTA. The CAF have brought forward horrifying allegations in the operation of these homes. They include residents being given expired or improper doses of medication; not being cleaned or changed for a prolonged period of time; being forcibly fed, causing choking; being bed-bound for weeks; receiving inadequate nutrition, and much more. Mr. Chair, I call upon Premier Ford to place these five homes under a mandatory management order and to appoint a third party manager to address and rectify these violations. I also call upon the Premier to undertake an independent public inquiry into the tragedy we face in long-term care facilities across Ontario. Finally, Mr. Chair, we need to work with the provinces and territories to set national standards of care for the most vulnerable in our society. We can and must do better. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We have a point of order. Go ahead, Ms. May. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hesitate to interrupt colleagues, but I'm concerned about the petition practice, which, as I understand it, is to summarize a petition but not make a speech. I felt one of our colleagues was trespassing on our usual rules. +The Chair: I will remind honourable members that when a petition is presented, we're expected to give a prcis and make it as concise as possible. Thank you. Mr.Champoux, you have the floor. +Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ): Mr.Chair, I would like to recognize the resilience of Quebeckers concerned for their jobs or their businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. They need us to plan for after the crisis, and we must do so now. To do so, we need the proper information. We need to know the status of the public finances. That is why the Bloc Qubcois is demanding that the government present an economic update, and that it do so before June17. This is not about making a spectacle. Everyone knows that the deficit will be huge. We had to provide the people with support and we all agree on that. But we have to know to what extent. We also have to know where we are starting from so that we can plan where we are going. This is about respecting the public, because they are the ones who will be paying the bill. In closing, I would like to remind the government that one group is not really contributing to the public purse at the moment. I am talking about the tech giants, the GAFAM group, that have never before been used to the extent that they are now, and that are still not paying a cent in tax in Canada. The Liberals promised to correct this injustice. Now is a great time for them to do so. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Sidhu. +Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Chair, this week is National Paramedic Services Week. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Peel region police, paramedic and firefighting services for keeping Bramptonians safe. In my riding, organizations have stepped up to help our community. Organizations such as the Khalsa Aid Society, the Interfaith Council of Peel, the Brampton YMCA, the Prayer Stone Peoples Church, Unity in the Community, Ste. Louise Outreach Centre, Knights Table, the Yogi Divine Society, Vraj Community Service, Regeneration Brampton and many more have made our community stronger during this difficult time. I also have to address the report that came out yesterday from our brave Canadian Armed Forces. Like many Canadians, I was shocked by this report from the long-term care centres, including one in my riding. The examples of abuse described in the report are unacceptable. Our seniors deserve dignity and respect. We must find a solution. We need to fix this. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mrs. Stubbs. +Mrs. Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, CPC): Mr. Chair, Canada's oil and gas sector is in crisis, made worse by five years of bad policies, red tape and barriers to pipelines. Just in the last two months, we saw the largest production cut in Canadian history. Active rigs dropped by 92% and tens of thousands of oil and gas workers lost their jobs, adding to the 200,000 since 2015. Energy is Canada's biggest investor, and exporting could lead the recovery if there are actions, not just words. On March 25, the finance minister promised help in hours or days, not weeks, but he's letting Canadians down. Sixty-three days later, small oil and gas companies still can't apply for BDC loans, and last week's large employer loan terms are predatory, with interest rates escalating to 14% by year five. Those are payday loan rates. The required stock options being at record lows could make the government the largest shareholder. That's not emergency assistance; it's pandemic profiteering. Programs can't help workers if businesses can't or won't actually get the support. The Liberals' death-by-delay tactics are doing exactly what foreign activists in other countries want: to shut down Canada's oil. +The Chair: Ms.Bessette, the floor is yours. +Mrs. Lyne Bessette (BromeMissisquoi, Lib.): Mr.Chair, in times of crisis, we stick together. I can state that this is certainly the case in BromeMissisquoi. In the last weeks, I have been calling volunteer action centres in my constituency so that they can tell me their news. I would like to take the time that I have to highlight the work that community organizations are doing tirelessly in my constituency. The crisis has made us realize the extent to which food banks and meals-on-wheels can not only relieve hunger, but also relieve thousands of shut-in seniors of their loneliness. Let me also highlight the devotion of the volunteers giving generously of their time, particularly the initiative of Mabel Hastings in the volunteer aid centre in Mansonville. Like me, she sends out a daily newsletter to keep the public informed about the many resources available for their support. COVID-19 is bringing out the best in our community and I am certain that, together, we will get through it. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Virani. +Mr. Arif Virani (ParkdaleHigh Park, Lib.): Mr. Chair, during the COVID-19 pandemic I have been inspired by the courageous work of so many essential workers. I want to thank everyone on the front lines for keeping us safe, keeping us fed and keeping our communities functioning. I want to make special note of one particular essential health care worker, a woman who is a quarantine manager with the Public Health Agency of Canada. I have personally seen her working tirelessly over the past three months to keep all of us safe. That woman is my wife, Suchita Jain. Suchi, I love you, I am very proud of you and I thank you for all of the sacrifices you are making. I want to highlight another woman from my riding of ParkdaleHigh Park, Rachelle LeBlanc. She is a local designer. When the pandemic broke, she saw the need for protective barriers for small shops in Parkdale, so she set about collecting donations. She then put her design talents to work and started designing free-standing protective shields. Rachelle's team has now delivered 25 free COVID protective shields to small shopkeepers in Parkdale, and the team is on track to building 100 more. It's the compassion of Canadians like Rachelle that gives meaning to the phrase we are all in this together. +The Chair: Mr.Godin, you have the floor. +Mr. Jol Godin (PortneufJacques-Cartier, CPC): Mr.Chair, the school year has been shattered and our graduating classes must be proud of what they have achieved amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Young men, young women, be proud of your accomplishments! You can believe in the future. Keep learning. It will give you tools that will serve you all your lives. What you have achieved in this extraordinary year will set you apart from the others. I invite you to be inspired by that and turn it to your advantage. The current government has the obligation to promote the values that will lead you to become involved in your communities. Your willingness to learn or to work makes you into better citizens. Knowledge and experience are irreplaceable and invaluable. I implore this government, which is unaware of the damage it is causing, to immediately announce all the positions that have already been approved under the Canada summer jobs program. Urgent action is needed. Let us have confidence in our organizations, our companies, and let us support our youth, a rich resource that we must equip and motivate. I congratulate all the young graduates in the beautiful constituency of PortneufJacques-Cartier. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Fergus. +Mr. Greg Fergus (HullAylmer, Lib.): Mr.Chair, this pandemic lets us see what Canadians are made of. This coming Saturday, May30, more than 2,000Christians of all denominations are coming together virtually for prayer and for action. When the going gets tough, Canadians get going. This could not be more true than with respect to what will be happening on May 30. This Saturday, in more than 2,000 churches and homes, thousands of faith-filled Canadians are gathering to pray and act on those prayers as part of Stand United Canada. They will gather through television, Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Then they are going to deliver much-needed support to at-risk Canadians who live in disadvantaged areas. This is faith in action. I'm sure I speak for all parliamentarians when I wish success to Stand United Canada. I hope it inspires more Canadians to follow in its footsteps. Thank you, Mr. Chair. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Harder. +Ms. Rachael Harder (Lethbridge, CPC): The best way to safeguard the truth is to allow people to speak freely, but from the very beginning of this pandemic, the Liberals have silenced dissent. Sadly, their short-sightedness has been to the detriment of Canadians. Early on, they propagated the notion that human-to-human transmission wasn't possible. They said that closing the borders wasn't necessary. They told us that wearing face masks wouldn't help. It is undeniable that the Liberal government has put Canadians in danger by silencing alternative points of view and has spread misinformation. Ironically, however, they have now gone ahead and crowned themselves the arbiters of truth. They are spending millions of dollars to censor what Canadians can and cannot say. They are determining what is true and what is not, what is right and what is wrong, what is in and what is out. When freedom of speech is repressed, it is safe to say that democracy is under siege. I call upon the government to restore the personal liberties that are granted under our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is Canada. We are not an autocracy; we are a democracy. +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Nater. +Mr. John Nater (PerthWellington, CPC): Mr. Chair, small businesses have always been the cornerstone of communities across this country. They provide employment and economic stability and are always the first to support community functions and activities, but small businesses have been particularly hard hit due to COVID-19. They have shut their doors temporarily, and now many worry they'll never be able to open their doors again. With the season cancellations at the Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment and Stratford Summer Music, businesses in the tourism, hospitality, accommodation and retail sectors in PerthWellington are struggling. Every day, I talk to small business owners who can't access the Canada emergency business account, and others who find the convoluted commercial rent assistance program to be out of reach. The program is needlessly complicated, frustratingly slow and excessively restrictive. Mr. Chair, the government needs to go back, fix these programs and ensure that support goes to the small businesses that need it. +The Chair: We will now go to Ms. Collins. +Ms. Laurel Collins (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Chair, Canadians have been shaken by this pandemic. It has exposed the gaps in our health care system and our social safety net. It has shown how vulnerable we all are when disaster hits. It has brought us to a crossroads. We can go backwards to so-called business as usual, with horrific conditions in long-term care homes, widespread inequality and no real action on climate change, or we can build for better. In Victoria, people in the community, organizations and municipal leaders have been calling for a new way forward. The City of Victoria has a plan for reinvention, resilience and recovery. Organizations like Greater Victoria Acting Together; Common Vision, Common Action; and Kairos Victoria are exploring ideas for a sustainable and just recovery. We can build for better. We can invest in the infrastructure. We need to fight climate change, homelessness and inequality. We can build a Canada where we take better care of the planet and each other. +The Chair: We now move to Ms.DeBellefeuille. +Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (SalaberrySurot, BQ): Mr.Chair, in this time of pandemic, it is with heartfelt emotion that I want to highlight the excellent work of all the guardian angels at the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the entire staff, as well as the retirees who have come back to provide their assistance. I admire the managers, at all levels and in all services, working tirelessly so that their teams can answer the call in this difficult situation. My fellow managers and the management teams of the Support Program for the Autonomy of Seniors, both in home support and in residential care, you have my heartfelt congratulations for the herculean work you have done. My thoughts go particularly to Lyne Ricard and Vronique Proulx, managers working diligently with their teams of professionals to support the seniors living in intermediate resources, as we call them. I also warmly recognize the director of nursing services, Chantal Careau, who is facing the current challenge with passion and humanity. Once again, my congratulations go to the entire organization of the CISSS de la Montrgie-Ouest for their remarkable work in this difficult and very demanding time. +The Chair: We will go to Mr. Barlow. +Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC): During the worst of times, we see the best in people. Heroes are born, characters revealed, resiliency is sowed. I cannot say enough about my constituents in Foothillsfront-line health care workers, grocery store clerks, restaurateurs, farmersfor all they are doing to keep our community safe and healthy. I want to shine a light on some of our hidden heroes, such as Owen Plumb, a grade 9 student in Okotoks who is using his 3D printer to build PPE for front-line health care workers. He partnered with the Rotary Club and Evergreen Solutions in Okotoks to help with the manufacturing and assembly. There is also Sam Schofield, the volunteer president of the Pincher Creek Chamber of Commerce, overnight built a resiliency website for COVID-19 by building training tools for businesses throughout his area. He also helped develop the Foothills Business Recovery Taskforce, which is a resource for businesses throughout southern Alberta in my riding. Finally, to the employees of Cargill Foods in High River, I know this has been a very difficult time and that many of you have lost loved ones. I want to say thank you for tirelessly doing all you can to protect our food supply and keep food on our table. Each and every one of you is a hero. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: We will now go to Mr. Simms. +Mr. Scott Simms (Coast of BaysCentralNotre Dame, Lib.): Thank you, Chair. I would like to take this time to salute those who go above and beyond the call of duty to provide care and comfort to others. In my 16 years in the House of Commons I have never experienced anything like this, when we find our lives are at a standstill and there is so much sorrow felt by families who suffer from the effects of COVID-19. However, here are two examples of kindness right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Shanna and Fred Patey of Bishop's Falls, along with a few of their friends, spend hours next to the Trans-Canada Highway with just a barbeque and a cooler. They serve free meals for truckers crossing our province each and every day. So far they have provided over 1,500 meals. There is also Mitch Strickland of Grand Falls-Windsor, who owns Appy's Diner. He has continually provided food for the local hospital and other front-line workers through his donations. To all our front-line workers in grocery stores and delivery trucks, and to doctors, nurses, LPNs, paramedics, first responders and, of course, our brave women and men in the military, we will be forever grateful and blessed because of you. Thank you. Some hon. members: Hear, hear! +The Chair: That's all the time we have today for Statements by Members. Before going on, I just want to remind all the members that it is a one-minute statement, so if you don't mind, please time it before coming in because we do have limited time. The other thing that has come up is that some of you just naturally speak very quickly. I'm not here to judge anybody's way of speaking, but try to consider the translators and interpreters to make sure that everyone understands what is said, because they are working diligently to try to get both languages out. In sum, there are two things: please slow down and please make sure the statement is confined to one minute. We now move to Questions to Ministers. Please note that we will suspend the proceedings every 45minutes in order to allow the employees who are providing support for the sitting to substitute for each other safely. Our first question goes to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Scheer. +Hon. Andrew Scheer (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the early days of the pandemic and the lockdown that followed, Canadians were told by this government that programs would be rolled out very quickly and that gaps and shortcomings would be changed as time went on. While many Canadians are being let down by this government's response and its unnecessarily rigid programs, Conservatives identified solutions weeks ago, yet here we are, two and a half months later, and many of these programs still have not been improved. I have a simple question for the Prime Minister. On April 26 the Conservatives asked the Prime Minister to change the criteria for the Canada emergency business account so that small businesses that don't happen to have a business bank account could qualify for those types of programs. It's now May 27. Is the Prime Minister going to make that change? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister): Mr. Chair, we knew from the beginning of this pandemic that we did need to move extremely quickly, and that's what we did. We rolled out the Canada emergency response benefit extremely quickly. Eight million Canadians have had that as a replacement for paycheques lost because of COVID-19. We also moved forward on the wage subsidy and a range of other programs to support workers and small businesses. What we've done in terms of helping small businesses with the Canada emergency business account has had a massive impact on small businesses across the country, but we understand that certain companies and businesses have particularities that mean it's a little more difficult for them to qualify. We are working with them through their regional development agencies, and we encourage them to approach their local RDAs, which will be able to help them get the money they deserve. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, these are very simple technical fixes that can be made by this government. There's no excuse for the delay. It's May 27. They've known about these problems for weeks. They're trying to get patted on the back for actions they took back in March, and yet they are letting so many Canadians down by not making these very simple changes. For example, companies that have acquired another company in the last year have employees whose jobs are threatened. The businesses are not allowed to qualify for the wage subsidy because their revenue is now counted together. We have identified this gap. Again, it's a simple question. Will companies that have acquired another company still be allowed to use the wage subsidy to keep workers on the job, yes or no? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I know that there are many different types of businesses across this country that need support. We have moved forward on supporting as many of them as we possibly can, and we continue to work on filling gaps. I know the member opposite has talked to me a number of times about a tractor company in his riding. I can assure you that finance officials are engaged with that company to see if there's a way to make sure we're getting them the support they need. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: It's actually a very simple fix. I can save him and his officials a lot of time. The government used the word amalgamation when it announced the changes to that program. He can make this very clear, and save a lot of work, just by including the word acquisition. Will he do that? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, I can assure you that finance officials are working closely with Brandt Tractor. They're continuing to work with a range of businesses across the country that, for various reasons, are not able to apply for the help we have now. We will continue to work to make sure people who need the help get it. +Hon. Andrew Scheer: Mr. Chair, it's literally one word. We can email him the text. We can send him the page in the dictionary where that word is defined, if that would help. Another gap that is letting people down is in the rent relief program. The government has set the parameters to qualify for the rent relief program for companies that have experienced a 70% revenue loss. There are untold thousands of businesses that have experienced a 50%, 55%, 60% or 65% loss that are ineligible but have no capacity to pay the rent. We called on the government weeks ago to have a more flexible sliding scale to allow more companies to access this program to keep more people on the job and more businesses open. Will the government introduce some flexibility to this program to help more businesses survive? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, our public servants and policy-makers have been moving creatively and quickly to try to get help to as many people as we possibly can, with our focus being on the people who need it the most. Obviously, this pandemic is affecting everyone and every business across the country in different ways, but our focus has been on ensuring that those who most need it are getting the help they can. We will, of course, continue to work with the parties opposite and all Canadians to ensure that we're getting help to everyone who needs it, but our focus has always been on the most vulnerable, first and foremost. +The Chair: The floor now goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet (BeloeilChambly, BQ): Thank you, Mr.Chair. My question is for the Prime Minister. If the Liberal Party of Canada had not taken advantage of the emergency programs, would it have laid off all its staff? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we recognized that a number of organizations and companies were facing difficulties because of COVID-19. People work for those organizations, as accountants, receptionists, assistants or labourers, and those people need to be supported. We are supporting people all over the country through that program. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party one of those organizations in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Any company or organization that can demonstrate a significant drop in its income, whether that be in donations, receipts, profits +The Chair: The floor goes to Mr.Blanchet. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we created specific criteria to help organizations in difficulty. Any organization experiencing those difficulties can apply. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: In the Magdalen Islands, fishing companies in difficulty and in need of assistance will not have the money that the Liberals are going to take. Is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we have invested in assistance for fishers all across the country. We recognize that it is a difficult situation because of COVID-19. We will be here for our fishers and for industries in difficulty. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: I am not catching many answers, it seems to me. A company in Drummondville that manufactures isolation membranes is in difficulty because a federal program is inadequate. Compared to that company, is the Liberal Party of Canada in difficulty, as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, there are clear criteria for submitting applications under these programs. Companies and organizations that receive money qualify for those programs. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the program criteria establish that the Liberal Party is an organization in difficulty, does that mean that the criteria to determine whether an organization is in difficulty are poorly designed? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, all through this pandemic, our priority has been to be here for workers in difficulty so that they do not lose their jobs. This applies to all organizations and companies in the country to the extent possible. That is what we are in the process of doing. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Given the answers from the Prime Minister, let me ask this question: is the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: No, Mr.Chair. We are doing important work for all Canadians, every day. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Restaurant owners on rue Ontario in Montreal feel that they will not make it through the crisis and that they will never open their doors again. They are in difficulty. By comparison, is the Liberal Party of Canada an organization in difficulty that will not open its doors again after the crisis? We can but hope. +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established criteria for that program in order to help those working for various organizations. Any organization that receives the subsidy has qualified for it. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Is there a consensus in the Liberal Party caucus that the Liberal Party is in difficulty as an organization? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we are working every day to help Canadians and workers in difficulty. We are going to continue to do that work. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: Does answering a question put the Prime Minister in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, it is a pleasure to be here in the House and to answer questions from Canadians and from members of the opposition. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: You are going to answer a question from a Quebecker, I hope. Companies are struggling in Saguenay, in the Gasp, in Beloeil. Would those companies not deserve to be saved by the money that the supposedly struggling Liberal Party has taken? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: I am always very happy to answer questions from all Canadians currently sitting in the House. We will be here to help workers in difficulty all across the country, including in Quebec. +Mr. Yves-Franois Blanchet: If the Prime Minister is so happy to answer questions, I hope he will be delirious with joy to answer this one. Is the Liberal Party in difficulty? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, we established a program to help those working in organizations and who could lose their jobs because of COVID-19. We are here to help workers in organizations and companies all over the country. +The Chair: We'll now go on to Mr. Singh. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The conditions of seniors as outlined by the military were appalling, but seniors need more than just compassionate words. They need action. Will the Prime Minister stop hiding behind excuses and actually show leadership to fix long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the Constitution of Canada is not an excuse. It lays out the divisions of powers and responsibilities, and we respect the provinces' jurisdiction over long-term care facilities. However, from the very beginning, we have indicated our willingness to support the provinces on this very important issue. We need to make sure our seniors right across the country are properly cared for, which is why we sent in the military and why we are there to help the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The former federal health minister, Dr. Philpott, said, We need to stop using jurisdiction as an excuse to not have federal leadership. That is a former federal health minister. Now, we know from the military report that staff were afraid to use vital equipment because of the cost. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in long-term care? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, over the past couple of days I've had very good conversations with the premiers of both Quebec and Ontario on this important issue. I look forward to discussing issues around long-term care with all the premiers of the provinces and territories tomorrow evening as well. This is something that Canadians have seen needs concerted action. We will be there to support the provinces. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Needles were reused and expired medication was used, according to military reports. Will the Prime Minister call for an end to profit in the care of our seniors? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, the contents of that report were deeply disturbing and troubling for all Canadians. That is why we are committed to working with the provinces to fix this situation. Ontarians and indeed people right across the country are deeply preoccupied by what they've seen going on. We need to fix this, and we will do that together. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that cockroaches and flies were present and that food was rotten. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards so that long-term care is governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, our priority right now is ensuring that we are supporting the provinces in their need to make sure that all seniors are protected right across the country in all those institutions. Going forward, we absolutely will need to have more conversations about how we can ensure that every senior across the country is properly supported. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The military report found that respecting the dignity of patients was not a priority. Will the Prime Minister call for national standards and for long-term care to be governed by the same principles as the Canada Health Act? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, all Canadians know we need to do better by our seniors. This is something we all take very seriously, and all orders of government will work together to make sure that right now, and going forward, we improve our systems. The federal government will be there to work with the provinces on making that happen. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister has said that he's willing to work with the provinces. I'm saying that we need to see federal leadership. We need a commitment at the federal level that the Prime Minister will push for things that people need, which is to remove profit from long-term care and to establish national standards. Will the Prime Minister go beyond working with provinces and show some leadership? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr.Chair, I will always be here to stand up for Canadians in all different situations. We are going to work with the provinces, fully respecting jurisdictions, to make sure that, all across the country, Canadians in long-term care are supported as required and receive the services and the care they deserve. +The Chair: Mr. Singh, we have 30 seconds. Ask a brief question, please. +Mr. Jagmeet Singh: Thank you very much. The COVID-19 crisis should not be used as an excuse to avoid presenting solutions to the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls committee, in particular by delaying action on the calls for justice. This is the same government that would not recognize it as a genocide, the same government that delayed the United Nations declaration legislation and the same government that is still taking indigenous kids to court. Will this government commit to core funding for indigenous services to help women and girls and ensure that the calls for justice are implemented without delay? +Right Hon. Justin Trudeau: Mr. Chair, we continue to work very closely with partners on the calls for justice even as we act in many areas, including better funding for shelters and for victims of domestic violence. We will continue to work with those partners, but people will understand that many of those partners are very focused right now on helping front-line workers, not on establishing the report. We will continue to work with them on the report, but the COVID-19 situation has made that more difficult. +The Chair: I want to thank the honourable members who are shouting time, but I do have a timer here, and I am taking care of it. I appreciate the help, but I do want to remind them that I have the proper machinery here. We will now go to Mr. Bezan. +Mr. James Bezan: Thank you, Chair. My question is to the Prime Minister. He was just talking about the tragic conditions in long-term care facilities in Ontario, and there was a report out from Quebec today. I want to commend the Canadian Armed Forces for witnessing these appalling conditions, putting it in the context of a report, and providing care to our loved ones in these long-term care facilities. The government is saying they didn't receive the report from the department until May 22, but this report came out on May 14. What happened to that report for eight days? +The Chair: We will go to the honourable minister. We seem to have a technical issue, Mr. Sajjan. We can't hear you. You might want to put down your bar and keep it down while you're speaking. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan (Minister of National Defence): Mr. Chair, I want to thank our Canadian Armed Forces members for the tremendous work they are doing. They did their duty, noted down their observations and reported them. While those observations were being reported directly to the managers, a report was being compiled. This report was given to me on the 21st. I then forwarded it to the Minister of Public Safety on the 22nd, and that report was then given to the provincial authorities very quickly afterwards. +Mr. James Bezan: I trust that you got the report on the 21st, but the report was written on the 14th, so what happened with that report for seven days? Why wasn't it acted upon? Could you just explain that? Our loved ones were at risk during that entire time. +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as we stated, this report was done and given up through the chain of command, and the appropriate leadership did their due diligence. Once we received this report, it was forwarded to the appropriate authorities. Again, I want to commend our Canadian Armed Forces members for not only the tremendous work they are doing but also for doing their duty. +Mr. James Bezan: That report from Ontario documented appalling conditions, horrific care that was being given to the clients, and also the way that the staff conducted themselves. We know that there are 39 members of the Canadian Armed Forces currently infected with COVID-19. Minister, do you believe that the infection could have been transmitted from staff to our soldiers serving in long-term care facilities because proper protocols were not being followed? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to any type of activities that we send our Canadian Armed Forces on, we do our due diligence to make sure that we have the right protocols in place and the appropriate training. This is why we have taken the time to make sure our folks not only did the appropriate training but had the appropriate equipment. We have the right protocols in place, and we will make sure that our members who are infected by COVID will get the appropriate treatment as well. +Mr. James Bezan: Does the Minister of National Defence believe that our soldiers serving in Operation Laser, who have put themselves in harm's way in battling the COVID virus as a war, deserve to have hazard pay benefits? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, when it comes to looking after Canadian Armed Forces personnel, yes, we are actually in the process as we speak of making sure that our members have the appropriate hazard pay. This is currently being drafted, and we will have more to say on this shortly. +Mr. James Bezan: I hope that means it's a yes. I do encourage the government to provide that compensation to our soldiers and troops serving in Operation Laser. I would finally like to come back to the issue of the timeline from May 14 to May 21, when that report was in the department for one week. Under our parliamentary system, ministers are accountable for the conduct of their departments. Will the minister take responsibility for that report sitting on someone's desk for seven days and not being turned over to the proper authorities? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear: When it comes to the observations that were made, those were immediately reported to the appropriate management of the care facilities and to the appropriate links within the province. At the same time, this report was being compiled and pushed up to the chain of command, and they did their due diligence. As I stated, it was given to us, and on the same day it was forwarded to the Minister of Public Safety, who immediately then sent it to the provincial authorities. +Mr. James Bezan: Was one of those authorities that this was sent to the RCMP? +Hon. Harjit S. Sajjan: Mr. Chair, as stated, this will not only be given to the proper authorities but the appropriate steps will be taken now. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (BattlefordsLloydminster, CPC): Thank you, Chair. Yesterday it was revealed that the Minister of Digital Government has been promoting a fundraising campaign to sue Global News for their story criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. Why is the minister using her authority to support the Communist Party of China and threatening our media and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray (Minister of Digital Government): Mr. Chair, we value the important work of media right across the country. Attacking the integrity of hard-working journalists is simply not acceptable. Like many members on all sides of the House.... WeChat is a social media platform used to engage and share information with +The Chair: Now we'll go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister aware of the efforts that the United Front carries out on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to influence how Canadians view the People's Republic of China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Thank you for that question. Mr. Chair, I want to just be clear. The participation in the WeChat group, much like Facebook, is guided by posted +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is the minister an active participant in the efforts by the Communists to muzzle a Canadian journalist and deprive Canadians of the facts about China? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Muzzling journalists is never acceptable, and our government is very clear on that. I will say that the individual in question posted something outside of the guidelines of my WeChat group and is no longer +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. Ms. Falk, I just want to point out that we do have interpreters listening and trying to interpret. They'd appreciate it.... +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: My questions are short. That's probably what it is. +The Chair: Take a deep breath. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, the Liberals can't shrug this off. The minister admitted to theBreaker that her own political staff manages this WeChat. This is someone who is paid by Canadian taxpayers. Why is the minister using tax dollars to help China attack Global News and freedom of expression? +Hon. Joyce Murray: I think the member knows very well that the people who post on WeChat are free to post what they choose within certain guidelines. Those guidelines were ignored. That person is no longer part of my WeChat group. The post was completely unacceptable, and I do not share the views of the individual. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, Sam Cooper is an investigative Canadian journalist who has uncovered many different criminal rackets that can be linked back to Beijing. Has the minister apologized to Sam Cooper for attempting to shut down his work? +Hon. Joyce Murray: As we all know, community outreach is a very important part of the work of a member of Parliament. WeChat is one of many social media sites regularly used by members +The Chair: We go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, when will the minister apologize to Sam Cooper and Global News? +Hon. Joyce Murray: Mr. Chair, I have been very clear that I do not share the views of the person who posted on my WeChat site, who operated outside of my +The Chair: We'll now go back to Ms. Falk. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in December 2018 the Liberals passed Bill C-76. This included provisions to prevent foreign interference in Canadian society. Does the government believe that Joyce Murray's actions have violated this portion of the act? +Hon. Bill Blair (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness): Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that we are always vigilant in any foreign interference in our national security or issues of political interference in our society. It's monitored carefully by the national security establishment, according to the law as it exists in this country, and we will remain vigilant. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, in May 2019, the Liberals launched their digital charter. One of the principles was strong democracy, a commitment to defend freedom of expression. Will the Liberals hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated this part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, we are absolutely committed to the rule of law and will always uphold it. I think, as the minister has made very clear, she was not involved in this process and has no control over the individual who posted that matter. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Chair, unfortunately I don't believe that was a sufficient answer. This is really a yes or no. Will the government hold Joyce Murray's WeChat accountable if it has violated their part of the charter? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, Mr. Chair, I want to assure the member that our government remains committed to the rule of law and we will always work tirelessly to uphold the laws of this country. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Is that a yes or a no? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I think it was very clear. We will always uphold the laws of Canada. +Mrs. Rosemarie Falk: Still, was that a yes or a no? I'm not hearing a yes or a no. +Hon. Bill Blair: I am doing my very best, Mr. Chair, to answer the question for the House and to assure the member opposite that our government will always remain committed to the rule of law. That is unequivocal. +The Chair: We will now move on to the honourable member. The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. I am very happy and proud to be participating in this discussion in the House of Commons today. My question is very simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance): Mr.Chair, we continue to be transparent with our measures. Of course, we want to make sure that our investments, our economy +The Chair: The floor is yours, Mr.Deltell. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Let me ask my question to the honourable Minister of Finance once more, since he is talking about transparency. My question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, our economic situation is very fluid. We have made major investments and we are making sure that our economy is working. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the minister's answer is not fluid at all. But the question is really simple: how much is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, it is important to be transparent with our investments. We look at the investments and the figures every day. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, the Minister of Finance may not know what the deficit is, but one great Canadian does know. And he knows that he knows. Could the Minister of Finance be very clear, very fluid and, above all, very transparent with Canadians? What is Canada's deficit? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I want to be very clear with Canadians: our economic situation is very difficult. The situation is fluid. We are making investments to ensure that our economy will be strong in the future. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, with all due respect to the Minister of Finance, let me point out that, though he is not very clear, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer was clear yesterday. The deficit is $260billion. That is the real number. Why does the government not have the courage to state it clearly, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer did yesterday? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we always want to be clear and transparent. It is very important for the situation to be stable in order to ensure our future. That is our economic approach. We are making investments now so that the situation becomes more stable. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, I know that the Minister of Finance is very good with figures. But he is not able to give us one. Perhaps he could comment on the statement that the Parliamentary Budget Officer made yesterday, that the emergency assistance must have an end date, and if it does not, we are heading to levels of taxation that have not been seen in this country for generations. What is the government going to do to make sure that Canadians will not be overtaxed after this crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to make investments. That way, we will have a resilient economy in the future. That's very important. That way, we know that we'll have a good economy in the future. When we have more information, we will +The Chair: Mr.Deltell, you have the floor. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, will the minister commit not to raise taxes after the crisis? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I have said several times that we do not have a plan to raise taxes. That's very important. +Mr. Grard Deltell: Finally a clear answer! However, I'm not convinced that he will apply it. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer himself has said that there isn't much ammunition left without shifting into a large structural deficit, which can lead directly to tax increases. If the Minister of Finance can't even say today what the deficit is today, how can he be credible when he says that he won't raise taxes? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I think what's most important is that during this pandemic, Canadians and companies across the country need the Government of Canada's help. That is our approach. That way, we will have an economy that will function in the future. Of course, this is important for future generations. +Mr. Grard Deltell: When will there be an economic update? +Hon. Bill Morneau: +Mr. Grard Deltell: Mr.Chair, all observers are expecting an economic update to know where we're going. When will that happen? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we want our economic update to be accurate. That's why we are looking at information that allow us to make good forecasts. +The Chair: We'll now go to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Chair, the United States, Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Vietnam have created an economic prosperity group to diversify some of their key supply chains away from China. Canada has a free trade agreement with six of these seven countries. Why are we not part of this group? +Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade): Mr. Chair, I thank the hon. member for that question. Indeed, we have been working diligently with all of these countries to make sure that we are keeping global supply chains open during this critical time. I think everyone agrees that keeping supply chains open for medical goods, critical agriculture and essential goods is absolutely essential and +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, this government is refusing to come to terms with what COVID-19 will mean for the future of international trade. Why is Canada not at the table with our largest trading partner protecting the viability of our international supply chains and capitalizing on the opportunities of others doing the same? +The Chair: Before we go to the minister, one of the members has his mike still on, and I would ask that he turn it off. I am hearing background noise. The hon. minister. +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, Canada has unprecedented access to a number of markets around the world because of the extraordinary agreements that we have made to provide access to customers in those international markets. During COVID-19, we have been working with our G20 partners. I have had two meetings with G20 trade ministers on the importance of keeping supply chains +The Chair: We'll go back to Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, is this payback for the Prime Minister snubbing these countries at the original TPP signing? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we have a CPTPP arrangement with these countries, and we are looking forward to making sure that we get Canadian businesses growing into those markets. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the U.K. will begin applying tariffs at the beginning of next year on Canadian exports such as seafood, beef and cars. These are the items that have had tariffs removed under CETA. Will the government commit to having a new trade agreement with the U.K. in place by January 1? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we are monitoring the situation very carefully. The U.K., of course, is a very important trading partner for Canada. They are in discussions right now. I want to assure Canadian businesses that CETA continues to apply to our trade with the U.K. during this period while they go through Brexit. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, after CUSMA, this government guaranteed to the trade committee that they would publish the objectives of any new trade agreement. When will we see these objectives published and actually have a chance to view them? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we look forward to working to ensure that those objectives are published as we get into future trade discussions. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, the resignation of the WTO director-general at this unprecedented time is concerning for the international trade community. Is the government committed to supporting a DG candidate who is dedicated to the massive reforms needed to get the WTO functioning again? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for that good question. The Ottawa group, led by Canada, is working with like-minded countries on the reform of the WTO. We've been doing this work and we continue to do this work. I look forward to making sure that we are leading the way on those discussions with like-minded +The Chair: Mr. Hoback. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, last week the President of the United States considered blocking cattle imports. Our beef producers don't need this. They need stability. Three-quarters of Canada's beef cattle exports go to the U.S. Has the government sought out and received assurances from the United States that no such action will apply to Canadian cattle? +Hon. Chrystia Freeland (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chair, we have an excellent assurance of our trade with the United States, which is our new NAFTA trade agreement that we have negotiated, thanks to the unprecedented co-operation across this country. It is very important to the Canadian economy and Canadian producers. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, going forward post-COVID, there are a lot things that will be changing in supply chains. What is this government doing proactively to look at opportunities in these supply chains that Canadian businesses can take advantage of? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, we continue to work with countries around the globe to ensure that Canada's supply chains and those global supply chains, particularly for essential goods, for agricultural products, for medical supplies, continue to remain open. We will keep doing this work. +Mr. Randy Hoback: Mr. Chair, on the agriculture side, canola farmers would like to know the status of canola going into China. Can she update the House on that status? +Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Mr.Chair, I want to assure my colleague that we are continuing to work with our industry representatives, our allies and our trading partners in China. +The Chair: We'll now go to Ms. McLeod. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod (KamloopsThompsonCariboo, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senior Canadian bureaucrats received very credible reports in early January that China was procuring and hoarding PPE. As a member of cabinet, was the health minister aware? +Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health): Mr. Chair, from the very beginning of the outbreak in early January we were aware of the challenges our health sector would face, and we immediately began to work with the provinces and territories to understand what the need would be and how we could best prepare. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: In April, the minister stated there were not enough supplies in the national emergency stockpile. Can she explain why she approved a donation of 16 tonnes of PPE for China on January 31, claiming it would not compromise our supply? She can't have it both ways. We don't have enough; we have enough and it won't compromise it. +Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procurement): Mr. Chair, we are operating in a highly competitive global environment, and the reality is that we need to make sure we have multiple complementary supply chains operating at the same time, which we have been doing in the past weeks and months, to ensure our front-line health care workers have the supplies they need to keep Canadians safe. That's our priority. That's what we're working on. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Unfortunately, this question was directed to the health minister, referencing things she actually stated in terms of the availability of our supplies. Before the she signed off on the donationand it was the health minister who signed off on the donationdid she consult with the health ministers in the provinces and territories? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, provinces and territories have their own stockpiles, which of course they use to prepare for incidences of outbreak and other illnesses across their jurisdictions. We've worked very closely with the provinces and territories since the beginning of the outbreak to make sure we can provide any particular additional support. In fact, of all the requests made so far, we have been able to complete them. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Health care workers are now having to look at modified full-face snorkels as an alternative to N95 masks. Did it not occur to the minister that our hospitals and care homes could have used that PPE she shipped out, providing a longer opportunity for them to also get procurement done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as the member opposite knows, the equipment that was donated when China was in its outbreak was an important donation of nearly expired or expired goods that it was in desperate need of in its effort to try to contain the virus. As the member opposite knows, we've been able to work successfully with provinces and territories to ensure they have what they need. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Mr. Chair, I would suggest that during February and March our hospitals would have consumed that almost-expired product very efficiently, but I want to move on to another topic. When defending the sale of 22 seniors' homes to the Chinese government, the Prime Minister stated that we have a strong regulatory regime that imposes rigorous standards. He said that this regime ensures the care our seniors get is top quality. That was in 2017. Now he states he is saddened, shocked, disappointed and angered. Was the Prime Minister completely oblivious to the risks, or was he just too anxious to please the Chinese government when he sold those 22 homes? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the homes the member opposite is referring to are in the province of B.C., and I have to commend the province for the early work it did to protect seniors in those long-term care homes. The member opposite is trying to confuse the issue. As she knows, the review we did was entirely separate from the standards to which the province holds the care homes. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: The Prime Minister does not have authority over seniors' homes, which he has clearly stated, but he does have authority over the act in which he approved the sale. At 18 months, government had an obligation to make sure there was compliance. Was that done? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the long-term care homes in each province fall within the jurisdiction of their own particular act, and those provinces and territories are responsible for fulfilling the inspections required under that act. +Mrs. Cathy McLeod: Under the Investment Canada Act, the government is obligated to review the sale for compliance. Four homes had to close. Since the government approved the sale, it is complicit in the care of our seniors in this country +Hon. Navdeep Bains (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry): Mr. Chair, I want to make it very clear that we understand how difficult this is for seniors. That is why we follow the appropriate steps, outlined under the Investment Canada Act, to make sure that any measures we take keep seniors and their well-being first and foremost. +The Chair: Mr.Therrien, you now have the floor. +Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ): Mr.Chair, during the pandemic, the government has given money to companies that don't pay a cent in tax because they use tax havens. We told the government that it didn't make sense. The government's response was that it is no big deal. During the pandemic, the government gave money to Air Canada, but Air Canada never reimbursed customers who did not get the services they paid for. We told the government that it did not make sense. The government's response was that it was no big deal. During the pandemic, the Liberal Party used the emergency wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. We told them that it did not make sense. The government responded that it was no big deal. Is the moral of the story that the government thinks that dipping into the pockets of taxpayers to spend money carelessly is no big deal? +Hon. Diane Lebouthillier (Minister of National Revenue): Mr.Chair, the fight against tax evasion is a priority for our government. We will continue to target companies that use tax evasion schemes. Let me be clear: in everything we do, we will target companies and not innocent workers. Employees are employees, no matter who they work for. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, when I see that it's the Minister of National Revenue answering me, I don't feel like buying a lottery ticket. The Liberal Party used two airplanes in its last election campaign, which seems to indicate that it isn't short of money. However, the Liberals used the emergency wage subsidy. Why? Is it because they want taxpayers to fund a third airplane? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we think it's very important to protect employees across the country and in every economic sector that's experiencing a significant drop in income. That's the approach we've taken to protect people and to ensure that there will be jobs in the future. We will continue this approach. +Mr. Alain Therrien: It's especially important to protect the employees who work for the Liberals to ensure their re-election, yet the Liberal Party has raised more than $7million since the last election. Is the party in jeopardy? Can it go bankrupt? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, as I said, our approach is to protect employees. We think that this principle is very important and that this approach must be maintained in order to have a better job market in the future. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, we still don't know exactly how much money the Liberals took from the cookie jar. We think they may have taken as much as $1million. How many SMEs could have been saved with the $1million that the Liberals took out of the jar and took away from SMEs? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we appreciate the question. We are protecting hundreds of thousands of SMEs through the emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency response benefit and all our programs. We will continue this approach to help SMEs and their employees. +Mr. Alain Therrien: Mr.Chair, I will propose a choice of answers, or I won't get any. When did the government decide to use the emergency wage subsidy? Now here are three possible answers. The first possible answer is that when the Liberals brought in the emergency wage subsidy, they set parameters allowing them to use it. The second is that when the Liberals saw the Conservative Partywhich is as rich as they are, but also sanctimonious and self-righteoustake advantage of the subsidy, they thought they could do it too. The third possible answer is that the Liberals hadn't planned to use the subsidy, but they pounced on the cookie jar when they saw it, because that's what they do. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we continue to think it is very important to protect employees in every sector of the economy and across Canada. That's our approach, and I believe it's the right one to protect and preserve jobs across the country during a pandemic. +The Chair: We are now going to suspend the proceedings for a few seconds to allow the employees who provide support for the meeting to replace each other safely. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC)): We will now resume the discussion. We'll continue with Ms. Khalid, the honourable member for MississaugaErin Mills. +Ms. Iqra Khalid (MississaugaErin Mills, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with the member for PickeringUxbridge. Mr. Chair, when the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces stepped in to provide support to five long-term care homes in Ontario at the request of the premier, they released a report that outlined their findings in detail. Military members witnessed residents' cries for help going unanswered. They saw force-feeding. They saw bug infestations, a lack of personal protective equipment and neglect. Canadians are shaken. They are appalled by the horrific conditions outlined in the military report. Almost 1,000 seniors so far have lost their lives in long-term care homes in Ontario alone, over 25 of them in my riding of MississaugaErin Mills. These deaths could have been prevented. Can the Minister of Health please update the House on how our federal government is working with the provinces and territories to prevent further tragic occurrences from happening at long-term care homes and to ensure that our most vulnerable seniors are properly looked after and cared for? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, it's such an important question. I believe all Canadians were deeply horrified to read the details from the Canadian Armed Forces on the conditions in long-term care homes in Ontario. What's happening to seniors in Ontario is completely unacceptable. The report is very troubling. Seniors deserve to live with dignity, with respect and with safety. While long-term care is provincially regulated, we know that we need to work together. The Government of Canada stands ready to support provinces and territories as they continue to respond to this crisis. I had a very good conversation with my provincial and territorial counterparts last night about the work we can do at a national level to support their important work. We also know that seniors want to stay at home longer. That's why our historic investment of $6 billion in home care was so important. We'll continue to work with the provinces and territories to ensure that they get the care and dignity they deserve. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Ms. O'Connell. +Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (PickeringUxbridge, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will sadly report that my community of Pickering has experienced the largest number of deaths at a single COVID-19 outbreak location anywhere in this country. Seventy residents at Orchard Villa long-term care home died during this pandemic. It was a devastating blow to our community. Yesterday, we received the horrific report from the Canadian Armed Forces detailing what they witnessed at Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamont Care Community in Scarborough, Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Hawthorne Place in North York, and Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor in Brampton. The loved ones of those who have passed away, as well as the homes' workers, have asked for a full public inquiry from the Ontario government. I know that the responsibility for these facilities falls within provincial jurisdiction, but on behalf of our communities, can the Minister of Health update us on the work she is doing to ensure that the Ontario government takes action immediately and initiates a full, independent, non-partisan public inquiry and reverses its decision to create a government-led commission that won't even start until September? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I would say that all Canadians were shocked and horrified to hear about the conditions that existed in these particular care homes. We're so grateful to the members of the armed forces who not only improved conditions but also reported them quickly and appropriately to ensure amelioration of those conditions for those particular individuals. We also know that there are seniors all across the country who are struggling with care and with the appropriate level of care. We have to do better as a country. These are our loved ones. These are our parents and our grandparents. These are the people in our lives who have given so much to us. I stand committed to working with my provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure that we do better as a society. We know that there's a role we can play at the federal level with advice, with guidance, with support and, yes, with investments. We look forward to having those conversations about how best we can improve the care for all seniors amongst us. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go now to Mr. Davies from Vancouver Kingsway. +Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Canadians were horrified to hear the report yesterday from our armed forces about the appalling conditions experienced by seniors in our long-term care homes. Page after page detailed the filth, neglect, abuse and danger our seniors in care are exposed to on a daily basis. Shockingly they face injury and death through missed medications, expired medications, unsterile devices and violations of basic contagion rules to stop the spread of COVID-19. Given that evidence of possible criminal conduct was contained in the military's report, will the minister refer this matter to the RCMP for investigation immediately? +Hon. Bill Blair: Mr. Chair, thanks very much to the member for those expressions of concern, which we share. We understand in long-term care facilities both seniors and persons living with a disability face unique challenges, and the findings of this report are in fact deeply concerning and completely unacceptable. Considering the severity of this report, we promptly shared it with the Province of Ontario, and the Province of Ontario has initiated an investigation based on the report's findings. Their investigation includes alerting the province's chief coroner who has the authority to alert the police of jurisdiction. We will continue to work with the province to protect those living in long-term care facilities, and we continue to support them through the deployment of our outstanding Canadian Armed Forces and in our partnership with the Red Cross. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, that's a shocking answer considering there's clear evidence of criminal conduct and negligence in this. That this federal government is not taking immediate steps to refer this to the nation's RCMP is unacceptable. The seniors care crisis is a national problem. COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities across Canada's entire network of long-term care facilities. Not a single province or territory currently meets the benchmark of 4.1 hours of hands-on care per day. As a result Canada has the worst record of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care among 14 comparable countries, with over 80% of Canadian fatalities occurring in these facilities. Will this government move swiftly to establish binding national standards for long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member opposite is exactly correct when he says that those who are hardest hit in terms of losing their lives and the negative effects of COVID are those who are living in long-term care homes. He's also correct when he indicates that COVID-19 has shown us what many of us have known for a long time, that we need to do better in long-term care and supports for seniors. As the member knows, we started those steps some four years ago or so when we began to make incredible investments in aging at home. We know that is one part of the solution, but we have to do better for those seniors who need a higher level of care. That's the work I'm doing now. I'm working with my colleagues at the provinces and territories to make sure that we come up with a solution that will truly result in better standards for all. +Mr. Don Davies: Mr. Chair, what we need is binding national standards, just like we set through the Canada Health Act in the health care sector generally. Gross fecal contamination, filthy medical equipment, insect infestations, ignoring patient cries for hourswe would never tolerate these conditions in Canada's hospitals. There's no reason to accept them in Canada's long-term care facilities. Will the minister move to bring long-term care facilities under the Canada Health Act, or similar legislation, with formal funds tied to acceptable standards of care for our seniors, just like we do for hospitals? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, the member shares the disgust and concern of so many Canadians across the country, not only those who have read the report but many of those who have struggled to provide care to elders in those long-term care homes, regardless of the province in which they live. We know we need to do better. We know that collectively, at all levels of government, we must do better for those people who cared for us and nurtured us all of those years. The member has my commitment that I will work with provinces and territories to find a solution forward to ensure that every person has the right to age with dignity and safety. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. Davies, you have 15 seconds for another question, a short one, and leave time for a response. +Mr. Don Davies: Thank you, Mr. Chair. These failures are the product of systemic neglect often motivated by prioritizing profit over the provision of adequate care. Does the minister agree that we should not be putting profits above the health care needs of Canada's seniors? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I believe that, when we commit to taking care of people, we must do so with the utmost care that is required. I know that provinces and territories have a lot of work to do. So do we, at the federal level, and obviously at the local level. We must all work together to protect those people in our lives who are most vulnerable, whether they be seniors, children or others. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now move on to Mr. Schmale, HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock. Mr. Schmale, go ahead. +Mr. Jamie Schmale (HaliburtonKawartha LakesBrock, CPC): Thank you, Chair. According to Vaughn Palmer in an editorial in the Vancouver Sun regarding the secret Wet'suwet'en deal, Palmer writes: The hereditary chiefs calculated the two governments would sign despite the objections from the elected chiefs. They likewise got the terms they wanted in the MOU while giving up absolutely nothing. Just as they figured governments would keep the contents secret from the public. Can the minister describe another situation in which the federal government negotiated a secret deal of this magnitude with unelected people? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett (Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations): I thank the member for his ongoing concern and I want to remind him that actually it is in keeping with the Supreme Court decision of 1997 that we were to now begin those conversations with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who took the case to the Supreme Court. As we've said many times, this is not an agreement; this is an MOU that establishes the path forward for the substantive discussions towards a final agreement, which would describe the future governance and the implementation of Wet'suwet'en rights and title. It is about a shared commitment. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, if it is a shared commitment, why on the eve of the signing ceremony did the four elected chiefs denounce the hereditary chiefs for keeping them in the dark? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it's really important that the member understand that there was a process for the hereditary chiefs to go back to their communities and discuss with them. Any agreement after the good work that will happen now would have to go back and seek the approval of all of the communities. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Mr. Chair, the Burns Lake Band members are openly wondering if they're still a band or if the few unelected hereditary chiefs will control everything now. Minister, can you assure them that going forward you will honour their concerns and take the time to listen? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I ask honourable members to still direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Actually, the honourable member knows that the next steps include the further and ongoing engagement by the Wet'suwet'en in their house groups and that will include the six elected chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en nation, their community members and many others. This is about going forward and making sure that any +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Cynthia Joseph, a chief councillor with the Hagwilget First Nation says the MOU between Ottawa, the province and the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs was only shared with her community members on May 9, two days after it was published in the media. Is this part of the open and transparent government all Canadians can expect of the Prime Minister? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Walking the path of reconciliation means that we work with our partners and there is a way that they do the work within their communities. It is going to be an agreement to begin the work, but any final agreement is going to have to be approved by all members of the nation in terms of developing a consensus for the agreement +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. Does the minister have any concerns regarding claims by several former female hereditary chiefs that they were stripped of their hereditary status because they didn't agree with the men? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: Again, it is going to be really important that the work take place within the Wet'suwet'en nation to determine their future governance, to determine their way of working with Canada and to make sure +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Schmale. +Mr. Jamie Schmale: Thank you, Chair. For some reason it seems to be a problem to stand up for these hereditary female chiefs who had their titles taken away. Does the minister plan on recognizing band council resolutions denying the authority of hereditary chiefs to sign any future agreements without consent of the elected chiefs and the 3,000 members within the Wet'suwet'en they represent? +Hon. Carolyn Bennett: I think the member must understand that, as we begin the work, the nation will do its work and then we will come to the table to determine what the governance would be. Will it be a hybrid model like at Heiltsuk, like Ktunaxa, like some of the communities developing their constitutions, developing their laws and deciding how they will determine their own governance and that partnership with Canada? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (CharlesbourgHaute-Saint-Charles, CPC): Thank you, Mr.Chair. The current restrictions on non-essential travel at the border do not prevent people from claiming refugee protection if they have family in Canada. Why is the minister refusing to allow married people to cross the border? +Hon. Bill Blair: I want to thank the honourable member for a very important question. We have heard from many constituents and members of Parliament from right across the country who are expressing concern about non-status spouses being denied entry into the country because their travel is deemed to be non-essential. I've recently been in touch with all of the provinces and territories because I think it's very important that we have their support for any changes +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: If I understand correctly, Mr.Minister, you are talking to provincial representatives, but a case like that of ChantalTremblay, for instance, is unacceptable. For two months now, she has been trying to bring her spouse to Canada, but it isn't working. Is there a way to issue a directive to border services officers that married spousesit's often marriages with Americanscan cross the border to join their spouses in Canada? +Hon. Bill Blair: Just to be very clearagain, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify thisit is never our intention to separate families, but at the same time, we have imposed appropriate and necessary restrictions on non-essential travel. Our border services officers inquire of everyone coming to that border about the nature of their travel, and for non-citizens who come to that border seeking entry into Canada, if their entry is deemed non-essential, then they exercise their discretion not to allow +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have the floor. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Thank you, Mr.Chair. Information from the Canada Border Services Agency has just come out. Since March21, 425,000people have flown into Canada. Among them were 295,000Canadians, which isn't a problem. However, 100,000foreigners have entered Canada, even though the border is supposedly closed. How does the minister explain the fact that 100,000people arrived in Canada by plane? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to clarify. We have imposed very significant restrictions on non-essential travel, but of course there are circumstances where individuals come to this country and their entry into Canada is deemed essential. For example, someone who is providing medical services and coming into Canada to provide those services would be deemed essential, because there is a great need among Canadians for those services. It's dealt with on a case-by-case basis. As you can see by the numbers, we have had a very significant reduction in the travel of all non-Canadians to Canada over the past two months. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: So the minister confirms that the 100,000people who arrived by air were providing a service considered essential to Canada. I'm not talking about the people who crossed the land border, but the people who came to Canada by air. +Hon. Bill Blair: What I can tell you is that at all points of entry, including our air borders, we apply the standard that the travel must be deemed essential, and that determination is utilized to see if a person is eligible to enter into the country. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: We're now learning that the Correctional Service of Canada's investigation into the murder of MarylneLevesque is suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Canadians aren't fooled; they know full well that it is a political decision. All the technological means are available to allow the investigation to continue. I'm proof of that today. Can the minister direct the Correctional Service of Canada to resume the investigation into the death of MarylneLevesque? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, I thank the member for the question, because we know the concern of the people of Quebec, and the family of Ms. Levesque needs answers and deserves answers. That's why we asked the Parole Board and the Correctional Service of Canada to convene a board of investigation. Clearly, during COVID transmission, the ability to conduct that investigation and to interview all of the witnesses became extremely difficult and has been temporarily suspended, but at the very earliest opportunity we remain resolute to resume that investigation and get to the bottom of it to provide the answers that the family deserves. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr.Paul-Hus, you have only 20seconds remaining. +Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: Mr.Chair, victims of crime are one of the segments of the population most affected by the crisis. As we know, the government refuses to allow victims of crime to participate in parole hearings. For the first time in its history, and to add insult to injury, the government has cancelled all activities related to Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, which was to take place next week. Why is the Prime Minister turning his back on victims? +Hon. Bill Blair: Again, at the earliest days of COVID, until arrangements could be put in place, there were restrictions on victims participating. We have put the systems in place to allow victims to present their evidence virtually, either by video or by phone, to ensure that their voices are heard in these important things. We very much respect and support the role of victims in these determinations, and we're making every effort to ensure that they can participate. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll now to Mr. Cumming, Edmonton Centre. +Mr. James Cumming (Edmonton Centre, CPC): Mr. Chair, yesterday I asked the Minister of Small Business how many business credit availability guarantees were issued by EDC, and I didn't get a number. Does she have an exact, finite, number of the guarantees today? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, thank you to the honourable member for that question. Our government has taken swift and immediate action to support Canadian businesses through this time. Money from this program is flowing, and businesses across the country are receiving the important support that they need. +Mr. James Cumming: How many BCAP applications have been received so far? +Hon. Mary Ng: Mr. Chair, these are large loans, and they require important due diligence and adjudication by the financial institutions. We will continue to be open and transparent as the accurate information becomes available. +Mr. James Cumming: How long does it take to be approved for a BCAP guarantee? +Hon. Mary Ng: I want to assure the member that we're going to do everything possible to support businesses and workers during this very important time. +Mr. James Cumming: How many businesses have received funding under the BCAP co-lending program since March? +Hon. Mary Ng: The lending programs, particularly the program to help small businesses, have really helped lots of businesses. Over 630,000 loans have been issued, and this is really helping those +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Unfortunately, lots is not an answer for the businesses that I'm trying to talk to. Can you tell me, for the CEBA changes that were recently announced, when will we be able to see people who have income through a dividend able to apply? +Hon. Mary Ng: That's a very important question, Mr. Chair. There's nothing more important to me and to our government than getting these supports out to businesses. Those small businesses that will meet the expanded CEBA criteria are working very diligently with the financial institutions to make sure that they can get access to those loans as quickly as possible. +Mr. James Cumming: Can the minister give me a day when that will happen? +Hon. Mary Ng: The financial institutions are working very hard to make sure that they can make this available to businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: When will a sole proprietor be able to go for those loans? +Hon. Mary Ng: We will work very hard and very diligently to make sure that these businesses and those sole proprietors are supported. +Mr. James Cumming: Could they go on Monday? +Hon. Mary Ng: There is nothing more important than making sure these businesses weather the difficult time of COVID-19, and our measures are +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How about Tuesday? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think we will all agree that getting support to these businesses is absolutely crucial. Our commitment is always going to be to get support to these businesses. +Mr. James Cumming: I can't get a distinct answer on any of those questions. Can you tell me how much headroom is left on the CEBA program? +Hon. Mary Ng: Today, over 630,000 businesses have received the support to do things like pay for salaries, the 25% top-up for the wage subsidy, pay for rent and pay for insurance and utilities. This is what these loans are helping our small +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars are left in the program so businesses can have some certainty that the program will be available for some time? +Hon. Mary Ng: I think you will see that the businesses across the country that I have talked to really appreciate that the government has stepped up to help them during this difficult time. These include women with businesses, indigenous-owned businesses and those small businesses all across our communities, all across the country, that are getting the necessary help. We are going to keep +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: How many dollars? It can't be that complicated. How many dollars? +Hon. Mary Ng: There are 630,000 businesses that are getting help, and thousands more businesses will be getting help with the expanded criteria. We're going to keep doing the work that we need to help our businesses across this country through this difficult time. +Mr. James Cumming: I heard from a constituent in my riding that they waited for over four hours on the portal for CECRA. Is there an issue with the portal, and if so, when will it be fixed? +Hon. Mary Ng: Making sure that businesses get the help for commercial rent support is absolutely crucial right now. We are going to endeavour to make sure that this help gets out to those small businesses. Applications have opened in a staggered way and +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): You have time for one last short question, Mr. Cumming. +Mr. James Cumming: Finally, the Prime Minister yesterday said that a list of all organizations that have been receiving CEWS will be made public. When will that be done? +Hon. Mary Ng: We have committed to making sure that those companies taking the wage subsidy program will be listed publicly. We have committed to doing that and we will do so. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We now go to Mr. d'Entremont from West Nova. Mr. d'Entremont, go ahead. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries, but I thought I would say this first. The Canadian Coast Guard is doing a search at this moment following the loss of a vessel off the coast of Newfoundland. From my community, which is a seafaring, fishing community, I just want to put my thoughts out there to the folks of Newfoundland. We are definitely thinking of them during this difficult time. My first question revolves around the lobster fishery. It's been open in Cape Breton since May 15, I believe. The weather has been good. The harvesters have been going at it every day. The price has dropped to $4.25 already. Unstable markets will probably cause it to drop even more. What is the minister doing to make sure the lobster industry survives? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan (Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my colleague for his comments with regard to the tragic accident off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, where we saw the loss of life in a fishing accident. Of course, as coastal people, we are all in solidarity with the people of Newfoundland right now. We know that the fish and seafood sector has taken extreme hits because of COVID-19. We're working diligently to make sure we support the industry as best we can. We have made available over half a billion dollars to processors and harvesters to make sure they can weather this storm. We have made sure that the harvesters are able to access the harvester benefit as well as the grant, recognizing the unique nature of their business and how they are not able to access some of our other programs. We are continuing to monitor what is happening in the industry. We will continue to make sure we do everything we can to support the fish and seafood sector. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, to continue along this vein for a moment, we are still looking at unstable markets for a longer period of time. At this point, processors are being selective in what they're buying. They're not buying culls and other kinds of lobsters. The plants are filling up, and harvesters are worried that they might stop buying product before the season is complete. What can the fishermen expect, or what kinds of programs can they expect, if the season goes bust? +Hon. Bernadette Jordan: Mr. Chair, we know that this is a very challenging season for our harvesters. We also know that because of the decline in markets, we've had to make accommodations for the processing sector in order to help them be better able to support the harvesters. We have put in $62.5 million, which is allowing the processors to increase capacity in their refrigeration and freezers so that they will continue to be able to purchase product. As I said earlier, we will continue to monitor the situation and make sure we do everything possible to support our harvesters. This is a very difficult +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We'll go back to Mr. d'Entremont. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr. Chair, I don't know whether this next question will go to the Minister of DFO or the Minister of Transport. Oakley Ryerson is a resident of West Nova. He is planning a career on the sea and wants to get his master class four. The problem is that he can't pass the eye exam. He needs full-colour vision. For those who are far-sighted or nearsighted, you just have to put on your glasses to correct it. You can actually fly airplanes. I don't know about space shuttles, but who knows? You can now wear colour-corrected lenses, but Transport Canada still does not recognize these for use. Can the Minister of Transport help Ryerson in attaining his chosen profession? +Hon. Marc Garneau (Minister of Transport): Mr. Chair, I appreciate the concern of my colleague for one of the residents in his riding. I would ask him to write to me and lay out the situation. We have medical standards with respect to a number of different kinds of transportation-related jobs for pilots, mariners and those kinds of occupations, which have to be respected. However, if he sends me the details, I will look into it personally. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Mr. d'Entremont, you have another 20 to 25 seconds left. +Mr. Chris d'Entremont: Mr.Chair, the eligibility criteria for financial support include the need to demonstrate a significant loss of income during the months of March and April, yet several SMEs in the tourism industry can't qualify because their operations start with the tourist season, in late May or early June. What will the government do to help them? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, before accessing the emergency wage subsidy, applicants must meet important criteria. However, as we explained last week, we will be adjusting the wage subsidy until the end of August, and we will be reviewing the criteria. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're going to go to the west coast and the member for SaanichGulf Islands. Ms. May, go ahead. +Ms. Elizabeth May: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is with regard to the urgent problem of mental health crises across Canada. My colleague, Jenica Atwin from Fredericton, held a press conference this morning in which she used the term echo pandemic. We will face an echo pandemic. We're already seeing increases in suicides on southern Vancouver Island. My question to the minister is this: Will we see direct funding to community mental health services as urgently requested by the Canadian Mental Health Association? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I read the honourable member's colleague's letter just today, and I want to reassure all members that we have invested in mental health supports for Canadians, obviously before the pandemic hit but certainly since we've been living with the pandemic. I'd like to remind all members to direct their constituents to the wellnesstogether.ca website and portal. There Canadians can find online resources, as well as connections to real and alive counsellors and other professionals who can help them with their various concerns. +Ms. Elizabeth May: This question relates to another current emergency: the climate emergency. This week it was reported that the concentration of greenhouse gases reached 417 parts per million. That's not just unprecedented over thousands of years; that's unprecedented over the last one million years. The temperatures in the Arctic broke 86F, 30C in the Arctic circle. The recognized parties in the House have established standing committees to work, but not the committee on the environment. We've asked for this in negotiations. When will the recognized parties remember the June 2019 emergency resolution that we are in a climate emergency, and start making sure that we hit 2020 commitments under the Paris Agreement to improve our targets? +Hon. Marc Garneau: Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's questions. I will remind her that we have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. We've also committed to surpassing the targets that we had originally set for 2030. We realize that along with the COVID pandemic, which is the major problem that exists in the world today, there is another problem as well that affects the entire planet, and that is the problem associated with climate change. We remain committed to achieving those targets. +Ms. Elizabeth May: My next question will be for Minister Blair, but as an aside, I will say that last answer completely fails to meet the legal requirements of the Paris Agreement to file a new target this year. To save some time, Minister Blair, let's pretend to go back to the questions from my colleague MP Paul-Hus and to your last answer. This is dealt with on a case-by-case basis by CBSA agents. There are thousands of them. They are exercising personal, subjective judgment. This is not acceptable. I'm begging the minister. Could the minister please put out a directive, advice to every CBSA agent on the ground, that when a non-status entry point sees a non-status direct relativehusband, wife, child of a Canadian citizenthat relative be deemed to be entering Canada for an essential purpose? +Hon. Bill Blair: I'd like to thank the member for bringing this issue forward again. It's an important one. We have been working very hard to ensure that we do everything possible to keep families together. At the same time, we've been working with the provinces and territories, listening to the concerns of Canadians about ensuring that travel across our international border, particularly with the United States, is limited to essential travel. As I've indicated, I've had a number of important conversations and necessary conversations with our provincial and territorial partners. I believe there is a consensus on the right way forward on this, and we're working very diligently to put it in place. I want to assure the member opposite that we have given very clear direction to our CBSA officers. I believe our border services officers have been doing an extraordinary job for us in the exercise of their discretion. At the same time, they have been doing the important work of ensuring the health and safety of Canadians at our border. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We're now going to Ms. Kwan for Vancouver East. Ms. Kwan, go ahead. +Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Four out of the five homes listed in the armed forces report were for-profit. It is painfully clear that corporate profits are being put ahead of the well-being of seniors. Will the minister admit that the for-profit model is failing our loved ones and commit to getting profits out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member opposite notes, nobody can read that report or hear those stories without feeling absolute horror and disgust and without demanding better for the elders in our lives. As I have mentioned many times in the House, our government remains committed to working with provinces and territories to ensure that every elder person in our community can age with dignity and in safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Minister, if that's the case, I will ask again. Will the minister make sure that the focus of long-term care homes is taking care of seniors and not taking care of owners' bank accounts? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: As the member will obviously know, long-term care remains in the jurisdiction of provinces and territories, and there is legislation that rules them as such. As the member also knows, we have stood by Ontario and all of the other provinces and territories throughout this outbreak. The Prime Minister has been very clear +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: Is the minister refusing to answer the question because she agrees that profit should come before care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: I think it's unfortunate that the member is trying to place words in my mouth. What I do agree with, though, is that long-term care needs to be reformed, and I think all provinces and territories know, and all Canadians know, that we have to do a better job. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: It's simple for the minister. She can just answer the question. Is she willing to defend for-profit care for our seniors? Is she in favour of for-profit private health care too? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: What I am willing to defend is the right for all Canadians to age with safety and dignity. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: To the minister, what is the difference? Why sell out the care of our seniors? Will she commit that she will take profit out of long-term care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, I think the member opposite knows that the only way to actually reform long-term care is to work with provinces and territories, in fact, all levels of government, to ensure that the people who spent their lives caring for and nurturing us can end their lives with caring and nurturing +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I think the minister knows that what we need is national standards for seniors' care. The Revera long-term care homes are owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. Since the government owns these homes, has the military been sent in there to see what's happening to seniors under their care? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, we know that it is important to work with all of the provinces and territories under whose jurisdiction it falls to protect the seniors within those care homes. That's what we've been doing since the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus, and that's what we'll continue to do to protect the lives of seniors and strengthen their protection. We will, as I said, Mr. Chair, work with the provinces and territories to have a longer-term plan so that all seniors can age with dignity and safety. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: The government has a clear responsibility here. What is the government doing to ensure the standards of care in these Revera homes that they own? +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Mr. Chair, as I have repeatedly said, the jurisdiction for care of long-term care homes falls within the provincial and territorial realm. However, that being said, Mr. Chair, we have been there for provinces and territories since the outbreak of the coronavirus, and as the member opposite has clearly or likely heard the Prime Minister say, we will stand with provinces and territories as all elders have the right to age with dignity +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Kwan. +Ms. Jenny Kwan: I didn't hear an answer, Mr. Chair, so the answer is nothing, then. Do you think that the families of the seniors in these homes want to hear those excuses about jurisdictional issues? Does the minister not think that the families want to hear that the federal government is doing all it can to care for their parents? +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): I would remind the members to direct their questions through the chair. The honourable minister. +Hon. Patty Hajdu: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quite frankly, I don't think that families care which level of government is responsible for caring for their elders. I think what they care about is that their elders are cared for. That's in fact what the Prime Minister believes. That's in fact what our government believes, and that's why we have willingly stepped up to say to provinces and territories that we will be there with you to make sure that all seniors in our lives have the right to age with dignity and care. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We will now give the floor to Mrs.Gill, from the riding of Manicouagan. Go ahead, Mrs.Gill. +Mrs. Marilne Gill (Manicouagan, BQ): Mr.Chair, my question is for the Prime Minister who, earlier, clearly told us that the government's assistance is intended for those who are most in need and most vulnerable. I come from a riding where a lot of people make their living from the tourism industry. I don't know if the PrimeMinister read the newspapers yesterday, but in Quebec, losses to the tune of $4billion are expected until March2021 in the tourism accommodation sector alone. The service sector will lose 93,000jobs. How can I justify to my constituents the fact that a political party, which does not need it, has already seen money from the emergency wage subsidy, when people in my riding don't yet have access to it because of the seasonal nature of their work? These people haven't seen the money that is available through these programs. +Hon. Bill Morneau: We think it is very important to protect the country's employees in all sectors of the economy. Through this approach, there will be more jobs after the pandemic, and the economic situation will be better. We will continue this approach. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, this is the wrong approach. They are saying that they are protecting the jobs of the Liberal Party of Canada, which does not need the money. I'll ask a question similar to the previous one. Fishers in my riding did not qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. Another program was created for them, which isn't quite the same and doesn't really meet their needs. A government whose political wingnot the parliamentary wingdoesn't really need money takes money from the fund, but leaves fishers to make do with less generous programs that don't meet their needs. What do I tell the fishers in my riding? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we know that many sectors of the economy across the country are facing challenges. That's why we have adopted an approach with consistent criteria for all employees in all sectors. We have also introduced specific measures to help certain sectors, such as the fishing industry. We will continue our approach because we believe it's the best way to protect employees and our economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I'm still not satisfied. The government is saying that the best way to proceed is to give money to the political wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, when there are people who are getting nothing. What am I supposed to tell seasonal workers, who have absolutely no assurances for their future? I can't go back to my riding and say I'm proud of the work the government is doing or our efforts in the House. It's true, the House is closed right now. I forgot. I have a very hard time accepting that the government is helping employees of the Liberal Party in preparation for the next election campaign, when communities in my region are dying because their economies revolve around a single industry. I can't tell them I'm not ashamed of what's going on as we speak. +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, we felt it was necessary to put emergency programs in place in response to the crisis during the pandemic. That is our approach. The emergency wage subsidy is a program that is clearly meant to ensure employees are protected and maintain their relationship with their employer. As for the Canada emergency response benefit, it means a lot to people who don't have a job. We are going to stick to our approach, which is to use consistent criteria to help all employees and all Canadians around the country struggling in any sector of the economy. +Mrs. Marilne Gill: Mr.Chair, I think the honourable Minister of Finance lives in an ivory tower. No, he is not protecting all jobs. No, he is not protecting all sectors of the economy. Once again, I will say that a party that doesn't need money has already received subsidies. However, people who need that money, people who are actually losing money or who don't know if they'll even be working this summer are getting zilch. There is absolutely no justifying that. I'd at least like to know whether the government is ashamed of what it's doing. When people have a conscience, eventually, they want to make up for their mistakes. Are the Liberals going to return that money? Is the finance minister going to help all sectors of the economy, including tourism, fisheries and seasonal industries? +Hon. Bill Morneau: Mr.Chair, I'd like to thank the member for her question. Our approach is based on consistent criteria. The emergency wage subsidy is meant for any sector of the economy where revenues have dropped by 30% or more. The measure is hugely important for organizations that are really struggling, because we can protect their workers. We are also providing the Canada emergency response benefit to other employees, meaning, those who have lost their income because of COVID-19. Consequently, we will keep up our approach to ensure we continue to fare as well as possible and the economy works well after the pandemic. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Now we'll go to our last group of interventions, and that will be from Ms. Jansen in CloverdaleLangley City. Ms. Jansen, go ahead. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen (CloverdaleLangley City, CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to begin with a shout-out to the brave waiters and waitresses at our local Earls restaurant and Browns Socialhouse, who have been opened again for on-site dining this week. Here in B.C. we're beginning to find our new normal, and it was great to see how small businesses have so quickly adapted their establishments to keep their workers and patrons safe while allowing people to get back to the business of living. You guys rock. Thanks for taking the lead. Mr. Chair, here in my riding I recently had contact with the mayor of Langley City who was wondering if I had any way of accessing personal protective gear, because our local firefighters were running out of stock. Then again yesterday, I spoke with one of our local homeless shelters that is also looking for PPE. Dr. Tam is telling all Canadians to wear masks in public, but I'm wondering if the Minister of Public Service and Procurement could tell us where exactly we're going to get all those masks with the current shortage. +Hon. Anita Anand: I want to be clear that our priority as a federal government has been to respond to provincial and territorial requests for PPE that goes to front-line health care workers. That is our priority, and we've been procuring goods aggressively in domestic and international markets. We are now actively also exploring ways in which we can assist broader organizations across the country with PPE needs, and that is something that I'll continue to update the House on as we go forward. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: A Globe and Mail article revealed that government orders for N95 masks have steadily been dropping. We've gone from over 200 million ordered to 100 million, according to a federal source. Mr. Chair, the number of N95 masks ordered, as reported on the department's website, does continue to fall. Will the minister tell us why we seem to continue to struggle to supply PPE to Canadians? +Hon. Anita Anand: It is no secret that we are in a global competition for N95 masks and other supplies, so the Government of Canada's approach is to diversify supply chains internationally and build up and retool domestic industry so that we can have these supplies going forward. In terms of the numbers on our web page, we have short-term and long-term contracts in place +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We go back to Ms. Jansen. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: Yes, I understand that a number of Chinese mask manufacturers have been nationalized, and products for Canadians have been confiscated by the CCP government. Is the drop in N95 orders due to, in actual fact, contracts being cancelled? +Hon. Anita Anand: On N95 masks, I would like to assure the member and the House that we have multiple contracts in place for the procurement of N95 masks, including with 3M in the United States, whose masks are crossing our border weekly over the next month. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: That didn't quite answer my question. Have any of our orders been cancelled by the nationalization of these manufacturers in China? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have an aide in place in China. We have our embassy and other firms actively ensuring that our supplies from the manufacturing source make their way to the warehouse. Over 40 flights have come to Canada with those masks and other supplies. Our supply chains are operating despite the global environment being highly competitive. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: We know many millions of N95 masks have arrived in Canada from China and have been substandard. What is the total number of substandard masks that have arrived? +Hon. Anita Anand: Mr. Chair, as previously explained to the House, about eight million masks did not meet spec by the Public Health Agency of Canada and have been repurposed to some extent in other areas of the system. +Mrs. Tamara Jansen: In a previous committee, the deputy minister advised us that Medicom was shoulder-tapped by the government to consider producing PPE. How many other companies did the government approach for this contract? +Hon. Anita Anand: We have operated in a very urgent way in order to procure supplies for front-line health care workers. We are now also moving to ensure that we have competitions run for the procurement of personal protective equipment. It's a multi-pronged approach, and our priority is to get supplies out to front-line health care workers in this time of crisis as quickly as possible. Thank you so much. +The Acting Chair (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Just before we adjourn, I think this another mark of accomplishment on behalf of the great team here at the House of Commons. There have been some great efforts, even since yesterday evening, to get this turned around for today. My compliments to all members joining us here in the House and to all members who have joined by virtual conference. The committee is now adjourned until noon tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned. +","Summary: + +During the 12th meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, a hybrid session took place where members participated both in person and via videoconference. Discussions focused on various pressing issues, including the system's shortcomings in long-term care homes, as exposed by a Canadian Armed Forces report, which revealed abhorrent conditions faced by seniors. Members called for investigations, improved standards for long-term care, and potentially removing profit-driven models from the sector. Questions were raised about the government's provision of PPE, financial support for businesses, fisheries, tourism, and the impact on seasonal workers. Concerns about the emergency wage subsidy being utilized by the Liberal Party and other businesses were highlighted, with calls for funds to be returned or redirected to those most in need. The availability and standards of PPE, including N95 masks, facing shortages and cancellations from suppliers, especially in China, was also discussed. Additionally, members inquired about government contracts for PPE production, details on assistance for industries like lobster fishing, and mental health support amid the pandemic. Finally, the inadequacy of government responses to certain queries was criticized, and calls for transparency and concrete measures were reiterated." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are you sure I got it all {disfmarker} head's kinda small . +User Interface: How're we placed in terms of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +User Interface: alright . +Marketing: We're okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Guess I should probably try to sit up straight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like that ? Okay , cool . +Marketing: We're good ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think mine's fallen off . +User Interface: It fell {disfmarker} That's why . +Marketing: I guess it's gonna be hard to drink coffee . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay ? {vocalsound} Right , so I'm just gonna start this PowerPoint real quick . Yeah , PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very official . +Project Manager: Yeah , well , you know , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I kinda like this I'm kinda getting into it . Right . Um . So just to kick off the meeting basically um so we're working now for a real reaction , this is uh so it {vocalsound} right . Just got an agenda to set out what we're gonna try to accomplish in this particular first meeting . Um {vocalsound} We're gonna just do a quick opening and we can hopefully all get acquainted with one another um then we're gonna start {disfmarker} talk a little bit about tool training . Essentially that means getting used to the only thing that we haven't tried out yet , the whiteboard . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we've got a general plan for the project how we're gonna go about accomplishing this and then just a bit of discussion close up . Um I {gap} guess you know game or something um {vocalsound} in real life um so yeah basically I want to {disfmarker} I'm just gonna {disfmarker} you got {disfmarker} of course you can discuss that , I'm thinking about um {vocalsound} uh proposing that since we've got this weird blend of ourselves and our roles that we just don't ask , don't tell . {vocalsound} Um so um if you say something about marketing , right , sorted , um {vocalsound} y is +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're just gonna believe me , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll go from there . +Project Manager: Exactly . Um I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: obvi if if you guys {disfmarker} if if at the same time if you {disfmarker} like logically if something doesn't {disfmarker} like if I'm like we're gonna sell a remote control that's the size of this paper book you know um you say like well that doesn't seem like such a good idea because of X_ obviously go with it . I mean we'll discuss it but I'm not gonna ask do you know that or uh yeah it seems like +Marketing: Prove it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah yeah exactly +Marketing: yeah , okay . +Project Manager: so , 'cause we're {disfmarker} what we're sort of role playing is y g yeah you're gonna tap into your own knowledge as well {vocalsound} um . And that's the same for your when we do introductions I mean um and you talk about your background you know have fun , you know maybe you went to um {vocalsound} uh you know maybe i you're like in Maine you went to U_C_S_B_ but you wanna say you went to Harvard or something like that , why not , you know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you can {disfmarker} this is you know I guess we can have a little bit of fun with it . So are you guys okay with that does that seem logical ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's fine . +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Works for me . +Project Manager: Sweet . Cool . So I guess that that {vocalsound} we're totally {disfmarker} we're making a remote control which is thrilling +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um uh but the idea is that we can make something based on the whole corporate model I dunno if you guys had time to check the {disfmarker} in real life I dunno if you guys uh {vocalsound} checked the um {vocalsound} uh the corporate website . Um we've got to make something as fashionable as possible , that's kind of the corporate strategy is we're gonna try to take ordinary stuff that nobody really thinks about and try to make it nice you know like John Lewis nice or you know if you go to Debenham's or something . So um basically we are reinventing the wheel but we wanna try to do it in a user friendly um slick sleek kind of way . {vocalsound} Um way we're gonna go about doing that is basically at first we're gonna start on the basics . And that's where I'm gonna need you guys the User Interface Designers and the um {vocalsound} um the other designer that I can't remember , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ right um {vocalsound} the Industrial Designer +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hey right on alright , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: getting into it um +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: to guide me and guide us on this project 'cause you're gonna be {disfmarker} you're g you guys are the bottom you know you're like no you can't do that you can't have you know X_ and Y_ um at the same time . And then um we'll work up from what is necessary to more like what would be good , you know like um {vocalsound} I I think you guys probably got the same emails I did but the idea of um , yes a coffee pot needs to be able to hold coffee but it's also better if it's not like really cheap glass so that it if you touch it you hurt your hand , or something like that . Um and so we'll work up from there and um then we'll meet on and talk about it and then finally we'll incorporate as kind of the last stage you know where you guys build or tell me {vocalsound} tell us what's possible and then you tell us what we can um hope for and what way to go take the the the take the basics and make it nicer and then ov obviously uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ you know you you can keep on the you know sort of at the cutting edge of how to get about maximising what is possible um to try t of sync it all up . So that's the detailed design . So it's a three stage kind of thing . Um right so for now just for th the white board um basically uh just to get used to it , I haven't tried it yet either um I'm just gonna start and um mm carry like five remotes around um and just write down {disfmarker} I'm just gonna write down one of the names of my um desert discs you know if you {disfmarker} if you were trapped on a desert island and you could only bring five C_D_s along with you name one of them that you could , not all five , if you wanna write all five go for it but name one of them that you could um . Oh , we skipped introductions . Nice . I'm a excellent Project Manager . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm Marty , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um I went to uni at uh U_C_ Santa Barbara and I'm here working on a P_H_D_ in psychology . Um yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm Sarah , I went to Michigan , and I'm here doing cultural studies and I'm the Marketing Manager or something . Marketing , +Project Manager: Expert {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah Expert . Expert . +Project Manager: Don't play yourself down . Expert {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fine . That's me . +User Interface: I'm Ron . I uh once upon a time studied in Victoria and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nathan , I'm from California , and I'm here doing a Masters degree in social anthropology . +Project Manager: Where did you go to uni Nathan ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} U_C_L_A_ . +Project Manager: Oh brilliant . Cool . My little brother goes there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Right so desert island discs . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So do we have to wait for you to write it down or are you gonna tell us ? +Project Manager: Well I'll t i +Marketing: I'm waiting to know . +Project Manager: no no yeah I'm just gonna write a couple of 'em down . See I'm a big music fan I don't know if you guys are , I'm assuming everybody likes music to some lesser or greater extent +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but there's some other options , if you're a T_V_ slut +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: like I am like Smallville terrible television show +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I happen to love it , +Marketing: Oh , Smallville . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's rubbish but I love it . +Marketing: I went to high school with Tom Willing actually . +Project Manager: T the the main c the main character ? +Marketing: The guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Wow . Is he a wanker ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Very much so . Hell of a soccer player but a total bastard nonetheless . +Project Manager: He looks really tall , like he's gotta be like six six . +Marketing: Yeah . He is a big guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um okay so {vocalsound} I really like Jeff Buckley . You guys heard of Jeff Buckley ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um that's cool 'cause like not very many people have . Um {vocalsound} and um oh well I might as well throw a British person in there um you can't go wrong with Radiohead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a r +Marketing: Good call . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so it really works just like a pen only makes noises I think . It's kinda weird . Anyway +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , you're like press and it's {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kinda cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll see . Alright so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whoever wants to get up next , you can write down some telly that you watch or whatever you want . +Marketing: I guess I'll go next then . +Project Manager: Right on . +User Interface: Go for it . +Marketing: Okay . Don't wanna lose all my mikes , plugged in here . Okay . This is basically just pen practice huh ? +Project Manager: W +Marketing: Okay . Oh you're much taller than me so I'm gonna write down here . Um . Right now I'm listening to a lot of somebody nobody's ever heard of , Chris Bathgate , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: local Michigan folk singer , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: really lame +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh uh what else did I bring with me ? Probably classical , to totally geek it out , +Project Manager: Okay yeah yeah . +Marketing: yeah I think . And my family guy D_V_D_s +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Marketing: but we don't need to write that one down . +Project Manager: Oh , family guy . Isn't h has h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you watch the new season ? +Marketing: No . Are you getting it online , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I'm gonna start downloading it +Marketing: or is it on sky ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that'd be nice . +User Interface: Alright . Think I'm just gonna put down one uh one C_D_ . Anybody ? +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No ? {gap} no ? +Marketing: 'Fraid not . +User Interface: Afro beat orchestra , very cool . +Project Manager: Afro beat orchestra ? Very cool . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sounds nice . +User Interface: Fift S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: they like fifteen members from Brooklyn . Um and I'm hoping to go to the concert in Belgium , in Brussels in April first . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . It's supposed to be in Brussels anyways . +Marketing: That'd be {gap} . +User Interface: Um thing I love about Edinburgh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . I didn't even read those . Oops . I shouldn't admit that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what a PowerPoint presentation is for . It's they're designed specifically to ignore . I {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} th brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Oh , wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the five by five , I can't read that much . +Project Manager: Ah yes yes yes okay I see that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: Vomit . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh it's so horrible . +Project Manager: Street pizza . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Love um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's so brilliant . {vocalsound} I've seen more urine in this city than ever before , +Marketing: Oh my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I just came from Glasgow +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seriously ? +User Interface: and I'm um happy to say that there's the {disfmarker} there's the same quantity approximately . +Industrial Designer: There's more vomit there . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: It's so minging . +User Interface: I w +Marketing: It really is {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Does uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Yep . +User Interface: Ready ? Minging ? Nice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm going local . Going local . +Marketing: Slide it in there . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to be here for three years so I might as well get the terminology right . +Marketing: Yeah fair enough . I've already got more than I can keep track of . And I'm gonna go home next week and everyone's gonna be like oh my God you're turning into one of those people , +Project Manager: Oh , have you been home yet ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They'll be like , say something British , +Marketing: no . +Project Manager: and you're like oh shut up family . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . I know . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it should be interesting . +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Wait until I tell them I'm not coming back . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're gonna love that one . +Project Manager: you s you're gonna stay here ? +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Or at least get a work visa for a while and then decide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Bad religion ? +Marketing: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the music I grew up listening to . +Marketing: nice . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so there {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , now I can think of so many other ones . +Project Manager: Well yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's how it works . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Something I miss about my hometown . +Project Manager: I miss coffee . +Industrial Designer: Burritos +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Burritos . +User Interface: Nice . +Industrial Designer: that cost less than eight Pounds . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah two two bucks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Any thing that are like free . +Project Manager: Where are you from in California by the way ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I grew up in San Diego , +Project Manager: Did you really ? What part ? +Industrial Designer: but yeah um La Jolla , P_B_ {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah I'm from San Diego as well . Yeah oh man . +Marketing: Nice . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But really uh I last lived in San Francisco , I haven't lived in Cali well I haven't lived in southern California since I was eighteen . +Project Manager: Going to s like North Carol I'm sorry you you just can't get a better burrito than what's available in the s in San Diego . +Industrial Designer: It's different . 'Cause in San Diego th the tortillas are cooked on the grill and in northern California they steam them . +Marketing: It must make all the difference . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it really does . +Project Manager: Well it's it's {vocalsound} i there's other things too there's {disfmarker} you just can't place it +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: like I {disfmarker} when I went to school in the U_ {disfmarker} in Santa Barbara which is central California the Mexican food is okay , it's just not good like and yeah it's like two bucks , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: like literally two bucks for this massive {disfmarker} I miss +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: yeah good call on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Where you from in San Diego ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um just literally just metropolitan San Diego , I live like five minutes from the zoo . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: North Park actually if you want to get real specific . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandparents lived on um thirty second . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Close t uh do you know where Clare de Lune coffee shop is , +Project Manager: Yes . On university , +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Cafe Forte {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's actually like literally half a mile from my house . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , pretty cool . Small world as we were discussing before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially when we're all from the same general region . Right so okay , success on the whiteboard . You can harness the awesome power +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: a little bit introductions we talked about some of our C_D_s +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and things we like about the city you know , I think we'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right so {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: moving on to not fun stuff {vocalsound} uh project finance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um basically what we're trying to do is sell this remote for twenty five Euros . Um . {vocalsound} This is what the finance department has told me , the C_F_O_ but I don't know , I'm not sold on this , it's pretty dear , I mean twenty f that's like you know forty bucks for a remote . It would have to pretty much like do my laundry for me . Um so +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: what we can maybe work on that a later but we're gonna make a lot on it , the profit aims to make fifty million Euros on it . Eur internationally . So {vocalsound} um one of the things I I was gonna mention to you um you guys the designers is that um it m we probably need a rever it needs to be a universal remote control probably . Um so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: something that could do N_T_S_C_ as well as PAL as well as various other formats like if it's gonna control D_V_D_s +Marketing: Makes sense . +Project Manager: but um you know +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I'll leave that to you guys but that's something that i i it is gonna be an international sold thing . {vocalsound} Um but we wanna try to make it for twelve fifty . So we wanna try to make a hundred percent profit on it if we can . {vocalsound} Um s right so um just to close up , I'm not sure how much time I've used mm next time right Project Manager , sorted . Um . {vocalsound} Is uh we'll meet in another half an hour or so um {vocalsound} and I'd like the um Industrial Designer to get ge think about what needs to be done , like what the basic function of it . Um {vocalsound} U_I_D_ well yeah you right g your assignments are up there and you'll also get s assignments from {disfmarker} in your email as well more spec specifics on what do do . Um mm basic and um so I need you to tell us what um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} what the user's gonna want . +Marketing: What they're looking for . +Project Manager: So actually in a way you guys c maybe in our next meeting chat a bit about what the user's gonna want and what the user can have , you know like uh so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And negotiate that . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah well it is {vocalsound} and we'll discuss the trade-offs in between um so yeah specific instructions will be sent in your email . But I think that that is more or less a good place to start for now um and as more things come up we'll have meetings and you'll get emails and so forth . Um any questions , before we get started ? +User Interface: I assume that we're building a stand alone uh remote control , we can't kind of build it into other uh products . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You mean to like {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance like a mobile phone or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's any rules about it yet . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe our personal coach will have something to say about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or you know can we produ can we sell a remote control phone for twenty five pounds or less ? +Project Manager: Well , have a think about it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: I'm I'm certainly op it seems like yeah it it seems like it's certainly do-able +Marketing: W yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean um or if we can't have a full mobile phone maybe a remote that has some other kind of {vocalsound} useful function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The clapper . No I mean {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , good idea , good idea . We'll see what {disfmarker} see what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a remote with changeable faces , like the faces that you can buy for phones . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . Hot . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the little cover thingies . +Project Manager: Uh-huh y I like that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true , I guess we we probably have some time , maybe we should brainstorm a bit like what we wanna do , go back to um {disfmarker} I don't really have any . Let me bring up something about our basic goals here , what we want to accomplish . Uh project announcement . Ts ts ts {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so much . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: All right we'll find them , we're on our own . +User Interface: Now are we also discussing kind of our initial ideas at all here ? +Project Manager: Yeah yeah let's do it , let's do . +User Interface: S does anybody have any initial ideas ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna go ahead and take notes on this too 'cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good idea . Start your minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I mean oh yeah right . {vocalsound} So initial ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's pretty much given it's gonna be universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: right , we decided that already and it may be functioning for other things , as soon as you said that I was thinking like all the other things you could get a remote to do , like your microwave or your front door +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: or like to have everything on one thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but then , I've never been a fan of those huge remotes that have like a million buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: S smaller's better . +Marketing: you can't tell what they do . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} I'm thinking {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of P_D_A_ uh design +Marketing: Yeah . Specific . +User Interface: so touch screen design rather than button +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . That'd be different . +User Interface: so that you can kind of flip around all sorts of different things . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's slick +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean like {vocalsound} stylist {vocalsound} yeah like a just a +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: yeah . Right so we got five minutes more to chat about this , perfect . Um so we've got this kind of an idea of a trade-off between um {vocalsound} uh size and functionality . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Um and we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . We want it to be munt multifunctional but at the same time if you get it to do too much you're not gonna be able to tell them apart , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Too confusing . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be too complicated , too crowded with buttons and things . +Project Manager: I'm also gonna note for future reference this idea +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: of um {vocalsound} so you {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} maybe like an L_ {disfmarker} like a touch screen type of remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Possibly . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't think one exists . +Marketing: An interesting option . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Needs {disfmarker} it needs one outstanding feature to set it apart from all the other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah all the other universal remotes . Um {vocalsound} I don't know if there's such a thing out there , I guess we could do some uh do some research on or one of us could do some research on it about whether or not there are um multi-format like um you know PAL , N_T_S_C_ , region one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm pretty sure there is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean I I have a friend who has a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: that he just points at his telev any television he wants +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it'll figure out the {vocalsound} the specifications of it +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and will control it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . Okay . +User Interface: um so +Marketing: Awesome . +User Interface: I th I assume that that can be done with uh kind of around the world . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um all right . So . I li I'm liking that idea , this idea of a touch screen remote with multi-format features . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Let's see . +Industrial Designer: I think , making it out of a nice material would be very important , because so many of those remotes that you see , these universal remotes look so cheap and low quality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Keeping it nice and slick , would be important . And {disfmarker} I don't know , like , there's such a problem with losing them , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that adding this whole like P_D_A_ pen business is only one more thing to lose , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so we're gonna have to be careful with what like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Just something like keep in mind when we start actually dealing with this stuff but that would be really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's see . Um . +User Interface: I like the idea of the uh multi plate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In in +Marketing: Fi b like what are they called , those face plate things ? +Project Manager: Think they're just called face plates ? +Marketing: Isn't there a name for them ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} something , +Marketing: Are they ? I dunno . +Industrial Designer: uh we'll have to come up with a name , +User Interface: I like . +Industrial Designer: patent it . +User Interface: We should c we should come up with a fuzzy one as well . +Marketing: Yeah . Something really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leopard print or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} For those cold winter days . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Leopard print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think , it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a like a locator device , maybe a simple button that you have on your television to help you find your remote . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Mm . But if we're bundling it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} unless we're selling their telly with the remote . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Well if we bundle it as a phone then you can always call it . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: If you're not doing that then we can have something that just kind of rings from either {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: well there used to be those whistling devices but that's a little bit annoying . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cou could we not do something where like just a little lit like literally just a very small kind of thing that comes with the remote that you could place something else that you press and it makes the remote page . Kinda like how on a lot of um {vocalsound} uh cordless regular phones , you have a page button and it goes {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Th +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: could we do something like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think so . +User Interface: That's cool . +Marketing: Probably . +User Interface: I think we could design into that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good . +Project Manager: Um yeah {vocalsound} I think this material quality as well like I guess what we can think about what kind of um uh you know Apple 's been really successful with this surgical white kind of business or this sleek kind of +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And that titanium the new silver sleek ones that's last couple of years , very much so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Curves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We do have the minimum am amount I mean we were talking finances I dunno , selling a a forty Pound remote would h or a forty Dollar remote , twenty five Euro remote would be pretty {disfmarker} you know it's pretty expensive +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so maybe we might wanna trade off some of the features for a lower price . Without without getting into that whole like you know go down to bargain store remote you know bargain store universal remote +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: that's black and you know m massive , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: some kind of I dunno a balance there in somewhere . +Marketing: Mm . Definitely . +Project Manager: But um have a think about what we can do , have a think about what we want to do , how we're gonna sell it +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or if you our users in mind , like these {disfmarker} grandmas are not gonna be into this whole new let's design , no it's {disfmarker} they're used to the buttons so we'll have to be careful of exactly who we're marketing this to , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and who we're gonna be able to get it out of . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S true . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're talking twenty five Pounds or twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: Euros . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Slight difference I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're all weaker than {disfmarker} they're all stronger than the Dollar . Although , computer parts , all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: if you're gonna upgrade your computer , buy it in the States . Like um do you guys know Fry's ? Huge computer uh electronics store ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: They serve um {disfmarker} right they sa tha s they will sell things overseas so you can buy stuff in America +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and have it shipped over for like twenty thirty Pounds about . Right so um let's go ahead and wrap that up here for now , I'm gonna put these initial ideas that we've got in the um {vocalsound} project documents , so if you guys wa need a reminder about what we've talked about um the different you know kind of trade-offs that we've got and the other ideas , you can consult them at your leisure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh right so thanks for that . Let's just uh head back to work on what we were talking about bef uh goi h h getting into . +Marketing: With half an hour ? +Project Manager: Um . Yes . +Marketing: 'Kay . Perfect . +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Thank you . +","In the conversation, the team, consisting of an Industrial Designer, Marketing Expert, User Interface Designer, and Project Manager, is having a kickoff meeting for a project to design a new remote control. They are working on creating a remote that is not only universally compatible with different TV formats but also stylish and user-friendly, differentiating it from typical cheap-looking remotes. + +They discuss financial targets, aiming to sell the remote for 25 Euros and make a profit of fifty million Euros internationally. The product needs to cost around 12.50 Euros to manufacture to achieve the desired profit margin. + +The group brainstorms various features, including a touchscreen instead of buttons for a sleeker design and the possibility of multifunctionality or integration with other products like phones. Customizable faceplates and utilizing high-quality materials for the remote are suggested to appeal to the aesthetic-conscious consumer. + +Marketing raises concerns about the product being too complicated or too high-priced, potentially alienating certain customer segments like the elderly who are used to traditional remotes with buttons. There is also a discussion about incorporating a paging feature to help users locate the remote if it gets lost. + +The team decides to continue developing the idea, considering the trade-offs between functionality and size, cost, and design features like material quality and a potential touchscreen interface. They agree to continue the conversation in a follow-up meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mike . Mike - one ? +PhD B: Ah . +Professor D: We 're on ? Yes , please . I mean , we 're testing noise robustness but let 's not get silly . OK , so , uh , you 've got some , uh , Xerox things to pass out ? +PhD A: Yeah , +Professor D: That are {disfmarker} +PhD A: um . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah , I 'm sorry for the table , but as it grows in size , uh , it . +Professor D: Uh , so for th the last column we use our imagination . OK . +PhD B: Ah , yeah . +Professor D: Ah . +PhD A: Uh , yeah . +PhD B: Uh , do you want @ @ . +Professor D: This one 's nice , though . This has nice big font . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: Let 's see . Yeah . Chop ! +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: So +Professor D: When you get older you have these different perspectives . I mean , lowering the word hour rate is fine , but having big font ! +PhD A: Next time we will put colors or something . +Professor D: That 's what 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: Yeah . It 's mostly big font . OK . +PhD A: OK , s so there is kind of summary of what has been done {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh {disfmarker} Go ahead . +PhD A: It 's this . Summary of experiments since , well , since last week +Professor D: Oh . OK . +PhD A: and also since the {disfmarker} we 've started to run {disfmarker} work on this . Um . {pause} So since last week we 've started to fill the column with um {vocalsound} uh features w with nets trained on PLP with on - line normalization but with delta also , because the column was not completely {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: well , it 's still not completely filled , +Professor D: +PhD A: but {pause} we have more results to compare with network using without PLP and {pause} finally , hhh , {comment} um {pause} ehhh {comment} PL - uh delta seems very important . Uh {pause} I don't know . If you take um , let 's say , anyway Aurora - two - B , so , the next {disfmarker} t the second , uh , part of the table , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: uh {pause} when we use the large training set using French , Spanish , and English , you have one hundred and six without delta and eighty - nine with the delta . +Professor D: a And again all of these numbers are with a hundred percent being , uh , the baseline performance , +PhD A: Yeah , on the baseline , yeah . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: but with a mel cepstra system going straight into the HTK ? +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . So now we see that the gap between the different training set is much {pause} uh uh much smaller +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: um {disfmarker} +Grad C: It 's out of the way . +PhD A: But , actually , um , for English training on TIMIT is still better than the other languages . And Mmm , {pause} Yeah . And f also for Italian , actually . If you take the second set of experiment for Italian , so , the mismatched condition , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um {pause} when we use the training on TIMIT so , it 's multi - English , we have a ninety - one number , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and training with other languages is a little bit worse . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} Oh , I see . Down near the bottom of this sheet . +PhD A: So , +Professor D: Uh , {comment} {pause} yes . +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: And , yeah , and here the gap is still more important between using delta and not using delta . If y if I take the training s the large training set , it 's {disfmarker} we have one hundred and seventy - two , +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: and one hundred and four when we use delta . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh . {pause} Even if the contexts used is quite the same , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because without delta we use seventeenths {disfmarker} seventeen frames . Uh . Yeah , um , so the second point is that we have no single cross - language experiments , uh , that we did not have last week . Uh , so this is training the net on French only , or on English only , and testing on Italian . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And training the net on French only and Spanish only and testing on , uh TI - digits . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And , fff {comment} um , yeah . What we see is that these nets are not as good , except for the multi - English , which is always one of the best . Yeah , then we started to work on a large dat database containing , uh , sentences from the French , from the Spanish , from the TIMIT , from SPINE , uh from {comment} uh English digits , and from Italian digits . So this is the {disfmarker} another line {disfmarker} another set of lines in the table . Uh , @ @ with SPINE +Professor D: Ah , yes . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {pause} uh , actually we did this before knowing the result of all the data , uh , so we have to to redo the uh {disfmarker} the experiment training the net with , uh PLP , but with delta . But +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: um this {disfmarker} this net performed quite well . Well , it 's {disfmarker} it 's better than the net using French , Spanish , and English only . Uh . So , uh , yeah . We have also started feature combination experiments . Uh many experiments using features and net outputs together . And this is {disfmarker} The results are on the other document . Uh , we can discuss this after , perhaps {disfmarker} well , just , @ @ . Yeah , so basically there are four {disfmarker} four kind of systems . The first one , yeah , is combining , um , two feature streams , uh using {disfmarker} and each feature stream has its own MPL . So it 's the {disfmarker} kind of similar to the tandem that was proposed for the first . The multi - stream tandem for the first proposal . The second is using features and KLT transformed MLP outputs . And the third one is to u use a single KLT trans transform features as well as MLP outputs . Um , yeah . Mmm . You know you can {disfmarker} you can comment these results , +PhD B: Yes , I can s I would like to say that , for example , um , mmm , if we doesn't use the delta - delta , uh we have an improve when we use s some combination . But when +PhD A: Yeah , we ju just to be clear , the numbers here are uh recognition accuracy . +PhD B: w Yeah , this {disfmarker} Yeah , this number recognition acc +PhD A: So it 's not the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Again we switch to another {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes , and the baseline {disfmarker} the baseline have {disfmarker} i is eighty - two . +Professor D: Baseline is eighty - two . +PhD B: Yeah +PhD A: So it 's experiment only on the Italian mismatched for the moment for this . +Professor D: Uh , this is Italian mismatched . +PhD A: Um . +PhD B: Yeah , by the moment . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: And first in the experiment - one I {disfmarker} I do {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I use different MLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and is obviously that the multi - English MLP is the better . Um . for the ne {disfmarker} rest of experiment I use multi - English , only multi - English . And I try to combine different type of feature , but the result is that the MSG - three feature doesn't work for the Italian database because never help to increase the accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , eh , actually , if w we look at the table , the huge table , um , we see that for TI - digits MSG perform as well as the PLP , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: but this is not the case for Italian what {disfmarker} where the error rate is c is almost uh twice the error rate of PLP . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , um {vocalsound} uh , well , I don't think this is a bug but this {disfmarker} this is something in {disfmarker} probably in the MSG um process that uh I don't know what exactly . Perhaps the fact that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} there 's no low - pass filter , well , or no pre - emp pre - emphasis filter and that there is some DC offset in the Italian , or , well , something simple like that . But {disfmarker} that we need to sort out if want to uh get improvement by combining PLP and MSG +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: because for the moment MSG do doesn't bring much information . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And as Carmen said , if we combine the two , we have the result , basically , of PLP . +Professor D: I Um , the uh , baseline system {disfmarker} when you said the baseline system was uh , uh eighty - two percent , that was trained on what and tested on what ? That was , uh Italian mismatched d uh , uh , digits , uh , is the testing , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: and the training is Italian digits ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So the "" mismatch "" just refers to the noise and {disfmarker} and , uh microphone and so forth , +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? So , um did we have {disfmarker} So would that then correspond to the first line here of where the training is {disfmarker} is the uh Italian digits ? +PhD B: The train the training of the HTK ? +Professor D: The {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yes . Ah yes ! +Professor D: Yes . +PhD B: This h Yes . Th - Yes . +Professor D: Yes . Training of the net , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: yeah . So , um {disfmarker} So what that says is that in a matched condition , {vocalsound} we end up with a fair amount worse putting in the uh PLP . Now w would {disfmarker} do we have a number , I suppose for the matched {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't mean matched , but uh use of Italian {disfmarker} training in Italian digits for PLP only ? +PhD B: Uh {pause} yes ? +PhD A: Uh {pause} yeah , so this is {disfmarker} basically this is in the table . Uh {pause} so the number is fifty - two , +PhD B: Another table . +PhD A: uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Fifty - two percent . +PhD A: Fift - So {disfmarker} No , it 's {disfmarker} it 's the {disfmarker} +PhD B: No . +Professor D: No , fifty - two percent of eighty - two ? +PhD A: Of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of uh {pause} eighteen {disfmarker} +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: of eighteen . +PhD B: Eighty . +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} it 's error rate , basically . +PhD B: It 's plus six . +PhD A: It 's er error rate ratio . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh this is accuracy ! +PhD A: Uh , so we have nine {disfmarker} nine {disfmarker} let 's say ninety percent . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Oy ! {comment} OK . Ninety . +PhD A: Yeah . Um {comment} which is uh {comment} what we have also if use PLP and MSG together , +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: eighty - nine point seven . +Professor D: OK , so even just PLP , uh , it is not , in the matched condition {disfmarker} Um I wonder if it 's a difference between PLP and mel cepstra , or whether it 's that the net half , for some reason , is not helping . +PhD A: Uh . P - PLP and Mel cepstra give the same {disfmarker} same results . +Professor D: Same result pretty much ? +PhD A: Well , we have these results . I don't know . It 's not {disfmarker} Do you have this result with PLP alone , {comment} j fee feeding HTK ? +Professor D: So , s +PhD A: That {disfmarker} That 's what you mean ? +PhD B: Yeah , +PhD A: Just PLP at the input of HTK . +PhD B: yeah yeah yeah yeah , at the first {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So , PLP {disfmarker} +Professor D: Eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um , so adding MSG +PhD A: Um {disfmarker} +Professor D: um {disfmarker} Well , but that 's {disfmarker} yeah , that 's without the neural net , +PhD A: Yeah , that 's without the neural net +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: and that 's the result basically that OGI has also with the MFCC with on - line normalization . +Professor D: But she had said eighty - two . +PhD A: This is the {disfmarker} w well , but this is without on - line normalization . +Professor D: Right ? Oh , this {disfmarker} the eighty - two . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: +PhD A: Eighty - two is the {disfmarker} it 's the Aurora baseline , so MFCC . Then we can use {disfmarker} well , OGI , they use MFCC {disfmarker} th the baseline MFCC plus on - line normalization +Professor D: Oh , I 'm sorry , I k I keep getting confused because this is accuracy . +PhD A: Yeah , sorry . Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . So this is {disfmarker} I was thinking all this was worse . OK so this is all better +PhD B: Yes , better . +Professor D: because eighty - nine is bigger than eighty - two . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm all better now . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: So what happ what happens is that when we apply on - line normalization we jump to almost ninety percent . +Professor D: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , when we apply a neural network , is the same . We j jump to ninety percent . +PhD B: Nnn , we don't know exactly . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} And um {disfmarker} whatever the normalization , actually . If we use n neural network , even if the features are not correctly normalized , we jump to ninety percent . So {disfmarker} +Professor D: So we go from eighty - si eighty - eight point six to {disfmarker} to ninety , or something . +PhD A: Well , ninety {disfmarker} No , I {disfmarker} I mean ninety It 's around eighty - nine , ninety , eighty - eight . +Professor D: Eighty - nine . +PhD A: Well , there are minor {disfmarker} minor differences . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: And then adding the MSG does nothing , basically . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: Yeah . OK . +PhD A: Uh For Italian , yeah . +Professor D: For this case , right ? +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: Alright . So , um {disfmarker} So actually , the answer for experiments with one is that adding MSG , if you {disfmarker} uh does not help in that case . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {disfmarker} +PhD A: But w Yeah . +Professor D: The other ones , we 'd have to look at it , but {disfmarker} And the multi - English , does uh {disfmarker} So if we think of this in error rates , we start off with , uh eighteen percent error rate , roughly . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Um {pause} and {pause} we uh almost , uh cut that in half by um putting in the on - line normalization and the neural net . +PhD A: Yeah +Professor D: And the MSG doesn't however particularly affect things . +PhD A: No . +Professor D: And we cut off , I guess about twenty - five percent of the error . Uh {pause} no , not quite that , is it . Uh , two point six out of eighteen . About , um {pause} sixteen percent or something of the error , um , if we use multi - English instead of the matching condition . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor D: Not matching condition , but uh , the uh , Italian training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: We select these {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these tasks because it 's the more difficult . +Professor D: Yes , good . OK ? So then you 're assuming multi - English is closer to the kind of thing that you could use since you 're not gonna have matching , uh , data for the {disfmarker} uh for the new {disfmarker} for the other languages and so forth . Um , one qu thing is that , uh {disfmarker} I think I asked you this before , but I wanna double check . When you say "" ME "" in these other tests , that 's the multi - English , +PhD A: That 's {disfmarker} it 's a part {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: but it is not all of the multi - English , right ? It is some piece of {disfmarker} part of it . +PhD A: Or , one million frames . +Professor D: And the multi - English is how much ? +PhD B: You have here the information . +PhD A: It 's one million and a half . Yeah . +Professor D: Oh , so you used almost all You used two thirds of it , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: you think . So , it it 's still {disfmarker} it hurts you {disfmarker} seems to hurt you a fair amount to add in this French and Spanish . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: I wonder why Yeah . Uh . +Grad C: Well Stephane was saying that they weren't hand - labeled , +PhD A: Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Grad C: the French and the Spanish . +PhD B: The Spanish . Maybe for that . +Professor D: Hmm . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's still {disfmarker} OK . Alright , go ahead . And then {disfmarker} then {disfmarker} +PhD B: Um . Mmm , with the experiment type - two , I {disfmarker} first I tried to to combine , nnn , some feature from the MLP and other feature {disfmarker} another feature . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And we s we can {disfmarker} first the feature are without delta and delta - delta , and we can see that in the situation , uh , the MSG - three , the same help nothing . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And then I do the same but with the delta and delta - delta {disfmarker} PLP delta and delta - delta . And they all p but they all put off the MLP is it without delta and delta - delta . And we have a l little bit less result than the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the baseline PLP with delta and delta - delta . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Maybe if {disfmarker} when we have the new {disfmarker} the new {pause} neural network trained with PLP delta and delta - delta , maybe the final result must be better . I don't know . +PhD A: Actually , just to be some more {disfmarker} +PhD B: Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: Do This number , this eighty - seven point one number , has to be compared with the +Professor D: Yes , yeah , I mean it can't be compared with the other +PhD A: Which number ? +Professor D: cuz this is , uh {disfmarker} with multi - English , uh , training . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So you have to compare it with the one over that you 've got in a box , which is that , uh the eighty - four point six . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Right ? +PhD A: Uh . +Professor D: So {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but I mean in this case for the eighty - seven point one we used MLP outputs for the PLP net +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: and straight features with delta - delta . And straight features with delta - delta gives you what 's on the first sheet . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . Not t not +PhD A: It 's eight eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: tr No . No . No . +PhD B: Yes . +Professor D: Not trained with multi - English . +PhD A: Uh , yeah , but th this is the second configuration . +PhD B: No , but they {disfmarker} they feature @ @ without {disfmarker} +PhD A: So we use feature out uh , net outputs together with features . So yeah , this is not {disfmarker} perhaps not clear here but in this table , the first column is for MLP and the second for the features . +Professor D: Eh . {comment} Oh , I see . Ah . So you 're saying w so asking the question , "" What {disfmarker} what has adding the MLP done to improve over the , +PhD A: So , just {disfmarker} Yeah so , actually it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it decreased the {disfmarker} the accuracy . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yes . +PhD A: Because we have eighty - eight point six . +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: And even the MLP alone {disfmarker} What gives the MLP alone ? Multi - English PLP . Oh no , it gives eighty - three point six . So we have our eighty - three point six and now eighty - eighty point six , +PhD B: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: that gives eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Eighty - s I thought it was eighty Oh , OK , eighty - three point six and eighty {disfmarker} eighty - eight point six . +PhD A: Eighty - three point six . Eighty {disfmarker} +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Is th is that right ? Yeah ? +PhD B: Yeah . But {disfmarker} I don't know {disfmarker} but maybe if we have the neural network trained with the PLP {pause} delta and delta - delta , maybe tha this can help . +PhD A: Perhaps , yeah . +Professor D: Well , that 's {disfmarker} that 's one thing , but see the other thing is that , um , I mean it 's good to take the difficult case , but let 's {disfmarker} let 's consider what that means . What {disfmarker} what we 're saying is that one o one of the things that {disfmarker} I mean my interpretation of your {disfmarker} your s original suggestion is something like this , as motivation . When we train on data that is in one sense or another , similar to the testing data , then we get a win by having discriminant training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: When we train on something that 's quite different , we have a potential to have some problems . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And , um , if we get something that helps us when it 's somewhat similar , and doesn't hurt us too much when it {disfmarker} when it 's quite different , that 's maybe not so bad . +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So the question is , if you took the same combination , and you tried it out on , uh {disfmarker} on say digits , +PhD A: On TI - digits ? OK . +Professor D: you know , d Was that experiment done ? +PhD A: No , not yet . +Professor D: Yeah , OK . Uh , then does that , eh {disfmarker} you know maybe with similar noise conditions and so forth , {comment} does it {disfmarker} does it then look much better ? +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And so what is the range over these different kinds of uh {disfmarker} of tests ? So , an anyway . OK , go ahead . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: And , with this type of configuration which I do on experiment using the new neural net with name broad klatt s twenty - seven , uh , d I have found more or less the same result . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So , it 's slightly better , +PhD B: Little bit better ? +PhD A: yeah . +Professor D: Slightly better . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Slightly bet better . Yes , is better . +Professor D: And {disfmarker} and you know again maybe if you use the , uh , delta {pause} there , uh , you would bring it up to where it was , uh you know at least about the same for a difficult case . +PhD B: Yeah , maybe . Maybe . Maybe . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . Well , so perhaps let 's {disfmarker} let 's jump at the last experiment . +PhD B: Oh , yeah . +Professor D: So . +PhD A: It 's either less information from the neural network if we use only the silence output . +PhD B: i +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: It 's again better . So it 's eighty - nine point {disfmarker} point one . +PhD B: Yeah , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and we have only forty {disfmarker} forty feature +PhD A: So . +PhD B: because in this situation we have one hundred and three feature . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . And then w with the first configuration , I f I am found that work , uh , doesn't work {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD B: uh , well , work , but is better , the second configuration . Because I {disfmarker} for the del Engli - PLP delta and delta - delta , here I have eighty - five point three accuracy , and with the second configuration I have eighty - seven point one . +Professor D: Um , by the way , there is a another , uh , suggestion that would apply , uh , to the second configuration , um , which , uh , was made , uh , by , uh , Hari . And that was that , um , if you have {disfmarker} uh feed two streams into HTK , um , and you , uh , change the , uh variances {disfmarker} if you scale the variances associated with , uh these streams um , you can effectively scale {pause} the streams . Right ? So , um , you know , without changing the scripts for HTK , which is the rule here , uh , you can still change the variances +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: which would effectively change the scale of these {disfmarker} these , uh , two streams that come in . +PhD A: Uh , {comment} yeah . +Professor D: And , um , so , um , if you do that , for instance it may be the case that , um , the MLP should not be considered as strongly , for instance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And , um , so this is just setting them to be , excuse me , of equal {disfmarker} equal weight . Maybe it shouldn't be equal weight . +PhD B: Maybe . +Professor D: Right ? You know , I I 'm sorry to say that gives more experiments if we wanted to look at that , but {disfmarker} but , uh , um , you know on the other hand it 's just experiments at the level of the HTK recognition . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: It 's not even the HTK , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: uh , uh {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Well , I guess you have to do the HTK training also . +PhD B: so this is what we decided to do . +Professor D: Uh , do you ? Let me think . Maybe you don't . Uh . Yeah , you have to change the {disfmarker} No , you can just do it in {disfmarker} as {disfmarker} once you 've done the training {disfmarker} +Grad C: And then you can vary it . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , the training is just coming up with the variances so I guess you could {disfmarker} you could just scale them all . +PhD A: Scale +Professor D: Variances . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Is it {disfmarker} i th I mean the HTK models are diagonal covariances , so I d Is it {disfmarker} +Professor D: That 's uh , exactly the point , I think , that if you change {disfmarker} um , change what they are {disfmarker} +PhD A: Hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: It 's diagonal covariance matrices , but you say what those variances are . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , that {disfmarker} you know , it 's diagonal , but the diagonal means th that then you 're gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's gonna internally multiply it {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh , {vocalsound} uh , i it im uh implicitly exponentiated to get probabilities , and so it 's {disfmarker} it 's gonna {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's going to affect the range of things if you change the {disfmarker} change the variances {pause} of some of the features . +PhD A: Mmm . Mmm . +PhD B: do ? +Professor D: So , i it 's precisely given that model you can very simply affect , uh , the s the strength that you apply the features . That was {disfmarker} that was , uh , Hari 's suggestion . +PhD A: Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: So , um {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . So . So it could just be that h treating them equally , tea treating two streams equally is just {disfmarker} just not the right thing to do . Of course it 's potentially opening a can of worms because , you know , maybe it should be a different {vocalsound} number for {disfmarker} for each {vocalsound} kind of {pause} test set , or something , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: So I guess the other thing is to take {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} if one were to take , uh , you know , a couple of the most successful of these , +PhD A: Yeah , and test across everything . +Professor D: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , try all these different tests . +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Alright . Uh . +PhD A: So , the next point , yeah , we 've had some discussion with Steve and Shawn , um , about their um , uh , articulatory stuff , um . So we 'll perhaps start something next week . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um , discussion with Hynek , Sunil and Pratibha for trying to plug in their our {disfmarker} our networks with their {disfmarker} within their block diagram , uh , where to plug in the {disfmarker} the network , uh , after the {disfmarker} the feature , before as um a as a plugin or as a anoth another path , discussion about multi - band and TRAPS , um , actually Hynek would like to see , perhaps if you remember the block diagram there is , uh , temporal LDA followed b by a spectral LDA for each uh critical band . And he would like to replace these by a network which would , uh , make the system look like a TRAP . Well , basically , it would be a TRAP system . Basically , this is a TRAP system {disfmarker} kind of TRAP system , I mean , but where the neural network are replaced by LDA . Hmm . {vocalsound} Um , yeah , and about multi - band , uh , I started multi - band MLP trainings , um mmh {comment} Actually , I w I w hhh {comment} prefer to do exactly what I did when I was in Belgium . So I take exactly the same configurations , seven bands with nine frames of context , and we just train on TIMIT , and on the large database , so , with SPINE and everything . And , mmm , I 'm starting to train also , networks with larger contexts . So , this would {disfmarker} would be something between TRAPS and multi - band because we still have quite large bands , and {disfmarker} but with a lot of context also . So Um Yeah , we still have to work on Finnish , um , basically , to make a decision on which MLP can be the best across the different languages . For the moment it 's the TIMIT network , and perhaps the network trained on everything . So . Now we can test these two networks on {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with delta and large networks . Well , test them also on Finnish +PhD B: Mmm . +PhD A: and see which one is the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the best . Uh , well , the next part of the document is , well , basically , a kind of summary of what {disfmarker} everything that has been done . So . We have seventy - nine M L Ps trained on one , two , three , four , uh , three , four , five , six , seven ten {disfmarker} on ten different databases . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the number of frames is bad also , so we have one million and a half for some , three million for other , and six million for the last one . Uh , yeah ! {comment} As we mentioned , TIMIT is the only that 's hand - labeled , and perhaps this is what makes the difference . Um . Yeah , the other are just Viterbi - aligned . So these seventy - nine MLP differ on different things . First , um with respect to the on - line normalization , there are {disfmarker} that use bad on - line normalization , and other good on - line normalization . Um . With respect to the features , with respect to the use of delta or no , uh with respect to the hidden layer size and to the targets . Uh , but of course we don't have all the combination of these different parameters Um . s What 's this ? We only have two hundred eighty six different tests And no not two thousand . +Professor D: Ugh ! I was impressed boy , two thousand . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Ah , yes . +Professor D: OK . +PhD B: I say this morning that @ @ thought it was the {disfmarker} +Professor D: Alright , now I 'm just slightly impressed , OK . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , basically the observation is what we discussed already . The MSG problem , um , the fact that the MLP trained on target task decreased the error rate . but when the M - MLP is trained on the um {disfmarker} is not trained on the target task , it increased the error rate compared to using straight features . Except if the features are bad {disfmarker} uh , actually except if the features are not correctly on - line normalized . In this case the tandem is still better even if it 's trained on {disfmarker} not on the target digits . +Professor D: Yeah . So it sounds like {vocalsound} yeah , the net corrects some of the problems with some poor normalization . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: But if you can do good normalization it 's {disfmarker} it 's uh {disfmarker} OK . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Uh , so the fourth point is , yeah , the TIMIT plus noise seems to be the training set that gives better {disfmarker} the best network . +Professor D: So So - Let me {disfmarker} bef before you go on to the possible issues . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So , on the MSG uh problem um , I think that in {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} um , in the short {pause} time {pause} solution um , that is , um , trying to figure out what we can proceed forward with to make the greatest progress , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: uh , much as I said with JRASTA , even though I really like JRASTA and I really like MSG , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I think it 's kind of in category that it 's , it {disfmarker} it may be complicated . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: And uh it might be {disfmarker} if someone 's interested in it , uh , certainly encourage anybody to look into it in the longer term , once we get out of this particular rush {pause} uh for results . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: But in the short term , unless you have some {disfmarker} some s strong idea of what 's wrong , +PhD A: I don't know at all but I 've {disfmarker} perhaps {disfmarker} I have the feeling that it 's something that 's quite {disfmarker} quite simple or just like nnn , no high - pass filter +Professor D: Yeah , probably . +PhD A: or {disfmarker} Mmm . Yeah . {pause} My {disfmarker} But I don't know . +Professor D: There 's supposed to {disfmarker} well MSG is supposed to have a an on - line normalization though , right ? +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} There is , yeah , an AGC - kind of AGC . Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , but also there 's an on - line norm besides the AGC , there 's an on - line normalization that 's supposed to be uh , yeah , +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: taking out means and variances and so forth . So . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: In fac in fact the on - line normalization that we 're using came from the MSG design , +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} Yeah . But this was the bad on - line normalization . Actually . Uh . Are your results are still with the bad {disfmarker} the bad {disfmarker} +PhD B: Maybe , may {disfmarker} No ? With the better {disfmarker} +PhD A: With the O - OLN - two ? +PhD B: No ? +PhD A: Ah yeah , you have {disfmarker} you have OLN - two , +PhD B: Oh ! Yeah , yeah , yeah ! With "" two "" , with "" on - line - two "" . +PhD A: yeah . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah , +Professor D: "" On - line - two "" is good . +PhD A: So it 's , is the good yeah . +PhD B: yeah . Yep , it 's a good . +Professor D: "" Two "" is good ? +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: No , "" two "" is bad . +PhD A: Yeah . +PhD B: Well , actually , it 's good with the ch with the good . +Professor D: OK . Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah , I {disfmarker} I agree . It 's probably something simple uh , i if {disfmarker} if uh someone , you know , uh , wants to play with it for a little bit . I mean , you 're gonna do what you 're gonna do +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: but {disfmarker} but my {disfmarker} my guess would be that it 's something that is a simple thing that could take a while to find . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mmm . I see , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: Uh . {comment} And the other {disfmarker} the results uh , observations two and three , Um , is +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Yeah , that 's pretty much what we 've seen . That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} what we were concerned about is that if it 's not on the target task {disfmarker} If it 's on the target task then it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it helps to have the MLP transforming it . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If it uh {disfmarker} if it 's not on the target task , then , depending on how different it is , uh you can get uh , a reduction in performance . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And the question is now how to {disfmarker} how to get one and not the other ? Or how to {disfmarker} how to ameliorate the {disfmarker} the problems . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Um , because it {disfmarker} it certainly does {disfmarker} is nice to have in there , when it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when there is something like the training data . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . Um . Yeah . So , {pause} the {disfmarker} the reason {disfmarker} Yeah , the reason is that the {disfmarker} perhaps the target {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the task dependency {disfmarker} the language dependency , {vocalsound} and the noise dependency {disfmarker} +Professor D: So that 's what you say th there . I see . +PhD A: Well , the e e But this is still not clear because , um , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't think we have enough result to talk about the {disfmarker} the language dependency . Well , the TIMIT network is still the best but there is also an the other difference , the fact that it 's {disfmarker} it 's hand - labeled . +Professor D: Hey ! Um , just {disfmarker} you can just sit here . Uh , I d I don't think we want to mess with the microphones but it 's uh {disfmarker} Just uh , have a seat . Um . s Summary of the first uh , uh forty - five minutes is that some stuff work and {disfmarker} works , and some stuff doesn't OK , +PhD A: We still have uh {pause} this {disfmarker} One of these perhaps ? +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah , I guess we can do a little better than that but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think if you {disfmarker} if you start off with the other one , actually , that sort of has it in words and then th that has it the {pause} associated results . +PhD B: Um . +Professor D: OK . So you 're saying that um , um , although from what we see , yes there 's what you would expect in terms of a language dependency and a noise dependency . That is , uh , when the neural net is trained on one of those and tested on something different , we don't do as well as in the target thing . But you 're saying that uh , it is {disfmarker} Although that general thing is observable so far , there 's something you 're not completely convinced about . And {disfmarker} and what is that ? I mean , you say "" not clear yet "" . What {disfmarker} what do you mean ? +PhD A: Uh , mmm , uh , {comment} I mean , that the {disfmarker} the fact that s Well , for {disfmarker} for TI - digits the TIMIT net is the best , which is the English net . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: But the other are slightly worse . But you have two {disfmarker} two effects , the effect of changing language and the effect of training on something that 's {pause} Viterbi - aligned instead of hand {disfmarker} hand - labeled . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: So . Um . Yeah . +Professor D: Do you think the alignments are bad ? I mean , have you looked at the alignments at all ? What the Viterbi alignment 's doing ? +PhD A: Mmm . I don't {disfmarker} I don't know . Did - did you look at the Spanish alignments Carmen ? +PhD B: Mmm , no . +Professor D: Might be interesting to look at it . Because , I mean , that is just looking but um , um {disfmarker} It 's not clear to me you necessarily would do so badly from a Viterbi alignment . It depends how good the recognizer is +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: that 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the engine is that 's doing the alignment . +PhD A: Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . But , perhaps it 's not really the {disfmarker} the alignment that 's bad but the {disfmarker} just the ph phoneme string that 's used for the alignment +Professor D: Aha ! +PhD A: Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: The pronunciation models and so forth +PhD A: I mean {pause} for {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} It 's single pronunciation , uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Aha . +PhD A: French {disfmarker} French s uh , phoneme strings were corrected manually +Professor D: I see . +PhD A: so we asked people to listen to the um {disfmarker} the sentence and we gave the phoneme string and they kind of correct them . But still , there {disfmarker} there might be errors just in the {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in the ph string of phonemes . Mmm . Um . Yeah , so this is not really the Viterbi alignment , in fact , yeah . Um , the third {disfmarker} The third uh issue is the noise dependency perhaps but , well , this is not clear yet because all our nets are trained on the same noises and {disfmarker} +Professor D: I thought some of the nets were trained with SPINE and so forth . So it {disfmarker} And that has other noise . +PhD A: Yeah . So {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} Yeah . Results are only coming for {disfmarker} for this net . Mmm . +Professor D: OK , yeah , just don't {disfmarker} just need more {disfmarker} more results there with that @ @ . +PhD A: Yeah . Um . So . Uh , from these results we have some questions with answers . What should be the network input ? Um , PLP work as well as MFCC , I mean . Um . But it seems impor important to use the delta . Uh , with respect to the network size , there 's one experiment that 's still running and we should have the result today , comparing network with five hundred and {pause} one thousand units . So , nnn , still no answer actually . +Professor D: Hm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh , the training set , well , some kind of answer . We can , we can tell which training set gives the best result , but {vocalsound} we don't know exactly why . Uh , so . +Professor D: Uh . Right , I mean the multi - English so far is {disfmarker} is the best . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: "" Multi - multi - English "" just means "" TIMIT "" , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: right ? +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So uh That 's {disfmarker} Yeah . So . And {disfmarker} and when you add other things in to {disfmarker} to broaden it , it gets worse {pause} uh typically . +PhD A: Mmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . +PhD A: Then uh some questions without answers . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training set , um , +Professor D: Uh - huh . +PhD A: uh , training targets {disfmarker} +Professor D: I like that . The training set is both questions , with answers and without answers . +PhD A: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Professor D: It 's sort of , yes {disfmarker} it 's mul it 's multi - uh - purpose . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . +PhD A: Uh , training s Right . So {disfmarker} Yeah , the training targets actually , the two of the main issues perhaps are still the language dependency {vocalsound} and the noise dependency . And perhaps to try to reduce the language dependency , we should focus on finding some other kind of training targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: And labeling s labeling seems important uh , because of TIMIT results . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh . For moment you use {disfmarker} we use phonetic targets but we could also use articulatory targets , soft targets , and perhaps even , um use networks that doesn't do classification but just regression so uh , train to have neural networks that um , um , uh , +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: does a regression and well , basically com com compute features and noit not , nnn , features without noise . I mean uh , transform the fea noisy features {vocalsound} in other features that are not noisy . But continuous features . Not uh uh , hard targets . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Uh {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , that {pause} seems like a good thing to do , probably , not uh again a short - term sort of thing . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: I mean one of the things about that is that um it 's {disfmarker} e u the ri I guess the major risk you have there of being {disfmarker} is being dependent on {disfmarker} very dependent on the kind of noise and {disfmarker} and so forth . +PhD A: Yeah . f But , yeah . +Professor D: Uh . But it 's another thing to try . +PhD A: So , this is w w i wa wa this is one thing , this {disfmarker} this could be {disfmarker} could help {disfmarker} could help perhaps to reduce language dependency and for the noise part um we could combine this with other approaches , like , well , the Kleinschmidt approach . So the d the idea of putting all the noise that we can find inside a database . I think Kleinschmidt was using more than fifty different noises to train his network , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} So this is one {vocalsound} approach and the other is multi - band {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh , that I think is more robust to the noisy changes . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD A: So perhaps , I think something like multi - band trained on a lot of noises with uh , features - based targets could {disfmarker} could {disfmarker} could help . +Professor D: Yeah , if you {disfmarker} i i It 's interesting thought maybe if you just trained up {disfmarker} I mean w yeah , one {disfmarker} one fantasy would be you have something like articulatory targets and you have {pause} um some reasonable database , um but then {disfmarker} which is um {vocalsound} copied over many times with a range of different noises , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} If {disfmarker} Cuz what you 're trying to {pause} do is come up with a {disfmarker} a core , reasonable feature set which is then gonna be used uh , by the {disfmarker} the uh HMM {pause} system . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , OK . +PhD A: So , um , yeah . The future work is , {pause} well , try to connect to the {disfmarker} to make {disfmarker} to plug in the system to the OGI system . Um , there are still open questions there , where to put the MLP basically . +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: And I guess , you know , the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real open question , I mean , e u there 's lots of open questions , but one of the core quote {comment} "" open questions "" for that is um , um , if we take the uh {disfmarker} you know , the best ones here , maybe not just the best one , but the best few or something {disfmarker} You want the most promising group from these other experiments . Um , how well do they do over a range of these different tests , not just the Italian ? +PhD A: Mmm , +Professor D: Um . And y +PhD A: Yeah , yeah . +Professor D: y {pause} Right ? And then um {disfmarker} then see , {pause} again , how {disfmarker} We know that there 's a mis there 's a uh {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a loss in performance when the neural net is trained on conditions that are different than {disfmarker} than , uh we 're gonna test on , but well , if you look over a range of these different tests um , how well do these different ways of combining the straight features with the MLP features , uh stand up over that range ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that seems like the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the real question . And if you know that {disfmarker} So if you just take PLP with uh , the double - deltas . Assume that 's the p the feature . look at these different ways of combining it . And uh , take {disfmarker} let 's say , just take uh multi - English cause that works pretty well for the training . +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: And just look {disfmarker} take that case and then look over all the different things . How does that {disfmarker} How does that compare between the {disfmarker} +PhD A: So all the {disfmarker} all the test sets you mean , yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: All the different test sets , +PhD A: And {disfmarker} +Professor D: and for {disfmarker} and for the couple different ways that you have of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of combining them . +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um . {pause} How well do they stand up , over the {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . And perhaps doing this for {disfmarker} cha changing the variance of the streams and so on {pause} getting different scaling {disfmarker} +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: That 's another possibility if you have time , yeah . Yeah . +PhD A: Um . Yeah , so thi this sh would be more working on the MLP as an additional path instead of an insert to the {disfmarker} to their diagram . +Professor D: +PhD A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah . Perhaps the insert idea is kind of strange because nnn , they {disfmarker} they make LDA and then we will again add a network does discriminate anal nnn , that discriminates , +Professor D: Yeah . {pause} It 's a little strange +PhD A: or {disfmarker} ? Mmm ? +Professor D: but on the other hand they did it before . +PhD A: Mmm . And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and +Professor D: Um the +PhD A: yeah . And because also perhaps we know that the {disfmarker} when we have very good features the MLP doesn't help . So . I don't know . +Professor D: Um , the other thing , though , is that um {disfmarker} So . Uh , we {disfmarker} we wanna get their path running here , right ? If so , we can add this other stuff . +PhD A: Um . +Professor D: as an additional path right ? +PhD A: Yeah , the {disfmarker} the way we want to do {disfmarker} +Professor D: Cuz they 're doing LDA {pause} RASTA . +PhD A: The d What ? +Professor D: They 're doing LDA RASTA , +PhD A: Yeah , the way we want to do it perhaps is to {disfmarker} just to get the VAD labels and the final features . +Professor D: yeah ? +PhD A: So they will send us the {disfmarker} Well , provide us with the feature files , +Professor D: I see . I see . +PhD A: and with VAD uh , binary labels so that we can uh , get our MLP features and filter them with the VAD and then combine them with their f feature stream . So . +Professor D: I see . So we {disfmarker} So . First thing of course we 'd wanna do there is to make sure that when we get those labels of final features is that we get the same results as them . Without putting in a second path . +PhD A: Uh . You mean {disfmarker} Oh , yeah ! Just re re retraining r retraining the HTK ? +Professor D: Yeah just th w i i Just to make sure that we {pause} have {disfmarker} we understand properly what things are , our very first thing to do is to {disfmarker} is to double check that we get the exact same results as them on HTK . +PhD A: Oh yeah . Yeah , OK . Mmm . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: Uh , I mean , I don't know that we need to r +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: Um {pause} Do we need to retrain I mean we can just take the re their training files also . But . {pause} But , uh just for the testing , jus just make sure that we get the same results {pause} so we can duplicate it before we add in another {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mmm . OK . +Professor D: Cuz otherwise , you know , we won't know what things mean . +PhD A: Oh , yeah . OK . And um . Yeah , so fff , LogRASTA , I don't know if we want to {disfmarker} We can try {pause} networks with LogRASTA filtered features . +Professor D: Maybe . +PhD A: Mmm . I 'm sorry ? Yeah . Well {disfmarker} Yeah . But {disfmarker} +Professor D: Oh ! You know , the other thing is when you say comb I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sorry , I 'm interrupting . {comment} that u Um , uh , when you 're talking about combining multiple features , um {disfmarker} Suppose we said , "" OK , we 've got these different features and so forth , but PLP seems {pause} pretty good . "" If we take the approach that Mike did and have {disfmarker} +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: I mean , one of the situations we have is we have these different conditions . We have different languages , we have different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} different noises , Um {pause} If we have some drastically different conditions and we just train up different M L Ps {pause} with them . +PhD A: +Professor D: And put {disfmarker} put them together . What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} What Mike found , for the reverberation case at least , I mean {disfmarker} I mean , who knows if it 'll work for these other ones . That you did have nice interpolative effects . That is , that yes , if you knew {pause} what the reverberation condition was gonna be and you trained for that , then you got the best results . But if you had , say , a heavily - reverberation ca heavy - reverberation case and a no - reverberation case , uh , and then you fed the thing , uh something that was a modest amount of reverberation then you 'd get some result in between the two . So it was sort of {disfmarker} behaved reasonably . Is tha that a fair {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD A: Yeah . So you {disfmarker} you think it 's perhaps better to have several M L Yeah but {disfmarker} +Professor D: It works better if {pause} what ? +PhD A: Yea +Professor D: I see . Well , see , i oc You were doing some something that was {disfmarker} So maybe the analogy isn't quite right . You were doing something that was in way a little better behaved . You had reverb for a single variable which was re uh , uh , reverberation . Here the problem seems to be is that we don't have a hug a really huge net with a really huge amount of training data . But we have s f {pause} for this kind of task , I would think , {pause} sort of a modest amount . I mean , a million frames actually isn't that much . We have a modest amount of {disfmarker} of uh training data from a couple different conditions , and then uh {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} yeah , that {disfmarker} and the real situation is that there 's enormous variability that we anticipate in the test set in terms of language , and noise type uh , and uh , {pause} uh , channel characteristic , sort of all over the map . A bunch of different dimensions . And so , I 'm just concerned that we don't really have {pause} um , the data to train up {disfmarker} I mean one of the things that we were seeing is that when we added in {disfmarker} we still don't have a good explanation for this , but we are seeing that we 're adding in uh , a fe few different databases and uh the performance is getting worse and uh , when we just take one of those databases that 's a pretty good one , it actually is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is better . And uh that says to me , yes , that , you know , there might be some problems with the pronunciation models that some of the databases we 're adding in or something like that . But one way or another {pause} we don't have uh , seemingly , the ability {pause} to represent , in the neural net of the size that we have , um , all of the variability {pause} that we 're gonna be covering . So that I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm hoping that um , this is another take on the efficiency argument you 're making , which is I 'm hoping that with moderate size neural nets , uh , that uh if we {disfmarker} if they look at more constrained conditions they {disfmarker} they 'll have enough parameters to really represent them . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Yeah . +PhD A: So doing both is {disfmarker} is not {disfmarker} is not right , you mean , or {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Professor D: Yeah . I {disfmarker} I just sort of have a feeling {disfmarker} +PhD A: But {disfmarker} Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor D: Yeah . I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} i i e The um {disfmarker} I think it 's true that the OGI folk found that using LDA {pause} RASTA , which is a kind of LogRASTA , it 's just that they have the {disfmarker} I mean it 's done in the log domain , as I recall , and it 's {disfmarker} it uh {disfmarker} it 's just that they d it 's trained up , right ? That that um benefitted from on - line normalization . So they did {disfmarker} At least in their case , it did seem to be somewhat complimentary . So will it be in our case , where we 're using the neural net ? I mean they {disfmarker} they were not {disfmarker} not using the neural net . Uh I don't know . OK , so the other things you have here are uh , trying to improve results from a single {disfmarker} Yeah . Make stuff better . OK . Uh . {vocalsound} Yeah . And CPU memory issues . Yeah . We 've been sort of ignoring that , haven't we ? +PhD A: Yeah , so I don't know . +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: But we have to address the problem of CPU and memory we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yeah , but I li Well , I think {disfmarker} My impression {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you folks have been looking at this more than me . But my impression was that {vocalsound} uh , there was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a strict constraint on the delay , +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: but beyond that it was kind of that uh using less memory was better , and {vocalsound} using less CPU was better . Something like that , +PhD A: Yeah , but {disfmarker} +Professor D: right ? +PhD A: Yeah . So , yeah , but we 've {disfmarker} I don't know . We have to get some reference point to where we {disfmarker} Well , what 's a reasonable number ? Perhaps be because if it 's {disfmarker} if it 's too large or {disfmarker} large or @ @ {disfmarker} +Professor D: Um , well I don't think we 're {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} completely off the wall . I mean I think that if we {disfmarker} if we have {disfmarker} Uh , I mean the ultimate fall back that we could do {disfmarker} If we find uh {disfmarker} I mean we may find that we {disfmarker} we 're not really gonna worry about the M L You know , if the MLP ultimately , after all is said and done , doesn't really help then we won't have it in . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: If the MLP does , we find , help us enough in some conditions , uh , we might even have more than one MLP . We could simply say that is uh , done on the uh , server . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it 's uh {disfmarker} We do the other manipulations that we 're doing before that . So , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker} I think that 's {disfmarker} {pause} that 's OK . +PhD A: And {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor D: So I think the key thing was um , this plug into OGI . Um , what {disfmarker} what are they {disfmarker} What are they gonna be working {disfmarker} Do we know what they 're gonna be working on while we take their features , +PhD A: They 're {disfmarker} They 're starting to wor work on some kind of multi - band . +Professor D: and {disfmarker} ? +PhD A: So . Um {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} that was Pratibha . Sunil , what was he doing , do you remember ? +PhD B: Sunil ? +PhD A: Yeah . He was doing something new or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I {disfmarker} I don't re I didn't remember . Maybe he 's working with {pause} neural network . +PhD A: I don't think so . Trying to tune wha networks ? +PhD B: Yeah , I think so . +PhD A: I think they were also mainly , well , working a little bit of new things , like networks and multi - band , but mainly trying to tune their {disfmarker} their system as it is now to {disfmarker} just trying to get the best from this {disfmarker} this architecture . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD A: +Professor D: OK . So I guess the way it would work is that you 'd get {disfmarker} There 'd be some point where you say , "" OK , this is their version - one "" or whatever , and we get these VAD labels and features and so forth for all these test sets from them , +PhD A: Mm - hmm . +Professor D: and then um , uh , that 's what we work with . We have a certain level we try to improve it with this other path and then um , uh , when it gets to be uh , January some point uh , we say , "" OK we {disfmarker} we have shown that we can improve this , in this way . So now uh {pause} um {pause} what 's your newest version ? "" And then maybe they 'll have something that 's better and then we {disfmarker} we 'd combine it . This is always hard . I mean I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I used to work {pause} with uh folks who were trying to improve a good uh , HMM system with uh {disfmarker} with a neural net system and uh , it was {pause} a common problem that you 'd {disfmarker} Oh , and this {disfmarker} Actually , this is true not just for neural nets but just for {disfmarker} in general if people were {pause} working with uh , rescoring uh , N - best lists or lattices that come {disfmarker} came from uh , a mainstream recognizer . Uh , You get something from the {disfmarker} the other site at one point and you work really hard on making it better with rescoring . But they 're working really hard , too . So by the time {pause} you have uh , improved their score , they have also improved their score +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: and now there isn't any difference , +PhD A: Yeah . +Professor D: because the other {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor D: So , um , I guess at some point we 'll have to +PhD A: So it 's {disfmarker} +Professor D: uh {disfmarker} {comment} Uh , I {disfmarker} I don't know . I think we 're {disfmarker} we 're integrated a little more tightly than happens in a lot of those cases . I think at the moment they {disfmarker} they say that they have a better thing we can {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} e e +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: What takes all the time here is that th we 're trying so many things , presumably uh , in a {disfmarker} in a day we could turn around uh , taking a new set of things from them and {disfmarker} and rescoring it , +PhD A: Mmm . Yeah . Yeah , perhaps we could . +Professor D: right ? So . Yeah . Well , OK . No , this is {disfmarker} I think this is good . I think that the most wide open thing is the issues about the uh , you know , different trainings . You know , da training targets and noises and so forth . +PhD A: Mmm . So we {disfmarker} we can for {disfmarker} we c we can forget combining multiple features and MLG perhaps , +Professor D: That 's sort of wide open . +PhD A: or focus more on the targets and on the training data and {disfmarker} ? +Professor D: Yeah , I think for right now um , I th I {disfmarker} I really liked MSG . And I think that , you know , one of the things I liked about it is has such different temporal properties . And um , I think that there is ultimately a really good uh , potential for , you know , bringing in things with different temporal properties . Um , but um , uh , we only have limited time and there 's a lot of other things we have to look at . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: And it seems like much more core questions are issues about the training set and the training targets , and fitting in uh what we 're doing with what they 're doing , and , you know , with limited time . Yeah . I think {pause} we have to start cutting down . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So uh {disfmarker} I think so , yeah . And then , you know , once we {disfmarker} Um , having gone through this {pause} process and trying many different things , I would imagine that certain things uh , come up that you are curious about uh , that you 'd not getting to and so when the dust settles from the evaluation uh , I think that would time to go back and take whatever intrigued you most , you know , got you most interested uh and uh {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and work with it , you know , for the next round . Uh , as you can tell from these numbers uh , nothing that any of us is gonna do is actually gonna completely solve the problem . +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: So . So , {comment} there 'll still be plenty to do . Barry , you 've been pretty quiet . +Grad C: Just listening . +Professor D: Well I figured that , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what were you involved in in this primarily ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} helping out {vocalsound} uh , preparing {disfmarker} Well , they 've been kind of running all the experiments and stuff and I 've been uh , uh w doing some work on the {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker} preparing all {disfmarker} all the data for them to {disfmarker} to um , train and to test on . Um Yeah . Right now , I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm focusing mainly on this final project I 'm working on in Jordan 's class . +Professor D: Ah ! +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: I see . Right . What 's {disfmarker} what 's that ? +Grad C: Um , {vocalsound} I 'm trying to um {disfmarker} So there was a paper in ICSLP about um this {disfmarker} this multi - band um , belief - net structure . {comment} This guy did {disfmarker} +Professor D: Mm - hmm . +Grad C: uh basically it was two H M Ms with {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker} with a dependency arrow between the two H M +Professor D: Uh - huh . +Grad C: And so I wanna try {disfmarker} try coupling them instead of t having an arrow that {disfmarker} that flows from one sub - band to another sub - band . I wanna try having the arrows go both ways . And um , {vocalsound} I 'm just gonna see if {disfmarker} if that {disfmarker} that better models {pause} um , uh asynchrony in any way or um {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Professor D: Oh ! OK . Well , that sounds interesting . +Grad C: Yeah . +Professor D: OK . Alright . Anything to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you wanted to {disfmarker} No . OK . Silent partner in the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} in the meeting . Oh , we got a laugh out of him , that 's good . OK , everyone h must contribute to the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our sound {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound files here . OK , so speaking of which , if we don't have anything else that we need {disfmarker} You happy with where we are ? +PhD A: Mmm . +Professor D: Know {disfmarker} know wher know where we 're going ? Uh {disfmarker} +PhD A: I think so , yeah . +Professor D: Yeah , yeah . You {disfmarker} you happy ? +PhD B: +Professor D: You 're happy . OK everyone {pause} should be happy . OK . You don't have to be happy . You 're almost done . Yeah , yeah . OK . +Grad E: Al - actually I should mention {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} {comment} um , about the Linux machine "" Swede . "" +Professor D: Yeah . +Grad E: So it looks like the um , neural net tools are installed there . +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: And um Dan Ellis {comment} I believe knows something about using that machine so +PhD A: Mmm . +Grad E: If people are interested in {disfmarker} in getting jobs running on that maybe I could help with that . +PhD A: Yeah , but I don't know if we really need now a lot of machines . Well . we could start computing another huge table but {disfmarker} yeah , we {disfmarker} +Professor D: Well . Yeah , I think we want a different table , at least +PhD A: Yeah , sure . +Professor D: Right ? I mean there 's {disfmarker} there 's some different things that we 're trying to get at now . +PhD A: But {disfmarker} +Professor D: But {disfmarker} +PhD A: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor D: So . Yeah , as far as you can tell , you 're actually OK on C - on CPU uh , for training and so on ? Yeah . +PhD A: Ah yeah . I think so . Well , more is always better , but mmm , I don't think we have to train a lot of networks , now that we know {disfmarker} We just select what works {pause} fine +Professor D: OK . OK . +PhD A: and try to improve this +PhD B: Yeah . to work +Professor D: And we 're OK on {disfmarker} And we 're OK on disk ? +PhD A: and {disfmarker} It 's OK , yeah . Well sometimes we have some problems . +PhD B: Some problems with the {disfmarker} +Professor D: But they 're correctable , uh problems . +PhD A: Yeah , restarting the script basically +PhD B: You know . +PhD A: and {disfmarker} +Professor D: Yes . Yeah , I 'm familiar with {vocalsound} that one , OK . Alright , so uh , {comment} {vocalsound} since uh , we didn't ha get a channel on for you , {comment} you don't have to read any digits but the rest of us will . Uh , is it on ? Well . We didn't uh {disfmarker} I think I won't touch anything cuz I 'm afraid of making the driver crash which it seems to do , {pause} pretty easily . OK , thanks . OK , so we 'll uh {disfmarker} I 'll start off the uh um connect the {disfmarker} +PhD A: My battery is low . +Professor D: Well , let 's hope it works . Maybe you should go first and see so that you 're {disfmarker} OK . +PhD B: batteries ? +Grad C: Yeah , your battery 's going down too . +Professor D: Transcript uh two {disfmarker} +Grad C: Carmen 's battery is d going down too . +Professor D: Oh , OK . Yeah . Why don't you go next then . OK . Guess we 're done . OK , uh so . Just finished digits . Yeah , so . Uh Well , it 's good . I think {disfmarker} I guess we can turn off our microphones now . +Grad C: Just pull the batteries out . +","The summary provided reflects a technical meeting between Professor D, PhD candidates A and B, and Graduate student C, discussing their ongoing experiments and planning for future work in what appears to be a research project focused on speech recognition and machine learning. + +The meeting begins with some issues related to microphone checks and sound quality. Then, Professor D queries PhD A about documents, presumably related to their research, hinting at the use of noise robustness tests and documentation formatting, including font sizes and color-coding for better readability. + +PhD A explains recent experiments conducted on features with networks trained on Perceptual Linear Predictive (PLP) processing with online normalization and deltas. The importance of deltas in improving accuracy is emphasized, along with comparative results from different training sets involving multiple languages and training conditions, indicating that training with deltas led to significantly lower error rates. + +The discussion moves into technical breakdowns of recognition accuracies and baseline systems trained on various datasets, demonstrating that mixtures of features and neural network outputs yield different results. PhD B injects that the inclusion of delta features shows improvement in some scenarios. The baseline system is clarified as a recognizer trained on Italian digits under mismatched conditions, where ""mismatch"" denotes noise and microphone differences. + +Additional experiments are mentioned, including cross-language experiments and articulatory feature combinations using multi-stream architectures and alternative transforming techniques such as Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT). PhD A and B continue to dissect the experiments’ results, indicating that Multi-English and TIMIT-trained networks perform well across multiple tests but have notable differences depending on the inclusion of delta features. + +Multiple configurations of feature streams and neural networks are contrasted, suggesting different strategies for combining feature sets to improve accuracy, such as adjusting stream variances in HTK script. The challenge of integrating MLP (Multi-Layer Perceptron) as an additional path within the broader feature-processing framework is acknowledged. + +Finally, future work is outlined where existing experiments are to be connected with the OGI system, with Professor D emphasizing the focus on training sets and training targets, particularly considering language and noise dependencies. There is some consideration of dropping certain feature comparison tests to focus on the most promising approaches within the time constraints. + +The meeting concludes with some technical housekeeping regarding battery life and computational resources. There are suggestions that more machines and disk space may be needed depending on upcoming tests, though CPU capacity for training the networks appears adequate. + +Overall, the meeting captures research discussions and decision-making processes related to improving speech recognition system capabilities under various training conditions, feature sets, and the potential interplay between feature processing and neural network outputs." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: So , uh now {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hi Christa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Hi Sammy . {vocalsound} It's the detail design meeting , so we're going {disfmarker} last meeting . So um , first uh Mark and Rama are going to present uh the prototype . Uh then uh Sammy will propose some uh crite cr criteria to evaluate this prototype . Then , w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then we going to do some finance to see if uh it is uh feasible +User Interface: And chocolate ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh at the end we will we will um evaluate ourself as a team . {vocalsound} And that's all . Okay . So first , {vocalsound} let's uh see the prototype . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , here we have our prototype model . +Project Manager: Okay . And you have some slides then ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we have also some slides . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Yes , and place some slides . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so in which uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , participant three . {vocalsound} Prototype . +Industrial Designer: In {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh , so this is our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Him . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a r working prototype . You can use it now by switching all these buttons . So first , I present as we came to this perfect model , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then we'll give some technical specifications . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's {vocalsound} well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , so that's that . Please , next slide . We analysed all the fruits +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and contacted NASA , and uh made some {vocalsound} real good {disfmarker} +Project Manager: MASA ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If you can see this , and the stars are showing that {gap} . And um , {vocalsound} s society will accept that . For sure . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And making some analysis of different fruits , we choose the ultimate form , ultimate colours , and uh ultimate smell of it . S please , next slide . But we still didn't want to go far from our titanium idea , 'cause it's the most of the moder the m the {gap} modern material we can p select . And it's practical . And it's still say it's for our needs , so please press something . And as I said , {vocalsound} it's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Please press it . +Industrial Designer: Experience . Explanat +User Interface: Everyone is {gap} f really uh really glad to obtain an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s such a r such a device . +Marketing: Such a nice thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See this {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can touch it with your hands . +Marketing: Can I ? +User Interface: Sure . Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ho-ho . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} imitating flatulence] {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you say ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: N +Marketing: It says {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You must say it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One day . +Marketing: I'll buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I if I need so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hopefully my daughter will like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Y and we got the answer . Uh , it is , yes , of course . +Marketing: Yes , of course . Of c course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} , please next slide . Um , this is a prototype . You can have a look at it , and {disfmarker} That's all I wanted to say . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Now it's technical specification by our colleague . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , there is {vocalsound} a button missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This this is really flexible . You can add your buttons . +Marketing: It's in option . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So function , mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , as we discussed , we have to switch on switch off whenever we want . And so , we have buttons and using L_C_D_ , or like you can use this {vocalsound} jog wheel and select which ever option on the L_C_D_ , and then do on and off . {vocalsound} Then you ha you'll have volume control . So , you you can press these buttons to increase or decrease the volume . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have some L_C_D_ controls . Like , m switching the L_C_D_ display if you want to use L_C_D_ , or you don't want you can just use normal button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And we have speech recognition . Here you have microphone , and then it date records your voice , and then it try to recognise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it can also do the action . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And location finder . And we want to do the location basically using speech recogniser . You can just say , where is my remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh , you can just give some nickname to your remote control , like Bobby {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bobby . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey , babe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then , {vocalsound} it will say hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bob . {vocalsound} Hey Bob . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , hi , and then you can use it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's good . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} um our team is now fruits . Mainly strawberry . So , you can {vocalsound} have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , these are strawberries . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can see the look L_C_D_ and all the switches . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are colourful . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Material , we want to stick to titanium . {vocalsound} We will send , we want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruit smelling spongy titanium . {vocalsound} I didn't know it exist , but that's great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or s {vocalsound} So , we want to have {vocalsound} simple and perfect shapes , like I shown in these phones . You can have your own designs and and you can feel simple designs . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can choose colours on your day for each day , or even many colours . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Ho-ho . That's for the L_C_D_ or for the titanium ? +Marketing: You mean we can change the colour uh of th +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah okay , for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: With titanium it's {disfmarker} it is silver . +Marketing: Tit titanium is {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are still working on titanium . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , r we'll start with L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can ask Bob . It's Tuesday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you know you're theme today . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , Bob , please . {vocalsound} {gap} Tuesday colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Even you can configure your colours for its {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} depending on your mood , or s +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Black for Sunday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you can have many colours on weekends . Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And w wait , wh what are the strawberries for ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wh wh +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Marketing: On the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Ah , these are like sensors . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . +User Interface: That's location sensors . +Marketing: {vocalsound} What do you think ? {vocalsound} Strawberry sensors . {vocalsound} Very useful . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Strawberries . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: after this meeting we'll propose a party for our success for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Lounge meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , if you are vegetarian or you have any options , please let us know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and we can just {gap} some strawberry first . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So , huh . Interesting . In interesting . Mm mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , any specific questions for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we'll see in the financial part if uh {vocalsound} all {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} gets into {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's make a party first maybe . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} W Who is the five uh {disfmarker} fifty millions we {vocalsound} first make a party in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Then we can discuss {disfmarker} We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , then we can have how much for how money is left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh , this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: What a design . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh , so {disfmarker} Let's uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my turn . +Project Manager: yeah , let's see if uh th it's meet the evaluation criterium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Let's see if this {disfmarker} Yeah , if you meet {vocalsound} the evaluation criterion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fudge . +Marketing: Yeah . So , evaluation please . So . You made a very nice prototype , and um , I think , we now need altogether to try to evaluate it to see if it makes sense to do it , if it fulfils our {disfmarker} what we want to do , and things like that . So mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , next slide , please . {vocalsound} As you know , before going and uh creating and producing these strawberry {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} remote control , it's very important to first verify if it makes sense , if we have a chance to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , so we need to evaluate it um , try to do it in a constative way , and as much as we can . To {disfmarker} so what I propose is that we are going to to have this scale from one to seven . One meaning that , ye yes uh it fulfils uh the the criterion , whatever it is . And seven meaning , no it doesn't fulfil at all . And we're all l going to list all the criterion . I'm going to go to that next slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and together try to evaluate this according to this criterion and from one to seven . And then we are just going to have an average , which will give us the value of our uh remote control . So , maybe we can have a look at the criteria ? +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +Marketing: So these are the criterion uh I'm {disfmarker} I thought were important . Of course , this can be discussed , but let's let's see , so let's vote . So we have fancy here and we have the scale from one to seven with four in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: So , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what's is really {disfmarker} +Marketing: what do you think , is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think that fancy , we can say it is fancy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is very very fancy . Or have you ever seen something like that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . I am not the d the only one choosing , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Uh what do you think ? +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: Feel the weight . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} The weight is later . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh . +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: We're on the fanciness now . I think it's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can give at least five or six , seven . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} No it's it's one . +Project Manager: It's in the other {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Oh , {gap} Oh . So {disfmarker} Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Oh , okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , o one means it's , yes , a very fancy and seven mean no at all . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's one or two . +Project Manager: Two . Let's say two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: M maybe two . +Marketing: What do you think ? Two ? +User Interface: Two . Two . +Marketing: Okay . So here , two . Up . +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Marketing: Then we have uh technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , what about technology ? We have uh we have speech recognition , we have location based {gap} , +Industrial Designer: And we have L_C_D_ . +Marketing: we have L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Change colour of t +Industrial Designer: So you change colours . +Marketing: Change colour , I mean that's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Useful . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Quite +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: d I think it's a one for that , at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's silly . +Marketing: At least a one , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Robustness , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , still we need to cha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} let's suppose my daughter take it and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and through it away . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think it makes sense that it's going to live again ? Uh , maybe not the prototype . +Project Manager: The strawberries {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's try . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh my god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe strawberry . +Marketing: Okay , we just lost one strawberry . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . How can I say this . +Marketing: Not at all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can easily plug it . +User Interface: It's still it's still working , and your daughter got a bonus . +Marketing: It is {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A strawberry . +Marketing: So it's not so bad . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I um uh I would say three . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's um robust , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that does make sense , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Useful ? +Marketing: Useful . {vocalsound} Well , so the question is does it have uh the minimum requirement of re remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I don't know . These buttons are uh {disfmarker} It not clear . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , lets me try . +Marketing: But you have at least uh next produce . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What is uh next , please ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , channel . I this is volume control and channel changes . These are the main {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh do di two sites ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and you can do on L_C_D_ using these going to scrolling all the option . +Project Manager: Okay , also . +Industrial Designer: So if you don't want {disfmarker} +Marketing: So but , for instance , because the L_C_D_ is not uh touch control , touch screen , you cannot go to channel twenty five directly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: You can , by using the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Directly . +User Interface: You go {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c push here the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , the basic mode {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . So that's simple . The basic mode is uh you got just two buttons and a jog dial . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: With two buttons , you do this like uh volume up , volume down . +Marketing: Oh , it's a jog dial , okay . +User Interface: Or if you go to the site , it's channel up channel down . +Industrial Designer: And channel . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Okay . +User Interface: And if you want to make to s twenty-five , you push on this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You select twenty , you select five . +Industrial Designer: You can select . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: It's much longer than that that being two two five , no ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Don't you think so ? May {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} okay , we can go . That's uh {disfmarker} You're right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Y you need to like press two and five and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less uh {disfmarker} Yeah . But it's it's nice , because people anyway don't go there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So what do you think for it , usefulness ? +Industrial Designer: So , d Yeah , we need to address {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seems to be useful . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we only address two main functions here and the other functions will be on L_C_D_ . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let me understand well , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I'm not sure {disfmarker} that's for {disfmarker} that this one are b d uh two dir directional button . +Marketing: Both . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Up . +Marketing: Up down or left right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And which {disfmarker} what is that ? +User Interface: It's a jog dial for controlling the cursor on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This is jog wheel . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . It's a kind {disfmarker} Oh , okay okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like , selecting the menus . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} see in L_C_D_ , like you will have blocks and you select which one . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Oh oh okay , great . +Marketing: I would say then uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: Now it's looks us useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Industrial Designer: Two , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , two . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So size and weight . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Is it the the the effective size and weight that the {disfmarker} Is it uh real size , real weight ? Or {disfmarker} Because it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} size al almost {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Size is going to be that , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The weight will be bit lighter . We will s We use titanium . +User Interface: Sure , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: without titanium alloy , it's going to be light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: It's going to be lighter , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Of course . +Marketing: because this seems to be very heavy f I mean , +Industrial Designer: Heavy . Yeah . +Marketing: for my daughter , for instance . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not sure if uh {vocalsound} she can use it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But sides {disfmarker} uh , the sides should be okay . {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , should be okay . +Industrial Designer: mm . +Marketing: Up to three for that , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: because I'm {disfmarker} haven't seen the weight so I must not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Colour and shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , so colour , it seems that we have the several colours for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But um , it's not very clear what is the colour of the sh the sh {vocalsound} the case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The case is silver titanium , no ? +Marketing: It's a {disfmarker} it's going to be titanium . Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Let's imagine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's good . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And what about the strawberries on the top ? {vocalsound} I'm not convince . {vocalsound} But maybe I'm not trendy . But , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yahoo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well y you know , it's this uh fruit and vegetable year . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} uh they're not useful . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I mean it {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So maybe , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I think usefulness is m as as I rem um just have to remind you that usefulness is much less important than fanciness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whether it's fancy or not now , it {disfmarker} we have to decide . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: But this +Project Manager: I would have m uh i found more fancy that the fruits are useful . +Marketing: If it's {disfmarker} Uh-huh . So , that they will {disfmarker} that maybe the fruit may be here instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well then it's bit difficult to use . Not like this d We're just giving the fruit for more fanciness and more attraction , too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But the n {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , maybe think we can have rubber or some sponges , stuff for strawberries and different colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems we are not so clear on the shape uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I'm not sure uh why {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: These buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh if it was like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} But it looks really {vocalsound} not really good . +Project Manager: I It's {gap} n {vocalsound} no , it's not fancy any more . +Industrial Designer: I mean , the f Yeah . So these are kind of rubber things . Even if you lose one you can just put whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even we can provide many different colours or different fruits , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . And different routes . Okay , I see what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Moreover , moreover it covers it covers all the end goals . Even if it is , you know , it's very rounded , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but still you got some rubber fruit here , and it's completely uh completely secure to leave it uh with children and that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so you you you feel like it's something uh a protection for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , we've {disfmarker} yeah we have sensors here and so here and here , +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: so we just {disfmarker} Yeah , so even if you don't put , it works . But this is really fancy . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I suggested three . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because uh , everybody s doesn't seem to be convince , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: although it's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have good arguments . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the last one is adaptive . This is not r maybe not as important as the other one , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but uh can we adapt it to each each personal use ? +User Interface: Sure , sure , just look at it . {vocalsound} It's full adaptable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow , that's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fully adaptable . +User Interface: Yeah , you can fit it into your palm , you know . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can fit into your palm , okay . +Project Manager: Yea +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else can we need ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Do you think you are gonna be able to do that with ti titanium as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's fudge titanium . {vocalsound} You know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's fudge , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah . {vocalsound} And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , fruit titanium , yeah . Well , I if if this is {disfmarker} if you are ready to do that , then I think it deserves a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Let's go for one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we have to do the average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three , three , six , eight , eleven . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who is good in math ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's two point one seven . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Two point one seven . That's nice . Two point one seven out of seven . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we have a good good thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , that's all I had to say about the evaluation . +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} It seems to be good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: We have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two one one seven , we have . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So now , it has to fulfil the {vocalsound} financial criterium ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Financi +Marketing: Ah-ha . +Project Manager: So , I have an {disfmarker} Here . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Energy . +Marketing: So so how many batteries do we need ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , we use bat One battery . +Marketing: One battery ? +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so two . +Marketing: Good . Why two ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , we just need one , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Say no . No , ne never install . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two batteries or one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , number is one . We need only one battery . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , +Marketing: Only one . +Project Manager: but the price is two . Oh , number . +Marketing: No , no . But no , no . No , no way . +Project Manager: Sorry sorry sorry . I'm sorry . +User Interface: No , uh you just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Number , number . +User Interface: Number . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . You never use uh Excel ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , never . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what's the limit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} H {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's twelve bucks . +User Interface: Uh , it's it's okay that I don't know , 'cause uh it's not my field . Twelve bucks . Okay , +Marketing: Twelve bucks . +User Interface: now {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Twelve and a half , I think . +User Interface: Check that number also . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , electronics . +Industrial Designer: We have sample chip . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , like simple chip , yeah . +Marketing: It's a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: So , yeah . +Marketing: Simple chip , okay . One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four buttons at least . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then we have the t sample speaker sensor for speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for the {disfmarker} One also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one to one . +Marketing: One or two ? One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: Okay . So the case , which one uh is it in the end ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think we will go for a single curve , no ? +Marketing: Let's do a single curve . +Industrial Designer: Oh , is {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's flat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +Marketing: It's flat , and curved . +Project Manager: I thought you can curve +User Interface: It's flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} somebody . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it is flat , +Marketing: It's curvable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: you {disfmarker} Look . It's curvable , but it's not curved . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe there is a supplement for that {gap} , no ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's only {gap} curve ? +Project Manager: Oh see , I I think {vocalsound} that the the price is this one . +Marketing: Okay , let's go . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: you d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't chip on me . +Marketing: We tried , we tried . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Titanium . +Marketing: So , what is it ? T titanium ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , that's expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} But she wanted u the {vocalsound} fudge titanium . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's stick to s titan . +Project Manager: I think it's five , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't say {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour ? +User Interface: Well , n Why three ? +Industrial Designer: No , only one , no ? +Marketing: No because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Why three ? +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . Again , I'm {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} See it . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour , +Industrial Designer: Interface . +Project Manager: or it's only on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yes , in L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} there is no {vocalsound} colour here . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , an Yeah . +Project Manager: So I put it here . +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Marketing: So the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many push-button ? +Industrial Designer: Scro +Project Manager: Three or two ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Is there {disfmarker} The scroll-wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One scroll wheel {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's going to be expensive . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One L_C_D_ displayed . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} That's that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's all ? +Project Manager: We choose this one , and not this one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Oh , I think , no it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper . +Marketing: Uh , is it a scroll wheel and pe push button , th this centre one ? +Project Manager: Or only a scroll-wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Only scroll wheel . +Marketing: Or only only scroll wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You try to s {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You are trying to make make up {disfmarker} {vocalsound} make us up . +Project Manager: No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: It's already {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because {vocalsound} how do you do to {vocalsound} y select ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: No , but you select with the two d the other two buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean you you go on the location with your scroll wheel +Industrial Designer: Y ye +Marketing: no ? That's true . +Project Manager: and then you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then it automatically {disfmarker} we can just do like you feel , it goes . And it will activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Stay longer . Okay . +Marketing: It should stay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , plus , yeah , it's {disfmarker} price is really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special colours , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For buttons . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , buttons and strawberries . +User Interface: buttons just normal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Special form . +Project Manager: You you have all of these , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's very hard on this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm maybe n not this one but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Special colour ? Yeah . No . Special material ? +User Interface: That's for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have titan +User Interface: But buttons are standard . +Marketing: Yeah , buttons are the standard buttons . Yeah . It's only buttons , these . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we are at seventeen dot eight . +Project Manager: Not special colours an interest in ? +Marketing: No , the colour is in the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And buttons are not colourised ? They are m +Industrial Designer: Mm , hmm , +Marketing: I no . +Industrial Designer: I think uh because you can just go for a good colours . +Marketing: We can just use this red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boo-hoo . {vocalsound} It's already too expensive . {vocalsound} Apparently . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So what is {disfmarker} Are we supposed to cut things out now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Uh , until we get twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So think of what we can cut uh here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , if I look at what is the most expensive things , uh it's the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: Sample speaker . +Marketing: and the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Apparently , we have to choose one or the other . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as you may know there's some research done in the field of producing energy from mechanical eng , I mean , producing electricity from mechanical energy . So , the point is that when you take device and push the button , you produce enough energy +Project Manager: But you don't need a battery ? +User Interface: to make electricity . Yeah , that you don't need a battery . So , it's something like hand dynamo robot . A real high-tech version of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's like the hand dynamo , no ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe the jog wheel can be like kind of hand +Marketing: So , but if we select the hand dynamo it's okay , we only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} is {disfmarker} +Marketing: We we win one . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's already that . +Project Manager: Uh it's a it's a beginning . +Marketing: Okay , let's do that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Let's do that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} One here and here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just remo +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And I propose to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: So uh , about chips . Advanced chip on print , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , put minus one there , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if this is legal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +User Interface: And ? +Marketing: And ? +Project Manager: M maybe minus uh three , no ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , was there result ? +Industrial Designer: No , no . It's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , let's see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Let's have a look . +Industrial Designer: It's not changing , no ? +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} you don't +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah , if {disfmarker} Click somewhere , you'll see features . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Yes , it does . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe put minus two , so it looks uh {vocalsound} more reasonable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Why not . +Marketing: Yeah , anyway {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: Minus . +Marketing: No , minus two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nobody will know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not recorded , is it ? +User Interface: Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , we're on time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: So now on , we can increase our {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Still you have two more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , we can put uh a hand dynamo and a battery if you want . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can use it for our party . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: And a battery and a battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Both its it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: No , now we are exp exceeding I think . +User Interface: Now it's fancy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: let's add one instead of two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we're exceeding now . +Industrial Designer: No , but point five point three . +Marketing: We have to remove the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , it's better . I think they are counting uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . It's maximum +Industrial Designer: Is really strict ? +Marketing: We would prefer , +Project Manager: and don't have to {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: yeah . Maximum is maximum . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: So , remove one of them . Yeah . Okay . Okay , we're uh on target . +Project Manager: Uh , mm-mm . Yeah . Mm . Okay . Mm . So {vocalsound} target reached . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm just curious to see this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ho {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} address chip on print . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's um English uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trick {vocalsound} . Uh , I would say it's the Russian trick , but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh {gap} is uh English . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , +Industrial Designer: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I don't know . +Marketing: they may have some their origins , strange origins {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I am not sure who was programming this calculator , you know . 'Cause uh {disfmarker} I wonder if we put A_ or B_ somewhere instead of a number . +Project Manager: Mm , let's try . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we can discuss all these things in our party . +Marketing: Let's finish this meeting instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} I save it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else ? +Project Manager: Okay , so next mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that's yours . +Marketing: This is right . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so finance , that's done . Are the cost under twelve ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , very much . +Marketing: Yes . Project evaluation , good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So now {disfmarker} +User Interface: Next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project process . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to make um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Safe uh asse uh safe assessment . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . See mm how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Are we a good team ? Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think we've listened to everybody . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Everybody could say what they thought . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is there enough room for creativity ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . And you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . When we see the results , there is no doubt there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Well , project evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe a lack of leadership ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: M maybe not , huh ? +Marketing: Team-work , very strong , I would say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , our team-work is really strong . +Marketing: Team-work , no problem . Means . Whiteboard , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we still {gap} , I guess . +User Interface: What was the {disfmarker} Oh yeah , what was good ? Everything . What was bad ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think white-board is useful . Digital pens , useful . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: New ideas found ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , you say , is there sheep ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luck . {vocalsound} Okay . So luck , but good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Which imply good uh team performance . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . A good leader , you know , a good leader is somewhere in the shade and {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but uh then I I mus That's true . And there's uh one very important point . +Industrial Designer: Don't really . +Marketing: We're on time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Meetings finish when they have to or even before . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . We made {disfmarker} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} for meeting it's uh one of the most important thing . +User Interface: Of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not to waste time , that's important . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , we have other {vocalsound} uh remote controls to create . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need time f +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , we got new idea , speech recognition , location finding . New materials , new s uh this fancy strawberry design . +Project Manager: A lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New materials . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh new ways of doing financial {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , yeah . Hey , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And new tricks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: just wondering if my uh {disfmarker} what about the the pink {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the pinkness of that uh +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . They're working on um pink titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . They are working on a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , very {gap} . +Marketing: Okay , good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Budget . +Marketing: I think we are great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: There's no no other words for that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We are probably the best . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Real Reaction is uh +Project Manager: we're really nice . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Finished ? +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah , celebration . Are the costs within the budget ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course they are . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is the project evaluated ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yes , it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We got two {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , we see , we can even forecast . {gap} they propose us like celebration , everything , +Industrial Designer: Good score . +User Interface: we could forecast it , right ? +Marketing: To whom ? To the whole our company ? +Project Manager: I'm the one , {vocalsound} proposing the celebration . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course , +User Interface: You ? It was you . +Project Manager: you know I'm the program manager . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So , let's celebrate . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So where we will go now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah um , +Industrial Designer: Uh , ye +Project Manager: I think it's finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think the meeting {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will go to Italian restaurant , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The meeting is over at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Marketing: So , we have to go out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can decide . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we go to the party . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you to you . Mm . +","During a design meeting, the project team—consisting of a project manager, marketing, user interface, and an industrial designer—discusses a prototype for a new remote control. The prototype includes speech recognition, location finder, and an innovative design featuring strawberries. The team evaluates the prototype against several criteria (fanciness, technology, robustness, usefulness, size and weight, color and shape, adaptiveness), assigns numerical values for each criterion, and averages them for an overall evaluation score. + +They then conduct a cost analysis to ensure the product can be manufactured within the budget. To lower costs, they employ creative accounting and consider using an advanced chip on print technology. They also consider using a hand dynamo to eliminate the need for batteries. + +After evaluating the project's financial feasibility and overall design, they assess their team collaboration, creativity, and meeting effectiveness, concluding they work well together. Finally, they plan to celebrate their successful meeting and product evaluation at an Italian restaurant." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} That went well , thank you . +Project Manager: That's great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Perfect . +Project Manager: Alright , let me just PowerPoint this up . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right so um this meeting will be about the conceptual design , don't ask me s precisely what conceptual design is , it's just something important that we need to do . Um , think of it {disfmarker} 's kind of uh turning the abstract into slightly more concrete . In this meeting ideally we'll come to some final decisions on what we're gonna do for the prototype . Um . Right so um , apologies for the last meeting , it was brought to my attention that I did not make the roles clear enough , um , so I will attempt to do so more accurately in this particular meeting . Um , fair enough , thanks for the input , 's always good . Um . So , basically all we're gonna do is have some presentations again much like last time , um , and gonna go through you , uh whoever wants to go first is f fine by me um and we'll collate what we know about um what we discussed in the last meeting , possible directions . {vocalsound} And then we'll make some more decisions on um basic uh firm up our idea on how we want this remote control to look and work . So , perfect . So , without th further ado , whoever wants to go first is free to . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . +Project Manager: Alright Nathan , +Marketing: Go ahead . +Project Manager: take it away . It is Nathan right ? I'm not calling you the wrong name over and over again ? +Industrial Designer: No Nathan's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: It's either Nathan or participant two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mister participant two that is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: basically what I'm gonna have to talk to you about today is um component design and it's been brought to my attention that we may be somewhat limited as to what we can do because of what our manufacturer offers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Basically what I'm gonna be doing is talking to you about that . Um , components of a remote control , okay . We've already kind of gone over this but we're gonna have to get into more detail and probably have to reach some conclusions some time soon . Energy source , um , our manufacturer offers a variety of energy sources , your standard battery , solar cells . Our manufacturer didn't say anything about lithium so we might have to look {disfmarker} if we do go that route , we might have to look elsewhere . Um , and also there's a kinetic energy possibility . Basically , it's like a um {disfmarker} the idea of moving the remote would create enough energy to keep it running . So that's one possibility but I don't know whether that would be powerful enough to illuminate a touch screen . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to look into that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case , we have a few options , plastic , rubber or wood . Um and then as far as the way it's shaped , we can do standard boring flat , which we probably don't wanna do , curved or very sexy double curved . +Project Manager: What kind of th thickness are we looking at ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I imagine that we could specify . Um , I don't see any reason to go outside of the convention of three or four millimetres . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Um , the buttons , there are multiple scroll buttons available from our manufacturer , but to use those we'd have to use more chips , um and that would cost us more . And if we do go with the rubber doubled curved case um we'll have to use rubber push buttons because the other buttons aren't compatible with that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and just a little note there , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: touch screen equals many chips which equals many Euro . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Nice . +Industrial Designer: Um , one thing that I noticed was that most remotes operate on a infrare on the infrared part of the spectrum . So you notice when you push a button on a remote you can't see anything coming out of it but in fact there is light coming out of the remote and you know the television can detect that . And if you were to record {disfmarker} if you were to make a video recording you could actually see the light . Uh one thing that I thought might be interesting was to use part {disfmarker} use visible light coming out of the remote , just kind of as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So you could actually see something coming out of the remote when you pushed it . +Marketing: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Course it'd have to be a part of the spectrum that wouldn't damage the human eye or anything like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} M Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Good call . +Project Manager: is there an option that we can have that off or on so a person can select like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Choose it . +Industrial Designer: I am sure that we could do that . Um , of course {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I like the idea , it's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to set us apart a little bit . Um , and then on to the circuit board that we're gonna use , also known as the chip . Uh , we really don't have any way around the T_A_ one one eight three five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um findings , okay , we're very limited by what our current manufacturers can offer , um and my question to all of you is , should we look to other manufacturies or should we just make do with what we have available ? +User Interface: Interesting question . +Industrial Designer: 'S a bit of a challenge question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well I'd say shop around but with our time constraints , is that really a feasible option ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , that's my concern too . Um , if we do go the lithium battery route then we'll have to go outside our current manufacturer . My personal preference is {disfmarker} I'll just throw my cards on the table , uh I think we should probably go the solar battery route , just to kinda keep with the environmentally friendly theme that we have going on . Uh , I like the idea of the visible light signalling , that's something to set us apart and uh I was thinking about {disfmarker} I was thinking of ways that we could produce the remote in a variety of different case materials to suit different tastes . So we're not so confined by one style and say some {disfmarker} you know , say our {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: if we just go with one and it doesn't go over well then we're in a bad situation . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Can we do marketing piloting too ? Try to see what kind {disfmarker} before we launch {disfmarker} can we see how they're received ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} It's an option , uh but actually there's {disfmarker} I've got some research already on like what we're looking at and trends in casing right now +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: which actually might even come into play beforehand , +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Marketing: it may help us decide for now . Temporarily anyway . +Project Manager: Great , thank you very much Nathan . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , you're welcome . +Project Manager: That's perfect , so I guess that makes sense for you to take it from here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I guess so , 'cause I found some interesting things . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You waiting for me ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fascinating , compelling even . +Marketing: I know , what a teaser ain't it . Um . {vocalsound} Right . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: current market trends . Screen . Um , basically I was looking at what's going on in the remote control market right now and what's going on in other design fields , to see sort of what's what's trendy , what's new , what's happening . Um , remote control right now {disfmarker} basically everybody says they want newer , fancier , more exciting {disfmarker} they're sick of this boring , normal , functional , um {disfmarker} that we need innovative design options and there needs to be an easy user interface . Um the challenge is that current trends right now , across the board in fashion , in furniture , in technology , is a very organic fruit and vegetable kind of thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm not saying we should have , you know , tomato shaped remote controls or anything , but I think it is possible maybe to use um natural colours , like if wood is an option , that whole organic , sleek , clean , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: v line thing may be something we can look into . Different skin options , or if we can't afford this touch plate thing , or touch face screen interface um , maybe having the b images be specific , like you could choose your menu bullets to be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tomatoes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: a different shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} okay , not the example I would choose , but you know what I mean to t sort of {disfmarker} and th apparently the feel of the next couple of years is spongy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I like it , I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh not something I I've come up with a {gap} though if we can get around to getting piloting , I thought maybe a casing option like uh not like a skin , but like a holder almost if you could do like um , leather options or wood options or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I should have mentioned this um . As far as the rubber that we can use {disfmarker} we can use a rubber as part of the case , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it has a consistency of those stress balls . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Slick , slick . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Marketing: Might be an interesting way to go . Um , yeah so something to sit on for now . So overall I think we should stick with what we're finding , everyone's looking for easy to use , technologically innovative and this fancy new {disfmarker} I think perhaps the double curve thing and maybe this rubber option is our best way to go for right now . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Interface , oh the interface graphics for the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um . Well I d but then if the touch screen thing isn't gonna work out for us that's really a non-issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I like the idea of of rubber too because it's {disfmarker} tends to be associated with being durable , something that you can drop and it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause so many {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: you go to so many houses these days and you see broken remote controls . +Marketing: Very true . Very true . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's like , yep {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Taped with duck tape and what have you , +Marketing: Very much so {vocalsound} . Um +Industrial Designer: you wouldn't have that problem if you used rubber . +Project Manager: it's ubiquitous isn't it ? +User Interface: We can have a duck tape casing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that goes against the whole fancy something , a new line , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It could go with the granola crowd . +Marketing: but worth a shot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , it could be , it could be , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great , +Marketing: um . Yeah that's what I know . +Project Manager: thanks for that Sarah . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Ron ? +User Interface: Phew . Computer's adjusting . One moment please . So interme interface concept by your faithful user interface designer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yur user interface , guys , is basically aspects of a computer system that we can see or hear , or otherwise uh perceive . Uh , commands and mechanisms , that basically user uses to control the operator operating system . Here's a d series of different remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that are out on the market today . I think we're definitely trying to get away from this kind of a look . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Um , so the following are a bunch of different uh interface uh concepts . Uh voice recognition , we we um actually have some new uh information from our research design team but uh I'll get to that in a moment . Um , so current voice recognition starts up to about eighty speech samples , um and basically you record your own verbal labels c and connect them to the remote control . Now our design team , research team , has been able to uh set up a system in which uh you can teach the remote control voice c recognition system to respond to um {disfmarker} with standard responses . Like you could say good morning uh remote control and it'll say in a sexy female voice , Good morning Joe . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact we already have this for a coffee maker line +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lot of single people on the um on the re on the remote control research team +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the remote control +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: at the {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: right . +Marketing: Yeah . Very true , very true . +User Interface: Um , another concept is what uh Apple has come up with , the spinning wheel with uh L_C_ display like on the uh iPod +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: which I am sure most of you know about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um and then we have the scroll button with integrated push-button , kind of like a modern {gap} a bit bulky , a bit crazy , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't think that's we're necessarily going for . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: And uh some special components , uh ideas like uh blocking , having the ability to block channels from your {disfmarker} for your children um and uh dedicated buttons for for commonly used uh channels and even uh ideas like secured or hidden programming but uh I {disfmarker} again if we go with touch screen I don't think that's a big issue . Um and uh this is kind of the uh the big daddy of remote controls here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the jumbo universal remote control is almost impossible to misplace or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I can see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , again probably not what we're going for +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I {disfmarker} I mean my ideas here and kind of where I think we're heading is something slightly larger than a regular iPod uh with a hard cla c uh plastic casing +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: although I think some of the suggestions we've come up with are definitely uh very good ideas . Uh changeable casings uh {disfmarker} our design team was possibly talking about including one extra face plate with the package to kind of set the idea that you can change it and you can try changing it +Marketing: Mm , right . +User Interface: and kind of get used to thinking about maybe buying another one which can add value to our uh bottom line . Uh touch screen interface , um possibly having go-to buttons being uh stuck into the system so those don't move away from the screen , uh , the important ones like power , volume and jump between channels . Um , and of course our voice command system which I've talked a little bit about already +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and uh the use of recognisable colours and shapes to aid recognition of the features um that are around so red for power , um arrows for different volume ups and downs and channels ups and downs and what not . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh perhaps even adding in some stupid little jokes with the voice recognition idea like perh mm for instance my toastie maker that I got from my bank +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: has jokes when it's ready . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And uh that is about it . +Project Manager: Great , wonderful Ron , cool . Lot of good ideas , good facts to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's what they need , it's like a little dongle it just sticks up this further so you don't have to stand up every time , just connect it , my kingdom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right so , good to know all that stuff , thanks guys , um . {vocalsound} Now we kind of have to come to some decisions , um , I figure we can just go down the line and all three of us can have a chat about it . Um . Based on what Nathan presented as far as the um {vocalsound} various costs and benefits um I think , I dunno , what do you guys think about the touch screen at this point ? +Marketing: I think it's our most marketable feature just because it's so new and it's something that is showing up in other places . +Project Manager: 'Kay . 'Kay . +Marketing: But can we really afford it 'cause it looks like they would be , that would be a really main cost source then +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: My estimate is that in order to incorporate touch screen technology it's gonna cost us upwards of seventeen fifty Euro per remote , +Project Manager: To produce each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Per ? +Industrial Designer: yeah that's just an estimate though . +Marketing: Piece . +User Interface: Oh you guys are always the dampers on these projects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You industrial designers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's fun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And our goal was to be under twelve fifty or we have to be under twelve fifty ? +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Do we remember ? +Industrial Designer: I thought there was some flexibility with that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: There is , it's just , it is a question of {disfmarker} and how much ca o does that mean we're gonna have to increase the price to make money . +Marketing: Can we justify it ? +Project Manager: Um , from twelve fifty if we d wanna get our fift uh hundred per cent profit margin {vocalsound} um that would mean selling it from twenty five . If you multiply seventeen fifty by two that's thirty five . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where do you guys come up with these numbers ? +Industrial Designer: That's just off the top of my head , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} From the board , +Industrial Designer: it is pending further emails . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: um , well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though I think that's what people would pay for , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean if you're gonna pay for an expensive high class remote , you're gonna expect it to do something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's true , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is the new {disfmarker} it would be in a class of its own . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And that's {disfmarker} to be fair the um the per cent of the market {disfmarker} we're not going for mass any you know , mass sales anyway , we're gonna make {disfmarker} I mean we we're not talking about selling eight zillion of these things , we just couldn't , not for twenty-five Euros , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so we could probably maybe shrink the profit margins rather than selling for twenty five , sell 'em for thirty , but that's something that we can have finance deal with . Um , I say that we provisionally go with the touch screen +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or wh y wh what was your thought on the matter Ron ? +User Interface: I'm thinking that's uh definitely a good idea and I also think that we could probably come up with some sort of a cheaper uh means to to go about this kind of production , my my team in the uh {disfmarker} on the third floor suggested that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: See if we can cut some corners . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Well and we can look into this other manufacturing option , and maybe we can get 'em somewhere else cheaper . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could initially go with what we have and if we can find them cheaper later on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . It's a starting point anyway , so . +Project Manager: No we could have a s very simple touch screen , you know , there's always the opportunity , if it's gonna be about the size of the iPod or whatever , you know , w we {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we can play around with it a bit . Alright , let's let's say that okay so the touch screen will be our {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} our main selling point here . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean I think that we really have two main selling points , I think that our casing and the voice recognition {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause with voice recognition {disfmarker} I mean really this is pretty bells and whistles kinda remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The voice rec thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , {vocalsound} if if we're looking at bottom line , now we're looking at upping the cost to seventeen to get the touch screen on , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we might have to drop the voice rec . +Marketing: I think we'd have to decide between 'em definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: To be honest , we have the capa we have the design in-house , +Marketing: Price-wise . +User Interface: I mean we've we've come up with this , with this new voice {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: we're using it for our coffee machines already . +Marketing: We've already got it . +User Interface: I can pass you on that email from my uh guy in uh {disfmarker} guy down the hall . Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . What do you think on it Nathan ? About the voice rec ? +Industrial Designer: I think if we {disfmarker} we do both the {disfmarker} obviously production costs are going to go way up um but it does put it into {disfmarker} it'd become the Rolls Royce of remote controls basically . It would be very nice . +Marketing: Pretty much . +User Interface: I mean we we have to r reflect back on what our market research did say . +Marketing: Right and they said they wanted voice recognition . Course , maybe they hadn't thought of this whole touch screen option , but definitely we know the market is there for voice recognition so to say we have the technology and we're not gonna use it even though we know it'll sell is a call I don't think I can give the highs ups . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Like really I can't go in and say no we're gonna just ignore everything we know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Does having both really up our costs ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I can't see how it wouldn't , I mean , there's you know the old aphorism , you can have it fast , you can have it cheap or you can have it quality , pick two of three . You know , you can't you can't have all three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause you {disfmarker} you just upping the number of chips that you need to deal with each different function . +Project Manager: It's just impossible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if we're gonna pick betwe e alright so we have to pick between one of the two . Um . Otherwise , yeah , we just {disfmarker} it just becomes cost prohibitive . What {disfmarker} which , which do we suspect we should hold o we should hold on to ? +Marketing: Well , we already have research backing voice recognition as you know fiscally solvent . But uh I I I personally would tend to another direction but if that's what's gonna sell I think that's what we need to go with and maybe we can table this touch screen for our next model . +Industrial Designer: I would have to side with that , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think the voice recognition is simpler , we already have the {disfmarker} all the technology in-house , it's ready to go , it's packaged , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What does the cost look like Ron ? Is it cheaper to do the V_R_ or to do the uh touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well my p {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nathan ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , this is just off the top of my head keep in mind , but I think the voice recognition would {disfmarker} they're both mm they're both gonna push the costs up , but um , since we already have the technology in-house for the voice recognition +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we're not gonna have to do as much design work +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: and sometimes the design work is what push the costs up , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I definitely have to agree with that last comment . +Marketing: And we're still not {disfmarker} then we don't have to deal with this battery issue nearly as much either , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: we can stick with what we've already got . In a lot other ways too . +Project Manager: Okay . So I'm getting {disfmarker} alright so more or less you guys think that o o of the two of 'em , the voice recognition will be better . Okay . +Marketing: I think it's our lower risk option +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which for right now {disfmarker} we can have it on the market sooner which is all in all our best option . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will omit the touch screen in favour of voice recognition . +User Interface: It's you and me outside a little here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So and when are we gonna have basic prototypes coming up next that's {disfmarker} you guys's next step right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well we'll we'll sic we'll sort out what it {disfmarker} what {vocalsound} f what else we're gonna talk about for the prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: but yeah that's our next step , it'll be a developing of prototype . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to talk now about um the materials that we're gonna use for the case and all those things ? +Project Manager: Yes . We'll just run through it yeah , yeah , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: You discussed either a lithium or a solar power . Would the solar power be enough to fuel a voice recognition ? Or this kinesthetic one , would that be enough to fuel a voice recognition remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Um , the solar power definitely would be but I think just to keep people from getting annoyed , 'cause sometimes solar power fails and there's no way round that , we should install a small backup battery . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to cover those moments when for whatever reason , the remote hasn't been exposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well what of people with like the T_V_ in their basement , +Project Manager: Mm . Yep . +Marketing: like what if {disfmarker} wha we can't guarantee sunlight everywhere so having a secondary source is probably {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's true . Yeah , it works about the same as a solar powered calculator , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and you know how those those don't really require that much light , +User Interface: Calculator . +Marketing: Yeah . True . True . +Industrial Designer: um , but obviously a little more light than a calculator , but we're not talking about a lot of light . Doesn't have to be out taking a sunbath for a few hours a day or anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What do you think Ron ? +User Interface: I'm willing to agree with everything that's been said . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh I have to say though that um another idea's come up in my head . If we're really not uh handling the remote control to a great extent we could possibly get away from the idea of having a hand-held remote control and maybe kind of have a round remote control that kind of looks like a paperweight or something like that , kind of a sleek little uh neat thing that sits on your table or something . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Why , why moving away from hand-held , why ? +User Interface: Just a thought . +Industrial Designer: What's the uh idea ? +User Interface: Well if you don't need to pick it up it could kind of be a selling point . +Marketing: I if it's got voice recognition it can be technically anywhere in your room and still do its job . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Do you think people that are {disfmarker} people that buy a remote , are they always gonna wanna use the voice recognition or is it just something that they do sometimes . +Marketing: True , and i probabl I think we're banking on selling it to more than just voice recognition people , like we want it to work fundamentally as a basic manual too , +Project Manager: Well we have to have buttons on it too as well . +Marketing: right . +Project Manager: But that's done , that's no bother I mean if you look at the catalogue from places like with sharper image or whatever you know they might have {disfmarker} or like um {vocalsound} who is it , Apple makes these really pretentious speakers with the th sub-woofers you know like clear and glass and you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then they got these little pyramidal type of um speakers . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I mean , why not have a little rounded kind of thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could still have the basic buttons on it . Um , 'cause we're going for basic functionality primarily as well . +Marketing: With the bu yeah . +Project Manager: And maybe a menu button and so forth , you know um use a channel button to scroll through the menu d if they want to record programmes or whatever you know I mean we can sort that out . +Industrial Designer: I think , I think you're on to something +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because we need to escape the traditional shape of a remote . Maybe something that looks nice on a table is {disfmarker} would be good , even though {disfmarker} and hand-held the same time . +Marketing: True . Way to go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's all about following Apple's lead on a lot of these things . +Marketing: Yeah I'm thinking of the airport portal , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you know like that little pod looking thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those are nice . +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean a nice {disfmarker} although we do um wh uh is {disfmarker} I'm recalling that she mentioned that we n need to get away from the surgical white kind of brushed aluminium thing +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and get back to it +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you could have a very tasteful um wood coloured or earth tone kind of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be kinda neat . Terracotta bowl or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Still , I mean , yeah , along those lines . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah I like that , I like that idea a lot . Um , let's see what we can do as far as that goes . And the uh the material like the plastics and so forth , we were discussing that being uh {disfmarker} using like a rubber kind of softer feel , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um you know +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: li lik if you feel the the tip on this pen it's a bit {disfmarker} gives just a bit . You know +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: something where it's uh a a more advanced f form of plastic that has some kind of a tactile response to it . +Industrial Designer: Right . Just kind of the squishy feel . +Marketing: Yeah , which is the next big thing , so that's not gonna hurt us either . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah let's see if we can do a squishy non-remote control-looking remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But to be fair , yeah , I mean , you just c you could just put it {disfmarker} literally put it on the the ni the coffee table next to the telly and say volume up . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I like it , I like the idea , that's good . +Marketing: Handy . +Project Manager: Um and we've sorted of discussed costs , {vocalsound} um . I guess we'll a that's gonna be uh a thing , if we run a bit over-budget , that might be okay , um . +Industrial Designer: Sorry about the uh lack of information on cost , I just haven't been provided that information by our manufacturers +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have more of an idea when the prototype {disfmarker} have more of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I'm just having to guess . +Project Manager: we'll have more of an idea later on . Um . And we just yeah go from there . {vocalsound} Um , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've revisited the touch screen and more or less ruled that out , um , I think so we're more or less con we {disfmarker} wh wh we're more or less in agreement that we want to have a um {vocalsound} a simple kind of function , you know , not too complex . +Marketing: Mm . Right . Well when the majority of people are only using the most primary functions on a daily basis , although I'm not saying we should completely rule out major functions , they should be secondary , at least if not functionally then visually , like those shouldn't be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Like maybe have menu things . +Marketing: Take precedence , +Industrial Designer: If , if we're not going the touch-screen route then we can um just incorporate maybe something that folds out +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: like what you often see on these kinds of remotes is the most basic functions up here +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and something that slides down to reveal the you know more complicated things . +Marketing: And they slide . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Well and do we wanna consider like an iPod screen which isn't a touch screen but you're still scrolling through menu options , in p +User Interface: {vocalsound} Think then we're hitting our cost issue again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: True , +Project Manager: we've also got the the me the thing of , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we're still not making it easier then . +Project Manager: if we're gonna have a non-remote-looking remote , how do we {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: B But no I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: we could do a slide or a compartment , you know , like if it {disfmarker} say it's a lit little vaguely ovoidal type of thing , it'd be easy to have a compartment in there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or you know , a b a b a a series of you know three or four buttons with a menu button and then a side an s up and down type of thing , like on um {disfmarker} like on a D_V_D_ player . You know you see the modern D_V_D_ players'll just have um a menu button on the side and then four buttons around them +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah it's just a scroll . +Project Manager: and you can just kind of manoeuvre through the menu like that . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna {disfmarker} are we talking {disfmarker} we need to figure out what kind of buttons we're going to use , are we going to use scroll buttons ? Rubber buttons ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it seems like {vocalsound} I dunno it seems to me that we could just do the um {disfmarker} stick with the rubber 'cause since we're probably gonna be using some kind of um {vocalsound} rubber for the outside case +Marketing: Yeah . Probably . +Project Manager: we might as well stick with that um . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think to a certain extent we have to stick with uh kind of uh a little bit traditional in terms of the buttons and then and then make our unique feature our casing and what not and our voice command . +Marketing: Right . Mm . Well no it's basic just like four directions that are {disfmarker} that can use as menu or channel and volume or however you wanna do it , are really versatile and everybody's already got them to some extent on the remotes they already own so it's not like we're dealing with everybody relearning things 'cause that's not something anybody's gonna wanna buy a new for . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , um . {vocalsound} We've already kind of covered this as well . That seems to be selling {vocalsound} um and we we've more or less agreed that we want to kar target this youth market , um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Especially now with eighteen to thirty five year olds being such a large quantity of the population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right , particularly in technological fields , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that's exactly where we're headed . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah alright , well , more or less covered what we need to cover I think fi an an any final thoughts before we think about doing the protot moving on to the prototype . +User Interface: Well what are we actually doing ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: What were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was just gonna step on to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Oh it wasn't in the way but {disfmarker} yeah , whatever . +Project Manager: I wasn't ? Oh , my bad {vocalsound} um sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't worry about it . +Project Manager: The um , yeah okay I was just gonna assign tasks in the next b anyth any oth +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: any other final thoughts before we go ahead and +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cool ? +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: have we decided that we are gonna go with different style cases for different people ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Or are we just going to go with one ? ..It's very , it's very hard thing to predict because you have different cases +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that might open up your market a little bit obviously , but if you have just one case and it doesn't go very well {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a tough situation , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but obviously having more cases also costs more so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well then again colours wouldn't be so hard to do , you could have uh a , you know , a um uh kind of a natural wood colour , like a stained wood and um , I don't know , olive green or something . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: That wouldn't be so much of a problem to incorporate into the colour of the {gap} thing . +User Interface: And again copying iMac's kind of {disfmarker} for iPod Mac Apple's uh colour scheme . +Marketing: Yeah , get in there . Yeah , totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's probably a good id okay so let's work on {vocalsound} uh multiple case colours . But yeah , stick with the same kind of kinda {disfmarker} yeah , the same basic non-remote kind of remote design . Cool . Alright , so we'll have the next meeting about half an hour , um . I want the uh {disfmarker} I'd like {disfmarker} Nathan , I'd like you to work on just the basic look and feel , what can we accomplish , um , given these parameters that we're just gonna sort of have this kind of uh non-remote remote . Um , what are our broad constraints before we deve design a prototype . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And um Ron if you can figure out how probably best to lay out this idea of this simple design with the voice recognition built in and also this kind of drop down or s on the side kind of menu options simple . Somehow work out how we can get this all s in the same place . Um , and if you can check product evaluation with m some pilots and stuff . Um I need you guys to work together on making a prototype , {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} using um {vocalsound} prototype building materials um {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And also um specific instructions will be sent to you by your coaches as well . +Industrial Designer: Oh excellent yeah . +Project Manager: So that's what to start with for now , is that alright , you guys feel clear about this ? +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That sounds good . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Project Manager: Alright . I guess we'll just hit the bricks . Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +","In a complex discussion among team members from different departments, including Marketing, a Project Manager, an Industrial Designer, and a User Interface designer, the team engaged in an in-depth exploration and decision-making process regarding the development of a revolutionary remote control. The conversation opens with a positive note from the Marketing department, followed by the Project Manager outlining the need to establish clear roles during the meeting and the intention to reach final decisions on the prototype's conceptual design. Emphasis is placed on transforming abstract ideas into concrete designs. + +The Industrial Designer, Nathan, raises the issue of manufacturing limitations, noting the need to delve deeper into the components of the remote control, such as energy sources, material options for the case (plastic, rubber, or wood), and button designs. Nathan also introduces an innovative idea of using visible light as part of the remote's functionality, which could serve as a fun gimmick setting their product apart. The conversation shifts to focusing on the environmental aspect, as Nathan suggests solar power as a preferred energy source to align with eco-friendly values, discussing other potential materials and energy sources (including kinetic energy) that could accommodate different consumer preferences. + +The Marketing team, led by Sarah, provides insights into current market trends, advocating for a design that resonates with organic and natural aesthetics to align with broad market inclinations in various industries. The team considers different textures and possible case materials to cater to diverse tastes, emphasizing user-friendly technology and innovation. + +The User Interface designer, Ron, elaborates on interface concepts, with a particular focus on voice recognition technology. The team deliberates the feasibility of incorporating touch screen and voice recognition functionalities, balancing market demand, and cost implications. There's a suggestion of introducing humor and personality into the product through voice commands, borrowing ideas from existing products like coffee makers. The team debates the possibility of shifting from the traditional handheld remote to a sleek table-top design. + +The members enter an iterative dialogue on costs, with the project manager expressing budget concerns and the need for financial efficiency. Discussion toggles between the cutting-edge allure of touch screen technology and voice recognition's proven market receptivity. Ultimately, the voice recognition feature prevails as a balance between risk, innovation, and existing research. + +The conversation concludes with an agreement to develop a non-traditional, possibly ovoid, and squishy-feeling remote design that encompasses essential functions but also captures the spirit of voice activation and a youthful, modern aesthetic. They consider multiple color options for the case to appeal to a broader market without significantly raising costs. + +Assignments and next steps are outlined, and team members are tasked with refining the physical and functional aspects of the prototype. Coaches are expected to provide further instructions to support the progress. The meeting adjourns with the team poised to turn their collaborative insights into a tangible and innovative product that could redefine the remote control market." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Throwing away my toothpick . +User Interface: Hi there . +Project Manager: Yo . Ow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice user interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . What the {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah well , ja well let's just start . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I've uh made a presentation uh but uh I'll open it on the Smartboard , so we can all see it . +Marketing: Right let's see it . +Project Manager: So it's in the project documents because that's what we can find here . Well {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very nice . Well this is called the the the kick-off meeting . So uh {vocalsound} I'm the Project Manager , so I had to fill it in , +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and uh hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh sorry . {vocalsound} And {gap} an uh a nice agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we'll do the opening and then uh we'll meet each other , what uh we already do , so , that's not uh very much trouble . I'll I'll show you the the tools we have here , so that we can all use them . Then uh we'll look at the project plan from uh Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll discuss about our first ideas about the project , and then uh we'll close the meeting , and then we can uh individually uh do our things and then uh we'll get back here . So {vocalsound} this the opening we'll uh {disfmarker} We have to uh design a new television remote control . You have heard that uh already I think , so . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we want it to be original , so a nice uh a nice new design . Uh trendy , it's {vocalsound} also for young people , and we have to just uh make it uh modern . And uh friendly , so size does matter . And uh {disfmarker} Well it has to be a have the the right uh the right buttons on the right place , that kin those kind of things . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Other uh {disfmarker} There happen to be uh three stages . {gap} functional , conceptual , and d detailed design . Um so every time we we'll do some individual work , get meeting , talk about it , uh and then go into the next phase . That's just it . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} We have uh these two Smartboards . Um well as I just showed , there's a project management folder , a project document folder on the desktop . It just works exactly the same as a computer . You just uh click on the on the folder and you open the everything you you put in it with your laptop . So you can uh make uh {vocalsound} Words Excel , everything . Um and the w the r uh the rest uh also works the same so uh when you open a notepad you uh you just get your uh things , you can uh draw . This is a uh well a drawing board . {gap} you have a {disfmarker} these different uh functions on the board . You can see them there . So you have a a nice pen , and it's works just like a bal ball pen . {vocalsound} This is just a {gap} . I want to uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Of course w {vocalsound} doesn't work any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe you should try to write on the on the big white uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I will {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it ? Yeah . It works . +Project Manager: eraser {gap} so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wonderful . +Project Manager: It's fantas fantastic . We can uh uh well you can save a file . So if uh we draw we have to save everything . Don't throw anything away . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh just we can start a new one , and we just go on , and don't throw anything away . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just uh let them all uh stand here . We can delete , but we don't do that . Um you can here select a pen , you can draw anything you want . It's a bit uh childish you have to write . It's not as fast as you w you know it , but it does work sometimes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's just like a normal uh paint . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's gone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright , yep . +Project Manager: Well we are designers , so we have to have a a more uh a Smartboard . So that's fantastic . Um well this uh speaks for itself . We going to try it . So um we all uh are going to uh draw a nice animal on this board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: not my idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , your favourite animal ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our your favourite . So um I'm to going to have to draw a kangaroo , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'm going d I'm not going to . I'm just uh going to uh well draw a nice uh beast +Marketing: {vocalsound} Grizzly bear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: w I dunno what I'm going to design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh um {vocalsound} doesn't {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'kay . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your personal uh enjoyment . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I just said it's not my idea +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I am the Project Manager , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and officially this is my idea . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I I {vocalsound} I understand . Alright . +Marketing: We're kinda losing time , though . +Project Manager: what ? +Marketing: We're losing time , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah {vocalsound} the first the first meeting is just a bit uh loose , loosen up , a bit uh meeting each other +Industrial Designer: {gap} so start {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} well uh uh nice yeah . {vocalsound} Sh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep yes . +Project Manager: I hope our Industrial Designer does this better because uh this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Don't uh count on it . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} {vocalsound} so a a few legs . +Marketing: Do we have to guess ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Marketing: {vocalsound} A hippo ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: guess . {vocalsound} Well I should make it an hippo now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's a mouse or a rat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh I know it . +Project Manager: Well what is it , huh ? +Industrial Designer: It's a hedgehog . +Marketing: I don't know how to call it . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: A hedgehog ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} difficult English word . I didn't knew it myself {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well I'm amazed uh about your uh drawing skills . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Our characteristics sum it up . Well it's uh very {vocalsound} uh painful +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} those kind of thing . So we can uh just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going back and now uh our Industrial Designer can uh draw its uh most favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I am the Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Chief , I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Oh uh but this uh marketing designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} It's pr it resembles {vocalsound} the animal drawn by {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what kind of animal is that then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} can I say it ? +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Project Manager: Uh it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a rabbit . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Looks very nice , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It looks amazing . +Project Manager: No no no . What are you going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: We want to erase it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no save it and start a new uh {disfmarker} save it and start a new black uh doc {gap} a blank document . +Industrial Designer: These are very impor {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: These are very important documents , of course , uh these drawings , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we have to save everything +Marketing: Yes uh right . +Project Manager: so now um the next one uh {disfmarker} {gap} and then save it and start an blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: You go man . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . There's also different colours and different uh well pen widths uh the line the the thickness thickness . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: So um well you should uh try it but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I should have made mine a white rabbit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well y y y you could have but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And he deliberately draws a animal we don't know the English word for . +Project Manager: It speaks for itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like an uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh just a duck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like that beast from Sesame Street . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Big bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it a duck ? +Marketing: You're standing in front of it , +Industrial Designer: It's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it a plane ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't see it . Alright , thank you . Yeah it's a bird , but what kind of bird ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't draw uh circles uh that easy uh . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to push harder . +Project Manager: Yeah just a bit a bit childish , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: a bit {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But we have uh {vocalsound} do we have to name the specific species of the bird ? +Marketing: Release your anger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no I don't . +Industrial Designer: No ? +User Interface: It's just a bird . +Project Manager: Well uh save the document +Industrial Designer: Well wonderful . +Project Manager: and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then a a new blank document for {gap} . {gap} uh will uh choose a new colour and a new pen width so w we can all see it . +User Interface: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Why do I have to do the difficult tasks ? +Project Manager: No well first +Industrial Designer: Uh pen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: And then you go to format I think {vocalsound} , and current colour {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh current colour . +Project Manager: you choose a new colour . {vocalsound} And a new pen width uh {gap} also format . +Industrial Designer: I like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: oh they don't have pink . {vocalsound} Oh b oh {vocalsound} think this is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not like in paint . Line width . +Industrial Designer: Uh ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can choose a nice one . +Industrial Designer: Line width . +Project Manager: Width width . +User Interface: Width . +Project Manager: With each other . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} fifteen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I can draw ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So . Just a wa that's the way we do {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's quite easy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a pussy cat . +Marketing: It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh Pussy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh the line width is too thick , but oh well . +Project Manager: Well then you change it . And erase things . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It smiles nicely . +Project Manager: Super pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now {vocalsound} I have to change the line width . {vocalsound} Uh one {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: These are {gap} whiskers , you know . +Project Manager: we know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Uh well I think it's obvious right now . +Project Manager: Yes alright . It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it looks great . +Industrial Designer: Miaow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well if this isn't obvious {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just save it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah save it {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} start a new blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll save it {vocalsound} alright uh save . Uh yeah uh blank . +Project Manager: Yep . So that's uh what we're going to use when we uh need it . +Industrial Designer: Well I feel comfortable now . +Marketing: Oh great . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} it's terrific , eh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thanks for this exercise . I feel totally at ease . +Marketing: It's good for group spirit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It certainly is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're one big happy family now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that . +Project Manager: Well then uh the serious uh stuff . We're we want to sell it at twenty five Euros internationally um so um but we dunno what exactly th i it is in dollars , but uh twenty five Euros . Our profit aim is , worldwide , fifty million Euros . So I didn't uh exactly uh calculate how much we have to sell . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we want to keep it our costs at twelve and a half Euros so , keep uh that in mind when we uh talk about our uh materials an f and stuff , and uh marketing uh research . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Now then we all uh we can uh sit down and discuss uh what do we think about our current remote controls , first {gap} about design uh about uh aim in the market etcetera ? +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well uh we c we can sit down uh because uh presentation can wait . We can uh take notes {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} Well who has uh some uh remarks about the current uh remote controls ? Please ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I I didn't have to prepare anything about uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: No uh I did . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's it's not my task to uh talk about uh experience with current remote controls , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh just w we're uh four uh if we if we would just have one then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's im it's important to uh look at uh the remote controls of our competitors . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Get the good points uh try to merge them into one universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: On our corporate site I saw uh a new D_V_D_ player uh we're gonna produce . +Project Manager: Yep . That's alright . +Marketing: Maybe it's important to make it compatible with the D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: That would be a nice idea , yes . +Marketing: so you can uh use your television and your D_V_D_ player with the same uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yep yep yep . +Marketing: Furthermore it's important to make it uh acceptable for the whole world , for different cultures , maybe , because we want to we want to {gap} well fifty million ? +Project Manager: Yes fifty million is our aim to a profit , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so a lot of people have to be able to use it . +Industrial Designer: No but uh the b the buttons have to uh have to have uh international recognisable buttons and uh +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Easy to learn . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and numbers and uh that every culture in uh , yeah , people in every country can recognise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll make uh notes and then uh maybe uh {disfmarker} well I'll put it in the project uh folder when I'm done uh just now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I also think we should not add too many buttons . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: No that's right . +User Interface: Modern day uh remotes have {vocalsound} too much buttons I think . +Project Manager: Y y you don't use uh the half of them that's that's {gap} +User Interface: Precisely . +Project Manager: culture uh international . +Marketing: Maybe we could make one button to switch between D_V_D_ player and T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and make the other buttons uh multi-functional or something . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it doesn't uh become too complicated with too much buttons and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Yep , and maybe we do uh {vocalsound} we even have uh more than just a D_V_D_ player . Don't we have uh other uh ou +User Interface: Yeah we should make it compatible perhaps with everything we use , we uh we make ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: And stereo uh s uh audio installations . +Project Manager: We also uh just uh released a T_F_T_ uh thing I saw . +Marketing: Yeah so but th that's kind kind of standard T_ television so it also works on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: And I think the people who who will buy our uh remote already have some experience with remotes . So we can keep that in mind . +Industrial Designer: Most people do , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't {gap} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be , but we can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it doesn't have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: W well it's a n it's a new remote and you don't buy a remote if you don't have anything to uh to control with it . +Project Manager: Well except if we deliver it together with our D_V_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need to to keep it consistent with other d uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah because we look at competitors +Industrial Designer: Well . +Project Manager: and w if we pick up the good things about that and give it a nice design {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah but it's {disfmarker} it has to be useable . +Industrial Designer: It has to be different and familiar at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we could use another form or shape or colour , that kind of things . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah the shape will will have to be recognised . I thought about uh like most uh remote controls uh are uh a long box shaped thing {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you can make it uh triangle shaped , +User Interface: Well we we could make more more oval or something , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's not uh very recognisable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Oo +Industrial Designer: Oval ? +Project Manager: N we can use uh it as a as a game pad . +User Interface: Yeah or so +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} one hand has the beer , so the other hand uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah it's new . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Not with two hands . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , right . +User Interface: {gap} but young people want something different +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i we already uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but it's quite important that it fits . +Project Manager: one of our aims is that it has to be original and trendy so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh but it ha it has to be m +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . But you still have to know it's a remote and not another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there has been done a lot of researches about remotes uh we have to {disfmarker} we can imagine uh +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Project Manager: because it's a long time uh on the market . So the the form will have {vocalsound} been uh tested out so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah so the long box uh shaped thing must be uh , yeah , useful +Project Manager: Yes . Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or else uh they would have been ano another shape . +Project Manager: for me personally I have a {vocalsound} a lot of remotes uh at home but {vocalsound} those ones that have a a round ending and uh well uh just an uh square uh middle {vocalsound} I don't like to use them . I have uh have to {disfmarker} it has to fit my hands . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When it falls over it and I just have {disfmarker} and then the button that I use most has to be here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: It shouldn't be boxy . +Industrial Designer: a lo {gap} the long box shape yeah . You have to {vocalsound} use one hand . +Project Manager: It f it fits your hands and then you just push the button that you use most with {gap} thumb . +Marketing: Nah {disfmarker} I don't agree with the long box uh shape {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Marketing: it it has to be custom made for the hand . +User Interface: Yeah it doesn't fit {gap} . +Project Manager: Tho tho those new D_V_D_ players on the market do have those . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it does fit in the hand if you hold it like this , and you can make it another shape , +Marketing: Yeah but if you shape it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but then you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: No if y if you look at new Phillips uh D_V_D_ {gap} with their uh remotes {vocalsound} pl players {vocalsound} they they are the new remotes aren't box shaped . +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D_V_D_ players . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W no w what else ? +Marketing: No that's ol old fashioned . +Industrial Designer: I di +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well but uh what what what do you suggest then ? +User Interface: Yes uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can imagine that us +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} most of {gap} of them are are somewhat thicker at the end , and get um yeah thinner towards the uh the other end . +Marketing: Yeah right . It fits in your palms . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but it's still then uh the the long box , uh but then with some uh round uh {vocalsound} round forms in it to fit your hand , +User Interface: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: A it h it has it it has a that's tha th th shape that it fits your hand . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: but it's it's still {disfmarker} Yeah yeah al alright +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but it's still it's still {gap} sort of box , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yea +Industrial Designer: It it has round forms +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it in the end it's still the box , so that's what I mean . +Marketing: Yeah but it has it has to fit your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I understand , but {disfmarker} no no I don't mean an entire box like completely square +Marketing: It shouldn't be too boxy , you know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but a also with round edges of course , +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but in in in at the end it's still this long {vocalsound} box shape with convenient uh round uh shapes uh {vocalsound} to fit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right maybe something like this +Industrial Designer: Yeah yes {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} and then a button here to switch between {vocalsound} different systems like D_V_D_ player +Industrial Designer: I thought about something like that . Yeah . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A big recognisable button on top or something . +Marketing: Yeah right , and I do think we have to keep this kind of idea with the with the numbers and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: The buttons should uh also be not too small , not too big , of course , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes +Industrial Designer: and uh n uh uh not too close uh together . +Project Manager: uh that's {vocalsound} yep . +Marketing: But it should be possible to to um make it ap apparent that there are two functions for every button . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So there has to be some space between the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course uh to uh to uh to have icons to explain the different functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right right , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: and maybe we should use colours . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} maybe we can um just like on cell phones those um well {gap} {vocalsound} you can you can put on on them , +Industrial Designer: Colours , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ha . +User Interface: and so you can customise your uh your own remote with different colours or or special paint jobs {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's kinda trendy . Yeah right . +Project Manager: Sound nice . Yes . +User Interface: I dunno but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to talk also about uh the the materials for um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's just uh about our first ideas now +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: so I think individually we'll have to uh come up with ideas for the next meeting about these materials and markets etcetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Already thought about something tha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's uh it's important to uh notate all the the decisions that we make , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: so we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well thirty minutes we have . So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: This is about uh what we are going to uh do uh . You'll get specific instructions when you're back in your room so uh it's uh logical uh . I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . +Project Manager: Oh and uh that's uh that's all . So we'll just get a notice that the the meeting is uh over . +Industrial Designer: Yeah now we can still talk about the material , +Project Manager: Yeah yes say . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we have some some minutes left uh {gap} I w wrote down uh that the case should be plastic of course , hard plastic , the buttons should be uh rubbery I think uh . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it shouldn't be too heavy . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well I have had remotes that um they had uh the function of the buttons was about uh uh a layer over the buttons +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No n n +Project Manager: and when I've had use it much it was gone . So it has to be made in the buttons I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's bad , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: It has to uh not be loose . +User Interface: Yeah that's important {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . And of course there are several electrical cables in it to uh {vocalsound} to connect things uh to each other . +Project Manager: Yeah . Is there an a universal uh universal way of um transmitting from the remote to the television so it's all about uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah it's univ yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a a common stan standard way {gap} +Project Manager: It's not that in China it's different ? +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: infrared beams an infrared beam I think {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . But y you can have uh of course different between D_V_D_s and televisions and between {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you can use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It it's a we we make an a universal remote so it ha has to work with uh all kinds of brands and things . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But our T_V_s are mostly made in China and that sort of country , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: China rules . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And have {disfmarker} well yeah I've wrote something down about how it works . {vocalsound} The user presses a button and with an infrared beam it signals the television set accordingly , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's pretty obvious , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are we going w uh with the front uh fronts uh idea ? +Project Manager: Well I think uh w we can look into that in the in the next uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: I think {vocalsound} we should make it universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can always use a front front on it , you know ? You can use it {vocalsound} just plain +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: but you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} To make it more trendy . +Project Manager: Well j just y you get a n a normal front with it , but you can change them uh when you buy the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we should uh dispatch those kind of fronts fronts a a around the world so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well you can make profit with them , and it's {vocalsound} a way to make them trendy . +Project Manager: Well th those fifty million don't uh don't se sells itself {vocalsound} so we have to uh make uh some extra effort like fronts uh . +Industrial Designer: Well but th but the standard front will be uh just grey or something +User Interface: Yeah alright {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah normal . +Industrial Designer: uh b a simple colour not not very flashy . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah well it has to it h it has to fit the the te television and D_V_D_ set we are going to sell , +User Interface: No a colour everyone accepts . +Project Manager: so if they are uh black and black black and silver we'll make them black and silver so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Pink television sets {vocalsound} pink remote , {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} standard . +Marketing: But people of often don't like bright colours or something . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: We have to make it grey or s or black . +User Interface: Well young people s li +Marketing: Yeah but then you can use {vocalsound} a a front . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I must not forget my pen the next time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if if you {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you have a a a television room for little children and you make a if if you buy a a pink front they'll they'll love it . I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: But that's uh marketing uh research you can uh you can ask uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah or a t Teletubby front . {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . I will investigate . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Well our user interface you can uh maybe uh {gap} I don't know what your specific instructions will be , but uh probably about uh the precision of the buttons and and those kind of things and what buttons will have to be on the uh remote . And you will look into the technical design and um form , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah also the the look and feel uh of the the remote's also my task , yeah . +Project Manager: Or something like that . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: What's the uh url or the website 'cause I didn't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I uh w was wondering that too . +Project Manager: Euro ? +Industrial Designer: Y you went to the company website {gap} . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} Yeah yeah yeah just if you start up your Internet Explorer {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it it it's {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's the the the start uh starting page uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh oh right oh well I didn't uh use it {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Oh alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh we're going to back uh back into our rooms so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well that's great . +User Interface: Next meeting is in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In thirty minutes , but uh I think it will be {disfmarker} you will be warned uh through your laptop uh to get over here . +User Interface: Thirty minutes . +Marketing: Thirty minutes . +User Interface: Yeah alright it's it's handy to know {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll have to restore my uh my desktop uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very handy to know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's totally broken . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh {vocalsound} it's it's the half of the normal size . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right see you in half an hour then . +Project Manager: Oh right , oh . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Goodbye . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ma {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} that was a nice meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right uh see you in thirty minutes then . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , see you . {vocalsound} +","The conversation appears to be a brainstorming meeting focused on designing a new television remote control. Members from different departments, including Marketing, a Project Manager, a User Interface Specialist, and an Industrial Designer, are discussing ideas and requirements for the project. + +The group discusses their aim to create a trendy, modern, user-friendly remote that stands out in terms of design and functionality. They touch on the importance of making the remote universally compatible, including with a new DVD player the company is producing. They discuss various aspects like materials, button size and placement, compatibility with various devices, and aiming for an international market while considering cost factors — keeping the production cost at 12.5 Euros and selling at 25 Euros with a profit target of 50 million Euros. + +The meeting also involves some interaction with a Smartboard, where they demonstrate its functions like drawing and saving files. At some point, they draw their favorite animals on the Smartboard as an exercise. They also explore different shapes for the remote, discuss the potential for customizable fronts, and the mechanism by which the remote would signal the TV, likely infrared beams. + +The group agrees that the remote should not be overcomplicated with buttons and that it should fit well in the hand. Marketing points out the need to capitalize on the remote's compatibility with other devices and its global usability. UI focuses on button precision, and the Industrial Designer will look into the technical design and aesthetics. They also talk about possible materials like hard plastic for the case and rubbery buttons. The conversation ends with the Project Manager discussing practical follow-up steps, including individual research and preparation for the next meeting in thirty minutes. There is also a brief mention of issues with some technical equipment, like restoring the desktop size on a computer. + +Overall, the team lays down a collaborative foundation, merging their insights on designing a remote that balances innovation with universal design principles within set budget constraints." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Well , let's start . What are we doing ? Oops . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , pinball . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . Okay . Not doing . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Ah . Hey . {vocalsound} Ah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Now I have my screen back too . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we have presentations . So first , it's your turn . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +User Interface: Mine . Oh , great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Isn't it amazing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Very interesting . +User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Industrial Designer . Interface concept . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes , well uh let's uh talk about the interface uh concept . Uh , first I'll uh I'll uh discuss the buttons we just chose , uh show you some samples , uh uh discuss some colours and design maybe , already . And uh my personal preferences . {vocalsound} Well we chose the power button to switch the television on and off . The bu uh the mute button to switch the volume on and o on and off . The channels buttons , one to nine , and uh off uh uh zero to nine , and the uh button to choose uh higher channels than nine . Uh the volume and channel quadrants , uh left and right , up and down arrows , to uh do the volume and channel . And the menu menu button to man manipulate the L_C_D_ uh display . Um , I found some uh interesting uh uh samples . Examples . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well uh what's pretty standard is uh that it's {disfmarker} that they're all pretty uh uh high uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Large . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . Large and and and pretty thin and uh and long . +Marketing: A lot {disfmarker} a lot of buttons buttons . +User Interface: Um , power buttons are mostly at the top uh left or right . Um , well we see the the the same uh arrows . Like there . And uh {disfmarker} Yeah , well arrow b buttons can be blue . And what's interesting is the the the icons on the buttons . Some buttons have icons like the play and stop , but we don't use that . But uh , these we we have to choose the right icons , or or letters . Uh this is the V_ for volume , but they're both uh a V_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So it's it's not really very uh clear what's the function of that . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} Yeah . So , that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back one page ? For the uh menu , what do we use for that ? We don't have buttons for the menu . +User Interface: Uh , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or we may have to use channel of the volume and channel {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah . I thought that was our uh idea . +Project Manager: Okay . But {gap} uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , uh how {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You have to put it on the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Like this . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or this . And that the menu button is okay . +Project Manager: Yeah but , has to be clear that you can use the arrows . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah , okay . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: Uh , so the {disfmarker} The icons on the arrows , as well , you mean . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yes . The second one . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh , well that's something to uh think about . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh , maybe I'll have something in my uh presentation . And you will see it . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , well I don't I don't know if we have to discuss this already , or in the next uh meeting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But uh , as we have to uh to to design the the case and the whole uh remote control in our uh our our corporate uh company uh uh colours and the logo , I would uh recommend a yellow case . Uh , round edges . The logo at the bottom . And uh , well maybe each each uh set of buttons uh has uh has his own colour . So , it's good . Uh , recognisable . K so , I think . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not too much colours . +User Interface: Uh , no . Not too much . +Project Manager: No , it's not flower power . +User Interface: But uh {disfmarker} No , no , no . But this has to be has to be trendy and uh {disfmarker} and {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: S okay . +User Interface: Uh , yeah so good uh good icons on the buttons , and uh and big buttons is my uh personal uh opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: That was that . +Project Manager: Thank you . So , you're next . +Industrial Designer: I'm next , okay . {vocalsound} Yes . No . Here we go . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , at first we will uh I will f uh say something about what younger people want , +Marketing: {gap} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: our uh group w uh w uh we want to uh sell our remote controls to . And then , I'll discuss what my opinion is about the costs , about uh what battery is in it , what kind of buttons also . First uh , the younger people , they want like soft mat uh materials and primary colours . Like , totally yellow , totally red . Uh , so it's visible . Uh , the shapes are curved and round , like uh you also said . Maybe it's nice to uh get a remote control not like all the other ones , straight and uh flat and long . But to give him the shape of your hand , so you {disfmarker} it's easier to use or something like that . But that's just an idea . And then , I'll have to discuss about the costs uh of all the things for the remote control . The battery , there are few options . Uh , I think the best option is to use uh the basic battery . So , everybody can buy it uh at the at the supermarket . Or use uh a k uh kinetic battery like uh within a watch . When you uh shake it a few times , it it's loaded . Uh , the the form of the remote control , I think it's also nice {gap} have it curved . And maybe like it's hand-shaped . Uh , so uh you take it here in your hand and here are the buttons . Uh material , you use plastic . Hard plastic uh because uh {gap} it won't have to burst uh like in the {disfmarker} in one time . And also rubber because the younger people like that , what we see in the research . Uh the push-buttons . We have one new thing uh discovered . It's a scroll push uh thing like a mouse . Maybe it's uh easy to use uh for the channels . When you want to go m move up , you just scroll up and click on the button , if you wanna see the next , uh if you wanna see that channel . And also for the mouse , uh for the volume , it's also uh easy to use . Just scroll a bit up , scroll a bit down . And that's also easy just w when you have a thing like this , and you get it here . You can do it with your thumb . And with your l left hand you can uh push the buttons +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: uh if you {gap} push uh channel one , you can see channel one . The electrics um with a scroll push uh button , we must use regular uh chips . There are also uh simple chips . They are uh cheaper . Um , but then we have just a basic uh uh remote control , and I think there are a lot of those uh things , and people won't buy it any more . They have seen enough of it . And you have also advanced um chips . But that's with the L_C_D_ uh screen . And the costs will increase a lot more . And I think our budget is too low to use and an L_C_D_ , and the chip who is more expensive . And maybe it's also then uh thoughtful if we u uh use uh as um different kind of uh shapes for the {disfmarker} for remote control , that we then use the primary colours . Like , you get a yellow uh remote control , red one , blue one , et cetera . You have any more questions about this ? I think the main thing is we look at the costs . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And not too basic , not a basic remote control , who everybody already has . +Marketing: Yeah . But , thi i uh {disfmarker} This is with an L_C_D_ ? No , +Industrial Designer: Not with an L_C_D_ . +Marketing: not . +Project Manager: No , isn't . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: But the L_C_D_ is easy when you use the scroll uh buttons . Then you can scroll , you see what number , and then you push . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But then , what I say , the costs will uh get a lot higher . +Project Manager: But then it's not easy to use scroll uh wheel . If you don't {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Th then you'll see it on the television . +Project Manager: Hmm , yes . But then . Yeah , then you go one down one up . When you scroll . +Industrial Designer: but l when you see a menu uh on the television , it's like you see uh one to twenty , you go uh uh s scroll up , and push number tw twenty . Yeah +Project Manager: but like we said before , it has to be used on every television . Yeah So you may not be uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . The television must do that . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . Yeah , I think the younger people will have newer televisions , which can provide our uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah but young people have to have all their uh room . And mostly they are smaller . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yes . But that won't be a problem . I think . +Project Manager: Most the times that are not advanced televisions . +Industrial Designer: No , but then we'll get to the regular uh remote controls . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And I think , what I said , everybody has them uh has them already . And they go to a uh supermarket and buy them uh for two Euros . Uh , and ge and get the most cheapest uh thing . And I think we must look further to uh to devel d develop something news . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , can you give an indication in b uh in the cost difference between uh the chip with L_C_D_ or without ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I got it on my screen and it was uh higher . But I don't know uh how much higher . {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Cause it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's important . +Marketing: I think if we have an L_C_D_ , it will also sell a lot better . +Industrial Designer: That's true . +Marketing: And that might uh bring back the costs uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But then we'll {disfmarker} I think we must discuss who {disfmarker} uh what will be better . If we have a better shape of the um remote control , or better options on it . With a scroll menu , a w scroll thing , and a L_C_D_ . And then a flat um remote control . Or , a more hand-shaped remote control , with scroll , without L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah . Maybe you can look how how much it is for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: I can uh look on my uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's very important . +Industrial Designer: {gap} Uh {disfmarker} Note that the push-button requires a simple chip chip . A scroll wheel requires minimally a regular chip , which is a higher price range . The display requires a advanced chip , which is which in turn is more expensive than the regular chip . +Project Manager: Yeah , more expensive . But how much ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Doesn't say . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: That's from my manufacturing division . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well , thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yes ? +Marketing: My turn ? +Project Manager: Next . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Yeah . So , my uh presentation is about trend-watching . Uh , I did some trend-watching . It's very important to uh keep up with latest trends . {vocalsound} 'Cause if you don't , you won't sell . So , well how we did do that ? Uh , well we made an investigation of the market , by Trendwatchers . They uh watch in uh cities like uh Paris and Milan . Of course , well known for their uh trend {disfmarker} uh trends . And well , uh what did you find ? Uh , we have two groups , young and trendy , and the old and rich . Well th and the young and trendy , they uh they starting to like uh fruit and vegetables uh as a theme for n uh clothes , shoes , and also uh products . And um , material ? That should feel {disfmarker} have uh a spongy feeling . And to get a feeling for what it is , uh here is an image of it . Then the old and rich . They like uh dark colours , and simple , recognisable shapes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: And um , they also like uh familiar material , uh especially wood . Now , another picture . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To get a feeling for this . Well , uh then already come to my personal preferences . We uh aim at the younger market . So , we should also be uh look at their uh trends . However , with trends it's always if there's {disfmarker} it's now . It it it might last one year , and next year it be {disfmarker} uh can be totally different . And I think we want to sell our product for longer than one year . So , we m must not just only look at what the trend is now , as it might be totally different next year . So , that's uh one thing to keep in mind . +Industrial Designer: Changing covers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . Any questions ? +Industrial Designer: Nope . +Project Manager: No . It's clear . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: So now , it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Ah , let's see . Now , w we have to decide {vocalsound} Well , we have to decide on the concept . So , we have to look at {disfmarker} 'S next . Components and user interface concept . So {disfmarker} Now , we have to make some concept . Maybe one of you can paint it on the board . First , uh user interface . +Industrial Designer: Uh , uh-uh . How w how we how we make it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , a concept on uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Shouldn't we first discuss about like what w we all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but maybe we can paint it . Uh , what do we want ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but if I paint with {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll paint . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Something like this ? Or {disfmarker} Shapes or {disfmarker} What do we need ? +User Interface: Mm , yes . What ? +Marketing: Can make several uh concepts . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: We have this , and we had the idea of an um a more uh uh uh like sh in the shape of your hand . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: More like something {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah I I I uh {disfmarker} yes . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: M like {disfmarker} Yeah I can't dr I can't draw it . +Project Manager: And you have to . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I have to . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I'm not a designer . It's more {gap} three D_ . Like , um when you have a part here . This is the remote control . And then you have something like th this under it . So , it's easier to get it like this . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's like a gun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: A g {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it has to be soft ? +Marketing: Mm . {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And it has to be soft , yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . And uh , the buttons ? +Industrial Designer: So , you can squeeze in it and {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Project Manager: Buttons . +Industrial Designer: Buttons on top of it . And here . The scrolling . You can do it with your thumb . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No , it won't . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: But but i that's the only scroll uh button on it then ? +Industrial Designer: But now we use one scroll button and the other one is here . One till uh uh zero till nine . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: But , well there one for the sound and one for the channels . +User Interface: But but how {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the b +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . How {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Or two buttons . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Uh , two scroll uh wheels . +Marketing: And i if we go to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: If uh {disfmarker} 'Kay c If we do {disfmarker} If we use one , then we'll have just a switch on it , and you'll just switch it , and now it's the sound to switch back +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's th that's more difficult . +Marketing: But if we have uh a me Yeah . +Project Manager: It's better in {disfmarker} +Marketing: If we have a menu , uh how do we uh choose other options ? +Industrial Designer: with the menu uh button . And then you also can scroll uh scroll in it . Just not like all the other ones , with uh this thing , and uh here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow , here an arrow . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh , from h hundred uh {gap} remote controls , ninety nine have it . +Project Manager: But if we don't have a L_C_D_ we don't have a menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then we have it on the T_V_ , the menu . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} again maybe th How do we know the T_V_ can handle it ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You don't know . So , there's no menu . +Industrial Designer: I don't know . It's like some sort of uh teletext option , but we don't have teletext . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . So you can't use it . +Industrial Designer: And if we put an L_C_D_ thing on it , then the costs will uh be much higher . +Project Manager: Okay , we make two concepts . One with L_C_D_ . One without L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . But you all like this kind of thing . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Good concept . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll button . +Project Manager: That's one . +Industrial Designer: And and this one has to be soft . +Marketing: Uh-uh . +Industrial Designer: And this has to be harder , because when it falls , it mu mu must not burst . Or some kind of rubber around it . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: It's one . Two . Number two . +User Interface: And you can and you can uh make the the power button as a trigger . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah that's nice . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Here . Trigger . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No . {vocalsound} But when you handle it , you put it on and off . +User Interface: Just to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's not good to use . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but {vocalsound} I'll zap . +User Interface: Oh , like a {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fuck . Out . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , it's not good . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now , second concept . One with L_C_D_ , one without L_C_D_ . Then uh {disfmarker} Paint it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Paint it ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: With the scroll thing on , like this ? +Project Manager: One with two scroll buttons and one with without . Yeah . Uh , one with a with a menu , and one without a menu . +Industrial Designer: So ? +Project Manager: And the one with with a menu has an L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Draw it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Unbelievable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Do I have to do everything . Blank . You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: But if you put {disfmarker} push the the menu button {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh , that's the menu . There for the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Yeah , wh what {disfmarker} Yes , but you don't know which of the scroll buttons you have to choose . +Project Manager: You have to {disfmarker} For the menu . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . One that way . And one that way . So {disfmarker} Then it depends on the cost . S On and off . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But is it easy to use ? When you have it on your left side , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: When it's not too big . Just like a a phone . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: M uh yeah , maybe it's better if the uh scroll-wheels are um +Industrial Designer: Separate , more separate , h yeah . +Marketing: more separate , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Marketing: Like , you have the menu button in between uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . On the left a scroll button , and on the right a scroll button . But would it be easy to use then ? If it's like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you have a big uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . Is it better ? When you uh {gap} the menu , you have to go there there there there . +Industrial Designer: I also think this concept is not what the young people were looking for . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They were like round curves , uh different uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , okay . That's that's the outside . But now the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay , okay , okay . +Project Manager: First the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Think we have we have now two buttons missing . The uh um {disfmarker} The mute button . +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: We have two buttons missing . The mute button . And um , the {disfmarker} to to uh {disfmarker} have to uh {disfmarker} numbers +Project Manager: Mute . And the other . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so difficult . +Marketing: {vocalsound} But , uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Personally , I think two scroll buttons uh aren't easy to handle . +Project Manager: But how do you wanna solve it ? +Industrial Designer: With the switch button . +Project Manager: Yeah but on the menu that's not uh easy . +Industrial Designer: No +Project Manager: Then you go down , you switch , you go into the right , you switch , you go down . +Industrial Designer: like uh {disfmarker} Oh , you mean like that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh , then you can also have like uh th um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: A joystick . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and joystick , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah . But is it uh {disfmarker} Does that break , a joystick ? Or a small one just like in a laptop . +Industrial Designer: Yeah like in a laptop , s uh s some sort of thing . A little bit bigger , with easier thi +Project Manager: Mean , it's better . But how expensive it is ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . Why do I pay you for ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um , well {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Better ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Or no scroll uh things . Just a shape . And {disfmarker} {gap} No , no . It won't work . +Project Manager: For the young peoples I think scroll button's good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Uh-huh . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Think we have to keep them . +Industrial Designer: Or a remote control more like joystick . +Project Manager: Yeah , but is it {disfmarker} That's not expensive than uh {disfmarker} Joystick is better . A small one . +Industrial Designer: A small one like this , like a Nintendo uh k +Project Manager: No just like in a +Industrial Designer: Playstation thing . +Project Manager: a laptop . Small , round . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then it's not so big . +Industrial Designer: No , no , no . I mean the the shape of the remote control . +Project Manager: Oh the sh Yeah , but then you can {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just like a Playstation thing . Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Maybe , if it's possible , {vocalsound} it's not too expensive , I think a joystick is better . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A small one . So , please look at it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , that's okay , I got {disfmarker} +Marketing: And on the L_C_D_ , how much it costs ? Uh , it costs extra ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} they're not uh in details . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's more expensive or less expensive , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah we {disfmarker} I think you get it . So , after this meeting you have half an hour to uh fix it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Then I have to come with it . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: I got my personal costs . I I don't I don't know the costs . +Project Manager: Your problem . Not mine . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Then I'll uh make something up . +Project Manager: Okay . So , do we have other concepts ? Then for the components , we use a normal battery . Then it's {disfmarker} Ch cheapest way , I think . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or the or the kinetic uh with normal battery . +Project Manager: No , no kinetic . Kinetic is uh ch makes it more expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think it's uh , yeah , more expensive . Yeah . +Project Manager: So we use a normal battery . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Yes . +Project Manager: Chip . Depends on the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Depends on the scroll . +Project Manager: Scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we use a scroll , then we have the uh regular chip . If we don't use a scroll , then we can use the simple chip . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And that's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And uh , we {disfmarker} If you use the L_C_D_ , we have to +Industrial Designer: Uh the most expensive . +Project Manager: Yes , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: So , depends on the L_C_D_ and the scroll . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: If we {disfmarker} No okay scroll-wheel . So , I have this . So , it will be uh the advanced chip , or the uh regu uh or the regular chip . +Project Manager: Okay . So , uh the shapes of the design depends on the L_C_D_ and {disfmarker} But , it has to be small . I think . +Industrial Designer: Or shall we just put it on the pistol thing ? And then just put also on L_C_D_ on it ? +Project Manager: If you have pistol , it {disfmarker} L_C_D_'s not easy . Y y {vocalsound} Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Just use your thumb . +Project Manager: If you use a phone . +Industrial Designer: If you {disfmarker} Yeah . I use my thumb . +Project Manager: {gap} k Yeah , but but then you have it . Like , th if you have pistol , you have it so . And the screen is {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well , then you have to keep it this way to look at the screen . +Industrial Designer: If you have a joystick on {disfmarker} No , if you have like uh an uh uh a ni a uh Playstation uh game controller . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And you move up , f forward , down , left . Then you have uh just , yeah , a little bit curved . It's not just uh {vocalsound} straight . +Project Manager: No . No , no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's how we use it . That's why they make joysticks like that , I think . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but then you look forward . +Marketing: Uh , yeah , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And then you can y +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +Project Manager: N well , if you have to look at it . +Marketing: If you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Here's our designer . +Marketing: If we have uh then something standing here , with the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it goes like this . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , why not . +Project Manager: If th n well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's for the younger people . +Project Manager: Yes , of course . +Industrial Designer: It's something new . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's good good . +User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But the {disfmarker} um , it may not break . +Industrial Designer: Now we put uh rubber around it . +Project Manager: Okay . If that's possible . +Marketing: Um , Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Hard plastic , uh the shape , and around it hard uh around it rubber . And the uh the hand shape is also rubber . +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Or you can uh turn it inside . +Marketing: {gap} I can't see the {gap} . But , uh the easy of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: But that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: uh , th the ease of use wasn't uh the most important uh aspect of it . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +User Interface: No , that's true . +Marketing: Uh , for us it's about to sell it . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah of course . +Industrial Designer: This is something new . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . Then this is the design . And the buttons are on the next page . So , depends on the cost . So , +Industrial Designer: Costs are okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} um we have one minute . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} One . +Project Manager: I think . No . +Marketing: No . You have more . +Project Manager: More . Seven . +Marketing: You have still ten . +Project Manager: Next meeting . Thirty minutes . So hurry up . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's us together . +Project Manager: You two stay here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Paint it . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Now you have to . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's clear . Check your mail . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yes . +Project Manager: It has to be ready in the next meeting . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Cookie . +Marketing: What ? Okay . +Project Manager: Next meeting is called the detailed design . So {disfmarker} Everyth everything has to be ready . Thanks for your attention . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . +Marketing: See you at the next meeting . +Industrial Designer: Bye bye . +","During a project meeting, the Project Manager kicked things off with a prompt, asking the team what they were working on, which was followed by various vocal affirmations from those present as they settled into the discussion. After a brief moment of disorientation, the meeting turned its focus to the development of a user interface for a product described as a pinball machine, but later it became apparent that the team was working towards designing a new remote control, not a pinball machine. + +The User Interface (UI) designer began by detailing the button choices for the new remote control, including the power, mute, channel selection, and menu buttons, also proposing colors and designs for the buttons. There was a discussion regarding the clarity of the icons on the buttons, particularly the volume control, and the struggle to ensure they were easily identifiable and distinguished from one another. + +The Industrial Designer introduced considerations of target demographic preferences, such as younger people desiring softer materials and primary colors. Additionally, the concept of a hand-shaped remote control for ergonomic considerations was mentioned, along with the idea of having a kinetic battery option similar to self-winding watches. The Industrial Designer also suggested the use of scroll buttons for channel and volume control, bringing up the need to think carefully about the cost implications of different chip choices for the remote's functionality, such as simple, regular, or advanced chips, with the latter being necessary for an LCD screen but more costly. + +The Marketing representative advised that trend-watching showed two distinct customer bases—'young and trendy' and 'old and rich'—with the former liking fruit and vegetable themes and spongy materials, while the older demographic preferred darker colors and familiar shapes and materials like wood. They also cautioned that trends are fleeting and that the product should have a longer life cycle than just one year given trend turnovers. + +Throughout the meeting, various sounds and vocal expressions indicated agreement, attention, or called for silent acknowledgment as the remote control's design concept was discussed in more abstract terms, without specific drawings or models — only at the end did the project manager attempt to draft a rough design on a board. The meeting ended with an emphasis on the need to decide on a cost-effective concept that also met the aesthetic and functional criteria they had discussed, particularly around the use of a standard battery, scroll buttons, chips, and potentially an LCD screen. + +In summary, the project team was in the very early stages of developing a new remote control with a focus on user-friendly design and trendy appeal for younger consumers. The meeting involved a collaborative but somewhat chaotic discussion about design elements, materials, trends, demographics, and technical components, with considerable indecision and a need for clearer direction and concrete proposals. The team left with action items to further develop their ideas into two conceptual designs — one with and one without an LCD screen — along with a cost analysis for further discussion at their next meeting." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Are you sure I got it all {disfmarker} head's kinda small . +User Interface: How're we placed in terms of the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {gap} +User Interface: alright . +Marketing: We're okay ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Guess I should probably try to sit up straight . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Like that ? Okay , cool . +Marketing: We're good ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , I think mine's fallen off . +User Interface: It fell {disfmarker} That's why . +Marketing: I guess it's gonna be hard to drink coffee . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh okay . +User Interface: Ah . +Project Manager: Okay ? {vocalsound} Right , so I'm just gonna start this PowerPoint real quick . Yeah , PowerPoint . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Very official . +Project Manager: Yeah , well , you know , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah I kinda like this I'm kinda getting into it . Right . Um . So just to kick off the meeting basically um so we're working now for a real reaction , this is uh so it {vocalsound} right . Just got an agenda to set out what we're gonna try to accomplish in this particular first meeting . Um {vocalsound} We're gonna just do a quick opening and we can hopefully all get acquainted with one another um then we're gonna start {disfmarker} talk a little bit about tool training . Essentially that means getting used to the only thing that we haven't tried out yet , the whiteboard . {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} we've got a general plan for the project how we're gonna go about accomplishing this and then just a bit of discussion close up . Um I {gap} guess you know game or something um {vocalsound} in real life um so yeah basically I want to {disfmarker} I'm just gonna {disfmarker} you got {disfmarker} of course you can discuss that , I'm thinking about um {vocalsound} uh proposing that since we've got this weird blend of ourselves and our roles that we just don't ask , don't tell . {vocalsound} Um so um if you say something about marketing , right , sorted , um {vocalsound} y is +Marketing: {vocalsound} You're just gonna believe me , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: we'll go from there . +Project Manager: Exactly . Um I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: obvi if if you guys {disfmarker} if if at the same time if you {disfmarker} like logically if something doesn't {disfmarker} like if I'm like we're gonna sell a remote control that's the size of this paper book you know um you say like well that doesn't seem like such a good idea because of X_ obviously go with it . I mean we'll discuss it but I'm not gonna ask do you know that or uh yeah it seems like +Marketing: Prove it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} yeah yeah exactly +Marketing: yeah , okay . +Project Manager: so , 'cause we're {disfmarker} what we're sort of role playing is y g yeah you're gonna tap into your own knowledge as well {vocalsound} um . And that's the same for your when we do introductions I mean um and you talk about your background you know have fun , you know maybe you went to um {vocalsound} uh you know maybe i you're like in Maine you went to U_C_S_B_ but you wanna say you went to Harvard or something like that , why not , you know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: you can {disfmarker} this is you know I guess we can have a little bit of fun with it . So are you guys okay with that does that seem logical ? +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , that's fine . +User Interface: Sure . +Marketing: Works for me . +Project Manager: Sweet . Cool . So I guess that that {vocalsound} we're totally {disfmarker} we're making a remote control which is thrilling +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um uh but the idea is that we can make something based on the whole corporate model I dunno if you guys had time to check the {disfmarker} in real life I dunno if you guys uh {vocalsound} checked the um {vocalsound} uh the corporate website . Um we've got to make something as fashionable as possible , that's kind of the corporate strategy is we're gonna try to take ordinary stuff that nobody really thinks about and try to make it nice you know like John Lewis nice or you know if you go to Debenham's or something . So um basically we are reinventing the wheel but we wanna try to do it in a user friendly um slick sleek kind of way . {vocalsound} Um way we're gonna go about doing that is basically at first we're gonna start on the basics . And that's where I'm gonna need you guys the User Interface Designers and the um {vocalsound} um the other designer that I can't remember , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: the the I_D_ and the U_I_D_ right um {vocalsound} the Industrial Designer +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: hey right on alright , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: getting into it um +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: to guide me and guide us on this project 'cause you're gonna be {disfmarker} you're g you guys are the bottom you know you're like no you can't do that you can't have you know X_ and Y_ um at the same time . And then um we'll work up from what is necessary to more like what would be good , you know like um {vocalsound} I I think you guys probably got the same emails I did but the idea of um , yes a coffee pot needs to be able to hold coffee but it's also better if it's not like really cheap glass so that it if you touch it you hurt your hand , or something like that . Um and so we'll work up from there and um then we'll meet on and talk about it and then finally we'll incorporate as kind of the last stage you know where you guys build or tell me {vocalsound} tell us what's possible and then you tell us what we can um hope for and what way to go take the the the take the basics and make it nicer and then ov obviously uh the U_I_D_ and the I_D_ you know you you can keep on the you know sort of at the cutting edge of how to get about maximising what is possible um to try t of sync it all up . So that's the detailed design . So it's a three stage kind of thing . Um right so for now just for th the white board um basically uh just to get used to it , I haven't tried it yet either um I'm just gonna start and um mm carry like five remotes around um and just write down {disfmarker} I'm just gonna write down one of the names of my um desert discs you know if you {disfmarker} if you were trapped on a desert island and you could only bring five C_D_s along with you name one of them that you could , not all five , if you wanna write all five go for it but name one of them that you could um . Oh , we skipped introductions . Nice . I'm a excellent Project Manager . Um . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'm Marty , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um I went to uni at uh U_C_ Santa Barbara and I'm here working on a P_H_D_ in psychology . Um yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I'm Sarah , I went to Michigan , and I'm here doing cultural studies and I'm the Marketing Manager or something . Marketing , +Project Manager: Expert {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah Expert . Expert . +Project Manager: Don't play yourself down . Expert {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Fine . That's me . +User Interface: I'm Ron . I uh once upon a time studied in Victoria and I am the User Interface Designer . +Industrial Designer: I'm Nathan , I'm from California , and I'm here doing a Masters degree in social anthropology . +Project Manager: Where did you go to uni Nathan ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} U_C_L_A_ . +Project Manager: Oh brilliant . Cool . My little brother goes there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Okay . +Project Manager: Right so desert island discs . +Marketing: So . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: So do we have to wait for you to write it down or are you gonna tell us ? +Project Manager: Well I'll t i +Marketing: I'm waiting to know . +Project Manager: no no yeah I'm just gonna write a couple of 'em down . See I'm a big music fan I don't know if you guys are , I'm assuming everybody likes music to some lesser or greater extent +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: but there's some other options , if you're a T_V_ slut +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: like I am like Smallville terrible television show +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I happen to love it , +Marketing: Oh , Smallville . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's rubbish but I love it . +Marketing: I went to high school with Tom Willing actually . +Project Manager: T the the main c the main character ? +Marketing: The guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Wow . Is he a wanker ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} Very much so . Hell of a soccer player but a total bastard nonetheless . +Project Manager: He looks really tall , like he's gotta be like six six . +Marketing: Yeah . He is a big guy . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Um okay so {vocalsound} I really like Jeff Buckley . You guys heard of Jeff Buckley ? +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um that's cool 'cause like not very many people have . Um {vocalsound} and um oh well I might as well throw a British person in there um you can't go wrong with Radiohead . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's a r +Marketing: Good call . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so it really works just like a pen only makes noises I think . It's kinda weird . Anyway +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: yeah . Yeah , you're like press and it's {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Kinda cool . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll see . Alright so um +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: whoever wants to get up next , you can write down some telly that you watch or whatever you want . +Marketing: I guess I'll go next then . +Project Manager: Right on . +User Interface: Go for it . +Marketing: Okay . Don't wanna lose all my mikes , plugged in here . Okay . This is basically just pen practice huh ? +Project Manager: W +Marketing: Okay . Oh you're much taller than me so I'm gonna write down here . Um . Right now I'm listening to a lot of somebody nobody's ever heard of , Chris Bathgate , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: local Michigan folk singer , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Wow . +Marketing: really lame +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: and uh uh what else did I bring with me ? Probably classical , to totally geek it out , +Project Manager: Okay yeah yeah . +Marketing: yeah I think . And my family guy D_V_D_s +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Marketing: but we don't need to write that one down . +Project Manager: Oh , family guy . Isn't h has h +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: do you watch the new season ? +Marketing: No . Are you getting it online , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think I'm gonna start downloading it +Marketing: or is it on sky ? +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that'd be nice . +User Interface: Alright . Think I'm just gonna put down one uh one C_D_ . Anybody ? +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: No ? {gap} no ? +Marketing: 'Fraid not . +User Interface: Afro beat orchestra , very cool . +Project Manager: Afro beat orchestra ? Very cool . Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sounds nice . +User Interface: Fift S +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: they like fifteen members from Brooklyn . Um and I'm hoping to go to the concert in Belgium , in Brussels in April first . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Exciting . +User Interface: Yeah . It's supposed to be in Brussels anyways . +Marketing: That'd be {gap} . +User Interface: Um thing I love about Edinburgh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . I didn't even read those . Oops . I shouldn't admit that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's what a PowerPoint presentation is for . It's they're designed specifically to ignore . I {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} th brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Oh , wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's the five by five , I can't read that much . +Project Manager: Ah yes yes yes okay I see that . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah +Project Manager: Vomit . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: oh it's so horrible . +Project Manager: Street pizza . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Love um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's so brilliant . {vocalsound} I've seen more urine in this city than ever before , +Marketing: Oh my God . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I just came from Glasgow +Project Manager: I mean {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seriously ? +User Interface: and I'm um happy to say that there's the {disfmarker} there's the same quantity approximately . +Industrial Designer: There's more vomit there . +User Interface: Um . +Project Manager: It's so minging . +User Interface: I w +Marketing: It really is {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh . +User Interface: Does uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . Yep . +User Interface: Ready ? Minging ? Nice . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'm going local . Going local . +Marketing: Slide it in there . Yeah . +Project Manager: I have to be here for three years so I might as well get the terminology right . +Marketing: Yeah fair enough . I've already got more than I can keep track of . And I'm gonna go home next week and everyone's gonna be like oh my God you're turning into one of those people , +Project Manager: Oh , have you been home yet ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: They'll be like , say something British , +Marketing: no . +Project Manager: and you're like oh shut up family . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I know . I know . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh it should be interesting . +Industrial Designer: Let's see . +Marketing: Wait until I tell them I'm not coming back . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: They're gonna love that one . +Project Manager: you s you're gonna stay here ? +Marketing: Probably . +Project Manager: Wow . +Marketing: Or at least get a work visa for a while and then decide . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Bad religion ? +Marketing: 'Cause {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's the music I grew up listening to . +Marketing: nice . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Marketing: Of course . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And so there {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , now I can think of so many other ones . +Project Manager: Well yeah that's why {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's how it works . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Something I miss about my hometown . +Project Manager: I miss coffee . +Industrial Designer: Burritos +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Burritos . +User Interface: Nice . +Industrial Designer: that cost less than eight Pounds . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh yeah two two bucks . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Any thing that are like free . +Project Manager: Where are you from in California by the way ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I grew up in San Diego , +Project Manager: Did you really ? What part ? +Industrial Designer: but yeah um La Jolla , P_B_ {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah I'm from San Diego as well . Yeah oh man . +Marketing: Nice . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But really uh I last lived in San Francisco , I haven't lived in Cali well I haven't lived in southern California since I was eighteen . +Project Manager: Going to s like North Carol I'm sorry you you just can't get a better burrito than what's available in the s in San Diego . +Industrial Designer: It's different . 'Cause in San Diego th the tortillas are cooked on the grill and in northern California they steam them . +Marketing: It must make all the difference . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it really does . +Project Manager: Well it's it's {vocalsound} i there's other things too there's {disfmarker} you just can't place it +Marketing: Ah . +Project Manager: like I {disfmarker} when I went to school in the U_ {disfmarker} in Santa Barbara which is central California the Mexican food is okay , it's just not good like and yeah it's like two bucks , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: like literally two bucks for this massive {disfmarker} I miss +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: yeah good call on that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Where you from in San Diego ? +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Um just literally just metropolitan San Diego , I live like five minutes from the zoo . So +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: North Park actually if you want to get real specific . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , my grandparents lived on um thirty second . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Close t uh do you know where Clare de Lune coffee shop is , +Project Manager: Yes . On university , +Industrial Designer: and +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Cafe Forte {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah it's actually like literally half a mile from my house . +Industrial Designer: Cool . +Project Manager: Yeah , pretty cool . Small world as we were discussing before . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Especially when we're all from the same general region . Right so okay , success on the whiteboard . You can harness the awesome power +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: a little bit introductions we talked about some of our C_D_s +Industrial Designer: Wow . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and things we like about the city you know , I think we'll {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um right so {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: moving on to not fun stuff {vocalsound} uh project finance . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um basically what we're trying to do is sell this remote for twenty five Euros . Um . {vocalsound} This is what the finance department has told me , the C_F_O_ but I don't know , I'm not sold on this , it's pretty dear , I mean twenty f that's like you know forty bucks for a remote . It would have to pretty much like do my laundry for me . Um so +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: what we can maybe work on that a later but we're gonna make a lot on it , the profit aims to make fifty million Euros on it . Eur internationally . So {vocalsound} um one of the things I I was gonna mention to you um you guys the designers is that um it m we probably need a rever it needs to be a universal remote control probably . Um so +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: something that could do N_T_S_C_ as well as PAL as well as various other formats like if it's gonna control D_V_D_s +Marketing: Makes sense . +Project Manager: but um you know +Marketing: Uh . +Project Manager: I'll leave that to you guys but that's something that i i it is gonna be an international sold thing . {vocalsound} Um but we wanna try to make it for twelve fifty . So we wanna try to make a hundred percent profit on it if we can . {vocalsound} Um s right so um just to close up , I'm not sure how much time I've used mm next time right Project Manager , sorted . Um . {vocalsound} Is uh we'll meet in another half an hour or so um {vocalsound} and I'd like the um Industrial Designer to get ge think about what needs to be done , like what the basic function of it . Um {vocalsound} U_I_D_ well yeah you right g your assignments are up there and you'll also get s assignments from {disfmarker} in your email as well more spec specifics on what do do . Um mm basic and um so I need you to tell us what um {vocalsound} we {disfmarker} what the user's gonna want . +Marketing: What they're looking for . +Project Manager: So actually in a way you guys c maybe in our next meeting chat a bit about what the user's gonna want and what the user can have , you know like uh so {disfmarker} +Marketing: And negotiate that . Uh . +Project Manager: yeah well it is {vocalsound} and we'll discuss the trade-offs in between um so yeah specific instructions will be sent in your email . But I think that that is more or less a good place to start for now um and as more things come up we'll have meetings and you'll get emails and so forth . Um any questions , before we get started ? +User Interface: I assume that we're building a stand alone uh remote control , we can't kind of build it into other uh products . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You mean to like {disfmarker} +User Interface: For instance like a mobile phone or something like that . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Sounds interesting . +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's any rules about it yet . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe our personal coach will have something to say about that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or or you know can we produ can we sell a remote control phone for twenty five pounds or less ? +Project Manager: Well , have a think about it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I mean +User Interface: Yep . Okay . +Project Manager: I'm I'm certainly op it seems like yeah it it seems like it's certainly do-able +Marketing: W yeah . +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean um or if we can't have a full mobile phone maybe a remote that has some other kind of {vocalsound} useful function . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: The clapper . No I mean {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: no , good idea , good idea . We'll see what {disfmarker} see what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe a remote with changeable faces , like the faces that you can buy for phones . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Nice . Hot . {vocalsound} +Marketing: I like the little cover thingies . +Project Manager: Uh-huh y I like that {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . That's true , I guess we we probably have some time , maybe we should brainstorm a bit like what we wanna do , go back to um {disfmarker} I don't really have any . Let me bring up something about our basic goals here , what we want to accomplish . Uh project announcement . Ts ts ts {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Not so much . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: All right we'll find them , we're on our own . +User Interface: Now are we also discussing kind of our initial ideas at all here ? +Project Manager: Yeah yeah let's do it , let's do . +User Interface: S does anybody have any initial ideas ? +Project Manager: I'm gonna go ahead and take notes on this too 'cause {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good idea . Start your minutes . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I mean oh yeah right . {vocalsound} So initial ideas . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well it's pretty much given it's gonna be universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: right , we decided that already and it may be functioning for other things , as soon as you said that I was thinking like all the other things you could get a remote to do , like your microwave or your front door +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: or like to have everything on one thing , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but then , I've never been a fan of those huge remotes that have like a million buttons , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: S smaller's better . +Marketing: you can't tell what they do . +Industrial Designer: Simple . +User Interface: But {disfmarker} I'm thinking {disfmarker} I'm thinking kind of P_D_A_ uh design +Marketing: Yeah . Specific . +User Interface: so touch screen design rather than button +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh right . That'd be different . +User Interface: so that you can kind of flip around all sorts of different things . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah that's slick +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: isn't it . I mean like {vocalsound} stylist {vocalsound} yeah like a just a +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: yeah . Right so we got five minutes more to chat about this , perfect . Um so we've got this kind of an idea of a trade-off between um {vocalsound} uh size and functionality . +Marketing: Mm . Mm . +Project Manager: Um and we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . We want it to be munt multifunctional but at the same time if you get it to do too much you're not gonna be able to tell them apart , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Too confusing . +Industrial Designer: It's gonna be too complicated , too crowded with buttons and things . +Project Manager: I'm also gonna note for future reference this idea +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: of um {vocalsound} so you {disfmarker} like {disfmarker} maybe like an L_ {disfmarker} like a touch screen type of remote ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Possibly . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: I don't think one exists . +Marketing: An interesting option . +Project Manager: Be a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Needs {disfmarker} it needs one outstanding feature to set it apart from all the other remotes . +Marketing: Yeah . Definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah all the other universal remotes . Um {vocalsound} I don't know if there's such a thing out there , I guess we could do some uh do some research on or one of us could do some research on it about whether or not there are um multi-format like um you know PAL , N_T_S_C_ , region one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: I'm pretty sure there is . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: I mean I I have a friend who has a P_D_A_ +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: that he just points at his telev any television he wants +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +User Interface: and it'll figure out the {vocalsound} the specifications of it +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: and will control it +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interesting . Okay . +User Interface: um so +Marketing: Awesome . +User Interface: I th I assume that that can be done with uh kind of around the world . +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um all right . So . I li I'm liking that idea , this idea of a touch screen remote with multi-format features . Um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Um . {vocalsound} Let's see . +Industrial Designer: I think , making it out of a nice material would be very important , because so many of those remotes that you see , these universal remotes look so cheap and low quality . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Keeping it nice and slick , would be important . And {disfmarker} I don't know , like , there's such a problem with losing them , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: that adding this whole like P_D_A_ pen business is only one more thing to lose , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so we're gonna have to be careful with what like {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Marketing: Just something like keep in mind when we start actually dealing with this stuff but that would be really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh let's see . Um . +User Interface: I like the idea of the uh multi plate . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah yeah okay . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In in +Marketing: Fi b like what are they called , those face plate things ? +Project Manager: Think they're just called face plates ? +Marketing: Isn't there a name for them ? +Project Manager: I don't know . +Industrial Designer: {gap} something , +Marketing: Are they ? I dunno . +Industrial Designer: uh we'll have to come up with a name , +User Interface: I like . +Industrial Designer: patent it . +User Interface: We should c we should come up with a fuzzy one as well . +Marketing: Yeah . Something really cool . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leopard print or something . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} For those cold winter days . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Leopard print . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um . +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think , it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a like a locator device , maybe a simple button that you have on your television to help you find your remote . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: Mm . But if we're bundling it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} unless we're selling their telly with the remote . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Well if we bundle it as a phone then you can always call it . +Industrial Designer: True . +User Interface: If you're not doing that then we can have something that just kind of rings from either {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: well there used to be those whistling devices but that's a little bit annoying . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Cou could we not do something where like just a little lit like literally just a very small kind of thing that comes with the remote that you could place something else that you press and it makes the remote page . Kinda like how on a lot of um {vocalsound} uh cordless regular phones , you have a page button and it goes {vocalsound} , +User Interface: Th +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: could we do something like that ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think so . +User Interface: That's cool . +Marketing: Probably . +User Interface: I think we could design into that . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Good . +Project Manager: Um yeah {vocalsound} I think this material quality as well like I guess what we can think about what kind of um uh you know Apple 's been really successful with this surgical white kind of business or this sleek kind of +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: you know {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: And that titanium the new silver sleek ones that's last couple of years , very much so . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Curves . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: We do have the minimum am amount I mean we were talking finances I dunno , selling a a forty Pound remote would h or a forty Dollar remote , twenty five Euro remote would be pretty {disfmarker} you know it's pretty expensive +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so maybe we might wanna trade off some of the features for a lower price . Without without getting into that whole like you know go down to bargain store remote you know bargain store universal remote +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: that's black and you know m massive , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: some kind of I dunno a balance there in somewhere . +Marketing: Mm . Definitely . +Project Manager: But um have a think about what we can do , have a think about what we want to do , how we're gonna sell it +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: and um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or if you our users in mind , like these {disfmarker} grandmas are not gonna be into this whole new let's design , no it's {disfmarker} they're used to the buttons so we'll have to be careful of exactly who we're marketing this to , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: and who we're gonna be able to get it out of . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: 'S true . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +User Interface: We're talking twenty five Pounds or twenty five Euros ? +Project Manager: Twenty five Euros . +Marketing: Euros . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Slight difference I guess . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} They're all weaker than {disfmarker} they're all stronger than the Dollar . Although , computer parts , all {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: if you're gonna upgrade your computer , buy it in the States . Like um do you guys know Fry's ? Huge computer uh electronics store ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Mm-mm . +Project Manager: They serve um {disfmarker} right they sa tha s they will sell things overseas so you can buy stuff in America +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: and have it shipped over for like twenty thirty Pounds about . Right so um let's go ahead and wrap that up here for now , I'm gonna put these initial ideas that we've got in the um {vocalsound} project documents , so if you guys wa need a reminder about what we've talked about um the different you know kind of trade-offs that we've got and the other ideas , you can consult them at your leisure . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And uh right so thanks for that . Let's just uh head back to work on what we were talking about bef uh goi h h getting into . +Marketing: With half an hour ? +Project Manager: Um . Yes . +Marketing: 'Kay . Perfect . +Project Manager: Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +User Interface: Thank you . +","The provided text appears to be a transcript of a conversation among a team composed of individuals with different roles—including an Industrial Designer, someone from Marketing, a User Interface Design professional, and a Project Manager—engaged in an organized meeting session, likely held in a corporate setting. + +The conversation begins somewhat informally, with the participants checking their equipment and making sure they're all prepared, which suggests the use of microphones and possibly a voice-to-text system capturing their dialogue, indicated by the placeholders {vocalsound} and {disfmarker}. There are gaps and interruptions in the flow of the conversation, likely because of technical issues or missing parts in the transcription. + +The Project Manager is leading the session, intending to do a team round of introductions followed by an overview of their project involving a remote-control design. They attempt to establish a relaxed atmosphere, suggesting the team members can fabricate certain details about their backgrounds for a bit of fun, and emphasizing a casual rule of ""don't ask, don't tell"" regarding credentials and experience. + +Once past introductions, the Project Manager presents the project's agenda, which includes tool training with a whiteboard and a discussion on the general plan and project objectives, such as making an ordinary product into a fashion-forward item that is also user-friendly, sleek, and slick. The designers are tasked with focusing on both essential functionality and eventual stylish enhancements. + +The conversation divulges into a portion where the meeting participants share personal details and preferences, such as music choices—serving as an icebreaker activity—and they briefly share information regarding their backgrounds and home locations, indicating several members are from the same area in California. + +The meeting shifts back to a professional tone, with the Project Manager outlining the financial goals and the creative vision for this remote control. There is an emphasis on designing a product that could make a significant profit with features that set it apart from the competition, discussing its potential high-quality materials, functionality, universal compatibility, and aesthetics inspired by Apple and other sleek design approaches. + +One creative idea proposed is a touch-screen interface instead of a button-based one, which demonstrates the team's intention to innovate. The team also contemplates the possibility of the remote being integrated with or functioning as a mobile phone. They consider various additional features, such as changeable exterior plates to customize the product's look, and perhaps adding a locator feature to find the remote easily. + +The Project Manager notes concerns about the retail price point, aiming to figure out the balance between features offered and cost-effectiveness. There is a compelling recognition that the users' needs and preferences should be a central focus, alongside the understanding that at a price of twenty-five euros, the remote should offer more than a standard model. + +As the meeting draws to a conclusion, the Project Manager instructs the team members to reflect on the initial ideas discussed and how best to proceed with the project, taking into account various trade-offs and market considerations. The meeting wraps up with an understanding that everyone will reconvene after a half-hour break to resume their workflows. + +Overall, the transcript reveals the initial phases of a collaborative project focused on creating an innovative remote control device. The team is encouraged to merge their expertise, think creatively, and consider market strategies to develop a product that is both functional and appeals to consumer aesthetics and desires." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: So , +Project Manager: So , uh now {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hi Christa . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: it's the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Hi Sammy . {vocalsound} It's the detail design meeting , so we're going {disfmarker} last meeting . So um , first uh Mark and Rama are going to present uh the prototype . Uh then uh Sammy will propose some uh crite cr criteria to evaluate this prototype . Then , w we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then we going to do some finance to see if uh it is uh feasible +User Interface: And chocolate ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh at the end we will we will um evaluate ourself as a team . {vocalsound} And that's all . Okay . So first , {vocalsound} let's uh see the prototype . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , here we have our prototype model . +Project Manager: Okay . And you have some slides then ? +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , we have also some slides . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . Mm . +User Interface: Yes , and place some slides . +Project Manager: Okay . Uh so in which uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Uh , participant three . {vocalsound} Prototype . +Industrial Designer: In {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm okay . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh , so this is our remote control . +Industrial Designer: Him . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a r working prototype . You can use it now by switching all these buttons . So first , I present as we came to this perfect model , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and then we'll give some technical specifications . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: That's {vocalsound} well {vocalsound} {vocalsound} , so that's that . Please , next slide . We analysed all the fruits +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and contacted NASA , and uh made some {vocalsound} real good {disfmarker} +Project Manager: MASA ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . If you can see this , and the stars are showing that {gap} . And um , {vocalsound} s society will accept that . For sure . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} And making some analysis of different fruits , we choose the ultimate form , ultimate colours , and uh ultimate smell of it . S please , next slide . But we still didn't want to go far from our titanium idea , 'cause it's the most of the moder the m the {gap} modern material we can p select . And it's practical . And it's still say it's for our needs , so please press something . And as I said , {vocalsound} it's perfect . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Please press it . +Industrial Designer: Experience . Explanat +User Interface: Everyone is {gap} f really uh really glad to obtain an {disfmarker} {vocalsound} s such a r such a device . +Marketing: Such a nice thing . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: See this {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So you can touch it with your hands . +Marketing: Can I ? +User Interface: Sure . Yes . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ho-ho . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} imitating flatulence] {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do you say ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: N +Marketing: It says {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} You must say it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Spongy . +Marketing: I will uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} One day . +Marketing: I'll buy it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If I if I need so . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: He {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hopefully my daughter will like it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . Y and we got the answer . Uh , it is , yes , of course . +Marketing: Yes , of course . Of c course . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} , please next slide . Um , this is a prototype . You can have a look at it , and {disfmarker} That's all I wanted to say . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: Now it's technical specification by our colleague . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , there is {vocalsound} a button missing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This this is really flexible . You can add your buttons . +Marketing: It's in option . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . So function , mm {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , as we discussed , we have to switch on switch off whenever we want . And so , we have buttons and using L_C_D_ , or like you can use this {vocalsound} jog wheel and select which ever option on the L_C_D_ , and then do on and off . {vocalsound} Then you ha you'll have volume control . So , you you can press these buttons to increase or decrease the volume . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And we have some L_C_D_ controls . Like , m switching the L_C_D_ display if you want to use L_C_D_ , or you don't want you can just use normal button . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: And we have speech recognition . Here you have microphone , and then it date records your voice , and then it try to recognise . +Marketing: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And it can also do the action . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And location finder . And we want to do the location basically using speech recogniser . You can just say , where is my remote control . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Or uh , you can just give some nickname to your remote control , like Bobby {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Bobby . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Hey , babe . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then , {vocalsound} it will say hi . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Bob . {vocalsound} Hey Bob . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , hi , and then you can use it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: Hmm . {vocalsound} 'Kay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: that's good . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} um our team is now fruits . Mainly strawberry . So , you can {vocalsound} have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , these are strawberries . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can see the look L_C_D_ and all the switches . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Are colourful . Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Material , we want to stick to titanium . {vocalsound} We will send , we want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fruit smelling spongy titanium . {vocalsound} I didn't know it exist , but that's great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , or s {vocalsound} So , we want to have {vocalsound} simple and perfect shapes , like I shown in these phones . You can have your own designs and and you can feel simple designs . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And you can choose colours on your day for each day , or even many colours . +Marketing: Ha . +Project Manager: Ho-ho . That's for the L_C_D_ or for the titanium ? +Marketing: You mean we can change the colour uh of th +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah okay , for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: With titanium it's {disfmarker} it is silver . +Marketing: Tit titanium is {disfmarker} +User Interface: We are still working on titanium . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: So , r we'll start with L_C_D_ . +Marketing: Uh , okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm , yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: You can ask Bob . It's Tuesday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey , you know you're theme today . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , Bob , please . {vocalsound} {gap} Tuesday colour . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Even you can configure your colours for its {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} depending on your mood , or s +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Black for Sunday . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you can have many colours on weekends . Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And w wait , wh what are the strawberries for ? {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wh wh +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +Marketing: On the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: Ah , these are like sensors . +Marketing: Oh . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Of course . +User Interface: That's location sensors . +Marketing: {vocalsound} What do you think ? {vocalsound} Strawberry sensors . {vocalsound} Very useful . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Strawberries . +Industrial Designer: So , {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: after this meeting we'll propose a party for our success for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Lounge meeting . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So , if you are vegetarian or you have any options , please let us know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , and we can just {gap} some strawberry first . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright . Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oops . +Industrial Designer: S +Marketing: So , huh . Interesting . In interesting . Mm mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , any specific questions for {disfmarker} +Project Manager: we'll see in the financial part if uh {vocalsound} all {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} gets into {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It makes sense . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Let's make a party first maybe . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} W Who is the five uh {disfmarker} fifty millions we {vocalsound} first make a party in ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Then we can discuss {disfmarker} We can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , then we can have how much for how money is left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So uh , this is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: What a design . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Uh , so {disfmarker} Let's uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my turn . +Project Manager: yeah , let's see if uh th it's meet the evaluation criterium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Let's see if this {disfmarker} Yeah , if you meet {vocalsound} the evaluation criterion . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oops . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Fudge . +Marketing: Yeah . So , evaluation please . So . You made a very nice prototype , and um , I think , we now need altogether to try to evaluate it to see if it makes sense to do it , if it fulfils our {disfmarker} what we want to do , and things like that . So mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , next slide , please . {vocalsound} As you know , before going and uh creating and producing these strawberry {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} remote control , it's very important to first verify if it makes sense , if we have a chance to sell it . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Uh , so we need to evaluate it um , try to do it in a constative way , and as much as we can . To {disfmarker} so what I propose is that we are going to to have this scale from one to seven . One meaning that , ye yes uh it fulfils uh the the criterion , whatever it is . And seven meaning , no it doesn't fulfil at all . And we're all l going to list all the criterion . I'm going to go to that next slide , +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: and together try to evaluate this according to this criterion and from one to seven . And then we are just going to have an average , which will give us the value of our uh remote control . So , maybe we can have a look at the criteria ? +Industrial Designer: Fancy . +Marketing: So these are the criterion uh I'm {disfmarker} I thought were important . Of course , this can be discussed , but let's let's see , so let's vote . So we have fancy here and we have the scale from one to seven with four in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Huh . +Marketing: So , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , what's is really {disfmarker} +Marketing: what do you think , is it fancy ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh , it's really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , I think that fancy , we can say it is fancy . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It is very very fancy . Or have you ever seen something like that ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . I am not the d the only one choosing , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , of course . +Project Manager: Uh what do you think ? +Marketing: What do you think ? +User Interface: Feel the weight . +Marketing: Is it {disfmarker} The weight is later . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Oh . +User Interface: Really . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Now {vocalsound} we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: We're on the fanciness now . I think it's quite fancy . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can give at least five or six , seven . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} Yeah , so {disfmarker} No it's it's one . +Project Manager: It's in the other {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Oh , {gap} Oh . So {disfmarker} Oh , okay . Yeah , okay . Oh , okay . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , o one means it's , yes , a very fancy and seven mean no at all . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: So it's one or two . +Project Manager: Two . Let's say two , yeah . +Industrial Designer: M maybe two . +Marketing: What do you think ? Two ? +User Interface: Two . Two . +Marketing: Okay . So here , two . Up . +Industrial Designer: Technology . +Marketing: Then we have uh technology . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , what about technology ? We have uh we have speech recognition , we have location based {gap} , +Industrial Designer: And we have L_C_D_ . +Marketing: we have L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Change colour of t +Industrial Designer: So you change colours . +Marketing: Change colour , I mean that's very {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Useful . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: Quite +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Marketing: d I think it's a one for that , at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . It's silly . +Marketing: At least a one , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Robustness , uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Uh , still we need to cha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} let's suppose my daughter take it and um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} and through it away . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do you think it makes sense that it's going to live again ? Uh , maybe not the prototype . +Project Manager: The strawberries {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's try . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh my god . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe strawberry . +Marketing: Okay , we just lost one strawberry . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . How can I say this . +Marketing: Not at all ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we can easily plug it . +User Interface: It's still it's still working , and your daughter got a bonus . +Marketing: It is {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} A strawberry . +Marketing: So it's not so bad . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: I um uh I would say three . +Project Manager: Yeah . But it's too {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: It's um robust , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that does make sense , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Useful ? +Marketing: Useful . {vocalsound} Well , so the question is does it have uh the minimum requirement of re remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: So I don't know . These buttons are uh {disfmarker} It not clear . +Project Manager: Oh , yeah , lets me try . +Marketing: But you have at least uh next produce . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: What is uh next , please ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , channel . I this is volume control and channel changes . These are the main {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , it depends on the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can uh do di two sites ? +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah , and you can do on L_C_D_ using these going to scrolling all the option . +Project Manager: Okay , also . +Industrial Designer: So if you don't want {disfmarker} +Marketing: So but , for instance , because the L_C_D_ is not uh touch control , touch screen , you cannot go to channel twenty five directly . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , um {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: You can , by using the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You can . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Directly . +User Interface: You go {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} +Project Manager: You c push here the the {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , the basic mode {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . So that's simple . The basic mode is uh you got just two buttons and a jog dial . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: With two buttons , you do this like uh volume up , volume down . +Marketing: Oh , it's a jog dial , okay . +User Interface: Or if you go to the site , it's channel up channel down . +Industrial Designer: And channel . +Marketing: Uh-huh . Okay . +User Interface: And if you want to make to s twenty-five , you push on this . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: You select twenty , you select five . +Industrial Designer: You can select . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: It's much longer than that that being two two five , no ? +User Interface: No . +Marketing: Don't you think so ? May {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} okay , we can go . That's uh {disfmarker} You're right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , yeah . Y you need to like press two and five and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} it's less uh {disfmarker} Yeah . But it's it's nice , because people anyway don't go there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . Yeah mm . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So what do you think for it , usefulness ? +Industrial Designer: So , d Yeah , we need to address {disfmarker} we want {disfmarker} +Marketing: Seems to be useful . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: we only address two main functions here and the other functions will be on L_C_D_ . So +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let me understand well , +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: because I'm not sure {disfmarker} that's for {disfmarker} that this one are b d uh two dir directional button . +Marketing: Both . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Up . +Marketing: Up down or left right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . And which {disfmarker} what is that ? +User Interface: It's a jog dial for controlling the cursor on the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: This is jog wheel . +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . It's a kind {disfmarker} Oh , okay okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Like , selecting the menus . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um , {vocalsound} see in L_C_D_ , like you will have blocks and you select which one . +Marketing: Cool . +Project Manager: Oh oh okay , great . +Marketing: I would say then uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: Now it's looks us useful . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Industrial Designer: Two , maybe . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: Okay , two . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So size and weight . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Is it the the the effective size and weight that the {disfmarker} Is it uh real size , real weight ? Or {disfmarker} Because it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's {disfmarker} size al almost {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Size is going to be that , yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , because it is {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: The weight will be bit lighter . We will s We use titanium . +User Interface: Sure , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: without titanium alloy , it's going to be light . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: It's going to be lighter , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Of course . +Marketing: because this seems to be very heavy f I mean , +Industrial Designer: Heavy . Yeah . +Marketing: for my daughter , for instance . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Not sure if uh {vocalsound} she can use it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But sides {disfmarker} uh , the sides should be okay . {gap} . Yeah +Marketing: So , should be okay . +Industrial Designer: mm . +Marketing: Up to three for that , +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: because I'm {disfmarker} haven't seen the weight so I must not uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: Colour and shape . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh-oh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well , so colour , it seems that we have the several colours for the L_C_D_ . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: But um , it's not very clear what is the colour of the sh the sh {vocalsound} the case . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The case is silver titanium , no ? +Marketing: It's a {disfmarker} it's going to be titanium . Okay , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's nice . +Project Manager: Let's imagine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's good . Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And what about the strawberries on the top ? {vocalsound} I'm not convince . {vocalsound} But maybe I'm not trendy . But , uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yahoo . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well y you know , it's this uh fruit and vegetable year . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Yeah , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but uh {vocalsound} uh they're not useful . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I I mean it {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So maybe , I think {disfmarker} +Marketing: Uh , I think usefulness is m as as I rem um just have to remind you that usefulness is much less important than fanciness . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Whether it's fancy or not now , it {disfmarker} we have to decide . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: But this +Project Manager: I would have m uh i found more fancy that the fruits are useful . +Marketing: If it's {disfmarker} Uh-huh . So , that they will {disfmarker} that maybe the fruit may be here instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well then it's bit difficult to use . Not like this d We're just giving the fruit for more fanciness and more attraction , too . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But the n {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So , maybe think we can have rubber or some sponges , stuff for strawberries and different colours . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: So , it seems we are not so clear on the shape uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , I'm not sure uh why {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: These buttons {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh if it was like this {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} But it looks really {vocalsound} not really good . +Project Manager: I It's {gap} n {vocalsound} no , it's not fancy any more . +Industrial Designer: I mean , the f Yeah . So these are kind of rubber things . Even if you lose one you can just put whatever . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: And {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Even we can provide many different colours or different fruits , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Uh-huh . And different routes . Okay , I see what {disfmarker} +User Interface: Moreover , moreover it covers it covers all the end goals . Even if it is , you know , it's very rounded , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: but still you got some rubber fruit here , and it's completely uh completely secure to leave it uh with children and that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so you you you feel like it's something uh a protection for the remote control . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah . Yeah , we've {disfmarker} yeah we have sensors here and so here and here , +Project Manager: Also . +Industrial Designer: so we just {disfmarker} Yeah , so even if you don't put , it works . But this is really fancy . {gap} +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: I suggested three . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Because uh , everybody s doesn't seem to be convince , +User Interface: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: although it's quite {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You have good arguments . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: And uh the last one is adaptive . This is not r maybe not as important as the other one , {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: but uh can we adapt it to each each personal use ? +User Interface: Sure , sure , just look at it . {vocalsound} It's full adaptable . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow , that's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Fully adaptable . +User Interface: Yeah , you can fit it into your palm , you know . +Marketing: That's {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} So you can fit into your palm , okay . +Project Manager: Yea +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: That {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You can {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else can we need ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} Do you think you are gonna be able to do that with ti titanium as well ? +Project Manager: Yeah , it's fudge titanium . {vocalsound} You know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's fudge , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Right , yeah . {vocalsound} And uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm , {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , fruit titanium , yeah . Well , I if if this is {disfmarker} if you are ready to do that , then I think it deserves a one . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Let's go for one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Now we have to do the average . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Three , three , six , eight , eleven . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Who is good in math ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's two point one seven . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Two point one seven . That's nice . Two point one seven out of seven . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: I think we have a good good thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Well , that's all I had to say about the evaluation . +Project Manager: So it's a good evaluation . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} It seems to be good , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . +Marketing: We have uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , two one one seven , we have . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: Yeah . Okay . Thanks . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . So now , it has to fulfil the {vocalsound} financial criterium ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Financi +Marketing: Ah-ha . +Project Manager: So , I have an {disfmarker} Here . Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Energy . +Marketing: So so how many batteries do we need ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , we use bat One battery . +Marketing: One battery ? +Project Manager: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: so two . +Marketing: Good . Why two ? +Industrial Designer: Oh , we just need one , I guess . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Say no . No , ne never install . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Two batteries or one ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +Industrial Designer: No , number is one . We need only one battery . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah , +Marketing: Only one . +Project Manager: but the price is two . Oh , number . +Marketing: No , no . But no , no . No , no way . +Project Manager: Sorry sorry sorry . I'm sorry . +User Interface: No , uh you just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Number , number . +User Interface: Number . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Oh . +Marketing: Yeah . You never use uh Excel ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , never . {vocalsound} +User Interface: How {disfmarker} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} +User Interface: What what's the limit ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} H {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's twelve bucks . +User Interface: Uh , it's it's okay that I don't know , 'cause uh it's not my field . Twelve bucks . Okay , +Marketing: Twelve bucks . +User Interface: now {disfmarker} Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Twelve and a half , I think . +User Interface: Check that number also . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So we {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} Okay , electronics . +Industrial Designer: We have sample chip . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , like simple chip , yeah . +Marketing: It's a simple chip ? +Industrial Designer: So , yeah . +Marketing: Simple chip , okay . One . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Four buttons at least . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then we have the t sample speaker sensor for speech recognition . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And for the {disfmarker} One also . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one to one . +Marketing: One or two ? One ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , one . +Marketing: Okay . So the case , which one uh is it in the end ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think we will go for a single curve , no ? +Marketing: Let's do a single curve . +Industrial Designer: Oh , is {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's it's flat . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Oh , okay . +Marketing: It's flat , and curved . +Project Manager: I thought you can curve +User Interface: It's flat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} somebody . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} But it is flat , +Marketing: It's curvable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: you {disfmarker} Look . It's curvable , but it's not curved . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe there is a supplement for that {gap} , no ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: It's only {gap} curve ? +Project Manager: Oh see , I I think {vocalsound} that the the price is this one . +Marketing: Okay , let's go . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This {disfmarker} Okay , +Project Manager: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: you d {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Don't chip on me . +Marketing: We tried , we tried . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh , okay . +Industrial Designer: Oh . Titanium . +Marketing: So , what is it ? T titanium ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Mm , that's expensive . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} But she wanted u the {vocalsound} fudge titanium . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's stick to s titan . +Project Manager: I think it's five , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you don't say {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Special colour ? +User Interface: Well , n Why three ? +Industrial Designer: No , only one , no ? +Marketing: No because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Why three ? +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . Again , I'm {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} See it . +Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour , +Industrial Designer: Interface . +Project Manager: or it's only on the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yes , in L_C_D_ display . +Project Manager: Yeah , but {vocalsound} there is no {vocalsound} colour here . +Industrial Designer: Ok Yeah , an Yeah . +Project Manager: So I put it here . +Industrial Designer: Push-button . +Marketing: So the L_C_D_ {disfmarker} +Project Manager: How many push-button ? +Industrial Designer: Scro +Project Manager: Three or two ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , two . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: Is there {disfmarker} The scroll-wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One scroll wheel {vocalsound} . +Marketing: It's going to be expensive . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: One L_C_D_ displayed . +Project Manager: Okay . Um {disfmarker} That's that's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's all ? +Project Manager: We choose this one , and not this one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . Oh , I think , no it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's cheaper . +Marketing: Uh , is it a scroll wheel and pe push button , th this centre one ? +Project Manager: Or only a scroll-wheel . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Only scroll wheel . +Marketing: Or only only scroll wheel , okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah mm . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You try to s {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} You are trying to make make up {disfmarker} {vocalsound} make us up . +Project Manager: No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: It's already {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Because {vocalsound} how do you do to {vocalsound} y select ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: No , but you select with the two d the other two buttons , +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean you you go on the location with your scroll wheel +Industrial Designer: Y ye +Marketing: no ? That's true . +Project Manager: and then you {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Then it automatically {disfmarker} we can just do like you feel , it goes . And it will activate {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Stay longer . Okay . +Marketing: It should stay . Yeah . +Project Manager: Oops . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um , plus , yeah , it's {disfmarker} price is really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , okay . Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Special colours , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: For buttons . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , buttons and strawberries . +User Interface: buttons just normal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Special form . +Project Manager: You you have all of these , no ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} She's very hard on this . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm maybe n not this one but {disfmarker} +Marketing: Special colour ? Yeah . No . Special material ? +User Interface: That's for buttons . +Industrial Designer: Uh , we have titan +User Interface: But buttons are standard . +Marketing: Yeah , buttons are the standard buttons . Yeah . It's only buttons , these . +Project Manager: Yeah , so {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nothing special . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So we are at seventeen dot eight . +Project Manager: Not special colours an interest in ? +Marketing: No , the colour is in the L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And buttons are not colourised ? They are m +Industrial Designer: Mm , hmm , +Marketing: I no . +Industrial Designer: I think uh because you can just go for a good colours . +Marketing: We can just use this red . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Boo-hoo . {vocalsound} It's already too expensive . {vocalsound} Apparently . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: So what is {disfmarker} Are we supposed to cut things out now ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Marketing: Uh , until we get twelve fifty . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So think of what we can cut uh here . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , if I look at what is the most expensive things , uh it's the L_C_D_ +Industrial Designer: Sample speaker . +Marketing: and the speaker . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Apparently , we have to choose one or the other . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Well , as you may know there's some research done in the field of producing energy from mechanical eng , I mean , producing electricity from mechanical energy . So , the point is that when you take device and push the button , you produce enough energy +Project Manager: But you don't need a battery ? +User Interface: to make electricity . Yeah , that you don't need a battery . So , it's something like hand dynamo robot . A real high-tech version of it . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: But um +Marketing: So that would {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's like the hand dynamo , no ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe the jog wheel can be like kind of hand +Marketing: So , but if we select the hand dynamo it's okay , we only {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} is {disfmarker} +Marketing: We we win one . +User Interface: Okay , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: That's already that . +Project Manager: Uh it's a it's a beginning . +Marketing: Okay , let's do that . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Why not . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Let's do that . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} One here and here . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just remo +Project Manager: 'Kay . +User Interface: And I propose to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: S +User Interface: So uh , about chips . Advanced chip on print , right ? +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , put minus one there , please . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm not sure if this is legal . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's right . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , no . +User Interface: And ? +Marketing: And ? +Project Manager: M maybe minus uh three , no ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No . {vocalsound} +User Interface: So , was there result ? +Industrial Designer: No , no . It's not {disfmarker} +Marketing: Okay , let's see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . Mm . +User Interface: Let's have a look . +Industrial Designer: It's not changing , no ? +User Interface: Why ? +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} you don't +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah , if {disfmarker} Click somewhere , you'll see features . +User Interface: Oops . +Marketing: Yes , it does . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Maybe put minus two , so it looks uh {vocalsound} more reasonable . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Why not . +Marketing: Yeah , anyway {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: Minus . +Marketing: No , minus two . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Nobody will know . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not recorded , is it ? +User Interface: Good . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay , we're on time . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: So now on , we can increase our {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Still you have two more . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh , we can put uh a hand dynamo and a battery if you want . +Industrial Designer: Maybe we can use it for our party . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh . +User Interface: And a battery and a battery , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Both its it's cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: No , now we are exp exceeding I think . +User Interface: Now it's fancy , +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: let's add one instead of two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that {disfmarker} +Marketing: It {disfmarker} Is it ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah y +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think we're exceeding now . +Industrial Designer: No , but point five point three . +Marketing: We have to remove the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Marketing: Uh , it's better . I think they are counting uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . It's maximum +Industrial Designer: Is really strict ? +Marketing: We would prefer , +Project Manager: and don't have to {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: yeah . Maximum is maximum . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Marketing: So , remove one of them . Yeah . Okay . Okay , we're uh on target . +Project Manager: Uh , mm-mm . Yeah . Mm . Okay . Mm . So {vocalsound} target reached . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I'm just curious to see this +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ho {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} address chip on print . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's um English uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Trick {vocalsound} . Uh , I would say it's the Russian trick , but +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , but uh {gap} is uh English . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Anyway {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No , +Industrial Designer: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well , I don't know . +Marketing: they may have some their origins , strange origins {disfmarker} +User Interface: I don't know . I am not sure who was programming this calculator , you know . 'Cause uh {disfmarker} I wonder if we put A_ or B_ somewhere instead of a number . +Project Manager: Mm , let's try . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No , no , no . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we can discuss all these things in our party . +Marketing: Let's finish this meeting instead . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} I save it uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: What else ? +Project Manager: Okay , so next mm {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: No , that's yours . +Marketing: This is right . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: Okay , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: so finance , that's done . Are the cost under twelve ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah , very much . +Marketing: Yes . Project evaluation , good . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . So now {disfmarker} +User Interface: Next slide . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Project process . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We have to make um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Safe uh asse uh safe assessment . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah . Mm . See mm how {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Are we a good team ? Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Yeah , I think we've listened to everybody . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Everybody could say what they thought . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: And uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is there enough room for creativity ? +User Interface: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . And you . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . When we see the results , there is no doubt there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's really {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} Oh . {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Well , project evaluation . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe a lack of leadership ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: M maybe not , huh ? +Marketing: Team-work , very strong , I would say . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , our team-work is really strong . +Marketing: Team-work , no problem . Means . Whiteboard , digital pens . +Industrial Designer: Oh , we still {gap} , I guess . +User Interface: What was the {disfmarker} Oh yeah , what was good ? Everything . What was bad ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think white-board is useful . Digital pens , useful . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: New ideas found ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So , you say , is there sheep ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luck . {vocalsound} Okay . So luck , but good . {vocalsound} +Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Which imply good uh team performance . +Marketing: Yeah , +Project Manager: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . A good leader , you know , a good leader is somewhere in the shade and {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: but uh then I I mus That's true . And there's uh one very important point . +Industrial Designer: Don't really . +Marketing: We're on time . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And we also {disfmarker} +Marketing: Meetings finish when they have to or even before . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . We made {disfmarker} Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: The {disfmarker} for meeting it's uh one of the most important thing . +User Interface: Of course . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Not to waste time , that's important . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah , we have other {vocalsound} uh remote controls to create . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We need time f +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , we got new idea , speech recognition , location finding . New materials , new s uh this fancy strawberry design . +Project Manager: A lot of uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: New materials . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , uh new ways of doing financial {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm , yeah . Hey , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And new tricks . {vocalsound} +Marketing: just wondering if my uh {disfmarker} what about the the pink {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the pinkness of that uh +Project Manager: Mm . Mm . They're working on um pink titanium . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . They are working on a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah , very {gap} . +Marketing: Okay , good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Budget . +Marketing: I think we are great . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: There's no no other words for that . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} We are probably the best . +User Interface: Alright . +Project Manager: Mm yeah . Yeah , +Marketing: Real Reaction is uh +Project Manager: we're really nice . +Marketing: {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Finished ? +Project Manager: I think it's {disfmarker} +Marketing: Ah , celebration . Are the costs within the budget ? +Project Manager: Yeah . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Of course they are . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Is the project evaluated ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , it is . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah , +Marketing: Yes , it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We got two {disfmarker} +User Interface: So , we see , we can even forecast . {gap} they propose us like celebration , everything , +Industrial Designer: Good score . +User Interface: we could forecast it , right ? +Marketing: To whom ? To the whole our company ? +Project Manager: I'm the one , {vocalsound} proposing the celebration . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course , +User Interface: You ? It was you . +Project Manager: you know I'm the program manager . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: So , let's celebrate . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: So where we will go now ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Ah um , +Industrial Designer: Uh , ye +Project Manager: I think it's finish . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think the meeting {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Will go to Italian restaurant , or {disfmarker} +Marketing: The meeting is over at least . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm . +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Marketing: So , we have to go out . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: We can decide . +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we go to the party . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Project Manager: {gap} thank you to you . Mm . +","This meeting is a detail design meeting that brings together team members from different departments including project management, marketing, user interface, and industrial design to discuss the prototype of a product they are collaborating on, a remote control device. + +The meeting begins with some informal greetings and the project manager providing an overview of the agenda. Initially, Mark and Rama are slated to present the prototype, followed by Sammy, who will propose criteria for evaluating it. The meeting then transitions into discussing the financial feasibility of the project and ends with the team self-evaluating their performance. + +During the prototype presentation, there is a focus on the design process of the remote control. An Industrial Designer and a User Interface team member describe the design choices involved, including the selection of materials like titanium and specific design features such as fruit-themed buttons that mimic strawberries. They also present slides and talk about the technical specifications which include advanced features like speech recognition, an L.C.D. display that changes color, and a location finder function. + +The conversation is casual and includes some humorous exchanges such as the potential inclusion of chocolate and playful sounds imitating flatulence. There is also a curious moment when the User Interface representative talks about contacting NASA and linking the design to the stars, highlighting society's acceptance of the product. + +As they proceed to the financial aspects, the team assesses the cost of various components and features to ensure the project is financially feasible. They strive to keep the costs under a target budget figure, making some suggestions like integrating hand-dynamo technology to eliminate the need for batteries, which would be both innovative and cost-saving. + +In the project process evaluation phase, the team critically evaluates their teamwork, creativity, leadership, and time management. They seem to agree that they have a strong team with good collaboration, and they particularly note the timely manner in which the meeting is conducted. + +At the closing of the meeting, there's a sense of accomplishment, and they suggest holding a celebration party to honor their success. Marketing mentions their daughter as a hypothetical consumer, and the project manager acknowledges good teamwork and suggests celebrating within the budget constraints. + +The meeting demonstrates a collaborative, creative approach to product design, with attention to financial responsibility. It ends with acknowledgment of the team's hard work and positive anticipation of celebrating their achievements. The team seems to have met their project evaluation criteria successfully and is confident enough to move towards manufacturing the remote control while maintaining the budget." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I dunno . {vocalsound} Throwing away my toothpick . +User Interface: Hi there . +Project Manager: Yo . Ow . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Nice user interface . +Project Manager: Yeah . What the {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah well , ja well let's just start . +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I've uh made a presentation uh but uh I'll open it on the Smartboard , so we can all see it . +Marketing: Right let's see it . +Project Manager: So it's in the project documents because that's what we can find here . Well {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very nice . Well this is called the the the kick-off meeting . So uh {vocalsound} I'm the Project Manager , so I had to fill it in , +Marketing: 'Kay . +Project Manager: and uh hmm . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh sorry . {vocalsound} And {gap} an uh a nice agenda . {vocalsound} Uh we'll do the opening and then uh we'll meet each other , what uh we already do , so , that's not uh very much trouble . I'll I'll show you the the tools we have here , so that we can all use them . Then uh we'll look at the project plan from uh Real Reaction . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We'll discuss about our first ideas about the project , and then uh we'll close the meeting , and then we can uh individually uh do our things and then uh we'll get back here . So {vocalsound} this the opening we'll uh {disfmarker} We have to uh design a new television remote control . You have heard that uh already I think , so . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um we want it to be original , so a nice uh a nice new design . Uh trendy , it's {vocalsound} also for young people , and we have to just uh make it uh modern . And uh friendly , so size does matter . And uh {disfmarker} Well it has to be a have the the right uh the right buttons on the right place , that kin those kind of things . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Other uh {disfmarker} There happen to be uh three stages . {gap} functional , conceptual , and d detailed design . Um so every time we we'll do some individual work , get meeting , talk about it , uh and then go into the next phase . That's just it . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} We have uh these two Smartboards . Um well as I just showed , there's a project management folder , a project document folder on the desktop . It just works exactly the same as a computer . You just uh click on the on the folder and you open the everything you you put in it with your laptop . So you can uh make uh {vocalsound} Words Excel , everything . Um and the w the r uh the rest uh also works the same so uh when you open a notepad you uh you just get your uh things , you can uh draw . This is a uh well a drawing board . {gap} you have a {disfmarker} these different uh functions on the board . You can see them there . So you have a a nice pen , and it's works just like a bal ball pen . {vocalsound} This is just a {gap} . I want to uh {disfmarker} Oh yeah . Of course w {vocalsound} doesn't work any more . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe you should try to write on the on the big white uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes I will {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Does it ? Yeah . It works . +Project Manager: eraser {gap} so . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wonderful . +Project Manager: It's fantas fantastic . We can uh uh well you can save a file . So if uh we draw we have to save everything . Don't throw anything away . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Uh just we can start a new one , and we just go on , and don't throw anything away . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Just uh let them all uh stand here . We can delete , but we don't do that . Um you can here select a pen , you can draw anything you want . It's a bit uh childish you have to write . It's not as fast as you w you know it , but it does work sometimes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's just like a normal uh paint . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it's gone . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Alright , yep . +Project Manager: Well we are designers , so we have to have a a more uh a Smartboard . So that's fantastic . Um well this uh speaks for itself . We going to try it . So um we all uh are going to uh draw a nice animal on this board , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: not my idea . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Alright , your favourite animal ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes our your favourite . So um I'm to going to have to draw a kangaroo , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but I'm going d I'm not going to . I'm just uh going to uh well draw a nice uh beast +Marketing: {vocalsound} Grizzly bear . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: w I dunno what I'm going to design . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh um {vocalsound} doesn't {disfmarker} oh . +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , 'kay . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: I hope this was part of the assignment and not uh your personal uh enjoyment . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I just said it's not my idea +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but I am the Project Manager , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and officially this is my idea . {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I I I {vocalsound} I understand . Alright . +Marketing: We're kinda losing time , though . +Project Manager: what ? +Marketing: We're losing time , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Ah {vocalsound} the first the first meeting is just a bit uh loose , loosen up , a bit uh meeting each other +Industrial Designer: {gap} so start {disfmarker} +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: {gap} well uh uh nice yeah . {vocalsound} Sh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep yes . +Project Manager: I hope our Industrial Designer does this better because uh this is uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Don't uh count on it . +Project Manager: No {vocalsound} {vocalsound} so a a few legs . +Marketing: Do we have to guess ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes yes +Marketing: {vocalsound} A hippo ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: guess . {vocalsound} Well I should make it an hippo now . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's a mouse or a rat . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} No I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh . Oh I know it . +Project Manager: Well what is it , huh ? +Industrial Designer: It's a hedgehog . +Marketing: I don't know how to call it . +Project Manager: Yeah +Marketing: A hedgehog ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} difficult English word . I didn't knew it myself {gap} . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Well I'm amazed uh about your uh drawing skills . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Our characteristics sum it up . Well it's uh very {vocalsound} uh painful +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {disfmarker} {vocalsound} those kind of thing . So we can uh just uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're going back and now uh our Industrial Designer can uh draw its uh most favourite animal . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I am the Industrial Designer . +Marketing: Alright . Thank you . +Project Manager: Huh . +Industrial Designer: Chief , I am the Industrial Designer . +Project Manager: Oh uh but this uh marketing designer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} It's pr it resembles {vocalsound} the animal drawn by {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} +Marketing: It's {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: what kind of animal is that then ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} can I say it ? +Marketing: Yeah sure . +Project Manager: Uh it {gap} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's a rabbit . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Looks very nice , right ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It looks amazing . +Project Manager: No no no . What are you going to do ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: We want to erase it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No no save it and start a new uh {disfmarker} save it and start a new black uh doc {gap} a blank document . +Industrial Designer: These are very impor {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: These are very important documents , of course , uh these drawings , uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah well we have to save everything +Marketing: Yes uh right . +Project Manager: so now um the next one uh {disfmarker} {gap} and then save it and start an blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Marketing: You go man . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . There's also different colours and different uh well pen widths uh the line the the thickness thickness . +Marketing: Alright . +Project Manager: So um well you should uh try it but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I should have made mine a white rabbit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well y y y you could have but uh {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: And he deliberately draws a animal we don't know the English word for . +Project Manager: It speaks for itself . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like an uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh just a duck . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It looks like that beast from Sesame Street . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Big bird . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it a duck ? +Marketing: You're standing in front of it , +Industrial Designer: It's it's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it a plane ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: I can't see it . Alright , thank you . Yeah it's a bird , but what kind of bird ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It doesn't draw uh circles uh that easy uh . +Industrial Designer: Do we have to uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: You have to push harder . +Project Manager: Yeah just a bit a bit childish , +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: a bit {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: But we have uh {vocalsound} do we have to name the specific species of the bird ? +Marketing: Release your anger . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh no I don't . +Industrial Designer: No ? +User Interface: It's just a bird . +Project Manager: Well uh save the document +Industrial Designer: Well wonderful . +Project Manager: and then uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then a a new blank document for {gap} . {gap} uh will uh choose a new colour and a new pen width so w we can all see it . +User Interface: Here you go . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Why do I have to do the difficult tasks ? +Project Manager: No well first +Industrial Designer: Uh pen {disfmarker} +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah that's {gap} . +Project Manager: And then you go to format I think {vocalsound} , and current colour {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh current colour . +Project Manager: you choose a new colour . {vocalsound} And a new pen width uh {gap} also format . +Industrial Designer: I like uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: oh they don't have pink . {vocalsound} Oh b oh {vocalsound} think this is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's not like in paint . Line width . +Industrial Designer: Uh ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: And you can choose a nice one . +Industrial Designer: Line width . +Project Manager: Width width . +User Interface: Width . +Project Manager: With each other . +Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound} fifteen . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: And I can draw ? +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} So . Just a wa that's the way we do {gap} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: it's quite easy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's a pussy cat . +Marketing: It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh Pussy . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh the line width is too thick , but oh well . +Project Manager: Well then you change it . And erase things . +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} What ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It smiles nicely . +Project Manager: Super pig . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Now {vocalsound} I have to change the line width . {vocalsound} Uh one {vocalsound} {gap} . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah +Industrial Designer: These are {gap} whiskers , you know . +Project Manager: we know . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Uh well I think it's obvious right now . +Project Manager: Yes alright . It's a cat . {vocalsound} +Marketing: No it looks great . +Industrial Designer: Miaow . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well if this isn't obvious {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well well um {disfmarker} +Marketing: Just save it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah save it {vocalsound} and {vocalsound} start a new blank document . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I'll save it {vocalsound} alright uh save . Uh yeah uh blank . +Project Manager: Yep . So that's uh what we're going to use when we uh need it . +Industrial Designer: Well I feel comfortable now . +Marketing: Oh great . +Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} it's terrific , eh ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Thanks for this exercise . I feel totally at ease . +Marketing: It's good for group spirit . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah that's it . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It certainly is . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We're one big happy family now . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah something like that . +Project Manager: Well then uh the serious uh stuff . We're we want to sell it at twenty five Euros internationally um so um but we dunno what exactly th i it is in dollars , but uh twenty five Euros . Our profit aim is , worldwide , fifty million Euros . So I didn't uh exactly uh calculate how much we have to sell . +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} we want to keep it our costs at twelve and a half Euros so , keep uh that in mind when we uh talk about our uh materials an f and stuff , and uh marketing uh research . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Now then we all uh we can uh sit down and discuss uh what do we think about our current remote controls , first {gap} about design uh about uh aim in the market etcetera ? +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Well uh we c we can sit down uh because uh presentation can wait . We can uh take notes {vocalsound} and uh {disfmarker} Well who has uh some uh remarks about the current uh remote controls ? Please ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well I I didn't have to prepare anything about uh {disfmarker} {gap} +Project Manager: No uh I did . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it's not , it's it's not my task to uh talk about uh experience with current remote controls , but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well uh just w we're uh four uh if we if we would just have one then {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think it's im it's important to uh look at uh the remote controls of our competitors . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Get the good points uh try to merge them into one universal remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +Marketing: On our corporate site I saw uh a new D_V_D_ player uh we're gonna produce . +Project Manager: Yep . That's alright . +Marketing: Maybe it's important to make it compatible with the D_V_D_ player +Project Manager: That would be a nice idea , yes . +Marketing: so you can uh use your television and your D_V_D_ player with the same uh remote control . +Project Manager: Yep yep yep . +Marketing: Furthermore it's important to make it uh acceptable for the whole world , for different cultures , maybe , because we want to we want to {gap} well fifty million ? +Project Manager: Yes fifty million is our aim to a profit , so . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so a lot of people have to be able to use it . +Industrial Designer: No but uh the b the buttons have to uh have to have uh international recognisable buttons and uh +Marketing: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Easy to learn . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and numbers and uh that every culture in uh , yeah , people in every country can recognise . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: I'll make uh notes and then uh maybe uh {disfmarker} well I'll put it in the project uh folder when I'm done uh just now . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I also think we should not add too many buttons . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: No that's right . +User Interface: Modern day uh remotes have {vocalsound} too much buttons I think . +Project Manager: Y y you don't use uh the half of them that's that's {gap} +User Interface: Precisely . +Project Manager: culture uh international . +Marketing: Maybe we could make one button to switch between D_V_D_ player and T_V_ +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and make the other buttons uh multi-functional or something . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah indeed . +Industrial Designer: Yeah so it doesn't uh become too complicated with too much buttons and uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah right . +Project Manager: Yep , and maybe we do uh {vocalsound} we even have uh more than just a D_V_D_ player . Don't we have uh other uh ou +User Interface: Yeah we should make it compatible perhaps with everything we use , we uh we make ? +Project Manager: Uh . +Industrial Designer: And stereo uh s uh audio installations . +Project Manager: We also uh just uh released a T_F_T_ uh thing I saw . +Marketing: Yeah so but th that's kind kind of standard T_ television so it also works on that . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: And I think the people who who will buy our uh remote already have some experience with remotes . So we can keep that in mind . +Industrial Designer: Most people do , yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah . +Industrial Designer: It doesn't {gap} +Project Manager: It doesn't have to be , but we can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: it doesn't have to be {disfmarker} +User Interface: W well it's a n it's a new remote and you don't buy a remote if you don't have anything to uh to control with it . +Project Manager: Well except if we deliver it together with our D_V_D_ . +Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Marketing: We need to to keep it consistent with other d uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah because we look at competitors +Industrial Designer: Well . +Project Manager: and w if we pick up the good things about that and give it a nice design {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Yeah but it's {disfmarker} it has to be useable . +Industrial Designer: It has to be different and familiar at the same time . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: we could use another form or shape or colour , that kind of things . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah the shape will will have to be recognised . I thought about uh like most uh remote controls uh are uh a long box shaped thing {gap} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you can make it uh triangle shaped , +User Interface: Well we we could make more more oval or something , and and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's not uh very recognisable . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: Oo +Industrial Designer: Oval ? +Project Manager: N we can use uh it as a as a game pad . +User Interface: Yeah or so +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} one hand has the beer , so the other hand uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well yeah it's new . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} . Not with two hands . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah , right . +User Interface: {gap} but young people want something different +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: and it is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well i we already uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah but it's quite important that it fits . +Project Manager: one of our aims is that it has to be original and trendy so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh but it ha it has to be m +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . But you still have to know it's a remote and not another {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well there has been done a lot of researches about remotes uh we have to {disfmarker} we can imagine uh +User Interface: Yeah alright . +Project Manager: because it's a long time uh on the market . So the the form will have {vocalsound} been uh tested out so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah so the long box uh shaped thing must be uh , yeah , useful +Project Manager: Yes . Well {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: or else uh they would have been ano another shape . +Project Manager: for me personally I have a {vocalsound} a lot of remotes uh at home but {vocalsound} those ones that have a a round ending and uh well uh just an uh square uh middle {vocalsound} I don't like to use them . I have uh have to {disfmarker} it has to fit my hands . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: When it falls over it and I just have {disfmarker} and then the button that I use most has to be here . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah +Marketing: It shouldn't be boxy . +Industrial Designer: a lo {gap} the long box shape yeah . You have to {vocalsound} use one hand . +Project Manager: It f it fits your hands and then you just push the button that you use most with {gap} thumb . +Marketing: Nah {disfmarker} I don't agree with the long box uh shape {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Why not ? +Marketing: it it has to be custom made for the hand . +User Interface: Yeah it doesn't fit {gap} . +Project Manager: Tho tho those new D_V_D_ players on the market do have those . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it does fit in the hand if you hold it like this , and you can make it another shape , +Marketing: Yeah but if you shape it {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but then you have {disfmarker} +User Interface: No if y if you look at new Phillips uh D_V_D_ {gap} with their uh remotes {vocalsound} pl players {vocalsound} they they are the new remotes aren't box shaped . +Marketing: If {disfmarker} +Project Manager: D_V_D_ players . Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W no w what else ? +Marketing: No that's ol old fashioned . +Industrial Designer: I di +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah well but uh what what what do you suggest then ? +User Interface: Yes uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I can imagine that us +User Interface: Well {vocalsound} most of {gap} of them are are somewhat thicker at the end , and get um yeah thinner towards the uh the other end . +Marketing: Yeah right . It fits in your palms . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Well {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: but it's still then uh the the long box , uh but then with some uh round uh {vocalsound} round forms in it to fit your hand , +User Interface: Yeah it {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Hmm ? +Project Manager: A it h it has it it has a that's tha th th shape that it fits your hand . +Marketing: Um . +Industrial Designer: but it's it's still {disfmarker} Yeah yeah al alright +Project Manager: That's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but but it's still it's still {gap} sort of box , yeah . +Marketing: {gap} . +User Interface: Yeah yea +Industrial Designer: It it has round forms +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but it in the end it's still the box , so that's what I mean . +Marketing: Yeah but it has it has to fit your hand . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah I understand , but {disfmarker} no no I don't mean an entire box like completely square +Marketing: It shouldn't be too boxy , you know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} No no no . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but a also with round edges of course , +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: but in in in at the end it's still this long {vocalsound} box shape with convenient uh round uh shapes uh {vocalsound} to fit . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right maybe something like this +Industrial Designer: Yeah yes {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} and then a button here to switch between {vocalsound} different systems like D_V_D_ player +Industrial Designer: I thought about something like that . Yeah . +Marketing: and so you can {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: A big recognisable button on top or something . +Marketing: Yeah right , and I do think we have to keep this kind of idea with the with the numbers and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: We have five minutes left . +Industrial Designer: The buttons should uh also be not too small , not too big , of course , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes +Industrial Designer: and uh n uh uh not too close uh together . +Project Manager: uh that's {vocalsound} yep . +Marketing: But it should be possible to to um make it ap apparent that there are two functions for every button . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . +Marketing: So there has to be some space between the buttons . +Industrial Designer: Yeah of course uh to uh to uh to have icons to explain the different functions . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah right right , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Marketing: and maybe we should use colours . +User Interface: Yeah {gap} maybe we can um just like on cell phones those um well {gap} {vocalsound} you can you can put on on them , +Industrial Designer: Colours , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Ha . +User Interface: and so you can customise your uh your own remote with different colours or or special paint jobs {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's kinda trendy . Yeah right . +Project Manager: Sound nice . Yes . +User Interface: I dunno but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think we have to talk also about uh the the materials for um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it's just uh about our first ideas now +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Project Manager: so I think individually we'll have to uh come up with ideas for the next meeting about these materials and markets etcetera . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes ? +Industrial Designer: Already thought about something tha {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's uh it's important to uh notate all the the decisions that we make , +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: so we {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well thirty minutes we have . So um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: This is about uh what we are going to uh do uh . You'll get specific instructions when you're back in your room so uh it's uh logical uh . I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} No problem . +Project Manager: Oh and uh that's uh that's all . So we'll just get a notice that the the meeting is uh over . +Industrial Designer: Yeah now we can still talk about the material , +Project Manager: Yeah yes say . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we have some some minutes left uh {gap} I w wrote down uh that the case should be plastic of course , hard plastic , the buttons should be uh rubbery I think uh . +Marketing: Yeah . Yeah it shouldn't be too heavy . +User Interface: {gap} . +Project Manager: Well I have had remotes that um they had uh the function of the buttons was about uh uh a layer over the buttons +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: No n n +Project Manager: and when I've had use it much it was gone . So it has to be made in the buttons I think . +User Interface: Yeah that's bad , yeah . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +Project Manager: It has to uh not be loose . +User Interface: Yeah that's important {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Alright . And of course there are several electrical cables in it to uh {vocalsound} to connect things uh to each other . +Project Manager: Yeah . Is there an a universal uh universal way of um transmitting from the remote to the television so it's all about uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I think so . +Marketing: Yeah it's univ yeah yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a a common stan standard way {gap} +Project Manager: It's not that in China it's different ? +Marketing: Yep . +Industrial Designer: infrared beams an infrared beam I think {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah . But y you can have uh of course different between D_V_D_s and televisions and between {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you can use {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It it's a we we make an a universal remote so it ha has to work with uh all kinds of brands and things . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . But our T_V_s are mostly made in China and that sort of country , so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: China rules . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And have {disfmarker} well yeah I've wrote something down about how it works . {vocalsound} The user presses a button and with an infrared beam it signals the television set accordingly , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: But are {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: but that's pretty obvious , I think . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Are we going w uh with the front uh fronts uh idea ? +Project Manager: Well I think uh w we can look into that in the in the next uh thirty minutes . +Marketing: I think {vocalsound} we should make it universal +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: and you can always use a front front on it , you know ? You can use it {vocalsound} just plain +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {gap} . +Marketing: but you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} To make it more trendy . +Project Manager: Well j just y you get a n a normal front with it , but you can change them uh when you buy the {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: Yes . Yes . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: And we should uh dispatch those kind of fronts fronts a a around the world so uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: Well you can make profit with them , and it's {vocalsound} a way to make them trendy . +Project Manager: Well th those fifty million don't uh don't se sells itself {vocalsound} so we have to uh make uh some extra effort like fronts uh . +Industrial Designer: Well but th but the standard front will be uh just grey or something +User Interface: Yeah alright {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Yeah right . +User Interface: Yeah normal . +Industrial Designer: uh b a simple colour not not very flashy . +Project Manager: Yes . Yeah well it has to it h it has to fit the the te television and D_V_D_ set we are going to sell , +User Interface: No a colour everyone accepts . +Project Manager: so if they are uh black and black black and silver we'll make them black and silver so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Pink television sets {vocalsound} pink remote , {gap} . +User Interface: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {gap} standard . +Marketing: But people of often don't like bright colours or something . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Marketing: We have to make it grey or s or black . +User Interface: Well young people s li +Marketing: Yeah but then you can use {vocalsound} a a front . +User Interface: Yeah yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I must not forget my pen the next time . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well if if you {disfmarker} yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: If you have a a a television room for little children and you make a if if you buy a a pink front they'll they'll love it . I think . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah that's right . +Project Manager: But that's uh marketing uh research you can uh you can ask uh . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah or a t Teletubby front . {vocalsound} Yeah yeah yeah . I will investigate . +Project Manager: Yes . {vocalsound} Well our user interface you can uh maybe uh {gap} I don't know what your specific instructions will be , but uh probably about uh the precision of the buttons and and those kind of things and what buttons will have to be on the uh remote . And you will look into the technical design and um form , I think . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah also the the look and feel uh of the the remote's also my task , yeah . +Project Manager: Or something like that . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: What's the uh url or the website 'cause I didn't get {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah I uh w was wondering that too . +Project Manager: Euro ? +Industrial Designer: Y you went to the company website {gap} . +Marketing: It's {disfmarker} Yeah yeah yeah just if you start up your Internet Explorer {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it it it's {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: if you uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's the the the start uh starting page uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh oh right oh well I didn't uh use it {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Finish meeting now . Oh alright . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well uh we're going to back uh back into our rooms so {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well that's great . +User Interface: Next meeting is in {disfmarker} +Project Manager: In thirty minutes , but uh I think it will be {disfmarker} you will be warned uh through your laptop uh to get over here . +User Interface: Thirty minutes . +Marketing: Thirty minutes . +User Interface: Yeah alright it's it's handy to know {gap} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I'll have to restore my uh my desktop uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Very handy to know . +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's totally broken . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because uh {vocalsound} it's it's the half of the normal size . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right see you in half an hour then . +Project Manager: Oh right , oh . +User Interface: Oh . {vocalsound} Goodbye . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ma {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: W +Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} +User Interface: S +Project Manager: W {vocalsound} that was a nice meeting . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} . +User Interface: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Right uh see you in thirty minutes then . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , see you . {vocalsound} +","During a project kick-off meeting, the team discusses the design of a new television remote. The Project Manager leads the meeting, which includes a Marketing representative, an Industrial Designer, and a User Interface specialist. They brainstorm about creating an original, trendy, and modern remote that is also user-friendly. Key considerations include compatibility with multiple devices, including DVD players, ease of use, and international market suitability. The team tests out a Smartboard to draw their favorite animals as an icebreaker. Near the meeting's conclusion, they briefly touch upon potential materials for the remote, such as hard plastic and rubbery buttons, while keeping manufacturing costs to maintain the desired profit margin. The discussion also includes ideas for customizable fronts to appeal to diverse consumer preferences. The meeting ends with the understanding that individual tasks will be further refined and brought up at the next gathering." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: So , hello everyone . {vocalsound} We're here to have a kick-off meeting for the design of a {disfmarker} f for the beginning of new project um {vocalsound} uh remote control for the design for a new remote control {vocalsound} . I'm the Project Manager Christa Pavlov and {vocalsound} okay let's begin . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm first going to do an opening then we get used to one anothers and we speak about this tool we're going to design and try to make a project plan , some discussion and then we talk of uh the next meeting . So um we want to to do a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy and user friendly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I think the important points we have to t talk about are uh it's functional design , it's conceptual design , and desail detailed design . {gap} and for that we're going um all to work individually and then have meeting during the whole day . Um , so {vocalsound} let's try the whiteboard {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so any of you who want to go . +User Interface: Yeah , for favourite animals . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's gonna be not my favourite one but the one I can draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's gonna be {disfmarker} you'll try to guess . +Marketing: Wow . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Complex . +Project Manager: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? A cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . Darn . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: A rabbit . +User Interface: Yes , that's a rabbit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A rabbit . +User Interface: That's my favourite one . +Marketing: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Rabbit . +Marketing: A r a rabbit , oh oh yeah , where is the carrot ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to go ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I am not very good at uh {vocalsound} this kind of stuff . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My favourite animal is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wa +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A human +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A human , yay . It's a very complex animal {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: and um {disfmarker} yeah . Characteristics of this this animal is {vocalsound} dangerous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I think you're supposed to , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is the white {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . That's cobra . +Marketing: Ah , a kind of uh snake ? Cobra ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh not really . +Marketing: Exactly {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Small cobra . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it just {disfmarker} small cobra , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is that a worm ? Or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's co c quite recognisable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about you uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah Christa Pavlov {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Christa ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christa {vocalsound} Christa . +Industrial Designer: Chris . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A fish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Smiling fish {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Smile fish . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: A smiling fish . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , w whiteboard is working ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} Next . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Let's talk about money . +User Interface: Just tr try to guess who is a User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} According to the drawings . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . +Marketing: So . Twenty five Euro for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm that's the price we want to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's the aim for the price for the remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We aim to do {vocalsound} this profit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the international market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'tis big number . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're to sell two million then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} for a production cost of mm twelve fifty Euros maximum . {vocalsound} 'Kay {vocalsound} . So any of you have experience in remote controls ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Uh yes , we have plenty at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In fact , my daughter likes l {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . To eat ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To eat ? Yeah , mainly , and to break . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So that could be a great um {vocalsound} application . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remote controls children proof . Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: Children proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye ye yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: So she likes uh buttons {vocalsound} which make click , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pret +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} it has to click . +Project Manager: So they have to be waterproof maybe ? +Marketing: It has to be uh wha {vocalsound} baby proof {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause they eat {disfmarker} she ate it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} but mainly it has to be very robust +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because even if she's not very tall she's uh {vocalsound} high enough so that uh when she throw it away it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: So it has to be very robust . +User Interface: Okay , unbreakable . +Marketing: Unbreakable , yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have some child lock or something , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it has to be nice looking , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: colourful , maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful , yeah mm . +User Interface: Colourful ? That's not practical . +Marketing: colourful , because uh nobody has colourful remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's always black or {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: , they're always black , yeah , +Project Manager: Mm mm-mm . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: but this one could be I dunno , purple or b +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But how gonna {disfmarker} okay , just uh but it's uh monochrome it's n it's not like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you think , why not . +User Interface: Otherwise you will never find it . +Marketing: One colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah even we can change colours , no ? Like the uh +Marketing: Oh like the phones , +Industrial Designer: like the phones and these things we c yeah . +Marketing: yeah , it could change colours , yeah . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: At least for children like one colour and {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ch +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good idea . +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: And it should be really {gap} small and {gap} . +Project Manager: Small also ? Don't you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh not so big like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: No uh , not too much buttons or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , not too much buttons and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be , y you know these uh remote controls where um they are what they call a universal ret remote control +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so y you can decide that now it's the remote control for the television , then it's the remote control for the the sound system , or for your refrigerator +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} whatever {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or if we should have a targeted re remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So colour , robustness , easy to use , size , +Project Manager: So , I think there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , size matters , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Colour , {vocalsound} size , sh +Project Manager: So you you think it's better if small than bigger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe at least n not bigger than this I guess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , but without any extremes like n not of this size , not too large . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , not too small , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , at least it should hold in your hand n properly , like {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , like a palm sized . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just to hold it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But uh what would be different from this , from the others ? I dunno if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can change the colours that {disfmarker} at least the frame . Mm . S so then it depends {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at least the colour would be different . +Industrial Designer: you are to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm I mean you c you can easily remove the frame {gap} . +Marketing: I think one thing important for instance in this remote control if you remember when people use it they're {disfmarker} they never find a good button in the right place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: For some reason they they they click the off button when they want to use the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So there's a problem in the design of that kind of remote control somehow , +Project Manager: Mm . So , some kind of idea uh with um um {vocalsound} cellular phone with a a screen that will tell you what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno {gap} . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: no . +User Interface: no screens , it's too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Too expensive , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive for twelve Euro ? +User Interface: And n maybe not too expensive , +Project Manager: And too expensive . +User Interface: well it's not my problem , but well okay . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: But no screens on remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . I thought it could be only a screen {vocalsound} which would change depending on uh uh the use or even the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ma I prefer to have the off button at the top right , +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah . +Marketing: so I would have my own design of the remote control because it's in fact just a a full touch screen remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: if you {disfmarker} if you like . +Industrial Designer: I mean it it's like +Marketing: I don't know if it makes sense , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} it's like two types no ? {vocalsound} people are right handed or left handed so y because I am left handed I use like this , say if you're right handed you use like this +Marketing: Yeah , for instance , mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} so tha your switch on and off should be on +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So adaptable {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Adaptable . Alright , good , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , if if it's possible , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} +User Interface: so how many actions do we need to implement in it ? +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: On off ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe I think even we can keep two switches and then we can uh only make one working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can adapt only one switch , suppose here like we can make two switches and if I'm left-hander I use this switch to follow the main operations . +User Interface: I mean if it's less than three uh then we can make it uh like a +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Three buttons you mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} like three mental states , +Project Manager: Three option . +User Interface: yeah you know what I mean , +Marketing: Ah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we can just make it uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: controlled by a brain , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe if it's more , if there is a software inside +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that ask you three {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it {disfmarker} if we want a r universal remote control that we sa like we say before it may may need more than three mm three button , three mm possibilities , ye yeah . +User Interface: Sh sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah , more than three actions that you may want to do at a given time . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But for standard actions you usually what do you do , you change channels , you adjust volume , and nothing else . +Marketing: Yeah but for instance when you change channels you can have {disfmarker} you can just go to the next one or go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's already more complex to go to channel twenty five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You do this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh no . +User Interface: I usually just change channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Because I'm only using three or four channels but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . But they keep generally their t slash slash uh this thing and then the dash dash and then you can put {disfmarker} yeah , you can only have one bit . +Project Manager: Yeah . I change channel like this , m uh I want to go to twenty five , and then to ten , uh-huh mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Dash . +Marketing: And then back to the one I was before , +Project Manager: Also we can be here {disfmarker} +Marketing: so there's {disfmarker} whichever it was . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you can +Project Manager: yeah , that would be cool . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Go back button is good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh uh we had that in in other countries . +User Interface: I once had it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , the previous button is {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah e even the history so you could like uh undo {vocalsound} previous of the previous . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: History . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then you can watch what your {disfmarker} ah you could also record your {disfmarker} record your {vocalsound} sequence of actions , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} that becomes more complex , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could look at what uh the other people have used there or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , what the {disfmarker} which channels the viewer {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: maybe it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think we have full of idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um we're going to meet again in thirty minutes and uh I want you to mm {vocalsound} work on these ideas and try to make a uh {vocalsound} the ones , {vocalsound} make um {disfmarker} to decide what what are the ones important and what are the one that we don't want . {vocalsound} And um m maybe more in the technical parts what uh do we want to do . Um . {vocalsound} So um your personal coach will send you some instruction for for this thirty minutes . +Marketing: So what does M_E_ means ? M_E_ the user requirements ? Or that's uh that's for us ? +User Interface: Market Expert . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Marketing {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Uh that's me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , of course {vocalsound} yeah , the user requirement specifications , uh-huh , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll think of that . +Project Manager: Mm okay . So . +Marketing: So ? +Project Manager: I think that's all . +Marketing: Meeting's over ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Thank you everybody . +","Project Manager Christa Pavlov led a kick-off meeting with a User Interface designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing team member to brainstorm the design of a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. They discussed functional design, conceptual design, and detailed design. The meeting included drawing favorite animals as a form of team-building, discussions on the remote's robustness, waterproofing, user adaptability, color, and simplicity, aiming for a production cost of 12.50 Euros with a retail price of 25 Euros. Ideas included a child-proof design, a universal remote control function, and ensuring the remote is palm-sized for easy holding. The team was tasked to refine these ideas within thirty minutes before regrouping." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: All hooked up . {vocalsound} Okay , so now we are here at the functional design meeting . Um {vocalsound} hopefully this meeting I'll be doing a little bit less talking than I did last time 'cause this is when you get to show us what you've been doing individually . The agenda for the meeting , I put it in the sh shared documents folder . I don't know if that meant that you could see it or not . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Did anyone ? +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: No . +Project Manager: No . Oh well . Um I'll try and do that for the next meeting as well so if you check in there , there's a shared project documents folder . Um and it should be in there . +User Interface: Mm . Um um wi on on a what ? Oh project project documents , yeah , yeah , yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Project documents , yeah . So I'll put it in there . +User Interface: Oh okay , yeah . +Project Manager: Is it best if I send you an email maybe , to let you know it's there ? +User Interface: Yes , I think so . +Project Manager: Yep . I'll do that next time . Um {vocalsound} I'll act as secretary for this meeting and just take minutes as we go through , and then I'll send them to you after the meeting . The main the main focus of this meeting is your presentations that you've been preparing during the time , so we'll go through each of you one by one . Um then we need to briefly discuss the new project requirements that were sent to us . I just sent +User Interface: Yeah , the last minute , yeah , +Project Manager: at the last minute , I'm sorry about that , +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: but we can see how that affects what you were you were doing . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Um and then we need to , by the end of the meeting come to some kind of decision on who our target group's going to be and what the functions of the remote control {disfmarker} that's the the main goal is to come up with those two things , target group and functions of the remote control . And we've got forty minutes to do that in . So I would say {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: You said uh targ target groups , +Project Manager: yeah ? +Industrial Designer: what does that mean ? +Project Manager: As uh who it is that we're going to be trying to sell this thing to , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh okay , 'kay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So we need to {disfmarker} yeah , we need to have a fairly defined group that that we want to focus on +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: and then look at the functions um of the dem remote control itself . So with that I think it's best if I hand over to you . Does anyone have a preference for going first ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . {vocalsound} I can go first , +Project Manager: You wanna go first ? +Industrial Designer: yeah . +User Interface: Okay . Hmm . +Project Manager: Okay , so we need to unplug my laptop and plug in yours . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I assume we just pull it out ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . Um {vocalsound} so f from the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Just before you start , to make it easier , would you three mind emailing me your presentations ? Once we {disfmarker} you don't have to do it now but when {disfmarker} once you go back , +User Interface: Okay , yeah , afterwards , yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Right sure . +Project Manager: just so that I don't have to scribble everything down . +Industrial Designer: Uh okay . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So n uh with uh with regard to the {vocalsound} uh working design of this uh uh remote control uh I've identified um {vocalsound} a few basic uh components of the remote and uh {vocalsound} se uh from the design , functional design perspective um w I c we can now uh know wha what exactly the components are and how how they work together with each other . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} {vocalsound} this is the method that uh I'll mostly be following in my um {vocalsound} in my uh role . Um the identification of the components , uh and uh since since I'm dealing only with the technical aspects , I would need feedback from the marketing person uh and {vocalsound} uh from the user interface person . Uh we'll then integrate this into the product design at a technical level +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: and uh basically update and come up with a new design , so it's a cyclical process . {vocalsound} Okay , so {vocalsound} these were the basic findings from today . The last three bullets have been integrated from uh the last minute uh email . Uh I just quickly jotted them down . Um {vocalsound} so basically uh the {disfmarker} as I told you the identification of how the remote control works and what are the various parts to it uh and what are the different processes um {vocalsound} and how the parts uh communicate with each other . Um {vocalsound} okay , so e the mee email said that teletext is now outdated , so we need to do away with that functionality of the remote control . Um also uh the remote control should be used only for television , because incorporating other features um makes it more comp complex . And the reason why teletext is outdated because uh of internet and uh the availability of internet over television . How however , our our remote control would only be dealing uh with the {vocalsound} the use for television , {vocalsound} in order to keep things simple . Um {vocalsound} also the management wants that um our design should be unique uh it {disfmarker} so {vocalsound} it should incorporate um colour and the slogan uh that our company um has it as its standard . {vocalsound} Okay , so he he here is a functional overview of the remote control . Um {vocalsound} there's basically an energy source at the heart uh which feeds into the chip and the user interface . The user interf interface communicates with the chip , so {vocalsound} I'll basic go over to the {disfmarker} Okay . {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} if uh if this is our energy source and this is a cell , uh it communicates {disfmarker} uh it feeds energy into the into the chip , which basically finds out h uh how how to do everything . There is a user interface here . {vocalsound} So whe when the user presses a button , it feeds into the chip and the chip then generates a response and takes the response to an infrared terminal , um which then {disfmarker} so the output of the chip is an infrared bit code , which is then communicated {vocalsound} to the remote site , which h has an infrared receiver . Um the there can be uh a bulb here or something to indicate whether the remote is on or communicating . Um so these are the essent so a all the functionality of the remote control , whatever new functions that we need to do , um make the chip more complicated uh and bigger , basically . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay . {vocalsound} Um so {vocalsound} i in my personal preferences um {vocalsound} I'm hoping that we can ke keep the design as simple and clear as possible . This would uh help us uh to upgrade our technology at a future point of time . And uh also if we can incorporate uh the latest features in our chip design , so that our um {vocalsound} uh remote control does not become outdated soon and it's compatible with mot most uh televisions . {vocalsound} That's about it . {vocalsound} So anything that you would like to know or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Do you have any um i idea about costs at this point ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No , I don't have any idea about what each component costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Br +Industrial Designer: Um yeah . +Project Manager: Okay . 'Cause that's something to consider , I guess , if we're if we're using more advanced technology , it might increase the price . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Certainly , yeah . So so tha yeah , {vocalsound} we definitely need to operate within our constraints , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: but um {vocalsound} unfortunately I I do not have any data , so uh I just identified the functional components for that . +Project Manager: That's fine . Are there any more questions , or shall we just skip straight to the next one and then we can discuss all of them together at the end ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we need like some general discussion at the end probably . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , okay . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that will do . Okay , so do you want to {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , I think since since we were discussing some um design issues then I I I would like to continue {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , shall shall we pull this up ? +User Interface: okay , yeah . +Project Manager: I think that has to come out of there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Thanks . +Project Manager: Yeah , I thought those last minute things , they're gonna hit you the worst . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh i {vocalsound} Okay , I hope {disfmarker} wait . Should it just {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I it'll take some time . +Project Manager: It ta takes a little {disfmarker} Oh , and have you {disfmarker} +User Interface: There's just nothing . +Project Manager: you need to then also press on yours , function F_ eight , +User Interface: Oh right , right , right , um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: so the blue function key at the bottom and F_ eight . +User Interface: Okay . Nothin +Industrial Designer: Oh , there it is , yeah . +User Interface: okay , something is coming up . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Now it's coming , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It'll come up , it {disfmarker} um uh no signal . +Project Manager: computer no signal . +User Interface: No signal ? Why ? +Project Manager: Maybe again ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , it says something now , +User Interface: Oh . My my computer went blank now . +Industrial Designer: adjusting {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay , adjusting . +User Interface: Adjusting . But {vocalsound} I don't see anything +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: There we go , there we go . +User Interface: I don't see anything on my computer now . +Industrial Designer: Oh , that's strange . +Project Manager: Oh , if you press if you press function and that again +User Interface: This is the problem , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: there's there's usually three modes , one where it's only here , one where it's only there , and one where it's both . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +User Interface: Um {gap} . +Industrial Designer: And one more time . +Project Manager: Okay , so one more time . +User Interface: Uh now it's {disfmarker} okay . No ? No . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Should {disfmarker} yeah just wait for a moment , adjusting . +User Interface: Oh okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Okay , that's fine , that's good . Okay , let's start from the beginning . So I'm going to speak about technical functions design uh just like some {vocalsound} some first issues that came up . Um 'kay , so the method I was um adopting at this point , it's not um for the for the whole um period of the um {vocalsound} all the project but it's just at th at this very moment . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um uh my method was um to look at um other {vocalsound} um remote controls , uh so mostly just by searching on the web and to see what um functionality they used . And then um after having got this inspiration and having compared what I found on the web um just to think about what the de what the user really needs and what um what the user might desire as additional uh functionalities . {vocalsound} And yeah , and then just to um {vocalsound} put the main function of the remote control in in words . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Um so the findings uh were {vocalsound} um that the main function of the remote control is is just sending messages to the television set , so this quite straightforward . And uh w some of the main functions would be switching on , switching off , uh then the user would like to switch the channel um for example just m changing to the next channel to to flip through all all of the possible channels , or then mm {vocalsound} uh the other possibility would be that um she might just want to choose one particular channel , so we would need the numbers . And and also the volume is very important . Um {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} I als +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry , cou could you go back for a second ? +User Interface: okay . +Industrial Designer: Uh switching on off channel , uh volume , {vocalsound} okay , that's great . +User Interface: 'Kay . Um um among the findings I found that m m most of the curr mm presently available remote controls also include other mm {vocalsound} functionalities um in their design , like operating a V_C_R_ , but they don't seem to be able to deal with D_V_D_ players , but then {vocalsound} there are {disfmarker} surely there are many other functionali functions that could possibly be added to them , but according to the last minute update um actually um we do not want to have all this complicated functions added to our design . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So my personal preferences would be uh to keep the mm the whole remote control small um just like the physical size . And then it must be easy to use , so it must follow some conventions um like whereabouts you find the on off button and maybe the colour tends to be red or something . Um then {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah , the must-have buttons would be on off and then {vocalsound} the channel numbers and then um {vocalsound} the one that allows us to go to the next or the previous channel , and then volume has to be there . But then um other functionalities um {vocalsound} could be just {disfmarker} uh there could be a menu button and you could change things on the screen then , um for example brightness and mm similar functions could be just um {vocalsound} done through the menu . And yeah , the last question I had about whether we wanted to incorporate n uh more functionalities , the answer was already no because of the last minute update . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So at the {disfmarker} for the time being that's uh that's all . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: If you have questions {disfmarker} +Project Manager: If {disfmarker} I mean that was the the directive that came through from management , but if we had a a decent case for {disfmarker} that we really think it's important to include video and D_V_D_ , I could get back to them and see . It's w it's just whether it's worth arguing about . +User Interface: Yeah , and also it's it's um {disfmarker} other question is uh because there are so many different {disfmarker} And there are so many different things that could possibly be included +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: because besides video and D_V_D_ there are the mm um video C_D_s and whatever , so it might be problematic to to choose between all these possible things . +Project Manager: Yeah . Mm-hmm . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: Are there any questions for clarification of Maarika before we go on to the next one ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So in the u user interface requirements uh uh uh we we have been able to identify what are the basic buttons that we do want . Um but um {vocalsound} so so at this stage , uh how we go about implementing those button we will not identify or {disfmarker} I mean in {disfmarker} we can completely do away with buttons and uh have some kind of a fancy user interface or something like that . But uh is is there any uh uh any thoughts on that ? +User Interface: Um well , I think the buttons are still mm kind of the most um easy for the user to use , +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I mean um what other options would you have ? A little screen or something , but this would be really kind of I think a lot of learning for the user +Industrial Designer: Yeah , and it'll make the costs {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: and and I mean the user just wants to get um get a result um quickly , not to spend time in like um giving several orders um I dunno . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: I think I th I would I would think the put the buttons , but if if you have other mm proposals um . +Industrial Designer: Uh I think the co costs will also play a big role when we come to know about them . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: So well we can probably wait until t we have more knowledge on that . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Uh i if the if the costs allow , we can have like an L_C_D_ display +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and uh with um {disfmarker} because we do want something fancy and fashionable as well . So yeah ? Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . Yep . +Project Manager: Sure , we can discuss that maybe after the next one . +Marketing: Cool . Do you wanna give me the little cable thing ? +Project Manager: Do you want to {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Uh am I going in the right direction ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} No . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wait . +Project Manager: Oh , I'm getting hungry . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , here it comes . Okay , here you are . +Marketing: Cool . Ah , that's why it won't meet . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . +Project Manager: You set ? +Marketing: Yep , cool . Okay , functional requirements . +Project Manager: Uh we need to do the function key thing so that it comes up on here . +Marketing: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Hello . +Industrial Designer: {gap} try to press {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Is it plugged in prop +Industrial Designer: oh , okay , +Marketing: It's working . +Project Manager: it's working ? +Industrial Designer: yep . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Cool , okay . +Project Manager: Excellent . +Marketing: So what I have , wh where I've got my information from is a survey where the usability lab um observed remote control use with um a hundred subjects and then they gave them a questionnaire . Um so it was all about , you know , how people feel about the look and feel of the remote control , you know . What's the most annoying things about remote controls and um the possibility of speech recognition and L_C_D_ screens in remote control . Not that they actually gave me any answers on the L_C_D_ screens , so I should have taken that bit out , but anyway . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um okay , so . What they found is that people don't like how current remote controls are , so you know , definitely you should be looking at something quite different . Um seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly . {vocalsound} Uh the other twenty five percent have no fashion sense . Uh eighty percent of users would spend more to get um you know , a nice looking remote control . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um current remote controls , they don't match the user behaviour well , as you'll see on the next slide . Um I dunno what zapping is , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's um switching between channels , sort of randomly going through . +Marketing: Oh , right . But you have that little thing that comes up at the bottom and tells you what's on . Um okay , fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: so that's going back to what , you know , we were saying earlier about , you know , do you need all the buttons on the remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: they just make it look ugly . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Okay ? Cool . Um so this is my little graph thing . +Project Manager: Ooh , that's a bit difficult to see . +Marketing: Mm k +Project Manager: If you explain it to us it'll be fine . +Marketing: Okay , well , I can send it to all of you . What it is is um it's cones , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: 'cause I thought they'd be more exciting . Um but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I liked the , I liked the litt +Marketing: ooh where's it go ? +Project Manager: ooh come back . +Marketing: Back . Oh . +Project Manager: No . +Marketing: Oh yes , cool . Okay , I'm gonna stop playing with the little pointy thing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Um okay , so like what it shows is how much things are used relatively and what you can clearly see from that is the thing that's used most is the channel selection . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: What you can't see is volume selection , it's a little bit higher than all the others . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , that's the next one along , yeah ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , so what the graph shows is that , you know , power , channel selection and volume selection are important , and the rest of them , you know , nobody really uses and so that's the the numbers along the top represent their like um their importance , you know , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so on a scale of one to ten , how important is that +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: and , you know , channel selection and volume selection are absolutely essential , and the power , well it's not quite so essential , apparently , although I don't understand how it couldn't be , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} um and everything else , I think , you know , you can forget about having those buttons on the remote control , 'cause they're just not needed , and they're not used . Okay . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: This is the bit that the email messed up for me and that's what I was fiddling about with at the beginning of the thing . {vocalsound} Okay , cool . So um okay , so this is what people find annoying about remote controls . Uh that they get lost , that the uh you know , they're not intuitive and that they're bad for repetitive strain injury . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: I think if you're watching enough T_V_ to get repetitive strain injury from um you know , watching T_V_ , then {vocalsound} that's the least of your problems , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} The remote control . {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you know , {vocalsound} it's up there . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Um that {disfmarker} yeah . Okay , so um I mean the the R_S_I_ thing would be that , like when you have the computer keyboards and you keep your wrists up would be something that encourages {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: you want something with an ergonomic t design that encourages good use of the remote control and you know , not straining your wrists watching T_V_ {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes . Okay , cool . Right , um sorry this is pink because I was copying and pasting the table , and I didn't have time to white it out again . +Project Manager: That's alright . +Marketing: Um okay , but that shows how people {disfmarker} whether they would pay more for voice recognition software . So you can see from that that , you know , younger people to the age of thirty five are quite likely to pay quite a lot more f well quite {disfmarker} are quite likely to pay more for voice recognition software , whereas as people get older , they're a bit more sceptical about it and they're less willing to to try it . Um so clearly voice recognition is something to think about , but um you know I d I do wonder how well that would work given that a T_V_ , you know , tends to be people talking and um , you know , how are you going to stop it from just flipping channels whilst watching T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Um okay ? Cool . Um okay , so these are my personal preferences . {vocalsound} So you have sleek , stylish , sophisticated , you know , so something that's , you know , a bit cool . Um you know , functional , so it's useful , but minimalist . Um there's a there's an important thing that , you know , people use when , you know , when you're filling up your home , you know , a lot of people fill up their home with bits of crap , basically , you know , and you've got all this stuff , and you're just like , what the hell is that , who is ever gonna use it ? You know , so things should either be functional or beautiful or preferably both , so I think we need to aim for both . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Mm . +Marketing: Um okay , then a long battery life , like you were talking about earlier and um , you know , I was thinking that solar power would be quite cool because , you know , your remote control just sits there , and you could just sit it in the sunshine and save the environment a bit . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Um and then like a locator , so you know , kind of like you have for a mobile phone or {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: not a mobile phone {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Some kind of a ring , +Project Manager: Keys and things like that , +Industrial Designer: some {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , that's it , you know . +Project Manager: yeah . Whistle and it {vocalsound} screams at you , yeah . +Marketing: I know , it's weird . My flatmate and I were talking about this on the way into uni this morning and I was like I need to get one for everything . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} So yeah , so maybe something where you clap and then it beeps , something {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a kind of sound that you don't often hear on the T_V_ , you know , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: 'cause you don't want your remote control beeping every five minutes , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: 'cause you you'd then deliberately lose it by throwing it out the window or something . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: So okay ? Cool . That's me . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Okay , that's great , +Project Manager: That's you , excellent . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Um that's very good , +Industrial Designer: thanks . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: very interesting . +Project Manager: I'm just gonna tick yes . So , we've got about ten , fifteen minutes to discuss +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} I think one of the very interesting things that came up in um {vocalsound} uh Ka Kate Cat Cat's uh presentation was um {vocalsound} uh this this issue of uh uh like voice recognition being more popular with uh younger people . +Marketing: Cat's . Ca {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: So if we need to have a target group um then uh {vocalsound} I think as far as the m motto of our company is concerned , if we want to have something sleek and uh you know , good looking uh we are better off targeting a younger audience then um you know , people who are comparatively elderly . Um . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I mean that's the thing is that it didn't say in the survey , you know , whether , you know , these are the people that will pay more for a more stylish remote control , +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: but I'm assuming , you know , yes . +Industrial Designer: Right . Bu but but the survey did say that f things like voice recognition are more popular with them , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so if you want to put in something stylish , then uh th it'll certainly be more popular with this i ye with the younger people as compared to older people , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: yeah . +Project Manager: Then again I guess the th where it was most popular was the fifteen to twenty five bracket +Industrial Designer: Right , and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: and the {disfmarker} I don't know how often they're buying televisions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . Mm . +Marketing: Well , that's when you go to uni , isn't it ? So , you know {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah , but you don't have much money , generally . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah , +Project Manager: I would've thought it's it's more that twenty five to thirty five , when people are really moving out and they've got their first job and they want their nice toys and {disfmarker} +User Interface: you share a television or something that {disfmarker} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But uh still , if if you can go back to that slide and uh , how popular was it ? +Project Manager: O oh it's on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh , I've unplugged it . +Project Manager: sorry , we unplugged it . +Industrial Designer: Oh , oh , okay . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Do you want me to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Here , let me {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: That's alright , if you can just look it up on your computer , wh uh um people between twenty five to thirty five , uh how popular was {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Seventy six point three percent . +Industrial Designer: so it was sti still still quite popular amongst them . +User Interface: It was seventy something , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: So even they are seventy six percent , is that high amount ? +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Yeah , I kn I mean I know what you're saying about the fifteen to twenty five year olds , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: but I mean it has been proven that that people of that age group have a higher disposable income because they don't have like {disfmarker} I mean , you know , if you're at university , you're paying your rent , +Project Manager: Yeah , they've got no commitments and +Marketing: but you don't have a mortgage , you don't have a life insurance policy , +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: you don't normally have a car , +Project Manager: usually not a car and all of those things . +Marketing: yeah , so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: You're still learning to drive actually , +Project Manager: Kids . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you're more likely to b +Marketing: so that just costs more than a car , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} but yeah . Um so I mean like it is an age group to target , really , I think . +Project Manager: Yeah , and if we're if we're talking twenty five Euros as a price , that's not unaffordable , even for young people . +Marketing: No , I mean that's what , that's like fifteen Pounds ? You know , I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah this this is not {vocalsound} unaffordable , +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: but the problem is whether people need it , whether they do have a T_V_ {vocalsound} to use its full {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I d I don't know many people without a T_V_ . We didn't have a T_V_ last year , +Project Manager: But do they {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: and everyone thought we were off our heads , you know . +Project Manager: But the T_V_s are often kind of someone's old T_V_ that's blah blah +User Interface: Common , the students {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . The s the stu +Project Manager: and be a bit strange to have a fancy {vocalsound} rome remote . +User Interface: yeah , and the remote control might not {disfmarker} yeah , +Industrial Designer: Mm +User Interface: it might not even function with the old T_V_ . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Bu but even even in the case of twenty five to thirty five it's quite popular , right ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I d well we've we've got quite a d decent T_V_ . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , +Industrial Designer: So mm uh are are are {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: we're still {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Or w maybe we can just kind of uh uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: I think I think the fact that , you know , ninety one point two percent of fifteen to twenty five year olds are saying yes , I would pay more for a voice recognition remote control , does say quite a lot really . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: You know , so I mean that and the disposable income and {disfmarker} I don't think it's something to ignore , you know . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but at the same time I think maybe we can we can just decide to to have both of these groups as our target , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because actually I mean they're all still re young people . +Marketing: Is not a massive difference , you know . No , do totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , if we ta if we take fifteen to thirty five , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but that then does imply that we should try and incorporate voice recognition . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Is that gonna have a {disfmarker} an implication for the technical specs ? +Industrial Designer: I was having a a general outlook on um m most like sophisticated features , but voice recognition itself I'm not very sure about , because one of the p uh things that Cat pointed out was uh uh how do we go about implementing it ? Uh and uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: You do have it in your mobile phone though , don't you ? Because you have like {disfmarker} I mean every mobile phone now has like call this person and it calls them . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . But how frequently do we use it anyway +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and um uh h ho how good is it , +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: you know uh voice recognition softwares are still quite uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: I don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah . With um {disfmarker} but with a T_V_ remote it's gonna be quite limited if we're t saying the main things people want to do is on off channel five , +User Interface: An +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: S so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: louder , +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . +Project Manager: tha that should be relatively simple . +Industrial Designer: O {vocalsound} +Marketing: y you'd maybe need a code word . Do you know what I mean ? +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: So like when you say change , except that's {vocalsound} being said quite a lot on T_V_ , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: so maybe like , you know , remote . I mean how often do people say remote on T_V_ ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: Although I only watch Charmed , so really {vocalsound} I wouldn't know +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but like so you'd just say remote five , you know , remote ten , remote one two nine . +Industrial Designer: Right . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay , so it seems like a feasible thing to implement uh for for a limited +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , but maybe if you wanna look into that just to just to check . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: Um , so if we go for the the fifteen to thirty five age group and then of course we're going to get th anyone who's older than thirty five who wants to look young and hip and trendy and has the money , +User Interface: Yeah but uh um {disfmarker} Yeah , yeah sure , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: then they'll they'll still go for the same advertising . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't think there's a lot of uh voice recognition remote controls . +User Interface: Yeah , w well now the v the voice recognition if if it works wonderfully w we could possibly do away with all buttons , but I think this is not really the right moment yet , because people are just so used to buttons +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: and um , yeah it's it's kind of safer , so we we need both , +Industrial Designer: Mm . W +Project Manager: I think we need both . +Industrial Designer: What uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: so the voice recognition would be just an extra , it wouldn't really reduce the size of the remote . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: What wh uh {vocalsound} what I was thinking is that there is this uh separation between what the channels are on T_V_ and how they are numbered on the remote control . If we can do with {disfmarker} away with that , our product can be really popular uh in the sense that uh a person can say , I want to watch uh I_T_V_ one instead of saying that I want to go onto channel number forty five . +Project Manager: Uh-huh . Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , so if uh if something like that can be incorporated , {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that would be another way to do it . +Project Manager: So that if that was in the the voice recognition , that would be great . +Industrial Designer: some kind of {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but then the code word would be even more important , because {disfmarker} I mean Sky advertise on every channel , don't they , you know , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: so then it would be {disfmarker} you'd be watching Charmed , and then the Sky advert would come on and it would change to Sky . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Watch Sky and {vocalsound} yeah . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: and that would be really annoying . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . But that's definitely a possibility . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah but m but on the other hand , remote control isn't {vocalsound} as close to you you probably might just just uh speak into it +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: and and the T_V_ would be already further away , so it might not pick up the other things coming from there . +Marketing: Yeah . Do you not think that defeats the object of having voice recognition on a remote control though ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that you can yell at it , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , you know , so you have to have the remote control . +Project Manager: yeah . +Marketing: It's more like if you lost it and it's down the sofa sometime , you can yell at it {vocalsound} and it'll just change it , you can look for it later , yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah , but then the remote control I think {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} um the idea is kind of {disfmarker} it's it's not that it's sitting there on on top of the television , because then you could already yell at the television and you wouldn't you you wouldn't need the remote control , so the remote control is still something you keep n near yourself . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah , I suppose nearer to you but a b like if you have surround sound then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah and it might become very difficult from a distance for the television to understand what you're saying because of the noise factor for the remote control +Project Manager: Mm . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: being cl I mean it'll it'll {disfmarker} mm . +User Interface: No , but I I I was just defending the {vocalsound} the fact why why we want to keep the remote control close to us , a and uh not to yell at it from the distance . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm . So uh {vocalsound} wh another thing uh that can be used is that uh there can be a beeper button on the T_V_ , +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: so you can go and press that button and um and the remote control , wherever it is , it'll beep , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: so we we can probably come to know where it is . +Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: but then if you're buying the remote separately , +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: but y {vocalsound} you could have something , but i if it was something that you could like stick onto the T_V_ or something , +User Interface: Oh yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right , yeah , yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: some {disfmarker} like a two p if you bought it in a two part pack , so one part attaches to the T_V_ . +User Interface: Okay , yeah , mm-hmm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , 'cause it's it's quite important that you don't lose the the bit to locate the remote control . +Project Manager: The l +Industrial Designer: Alright , yeah . +Project Manager: Well that's right , but it solves the problem of having different noises . +Marketing: Yeah , definitely , yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . Okay , I think we're gonna have to wrap this up um . But if we go away with that that kind of general um {vocalsound} specification in mind that we're looking at fifteen to thirty five year olds , we want it to look simple , but still have the buttons so it's easy to use , but only those key buttons , the major buttons and then one sort of menu one , and then voice recognition included as an option +User Interface: The major ones , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: um but that obviously needs a little bit more working out as to whether it's really feasible and some of those problems we were mentioning um . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: What we have to do now is to go back to our little places , complete our questionnaire and some sort of summarisation , which y you'll get immediately by email . Send me your presentations so that I can use them to make the minutes , and then we've got a lunch break +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: and after lunch we go back to our own little stations and have thirty minutes more work . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Um I'll put the minutes in that project documents folder , but I'll send you an email when I do it , so that you know . +Industrial Designer: So where exactly is this i +Project Manager: It should be on your desktop , so on the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Ah , okay . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So I'll put it {disfmarker} I'll put them there as soon as I've written them . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you find it ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah in that one , +User Interface: It's just {disfmarker} yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: right yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , and email them round . +Marketing: Oh , so y you want our um PowerPoint presentations in there , hey ? +Project Manager: Yeah , that would be great . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: Oh so so we'll just put them i there , +Project Manager: Oh yeah , put them in there . Yeah , +User Interface: we we {disfmarker} yeah , w we won't even {disfmarker} okay . +Marketing: There you go . +Project Manager: then you don't have to email them . +Marketing: But is everyone's called functional requirements ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: No , they're all called something slightly different . Technical requirements and something something , yeah . +Marketing: Okay , so that's good . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: That's me done . +Project Manager: So , if you put them in there , we'll all be able to see them and refer to them if we need to . +Marketing: Okay , cool . +Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} as to where we're going from here , you're going to look at the components concept . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Yeah ? Whatever that means . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I guess I'll find out . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You'll be looking {vocalsound} you'll be looking at the user interface concept , +User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh something conceptual , yeah . +Project Manager: on something conceptual and you're watching trends to see how we go and surely voice recognition'll fall off the map or something that {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: um we'll keep keep our options op hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Wha what was it again that I was supposed to look into ? Con components , oh . +Project Manager: Components , +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: yeah . +User Interface: Sorry , but um the next meeting um are we going to have it um right after lunch or {vocalsound} shall we prepare our {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No , we have we have {disfmarker} after lunch we have thirty minutes to ourselves to prepare , +User Interface: To prepare , okay , yeah , that's good . +Project Manager: so that's fine , w before lunch we just have to complete the questionnaire and some sort of summary . +User Interface: Okay . +Project Manager: Okay ? Right on time . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Cool . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , {vocalsound} so you can {disfmarker} I guess we'll see you for lunch in a sec ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Okay , see you . +","The functional design meeting involved the Project Manager, User Interface Designer, Industrial Designer, and Marketing team. The purpose was to evaluate individual progress and discuss new project requirements for a remote control, specifically targeting features and the user group. Despite a minor hiccup with shared documents access, the team members presented their findings and discussed various aspects, including technical components, user interface design, and market research data. The Industrial Designer focused on technical components and their integration, the User Interface Designer reviewed other remote controls and proposed essential functions, and Marketing provided insights from a usability survey, suggesting targeting 15-35-year-olds, considering sleek design, voice recognition, and ergonomic factors. The team agreed to consider incorporating voice recognition given its popularity among younger users, focusing on primary functions, and keeping the design simple yet functional. The meeting concluded with tasks assigned to further develop ideas, including components concept, user interface concept, and watching market trends." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I think this is gonna be a pretty short meeting because I have four agenda items , three of them were requested by Jane who is not gonna be at the meeting today . So . {vocalsound} The uh first was transcription status . Does anyone besides Jane know what the transcription status is ? +PhD F: Um , sort of , I do , peripherally . +PhD C: Is that English ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Well first of all with IBM I got a note from Brian yesterday saying that they finally made the tape for the thing that we sent them a {pause} week or week and a half ago +PhD D: That 's our system . +Grad A: Ugh ! +PhD F: and that it 's gone out to the transcribers and hopefully next week we 'll have the transcription back from that . +Grad A: C can I have a pen ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Jane seems to be um moving right along on the transcriptions from the ICSI side . She 's assigned , I think probably five or six m more meetings . +PhD C: Yeah , I think we 're up to MR thirteen or something . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah , so um , I guess she 's hired some new transcribers +PhD D: Speaking {disfmarker} +Grad E: Which meetings is she transcribing ? +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um well we 've {disfmarker} we 've run out of E D Us because a certain number of them are um , sort of awaiting to go to IBM . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: For IBM , yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: and the rest are in process being transcribed uh here . +PhD D: So does she have transcribers right now who are basically sitting idle because there 's no data back from IBM +Grad E: So we 're doing some in parallel . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: No . +Grad A: No , no . +PhD F: Oh no no . +Grad A: We haven't done that process . +PhD D: no ? +PhD F: No . We 're not waiting on them . +Grad A: So . They ' r they 're doing the full transcription process . +PhD D: Oh . Oh , OK . +Grad E: So they 're just doing their own thing until {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Because I {disfmarker} I need to ask Jane whether it 's {disfmarker} it would be OK for her {disfmarker} um , s some of her people to transcribe uh some of the initial data we got from the SmartKom data collection , which is these short like five or seven minute sessions . +PhD F: We 're doing it in parallel , yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Um and we want it {disfmarker} You know , we need {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} Again , we {disfmarker} we have a similar uh logistic set - up where we are supposed to send the data to Munich +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: and get it transcribed and get it back . But to get going we would like some of the data transcribed right away so we can get started . +Grad A: Yep , sounds familiar . +PhD D: And so um I wanted to ask Jane if {disfmarker} if uh , you know , maybe one of their transcribers could {disfmarker} could do {disfmarker} I mean since these are very short , that should really be uh , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: There 's only two channels . So it 's only {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: As the synthesis doesn't have to be transcribed I think . +PhD D: It 's only two {disfmarker} Right , s +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} So it 's basically one channel to transcribe . And it 's {disfmarker} One session is only uh like seven {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that should have ma many fewer {disfmarker} And it 's also not uh a bunch of interruptions with people and all that , +PhD D: Right . And some of it is read speech , so we could give them the {disfmarker} the thing that they 're reading +Professor B: right ? So . Yeah . +PhD D: and they just may {disfmarker} +Grad A: Make sure it 's right . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: And so um , um , I guess since she 's {disfmarker} I was gonna ask her but since she 's not around I {disfmarker} maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , well it certainly seems {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh if {disfmarker} if that 's OK with you to {disfmarker} to , you know , get that stuff uh {disfmarker} to ask her for that , then I 'll do that . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , if we 're held up on this other stuff a little bit in order to encompass that , that 's OK because I I um , I mean I still have high hopes that the that the IBM pipeline 'll work out for us , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Alrighty . +PhD F: Oh , yeah , and also related to the transcription stuff , so I 've been trying to keep a web page uh up to date f showing what the current status is of the trans of all the things we 've collected and what stage each meeting is in , in terms of whether it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can you mail that out to the list ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm , yeah I will . I {disfmarker} That 's the thing that I sent out just to foo people saying can you update these pages +Grad A: Oh , OK , OK . +PhD F: and so that 's where I 'm putting it but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send it out to the list telling people to look at it . +Grad A: Yeah , I haven't done that . So . I have lots of stuff to add that 's just in my own directory . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I 'll try to get to that . OK . So Jane also wanted to talk about participant approval , but I don't really think there 's much to talk about . I 'm just gonna do it . And uh , if anyone objects too much then they can do it instead . +Professor B: You are going to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm gonna send out to the participants , uh , with links to web pages which contain the transcripts and allow them to {pause} suggest edits . And then bleep them out . +Professor B: OK . +Grad A: For the ones that we have . Um {disfmarker} +PhD C: So but it 's just transcripts , not the {disfmarker} not the audio ? +Grad A: Nope , they 'll have access to the audio also . +PhD C: OK , yeah , yep . Ah . +Grad A: I mean that 's my intention . Because the transcripts might not be right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: So you want people to be able to listen to them . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , um the audio that they 're gonna have access to , will that be the uncompressed version ? Or will you have scripts that like uncompress the various pieces and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , that 's a good point . That 's a good point . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably going to have to be the uncompressed versions because , uh , uh , it takes too long to do random access decompression . +PhD F: Hmm . Yeah , I was just wondering because we 're uh running out of the un - backed - up disk space on +Grad A: Well , that was the other point . +PhD F: Oh , was that another one ? +Grad A: Yep , that 's another agenda item . +PhD F: OK . I 'll wait . +Grad A: So , uh {disfmarker} But that is a good point so we 'll get to that , too . Um , DARPA demo status , not much to say . The back - end stuff is working out fine . It 's more or less ready to go . I 've added some stuff that uh indes indexes by the meeting type MR , EDU , et cetera and also by the user ID . So that the front - end can then do filtering based on that as well . Uh {disfmarker} The back - end is uh , going more slowly as I s I think I said before just cuz I 'm not much of a Tcl - TK programmer . And uh Dave Gelbart says he 's a little too busy . So I think Don and I are gonna work on that and {disfmarker} and you and I can just talk about it off - line more . +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: But uh {pause} the back - end was pretty smooth . +Professor B: Oh +Grad A: So I think , we 'll have something . It may not be as {disfmarker} As pretty as we might like , but we 'll have something . +Professor B: I wondered whe when we would reach Dave 's saturation point . He 's sort of been {disfmarker} been volunteering for everything +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: and {pause} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: O K . Finally said he was too busy . I guess we reached it . +Grad A: Yeah , he {disfmarker} he actually {disfmarker} he volunteered but then he s then he retracted it . So . Oh well . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: And , also um , I was just showing Andreas , I got um an X Waves kind of display , and I don't know how much more we can do with it {disfmarker} with like the prosodic stuff where we have like stylized pitches and signals and the transcripts on the bottom +Grad A: Oh , cool . +Grad E: so , right now it 's just an X Waves and then you have three windows but I don't know , it looked pretty nice and I 'm sure it {disfmarker} think it has potential for a little something , +Grad A: For a demo ? +Grad E: yeah , for a demo . +Grad A: Yeah , sounds good . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , so again , the issue is {disfmarker} For July , the issue 's gonna be what can we fit into a Windows machine , uh , and so on , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So it might just be slides . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 'll see , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: I 've been putting together uh Transcriber things for Windows so i And I installed it on Dave Gelbart 's PC and it worked just fine . So hopefully that will work . +PhD D: Really ? So is that {disfmarker} Because there 's some people um {disfmarker} It would be cool if we could uh get that to work uh at {disfmarker} at SRI +PhD C: Yeah . Yep . +PhD D: because the um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well Transcriber is Tcl - TK , very generic with Snack , +PhD D: we have m m We have more Windows machines to run the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so basically anything you can get Snack to run on , it will work . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} But the problem is the version Transcriber works with , the Snack version , is one point six whatever and that 's not anymore supported . It 's not on {disfmarker} on the web page anymore . But I just wrote an email to {disfmarker} to the author of {disfmarker} to the Snack author and he sent me to one point six whatever library +Grad A: Well I thought it was packaged with Transcriber ? +PhD C: and so it works . Yeah , but then you can't add our patches and then the {disfmarker} the new version is {disfmarker} is totally different +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: a and in {disfmarker} yeah , in terms of {disfmarker} of the source code . +Grad A: Ah . +PhD C: You {disfmarker} you can't find the Tcl files anymore . It 's some whatever wrapped thing +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: and you can't {disfmarker} you can't access that so you have to install {disfmarker} First install Tcl then install Snack and then install the Transcriber thing and then do the patches . +Grad A: Patch . Ugh ! +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I wonder if {disfmarker} if we should contribute our changes back to the authors so that they maintain those changes along {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: We have {disfmarker} Yeah b it 's just hasn't made it into the release yet . +PhD D: We have ? Oh . Oh , OK . +PhD F: So did you um put the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the NT version out on the uh Meeting Recorder page ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I haven't done that yet . I 'm {disfmarker} oh Nope . But I definitely will do that . +Professor B: So , can some of the stuff that Don 's talking about somehow fit into this Uh , mean you just have a set of numbers that are associated with the {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's basically ASCII files or binary files , whatever representation . Just three different {disfmarker} It 's a waveform and just a stylized pitch vector basically so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean we could do it in Matl - {comment} I mean you could do it in a number of different places I 'm sure . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But it would be cool if the Transcriber interface had like another window for the {disfmarker} you know , maybe above the waveform where it would show some arbitrary valued function that is {disfmarker} that is you know time synchron ti ti time synchronous with the wavform . +PhD C: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah , that 'd be very cool . +Grad A: It 'd be easy enough to add that . Again it 's {disfmarker} it 's {pause} It 's more Tcl - T +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So someone who 's familiar with Tcl - TK has to do it , +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: but uh , it wouldn't be hard to do . +PhD D: Right . But it would almost be like having another waveform displayed . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: S +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , maybe we could l look into that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} it seems to me that I c +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: It doesn't seem like having that real time is that necessary . So yo It seems to me you could do images . +Grad E: Um {pause} What do you mean by real time ? Do you mean like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like being able to scroll through it and stuff for the demo . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , jus Yeah . +PhD F: Is that what you mean ? +Grad A: It just seems to me jus +Grad E: It would be cool to see it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: It would be cool like to see {disfmarker} to hear it and see it , +PhD C: And to hear it . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: and see the pitch contours also . +Grad A: Sure , but I don't think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} You can do all that just statically in +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I think it would lose {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean y +Grad A: Just record the audio clip and show an image and I think that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , right . I just thought if you meant slides I thought you meant like just {pause} like {pause} um view graphs or something . +Professor B: You know , wh Yeah . So . Uh , no , we 're talking about on the computer and {disfmarker} and um , I think when we were talking about this before we had littl this little demo meeting , +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: we sort of set up a range of different degrees of liveness that you could have and , {vocalsound} the more live , the better , but uh , given the crunch of time , we may have to retreat from it to some extent . So I think {disfmarker} {pause} For a lot of reasons , I think it would be very nice to have this Transcriber interface be able to show some other interesting signal along with it +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so it 'd be a good thing to get in there . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , jus just looking for ways that we could actually show what you 're doing , uh , in {disfmarker} {pause} to people . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz a lot of this stuff , particularly for Communicator , uh certainly a significant chunk of the things that we waved our arms about th originally had t had to do with prosodics It 'd be nice to show that we can actually get them and see them . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And the last i item on the agenda is disk issues yet again . So , we 're doing OK on backed up . We 're {disfmarker} We 're only about thirty percent on the second disk . So , uh , we have a little bit of time before that becomes critical , but we are like ninety five percent , ninety eight percent on the scratch disks for the expanded meetings . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: And , my original intention was like we would just delete them as we needed more space , but unfortunately we 're in the position where we have to deal with all the meeting data {pause} all at once , in a lot of different ways . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh there 's a lot of transcribers , too . +Grad A: Yeah , there 're a lot of transcribers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so all of those need to be expanded , and then people are doing chunking and I want to do uh , uh , uh , the permission forms , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: An +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: so I want those to be live , so there 's a lot of data that has to be around . Um {disfmarker} And Jane was gonna talk to , uh , Dave Johnson about it . One of the things I was thinking is we {disfmarker} we just got these hundred {disfmarker} alright , excuse me {disfmarker} ten , uh SPARC - Blade SUN - Blades . +Professor B: Did they come in ? +PhD F: SUN - Blades . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . They came in the other day . +Grad A: They came in but they 're not set up yet . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad A: And so it seems to me we could hang scratch disk on those {pause} because they 'll be in the machine room , they 'll be on the fast connection to the rest of the machines . And if we just need un - backed - up space , we could just hang disks off them . +PhD F: Well , is there {disfmarker} Why not just hang them off of Abbott , is there a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because there 's no more room in the disk racks on Abbott . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Weren't we gonna get {disfmarker} +PhD F: Ah , I see . +Professor B: Well , maybe it should get another rack . +PhD D: But you still need to store the disks somehow . +Grad A: Well , but the SUN - Blades have spare drive bays . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just put them in . +PhD F: You can put two {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh you mean you put them inside the pizza boxes for the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD C: Internal . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . Cuz the SUN {disfmarker} uh , these SUN - Blades take commodity hard drives . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: So you can just go out and buy a PC hard drive and stick it in . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But if Abbott is going to be our disk server it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} file server {comment} it seems like we would want to get it , uh , a second disk rack or something . +PhD D: Plus we 're talking about buying a second dis uh , file server . +Grad A: Well , I mean there are lots of long term solutions . What I 'm looking for is where do we s expand the next meeting ? +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: I see {vocalsound} {pause} Oh , I see . +Professor B: Well , for the next meeting you might be out of luck with those ten , mightn't you ? Uh , you know Dave Johnson is gone for , like , ten days , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know he had left already . +Professor B: Uh , well , tonight . +Grad A: Oh , oh well . +PhD D: You mean he won't set up the {disfmarker} mmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: How much space do you need for these ? +Professor B: I don't know what his schedule is . +Grad A: You {disfmarker} we need about a gig per meeting . +Professor B: I 'm just saying he 's gone . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I thi +Grad E: I have um {disfmarker} I have an eighteen gig drive hanging off of my computer . +Grad A: Alright ! What 's your computer 's name ? +Grad E: So {disfmarker} Uh , Samosa . +Professor B: You had an eighteen gigabyte drive . +Grad E: Yeah , I had . Well it 's about {disfmarker} I think there 's about twelve gig left . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} And you have an X drives installed ? OK . +Grad E: Yeah . So , I didn't realize it was so critical . +Grad A: And you 're o you 're offering ? +Grad E: I mean I 'm not doing anything on it right now until I get new meetings to transcri or that are {disfmarker} new transcriptions coming in I really can't do anything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Um not that I can't do anything , I jus +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I jus I just gave Thilo some {disfmarker} about ten gigs , the last ten gigs of space that there was on {disfmarker} on uh Abbott . Uh {disfmarker} And uh {disfmarker} So but that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which one was that , X {pause} G ? X {pause} G ? +PhD C: XG . +PhD F: XG . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: XG ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's also where we store the {disfmarker} The uh Hub - five training set waveforms , +PhD C: Oops . +Grad A: But that won't be getting any bigger , +PhD D: right ? +PhD F: No . +Grad A: will it ? +PhD F: I don't think that 's on XG . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: On XG is only Carmen and Du - and Stephane 's disk . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: But I 've also been storing {disfmarker} I 've been storing the feature files there and I guess I can s start deleting some because we now know what the best features are +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: and we won't be using the old ones anymore . +Grad E: I have a lot of space , though . +PhD F: Yeah , I do I don't think it was on XG . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} Oh thats XA {disfmarker} Oh that 's X {disfmarker} +PhD C: Isn't that XH ? +PhD F: I th +Grad A: Not {disfmarker} not for long . +Grad E: I have a lot of space and it 's not {disfmarker} it 's n There 's very little uh {disfmarker} Yeah not for long . +PhD D: Maybe I 'm confu +Grad E: But I mean it 's not going f +PhD D: Oh no I 'm sorry . +Grad E: It 's not being used often at all . +PhD C: But I 'm using XH {disfmarker} H , too . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's probably {disfmarker} Probably only about four gig is on X {disfmarker} on your X drive , +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Oh OK . +Grad A: but we 'll definitely take it up if you {disfmarker} +Grad E: I th +PhD D: I think you 're right . It 's XH and D {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think it 's about four or five gig cuz I have four meetings on there , +PhD D: The b I 'm also using DG I got that confused . +Grad E: three or four meetings . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: Great . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: OK , so that will get us through the next couple days . +Professor B: We need {disfmarker} We need another gigaquad . +Grad A: Yep . At least . +Professor B: There should {disfmarker} I d There should just be a b I should have a button . +Grad A: The "" more disk space "" button ? +Professor B: Just press {disfmarker} Press each meeting saying "" we need more disk space "" {vocalsound} "" this week "" . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Skip the rest of the conversation . +PhD F: Well we 've collected so far something like uh sixty - five meetings . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} And how much does each meeting take ? +PhD F: And it 's about a gig uncompressed . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} It 's a little bit more as I usually don't {disfmarker} do not uncompress the {disfmarker} all of the PZM and the PDA things . +PhD F: Is a little more ? +PhD C: So . +PhD F: Right , yeah so if you uncompressed everything it 's even more . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . One point five or something . +PhD F: U Uh compressed how much are they ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Half a gig . For all of them . +PhD F: About half ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: So we 're definitely are storing you know , all of those . So there 's what thirty some gig of just meetings so far ? +Professor B: So - so So maybe there 's a hundred {pause} gig or something . Or {disfmarker} I mean . Cuz we {disfmarker} we have the uncompressed around also . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . Well we {disfmarker} We haven't uncompressed all the meetings , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I would like to . +Professor B: Yeah . Well I mean it 's {disfmarker} the they really are cheap . I mean it 's just a question of figuring out where they should be and hanging them , +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: but But uh , we could {disfmarker} You know , if you want to get four disks , get four disks . I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's small {disfmarker} I mean these things ar are just a few hundred dollars . +PhD F: Yeah . Well I sent that message out to , I guess , you and Dave asking for {disfmarker} if we could get some disk . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I s I sent this out a {disfmarker} a day ago +Grad A: And put it where ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} and Dave didn't respond so I don I don't know how the whole process works . I mean does he just go out and get them and {disfmarker} if it 's OK , and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: So I was assuming he was gonna take over {pause} that . But he 's probably too busy given that he 's leaving . +Professor B: Yeah , I think you need a direct conversation with him . And just {vocalsound} say an - e just ask him that , you know , wha what should you do . And in my answer back was "" are you sure you just want one ? "" So I mean I think {pause} that what you want to do is plan ahead a little bit and figure "" well , here 's what we pi figure on doing for the next few months "" . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: Wa - a I know what they want . The sysadmins would prefer to have one external drive per machine . So they don't want to stack up external drives . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {pause} And then they want everything else in the machine room . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So the question is where are you gonna hang them ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . I don't know what the space situation is in the machine room . +Grad A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Right . So this is a question that 's pretty hard to solve without talking to Dave , +PhD D: Th - The {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think part of the reason why Dave can't get the {disfmarker} the new machines up is because he doesn't have room in the machine room right now . +Professor B: cuz it {disfmarker} +PhD D: One {disfmarker} Mmm . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: One {disfmarker} One On - One thing to in to um t to do when you need to conserve space is +PhD F: So he has to re - arrange a bunch of stuff . +PhD D: I bet there are still some old , uh , like , nine gig disks , uh , around and you can probably consolidate them onto larger disks and {disfmarker} and you know recover the space . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . No . I think Dave {disfmarker} Dave knows all these things , of course . An - and so , he always has a a lot of plans of things that he 's gonna do to make things better in many ways an and runs out of time . +PhD D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But I {disfmarker} I know that {pause} generally their first priority has been for backed up disk . And so I think what he 's been concentrating on is uh the back {disfmarker} the {pause} back up system , rather than on new disk . +PhD D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad A: So . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . So . But this {disfmarker} this is a very specific question for me . Basically , we can easily get {pause} one to four disks , I mean you just go out and get four and we 've got the money for it , it 's no big deal . Uh , but the question is where they go , and I don't think we can solve that here , you just have to ask him . +PhD D: Maybe we can put some disks in the {disfmarker} in that back room there . +Grad A: Yeah really . +Professor B: Attach to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Popcorn . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD D: To the machine that collects the data . So then you could , at least temporarily , store stuff there . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's just {disfmarker} It 's not on the net , so it 's a little {pause} awkward +PhD D: The only {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: What do you mean it 's not on the net ? +Grad A: It 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's not bad . +Grad A: It 's behind lots of fire walls that don't allow any services through except S S +PhD D: Oh because it 's {disfmarker} because it 's an ACIRI machine ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh , oh oh . +Grad A: And also on the list is to get it into the normal ICSI net , but Who knows when that will happen ? +PhD D: But that can't be that hard . +PhD F: That might be a good short term solution , though . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the problem with that apparently is that they don't currently have a wire running to that back room {pause} that goes anywhere near one of the ICSI routers . +PhD D: Oh , +Grad A: So , they actually have to run a wire somewhere . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , e again , you know , any one of these things is certainly not a big deal . If there was a person dedicated to doing it they would happen pretty easily but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} jus every ever everybody {disfmarker} everybody has a {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} +Grad A: But Dave has to do all of them . +Professor B: Well all of us have long lists of different things we 're doing . But at any rate I think that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a longer term thing and there 's immediate need and I think we need a {disfmarker} a conversation with {disfmarker} Uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe after {disfmarker} after tea or something you and I can go down and {disfmarker} and talk to him about it Just say "" wha you know , what should we do right now ? "" +PhD F: How long is David gonna be gone ? +Professor B: Uh , eleven days or something ? +Grad A: Oh my ! +Professor B: Yeah basically tomorrow and all of {pause} the week after . +Grad A: And that 's all I have . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see . The only oth thing {disfmarker} other thing I was gonna add was that um {disfmarker} uh , I talked briefly to Mari and uh we had {vocalsound} both been busy with other things so we haven't really connected that much since the {pause} last meeting we had here but we agreed that we would have a telephone meeting the Friday after next . And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to make it , um after the next one of these meetings , so something that we wanna do next meeting is {disfmarker} is uh to put together um , a kind of reasonable list for ourselves of what is it , um , that we 've done . I mean just sort of bulletize I mean o e do do I can {disfmarker} I can dream up text but {pause} this is basically gonna lead to the annual report . So {pause} Um {disfmarker} If w +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: This is the fifteenth ? So just a week from tomorrow ? +Professor B: Um , that would +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , uh , we can {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So that 's an {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is this gotta be in the morning ? +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} Because you know I {disfmarker} Fridays I have to leave uh like around uh two . So if it could be before that would be be +Professor B: No , no but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't need other folks for the meeting . I can do it . A A All I 'm saying is that on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , OK , alright . Oh I 'm sorry , I misunderstood . +Professor B: Yeah so what I meant was on the me this meeting {pause} if I wa something I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm making a major thing in the agenda is I wanna help in getting together a list of what it is that we 've done so I can tell her . +PhD D: I thought you are {disfmarker} OK . Alright . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think I have a pretty good idea +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but um {disfmarker} Uh , and then the next day uh , late in the day I 'll be having that {disfmarker} that discussion with her . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . So . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} One thing {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in past meetings we had um also a you know various {disfmarker} variously talked about the um work that w uh was happening sort of on the {disfmarker} on the recognition side +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um but isn't necessarily related to meetings uh specifically . So . Um . And I wondered whether we should maybe have um a separate meeting and between you know , whoever 's interested in that because I feel that uh there 's plenty of stuff to talk about but it would be sort of um maybe the wrong place to do it in this meeting if uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Think so ? +PhD D: Well , it 's that {disfmarker} It 's just gonna be ver very boring for people who are not you know , sort of really interested in the details of the recognition system . +Grad A: I 'm interested . +Professor B: Well , OK , so how many {disfmarker} how many people here would not be interested in uh {disfmarker} in a meeting about recognition ? +PhD C: Me too . +PhD F: Jane may not be . +Grad A: Jane , I think . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Well I know {disfmarker} Well , Jane an Well you mean in a separate meeting or ha ha talking about it in this {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . If we talked about it in this meeting . +PhD F: He 's wondering how much overlap there will be . +Professor B: Yeah , so you 're su +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: So , uh , uh , Liz and Jane probably . +Professor B: OK , so we 're gonna have a guy 's meeting . +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , if you wanna put it that way . +PhD F: Good thing Liz isn't here . +Professor B: Real {disfmarker} +Grad E: Watch a ball game ? +Professor B: Yeah , real {disfmarker} real {disfmarker} real men {vocalsound} "" Real men do decoding "" or something like that . +PhD F: Don't listen to this , Liz . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: I mean it it 's sort of {disfmarker} I mean when {disfmarker} when the talk is about data collection stuff , sometimes I 've {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm bored . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} Nod off ? +PhD D: So it 's I c I can sympathize with them not wanting to {disfmarker} i to {disfmarker} to be uh {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} I cou you know {disfmarker} this could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's cuz {pause} y you have a {disfmarker} So you need a better developed feminine side . +PhD D: I 'm +Professor B: There 's probably gonna be a lot of "" bleeps "" in this meeting . +PhD D: not sure I wanna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I would as {comment} I would guess . +Professor B: Uh . Um . +PhD D: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think it must be {pause} uh nearing the end of the week . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . I {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I 've heard some comments about like this . That m could be . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} U +PhD D: And we don't have to do it every week . +PhD F: Could we {disfmarker} +PhD D: We could do it every other week or so . You know , whatev or whenever we feel like we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , I was {disfmarker} Why don't we alternate this meeting every other week ? +Grad A: Or just alternate the focus . +PhD F: Tha - That 's what I mean . +Grad A: Yeah , so on even weeks have {pause} basic {pause} on data . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: We could do that , yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Personally I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not in favor of more meetings . Um . {vocalsound} Because , uh . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I am . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Oh sor +PhD F: But I do I don't {disfmarker} I mean a lot of times lately it seems like we don't really have enough for a full meeting on Meeting Recorder . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Well , except that we keep going for our full time . +PhD F: So if we did that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: Well , cuz we get into these other topics . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: We feel {disfmarker} We feel obligated to collect more data . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Ugh . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I don't . +PhD F: So if we could alternate the focus of the meeting {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's read digits and go . +Professor B: Why don't we just start with that . +PhD D: ummh . {comment} ummh . {comment} OK . +Professor B: And then if we find , you know we 're just not getting enough done , there 's all these topics not coming up , then we can expand into another meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I think that 's a great idea . Uh . So uh . Um . Let 's chat about it with Liz and Jane {pause} when we get a chance , see what they think and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah that would be good . I mean Andreas and I have various talks in the halls +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and there 's lots of things , you know , details and stuff that would I think people 'd be interested in and I 'd {disfmarker} you know , where do we go from here kind of things and {disfmarker} So , it would be good . +Professor B: Yeah , and you 're {disfmarker} you 're attending {pause} the uh {disfmarker} the front - end meeting as well as the others so you have {disfmarker} you have probably one of the best {disfmarker} you and I , I guess are the main ones who sort of see the bridge between the two . +Grad A: Bridge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We are doing recognition in both of them . So . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: OK ? +PhD D: So um . So {disfmarker} so we could talk a little bit about that now if {disfmarker} if there 's some time . +Grad A: No , no that would be for next week . +PhD D: Um I jus So the latest result was that um um yot I tested the uh {disfmarker} the sort of final version of the PLP configuration um on development test data for {disfmarker} for this year 's Hub - five test set . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And the recognition performance was exactly , and I mean exactly up to the {disfmarker} you know , the first decimal , same as with the uh Mel Cepstra front - end . +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: For both females and males ? +PhD D: Yes . Uh , well i there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD D: i overall . They {disfmarker} They were {disfmarker} The males I think were slightly better and the females were slightly worse but nothing really . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean definitely not significant . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then the really nice thing was that if {disfmarker} if we combine the two systems we get a one and a half percent improvement . +Grad A: Wow . Just with ROVER ? +PhD D: So . t With N - best ROVER , which is like our {vocalsound} new and improved version of ROVER . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Which u actually uses the whole N - best list from both systems {pause} to {pause} mmm , uh {pause} c combine that . +Professor B: So except {disfmarker} I mean the only key difference between the two really is the kind of smoothing at the end which is the auto - regressive versus the cepstral truncation . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: And , the {disfmarker} +PhD F: But a percent and a half ? +Grad A: Yeah , it 's pretty {pause} impressive . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And {disfmarker} And so uh after I told the {disfmarker} my uh colleagues at SRI about that , you know , now they definitely want to , you know , uh , have a {disfmarker} Next time we have an evaluation they want to do uh , you know , basically a at least the system combination . Um , and , you know , why not ? +Professor B: Sure , why not ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad A: We clearly gotta add a few more features , though . +PhD D: Uh w what do you mean ? More features in the sense of front - end features or in the sense of just bells and whistles ? +Grad A: No , uh front - end features . You know we did PLP and Mel Cepstra . Let 's , you know , try RASTA and MSG , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . Well Right . So , we cou Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} There 's one thing uh {disfmarker} I mean you don't want to overdo it because y every front - end {disfmarker} You know , if you {disfmarker} you know you basically multiply your effort by N , where N is a number of different systems +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Um . So . So one {disfmarker} one compromise would be to {disfmarker} only to have the {disfmarker} everything up to the point where you generate lattices be basically one system and then after that you rescore your lattices with the multiple systems and combine the results and that 's a fairly painless um thing . +Professor B: Mmm . An +PhD D: So . +PhD F: Do you think we 'd still get the one and a half uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . Maybe a little less because at that point the error rates are lower and so if {disfmarker} You know , maybe it 's only one percent or something but that would still be worthwhile doing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Um {pause} Jus - You know , just wanted to let you know that that 's working out very nicely . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD D: And then we had some results on {pause} digits , uh , with um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So this was uh really {comment} {disfmarker} really sort of just to get Dave going with his um experiments . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And so , uh . But as a result , um , you know , we were sort of wondering why is the Hub - five system doing so well on the digits . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And the reason is basically there 's a whole bunch of read speech data in the Hub - five training set . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Including digits I gather , yeah . +PhD D: And you c And {disfmarker} Not all of {disfmarker} No it 's actually , digits is only a maybe a fifth of it . +Professor B: A fifth of it is how much ? +PhD D: The rest is {disfmarker} is read {disfmarker} is read TIMIT data and uh ATIS data and Wall Street Journal and stuff like that . +Professor B: Right . But a fi a fifth is how much ? +PhD D: A fifth would be maybe uh two hours something . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean that 's actually not that different from the {pause} amount of training that there was . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: But it definitely helps to have the other read data in there +Professor B: Oh yeah +PhD D: because we 're doing {disfmarker} +Professor B: w +PhD D: You know the error rate is half of what you do if you train only on ti uh TIMIT {disfmarker} {comment} uh not TIMIT uh TI - digits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is only what two hours something ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I don't know . +PhD D: So . Uh , more read speech data definitely helps . And you can leave out all the conversational data with no performance penalty . +Professor B: Yeah that was the interesting thing . +PhD D: That 's e +Professor B: Because {disfmarker} because uh , it was apparent if you put in a bunch more data it would be better , +PhD D: That was e Right , right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but uh . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Well is there even more read speech data around ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we only {disfmarker} for the Hub - five training , we 're only using uh a fairly small subset of the Macrophone {pause} database . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , you could beef that up and probably do even better . +Grad A: I could also put in {pause} uh focus condition zero from Hub - four from Broadcast News , which is mostly prepared speech . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's not exactly read speech but it 's pretty darn close . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Right . Well , I mean that 's plenty of read speech data . I mean , Wall Street Journal , {pause} uh , take one example . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD D: But um . So , you know that might be useful for the people who train the {disfmarker} the digit recognizers to {disfmarker} to use uh something other than TI - digits . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Well they been using TIMIT . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} Uh . {pause} They {disfmarker} they uh {disfmarker} they experimented for a while with a bunch of different databases with French and Spanish and so forth cuz they 're multilingual tests +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh , um , {disfmarker} and actually the best results they got wa were uh using TIMIT . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} So that 's what they 're {disfmarker} they 're using now . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but yeah certainly if we , um {disfmarker} If we knew what the structure of what we 're doing there was . I mean there 's still a bunch of messing around with different kinds of uh noise robustness algorithms . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So we don't know exactly which combination we 're gonna be going with . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Once we know , then {disfmarker} the trainable parts of it {disfmarker} it 'd be great to run lots of {disfmarker} lots of stuff through . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . Well , that was that . And then I th guess Chuck and I had some discussions about how to proceed with the tandem uh system and {disfmarker} You wanna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You wanna see where that stands ? +PhD F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD D: +PhD F: Yeah , so Andreas uh brought over the uh alignments that the SRI system uses . And so I 'm in the process of um converting those alignments into uh label files that we can use to train uh a new net with . And uh so then I 'll train the net . And . +PhD D: An - And one side effect of that would be that it 's {disfmarker} um that the phone set would change . So the MLP would be trained on I think only forty - six or forty - eight {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Eight . +PhD D: forty - eight phones ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh which is smaller than the um than the phone set that {disfmarker} that we 've been using so far . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that will probably help , actually , +PhD F: So it 's a little different ? +PhD D: because um the fewer dimensions uh e the less trouble probably with the {disfmarker} as far as just the um , um {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} You know we want to try things like deltas on the tandem features . And so you h have to multiply everything by two or three . And so , you know , fewer dimensions in the {pause} phone set would be actually helpful just from a logistics point of view . +Professor B: Sure . Although we {disfmarker} I mean , it 's not that many fewer and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we take a KLT anyway so we could {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so that was the other thing . And then we wanted to s just limit it to maybe uh something on the same order of dimensions as we use in a standard um front - end . So that would mean just doing the top I don't know ten or twelve or something of the KLT dimensions . +Professor B: Yeah , and I think {disfmarker} and we sh again check {disfmarker} we should check with Stephane . My impression was that when we did that before that had very little {disfmarker} uh he didn't lose very much . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: By just taking the top whatever ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah yeah . +PhD D: But then {disfmarker} And then something {disfmarker} Once we have the new M L P trained up , uh one thing I wanted to try just for the fun of it was to actually run uh like a standard hybrid system that is based on you know , those features uh and uh retrain MLP and also the you know , the dictionary that we use for the Hub - five system . +Professor B: And the b And the base u starting off with the base of the alignments that you got from i from a pretty decent system . +PhD D: Exactly . +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . So that would basically give us a , um , more {disfmarker} hopefully a {disfmarker} a better system +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: um because {disfmarker} you know , compared to what Eric did a while ago , where he trained up , I think , a system based on Broadcast News and then uh tra retraining it on Switchboard or s uh and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} I think he d he didn't {disfmarker} he probably didn't use all the training data that was available . And his dictionary probably wasn't as tuned to um conversational speech as {disfmarker} as the {disfmarker} as ours is . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's certainly one thing , yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uh . Yeah . +PhD D: And the dictionary made a huge difference . Uh . We {disfmarker} we made some improvements to the dictionary 's uh {disfmarker} to the dictionary about two years ago which resulted in a {disfmarker} uh something like a four percent absolute error rate reduction on Switchboard , which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the other thing is , dipping {pause} deep into history and into uh our resource management days , when we were collaborating with SRI before , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: uh it was {disfmarker} I think , it is was a really key uh starting point for us that we actually got our alignment . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: When we were working together we got our initial alignments from Decipher , uh {pause} at the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} And . Later we got away from it because {disfmarker} because once we had decent systems going then it was {disfmarker} it was typically better to use our own systems +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz they were self consistent but {disfmarker} but certainly to start off when we were trying to recover from our initial hundred and forty percent error uh rate . Uh . {vocalsound} But that was a {disfmarker} that was a good {disfmarker} good {disfmarker} good way to start . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And we 're not quite that bad with our {disfmarker} our Switchboard systems but it was {disfmarker} they certainly aren't as good as SRI 's , +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: W What is the performance on s the best Switchboard system that we 've done ? Roughly ? +Professor B: Well , the hybrid system we never got better than about fifty percent {pause} error . And uh it was {disfmarker} I think there 's just a whole lot of things that uh no one ever had time for . We never did really fix up the dictionary . Uh we always had a list of a half dozen things that we were gonna do and {disfmarker} and a lot of them were pretty simple and we never did . +PhD D: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , we never did an never did any adaptation +PhD D: But that w Even that {disfmarker} that number {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , we never did any {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . And {disfmarker} And that number I think was on Switchboard - one data , right ? Where the error rate now is in the twenties . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , um . +Professor B: So we were {disfmarker} Yeah . We were probably at least a factor or two off . +PhD D: That 's yet s Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} So it would be good t to sort of r re uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: just at least to give us an idea of how well the hybrid system would do . +Professor B: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} again it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's the conver it 's the s conversational speech bit . Because our {disfmarker} our Broadcast News system is actually pretty good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: He knows . +PhD D: Right . And the other thing that that would help us to evaluate is to see how well the M L P is trained up . Right ? Because it 's a pretty good um indicator of that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it 's sort of a sanity check of the M L P outputs {pause} before we go ahead and train up the {disfmarker} uh you know , use them as a basis for the tandem system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll still probably be worse . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be context independent and so on . +PhD D: No . Sure . Not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Should we {disfmarker} Should we bother with um using the net before doing uh embedded training ? +Professor B: But . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean should {disfmarker} should we even use that ? +PhD D: Oh {pause} oh that 's a good question . +PhD F: Or should I just go straight to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we weren't sure whether it 's worth to just use the alignments um from the S R I recognizer or whether to actually go through one or more iterations of embedded training where you realign . +Grad A: Try it . You run it ? Keep {disfmarker} keep both versions ? See which one 's better ? +Professor B: Uh , yeah . I mean . I think I agree with Ad I mean basically you would then {disfmarker} You proceed with the embedded training . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's gonna take you a while to train at this net anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: And while it 's training you may as well test the one you have and see how it did . +PhD D: OK . Alright . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: I could make arguments either way . You know , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But so I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sort of given up guessing . +PhD D: Well but i But in your experience I mean uh have you seen big improvements in s on some tasks with embedded training ? Or was it sort of small - ish uh improvements that you got +Professor B: Uh well . It depended on the task . I mean I think in this one I would sort of expect it to be important +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: because we 're coming from uh , alignments that were achieved with an extremely different system . +PhD D: That are from another {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Although , I mean we 've done it with {disfmarker} When we were combining with the Cambridge recurrent neural net , embedded training made it worse . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: Which I 've never figured out . +Professor B: Right . But I mean i +Grad A: I think it 's a bug . +PhD D: So you {disfmarker} you started training with outputs from a {disfmarker} with alignments that were generated by the Cambridge uh system ? +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . Well , that might probably just {disfmarker} Hmm . That was probably because your initial system {disfmarker} I mean your system was ba worse than Cambridge 's . And you {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Was it ? I don't think it was . +Grad A: No they were {disfmarker} they were comparable . +PhD D: It wasn't ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: They were very close . +PhD D: Really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's weird . +Professor B: Excuse me ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's weird . +Grad A: That 's what I said . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: No I mean it 's weird that it did {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . It 's w It 's weird that it got worse . +PhD F: That 's ambiguous . +Professor B: Um . No . Uh . Tha - u we we 've see I mean {disfmarker} and wi with the numbers {disfmarker} OGI numbers task we 've seen a number of times people doing embedded trainings and things not getting better . +PhD D: Oh actually it 's not that weird because we have seen {disfmarker} We have seen cases where acoustic {disfmarker} retraining the acoustic models after some other change made matters worse rather than better . +Professor B: Yeah . It just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I But I would {disfmarker} I would suspect that something that {disfmarker} that had um a very different Um feature set , for instance {disfmarker} I mean they were using pretty diff similar feature sets to us . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I would expect that something that had a different feature set would {disfmarker} would uh benefit from {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What about uh hidden unit size {pause} on this . +Professor B: Oh , wait a minute , and the other thing uh , +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: sorry , it was {disfmarker} the other thing is that what was in common {comment} to the Cambridge system and our system is they both were training posteriors . +Grad A: Right . Ah yeah . +Professor B: So I mean , uh , that 's another pretty big difference +Grad A: That 's another big difference . +Professor B: and uh , one bac at least {disfmarker} Back at {disfmarker} +PhD D: You mean with soft targets ? Or {disfmarker} ? Sorry , I 'm sor I missed {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} What 's the key issue here ? +Professor B: Oh , that uh both the Cambridge system and our system were {disfmarker} were training {pause} posteriors . And if we 're {disfmarker} we 're coming from alignments coming from the SRI system , it 's a likelihood - based system . So {disfmarker} so that 's another difference . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . You know , there 's diffe different front - end different {disfmarker} different uh , um , training criterion {disfmarker} Uh , I would think that in a that an embedded {pause} uh {pause} embedded uh training would have at least a good shot of improving it some more . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But we don't know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: You gonna say something ? +PhD F: Yeah . I was wondering uh you know what size net I should {disfmarker} Anybody have any intuitions or suggestions ? +Professor B: Uh , how much training data ? +PhD F: Well , I was gonna start off with the small train set . +Professor B: And how {disfmarker} How many hours is that ? +PhD F: That 's why I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much that is . +PhD D: Uh , I think that has about {disfmarker} Well i you 'd {disfmarker} would be gender - dependent training , right ? So {disfmarker} So I think it 's {disfmarker} uh that 's about mmm , something like thirty hours . +PhD F: Gender - dependent , yeah . +PhD D: Thirty hours per gender . +PhD F: Thirty hours . +Grad A: I 'm not sure what this 'll mean . +PhD F: In the small training set ? +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD D: It 's definitely less than a hundred {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alright . +PhD D: You know , it 's more like {disfmarker} like thirty forty hours something like that . +Grad A: Wrong number . +PhD F: They called to tell us that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um . So . Uh . after run +PhD F: I mean , I didn't want to do too big , +Professor B: Right . So +PhD F: just {disfmarker} +Professor B: At least a couple thousand hidden units . I mean . It 's {disfmarker} it 's th the thing I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think about it a little more +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} it 'd be toss up between two thousand and four thousand . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: You definitely wouldn't want the eight thousand . It 's m It 's more than {disfmarker} +PhD F: And a thousand is too small ? +Professor B: Oh let me think about it , but I think that {disfmarker} that uh th at some point there 's diminishing returns . I mean it doesn't actually get worse , typically , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there is diminishing returns and you 're doubling {pause} the amount of time . +PhD D: Remember you 'll have a smaller output layer so there 's gonna be fewer parameters there . +Grad A: But not by a lot . +Professor B: Not by much . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty s Fifty four to forty eight ? +Grad A: Vast majority is from the input unit . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll have a very tiny effect . +Grad A: Right , because you used the context windows and so the input to hidden is much , much larger . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh I see , I see , yeah , of course . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's negligible , OK . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be way , way less than ten percent of the difference . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh . There 's uh {disfmarker} How bi how big Let 's see . What am I trying to think of ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} The net that {disfmarker} that we did use already {pause} uh was eight thousand hidden units and that 's the one that Eric trained up . +Professor B: Right . And that was trained up on uh like a hundred and forty hours of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD D: Was that gender - dependent or independent ? +PhD F: Gender - dependent . +Professor B: Oh . So that would be like trained on s sixty or seventy hours . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , yeah definitely not the one thousand uh {disfmarker} two thousand fr I mean the four thousand will be better and the two thousand will be almost {disfmarker} will be faster and almost as good . +Grad A: It 'll be faster . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Maybe I 'll start off with two thousand just to see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , thirty hours is like a hundred and ten thousand uh seconds . Uh , so that 's like eleven {disfmarker} eleven million frames . And a two thousand hidden unit net is uh I guess about seven , eight hundred thousand parameters . So that 's probably {disfmarker} That 's probably fine . I mean a four thousand is well within the range that you could benefit from but the two thousand 'd be faster so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . I actually have to go . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uncle Bernie 's rule is ten to one . Bernie Woodrow 's Rule of {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} Uncle Bernie {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: We 're just waiting for you to leave . +Professor B: Yes sir . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor B: Nah . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Since we have nothing to talk about we only talked for an hour . +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +Grad A: yeah that 's right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , well , we started late . +PhD F: Transcript +Professor B: de - ba - de . de - ba - de That 's all folks ! +","Meeting Summary: It was a relatively short meeting, with four agenda items, three requested by Jane, who was absent. The team discussed the transcription status, with IBM providing a tape and the transcriptions underway, both from IBM and in-house. There was also mention of hiring new transcribers. Concern was expressed over disk space for transcriptions and uncompressed audio for participant review. For the DARPA demo, backend aspects were ready, but frontend work was lagging. There was talk of potentially using new SUN-Blades for scratch disk space. Additionally, the group proposed alternating the meeting's focus between data and recognition technology each week. They discussed recognition performance and the possibility of training a net with SRI alignments for the tandem system and whether to pursue embedded training. The hybrid system's accuracy and approach to dictionary and feature set were also topics of conversation. The meeting concluded without reaching a firm decision on the hidden unit size for the net they planned to train." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Okay . So , now um , {vocalsound} last time . Can you uh {vocalsound} push the button ? {vocalsound} One time please . So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I'm still the secretary . Now uh , I ask you to presentate the prototype . One of your {disfmarker} you two . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I don't care . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh this , you mean ? +Project Manager: Yes . The prototype . +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yes , well uh this is it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} This is it . +Project Manager: Well , thank you . Uh , now {disfmarker} +User Interface: It's uh it's uh it's yellow . And uh , this is rubber . And and and this too . The +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: the sides . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: And the rest is hard plastic . And uh {disfmarker} We uh we had some uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We had a new idea {vocalsound} that that this can uh can be uh uh turned inside . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: And then it covers the {disfmarker} these buttons +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: until here or something . +Marketing: Yes . +User Interface: And then you can still use the the power button and the mute and the the joystick . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: So , you can still operate uh all the things . Because you don't always use the menu . And then it can break . +Project Manager: Okay . And the buttons ? +User Interface: Uh , well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Big . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Big buttons . And everything is blue , except the power button . And the mute . Of uh {disfmarker} yeah , and the mute and the the other button . {vocalsound} Yeah . Channel higher channel button . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And the joystick is for the volume and the channels . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes , +Industrial Designer: Yes . +User Interface: that's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Very obvious . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Up is channel up . Down is channel down . To the right is volume up . To the left is volume down . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , so if joystick and L_C_D_ . What's the R_R_ {gap} d {vocalsound} +User Interface: R_R_'s the l the the the the company uh logo . +Industrial Designer: The R_R_ ? +Project Manager: Okay . Very good . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's on the rub rubber part . +User Interface: Uh , yes . Yes . That's about here . +Project Manager: So , what they say on the side is put fashion there . Yes . It's good . +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: So , that's it . That's prototype . +Marketing: Yeah ? +Project Manager: Now , the finance . {vocalsound} We don't know if it's {disfmarker} th it {disfmarker} if it's okay . +Marketing: Alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I'm gonna look . +Marketing: Do we {disfmarker} +Project Manager: We have {disfmarker} +Marketing: Do we change the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Sorry ? +Marketing: Do we change the the order ? Or are we going to uh ev evaluate it first ? +Project Manager: Finance is um {disfmarker} Yeah it's {disfmarker} No , first uh {disfmarker} Yes . We have to evaluate the product yet . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Sorry . +Marketing: That's uh um {disfmarker} {gap} That can be none . Um , we gonna do the evaluation now , together . But I have uh a introduction how it works . So , it will come up . Uh-oh . Okay . Um , yeah . Well , we uh {disfmarker} uh , I have um thinked a few evaluation uh criterias , uh based on um our marketing strategy , on uh the latest trends , on user preferences . Uh , we have a seven point scale from uh true , as well . To false , seven ? And on base of each c uh criteria , we need to um give a rating . We can uh {disfmarker} Well , it look like this . But we gonna uh do it here , they said . {vocalsound} So , you hope found out how to do it with a Word document . Yeah . Okay , yeah . Yeah . Um , well uh we have the Word document +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Criteria . +Marketing: You {disfmarker} {gap} So we open up that blank here . Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Think I can {disfmarker} Uh , what this just an example . So , this not very important . But um , if I can get a number in here . Hmm . +Project Manager: No , it's okay . +Marketing: Well , uh we can't do that . +Industrial Designer: I'll get it . +Project Manager: Oh , it's okay . +Marketing: Um , so uh you have to think of it as uh the remote control is techno technologically innovative . Uh , and then we have to uh agree on the rating together . And in the end , we will c uh count an average of all rating . The first uh on each item . +Project Manager: What do you think ? +Marketing: Yeah , I think it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh , well technologically using , it's not uh {disfmarker} it doesn't contain many new features . Only the L_C_D_ . So , it {disfmarker} Um , I think I will give it a {disfmarker} yeah , yeah , yeah {gap} , a four . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I think the scroll-button is something also uh new . What uh {disfmarker} not anoth uh , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: not a lot of uh {disfmarker} a lot of uh remote controls have . I think technologically I'll give it an seven . Si six six . +Project Manager: {gap} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Sorry , six . +Marketing: So now i I think you uh see it {gap} um its statement . +Industrial Designer: Oh , true or false . +Marketing: And you {gap} true or false . +Industrial Designer: Oh , uh I'll I'll give it uh a t a two . +Marketing: And true is one . So , yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Industrial Designer: Sorry . +Project Manager: You ? +User Interface: Three . +Project Manager: Me too . So it's a three . +Marketing: 'Kay . Um , well {disfmarker} It's a one . {vocalsound} The first item . So , okay the second item . Um , this product is for all sorts of customers . +User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well , it's a statement which uh I disagree with , because we uh really aim uh at at young market and I think the way it looked uh c uh totally in yellow , it's not uh really aimed for all customers . It doesn't look like that . +Project Manager: So it's a {disfmarker} +Marketing: That's uh a six . +Industrial Designer: Five . +User Interface: Mm , four . +Project Manager: Yes , it's for the younger g group . So it's uh half half of the people . +User Interface: Yeah , but it's it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think it's four . +User Interface: Yeah . I mean it still has l large buttons and not m many buttons . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean , the colours are for young people , +Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: but +Project Manager: Yes . So , I think it's four . +User Interface: older {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Maybe version uh three point O_ uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has other colours . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . Maybe . +Project Manager: Okay . Give it a four . +Industrial Designer: Four . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Four . Uh , okay . Mm . +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics . +Marketing: That's uh the motto of our company . Yeah , well do we do this with uh this product ? I um {disfmarker} Yeah . I think if we do this , as it's uh uh c uh it's really orientates on the design . Um , so I would give it a two . +Industrial Designer: Me too a two , because only the battery is not uh techin uh technologically high standard . But the rest of it is . So , I think a two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . Two . +Project Manager: Uh , I say uh a five . +Marketing: Two . +Project Manager: It's not fashion , it's new . It must be a fashion . But it isn't . +Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} it will be fashion . +Project Manager: Yes . It w If it's not a fashion we can put it in it . So , it must be a fashion . I think it's a five . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay . +User Interface: Then make it th three . +Marketing: Okay . Yes , I'll think of that too . +Project Manager: No . Oh . +Industrial Designer: 'Kay . Three is okay . +Marketing: Yeah , agree ? +Project Manager: I use my feet though . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , we'll wait outside . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} A three . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: The next element um is the product looks good . Well personally , I do not prefer a um remote control that's fully in yellow . So , I would give this a five . +Industrial Designer: I give it a one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {gap} . Yes , a one . I like it . +Project Manager: Well , I say three . So , counting then is two and a half . {vocalsound} +Marketing: We have to do our uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Say two . +Marketing: Two or three ? +Project Manager: Okay , two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Two . Okay . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So , well we gonna do the next part . Uh , yep . Uh uh , the next statement . It has not too much buttons . Um , yeah , I I have uh said is not because uh a low number is better . And in the end we calculate an average . So , um that's why it's a negative in it . Um , well this one of our aims not have too much buttons . So , um uh did we uh do that ? Well , uh if we go to {vocalsound} uh this fashion , I {disfmarker} We still have caused uh a lot of uh buttons for the numbers . But you can you can go for that . And um that way , you don't have a lot of buttons over . So , I would give this a two . +Industrial Designer: One . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} You ? +User Interface: One . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Me too . One . +Marketing: One . {vocalsound} Um , but {vocalsound} where where is the {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next , six . It does not get lost easily . +Marketing: So {disfmarker} Yeah , did we implement uh the sound ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Just a small thing . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , we did not . So , but can it get lost if it's such a thing ? +User Interface: Yeah , but uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Ah . Yellow . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Looks like a pistol . +Project Manager: Yes . Not a not a normal shapes . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} It won't get between uh the pillows uh on the couch . +Project Manager: No . It won't get lost . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: It won't . +Project Manager: A one ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , o one . +Project Manager: Okay , a one . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: Next . +Marketing: Okay , um well we aimed for the younger market . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Uh yeah , did we achieve that . I think with the way it looks and um it is designed , I will give it a two . +Project Manager: Yeah me {disfmarker} {gap} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Me too . +Project Manager: That was our target . Two . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Right . There's a fancy look-and-feel . +Marketing: Uh , yes . That that was uh , yeah , one of the most important things that uh Trendwatch said . I didn't uh say it in my presentation . But um , well does it have that ? I would say yes . So um {disfmarker} Well , let's also give this a two . T +Industrial Designer: I gave this a one because of the rubber . It feels soft . Uh , it looks like a l uh uh b uh , a bit like a joystick . It's {disfmarker} Yeah . Yeah , f very fancy {gap} trendy . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yes , a one . +Project Manager: I say a two . It's a a bit personal . If it's fancy . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: So I think s two is better . +User Interface: Yeah , okay . +Industrial Designer: Two is okay . +Marketing: Okay . Two . +Industrial Designer: {gap} . +Marketing: And um , then the last one I could think of , uh it goes with the latest trends . +Project Manager: No , it's new . Innovation . +Marketing: If we looked at the latest trends for the uh younger people , and they ate uh fruit and vegetables , well it has a um a nice colour , uh well compared to food but we didn't uh {disfmarker} We did not paint any uh fruit and vegetable on it for something like that . +Industrial Designer: Oh . +Marketing: So , I would {disfmarker} did not give this uh a one or two . I {disfmarker} We'll go for a three . +Project Manager: {gap} . +Industrial Designer: I go for two because uh the the shapes are still round . Uh , the latest trends are soft things , you know , like uh I said in my presentation . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But the the colours are um basic , like yellow , red , um blue . Something what also younger people want . It's also a trend , so I'll give it a two . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Mm , three . +Project Manager: Me too . Three . +Marketing: A three . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Okay . So um , come back to the presentation now . So , we find yourself there , and now we have to calculate an average rating . +Project Manager: Effort is three , ten and twelve . Thirty , forty , fifty , {gap} . +Marketing: So , we will do that . Yes . +Project Manager: Twenty one . So , it's uh two and three nine two and one third . +Marketing: By nine . +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Yeah . Um , uh okay . {vocalsound} Two . +Project Manager: Yep . +Marketing: Come on . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , nah . Okay . +Marketing: So uh , that's a pretty low rating , I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , it's good . +Marketing: So , according to our uh own evaluation uh we did a good job . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Thank you . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I think {gap} . +Marketing: Oh . Nah . How am I doing ? Yes . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: And I closed your slide-show . +Project Manager: Back to my uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Which one was the last for you ? Uh , dreaming . +Project Manager: Yep . Next please . +Marketing: Next . Finance . +Project Manager: So , now uh we have a product . Very happy . But uh , is it cheap enough ? Um , so if uh {disfmarker} I'll have a look . We have a battery . One battery . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Cheapest there is . +Project Manager: Okay , one battery . Electronics . Advanced chip . +Industrial Designer: Expensive . +Project Manager: Yeah it's the most advanced . Chip-on-print . We have that one . +Industrial Designer: Well , it's the most advanced . +Project Manager: We have the simple , regular and advanced . +Industrial Designer: Advanced . +Project Manager: We have the adva advanced . 'Kay , so uncurved or flat . Nope . Single curved or double curved ? We have double curved . {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we have plastic , wood , rubber . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {gap} we have half rubber , half plastic . +User Interface: Mm , yes . +Project Manager: No titanium . Special colour . Yes , yellow . +Industrial Designer: Uh , yellow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: Interface , push-button . Scroll-wheel , integrated scroll-wheel push push-button , or L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , we have the L_C_D_ We have two scroll-wheels ? Or one ? +Industrial Designer: One . +Marketing: One . +Project Manager: And it's not really a s +Industrial Designer: Joystick uh thing . +Marketing: {gap} . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's this one . Now , uh button supplement . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Special colour . We already {disfmarker} Uh , that's the {disfmarker} from the {disfmarker} for the buttons . The buttons are regular colour . +User Interface: Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So , then uh {disfmarker} then then then then then then {disfmarker} Then {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We're not gonna make it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh , no . It's too expensive . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} Wh +Project Manager: So , we have to change something . +Industrial Designer: What what are the costs ? +Project Manager: Fifteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifteen . +Project Manager: Yeah , well uh when we lose one scroll-wheel , it's okay . 'Cause we can't lose the battery . We can't lose the advanced chip . We can't lose the double curve . We have rubber , special colour . +Marketing: {gap} . We would have uh n +Industrial Designer: A special colour . +Project Manager: Oh , no , we {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh , I don't think it's a very special colour . +Project Manager: No , it's uh {disfmarker} Sorry ? +Industrial Designer: Yellow ? Uh , is it a special colour ? +Marketing: For a remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What ? +Marketing: I've {disfmarker} For a remote control , I think it is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: If we would have uh uh normal buttons instead of uh the joystick . For up down left right . +Project Manager: Um , then we uh lose two Euros . Then we have thirteen Euros . Half a Euro too much . Exactly the special colours . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And what if we use only one sort of um {disfmarker} Um {vocalsound} just only plastic or only rubber ? +Project Manager: That's one Euro . +Industrial Designer: One Euro discount . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So , I don't think that's good . Mm {disfmarker} I think we have to keep the L_C_D_ . If {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: If we change the joyst uh the joystick thing into a button up , button down , button right , button left . +Project Manager: Yes . Then it's only thirteen Euros . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And then we'll lose fifty cent in what ? +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} yeah . Yeah . Then you have {disfmarker} Or you have to cut this off . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} uh-uh . +Project Manager: Then it's not good anymore . +Industrial Designer: No . +Project Manager: So , wait . Okay . I'll have a look . {vocalsound} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And if you say it's just a r uh normal colour {disfmarker} it's a normal colour , wh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yellow rubber . +Industrial Designer: No one will see it . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah , normal . +Industrial Designer: Normal colour , and the the joystick away , and put the button up , button down , right , left . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And it's twelve Euros , I think . +Project Manager: One minute , please . Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Is it maximum . Um {disfmarker} Yeah , it's normal colour . But if you lose the joystick , it's still uh an advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . Uh , no , no , no . +Project Manager: Or it's then a regular ? +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} Oh , wait wait wait . +Marketing: The advanced chip was for the L_C_D_ wasn't it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . +Project Manager: So , the advanced is for the L_C_D_ and the regular for the joystick . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah . Yeah . Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: And what if we lose the L_C_D_ ? +Industrial Designer: If we lose the L_C_D_ , then we have an uh regular chip and no L_C_D_ . +Project Manager: Yeah , regular chip . But {disfmarker} Is it a good design ? +Industrial Designer: Uh , yeah . Then you'll have to m uh see the menu on the television . And you don't have the L_C_D_ . +Marketing: If uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So , the T_V_s has to uh {disfmarker} have to be up-to-date . +Marketing: If we have the n no buttons {disfmarker} If we have we have uh not a joystick but buttons , we would have {disfmarker} uh , we have thirteen Euros ? +Project Manager: Mm , yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: And then uh we move the the colour . What will that be ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then it's okay . +Industrial Designer: Huh . No knew that . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay , so no joystick . Oh no , but we {disfmarker} then we get push-buttons from half a Euro . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , then it's twelve Euro fifty , then it's okay . +Project Manager: Uh , yes , yes , yes , yes . No joystick . Push-buttons . No special colour . Twelve and a half Euros . Then it's okay . So , we have to change that a little bit . And you cannot use the red and green button . Because if you give them a s uh colour , +User Interface: Okay . All the same uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: you have to pay point two Euros . +Industrial Designer: So , all the buttons has to {disfmarker} have to be the same colour . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: But then the print on it will g um change it . Make it uh for everybody to see what button it is . Uh l How you call it ? +User Interface: Mm , yeah . Recognisable . Like what {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Recognisable , yeah . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Yeah . Mm , yeah . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: {gap} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} Now we have to change that , but that's okay . Rubber . What's the normal colour ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh , well that's clear . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where's {gap} ? Yeah . So , now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the joystick away . And its buttons . +Project Manager: Yeah . It is . But then it will be just that ones . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Now it's {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {gap} still , he waited at the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Very good . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Now , uh project eva evaluation . Well {disfmarker} What do you think of it ? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: About the +Project Manager: About the project . +Marketing: Project . +Industrial Designer: process . Went good . Uh {disfmarker} I think uh the creativity uh {vocalsound} was good enough . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have a gun instead of a remote control . Um {disfmarker} Uh leadership . Yeah , you were the project project manager , and uh had the final vote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} yeah that was clear . Team-work okay . Everybody uh has something uh to say about it . And uh {disfmarker} no , uh o only the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the drawing uh was very difficult . But , nah . New ideas found . {vocalsound} Nope . +Project Manager: Okay . And you . +User Interface: Yeah , well the same . I I espe I especially uh liked the the means , the the SMARTboard and uh {disfmarker} Yeah , it uh {disfmarker} It brings up new ideas when you work with uh with it . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I think you have to compare it to if you would have a normal um normal project without laptops uh and without these devices . I think um {disfmarker} Well , the laptops if you have them out front of you , you sometimes looking at that instead of the presentation . Um , well uh the draw-board , well you can draw things . But it not really going very convenient . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Uh , maybe it will be easier if you have a smaller monitor {gap} and uh you would also see there . And with a normal mouse . Um , and uh the project . Yeah , I agree on what was said uh mainly . Uh , yeah but you always have that some people are talking more than others . And maybe is then um the task of the the project manager to also uh ask more to the people uh less talking . To tell their opinion . +Project Manager: Okay . Well , what do I have to say . I think it was good . Not too many discussions . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No . +Project Manager: So , it's good for the speed . +User Interface: No . +Industrial Designer: Yep . +Project Manager: So , I think we're ready . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Good price . Evaluation ready . Ready . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Beer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? Okay then . +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: {gap} . +","The team presented a prototype of a remote control with a distinctive yellow color. The design featured big buttons, an LCD, rubber sides, and the ability to cover certain buttons. The joystick functioned for volume and channel control. The prototype evaluation considered technological innovation, customer target, and trend adherence. After the evaluation, financial considerations caused the team to reconsider features like the joystick and special color to meet the cost target of 12.50 Euros. The team decided on changes, including eliminating the joystick in favor of regular buttons and opting for a standard color to reduce costs. Despite compromising on some design aspects, the project wrapped up satisfactorily, and they concluded with plans for drinks." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Project Manager: Uh fourth meeting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: We have to do what ? +Project Manager: Some extra deciding . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} W what ? Alri alright . We'll see . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: {gap} I'll show you the notes again . Very interesting . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well you'll you two will uh present us your prototype . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Then um {disfmarker} I guess that's your bit ? I I didn't s see anything about it , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: so {vocalsound} I already uh thought you uh you were {gap} to do that . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So the you're uh {gap} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I'll show you how we're going to do with financing this uh design . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's important too . Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And then we'll evaluate , after after we have redesigned it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Bit late . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Because uh well we'll see about the costs . Um we'll uh evaluate our p our uh production and then uh we can close . +Industrial Designer: Alright . +Project Manager: Well the finance uh we'll do later , so um firstly uh {vocalsound} I'll show you the notes . {vocalsound} I don't think it's very interesting . {vocalsound} +User Interface: I think it is . +Project Manager: Oh nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} Alright . This is copy paste . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: From me of course , yeah . +Project Manager: Of course . You had some very strange layout . +Industrial Designer: Well from us all , yeah , from all of us . Yeah . {vocalsound} It's a nice chorus , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well um {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We ge we went through the agenda , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: and well we had some uh some presentations from you three . And uh I summarised what you said to us . So uh I don't think it's very interesting and go through it again . +Industrial Designer: Repeat it yeah . Alright . +Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} This is what we decided . It's also copy paste from what we made together . So we still know that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: And then uh we can we can uh use the time better . Well uh next you two will uh present uh the pot prototype for us . +Industrial Designer: Alright , we both uh will ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Or one of us will ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: No you go and I'll uh supplement you . +Industrial Designer: Alright . If I make mistakes uh you'll uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Correct . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . Uh well this is our design . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh it's pretty uh much uh like uh Mike draw uh drew uh the in the during the last meeting . With uh the different uh perspectives of it . Uh we'll begin uh with the front . We have of course uh the the round shape uh the round uh basic shape . Um with uh the upper part being the front . Th So there's this part um {vocalsound} which is made of hard plastic , the front . And uh we're we're using different colours . Of course for the launch we use the basic ugly colours , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and later we'll put out uh more interesting covers with different patterns and pictures and everything . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: But basically , different colours , bright colours not black , too dark . Fancy colours . {vocalsound} Um then we have uh the lower part {vocalsound} of the of the device . Uh which is of course um part of the back actually , because it's also titanium . You can see it also on the on the on the side view , that only this part is the front , and the rest of it , the under uh the under side uh of it , yeah , the back side and the lower part of the front is of course titanium made of titanium , and has the titanium colour of course , the look . Um then we have uh on back on the front uh the logo in the upper corner , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: uh which is uh made uh which is also part of the back , part of the titanium uh titanium part . +User Interface: Yeah , it's a double R_ , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah ? +User Interface: It's a double R_ . +Industrial Designer: It's a double R_ . Yeah the logo {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {vocalsound} it's very difficult to to draw that in {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh uh it's difficult to draw so small , but it's our double R_ uh logo is in there . +Project Manager: Okay . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Um so that's the logo in the upper lef uh right corner . Then we have the buttons . Uh it's difficult to draw again the little oval or round {disfmarker} I think oval will be better for the for the d for the different uh channel buttons . +User Interface: Oval yeah . +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: So {gap} uh oval , n those are here . And then we have the m The m +User Interface: Channel up and volume ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah the the con the the the , yeah , the t volume and the channel controls uh in the middle here . Um um with kind of arrow shapes , which makes it also a bit more exciting than basic round or um uh {vocalsound} uh square buttons . And also here are the two uh buttons we agreed on . We have the Okay button . Oh nei we uh the Okay button's here in the middle of the of the operators , of the channel and uh volume um changers . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: And then we've here the Menu button and the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright . +User Interface: Menu for the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: And the video button . The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mm right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . And of course this low part , this is the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: Uh this is what we made of it . You can make uh suggestions uh if you want . +Project Manager: Well if I look at it , the side the side view {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well , at the back {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Maybe we maybe we should finish first uh our talk +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and then you can add suggestions . +Project Manager: Oh yeah alright . Yeah {gap} . +Industrial Designer: Maybe I I don't want to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I don't want to suppress you but n I'll uh finish this uh quick . +Project Manager: {gap} +Industrial Designer: Um okay I've had everything I guess on the front ? +User Interface: No the back . With the logo and our uh l uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah the back . Yeah . {vocalsound} We thought about {disfmarker} Yeah , uh the back is of course totally titanium . {vocalsound} And we thought about the logo big in the middle . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Just so again the double R_ . We have then the logo on front and on the back . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Maybe that's too much +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: but you have to say uh say that if you think that way . +User Interface: No I don't think {disfmarker} And the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And the company slogan , we thought in a kind of arc shape uh above the logo . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: That's basically what we were thinking about , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} +Project Manager: W +User Interface: And about the side view um {disfmarker} This the front won't be as thick , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: but again th the the drawing technique makes it very difficult to to really uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I see , but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Oh and uh before I forget . Yeah the the voice , of course , +Project Manager: Well . Yeah I see it . +Industrial Designer: the voice recorder is uh at the bottom . +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: And you can record it uh using , yeah , the the the back of the f w device . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: When I look at uh when I look at this side view , I think w when I have that in my hand , it's terrible . +User Interface: Well , it won't be visible . Mm ? +Project Manager: If if you look if if this this is thick , and this is thin , th th then it that it lies over your hands . But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Why ? {vocalsound} Well it fits uh it it it it fits the hand , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: mean uh the the the the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well what what what I what I agree is that when uh when um you have such of uh an arc in the middle , so that the the a the ends and the fronts is a bit thicker , so th then it falls over your hands . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: {gap} If y {vocalsound} If you handle a remote , you you usually don't have your hand straight like this . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the middle in the {disfmarker} +User Interface: You you have it a bit uh {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: It depends on the size . If it's kinda small , this is is great . But if it's it's larger , then you want to grab it . +Project Manager: And how large is it ? +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , that's the question . +Industrial Designer: That's the question . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh well {disfmarker} Yeah . H What do you suggest I mean we do ? {gap} This was Mike's prototype , +Project Manager: Well uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and y you seemed to agreed on it . +Project Manager: Well the sides I haven't seen yet , uh {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: But now you have a totally different {gap} . +User Interface: Well , they lay there all the time . +Industrial Designer: The size ? Yeah well the size doesn't really matter w I mean {disfmarker} +Project Manager: They the the the the the side view , +Industrial Designer: Side ? Uh oh the side ? +Project Manager: we didn't uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we we he drew the s the side , +User Interface: Yeah yeah . +Industrial Designer: but you d you weren't paying attention as usual . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well any case , we'll discuss it now . Uh I think uh this is a pretty good uh good idea {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree with the L_C_D_ screen . You have it in your palm like this , and you can watch uh watch the screen . And if you have it li in the middle , your hand might be over it . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But you you hold it like this . +User Interface: Yeah you you don't you don't grab it , +Industrial Designer: You're not holding it like this or something . +User Interface: you you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: You , yeah , y How do you call it ? Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well y y y you don't have it like this . +Project Manager: No no no . +Industrial Designer: You have it more like this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {gap} You you you're using buttons this way , or if you're right-handed , this way . +Marketing: Like you're holding your telephone . +Project Manager: Yep . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So you {disfmarker} Yeah . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Because if you have a screen on it , you wanna look at your screen . +User Interface: Hmm . That way , it it falls into your hand . I think . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: And maybe you can you can grab it a bit higher , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree on this . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , I don't think so . That's not uh the point {disfmarker} +User Interface: No but but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well the the {disfmarker} Well that's a reason to to to put the L_C_D_ screen uh of course on the upper side , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well f for as far as I can see , three of us agree +Project Manager: Yeah well +User Interface: and only Nils {disfmarker} +Project Manager: uh I think uh if you t if you three uh agree then then that's it . +User Interface: But you're the Project Manager , you can make the hard decisions . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . So uh I c I c +Industrial Designer: If necessary . +Project Manager: Well , we'll we we'll do it like this . +Industrial Designer: But uh are d Can you live with it ? Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Alright , if you think that that's the way it should {gap} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: Y Yeah , y y y y you said it was totally uh unusable . +Project Manager: No {disfmarker} No , +Industrial Designer: But do you +Project Manager: when I I my personal taste is that I want it to fall over my hands with a thick {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} In the market uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: But d you don't think this is completely unusable I guess . I think . +Project Manager: No not totally . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not totally , well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} For me , I I wouldn't buy it . Let's say it like that . +Industrial Designer: Yeah but of course y you are also human . We have to take uh {vocalsound} every everyone into account . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: And you might be uh {disfmarker} You might be target customer . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yes but {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Well uh who who else thinks like you ? +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: We don't know . +Project Manager: Yeah , we don't know , +Industrial Designer: Maybe a thousand people , +Project Manager: but that's uh that's that's that's more market research . +Industrial Designer: or a million people . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So {vocalsound} let it be like this at uh at this moment . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Let it be . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Okay ? +Industrial Designer: Alright . So that's that . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh any other suggestions ? +Project Manager: No , I think it's great . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: But what about the redesigning ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Comes to that later . +User Interface: Okay . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um you . Uh c You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Walter . {vocalsound} You can do the evaluation uh criteria on this ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're very personal again . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright . Great . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That's more useful than just {vocalsound} speaking . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well , this is just a short intro . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: I'm going to do uh the ev evaluation . That's gonna be done at the end of seven point skill criteria . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So I made a {disfmarker} I made a few questions on the hand of uh uh the impor most important requirements and trends . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And we have to look if our uh if our device uh is working correctly . Well , I put some questions in a Word file . See if I can find them . Uh uh uh uh mm . +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: I uh think you have all seen uh this kind of evaluation , so uh I don't have to explain it . Uh the first question is , uh is the device good-looking ? Because normal p uh most people thought that um earlier devices were ugly ugly . Seventy five percent of them . So what do we think ? +Industrial Designer: Well d we designed it , so of course we are very {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah , we're we're not quite uh objective about this . +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well we designed it to be good-looking . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: No , I know , but {vocalsound} I have to uh evaluate it . So I have to take this questionnaire . +Project Manager: To the customers ? +Industrial Designer: So and we ha we have answer now ? +Project Manager: To potential customers who have to take this questionnaire ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah , but I can't can s +Project Manager: Nei . Oh no . I know , I know , I know . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} we can go , uh because of the time , uh pretty quick through this . Uh do we find it good-looking ? Well we think so . Uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah . We designed it to be good-looking , so {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} Yeah , I think it {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but uh , you know {disfmarker} We dis we di {vocalsound} we designed it to be perfect . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} But we have to be critic critical about it . And I have to uh take all these points and get a average at the end . So we {vocalsound} we know where we stand . +Project Manager: Well , one . +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Marketing: 'Cause th there are some things we might have uh bi might have forgotten . +Project Manager: Well so it's point four . Easy to find t +Industrial Designer: Well l well let's start with the beginning , just one by one . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right , so {disfmarker} Right . Uh is it good-looking ? +Industrial Designer: Well , I guess uh I think uh {vocalsound} it's uh it's it's um pointed towards the youth of course , uh if you look at the design and and the colours and everything . {gap} +Project Manager: Two . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: That was our target audience of course . But it's also not completely um {vocalsound} uh u unacceptable for older people I guess . Uh it's it's not f a device that {disfmarker} +Marketing: The titanium might be uh f for older people . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , that's that's uh for older people , it's it's more that classical look . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: It you put uh put a black front on it or something . +User Interface: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh no . {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah they like black of course , but I think they'll uh they they think uh the the titanium look of it is also {disfmarker} Uh I think it's also good for them , so I think we both uh have uh consider considered uh the youth and also a bit older people . So I think it's very good-looking +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and not only for youth uh young people . +User Interface: I think we shouldn't discuss any points points that long , because I don't know how how many points there are but uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . I totally agree . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , the fourteen yeah . +Project Manager: We we have to get get on , go through this . +Marketing: Right , a number please . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is it easy to t change channels ? Yeah well I think so . +Marketing: So the last one is seven . +User Interface: Um , no it's uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Easy to change channels ? +Project Manager: No , not false . It's one . +Marketing: Oh , sorry . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +Project Manager: Well uh two ? Y Well we have to go through it {gap} . +Marketing: Change channels ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's uh as easy as uh can be made . Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: So I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah . You {disfmarker} How can you make it any easier ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} With two huge buttons . +Marketing: The power , channel and volume buttons are easy accessible ? +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , huge is a {disfmarker} Yeah . +Project Manager: Two . +Marketing: Two ? Alright . The uh device is easy to find if you lose it ? +Project Manager: Well , no . We didn't implement anything about that . {gap} +Industrial Designer: D we d we don't we don't have uh that s +User Interface: Well it's easier to find than a a normal black one or something , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well six then . {vocalsound} +User Interface: because of the colour . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Six ? Right . +Industrial Designer: Well we don't have the device that beeps uh when you lost it or so , +Project Manager: Are the functions easy to learn ? +Industrial Designer: but um um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well w I we do want we have a l f f less of an {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} We have so few functions , so {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: And the device R_S_I_ sensitive ? +User Interface: Well , I should {disfmarker} I think two , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: because {vocalsound} the voice recorder is n not self learning . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Ah . +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: {gap} +Marketing: Alright . Two ? +Industrial Designer: Mm ? +Project Manager: Yeah , but just do some {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} We we {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I th I th I think this is too time consuming . +Industrial Designer: Are we take too much time ? +Project Manager: Uh not not towards you , +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: but towards this all . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Th this is {gap} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: We you have to put it to the customers . +Marketing: Right , R_ R_S_I_ sensitive ? {vocalsound} R_S_I_ sensitive ? +Project Manager: Uh well well a bit , so four . +Marketing: Four . Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah , very much . One . +Project Manager: One . And features included also one . And {disfmarker} {vocalsound} One . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh those uh nine uh is the fancy-looking . Uh we still think so . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Device fancy feeling . +Industrial Designer: And I think fancy-feeling too , +Project Manager: Yeah , cool man . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because of the titanium back . Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Are there enough technology ? Yeah well also we have two . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's great . +Project Manager: Is the device easy to use ? +User Interface: The {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes we have {vocalsound} not many buttons . +Industrial Designer: So well maybe two +Project Manager: Two , three . +User Interface: Two {vocalsound} two . +Industrial Designer: because of the voice recorder . +Marketing: Well , with the uh {disfmarker} Three . +Project Manager: Are the trends about fruit and vegetables implemented ? +User Interface: T +Industrial Designer: F +Project Manager: Well in our covers , in our fronts . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: So yes , one . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . One or two . Yeah . +User Interface: One or two , another two . +Marketing: Nah f four I think . +Industrial Designer: Four ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} If you look at this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well , it doesn't really resemble any fruit , uh that's true . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: But but we have the the the the the sparkly fruity colours of course . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: Oh okay . Okay {gap} . +User Interface: Well three . +Marketing: Three , alright . +Industrial Designer: And you can also have {gap} front with uh with fruit on it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , that's true . +Project Manager: Is the material attractive ? +Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium is strong , and uh the rest f uh the buttons feel soft . So I would say at least two . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} Yeah . +User Interface: This is the last meeting ? +Project Manager: Yes , but we we have to design much more , +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: The average will uh come later . +Project Manager: because there was some irritating account manager coming to me . {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I knew things uh were going uh too smoothly . +Project Manager: Oh . Uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: There had to be some kind of trouble along the way . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . Well , look at the costs at this point . +Industrial Designer: My god . +Project Manager: I had to fit it in . +Marketing: It has to go to twelve , right ? +Project Manager: I twelve and a half . +Marketing: Twelve and a half . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Well what costs a lot ? The sample spea costs four . +Industrial Designer: The what ? +Project Manager: The sample speaker , +Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker} +Marketing: Out . +Project Manager: the s sensor . +Marketing: That's easy . Kick it out . +Project Manager: Kick it out . +User Interface: The what ? +Project Manager: We have to go to twelve and a half . +Marketing: Yeah . The speaker . +Project Manager: The speaker costs far , by far the most . +User Interface: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah w tha that's uh that's a bit an optional option . +Marketing: That's some wrong info , man . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It it isn't worth it . +Industrial Designer: No . No , d th No . +Marketing: No . +Project Manager: We could make two different versions , one with and one without . +Marketing: It's uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But for this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: It's just extra . Kick it out . +Project Manager: So , zero . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Then we go to fourteen point six . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well the titanium I don't want to lose actually . +Marketing: What more ? +Industrial Designer: No . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Batteries are uh quite {disfmarker} +Project Manager: L_C_ three ? Yeah hand dynamo ? Y t come on , +Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh no , no no no . +Project Manager: w a remote control has a battery . +User Interface: Um {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: N Uh well we have a bit of a problem I think . +User Interface: Well well why why why should we use a advanced chip ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well be for the L_C_D_ uh you had said . +Industrial Designer: {gap} the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah ? +Marketing: Hmm . +User Interface: Can't we do that with a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: Why not ? +Industrial Designer: Because uh that uh y {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well what what's the difference between simple and regular ? +Industrial Designer: because my information says it . +Project Manager: What's the difference between a simple and a regular chip ? +Industrial Designer: Huh ? +User Interface: Yeah . Regular is normal . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: And simple ? +Industrial Designer: Uh well yeah I I read something about it , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: Simple . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nothing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Elementary . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {gap} ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , +Project Manager: Your part . +Industrial Designer: I I read something about it , but it wasn't very clear . I d I didn't in include it in my report . +Project Manager: What happens if we do {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Single {disfmarker} Well you have to use a chip . So {disfmarker} Well you have to use the advanced chip , if you have the L_C_D_ screen . +Project Manager: How much do we win ? One . +User Interface: We we we {disfmarker} Why ? +Project Manager: {gap} +User Interface: We have very little options furthermore , for the {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But if you have a regular chip , you can't have the L_C_D_ screen . +User Interface: Uh well we have to put that in . +Marketing: Yeah , we need to have the {vocalsound} the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: That that's a fact . Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , we could say , well this special colour , that isn't that that isn't there , +Marketing: No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: because the the fronts they will buy it . The special colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , but it's only one half . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +User Interface: Nah . +Industrial Designer: Uh it d it doesn't {disfmarker} +Marketing: No , that's n It's not relevant . +Project Manager: Yeah , +User Interface: Yeah , you must change the chip uh back . +Project Manager: then you s then you only have one half left . +User Interface: You must change the chip back , Nils . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh yeah . +Industrial Designer: But we d Then we have to lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Marketing: No , {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Then the whole concept is uh +Industrial Designer: Yeah , I know but that's what my information says . I di I didn't uh put uh the advanced chip in there for fun . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} we oh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: You {disfmarker} You can make you can make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: You have to use it . +Marketing: But if you don't sell +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: You you we have an advanced chip-on-print , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we have an L_C_ display . I think that's a bit double . +Project Manager: Yeah ? No , {vocalsound} +User Interface: Y we don't need both . +Project Manager: the advanced chip is needed to have an L_C_D_ display . +Industrial Designer: For the L_C_D_ screen . Yeah . Yeah . +User Interface: Says {gap} . +Project Manager: Says , his {disfmarker} Uh that was in the second meeting , I think . +Industrial Designer: Well uh and what do they mean with curves uh again ? Because we you have uncurved {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well I I did single curve to {disfmarker} Well you said s double curved , +User Interface: I ? +Project Manager: uh he , +User Interface: {gap} ? +Project Manager: because uh I thought it's a b a bit cheaper already . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: We can also make it flat . +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: {gap} No +Industrial Designer: But what what did what do n +Marketing: no no no . +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Sorry , but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What do they mean with the curves ? +Project Manager: Curved ? +Industrial Designer: Is th Is this a curve ? +Project Manager: Yes , that's curved . +Industrial Designer: One curve ? +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , this is actually two curves , yeah . +Project Manager: No , it's one curve . +Industrial Designer: It's how you {disfmarker} It's how you look at it . +User Interface: {vocalsound} One curve . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: One curve , simple . +Industrial Designer: Well then we have a huge problem I think . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: W t we can never get uh below the twelve and a half . +Project Manager: We have a big financial problem . +User Interface: Well we make it more expensive to buy . +Project Manager: Well , then we have two dollars less profit . Come on , if we if we if we make this fifty million , they won't hesitate to uh congratulate us , so uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: If if you make people brand-aware , they are willing to pay more . But {disfmarker} Because we we use a brand at the front and uh I dun at the back . If you have uh lots of uh marketing people might buy . +Industrial Designer: But uh I {disfmarker} +User Interface: Yeah or we could replace it {disfmarker} +Marketing: If you if you make it cool to have {disfmarker} +Project Manager: By the way , we also have this one . +Marketing: Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: Oh , costs nothing . That's nice . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hey but uh I think you'll agree that uh that we that now we have this uh screen , it's it's very uh not practical to ha to consider this after we have designed the entire thing . +Project Manager: Plastic is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yes , but I just got it . +Marketing: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's pretty uh l +User Interface: Why why don't we replace the titanium with uh plastic coloured titanium , +Marketing: That is pretty stupid . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: N not very practical . {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: uh titanium-coloured plastic ? +Project Manager: Who ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: You want to dump the titanium ? +User Interface: Yeah well if we uh we we have to get cheaper . +Project Manager: And make all plastic , then we ha then we're there . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But I'm n I don't agree . +User Interface: But then we we've got to uh run through the eval evaluation process again . +Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Th then you have a ugly , stupid , l ugly looking , dumb remote that that no-one would buy . +User Interface: Ah no no . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's not ugly looking . The looks remain the same . +Project Manager: No , I don't think so . +User Interface: Well , I do think so . +Industrial Designer: I think the titanium just uh provided the the tough look and the and the {disfmarker} +Marketing: Y +Project Manager: Yes . And the feel , +User Interface: {gap} feel . +Project Manager: and th that it is strong , and {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: And also the the older people will like it because of that . And because i +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: Alright it's not our target audience , but it's it's useful if it's uh important for old people . +Project Manager: We still {vocalsound} we had to focus to get more people from the younger group , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: but not lose the one {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think the titanium is very important . +User Interface: Yeah alright but then we we won't get there . +Industrial Designer: Yeah we have a problem , yeah . W But you can better , yeah , dump the L_C_D_ screen then . +User Interface: We can dump the special colour . We l we use plastic . And plastic is already in colour I think . +Marketing: I don't think you should dump the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Well what else ? +User Interface: No , nothing . +Industrial Designer: W I mean uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Or you shou {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} +User Interface: Amen . +Marketing: Or change the titanium or dump the L_C_D_ screen . But I think you could better change uh titanium to hard a hard kind of plastic looking like titanium than lose the L_C_D_ screen . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: Because you have lots of functions {vocalsound} in it too . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , well yeah . Alright . +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: Why can't I {disfmarker} +User Interface: But {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: I agree with that . So we u we use uh {disfmarker} Unfortunately . Um . Titanium-coloured plastic . +Project Manager: I'll put in the report we that we think that fourteen point one is the l m lowest price you can make a remote for that's trendy d these days . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Industrial Designer: So titanium-coloured plastic for the back . +Project Manager: I I'll talk to the managers . {vocalsound} +User Interface: No no no no . W Titanium stays there . +Project Manager: Titanium , I thi I think this this is this is e really good re remote . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah this is good , +Marketing: Osl {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but it it's not good enough . {vocalsound} So we have to use the ditch the titanium , I'm afraid . +Project Manager: Ah those {gap} those account managers , what do th d what do they know ? +User Interface: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Come on . Riot . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: What do we {disfmarker} Well what do we know ? All we want is a is a fancy design but we don't really consider the costs . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes , yes . +User Interface: No because we did not know anything about it . +Project Manager: One and a half Euros . Hmm ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah al alright , yeah . +Marketing: If you don't have the money , you can't make it . +Industrial Designer: But we have to deal with it now . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So s If you don't have the money , you can't make it . So this is too expensive . +Project Manager: So ? +Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: So we have to make it cheaper . +Industrial Designer: Titanium gone and add plastic . +User Interface: Yeah , but then we've got money left . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: And on plastic times two and then we uh are there ? +Project Manager: Well , no it's just uh all plastic . +Industrial Designer: No {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well alright . Huh . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No yeah well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh six . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} It's just free , man . +Industrial Designer: A lot of plastic , yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Four . So {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: No two for the to make it clear . +Project Manager: But then we can add the special colour ? As we have money over uh left . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Project Manager: And we still have money left . +User Interface: Yeah . W +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What do we want , guys ? +Industrial Designer: I want gold plating . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah right . I want chrome . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I think uh the case is double curved then . +Project Manager: Yes . +User Interface: Because you y have that curve +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We have we have to uh fill {disfmarker} +User Interface: and you have that curve . +Project Manager: Y Oh no . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Well , th that that is the problem . +User Interface: Yeah well uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: W we ha {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright . +Industrial Designer: No no no , but th that's not f um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Safe . +User Interface: Well y we have curves in all directions . +Industrial Designer: Well you can you can double curve , if you don't have titanium . And that we dropped , +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} alright . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: so it it can be done . {vocalsound} But it's pretty funny . We we do want to reach twelve point five . But it isn't bad to to to stay at eleven . +Project Manager: Finance ? +User Interface: I mean , this this ain't titanium , but it looks like it . +Project Manager: Well , guys ? +Industrial Designer: We get more salary , if we make if cheaper than twelve uh twelve and a half . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Guys ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We have to dump our titanium , +Marketing: Shoot . +Project Manager: and we'll hate the managers for that , but now we're going to evaluate our project , of uh project , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Objection . +User Interface: Pro project . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} project . {vocalsound} Well , {vocalsound} satisfaction on for example , are we satisfactory about our creativity ? +Industrial Designer: Well I can't get no satisfaction , but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I think it's uh {disfmarker} Well in in if we consider the costs then this is the best , yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think it's terrible that we got uh those costs at the last moment . +Marketing: Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , me too . +Project Manager: That's really bad . But that that that's that , yeah that's a reason , +Industrial Designer: Its it's uh ridiculous actually , but {disfmarker} +User Interface: And uh unrealistic . +Project Manager: but also for our creativity . We had um nice design , and then you get the cost , and you had to dump all your creativity . +User Interface: Well we we we used our creativity , +Marketing: Right . +User Interface: but we just had to adapt it to the costs . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Which isn't very practical , +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Nei . Uh no . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} that's the way . +Project Manager: Well , alright . +Industrial Designer: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh leadership next . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Terrible . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh teamwork ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Leadership . +User Interface: Leadership ? Well {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It was very democratic . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Uh yeah well {vocalsound} I think so also . +User Interface: Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: I al I I've uh filled that in in a the questionnaires uh each time , so {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well the managers were terrible . So , with their all their useless requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But o alright , the teamwork ? +Industrial Designer: Well uh they they didn't think of the requirements . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: It's the requirements of the user , uh I guess . +Project Manager: No they said , oh we won't d uh we won't uh use teletext , uh we won't use the D_V_D_ . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah but they base that on on the user specifications . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Alright , teamwork ? Well great I think . +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: Right yeah . {gap} +Marketing: Yeah , think so too . +Project Manager: Uh well what do you , what did you think about the SMARTboard ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It was a complete disaster . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , I don't like it . Yeah ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} Uh it it it uh it is uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +User Interface: No , that's a SMARTboard , and that's a digital pen . +Project Manager: It's also a It's both the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Or not ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No it's other way around . That's the SMARTboard . +Project Manager: I liked this SMARTboard , +Industrial Designer: That's the digital panel . +Project Manager: but I hated that one . +Marketing: This this this isn't a SMARTboard , right ? +Project Manager: Well it's both a SMARTboard . +Industrial Designer: That's that's the smart +Marketing: Yeah right . B but you {disfmarker} +User Interface: Oh they're both SMARTboards . {vocalsound} +Marketing: This is just a large t large television . +Project Manager: No . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A televi Yeah . +Marketing: You u you use the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: It's both a SMARTboard , but this one is used for a desktop , and that one is used to to draw . +Marketing: Yeah , but you ca This is just a beamer function . And here , on this one , you can uh draw the pictures and things like that . But {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well , wi w which one did you like ? +User Interface: {gap} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . Left or right ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: That one . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That one . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} That one isn't accurate . {vocalsound} It just doesn't work . +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But I I think this is meant by the digital pen . +Marketing: You can {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yes . Th that is so . +Industrial Designer: Well I didn't use uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , but I think there's a big distinction between the {vocalsound} these th +Project Manager: We're now talking about the SMARTboards . +User Interface: Yeah . +Marketing: I don't need a SMARTboard . +User Interface: {gap} Well we we used that one , +Industrial Designer: Nei It it's much m {vocalsound} +User Interface: and we needed it . I think . +Marketing: Yeah , but {vocalsound} give me a beamer . That's uh that's much uh much cheaper . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Or install a laptop to a beamer , or have this one standing here in an {disfmarker} I I like it . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay , alright . +User Interface: Yeah I like that one , but that one is terrible . +Industrial Designer: But uh you can uh {disfmarker} I I sent it about three times now . Uh {vocalsound} a green uh board with uh chalk is much more useful than that thing . +Project Manager: Yeah . Yeah , it is . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: The simple uh sch school board . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +Marketing: I agree . +Project Manager: And uh the digi the digital pen ? Did uh did you like that one ? +Industrial Designer: I I didn't use it . +Marketing: No . +Industrial Designer: I wrote things down but I didn't import it into my laptop . +Project Manager: I used it uh just to check it out , but uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's the {gap} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: You you can't send that to anyone , because you you've scrabbled something on a page for yourself , +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} It isn't practical . Right . +Project Manager: and then you're going to send it , yeah . Well , no . +Industrial Designer: W {vocalsound} But also y you write things down . And i you can also bring your your your note block . +Marketing: Your notepad . Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So what's the what's the th what's the point of importing it into {disfmarker} +Project Manager: It's , no , it it's useless . +User Interface: Well I I drew this . {gap} Mm . And I made a mistake . But it it would have been uh useful , if I I could show this on the screen . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yes . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah alright . For drawings , +Project Manager: For drawings , yes . +User Interface: Yeah for drawings . +Industrial Designer: but not for personal notes . I think that's not very {disfmarker} +User Interface: {gap} N notes mm . +Industrial Designer: Uh I mean {vocalsound} you can bring your paperwork along and p Well of course if you have a lot of paper {disfmarker} +Project Manager: But {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , it might be useful for drawings . I I agree on that . +User Interface: Mm . +Industrial Designer: If you've {disfmarker} If you've {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But for notes , it i you you have to put that in a strict {disfmarker} Uh you have to put a name , standard date , and all those things . And notes uh for a meeting are very strict . So if you uh were to write them down for yourself , and then put that in your computer , you still have to type it over to Word . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: So it doesn't d doesn't have any {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , right . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand . +Marketing: That Stefan use . +Industrial Designer: But I think uh d this option is only useful if you've got a lot of paperwork . {vocalsound} You can't {disfmarker} It's not very uh ni Yeah well a lot of documents are {disfmarker} Yeah . +Marketing: No , I don't think so . It's it's only useful if you have to draw something . +User Interface: Yeah . But then uh it's really useful , I think . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . Alright . Um etcetera ? Well uh the laptops ? +Industrial Designer: Mu Yeah right . +Project Manager: Of course great . +Marketing: Yeah , great . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah . Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Can we keep them ? Uh . +Project Manager: Yeah . You can . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: B by my {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Wireless uh wireless things . +User Interface: Thanks Project Manager . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Other uh things we used here ? I hated the cameras , I hated the microphones . But {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well these chairs , man . {vocalsound} Really great . +Industrial Designer: Well did you really uh {disfmarker} Did you really take uh take those in account ? {vocalsound} I {vocalsound} half of time I didn't notice they were there . So {disfmarker} +Project Manager: No . No . I haven't looked w one time directly at the camera . {vocalsound} I don't care about it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we shouldn't talk about that . +User Interface: Well I did . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Because {vocalsound} this is a realistic environment . +Project Manager: Well w why not ? Uh etcetera {gap} {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {gap} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} N new ideas found ? +Industrial Designer: Right . Okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: What kind of ideas for n a future schedule {vocalsound} {disfmarker} What ? {vocalsound} For future um meetings {vocalsound} you have got ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Well I missed uh the option to uh to email , +Marketing: Communicate in between . +User Interface: yeah . +Project Manager: Chatting and emailing . +User Interface: Email or chat or something . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But yeah . W well th that's just the the environment they set us up f with . So {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , right . Yeah . +User Interface: Yeah alright , but that's one n new idea . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +Project Manager: Well , new ideas found by this . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Not . Nothing . +Marketing: Well , more more information in the beginning . +Project Manager: We don't want this . We hate this . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: That's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Digital pen is useless . So {disfmarker} +User Interface: No it isn't . +Project Manager: Yeah , for drawings . +Industrial Designer: Well , for drawing for drawings . Yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . So it isn't useless . +Project Manager: But uh two t But uh th then you have to have a lot of drawings , because if I had a company and I'm going to uh buy those expensive huge expensive uh things , I and I have to w pay those uh papers uh that are expensive , I'm not going to uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker} No {disfmarker} +Marketing: For people who uh sketch th the whole day , I can imagine that it's useful . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th then still they they they should have a a nice graphics programme on the laptop . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: But it's still an expensive uh expensive {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Because this is huge +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: uh this v very very uh expensive paper . +User Interface: Well you you can't you can't draw on a laptop like you like you paint of or draw with your hand . +Marketing: Yeah , I agree . +User Interface: With the mouse it is {disfmarker} No . {gap} +Industrial Designer: But if w Yeah . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Well and if {disfmarker} +Marketing: Mouse is ju just isn't working if you're sketching . +User Interface: Uh indeed . +Industrial Designer: And but what if uh maybe this this board uh SMARTboard is malfunctioning or someone . But suppose it was working correctly , what uh would it be useful then , if it wasn't off all the time ? {vocalsound} A +Project Manager: Well no . I hated to draw like that . You you can't draw anything uh neat . +Industrial Designer: Really ? +Marketing: Yeah , but he's saying if it is correct , and you can draw very , {vocalsound} yeah , very precise {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Anything you want . Any b b Yeah . L li li +Project Manager: I if it if it would be perfect following . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well th th then still it's it's it's very expensive uh towards a a just a green {gap} uh {gap} school board . +Industrial Designer: Well it isn't , but maybe that thing is uh is {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , mu +Industrial Designer: Yeah , board , a school board , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah , but but then you can uh save it in instantly , and and and re-use it , and uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I it has {disfmarker} It is useful . Yeah . +Marketing: It saves time . +Project Manager: Yeah yeah . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: This uh if it works correct , maybe this thing this thing is just malfunctioning . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So uh if we get in uh if we get another one and you make sure it does work , +Project Manager: Yep . +Industrial Designer: I think then it's pretty useful . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Because uh yeah you can draw t things quickly and uh clearly for anyone uh in the discussion room . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: And then you can save it immediately . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , they are now . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: Celebration . +Project Manager: It is . So , congratulations crew . +Industrial Designer: Did you type that ? +User Interface: Hmm . Celebration . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Se {vocalsound} +User Interface: Yeah , we can go to the bar and uh with our {vocalsound} newly earned money . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Well {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Finally my beer . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well , that's it I think . +User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Um I don't know how long we still have . {vocalsound} I dunno how long uh we had for this last meeting . But uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Maybe till four o'clock or something ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Well dunno . Yeah . +Project Manager: Well yeah , it is a bit uh {disfmarker} Well we still have to make the end report and uh all those things . {gap} I have to do that . +User Interface: {gap} +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: I {disfmarker} Di did you um save this one in the folder ? +Marketing: You better get started . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Oh . +Project Manager: Can you do that ? +User Interface: No . No no no no . +Industrial Designer: No we must save this thing , yeah . In the shared map map . +User Interface: But Nils you've got some work left . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I don't know what you have to do . +Industrial Designer: Map , is it a good word ? The folder , yeah . +Marketing: Huh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: I have to go to a physiotherapy . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh it worked . Two times quick . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Oh , alright . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Cool . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: So it is useful , yeah . +User Interface: Yeah . {vocalsound} It is handy . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} This is nice . +Industrial Designer: No but uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Oh great , man . +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: I'm gonna buy one buy one for my bedroom . +Industrial Designer: Radical . {vocalsound} Yeah . +Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: D design . +Industrial Designer: Do you believe it yourself ? +Project Manager: S Oh . He saved them all ten . Well alright . Um {disfmarker} +User Interface: Well they they wanted everything we produced , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: They also want to see my cat and his rabbit , and uh {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} My big bird . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Your big beautiful bird . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Where is this {gap} ? +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe the pen is just uh uh broken and the board isn't . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Of or the other way around uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: Maybe you are broken . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah I think so too . +User Interface: I think you have we have to make clear to her that we are ready . {vocalsound} +Marketing: You know . I think she's listening . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I also think so . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Who is she you're talking about ? +Project Manager: She already knows . She ? Big brother . +Industrial Designer: Oh you mean our uh coach , our f personal coach . +Project Manager: Our manager . +Industrial Designer: Is she also our accountant ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Is she responsible for sending that information so late ? Oh . +Project Manager: I don't think so . +User Interface: Close your laptop . +Industrial Designer: Because then we have to confront her with our {disfmarker} +User Interface: So she can see we're ready . +Marketing: I feel watched . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics , +User Interface: Yeah . Let's take this remote into uh production . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: but we couldn't because of the costs . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: That that's the title of our uh end document . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . {vocalsound} {gap} +Industrial Designer: That that's our new slogan . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , I like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We couldn't put the fashion into the electronics . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Blame our accountants . +Marketing: Do that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah , that's a nice title . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But we couldn't , yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Very catching . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Oh . +Industrial Designer: Well I th Yeah . +Marketing: I'm sure management would like that . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: She's on the move . +Project Manager: I'm going to resign after this project anyway , so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , that's just great . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +","The fourth meeting of a multi-disciplinary project team unfolds in a somewhat disjointed and informal manner. The Project Manager kicks off the meeting, prompting the User Interface specialist to query the tasks ahead. The Project Manager says extra decisions are still needed, causing a slightly confused exchange amongst the team members, leading to confirmations around presenting a prototype. + +As the meeting progresses, the Industrial Designer presents their prototype, detailing a new design with a round shape and a combination of hard plastic and titanium parts, emphasizing a front logo, button configuration, and an LCD screen. The designer suggests starting with basic colors before introducing more vibrant options. An essential part of the design is the brand's double R_ logo placed at strategic points on the device. + +The team addresses various issues, from the physical design aspects, like button shapes and materials, to the ergonomics of handling the device. The Marketing representative periodically contributes insights about the market and customer preferences, while the User Interface specialist provides input on the functionality. + +The Project Manager interjects with administrative points, discussing the device's financing and the need to evaluate costs associated with redesign. There's a sense of rush to evaluate production aspects before finalizing the design and closing the meeting. The team struggles to look at ways to reduce costs, identifying optional components like a sample speaker that could be removed without sacrificing key functionalities like the LCD screen. + +Throughout the meeting, there are occasional procedural distractions like the task of documenting decisions and the group's usage of technology such as the SMARTboard and digital pen. These moments lighten the conversation but also demonstrate the team's grappling with the practicalities of their work environment and the expectations placed upon them. + +As cost discussions dominate the latter part of the meeting, the team debates the trade-offs between maintaining materials like titanium to sustain the high-quality feel of the device versus the harsh reality of adhering to strict budget constraints. The User Interface and Industrial Designers mention potential compromises, such as using titanium-colored plastic to cut costs without significantly altering the device's appearance. + +The meeting meanders towards a close with the Project Manager acknowledging additional administrative tasks including an end report and the consensus that the team will celebrate their hard work despite the challenges encountered. The final tone hints at a mix of achievement, compromise, and a touch of resignation as they prepare to conclude their project. + +Through this meeting, the project's progression, from conceptualization to realization, reflects realistic challenges faced by product design and development teams, particularly the intricate balancing act between creativity, market demands, usability, and financial constraints." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +User Interface: Oops . +Project Manager: So , hello everyone . {vocalsound} We're here to have a kick-off meeting for the design of a {disfmarker} f for the beginning of new project um {vocalsound} uh remote control for the design for a new remote control {vocalsound} . I'm the Project Manager Christa Pavlov and {vocalsound} okay let's begin . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I'm first going to do an opening then we get used to one anothers and we speak about this tool we're going to design and try to make a project plan , some discussion and then we talk of uh the next meeting . So um we want to to do a new remote control . It has to be original , trendy and user friendly . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Um I think the important points we have to t talk about are uh it's functional design , it's conceptual design , and desail detailed design . {gap} and for that we're going um all to work individually and then have meeting during the whole day . Um , so {vocalsound} let's try the whiteboard {vocalsound} . +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um so any of you who want to go . +User Interface: Yeah , for favourite animals . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's gonna be not my favourite one but the one I can draw . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} And it's gonna be {disfmarker} you'll try to guess . +Marketing: Wow . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Complex . +Project Manager: Wow . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Huh ? A cat . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: No . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No . Darn . {vocalsound} Uh . +Project Manager: A rabbit . +User Interface: Yes , that's a rabbit . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} A rabbit . +User Interface: That's my favourite one . +Marketing: A what ? +Industrial Designer: Rabbit . +Marketing: A r a rabbit , oh oh yeah , where is the carrot ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it . +Marketing: Okay {vocalsound} mm-hmm . +Project Manager: You want to go ? +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I am not very good at uh {vocalsound} this kind of stuff . +User Interface: Hmm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: My favourite animal is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You wa +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: A human +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Guess . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} ah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} A human , yay . It's a very complex animal {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No . +Marketing: and um {disfmarker} yeah . Characteristics of this this animal is {vocalsound} dangerous . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm I think you're supposed to , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Is the white {disfmarker} okay . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: I guess you can {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {gap} . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . That's cobra . +Marketing: Ah , a kind of uh snake ? Cobra ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah uh not really . +Marketing: Exactly {vocalsound} . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Small cobra . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: No , it just {disfmarker} small cobra , yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is that a worm ? Or {vocalsound} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh-huh . {vocalsound} +User Interface: It's co c quite recognisable . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} What about you uh {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh yeah Christa Pavlov {vocalsound} Mm . +Marketing: Christa ? {vocalsound} +User Interface: Christa {vocalsound} Christa . +Industrial Designer: Chris . {vocalsound} +Marketing: A fish . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: Hmm . +Project Manager: Smiling fish {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: Smile fish . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: A smiling fish . {vocalsound} Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So , w whiteboard is working ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Good . {vocalsound} Next . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Next . Let's talk about money . +User Interface: Just tr try to guess who is a User Interface Designer . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah , well . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} According to the drawings . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah , you're {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Not me . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So . +Marketing: So . Twenty five Euro for a remote control . +Project Manager: Yeah , mm that's the price we want to {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Project Manager: that's the aim for the price for the remote control . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: We aim to do {vocalsound} this profit . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the international market . +Marketing: {vocalsound} 'tis big number . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we're to sell two million then . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Wow . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} for a production cost of mm twelve fifty Euros maximum . {vocalsound} 'Kay {vocalsound} . So any of you have experience in remote controls ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . +Marketing: Uh yes , we have plenty at home . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} In fact , my daughter likes l {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} That {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm . To eat ? {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: To eat ? Yeah , mainly , and to break . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So that could be a great um {vocalsound} application . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Remote controls children proof . Mm mm-hmm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah . +User Interface: Children proof . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye ye yeah . +User Interface: Hmm . +Marketing: So she likes uh buttons {vocalsound} which make click , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , pret +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: so {vocalsound} it has to click . +Project Manager: So they have to be waterproof maybe ? +Marketing: It has to be uh wha {vocalsound} baby proof {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} 'Cause they eat {disfmarker} she ate it . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} but mainly it has to be very robust +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: because even if she's not very tall she's uh {vocalsound} high enough so that uh when she throw it away it's uh {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah . +Marketing: So it has to be very robust . +User Interface: Okay , unbreakable . +Marketing: Unbreakable , yeah . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , we have some child lock or something , yeah . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: And uh {vocalsound} it has to be nice looking , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: colourful , maybe {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Colourful , yeah mm . +User Interface: Colourful ? That's not practical . +Marketing: colourful , because uh nobody has colourful remote control +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: No , that's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , it's always black or {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: , they're always black , yeah , +Project Manager: Mm mm-mm . +User Interface: No . +Marketing: but this one could be I dunno , purple or b +Project Manager: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But how gonna {disfmarker} okay , just uh but it's uh monochrome it's n it's not like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Project Manager: No , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: because you think , why not . +User Interface: Otherwise you will never find it . +Marketing: One colour . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah even we can change colours , no ? Like the uh +Marketing: Oh like the phones , +Industrial Designer: like the phones and these things we c yeah . +Marketing: yeah , it could change colours , yeah . +User Interface: Cool . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: At least for children like one colour and {gap} . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Ch +Marketing: Yeah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Good idea . +Marketing: Good . +Industrial Designer: And it should be really {gap} small and {gap} . +Project Manager: Small also ? Don't you think {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Huh not so big like {disfmarker} yeah . +Project Manager: No uh , not too much buttons or {disfmarker} mm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , not too much buttons and {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be , y you know these uh remote controls where um they are what they call a universal ret remote control +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: so y you can decide that now it's the remote control for the television , then it's the remote control for the the sound system , or for your refrigerator +Industrial Designer: Uh . Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} whatever {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno if it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Or if we should have a targeted re remote control . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} So colour , robustness , easy to use , size , +Project Manager: So , I think there's {disfmarker} +Marketing: yeah , size matters , yeah . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Colour , {vocalsound} size , sh +Project Manager: So you you think it's better if small than bigger . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , maybe at least n not bigger than this I guess . {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Yeah , but without any extremes like n not of this size , not too large . Okay . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: No , not too small , yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , at least it should hold in your hand n properly , like {gap} . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Hmm . +User Interface: Yeah , like a palm sized . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Just to hold it . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: But uh what would be different from this , from the others ? I dunno if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we can change the colours that {disfmarker} at least the frame . Mm . S so then it depends {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah , at least the colour would be different . +Industrial Designer: you are to {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm I mean you c you can easily remove the frame {gap} . +Marketing: I think one thing important for instance in this remote control if you remember when people use it they're {disfmarker} they never find a good button in the right place . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , yeah . +Marketing: For some reason they they they click the off button when they want to use the {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . Yeah . +Marketing: So there's a problem in the design of that kind of remote control somehow , +Project Manager: Mm . So , some kind of idea uh with um um {vocalsound} cellular phone with a a screen that will tell you what {disfmarker} +Marketing: I dunno {gap} . +User Interface: No , +Project Manager: no . +User Interface: no screens , it's too complex . +Project Manager: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} Too expensive , yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Too expensive for twelve Euro ? +User Interface: And n maybe not too expensive , +Project Manager: And too expensive . +User Interface: well it's not my problem , but well okay . +Marketing: Ah . +User Interface: But no screens on remote controls . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . I thought it could be only a screen {vocalsound} which would change depending on uh uh the use or even the user . +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: So ma I prefer to have the off button at the top right , +Industrial Designer: Ye yeah . +Marketing: so I would have my own design of the remote control because it's in fact just a a full touch screen remote control , +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: if you {disfmarker} if you like . +Industrial Designer: I mean it it's like +Marketing: I don't know if it makes sense , but {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} it's like two types no ? {vocalsound} people are right handed or left handed so y because I am left handed I use like this , say if you're right handed you use like this +Marketing: Yeah , for instance , mm . +User Interface: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . Mm mm mm . +Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} so tha your switch on and off should be on +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: So adaptable {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah something {disfmarker} +User Interface: Adaptable . Alright , good , +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: Maybe , if if it's possible , yeah . +Project Manager: yeah . +Industrial Designer: Mm {vocalsound} +User Interface: so how many actions do we need to implement in it ? +Industrial Designer: huh . +User Interface: On off ? +Industrial Designer: Maybe I think even we can keep two switches and then we can uh only make one working . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We can adapt only one switch , suppose here like we can make two switches and if I'm left-hander I use this switch to follow the main operations . +User Interface: I mean if it's less than three uh then we can make it uh like a +Industrial Designer: Two . +Marketing: Three buttons you mean ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} like three mental states , +Project Manager: Three option . +User Interface: yeah you know what I mean , +Marketing: Ah . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: we can just make it uh +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah . Yeah . +Project Manager: Um . +User Interface: controlled by a brain , huh ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm , yeah , sure . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe if it's more , if there is a software inside +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: that ask you three {disfmarker} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} If it {disfmarker} if we want a r universal remote control that we sa like we say before it may may need more than three mm three button , three mm possibilities , ye yeah . +User Interface: Sh sure , sure . +Marketing: Yeah , more than three actions that you may want to do at a given time . +Industrial Designer: Mm yeah . Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: But for standard actions you usually what do you do , you change channels , you adjust volume , and nothing else . +Marketing: Yeah but for instance when you change channels you can have {disfmarker} you can just go to the next one or go to channel twenty five . +Industrial Designer: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And that's already more complex to go to channel twenty five . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: You do this ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} . +Marketing: Uh no . +User Interface: I usually just change channels . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Because I'm only using three or four channels but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah . But they keep generally their t slash slash uh this thing and then the dash dash and then you can put {disfmarker} yeah , you can only have one bit . +Project Manager: Yeah . I change channel like this , m uh I want to go to twenty five , and then to ten , uh-huh mm yeah . +Industrial Designer: Dash . +Marketing: And then back to the one I was before , +Project Manager: Also we can be here {disfmarker} +Marketing: so there's {disfmarker} whichever it was . +User Interface: Uh-huh . +Industrial Designer: Yeah you can +Project Manager: yeah , that would be cool . +Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} yeah . +User Interface: Go back button is good . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Yeah . Uh uh we had that in in other countries . +User Interface: I once had it . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , the previous button is {gap} . +Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} yeah . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah e even the history so you could like uh undo {vocalsound} previous of the previous . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Uh , okay . {vocalsound} +User Interface: History . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Oh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Then you can watch what your {disfmarker} ah you could also record your {disfmarker} record your {vocalsound} sequence of actions , +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} that becomes more complex , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: but you could look at what uh the other people have used there or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remote controls . +Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah , what the {disfmarker} which channels the viewer {disfmarker} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm-mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay . +Marketing: maybe it's a {disfmarker} +Project Manager: So I think we have full of idea . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: Um we're going to meet again in thirty minutes and uh I want you to mm {vocalsound} work on these ideas and try to make a uh {vocalsound} the ones , {vocalsound} make um {disfmarker} to decide what what are the ones important and what are the one that we don't want . {vocalsound} And um m maybe more in the technical parts what uh do we want to do . Um . {vocalsound} So um your personal coach will send you some instruction for for this thirty minutes . +Marketing: So what does M_E_ means ? M_E_ the user requirements ? Or that's uh that's for us ? +User Interface: Market Expert . +Project Manager: Mm . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Marketing {disfmarker} yeah {vocalsound} {gap} . +Marketing: Uh that's me . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh , of course {vocalsound} yeah , the user requirement specifications , uh-huh , yeah . +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: Okay . {vocalsound} I'll think of that . +Project Manager: Mm okay . So . +Marketing: So ? +Project Manager: I think that's all . +Marketing: Meeting's over ? +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Okay . +Marketing: Great . +Industrial Designer: Thank you . +Marketing: Thank you . +Project Manager: See you in thirty minutes . +User Interface: Thank you everybody . +","The conversation appears to be an informal kick-off meeting led by Project Manager Christa Pavlov for a design project concerning a new, original, trendy, and user-friendly remote control. The team, which includes representatives from Marketing and User Interface Design as well as an Industrial Designer, discusses the functional, conceptual, and detailed design components of the remote control, as well as individual and collaborative work plans. + +During the meeting, team members engaged in a light-hearted activity using a whiteboard, attempting to draw and guess each other's favorite animals, which included a rabbit, a human, and a small cobra. This activity's connection to the project is not made clear in the conversation. + +Discussion points for the remote control design include its durability (to be child-proof), size (palm-sized), simplicity in buttons, adaptability for different users (including right- and left-handed individuals), and cost constraints (aiming for a production cost of a maximum of 12.50 Euros, with a selling price of 25 Euros). The team also touches upon the idea of making the remote control colorful to stand out in a market where most are black. + +There is some debate about implementing a touch screen, with the Marketing team member suggesting a screen that changes depending on use or user, while others express concerns about complexity and cost. The team agrees that the remote should be simple and maybe adaptable to the user's preferences, with suggested features including a child lock, robustness, and only essential functions like changing channels, adjusting volume, with potentially a go-back or history button. + +The conversation ends with an agreement to reconvene in thirty minutes. In that time, the team is expected to refine their ideas, focusing on what features are essential and considering the technical aspects of the design. The Project Manager mentions that personal coaches will send instructions for this break period, and there is a clarification that ""M_E_"" stands for ""Market Expert,"" which is the Marketing team member's responsibility to define user requirement specifications. + +In summary, the design team conducted an initial meeting to discuss ideas and requirements for a new user-friendly and fashionable remote control, considering functionality, design, and cost aspects. They plan to further refine these ideas after a short break." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Marketing: {vocalsound} That went well , thank you . +Project Manager: That's great . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} 'Kay . +Marketing: Perfect . +Project Manager: Alright , let me just PowerPoint this up . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right so um this meeting will be about the conceptual design , don't ask me s precisely what conceptual design is , it's just something important that we need to do . Um , think of it {disfmarker} 's kind of uh turning the abstract into slightly more concrete . In this meeting ideally we'll come to some final decisions on what we're gonna do for the prototype . Um . Right so um , apologies for the last meeting , it was brought to my attention that I did not make the roles clear enough , um , so I will attempt to do so more accurately in this particular meeting . Um , fair enough , thanks for the input , 's always good . Um . So , basically all we're gonna do is have some presentations again much like last time , um , and gonna go through you , uh whoever wants to go first is f fine by me um and we'll collate what we know about um what we discussed in the last meeting , possible directions . {vocalsound} And then we'll make some more decisions on um basic uh firm up our idea on how we want this remote control to look and work . So , perfect . So , without th further ado , whoever wants to go first is free to . +Industrial Designer: I'll go first . +Project Manager: Alright Nathan , +Marketing: Go ahead . +Project Manager: take it away . It is Nathan right ? I'm not calling you the wrong name over and over again ? +Industrial Designer: No Nathan's fine . +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good . +Industrial Designer: It's either Nathan or participant two . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Mister participant two that is . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Uh . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Nice . +Industrial Designer: Okay . Um , +Project Manager: Nice . +Industrial Designer: basically what I'm gonna have to talk to you about today is um component design and it's been brought to my attention that we may be somewhat limited as to what we can do because of what our manufacturer offers , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} Basically what I'm gonna be doing is talking to you about that . Um , components of a remote control , okay . We've already kind of gone over this but we're gonna have to get into more detail and probably have to reach some conclusions some time soon . Energy source , um , our manufacturer offers a variety of energy sources , your standard battery , solar cells . Our manufacturer didn't say anything about lithium so we might have to look {disfmarker} if we do go that route , we might have to look elsewhere . Um , and also there's a kinetic energy possibility . Basically , it's like a um {disfmarker} the idea of moving the remote would create enough energy to keep it running . So that's one possibility but I don't know whether that would be powerful enough to illuminate a touch screen . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So we'll have to look into that . +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , the case , we have a few options , plastic , rubber or wood . Um and then as far as the way it's shaped , we can do standard boring flat , which we probably don't wanna do , curved or very sexy double curved . +Project Manager: What kind of th thickness are we looking at ? +Industrial Designer: Um , I imagine that we could specify . Um , I don't see any reason to go outside of the convention of three or four millimetres . Yeah . +Project Manager: Okay , brilliant . +Industrial Designer: Um , the buttons , there are multiple scroll buttons available from our manufacturer , but to use those we'd have to use more chips , um and that would cost us more . And if we do go with the rubber doubled curved case um we'll have to use rubber push buttons because the other buttons aren't compatible with that . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Um and just a little note there , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: touch screen equals many chips which equals many Euro . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . Nice . +Industrial Designer: Um , one thing that I noticed was that most remotes operate on a infrare on the infrared part of the spectrum . So you notice when you push a button on a remote you can't see anything coming out of it but in fact there is light coming out of the remote and you know the television can detect that . And if you were to record {disfmarker} if you were to make a video recording you could actually see the light . Uh one thing that I thought might be interesting was to use part {disfmarker} use visible light coming out of the remote , just kind of as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: So you could actually see something coming out of the remote when you pushed it . +Marketing: Interesting . +Industrial Designer: Course it'd have to be a part of the spectrum that wouldn't damage the human eye or anything like that . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} M Maybe {disfmarker} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . Good call . +Project Manager: is there an option that we can have that off or on so a person can select like {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Choose it . +Industrial Designer: I am sure that we could do that . Um , of course {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Yeah I like the idea , it's a good idea . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , just as a fun gimmick . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to set us apart a little bit . Um , and then on to the circuit board that we're gonna use , also known as the chip . Uh , we really don't have any way around the T_A_ one one eight three five . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Um findings , okay , we're very limited by what our current manufacturers can offer , um and my question to all of you is , should we look to other manufacturies or should we just make do with what we have available ? +User Interface: Interesting question . +Industrial Designer: 'S a bit of a challenge question . +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Well I'd say shop around but with our time constraints , is that really a feasible option ? +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Right , that's my concern too . Um , if we do go the lithium battery route then we'll have to go outside our current manufacturer . My personal preference is {disfmarker} I'll just throw my cards on the table , uh I think we should probably go the solar battery route , just to kinda keep with the environmentally friendly theme that we have going on . Uh , I like the idea of the visible light signalling , that's something to set us apart and uh I was thinking about {disfmarker} I was thinking of ways that we could produce the remote in a variety of different case materials to suit different tastes . So we're not so confined by one style and say some {disfmarker} you know , say our {disfmarker} the one {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: if we just go with one and it doesn't go over well then we're in a bad situation . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Can we do marketing piloting too ? Try to see what kind {disfmarker} before we launch {disfmarker} can we see how they're received ? +Marketing: Um {disfmarker} It's an option , uh but actually there's {disfmarker} I've got some research already on like what we're looking at and trends in casing right now +Project Manager: Okay . Okay . +Marketing: which actually might even come into play beforehand , +Project Manager: Okay , perfect . +Marketing: it may help us decide for now . Temporarily anyway . +Project Manager: Great , thank you very much Nathan . +Industrial Designer: Oh yeah , you're welcome . +Project Manager: That's perfect , so I guess that makes sense for you to take it from here . +Marketing: {vocalsound} I guess so , 'cause I found some interesting things . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} Did you ? {vocalsound} +Marketing: You waiting for me ? {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Fascinating , compelling even . +Marketing: I know , what a teaser ain't it . Um . {vocalsound} Right . So +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: current market trends . Screen . Um , basically I was looking at what's going on in the remote control market right now and what's going on in other design fields , to see sort of what's what's trendy , what's new , what's happening . Um , remote control right now {disfmarker} basically everybody says they want newer , fancier , more exciting {disfmarker} they're sick of this boring , normal , functional , um {disfmarker} that we need innovative design options and there needs to be an easy user interface . Um the challenge is that current trends right now , across the board in fashion , in furniture , in technology , is a very organic fruit and vegetable kind of thing . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Now I'm not saying we should have , you know , tomato shaped remote controls or anything , but I think it is possible maybe to use um natural colours , like if wood is an option , that whole organic , sleek , clean , +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: v line thing may be something we can look into . Different skin options , or if we can't afford this touch plate thing , or touch face screen interface um , maybe having the b images be specific , like you could choose your menu bullets to be +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Tomatoes . {vocalsound} +Marketing: a different shape +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: or {vocalsound} okay , not the example I would choose , but you know what I mean to t sort of {disfmarker} and th apparently the feel of the next couple of years is spongy , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Mm . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} I like it , I like it . {vocalsound} +Marketing: uh not something I I've come up with a {gap} though if we can get around to getting piloting , I thought maybe a casing option like uh not like a skin , but like a holder almost if you could do like um , leather options or wood options or something {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Hmm . I should have mentioned this um . As far as the rubber that we can use {disfmarker} we can use a rubber as part of the case , +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: it has a consistency of those stress balls . +User Interface: Yes . +Marketing: Mm . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Slick , slick . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Marketing: Might be an interesting way to go . Um , yeah so something to sit on for now . So overall I think we should stick with what we're finding , everyone's looking for easy to use , technologically innovative and this fancy new {disfmarker} I think perhaps the double curve thing and maybe this rubber option is our best way to go for right now . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Marketing: {vocalsound} Um . +Project Manager: Interface , oh the interface graphics for the um {disfmarker} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . Um . Well I d but then if the touch screen thing isn't gonna work out for us that's really a non-issue . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: I like the idea of of rubber too because it's {disfmarker} tends to be associated with being durable , something that you can drop and it doesn't matter . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: 'Cause so many {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +Industrial Designer: you go to so many houses these days and you see broken remote controls . +Marketing: Very true . Very true . +Project Manager: Yeah , it's like , yep {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Taped with duck tape and what have you , +Marketing: Very much so {vocalsound} . Um +Industrial Designer: you wouldn't have that problem if you used rubber . +Project Manager: it's ubiquitous isn't it ? +User Interface: We can have a duck tape casing . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: We could . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I think that goes against the whole fancy something , a new line , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} It could go with the granola crowd . +Marketing: but worth a shot . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Ah , it could be , it could be , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great , +Marketing: um . Yeah that's what I know . +Project Manager: thanks for that Sarah . +Marketing: No problem . +Project Manager: Ron ? +User Interface: Phew . Computer's adjusting . One moment please . So interme interface concept by your faithful user interface designer . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: So yur user interface , guys , is basically aspects of a computer system that we can see or hear , or otherwise uh perceive . Uh , commands and mechanisms , that basically user uses to control the operator operating system . Here's a d series of different remote controls +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: that are out on the market today . I think we're definitely trying to get away from this kind of a look . +Project Manager: Yeah +User Interface: Um , so the following are a bunch of different uh interface uh concepts . Uh voice recognition , we we um actually have some new uh information from our research design team but uh I'll get to that in a moment . Um , so current voice recognition starts up to about eighty speech samples , um and basically you record your own verbal labels c and connect them to the remote control . Now our design team , research team , has been able to uh set up a system in which uh you can teach the remote control voice c recognition system to respond to um {disfmarker} with standard responses . Like you could say good morning uh remote control and it'll say in a sexy female voice , Good morning Joe . Um . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} In fact we already have this for a coffee maker line +Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lot of single people on the um on the re on the remote control research team +User Interface: {vocalsound} On the remote control +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Project Manager: at the {gap} {vocalsound} +User Interface: right . +Marketing: Yeah . Very true , very true . +User Interface: Um , another concept is what uh Apple has come up with , the spinning wheel with uh L_C_ display like on the uh iPod +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: which I am sure most of you know about . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: Um and then we have the scroll button with integrated push-button , kind of like a modern {gap} a bit bulky , a bit crazy , +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Mm . +User Interface: I don't think that's we're necessarily going for . +Industrial Designer: No . +User Interface: And uh some special components , uh ideas like uh blocking , having the ability to block channels from your {disfmarker} for your children um and uh dedicated buttons for for commonly used uh channels and even uh ideas like secured or hidden programming but uh I {disfmarker} again if we go with touch screen I don't think that's a big issue . Um and uh this is kind of the uh the big daddy of remote controls here . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Uh the jumbo universal remote control is almost impossible to misplace or lose . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah , I can see . {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , again probably not what we're going for +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: so I {disfmarker} I mean my ideas here and kind of where I think we're heading is something slightly larger than a regular iPod uh with a hard cla c uh plastic casing +Marketing: Okay . +User Interface: although I think some of the suggestions we've come up with are definitely uh very good ideas . Uh changeable casings uh {disfmarker} our design team was possibly talking about including one extra face plate with the package to kind of set the idea that you can change it and you can try changing it +Marketing: Mm , right . +User Interface: and kind of get used to thinking about maybe buying another one which can add value to our uh bottom line . Uh touch screen interface , um possibly having go-to buttons being uh stuck into the system so those don't move away from the screen , uh , the important ones like power , volume and jump between channels . Um , and of course our voice command system which I've talked a little bit about already +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: and uh the use of recognisable colours and shapes to aid recognition of the features um that are around so red for power , um arrows for different volume ups and downs and channels ups and downs and what not . +Marketing: Mm . +User Interface: And uh perhaps even adding in some stupid little jokes with the voice recognition idea like perh mm for instance my toastie maker that I got from my bank +Marketing: {vocalsound} +User Interface: has jokes when it's ready . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Nice . +Project Manager: Great . +User Interface: And uh that is about it . +Project Manager: Great , wonderful Ron , cool . Lot of good ideas , good facts to have . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: That's what they need , it's like a little dongle it just sticks up this further so you don't have to stand up every time , just connect it , my kingdom . +Industrial Designer: Yeah . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Right so , good to know all that stuff , thanks guys , um . {vocalsound} Now we kind of have to come to some decisions , um , I figure we can just go down the line and all three of us can have a chat about it . Um . Based on what Nathan presented as far as the um {vocalsound} various costs and benefits um I think , I dunno , what do you guys think about the touch screen at this point ? +Marketing: I think it's our most marketable feature just because it's so new and it's something that is showing up in other places . +Project Manager: 'Kay . 'Kay . +Marketing: But can we really afford it 'cause it looks like they would be , that would be a really main cost source then +Project Manager: Mm-hmm . +Marketing: right ? +Industrial Designer: My estimate is that in order to incorporate touch screen technology it's gonna cost us upwards of seventeen fifty Euro per remote , +Project Manager: To produce each one . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Per ? +Industrial Designer: yeah that's just an estimate though . +Marketing: Piece . +User Interface: Oh you guys are always the dampers on these projects . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} I know +Project Manager: Mm . +User Interface: You industrial designers . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: I know . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . +Industrial Designer: It's fun . {vocalsound} +Marketing: And our goal was to be under twelve fifty or we have to be under twelve fifty ? +Project Manager: Well . +Marketing: Do we remember ? +Industrial Designer: I thought there was some flexibility with that . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: There is , it's just , it is a question of {disfmarker} and how much ca o does that mean we're gonna have to increase the price to make money . +Marketing: Can we justify it ? +Project Manager: Um , from twelve fifty if we d wanna get our fift uh hundred per cent profit margin {vocalsound} um that would mean selling it from twenty five . If you multiply seventeen fifty by two that's thirty five . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: So {disfmarker} +User Interface: Where do you guys come up with these numbers ? +Industrial Designer: That's just off the top of my head , +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} From the board , +Industrial Designer: it is pending further emails . {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right . +Project Manager: um , well {vocalsound} {disfmarker} +Marketing: Though I think that's what people would pay for , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: I mean if you're gonna pay for an expensive high class remote , you're gonna expect it to do something {disfmarker} +Project Manager: That's true , I mean {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It is the new {disfmarker} it would be in a class of its own . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} And that's {disfmarker} to be fair the um the per cent of the market {disfmarker} we're not going for mass any you know , mass sales anyway , we're gonna make {disfmarker} I mean we we're not talking about selling eight zillion of these things , we just couldn't , not for twenty-five Euros , +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: so we could probably maybe shrink the profit margins rather than selling for twenty five , sell 'em for thirty , but that's something that we can have finance deal with . Um , I say that we provisionally go with the touch screen +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: or wh y wh what was your thought on the matter Ron ? +User Interface: I'm thinking that's uh definitely a good idea and I also think that we could probably come up with some sort of a cheaper uh means to to go about this kind of production , my my team in the uh {disfmarker} on the third floor suggested that uh {disfmarker} +Marketing: See if we can cut some corners . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Right . Well and we can look into this other manufacturing option , and maybe we can get 'em somewhere else cheaper . +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: It's true . +User Interface: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: We could initially go with what we have and if we can find them cheaper later on {disfmarker} +Marketing: Right . It's a starting point anyway , so . +Project Manager: No we could have a s very simple touch screen , you know , there's always the opportunity , if it's gonna be about the size of the iPod or whatever , you know , w we {disfmarker} yeah , I guess we can play around with it a bit . Alright , let's let's say that okay so the touch screen will be our {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} our main selling point here . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} +User Interface: I mean I think that we really have two main selling points , I think that our casing and the voice recognition {disfmarker} +Marketing: Yeah 'cause with voice recognition {disfmarker} I mean really this is pretty bells and whistles kinda remote . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} The voice rec thing , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Project Manager: I mean , {vocalsound} if if we're looking at bottom line , now we're looking at upping the cost to seventeen to get the touch screen on , +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: I think we might have to drop the voice rec . +Marketing: I think we'd have to decide between 'em definitely . +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: To be honest , we have the capa we have the design in-house , +Marketing: Price-wise . +User Interface: I mean we've we've come up with this , with this new voice {disfmarker} +Marketing: True . +User Interface: we're using it for our coffee machines already . +Marketing: We've already got it . +User Interface: I can pass you on that email from my uh guy in uh {disfmarker} guy down the hall . Sounds good . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hmm . What do you think on it Nathan ? About the voice rec ? +Industrial Designer: I think if we {disfmarker} we do both the {disfmarker} obviously production costs are going to go way up um but it does put it into {disfmarker} it'd become the Rolls Royce of remote controls basically . It would be very nice . +Marketing: Pretty much . +User Interface: I mean we we have to r reflect back on what our market research did say . +Marketing: Right and they said they wanted voice recognition . Course , maybe they hadn't thought of this whole touch screen option , but definitely we know the market is there for voice recognition so to say we have the technology and we're not gonna use it even though we know it'll sell is a call I don't think I can give the highs ups . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Like really I can't go in and say no we're gonna just ignore everything we know . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah . +User Interface: Does having both really up our costs ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} I can't see how it wouldn't , I mean , there's you know the old aphorism , you can have it fast , you can have it cheap or you can have it quality , pick two of three . You know , you can't you can't have all three . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Yeah , 'cause you {disfmarker} you just upping the number of chips that you need to deal with each different function . +Project Manager: It's just impossible . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Well if we're gonna pick betwe e alright so we have to pick between one of the two . Um . Otherwise , yeah , we just {disfmarker} it just becomes cost prohibitive . What {disfmarker} which , which do we suspect we should hold o we should hold on to ? +Marketing: Well , we already have research backing voice recognition as you know fiscally solvent . But uh I I I personally would tend to another direction but if that's what's gonna sell I think that's what we need to go with and maybe we can table this touch screen for our next model . +Industrial Designer: I would have to side with that , +Project Manager: 'Kay . +Industrial Designer: I think the voice recognition is simpler , we already have the {disfmarker} all the technology in-house , it's ready to go , it's packaged , it's {disfmarker} +Project Manager: What does the cost look like Ron ? Is it cheaper to do the V_R_ or to do the uh touch screen ? +User Interface: {vocalsound} Well my p {vocalsound} is {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Nathan ? +Marketing: Mm . +Industrial Designer: Um , this is just off the top of my head keep in mind , but I think the voice recognition would {disfmarker} they're both mm they're both gonna push the costs up , but um , since we already have the technology in-house for the voice recognition +Project Manager: Mm . +Industrial Designer: we're not gonna have to do as much design work +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right . +Industrial Designer: and sometimes the design work is what push the costs up , if you know what I mean . +Project Manager: Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} +User Interface: Um , I definitely have to agree with that last comment . +Marketing: And we're still not {disfmarker} then we don't have to deal with this battery issue nearly as much either , +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: we can stick with what we've already got . In a lot other ways too . +Project Manager: Okay . So I'm getting {disfmarker} alright so more or less you guys think that o o of the two of 'em , the voice recognition will be better . Okay . +Marketing: I think it's our lower risk option +Project Manager: Yeah . +Marketing: which for right now {disfmarker} we can have it on the market sooner which is all in all our best option . +Project Manager: Okay . Sorted . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: We will omit the touch screen in favour of voice recognition . +User Interface: It's you and me outside a little here . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: So and when are we gonna have basic prototypes coming up next that's {disfmarker} you guys's next step right ? +Project Manager: Yeah , well we'll we'll sic we'll sort out what it {disfmarker} what {vocalsound} f what else we're gonna talk about for the prototype +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: but yeah that's our next step , it'll be a developing of prototype . +Marketing: Okay . +Industrial Designer: Are we going to talk now about um the materials that we're gonna use for the case and all those things ? +Project Manager: Yes . We'll just run through it yeah , yeah , um . +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: You discussed either a lithium or a solar power . Would the solar power be enough to fuel a voice recognition ? Or this kinesthetic one , would that be enough to fuel a voice recognition remote control ? +Industrial Designer: Um , the solar power definitely would be but I think just to keep people from getting annoyed , 'cause sometimes solar power fails and there's no way round that , we should install a small backup battery . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Just to cover those moments when for whatever reason , the remote hasn't been exposed to {disfmarker} +Marketing: Well what of people with like the T_V_ in their basement , +Project Manager: Mm . Yep . +Marketing: like what if {disfmarker} wha we can't guarantee sunlight everywhere so having a secondary source is probably {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: It's true . Yeah , it works about the same as a solar powered calculator , +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: and you know how those those don't really require that much light , +User Interface: Calculator . +Marketing: Yeah . True . True . +Industrial Designer: um , but obviously a little more light than a calculator , but we're not talking about a lot of light . Doesn't have to be out taking a sunbath for a few hours a day or anything . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: Okay . +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: What do you think Ron ? +User Interface: I'm willing to agree with everything that's been said . +Project Manager: Okay . +User Interface: Uh I have to say though that um another idea's come up in my head . If we're really not uh handling the remote control to a great extent we could possibly get away from the idea of having a hand-held remote control and maybe kind of have a round remote control that kind of looks like a paperweight or something like that , kind of a sleek little uh neat thing that sits on your table or something . +Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Hmm . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . +Marketing: Interesting . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: Why , why moving away from hand-held , why ? +User Interface: Just a thought . +Industrial Designer: What's the uh idea ? +User Interface: Well if you don't need to pick it up it could kind of be a selling point . +Marketing: I if it's got voice recognition it can be technically anywhere in your room and still do its job . +Industrial Designer: Hmm . Do you think people that are {disfmarker} people that buy a remote , are they always gonna wanna use the voice recognition or is it just something that they do sometimes . +Marketing: True , and i probabl I think we're banking on selling it to more than just voice recognition people , like we want it to work fundamentally as a basic manual too , +Project Manager: Well we have to have buttons on it too as well . +Marketing: right . +Project Manager: But that's done , that's no bother I mean if you look at the catalogue from places like with sharper image or whatever you know they might have {disfmarker} or like um {vocalsound} who is it , Apple makes these really pretentious speakers with the th sub-woofers you know like clear and glass and you know +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: and then they got these little pyramidal type of um speakers . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yep . +Project Manager: I mean , why not have a little rounded kind of thing , +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: it could still have the basic buttons on it . Um , 'cause we're going for basic functionality primarily as well . +Marketing: With the bu yeah . +Project Manager: And maybe a menu button and so forth , you know um use a channel button to scroll through the menu d if they want to record programmes or whatever you know I mean we can sort that out . +Industrial Designer: I think , I think you're on to something +Marketing: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: because we need to escape the traditional shape of a remote . Maybe something that looks nice on a table is {disfmarker} would be good , even though {disfmarker} and hand-held the same time . +Marketing: True . Way to go . +User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's all about following Apple's lead on a lot of these things . +Marketing: Yeah I'm thinking of the airport portal , +User Interface: Mm-hmm . +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: you know like that little pod looking thing ? +Industrial Designer: Yeah , those are nice . +User Interface: Exactly . +Project Manager: Yeah , I mean a nice {disfmarker} although we do um wh uh is {disfmarker} I'm recalling that she mentioned that we n need to get away from the surgical white kind of brushed aluminium thing +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: and get back to it +Industrial Designer: Mm . +Project Manager: but you could have a very tasteful um wood coloured or earth tone kind of um {disfmarker} +Marketing: That would be kinda neat . Terracotta bowl or something . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Still , I mean , yeah , along those lines . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: Yeah I like that , I like that idea a lot . Um , let's see what we can do as far as that goes . And the uh the material like the plastics and so forth , we were discussing that being uh {disfmarker} using like a rubber kind of softer feel , +Industrial Designer: Okay . +Project Manager: um you know +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: li lik if you feel the the tip on this pen it's a bit {disfmarker} gives just a bit . You know +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: something where it's uh a a more advanced f form of plastic that has some kind of a tactile response to it . +Industrial Designer: Right . Just kind of the squishy feel . +Marketing: Yeah , which is the next big thing , so that's not gonna hurt us either . {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Mm 'kay . +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: Yeah let's see if we can do a squishy non-remote control-looking remote control . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: But to be fair , yeah , I mean , you just c you could just put it {disfmarker} literally put it on the the ni the coffee table next to the telly and say volume up . +Marketing: Right . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I like it , I like the idea , that's good . +Marketing: Handy . +Project Manager: Um and we've sorted of discussed costs , {vocalsound} um . I guess we'll a that's gonna be uh a thing , if we run a bit over-budget , that might be okay , um . +Industrial Designer: Sorry about the uh lack of information on cost , I just haven't been provided that information by our manufacturers +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have more of an idea when the prototype {disfmarker} have more of a {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: and I'm just having to guess . +Project Manager: we'll have more of an idea later on . Um . And we just yeah go from there . {vocalsound} Um , so +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: we've revisited the touch screen and more or less ruled that out , um , I think so we're more or less con we {disfmarker} wh wh we're more or less in agreement that we want to have a um {vocalsound} a simple kind of function , you know , not too complex . +Marketing: Mm . Right . Well when the majority of people are only using the most primary functions on a daily basis , although I'm not saying we should completely rule out major functions , they should be secondary , at least if not functionally then visually , like those shouldn't be {disfmarker} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Like maybe have menu things . +Marketing: Take precedence , +Industrial Designer: If , if we're not going the touch-screen route then we can um just incorporate maybe something that folds out +Marketing: yeah . +Industrial Designer: like what you often see on these kinds of remotes is the most basic functions up here +Project Manager: Mm . +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: and something that slides down to reveal the you know more complicated things . +Marketing: And they slide . +Project Manager: Yes . +Marketing: Well and do we wanna consider like an iPod screen which isn't a touch screen but you're still scrolling through menu options , in p +User Interface: {vocalsound} Think then we're hitting our cost issue again . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah +Marketing: True , +Project Manager: we've also got the the me the thing of , +Industrial Designer: Yeah . +Marketing: we're still not making it easier then . +Project Manager: if we're gonna have a non-remote-looking remote , how do we {disfmarker} yeah . +Marketing: True . +Project Manager: B But no I mean +Marketing: Fair enough . +Project Manager: we could do a slide or a compartment , you know , like if it {disfmarker} say it's a lit little vaguely ovoidal type of thing , it'd be easy to have a compartment in there . +Marketing: Yeah . +Project Manager: Or you know , a b a b a a series of you know three or four buttons with a menu button and then a side an s up and down type of thing , like on um {disfmarker} like on a D_V_D_ player . You know you see the modern D_V_D_ players'll just have um a menu button on the side and then four buttons around them +Marketing: Mm-hmm . Yeah it's just a scroll . +Project Manager: and you can just kind of manoeuvre through the menu like that . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: So are we gonna {disfmarker} are we talking {disfmarker} we need to figure out what kind of buttons we're going to use , are we going to use scroll buttons ? Rubber buttons ? Um {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well it seems like {vocalsound} I dunno it seems to me that we could just do the um {disfmarker} stick with the rubber 'cause since we're probably gonna be using some kind of um {vocalsound} rubber for the outside case +Marketing: Yeah . Probably . +Project Manager: we might as well stick with that um . +Industrial Designer: Right . +User Interface: I think to a certain extent we have to stick with uh kind of uh a little bit traditional in terms of the buttons and then and then make our unique feature our casing and what not and our voice command . +Marketing: Right . Mm . Well no it's basic just like four directions that are {disfmarker} that can use as menu or channel and volume or however you wanna do it , are really versatile and everybody's already got them to some extent on the remotes they already own so it's not like we're dealing with everybody relearning things 'cause that's not something anybody's gonna wanna buy a new for . +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: Mm 'kay , um . {vocalsound} We've already kind of covered this as well . That seems to be selling {vocalsound} um and we we've more or less agreed that we want to kar target this youth market , um . +Marketing: Mm . +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Especially now with eighteen to thirty five year olds being such a large quantity of the population . {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} Right , particularly in technological fields , +Project Manager: Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . +Marketing: so that's exactly where we're headed . +Project Manager: Okay . {vocalsound} Um . Yeah alright , well , more or less covered what we need to cover I think fi an an any final thoughts before we think about doing the protot moving on to the prototype . +User Interface: Well what are we actually doing ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right . +User Interface: What were {disfmarker} +Project Manager: I was just gonna step on to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +Marketing: Uh . Oh it wasn't in the way but {disfmarker} yeah , whatever . +Project Manager: I wasn't ? Oh , my bad {vocalsound} um sorry . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} +Marketing: No , don't worry about it . +Project Manager: The um , yeah okay I was just gonna assign tasks in the next b anyth any oth +User Interface: Sure . +Project Manager: any other final thoughts before we go ahead and +Marketing: Okay . +Project Manager: {disfmarker} cool ? +Industrial Designer: So +Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah . +Industrial Designer: have we decided that we are gonna go with different style cases for different people ? +Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um . +Industrial Designer: Or are we just going to go with one ? ..It's very , it's very hard thing to predict because you have different cases +Marketing: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: and that might open up your market a little bit obviously , but if you have just one case and it doesn't go very well {disfmarker} mm . +Project Manager: Yeah . +Industrial Designer: It's a tough situation , +Marketing: Right . +Industrial Designer: but obviously having more cases also costs more so {disfmarker} +Project Manager: Well then again colours wouldn't be so hard to do , you could have uh a , you know , a um uh kind of a natural wood colour , like a stained wood and um , I don't know , olive green or something . +Industrial Designer: There's an idea . +Marketing: Mm . Yeah . +Project Manager: That wouldn't be so much of a problem to incorporate into the colour of the {gap} thing . +User Interface: And again copying iMac's kind of {disfmarker} for iPod Mac Apple's uh colour scheme . +Marketing: Yeah , get in there . Yeah , totally . +Project Manager: Yeah , I think that's probably a good id okay so let's work on {vocalsound} uh multiple case colours . But yeah , stick with the same kind of kinda {disfmarker} yeah , the same basic non-remote kind of remote design . Cool . Alright , so we'll have the next meeting about half an hour , um . I want the uh {disfmarker} I'd like {disfmarker} Nathan , I'd like you to work on just the basic look and feel , what can we accomplish , um , given these parameters that we're just gonna sort of have this kind of uh non-remote remote . Um , what are our broad constraints before we deve design a prototype . {vocalsound} +Industrial Designer: Right . +Project Manager: And um Ron if you can figure out how probably best to lay out this idea of this simple design with the voice recognition built in and also this kind of drop down or s on the side kind of menu options simple . Somehow work out how we can get this all s in the same place . Um , and if you can check product evaluation with m some pilots and stuff . Um I need you guys to work together on making a prototype , {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} using um {vocalsound} prototype building materials um {vocalsound} . +Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} +User Interface: {vocalsound} +Marketing: {vocalsound} +Project Manager: And also um specific instructions will be sent to you by your coaches as well . +Industrial Designer: Oh excellent yeah . +Project Manager: So that's what to start with for now , is that alright , you guys feel clear about this ? +Marketing: Cool . +Industrial Designer: That sounds good . +User Interface: Fabulous . +Project Manager: Alright . I guess we'll just hit the bricks . Thanks guys . +Marketing: Cool . +","In a meeting regarding the conceptual design of a remote control prototype, the team debated technical features such as touch screen versus voice recognition, power sources (solar with a battery backup), and unique design concepts (potentially non-handheld, rubber casing with a 'squishy' feel). Cost considerations were also discussed, leaning towards using in-house voice recognition to keep the price down. The target market is 18-35-year-olds valuing user interface and style. Colors could mimic natural tones to tap into current organic trends. The meeting concluded with assignments for developing a prototype that includes these discussed features and preferences." +"Generate a long and descriptive summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies, although Dawn Bowden is running late. I'll take this opportunity to welcome Dawn formally to the committee but also to place on record our thanks to John Griffiths for his service to the committee. Are there any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a scrutiny session with a focus on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Eluned Morgan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, and Huw Morris, who is the group director of skills, higher education and lifelong learning. Thank you all for your attendance this morning. If you're okay with it, we'll go straight into questions. The first questions are from Suzy Davies. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. If we can just start with teacher training and teacher training for secondary school teachers in particular, obviously there's been what looks like a trend in recent years in filling the places for secondary school training. Obviously, this is at Welsh teacher training centres. Do you think there's still a problem recruiting teachers into the 300 priority places, or is there a trend where things are getting better? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Suzy. I think, for this year's intake, although we're in touch with our providers, we're not in a position to be able to give figures for this year's intake for a couple of months. But what we have seen over recent years is that we are only recruiting to about 65 per cent of those targets. So, there is still a job of work to do to understand and to respond to those needs. So, what we're doing is first of all making sure that our ITE provision is world class, so that, actually, Welsh centres are the place to go to train to be a teacher. You'll be aware that we've recently been through an accreditation process for new ITE provision that will start in the next academic year. We have looked at financial incentives. It's not the whole answer, I think, to these issues, but it's part of a mixture of things that we need to do. You'll be aware that, for priority subjects, with graduates with the very highest levels of qualifications, those financial incentives are now £20,000 a year. We're also embarking on our first ever national ITE recruitment marketing exercise. We have initially done some work in the last year specifically targeting Welsh students in studying for priority subject degrees, e-mailing them, sending them materials to ask them to consider (1) becoming a teacher, and (2) crucially coming to do that training here in Wales. We are now part of a full national programme of ITE recruitment, giving people that idea that you can serve your nation and your community by training to be a teacher. So, there's a whole package of things we need to do. In January of this year I set up an advisory board on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, and we are awaiting some reports from that advisory group on what they feel that we should do next. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that answer. I can see there's a lot of activity, but what exactly is it responding to? Presumably, some research has been done about why people don't want to become teachers so that the answers you come up with are appropriate answers. I can't believe it's just about ITE, although this is very valuable, what you're talking about. Is there something that's running through our younger learners at the moment that makes them think that teaching isn't a profession they want to go into? Is that something that's happening just in Wales or is it happening elsewhere as well? +Kirsty Williams AM: No. I think what you will find is that this isn't a uniquely Welsh issue. I think they are suffering quite acute problems across the border, which proves to me that money isn't necessarily the entire answer, because, despite higher financial incentives to join ITE courses, they're not able to do that in England either. So, that proves to me—what the research does show—that it's not money alone that will get people onto these courses. Interestingly, I don't even think it's a UK problem. Recently, as you'll be aware via my written statement, I attended the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory, which is a system-to-system conference. If you talk to education systems in different parts of the world, the one common factor that we are all grappling with is teacher recruitment and retention. In the USA, they have seen a 40 per cent drop in the number of students training to be teachers. So, in the Californian system, significant teacher shortages, and in Oregon, Washington. I met with New York state—significant teacher recruitment and retention problems in New York state, and in Finland, Australia. So, this is a common issue across the globe, really. That's why we set up the advisory group under the chairmanship of Professor John Gardner—it's to understand what the issues are exactly that are preventing people or putting people off. One of the things that we have got strong performance in, and I think this is perhaps something that we're trying to follow up on, are employment-based routes into qualified teacher status—so, those are people who are training on the job. Those remain strong. There's high demand for those places, so much so that we've increased those places to 90 last year and 90 again this year, which says to me that—there's definitely a place for the traditional, 'Take a year off, do a postgraduate certificate in education in a university for a year'—actually, that type of course suits some students but it might be preventing other people from pursuing a qualification in teaching, which is why, of course, from next year, we will have our unique part-time PGCE route into qualification. So, that allows people to perhaps combine some of their employment opportunities, so they can earn while they learn, or maybe they've got caring responsibilities that prevent them from going to do a full-time course. I think that will give us an alternative route that people can take to gain qualified teacher status and work in our schools. So, there's no one thing, I think, that we can do that will solve this issue. But it is an international issue, I agree with that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, that's what I was after finding out, and, actually, what you've just said about the part-time PGCE is pretty interesting as well, because if you can bring your outside world experience into teaching, that's got to help, hasn't it? +Kirsty Williams AM: Can I just agree with you? I think that is really, really important—that we have a diversity in our teaching workforce. I think the different dynamic that brings to a school and the experience that brings to children is really, really valuable. I was up in the Deeside Sixth just last week, talking to the A-level chemistry teacher. She had been a teacher for a while, she'd gone into industry, worked in industry, and now had come back into teaching. She said that she felt that that made her a better educator and she could talk with knowledge and experience about the opportunities outside of teaching that the students in front of her could pursue. I'm very keen to increase the diversity in our teaching workforce and I'm very keen in looking at career changers, who perhaps have different life experience and work experience, coming into our teaching profession. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that. Part of that diversity, of course—it would be great if you had more people interested in qualifying to teach through the medium of Welsh. Great aspirations; the trend's going the other way. No-one can solve this in 280 characters, I get that, but can you give us some indication about why you think this is proving still such an unattractive option when it's clear that there's a policy for this country to improve the number of Welsh speakers? You'd have thought there'd be a pretty good carrot for this. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sure. Again, data for recruitment for the 2018-19 cohort is not yet available and we are, as I said, keeping in touch with our ITE centres to keep a close eye on them. I think an important thing to recognise is that there is a difference between the number of people who are on courses where there is a specific designation that enables them to teach through the medium of Welsh and those people who have linguistic ability and Welsh ability but don't necessarily do a course that allows them. So, there is a difference. We do think that, for the 2016-17 cohort, there were an additional 130 qualifiers that, actually, were fluent in Welsh and who could have gone on to teach in Welsh-medium schools, didn't necessarily do a course that gave them that designation. But, clearly, we've got three academic years now to get to the targets that we've set ourselves. The evaluation of Welsh-medium provision in ITE reported at the end of last month, and the Minister and officials are busy working now to implement the recommendations of the report that was published, I think, on 28 September, to be able to move this agenda forward. Again, we've got new incentives, this year, both for people starting their course and then for teachers who complete their QTS after a year. So, we've added in new financial incentives this year to try and address some of those issues. But, clearly, these are ambitious targets and we will need to have a step change over the next three years if we're to meet them. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. Thank you for that answer. We're now talking about cohorts of students coming into PGCE and teaching degrees. If they're from Wales, they will have had Welsh as part of their education from day one, and we'll accept there are varying qualities in different parts of Wales, different attitudes towards it as well. But there isn't a single a person now who's been through Welsh education who can say they have no Welsh at all, unless they've moved into the system from, say, England very, very recently. What is being done within the teaching qualifications, including the degrees, to ensure that, at least in Welsh universities, those nascent Welsh language skills are at least kept alive, even though we're not talking necessarily about being at a level where people can teach through the medium? It's the age-old question: once the school gate closes, is that the end of their Welsh use? So, is there something—it won't be Donaldson, but in the teacher training qualifications—that is keeping this going and, hopefully, increasing the usability of the Welsh skills they have? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, in terms of how we can encourage children who have got Welsh skills as a result of their education up to 16, how they can continue to use those skills and, potentially, use them in the workplace, I'm sure Eluned will want to talk about some of the work, for instance, in other, non-teaching sectors. But, with regard to ITE, you'll be aware that, in the evaluation report, as I said, that was published, the report comes forward with two options in how we could develop an intervention programme to support Welsh language skills amongst all primary and secondary ITE entrants. So, what we'll be doing now as a result of that report is that we'll be working very closely with our ITE centres to develop and agree upon minimum provision that constitutes those skill levels within ITE provision for all teachers. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: You have your targets for 2021, in terms of numbers of teachers coming through the system, which is positive, although, clearly, the report or the review itself said that, actually, we need to double the numbers, really. But it's not just the trends that are going down; it's a cataclysmic drop, really. We've lost 24 per cent in the number of people over the last four or five years who are going into teacher training to study subjects that they could teach through the medium of Welsh. So, it's a huge turnaround that we're looking for, and I'm not getting the feeling that the level of ambition and the answers that you're giving here this morning reflect the level of action that's needed, really. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, first of all, as I tried to illustrate to Suzy, the figures on their own tell one story, but there are additional people in the system with an ability to speak Welsh and to be able to use— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I think it's 40 per cent of those who are currently in the system who don't— +Kirsty Williams AM: —the language and skills. And if we look at qualifiers of ITE courses in Wales by degree type, actually, we see a different trend—we see numbers going up. So, there are statistics and there are statistics. Depending on which ones you look at, it's quite a complex picture. And that's why we had the evaluation report. We understand and we know and acknowledge that there is more work to be done. That's why we have got the evaluation of provision in ITE and that's why we'll be taking that ambition forward. We know what we need to do. As I said, we're not sitting back and hoping that something miraculous will change things. We are pulling levers and putting in place plans to improve that situation. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you for that. Clearly, there are statistics and there are statistics, so could you just explain to us which statistics you've used for your targets for growth over the next three years? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that comes as a result of the work done for the 2050— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Upon which baseline are you basing the increases that you're projecting? +Kirsty Williams AM: We're using the baseline of 2012-13. There has been a decline since then. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That's the one I was using when I said '24 per cent reduction'. +Kirsty Williams AM: There has been a decline in those numbers. That's why, as I said, we're doing the work that we need to do to reverse that decline. In using those numbers, we also know that there are additional people in the system who are not captured in those figures and who do have the linguistic ability to use their language positively in school settings. So, what I'm saying is that that doesn't tell us the whole story, but I will be the first to admit that there is a significant job of work with our ITE providers to ensure that we will have the skilled professionals that we need to deliver on our ambitions, and I'm not hiding from that. +Eluned Morgan AM: Also, I just think it's worth saying that a lot of this is about building the confidence of those people who actually can speak Welsh, who are not teaching through the medium of Welsh, and to give them that support. First of all, we need to identify who these people are, so there is a job of work being undertaken now in terms of registration in particular—when people register, let's just make sure that we collect that kind of data. +Kirsty Williams AM: We don't even do that consistently at the moment. One of the recommendations of the report is that there is no consistent approach to understanding this baseline data and there's no consistent competency test that people start at the beginning of their course, so we need a national approach rather than leaving it to individual institutions. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Have we missed any tricks, potentially, in terms of the reforms to accrediting ITE, for example, in terms of, maybe, strengthening aspects around the Welsh language and provision in that respect? +Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't believe so. The accreditation process, which is independent of the Government—the accreditation process demands of our ITE providers that their provision will be able to meet the goals of our curriculum. Our curriculum is very clear about the equality of the language and the ability of our children, through all stages of their education journey, to be able to be bilingual children. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, that requirement, as far you're concerned, is there. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. Diolch—thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Before I turn to Hefin, can I just clarify—? In answer to Suzy Davies, you said that 65 per cent of the places in Welsh training centres had been filled. Is that 65 per cent of the priority places? +Kirsty Williams AM: Priority places. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. +Kirsty Williams AM: Sixty-five per cent of the priority courses are being met. +Lynne Neagle AM: Lovely, thank you for clarifying that. Hefin. +Hefin David AM: The decision by the Education Workforce Council not to accredit the University of South Wales with the ability to deliver teacher training—what are your views and concerns about that? +Kirsty Williams AM: The process is independent of Government, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that, especially as I understand that there is an appeals process that may be being undertaken. What I would say is that from the very outset of our ITE reforms we have made it very clear that I expect very high standards in our ITE system, but the process is independent of this Government. I have confidence in the people who have been appointed by the EWC to undertake that process, but it is independent of me, and it's not appropriate for me to comment on that further. +Hefin David AM: I fully understand that and the need for distance for the EWC, but there'll be an impact on students and staff. Students, first of all: are you concerned that the reduction in providers might have an impact on students, and those students going through the second year at USW? Would you have concerns about that issue? +Kirsty Williams AM: In terms of the overall numbers, we will be looking to commission from those institutions that have been accredited the number of training places that our planning tool says that we need. So, in terms of an overall number of places, we will commission from those accredited units. Clearly, there will be a responsibility upon the University of South Wales to ensure that those students already in the system are able to complete their studies and their course, with the appropriate level of support and tuition to enable them to achieve their career aspirations and to graduate from that programme. +Hefin David AM: And what about the uncertainty for staff, or would you say that's an issue for the university itself? +Kirsty Williams AM: These are autonomous bodies. They have to act accordingly, in compliance with any employment law or any statutory responsibilities that they would have as an employer. That's not a matter for me; that is a matter for the institution that is an autonomous body. +Hefin David AM: But I would be surprised if you weren't keeping an eye on this, given that it has been a key provider. Are you aware of when the appeal decision will be known? +Kirsty Williams AM: My understanding is that the appeals process is ongoing, and next month, perhaps. But as I said, this is a process that is independent of Government— +Hefin David AM: But it will have an impact for what you do. +Kirsty Williams AM: It will potentially change the nature of the people from whom we commission places, but as I said, I do not have any concerns that we will not be in a position to commission the appropriate number of training places that we will need as a result of our planning. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy on this—mindful of what the Minister said about it being an independent decision. +Suzy Davies AM: It's not directly about USW; it's about the geographic spread of provision. I wonder if you could just give us a snapshot of what that looks like, and whether you think—certainly for PGCE or postgrad courses, anyway—that if they're not accessible geographically and we've got students who already have three years' worth of debt, they're not going to be looking to, necessarily, live away from home for a fourth year, and may want to study nearer home. Has there been any research done on the access to these postgrad courses, about where people are coming from and whether that's had an impact on the fact that some of these places haven't been filled? +Kirsty Williams AM: Currently, with our current providers, there is a significant geographical spread. There are centres here in the south-east, there are centres in the south-west, in mid Wales, and in north Wales. Obviously, accessibility is an issue for us. We do think that, for some students, accessibility is an issue, and of course that's why we are responding with our part-time PGCE route, which actually will be location neutral, because you will be able to study that as a distance learner, and so you will be able to remain in your community and undertake that course. So, that's part of the attractiveness, I believe, of offering that to people. So, if geographical disadvantage is stopping somebody from pursuing a career aspiration to qualify as a teacher, our new part-time PGCE, as I said, will allow them to do that. +Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thanks, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about reform and reconfiguration of the post-16 education sector. Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Good morning. There are some encouraging provisional signs regarding the demand for part-time undergraduate study for the first year of Diamond, but the £12.5 million reduction Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is having to make this academic year has potentially placed the funding for part-time provision under pressure. Is there a danger that, without maintaining and growing this funding, Welsh Government will undermine the Diamond reforms and increase the cost of part-time courses? +Kirsty Williams AM: Let's be absolutely clear what this Government has done for part-time students. We are unique, Janet: unique in the UK and, I believe, unique in Europe, in the parity of the support that is available for full-time and part-time students. So, Welsh part-timers have something that they do not get if they are in England or if they're in Scotland. It's too early to have definitive figures for the impact of Diamond on the number of people who are undertaking part-time study. I don't want to get into trouble by not having that verified data, and I know Members get testy with me for anecdotal evidence, but I can tell you this: there is one provider that is reporting at this moment a 40 per cent increase in the number of students that are registered to start part-time study with them this year, as compared to last year, and that reflects really, really well, compared to the onward downward trend that we see across the border for part-time. What this means, for us as a nation, is that people are able to take this opportunity to upskill themselves and to be able to develop their qualifications and to be able to move themselves up career ladders, and I think that's such an important economic factor for us. So, rather than feeling doom and gloom about the prospects for the part-time sector, the early indications, at least, show that the Diamond reforms are leading to an increase in demand and, more importantly, an increase in uptake—students taking advantage of that system to go away and study. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Is the Welsh Government able to reassure the committee that its ambitions for the post-compulsory education and training reforms are still in line with the original Hazelkorn recommendations, and go beyond the Labour manifesto commitment of simply replacing HEFCW with a new funding body for HE and FE? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. So, you will be aware, Janet, that the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the Government and the Government's programme state very clearly about our desire to pursue the recommendations of the Hazelkorn report. I hope, by the end of this week, we will have published the responses to the technical consultation, and we will continue to move forward. And I would argue, certainly, that the reforms that we are intending to implement do go beyond just simply a body that replaces HEFCW and joins in FE. It's a much wider remit to the potential new commission. And, as I said, I believe we've had in the region of about 450 responses to the technical consultation and I'm pleased to say that there remains a consensus—we will always have some arguments about the details—but there remains a consensus on the direction of travel that we are pursuing. A summary of the consultation responses will be available to Members and will be published by the end of the week. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Okay. Is the Welsh Government still committed to introducing the PCET Bill before the end of the fifth Assembly, and are you confident this will happen? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I'm absolutely determined that we will get the PCET legislation on the floor. It's a substantial piece of work, as you've just alluded to. This goes just beyond abolishing a single body. So, it is a substantial piece of work, but I believe that we are on track to be able to do that by the end of this term. But it's a big piece of work. +Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, on this. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on that? I mean, it is going to be a big job, and, clearly, there's a strong focus on creating the commission and putting the structures in place, but, of course, one of the drivers is that we want to effect a cultural change in the way that people perceive post-16 education. This thing about parity of esteem and all that kind of agenda. And a key part of this process, therefore, is the vision that people are waiting for. When are we going to see this coming forward? Because I think we're putting structures in place, so there's a big discussion about the technical stuff, but I feel there's a bit of a vacuum in terms of the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you, Llyr, because— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Right, okay. Well, maybe you should have come to the cross-party group on further education last night. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I would disagree with you because, of course, the technical consultation has followed what we had last year, which was a consultation on the vision, on what we needed to do to bring the sector together beyond just HE and FE, to the inclusion of sixth forms; work-based learning providers; apprenticeships; and bringing all of that together under one body. I believe that that gives us an opportunity to have better strategic planning; to help us prevent duplication; to help us bridge gaps that are not available for learners at the moment. It will, hopefully—. My vision is that it will promote collaboration between institutions rather than simply having the market-based process that we see in other places where there's competition rather than collaboration. I want to see it strengthen links between schools, FE and HE, strengthen links between schools and employers and business, to make sure that we've got better information and advice services so that young people know what their pathways are and can make really informed choices about what's best for them, to help them make them. So, I think: we've done the vision, we're now doing the technical consultation, that will be published by the end of the week, and we'll move forward with our overarching vision that Hazelkorn elaborated and that we are now taking forward. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you would be very concerned if FE institutions were saying that we really need to see the vision, that that's the next step, that we really need to understand the vision. +Kirsty Williams AM: But, I've met—. As I said, I was with one of our excellent FE leaders just at the end of last week; it wasn't raised with me then. I do understand that there are concerns from the FE sector about will the vision be realised. I think there's a shared understanding of the vision, but I understand and I do see some nervousness about, actually, in the end, will this just be HEFCW by another name, and, the opportunity for FE, will this be realised in this new body? We need to keep ensuring that, as we go forward and develop the policy, and as we develop, eventually, the legislation, that that parity of esteem and that true equality across all parts of the sector is realised. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Our next questions are from Michelle Brown. +Michelle Brown AM: Good morning, Cabinet Secretary; good morning, Minister. Your paper to the committee says that there's a need for more analysis and research into the outcomes for learners from different backgrounds. At the same time, Welsh universities have declared £104 million towards equality and opportunity activity for 2018. If you don't have the analysis, how can you be sure that the investment that's being made by the Welsh universities is actually going to have a positive outcome in the right places and lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups? +Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, of course, that would be one of the duties of the new commission set up as a result of our post-compulsory education and training reforms that I would anticipate. The universities are required, under the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015, to produce fee and access statements, and the £104 million that they have to take off their fees to be able to promote this work—those fee and access plans have to be signed off by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales as being robust and truly promoting equality of opportunity. They're also there to promote access and the opportunities for people to aspire to higher education. We are looking at—. It's quite early days, still, for that new regulatory regime to come through, so we ask HEFCW, when I meet with HEFCW, about the adequacy of those plans. Equity is an important part of my approach to higher education. That's why we're introducing the Diamond reforms—so that those from the poorest backgrounds can be adequately financially supported and are not put off from going to a university. And we're also looking—. I would envisage under PCET a better mechanism of tracking destinations for learners. So, for instance, in the FE sector, we're introducing new joint monitoring for outcomes for sixth-form learners and FE learners, because we've never tracked them in the same way. So, we're introducing that now so that we can see the destinations for those two sectors, but the PCET reforms give us an opportunity to do that right across the board. Huw, is there anything else I need to add? +Huw Morris: Well, I'd just reinforce the point the Cabinet Secretary made about the fee and access plans being the vehicle through which we get universities to specify what they're going to do, and the funding council tracks that. To make sure that we're doing that in a full and appropriate manner, periodically, we ask for that system to be reviewed. I think it was in 2017 that the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods—the research arm of Cardiff University—reviewed the system and looked at how widening access was being promoted by different institutions and whether that was working in all parts of Wales. The report from that group was considered by one of the sub-committees in HEFCW and they are revising the process as a consequence. So, I think we can be confident that there are ambitious targets that are monitored, and, periodically, the system as a whole is reviewed. +Michelle Brown AM: Can you tell us what sort of research and data the universities are basing those access plans on? I assume they'll all have slightly different methods—I appreciate that—but can you give us any idea of how they actually formulate these access plans? +Huw Morris: So, there are data collected across the UK by a body called the Higher Education Statistics Agency. They produce detailed breakdowns, along with UCAS, of where applicants come from, which institutions did they study at, what courses, what their particular characteristics are, including their socioeconomic status, and that data is then analysed at a UK level and in Wales, through HEFCW and its agents, to track what's happening at different institutions at different stages, not just in terms of who's applying and who gets access, but who progresses and what happens to people once they've graduated. +Michelle Brown AM: So, there is already data there. I'm just wondering how that data that's already there differs from the research and analysis that you were talking about in your paper. They must be different, then. What specific analysis and research were you referring to in your paper? +Kirsty Williams AM: We use the HESA—. It is HESA, isn't it? +Huw Morris: Yes. +Kirsty Williams AM: That's shorthand—the HESA data, and institutions use that. We also then use WISERD and other organisations to supplement that piece of work. I think there is a challenge to some of this going forward. So, the Office for Students in England now is having some discussions about access to HESA data. This is a source of real concern to me, that Welsh institutions may not be able to have the ready access to that data because of changes the OfS may be making. So, we supplement where we think that there's value to be added in additional breakdowns, or in additional slicing of data and understanding of what is motivating people to come forward. +Huw Morris: And to give you a specific example of that as it applies in north Wales—. So, take a university like Wrexham Glyndŵr University; they have quite a large intake of mature students. The data that's collected and analysed at a UK level tends to look at people who are going into university at a young age, not a mature profile. So, some of the analysis that we do in Wales—indeed, the deliberations of the sub-committee that I spoke about earlier—is about how do we make sure that those differences in Wales are reflected in the data and reflected in the targets that are set. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: Cabinet Secretary, are you in favour of more university mergers? +Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't use the word 'agnostic', but what I'm in favour of is a healthy, strong and sustainable HE sector. If individual institutions wish to collaborate or, indeed, go further to a formal merger then, obviously, that is a matter for them. We're not pursuing or urging a policy of mergers, but, if individual institutions feel that is of benefit to them and their students, obviously, we would have an interest in that and making sure that they were robust plans, but that's a matter for individual institutions. +Hefin David AM: But HEFCW are pushing it. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, again, what HEFCW are interested in is a sustainable HE sector that is strong but, as I said, I do not have a burning desire or a set policy to try and pursue mergers. +Hefin David AM: Okay. That's a little bit of a contrast with your predecessors, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, that's a matter for them. +Hefin David AM: Okay. The reason I say it is because I was kind of on the inside when Cardiff Metropolitan University was under pressure from the then Minister to merge with the University of Glamorgan and Newport. It was a very difficult time for staff and, indeed, for students. You had the University and College Union and the Minister pushing it; the vice-chancellor of Cardiff Met at the time very much against it. So, do you think that it's really—? You're agnostic, but do you think perhaps it's not worth the disruption that can occur to staff and students? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Hefin, I have no formal policy for reconfiguration or mergers. That's not to say I don't believe in collaboration between institutions. Going back to the issue of ITE, a very interesting programme came forward from Cardiff Met and Cardiff University for their ITE provision. So, I'm all for universities and institutions working together, but there's no formal policy. These are autonomous institutions. If they see that there is an advantage—I would hope for the student first, and, if we put the student at the front of this process, then we would obviously have an interest in that and making sure that that was the right thing to do. But, certainly, there is no pressure from us as a Government to pursue an agenda of mergers. +Hefin David AM: Just to be clear, then, that's likely to be a policy for the foreseeable future as well; you're not going to change that view. +Kirsty Williams AM: I have no intentions at this stage, but 'Events, dear boy'. [Laughter.] You know, sometimes there may be a situation that I cannot foresee at this moment that would necessitate, for the benefit of students, the benefit of Wales, a merger. So, never say never, but, at this point in time, I do not foresee us changing that policy. +Lynne Neagle AM: Julie on this. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, just looking back at that time, which I remember very vividly— +Hefin David AM: So do I. +Julie Morgan AM: I had many meetings with Cardiff Met. Do you feel there has been any disadvantage to Cardiff Met because that merger didn't go ahead? +Kirsty Williams AM: I, personally, am not aware of any disadvantage to Cardiff Met, but I would recognise—I would absolutely recognise—for staff and students caught up in those deliberations and those issues, then that would have had a personal impact on them. In terms of the institution going forward, I'm not aware that they are currently struggling with any disadvantage from that discussion. And, as I said, I'm really heartened by some of the really interesting collaborative work that Cardiff Met are interested in doing, and new partnerships and new collaborations between institutions, whether that be Cardiff Uni or local colleges, and I think that's to be welcomed. +Julie Morgan AM: So, following on from what Hefin said, was it worth all the fuss? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, look, as it's turned out, we have a strong institution in Cardiff Met, and I think, rather than looking at the past, we need to look at the future. But, of course, there was some reconfiguration and we need to understand any lessons that arose out of reconfiguration, and HEFCW are currently doing some work, actually, to look at reconfiguration, the experience of reconfiguration that did happen, and were benefits realised and what are the lessons that can be learned from that process. So, they are doing a piece of work to reflect, and that will, perhaps, help inform us as we go forward. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: I'd just say—Julie Morgan was one of our heroes at the time, I've got to say. +Eluned Morgan AM: She always is. +Hefin David AM: And still is. If I turn that on its head and have a look at University of South Wales, one of the concerns I'm getting from former colleagues and staff is that the Newport aspect—because it was a merger between Newport and the University of Glamorgan—has been somewhat denuded by the merger, and the amount of activity in the new Newport campus and elsewhere in Newport has been reduced by the merger. Are you aware of those concerns that staff may have? +Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, it's not for me to second-guess the judgment of previous Ministers who pursued— +Hefin David AM: But it's happening now, I mean. +Kirsty Williams AM: —a particular policy agenda. With regard to Newport, we are aware of concerns. Obviously, one campus closed completely, and there are concerns about the level of activity at the new campus. And we continue to discuss with the University of South Wales and the local FE college what offer is available to the local population, but also the wider contribution that that institution can make to the rest of Wales, and we continue to have conversations with both the college and the university about utilisation of the facilities in Newport and opportunities that could be made available in Newport. +Hefin David AM: That's interesting, because that's the first time I've heard it confirmed from the Government that those concerns that have been raised by former staff and colleagues in Newport are actually echoed by yourself, then. +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, we're aware of them. We take our time to listen to people. When people raise issues with us, we take them seriously. Clearly, going back to the point that I believe Suzy made about geographical coverage, we want to make sure that FE and HE opportunities are available for people throughout Wales, and we continue to work with providers in that area to explore what can be done to enhance the opportunities. +Hefin David AM: And, from a financial point of view, they had £25 million for the merger. Are you satisfied that's value for money, and, at this point in the 10-year plan, that things are going as they should, with incomes being squeezed across the sector? +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. I mean, it's difficult, isn't it, to second-guess what would have happened, what might have happened, if the merger hadn't gone ahead, around the financial stability and sustainability of an institution. How do you prove that, if that hadn't happened, something worse or something better might have happened? It's difficult to do that and to second-guess those judgments, but, as I've said, what I am interested in—. And I can't change that decision that was made by a previous Minister—it wasn't my decision—but what I can do is to ensure that any lessons learnt, any evaluation of that particular set of circumstances, can be looked at and can help inform future policy, which is why HEFCW is doing the piece of work. When that's published, you and I will be in a better position to understand whether the aspirations of that particular merger were realised, not realised, and if we were in that situation again, could we do it better next time? +Hefin David AM: Okay, so you'll reflect on that later. At this point in time, you don't have any concerns about the long-term sustainability of the University of South Wales. +Kirsty Williams AM: No, not at this point. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Janet. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The Welsh Government's draft outline budget for 2019 states that it will continue to provide £20 million to further and higher education in 2019-20. Can you outline how this will be allocated between HE and FE and if conditions will be attached to the funding? +Kirsty Williams AM: Janet, you will have to wait until the end of the month, when the detailed, main expenditure group by main expenditure group lines of the budget are published, otherwise I will be stealing the finance Minister's thunder. There is a process by which the Welsh Government's budget is dealt with, and those details will emerge later on this month. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. +Kirsty Williams AM: But can I just say on conditions—? You will be aware that there are conditions attached to Government spend, both in the FE sector and in the HE sector. Those budgets will be subject to those existing arrangements; so, for instance, in the HE sector, the remit letter to HEFCW. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Can I just pick up on funding, generally? Sorry. Because, we did talk about HEFCW and part-time funding earlier, and I'm not sure that we addressed the issue of this £12.5 million cut in a specific budget line from HEFCW, because what they've done, if I understand correctly, is that they've put four priorities into one budget line, which includes part-time teaching, and cut that budget line by £12.5 million. Are you not concerned that that'll have an impact on part-time teaching, given that it's such a success story that you're proud of? +Kirsty Williams AM: HEFCW have to take cognisance of the remit letter, but then, ultimately, they are free to allocate resources as they see fit. What will drive part-time provision is the students taking it up, and universities responding to that desire and that need within their institutions. So, at this moment, I don't have any concerns. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to look at the parity of esteem between academic and vocational post-16 education. The first question is from Michelle. +Michelle Brown AM: Thank you, Chair. Welsh Government wants to achieve parity of esteem between academic and vocational education, and I think that's a very laudable aim. Higher apprenticeships are a key part of this, but Estyn's recent inspection found that only four providers from 17 were achieving good outcomes for learners. What action do you propose to take about this, to make sure that those learners have much better outcomes across the board? +Eluned Morgan AM: First of all, just to make it clear that that is very much our intention. I think we have got work to do to make sure that we do reach that parity of esteem, but let's be clear that, in relation to these higher level apprenticeships, we were concerned that, actually, we weren't doing as well, perhaps, as we should be, which is why we commissioned Estyn to look at this specifically, and what it was that we were doing well, and what we needed to improve on. One of the things that we found is that we are doing very well in relation to foundation courses in terms of attainment—we've got 83 per cent attainment levels—but if you look at that at higher level apprenticeships, then we've got 77 per cent, so what is going wrong there? But, also, it's worth underlining the fact that, actually, we're still miles ahead of England, who are only reaching levels of about 61 per cent. So, we're already doing much better than England, but we're ambitious, and we want to make sure that if we are serious about this parity of esteem, how do we get there if we're not offering the kind of quality that we'd like to see in those higher level apprenticeships? So, some of the recommendations in that report, we'll be taking up. We want to increase the number of new employers and mentors within the system. I think we're also very keen to make sure that people don't repeat learning that they've already done. That's a danger and it takes up too much time. So, there are lots of these recommendations that now we'll set in motion, and I think the important thing for us then is to understand that, in relation to who's doing well and who's not doing well in the FE sector, the bulk of where that finance goes is actually doing quite well. It's pushing some of the private sector providers where we need to actually make sure that the quality is where we want it to be, and is, very importantly, matching the needs of employers. So, we've constantly got to be looking at the courses: are they responding to the needs of the market and what employers are looking for? And that means revising the offer sometimes in terms of the courses. +Michelle Brown AM: Where are the difficulties arising—? You refer to difficulties arising with the private providers. What are those difficulties? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, some of it is about, perhaps, not giving the kind of guidance that we'd like them to give in-house. So, they're perhaps not doing the kind of on-the-job work that we'd like them to do. So, I think it's making sure that, when they're in the workplace, they are still being pushed to attain those levels. But I think it's clear that what we need to do is to also listen to what the advisory board that we've set up in relation to apprenticeships is also asking us, and we've got the Confederation of British Industry advising us on that as well. +Michelle Brown AM: Do you have a service level agreement with the private providers? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. I mean, the whole thing is under a tender procedure, obviously, and we will be revising that soon. There'll be a new apprenticeship procurement process that we'll be undergoing and starting to look at that process next year. So, there's an opportunity there for us to drive change in the system. +Michelle Brown AM: Would you be willing to share the targets under the SLA with the committee? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think the—. I can't see that there'd be a problem with that, so I'm sure we could do that, but I think the way to make people move, quite often, is through making sure that you put the finances where they need to be, and then they're likely to shift. And, so, I think, in responding to this Estyn report, we can then build that into the next framework. +Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie. +Julie Morgan AM: Yes, thank you. Right, I wanted to ask about the investment. If we're going to get parity of esteem, we've got to, probably, get more investment in. Could you say why there isn't more investment in degree, and there doesn't seem to be any investment in Master's-level apprenticeships at universities? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think we've got to be careful that what happens is that the state doesn't pick up what, currently, people are prepared to pay for themselves, and, so, we've got to just make sure that that balance is right. So, what's happened in England, for example, is lots of people who were previously sitting Master of business administration courses, for example, are now switching into apprenticeship programmes. So, the system—it means that, previously, they were prepared to pay and now the state is paying or the employer's playing it in a slightly different way. So, I think we've got to just be aware about how—making sure that we don't get employers passing that responsibility that, actually, they have to upskill and to uptrain their workers and pass it back on to the state, whereas, actually, they need to step up as well as employers. +Julie Morgan AM: So, how are you going to judge that? How are you going to tell when, maybe, you should start putting some money in? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, what we are doing is we're putting money into areas where we know there are skills shortages. So, we're focusing where we want those apprenticeships—and particularly at the higher level—to be. So, for example, we're looking at ICT; we're looking at construction. There are areas where we definitely need to be focusing our attention. So, that's where we'll be prioritising our funding, and that's what we're doing already. +Kirsty Williams AM: And that's for degree-level apprenticeships, not Master's. Just degree-level apprenticeships. +Julie Morgan AM: Right, thank you. And then, in terms of getting data, could you clarify the progress on developing outcome and destination data for higher apprenticeships? Your plan seems to suggest that data won't be available until 2020-21, at the end of the programme. +Eluned Morgan AM: And that's because we're only just starting on this, and it takes a long time for people to complete an apprenticeship. So, we won't have anybody going from the higher level apprenticeship into a destination until around 2021, so there's no point in measuring that until that point. +Julie Morgan AM: Right. And then, can you tell us when you'll publish Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's new operational plan to develop post-16 Welsh-medium provision, which was presented during July, and clarify if the plan requires additional funding? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, there is a report that was published in July, and we are waiting for the operational actions from that report to be published, probably within the next month. In terms of the implementation of that programme, some of that journey has already begun, so they're not waiting for the report to—. We're not waiting for the actions to be very clearly set out; actually, some of that work has been done. For example, already, there's been a review of the governance. We're also looking at the kind of research that needs to be done in that area. I think what's clear, and something that's very much driving me as the Welsh language Minister, is this understanding that you reach 16 and you get this fall off a cliff in terms of the number of people who actually speak and use Welsh. So, that's the thing that we need to address, and that's why moving now into that area of further education is crucial. And the report, written by Delyth Evans, did suggest that we do need to move into this area but, actually, there wasn't necessarily a need for further funding in that area. But it may be something that we will consider, but it's something that we'll try and absorb, perhaps, from within the department. +Kirsty Williams AM: A relatively modest amount of money was being made available this year to be able to kick-start some of this work, but we are mindful of the recommendations from the Evans report. So, future allocations will have to reflect the priorities within the implementation plan, and that's not just money that goes directly to y coleg, but also trying to get better alignment between other budget lines that support the Welsh language, and making sure that all budget lines that could help on this agenda are aligned to the recommendations and the implementation report. +Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Just on coleg cenedlaethol's extended remit, have you had—? I haven't read the Evans report, but is there anything in there about the role of increased use of Welsh in adult community learning, for example? That's a further education pot, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes, it is, and we are very much in touch with adult community learning, and they are aware of the responsibilities they have in relation to the Welsh language. The issue, of course, with adult education, is that they have undergone some quite dramatic cuts. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, yes, I don't mean the higher education sector that's taken over responsibility for this; I'm talking about community learning, low level, just having Welsh there. And, you know, as you mentioned yourself, post 16, people stop using it, so getting it in wherever you can as part of a strategy. +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. They're aware of that responsibility and we— +Suzy Davies AM: They're free to choose partners, then, are they, to help them deliver that? +Eluned Morgan AM: And also to work with the new organisation that we've set up to promote the learning of Welsh, in particular, that is based in Carmarthen. So, that's something also that's being driven, and they're working closely, I think, on this. +Suzy Davies AM: Oh, great, thanks. +Kirsty Williams AM: There's lots of innovative practice. So, for instance, up in Wrexham, if a student has gone into the college to do A-levels, then they may decide to do those A-levels through the medium of English. But if they were previously in a Welsh-medium school, they are actively encouraged—indeed, persuaded—to do their Welsh baccalaureate through the medium of Welsh. So, they may be doing their A-levels in English, but if they've come from a Welsh-medium school, the college proactively seeks them out and makes sure that there is provision for them to do their Welsh bac qualification through the medium of Welsh, or, for instance, they are working very hard to form tutor groups. So, the tutor group—you might be doing your qualifications in English, but your tutor group will be a Welsh-medium tutor group, so that you are placed with other students who have come from Welsh-medium schools, and your tutor does all that tutor work through the medium of Welsh. So, there are other ways in which we can continue to help support children's linguistic ability, even if they have made a decision not to formally study their A-levels, for instance, or a course, through the medium of Welsh, and we're constantly looking at new ways. I think one particular aspect of the market—if we call it that word—that we're interested in are those students who've been to Welsh-medium schools, but at 16, perhaps, as I say, decide to go to a college. So, for instance, here in Cardiff, looking at childcare, and the opportunity—you know, there's a sector where we know we need a Welsh-medium workforce. +Suzy Davies AM: Yes, definitely. +Kirsty Williams AM: So, again, it's trying to target those children, and track them from a previous Welsh-medium education into a college, capturing their language skills, and finding ways in which they can use them. Merthyr college—there's a Welsh-medium champion in Merthyr college actively looking for children who have come from a Welsh-medium background, and they are allocated roles as Welsh-medium champions within the college, to promote. So, there are lots of innovative ways, especially in the FE sector, that they're looking to keep children's linguistic skills relevant, and they're using them, even if they make that decision to switch the language of their tuition. +Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's encouraging to hear. My question was about community learning, where it's essentially older people who perhaps are coming back to education in a way that wasn't as formal as it was before, if I can put it like that—so we don't lose sight of them as well. I've still got an abiding worry that there's a cohort in the middle here of people who we might lose, and maybe pass on bad attitudes towards the Welsh language to their children, despite the fact that those children now have huge opportunities to absorb Welsh language skills and make the most of them. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. The next questions are from Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I'd like to ask about the regional skills partnership—partnerships, I should say—because they are having a direct influence now on courses and provision in FE, and with degree apprenticeships in universities as well. You, I believe, received the Graystone review back in March, so could you tell us a bit about what was in it, and what the recommendations are? +Eluned Morgan AM: So, some of the recommendations—. So, we wanted to review it because it's still relatively new. They've only been up and running about two or three years. He brought out some positives—things that we, I think, are doing well. I think they found that the voluntary partnership approach was quite effective. He did suggest that, actually, what they need to be producing is much shorter, sharper, focused reports. There was a suggestion of a lack of transparency, in terms of reporting from those regional skills partnerships, and that's obviously something now that we've undertaken to review. And there, I think, is an understanding that what we need to do now is to put in place those changes. But, on the whole, what we've done is to reinforce our commitment to the regional skills partnerships, and in particular now, through allocating £10 million to further education colleges to respond directly to the wishes and the desires of the regional skills partnerships, you can see actually the status of the regional skills partnerships has just grown significantly. Because now there is an outcome as a result of their recommendations. So, you've seen quite a dramatic shift, I think, in the respect for regional skills partnerships over the past year. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are there any recommendations in terms of governance as well— +Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: —because, clearly, there may have been concerns about the way that people ended up being members of the partnerships? You touched on transparency—clearly, that's an issue as well. So, just particularly on governance—. +Eluned Morgan AM: So, on governance, I think there was an understanding that that needs to be looked at again, and that we need to get the right people around the table. And what is interesting is, I think, because it was a voluntary approach, because now people can see an outcome, we're getting different people now really showing an interest in being a part of the regional skills partnerships. So, governance is something again we're going to be addressing and following up the recommendations on in that Graystone review. Is there anything to add to that? +Huw Morris: Well, I was just going to say, I don't see why we couldn't share the review with you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: That was going to be my next question. +Huw Morris: That might be helpful. And we are actioning the recommendations from that review. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The normal course of action would be, of course, to have published it and then to publish a Government response. Any reason why that wasn't done? I find it quite strange that you're saying that you're actually actioning the report and you still haven't published it. As a committee, we've not been party to any of that, really. +Eluned Morgan AM: I don't see why that can't be done. There's nothing to hide here, so why wouldn't we? We're the people who commissioned the report— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'm the one asking the questions. [Laughter.] No, but you're right. I just find it strange. I just find it odd that that hasn't been published. +Eluned Morgan AM: Okay. Well, we'll certainly get a copy of that to you. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay. +Huw Morris: May I just say: we ask a number of people periodically to comment on what we do, and agencies we work with do the same. The status of those reports varies. I don't suppose we'd anticipated there would be the interest in this issue that there is and so, as the Minister said, there's no problem that I can see with that. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: And do you have a timeline in terms of by when you want to introduce some of the reforms that you're looking at now, because of this report? +Eluned Morgan AM: Some of them have already been introduced, so we're not waiting. The transparency issue that I think there was a bit of concern about—that's already been introduced. So, it's just about making sure that people understand what is going on in these regional skills partnerships. I think that's really important— +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, quite, given the influence that they have now. Yes, sure. Just another short one on the regional skills partnerships, really: how effective are they in supporting the planning and delivery of Welsh-medium provision in post-16? +Eluned Morgan AM: I think there's more we can do in relation to that. But I think there are aspects where we're already changing in respect of specific sectors. So, if you think about the care sector, for example, what we do need is more people who have those skills to speak through the medium of Welsh in the care sector. And, coming back to the point that was made earlier, what we're doing now is looking at the curriculum: to what extent can we include—? You don't have to do your whole course through the medium of Welsh, but there are aspects that would be very useful. So, those kind of things are being taken on board now in terms of the courses. One of the things that the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol are looking at is building the resources that will be needed in order to mainstream those into, in particular, those front-line service areas where we have a skills shortage. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, you know that this committee has taken a very keen interest in the emotional and mental health of our young people. In the summer, the English universities Minister made an announcement about the development of a new mental health charter. That followed some concerns about young people dying by suicide across the UK. Is Welsh Government expecting Welsh universities to sign up to that charter or are you planning to work on your own? +Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you for raising this. I think it's really important that whilst for many, many, many young people moving away from home and starting their degree course is an incredibly exciting time and something they look forward to hugely, it can bring significant stresses with it, especially for first-year students, who, as I said, are moving away, perhaps are suddenly responsible for finances in a way they've never been responsible for, for all the day-to-day living that perhaps they've relied on other people to assist them with. So, it can be quite a stressful time. So, it is right that we look at how we can support health and well-being for students, especially mental health and mental resilience. So, I very much welcome the work on the mental health charter, and HEFCW are engaged and keeping a very close eye on what's going on to see the opportunities for Welsh universities to participate in that. But this was on a recent agenda item that I had with HEFCW, and indeed with the vice-chancellors, when I met them last week, or the week before last. So, they are developing their own strategic approach to well-being and health for students, which will be underpinned by a co-created action plan with the universities themselves on supporting students with mental health problems in particular. So, the strategic approach and the action plan are being developed by HEFCW at the moment and HEFCW are also meeting with colleagues from England and Scotland to see the opportunities for a universal approach across the UK to supporting students. The universities, when I met with them recently, all shared a commitment to do better in this particular area. One, because it's the right thing to do, but, actually, stopping people from dropping out and not completing their courses obviously is of a financial benefit to the institution. So, it's actually the right thing to do for their students, they want to do it for that reason, but, actually, there is a strong financial underpinning to ensure that students complete their studies. So, it's looking at, again, each university looking at individual approaches of how better they can do that. But it's not just responding to students who become unwell, it's actually, 'What can we do to in the campus to maintain good mental health?' So, rather than just trying to fix a problem once it's occurred, it's 'What can we do?' And you'll be aware of individual institutions taking different approaches. It's not something that we dictate, but individual institutions—when they do exams, how work is assessed and marked and graded—are taking different steps to promote well-being, as well as then responding to situations where students become unwell. We do know that financial pressures can be a source of huge stress for students, so we are constantly working with the Student Loans Company to make sure that the services that they offer to people are as good as they can be, and that there are no unnecessary delays that, perhaps, put a student under pressure or give students worries about their financial situation. And I would argue our Diamond reforms, which allow students access to a living wage—for some students, completely by a grant, for some students, a combination of grant and loan, with no expectation at all that your parents will contribute, which is not the case in other places where there is an expectation of parental contribution—that actually, hopefully, addresses some of those financial worries that some students may have. But I am aware that if people are waiting for their grant or people are waiting for their payments, that can be a source of stress. So, ensuring that we have good performance by the Student Loans Company is crucial. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And I'm sure the committee's very interested to hear the update on that. Are you able to give us any indication of timescale by which you'd expect HEFCW and the individual universities to actually have this work in place? +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm not sure, but I will write to the committee and let you know. In fact, we can probably provide, from Universities Wales and from the work that's going on centrally, a list of proposals that are being undertaken. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you very much. The next question is from Dawn Bowden. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I wanted to ask you about the pay dispute, and I know that you're not the employer, because I know that's going to be the first answer— +Kirsty Williams AM: You're right, that is the first answer. [Laughter.] Well anticipated. +Dawn Bowden AM: But we are in a stalemate here and you clearly have an interest in making sure that this dispute is resolved quickly in the interest of the students and the reputation of the colleges et cetera, et cetera. I can see how this dispute has arisen. When we've seen the teachers' pay settlement, we've seen FE settlements in England and Scotland higher than what's on the table here. And I am concerned, and I do think this is where the Welsh Government does have a role, because I am concerned that the employers seem to be using the funding issue as the reason not to have a reasonable settlement with staff. So, they've walked away from the table, they've said, 'One per cent, take it or leave it. Unless Welsh Government gives us any more money, that's the end of that.' And I'm really concerned about that, because this is potentially going to have a major impact on whether we can recruit and retain staff in FE colleges. And I look at the college in my constituency, Merthyr college—it's a tertiary college, they're providing A-level education across Merthyr and they're astounding results they've been getting as well. I'm coming round to the question in a moment. It's really: what more do you think you can do as a Government to try to get these parties back round the table and not allow the dispute to become a political football? +Eluned Morgan AM: Thanks very much for that. I think, first of all, you're absolutely right—this is about ColegauCymru's negotiation, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation. I think it's probably worth emphasising that the reason this has come about, or part of the reason, is because you've seen that pay settlement in relation to teachers' pay and we've had the consequential. So, sixth-form teachers are happy. The people actually providing the same teaching course in a different institution, you can understand why they may say, 'Something needs to change here.' The problem here is that it's about that, actually, that falls to the Welsh Government. We don't have that. Or at least it falls to FE colleges to fund that, and it's up to them to come up with that proposal. We are keeping a close eye on things. I think it's fair to say that we'll wait until they get further along down the line, but we are extremely aware of the sensitivities of the situation. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you for that, Minister. When you say you're keeping a close eye on it, have you actually had conversations with ColegauCymru? Because I note what you just said there: 'We'll keep an eye on it and wait and see what's happening.' Well, all the unions are currently consulting. One has already balloted for industrial action. We could have the other unions also balloting for industrial action. I mean, this isn't something we want in the FE sector, clearly, so is there anything more proactive that Government could actually be doing to try to bring a resolution to this dispute? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we are listening and speaking to ColegauCymru, and also we're aware of what the unions are saying as well. So, I think that's probably as far as we can go at this point. When they come to a conclusion, and when they come to us and say, 'Look, this is the consequence and this will finish'—at this point, we have no idea where that settlement is likely to fall. +Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, thank you. Yes, we wouldn't expect you to make an announcement on this, because it's happening outside of Government, but there is a principle here, isn't there, in terms of pay equality between schoolteachers and FE? So, would you not wish to see a situation where we do have greater equality in that respect? +Eluned Morgan AM: In relation to teaching, I think it's fair to say that we would wish to see pay equality in relation to teaching, yes. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thank you. You emphasise 'in relation to teaching'—my next question is that, of course, within FE establishments you have teaching staff and non-teaching staff, and if there was to be some sort of increase, then would you not expect all staff to have that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, let's see—that's up to ColegauCymru to negotiate and to discuss, so let's see what the outcomes are. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Because some of the non-teaching staff are the lowest paid, as well, aren't they? So, you know—. +Eluned Morgan AM: Let's wait for the outcome of the negotiations. I think we are very aware of the situation. ColegauCymru are in that negotiation. We're aware of what the requests are from the trade union members, and we'll wait to see what they come up with before responding formally. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Could I just briefly as well ask about pensions, because that's coming down the line, potentially, isn't it, and the impact that's going to have on FE? One college was saying it will cost them £1 million if it happens next year. Are you thinking about any steps that you could take to support them, potentially, because obviously this is coming down the line, really, isn't it? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think, already, we've got the situation in relation to teachers, and again what we've seen is the consequential and the UK Government honouring that. Again, what we don't have, necessarily, is that money coming down from the UK Government for us to be able to support it in the way that we might like to. It's early days on this, but it's something, again, we're keeping an eye on. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: The fundamental question, really, is: if the money doesn't come down the line from Westminster, are you in a position to underwrite that? +Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we'll wait until we see that situation arising, but we're aware that that is an issue that we're going to have to deal with in future. +Llyr Gruffydd AM: Diolch. +Lynne Neagle AM: In relation to the pay dispute, it's the committee's understanding that ColegauCymru's position is that, in order to meet a pay award that is commensurate with schoolteachers, an additional 3.5 per cent or £10.1 million is needed. Are you aware of that being their position? +Eluned Morgan AM: We are aware of their position, yes. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The final question is from Hefin David. +Hefin David AM: You will have had, Cabinet Secretary, a letter from Professor Colin Riordan on 26 September regarding essay mills, in which he refers to the other letter that was sent by him and 39 vice-chancellors regarding essay mills and the fact that it's legalised cheating. In the letter—it was actually to me—that was copied to you, he says: 'We have requested the UK Government commission the QAA to publish a draft Bill by or before the beginning of the next parliamentary session. We've also requested the Department for Education give support to the establishment of a UK centre for academic integrity, which would research, analyse and combat academic misconduct. Any support that the Welsh Government can provide in this regard will also be appreciated, so I'm copying this letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Education.' Can you just give me your opinions on that, please? +Kirsty Williams AM: I think 'legalised cheating' is a polite way of describing what goes on. My officials have been in touch with their counterparts in the UK Government to see if we can co-ordinate a UK approach, which I think is necessary. I don't think there's any merit in us trying to do this on our own; it would be pointless. I hope that we can agree a formal approach as quickly as possible, and I will take every opportunity—. We're trying to establish a meeting with the UK Minister for HE before Christmas, and I will take every opportunity that I can to ensure that we can take some very, very strong action in this regard. But it does have to be done at a UK level. I want people who attend our universities and who work hard to achieve the grades that they get not to be disadvantaged by people who look to find an easy way out and are not willing to put—. I think it undermines the individual effort of individual students who are doing the right things, as well as the integrity of our system. I'm proud of the quality of the system that we have in the Welsh HE sector, and I want that maintained. I hope that we can agree a UK approach to ending this practice. +Hefin David AM: Okay. And in addition to the specifics regarding the quality assurance agency and the proposed centre for academic integrity, let's be clear: what we're talking about it outlawing those websites that offer to write essays for cash. +Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. And quite often, very bad ones as well. [Laughter.] My understanding is— +Hefin David AM: Well, they get through the system and they guarantee—. The websites, and I've experienced this, and I mentioned it in First Minister's questions— +Kirsty Williams AM: You did. +Hefin David AM: The websites say to you, 'Unless you tell anyone, you won't get caught', and students are believing that. The new student grant system—some of that money will go to these websites. +Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely, and, unlike you, I have no experience of this myself— +Hefin David AM: Well, I have experience of it. I've not done it, but I've experienced it. [Laughter.] +Kirsty Williams AM: I'm so old, Hefin, that such internet sites didn't exist when I was a student. [Laughter.] But, you know, I'm sure you listened to it too: a recent article, on a radio station, where, actually, it was an experiment just like you did—a student deliberately went through this process to expose, but, actually, what they got in return wasn't even very good. It was a particularly poor essay on the portrayal of women in Victorian literature, so they weren't even getting very good value for their money. [Laughter.] But, clearly, this is a terrible and abhorrent practice in our system, and, as I said, I will do everything that I can to work with colleagues across the United Kingdom to find a solution to this. If I thought it would help if we did it on our own, we could do that, but it won't help if we act unilaterally. It has to be a UK approach. +Hefin David AM: And just—final question—with regard to the representations you've made, do you feel that the UK Government is open to this course of action? +Kirsty Williams AM: Well, officials are the ones who have had those direct, face-to-face conversations, rather than me. I hope to do that when I meet the Minister, hopefully before Christmas. Huw, would you like to comment? +Huw Morris: We haven't had anything formally, but I understand from what I've heard in England that there is an interest to do something. Whether that will take the form of a Bill in the timescale you've outlined, I'm not sure, but as the Minister said, we'll be exploring that with officials through the ministerial meetings. +Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you all for attending and for answering all our questions? As usual, you'll have a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you very much for your time. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education regarding eligibility criteria for free school meals. I'd like to return briefly to that when we go into private. Paper to note 2: a letter from the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 3: also from that Minister, which is his response to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on the Bill. And paper to note 4: also a letter from that Minister to the Finance Committee on the Bill. And the final paper to note is from Mind Cymru regarding the task and finish group on a whole-school approach to mental health, and I will update Members on that when we go into private. Happy to note those? Item 4, then: can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. +",[The meeting proceeded to discuss matters in private.] +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies, and I'm very pleased to welcome Angela Burns, who is substituting for Suzy this morning. We've also received apologies from Dawn Bowden. Can I also welcome Siân Gwenllian to the meeting? Siân is joining us from her constituency office via video-conference. Can I ask Members if they've got any declarations of interest, please? Hefin. +Hefin David AM: Apologies. I'm currently registered as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, although I haven't done any work for them for some time. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you very much. We'll move on, then, to item 2 this morning, which is our evidence session on the higher education new academic year allocations. I'm very pleased to welcome David Blaney, who is chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and Bethan Owen, who is deputy chief executive of HEFCW. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions from Members, and the first questions are from Angela Burns. +Angela Burns AM: Good morning. Thank you very much, indeed. I just wanted to talk about, really, the financial sustainability of the higher education sector because, as we know, there's been all sorts of things going on in the press. So, can I just start with, actually, quite a technical question and ask you what the financial indicators look like for the universities here in Wales, and are there particular indicators that are really flashing warning signals to you? +Dr David Blaney: Well, shall I just start with a couple of contextualising comments and Bethan can come in then with some detail? It's undeniably the case there are financial challenges facing our universities. They result from three main causes: one is the impact of the demographic dip of 18-year-olds, which is deeper and longer in Wales than it is elsewhere in the UK. There are increased pension costs and, actually, increased costs generally. And, of course, we also have current uncertainty as a result of the Augar review in England, and whether that might play into Wales, and also Brexit. These challenges are not unique to Wales; the majority of the UK universities are actually taking out cost one way or another. So, this is not a Welsh issue. Before the Diamond review of fees and funding in Wales, there was a pre-existing funding gap in resource between England and Wales, and even now, that's still the case. So, Welsh higher education institutions are approximately £40 million worse off than they would be in the English system. That's a challenge, and that is a result from a political decision to invest in students, and that's fine. The money's gone into the system but it hasn't gone into universities, necessarily. So, these are serious challenges for institutions to manage, but I think it is a managed situation. We're not seeing a crisis; we are seeing some real challenges, and there is a distinction, I think, between—. We have to understand, though, that taking out cost to balance the books has a detrimental effect on the capacity. Obviously it impacts on the people who lose their jobs immediately, but there's a medium to longer term impact on the capacity of the system to deliver for Wales. They are taking out capacity; they're not cutting at fat now, they're cutting out core capacity. And so, the range of the curriculum, the range of research and innovation, the range of the contribution that universities can make will be diminished by that. And against that backdrop, the introduction of the Diamond reforms is hugely important—delivery of that is going to be really important—and we are really pleased to see the Minister able to meet her commitments in respect of that. The Diamond money is coming in. This forthcoming year will be the first year we see an increase in the resource, through us, to higher education. And the projections in future years are better still, and that will be extremely important. The performance of the sector is very good; we had the national student survey results out yesterday. Wales is still the best in the UK, which is excellent. We have the best impact from research in Wales across the UK. So, all of that is very positive, but that is also being done at some cost. There are some very tired staff in universities, and we've seen some stuff in the press recently about some of the impact of stress there as well. +Angela Burns AM: Can I bring you back to the financial element of that? Can I just ask a question: what are the university reserves looking like at present? +Dr David Blaney: Here, I refer to my learned friend. +Bethan Owen: The reserves are a measure. There's a difference between the distributable reserves—I don't have those numbers before me, but looking at reserves, what is more important are those reserves that are available as cash or liquid cash. So, universities have reserves, but a large amount of that is tied up in their estates, so they're not immediately realisable. So, one of the key measures that we're looking at, which is even more important than surpluses and deficit, is the operating cash that our universities are generating at the moment. When we look at operating cash in 2017-18, they were generating, as a percentage of income, about 7.6 per cent, which contrasts with nearly 10 per cent for the same year for English institutions. And that represents their capacity to generate surplus cash to meet their costs, which now, increasingly, include the costs of servicing their borrowings. So, again, because capital funding has not been as available to universities as it was, they've invested in their estates and that's largely been funded by borrowings. The costs of those borrowings have to be met on an annual basis, so that's becoming an increasing proportion of the operating cash that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: I just asked that question because I know that about four years ago, the universities were sitting on substantial reserves and were less than keen to deploy them back into actually using them for the students—it was more about building up the war chest, if you like, of the universities. And I just really wanted to have an understanding of how that picture might have changed over the last four years and are they actually skinnier cats now, rather than before. +Bethan Owen: We can get you that analysis, but even four years ago, I think the definition of exactly what's meant by reserves, it's really important to look at what are distributable reserves as opposed to the assets that universities have. +Angela Burns AM: Yes, I do understand the difference. +Bethan Owen: And, there are also differences in the way that universities have secured funding for investing in their estates. So, for example, Cardiff University have had a bond rather than borrowing, which you draw down as you're spending. So, in the short term, the reserves of Cardiff will appear as though they have significant cash balances, but all of those are restricted for investment in the estate and, over the next two or three years, will be utilised for that. +Angela Burns AM: So, overall, you're painting a picture of a sector that's under a significant degree of financial stress, and this is obviously using your key financial indicators. Do you monitor each and every university, or do you wait for them to come back and tell you what their situation is? +Bethan Owen: We monitor, we receive forecasts, five-year forecasts, and we meet frequently with all our universities now. It varies, depending on the risks of the universities, as to how frequently we meet, but we're actually meeting with every university because even the forecast that we received last July, the changes, even in the 12-month period, are significant enough for us to need a better understanding of what the latest position is. The forecasts, if I just run through—. We had a sector that, in 2017-18, had a deficit. Although it had a turnover and income of £1.5 billion, which had increased, nonetheless it had a small deficit of 0.4 per cent of income in 2017-18, which was an improvement on the deficit the year before of 1.7 per cent, but notably, again, the sector in England were looking at surpluses of 3 per cent to 4 per cent in the same period. The forecasts that we had this time last year were indicating that, for 2018-19, we should have a sector that's roughly in a break-even position, but that has to be caveated with waiting for new forecasts in July, where there will have to be a reflection of the pension costs, and there have been significant changes in pension costs, both for the teachers' pension scheme and the universities' superannuation scheme as well, and those will be significant costs that universities have to build into their forecasts at a time when their income, certainly their fee income, is not increasing, and that is the challenge. +Angela Burns AM: Are we going to lose any universities in the next couple of years? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so. As I said earlier on, we're not seeing a crisis, we're seeing really challenging circumstances for institutions to manage. At the moment, our sense is they are managing them, so one of the things we try to do is to make sure that, insofar as we can see it, we are making sure that the institutions are alert to the challenges they're facing, and are actually engaging those challenges properly, and we are seeing that at the moment. So I think what we will see if the pressure continues unabated is more costs being taken out, so more jobs being lost, more capacity being lost, but that's not the same as falling over. I don't see people falling over. There is always the possibility of structural change within the sector, and that might be one of the solutions that institutions think about, but it's not a policy position, and it's not always a good short-term response to crisis anyway, actually. But I think, as I say, we're in a managed situation, but the challenges are quite acute. But I don't see an institution falling over in the foreseeable future. +Angela Burns AM: When you talk about structural change, are you referring to the fact that certain offshoots or divisions might close? I bring this up because I'm the Assembly Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and I have had multiple representations from students, and their parents, who are about to go to Lampeter and who've been told that courses are being restructured, there's a massive staff loss, and they have concerns about whether the three-year commitment they're about to make to a course is going to be able to be sustained. So I am trying to drill down a little bit, because I think it's only fair for the students to know what they're up against, and also it's a bit like in the great depression—you can start a run on something, can't you? Because if enough people believe it, then suddenly enough people will stop going to what is an excellent little university, really top-quality in medieval literature, in archaeology. And I'm just talking about one, but I know there are problems in other universities around Wales, so I just wondered if you could comment on that and also what processes you as HEFCW might have in place to protect any student who does find themselves in a situation where their course appears to be disappearing before their eyes. +Dr David Blaney: So, there's quite a lot in that question, actually. Let me try not to forget any of the elements. First of all, your comment about causing a run is a serious consideration. So, if we look at the debate that happened in the Senedd last week, from my reading of the transcript, it was actually quite a balanced debate where pretty much every contributor made reference to the contribution that higher education is making. There was reference to the national student survey scores, and in many ways Wales is the best place in the UK to come and be a student, because you are looked after properly in Wales. But there was also a perfectly legitimate exploration of whether or not there's a crisis, and if you look at the way in which that was represented in the media, the crisis bit stuck and the rest of it didn't. At the point where the sector is trying very hard to recruit students, it's really quite unhelpful that you get that sort of representation. So we do need to make sure, I think, all of us, that we try to avoid a situation where there can be media amplification of a problem that's not actually as acute as the media are portraying it, and that is very harsh. I'm not being critical of the political process here, but it has ripples and we do need to be careful that we don't start a run on this. In terms of the specifics at Lampeter, we understand that there are no plans to close any of the departments, and there certainly will not be plans to pull the rug out from under continuing students. That is just not what institutions do. So there's an absolute obligation on them to meet their commitments, and that's a contractual obligation anyway, so it's a legal obligation. But we also have a quality machinery that we operate where we would expect institutions to be able to demonstrate that they've put in place appropriate arrangements to ensure that students can finish their programmes of study. So they're not going to be recruiting students to programmes that they're not planning to continue—they just are not going to do that. And if you think about it in a market context, it would be suicidal for a university to treat their students like that. +Angela Burns AM: But I have to ask these questions because the auditor was very clear that there was a material uncertainty in Trinity Saint David's financial plans. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I understand that, so let’s come back to the material uncertainty. [Interruption.] No, I understand, and that's fine. What I'm hoping to try and express is that we have absolute confidence that the institutions will not do the dirty on their students. They will look after their students and if they're recruiting to programmes, they are recruiting to programmes that they are planning to run, and run through to completion. And the expectations that we place on them in terms of our quality assurance machinery is precisely that—when they are engaged in portfolio change, they have to look after the interest of the students that they currently have. In terms of our oversight and monitoring, our primary consideration, again, is the interest of the students. They are the people who have, in many ways, least influence over what happens in terms of the way an institution is managed. Although, they do have a voice and, actually, the arrangements for the student voice in Wales are, again, better than elsewhere in the UK. But, nonetheless, we do not wish to see students becoming innocent victims of difficulties of management and financing. And so that is our primary consideration when we're looking at these institutions. Our institutional risk review process is fundamentally designed to make sure that institutions are grappling with their problems before they become a crisis. So, we have machinery, which has 70/80 different factors and hundreds of questions that we ask twice a year, to interrogate the performance of the institutions and to make sure that we are seeing them managing the issues that they're facing. So, it's not the challenges you face, it's the way you face your challenges—it's a cliché—and, at the moment, they are managing them, but if we were in any way concerned that they weren't, the people who are most at risk in that context are the students and we will be intervening to make sure that they were cited, and we do intervene when we have to. +Angela Burns AM: Well, following on from what you said, I've just got two really specific technical questions, then, to ask, because you said that you look across the whole scope to make sure that they are meeting all of their correct liquidity ratios and so on. So, considering how much is invested in their estates, are you happy that each university's estates strategy and its financing is prudent and has appropriate governing-body oversight in place? +Dr David Blaney: Yes, so the estates strategies that institutions operate are overseen by either the full governing body or relevant sub-committees in respect of every institution, so there is proper governance oversight. And in all of those instances, there is staff and student engagement as well in the strategic approach on estates. So, the machinery is in place— +Angela Burns AM: Because it's the big thing that drives most of university borrowing, isn't it? +Dr David Blaney: Indeed, it is. +Angela Burns AM: So, if our universities are on a sticky wicket, we just need to know that the borrowing that they're undertaking is absolutely prudently assessed and is appropriate. So, as long as you're content, if I can hear you say that—[Laughter.] +Dr David Blaney: Okay. We're content on two fronts: one is that the governance machinery within the institutions is structured appropriately to look at that, but also that if the institutions are wanting to engage in anything other than relatively trivial borrowing, they have to get our consent as well. And what we don't do is second-guess everything, but what we do do is make sure that the governing body, or its relevant committees, have been asking the right questions. So, there are two bits to this. +Angela Burns AM: And then—sorry. +Bethan Owen: Can I just add to that, then? +Angela Burns AM: Yes, of course. +Bethan Owen: In asking for the forecasts, we have reinforced this year the importance of universities looking at different scenarios. So, to be looking at the demographic and maybe in the past, where there's potentially been growth in the system and universities have built that into their forecast, we have explicitly asked this year that we are provided—not just the governing body—with the scenario where there is no growth in the income. That's not the core forecast, but a scenario, so that it's quite clear how reliant the forecasts are on that growth, and if that growth doesn't come through, what the contingency plans are for ensuring that all the cost commitments can be met. And we should probably just differentiate between—we have a role before borrowings are entered into, but all the best forecasts in the world can never quite predict, certainly what's happened in the last two years, probably, in universities. So, there are significant borrowings that are now committed to and the key measures we are looking at are universities' capacity to meet their covenants and their repayments under those borrowings, because that's essential for maintaining their liquidity. +Angela Burns AM: Which actually, neatly, thank you, brings me to my last question, which is: have any universities broken those loan covenants or been close to breaking them, unable to pay their borrowings as and when they fall due? +Bethan Owen: There was a significant change in accounting standards in 2015, financial reporting standard 102, so most universities had to renegotiate their covenants, but it was because the accounts were looking very different. The accounting standards brought about changes in how income was recognised and how some service concession arrangements, largely student accommodation arrangements, and pension costs, significantly, were recognised in the accounts. So, most universities have had to renegotiate covenants, but we're not aware of any who've had to renegotiate due to covenant breaches, other than one which the University of Wales Trinity Saint David disclosed in their financial statements—that they did need to renegotiate their financing arrangements, which they have done earlier this year, and they have now negotiated new covenants. It's a core part of financial management in universities now that you manage your relationship with your lender as well as with us. Breaching covenants in themselves is different to doing that with your lender being unaware and the factors being within your control. So, again, from that perspective, we have the covenants built into our forecasts, we require the forecasts to show how the university are planning to be within their covenants. The nature of those covenants vary, but most of them require a measure of cash flow, a ratio between the cash generated and the cost of debt, so there is close monitoring that is required because of the borrowing in the system, as well as our ongoing monitoring as well. +Angela Burns AM: Thank you, Bethan. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just before we move on to Hefin David, can I just ask you what your view, then, is on the statement included by auditors in the accounts of Trinity Saint David that there is material uncertainty? +Bethan Owen: Yes, I'll pick up on that. The material uncertainty largely relates—there is a note in the accounts that explains the factors that are being taken into account, but it largely relates to some significant cash receipts that have been subject to timing delays and the fact that the timing of these is essentially outside the control of the institution. The main delay relates to the receipt of funding for the Egin project, which was due to be received from the Swansea city deal. That funding has been delayed, but the sums due to the university are still due to the university—it's the issue of the timing of those receipts that is causing a cash pressure. Receipt of that funding would certainly reduce the cash flow pressure at the university at the moment. Just in terms of cash flows, all universities have to ensure that they are maintaining enough cash in their system to meet their payments as they fall due. Most of their costs are incurred on a monthly basis, staff costs in particular, but the income flows into universities are now less regular. In days gone by, that funding would largely flow from us and that would also come on a monthly basis. The funding from the Student Loans Company now, for example, comes in chunks. A quarter of that money comes in in October, a quarter in February, and the majority of it, half of it, doesn't come into the university in cash until May. So, that's quite a different cash management scenario for universities to manage; it requires holding cash balances to do it. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Just before I bring Hefin in, we're going to need to have a bit of agility, as Dai Lloyd would call it, in our questioning and our answers if we're going to cover the ground that we need to cover. So, Hefin. +Hefin David AM: How can we be assured that governance arrangements across the eight institutions are sufficiently rigorous but also consistent? +Dr David Blaney: So, the first point to make, of course, is that universities are autonomous, as you know— +Hefin David AM: I've just written 'independent and autonomous'. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, all of that. And they are charities and so on, so they have expectations in respect of that in any case. The university governing body obviously is an important part of the machinery, particularly in terms of generating constructive challenge for the executive within universities. The governing bodies all are expected to behave in a way that is consistent with the guidance produced by the Committee of University Chairs, the CUC guide, which identifies good practice. So, it’s a higher education code of governance and all Welsh universities work to that code. That code is itself up for review at the moment. So, that is an opportunity for that to be strengthened. Just in terms of governing bodies, it's also important that governing bodies engage in a process of continual refreshing, because that gives you a greater variety of perspectives, which is important. But it’s also important they have people who understand the higher education business as well as from other contexts. Getting that mix right is important. As it happens at the moment, there are also issues about ethnicity and gender balance. Half the chairs of Welsh university governing bodies are female. Half the vice-chancellors are female. That’s a positive position for Wales to be in. But I think our view would be that when you get an increase in the contextual pressures that we’ve been discussing already this morning, the role of the governing body actually becomes even more significant. So, we have encouraged the sector, both the chairmen of the university councils, but also the vice-chancellors, to engage in a process of an independent review of governance in Wales. We’ll be alongside that. We’ll be supporting that. But, actually, it’s important that they own it. And it hasn’t been hard for us to encourage that—they have been keen to take this opportunity to take stock. The Welsh higher education system is part of a UK system—they don’t want to be a million miles away from the rest of the UK in terms of expectations, but there is scope in Wales, given the scale of the sector, to actually construct something that is more challenging, I think, in terms of expectations, than might be the common denominator across the UK, and maybe some more exemplification. Importantly, in this exercise, we are not just interested in governance process. It’s going to be quite hard to do this, but I’m very keen that we engage—and the sector are up for this—in governance culture, because, actually, you can do process checks and you’ll have the right structure of committees and have the right sort of papers going, but, in the end, it’s the dynamic within that room and who’s asking which questions and how well informed they are, and whether it's an open culture or is it a defensive culture—these are really what influences the quality of decision making. +Hefin David AM: And how different are those cultures across institutions? +Dr David Blaney: I think it’s very hard to say. We don’t sit in the governing bodies of those institutions. Very occasionally we get to observe one. Typically, that’s at a point where there are sufficient difficulties going on that we feel that we need to— +Hefin David AM: Do you have the option to observe at any point? +Dr David Blaney: We can't insist, I don't think. +Bethan Owen: We can ask to. +Dr David Blaney: We can ask. But in the main, actually, our presence would change the dynamic of that anyway, so I'm not sure that's necessarily helpful. But we are keen to see what we can achieve with the sector in addressing these issues of what constitutes constructive challenge. +Hefin David AM: I take from that that there might be different approaches in different institutions. Is your aim to see consistency in the same approaches, then? +Dr David Blaney: I think we’d like to see a consistent minimum set of expectations. I think there are differences, because there are people involved. In the end, it’s about personalities, it’s about people’s background and it’s about their knowledge. And we have a role to play in this as well, so we have a toolkit that we produce for governors, which, essentially, is a set of information that locates their university in the context of the UK, across a number of factors. So, if they had been told something that is not perhaps as true as it might be by the executive, they can see that in the data. Whether that toolkit needs a refresh—I’m sure it probably does, it’s been there for a while now—. So, part of that is what information we can provide to help governing bodies be properly informed as well. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and this is the independence and autonomy thing. This is quite distant from Government—unlike other institutions, where you can prescribe some of these approaches. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, and in the end I don't think there's any pushback from the sector in terms of wanting to operate in accordance with best practice. +Hefin David AM: Yes, and I totally defend independence and autonomy. +Dr David Blaney: Absolutely. The challenge is all of us being clear what constitutes best practice. +Hefin David AM: So, what about risk appetite? Do you feel that any governing bodies are exhibiting what might be considered to be an imprudent risk appetite? +Dr David Blaney: I don't think so, and this manifests itself in two ways. So, we would see this coming through in forecasts, and we would see it coming through in requests for borrowings, predominantly. Actually, we'd see it in other ways as well. Our links into institutions are many and various, and we have our formal stuff, but we all have links into institutions that are informal and we—. One of the beauties of the scale of the sector in Wales is we can see the institutions in a way that they can't hope to in England. It's just completely different. And so we would see it in other ways. But we have, in some instances, I think it's fair to say, helped institutions to think again about some of their aspirations. So, where we've seen things and we think, 'That just looks ridiculously optimistic,' we've just asked the questions. We don't say, 'No, you can't do that,' because they are autonomous, they make the decisions, but we try to make sure that they're asking the right questions. +Hefin David AM: So, would you see that governing bodies are falling short in doing that themselves, in that, where they become strategic decisions that require due diligence, are the governing bodies themselves presenting that challenge? Or the fact you've just said that, does that suggest to us that, actually, they are falling short? +Dr David Blaney: I think there's a mixture of things going on. We have a slightly different perspective and we have a perspective that is very intimately informed in terms of how the institution is performing. So, you have a governing body with a range of perspectives, and you will also have people who are very committed and very enthusiastic about the institution, and just occasionally it's helpful to get a slightly external perspective on these things. So, I don't think it's a shortfall as such, but I just think— +Hefin David AM: The kind of honest broker role, kind of. +Dr David Blaney: The machinery depends on having a body like HEFCW doing some of that role, and the people who lend money to institutions are absolutely clear about that. So, we have relationships with the banks; they come and see us every now and again—typically not to talk about individual clients but just to talk about what we do and how we do it. Interestingly, for example, when Michael Barber got up before Christmas and said there will be no bail-outs of universities, we had banks on the phone to us within a couple of days, wanting just to talk about how it is in Wales and is it still how it used to be. So, they are very keenly aware of what we do. So, it's not really a governance failure; it's just that the machinery includes us. +Hefin David AM: Okay, that's important. And one of the things, from a distance—I mean, I've been involved in different ways in an institution, and looking at the institutions from a distance. There are people, as you say, involved, and people always make the difference in different cultures. Do you find that the relationships between executive teams and governors is effective, and are they sufficiently robust and challenging as well? Those executive permanent staff and the governors—is there challenge there? +Dr David Blaney: I would say, in the main, yes. Occasionally, we help the governors to ask the right questions, so occasionally that external perspective we've just discussed is helpful in that regard. Actually, there are times when there are tensions between the executive and governing bodies, inevitably—that's not something that's remarkable—and we can feel that as well. We have conversations with both governing bodies and executives. +Hefin David AM: And that can become apparent from a public point of view as well—you know, media reports and—. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, sometimes these things can spill, and the governing bodies also include student representation, staff representation, who are typically union reps, and so, you know, there are all sorts of—. I'm not in any way saying that people are indiscreet, but there are all sorts of interests that are sitting around that table that have to be managed within a governance context. So, sometimes it can spill. And these tensions are not all-out war, but there are sometimes differences of view and they have to be worked through, and that's governance working properly, I think. +Hefin David AM: Okay, which is—some of the work you've suggested will help towards that. +Dr David Blaney: Yes. +Hefin David AM: And a last question: you've identified one university as high risk, five as medium, and two as low in the short to medium term. You're obviously not going to tell us which, but what I'm interested in is the direction of travel, and whether those that are 'medium'—are they at any point at risk of becoming 'high' in the near future? +Dr David Blaney: I think it's fair to say that the direction of travel is that we're seeing an increased risk profile in the sector in Wales, and it's about the financial pressures that we've already discussed this morning. And that is why the efforts that the Minister has gone to to secure the Diamond settlement, and, indeed, other bits of money now and again, are so important. So, she's doing what she can, and that's really good, but we always knew that, between the point of the Diamond recommendations being made and the full implementation, there was going to be a valley to cross. The new machinery costs more as you phase out the old as well. So, the amount of funding was always going to be under pressure; there's a demographic dip, and there are the other contextual factors we've discussed. We always knew there was going to be a valley. And the institutions have been working very hard to try not to take cost out now that they really don't have to take out, because they don't want to reduce capacity, which they'll struggle to recover again when the financial position improves. So, they are seeing deficits, which are managed deficits, where they're spending more than their income in order just to keep the capacity in. So, they're being as responsible as we could expect them to be in this. +Hefin David AM: And, if you're back in a year or two's time, the next few years, are we confident that there won't be more in the high-risk category? You said you don't see collapse, but are we confident there won't be more in the high-risk category? +Dr David Blaney: Well, I think what I would always say about this process is that it doesn't guarantee 100 per cent accuracy. We can only go on what we can see. So, I wouldn't—. HEFCW is innately cautious as an organisation, so I'm not going to say we're confident, but that doesn't mean to say we're worried either. +Hefin David AM: Right, okay. So, to answer my question: are we likely to see more in the high-risk category or not? +Dr David Blaney: We might. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Bethan Owen: And, just to add, I think the key bit of that is maintaining the attractiveness of Welsh universities to students, because a large proportion are coming not from just Wales, but from England and internationally—so, that's a key part—and also that our research portfolio is invested in, and that also brings economic benefits. So, I think those are the two that we are [correction: need to be] able to maintain: the institutions as attractive options for students, and that our research capacity is invested in. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. I've got a supplementary from Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in the interest of transparency, are you able to tell us which universities are in which categories of risk? +Dr David Blaney: We don't publish that; we publish numbers. So, that's, I'm afraid, where we're going to stick. +Hefin David AM: They didn't even try to—[Inaudible.] [Laughter.] +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions then are from Janet Finch-Saunders. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Good morning. Can you explain your overall approach to the 2019-20 allocations and what your priority for allocations has been? +Bethan Owen: We publish our funding allocations, and we published the 2019-20 allocations on 4 June. For 2019-20, we're allocating £149 million, and, as David said, this is the first year that we've been able to start putting funding, additional funding, in from the Diamond recommendations for investment in the sector. So, that means we've been able to increase our recurrent teaching funding by £7 million—not a significant amount, but it's a start. And we have maintained QR, which is our funding for research, quality research, and postgraduate research, at least at the same levels of £76 million, as it's been that in previous years. We've increased part-time funding by £1 million to £26 million, and we've started to increase support for expensive subjects—that's medicine, dentistry and conservatoire provision—and higher cost subjects—those are the sciences and the STEM. So, we made a start on that and increased that support by about £6 million to £20 million in total. And, in addition to that, we have strategic funding that we're maintaining for Reaching Wider projects and the Sêr Cymru project. And then, in addition to our recurrent funding, we have had strategic funding in our remit letters for the last two years. So, we're developing programmes for civic mission, community engagement, collaborations between higher education and further education, and, more recently, we had funding at the end of March to start to implement the recommendations of Graeme Reid's report for research investment, and also for developing mental health and well-being. That strategic funding is very welcome, but to be able to build those activities into our core funding, which we hope Diamond will bring, would be more sustainable for institutions. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Now, the Minister talks of one skills system. How do your allocations to the 2019-20 academic year support and incentivise collaboration between HE and FE? +Dr David Blaney: So, there are probably two dimensions to this. First of all, we have provided £3.5 million of separate funding specifically targeted to improve and increase collaboration between HE and FE. So, we put out a circular inviting proposals for that, and it was competitive, so we funded what was the best of the proposals, and we constrained it to be available only to pump-prime new activity or to add value to existing activity, but not just to keep things ticking over. We had seven bids submitted from across the three Welsh regions on a whole range of activities, which we probably haven't got time to go into now. I've got a long list here, but, for example, in south-east Wales, the University of South Wales is leading on a bid partnering with Cardiff University, Cardiff Met, with the Open University and all the FE players in the region. So, we were really pleased, actually. We tried to get it within regions, because that's how you get the biggest impact for learners in the area and also for smaller enterprises in terms of innovation work. So, that is a specific bit of funding designed to incentivise HE-FE collaboration. And then we direct fund a couple of FE institutions for delivery of higher education for historical reasons, and we also have our funding going through to support franchise activity between HE and FE. There are about 5,000 students who are studying HE programmes under franchise in FE colleges in Wales, and our funding method has, historically for some time now, protected that money. So, we try to prevent universities from taking the money out of franchise and onto campus, because we think it's important to try to encourage local provision within particular localities. And, certainly in areas where public transport infrastructure is perhaps not what it might be, for people to move to universities can be quite a disincentive, so—. But we encourage it that way as well. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Then, finally from me, the council's remit letter for the 2019-20 academic year from the Minister does ask you to consider how you'd increase openness and transparency around the use of fee income. So, what are the issues here, and how will you take this forward? +Bethan Owen: The reporting of the income and expenditure is largely provided, probably more so in narrative form in the accounts and the financial statements and annual reports of institutions. A number of institutions also provide graphs and more easily accessible information to understand the income and expenditure of universities. But we would accept that this information isn't easy to access at the moment. There are examples of good practice across the sector in presenting as simply as possible what the income sources are for universities and how they spend their money. And we're going to be working with the Welsh universities and sector bodies to improve the accessibility of that information for Welsh institutions. More transparent reporting of income and expenditure, and not just fee income, is actually very important for understanding how income cross-flows work in universities. Some reasonably simplistic analyses can assume that all the student fee just covers the direct costs of academic provision, but there's much more to the student experience than that, so there are costs: there are the infrastructure costs, the student support costs, even the community engagement and all the research activities bring benefits to the teaching and fee provision. So, more transparency of all the universities' income sources and expenditure and a better understanding of the income cross-flows and why you can't look at universities in isolation of student provision and research, you have to look at the whole—so, we'll be working with them to improve that information. +Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to go to Hefin David now for some questions on part-time student funding. +Hefin David AM: Part-time student numbers are bucking the trend in Wales, as I understand it, and we are seeing a bigger increase in Wales of part-time numbers than elsewhere in the UK. How is that going to be sustainable within current arrangements? +Bethan Owen: We've allocated £26.5 million in 2019-20 to support part-time provision, and we have been able in 2019-20 to fund some growth. So, there is growth in that funding to allow those institutions and incentivise those institutions who have recruited more students than last year to continue to do so. That came at an overall additional cost of £1.9 million, and, based on what we're hearing from student support, we're expecting to see that requirement increase. So, it's one of the areas where we'll need to look at how we prioritise Diamond funding. And at the moment, our intention—but subject to knowing the quantum of it—is to continue to support and fund growth in part-time provision. +Hefin David AM: So, is it possible—? With the Welsh Government's policy of developing lifelong learning, is it possible that will be ever spread more thinly? +Dr David Blaney: That is the challenge, and there's a piece of work that we have in our sights to look again at part-time and what it is and what the various drivers are. There's a temptation, I think, at times, to see it solely in terms of skills for an economy, and it is important for reskilling and upskilling, but actually, it's important for other things as well. If we see higher education solely in terms of skilling an economy, we've missed an important part of the contribution that higher education makes. But part-time is really quite difficult, because there's part-time that is about upskilling, part time that's about reskilling, there's part-time for social purposes, there's employer-supported part-time, there's student—. So, there's a complexity there. +Hefin David AM: But they are more reactive to rises in fees. +Dr David Blaney: Well, there is a sense that they are more price sensitive, yes, and so the support regime that the Government is putting in place is important, and that probably has made a difference to the numbers of part-timers entering the system this last year. But I think we need to stake stock of what is important about part-time, what the market will deliver, what the market won't deliver, what we should fund and so on. And there's a complexity around all that, as I've indicated, which we need to do a bit of work on with the sector, with the student body as well, just to take some stock of this over the next year or so. +Hefin David AM: Could we end up seeing significant fee increases for part-time students? +Dr David Blaney: My sense is we won't. The Government wishes us to monitor, so we monitor, and that in itself is not straightforward, actually. But your comment about price sensitivity, I think, is really the nub of it. There's a limit to how much a fee increase would be acceptable to the part-time market. So, I think it's kind of self-regulating in that respect. I don't think we'll see massive fee increases; we might see a bit, but we won't see masses, I don't think. +Hefin David AM: Okay. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now on funding for research and innovation, and also we'd like to talk a bit about a replacement for European Union funds. Siân Gwenllian. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. If I could turn specifically to research, we know, of course, that both the Diamond and Reid reviews called for QR funding to be maintained in real terms, but the allocation is exactly the same for 2019-20 as it has been for the past nine years. Have you carried out any kind of assessment of the impact of this level of research funding on universities and, indeed, on the Welsh economy? +Dr David Blaney: I'm sorry; I missed the beginning of that because I couldn't hear this headset. +Lynne Neagle AM: Siân, could you repeat the question? Sorry. We had a bit of a problem with translation at the beginning. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, no problem. I was talking about the Diamond and Reid reviews at the beginning of my question and the fact that they had recommended that QR funding should be maintained in real terms. But, of course, the sum hasn't actually increased over a period of nine years. +Dr David Blaney: Okay. The reason the sum hasn't increased is because we haven't had enough money to be able to increase it and still meet the obligations we have to other bits of the HE system. We would dearly love to increase it. Both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid were very clear about the importance of being able to invest in our QR research funding, for a number of reasons. The capacity of the sector to be able to respond to funding opportunities elsewhere in the UK and across the rest of the world is itself determined by the size and the strength of the research base, which is sustained by QR funding. If they go for UK-based competitive research funding, that is typically constructed on the absolute assumption that QR will be part of that mix. So, they tend to fund to 80 per cent of the actual cost of the research, with the expectation that QR will plug the gap. And we know that, although the Welsh research base is extraordinarily productive, and really is punching above its weight in many ways—and I mentioned earlier the impact of the research base in the last research excellence framework—we know that, actually, it could do so much more, if it just had more scale. So, we fully endorse the reports from both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid that QR is important, and it's important also to be able to allow institutions to invest in research areas that emerge over time. It's almost impossible for a body like us, far less the Government, to know where these emerging strengths are going to come from, and QR provides the flexibility for institutions, which is absolutely fundamental to keeping the research base dynamic. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Therefore, you do have concerns that this isn't increasing—you have that concern of a lack of increase in the level of investment. But has any particular assessment been made of the impact of not increasing that funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, there is—. Graeme Reid's report produced an assessment of the correlation between QR funding and capacity to generate funding from other sources, and there's a very close correlation— +Sian Gwenllian AM: Has HEFCW done any assessment to look at the effect of underfunding research, to all intents and purposes? +Dr David Blaney: Not directly. We've relied on the expert assessment of people like Graeme Reid. It's sometimes more effective to have external experts making these points than us or the sector. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Your remit requires you to encourage universities to continue to develop one particular element of research, which is educational research. How does your allocation for 2019-20 contribute to that in terms of pedagogy and educational research specifically? +Dr David Blaney: Bethan, did you want to say something on this? +Bethan Owen: I was just going to add that, when we look at the funding that comes into our sector in Wales, compared with the rest of the UK, it's easy to see from the figures that our percentage of income that comes from research is smaller than in England, so the figures show that we receive less of the money that's available, which is a factor that results from us having less QR as a percentage, so we're in a situation where we get less of that UK funding that's available as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, there's a knock-on to that; that's what you're trying to say. But from the point of view of my question on educational research—? +Dr David Blaney: So, we have provided funding in 2017-18 and 2018-19 to WISERD Education, which is a research collaboration between a number of the Welsh universities, specifically looking at educational issues, and we're providing additional funding to that to add value to the Welsh Government's existing evaluation of the progress of pioneer schools in developing the three-to-15 curriculum in Wales. I won't go into the full detail of it now, but it's a five-partner project feeding into this with researchers from Cardiff, Cardiff Met, Trinity Saint David, Aber, Bangor and the University of South Wales. So, it's a collaborative effort, and we have, in the past, also funded WISERD Education, so it's an important research facility and increasingly being used, I'm delighted to say, by Welsh Government in underpinning its own policy thinking. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And likewise, in 2019-20, there will be allocations specifically for this. +Dr David Blaney: It's a bit early to say yet. We haven't allocated anything specifically in the main allocations that we've put out. There might be others to come, but we're not yet in a position to say. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, could you provide the remit letter from—[Inaudible.]—do that? You have to do everything in the remit letters. +Dr David Blaney: We do what we can to pay due regard to the remit letters, as the wording goes. So, we have it in our sights, but we're not yet ready to make announcements. +Sian Gwenllian AM: And then turning to the impact of the loss of funds were we to leave the European Union. Of course, this is going to have a far-reaching impact on future research, and the Reid review has made recommendations to mitigate this impact. So, what assessment have you made of how allocations will be able to help universities to transition away from EU funding? +Dr David Blaney: So, again, the Reid review has done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of an impact assessment for us. And we endorse, just as the Government has endorsed, the recommendations from Reid. The Government has committed in principle to delivering Reid. The challenge is finding the money, and we fully understand that. There has been an additional £6.6 million allocated for research very recently by the Government, which we have put out specifically in line with some of the recommendations from Reid. So, that's a start, but that's not sustainable funding, and it's not enough, really, but it is a good and welcome start. Reid was also not just talking about the money, but also talking about the way in which the Welsh research base both represents itself and also engages with UK-wide developments. And in response to that, we have recently issued our own vision for research and innovation, which was developed over a number of months, following the Reid report closely, working with stakeholders, including the Welsh Government, in order to try and set a vision for how we respond to the challenges facing research in the future, including the reduction, potentially, of access to EU funds. And a lot of that is—. These Reid recommendations all come together; they're coherent. A lot of that requires investment in the Welsh research base in order to be able to go for competitive funding at a UK level. Since it seems possible at least, and possibly even likely, that any money retrieved from not having to invest in the EU will sit in London rather than necessarily being devolved to the devolved administrations—we understand fully the Welsh Government's position on that, and we don't disagree with it. But either way, we need a research base that's able to compete, and that's why the investment recommendations of Reid are so important. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. I think Reid was saying that there may be pots of money out there that aren't being accessed at the moment by Welsh universities. Are you able to help then within that process? +Bethan Owen: One aspect that we do intend to fund—and this is from Diamond, as well as Reid—is to place funding back into the system for innovation. We're consulting currently, with the intention, if the funding is available to us, clearly, in the year 2020-21, to provide £15 million back into the sector in innovation funding. That's funding that we had to take out when the new fee system came in. That is part of promoting the innovation, and part of the research portfolio as well. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Is that part of the UKRI funding? There is some £7 billion in the hands of that organisation, as I understand it, and there may be some possibilities there too. +Bethan Owen: That £15 million will be money that comes from us, but the intention is that the money will go in in order to improve universities' ability to access that funding from UKRI. So, Innovate UK would be the part of UKRI—and that we improve our ability to get funding from outside Wales. And, then, Graeme Reid says the same thing in terms of research—that we need more funding to do the same thing there. +Dr David Blaney: And, then, there's also the recommendation from Reid that Wales needs to be better embedded in the conversations that are going on on a UK-wide basis, so the Welsh Government has established a presence in London in respect of research, and we have a colleague in HEFCW who is fractionally embedded in the United Kingdom Research and Innovation specifically to respond to that recommendation. And that is actually paying dividends; we are strengthening our relationship with the UK machinery, which is essential if we're to understand where they're heading and what their funding bids are all about, and even to be able to influence those. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Siân? +Sian Gwenllian AM: So, as far as research is concerned, it's not all doom and gloom. +Dr David Blaney: Yes, I mean, you know, things are looking up. There is money coming in and if the Government, as it is able to, can find money and can invest in this area, then that will help. +Sian Gwenllian AM: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Just a couple of questions from me, then, before you close: what is your recent work on the 'basket of goods' show regarding student accommodation costs? And have any institutions used their 2019-20 fee and access plans to make commitments to more affordable accommodation for under-represented groups? +Dr David Blaney: First of all, on the basket of goods, the work we're doing now—we're currently in train in terms of analysing the data in respect of the basket of goods, so this is slightly premature, but our early look at the data indicates that there are no increases in costs, accommodation or other, that would cause us concern. So, it doesn't look like institutions are succumbing to the temptation to up their income streams from other costs. So, that's good. In terms of the fee and access plans, the sector has committed over £28 million of investment in student support-related activities from the fee and access plans, and that includes, in many instances, bursaries that are designed to help students cope with the costs of accommodation and the cost of living more generally. The support is provided for a range of purposes, but a couple of examples, just very quickly: Trinity Saint David, since we've talked about them a lot today, they offer £1,000 bursary to care leavers, which is in addition to local authority support for care leavers. Bangor also offer targeted support for care leavers, and these are often also extended, so they apply not just in term time, but throughout the holiday time as well, because people still need to live during the holidays. So, there is investment going in from the fee plans in that support. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. And just one final question from me then, going back to Trinity Saint David: are you concerned that the governing body of Trinity Saint David has taken decisions that have led to that material uncertainty, and is that unprecedented in Wales? +Dr David Blaney: My view is that the decisions that the governing body made were, in our view, perfectly rational decisions to have made, given the information they had at the time. So, what's happened is that a number of unforeseen events have arisen, which, actually, I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to have foreseen, and it's just a combination of these that has caused the cash pressure. So, I don't see this as a governance failure, and they are engaging with those challenges. +Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you both for attending and for answering all our questions this morning? You did say that you would give the committee a note on reserves for the last four years, so we'd be grateful if we could receive that. And, as usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. Thank you, again, for your time this morning. +Dr David Blaney: Thank you. +Bethan Owen: Thank you very much. +Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from me to the Deputy Minister requesting further information for our scrutiny of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 2 is a letter from me to the Children's Commissioner for Wales also asking for further information to pursue our scrutiny of the Bill. And paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Education asking for an update on the framework for young people educated other than at school. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to propose that we resolve to meet in private for the remainder of this meeting and for the whole meeting on 10 July. Are Members content? Thank you. +","Summary: + +At the Children, Young People and Education Committee meeting, Lynne Neagle AM chaired the session, starting with apologies from Suzy Davies, Dawn Bowden, and acknowledging Angela Burns as a substitute. Siân Gwenllian joined via video-conference and Hefin David declared an association with Cardiff Metropolitan University. + +The focus was on the higher education new academic year allocations with guests Dr. David Blaney and Bethan Owen, executives of HEFCW. The discussion highlighted financial sustainability challenges faced by Welsh universities such as demographic changes, pension costs, Brexit, and impacts from the Augar review in England. Despite this, improvements following the Diamond reforms were mentioned, as increased funding begins to be implemented. + +Key questions revolved around financial indicators, reserves, universities' estates strategies, and potential risks of institutions closing or undergoing structural changes. Regulatory oversight and collaboration between HE and FE was also discussed. + +Maintained QR funding levels and Wales' competitiveness in accessing UK research funds, especially post-Brexit, were addressed. The session also touched on plans for increased investments in student support, affordability of housing, and part-time student provisions. + +HEFCW reassured the committee that while there are certainly financial pressures, universities are being managed responsibly and no immediate crisis is expected. They affirmed the importance of adequate governance within the universities and stressed the necessity of a strong research base to compete for UK-wide funding opportunities. They pledged additional support for innovation and warranted academic research, particularly in education. + +The meeting ended with an agreement to meet privately for future discussions." +"Generate a summary of the following conversation: + +Grad A: OK , we 're on . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: So , I think this is gonna be a pretty short meeting because I have four agenda items , three of them were requested by Jane who is not gonna be at the meeting today . So . {vocalsound} The uh first was transcription status . Does anyone besides Jane know what the transcription status is ? +PhD F: Um , sort of , I do , peripherally . +PhD C: Is that English ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Well first of all with IBM I got a note from Brian yesterday saying that they finally made the tape for the thing that we sent them a {pause} week or week and a half ago +PhD D: That 's our system . +Grad A: Ugh ! +PhD F: and that it 's gone out to the transcribers and hopefully next week we 'll have the transcription back from that . +Grad A: C can I have a pen ? +PhD F: Um {disfmarker} Jane seems to be um moving right along on the transcriptions from the ICSI side . She 's assigned , I think probably five or six m more meetings . +PhD C: Yeah , I think we 're up to MR thirteen or something . +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD F: Yeah , so um , I guess she 's hired some new transcribers +PhD D: Speaking {disfmarker} +Grad E: Which meetings is she transcribing ? +PhD F: and {disfmarker} Um well we 've {disfmarker} we 've run out of E D Us because a certain number of them are um , sort of awaiting to go to IBM . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: For IBM , yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . +Grad E: OK . +PhD F: and the rest are in process being transcribed uh here . +PhD D: So does she have transcribers right now who are basically sitting idle because there 's no data back from IBM +Grad E: So we 're doing some in parallel . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: No . +Grad A: No , no . +PhD F: Oh no no . +Grad A: We haven't done that process . +PhD D: no ? +PhD F: No . We 're not waiting on them . +Grad A: So . They ' r they 're doing the full transcription process . +PhD D: Oh . Oh , OK . +Grad E: So they 're just doing their own thing until {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Because I {disfmarker} I need to ask Jane whether it 's {disfmarker} it would be OK for her {disfmarker} um , s some of her people to transcribe uh some of the initial data we got from the SmartKom data collection , which is these short like five or seven minute sessions . +PhD F: We 're doing it in parallel , yeah . +Grad E: OK . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Um and we want it {disfmarker} You know , we need {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} Again , we {disfmarker} we have a similar uh logistic set - up where we are supposed to send the data to Munich +Grad A: Right . +PhD D: and get it transcribed and get it back . But to get going we would like some of the data transcribed right away so we can get started . +Grad A: Yep , sounds familiar . +PhD D: And so um I wanted to ask Jane if {disfmarker} if uh , you know , maybe one of their transcribers could {disfmarker} could do {disfmarker} I mean since these are very short , that should really be uh , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um {disfmarker} It 's {disfmarker} +PhD C: There 's only two channels . So it 's only {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD C: As the synthesis doesn't have to be transcribed I think . +PhD D: It 's only two {disfmarker} Right , s +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Yeah . So {disfmarker} So it 's basically one channel to transcribe . And it 's {disfmarker} One session is only uh like seven {disfmarker} +Professor B: So that should have ma many fewer {disfmarker} And it 's also not uh a bunch of interruptions with people and all that , +PhD D: Right . And some of it is read speech , so we could give them the {disfmarker} the thing that they 're reading +Professor B: right ? So . Yeah . +PhD D: and they just may {disfmarker} +Grad A: Make sure it 's right . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: And so um , um , I guess since she 's {disfmarker} I was gonna ask her but since she 's not around I {disfmarker} maybe I 'll {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah , well it certainly seems {disfmarker} +PhD D: Uh if {disfmarker} if that 's OK with you to {disfmarker} to , you know , get that stuff uh {disfmarker} to ask her for that , then I 'll do that . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , if we 're held up on this other stuff a little bit in order to encompass that , that 's OK because I I um , I mean I still have high hopes that the that the IBM pipeline 'll work out for us , so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . OK , yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Alrighty . +PhD F: Oh , yeah , and also related to the transcription stuff , so I 've been trying to keep a web page uh up to date f showing what the current status is of the trans of all the things we 've collected and what stage each meeting is in , in terms of whether it 's {disfmarker} +Grad A: Can you mail that out to the list ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm , yeah I will . I {disfmarker} That 's the thing that I sent out just to foo people saying can you update these pages +Grad A: Oh , OK , OK . +PhD F: and so that 's where I 'm putting it but I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll send it out to the list telling people to look at it . +Grad A: Yeah , I haven't done that . So . I have lots of stuff to add that 's just in my own directory . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I 'll try to get to that . OK . So Jane also wanted to talk about participant approval , but I don't really think there 's much to talk about . I 'm just gonna do it . And uh , if anyone objects too much then they can do it instead . +Professor B: You are going to {disfmarker} +Grad A: I 'm gonna send out to the participants , uh , with links to web pages which contain the transcripts and allow them to {pause} suggest edits . And then bleep them out . +Professor B: OK . +Grad A: For the ones that we have . Um {disfmarker} +PhD C: So but it 's just transcripts , not the {disfmarker} not the audio ? +Grad A: Nope , they 'll have access to the audio also . +PhD C: OK , yeah , yep . Ah . +Grad A: I mean that 's my intention . Because the transcripts might not be right . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: So you want people to be able to listen to them . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: So , um the audio that they 're gonna have access to , will that be the uncompressed version ? Or will you have scripts that like uncompress the various pieces and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Oh , that 's a good point . That 's a good point . Yeah , it 's {disfmarker} it 's probably going to have to be the uncompressed versions because , uh , uh , it takes too long to do random access decompression . +PhD F: Hmm . Yeah , I was just wondering because we 're uh running out of the un - backed - up disk space on +Grad A: Well , that was the other point . +PhD F: Oh , was that another one ? +Grad A: Yep , that 's another agenda item . +PhD F: OK . I 'll wait . +Grad A: So , uh {disfmarker} But that is a good point so we 'll get to that , too . Um , DARPA demo status , not much to say . The back - end stuff is working out fine . It 's more or less ready to go . I 've added some stuff that uh indes indexes by the meeting type MR , EDU , et cetera and also by the user ID . So that the front - end can then do filtering based on that as well . Uh {disfmarker} The back - end is uh , going more slowly as I s I think I said before just cuz I 'm not much of a Tcl - TK programmer . And uh Dave Gelbart says he 's a little too busy . So I think Don and I are gonna work on that and {disfmarker} and you and I can just talk about it off - line more . +Grad E: Right . +Grad A: But uh {pause} the back - end was pretty smooth . +Professor B: Oh +Grad A: So I think , we 'll have something . It may not be as {disfmarker} As pretty as we might like , but we 'll have something . +Professor B: I wondered whe when we would reach Dave 's saturation point . He 's sort of been {disfmarker} been volunteering for everything +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: and {pause} and uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: O K . Finally said he was too busy . I guess we reached it . +Grad A: Yeah , he {disfmarker} he actually {disfmarker} he volunteered but then he s then he retracted it . So . Oh well . Um {disfmarker} +Grad E: And , also um , I was just showing Andreas , I got um an X Waves kind of display , and I don't know how much more we can do with it {disfmarker} with like the prosodic stuff where we have like stylized pitches and signals and the transcripts on the bottom +Grad A: Oh , cool . +Grad E: so , right now it 's just an X Waves and then you have three windows but I don't know , it looked pretty nice and I 'm sure it {disfmarker} think it has potential for a little something , +Grad A: For a demo ? +Grad E: yeah , for a demo . +Grad A: Yeah , sounds good . +Grad E: So {disfmarker} +Professor B: OK , so again , the issue is {disfmarker} For July , the issue 's gonna be what can we fit into a Windows machine , uh , and so on , but {disfmarker} +Grad E: Oh . OK . +Grad A: So it might just be slides . +Grad E: Yeah , OK . +PhD C: Well {disfmarker} {pause} Yeah . +Grad E: Well , we 'll see , um {disfmarker} +PhD C: I 've been putting together uh Transcriber things for Windows so i And I installed it on Dave Gelbart 's PC and it worked just fine . So hopefully that will work . +PhD D: Really ? So is that {disfmarker} Because there 's some people um {disfmarker} It would be cool if we could uh get that to work uh at {disfmarker} at SRI +PhD C: Yeah . Yep . +PhD D: because the um {disfmarker} +Grad A: Well Transcriber is Tcl - TK , very generic with Snack , +PhD D: we have m m We have more Windows machines to run the {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so basically anything you can get Snack to run on , it will work . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah but {disfmarker} But the problem is the version Transcriber works with , the Snack version , is one point six whatever and that 's not anymore supported . It 's not on {disfmarker} on the web page anymore . But I just wrote an email to {disfmarker} to the author of {disfmarker} to the Snack author and he sent me to one point six whatever library +Grad A: Well I thought it was packaged with Transcriber ? +PhD C: and so it works . Yeah , but then you can't add our patches and then the {disfmarker} the new version is {disfmarker} is totally different +Grad A: Oh . +PhD C: a and in {disfmarker} yeah , in terms of {disfmarker} of the source code . +Grad A: Ah . +PhD C: You {disfmarker} you can't find the Tcl files anymore . It 's some whatever wrapped thing +PhD D: Mmm . +PhD C: and you can't {disfmarker} you can't access that so you have to install {disfmarker} First install Tcl then install Snack and then install the Transcriber thing and then do the patches . +Grad A: Patch . Ugh ! +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I wonder if {disfmarker} if we should contribute our changes back to the authors so that they maintain those changes along {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . +Grad A: We have {disfmarker} Yeah b it 's just hasn't made it into the release yet . +PhD D: We have ? Oh . Oh , OK . +PhD F: So did you um put the uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the NT version out on the uh Meeting Recorder page ? Or {disfmarker} +PhD C: No , I haven't done that yet . I 'm {disfmarker} oh Nope . But I definitely will do that . +Professor B: So , can some of the stuff that Don 's talking about somehow fit into this Uh , mean you just have a set of numbers that are associated with the {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: So {disfmarker} +Grad E: Yeah , it 's basically ASCII files or binary files , whatever representation . Just three different {disfmarker} It 's a waveform and just a stylized pitch vector basically so it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: So {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well {disfmarker} +Grad E: I mean we could do it in Matl - {comment} I mean you could do it in a number of different places I 'm sure . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But it would be cool if the Transcriber interface had like another window for the {disfmarker} you know , maybe above the waveform where it would show some arbitrary valued function that is {disfmarker} that is you know time synchron ti ti time synchronous with the wavform . +PhD C: Yep . +Grad E: Yeah . +Professor B: Yes . +Grad E: Yeah , that 'd be very cool . +Grad A: It 'd be easy enough to add that . Again it 's {disfmarker} it 's {pause} It 's more Tcl - T +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: So someone who 's familiar with Tcl - TK has to do it , +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: but uh , it wouldn't be hard to do . +PhD D: Right . But it would almost be like having another waveform displayed . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: S +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah , maybe we could l look into that . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: But it {disfmarker} it seems to me that I c +PhD C: And {disfmarker} +Grad A: It doesn't seem like having that real time is that necessary . So yo It seems to me you could do images . +Grad E: Um {pause} What do you mean by real time ? Do you mean like {disfmarker} +PhD F: Like being able to scroll through it and stuff for the demo . +Grad E: OK . +Grad A: Yeah , jus Yeah . +PhD F: Is that what you mean ? +Grad A: It just seems to me jus +Grad E: It would be cool to see it {disfmarker} +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad E: It would be cool like to see {disfmarker} to hear it and see it , +PhD C: And to hear it . Yeah . Yeah . +Grad E: and see the pitch contours also . +Grad A: Sure , but I don't think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} You can do all that just statically in +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: I think it would lose {disfmarker} Yeah , I mean y +Grad A: Just record the audio clip and show an image and I think that 's {disfmarker} +Grad E: Right , right . I just thought if you meant slides I thought you meant like just {pause} like {pause} um view graphs or something . +Professor B: You know , wh Yeah . So . Uh , no , we 're talking about on the computer and {disfmarker} and um , I think when we were talking about this before we had littl this little demo meeting , +Grad E: Right . +Professor B: we sort of set up a range of different degrees of liveness that you could have and , {vocalsound} the more live , the better , but uh , given the crunch of time , we may have to retreat from it to some extent . So I think {disfmarker} {pause} For a lot of reasons , I think it would be very nice to have this Transcriber interface be able to show some other interesting signal along with it +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: so it 'd be a good thing to get in there . But , um {disfmarker} Anyway , jus just looking for ways that we could actually show what you 're doing , uh , in {disfmarker} {pause} to people . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Cuz a lot of this stuff , particularly for Communicator , uh certainly a significant chunk of the things that we waved our arms about th originally had t had to do with prosodics It 'd be nice to show that we can actually get them and see them . +PhD D: Mmm . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: And the last i item on the agenda is disk issues yet again . So , we 're doing OK on backed up . We 're {disfmarker} We 're only about thirty percent on the second disk . So , uh , we have a little bit of time before that becomes critical , but we are like ninety five percent , ninety eight percent on the scratch disks for the expanded meetings . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: And , my original intention was like we would just delete them as we needed more space , but unfortunately we 're in the position where we have to deal with all the meeting data {pause} all at once , in a lot of different ways . +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Oh there 's a lot of transcribers , too . +Grad A: Yeah , there 're a lot of transcribers , +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: so all of those need to be expanded , and then people are doing chunking and I want to do uh , uh , uh , the permission forms , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: An +PhD F: Right . +Grad A: so I want those to be live , so there 's a lot of data that has to be around . Um {disfmarker} And Jane was gonna talk to , uh , Dave Johnson about it . One of the things I was thinking is we {disfmarker} we just got these hundred {disfmarker} alright , excuse me {disfmarker} ten , uh SPARC - Blade SUN - Blades . +Professor B: Did they come in ? +PhD F: SUN - Blades . +PhD D: Yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . They came in the other day . +Grad A: They came in but they 're not set up yet . +Professor B: Oh . +Grad A: And so it seems to me we could hang scratch disk on those {pause} because they 'll be in the machine room , they 'll be on the fast connection to the rest of the machines . And if we just need un - backed - up space , we could just hang disks off them . +PhD F: Well , is there {disfmarker} Why not just hang them off of Abbott , is there a {disfmarker} +Grad A: Because there 's no more room in the disk racks on Abbott . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: Ah . +Professor B: Weren't we gonna get {disfmarker} +PhD F: Ah , I see . +Professor B: Well , maybe it should get another rack . +PhD D: But you still need to store the disks somehow . +Grad A: Well , but the SUN - Blades have spare drive bays . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} +Grad A: Just put them in . +PhD F: You can put two {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh you mean you put them inside the pizza boxes for the {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sure . +PhD C: Internal . Yeah . +Grad A: Yeah . Cuz the SUN {disfmarker} uh , these SUN - Blades take commodity hard drives . +PhD D: Oh . +Grad A: So you can just go out and buy a PC hard drive and stick it in . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But if Abbott is going to be our disk server it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} file server {comment} it seems like we would want to get it , uh , a second disk rack or something . +PhD D: Plus we 're talking about buying a second dis uh , file server . +Grad A: Well , I mean there are lots of long term solutions . What I 'm looking for is where do we s expand the next meeting ? +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: I see {vocalsound} {pause} Oh , I see . +Professor B: Well , for the next meeting you might be out of luck with those ten , mightn't you ? Uh , you know Dave Johnson is gone for , like , ten days , +Grad A: Oh , I didn't know he had left already . +Professor B: Uh , well , tonight . +Grad A: Oh , oh well . +PhD D: You mean he won't set up the {disfmarker} mmm . +Professor B: I don't know . +Grad E: How much space do you need for these ? +Professor B: I don't know what his schedule is . +Grad A: You {disfmarker} we need about a gig per meeting . +Professor B: I 'm just saying he 's gone . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I thi +Grad E: I have um {disfmarker} I have an eighteen gig drive hanging off of my computer . +Grad A: Alright ! What 's your computer 's name ? +Grad E: So {disfmarker} Uh , Samosa . +Professor B: You had an eighteen gigabyte drive . +Grad E: Yeah , I had . Well it 's about {disfmarker} I think there 's about twelve gig left . +Grad A: So it {disfmarker} And you have an X drives installed ? OK . +Grad E: Yeah . So , I didn't realize it was so critical . +Grad A: And you 're o you 're offering ? +Grad E: I mean I 'm not doing anything on it right now until I get new meetings to transcri or that are {disfmarker} new transcriptions coming in I really can't do anything . +Grad A: OK . +Grad E: Um not that I can't do anything , I jus +PhD F: I {disfmarker} I jus I just gave Thilo some {disfmarker} about ten gigs , the last ten gigs of space that there was on {disfmarker} on uh Abbott . Uh {disfmarker} And uh {disfmarker} So but that {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} +Grad A: Which one was that , X {pause} G ? X {pause} G ? +PhD C: XG . +PhD F: XG . +Grad A: OK . +PhD D: XG ? +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's also where we store the {disfmarker} The uh Hub - five training set waveforms , +PhD C: Oops . +Grad A: But that won't be getting any bigger , +PhD D: right ? +PhD F: No . +Grad A: will it ? +PhD F: I don't think that 's on XG . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: On XG is only Carmen and Du - and Stephane 's disk . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD D: But I 've also been storing {disfmarker} I 've been storing the feature files there and I guess I can s start deleting some because we now know what the best features are +Grad E: Well {disfmarker} +PhD D: and we won't be using the old ones anymore . +Grad E: I have a lot of space , though . +PhD F: Yeah , I do I don't think it was on XG . +PhD D: Uh {disfmarker} Oh thats XA {disfmarker} Oh that 's X {disfmarker} +PhD C: Isn't that XH ? +PhD F: I th +Grad A: Not {disfmarker} not for long . +Grad E: I have a lot of space and it 's not {disfmarker} it 's n There 's very little uh {disfmarker} Yeah not for long . +PhD D: Maybe I 'm confu +Grad E: But I mean it 's not going f +PhD D: Oh no I 'm sorry . +Grad E: It 's not being used often at all . +PhD C: But I 'm using XH {disfmarker} H , too . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's probably {disfmarker} Probably only about four gig is on X {disfmarker} on your X drive , +PhD C: So . +PhD D: Oh OK . +Grad A: but we 'll definitely take it up if you {disfmarker} +Grad E: I th +PhD D: I think you 're right . It 's XH and D {disfmarker} +Grad E: I think it 's about four or five gig cuz I have four meetings on there , +PhD D: The b I 'm also using DG I got that confused . +Grad E: three or four meetings . +PhD D: OK . +Grad A: Great . +Grad E: So . +Grad A: OK , so that will get us through the next couple days . +Professor B: We need {disfmarker} We need another gigaquad . +Grad A: Yep . At least . +Professor B: There should {disfmarker} I d There should just be a b I should have a button . +Grad A: The "" more disk space "" button ? +Professor B: Just press {disfmarker} Press each meeting saying "" we need more disk space "" {vocalsound} "" this week "" . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Skip the rest of the conversation . +PhD F: Well we 've collected so far something like uh sixty - five meetings . +Professor B: And {disfmarker} And how much does each meeting take ? +PhD F: And it 's about a gig uncompressed . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} It 's a little bit more as I usually don't {disfmarker} do not uncompress the {disfmarker} all of the PZM and the PDA things . +PhD F: Is a little more ? +PhD C: So . +PhD F: Right , yeah so if you uncompressed everything it 's even more . +PhD C: It 's {disfmarker} Yeah . One point five or something . +PhD F: U Uh compressed how much are they ? Like {disfmarker} +Grad A: Half a gig . For all of them . +PhD F: About half ? +PhD C: Yeah . Yeah . Yep . +PhD F: So we 're definitely are storing you know , all of those . So there 's what thirty some gig of just meetings so far ? +Professor B: So - so So maybe there 's a hundred {pause} gig or something . Or {disfmarker} I mean . Cuz we {disfmarker} we have the uncompressed around also . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: So it 's like {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD F: Right . Well we {disfmarker} We haven't uncompressed all the meetings , but {disfmarker} +Grad A: I would like to . +Professor B: Yeah . Well I mean it 's {disfmarker} the they really are cheap . I mean it 's just a question of figuring out where they should be and hanging them , +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: Right . +Professor B: but But uh , we could {disfmarker} You know , if you want to get four disks , get four disks . I mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's small {disfmarker} I mean these things ar are just a few hundred dollars . +PhD F: Yeah . Well I sent that message out to , I guess , you and Dave asking for {disfmarker} if we could get some disk . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD F: I s I sent this out a {disfmarker} a day ago +Grad A: And put it where ? +Professor B: Right . +PhD F: but {disfmarker} and Dave didn't respond so I don I don't know how the whole process works . I mean does he just go out and get them and {disfmarker} if it 's OK , and {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yep . +PhD F: So I was assuming he was gonna take over {pause} that . But he 's probably too busy given that he 's leaving . +Professor B: Yeah , I think you need a direct conversation with him . And just {vocalsound} say an - e just ask him that , you know , wha what should you do . And in my answer back was "" are you sure you just want one ? "" So I mean I think {pause} that what you want to do is plan ahead a little bit and figure "" well , here 's what we pi figure on doing for the next few months "" . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: Wa - a I know what they want . The sysadmins would prefer to have one external drive per machine . So they don't want to stack up external drives . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: Um {disfmarker} {pause} And then they want everything else in the machine room . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: So the question is where are you gonna hang them ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . I don't know what the space situation is in the machine room . +Grad A: Right . +PhD F: So . +Professor B: Right . So this is a question that 's pretty hard to solve without talking to Dave , +PhD D: Th - The {disfmarker} +PhD F: I think part of the reason why Dave can't get the {disfmarker} the new machines up is because he doesn't have room in the machine room right now . +Professor B: cuz it {disfmarker} +PhD D: One {disfmarker} Mmm . +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: One {disfmarker} One On - One thing to in to um t to do when you need to conserve space is +PhD F: So he has to re - arrange a bunch of stuff . +PhD D: I bet there are still some old , uh , like , nine gig disks , uh , around and you can probably consolidate them onto larger disks and {disfmarker} and you know recover the space . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . No . I think Dave {disfmarker} Dave knows all these things , of course . An - and so , he always has a a lot of plans of things that he 's gonna do to make things better in many ways an and runs out of time . +PhD D: Right . Mm - hmm . +Grad A: But I {disfmarker} I know that {pause} generally their first priority has been for backed up disk . And so I think what he 's been concentrating on is uh the back {disfmarker} the {pause} back up system , rather than on new disk . +PhD D: Mmm . Mmm . +Grad A: So . Which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well . So . But this {disfmarker} this is a very specific question for me . Basically , we can easily get {pause} one to four disks , I mean you just go out and get four and we 've got the money for it , it 's no big deal . Uh , but the question is where they go , and I don't think we can solve that here , you just have to ask him . +PhD D: Maybe we can put some disks in the {disfmarker} in that back room there . +Grad A: Yeah really . +Professor B: Attach to {disfmarker} +Grad A: Popcorn . +Professor B: Yeah ? +PhD D: To the machine that collects the data . So then you could , at least temporarily , store stuff there . +Grad A: Yeah , it 's just {disfmarker} It 's not on the net , so it 's a little {pause} awkward +PhD D: The only {disfmarker} +PhD F: Hmm . +PhD D: What do you mean it 's not on the net ? +Grad A: It 's not {disfmarker} +PhD C: It 's not bad . +Grad A: It 's behind lots of fire walls that don't allow any services through except S S +PhD D: Oh because it 's {disfmarker} because it 's an ACIRI machine ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh , oh oh . +Grad A: And also on the list is to get it into the normal ICSI net , but Who knows when that will happen ? +PhD D: But that can't be that hard . +PhD F: That might be a good short term solution , though . +PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} +Grad A: No , the {disfmarker} the problem with that apparently is that they don't currently have a wire running to that back room {pause} that goes anywhere near one of the ICSI routers . +PhD D: Oh , +Grad A: So , they actually have to run a wire somewhere . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah , e again , you know , any one of these things is certainly not a big deal . If there was a person dedicated to doing it they would happen pretty easily but it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} jus every ever everybody {disfmarker} everybody has a {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} +Grad A: But Dave has to do all of them . +Professor B: Well all of us have long lists of different things we 're doing . But at any rate I think that there 's a {disfmarker} there 's a longer term thing and there 's immediate need and I think we need a {disfmarker} a conversation with {disfmarker} Uh , maybe {disfmarker} maybe after {disfmarker} after tea or something you and I can go down and {disfmarker} and talk to him about it Just say "" wha you know , what should we do right now ? "" +PhD F: How long is David gonna be gone ? +Professor B: Uh , eleven days or something ? +Grad A: Oh my ! +Professor B: Yeah basically tomorrow and all of {pause} the week after . +Grad A: And that 's all I have . +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} Let 's see . The only oth thing {disfmarker} other thing I was gonna add was that um {disfmarker} uh , I talked briefly to Mari and uh we had {vocalsound} both been busy with other things so we haven't really connected that much since the {pause} last meeting we had here but we agreed that we would have a telephone meeting the Friday after next . And I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I wanted to make it , um after the next one of these meetings , so something that we wanna do next meeting is {disfmarker} is uh to put together um , a kind of reasonable list for ourselves of what is it , um , that we 've done . I mean just sort of bulletize I mean o e do do I can {disfmarker} I can dream up text but {pause} this is basically gonna lead to the annual report . So {pause} Um {disfmarker} If w +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: This is the fifteenth ? So just a week from tomorrow ? +Professor B: Um , that would +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . So , uh , we can {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} So that 's an {disfmarker} +PhD D: Is this gotta be in the morning ? +Professor B: Um {disfmarker} +PhD D: Or {disfmarker} Because you know I {disfmarker} Fridays I have to leave uh like around uh two . So if it could be before that would be be +Professor B: No , no but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't need other folks for the meeting . I can do it . A A All I 'm saying is that on {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh , OK , alright . Oh I 'm sorry , I misunderstood . +Professor B: Yeah so what I meant was on the me this meeting {pause} if I wa something I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm making a major thing in the agenda is I wanna help in getting together a list of what it is that we 've done so I can tell her . +PhD D: I thought you are {disfmarker} OK . Alright . Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I think I have a pretty good idea +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but um {disfmarker} Uh , and then the next day uh , late in the day I 'll be having that {disfmarker} that discussion with her . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: Um . So . +PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} One thing {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in past meetings we had um also a you know various {disfmarker} variously talked about the um work that w uh was happening sort of on the {disfmarker} on the recognition side +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: um but isn't necessarily related to meetings uh specifically . So . Um . And I wondered whether we should maybe have um a separate meeting and between you know , whoever 's interested in that because I feel that uh there 's plenty of stuff to talk about but it would be sort of um maybe the wrong place to do it in this meeting if uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Think so ? +PhD D: Well , it 's that {disfmarker} It 's just gonna be ver very boring for people who are not you know , sort of really interested in the details of the recognition system . +Grad A: I 'm interested . +Professor B: Well , OK , so how many {disfmarker} how many people here would not be interested in uh {disfmarker} in a meeting about recognition ? +PhD C: Me too . +PhD F: Jane may not be . +Grad A: Jane , I think . +PhD C: Yep . +PhD D: Well I know {disfmarker} Well , Jane an Well you mean in a separate meeting or ha ha talking about it in this {disfmarker} +Grad A: No . If we talked about it in this meeting . +PhD F: He 's wondering how much overlap there will be . +Professor B: Yeah , so you 're su +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: So , uh , uh , Liz and Jane probably . +Professor B: OK , so we 're gonna have a guy 's meeting . +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} Uh , if you wanna put it that way . +PhD F: Good thing Liz isn't here . +Professor B: Real {disfmarker} +Grad E: Watch a ball game ? +Professor B: Yeah , real {disfmarker} real {disfmarker} real men {vocalsound} "" Real men do decoding "" or something like that . +PhD F: Don't listen to this , Liz . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +PhD D: I mean it it 's sort of {disfmarker} I mean when {disfmarker} when the talk is about data collection stuff , sometimes I 've {disfmarker} you know , I {disfmarker} I 'm bored . +Professor B: Yeah . +Grad A: The {disfmarker} Nod off ? +PhD D: So it 's I c I can sympathize with them not wanting to {disfmarker} i to {disfmarker} to be uh {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} If {disfmarker} I cou you know {disfmarker} this could {disfmarker} +Professor B: It 's cuz {pause} y you have a {disfmarker} So you need a better developed feminine side . +PhD D: I 'm +Professor B: There 's probably gonna be a lot of "" bleeps "" in this meeting . +PhD D: not sure I wanna {disfmarker} +Grad A: Yeah , I would as {comment} I would guess . +Professor B: Uh . Um . +PhD D: Yeah and {disfmarker} +Professor B: I think it must be {pause} uh nearing the end of the week . Um . {vocalsound} Yeah . I {disfmarker} You know , I {disfmarker} I 've heard some comments about like this . That m could be . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} Um . {vocalsound} U +PhD D: And we don't have to do it every week . +PhD F: Could we {disfmarker} +PhD D: We could do it every other week or so . You know , whatev or whenever we feel like we {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right , I was {disfmarker} Why don't we alternate this meeting every other week ? +Grad A: Or just alternate the focus . +PhD F: Tha - That 's what I mean . +Grad A: Yeah , so on even weeks have {pause} basic {pause} on data . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: We could do that , yeah . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Personally I 'd {disfmarker} I 'm not in favor of more meetings . Um . {vocalsound} Because , uh . +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I am . +PhD D: You know . +Grad A: Oh sor +PhD F: But I do I don't {disfmarker} I mean a lot of times lately it seems like we don't really have enough for a full meeting on Meeting Recorder . +PhD D: Right . +Grad A: Well , except that we keep going for our full time . +PhD F: So if we did that {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yep . +PhD F: Well , cuz we get into these other topics . +Grad A: Yeah . +PhD D: We feel {disfmarker} We feel obligated to collect more data . +Grad E: Yeah . +Grad A: Ugh . +PhD F: Yeah . +Grad A: I don't . +PhD F: So if we could alternate the focus of the meeting {disfmarker} +Grad A: Let 's read digits and go . +Professor B: Why don't we just start with that . +PhD D: ummh . {comment} ummh . {comment} OK . +Professor B: And then if we find , you know we 're just not getting enough done , there 's all these topics not coming up , then we can expand into another meeting . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But I {disfmarker} I think that 's a great idea . Uh . So uh . Um . Let 's chat about it with Liz and Jane {pause} when we get a chance , see what they think and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Yeah that would be good . I mean Andreas and I have various talks in the halls +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: and there 's lots of things , you know , details and stuff that would I think people 'd be interested in and I 'd {disfmarker} you know , where do we go from here kind of things and {disfmarker} So , it would be good . +Professor B: Yeah , and you 're {disfmarker} you 're attending {pause} the uh {disfmarker} the front - end meeting as well as the others so you have {disfmarker} you have probably one of the best {disfmarker} you and I , I guess are the main ones who sort of see the bridge between the two . +Grad A: Bridge . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: We are doing recognition in both of them . So . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: OK ? +PhD D: So um . So {disfmarker} so we could talk a little bit about that now if {disfmarker} if there 's some time . +Grad A: No , no that would be for next week . +PhD D: Um I jus So the latest result was that um um yot I tested the uh {disfmarker} the sort of final version of the PLP configuration um on development test data for {disfmarker} for this year 's Hub - five test set . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And the recognition performance was exactly , and I mean exactly up to the {disfmarker} you know , the first decimal , same as with the uh Mel Cepstra front - end . +Grad A: Mmm . +PhD F: For both females and males ? +PhD D: Yes . Uh , well i there was a little bit of a {disfmarker} +PhD F: Oh ! +PhD D: i overall . They {disfmarker} They were {disfmarker} The males I think were slightly better and the females were slightly worse but nothing really . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: I mean definitely not significant . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And then the really nice thing was that if {disfmarker} if we combine the two systems we get a one and a half percent improvement . +Grad A: Wow . Just with ROVER ? +PhD D: So . t With N - best ROVER , which is like our {vocalsound} new and improved version of ROVER . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Which u actually uses the whole N - best list from both systems {pause} to {pause} mmm , uh {pause} c combine that . +Professor B: So except {disfmarker} I mean the only key difference between the two really is the kind of smoothing at the end which is the auto - regressive versus the cepstral truncation . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: OK . +PhD D: And , the {disfmarker} +PhD F: But a percent and a half ? +Grad A: Yeah , it 's pretty {pause} impressive . +PhD F: That 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: And {disfmarker} And so uh after I told the {disfmarker} my uh colleagues at SRI about that , you know , now they definitely want to , you know , uh , have a {disfmarker} Next time we have an evaluation they want to do uh , you know , basically a at least the system combination . Um , and , you know , why not ? +Professor B: Sure , why not ? +PhD D: Uh . {vocalsound} So . +Grad A: We clearly gotta add a few more features , though . +PhD D: Uh w what do you mean ? More features in the sense of front - end features or in the sense of just bells and whistles ? +Grad A: No , uh front - end features . You know we did PLP and Mel Cepstra . Let 's , you know , try RASTA and MSG , and {disfmarker} +PhD D: Oh I mean {disfmarker} Yeah . Well Right . So , we cou Yeah . That 's {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the the {disfmarker} There 's one thing uh {disfmarker} I mean you don't want to overdo it because y every front - end {disfmarker} You know , if you {disfmarker} you know you basically multiply your effort by N , where N is a number of different systems +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: and {disfmarker} Um . So . So one {disfmarker} one compromise would be to {disfmarker} only to have the {disfmarker} everything up to the point where you generate lattices be basically one system and then after that you rescore your lattices with the multiple systems and combine the results and that 's a fairly painless um thing . +Professor B: Mmm . An +PhD D: So . +PhD F: Do you think we 'd still get the one and a half uh {disfmarker} +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . Yeah . Maybe a little less because at that point the error rates are lower and so if {disfmarker} You know , maybe it 's only one percent or something but that would still be worthwhile doing . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So . Um {pause} Jus - You know , just wanted to let you know that that 's working out very nicely . +Grad A: Cool . +PhD D: And then we had some results on {pause} digits , uh , with um {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} So this was uh really {comment} {disfmarker} really sort of just to get Dave going with his um experiments . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: And so , uh . But as a result , um , you know , we were sort of wondering why is the Hub - five system doing so well on the digits . +Professor B: Right . +PhD D: And the reason is basically there 's a whole bunch of read speech data in the Hub - five training set . +Grad A: Right . +Professor B: Including digits I gather , yeah . +PhD D: And you c And {disfmarker} Not all of {disfmarker} No it 's actually , digits is only a maybe a fifth of it . +Professor B: A fifth of it is how much ? +PhD D: The rest is {disfmarker} is read {disfmarker} is read TIMIT data and uh ATIS data and Wall Street Journal and stuff like that . +Professor B: Right . But a fi a fifth is how much ? +PhD D: A fifth would be maybe uh two hours something . +Professor B: Yeah , so I mean that 's actually not that different from the {pause} amount of training that there was . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: So . +PhD D: But it definitely helps to have the other read data in there +Professor B: Oh yeah +PhD D: because we 're doing {disfmarker} +Professor B: w +PhD D: You know the error rate is half of what you do if you train only on ti uh TIMIT {disfmarker} {comment} uh not TIMIT uh TI - digits , +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: which is only what two hours something ? +Professor B: Right . +Grad A: I don't know . +PhD D: So . Uh , more read speech data definitely helps . And you can leave out all the conversational data with no performance penalty . +Professor B: Yeah that was the interesting thing . +PhD D: That 's e +Professor B: Because {disfmarker} because uh , it was apparent if you put in a bunch more data it would be better , +PhD D: That was e Right , right . +Professor B: but {disfmarker} but uh . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: Well is there even more read speech data around ? +PhD D: Oh , yeah . So we only {disfmarker} for the Hub - five training , we 're only using uh a fairly small subset of the Macrophone {pause} database . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Um , so , you could beef that up and probably do even better . +Grad A: I could also put in {pause} uh focus condition zero from Hub - four from Broadcast News , which is mostly prepared speech . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: It 's not exactly read speech but it 's pretty darn close . +PhD D: Yeah . Yeah . Right . Well , I mean that 's plenty of read speech data . I mean , Wall Street Journal , {pause} uh , take one example . +Grad A: Yeah . That 's right . +PhD D: But um . So , you know that might be useful for the people who train the {disfmarker} the digit recognizers to {disfmarker} to use uh something other than TI - digits . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Well they been using TIMIT . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: That {disfmarker} Uh . {pause} They {disfmarker} they uh {disfmarker} they experimented for a while with a bunch of different databases with French and Spanish and so forth cuz they 're multilingual tests +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: and {disfmarker} and uh , um , {disfmarker} and actually the best results they got wa were uh using TIMIT . +Grad A: Hmm . +Professor B: Uh {disfmarker} But uh {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} So that 's what they 're {disfmarker} they 're using now . +PhD D: Mmm . +Professor B: But {disfmarker} but yeah certainly if we , um {disfmarker} If we knew what the structure of what we 're doing there was . I mean there 's still a bunch of messing around with different kinds of uh noise robustness algorithms . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So we don't know exactly which combination we 're gonna be going with . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Once we know , then {disfmarker} the trainable parts of it {disfmarker} it 'd be great to run lots of {disfmarker} lots of stuff through . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . Well , that was that . And then I th guess Chuck and I had some discussions about how to proceed with the tandem uh system and {disfmarker} You wanna {disfmarker} {vocalsound} You wanna see where that stands ? +PhD F: Well , I 'm {disfmarker} +PhD D: +PhD F: Yeah , so Andreas uh brought over the uh alignments that the SRI system uses . And so I 'm in the process of um converting those alignments into uh label files that we can use to train uh a new net with . And uh so then I 'll train the net . And . +PhD D: An - And one side effect of that would be that it 's {disfmarker} um that the phone set would change . So the MLP would be trained on I think only forty - six or forty - eight {disfmarker} +PhD F: Right . Eight . +PhD D: forty - eight phones ? +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: Uh which is smaller than the um than the phone set that {disfmarker} that we 've been using so far . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: And that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that will probably help , actually , +PhD F: So it 's a little different ? +PhD D: because um the fewer dimensions uh e the less trouble probably with the {disfmarker} as far as just the um , um {disfmarker} Just {disfmarker} You know we want to try things like deltas on the tandem features . And so you h have to multiply everything by two or three . And so , you know , fewer dimensions in the {pause} phone set would be actually helpful just from a logistics point of view . +Professor B: Sure . Although we {disfmarker} I mean , it 's not that many fewer and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and we take a KLT anyway so we could {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . Exactly . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So {disfmarker} so that was the other thing . And then we wanted to s just limit it to maybe uh something on the same order of dimensions as we use in a standard um front - end . So that would mean just doing the top I don't know ten or twelve or something of the KLT dimensions . +Professor B: Yeah , and I think {disfmarker} and we sh again check {disfmarker} we should check with Stephane . My impression was that when we did that before that had very little {disfmarker} uh he didn't lose very much . +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: By just taking the top whatever ? +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: Yeah yeah . +PhD D: But then {disfmarker} And then something {disfmarker} Once we have the new M L P trained up , uh one thing I wanted to try just for the fun of it was to actually run uh like a standard hybrid system that is based on you know , those features uh and uh retrain MLP and also the you know , the dictionary that we use for the Hub - five system . +Professor B: And the b And the base u starting off with the base of the alignments that you got from i from a pretty decent system . +PhD D: Exactly . +PhD F: Right . +PhD D: Yeah . So that would basically give us a , um , more {disfmarker} hopefully a {disfmarker} a better system +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: um because {disfmarker} you know , compared to what Eric did a while ago , where he trained up , I think , a system based on Broadcast News and then uh tra retraining it on Switchboard or s uh and {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: But he {disfmarker} I think he d he didn't {disfmarker} he probably didn't use all the training data that was available . And his dictionary probably wasn't as tuned to um conversational speech as {disfmarker} as the {disfmarker} as ours is . +Professor B: That 's {disfmarker} That 's certainly one thing , yeah . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uh . Yeah . +PhD D: And the dictionary made a huge difference . Uh . We {disfmarker} we made some improvements to the dictionary 's uh {disfmarker} to the dictionary about two years ago which resulted in a {disfmarker} uh something like a four percent absolute error rate reduction on Switchboard , which {disfmarker} +Professor B: Well the other thing is , dipping {pause} deep into history and into uh our resource management days , when we were collaborating with SRI before , +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Mmm . +Professor B: uh it was {disfmarker} I think , it is was a really key uh starting point for us that we actually got our alignment . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: When we were working together we got our initial alignments from Decipher , uh {pause} at the time . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Yeah . +Professor B: Uh . {pause} And . Later we got away from it because {disfmarker} because once we had decent systems going then it was {disfmarker} it was typically better to use our own systems +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: cuz they were self consistent but {disfmarker} but certainly to start off when we were trying to recover from our initial hundred and forty percent error uh rate . Uh . {vocalsound} But that was a {disfmarker} that was a good {disfmarker} good {disfmarker} good way to start . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: And we 're not quite that bad with our {disfmarker} our Switchboard systems but it was {disfmarker} they certainly aren't as good as SRI 's , +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . +PhD F: W What is the performance on s the best Switchboard system that we 've done ? Roughly ? +Professor B: Well , the hybrid system we never got better than about fifty percent {pause} error . And uh it was {disfmarker} I think there 's just a whole lot of things that uh no one ever had time for . We never did really fix up the dictionary . Uh we always had a list of a half dozen things that we were gonna do and {disfmarker} and a lot of them were pretty simple and we never did . +PhD D: Yeah . Mmm . +Professor B: Uh , we never did an never did any adaptation +PhD D: But that w Even that {disfmarker} that number {disfmarker} +Professor B: uh , we never did any {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . And {disfmarker} And that number I think was on Switchboard - one data , right ? Where the error rate now is in the twenties . +Professor B: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD D: So , um . +Professor B: So we were {disfmarker} Yeah . We were probably at least a factor or two off . +PhD D: That 's yet s Right . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: So it would be {disfmarker} So it would be good t to sort of r re uh {disfmarker} +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: just at least to give us an idea of how well the hybrid system would do . +Professor B: Yeah . But I think {disfmarker} again it 's {disfmarker} Yeah . It 's the conver it 's the s conversational speech bit . Because our {disfmarker} our Broadcast News system is actually pretty good . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: He knows . +PhD D: Right . And the other thing that that would help us to evaluate is to see how well the M L P is trained up . Right ? Because it 's a pretty good um indicator of that . +Professor B: Mm - hmm . +PhD D: So it 's sort of a sanity check of the M L P outputs {pause} before we go ahead and train up the {disfmarker} uh you know , use them as a basis for the tandem system . +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll still probably be worse . I mean , it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be context independent and so on . +PhD D: No . Sure . Not {disfmarker} +PhD F: Should we {disfmarker} Should we bother with um using the net before doing uh embedded training ? +Professor B: But . +PhD D: But {disfmarker} +PhD F: I mean should {disfmarker} should we even use that ? +PhD D: Oh {pause} oh that 's a good question . +PhD F: Or should I just go straight to {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah , we {disfmarker} we weren't sure whether it 's worth to just use the alignments um from the S R I recognizer or whether to actually go through one or more iterations of embedded training where you realign . +Grad A: Try it . You run it ? Keep {disfmarker} keep both versions ? See which one 's better ? +Professor B: Uh , yeah . I mean . I think I agree with Ad I mean basically you would then {disfmarker} You proceed with the embedded training . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: It 's gonna take you a while to train at this net anyway . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . Right . +Professor B: And while it 's training you may as well test the one you have and see how it did . +PhD D: OK . Alright . +PhD F: Mmm . +Grad A: I could make arguments either way . You know , it 's {disfmarker} +PhD D: But {disfmarker} But so I {disfmarker} +Grad A: Sort of given up guessing . +PhD D: Well but i But in your experience I mean uh have you seen big improvements in s on some tasks with embedded training ? Or was it sort of small - ish uh improvements that you got +Professor B: Uh well . It depended on the task . I mean I think in this one I would sort of expect it to be important +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: because we 're coming from uh , alignments that were achieved with an extremely different system . +PhD D: That are from another {disfmarker} Right . +Grad A: Although , I mean we 've done it with {disfmarker} When we were combining with the Cambridge recurrent neural net , embedded training made it worse . +PhD D: Right . +Professor B: Uh . +Grad A: Which I 've never figured out . +Professor B: Right . But I mean i +Grad A: I think it 's a bug . +PhD D: So you {disfmarker} you started training with outputs from a {disfmarker} with alignments that were generated by the Cambridge uh system ? +Grad A: Yep . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} Uh . +Grad A: Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Hmm . Well , that might probably just {disfmarker} Hmm . That was probably because your initial system {disfmarker} I mean your system was ba worse than Cambridge 's . And you {disfmarker} Um . +Professor B: Was it ? I don't think it was . +Grad A: No they were {disfmarker} they were comparable . +PhD D: It wasn't ? +Professor B: No . +Grad A: They were very close . +PhD D: Really ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: That 's weird . +Professor B: Excuse me ? +PhD D: That 's {disfmarker} That 's weird . +Grad A: That 's what I said . +Professor B: Oh ! +PhD D: No I mean it 's weird that it did {disfmarker} I 'm sorry . It 's w It 's weird that it got worse . +PhD F: That 's ambiguous . +Professor B: Um . No . Uh . Tha - u we we 've see I mean {disfmarker} and wi with the numbers {disfmarker} OGI numbers task we 've seen a number of times people doing embedded trainings and things not getting better . +PhD D: Oh actually it 's not that weird because we have seen {disfmarker} We have seen cases where acoustic {disfmarker} retraining the acoustic models after some other change made matters worse rather than better . +Professor B: Yeah . It just {disfmarker} +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: But I But I would {disfmarker} I would suspect that something that {disfmarker} that had um a very different Um feature set , for instance {disfmarker} I mean they were using pretty diff similar feature sets to us . +Grad A: Yep . +Professor B: I {disfmarker} I would expect that something that had a different feature set would {disfmarker} would uh benefit from {disfmarker} +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: What about uh hidden unit size {pause} on this . +Professor B: Oh , wait a minute , and the other thing uh , +PhD F: Oh . +Professor B: sorry , it was {disfmarker} the other thing is that what was in common {comment} to the Cambridge system and our system is they both were training posteriors . +Grad A: Right . Ah yeah . +Professor B: So I mean , uh , that 's another pretty big difference +Grad A: That 's another big difference . +Professor B: and uh , one bac at least {disfmarker} Back at {disfmarker} +PhD D: You mean with soft targets ? Or {disfmarker} ? Sorry , I 'm sor I missed {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} What 's the key issue here ? +Professor B: Oh , that uh both the Cambridge system and our system were {disfmarker} were training {pause} posteriors . And if we 're {disfmarker} we 're coming from alignments coming from the SRI system , it 's a likelihood - based system . So {disfmarker} so that 's another difference . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: I mean . You know , there 's diffe different front - end different {disfmarker} different uh , um , training criterion {disfmarker} Uh , I would think that in a that an embedded {pause} uh {pause} embedded uh training would have at least a good shot of improving it some more . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: But we don't know . +PhD D: OK . +Professor B: You gonna say something ? +PhD F: Yeah . I was wondering uh you know what size net I should {disfmarker} Anybody have any intuitions or suggestions ? +Professor B: Uh , how much training data ? +PhD F: Well , I was gonna start off with the small train set . +Professor B: And how {disfmarker} How many hours is that ? +PhD F: That 's why I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure how much that is . +PhD D: Uh , I think that has about {disfmarker} Well i you 'd {disfmarker} would be gender - dependent training , right ? So {disfmarker} So I think it 's {disfmarker} uh that 's about mmm , something like thirty hours . +PhD F: Gender - dependent , yeah . +PhD D: Thirty hours per gender . +PhD F: Thirty hours . +Grad A: I 'm not sure what this 'll mean . +PhD F: In the small training set ? +Grad A: Hello ? +PhD D: I {disfmarker} I think so . I 'll {disfmarker} +Grad A: Excuse me ? +PhD D: It 's definitely less than a hundred {disfmarker} +Grad A: Alright . +PhD D: You know , it 's more like {disfmarker} like thirty forty hours something like that . +Grad A: Wrong number . +PhD F: They called to tell us that ? +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . +Professor B: Um . So . Uh . after run +PhD F: I mean , I didn't want to do too big , +Professor B: Right . So +PhD F: just {disfmarker} +Professor B: At least a couple thousand hidden units . I mean . It 's {disfmarker} it 's th the thing I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll think about it a little more +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} it 'd be toss up between two thousand and four thousand . +PhD F: Mmm . +Professor B: You definitely wouldn't want the eight thousand . It 's m It 's more than {disfmarker} +PhD F: And a thousand is too small ? +Professor B: Oh let me think about it , but I think that {disfmarker} that uh th at some point there 's diminishing returns . I mean it doesn't actually get worse , typically , +PhD F: Mm - hmm . +Grad A: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: but it {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but there is diminishing returns and you 're doubling {pause} the amount of time . +PhD D: Remember you 'll have a smaller output layer so there 's gonna be fewer parameters there . +Grad A: But not by a lot . +Professor B: Not by much . +PhD D: And then {disfmarker} +Professor B: Fifty s Fifty four to forty eight ? +Grad A: Vast majority is from the input unit . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . Yeah . +Professor B: Yeah . It 'll have a very tiny effect . +Grad A: Right , because you used the context windows and so the input to hidden is much , much larger . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Oh I see , I see , yeah , of course . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: Yeah . It 's negligible , OK . +Professor B: Yeah , so it 's {disfmarker} it 'd be way , way less than ten percent of the difference . +PhD D: Uh - huh . +Professor B: Uh . There 's uh {disfmarker} How bi how big Let 's see . What am I trying to think of ? +PhD F: The {disfmarker} The net that {disfmarker} that we did use already {pause} uh was eight thousand hidden units and that 's the one that Eric trained up . +Professor B: Right . And that was trained up on uh like a hundred and forty hours of {disfmarker} of speech . +PhD D: Was that gender - dependent or independent ? +PhD F: Gender - dependent . +Professor B: Oh . So that would be like trained on s sixty or seventy hours . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +Professor B: So , uh , yeah definitely not the one thousand uh {disfmarker} two thousand fr I mean the four thousand will be better and the two thousand will be almost {disfmarker} will be faster and almost as good . +Grad A: It 'll be faster . +Professor B: So . +PhD F: Yeah . +PhD D: Mm - hmm . +PhD F: Maybe I 'll start off with two thousand just to see . +Professor B: Yeah . +PhD D: OK . +PhD F: OK . +Professor B: Yeah , thirty hours is like a hundred and ten thousand uh seconds . Uh , so that 's like eleven {disfmarker} eleven million frames . And a two thousand hidden unit net is uh I guess about seven , eight hundred thousand parameters . So that 's probably {disfmarker} That 's probably fine . I mean a four thousand is well within the range that you could benefit from but the two thousand 'd be faster so {disfmarker} +PhD D: Right . I actually have to go . +Professor B: Alright . +PhD D: So . +Professor B: Uncle Bernie 's rule is ten to one . Bernie Woodrow 's Rule of {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} Uncle Bernie {disfmarker} yeah . +Grad A: We 're just waiting for you to leave . +Professor B: Yes sir . +Grad A: Anything else ? +Professor B: Nah . +Grad A: OK . +Professor B: Since we have nothing to talk about we only talked for an hour . +Grad A: If {disfmarker} +Professor B: So . +Grad A: yeah that 's right . +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad A: Uh , well , we started late . +PhD F: Transcript +Professor B: de - ba - de . de - ba - de That 's all folks ! +","Summary of Conversation: + +Grad A initiated the meeting but anticipated a short session since Jane, who requested three out of four agenda items, was absent. Discussion began with the transcription status of various projects. IBM had made progress, and new transcribers were hired to move along with the transcription process from the ICSI side. There was a mention of running out of EDUs (Educational Development Units) and concerns about idle transcribers due to potential delays from IBM. + +There was an exchange regarding participant approval, which Grad A decided to handle by sending out transcripts and audio recordings to participants for review and suggestions. There were concerns about uncompressed audio and associated disk space, which was another agenda item. + +Regarding DARPA demo status, most backend components were ready, and the filtration system was improved. There were issues related to the frontend development due to personnel availability, with Dave Gelbart overwhelmed and opting out of the task. Alternatives and further discussions were suggested. + +Grad E introduced a visualization tool that could potentially be used in a demo, triggering a discussion on how to incorporate various data representations into the Transcriber interface for demonstrations. + +Disk space issues were discussed, with the team considering different temporary and long-term solutions to address the lack of space for storing meeting data. Possibilities included using new machines, external drives, or reallocating space from existing systems. + +The group then briefly mentioned the DARPA annual report and the need to compile a summary of achievements for a phone meeting with Mari. + +Attention turned to the recognition side of things, where the success of PLP configuration, its performance relative to Mel Cepstra, and system combination improvements using N-best ROVER were discussed. The possibility of separate meetings to focus on recognition details was floated to not bore others not interested in the topic. + +It was decided to consider alternating the focus of future meetings between data-related and recognition topics to allow for more in-depth discussion. + +Lastly, the team discussed embedded training for the tandem system and the size of hidden units for the neural network, with a rough suggestion of starting with two thousand hidden units. + +The meeting concluded after about an hour of discussions on various topics, even though there wasn't much on the agenda initially." +"Generate a very short and concise summary of the following conversation: + +Professor A: Am I on ? I guess so . Radio two . Hmm . Radio two . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: Wow . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . Hi ? +PhD B: Blow into it , it works really well . +Grad F: Channel B . +Professor A: People say the strangest things when their microphones are on . +PhD D: Channel four . Test . +PhD C: Uh - oh . +PhD D: OK . +PhD C: Radio four . +Grad E: Hello ? +Professor A: So everybody everybody 's on ? +PhD D: Today 's +Professor A: Yeah . So y you guys had a {disfmarker} a meeting with uh {disfmarker} with Hynek which I unfortunately had to miss . Um and uh somebody +PhD C: Mmm . +Professor A: eh e and uh I guess Chuck you weren't there either , so the uh +PhD B: I was there . +Professor A: Oh you were there ? +PhD B: With Hynek ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: So everybody knows what happened except me . OK . {vocalsound} Maybe somebody should tell me . +PhD C: Oh yeah . Alright . Well . Uh first we discussed about some of the points that I was addressing in the mail I sent last week . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: So . Yeah . About the um , well {disfmarker} the downsampling problem . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh and about the f the length of the filters and {disfmarker} Yeah . +Professor A: What was the {disfmarker} w what was the downsampling problem again ? +PhD C: So we had {disfmarker} +Professor A: I forget . +PhD C: So the fact that there {disfmarker} there is no uh low - pass filtering before the downsampling . Well . +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: There is because there is LDA filtering but that 's perhaps not uh the best w m +Professor A: Depends what it 's frequency characteristic is , yeah . +PhD C: Well . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: So you could do a {disfmarker} you could do a stricter one . +PhD D: System on +Professor A: Maybe . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . So we discussed about this , about the um {disfmarker} +Professor A: Was there any conclusion about that ? +PhD C: Uh "" try it "" . Yeah . +Professor A: I see . +PhD C: I guess . +Professor A: Yeah . So again this is th this is the downsampling {vocalsound} uh of the uh {disfmarker} the feature vector stream +PhD C: Uh . +Professor A: and um Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} the uh LDA filters they were doing do have um {vocalsound} uh let 's see , so the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the feature vectors are calculated every ten milliseconds so uh the question is how far down they are at fifty {disfmarker} fifty hertz . Uh . {vocalsound} Um . +PhD C: Yeah . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Sorry at twenty - five hertz since they 're downsampling by two . So . Does anybody know what the frequency characteristic is ? +PhD C: We don't have yet +Professor A: Oh OK . +PhD C: um {vocalsound} So , yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: We should have a look first at , perhaps , {vocalsound} the modulation spectrum . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Um . So there is this , there is the um length of the filters . Um . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the i this idea of trying to find filters with shorter delays . Um . We started to work with this . +Professor A: Hmm - hmm . +PhD C: Mmm . And the third point um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} was the um , yeah , {vocalsound} the on - line normalization where , well , the recursion f recursion for the mean estimation {vocalsound} is a filter with some kind of delay +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: and that 's not taken into account right now . Um . Yeah . And there again , yeah . For this , the conclusion of Hynek was , well , "" we can try it but {disfmarker} "" +Professor A: Uh - huh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Try {disfmarker} try what ? +PhD C: So try to um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} um take into account the delay of the recursion for the mean estimation . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Mmm . And this {disfmarker} we 've not uh worked on this yet . Um , yeah . And so while discussing about these {disfmarker} these LDA filters , some i issues appeared , like well , the fact that if we look at the frequency response of these filters it 's uh , well , we don't know really what 's the important part in the frequency response and there is the fact that {vocalsound} in the very low frequency , these filters don't {disfmarker} don't really remove a lot . {vocalsound} compared to the {disfmarker} to the uh standard RASTA filter . Uh and that 's probably a reason why , yeah , on - line normalization helps because it {disfmarker} it , +Professor A: Right . +PhD C: yeah , it removed this mean . Um . Yeah , but perhaps everything could {disfmarker} should be {disfmarker} could be in the filter , I mean , uh the {disfmarker} the mean normalization and {disfmarker} Yeah . So . Yeah . So basically that was {disfmarker} that 's {vocalsound} all we discussed about . We discussed about {vocalsound} good things to do also uh well , generally good stuff {vocalsound} to do for the research . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And this was this LDA uh tuning perhaps and {vocalsound} Hynek proposed again to his uh TRAPS , so . +Professor A: OK . +PhD C: Yeah , +Professor A: I mean I g I guess the key thing for me is {disfmarker} is figuring out how to better coordinate between the two sides +PhD C: um . +Professor A: cuz {disfmarker} because um +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: uh I was talking with Hynek about it later and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} sort of had the sense sort of that {disfmarker} that neither group of people wanted to {disfmarker} to bother the other group too much . And {disfmarker} and I don't think anybody is , you know , closed in in their thinking or are unwilling to talk about things but I think that {vocalsound} you were sort of waiting for them to {vocalsound} tell you that they had something for you and {disfmarker} and that {disfmarker} and expected that they would do certain things and they were sor they didn't wanna bother you +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: and {vocalsound} they were sort of waiting for you and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and uh we ended up with this thing where they {disfmarker} they were filling up all of the possible latency themselves , and they just had hadn't thought of that . So . Uh . {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I mean it 's true that maybe {disfmarker} maybe no one really thought about that {disfmarker} that this latency thing would be such a {disfmarker} a strict issue +PhD C: Yeah . Well , but . Yeah . Yeah . Well {disfmarker} +Professor A: in {disfmarker} in uh {disfmarker} the other {disfmarker} +PhD C: Yeah I don't know what happened really , but +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: I guess it 's {disfmarker} it 's also so uh the time constraints . Because , {vocalsound} well , we discussed about that {disfmarker} about this problem and they told us "" well , we will do all that 's possible to have enough space for a network "" but then , yeah , perhaps they were too short with the time and +Professor A: Then they couldn't . I see . +PhD C: uh yeah . But there was also problem {disfmarker} perhaps a problem of communication . So , yeah . Now we will try to {disfmarker} +Professor A: Just talk more . +PhD C: Yeah , slikes and send mails . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: u s o o Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh . OK . +Professor A: So there 's um {disfmarker} Alright . Well maybe we should just uh I mean you 're {disfmarker} you 're bus other than that you folks are busy doing all the {disfmarker} all the things that you 're trying that we talked about before right ? And this {disfmarker} machines are busy and {vocalsound} you 're busy +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: and +PhD C: Basically . +Professor A: Yeah . OK . Oh . +PhD C: Um . +Professor A: Let 's {disfmarker} let 's , I mean , I think that as {disfmarker} as we said before that one of the things that we 're imagining is that uh there {disfmarker} there will be {vocalsound} uh in the system we end up with there 'll be something to explicitly uh uh do something about noise +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: in addition to the uh other things that we 're talking about and that 's probably the best thing to do . And there was that one email that said that {vocalsound} it sounded like uh uh things looked very promising up there in terms of uh I think they were using Ericsson 's {vocalsound} approach or something and {vocalsound} in addition to {disfmarker} They 're doing some noise removal thing , right ? +PhD C: Yeah , yeah . So yeah we 're {disfmarker} will start to do this also . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD C: Uh so Carmen is just looking at the Ericsson {disfmarker} Ericsson code . +PhD D: Yeah . We modif +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD C: And +PhD D: Yeah , I modified it {disfmarker} well , modifying {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I studied Barry 's sim code , more or less . to take @ @ the first step the spectral subtraction . and we have some {disfmarker} the feature for Italian database and we will try with this feature with the filter to find the result . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD D: But we haven't result until this moment . +Professor A: Yeah , sure . +PhD D: But well , we are working in this also +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD D: and maybe try another type of spectral subtraction , I don't {disfmarker} +Professor A: When you say you don't have a result yet you mean it 's {disfmarker} it 's just that it 's in process or that you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it finished and it didn't get a good result ? +PhD D: No . No , no n we have n we have do the experiment only have the feature {disfmarker} the feature but the experiment have +PhD C: Yeah . +PhD D: we have not make the experiment +Professor A: Oh . OK . +PhD D: and maybe will be good result or bad result , we don't know . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . +PhD C: Yeah . +Professor A: OK . So um I suggest actually now we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we sorta move on and {disfmarker} and hear what 's {disfmarker} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening in {disfmarker} in other areas like {vocalsound} what 's {disfmarker} what 's happening with your {vocalsound} investigations {vocalsound} about echos and so on . +Grad F: Oh um Well um I haven't started writing the test yet , I 'm meeting with Adam today +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: um and he 's going t show me the scripts he has for um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} running recognition on mee Meeting Recorder digits . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +Grad F: Uh {vocalsound} I also um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} haven't got the code yet , I haven't asked Hynek for {disfmarker} for the {disfmarker} for his code yet . Cuz I looked at uh Avendano 's thesis and {vocalsound} I don't really understand what he 's doing yet but it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it sounded like um {vocalsound} the channel normalization part {vocalsound} um of his thesis um {vocalsound} was done in a {disfmarker} a bit of I don't know what the word is , a {disfmarker} a bit of a rough way um {vocalsound} it sounded like he um he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it wasn't really fleshed out and maybe he did something that was {vocalsound} interesting for the test situation but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure if it 's {vocalsound} what I 'd wanna use so I have to {disfmarker} I have to read it more , I don't really understand what he 's doing yet . +Professor A: OK . Yeah I haven't read it in a while so I 'm not gonna be too much help unless I read it again , +PhD D: It 's my +PhD C: Oh yeah ? +PhD D: I know this is mine here . +Professor A: so . OK . Um . {vocalsound} The um {disfmarker} so you , and then {vocalsound} you 're also gonna be doing this echo cancelling between the {disfmarker} the close mounted and the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} what we 're calling a cheating experiment uh of sorts between the distant {disfmarker} +Grad F: Uh I I 'm ho Right . Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} or I 'm hoping {disfmarker} I 'm hoping Espen will do it . +Professor A: Ah ! OK . +Grad F: Um +Professor A: F um +Grad F: u +Professor A: Delegate . That 's good . It 's good to delegate . +Grad F: I {disfmarker} I think he 's at least planning to do it for the cl close - mike cross - talk and so maybe I can just take whatever setup he has and use it . +Professor A: Great . Great . Yeah actually um he should uh I wonder who else is I think maybe it 's Dan Ellis is going to be doing uh a different cancellation . Um . {vocalsound} One of the things that people working in the meeting task wanna get at is they would like to have cleaner {vocalsound} close - miked recordings . So uh this is especially true for the lapel but even for the close {disfmarker} close - miked uh cases um we 'd like to be able to have {vocalsound} um other sounds from other people and so forth removed from {disfmarker} So when someone isn't speaking you 'd like the part where they 're not speaking to actually be {disfmarker} So {vocalsound} what they 're talking about doing is using ec uh echo cancellation - like techniques . It 's not really echo but {vocalsound} uh just um uh taking the input from other mikes and using uh {vocalsound} uh a uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} an adaptive filtering approach to remove the effect of that uh other speech . So . Um what was it , there was {disfmarker} there was some {disfmarker} some {disfmarker} some point where {vocalsound} eh uh Eric or somebody was {disfmarker} was speaking and he had lots of {vocalsound} silence in his channel and I was saying something to somebody else uh {vocalsound} which was in the background and it was not {disfmarker} it was recognizing my words , which were the background speech {vocalsound} on the close {disfmarker} {vocalsound} close mike . +Grad F: Hmm . +PhD B: Oh the {disfmarker} What we talked about yesterday ? +Professor A: Yes . +PhD B: Yeah that was actually my {disfmarker} I was wearing the {disfmarker} I was wearing the lapel and you were sitting next to me , +Professor A: Oh you {disfmarker} it was you I was Yeah . +PhD B: and I only said one thing but you were talking and it was picking up all your words . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . So they would like clean channels . Uh and for that {disfmarker} mmm uh {disfmarker} that purpose uh they 'd like to pull it out . So I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think Dan Ellis or somebody who was working with him was going to uh work on that . So . OK . Right ? Um . {vocalsound} And uh I don't know if we 've talked lately about the {disfmarker} the plans you 're developing that we talked about this morning uh I don't remember if we talked about that last week or not , but {vocalsound} maybe just a quick reprise of {disfmarker} of what we were saying this morning . +Grad E: OK . +Professor A: Uh . +Grad E: Um . {comment} So continuing to um extend +PhD B: What about the stuff that um Mirjam has been doing ? And {disfmarker} and S Shawn , yeah . Oh . So they 're training up nets to try to recognize these acoustic features ? I see . +Professor A: But that 's uh uh all {disfmarker} that 's {disfmarker} is a {disfmarker} a certainly relevant {comment} {vocalsound} uh study and , you know , what are the features that they 're finding . We have this problem with the overloading of the term "" feature "" so +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: uh {vocalsound} what are the variables , what we 're calling this one , what are the variables that they 're found {disfmarker} finding useful +PhD C: Hmm . +Professor A: um for {disfmarker} +PhD B: And their {disfmarker} their targets are based on canonical mappings of phones to acoustic f features . +Professor A: Right . And that 's certainly one thing to do and we 're gonna try and do something more f more fine than that but uh um so um So I guess you know what , I was trying to remember some of the things we were saying , do you ha still have that {disfmarker} ? Yeah . +Grad E: Oh yeah . +Professor A: There 's those {vocalsound} {pause} that uh yeah , some of {disfmarker} some of the issues we were talking about was in j just getting a good handle on {disfmarker} on uh {vocalsound} what "" good features "" are and {disfmarker} +PhD B: What does {disfmarker} what did um Larry Saul use for {disfmarker} it was the sonorant uh detector , right ? How did he {disfmarker} H how did he do that ? Wh - what was his detector ? Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . Oh , OK . Mm - hmm . So how did he combine all these features ? What {disfmarker} what r mmm classifier did he Hmm . Oh right . You were talking about that , yeah . I see . +Professor A: And the other thing you were talking about is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is where we get the targets from . So I mean , there 's these issues of what are the {disfmarker} what are the variables that you use and do you combine them using the soft "" AND - OR "" or you do something , you know , more complicated um and then the other thing was so where do you get the targets from ? The initial thing is just the obvious that we 're discussing is starting up with phone labels {vocalsound} from somewhere and then uh doing the transformation . But then the other thing is to do something better and eh w why don't you tell us again about this {disfmarker} this database ? This is the {disfmarker} +PhD B: Hmm ! +Professor A: And then tell them to talk naturally ? Yeah , yeah . +PhD B: Pierced tongues and Yeah . You could just mount it to that and they wouldn't even notice . Weld it . Zzz . +Professor A: Maybe you could go to these parlors and {disfmarker} and you could , you know {disfmarker} you know have {disfmarker} have , you know , reduced rates if you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you can do the measurements . +PhD B: Yeah . I That 's right . You could {disfmarker} what you could do is you could sell little rings and stuff with embedded you know , transmitters in them and things +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah , be cool and help science . +PhD B: and Yeah . +Professor A: OK . +PhD B: Hmm ! There 's a bunch of data that l around , that {disfmarker} people have done studies like that w way way back right ? I mean {vocalsound} I can't remember where {disfmarker} uh Wisconsin or someplace that used to have a big database of {disfmarker} Yeah . I remember there was this guy at A T - andT , Randolph ? or r What was his name ? Do you remember that guy ? Um , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} researcher at A T - andT a while back that was studying , trying to do speech recognition from these kinds of features . I can't remember what his name was . Dang . Now I 'll think of it . That 's interesting . +Professor A: Do you mean eh {disfmarker} but you {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} Mar +PhD C: Well he was the guy {disfmarker} the guy that was using {disfmarker} +Professor A: you mean when was {disfmarker} was Mark Randolph there , or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: Mark Randolph . +Professor A: Yeah he 's {disfmarker} he 's {disfmarker} he 's at Motorola now . +PhD B: Oh is he ? +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Oh OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: Yeah . +PhD C: Is it the guy that was using the pattern of pressure on the tongue or {disfmarker} ? +PhD B: I can't remember exactly what he was using , now . But I know {disfmarker} I just remember it had to do with you know {vocalsound} uh positional parameters +PhD C: What {disfmarker} Yeah . +PhD B: and trying to m you know do speech recognition based on them . +PhD C: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So the only {disfmarker} the only uh hesitation I had about it since , I mean I haven't see the data is it sounds like it 's {disfmarker} it 's {vocalsound} continuous variables and a bunch of them . And so +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: I don't know how complicated it is to go from there {disfmarker} What you really want are these binary {pause} labels , and just a few of them . And maybe there 's a trivial mapping if you wanna do it and it 's e but it {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I worry a little bit that this is a research project in itself , whereas um {vocalsound} if you did something instead that {disfmarker} like um having some manual annotation by {vocalsound} uh you know , linguistics students , this would {disfmarker} there 'd be a limited s set of things that you could do a as per our discussions with {disfmarker} with John before +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but the things that you could do , like nasality and voicing and a couple other things you probably could do reasonably well . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And then there would {disfmarker} it would really be uh this uh uh binary variable . Course then , that 's the other question is do you want binary variables . So . I mean the other thing you could do is {vocalsound} boot trying to {disfmarker} to uh get those binary variables and take the continuous variables from {vocalsound} uh the uh {vocalsound} uh the data itself there , but I {disfmarker} I 'm not sure {disfmarker} +PhD B: Could you cluster the {disfmarker} just do some kind of clustering ? +Professor A: Guess you could , yeah . +PhD B: Bin them up into different categories and {disfmarker} +Professor A: Yeah . So anyway that 's {disfmarker} that 's uh {disfmarker} that 's another whole direction that cou could be looked at . Um . {vocalsound} Um . {vocalsound} I mean in general it 's gonna be {disfmarker} for new data that you look at , it 's gonna be hidden variable because we 're not gonna get everybody sitting in these meetings to {vocalsound} wear the pellets and {disfmarker} Um . So . +Grad E: Right . Right . +PhD B: So you 're talking about using that data to get uh instead of using canonical mappings of phones . +Grad E: Right . +PhD B: So you 'd use that data to give you sort of what the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the true mappings are for each phone ? +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: I see . +Grad E: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Yeah . So wh yeah , where this fits into the rest in {disfmarker} in my mind , I guess , is that um {vocalsound} we 're looking at different ways that we can combine {vocalsound} uh different kinds of {disfmarker} of rep front - end representations {vocalsound} um in order to get robustness under difficult or even , you know , typical conditions . And part of it , this robustness , seems to come from {vocalsound} uh multi - stream or multi - band sorts of things and Saul seems to have {vocalsound} a reasonable way of looking at it , at least for one {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} one um articulatory feature . The question is is can we learn from that {vocalsound} to change some of the other methods we have , since {disfmarker} I mean , one of the things that 's nice about what he had I thought was that {disfmarker} that it {disfmarker} it um {disfmarker} the decision about how strongly to train the different pieces is based on uh a {disfmarker} a reasonable criterion with hidden variables rather than {vocalsound} um just assuming {vocalsound} that you should train e e every detector uh with equal strength {vocalsound} towards uh it being this phone or that phone . Right ? So it {disfmarker} so um {vocalsound} he 's got these um uh uh +PhD B: Hmm . +Professor A: he "" AND 's "" between these different {vocalsound} features . It 's a soft "" AND "" , I guess but in {disfmarker} in principle {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} you wanna get a strong concurrence of all the different things that indicate something and then he "" OR 's "" across the different {disfmarker} soft "" OR 's "" across the different uh {vocalsound} multi - band channels . And um {vocalsound} the weight yeah , the target for the training of the "" AND "" {disfmarker} "" AND ' ed "" things {vocalsound} is something that 's kept {vocalsound} uh as a hidden variable , and is learned with EM . Whereas what we were doing is {disfmarker} is uh {vocalsound} taking {vocalsound} the phone target and then just back propagating from that +PhD B: So he doesn't have {disfmarker} +Professor A: which means that it 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it 's uh i It could be for instance {vocalsound} that for a particular point in the data {vocalsound} you don't want to um uh train a particular band {disfmarker} train the detectors for a particular band . You {disfmarker} you wanna ignore {vocalsound} that band , cuz that 's a {disfmarker} Ban - band is a noisy {disfmarker} noisy measure . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And we don't {disfmarker} We 're {disfmarker} we 're still gonna try to train it up . In our scheme we 're gonna try to train it up to do as well {disfmarker} well as it can at predicting . Uh . Maybe that 's not the right thing to do . +PhD B: So he doesn't have to have truth marks or {disfmarker} Ho +Grad E: F right , and uh he doesn't have to have hard labels . +Professor A: Well at the {disfmarker} at the tail end , yeah , he has to know what 's {disfmarker} where it 's sonorant . But he 's {disfmarker} but what he 's - but what he 's not training up {disfmarker} uh what he doesn't depend on as truth is +Grad E: Right . For the full band . +Professor A: um I guess one way of describing would be if {disfmarker} if a sound is sonorant is it sonorant in this band ? Is it sonorant in that band ? +Grad E: Right . +Professor A: Is it sonorant in that band ? i It 's hard to even answer that what you really mean is that the whole sound is sonorant . So +PhD B: Mm - hmm . OK . +Professor A: then it comes down to , you know , to what extent should you make use of information from particular band {vocalsound} towards making your decision . And um {vocalsound} uh we 're making in a sense sort of this hard decision that you should {disfmarker} you should use everything {vocalsound} uh with {disfmarker} with uh equal strength . +PhD B: I see . +Professor A: And uh because in the ideal case we would be going for posterior probabilities , if we had {vocalsound} uh enough data to really get posterior probabilities and if the {disfmarker} if we also had enough data so that it was representative of the test data then we would in fact be doing the right thing to train everything as hard as we can . But um this is something that 's more built up along an idea of robustness from {disfmarker} from the beginning and so you don't necessarily want to train everything up towards the {disfmarker} +PhD B: So where did he get his {disfmarker} uh his tar his uh high - level targets about what 's sonorant and what 's not ? +Grad E: From uh canonical mappings {comment} um at first +PhD B: OK . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: and then it 's unclear um eh +PhD B: Using TIMIT ? or using {disfmarker} +Grad E: using TIMIT +PhD B: Uh - huh . +Grad E: right , right . +Professor A: Yeah . +Grad E: And then uh he does some fine tuning um for um special cases . Yeah . +Professor A: Yeah . I mean we ha we have a kind of {vocalsound} iterative training because we do this embedded Viterbi , uh so there is some something that 's suggested , based on the data but it 's {disfmarker} it 's not {disfmarker} I think it s doesn't seem like it 's quite the same , cuz of this {disfmarker} cuz then whatever {vocalsound} that alignment is , it 's that for all {disfmarker} all bands . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Well no , that 's not quite right , we did actually do them separate {disfmarker} tried to do them separately so that would be a little more like what he did . Um . But it 's still {vocalsound} not quite the same because then it 's {disfmarker} it 's um setting targets based on where you would say {vocalsound} the sound begins in a particular band . Where he 's s this is not a labeling per se . Might be closer I guess if we did a {vocalsound} soft {disfmarker} soft target uh {vocalsound} uh embedded {vocalsound} neural net training like we 've done a few times uh {vocalsound} f the forward um {disfmarker} do the forward calculations to get the gammas and train on those . Mmm . Uh what 's next ? +PhD B: I could say a little bit about w stuff I 've been playing with . +Professor A: Oh . You 're playing ? +PhD B: I um Huh ? +Professor A: You 're playing ? +PhD B: Yes , I 'm playing . Um {vocalsound} so I wanted to do this experiment to see um {vocalsound} uh what happens if we try to uh improve the performance of the back - end recognizer for the Aurora task and see how that affects things . And so I had this um {disfmarker} I think I sent around last week a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this plan I had for an experiment , this matrix where {vocalsound} I would take the um {disfmarker} the original um the original system . So there 's the original system trained on the mel cepstral features and then com and then uh optimize the b HTK system and run that again . So look at the difference there and then uh do the same thing for {vocalsound} the ICSI - OGI front - end . +Professor A: What {disfmarker} which test set was this ? +PhD B: This is {disfmarker} that I looked at ? +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: Uh I 'm looking at the Italian right now . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So as far as I 've gotten is I 've uh {vocalsound} been able to go through from beginning to end the um full HTK {vocalsound} system for the Italian data and got the same results that um {disfmarker} that uh {vocalsound} Stephane had . So um I started looking {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} and now I 'm {disfmarker} I 'm sort of lookin at the point where I wanna know what should I change in the HTK back - end in order to try to {disfmarker} uh to improve it . So . One of the first things I thought of was the fact that they use {vocalsound} the same number of states for all of the models +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I went on - line and I uh found a pronunciation dictionary for Italian digits +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and just looked at , you know , the number of phones in each one of the digits . Um you know , sort of the canonical way of setting up a {disfmarker} an HMM system is that you use {vocalsound} um three states per phone and um {vocalsound} so then the {disfmarker} the total number of states for a word would just be , you know , the number of phones times three . And so when I did that for the Italian digits , I got a number of states , ranging on the low end from nine to the high end , eighteen . Um . {vocalsound} Now you have to really add two to that because in HTK there 's an initial null and a final null so when they use {vocalsound} uh models that have eighteen states , there 're really sixteen states . They 've got those initial and final null states . And so um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} their guess of eighteen states seems to be pretty well matched to the two longest words of the Italian digits , the four and five {vocalsound} which um , according to my , you know , sort of off the cuff calculation , should have eighteen states each . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And so they had sixteen . So that 's pretty close . Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} but for the {disfmarker} most of the words are sh much shorter . So the majority of them wanna have nine states . And so theirs are s sort of twice as long . So {vocalsound} my guess {disfmarker} uh And then if you {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I printed out a confusion matrix um {vocalsound} uh for the well - matched case , and it turns out that the longest words are actually the ones that do the best . So my guess about what 's happening is that {vocalsound} you know , if you assume a fixed {disfmarker} the same amount of training data for each of these digits and a fixed length model for all of them but the actual words for some of them are half as long you really um have , you know , half as much training data for those models . Because if you have a long word and you 're training it to eighteen states , {vocalsound} {vocalsound} uh you 've got {disfmarker} you know , you 've got the same number of Gaussians , you 've gotta train in each case , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: but for the shorter words , you know , the total number of frames is actually half as many . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So {vocalsound} it could be that , you know , for the short words there 's {disfmarker} because you have so many states , you just don't have enough data to train all those Gaussians . So um I 'm going to try to um create more word - specific {vocalsound} um uh prototype H M Ms to start training from . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , it 's not at all uncommon you do worse on long word on short words than long words anyway just because you 're accumulating more evidence for the {disfmarker} for the longer word , +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: but . +PhD B: Yeah so I 'll {disfmarker} I 'll , the next experiment I 'm gonna try is to just um you know create {vocalsound} uh models that seem to be more w matched to my guess about how long they should be . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: And as part of that um I wanted to see sort of how the um {disfmarker} how these models were coming out , you know , what w {vocalsound} when we train up uh th you know , the model for "" one "" , which wants to have nine states , you know , what is the {disfmarker} uh what do the transition probabilities look like {disfmarker} in the self - loops , {comment} look like in {disfmarker} in those models ? And so I talked to Andreas and he explained to me how you can {vocalsound} calculate the expected duration of an HMM just by looking at the transition matrix +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: and so I wrote a little Matlab script that calculates that and so I 'm gonna sort of print those out for each of the words to see what 's happening , you know , how these models are training up , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +PhD B: you know , the long ones versus the short ones . I d I did {disfmarker} quickly , I did the silence model and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and um that 's coming out with about one point two seconds as its average duration and the silence model 's the one that 's used at the beginning and the end of each of the {vocalsound} string of digits . +Professor A: Wow . Lots of silence . +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . And so the S P model , which is what they put in between digits , I {disfmarker} I haven't calculated that for that one yet , but um . So they basically {disfmarker} their {disfmarker} {vocalsound} their model for a whole digit string is silence {vocalsound} digit , SP , digit , SP blah - blah - blah and then silence at the end . And so . +Professor A: Are the SP 's optional ? I mean skip them ? +PhD B: I have to look at that , but I 'm not sure that they are . Now the one thing about the S P model is really it only has a single s emitting state to it . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So if it 's not optional , you know , it 's {disfmarker} it 's not gonna hurt a whole lot +Professor A: I see . +PhD B: and it 's tied to the center state of the silence model so it 's not its own {disfmarker} um It doesn't require its own training data , +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: it just shares that state . +Professor A: Mm - hmm . +PhD B: So it , I mean , it 's pretty good the way that they have it set up , but um i So I wanna play with that a little bit more . I 'm curious about looking at , you know {vocalsound} how these models have trained and looking at the expected durations of the models and I wanna compare that in the {disfmarker} the well - matched case f to the unmatched case , and see if you can get an idea of {disfmarker} just from looking at the {vocalsound} durations of these models , you know , what what 's happening . +Professor A: Yeah , I mean , I think that uh , as much as you can , it 's good to d sort of not do anything really tricky . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Not do anything that 's really finely tuned , but just sort of eh you know you t you i z +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: The premise is kind of you have a {disfmarker} a good person look at this for a few weeks and what do you come up with ? +PhD B: Mm - hmm . Mm - hmm . +Professor A: And uh +PhD B: And Hynek , when I wa told him about this , he had an interesting point , and that was th um {vocalsound} the {disfmarker} the final models that they end up training up have I think probably something on the order of six Gaussians per state . So they 're fairly , you know , hefty models . And Hynek was saying that well , probably in a real application , {vocalsound} you wouldn't have enough compute to handle models that are very big or complicated . So in fact what we may want are simpler models . +Professor A: Could be . +PhD B: And compare how they perform to that . But {vocalsound} you know , it depends on what the actual application is and it 's really hard to know what your limits are in terms of how many Gaussians you can have . +Professor A: Right . And that , I mean , at the moment that 's not the limitation , so . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: I mean , I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} what I thought you were gonna say i but which I was thinking was um where did six come from ? Probably came from the same place eighteen came from . You know , so . +PhD B: Yeah . Right . +Professor A: Uh {vocalsound} that 's another parameter , right ? that {disfmarker} that maybe , you know , uh {disfmarker} you really want three or nine or {disfmarker} +PhD B: Yeah , yeah . Well one thing {disfmarker} I mean , if I {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if I start um reducing the number of states for some of these shorter models {vocalsound} that 's gonna reduce the total number of Gaussians . +Professor A: Right . +PhD B: So in a sense it 'll be a simpler system . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . But I think right now again the idea is doing just very simple things +PhD B: Yeah . +Professor A: how much better can you make it ? And um since they 're only simple things there 's nothing that you 're gonna do that is going to blow up the amount of computation +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: um so +PhD B: Right . Right . +Professor A: if you found that nine was better than six that would be O K , I think , actually . +PhD B: Mm - hmm . +Professor A: Doesn't have to go down . +PhD B: Yeah . I really wasn't even gonna play with that part of the system yet , +Professor A: Mm - hmm , OK . +PhD B: I was just gonna change the {disfmarker} the t +Professor A: Yeah , just work with the models , yeah . +PhD B: yeah , just look at the length of the models and just see what happens . +Professor A: Yeah . +PhD B: So . +Professor A: Cool . OK . So uh {vocalsound} what 's uh I guess your plan for {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you guys ' plan for the next {disfmarker} next week is {vocalsound} just continue on these {disfmarker} these same things we 've been talking about for Aurora and +PhD C: Yeah , I guess we can try to {vocalsound} have some kind of new baseline for next week perhaps . with all these minor things {vocalsound} {vocalsound} modified . And then do other things , play with the spectral subtraction , and {vocalsound} retry the MSG and things like that . +Professor A: Yeah . Yeah . Yeah we {disfmarker} we have a big list . +PhD C: Big list ? +Professor A: You have a big list of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of things to do . So . Well that 's good . I think {vocalsound} that after all of this uh um confusion settles down in another {disfmarker} some point a little later next year there will be some sort of standard and it 'll get out there and {vocalsound} hopefully it 'll have some effect from something {vocalsound} that {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that has uh been done by our group of people but uh e even if it doesn't there 's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there 's go there 'll be standards after that . So . +PhD B: Does anybody know how to um {vocalsound} run Matlab sort of in batch mode like you c send it {vocalsound} s a bunch of commands to run and it gives you the output . Is it possible to do that ? +Grad E: I {disfmarker} I think uh Mike tried it +PhD B: Yeah ? +Grad E: and he says it 's impossible so he went to Octave . +PhD B: Octave . +Grad E: Octave is the um UNIX clone of {disfmarker} of Matlab which you can batch . +PhD B: Ah ! OK . Great . Thanks . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: I was going crazy trying to do that . +Professor A: Huh . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: What is Octave so ? It 's a free software ? +Grad E: What 's that ? Uh , Octave ? +PhD C: Yeah . +Grad E: Yeah it 's {disfmarker} it 's {disfmarker} it 's free . I think we have it here {comment} r running somewhere . +PhD B: Great ! +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD C: And it does the same syntax and everything eh like Matlab , or {disfmarker} ? +Grad E: Um {vocalsound} {comment} i it 's a little behind , it 's the same syntax but it 's a little behind in that {comment} Matlab went to these like um you can have cells and you can {disfmarker} you can {comment} uh implement object - oriented type things with Matlab . Uh Octave doesn't do that yet , so I think you , Octave is kinda like Matlab um four point something or . +PhD B: If it 'll do like a lot of the basic matrix and vector stuff +Grad E: The basic stuff , right . +PhD B: that 's perfect . +Grad E: Yeah . +PhD B: Great ! +Professor A: OK , guess we 're done . +Grad E: OK . +Grad F: Well , although by the way . +","Professor A missed a meeting with Hynek and is catching up on the discussion about downsampling issues, filter lengths, and online normalization. PhD C proposes looking at the modulation spectrum. There's also talk about the frequency response of LDA filters and their effectiveness compared to RASTA filters in low frequencies. There is a sense of needing better coordination between groups, with each side hesitant to bother the other. Grad F discusses meeting with Adam and plans to work on echo cancellation. PhD B gives an update on playing with the HTK back-end for the Aurora task to improve recognition performance. The standardization of datasets and efforts of the group to influence emerging standards were touched upon. There was also a brief discussion about running Matlab in batch mode and the use of an alternative called Octave." diff --git a/tiny_titans/test.txt b/tiny_titans/test.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e69de29..0000000